#but that's like a whole new second experience to what i do and feel by myself
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murdockcastleslut · 9 hours ago
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𝔒𝔣𝔣 𝔗𝔬𝔭𝔦𝔠
synopsis: y/n is an up and coming influencer, who has established her own with thriving youtube channel and podcast. when she releases a new episode with her new co-host and special guests, things get messy.
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a rafe cameron smau! |part eight| part nine |part ten|
a/n: This is a long one for you guys :) thank you to @ivysprophecy @kimoralov3 for letting me annoy the shit out of you as i bounce ideas off of y'all.
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Off Topic Official Transcript
12:30 
Cleo: so Rafe, you did a recent shoot with loewe. 
Y/n: [you bite your lip subtly] oh my god yeah, i remember hearing Sarah talk about it. you looked really good. 
Rafe: oh yeah? [he raises his eyebrow] thank you. it was really fun, the crew and photographer were great. i’ve always wanted to do a shoot with them and i was so grateful when i got the chance. 
Rafe: i know it’s yalls’ podcast but if you could work with any brand, which would it be? 
Cleo: easy, easy man. either gucci or miu miu. 
Y/n: i think for me it would probably be ysl or prada. 
Rafe: yeah, you’d be a prada girl? [he asks cockily]
Y/n: yeah, haven’t you seen me rock a pair of prada sunnies. i always serve face. [you smile and then give a model face to him and cleo] 
Cleo: that is correct. my girl always looks good, especially in prada. 
Rafe: oh, i have no doubt. [he smiles at you brightly]
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26:45
Y/n: [laughing at something Rafe said before hand]
Cleo:[smirks] so rafe, we have this recurring segment of this show called “be mine” and it’s where we ask the guest, what’s their ideal type or what they are looking for in a relationship.
Y/n: [stops laughing and is subtly looking at Cleo with bewilderment] 
Cleo: and since we don’t have more than one guest today, y/n will share with you! 
Y/n: [looks at Cleo with a look of confusion] i will? 
Cleo:[gives her look] 
Y/n: i guess i will be today. 
Rafe: [chuckles at your reaction] i have only been in two really serious relationships and they were both totally different experiences. the first person i'm really good friends with still but that relationship taught me all the things i did want like someone adventurous, kind, and someone who can communicate. in this life we live in the media. i never wanna be the last person to know something about my partner. i think from my last relationship we were very private and i didn’t really mind it but sometimes i wanted to share cute photos of them… [he shifts in the chair and manspreads a bit]
Cleo: [she looks at you and gives you a smirk at the mention at photography]
Rafe (continued): especially since i really like film photography and really i couldn’t share my photos, so i wanna find someone who's comfortable with that for sure. and by no means do i think i am perfect, i think i got somethings to work on but those are just somethings that are really important to me. [he finishes speaking and looks at you for your reaction.]
Cleo: [is smirking in her seat] damn model boy knows what he wants. 
Rafe: [laughs] sometimes if you want something you just gotta put it out there. [he shrugs and smirks]
Cleo: ya know y/n here loves film photography? has a whole account dedicated to it too.
Y/n: [your eyes blunge out hoping she’d be quiet] yeah, i do but it’s nothing. 
Rafe: [smirks and leans forward and places his elbow on the chair arm and places his chin on his knuckles] it’s not, nothing. it’s cute, sweetheart. [he gives you a kind smile] so, what are you looking for? [he points with his chin to you]
Y/n: um… i agree with a lot of what race has to say. i especially feel the same about communication, in my last relationship there was a really big lack of it and that along with cheating was the end of our relationship. 
Rafe: [frowns at the mention that you have been cheated on]
Y/n: So now i think i need someone who is willing to take things slowly and understand that it takes me a second to trust their intentions. but i also really want someone who likes to travel because i love traveling and seeing new places. also my friends have to give the stamp of approval because they are everything to me. [you smile at cleo]
Y/n: but my ideal type, i don’t know, tall, kind, intelligent, passionate, empathetic, and i don’t think it would hurt anyone if he was pretty on the eyes either.[you smile widely] 
Rafe: i think it's really raw and real of you to talk about trust in that way because i feel the same way. 
Cleo: you two have a lot in common huh? 
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y/n's phone
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taglist: @ivysprophecy @kimoralov3 @sabrina-carpenter-stan-account @charli123456789 @wearemadeofstardust0 @frankoceanluvr11 1 @harrys-housewife @urbrunettebombshell @mayhapsnini i @psychicnatural @aariahnaa @rafeycameronsgf @laniirackssss @cl4uus @honk4emoboyz
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zara-renata · 2 days ago
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And everything that is now already existed then | ao3 | masterlist
Summary: Sylus shows you his favorite parts of his house, you are haunted by a strange feeling of familiarity, you spend some time with the twins and Noah, you learn about the bet they have going, no this is not a wattpad bet story that will be turned into a multi-part tv series even though i love that trope so much, the self control i exerted should be acknowledged if not praised. This part has less humor than other parts, I've been in a contemplative mood recently, sorry. Part 17 of the Sylus series.
Notes: Sylus x gn reader, Sylus x mc, second person POV, some Sylus POV. They/them pronouns are used to refer to reader as a placeholder for your preferred pronouns. The slowest of slow burns friends-to-lovers. This story contains: angst, fluff, banter, poetry, questions of morality, video game violence, discussions of real life violence, profanity, alcohol mention, self-harm mention, mc with self-esteem and guilt issues.
The water is warm. The man underneath you is warm. Your heart, you realize, is also warm. Quiet. Nothing hurts. You marvel at the feeling. How long can you get away with this? Plastered against Sylus’s big body, his rough hands just resting on your back. You feel guilty for keeping him from doing something else. For not being at work. For doing absolutely nothing useful to anyone. For feeling so good.
Sylus holds you, seemingly content to just sit here with you as the water laps against the sides of the pool.
“Don’t you have business to attend to?” you reluctantly ask, because you’re incapable of just trusting that good things can last. That the fulfillment of your deepest desires won’t be snatched away when you least expect it, so you push, push, push, seeking the weakness that will ultimately crack and cause the moment, finally filled, to break.
Sylus holds you a little tighter. “No.”
You wait, but he doesn’t elaborate. You should just accept it. Just enjoy this moment. All you have in this life is each moment—that’s all there is. Why can’t you just experience each one, savor it, suck it dry, until the next? Why must you always waste the pleasure of each moment by being in such a rush to get to the inevitable end?
But you can’t just accept it. You don’t know how. Your whole life has taught you that the moment you trust the permanence is the moment that the moment shatters. Might as well ruin it first, instead of fearing the end. And who are you to complain? What have you done to deserve it in the first place?
“Business slow in the Onychinus economy?” you ask.
“Tch,” he responds, seemingly indignant at the mere suggestion that his business isn’t printing him money even as he canoodles in a hot tub with you. “Business is booming, darling. The human capacity for cruelty is an endlessly growing market.”
You press your cheek harder against the sweaty skin just under his collarbone. You don’t want to think about what he offers people to enable that endless cruelty right now.
“Then how do you have the luxury of lazing about with me?”
“I’ve tasked Aidan with handling business that requires executive decisions for the foreseeable future. As much as it annoys me, I will likely have to answer calls like this morning, but I’ve informed him that I will not be leaving the base unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
You lift your head, curious. He looks down at you, relaxed, eyes glowing in the low light from the pool.
“Why?”
One corner of his beautiful mouth lifts. “Guess.”
You stare at him. He’s taking time off, not pursuing new deals, not focusing on growing his wealth… for you? Ridiculous. 
“What will you do while you’re not doing business?” you ask, not able to bring yourself to guess out loud that he took time off for you, to spend time with you while you’re staying with him.
“What do you want to do?” He runs his fingers along your temple, brushes a lock of hair behind your ear, traces the shell of it with a fingertip.
“That’s not an answer,” you say, softly.
“Yes, it is.”
You can’t believe it. The man who is always on the go, from one deal to the next, disappearing for weeks at a time, doing who knows what, who knows where—the man who probably gets bored out of his mind while instigating a riot—says that he just wants to do whatever you want to do. You, whose idea of excitement is a new pair of sleep pants and a night off to watch let’s plays of horror games that you don’t have the time and energy to play yourself anymore.
“You can’t mean that.” You frown at him.
“Try me,” he challenges.
You try to think of something that he’d hate just to prove your point that he doesn't actually mean it when he says he’ll do whatever you want.
“Oh, kitten’s plotting,” he snickers after seeing your expression.
“I want to watch every Justin Bieber documentary ever produced,” you say defiantly. You really don’t. But you’re sure he’ll balk at this outrageous suggestion.
He shrugs a little. “Okay. We can see if they’re on demand in the theater room. If not, I’m sure we can pirate them.”
You narrow your eyes. He can’t mean it. Fuck, if he’s going to call your bluff, you’re going to have to actually sit through who knows how many hours of Justin Bieber: Our World. You barely suppress a shudder.
“Actually, I want to fly to a warm seaside resort and swim with dolphins,” you try, the picture of casual entitlement. You do not want to do this. You’re fucking tired. The last thing you want to do is get on an airplane.
“Dolphins can be as vicious as humans, but if you really want that, we can pack some things now and be on our way by dinner,” he says calmly. As if the suggestion isn’t utterly outrageous.
Is he being as petty as you, intent on not admitting that he didn’t actually mean it when he said he would do whatever you want, or does he actually want to do whatever the fuck you want? You can’t read him at all right now.
You’re desperate and stubborn. “Actually, I think the amusement park in Linkon City is having a furry event all week. I’d like to dress up as our respective fursonas and ride the roller coasters all day.” 
Sylus doesn’t even blink. “Do you have a fursuit already, or do we need one tailored before we can go?”
You laugh in disbelief and rest your forehead on his shoulder. “What about you? Do you have a fursuit already?”
“No, I don’t have a fursuit, because I’m not a fucking furry,” he says drily.  “But I do think I’d make a very majestic caracal cat. Which goes nicely with your kitten fursona.”
You blink. “That's quite self-aware of you." And then you scowl. "My fursona wouldn’t be as lame as a kitten.”
“Oh? What animal do you think accurately portrays your personality?”
You lift your head and think. You’ve never really thought about it. Something small and mean, probably. “A mongoose.”
He tilts his head, considering. “That actually fits you quite well. Good at hunting snakes, and very, very cute.”
You can feel yourself blushing. “Yeah, well. I’m not a furry, so it doesn’t matter even if it doesn’t fit,” you mumble a little.
“And yet you want to go to the furry event at the amusement park,” he lifts an eyebrow. 
You stare at him, mulishly. You’re not going to admit that you’re trying to poke holes in his patience because you can’t trust nice things.
“But I don’t think that’s what you actually want to do,” he continues, with a gentleness that hurts your heart. He urges you to wrap your legs around his waist. “When I said you could test me, this is not exactly what I had in mind,” he teases. “How about you test me by telling me what you actually want to do, and then you’ll see that I mean what I say when I refrain from complaining about being bored while we do them?”
You wrap your arms around his neck as he stands gracefully, the water sliding down both your bodies. “I don’t want you to just not complain about being bored,” you argue. “I don’t want you to be bored at all. You don’t have to entertain me while I’m here. You can do whatever you really want to do.” You mean this. It’s enough, just being in the same house as him right now. Knowing that in the evening he’ll end up in the same bed as you. You don’t want him to tire of you too quickly by insisting that he spend every moment with you.
“Then I repeat—what do you want to do?”
Okay. Okay, he asked for it.
“Show me your favorite things to do at home, when you’re not being a warlord.”
He looks surprised. “That’s it?”
“Yeah. I’m really tired. I never get a chance to just relax. I don’t want to go anywhere, or do anything exciting.” You bite your lip, unwilling to admit that you’re desperate to learn more about him and that worried he’s going to think you’re boring. 
He leans forward and catches the side of your lip not caught in your own teeth with his. With your lip between his sharp teeth, he pulls back, gently, until you release it from your own. He pauses, inhales, and then lets go, licking your bitten lip with a quick, soothing flick of his tongue.
“That’s my spot,” he murmurs, pulling back.
Your brain is offline. You have no idea what you were just talking about, or what just happened. All you can feel is the slick of his saliva on the plush of your lip.
Fuck.
You want to fuck him so badly.
You search his face. Can he tell? Does he feel the same way? He touches you like this, and then does nothing. What does he want?
If he can tell what’s going on in your head, he doesn’t comment on it. “Then we can stay home. I’ll show you what I like to do when I’m tired and don’t want to do anything exciting.” His faint smile is tinged with self satisfaction.
“Okay,” you choke out. You will not slide down his body, push him onto the soft moss, and jump on him. 
“But first, I will feed you.” The tendrils of his evol bring the fluffy towels to his waiting hand, and he wraps one around you, all while you cling to his torso. He just drapes the other around his shoulders, over your arms still wrapped around his neck. His evol then ferries the two cocktails that remained untouched for the whole time you were in the hot tub, following you back through the pool room and into the chill hallway as Sylus carries you to the kitchen. Between the heat of Sylus’s body and the towels blanketing you, you’re still warm. You watch the drinks following you over his shoulder, and then glance at him.
At your look, he says, “What? It would be a shame to let perfectly good drinks go to waste.”
“What time is it? Don’t you think it’s a bit early to start drinking?”
He shrugs. “It’s probably past midnight, sweetheart. That’s when one normally drinks alcoholic beverages, isn’t it?”
You sigh. “So it’s basically noon in your day-night cycle.”
“Time is a construct, and inherently meaningless,” he says serenely.
After this insufferable response, you give up trying to save his liver for the moment.
____________________
Later, after Sylus serves you a meal packed with protein that pairs nicely with the cocktails as the fire crackles pleasantly and the clouds, reflecting the N109 Zone’s bright lights even at night, sweep across the sky outside his kitchen windows, after you’ve showered and put on warm, comfortable clothes, you find him in the sitting area of his bedroom, reading a book, the Beatles playing on his record player. You recognize the song— The long and winding road. 
You stop, suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of sorrow. He looks up from his book and watches you curiously.
You left me standing here, a long long time ago
You feel like you’re forgetting something very, very important. Like your dream last night, but not about your family. About the man watching you inquisitively, his long, graceful fingers holding the book gently, the outline of his aquiline nose limned in the soft lighting of his bedroom.
Don’t leave me waiting here, lead me to your door
You suddenly can’t bear to be separated from him for one more second. You pad to him on your freshly bandaged feet, knock the book out of his hand, clamber into his lap, and hug him.
His arms come around you as if he doesn’t mind that you’ve just bulldozed your way onto his lap. After a few minutes, the song ends, and a new, more upbeat one begins.
You feel like you can breathe again.
You sit up, looking down into his face. You want to kiss him so badly. You’re afraid that he’ll gently push you away, as he pushed your hand away from the tie of his sleep pants that you were fiddling with recently. With such kindness, but a loud, resounding rejection of what he perceived to be you offering your body to him.
He’ll bite your lip, but you’re so scared that he doesn’t want to kiss you. Sometimes it seems like he wants you, you, not just a body, not just anyone praising him or challenging him, but you. Do you really still not know? My beloved is perfect to me.  
But what if you’re wrong? What have you done to earn this incredible man's devotion?
“Will you tell me what you’re thinking right now, without the guessing game?” he asks softly. 
You shake your head. “No. And I don’t want to play the guessing game right now.” You can’t bear to think about what you may be forgetting as you look into his blood-bright eyes. You can’t bear to reveal how badly you want to kiss him, only to be rebuffed.
“Not even a hint?” He nudges your nose with his. “Otherwise I’ll spend every free moment sitting around reading, listening to classic rock music.”
You look at him in confusion. “Why?”
“It seemed to work in luring a kitten into my lap this time. Maybe it works every time.”
Your heart is doing something funny. It doesn’t hurt. It feels… it feels so fucking warm. Like in the hot tub. What is happening to you? 
“The music made me sad,” you offer this truth, as a reward for his sweet response.
“Not a fan of the Beatles?” He fiddles with the hem of your shirt, his knuckles brushing against your skin underneath.
“I do like their music. My gran used to listen to them a lot.”
“Is that what made you sad?”
You give him a look. “I said I didn’t want to play the guessing game.”
“I’m just asking questions,” he protests, the picture of innocence. “Is it a crime to want to get to know you?”
You gaze at him. Weren’t you just thinking about how you’re desperate to know everything about him? “Not one I’d arrest you for,” you say, looking down, smiling a little.
He laughs softly. “Lucky me. It would be hard to uphold my end of our deal and show you the music room, the library, and my favorite part of the greenhouse from behind bars.”
“That sounds like a busy itinerary,” you say, lifting a finger, tracing his clavicle revealed by his soft v-neck sweater.
His knuckles sweep over your skin just above the band of your soft pants.
“We have time—we don’t have to do everything today. Which one do you want to see first?”
You don’t care. Your heart is being weird and Sylus is touching you, and you’re touching Sylus. You could just sit here, forever, and enjoy whatever this… feeling is. But you’re afraid you’ll ruin it. Like you always do. If you take too much, he will actually get bored. You should pick one.
“Library,” you say firmly.
“As you wish,” he says, standing, holding you all the while. You can’t bring yourself to protest. You can walk on your own feet. Your feet already feel a little better after just a day. But he’s warm. And he doesn’t seem to mind at all. You drape yourself over him, and let him carry you through the dark halls to his library.
He sets you down outside one of the ubiquitous black doors, and then opens it for you. 
His library, like the greenhouse, the pool, the room like a mountain hot spring, is lovely in a way that the rest of his house simply isn’t. Soaring ceilings, heavy built-in wooden bookcases lining the walls, a huge fireplace, electric as opposed to the wood-fireplace from the kitchen, at one end of the room. A wrought iron spiraling staircase leads up beyond the heavy wooden rafter beams to a space you can’t see. Deep red, plush rugs in antique designs hush your footsteps. Plush, deep seated chairs and loveseats, side tables with Tiffany lamps gently illuminate the space. One wall of his preferred floor-to-ceiling windows letting in the N109 Zone night, the red moon bright in the sky as the clouds scuttle past. 
It’s like a library from an old, prestigious university. The kind of university you always wished you could have gone to, if you lived in another world. If this world didn’t need people prepared to kill and die for existential threats to humanity. Where you could study something functionally useless, but enriching to the human experience. Like French literature or poetry. The room smells of wood oil, old paper. 
You turn in a circle and find Sylus leaning against a bookcase, watching you take in the room. “This is one of your favorite spots in the house?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s quiet. The twins aren’t big readers, so they don’t come in here. It’s a good place to think, and concentrate.”
“Have you read every book in here, like you’ve seen every film in your collection?”
He straightens from the bookcase and walks to you. As he comes to a stop in front of you, he reaches for your face, holds your cheeks gently in his hands. “No. This room is more about the future. Books I’d like to read when life is a little less busy. I’ve read some, but not as many as I would like.”
“Do you think that someday your life will be less busy?”
“If I have my way, yes.”
“And you’ll spend your days quietly reading in the solitude of your lovely library?”
“Not in solitude. But yes. You think it’s lovely?”
You look at him strangely. Didn't he just say he enjoys it because it's quiet and no one bothers him here? “Of course I do. It’s like someone designed it just for me.”
He looks down into your face, thumbs brushing across your cheekbones.
“Like I said. This room is about the future.”
You tilt your head at his non-sequitur. What does your loving the library have to do with his quieter future?
It almost sounds like…
The moment is full. You refuse to shatter it by considering such outrageous thoughts. You will enjoy this moment for what it is. A peek into the mind of this enigmatic man. The opportunity to explore a beautiful, private space in his home.
“Read to me,” he orders, striding to one of the soft couches and plopping down.
You snort. “What do you want me to read you, your spoiled highness?”
“Anything you want. Look around, pick something that catches your interest.” He lets his head drop onto the back of the couch, eyes half-lidded as they follow you walking to one of the bookcases, as you let your fingertips run along the spines of book after book. You see a lot of titles you don’t recognize. You see a lot that you do—classics as well as newer publications. You and Xavier spend enough time in the bookstore that you know a lot of titles by sight, even if these days you rarely have the time to read beyond the manga you share with your partner.
Your eyes catch on a familiar title.
“Oh,” you breathe.
“Find something?” Sylus asks languidly.
“One of my favorite poets. Gran had a copy of this.” You pluck the book from the shelf and walk back over to where Sylus is sprawled on the couch. The moonlight through the windows makes his eyes look even brighter than usual, glowing in the soft light.
“You’re a fan of poetry?” he asks, eyebrows lifting.
“Don’t act so surprised. I’m not entirely uncultured.”
“Your manga collection could have fooled me,” he teases.
“Manga is art. You’re a pretentious fool if you can’t recognize that.”
“No need to get your knives out, kitten,” he smiles, one sharp tooth peeking from behind his full lip. “I have a collection of manga here as well.”
“You do?”
He just steadily stares at you.
“Where?”
He closes his eyes. “Guess you’ll have to stay long enough to explore and find it.”
You stand over him, drinking in the sight of him. Surrounded by the scent of books, polished wood, the moon’s red light rendering him slightly otherworldly.
You want to stay long enough to find out. It’s only been two days, and you want to live in this moment forever. You're so greedy. You're so unworthy.
“Still want me to read to you?”
Instead of answering, the tendrils of his evol wind up from your ankles to your waist, lift you, deposit you on the seat next to him. He scoots down, places his head in your lap.
“You could have just said yes,” you say drily. “No need to be dramatic.”
“I don’t hear any reading. Chop chop.”
Oh hell no. You scowl down at him, but his eyes are closed. “Lap service costs extra.”
“Good thing I’m filthy rich.”
You scoff. “I don’t want your money.”
He opens his eyes. “I suspected as much. It makes taming you all the more difficult.”
You look at him curiously. “Is that what you’re doing? All of your generosity, in order to acquire a tame hunter?”
“What use is a tame hunter?” He dismisses your suggestion. “Your imagination is distressingly limited.”
“Once again, I disappoint,” you murmur. He clearly isn’t in the mood to answer your questions.
He tsks and closes his eyes again, wiggles a little to get more comfortable in your lap. “Make up for it by reading your favorite poetry to me.”
You want to lean down and kiss the smug look off of his face. You don’t want him to turn away if you do.
You begin to read.
“Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.”
He interrupts you. “I see why you like Zagajewski. Someone else who shares your taste in middling wine.”
“No comments until the end, thank you,” you jostle his head by bouncing your thigh a few times.
He scowls, places one big hand on your thigh and presses down. “Stingy. This should be interactive storytelling.”
You ignore the howling need in you to grab his hand, to guide it further up your leg. You continue to read.
“The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You suddenly think of the N109 Zone and all of its misery. Paying the price of some shitty corporation’s greed. But you keep reading.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.”
You pause, thinking about Sylus’s wealth, the wealth of people like him, and everyone else. The yachts, versus the ships that will sink.
“That’s not the end. Why have you stopped?” Sylus's voice jerks you out of your thoughts.
“You know this poem?”
“I own the book, don’t I?”
“You said you hadn’t read everything in here.”
“Point,” he concedes. “But yes, I know this poem. I’m also an admirer of the poet.”
You think about him calling you kindred spirits, when you first met. How angry that idea made you. Now, you want to lean down and kiss him. You shake your head a little. You keep reading.
“You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.”
Sylus interrupts you again. “I always liked the imagery of the moments spent together, the simplicity of the white room, the curtain fluttering. What more can one desire, when at their love’s side?”
You don't think you've ever heard him say something so romantic. But why would you have? You're not in a romantic relationship with him. Your heart doesn't seem to understand that fact—something inside you thrills that his idea of romance mirrors yours so closely. But his focus on the gentle moment, instead of the rest of the poem, strikes you as strange. “That’s what you see? Not the lovers enjoying simplicity, safety, while the refugees are going nowhere, and the executioners are singing joyfully?”
“The point of the poem is that you must wrest joy from an imperfect world where you can. You’re not helping the condemned by moping about their fate.”
“Is that the point? Perhaps the point is that all you can do is try to praise the mutilated world, but it’s fruitless. If that were the point, he would have entitled it 'Praise the mutilated world,' not 'Try to praise the mutilated world.' ‘Trying’ isn’t succeeding—try all you want, but it’s impossible to praise the world as it is. Better to use your yacht to save those drowning in the salty oblivion.”
“Idealist,” Sylus scoffs, as if the label is a profanity instead of a compliment.
You jostle his head again. “Cynic,” you retort.
“You’re not done,” he sniffs, closing his eyes again.
You resist the urge to buck your hips in order to dump him on the floor. You read again.
“Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.”
You finish, filled with a strange feeling. You’ve loved this poem ever since the first time you read it with the sunshine gushing into your gran’s living room on a slow summer day. As you grew, you loved it for different reasons, for its ambiguity, its hope and its resignation, its acknowledgment of the horrors of life and its simple pleasures. It always felt familiar to you, but the specific imagery reading it this time around is familiar in a way that feels concrete. 
You think about the gray feather, the light that strays and vanishes and returns. You think about the feeling while listening to the Beatles, that you’re forgetting something important. You think about Sylus’s casual dismissal of the suffering of others.
Calling suffering fate seems like a convenient excuse to you. Why bother trying to make the world better, if fate deems that it should be miserable?
You think about sipping the rosé, biting the strawberry Sylus offered you. Your curtains fluttering in the breeze in your room, when Sylus has come to your place at night. These things you have enjoyed, as people suffer beyond the safety of your apartment and Sylus’s fortress walls. 
“Stop torturing yourself, darling,” he says through your racing thoughts. He turns his head, presses his lips against your thigh, inhales deeply. It’s not a kiss, but you feel the press of his mouth through the fabric of your pants as if it were. You resist the urge to spread your thighs further.
“Should I read another?” you ask quietly. You don’t want to think about these things. You want to live in the moment. What kind of person does that make you? The desire to ignore the cost of this pleasure, your enjoyment of Sylus's home, proves that you don’t deserve it. 
“Of course,” he says, but his phone vibrates in his pocket. He grunts unhappily as he reluctantly sits up, sliding the phone from his pocket. “Keep exploring,” he says, heading to the door. “I’ll try to make this quick.”
So you do. Wandering amongst the books, finding other titles that are your favorites, but so many that you’ve never read, never heard of. Many of them are not in your native language. You wonder how many languages Sylus speaks.
After a surprisingly short amount of time, he returns. "Read more to me," he orders, sprawling on the couch once more.
You look back at him, admiring the wrought-iron staircase spiraling up, the moon through the windows, his long, strong body casually stretched along the couch.
“Can we light the fire?”
“Of course. Fire," he says, and the fireplace flares to life at his command. You wonder if such a system is in place in each room. You wander back to the couch, and he pulls you down. You read him the rest of the poems from this collection, arguing here and there, learning his favorite parts, both matching and diverging from your own. Until your stomach growls, causing him to nuzzle it, insist on taking you to the kitchen and feeding you another meal. After you're once again full, he offers to show you the conservatory.
“Okay,” you say, relaxed, satisfied. He wraps his arms around you, lifts. You let him, wrapping your legs around his waist. You think about a gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns. What are you forgetting?
He takes you to the music room. It’s behind another black door. You would never be able to guess, walking through his solemn hallways, each expansive room unfolding behind each uniform door.
As you walk into the beautiful space, you’re struck with the realization that Sylus’s home is strange in many ways, and not just because it serves as both his home and his fortress, an armory and an indoor playground. The halls are winding and despite the height of the ceilings on each floor, they’re oppressive. There is no open floor plan for the house itself. Each room’s door can be closed, barricaded, turning the room within into a bunker. But behind each door, each room fans out, soaring windows, high ceilings, glass giving way to a savage view of the harsh landscape in a way that renders even the ugliness of the N109 Zone beautiful in a stark, barren-planet kind of way. You suspect that the glass is bullet-proof. You wonder what kind of impacts it can withstand beyond firearms. Could it survive a thrown grenade? A direct strike from a drone? Would anyone dare actually wage a full-on assault on the leader of Onychinus’s home?
“Not even the greenhouse rendered you speechless, kitten. Does that mean you like it, or hate it?”
You blink. You had been so busy wondering about the strategic choices of Sylus’s architectural design that you hadn’t even begun admiring the metal support beams, curling like vines in a distinct art nouveau style between multiple panes of glass, each meeting at the pinnacle of a glass ceiling. Two of the larger glass panes are not the standard window glass, but are stained glass, continuing the art nouveau theme, depicting colorful curls of plants, flowers, as well as animals—beasts from mythology, dragons, phoenixes, winged chimeras. Luscious potted plants scattered along the white marble floor. A white grand piano sitting in the center of the circular space. Instruments of all kinds, from all parts of the world, hung or resting on more organically wrought metal display mounts along two-thirds of the glass walls. A seating area, filled with comfortable, low furniture, carved blond wood in flowing, plant-like designs, sits between the piano and the view of the landscape through the clear glass, framed by the murals of stained glass.
It’s breathtaking. But you’ve had your breath taken by the greenhouse, the pool, the room with the hot tub, the library. Each in a distinctly different style from the rooms of the house that see daily use by their owner: Sylus’s bedroom. The kitchen. The hallways. The imposing dining room and its equally imposing banquet table. The cave-like theater room. Each dark—black marble, maroon accents, deeply masculine, modern, abstract art. But the rooms that have taken your breath instead of making you feel oppressed are so startlingly different from Sylus’s often-used spaces.
You can’t accept the moment. You can’t stand not knowing, even as you are afraid to know. You have to ask. “I don’t understand,” you say, turning to him.
He glances around the room, and then looks back at you. “It’s a home conservatory, sweetheart. Not a trick question.”
You ignore him. Your curiosity will eat you alive if you don’t ask him. You want to know. You don’t want to know. “Why does it feel like two different people designed your house?”
His eyebrows lift in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Half of your house is edgy, big-dick rich vampire man-cave, and half is this,” you sweep an arm to indicate the delicate yet sturdy steel beams, organically curving into the height of the room, the chairs carved like palms, stained glass, the lush vegetation.
“Can one person not appreciate more than one style of home decor?” he asks, walking over to you, winding an arm around your waist.
You stare at him. Nothing Sylus does is by accident. You know this much by now. You know a lot about him by now. You don’t know enough about him by now.
“The parts of the house you spend the most time in reflect your style. But the other parts… the parts that wait for an owner that rarely comes. Did you choose the design yourself? Or did you let your architect run wild?”
His smile is faint as he gazes down at you. “How very observant of you, darling. But I designed every room in this house. The architect modified the plans where necessary to ensure the structural integrity was sound, but I chose the decor.”
You wait. It sounded like he ended that sentence with a ‘but.’
“You’re right. I didn’t have just my preferences in mind as I was planning each room.”
You want to know. You don’t want to know. What if you’re wrong? The very idea is insane. Presumptuous. How could he possibly know? You only met him a few months ago. This base isn’t newly built. You have no idea how long I’ve already waited, his voice whispers through your mind.
“Whose preferences did you have in mind?” you ask, your heart doing that thing again. That weird thing that doesn’t hurt but scares you with how good it feels. Don’t leave me waiting here, lead me to your door.
His smile widens, just a little. “Do you really not know?”
You can’t process this. How could he have known?
It’s like these oases in his dark fortress of a home were designed with your deepest heart’s desires in mind. 
You want to kiss him. You want to resonate with him again. You want to drop to your knees in front of him.
The enormity of your feelings is terrifying.
What if you’re wrong?
How much worse will it be, if you let yourself believe, and he turns you away. What if he designed all of this for someone else. Because how could he have known, before you met just a few months ago—how could he have known the contours of your tastes, the things that make you most comfortable, the yearning of your heart in your small apartment, of what you’d give yourself if you could ever afford to make your home exactly how you would want? A refuge from the harsh world. Space to breathe.
Your feelings are choking you. You step away from his embrace, turn. You have time. He said he’ll wait. You focus on this room.
It’s beautiful. Because of course it is. You don’t recognize even half of these instruments.
You turn back to him. He has moved to the piano, straddling the white bench, legs spread, just watching you.
“Do you know how to play all of these?”
He shakes his head. “No. Most of these are collector’s items, antiques. But I do know how to play the piano.”
You stand, resisting the constant pull towards him. You want to go to him, run your hands through his hair, tug his head back, expose his throat, bite.
“Only the piano?” You satisfy your need to move by walking over to the sitting area, forcing yourself to sit away from him. You need to control yourself. You plop down on one of the beautiful chairs, carved like a ginkgo leaf.
He turns, sitting properly on the bench in order to face you, and opens the cover over the piano keys. He leisurely presses down on one key, and the note resounds through the lovely room.
“I can also play the organ,” he murmurs, before beginning to play in earnest.
You don’t recognize the piece. You know you’ve never heard it before. But the longer he plays, the more you’re overcome with the sense that you know it. The blood under your skin, your lungs, your bones—you feel pulled to him, to his long fingers sweeping over the keys, unseen from your vantage point in the room. You know what’s coming, the crescendos and the pauses. It’s beautiful. It hurts. Your thoughts drift to the poem. Its strawberries, its rosé wine. Its familiarity. Return in thought to the concert where the music flared. You want to ask Sylus if he owns a yacht. You’re convinced that there will be a park, and acorns, and you will pick them up and offer them to him on a sunny summer morning after a long, long night. It has already happened. It will happen in the future.
You can’t resist the pull any longer. You stand and walk over to him, stand next to him at the bench. His hands hypnotize you. Big. Rough. Delicately pressing the keys—sure, confident, flowing. Like his evol. Like him.
“Sit,” he orders, and you obey, sliding in next to him. You try to give him space, but he takes one hand, still playing with the other, and pulls you by the waist until you’re shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. 
You watch his hands, lost in the moment, lost in the feeling of recognition, of … something. That warm feeling in your heart, threaded with the pain of having lost something that you can’t remember.
Slowly, the piece comes to an end. His hands become still on the keys.
“What song was that?” you ask.
He flicks his eyes to yours.
“It doesn’t have a name.”
“Who composed it?” You hope that perhaps you can track it down later and listen to it again when Sylus isn’t around.
“Me,” he says, turning his head to look at you.
Wait, what?
“It’s already shocking enough that you play, but when do you have the time to compose?”
He lifts one of your hands and threads his fingers with yours. “Why so shocked that I have hobbies, like anyone else?”
“I just figured you’re always too busy with murder, mayhem, and munitions to have hobbies like a normal person,” you squeeze his hand as it swallows yours.
“I don’t have a lot of free time, but when I do, I like to spend some of it practicing and composing. Sometimes when I’m bored during business meetings I compose a little in my head and then write it out when I get home.” 
At your incredulous look, he flicks your forehead gently with his free hand. “What would you have guessed that I spend my free time doing if it occurred to you that I do not, in fact, work in every waking moment?”
You consider it. “I would have assumed you spend all your free time hanging out in your shady nightclubs.”
He frowns at you. “I own classy nightclubs because they make me money and provide convenient venues for business deals now that I no longer host such deals in my own home. I do not spend any more time in them than necessary.”
“Is that what you meant when you said that Amnesia isn’t really your vibe?”
“You remember,” he says, sounding pleasantly surprised. 
“Even though it feels like weeks ago, you did just tell me that like, two nights ago,” you flick his forehead in revenge.
“Fair point,” he concedes. “All right, then, yes. That’s what I meant.”
“So what is your vibe?”
“Curious, kitten?”
“Yes.” That warm feeling you have is overriding your fears of admitting this to him. You want to know him. You want to know everything about him.
“It’s easier to show you my vibe,” he shrugs. “We’ll make a date of it.”
He dropped the “fake” part again.
His phone begins to vibrate in his jeans pocket again.
He frowns in irritation. You stand, forcing yourself to move away from him.
“I’ll entertain myself,” you smile at his questioning look. He holds onto your hand as you move away, until your arm and his are stretched between you, and then he lets go.
You’re thankful for the interruption. Too much unadulterated time being the subject of Sylus’s entire focus makes you think insane things. Like that he designed parts of his house with you in mind. That you know music that you’ve never heard before. That you’re forgetting something important about him, even though you only met him recently. That a poem you read in your youth is a roadmap of things that have already happened between you and the man pacing behind the door, and what will happen before the light strays, vanishes… returns again.
You step into the hallway and wander back toward the kitchen. After a few minutes, you hear the flap of Mephisto’s wings. He’s keeping you company again. You keep walking.
You’re distracted halfway to the kitchen, however, when you hear voices coming from the theater room. It sounds like the twins, and someone else whose voice is familiar, but you can’t pinpoint it. You knock.
“No need to knock,” one of the twins yells.
You open the door and peek into the room. It’s dark, with all the lights dimmed.
On the large screen where you almost watched a movie with Sylus the other night, a video game is playing.
Luke sits on one of the loveseats, holding a game controller, while Kieran is squished onto the same small loveseat with him, their two big bodies barely fitting, hiding his face in Luke’s shoulder.
Noah is sprawled out on another loveseat, perfectly at ease. She gives you a lazy wave.
Luke pauses the game and looks over his shoulder at you.
“Boss busy?” he asks as Kieran lifts his head, a look of relief on his face at the interruption.
“Business call,” you say, nodding. You stare at the screen. It looks like…
“Are you playing the Silent Hill 2 remake?” you squeal.
“Yeah! Since boss is on a little holiday, he gave us the time off as well. Figured we’d finally play it.”
“Are you a fan of the original?” Kieran asks.
You nod. “Huge fan. I was so excited when they announced the remake, but I’ve been too busy with work to play it.”
“Wanna join? Kieran is too scared to look half the time. We can take turns, if you want,” Luke offers, sounding pleased to have another person to share the game with.
You seriously consider his offer, but you’re still so tired. You don’t really want to learn the controls mid-way through a playthrough. Weren’t you just thinking about watching let’s plays of horror games you haven’t had a chance to play yet? You can watch Luke play without having to do a thing.
“I’m good, but do you mind if I stay and just watch until Sylus is done?”
“Is that even a question? Get in here.”
Luke unpauses the game, and the familiar sounds of the world of Silent Hill, with amazing, updated graphics fills your vision. You slink inside the room and sit on another love seat, preferring to give Noah her space since she’s sprawled out like she already owns the place.
You watch as Kieran hides his face in Luke's shoulder again as a lying figure jerkily lumbers towards James Sunderland.
Apparently Noah notices Kieran’s fear as well.
“Aren’t you one of the feared Raptors of Onychinus? Like, you’re famous in the Zone. How can the same person who is known for intentionally leaving mutilated corpses in public as warnings to your boss’s enemies be afraid of video game monsters?”
You turn and stare at the twins, a little horrified. Not entirely surprised, because you know what kind of man Sylus is. You know what his organization stands for. But mutilated dead bodies? Where normal people just trying to get through their shitty workday, where kids can see them?
“That’s fucked up,” you say out loud.
“Hey, you’re a fucking cop. We know what cops are capable of,” Kieran says softly, with a flatness in his tone you’ve never heard before. Noah looks between you and Kieran like she wishes she has popcorn. “Don’t act like what you sometimes do is any better than our calling card.” Luke kills a monster shaped like two shapely pairs of legs attached at the waist with a metal pipe, and it dies loudly. He stomps on it for good measure. “At least we’re honest about it, and don’t hide behind a shield of so-called legitimacy. People know what they’re getting when they deal with us.”
You look at Kieran thoughtfully. It’s difficult to admit, but he has a point. You know that there are corrupt hunters. The so-called Tenebrae. You also recognize that dark part of yourself, when you’re faced with someone who you know has done terrible things, and the itch to pull the trigger before you can bring them in. You know that innocent people suffer at the hands of criminals and law enforcement alike.
Kieran stares steadily back at you, his normally cheerful face serious. “How did you come to work for Sylus?” you ask.
Luke pauses the game. “We don’t talk about that,” he says in the same flat tone that his brother just spoke in.
“Oh?” you say, because you don’t want to continue to pry, and you don’t know what else to say.
“Boss says it doesn’t matter where we come from. Only where we’re going. So there’s no use talking about the past if we don’t want to.”
“And you don’t want to?” Noah asks, the look of entertainment morphing into something else on her face.
The twins shake their heads in unison.
You think she’s going to say something snarky, but she just nods. “Then you shouldn’t. No one is entitled to your story.”
“That’s what boss says. I see why he hired you now,” Kieran says, smiling at her, the odd stillness broken.
“He hired me because I’m fucking awesome,” Noah sniffs, flicking her braids behind her shoulder. They’re down now, spilling over her back.
You tilt your head. “Are you a new hire?” For some reason you thought that Noah had been Sylus’s driver for a long time.
“Did he not tell you?” she asks, looking at you strangely.
“Tell me what?”
“I’m not gonna do his work for him,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she smiles at you, and it’s unnerving instead of soothing. “Anyway, yeah I’m a new hire. You’re gonna be seeing a lot of me in the future.”
Although Kieran seems to have reached some sort of approval of Noah, Luke still shudders and starts the game again.
You let it go. You’ll ask Sylus about Noah’s weird comment later. Instead of dwelling on it, you sink into admiring the awesome graphics, the atmosphere, your childhood nostalgia rendered in state of the art graphics
When the sirens go off as James is about to enter the Other World, you have a sudden flashback to playing the original Silent Hill 2 with Caleb. You were also too afraid, like Kieran, to play yourself, so you just clutched Caleb’s arm as he held the controller, and you delighted in the safety of vicarious thrills, of Caleb’s reassuring, solid presence at your side as you experienced the story. You suddenly miss him so, so much. The feeling of loss is overwhelming.
The sudden punch of grief leaves you breathless. Everyone else is so focused on the screen, they don’t notice your gasp. You want to watch. You’ve been wanting to experience the remake ever since the developers announced it, over a year ago. You want to experience it with who you are tentatively thinking of as your new friends. But you need a second to ground yourself before you can bring yourself to keep watching. 
Your force your voice through your throat. “I’m going to grab a snack. Do you guys want anything from the kitchen?”
“Popcorn!” Noah calls.
“We’re good,” Luke answers, because apparently Kieran is almost catatonic with terror.
“All right, be right back.” You take your time getting to the kitchen, Mephisto following you out the theater room door. You rifle through the fridge, shove some snacks into your mouth. You’re shocked to find microwave popcorn in one of the cupboards. Sylus strikes you as the kind of snob who insists on popping loose kernels on the stove, or over the fire in the fireplace. Nothing so pedestrian as store-bought and in the microwave. You snicker, that feeling of sorrow fading as you engage in everyday tasks, with company to look forward to. You’re not alone right now. You’re excited to see more of what the devs retained from the original game and what they added or changed in the remake. You head back to the theater room, but accidentally drop the bag of popcorn before you can open the door. As you pick it up, you can hear Noah.
“You know you don’t actually have to kill every monster you encounter, right?” She asks in barely disguised disdain.
“You know that you don’t actually have to offer your opinion when no one asked, right?” Luke snarks.
“Oooh, someone’s grumpy because he isn’t going to have an advantage in the bet like he thought,” Noah says through a snicker.
“What advantage? We agreed not to interfere. Boss is gonna have it in the bag even before the two weeks are up even without our help,” Luke responds.
“If he doesn’t fumble it by being too passive,” Kieran adds, thoughtfully.
“What ‘help?’ I bet your help would result in more delay than progress,” Noah taunts. “I probably don’t even have to do anything to counter your nonsense. You’ll do all my work for me.”
“Hey, flooding the guest floor was a good idea,” Luke protests.
This is just met with a cackle. 
You stand, frozen. You didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But what is their boss going to have in the bag without their help? What bet?
Something inside of you already knows. Hadn’t you thought earlier that the twins probably made a bet out of your obvious, pathetic crush?
But they said it was about their boss achieving something. Not about your feelings.
You don’t want to know.
You try desperately to cling to that warm feeling you’ve had since the pool.
Boss is gonna have it in the bag.
You spin on your heel, intending to return to the kitchen without them knowing you heard anything, just to buy yourself time to process. But of course, you promptly knock over another ugly sculpture. It shatters on the floor.
You stand there in your bandaged feet, holding the popcorn, staring down at the mess you just made.
The door swings open and Kieran, Luke, and Noah jostle each other to see what just happened in the hallway.
“Sorry,” you say. What the fuck else can you say?
“What happened?” Kieran asks.
“Just me being clumsy,” you say, trying to smile.
Luke squints at you. “Oh shit.” He turns to Kieran. “They’re making that horrible face again.”
Kieran stares at you.
Noah flicks her braids and tilts her head, examining you like an art critic trying to find meaning in a child’s finger painting. “What does that face mean?”
“It means they heard what we were discussing,” Kieran says grimly.
Luke glares at Noah. “What are you even doing here? Now the bet is fucked and boss is gonna be mad because his hunter’s making that expression again. Look at them. We’ve hurt their feelings!” He gestures at you.
She glares back. “Boss told me to report here for duty every day to remain on standby in case the hunter wants to go anywhere. What are you doing here?” she sneers.
“We live here,” he answers, looking confused that that’s even a question.
You take a step back, away from the sharp shards of the broken sculpture. Maybe they’ll be too busy arguing to notice.
That good feeling is gone.
You think about every move Sylus has made since the auction. All of his attention, his gentleness, his kindness, his dogged reappearance at your home, his arranging for you to have sick leave.
Would Sylus do all that for a bet?
Is he that bored? Is he that good of an actor?
How on earth would you even know? You don’t know shit about him. You’ve known him for a few months. In that time, you’ve seen him a handful of times. What the fuck are you doing?
You think about that feeling you had while listening to the Beatles, while listening to Sylus play the piano, of forgetting something really important. You want to throw up. 
Yeah, you’re forgetting something all right.
You can’t stand the feeling inside you right now. It’s too big. It’s eclipsing everything you’ve felt up until this point.
You think about what it will take to get out of here.
You think about picking up one of the sculpture’s shards and digging it into your thigh, anything to override this feeling inside you now.
You think about the resonance with Sylus when you woke up. Could he fake that?
His evol is unearthing a person’s deepest desires. But is it more than that? Could he make you feel adored without using his aether core? Did he promise not to use his evol on you because the terms of the bet forbade interference? Your fears send you spiraling.
“Oh no. No, no, no, no,” Luke says, peering at your face again. He takes a step forward, reaching out to you like someone trying to calm a wild animal, his house shoe crunching on the broken bits of sculpture.
You take a step back.
Noah just looks between the twins and you, confused.
“I’m just going for a walk,” you lie. You take another step back, turn, and start to walk down the hallway that will eventually lead to the lift. The lift that goes to the underground garage.
As you round the corner, Luke says,“Get—”
“On it,” Kieran says, with his phone to his ear.
Noah looks thoughtfully down the now empty hallway. “The hunter’s fucked up, huh?”
Luke shrugs. “Aren’t we all?”
Noah frowns at him. “Speak for yourself. You don’t know shit about me.”
“I know that boss hired you after looking into your soul. Which means you’re fucked up too. He isn’t interested in wholesome things or people—too boring.”
“And you?”
“You said it yourself. I really enjoy carving people up.” He shrugs. “Soothes something from our shitty childhood.”
Noah considers him. “Your brother seems to be okay with me now. Are you going to have a problem with me?”
Kieran grins at her. “What makes you think I have a problem with you?”
“You were mean when I suggested you try to stealth around the monsters. And don’t think I didn’t see your reaction when I said I’d be around more often. And acting like the hunter being upset is solely my fault, when we all made the stupid bet.” She counts each piece of evidence on her pretty fingers.
“Who the fuck likes backseat gamers?” He pouts a little. “And I didn’t like being hit on within an hour of meeting you. I don’t like people like that.”
Noah scowls back at him. “You don’t like people like what? ”
“I mean, I don’t like, like people. I get the creeps when people hit on me.”
Her lovely eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Oh.”
“But boss likes you, so I like you. We’re cool, so long as you don’t hit on me again.”
Noah nods.“I was just giving you two shit since you hauled me in front of your scary fucking boss. But I promised boss I wouldn’t do it again.”
“Then we’re cool. And if you don’t like how I play Silent Hill, then you can play if you want.” He opens the door again, gesturing for her to go in ahead.
“Nah man, I like being in the peanut gallery.”
“Does that mean you’re not gonna shut up?”
“You know it.” Noah gives him a big, feral grin.
Luke grins back at her, equally frightening. “Then I’ll be sure to kill every single monster we come across, no matter how much ammo it wastes.” The door swings shut on Kieran standing in the hallway, looking thoughtfully down at the phone in his hand.
_____________________
Sylus hums the melody of the music he played for you as he ends the call with Aidan. Luckily the issue this time could be settled by answering Aidan’s questions, and he can still look forward to a mostly uninterrupted day with you. He wonders where you’ll like to go next. Back to the library? To the greenhouse?
He’s in a great mood, despite the interruption. Every conversation with you convinces him that you’re closer and closer to accepting the truth. That you’re his, and he’s yours. He wants to drag you back to the library, listen to you read to him, argue about poetry—the way your eyes flash when you’re making a counterargument, the sneer in your retorts to his needling you—he wants to kiss you. He wants to kiss you so much it hurts.
His phone vibrates in his pocket again. He clenches his jaw, pauses. He wants to throw the damn thing against the wall and just continue looking for you, business be damned. But he also doesn’t want to leave Aidan in an awkward position. He fishes the phone out of his pocket and accepts the call.
“Boss, your hunter is making a strategic retreat again,” Kieran says breathlessly.
Sylus jerks to a stop.
“Repeat that?” he demands.
“They overheard us talking about the wager,” Kieran explains, sounding pained.
It takes Sylus a second to remember what he’s talking about. “The bet about how long it will take for kitten to realize that I want to date them?”
“Yeah.”
Sylus thinks. Why would you be spooked by a stupid bet between his henchmen and your driver?
“But they—well, they overheard us talking about it, and they don’t know what the wager is actually about. I am afraid that they might have misunderstood something,” Kieran says carefully, like he’s waiting for Sylus’s wrath.
Sylus immediately realizes what probably just happened.
“I left kitten alone for less than twenty minutes,” he sighs. Just his fucking luck. It’s like the universe or some cruel god wants to create obstacles in his path to winning your precious heart.
“Your bet is over,” he barks.
“Understood.”
Sylus ends the call and pulls up Mephisto’s app. You’re walking quickly, with purpose. He squints, trying to figure out which part of the house you’re in. It looks like you’re trying to get to the lift that leads to the underground garage. Sylus dissipates into red and black mist.
_______________
As you walk, you make your way to the garage, not even sure what your plan is. You have that hollow, manic feeling filling you—the feeling that always fills you when you’re hurt like this, when you just need to get out, to outrun your own body and the feelings it contains. This time though, through the noise in your head, you remember your promises to Sylus. About not hurting yourself, but going to him. If you have doubts about his intentions, to go to him. To ask him when you have questions, instead of making assumptions.
But how can you? What’s the point of honoring promises made to a man who thinks your feelings are fair game for a bet? 
You need to think. You don’t want to think. You’re hurting so, so much. You need time. Your body feels like you’re out of time. You miss Caleb. You miss your grandmother. 
It takes all of your self control to stop moving. You hear Mephisto’s wings flapping behind you. You close your eyes. You resist the urge to punch yourself, barely. If you’re just a bet to him, you should punch him instead. You open your eyes and realize you stopped next to a door with an electronic lock blinking on the handle. You turn and look at it fully, and you hear the lock click.
It recognized your face. Just as Kieran and Luke told you all the locks in this house would. Why would Sylus bother programming your face into his home if you’re just a bet?
You watch your hand reach out, grasp the handle. You pull, and the door opens easily. You slip inside and let it close before Mephisto can follow.
The lights flicker on.
You gasp.
It’s like standing inside an upscale jewelry store, built inside a bank vault. Except instead of sparsely filled display cases, designed to emphasize and showcase a select number of precious jewels, each glass case is stuffed with the things. Diamonds. Rubies. Emeralds. A mind-blowing variety of beautiful stones that you don’t even know the names for. Loose stones, as well as jewelry—necklaces, rings, earrings. Where most of Sylus’s house is the picture of meticulous order, this vault looks like a dragon’s hoard of priceless treasures, casually piled high without much thought.
Why would Sylus trust you with access to such wealth, if you were just a bet?
But more importantly, how much death must Sylus Qin sell, to afford such a vault?
How many lives in exchange for each gem?
You turn in a circle as you slowly process the fact that you’re standing in the middle of a sea of blood diamonds.
What are you doing?
What the actual fuck are you doing?
You were just marveling at the luxury of the rooms he designed, filled with the thrilling possibility that he had built them for you. You had thought about the cost of the heating in the hot tub, the pool. And yet you were willing to overlook such expenses. Why? Because at least the pool, the lovely architecture are useful? Because they provide some value to the human experience, even if only a select few will ever get to experience them at Sylus’s house?
But what value do diamonds have? Shiny clumps of compressed carbon. You can’t burn them for warmth. You can’t eat them. Okay, so maybe they’re used in some industrial processes, but for fuck’s sake, artificially created diamonds could serve that purpose. And you’re absolutely sure that the diamonds Sylus has hoarded in this vault are real, products of millions of years of pressure, and not made in some lab.
You sink to the black marble floor. It’s cold. You draw up your knees and hug them.
There’s too much happening in your brain right now. Your grief. Your uncertainty about Sylus’s intentions—the question of who his beloved is. The bet.
The realization that you’re falling in love with a man whose life’s work is bringing misery to others.
You hate yourself. Here you are, thrown into a tailspin from the idea that Sylus may have spent all this time on you because of a bet with his minions, when you should be in a tailspin about the fact that it’s probably already too late for you to stop falling for a man who not only praises the mutilated world, but is one of the people shoving the knife in deeper. 
There is so much you don’t know about him. But what you do know is that Sylus is too busy pouring salt into the wound of the world to dedicate so much time and resources to something as frivolous as a wager about how long it will take for him to get you in the bag. It’s pure, self-pitying hubris to assume otherwise.
You’re focusing on the wrong things, again. You’re forgetting what’s important, again.
What do you want? What can you live with? Why do you feel a connection with this complicated, cruel, ruthless man, as if you’ve known him for more than a few months? What kind of person are you, if despite sitting in a sea of diamonds paid for in other peoples' blood, you still want this merchant of death to come find you, to hold you in his arms, tell you that he wasn't placing bets on how long it would take to have you in the bag?
You begin to rock, somehow resisting all of your terrible urges: to hurt yourself, to run, to set this awful room on fire. You rock, and you hurt, and you wait for the terrible man you’re falling in love with to find you, as he always does.
______________
Sylus finds Mephisto pacing on the floor in front of his gem vault. He caws in distress when he sees his owner re-materialize in the hallway. Sylus finds the fact that you’re in the gem vault, and not currently trying to procure a getaway car, to be a source of hope—a strange feeling for him. What use does he have for hope? He has plans. Plans with contingencies, alternatives, backups. They either succeed because he planned well enough, or they fail because he did not plan well enough. 
Hope has no place in his world.
People suffer and die. Deals are made and broken. Fate is cruel, inflexible. He knows this all too well, no matter how much he’s struggling against fate this time around.
Hope has no place in his world.
But.
You could have kept running. You could be in any one of his vehicles right now, trying to break land speed records to get the fuck away from him, convinced that he was involved in a bet about the biggest gamble of his life.
But you’re not. You’re in his gem vault, for some reason. You strange, unpredictable, delightful creature.
He finds himself hoping that this misunderstanding hasn’t just caused you to retreat beyond his reach again. 
Your fingers in the dip of his clavicle.
The yearning look on your face, that he doesn’t think you even knew you had, when he bit your lip—the closest he’ll allow himself to a kiss until he’s one hundred percent sure you’ll welcome him while awake.
He opens the door.
He pauses, struck with the strange sensation of viewing his greatest treasure surrounded by so much of his material treasure. You belong here. The value of all of these precious stones nothing in comparison to you, shining like a beacon to him at the end of a long and winding road from the marble floor, dimming everything else in this room by comparison.
His house shoes whisper along the cold marble floor where you’re sitting, curled in on yourself.
He has watched you take down wanderers the size of an elephant. All that strength, contained in your huddled body. You look so small to him. He wants to protect you from all the horrors of the world. But of course, he’s the biggest horror of all. Is it any wonder that he keeps hurting you instead?
A better man might keep his distance in an effort to protect you. Like your partner. A better man might know when to quit. Like your dandy artist friend. A better man might be content with loving you from afar. Like your fucking doctor. 
But Sylus is a terrible man, because he’s not going to stop trying to get it right, even as he hurts you in the process, until you order him to stop and mean it.
You don’t look up at the sound of his footsteps, but you also don’t retreat as he approaches.
He sits on the floor next to you, wraps an arm around your shivering shoulders. He pulls you into his arms, feels the rush of hope when you let him.
He cradles your head in his palm.
“The twins bet on everything. Which snail is the fastest on a leaf. Whether it will rain or snow tomorrow. How long it will take someone to bleed out. Whether the traffic light will change in five versus ten seconds,” he says softly into your hair.
“About how long it will take to get your pathetic hunter in the bag?” Your voice is small, just as your body feels in his arms.
“About how long it will take for my beloved to realize how I feel about them,” he sighs.
You stiffen, and he feels a moment of paralyzing fear, before you melt into him. He breathes again.
“What did you bet?” you ask, and Sylus feels the sorrow in your voice like a gunshot in his chest.
You ran, but you stopped. You assumed, but you’re asking questions now. You’re allowing him to touch you, to hold you. The hope in him surges again. 
“I didn’t place a bet in this particular wager,” he manages through the unfamiliar feelings. “But if I had, the gamble would be my whole heart.”
“Does a man who has a dragon’s hoard of wealth, bought with the blood of the guilty and the innocent alike, have a heart?” you ask, finally looking up, your eyes hollow in a way that he doesn’t like.
Sylus is a terrible man. He has never lied to himself about this, or to you. He showed you the worst of himself, the day you met. He has to hope that the fact you’re still here, still asking him questions, means that he hasn’t lost you yet. An unpleasant feeling of doubt slithers through him. Is it the bet upsetting you, or something else?
“Even dragons have hearts, darling.”
You close your eyes. He wants you to open them again. He wants you to look at him. He never wants you to look away from him. Even if you’re looking at him with doubt, or hate, so long as you’re looking at him, that means you’re not leaving him.
“What do you want?” he asks.
You open your eyes again. He is terribly tempted to use his aether core on you, because for once, he can’t read how you’re feeling.
“You offered me time.”
He leans forward, rests his forehead against yours. “And I will give you time.”
“I want to see your favorite part of the greenhouse.”
“And I will show you my favorite part of the greenhouse,” he whispers, breathing, breathing. He can’t tell how you’re feeling, but you smell like home, a door at the end of a long road. The hope grows.
“I want to see Luke and Kieran and Noah play the remake of Silent Hill 2.”
The hope shifts, dissipates. There is no need for hope, once it is fulfilled. You want to stay, for now. He can work with that. Whatever damage learning about the bet caused, he can work with your willingness to stay. If that look in your eyes isn’t about the bet, he has more time to dismantle your walls, to pull it out of you. Just two nights ago, you were running barefoot through the dark. Tonight, you stopped yourself and waited for him to find you. “You’re in luck. They’re still playing.”
You watch him, as if you’re weighing something behind your hollow eyes. “Will you watch with me?”
Of course, he thinks. Of course. You could ask for so much more, and the answer would be the same. “Do you want me to watch with you?”
“I want you to want to watch with me.”
He smiles, his mouth a breath away from yours. You smell like popcorn. He wants to throw a piece in the air, catch it in his mouth, feed it to you. “Again, you bring me luck. We have a win-win deal.”
He stands. Carries you out of his gem vault.
“Why do you have so many jewels?” you ask, quietly.
“In case the authorities freeze my accounts, physical currency will be useful. A sort of insurance.”
You gaze at his face, and he wonders what you see when you look at him. “You’ll escape with a truck full of precious stones?”
“Something like that,” he says.
“No other reason?”
He tells the truth. “I’ve always been fond of shiny things.”
“Do you have a favorite stone?”
He laughs softly. “Whatever stone you’re wearing.”
Instead of looking at him with suspicion, a helpless look crosses your face. Like you’re in pain from his admission. He doesn’t like it. But then you lean forward, press your face into his neck. He tells himself that he has time. He’ll figure out what’s bothering you, and he’ll fix it.
Outside the theater room, he pauses. Looks down at the pieces of shattered sculpture. "If you didn't like it, darling, you could have just said so."
You just mumble that you're sorry.
"We've talked about your apologies," he says, frowning down at you in his arms.
You huff. "Fine. I'm not sorry. That sculpture was edgy and ugly. You should replace it with something beautiful."
"Deal. But only if you come with me to choose something," he says.
"Deal," you say softly, and he still can't tell what's going through your head.
When you enter the theater room, Luke pauses the game. “We’re really sorry for hurting your feelings and shit. The bet was about boss’s rizz, not about you. Please don’t leave.”
Kieran nods in approval, as if he had helped Luke compose this little speech.
Noah just looks at you, face unreadable, as you rest your head on Sylus’s shoulder.
“I had planned to give you a lot of shit. But I think I would’ve lost anyway,” she says, not looking apologetic at all. “It’s only been two days and you’re practically merging into one person.”
Sylus carries you to a loveseat next to the twins, with Noah on their other side.
“Thanks,” you say. “No worries.”
Everyone is awkwardly silent for a moment after your brief response. You seem to notice, and smile a little. “Can we hang out while you play?”
“Fuck yeah,” Luke says, and Kieran groans as the game is unpaused.
After a while, you, Luke, and Noah start discussing the difference between the remake and the original. What everyone likes, what they don’t. Sylus leans back, draws you onto his chest. His relief remains intense as you let him. The discussion moves on to which Silent Hill games are the best in the franchise, which are the worst. Luke and Noah have a good-natured clash about Silent Hill 4: the Room, with only a few insults flung at each other. You and Kieran share your admiration for Bloober Team's Layers of Fear, which Kieran liked because he didn't think it was scary, and which Luke hated, because he thought it was boring. Sylus doesn't give a shit about video games, and certainly not horror games. Life itself is already horrific enough, he doesn't have the patience for manufactured terror. He just listens, feeling your heartbeat against his chest, breathing in your comforting scent.
A feeling of wholeness settles in him, as unfamiliar as hope. As unfamiliar as the happiness from your movie night, just last night. You, Luke, and Noah have moved on to animatedly arguing about some character’s outfit changes between the original and the remake.
He feels like he’s been standing, left behind in the dark for so long, and he’s finally being allowed home. Whatever is bothering you, he’ll fix it. He’ll destroy the world if he has to, to preserve the scene in front of him, so that he can offer you this, so that he can experience this with you, again, and again, and again. His gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.
End notes: I had planned shenanigans for the twins and Noah to increase their odds in winning the bet, but this story is already out of control with how long it is, and some of the things I thought of were really manipulative and fucked up even if I personally thought they were hilarious, but my brain is craving a softer vibe for this story I guess (lmao if this can be considered soft), so I hope this isn't too much of a let down for the resolution of the bet subplot. I've given up hinting at what's coming next because it turns out I'm very bad at guessing what's next.
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419jhat · 20 hours ago
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Russian Steve AU
Another plot bunny I've been unable to get out of my head...
What if Steve's parents were Russian spies and connected to the mall? What if Steve had powers? What if these were combined into two and turned into a Steddie thing?
I love the idea of Steve being like El but the Russian version, where his parents are spies and he's an experiment they willingly handed over to the government but still got to raise. They all go to the US to build the mall and Steve's trying desperately to be a normal American boy but Eddie Munson, King of Abnormality (which drives Steve absolutely crazy because who would want to stand out??) gets in the way and completely wrecks his whole situation.
TW: Dead Bodies
Steven Anthony Harrington died in 1979, sometime around midnight on the third of January. He had two parents, also lying dead in the master bedroom, a dog collapsed on the kitchen floor, and that was it. They were a reclusive bunch with an unlucky family tree filled with people that tended to die early anyway. So maybe it was fate. As the New Steve looked down at the still face of the boy he was going to replace, he thought that it's probably just the circle of life. People die, people live, and the world keeps spinning. It doesn’t have to mean much beyond that.
Old Steve felt cold. It wasn't the first time New Steve had touched or felt a dead person, but for some reason this one is different. This time, it’s his fault. He felt the body go cold and numb as it happened. He watched the emotions seep out of the body as the boy's dream ended without him waking up. His father made him watch, so he understood the sacrifice taken so he could do his job.
The weight of it makes it hard to breathe.
It was a bloodless death, caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. Painless and simple. While the house airs out, Old Steve, his dog, and his parents are quickly disposed of. There is no evidence left behind. On January fourth, sometime in the evening, the new Harrington family sat on a couch they didn’t buy, in a living room they didn’t choose, and drank a cup of hot tea, considering the moment of peace before the start of their journey.
They move without a word to the neighbors, who the Old Harringtons were never friends with anyway. Nobody knows, or cares where they are. There’s a money trail if someone bothers to look, but it doesn’t expose anything more than a house hunting vacation. Then, just before the start of the school year, they use Richard’s savings to buy a home in a sleepy little town called Hawkins, Indiana. And their new lives begin.
New Steve thought that the new home was too big. Every little noise echoed and bounced across the walls, making him jump and look around as if he’d find people hiding in them, watching their every move. When they’d arrived, he and his parents laid down on the soft, carpeted floor and stared at the pure white ceiling in silence, taking in the new world around them. They hadn’t said anything, but they didn’t need to. He knew things would be different from then on.
He spent that first week with his parents. Every morning like clockwork, they sat before the TV and repeated everything said out loud, practicing their accents and furthering their understanding of the strange phrases Americans liked to use, like, “take a rain check,” and “lipstick on a pig.” New Steve found he hated movies, where he couldn’t see people’s feelings like he could in person. They reminded him of Old Steve’s frozen body, huddled up in blankets as if he was just sleeping. Like soulless meat puppets waiting to be buried and never found again.
In the evenings, he and his mother worked through a cookbook she’d been gifted, perfecting American dishes like casseroles and meatloaf. On the second day, he helped her deliver a pie to their neighbor, and she introduced him as her shy little boy who never had much to say. It wasn’t true. He still had a hard time with the ‘th’ sound that so many English words used, so they’d decided that until he got it right, that’s who he’d be.
With his dad, during the day when nobody would question it, they cut open the wall in his office and installed a gun safe. Apparently, it was legal for normal people in America to own guns. Steve was too young to have an opinion on that, but his dad muttered in English about how it was the kind of irresponsible nonsense that made his job easier. So, maybe it was a good thing. Either way, they covered the safe with a wall once again, so they were truly out of sight.
When his parents weren’t home, New Steve quietly snuck out to dip his toes in the pool. He’d never seen a pool before. He didn’t even know how to swim. In the spot close to the deep end, where neighbors wouldn’t see him unless they stuck their heads over the fence to pry, New Steve would find the perfect stick- thin and light with no leaves, and drag it across the surface of the water, watching the ripples as they rolled across the heated surface. And that was how he found peace with his new house.
It took him a while to settle into the role of Steve, and even longer for him to climb the mantle of King Steve. But that was his job, so it’s what he did. King Steve was good at sports. Captain of the swim team, co-captain of the basketball team. Handsome, fond of parties, rich with mysterious parents who traveled often. Charming, just enough for people to wonder how he stayed out of trouble despite everything he got up to.
But secretly, Steve, just Steve, also known in his heart as Stepan, was terrified. He never let it show on his face, even more terrified that his parents would lose faith in his skills and dump him somewhere while they returned to Russia as heroes without him. He spent most of his time fueled with fear, balancing the careful images he’d built for himself as the perfect All-American Boy that his parents were relying on. Unfortunately for Steve, he hadn’t anticipated what would happen to his precious double image when he fell in love.
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bitchslapblastoids · 2 days ago
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interesting but predictable how some of the inherent uncanny valley strangeness of bringing something that exists in the chronically online space into the real world can manifest. I’ve noticed this at all the other tours of theirs as well - some people can have a hard time separating internet behaviors from irl behaviors, and the sudden merging of these compartmentalized ways of being (online vs offline) can be hard to navigate.
I think it can also make people uncomfortable to see their comedic silly billie faves being serious, and there’s a dissonance to seeing them, these characters who live on our screens, along with the audience around you who are typically just avatars and usernames shitposting in lowercase, all suddenly in the same physical room. And suddenly that often completely disparate, scattered, semi-anonymous community needs to adapt to social mores and group norms in a new social context. It’s taking a community with its own set of rules that were designed for and in response to a digital landscape and plonking it into a completely alien environment. And yeah, we’re all humans who exist in public outside of our internet lives, but it’s different when that happens but you’re still in the context of the phandom.
Which I think is what leads to things like shouting out rly profane, out of pocket things during the quieter moments of their shows. because if you comment something like that online, you won’t rly be interrupting anything. you might be ignored, you might get some laughs, maybe you’ll get a notice bc haha unhinged right. Or like treating an evacuation drill as a lol pass the tea yas mommy daniel moment instead of an oh we’re actually here in real life moment.
I went back to my tatinof review bc I remembered writing this - “someone behind me kept screaming at them to "GET NAKED" (particularly during silences in the 7 second challenge) to which everyone in my area responded with claps and laughter.” During my second TIT show, there were people around me who wolf whistled and shouted “kinky” and “ayo ok freaky” during totally inappropriate moments. I remember during Dan’s quieter bits of WAD people could not seem to just stay silent. (I have suffered complete amnesia when it comes to ii so I can’t speak to any part of that experience lol.) after the preshow and during intermission at tit, I heard separate people at separate times making a range of critical comments about Dan and Phil’s bodies in ways that were downright shocking and not how I hope they’d typically feel comfortable speaking about other humans.
I think on the whole, phannies are so lovely and kind to one another. I feel deep gratitude for this community. And I know this isn’t just a phandom thing; I think how we treat one another in public spaces has generally really eroded, and concert etiquette has become abysmally poor. But phandom, as always, is a little unique, because of the sense of mutual understanding and the co-created dynamic between us and d&p. It dissolves the boundaries, so when Dan tells you to shut up, your online brain tells you that’s just a chance to be funny with your fave. When you have a chance to be heard, your online brain provides a memey shitpost joke and your irl self shouts it out even though that ain’t the move in a theatre performance unless invited to do so.
No real conclusion here, just some observations about the rly unique dynamic this all creates!
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sturnswrites · 3 days ago
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back to you - pt. 1
matt sturniolo x fem!reader
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⤳ angst, angst, more angst, crying, breakup
⤳ you and matt break up after you leave for college but when summer break comes around you both can’t seem to shake the feeling of one another away.
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The room felt colder that day, despite the California sun pouring through the windows. Y/N sat cross-legged on Matt’s couch, her heart racing as she tried to make sense of the words coming out of his mouth.
“I don’t want to do this,” he finally said, his voice low but trembling.
“Then don’t.” Your voice cracked, and you hated how desperate you sounded. “Matt, we can figure it out. Long distance isn’t the end of the world.”
“I just think… with you going to New York and me staying here with Nick and Chris, it’s going to be hard,” Matt said, his hands twisting nervously in his lap. He wasn’t looking at you, his gaze fixed somewhere near the carpet.
“Hard?” she repeated, her voice catching, eyes stinging with tears. “Matt, we’ve been together for two years. We’ve been through everything together. Why can’t we at least try?”
He finally looked at you, his blue eyes clouded with something that looked a lot like pain. “Y/N, I’ve thought about this a lot. I don’t want to hold you back while you’re starting this new chapter. And I don’t think I can handle being so far away, not knowing if—if we’re still the same.”
He paused for a second leaving the room with enough silence to hear a pin drop. “You’ll be out there meeting new people, having new experiences. And I’ll be here, stuck in the same routine. It’s not fair to either of us.” he continued. 
“It’s not fair?” you repeated, your voice breaking. “What’s not fair is you deciding this without me. What’s not fair is you giving up on us before we’ve even tried.”
His shoulders slumped, and for a moment, you thought he might take it back. That he’d tell you he was being stupid, that you’d find a way to make it work. But instead, he shook his head, his face etched with pain.
Your chest tightened, the weight of his words sinking in. “So that’s it? You’re just giving up on us?”
“I’m not giving up,” he insisted, his voice breaking. “I’m letting you go because I love you too much to keep you tied down.”
You stood up abruptly, grabbing your bag and slinging it over your shoulder. Your hands were trembling, eyes blurred with tears, but you didn’t want him to see how much he’d broken you.
“I never felt tied down, Matt,” you said quietly, her voice trembling. “I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be—with you.”
And then you walked out, leaving behind the only person who had ever made you feel completely whole.
-
The months that followed were nothing short of excruciating.
New York was everything you had hoped it would be—bustling, exciting, alive, a blur of classes, new friends…and trying desperately to move on. No matter how many new friends you made or how many late-night adventures you went on, there was a constant ache in your chest that refused to go away.
You threw yourself into school, keeping yourself so busy that you barely had time to breathe, let alone think about Matt. But he always found his way into your thoughts. You’d hear a song he loved, or pass by someone wearing a hoodie like the one he used to wear, and suddenly it felt like you were back in his room, begging him to choose you.
You’d see his face in your memories—the way his nose scrunched when he laughed, the way he used to brush a stray strand of hair from your face, the way he’d whisper “I love you” like it was the most natural thing in the world.
It wasn’t fair. You hated how he still had this hold on you, even after he’d been the one to end things.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Matt was unraveling.
At first, he convinced himself he’d done the right thing. He told himself that breaking up with you was selfless, that he was giving you the freedom to thrive without any ties holding you back. He was still filming videos with Nick and Chris, smiling for the camera, cracking jokes like nothing was wrong.
But as the weeks turned into months, that resolve began to crack.
He’d lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling, replaying the moment he let you go. He’d watch old videos on his phone of the two of you laughing together, and it felt like a punch to the gut every time.
Nick and Chris noticed, of course. They weren’t blind to the way Matt had become quieter, more withdrawn. But every time they tried to bring it up, he brushed them off, burying himself in their work.
Still, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for his phone late at night, your contact saved under “My Favorite Person.” His fingers would hover over the keyboard, crafting and deleting messages he’d never have the courage to send.
By the time summer rolled around, you’d convinced yourself you were over him. Or at least, you told yourself that enough times to believe it.
​​One of your friends, Emma, had decided to throw a party for everyone to reconnect after their first year of college.
“It’ll be fun,” Emma had said. “I promise!”
You weren’t so sure about that, but you went anyway, hoping the night would distract you from the lingering ache in her chest.
“Everyone’s going to be there,” Emma had said, grinning as she handed you the invitation. “It’ll be like old times.”
“Sure,” you had replied with a forced smile, pushing down the nagging thought that “everyone” might include the one person you weren’t ready to see.
When you arrived at the party, the air was filled with the familiar buzz of laughter and music. You slipped easily into conversations, catching up with friends you hadn’t seen in months.
You were in the middle of a story, a drink in your hand, when a voice you hadn’t heard in far too long made your heart stop.
“Y/N?”
You turned slowly, your breath catching as your eyes met Matt’s.
He looked… different. His hair was a little longer, his face a little sharper, but his eyes were still the same piercing blue that had haunted your dreams.
“Oh, hi,” you said, your voice carefully neutral. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
He shifted on his feet, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Yeah, Nick dragged me along. I didn’t know you’d be back.”
“Just for the summer,” you replied, your chest tight.
An awkward silence stretched between you, and for a moment, it felt like you were strangers. But the way he looked at you, like you were the only person in the room, made your heart ache in a way you weren’t prepared for.
“Well,” you said finally, “it was nice seeing you.”
“You too,” he murmured, his gaze lingering on you as you turned back to your group.
But the night was far from over.
-
You couldn’t stop noticing him.
Every time you glanced across the room, Matt was there—leaning against a wall, talking to Nick, or laughing with someone you didn’t recognize. And every time, you felt his eyes on you, as if he was just as unable to look away.
You tried to ignore it, focusing on your friends and the easy rhythm of their conversation. But it was impossible not to feel the pull, the magnetic force that had always drawn you to him.
Matt was losing his mind.
Seeing you again was like a shot of adrenaline to his system, every memory he’d tried to bury rushing back with brutal clarity. He wanted to talk to you, to explain, to apologize. But every time he tried to muster the courage, the words got stuck in his throat.
Finally, as the night began to wind down, he couldn’t take it anymore.
You were standing alone on the back porch, the soft glow of string lights casting a halo around you. He stepped outside, his heart pounding as he closed the distance between you.
“Y/N,” he said, his voice soft but urgent.
You turned to face him, your expression guarded. “Matt.”
“Can we talk?” he asked, his eyes searching yours.
You hesitated, your emotions swirling in a storm of hope, fear, and anger. But something in his gaze made you nod.
“Yeah,” you said quietly. “Let’s talk.”
And with that, he led you away from the noise and the crowd, the weight of everything unsaid hanging heavy between you.
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ok now this one got me excitedddd
⭒ margot
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carcarrot · 5 months ago
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this time last year i was probably sitting in the kitchen while my dad started making an early dinner of chicken bolognese trying not to get too nervous about the concert i'd be going to in a few hours
#the nyc concert was last year. LAST YEAR .#thats so insane like yeah that feels like a year ago but good god the insane amount of stuff that has happened since#but god i remember that day so well#it was cloudy and a little rainy in the morning which made me ough thinking it was a bad omen and wouldnt be as fun#and i remember going to library and printing out my silly letters (i should have just. not done that lol)#and on the DAY OF on the way back home from the library#i even bought a cropped black blazer specifically for my concert outfit. havent worn it since lmao#and my dad and i even watched a movie at lunch#a short movie but a movie nonetheless. lol and even then i was like oghh my gosh excitement and nervousness#and then the car service getting there i felt so fancy and as the drive started the clouds were magically dissipating#so that it was a nice clear evening when i got to the theatre#and then all the insanity of the show. god i cant believe it still after all this time. wowie#going to listen to a playlist of the show setlist im gonna get emotional now. guys........#one of my fave memories is how everyone started standing up as they went into so may we start so i was like ok are we all doing this#and stood up too and then stood for the entire rest of the concert. i think the first 3-5 rows were like that for the whole show#surreal and insane i was front row. those guys were REAL and CLOSE#i was also very excited to notice russells new shoes :) when i wasnt like awooga (how i was 99% of the time)#there was one so may we start jump that was well. yeah. front row baby#i think after latte i was like ok i cant film i gotta just vibe#religious experience doing the 'ah ah ah's during that. really interesting#ok im not gonna go through the whole show again but wowie one of my most insane nights. second only to hollywood bowl#wow what a fun year it was. just so many incredible moments#ok yay 💖 happy one year to all that. love those guys so much#spars#ok not actually done beaver o lindy was INSANE LIVE!!! AS WAS EVERYTHING ELSE. so fun ok now done for real
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girlscience · 11 months ago
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having some thoughts today about sexuality and for the first time in a long fucking time they are positive. had an experience last night and i won't go into detail, but afterwards i was thinking "that was for me and i don't want to and would not want to ever share that with anyone else". and now i'm having thoughts today about maybe my sexuality is for me and it's not about other people. it's about what i enjoy and what feels good to me and maybe i would invite someone else into that someday, but my sexuality would exist for me even if i never had a sexual partner in my whole life. i shouldn't worry about or struggle with or try to label myself for that potential partner or my family or my friends or random people online or strangers on the street. it's just about me and what i enjoy. what makes me feel good. and for some reason that's not something i ever really realized before. my sexuality isn't a nutrition label on a can of soup, it isn't some political opinion or experience, it isn't alienating to others, and it certainly isn't a moral stance. it is an internal experience for me to enjoy first and foremost and that has nothing to do with other people.
#like yeah i'm attracted to other people. but the way that makes me feel or act has nothing to do with them#i get off in certain ways because it feels good to me. not because other people thinks it's normal or weird or it's how they get off#i have certain kinks and i enjoy them because they make me feel good. not because other people think they are good or bad or whatever#it's my internal experience and i could share it with other people but i don't have to because i would enjoy it anyway by myself#its like. video games or transformers or books or hiking#i love all of these things by myself. i play video games and go hiking in the woods alone#and i love it!!!! i enjoy reading books by myself and watching tf on the couch alone#my enjoyment is not dependent on other people doing those things with me#but it can be fun to do it with others too! i like video chatting friends while playing video games together#or going on hikes with other people. it's fun!! i love talking about books and transformers with other people#but that's like a whole new second experience to what i do and feel by myself#not better or worse just different and it's a shared experience which makes it like it's whole own new thing#but the enjoyment started just with me first and then grew into something new with other people's involvement#IDK IF IM MAKING SENSE BUT IT FEELS BIG AND SPECIAL AND LIKE DISCOVERING SOMETHING NEW TO ME#like i'm on the horizon of some big unexplored land and it's exciting and strange and hopeful all at once#idk i just feel like my whole life i've been told sexuality is about other people and how they feel about you and how you relate to them#and it's for them. it's a gift it's sacred it's intimate and special and beautiful or it's broken and dirty and ugly and bad if done wrong#and like maybe absolutely none of that is true#maybe MY sexuality is just about ME and is just for ME and everyone else can get fucked
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thiriumstains · 4 months ago
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been thinking out lil scenes for my transfem connor fic and like it so cool going into her brain and being like ‘how does this bitch perceive gender’
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gacorley · 10 months ago
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There’s some common threads I see in the anti-voting posts going around, and I feel like I need to discuss some of them. Let’s start with the biggest one:
Voting to punish evil. I see lots of variations of this. Biden is supporting Israel, therefore we can’t vote for him. Is there any viable candidate who would stop the genocide? I don’t think the anti voting crowd actually cares. They are appealing to moral feelings rather than political strategy, because strategically, you have to realize that voting is not going to change foreign policy, and that change has to be pushed by other means. It’ll probably be something in the long haul.
Democrats should run someone else. First of all, this is a shit strategy. You don’t primary your president in the second term unless your party is falling apart. This may come from people from countries where replacing the head of government is easier, but the POTUS is the de facto party head. Also, going to the lack of thought to the goal — do you know someone willing to primary Biden and able to win who would do the things you want?
Biden hasn’t done anything anyway. This is just a way to bat away pro arguments. There’s plenty of lists of progress on lots of things. Student loans, insulin price caps, regulations, anti-trust.
Putting the entire Palestinian genocide on Biden. I’m not saying there’s not culpability there, but understand that the entire US government is in support of Israel, on both sides. It was a miracle we got a handful of Senators to call for investigations. We should cut off aid, absolutely. Who’s running to do that? And keep in mind that Israel chose to engage. US officials would have liked a more limited response, not out of care for Palestinians, but because they know from experience that it will come back to bite Israel in the form of newly radicalized Hamas recruits.
Liberals just have no hope for change. This is a new one. Just some idea that people are stuck in a rut and that’s the reason the two party system exists. The two party system is a mathematical consequence of the way we vote. There is reason to hope for change. The change, though, whatever means you choose, will take decades. Keep working at it. The hope is not that this election will fundamentally change things. The hope is that many small political actions over the years will push things forward.
Funnily enough, I haven’t seen a whole lot of third party promotion, just lots of this rhetoric aiming to punish. When voting, ask yourself:
Is this problem I have with this candidate something that the other candidate would be better on?
Are there other political actions I can take that will help?
What things can change with a different President or Congress, and what needs to be pursued by other means?
Withholding your vote as a punishment isn’t really going to help. Biden doesn’t know who you are or why you are not voting for him, and there is no one with a chance of winning that will do everything you want. But you have other means. Protest, organize, donate, build up alternatives, advocate for a different system.
Vote to give yourself space and get a little bit. Do other things to keep things moving.
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vnti-vnxiety-recs · 7 months ago
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LEARNING CURVES (M)
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★  PAIRING: 00 line x Reader (ft.Mark)
☆ WORD COUNT: 23k
★ GENRE(S): Pure Smut
☆ SUMMARY: After a negative sexual encounter in high school, fear and reluctance hold you back from exploring new experiences. However, a friend offers advice that shifts your perspective, suggesting that perhaps all you need is some practice to improve and feel more confident in trying new things outside of your comfort zone. You would need a lot of practice.
★ ☆ WARNINGS: Multiple sexual acts, unprotected sex, orgy, cursing, choking. Literally just sex.☆★ NOTES: I had some fun writing this, shout out to my friend for literally living this life. You made dreams come true.
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You loved being able to catch up with your friends; it was rare you got to see them nowadays with your conflicting schedules and new adult responsibilities. By now, you were all grown up, having traded in your sibling-shared rooms for an open loft and independence. You lived alone, and while at times it can feel lonely, you really enjoyed the time to yourself. Spending time alone would allow you to learn more about yourself.
Today, after debriefing with your friends about their sex lives, you discovered that yours is about as dry as the Nevada desert. 
Your friends occupy the living room space of your new loft. You had been in your new home for about a month when they decided to come over for a housewarming party. With Jisung's tall, lean frame stretched out on the couch, everyone else had to make room on the floor. Being a lightweight. He ended up knocking out before anyone else. Your friends Chenle, Yang Yang, Yuna, and Mia surround you on the floor. Your not sure how the conversation got started, but everyone was recounting embarrassing sexcapades from the past. 
“And then he fell asleep on top of me after finishing. He was practically crushing me; I thought I was gonna die,” Yuna laughs hysterically at the memory. 
The idea of your friend experiencing that makes you shudder. Your other friends laugh along easily. The empty alcohol bottles that decorate your carpet and countertops can only indicate one thing: everyone was off their ass drunk. There was easy conversation, unceasing laughter, and smiles so big they hurt your cheeks. 
The stories continue on, and you’re enjoying the time you get to spend together. Yanyang tells you about some girl he went home with after class one day and how she could only get off if he was wearing a cat headband. 
“So you pretended to be her kitten the whole time?” Mia asked with a laugh. You could tell she was getting a kick from the mental image of Yangyang purring like a kitten.
“It was hot, actually!” He protests.
"Well, I thought this story was supposed to be embarrassing? You’re in to petplay, big whoop?” You chime in.
"Well, it only got weird when she started calling me Mr. Whiskers,” he groans out of anguish at the memory.
Maybe it was the alcohol, but you were practically weeping at this point. “MR.WHISKERS??”
“There's no way! Tell me you left!” Chenle adds,
“I had to see it through” Yang Yang shakes his head before shrugging. “What about you, miss lonely? Any stories? Don't think we haven't noticed how quiet you are” Yang Yang targets you.
You feel a chill down your spine, like a bucket of ice water was just dumped over you. Although they were more of the second-hand variety, your friends did have some embarrassing stories. They weren't the ones that embarrassed themselves, and that intimidated you a little from telling your own story. Yours had been so embarrassing that you refused to try anything sexual since then. You felt like they wouldn't understand.
"Well, I haven’t really done much.” You say. You wanted to avoid the conversation.
“Oh come on, what about Doyoung? You two didn’t do anything?” Yuna asks.
“No, Well, not really” You could feel your cheeks heating in embarrassment. This was why you didnt want to talk about it. Your lack of sexual experience was probably the reason he broke up with you.
“I've only ever given head, and it was really bad,” you finally admit.
"Well, come on. It was your first time; you can’t beat yourself up about it,” Yuna encourages.
It was back in high school; you had been dating Doyoung for a few months, and you were both ready to take the next step in the relationship. You were too afraid to go too far, so you offered to just give him head. 
You should have known better than to try to sneak away at school, but you were young and foolish. Things took a turn for the worse after you and Doyoung slipped into a supply closet in between classes.
You were both really inexperienced and only knew sex from porn. You were overly cocky in your abilities, and so was he. When you first put him in your mouth, you didn't mind your teeth at all. You used too much saliva, making everything too messy. He couldn't get hard at all, so it was hard to stroke it, and so you were just awkwardly flailing your wrist on his length. He wasn't that big, and you thought that maybe if you took him farther down your throat, he would feel better. Big mistake. 
You swore it barely touched the back of your throat, but you had just finished lunch like 30 minutes prior, and honestly, the unfamiliar taste of his precum was making your stomach turn a little. The next thing you know, your throwing up on his shoes.
“And then the janitor walked in, and he had to help clean up my throw up” You finish your story, hands cringing at your sides.
Your friends had listened intently through the whole story without interrupting once. You finally look up from your lap to scam their reactions.
Chenle was biting his lip, holding back a laugh for his dear life. Yuna was trying her hardest to look serious as she nodded her head in understanding, but you could see the tears in her eyes that threatened to fall from how hard she wanted to laugh. Yangyang and Mia were fully turned around; all you could see was their shoulders shaking.
“THIS IS SERIOUS!” you whine in aggravation. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. The previous silent laughter turned to full-blown cackling. They were so loud, it made Jisung stir on the sofa.
You pout and cross your arms, trying to shrink yourself away. Thinking back on it after all these years, it was funny now, but it had really taken a toll on your self-confidence. You couldn't even get Doyoung hard, and after he broke up with you, you found it hard to try again. You had dated a few other guys here and there, but the moment they tried to get more physical, you got cold feet. You were a virgin, but if you wanted to be technical, you lost your virginity to a fence in the 5th grade while trying to climb a fence. You had slipped and fallen hard on the fence. You didn't realize it at the time, but the blood in your underwear that day was caused by your hymen breaking, not a deep cut from the fence you couldn't find. 
Your friends finally calm down after they see you not laughing along. "Hey, we're sorry,” Mia apologizes “Does it still bother you?”
"Yes,” you say
"Jeez, its been years; you really haven’t had any better experience than that?” Chenle says
“You always know exactly what to say,” you say dryly. 
“What he meant to say was you were young and that was a long time ago; you shouldnt beat yourself up about it.” Mia glares at Chenle.
“I guess,” you shrug unimpressed 
"Well, practice makes perfect so your not gonna get better if you do nothing,” chenle says
This time, you shoot him a glare at his brutal honesty.
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That's how you find yourself downloading Tinder. You had thought about it over the next few days. Your friends were all grown up and living their best lives, and you were still stuck on something that happened in your freshman year of high school. Years had passed, and you needed to move on. Maybe Lele was right? Maybe all you needed was to go out and keep falling until you could stand up on your own. Clearly, they had had their fair share of embarrassing stories, and it had helped them grow. You had a lot of growing to do if you were going to make up for the last few years.
You make your profile very simple. You add a few cute photos; nothing risky because you’re still afraid you might run into one of your friends on the app, and you would just die if they found your account. 
You add the description of “just looking for fun” and hope you can cast your net wide enough to catch someone promising.
You swipe for about half an hour until you get tired. You had a lot of planning to do. Chenle probably didn't mean it literally, but that's how you were going to take it. 
You knew nothing about being intimate or physical with someone, but you were quite bookish. Instead of love and companionship, you were drawn towards studies and literature.
If there was something you didn't know, you would just crack it open and study its insides. That is how you would approach this; you would treat it as an equation that, with a little bit of study, you could solve. 
Practice makes perfect...
Practicing math makes you a mathematician
Practicing science makes you a scientist
Practicing law makes you a lawyer
So technically speaking, if we follow the trend,  if we recognize the pattern...
Practicing sex makes you a sexist? 
Ok no, but you get the point. With practice, you should improve.
Your phone dings, and you smile at the message you got “What kind of fun are you looking for?”
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Renjun was his name, and you had made plans to meet with him this weekend. In between classes and work, you made time to prepare yourself to meet Renjun. You had spoken to him briefly through text. You had told him that you were inexperienced and were only comfortable with giving head. He told you not to worry and that he was more than okay with that.  
First things first: you had to deal with your first bully if you wanted to move past your past and loosen its hold on you. The thing that made you insecure, the thing that kept you up at night, you had to overcome.
THE BLOWJOB
You had prepared for this day all week. You read article after article of different techniques to try. You had gone through a whole 18 pack of popsicles, and by the 10th one, you had finally managed not to gag when you reached the last color. You couldn't quite pat yourself on the back yet; you weren't sure if you were getting better or if you had just frozen your tonsils. Today, you would find out, though.
You nervously clutch your phone as you shoot him a text letting him know you were outside. He buzzes you in, and you make your way up to apartment 0323 on the third floor. When he opens the door, you can't help but return his smile. You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but this cover was really pretty. 
Renjun just had a welcoming aura that made you feel comfortable. When you come inside, he asks if you want anything to drink, and he shows you where his bathroom is in case you need it, making you feel at home. After he does a short walk through, he leads you back to the living room, and you both sit on his couch.
“This is a really nice place,” you comment, awkwardly unsure of what to say “Do you have roommates?” His apartment was very large; you noticed it was on the nicer side of town, and you saw at least 4 bedrooms.
“Yeah, but I kicked them out tonight,” he says before eyeing you up and down “I want to take my time with you” 
Your skin instantly heated up at his bold words. The kind man who had smiled and welcomed you into his house might have been a fox.
“I've only ever done this once before, and I'm not really sure if I’ll be any good,” you say, unable to hold his eye contact. 
“Its ok baby; I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” he says softly “You wanna sit closer so I can see your pretty face?” He says it gently. 
You scoot closer so that your thighs are touching. “There's my girl,” he says, and you can feel your heart rate pick up at the praise. He doesn’t look away from you once; his piercing stare makes you feel shy.
Your eyes are glued to your hands, folded politely in your lap, and when he reaches out to intertwine his with yours, you wonder if he can feel the way your hands tremble in his grasp.
“Are you scared? Why are you shaking baby?” he asks sweetly, using his other hand to caress your cheek soothingly. “Don’t be afraid, baby we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do” He strokes your face for a bit longer before lightly gripping your chin and pulling you to finally face him “Do you want to do this, baby? Let me hear your pretty voice”
His compliments twist at your heart again, and it feels like you’re under his spell. He spoke to you in a way that was sweet like honey; it made you want to comply with everything he asked of you. 
He smiles at the dopey look on your face when he calls you pretty “You like it when I talk to you like that? Hmm pretty?” Still not brave enough to take a full sip from you without your permission, he pecks the corner of your mouth. "You have to answer me, or we can't have fun." 
You nod lazily, and you try to chase his lips when he pulls away. 
he pulls back "words," and his eyes look glazed over as he stares at your lips.
“Yes, I want this,” you whisper breathlessly 
He kisses you gently, barely allowing you to savor his taste, before he pulls away again. “Let's take it slow, ok? I got you; just follow my lead,” he says, inches away from your mouth. You nod impatiently and surge forward again, claiming his lips against yours. 
You were really eager; you didn't realize how touch-starved you were until tonight. You were pressed heavily against his side as you worked your lips over his. It was a very sloppy kiss, but you loved every second of it. His lips were so soft, you couldn't help but groan against them. 
You felt a rough hand against your sternum until it traced up towards your neck. His finger tips barely grazed the skin of your neck. He caressed you there for a moment before his grip turned firm, and he pushed you back just enough to get your attention. You whine in disappointment, and he kisses the pout on your lips.
“I said slow, baby I’m not going anywhere,” he says softly. He tries to keep things light so you don't become discouraged. “You taste so good; I want to savor it,” he soothes with praise.
He spoke in a way that made your stomach do backflips. You nod and take a deep breath. You wait patiently for him to lean in and allow him to take the lead. He kisses you slowly and sensually. You can fully understand what he meant earlier when he said he wanted to savor it. There was something about his slow, almost lazy kisses that had you gripping his thigh. He slips his tongue inside your mouth and strokes against yours. You gently suck on his tongue, matching his energy. When he pulls away, you have trouble catching your breath. 
“like that, ok? you try now” 
You lean in and kiss him, copying all the things he did to you before pulling away.
Your eyes were completely glazed over at this point. Your body was loose, all tension from before evaporating. His kisses were like liquor.
“Good baby,” he says.
You were ready for more, so you sank off the couch until you were situated between his legs. He doesn't say a word while you buckle his belt, holding your eye contact as you discard it to the side. He helps you by pulling his pants down his thighs before pulling himself out of his briefs. He stood in front of you completely hard, and your heart feels light. 
You did it! He was hard, and all you did was kiss. first obstacle overcome! You smile dopely at him, and he returns the look with a soft smile before caressing your cheek. 
“What are you so happy for, baby? Want it that bad?” He says this, stroking himself languidly.
With your new-found confidence, you shoo his hand away and grip the base.
step one… firm grip
step two… pump and suck
or was it suck then pump?
You tried to remember the articles you had read, but it was like your brain was short-circuiting.
“Relax, baby, don't think about it.” He pats the top of your head soothingly “Open your mouth,” he guides. You do as he says and wait for the next command, “stick your tongue out”
You stick out your tongue and slap the length lightly against your fat tongue before pulling it off and licking from the base to the tip again.
You lick at the underside of his tip before kissing it. “Is this ok?” you ask shakily. From the way his breath picks up slightly, you suppose your off to a good start.
"Baby, you are doing so good for me. "Just like I taught you, take it slow," he says, panting a little. 
You give him a nod, then glance back at his lovely pink tip. You suck on the tip experimentally, being extra cautious of your teeth. When you pulled up, you massaged the head with your tongue. You get comfortable, and soon your ready to take more. You slip down further on his length and stroke what you cannot fit in your mouth. His cock had a slight curve to it, and you were hesitant to go deeper. You didn't account for that with the straight popsicles you would suck. You stay within your comfort zone and work him as best you can. You start twisting your wrist at his base, and when you come up for air, you drag your hand up, chasing your mouth, to twist your wrist at his tip. This causes him to let out a moan.
“Just like that, baby, you’re doing so good” 
The praise goes to your head, and before you can second-guess yourself, you suck one of his balls gently into your mouth. the way his hips jerk up suddenly scares you. you think you did something wrong but he immediately encouraged you. 
“Keep your eyes on me, baby; im close” 
You kiss your way back up the shaft until you take it back into your mouth. you moan around his length and he shudders. 
“That's right, baby, almost there,” he says, his voice thick with arousal. You feel his hand at the back of your neck as it gently guides you up and down. “do you trust me?” he asks
You nod subtly, trying not to scrape him with your teeth. “Breathe in deep,” he tells you as he lifts you off his length.
You take a deep breath, and you know what is coming. You practiced for this. You were ready.
He guides you back down his length. Slowly sinking you down, forcing you to take more of him as he hits the back of your throat. Your eyes tear up immediately, and your hands move to grip at his thighs. Your nose is tucked into his abdomen as you deep-throat him. 
Yes! You were doing it! This wasnt so-
You cough violently after a few seconds of having him down your throat, and he pulls you up immediately. You catch your breath, trying to contain your harsh coughing fit. Renjun is stroking himself in front of you, and you open your mouth again, letting him stroke over your tongue. 
Without warning, he finishes all over your lips and face. You lick at your lips, tasting the mess. It tasted salty and bitter
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It was a long day; you didn't have any courses today, but you'd just finished a lengthy shift and wanted to relax. Soft music fills your home while you give yourself the princess treatment. You really needed to relax, so you lit a few candles. 
When you get home, you take a hot bath. You had filled the tub with bubbles, which reached your neck as you sank down into it. 
Only when there was a knock did you realize there was a body in the doorway. You nearly leap out of your skin, only to discover it was Chenle. 
“What are you doing in my house” you heave in a breath, trying to calm your heart.
With a playful hop onto your countertop, he mocks you, "Spare key." You feel at ease in his company despite being nude; Chenle was more like a brother to you. The bubbles were pretty dense, so you doubted he could see anything. “Had to do a welfare check; you werent texting back in the groupchat”
“I've been busy,” you say hesitantly. You hadnt told your friends about your escapades. You were too nervous, and you definitely knew they wouldn't like the idea of you meeting up with strangers in the middle of the night.
“Your hiding something,” he said, narrowing his eyes at you
"Well, I am in the middle of taking a bath,” you joke.
“Not what I mean,” he says, rolling his eyes “what have you been up to, you sneak”
You gave a deep, heavy sigh. Lele was the kind of person who would dig until he found the truth, so it was best to just tell him. You spare the two of you the hassle.
“I took your advice.”
“My advice?”
“Yeah, on practicing... you said I should practice if I wanted to get better.”
“I was wondering why you had three twelve packs of bombpops in your freezer” Lele tilted his head with a nod.
“So I did, and... I hooked up with someone” You sink further into the tub until only your eyes are visible above the bubbles.
“Tell me everything; I want every detail.” A Cheshire grin spreads across his face as he smiles at you, crossing his arms over his chest. 
Honestly, you have been dying to talk to someone about this. You tell him how you met Renjun through Tinder, how sweet he was, and how comfortable he made you. Chenle is leaning forward, nodding along with everything you say, fully immersed in your story. It wasn't until you finished that he let out a shocked chuckle.
"Wow, baby bird has finally left the nest,” he jokes, “so whats next? You're going to keep seeing this guy?”
You liked Renjun, but you weren't ready for a relationship just yet, especially after only swallowing his dick. You aren't done with your expirations yet. You still had to find your other test subjects. You reasoned that including a variable would help you assess how much you were progressing and if you were truly improving. Renjun was nice, but it was almost time for someone new.
“Maybe. I dont know. Im not really ready for a relationship”
“Are you just looking for something fun?”
Precisely
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Although he told you a thousand times that you did an amazing job, you still weren't satisfied. You could hardly take him down your throat. You would need more practice if you were going to be able to take on something bigger one day. 
You had been training your gag reflex lately; this would decide if you were ready to move on to the next stage. You had looked up somewhere that practicing on a banana might get you used to the natural curve of a penis, but when it broke off into your throat and you almost choked on it, you decided to play it safe and stick to your ice pops. At least those would melt before you choked and died. You could stand proud the next time you see Renjun. 
He buzzed you up like last time, and your steps were a little lighter as you bound up his stairs for the second time.
“Hey pretty, are you ready for another lesson?”
This time, as he brings you in, he takes you directly to his bedroom. You get a little nervous; you weren't ready for that yet.  He notices your tense shoulder and laughs softly. “Calm down; we’re not doing anything like that. I just wanted you to be comfortable,” he explains
You relax and follow him as he crawls into his bed. His room was very... Renjun, or at least what you thought Renjun to be like. Ambient mood lighting casts a gentle golden glow throughout his space. He was very clean and ordered, and his room had an overall calm and cozy vibe to it. 
He got comfortable against his headboard, and as you positioned yourself in between his legs on your stomach. His bed sheets smelled like fresh laundry, and it was like you were lying on a cloud. You prop yourself up on your elbows and begin working. You are grateful that things with Renjun were strictly business. You hated small talk, and this dynamic would make things less awkward in the long run. You reach forward and are about to pull him out of his shorts when he stops your wrists short. 
“You gotta work me up, baby, not yet,” he explains. 
Slow, steady, and sensual. That's how Renjun liked to move. You were getting better at understanding him. He liked it slow, and he liked it when you teased him.
You trailed your hand up and down his thighs; he was only in some sleep shorts, so you teasingly trailed your hand under the fabric and stroked high on his skin. You pushed up the other leg of his shorts as you laid hot kisses against the skin there. You kissed up his thigh and over his bulge that was starting to strain against his shorts. He was bare under, and just the thought alone had your mouth watering. You had to remind yourself to take it slow.
You trail your hand even higher under the fabric of his shorts until you softly grip his length. You kiss him through the fabric as you softly stroke his hard cock. It was right in front of you, and he was refusing you. You had to squeeze your thighs together as you pictured the way you would finally get to shove his cock down your throat. Your grip tightens at the thought, and his soft moans that now flow from his lips tell you that he's ready for more.
You finally slip him out of his shorts and take him into your mouth. You rest the tip against your tongue as you lazily lick him up. You hold his eye contact as you take more and more of him into your mouth. You hum around him in pleasure as his face twists in pleasure. 
"Fuck, mmm so pretty. so fucking pretty with your mouth full,” he moans "I could watch you all day, just like that baby, just like that”
You could feel that familiar sense clouding your head; you were sinking again. Your thoughts traveled to that special place, and his words alone made you feel drunk. 
Fuck going slow; you needed him down your throat. You pull up to take a deep breath in through your nose and sink down on him again. You take all of him and settle at his base. You look up at him from your position, and you can see his mouth drop open in a silent moan.
He heaves a breath and grips the sheets as you slurp loudly on your way up. You work at his base with a tight fist before sinking back down again. You repeat the motion a few times before you feel his hands collecting your hair up into a ponytail. He uses the makeshift ponytail as a handle to guide you up and down his length. The next time you come down, he holds you still for a few seconds, and you can feel his hips shyly cant up, fucking your throat. You cough hard and smack at his thigh for air. He draws you up, and your wet, tearful eyes meet his. However, a fox returned the stare. The fox he had hidden beneath his sheep's skin was finally showing his teeth. 
“Back down, baby, we're going to make you learn tonight,” he says “Open your mouth”
You obey, and he grips your jaw with one hand while the other brushes his length on your lips before lowering you flush against his pelvis. “Come on, take it. Its all yours pretty,” he grunts, fucking your face until he feels your throat tighten again and he pulls you up. “Breathe, come on, baby we got to get that throat fucked out”
And your down again. He pulls you up and holds your head in place as he thrusts shallowly into your mouth and over your tongue. “Hands off, I got you," was another command.
You snake one of your hands down your front as he uses your throat for his own pleasure. He was so deep down your throat that you never wanted him to pull out. You circle your clit a few times as you get lost in your own pleasure.
“Almost there, look at me,” he cries as his hips begin to stutter so close to release. He brings you down again, and his thighs shake. He was about to pull you up, no doubt to finish on your face, but you refused to pull off. You force him to cum deep down your throat.
You pull off swallowing quickly before you start coughing again. You help him ride it out with a few weak pumps of his cock. You watch him catch his breath as he looks at you with nothing but disbelief in his eyes. 
“How was that? Was that okay? Was I going to fast-”
He sits up and pushes you back onto the bed. He kisses you deeply and moans at the lingering taste of himself on your tongue.
“How about I show you?” He kisses down your body over your clothes until hes settled between your legs. “Let me show you how that felt, please. Let me make you feel good,” he begs
The look he gives you makes you ruin your panties all over again. You had never had anyone touch you like that before but you trusted him.
“Show me”
You conquered the blowjob and then the blowjob conquered you. After passing out in his room, you snuck out the next morning before his roommates woke up. You didn't plan on seeing him again after this and that left you feeling a bit down. There was no time to dwell on it, though. It made you wonder if Renjun was correct in saying you were moving too fast, since after two positive experiences, you were already thinking about exploring further.
Who would be your next target?
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RIDING
Renjun was right. Renjun was 100% right. You needed to slow down. 
You wanted to move things along; you were eager to learn more about your own body, so you opted to start small. Well, as little as a 7-inch dildo could be. Although you had never used a toy like this before, you were no stranger to an orgasm. You definitely made yourself come before but you used some shoddy vibrator you got when you were 18 from the back of some edgey store in the mall that had a small adult section. 
You had ordered this toy offline and didn't think it would be as big as it was until you got it in the mail. It wasn't super grithy but the stretch still scared you. Maybe you should have listened to the online forums and started small with 4 inches but at the time, 4 inches didn't sound like a lot. That was less than a five-dollar footlong at subway and you were always still hungry after eating one of those. No matter how much lube you used, no matter how aroused you were, you couldn't take it. You will have to try again later.
You had effectively scared yourself back into a corner. You decided to take a break from your “studies” and focus on school and work. Maybe you just weren't ready to leave your comfort zone yet.
Your life returns to normal for a bit; you work, come home, then sleep. You wake up early for class, go to work, then come home and sleep. You wake up early for class, go out with your friends, come home, and then sleep. It was a constant rinse and repeat of the same things. You had hobbies but none of them were as interesting as the one thing plaguing your mind recently. 
You needed dick, bad.
Against your better judgement, you eventually hit Renjun up again and you guys meet up a few more times. He'd come over to your house the last few times because he complained about not being able to get his roommates out of the house. You loved pleasing Renjun and he loved pleasing you but his tongue and fingers weren't enough for your greedy pussy anymore. You needed more.
You lay in bed one night after Renjun left, having finished another session with you and even though he had made you cum your pussy was still throbbing for more. You knew if you had asked, he would have given it to you, but you wanted to investigate on your own and conduct your own research before diving headfirst into something like that. 
You reach down into your soaked panties and rub at your clit lazily. You squeeze your legs together as your pussy clamps down around nothing. You try to mimic the way Renjun had his fingers shoved knuckles deep in you earlier; you trace at your slit and work in a finger curling it the same way he did. It wasn't enough. You add another one and work yourself up, pumping your fingers pathetically inside and grinding the palm of your hand against your clit. It still wasn't enough, and even adding a third finger still didn't satisfy you. You needed something bigger. You shudder at the thought but pull your fingers out of your dripping cunt. You reach under your bed for your box and set it on your bed before pulling out your new toy. 
“Take it slow; just like I taught you,” you repeat his words to yourself.
You line the toy up to your entrance and coat it in your juices. Your about to push it inside when you decide to play it safe and add more lube. Now that the toy is fully coated, you can get comfortable on your back and ease it inside. Your a lot more relaxed this time than when you first tried. Renjun had already made you cum earlier, and you thank him for his services. You slid the tip in and took more and more until it was at least 2/3 inside. You didn't particularly like the rubbery feel of the dildo; you bet Renjun would feel better nuzzled deep inside you. You imagine him inside of you and its like your body opens up and your able to take the rest. 
You kick your legs open further, spreading them wider. You don't move for a few seconds, getting used to something being this deep inside of you. You found it hard to pull the toy out, your insatiable core clamping down tight onto it. Your able to find a small, shallow rhythm, barely able to pull it out, your back arching as you fuck yourself. You wriggle as you shove the toy in farther—suddenly, seven inches was not enough. Deeper, that is what you wanted. You would need to find something bigger. You grow close but you can't quite take yourself over the edge. You reached down with your free hand and rubbed at your clit. Your essence coats the toy as you topple over and spill all over it. Your bones are tired and you pray that you can wake up on time in the morning. You drag yourself to the bathroom, clean yourself up, and know that when you finally crawl into bed, you will sleep through all of your alarms.
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You spend the following few days getting to know your body. You eventually part with your old toy and get a new vibrator—you choose a wand. Toys are expensive; you had no idea till you went shopping for them. There were a ton of beautiful ones. You ordered a gorgeous pink glass one, for which you were really excited. 
The sensation of having something tucked away deep inside you had grown on you, but you still craved more. You could never get over the fact that you were fucking a toy, no matter how lifelike it seemed. You were getting off to plastic when you had already had the real thing at your fingertips once. You were ready for more.
Swiping. You swiped all day long, but no one genuinely intriguing drew your attention. You came to the realization that Renjun was a true blessing. Just as you were about to give up, a promising-looking message appeared on your phone. 
The most gorgeous lips you had ever seen were the first thing you noticed. You knew right away that you needed them all over your body; they looked so soft. Although his profile picture was basic, it did not matter because his face was the main attraction. He had very dear-like features and you noticed the moles that dotted his tan skin. Haechan was definitely someone you wanted to get to know.
“I think theres something wrong with my phone”
“???”
“Your number’s not in it”
"Cornball, your getting blocked.”
“Give me a chance!”
His face demanded that you at least give him a chance to speak, and you did. After talking to him for a minute longer, he was charming. You noticed his quick wit and that immediately drew you to him. He was different from Renjun. He was cocky but not in an arrogant way. He had confidence and thats exactly what you needed. You needed someone to talk you through it and teach you how they liked it and haechan seemed like the guy. You give him the same speech you gave Renjun, about you being inexperienced and looking for someone to learn from. Someone to study. You tell him what you want to improve on, and he texts back shortly after
“I’ll have you riding like a pro in no time, trust me”
You trusted him.
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He was late and you were growing impatient. You were waiting patiently in your living room for a text from haechan. He was supposed to be coming over tonight; normally, you prefer going to them because you really dont like letting strangers know where you live but it turns out he went to the same university as you so that made you feel a tad bit better. You had dressed in something simple but effective: your favorite lace camI and matching silk shorts. You even took the time to prep yourself before he got there. On the bright side, if he didn't show up, you could finally try out the pink glass dildo that came in the mail a few days ago. A knock at the door shakes you from your thoughts. 
Although you were just complaining, now that he's here, you start to get a bit nervous. This was the first time you would be having penetrative sex with anyone. You shuffle over to the door in your house shoes and look through your peep hole. Messy black hair was peeking out from under a hoodie as the figure in front of your door scrolled through their phone. You tentatively open your door, not taking the chain off until you can clearly see his face. He looks up at the sound of the door opening and sends you a grin.
“I don’t bite”
“Thats exactly what someone who bites would say”
“Then you would be right”
You shut the door and take the chain off the hook before opening it fully again and letting him in.
He eyes you up and down, drinking in your figure. You do the same and under the light of your living room, you see him in all his glory. You send a quick prayer up to the tinder gods for blessing you again. He was dressed in grey sweats with a black hoodie pulled over his head but boy was he handsome. You take a daring step forward and push the hoodie off his head before wrapping your arms around his neck. Long black bangs fall into his eyes and the way he pears down at you through them has your legs feeling weak already.
“You gonna be mine for tonight?” he asks sultry 
“Just for tonight?” he licks his lips at that.
“Your right, gotta teach you how to fuck me.”
“That could take a while,” you tease.
“Use me for how ever long you need, I’m all yours,” he says 
You pull him down, claiming his lips with yours. You pull his hoodie up and he pulls it the rest of the way off before his hands are creeping up your sides.
In all the ways Renjun poured over you, slow and thick, engulfing you whole like honey, Haechan was brisk and jagged, pulling you every which way rapidly like a river as he flowed through you.
You tried to use what Renjun taught you but that wasn't going to fly with Haechan. You had to learn to adapt to Haechan. He didn't like it slow; he liked to move at a quick pace. If you pull away, he is on you, chasing your lips for another taste. If you stumble back, he's gripping you tight and pulling you closer. Haechan had almost a desperate kind of love. 
You’re finally able to peel off of him and catch your breath and he wastes no time in moving down your body to your neck, kissing and leaving marks for you to find in the morning. His hands slide down your back and grip your ass. He kneads your plush ass before pulling you closer, your front flush to his. He had backed you up into a wall at this point and you suddenly felt him nudge his leg between yours.
"Are you ready for your first lesson?” He says that as he moves one hand back to your hip, he uses his grip to pull you over his thigh. He grinds you down into the muscle and you shudder at the feeling. ”Just like that baby, that's it.”
You follow his lead and weakly grind your hips into his thick thighs. You could feel everything between the thin fabric of your silk shorts, the fabric dampening at the front and the cold press of the cloth against your clit makes you shiver. 
“Like you mean it, come on,” he coos
You pout but grind down harder. You were looking for that praise that Renjun gave you so easily; Haechan was going to make you work for it. 
“There we go bear, just like that, thats my girl,” he says, helping you along until you whine for more. You needed more; you loved his thighs but you brought him here to learn how to ride a dick. 
"Ready for you to bite," you declare, rolling your hips with assurance. 
He tilts his head with a scoff, tongue in cheek. "Suddenly, you can handle it?”
You reach out and pull him to your lips again to shut him up. He continues to grind you down until a patch of your wetness forms against his thigh, until your hips tire and your legs shake. 
He can feel your movements grow weaker and he nudges your forehead with his when you drop your head. 
“Not so tough are we baby? Gotta work on that stamina,” he grins devishly. you send him a fleeting glare. Oh, he was going to work you out. “fix your face; you asked for this, you wanna learn; you better listen” 
You want to argue back but all you can do is slump against his thigh and throw your head back against the wall to catch your breath. Haechan pulls away from you and has to catch you before your legs give out from under you. He leads you over to your couch and sits down. legs spread wide, sitting you on his lap. You straddle his waist and your thighs cramp up.
You groan out and move off to spread your legs out over his thighs, sitting on the couch instead. He snickers at you but works the kink out of your thighs.
"Are you ready to listen now?” he asks and you nod shamfully. “It may look easy but it takes a lot of stamina to ride. You gotta pace yourself, baby.” 
You nod and let out a yawn. He had already tired you out and you hadn't even started. 
“Don't tap out on me yet; come on just a little more and I'll let you rest,” he urges you back on top of him after properly easing out the tension on your thighs. You reluctantly get back on top and relax into his hold. With a mischievous grin, he sits you squarely on top of his bulge.
“If you can hold out long enough to make me cum, next time I'll let you ride it,” he says, kissing your lips before leaning back against the couch, waiting for your next move. You whine and try to lean forward against his chest. You were tired and if you were going to do this, you needed a clutch but he could see right through you. 
“Nu-uh, sit up; you got this.” 
You send him a frown but you start to move your hips none the less. You find a rhythm and pace yourself like he instructed. His hands rest on your hips uselessly, making you do all the work. You brace one hand on his shoulder and the other on his knee as you roll your hips into his. He felt so good pressed up against your center. His eyes were hidden behind his bangs and the sight of him leaning up against the sofa, his head resting confidently on the back of the couch, while a lazy smile played at his lips was making you dizzy. You swivel your hips and his breath picks up. You think he's close with the way he grips your hips loosely now. He's biting his lip, urging you to ride faster and push past the pace you set for yourself. He bounces you in his lap shallowly as he fucks up into you. 
He has to be so close. He has to be because your thighs are starting to feel that familiar but unfamiliar burn as you lose your momentum again. 
“Don't stop, fuck,” he groans. 
He was close; you could see it in the way his back arched off the couch slightly, his breath hitched and his eyebrows pinched, but he didn't finish because you collapsed before he could.
Your breathing is heavy. your heaving chest from exhaustion against his heaving chest from exasperation. You had just unknowingly edged him. 
“I cant, please,” you cry.
He strokes your back soothingly “You did great today, baby. We have all the time in the world for you to get it right,” he reassures.
and you feel better because he was right
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You didn't expect Haechan to take his job so seriously. He was committed to having you ride like a pro by the end of the month at the latest. He sent you exercises to help you build stamina and strength while on top. You did your own research as well and found some good stretches to try because you did not want to cramp up again. You did plenty of at-home exercises and you were feeling really good about your improvements. 
You didn't expect the large package that arrived at your door one evening. You surely don't remember ordering anything and when you pull it inside and open the box, your pleasantly surprised. Inside the box sat a teddy bear. The box could barely contain the bear and when you struggled to pull it out, you understood why. The bear was at least 5 feet tall when you laid it out. Deep inside the bottom of the box lies a single card.
For practice <3
       —sunny boy
You roll your eyes and dial “sunny boy.”  The phone rings and then a voice answers. “Did you get your present?”
“You cant be serious; this thing must have cost a fortune! I appreciate the enthusiasm but you really dont have to do this”
“Friends help friends”
“Do you not get pussy or something?” 
“Wierd way of saying thanks but your welcome. Besides, I promised you I’d have you riding in no time,” he says over the line, “FaceTime me; I need to judge your progress”
“Sure you do, pervert”
You send over the FaceTime request and soon you’re looking at the top half of Haechan's face in what you assume to be his bedroom? Aside from his forhead being lit by his phone's light, it was too dark for you to see anything.
“Let me see your pretty face,” you coo
He whines and shifts the camera down more. He was so pretty and you would never get tired of looking at his face. You wish he would stop hiding from you. 
“Enough talking, let's see what you got” Straight forward as always. Oh,  how you adore him.
"Ok, hold up” You put him in your pocket as you haul the giant teddy to your room and drag it up into your bed. You spend the next few minutes setting up your phone and getting the right angle. You were wearing boy shorts and a tank top, which was nearly identical to what you had on when you first met him. 
You suddenly feel shy under the gaze of the camera. You had the front camera facing you so you could still see haechans face and you mounted the teddy and you imagined it was him there under you. You hold his gaze through the lens as you grind down into the toy firmly. You roll your hips sharply and suck in a breath. He watches you intently; you see him rustling about on the screen; you could only imagine what he was doing.
You never thought you could be the dominant type, but when you rode, something clicked, and you loved it. You loved being in control. It felt good to be in charge every once in a while. It was all about you when you were riding.
Your hands travel up the teddy until they wrap around the bear's neck. You held it down in place as you rode it, taking it slow, saving your energy like he taught you. There was no rush when you rode; you controlled the pace. You could hear Haechans muffled moans through the phone and it made your ride a little rougher. Your eyes glaze over as you picture your hands around his pretty neck. You wonder if he would make those pretty noises for you or if he would hide them. Your hips don't stop for a second and you whine at the lack of heat against your skin. Nothing was more satisfying than feeling Haechan's warm body against yours and inhaling his scent. The thought alone had you sticking to your shorts. 
“Show me what your doing,” You dont know what overcame you; you could barely recognize the person who spoke those words, even though they came out of your mouth.
A delicious moan tumbles from his lips as he angles his camera down to show his hand working furiously over himself. He angles it so far down that his face is no longer visible, and you instantly miss the sight of his plump lips trapped between his teeth. “Let me see you, baby. All of you”
He tilts the camera back up and the dazed look he sends you has you clenching around nothing. The way his hips thrust into his palm pathetically has you curling over the stuffed animal as you fuck into it repeatedly. Haechan's head falls back as his mouth hangs open in heavy breaths. He finishes over himself with a shudder. You watch him, sitting up a little straighter and slowing down your hips as you catch your breath.
“How was that?” you ask with a smirk
“5 stars”
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You were in a good mood, and nothing could stop the excited skip in your step as you walked. Even your friends took notice of your happy demeanor; they didn’t know what had gotten into you but they hoped it was dick. Well, Lele knew and honestly, you were surprised he hadn't gone mouthing off to the others. 
You are out running errands with Yuna when you get a call from him. You pick up the call in the middle of the grocery store, following behind Yuna and her buggy. 
“Are you ready to hear the best news of your life?” he starts when you answer
You put him on speaker, nudging Yuna to pay attention. She raises a brow, asking who it is without saying a word. "Lele,” you mouth.
“I'm scared,” you finally reply to him. You were in the pet supplies aisle and luckily no one was around. You never knew what could come out of this man's mouth.
“I got you a date with that cute cashier; turns out he's Jisung’s cousin!” 
Yuna sends you a shocked look. She grabs the phone from you excitedly “are you talking about the guy who checked us out last week at that thrift store?” she gushes
You and a couple of your friends went thrifting last week, and when it came time to pay, the cutest guy was there to cash you out. You remember looking at his name tag and remembering his name was Mark. Your friends swore he was checking you out, but you ignored them all. The poor guy was probably just trying to do his job, so you left without asking for his phone number.
“Yuna? Are you guys out right now? No invite, wow,” you hear him pouting on the other line
“You want to help Yuna put up twenty bags of groceries? Be my guest,” you complain. 
Yuna hated going shopping alone, and choosing who to drag out shopping with her next was like playing Russian roulette. 
“Dont change the subject!”
“What? but you did—”
“I gave mark your number and he said he was going to text you so be on the look out!”
You want to be happy. Mark was really cute and he looked so sweet but you still had a hard time connecting with people like that. Before you could answer, Yuna beat you too it.
“Dont worry, I'll be on the look out”
Chenle says something about being late and that he would call later for updates before ending the call. Just when you were giving him props, you should have known he was up to something.
"So, mark huh?” Yuna coos
“I dont know, Yuna, its been awhile since Ive been on a date; i’m really not looking for a relationship right now,” you groan. Your head was spinning with the news. You had a thousand things going through your mind. More stress was not what you needed. You definitely didn't have any time for anyone right now with your studies (not the academic kind) going on.
“Oh please, this iexactlyly what you need! Who said anything about a relationship? Why not just have some fun?”
Funny, it was like those words that started all of this.
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You and Mark have been texting on and off for a few days now. He was one of the most down-to-earth people you had ever met, and you had even visited him at work, feigning looking for some scrap fabric for a project for class. You guys had gone on that date that he promised and ever since then, you have grown close with Mark. You wanted to grow closer to him so close that his body was on top of yours. 
You weren't ready yet, though; you still had a few things you wanted to learn. You did end up going on a few more dates with him and one night after a few drinks, things got a little handsy. Nothing explicit happened and ultimately you told him you weren't looking for anything serious at the time. He took it surprisingly well and you two have been chill since. He has broached the topic of friends with benefits with you and you had told him you would be down but you haven't brought it up since. You need more time. When you finally have Mark, you want to give him everything and more. You need everything to be perfect.
You would not mess this up, not again.
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Haechan was coming over and you were excited that you could finally take him for a test run. You would think you were training for a marathon rather than sex the way he was training you. Unlike last time, he got there perfectly on time. You had made sure to stretch before hand and when he walked through your door, you could barely get a “hi” in before he was picking you up and wrapping your legs around him.
“I've been waiting for you,” he mumbles, his lips pressed against yours. He kicks your door closed and pins you up against it. 
“Let me make it worth your while then,” you call back and wrap your arms around his neck, tangling your fingers in his hair. 
Haechan's kisses make you feel like you were drowning; he stole your breath like water replaces air in your lungs. It was like how waves rocked you peacefully in their embrace until you realized you needed to come up for air. You never wanted to come up for air.
Soon you were on your back, spread out in your bed with him on top of you. His hands were everywhere and he finally took pity on you and pulled away, letting fresh air fill your burning lungs. His kisses move to your neck as skilled hands undress you. You were getting lost in his touch and when you felt your mind slip into that place you sometimes went, that submissive headspace, you knew you had to snap out of it. Tonight was supposed to be your rodeo, not his. You were almost completely naked, save for your panties and he was still fully clothed. You raise yourself onto your elbows, watching him as he kisses you down your body. He kisses your navel before peeking up at you. You grab hold of his hair, pulling him back up to reconnect your lips. You use your lips to distract him before you push him down and flip your positions. 
You straddle his waist and brace yourself on his chest. You smile in victory but all Haechan does is adjust the pillow behind his head before resting his hands beneath it. That stubborn smirk—let's see how long it takes you to whip that grin off his face.
“Im ready when you are sweetheart” 
The first roll off your hips speaks for itself. Slow and firm. You wanted to make him feel it. You can feel him pressing heavily through the fabric of his sweats and you can feel yourself clenching at the thought of him filling you up later. You grind your clothed pussy against him, gripping his shirt in your fist as you work your hips over top of him. The smirk falters a bit as he huffs out a breathy sigh. He's good at taking what you give him; he just lies there and lets you use him, just like you used the stuffed animal he gave you. 
“How am I doing so far?”
“So good,” he says off-handedly, more focused on the way your hips move. You smiled; it was time to give him more.
You slid off of him and he groans at the loss of heat. You help him out of his clothes and he lies before you naked. Your eyes examine his body and you moan at the sight of him. His dick was almost as pretty as his face. You had enough waiting; you wanted him inside. You mount his hips again and line him up with your entrance, coating the tip in your slick. 
“Keep your hands right there; I don't need your help.” You instruct him to keep his hands gripped in the sheets. You wanted to show him you could ride it all by yourself. 
“Fuck me,” he moans impatiently, his hips pushing up slightly, trying to slip through your folds.
"Are you sure there are no other tips you want to give me?” you tease
“I'm trying to give you mine if you would sit down,” he groans.
You grab the base of his length and sink down on top of him. You were so wet, he slipped in easily. You were flush against him—hips against hips. You had to take a few moments to collect your thoughts. He felt so good inside of you. You had never felt so full before; no toy could ever match the feeling of having Haechan stuffed inside of you. You were going to use him until he broke. You steady yourself over his chest again and lift your hips slowly, savoring the drag of him against your walls. You look into his eyes and his brows furrow at the feeling. You drop back down on him harshly. Your thighs tingled in the pleasure but they didn't burn; the exercises had paid off. You set a brutal pace on top of him as you use him. You had practically forgotten he was even there for a second until his loud moans filled the room. You had grabbed a hold of his cheeks, pushing his face into the pillow. You felt an upkick at your hips and you looked down to see his hips thrusting up into yours. You caught his rhythm and matched his pace, giving him everything he gave you in return. You let up on him and gave him space to breathe. His hands are at your waist the next moment and he's gripping tight, helping you fuck onto him. 
“Don't stop, please. Let me do this; I need it,” he begs before his feet are planted on the bed and he's using all his force to pound into you from below. Your mouth drops open and you have to brace yourself on his chest again so you don't fall off. Your hands slip up a little farther and they encompass his neck beautifully. He lay under you, moans tumbling out of his mouth, his hair messy on his forehead, his tan skin damp with sweat and when your hands grip his neck, you think the image it creates against him should be a painting. 
Your eyes daze and your mind slips but this time you don't go to that place that makes you want to give everything up to your last breath. This place is different. This place makes you feel bold and makes you want to take and take until Haechan trembles. This place makes you feel powerful. 
“Fu-fuck baby, please,” he gasps, his eyes rolling to the back of his head breathlessly “Give it to me; fucking use me. Hurt me,” he whimpers the last part. You completely snapped. You don't know who you are; you don't know what this headspace is but it craves the tears that fall down Haechan's face pathetically. 
“Hold still,” you say, pushing at his knees and motioning for him to lay back down flat. You wanted complete control. Your grip tightens and your hips roll sharply over his. So deep, everything feels so much; you feel everything at once and you’re certain your soaking Haechan’s lap. Only now do your thighs burn but now the ache adds to the pleasure. Your so focused on your own pleasure that your grip loosens and as the air rushes back into Haechan's lungs, he feels a high like no other and his orgasm crashes into him. His thighs shake and he orgasms deep inside of you. After a few more harsh flicks of your hips, you cum hard, sending a shiver down your spine. 
You had previously discussed it because he would be the first person you would have inside of you. You had already been on birth control for some time and you had both been checked. You wanted to stay protected. Your not sure if he took your virginity or if you took his with how dazed he looked under you.  
"Look who couldn't handle it” you brag smugly.
“Of course, your amazing. I taught you.”
“So you like being used? You smile, lying down next to him to catch your breath “intersting”
“Don't push your luck; I'll still fuck you better. Make you forget your name.” you core clenches at the thought and you remind yourself to take him up on that eventually
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You pack your things, signaling the end of your English lecture. You exit the class with a yawn, having almost fallen asleep during the last half of the class. your walking across campus when you hear a voice call your name. You see Mark a few yards behind you. It turns out Mark also attended your college but only part time so you rarely saw him on campus. You return his smile and you are about to walk over to him when you see another figure moving towards you. 
Renjun? you hadnt seen him in awhile; you had been keeping it casual with him. He goes here too?? Just when you think it can't get any worse, Haechan rounds a corner and spots you too. You had ghosted him after the last time you two hooked up. you did not want to confront him right now. 
There is absolutely no way you just ran into all your hoes at the same time. 
You turn around and flee the scene before anyone can approach you further. You’re speed-walking in the opposite direction now when you run into Chenle and Yuna. “Ask questions later for now, run!” you say, pulling them along.
You don't stop dragging them until you make it to your car. Safe and sound inside, you lock the door and catch your breath. “What the hell was that about you? You looked like you saw a ghost” Chenle tries to calm his breathing, adjusting his signiture shades back into place.
“Was it Mark? I thought I saw him over there. Did something happen between you two?” Yuna asks, letting the passenger seat fall back to lay down and settle her own breaths.
You wish there was something going on between you and Mark, but nothing has happened since the last time you saw him.
“No, not mark, it was something else…or someones else” 
“someones?” she questions
You hated keeping things from your friends; you hadn't meant to keep it from them for this long but you had gotten so caught up in everything that you barely had the time to catch them up to speed. You explain everything. From Renjun to Haechan and to the new guy you recently found, Jaemin. You had moved study subjects already and you felt a little bad for ghosting Haechan like you did after all the effort he put into teaching you but with Mark as your end goal, you were really impatient to get to him.
The car is silent for a few moments, mainly from Yuna’s shock, before she finally decides to speak up. “How in the world did you go from being scared of the thought of dick to getting more dick than me?” 
“That's what your worried about!” 
“If you don’t want them, give them to me”
“YUNA!”
“Joking! I’m joking”
You feel a weight lifted from your shoulders now that you were able to tell Yuna how your life has really been going and what you’ve really been doing. Honeslty, you were getting really sick of replying with “nothing” anytime anyone would ask.
“Wait, why aren't you surprised” Yuna asks Chenle suspiciously.
oh my—
“You did not tell him before me!” Yuna narrows her eyes at you.
“She definitely did,” Chenle smiles. 
“You traitor!” 
“You know how he is! He practically threatened my family,” you say in defense.
You had no tint on your windows so to any onlookers, it probably looked like you guys were having a really heated argument. Everyone was talking at once and fingers were being pointed. The three of you continue to bicker until you hear a knock at your window and the car goes silent as everyone turns to look out the window.
Mark is standing outside your car nervously. “Is everything okay?” His muffled voice barely carries into the car. You roll your window down with a forced smile. This was perfect.
“How can I help you, officer?” You joke.
“I’m sorry, you just ran off earlier and I just wanted to, like, make sure you were ok.” he says, scratching at his face nervously.
“We’ll let you two talk,” Yuna says with a fake smile. Her and Chenle exit the car but not before she sends you a glare that says this isn't over.
After they left, you offered Mark a seat in your car. “Im sorry, I didn't like... interrupt. Did I?” he says awkwardly.
“Oh no, your fine. I’m sorry for earlier; I just realized I had forgotten something in my car. I needed it for my next class” You lie.
“Okay, thats good to hear. I thought you were like avoiding me for a second,” he laughs. “Your really cool and I don’t want what I said about being friends with benefits to ruin our relationship. We dont have to do anything if it makes you uncomfortable ” 
“That's not it at all! I really like you, mark I've just been a little...busy lately. I like the idea of being friends with benefits. Just give me some more time. I can’t really explain now,” you say. 
Out of all the conversations you wanted to avoid, this was definitely the one you wanted to avoid the most. You had no idea how to navigate this conversation. You wanted Mark so badly that it was driving you crazy but you just needed time. You were so close to the finish line that you couldn’t give up now.
“That’s cool, I get it.” He gives you a nod of understanding and he gets ready to leave, moving to open the door with a quick bye, probably needing to get to his next class. You wanted to leave him with something. You had to do something to hold you both over so you didn’t stop the next words that came out of your mouth.
“Before you go, can I have a kiss?” you ask sweetly. Mark just smiles at you and shakes his head fondly before leaning in and sealing your lips with his. 
THE HANDJOB
It was probably a little too late in the game for you to be trying this but somehow your quick pecks turned into heavy petting. Now you had Mark’s dick in your hands. Mark was kissing hotly into your nouth as you stroked him slowly. You twist your hand at the base of his cock, focusing most of your attention there. After a few moments, you feel Mark’s hips shift and buck into your grasp. His hand joins yours and guides your hand higher.
“Don't tease. Please, I need you,” he breathes into your mouth.
When you sucked dick, your hand typically pumped the base. You would concentrate your attention on the areas that your mouth couldn’t reach. Without your mouth focused on the tip, you would have to make up for the lack of contact. You appreciate the information; every moment is a learning opportunity for you. Even now, you were able to gather data for your research.  
You follow his lead and stroke the length of his length, twisting your wrist when you get to his tip. Mark's head falls back and rests against the headrest of the car. You pray no one's eyes wander to your small sedan because, from the faces Mark was pulling, they would no doubt know what was going on. 
Mark's face scrunches up in pleasure and after a few more firm strokes over his cock, he cums. His seed pours messily over your fist. By the end of it, your arm was a little tired but it was definitely worth it.
He gives you a shy smile and apologizes. You reach over with your clean hand and get some napkins from your glove compartment. You assure him one last time that you definitely want to be more than just friends with him and that you will let him know when you’re ready. He left the car with a smile and your glad to have taken care of that because you were late to go meet Jaemin. There was still more you wanted to learn. There were more things you needed to experiment with.
SIZE 
You had actually met Jaemin at a cafe. He sat at the table in front of you, glasses pushed up on his nose as he typed away at his computer. His white hair made him stand out and gave him a soft, rabbit-like appearance but there was something about his face that made him look devastly charming and boyish but you couldn't quite put your finger on it. He quickly stops typing and you notice that he is staring back at you. He sends you a smile and you return it awkwardly. 
Fumbling the bag—I repeat, you are FUMBLING the bag.
You try your best to avoid his gaze again until you finish your own classwork and collect your things. Your leaving the cafe when you notice him in your peripheral vision, trying to get your attention. You thought he was going to tell you off for staring like some creep but he handed you his number instead. Fast forward; now you have a dick appointment.
After some talking and explaining, you give him your usual spiel. You were supposed to meet up with him today right after class but a few setbacks made you late. You finally arrive at the location he had specified, and you are immediately perplexed.
This was Renjun's apartment.
You walk up the familiar steps and hesitantly knock on the door. Your so used to Renjun opening the door that when Jaemin opens it, your slightly taken aback. What the hell was going on?
“Hey, come on in,” he says as you stand there stiff as a board. You shake yourself out of it and step through the door. 
“I'm sorry I was late. Something came up,” you apologize.
“Its fine, my roomates are going to be out for the night so we have the house to ourselves for awhile,” he smiles at you. Just looking at that dazzling smile makes you forget about your internal dilemma.
You would worry about that later; tonight it was just you and this handsome stranger you met.
He leads you to his bedroom and you can't help but notice his room is directly across from Renjuns. You would definitely need a list of his roommates because you refused to find yourself in this situation again. The thought slips from your mind as Jaemin pulls you into his room and shuts the door. 
“Are you okay, angel? You look a little shaken up?” he asks attentively.
"No, its ok, im just stressed about classes. I’m hoping you could help me relax?” you lie smoothly.
He gives you a sly smile and you hold your breath as he leans down to whisper in your ear. “You wont be able to think straight when I’m done with you”
You suck in a breath and your body completely opens up to him as his hands tentatively trail up your waist. He strokes your sides teasingly as he kisses the sides of your mouth before trailing his lips down your neck. His touch was light and soft, like you were a porcelain doll. You try to reach up and hold on to him but he just pulls away slightly and shakes his head.
"Nu-uh, baby hands to yourself until I say otherwise,” he corrects you.
You pout and open your mouth to protest but he grabs your face and holds you in his grasp. “Big girls don’t talk back. Fix your face,” he commands
You swallow nervously and nod your head. He kisses your lips once “Thats my girl”
He took his time mapping out your body with his hands. He was in no rush at all and you had to bite your tongue to hold back your whines. His hands gripped your ass, squeezed your hips, traced your spine and palmed your chest. He examined you with the same curiosity that a child does with a new toy or a scientist does with a new test subject. The tables had been turned. You weren't the one with the magnifying glass now; he was. 
He helped you out of your clothes and you stood in front of him in only your underwear. He turns you away from him before pulling you back against him, your back to his chest. He hooks his chin over your shoulder and you can feel him bulging against his sweatpants. He was huge and the smirk you felt against your neck told you he knew how to use it. A shiver runs down your spine at the thought and when his hands return to your skin, you let out a moan. His hands spread out over your stomach; they were cold to the touch. You arch against him, pushing your hips backwards into his. He sucks in a breath and grips your hips. He holds them firmly before he pushes his clothed length into your ass, grinding against you from behind with a groan. You feel your panties soak up the feeling. You weren't sure if you could take something that big but you would sure put up a fight trying.
One hand travels down over your panties stroking you through the fabric. He coos at you as he feels how wet you are. He pats against the seat of your panites and sure enough, you’re wet enough that your panties make a soft, wet noise upon contact. 
“Is that for me, angel? "Are gonna drip down my cock when I split you open?” he asks with a lazy smile. The things that came out of his mouth never matched the look on his face. He would say the most toe-curling thing so casually with a smile that you would think he was telling you about the weather. Your chest is heaving at this point. You had never played like this before. Was this what he meant when he said he was a dom? 
“Answer me when I'm talking to you, baby. You wanna be my good girl, right?” You whine and nod pathetically. You would do anything for his praise. “Then speak up” 
“Its all yours,” you say breathlessly, hoping that's what he wanted to hear. 
He dips his hand past the waistband of your panties and circles your clit while his other hand holds firmly onto your hips. You throw your head back against his shoulder. He strokes over your slit teasingly before slipping two fingers inside, one after another. Your hips immediately buck up against his palm, or at least they try to but he has you pinned effectively against his hips.
“Dont fucking move; dont fucking make a sound. Just take it,” he rummbles in your ear “Take it”
His knuckles-deep and all you can do is bend yourself forward, trying to escape his grasp but he follows and fucks into you faster. You cry out, your thighs shaking as he curls an arm under your shoulder, using his leverage to pull you back against his firm chest. “Come on baby, if you can’t handle this, you won’t be able to take me,” he says sweetly. 
He hooked his fingers cruelly and you collapsed against him, orgasm whracking through your body. He held your trembling form up like it was nothing. He picks you up and throws you on the bed. You were still in shock as you lay there, catching your breath, your legs still shivering. He held your eye contact form where he stood at the foot of the bed and grabbed the back of his shirt before pulling it over his head swiftly. As he stood in front of you, you saw him for what he really was: he was no rabbit, he was a demon, and you were a fool. He didn't treat you like a porcelain doll; that was just the calm before the storm.
He puts one knee on the bed, starting off towards you and you subconsciously scoot backwards. He sends you that devilish smile and grabs your ankle, pulling you back down the bed until your thighs bracket his hips. 
“Where you running to, angel?” he says
You try to close your legs around him; the press of his hips against yours is already to much.
“Open your legs,” he says patiently. You shake your head defiantly, even though the command makes you even wetter.
He runs a hand through his hair and breathes an exhausted sigh. He pries your legs open, pinning them down as he leans forward over you. He uses a hand to grip your face and pushes his hips deep into yours, pinning them down from squirming. “I don’t like playing with brats so your either going to listen the first time I tell you to do something or I’m going to have to break you in,” he warns.
Your heart was beating out of your chest at his words. This was definitely not the same guy with the nerdy glasses you met in a cafe.
You nod your head in understanding. 
“Use your big girl words,” he says with a peck of your lips.
“Yes sir,” you say. A pleased smile dances on his lips.
“You learn fast,” he praises. That you do.
He captures your lips in the first real kiss of the night and you moan into his mouth as his tongue snakes its way past your lips. You roll your hips up into his and he allows it as he shoves his tongue down your throat. The kiss was messy and lazy. You pull back to plead, “Please, I need to touch you. Please let me touch you” 
He waits a moment, like hes thinking about it but he nods and pulls you back into another heated kiss. Being with Jaemin was extremely intimate; he worshiped your body as if it were his only purpose in life. His kisses were dangerous and claiming. He marked your body like you belonged to him and tonight you did.
You rake your hands down his spine, nails digging into his skin as your back arches against him. It was too much yet not enough at the same time. “I need you,” you beg.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve been good for you.”
“Thats right, baby, you have been really good,” he nuzzles at your neck affectialanty “but I need you to be sure”
“Im positive, I want you”
Jaemin kisses you assuringly and pulls down the sweatpants that still clung to his hips. He must not have been wearing any underwear because the heavy sound of his length slapping against his abdomen fills the room. 
Your eyes trail down his body until they reach the sight in between his legs. You take in the leaking tip of his pretty pink cock and the veins that adorn the sides. That thing was supposed to fit inside you. Never in a million years would you have imagined that death by dick could be an option in your life.
“Don't worry baby, we’ll make it fit,” he says. He grips the base of his cock and strokes it a few times before lining it up over the top of your belly. It nudged over your navel tauntingly. "I'm going to fill you up until I get here." he says, tapping the length of his cock on your stomach.
No amount of study could have prepared you for this. You came up completely blank on the idea of how this would even possibly fit. He notices the nervous look on your face and kisses your forehead. “Relax, I got you.” 
The tension in your shoulders relaxes a little at the comment. Jaemin seemed like he knew what he was doing. You trusted him enough. 
He gives you a moment to collect your thoughts as he pulls away from you, going to retrieve a condom from his bedside table. You take the moment to steady your beating heart and prepare yourself. When he comes back to you, he has  a bottle of lube and a condom already wrapped around his cock. 
“Are you ready?” he asks finally
"Yes,” you breath nervously.
He uncaps the lube and takes your hand, pouring some in your palm and then some over his length. He guides your hand to his length and you stroke the cold substance over him. You coat him in the lube and your grateful for the quick lesson you had with Mark earlier. You know just how to twist your wrist to get a reaction out of him. He groans softly and lets you have your fun before he pulls your hand away. He lines his cockhead up to your entrance and traces through your folds, nudging at your clit in the process. You moan impatiently. He sends you a frigid look through the fringe of his white bangs, instantly putting you in your place.
You pout but wait patiently as he eases his tip through your folds. Ok, this was fine. This was good. He fucks you with his tip pulling out before pushing his way back in. He fists his cock, coating it in the slick that drips from your cunt. You relax under his ministrations, completely letting him take the lead as he works you up with just the head of his dick. You can tell he must be holding back and you appreciate it.
He continues like this for a while before slyly slipping more and more inside of you each time. You’re at the two-thirds mark before you notice the stretch. You face pinching up in pain and your hands immediately find purchase on his hips, a plea for mercy. Jaemin stills inside of you and takes your hands into his own. His touch was delicate and he brought your hands to his lips. He kisses your fingertips before he kisses your palm. He was giving you whiplash with how gentle yet rough he could be sometimes. He kisses down your arm and up your shoulder. He presses kisses into your neck and over your lips. When he finally pulls away,looking down at you with a smile, you realize that somewhere between his barrage of kisses, he slipped the rest of the way inside. 
“Look at you, wasn’t that easy”
You just stare back up at him in shock. That was not as bad as you thought it would be; you could still feel a slight lingering discomfort from the stretch but that was soon melting away. 
He kisses the confused wrinkle in your brow “just relax baby. Now that the hard part is over, leave the rest up to me”
He pulls his hips back and works them forward experimentally. You shift at the stretch but you handle it well. He massages your thighs as he thrusts into you at a lazy pace, taking it easy and giving you enough time to fully accommodate his length. He hit so deeply inside that you could hardly catch a breath. Your body was hyperaware of every drag against your core and every nuge against your cervix and it craved more. You wrap your legs tight around his waist as you urge him to give you more.
Jaemin ignores your pleas and continues the rythme that he has created so far. You roll your hips, impatiently clawing down his chest in retaliation. 
“I'm trying to stay nice angel. Take what I give you” What he was giving you wasnt enough and if he thought you were dumb enough to not notice him holding himself back, he was wrong. 
“Don’t fuck me like that”
“Careful angel”
“I can handle it”
"Behave,” he says, gripping your face. He pulls out until only his tip remains and thrusts back in harshly. You scream in pleasure at the snap of his hips. That was what you were looking for; you needed to be broken in. If you wanted to get what you wanted, you needed to disobey.
“Fuck you,” you spit
“Watch your mouth,” one final warning.
“Fuck.You,” you say slowly, making sure he hears every syllable.
Something takes over him. You can see it through the dark gaze in his eyes. Rough hands pull you halfway off the bed, suspended hips held tight in his grasp as he pounds into you. You can’t even scream; your voice is caught in your throat as he uses the grip he has on your hips to slam you onto his cock. Each brutal thrust of his hips sounds off with a harsh clap of skin. Your back arches dangerously off the bed and you almost slip the rest of the way off if it weren't for one of his hands pushing down on your sternum, pinning you to the bed. 
“Is this what you want? You wanted it so fucking bad.”
He pulls out and your body compulses at the lack of contact. Your being manhandled off the bed, legs almost giving out from under you but Jaemin swiftly turns you, bending you over before pushing you flat on your stomach. He kicks your legs open further, opening you up for him before he finds your entrance again. You are grateful for this position because when the tears fall from your eyes and your saliva soaks his sheets, you dont have to worry about him seeing how pathetic you look. You hide your face in the sheets, crying out in pleasure. Your body cant keep up and overstimulation kicks in. You’re vibrating, literally, as you tremble in your spot under him.
His body leans over your back and you feel the heat of his body press into you as he continues to pound you into the mattress. His hand slips under you and circles your clit gently, knowing its already too much for you and just wanting to add a little extra to take you over the edge. You can't help the scream that bubbles out of your throat as you cum hard. Everything is black for a little bit and when you finally come to, all you can feel is your own wetness and release sticking to your thighs. Your empty and when you turn to look over your shoulder, Jaemin is stroking over your ass and soon that too is covered in cum.
You could hardly hold your head up anymore as it fell back down limply on the bed. You feel a rag clean you up but you refuse to open your eyes. You hear the sounds of a bath being run, and the next thing you know, your sitting in Jaemin's lap in the tub as he cleans the two of you. Your head laying lazily on his shoulder as he soaped you up and wiped you down. You know he lays you down in his sheets and when your head hits the pillow, you fall asleep. 
When you wake up, the sun shines in your eyes as you roll on your side groggily. Your body was sore all over and you felt like you had died and come back to life. Maybe you should have stretched before testing Jaemin's patience. Speaking of which, you notice the oversized shirt adorning your body as you shift to get out of bed. You look around and notice your clothes have been neatly folded on his dresser. You stand and it takes every fiber in your body not to wince every time you take a step. You can still feel his phantom touch as the events of the night before replay in your mind. It was so worth it. You finally make it over to your clothes and notice the note sitting on top of them.
Had to leave for class. Grab breakfast on the way out ;)
One word kept replaying in your head. out. Somehow, you had to navigate your way out of this godforsaken wolves den without running into Renjun or any of his other roomates. You hoped and hoped that they didn’t make it back yet or that they had some class to go to, but when you hold your breath and press your ear up against the door, you can hear a few muffled voices. You could make out the voices of two people; one was Renjun for sure and the other was familiar but you couldn’t put your finger on it. 
You were so fucked
You contemplate scaling the window but after looking at the 3-story drop, you decide against it. You try to wait it out, gambling on them just going back to their rooms but it sounds like they started up a videogame in the living room. Your pacing Jaemin’s room, completely forgetting about the ache between your legs. Your about to finally pull Jaemin’s shirt from over your head and put your own clothes back on when you have an idea. You pull open his closet and snag one of his hoodies off of a hanger. You find a pair of matching sweats in one of his drawers and tug those on as well. They didn't fit your frame well but that worked in your favor, with the baggy fabric helping to hide your shape. You pull up the hood and grab your things. If you move fast enough, they shouldn't be able to recognize you; they would no doubt see you, but at least they would just lump you in with any other random girl Jaemin brought home.
1…2…3
You pull open the door and peek your head out into the hall. The coast was clear; you held on tight to the sweatpants slowly falling off your hips and booked it to the front door. You pass the kitchen on your way out and your stomach almost growls at the food Jaemin had left out for you. You have half the mind to swoop in and snatch it but you keep trucking. You pass the living room in a heart beat. You quickly unlock the door, letting yourself out. The last thing you heard before the door closed behind you was, “What the fuck was that? Did you just see that?”
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STAMINA
Maybe this was your karma. You had evaded Mark for another week and Chenle wouldn’t let you hear the end of how much Mark had looked like a “kicked puppy.”. You liked Mark, and you really did want to get closer to him in more ways than one, but that was why you had to do this. The last guy you really liked up and left you because you didn’t know how to suck dick... and threw up on him, but thats besides the point. The point is that you didn't want to lose Mark; you were scared to lose Mark, even over something as trivial as this. So you went back on the hunt.
The tinder gods were not looking down on you anymore because every match that came back just didn't make the cut. There were so many weirdos on the app that you were surprised you even got as far as you did. You would have to do the search by foot.
You would scout the courtyards and hallways in between classes, hoping to find your next target, but it was difficult to find what you were looking for. You were searching for stamina, not something that could be seen with the naked eye. Haechan's training helped you a lot, but you were looking for the kind of stamina that would carry you through multiple rounds. You needed someone to practice cum control with. 
It was hot outside, and you were exhausted. You were almost late for your last class when someone ran into you. "Sorry, excuse me," the girl replied before scurrying away again. 
"Wait!” you call out to her. She had dropped something—a keychain—from her gym bag. “You dropped this,” you say. She turns around and jogs back over. 
She quickly thanks you for the keychain and says, "Sorry, I’m in a hurry. I didn’t mean to bump into you. I’m late for track." She then jogs over to the track and field facility. Your about to brush off the interaction when an idea suddenly comes to your head.
Who has more stamina than a long-distance track star?
You find a seat in the stands and observe the combined practices of the men's and women's track teams. You watched as they stretched and did warm ups and you finally found him. In his track suit, he was tall and slender. Although his waist was delicate, it only accentuated his broad shoulders and well-defined biceps. His short, dark hair was cropped close and clung to his forehead from perspiration.
"Jeno, You’re up on the 200-yard dash," yells one of the coaches. and all of a sudden, your mystery man is making his way to the starting blocks. So his name was Jeno. 
You head down the stands, happy with your findings, when you hear someone talking about a party that will take place after today's track meet. You didn't know how but you would find a way to that party. Luckily for you, you knew someone who happened to know just about everyone.
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“Please Jisung, I need to get into that party!” you beg your friend.
“Then go by yourself,” your friend huffs in annoyance.
You have been friends with Jisung for awhile now. Jisung just had the type of personality that allowed him to fit into any friend group. Everyone adored him. You had to be a nobody if you didn't know Park Jisung. Even though his reputation precedes him, he's actually really laid-back and easy to talk to.
“I don’t know anyone there!” you whine from your seat perched up on his desk in his dorm room. 
“Then why do you even want to go” Chenle interjects from his spot on his bed as he scrolls through his phone, playing videos out loud obnoxiously like an old man. 
“Its for science,” you state.
“Funny, because thats what im trying to study for,” jisung says sarcastically, “I need to finish my assignments. I dont have time to go out” 
A beat of silence passes while you contemplate your next bargaining chip. “I'll do it for you”
Jisungs head snaps up from his textbook “Uh?”
“Come on, I’m like a genius. I’ll finish it for you if you come with me tonight,” you bargain
“This science you speak of doesn't have anything to do with your little outings, does it” Chenle says. He didn't have to specify which outings for you to get it.
“What outings?” Jisung peeks over at his roommate.
“Deal or no deal?” You hurry and try to change the subject; you didn't need poor Jisung to find out you were fucking around to eventually fuck his cousin. Everything leading up to that would probably just end up confusing him.
Pushing back from his desk and letting you take over, he said, "Knock yourself out." You knew those years of drowning your self in your studies to get over heart break would not be in vain
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You arrive at a house a little ways off campus. The party was already raging and you were a little upset that you didn’t come to get absolutely wasted. Jisung parked his car on an off-street and walked beside you as you approached the house. 
“I might disappear for a little bit tonight but don’t leave without me,” you advise him. 
He bemoans, "Make sure you keep your ringer on; you never answer." He hated it when people split up from him at parties, but he was prepared. Chenle told him that you were trying to meet someone tonight.
Once inside, you waste no time in finding the kitchen. You weren't planning on getting wasted, but you at least needed a little liquid courage if you were going to talk to the Greek god you saw earlier. You and Jisung knock a few shots back until you start to feel the buzz. You stick to his side as he introduces you to a few of his friends, and you engage in small talk until you finally see Jeno walk through the front door.
Jeno had finally shown up and he looked even more delectable outside of his track uniform. He was wearing an open flannel over a dark shirt, adorned with a silver necklace. He wore some light-washed jeans that had a few rips and holes in them. He was like he jumped straight out of a boyfriend pin board. You felt a little creepy watching him over the rim of your red solo cup. You finish off your drink and part ways with your small group. Hes walking into the kitchen and you follow behind him. 
“Hey, your Jeno, right?” you call out to him. He looks up from the drink he's pouring and sends you a friendly smile. You don’t miss the way his eyes look you up and down.
“Whats up?” he replies, taking a swig from the mixture he poured.
“I watched your track practice today; did you run the 200? Your really good,” you say honestly
“Thank you; do you run too?” he asks, keeping the conversation flowing.
Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was your impatience but you can’t find it in you to care about easing your way into the question. “I don’t actually, but i’m actually doing a study on endurance and stamina I was hoping you could help me with that” 
“Oh yea? What class is the project for?”
“No class, just my own personal studies”
“On endurance and stamina?”
“Yes”
It takes a moment for the gears in his head to start spinning
“Oh…oh!”
"I can give you my number; just text me if you’re interested," you say, pulling out a piece of paper with your phone number on it. You had written it down earlier, knowing that a pen would be impossible to find at a college party. 
He takes it from you and stares you down for a moment, his heavily lidded eyes raking over your frame again. "I'll let you know." You don't need to look to know that he's staring at your ass when you turn to walk away. 
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He texts you before the night is even over but you don't respond until the morning. You let him know the exact details of the “stamina training” you had in mind and he agreed to your terms and conditions. You plan to hook up the following day; this was the last thing you needed to perfect, and you were excited. That day had come in no time and now you were fresh out of the shower, waiting for the fateful knock on your door. 
You had no time to prepare for this session, and you honestly didn’t know how to. How does one develop a resistance to pleasure, and how does one avoid the one thing you seek when satisfying oneself? Hopefully Jeno had the answers, and if he didn't, hopefully he helped you find them. 
Your fixing your hair and making sure everything is laid neatly when you hear a faint knock on your door. You look at yourself one last time in the mirror before going to open your front door. Jeno stands infront of your door with a small smile and you let him in. At this point, you were used to the awkward small talk and embarrassing attempts at flirting. You wasted no time in pulling him towards you. His hands instantly find your waist. You’re so close, you notice the cute mole he has under his eye. He stares back at you, his eyes round like puppy dogs. You pull him back into a slow kiss. Today there was no rush; it was all about resistance.
Once you get your fill of his lips, you pull away again and lead him to your bedroom. You kick your door closed and pull him down on top of you on your bed. “No matter how much I beg, dont let me cum,” you warn him
“Who says I was going to let you cum?” he teases back before he meets your lips again.
You smiled into the kiss; you were going to like this one. You wondered what type of role he would play when darkness wrapped around you both in its cool, sensual embrace. Would he let  you take control like you did with Haechan? Would he be as strict as Jaemin, keeping you in your place or would he be laid back like Renjun? Guiding you and willing to relent some of the control to you if you ask. His firm body pins you down under him, and he kisses you hotly before ghosting his lips down your neck teasingly. His hands snake their way up your shirt and he explores the skin exposed there before pushing it up and over your chest. He lays sweet kisses over the top of your breast, not yet ready to part with the image of you wrapped in the lace that was your bra. Your impatient so you sit up on your elbows to help him get you out of your shirt. You pull your shirt over your head, and you scoot a little out of his embrace to pull down your shorts. Jeno takes the hint and strips himself bare, except for his briefs. When your done, he pulls you back under him and gets you settled again. You can feel him pressing hot against your skin. You had barely just met him, but something about the way Jeno kissed you and touched you—the way he paid attention to your body—was so intimate. The little sounds you would make when he nips at your skin. The way you bite your lips when he licks your sweat-prickled  skin unabashedly. He watches it all, doing his own little research to learn just what you like. You weren't sure at first, but Jeno was a lover boy. Even though you weren’t his, he would love you like you were. 
Hes already slipping his hands into your underwear and the moans that slip out of your lips are sinful. He rubs your clit in soothing circles, spreading your juices so he can slip inside and open you up. His other hand slips behind your back and finally removes your bra so he can suckle on your nipples and massage your chest.
“Fuck Jen, I need more, please,” you whine
“You better be able to take what you ask for,” He warns.
He finally slips 2 fingers inside of you and begins to pump them leisurely. You grip the hair at the back of his neck and pull him back to your lips. You needed to drown out the sounds you were about to make when you felt his thick fingers stretch you out. His hands were warm; they warmed your entire body as they worked in tandem to bring you high. Deeply curled fingers had your back arching as you moaned in to his open mouth. He swallowed down all your sounds as he huffed his own into your mouth. He was grinding down shallowly into one of your thighs as he lay on top of you. The length of him rubbing against you gave you a good idea of what you would be working with tonight and you were happy for your lessons with Jaemin because Jeno was definitely going to split you in two. That thought alone had your thighs clamping against his wrist and your hands gripping on to him, anywhere you could reach.
“You there, baby? Fight through it. You got it. Come on,” he said, speaking with a soft bass in his voice.
“Im gonna cum,” you choke out every part of your body, lighting up with pleasure that you can't snuff out.
His fingers slow but they don't stop completely. He lets up, willing you to calm down. You feel your orgasm slowly slip away and the feeling that was left afterwards was something close to desperation. Your legs are spread wide as you roll your hips up onto his fingers, urging him deeper. You pull him impossible closer to your body. His fingers pick up their pace again and it feels like you have grown 100 times more sensitive because this time it takes little to no time for the waves that crash against you and lap at your stomach to finally drown you out. Jeno can feel the way you tense up in his hold and he pulls away completely this time.
“No, please, this is driving me crazy,” you cry
“Come on, baby your doing so good,” he says, kissing your pout 
Your body is still tingling with the traces of your lost orgasm but you manage to calm down as Jeno passes his hands against your skin soothingly. Stroking your sides and stomach lazily until you settle. 
“What if we try something else?” he suggests after another minute of gazing at you.
“Like what?” 
"Well, if you find it difficult to hold back your orgasm, why not just let it go?”
“I'm not following. Doesn’t that defeat the whole point?” you quirk a brow at him
“Im saying what if you build your endurance to last multiple rounds. Find a way to keep going through multiple orgasms.
The thought turned your entire view upside down. You had never thought of it that way. You weigh the options in your head. The burning desire and desperation that edging leaves you with or the overwhelming sensations that overstimulation was sure to make you writhe with. Maybe this question was best asked when you weren’t horny and wound up from an orgasm denial because all you could think about was cuming. 
“Lets try that”
Jeno kisses down your body until he lays between your legs. He shifts one leg over his shoulder and kisses your clit softly while holding eye contact. Your hips already twitch with need. “Hands behind your back” was his whispered command.
You fold your arms, bending each at the elbow, neatly behind your back. You rest against them as you breathe deeply through your nose. Jeno licks a flat strip against your folds. Your folds were already soaked, practically dripping onto the sheets and he just cleaned it all up. He licks a pointed strip now through your folds, parting them on his way up  until hes teasing at your clit again, He wraps his lips against it and suckles gently. He slips his fingers back inside as he gets lost in making out with your pussy. It takes every fibre in your being to hold still; you needed to focus on lasting as long as you could. You decided you would scum but you at least wanted to see how long you could last. Jeno just hums against you, lost in his own thoughts and his own world. His eyes were closed now but his eyebrows were furrowed up like he was concentrating.
He parts his fingers inside of you, stretching them out to make room for his tongue, He licks inside of you over and over and you truly do go crazy. Your thighs attempt to clamp close, but Jeno’s free arm pins one of them open, forcing his face back into your heat. He fucks his fingers ruthlessly now, determined to throw you over into the current, and he does. Your orgasm leaves you feeling sleepy and heavy. The only thing that brings you back down to earth is Jeno’s slick mouth sliding into place over yours as he kisses you deeply. 
“3 times. Can you handle that? 3 times?” he asks
You take his words into consideration; you feel yourself throbbing, but you think you could manage two more rounds. You send him a nod and he kisses you again as he shoves off the last piece of his clothing. You can feel him stroke against your slick folds, teasing the head of his cock inside before pulling back out to slap it against your wetness. 
“You ready?” 
You nod and he pushes inside of you. You were right; he was splitting you open. Once he was sitting all the way inside, you let out a small whimper, and he instantly soothed you.
“You’re ok. I'm gonna make you feel really good,” he shushes into your ear as he caresses you.
His voice is so soft and smooth that you relax against his hold. You wrap your arms around his neck and peck his lips before sending him a nod. You couldn't bring up enough energy to speak. You barely had enough to cum again but you would fight through the drowsiness.
“Let me know if you want to stop, ok?” he offers gently before pulling his hips back slowly to thrust deep inside of you again. 
It was like he was hypnotizing you—the way his hips moved as he fucked you, the way his slim waist looked with your legs wrapped around it, the way his arms flexed when he went a little harder. You could get used to being under Jeno. You would take however many rounds he gave you. If it meant you could prolong this sensation, you would endure each and every one of them. You loved the way he filled you up and split you open over and over again as he pounded into you. You loved his noises you had to strain to listen for, you loved the way his face would scrunch up in pleasure when you clamped down tight around him. 
Your bodies compliment each other's movements as you chase his hips with your own. You were wound up too tight; you needed release. His hands snake down between your legs and circle your clit skillfully. You cum again, this time around his length. He fucks you through it and settles deep inside of you, holding still until your breathing evens again. You didn't know how he did it. He hadn't come once since you started, which must have taken an ungodly amount of will. You knew you wouldn't be able to do that, at least not for a long time. You would have to settle for fighting through the overstimulation for now. You weakly thrust your hips up again, signaling for him to start again.
“Last one baby, I think I'll be a little more selfish this time,” he says before pressing a kiss into your shoulder.
You don't get to ask what he means before he manhandles you into the next position. He lips your hips before swiftly placing a pillow underneath you, angling your hips up. He grips your thighs, forcing them off of his hips and pressing them deep into your chest, your knees bracing your head. He shoves back in deep, fucking you into the mattress in a mating press. He didn't care if you could cum again because he was going to rip it from you. Puppydog eyes no longer stare back at you; they hadn't since he laid you down on the mattress, but this time something else swims behind his eyes. It was pure hunger, like that of a wolf. You realized that, although he was good at holding back, once the gate was open, nothing could stop what rushed through. It was like the final leg of a race, where you see the finish line and sprint for it. He was pent up, and he was going to let you have it. 
Over and over again, his hips pounded harshly into yours. They were sure to bruise by morning, joining the others that probably adorn your body from all your other late-night activities. He hadn't mentioned them but you knew he had noticed because he focused most of his kisses there, like he wanted to paint over the others work.
Empty, there was nothing going on inside your head. Just his name repeating on loop until it filled up your thoughts so much that it had no choice but to spill from your lips. His own pathetic moans fill the air as he thrusts, getting sloppy, less sharp and less precise, and he finishes deep inside of you. You’re almost there and you’re grateful that he fights through his own overstimulation to keep fucking into you lazily. You cum around him and your body goes limp against your sheets. 
“You were able to keep up with me; you were amazing,” he says around his heavy breathing. You just look over to him and smile, far too exhausted to speak
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When you wake up the next morning, you are not expecting to see jeno still lying next to you. You were sure you made it clear to him this wouldnt be a long-term thing. You shake him awake and he stirs in this sleep before cracking an eye open. He looks at you, then rolls over like you were bothering him.
"Jen, get up. You have to go,” you say, shaking his shoulder again
"Hngm,” he groans, pulling more of your cover over him.
You just stare at him incredulously. You slap his shoulder hard and he finally sits up fully. He looks more alert now as he takes in your appearance and then the time on the bedside table.
“Fuck! Im going to be late for practice,” is all he says before rushing to grab his clothes and phone off your nightstand. 
You just watch him in amusement as he scrambles around the room. He's halfway through the door before he stops in his tracks. He turns around and strides back to you before leaning over to plant a sweet kiss on your lips. This kiss was short, but you sensed something in it. He pulled away and stepped out the door fully this time, saying a quick goodbye. Jeno was a track star; he’d make it. As you hear your front door close with a heavy slam, one thought runs through your head.
Jeno the track star, and Jeno, the lover boy, was attached to you. In what ways, you didn’t know, but you could not find out.
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Navigating across your college campus was already difficult when you had to regularly avoid crowds of students. Now that you were practically a wanted fugitive, it was even harder to slip between the halls and walk from class to class.
Jeno had texted you a few times since he left your house that one day. Haechan never stopped asking around for you, Renjun was pretty cool about everything so it was only a little awkward when you passed him in the halls, and Jaemin...  Boy, if Jaemin got his hands on you, it was so over.
There was only one person you wanted to see and that was Mark. He was the only one who hadn't tried to hit you up. It was like he had vanished from the face of the earth. You had practically begged Jisung for any updates but even he hadn't seen him around. It wasn't until you walked into the library one day and saw Mark cuddle up with some girl that your questions were answered. You were devastated. You had spent so much time trying to be perfect for him and he had used that time to move on to another girl. You couldn't exactly blame him; you had been blowing him off for awhile in favor of your "studies.”. 
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. You hated life. Life always has a sick way of turning you on your head. What was this all for without Mark? Not to say you went on this whole sexual exploration just for him but he was the end goal. He was the final boss. It was like putting in hours on a videogame just to have it shut down before you could save. Yes, you play it for fun, but you also play for the sense of accomplishment that comes with completing it and winning. 
What was that saying? Play stupid games,win stupid prizes? 
You were out sipping smoothies and pouring your heart out to your friend group. You told them everything. Some were more shocked than others.
“You were trying to fuck my cousin!?” Jisung says this in horror as he almost chokes on his smoothie.
“Sorry, Jisung, I cant explain that one” You send him an apologetic smile.
“I just knew something was up! You had that glowy look,” your friend Yangyang says 
“Yeah, that post-sex glow!” Mia chimes in
“Will you two quiet down?” You shush them; you did not need the entire establishment knowing you “glow” after sex, making it sound like you had some type of radioactive pussy.
“I cant believe you fucked them; thats bold even for you,” jisung adds
“I dont need your judgment, jisung”
“No, im not judging; its just that they all-”
“Can we please drop it, I dont want to talk about this anymore; people are starting to stare” The old couple that sat across from your table sneaked glances at you and your friends. 
"Well, if you want to get over Mark, you should get under someone else,” chenle says
“Its your advice that got me here in the first place,” you remind him as you finish your smooth sucking down the last drop. 
You needed to just spend some time alone, collect yourself and get over mark. Honestly, your kind of happy that this happened sooner rather than later, before you developed more intimate feelings for him. You had already been on your way down that path and it had scared you a little. Maybe this was for the best since you weren't yet ready to face your feelings.
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You were supposed to be the reasonable friend. You were supposed to be the friend who told everyone else when they were making stupid decisions, but now that you were making dumb decisions, there was no one there to stop you. You shouldn't listen to Chenle, especially not after the first time but it was like there was a devil-shaped Chenle on your shoulder, egging you on.
You texted Renjun; it has been weeks since you last spoke to him and you hoped there were no hurt feelings between you. You had told him you wanted to meet up and that you had a lot of things on your mind that you wanted to forget, even if just for one night. He said he wasn't upset about you ghosting him; he said that was what the app was all about and that if you ever needed a distraction, you were always welcome over.
You were so grateful to Renjun; he always made you feel safe and welcome. You were thankful that he was your first sexual encounter after your past failed attempts.
You know the way to his house like the back of your hand at this point. You were excited to see Renjun again. You hoped that you could build a relationship outside of just sex; he seemed like a really cool dude. You knock on the door, and it swings open a second later. 
It wasn't Renjun.
“Sorry, my roomates were just leaving,” the man you were here to meet says, popping up from behind Haechan, who had answered the door.  The blood drained from your face. "Haechan, let her in”
Haechan doesn't take his eyes off of you once. When he eventually shifts to the side to let you through the door, you expect him to walk out, but he simply closes it behind you.
You walk into the living room, and 2 other pairs of eyes lock onto you. Confused looks were exchanged between everyone in the room except Renjun, who still had no idea what was going on.
“These are my roomates, Jeno and Jaemin, oh and thats Haechan” Jeno and Jaemin were sitting on the couch in the living room, dressed to go out and Haechan was still standing in the small walkway that led from the living room to the front door.
“We know each other,” haechan says. Jeno, Jaemin, and Renjun all give him a confused look after he makes the comment.
“So do we,” Jeno and Jaemin say in unison before quickly looking at each other, even more confused.
“I actually forgot I think I have an assignment due, I need to turn it in before 12 so I think I'll leave,” you say with a sheepish, akward smile.
You turn to run away but Haechan blocks your path. “Where are you running to babe? You’ve been avoiding me for weeks I think we should have a little chat.
“I really need to turn in that assignment” You try again
“Sit down, princess,” jaemins stern voice calls from the couch, He moves over and pats the space next to him. 
Fuck.
“Wait, don't tell me,” Renjun says, finally putting all the pieces together. “Did we all fuck her?”
“Yes! I fucked all of you,” you grumble as you plop down on the couch sandwiched between Jeno and Jaemin. You were caught either way, so you might as well fess up. You can't bring yourself to look at Jeno; you knew there would be hurt in his eyes. “In my defense, I had no idea you were all roomates”
“No judgment over here love. I just wish you would have come to me instead of Renjun if you wanted to fuck tonight,” haechan smirked
You cross your arms against your chest and huff. its not like you were in trouble; you were all grown consenting adults but it sure felt like you were.
“That's what you were gonna do, right? Use everything I taught you to go fuck him?” Jaemin says, his piercing stare seeing right through you.
You were annoyed, you hated being on the hot seat, you had come here to escape your worries and not be confronted by 4/5ths of them. Maybe that is why you lash out a little. “Yes, Jaemin, I'm going to fuck your roomate and make him scream loud enough for the rest of you to hear” 
“And where did you learn how to do that?”
“From you, of course” 
The room grows silent and that annoys you more. You couldn't understand why no one was ripping you out of your clothes yet. “Is someone going to fuck me, or do I have to find someone else to do it” 
“Are you ok with Renjun sharing you?” haechan suggests
“I think I can handle it; can you” you say to the room.
“Wouldnt be the first time we shared,” jaemin says
You finally turn to face jeno. He looks at you, then at your lips, and finally speaks. “I want you… I need you so bad” You had a feeling his words had a deeper meaning than that
You didnt have time to worry about him; you already had so much on your mind but you did spare him the slightest mercy and lean into him first. You kiss him, pulling him into a heated kiss and you can feel warm hands under your shirt as Jaemin kisses your neck. Suddenly, you were being pulled away from the kiss and hauled off the couch. Renjun stood in front of you and said, “lets go to my room; I have the most space”  
The trail of clothes that is left behind in the hallway was the only evidence you left behind as the door to Renjuns room closed behind you. You crawl into the bed, and Jaemin crawls in behind you. Renjun takes it upon himself to have you first. He claims your lips in a kiss before he trails his hot mouth down your body. He sucks at your chest before continuing down. Jaemin grabs a hold of them from behind, massaging them in Renjun's wake. Haechan props himself up beside you and kisses you, his hand drawing mindless circles against the skin at your stomach as Renjun caresses your thighs as he prys them open. He lays between them and for once, he doesn't wait. He dives in, immeditaly pressing his hot tongue all over you, spreading your juices as he sucks and licks at your cunt. Your hips fuck up on to his tongue and into his face, and he doesn't stop you. He doesn't stop you when you grab ahold of his hair to grind against his face messily. From beside you, Haechan sits up, dick pressing against your lips and urging you to open your mouth. You do your best to suck him off, lazily closing your mouth around him, too focused on how Renjun feels between your legs than about properly sucking him off. Jaemin strokes your hair away from your face, gripping it in a makeshift ponytail for you as he watches you suck off Haechan. You can feel him pressing up against your lower back, and you can't help the new wave of slick that gushes out at the thought of him feeling you up again. You had missed him—all of them, really. The thought pulls your mind back to Jeno, who sat silently on your other side. You reach out blindly until you feel for him. He takes your hand in his and guides it down his body. His hand covers yours as you palm him through his boxers. Soft groans leave his mouth, and you manage to pull him from his confines. You grip firmly and stroke him as best you can from your angle. He seems to appreciate it because, in no time, he's fucking up into your fist.
You feel Haechan tense in your mouth and you think he's going to spill but he pulls out instead. He takes up camp next to Renjun, forcing the other to scoot over. They both lap at your fold messily and you don't miss the way their tongues swirl together, tasting each other. You are ripped away from the beautiful sight between your legs when Jaemin grips your hair and makes you take Jeno into your mouth next. He guides your movements, pulling you up and down the jenos cock, making it hit the back of your throat. Your training really paid off because you only gag slightly until you are in control of the reflex again.
Fingers slip between your folds; your not sure who they belong to, but their curving deep, fucking into you ruthlessly. The way they sissor you open has you moaning around Jeno, causing his hips to stutter. You feel a pair of lips sucking cruelly on your clit and you come undone violently. Jeno cums deep down your throat, making you choke a little. He pulls out, laying limply next to you. You don’t miss the way his eyes shine at you.
The grasp in your hair forces your head back and you turn over your shoulder to kiss Jaemin. You were positive he could taste Jeno on your tongue but that didn't stop him from shoving his wet muscle down your throat and chasing the taste. Sometime during your distracted haze, Renjun pushes inside of you and you moan into your kiss with Jaemin. Renjun fucks you fast and deep. Hold on tight to your hips. Haechan busies himself with your chest, sucking on your nipples before pulling back to steal you away from Jaemin's kisses. Haechan kisses you messily, just like the way he ate you out and swallowed your moans. Renjun's pace turns sloppy and he finishes against your stomach. With how neat and tidy he likes to keep his things, you were surprised at how messy he could get in the heat of the moment. He pulls out and flops down beside you. Haechan quickly takes his place and you thank Jeno for his help in preparing you for this moment. 
Haechan pushes inside of you easily, your greedy pussy completely swallowing him whole. He wastes no time in driving into you over and over again. He used your body to get off, pressing quick circles into your clit. You swipe some of Renjun’s cum off your stomach and shove your soiled finger into Haechan’s mouth. Your fingers rest against his tongue as he licks them clean with a groan. You slip your hand free, smearing some of his spit across his mouth in the process. You didn’t know what it was about Haechan,  but he just got you so worked up. Maybe it was how nasty he was, licking up another man's cum, and how he would probably lick you clean after this. You couln'tt stop your hips as they bucked up into his. You chase your highs and you use each other. After a few quick thrusts, you're cuming all over his length and leaking onto the covers, adding even more fluid to the mess. Haechan doesn’t pull out. He comes deep inside you, stuffing you full before he pulls out to watch it drip from your hole.
“Get on your hands and knees for me, baby,” Jaemin whispers in your ear. He had waited patiently for everyone else to get done with you because he wanted your full attention. Jaemin was going to show you that he was all you needed. 
You don't even get a chance to move before he moves you into position himself. He takes one of the pillows from the head of the bed and instructs you to lay your head on it. You think hes being nice, worried about your neck cramping, until he says, “bite it” 
He wouldn't go easy on you this time, not with how pent-up he has been. A hand grips your head, shoving your face into the pillow as he slips inside. This time, there is zero resistance. With all the slick spilling out of your hole, he was able to lube up before slipping inside.
“Fuck, look at that. Taking it so well,” Jeno says from his spot on the bed. A few moans follow and you assume they are all touching themselves at the sight. 
Jaemin forces your head up and makes you look at Renjun, Haechan, and Jeno, all beating their dicks. “You think they can fuck you like I do? No ones got you like I do baby and i’m gonna prove it” 
Your pushed back into the pillow, your screams muffled as he snaps his hips into your ass. Crude clapping fills the room as your skin makes contact from his long, deep strokes. Your moans are instead replaced with Haechan's as they fill the room alongside Renjun and Jenos. Jaemin doesn't let up, grabbing one of your arms and pinning it to your back. Renjun's pillow was soaked with your tears as you cried in pleasure at the way Jaemin fucked you. Your thighs grow weak and you can’t hold yourself up anymore but that's ok because Jaemin's strong grip keeps you up as he holds you in place, pounding into you from behind. 
“Fuck, im gonna cum” Haechan moans
You’re about to as well when your thighs start to tremble and your body starts to thrash as you try to escape the onslaught of pleasure. 
“Stay right there, princess. You got it,” Jaemin grunts into your ear. His chest is pressed against your back, and his biceps curl around your throat, pulling you away from the pillow and successfully trapping you in a chokehold. You scream out load finally, and your orgasm wracks through you. Your tight grip on Jaemin's cock has him cumming deep inside of you with a groan.
Everyone was exhausted and sprawled across Renjun's bed. Renjun, followed by Haechan, Jeno, You, and Jaemin. That was how you were all laid out. Someone went to grab a towel and whipped you clean before wrapping strong arms around you. Through your drowsiness, you looked up to see Jeno nuzzled into your side, embracing you. You had resolved most of your problems except for one. 
You shake the thought from your head—not tonight. Tonight, you would just be his and enjoy this moment. You would face him in the morning. You didn't know him well but maybe you could change that. 
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a/n: I hope you enjoyed reading this. There will be no Part 2 anytime soon or maybe even ever. Maybe a spin-off could happen but probably far down the road in the future. This is literally just porn with no plot. I seriously have no idea where I would take this story. Comment and leave feedback if you want to; it is always appreciated. 
a/n: Fun fact i actually did lose my virginity to a fence, it is completely possible to break your hymen  through injury. That shit hurt so bad lmaooo. Some of these events in the fic are pulled from real life. See if you can guess which ones lol.
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angstandhappiness · 3 months ago
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VERY INTERESTING
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One thing I did like about the ending of Gotham War is that I feel like there's some potentially interesting analysis of Bruce's character to be had here, because I find this whole thing 1000% more interesting viewed through the lens of Bruce backsliding on his core classic issue: He's terrified out of his mind at how much he loves these people around him and he struggles with having relationships with people who have fundamental differences to him. I keep thinking of that Tini Howard quote about this arc and about how it's not about whether or not Bruce and Selina can get together, but that he doesn't really know how to agree to disagree with someone he loves when it comes to something deeply foundational to him. And I think that's the entire point of including everything with Jason--that it's Bruce at a low point, after too much stress coming too quickly, too many major psychological pummelings over the last several arcs, and hitting a point where he can't deal with shoving aside his fundamental disagreements with Jason anymore. But he can't just write Jason off either, because Jason is his son, so his ten simultaneous mental breakdowns all get together and decide that the only option he can live with, is to try to force Jason out of this life. That's why he tries to talk himself into forcing Dick and Tim and Damian to be caught by the police, so they'd be forced out of this life. That's why he crumbles in an alley and tries to talk himself out of loving these people. Because he doesn't know how to agree to disagree with them and still keep loving them, keep having a relationship with them.
Because everything that happened with Selina, that he really let himself believe that he could be with her, marry her, and still be Batman, that really fucked him up and I think Gotham War is more of the aftermath of that. That's how I'm (admittedly doggedly) interpreting the bit about Selina and him being the "parents" of this group, despite that Selina was never in that role--I think Bruce wanted them to be the "parents" of the group and let himself believe in it and, when it went pear-shaped, something in him backslid terribly and now we're all here. "I'm okay with me not having happiness." is a direct call-back to Bruce in the car with Alfred on the way to the wedding, asking with surprising vulnerability, "Am I allowed to be happy?" He opened his heart and got hurt again and it's been stewing for awhile and so much has happened since then--Zur-En-Arrh, Tim getting his throat cut, Dick coming to cheer him up after Selina and getting shot in the head and Bruce almost losing him, Failsafe, Insomnia, everything that's going on over in Gotham Nocturne, etc.--that it fractured something in him and the cracks have finally grown deep enough that it fell apart in this story. So now all of this is just mounting tragedies to him. Which means he can't stay connected to it because he's too afraid of losing them and he's unwilling to try after what his fracturing led him to do. He can't stop them from living this life, despite everything he tried. He can't stop loving them, despite how hard he tried. So, all he can do is walk away before he gets hurt again, trying to leave everything in Dick's hands. Dick who is "better than Batman", who is better than Bruce. That he wants Dick and Barbara to be the "parents", because that's what he was trying to be and felt he failed at it, like to me this ending isn't really resolution, this is a low point for Bruce as a character in his bigger arc, because I think Batman's character arc always has to come back to his trauma of losing his family when he was young, working to let a new family in, coming to love them, and struggling against how much it terrifies him that he might lose them, too, because he doesn't think he can survive that kind of pain again. He'll still be in Damian's life, still be Batman and Robin there, but I think he's making an exception there because so much of it comes back to being able to live with fundamentally disagreeing with someone--Dick and Jason and Tim are adults, he can't tell them what to do anymore. Damian is young enough that, even if they clash, he's still directly in charge of raising him.
Zur-En-Arrh does hang over this entire storyline, he's part of what's taking up too much space to allow Bruce any mental breathing room, but fundamentally I see this storyline as part of Bruce's issues: That he's terrified of losing those he loves, but he can't control them, he desperately tries to and it doesn't work, and he can't live with them taking different paths from his ideals, so he walks away, rather than get hurt further. Bruce is probably going to dig himself further down into this hole and he's being incredibly dumb about it, but I can see how this fits all things that he has always struggled with--and sometimes he loses that fight against himself. This event wasn't really about fighting with Selina or Vandal Savage or even his kids--this was Bruce's love versus his fears, and today his fears won.
#DC#Gotham War#Bruce Wayne#Very brief correction that Bruce was unconscious for a whole Eight /Weeks/ instead of Days after Knight Terrors (Gotham War Battle Lines)#And it's also technically the second time Bruce went into a recovery coma in recent times. First time (Failsafe arc) lasted Two Weeks#And yeah. At least for Bruce's angle of him having The Worst Emotional and Mental Time Ever is consistent with Zdarsky's writing#Meanwhile I'm not familiar with or aware how Tini Howard's been handling Catwoman. Interestingly‚ I did skim it to check a fact or so#And learned that Gotham War had more of a proper built up on Catwoman's side. Or at least the built up from there felt more Organic#My further speculations about Gotham War in a meta level (as in‚ What The Fuck Was DC Thinking?) is that this was... an experiment of sorts#Because this story was spread out across 3 titles in its entirely. Batman book‚ Catwoman book‚ and the Batman/Catwoman Gotham War thing#This feels rather odd for me‚ but that can be because I'm relatively new and unfamiliar with how DC tries to farm money from Comics#The closest I can think of as a comparison would be Knight Terrors‚ which was self contained and the side stories were indeed just sides#Would I call it a successful experiment? Depends because it feels like everyone involved had their own goal in mind#Zdarsky has mentioned that Mindbomb is a story he's thought about for at least a /year/‚ and the built up towards it is very visible#Meanwhile the fact that a magic‚ immortality granting‚ parasitic-like meteor hit Gotham and became a Lazarus Pit (or Something Close to it)#That Amanda Waller has access to and is Studying‚ which ties with whatever she's been doing at each event finale#Is just briefly mentioned like a bare minimum to check off a box of sorts. Which ties with the idea of the Dawn of DC (Inter-connectivity)#(Not going to try to speculate what Tini Howard's goal might've been since not reading Catwoman and all)#But yeah. Before‚ I was skeptical that Mindbomb would be rough as it claimed to be‚ but now I'm. Afraid of what Zdarsky has planned#batman meta#dc comics#addition
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yuujispinkhair · 2 months ago
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I WANNA BE YOUR ENDGAME – Chapter 06
🏒❤️ A Hockey Romance feat. modern!Sukuna
Pairing: HockeyPlayer!Sukuna x Reader (female) Genre: College AU, Hockey AU, fluff + smut Playlist: I wanna be your Endgame Word Count: 6.5k Warnings: 18+, smut, oral (male + female receiving), cigarettes. Fuckbuddies to lovers. Reader is a creative writing student. Sukuna is an ice hockey player + history student. This story will have approximately 12 chapters. Minors don't interact. Header by me. Divider @/benkeibear
MASTERLIST
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Being fuckbuddies with Sukuna is surprisingly easy. As flustered as you sometimes get when you think about what the two of you do, all that shyness leaves you the moment you are in Sukuna's arms. The moment your clothes are off and you start touching each other, all shame is forgotten. Your sexy little arrangement opens a whole new world to you. You aren't very experienced when it comes to sex, but Sukuna is the perfect person to show you new things.
Of course, there are also people who don't see it that way. Nobara doesn't get tired of rolling her eyes at you anytime she sees you with your phone in hand, assuming you are texting Sukuna and making plans to see him.
"When I said you should maybe fuck him, I meant once! Not whatever it is, the two of you are doing now. You should be careful. Sukuna is a fuckboy. You are just another notch on his bedpost!"
"I told you, I don't want him to be my boyfriend! I am not interested in a relationship either. Sukuna is a fun pasttime. That's all. Maybe I want him to be just a notch on my bedpost, too!"
You know Nobara is just worried about you, and maybe her warnings are valid, but you refuse to listen to her. Your past experiences with relationships left you not wanting to ever fall in love again. What Sukuna offers you sounds safer. No feelings, just casual sex with the hottest guy you have ever met.
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You're in Sukuna's bed, your gaze feasting on his gorgeous body. A body he works hard for in the gym every single day. Firm muscles and sexy tattoos. And you are allowed to touch this beautiful body as much as you like.
You trail kisses down Sukuna's broad chest, following his tattoos with your tongue, and his large hand tangles in your hair, rewarding you with his sexy low moans and whispered encouragements in his sexy, velvety voice. You slow down when you are insecure about your skills in the bedroom, but Sukuna is surprisingly patient with you. Sweet even.
There is no pressure, no shame. You start to suck his cock tentatively, smiling sheepishly at him, apologizing for being bad at blow jobs, and instead of getting mad at you, Sukuna cups your cheek and caresses it with his thumb while he grins at you,
"You're doing great, princess, and I can teach you the rest."
And suddenly, it's easy. Sukuna smirks at you and places a large hand on the back of your head, petting your hair while he guides you gently up and down his thick cock, telling you what to do, teaching you how to blow him right. Reassuring you that it feels good when you just French kiss his cock and use your hand for the part you cannot fit in your mouth.
Sukuna is a good teacher, making you feel like you are doing a good job because of the sexy praise his low, raspy voice whispers to you,
"Fuck yeah, just like that, princess. Just make out with my cock. You're doing so good. So sweet for me."
You moan around Sukuna's thick cockhead, feeling your own arousal coat the insides of your thighs, so turned on from what you are doing to Sukuna. It makes you suck even more devotedly on Sukuna's fat cock, licking the throbbing vein on the underside and suckling sweetly on his mushroom tip.
You feel him twitch in your mouth, and for a second, you worry if you will be able to swallow his cum without coughing, but then Sukuna's heavy-lidded maroon gaze meets yours, and a lazy smirk lifts his lips,
"I wanna cum on your face. Be a good girl for me, and just lick my tip until I bust all over your pretty face."
You moan and do as Sukuna says, kissing his tip and licking it, flicking your tongue against it in little kitten licks as if you are licking up milk from a bowl, all the while keeping eye contact with Sukuna. Shameless and naughty, feeling so turned on that you think you may cum too just from making Sukuna cum with your mouth.
And he does cum so beautifully for you. His tattooed thighs tense up, and his cock twitches as a low growl falls from Sukuna's lips. You moan when his swollen mushroom head shoots hot thick ropes of cum all over your face. And Sukuna licks his lips when he looks at you with that sexy, fucked-out expression on his beautiful tattooed face, his gaze following his cum that drips down your chin.
"You did so good. So sweet to me and my dick. Come here, princess."
Sukuna pulls you up into his arms, grinning as he cups your chin with one large hand and then his mouth opens, and he licks a stripe up your cheek, licking his own cum off your face, making your pussy clench around nothing.
You moan, your hands caressing Sukuna's broad chest, digging your nails into his buff pecs as he licks you clean. It is so obscene, so naughty, so fucking sexy. So different from everything you experienced before him. It's you who captures Sukuna's lips in a kiss, craving more, craving his taste. And Sukuna grins against your lips, pushing his tongue into your mouth, feeding you his cum, letting you lick it off his tongue.
It's a feverish, sloppy kiss, tasting like sex, and it makes your head spin and moan loudly against Sukuna's lips. You press needily against Sukuna's broad figure, trying to climb on him, throwing one leg over his waist, rubbing your wet needy clit against his abs.
He grins against your lips, pulling away only to wrap his hands around your waist and pull you closer to him, closer to his beautiful tattooed face. You gasp softly when you realize what Sukuna is about to do.
"Don't be shy, princess, just sit on my face. It's your turn now."
You moan breathlessly when Sukuna's strong hands pull you on his face, making your naked dripping-wet pussy brush against his warm mouth, sending sparks of desire through your whole body. You whimper, body shaking from the strain of keeping yourself upright, but Sukuna makes a disapproving noise,
"Come on, sit on me for real. I can take it, princess. Sit."
And he grabs your hips tightly, pulling you down, his lips instantly closing around your swollen clit and sucking on it, making a desperate horny cry tumble from your lips as the pleasure shoots through you.
Even if you still wanted to stay upright, you couldn't do it anymore. You are boneless in Sukuna's grip, lost in pleasure, letting Sukuna take care of you, letting him pamper your pussy with his soft, warm mouth.
You rest your whole weight on him, thighs spreading even further, shamelessly and needy, bucking your hips and rubbing your wet pussy eagerly against his hot lips and velvety tongue, crying out in pleasure when Sukuna's tongue pushes into you, fucking you slowly while his long fingers knead your ass and keep you in place right there on his beautiful tattooed face.
He eats you out until you are a trembling, sobbing mess, crying out anytime Sukuna's soft lips suckle on your clit or when he fucks you with those slow teasing flicks of his tongue.
You feel the pressure inside you build, the knot in your belly so close to snapping, and you tense up, trying to get away from Sukuna's mouth because the pleasure is too much, and you are scared of losing control. But Sukuna's strong hands hold you in place, pulling you back down.
"Just let go for me, princess. I came on your face. Now it's your turn. Make a mess on me."
Sukuna's lips close around your puffy clit again, and you mewl loudly. It's the combination of his words and the way his lips make out with your clit that sends you over the edge.
You cry out his name, your hips bucking wildly as you cum on Sukuna's face, hard and wild and very wet. Your juices drip from his lips even as he keeps eating you, making you cry and scream and bang your fists against the wall behind his bed right beneath the Tigers flag hanging there, while you cum and cum and cum until you feel dizzy.
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You feel light-headed when you finally manage to get up from Sukuna's bed. It still feels surreal to see the resident hockey star walking around naked in his room, picking up your clothes from his bedroom floor and placing them on the bed for you. But it's not as awkward anymore. It's almost nice. Sukuna talks casually about the away game the Tigers will play this weekend, and you nod and make some agreeing noises from time to time while you get dressed next to him.
You leave Sukuna's room, making a joking comment about the chaos Yuuji once again left in the living area, and Sukuna asks you if you will meet for lunch tomorrow. You nod and grab your jacket from the back of the couch, about to say good night to Sukuna when the apartment door swings open, banging loudly into the wall, making you jump.
Yuuji and Todo march inside, loud and excited, swinging baseball bats in their strong arms, and Yuuji announces loudly,
"Yo we got the bats, Kuna! Megumi just wants us to bring them back before morning. Let's go!"
His eyes land on you standing next to his brother, and he smiles sheepishly, but his voice still holds the same excitement when he greets you. Todo bumps into Yuuji, making him stumble further into the room, and Todo's gaze wanders from you to Sukuna and back again, fixing you with a scrutinizing gaze as if he is trying to figure something out.
You smile a bit awkwardly at the two hockey players, but Yuuji has already proceeded with his agenda. He throws a baseball bat at Sukuna, who catches it with one hand, twirling it around his long tattooed fingers. A broad, devilish smirk spreads over his face, and you get a tingly feeling in your stomach.
"Good job. Let's teach them not to fuck with Curses."
You look at him in alarm. At the mad grin on his tattooed face and the baseball bat, he's slinging over his broad shoulder.
"Um, what is this about?"
Yuuji and Todo both start talking at the same time, but you can make out the words,
"Rival team." "Revenge" and "Tonight."
Your eyes widen, and you stare in dawning horror at the baseball bat that's now resting on Sukuna's shoulder. Sukuna catches your gaze, and he throws his head back, laughing loudly,
"Your face, princess! Don't worry, we aren't going to kill someone. We will just smash that stupid ice sculpture they have. They deserve it after the shit they pulled on us."
"B... but where is that sculpture, and aren't you going to get into trouble for smashing it?"
Sukuna raises an eyebrow at you, his smirk growing broader, clearly enjoying himself.
"It's in their arena, of course. We'll pick the lock, get in, and smash that ugly-ass bear. It's no big deal. It's just a revenge prank."
You stare at him incredulously,
"That's burglary and property damage!"
But Sukuna just grins even more, looking like the damn Cheshire Cat with that dirty, smug smirk on his beautiful face. His voice drops to a teasing drawl,
"Aww, are you worried about me getting into trouble? You're so cute, princess. But this is hockey code. We will just teach them a lesson."
He twirls the baseball bat elegantly around his long fingers as his gaze snaps to his linemates.
"Alright, Curses. Let's go. Let's fuck them up. I want to make those losers cry."
He looks far too happy about what they plan to do. As if it isn't a completely reckless and dumb idea! Your heart is beating up to your throat as you give Sukuna a stern look,
"This is fucking stupid! You can't do that!"
Sukuna cocks his head, raising an eyebrow,
"Well, watch me, princess."
He puts a large hand on your shoulder and steers you out the door even while you complain loudly. But he just smirks while you try to reason with him all the way down the staircase.
You exit the dorm, and Sukuna leads your little group to his car. Yuuji and Todo climb into the back, all excited chatter and broad grins, the baseball bats firmly in their large hands. And you huff and put your hands on your hips, stepping between Sukuna and the car, not caring how ridiculously you must look, so much shorter and smaller than the huge, strong hockey player with the bad boy look and the face tattoos. You tilt your head back to glare up at his tattooed face,
"Stop it, Sukuna. This is so fucking dumb! I don't understand why Fushiguro, of all people, would support something like that!"
Sukuna laughs softly, shaking his head and smirking at you,
"Good thing Fushiguro has a weakness for my brother. I bet it only took one smile and a whiny "Megumiiii" from Yuuji, and our baseball star handed him the key to the Wolves' equipment rack. But now tell me, why do you care so much, huh princess?"
His smirk is so smug that you feel like shaking him, but you just sigh and glare at him,
"Yeah, okay, I admit it! I don't want you to get into trouble! Are you happy now?"
The look that spreads over Sukuna's face is far too pleased. He steps closer to you, tall, muscular body towering over you while he grins at you,
"Very happy. But as I said, I won't get into trouble. Now get out of the way, princess, and let me take my revenge. They started it by cutting the shoelaces on our skates."
You roll your eyes,
"They cut your shoelaces? And now you go and break in and destroy their expensive ice sculpture mascot or whatever it is? Don't you think that's a bit much?"
"Well, I always avenge things threefold. How would they learn their place otherwise? Noone fucks with me or my team."
And with that said, Sukuna puts his hands on your waist and just lifts you up, and places you down a few steps away from his car, slipping past you before you can do anything. You complain loudly, but Sukuna is already lounging in the driver's seat with that boyish smirk, winking provocatively at you with a "Good night, princess."
You don't know what has gotten into you, but you react impulsively and jog around the car, yanking open the passenger door and plopping down on the passenger seat, and this time, it is Sukuna who can't do anything to prevent it.
His gaze snaps to you, and you grin victoriously at him, almost laughing at the thunderstruck expression on Sukuna's tattooed face.
"What are you doing, princess? Get out of my car."
You cross your arms in front of your chest, shaking your head, grinning smugly at him.
"Forget it. I am not getting out of this car. If you want to go to your little illegal prank, you have to take me with you!"
Sukuna looks at you for a long moment, and then his lips twitch as if he is trying hard to hold back laughter. Your tummy does a flip at the mischievous expression on Sukuna's face, slowly realizing that maybe what you did wasn't the smartest thing either. Maybe you shouldn't have picked a dance with the devil.
But it's too late. Sukuna smirks at you, the tip of his tongue playing with the pointy tip of one of his canines, a devilish, excited sparkle filling his maroon eyes,
"Okay, have it your way, brat."
And with that, Sukuna starts his car, flooring the gas pedal immediately, making you squeal loudly when you get pressed into your seat. Loud music blares from the car audio, and in the backseat, Yuuji and Todo chime a Tigers cheer, pumping each other up as if they are about to get on the ice, only contributing even more to the adrenaline-inducing atmosphere in the car.
You scramble to grab your seat belt and fasten it with sweaty fingers while you hear Sukuna's loud laughter. You wrap your hand around the grab handle, staring wide-eyed at the nightly street before you. Sukuna drives fast and recklessly, and to your horror, you see him take his hands off the steering wheel, steering with one knee so he can light a cigarette while driving.
"Sukuna!"
He smirks but puts a large hand lazily on the steering wheel, slowly drumming his fingers on it,
"Relax, princess. I am not going to crash my car and kill us all. I know what I am doing."
You roll your eyes at him when he turns his head to grin at you.
"You are such an idiot, Sukuna. I am going to kill you if this lands us in jail or in the ditch!"
But Sukuna just smirks even more broadly and brings his cigarette to his lips to take a deep drag and then blow the smoke in your face. But you have the feeling that the car isn't driving as fast anymore.
You sigh dramatically and hug yourself, snuggling into the car seat, watching the dark road ahead, refusing to look at Sukuna. Your lips twitch when you hear Yuuji and Todo sing along to the song playing on the stereo, one doing pretty well, the other hitting not a single note.
And after a while, your gaze strays again to the boy next to you.
Sukuna's long tattooed fingers, with the accurately applied black nail polish, tap the steering wheel in sync with the beat of the music. His other hand is resting on the open car window. Occasionally, he brings it to his lips to take a slow drag from his half-smoked cigarette. His lips move silently to the lyrics of the songs, his eyes trained on the road before him.
You have to admit that after the initial panic, you now feel pretty safe and relaxed here in Sukuna's car. He is actually a good driver, even though you will never tell him. And he looks very cool driving a car, so calm and confident, making your gaze stay glued to him. To his beautiful side profile with the angular jaw and the filigree tattoos, and those sultry lips wrapping so attractively around his cigarette.
You catch yourself almost enjoying the car drive, breathing in the cool night air and Sukuna's cigarette smoke, letting both calm you down.
But the relative calm is gone the moment Sukuna parks the car on the side of the road near the Bears' hockey arena. Your pulse is racing again, adrenaline filling your veins.
Sukuna turns to his linemates with a jerk of his chin.
"Okay, get your baseball bats and then smash that fucking thing!"
His maroon gaze lands on you,
"Slip into the driver's seat, princess."
You blink at him, caught off guard,
"What?"
"You'll be our getaway driver. The moment you see us coming back, you start the car."
He says it nonchalantly as if it is the most natural thing to demand.
"What the fuck, Sukuna?"
"You said you don't want us to get into trouble. So this is how you can help us avoid trouble. You will get our asses out of here, princess."
He flashes you one of his most charming grins and then exits the car, leaving you sitting there with your mouth opening and closing. But Sukuna points adamantly to the now vacant driver's seat.
You sigh exasperatedly, rolling your eyes, but you have to admit that Sukuna has a point. The last thing you want is to get caught because the boys take too long to start the car after returning from their stupid prank.
And so you take a deep breath and do as Sukuna says and climb into the driver's seat, squealing when you lose balance because Sukuna is so much taller than you, and his seat is practically in the back of the car, making you ask yourself how Yuuji even had space in the back. You curse and grab the steering wheel, pulling yourself and the seat further to the front so you can reach the gas pedal, while Sukuna watches you with a far too amused expression on his face.
You finally sit properly in the driver's seat, giving Sukuna a glare and a thumbs up, and he smirks at you,
"That's my lucky charm, helping me even on hockey duties outside the rink."
"Just go, and please try not to get caught!"
You watch the three hockey players jog toward their rivals' arena. All three of them are dressed completely in black with the hoods of their sweaters pulled up, their tall, broad figures blending with the darkness around them. They really look like a bunch of criminals with their baseball bats in their hands.
Fuck, how did I get myself into this?
You sigh and let your head fall back against the headrest of the car seat, breathing deeply in and out in an attempt to calm your nerves. The car smells like cigarette smoke and Sukuna's cologne, which is not really helping you calm down but instead makes your stomach flutter even more.
You nervously pick on your nails as you let your restless gaze wander through Sukuna's car. Black leather seats, which are worn but clean. An empty energy drink sits in the middle console next to a cigarette pack. Some protein bars peek out of the door pockets. Your gaze lands on the rearview mirror, and you spot a scented Hello Kitty head dangling from it. You stare at the cat's face for several long seconds, and suddenly, your lips twitch, and you giggle, pressing a hand over your mouth, unable to stop anymore.
Your nerves are on high alert the whole time while you wait in the car, your heart jumping to your throat anytime you hear the slightest noise while the occasional hysterical giggle escapes your mouth.
The minutes seem like hours as you nervously watch the darkness before you. And then you finally spot a movement in the darkness. You gasp and sit up straight, your hands gripping the steering wheel tightly as you squint your eyes.
Three tall, broad figures appear, running like madmen. You scramble to turn the key in the ignition, breath coming out in excited little huffs as the engine starts with a low hum right when the three boys reach the car.
They yank open the car doors, laughing and yelling. Yuuji and Todo pile into the back while Sukuna sprints around the car and lets himself fall onto the passenger seat, a wild grin on his tattooed face, eyes brimming with the same expression he has after scoring a goal,
"Drive, princess!"
He doesn't have to tell you twice. You press your foot down on the gas pedal, speeding down the road, eager to get away from the crime scene as fast as possible.
The music blares out of the speakers again, and the boys hoot with laughter and high-five each other, turning the car into some after-game celebration party, chaotic and loud, and your veins sing with adrenaline, making you drive even faster, and you can't help but feel a small grin tug at your lips.
You drive through the town, feeling like everyone must know that you have three players from the rival team in the car, and they just wrecked the local hockey team's ice sculpture.
You stop at a red light, heart pumping wildly in your chest, giving the woman in the car next to you a nervous little smile as she looks over at the black car with the loud music and the hockey boys, but your attention gets stolen by the pink-haired boy next to you.
Sukuna's large hand grabs your chin, making you turn your head to him, and he grins broadly at you, eyes sparkling with excitement and pride, and he leans closer, licking the side of your face, making you screech loudly. He laughs against your skin before he presses a loud smacking kiss on your cheek, which makes Yuuji and Todo in the back cheer and whistle loudly.
Sukuna pulls away again, laughing that sexy low laugh,
"Great job, partner in crime."
And finally, you can't hold back anymore and burst out laughing loudly, shaking your head and rolling your eyes,
"You are fucking crazy, Sukuna. All of you are crazy!"
And Sukuna smirks and cocks his head,
"But you like it."
The traffic light turns green at that moment, and you start driving again, finally feeling at ease. You can't help but grin broadly and turn the music up louder as you cruise through the town with a car full of hockey players. You have no idea when your hand ended up on Sukuna's thigh, but it stays there almost the whole drive back to campus.
Once you are back on your campus and have parked the car in front of Sukuna's dorm, the four of you get out of the car, and Yuuji and Todo give you high-fives and big grins. Todo nods appreciatively at you,
"You are a first-class getaway driver! I had my doubts about you when I saw you earlier, but my man Sukuna has shown me today that he has top-tier taste in women!"
You blink at Todo, not really knowing how to react, and end up just laughing and clapping his burly back before Yuuji grins at you and pulls you in a quick half-hug,
"That was amazing! Thank you for getting us away from there! Do you know that Sukuna usually never lets anyone drive his car? He punched me once when I took it to drive to the cinema."
"Yeah, because I know that you are a horrible driver."
Sukuna gives his twin a light smack on the back of his head, and you laugh, feeling bubbly from all the adrenaline still flowing through your veins. You can't stop the big smile from spreading over your face when you look at Sukuna. He watches you with his cat-like eyes, a lazy smirk on his tattooed face, looking far too pleased, but you can't be mad at him. Not when you feel so light-headed from your little adventure.
Yuuji and Todo bid their good nights, quickly leaving to return the baseball bats before someone notices they are missing. And you smile at Sukuna and tell him that you will walk back to your dorm now, too. Sukuna takes a step closer to you.
"I'll walk you home, princess. There are too many bad boys on the street at this time of night."
"You mean, like you?"
He just grins and falls in step beside you. You don't say it, but it tugs strangely at your heart that Sukuna refuses to let you walk alone at this hour of the night.
Sukuna lights a cigarette and then reaches out to put a strong arm around your shoulder and pull you against his side, making you smile and lean against him.
He teases you the whole way to your dorm about how worried you were and how your face had looked so stern and shocked when you tried to stop them from their plan. And you complain playfully about it, telling Sukuna that he and his linemates need a watchdog or some restraints to keep them out of trouble.
You finally stop in front of your dorm, and you pull away from Sukuna, letting his arm slowly glide down your shoulder. You instantly feel cold when Sukuna's warmth is gone, making you wrap your arms around yourself, but it isn't the same.
Sukuna grins at you while his cigarette dangles from the corner of his lips. And then he reaches out to put a large hand on your hair and ruffle it, maroon eyes sparkling teasingly in the light of the streetlamp, just waiting for the loud squeal of complaint he knows will come.
His large hand is still in your hair, but it cups the back of your head now, keeping you in place as Sukuna leans down. And then you feel his lips press a kiss to your forehead. A gesture that makes your eyelashes flutter because it's so uncharacteristically tender for a guy like Sukuna.
But the moment is over before you can really grasp it, and Sukuna pulls away, flashing you another boyish smirk before he turns around to walk back to his dorm. A tall, broad figure clad entirely in black with pastel pink hair and a little cloud of cigarette smoke billowing behind him.
And you stare after him with a wildly pounding heart, thinking that you haven't felt this alive in a long time.
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It's Saturday evening, and you are bored, slowly sipping the drink in your hand while trying to pretend you are listening to the conversation going on in front of you. If things had gone your way, you would be in bed now, snuggled comfortably into Sukuna's soft, white hoodie, reading a book or watching a show. But Nobara was very adamant about going to this party in Maki's dorm.
"I am not walking in there on my own like some loser! You will come with me!"
And then she added, with a sneaky little grin,
"I heard that the hockey team will come too after they return from their away game."
You sighed and complained, but in the end, you played along and let Nobara drag you here.
But now you regret it. You aren't in a party mood tonight, and you don't know anyone except Nobara and Maki, who are busy making heart eyes at each other, making you feel like the third wheel.
A commotion at the door makes you turn your head, and you see several hockey players entering the apartment, getting high fives and claps on their backs for their win today. You can't help but crane your neck, waiting for pink hair and a smug smirk. But Sukuna is nowhere to be seen.
Your shoulders slump. You don't even know why you feel disappointed that he isn't here yet or maybe won't come at all. But somehow, the thought of having him here and being able to joke around with him had, for a second, been able to lift your mood. Maybe this boring party would have been enjoyable with Sukuna by your side.
You are about to leave for the kitchen to get another drink when your phone vibrates in your pocket. You pull it out, grinning when you see the text message.
Sukuna 🏒👑: Are you at the party, princess?
You: Yeah, I am here. Are you coming, too?
Sukuna 🏒👑: I'm already here.
You: I didn't see you. Where are you?
Sukuna 🏒👑: Come find me ;)
You chuckle softly to yourself as you lift your head to scan the room again. You excuse yourself from Nobara and Maki, deciding to wander around a bit and look for Sukuna.
Suddenly, the party doesn't seem so bad anymore. Your steps feel lighter, and you smile at the strangers you walk past. Your little tour through the apartment isn't successful, though. It's a mystery to you how a big guy like Sukuna is able to hide from you in this relatively small apartment. But then your gaze lands on the door that leads to the backyard.
Cold night air blows in your face as you stroll into the dimly lit backyard. And finally, you spot the pink hair you were looking for. Sukuna is leaning against a tree, a cigarette between his lips, smoking and looking bored.
You can't help but smile as you hurry over to him.
"Hey! What are you doing out here on your own?"
Sukuna huffs and rolls his pretty eyes,
"It's a boring ass party, plus I can't stand most people in there."
You raise an eyebrow at him, and his smirk grows bigger as he ruffles your hair and adds,
"With the exception of you, of course."
You laugh softly and shake his large hand off, smoothing down your hair as you look up at Sukuna's tattooed face and ask him,
"How was your game?"
"We won. Showed those fucking Bears what hockey is."
"Congrats! But how did they react to their smashed ice sculpture?"
You can't keep the slight worry out of your voice, but Sukuna laughs, eyes sparkling with amusement,
"They held a memorial event for it before the game started."
You chuckle, too.
"Do they know you guys did it?"
Sukuna shrugs, his smirk widening,
"I sure hope so. I would be insulted if they didn't."
He takes a deep drag from his cigarette, tilting back his head and slowly blowing the smoke out as he looks up at the night sky.
He looks beautiful, even though he has such an intimidating appearance with his face tattoos and his tall, broad figure.
Tonight, Sukuna isn't breaking into his rival team's hockey arena, but he still looks like someone who is up to no good with all his tattoos and his all-black clothes, a tight black t-shirt that shows off his firm pecs, and impressive biceps, and black cargo pants combined with combat boots. He looks like someone who would usually make you switch street sides if you saw him walking towards you at night.
But you know Sukuna now. You know that he is actually pretty nice if he wants to be. It's fun to be around him, and sometimes even peaceful, like tonight. Sukuna is definitely the only one you want to have by your side at this stupid party.
As if he heard your thoughts, Sukuna's gaze lazily wanders over your face, and he smirks softly.
"I'm not in the mood for that shitty party. Wanna leave?"
You answer him with a broad smile and a nod,
"Okay, let's go."
Sukuna flicks his half-smoked cigarette into the grass and jerks his head towards the fence behind him,
"We'll take that way, princess. Don't wanna run into my teammates."
And before you can point out that you are too unathletic and not tall enough to believe in your fence-climbing skills, Sukuna has already grabbed your hand and pulled you along.
Sukuna's hand is warm and strong and so much bigger than yours. Your pussy involuntarily clenches at the feel, making you silently curse yourself for having such a strong reaction to Sukuna's touch. But you don't have time to think about it because Sukuna's large hands are suddenly on your hips, lifting you off the ground as if you weigh nothing, just sending more flutters through your pussy and stomach.
He helps you climb over the fence and follows you a second later, climbing gracefully over it and landing safely on his feet on the other side as if it were nothing.
He jerks his chin in the direction of the main street.
"Let's get some coffee. I'm tired as fuck after the game."
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You sit across from Sukuna, slowly stirring your coffee, snickering at the locker room gossip he shares with you. He shows you videos on his phone, barking with laughter when he presents to you The Bears reacting to their smashed ice sculpture.
You're the only guests in the small coffee shop on campus at this hour of the night. The lights are dimmed, and the barista has disappeared into the back of the shop. It's a peaceful, solemn atmosphere as if you and Sukuna have entered a parallel universe in which only the two of you exist.
And somehow, Sukuna seems different tonight, too. Softer. His playful smirk has softened into a genuine smile, and there's this unguarded, almost affectionate look in his eyes. Something you only caught glimpses of when he looks at his brother. But tonight, you get to see this look on Sukuna's face, too.
It makes you feel like you are invited to something special, where the Ice King lets his mask slip and allows a glance at the boy beneath the rough and arrogant attitude.
And suddenly, it hits you. Sukuna is your friend.
He allows you at his table in the dining hall and escapes from boring parties with you to sip coffee in the middle of the night. He lets you drive his car and allows you in his room and somehow decided he enjoys spending time with you, not just for sex, but for mundane things like having lunch together, or drinking coffee at midnight, or watching videos on his phone.
Sukuna let you in.
A smile spreads over your face, and you reach out to touch Sukuna's arm. Your touch is gentle, your fingers lightly tracing the tattoos on his wrist. Sukuna cocks his head, looking curiously at you, but he doesn't comment on it and just shows you the next video of his game against The Bears.
The two of you leave the coffeeshop together a while later, and Sukuna elbows you gently,
"Wanna come over to my place? I haven't gotten my victory fuck yet."
And you laugh and hit his tattooed biceps playfully, even as you agree with a soft nod and a big grin before you loop your arm around Sukuna's and lean onto him while you walk back to his dorm.
You spend the next thirty minutes under Sukuna, getting railed into his bed, your fingernails leaving scratches on his muscular back, while he pounds into you with those delicious, hard, deep thrusts.
He rolls off you afterward but doesn't get up, and neither do you. You just stay there lying next to each other, your shoulders touching, watching more videos on Sukuna's phone.
Until your phone beeps and you see a message from Nobara,
"Where are you?"
"Don't worry, I am okay. I left the party. Sorry, forgot to text you."
"It's okay, but you didn't answer the question? Where are you? Omg, wait, are you with the curse?"
You laugh, and Sukuna raises an eyebrow. You show him the text, and he huffs, a large tattooed hand darting out to quickly grab the phone out of your hand. Before you can even react, Sukuna has already typed a reply:
"She's in his bed, actually."
You scream and try to pluck your phone from Sukuna's large hand, wrestling with him for it on his bed until you end up in his lap, straddling him, both of you laughing breathlessly.
Sukuna grins up at you and lets the phone drop onto his pillow and instead grabs your hips with both hands, flipping you over on your back, making you squeal and giggle while his lips trail kisses down your neck, and your hands tangle in his soft, pink hair. He pushes your legs apart, lowering his tall, buff body on yours, his half-hard cock rubbing against your tummy, and your body instantly reacts to him too. Your legs wrap around Sukuna's hips, pulling him closer, your hips lifting, welcoming his hardening cock between your wet pussy lips, telling him wordlessly to take you a second time.
Yes, Sukuna is your friend. Your friend, who also gives you damn good dick.
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PLEASE, THEY ARE SO SWEET 😭😭
I wanted to show the friendship aspect of the whole fuckbuddies thing in this chapter, and I hope you liked it! I am a sucker for friends to lovers, and I am screaming into my hand when I imagine Sukuna letting Reader in and letting her see behind his mask!!
I want to say thank you to all of you who read this story and leave sweet feedback in the comments and tags or send me nice asks! I realized once again this week that writing a multi-chapter fic is super stressful BUT also so beautiful because I can experience this whole process with all of you 💗 It's such a nice feeling that we are experiencing this story and the developing romance together. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! This is really what fandom is about for me.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Comments and reblogs would be very sweet.
If you commented on the masterpost, I will add you to the taglist, btw. I will reblog the story several times with the different taglists. Thank you so much for being invested in this fic 💗
In Chapter 7 Reader will get a private ice skating lesson with Hockey Player!Sukuna.
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nostalgebraist · 2 months ago
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In other uncanny-valley AI voice news...
Google has this new thing called "NotebookLM," which allows you to upload any document, click a button, and then a few minutes later receive an entire AI-generated podcast episode (!) about the document. The generation seems to occur somewhat faster than real-time.
(This is currently offered for free as a demo, all you need is a Google account.)
These podcast episodes are... they're not, uh, good. In fact, they're terrible – so cringe-y and inane that I find them painful to listen to.
But – unlike with the "AI-generated content" of even the very recent past – the problem with this stuff isn't that it's unrealistic. It's perfectly realistic. The podcasters sound like real people! Everything they say is perfectly coherent! It's just coherently ... bad.
It's a perfect imitation of superficial, formulaic, cringe-y media commentary podcasts. The content isn't good, but it's a type of bad content that exists, and the AI mimics it expertly.
The badness is authentic. The dumb shit they say is exactly the sort of dumb shit that humans would say on this sort of podcast, and they say it with the exact sorts of inflections that people would use when saying that dumb shit on that sort of podcast, and... and everything.
(Advanced Voice Mode feels a lot like this too. And – much as with Advanced Voice Mode – if Google can do this, then they can presumably do lots of things that are more interesting and artistically impressive.
But even if no one especially likes this kind of slop, it's highly inoffensive – palatable to everyone, not likely to confuse anyone or piss anyone off – and so it's what we get, for now, while these companies are still cautiously testing the waters.)
----
Anyway.
The first thing I tried was my novel Almost Nowhere, as a PDF file.
This seemed to throw the whole "NotebookLM" system for a loop, to some extent because it's a confusing book (even to humans), but also to some extent because it's very long.
I saw several different "NotebookLM" features spit out different attempts to summarize/describe it that seemed to be working off of different subsets of the text.
In the case of the generated podcast, the podcasters appear to have only "seen" the first 8 (?) chapters.
And their discussion of those early chapters is... like I said, pretty bad. They get some basic things wrong, and the commentary is painfully basic even when it's not actually inaccurate. But it's still uncanny that something like this is possible.
(Spoilers for the first ~8 chapters of Almost Nowhere)
The second thing I tried was my previous novel, The Northern Caves.
The Northern Caves is a much shorter book, and there were no length-related issues this time.
It's also a book that uses a found-media format and includes a fictitious podcast transcript.
And, possibly because of this, NotebookLM "decided" to generate a podcast that treated the story and characters as though they existed in the real world – effectively, creating fanfiction as opposed to commentary!
(Spoilers for The Northern Caves.)
----
Related links:
I tried OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode ChatGPT feature and wrote a post about my experiences
I asked NotebookLM to make a podcast about my Advanced Voice Mode post, with surreal results
Tumblr user ralfmaximus takes this to the limit, creating NotebookLM podcast about the very post you're reading now
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vyva-melinkolya · 1 month ago
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we all agree that the push towards short form, vertical video (tiktok/reels/shorts) is ruining fucking everything right? Tiktok has been useful for the dissemination of political information (e.g Gaza) i’ll give it that, but that feels moreso a result of meta and twitters algorithms being just a little *more*’evil and censor happy. And i want to make it very clear that my hatred for tiktok has nothing to do with the fact that it was a product of a Chinese company, because i see a lot of critiques relying on some sort of sinophobic conspiracy. On the contrary, it’s what tiktok has become in the vacuum of western popular culture and marketing that makes me fearful.
I know that every generation faces a new, polarizing technology and inevitably, there are those among said generation who will critique it. That is the nature of things. However, there is also something to be said about how, with the acceleration of technology (running parallel to the acceleration of capitalism, acceleration towards collapse etc), each coming generation faces an increasingly more malevolent “advancement”. TLDR, i’m going to talk my shit.
I’m going to speak on the aspect that is most relavent to me, as a musician. I am petrified by what short form video is doing to music and to musicians. I think that tiktok provides the illusion of making music and being a musician more “accessible” while actually pouring gasoline on the fire that the pop music machine had already started. Standards for what popular culture “expects” from music are being doubled and tripled. Let’s talk about song length. Success and marketability favoring shorter songs is not something new, it has been the trend for decades. But with short form video, it goes even further. You’re not just hearing the same song over and over on the radio, you’re hearing the same 15-30 seconds of the same song over and over again. This in-turn, starts to influence the way people write music, persuading people to make songs that *could* have that 15 second appeal. There is an art to pop music, there is an art to writing a catchy hook—this is something else. We weren’t meant to hear or understand music like that. There are so many songs from reels that i found annoying, until i heard them in their full context. It’s insidious. It makes everything feel like a fucking commercial, even if nothing is being advertised.
I’m going to pull directly from someone else’s experiences, someone who’s music seems to be everywhere on short form videos. The ambient musician My Head Is Empty has a hundred million streams on the song “i was only temporary”. Despite that exposure, they experience “never ending copywrite issues” and have “received death threats” by people who refuse to credit them when using their song. Pulling a quote here, from a comment on their own post
“vyva_melinkolya unfortunately it just gets worse. i saw a bot content page that steals pod cast footage and spams dozens of videos with my song stolen, comment on a "motivation" spam content , who actually made a post telling people the name of my song, and the previous page i mentioned, the pod cast spam commented on that video saying "Bro stop don't give out the sauce. this audio helps me pull numbers brooo" - so people are actively INTENTIONALLY stealing it and telling people to not credit me. like. u can't make this stuff up”
Beyond this, My Head Is Empty feels frustrated that despite all this exposure, the rest of their work (nine albums) as a musician remains under appreciated, and i think that frustration is 100% valid. People cannot fully appreciate music, or even understand it as a work of art created by another human, when it’s taken so far out of its context. Again, the soul being sucked out of art by “the machine” isn’t anything new but, this is a whole other level. Being a musician is more expensive than ever, streaming earns you fractions of a cent etc, it all feeds into itself.
When a song or a musician i love deeply finds its way on to tiktok (let’s use Duster’s “Stars Will Fall”, one of my favorite songs ever as an example)I am not upset that i cant “gatekeep” it anymore. I’m not upset by the idea of something I love and hold dearly finding a larger audience. I AM upset in the manner in which it is being disseminated. I’m upset with art I hold dear to me being chopped up and used as “trending audio”. When I saw Duster in concert recently, lStars Will Fall” was the song I was most looking forward to hearing. It was the last song they played, and it was the song seemly everyone chose to talk loudly over. The audience was mostly people my age and younger. This complaint might come off as petty or pretentious or cliche, i frankly do not give a shit.
Let’s talk about how musicians are expected to promote music on tiktok/reels. This is a matter of opinion, at the risk of sounding very pretentious: the “POV we are x band from x” “My label says i need x followers before x” “posting this video until c musician notices me”. I understand that some of it is in jest but, what the fuck? When did this become the norm? I do not blame anyone for promoting their music like this, but we should want more for ourselves. I’ve always said being a musician is deeply embarassing, inherently. If being a musician is inherently embarassing then what is this? I dont have a solution for this, and the music industry has always been ugly and bloodthirsty and seldom fruitful— but i feel like the very small amount of dignity we had as artists is now lost and I cant fucking stand it. Artists seem to promote the same single with dozens of reels over the course of months, hoping that something sticks. I dont want to sound like i’m shaming or, again, sound like i can provide a solution. I’m just very fucking sorry that it seems like this is “the way”. And personally, i’m scared that if i dont “get with the program”, im going to fail.
Again, all of this speaks to larger trends in entertainment industry and even larger trends in capitalism. But i’m just airing specifics right now because frankly? I cant take it anymore.
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arielleslipgloss · 9 months ago
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How to Reinvent Yourself!!
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(none of these photos are mine!) “Pour yourself a drink, put on lipstick and pull yourself together.” - Elizabeth Taylor
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Mindset!! This is one of the most important things that comes with reinventing yourself. Therefore that toxic, negative, insecure, and judgmental mindset has gotta go. Say hello to your new positive, secure, lavish, and uplifting mindset! Now, first thing you need to do is stop taking EVERYTHING so personally. Should you really be spending your whole day overthinking what this person says about you. NO! The only opinion that should matter when it comes to you, IS YOU. Next, think with a “so what?” type of mindset. Someone doesn’t like you? So what! Someone judges you? So what! Say so what, and move on. Lastly, take care of your mind!! You can’t create a whole new mindset if you don’t take care of your mind. So, heal whatever is making your mind stressed and fill your head with lots of good thoughts. You could compliment yourself, do shadow work, watch uplifting videos, just do whatever makes you feel good.
2. Set boundaries!! Not only should you set boundaries for yourself, but also for your relationships. Whether thats with a bf/gf, family members, or even friends. Whoever it is, they need to understand to not cross the line. Now, if they don’t understand then they obviously shouldn’t be around you. This year we are only surrounding ourselves around people who deserve to have access to us. Now, let’s talk about examples of having boundaries . First example, someone may be touching you in a way that makes you uncomfortable. For that reason you move a bit away from that person and clarify that they’re making you uncomfortable. If they call you selfish, so what? They need to understand to respect your boundaries. Second, someone is disrespecting you? Tell them that you don’t like their behavior and to stop. Last example, a stranger is using your belongings without your permission? Tell them that they should have asked and you don’t want them using your stuff. If any of these people don’t respect your boundaries, get them out of your life!!
3. Change the way you dress, talk, and walk!! I would like to clarify quickly, only do this if you want to. Moving on, I’ve learnt that slower walking and talking is better. Now I’m not saying to walk and talk in slow motion. Just slightly do it slower. This way, you can play attention to your behaviors more. It can be really important to observe yourself. Not only that but in a world moving fast, walking slow makes you stand out. Also make sure when you speak, it’s clear. That way people can understand you and what you’re saying. Finally, let’s go over the way you dress. Wear outfits that make you feel good, stylish, and fit you well. If you want to wear an outfit, don’t shy away. Wear it if it makes you feel happy! When you wear an outfit that makes you confident, the outfit is even cuter. Don’t forget, have fun with fashion and experiment with pieces.
4. Self-worth!! You need to understand that you’re an absolute BLESSING on this Earth. You are here for a reason and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There is not a single flaw in you. You see your insecurities? Yeah, well someone out there has them too. Just because you have a few insecurities, doesn’t mean that should bring your value down. You should bring your value up and add taxes by realizing your worth.
“It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.” - George Washington
Love you dolls sm!! Remember to always wear a smile and stay pretty 💋
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wikiangela · 15 days ago
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you're my happily ever after (so i'll take my chance now, risk it all somehow)
rating: G
words: 2.6k
8x06 fix-it, because I'm pissed - I or my fics aren't going anywhere tho <3
thank you to @evansboyfrend for beta reading, ily 🫶
[also on Ao3]
It feels like the whole world is crumbling down. It feels like the Earth should shake, burst on fire, open up and swallow everything around. As dramatic as it is, he kind of expects it to happen, and it’s weird that he’s still sitting here. His ears are ringing, panic rising in his chest with each of Tommy’s words. He watches Tommy get up and head for the door, and he’s frozen to his spot. It’s not- it can’t be. It fucking can’t be. “Wait,” he finally manages to say, trying to keep his voice from trembling, “did you just break up with me?” He asks, hoping to any entity that listens that he just misinterpreted it, that he got it wrong. Because- because he can’t lose Tommy. He’s falling for him so fast and so hard. He’s ready for the next step. He’s ready to move in together. He’s ready to talk about one day, eventually, maybe getting married. He knows he wants that. He knows what he wants, and he wants Tommy.  “Yeah, I guess I did.” Tommy answers, glancing back at him, his expression sad but firm. But Buck knows him. Knows that this mask will crumble into something devastated as soon as he leaves. That Tommy’s heart will shatter, just as Buck’s is right now. He can see through Tommy, he knows that he cares about Buck. It just- it doesn’t make sense. What was he even talking about… It was all so much, so fast, Buck’s brain is still scrambling trying to understand it all.  “Believe me, I didn’t see-” Tommy starts, but Buck shakes his head and interrupts him. “No.” He stands up, his legs feeling shaky. Tommy fully turns towards him, confusion in his face. “What do you mean, ‘no’?” He frowns.
“I mean, no, you’re not breaking up with me.” Buck says more confidently than he feels. Because this can’t be it. The last six months, the best six months of his fucking life, can’t end like this. Can’t end at all. He won’t have this. “I know you care about me. And I care about you. And I don’t want to break up.” He sees Tommy open his mouth to speak, his expression hardening – putting on a mask again, trying to hide the hurt. He speaks again before Tommy can. “If you truly, genuinely want this, not because you think it’s gonna be better for me or you, but because you don’t want to be with me, fine, I can respect that. But I won’t accept it without a fight. I- I wanna fight for us, Tommy.” Buck steps closer to him, hoping that Tommy doesn’t step back, that might just break him. He doesn’t, he’s stuck in place, sad eyes on Buck’s. “Let me fight for us. You-” he adds quickly, on a roll now, not wanting Tommy to interrupt until after he’s done, after he’s said his piece. He needs to say it all now, let Tommy know how he feels. He can’t watch him leave without trying to fix it first. Tommy’s looking at him intently, just listening, not even trying to speak. “You gave me a second chance once, when I fucked up our first date, and I- I want to believe it wasn’t for nothing. So- so you’re my first man, so what?” Buck throws his hands up in frustration, he thinks he’s starting to sound a little frantic, speaking faster and faster. He just can’t let Tommy leave without him knowing exactly how Buck feels. “It’s far from my first relationship ever. Why- why is it so different just because you’re a man? It shouldn’t be. I don’t need to date other people, experiment or whatever else. I’ve dated people, slept around, did it all. I know how that goes, how it feels, and I don’t want to do it again. I know what I want, Tommy. And I want you. And don’t you dare tell me how I feel.” He feels anger seep in, Tommy’s words ringing in his head. What the actual fuck was he thinking? “I’m a grown man, I know how I feel. Yeah, it’s new and exciting, but it’s also real. It’s real to me, and- and if there’s any chance of forever, I want to take it. And-” he takes a breath. He feels like he’s been speaking in one breath, feeling a little lightheaded now, his heart hammering. Or maybe that’s just the panic. “And don’t start with the whole ‘I’m not your last’ bullshit.” He shakes his head again, tears welling up in his eyes, anger still building. Really, what in the world? How could Tommy want to just throw away the most wonderful relationship that’s happened to Buck in years? Maybe ever? “You don’t know that. I don’t know that. Yeah, we could break up one day. But you could also be my forever, and I could be yours. I’d love a chance to find out, even if it hurts in the end. But maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one here brave enough to risk it. And- and what about my heart, huh?” Tears are threatening to spill, his voice shaking now, with sadness and anger, and desperation. He can’t let him go, he can’t. “You said I’d break your heart eventually. But this, right now? This is you breaking mine.” He finishes, almost panting now, his monologue taking the wind out of him, wanting to say everything on his mind, in his heart. He hopes he got his point across. 
“Evan.” Tommy just whispers, with a pained expression. There are tears in his eyes, too, one lone one slipping through, falling down his cheek. Buck’s hand itches to reach out and wipe it off, but he’s not sure if he’s allowed to anymore. 
“Give us a chance, Tommy. Let us fight for this. Fight for me, for us. Fight with me.” He’s aware he sounds like he’s begging at this point, but he doesn’t care. This is too important. “I thought it’s been so good between us lately-”
“It has!” Tommy rushes to say. “It’s been amazing. You make me so happy. That’s why I’m scared, I just- I’m sorry, Evan, but I can’t let myself get hurt like this again. Because I- I’ve been there before, and it was hard to get back up, and with you- I don’t think I’d be able to ever recover from this one.” He admits, his stone-faced facade crumbling, and Buck can see his own feelings reflected in Tommy’s expression. Sad, devastated, heartbroken. 
“We can- we can take some time apart.” Buck says around a lump in his throat. He feels like he can’t breathe. All he wants is to rewind until before he dropped the moving in bomb which must be what made Tommy freak out. He could say anything else, and take it slower, and maybe they’d be on their way out right now, a date night like they planned. “If that’s what you need. A break. But not for good. And then let’s come back to it clear-headed, knowing for sure what we want. And if you still want to break up, I- I’ll respect that. But I already know what I want,” he repeats firmly, decisively. “I want a future with you. I want to move in together, and one day down the line get married, and- and I want it all with you. We can slow down if I’m rushing this. I tend to do that, and if it’s scaring you, I’m sorry.” He adds, not wanting to backtrack any of this, but aware of how intense he’s coming off. He’s never been more serious about anything in his life. “But the past six months have been the best in my life. I’ve never felt so happy, so free, so comfortable, so safe. And I’m not giving up on you, Tommy. I will fight for you until I can’t anymore, until you tell me that you don’t care about me and I should just fuck off.”
“Evan. You know I’ll never say that.” Tommy responds quietly.
“I know. Because I’m confident in us, in the fact that you do care, and you do want me. I know that.” Buck emphasizes, and realizes, not for the first time, that he never felt like this before. This secure. This confident about someone wanting him. “I also know you’re just trying to protect yourself, your heart, and I get it. But I can’t let you go without a fight. I won’t. I messed up a lot in my life, and I won’t mess up this. I refuse to. Because I-” he takes a sharp breath, the words pressing on his lips. He doesn’t want to say it for the first time in a possible break up, a moment of such anger and devastation. But he needs to put it all out there. Needs Tommy to understand how much he’s trying to throw away right now. “I love you, Tommy.” He confesses, sees Tommy’s face melt into the saddest expression Buck’s ever seen on anyone, tears spilling freely now. Both of theirs, he realizes, feeling wetness on his cheeks. “I’ve been falling for you a little bit more with each day we spend together, with each minute. And I know- I hope you feel the same. But if you can look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t-” he swallows thickly, the thought alone is too much to bear. 
“I can’t do that.” Tommy interrupts quickly. “Of course I love you, Evan. It happened so quickly it kind of scared me a little.” 
“I noticed.” Buck says dryly, and Tommy lets out a humorless chuckle. “If you ask me, which you didn’t, by the way, you decided for both of us, which was an asshole move,” he points out, and Tommy looks away, as if ashamed. Good. Buck loves him, which means he’s gonna call out when he’s acting shitty. “I’d rather give us a real try and get my heart shattered if it comes to this, instead of always wondering what if, always wondering if you’re my one who got away. Which you would be.”
“I’m sorry.” He shakes his head, takes a step towards Buck, now just half a step away. “I’m sorry, maybe breaking up is too hasty. Impulsive,” he scoffs at himself, probably remembering how he called Buck that just a few minutes ago. Well, so maybe they’re both a little impulsive. Not a problem, in Buck’s opinion. “I don’t- I don’t want to break up. I never want to be away from you.” He says, his voice barely above a whisper. His hand flinches at his side, like he wants to reach out, grab Buck’s, touch him. Buck hopes he does. “It just- it seemed too fast. Like you got wrapped up in the moment. It’s still so new, I thought we were taking it one step at a time, and I didn’t-” he takes a deep breath, as if bracing himself, and Buck knows what he says is going to sting – and it does, it feels like a gut punch, actually, “I didn’t think you were as serious about this as I was getting. And I realize we should’ve done the mature thing and talked it out. I’m sorry. It’s just, we’ve barely talked about any future here. But I want it, of course I do. I’m just- I’m scared. My heart has never been in this much danger.” He looks into Buck’s eyes as he says it, more vulnerable than ever. This is everything Buck wants right now, for them to talk, to discuss this, to try fixing it, instead of one of them running away and the other giving up and not fighting for it. Buck’s been there, he doesn’t want a repeat.
“Tommy.” Buck is the one to close the distance between them, carefully brings his hands up to cup Tommy’s face, giving him a chance to back away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he breathes out a sigh of relief, like he craved Buck’s touch as much as Buck craves his. “You remember when I told you I wanted something with you? Even though I didn’t know what that something was yet?” he asks and Tommy nods slightly, Buck’s palms still resting on his cheeks. “I’ve been serious about you since that precise moment. About pursuing this, and wanting some kind of future with you. I know I tend to rush into things, it’s been a problem before.” He huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “I tried not to do that with you, but I failed, clearly. I just think from now on, we both should stay and talk and try to work it out if we have any issues with something. If you still want me.” He adds a little anxiously, but relaxed when he feels Tommy’s palms settle on his hips.
“Of course I want you, Evan. I always will.” Tommy says, that loving look in his eyes, that always makes Buck’s heart melt a little. That look that Buck loves so much, that made him think that Tommy might feel the same way.
“Good. Like I said, I’m not letting you go. Ever.” He says decisively, a huge weight that’s been there since the topic even started finally lifting off his chest. This might be the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and no matter the conclusion – which he’s pretty sure will be the happily ever after he’s always craved – it’s worth the risk, it’s worth everything.
“Good.” Tommy echoes, that gorgeous, scrunchy smile of his slowly spreading on his face, and it’s like sunshine came out from behind stormy clouds. “I don’t intend on letting you go, either. I love you, sweetheart. And I’m so sorry for… for this mess. For overreacting.”
“That’s fine, we’re past this- well, actually, we are gonna talk about it more, but at least we’re on the same page now, I hope.” Buck says, slowly leaning in. “I love you so much. I never want to lose you.”
“I’m sorry.” Tommy says again, and Buck just wants him to stop saying it. It’s fine, they’re fine now. “You won’t. You have me for as long as you want. I promise.”
“What if I want you forever?” Buck whispers, his face so close to Tommy's, their lips almost brush. It sends a shiver down his spine, like he hasn’t kissed him in days, when they just exchanged a quick kiss hello a few minutes ago.
“That works for me.” Tommy smiles again, and finally dives in for a kiss, but it lasts barely a second before he’s pulling away, Buck trying to follow. Tommy chuckles, running a comforting hand up and down Buck’s side. “But maybe let’s put a pause on the whole moving in together thing, huh? At least until we fully talk everything through.”
“Yeah, good idea.” Buck nods, his gaze flickering between Tommy’s eyes, now sparkling happily, and his pretty, kissable lips. It feels so good to be able to just have a mature conversation and resolve whatever issues arise. If they keep doing that, he thinks they’re going to be okay. He’ll make sure of that. “No need to be impulsive,” he adds, his lips twisting into a teasing smirk.
“Okay.” Tommy chuckles quietly, his cheeks reddening. “Just kiss me.” 
Buck doesn’t need to be told twice. He kisses Tommy like he means it, like he’s his person, like he’s the love of his life, trying to put all those emotions into a kiss. He knows for sure he’s getting the same intent back. And at this moment, in his kitchen, narrowly avoiding losing his love because of a stupid reason, he decides it. One day, not too quickly, but not too far into the future, he’s going to ask Tommy Kinard to marry him. And he’s more than sure of the response he’ll get.
[also on Ao3]
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