#i say that as if i don't think about it ALL THE TIME because it's literally so fucking funny

[humanjarvis]

caught in a lie

synopsis: when you ignore caleb’s calls, he catches you trying to run from the consequences. you make a false promise to appease his anger, not expecting your lie to unravel. but almost immediately, it does.  

tags: based loosely on caleb's "hidden waves" memory, porn with plot, manipulative!caleb x manipulative!reader, brat!reader, mean(ish) dom!caleb, caleb makes out with your cunt for an hour, reader cries, belly bulge, 3 brother mentions but they’re done ironically/out of spite, humiliation, semi-public sex (caleb makes you call and cancel plans with that friend while he fucks you), lines lifted directly from hidden waves in bold pairing: caleb x fem!reader  word count: 3.9k

a/n: love the scene this is based on bc it reminds me of my favorite book from the wattpad era in 300 BC. also this is my first time writing full-on smut and omfg i don't know how people write like 10k of it u guys are wizards. but the response to this will determine how explicitly i write going forward, no pressure

As the Skyhaven nightscape twinkles around you, you can’t help but feel like you’re forgetting something. 

You’d had a great night: Simone had invited you to a cute café, the owners had given you a free muffin, and the raging storm from this afternoon had dwindled into a drizzle. But still, a sense of foreboding loomed over you, threatening to taint the precious memories you’d made tonight.

“...And next week we can go to this new bar downtown! I heard they have the best drinks, and there’s even a puppy mascot they let walk around and play with guests. Doesn’t that sound fun?” 

“Yeah, sure,” you agree absently, Simone’s words going in one ear and out the other. “I’ll be there.”

As you walk farther down the sidewalk, the vibrant city atmosphere melts away your worries. People of all ages were out splashing in leftover puddles, trying new food stalls, and window shopping in the strip of stores that lit your path. Gradually, you give up on trying to place your unease, surrendering fully to the comfort of the cool night air.

“Hey!” you exclaim, an idea popping into your head. “Do you want to find a photobooth and take some pictures? I want something to remember tonight by.”

“Oh my gosh, absolutely,” Simone responds. “There should be one not too far from here. I went with my brother a few months back! It was really fun.”

At her words, you stop in your tracks. Her enthusiasm is no match for the dread building in your chest. 

Caleb.

Caleb who’d told you to text him when you got to the café, when you were about to leave, and when you were almost home. 

Caleb was what—or who—you were forgetting.

Slowly, you reach your hand into your purse until you feel your phone, digging it out and staring as if it were a venomous animal. Taking a deep breath, you tap the screen awake and immediately lose the air you’d just inhaled. 

7 Unread messages

4 Missed calls

3 New voicemails

Fuck.

“Uh, actually,” you start, chucking the device back into your bag, “I just realized I didn’t bring a brush! There’s no way I can take pictures without fixing my hair—it’s like a bird’s nest up there,” you ramble, giggling nervously. “Can we end the night here?”

“O…kay?” Simone says, clearly confused by the sudden shift in your mood. “Yeah, we can go back now. Your hair looks fine, though.”

Thanking the universe for giving you such an agreeable friend, you walk back to her car, the quickness of your usually unhurried steps betraying your agitation.

He’s gonna kill me, he’s gonna kill me, he’s gonna kill me, you think. 

As the familiar outline of Simone’s car comes into view, she turns to face you. “Do you want a ride to the train station? I told my girlfriend I’d be home at 1:30—I have another hour.”

“Wait!” you cry, throwing your hands out in front of you. She looks at you as if the intensity in your voice is unnecessary. Which is true, because she’s standing a foot away. Quieter this time, you ask, “Would it be okay if I spent the night at your place? Just this once, I promise.” 

“...If you really need to,” she agrees warily. “As long as you don’t mind cat hair.”

When you reach her car, Simone gestures for you to wait as she walks around to the passenger’s side. “I just need to clean up real quick. The granola bar wrappers build up when you’re constantly called in early for emergencies.” 

But when Simone pulls on the door handle, it doesn’t open. “Weird,” she mutters, wiping raindrops onto her jeans. “I swear I unlocked it.” 

She clicks a button on her keys and tries again. Inexplicably, the door still doesn’t budge. “It’s like some force is holding it shut or something,” she says. At that, an alarm sounds in the back of your mind. But before it can reach your consciousness, she continues. “Well, I have a locksmith on speed dial anyway—I’m always losing my keys. But before I call, seriously, are you ok? The way you asked me to stay over….Is there something scary waiting for you at home? Why do you look so worried?”

"It’s probably because I’m home,” the all-too-familiar voice rings out behind you. 

In an instant, your entire body goes rigid. Your now-pounding heart screams at you to run, but you can’t obey without making a scene in front of your friend. 

Plastering a smile on your face, you turn around slowly, as if the longer you took to face him, the more likely he’d be to disappear.  

You had no such luck. Towering over you, umbrella in hand, was Caleb, his normally expressive face a wall of stone. 

Despite his obvious anger, he steps forward to shield you from the downpour and you refrain from taking a step back—against your better judgment.

“Caleb!” you remark, your voice shrill with unease. “What a surprise!”

Ignoring your greeting, Caleb turns his attention to Simone. “Skyhaven isn’t very safe tonight,” he says coolly. “You’d better get home.”

The finality in his words makes it clear: you won’t be joining her. 

“Um, sure,” Simone trails off, wary eyes searching yours. “Will you be alright?”

“...Yes, it’s okay.”

Though your words don’t seem to convince her, Caleb’s penetrating glare does. She quickly walks to the driver’s side and effortlessly pops the door open—surprise, surprise—before jumping in. Giving you one last look, your only chance at salvation drives into the night.

The ride back to Caleb’s house is silent. You scoot as close as you can to the window beside you, paying no mind to the intensifying patter of rain against the glass. All that you notice is how he grips the steering wheel tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. 

When you pull into his driveway and exit the car, he walks closely behind you, preventing any more last-minute escape attempts. His imposing presence follows you inside and all the way to his bedroom. 

When you both cross the threshold, the air thickens with tension as you stand in silence, unmoving. 

“Well, goodnight!” you call when you can’t take it anymore. But before you can take one step, Caleb swings the door shut with his Evol. Huh, you think. Doors must be his speciality tonight.

“Where do you think you could possibly be going after the night you gave me?” he asks, steely voice cutting through your thoughts.

“Listen—” you start, but he cuts you off. 

“You ordered coffee three times. Burst out into laughter I could hear from outside six times. And yet, you somehow managed to check your phone zero times.”

“If you’d just given me more time, I was going to—”

“You were going to what? Because here’s what I think would have happened: If I hadn’t picked you up, you would’ve gone to your friend’s place, right? Then, you’d message me with an apology. Oh, throw in a cute emoji as the cherry on top,” he snorts. 

“With that done, you’d put your phone away and curl up into a ball to sleep. You wouldn’t even dare to check my response. You’d wait it out and believe I wouldn’t be upset. And once I’m away on a mission or somethin’...you would sneak back into the house and pretend nothing happened. Tell me,” he challenges you. “Am I wrong?”

He wasn’t wrong. He was never wrong—not about your habits, at least. 

“Okay, okay, I get it,” you snap. “I thought you said you were ‘done playing games’? You don't have to act so big brother-y all the time.”

Clearly, that was the wrong thing to say. Caleb’s head rears back, his eyes going wide in incredulity before he scoffs. 

Alright, you sigh, time to turn on the waterworks. 

Taking a deep breath, you force tears into your eyes. “Caleb,” you begin, “I really didn’t mean to ignore you. I was just having so much fun. S-someone brought their puppy to the café and I got distracted.” The café hadn’t allowed pets, but you needed all the sympathy you could get. You’d have to thank Simone for telling you about that new bar later. “I won’t do it again. I won’t even go out at night anymore—promise.”

As he takes in your pitiful expression, you see Caleb’s resolve start to crack, the twitch in his right eye giving away how much he wants to console you. Maintaining your pout, you internally grin like a Cheshire cat. He could never say no to you. He could never le—

Your phone rings.

You thought you’d turned it off in the car, but your fucking phone rings. Right when you have him where you want him. 

The shrill tone sucks the air out of the room, and with it, any hope for your escape.

“Answer it. Speaker.” His voice leaves no room for argument.

Visibly shaken, you fish your phone out of your bag and accept the call. “H-hello?”

“Hey Y/N, it’s Simone. I’m calling to check on you—that guy who took you home was kinda scary. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t do anything. Are you okay?”

At the insinuation that he’d ever harm you, Caleb’s face turns thunderous, his jaw clenching so hard you’re afraid it’ll snap. 

“No, no, I’m fine,” you reassure her. “Thanks for worrying though, that’s really sweet,” you add, your eyes darting up and immediately back down after meeting Caleb’s glower. 

“That’s great, I really was worried,” she says, relief evident in her voice. “Well, before you hang up, are we still on for same time next week at the bar I mentio—”

You hang up as soon as she reveals your plans, throwing your phone so abruptly it bounces off the chair where your purse sits and onto the carpet. But it was too late. There was no sweet-talking the irate scowl off of Caleb’s face. You’d lied. 

Like a deer in headlights, you stand frozen and helpless as Caleb stalks toward you. 

“You almost had me,” he chuckles darkly, squishing your cheeks between one hand. “And I bet you knew it, too. Remind me to thank Simone for being such a good friend later.”

His grip tightens when you try to respond, and he pulls your face closer to his instead. “I think I’ve had enough of you talking for now. No point in hearing it if you’re just gonna lie to me again.”

With uncanny speed, he lifts you by your legs and tosses you onto the mattress. When you attempt to sit up, hoping to crawl away, he captures both of your wrists in his hand and claims your lips in a bruising kiss. 

“Don’t talk.” A kiss. “Don’t move.” Another. “Don’t do anything I don’t tell you to do, and I might not chain you to this bed.” You’re so distracted by his final kiss—the exclamation point—that you barely register when he yanks your loose pants down, baring your cotton panties to him. 

When he spots the wet patch spreading through the middle, he moans, shifting to push his nose into your center. The deep inhales he takes seem to calm him down, and his voice loses some of its earlier edge when he murmurs, “Can’t believe you were keepin’ her from me tonight. Look at how much she missed me.”

He demonstrates by pressing an open-mouthed kiss to your panties, tasting you as you leak harder under his tongue. The whimper you let out falls on deaf ears as you remember his command: Don’t talk. 

Licking a stripe up your clothed folds, Caleb sighs into you in contentment. “Gonna see her in a second,” he breathes. “Just can’t give her too much at once, or she’ll get greedy.” 

He’s too far gone, you think, closing your eyes in preparation of what’s to come. But nothing prepares you for the way the seemingly sedated Caleb rips your panties open at the seam, exposing your hot skin to the cool air. 

With no hesitation, he plants a long kiss onto your core, his lips smacking against the fat of your outer folds. Covering your skin with a flurry of pecks, he moans into you, his intermittent licks becoming sloppy, appreciative kisses. 

Caleb was making out with your cunt like your brain wasn't in the room, kissing it like he hadn’t seen it in years. The sensations and lewd squelches make your arousal unbearable, but when you try to grind into his mouth—to get him to do something more—he pushes your hips into the mattress. 

“Don’t interrupt us,” he mumbles, lips still latched onto your unspread cunt. Heat rushing to your cheeks, you flop your head back down, defeated as the man ignores you to have his heartfelt reunion with your core. 

An agonizing few minutes later, you feel him press a last hard kiss against your skin before finally spreading your soaked folds. “Can’t believe you ever thought you could hide from me,” he growls, eyes sparkling. “I’ll show you you can’t. Make you never want to again.”

Slowly, he licks up and down your wetness, teasing his tongue around your entrance. You try to relax during his ministrations, knowing he won’t give you what you want this early, but he catches you off guard when he buries his tongue into your weeping, sputtering hole. 

A strangled moan escapes you as he fucks you with his tongue, twisting, turning, and circling himself inside you. 

One pulse has your walls flexing with desperation, and Caleb pulls back slightly when he feels you tighten around him. “Look at that, I think she’s kissin’ me back,” he coos, a string of his saliva refusing to part from your quivering cunt. 

Spurred on by the whine you give him, he flashes you a wicked grin before diving back in, plunging his tongue in and out at a punishing pace. 

All the while, he studiously avoids where you need him most, licking and kissing everywhere but your twitching clit—neglecting it like you did him earlier in the night.

Suddenly, he lifts his head up, flashing you a quick smirk. “You know,” he starts, licking his glistening lips. “When you were givin’ me all those crocodile tears and cryin’ about puppies earlier, you never did say sorry for trying to run. How about now, hmm?” he asks, pressing a wet kiss to your center. “You sorry?”

You pant out an incoherent moan, and he nips at your clit—the first time he’s touched it all night. Ignoring your squeal, he gives you another kiss. “I don’t know what that means. Try again.” 

You go to speak again, but Caleb suddenly rubs his nose against your clit, your resulting gasp sending your back shooting off the bed. He swiftly slams you back down with his Evol, giving you another nip. “Just two words, baby. You can do that for me, yeah? Two words, loud and clear. Want to know you mean it.”

You don’t know what it is—the last strands of your pride clinging on for dear life, your stupor after being toyed with for almost an hour, or pure stubbornness—but you can’t bring yourself to say it. With a whimper, you clamp your mouth shut, staring at the ceiling in rebellion. 

“Hmmm,” he hums, looking up at you briefly. Before you can even process it, Caleb covers your clit with his mouth and sucks, simultaneously groaning into you. The combined sensations set your nerves on fire, and you come in his mouth with a prolonged cry. 

“I’m sorry!” you wail, the tears in your eyes genuine this time. As Caleb laps up your release, chants of “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m—oh—I’m sorry,” fall through your lips, your earlier defiance reduced to blubbering submission. “Should’ve checked my phone and called you back, I’m so sorry.” 

You’ve apologized ten times over, it feels, but he won’t let up. He suckles you until it aches, and there’s nothing you can do but lie there and sob as his Evol keeps you pinned down. When he’s finally had his fill, he presses a reverent thank-you kiss to your cunt before crawling up your body, nestling in between your thighs. 

“Aw, none of that, now,” he coos, wiping under your eyes. “I forgive you, alright? I forgive you for getting distracted, baby.” Still crying, you nod frantically, leaning into his gentle touch. “But if you ever run from me again, whoever you’re with won’t like what happens when I catch you,” he promises, pressing a kiss to your lips and then your forehead before plunging into you. 

Though his pace is relentless, your walls draw him in, his earlier date with your cunt letting you take his thick length with ease. 

When the pressure builds and you shy away from his brutal thrusts, he turns your chin toward him, pressing an ironically chaste kiss to your mouth. “No running, remember?” 

As you hurtle toward your release, he leans close, kissing you briefly before speaking into your lips. “The next time you wanna ignore me—next time you wanna hide from me and lie to me sayin’ you’ll be good from now on—I want you to think of this, to think of me right here,” he murmurs, palming his cock through your belly. You squeal at the foreign feeling, but he only adds more force, and you think you’re about to pass out.   

“My baby,” he chides. “Loves to act out but she can’t handle the consequences.” While he speaks, he folds your left leg up, pushing it to your chest so he can penetrate you deeper.

“Please, Caleb!” you beg, the new angle making stars float across your vision. As your body rocks with the force of his strokes, you cry, “I said I was sorry!” 

“Mm, you did,” he nods, absorbing a tear on your cheek with a kiss. “But I don’t think you really are. Not yet.”

Without warning, he pulls out of you and flips you onto your stomach before sliding back in. Resuming his thrusts, he uses his Evol to pick your forgotten phone up off the floor. “Call her back. Speaker,” he orders. 

At first, you're flustered into hesitation, but as he holds the phone ahead of you and taps through your history to do it himself, you pull yourself together. “Wait,” you wail. “Wait. I’ll do it.”

You do it.

When Simone picks up, Caleb shows you mercy by decreasing his pace so the sound of slick skin colliding doesn’t travel through the phone. 

“Hey Y/N, what’s up? Is it about earlier? …Did something happen?” she asks in concern.

Frantically, you twist your head to look up at Caleb, not knowing what to say. 

Leisurely, he folds forward over you, his chest flush with your spine so he can whisper in your ear. Throughout his dramatics, your time to respond without raising suspicion wanes, and you grow more desperate by the second.

“Hi Simone,” Caleb finally whispers, pressing kisses to your ear in time with his languid strokes.

“H-hi Simone,” you repeat louder, a slight tremble in your voice.

“I just wanted to say thanks again for checking in. That guy, the one from earlier—he can be so mean sometimes,” Caleb murmurs, pouting his lips in ridicule. 

“I just wanted…wanted to say thanks again for checking in. The guy from earlier—hah—can be so mean sometimes,” you echo, breathless from the impact of Caleb’s hips rocking into yours.

“Can we reschedule our plans for next week? My big brother’s,” he emphasizes, mocking your earlier jab with two deep thrusts, “coming home, and he really misses me.” As he feeds you lines, the taunts in his words break through the softness of his whispers. 

As softly as you dare to, you whimper for him, hoping it’s enough for him to end his torture.

But as the phone screen goes black from inactivity, you see his smirking reflection looming over your humiliated one. The only way out is by appeasing him. 

“C-can we reschedule our plans for next week? My…my friend—” 

As soon as the word leaves your mouth, Caleb lifts off of you slightly, landing a harsh smack on your ass.

“Y/N? What was that noise? Are you alright?”

“Yes,” you all but moan as he bites your neck, reprimanding you further for breaking his script. 

“My friend is visiting next week, and he really misses me,” you finish, waiting with bated breath for her—and Caleb’s—reactions. 

“Oh…sure, Y/N. That’s fine with me. That’s a lot better than I was expecting, you sounded like you were in trouble for a second.” Caleb smirks against your ear. “Just let me know when you want to reschedule.”

“Sounds good,” you breathe as Caleb’s thrusts return to a faster pace. “I-I gotta go, I’ll see you later!” you rush, almost squealing as you end the call. 

For the nth time that night, you want to burst into tears. “I can’t believe you just did that,” you whine, your voice mixing with the renewed slaps of skin on skin. 

Chuckling, Caleb lifts off of you, his sudden absence from your cunt making you shudder. In an instant, he flips you over so you’re face-to-face before entering you again. 

“Technically, you just did that,” he smirks, his thrusts now lazy and sporadic. “I don’t remember pressing ‘call.’” His matter-of-fact tone is teasing, but you knew that if you hadn’t canceled on Simone, he’d have made good on his earlier threat. He always does. 

As you open your mouth to retort, Caleb’s face grows serious, and all your neurons responsible for making witty comebacks seem to atrophy at once. 

Caleb leans down, light bites on your throat punctuating his confession. “I can’t stop at wanting you not to run from me anymore. I want you to stay with me. To choose to, for as long as we live, for the next hundred years.” 

“But what if…” you trail off, but he understands what you’d been implying. 

At that, his eyes darken. Rutting into you with renewed fervor, he grasps your chin tightly, holding you captive in his gaze. “You’ll be around for however many years I’m alive and kicking,” he growls. And you believe him. 

Nerves alight, mind numb, and core throbbing from your impending climax, you nod as much as his iron grip allows you to. “I’ll stay,” you whisper, kissing his thumb near your lip. “Wanna stay—with you.” 

Letting out a strangled huff, Caleb surges forward, his lips meeting yours in a searing kiss. He bites your bottom lip as he presses down on your stomach once again, and you careen over the edge, feeling the hot spurts of his release intensify the flood inside your cunt. 

With a shuttering groan, Caleb collapses to your left, immediately closing the space between you with a hug. You stay like that for a while, your sore body curled into his arms as you face each other on the bed. 

“You okay?” he asks quietly, rubbing circles into your hip. “I know it was a bit much.”

“Forgive you,” you mumble into his chest. “Felt good.”

He chuckles, tapping your nose twice. “You shouldn’t forgive me so easily. Or else I’ll want to keep testing your limits.” 

When you fall asleep in his warm embrace, Caleb looks down at you intently, trying to brand the visual into any part of his commandeered mind that’d take it. Daring to disrupt the image, he gently untangles your bodies, lifting you before laying you back down on top of him. 

At peace for the first time that night, Caleb looks out the window, smiling to himself. The rain has stopped.

[yanderedrabbles]

Yandere Neighbour - Noncon

With your electricity out and your devices dead, you have no choice but to turn to your neighbour for help. He's more than willing to welcome you into his home. Really, you're lucky he's such a nice guy.

Tags: male yandere x gender neutral reader, noncon, somno, just the tip anal, daddy kink but only if you squint, 3.3k words

Living in the middle of nowhere had its perks. Privacy. Untouched nature. Peace and quiet.

But after the third day with no electricity, those perks were starting to look pretty damn weak. Your fridge was sitting in an ever expanding puddle. Almost all your devices were dead. And if you had to take one more cold shower you were going to cry.

It was when you were digging through your drawer looking for desperately needed batteries that you found your neighbour's number. He'd offered it to you a little while after you moved in, and while you two were on friendly terms, you'd never actually spoken for longer than a few minutes. You sighed, looked at the 10% left on your phone and decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.

You: hey, it's me. I still haven't got any power. Do you mind if I come over to charge some stuff?

He replied almost instantly.

Unknown: aww that sucks

Unknown: come on over. I've got hot stew and a generator

Unknown: and you can take a hot shower too if you want

Score. And to think you found him intimidating at first. Just goes to show that you can't judge on appearances. You packed a change of clothes, your devices and the last tub of ice cream that wasn't totally melted. You'd find some way to properly pay him back but a tub of chocolate fudge double cream wasn't a bad way to start.

He was waiting on his porch when you pulled up. A bear of a man in a flannel and blue jeans, a five o' clock shadow darkening his jaw.

"Howdy neighbour," he drawled, opening your door for you while you grabbed your stuff. "Regretting leaving the city yet?"

You huffed a laugh. "You do NOT want to know the answer to that."

His cabin was much larger than yours, a two storey behemoth with wide windows and exposed beams. It had a rustic charm - like some natural park Air BnB where they charged a weeks pay for just one night. A little too big for just one man. Didn't he get lonely?

"I brought some ice cream and chocolate to say thank you. And also because it miiight have been melting."

He opened the door for you and ushered you through with a hand on your lower back.

"Hell, I'll never say no to something sweet."

There was a fire burning in the fireplace and a stack of logs in a crate next to it. He was so much better suited to this life than you were. He locked the door behind you and slipped the keys into his pocket.

"Old habit," he explained with an easy grin.

"Why don't you get settled? I'll plug your stuff in."

You handed over your tech with a relieved sigh.

"Thank you. Really. I'm so behind on work already and I haven't heard anything back from the power company."

"I wouldn't hold my breath," he said. "Once ended up going a week straight with not even a light bulb flickering."

You winced. "It gets that bad?"

"Yep. Especially in winter. Gets dangerous then too."

He tilted his head at you, concerned. "You need to get yourself better sorted before it starts snowing. I hate to think of you stuck out there when the blizzards start rolling in."

God, could you be any more of a city slicker? You rubbed your neck, embarrassed.

"Thanks. I've been here a few months now and I guess I just didn't realise how serious things can get."

"It's all good. But if I'm honest, I get worried thinking about you out there all alone. Plenty of drifters end up passing through. Not a good place to be alone, not for a little thing like yourself."

Little? You wanted to feel indignant, but looking at his bulk, you reckoned that most folk probably seemed little to him.

He lead you to the fireplace and poured you a mug of coffee from the pot that was waiting for you. He jerked his head at the hunting rifle on display above the mantle.

"I can teach you to shoot, if you've got some free time."

You took a sip of the coffee, internally debating with yourself. You could see the sense in your offer but you weren't a big fan of guns. Hell, just being around them was nerve wrecking enough. Maybe -

You looked down at your mug in surprise.

"This is some really good stuff."

The coffee was strong, bitter in the best sort of way. You could catch a hint of chocolate in it too. Just sweet enough to make your toes curl.

" 'Course. Only the best for my guest. Help yourself to another cup. I'll just put your stuff on charge and be right back."

You finished your drink in a few sips and happily poured a second serving. Hot coffee... man, you didn't think three days without it would be so tough. Usually, you were pretty sensitive to caffeine. But by the time your neighbour came back, your head was tilted back and you were half asleep.

You tried to shake yourself out of it but he just laughed and pushed you back down.

"You probably haven't had a good sleep since the power went out. Just rest. We can talk once you wake up."

"I'm sorry..."

"It's fine." His hand was still on your shoulder, thumb rubbing small circles into your neck. "It's just fine with me."

You drifted off after that. Into a deep sleep without any dreams. Waking up was like slogging through molasses.

"Finally up sleepy head?"

It was dark outside and your neighbour was on one knee in front of the fire place, coaxing fresh wood to catch.

You sat up slowly. Your muscles ached and there was a strange, salty taste on your tongue.

"My heads killing me..."

He stood, poker still in his hand. "You must be starving then. I've already got some food on the stove. You'll feel better after you eat."

You didn't feel hungry at all. If anything, you felt almost hangover.

"Thanks," you managed. "I'm sorry to be such a bother."

He waved you away. "I don't mind a bit."

He came back with a bowl of steaming hot chow and stood with his arms crossed on the back of your couch while you ate.

"It's real late. I reckon you should stay over. I don't want you driving on dirt when it's so dark."

"Oh, it's fine. I've already put you out so much."

"Don't be silly. I insist."

You shivered without meaning to. That almost growl, low and bordering on menacing. It was so familiar, so...

"Just like that. Look at you, half asleep and still desperate for my cock."

"You like the taste? Yeah, I bet you fucking do."

"Ain't just gonna use your mouth next time."

You squeezed your eyes shut. Where the hell was this coming from? Were you remembering some sick dream from this afternoon?

"You okay there neighbour?"

You nodded. "Just my head."

Maybe he was right. Driving when you were so disorientated was just asking for trouble.

"If you really don't mind... I'll be happy to sleep over."

He laughed, a deep, rumbling thing. "I'll make the guest room up special, just for you."

"Could I use your shower too?"

"I offered didn't I? Come on, I'll show you where it is."

He took you to the master bedroom and jerked his thumb at the en-suite.

"Hot water is the most reliable in there. Door doesn't close that well though, so don't mind it. I'll be downstairs when you're done."

You brushed your teeth carefully. You lips felt sore, bruised in a way you couldn't explain.

You waited until you heard his footsteps going down the stairs before you stripped off your clothes. You stood under the hot water for a good few minutes, luxuriating in the feeling. The bathroom was thick with steam when you finally got to scrubbing yourself. The door was open just a crack and the bedroom beyond was dark. You forgot all about it until you heard the creak of the hinges.

You whirled to face the door, your hands coming up to cover yourself. The steam was too thick to see through. You called his name.

Nothing.

You stepped out with suds still on your thighs and pushed the door open. The room beyond was empty.

You sighed. God, you were being paranoid. Your neighbour was a great guy. It was unfair of you to treat him like a peeping tom when he'd gone out of his way to make you comfortable. It must have been just an errant draught.

You stepped back into the shower and rinsed yourself off. But no matter what you told yourself, you still kept an eye on the door.

When you went to change into your fresh clothes, you spent at least five minutes hunting for your underwear. Did you drop it somewhere? Oh, please say your undies weren't just sitting in the middle of his hallway. That would be beyond embarrassing.

Eventually you gave up and just decided to go without them. Not comfortable at all but still better than walking around in a towel to look for them. And much better than calling your neighbour in to help. Wouldn't that be fun? 'Hey neighbour that I don't know that well, you haven't seen my intimates lying around, have you?' Yeah, you'd never again get invited over after something like that.

When you were dressed, you found him already on his way up the hall. He was carrying a glass of water and some pills.

"Thought you might still have a headache, so I brought you some painkillers."

You paused, nervous but not sure why.

"Thanks." His hands dwarfed yours when he handed them over. You didn't recognise the name of on the pills, but they looked harmless. You tossed them back and gagged at the bitter aftertaste.

"They pack a punch, so tell me when you start to get drowsy."

"Aye aye captain."

You followed him to the guest room. It was at the very back on the second story, quieter than the rest of the house. A huge glass wall gave you a view of the forest disappearing into the darkness. You could see the ghost of your reflection in the glass, your neighbour a hulking, shapeless mass at your shoulder.

He took a seat in an armchair across form the bed and stretched out his legs. You perched on the edge of the mattress, still feeling a bit like an intruder.

"How long have you been staying out here?” you asked.

He smiled at you, teeth glinting almost wolf-like. "Got you curious?"

"A little. Folk in town say they hardly see you. I don't know... I'm just wondering if you ever get lonely."

He was quiet and you cursed yourself for being so nosy. You hurried to fill the silence.

"It's just that I get a bit lonely out here too. 'Specially when it's so quiet. And I guess I was wondering if it's the same for you."

He smiled at you, rueful. "At times. Used to be worse, but I've got a new interest to keep me occupied nowadays."

"Oh yeah? What?"

"Bird watching."

"Really? What do you look for?"

The way the room was lit up, you couldn't see his eyes. They fell into shadow and you only had his lips to read his emotions by. He smirked, slow and almost mocking.

"Just one bird I look out for. Flighty little thing. Tends to get caught by predators a lot. You’d probably recognise it."

The polite thing to do would be to ask what it was called. You didn't. Some part of whispered that you wouldn't like the answer.

You must have been quiet a little too long because he took it as his cue to leave. He stood, a mountain of muscle, his eyes not quite as nice as they seemed that afternoon. A trick of the light, surely. He wouldn't hurt a fly.

"You rest up. Got a busy day tomorrow."

"G'night."

He was gone before you thought to ask what he meant. And you were passed out on your pillows before you realised it. He was right. The pills sure did pack one hell of a punch.

You were aware of a shadow at the end of your bed. You weren't fully awake, and your limbs were slow and heavy with more than just sleep.

"Who..."

The shadow reached down and one warm paw circled your ankle.

"Just me little bird."

You knew that voice. It was the voice that brought you warm food and invited you in from the cold. You could trust it. Could go back to sleep and not worry about anything.

'No,' some part of you hissed, 'He's not as safe as you think.'

"Cold..."

The shadow laughed and it was the laugh of the fox finding the rabbit's den. Nasty. Hungry.

"Cold huh? Don't worry baby. I'll warm you right up."

He yanked your ankle towards him and your whole body slid down the bed. You were too drowsy to stop it.

"Knew you were gonna be mine the second I saw you," he cooed, hands running up your thighs.

His fingers slipped under your waistband, nails scraping your hip bones.

"Dumb little thing from the city. Doesn't even realise I've tripped all their breakers. That's why you don't have power baby. It's all me."

His fingers were as big as the rest of him. Thick, meaty. Skin rough from working outdoors. You whined when his fingertips scraped the edges of your hole.

"No underwear. You needy slut. That's practically a written and signed invitation to fuck you."

He pulled your pants down to your ankles and pushed your knees up to your stomach. And you were too out of it to stop him. Limp and pliable as a fuck doll.

Your tight ass was exposed to the cold air, entirely at the mercy of whatever he wanted to do.

"Cute." He circled his thumb around the rim, almost pushing in but not quite. "Wanted to be in this ass since you first showed up at my door all those months ago. Lookin' up at me all sweet. Fuck, it's enough to drive a man to desperation."

He lowered his head and you could feel his warm breath washing over your thighs.

He dragged his tongue across your hole. Some part of you must have been more awake than the rest, because your whole body jerked away from him.

"None of that," he cooed, hands digging into your thighs and dragging you back. "I haven't even gotten started yet."

He licked you again, deeper this time. The flexed tip of his tongue pushing at your entrance, and to your dull horror, actually slipping in. He moaned and you could feel the vibrations all through your crotch.

He pulled out and spat, rubbed it in with his fingers. One of them pushed in until the second joint, curling into your walls so rough that you gasped.

"Please..."

"Please what?" he mocked. "Please fuck my tight little ass? Please cum inside me? Use your words little bird."

"Please...stop..."

That made him laugh again, made him shove his finger in all the way to the knuckle. Twisting so cruelly as he pulled out and jerked back in.

"Stop? Stop? After all the work it took to get you here? No way baby. I'm not slowing down and I'm sure as fuck not stopping."

You heard the sound of his belt unbuckling, followed by a sharp intake of breath when he nudged his leaking head against your hole.

"You’re not going to remember this. And I'm not going to leave any evidence."

He pushed your legs tighter against your chest.

"So as much as I want to fuck you rotten, you're gonna have to be happy with just the tip."

He'd done a good job loosening and lubing you, but it still burned like a hot poker when he forced his way in. He groaned, almost in pain.

"You're fucking choking me. God, do you want my cum so bad?"

You could feel when the tip was in. That tiny difference in thickness between his head and shaft was oh so noticeable when your ass was clenching and fluttering around it. It was the smallest mercy, but mercy nonetheless.

He was panting from the effort of getting it in, the effort of holding back. The size difference between you almost perverse. Like a draft stallion trying to mount a pony. In every way, he was just too fucking big.

He spat in his hand and brought it to his cock, ran his palm up and down his shaft with sickly wet strokes. The combination of his palm and your squeezing ass was fucking delicious.

He had great stamina but fuck if it didn't feel like you were milking him.

He let go long enough to smack your ass. It almost finished him. You clenched around him so hard it felt like his tip was getting fucking crushed.

"Shiiiit, you're the best hole I've ever had. Can't wait 'til I can go all the way."

You whined, pitiful as snared prey. There were words there, though they were too slurred to make out. Something about Daddy and please and stop. He ignored you.

He pushed in a little deeper and watched your face scrunching up. So helpless, so fucking caught. That was what did it. The knowledge that he could do this to you at any point and you'd be helpless to stop it.

He came inside you, snarling through clenched teeth, his fingers digging into your thigh hard enough to bruise. You'd notice the marks in the morning and chalk it up to just being clumsy. But he'd know. He'd see the bruises peeking out from the hem of your shorts and his cock would twitch just a little at the memory of leaving them.

His cock pulsed. Shot strings of spunk deep inside you. You could feel it. Hot, too hot. Gross. Make it stop. Get it out.

He pulled out with a wet pop. His cum drooled down and he took a minute to work it back into you with his finger. Your hole was gaping just a little and it made his balls pulse. If he had the time...

"A real fucking mess. And on my good sheets too. You're a terrible guest."

He mopped up whatever cum remained with a balled up piece of martial that he pulled from his pocket. Even in you stupor, you recognised it as your missing underwear.

"Terrible guest, but the perks of having you around are pretty fucking sweet."

He dropped your knees back to the mattress, pulled your pants back into place and roughly yanked the duvet over you. He grabbed your jaw and smiled at the lost, drowsy look in your half open eyes.

"Got a big day tomorrow. Gonna wake up and find your whole house was flooded. Ruined. Gonna have nowhere to stay but with me."

He sounded smug. It made your guts twist.

Outside, the night grew quiet. A predator was hunting and most prey knew better than to catch its attention.

"I made sure of it. All your family and friends in the city are away from home. There's no one around to help you out..."

He tightened his grip just enough to watch the fear start dancing in your eyes.

"No one...except me."

He let you go and smiled that same warm, comforting smile from that afternoon.

"Dumb little thing. Got no clue how your water mains work, do you? Got no idea how easy they are to sabotage."

He tutted. "Got me so damn busy. I'm gonna have to run to your place, fuck shit up and be back here before you wake up for real."

He traced his index finger over your lips and left behind a sticky coating of spunk. You'd wake up tasting salt again, with no memory of why.

"But it's fine. I forgive you. After today we'll have plenty of time together. Rest of our lives in fact. So just sleep tight and forget what you think you've dreamed."

There are perks to living in the middle nowhere. Privacy. Untouched nature. Peace and quiet.

There are perks, but unfortunately for you, your neighbour isn't one of them.

[mariasont]

That anon was living under a rock because your smut fics (all of your fics tbh!) I reread wayyy to many times, lol. But if you’re taking smut requests, I’d love to see more bimbo!reader and Hotch! I can’t get enough.

I’ll take anything!! But more specifically, their first time, all of that built up tension (that you write so perfectly!) finally breaks!

Anyways, I never send in requests but I saw a window of opportunity and had to take it, haha.

Third Date Rule - A.H

summary: the third date proves to be worth the wait when you and hotch experience your first time together. pairings: aaron hotchner x bimbo!assistant!reader warnings: 18+ MDNI, sexy time, fingering, oral fem receiving, p in v, they did not in fact wrap it before tapping it and it's not really discussed so yeah idk about that one, aftercare wc: 7.7k

This was so overdue.

Technically, it's only been three dates. Technically.

But if you count all the years you'd known him, the months spent daydreaming about this moment, the weeks of waiting while he played the world's longest game of restraint, then really, you should have had him naked ages ago.

And if Aaron (which still feels like a thrill to say — Aaron — because you're dating now and you can freely call him that) wasn't so stubborn and noble and insufferably gentlemanly, you would have.

But tonight was finally the night. The third date. The sacred, hallowed, much-debated, universally accepted gateway to getting into the sheets. And yes, okay, maybe you barely survived the wait without jumping his bones, but that's hardly relevant now. The point is, you did it.

And now you're in his lap, his tie wound tight around your fingers, his tongue deep in your mouth, and gods, if this night didn't end with him inside you, you might actually die. 

Like, literally. Heart failure. Sudden death.

This was premeditated. At least, for you. You moisturized like your life depended on it, doused yourself in perfume that could be classified as a controlled substance, and selected a bra that made your tits look so insane, it might actually be illegal in some states.

And then you spent an embarrassing amount of time picking the perfect dress that says oh, I'm classy, but also please take me home and rip this off with your teeth.

You pull away, just enough to see him. To take in the slow bloom of pink trailing from his cheeks to the tips of his ears, the way his pupils are so wide they’ve all but erased the brown of his eyes. And his lips — swollen and red from kissing you — part like he was debating how bad it would be to drag you right back in. You wouldn’t mind.

“Aaron,” you sigh, fingers burying into his hair, marveling at how absurdly soft it is, how freely he lets you have this piece of him. “We should go to bed.”

For a second, he locks up. Not hesitation but calibration, a body processing desire so sharp it might break him. You feel it in the way his chest expands, in the quiet exhale through his nose.

"This wasn't my plan for the night," he murmurs, voice softer now, not strained, but steeped in something much gentler. Something careful. "I wasn't —," He shakes his head, like the whole concept doesn’t sit right in his mouth. "I don't want you to think this is just —,"

"Sex?"

You can see the way he wants to argue, like he wants to carve the word out of the air and replace it with something that means more.

"Yes."

You can’t stop the stupid, lovestruck smile pulling at your lips. Maybe it’s the wine from dinner finally working its magic. (It’s not.) Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at you, all serious and earnest, like you’re the only thing in existence, and if he blinks, you might vanish. (It definitely is.)

A laugh bubbles up, light and giddy, body not knowing what to do with all this adoration. You lean in, pressing a kiss to his jaw, just to see if he’ll let you. (He does.)

“Are you serious? If you just wanted sex, you wouldn’t have spent actual years pretending my very dedicated, very expertly executed attempts to seduce you weren’t happening.”

His brow arches, but you see it for what it is — a stall. “Expertly, huh?”

"Remember that heatwave last summer? When I just had to eat a popsicle at my desk every afternoon?"

His eyes darken like the memory is playing in high definition behind his eyes.

"I remember."

"Do you?" Your fingers slip beneath his color. “Because —” You tilt your head. “I always seemed to finish them standing in front of your office —"

You don't even get to finish your sentence. 

One second, you’re speaking, the next, you’re airborne. Lifted clean off the couch, legs locking around his waist automatically, arms thrown around his shoulders like you planned this all along.

You didn’t, but you wish you had. 

Not that it matters, because he’s already moving, already walking straight to the bedroom.

You bury your smile against his jaw, letting your breath tickle against the shell of his ear as another giggle slips out. It couldn’t be helped.

"I really hope you know," you whisper, “that I am, like, stupidly excited for this. Like, counting down the days excited.”

Aaron sets you down on the mattress gently, but his body doesn’t follow right away, hovering over you.

"You're not making this easy for me."

You ignore him because you’re much more distracted by how insanely soft his sheets are. That was your first thought when your back hits the mattress, hair fanning across the pillows.

For a fleeting second, you wonder if he’ll catch the scent of your perfume tomorrow. If he’ll notice the ghost of you when he lays down alone.

Your second was that this is so not the time nor place to get emotional. 

But this is his space. His bed. His room.

It’s tidy, but somehow not sterile, everything having its place, but not afraid to be used. A book sits on the nightstand, a book mark sticking out mid-thought. A photo frame faces the bed, though from this angle you struggle to see what’s inside.

There’s his suit jacket from yesterday, draped over the back of a chair, a little rumpled. 

And maybe it's silly, but you feel weirdly honored to be here.

You should probably be processing this moment, what it means to be here, with him, like this. Instead, you take a second to admire the view.

The lamp softens the sharp lines of his face, making him look almost gentle — which is funny, considering how you hoped to be thoroughly destroyed by him.

Something expands inside you, stretching against the walls of your chest, something too big, something that terrifies you.

So you do what you do best. You deflect.

“I can’t believe I’m about to sleep with my boss.”

He doesn’t even try to hide his exasperation, his forehead dropping into the crook of your neck. “Sweetheart—,”

"What?" You giggle, letting your fingers slide through his hair, letting your nails rake lightly over his scalp. "It's true."

His sigh is nothing short of pained, but then he kisses your cheek anyway, then your jaw, then the corner of your mouth. You were starting to feel like each was a thinly veiled attempt to tame you.

"Please don't phrase it like that."

"Yes, Mr. Hotchner." 

Every self-satisfied thought evaporates the moment he kisses you – really kisses you.

It’s not just a meeting of lips but a focused intensity, tongue sweeping inside your mouth and suddenly nothing before this mattered, because clearly, clearly, every kiss you’ve ever had was just practice for this one. 

Your body responds before your mind can catch up, spine arching and he doesn’t stop you, just kisses you with a hunger that makes teasing obsolete, that makes breathing secondary to the way he’s taking from you, giving to you, all at once.

His lips wander, dragging across your jaw like he’s leaving invisible ink behind, pressing something permanent into your skin.

You hope you’ll wake up tomorrow and still feel him there.

Your hands move to the nape of his neck, drawn by craving, by the need circling inside you like a ribbon of fire.

It stretches outward, licking at your skin, threading through your veins. His hands hold you still, spanning over your rib. His breath fans over your pulse, and you swear he can feel how fast it’s racing.

You should be gloating right now. This is, after all, exactly what you wanted, what you worked for. A biting remark sits on the top of your tongue, but then his mouth moves, and he finds it.

That wicked, traitorous little dip beneath your jaw that turns your entire brain into pink, glittering static. He pauses, listening, feeling, before sealing his mouth over it again, tongue dragging over the sensitive skin like he’s testing a theory that he already knows the answer to.

Your fingers clench in his hair, a startled sound choking in your throat before you can stop it. And then, the bastard laughs. Not sweet, not kind, but low and sharp and smug because he knows exactly what he’s done. 

You had the upper hand. Past tense.

"There it is," he murmurs, pressing another kiss there, his tongue flattening over it just to make you squirm. "You want to know how I figured this out?"

You hum, or try to. But it’s pathetic because you’re barely conscious, every cell fried to uselessness by his mouth.

He mimics you, just to be an ass about it, mocking the dazed little sound like he hasn’t just reduced you to it. "You always reached for it when I looked at you too long."

Your mouth opens. Closes.

"Or," he continues, "when I stood too close to you at the coffee machine. You'd fidget, tuck your hair behind your ear like you weren't thinking about it." His exhale burns against your pulse. "Cute."

You gasp, a little offended, mostly turned on. "Oh, wow. Profiling me? At work? That's, like, wildly unethical."

"Didn't need to," he murmurs. "You were practically begging me to figure you out."

His mouth is perfect in the way lightning is perfect – striking, searing, and completely out of your control. It’s perfect enough that you can pretend not to hear him.

He sucks, slow and hard enough to tear a sound from your lips before you even know it’s there, something that feels like vulnerability in its purest form. Something you would never willingly give him.

His laugh is quiet, wrecking, as he pulls back, lips slick with your skin. "That good?"

His mouth makes quick work, over your collarbone, down, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses, down, branding every inch of skin he can reach. 

He stops at the neckline of your dress, and suddenly, you can't think about anything except how it's still on.

You want to strip it off, want to offer yourself up as a willing sacrifice, but you’re well aware that if you try, if you even reach, he’ll stop you. Or worse, he'll make you wait. He'll slow you down, draw it out just to watch you squirm because patience is his weapon of choice, because he lives for making you suffer.

His teeth graze the swell of your breast, just enough to sting, and whatever fragile grip you had on yourself disintegrates on impact. Your hands fumble blindly for his face, fingers shaking, needing to see his eyes.

"Please, Aaron.” It’s an exhale, a prayer. “Need you."

You see the ripple of tension along his throat. And for one tiny, blinding second you think this is when he finally snaps, abandons his tolerance and just takes you.

"You don't know how long I've wanted you like this," he rumbles. "I'm going to take my time."

You whine, frustration bleeding from your fingertips where they clutch his shoulders, fingers digging in like you can physically push him into moving faster.

He does not move faster. 

His hands slide up to the straps of your dress, as he drags it down with all the urgency of a leisurely Sunday stroll. 

Your mind is halfway through an exceptionally justified complaint about how slow he is moving when he folds the dress.

Folds it.

Sets it aside. Doesn't toss it.

And that may be the hottest thing he's ever done.

Because you know he knows. He’s always known. Known that your things aren’t just things — that your dresses, your heels, your overpriced lip glosses aren’t frivolous, aren’t some shallow indulgence, but tiny, curated pieces of you.

He has listened to you decide between two pairs of shoes that are, for all intent and purposes, identical. He knows jasmine is mysterious and vanilla is flirty, knows that you’ll debate your right to own the same three shades of pink. 

And instead of dismissing it, instead of rolling his eyes (though he does that too), he folds your dress. As if it matters.

You stare at him, somewhere between melting and spontaneous combustion, and he simply raises a brow. “Something wrong?”

"No." You shake your head for emphasis, voice a little too weak to get the point across. "Just thinking I might have to marry you."

His hands settle at your waist, fingers tracing over the pink lace like he’s trying to process it, like if he touches it enough times, it’ll confirm that this is actually happening and not some cruel illusion. His thumb brushes the scalloped edge, breathing shallow. You were pretty sure he’s currently having a full-scale existential meltdown over lingerie.

"Agreed," he murmurs, distracted, hooded eyes still glued to your chest. "I think the courthouse opens at eight."

Your giggle stutters, hiccups right out of you, because his hands are suddenly everywhere, roaming with no clear plan, just a man in crisis over how much of you he wants to touch first. His palms skate over your stomach, down your thighs, up over your breasts.

"So, this is all I had to do to convince you to do what I want?"

His mouth follows, retracting the path of his hands, rewriting, reworking, perfecting – because apparently, the first time wasn’t good enough, wasn’t thorough enough. 

"You think this is what did it for me?" His voice is hushed. "You could've walked into my office six months ago and told me to get on one knee.” A kiss, open-mouthed, starving, just below your navel. “I would've done it."

Six months ago. You don't know if you believed that.

Except now you're spiraling, backtracking, rewinding, piecing together little details like some lovesick conspiracy theorist with red string and a bulletin board. Every interaction, every loaded glance, every time he let you get away with high-level flirtation without so much as a blink. You thought you were testing him, but what if he was never fighting at all?

And before you can even recover from that, before you can file an official grievance about why no one told you sooner, his hands squeeze at your thighs, his mouth so close to exactly where you need him, and his voice —

"You're so beautiful."

His nose presses into the damp center of your panties, and your hands fly to his hair so fast it’s practically reflex, breath stalling in your chest like your body forgot how to function for a second. 

This is everything. What you've wanted, dreamed of, written in the margins of notebooks (hypothetically, of course).

It should be perfect, but suddenly, it isn't.

Uncertainty slips between the cracks, heat turning into something less solid. You don’t have time to find it, to name it, because he’s already there, already sensing it, already fixing it before you even know what’s wrong.

"Hey." His voice hooks into you, gently reeling you back from wherever your brain was about to go. "We don't have to do anything you're not ready for."

"No, I—," The words come out far too fast and desperate, and you can't decipher why it's so hard to say. "I do want to. Obviously." The nervous laugh that follows is definitely not your usual flirty confidence. "Have you met yourself? Because if you haven't, I would love to introduce you. Tall, devastatingly handsome — you'd love him."

His move curves, but his eyes stay patient and focused, giving you a second to breathe.

"It's just..." Another pause, another frustrated sigh. "I haven't been with anyone in a while."

"That's okay, we can take it slow." He moves so that he's hovering above you again, brushing a strand of hair out of your face, his smile just amused enough to leave you flustered. "How long?"

"May."

"May?"

"Yeah, like, May. Three years ago."

Aaron just stares at you, processing. You can see the gears turning, the little mental loading wheel spinning, his expression caught between stunned and deeply interested.

His fingers creep up, sliding under your ribs, just close enough to the heavy swell of your tits to remind you exactly where you are. What he was doing to you before you so rudely derailed this into actual conversation.

"Really?"

You pinch his arm. "Hey! That is not an absurd amount of time."

"No. I know. I didn’t say that," he says quickly. "I'm just... surprised."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

His lips part and he immediately shakes his head, exhaling like he's physically trying to dispel what just ran through your mind, knowing exactly where your thoughts were.

"I just mean — I don't know how every man you meet doesn't immediately worship the ground you walk on."

"Oh, well, they do." You smile. "But I was only ever planning on letting one of them take me to bed."

You reach for his dress shirt buttons, tugging insistently, but your hands refuse to cooperate, not properly communicating with your brain.

It's his fault, you decide.

He looks too good, and it was extremely hard to focus on anything but that.

You have no idea how you survived dinner. Or the car ride home. Or even the eternity it took to get past the door, because that was definitely a struggle considering your mouth was all over his, tasting the whiskey he’d barely touched, before he could even get the key in the lock.

You spent all night picturing this, the way his hands would feel in you, the way his mouth would taste, the way his suit would look crumpled on the floor.

Which, in hindsight, probably meant you were a pretty terrible dinner guest. Nodding, smiling, pretending to listen, all while barely holding back the need to ride him in public.

Aaron laughs, clearly entertained by your struggle, and then, because he’s nothing if not arrogant, he starts undoing the buttons one-handed, to be a show-off.

It’s rude, really. Because now all you can do is watch, helpless as he peels himself open to reveal golden skin, dark hair dusting over firm pecs, trailing lower, disappearing beneath his belt. 

Your manicured fingers glide over the broad expanse of his shoulders, pushing his shirt away like uncovering some lost Renaissance painting that scholars would kill to get their hands on — something that should be in a temperature-controlled glass case, not just here, sprawled above you like he belongs to you. Which, he does, because he’s just letting you do this, letting you look. And you look. He is art. No, better than art. Art is stationary, lifeless, some brushstroke interpretation of what beauty should be. But this, him, he is warmth and breath and muscle.

Museums wish they had something this valuable. They’d burn down in despair if they knew he existed just for you.

"May," he muses, letting the word roll off his tongue, turning it over in his mind. "That's an oddly specific answer."

You make a vague sound of agreement, mostly just to acknowledge that yes, technically, he did say words, but you’re too busy to actually care. Too busy with spreading your hands over the planes of his chest, with grabbing at his belt.

"You were hired in May three years ago."

Your hands freeze. 

"That's... um weird." A slow blink. "Weird that you know that. Weirder that you noticed."

You work his belt loose, tugging it free. It’s meant to be a distraction, a well-placed touch to shift his focus from his revelation.

But then your plan backfires spectacularly because he’s hard, thick, unreasonably big and suddenly your fingers feel useless.

Aaron makes a sound — half a hiss, half a laugh — and his hands snap to your wrist, catching you before you can explore further, like he knew you were going to do that. "It’s okay, honey."

"I—I don't—," You blink up at him, floundering, desperately trying to sound casual. "That's, uh, I don't know what that's supposed to mean."

Aaron’s smirk deepens, his grip on you slackening just enough to trick you into thinking he’s going to be nice.

But then his other hand moves, slipping between your bodies, sliding beneath the heat trapped between your thighs, finding the neediest part of you, and pressing.

Your whole body jerks, a startled gasp catching in your throat as sensation flares — hot, sharp, mercilessly good.

His fingers start to move, rubbing tight circles against you. Your hands cling, one locked onto his bare shoulders, the other pressing against his dick, desperate to make him feel even a fraction of what he's doing to you.

It earns you a groan, low and gritty, hips twitching against your palm, his breath is hot against your lips, his mouth hovering just barely out of reach.

"I won't tease," he promises, but the way he bites at your bottom lip feels like a lie. His tongue is quick to follow, flicking over the welt he’s just left, soothing the burn before sealing it with a kiss, just this side of messy. “Three years… that’s a long time.” His lips skim yours again. “For both of us.”

A pleased sound bubbles up from your throat, slipping between his lips, that makes it obnoxiously clear just how much you love those words. That is a sentence you’d like embroidered on a pillow. Maybe cross-stitched into a nice, elegant frame for your future shared bedroom. 

"Oh," you sigh, a smile stretching against his lips. "I really, really, like knowing that. That's, like, incredible news."

Your brows scrunch, and you pull back just an inch. 

"Just to be clear, though, you do mean in a wow, you've ruined me for other women way, and not in a I've been to busy for a sex life way, right? Because those are two different things, and I need to know which one we're working with here—"

Aaron huffs a laugh and instead of answering with words, his hands slip into your panties, fingers finding your clit without prelude. Skin to skin now, no fabric, no flimsy barrier. Just touch.

His fingers dip lower, dragging through the slick, indecent in how easily he moves through the mess of you. He makes a noise — nearly a groan, mostly a hum of appreciation, of possession — before he spreads it, smearing your own arousal over your clit, rolling circles.

"Oh, wow, sweetheart."

Your thighs fall open like you have no say in it — because you don’t, because every instinct in you is reaching for him, needing it like a fix.

And maybe, maybe that should be embarrassing — the obvious, shameless way you seek him out — but it’s a gorgeous kind of humiliation, a flush that spreads lower.

"Well," you gasp, chest rising in stuttering little pants. "Y—you kept me waiting forever."

Aaron hushes you with a soft tsk, his fingers pressing, stroking, coaxing you into sweet, mindless submission. Every movement feels preordained, like he already knows your body, like he’s a man who’s spent years thinking about this.

"I know, sweetheart," he soothes, murmuring it against the fragile skin beneath your ear, punctuating it with a kiss. "But I think I'm making up for lost time pretty well."

"I guess," you manage. "Th—that's acceptable."

Aaron chuckles, the vibration traveling straight into your skin. His lips descend, an idolization thing, but it’s the kind of devotion that sets you on fire.

His hands spread over your thighs, parting them gently.

Your underwear drags down, slipping over your thighs, grazing the curve of your knees, and then off. And suddenly, there's nothing separating you from his eyes, from the way the air licks over you, cool against the sticky heat between your thighs.

His lips part like he wasn't expecting to fall apart so easily. Like he thought he'd have more time, more control. And the power in it, the sheer, intoxicating power of knowing he's just as affected as you are, that this is breaking him open, makes your skin fizz, burn, ache for him even more.

If someone had told you a year ago that Aaron Hotchner, mister all-business-all-the-time, would be between your legs, staring at you like he's never seen anything more perfect, you would have said something nonsensical. Something about fate. Or destiny.

And you would have been right. Because you always knew this was a definite.

"Oh, honey.... You're gorgeous," It's almost a whisper, like the words were dragged out of him against his will, stolen straight from his lungs the second his eyes landed on you. His gaze drinks you in, head tilting, lips parting, tongue skating over the swell of his bottom lip. “I knew you would be, but…”

A sharp, sizzling spark races up your spine, white-hot and unbearable, but when it should tip over into relief, it withers into frustration. The kind that makes your body revolt against the absence of touch. Your hips buck, thighs squeezing as if you can somehow force the friction you’re being deprived of.

"Give me a second, baby," he teases, caressing his nose along the inside of your thigh. "Just wanna look at you."

His mouth moves in decadent passes, open-mouthed kisses pressed into your inner thigh.

Another kiss. Then another. So close.

Then he detours. Veers off, pressing his lips into the dip of your hip instead, dragging his tongue along something that is not your clit.

"So perfect."

His fingers prod through your folds, parting you, fingertips wading through the slickness pooling at your entrance. The sound that spills from him is sinful.

All of your muscles coiling tight, every inch of you scorching with unmet need and just when you think you're going to have to beg him, just when the words start to form —

He gives in. 

His tongue is there first, dragging a flat, broad stripe through your center, licking over every hypersensitive inch of you before looking up at you through hooded eyes. You swear you nearly come from the sight alone.

"Knew you'd be sweet."

Aaron doesn't waste another second, burying himself in you, mouth moving like he's been ravenous for this. 

His grip is firm as he spreads you wider, keeping you at his mercy. His lips wrap around your clit for a split second before he moves again, tasing, licking, humming, lapping up everything you're giving him.

It's messy. Wet. Dripping. His mouth moves as he tries to wreck himself on you. Each second convincing you that he wouldn’t mind suffocating here if it meant another taste.

His nose nudges against you, the angle so cruelly perfect it sends another violent tremor through your body, legs jumping against his shoulders. Your fingers grasp blindly for purchase, gripping the sheets, tangling in his hair, at anything you can reach. 

"That's it, sweetheart," he murmurs into you, words muffled by your pussy. "Let me hear you."

"Oh — " The sound falls from your lips, your eyes squeezing shut like you can block out the overwhelming pleasure if you just try hard enough.  "Oh, that's — "

Your hips stutter, thighs tightening around his face.

Aaron chuckles darkly, and you feel it more than you hear it, the sound pulsing through your core.

You’re not sure you have a body anymore, not sure you exist outside of this moment. You’re just sensation, just trembling atoms held together only by his hands, his breath, his voice. There’s no past or future – just now, just him.

If this is what it means to transcend, to be unraveled and rewritten in the same breath, then let it consume you whole. You could die like this, and it would be the kindest death you could ever ask for.

A single finger ghosts over your entrance, teasing but never quite committing. He dips in, just the barest of intrusion, and you shudder, clenching around nothing because it’s gone just as fast. 

He waits, just long enough to hear the next breathy fussing before finally spearing back in. Your eyes flutter shut, breath breaking apart in little puffs.

The sounds coming from your cunt should embarrass you, sticky, so shockingly loud that if your brain was working, you’d be mortified. But it’s not working. Not even a little. 

His hand flattens over your stomach and suddenly the pressure doubles, triples.

"Tell me, baby," he murmurs, "feels good, doesn't it?"

"Yes, yes, oh my gods, Aaron, I—"

Your normal senses have left the building. Packed its bags, hit the road, abandoned you to whatever dark magic this is. Because this —this isn’t how your body works. This isn’t how guys work. You don’t come from this. 

But here you are, hurtling toward it at full speed and all because he decided you would.

It’s happening too fast, the pressure stacking. Your thighs shake open, stomach clenching so hard it aches. Your mind is lagging behind, still reeling, still trying to rationalize but it doesn’t matter because your body has already made its choice, has already given in, has already decided this is happening, whether you’re ready for it or not.

"Aaron, I think—,"

Aaron just groans, finishing your sentence for you, lapping up your confession with his tongue,

"I know, baby." Hot air blows against your swollen clit. "Let me feel it."

It crashes over you, back bowing off the bed. Your body splinters apart, thighs trembling so hard you couldn’t stop them if you tried. The edges of your vision smear into nothing as the pleasure consumes everything in its path. 

His mouth stays on you, tongue and fingers pushing you through the aftershocks until you’re clawing at the sheets, until that pleasure tilts so far into oversensitivity that makes you unaware if you’re pulling him closer or pushing him away.

Your limbs feel like liquid, consolidating into every inch of your body, melting into the mattress as Aaron moves to be face to face with you.

He's looking at you like he's the only thing keeping you tethered to this planet, and maybe he is, because when his lips get close enough, you tug him the rest of the way down, crashing your mouth into his in a way that's all sloppy desperation.

You can taste yourself on him, can feel the way he groans into it when you sigh against his mouth, all soft and dreamy and drunk on gratification. 

When you pull back, your fingers card through his hair, fixing nothing but feeling everything.

"Oh my gosh," you gasp, dissolving into giggles, toes curling as you flop back against the pillows. "I knew you'd be good at that, obviously, but I wasn't expecting all that. Like wow, you should get a certificate of excellence or something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," you sigh dramatically, "Or like, a trophy, a raise, a sash that says best head giver in gold letters—," You pause for a breath, sucking in air like you just realized how winded you are.

"— and I mean, I've never come like that before. So. You should probably put that on your résumé."

When Aaron presses against you, you feel every inch of him. Thick and unfortunately still restrained. His slacks are a cruel barrier, the rough drag of the fabric catching your clit in a way that rips a whimper straight from your throat.

His teeth scrape along your jaw, then he's mouthing at your neck, sucking, teasing, marking you.

"Firstly," he murmurs. "I hate the idea of anyone else touching you."

An involuntary shiver rolls through you.

"And secondly," he continues, "the fact that they didn't even know how."

Your hands are frantic as they fly to his waistband, fumbling a bit, the last hindrance between you offensive in its existence. 

"Well, yeah," you sigh, looking up at him through fluttering lashes, glossy lips parted just for him. "I mean, you're literally the only one who's ever known what to do with me. That has to mean something, right? Like, cosmic destiny or whatever."

Aaron shoves his pants and briefs off, barely sparing them a second thought, and then he's back, fitted between your thighs.

"You already know the answer to that." His lips brush your temple. "I'm the only one who knows how to handle you. And I plan on proving it."

"Yeah, okay," you say, squirming beneath him. "Not gonna argue when that sounds like the best idea ever."

You've seen a lot of versions of Aaron. You've seen work Aaron, serious and bossy, looking at crime scenes like he can hear the evidence whispering just to him. You've seen grumpy Aaron, glaring over his coffee when you talk too much at morning briefings (but you know he likes it, he just won't say). You've seen soft Aaron, the one who lets you steal his jacket even though you definitely don't need it.

But you've never seen this Aaron. This post-kissing-you Aaron. Lips slick, still damp with you, evidence of where he’s been, what he’s done.

His eyes flick to yours, and there’s no shame, no rush to wipe it away. If anything, he tilts his head, letting you see it from a better angle.

"You're so handsome, Aaron." Your voice trembles. You don't even know if you said it out loud or just thought it so hard he must have heard it anyway.

"And you,” he murmurs, tracing his thumb over your cheek, “are so damn sweet, honey."

You beam at that, overwhelmed, so unbelievably happy that your thoughts are practically spilling out faster than you can catch them.

"Okay so I just need to say — this is so exciting, like, you do realize I've had a crush on you for years, right? And now this is actually happening, and that's just — wow."

You suck in a sharp breath, nails dragging over the thick muscles of his arms, across his shoulders.

"I mean, it's us, Aaron. Can you believe that? Like, I feel like this has been building for so long and now I'm just — gods, you're so hot, this is actually distracting me. I can't even finish my own thought —,"

You laugh, because you already feel so full of him and he isn't even inside you yet.

"And I know you're being all careful and slow because you're sweet and romantic and, like, the most perfect man alive, but also —,"

You grind up, chasing friction, his cock sliding just right over your clit. Your breath stutters, hands fisting at the nape of his neck as you try to remember what you were saying.

" — I'm literally at your mercy right now, so you should probably take advantage of that before I —,"

"You talk so much, baby."

And then he shuts you up. Hard.

His mouth rams into yours, ingesting the comment, the breath, everything.

He doesn't rush. 

The head of his cock nudges at your entrance before he finally, slowly, pushes inside.

It knocks the breath from your lungs. Your mouth parts against his, lips catching on his as a little sigh slips out. Your nails dig into his shoulders, helpless against the way he's opening you up. 

He stills, a sharp, fractured inhale slicing through the air, fingers digging into your hips — hard. He is struggling. You can feel it. The way his cock twitches inside you, like his body is screaming at him to move.

"I-I'm good." Your laugh wobbles, catches at the edges, barely disguising how badly you want him to believe you. "You can keep going."

"You're tensing because it's been a while." You don't mean to, but your body reacts before your brain can tell it not to, stiffening. Stupid, stupid. His exhale is shaky, and his lips press against your cheek. "I know that. I expected that."

You swallow, but it doesn't help.

"I also know that you think if I notice, I'll stop." His forehead rests against yours. "But I need you to hear me, baby. I'm not stopping."

His lips graze yours.

"I'm going to work you through this. Just let me in, princess."

And the second you do, the second you finally give in —

He groans, pushing deeper, stretching you completely, filling you to the hilt. 

"There we go," he breathes, wrecked with praise. His hand presses to your lower belly, feeling how deep he is, how well you take him. "That's my good girl."

Your head tilts back, lips parting, body doing the melty thing that feels really, really nice but also really, really dangerous because you swear you're seconds away from levitating straight out of your own skin.

"Okay, so I did think this would feel good —," Your fingers twitch against his chest, nails raking lightly over sweat-damp skin as another sharp moan tumbles free. "— but, um, wow, this is like — this is so —,"

Your words taper off, get lost somewhere between your psyche and your mouth, because oh. Oh, wow. He's so deep, so heavy inside you, pressing into places you didn't even know existed.

"Go on, baby," he murmurs, a smirk plastered across handsome features as he dips his head. "You were saying?"

"You know," you gasp, words all flimsy and loose, like they've been shaken up inside you, "I kinda always wondered how big you were —"

Your breath hooks halfway through, hiccups on a moan, brain scrambling to keep up with your mouth, your mouth scrambling to keep up with — him.

"Not that I, um — I stared at your pants or anything —" Another sharp inhale, another desperate moan, your walls fluctuating and squeezing around something too thick. "I mean, I try not to because I'm a professional —"

An involuntary clench makes him curse, makes his fingers dip into your hips, makes his head plunge forward hard against your shoulder.

"Honey, shit—,"

Your lashes flutter. "What?"

"Sweetheart, if you keep squeezing me like that while you ramble about my cock, I'm not going to last."

Your mouth clicks shut promptly.

"That's what I thought."

Hotch rocks his hips, just once, a sharp gasp fissuring from your lips like you weren't expecting it. 

"Jesus, sweetheart. You're trembling." He cups your cheek, his thumb skimming over your bottom lip, eyes dark and aflame. "Does it feel that good?"

You nod, and he hums, dragging his cock almost all the way out before pushing back in. 

His hand drags down your waist, spans over your belly, fingers pressing like he's charting the way he fits inside you.

"I used to tell myself I wouldn't do this," he admits. "That I wouldn't touch you. Wouldn't ruin you like this."

Your head lolls back, eyes fluttering, lips parted prettily, gasping as he rocks into you again, and again, and again. You shake your head, or at least, you think you do.

"You don't —" You try to shape words, but they liquefy on your tongue. "Don't ruin me, Aaron, you — oh, you make me —"

Hotch's throat bobs, his pupils blown.

"You make me so, so good, so soft, so perfect."

His hand cups your jaw. "You're already all of those things, sweetheart."

"Not before you," you sigh. "I've been waiting so long, Aaron, so, so long —"

"I know, baby," he groans. "I know."

His hand veers between your bodies, his fingers finding the swollen, neglected bundle of nerves.

“Aaron — oh, wait, wait, wait —,” Your hands shoot up to his shoulders. “I don’t know if I can, I mean, I can, but it’s just —,”

His cock throbs inside you, his rhythm stuttering for half a second before he finds it again, harder this time, his fingers matching the pace.

“Too much?”

“Yes, no, kind of? I don’t know, I can’t—,” You choke on your own breath as another thrust knocks every last rumination from your head. “I can’t think.”

“Good.” His forehead presses against yours, his lips parting against your mouth, panting, his control slipping. “I don’t want you thinking. Just feel me, sweetheart. Feel what I’m doing to you.”

Your body is shaking, shaking so hard that you don’t even know if you’re moving or if he’s just pushing you through it. 

“I know, baby. But you can take it, can’t you?”

“Y-Yeah,” you stutter, body twitching. 

“That’s my girl,” he praises, groaning as he grinds into you, stretching it. “One more, honey. You can give me one more.”

It hits you slowly, unwinding through your organs like smelted honey.

“Oh, oh —,” Your breath falters, mind going blank, the pleasure overwhelming every nerve in your body until you can’t do anything but let it consume you.

“Christ,” he groans, feeling you clench around him so tight it nearly undoes him.

You barely register the way you’re gasping, twitching, babbling out breathless little moans, vision blurring, and for a second you think you might black out.

“That’s it, princess,” he rasps, fucking you through it the reverberations. “So, so good for me.”

His pace turns shallow, sharp, chasing the tight, perfect squeezing of you still thrashing around him.

“You’re so tight, honey,” he grits, hands bruising your hips, your breath still catching from your own orgasm.

You’re too gone to respond, too wrung out to do anything but whimper as he takes you, using your body to pull himself over the edge.

He groans, low and deep, his fingers tangling in your hair, his mouth ghosting over your cheek as he finally breaks.

A shudder, a muttered curse, his body jerking, hips slamming into yours as he spills inside you.

He doesn’t mean to collapse, you know that, because even as his body gives out, his arms brace, still trying to be careful, even now. You want to cling to him, lock your legs around his waist, but you barely remember how to move, so you just let out a sleepy sound, nuzzling blindly at his throat. 

He murmurs something low, something that sounds like praise, maybe worship.

His lips press to the side of your face, half-gone and still recovering, and then his muscles tense, trying to lift himself off you.

Your arms wind around his neck before he can get too far. 

“Sweetheart,” he rasps, “I’m crushing you.”

“Don’t care,” you mumble, voice a little hoarse. “Feels nice.”

“You did so good.”

When he finally pulls out, you feel the loss and everything that comes with it, his release sticky and warm beneath your thighs. 

Aaron disappears into the bathroom, and you barely have time to miss him before he’s back with a warm cloth in hand.

You giggle, squirming before he even touches you, already restless, and the second he presses the cloth to your inner thighs, you jerk, laughing helplessly.

“Oh, wait —,”

Aaron sighs, one hand pressing against your hip to keep you still. “Sweetheart. You have to let me clean you up”

“But it tickles—,”

He smirks and continues his work. “How do you feel?”

“Like I saw god actually,” you ramble, kicking your feet against the sheets. “Or, like, like, if I had to describe it, I’d say I transcended reality for a little bit —,”

Aaron just chuckles, pressing a kiss to your knee as he finishes cleaning you up. Each swipe reminds you that your legs might not be on speaking terms with you tomorrow.

When he’s done his mouth finds yours again. It’s easy to kiss him. If it were physically possible to stay attached to him, twenty-four hours a day, you’d gladly test the theory.

“Worth the wait,” he breathes into your mouth.

“Well, yeah,” you murmur, smirking up at him. “I figured it would be for you.”

He laughs.

“Yeah, baby, you were good,” he mutters, kissing right over your stuttering pulse. “You were so good.” Another kiss. “So good I’m already thinking about the next time.”

Your heart hasn’t even slowed down, and you’re already thinking about the next time. Already plotting, already ready to drag him back down and see just how quickly that next time could turn into right now. But before you can so much as tug at him — Aaron is rolling out of bed, pulling on his pants, disappearing into the kitchen.

You mean to protest, to demand why he left you alone in a post-bliss haze, but then he’s back, pressing a glass of water into your hand, watching you drink it like it’s his personal responsibility.

Then comes food, something light and something he feeds you between kisses, between lazy murmurs about nothing. 

At some point, the blankets are back over you, his lips pressing against your forehead, his voice saying something about getting some sleep before you got any ideas, before pulling you against him.

You hum, content and drowsy, shifting a little, rolling over to get more comfortable —

And then your eyes land on that photo frame from earlier. You had a clear view of it now.

It was you.

It takes you a second to place it, but once you do, you almost laugh. You know this photo — because Garcia took it. She printed it out months ago, probably as some ridiculous gag, and stuck it to Aaron’s office wall with a bright sticky note that read your favorite obviously. You’d rolled your eyes at the time, called it workplace favoritism, but he’d never taken it down. 

And now, somehow, it’s framed. On his nightstand, like he’s been looking at you every night for —

You don’t finish the thought.

Instead, you just smile, huge and uncontrollable.

He doesn’t say anything.

And you don’t need him to.

Because you already know.

💌 masterlist taglist has been disbanned! if you want to get updates about my writings follow and turn notifications on for my account strictly for reblogging my works! @mariasreblogs

[lymtw]

Movie Night

(Toji and His Shy Girl)

Friday night is unofficially movie night for you and Toji. You always go back and forth on what you should do and options are tossed out, like a nice dinner or trying food from someplace new or going to a view and sitting in the trunk of his car with blankets and some snacks. Most of the time, all of those options are thrown out the window and you just end up sitting in your bed or his bed and watching movies together. It doesn't matter what you do, it's always good, and the sleep overs make it even better.

A knock on your door signals Toji's arrival. Though you haven't had any caffeine since the coffee you treated yourself to earlier in the afternoon, you feel jittery. You grab the surprise you have for him and walk over to answer the door. As soon as you pull the door open, there he is, looking handsome as always, even when he's donning a simple t-shirt and some sweatpants. He gives you that smirk of his—the one that makes your chest feel all warm and fuzzy, and wakes up the butterflies in your stomach. He has a bag in his hand, filled with the snacks he promised to bring.

"Aren't you gonna say hi? Did you even miss me?" He teases, loving the way you gently nod as he speaks, like you're ready to prove that you did in fact miss him.

"Hi, Toji," you say, a smile spreading on your lips when you become overly aware of his focus on you. "I missed you. Come in." You move aside and let him into your cozy home, a place he's all too familiar with. He steps out of his slides and leaves them behind next to a pair of your shoes, his gaze never leaving you as he waits for you to lock the door after you shut it.

"What's that, doll?" Toji asks, when you approach him with full hands. There's a soft smile on your lips and your eyes shine like the stars that speckle the sky, as you extend the neatly folded pair of pajamas towards him. You have the most precious look on your face, as if you're showing him one of your most prized possessions—something you're proud of.

"You don't have to wear them if you don't want to. I still have the receipt. I just thought it would be nice to wear matching pj's."

You're not asking for much. Toji knows this. This is nothing—you're not asking him for anything. All he can think as he takes in the adorable look on your face, is that it would be an absolutely disgusting, heinous crime, to deny you of something so simple, something that would make you so damn happy. He can't bring himself to destroy you like that. In doing that, he would be chipping his own heart.

"What are you talking about? Let me see them," he says, laying his hands out for you to place the clothes on. You carefully place them in his hands and watch as he unfolds the articles. You don't know what he's thinking as he inspects the shirt, but the hum he lets out is nerve wracking. The shirt's design is minimalistic. It's a black t-shirt with three little stars on the left side of the chest and a small crescent moon on the back, a few inches beneath the collar, and then the bottoms are in the same plaid style as yours, just dark green instead of red.

"Is this why you asked for my clothing sizes a couple days ago?" He asks, pulling down his pants out of nowhere. You can't even try to hold back your laugh as you look away after getting a glimpse of his boxers, the sound just slips out. "What are you laughing at? Nothing you haven't seen before," he says, grinning amusedly at your giggles.

He unfolds the comfy pair of pants and slides them on. Immediately after, his shirt comes off, and it's as if he wants you to notice—to ogle him—because he takes his sweet time getting the new shirt on. He catches your eyes trailing down his torso, and then, he hears it, the flustered giggle that tumbles off your lips, the sweet sound he was waiting on. He smirks as he puts the new shirt on, and once again waits for your reaction. The shirt is a thicker material and fits perfectly, so do the pants. You're now matching, just like you wanted.

"How do I look?" Toji asks, doing a simple hands in his pockets pose.

"Handsome and comfy," you respond, warmth reaching your face as you take in the sight.

"Yeah? You think so?" He asks as he picks up his previous outfit and drops it on the arm of your couch. He hears your affirmative hum and catches your little nod as he steps towards you.

"Hey, where's my kiss?" He asks, a sly little smirk curling his lips. His hands rest on your lower back, gently pulling you closer. "I've been waiting hours and hours," he murmurs, green eyes absorbing the pretty smile that begins to form on your lips. "I want my reward."

You know that it won't be just a quick kiss with Toji, but still, you stand on your tippy toes and tilt your head upwards, waiting for Toji to meet you. He leans down, holding eye contact with you, as his lips come closer and closer. Once his nose is right next to yours and you feel his lips ghosting yours, he stops. He just loves the way you can't hide your fluster and how whenever you can't take it anymore, you resort to something you should have some sort of award for, by now—giggling.

"You're precious, ma," he says, his voice low. Dark eyes scan and re-memorize, for the nth time, every inch of your joyful expression, before finally he leans in the rest of the way, closing the distance between you and him.

His hands grip the back of your shirt as he feeds off your soft lips. Kiss after kiss, each one gentle and patient, demonstrating how much he truly longed for you. You feel butterflies in your stomach when you focus on the warmth of his body pressed against you and the way his lips chase yours for another kiss when you think he's finally going to pull away. His hands dip beneath your shirt to feel the bare, soft, and warm skin of your back. The simple touch is enough to spread goosebumps all over you.

The final kiss is long. Your lips lock, but Toji stops there, not going with the usual synchronized flow of the previous kisses, and when you don't expect it, he lets out deep hum and releases your lips with a more audible smack. He gives you a dumb grin in response to the stars that returned to your eyes.

"Do the thing, baby," he says, rubbing your back while he waits for you to snap out of your minor daze. He stays in the same slightly leaned position and waits for the softness of your lips to meet his skin. You press a kiss onto the smooth scar on the corner of his lips for an equal amount of time as the long kiss you shared before and smile softly when you pull away, your feet flat on the ground, again.

His hands come out of your shirt and he grins at how bashful you've become, despite the amount of times you've done this. You wouldn't immediately know what "do the thing" means, if you weren't so accustomed to doing it.

"Got your favorites," he says, nodding towards the bag he set down on your couch. "Did you keep up with your end of the deal?" He jokes, expecting a proud nod from you, because you've never let him down.

"Lemon-lime or Cool Blue Gatorade, right?" You ask, walking towards the kitchen.

"That's right, doll," he confirms, following behind you.

After the wine incident, he chooses to stay sober with you. It's not that he doesn't want to experience drinking with you and see you be more laid back and playful, it's the fact that he knows that that version of you is altered by alcohol. Sober you isn't that way, and while he loves every version of you, your natural way of being is his favorite.

He could spend hours flustering and teasing you, watching the way you coil in on yourself when he stares at you for too long. Feeling the way your body melts against his when he holds you is one of his favorite things. He likes being able to coax you into voicing your thoughts, wants, and needs. Maybe you're a little more honest about deeper matters when you're inebriated, but Toji is smart enough to know that it's practically involuntary. It's like your secrets are being spilled without your permission and while he's glad to know these things in the moment, he would rather hear them from you when you aren't drunk.

"I got you both. I didn't know which you liked more, so I just got both of them," you say, grabbing them off one of the shelves in your fridge. You turn and hand the cold drinks to Toji before going back to grab the one you got for yourself. You step back and shut the fridge door, smiling at him when he just stares at you.

"What?" You question.

He doesn't say anything for a few seconds. Just silently observes you standing in your small kitchen, in comfy, baggy pajamas that match his own. You're shifting on your feet, under his gaze, waiting for a response, but the response that he has in mind is a little too much for the lightness of the night. Something about wanting to spend the rest of his life with you, something about coming home to you every day, something about putting a shiny rock on your finger. Something big, because his feelings for you are big.

"Nothing, ma," he says, tucking both juice bottles between his forearm and his side, so that he can rest his hand on the back of your neck as you walk back out to the living room. You grab the bag of snacks off the couch and head to your bedroom together.

You set the bag of snacks on the bed and sit down on your side. Toji has a designated side on your bed, which is, of course, the other side.

"Light on or off?" Toji asks, shutting the door.

"Off?" You say, with a questioning tone, leaving room for him to object. Shortly after, the room goes dark. Only your TV, which sits idly on its home screen, creates light that illuminates the walls. Toji walks around your bed and settles into his side.

"What are we watching, this time?" He asks, reaching for the pack of sour gummy bears.

"It's your turn to choose," you say, offering the remote to him. "Last time we watched a bunch of Disney movies. I don't know if you wanna do that again," you say, smiling sheepishly.

"You doubt your taste in things too much, ma. Those Toy Story movies were pretty good. Show me another one of your favorites."

"Alright," you say, in compliance. You go to the Disney+ application and search for another favorite. Nothing too sing song-y, because you feel like you're on thin ice already in playing these animated movies for him. You got away with Jessie singing "When She Loved Me" in Toy Story 2, because even he thought the poor cowgirl got a rough deal when she was abandoned.

"Ratatouille?" He reads. "What's that about?"

"We're about to watch it," you say, briefly turning over and smiling.

He hums as he looks over the caption beneath the title that explains the synopsis of the movie.

"The rat's gonna cook? This should be interesting."

Lo and behold, he's hooked. Neither of you has made a peep and you're both mindlessly snacking on candy and chips, sipping on Gatorade, while watching the crazy things in this rat's life unfold. Him and his brother survived being struck by lightning and being shot at by an old lady with a shotgun. That part seemed to amuse Toji plenty.

Towards the end of the movie, Toji turns to you with sour sugar unknowingly speckled on his lips from the candy he's been feasting on, and leans in to press kisses to your temple and cheek.

"Watch," you say, smiling at the softness that meets your skin.

"I'm watching," he murmurs, continuing on with his sticky kisses.

"Look, they're stealing food from the kitchen," you explain, shocked despite already knowing what's going to happen.

"Mm," Toji hums, seemingly interested, but continuing on with his affectionate, sugary pecks.

"Look, you're gonna miss it," you say, giggling as you gently push his face away. It completely backfires on you, because he just grabs your wrist, and pulls your hand down to continue on with his kisses.

"Come here," he says, hooking an arm around your waist and pulling you so that you're sitting right beside him, your thigh touching his and your shoulder pressed into his side. With a few more pecks to your cheek and a couple to the top of your head, he faces forward and continues watching the movie.

"Damn, they got shut down?" He says, in disbelief.

"Mhm," you hum in response, unable to answer verbally due to the chips in your mouth.

"Oh shit, they're back," Toji says, taking in the remainder of the movie. "And Remy cooks without controlling Spaghetti?"

"Linguini," you correct, with a laugh. "But yeah. Linguini's a waiter, now, and Remy's a chef."

The artistic end credits begin to appear and you turn to look at Toji.

"So... what did you think?" You ask.

"That had more action than The Terminator," he jokes. "The old lady with the shotgun was trying take out Remy and his brother and then she tried to hit the entire colony of rats with gas."

You giggle as he goes in depth of what he remembers, as if to prove to you that he was watching.

"I liked that one too," he says, with a smirk. "Would definitely watch it, again."

"Good," you chirp, internally proud that you were able to show him something good. "Your turn," you say, offering him the remote.

"You go again," he says, grabbing another sour gummy to dodge the remote.

"Toji," you mumble. "You should choose something you like. I wouldn't mind watching something new, too."

In truth, Toji doesn't want to watch explosive, gore infested, action movies when he's with you. It's the only genre he's thoroughly explored apart from some comedy, so he leaves you to do the choosing of the movies and shows you watch together. It's a great way for him to give new things a chance, because even though it seems like he's always the one showing you how and loosening the tight grip you have on the shell that obscures you, he's constantly learning from you, as well.

"How 'bout this, baby... If you choose the next one, i'll choose the next three," he offers, squeezing the plush of your thigh.

"You promise?" You say, eyes darting from where his enormous hand rests on your leg, to his face.

"'Course. I don't lie to you," he says.

"Okay, then," you say, moving onto a different platform to find another movie.

"While I wait..." he mumbles, a soft smile curling on his lips. His hand moves from your thigh to your waist as he wraps his arm around you. He goes back to kissing the side of your face, soft, wet little smooches planted along your cheek and your jaw.

"Gorgeous girl," he hums, his voice a soft breath against your skin. "I'm dying to kiss those pretty lips."

Your lips curl as you continue skimming through the section of recommended movies. You can feel his eyes on you, tracing over the features of your face.

"Just a quick one and then i'll stop bugging you," he requests. "Please? You're teasing me without even trying."

"But I'm not even doing anything," you argue, with a small laugh.

"That's what i'm saying," he says, in agreement. "You're not even trying. You're just pretty like that. Makes me wanna kiss you 'til you can't breathe."

"What? You said a quick one, just a few seconds ago," you remind, your smile widening at the way he changed his mind about wanting the minimum of your affection.

"Yeah, but you know how greedy I am about you, mama. I want more and more of you, all the time." His gaze flits between your coy smile and the softness that lingers in your eyes. You haven't paused your skimming of the movies, but he knows you're staring at the screen, mindlessly, feeling his attention. "You want me to beg?"

"No," you instantly respond. It's the one thing you never allow him to do. He's too good to you, for you to make him beg. "You don't have to do that."

"So, kiss me, sweetheart," he says, shifting positions so that he's lying down on his side. He pats the pillow that cushions your lower back, signaling for you to lie down. Like the obedient thing you are for him, you click play on the random movie you landed on and set the remote aside, before lying down on your side, facing Toji.

"What movie did you decide on?" He asks, dragging his knuckles tenderly over your cheek.

"I didn't look at the name," you answer, softly.

"We can skip the intro, right?" He murmurs, smirking when he feels the warmth that reaches your face beneath his palm. His thumb strokes the skin of your cheek, back and forth as he keeps up with your gaze, even when it derails from his due to the tension in the moment.

"Mhm," you hum.

"Come here," he instructs, his voice low, almost a whisper. His leg goes between your legs, just sitting there to achieve more physical contact with you. It doesn't go further than the desire to be innocently caught up in you and feel you pressed against him.

The first kisses—if they can even be called that—are tentative and teasing. Lips merely ghosting each other, barely grasping contact. It's enough to have your heart thudding rapidly in your chest. You hear a warm, rumbled chuckle coming from Toji.

"Closer," Toji hums, his hand splaying on your back and pushing you forward into him.

Finally, your lips connect. The feeling is warm, like you're being held, securely, without any intention of being released. The sound of the movie in the background is a mere whir, unheard through the imaginary force field created around you and Toji. It's just you and him, close as can be, living like nothing else matters as long as you have this love. Through gentle caresses, one unsteady heartbeat and an even unsteadier one, things are good.

Toji swears he will never feel this content and at peace anywhere else. You have a way of making him feel like he is everything. The way your eyes twinkle when you see him, the way you bare your soul to him every time you smile—it's love. It's pure, unadulterated love. He's your friend, your lover, your confidant, and he will never settle for being anything less than those things.

With one more brush of your lips, you both put the kissing on hold and lay there, just a little bit breathless. His hand rests on your lower back, playing with the hem of your shirt.

"I love you so fucking much, doll. You know that?" He murmurs, his attention bouncing between your lips that won't stop calling for him to kiss them and the warmth in your eyes. "Fridays aren't just another day, anymore. Same for every day I get to see you or even just talk to you on the phone if we can't be together." A soft sigh escapes his nose, followed by a very brief pause. "You just know how to make things better, and I wish you would believe it because you feel that way too, not just because i'm telling you."

"I'm sorry," you mumble.

"No. I don't want that, baby. Tell me something else."

"I love you, Toji," you say, ensuring that you speak clearly so that he gets the important words you need him to hear. "I like being around you. You'll never know just how safe you make me feel, but I do want you to know that it goes past the physical aspect."

He smiles, the expression soft, not telling of the giddiness that just spread throughout his body. A soft hum, followed by a somewhat frustrated sounding groan, precedes you being pulled into his tight embrace. You can't help the giggles that eventually evolve into laughter that just spills from you when he bombards your face with kisses. His lips press against your cheeks, the tip of your nose, the corners of your lips before he actually leaves a rapid barrage of pecks on your lips. Deep chuckles slip through his affectionate assault when you plant your hand on his chest, weakly pushing at him through the joyous sound of your laugh.

"T-Toji!" You squeal, your entire body shaking through your nonstop laughter. Despite it being nighttime, Toji feels like he's kissing and cuddling with the sun. His cheeks almost hurt from smiling so much.

With one final, elongated kiss to your forehead, he relents and lets you catch your breath. Soft giggles continue to flow past your lips as you work on composing yourself.

"You drive me crazy, doll," he says, grinning at how your chest still slightly heaves. He could do this every night with you, in a shared bed, that is in your shared bedroom, in your shared home.

"Alright, let's see what this movie's about," he mutters, flipping onto his back. "Come here." By now, the two words are a staple to Toji's conversations with you, because he always wants you attached to him. He outstretches his arm, and waits for you to scooch over and lay your head on his chest. Once you settle in, his arm wraps around you, tightly.

As you both try to catch up on what is going on in the movie, you realize none of it is making sense. You think it might be futile to try and understand what is happening when it may have been explained during the intro, but neither you nor Toji mind it, and just continue watching through the confusion, because the intro to this movie was never going to be as good as the moment you shared during it.

[ofbatsandballads]

have a little Jason drabble inspired by me going to my work bestie’s bachelorette party tonight. yes, yes I did imagine all this while getting ready and what about it? also consider this a part of my jason gets the girl series.

Jason Todd is a worrier. You knew that the very first night you met him when he automatically assumed that you, a woman living alone and wearing fuzzy pajamas, would be a danger to him. You know that now by his incessant questions that he’s been pelting at you for the past hour.

“You’ll keep in contact with me, right?” he asks from the other side of the shower curtain.

“Of course, Jay,” you reply as you twist like a contortionist while shaving your legs.

“I know it’s a bachelorette party, but please don’t drink so much that you don’t know what’s goin’ on around you, baby,” he says, voice raised so you can hear him over your hair dryer.

“I know, Jay. I’ve not forgotten where we live!” you shout back as reassuringly as you can.

“You sure I can’t convince ya to stay here with me?” he asks, only half joking, as you flip through the hangers in your shared closet looking for what to wear.

“You’re making a very convincing argument,” you concede as he kisses down your neck. “But no. Alas, I cannot be a shitty friend.”

“Fine. But at least wear somethin’ that goes with the jacket I got you,” he grumbles.

You laugh under your breath. This man. He’s such a worry wart. But you get it. Jason goes out every night into the belly of the beast, sees the worst of the worst. He knows what happens to vulnerable young women in this city, and you can’t blame him for his overprotective nature. So if wearing the tan leather jacket, a smaller replica of the one he wears as Red Hood, that has a tracker sewn into the interior is what he needs to ease his anxious mind, you’ll do it without complaint.

“It’s a gorgeous jacket, Jaybear. It goes with everything,” you say as you scratch soothingly at his scalp.

“You know where you’ll be tonight?” he asks from the foot of your bed, watching you as you put on your makeup.

“Uh huh. We’re not going to any bars or clubs or anything like that. Maid of honor just rented a penthouse in the Diamond District. We’ll probably spend the night eating pizza and drinking cocktails,” you answer as you try not to stab yourself in the eye with your mascara wand.

Jason makes a little grunt of agreement. You idly think that he sounds just like his dad, but you also don’t say that because you’re not a complete idiot. Also because you once told Jason he looked like Bruce and how miraculous that was since he was adopted, and he spent the next three days mumbling 'don't look anythin’ like the old man’ every time he glanced in a mirror.

You glance behind you in the vanity mirror to see the love of your life. His expression tugs your heartstrings. He looks so…melancholy. Emotions are storming in his sea green eyes and all you want is to ease his worries. You lay down your makeup brush and pad over to him, settling down in his lap. His hands come up automatically to rest on your hips, thumbs stroking over the softness.

“What’s wrong, angel?” you whisper, smoothing out the creases between his furrowed eyebrows with the tips of your fingers.

“I don’t—” he stops abruptly, tries to find the words he needs. “I’m not tryin’ to be overbearing. Don’t wanna be one of those guys that tells their girl what to do.”

He takes a breath and you stay silent. He has to get this out and you’ll wait as long as it takes.

“I just…worry. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t lose you. I can’t,” and his voice breaks like stained glass. “I wouldn’t survive it. I know this is fuckin’ stupid. Me actin’ like this over a bachelorette party but I just…I can’t stop thinkin’ about all the things that could happen.”

Oh. Oh, your sweet, loving, heaven sent boyfriend. You know his past haunts him, that this city haunts him. You wish you could take all his worries away and wrap him in a nice warm blanket. You’d tuck him away from the world, keep him safe and happy and cared for all his days if you could.

“Jason, look at me,” you tilt his head up with your fingers under his jaw. “I promise you I will do everything in my power to be as safe as possible. I won’t drink irresponsibly. I’ll make sure to text you if anything, and I mean anything, starts to get weird. It won’t, but if it did you would be on speed dial. And trust me, angel, I have no intentions of staying the night.”

You don’t. Good friend or not, you can’t sleep well if you’re not wrapped in the strong arms of the man beneath you.

“So I expect you to be waiting on that tricked out bike of yours to pick me up,” you beam at him, run your hand through his hair because you know it makes him melt into your touch.

“I’ll be waitin’ for you,” he says, a solemn promise that extends far beyond tonight.

“Good. Now that being said, I will be bringing home all the dick decorations because I wanna plant them in your brother’s apartment. Just to fuck with him,” you giggle.

Jason lights up for the first time tonight. His green eyes gleam with mischief and adoration.

“Oh, you are my fuckin’ soulmate, baby. I’ll help you break in.”

[lottie-loves-you]

This goes for every fandom and there are real reasons it's unacceptable. Ai image generators steal from artists to create those images. They also discourage artists from posting because we don't want our stuff stolen, destroy beginner artists from learning because"what's the point if ai can do it better", and add to the destruction of fandom culture. You appreciate your real artists a lot less when you devalue their work with ai. If you want something specific, learn to draw, commission someone, or find someone with requests open.

Ai text generators scrape fic sites so they are stealing from fic authors. That goes for Ai chat bots too. All the things I said about visual arts apply to writing as well but on top of that, especially in big fandoms, it's so painfully pointless. That specific thing y wanted the characters to do probably already exists in a fic if you look hard enough, you're just lazy and don't want to look. If it doesn't exist, write it yourself or commission someone to write it. Fic writers often stop posting due to lack of engagement so go find that specific fix you've been looking for and leave a really nice comment. If you're lucky, you might even encourage the author to write more like it. As for the ai chat bots, they contribute to the death of fandom culture. There are lots of other little weirdos(/pos) who want to rp the same stuff you do. Go find them and rp together. Is doing rp with another real person awkward sometimes? Maybe. Might it take longer than an ai that responds instantly? Yeah. So? You're building a real connection with a real other person instead of wasting your time talking to an ai that can't care about you or feel. The feeling of having another person that you're creating a brain child story with is something ai simply can't replicate because there is no other person on the other side and if you're like me and can't write with another person because they don't take it as seriously as you (yeah, I know. I'm so fun to be around but like… taking it too seriously is fun for me.) or you can't agree on ploy direction, maybe rp isn't for you and you should write fanfiction instead. If you don't like rp and decide to write alone instead, you can still have that community by asking moots to beta read for you. Either way, none of that connection happens when you use ai.

I actually think Ai audios are the most egregious. Often they are sexual and that is absolutely a violation of the actor/VAs who did not consent to their voices being used that way. Even when it's not sexualized, their voices are a large part of actor's jobs and VA's entire jobs so if you are stealing that from them, you're a fucking monster. If you're too embarrassed to do your own impressions of the characters saying whatever you want them to say, you shouldn't be posting it. Yes, this one is my most hard line, no nuance take. How would you feel if people were posting audio porn of your voice that you didn't make or consent to being made? Not good? Oh, great. If you can't see the problem with this one, kindly delete all your socials and never engage in any fandom or media again. There's no excuse for any ai use but especially this one. That's a real person's real voice.

I'm not sorry for any of these takes and I will call you disgusting, cowardly, and trash for using ai when you damn well know better. I call ai posting "littering" for a reason. Please openly shame ai usage.

like i'm sorry but we as a fandom have to stay firm on our anti-AI values. we cannot suddenly start giving AI a pass when it's something we "want to see" like destiel kisses. it's not suddenly fine. we're not going to start using AI to make fanfic scenes come to life or audio AI to make characters "say" stuff we want to hear. you have GOT to be firm on your anti-AI stance. if you start making exceptions then suddenly anything will fly. fandom is for real art and creations made by real people. no AI fanfics. no AI art. no AI rendered "bonus" scenes. no AI audio. none of it has a place here.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[nerdyfangirlingbooks]

"I can't stand by and watch him die" "Then don't look" is too raw a line to come from bbc merlin

[backofthebookshelf]

It's not a controversial take necessarily -- it's just that the particular environment of AO3, where you can see how many times your fic was loaded in a browser window and where the little heart button has a different meaning than it does on every other social media site, is uniquely bad for the human brain.

For the VAST majority of history, both the history of making art generally and the history of writing fanfiction in particular, you did not get to know how many people gave your work a cursory once-over, or how many people checked your book out from the library and never read it, or how many people overheard a line of poetry and thought "huh, neat" and never did anything else. These interactions were, as they should be, completely anonymous and uncountable. Even in the pre-AO3 days of fanfiction, there was an understanding that page hit counters were kind of crap (for one thing, they would count you every time you loaded the page, and you had to load the page to check the counter, so that was incentive not to look at it that much).

Even in other artistic contexts where you do now have page hit counters on everything, they're contextualized through marketing research, not consumed as a raw value. Marketing talks about conversion rate, which is the % of people who saw something who then went on to do the thing you wanted them to do - for a business that's probably buy the thing, for a nonprofit it might be donate or sign up for a volunteer session, for a fanfiction writer it's leave a comment. At work I work with multiple major companies you have definitely heard of who spend half a million dollars and 1-3 full time employees every year on something that increases their conversion rate by 1-2%. They do this because the conversion rate on our emails is 5%, which is INSANELY high.

And yes, leaving a comment doesn't cost money, but it does cost time and energy. Writers overestimate how easy it is for people to write comments--my coworkers are out here using chatgpt to write boilerplate work emails, I can't imagine ANY of them ever leaving a comment on a work of art they enjoyed. Verbally, yes--and "in a friend discord is much closer to verbally than in a comment form--but in writing? Absolutely not.

As for kudos, I can't help but think that the "likes don't do anything, you have to reblog" culture of social media like twitter and tumblr affects that too (and yes, by the latter days of twitter I was seeing people saying that on there, because the algorithm was so broken). Kudos is essentially a like button, and like the like button on twitter that used to be a favorite button before they changed it and some people never stopped treating it like one, it has meanings for people you'll never understand. "It's just a click!" It is a symbol with vague connotations but no specific universally agreed upon meaning; it tells you how many people clicked on that button, and that's all.

So yes, actually, I guess I am saying that as a writer, you are supposed to assume that many more people liked your fic than you will ever hear from or even know about. And that's a good thing! You have the chance to touch someone's life even though they have no idea who you are and don't think of you as a person so much as a semi-mythical figure called "the author". And that's part of the magic, to me, of creating things. You pour yourself into a thing and then you set it loose into the world and you hope it means to someone else as much as it meant to you. Sometimes, very rarely, someone will tell you so, and that's amazing, I'm not going to pretend it's not, but you have to have enough faith in yourself to believe it happens whether you hear about it or not.

I really don't understand how "without getting kudos or comments a fanfiction author is going to assume that people who clicked their fic didn't like it" became a controversial take.

I don't know why some people think an author should imagine, or guess that people who click their fic enjoyed it it when nobody is telling them that.

If you're re-reading a fic constantly, or leaving it up in your tab so that it re-loads every day for a hundred days the author is not going to know that unless you tell them. They'd love to hear it. It would make their day.

And if you don't tell them you liked their fic, there's no reason for them to assume you did.

[uncanny-tranny]

It's honestly frustrating that I've seen non-Russian queer people almost bragging about how they would be illegal in Russia, labeled an extremist or terrorist. Russian queers are in danger, their government has made it clear where it stands, and it's made this effort for the better part of a decade (even longer, perhaps). This will kill people, don't mistake this for a quirky little proclamation from a government, akin to somebody saying the sky is pink. Russian queer people were already expressing their fear, and the least we can do now is express our love for them, and advocate with them.

Russian queer people, I love you. I love you all so much. I am so sorry, I cannot begin to express the grief that I feel, and I hope that you are safe. Words cannot encapsulate how I feel as a non-Russian, and I cannot hope to comprehend how it feels to actually be in this situation.

[cherrietint]

real footage of me watching everyone in the AAA fandom use 'older woman' and/or 'older witch' to describe Agatha during her interactions with Rio in canon universe Agathario fics like Rio isn't literal Death and as old as the universe itself while Agatha is a mere 352 years compared to her and hence younger than her (thus not being the 'older woman' between the two of them):

#medialiteracyisDEAD

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖

For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!

The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^

What's been added to the 3.5 version?

📺 Streamer Mode!

I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.

Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh

This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!

⚙️ Custom Pronouns!

It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;

Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!

💗 Choose how others perceive you!

You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.

For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!

📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!

You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3

Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!

I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;

I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao

📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!

You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!

Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!

I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;

It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)

🖤 Additional Scenes Update!

Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!

If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.

After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga

🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!

I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!

I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.

Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.

How to download and play the update?

(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!) To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!

Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)

Enjoy!!

[princessflorida]

saying they've "lost their final bargaining chip" is so incredibly ludicrous and revolution fantasy to me honestly. no they didnt. their final "bargaining chip" is extortion and coercive force. it's how they got to where they are now. and force will be required to stop them. fascists dont just run out of bargaining chips. WE are the chips. and they're doing a very successful job at farming us. they wont run out.

if they truly had lost THEE FINAL bargaining chip for "keeping the masses working for them", then they'd lose. because we wouldn't be working for them. but we still are. literally no one has stopped. because we have to have a roof over our head and food, especially people that have kids. or people that have meds they HAVE to pay for or they die, etc.

IF they EVER lose "the final bargaining chip keeping the masses working for them" it will be because it was taken by force. the final chip is being allowed to stay alive. the final chip is not starving to death or dying from exposure.

i can tell when people say stuff like this they've never been homeless or lived poverty at best, and at worst are usually chronically online kids who have never had to pay bills and have never had to choose between having a roof or eating. i can telk they've never once had to worry about where their next meal was coming from, have never had to steal food to stay alive, had to do risky fucked up shit not to die in the heat or the cold, etc.

our compliance will not be rewarded with anything other than JUST barely getting enough food and sleep to stay alive. alive, not well or healthy. just alive. starve an animal and watch what it's willing to do to get food. itll do anything. so will we. our coercive forced compliance is rewarded with not dying. and the vast majority of people, especially those who have kids to make sure don't starve to death, will stoop to any level to make sure those mouths get fed. and i don't mean the snitch bitch from mcdonalds. she can rot. i mean that saying "theyve lost the final bargaining chip keeping the masses working for them" sounds like the chronically online teenage revolution fantasy from someone who's parents pay their phone bill, and their way through college, and bought them a car etc. like you're really not convincing me you've ever gone hungry once. clearly the masses are still working for them. nothing has changed.

the adjuster (luigi is innocent til proven guilty can yall stop saying he did it sybau snitches youre as bad as the mcds lady by doing that), whoever he is, did a heroic and powerful thing. and "the masses" simply ARE NOT willing to organize and follow in his footsteps. they'd rather keep working bc they need food and a roof NOW. until we combat that with community mutual aid and organization on a large level, their "last bargaining chip" is our lives.

think about what you're saying before you say it. seriously. the chronically online revolutionary fantasy shit pmo so bad. all i see nowadays trying to organize w people is that no one wants to ACTUALLY do anything, they just want to keep working for the masses while pretending that bitching online is some sort of radical revolutionary activist shit that actually does something (it doesnt). and those of us who actly are willing are so outnumbered and poor, disabled, sick etc that WE'RE the ones who need the fucking help. anyone above our tax bracket, middle class, who pretends to be into this shit when it comes time to try to do that? crickets.

let me know when yall are ACTUALLY ready to adjust the world in favor of humanity's sustainable survival ourselves. ill be waiting. ill probably die waiting. the adjuster has shown us we cant change the world alone. we need numbers. big numbers. enough of us that they can't just throw us in prison and make an example out of us.

bc right now the rich/elite/1%/politicians are sitting and laughing at dumbass tweets like this knowing the people posting them won't even break a single misdemeanor law much less do worse. they don't let the snitches in the club, and they know the people against them won't crash the club either. even losing 1 of their own, did that stop UHC? did it stop for profit healthcare? no. a lot more deaths will have to happen for any of that to stop, bc they will not stop for any reason other than being dead. and they know their club is untouchable both to snitch asskissers and those against them. bc we dont try. bc of the threat of violence and death. the end.

[anghraine]

It's always been intriguing to me that, even when Elizabeth hates Darcy and thinks he's genuinely a monstrous, predatory human being, she does not ever perceive him as sexually predatory. In fact, literally no one in the novel suggests or believes he is sexually dangerous at any point. There's not the slightest hint of that as a factor in the rumors surrounding him, even though eighteenth-century fiction writers very often linked masculine villainy to a possibility of sexual predation in the subtext or just text*. Austen herself does this over and over when it comes to the true villains of her novels.

Even as a supposed villain, though, Darcy is broadly understood to be predatory and callous towards men who are weaker than him in status, power, and personality—with no real hint of sexual threat about it at all (certainly none towards women). Darcy's "villainy" is overwhelmingly about abusing his socioeconomic power over other men, like Wickham and Bingley. This can have secondhand effects on women's lives, but as collateral damage. Nobody thinks he's targeting women.

In addition, Elizabeth's interpretations of Darcy in the first half of the book tend to involve associating him with relatively prestigious women by contrast to the men in his life (he's seen as extremely dissimilar from his male friends and, as a villain, from his father). So Elizabeth understands Darcy-as-villain not in terms of the popular, often very sexualized images of masculine villainy at the time, but in terms of rich women she personally despises like Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and even Georgiana Darcy; Elizabeth assumes a lot about Georgiana in service of her hatred of Darcy before ever meeting her).

The only people in Elizabeth's own community who side with Darcy at this time are, interestingly, both women, and likely the highest-status unmarried women in her community: Charlotte Lucas and Jane Bennet. Both have some temperamental affinities with Darcy, and while it's not clear if he recognizes this, he quietly approves of them without even knowing they've been sticking up for him behind the scenes.

This concept of Darcy-as-villain is not just Elizabeth's, either. Darcy is never seen by anyone as a sexual threat no matter how "bad" he's supposed to be. No one is concerned about any danger he might pose to their daughters or sisters. Kitty is afraid of him, but because she's easily intimidated rather than any sense of actual peril. Even another man, Mr Bennet, seems genuinely surprised to discover late in the novel that Darcy experiences attraction to anything other than his own ego.

I was thinking about this because of how often the concept of Darcy as an anti-hero before Elizabeth "fixes him" seems caught up in a hypermasculine, sexually dangerous, bad boy image of him that even people who actively hate him in the novel never subscribe to or remotely imply. Wickham doesn't suggest anything of the kind, Elizabeth doesn't, the various gossips of Meryton don't, Mr Bennet and the Gardiners don't, nobody does. If anything, he's perceived as cold and sexless.

Wickham in particular defines Darcy's villainy in opposition to the patriarchal ideal his father represented. Wickham's version of their history works to link Darcy to Lady Anne, Lady Catherine (primarily), and Georgiana rather than any kind of masculine sexuality. This version of Darcy is a villain who colludes with unsympathetic high-status women to harm men of less power than themselves, but villain!Darcy poses no direct threat to women of any kind.

It's always seemed to me that there's a very strong tendency among fans and academics to frame Darcy as this ultra-gendered figure with some kind of sexual menace going on, textually or subtextually. He's so often understood entirely in terms of masculinity and sexual desire, with his flaws closely tied to both (whether those flaws are his real ones, exaggerated, or entirely manufactured). Yet that doesn't seem to be his vibe to other characters in the story. There's a level at which he does not register to other characters as highly masculine in his affiliations, highly sexual, or in general as at all unsafe** to be around, even when they think he's a monster. And I kind of feel like this makes the revelations of his actual decency all along and his full-on heroism later easier to accept in the end.

------------

*The incompetently awful villain(?) in Sanditon, for instance, imagines himself another Lovelace (a reference to the famous rapist-villain of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa). Evelina's sheltered education and lack of protectors makes her vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Frances Burney's Evelina, though she ultimately manages to avoid it. There's frequently an element of sexual predation in Gothic novels even of very different kinds (e.g. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk both lean into this, in their wildly dissimilar styles). William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, a book mostly about the destructive evils of class hierarchies and landowning classes specifically, depicts the mutual obsession of the genteel villain Falkland and working class hero Caleb in notoriously homoerotic terms (Godwin himself added a preface in 1832 saying, "Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes ... Caleb Williams was the wife"). This list could go on for a very long time.

**Darcy is also not usually perceived by other characters as a particularly sexual, highly masculine person in a safe way, either, even once his true character is known. Elizabeth emphasizes the resilience of Darcy's love for her more than the passionate intensity they both evidently feel; in the later book, she does sometimes makes assumptions about his true feelings or intentions based on his gender, but these assumptions are pretty much invariably shown to be wrong. In general the cast is completely oblivious to the attraction he does feel; even Charlotte, who wonders about something in that quarter, ends up doubting her own suspicions and wonders if he's just very absent-minded.

The novel emphasizes that he is physically attractive, but it goes to pains to distinguish this from Wickham's sex appeal or the charisma of a Bingley or Fitzwilliam. Mr Bennet (as mentioned above) seems to have assumed Darcy is functionally asexual, insofar as he has a concept of that. Most of the fandom-beloved moments in which Darcy is framed as highly sexual, or where he himself is sexualized for the audience, are very significantly changed in adaptation or just invented altogether for the adaptations they appear in. Darcy watching Elizabeth after his bath in the 1995 is invented for that version, him snapping at Elizabeth in their debates out of UST is a persistent change from his smiling banter with her in the book, the fencing to purge his feelings is invented, the pond swim/wet shirt is invented. In the 2005 P&P, the instant reaction to Elizabeth is invented, the hand flex of repressed passion is invented, the Netherfield Ball dance as anything but an exercise in mutual frustration is invented, the near-kiss after the proposal in invented, etc. And in those as well, he's never presented as sexually predatory, not even as a "villain."

[claraoswalds]

#mrs flood who are you: time lord edition

[artisticdemon]

1 I Love Rock N Roll by Joan Jett

2 Lucifer

3 Both. I like reading and getting inspired. And because I can't draw I write every story that I want

4 Being loved or seeing

5 Listening to music and laying in my bed helps a lot but sometimes I like doing something creating

6 I prefer not scented ones. Watching the little flame calms me down and shuts down my brain

7 I feel like myself everywhere. I'm very open as a person and putting on a filter is a waste of my time.

8 None

9 Getting my first Monster High doll and PlayStation 2

10 Few weeks when I got out with my friends from University

11 My razor blade necklace and my snake earring

12 Music

13 Shower

14 Seeing Alice Cooper live in July! I still can't believe that!

15 Pasta or an omelet with feta cheese. Or anything with cheese really

16 The outfit for the Alice Cooper concert

17 When people actually listen to me when I talk

18 I'm 23 so all these years. I've always been myself and I never cared what people think about me. Nor will.

19 No but I would love to

20 How I discovered rock music. My dad was listening to KISS and Beegees one day and the sound of the guitar made me fall in love with the music genre. And my dad doesn't listen to rock XD

21 Hot cocoa forever

22 I don't have a playlist

23 Yep. By a customer. It was very uncomfortable not gonna lie because he is way older than me. It was his way of thanking me for helping him but it was still uncomfortable

24 I have two. A boy from school and a girl from university. With the boy we became friends over our love for Avatar the last airbender and anime and with the girl when I was talking very passionately about a ballerina being capable of being a ninja. She told me recently that she loved my energy and that's why she approached me

25 Black. Because black goes with everything. And I don't care what psychology says about colors

26 I would love to live with all my friends in the same apartment building or in the same street in a little town

27 Nope. I like getting my hands dirty but not that kind of dirty

28 Being a good person actually. And having people around me that love me and I love them. Oh and that I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do

29 Yeah. I'm the kindest person you will ever meet even though I don't look like it the first time you see me. But don't give me a reason to not be because then I turn to the most heartless person you will ever meet

30 Most of them are artistic and some of them are random. I like creating outfits in photoshop, 3d modelling, writing, trying to learn how to sew and then it goes to collecting cd and dvd, roller skating

Well that was fun

✨soft asks✨

What song makes you feel better?

What is your go to comfort show?

Reading or writing? Why?

Whats your favorite feeling?

How do you like to take care of yourself?

What’s your favorite candle scent?

Who do you feel most like yourself around?

Whats a fabric/texture that’s nostalgic for you?

Best childhood moment?

When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried? (or just felt really good afterwards)

Do you have a comfort item? Tell us about it!

What calms you down?

Bath or shower to relax?

Whats something upcoming that you’re excited for?

Comfort food?

What’s something you want to create soon?

How do you feel best loved?

What age in life do you think you’ll feel most yourself at?

Have you ever written or received a love letter?

Tell us about a memory you hold close to your heart.

Tea, Coffee, or hot cocoa?

Name of your favorite playlist?

Have you ever received flowers?

Who is your bestfriend?

If your soul was a color, what would it be?

If you could live anywhere with anyone you want, where would it be and who would you bring?

Do you like to garden? Have you ever grown something?

What are you proudest of?

Are you a kind person?

What do your hobbies look like?