#i have SO many feelings about those three

[feeder86]

Gluttons

It was strange how you could go ten years without seeing someone and yet suddenly remember everything about them the moment you came across them again.

Oliver had never understood the alarm system at the house he and his boyfriend had bought a couple of years ago. However, since it had been setting itself off whilst he had been at work, he knew it was time to get someone in to see it. He’d called a company, not knowing that his old high school buddy, Tom, worked for them. That was, until the guy showed up at his door that Thursday afternoon.

Back in the day, Oliver had mixed with quite a diverse crowd in high school. He’d never been one to shoehorn himself into a stereotypical group and had amassed friends across the entire spectrum of high school life. Tom had been on one of those extreme ends of the scale: a typically gorgeous, athletic jock who didn’t have much time for many people outside of the usual jock circle. However, Oliver had always found him relatively easy to chat to and even remembered them getting dared to kiss each other during an alcohol infused round of ‘spin the bottle’ at one of their friend’s parties. Unlike many of the other jocks, Tom seemed more comfortable in his own skin, not caring that Oliver was gay, despite only having an eye for the most athletic girls in the school. It was fair to say that Oliver only had good memories of the guy.

“Oliver!” Tom smiled in recognition as he stood on the doorway carrying his bag of tools. “I didn’t know you lived here!”

The man stepped over the threshold, placing his bag down and reached in for a hug that almost seemed out of place after such a long period of estrangement. The scent of him seemed so familiar. He was still so handsome and good-looking, but what was that Oliver could feel as their torsos bounced against each other? He looked down the moment they stepped apart again, noticing that Tom had developed the cutest, tight and firm-looking paunch on him. It stuck out under his toned chest, stretching the material of the cheap work shirt, looking incredibly out of place on the guy who had once been so fit and active.

“Long time, no see,” Oliver smiled back, trying not to stare at the unusual shape of his old high school buddy. The pair spent a few minutes reminiscing, with Oliver explaining how he and his ex, James, had come to buy the house and lived there together up until three months ago, when the guy had cheated on him and abruptly moved out. 

“I just remember that crazy old cat guy used to live here when we were in high school,” Tom laughed. “I never imagined it would be as nice as this inside.”

“Oh, it definitely wasn’t like this when we bought it,” Oliver laughed. “We pretty much had to start from scratch when we bought the place.”

Tom smiled at him, seeming to admire his achievement. It was the way he had always been, never jealous or competitive; just genuinely happy for others when things were going well; even if people beat him in a tennis match or smashed his high school athletics records. 

As Tom settled to work at the alarm box, Oliver couldn’t help staring at his old friend’s new shape once more. From behind, it was obvious that the tight little paunch on him had pushed around to his sides, providing him with the sweetest little love handles, further emphasised by how ridiculously tight his shirt was around his middle. There was an added thickness to his butt too; his old, slim glutes replaced with more bulbous, stronger-looking butt cheeks. After three months of being angry at the world and swearing off men, Oliver suddenly found himself swooning. He’d always loved guys on the larger side and Tom appeared to be the most perfect dad-bod specimen Oliver had ever seen. As the guy bent down to collect some wires from his bag, an expanse of skin on his lower back came suddenly into view, alongside a sweet shot of his delicious-looking butt crack that his stretched and undersized underwear failed to cover. There was no doubt about it, Oliver was finally getting over his break-up.

“Would you like some cake?” Oliver offered, pulling out the leftovers from the birthday party he had thrown for his mother the day before.

Two greedy little eyes looked upon the cake and the man swallowed a sudden build up of saliva. “Sure,” he nodded eagerly, sipping on his fresh coffee and feeling a lot more spoiled than when he called at most folks’ houses.

Oliver could feel his erection flexing as he pulled out the knife to start cutting the slice. Tom had always been so fit and lean, yet now Oliver was serving him cake whilst enjoying the round, bloated shape of his stomach. He went to dish out the portion when a wicked, kinky part of his brain began whispering to him: ‘More! More! Cut him a bigger slice!’ 

As Oliver listened to it, he felt even more blood pumping into his groin. The slice he had cut was ridiculously massive. He almost felt embarrassed as he served it up. Yet Tom didn’t seem in the slightest bit put off by it. He simply stood to the side, resting the arm holding the plate against his tight, rounded stomach, feeding himself with the fork. The sight was almost mesmerising.

“Can I get you some more?” Oliver asked cheekily, seeing that the plate was cleared remarkably quickly. “It’s fresh cream. I’ll probably end up having to throw it out tomorrow,” he lied.

“Well… okay then,” Tom nodded, seeming to know that he was overindulging. This time, Oliver didn’t bother cutting a slice. The remaining cake was only marginally larger than the slice he had served up last time. He simply slapped the entirety of it onto the plate, thanking Tom for freeing up some space in his refrigerator.

“It’s been really great to see you again,” Tom smiled later on as he gathered up his things and headed to the door.

“You too!” Oliver nodded back, having enjoyed the last half an hour immensely. He felt reinvigorated and irredeemably aroused, as if the time had been the best possible therapy to get him over the sadness of his break-up.

“Perhaps you might let me take you out to dinner sometime?” Tom asked next, suddenly a little shy.

“Dinner?” Oliver shot back in complete and utter shock. “As in… a date?”

“Sure. Why not?” Tom chuckled. “I always remember the two of us having a good vibe together back in high school. I’d like to see whether we still have it.”

Oliver was almost speechless. Sure, he’d been flirting the entire time, but he hadn’t expected any of it to land. Tom had never… Tom wasn’t into guys… What the hell was going on?

“You don’t want to,” Tom sighed, trying to interpret the stunned silence.

“No!” Oliver shot back. “Not ‘no’… I mean, yes. I mean…” he spluttered, grumbling at his sudden inability to communicate effectively. “Okay,” he nodded, trying not to laugh at his own good fortune. “But why don’t you come over here instead of going out? I can cook us a meal.”

Tom smiled brightly. “I’d love that. Tomorrow night?” he asked.

Oliver reflected the smile as he nodded. There really was no time to waste.

At the supermarket the next day, Oliver felt the same sense of arousal he had experienced when serving the cake. There were so many things a relatively overweight, former jock should never eat, suddenly getting thrown into his shopping cart: beers, potato chips, pastries and sodas. Something inside of Oliver was captivated by seeing how much Tom had let his eating habits slide and he endeavoured to create the most decadent dining experience for his date that he possibly could.

When Tom arrived, he looked smart enough in his pants and polished shoes. But just like any guy who wasn’t paying enough attention to his expanding waistline, his shirt was once again tight around his stomach. Even standing up, the buttons looked slightly strained, positively gaping once he sat down and started to eat alongside Oliver.

“You’ve got a great appetite!” Oliver couldn’t help marvelling as Tom reached out for a second helping of the dessert. He got up, spooning out another scoop of ice cream for the man as well, pretending that he was merely pleased that Tom had enjoyed his cooking so much. The guy hadn’t stopped complimenting his food all evening.

“I’ve always enjoyed my food,” Tom nodded back, already starting to spoon it all into his greedy little mouth. “I always used to get away with it when I was younger. But once I hit my mid-twenties, it all started to stick to me a lot more,” he explained, giving his rounded stomach a pat, showing, for the first time, that he was actually aware of it. “I reckon it’s probably the reason I’m still single.”

The shape of that gut was completely mesmerising to Oliver, yet he pushed his urge to stare and marvel at it to the side. It wasn’t normal to be so fixated on a guy’s belly; a feature that most people would find to be Tom’s least attractive attribute. “The last thing I heard about you was that you were engaged to Molly Simpson from the year below us,” Oliver enquired interestedly.

“Oh, yeah…” Tom mumbled back, trying to eat at the same time. “That was a couple of years ago now.” He shook his head, as if something still frustrated him. “I just don’t get it,” he grumbled. “What do people expect guys like me to look like these days? I’m nearly thirty after all.”

It was obvious that his increasing weight had put an end to Tom’s engagement. But the way that Tom seemed genuinely annoyed by it all seemed to suggest that he placed no blame on himself, or his overeating, whatsoever. The volume of food he had devoured was more than extreme that evening, yet the guy seemed to believe his expanding waistline was just a normal part of ageing?

“You remember Steve, my older brother?” Tom asked, still feeding himself. “He’s the same. Only he goes to the gym to try and keep his weight down. But,,, It’s not like I have the time for that, do I?” he shrugged.

Oliver nodded sympathetically. However, there was an excitement inside of him that he felt almost impossible to contain. Tom’s genuine greed had captivated him all evening, yet the multiple excuses and denial about his own part in his increasing weight was adding fuel to that fire; supplying another strange level of arousal to the whole proceedings. “Well, I’m just grateful to have someone who actually enjoys my cooking,” he threw back, resisting the temptation to make a disparaging remark about how his ex had never appreciated all the effort he put into their meals. “So is this why you asked me on a date? You think the girls don’t want you anymore?” he teased, adding another small scoop of ice cream into Tom’s bowl at the guy’s request.

“I told you I was bisexual years ago!” Tom shot back.

“No you didn’t,” Oliver laughed. 

“I definitely did!” Tom countered. “The night we played spin the bottle at Andy’s party. The night we kissed,” he chuckled. “You do remember that, right?” he asked, getting concerned.

“I remember us being dared to kiss,” Oliver nodded. “But I don’t remember anything else. I was pretty wasted. Did you really come out as bisexual to me that night?”

A small smile twitched from the corners of Tom’s mouth. “So that’s why you didn’t ever pick up on my flirting then,” he chuckled, rolling his eyes.

“You were actually into me back then?” Oliver asked, dumbfounded.

“Of course I was,” Tom nodded. “You’re gorgeous!”

The pair held a sickly, besotted look for a moment, before they both got up to move over to Oliver’s lounge space. Tom sat down first. He’d always carried a sense of presence about him, but with his imposing height and added mass, he seemed to fill the area with a deeply arousing, masculine air; his straining shirt gaping once more, bloating from all the food he had devoured; yet Tom appeared completely oblivious to it, with eyes only on Oliver. They talked for a short while about the people they knew from their school days; both of them realising that there were surprisingly few either of them were still in regular contact with. They’d both moved on, lived lives and experienced things that had altered them more than their eighteen-year-old selves could have contemplated. They were so familiar to each other, and yet excitingly new.

Oliver nestled himself under Tom’s arm and rested against his side; a gentle hand draped over the boy’s stout little tummy as they moved in for a sweet kiss. The smell of his body was arousing Oliver more than he thought possible; the gentle sweat and manly musk of a guy who had overindulged in stifling clothes, more than a little too tight for his fattened body. The kiss was good and followed swiftly by another, more passionate and almost frantic, as if their simmering attraction to each other had finally passed the point of no return. It wasn’t as if they were strangers just getting to know each other, and it was obvious what they both wanted.

Oliver’s hands wanted to explore more and more; to rip off Tom’s clothes and see it all. Thankfully, it was Tom who was leading the charge. Perhaps, just like Oliver, this was the first bit of action he had had in months. As such, the kissing progressed quickly, with hands sliding down into crotches and rubbing with gentle moans of encouragement. Tom grunted and unbuckled his pants, sliding them down to let his buoyant erection spring out. Oliver followed his cue, with the pair mutually stroking the other as they kissed; their breathing getting heavier and heavier. 

Finally, Oliver could wait no more. He wanted to see under Tom’s shirt. He wriggled his dropped pants clean off, then raised his own shirt off his slender, gently toned body. Immediately, Tom’s eager hands explored his torso, smiling with eager appreciation. Now was Oliver’s moment. Naked, he stood and smiled wickedly and he pulled Tom’s pants further down and threw them across the room. He sat himself on Tom’s lap, finally taking his hands to the top button of the guy’s shirt, unpicking them all, one by one, making his way down. At last, he spread the material apart, revealing the rounded, most handsome potbelly Oliver had ever seen in his life. The chest was strong and a little hairy. Only the very gentle softness of the nipples gave away the obvious forty pounds Tom had gained since Oliver had seen him last. However, the extreme, solid and heavy ball-shaped stomach was more than he had ever wished for. Here was a man who not only enjoyed his food, but had clearly packed it into himself with relish, growing such a firm, well shaped, spherical mass. It was all Oliver could do not to lament at how insanely arousing he found the sight of it. Instead, he kissed the guy more and more, leading him upstairs to finish the job.

Oliver’s friends were always going to be sceptical when he started a new relationship. They’d witnessed how heartbroken he had been after his split with James, glancing at each other with concern as Oliver had lamented about seeing an old high school crush.

“He’s staying over again tonight?” Mandy had asked. “Doesn’t he have his own place?”

Oliver had steered the conversation carefully, sensing their worries. These friends had only ever known him as the driven, assertive version of his twenties; mistaking that now for a reckless, foolhardy fall into a rebound relationship. In contrast, Tom seemed to know him so much more; that unrefined incarnation of his teenage years and the way it had evolved now into someone the man appeared to have fallen for just as much as Oliver had in return.

“Trust me,” Oliver had smiled at them all. “You’ll understand when you meet him.”

However, when the friends did meet Tom, Oliver soon realised how much of a serious misstep he had taken in laying the groundwork. He’d talked too much about how they’d known each other in high school and how popular Tom had been with the girls because of his athleticism. So when he arrived with a thicker, slightly pot-bellied physique, he should have been less surprised when their eyes kept flying back to Tom’s swollen middle. Of course they would be surprised. Oliver’s ex, James, had been obsessed with the gym, whereas it was obvious that Tom was not. Like a typical guy who had packed on a few pounds, Tom was continuing to wear his medium t-shirts that clung unflatteringly against the expanded waistline, emphasising it even more. It also didn’t help that Tom had arrived, feeling pretty hungry. He ordered more than everyone else and even reached across to grab the things people had left on their plates when they were too polite to refuse him.

If Oliver was honest, he felt a strange sense of embarrassment at Tom’s overeating and attire. His new boyfriend’s greed and appearance did not match in the slightest with the men his friends were used to him dating. Upon meeting Tom, they were quickly realising that Oliver’s taste in men wasn’t always quite so mainstream. On the other hand, however, it was incredibly thrilling to show off the kind of man Oliver found genuinely so appealing: overfed, under-exercised and swollen. As Tom ate, Oliver’s hardness built, realising that were Tom to continue on this path, this was probably the slimmest his friends would ever see his new lover.

In truth, Oliver knew that he was significantly overfeeding Tom whenever he came over. It almost felt like something he could barely control as he stocked his refrigerator and cupboards with all the decadent favorites he knew Tom wouldn’t be able to resist. Meanwhile, Tom relaxed into it completely, resting back into the couch as he sipped on his beers and allowed his new lover to spoil him. It was obvious how much he enjoyed it all, lamenting more than once how great it was to be dating someone who didn’t constantly nag him about his eating, as it appeared his previous girlfriends had all done. In Tom’s mind, this made dating guys so much easier.

The effects were instantaneous. When they first started sleeping together, Oliver could squint his eyes and still see the toned, athletic butt that Tom had had back at the end of high school, even with his slightly oversized glutes. Now, however, the tops of Tom’s thighs had started softening and the butt cheeks had pushed outwards, developing significantly more width to them through a lack of exercise. Tom’s ass had become that of a fat man, rather than a simple ex-jock, meaning that Oliver was able to finish with remarkable speed whenever they practised being versatile in the bedroom. But as Oliver thrusted and pounded, he wasn’t simply enjoying the feel and shape of Tom’s chubby butt; in his mind, he was imagining the size it could grow to with more time and encouragement. After all, it was obvious that Tom’s rear was only ever going to grow bigger.

Unlike other people, there seemed to be a genuine disconnect between Tom and the appearance of his body. He didn’t seem to notice how badly his clothes were fitting, nor become irritated by how obviously uncomfortable certain items of clothing must have been for him; his tortured, stretched out and exhausted underwear sliding further down his butt crack. After a performance management review, Tom came back wearing larger work shirts that had been issued to him after his manager saw the disastrous fit of the old ones. Tom had shrugged it off without complaint, nor alarm over how much thicker he was becoming. He was the type of man who didn’t make issues where there needn’t to be any. His weight wasn’t impacting his work, nor his sex life, so it surely mustn’t be a problem.

Out of both excitement and neccessity, Oliver took the initiative and started to buy Tom some new items to wear, finding that the man was more than happy to accept the guidance. Having never had an interest in clothes, he’d assumed that, as a gay man, Oliver would be a lot more knowledgeable about how to dress him. The casual look was so sexy on him as well; the sweatshorts and sweatpants, the sleeveless t-shirts and elasticated waistbands. It was obvious how Tom’s gain had been able to take hold of him. The guy had adopted a lazy lifestyle that Oliver had enabled with ease. As Tom drove around from house to house in work, he’d been making casual calls at fast food places several times in a week, as was evident throughout his work vehicle. He’d avoided walking as much as he could, always ensuring he parked as close as possible to the store he was visiting. When he got home, he would collapse on the couch and not move. Indeed, a brief look in the glutton’s kitchen cupboards would tell anyone that he had the taste buds of a five year old; with sugary snacks and tasty treats filling them up entirely.

For the first time, Tom was starting to carry a little more weight in his face, with cheeks that had swollen slightly and the start of a small chin. His pecs had softened, with fat beginning to spread under his arms as his rounded gut inflated once more.  Oliver realised that in only three months of dating, he had probably witnessed Tom gaining a further thirty pounds of fat on his tall frame without a care in the world.

It was around that time when Oliver was taken to meet Tom’s family. Despite only knowing for a few days that their son had flipped to dating a guy for the first time, Tom was still remarkably affectionate with Oliver in front of them. His brother, Steve, and his wife, Rachel, had been invited along for dinner at the same time, really piling on the pressure for Oliver to impress. 

Oliver had an image in his head of how he expected Tom’s parents to look; after all, Tom had done every athletics club under the sun when he was growing up, and it wasn’t unreasonable for Oliver to anticipate that this was as a result of his upbringing. However, Oliver quickly realised that the picture he had of them in his head couldn’t have been more wrong. Tom’s mother was short, round and carried an enormous amount of weight on her giant rear. His father was an even more extreme example of obesity, clearly weighing no less than four hundred pounds on his tall and broad frame. Oliver wondered if this had been a recent thing for the pair of them, but as he gazed upon the family photos around the house, he realised that Tom and his brother, Steve, had always grown up with very large parents. 

Steve’s wife, Rachel, was someone Oliver remembered clearly as the former editor of the high school newspaper; an extremely bossy and studious girl from the year above and not someone Oliver had been particularly keen to get to know. Perhaps it was just the fact that she had seen so many of Tom’s love interests come and go over the many years she had been a part of the family, but she did not seem in the slightest bit as interested in Oliver as the rest of the friendly bunch. She picked at and chastised her husband for reaching for a second helping of dessert and she positively scowled at her mother-in-law when she brought out further snacks after dinner. Her reason for this was simple. Much like Tom, Steve had packed on quite a good amount of weight since his athletic high school days. He’d developed a stout little tummy and his face had that distinct puffiness to it that his younger self had not.

“The boys always overeat when they come here,” Rachel grumbled quietly to Oliver later on, as the pair were alone for the first time. “Walt and Sue have absolutely no idea about healthy diets or portion control,” she sighed, referring to Tom’s parents; clearly wound up and frustrated by having to be there.

“Well, they’re clearly good cooks,” Oliver smiled back, trying to keep the conversation light.

“Steve and I went through a rough patch a couple of years ago and he moved back here for two months,” she replied, still attempting to make her point. “Forty pounds!” she exclaimed. “That’s how much he gained from just being here with those two, eating the same things that they do. He’s still carrying around some of it now.”

“I see,” Oliver nodded, not really wanting to get involved in Rachel’s in-law grumblings.

“Give these boys an inch and they’d turn into the image of their father,” Rachel nodded, finally seeming to reach her point. “Tom’s weight has gone up and down in the last couple of years, but I’ve never seen him this big before. You’ll need to start putting your foot down with him, like I do with Steve.”

With impeccable timing, the pair watched as Tom reached out and fed himself a large doughnut as he finally finished drying the dishes with the others. Three large bites and it was gone, like it had been nothing more than air. It was plain to see that Rachel was absolutely right. Left to their own devices, both Tom and his brother were exactly the type of men who could stumble into quite extreme obesity. If only Rachel knew that Oliver had no intentions of ever preventing that.

Oliver had never dated a guy with so little inhibitions when it came to his body. Despite the fat little tummy he had developed, Tom seemed completely at ease lounging around Oliver’s house in nothing but his underwear; even answering the door to the take-out delivery guy with next to nothing on. Perhaps it stemmed from the days when Tom had been the ultimate fantasy for so many women; tall, broad and handsome. But with his gut pushing out in one direction and his chubby rear in another, the guy was getting further and further away from the sleek form that had once made women droll. His laziness was evident by how content he was to lay about all weekend, making multiple excuses whenever Oliver suggested going for a hike, or getting out for some exercise. Overfed, oversexed and under-exercised, Tom had reached a level of contentment in his new relationship that was only ever going to have one result.

It was easy to become blind to it all. Tom’s eating was indeed quite extreme. He could arrive at Oliver’s place with a tray of doughnuts and go to bed that night with not a single one left. Despite being well catered for, he ordered in food later in the evening and he slurped on beers and sodas like he’d spent a month in a dry desert. It was as if he was so comfortable and happy in his relationship with Oliver, he was taking the best vacation from caring about his diet at all.

However, as the months trickled by, it was clear that Tom’s eating was anything but temporary. Their first holiday season together had been an eye-opener as Oliver saw just how much Tom’s family indulged. Rachel had been a constant snarky killjoy the entire time, biting Steve’s head off anytime he went in for extra helpings in the same way Tom seemed to enjoy doing. It was obvious that neither Tom, nor his parents were all that keen on her, making it significantly easier for them to appreciate how laid back Oliver was instead. By simply not nagging or chastising Tom as his gut bloated up into an even more spherical shape, he’d become the firm favorire amongst even the extended family. It was something that Oliver didn’t mind too much. Rachel was abrasive and harsh. It was easy to feel sorry for Steve as they waved goodbye to them both after a meal at Tom’s parents; Rachel’s face set like stone because her husband had overeaten once more.

Moving in together had been the inevitable next step for Oliver and Tom. However, this process was sped up significantly by the fact that Tom’s landlord was wanting to sell. Although it had been less than eighteen months since Oliver had kicked out his last lover, there he was welcoming another into his home. He’d expected the usual teething problems as they learned to get along, living side by side. Yet the experience turned out to be nothing but pure pleasure. Not only was their sex life as rampant as ever, but Tom was considerate and funny, appreciating how lucky he was to have a guy who was not only willing to let him move in, but make the changes he wanted around the house: his significantly larger TV screen in the lounge, his ugly recliner chair in front of it; a beer dispenser by the refrigerator and a whole stack of games and console machines in what was the become Tom’s new man cave. Giving the guy his own space vital to making this work, Oliver reasoned. He’d had to set his own ground rules as well; chief amongst them that Tom tried his best not to sit down on some of the older pieces of furniture Oliver had inherited from his grandmother. Given the size of the man’s ball-like stomach these days, Oliver suspected that his lover had already surpassed three hundred pounds as the couch began grumbling under his weight.

In no time at all, Oliver’s home soon became a casual refuge for Steve as well. Being that Tom only lived a few blocks away from his brother now, the two guys were seeing a lot more of each other than they had in the ten years since Steve had first moved out of their parents’ place. With some amusement, Oliver would chuckle to himself as he saw Tom letting the guy in to watch the football on TV. Steve would always be dressed like he was heading to the gym and Oliver suspected that that was exactly where his wife had been told he was going. Instead, he was sitting on the couch, gorging on take out pizzas with his brother, whilst shouting at the screen.

Steve had always carried a stubborn, stout little paunch the whole time Oliver had been dating Tom. However, after only three months of skipping the gym to watch sports with Tom, the guy had packed on a considerable amount of additional weight, rounding him out further and bloating up his face in the same way that Tom’s had in the early days of dating Oliver. Judging by the amount of take-out boxes and emptied cans Oliver could come down to in the morning, it was obvious that Steve was every bit as much of a glutton as Tom was. The results of all those excess calories were staggeringly similar as well: the swelling ball of stomach, the widening of the rear. The more the boys ate, the hungrier they seemed to become.

Tom’s gut appeared to enter the room before he did and his hips had swollen outwards in a way that had completely altered his shape. There had always been at least a hint of the guy’s former athleticism in his physique: the strong chest, the biceps, the jawline. Yet all of that had now melted away, being replaced by a puffing fatness that had coated Tom’s entire body. As he slouched in his chair, the great mass of stomach fat arched out in front of him, expanding into his lap; his pecs long since succumbing to the build up of blubber. At what must have been 350lbs, Oliver could not get over how attracted he was to the man: the sheer enormity and size of him; the great appetite and joy he seemed to get from his eating, without caring in the slightest about how his body was changing.

Oliver had asked Tom to marry him whilst they were on vacation together in Las Vegas. Tom had gorged himself the entire time, going from restaurant to restaurant, and when they had won a sizable amount of cash on their penultimate evening there, it felt like everything had slotted into place as they headed off to the tackiest looking chapel they could find.

However, as one marriage began, it seemed as if another was ending. Steve and Rachel clearly weren’t getting along, meaning that the poor, hapless guy was soon spending more and more time in Oliver and Tom’s spare bedroom. Oliver tried not to pry but it seemed obvious to him what the main catalyst was for the couple’s troubles.

“Don’t you think you should go easy on the pizzas later when you’re watching the game with Steve?” Oliver tried to ask. “You know what Rachel is like about his weight and it’s clear that she’s not happy about how much weight he’s gained.”

Tom shrugged. Even he couldn't deny how much weight his brother had packed on in the last few months. After all, he had taken to wearing many items of clothing that Tom had outgrown himself: the sweatpants, the t-shirts, the sweaters. “What’s the point? We all know they’re not getting back together.”

Oliver sighed. Given how much of Steve’s stuff had been filling up the spare bedroom, he had come to a similar conclusion.

“And so what if they do get a divorce? Steve’s already starting to realise how much nicer life is without her.” He looked at Oliver, trying to get a sense of what he was thinking. “Unless… you’re frustrated at having him here?” he asked, suddenly concerned. “You know my parents would let him stay with them if it’s all a bit too much?”

Oliver shook his head. That wasn’t the case at all. Ever since Tom had quit his job for an admin role, working from home, he had worried that Tom’s weight would start to come down, now that he wasn’t roaming from fast food joint to fast food joint during his working day. But with Steve around, the pair fuelled each other’s enthusiasm for tasty treats, with an inevitable, incredibly arousing impact on both their bodies. In the last few weeks alone, Tom’s thighs had appeared to explode with additional size, stretching the capacity of even his most casual sweatpants.

Steve’s attitude seemed to change the moment he found out that Rachel had started to date one of his old friends. Rather than being angry and bitter, it was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He could at last move on, rejecting the guilt he felt and enjoy his life.

“Steve’s out again?” Oliver chuckled as he came in late one evening. “Another date? Who is it this time?”

Tom nodded as he dipped his hand into a large bag of potato chips. “Some girl he met online,” he replied. “A new one.”

Oliver smiled, pleased that Steve was proving to be such a hit with the ladies, even with his larger stomach these days.

When Steve finally did bring a girl home, both Oliver and Tom quietly confessed to each other their surprise over how good looking she was: petite, slim and large chested, the woman could have had any man she wanted; yet she seemed physically incapable of keeping her hands off her new chubby boyfriend. As for Steve, he seemed blissfully happy and pleased with himself, knowing that he had struck gold. Gina seemed like the girl he had been waiting for his entire life.

“Your Tom’s a big boy, isn’t he?” Gina smiled, watching as Oliver’s husband and Steve retreated into the lounge after dinner.

“I guess so,” Oliver smiled as he tidied up the table, still undecided about the woman his brother-in-law was dating.

“You two must get a lot of looks when you go out together? You’re both so different!”

Oliver resisted the urge to roll his eyes. So many folks didn’t understand how he could be so in love with a man almost two hundred pounds heavier than him; yet few lacked the tack to keep that curiosity to themselves. “I guess so,” he replied disinterestedly.

“My Steve has a pretty big tummy on him as well,” Gina blundered on, chuckling nervously.

“Well, I think my husband is partly to blame for that,” Oliver smiled back. “He’s been teaching him some pretty bad habits since Steve moved in here with us.”

Gina nodded enthusiastically back. “Yes, Steve’s been telling me! He split his pants at work the other day,” she chuckled.

“I’ve lost count of the amount of pants Tom’s destroyed over the years!” Oliver joked back.

“So, are the boys done eating for the night? Or do they usually snack now?”

Oliver looked at his watch and shook his head. “It’s only eight o’clock!” he replied as if Gina’s question had been utterly ridiculous. “Tom likes something to eat around ten or so. Usually it’s a pizza.”

“And does Steve join him?” Gina asked, almost excitedly.

“Of course,” Oliver nodded.

Gina turned, looking towards the lounge area, sighing with pleasure. “I think this living arrangement is going to work out very well for all of us!”

Oliver simply wiped down the kitchen counter as Gina skipped off to snuggle under Steve’s arm on the couch, not quite understanding exactly what the woman had meant.

A couple of weeks later, Oliver nudged his husband as Steve came down the stairs ready to head out for dinner with Gina. His eyes had bulged at the tight shirt the guy was wearing; his stout, rounded stomach already straining the buttons. 

“You can’t let him wear that!” Oliver whispered, panicking as he saw Steve grabbing his keys. “Tell him it’s too tight!”

Tom looked up from his heaped plate of cheese and savoury biscuits, balanced on top of the shelf of stomach fat he had accumulated. He saw the ridiculous shirt and smirked to himself. “Have a good evening, buddy!” he called out, letting the guy leave without a word of protest.

“How could you let him go out like that?” Oliver cried, utterly shocked by his husband’s lack of caring.

Tom merely laughed to himself. “You worry far too much about him. Trust me, Steve knows exactly what he’s doing!”

Oliver paused, never quite knowing how far to pry into the brothers’ relationship. They got along better than any other siblings he had ever known and were certainly a lot closer than Oliver had ever been with his especially aloof older sister. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

Tom seemed to ponder how best to answer as he continued eating. “Well, Gina is quite forthcoming when it comes to her appreciation of the extra weight he’s been carrying lately. I imagine he’s going to get very lucky tonight when she sees him in that tight shirt!”

“Gina likes it?” Oliver asked, feeling a lot more surprised than he should reasonably have been, considering all the compliments he had heard the girl giving the chubby boy.

“Of course,” Tom nodded. “She wants him bigger.”

“She… what?” Oliver gasped. 

“Oh, come on!” Tom chuckled. “You can’t pretend you’re not exactly the same. It’s just like how you get off on my… what is it you say? My ‘big, manly appetite.’”

“That’s not quite the same thing,” Oliver mumbled, slightly embarrassed. 

“Well, Gina thinks it is,” Tom replied. “Her and Steve talk about it quite a lot. She thinks you enable me to gain weight because you enjoy it.”

Oliver blushed. He never lied to Tom, yet if he opened his mouth at that moment, he wouldn’t have been able to help one from slipping out, denying everything. “And what do you think?” was all he asked.

“I just think I’m a greedy boy who eats far too much,” Tom smirked. “But I do think that might be part of the reason why you married me…”

Tom’s responses were light and jovial, relaxing Oliver as he came to terms with the fact he would have to own up to his kinkier side. “But, I don’t make you wear tight clothes that people will make fun of you for,” he replied, trying to shift the spotlight back onto Gina instead.

“No,” Tom nodded in agreement. “But you’re hardly stopping me from outgrowing everything, are you?”

Oliver merely stared at his husband for a few moments as he finished up the last of his pre-dinner snack; all those additional calories and fats he had prepared for his husband. He’d been outed as a chubby chaser. “So how big does Gina want Steve to get?” he asked.

Tom pressed his thumb into the plate, picking up all the leftover crumbs, before sucking them off. “They’ve had some very kinky conversations about just that,” the big man nodded. “She makes these special shakes for him, loaded with calories! Then she sucks him off whilst he downs it all for her.”

“And Steve is okay with that?” Oliver questioned, trying to hold back his surprise.

“Did you not hear the bit about the blow job?” Tom chuckled. “He’s a guy. Of course he loves it.”

Tom’s casual nature was making it harder for Oliver to unpick how the man really felt about all this. His brother had fallen into a feedist relationship and yet Tom seemed utterly delighted for him. “Are you saying that’s something you’d like us to try?” he finally asked.

“I’d drink one of those shakes for you, no problem,” Tom nodded enthusiastically. “Especially if it came with some benefits…You should get the recipe from Gina. I’m sure she’d happily share.”

“And you’d find that exciting?”

Tom scoffed, not prepared to let his husband hide behind the mask of his supposedly naive enabling anymore. “We’d both get off on that, and you know it!” he laughed. “Frankly, I’d love it if you were a little more vocal about enjoying my appetite; like Gina is with Steve.”

At that moment, a knock came at the door, just as Oliver was trying to take in the enormity of the casual comments his husband had just made. Dazed, he walked off to the entrance way and opened the door up to the visitors they had been expecting.

“Jeez!” exclaimed Dex, fresh from a year-long trip to New Zealand with his girlfriend, Marie. “We just saw Steve heading out as we pulled up,” he rambled, having met Oliver and Tom as a couple only once before heading off on their trip. “I can’t believe how much weight he’s…”

Tom waddled in from around the corner, ready to see one of the only friends he still kept from high school, simultaneously shutting Dex’s ramblings down in an instant as the guy saw just how enormous Tom had grown. His girlfriend’s eyes bulged too; the pair of them trying to contain their surprise.

“Hey… hey there, buddy!” Dex cried, walking over to Tom and giving him the briefest of hugs. His voice was unsure and it was obvious how uncomfortable he felt to have been caught commenting on Steve’s weight gain, given how much more extremely Tom had grown. That giant gut really was the only thing anyone ever saw.

Oliver looked at the pair, not really understanding why Tom still kept in touch with them. Dex was every bit the high school jock he had once been; Marie a moderately successful social media influencer. They’d travelled the world, worked in several different countries, declaring that they could never imagine anything worse than living an insignificant life back home in the small towns where they had grown up. It was exactly the sort of ego that Oliver had disliked about Dex back in high school. Meanwhile, Tom lived for his pizzas and take-outs. He worked from home and had little interest in anything that involved getting up off his couch. How many days had it been since Tom had even bothered to leave the house?

It was easy to become blind to Tom’s size ever since Oliver lived with him each day. But with Dex there, alongside his petite girlfriend, the contrast was clearer than ever. Since when had Tom’s face become so massive? Did regular folks like Dex and Marie really eat such small portions? It had been a little while since Tom had started sitting at the head of the table, instead of at the side by Oliver. However, as the four of them were sitting that evening, it was more than obvious that the seating position was purely to accommodate Tom’s giant size. Oliver had to lean over and plate Tom's meal up for him, catching Dex and Marie glancing with concern at each other at just how much food Oliver was naturally piling onto their friend’s plate.

The conversation quickly became dominated by uninteresting anecdotes from the high flying couple’s global adventures. Oliver could tell that Tom wasn’t really listening; neither of them were. Oliver simply kept a keen eye on Tom’s plate, spooning on more of the different items as they started to get low. It was second nature to him now. However, from the little, uneasy pauses Dex made each time Oliver did so, his disapproval was getting ever closer to the surface. But the more Dex and Marie rambled on, the less concerned Oliver felt about upsetting them. It seemed like their egos had inflated tenfold with a little social media success. They spoke as if they were the authority on several issues, with an arrogance inside them that they both seemed completely oblivious to. 

Oliver slopped more food onto Tom’s plate. His husband was eating well; most likely because there was no opportunity for him to join in the conversation. If he kept it up, Oliver wouldn’t have to plate up any leftovers later. All the serving bowls could go straight in the dishwasher. He knew he was overfacing Tom by emptying the last of the cream and cheese potato dish out for him, but it was worth a shot, given that Steve wasn’t there to help out, as well as the fact that Marie and Dex had avoided it; seeming to know how calorie laden it was.

Afterwards, Tom stretched out and rubbed his swollen stomach with a grunt whilst Oliver dutifully cleared the table around him. He’d made a giant, hearty dish of sticky toffee sponge, leaving it out in the middle of the table for Marie and Dex to serve themselves. Unused to waiting for guests to be served first, Oliver tried to hold back a small chuckle as he heard his gluttonous husband swallowing back saliva as he watched on. Finally, the serving spoon was in Oliver’s hand, carving out a humongous portion and pressing it down until it fitted inside their oversized bowls. He’d made additional toffee sauce, pouring that on for Tom as well, before placing it down in front of him. The weight of it was obvious by the hefty ‘thunk’ it made onto the placemat; something that did not go unnoticed by the guests.

If there was one thing Oliver never had to worry about, it was Tom’s sweet tooth. But rarely had Oliver been so blatant as to start refilling his husband’s bowl the moment he dropped the spoon. The goal was simple: no leftovers. Having Dex and Marie there to witness it was even quietly thrilling.

“So, do you have any more plans for the house?” Marie asked, finally seeming to notice that they had been talking about themselves for over an hour by that point. “Last time we saw you, you mentioned wanting to extend out the back.”

Oliver shook his head. In truth, he’d lost a lot of his enthusiasm for the house ever since he’d met Tom. Houses and renovations were not the large man’s thing in the slightest. All Tom really cared about was having somewhere to rest his head at night. “I don’t think so,” Oliver replied, reaching under the table to rest his hand on Tom’s knee. “In truth, I can’t see us staying here for too much longer.”

“Oh, really?” Marie smiled back. “Are you guys thinking of moving out of town?”

“No, nothing like that,” Oliver shot back, realising that he hadn’t even discussed any of this with Tom. “But this place is old and has already been knocked around a fair bit. The shower is getting a little too small for Tom and there’s no way of making it larger unless we knock down the wall into one of the guest bedrooms. It’s a lot of work.”

“Or…” Dex began, looking at them both like they were simple, “...you could just put him on a diet.”

Oliver was surprised at the slight glee he felt at making Dex bite. Tom was busily scraping his bowl clean, determined to get every last crumb; oblivious. “Oh, I think that ship has sailed, don’t you?” Oliver chuckled, exchanging his husband’s empty bowl for the entire bowl that remained in the middle of the table. He lifted the jug of extra toffee sauce, emptying it entirely, before passing Tom his spoon back and slipping his hand under the table once more to rub his husband’s knee. His silent meaning was clear: eat it all.

Steve’s disgust was evident on his face as he simply watched his old friend annihilating the entirety of the remaining dessert without a thought. All three spectators were observing the masterful glutton taking on the sugary feast without even noticing he was being watched; the conversation halted. Oliver could hardly believe how erotic he found it and he was thankful that he was wearing an oversized sweater that covered his crotch as he stood up to collect yet another fresh soda for his husband. He imagined how boring it would be to be lumbered with a fit guy like Dex. Oliver knew he’d have to fatten him up with his calorie dense food and quiet enabling, until he got what he wanted; exactly as he had done with Tom, and now his brother as well.

“Check out this pic I found of us from high school,” Dex insisted, fumbling with his phone. “I found it the other day,” he explained, filling the silence as he clicked and swiped his way to it. Finally, he turned it around for Oliver and Tom to see: two handsome, shirtless jocks with glistening six packs by the pool. “Look at the pair of us! Man, I miss those care-free days!” Dex chuckled fondly.

Oliver tried to suppress a chuckle. Dex’s true intentions hadn’t been clearer, reminding his old friend of how fit he used to be.

“I don’t!” Tom grunted in reply between large mouthfuls. “I never liked being on the swim team. In fact, I haven’t stepped foot in a swimming pool since I graduated.”

“Seriously?” Marie asked in surprise. “In over ten years?” Given how many poolside selfies there were of her, it was a wonder she didn’t have gills.

“Tom’s not big on exercise,” Oliver confirmed, shaking his head.

Realising the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, Dex returned his cell phone to his pocket. “Dude, you’re starting to look like your dad,” he finally snapped as Tom began scraping the bowl for the last of the toffee sauce. 

Having cleared some plates, Oliver was just making his way back to the table as he said it, making him chuckle as he rubbed his husband’s large back proudly. “Actually, Tom can eat even more than his dad these days,” he smiled, as if this was an achievement to be proud of.

Tom, who seemed to be finally switching back onto the conversation now his food was all but gone, nodded in agreement.

Dex had clearly expected more negativity from his comment and he looked at Marie as if they were both thinking the same thing. He gazed down at his watch and Marie nodded subtly in agreement.

“Thanks for dinner,” Dex sighed, already getting up. “But we have to be up early tomorrow for our flight.”

Oliver beamed. He had thought he was stuck with the pair of them all evening. “Oh, we understand,” he nodded, hoping to sound disappointed. Then he looked down at a still seated Tom, waiting for him to echo his words of regret. However, Tom seemed far more concerned with the tightness of his stomach after downing such a large amount from his fresh soda. He rubbed at his stomach and looked almost like he might throw up, before a giant burp came rolling up from his throat. Sighing with relief, Tom grunted as he rose to his feet as well; his stomach so bloated that the underside of it was visible from the bottom of his t-shirt.

No one hugged in goodbye. Dex seemed disgusted and, at the same time, pitying towards his old friend. Tom raised his great arm and Oliver slid underneath, resting against the man’s bulk as the pair stood just outside the house and waved the pretty couple off. “Do you think we frightened them away?” Tom whispered as the car rumbled off the driveway. “You’ve never made me eat like that before,” he chuckled.

“It was more entertaining than listening to all their boring stories,” Oliver replied, trying not to move his mouth so much that the couple would have the chance to read his lips as they backed out onto the road. “Did you enjoy it, though?” he smirked, raising his hand for the final wave to Dex and Marie.

Tom didn’t reply. He simply trotted his way back into the house and embraced his husband in a giant kiss the moment the front door was closed behind them. Oliver was the one who pulled off Tom’s shirt, feeling a freedom now to enjoy the giant size of his glutton’s stomach that he hadn’t allowed himself before now.

“You like?” Tom asked, standing proudly and full of confidence, even pushing his fat tummy out a little more.

“I do!” Oliver nodded, slipping down onto his knees in order to kiss the giant mass. 

Tom grunted in approval, seizing the opportunity to lower his sweatpants and feed his stiff and buried hardness into Oliver’s mouth. He moaned loudly as Oliver settled to his work with such relish, rubbing his enormous stomach as if his own size was turning him on. As Oliver’s tongue worked him harder, Tom’s stomach rubbing only became more frantic and desperate, taking a hand to each side of it and bouncing it up and down.

“You’re never going to put me on a diet, are you?” Tom asked, his voice dripping with lust.

Oliver briefly pulled his mouth from Tom’s crotch to reply. “Never,” he teased back, noticing that Tom’s dick was even harder by the time he got it back between his lips. 

The next time Oliver came up for breath, he pulled Tom along towards the couch, letting the fat boy down on his back, legs splayed, as Oliver set back to pleasuring him. In this position, Tom seemed to be enjoying himself even more; moaning loudly and rubbing his giant gut like it was an enormous wrecking ball pinning him down. There was almost no effort required to make the man ejaculate.

Afterwards, Oliver looked on at his husband with a satisfaction that no orgasm could give him. Naked and well-catered for, Tom had fallen asleep in the same position he had landed in during the blow job; a giant, fat slug draped over the couch that constantly creaked under his weight. The fat under his chin had made his neck disappear in this position and a contented, calm expression filled his face as he dozed. This was the reason Oliver loved his size and greed so much; for only he could deliver this sort of bliss to a glutton like Tom: his perfect man.

Only eighteen months later, Tom stood, filling his plate full of items from the buffet table at his brother’s wedding. It had been a long day for the guy, being the Best Man, with plenty of time up on his feet for the photographs. Oliver watched on, admiring the sheer size of his husband’s rear from afar. There was something so cute that happened to those glutes once a man crossed five hundred pounds. They were so plush and soft, yet grotesquely oversized and extreme-looking, especially in the tight dress pants Tom had been made to wear that day. He wasn’t used to such restrictive clothes, and he wriggled and twitched in them the entire time, silently longing to get back into his sweatshorts which wouldn’t pinch him like these pants did.

There had come a point a few months back when Oliver and Tom had decided to take a step back from the deliberately fattening regime Tom had seemed to take himself on. To some extent, it had worked. Tom was no longer growing at the rate that he had been. However,  there was no denying the fact that the man was indeed still growing. Those unplanned pounds had made his body swell and soften in a way that none of the previous weight ever had before. His upper arms had ballooned with fat and his hips had widened so that he had broken more than a few chairs. It had been fat building upon already well established fat. Of course it was going to change his shape, thought Oliver, rolling his eyes as Tom finally began to have second thoughts once even his parents had shown some concern. But the weight was still finding him; still sliding onto his overfed physique and quietly arousing them both by the seemingly uncontrollable nature of it all.

Steve, and his new wife emerged onto the dance floor. It was almost pitiable to watch her dragging such a fat man out to dance with her. With such a hectic day, Steve had become dishevelled and a little sweaty; his large shirt untucking itself in all but a couple of places around his large circumference. His blossoming love handles an underbelly showing in just the same Tom’s had only one hundred pounds earlier. As for his new wife, she seemed to be loving every minute, showing off the giant, spherical man she could now call her own. Without much family to Gina’s name, the guest list seemed saturated with friends of hers with similarly bloated, overfed husbands; most likely undergoing the same transformation that Steve was under a feeder’s care. Oliver had seen them all looking across at him, nodding in approval at Tom’s size, as if they were all a part of the same strange and unspoken club.

“Are you not coming to watch?” Oliver asked his overstuffed husband, wiping his mouth after completing his monstrous mountain of buffet food.

Tom shook his head lazily, pretending to want to rest his feet.

Oliver smirked, spotting the vast quantities of pre-cut wedding cake sitting on the table not far away and knowing that Tom was secretly plotting a way to get more than his fair share whilst everyone was distracted. Indeed, if there was one thing Oliver could always rely upon, it was Tom’s sweet tooth.

“Okay, honey,” Oliver smiled, pretending not to have figured out his gluttonous husband’s real intentions. “You just rest here for a minute,” he smiled, turning his back so that Tom could quietly gorge himself, unnoticed by everyone else in the room. Given how well the man had been eating today, there’d certainly be fresh fat to explore on his body by tomorrow morning….

Life was sweet.

[j-sunct]

lose my breath @ HYUNJIN & CHAN

𓂃 if hyunjin hadn't chosen such a boring movie, y/n wouldn't have fingers in her pussy, much less bangchan's dick in her mouth.

❀ chanjinㅤㅤㅤ ' ㅤㅤㅤfem!reader

smutㅤ  ㅤ╱ㅤ    👤ㅤ   minors do not interact

⋆ war'ningsㅤㅤ───ㅤㅤthreesome, chan and hyunjin have a stable relationship with reader, fingering, blowjob, dirty talk, teasing, exhibitionism.

s/n, bangchan and hyunjin had a kind of itinerary for saturdays. they would ALWAYS go see movies together, both to strengthen their relationship since, with the hustle and bustle of the weekdays, they actually ended up forgetting about each other.

today was another one of those movie sessions; popcorn made, and hyunjin was choosing the movie, since this week was his turn.

“i think i found it!" hyun shouted from the living room, ready to press play. s/n returned to the kitchen with a bucket of popcorn, while chan tried to balance three glasses of soda

“wich movie is that?" s/n asked as she sat in the middle of the couch, with the popcorn bowl between her legs.

“honestly, i don't know. i just saw the cover and found it a little interesting.” hwang confessed, leaning over to grab a portion of the popcorn.

meanwhile, bangchan seemed very focused on the movie, "i really hope this movie is good, hyunjin. don't waste our precious time.” he stated, chuckling lightly. not that the movie being bad was a problem, they had the whole weekend to enjoy it.

jinnie joined in the laughter, as well as y/n. “i promise, hyung, that i won't waste our saturday. this movie has potential, trust me." he gave a thumbs up, an attempt to sound confident.

“so, let's get started!” s/n said and finally, played the movie.

—

unfortunately, bangchan was right about his opinion of the movie — that's what hyunjin thought, sighing lightly. he didn't want to show that he was completely bored with it.

the romance was poorly developed, scenes so cliché that they made him roll his eyes. at first, he didn't imagine it was a romance film, but it was. this is like a moral lesson "kids, always read the synopsis before choosing something!”

it really did seem boring until hyunjin noticed how the popcorn bucket was positioned on y/n’s legs. it was like a light bulb went off over his head. why not a fuck?

first of all, he checked her and bangchan's attention... both completely focused on the movie. perfect.

playing innocent, he reached out to "grab some popcorn from the bowl", but no. his hand rested under y/n's crotch, without even any provocation or anything like that.

her eyes widened before slowly drifting towards where hyun's hand was positioned. shit. could he be a little less of a pervert? even over her shorts, his fingertips caused a slight friction that made her sigh. the need to get wet was tempting.

hyunjin's thin fingers wandered over y/n's clothes, now definitely applying a little pressure. it was inevitable for her not to feel her pussy contract a little and the liquid flow out consequently.

bangchan was right there, he could see her at any moment, calling her a "whore" for letting herself be touched so easily... but what could she do? she really wanted to be hyunjin's whore, let him use her for free, wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

it was so good, the feeling of the juices starting to run from y/n's little hole, hyunjin's fingers stimulating her clitoris that, even over so many layers of clothing, was capable of making her lose focus of the film.

little by little, hyunjin brought his mouth closer to y/n's ear, just to whisper. “it's good, isn't it? the feeling of knowing you could get caught at any moment.” he laughed, softly. without drawing bangchan's attention. “like, chan can look over at any moment, see you practically begging for dick and just, fuck you. use you.” he continued laughing until he stopped moving his hand and walked away completely.

y/n mumbled in denial, the feeling was too good to be abandoned. why did hyunjin stop?

“chris, i think it's time to get this perversion out of our girl.”

bangchan turned around, a smile already plastered on his face. "from the moment she accepted your touches, hyun.”

y/n was in complete shock, maybe even feeling vulnerable, but still completely wet to receive chan and jinnie. “she doesn't even deny it, does you, love?" the older man placed his hand on her chin, forcing her to look at him.

hyunjin approached from behind, placing his hands on her hips. he saw y/n shake her head. so defenseless. taking advantage of the fact that all her attention was on bangchan now, he approached the waistband of her shorts, slowly lowering them. then he removed her panties, which for a moment remained stuck to the cavity, due to her juices. “naughty girl..." he laughed, almost mockingly.

y/n at the same time that she felt exposed, she felt completely excited, wanting to be touched. she grabbed bangchan's shoulders, when she finally felt hyunjin enter two fingers inside.

“ngl... wait…” y/n muttered, digging her nails into chris' shoulder. “i'm tight…” she whispered, more like a moan, as her pussy sent vibrations into hyunjin's hand.

bangchan took advantage of the moment to unbutton his pants, caressing his own volume over his white underwear. some whispers came out of chris' mouth, his dick looked so big. he was excited, it was a fact. a pool of pre-cum covered his underwear, right at the mark of the head of his cock.

y/n can't help but bite her lips, bangchan practically jerking off right in front of her, while hyunjin fingers her. she finally took action, pulling down his underwear until chan's private parts were visible.

“what a little bitch... can't wait to suck my dick, huh?” bangchan held y/n's face, pressing her cheeks into a sort of pout.

“you should know by now, chris. make her suck your fucking dick and make those ridiculous noises.” hyunjin was eagerly searching for her sweet spot, he wanted to make the girl have all the pleasure in the world and he knew that all that dirty talk only excited her even more. her pulsating hole only confirmed that, tightening more and more around the korean's fingers.

hyunjin went in circular movements, working more where y/n was excited, where she moaned and begged for more of him, until he came out with his fingers completely smeared with her juice.

hyun's fingers were coated in y/n's slick arousal as he worked her tight hole, his movements growing more urgent with each passing second. her moans grew louder, that little body trembling in need.

chan took advantage of the moment, guiding her face towards his throbbing cock. "open wide, baby," he growled, his voice thick with desire. "i'm going to feed you my dick."

y/n eagerly parted her lips, her tongue darting out to lick the tip of christopher's cock. she moaned at the taste of his pre-cum, her eyes fluttering closed in bliss.

bangchan pushed forward, sliding his cock into y/n's warm, wet mouth. she took him deep, her throat contracting around his shaft. channie groaned in pleasure, his hips rocking forward to meet her eager mouth.

hyunjin watched the scene unfold, his own cock throbbing with need. he added a third finger to y/n's pussy, stretching her further. "damn, you're so good taking hyung's dick…" he grunted, his fingers pumping in and out of her slick heat.

her moans vibrated around bangchan's cock, sending shockwaves of pleasure through his body. he grabbed a fistful of her hair, guiding her head as he fucked her mouth. "that's it, baby. take my cock like a good little slut."

jinnie could feel y/n's walls fluttering around his fingers, a telltale sign of her impending orgasm. he rubbed her clit with his thumb, pushing her over the edge.

y/n came hard, her pussy gushing around hyunjin's fingers. she moaned around bangchan's cock, her body shaking with the force of her climax.

bangchan couldn't hold back any longer. with a grunt, he pulled out of her mouth and came, his hot seed splattering across her face and tits.

slowly, hyun removed his fingers from inside the girl, seeing all that juice and sticky cum on his hand. he felt a desire to taste her and, for sure, next time, he would suck her pussy.

“you taste very good, honey.” he stated precisely, his tongue around his long, thin fingers, cleaning them thoroughly.

[threestarsinline]

The Word of Your Body

Jason Todd x reader one shot

Summary: Jason comes back from patrol, but something is keeping his mind still somewhere out there. You're always there to bring him back and let him know he's safe. At home. With you.

Word Count: 5.8K

Category: Angst-ish because Jason is going through it but fluff because reader is there to comfort him

Warnings: Jason having a bad time

Author’s note: I know, I know, three fics in one year?? Who am I? Jsjksks truly an achivement for me, very happy and very proud hehe. Thank you for sticking with me and supporting my fics, I love you all. That said, enjoy!

It’s really incredible how much one can know about a person just by their body. From the way they move, to how they carry themselves, to the small gestures that they make in their day to day that reflect who they are, to the little telltale signs of how they’re feeling. A smile, a wrinkle between the eyebrows, a twitch of their hand.

And not just the movements of the body but you can also learn a lot from the singularities and marks that one has on their skin. A child with a scrape on their knee from running too fast on the playground. A chef with hundreds of small cuts on their hands from mastering the use of a knife. A ballet dancer with wounded toes. A painter with watercolors under their nails. A piano player with soft and delicate hands.

You can have a lot of information about a person just by observing them, knowing how they move and how their body reacts to things. A flinch from fear at the threat of danger. A shiver at the gentle touch of a lover.

That’s how you immediately know that something’s wrong when Jason returns from patrol. And you don’t even need to see him.

You’re reading in bed when you hear him come in. Always waiting up for him whenever you can. It isn’t difficult for you since you’ve always preferred staying up late rather than waking up early. Unless you have something to do early the next morning, you always wait for him to come home, to come to you, liking to see him as soon as he returns to make sure that he’s made it back to you safe and sound.

You either read or watch something on TV while you wait despite how many times he’s told you that you don’t have to wait up for him, that you should sleep. And every time you shake your head and say, “And go to sleep without you next to me? Never.” And every time Jason rolls his eyes at your stubbornness while his heart thrums in his chest at how much he loves you and then gently cups your face in his hands and kisses you softly.

And even when you can’t help it and you do have to go to sleep earlier or exhaustion wins over you and brings you to the depths of slumber without warning, Jason always approaches you quietly so as to not disturb you and kisses your forehead to let you know he’s home. If you’re on the couch he brings you to bed, and if you’re already in bed, he settles the covers better over you, just the way you like.

And those times you always smile in your sleepy state and unless he’s injured and needs your help patching him up, you follow semi consciously the sound of his footsteps around the apartment. The sound of the shower as he steps inside to rinse away the Gotham night clinging to him, the sound of rustling sheets as he finally climbs into bed with you, and are finally lulled back to sleep when warmth surrounds you as he brings you into his arms.

You’re no metahuman but you’ve developed a sixth sense for everything regarding Jason Todd. You would be able to easily spot him in a crowd of thousands after having just faintly heard his voice in the distance even if he didn’t have that white tuft of hair singling him out, all your senses zeroed in on him. It’s like your body and mind are always tuned to find him, like tweaking the dial of the car radio to find your favorite station and finding it on the very first try.

You have a master’s degree on Jason Todd and all of his movements, small gestures and twitch of expressions that he doesn’t even realize that he’s doing, you know it all by heart. You know that when the right side of his smirk pulls slightly at his cheek as he’s admiring you doing something mundane, he’s going to kiss you. You know that when he flexes his hands at his sides something is bothering him. You know that he’s going to laugh loudly and wholeheartedly when the sound makes his shoulders shake slightly before making its way up his throat, as if he’s trying to contain it but the laugh is so strong and spontaneous that he can’t fight it. And you know he’s in pain from a bruise on his ribs when he shifts his weight on his feet and a grimace appears on his face for just a second.

That’s how you know that something’s up when you hear him climb through your living room window and his steps don’t sound as if he’s trying to not make too much noise in order to not wake you up in case that you’re asleep, but as if he's trying to make himself as small as possible. It’s a subtle difference but it’s there. You know it because you’ve encountered it before.

Your worry only increases when in the next four seconds that it takes you to find your bookmark between the sheets and place it in your book, you don’t hear him move at all. He doesn’t come find you and he doesn’t call your name.

When you exit the bedroom you find him in the middle of the living room. He just stands there, shoulders hunched, red helmet gripped tightly in hand, head looking down, his hair falling over his forehead.

Something has happened. You don’t know what it is but your first worry right now is making sure that he’s okay. If he heard you come into the room he doesn’t show it. You take a couple of small yet purposeful steps towards him, making sure that they can be heard so that you can alert him of your presence, not wanting to startle him.

But nothing. He stays frozen.

You take a deep breath as your heart clenches at seeing him like this. It’s bad. Whatever has happened is really, really bad and it seems like Jason’s mind is still there. He’s not fully present with you right now.

But you know what you have to do. You have to bring him back here with you. Help him to separate himself, your loving, wonderful, and kind Jason from the horrors that Red Hood has to face every day.

You take another step in his direction. “Jason?” you whisper softly.

He doesn’t react. But he doesn’t flinch either. That’s good. He knows he’s somewhere safe. But he still needs to distance himself from whatever was out there. You finally come to stand in front of him, still not touching him. “Jay?” you try again while assessing him over, trying to pinpoint if he’s injured.

Again, nothing. But the hair that hangs over his forehead moves ever so subtly, almost in an imperceptible way, but you catch it nonetheless. The hair moved because he tilted his head in the slightest of ways. He’s listening to you. Knows that you’re there. You sigh in relief when you see his grip on the helmet lessen too. Good signs.

“I’m going to touch you, okay?”

He releases a deep breath, slowly allowing himself to let go, the tension that his shoulders held not as tight as before. Leaving his body slightly, leaving him at your mercy. He’s saying, Okay. Satisfied at that and at finding that he doesn’t seem to have any major injuries, you nod. Then, you gently and very slowly take his face in your hands to look at him. His eyes acknowledge you for a split second but then his emerald gaze returns to the floor, and you feel a crack forming in your heart at the utter sadness, desperation, and despair that you find in it.

Still, you feel him melt into your touch at his cheeks. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re home,” you offer softly.

He closes his eyes in response, reveling in the comfort that you bring him. Next, you take the helmet from his hand and set it on the kitchen counter before moving to the holster with his guns and very carefully unfastening its belt and leaving it all on the table. Helping him that way to step out of the Red Hood persona and everything that claws into it.

“Let’s take a shower,” you say, wanting to keep him informed of your every move. You take his hand and pull him with you towards the bathroom. He lets you guide him, fully trusting you but still not reacting to anything much.

You don’t ask him what’s happened. You don’t need to know. There are things that Jason doesn’t tell you about patrol. And you have no problem with it, knowing that he wants to separate those two parts of his life. But no matter what it is, you always let him know that he can come to you about them, that you’ll listen. That you’ll always be there for him. Always.

The other few times that you have seen him come home like this, slouched over and not talking much, you later learn, either by context from what you hear on the news and the streets, or by Jason directly telling you about it when he needs to let go and finally feels able share it, that the people he was after got away, that someone got hurt, or something like that.

But this time… This time something’s different. You have never seen him as bad as this. At least not from coming back from patrol. And it worries you. It worries you a lot and it kills you that you can’t do anything more than just be there for him. But it seems that that’s all that he needs right now so you settle on focusing on him.

From the guiltiness that hangs over him, tensing his shoulders and keeping his eyes down, and the distress and sorrow that you see in his gaze, you have a feeling that something terrible happened. Something that he couldn’t prevent. He couldn’t save somebody.

You can almost see how he’s replaying it in his mind, the shame and regret swirling in his head until they stiff all of his body. You need to reassure him, make him see how it isn’t his fault, how he did everything he could, and how he gave his all but how sometimes, despite how much you fight it and try to stop it, Gotham doesn’t let you escape the rot that runs through its streets.

Once you two reach the bathroom, you flick on the mirror light above the sink, casting you two in a soft golden light, not wanting to overwhelm him with the overhead one and its strong intensity.

You stand in front of him and help him take off his jacket before taking his hands in yours. He still doesn’t look at you as you take off his gloves. Once they’re gone, you take a moment to examine his hands, and you let out a sigh of relief at seeing that his knuckles aren’t wounded. Your thumbs softly trace the marred skin, small scars and irregular healing adorning his hands. You can’t help but bring them to your lips and press a long kiss to them, closing your eyes, trying to will away all the mental scars that they hold too just by the touch of your lips.

His hands, that could break bones but also mend and heal the most broken parts of yourself.

Despite what those hands either curled into fists or holding a gun could mean to other people, they’re precious to you. And one of the many wonderful parts of him. To you, they mean soft caresses while you’re laying in bed. They mean warmth when winter comes and he rubs them against your arms. They mean comfort, and safety, as he holds your sobbing body when you break down.

Their roughness both from handling dangerous weapons and using a pan to make you dinner. Jason Todd has a duality that still amazes you to this day, but you love all the multitudes that he contains all the same.

You then begin to remove his equipment. The chest armor, the knee pads, and any other protective gear, putting it all on the pile that you started with his jacket and gloves on top of the laundry basket to sort out later. Jason doesn’t move, only doing the movement necessary to help you undress him, like lifting his feet so that you can slip his boots off after having unlaced them.

But still, his gaze remains lost.

You set the boots to the side and get back up to your feet again. You walk around him to get the tub started for a bath, adding some oils and soap. You pass by him to exit the bathroom and grab some comfortable clothes for him after. Most of the time, unless it’s very cold, he normally sleeps shirtless with some sweatpants or even just his underwear during the hotter months, but you know that tonight he needs to feel covered, enveloped, protected. You begin to plan in your mind. A comfortable old shirt and sweatpants will do.

However, before you can even reach the doorframe and begin your walk to the bedroom, a hand wraps gently around your wrist. You whip back around, both surprised and glad at the same time that Jason has finally interacted with you on his own accord, this being the first contact with the outside world initiated by him. Another good sign.

You see Jason’s eyes fixed on your wrist before lifting his gaze to lock with yours.

Stay.

Your gaze softens and you take another step closer to him, almost being chest to chest. You lift your free hand to caress his cheek. “Of course,” you whisper. “I’m just going to grab you some clothes, okay? It’ll be five seconds.”

As you assure him, without realizing it, your thumb traces his cheek in the exact same motion that he has begun to rub soft circles into your wrist. He nods slowly.

“Okay,” you say and Jason releases his hold on you just enough for you to quickly slip to the bedroom. And just like you promised, you’re back just as fast, closing the door behind you so that the steam from the tub can warm up the room, starting to fog up the mirror too, and setting the clothes on the counter. And Jason still hasn’t moved an inch.

You stand in front of him again and delicately grab the hem of his shirt before looking up at him. And you don’t need words to understand each other. Can I?

Jason’s chin tips slightly. Yeah.

You slowly lift the shirt up his body and he raises his arms to help you. Once off, you leave the shirt with the rest of his discarded clothes. Then, with your hands in front of you so that Jason can see what you’re doing and anticipate your movements, you rest them on his shoulders and then gently slide them down his chest, feeling his well-worked muscles and creases from the scars on his skin.

Jason lets out a deep breath, the skin to skin contact grounding him. His eyes never leave you now, following every single one of your actions. And not because he needs to see what you’re doing in order to prepare himself, not anymore, but because you’re the only thing that seems real right now. The only thing tethering him to Earth.

Because to him, you’re his center of gravity. No matter how far he went, both in distance and into the depths of his mind, he will always come back to you.

You lean forward and press a tender kiss between his pecs. Jason shudders, feeling warmth, comfort, and light blooming from the spot that you kissed and extending through all of his body, from his torso to the ends of his limbs. Your touch like the first rays of sunshine after the coldest and longest night of the year in a frozen landscape, melting the frost and bringing everything back to life. Chasing away the Gotham chill clinging to his bones and the rigidness that holds him hostage. Replacing it all with you, just you. The warmth and safety that you provide.

Jason thinks that he wasn’t actually brought back to life all those years ago, just went through some kind of purgatory on Earth again until he reached his very own personal heaven. You. And he still has no idea what he did to deserve it.

Then you help him out of his pants until he’s standing in his underwear in front of you. His back is hunched, making him lean towards you but this time it’s not because of all the negative thoughts hanging over him, but because of the pull that you have over him, your gravity drawing him in.

You round him again to check the temperature of the water in the tub, though this time, Jason rotates his body to follow you, like a sunflower chasing the sun. Satisfied with both the water’s temperature and quantity, you close the tap.

“You want me to get in with you?” you ask, not minding that you have already showered for the day. Jason nods.

You nod to yourself and peel the shirt of his that you wear to sleep off your body, leaving you just like him, wearing only your lower underwear. And even with how exposed you two are, you’re not vulnerable. The air in the room thick not only with humidity but with the intimacy between you two. A kind that can only come from honest love and a complete feeling of trust.

But the air isn’t humming with electricity like in the other situations in which you two find yourselves with as little clothing as right now. Instead, the air is lulling, like a soft and warm wave gently rocking your body when you lay with your eyes closed in the sea. Comforting and lightening.

You discard both your final pieces of clothing and step into the tub, holding a hand out to Jason so that he can step in in front of you. When he joins you, you two finally sink your bodies in the warm and bubble covered water. You lean back at the edge of the tub with Jason between your legs, his back pressed to your chest, his head resting on your shoulder and your arms draped over his chest, all of you surrounding him, enveloping him, protecting him.

Even though the tub is relatively big, considering Jason’s huge frame, it wasn’t exactly meant for two, so you’re a mess of tangled limbs and warm bodies, but you can already feel Jason relaxing against you. You kiss the crown of his head and he finally closes his eyes.

You two lay there for a while, enjoying the hot water and letting it wash your worries away, the scent from the lavender oil that you used hanging in the air, calming your minds. You’re glad to see how the bath is helping Jason to let go of the events of the night, the remaining tension that clung to his body stripped by the water, and the memories from the night relegated to another place as you see the crease on his brows disappear as you draw gentle caresses on his chest.

You grab the shampoo bottle and start to wash Jason’s hair, working the roots and massaging his scalp to help him relax even further. Soon, hundreds of tiny white bubbles replace the sight of his black locks. You work on his hair longer than necessary but you can see how much it’s helping him, his breathing becoming even more deeper and slower. The only sign that he hasn’t fallen asleep, the hand that settles on your knee at his side.

You then rinse his hair, his white streak majestically poking between the black again. With a sponge you start to wash his body where you can reach, his shoulders, his upper arms and torso. When you’re done you maneuver yourself to sit in front of him, facing each other now. As you start to wash the rest of his arms, you see in his eyes that his thoughts are beginning to slip away, the events of the night calling him again. But you’re not having it. Nothing is taking Jason away from you tonight. Your goal, making him focus on you and only you.

“Can I tell you a story?” you say softly, your voice and the soft splash of water at the slightest movement the only sounds in the room.

Jason just shrugs his shoulders slightly. You nod as you focus on passing the sponge over his hands.

“It’s the story of a boy and a girl. About a wonderful boy and a girl who couldn’t believe her luck,” you begin. “One freezing winter afternoon, the girl slipped on some ice and the guy caught her by the waist, saving her from a pretty hurtful fate, though she almost brought him down with her. She apologized profusely as her cheeks warmed not only because of the embarrassment but because the man who’d caught her was the most handsome one she’d ever seen. But in her haste to step back from the stranger to try and save some embarrassment, she slipped on the ice again and he saved her once again.”

Jason can’t help the small smile that pulls at his lips. Because the story that you’re telling isn’t just any story. It’s your story. The story of how you met.

He wonders how you always knew exactly what to say. Hell, you could just be reading the grocery list out loud and he’d think that you deserved a Nobel Prize in Literature just because it came from you.

The sight of Jason’s smile pulls your lips into one too, and it warms your heart just like his worried gaze had done to your cheeks that very first day.

Both of you remember that day as clear as day, though neither of you could have ever anticipated how important it would be, how it had changed the course of your lives. You can still perfectly recall how he had cleared his throat awkwardly after catching you for the second time and his You alright, miss? How breathy his voice had sounded, as if something had taken his breath away, his heavy lower Gotham accent that had both surprised you and stirred something within you, and how vivid the green in his eyes was.

Just as bright as it is now as you continue the story. The shine that was always there whenever he looked at you.

“She had been pretty awkward, and she still can't believe how she’d managed to pull the kindest and hottest man in all of Gotham, the world even.” Jason snorts and you throw him a look, telling him not to question you because if there is one universal truth in this world—apart from the fact that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife—is that Jason Todd is the kindest and most gorgeous man that you have ever met.

“Though later he would reveal that he had found her nothing but endearing, despite what she might say about her awkwardness,” you continue.

Something about you already drawing him in. But just as quick as it all had happened, the moment passed by, and you two went your separate ways. Though not for long, because some time later, another afternoon, you were walking home when a running figure turned the corner and clashed into you. As you took a couple steps back to stabilize yourself you realized that you were head to head with the Red Hood. Which was strange since the sun was still setting and he had never been seen other than at night.

Jason hadn't planned on starting patrol so early but Tim had tipped him that some guys that he was after were having a meet up and Jason decided to give them a little surprise. Though that plan flew out the metaphorical window in the room of his mind as soon as he saw you again.

He had tried to forget the encounter in which he had saved the most beautiful girl that he’d ever seen from tumbling to the ground, and just as it seemed like he was about to succeed (not really, but at least manage to push the encounter to the back of his mind instead of your soft voice plaguing his every waking moment), he ran into you.

He stared at you bewildered, not believing that it was you, the sweet girl from the ice, and he was at a loss for words.

“Sorry,” you had said and at the sound of your voice he finally came out of his daze and shook his head.

“No need, it was my fault." He tilted his head. “You okay, miss?” You nodded, trying to ignore the shiver that ran down your spine at how similar he had sounded to your ice savior, his voice ingrained in your mind. And as much as Jason would have loved to stay there with you for a bit longer and hopefully learn your name, he had to get going, so he apologized again and you watched as he left.

And that should have been it. But somehow, it seemed like the universe had other ideas, crossing your paths later once again. And then one thing led to another and here you were now, sharing laundry and rent. Who would have thought? Certainly not you, when those strong arms caught you and you had no idea that they would become the place where you would feel the safest in.

Home.

Jason keeps listening as you finish recalling the start of your relationship. “And so their adventure together began. The clumsy girl from the ice and the boy that despite his rough exterior, had the gentlest, bravest, most selfless and most beautiful heart that she’d ever come to know.”

You finish the story with an enamored smile on your lips, the sweet memories fueling even more your love for him. A love and reassurance that you hope you have been able to convey in the story.

Jason sits in front of you with a small smile of his own, his heart beating golden light through his body, the love that you put there. His body finally relaxed and at peace, your hands holding his.

But then the smile falls from your lips as you see his eyes glass over. And even before he starts to tremble you pull him into you, wrapping your arms around him, his face hidden in your neck, his own arms snaking around you, holding you tight. And as the first tremors shake his shoulders, the first tears start to fall.

And you hold him through it. Taking everything that he needs to let go of in stride.

Because without the armor that he had built to keep his emotions at bay, swimming in the guilt and regret, once he finally relaxes, accepts that he’s safe and allows himself to be vulnerable, the dam breaks. And all the feelings come tumbling over.

The impotence. The sadness. The failure.

He’s not outright sobbing, the feelings working slowly but surely through him one by one. His body trembles slightly, a few tears falling onto your shoulder and a couple of sniffles here and there.

“I- I couldn’t-” He shakes his head and keeps silent once again. The first words that he’s said since he came home. The cracks in his broken voice forming ones in your heart. It stings more than salt in an open wound. You hold him as tight as you can. It’s like he needs to exteriorize these feelings and his body is allowing him to, but his voice can’t even go further than repeating that phrase over and over again. You shush him gently, letting him know that he doesn’t need to force himself to say anything. You’re here for him and that’s all that matters.

“It’s okay. You did everything you could, Jason. You’re a good man,” you whisper, trying to soothe the torture that he’s submitting himself to. But he shakes his head even more vehemently at your reassuring words and beautiful thoughts of him. Right now they don’t make any sense to him with how much he failed tonight. He’s not brave. He’s not kind. And he certainly isn’t good. He doesn’t know how you can say all of those things about him when he couldn’t-

You feel his internal monologue with how the time between his trembles, tears, and sniffles stretches. He’s lost in his head again. Thinking instead of feeling.

“Jason, hey, no. Stop,” you whisper gently but firmly. You unwind your arms from around him and take his head in your hands, holding his forehead to yours, looking into his eyes though his gaze avoids you.

“You are good. You’re kind, stubborn, funny, brave, determined, sarcastic, gentle, and loving. You’re all of those things. And sometimes things just go wrong and you can’t do anything to prevent them. You didn’t make any mistakes tonight, okay?” You don’t actually think that he can do anything wrong but you keep that to yourself. “Not being able to prevent something bad doesn’t make you any less of a good person.”

You can see how the thoughts race in his eyes.

“Jason. Look at me.” He finally locks eyes with you. “You know I’m not good at lying so listen to me when I say this. Whatever happened tonight is not your fault. You can cry. You should cry. You have to let go of everything that is storming inside you. What I’m not letting you do is convince yourself that you’re not good enough. Because you are, you hear me? You are.” You can’t help the tears that begin to prick at the corners of your eyes.

“I love you and I’m always going to be here for you for whatever you need, okay?” As a tear slips from your eye, Jason nods and hides in your neck again, letting his tears flow again. Letting himself feel. You envelop him in your arms once again.

“Okay,” he mutters against your skin. You sigh in relief and start to trace long shapes on his back.

You two stay there for a while, until both of you stop crying and his breathing returns to normal. And then you stay a little longer, just holding each other, Jason letting himself get lost in your soft skin and soothing scent, finally, finally, letting the night go. At least for now.

And then even a little longer, until the water turns lukewarm and a chill runs through your bodies.

“Want to go to bed?” you ask softly, threading your fingers through his hair, brushing away the damp strands falling on his forehead.

He nods slowly, lifting his head from your neck. “Thank you,” he whispers. You shake your head and he knows what you mean, You don’t have to thank me, I’d do anything for you.

“Come on,” you say and get up, offering him your hands. He takes them and gets up as well. You let the tub drain and step out of it, Jason following you. You quickly wrap Jason in a towel and then do the same with yourself. When you're done, he takes one of your hands gently and, while looking deep into your eyes, he kisses your knuckles. Thank you.

This time your gaze softens and you rest your hand against his heart. Of course.

After drying off you put your sleeping clothes back on and when you see Jason with the briefs that you brought already on and reaching towards the sweatpants, you gently swat his hand away. Let me take care of you.

He raises his hands in surrender and takes a step away from his clothes. Yes, ma’am.

“Are you hurt anywhere? Do you need me to patch you up?” He doesn’t seem to have any injury but you want to make sure. He shakes his head. You arch an eyebrow. It wouldn’t be the first time that he’s tried to lie to you about that. He nods, extending his arms so that you can examine him, showing how he doesn’t have any wounds. You wait for a beat before nodding.

You help him get dressed and all the while his fond gaze follows you. He’s sure that the best feeling in the world is being taken care of by you. That sunshine feeling blooming again in his chest. You’re so bright and he’s just so- No. He’s promised that he isn’t going to think like that anymore. At least not more tonight.

He follows your directions as you make him sit on the toilet and watches as you comb his hair. But then he can’t help but close his eyes at how relaxed he feels under your care. When you’re done you kiss his forehead and he hums as you run your hand through his hair. When he opens his eyes again, you’re extending a hand to him and he takes it without hesitation.

You turn off the bathroom light and guide him to the bedroom. You climb into bed, your side always the furthest one from the door, no matter where you are, at home, at the manor, or traveling, Jason makes sure of that, and you open your arms, inviting him into your embrace. Jason gets into bed, laying half on top of you, and wraps his arms around your waist as he nuzzles into your neck, your legs tangled. You drape the covers over you both, practically burying yourselves under them and wrap your arms around him, protecting him from anything that could hurt him. Your very own cocoon.

He gives your waist a slight squeeze. I love you. You kiss his hair in return, hugging him even tighter.

And as you hold him tight, the two of you know that what happened tonight out there would still haunt Jason despite all your reassurances. But just as you know that, you also know that you’re always going to be there for him. To love him and care for him. So, for tonight, Jason lets himself be lulled to sleep by the sound of your heart. Each rhythmic thump thump telling him, I got you, you’re okay, I love you, over and over again.

Just like for you with him, your arms the place where he feels safest in. Home.

Please let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!

[dragonfly0808]

About the Dragon Prince Finale

I just finished s7 of the Dragon Prince and i have so many thoughts but there is one thing specifically I want to say about the finale that I feel was just such a perfect way to end the battle, before I hop on and check out what everyone thought-

SPOILERS AHEAD

I’ll be honest, I was so stressed out at the end of ep8 and watching the final battle in ep9 was epic but-

My very first thoughts watching that were initially along the lines of- so… none of our main characters had the final say/final move? What the fuck?

But then I watched the rest of the episode and sat on it for a bit and… it makes perfect sense and wraps up the themes of the show in a beautiful way

The whole theme of the show and one of the most important ongoing things is that of breaking cycles of violence and choosing love, choosing kindness.

During that final battle, all our main characters were ready and willing to give it all to save the world, which is technically speaking the ‘right thing’ to do, the thing we’ve all been waiting for

however; this involved for all three of them, giving up an essential part of themselves. An essential part of ‘breaking the cycles’

Callum would’ve given up on ‘breaking the cycle’ in using dark magic and in sacrificing himself for the greater good. Yeah sure, he’s writing his own destiny, but is he really when it was his only real choice if he wanted to save those he loved?

Rayla would’ve given up on ‘breaking the cycle’ in following in the footsteps of past moonshadow assassins, choosing duty over love in being willing to kill her heart ‘my heart for Xadia’ when she just said episodes before ‘no one should have to shed blood for justice’

And my personal favorite, Ezran. The entire show, from the moment he became king, that kid has given himself wholly to the path of love and kindness, trying to not fall into the mistakes of the past. And yet- he was willing to kill for his brother, to do something that goes against everything he represents, everything he stands for.

^ All of that, in the name of peace, to save the world.

No matter what, each of them would’ve lost an essential part of themselves in choosing to save the world…

But they didn’t have to.

Because the arch dragons- some of the very creatures that BEGAN these cycles of violence and mistakes and hatred… the creatures that had a role in CREATING the world our main characters are trying to make a better place- they are the ones that chose to step in, to sacrifice themselves to make sure these kids with bright hearts and so much love and determination to choose a path of kindness don’t have to sacrifice those parts of themselves.

Like Ezran says, it’s a great gift that the arch-dragons give them. The opportunity to stay true to themselves and still get to stop Aaravos… even if it’s temporary.

So yeah, the moment I watched it for a moment I was like- that was a little anticlimactic but it makes so much fucking sense and it is such a beautiful way to end the series when you stop to think about it.

and I’m choosing to believe that we will get the other 3 seasons NETFLIX GIVE US THE FUCKING SAGA (I haven’t actually checked if anything has been announced yet cause I’m scared) and that that’s when- after 7 years of growth, our main characters get to step in and find a different way to stop Aaravos for good THEIR WAY, without compromising who they are and what they stand for

So yeah, I just had to get that out of my chest cause it took me a minute of silence to realize why it’s so perfect for the show and the genius in this move and i really wanted to share that little brain worm

I LOVED season 7 and I can’t wait to rewatch the whole thing and I truly hope we get the rest of the saga!

[drabblesdear]

Academic Rivals [?]

Idea: reverse academic rivals: two teachers who compare their students instead.

Dr. Ratio who you had an...interesting relationship with.

Dr. Ratio who you say is your ‘academic rival’, which confuses many people. Aren’t you both already teachers…?

Dr. Ratio, who competes with you in an odd way.

Dr. Ratio who compares both your student’s grades

Dr. Ratio who’s students proved superior [much to your chagrin] for three years in a row.

Dr. Ratio who you’ve been competing with for three years now.

Dr. Ratio who you are rumored to be dating.

Dr. Ratio and you who and now the hot office romance.

Dr. Ratio who can’t admit that he enjoys the banter and your company so much he’s been late on more than one occasion.

Dr. Ratio who realizes he just might like you a bit more than he should.

Dr. Ratio who, being Dr. Ratio decided on the perfect plan of confession!

Dr. Ratio who noticed how sulky you are after every defeat and secretly tutors your students.

Dr. Ratio who swears you better be grateful he put up with those children just for you.

Dr. Ratio who, when he teaches your students, constantly reminds them not to tell you.

Dr. Ratio who is actually so paranoid careful that his lessons could sound like:

“So to find a hypothetical area of a triangle with negative sides for your reseach paper-hey. Don’t tell your teacher about this..”

Dr. Ratio who allows himself the smallest of smiles when you finally beat him-just this once.

Dr. Ratio who immediately denies it when you tease him and pinch his cheek.

Dr. Ratio who puts his plan into motion and offers that the loser must treat the winner to dinner.

Dr. Ratio who treats you to an expensive meal in penacony.

Dr. Ratio who coughs, breaking an awkward silence once you finish.

Dr. Ratio manages to get a confession out of his mouth…which did not go as planned.

“Y/n. I have-er-realized that you are in fact not an idiot and maybe I like you. Scratch that-Er-I do like you and you’re the opposite of an idiot. Scrat-Aeons. Will you date me?” He abruptly finished awkwardly offering you a ring he had bought prior.

Dr. Ratio who realized that confessing to you and a mirror would feel very different.

Dr. Ratio who just stared up at you as heat gradually built up his cheeks.

Dr. Ratio who felt a wave of relief like nothing else once you just laughed and took the ring, accepting.

Dr. Ratio who tried his very best to be a good boyfriend, continuing to put up with your students who may or may not already told you.

Dr. Ratio who used his academic prowess to find out everything you liked-not in a weird way ofcourse.

Dr. Ratio who could still accidentally hurt your feelings, but would immediately be in your room with your favorite flowers, food and a not he read off an apology.

Dr. Ratio who’s trying his best so don’t leave him please?

This is also posted on my main acc with better formatting 💙

[hellsslibrary]

Could you write about Hiori, Chigiri, and Bachira giving their male!reader boyfriend a blowjob? Maybe Chigiri thigh fucking... Hiori sadistically making you wait to cum, and Bachira with his feet?

Blow it, move it, bite it, ride it. Just come on, make a move on it.

#a.n. : I absolutely loved writing this, so it's okay!! And it's kind of implied that you're all in Blue Lock... I have no idea where the camera-less bedroom came from, so :).

!!Warnings: male!reader, dom!Hiori and implied dom!bachira, top!reader in Chigiri's part (kind of), blowjob (Hiori), footjob (Bachira), thigh-fuck (Chigiri), Hiori is a sadist, overstimulation (Hiori), Chigiri is a sass (like always), Bachira... A little strange (but in a good way as always, yea). And reader is a football player too. Purely theoretically, one can imagine that this is a strap (except for the Hiori part, of course), so anyone can read it, I don't care anyway.

Hiori Yo.

Your hand slides through the blue hair for the umpteenth time that night. You have an incredible, overwhelming urge to grab them and plant that face deeper on your dick, but no... You just can't. How many times have you been denied an orgasm? Three or so, or maybe you've lost count.

Only that smug face with those bright blue eyes glowing with joy knows the exact number.

"Yo... Am I seriously unable to cum, even after all this?" you ask, knowing the answer perfectly well, but just like in the past, smoldering with hope that he will break up and give in.

"No," of course he won't, Hiori has been mumbling around your cock, sucking on your thick shaft for the last half hour.

You practically growl in frustration, trying not to move your hips or anything else, because it will only prolong this torture. And all because of what? In training, you didn't score a goal from his pass, which made him angry at you. He gave you such a perfect pass, and you missed it.

"Absent-minded boys like you need self-control, don't you think?" Hiori asks, batting his long eyelashes at you, looking straight into your eyes with that innocent look, which makes you almost melt.

His hand moves rhythmically on your cock while his tongue licks your glans from time to time, sometimes gliding over the base and over the bulging veins. He was clearly enjoying tormenting you like that, watching the precum trickle down your head, which he rather licked off, slurping on purpose.

The bed creaks slightly under your weight, clearly not designed for two people, especially if they are muscular in one way or another. It would probably fall apart if you were doing something more active here, but you don't even want to think about it, considering that you have to explain it to the Ego.

"Please, Yo... I'll do anything, please, it hurts," your voice is quiet, a whimper escapes from your throat; Hiyori's eyes rise to you again and a smile blooms on his lips when he notices tears in the corners of your eyes.

"Whatever you say..." The football player mutters, leaning closer and wiping the tears from your eyes before they can roll down your cheeks. "Okay, I'll let you."

Your hips jerk as you are suddenly pierced by the feeling of his mouth around your cock. Not teasing. Not slow. Uninterrupted. And the persistent, rhythmic sucking of your length, which makes you feel like you're already in Heaven.

Of course, it doesn't take long for you to cum. In just a matter of seconds, the knot in your stomach unties and you cum in Hiori's mouth with a guttural moan, clutching his hair in your hands, pushing into his mouth for a couple of seconds, and then exhaling tiredly.

Yo straightens up, licking the droplets of your cum from the corners of his lips, looking at your peaceful face, and then suddenly squeezes your softened cock.

"You said you'd do anything, darling," the blue-eyed man whispers, ecstatically watching your surprised face... If you don't like the deprivation of orgasm, then you will have to accept your fate of overexcitation.

Chigiri Hyoma.

"Mmm, you're enjoying this too much, big guy" Hyoma says, as he stares at your barely present face as you fuck between his thighs.

You wanted to fuck him so damn badly for real, just slide inside those damn tight muscles, but you didn't have too much time until the end of the break, so you had to manage somehow.

"I'm sorry... You have juicy thighs, has anyone ever told you that?" you ask, squeezing his knees a little tighter, trying not to put too much pressure on his right leg, rubbing your cocks together with your movements.

"Yes, thank you. You've said that about eleven times, if I remember correctly. For the last ten minutes," he replies, shrugging his shoulders, looking at how your cock slides between his thighs, over his smaller penis, smearing the precum on your stomach.

His hands instinctively grab onto the sheets, and he moans softly, arching his back. Your cock perfectly covered his own length from below, perfectly rubbed against the head, touching the sensitive bridle. Your "waters" were mixed together.

"We have a training session soon, come on... Otherwise, they'll be looking for us. And they will definitely find us, considering that you don't even hide your moans," Chigiri cheers you on, squeezing his own hips harder, which even started to make a sound from how your cock bumped lightly against his muscular thighs.

"I'm sorry..." you mumble it again, just staring at Hyoma's stomach, where you could see your cock sliding in and out of his thighs.

He snorts, placing his own hands on your palms, which are holding him under his knees, pulling you out of your semi-trance. His red eyes seem to be staring into your very soul, still filled with their usual cocky sparkle, but now clouded with lust.

"What?" your voice is softly heard in the empty bedroom, followed by Chigiri's moan as your cock grazes the bridle of his own again, and he exhales, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Nothing, nothing... You're just drooling," the red-haired man whispers, and you see a drop of water from your chin land on the back of Hyoma's thigh.

... Well, maybe you enjoyed it a little too much. So what? You're a simple man.

You quickly wipe your mouth on your shoulder, pushing Chigiri a little harder into the bed, making his back arch even more and a moan escapes your lips when you feel a familiar feeling in your stomach.

"Huh... Come on, come on, come on. Let's get together, okay? I want you to come, please..." Chigiri whispers, completely unaware of how much more beautiful he is now with red cheeks and a face bathed in pleasure... But what's the difference, huh? Your pace started to become less rhythmic and increasingly rough.

The sound of tremors echoed more and more through the almost empty room, and there it was... White light behind the eyes, two male moaning voices.

Ka-sploosh!

Bachira Meguru.

"This is a fun position, you know?" Bachira chuckles in your ear as he literally hangs on your back, his arms wrapped around your neck and his legs resting on your cock, rubbing it lazily.

"Are you sure you're comfortable? You can always sit forward..." You ask as his chest presses closer to your back and he kisses your cheek long and hard with a smile.

"Thanks for caring! But it's okay, really... Let's give [Your name] the younger a little more attention?"

You moan, throwing your head back on Bachira's shoulder as he starts to move his feet a little more actively. One of his feet runs along the length of your cock, while the other lifts your shaft. How does he even bend his legs like that? Who knows these football players.

His lips slide down your neck, covering it with kisses, occasionally sucking on your skin, making you sigh softly in pleasure. The forward's feet wrap around your entire length, starting to rub it in perfect synchronization.

"Megu... So good, it's weird, but good," you whisper into his neck, inhaling his scent mixed with the light scent of sweat, considering you're both post-workout.

"I'm glad! And he seems to like it too... Or is it her?" Meguru is seriously discussing the gender of your dick... Oh, the things you put up with for this man, honestly.

Your hand slides behind you, supporting his hip, so that it would be at least a little easier for him. Although he doesn't seem to care, because his feet move and hold your cock just perfectly.

His toes deliberately touch your veins along the base or run along the head of your cock, his heels sometimes stroking in circles on your balls, which are getting tighter with each passing second.

Why the hell did you even think to ask him about this? You looked at some new dribble he came up with, and your brain switched off and you asked him. Of course, it's not surprising that he agreed, but fuck...

Who knew that his feet were talented with more than just a soccer ball, right? Your balls were also satisfied, it seems.

"Want to cum? You always can, you know," a sweet voice breaks you out of your thoughts as Meguru presses his heel lightly on your balls, causing you to twitch a little, causing him to smile even wider.

"Of course... You'll make me cum embarrassingly fast..."

"There's nothing embarrassing about it! You make me cum just as fast when...! Mhmhm!"

He lightly punches your chest as you push your head into his neck to shut him up and not embarrass yourself any further.

The feel and sight of his toes on your cock is enough without him saying anything. Your cock twitches in his feet, but he holds it expertly, continuing to rub your cock, as if his orgasm depends on it, not yours. Although it's the same thing to him.

"B-Bachi..." You whine, really embarrassingly fast cumming as your sperm drips down his feet and he kisses your cheek encouragingly.

And then he cries out as you fall backwards, pinning him down and he immediately pushes you aside, looking at you.

"Fallen asleep? He must have enjoyed it too much," Meguru chuckles quietly, looking at your sleeping face, and then covers you with the blanket, kissing your forehead. "Now, shower! Just don't leave marks... Or [Your Name] will scold you, Meguru."

[puckpocketed]

Trying to absorb everything there is to know about ice hockey within the shortest amount of time possible really does strange things to a person. You come up against questions such as what do defensemen even do aside from skate backwards and do tummy time to protect their goalie? (Broadcasts aren’t the most informative) What the hell makes defensemen effective? What do the casters mean when they say “gap”? What are defensive details?

I love watching games back, I love trying to understand the game. I love hockey <3 But sometimes it’s nice to have help, and sometimes my favourite writers/podcasters collaborate!!

Here is part 1/3 of a podcast mini-series about defending, putting it here so I can have a copy of it in case it ever gets taken down + wanted to share with everyone some of my findings! (All episodes are available if anyone just wants to listen to them!) Transcript + edits done by me, all mistakes are mine.

Published 6th November 2024, Hockey IQ Podcast: Modern Defensemen (with Will Scouch) Ep #1 - by Hockey's Arsenal, hosted by Greg Revak (apple / spotify / youtube / bonus substack link)

part 2

[START Transcript]

Greg Revak: On the Hockey IQ Podcast today, we open up a new segment: we’re bringing back our favourite Will Scouch. If you’re on the Hockey IQ Newsletter you know his work by now.

Will, good morning. Earlier than most of us probably normally get up, but it’s a good day.

Will Scouch: Yeah, Greg, thanks for having me, it’s a lot of fun. Me and Greg go way back. We’re boys from years ago and I’m excited to hop on the show. I’m a keen listener, keen reader. 

[They exchange pleasantries]

GR: Beautiful. Well, today we’re gonna talk about three concepts. We’re gonna break it into three spots though, so everyone’s gotta come back next week and the week after that.

We’re gonna talk about defensemen, because everyone knows they’re important but how do we actually play the position well?

WS: Yeah, I mean, it’s a position that’s still, to me, being explored; both by, I’d say youth and junior coaches and pro coaches alike. There’s a lot of different ways that you can do it.

I mean, I watch a lot of hockey from around the world, all kinds of different levels. I’ve watched guys develop from 15 to 24 at this point, and just seeing how their games evolve and everything, and how effective various versions of this position is. And I think it’s a very interesting area that’s still being explored in a lot of really interesting ways, for sure.

GR: Yeah, I think back to David Savard; he comes out of the [QMJHL] as this high-flying offensive defenseman, and if we just forgot about the rest of his career and you just saw him today as this great shutdown, defense-first player, you’d be absolutely shocked.

I mean, you think about Rasmus Dahlin — kid didn’t even play full time defenseman until his actual draft year, he was still playing forward a ton. There’s so much to be explored here.

I feel like [to get a lot of] — for you NHL fans — to get a lot of value in the later rounds out of your defensemen, take those offensive players first, and we can find a lot of hidden gems later.

WS: Well, yeah. I mean, actually, I’ve said this a few times but your listeners probably don’t know, but I did a presentation during the pandemic at the Ottawa Hockey Analytics Conference about this topic exactly; how, when you look at the numbers and the defensive value of players in the NHL, I found that there were just as many in the top 50 defensive value of players in the NHL, there were just as many undrafted players as there were second round picks, second and third round picks combined.

So the draft isn’t really a great historical gauge on defensive ability. Offense is a different story from defensive players, which we could probably get into a little bit.

But I find, personally, that evaluating defensemen and projecting defense to the NHL is still really spotty and questionable. And I don’t know, in my line of work, watching a lot of defensemen, a lot of the ones who I think are some of the better defenders kind of go a little unheralded, because a lot of the time you don’t need to be particularly noticeable to be a good defenseman, but scouts are always looking for the noticeable guys.

So it’s a very interesting world and it’s a very interesting thing to pick through, but there’s definitely a lot of case studies you could dig into, and a lot of players you could look at as cases of, “Oh yeah, nobody was really paying a whole lot of attention to them!” or maybe people were thinking about them the wrong way. But if you think about things a little bit outside the box, you might be able to see something really interesting there.

GR: Yeah, so let's dive into why that may be. Classic example would be Lane Hutson, so maybe we'll pick on him a little bit, but I definitely want to talk about Rasmus Ristolainen, because he is an interesting case study that we wrote about on the newsletter.

So where I want to start with this is just modern day defending. How are defensemen defending today versus old times? A lot of times it was the big hit, separate the head from body. The puck’s somewhere, but let's separate the head from the body, and we’ll worry about the puck later — that is going bye-bye.

Every coach I talk to now, they prefer having the puck rather than having a head on a stake. So for me, it comes back to this old saying of, “position before possession.” We're gaining body positioning, we're not so much separating head from body, but puck from player.

All right, so we've got position before possession. It's super valuable in gaining the space that you need to have first whack in a puck or put the puck where you want it, or just push it to a teammate. Just having the idea of owning space and there's no better league at this and no league that values it more than the NHL. If you don't do this well in the NHL, sooner or later, you're going to find yourself out of a job making a heck of a lot less money in a league that probably no one really cares that much about. You want to be in the show, the big lights: you have to value this more than anything.

And this is actually the one thing that I noticed about Hunter McDonald. He's in the Flyers’ system now — he was an overager, but I was like, “This guy is unbelievable!” He’s a huge frame, you can’t miss him out there. He would just get the positioning before possession, and I was like, “Okay, that’s interesting, let me watch him further.”

And I feel like he’s going to be one of those bottom of the lineup guys who, unlikely, made it out of being an overager in the [United States Hockey League], going to college for a few years, but has those little details of a defenseman that you see in modern day play, which is positioning overall, which is an NHL trait to the nth degree.

WS: No, I know. I think I would definitely agree. Those are the players that are always really, really fascinating to me because you look at a guy like Hunter McDonald and the production just isn't amazing. But it doesn't — to me, when you look at defensemen, it almost doesn't really matter. That's kind of a very secondary-slash-bonus style of thing that comes with a player.

I see a lot of defenders every year and it seems like a thing where a lot of them, maybe at the lower levels, there is a little bit more of that “separate the head from the body”-type of player. And I think there are NHL scouts who still gravitate towards those guys but, at the end of the day when it all comes out in the wash, it's a lot of the time the guys that are kind of, I hate to say ”boring”, but just very effective, and just they're always in a good position.

The guy I always reference as a young defenseman who, I think, is just a really, really high-end defensive guy is Kaiden Guhle in Montreal. We're going to talk a little bit about Lane Hutson in a second, but Kaiden Guhle is a guy who, when he was in the junior level, just played such a great, balanced style of defense.

He was a good skater, but he had really good length. He was a guy who didn't just lay the body every single time, but he certainly could if he needed to. It was about his lateral mobility, it was about tracking rushes, keeping inside the dot lines, and preventing chances from inside and leading with his stick, but then finishing with the body if he had the opportunity or the need to do so. And he seemed to have a really good read of just how to do his job really, really well.

And so that's been a lesson for me for sure. He was a really interesting case study a few years ago, and he's become a pretty solid NHL defenseman. I mean, on a team this year that’s kind of struggling defensively I think he’s been one of the brighter spots on that defense group there, [he’s] doing a pretty good job at least suppressing chances against.

GR: I don’t watch as much as you do, prospects, but Guhle I did catch. For me, the play style wasn’t very good. He had elements of it, you could see the flashes, but he was just really brash. His decision making and his reads were quite poor. But the tools were there, and it was like, “Can he adjust?” Which I think he’s done a phenomenal job [of], and I think Montreal is probably the perfect place for him to develop a lot of that.

So I think you're spot on like, “Okay, how does he actually apply?“ Having assets is one thing, having the tools is one thing, but how do we properly apply those assets, those tools that you have in a good way? So I think another piece, for me, is if you do have the speed, is just making sure that you're controlling speed and then you're also keeping small gaps.

And just knowing with my high school team that no one knows what a gap is, let's define that real quick, which is: the difference in space between the forwards and the defensemen. So the space in between, “How much space are you [allowing]?” in hockey term slang. It's underneath you versus on the other side, which is above you or behind you. So, “How much space, what's that gap between D and O?”

(Editor’s note: He says O instead of F here, I assume because the person attacking isn’t always a forward. As in, “How much space between the defenseman and offenceman?”)

So you got the speed, shrink that gap as much as possible. Don't give them the space to operate or work in, or, I even call it the space to think, which [it often becomes] for forwards, especially unsophisticated ones.

WS: Yeah, I mean, that's really the bread and butter of a lot of the position. It's so much of this, like you said, gap control. I actually just did a bit of video work for a really high end player, [an] NHL draft pick playing in Sweden this year, who is producing really well.

But in terms of the defending side of the game, he's not the most incredible skater you've ever seen, he's not the biggest guy in the world. And a big thing that I noticed, that even at the professional level that was kind of a bit of a work in progress, was that gap management. Especially because the footwork wasn't amazing, [he was] keeping his feet a little too stationary, gliding backwards and sort of allowing that gap.

And when you watch the NHL that's the point of the whole exercise, watching the NHL and how they play. Forwards are fast and they're smart, largely. The guys who can score are the guys who know how to get through soft defensive pressure, the guys who know how to find lanes and cross up defensemen, and if you don't have the footwork or the mobility or the reach or all of it — all of the above — to track all that and manage it, then it's going to be a lot tougher to do your job.

But the interesting thing, though, is that there's a lot of different ways that you can get defensive jobs done. That's always been very interesting to me; seeing how different players approach the position in different ways and seeing the efficacy of that come out in the wash, and how their offense balances with their defensive ability. It's a very interesting world to dig into, for sure.

GR: Yeah, I think you've got a rabbit hole there. You just kind of opened up around defensive skating. What do clean feet look like? What does defensive posture look like, that actually allows you to have that kind of mobility?

So we'll leave that for another day. If anyone wants to go check it out on the Hockey IQ Newsletter, they can do so. Just look up defenseman skating development. We've got two good pieces there talking about building and maintaining defensive posture and keeping clean feet, which — actually massive base for anyone.

It allows you to have the proper gap that allows you to kill plays early, and ultimately, it's a lot about just controlling speed. You don't want McDavid building up to full speed. You don't want MacKinnon building up to full speed. You don't want anyone coming up to you at full speed. It's very hard to maintain that kind of speed going backwards [that we] even generate in the first place. 

How do you kill it early? How do you get a hand on someone? Or, my favorite example is just proper pivoting. A guy dumps a puck on you, how are you going back? What does that pivot look like?

I'll let you open that up because at the NHL it's almost too good, where you can't see what a bad example looks like, but you can see it's everywhere.

WS: Yeah, I mean, it's a make or break skill in the NHL. It's where a lot of defensemen die. I mean, it's a cliche at this point to talk about pucks in deep, to talk about [getting] pucks deep in the offensive zone, get below the goal line, dump and chase. People make fun of dump-and-chase kind of stuff. But if your team is built to do it, you can do it.

You can take advantage of defensemen in the NHL who just don't have the speed or the agility or the skating ability that some of your forwards might have. It is a lot easier to skate forwards than it is to skate backwards. That's just, you know, anecdotal, but also pretty factual — you're naturally going forwards.

I think an interesting trend that you're seeing a little bit more of [is] what they would call ‘scooting’. You're the coach; I don't know if that's exactly what the terminology would be, but [it’s getting] your defensemen in the neutral zone, kind of pinching a little bit more and having them skate forwards, tracking play towards the boards.

So it's not necessarily that they're doing their backwards crossovers, it's not necessarily that they're entirely skating backwards, but you see guys who are really talented skaters or do have a lot of quickness driving play to the boards in a more aggressive way than having the play in front of them. It's about them sort of tracking that play laterally, which is an interesting thing I think you're seeing more of now.

I think there are definitely coaches and systems that love to play their defensemen more that way, and the weak side defense can sort of fill between the dot lines for them and sort of leave the weaker side of the ice a little bit more open. That's kind of what I mean. There's a lot of different ways to achieve these kinds of goals, and I think you're seeing a lot of different things popping up to adapt to this. 

In situations where you have a dump and chase or something like that, or just getting pucks in deep or whatever you say, when you have a defenseman who has trouble with their footwork and turning around… Trust me, I'm a defenseman, when I play hockey, I strap on the skates — I play defense myself and that's where I fall apart, when I do fall apart. Which is often. But definitely, when play turns around and I’ve got to change directions or change my area of flow, it can be tricky. And in the NHL, I can only imagine how tricky it can be there. 

GR: Yeah. I mean, a good pivot you're looking at three steps total, like boom-boom-bam and you're there. You watch an amateur game and it could be like five, six, seven, eight chops before [they] finally get going and [it’s] looking like a proper forward stride again. [Or just] getting into a good defensive posture and positioning. It's total scramble mode.

A big one for me, too, is just the direction that you pivot. Do you wait for that offensive player to commit to their lane? It's just a great defensive habit in general, letting the offenceman make the first move. If you're making the first move, you're the one showing your cards. It's kind of like showing your cards first in Poker.

Let them make the decision and then you can pivot into them. Now you can get that position before possession, or at least get a chip on them, slow them down. You can either make it easier for yourself or your partner. So one, there's the clean footwork on the pivot, and two is making sure that we're controlling the speed and we're pivoting properly in the direction that we want to pivot.

There's a ton of times where I see, especially the lower levels, players coming up, they're in a bad spot, they're skating forward, defenseman skating backwards and they just chip it off the boards. And the defenseman is like a dog just following the puck and it ends up in the middle of the ice where the forward actually went. Again, the NHL is the best at this so it's really hard to see bad examples of pivoting into and controlling the space of the opponent.

WS: Yeah. I do a lot of work outside the NHL, and the biggest thing I notice is not necessarily the number of chops it takes, but the amount of time. You can see guys taking two seconds, maybe more, to get themselves turned around, tracking pucks below the goal line.

To me hockey is a game of milliseconds a lot of the time, right? I was working with someone years ago who really shared the idea with me that, in the NHL, generally goals are not scored if you have the puck on your stick for more than either half a second or a second.

I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's so fast in terms of; when you score goals in the NHL, it's when you touch the puck for a very short amount of time in the offensive zone and get a puck on net. And so, if you have guys who take too long — and “too long” might not be very long… If the difference is relatively short at the time you're making those pivots or those changes, but the [opponent has] got a lot more speed than you and you're [taking more] time to then start generating that speed to match the opponent, you're in trouble.

And in my opinion, I think that you want your defensemen to be more assertive. I always fall back on the strategy of; make them make a decision, make them commit. That might imply that you do the committing first, but that's where the importance of footwork and tactics come into question. 

You have to have strong support, whether it's from backchecking forwards or your partner. You want to be able to adapt to quick players who might fake one way, go another, and be able to use your stick or use your feet or both to be a factor regardless of what happens. 

It's very interesting to watch defensemen play. I find it really, really interesting to see the different approaches of different players and especially how they evolve and get into the NHL.

But yeah, I mean, [it’s so pivotal], the skating ability; defensemen who can skate, it unlocks so many doors for their career. If you're an elite level skating defenseman, it just unlocks so many doors that interest me. If you're not, and if that's not a strength of your game, then it can be a big struggle, especially against faster opponents. Even if you're big and physical and pretty good throwing the body or whatever, there's a lot more of the game in the NHL these days. Very, very interesting stuff. 

GR: I think that's actually the perfect segue into someone who, early in his career, threw the body too much and sold out too much on plays that he probably shouldn't: Rasmus Ristolainen.

Great case study, great case study from when [John Tortorella] started working with him to where he is now. Will, I'll send in the link here from the Hockey IQ newsletter so we can track a little bit better with each other. 

I found him to be a fascinating player. High draft pick, 8th overall in 2013. Really pretty, smooth skating, big body — has all of the tools that you would traditionally say, “Yep, that checks [out].” And then you looked at his stat profile and it was just abysmal. His micro stats were terrible. I think the only thing he was good at was D-Zone Retrievals, which, being able to take contact, it was kind of an easy thing for him.

WS: Yeah. I remember watching Ristolainen when he was in junior hockey, because that was the earliest years of me being kind of curious about that side of the game, and I did not really recall that being a premier area of his game.

I remember him being big, but pretty mobile, and has some skill to play around with. He did have a bit of a physical edge to him, but it feels like it was that tail end of an era in the NHL where those big, mean, physical guys were kind of in vogue, and people were kind of curious and needing guys like that. And I guess that's what Buffalo drafted him to be.

I remember being very surprised that he was in the NHL the year he was drafted. It just did not look like it was really working out there. And Buffalo just seems to have been not a great fit for him, they kind of turned him into something that he wasn't, but I do think that he's turned into some sort of serviceable defenseman.

But he, to me, is a great example of one that I always look back on and go, “Man, what if?” Like, what if things went a little bit differently for him? Because there was good stuff there, it's just I feel like the development was focused in the wrong areas.

To me, 65% of the work [is] scouting, and developing — the easy part is drafting good players, the hard part is developing them and bringing them along into being good NHL players.

So to me, if you can find the most amount of things that get in the way of that process being easy, then you're doing a really good job. And with Ristolainen, I feel like in his case they inserted more things to make that journey more difficult and sort of turned him into something that he wasn't, which is always a scary thing for me to think about doing to a player.

But it's not over for him, obviously. He figured it out. Obviously, Tortorella found something for him to do, and he has shown a little bit better. But yeah, he's always been a what-if guy for me.

GR: I always liked how Tortorella, after the 2022-2023 season, was doing his media stuff and he was like “Yeah, he's our most improved player.” You're a guy who's getting paid big bucks — I think he was making five million plus that year, still is, probably — and even him, he was like, “I was just bad the first half. And then around Christmas break, I started getting going. The second half was much better.”

Basically, the first half, they were just trying to rebuild his defensive game, and this is true for anything. Zach Benson's another good example of this. If you can't play defense in the NHL, you're going to be out quick. Benson can play defense despite being — I think they list them at five foot 10, but there's no way.

WS: Yeah, no, no. I know. He's a little guy, but he's another great example of a player where I, in my work, I do not care how big you are. I just care about how you play. Even in the NHL. And I feel like Benson's a really, really good example of that; a guy who, just forechecking alone is a really… The easiest way to defend is if he can cause turnovers in the opposing team's offensive zone, a guy like Zach Benson does that extremely well.

And if he needs to track guys through the neutral zone and backcheck, he'll do it, and he does it really well, and he does it at a speed that I found to be projectable to the NHL. And again, that's another one where I was a little surprised to see him in the NHL so fast, but he didn't really look out of place there.

He's had a bit of a slow start this season, but just a really, really talented player, and one where you kind of do look at and go, “Yeah, these smaller guys can definitely defend.” They just — the expectations are a little bit higher, and maybe for good reason, but he checks all the boxes for sure.

GR: Yeah. So for Rasmus (Ristolainen), there's two big things that, when I dug into this, that Torts was working at. At this point, I was so intrigued [that] I was tracking every single time Torts spoke and Rasmus spoke to the media. So I was like, “I wonder what they're actually doing?” Which, Torts can be tight-lipped, but he gives it away if you follow long enough.

The big one was just inside, like too much, he was finding himself, Rasmus was finding himself on the outside. So whether that be outside the dots, outside on bad ice, for whatever reason, or just finding yourself outside, like losing defensive side positioning to the offensive player.

If you finish contact, but now you're on the wall and your player's got to step to the net, that's trouble. There's a great, great clip the other night featuring, I think it was (Aliaksei) Protas [who] ended up scoring the goal and K’Andre Miller of the New York Islanders. So Caps — Rangers, not Islanders — Rangers… Where [Miller] went in soft, didn't really take positioning, got beat back to net, and Protas just put out a stick and just tapped it in, Igor Shesterkin never had a chance.

A similar idea of; okay, good, maybe you got some contact, you tried to make the stop, but you still need to maintain defensive side positioning. You still need to finish on the inside. So if you're doing contact, you can't overreach.

You just can't do that. You have to stay in good positioning.

And the second piece was just, finishing with contact to get stops, like stopping movement. Offensive play is a lot about movement, and defensive play is about stopping movement, AKA getting stops. So he would maybe make a play, or get a poke check, but the puck was still moving and could be easily on the other team's stick. 

So how do you make sure you're always staying in good positioning? Staying on the inside, as Torts put it. Or the other piece, which is getting stops, or finishing with contact — but smartly, not chasing the contact for contact’s sake? Being tactful in your play.

I feel like Risto really just learned how to play defense smartly. He was actually thinking and being intentional about what he was doing, rather than like, “I see a puck and a player, I'm going to go end that!” And then, boom, in the big scheme of things, it’s a net negative. Even though at the moment, it may have, especially to him — otherwise he wouldn't make the play — seemed like a positive, really it was a negative for the team.

WS: Well, that's the interesting thing too, going back to talking about junior players and the context in the draft and how defensive players might go a little bit underreported or undervalued in a sense.

I see this all the time, especially with North American defensemen, especially with Canadian ones, but there are definitely players who everybody talks about how good they are defensively, everybody talks about how solid they are. They're big, they're physical, they're mean, blah, blah, blah. But then when you watch things in detail, it's this sort of Ristolainen-style thing. You're talking about K’Andre Miller where it's like, they're along the boards, they're doing the thing along the boards, but they're losing.

They're allowing guys to get low on them, get through them, and even in the junior level, right? What good is it if you're trying to pin a guy against the boards and they give you a little shove, crouch down a little bit, chip the puck three feet out from you, you don't adapt to that, they get three feet of space on you, throw it out in front of the net, and boom, you got yourself a scoring chance, right? I see that all the time.

It's the focus on the body and not focus on the turnover, turning that possession back over, that really seems to be a tough lesson for a lot of defensemen to get over. I find that a lot of defensemen from the age of 18 to 23, in the grand scheme of things, their style of play doesn't drastically shift all that often.

And so, when I see things like that happening, I'm going, okay, I gotta either hope that this guy puts in the time in the gym and becomes, just, a strength nut, and pins that guy to the boards so they can't do anything, or they figure out a way to get into those situations, take a step back, chip at the puck. Really battle for the puck rather than focus on the guy.

Because I've seen it so many times with guys who are bigger and more physical, they apply it in a way where I feel like coaches will go, “Wow, look at you go, you're playing hard, you're playing the thing!” But then they escape, this opponent might escape, and create a little bit of space for themselves. And again, this is a game of inches, it's a game of a couple of feet, and every inch matters.

So in some cases, yeah, you get those situations where guys like Ristolainen, yeah, you're doing the thing, people clip the hits, people clip the physical play, but then five seconds later, someone's got some space on you and they generate a scoring chance. And so what do you really value, right? Personally, fewer scoring chances would be ideal.

GR: I love it. Last piece to wrap this up, because I think it'll go well into our next piece, which is point play. Shorting the zone.

I was able to find some phenomenal clips and do some photos of this for the newsletter. But the concept of; if you're watching a game in the NHL, if you can see all five of the people trying to break the puck out, low in the zone… A lot of it, you think about the NHL today, is like a swarm. We're going to do close support. I'm going to try to crowd the puck out.

A good way to respond to that is to short the zone, which basically means your defensemen, instead of hanging out at the blue line, are going to go into the offensive zone. And they're going to start with small gaps, they're going to be [at the] top of the circles, if not a little bit lower.

Tortorella is another big fan of this, so you can see it with the Flyers a lot, too. I would say [Sheldon] Keefe is another example of a coach who does this a ton. So you saw a lot in Toronto, now you'll see a lot more in New Jersey, which is  the perfect d-core to make all of this work. So I think Devils are going to be good for — that's going to be a great fit.

But just the idea of crowding in the space, setting small gaps, so when you do start defending, you can either cut a play off early — it's an easy pinch there if you don't have to go very far — you can cut it off. Or, 2; create a turnover in a much better spot than what is in your own zone. Why not make it in the o-zone? So from a positioning standpoint, phenomenal place to start, good way to kill plays early.

Before they can get going, before the team can build speed, and just being able to put yourself in a good spot to take advantage both from a defensive standpoint, but offensive standpoint.

WS: Yeah, I love when I see this being deployed. I think, again, I'm a geek, like I'm a math guy, and even just thinking about the numbers here, it makes such a difference if you think about it.

The offensive zone from blue line to goal line is 64 feet. So you're looking at the difference between a guy standing at the blue line being maybe 75 feet from the net or at the top of the face-off circle where you might be 20 feet closer, maybe 20, 25 feet closer. So you're cutting down the time at which you give the defense to adapt, the goaltender to adapt. You're cutting that time down by a third-ish, a quarter to a third. I'm ballparking here, but that automatically is just based on where you are on the ice.

If you can compress the offensive zone on your opponent, you're laughing. The second thing I wanted to mention here is this is, again, why skating ability and quickness and speed are so important to me. Because it is objectively a better position to be in when you're in that position — closer to the top of the face-off circles for your defensemen.

But if you do have a situation where the opponent has possession of the puck you have to get set up, you have to cover that gap, you have to cover for yourself, or you have to have some sort of system in place where a winger can cover for you if you're caught in the offensive zone. Ideally, you have your defensemen who can wheel up, get some speed going, get positioned well to counter that attack, and have a system that can swarm whoever has that puck in the offensive zone.

I think it's a really interesting trend for sure. It's a simple little thing, it's a concept that you see definitely a lot more now than you used to, but I'm all about it. It just makes sense mathematically, and it plays into exactly the styles of player that I always look for: guys who do pinch a little bit more aggressively, but have the mobility and the skating ability to cover for themselves.

I would rather have a player who tries something creative, or tries some sort of play that could lead to a high scoring chance, but may relinquish some space on the ice, but has the ability to cover for themselves.

And I can at least as a coach, rely on them — not that I'm a coach — but rely on them to cover for themselves. To go, okay, I can rely on them to try these things, because I know that if it doesn't maybe go their way, which happens in hockey all the time, I'm not going to be upset at this player, but I know that I want them to backcheck, cover for it, because I know they're capable of it.

I think that that's sort of the trade off that you have to live with, but I'm totally cool with it.

GR: All right, so we're going to call this end of the day on some modern day defending, and we'll pick up on point play in episode two.

[END Transcript.]

part 2 <- convenient link at the bottom <3

[thebroccolination]

STOLAS AND BLITZ'S CURRENT RELATIONSHIP IS A TREASURE TROVE

Helluva Boss is the ideal source material for fanworks in so many ways. Especially because of where Blitz and Stolas's relationship is right now.

One of the show's more obvious issues is the pacing, and while I don't know a ton about animated productions, it's always seemed to me like they're creating an enormously ambitious production on a pretty limited budget, so they kind of have to power through these episodes at a hundred miles an hour without the luxury of going at the slower, more nuanced pace they deserve. But that's where fanfiction and fanart can really elevate what canon gives us, because the show is creating so much potential to explore, and we have time in between episodes to play!

Basically: I love it here and this episode was a buffet of goodness.

Following Mastermind, Stolas and Blitz are discovering that despite their physically intimate relationship and their feelings for each other, they don't actually know each other.

In Sinsmas, we see Stolas and Blitz discovering so many new things about each other, to the point where you wonder what they ever talked about until you remember: sex. When they reunited as adults, they never re-learned who each other is now. Instead, they jumped past personal intimacy to physical intimacy.

And now that they're working on their personal intimacy, I love that Blitz has flipped completely from acting cold to Stolas out of uncertainty and self-defense to committing to him, unrelentingly loyal and affectionate. The way he is with Loona.

So we have them learning each other in doses:

• Blitz's horse thing

• Stolas's secret medication

• What Stolas eats

• Social norms Stolas didn't have to know when he was part of the wealthy ruling class

• Hellborn culture

• Blitz's genuine love for the company he built, not just pride

• Just how different Blitz's way of life is from the one Stolas is accustomed to

• And the real Blitz as opposed to the idealized version Stolas invented in his fantasies

In Mastermind, Stolas has that line, "Why am I throwing my freedom away for this idiot?" in part because he was still mad at Blitz, but also because Blitz has been knocked off his pedestal, and Stolas has to relearn him from nothing.

But the thing is: this idiot loves Stolas.

He's not ashamed to eat with Stolas in public, not ashamed to protect him from the other Hellborn who hate Stolas because of the trial.

He's genuinely delighted spending his time with Stolas.

He'll hunt rats in an alley just to make sure Stolas is eating what he likes.

And he champions Stolas's very first secretarial attempt in very characteristically giddy flavor.

He risks his life to save Stolas's, a flip from Mastermind.

He wraps Stolas in his own jacket to keep him warm, even though Blitz just complained about Earth's winter topside.

And he wraps Stolas in a blanket, then eats hot coals/brimstone(/whatever those rocks were) to become a hot water bottle for Stolas.

Because ultimately, what Blitz wants and perhaps realizes he wants in this episode is that he wants to be a complete family with Stolas and their daughters.

And they'll get there in part by talking to each other about what matters.

Not fighting, not yelling, not walking away, just talking to each other. About their vulnerabilities and their fears and what hurts. About their past hurts and their worries for the future.

And they've never done that at length before.

The trial gave Blitz the wakeup call he needed, and now the season is ending with Blitz completing another curve of his character arc. Does he believe he deserves Stolas? No. Does he have the family he wants? Nope! But to get there he has to make things right with Stolas, and he's (mostly) done that.

What comes next for them in season three will be up to Stolas.

Blitz has embraced Stolas, but it's not quite reciprocal yet.

So I look forward to aaaaaaalllllllllI the fic and fanart along the way. :>

[youknowwho-mustnotbenamed]

December 13 - Hot Chocolate | word count: 996 | @wolfstarmicrofic

Sirius hates when other people are in pain.

Maybe it’s just a trauma response from his childhood and having to see Reggie in pain, but now, even when somebody around him is even the slightest bit uncomfortable, he will go out of his way to remedy that. Which is why, as soon as he suspected about Remus being a werewolf, he did as much research into the topic as he could. He learned everything Remus refused to tell them.

About the aches and pains werewolves suffered both before and after the full moon—some experienced the antsy wolf worse than others, and sadly, Sirius suspected Remus was one of them. About how they feel a chill in their bones that won’t thaw—Remus generally goes about the castle wearing as many jumpers as he can pull over his head. About how they feel repulsive and think others feel the same—he knows well about the paranoia. He learned about how they find comfort in things that remind them they are human—physical touch, comfortable clothes, their favorite foods, people they recognize—so Sirius does as much as he can to give Remus those without overstepping boundaries.

Which is why right now, he is balancing a nearly overflowing mug of hot chocolate up from the kitchens. Under his other arm is an enchanted blanket with an intricate heating charm that doesn’t just warm the skin, but deeper inside the body as well—he had to seek out Regulus’ help for this one—as much has he hates to admit it, Regulus is far better at advanced spells than anybody else he knows.

Remus returned to the dorm room just a few hours ago now, leaving Sirius with the complicated task of slipping through the common room, uninterrupted, and untouched. Luckily, the others seem to recognize the Black scowl, and pull away. As much has he hates resorting to using the power his family has, he won’t hesitate to use it if it means Remus feels himself again.

Because Sirius can’t stand the long silences, the blank stare, the shivers, the distancing, any of it. He needs Remus in his life like he needs his lungs to breathe. Inseparable, necessary. If Remus leaves, simply because he thinks himself too much of a burden, Sirius is certain he will fall apart. Which he knows is an odd thought for a thirteen-year-old, but he can’t help the way he feels.

“Hey, Rem.”

“Sirius?” He croaks in surprise. Sirius can also see the way he forces his body to relax, trying not to show an ounce of pain on his face. But the slight crinkle around his eyes and the stiffness of his limbs gives him away.

“I brought something for you.”

“You did?”

“Of course. Here.” Kneeling on the bed, he wraps the blanket around Remus, whose eyes blink open wide in surprise. He knows exactly how it feels—he tested it himself to make sure it worked properly—like a warm hug. Physical touch, check. Warmth, check. Remus is already wearing his favorite jumper, check. His favorite food, modified slightly to help ease the cold, check. Somebody he recognizes, check.

“Oh.” He accepts the mug, and immediately takes a sip. “Oh, this is delicious. Where did you get it?”

Suddenly, the blanket under his twiddling fingers is far more interesting. “I owled your mum. I know you mentioned how much you love her hot chocolate, and I figured with… everything, that you would appreciate a little bit of home right now.”

“I…”

He finally looks up, only to find a devastating sight. Remus is crying. That defeats the purpose of everything he was trying to do. He should be smiling right now, forgetting about the pain and returning to himself, to Sirius’ Remus.

“Why are you crying? Did I do something wrong? I’ll—”

“You did this for me?” Remus chokes out.

“Yeah, of course. Why not?”

“Because…. Because… why?”

“I… um… I know.”

“You know? Know what?”

“I know that you… I know—I know where you were three nights ago.”

“I was in the hospital wing. You know I get sick a lot, Sirius.” He is trying to seem casual, but Sirius can catch the slip of panic in his tone.

“You weren’t there, Rem. I went to check in on you, but you weren’t there.” He can sense Remus’ entire body go stiff. He can tell, that this moment, right here, right now, is what determines their future. Will Remus turn away and leave him alone, or will he fight the paranoia and acknowledge that Sirius accepts him as he is. “It’s alright. I know you think you are a burden, but you aren’t. You are the best person I have in my life, and I couldn’t imagine losing you.”

“But… but I’m a monster.”

“So is my mother, but I’m not afraid of her.”

“Sirius—”

“I’m being serious here. I know, and I’m not afraid. I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“How did you find out?”

“I’m good at reading people.” He shrugs. “I also hate to see other people in pain if there is something I can do to help.”

“Do the others know?”

“Nah. It’s your secret to tell, and I’ll support you whether you want to tell them or not.”

“Thanks, Sirius. You are the best friend I could ask for.”

For whatever reason, Sirius’ heart aches at the word friend. It is so insignificant. He always hated these labels people stick on their relationships to help make them make sense. His mother is hardly his mother if she locks him in closets and invades his mind, Professor McGonagall, is more of a mother to him, but he can never label her as such because of “societal norms” or whatever. And yes, Remus is his friend, but he is so much more, Sirius isn’t sure there is a label for it.

But still, he smiles, “Of course, Rem.”

Friends.

[azewritessillystuff]

Academic Rivals [?]

Idea: reverse academic rivals: two teachers who compare their students instead.

Dr. Ratio who you had an...interesting relationship with.

Dr. Ratio who you say is your ‘academic rival’, which confuses many people. Aren’t you both already teachers…?

Dr. Ratio, who competes with you in an odd way.

Dr. Ratio who compares both your student’s grades

Dr. Ratio who’s students proved superior [much to your chagrin] for three years in a row.

Dr. Ratio who you’ve been competing with for three years now.

Dr. Ratio who you are rumored to be dating.

Dr. Ratio and you who and now the hot office romance.

Dr. Ratio who can’t admit that he enjoys the banter and your company so much he’s been late on more than one occasion.

Dr. Ratio who realizes he just might like you a bit more than he should.

Dr. Ratio who, being Dr. Ratio decided on the perfect plan of confession!

Dr. Ratio who noticed how sulky you are after every defeat and secretly tutors your students.

Dr. Ratio who swears you better be grateful he put up with those children just for you.

Dr. Ratio who, when he teaches your students, constantly reminds them not to tell you.

Dr. Ratio who is actually so paranoid careful that his lessons could sound like:

“So to find a hypothetical area of a triangle with negative sides for your reseach paper-hey. Don’t tell your teacher about this..”

Dr. Ratio who allows himself the smallest of smiles when you finally beat him-just this once.

Dr. Ratio who immediately denies it when you tease him and pinch his cheek.

Dr. Ratio who puts his plan into motion and offers that the loser must treat the winner to dinner.

Dr. Ratio who treats you to an expensive meal in penacony.

Dr. Ratio who coughs, breaking an awkward silence once you finish.

Dr. Ratio manages to get a confession out of his mouth…which did not go as planned.

“Y/n. I have-er-realized that you are in fact not an idiot and maybe I like you. Scratch that-Er-I do like you and you’re the opposite of an idiot. Scrat-Aeons. Will you date me?” He abruptly finished awkwardly offering you a ring he had bought prior.

Dr. Ratio who realized that confessing to you and a mirror would feel very different.

Dr. Ratio who just stared up at you as heat gradually built up his cheeks.

Dr. Ratio who felt a wave of relief like nothing else once you just laughed and took the ring, accepting.

Dr. Ratio who tried his very best to be a good boyfriend, continuing to put up with your students who may or may not already told you. You, who found out his secret help and decided to pretend to remain ignorant.

Dr. Ratio who used his academic prowess to find out everything you liked-not in a weird way of course.

Dr. Ratio who could still accidentally hurt your feelings, but would immediately be in your room with your favorite flowers, food and a not he read off an apology.

Dr. Ratio who’s trying his best so don’t leave him please?

This is also posted on my drabblesdear blog. I just formatted it better here and changed some grammar issues + reread 💙

[thefandomsfervent]

Viktor x Reader Personal Pigments (Part 16) - Dianthus Pink

This is a jayvik x reader fic now but it'll still be labeled as a Vik Fic until it's fully implemented. Ft. JayVik and wine. Find my imagine that inspired it here. Previous and next chapter will be linked at the bottom.

Planning on writing as much as I can this weekend to post in bulk before Christmas week, I'll be traveling a distance away and can't bring my laptop with me.

stay tuned and Thank you for reading <3

╔═*✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧-✦-✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧*═╗

Viktor lets out a tense breath when you and Mel leave. The Medarda’s arrival had been a welcome distraction from Jayce’s heated one. He had not thought that he would ever be thankful for her unexpected presence before then. And then cursed it all the same. Taking you out of the lab meant that if Jayce wanted to continue being a little shit then there wouldn’t be an audience to stop him. Although, having one seemed to be what spurred him on in the first place. Another thought, one of many, that will be haunting his mind when he should be sleeping. 

Not only had she removed the only buffer he had, she had left them with wine. Expensive wine. A very large bottle of it. A Jeroboam pomegranate red. An amplifier. It sat with the two glasses on the table behind Jayce. Viktor looks to him, the wine, and back to him. Mel’s sudden arrival had cooled him off, seemingly made Jayce aware that they were in their lab and were supposed to be working. The blush fading by the second as the taller man settles in his seat by Viktor again. There’s a thankful feeling at the normalcy returning, and an annoyed one that it took her to do it. She had taken you from the lab, and the fire from Jayce. Which should be good. He should be thankful for the removed distractions. Not frustrated at the cooling in his gut. 

The silence that settles is not uncomfortable because it is familiar. Yet it is loud. Viktor can hear his own heartbeat over the tapping of Jayce’s foot. He can hear every shift in his clothes as he moves forward to grab a paper. When Jayce speaks it startles him, body jolting in his chair. 

“When do you think they’ll be back?” It’s a simple question. The potential underlying meaning is not. He doesn’t trust his voice. Just shrugs and starts plugging in variables to the equation he was working on. Atleast, that’s what he wants to do. But there’s that same warm hand on his knee. Large palm, thick fingers splayed and adjusting. “Viktor?” Jayce’s voice is full of an emotion he hasn’t heard before. Not sad, not angry, it’s asking, pulling at his heart. How can he not look at his partner then?

Those thick brows furrowed, those hazel eyes framed by short eyelashes. Searching Viktor’s face. That gaze flitting between his own eyes, he watches as it drops to his mouth, to the mole by it. “Jayce?” And he sees those broad shoulders move with a deep inhale, hears it pull through that round nose. 

Jayce is looking at him. At all of him. At his hair ruffled from their day long musings, at their worn uniform, at a lot of things about Viktor. He wants to kiss him. Wants to cross a lot of lines that hadn’t necessarily been drawn anywhere but hung above their heads regardless. He wants to ask him questions, to talk. Jayce liked Viktor, liked their resident painter, he liked Mel. All people who had very recently made their presences known in his life. He had liked many people before, thought he knew love for them too. The way all three of you are in his mind everyday, not just out of proximity but out of fascination, is different from that liking. It was more than that. He wants to know so many things about all of you. It wasn’t just skin to skin dreams and wandering thoughts, he knew it. That knowing was not enough to quell the acidic fear in his veins when he looks at Viktor. His golden eyes passing over Jayce’s face, his body. “Vik, you know I-” What does he say? What is he supposed to do in this moment? 

Viktor’s eyes widen slightly when he continues speaking. Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. This was not easy, so many distractions despite it only being the two of them in the lab. “You know I am with- have been with other people right?” Viktor nods. Waiting. Confused but waiting. He wets his lips before continuing, noting the way Viktor’s eyes dart there and settle before he speaks again. “And that I like you right?” He hadn’t said it outloud before. Had offered shoulder rubs, blankets, nap spots, drinks, food, jokes, teasings, flirts, and many other things to Viktor that would have told him those words but he hadn’t said it before. His heart pounding in his chest, he could feel every thump in his ribcage as the muscle worked overtime. Viktor nods again, slower this time but just as sure. 

Okay. Two things confirmed. Steeling himself to ask another question he grabs Viktor’s hand. The pale hand of his partner in his golden one. Leaning closer to him. “And you like me?” 

Viktor finally speaks. “Yes.” Voice thick, something close to fear and adoration clouding it. He clears his throat, sitting up straighter, holding Jayce’s hand stronger. “Yes,” he says again. “I do.” He can feel the brush of Jayce’s forehead against his now. The breath of his words ghosting his lips. 

“But we both want other people too don’t we?” Immediate spike in his heartbeat with simultaneous relief. The hardest part is out there, the ball in Viktor’s court. He feels Viktor pull on his hand slightly, not enough to leave his hold. Just enough to show doubt. 

Viktor thought he knew where this was going, and now with that last question he isn’t so sure. This discussion was going to happen at some point, and if it had happened before you entered their lab, their lives? He would have not had any confusion at all. He would have wanted to tell Jayce that he was an idiot for taking this long to admit his feelings, even if Viktor himself hadn’t admitted anything at all. Now things were complicated. He felt jealousy towards the Councilor, he could admit that. He knew that Jayce would go for Mel eventually, when it was less likely to end poorly for their dream. And recently he had started to realize that he had become attached to you in a way that rivaled his first thoughts of Jayce, then his continued ones. That he wanted to know you the ways he wanted to know Jayce. For you to know more of Viktor.

When you had broached the subject of their partnership in your studio, Viktor had felt like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. Wanting you, wanting his partner. Him and Jayce were not a couple, not defined or exclusive or together in any kind of way. Jayce had his flings, Viktor had his, then two of them came back to the lab, to each other. It didn’t need defining. Despite the lack of a sexual or overly physical relationship, they had done everything outside of that to maintain their connection. All of today’s teasing had been new but not unwelcome. Lighting a fire in both of them apparently. And if they were going to cross that last line a discussion was warranted. Especially since it seemed that they both enjoyed you, your presence, your voice, your drive. 

He squeezes Jayce’s hand, nodding his answer. The sigh that looses through Jayce is loud, relieved. Viktor can smell the cinnamon tea on his breath. Sweet and strong. Familiar and grounding. Highly representative of Jayce himself in Viktor’s life. 

It’s Viktor that closes the distance first, tapping his forehead to Jayce’s. An intimacy that, as a Piltover citizen, he would not understand. But as a man who has wanted, has loved? He knows what the contact means. Tenderly rubbing nose to nose, soft breaths, eyes becoming half-lidded. When Viktor puts his hand to Jayce’s face, it’s to ground himself. And it does the opposite when warm skin presses onto his. Incredibly short stubble gives a soft friction to his skin. His partner closing his eyes and practically nuzzling into his palm, bumping their noses.

“Viktor.” Jayce’s voice barely a whisper. Their lips brushing as he talks. Not a kiss. Not yet. “I want this. You. Our dream, I want to do it together in all the ways we can.” He’s still laying his head in Viktor’s hand when he continues, eyes opening to gauge Viktor’s reaction. “And I want us to be able to find this in others too.” And Viktor doesn’t look away. He doesn’t pull away. He stays, holding that golden face, thumb brushing over a cheekbone. Jayce continues, “Can we do that, will you do that with me?”

Viktor wants to speak, but he can feel the bubble in his throat. He knows his voice would be hoarse with emotion. He answers with a kiss instead, pushing his lips to Jayce’s. Both of them closed their eyes. The grip Jayce had kept on his knee tightens before moving to cradle his head, pulling him forward while his body is pushed further into the chair. A gasp from one of them, maybe both. Another kiss, harder, the two of them pushing and pulling. Hands moving, the one from Jayce’s face going to his arm, full and strong. Then back again, thumb on his chin. When they pull away Jayce’s eyes are still closed leaning into Viktor’s touch like being away from it would hurt him somehow. 

“Yes. I will do this with you.” Jayce finally leans back at that. He pulls the wine bottle forward and the two glasses after. 

“Then we should celebrate.” He’s looking for something to uncork the wine with when Viktor’s playful lilt starts. 

“We should work. And maybe keep our newer affections out of the lab.” Viktor puts his legs between Jayce’s when he speaks, hooking them under the chair. He was already worried about how he was supposed to focus with you here. Knowing that he and Jayce both wanted each other. Both wanted you. Mayhaps others in the future. It was a lot to deal with, to process. And he wanted to do nothing more than to continue exploring this new development with Jayce. But how was he going to sit in his chair tomorrow, see his partner, and not want to do anything but work. No. Those kinds of physicalities would need to be nowhere near his table.

“Why not both.” He had found a thick enough screwdriver to wedge open the bottle, the cork popping unceremoniously into his palm. “A glass or two to our partnership. Something to sip on while we work.” Viktor doesn’t turn away the glass when Jayce fills it halfway and sets it on the table. The first of many new compromises. They spend the next few hours in the lab in a silence that grows hazier and hazier with the wine. Equations marked on the board, on papers, notes with more scribbles. In between, there were soft touches, gentle kisses that Viktor allows for this night. 

╚═*✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧-✦-✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧*═╝

-------------.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙-Part 15-.-Part 17.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .----------------

------------‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊ ♡ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙· Master Fic List *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ♡ ‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊--------------

[abcd-adventures]

I'm actually not doing the thing.

There are so many reasons, but the biggest one was that HR would not budge on me needing to either flex hours elsewhere or work from home on Friday afternoons. The management position would be full-time (I am not currently full-time), and it's required to be primarily onsite with remote flexibility only three days a month and only on Tues-Thurs. B gets out of school at 12:15 on Fridays. We have a lovely routine of grocery shopping, getting lunch and frozen yogurt, and spending some time hanging out. It's very special. Plus, my husband works and Fridays my mom has activities with her church friends until about 3pm, and both of those things are important. It's not that I couldn't afford to put B in afterschool care or something, but it's not worth that to me. I LOVE my Friday afternoons, and I LOVE my job--the one I have now. I do not actually want to change jobs...I just know our agency has a history of hiring some pretty awful people, and I am worried about that after about a year of having a boss I love. That's not reason enough to take the position if I can't keep my Friday afternoons. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My boss promised to sit in on all of the interviews and do her best to get us someone good. I appreciated that they tried to convince me but also respected it when I told them that Friday afternoons were a firm deal-breaker for me. The more I thought about it, the more I was filled with absolute dread about going back to full-time again. I already feel like nearly every second of my life is full of responsibility...what on earth was I thinking taking on more!? I feel very at peace with the decision. On Friday morning, I got to hang up some more art work from some of my clients in my cozy office. I didn't have to explain to anyone that I'd be changing positions and wouldn't be able to work with them regularly anymore. And, I did stay a little later that day for our holiday party (husband took a long lunch to get B), but by 3pm I was cuddled up with B on the couch watching The Grinch. Life is good. :)

[riiverdancer]

toji x fem!orthodox!reader, THE LONG AWAITED SEQUEL!

to whoever is reading this as of now: please do not sexualize my work as it was not written for that purpose and i worked quite hard on this piece alone. i would find that course of action extremely disrespectful on your part. also, if themes of religion make you feel uncomfortable, DO NOT READ THIS.

to anyone interested, you can find this work on my ao3 @/riiverdancer under the title "moths in my abdomen" !

synopsis: toji doesn't know how neither how to pray, nor how to sleep, so it gets awkward.

contents: events set in 2008, toji being timid around reader, toji is not familiar with his surroundings, post gege clarity, bare with me everyone.

Toji was used to keeping watch during the night while his companions slept in the tent and curses and curse users were always lurking around their campsite. In those moments, he would risk his arm going limp just by gripping onto his heavenly inverted spear in case an enemy was close by. He did not play games. Toji however, was not used to having to keep watch over nothing in the middle of the night. He was becoming less cautious and more fearful of the dark, almost like a child. His heavy heart pounded in his chest moderately faster the more he refused the offer of a good night's sleep, he was getting dizzy from staring at the hallway light that peered through the bedroom door in a single vertical line. He was going mad and he knew it. He saw that light as a string of hope saving him from his suppressed childish fears, which he blamed on his son for always asking to come over to his and his late wife's bed to sleep with them while his fear faded. Now another woman lies in his bed. A beautiful soul that is in so many ways more than Toji's. The love she had left to give poured onto him like lava and hardening so imperfectly, his heart could only beat in slow intervals, just not to crack the obsidian forming around it. But within those borders, his heart was begging for guidance of any kind. A thump at a time made the gold lightweight crucifix bounce on and off of his chest. It was the peak of his anxiety, he was beginning to choke.

This was the very same sensation he felt when he went to church, the guilt he had was seeping through the tip of his tongue, mumbling away his remorse, behind him, he knew he could feel the Devil himself creeping up behind him and in a moment of weakness, he wept. A whisper scream, if you will.

"I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it." He was genuinely spilling tears, pulling his hair by the handful, too stressed to even think about going back to bed.

This woke up his partner, who rolled from her side and groaned rubbing her eyes: "Jiji...mmh. What's wrong?"

"Ugh, forget it. I feel like a piece of shit already." Toji scoffed.

"No, don't say that." She lightly placed a hand on his chest, still sleepy. "Hold my hand."

His large hand wrapped around hers, covering it entirely and he sighed, still tired of the mental baggage.

He did the cross with his right hand and moved her curls covering the side of her face to kiss her warm cheek, a stray strand of hair getting caught in his lips. He smiled and looked at her as her head was stuffed knee deep in the pillows.

"Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner." She muffled, her head on the pillows, somehow urging Toji gently to repeat her words, soon becoming a coeval prayer of three times, that made Toji drop the weights he already beared.

"I'm gonna marry you someday." His heart throbbed in place as he looked at pale moon pouring over his skin. "By God, I'm gonna marry you someday." He covered himself in their shared duvet, almost instantly going to sleep after he closed his eyes.

[mlobsters]

probably a weird thing to ask you but you seem to have watched a lot of those panels. why do you think they keep doing those cons. outside i guess of the money. i'm asking as someone who hasn't seen their panels at all. maybe one day i will. but like, i think, what do you think j2 (and the rest of the cast presumably) get out of it.

thank you again for this ask, i am very happy to have an excuse to talk about this! i have not been in this fandom very long (about 2 years now) and i mostly just make stuff so i think i still have a slightly outsider perspective, so i suppose take all this with that in mind. :)

straight away, for sure the financial aspect is gonna be part of it - and i imagine especially so for the cast that participates that had smaller roles. but that aside, i don't genuinely believe that the main cast would continue to do these for so long unless they enjoyed it and got something positive out of it, especially being that they are actively working on other projects too. they actually talked about this, in a way, at this most recent con (nashcon 2024) so i'm going to include some of that - and a bit jared talked about the connections fans have made (chicon 2023). for reasons stated below*, i'm sure there are a bunch of examples of times they've talked about these things i'm not aware of, because i haven't read or watched that much panel content. but here's a small sampling.

jared and jensen main pain, nashcon 2024 question: what has it been like to watch the entire fandom change and grow over these last many years, and people who have been at these conventions change and grow?

jared and jensen gold panel chicon 2023 question: what's your favorite fan interaction over the years?

to go along with this, i think it's part and parcel to the topic; i really do believe they truly are invested and care about their characters and the story. the way they've talked about the revival/season 16/whatever you call it, they're all in to go back to it. jared even mentioned at one point if they had shorter seasons (which they asked for repeatedly), they might still be making the show. i don't have concrete examples i can point to in panels, but i think if you do watch them talk about their characters much, there's a lot of thoughtfulness and care there.

Would you be open to returning to Sam Winchester? I feel like there are more stories for that character and, with The Winchesters done, it's a weird time to be a Supernatural fan with no new Supernatural on television for the first time in almost 20 years. It is weird, right? It's weird for you to say that and weird for me to realize it. The simple answer to your question is 100%. I will play Sam Winchester again. Jensen will play Dean Winchester again. It's more of a timing and availability thing. In hindsight, Jensen and I have always said "always," if we ever have the option. I think in the last two or three seasons of Supernatural, when we realized somebody might want more, we said "2025. In 2020, we're ending this. Let's get together in five years and see what Sam and Dean are up to." I'm going to see him in a few weeks to talk to him about it again. We've talked about it a few times. He and I are both champing at the bit to see what these boys have been up to and what else good they can do in this world or the next. I'm excited about it. My only contingency about it is, with Jensen and I being so protective of the show and the characters, the story has to be absolutely right. I don't just put on flannel and big coat, get in an Impala and say "Dean!" That won't work for Jared. It needs to have a purpose, as Sam and Dean always did.

via cbr, walker season 4 interview with jared

and i think they just have fun! they've developed a relationship with fandom that works for them in this format and they get to play around on stage with their friends and entertain people that love them. at the end of the day, it is a job for them, and they are putting on a performance; but i wouldn't be so cynical to think they aren't being somewhat genuine within that framework.

jared and jensen dccon 2023 main panel question: How long have you guys been friends?

and not to be totally j2 brained, but when you have a connection with someone like this, maybe it also isn't such a hardship to keep working together

*i actually haven't actually watched many panels! but fortunately for me (us), i have seen a lot of gifs and transcriptions. i have a hard time with the video format for reasons. when i decide to make gifs, it's often because i saw a quote or snippet somewhere and i go looking for the conversation to get a clip of, and sometimes might bump into something else that grabs me while i'm there. fortunately, a lot of the videos on youtube have at least autogenerated captions so i can scroll through the transcript there/search for keywords, etc. @eisforeidolon transcribes selections of questions from cons periodically, which i'm forever grateful for. a not insignificant chunk of my panel related show/cast trivia has been gleaned from those.

[poppitron360]

Lost Trio Week- Day 7: “Cozy”

@lost-trio-week

“Jason?! Leo?! Jason!!”

The choked cry woke Jason up. He heard broken gasps, and saw, in the low light of the streetlamps seeping in from underneath the curtains, the outline of a figure sat up, hugging themselves and shaking.

He heard movement. “It’s okay, Piper!” Leo’s voice reassured, from the other side of her. They’d made a den of pillows and blankets and were all curled up together on the floor.

“We’re here. We’re okay,” Jason soothed, pulling her into a hug. She was shivering and whimpering.

“Lights!” Leo called. The room suddenly brightened, and Jason saw Piper’s tear-stained face and shocked expression.

“I.. I s-… s-saw…” She gulped.

Leo curled in closer to her, shifting to pull his blanket over the three of them.

“I know,” Jason said, “I know. But we’re safe. We’re here.”

“We’re fine, Piper, see?” Leo held out his wrist, demonstrating by pressing two fingers against the veins. He then held his hand out for Piper to try. She reached out with trembling fingers, and tentatively grabbed his wrist.

“See? Not dead,” Leo assured her, “Very much alive. Feel that pulse? Still kickin’!”

Piper let out a strangled sob at the feel of Leo’s skin under the touch of her fingers. Jason offered his own arm, and she felt his pulse too.

“It’s okay, Piper,” Jason reminded her, “We’re all safe.”

Leo turned away from them, stretching out across the pillow fort to grab the Pringles. He unpopped the lid, reached into the tube, and started munching. “Sleepo’er w’s’a great i’ea,” He said, his mouth full of potato chips.

“I’m glad you guys are here,” Piper said, her voice more stable, yet still shaky, “I really am.”

Jason looked around at them, “Well I dunno about you guys, but I don’t think I can get back to sleep.”

Leo rubbed his hands together, “Right! I believe we were in the middle of a very important Tinker Bell movie marathon?”

“You really do love those movies, don’t you?” Piper asked.

Leo looked offended, “Hey! It’s an impeccably well-written franchise teaching the whole family about personal growth and the power of friendship!”

Jason pushed him, playfully, “You’re such a macho man, Valdez.”

“Also, as a fellow tinker, I feel represented, okay? Let my girl have her moment!”

Piper groaned, and switched on the TV.

“Hell, yeah!” Leo yelled.

Jason drew his blanket in closer to the two of them, and rested his head on Piper’s shoulder.

“I’m so thankful I have you guys,” Piper whispered.

“Awww, we love you too, beauty queen,” Leo said.

“Yeah,” Jason agreed, “I can’t think how hard it must’ve been for you to watch us both die like that.”

“I mean, the dying itself was pretty hard too,” Leo reminded him.

“You’re right,” Piper said, “I shouldn’t be complaining when you both-“

“Hey. No. That’s not what I meant,” Leo interjected, “We’ve all seen some shit. We are all very fortunate to still be here and be able to cozy up with a movie. Not many demigods get to do that. Now shh- we’re about to meet Periwinkle.”

The three of them turned their attention back to the screen, and Jason was grateful, not for the first time, that he’d finally found his trio.

— — — — — — — — —

Aaaand that is a wrap on Lost Trio Week!! What a fic to end on. Short but sweet. I can’t wait to see what y’all think of these once I come back off hiatus, although, I have a feeling you haven’t heard the last of me yet… ;)

@euryvices-deactivated20241019 @deciduowl @lavenderfairiez @ottpopfic @ginnyluna @groverapologist @echo-stimmingrose @demigod-shenanigans @keefessketchbook @sleepyycapybara @123letsgobestie @kaleidoskuls @fairytalesociology @four-leafed-queer-gal @child-of-helios @green-tea217 @puzzled-pegasus @twomanyfandomshelp @lokiwiiiiiii @yoshuko-ew @frayna-of-the-hollow @via-rant @daonedaonlyskh @hadeslegacyhephgirl @siimplyapril @pjowasmy1stfandom @thetourturedwritersclub @m-for-now

[milla-frenchy]

Ughhhhh I cant' believe it's almost over, I'm gonna miss them dearly ❤️❤️❤️

Joel stayed for three nights. On the fourth night, Lily woke up cold, alone, the absence of his warmth like a missing limb ripped from her some time in the soft, orange morning. Panic seized her gut before she was fully awake, bouncing around, squeezing at her organs like a leech. She blinked manically, squeezing her eyes shut tight, eyelashes going spiky as she tried to clear her vision, as she tried to reach for the bulk of him only to come back empty.

Your writing is so vivid, I almost feel the emotions as if I were lily, how amazing is that? 🤌🤌

Lily tried not to think about it, tried not to think about his note, his silence, tried not to think about Caleb, how he was still out there, some part of him possibly still aware as that fungus ate away at him, forced him to do its bidding.

My god...

It took Joel five hours on horseback, weaving around the grounds outside of Jackson, to find those damn flowers. The idea had burrowed itself into his head last night, as he held a sleeping Lily, gently tracing the big, open flower tattooed on her shoulder. Those lilies, the ones he'd ripped out of the community garden years ago. He needed them back. 

omg he left to find some lilies??? 😍😍😍

Maybe it was a little silly, his sudden need to go get those flowers back, but it felt necessary, felt like some final piece falling into place. He'd ripped those flowers out once, because he couldn't bear the thought of her, couldn't even speak her name without falling apart. And now she was here, and he was trying, trying to be soft for her, gentle for her. If she was back, he needed the flowers back too.

Noooo it's not silly, it's amazing and I love it 😍😍

But before he could, Ellie was bursting, like she'd been holding the words in for just as long as she'd been ignoring him. "I was supposed to die in that hospital," she spat out, driving each word home with a slam of her hand against the top of the railing. "My life would have fucking mattered, but you took that from me." Joel wanted to tell her that her life did matter, mattered to him, mattered to her friends, should matter to her. Joel wanted to tell her that he loved her, but he couldn't, didn't know how. So, he said something else, something just as poignant, just as true, as he pushed himself off the railing to stand up straight and face her. "If somehow the lord gave me a second chance at that moment I would do it all over again." Silence fell between the two of them as Ellie searched his face, then turned to look back out across the yard, toward her house. "Yeah..." she whispered. "I just— I don't think I can ever forgive you for that—" And that stabbed into Joel like a hot knife, a choked breath shuddering out of him. "But I would like to try," she added, after a biting moment of silence. His heart slammed into his ribs, while something wet and trembling echoed from his lips. "I'd like that," he whispered, blinking hard to try to dissolve the tears in his eyes, something glimmering in his core now, something like hope. "Okay," Ellie said softly, pushing herself off the railing, "I'll see you around."

Ok, I need to express how much I LOVED how you added the game part. The EXACT game part. This is amazing. I played the game so many times, I love it so much, and your series fits in so perfectly it's so damn brilliant

"I missed you, Lily. Every day. I never stopped missin' you." He felt her tremble in his arms, her fingers twisting into his shirt as she slowly lifted her head, those bright glossy eyes searching his own. "And I'm— I'm sorry," he choked out, the words clawing their way out of him. "M'so sorry, baby, for lying to you, for bein' so horrible, I— I hate myself for it. I don't deserve your forgiveness and I'm not asking you for it." Lily opened her mouth, about to speak, those blue eyes gazing up at him, so soft, so bright he loathed himself for ever making her cry, for ever speaking such blasphemous, egregious things to her, even if he'd spoken them to keep her safe, to keep her away from him, the disgusting creature he'd become. "Let me finish," he said, before she could speak, reaching up to run his thumb across the soft skin beneath her eye, collecting a tear as he did. "When Sarah died," he exhaled the words, relief and agony swirling in marriage in his gut. "That first day. I— I didn't see any reason to keep goin'." His hand shook as he took her wrist in his hand, bringing her fingers up to that gnarled scar on his temple. She exhaled sharply as her fingers brushed against it, her hand trembling against him, those bright blue eyes going a little dark, glossing over with new tears that made him want to scream. "When I went to pull the trigger, I flinched, 'cause I heard your voice."

Oh boy. The confession about his feelings. The fact that he heard her voice????

"M'right here baby, you feel me? You're so full of me, little one," he purred, taking her hand from his shoulder and placing it on her lower belly, pressing his own hand over it so she could feel him inside of her, feel the thick shape of his cock hammering into her.

wow. So hot, so perfect

Joel dropped his head, trying to push the darkness he felt surging through him away, trying to cast it out so she would not fall victim to it, to him again. Never again. But then he felt it, her little hand spreading out over his cheek, and he trembled at the touch, a shudder working itself down his spine, and he let himself fall into it, into her, let himself be weak. "I killed them all," Joel muttered. "I saved her." Lily gently lifted his head, those blue eyes he'd been in search of his entire life gazing straight into his, without fear, without disgust, with something so warm he felt that black rottenness inside him completely melt away.

I love that he told her. And of course, of course, Lily's perfect, perfect words.

"Caleb," she choked out, when he was close enough to see, when she could make out the way his blue eyes had gone glossy and red, see the way his skin had gone discolored and scabbed. And he paused, the creature controlling him— or perhaps him, buried deep somewhere inside that vessel— paused at the sound of his name, cocking his head, twitching in place as he stared at her. It was almost like he knew, like he heard her somewhere in there, like the last remaining shred of his humanity was desperately trying to keep the creature controlling him from ripping her apart. She let out a sputtering cry, blinking rapidly, trying to keep her vision clear so she could see him one last time, even if this version of him was monstrous, even if the virus had eaten away all the life that had once brimmed in his eyes.

And here I am, sobbing again while I re read this chapter 🥺🥺🥺

"The Jeff Goldblum love." Something sprang open in Joel's chest at that, and he laughed, a full-bodied, thundering laugh as his head tilted back, and he heard Lily match it with a little giggle that made his stomach flutter. "You guys are fucking weird," Ellie breathed out, but when he glanced over at her, there was a smile tugging at her lips, and her eyes flickered to him for just a moment, but it was the first time she looked at him with anything but animosity in years. Joel had his girls, safe, warm, with him, for the first time in a lifetime.

I had to take off my glasses and wipe my eyes there, I was crying so much while rereading this.

Thank you SO MUCH for this series. I can't say it enough. One of my favorite series ever ❤️❤️❤️

Nights Like This One: XXV.

"He looked at her, and he loved her, loved her so much it burned, like something eternal, something that no amount of time, nor distance, nor the end of the world as they had known it, could kill off. He'd loved her, perhaps, since that first moment he saw her, looking hollow and bereft on the threshold of her mother's house. He loved her in every death, every birth, every reiteration of himself."

paring: joel miller x ofc rating: 18+ mdni word count: 9.5k a.n. this is the last full chapter. i'm so bereft knowing it's almost over. i don't know if i've ever been so emotionally invested in a story i've written before like i have this one. i literally cried writing the last few paragraphs. i hope you love it. i hope it mends you. i hope it balms the pain i've put you through over the past couple months. thank you so very much for reading. epilogue will be out soon. ily <3

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