#i just sort of don't know how to function any other way

[callixton]

my like. main problem is that i really like working. sort of more than anything else. okay maybe like isn't the right word. it is one mode in which i feel at my best and it also my default. but like not always but sometimes even more than being a functional person or having relationships i like working. ok i am starting to sense there is something wrong with me but i am gonna figure that out later

[philosophicallie]

my vitriolic hate for the parentals only grows btw. everything i overhear is in fact a big fat negative in our relationship

[sufficientlylargen]

Also if putting things where you'll see them doesn't help, try putting them where you can't do things while ignoring them For example, tape your pill bottle to your computer monitor, so that you literally can't check tumblr without it being in the way, or if you always leave the house for work/school/whatever stick them to the door handle so that it's hard to open the door without moving them first.

extremely fucked up that one of the symptoms of adhd is forgetfulness and difficulty sticking to habits and schedules and one of the best ways to alleviate those symptoms is by remembering to take a pill every morning at the same time

[niningtori]

an iron man | oneshot

pairing: choi beomgyu x you

summary: beomgyu has only ever known how to live function as a rental sexbot. he fucks whoever and whatever comes his way with a forced smile plastered on his face. that is, until you, a self-proclaimed trainwreck, come along.

genre: android!au, sexbot!au, angst, romance, fluff (more than i ever thought i could ever write i fear...), skippable smut at the very end (will be marked)

warnings: very brief and vague mentions of beomgyu being forced to engage in sexual acts he does not want with previous clients, skippable smut at the very end (will be marked)

smut warnings: unprotected sex, creampie, cockwarming, praise, dacryphilia, sub!gyu

word count: 14.7k (trust i will not be writing this much again if this flops BWNWJSJEJDK)

notes: terrified to post this one because this is probably my favorite thing i've ever written and if it gets a bad reaction i might die :,) also very unsure if this is the best time to post it since it's during kinktober so i'm not sure if the demand is there but i love this work so so much i pray you all like it. if you don't read anything else from me, i hope that you read this bc i rlly care ab it :,) please don't be mean i beg

beomgyu doesn’t know how long he’s been living like this. living is an odd term, too, and it’s not just because “life” is ill-defined for an android, but because to call what he experiences a life feels like a bastardization of the term. his power is turned on at some point, usually late at night, he fucks or gets fucked by somebody he probably doesn’t know, then he does the same shit all over again. so yes, he may be “alive”, but he wouldn't dare to call what he experiences living. living is too precious of a term to be used so cheaply on a sex android who’s made available for rent for the highest bidder of the night.

he’s seen how people live through his scattered vignettes of human life. he only gets them when he’s powered on, but he soaks them up with pleasure because they’re the only thing he’s ever known. some people do it wildly, living unattached to everyone and everything. their lives are not completely dissimilar to his, in a way, except they have a choice in the matter. they have time to find themselves, what their likes and dislikes are, and they get to connect with people in a way he will never have the power to. others, though, live the kind of life he really wants. they live by loving and being loved, knowing and being known. he wonders what it’d be like to know somebody outside of whatever secret deviant sexual pleasures they have. he wonders what it’s like to be known, too, but he guesses you would need to have something for someone to care enough to know about in the first place. he has no such thing.

it’s a night like any other when he’s powered on by a total stranger. he briefly takes in his surroundings and notices that it’s a really nice place, but you wouldn’t be the first rich person to rent him — not by a longshot. next, he takes you in. now, there’s no reason for you to dress up, really. you have no need to tempt him, as he will be able to feign attraction no matter what you look like, but he still finds it odd that you seem to have forgone any effort to appeal to him, if only because most people’s fantasies require them to look and feel sexy; but you don’t look sexy at all. you look like you’ve just gotten home from a long day at work, and honestly? you kind of smell like it, too.

“do you think you could do the dishes for me? i’m exhausted,” you ask with a perfectly-timed yawn. what… ?

he short-circuits for a moment as he tries to think of an appropriate response. he’s never had anyone try to get him to do chores for them, but maybe this is some sort of weird roleplay? maybe you want him to act as a house husband for you before doing the deed, which isn’t necessarily a problem since he’s well-versed in acting, but there’s just one issue.

“i don’t know how,” he tells you honestly.

“you don’t know how to do dishes?” you ask curiously, 

“it’s not in my programming,” he replies. if you didn’t know any better, you’d say he’s embarrassed because of the way he hesitates and looks away from you when he says it. he can’t possibly feel that, though, so it must just be your imagination.

“oh… that’s alright. okay, do you know how to clean a room? mine’s kind of dirty,” you try. 

“n-no,” he says, and he wishes the earth would just swallow him whole. he’s never failed at living up to expectations, and never so badly, at that. just what kind of fetish is this? 

“that’s okay,” you sigh, and he may not fully understand it, but he can sense your disappointment. “well, what can you do?” and the question is not asked maliciously, but with what seems to be genuine wonder. ah. he knows how to answer this one. slowly, he walks up to you and loosens your hair. you look up at him in shock, but he just cups your face, swiping his thumb across your lower lip. 

“i can do whatever you want me to, baby,” he whispers alluringly. “just tell me how you like it.” you’re so stunned at his switch in demeanor that you forget how to speak for a moment, but you quickly recollect yourself and pry his hands off of you.

“i don’t want you to do anything,” you insist. “i’m just tired. if you can’t help me clean, that’s alright. you can watch something if you’re bored. i think that’s it. well, goodnight.” beomgyu is malfunctioning at the moment. he thinks the gears in his head might be sparking while he tries to understand this new development. you don’t give him time to process it, though. you just slam your bedroom door shut behind you. he thinks he hears you lock it, too.

genuinely at a loss at the thought that he has nothing and no one to do, he sits himself on your couch. he tries not to make himself too at home at first, just barely making a dent on it and scooting to the very edge of the cushion as to not appear to be too relaxed. what if this is some sort of test? what if you’re actually going to come out soon so you two can fuck? until then, what should he do next? thoughts like this plague him until he accepts the fact that you are actually sleeping. your obnoxiously loud snoring is a dead giveaway, and he finally, finally feels brave enough to fiddle with your remote control. 

he scrolls for something to watch. movies and shows have been on as background noise during sex before, so he’s somewhat familiar with them, but he’s never gotten the opportunity to pick for himself or actually pay attention to what's happening on screen. he settles on a romantic movie about a robot who joins human society. the robot falls in love with a human girl, but in the end, the robot has to leave the girl because the town won’t accept him, even after using him. she marries a human man and has children, and eventually grandchildren, too. she still loves the robot even though he’s gone, which he thinks is supposed to make him feel sorry for her, but all he can feel is pity for the robot, who spends the rest of his life alone. 

it’s enough to make him cry, which he shouldn’t be able to do in a non-sexual setting, but he does it, anyway. it’s just so unfair to him. the girl is able to live a normal life while the robot is doomed to be alone forever. why? because he was born different? it’s not his fault that he was invented, but he spends the rest of his time on earth paying for the crime of existing in a world not built for him. the more beomgyu thinks about it, the more wronged he feels. he’s outright sobbing by the time you plop down on the couch beside him. he jumps up and straightens his posture while trying in vain to regain his composure.

“yeah, this movie makes me cry, too,” you quietly remark. he’s silent, not because he didn’t hear what you said, but because he genuinely doesn’t know how to act after being caught red handed.

“can i ask you something?” you ask in lieu of his lack of a response.

“yes,” he feebly answers.

“why are you crying?” you question with a tilt of your head, but something in him tells him that you already know.

“because the movie made me sad,” he admits after a pause.

“are androids supposed to feel things like that?” 

“... no,” he replies after a pause. 

“then why can you?” 

“i… i don't know. just please don’t say anything to my owners,” he pleads. he knows that if the company that owns him were to find out about this, he’d be scrapped in a heartbeat. or worse, they’d analyze him like a labrat to try to find the anomaly within him. his “life” as a sexbot will be over, and he’d really rather be a box of scraps than live as a case study in a lab somewhere. 

“it’s okay,” you tell him with a reassuring smile as you watch him trying not to spiral. “i won’t tell them. it’ll be our secret.” beomgyu has never had a secret to share with anyone before, so he feels an overwhelming amount of excitement at the idea that he will finally have one. his chest feels warm at the thought.

“thank you,” he says with a grateful smile.

“no problem,” you reply with a yawn. “i’m tired, so i’m heading back to bed. i just wanted to get some water. goodnight, for real this time.” 

“goodnight,” he murmurs softly. you return his words with a sleepy smile and go back into your room. he finds that he’s smiling even when you leave. 

he spends the night consuming as much media as he conceivably can before he has to leave. usually, he'd be powered off after he’s done being used, so he greedily savors every moment he can. who knows if he'll ever get this chance again. when you wake up, you're surprised to see that he's exactly where you left him, still watching the screen intently.

“good morning,” you say while stretching your arms. 

“good morning,” he replies. 

“are you ready to be returned?” you ask. 

“... yes,” he lies. 

“okay. i think somebody will be here to pick you up in an hour or so. you hungry?” 

“i don't really eat,” he bashfully answers. for some reason, he's embarrassed at the fact that you're treating him like a human while he's unable to fully act like one.

“oh. i guess that makes sense,” you nod. 

things are quiet until he’s picked up, but it’s not an awkward silence. you sit next to him on the couch as you wolf down some breakfast and let him watch whatever he pleases. when he eventually hears knocking at your door, he feels an incomprehensible sense of dread.

“i think that's them,” you remark, breaking the silence. 

“y-yeah,” he replies. 

“well, it was nice to meet you,” you say, reaching out your hand for him. he’s unsure what to do with it. not missing a beat, you gently grab his hand and shake it. he's stunned at the physical contact, and he's still reeling when you let the man from the rental company in. you have a brief conversation with him before he walks towards beomgyu.

“goodbye,” you tell the android with a smile and a little wave. 

“... good—” and the man switches him off.

-

the next time beomgyu is powered on, he’s in your house again. relief floods him when he realizes it. you don’t seem as exhausted as the last time he saw you. when that was, he has no idea, but if he had to guess, he’d say it was just last night because of the fact that he’s so popular he’s rented almost every day.

“hey,” you greet him with a smile. he’s still feeling relieved before he realizes that tonight might be the night where you ask him to have sex with you. maybe you were just tired last night and had no desire to fuck, but he can tell that you’re feeling more energetic tonight. 

“i didn’t catch your name,” you add. 

“... beomgyu. i’m part of the choi line, but i’m a custom model, so they gave me a name,” he tentatively replies.

“nice,” you nod, and you briefly introduce yourself before asking if he wants to watch a movie. 

“watch… a movie?” is this some sort of euphemism for fucking? it wouldn’t be the first time he’s heard of something like this. as mentioned before, some people like movies as background noise. 

“yeah, you can pick,” you say, casually plopping down on the couch and patting the cushion next to you. he hesitantly takes your cue, and he’s mentally preparing himself for what comes next before you take a blanket and cocoon yourself in it so tightly, it’d be impossible for him to touch you.

“what’s wrong?” you ask, and he jolts a bit when he realizes that he’s been staring in disbelief. “oh, are you cold? do you want a blanket, too?” 

“‘m fine,” he replies.

“are you sure? the clothes they make you wear look a little thin,” you observe with your nose wrinkled, and he feels impossibly small under your surveying eye. “here, i’ll get you some sweats. i think soobin left some the last time he was here.” 

“who’s soobin?” he asks a little too quickly. so quickly, in fact, he doesn’t even have time to process why he even asked.

“my friend. stay here, i’ll grab them for you.” 

when you return, you have a long pair of sweatpants in hand and a big t-shirt. 

“you can change in the bathroom. it’s down the hallway and to the left, okay?” he nods in response.

he strips his clothes off as best as he can, and it feels like he’s shedding a second skin. when he’s finished undressing, he pulls on the clothes you gave him and stares in the mirror. it’s in his programming to always be mindful of how he looks, but he feels especially self-conscious now that he’s wearing a normal outfit. he fixes up his hair and clears his throat before exiting your (messy) bathroom and making his way back into your living room. he finds you fiddling with your phone before you look up at him.

“took you long enough,” you tease, and he blushes, which stuns you. just how human is this guy?

“s-sorry, i —” 

“hey, i’m just kidding. you’re fine. you look pretty good in those clothes — soobin would be jealous,” you chuckle. his ears perk up at the mention of soobin again. is he your boyfriend? he must be. why else would he have clothes at your house? is that why you don't want to sleep with beomgyu? because you have someone already? if that's the case, why rent him at all? but he is not brave enough to ask these questions, so he settles for a soft “thank you” and returns to his spot on the couch.

you toss him the remote and he catches it with ease before unsurely flipping through your streaming services. he finds something that piques his interest and turns to you with an uncertain look before you nod encouragingly. he selects it and lets it play. he doesn’t mean to, but he finds himself sinking further and further into the cushions as it progresses. 

it’s a sweet movie — a romantic comedy about an amnesic woman whose memory is wiped clean every morning, but a man falls in love with her, anyway. she never remembers him, so he has to make her fall in love with him in a new way every day. he finds himself smiling throughout it, but a particularly funny scene has him actually laughing for the first time. it’s a squeaky sort of thing, and he has never laughed before, so he’s somewhat surprised as it leaves his throat. he looks to you in trepidation, but you just smile warmly and respond with a soft chuckle of your own. he finds that he looks to you every time a new development occurs, and you always answer encouragingly. 

the end of the film surprises him. it’s bittersweet in that she never does get her memory back, but the man makes a video recounting their entire love story for her to watch every time she wakes up. it ends with them living happily together in spite of everything, and it’s enough to make him sob. he turns to you and sees that you’re teary-eyed as well, but you seem to be enjoying his reaction so much that there’s still a grin on your face. after the film ends, you can tell that he has something on his mind.

“what’s wrong? didn’t you like it?” you gently ask.

“i did. i just don’t understand,” he replies timidly.

“don’t understand what?” 

“why he would do all of that for her, i guess,” he says. 

“because he loves her. when you love somebody, you’d do anything to be with them. you always find a way,” you tell him, and the sentiment seems to strike a chord within him.

“even if they’re that different?”

“of course.”

-

beomgyu spends the following nights with this same routine. he’s switched on, sees you standing in front of him with a smile, gets comfortable, and watches as much media as he possibly can while you two chatter away about every scene. he learns much more from it than he ever did from experience with his previous renters, and he finds himself becoming more and more emotional by the day. you never try to question him or press him to explain any of his feelings, and it just makes him feel even more comfortable with you. 

one day, he even feels comfortable enough to ask you a question. the question. 

“can i ask you something?” 

“of course! what is it?” you reply in earnest. beomgyu has never directly inquired about you.

“why do you rent me? i mean, i know we watch stuff together now, but why rent me in the first place?” and even when he feels exponentially more at ease with you than he ever has in any other context, he’s still nervous when he asks it. 

“oh, my friend did it as a joke, i guess,” you shrug. “he thought i needed to get laid or something, but i’m not into stuff like that, so i just thought i’d ask you to help me clean. obviously, that’s what i actually need,” you giggle. what he feels at your words can only be described as disappointment. “stuff like that”? so you’re not into sleeping with sexbots? is it because you find them disgusting? is it because you find him disgusting? he’s not sure what he expected, but this wasn’t it.

“oh. so why don’t you buy a cleaning bot?” he asks softly, and while you are usually pretty perceptive of his emotions, you don’t register the fact that he’s at a loss right now.

“i dunno. my parents were always against that sort of thing. they thought it was wrong, i guess, so i didn’t grow up with them like everyone else did. i didn’t really have an opinion on them until i met you,” you tell him while grinning and lightly nudging him with your elbow. he tries his best to smile because, in theory, your words are really sweet. you see him as more than just another android, so why does he feel like that’s not enough? 

the fragile connection you two have made seems even more fragile now. at least, it does to him. you only met each other because of a joke your friend just so happened to make, not because of fate or the divine intervention that he always sees in the movies. maybe in another world, your friend rented a different sexbot. maybe you’d even treat them the same way you treat him. the thought alone makes something ugly burn in his chest. 

still, you are oblivious to the internal war raging within beomgyu. 

“hey, i’ve got an idea,” you tell him, and he perks up a bit. “have you ever listened to music?” 

“not really,” he replies solemnly. people have played it in the background of their sexual escapades, but he hasn’t really gotten the chance to listen the same way humans do. you finally register his crestfallen appearance, but you chalk it up to him feeling like he’s missing out. 

“why don’t we listen to some? i can play a bunch of different genres so you can find what you like,” you suggest, and he agrees to it. truthfully, he doesn’t fully understand how music can be better than movies and shows, but he is curious to find out what makes it so special. 

and special, it is. he doesn’t like every song you play, he realizes, but that’s only natural given how different they are from each other. he finds himself being drawn to the more emotional and moody ones, but he can’t help but enjoy the way you quietly sing and nod along to the more upbeat tunes. 

as you continue to sit together, you begin to fiddle with your hair. you’re scoffing and loosening it for the umpteenth time before you’re about to give up, but beomgyu stops you.

“let me do it,” he says.

“do you know how?” 

“i think i can. i’ve been watching you,” he says simply.

“... okay.” 

you turn your back to him to give him access to your hair and he scoots closer to you. closer than you’ve ever been. his touch on your head is careful as he gently gathers your hair and begins to braid it. you’re not sure how much time passes because he’s actually quite slow, but it’s relaxing all the same. you find yourself softly humming to the tune of the song playing. the lyrics are a little dark, but you follow along in earnest, and beomgyu thinks he finally understands why people like music so much. for moments like this. he tries to soak up every detail he can, from the way the light hits your frame to the melody you hum, and he wishes this moment could last forever.

but you only have so much hair, so the moment does have to end, eventually. he ties up your hair and you pull out your phone camera to admire his handiwork. admittedly, it’s a lot better than anything you could’ve done. it seems that he’s a fast learner.

“this looks perfect! thanks, beoms,” you say warmly. he’s stunned for a second at the nickname.

“beoms?” 

“yeah, like beomgyu. beoms,” you say with a casual shrug, and something in his chest blossoms. “i give all of my friends nicknames.” and something in his chest explodes at the title of “friend”. 

“you do?” he asks excitedly.

“yeah. like, i call soobin ‘soobinie’ or ‘soobie’, sometimes,” you giggle, and the bloom of hope in his chest dies with it. 

“are you two close?” he asks, even though he knows the answer will probably hurt him.

“very. he’s my best friend,” you answer fondly. oh. you’re beomgyu’s best friend — you’re beomgyu’s only friend, and tentatively at that. the idea that the deep connection he feels with you is even deeper with someone else, at least in your eyes, makes him feel sick. do you let soobin play with your hair? do you hum along to songs you’ve shown him while he does it? do you smile at him after he’s finished and compliment him on his skills? probably, probably, probably. the ugly feeling that was previously completely foreign to him now takes its usual place in his chest, and it makes his stomach hurt so much that if he could vomit, his metaphorical dinner would be all over the floor.

“oh,” is all he can say. 

-

days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months, but every time beomgyu awakens, he finds you smiling up at him. this can’t be good for your bank account — he’s quite expensive to rent, after all — but he’s far too afraid to actually bring it up. what if you realize just how much money you’re sinking into him and want to stop renting him? what will he do if you don’t want him anymore? he feels an incomparable sense of dread at the thought. 

he prepares to sit on the couch and watch something, listen to music, or even play a video game with you. you two have gotten into them recently, and he’s discovered that he very much enjoys playing with you, even when you’re yelling at him and demanding that he stop letting you win. he can’t help but grin when he thinks about it. you start playing a song, and you do, indeed, invite him to sit on the couch, but you don’t sit down next to him and start babbling away about your day like you usually would. 

“do you think you could do me a favor?” you ask. 

“what, do you want me to wash your dishes?” he jokes, and you share a laugh before you say your next words, but all laughter and joy is profusely sucked out of him when you say them.

“no, smartass, but can you braid my hair for me? i’m going over to soobin’s tonight, and i want it out of my way.” 

“soobin’s?”

“yeah, it’s been a while since i’ve stayed the night, and he said we’re way past due for it,” you tell him, and the world as beomgyu knows it comes crashing down around him. 

“you’re staying the night with him?” 

“mhm. he’s right, it’s been too long; but don’t worry, i bought a pass so you can play video games online. there’s even a headset so you can talk to people, if you want. maybe you’ll even make some friends,” you say while playfully waggling your eyebrows. beomgyu’s silence is pensive, to say the very least, and you worry that he’s apprehensive of making a friend that isn't you. 

“seriously, you might like it. it’ll be good for you to meet more people, honestly. i’m sure it’s driving you crazy to only have me to talk to,” you jokingly add, but to beomgyu, it’s the worst joke he’s ever heard. no, it does not drive him crazy to only talk to you every day. in fact, even though he’s not conscious during the time you spend away from each other, he thinks, deep down, that he still somehow misses you when you’re apart. and no, he does not think he needs to have anyone but you. you are more than enough for him, so how could you ever think he needs more? again, he is taunted by that same strange and implacable feeling he’s been having ever since he met you, yet he can’t quite put his finger on it, even when he nods and tells you that he’ll try making new friends. 

but as he brushes out your hair and you sing along to the words:

"i’m glad i didn’t die before i met you

but now i don’t care

i could go anywhere with you

and i’d probably be happy"

he finally understands what that feeling is. that warm, all-consuming feeling. that feeling of comfort, safety, and unconditional understanding. that feeling of infinite curiosity about the other person. that feeling of wanting to known and be known in a way so profound it physically aches. 

yes, as he gathers your hair and ever-so-gently twists it in his hands in preparation for you staying the night with a man you clearly prefer over him, the feeling becomes clear as day. love. what he feels for you is love — an emotion he should never be able to even fathom, yet he does. 

and it makes him loathe himself to a degree he never thought he was capable of.

he’s so put off by this sentiment, he almost can’t finish the braid because his hands are shaking so much, but somehow, he finishes, anyway. 

“are you done?” you ask as you fiddle with your hair and look back at him.

“mhm,” he replies. 

“yay! thank you!” you say giddily. 

“you’re welcome,” he mumbles. you’re not stupid, so you notice that something is off about him, but you just assume it’s because he’s nervous about being left alone to make new friends. you feel guilty in a certain sense, but it’ll be good for him to branch out and meet new people, so you tuck the feeling away as best as you can before packing your nightly essentials and getting ready to leave.

“i’ll be back tomorrow morning,” you tell him, and he only nods with his lips pursed, which makes your heart feel sour.

“try not to miss me too much,” you tease, but it doesn’t seem to cheer him up in the slightest. 

“have fun,” he replies weakly, and your previously sour heart now kind of aches, but you have to do this for him. you can't always be beside him for everything, right? besides, it's only for the night.

you open the door to leave, but before you go, you turn back to him and he senses hesitation in you. before he can question it, you’re opening your arms, and his eyes widen when he realizes you’re inviting him in for a hug. you almost regret doing it as soon as you open them for fear of making him uncomfortable, but he embraces you before you have time to process such feelings. on beomgyu’s end, he has always been wary of touch for obvious reasons, but he gravitates towards your open arms like he was meant to be in them.

he rests his chin on the top of your head for a moment and you spend an unknown length of time just standing with your arms wrapped around each other. 

“i’ll miss you,” you admit, and before you can smack yourself for being so dramatic and sentimental over what will ultimately only be one night, you can swear you feel his grip tightening even more around you.

eventually, you break away and look up at him with a smile. you ruffle his hair and promise to see him later, and he answers you with a nod. then, you're leaving and locking the door behind you.

immediately, beomgyu feels a sense of loss he’s never felt before. after all, to experience loss, you must have something worth losing in the first place, and he has never had anything like that. at least, not until you. so he stands at the door for who knows how long, just like a puppy waiting for his owner to get home. 

-

soobin can sense you’re out of it before you even finish crossing through his doorway, and it puts a halt to your typically overdramatic greeting. 

“what’s the matter? are you feeling okay?” he questions concernedly as he pulls you in for a hug. you nod before you break apart from him and walk through the threshold. 

“y-yeah. it’s just, i don’t know, i guess i just feel bad about leaving beomgyu all by himself,” you tell him as you plop down on his couch. 

“the android you’ve been renting?” he asks incredulously. “i’ve been meaning to ask you about that, actually. why’re you renting it so much? i barely even see you anymore. is the sex that good?” 

“you know i don’t use androids like that,” you snap in annoyance, partially because he’s calling beomgyu “it”.

“i know, which is why i’m so confused. why rent it in the first place if you’re not getting anything out of it?” 

you struggle to answer his question. you promised beomgyu you’d keep his secret, but you trust soobin, and you know he won’t judge him, or worse, report him. besides, it’ll be good to have an unbiased third party weigh in on the situation. with this in mind, you tell him about beomgyu, skipping over some of the more personal details. he’s in disbelief at first and actually thinks you’re just fucking with him, but as you tell him more and more about the time you’ve spent together, his smile falls and his face turns serious. 

“so that’s why i feel so guilty about leaving him alone,” you finish with a deep sigh. he’s silent for a few moments before collecting his thoughts.

“god, i can’t believe this is actually happening,” he whispers.

“i know. it’s insane, but it’s true. he’s just so… human. you should've seen the way he looked at me when i told him i was leaving. i don’t think i’ve ever seen anyone look so sad before.” 

“well, you’re right about him needing to make friends,” he says with a nod, and it validates all of your misgivings about leaving him alone. “but don’t you think you should, i don’t know, think about what all of this means?” 

“what do you mean?” you ask, and in that moment, he knows you have no idea about the way beomgyu probably feels about you. he’s not 100% confident in his deductions, but the way you describe how beomgyu acts around you pretty much tells him everything he needs to know. 

“i mean, you basically have a completely sentient creature who relies on you for everything. if he’s as human as you say he is, then he can probably feel everything that we do. right now, i’d guess that he feels like you’re all he knows.” and the sneaking sense of guilt that was previously threatening to creep up on you is now completely overwhelming. you’re all he knows. and you left him all alone to fend for himself and make his own friends. yes, he needs to learn how to make connections, but how could you expect him to know how to do that? it took weeks for him to finally seem comfortable around you, so how could he possibly know how to make them on his own? moreover, even though it's nothing to you, you're his entire world. he must feel like you abandoned him.

“i’ve gotta go,” you mumble.

“what?” he asks. 

“i–i’ve gotta go home,” you repeat as you hurriedly stand up and hug him goodbye. 

“wait! i think you should —” 

“love you, bye!” you shout as you book it out of the doorway. 

-

when you return home, you open the door to see beomgyu listlessly staring at the television screen. when he hears you, he turns to look at you with watery eyes. he looks so lost in this moment, and all of your suspicions are confirmed.

“beoms, i am so sorry,” you tell him as you rush over and throw your arms around him. 

“for what?” he asks with a gulp as he stays in your embrace, shakily wrapping his arms around your waist.

“i’m sorry for leaving you all by yourself. i thought it was just for one night, so it’d be alright, but you don’t have anyone but me right now; and i realize that it’s unfair for me to expect you to meet other people all on your own when you’ve never had to do it before. if you want friends, i’ll help you, okay? i’ll be there with you as you do it,” you tell him, and you feel his body trembling. 

“i-i’m sorry. i know it’s not a big deal, but when you’re not with me, i feel so scared. i… i don’t know how to do anything by myself. i’m s-sorry i need you so much,” he whispers, and your heart breaks. 

“don’t be sorry,” you say gently. “how about this: i’ll join you online and we can talk to people together. then, when you’re ready, you can start hanging out with my friends in person, too, okay? we can keep going until you don’t need me anymore.” beomgyu outwardly agrees, which seems to put you at ease, but there’s just one issue: he’ll always need you.

-

gaming online is actually really fun, but making friends is hard for someone like beomgyu. he’s quiet and a little awkward at first, but after a few nights and with your help, he finally warms up to the people he games with. he gets so comfortable, in fact, that he’s even able to shit talk with them a little. 

“fuckkk, that’s so unfair!” his new friend, kai, wails over the headset. 

“it’s not unfair, you just suck,” beomgyu chuckles, and kai whines again. you laugh at their interaction before kai continues.

“how are you so fucking good at this game? you’ve only been playing for a few nights, and you’re already better than me!” he pouts. 

“i’m just gifted,” beomgyu boasts.

“very true,” you add, and he beams, but kai’s next words throw him off-kilter.

“whatever. stop asking your girlfriend to argue with me — you two make me sick,” he jokes with his signature maniacal laugh, but the two of you are too stunned to laugh along. you look at each other in sheer embarrassment, and you can see beomgyu’s ears turning bright pink beneath his blond hair. you’re not sure why you feel so mortified, but you do. this is beomgyu, for god’s sake. there’s no earthly way you could ever see him in anything other than a purely platonic way, so why does your heart feel uneasy at the notion? while you’re still too stunned to speak, beomgyu tries to pipe up and respond.

“sh-she’s — we’re not, uh —” 

“damn it!” kai yells as his character dies yet again, and any momentum beomgyu previously had to clear up the misunderstanding is killed stone dead in its tracks. 

he turns to look at you unsurely, but the awkward moment seems to have passed for you as you laugh at kai’s character’s death. if only he could be as unfazed.

after kai goes offline, you two decide to quit gaming for the night. you turn to beomgyu nervously, and he immediately knows that you’re going to say something serious. he hopes beyond hope that it’s not about what kai said.

“can i ask you something?” and his heart sinks. oh god, you probably caught onto his feelings. he’s not sure he has the confidence to tell the truth, but how could he lie to you?

“y-yes,” he replies, voice a bit unsteady.

“okay, you can say no if you want, but soobin invited us to a get together he’s having pretty soon. it’s not anything too crazy, so there’ll only be a few of us. i think it’ll be a good start for you. maybe you’ll even make some new friends, you know?” he’s silent at your words just out of sheer shock. he’d definitely missed the mark when guessing your intentions. 

“it’s okay to say no,” you hurriedly add, “but my friends are really nice, and i’d be with you the entire time. even if you don’t talk to anybody, you can talk to me.”

“okay,” he agrees before he can even really think about it. he guesses he’s just relieved that you still don’t know about his feelings, but part of him aches even still. 

“really?” you ask incredulously. “oh my god! i have to tell soobin — he’ll be so excited!” you babble, and his lips curl upwards at how happy you are. he wishes he could always make you happy like this, and it seems that he’d agree to absolutely anything if you were the one asking.

-

work has been especially taxing today, which is nothing new, but you have this insatiable suspicion that something feels… off as you finish up for the day. as you’re about to head out for the night, you wonder what beomgyu will want to do once you get home. maybe he’ll want to play games with kai, or maybe he’ll want to watch a movie with you. maybe he’ll let you cuddle up to him for warmth, which he’s been very willing to do, lately. the unspoken rule that you two will never touch has become blurry for some reason, but you’re pretty touchy with all of your friends, so it only feels like a matter of course to you. 

you’re thinking about all of the potential ways tonight could play out when it hits you: you didn’t reserve beomgyu. you spit out a curse and hurriedly take out your phone to book him, but it’s too late. he’s already assigned to someone for the night. fuck.

when you get home, you’re anxious beyond belief. you haven’t spent a night without beomgyu in months, but more importantly, he hasn’t spent a night without you. you try not to think about how scared he will be when he’s powered on in a stranger’s home. you hope he’s able to just switch back to his initial programming, but somehow, you just know it won’t be that easy. you feel sick with worry when you think about how someone so human will have to involuntarily turn his feelings off and pretend to enjoy something he’s being forced to do — with no compensation, no less. he must think you abandoned him. he must think you don’t care about him. how could you forget to reserve him when he needs you so much? fuck how busy you were with work, his wellbeing should have been your first priority.

so you sit and watch the hours tick by. you try to relax. you try to tell yourself it’s only for one night, and he’s been doing it for years, but something just feels wrong, wrong, wrong. you’re about to try to force yourself to go to sleep so the night ends more quickly when you hear a rapid knocking on your door. it’s strange for someone to call on you so late, indeed, but when you look through your peephole, you see none other than the very boy you’ve been worrying about. 

“beomgyu?” you say incredulously when you swing open the door. immediately, he embraces you, and you feel hot tears streaming down your neck as he nuzzles his face into it. you hold him as best as you can as you rub circles into his back and try to shush his cries.

“it’s okay, i’m here,” you tell him, and he whines. you try to break away to get a good look at him, but he just pulls you in even closer, as if you’re his only lifeline in this world, and in a way, you are.

after his breathing slows and his sobs die out, he reluctantly parts from you, so you hold his hand and lead him to your couch. his eyes are swollen and bloodshot while his nose is a bright pink, but he never once takes his eyes off of you for fear of letting you out of his sight. in his mind, you can’t leave as long as he can see you.

“are you alright?” you tentatively ask, hand still holding his and soothingly caressing it in an attempt to calm him down. he goes to nod before stopping himself and shaking his head in the negative. your eyes soften even more at the action.

“do you want to talk about what happened?” you try, and he nods before clearing his throat.

“i, um, i woke up and i was at this woman’s house. she… she wanted me to get undressed, but i didn’t want to, so she started doing it for me.” you wince at his words, but he’s not finished yet. 

“she kept touching me, and it was so disgusting i just — i just couldn't stand it, so i ran away and came here. i don’t mean to make your life harder, and i won’t ask for you to stay the night with me anymore, but if you could just let me stay here, i promise i’ll learn how to clean or do anything you want. please, just don’t make me —” 

“beomgyu, stop it,” you say softly, but firmly. “you are not making my life harder. you can stay here as much as you want and do whatever you want while you’re here. i’m so sorry, i didn’t mean for this to happen. i was just so busy with work, and by the time i realized it, somebody had already booked you. i promise you that it’ll never happen again, okay? so you don't have to be afraid. i’m not leaving you, and i won’t let anyone hurt you, either.” 

you don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone look so relieved before. it looks as though you just saved his life, and to beomgyu, you essentially did. he holds your hand even tighter, as if you’re the only thing keeping him from falling off the face of this planet. 

“wait here, i’ll get you some clothes,” you say gently, but as you go to leave, he holds you even tighter. your eyebrow quirks in a silent question at his actions, and he looks sheepish for a moment before saying his next words.

“c-can we just stay like this for a bit? just for a little while? i’m still scared,” he mumbles, and your heart melts.

“of course. come here,” you beckon, and he falls into your arms and rests his head on your shoulder, breathing your scent in as he tries to imprint this moment into his hardware. you stay like that for a while before you finally convince him to change out of his uncomfortable clothes. he reluctantly lets you go, and his eyes follow you everywhere you walk. 

that night, you stay up later than usual to spend more time with him. he stays glued to your side and ensures that he’s always touching you in some way, which is endearing in a way you can’t seem to put into words. when you’re about to head to bed for the night, you swear you hear him whimper, but he lets you go, anyway. as you lay your head down and get comfortable under the covers, you hear a timid knocking on your door. you call him in, and his gaze shyly flickers between you and the floor. 

“c-can i stay with you tonight? i won’t bother you, i swear. it’s just — i just still feel weird. y-you can say no! i just thought that —”

“come here,” you softly interrupt, and he doesn’t hesitate to listen. he closes the door behind him and shuffles towards you, stopping uncertainly at the edge of the bed in a silent plea for permission to enter it. you feel a weird, warm feeling in your chest when he does it. you scoot over and pat the open space next to you before he gathers enough courage to slide in. you cover him with your blanket, and he stiffly accepts it. you giggle at his awkwardness and cuddle up to him, placing your arms around his waist before thinking better of it. how could you just invade his personal space when he’s clearly traumatized? you go to remove your arms and scoot away before he firmly locks you in place.

“it’s okay,” he whispers, settling himself into your embrace and mindlessly toying with the ends of your hair.

“are you sure?” you ask.

“i’m sure.”

it isn't long before beomgyu hears your breathing slow down, and eventually he hears you begin to snore. he smiles at the sound. he can't really sleep, but he's perfectly content with watching you rest. he continues to play with your hair, and you nuzzle into his touch every so often. he doesn’t want to repeat the events leading up to tonight, but he would do it all over again — any number of times — with a smile on his face if it meant he got to be with you like this again. 

-

the next morning, beomgyu waits for the usual delivery guy from the company to pick him up, but it’s currently way past the usual pickup time. he’s most certainly not complaining, but you don’t seem even remotely fazed by the matter. however, while you’re casually flipping through your streaming catalog literal hours after he’d already be gone, he can’t stop himself from asking:

“um, d-do you know when i’m being picked up?” you pause, and he worries that he may have said the wrong thing before you turn to him.

“do you want to be picked up?” you ask solemnly.

“n-no! of course not. it’s just, you know, i’d usually be gone by now, so i —” 

“do you want to stay here? with me, i mean,” you interrupt.

“i… i do,” he replies with a gulp. usually, that’d be all you get from him, but it feels like the perfect opportunity to be honest about his feelings. “i always want to stay with you, but i know i’m expensive, and i don’t want to be a bother.” he looks ashamed as he admits it, but if he had the courage to look in your eyes, he’d note the fondness that lies within them.

“i told you that you’re not a bother to me. i also told you that you could stay here for as long as you want, remember?” and he does, so he nods. 

“alright. i meant it when i said it last night, and i mean it now. if you want to be here, you can stay for as long as you’d like. you don't have to worry about your owners anymore, i promise.” and he thinks he’s never seen you as serious as you are now. he wonders what you mean before it dawns on him.

“you… did you buy me?” he asks in disbelief.

“y-yeah. i’m sorry, it sounds so gross when i hear it out loud, but that doesn’t mean that i own you or anything. what i really wanted to buy was your freedom, so you can stay as long as you want, but that also means that you can leave whenever you want, too.”

“i’m so sorry,” he says in a hushed, hurried tone. “i know i'm expensive. i’m really sorry.”

“money is not an object to me,” you dismiss in faux arrogance with a wave of your hand in hopes that it’ll lighten the mood, but beomgyu can’t stop the tears from falling over his waterlines, and you’re afraid your attempt to help him only made him feel more indebted to you. all worry is promptly washed away when you feel him pull you into his arms. 

“thank you,” he just barely breathes out. “i don’t know how i’ll ever pay you back, but i’ll try, i swear.”

“you don’t have to do anything for me, beoms. i should’ve done it a lot sooner, but i’m just a little slow, i guess,” you muse, and he chuckles softly into your neck.

-

sleeping with beomgyu should’ve only happened once, but every night when you say you’re heading to bed, he looks at you with puppy eyes and you find yourself inviting him to come along. each time, he looks so excited that if he had a tail, it would most certainly be wagging. he obediently follows you to your room and settles into the empty space next to you before holding you in his arms as you drift off. he’s even taken to humming the tunes of songs he likes when you struggle to settle down, and his baritone voice lulls you to sleep like a charm every time. he spends his time by just looking at you and trying to reconcile with his new reality. this is real. he gets to spend however many nights he wants next to you, as per your own words. even if you didn’t mean them, he plans to take them seriously. he is perfectly content with spending the rest of his life just sleeping with you, looking at you, being with you. 

-

soobin’s get together is tonight, and you look different than usual. your typical look is very casual, which makes sense because you’re only ever at home when you’re with him, but you are now primped and ready to be seen, and it makes him anxious because you look even more lovable. he knows these people are your friends, so they must’ve seen you dressed up before, but that only makes him all the more uneasy; they know a side of you he is only now seeing, and it makes that same old ugly feeling he's grown so accustomed to sprout in his chest. 

when you arrive at soobin’s place, the first thing you do when soobin swings open the door is jump in his arms like you didn’t just see him a week ago. he spins you around with a dimpled grin that’s so sincere, beomgyu feels emotionally decimated by it. you both giggle as you break apart, and the jealousy beomgyu feels brewing within feels unpacifiable. 

“is this beomgyu?” soobin asks, grin still very much apparent.

“yes! you’re gonna love him,” you answer giddily. 

“it’s nice to meet you,” soobin says warmly while stretching out his hand, which beomgyu awkwardly shakes while he tries to force his lips to curl upwards in what he prays is a believable smile.

“nice to meet you,” he mumbles.

“everyone’s already here, but you’re late as always,” soobin playfully chastises, and you pout in response.

everyone greets you when you walk in, mostly by hugging you and lightheartedly scolding you for not coming out anymore. they’re very clearly bantering with you, but each reproach feels like a knife to beomgyu’s heart. he’s the reason you haven’t seen them in so long. 

clueless to it all, you introduce him as your friend to everyone, which only makes him feel worse, somehow. he is just one friend out of many, meanwhile you’re his entire world. you’re far too caught up in the joy of seeing some of your favorite people after so long to notice his dismay, however.

you lead him to soobin’s couch to have a seat with you and one of your friends, taehyun maybe, offers him a drink, to which he awkwardly declines. you quickly follow up with something to the effect of “he isn’t much of a drinker,” and beomgyu nods in affirmation. you try your best to include beomgyu in conversation, but they’re all talking about people and places he doesn't know. all he knows is you, and the world you two built together seems smaller and smaller with every new topic of conversation. 

he notices that soobin seems to be eyeing him somewhat strangely, though he tries his best to play it off. he could just attribute it to surface level curiosity, but his intuition tells him it’s much deeper than that. is soobin sizing up his competition? maybe so, but there’s not much to see. beomgyu is handsome, and he knows it, but soobin knows a side of you beomgyu has only ever heard stories about. you’ve told him about your friends and the goings on between you and your coworkers, but it pales in comparison to actually meeting them. he makes an internal note to ask even more questions than he usually does the next time you’re telling him about your day. until then, he sits as close to you as humanly possible and clings onto your arm, which is so second nature to you, you don't even notice that he’s doing it. 

soobin, who is usually not the inquisitive type, can’t help but question the dynamic between you and beomgyu. at first, the lingering glances and intimate gestures were innocuous enough to be written off as mere friendliness, but when you whisper something in beomgyu’s ear and he flushes a bright pink, soobin knows he can’t ignore it any longer. he especially can’t ignore it when you turn away from beomgyu and he raises a hand to the ear you just whispered into as if he’s reliving the moment. well, time to test his theory. 

soobin slides into the open cushion next to you and begins excitedly chattering about how pretty you look tonight, and he even takes your braided hair into his hands and twirls it between his fingers.

“your hair looks pretty,” he muses.

“beomgyu did it, actually,” you grin, and soobin glances over to said boy, who is currently glaring daggers at him. the look in beomgyu’s eyes is so intense, he almost wants to back off, but he has to get to the bottom of this. 

“did he? you know, it’s been a while since you stayed over. wanna have a sleepover tonight? you have some clothes here from last time, and we can cuddle, i know you like that,” he says as innocently as he possibly can. 

before you can even reply, beomgyu is slamming his hands on the coffee table. you turn to face him in surprise, and the look on his face is the angriest you’ve ever seen him. his eyes are dark and his nostrils are flared as he heavily breathes. he’s never been angry at all in front of you, actually, so to say you’re taken aback is the understatement of the century. 

“beoms? what’s wrong?” you ask concernedly, completely turning away from soobin. your voice is enough to somewhat placate him, but before he can fully calm down, soobin is saying his next words.

“i’m sure he’s fine. beomgyu, you can find your way home tonight on your own, can’t you?” beomgyu is positively seething at this. before you can question him again, he’s gripping your hand so tightly it’s like it’s the only thing keeping him from drowning, so you excuse the both of you and drag him to the bathroom for some privacy.

“are you alright?” you ask, frantically scanning his figure for some sort of sign of pain or discomfort. 

“i-i’m fine, i just, uh, i don’t feel good,” he says flatly. 

“what’s wrong? is it too much? do we need to go home?” he’s so flustered, he barely registers that you’re calling your house “home”, but he still notices it in spite of everything, and it’s like a balm on his aching heart. 

“y-yeah, can we go home? please?” he pleads, and you hurriedly nod. 

“of course, just let me say bye to everyone before we leave, okay?” and he wants to say no, but he’s as weak as ever in front of you, so he relents.

that doesn’t stop him from gripping your hand, though, as you say goodbye to everyone. you go to give soobin your usual hug, but beomgyu pulls you back to him even more tightly. you write it off as him not feeling well and just wanting to leave as soon as possible, to which you oblige, and before you know it, you two are scurrying out of soobin’s place like there’s something chasing you.

as you’re driving home, you feel your phone buzz in your pocket, but it isn’t until you’re walking through your doorway that you check it. 

soobie: we need to talk. call me as soon as you get home

you’re worried beyond belief at his serious tone, so you tell beomgyu that you’ve got to make a call before ducking into your bedroom. you don’t shut the door behind you, because why would you? 

you quickly call soobin and the line connects after just one ring.

“what’s wrong?” you ask anxiously, and soobin just sighs, which makes you all the more anxious.

“we have to talk about beomgyu.” 

“beomgyu? what about him? is something wrong?” you question.

“yeah, i mean, maybe. this might sound crazy, but i think — i know — he likes you.” you’re stunned silly for just a moment before bursting into laughter.

“likes me? what the hell are you talking about?” you dismiss, and you sense his agitation even through the phone.

“i’m serious. i had a feeling before, but tonight just confirmed it. he likes you.” you’re silent for a moment, just trying to process his words, but once your mind somewhat clears, you can’t help but deny, deny, deny.

“you’re wrong. it’s not like that at all. i’m just the first person who’s ever treated him nicely, and i —” 

“you’re not listening,” he cuts in irritatedly. “he looked like he wanted to skin me alive tonight. how else do you explain that?” 

“soobie,” you sigh. “you’ve got it all wrong. maybe you’re right and maybe he was feeling insecure, but that’s probably because i’m the only person he knows. he most likely just felt like you were stealing my attention away.” 

“you’re always so dense about these things, you know?” he groans. “okay, look, i’m not sure how they came about, but i do know that he has feelings for you. maybe it started out as dependence, i’m not sure, but it’s definitely much more than that now.” 

“that’s impossible,” you snort, actually feeling a bit impatient now. how could he possibly think that your relationship with beomgyu was anything other than platonic? 

“why? because he’s a robot?” oh, that shuts you up. “just think about it. if he were a human, would you still be saying the same thing? like i said before, if he’s as human as you say he is, he can feel the same way we do, and he’s definitely capable of feeling love, too.” you are, again, stunned into silence. suddenly, as if there was a fog that covered your brain before, things that you never really considered become clear to you. the soft touches, the gentleness. sleeping in the same bed and waiting for you to get home. wanting you — needing you — around all the time. the way he plays with your hair. the way he’s so interested in everything you have to say. the clinginess, the dependence. it all makes so much more sense to you. 

“i —” you begin, but you just so happen to glance up and see beomgyu right outside of your doorway… looking absolutely devastated. 

“i’ve gotta go,” you tell soobin as you hang up, not even bothering to say your usual goodbye. 

“beoms, did you hear us?” you ask tentatively, and he flinches a little bit before looking down at the floor and nodding.

you’re unsure of how to navigate this situation from here, but while you’re still trying to figure it out, beomgyu speaks.

“i-i’m so sorry,” he says hurriedly. “i understand if you don’t want me anymore.” 

“w-what? no, i —” 

“i’m just really sorry,” he says, looking as ashamed as a person ever could. “i know it’s wrong, i know it’s disgusting, but i —” 

“beomgyu.” 

“but i can’t help it. i wish i could, but i just can’t; and i understand if you want to return me or whatever, but if you could just —” 

“beomgyu, stop it,”  you interrupt firmly, no room for argument. he stares at you with defeated eyes, and you feel your heart break in two. “i am not disgusted, and i don’t want to return you.” his eyebrows furrow as if he doesn't quite understand, so you continue. 

“your feelings are not disgusting to me, don’t ever say that again, okay? please? it makes me sad,” you plead, and he hesitantly nods. “i think it’s normal, actually. you don’t really know anybody else other than me, so of course you’re confused.” 

“confused?” he asks incredulously, eyes snapping up to meet yours.

“confused,” you nod. “it'll change once you meet more people, i swear.” you try to smile reassuringly, but suddenly, you see tears welling up in beomgyu’s eyes. 

“beoms?” you carefully try.

“i don't need to meet more people. i just need you,” he chokes out. “don't tell me i'm confused because i'm not. i-i'd rather you just say you don't want to be with me than tell me that.” your heart clenches at his words, but he continues. 

“i just want to be with you, no one else,” he tells you desperately. “i can understand if you don't feel the same way, but i can't stand to hear you say i don’t love you, because i do. i really, really do.” and as if you're dissociating, your mind is bombarded by times where he's shown you this exact sentiment. again, you go back to every intimate moment you two have ever shared. it was easy to just chalk it up to his lack of experience, but when he's telling you that's not the case so earnestly, is it truly possible to still believe it’s nothing? after a while, you decide that it most certainly is not. 

the question is: do you feel the same way? you try to put a name to the feelings you have when you’re with him. the trust you have, the understanding. the desire to share everything you know and like with him, no matter how mundane it may seem to others; and consequently, the endearment towards him when you see how eager he is to listen. more than that, the intimacy between you two. how you like waking up to him smiling down at you, and how when something happens, he’s the first one you want to tell, good or bad. how when you listen to new music, you feel excited at the prospect of sharing it with him. 

you realize you want to know more about him, the happy things and even the sad things. why he is the way that he is, why he thinks the way he thinks. the peace you feel when he’s running his fingers through your hair and holding you close when you watch the same film for the dozenth time. you try to picture a world where somebody else rented him. a world in which somebody else got to see him as soon as they wake up or as soon as they get home from a particularly grueling day at work, and you finally understand that you wouldn’t like that at all. but why? you’ve only ever thought of him as a friend, right? so why does it matter to you? 

your eyes focus on beomgyu again, and you notice how utterly defeated he looks. his heart is on full display for you — and you alone — as tears stream freely down his pretty, doll-like face. are these tears just for you? you think so. is it safe to trust that these feelings he has for you are real? you’re not sure, but you want to. still, there’s something stopping you.

“i think… i think i feel the same way,” you admit, and his previously downtrodden appearance immediately lights up with hope. “but we shouldn’t.” and the words are like lead in your mouth. 

“why not?” he asks, clearly distressed. you just gave him an inch, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t take a mile. he never in a million years would have thought that you’d ever reciprocate his feelings, so he can’t just let them go so easily.

“i just… it’s just not something that i can —” 

“is it because i’m an android?” he questions, voice teeming with self-loathing. 

“n-no! i mean, we’re just so different,” you tell him, trying to skirt around the topic as best as you possibly can, but he won’t have it.

“whatever it is, i’ll change it. please? i can do anything,” he pleads. 

“it’s not like that. i want to, but we can't. i-i'll get older. i won't look the same — i won't be the same,” and it’s embarrassing as hell to admit it out loud, but you mean it. beomgyu’s urgent gaze softens, and he inches closer to you before he’s standing before you. he reaches out to gently cup your face and tenderly pushes your hair behind your ears.

“and what about me?” 

“what about you?” you scoff, but you don't pull away from his touch, though your eyes do dart away. “you’ll still be you, and i’ll be old and —” 

“what about when my parts start creaking? what about when i don’t remember things like i’m supposed to? you’ll still love me then, right?” he asks, but he already knows, and your eyes snap back to his.

“th-that’s different. you can get repairs. i can’t —” 

“then i won’t. you’ll get old and gray and i’ll get rundown and out-of-date. i don’t care what happens, as long as i’m with you.” you’re silent in the wake of his heavy words, so he quickly continues.

“you told me that when you love somebody, you’d do anything to be with them. you said you always find a way, and i want to find a way to be with you.” your heart simultaneously warms and aches at this sentiment. 

you consider what it would be like to be with him. things would be difficult, yes, but not impossible. maybe you’ll come to regret it someday, but you don’t want to think about that right now. you feel like the luckiest girl in the world when you think of the fact that somebody so beautiful, inside and out, wants to be with you. you don't think you’ve done anything particularly special for him, but he still wants and accepts you for everything that you are and ever will be.

“okay,” you say shakily, and you finally recognize that his hands are still very much cupping your face, fingers lovingly rubbing against your cheeks. he smiles in pure relief at your answer, but he makes no move to break away his hold on you. 

you notice how his gaze flicks between your eyes and your lips, and you decide you'll have mercy on him as you lean up to him and press a chaste kiss on his pouty lips before parting. he’s visibly red at the action, and you grin at how flustered he looks. on beomgyu’s end, he feels another bloom of excitement and swell of hope threatening to overcome him. when he looks at the playfulness in your eyes, he smiles even wider. 

“i love you,” he whispers affectionately.

you pause before you tell him:

“i love you, too, beoms.”

-

that night, beomgyu is even clingier than usual. he sticks like gum to your side. when you head to sleep, he eagerly nestles in your bed and holds his arms wide open. you follow his lead and settle into his warm embrace. he sings you one of his favorite songs you’ve ever shown him. the last words you hear before you sink into sleep are:

“to die by your side

is such a heavenly way to die

to die by your side, well

the pleasure, the privilege is mine”

notes pt. 2: sfw work ends here!

you and beomgyu have been “together” for a few weeks now, so the relationship is still very new. surprisingly or not, things seem more or less the same. you guess you never realized just how intimate you two have always been until you put a label on things. the only tangible differences are that instead of just a mere hug when he greets you, he plants kisses all over your face before finding his ways to your lips. and when you’re watching movies or even just talking, he’ll steal a kiss or two. and when you head to bed, you know you can expect him to catch your lips like a man starved before you sleep. things get heated, sometimes, but they never lead to anything besides labored breaths and promises to calm himself down. you take his hesitancy as him wanting to take it slow and treasure your first time together, and you realize he still may be traumatized from the years he spent as a sexbot. 

you have apologized to him for telling soobin his secret. you let him know your reasoning for telling him, and he accepted your apology quite graciously. honestly? he was never mad, and he tells you that very clearly, but you still feel somewhat guilty even when he says he understands. your guilt is only absolved when he says he’s thankful you told soobin because things may have never changed without his wise input. he says that he’s grateful to soobin for being a voice of reason in the face of your emotional density. you blushed when he told you this, and apologized for being so slow on the uptake, but he just assured you that he wouldn’t have you any other way, which made you love him even more, somehow. 

you’re now about to go to soobin’s again for another get together with your friends. second time’s the charm, you cheekily told him when you brought it up, and he blushed in response. when you two walk through the doorway, everyone cheers. you greet everyone as usual, and beomgyu tries his best to keep his searing jealousy at bay, but his anxiety starts clawing at him as soobin seats himself next to you and asks you how you are. 

you giggle and tell him you’re doing well, and he responds by updating you on his tumultuous work life. beomgyu immediately wonders why you haven’t told soobin about your new relationship. are you embarrassed to be seen with him? it’s not like he doesn’t understand, what with him technically being made out of wires and machinery. of course a human like you wouldn’t want to be seen with a metal man like him. you could have the entire world in your hands if you wanted, so what’s the point of playing pretend with a fake like him? maybe, if he were you, he’d be embarrassed, too. he likes to think that maybe you aren’t like that, but at the end of the day, how could you not be? he’s nothing more than a robot masquerading as the real thing. 

his anxiety worsens the more in depth your conversation with soobin gets. you try to include him by briefly giving him context about the stories soobin tells, but he can’t stop himself from worrying. again, he feels like soobin is stealing you away from him, and his mood sours. 

your other friends try to talk to him, too, but he’s very obviously in a bad mood as he watches you two continue to laugh together. when you finally do turn to beomgyu, you immediately notice how awful he looks. 

“beoms? are you alright?” you ask gingerly, but beomgyu’s discomfort is not at all placated even at the term of endearment. 

“‘m fine,” he mumbles, and you’re genuinely in shock at his change of attitude. soobin looks very concerned, but he excuses himself to get a drink so you two can work it out, though he has an inkling of an idea of what’s triggering beomgyu. 

“what’s wrong with you?” you ask concernedly, but he shakes his head sulkily.

“do you wanna go home?” you offer, and he immediately nods. you look torn for a second, but when you see how sad he looks, you know you can’t deny him.

you say your goodbyes to your friends and apologize for leaving early, but everyone says they understand. soobin makes you promise to host the next get together, though, to which you happily agree. 

the ride home is mostly silent, but you look over to beomgyu in concern every so often. you grab his hand and squeeze it in a way you hope is comforting, but he doesn’t look any better at all.

when you enter your house, you immediately head to your bedroom, and he follows you in silence. you sit on the bed and pat the space next to you. 

“beoms, what’s the matter?” you ask pleadingly as you grab his hands, and his heart, which was previously aching, is (a little) soothed by your concern. 

“i-it’s nothing,” he answers, but you can tell that he’s lying because of the way he refuses to make eye contact with you. 

“baby, i can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s wrong,” you say. you’re right, and he knows you’re right, but you’re already doing him the favor of a lifetime just by deigning to be with him. how could he dare to ask for more? he’s ashamed at the thought, but you look so sincere, and he knows in his metaphorical heart that he needs to be able to communicate with you if you two are going to have any shot at a lasting relationship.

“i-i’m just j-jealous,” he sputters. 

“oh, baby, why?” you ask. 

“because i’m not like you,” he admits after a pause. “i already feel like i’m not good enough for you, so seeing you with someone who actually is makes me feel awful.”

“who? soobin?” and you’re absolutely petrified when he sheepishly nods. 

“honey, it’s not like that at all,” you tell him. “we’re just friends, i promise.” 

“but it would be so much easier to be with him. you wouldn’t have to be ashamed about telling everyone you’re with an android,” he argues. 

“beomgyu, i am not ashamed of you. i just wasn’t sure if you felt comfortable with me telling everyone. if you want me to tell them, i’ll happily do it. you’re so good, how could i ever be embarrassed of you?” his eyes soften.

“do you mean it?” he asks, and you nod. 

“do i not show it enough? how much i love you, i mean.” he furiously shakes his head no, but you know it’s a lie. beomgyu himself will admit that he needs more validation than most people, and it’s going to take him a while to ever get over it because of his own issues. that doesn’t mean you can’t try to help him, though, so you brush his cheek with your hands before wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. 

“does this make you feel better?” you ask after you pull away, but he still looks somewhat depressed, so you pull him in again before pressing your lips against his. this time, you swipe your tongue on his pout, which makes him gasp. you tease your tongue against his and electricity thrums between you two when you do it. he reciprocates your enthusiasm immediately, and before long, you’re both sucking and teasing each other until you’re out of breath.

you pull away again and rest your forehead against his. 

“better?” you question.

“a little,” he says. “m-maybe a little more?” you grin at his coquettishness, and you go in for another kiss. your tongues tangle, but you don’t stop there. your mouth travels, peppering kisses down his jaw to his sensitive neck. he shivers at the contact when you swipe your tongue over his unmarred skin before lightly sucking. he lets out a broken moan when you do it, and it reverberates throughout your entire body and straight to your core. 

“better?” you ask again.

“m-more,” he pants. 

“anything you want, baby,” you tease before your lips hungrily capture his. one of your hands snakes its way up his shirt, and he gasps when you roll his hardened nipple between your fingers. beomgyu is more sensitive than most people, as is the nature of his model, so every little touch drives him crazy. 

you seem to have noticed this, so when your other hand palms his hardened length through his sweatpants and he almost screams, you have to bite back a giggle. 

“d-don’t tease,” he begs, and you’d do anything for beomgyu, really, but not this time.

you palm him even more harshly and his breath catches in his throat. 

“more?” you ask, and he fervently nods. you oblige, sliding your hand under his waistband and teasing the sensitive skin around his length. your fingers brush against it every so often, and he involuntarily bucks every time you do. 

“c-can i touch you?” he practically implores.

“of course, my love,” you tell him as you remove your devious hands and pull your top off before unclipping your bra. 

his mouth waters when he sees you, and you can see him gulp almost comically as his big hands meet your breasts. he copies your movement from earlier, rolling your sensitive buds between his very clearly experienced fingers. you let out a contented sigh at the action, but you won’t let this be all about you, so your hand sneaks it way back down his pants. this time, you grab his girthy cock and give it a harsh tug. his actions stutter, and you smirk devilishly at how fucked out he is when the fun part hasn’t even begun. 

you pull at his waistband, and he eagerly tugs his pants and boxers off as soon you do it. he even goes as far as to tear his t-shirt off over his head before he pulls your half-naked body flush against his, falling onto the bed as he desperately kisses you for everything that you’re worth. eventually, he situates himself on top of you, rutting his thick, long cock onto your still clothed thigh. you didn’t really get a chance to get a good look at him before, but you’re able to look down at him now, and you realize his dick is gorgeous. just like every other part of him. it stands tall, blushing profusely at the tip and practically weeping precum. it’s a bit hooked, too, no doubt to elicit the most pleasure out of his clients. your pussy is drenched just thinking about how it’ll feel when it’s inside of you.

he almost rips your bottoms off of you and his mouth waters even more at the sight of your pussy, all slick and glistening in anticipation for what’s to come. 

“so gorgeous,” he whispers as he prepares to lay himself between your legs, but you hook them around his waist before he can do so. tonight will be all about him, you’ve decided, so you tug him closer and put one of his pretty nipples in your mouth, swirling your tongue on it and occasionally nipping at the sensitive skin. your other hand continues to tweak the other one before you alternate between the two, causing him to let out a low, guttural groan. 

eventually, he goes in for another kiss, all tongue and teeth and saliva, and you take one of your hands and harshly clench around the base of his throbbing cock. 

“is this what you needed, beoms?” you tease, and he nods pathetically as you tug again, harder this time, and let your hands stroke all the way up to his reddened tip. your thumb glides over his slit, and he’s seeing stars. 

“i don’t know why you’re so jealous of someone else, my love. you’re so perfect,” you praise, and his ears get even redder, somehow, in spite of the situation you’re both in.

“i — nghh — i don’t like when you’re with him,” he pants, in spite of everything you're doing to him. “only want you with me.”

“oh, baby, you have me,” you coo. “always.” and with that, you begin to feverishly jerk him off with one hand while the other returns to his nipple. his hips buck with every movement, and his eyes are screwed shut. you can tell he’s about to come before you completely take your hands off of him. 

“n-no! w-why?” he asks with a crack in his voice, watery eyes shooting open at the sudden action.

“don’t you wanna come in my pussy, instead? it’s warmer and wetter than my hand,” you ask with faux innocence with a tilt of your head, and his previously aggrieved demeanor morphs back into pure lust. 

“that’s what i thought,” you giggle as you grab his length and rub it against your slickness. he groans at the feeling, but you don’t immediately take him in, opting to instead roll your hips up, just barely letting his flared head catch against your entrance. 

“baby, please,” he whines, and with a smirk, you finally wrap your legs around his waist and line him up with your entrance. you just barely take the tip in, easing it into your pussy, before you force him out again. he gasps raggedly at how tight you are, and he’s wound up so much, he feels like he’s on the brink of exploding. he’s about to take matters into his own hands before you guide him back inside of you, and he feels your walls struggling to accommodate him. 

“s-so tight! h-how are you so tight?” he hisses, eyes reddened and face strained, but you’re far too busy with the euphoric feeling of him finally inside of you to reply. he eases in inch after throbbing inch, and it is a snug fit, indeed. he almost wonders if he’ll even fit, but though the stretch burns you, the pleasure is too great to ignore. finally, your walls slightly relax, and he’s able to completely sheath himself in you. you both moan as his tip pulsates against your cervix, and he considerately gives you time to adjust, walls contracting wildly around him, before he attempts to pull out and really begin. 

“stop,” you command before he can do so, and his eyes fill with worry at your words. 

“w-what’s wrong?” he stutters. 

“oh, nothing,” you say between pants. “i just want to see how long you can last.” 

“w-what do you —”

and you interrupt him with a kiss. he ravenously reciprocates it, and he can’t help but unconsciously thrust his hips, tapping deliciously on the deepest parts of you, but you prevent him from ever fully pulling out. you tangle one of your hands through his hair and grip it — not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him groan into your mouth. 

“c-can i move?” he pleads, but you shake your head no. 

“why?” he whimpers, but you just smirk as you kiss him again and bite his bottom lip. 

he doesn’t know how long you two stay like that, but it’s far too long for his liking. he feels his dick swell, and you still refuse to let him move, but you teasingly scrape your fingers against his balls and it’s all he can do not to come. 

“p-please let me move, it hurts,” he cries, tears now flowing from his eyes. for once, sex is all about beomgyu and what feels good to him. he could cry just from the sentiment alone, but his current tears are the direct result of how you’re teasing him.

“and where does it hurt, baby? use your words, i know you can.” 

“h-hurts, my c-cock hurts,” he sputters out. 

“and would pounding my pussy make you feel better?” you goad, and he whines even louder at the imagery. 

“y-yes,” he sobs, and you smile as you say your next words.

“such a good boy. you can move.” and that’s all it takes, really, before he’s pulling out despite your cunt’s attempts to suck him back in, and ramming himself back inside of you again and again.

the curve of his cock hits places previously untouched, and your walls spasm around him at the sensation.

“does it feel good, beoms?” 

“s-so good,” he mumbles as drool pools off of his tongue and out of his mouth, eyes rolling to the back of his head. “so warm and t-tight.” you clench against your will at his filthy words, and it makes a strangled cry leave his throat. 

“pussy so good, baby. your pussy is the b-best,” he babbles, and your lips meet his again before your mouth travels down, sucking a blooming hickey onto his neck. he trembles at the pain that comes with the pleasure, but somehow, he still has the presence of mind to roll his skilled fingers against your clit. just a few touches, and you already feel your orgasm approaching. he can feel every spasm of yours, and it makes his dick twitch inside of you as he wildly fucks you open. 

he’s drilling into you so hard, you have to dig your fingernails into the skin of his back to keep yourself grounded. with each thrust, you feel more and more like you’re about to burst. 

“gonna come!” you whine. 

“do it, baby. c-come all over my cock,” he pleads.

“come inside? want it so bad,” you mewl.

“of course, my angel. a-anything for you,” he tells you as he tenderly brushes your hair out of your sweaty face, and he hammers himself into you at an inhuman pace as you feel the pressure in you crescendo into a searing hot orgasm. you clench even tighter around him while you come, gripping him so forcefully he can barely pull out, so his thrusts become sloppy and uncoordinated before he rams himself into you one last time and paints your inner walls with his cum.

you two stay like that for a while, just panting and basking in the feeling of closeness you feel. he presses a kiss on your forehead as he relaxes his arms and lays on top of you. you giggle at the intimacy and he finds himself sharing your laughter, your joy. 

“you’re so beautiful,” he says between breaths, nuzzling his face into your neck and sighing. “i love you.”

“i love you, too, beoms,” you tell him, and you do love him. unconditionally.

notes pt. 3: :,) :,) :,)))))) i'm very sorry if this was disappointing but i hope it was worth it! i would love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions you may have about this fic/universe. feedback is needed to a disgusting degree bc i need validation to survive #sorry

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[tofics]

You Owe Me - Part 1

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!Reader

Summary: Forced through circumstances out of your control to rely on Joel Miller, you end up traversing the country with him. You're not particularly enthralled with him, and neither is he with you - or so you think, until your period strikes, and you're practically bed-ridden. Or: Joel can't stop jerking off to you after he accidentally got a taste of your lips.

Warnings/tags: canon typical show/game violence, sort of dubious consent (reader gets kissed without being asked and only later agrees), age gap (reader is about ~25 years younger), enemies to lovers kind of, awful period + period cramps, jerking off, fluff

Word count: ~7.4k

Periods are not fun to begin with.

They're even less fun in a post-apocalyptic world, where sanitary products are hard to come by and more of a luxurious rarity than a given staple item in your average survivor's backpack.

You knew you were bound to begin your cycle eventually, and had you had more time, you'd probably have prepared yourself some way or the other. But, with the way things had gone in the past two weeks, you had not had any time to think about bodily functions beyond what your every day efforts demanded of you, and even that was hard to care for.

Ever since the night that you fled Boston's QZ, you hadn't had a proper night's rest, let alone a hearty meal to replenish your energy with. Your escape had been 'spontaneous' to say the least, a necessity brought upon by circumstances that you'd stumbled into rather than purposefully involved yourself in, and before you knew it, you were pointing your finger at Joel Miller, of all people in the world, hissing threats through gritted teeth about how he at least owed you this much if he was going to get you involved in his business without your consent and how you weren't gonna get hanged just because he'd dragged you into his bullshit.

Joel, of course, was not a man you could just point your finger at and demand things of, much less in a hissed tone, even less in the form of threats.

And yet, he'd smuggled you out of the city in a cloak-and-dagger-operation that same night, despite his hard glares and hushed warnings to keep your mouth shut. You'd been anything but prepared when he'd appeared at your side like a magician out of thin air. He'd laid his arm around your neck like a lover might on an evening stroll, but the gesture hadn't been kind, his arm too tight around your throat, pressing on your airway as he'd instructed you - commanded you - to follow him, like you'd have had any other choice with his arm wrapped around your neck like a boa constrictor, all the while a smile on his face that feigned nonchalance to possible onlookers. Nothing to see here, just two lovebirds on their way home after another long, hard day of work.

You'd shaken him off once the two of you were out of sight, ripped his arm off of your throat as you swiveled out of his headlock. "What the fuck, Joel," you'd hissed and he'd stared back at you with that same cold and hard look you knew him by. "Do you want out of the city or not?" His arms were crossed in front of his chest, his tone matching the iciness of his eyes. Your jaw tensed. The nerves of this guy. "The hell are you talking about?"

He scoffed like you were being dense. "Out. Flee the nest. Hit the damn road-" You cut him off with another pointed finger. "Don't be cute. I know what you mean. What I'm asking is, now?!" He eyed your finger like he was debating cutting it off if you jabbed it into his face one more time. His jaw ticked. "Yes, sweetheart, now." Your nostrils flared at the sarcastic tone of the nickname, but he gave you no time to interject. "Got tipped off. They're gonna do a raid tonight, hit everyone they know I'm involved with. Since you got all flustered about my - 'involvement' of yours-" "Oh, is that what you call that? Grabbing and kissing me out of the blue?" "-I figured I'd do you a solid by giving you a heads up," he talked over you, ignoring your comment entirely. You were seething. "Ever heard of a thing called 'consent', Joel?" He flicked his tongue, rolled his eyes. Clearly, he had no time to entertain your attitude. You didn't care. "It's when you ask someone if they wanna do something, and then only do it if they say yes. Now I know that concept might be a little hard to grasp for you-" You were slowly advancing on him, getting up all in his face, when his hand closed around your arm tightly. Your gaze fell down to his grip, your lower jaw pushing out slightly. His eyes flicked over your face like he was waiting for your next outburst. "Are you quite done? Cause we gotta go. Unless you'd like to stay and be questioned by FEDRA officers? I'm sure they'd be very interested in your lecture about consent." Joel's upper lip curled back in an ugly sarcastic smile.

And so you'd let him lead you through the city, begrudgingly at first and then bewildered when you realized you were heading in the opposite direction of your apartment. "What about my stuff?" He'd only shaken his head. "No time for that. We gotta go now. Got some backpacks waiting for us a couple blocks ahead."

He only realized you'd stopped walking when he was at least ten steps ahead. "You comin' or what?" You could tell by the tone in his voice that he was nearing the end of his patience, but as far as you were concerned, you were already at the end of yours. You didn't budge, just stared him down from where you stood, shooting icy daggers out of your eyes and your pursed lips quivering as insults swarmed in your head, all fighting to be let out at once. He looked back at you with dull disinterest in his eyes. "By all means, take your time. Ain't like we're on a clock here or somethin'."

"Oh, you son-of-a-bitch, you ignorant little cock-sucker, you absolute blithering idiot-" The stream of affronts sputtered out of you. Joel quickly closed the distance between the two of you and forcefully grabbed you by the arm, dragging you with him once more. "Walk and talk, yeah?," he said over your flood of offences, the jabs seemingly rolling off of him like water droplets against plastic. You kept up your clamor all the way down the next block, until he dragged you into yet another side-alley to avoid a group of FEDRA soldiers marching past.

The two of you stood closer together than both you and him would have liked. If it hadn't been for the parade of soldiers walking past you, you might've scratched his eyes out, something you made sure to convey with your eyes as you stared him down in silence. His indifference only fueled your rage. "Do you have any idea what you're asking of me?" You hissed at him when most of the parade had passed by. Joel wondered if he'd ever hear your normal tone-of-voice. "Come again?" He cocked his head. "The way I recall it, you asked me to get you out of the city, not the other way around. Now who's imposin' on who?"

He saw it coming before it was looming in his face again. That damn finger of yours, pointed right at his nose once more. His lips pursed, his hand twitched on the handle of the blade he kept concealed on his waist. Just one quick swipe. Your howls would likely attract the guards. Not worth it. Yet.

"We're only in this predicament because you couldn't keep your damn hands off of me!" You almost spat in his face, your voice all hoarse from trying to keep your shout down to a whisper. Your head looked like it was about to implode. Joel flicked his tongue again.

"You wanna discuss bygones again or you wanna get goin'? Time's not waitin' on us, sweetheart."

"Oufff." You growled in response, your finger so close to his face you'd take out an eye if he moved an inch in the wrong direction. "Get that thing out of my face," he finally snapped and smacked your hand down. "Now quit whinin'. You wanted out of the city, you're gettin' out of the city. Giddy up. Time's a' wastin'."

Without another look to check if you were following, he dipped out of the alleyway and marched down in the direction of his - your - first pit stop. You stood between the tight walls for another moment, breathing heavily. If FEDRA hadn't been breathing down your neck, you would've turned around on your heels and sent Joel off to whatever miserable adventure he was about to embark on, but alas, he'd made his miserable adventure yours against your will. You cursed under your breath, then hurried after him.

"All I'm saying is, what about my shit? You think I don't have any sentimentals at home? Necessities? Stuff I wanted to bring when I left?" You whispered to him as you kept up with his pace beside him. It could've been your imagination, but the people out on the street looked more hurried than usual. Something was definitely in the air. Joel's tip-off likely had been right. Something was brewing.

"You win some, you lose some," came his sullen reply, paired with a shrug. You had to stuff your comeback back down your throat as the two of you filed into the crowd of people heading home, hurried steps and hard, concerned faces all around you.

Escaping hadn't been easy. Every single guard had been on high-alert. It seemed that the tip-off must've come out - the number of guards had been tripled, and you and Joel had a hard time going by undetected, despite the added benefit of nighttime and the rain that had picked up, muffling your steps as you hurried from dark corner to dark corner.

The Firefly attack took him as much by surprise as it did you and the soldiers. The booming sound of an explosion just a few hundred feet ahead made you flinch and Joel instinctively pulled you down with him. Rubble rained down on the two of you, crashing into the muddied floor just inches besides you. You gasped and flinched away, losing your halt on all fours, but a strong arm caught you around the middle before you could slump to the ground. "Let's go," Joel urged in your ear and dragged you up to your feet in one swift motion.

Shouts erupted around you from all sides, then got droned out as FEDRA's sirens kicked up. You scrambled after Joel as he evaded spotlights that swiveled across the floor from all directions, keeping the two of you safely tucked away in the few shadows that remained. Smoke burned in your nose and lungs as you sprinted from safe haven to safe haven. Loud cracks cut through the uproar of your surroundings, accompanied by deep thudding sounds as more rubble fell to the floor. The fire from the explosion site was now spreading out, slowly licking at buildings in its path. Many of the decrepit structures quickly crumbled away under the heat, porous and unstable to begin with.

It was disorienting, frightening. For the first time in over a week, you were glad for Joel Miller. If it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't have made it out of the chaos alive.

Granted, if it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place, but he kept his word and got you out.

You'd never meant to stay with him, but as things would have it, you weren't presented with much of a choice in that either. You made it out of the city just fine, save for a few jump scares along the road, but then ran into a hoard of infected that had been attracted by the ruckus of the explosion, just a few miles outside of the quarantine zone.

How you made it through that encounter alive, you didn't know, you just knew that Joel was a more-than-worthy asset in that debacle, as much as you hated to admit it. As if that hadn't been enough, you barely had one peaceful night before a group of raiders pulled through the section of outskirts where you and Joel had holed up for the night. It was an 'out of the frying pan and into the fire' kind of turn of events that kept you and Joel running and fighting for your lives for almost two weeks straight, stumbling from one disaster into the next, until finally, finally, you seemed to leave your losing streak behind.

It had now been three whole days since the two of you had found yourselves in mortal danger last, and though it felt almost wrong to be hopeful for a peaceful stretch of days, you couldn't help but be just that.

Until, of course, you felt that familiar sharp pull in your abdomen.

Crap.

"You didn't happen to pack anything female-related when you packed this, did you?," you asked as you rifled through the contents of your backpack. Well, Joel's backpack really, since it was the one he'd bestowed upon you the night of your escape. Your own backpack was still back in Boston, probably picked apart by FEDRA by now, along with all of your other belongings.

"Like what?" Joel was poking at the fire he'd set out to build. The flames wouldn't quite take, a few feeble blue streaks dancing between the twigs he'd collected.

"Like, I don't know, a pad, maybe? Tampons, if I'm allowed to dream?" You had almost emptied out the entire backpack now, and even though the contents you were bringing to light were certainly useful, none of them were what you were looking for.

Joel looked up, a kind of perplexed look on his face. You took in his facial expression and sighed. "I'll take that as a no. Crap." You slumped down on your butt in defeat. "That's gonna be a problem."

Joel scratched behind his ear, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "Yeah. Sorry, kiddo. Wasn't on my radar when I was packing." It could've been the dim light of the barely lit fire playing a trick on your eyes, but you could've sworn that some color rose in his cheeks. You just sighed once more and shrugged. "Eh, can't blame ya. Not something I'd expect to be on the mind of a..." You looked at him, eyebrow raised. "...something year old man."

He snorted. Sparks flew up from the twigs as he kept poking around. "Fifty-six," he said after a little while. "If you must know."

"Huh."

"What." He eyed you over the now growing flames. It looked like he was ready for you to pounce on him.

"Nothing." You raised your arms in defense. "Just... wouldn't have thought so. I just mean," you quickly added when you saw the expression on his face, "you've held up better than I would've thought. Jeez, relax. I'm not coming for your age."

"Right. Cause you ain't been jabbin' at me for just about anythin' else. S'cuse me if I'm just prepared."

"Cause you been jabbin' at me for just about anything else," you mocked under your breath. "And I got a right to. Need I remind you, I wouldn't be in this mess if-"

"-I hadn't dragged you into it." He interrupted you with a groan. "Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first trillion times. You ever gonna let it go?"

You scowled at him over the flames. "No." He quirked an eyebrow at you, and the exhausted apprehension on his face made you crack up. "Fine. Maybe. The jury's still out on that."

A day later, the sharp pull in your abdomen had grown into full-sized cramps, one of the four horsemen of your period riding in in full stride. You tried to ignore it as best as you could, but your period pains had always been on the worse side, sometimes leaving you crumpled into a ball on the floor. Your cramps could be debilitating, and a gnawing pit of worry formed in your stomach as the day went along.

Back in the QZ, you had your ways of coping: hot water bottles or hot potatoes wrapped in tinfoil tucked into a sweater so that their warmth radiated throughout your belly. There was even a bottle of emergency ibuprofen tucked away in a little secret corner of your bedroom. You longed for it now as the cramps begin to grow in intensity and longevity. You'd certainly planned to bring them along for your escape, but alas...

A groan escaped your lips as another cramp pulled on you from the inside. Your steps faltered and you leaned over for a moment with a hand pressed to your lower belly.

"Hey. You good?" Joel had been a few steps ahead of you, but he'd turned around at your groan. You'd been a trooper for the last two weeks, making him think more than once that getting you out hadn't been such a bad bet after all. You fought like hell, and when you weren't busy being mad at him, you followed orders quite well, especially when yours (or his) life depended on it.

Of course, he'd never say that out loud. You were still routinely giving him an earful about how he'd made you leave everything you owned behind, how you'd have had more time to properly prepare if he hadn't just dragged you into his mess, if he hadn't just kissed you that night-

You never missed a chance to remind him of all his wrongdoings, bickering on and on and on about the predicament you now found yourself in. As if he hadn't been the one to get you out. Sure, yeah, he did owe you as much after... having dragged you into his mess (his jaw clenched at the thought), but he'd paid his dues in full, as far as he was concerned. Hell, not only had he gotten you out in one piece, he'd even packed a whole get-away bag for you, survival essentials included. Had you thanked him for it? Certainly not. You hadn't complained about it either though, that was for sure, and Joel was certain that was about as much of a thanks as he was going to get from you.

You straightened, a somber and tight expression on your face as you nodded, but Joel could tell you were in more pain that you were letting on. Two weeks of fighting like crazy and just minutes of sleep to go on for days, and he hadn't heard a peep outta you. He had to give it to ya - you were tough, a fighter through and through. When you complained, it had nothing to do with where you slept, what you ate, who you fought. You just did it. He appreciated that quality in you. It made you a decent travel companion - if it wasn't for your bickering about everything else. That, he'd had decidedly enough of.

Today, though, you had been unusually quiet. You had yet to point an accusing finger at him, and though he could do without another finger pointed at his face for the rest of his life, he couldn't help but notice the change in your demeanor. Your pace was slower than the weeks before, even though you were now eating and sleeping better than you'd had in all previous fourteen days combined. Your movements seemed sluggish, almost lethargic, and you were hanging behind more often than not. This wasn't the first time you'd stopped either.

"We can rest for a moment, if you want." Joel gestured towards some trees on the side of the road. "Sit a moment in the shade. Catch our breath."

You looked like you were about to throw a snarky remark his way, but then you just nodded and trotted over to the patchy area of shade.

He sat down beside you with a groan, then stretched his aching legs out on the ground. Even if you thought he'd held up just fine, his legs certainly disagreed. If anything, they felt older than fifty-six. More like bordering on sixty.

Joel took a sip of his water, then nudged you with his elbow. You looked at him through hooded lids, exhaustion written all over your face. "Drink. Gotta stay hydrated."

Another wordless nod from you. No snarky comment. You got your own bottle out and gulped down a few sips.

"You sure you're good?" He eyed you carefully. There was a light sheen of sweat above your upper lip, some more pearls glistening on your forehead.

"I said as much, didn't I?"

Ah. There it was. Joel nodded. "There we go. Thought you were dyin' on me or somethin'."

You shot him a quizzical look.

"You haven't talked back to me all day. Was startin' to get worried," he shrugged with half a smile on his lips.

Your eyes narrowed at him. Joel Miller? Worried about you? Yeah, right. "What, you sweet on me or something, Miller?" A low chuckle rumbled through his chest. "Uh-huh. Glad to see you still got your wits about ya. C'mon." He got to his feet and dusted the dirt off his pants. "If you can jab, you can walk. Let's go."

You knew you had a couple of hours, maybe less, until hell's gates would open and the floods would come raining down your legs. Literally.

At least your periods were dependable that way, always following the same pattern.

Evening was fast approaching, and so was a town in the distance, just down the hill that you and Joel had just reached the top of. He raised a hand to his eyes, shielding his view from the evening sun that hung low on the horizon.

"Best bet is to go around it," he assessed, one hand on his hip. "No way to tell what's waitin' down there. Easier if we don't find out."

"Yeah, umh, about that."

He turned to you, a golden glow around the outline of his head. He looked like an angel. You blinked, cleared your throat.

"I need to find some cloth. Preferably clean, but anything will do, really. I know there's a spare shirt in my backpack, but I really don't want to cut it up..."

Joel frowned at you, visibly not understanding what you were getting at.

"Pads, Joel. I need to make pads. I'm about to start bleeding like a slit throat. I'm talkin' Niagara Falls."

He blinked, scratched behind his ear. "...right. Yeah. Okay."

It irked him that he hadn't thought of anything for your period. Granted, he hadn't had to deal with the topic in a long time, no woman in his life sticking around long enough (he made sure of that) that the topic could even come up. Still, he was a man who prided himself on being prepared, and he felt anything but as he helped you rummage through open and broken drawers to look for anything that might be useful.

You were tensing up more frequently now, pausing in whatever you were doing with shut eyes and a tight expression on your face. He knew what that meant, even if it had been a long time. You were cramping, and by the looks of it, quite hard.

Joel was irritated to find that he felt sorry for you. Though, no, that wasn't what irritated him. He may have been gruff and closed off on the outside, but he was still human after all, capable of empathy. What irritated him was the need he felt to alleviate your pain. More than once, he felt the urge to reach out and stroke your face, or worse even, to pull you into his arms into a comforting hug. Once, when your back was turned to him, he even saw his arm lifting on its own accord, and he had to bring it back down with his other hand before it made contact with you.

What the hell are you thinkin', he scolded himself. This ain't no more than a cargo run. She's cargo. Quit daydreamin'.

He scolded himself and then moved on, once, twice, thrice, until he had to tell himself off for the fourth time and he was beginning to get seriously pissed with himself. What was it with you that he kept thinkin' about touchin' you?

You were oblivious to his ordeal, having your own problems to deal with. You'd found some cloth that looked (and smelled) clean enough to be used as makeshift pads. Your hands made quick work of the fabric as you tore the old shirt into strips, then braided them into wider pieces until they roughly matched the length of the strip of fabric that connected the front of your panties to the back. Once that was done, you wrapped the braided piece fully around the bottom of a fresh pair of underwear, tying off the excess fabric when you had done so. It wasn't pretty, it was knobby and bound to be uncomfortable, but it was better than just wrapping pieces around the middle and hoping for the best. This way, you had a couple of layers underneath you, and if you didn't shuffle too much, the makeshift pad would perhaps stay in place. You sighed, inspecting your finished work. Behind you, Joel whistled. He sauntered over to inspect your work.

"Don't look too bad. You think this'll do?"

You eyed your handful of makeshift pads, a sorrowful look on your face. "It'll have to. But knowing my flow, I'll go through these in just a day - two, if I'm lucky..." Another wave of cramps tightened in your lower belly. You winced and leaned forward, one arm across your abdomen. A warm hand appeared on your shoulder.

"Tell you what. This town don't seem too dangerous. How 'bout we try and find a place here for tonight? Hm? Sleep in a real bed for a change?"

Joel didn't need to ask twice. You seemed more than relieved that your journey today would go no further than a couple of houses down the street, which was where you found a suitable candidate to spend the night in.

It had probably been a beautiful townhouse once, back in the day, complete with a white picket fence and a front- and backyard to show for. Now, though, the garden was overgrown, the fence was hanging in pieces, paint littering off its remaining poles, and the house itself looked sad and empty, as if it was mourning the loss of its previous inhabitants.

Unlike the rest of the houses on the street though, this building seemed to have all its walls intact. That, and the fact that your steps were getting slower by the minute, was enough for Joel to declare this house as your designated sleeping spot for the night.

The two of you did a quick sweep of each room, making sure everything was safe and sound. It was strange how quickly a routine could settle between two people who'd been nothing but strangers just barely three weeks ago. It wasn't the first time this thought occurred to you either: yours and Joel's movements seemed to almost flow into one another as you cleared the house from bottom to top. It felt a little like you could anticipate his next move before he announced it, and vice versa. He'd even said as much to you after the first week of the two of you fighting for y'all's asses, talking about how maybe you weren't as much of a princess as he'd initially thought. You'd just rolled your eyes at the comment, but there had also been a feeling of pride settling in your chest that you'd been unable to ignore.

It came like you'd said it would. Not long after you had dropped yourself on one of the worn-out sofas in the living room, you felt a particularly harsh cramp cutting through your abdomen, before something warm trickled out of you. You groaned silently to yourself. So it had begun.

Joel watched you from the armchair next to the couch. He was using the last couple of hours of decent daylight to take stock of his backpack, checking it for tears and what not, taking inventory of his ammo and cleaning and sharpening his weapons. Besides the fact that it had to be done, it gave him something to do. Made him feel like he was doing something sensible, practical.

He didn't like to admit it to himself, but watching you writhe in pain on the couch beside him didn't sit right with him. Even though it had nothing to do with a lack of care on his side, he somehow, against all logic, felt responsible for how crappy you were feelin'. It didn't help either that kept tellin' himself off for it. Ain't none of yer business, he kept repeating in his head and re-focused on sharpening the blade in his hand, right before glancing back at you when you'd moan again in pain.

You were definitely going through it. Once the dam had broken, so to say, there was nothing you could do but lay on the couch and wallow in self-pity. By now, the cramps had settled into a steady churning pain that had settled in your abdomen like a straight line, going from one of your tubes to the other. Your lower back felt like something was trying to break through it from both sides, forming an immense pressure that spread up the rest of your back. As if that wasn't enough, your neck was tense, rock hard and unforgiving, uncomfortable in whatever position you brought yourself into. And then of course, there was the bleeding itself, and the occasional harsher cramp that pulled through your entire abdomen.

You were certainly going through it, and the last two weeks had been too demanding. When a cramp cursed through you, you didn't hold back your whimpers. You just didn't have it in you to care. Joel could think whatever he wanted - no uterus, no opinion, that was as far as your thinking went in regards to him as you laid on the couch and wallowed in pain.

You had to give it to him, though. He was being remarkably quiet about your whole ordeal. You'd expected some dry comments, something about pulling yourself together, woman, you're not dying, but so far, there had been none of that, not even a distasteful scoff at your moans. You did see him looking at you from time to time, and it must've been your hazy mind, but you could've sworn he looked almost sorry for you. Almost.

Hours passed, and your pain didn't let up, if anything, it only intensified. While darkness slowly settled over everything outside, you did anything but on the couch. You turned and tossed with every new wave of pain, trying with all your might to find at least one position that alleviated your pain, but nothing helped. You had just flipped yourself over on your stomach with a groan, burying your face in one of the cushions when Joel spoke up behind you.

"Alright, enough. C'mon."

There was a light tap on your leg, then a more determined nudge when you didn't move. "Hey, c'mon. Move."

You just groaned into your pillow. I ain't movin' nowhere, it meant, but then your legs were being picked up and slowly lowered, until your knees touched the ground. Begrudgingly, and with a very fed-up expression on your face, you lifted your head from the pillow to shoot icy daggers at Joel, who was now kneeling beside you.

"Don't gimme that look," he grumbled. "Just tryin' to help ya. C'mon." He motioned at the sofa cushion. "Put your head down, get comfortable. N' put your knees a bit more together, so I can fit behind you. There you go." He instructed you until you were kneeling in front of the couch how he wanted to, your head resting on your arms on the sofa cushion. Attagirl. He shimmied behind you with some difficulty, his old knees not cooperating with him as fast as they once did, but then he finally sat behind you in a position similar to yours.

"What'cha doin," he heard you murmur into the cushion and promptly shushed you. "Shh. You about to see. Now don't freak, but you about to feel my hands on you."

You had no idea what the hell he was getting up to, but you didn't have the strength to care. For all you cared, he could've taken you off the chessboard in this very moment, and you wouldn't have minded. Everything hurt too much. It was all you could focus on.

You felt Joel's large hands on your waist, then your shirt being lightly pulled up. "Hey! What-"

You did turn around at that, furrowed brows and all, only to be met with Joel's fed-up stare. "You trust me or not?"

It took a moment, but eventually you put your head back down, not without your lips drawing into a pout. Course, you trusted him by now. Even if you didn't like it very much.

Joel waited until your head was settled on the cushion again, then he brought up your top a bit, folding it over once so it'd stay up over your tailbone. It had been a while, since he'd done this - hell, a long, long while - but he couldn't sit by no more and watch you toss and turn in pain. He'd had about enough of that.

He laid his palms flat on your waist, letting you get acclimated to his touch first so you wouldn't turn around and bite his head off once more in a second. Then, when he felt like a good enough time had passed, he lightly lifted his thumbs and pressed them down on your lower back, your tailbone right in the middle of them. Carefully, he brought his thumbs upwards, drawing two straight lines into your skin while keeping his pressure firm.

Your response was almost immediate. Joel could see your tense shoulders going down just a smidge, your back relaxing as you let out an elongated 'oh' sound, accompanied by a deep sigh. "Attagirl," he murmured, one corner of his lips slightly quirking up. "Just relax into it. I got you." He kept repeating the motion, digging his thumbs into your lower back to bring you some relief. A picture of how he'd once done the same for Sarah's mother flit across his brain. He quickly shook his head, dismissing the memory as quickly as it had appeared.

It felt like heaven, how Joel was working his thumbs over your aching back. It did nothing to alleviate your pain in the front, but it still felt a million times better than tossing and turning on the worn out cushions of this dusty couch. Just like you hadn't held back with your moans of pain, you were now not holding back your moans of enjoyment. You'd never felt anything quite like it before. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

You heard Joel chuckle quietly behind you. "I know a thing or two, kiddo. Been around the block once or twice."

You just hummed in agreement, then let out a load moan once more as his fingers dug into a specifically delicate spot. "Fuck, Joel. Yeah. Right there."

Joel was just glad you had your head buried in the cushions of the sofa. Otherwise you would've seen what your moans were doing to him, and boy, were they doing a number on him. He'd been able to ignore your first few moans of pleasure, biting down hard on his tongue and closing his eyes to focus, but then his mind started projecting pictures onto his closed lids of you, below instead in front of him, making those same sweet sounds of pleasure while he touched you elsewhere -

His eyes flew open and he grunted, willing the pictures away with all his might. He tried staring at his hands instead, but that was a dumb idea, seeing as how he could see your delicate skin being worked underneath his thumbs then, his fingers drawing out another moan from your lips -

Next was the wall. He could've drilled holes into the flaky wallpaper, with how hard he was staring at it. He could feel the tips of his ears burning with embarrassment and he could only hope, pray that you wouldn't turn around anytime soon to see how your moans were visibly affecting him, specifically in his crotch area.

"Fuck, oh my god, right there, Joel." Your voice was breathy and needy, and Joel's eye twitched. The hell had he gotten himself into with this?!

He prodded your back, trying to find the spot you'd just referred to. "Right here, sweetheart?"

He saw your head bob as you nodded, a satisfied hum vibrating through you. "Mhh, yeah. That's - oof - that's the spot."

He was digging himself his own grave, that much was for certain right now. He knew he should've stopped, should've went back to his armchair and returned to working on his gun, but he couldn't. It was like he was transfixed, glued in position like a fly to a trap. The whimpers falling from your mouth were too good to pass up, to sweet to resist. He hadn't had anything sweet in such a long time. And Joel was dying for a treat.

But he also knew it wasn't right. He knew it now and he knew it then, those few weeks ago when he'd grabbed you outside of your apartment and had kissed you out of the blue. You'd been shocked to say the least. The FEDRA guards had been on his heels and he'd needed to find a way to disperse of them quickly, and there you were, conveniently placed in his path like a lucky find, and his brain had snapped and he'd just gone for it. Pulled you into a kiss like you were his, hands flying up to your face to hold you in place. Your eyes had grown wide in shock and he'd briefly pulled his lips from yours to whisper to you. Work with me, please, I'll make it worth your while. His heart had drummed in his chest, a million silent prayers tumbling from his lips in the milli-second that it took you to subtly nod. A brief grin had flit over his lips before he'd crashed them back down on yours, kissing you like he'd been waiting to do so all day. And my god, had you worked with him. Your own hands had flown up to his head, one curling around the base of his neck and the other digging into his hair. He'd backed you up against the wall behind you, slowly walking you backwards until your back collided with the weathered bricks, and you had actually moaned into his mouth, much like you were doing now. It had sent his head reeling, and though Joel was not a man of faith, he'd briefly thanked whatever God he had seemingly pleased enough to allow him this sweet of a distraction.

The guards had trampled around the corner then, their heavy footsteps a stark contrast to the sweet moans falling from your lips. They'd cleared their throat - ahem - and Joel had unwillingly detangled himself from you enough to cast a look at them over his shoulder. What? A man can't make out with his girl in the street? Their eyes had wandered from you to him, and he saw then what they were seeing: a man in his mid-fifties pressing a what, late twenties? Early thirties? woman to the wall, her face all flustered, hair disheveled from where Joel's hands had dug into it. He'd seen the envy plastered on their faces, heard the murmurs. Lucky bastard. A triumphant grin had played around his lips, even though he knew he was treading on thin fucking ice. That he was indeed, a lucky bastard.

His luck had only lasted so long, though. When the guards had disappeared, he all but saw lucky stars in his eyes when you invited him up to your apartment. Was he really going to get that lucky?

Heavens, no. He'd been brought down back to earth swiftly when you had stood in front of him, crossed arms and expectant look on your face. So? What was that? He shrugged nonchalantly. What was what?

You, though, as he quickly came to learn, were not to be underestimated. You made him tell you in detail why the guards had been after him, then practically foamed at the mouth when he reluctantly explained what he'd been up to that afternoon.

It hadn't even been that big of a deal, just a casual, run-of-the-mill drug run, but you didn't seem to share his sentiment. Casual? Run-of-the-mill? He'd had to shush you from how loud you were screeching. Didn't you know the damn walls had ears?

My god, you could talk. Bicker, was the more fitting term. Or nag, really. You went on and on about how he'd went and done it now, how he'd fucked up your life, all because he had to go and get you involved in something that you had absolutely no interest in -

That was the first time your finger had flown into his face, all accusing and threatening, like you could do him any harm with just the tip of your index finger. Boy, had he been tempted to smack it out of his face. But he didn't. As much as he hated to admit it - you had a point. By putting you on the map as his lover, he had likely put you in a lot more danger than you were even realizing at the moment.

He'd tried to put you out of his mind. Even after you had made him promise to get you out of the QZ as a 'reward' - You owe me, Joel Miller - he'd tried not to think about you, not until his next run out of the city at least, which is when he planned to make good on his promise. Until then, he wouldn't think about you. You'd just turn into another headache, another problem he'd have to deal with, and he had enough of those as it was. Not to mention that he was almost twice your senior. He didn't have many principles anymore, but he still had some. And hell if he didn't at least stick to those anymore.

He kept his resolve up for all but two hours, when he was back in his apartment, laying in his bed and unable to sleep. You kept drifting through his mind, bickering and foaming at the mouth and red in the face, telling him how he'd went and fucked up your life, but more than that how your lips had felt on his, how sweet your mouth had tasted, how delicious your moans had sounded in his ear -

Fuck it. Joel growled and shoved his hand into his boxers. He'd rub one out to you, just once. Surely that would get you off his mind.

Well, it did, sort of. Until he was in bed again the next night, and he found himself with his cock in his hand once more, thinking about your lips and how they'd felt on him, and how they'd feel wrapped around his cock instead of his own hand -

He groaned as his release painted over his stomach, white silken strands mixing with the soft curls on his belly as he silently cursed you, then himself. The hell had he gotten himself into?

So of course he'd had no choice but to come and get you when he got intel that he was the subject of the upcoming raid, that very night. He barely had time to prepare two backpacks with the bare necessities before he went out to find you.

How all of that had brought him here, kneeling behind you as the sweetest moans fell from your mouth once more - he didn't know. Joel couldn't tell whether you were a blessing or a curse, if you were the price he had to pay or the price he received. Seeing as how his life had gone though, it was unlikely that you were the latter.

And yet he couldn't help but feel like he'd won when he brought his thumbs down on on the sides of your lower spine and earned a low moan in return, long and elongated and putting all kinds of pictures into his mind that his head momentarily fell to his chest, a pained expression painted across it.

No, no. You were both. A blessing and a curse.

Series Masterlist - Mobile Masterlist

Credits: plant divider by @strangergraphics

Read part 2 here!

A/N: Well, here we are. Like I said, the idea for this was born while needing comfort on my own period, and then this monstrosity flowed from my fingertips and eventually I realized that perhaps, 9.3k words were perhaps a bit too much for a oneshot, especially when said oneshot wasn't complete yet. Ahem. So! Here you have the first half of what is undoubtedly going to turn into a filthy, filthy second part. 🙃 I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, I was kicking my feet giggling while writing this, lol.

No pressure taglist:

@peekyourinterest @vickie5446 @noisynightmarepoetry @yesjazzywazzylove-blog @picketniffler

@frogsdeservelovetoo @orcasoul @ashleyfilm @elli3williams @missladym1981

@spotty-boo90 @iamsherlocked-1998 @axshadows @justajoelsreader @oldmenenthusiast

[yonch]

it's been 15 years and you can see better than ever

(design notes under the cut) (there are spoilers)

ok this got really long. here you go

sif:

ditched the cloak. it was collecting dust in their closet until recently, but they realized they don't need to cling to their grief so much anymore. someone else will need it more soon.

ditched the eyepatch. the prosthetic eye is a labor of love designed by isa, as is literally everything else they're wearing.

they cut their bangs finally and started braiding their hair back so it wouldn't obscure their vision as much anymore.

they like darker/tighter clothing and prefer function over form but unfortunately their gay ass boyfriend keeps treating them like a dress up doll so they're stuck wearing waistcoats and a fancy cloak. (they don't mind. it's designed to look like loop.) they keep flowers in their many pockets to give to people.

they're a woodworker in their free time. they don't usually talk about being any sort of savior so he just becomes sif the guy who's really good at carving birthday presents for people and also tags along with isa to charity parties and fundraisers

41 year old 5'1" they/he absolutely zero intention of Changing. bonded to isabeau. they adopted a kid who leo or i might post about some other time i think. her name is estelle.

isa: i'm not taking credit for the design that's by my friend @fembard /@leoweooo. i'll include his design notes

isa dresses mostly for comfort, he doesn't like wearing stuff that might get stained or ruined when he's dyeing clothes or chasing stelle around in the mud or something, all his fashion sense goes into his handiwork

he Changed a few more times over the 15yrs, eventually settled. picked up she/her pronouns again on the side but was never really able to ditch the name isabeau and he kinda ran out of names anyways...

kept the long hair, kept a few inches in height, very happy to fulfill the role of male (space) wife

can't ditch the kimono jacket it's the piece de resistance. odile influence and Wisening Of Age means its made with a little more knowledge of ka buan technique but still very clearly an Isa Design. the fabric is imported silk sif!!!!!!

39 year old Tall with a capital T he/she "i swear i'm not a weeaboo i'm just really into ka buan fashion" vaugardian indie clothing designer in your area help support this man in his attempts to use his family members as living advertisements for his brand

mira: with design input from @jastertown thank you my friend

i took a lot of inspiration for the sparkly, sheer fabric on her dress from euphrasie. she's not head housemaiden yet because she doesn't feel like she's ready but everybody knows it'll be her

speaking of inspiration. she's been taking a lot of fashion cues from a certain lady in dormont that she thought was kind of scary, but it turns out she's very nice? they're besties now.

she got rid of the earrings for a little bit but then she realized she just liked how they look on her. so now they go ding ding! it's for her and nobody else, and that's how she likes it.

moved her ornaments to her skirt because they ding ding more often there. her necklace also jingles with merriment.

38 year old she/her advanced cisgender+ legend who's realizing that people are trying to get her to be the pope but all she really wants to do is write yaoibait fiction that looks like it came straight off of ao3

odile:

my glorious hag. she started shrinking about 3 years ago. all those years of bending over books has finally caught up to her. her hips are fuuuuuucked. but she has a sick cane that sif carved for her so everything's okay

she was already pretty comfortable and settled in her sense of style when she was nearing 50 so i don't think she would change much. darker clothing maybe. ditched the high-waisted pants for some looser slacks.

she's started writing a familytale of her own. the only person she's told about it is bonbon, who caught her up way past their bedtime, and scribbled all over one of the pages. she'll pass it on to sif when the time's right, after she's written down everything she can remember about their family.

64 year old she/her wasian researcher recovering from hernia surgery who's getting really into things like "political activism" and "body craft law reformation in ka bue" and "making sure people aren't sourcing their hrt from back alleys"

bonnie:

prefers to go by boniface these days. it's cooler. more mature. please stop calling me bonbon that's a nickname from when i was 10 guys c'mon guys ugh fine frin you can still call me bonbon but not around my girlfriends ok (nobody calls them boniface except for odile)

speaking of which they have 3 butch lesbian girlfriends. this got established as a joke but i think they have it in them. they're still young!!!!!!! they should be at the club!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

they traveled for a while with everybody but eventually settled down back in bambouche to start a little family owned restaurant with nille featuring dishes from all over the globe. people travel from all over to get a taste of boniface's good eats... bambouche is bustling. (they have a few recipes that are sourced from the country. they meet people every once in a while who find something achingly familiar about it, and they usually direct those people to jouvente to get in contact with frin.)

26 year old they/them "i dont know how tall i am but i'm taller than za" chef cooker whose restaurant keeps lighting on fire because this time i swear nille i can figure out how to do cooking craft i swear i wont explode the kitchen this time please i promise

loop:

ok. this is where lozy gets to just talk about what he thinks happens post game. i think they stick around for way longer than they really should and follow the crew around on their travels (mostly invisibly) because they're sooo fucking scared of change they're sooo scared and they're so scared of their wish fucking up beyond belief. they're kind of incapable of aging or dying in this body and theyre like permanently 26 which is what spurs them to finally move on.

i think they go back to their timeline eventually after making a Brand New Wish to "go back to their real family." alas the universe leads and we can only follow. and it turns out loop has actually made a real family in stardust's world also. this is my justification for why they can pop in between sasasap and isat worlds without much repercussion. i think they're always permanently loop shaped in isat but i imagine they can probably go back to their original body in their home timeline... might design that later. who knows. i'm fucked like that

i just think they deserve a chance for their own happy ending you know. isat's a game about how it's never too late to communicate and how you shouldn't punish yourself forever and ever. and i think theyve punished themself enough you know.

ok tank you for reading if you read this far. it's really big and long so i would understand if you didn't. but i hope you liked it. thoughts appreciated. here's a little something for the people who read all the way through.

[olderthannetfic]

hi, as someone who is tragically gen Z and only ever read AO3, can I ask: what was so great about LiveJournal? Like, I know that there were fics posted there (and I've even read about the "purge", so I get why it isn't used anymore) and that it was sort of a forum-type thing. But what I don't understand, wouldn't Tumblr fill in the latter function? How was that site any different? I see a lot of people reminiscing about it and I'm confused

--

A big factor in LJ's greatness is timing and nostalgia.

It was genuinely great, but it wasn't quite as great as all of the Lo, shall the Golden Age ne'er come again? posts suggest.

LJ arrived at a pivotal time in the development of the internet both in terms of technical stuff and how many people had access. Many fans who are now in their thirties to fifties first discovered fandom through LJ and many were at a time in their lives when they were feeling energetic and up to making lots of new friends—and to figuring out how to make a site work for them.

I got on LJ in 2002 when it required invites. Fandom arrived in droves in 2003, first via coordinated campaigns to get invites to key people and then when LJ opened up free account creation to everyone. Back then, LJ's features sucked. It was impossible to search properly, among other things. At its height (2005-7, let's say), there was a reasonable site search, and fans had developed all sorts of community resources for finding each other.

People often remember this phase but not the early days of suckitude.

This development parallels how Tumblr used to not have that private chat feature and how a lot of fuckyeah[whatever] type tumblrs have helped curate the site and make it much more usable for fans. Fandom draining away from LJ after strikethrough also parallels people draining away from Tumblr after the purge.

There are people who talk about Tumblr the way my cohort talks about LJ...

And to the shock of no one, they are people who came of age on Tumblr, who found fandom via Tumblr, who were on Tumblr during pivotal times in their lives and ones when they had energy to make friends and figure out how a site worked.

Those same Tumblrites are now making all the same geriatric-sounding posts we LJers do about how other sites lack the required features to be good for fandom while missing that 90% of tumblr's "features" at its height (2012-2016, let's say) were actually fan-created and were basically the same as any fandom newsletter or links page or all the versions of this kind of personal curation stretching back to long before the internet existed.

What life phase you hit a site at matters.

--

With all of that said, no, LJ was not a forum. It was a blogging site with threaded comments.

The key point to understand is that conversation was always happening in a specific person's space. Unlike on a true forum, people were in the comments on a particular post in a journal owned by another fan. (On a forum, there's the first post in a thread, but it's still more of a communal space with less of a hierarchy.)

Overall, the LJ format can have a feeling a bit like you're over at someone's house for tea. There's more of a sense of intimacy and also behaving yourself in front of community members.

Tumblr being obscure and impossible to find anything in does give it some of the same vibe relative to Twitter, but it's still part of modern social media that tries to shove every rando into the face of every other rando.

But it wasn't just vibes: LJ also had robust privacy features where you could lock a post to this or that group of friends. You could moderate your comments section properly. Tumblr has far fewer controls to force people to behave or leave on a technical level.

--

The biggest thing many people miss about LJ is the threaded comments. At least by late LJ and on Dreamwidth, you can expand and collapse threads, making it far easier to deal with a massive comments section. But more than that, things are properly threaded with multiple levels of hierarchy that are all easily visible in the same place.

On Tumblr, it used to be extremely difficult to find all of the actual commentary on a post. Nowadays, it's far easier, but you still have to scroll chronologically, and multiple versions of a post with a long chain of commentary may be much more divorced from each other than what would happen in a LJ comments section.

--

But could we use Tumblr pretty much how we used LJ?

We could.

I do.

--

The key things that people tend to miss about LJ, aside from the younger and more excited version of themselves or the friends they've lost since then, are:

Heavily text-based

It may sound odd on the modern internet, but there are a lot of people whose brains don't like or handle an image-heavy site well. They were everywhere in SF book fandom. They were everywhere on the early internet. Today, they're hanging out on Dreamwidth and still going to their SF cons. They're usually not on Tumblr.

You could follow the discussion

Threaded comments help, but a lot of it is about having some place you can check for updates. It wasn't actually that easy to follow big LJ discussions unless you were subscribed to comments and reading along as things were happening instead of coming along after the entire mass of comments had been left.

The tone of the discussion is intellectual and one's enemies are "idiots", not "problematic"

All this requires is a penchant for longwindedness and an itchy blocking finger to remove anyone slinging ad hominems from the comments section.

On tumblr, it's as simple as conversations happening in the replies on a popular account and that person not tolerating suibaiting and threats.

(And make no mistake, a lot of LJ discussion was in the comments on popular accounts, not spread equally between everyone's.)

It does require that multiple people like that tone and want to engage in that way, but lots of people do want to.

--

These days, I interact with tumblr by checking my askbox and reading my activity page. The vast, vast majority of my posts are ones where I'm the OP, so if I block someone, they're booted from the discussion entirely.

For me... yeah, Tumblr functions almost exactly like LJ.

Also like LJ, while I'm hosting the conversation, if you hang around, you'll see the same people again and again in the comments. They may or may not also host that kind of conversation in their space, and there's a larger pool of lurkers who have some notion of which people count as regulars. Other people are watching from the shadows, enjoying or deriding the takes of the usual crowd.

People presumably do like reading my lengthy commentary or they wouldn't be here, but my tumblr wouldn't be popular like this without a healthy pool of other people who chime in regularly. It's not just that there are more people: it's that you see the same people over time. There's a bit more sense of place and community than on some parts of the internet.

--

So, in my opinion, the failure to just recreate LJ fandom on Tumblr was a skill issue.

Threaded comments were great, but LJ culture came from mailing lists, and mailing lists had the same issue as tumblr with the diverging threads.

We solved that back then by clipping out only the parts we wanted to respond to (you'd write "snip" around the quotation to show it was incomplete). We solved the smaller LJ issue by linking to other posts we were referencing and doing discussion link roundups. We solve it on tumblr by, again, linking to what we're talking about and even quoting multiple reblog chains in our own reblog of just one chain.

--

Tumblr's technical features and even general crap-ness aren't really the problem. 90s and early 00s sites regularly went down for periods of time unthinkable today.

The missing piece is people.

When one is in an active fandom with others who curate or with friends who let one know what's up, a site with imperfect features is easy to figure out and retrofit for fandom's needs. When one already feels out of touch and is between fannish passions—or at least fannish passions anyone else cares about—seeing the potential in a new site is hard.

--

Threaded comments are different and better.

LJ's built-in way to see everyone's blog in your own style was better. The automatic timestamps and the ease of seeing a paginated archive of an entire blog was better than tumblr's endless scroll and lack of clear date labeling. But some of that can be fixed with xkit or knowing your way around tumblr well.

A lot of it is nostalgia for the lj era and a refusal to take the time to figure out how to use tumblr in an oldschool internet way.

--

So by all means, people, weigh in about what made LJ great or how the culture felt at the time...

But if I see one more god damn response going "You can't have a conversation on tumblr!" in reply to my tumblr, which contains nothing but conversation, I am coming for you.

[lightyaoigami]

☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ how to resume ⋆｡ﾟ☾｡⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎ ﾟ

after 10 years & 6 jobs in corporate america, i would like to share how to game the system. we all want the biggest payoff for the least amount of work, right?

know thine enemy: beating the robots

i see a lot of misinformation about how AI is used to scrape resumes. i can't speak for every company but most corporations use what is called applicant tracking software (ATS).

no respectable company is using chatgpt to sort applications. i don't know how you'd even write the prompt to get a consumer-facing product to do this. i guarantee that target, walmart, bank of america, whatever, they are all using B2B SaaS enterprise solutions. there is not one hiring manager plinking away at at a large language model.

ATS scans your resume in comparison to the job posting, parses which resumes contain key words, and presents the recruiter and/or hiring manager with resumes with a high "score." the goal of writing your resume is to get your "score" as high as possible.

but tumblr user lightyaoigami, how do i beat the robots?

great question, y/n. you will want to seek out an ATS resume checker. i have personally found success with jobscan, which is not free, but works extremely well. there is a free trial period, and other ATS scanners are in fact free. some of these tools are so sophisticated that they can actually help build your resume from scratch with your input. i wrote my own resume and used jobscan to compare it to the applications i was finishing.

do not use chatgpt to write your resume or cover letter. it is painfully obvious. here is a tutorial on how to use jobscan. for the zillionth time i do not work for jobscan nor am i a #jobscanpartner i am just a person who used this tool to land a job at a challenging time.

the resume checkers will tell you what words and/or phrases you need to shoehorn into your bullet points - i.e., if you are applying for a job that requires you to be a strong collaborator, the resume checker might suggest you include the phrase "cross-functional teams." you can easily re-word your bullets to include this with a little noodling.

don't i need a cover letter?

it depends on the job. after you have about 5 years of experience, i would say that they are largely unnecessary. while i was laid off, i applied to about 100 jobs in a three-month period (#blessed to have been hired quickly). i did not submit a cover letter for any of them, and i had a solid rate of phone screens/interviews after submission despite not having a cover letter. if you are absolutely required to write one, do not have chatgpt do it for you. use a guide from a human being who knows what they are talking about, like ask a manager or betterup.

but i don't even know where to start!

i know it's hard, but you have to have a bit of entrepreneurial spirit here. google duckduckgo is your friend. don't pull any bean soup what-about-me-isms. if you truly don't know where to start, look for an ATS-optimized resume template.

a word about neurodivergence and job applications

i, like many of you, am autistic. i am intimately familiar with how painful it is to expend limited energy on this demoralizing task only to have your "reward" be an equally, if not more so, demoralizing work experience. i don't have a lot of advice for this beyond craft your worksona like you're making a d&d character (or a fursona or a sim or an OC or whatever made up blorbo generator you personally enjoy).

and, remember, while a lot of office work is really uncomfortable and involves stuff like "talking in meetings" and "answering the phone," these things are not an inherent risk. discomfort is not tantamount to danger, and we all have to do uncomfortable things in order to thrive. there are a lot of ways to do this and there is no one-size-fits-all answer. not everyone can mask for extended periods, so be your own judge of what you can or can't do.

i like to think of work as a drag show where i perform this other personality in exchange for money. it is much easier to do this than to fight tooth and nail to be unmasked at work, which can be a risk to your livelihood and peace of mind. i don't think it's a good thing that we have to mask at work, but it's an important survival skill.

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ good luck ⋆｡ﾟ☾｡⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎ ﾟ｡⋆

[archiveikemen]

"Chaotic Night" Collection Event: Bonus Story

Ring Schwartz

This is a fan-made translation solely for entertainment purposes with no guaranteed perfection; expect mistakes, grammatical errors, and some creative liberties. All original content and media used belongs to Cybird. Please support the game by buying their stories and playing their games.

Read this before interacting

creds. to nagi for sending me the story ♡

Due to the effects of an extract derived from Queen of The Night flowers, the Cursed Ones had a change in appearance.

Amidst all that, someone grabbed my arm and pulled me into an empty room.

…

The moment I entered the room, I frantically looked around to see the identity of that person. He was none other than—

Kate: Ring…? 

The uncertainty in my voice was because he looked different from usual. 

Ring had a pair of animal ears on his head, and a beautiful tail on his bottom. 

On top of that, those eyes that were usually calm and the colour of a water’s surface were dyed red. 

Ring: Um… sorry for dragging you along without explanation. 

Despite the change in eye colour, the intensity of his gaze remained the same. 

Under that gaze, even though I wasn’t guilty of anything, I felt flustered. 

Ring: But in order to protect, there was no other way. 

Kate: To protect…? 

Ring: To protect Nica and Dari, I had to take you away.

(... Ah, it's those two from Vogel.) 

It was embarrassing that for a moment, I thought he meant that he was trying to protect me. 

Ring: It’ll be trouble if something were to happen to you from going near Nica and Dari who are acting weird now. 

Kate: “Something”...? 

Ring: Y-you want me to say it…!? It’s, you know, that sort of erotic thing…! 

(Erotic thing…) 

Kate: Uhh… even if you weren't concerned about that, I would never do such a thing to those two, you know?

Kate: Besides, I’m worried about everyone who had their appearances changed, so I want to head back… 

Ring: S-stuff like being worried… y-you’re always so casually saying such adorable things… 

Ring: It’s just as I thought… even if you don’t have that sort of intention, just being near you is dangerous. 

Ring: Doesn't matter how you think. I can't allow you near them. 

Kate: But if you do this… won’t you be in danger yourself for being closed in the same room as me? 

Ring: That’s not a problem at all. 

Kate: … Why so? 

Ring: Even if I get seduced by you, I don’t know how to—... 

Ring: A-anyway! It just won’t be a problem! 

Kate: W-wha…

Ring: Whatever it is, I won’t allow you to appear before Nica and Dari until this whole situation resolves. 

Ring: You MUST remain where my eyes can see you. Got it? 

While saying that, Ring went to sit in front of the door like he was going to physically block me from leaving the room. 

(Looks like it’ll be hard to talk him out of this.) 

(But I don't want to sit here idling while Ring keeps an eye on me…) 

(What can I do in this situation… oh, right!) 

Kate: Ring. If you don't mind, can I examine you?

Ring: Examine me…? 

Kate: Roger said that there are still many things unknown about the Queen of The Night flower. 

Kate: So I’m thinking that if I examine someone who went through the change, it’ll be helpful for the other Cursed Ones… 

Ring: Helpful for Cursed Ones… in that case, being cooperative temporarily shouldn't be a problem… I think. 

Ring: … Got it. I don’t mind if it’s myself you’re examining. 

Kate: Thank you so much! Can I start with touching the places that changed? 

Ring: These ears and tail? Well, those aren’t any weird parts so it should be fine… 

Kate: Okay then. Pardon me.

I touched the pair of animal ears on Ring’s head. 

Kate: The fur is thin and soft… very much like Ale’s ears. These are dog ears. 

Ring: I- I see… 

Kate: Can you sense it when I touch them? 

Ring: … Yes. 

(So they have sensory functions and aren’t purely ornamental. In that case…) 

I moved closer to Ring’s dog ears and whispered.

Kate: Can you hear me…? 

Ring: Uwagh! D-don’t whisper in my ear all of a sudden…! 

Kate: I-I’m sorry! I thought I’d examine if you could hear through them… 

Ring: N-no, it'd be fine i-if you told me beforehand… I was just a little surprised… 

Ring: Uhh… I could hear your voice through the ears. … You can continue examining. 

Seeing how frightened Ring was, I figured that continuing with the examination would cause him distress. 

In the corner of my eye, I noticed something shaking. 

(... Hm?) 

I took a better look at it and saw that Ring’s tail was wagging vigorously.

(Tail wagging is what a dog does when it’s happy, right?) 

(Could it be… whispering in Ring’s ear made him happy…?) 

Ring: … Robin? 

Ring tilted his head and stared at me as I stood there deep in thought. At the same time, his tail kept on wagging non-stop. 

(Maybe Ring didn’t notice it himself… I’ll give it another try.) 

My initial plan was to do a proper examination, but my curiosity and mischief got the better of me. 

Kate: I whispered into your right ear earlier, so I’ll try it on the left ear this time.

Ring: Y-yeah… sure.

I moved to his other side from behind and gently put my lips close to Ring’s left dog ear. 

Kate: … Ring.

Ring: UWAH…! 

The instant I whispered into it, Ring jumped back in surprise. 

Kate: A-are you okay? 

Ring: My ears aren’t okay… my dog ears… did they melt? 

Kate: Melt…? No, they look the same as before. 

(... Only that his tail is now wagging even harder.)

Ring still didn’t notice his tail wagging faster than one’s eyes could catch. 

It looked exactly like Ale getting a tasty snack. 

Ring: Hearing your voice and feeling your slight breath against my ear… felt like my ear was going to melt off… 

Ring’s face was bright red as he covered the dog ears with his palms. 

(As I thought, the ears are sensitive… although it's for the purpose of examining this strange phenomenon, I ended up doing something naughty.) 

Ring: …

Ring: sigh… you’re sly indeed.

Kate: Huh…? 

Ring: It’s unfair that I’m the only one feeling embarrassed here. 

Ring: … Can I touch your ears too? 

Kate: My ears…? 

I was surprised by the unexpected question, and he gently touched my ears with his fingertips. 

Kate: …! 

Ring: Even your ears… are small and soft… cute… 

Kate: I-I don’t think my ears are cute or anything like that…

Ring: That’s what I’d been thinking until now. … But everything about you is cute. 

He only touched my ears, but Ring was staring so fervently at me… 

I felt loved all over, not just my ears. 

(T-this is embarrassing…) 

It got too awkward and I tried to avert my gaze, but… 

Ring: … What are you looking at apart from me? 

Ring: I’m the sole other person here, so you’ll look only at me. 

Kate: … 

Hearing his plea in that heartrending voice, I could no longer take my eyes off him. 

(Besides… his tail was now wagging really hard.) 

Kate: U-umm… did you really enjoy it that much? 

Ring: … E-e-en-enjoy!? 

Kate: You were wagging your tail so much while touching my ears… I’m not sure if you have a thing for ears or… 

Ring: I-I don’t especially like ears… 

Ring: Or should I say, what was that about my tail—...!? 

Ring finally noticed just how hard his tail was wagging. 

Ring: Ahh, t-that’s not…! It… it’s just shaking on its own…! 

He tightly grabbed the base of the tail in an effort to stop it, but it was fruitless. 

Ring: Ggh…! You ARE dangerous after all! This is my own body, and yet it’s not listening to me…! 

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

Darius’ Voice: Ring, I heard a voice… are you in there? I’m coming in. 

Darius: Here you are, Ring. Miss Fairytale Keeper is here too. 

Ring: Dari, no! Her eyes are dangerous! 

Darius: … What do you mean? 

Ring: If you look into them, you’ll get sucked in and your tail will start wagging— whatever, it’s just dangerous! 

Darius: I don’t feel anything at all. Aren't you the only one getting spellbound by her, Ring? 

Ring: W-what do you mean spellbound…! 

Darius: Either way, you shouldn't be alone with her if she makes you feel uneasy…

Darius: Wouldn’t it be better to stay somewhere everyone can keep an eye on her? 

Ring: T-that’s… 

Darius: … You see, Ring. I’m concerned about you the same way you are about me. 

Darius: That’s because we’re family, isn’t it? 

Ring: … Yeah. 

Darius: Come on, let's go. Nica’s waiting for us. 

Ring, who was led out of the room by Darius, looked at me as though he had something to say… but he left without a word in the end. 

His tail, which had been wagging energetically just a moment ago, was now hanging limply. 

(Like a dog feeling lonely after being separated from its owner…) 

(... No, no, no. If I have to put it that way, wouldn't Ring’s owner be Darius?) 

(Stuff about feeling lonely after being separated from me… it must be a misunderstanding.) 

= Flashback Start =

Darius: Under the effects of the flower, just like on the night of the Queen of The Night flower, our sins are heightened.

Darius: … Ring’s sin is “jealousy”. 

Darius: So even if Ring’s words and actions come off as suggestive today… it’s because unlike ordinary people such as yourself, we’re Cursed Ones. 

Darius: Don’t get the wrong idea, Miss Fairytale Keeper. 

Kate: U-understood…

= Flashback End =

(It was indeed as Darius said. Ring only touched me because of his curse’s sin…) 

(But…) 

On this night when everything was turned into chaos due to the Queen of The Night flower, my feelings aren't influenced by anything because I’m not cursed.

So that means… my heart racing because of Ring’s honest gaze and his hot fingertips touching my ears— were undeniably real, even on this chaotic night. 

[prokopetz]

Code Green

A game for 3–7 players, about being where you're not supposed to be.

Last night, you were suspended in a tube of brightly coloured goo in an underground research facility, operated by an organisation whose three-letter initialism's meaning is strictly need-to-know. This morning, someone noticed your tube was empty. Nobody has determined how that happened yet, and you're not inclined to stick around until they figure it out!

Or, in other words, it's been nearly a whole week since I got that massive revision to Space Gerbils out the door, and apparently my brain has decided that's enough of a break. This thing was written start to finish in under 12 hours, so let the circumstances of its authorship guide your expectations. Special thanks go once again to Caro Asercion, whose micro-RPG Dwindle introduced me to the design space I'm fucking around with here. Go buy their stuff.

Anyway:

What You'll Need

Code Green is a tabletop RPG for one game moderator (GM) and up to six players. Each player will need a copy of the Profile Grid, below, as well as three tokens of some sort: dice, coins, beads, etc. You'll also need at least five six-sided dice (for the whole group, not per player, though it's fine if each player has their own set). If you're using dice for tokens, it's recommended that the dice you plan to roll be visually distinguishable in case they land on someone's Profile Grid.

Rolling Dice

There are two ways you'll be asked to roll dice in this game: rolling d66, and rolling a dice pool.

To roll d66, roll a six-side die twice, reading the first roll as the "tens" place and the second roll as the "ones" place, yielding a number in the range from 11 to 66. For example, if you rolled a 3 and then a 5, your result is 35. You may also be asked to flip a d66 roll; to do this, take your result and swap the digits without re-rolling. In the preceding example, if you flipped your roll of 35, your new result would be 53.

To roll a dice pool, pick up the indicated number of six-side dice, roll them, and take the highest individual result. Duplicates have no special significance. For example, if you rolled a pool of three dice and got a 2, a 4, and a 4, your result would be 4. If you would ever roll a pool of zero or fewer dice, roll two dice and take the lowest instead.

Character Creation

Each player should create their own character. There are three things about your character which are always true:

You are newly born into the world. You may know things about the world (e.g., from your programming, having read them on a computer terminal, etc.), but you haven't experienced them.

You are implausibly good at remaining inconspicuous; unless you're deliberately drawing attention or doing something which requires a dice roll, humans will almost always fail to spot you.

You are not human. You can decide what that means.

To find out what else is true about your character, roll or choose three times from the Form table, and three times from the Function table, placing your results into the correspondingly labelled slots on the Profile Grid, below, in any order you please. Your three results from each table should be different; if you elected to roll and get the same entry multiple times, flip your result, and re-roll if it's still a duplicate.

Think about what your three Form traits and three Function traits imply about your character's physical makeup, but don't set anything in stone just yet – you'll see why not in a moment.

Finally, roll a six-sided die five times, and record the results in the order in which they're received. The resulting five-digit number is the only name your character has when play begins.

Table 1: Form (d66)

11–12. Blood 13–14. Bones 15–16. Brain 21–22. Claws 23–24. Ears 25–26. Eyes 31–32. Guts 33–34. Hands 35–36. Heart 41–42. Hair 43–44. Legs 45–46. Lungs 51–52. Nose 53–54. Skin 55–56. Tail 61–62. Teeth 63–64. Tongue 65–66. Wings

Table 2: Function (d66)

11–12. Accelerated 13–14. Autonomous 15–16. Auxiliary 21–22. Cryogenic 23–24. Cryptic 25–26. Elastic 31–32. Electric 33–34. Entropic 35–36. Invasive 41–42. Invulnerable 43–44. Kinetic 45–46. Magnetic 51–52. Phasing 53–54. Polymorphic 55–56. Projectile 61–62. Pyrogenic 63–64. Telescopic 65–66. Toxic

Playing the Game

Play proceeds in a series of scenes. In each scene, the GM will set the stage: a challenge to overcome, a peril to escape, a mystery to investigate, etc. Given the nature of your characters, most things will be mysteries to you!

Initial Token Placement

Once the stage has been set, place each of your three tokens on a different square on your Profile Grid. If you have no preference, you can roll d66 for each token and place it in the square whose marked numeric range contains the number you rolled, flipping or re-rolling your result if you get a square which already contains a token. The placement of these tokens represents your initial state when the scene opens. Depending on the nature of your character, this may be reflected by a shifting of internal focus, or by a physical transformation.

Participation

To participate in the scene, simply tell the GM what your character does; the GM will describe how the world responds, and ask what you do next. Whenever you wish – or are forced – to do something more than lurk and observe, you are obliged to make a test.

Making Tests

To make a test, first choose a pair of traits – one Form trait, and one Function trait – with which to face the challenge. For example, if your Form traits are Legs, Tail and Teeth, and your Function traits are Cryptic, Invulnerable and Phasing, you might test your Invulnerable Legs against the trouble at hand.

Next, count the number of tokens present in the rows extending from each of the chosen traits. The illustration below shows which squares would be consulted in the preceding example:

Next, roll a dice pool containing a number of dice equal to the number of tokens present on squares extending from the chosen traits. Do not count a token twice if it's on the square where the two traits intersect (e.g., the green square in the illustration above). In the event that no tokens fall on squares extending from appropriate traits, remember that you are allowed to roll a pool of zero dice by rolling two dice and taking the lowest rather than the highest.

Finally, compare your result to the following table:

1–3. Less than human. Whatever you'd intended to try still happens, but it cannot overcome human opposition (or adversity which would challenge a typical human), and any lasting effects are transitory and easily explained away. 4–5. Mostly human. Your effort can contend with human opposition (or circumstances which would challenge a competent human), and its lasting effects make it obvious that someone (or something) has been interfering with matters. 6. More than human. Your effort easily brushes aside any human opposition, and its lasting effects are impossible to rationalise as anything other than the intervention of inhuman forces.

Without Applicable Traits

In the event that you're forced to make a test and no possible pairing of your traits is applicable, you don't get to roll anything, not even with a pool of zero dice; simply resolve the outcome as though you'd rolled a result of 1–3. Other characters may attempt to preserve you from this fate by assisting you, in which case you roll one die per assisting friend; see below for more details.

Assistance

If you wish to assist another character in making a test, consult your own Profile Grid, considering only those squares which contain tokens. Only the specific pairs of traits represented by the squares on which your tokens fall are eligible for assistance; for example, if one of your tokens falls on the intersection of Cryptic and Teeth, you may assist with Cryptic Teeth, but not any other pair of traits involving Cryptic or Teeth unless those squares also have tokens on them.

If you're able to identify an eligible pair of traits that seems applicable to the test at hand, explain how you're using it to help, and hand the player making the test one extra die. Any number of characters may assist on a given test.

Providing assistance neither requires nor permits your character to adapt (see below) – it needs to be your own test for that!

Adapting

After resolving a test, your character adapts, shifting focus or form to reflect what they've learned. Take one token of your choice from your character sheet, and move it to a different square which doesn't already contain one. You can move any token you wish, but it must end up on a different square than the one it started on unless no valid destinations are available. Adapting is not optional, and must be carried out after every test.

Suffering Strain

If whatever you're making a test against is particularly strenuous or dangerous, you might suffer strain as a consequence. Strain will often be incurred on a result of 1–3, and rarely on a result of 4–5; only the most foolhardy efforts will incur strain even on a result of 6!

To incur strain, roll d66, and place a small X on the square on your Profile Grid whose indicated numeric range contains the number you rolled. If there's a token on that square, immediately move it to an empty square of your choice, unless fewer than three unmarked squares now remain; in that case, simply remove the token entirely.

For the remainder of the scene, tokens may not be moved to any marked square. In addition, if you suffer further strain, and the square indicated by your d66 roll is already marked, your character is incapacitated, and may not participate in tests at all until they recover.

All strain is cleared – and any discarded tokens restored – at the end of each scene. Incapacitated characters also recover at this time.

[heich0e]

suna recently moved into a new place.

the building he's in now is much nicer than the last one he lived in, and in an even better part of town, too—it's a newly built place that's still only half-occupied, leaving him with so few neighbours on his floor that he claims sometimes it feels like he's got the whole building to himself.

living in a new-build (a half-build, technically, since there's still active construction happening in some of the units on other floors) presents its own unique challenges, though. since no one's ever lived in his unit before him, he's sort of like the guinea pig; the first to discover which of the design elements are functional and which aren't. like how the tap in his bathroom had accidentally been installed backwards, so the hot and cold water markers were switched—a realization he regrettably only came to after stepping into an ice cold shower for the first time.

or how the intercom system in the building isn't quite up and running yet, so every time he has guests over he has to come all the way down to the lobby to let them in himself.

"wow, what are the chances of running into you here?" rintarou drawls as he opens the building door for you, allowing you to step in out of the cool night outside.

pretty good, you'd wager, because he knew you were coming and had to be here to let you in.

you're too tired to make any sort of snarky remark though, shooting him a pointed look instead as you step past him in the doorway and into the lobby's warmth. coming to suna's place had been a last minute decision made late in the evening when a poorly-timed (or well-timed on his part) text landed in your inbox; you weren't dressed for the weather, but had been close enough to walk from the little bar where a few of your friends had gathered that evening.

"cold out?" he asks you as he lets the door swing shut, turning and following along behind you as you begin making your way towards the elevator.

"freezing," you reply, still holding your coat tightly around your frame. you're narrowly fighting back the way your teeth threaten to chatter.

"sorry, I came down as soon as you called to tell me you were on your way," rintarou frowns a little as he takes in the way you have your arms wrapped around yourself for warmth.

"no, i know," you wave off his concern, pressing the UP button on the panel next to the elevator in the lobby. "i should have called sooner but i didn't want to take my hands out of my pockets since it was so cold on the walk here."

you'd only fished your cellphone out of your pocket when the building was in sight a few metres down the road, preserving every little bit of warmth you could for as long as possible.

"you know, you wouldn't need to wait for me to let you in if you'd just let me give you a key fob."

the elevator doors slide open to take you both up to rintarou's floor, and your glance over at him from the corner of your eye as the two of you step inside.

you don't want one of suna's key fobs. firstly because he'd already broken the only spare he had thanks (indirectly) to you—having once tried to toss it down from his third floor balcony while you were waiting out front in the middle of the night. it had landed on the pavement underfoot and shattered into approximately a million pieces—leaving him down to only the one connected to his own key ring. he'd told you it really wasn't that expensive to get his building manager to replace it, but you'd vehemently spurned the suggestion, which brings you to the second point—

having a key to rintarou's place (however temporary) just feels too... serious.

too serious for you and him, and whatever this decidedly unserious thing between you is, anyway.

"who's to say you won't destroy that one too?" you brush off his suggestion as the elevator doors slide closed.

the inside of the elevator still has those thick, padded blankets hanging up to protect the mirrored walls while they finish construction, and still have people constantly moving boxes and furniture and whatever else into the vacant units units. it makes the already confined space feel even smaller, and you try to ignore it as suna presses the button for his floor on the panel off to the side of the doors.

"fine, freeze then," rintarou shrugs, but you can feel his eyes on the side of your face.

"the cold wasn't even the bad part," you sigh, wincing a little as you shift your weight from one foot to the other. "i haven't worn these boots out before and my feet are killing me."

suna glances down at your feet, taking in the knee high boots you have on your feet.

"oh," he says, his tone a bit different now in a way that makes you look at him suspiciously. "those are nice."

"you're such a freak," you laugh under your breath and he peeks up at you without a hint of guilt on his face.

"i mean it," he insists.

"i know you do," you snort.

the elevator dips slightly as it arrives to rintarou's floor, and it makes you wobble a bit unsteadily. rintarou wraps his arm around your waist to steady you without missing a beat.

"they really hurt that bad?" he asks, peering down at you curiously.

from this close you can see just how unfairly long his eyelashes are, and how they flutter as he blinks down at you. you hate how nice it is to feel his warmth seeping into you when he holds you like this. you hate the thought of him stepping away again even more.

"yeah, it's my own fault though," you answer quietly.

the elevator doors slide open, and you move to step out, but rintarou rushes ahead of you. you watch, confused, as he crouches down just on the other side of the threshold of the sliding doors.

"really?" you ask him with a laugh, rolling your eyes as he waits for you to climb up on his back.

but it's late, and you're tired, and your feet hurt.

(and you really like how warm he is, even if you'll never say it.)

so you carefully hop on, wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist, and let him carry you off in the direction of his apartment—endlessly grateful for how few units on his floor are leased, and therefore how your chances of running into anyone in your current state are lowered.

you can only see the slightest bit of rintarou's profile while he carries you like this, but you can tell even from the glimpse you get that he's looking awfully smug as he carries you to his door.

"don't look so pleased with yourself," you mutter, squeezing your legs a bit tighter around his waist in warning.

rintarou's hands slip down from where he was loosely holding you behind your knees until they grasp your thighs and the leather upper of your boots.

"these really are nice you know," suna remarks quietly, his thumbs brushing along some of the stitching at the sides.

"i'm not keeping them on in bed," you warn him flatly, his apartment door now in sight at the other end of the hall.

"why not?" suna sounds so plaintive it almost makes you laugh. his grip slips all the way down to your ankles now. "it's not like they can hurt your feet while you'll be on your back, anyway."

"rintarou!" you hiss, slapping one of your hands over his mouth to shut him up, scandalized at what he's said in the middle of the hallway—lack of neighbours or not.

you feel his lips spread in an obnoxious grin under your palm, but you don't dare pull it away.

"keep it up and you're getting thrown off the balcony next, pervert."

[vandal-flower]

Great Power Comes with No Responsibilities

Ror men with a powerful but lazy s/o.

Requested by 🦅 anon.

Characters: Qin Shi Huang, Jack the Ripper, Buddha and Loki.

Warnings: A bit of angst in Jack's part. 😶

Notes: Do you think I wrote too much this time?

Scenario:

"Female god reader who is extremely powerful but lazy , lazy in the means she liked to lie down and sleep a lot , if she wants to she could kill zeus and she can be really intimidating but shes soft around them."

Qin Shi Huang

He didn't even notice you were a god.

You looked too exhausted to function, and yet you were ready to fight whomever tried to harm him.

He would take care of any obstacles that would dare present itself to him, but he loves how you sort the situation than he does.

There were times where you offered to lift his curse, but he declined.

According to him, if he as an emperor could not endure this curse, how could he rule a nation.

You haven't heard such wise words from anyone else before. You smile at him, and gently give him a kiss on his head.

No one dares to challenge either of you as they fear the both individually.

In private, he declares his love and loyalty for you, as the two of you embrace each other.

"Even if the Heavens dare to object our love, we'll remain ontop."

Jack the Ripper

He's honestly surprised how someone like you could love a man like him.

He has faced many hardships, threats and much more from people who knew him and those who don't.

However, when it comes to you, he can't help but cry a little at the smallest hint of love and kindness someone has ever given him.

Someone who is even more powerful than Zeus himself. Despite your intimidating nature, he finds it soothing.

Especially when you are so soft around him. He often wonders what he did to be loved and cherished by someone like you.

Many wanted to end his life even before he fought Hercules. He is very thankful that you continue to defend him even with your reputation at stake.

You often don't mind defending him against the other gods, after all he is your lover.

It's unknown how you two got together, but it does not matter as the two of you are head over heels for each other. (Good for you.)

"I don't know what I did to have to have you in my life, but I promise to cherish our time forever my dear."

Buddha

My guy here is taking advantage of the whole situation.

You can't blame him though, he is literally in a relationship with someone who is as strong, if not stronger than a primordial god!

Many wonder how in the world did you end up with someone like him, but seeing how lazy you are, it makes sense.

Often times, when Zeus threatens to punish him, you put Zeus in his place, promising an eternity of pain should he ever hurt your lover.

The smirk on his face says it all. (Me too.)

He is happy at the fact that even though you are powerful enough to defeat Zeus, or any chief god, you don't get arrogant.

Despite how powerful you are, he treats you the same way he treats everyone, just with more affection.

You bet he's telling Jataka about you, and how much he loves you!

"Thanks for taking care of the other gods for me. I'll cuddle you later if you want honeybun."

Loki

Another one on the list of taking advantage of this, however to an even greater degree. (What did you expect?)

Whenever he pranks Thor or Odin, he immediately runs to you. The two can't do anything but give him a death glare.

He's busy giggling his bum off behind your back, as you wake up from your nap and question who woke you up.

He often questions you if Zeus truly is the Grandfather of the Cosmos. To which you reply an exhausted, "No, it's only because he is powerful and looks older than he is."

At first he thought you were a demigod due to how sluggish you were acting. But quickly straightened up after seeing Zeus treat you with more respect than anyone.

He tried pranking you, but you were too tired to notice anything. And when you did notice, it backfired on him, resulting to him being confined in the emergency room.

He definitely thinks you're weird and has voiced this, but knows you won't care either way. He also tries to get a reaction from you.

He likes telling you the latest stories (or gossip) from the Heavens. You sometimes stay awake just to hear them.

"Apparently there was a rumors spreading around about Aphrodite's beauty salon."

I probably wrote too much didn't I.

My inbox is open. Check out my Rules.

[peachhcs]

locker room antics

hughes!sister x will smith au (samy + will blurb)

macklin pokes at will like a younger brother and the guys in the locker room are just the same as the guys back in boston

1.4k words

woot woot another post! i really believe macklin likes to poke at will and ask him embarrassing questions because he can —also i don’t know the sjs guys that well but i thought it was funny to recreate will getting caught with hickeys like he did at bc

au masterlist

"wait, why do you drive with one hand like that?" macklin observed the way will's left hand sat atop the steering wheel while the other just rested on the center armrest.

"because i do?" the blonde was confused.

it was not even eight in the morning yet and the two boys were on their way to morning practice—hardly awake to even be functioning correctly. will's never thought about the way he drove until macklin decided to pick him apart just now.

"it's so..odd. you're just..driving with one hand. isn't that uncomfortable?" the younger brunette kept poking with his questions and boy was will not in the mood for it this morning.

"do you have a problem with my driving? don't forget i'm the only one that can drive right now," he didn't really snap, but macklin drew back for a second. he studied his friend's expression, eyes glancing towards the two polaroids stuck onto the sun visor above will's head.

it suddenly made sense.

"ohh, i get it. you drive with one hand so you can hold samy's when she's with you," macklin laughed, but the blonde was still confused. he didn't get what was so funny.

"yeah? sure? and?"

"nothing, nothing. i just think it's cute that you probably made yourself learn to drive with one hand so you could like hold hers," the brunette continued laughing to himself. all will did was roll his eyes, not very amused by the conversation.

"wait, have you guys like..done it in here?"

when will didn't answer immediately macklin literally gasped and started freaking out (or pretend freaking out), "oh my god you have! you have! was it where i'm sitting?! please say no, please—"

"mack, chill. chill. we've never "done it" in my car before, i promise," will was quick to shut down any ideas, face flushing.

"but have you in a car before?"

"why are we talking about my sex life at 7:45 in the morning?" the forward cringed knowing it was way too early to be discussing this.

"i don't know, you tell me," macklin shrugged.

"dude, you started it," will countered.

"you didn't answer my question," the brunette crossed his arms, turning away like he was mad.

again, the blonde rolled his eyes knowing it was too early for any of this, "we have, yes, but not in this car i swear."

"that's fucking crazy, man. how does that even work? like..there's not enough room," unfortunately, the younger hockey player really didn't know when to stop talking.

"you just make it work, i dunno," this conversation needed to end.

but wow, was macklin persistent, "but like what position makes sense? is she on top? are you?"

"dude. i'm not talking about this anymore," this time will really did snap and finally, his friend shut up, leaning back into the seat.

"but like can you tell me what's the biggest you've ever been?" his voice rang through will's ears not even a second later.

"how the fuck am i supposed to know that?" the blonde exclaimed.

"i don't know? you've never measured yourself before?"

"no, i've never measured myself before. why are you asking me this?" they rolled onto the street much to will's relief which meant this conversation was gonna be over really soon.

"i'm just curious. i'm nervous that when i get a girlfriend i'm gonna do it all wrong, so i figured you would have some expertise," macklin shrugged and his answer sort of made will feel bad for snapping a second ago.

he rolled them into their usual parking spot, rolling into park before he turned to his million question friend. "i promise, you won't do it wrong no matter what. it just happens naturally and you both kind of fall into the movement and moment i guess. you got nothing to worry about, man," will tried giving his best advice he knew.

"okay, okay, thanks smith. sorry for the questions," macklin grinned while the blonde playfully rolled his eyes.

"yeah, whatever. come on, let's go in before we're late and we have to do laps," the two climbed out of the car, grabbing their bags from the back and walking up to the rink together.

"okay, but one more question, i promise. how long do you last?"

"macklin—"

"okay, okay, sorry. i'm done. don't answer that."

—

will slid into his stall, exhausted from the long practice and ready to head home for a much needed nap and food. he reached around for his phone to check for any important messages, smiling when he saw a good 10 texts from samy.

he liked when she texted him nonstop about something even though she knew he wouldn't answer until later. it gave him something to look forward to.

"someone's smiley," bordeleu noticed his teammate's grin, nudging will's shoulder to grab his attention away from his phone.

the blonde looked up to an expectant look on tom's face. "what's got you smiling so much?" the older boy teased a bit and catching the attention of the others around them.

"just texting my girlfriend," will answered, watching his teammates raise their eyebrows in surprise.

"girlfriend? you got a girlfriend?" jack poked his head into the conversation, smirking.

"you should hear them on the phone together. so sappy," macklin added his input and quickly everyone became surprised to learn of this apparently new information.

"no way our rookie's got a girlfriend. who is she? meet her at boston or something?" eklund and the others' anticipation grew while will's face began turning into a deep blush at the sudden attention.

"i think you guys know her pretty well..we're playing her brother in two weeks," macklin continued before will could. it took the guys a second, but the realization slowly set in.

"no fucking way. you're dating samy hughes?" the disbelief was clear on their faces.

"uh, yeah..you guys didn't know?" the blonde chuckled, standing up to get himself ready for a quick shower.

"uh, no. we didn't. you're telling me you pulled the little sister of some of the best hockey players in the nhl right now?" jack questioned and will slowly nodded.

"we grew up together so she was just kind of always there," will didn't really get what was so exciting and shocking about his relationship, but maybe he was just desensitized because he grew up with the hughes siblings.

the boy pulled his shirt off, searching for a towel and a change of clothes when a small gasp escaped someone's lips. he pulled his gaze to his right where macklin's hand covered his mouth trying to stop laughter from coming out.

"oh my god..holy shit," bordeleu got out and the other two boys whistled which drew in the attention from the even older guys.

"what?" will was confused and oblivious to everyone staring at the pretty purple and red splotches on his chest.

"you're telling me little hughesy left those?" ecklund poked will's arm and the boy's eyes shot down to his chest. a deep blush spread from his neck to the tips of his ears as he finally realized what everyone was staring at. shit.

"guess you went a little too hard when you were in michigan," macklin teased and the others quickly laughed. will knocked his friend's head, glaring at him.

"i guess hughesy can bite. impressive," jack nodded in approval and the poor forward was getting serious deja vu—living the same exact scenario that he did in boston after he visited samy.

"you definitely got the girl, w-2. she's a real keeper if she can do that to ya," bordeleu patted the blonde's shoulder before walking away. the others winked, leaving the rookie's alone for now.

"looks like our new rookie's been getting some!" goodrow exclaimed, making a show by clapping his hands for the now very embarrassed blonde. macklin joined in and then so did everyone else—all eyes on will.

"you better make sure her brother doesn't see those when we head to van in two weeks," the younger brunette said.

will went off to the showers knowing he'll never live that down for the rest of time and those guys would bring it up at any chance they got.

however, the hockey player still prided himself in the fact that everyone always seemed jealous that he got the girl and not them. yeah. he did get the girl and it felt great that no one else did.

[shinesurge]

Webcomic rings run by people within the community are cool and you should support them

I've been loudly struggling a little bit with corporate webcomic Stuff lately so I want to mention something positive to balance it out: webrings run by small groups of creators earnestly trying to support each other are slowly making a comeback and I for one am delighted.

If you weren't around for them in the before times, webrings were just some folks who hang out a lot who feature each other on their websites. That's literally it lmao. There's generally no money involved and it only really functions the way it's supposed to if people have control over their own websites AND genuinely want to participate and get excited about other folks' work, which means the practice has pretty well fallen by the wayside over the years in webcomic culture given. Everything. In the rare event someone decides to do something like this it's usually in the form of a link list somewhere on their website; this doesn't usually indicate any sort of mutual support, it's just a list of what the creator is reading themselves.

A webring, though, is an official banner or hub that people gather under intentionally where each member is more or less on equal footing. It's essentially the concept of "a rising tide lifts all boats" put into practice, each creator brings their own audience to the table in a passive, opt-in sort of way that's different from working for a publisher since there isn't necessarily a Top Spot or a paycheck everyone's vying for, and individuals retain autonomy over both their own work and how (if) they promote each other. You're all at your own tables in an artist alley rather than fighting over the table in the front of the book store, essentially.

I have two rings and one collective for you today!

Webcomic Ring was brought to my attention AGES ago by Holly, one of the artists featured there, and I might have brought it up at some point but I'm doing it again lmao. This is exactly the kind of thing you ought to be looking for; a small group of enthusiastic folks having a good time making their weird little comics. You probably haven't heard of much in the catalog, that's PERFECT in the context of webcomics that's where the GOOD SHIT is. Finding something like this is A Gift go dig around in the longboxes for a while.

Then a few people have pointed me in the direction of the KNIFEBEETLE collective and that's neat too! Most of the comics there are already fairly well-known, but the vibes are excellent and I haven't seen a lot of talk about the collective /itself/ outside folks already in the know. I think it's important for this sort of thing to be more visible to folks who aren't terminally steeped in webcomic culture already so here I am telling you about it. You were probably reading several of these before I suggested it, but that's how a webring works! For it to do its job you should take those bigger creators' tacit recommendation of the less popular titles as a sign to go read something new and strange. Wild, I know these are practices held over from the old internet, but I think we should try and bring them back.

Lastly, I want to mention Spiderforest, which is a collective (slightly different from a webring) BUT still a very cool project readers starved for new stuff should pay attention to.

You've probably seen Spiderforest kicking around for a long time already; they're wonderful and have always been an overall positive force in the community in my experience. They really focus on building up a community, and especially welcoming newcomers and helping them get their feet under them. Full disclosure, I've been asked to apply by a few different folks over the years and the only reason I never did is I don't have the ability to participate in their forums and such as frequently as they want their creators to; it's a very good system (from my outside perspective) that might contribute to the community staying mostly healthy in ways that art communities usually don't and I appreciate it a lot!

ANYWAYS that's all I got for now, just trying to balance out some bad feelings I've been having by talking about some good stuff. Please go binge an archive this week.

[qu1cks1lversb1tch]

☆ Silver's Sinful Sunday ☆

Week Two: Lucifer

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, Smut Essentially, Fem Reader, heavily implied sub Lucifer, public — kinda(?), barely functional author

Word Count: 491

“We have to be quiet, Luci.” You whispered in his ear, breathlessly as he stretched you open with every inch. 

His lips were pressed tightly together, trying not to make any loud noise. It was hard. You felt so good around him. . . But he had to be quiet, otherwise risk everyone outside the limousine hearing just how desperate and needy the King of Hell sounded balls deep in your heavenly pussy. 

Slowly, you began moving. 

Drawing the low, whiny moans from Lucifer became your favorite thing. 

He threw his head back against the leather seat and attempted to shamelessly thrust up into you, but it was no use. 

Between you clenching around him and the sound of your soft, breathy moans meeting his ears, he was quickly reaching his climax. 

“Please —” he whimpered finally.

You kissed his lips sweetly, watching the sinners walk by, oblivious to what was happening. “Just a few more minutes, Luci, you can do it, baby. Don't cum yet.” 

He shivered as your words became engraved in his mind. Hold on. Hold on.  

It was growing harder by the second. 

His eyes rolled back into his head, unable to form any coherent thought, and soon he buried his face in your chest — it didn't help his case a bit. 

You rolled your hips flawlessly, causing him to bite his bottom lip as he felt that all too familiar feeling. 

He was so close. 

But so were you.

“Please — I'm gonna; I have —” 

His cock twitching inside you was the sign you needed, telling him it was okay to cum. . . He managed to get in a couple thrusts of his own before he groaned, painting your insides with the translucent bodily fluid. 

“You're doing so good for me, Luci. . .” You moaned, pressing kisses to his jawline as you felt your own coil build up slowly. 

The closer you got to reaching the tipping point, the more sloppy your movements got until you finally came undone on him with a high pitched moan, muffled by his shoulder. 

The two of you stayed together for a few minutes, coming down from the high. It had been a spontaneous decision.

“So good.” You whispered. 

You soon removed yourself from his lap and began cleaning up the mess you both made, knowing the others would be out of the movies soon. 

Thanks to a little magic, the smell of your extracurricular activities left the limousine and the two of you were mostly back to normal by the time Charlie, Angel, and Vaggie returned. 

You hadn't been able to find your lacy red panties at the end, despite looking for them everywhere  . . Though you did notice the familiar shade of fabric sticking out of his pocket before he pushed it in the rest of the way. 

You'd let him have that as a trophy of sorts, just this one time. . . There's a reason why you have his contact name as ‘Hell's Greatest Dick’.

Y'all I can't explain it but this man is so breedable. Let me get you pregnant, King 💖

Have my babies. Mwah 💋

[vampiricgf]

Morning Elvis

leon kennedy x reader

wc: 2k

warnings: pre established relationship, depiction of alcoholism, mention of sex but no smut, honestly just two idiots that don't know how to really talk to each other if they're not fucking so he gets spooked and runs away the second there's any real intimacy or care, set roughly before he's in colorado in vendetta

one) I know he eats ass so to me the joke lands and two) the title is the florence and the machine song morning elvis ‹𝟹

On nights when he’s dreading his own company Leon calls you. With how frequently those nights are becoming, you’re starting to think he should just give you a spare key to his place.

And even if you promise yourself day in and day out that you won’t pick up the phone this time, won’t come running like a loyal dog because it always ends the same, you find yourself speaking the same words as usual each time. Sure, I’ll be over. 

It’s a strange sort of limbo knowing you’re caught up in a man that will never be able to commit to you. 

But still, you’re as stubborn as ever. Standing outside his door shivering in the evening cold, peering uselessly into the darkened window. It’s not late enough for him to have forgotten you were coming and ended up sprawled in bed, but depending on how much he’s already had to drink the time may not matter. That makes you feel sleezy too, the fact that he almost exclusively calls you when he’s already had a few. 

Now that you think of it, you could count on one hand the number of conversations you’ve had when he’s sober. 

“Fuck, come on. Please don’t be asleep.” You whisper to yourself as you bring your knuckles to meet the solid oak door again, three sharp knocks. 

It’s then that you hear heavy footsteps, uncoordinated as he clearly stumbles to get the door, unlatching it just a crack to peer down at you with bloodshot eyes. How strange it’s a perfect shade of red to offset the cerulean of his eyes. If only reddened eyes weren’t a universal sign of something bad occurring in the body, they’d be pretty otherwise.

“Did you speed the whole way or something?” He asks as he unlatches the chain, fully swinging the door open and allowing you to step past him. 

As your eyes adjust and you step further inside you feel nearly overwhelmed with pity. The place is a mess, and while thats not unusual what is strange is the fact that he’s left so much evidence of his overconsumption laying around. Empty fifths, their labels peeling, and even a smattering of the little shooters you can buy at gas stations for a dollar litter the countertops of his kitchen, a scant few dishes languishing in a steel basin graveyard. 

Under normal circumstances you’d classify Leon as a functioning alcoholic. Not a good label, but at least he could still do his job and keep his head on straight no matter how full of whiskey said head might be. But this? This was the apartment of a nonfunctional alcoholic, no dancing around it. 

“Have you eaten anything?” You ask suddenly, turning around to face him as he leans against the countertop like he’ll collapse without the support. For a split second you’re afraid he might. 

“Why’d you care?” His eyes are unfocused but don’t stray from you and you take it as a good sign, he’s not completely trashed. 

“Because you look like shit.” You say it plainly, but the words are sharp regardless. 

“Doesn’t mean I can’t give you what you came for.” 

“Who says thats all I come for?” Your voice drops off and you turn away from him, feeling suddenly sick. Sick with yourself for doing this again, sick that you’ve done it already so many times. 

He laughs and it’s a harsh sound, makes you flinch a little and shrink into yourself feeling even more foolish. “Oh because you’re here for good conversation and tea or some shit like that, right?”

You glare at him over your shoulder before walking back towards the door. 

Fuck this, I’m not being a drunken slam piece anymore-

“Oh come on, you can’t handle a little teasing all of a sudden? Not like you haven’t taken worse.” 

You sprin on your heel, sudden surge of anger squeezing you so tightly it nearly leaves you breathless. “You know what? You’re a drunk that needs to get your shit together, not your dick wet. Why don’t you use your furlough for something more productive than drowning in Jack and calling girls you don’t give a fuck about.” Your voice shakes as your pitch rises, hands clenched so hard it’s nothing short of a miracle your nails don’t break off in your palms. 

You wish you could punch him. Not enough to hurt him or because thats really what you want but because punctuating your words in the language he understands best might be the only way to reach him. The only sound in the place is your own ragged breathing, like you sprinted the whole way here, but before you can make a move to leave once more he pushes away from the countertop and does something that catches you off guard.

His arms come around you and the smell of sweat and alcohol wind around your body, invade your senses, seconds after. But it doesn’t matter because your bag falls to the floor with a heavy thump and your own arms wrap around him as he hides his face against the side of your neck. 

You stay like that for a while, in that strange, tense embrace, before his muffled voice fans warmly over your skin. 

“Who says I don’t give a fuck about you?”

You sigh. “Honestly, you do Leon. All of this just says you don’t give a fuck about anything, not even yourself.”

That and I’m not delusional enough to think you really like me. I’m convenient.

Silence descends once again and for a moment you’re worried you overestimated his coherence, that he may be about to black out in your arms, but before that thought takes hold he steps back from you, and the sudden absence of his warmth makes you shiver as if you stepped into a walk in freezer. 

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” And it sounds like the words both are and are not meant for you because he doesn’t meet your gaze, raking a hand through his hair before grabbing for one of the bottles in his impromptu menagerie, a quarter full of something clear. Before he can unscrew the cap you liberate it from his grasp, clutching the neck of it like a weapon. 

“Maybe I am. So why don’t you stop for the night, at least. Clean yourself up a little, sleep for once. You look like you haven’t slept in days.” You suspected he might not have, truthfully. 

He eyes you with something you can’t place and you aren’t sure you want to at this moment. Something between bitterness and relief, but before you can examine it with any depth he turns his back to you, moving to the hall bathroom. You think of the silly little cat nightlight you jammed into the outlet inside the small space one night, tired of always slamming your knee or your toes off the doorframe in the pitch black. The faint glow tells you it’s still there, faithfully illuminating the dark. 

The running of a tap is all you get in response and your eyes run over the kitchen again, fresh dismay setting in at the sheer quantity he’s been indulging in. As quietly as possible you start gathering the loose bottle up, a wide variety of sizes and flavors but your nose scrunches as you size up a still mostly full bottle of Everclear. You shiver just imagining the scent of it, stinging like a nose full of isopropyl with the aftertaste of straight kerosene. 

That one you decide to pour down the drain, cringing as your memory of the smell of it is proven accurate. 

“You owe me ten bucks for that.” 

His voice comes from behind you and you huff out a slight laugh, rolling your eyes as you face his direction and make your way to the garbage can.  “I’ll leave it on the counter.” 

“I’m sorry, by the way,” His blue eyes find yours as you straighten up from the can, and your own scan his face before answering. 

“Don’t be. Just… take better care of yourself.” 

Just don’t call me again, because I’m not the one strong enough, or selfish enough, to ignore it.

His hand rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck and he looks nervous, a rare sight and it’s oddly cute for a second. “It’s getting late, you can stay here- if you want to, I mean.” 

You smile softly, wistful, because you know exactly what time it is and that you could drive back home just fine and get enough sleep. Know that you should. “Yeah, sure. I can take the couch if you have a spare blanket.”

“You can sleep with me, my tongue has literally been in your ass before.” He rolls his eyes at you and you gape, feeling giddy embarrassment bubble up in your chest like you swallowed something overly carbonated and you giggle before you can stop yourself. 

“Fair enough, I guess.” You shake your head but follow after him towards the bedroom, feeling an out of place anxiety tugging at the corners of your mind. You’ve never just slept together, sex has always taken priority before. 

Despite that, settling in beside him doesn’t feel uncomfortable, if anything you’re surprised by the exhaustion creeping up behind your eyes, making your limbs feel heavier with each passing second. Your eyes are closed but you feel him staring at you, laying on his side to face you in a mirrored position. 

“I always think one of these days you’re not going to pick up.”

His words are so quiet you could almost convince yourself they were from the beginnings of a dream. Almost.

“I always pick up. For you.” You’re not sure why the words sound so mournful. 

“You shouldn’t. You don’t deserve getting bitched at by a guy that can’t spend more than five minutes sober.” 

“And you don’t deserve to be alone.” 

You hear his breathing hitch at your words but you still don’t open your eyes, as if the action would shatter the quiet moment between you two. 

“We- we shouldn’t do this again.” And that makes your eyes flutter open, blearily taking him in, the out of place vulnerability on his face and the sheer fatigue expressed plainly on his features. You wish you could reach out, cradle his face, run your fingers over him, commit him to memory. 

“No, we probably shouldn’t.” 

If I’m getting what I want, why do I feel like crying?

When rays of sunlight break through the blinds to assault your eyes you recognize that you’re alone before you’re even fully conscious. The apartment is as quiet as a mausoleum, still, stale air filling up your lungs as you rise from the pillows, shoulders cracking. 

You don’t call out, quietly standing from the rumpled bed before padding out towards the kitchen, peeking into the bathroom just to make sure but only the sight of the empty room greets you. The kitchen is much the same, a few stray bottles remain but it seems you cleared the bulk of them last night. In the living room you find a note on the coffee table, a silver key glinting in the hazy dimness on top of it. 

It’s a short goodbye. He left you the key so you could lock the front door before you went back to your place, he’ll get it from you when he can. Something about trying to take your advice, maybe Colorado will be better suited for getting himself together. 

You set the note back down, rubbing your thumb over the face of the apartment key. 

As you pull your bag up off the floor you make a mental note to keep flights out west bookmarked for the time being. 

Because after all, you always answer if he calls.