#like being bigger is such a big fucking issue

[moody-alcoholic]

Inspired by: Service Dog Johnny by the amazing void-my-warranty. I had the idea of; what if the roles were slightly different. What if Johnny invited Simon to come and fuck his girl to get over his fears.

Anyway. I'm super nervous about this because I really don't think I can do SDJ justice but enjoy none the less. Also void if you're seeing this you're awesome thank you for gifting the world SDJ.❤️

Part 1

Summary: John MacTavish x reader x Simon Riley (kinda), WC: 3.2k

CW: +18 content MDNI, Voyeurism, exhibitionism, fingering, angst, implied past abuse.

Enjoy <3

---

It’s Friday when Johnny springs the news his friend is coming round that evening. He didn’t give you much time to prepare, or get the house clean but you do the best you can. Johnny does go to the store for you and picks up some beer for them both. 

“You don’t need to do anything special.” Johnny says opening a beer. 

“I don’t mind, it's not that big of a deal, I like cooking.” You say, he comes over and wraps his arm round your waist kissing your neck.

“What exactly does he need help with?” You asks stirring the food. 

“Well, it’s.” He sighs, taking another sip of the beer. You turn to look at him, he seems nervous. 

“Would you ever be up for a threesome?” He asks suddenly. The question shocks you a little, you reach over and pick up your glass of wine. You weren’t expecting that, not the most unusual thing Johnny has asked you about when it comes to sex though.

“I mean, would you?” You ask taking a sip to quell the nerves. 

“Depends on who the other person is.” He says, running his hand through his hair. You take another sip and put the glass down. 

“What has this got to do with Simon? Is he the person you would want to have a threesome with?” You ask frowning. He takes another swing of his beer. 

“It’s not that simple.” Johnny says, you shake your head, now you’re even more confused. 

“I want to help him have sex.” Johnny says, holding his hands out. 

“Help him have sex by having a threesome?” You ask. 

“There’s more to it than that. It’s not just a threesome.” Johnny says. “He’s, he’s been through alot. Being intimate, it’s something he’s not very used to.” 

“Okay. Is he shy?” You’re not sure what to say, you've never even met him. 

“Shy? No, not Simon, well-” Johnny’s sentence gets cut off by the ringing of the door. 

“Just trust me, okay?” He says coming over to you and resting his free hand on your shoulder. You nod, you trust him. Now all of a sudden you feel nervous, you weren’t nervous before now, Johnny leaves the room to answer the door. So he’s invited Simon round for sex? Did Simon ask for this or is this one of Johnny’s master plans?

Or well, maybe he’s not here for sex because Simon has intimacy issues apparently. He should be talking to a therapist, what does Johnny expect to do? You have to keep a straight face though, you don’t want to make him more uncomfortable then he probably already is.

You turn off the stove hearing Johnny laugh as he comes in with Simon. You turn and smile at him, you put your hand out to shake it as Johnny introduces you. He’s not what you expect and he doesn’t seem shy. 

He’s massive, bigger and taller than Johnny, he’s definitely good looking, fit, brown eyes and blonde hair. With the way he holds himself you can tell he’s a soldier, Johnny does the same when he’s nervous, he probably doesn’t even realise it. 

“Thank you for cooking, you didn’t have to.” Simon says as you all walk over to the dining table. 

“I told her the same,” Johnny says, nudging him.  

“I don’t mind, besides when was the last time you had a home cooked meal?” You say going back into the kitchen while Johnny and Simon sit down. You finish your glass of wine swallowing the nerves, it’s going to be fine. What's the worst that could happen, you all have sex? 

That wouldn’t be the worst thing. 

…

Johnny and Simon seem to get on great, after a beer they both relax. You just enjoy listening to them talk about their last deployment. You don’t mind letting your second glass of wine mull you out. After everyone is finished and your stomach’s have settled Johnny insists on moving to the living room.

You all end up on the sofa, you find yourself relaxing against Johnny as he wraps his arms around you. Maybe Johnny won’t bring it up or maybe he’s waiting for Simon to bring it up. It’s not your job surly, you look up at Johnny, blinking at him, maybe he’ll get the idea. 

He smiles and kisses your forehead. Maybe not. You sigh looking back over at the bottle of wine and unopened beer cans on the table. 

“When was the last time you got laid LT?” Johnny asks suddenly. You snap your head back up to look at him. He’s got a cheeky grin on his face looking over at Simon. You hear him clear his throat, now you feel bad. Fucking epitome of subtle as always Johnny.

“Why do you want to know?” Simon replies, you look over at him. He’s resting the beer on his knee, he doesn’t seem nervous. More irritated that Johnny asked him. 

“Just looking out for you Si. Need you to blow off some steam before we’re back to work and you’re busting my balls again.” Johnny chuckles, at least that makes Simon smile. 

“Do you have a girlfriend?” You ask him trying to steer the conversion away from the awkwardness hanging in the air. 

“No.” You swallow the lump forming in your throat. You let out a breath sitting up. Johnny frowns at you. 

“I’m going to the bathroom.” You say, Johnny smiles his hand resting on your hip for as long as can. 

When you make your way back down you hear Johnny talking. You hang back for a second and eavesdrop. 

“I wanna help you Simon.” Johnny says.

“You don’t have to.” Simon replies.

“Well of course I don’t have to. I want to.” Johnny replies, Simon sighs and you hear a can open. “I think it would be good for you, if you want. We’ll take it slow, promise.” 

You feel a lump rise in your throat at Johnny’s words, you always knew he was close with his unit but you didn’t know he was this close. You let out a breath and slowly walk back into the room. You see Johnny move his hand off Simon’s thigh and you go over to pick the empty cans off the table. 

“Need anything?” You ask, trying to keep your voice level. Johnny and Simon both shake their heads. You go into the kitchen anyway to throw out the cans. You hear Johnny coming in, his hands slip round your waist. You smile at his touch and turn to face him. 

“Do you mind doing this?” Johnny asks, his thumb comes up to brush your cheek. 

“Do you?” You ask. He smiles, nodding his head. You smile back, reaching up and kissing him. 

“We’ll take it slow. You want to stop at any time we will.” Johnny says his hand rubbing your arm. 

“I don’t think it’s me you need to be worrying about.” You say. 

“Sorry I sort of sprung this on you, I didn’t know if he would agree.” He says, you frown. 

“Did you speak to him about this before tonight?” 

“I hinted at the idea.” 

“Hinted?” You scoff. “John MacTavish, you're the least subtle person I have ever met.” You wrap your arm around his waist pulling him against you. He hums with that cheeky grin on his face. 

“What happened to the bra?” He asks. You smile. 

“One less obstacle.” He kisses your forehead. You follow him back into the living room, Simon has moved onto the recliner. This time when you sit back on the sofa you don’t lean against Johnny. 

Simon seems to be suddenly extremely interested in what’s going on on the news. Johnny’s hand lands on your thigh and rubs it. He turns and leans in to kiss you, he takes his time mapping your mouth out, you relax into the kiss forgetting Simon’s there for a second.

Johnny’s hand slips up your shirt groping your breast. You hum in his mouth and he pulls away from the kiss. He removes it, gripping the hem of your shirt. You raise an eyebrow at him, what you’re just going to fuck while he watches or maybe joins in.

Johnny tips his head to the side smiling. You swallow the nerves and hold your hands up so he can slip your top off. A satisfied noise leaves Johnny and before you can start to feel really embarrassed about anything he’s already locked his mouth round one of your nipples.

You can’t help moaning and running your hand through his hair. He had it cut while he was away, you want him to grow it out again so you have something to grip onto. Johnny’s tongue flicks your nipple and he gently nibbles it before he pulls his mouth off with an audible pop. 

“What do you think, Si?” Johnny asks, looking over at him. You look over to see Simon press his lips together. “Pretty ain’t she?”

You feel heat rush to your cheeks as he nods, it doesn’t last long though. Johnny pulls you closer to him, planting his lips on yours and pressing his tongue in your mouth while his thumb rubs circles on your nipple still wet from his mouth.

He breaks from the kiss pressing his forehead on yours. “How ‘bout you go show Simon how good you are?” He says, it’s almost a whisper. You nod and he gives you one last quick kiss before you stand up. 

Johnny's hand lingers on the small of your back for as long as he can as you step over to stand in front of Simon. He doesn’t look that nervous, you know he is though, the way his lips are pressed together avoiding your eye line. His hands gripping the chair arms. You’re not sure what to do, make sure you don’t freak him out is probably a good start. 

“I’m not a virgin.” He says, you clench your jaw feeling awkward. “It’s just been a while, I'm out of practice.” 

“How long?” You ask.

You bring his hand up and place it on your breast. “I like having my nipples played with.” You say letting go of his hand, encouraging him to squeeze. You smile at him, you need to keep yourself open and calm. 

“Couple of years,” he says, like it's the most embarrassing fact in the world. Now you just feel bad for him, again. You reach down for the hand resting on the chair arm and pick it up. You can see the bulge in his pants, that's good, one less obstacle you need to worry about. 

His hands are rougher than Johnny’s, his grip is tighter, you’re not sure if it’s out of nerves or not. If he relaxes it will be easier, you don’t think that's going to be happening any time soon. His thumb brushes over your nipple and you reward it with a hum, trying to make your body relax even more. 

His other hand comes up to your other beast and before you know it he has both his thumbs running over your nipples. It feels good, if this were any other situation-or Johnny you might be able to cum just like this. 

You feel Johnny step up behind you, his hands land on your waist as he pulls you back against him. 

“Wanna see what else she likes?” He asks, resting his chin on your shoulder. Simon looks up at him and nods. Johnny leaves you and Simon drops his hand as you both watch Johnny move the coffee table out the way. When he’s done he goes over to the sofa and pulls the throw down on the floor, sitting down with his back against the sofa. 

“Come.” He says gesturing at you, you raise an eyebrow and walk over anyway, he spreads his legs and pats on the floor between them.

“Pants off, back on my chest.” He says, you nod pulling them off. This time you don’t get embarrassed thinking about Simon seeing you. You sit down between his legs and rest up against his back. You look over at Simon who’s face has turned a light red. Maybe this is too much, too fast. 

He hasn’t said stop though. Johnny reaches over and pulls your knees up so Simon has a perfect view of you spread out against him. You can feel his own cock pressing against your lower back, his hands run down your thighs eventually pressing on your clit. 

You try not to squirm, keeping yourself still. You let out a breath as Johnny moves his fingers round soaking them in your juices before pressing them back on your clit. You moan this time at the new sensation, his fingers pressing little circles with ease. 

That’s good though right? You should be looking like you’re enjoying yourself. This is a fun activity not something to be afraid off. 

“She likes this too, Si. Wanna feel?” Johnny says then presses a kiss into your neck. You watch as he shifts in the chair, for a second he looks like he doesn’t know what to say. He lets out a sigh and stands up out of the chair, he steps over then kneels down in front of you. He watches for a second as Johnny changes his strokes. 

You see Simon swallow before he reaches out. Johnny’s fingers are replaced with his. It’s a whole different sensation. His movements are slower, more unsure but the pressure is there and from having them both play with your nipples your body is slowly building up to that sweet release. 

“Put your fingers in her.” Johnny says after a few seconds. Simon looks up at him then quickly to you, you smile and nod at him. He shuffles on his knees again taking his fingers off your clit almost like he’s unsure. 

You watch his adam's apple bob then he presses a finger into you. You can’t help moaning, his finger stops, you smile at him and he continues to press it in until he can’t anymore. You feel Johnny’s cock twitch behind you. He’s enjoying this, he moves his fingers back to your clit. 

“Feel good love?” Johnny asks in your ear, you nod. “Use your words darlin’ tell him how good you feel.” 

“Your finger feels good Simon, you can use more if you want.” You say looking up at him. You think you see the faintest smile creep onto his lips. The next time he pulls his finger out he adds another. The new stretch makes you part your legs further, scooting your position slightly so his fingers rub against your g-spot with each thrust. You moan again, this time tipping your head slightly. You want to come but not until Simon’s ready, you don’t want to scare him. 

“See not so scary after all.” Johnny says, you can hear the smile in his voice. You look up at Simon who seems like he’s in a world of his own, maybe that's where he needs to be to get through this. You wonder what happened to him, you didn’t bother asking Johnny. It must have been something horrible. 

You let out a moan trying not to clench down on Simon’s fingers, you don’t want to spook him. Johnny hums in your neck, you know he’ll know you’re close, sometimes it feels like he can read your body better than you. 

“What to make her cum?” Johnny asks, you almost want to nod and scream yes. Simon looks up again, he hesitates for a second, his fingers stopping in you. He nods and you smile at him. 

“Just don’t take your fingers out okay?” Johnny asks, you swallow, you don’t want either of them to take their fingers off you. Simon nods again, his fingers start moving again, he makes sure to press in all the way. He speeds up too, you’re not in control anymore, maybe it’s for the best. 

Johnny’s fingers on your clit are relentless, you’re focusing on not spooking Simon or clenching around his fingers until you cum. Johnny hums in your ear and it sends shivers down your spine. He can tell your close cock twitches behind you. You’re not sure if you need to give an audible warning to Simon though. 

Your breathing increases as does your moaning, you’re close and you need to make your mind up. 

“Johnny.” You call his name, it’s almost like you need to wait for his permission, you’re not sure what to do.

“Yeah baby, come for us.” His voice low in your ear. Christ, that's all the permission you need, you tip your head back and close your eyes moaning as you clench down on Simon’s fingers. He stops moving but you don’t care. Johnny rides you through the orgasm as Simon’s fingers leave you. 

“See, not so bad.” You hear Johnny say. You open your eyes as you feel Simon get up to his feet. 

“Si?” Johnny asks as he moves to leave the room. You sit up.

“Bathroom.” Is all he says as he leaves the living room.

“Is he okay?” You ask leaning forward between Johnny’s legs. You turn to look at him watching out the door. You both hear the downstairs toilet door close. Johnny looks back over at you and smiles, you can see the concern in his eyes though, he’s not as slick as he thinks he is. 

“You did great.” He smiles, leaning forward to kiss you. You can’t help feeling like you’ve done something wrong though. Maybe it was all too much for him. 

“I’ll go check on him.” Johnny says helping you to your feet. You smile at him and nod. Maybe he just needs a second. You feel bad all of a sudden. Johnny leaves and you shiver, the room suddenly feels cold. You’re just standing there naked, you’re not sure if things are going to continue. 

You reach over pulling the other throw off the couch and wrap yourself up. At least this way if he wants to keep going you don’t have to go through the hassle of taking all your clothes off. You want to sit down but your curiosity gets the better of you and you head over to the living room door. 

You hear the toilet door open. No one says anything, you make sure to keep out of sight of the hall, trying to focus on listening. 

You hear Johnny sigh. “You did so well mate.” There’s a sniffle in response, is he crying? Now you really feel bad for eavesdropping. 

“Wanna stay the night?” Johnny asks, there’s no response.

“Want a mask?” He asks, you frown, a mask? “Guest room, in the chest of drawers.” You hear movement and step back over to sit on the sofa. You’re still getting comfy as Johnny walks in. He smiles at you and comes over to sit next to you. His arm comes round your shoulders and he pulls you up against him. 

“Simon’s going to stay the night.” He says kissing the top of your head. You nod trying to swallow the guilt of eavesdropping on their conversation. Johnny reaches over to pick up the remote and unmute the TV. 

“Is he okay?” You ask. 

“He’s fine. He just needs a minute.” Johnny says. You nod 

“Thank you.” He says. “Really I mean it. You didn’t have to do this.” You look up at him and smile, it makes you feel all warm inside.

“I love you johnny.” You say. 

“I love you too.”

---

[rhiannonsknife]

DROP UR HOT TAKE GIRLIE WE SUPPORT YOU

-🔆

okay, listen!!! in the grand scheme of things, this is such a non-issue. the show raises way more important questions than this, and i wasn’t even planning on posting this note. it was just a silly little rant in my notes app because my brain latched onto it, so here we are! i wrote this before episode 4 so it’s spoiler free :) (the only things i edited just now are in italics)

also, for context, this is coming from someone who genuinely could not care less about shaving and will never not stand for the fact that body hair is beautiful. if this wasn’t clear from the great bush discourse yet.

anyway. to the people saying ‘it’s a hallucination’ in response to the (minimal but very important) no armpit hair discourse: first of all, be ready to hear from me again if shauna still doesn’t have armpit hair in other scenes, because by your logic, it should definitely be there then. (yeah…this whole argument was proven wrong since then, so…)

but also!!! also!!! while a part of me wants to say this is kind of irrelevant, i really don’t think it is. name more than three movies and/or tv shows where all of the cast actually have a realistic portrayal of body hair, especially the women/non-men. i’ll wait.

like, sure, coach ben has a full face of hair because he (obviously) can’t be bothered to shave out there/probably didn’t even bring a fuck-ass razor for a weekend trip, but most (not all, but most) of the girls have clean-shaven legs, armpits etc etc (we’ve already seen this outside of hallucinations, so don’t tell me it’s about that again)

and yeah, maybe it’s just about the cast’s personal preference, but if you’re on a show about being stranded in the wilderness for nineteen months, giving up shaving for a couple of weeks before filming to reflect a more realistic portrayal of the female body doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch idk 😭

it just highlights a bigger issue in media, which is basically my whole point here: how women’s bodies are always portrayed in a way that conforms to beauty standards, even in situations where it makes no sense. we see men with stubble, unkempt hair to sell the idea that they’re surviving, but when it comes to women? smooth legs, shaved armpits. you could be watching a post-apocalyptic movie, a historical drama, even something like yellowjackets, and still, the natural way women’s bodies actually look is rarely ever acknowledged.

and i get that, to some extent, actors might not want to change their grooming habits for a role. like, obviously, no one should be forced to do something that makes them uncomfortable! there are actors who put their bodies through extreme changes for roles, whether it’s major weight loss/gain, muscle gain etc. and it’s completely reasonable for someone to set their own boundaries with that. but the thing is…growing body hair out isn’t some huge, irreversible transformation. it’s not a physical strain, it’s not a health risk, it’s literally just skipping a step in your routine. it saves time rather than adding any sort of challenge, so what exactly is speaking against doing it? because if it’s just that we, as a society, still think women with body hair don’t “look good” on screen, then yeah. that’s kind of the whole issue. (chat again: not that deep. I KNOW. this is just my take here)

but at the same time, why is body hair seen as something so unthinkable for women to have on screen in the first place? like, we’ve been conditioned to think it’s “unhygienic” or “unappealing,” when in reality, it’s literally just…hair. men get to be scruffy and unshaven in movies all the time for the sake of realism!!

— a/n: guys again: it really isn’t that big of a deal, i know, and i was literally just yapping in my notes app, that’s all this is about. because i feel very strongly about the way our bodies tend to be portrayed in media. but after the great bush discourse, i just felt like pointing it out!!

[shandidellamorte]

Holy fuck. I just watched Steve Fox's reveal trailer, and a majority of the comments are about his looks. What the fuck is wrong with him being bigger? Yes, he may have gained, but I refuse to believe it's not a shit ton of muscle. And even if some of it isn't, what fucking difference does it make? Y'all need to get some priorities.

[dmumt]

genuine question is having a flatmate ever a pleasant experience

[loaksky]

— come a little closer

hockey jock!vi x tutor!reader, fluff / humor / angst / kinda slowburn / smut (18+ mdni!), wc: 16k+ [buckle your seatbelts bc i could not shut the fuck up about vi if i wanted to !]

synopsis: you’re many things; an exemplary student, quiet and well-mannered, loved immensely by those who bother to get to know you, but most importantly, the newfound object of superstar athlete vi’s every affection. or, in other words, hockey jock!vi is lowkey a loser, atrociously down bad, and will stop at nothing to make you hers.

content warnings: language (duh), brief mentions of familial issues, latent insecurity, miscommunication & lack of communication, kissing, groping, SEX! mdni, seriously, i’ll THROW UP!, more specifically fingering (r!receiving), oral (r!receiving), spitting, makeup sex idk, just good old fashioned lesbian BANGING! also! jazz cabbage, lets pretend for the sake of this au that student athlete’s don’t get tested bc i NEED hockey jock!vi to hotbox reader PLS.

fic soundtrack: i could imagine —alina baraz /snooze — sza /tonight — summer walker / pressure — james vickery + sg lewis / wish that i could — umi

author’s note: of course it’d be arcane s2 that resurrects me from my almost yearlong hiatus...pls enjoy this fic even though i’m pretty rusty; she’s been cooking in the drafts for weeks T-T i’ll be answering some (very long overdue) asks and chatting with you guys <3 and finally, this shit is barely proofread bc my brain is fried lol

main masterlist | arcane masterlist

VI HAS A HUGE PROBLEM.

One that supersedes every issue she’d ever given weight to in all of her four (and a half) years of university. Is way larger than twice-a-day practices on and off the ice that go hand-in-hand with studying so hard to make sure that her grades don’t slip a fraction. Probably way bigger than the fact that her little sister’s graduating high school soon and she’s trying her absolute best to be as great a role model as she can despite wanting to crack under the pressure. And most definitely bigger than her favorite on-again-off-again fling, Cait Kiramann, who’s rare to come by these days.

Vi has a huge problem, and quite frankly, it’s you.

In hindsight, she’s been relatively good at overlooking you, not that it’d been intentional to begin with, but Vi knows a lot of people. Too many, she feels sometimes. So it's easy for you to slip through the cracks when everyone’s vying for even a shred of her attention.

Perhaps it’s what piques her interest when your orbits finally do collide. Because, admittedly, you know all about Vi. Know that she’s probably one of the most valuable players on the uni’s hockey team (she’s an absolute beast on the ice). Also know that she’s a biomedical physics major and actually incredibly smart. But most of all, you know that not only is Violet a flirt, she’s a player.

Not necessarily that you’ve ever really been on the receiving end, but mostly because her reputation precedes her and you’ve seen it all from a distance. Can't not when the decorated hockey star is such a charmer whether she intends to be or not. Vi has girls both certain and questioning stumbling for a single glance.

You often think it’s pitiful, but it’s not like it’s really your problem.

Until it is.

It all starts at The Afterparty.

Hours after a big victory in the first game of three that solidifies whether the university hockey team participates in the championships, Violet is the star of tonight’s celebration.

She’d sunk the winning shot, and for that she’s being poured shot after celebratory shot. By eleven she’s practically hammered and it’s when her teammate, Ellie, and the captain, Abby, finally show up.

The three of them together, drunk, is like a minefield of obnoxious laughter, dirty innuendos, and rowdy behavior.

And for a while it’s funny, has Vi feeling like she’s on cloud nine, but eventually, the drunken high begins to evaporate and she starts to feel a little overwhelmed.

The spotlight shifts and even though Vi typically preens under the attention, she’s grateful to finally breathe.

With a plastic cup full of water, she’s sliding the back door open and stepping out onto the back patio to take in the cool air for a breather.

She makes a move towards the stairs, but nearly jumps out of her skin when she registers the silhouette at the base of the steps.

“Jesus, fuck,” Vi hisses to herself. “You scared the shit outta me.”

You don’t even spare her a glance over your shoulder, just take a sip from your drink.

“Sorry,” you hum passively.

She catches her breath, doesn’t even bother to ask permission as she drops all of her weight next to you.

The step creaks under pure muscle.

Her strong legs stretch out, elbows settling back against the step up as she waits. And waits. And waits.

The amount of silence that lapses is unusual, uncharacteristic for Vi, especially so because people are typically babbling enough to fill the void when it comes to her.

But you just sit there, nursing your beer and staring up at the stars. The moon hangs half in the sky, softly illuminating the planes of your features.

It’s her first good look at your face and Vi’s definitely drunk, but the immediate thought that comes to her mind is pretty, pretty, pretty. Undeniably and painfully pretty. And not Caitlyn pretty, the only girl she’s ever really used as a benchmark, but intimidatingly so in your own right. Makes her swallow hard, throat bobbing as she watches you unapologetically.

“It’s rude to stare, Violet,” you say simply, eyes finally flitting to meet hers.

Her breath catches in her throat, earthy flecks dancing in your moonlit irises. God, your eyes. Framed by thick lashes and round as you look up at her.

“You know who I am?” she asks stupidly as if point fives of her face aren’t blown up into memes and plastered all over the house.

“Who doesn’t?” you ask, breathing a puff of humorless laughter as you crush the can in your ringed fingers.

And perhaps you got her there, but Vi’s feeling exceptionally small under your gaze despite usually filling out a room. Something about you makes her shrink.

“I— fuck,” Vi stumbles, cheeks red because you’re looking at her with an indecipherable gleam in your gaze that has her squirming. “What’s your name?”

She cringes at herself, rolls the piercing in her nose once, twice, for comfort.

You laugh again, a little more genuine this time because, from a distance, the athlete’s usually so suave, undeniably gorgeous and composed. Right now, the girl in front of you only ticks one of those boxes.

“________,” you offer.

She weighs the name on her tongue, decides she likes it a lot, and tries to shake off whatever this feeling you’re giving her is.

“And you go to school here?” she asks.

You nod once.

“Neuroscience, fourth year.”

“Huh, we’re in similar fields, but I’ve never seen you around,” Vi observes. Because she’s certain she’d bookmark a face like yours, absolutely no doubt about it.

“We had organic chemistry together sophomore year with Dr. Talis,” you say matter-of-factly, like you’re not blowing her mind right now. “And I’m auditing Medarda’s biometry class this semester.”

Vi’s floored.

“Wait, wait, but...” She’s trying to piece the puzzle together, but her brain’s still a little fuzzy, equal parts from the alcohol, but also because she’s caught a whiff of your perfume and you smell so sweet.

“I pop in every once in a while,” you tell her. “But I tutor in that time slot every Tuesday and Thursday, only really go when I don’t have any appointments.”

“Hold on, this is nuts,” Violet says, body easing to face you. You flinch because she doesn’t realize she’s practically yelling. “There’s no way, I definitely would’ve remembered you if that was the case.”

You hum, corners of your lips quirking as you shrug your shoulders.

“Doubt it,” you counter. “I’m nothing particularly spectacular.”

“Nothing particularly spectacular,” Vi repeats under her breath.

And under normal circumstances, she’d be flirting up a storm right now, trying to charm her way into getting you to bite, but this is one of the first semblances of normalcy she’s experienced in a while. No ulterior motives, no exaggerated kindness, no outright asking her to fuck.

Suddenly your phone lights up in your lap and you’re turning your attention to the device.

“DD duties call,” is all you say as you make a move to stand up.

No, this can’t be all she gets from you tonight. Not when she’s been narrowly missing someone like you for the past four years and you’re just now coming to light.

The dormant liquid courage bubbles and Vi’s gently grabbing your wrist to pull you to a stop.

“Maybe I’ll see you around?” she asks, steely eyes liquid as she stares up at you.

You eye the scar on her lip, gaze lingering there before flitting to meet hers.

“Maybe.”

Vi decides that she needs to see you again.

You’d left her with crumbs this past Friday night and she’d spent the better part of the weekend trying (and failing) to cross paths with you again.

“Jesus, you’re down bad,” Ellie chuffs Monday morning on their walk to the campus coffee shop.

“You don’t understand,” Vi defends. “She’s so...so...”

“So?”

“Different, I dunno,” Vi sighs, fiddling with the strap of her backpack as they walk. “We didn’t even talk about much, but that was the most normal I’ve felt around someone in a while.”

Her teammate snorts.

“Probably the gayest thing I’ve heard you say,” Ellie deadpans. “She isn’t immediately trying to munch and you’re already in love. Pathetic.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Vi scoffs as they approach the coffee shop, inside packed full with half-functioning college students so early in the morning. “Trust me, if you met her, you’d—”

The words die in her throat because halle-fucking-lujah, the universe or god, or whatever has answered her every prayer this past weekend as she clocks you a few paces ahead in line.

Ellie follows her friend’s line of vision to find exactly what she’s staring at and she lets out a low whistle when her gaze finds your frame.

From a completely aesthetic standpoint, she can see why Vi’s immediately hooked.

“Hah,” she makes a noise in her throat. “Okay, so maybe it makes sense.”

Vi can’t help but stare because, if it were possible, you were far prettier under the warm lighting of the cafe’s ambiance. The curls of your hair frame your face beautifully and it’s so fucking cute how focused you are on your phone.

“Hate to break it to you, though. That girl’s way out of your league,” Ellie says like it’s common knowledge.

“Wow, way to boost my ego,” Vi mutters drily.

“Just being realistic,” Ellie argues. “If you bag her, she’s easily the hottest girl you’ve been with.”

And Vi can’t really contest that, not when the proof’s in the fucking pudding.

Her body’s moving of its own accord and before she can register her own actions, she’s mumbling quiet s’cuse me’s under her breath as she squeezes between patrons to close a bruised hand over your shoulder.

You nearly jump out of your skin, fumbling with your phone as an earbud falls out.

“Shit, sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Vi says quickly.

Your gaze snaps to her, brows furrowing almost imperceptibly before your expression settles.

“Violet,” you acknowledge.

And she realizes that she didn’t really have a game plan coming up to you so abruptly. Had been so focused on actually just seeing you again, that she hadn’t thought through the rest of it.

The way you stare up at her is thoroughly disarming because she doesn’t have the shield of night or alcoholic courage to carry her through it.

“Can I help you?” you ask, but not unkindly.

“Oh, uh, I...” She chances a glance over her shoulder to find that Ellie is watching her from a few customers away, eyebrow cocked and smirk testing. She word vomits before she can think of a coherent thought. “You mentioned tutoring...the last time we talked.”

You don’t even bat an eye.

“I did.”

“You’re also auditing Medarda’s biometry class.”

“I am.”

“I’m...I’m not really doing too hot in Medarda’s right now,” Vi says, brain nearly short-circuiting and freezing up because, lie! She’s doing phenomenally in Medarda’s session and, truthfully, she’s just downright scared to ask you to hang out.

Especially when you look up at her like that.

You shift and she’s swallowing down around nothing.

“Hmm, can’t have that, can we?” you hum.

Vi could melt.

“No,” she breathes out a laugh. “Can’t.”

“You can sign up for a slot through the library’s website,” you say after you weigh the thought.

Vi’s pausing, staring at you like a deer caught in the headlights.

“So I can get paid?” you fill in.

“Oh, right,” Vi chokes. “Right.”

You give her a soft smile before plugging your earbud back in, leaving Vi to rejoin her obviously amused friend.

“You’re fucking joking!”

The librarian gives you and your incredulous roommate a look from the circulation desk and you return it with a sheepish smile from where you’re tucked by a wall of looming floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Maddie,” you whisper.

“You’re telling me that The Violet asked you personally to tutor her?” Maddie asks you, leaned over the tabletop with wide eyes.

“Yeah, cornered me at Brew House this morning and asked me to tutor her in Medarda’s class.”

“Just that?” she asks. “Nothing else?”

You look around in disbelief.

“Uh, yeah?” you scoff. “What else would she want?”

“What else would she— are you serious?” Maddie leans back in her seat, arms crossing over her chest as she gives you a plain look. “You know all about Vi, you’re actually gonna play stupid?”

“Oh, come on.” You roll your eyes. “You’ve seen the girls Violet’s fucked, right? Kiramann? The blonde from the tennis team? She’s got a type and you know it.”

It’s Maddie’s turn to roll her eyes and you see the exasperated groan she’s staving off.

“None of that self-deprecating bullshit—”

“It’s not self-deprecating!” you argue. “Not everyone wants to fuck Violet, Maddie. Put me in the number one spot.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t start.”

“All I’m saying is that anyone with eyes can see that Vi’s hot as fuck. That being said, you’re also hot as fuck. Not only that, but rumor has it, she gives the most toe-curling—”

You’re rolling your eyes again, gaze fluttering out the window momentarily only to find that, speak of the devil, Violet’s approaching the library with a skip in her step.

Maddie stops her spiel to trace your gaze and nearly falls out of her seat when she finds the object of your conversation is advancing, fast.

“No fucking way,” you whisper to yourself, pulling up your tutoring log on your tablet to find that, yup, Violet has most-definitely taken your advice and signed up for a tutoring slot.

If the time reads correctly, you’ve got three minutes before she’s due to be taking Maddie’s seat.

Your friend is grinning at you mischievously, stuffing her backpack quickly to vacate the space across from you.

“Un-fucking-believable,” you scoff, slumping back in your seat.

“Tell me how it goes,” she giggles, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she stands.

“Maddie,” you warn.

“Love you, see you at home!”

Violet’s strolling into the library just as Maddie leaves through the other doors and try as you might make yourself small in the open air near the research center, her gaze falls on you as soon as she enters.

“Hey,” she breathes once breaches your vicinity.

“Hi.”

A moment lapses before you’re nodding towards the seat before you.

“We can get started whenever you’re ready.”

Right. Right! Vi’s mentally cringing, pulling the chair out with a squeak and dropping onto the worn cushion.

Her eyes are locked, watching as you pull the biometry textbook from your little messenger bag.

“Any particular areas you’re struggling in?” you ask, flipping to a clean sheet of paper in your notepad and clicking open your pen.

Vi combs her brain, tries to think of anything she’s not really grasping in Medarda’s class, but she’s been acing all the exams with flying colors, so she spits out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Logistic regression, probably,” she answers.

“In relation to...?” You tilt your head and Vi’s breath is hitching.

“The Confusion Matrix,” she answers, even though she knows all about it.

It’s only when you start breaking it down from the bare bones that she realizes that she could listen to you talk for-probably-ever.

You obviously have a great understanding of the subject if the way you deconstruct the relationship between sensitivity and specificity (or whatever the fuck) is anything to go by, and she doesn’t realize that she hasn’t even blinked until you’re glancing up at her.

“Am I making any sense?” you ask softly, taking in the almost confused look on Violet’s face.

“Huh?”

Vi snaps out of it, cheeks coloring pink when she notes the way you straighten in your seat.

“Am I going too fast?”

“No, no!’ Vi practically shouts before chancing an embarrassed gaze around the library to find a few wandering eyes. She clears her throat and tries to relax. “No, you’re doing great. I get it.”

You don’t seem convinced, but the faster you get through the material, the faster Violet can leave and you can finally catch your breath.

Because maybe Maddie’s a little right. That while you know, one hundred percent, without-a-doubt, that you and Violet are cut from two different cloths and that you ultimately won’t mesh, there’s still a sliver of want that settles somewhere confined in the pit of your gut.

You don’t know how long you continue before you notice that sun has begun to set in the horizon, but Vi’s effort is unwavering. She’s probably on her tenth practice problem by now and so far, she’s only flubbed once.

You decide to fold your cards first.

“O-kay,” you say, sucking in a sharp breath as you roll your shoulders and squeeze your hands shut so tight your knuckles crack. “This is a good stopping point, don’t you think?”

No, Vi could keep going forever if it meant hearing you talk all night, but the little G-shock wristwatch winks the time and she realizes that the two of you have been going at it for going on two hours and you’re probably exhausted.

“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you so long,” Vi says sheepishly. “Thanks a lot for your help, I...”

You look up from where you’re shuffling your papers together, pausing when she hesitates.

“I really appreciate you. I know you probably help dozens of people every week and—”

She stops talking when she sees you crack what seems to be the first genuine smile she could get out of you since Friday.

“It’s my job, Violet,” you tell her. “I’m happy to help.”

And she’d done well enough during the tutoring session, had a successful run with the practice problems. You were confident it was just a one and done. Perhaps served as a review for the upcoming exam Medarda had posted on the class page.

But then you see her name in the final time slot on Thursday, don’t really think much of it until you’re tabbing to next week’s schedule for shits and giggles. Tuesday and Thursday are booked through again, her name highlighted in yellow.

You minimize the calendar and pull up the aggregate schedule only to find that every 4 o’clock slot every Tuesday and Thursday’s been booked until the end of the semester.

You refresh for good measure.

“Oh, you’re so shitting me.”

You don’t know what kind of joke this is, if Violet thinks that this is funny, but you’re not amused.

Especially when you’re stalking all the way to the athletic hall, ignoring the wolfish stares from shameless student athletes to whip into the women’s hockey team’s reserved conditioning space.

You find her benching near the center of the room, Abigail Anderson spotting her while the rest of the team engages in various workouts and exercises.

A hush ripples over the weight room as you approach the hockey star, standing at the end of the bench where her knees are bent. One of Abigail Anderson’s eyebrows quirk up as you stand there with your hands on your hips and you hope the chill that runs down your spine as she checks you out doesn’t visibly vibrate your body.

When the barbell nearly crushes Vi’s chest on her last rep, Abby’s quick to help her re-rack and takes the biggest step back as Vi sits up.

Her expression falls and her face pales when she locks eyes with you, your features severe and gaze stony.

“Oh, hey,” she squeaks.

Truthfully, she hadn’t really pinned you as the type to be confrontational. Thought she’d have enough time to build a strong enough story as to why she booked out all of your tutoring sessions when in actuality she panicked when Ellie started grilling the fuck out of her about being a fucking pussy and begging her to just ask you out.

“You have some explaining to do, Violet.”

And she should definitely be embarrassed, not at all turned on, but she can’t help it as she gulps. Because when you stand before her like this, she can easily admit that she’d die for a private version of the view.

The silence in the weight room is palpable and you want to back down, but if this is some running joke and Vi’s going to make a show of humiliating you in front of her teammates, then you’d give her a show.

“Violet.”

Someone in the back snickers, another whistles, and Vi’s cheeks go red.

She’s standing, sweaty hands closing around your biceps as she spins you around and quickly guides you out of the conditioning room and out of her teammates’ line of ogling sight.

“V—”

“I’m sorry,” Violet splutters. “I’m just not really confident in Medarda’s class right now and I don’t trust myself to study alone, plus you’re a really good tutor and—”

“You do realize that those tutoring sessions are added to your tuition, right?” you ask incredulously. “It’s fifteen dollars an hour.”

Vi’s smile is crooked.

“That’s what my scholarship’s for,” she grins.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive?” you try again. “I feel that before an exam for a little refresh is fair, but this would be like relearning the material after every class, all over again.”

“If it’s taught by you, I’ll take it,” Vi says quickly, and you pause because what does she mean by that?

You don’t really have much rebuttal left even though you’d marched up here with a fire under your ass. Vi’s looking down at you with a softened edge in her gaze and she’s wearing nothing but a pair of black sweatpants and sweat-soaked grey tank that reveals swathes of ink that curls up her arms and disappears under the fabric of her shirt.

She breathes out a small laugh when she notices the way your eyes dance.

“Anymore concerns, cupcake?”

Your gaze snaps to hers and her grin widens when she sees you fidget, little pet name obviously eliciting a semblance of a reaction from you.

“N-No,” you stammer.

“Great, see you tomorrow?“

You swallow.

“Okay,” you agree. “See you tomorrow.”

Violet pops into the library at four on the dot.

Her hair’s wet from an obvious shower and you smell her, warm like honey and cedar as she takes the seat across from you.

“Afternoon, cupcake,” she greets, slinging her backpack into the seat next to her.

You give her a warning look, but she just flashes you a toothy smile and nods towards the opened biometry textbook before you.

“What’s the lesson today, Teach?”

And this feels an awful lot like mocking, but you can’t be sure, not when Vi’s been somewhat respectful, sweet even.

“What do you know about the the sigmoid function?” you probe.

“Jack shit,” she laughs.

And maybe you’d find it endearing if the entirety of the situation wasn’t still absolutely mindfucking you at moment.

“Can I ask you something, Violet?” you ask, leaning back in your seat as you cross your arms to level her with as an intimidating look as you can.

“Sure, anything.”

“Are you messing with me?” you ask. “Is this some joke you and your friends are playing? Because I can’t really think of an outcome that would be funny.”

And you’d like to say that the look of horror on Violet’s face is consolation enough, but you know how being loved and being popular can make people act sometimes.

Vi contemplates telling you the truth, that she’s too chickenshit to ask you out, that getting close to you in any other way scares the fuck out of her. That maybe getting you to tutor her will segue into some form of friendship that’ll allow her to ease her way in. And maybe she’s going about it the hard way, but maybe Vi also likes a challenge.

“No jokes, just bad at statistics,” she says weakly.

You’re silent for way longer than comfort allows before you turn your attention to the textbook and Vi’s letting out a breath she doesn’t realize she’s holding.

“Fine,” you give in. “Let’s talk about sigmoid function and practice some applications...”

Vi’s happy to listen, goes through your preselected practice problems with ease (and maybe fucks up a value or two here and there to really sell her need for you). But the sun’s going down again, and it’s nearing six when Vi folds her hand this time around.

It comes in the form of her stomach grumbling in the emptying library and she looks up at you in embarrassment as you crack the first smile of the evening.

“Hungry?” you ask.

“Starving,” she replies dramatically, leaning so far back in her seat, her knees bump yours under the table.

Your toes curl at the contact, heart skipping when she doesn’t make a move to reposition herself.

“Have you eaten yet?” she asks, eyes looking everywhere but yours.

“Not since breakfast,” you admit.

“You like pizza?”

“Only the good kind,” you challenge.

“Beautiful,” Vi hums, shuffling her papers into her textbook and chucking it back into her bookbag. “I know the best place.”

Valentino’s is a hole-in-the-wall right outside of campus, a short walk from the library that Violet leverages as a way to get to know you outside of being lectured about statistical curves and correlation.

“Did you grow up around here?” Vi asks once the waiter sets two glasses of water down between the two of you.

You shake your head.

“No, grew up on the east coast and decided I needed a break from my life there,” you admit easily.

It’s almost as if the facade of professionalism fades away, melting to reveal you.

Vi’s desperate for more.

“As in?”

You look at her for a moment, wonder if you should divulge because you’re not really sure if Vi would get it, but she watches you like she’s hanging onto every single word you say, so you’re spilling.

“My dad died when I was little, left me and three other siblings with my Mom,” you offer. “And I love my siblings. Love my mom. She’s been a great parent, better than great actually, but most of our family disowned me when I came out and it was easier to run away than to deal with it.”

Violet’s expression falls, a furrow settling deep between her brows.

“Wow, I’m, uh, I’m really sorry to hear that,” she says, and she sounds sincere. A long moment lapses before she’s adding, “for what it’s worth, I think that’s very brave of you.”

And you seem a little surprised at the sentiment.

“Thanks.” You smile. “That’s sweet of you to say.”

Vi could turn to goo in this dimly lit booth, stained-glass wall sconce casting a warm glow over your pretty face.

“You—” She sniffs, changes the subject because she doesn’t know if she can do this on an empty stomach. “You like pineapple on your pizza?”

“Oh yeah,” you confirm proudly. “It’s a hill I’ll die on, I’m not sorry.”

“God, marry me now.”

She doesn’t realize she says it out loud until you’re bursting into a fit of laughter on your side of the booth.

“So this is something we can agree on?” you ask, head tilting in the way that makes Vi want to grab your face and taste you.

“Oh yeah,” she parrots instead. “One hundred percent.”

Valentino’s becomes routine just as much as Vi seeing you at four every Tuesday and Thursday becomes routine. It’s always after the Thursday session (because they have a three dollar slice from 6 to close) that you and Vi cram yourselves in the same booth near the kitchen and giggle over half a Hawaiian pizza.

“...And my little sister blew up her science project in the fourth grade—”

You choke on your bite, eyes wide as Violet recalls Powder’s little mishap that sent the entire gymnasium evacuating despite the tiniest fire.

“Now she’s about graduate and start school for chemical engineering,” she says, obviously proud.

“She seems like a smart girl,” you observe, if the countless stories Violet shares with you is anything to go by.

You figure being related to someone as great as the new friend you’ve made also speaks for itself.

“The smartest,” she agrees. “I’m proud of her.”

“I’m sure she’s proud of you too,” you assure her. “You’re a good big sister.”

And it’s in these moments that Vi realizes that she’s in far, far deeper than she initially gave stock. Because these past few weeks, she realizes that there’s a lot more to your big brain and your pretty face. You’re an attentive listener, way funnier than she could have anticipated, and just a lot more laid back than you let on.

That much she finds out after the two of you graduate from emailing with silly sign-offs to exchanging phone numbers and texting. It starts off rather irregular, a coffee order here and there, maybe a TikTok that Vi swears is funny, you just have to watch it all the way through! But then she starts texting you when she’s bored, when she’s in class, before practice, after. Even pops the question that’s been niggling at her since she met you: on a scale from 1 - 10 how down are you to smoke?

Like cigarettes?

no, weed, dummy.

Oh. Hmm. 7. 10 if I’m drunk.

She could not wipe the smile from her face even if she tried.

And then she gets the invite.

Ellie swears it’s her in.

“Jesus Christ if you even consider me a friend, you’ll bang,” Ellie calls from the couch.

“It’s just tutoring,“ Vi argues.

“Yeah, at her place,” she scoffs. “At least test the waters, maybe cop a feel.”

“You’re a pig,” Vi snorts, making sure her laptop and all of the worksheets Medarda’s assigned over the course of the week is in her backpack.

“You’ve been wet dreaming over this girl for months.”

“Fuck all the way off.” Vi’s face warms because her best friend isn’t necessarily wrong.

You’re too hot for your own good, but you don’t even know it and Vi thinks she could die sometimes. Especially when you wear your favorite pair of jeans, the ones that hug the swell of your ass just right. Or swipe on that shimmery lipgloss she swears makes your mouth look edible.

If you were willing, Vi would be all over you, but thinking about taking advantage of the fact that you trust her enough to invite her into your space feels a little grimy.

“Whatever, bang, don’t bang,” Ellie says nonchalantly. “Blueball yourself for all I care.”

Vi rolls her eyes, slings her bag over her shoulder before sliding on her shoes and leaving her friend on the couch with a resounding click.

You live off-campus, maybe a ten minute drive, in a cozy little complex near the suburbs. Your roommate, Maddie, a chipper blonde with a bob, is all too eager to leave when Vi arrives.

“Hi, sorry we couldn’t meet anywhere else,” you apologize as you let her into your space. “Even if the library wasn’t closed, the vet said I have to monitor Pip for the next 48 hours.”

Vi raises a brow.

“My cat,” you clarify.

“Oh.” Vi doesn’t know why she suddenly feels like she’s intruding as she hesitantly toes off her shoes and follows you down the hall.

But she does take the opportunity to take you in in all your glory; all cozy and cuddly in an oversized sweatshirt, plaid pajama shorts and mismatched egg socks.

Cute. So fucking cute.

You spare her a glance over your shoulder and she’s clearing her throat.

“We don’t have to have a session tonight," she says, stopping at the threshold of the living room. “I would’ve understood if you had to cancel.”

You shake your head, give her a soft smile that has her knees feel like jelly.

“S’okay,” you assure her. “A promise is a promise.”

And you do start off studying, shoulder to shoulder in front of your coffee table, but then Pip crawls from his little hiding spot under the TV console to curiously nose along Vi’s feet and she’s a goner.

“He’s so sweet,” she practically wails as he paws at her thigh and nudges against her arm so that he can climb into her lap.

You warm at the sight, can’t help but snap a picture, much to Violet’s dismay.

“Stop,” she laughs. “That picture can’t see the light of day.”

“Why?” you whine, making a show of climbing onto your wooden coffee table to get a funny top down photo of the hockey star with your cat. “You and Pip look so cute together.”

She feigns a scowl even though her shoulders shake with laughter.

“I have a bad boy image to uphold, sweetheart.”

You snort, reach into her lap to scratch behind Pip’s ear, and her heart melts, body warm from her ears to her toes.

“Is he sick?” she asks cautiously, petting him softly.

“Just a little,” you say. “Something some rest and medicine won’t fix.”

It’s how the two of you end up on the couch, study materials long forgotten as Animal Planet plays in the background. Pip’s moved to lounge atop the covers draped over your lap and you’re blowing your nose into a tissue as an especially sad segment about baby animals being rejected by their mothers finishes.

Vi knows she shouldn’t laugh, but you’re too fucking cute and she can’t help but coo at you.

“You can’t tell anyone about this,” you hiccup.

“What, that you’re a big soft baby?” she teases.

“Vi,” you whimper.

And something in her brain tickles because she can’t recall a time you’d ever called her by her nickname, only ever referred to her as Violet and nothing else.

She resists a smile.

“Okay, okay,” she gives in. “Lets change the subject.”

You make a noise of agreement as you cuddle your sleepy Pip.

“I actually wanted to ask you something,” she says, arm slung over the back of the couch, fingers a hairsbreadth from your figure.

Test the waters, cop a feel.

Vi’s not particularly into the idea, but the opportunity’s right there in the way wisps of your hair falls from its hold. Her fingers move of their own device, tucking the strands behind your ear.

She feels you still for the slightest, most imperceptible of moments, but then you’re relaxing, letting her fingers brush from your ear down to your shoulder, then back to where it rests on the back of the couch.

“You doing anything on Saturday?” she asks, really hopes you’ll say no.

“Not that I know of,” you say without second thought.

Not that you really need to. Your tight circle of friends are all alike, tethered to their hobbies and their homes.

“I have a game on Saturday,” Vi starts, fiddling with a little hole in the cushion. “If you wanted to come.”

You don’t agree or disagree immediately, and Vi’s scrambling to soothe over any potential discomfort.

“You don’t have to if you don’t wanna, of course,” she says quickly. “I just— I thought you might be interested in going and I’d really like to see you there and—”

A small little laugh puffs from your lips.

“Of course I’ll go,” you agree easily.

Vi deflates in relief.

“Great,” she sighs. “Awesome.”

Vi doesn’t know why she invites you. More so, she doesn’t know why she tells her teammates that she’s invited you because now they’re whooping and hollering in the locker room, towel-whipping her and sing-songing that their star player’s gonna get laid.

Doesn’t know why she invites you because as soon as she glides on the ice, she’s searching the stands high and low for your familiar figure. When she clocks you nestled in the middle with your roommate and another friend she vaguely recognizes, her heart’s soaring and her stomach’s twisting in knots.

Vi’s never nervous, but somehow you bring out the worst of it.

It only takes a few moments, though. The blare of the horn snaps her back into her zone and she leaves all the noise off-rink. In this moment, all she knows is cutting ice, dodging the other team’s most aggressive players and sinking shot after shot.

It’s nearing the end of the second period when she finally glances at the score.

5—4.

The opposing team’s giving them a run for their money and this is probably one of the tightest matches they’ve played all season. She takes a moment to find you in the stands again, and you’re right where she left you, eyes already glued to her as you hover over the edge of your seat.

She hadn’t realized it before, but you’ve got her number painted on her face and another surge of warmth layers over the exertion.

You give her a thumbs up and she feels like lightning.

They reset and she’s off, like a streak of light in the night sky, she’s shuffling the puck towards the goal.

Then you see the navy uniform barreling towards her, voice caught in your throat as Vi gives the puck one last shot before that damned Jersey Number Six shoves her so hard, she’s flinging into the rink’s wall.

The horn chugs, signaling the end of the second period and the stands erupt in a ceremonious cheer as the playback reveals that Vi had sunk the puck before time.

“Fuck yeah!” you cry out, shooting to your feet to clap your hands.

Vi ignores the instigating chants to fight, only really pays attention to your little dance of excitement as she shakes off the other player and rejoins her team for intermission.

“Fuck, Vi, you got it bad, huh?” Abigail Anderson’s spearheading the teasing once they all return to the locker room at the end of the game.

Vi’s body heats at the thought, isn’t really in the business of denying it anymore, because, you know what? Yeah. Vi’s got it so fucking bad for you, she doesn’t even know what to do with herself. You’re her first thought, her final prayer, and everything in between.

So all she does he shrug, can’t help the grin that splits her lips as she rubs her towel through her sweat-damp hair.

She’s the first one out of the locker room, dressed in some sweats and a pullover, towel slung around her neck as she steps into the tunnel. Your contact’s pulled up, and she’s ready to fire off a text asking where you want her to meet you, but she stops short to see you already leaned outside of the change room’s doors.

“Hey, cupcake,” she murmurs, smiling hard when she finds the smudged number 5 still chalked on your face.

“Hi, Violet,” you return shyly, hands clasped behind your back.

She hears the telltale whoosh of the locker room doors, the chattering of her teammates as they poke their heads out into the hall to be nosy, but she’s guiding you along, throwing a wink over her shoulder as the two of you fall into step.

“Thank you for coming,” Vi says after a moment. “You being here really meant a lot to me.”

You don’t know if Vi’s always been this sentimental, but just never given the opportunity to showcase it, or if she’s just buttering you up, but you can’t help but beam at her with pearly teeth and dimpled cheeks.

“God, Violet, you were so good!” you say excitedly, a little skip in your step. “You were in the rink, skating circles around them, like this, and like this.”

She bursts into laughter as you start speeding down the tunnel, dodging garbage bins and jumping up into the air to click your heels.

Something falls out of your little fannypack when you land, and Vi’s crouching down to pick up the tulle baggie to find a little beaded bracelet with a gold clasp that reads puck off.

“What’s this?” Vi asks, and you stop your shenanigans to turn your attention to her.

When your expression falters and you’re running back to her at full speed, she’s holding the baggie up just a little too out of reach for you, grin smug.

“Is this for me, sweetheart?” she asks presumptuously, even though her heart’s thrumming hard in her ribcage.

You’re on your tiptoes, chest pressed against hers, and god, please! is all Vi can think when your head tilts up, a little defeated knit between your eyebrows.

She milks the fuck out of whatever this is, arm banding around your waist as she returns the baggie to you.

“Maybe,” you whisper finally.

“Maybe what?” Vi teases.

“Maybe it’s for you,” you respond, free hand coming to rest on her chest.

“And what do I have to do to get it?” she asks, voice low.

It makes your body jolt hard as a shiver slinks down your spine because there she is, the insufferable flirt who knows exactly what to say to have your brain turn to mush.

You seem like you’re contemplating for a moment and Vi’s breath is hitching in her throat, wondering if you’re willing to play this cat and mouse game with her.

You smile, something glinting in your warm eyes.

“Puck off.”

Your giggle is maniacal as you slip away, leaving her temporarily stunned before she chases you down the tunnel. And she should expect your speed, especially because you’ve got legs, but it takes her a moment to catch up with you when her practice bag’s thumping on her back like that. Her calloused fingers are closing around the flesh of your hips in no time and she’s pulling you back into her arms.

“Cough it up, sweetheart,” she huffs.

You whine.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” you counter.

“Gimme, gimme, gimme.”

And you give in because Violet’s made you weak. She’s holding out her wrist as you free the multi-colored bracelet.

You barely clasp the closure in the ring before Violet’s stumbling into you, a big burly girl from the other team shoulder checking the fuck out of her.

“Nice job standing in the middle of the walk way,” she bites.

Violet only snorts a laugh.

“Whatever, good game,” she calls.

Whoever she is, stops, levels Vi with a deadly look before her gaze flits to the bracelet you’ve just fixed around her wrist to you who stands frozen into place as the tension crackles between them.

“Cute,” she observes and your skin prickles. “Let me take her for a spin?”

“Violet,” you warn when her shoulders square and she takes a step forward.

She looks torn between walking away and beating the shit out of whoever this instigator is, but one of her teammates is shoving her along.

“Leave it.”

Whatever that was shatters the moment between the two of you and Vi’s taking in a deep breath as Abby trails behind the two of you.

The girl whistles for good measure and you throw a dirty look over your shoulder.

She winks.

You’ve still yet to find out who hosts these parties, but this time around gives you a weird sense of deja vu as you climb the steps with Maddie in tow.

You and Vi had parted ways at the rink, not before extending you an invite to the celebration later in the evening.

You should come, I can pick you up.

But per usual, DD duties call, and you’d smiled up at her despite the lingering pressure from the prior confrontation and promised her that yes, you’d absolutely be there.

Maddie squeals from the step below as you climb the front porch, breaths coming out in puffs of steam.

“You look so hot,” she says excitedly.

You giggle nervously, sure hope you do because you’re freezing your ass off!

“Yeah?”

Maddie gives you an incredulous look, eyelids powdered with glitter and gaze lined charcoal. She’s looking extra cute tonight too and you know that the two of you could fall into an endless cycle of teasing because a certain someone’s probably inside tonight.

“If she doesn’t fuck you before the night ends, I will,” Maddie teases, and you’re warming unceremoniously at the thought.

Because maybe you’ve been thinking about it a lot more recently despite only going into this trying to get through these tutoring sessions and dipping. Especially as of late now that Vi’s made it a habit to FaceTime you after practice, on your walk to the library, dripping sweat and chest heaving.

You’d always seen the appeal, but now you feel it.

You smooth down your asymmetrical skirt and Maddie steps up to adjust your tits in your lowcut lace blouse just as the door swings open to reveal none other than Violet.

“Oh—” Her voice catches as she takes you in.

Maddie gives your ass a little swat and Vi’s gaze is following the movement as your roommate pushes past her to slip inside.

“I was— I was just about to step out. To, uh, to call you,” she stammers.

You breath out a little laugh.

“Here I am.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Here you are.”

Jesus, fuck Vi could burst into flames right now. Your boots hug your thighs and Violet’s not gonna lie, she really wishes it were her head squeezed between—

“You look...” Hot, so fucking edible, downright fuck— “...really nice.”

You smile, but you can’t help the way your teeth chatters.

“Fuck, shit, you’re probably cold,” she curses, warm hands closing around your shoulders to pull you inside. “Why didn’t you wear a jacket? You’re gonna get sick.”

I wanted you to want me.

“Guess I just forgot,” you say quietly.

She looks like she wants to scold you, but instead, she’s pulling down her coat, a big black work jacket, hanging from the banister of the stairs around your shoulders and you’re relishing the residual warmth that lingers there and her familiar scent.

“Can I get you a cider?” she asks. “It’s still warm.”

It hits you as her fingers curl through yours, that Vi’s truly nothing like what you initially thought. She’s sweet, and she’s respectful, and she’s everything you could ever hope for.

You freeze at the thought, and Vi’s glancing at you when she’s tugged to a stop.

“You okay?” she hums.

Your eyes search her face, gliding over the scar on her lip and the one slit through her eyebrow. The gold hoop pierced through her nose glints under the lowlight and her thick lashes flutter as she looks down at you.

You give her a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes because wow, you’re in deep.

“I’m okay,” you assure her, give her fingers a squeeze for good measure.

When she finally secures you a mug of steaming cider, she’s guiding you to her group of friends that occupy the living room.

You only recognize Ellie, her best friend and her roommate, and Abby, the captain. Everyone else is a jumbled mix of names and faces and you stick close to Vi as she settles into the left corner of the couch.

You make a move to sit on the armrest, legs crossed and hands folded around your mug, but Vi’s spreading her legs and pulling you into her lap before you can effectively protest.

Her warmth immediately engulfs you and it takes every ounce of self control not to curl up into a ball in front of all her friends and classmates.

As they recap the game and catch up with each other, you remain hushed, eyes flitting from person to person as they speak. Toes curling whenever Violet’s voice vibrates in her chest as she talks big about sports and the hot teams this season.

You’re caught off caught when Ellie’s directing a question towards you and you barely register.

“What do you like to do?” she asks you.

All eyes audibly shift to where you’re cozied up in Vi’s lap, cider empty and abandoned on the side table.

“Uh.”

Your words are lodged in your throat because you’re so used to talking Vi’s ear off about your interests (namely, Animal Planet and your son Pip), showing her your little craft projects you like to do in front of the television on a weekend evening (you’d taken a break from the scarf / hat combo you were knitting to finish the bracelet you designed for Vi), and yapping about some obscure film you’d watched while finishing said projects.

But here, now, you don’t know what to say. Not when this isn’t your typical crowd and you don’t know what to expect from her friends.

Vi must feel your hesitation because her digits are slipping into her jacket, fingertips ghosting the small of your back as she presses a palm against your spine to smooth the tension there.

It’s okay, is a silent insinuation.

You give her a look from the corner of your eye before you turn your attention back to Ellie.

“I don’t do much,” you offer honestly. “Just starting my old cat lady duties early, I suppose.”

Ellie laughs benevolently.

“You have a cat?”

“Yes, his name’s Pip, and he’s basically my kid.”

“Cute,” Ellie coos. “You got any pictures?”

And you seem to light up, spare Vi one more glance as you dig in her coat pocket to produce your cellphone, charms jangling as you power it back on to show Ellie the lockscreen.

“I contemplated naming him Toothless from—”

“—How To Train Your Dragon!” Abby fills in from across the couch. “That’s such a good ass movie.”

It warms Vi to the bone, seeing you and her friends nerd out. Seeing them put in the effort because they know she likes you and seeing you reciprocate because, well, you’re you, and you just need a little warming up.

She doesn’t know how long you and her friends chat for until you’re shifting a little and turning your attention back to her.

“Can you show me the bathroom, please?”

Her gaze flits to her circle, and they’re smirking, obviously under the impression that this must be some sort of code the two of you concocted.

She ignores them, and most importantly she ignores the way her pulse jumps when you stand from your seat and perch between her legs, offering both of your neatly manicured hands to her.

This is getting fucking ridiculous.

The bathroom is tucked under the stairs near the front of the house and she stands post outside the door as you finish up.

It’s only when you’re poking your head outside the door sheepishly that she stands up straight.

“Can you help me with my zipper?” you ask timidly.

She puffs a laugh, slips in through the space you crack for her to find you holding the two sides of your skirt together.

And she knows she shouldn’t look, but the space allows her to see the pink lace of your panties. She’s shoving her tongue in her cheek, focusing on lining up the seams and pulling up your zipper as you hold the fabric taut.

“Thanks,” you whisper, looking up to see that Vi’s impossibly close to you in this cramped little powder room.

“Anytime, sweetheart,” she croaks, leaning against the counter as you wash your hands.

She thumbs the hem of your skirt absently.

“I like this,” she admits, gaze trailing up to meet yours. “You look pretty.”

Your ears burn, unable to meet the smolder of her steely eyes. You’d probably find that her pupils are blown wide if you did. Instead, you’re watching her mouth, lips stained cherry and tongue coming out to wet the dry patch.

You hold your breath as you reach across her for the hand towel, but her hands find your hips, teetering into dangerous territory as she moves almost close enough to slip her hands under your skirt.

“You’re not gonna say thank you?” she asks, watching you through hooded eyes.

A nervous giggle bubbles.

“Thanks, Violet,” you murmur.

“‘Course,” she agrees easily. “You gonna wear it again?”

You bite.

“If you ask nicely.”

She licks her lips again, body flexed as you allow her to press you closer. One of your hands splays on the counter behind her, the other brushing over the blooming bruise on her jaw.

“Can I?” she husks.

You don’t need to ask for clarification, not when her nose is nudging yours and your breaths are mingling.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Pl—”

The door rattles with the ferocity of whoever’s knocking on the other side.

“Hurry up in there, I gotta piss!”

To your dismay, the two of you don’t talk about Saturday night. And things’s aren’t particularly bad, but something’s definitely shifted and it’s driving you nuts.

Vi’s on the ice practicing the following morning and after classes on Monday, so you wait for your session with bated breath on Tuesday. You try extra hard despite every voice of reason telling you that you’re reading into it too much.

Vi smiles at you easily as she drops into the seat across from you, pulling out her biometry textbook without so much as a peep about the fact that the two of you almost kissed in whoever the fuck’s bathroom that was over the weekend.

You’re staring, hard.

Because that familiar feeling’s coming back. The seedling of doubt that had rooted in the beginning about Vi’s intentions with you. She’d done a good job of weeding it out over the weeks, of dismantling whatever image you’d built of her in your head, but it plants itself again.

She’s squeezing your hand across the table and your gaze flits down to her rough fingers. That’s when you notice it, the bracelet, still fastened where you clasped it on game night.

You relax a fraction.

“Everything okay?”

You smile, something small.

“Yeah, good,” you assure her.

The rest of your tutoring session is uneventful, goes off without a hitch. And you’re shameless in admitting that you hate to see her go as she walks you to your car in the student lot near the library.

You’re grasping at straws, clearing your throat before she closes your door for you.

“Uh,” you squeak. “Do you want to come over?”

Vi’s pausing, hand still on the edge of your door as her lips twitch.

“Like right now?”

You nod because you’ve already pulled the trigger.

“Like right now,” you confirm.

She checks her wristwatch, sighs heavily because fuck yes, she’d love to come over right now, but Anderson and Williams are expecting her for a strategy meeting with the coach and—

“Sorry,” you say quickly. “You don’t have to, I know we only really—”

She pinches your cheek before tucking some of your hair behind your ear.

“I can’t tonight, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” she says. “But tell you what, if you’re willing to free up your Friday night, I’d really like to plan something.”

Your heartbeat skips.

“All yours,” you say without missing a beat.

Vi’s grinning wide.

“Perfect, drive safe,” she bids. “See you tomorrow.”

And you don’t know why you’re so fucking high strung, not when Vi hasn’t done anything to make you doubt that this isn’t all in your head, but it only gets worse as the days go by.

It doesn’t come to a head until Thursday, when your tutoring slots are miraculously empty until Vi’s and you receive an email from Medarda to meet in her office after her string of lectures.

“Afternoon,” the older woman greets, smiling warmly at you as she lets you into her office. “Just wanted to check in with your audit and request any feedback you have.”

You think for a moment before shaking your head.

“Nothing in particular that I can think of,” you say easily, then add with a laugh, “feel like I’ll be a professional by the end of the semester.”

“Why do you say that?” Medarda chuckles as she logs into her computer.

“I have a student sitting every Tuesday and Thursday for tutoring in your class,” you reveal.

She gives you look crossed between surprise and amusement.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You giggle at the distant memory of Vi’s expression in the weight room. “She seems to be picking it up well enough, though.”

“Huh, every Tuesday and Thursday?” she asks, fingers flying over her keyboard. “I must be doing something wrong.”

“I’d hardly say that,” you say. “When Violet booked all my sessions, I thought it was a joke, but I think she’s just really dedicated to doing well.”

“Violet?” Medarda repeats, hands stilling over her mouse.

“Yeah, Violet, on the women’s hockey team?”

Your professor’s eyebrows twitch.

“Why would you— huh. Weird,” she comments.

“I admit it was a little strange, but—”

“Violet’s a consistent top scorer on the exams,” Medarda shares. “She’s been top of the class since the beginning of the semester.”

And it’s like the world stills as she reveals that information, fragile pieces shattering as the gears start turning in your brain and you try to put the puzzle together.

You glance at the clock, find that you’re due to meet Violet in half an hour.

“Uh, if you’ll excuse me,” you say politely, try to ignore the concerned expression etched on your professor’s face at your sudden departure. “It was nice chatting with you. If I think of anything feedback-wise, I’ll be sure to email you.”

And you’re running.

Vi’s in the locker room after practice, toweling off after an extra long shower because she’s been looking a little extra forward to seeing you today, but perhaps that’s everyday as of late.

She’s hooking the bracelet you gave her back on when her phone vibrates and she’s practically diving into her locker when your text tone bleats.

sweetheart: I have to cancel your session this afternoon. I’m sorry.

Her expression screws up.

everything ok? can i do anything for you?

sweetheart: Personal things to take care of. I’ll see you next week.

I’ll see you next week.

But what about tomorrow? She’d been working so fucking hard on tomorrow, on finally pulling her head far enough out of her ass to ask you to give the two of you a shot.

She sets her phone down, slumps down on the bench as she turns her wrist and takes in the smooth glass beads of the bracelet.

She sighs. Hard.

You hole up all weekend long, put your phone on do not disturb, and try your best to get whatever this is out of your system. But you’re a slave to your emotions and you can’t help but check your messages every time you know Vi’s free.

It’s a single text on a Saturday night, one that surprises you because you know she has practice now that the big game’s fast approaching.

violet <3: hey sweetheart, just checking in. i know you said you had a few personal things going on, but i’m here if you feel like you need someone <3

You’re texting back before your better judgement can stop you.

Just been a little stressed. You wanna come over?

.

.

.

Then you add, We can smoke.

Vi’s sending you three running emojis and you crack a smile at your screen before realizing that you need to shower.

You lay out some clothes beforehand, ultimately settling on last Saturday’s skirt.

Vi’s giggling as you fumble with the wrapper, rolling it with clumsy fingers because, truthfully, you don’t do this often, but she shuts right up when you don’t break eye contact as the tip of your tongue slides across the seam to seal the joint.

She’d picked you up with a Sprite and a slice to split from Valentino’s, throat drying as you bounded down the stairs in the same fucking skirt that had her touching herself after she’d gotten home from the party, guilty and wound tight. Now the two of you are tucked away behind some abandoned strip.

“Ready?” Her voice rasps as you pop the end between your lips and she brings the lighter to ignite the end for you.

It burns as you inhale and Vi’s thighs squeeze together involuntarily. She’d smoked with you twice before, both times on the roof of your apartment building and at a reasonable distance. But now, she knows what your body feels like, almost knows what your lips taste like.

You take a few more puffs before offering it to her and the smoke begins to plume to fill the space of her little coupe. It’s moments like these, tucked away from prying eyes, that it’s just you and Vi.

Not Vi, the supposed womanizing hockey star, or you, the nerdy homebody tutor. Just the two of you, two souls trying to get through university and carve your paths.

“I aced Medarda’s exam this week,” Vi says softly, jay pinched between her fingers as she watches you with lowering eyes.

“Oh, yeah? I wonder why,” you quip in return, face impossibly close to hers despite the console between you.

“I have a smartypants tutor that does an especially good job when she’s motivated,” she answers.

Your cheeks flame, but you don’t back down. Vi’s been extra good at pushing your buttons and flirting hard as of late, and maybe you’re a little more than willing to receive and reciprocate, but the two of you have been toeing the line, yet neither of you have taken the leap.

This moment, however, feels like it could be it. Like you’re going to find out what the fuck all of this even is.

“I have to meet this tutor of yours,” you play along. “She sounds like a miracle worker.”

“Among other things,” Vi teases, sucking in the smoke and blowing it through her nostrils.

“Like?”

“She’s also funny as fuck,” she hums. “A big baby when we watch Animal Planet.”

You narrow your eyes at her and Vi lets out a little laugh that makes your toes curl.

“Uh-huh?”

“She’s really fucking pretty too,” she says quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she affirms. “Kind of pretty that makes you wanna do bad, bad things.”

You smile falters as a shiver rips down your spine and before you know it, Vi’s putting out the joint before climbing in the cramped backseat of her car to spread her legs.

Doesn’t even give you a moment to process before she’s pulling you on top of her and allowing you to settle comfortably in her lap. Her hands run up your thighs and disappear under your skirt to grab the fat of your ass.

You breathe out a little giggle as your slender fingers come up to cup her jaw.

“Think my tutor’ll be mad at me?” Vi murmurs, nose brushing yours. “‘Cuz I really, really wanna kiss this pretty girl in my lap right now.”

You let out a broken little sigh when her hips buck.

“Maybe she’ll forgive you,” you whisper. “I know I would.”

And that’s all the affirmation Vi needs from you before she’s taking the plunge and slotting her lips with yours; kissing you with so much fervor, you’d think she needs you to breathe. She tastes like mint and weed and you can’t get enough.

Vi’s all-consuming, her kiss a delicious mix of teeth and tongue. And, god, her hands. Rough and calloused, but gentle in the way she explores your body. It isn’t until she’s snapping the band of your thong and her fingertips ghost the seam of your sticky heat that you’re hyper-focusing.

“Mmmph, Violet, Vi—” Your voice cracks as she breaks from your lips to map a series of kisses from your jaw, to the juncture behind your ear, down the column of your neck. “Wait.”

She stops, hands pulling from under your skirt like you’ve burned her. And perhaps you have, branded nearly every part of her because she can’t really think of a sound moment if you’re not there.

“Sorry, sorry,” she shudders as the arousal ebbs through her tightened body. “I—”

I’m caught up. I’m losing it, and it’s all your fault, and—

“Violet,” you swallow, fingers toying with the collar of her varsity sweatshirt. “I have something to say.”

Her throat bobs and her grey eyes gleam like ash in the lowlight of the backseat of her car. The windows are smoked out and it’s exceptionally warm, equal parts sexual tension and another thing Vi can’t quite pinpoint.

“Yeah, anything,” she assures you, hands resting on your waist instead. “You can tell me anything.”

One of your palms settles over her chest, right where her heart is and you suck in a sharp breath.

“I— uh, I really like you, Violet,” you admit quietly. “A lot more than I think I’ve ever liked someone in a long, long time.”

Oh.

Oh. Here it comes, the big fat rejection. The coming to your senses.

“But?”

The look on your face is devastating and Vi’s scared.

“I have to know that if I give you a chance, you won’t abuse it,” you hiccup, and wow, that’s definitely not what she expects you to say, but fuck does it leave a sour taste in her mouth.

“Abuse it?” she repeats, face crumpling.

“Violet,” you sigh.

“Abuse what?” she husks.

“I know you—”

“Do you?” she scoffs, a wave of irritation washing over her as she looks you with disappointment. “What gave you the idea that I would ever even dream of taking advantage of you giving me a chance?”

“You don’t necessarily have a spotless record, Violet,” you say, voice edged. “And I know that I’m not your usual—”

“Not my usual what?” The venom in Vi’s tone is uncharacteristic, but this is not at all how she expected tonight to go and she’s frustrated. “Not my usual type? You internalized all this shit that people say about me even though I’ve been trying to get you to see me for months.”

Emotion clogs your throat because a small part of you knows that Vi’s right. She’s never given you an outright reason to doubt her interest in you, but it all just seems too good to be true.

“Sue me for wanting to protect myself,” you choke, climbing out of her lap and back into the front seat. “Especially because I know that you don’t actually need help in Medarda’s class.”

And that catches Vi off guard. You see as much in the rearview mirror when she pales.

She clambers back into the driver’s seat.

“Who told you that?” she asks, not even bothering to deny the fact.

“I mentioned that I was tutoring you in passing when Medarda asked for feedback on her class,” you respond, crossing your arms over your chest. “She asked why I’d be doing that when you’re top of all her sections.”

Violet’s voice is stuck in her chest.

“And then your past hook ups parade around campus like a reminder that—,” you cut yourself off, obviously hurt after bottling this all up. “And it isn’t any of my business, nor are we anything enough for me to plausibly upset—”

“Yes, I lied,” Vi admits quietly. “But only about one thing.”

Your breath catches.

“You’re right, I don’t need help in Medarda’s class. I lied about being clueless and I signed up for tutoring even though I didn’t need it,” she says.

“Why?”

“You know why,” Vi huffs. “From the moment I met you, I knew.”

It’s a glaring insinuation that makes you crack.

“No one ever says it out loud, but I know what everyone thinks,” you choke. “Violet’s fucking that loser?”

“You really believe that?”

“God, Violet, I don’t know what to fucking believe,” you cry out. “My life’s fucking fine and dandy and then you show up and make me fucking question everything I—”

Vi lets out a humorless laugh, can’t even look at you and it could make you sick.

“You’re so fucking loved by everyone, even those who won’t admit it,” you croak. “And you’re incredible at everything you do, turn everything you touch to gold, and I’m just...”

Vi’s brows furrow.

“You’re what?”

“I’m me,” you whisper meekly. “I’m just me and you’re you, and I just don’t see what makes me so different.”

And Vi realizes that she’d read it all wrong.

“Look at me,” she says softly, fingers tracing your jaw.

You knuckle your tears away, make a petulant noise in your throat.

“You wanna know why I booked all your stupid tutoring sessions?” she huffs. “Because I really fucking like you, ________. And it’s beyond wanting to fuck you even though god knows I’d fucking die if you let me. It’s so much more than having you physically. Because I’ll take being just friends with you if it means having you around. I don’t give a shit about anything else but you.”

It’s the most sound declaration you hear from the girl in the semester you’ve known her and it makes you cry.

“You make me feel so fucking normal and you remind me that I don’t need to be anything else but me,” she breathes. “And I get where you’re coming from, I hear you. I just really hope you hear me too.”

“I do,” you whisper. “I’m just—”

Vi squeezes your thigh, takes your hand in hers and brings your knuckles to her lips.

“Let’s get you home, okay?” she offers gently.

Vi only has one more game before the championships and she won’t lie and say that this limbo with you has her feeling like she’s going to be ill.

You’d cancelled her tutoring sessions this week, told her that maybe the two of you needed to spend some time apart and that she was clearly doing a number on you. So she agrees, tries to give you space to work through what’s weighing on you.

sweetheart: Good luck at your game tonight, Violet. I’m rooting for you.

She really wishes you’d be there, but she knows you need the time alone.

thanks, sweetheart. i appreciate you.

“Alright Vi, we have fifteen til puck drop,” Ellie says carefully, has been front row to everything transpiring between you and her best friend.

Vi tucks her phone away in her backpack, unhooks your bracelet from around her wrist and fastens it to the handle of her bag, and grabs her stick from the rack before she lets her teammates jostle her into the tunnel.

And she wishes she could lock in, clear her head and get into the game, but all she can think about is you.

It’s a narrow victory once the game ends, but she can’t find it in herself to celebrate, especially not at the kickback afterwards because fucking Sev and her assholes are there.

“Where’s your little dime piece?” she taunts.

“Fuck off,” Vi warns, obviously not in the mood.

“Shame,” she whistles. “She looks like a fucking weirdo, but she sure does have a fat ass—”

Ellie’s fist cracks so hard across her jaw.

“She told you to fuck off,” she hisses.

Sev spits the blood in her mouth on the toe of Ellie’s shoe, fists bunching the collar of her sweater.

“Keep that fucking energy on the ice because I’m gonna wipe the floor with your fucking pissbaby team.”

You wake up on Monday morning to a text from Vi and a handful of notifications from Instagram.

violet <3: can i see you this week?

You open Instagram.

sev.94 has requested to follow you! sev.94 has sent you a message request!

Your brows furrow, opening the message request hesitantly. There’s a few DMs and a video from this Sev person.

sev.94 hey pretty, sorry to text you like this. sev.94 just thought you should know the kind of person your little girlfriend is sev.94 sent a video. sev.94 i don’t really do relationships, but i’d take your mind off of it if you let me.

You’re playing the video, quality grainy and audio blasted. You don’t know what you’re looking at at first, it’s dark, and there’s so many voices. But you see skin, see the outline of a girl’s naked back, delicate and arched in pleasure.

You think this Sev person’s just fucking with you, playing some stupid joke with a shitty punchline as someone’s hands snake around to palm the flesh of the unnamed girl’s ass, but then you see it.

The bracelet.

Vi going to lose her shit for two reasons.

(1) Because you haven’t responded to her message despite your read receipts being on, and (2) she can’t fucking find the bracelet you’d gifted to her.

She’s barging into Ellie’s room, shirtless and hair dripping.

“Jesus, fuck, do you knock?” Ellie hisses, buds she was in the midst of grinding scattering across the floor.

“I can’t find the bracelet she gave me,” Vi says quickly.

Ellie’s face scrunches.

“Huh?”

“The bracelet ________ gave to me,” Vi says. “I hooked it on my backpack before practice on Saturday but it’s not there anymore.”

Ellie’s expression morphs, eyes narrowing in thought.

“Maybe you misplaced it,” Ellie offers. “Regardless, we practice tonight, I’ll help you look for it.”

Vi’s chest is tight, doesn’t want to admit that the stupid little bracelet means way more to her than she lets on. She only ever takes it off when she’s on the ice, won’t risk losing it when she’s got a target on her back and everyone plays rough.

It turns out to be futile when they enter the rink and she retraces her steps only to come up empty-handed.

This, she realizes, is the start of a very long week.

You should’ve seen it coming, really. Don’t know why you tried to psyche yourself into thinking that Vi could ever really want something with you when the world’s her fucking oyster and she can have anything she wants.

And you want to feel bad when she texts you intermittently through the days, checking in, offering to meet you, anything. But part of you is angry, unforgiving, tired.

You could’ve gone the rest of the school year unscathed if she’d just left you the fuck alone, but she pried and she tugged and she settled, and she made a home inside of you and you hate that you let her.

xxxx: i really miss you.

You block her number, block her social media, and even though finals are imminent, you now know that Vi’s been playing you for a fool this whole time and you cancel every last one of the sessions she’s booked.

You hope she’d get the message, figure that you’d caught onto her little game and aren’t willing to play anymore, but she doesn’t, that much is clear when you’re finishing up your two thirty session and find her stalking into the library just as the student leaves your table.

“Are we going to talk like adults or are you going to keep acting like—”

You don’t entertain a response, just pack your bag and sling the strap over your shoulder because the tears are bubbling and you don’t trust yourself not to break.

“Seriously?” Vi bites, hot on your heels as you throw all of your weight against the library doors and suck in the icy air.

“Leave me alone, Violet,” you warn.

“No, fuck that,” Vi spits, hand closing around your bicep. “You don’t— You don’t get to make me fall for you and then try to leave with no explanation.”

“Fuck you,” you whisper.

“What?”

“Fuck you, Violet,” you hiccup, yanking your arm from her grasp and putting as much distance as you can between the two of you. “I hope you and your friends got a good laugh out of it.”

Her face is screwing up and if she wasn’t confused before, she’s definitely confused now.

“Listen, I can’t fix something if I don’t know what’s wrong,” Vi argues. “I’m so fucking lost right now.”

You hate how believable she is. How the thought of hurting you seems so inconceivable to her. But that grainy video was clear enough.

“I hate you,” you murmur. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

Your name comes out broken, like you’ve wounded her. But you’ve officially folded your hand, won’t dare look her in her eyes because the both of you know it’s not true.

The championships roll in fast like a tide and neither your or Violet are ready for it.

You hear they’re live streaming the game, it’s the most anticipated one in the season. Piltover Stallions against the Zaun City Tigers. A part of you wishes you could support them, but then you’re starkly reminded that you’re a laughingstock amongst them.

The library on a Friday night is as quiet as can be, the hum of the fluorescents background to the voices in your head that are loud. You’re so engrossed in the study material that you don’t realize someone’s making a beeline for you until they’re knocking on the tabletop.

Ellie Williams stands before you in all her lean glory, hands sunk in her pockets as she stares down at you.

“Aren’t you supposed to be playing?” Your tone is clipped, disinterested because you believed that you and Ellie could be friends once upon a time.

“Coach sat me out because I socked one of those dickhead Zaun City Tigers in the mouth last weekend.”

You humph.

“Listen, we don’t have much time left, so I’m going to make this short and sweet,” she says. “Whatever happened between you and Vi is obviously personal and that typically would have nothing to do with me, but she can’t get her shit together because all she can think of is you.”

“And that’s my problem because...?”

“I know that Vi comes off a certain way, but she’s my best friend, like my best friend in this entire shithole of a world, and she’s—”

“No offense, Ellie,” you cut her off. “But if Vi sent you here to plead her case, I think that’s pathetic and—”

“Okay, well maybe if you shut up for three seconds and let me get to my point—”

You close your textbook and shove it in your backpack before standing to signal the end of the conversation.

“Whatever, I don’t have time for this.”

Ellie watches you walk away, takes in a deep breath because wow, you’re a bitch when you’re mad, but she absolutely gets why Vi is whipped.

“Violet’s in love with you.”

And that statement makes you freeze. Tears cloud your vision as your fists tighten around the strap of your bag.

“If you fuck someone else while you’re in love, I want nothing to do with it,” you bite.

Ellie’s brows shoot up.

“Whoa, what?”

“Violet fucked someone else as soon as things got tough, and if that’s the kind of person she is in love, I’d rather be alone,” you say stiffly.

“Respectfully, there’s no way Vi’s interested in getting pussy from anywhere else with how down bad that bitch is for you, but even if she was, I spend over seventy percent of my day with her and know that all she’s been doing the past two weeks is moping over the fact that you handed her ass to her on a silver platter.”

“There’s a video.”

Ellie’s brows must be mingling with her hairline right about now.

She reaches a palm out.

Show me.

You open the DM from sev.94, watching as Ellie’s expression morphs from morbid curiosity to disbelief, to a quiet rage.

She’s handing your phone back to you and grabbing you by your forearm.

“She’s fucking dead.”

When you enter the rink, the ice is tense.

It’s the middle of the second period and the game is tied 3—3.

Your eyes comb the playing area, can’t find Vi’s jersey number in the mix, but finally settle on her on the bench, shoulders terse and obviously on edge.

She doesn’t clock you yet, had given up on the idea of patching things up with you after your last conversation.

“Vi’s been missing her bracelet since practice on Saturday,” Ellie’d told you on the way there, then pulled out her phone to show you the photo she’d taken of Vi passed out in nothing but her boxers on the couch the night of the last game, fucked up and sad. “We went out for like an hour after the game, but that was it. Vi was too fucking in her head.”

The girl from the tunnel, the one who’d been taunting the two of you, you piece together, has been the one behind it all, stirring the pot.

Throughout the end of the second period and all through intermission, Vi doesn’t notice you, too busy trying to get off the fucking bench to survey the crowd.

It’s only during final puck drop in the third period that their coach finally gives in, smacks the back of her helmet and tells her to make him proud that she lifts her head up.

And there, front and center of the student section is you.

Her eyes are wide, body frozen in place as she tries to figure if you’re just a figment of her imagination, but then the horn’s blaring and she’s having to zone back in.

At this point in time, she doesn’t give a fuck if they win or lose, she just needs to get to you.

“Your little bitch looks cute tonight,” Sevika comments wolfishly. “Bet she tastes as good as she looks.”

Vi easily intercepts her pass, cuts between two players as she shuffles it along with practiced precision. She sends the rubber flying and the goalie narrowly misses block.

“Maybe if you played as good as you ran your mouth, you’d wipe the floor with my pissbaby team you big bitch,” Vi calls, resetting in their corner.

And perhaps you’re her good luck charm, the only thing she needed to see to get back into it, because Vi reignites. The adrenaline pumping through her veins fuels every shot, and soon the timer’s buzzing.

7—5.

The roar is deafening, but you’re all she sees in the ocean of cowbells and pompoms.

She barely inches forward before something arcs through the sky and lands before her feet.

Her bracelet.

You watch from the sidelines, the final confirmation as Vi picks up the loop and launches herself at Sevika.

The crowd cheers.

Fight, fight fight!

You don’t know how many swings Vi gets in, just know that she’s flashing you a bloody smile before she skates off the ice.

Ellie emerges from the locker room and you’re perking up.

Most, if not all, of Vi’s teammates had come and gone and you’d been waiting patiently, anxiously, for her to emerge since the end of the game nearly an hour ago.

“She’s the last one in there,” is all Ellie says before strolling off.

“What if...what if she doesn’t want to see me?” you ask hesitantly.

Ellie chuffs a little laugh, doesn’t bother turning as she calls from halfway down the hall, “Find out for yourself, sweetheart.”

Vi’s pulling a tank top over her head as soon as you enter and your cheeks bloom when you catch a split-second of her tits.

She glances up at you, nose bruising and lip busted.

“Hey,” she spares you, stuffing her uniform and skates into her gym bag.

“Hi,” you squeak.

A pregnant pause as you take her in, hesitant to close the distance between the two of you.

“Didn’t think you’d make it,” she observes.

And you don’t really have a bullshit response, know that you had every intention of staying as far away as humanly possible, so you settle on humming your agreement.

“Ellie told me,” she starts. “Why you lashed out on me.”

You swallow.

“And part of me gets it, I really do,” she continues, “but I also thought you had more faith in me than that.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “Fuck, Violet, I’m so sorry.”

“I told you to free up Friday night a few weeks ago,” she says, shuts her locker door and slumps down on the bench behind her. “I was going to tell you everything, officially ask you out, but then all that shit happened and it caught up to me.”

You take a step forward, and then another, and another until you’re standing in front of her.

“You have to know that I would never do something like to anyone, but especially not to you,” she says softly, taking your hands in hers.

“I know.”

She brushes her lips against your knuckles, pulls you in closer so that you’re standing between her legs.

“You’re right,” she continues, voice hoarse. “I don’t have a spotless track record, but I meant it when I said that I don’t give a shit about anyone else but you. I would give you anything I can if you let me.”

Your hands rest on her shoulders, her chin resting against the plush of your belly as you look down at her, speechless.

“That night, in the car, you said that you didn’t see what made you so different.”

“I don’t,” you admit.

Vi stands, caging you between strong arms as she drops her face into the hollow of your neck. You shiver when you feel her lips press to the skin there.

“We could start off with the obvious.”

One of her hands rests on the small of your back, pulls you flush so that the only things that separate you are the flimsy fabrics of your clothes. The other grabs a handful of your ass.

“I meant it when I said that you’re the kind of pretty that makes me wanna do bad things.”

You gulp, thighs squeezing as her lips part and she bites.

“Vi.”

“You got a giant brain,” she laughs breathily, fingers coming around the fiddle with your belt.

She kisses you, mouth hot and breath warm. It’s better the second time around, no doubt obscuring you from truly indulging.

“Pl—ease.”

“You’re kind and you’re selfless, and you’re my sweet, sweet little crybaby.”

“Violet,” you sigh breathlessly. “Listen to me.”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Fuck me,” you pant. “Please.”

Violet nearly runs two red lights and whips into your neighborhood on two wheels.

The two of you are stumbling up the stairs and she’s spanking your ass on the last step as you fiddle with your keys and try to find the right one under the dim light of the complex hall.

Violet’s already unbuckling her belt as you turn the key, nearly taking you down as she shoves you inside and up against the front door.

“Maddie home?” she breathes.

“Out of town,” you answer quickly, kicking off your sneakers and pulling your sweater over your head. “Visiting her family upstate.”

“Perfect,” Vi hums. “I’ve been fantasizing about fucking you on your couch.”

“Oh–”

One of her rough hands comes to cup your tit over your bra, her tongue laving over the other while her free hand makes work of the clasp.

You walk her back to the couch, stand between her knees as she flops back into the seat. Her arms spread over the back as she settles in, legs widening to give you ample room to strip.

Her eyes never leave yours as you easily unclasp your bra and shimmy out of your jeans, leaving you in nothing but a tight pair of little lace panties and pink socks that has Vi wet.

“C’mere,” she rasps, pulling you to straddle her lap.

Her lips immediately latch onto one of your pebbled nipples, tongue hot as her hands wander.

“Fuck.”

“Tell me what you want,” she husks, biting down on the swell of your breast.

And having Violet this close, her touch excruciatingly featherlight and tempting, you wind tight.

“Want you inside of me,” you whimper, fingers fixing around her throat. “Please.”

“Yeah?” she eggs you on, lips brushing yours as her palms settle on your ass. “You want me to fuck you?”

You nod eagerly, hips rolling in her lap as her breath pitches.

“Vi.”

Her nickname puffing from your lips makes her crack. You’re wound in her arms, face in her neck as she peels your thong taut, away from your waiting cunt, and runs her fingertips from your slit down to your clit.

“F...F—uck,” you sigh.

“Holy shit,” she marvels, licking her lips when she easily glides through your folds. “You’re really fucking wet.”

You grind down against her, clothed clit catching against her belt buckle. The cool metal sends a jolt through your pussy and you’re moaning loud in her ear.

And Violet really wants to take her time with you, wants to milk the first time she ever gets to fuck you for as long as she humanly can, but she’s still fully dressed and you’re practically naked, perfect tits pressed to her chest and fat ass in the palm of her hand.

She shifts you further into her, so that she can peek over the arch of your back as she sinks her middle and ring finger three knuckles deep into your needy heat.

“Ah, fuck, Violet.” Your voice breaks as she starts pumping into you, your arousal coating her fingers and the sound of her easily slipping through your pussy reverberating through the living room. “Fuckfuckfuck.”

She kisses your jaw, litters them until she’s catching your lips and licking crudely into your mouth.

You cry out when her fingers slip out.

She’s leaning the both of you forward, easing you from her lap and onto the couch as she takes a moment to shuck her shirt off and pull her belt through the loops in one tug.

You watch her through it all, the way the trim muscles of her biceps and shoulders flex as she leans over you, takes you by the ankles and yanks you until your ass is half-hanging from the edge of the couch.

She kneels before you, strips you out of your thong.

You don’t miss the way she shoves the soiled fabric in her jeans pocket.

“Jesus,” she breathes, gaze fluttering between your eyes and your pussy. “You’re so fucking pretty, sweetheart.”

Your toes curl at the praise, fingers closing around where Vi’s holding your legs apart.

“You know how bad I’ve been wanting to taste your pussy?” she rasps, gathering the lewdest amount of spit to dribble onto your clit. When you don’t answer, she’s freeing a hand to slap your slit.

“Nnngh, fuck!”

“Think I’ve always wanted to have you,” she admits. “But it was that stupid party fucking party and that stupid fucking skirt. God, I would’ve fucked you in that skirt if you let me.”

“Yeah?” you whine breathlessly. “Tell me.”

She’s stuffing you again without warning, curling her fingers in a way that has your back arching off the couch.

“Would’ve bent you over that sink and made you watch yourself while I ate you out,” she says easily.

And it’s so fucking delicious, the nasty shit Vi’s saying to you while she pounds your aching heat; the way she finally gives in and tastes you, sucking on your clit like she’s starved and you’re the only thing that can sate her hunger.

Your fingers curl through her hair as you teeter dangerously over the edge, nails grazing her scalp and tugging when she hits the spot deep inside of you that has you keening for more.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ cum,” you choke. “Holy fuck.”

You feel Vi grin against your pussy, watch her with a slack jaw and half-lidded eyes because the sight of her between your legs in your moonlit living room has your insides twisting hard.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” she encourages you. “Cum all over my fingers. Wanna see you gush.”

“Hah, h—” Your thighs tighten around her head, fingers curled so hard in her hair, she moans in a mix of pleasure and pain. “Don’t stop, Vi, please.”

She moans into your cunt, savoring the heady taste of you as you practically ride her face.

The sound that fills the room is downright filthy, the sight that Vi beholds when she peeks from where she’s devouring you equally so. It’s picturesque, the way she has you writhing. A sheen of perspiration glistens over your flesh as she eats you out and it’s a perfect mix of her tongue and her fingers that send you soaring over the edge.

It’s a pitched whine that echos, the staccato of your shaky breathing that sings like music in her ears as you cum. And hard.

Her lashes flutter against the skin of your inner thighs as she peppers kisses there, her lips slick with spit and arousal.

“Fuck, babe,” she whispers. “That was...”

She can’t really choose a specific word, is just mind blown at the fact that she’d just made you cum so hard and so fast. It makes her tense and tingle, a smug wave of pride washing over her as she starts mouthing a trail from your belly, between the valley of your tits, up your throat, to finally press a chaste one on your lips.

You taste yourself first and foremost, but then you taste everything she’s ever wanted to say to you, all the unspoken words and the things she’d been too scared to share. Feel it in the way her hands are roaming, squeezing, caressing.

You breathe a disbelieving laugh, peck her lips again when she pulls away to brush your hair from your face.

“Vi—” Your breath hitches and your eyes glaze.

“I know, I know.”

You wrap your arms around her shoulders, legs hooking around the narrow of her waist as she bears your weight and picks up your boneless figure.

“I’m not done with you yet, sweetheart.”

The sun is warm against your skin when you wake up the following morning, your bedroom bathed in an orange glow.

You feel bone tired, body sore and muscles tight as your arm sweeps the other side of the bed in search of balmy skin, but instead you’re met with cool sheets and swelling dread.

You sit up quickly, find that you’re still naked, and take a moment to asses your bedroom. The bathroom door’s cracked, light off, and everything else is exactly where you left it.

Everything except Vi.

Oh, you think to yourself.

Almost don’t want to leave your room because your empty apartment will be confirmation enough that Vi really did get the last laugh in the end.

But you force yourself out of bed, shrug on an oversized t-shirt before finding the living room just as still as it had been before the two of you had barreled in the night before and she’d left her mark on you.

The only sign that the entire thing wasn’t just a figment of your imagination was Vi’s belt strewn haphazardly on the coffee table.

You feel hollow, almost numb, and even if a persistent part of your brain was consistently telling you that you should’ve known better, the tears well in your eyes because you’d really hoped Violet was different.

You knuckle the tears away angrily, mind racing far too fast to register the door quietly unlocking and the soft footfalls coming down the hall.

“Babe?”

Your gaze snaps up.

Like a vision, Vi’s standing in the doorway, a handful of plastic bags in tow. She’s wearing her clothes from last night and the puffs under her eyes make her a little worse for wear.

She sets the bags down on the eat-in, rounds the couch to take you by the shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” she worries. “What’s going on?”

You hiccup, crumpling in her arms because you were so fucking scared.

“Thought you left,” you croak.

Vi breathes a sigh of relief, blowing out a hollow laugh because her girl’s such a baby.

“You have jack shit in your fridge,” she teases lightly. “How am I supposed to make you a five star breakfast with greek yogurt and carrot sticks?”

You whine.

“Don’t care about breakfast,” your muffled voice sounds from where your face is pressed in her chest. “Just wanted to wake up to you.”

Violet groans.

“You’re so cute,” she laughs, kissing the top of your head.

“I wanna go back to bed,” you mutter petulantly, emotional whiplash making your eyes droop.

“You’re not gonna let me make you breakfast?” Vi picks, smoothing the hair from your face.

Your eyes catch the bracelet refastened around her wrist and you grin softly, taking her fingers to press a kiss to her palm.

She could combust, gaze gooey as she watches you watch her.

Yeah, Vi has a huge problem.

One that’s particular, and overarching; one she doesn’t think she can go without.

And frankly, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

neng © 2024

[kopilot-pop]

Hi, I’m making a post because something very serious happened in Korea and I’m hoping as many people are alarmed at this.

Deepfake photos have been made and sold on telegram (an anonymous chatting app), and almost 220,000 users were identified for being in Korea. About 70% of those were teenagers, and a list of schools (including colleges) that had victims within the chatrooms in the past couple of years was posted.

My school was on the list and it has been identified that two of my close friends were direct victims.

So that’s why I’m making this post. It’s a little bit of a rant and it’s mostly my anger getting the best of me.

Waking up, finding girls BEGGING their friends to take down photos from their instagram profile, the terror we felt when we found out men were hacking into privated accounts to take revenge, watching my friend breakdown as she tells me that she’s being investigated because her face was deepfaked into pornographic content - can you imagine that? Because that was me two days ago.

Korea, as a whole, is extremely lenient on their criminals - especially sexual offenders and minors - and it’s TOO LENIENT on men.

This situation is not being reported as much as it needs to be, and I’m trying to grasp onto straws by alerting people that know my stupid account on how fucked up this country is.

Men are making friends-only stories saying shit like ‘Why are y’all concerned? Y’all are ugly af’ (this is a real post i had the pleasure of seeing), and people in general have this fucked up view on AI generated content saying shit like “Isn’t this better than actually getting assaulted?”, and it makes me sick to my stomach.

I have to go to school. I have to walk around campus with the fear that maybe, just maybe, the man I walked past just now has seen a deepfaked photo of my friends. The perpetrator’s aren’t limited to simply the number of accounts within the group chat - what if they passed their phones? What if they texted the photos to each other after making them on the telegram? Our school has a big dormitory - what happens within those walls FILLED with men?? The more I have to think about it, the more sick it makes me.

I am not being the most informative and rambling more than anything. But my excuse is that there aren’t many reports and credible sources talking about this. So I’m going off on my personal experience as much as possible.

Please, people - especially women - be fucking warned about this situation. My country is one of the biggest perpetrators, but that doesn’t mean this deepfake issue isn’t (already) worldwide. It’s gonna get bigger, it’s gonna get more dangerous, and it should be making you sick to your stomach.

I hope all victims, including including my friends, get the justice they deserve.

Please, stay safe.

[takes1]

ur blog is so pretty...

if you are okay with it, do you have any headcanons bout what type or p0rn the Karasuno boys would watch? 🌹

what type of p*rn would the karasuno team watch?

warnings. heavy nsfw under the cut. minors DNI

characters. suga. daichi. asahi. tsukki. kageyama. hinata. nishinoya. tanaka. yamaguchi. details. lots of kink discussion - just about anything you can think of

links. my masterlist. my ao3. more haikyuu. my imagines. requests open.

suga९᠀ - likes a good storyline video. loves a bad one. shitty acting gets him laughing, and he needs every chance he can get to feel as though he isn't sinning. won't say no to an amateur flick, but he likes the structure of 4k videos, and is a suuuucker for the 'oiled up' aesthetic.

asahi९᠀ - buddy has a rampant size kink that doesn't get much of an outlet. downside: most videos that cater to this are not what he wants, because of the unavoidable infantilization in most of them. so he opts for amateur vids with bigger guys turning out their smaller girlfriends, wives; extra props if there's some real, organic dirty talk, or if it happens to be super low-quality.

daichi९᠀ - has no shame about his oral fixation. face fucking. deepthroat. he's got any video with some lucky dude getting good head memorized by the title and the preview. his favorites are either: when the guy stays hands-off and silent, or when she takes a load down her throat. not much in between.

tsukishima ९᠀ - is a filthy animal with a porn addiction. will watch/has watched just about everything under the sun. he had a bukkake faze, a gangbang faze, but is now proudly serving his bdsm faze with specific interest in femdoms. shiny, black heels get him hard in an instant. has done the tried-and-true bdsm questionnaire in his spare time and does heaps of research on the community, usually as a pregame to jerking off.

kageyama ९᠀ - no particular preferences. but if he's got a crush on somebody, he will strictly watch lookalikes. it wasn't a conscious habit at first, but after the third time it happened, he couldn't articulate any other reason to look up seven descriptors in the search bar and get 0 results. how well/quickly he gets off is based on how well the actor or subject looks his crush. it's a long endeavor, too. he edges for as long as he can, and almost always does it twice.

hinata ९᠀ - can't watch porn long enough to build any strong preferences. has sensitivity/premature ejaculation issues, so he tends to just listen to whatever video he landed on. this has opened more of a pipeline to nsfw audios, instead. loves the sound of two bodies coming together, especially all the little pants and huffs in a video that aren't faked. has gotten insanely good at being able to tell if it's fake, too.

nishinoya ९᠀ - doesn't watch videos; similar problem to hinata. instead, yuu buys physical hentai novels. big fan of monster-fucking. tentacle stuff is a staple in his readable porn. he guards his collection with his life and would sooner lose a limb than have anybody go near the shelf that he keeps them hidden behind. once, asahi stood too close during a sleepover and -naturally- yuu bit him as a distraction, just to get him away from the area.

tanaka ९᠀ - wlw videos. solo-girl vids. he can't stand to watch something with a guy in it. it's huge turn-off, especially when the dude is too loud, or in the way, too soft, or straight-up ugly. learned to love the slow, women-catered stuff that's 40 minutes long and has plot to follow. also picked up a lot of tongue tricks from these vids, too. (congrats, kiyoko!)

yamaguchi ९᠀ - mmf threesomes. i think ya'll know what i'm getting at, here. either he 1: is poly and doesn't know it, 2: is gay and doesn't know it, 3: is genuinely very enticed by the idea of overstimulating a gorgeous girl, OR 4: can't see himself as enough for a potential partner, and this might be a subconscious way of evading that insecurity.

notes. i'm very sorry to any who were looking for ennoshita, kinoshita, or narita. i tried, but genuinely couldn't get anything going for any of them. they all seem like nice guys, but there's no material that i can properly make nasty.

taglist. @integers @paradoxicalwritings @yuchacco

links. my masterlist. requests open.

[robinsgrl]

FEARLESS

chapter two. begging and begging

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pairing ⇢ rafe cameron x plus size!reader

word count ⇢ 2.5k

warnings ⇢ curse words, yn overthinking and panicking like usual, second hand embarrassment (i had to stop and pace for a second but that’s me idk), a glimpse of daddy issues y’all its ingrained in me

authors note ⇢ hey……….. i personally am loving this story and hope you are too! i’ve compiled a bit of a taglist but i am very bad at keeping track or forgetting to add to my list so if you aren’t being tagged despite asking that of me, please remind me, preferably through private messaging since the comments can get kinda muddled to me 😭

────────────────────────

Logically, you know you’re not into JJ. He’s cute and funny, sure. But he’s no Jonah. Yet, his message made you nervous. Beyond nervous. You’ve never had any guy speak to you in such a flirty way. Or, send a text like that. You were used to pity compliments from other girls who felt it was their duty as girls who support other girls. So when you sneak out through your window frame and meet his eyes as he stands down on the grass with Kie and Sarah, you play it off as just being nervous. Which you are.

You’ve been at this for five minutes. The girls and JJ are trying to coax you into just coming down. But the distance looks insane from where you sit.

“I’m gonna die!” You whisper-yell down to them. They’re looking up at you with expectant looks, urging you to hop down.

“You’re not gonna die.” Kiara rolls her eyes but you can’t care for any of that as you take another peek down and scare yourself some more.

“My bones are going to shatter.”

“That sounds pretty cool, actually.” Sarah sends a smack to JJ’s chest, wanting him to shut up.

She looks up at you sweetly. “It’s really not a big drop, just put your hands out and jump. Trust, it’s easy.”

You slip down the steep roof part near your window and you let out a little yelp. Immediately, JJ gets to his feet and rushes to where you could possibly land and holds his arms out. This makes a bigger wave of embarrassment flush through you. He’s not the buffest and you’re sure you’re twice his size. To have him stumble and unable to catch you would ruin you. You’d beg your mother to let you go and live with your aunts back in California and never show your face in any Carolina. It’d be too risky to go to either.

The girls are yelling out to you. Something about being careful. That not being prepared for the jump will hurt. You’re panicking. Yelling out to them that you get it. JJ’s promising that he’ll catch you. Too much is going on at once.

“Your mother isn’t home.” The new voice breaks your chatter. The girls and JJ look up at you with wide eyes. You glance over from your window to another to see your step-father peeking his head out at the group and you. “You can just go out the front door.”

Kiara and JJ share a look as Sarah laughs. Your eyebrows furrow at his words. “You’re… you’re okay with this?”

He sighs, rubbing his face tiredly. “No. But you’re going to do it either way. I did a lot worse at your age than you’re doing now. Just… if your mom finds out, I didn’t know about any of this. Seriously, kid, I’ll throw you under the bus without a care.”

“Yo, your dads cool.”

“Step-dad.” You correct JJ. Usually, your mother would scold you for such a thing. There’s no step in a family, she would tell you. But it felt like a betrayal to your real father. You glance over at Anthony just in time to see a flicker of something pass through him.

He shrugs it off though, tapping the windowsill. “Just go through the front door before you break something.”

“Will—“ but you yell as you start slipping off the roof. The girls yell. JJ yells. You land in a thud, JJ’s arms wrapped around you as two tumble to the ground.

“Fuck, are you okay?” Anthony calls from the windowsill. When he gets no response, he waves his arm. “You’re fine. Don’t do drugs.” And he shuts the window.

You’re on your back now, looking up at the night sky. “Is she dead?” You hear Sarah ask.

“I wish I was.” You answer with a huff, your knees aching.

“Told you I’d catch you.” JJ hums with a smirk as he gets up off the floor, dusting off his cargo shorts and holding a hand out to you. “Come on. Pope’s drunk and you’re missing it.”

—

You’d never been to the boneyard before. Not to party, at least. Whenever there was a get together, a bonfire or a party, Scarlett would ask you to come with but you’d always say no. At some point, she stopped asking and you’d find out through Instagram that she was out with her cooler friends.

The bonfire is lit. There are people all over. People you’ve passed by all your years in Kildare but have never spoken to you. You felt the same towards the group you’re with but now… now they’re talking to you and laughing with you like they’ve all known each other for years.

You also never knew that Kook’s and Pogue’s could ever get along. But apparently they can when you’ve had a few cold ones. You’re sitting on a log with JJ on one side and John B on the other. Sarah’s sitting on John B’s lap, and you side eye it for a second, realizing that she and Topper really are done. You pay no mind to it afterwards and keep leaning up against JJ as he dramatically tells a story about his last time surfing, which was this morning, the kid living and breathing the sport.

Your eyes skim the grounds and your eyes immediately fall onto Rafe who’s standing around with his friends, beer at hand. Whatever his friends are saying is amusing him because he’s letting out a laugh, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes like he can’t believe it.

“She’s a pogue now.” JJ pulls you back into the group as he boasts about you. “Beat that Harlet girl.”

“Scarlett.” Sarah corrects the drunken guy.

“Whatever her name is. Can I say the b word?” He asks Kiara who shrugs lamely, taking a sip of her beer. “to beating bitches up!”

“JJ, why would you say that?”

“You just gave me permission!” He scoffs and turns back to you, hands squishing your cheeks and making you pucker up. “Look at that sexy shiner.”

You try to pull away from him with a laugh. If it were anyone else, the constant need to be touching you and being flirty would overwhelm you. But you’ve come to realize that he’s just an affectionate and flirtatious person. Plus, it’s very clear that he has his sights set on Kiara, with the longing looks he constantly sends her way.

“To my girlfriend!” JJ hollers far too loudly for your liking, eyes wide as you look at him, as he’s now dramatically standing on the log you were sitting on.

“N-not! Not his girlfriend!” You grab his hand and try to drag him to take a seat but he’s apparently a goddamn bulldozer when drunk.

Cleo and Pope are tending to the drunken guy when you find the chance to slip away. Luckily, you had brought yourself a sweater so walking down the shoreline at one in the morning isn’t the worst part of your night. It’s calm and cool now, the sound of chattering and music now becoming a distant noise, giving you the solace and warmth you need.

The path you’re on now is one you walked down with Scarlett by your side many times. It was never this late of course, always at a decent time with her dog on a leash before letting him run wild. You’d talk for hours. Despite the tension often felt from her remarks, you had a pleasant time. More than pleasant. Fun even. She’s a bad person. A mean person. A bully. But when it was just the two of you, she was just a girl. A girl with you. And you hate how easily she could have betrayed you.

A motion in the corner of your eye startles you out of your reminiscing thoughts. You see a figure rush between the trees and take notice of who it is. Rafe. If you were in a cartoon, you’d imagine a lightbulb drawn at the top of your head lit brightly. This was your shot. Your time to beg and beg until he agreed to take you under his wing.

With a small skip to your step, you follow after Rafe in between the few trees on the beach. You lose sight of him for a second before you spot him again. His back is facing you but what concerns you is how he’s kneeling to the ground. Carefully, you start approaching him.

“Hey,” you gently reach out and tap his shoulder. This startles him. And before you know it, you feel a thousand grains of sand in your eyes. You yell, hands immediately covering your eyes. “Oh my god! What the fuck?! What the fuck?!”

“Holy shit!” You hear him yell. The two of you are yelling now. You don't think you’ve ever heard such a big and tough man like him yell in the way he does. So high pitched. Or maybe that’s just you. But you’re in too much pain to pay any attention. “Why would you fucking creep up on me?!”

“I thought you weren’t okay!”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?!”

“Cause you were kneeling on the floor like a freak!”

“How does that make me a—“

“I think I'm going blind! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” You can’t help but cry out, unable to open your eyes fully because of the sand in them. “Why the fuck would you throw sand in my eyes?!”

“I thought I was being attacked!”

“I only touched your shoulder! Do you think an attacker would lightly tap your shoulder to attack you?! Take me to the hospital!” You’re screeching. You know this. But you can’t open your eyes and this means to panic. Or at least, it is to you.

He sighs, calming down. Or not. You can’t see anything, eyes shut tight. The way the sand grains feel in your eyes only drives you even deeper into a panic. “You don’t need to go to the hospital.”

“Then the eye doctor!”

“It’s one in the morning.”

“Oh my god, I’m never gonna see anything ever again! Do you know how much I like to see things?!”

“I’m assuming a lot?”

“A lot! Oh my—“

“Stop saying ‘oh my god’. Fuck, do you have any other phrase?”

You scoff, eyes still covering your eyes which wouldn’t be able to open either way. “Just help me!”

“Fuck, fine! I’ll help you!” You jump when his hand grabs your wrist, tugging one of your hands off of your face. You figured he would tug and drag you behind him but you’re pleasantly surprised that he’s carefully guiding you through the thick trees and what seems to be back to the boneyard. When your feet hit asphalt, you’re sure you’re in the parking lot, taking you to his truck.

“Just… stay here.” He advises you as your back presses up against the cold touch of a vehicle. You heard a car door click open, some scrounging, the door shuts and he’s back in front of you. You’re not sure what he’s doing as he stands across from you, eyes still shut tight. It’s quiet for a moment except for the sound of distant waves crashing.

“Hello?” You reach out shakily, unsure of where exactly he is. Your hand meets his face in a light smack and he pushes your hand off.

“Get off of me.”

“What the fuck are you doing just standing there? Help me!”

You hear him sigh heavily, the sound of his shoes on asphalt. You aren’t sure what you were expecting but his hand taking a hold of your face, big hand sprawled over your chin and onto your cheeks, puckering your lips out softly isn’t it. It’s oddly tender for a man who’s supposed to be abrasive. “I’m gonna need you to open your eyes for a second. Gonna flush ‘em out with water, alright?”

You have no words, you simply nod gently, opening your slightly burning eyes for him to flush them out. It takes a few gushes of water for your eyes to no longer feel grainy. The sleeve of your sweater is rubbing at your eyes tirelessly, the stinging unbearable. His hand grabs your wrist, pulling you away from your eyes again. “Stop doing that. It’s going to worsen it.”

You glare at him. The blurry version of him from how teary and red your eyes are. “It wouldn’t be bad in the first place if—“

“If you didn’t sneak up on me like a stalker.” His harsh words don’t deter you. His tone would have last week but not anymore. Normally, you'd feel a flutter of embarrassment or shame but after all that's happened in the past 48 hours, you can't find it in you to care.

“A stalker?! God, I just wanted to talk to you. You were kneeling over on the ground like you found a dead fucking puppy. Forgive me for wanting to check up on you.”

“This is a good lesson for you, kid—“

“Kid? Seriously?”

“A lesson to mind your own every now and then.”

You scoff but have no retort to throw back, tired and stinging eyes taking him in. His face is strong as usual, little to no emotion shown in them, even with the ridiculous sight of your extremely reddened eyes and roughed up face, he shows nothing. You wonder why he is the way he is for a second before snapping back into reality. “You owe me for this.”

“Is this that “make you hot“ bullshit?” He snorts out what you think is a laugh. But he would never so you can’t find it in you to stew over it.

“Yeah and wh—“

“I’m not making you hot.”

“Ugh, please! Look, I really need this! And you almost blinded me so you have to.”

“I don’t have to do shit. You put your nose in someone else’s business, that’s what leads to sand in your eyes.”

“Yeah, but—“ you try again but he easily shuts you up by putting a single hand up, palm to your face. A look of amusement flashes through his eyes when he realizes it actually worked and you’re too worked up to fight back. You’re about to speak and he’s about to decline and fight you again when another voice speaks up.

“Yo, fight club!” John B calls out to you, a sleeping Sarah on his back. Beside him, Pope and Cleo are placating a tearful JJ as he hangs off their shoulders between the two of them. Kiara is wearing a random hat that reads ‘Fish Fear Me’, probably stolen by JJ and now a trophy for her. “We’re leaving.”

You turn to speak to Rafe but he’s already gotten into his truck and with a loud sigh of defeat, you walk over to your new group of friends. Kiara brings her arm over your shoulder easily, putting the hat she had on top of your head with a bright smile. They’re talking about god knows what as your eyes turn back to Rafe’s truck one last time. And you’re not sure if you’re making it up but you swear your eyes meet through the slide glass before he drives off.

────────────────────────

taglist. @pinkyqily @chalahyung01 @lunalvrsblog @teenwolfbitches28 @jayjsbaby @yawnzshit @mytimeiswaiting @tsshifting @always-reading @chimchimjiminie16 @ayy1234567 (if your name is red, im not able to tag you and im not sure why, sorry!!)

[hyukascampfire]

𝑯EART 𝑊ORM ⸺ hueningkai ℘˒´ˎ˗

  ⨾𓍢ִ໋ ˒˒ 𝚑𝔢art𝚠𝔬rm

[𝑛]. a relationship or friendship that you can't get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.

⸺ listen to the playlist .ᐟ ‧˚

〝﹙ 📼 ﹚“I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?”  ˛ ､､

wc ➛ 17.9k

𝔭airings childhood bsf!kai x reader (lowkey soulmates?) ⤷ ft. asshole!yeonjun x reader

𝒢 ‎; smut ˒ angst ˒ some fantasy

𝔴arnings angst, family issues, fingering, jealousy (i’m sorry i just love ts), yeonjun really is an asshole, orgasm denial, thigh fucking, unprotected sex (they're stupid!), strength kink a lil bit, breeding kink, possessiveness, creampie, choking... i think that's all, lmk if i missed any

✎୭ ashlynn's note omg. this was such a fun palate cleanser to write. this wasn't supposed to be as big as it is, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and i got super into the story. this kai is SOOOO!! yeah. i’m so nervous posting this because i’ve only ever posted TSFAWC, but…. here you areee (^^;; this is not proofread, so if you see a mistake... give me a sec. i'll get to it. hehe

Though you fan your hand furiously over your face, the little breezes washing over your clammy skin are not enough. The air is thick and heavy with summer’s heat. So thick that you almost feel it each time you swallow. It’s better than just letting yourself melt away, though. The cushion at your back doesn’t help much. It holds your warmth and returns it to you the longer you sit slumped back into it. You suffer it though—you’ve gone too sluggish to move.  

You let a leg dangle over the arm of a chair, watching a hopeful moth dance in the light of the buzzing porch light overhead. It flutters frantically in it, making a grand fight to reach that false moonlight, only to drop away when it realizes that it’s being burnt. You watch it rinse and repeat, relentless and sure, for who knows how long. It’s no special moth—no luna moth or the ones with the pretty pink wings—but the light falls down on it and colors it a pleasant stardust silver.  

You delight in letting your conscious brain turn off to watch it. It lets you forget the sweltering under your skin, and also that Kai had drug you out here. His dad gives him shit when he plays inside, but it’s way too hot to be out here. Isn’t it supposed to cool off after the sun goes down? It doesn’t feel like it. The deep acoustics are drowned out each time a car whirrs by. Playing outside should be the best option, but you and Kai live right on a busy road.  

When the roar of some car going ten miles over the speed limit doesn’t obscure his playing, though, you admire the intricacy of it. His fingers work up and down the neck, jumping frets that you imagine would be impossible to anybody without those long fingers of his. You had always been a loud supporter of his playing, even way back when the most he could play were simple chords, but you became especially so when a few years back he put a guitar in your hands and tried teaching you. Even with his fingers guiding yours, it was quick to learn that the effortlessness with which Kai handles the instrument is hard earned.  

He practices on the acoustic guitar, but that’s not his domain. With houses just a dash across the street from each other, Kai had grown up at your home more than he had at his own. So vividly, you remember the stars in his eyes when he’d listen to your dad’s music. Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins, Linkin Park, any of it. He had fallen in love with it a long time ago. Your whole life you knew that it was only a matter of time before he was in his own band, chasing his dreams with a boundless mind and an indelible vision of himself on stage. How had that time come so soon, though? You don’t know if the notebooks full of inky lyrics that live wherever he deems inspiration might hit him make you proud or nervous. He’s making good on his dazzling aspirations, and you? 

You speak finally into the air, cutting through heat waves and his music and the night. “Isn’t it weird that we’re not going back to school after this summer?” 

He doesn’t have to even stop playing to answer you. Playing comes to him as a second nature. “Kinda,” he answers, brown eyes flitting up to you. “But it’s not like you won’t be back to it in September. College is the same shit.” 

The leg you’d been dangling and bouncing pauses. That’s right; you’re supposed to be going to that college you’d chosen because it was only a three-hour drive away from here. You pluck at the seat’s threadbare fabric, and the moth, still there, becomes oh-so-interesting once again. When his playing stops, you drop your head back with a cushioned thud and a groan that you wrangle in your throat. 

“Why are you acting like that?” he says, voice gone sharp like accusation. He doesn’t even know the truth, but he’s known you too long.

Can’t you just keep secrets for yourself, sometimes?

Kai, arms clad in a well-loved hoodie even in this dreadful weather, lays the guitar down. You maintain your silence. “Seriously, what?” 

Some secrets have timers, though. This one could only last you until about September, or even August when he realizes that you’re not preparing to return to school. A controlled sigh from your chest isn’t enough to soothe the nerves that sparks. “Nothing.” 

“Secrets, huh?” Kai says. When you do finally look to him, black spikes of hair frame his eyes and the accusation in them. 

It’s a simple poke, but it gets under your skin as sharp as any thorn might. It’s not like you don’t keep secrets from him, and you’re sure he keeps some from you too. But those are the little kinds, the inconsequential ones—like I ate already when asked why you’re not eating or like Yeah, I’m fine when it’s been a bad day. You don’t hide this kind of stuff from each other. Usually, you’d run over to his place to tell him whatever’s bothering you. Why not, when he’s known even the worst details of your life for almost the entirety of it? You’ve been holding this one close to your chest since somewhere around the end of senior year, though. The longer you let it fester, the worse your nervousness snowballs. “C’mon, Kai. Let’s not do this. Can you keep playing?” 

He doesn’t like that, of course. But you watch recognition dawn over his chocolate brown eyes, helpless to stop it. “You’re not going,” he says. It’s not a question nor a suspicion, it’s a bone-dry fact.  

Well. There that goes. You want to tear every hair on your head right out. Why had you even thought you’d keep him in the dark about it? When he’s not out in some garage making music, you two are together. The conversation was going to stroll by at some point; this was only inevitable. His disappointment radiates off him in waves and blisters you. He hasn’t even said anything yet, but you know exactly what he thinks of it. It’s why you kept it from him in the first place.  

Your silence is enough confirmation for him. “Why?” he says. “I thought you were excited to move out.” 

Wincing, you nod slowly. You were. Even went through the whole application process, along with most other kids your age. Ultimately, you never went through with declaring a college. You don’t exactly know why, but somewhere weaseled down in the shadowy recesses of your soul, you know. Taking those steps, the massive and terrifying ones from adolescence into adulthood, meant agreeing that this form of your life was over. It meant that at some point, you’d be moving away from here to where living your days away in Kai’s room would not be a choice. Everybody has to do it eventually, you know that. Kai’s music gig could take off any day, too. He’s going to make it happen. And then what? All this stalling and wishing on just a bit more time would mean nothing, he’d be off and chasing that dream. As excited as you are for it to finally become reality for him, there’s a nasty bitterness that’s budded in your chest, infecting your person.  

Can’t things just stay like this? 

“I was,” you say. It comes out of your mouth heavy.  

“Then why aren’t you going?” he says. Crickets, never seen but always heard, sing their song into the night’s darkness. “You didn’t get rejected. You’re too smart for that.” 

An ache sits heavily somewhere near the center of your chest, maybe over your heart. All those good grades, nights spent bent over a desk and AP paperwork—you’re wasting it. You shake your head. “No... just...” It’s an effort to dress your thoughts in a way that might appease him. A quiet moment stretches with your thinking before you continue, “I don’t know what I want to do.” 

He doesn’t like that, the yellow wash of the overhead light dancing over his taut lips and hard eyes. “Don’t know what you want to do?” he says, bringing his legs up onto the seat to crisscross them. He wears his favorite jeans. They’re heel-bitten and baggy enough over his legs that he can wear them around the house without any bother. “You’ve wanted to be an artist your whole life. You know exactly what you want to do.” 

Your chest only seems to ache harder. When the both of you were only young and hopeful, you both had big dreams. Kai was going to be the face of a metal band, and you were going to be an artist. A painter, potter, sculptor, even doing animation for those big companies like Dreamworks and Disney. You wanted any of it, just as long as you were doing art. You’d even promised him that you’d do the cover art for his albums with interlocked pinkies and flushed, hopeful cheeks. That passion and love wasn’t gone from you, it blazed strong in your veins. This blaze wasn’t the kind that kept you warm and excited to push forward into life, though. It had morphed into something that scalded you when you got too close or started imagining yourself pursuing its call. It’s a taunting silvery glow, no longer a guiding north star. Taunting words of family members stamped down on that hope hard. When you were little, it was said lighthearted and in passing. The older you got, though, the more serious their faces became. They wouldn’t say it outright perhaps, but you hear what they think well enough. Art is a dead-end career.  

Shifting in your seat, you tell him, “I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean?” Kai says. “There are good colleges for that.” 

“I just... don’t know.” 

Shaking his head, he tells you, “But you love it.” 

You do. In its every form, you love creating. But loving it doesn’t mean that it’s right for you, or that you should trust your future in its hands. “I think I can do it in my own time,” you say, finally pushing yourself upright from the cushion. “Don’t wanna kill the passion by doing it for a living, you know?” 

He thinks on that for a moment. “If you love it, you should do it,” he says. 

An awful frustration bubbles in your chest. Kai has always had a clear life path, the steps ahead of him set in stone and waiting for him to follow in them. It’s hard for him to see why you might not want to do the same. There’s nothing that makes you as happy as the fact that he has it all figured out, that he knows just where he’s going and that he’s so incredible at it that he doesn’t have to worry about meeting the requirements, but your path seems obscured and untrodden. Punctuating a deep, resonant sigh, you say, “It’s not that easy, Kai.” 

“If you’re not doing that, then what are you going to do? Are you just going to settle for a nine-to-five?” he says full of accusation, the tapping on his knees gone still.  

A dry laugh, you say, “Maybe I’ll marry a super rich guy and just do my art for a living. No nine-to-five.” 

His face flashes. He’d always been a bit reserved, especially around others, but he bared his emotions freely around you. You hold them dearly to your chest and made sure to do your best to make good on that trust. He says, “You’re more than some guy’s housewife.” 

Cheeks radiating in the heat, you snort. “I know, dork. I’m a rockstar’s best friend. It’s my personal favorite achievement.”  

His face sours when you reach out and pinch hard at his cheek, but he doesn’t pull away or brush you off. The skin there is warmed and clammy. Really, the two of you should go meet the cool AC inside before you suffer heat stroke. But this moment feels so nice—your shoulders feel tons lighter without something to hide. If you had it your way, things would stay like this forever. Just the two of you, sat here like you have so many times before, just taking for granted the time you’ve got together.  

His mouth opens to banter, probably something about how he’s not a rockstar yet or to get you back for calling him a dork. Wingbeat and sterling dashes about your face send the image into a blur, though. You’re a quick mess of limbs and a whipping head, as if it’ll chase the thing away from you. 

“Seriously?” Kai says. You’d climbed halfway over him, elbows digging into him and knee doing a number on his thigh. “It’s a moth. You’re not scared of moths.” 

Lingering for a few moments later to ensure the flying thing was nowhere on you or around you, you hold back a laugh before you climb off him and fix your hair with undignified tucks behind your ears. “He was in my face,” you say around a laugh, because you know it was a bit too much. Nobody likes wings in their ears and spindly legs in their face, though, and you’re in no control of what you do when anything with six legs tries and get too friendly. Even moths.  

“You just wanted me to protect you,” he says. A sarcastic, shit-eating smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.  

“Oh,” you scoff, batting your eyelashes and clasping your hands together all saccharine-sweet. “Yes, Romeo, won’t you kill that bug for me? This girl’s heart just can’t take it!” 

Kai’s nose crinkles, and the playful light twists into a glare. “Nasty.” 

“That’s how you sounded,” you say. “I only reacted accordingly.” Laughing, you kick your legs out over his lap and sprawl back out. He takes the guitar back into his hands. 

As much as you want to escape the mugginess, you’ll survive it for just a little while longer—if only with the force of an indulgent heart. The eternal moments are those you allow to linger.  

⚝⭒ 

Some things, you forget when you’re older. Maybe it’s time’s hand, eroding memories down and stuffing more in the longer you live to experience them. But also maybe because they’re the sort of things you can’t say in the adult world without a laugh in the face and a look from down their noses.  

This memory is one of those forgotten things. It’s moth-bitten and dusty, something you one day folded up in a moving box and decided to never revisit. 

You’d been down at the creek. Kai and you had spent so many summer days there. It wasn’t too far from home, just past the filbert trees and into the shallow neck of the backwoods, but there you were out of sight and free to get up to nothing good. It was a wonder your mom ever let you do it. Kai’s dad didn’t care too much where he went or what he did, but your mom dug her claws in deep. You like to think that she imagined you two would have each other, if anything ever happened. 

Usually, you’d be there holding your jeans up from the stream and Kai would be letting his jeans go dark with it. The bite of water was nice as it washed over warm skin. Fun was a simple thing to find, then. You dug your fingers into the mudbanks and tossed stones way too big to be throwing at each other, just because you two remembered how much the adults hated it when you did. Then, you’d drag tired limbs home avoiding sweetgum tree spikes that had fallen to the ground and dug splinters out from your feet.  

This day, you had been in the blackberry bushes. It was maybe late July or early August, and they’d gotten heavy on their branches. You’d waited until the smell of them, summer-warmed, was sweet and cloying in the air to pick them. With buckets in your hands, you plucked only the fattest berries from their bunches. Your fingers were stained a delightful purple and perhaps a bit thorn raw, but you didn’t mind much then. You plucked for hours, and it was dusk before you could catch it. Dinner was no doubt waiting for you back home. 

“There’s a bunch over here,” Kai had said. He reached a long boyish arm, still awkward and lanky with puberty, up high for ripe bush. You finished off picking before climbing around thick branches sticking out to take a peek. A bunch, there was. 

When you went to drop a handful of them into your bucket, Kai hissed. He’d been snagged by a vicious looking branch, those ones as thick as a finger with thorns to match and you’d warn each other tongue-in-cheek to watch out for that one. He’d worn those ridiculous shorts that day, the ones that looked half pants half shorts with how long and baggy they were, and the claws of the bush had jumped at the opportunity. At first the scrapes were white, but then red blood crawled out and down his leg.  

“Kai,” you said, some parts chiding and some parts just wondering how he’d managed that. You surveyed his leg for a bit, and then determined that he should wash his leg off in the stream. He walked there strong, but of course you noticed the hobble beneath his acting. When you squatted down into the dry grass and cupped water to wash off his leg, you laughed. 

“What?” he had said, holding the shorts up. You covered your laugh with a hand, but it erupted past your palm. You remember the glare on his face very well.  

You still laughed. “You’re stupid,” you had told him. 

“I didn’t see it,” he said. “I tripped over it because it was sticking out.” 

That time when you brought your hands to catch some water, there was a twinkle in its surface. You didn’t notice it for a second. The creek moved fast and you could see a lot of things in its reflection. When it lingered, that’s when your brows furrowed. It seemed to twirl, dancing around like alive over the stones. 

The sound of Kai’s voice remains with you. “Hey,” he had said, strong to call your attention but also wavered with uncertainty. 

When you looked up, there was silver dust dancing around you. 

It was fluffy and whorling, fine silver stardust. It’d moved weightless in the air, as though it barely existed. In the center of it were a few moths. They seemed to be made of sterling powder just as the dust was, and they glowed against dusk’s backdrop. If your memory serves you right, there had been a sweet hymn of coos from them. They beckoned you. Summer’s heat felt lighter, and so did your chest. You wondered where they had wanted you to go. 

Almost afraid that if you spoke they might have fluttered away, you whispered soft and low to Kai. “What is that?” He was stood frozen there, pant leg still scrunched up in his fist. Stardust glowed soft in his brown eyes while he took it all in, you remember. It wasn’t a scared frozen. You weren’t scared, either—rather, it was as if that lightness had found its way into the core of your being and brushed over it with mending hands. 

He whispered back, “I don’t know.” How could he have known? It was absurd. 

Those whisps had beckoned you, flowing toward the deeper woods. The soft moths, their murmuring brushing up against your ears, seemed to wait for you to follow. You remember a pull, soft tendrils wrapping themselves around your heart and the yearning it planted there.  

But there was also this reluctance, a bone-deep answering that had told you: No. You’re not ready. 

“Kai, I wanna go,” you told him. 

You didn’t even need to tell him twice. Berry buckets forgotten; the journey home was a stranger one. When your dad asked why you returned from berry picking emptier handed than you had left the house, Kai and you only shared a look. You pair kept that evening at the creek hidden so well that it became more forgotten than shared secret.  

⚝⭒ 

Once, you had been the type of girl that loved being around family. Some of your favorite days of your life were spent in this living room, T.V. roaring over bouncing conversation. Some of those nights ended in rosy cheeks and laughs, and some ended with words thrown angry like fireworks. You never knew which you’d be getting, but you endured the fear of not knowing because it was a simple love—the basic kind built with biology into you the moment your infant skin touched your mother’s. You endured it because eventually, sleep washed away the bad taste left in your mouth and you forgave them quick, sometimes quicker than you ought to, and things would go on as if it hadn’t even happened. You endured it because you could handle its burden, if only to feel the warmth you feel when it’s a good day.  

Kai was always there—his dad was hardly home, so he found family in yours. When you were younger, you’d been embarrassed he was there for caustic, spitted words and intimate fights. Now, you’re just grateful for his shoulder.  

So, yes. Once, you had loved being around your family. But things feel tenser now, nights spent all together less frequent and when they do happen, they’re tainted by a strange air. You think that this strangeness is new, but an awful worry also makes you think that it’d always been there, that you only feel it now because you’ve grown into your adult mind. A hollow ache stakes its claim in your chest, declaring that it won’t leave until you find that youthful ignorance and joy once more. You think that it might stay there forever. 

Bare feet bounding down the stairs, you make a rare appearance downstairs. The cupboard is only half open to make way for a snack raid before your mom’s voice cuts through the air. You know quickly just by the look on her face that you should’ve stayed upstairs. 

“Hey,” she says, gathering laundry into a basket. “You’ve been applying to jobs?” 

With an anxious belly, you tell her, “Yeah. A few. They’re not really, like, ideal, but I sent applications.” You don’t remember when it got hard to look into your mother’s eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to do so now.  

“Not ideal?” she says. “It’s not like you can be picky. Mcdonalds or wherever, I don’t care, you’re going to need to get a job if you’re staying here.” 

“I know. I applied,” you reiterate around a mumble. You close the cabinets, not so interested in a snack anymore. “I just... I don’t know, ma. I don’t want to do that for a living, going between those sorts of jobs.” 

Face hard and abrasive against the truth you bare, she does that awful taunting smile that makes you feel small. Stupid. “You’re not going to college, so that’s what it’s gonna be. You can’t sit up there and draw for a living. You’ve gotta get into the real world, get some real experience.”  

There’s a burst of hurt in your chest, dazzling and gnawing. She’s getting closer to saying how she really feels about your dreams out loud every day. Your face burns and so do your eyes, knot thick in your throat. “Yeah, okay. Got it,” you say, nodding. You’re at the front door before you even know it, slipping on shoes and fighting the greatest internal battle to will back tears. She’d use those against you, no doubt about it. “I’m going to Kai’s,” you throw over your shoulder.  

Whatever she barks back at you, you’re glad you don’t hear. Bells on some old Christmas decoration hung on the door that had yet to be taken down, even into summer, jingle and wash it away for you. 

Kai’s brows shoot up when he opens the door to your face crumpling. You’d done so well at damming it up, but the wall cracks and the water crashes through once you see him. If it were anybody else, you’d feel icky and attention seeking, but you’d held Kai to your chest through gut-wrenching sobs as much as he’s done it for you. Without question, he takes you into his arms, warm hand running up and down your back. The warm soothing is so familiar. You melt right into it.  

He keeps you there for a long moment. Then, his chest rumbles as he tells you, “Come on.” The walk through the AC to his bedroom is nice. Having a house like Kai’s to come to where it can just be you is nice, too. You step around the mess of clothes and scattered belongings on his floor like you have a muscle-memory roadmap of his room. Boxsprings creak and hard mattress welcome you back home. His room is dark as always, a night-dweller you call him. The array of peeling band posters plastered over walls you two had painted blue some years ago, when it’d been his favorite color, don’t help to lighten it up. He keeps a low lamplight on.  

“She never listens to me,” you say, crying gone to occasional sniffles from your chest. You rest your cheek on your bent knee. 

“I know,” he says. “But at least she cares about you. Pays attention to you.” His voice is soft and deep and right next to you. Always right next to you, there for you even when you might not appreciate it as you should.  

His dad cares too little what he does, and yours care too much. The grass is always greener on the other side, you know it. Still, you hold a fantasy where you’re able to do teenager stuff. Where you’d allow yourself to do bad things, because you weren’t so intent on painting yourself with their will. You two hold eyes for a long moment, your twinkling ones caught in that steady brown. “I just want to get away. Be my own person.” Your words are muffled in the softness of your skin. 

“You had the chance to do it,” Kai says, hand playing with your fingers. “But you didn’t.” 

Holding your legs closer, you lick your lips. What do you say to that? Would it ever be the time to tell him that you did it because you think that your soul is pathetically intertwined with his, and that it might snuff your lifeforce out to even try pursuing life without him? Without this? How do you tell him that you’re so frozen and unwilling to pursue any sort of future because it means accepting that this chapter is over? You clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. You refuse to acknowledge its end.  

“Kai,” is all you say, trembled and thick. It’s not just your mother’s words that dig at you and tear to shreds the last bits of what dreaming you had left in you, but so many other reality checks too. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard those sorts of words, urging you forward. You can only dig your heel into the ground for so long before you’re swept away in time’s ruthless, endless moving.  

He understands. Lifting your face with warm fingers against your cheeks, he says, “Hey. How about we go get ice cream, or something?” 

Ice cream does sound nice. “Dairy Queen?” 

Smirk tugged over his mouth, he says, “Yes, Dairy Queen. A blizzard. C’mon, let’s go.” Sliding off the bed, he offers you an urging hand up. 

But you falter. “I don’t know if we can. She’s mad at me. I don’t think she’ll let me go.” 

“Let you go?” he says, eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t have to let you go. You’re an adult now, you go if you want to.” He offers his hand to you again. 

It’s so him, freely going wherever he ordain it. The bullheadedness is very him, as well. Always the devil on your shoulder, he was the root of any rebellious thing you’ve ever done. He could never understand your apprehension, or why getting in trouble was such an awful thing to you. “I have to ask to get money.” 

Brows pinching, he says, “You think I’m not gonna pay for you? You don’t need them to give you money, I’ll pay. I’ll take care of it.” He drags you up from the bed this time. “Live a little. Do you want to go?” 

It was never the punishments or the getting in trouble that you were scared of, though. Disappointment was a scarier word than grounded. Sneaking out and those sorts of things, it’s not like you had angel wings at your back and never considered them. It’s that you are deeply, utterly terrified of changing how they look at you. You begin to tell him, “I do, but—” 

He cuts you off, adamant. “Then do it. Let’s go. If you want to go, then go,” he says. “At some point, your life needs to become your own. It’s not sneaking out when you’re graduated and eighteen years old, it’s going wherever the hell you want. You’ve... You’re gonna end up stuck here, in this town, forever. You don’t deserve that.” 

That sounds like both the best and the worst thing you’ve ever heard. You take his hand.  

⚝⭒ 

Your frozen fingers nurse your ice cream. The cup itself is cold, but the Dairy Queen on your side of town is always thirty degrees below what it should be. It’d always been that way. Even way back when you two couldn’t drive, you’d get dropped off here to escape the melting weather and get a frozen treat with a handful of dollars. Each time, you’d start off sagging with the relief of summer’s weight off your shoulders and left the place shivering and sugar-mouthed.  

It’s really only you two in here. You crinkle your nose when he takes a spoonful. “Out of all the flavors...” 

Unbothered and no doubt expecting you to say it, he offers you a flat, “You get your flavor, I get mine.” He makes a point of taking an extra-long bite. His lips linger around the red plastic of the spoon and his brows rest high in silent challenge.  

The corners of your lips twitch up. “Hmm. Well. I just have a hard time believing that Oreo... or, like, brownie fudge, is right there, and you actually want M&M. I don’t get how M&M your favorite.” A familiar banter falls over your tongues. Your heart buzzes and your cheeks radiate. This is the first you’ve done this all summer, and it’ll be weaning off into fall soon. Any other summer, you would’ve been here on all the hottest days. You hate that Kai’s been so busy with his music; you hate that you can hear the resounding ticks of the clock counting down your time. You also hate that the stubborn depths of you still believe that if you freeze yourself here in stasis that the world will relent and stop along with you. 

You look over the sharp lines of Kai’s jawline as it feathers with his chewing, and the broadness of his shoulders where his jacket stretches around it, and the starkness of his collarbones against his chest and the bobbing of his adam’s apple when he swallows. No, time doesn’t stop. Some of him remains the same, though. In it, you see the boy that had love creeping up on you so long ago, with all its aching and all its hope. That freckle on the column of his neck, the bump in his nose leading down to the button tip that beckons your lips to steal a quick kiss.  

And, those lips. They’re as soft as ever around the discontented grimace he pulls. “M&M isn’t my favorite.” 

With a pursed mouth and patronizing brows arched over your eyes, you say, “Oh, huh. That’s funny, because if my memory serves me right, it’s the only flavor you’ve ordered for the past... six years.”  

Kai husks a laugh at that. “That’s because they haven’t had my favorite for years,” he tells you, scooping up the final bit and then pushing it off to the side. “It was a blizzard of the month that they discontinued. The blackberry cheesecake one. I made peace with it, though. It lives on in my heart.” He grins, arms crossed over his chest and his back settled into the booth seat to let you finish your cup.  

“Blackberry cheesecake,” you say, voice made taunting. Your nod is slow and taunting, too. “Well, forget M&Ms. Why would blackberry cheesecake be your favorite? Ever?” 

His face falters, a moment where something flows over his eyes as if reliving a memory in a few short seconds. Then, he shrugs. “It just is.” 

You roll your eyes. “Whatever,” you laugh. “Maybe my palate is unrefined.” Imagining the tarte fruit in purple swirls of ice cream, you’re taken back to a humid July day and the scent of churned mud.  

The strange memory unfolds itself quick. As if it were waiting for you to find wherever it’d hidden itself away. With a sharp gasp, you say, “Oh my god, Kai. Do you remember that one day? That weird stuff we saw down at the creek?” 

He nods. “Yeah. I was just thinking of that the other day, actually...” 

Less interested in finishing your cup now, you let the spoon rest. “What?” you say, the word peaking in the middle. That day hadn’t crossed your mind once since it’d happened. “How weird is that?” 

Scoffing a laugh, he says, “Weird, yeah. Just as strange as two kids high on fermented berries.” 

That draws a breathy laugh from you. “Is that what you think it was?” you ask him with knitted brows. The berries had been fresh, and you two had popped plenty into your mouth. But no doubt, you’d have spat them right back out if they were that ripe. “I mean, we saw the same thing.” 

“It happens to animals all the time. Squirrells, and stuff.” He lends you a gallic shrug. “We just freaked ourselves out. Like that one time you said you saw the shape of something in the dark and we freaked out. And it was clothes.”  

Well, hallucinating, in tandem, a glowing mist because you two by chance ate fermented berries is a very long shot. However nonchalant he acts about it, he seems to have thought long and hard about it. Enough to reason it away with some far cry explanation. Would you have even been able to get drunk off a handful of fermented berries? And, god, you’re really sure that you’d have noticed. That taste isn’t really one you just don’t notice.  

Whatever. Maybe you were just drunk idiots. That’s a lot easier to swallow, anyway. 

“Okay, but you saw that. Did it not look sinister?” you say. With your spoon back in your hand, you punctuate the sentence pointing it at him. “You freaked out with me, too.”  

An unsatisfied scowl on his lips, he steals a spoonful of your dessert. You don’t even swat him away—your phone buzzes in your pocket. 

Catching sight of who’s calling, you share a long look with Kai. It’s funny, how fast those three white letters scramble you up. When you hesitate to answer, Kai tells you, “Answer.” 

You hope she can’t tell you’re not at Kai’s by the refrigerators’ dull buzzing. It’s an effort to tussle that invasive worry back. You’re at Dairy Queen. Getting ice cream with the boy she’s known since childhood. She should clutch her hands and thank the sky that you’re here, not out in some nasty frat house like you could be. You thumb the green button. 

Her voice comes through the speaker crackled and asking you to run over to do a quick dish load. For a heartbeat you consider telling her that you will and then start rushing home. Instead, you fork out the truth through resistant lips. 

The hangup tone sits heavy on the air between you and Kai. Having listened to the whole thing on speaker, he says, “What was so hard about that? The world didn’t end, did it?” 

The plush of your lip takes a hard gnawing. No, it hadn’t. “I know she’s not going to get mad at me for just going here,” you say as you rest your elbows onto the table. “It’s that they’re supporting me right now. I still live under their roof. The more I go around and insist I can do whatever I want, they’ll start reminding me of it.” 

His face drawn, he lets his mouth twitch to one side. “Yeah,” he muses. “I never thought yours would be the type to kick you out.” 

Kai’s dad had started threating him with getting kicked out years ago, when he first started telling him that he wanted to do music. How many times had he let reluctant tears flow into your shoulder over it? Because music wasn’t a real job? Back then, you’d whispered in his ears that he’d become everything he’d dreamed of and more as your fingers carded through shaggy locks of hair.  

“I don’t know,” you say, humming it out noncommittally. “Is your dad still... y’know?” 

Nodding slowly, his eyes tell. “Yeah. Always.” 

“Because you’re taking the band seriously, now?” you ask.  

“Probably. I don’t give a shit what he thinks about it. If I’m just his goddamn problem, I’ll give him what he wants soon enough.” His eyes blaze with promise of it.  

It takes a bit out of you to not wince. Kai living anywhere but in the house across from yours is wrong. “I don’t think he necessarily wants that, Kai...” You take his hand in your icy ones, the urge to reach out to him thinly veiled under the guise of searching out warmth. He’d always run warmer than you—your personal heater. “It’s probably because he can see that you’re doing it for real. Not just saying it anymore.” 

“Yeah, well,” he spits, “I can’t fucking wait to see what he’ll say to me when I make it. That piece of shit, though, he wouldn’t even care. It’s not like he ever gave a shit about me enough for it to matter.” 

But, it matters to you, you want to tell him. You understand his need to throw it all in his face, though. “Is that one label going to sign you? The one you were talking about?” 

His tongue darts out to wet dry lips. “They haven’t yet. I don’t know. But I don’t need that money to get out of here, I’ve been working on it.” 

“They will,” you say. “But, where would you go? Not too far?” You try and keep it light and playful, even as your heart aches. 

“Come with me,” he says. It’s painfully blunt, as if it were that simple. “Let’s go get and apartment; you and me.” 

“Kai...” you say. “You don’t have to drag me along because you feel bad.” 

The idea doesn’t sound half bad, though.  

“What?” His face tightens, as if somewhere under the surface your words had scraped somewhere tender. “You don’t have to stay here forever. Please. I want... I want you to come with me. You wouldn’t have to even tell them; just bring all your stuff and go together. We could do it together. Like we said we would.”  

“We were like, five. Everybody tries to pretend running away at five,” you deadpan. It’s a washy attempt at lightening things back up. 

Living with him, moving out together, should feel like everything you’ve ever wanted. And, maybe it is. But, he’s not asking you to live with him the way you want him to. Not in the way that your aching heart wishes he would.  

Kai doesn’t share the laugh you give him. “Yeah, okay,” he says, leaning into the table.  

Perhaps you should consider the potent disappointment he’s terribly masking with a face of indifference, though. 

⚝⭒ 

Slowly, the knots in your belly have worked themselves out. When Kai had dropped you off, they’d been so awful that you felt borderline sick. You sat the whole ride there in his old beat-up truck picking at your nails and rambling to him. He listened to you the whole time. And then when it was time to walk in, it had least felt a little easier to do so with his eyes on you, watching to make sure you made it in safely. 

You’d gotten a job. It’s not too bad, folding clothes out on display. It would be nice if they kept the lights a bit brighter, but you’ll get used it eventually, you hope. 

Most of your coworkers are around your age, but the one showing you the ropes... your heart had fluttered. 

“You’ll get it,” Yeonjun says. The smile you find on his lips once he straightens up from placing product on a display is smooth and smug. Sleek strands of black hair fall over his eyes. You fluster under his gaze.  

With arms crossed over your chest you say, “Yeah, probably.” You reach into the cardboard box for stock to practice on. 

“Where’d you work before this?” he asks, leaning back into a wall to watch you. Suddenly, you make sloppier work of your folding. “Your first retail job?” 

Some obnoxious pop song falls down from the speakers over the store. Nobody’s in here yet, thankfully; you’ve got some time to try and get a handle on everything. “No, this is my first job. I was so nervous walking in.” 

Interest catches in his eyes. It encourages that smooth smile on his lips further. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll show you the reins.” 

Your mind stalls. The suggestive, sly flicker to it—are you looking too much into it? Maybe that’s just how guys like Yeonjun act. It’s hard to pretend that you don’t see how he’s looking at you, though. It has your belly twisted up in fluttery knots. It’s not like you hadn’t had your share of his type. But, for some reason you’d rather not address, he’s got your heart thumping in your chest. 

He laughs at your fifth attempt to fold up the shirt. When he takes it from you to help, he smells of musk and vetiver. “You going to college near here?” he continues.  

“Nah, just doing this, I guess,” you answer, watching him fold it up to try and soak it up.  

“Really? Why not?” he hums, crossing his arms about his chest. “You seem like a smart girl.” 

Buffering, your blood buzzes in your veins and your cheeks burn. “Dunno. Not really sure what to do. Are you in college?” 

“Nah. I’m trying to figure things out, too.” 

The both of you pop your heads up when the bell rings to announce the arrival of a customer.  

“Yeah,” you say, eyeing him. He’s a few years older than you, no doubt, and yet his life hasn’t fallen apart because he’s not done anything grand yet.  

Time’s hand around your neck loosens. Just a little bit.  

⚝⭒ 

You sit crisscrossed on top of Kai’s bedsheets. He’d thrown the windows open because the AC died, but it’s no help. The hot air wafting about the room sits heavy on your skin. You’d dressed in as little material as possible to let it breathe, bare thighs clad in a pair of loose shorts and a thin tank top, but it’s still miserable. 

Perhaps you two should be going over to yours, but you haven’t had time alone with him for a few weeks now. You hate this busier life, where you struggle to make room for this. 

Your new job isn’t so awful, though. Especially with Yeonjun there. A bout of nerves flows up through your stomach. That reminds you. 

Sitting up a bit straighter, you consider not doing it. In fact, you really shouldn’t. But your mouth moves before you can put a stopper on it. 

“Hey, Kai,” you say. The thickness in your throat makes you believe that your heart’s jumped up into it, caught. God, what are you doing? The unsure waver in your words has you regretting. 

His eyes flicker up to yours. He hums out a, “Huh?” 

No, this is wrong. You mess with the thin cotton strap of your tank top where it’d slipped down. “Never mind,” you tell him, trying to shrug it off.  

That piques his interest. “No, what?” His brow pinches.  

You lick your lips and shake your head. “Nothing, never mind. Really.” 

His eyes search you from where he sits up against the wall. “Tell me,” he demands. 

Really, you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. It was a ridiculous idea. But now you know he’s not going to let it go. And, ridiculously, you say it. “I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?” 

Insects buzz outside as he looks at you, frozen in spot. You reject the urge to dart away or throw up. You’re honestly just as shaken as him. But really, who else could you trust with something like that? You don’t want Yeonjun to be disappointed if he kisses you, or to seem inexperienced to him. 

And, perhaps, the hopelessly in love part of you hopes to at least feel his lips on yours at least once. If you’re going to be alone forever in your longing, you just wish that you can have this. 

“What?” Kai says. He looks rattled.  

Of course, he’s shocked. You shift. “Forget I said that,” you tell him, unable to meet his gaze.  

String-roughened fingers wrap around your upper arm. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, voice strained and face less shock-fallen and more darkened. “But... I mean, you want me to teach you to kiss for some other guy.” He spits out the last bit as if bitter in his mouth.  

“You don’t have to do it,” you say. “I just... thought that I might ask you to do it. I don’t know, I’m sorry I said it. I’ll just wing it or something.” His room’s grown ten degrees hotter, if that was possible. Especially where you feel his eyes on your face.  

Almost imperceptibly, his hand tightens around you. He swallows hard. “You want to learn how to kiss?” he says. “Fine. I’ll teach you.” 

In a heart-stopping moment, your eyes snap to his. Brown and familiar, they hold you with an intensity that turns your limbs into jelly. The air is stifling. “What... do I do?” you ask when the silence becomes too heavy.  

A muscle feathers in his jaw, reflected in the low light of his room. It’s quick and so easy to miss, but it tells you everything you need to know about how this is making him feel. How much disbelief he’s in. “Come here,” he says, stilted around the absolute absurdity of it. He pats on his lap. 

You make a hesitant crawl across the bed toward him. It seems as though your elbows might buckle beneath your weight, but you make it despite the odds. A fog settles over your brain when you rest your hands on his shoulders and bring your legs to straddle his lap. 

But you shove it back; you want to live and breathe every last second of this. No matter how unbelievable or blistering it is.  

Breaths fan out over your face. It’s seizing your mind like undiluted liquor. “Where do I put my hands?” you ask him. It’s breathless, the air stolen right from your lungs though your mouths haven’t even touched.  

“There is fine,” he says. His words sound breathless, too. The weight of his touch on you as he runs his own up to support your back is unsure. “And then...” he says. It falls out on your mouth slowly, and then he’s taking your lips onto his. 

The walls melt away, sound does too. All that is real is the taste of his lips and how they move against you. Your lips start tentative, but you try his mouth movements yourself. It feels like a timid dance—it feels like deep, deep down, finally everything is right. That mist, thick and blinding, falls back over you. 

Something changes. Something in it, where you two meet, changes. He becomes hungry. Softly locked lips turn biting and nipping, shaky breaths exhaled slow through your nose. His hands on your back become surer, and one even ventures off to grab your chin. The other holds you to his chest, melded together despite the intense smoke and flame rolling off your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating a mess there. 

Reluctance paints you both when you pull back. You’re panting deep drinks of air. It’s hard to think; your mind’s run off and sits just out of reach. Licking your messy lips, stained with illicitness, you can only manage to brush your fingers against it to form words. “How... was that?” you say, searching his eyes. You find his pupils blown so wide that they consume the warm brown. You’re ready to jump out of your skin with that look pointed at you.  

Kai doesn’t answer, though. He slams your mouths back together as if starved by just the brief moment you’d parted for air. Nips on your bottom lip and emboldened hands—he moves like roaring water through a dam. A dam that he’d worked hard to fortify, and yet, at a crack it’s all falling down. Fingertips digging through the fabric of your shorts down to your soft hips, his chest rumbles. You feel it reflected in your core, electricity charging there and shooting up your spine and down your thighs. 

You kiss him for all the times you wish you would’ve, but didn’t. The slight rolls of your hips down onto him come easy. You love how it has him making a sound into your mouth and taking the fat beneath his fingers harder into his hands. He helps you. 

He drops his head into your neck. Your head swims for air and he has you shuddering with just the brushing of his nose against the column of your neck. The walls of his room spin around you. “Kai,” you whine, every bit of friction his jeans provide, even clothed as you are, just enough to rile you but not to give you what you need. 

“God,” he growls, thumbs hooking under your waistband. “You always fucking run around dressed in nothing,” he says, letting his fingers linger like a suggestion of undressing you. “Did you do it on purpose? Expect to make me crazy, knowing I couldn’t touch you?” 

And, in those words, it seems that he steals every last bit of breath from you. How often had you gone braless or worn something like this around him? Laid here, in his bed, like that? 

Grown tired of your fruitless grinding, he brings a hand down to support your lower back and says, “Turn around.” 

Though you explode with the prospect of what he might be intending to do or what’s next, if you’re really going to do this, you do so in a flash of eager limbs. His chest is solid against your back, you melt against the feeling of it. He’d become such a man lately, filled out, and you watched it happen. It was hard for your eyes not to catch on muscle-corded forearms while he picked at strings or to not appreciate the timbred rumble of his voice when you’d feel it come from his chest. How could it not do things to you? Now, he’s dragging your shorts down your legs and you’re in disbelief.  

“Fuck,” he breaths out. His fingers find your panties soaked through. “So, you’re the type to get dripping wet.” 

An embarrassed blush decorates your cheeks. Kai drags his index finger in circles around your clit through the fabric as if enamored with how much of a mess you’d made of it. Your hips twitch every time he rolls right over it. It’s strange how he’s got your body acting on its own volition with his touches. Even stranger that it’s your best friend doing it. “Sorry,” you tell him, wavering.  

He continues those terribly slow circles. “Sorry?” he says, chin on your shoulder. He’s got you wrapped up in him, with nowhere to go but to melt back into him and let his fingers work. Free hand on one of your inner thighs digging divots into the plushness there to hold it still, he tells you, “It’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s hot as fuck. You’re so excited for me to touch you, huh?” 

The words wreak havoc on you, feeding the flame that has your belly twisted up tight and the ignition point between your thighs pounding. To hear them coming from him, reserved Kai, has you digging your fingers into his forearm to prove that it’s real. You’d never have imagined him being so... filthy. You imagine him behind falsely nonchalant eyes, devouring you with a perverted mind all the times you’d spent innocently sitting together in this room.  

Your cheeks squish beneath his fingers as he takes your face and turns it to him. He wants to make sure you’re look at him as he asks you, “Do you want me to finger you?” 

Like a record, your brain skips. Between the blunt, lewd question and his hand on you, it’s in overload. How could he ask something like that so simply? Stunned as you are, of course you want him to. You want him to do anything to you. You nod.  

Every last nerve and neuron in your system, just below the skin, cry out when his fingers slow down to nothing. “Hmm?” he says, ignoring the chasing of your hips and the opening of your thighs to invite him into paying your poor pussy the attention he’d ripped from it. He wants to hear you say it.  

About ten minutes ago, you lost your mind. It does not return to you now. “I want you to,” you say, chest beating in tandem with your cunt. 

“You want me to, right? Not some dumbass you met a week ago, huh?” he says. “Because you know that this is what it’s meant to be. Me, doing these things to you. Not some twenty-five-year-old piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you, baby. Understand?” 

His fingers slider under your panties. Dumb brained and cognition gone muddled, you nod. All you can really think about is the moment his fingers slide over you. Fire licks up your lower belly and your insides as he brushes calloused finger tips finally right against your clit. 

Puffed breaths of a scoff raise goosebumps over your skin. “Teach you to kiss so that you can go over there and get his hands on you,” he says, middle two fingertips prodding at your entrance. “As if you were ever anybody’s but mine. You’d come crawling back to me, baby, because it was always meant to be us. He could never satisfy you.” 

His words might alarm you or have you asking questions if he hadn’t pushed his fingers into you and begun curling them with strong, pointed presses, pulling soft mewls and hums from you until he finds a spot that twists up your insides. Even through the palm you press over your mouth, your moans come out more like wavering grunts and croaks. Your thighs quiver and twitch, threatening to snap closed against your own will with each. Only your feet stay planted to the mattress. Like a cone of soft serve under the sun’s blistering attention, you melt down him. Just his frame keeps you upright. 

“Right there, huh?” he says. The smirk on his mouth filters his words into something taunting. “That’s where you like it.” It’s like he’s learning your body step by step, fulfilling all the questions he’d been forced to only guess at before this.  

“Uh-huh.” It comes out whiny and cracks in the middle, but you can’t find even an ounce of you to care right now. If this moment had been a long spiral, a fall from grace, down into a dark pit of forgotten inhibitions, you’ve just hit the bottom. Cheeks blazing cherry blossom pink and with your fingers curling into his pant leg, you don’t doubt that you are a picturesque mess. The kind of mess that’s beautiful because it’s dirty. Your teeth are not gentle on your plush bottom lip. It stings, tugged back and bitten and still a bit swollen with kisses. Perhaps you taste the tang of metal on it, but you pay it no mind. 

Kai redoubles his efforts. Now that he knows exactly how to play you, he’s fucking you on his fingers without mercy. The sounds coming from your cunt were wet, but now they’re different— nasty squelching. The only noises coupling with your pathetic keening. Forget anchoring yourself on his thigh, forget muffling your sounds. Instead, your hands fly to encircle his flexing forearm. Under your nails, angry red crescents dig into the muscle there. What had been a languid, building pleasure suddenly becomes everything. Your breaths run away from you, and you chase them frantically. Deep down in your core, the muscles spasm and rage against his fingers. “H—oh god,” you groan. Even the muscles in your thighs and tummy tighten up. 

“So whiny...” Kai mumbles, voice taut with the effort of eroding you down into pure, blinding-white pleasure. 

And then, in a swoop of mercy, your belly tightens. You hover here, on the precipice of something so consuming and voracious that your muscles and bones reject it, and yet your heart sings. Your eyes and cheeks and lungs and belly burn, the flame charring the edges of you in a beckon. You answer its call. Kai doesn’t mind the snapping of your legs shut around his arm, nor does your bucking or shaking deter him. He just holds you through it, arm like a metal bar around your waist. He’s everywhere, in this moment—the smell of him, leather and utterly familiar, his mouth dusting hot kisses over your skin, his fingers guiding you through orgasm. Where you’d gone silent in the initial crash of it, you devolve into mewls and grunts as you come down.  

He holds you even as you slump against him boneless. Afterglow simmers in your veins and has your brain all lethargic and lazy. Neither of you speak for a while, your pulse thumping a rhythm. His breaths rise and fall against you; it grounds you in this moment where you feel all spacey and gone. You become aware again of how disgustingly sweltering it is in his room, your skin sheened. 

That brainless bliss only lasts you for so long, though. When rational mind returns to you, no matter how you wish it wouldn’t, you’re hit in the chest with regret so hard it knocks the wind out of you. 

How will anything ever be the same after what you’d just done? Stricken still by the thought, you barely register him pulling his fingers out of you. After all your worrying about making sure no wedge comes between you two, look what you’ve gone and done. No; nothing ever will be the same again.  

⚝⭒ 

A couple of weeks ago, you ruined the one friendship you were supposed to have forever. It presses down heavy one you while you sit sprawled out on Yeonjun’s couch, his arm around your shoulder. His phone casts a glow over his features with all the lights out. 

It doesn’t smell like home. He, pressed against your side, doesn’t smell like home.  

Some stupid movie that he’d picked out, yet somehow you’ve ended up the only one still watching it, weaves a hum into the quiet of his apartment. Tangy hurt wells up in your throat. Even the moments when you and Kai would sit in mutual silence on your phones never felt like this. This is different.  

You haven’t seen Kai since that night. He’s been busy getting ready to move out, and you’ve been here most days. How fast all of it had changed. You wish you’d feel whiplashed, left empty, by the drifting that you’d been so terrified of. But you don’t. It’s just been you, locked on land, watching him being taken away by the ocean’s tide with no way to change its course. You tried and screamed to call him back, but now your voice has gone hoarse.  

And instead of watching him go, you choose to look elsewhere. It’s all you can do to protect yourself from the hurt. 

“Hey,” Yeonjun says, finally addressing you rather than whoever’s he’s got in his phone. “Did you bring anything to change into?”  

“I brought stuff to sleep in,” you say, eyeing him. You know that’s not why he’s asking. If it came down to it, you could just steal something from him and pull it on. He means going out clothes. Your jaw tightens. “But nothing nice. Why?” 

He stretches his arms behind his head in a flaunt of long arms and tanned muscle. Hours spent at the gym lent him those; you appreciate the look of it with a watering mouth. Kai had earned his build by hours spent outside with your dad, because his own could care less, helping him fix up cars and vehicles of all ridiculous sorts. You remember when Kai had first gotten his truck—junk on wheels, honestly—he’d spent so much of summer out there getting it running. And, well... the sun-kissed bronze of his skin and frame that came with it, you had no qualms with. 

But those memories only sit heavy in your chest as you’re sat here beside Yeonjun. You banish them elsewhere; you need to let him drift off. If you can’t have each other, and your feelings won’t permit just being friends, then you have to. You want him to do amazing things, and you fear that it’s your presence in his life that will interrupt that. As much as your feelings are real, they are selfish. You, your unsure direction and all your dead weight, should let him go. Because you love him. 

“The guys want to come over,” he tells you, pushing off from the couch. “You should probably into change into something less showy.” 

Less showy. Your mouth drops into a scoff of disbelief, looking down. A pair of shorts and a shirt, showy? You have to laugh, or else you’ll succumb to the strange embarrassment crawling at the back of your skull. What’s he trying to say? Is that what he thinks of you? “What’s that supposed to mean?” you say, face tilted up to him in a twist of distaste. “I’m wearing something comfy.” 

He shrugs, hands shoved into the pockets of his black sweats. “Don’t want to give them the wrong idea about you, that’s all, baby. They’re guys; I just want to protect you.” 

“No,” you say, the word falling out in a barked laugh. “Why would you even be bringing over dudes that you think will look at me like that? Why are you even friends with people that you think are gonna make moves on your girlfriend?” He holds a hand out to you, but your hands stay right where they are: crossed solidly over your chest. 

Throwing that hand up in audacious exasperation, he gives you a look that makes you feel small and petulant—like you’re throwing an overblown fit. And, maybe you are. You should probably just do it; him seeing you as some overbearing or high maintenance girl has that embarrassment flaring like wildfire that’s found dry brush. “C’mon, baby,” he says, a lazy smile on his mouth that gets under your skin. “Let’s just have an easy night. Don’t make it a big deal.” 

Let’s just have an easy night. As if you’re the one ruining the night. Something snarky tries to seize your tongue, but you hold it down. “I thought it would be just us. We wanted to watch the movie together, Yeonjun. Can’t you wait to hang out with your friends? Let’s enjoy our time together; you’ve got your shift tomorrow.” 

“My fucking god,” he groans, running a hand through his hair furiously. “You’re needy, you know that? The neediest I’ve ever had to put up with. I don’t put up with needy, baby. Can’t you just chill out a little? My last didn’t mind when I’d have friends over.” 

Your eyes burn. Your cheeks burn. He’d been with plenty of other girls before you; that, you’re well aware of. It’s been a corrosive source of self-doubt for you. You don’t want that title: the neediest he’s ever had. Don’t want him to think of you as some prude that won’t let him have fun. Just... hearing him bring up the other girls he’d been with before you stings and leaves welts no different from a slap in the face. Feelings of inadequacy shackle you and have you saying, “Fine. I’m gonna borrow some of your clothes.” 

Heavy resentment blooms on your skin where he bends down and presses kisses to your cheek, and then mouth, and then down your neck. “Thank you, baby.” 

And, where those ugly, wilted flowers of it bloom, you hear echoes of something. Something that tells you that Kai wouldn’t treat you like this. But you’ve made your bed, decided to do it yourself, and now you’ve got to lay on it. 

⚝⭒ 

The frat parties are the worst kind of social outing that Yeonjun insists upon. The smaller kinds, more intimate gathering with just his closer friends, you tolerate much easier. You’re not fond of the circles he chooses. Breathing in thick, smoked-out air surrounded by alcohol-coated breaths is not your type of fun night. Somehow, you end up doing that more than date nights. But that’s better than being here. The base rumbles up through your feet and makes your stomach sick, and it reeks of grinding bodies and body odor, and condensation coats your fingers from the red solo cup as full as when you’d first gotten it. 

But, still, you come along. Not every time, but when you don’t, you lay in his bed sickening yourself with images of what he might be doing here. How pathetic is it to attend parties with your boyfriend because you fear that otherwise, he might stick his tongue down the throats of other girls? 

You’re looking for him right now, awkward and left alone. He’d promised to stick around; you had begged him to. That was pathetic, too. You know that you put up with too much. If he loved you, or honestly even liked you, you two would be in the thick of the throngs dancing or off somewhere talking with others. Together. The frantic skimming and weeding of your eyes through the blur of faces is not right. That’s not how he should make you feel. It’s not how Kai would make you feel. 

Well, Kai would never have you here in the first place. 

Venturing out from your little corner, you sift between the bodies of people have a hell of a lot better time than you. Drunken, some you bounce off of like bumper carts. You press your palm over the round face of your cup to spare the floor from spillage threatening to pour over the lip. It’s not like a splash from yours would matter much, though. The linoleum has already been made a fetor mess of dirt off shoes and the sticky sugar of liquor. Your shoes peel from it as you walk. God, what would your parents think of you being here? 

You peek around corners and eye big groups. He’s not in the kitchen when you look there, either. Your stomach feels sick in a knowing way—a gut feeling that doesn’t justify anger or tears just yet, but you know. Right in the center of your chest, you know. 

It’s in some room that you find him. Sat on the floor along with a few faces you don’t know, he pulls from his bottle. And on his shoulder, he lets a girl with shining curls and pink cheeks rest her head. At your busting in on the intimate gathering, Yeonjun’s eyes slide to you. Recognition flashes over them and wars with bleary drunkenness. 

“Hey, baby,” he says. Their gazes all fall on you, but you can hardly see them through blurry eyes. 

The girl lifts her head from his shoulder. She’d caught the memo. 

“I think I’m gonna go.” You make it sound resigned, try to not let them see your shame, but your voice betrays you and crackles. Maybe it’s better to pretend it doesn’t feel like you’ve just been kicked in the stomach and left to reel against the force, but you can’t. You’re nowhere near shocked, nowhere near blindsided, but still you hurt. 

He follows you down the hall. “What’s your problem?” he says, the few, plain words mending and waving into a slurring. 

You’ve got one goal: get to the front door, away from the shitty music and him. His words, sharpened, fall off your skin despite his efforts. What good would fighting do you, anyway? It was always going to end up this way. This is just who he is, and he doesn’t give two shits enough about you to want to change that. 

“Baby, seriously? That made you this mad? I didn’t even fucking do anything. Stop being insecure,” he says. At the gritting of your teeth, he sees an opportunity and pounces on it. “You don’t need to be jealous. I don’t do jealous shit. We can dance, or something. Shit, I don’t know what you want! Just stop throwing a fit.” 

Didn’t do anything? You have to laugh. Maybe you didn’t walk in on him fucking someone else, but that’s not what this is about. Not even a little bit. You’ve checked out, and the fact that he thinks he can make you believe that it’s your fault this time only drives the killing stake in harder. 

Maybe you’re bitter. It claws at your insides—turns your face hot and screams in your face that you’ve been used. But beside it sits a sadness. Not the slow kind, but the quick sadness of hurt. Why hadn’t you been good enough for him to love you? To like you? You’d left behind Kai and rested your new life on Yeonjun’s shoulders. You’d wanted so badly for his approval, or for him to want you. You did your best to try and make this work out because you needed it to. You needed so desperately proof that you could fall in love with somebody else. But your best was not what Yeonjun was interested in.  

Pins and needles prick your skin as you step outside, like jumping into an ice bath. It shocks you out of dizziness. Words surge up and out in a flash flood like hard reality. You spin on him. “Jealous?” you say, choking out a scathing laugh. “The last thing I’d ever let myself suffer over you is jealousy. Get over yourself. I’m going, stay here if you want. I don’t care.” 

“How are you gonna do that, huh?” he says. The flickering yellow of the porchlight paints his features. The shadow of something fluttering around it cuts dark spots in the light, and then a small little moth comes down and jumps around in his face. He waves it off. “Gonna have bitch boy come pick you up? You can’t leech off him forever; he’s gonna get sick of picking up another man’s girlfriend.” It seems like you walking in on that had sobered him up, but his breath still curls out onto your face with the reek of alcohol. “It’s not a big deal. You’re making this a bigger deal than it has to be. Do you not trust me?”  

“You are such a piece of shit,” you grit out. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Ever. I don’t know how I let this go on for so long.” You don’t like him having Kai in his mouth, don’t like him trying to act like you’re conflating things, and especially don’t like that face he’s making. As if you’re acting crazy and overblown. “No, I don’t trust you. You didn’t fuck her, but come on, Yeonjun. Seriously? You think I’m stupid, and I’m sick of it. You thought this would be easy because I didn’t have the experience you have, but I’m sorry. I don’t like being walked over.” 

“If you’re gonna be so goddamn jealous, then maybe we aren’t gonna work,” he says. 

That moth, floating light in the air, is right back in his face. Yeonjun takes two hands and smashes it between a clap of his hands. He shakes its flattened, broken body off his hand. Looking down at it laying there on top of dirt-caked concrete, you get this... feeling. A tickling around your person.  

“See if I care,” you snap, throat aching against the onslaught of emotion and held back tears.  

⚝⭒ 

Rivulets of raindrops dilute the tears on your cheeks. Your hair plasters to your face and your clothes to your body.  

For a week, you’d went about it all as if it hadn’t happened. And then you came here.  

It’d not been this rainy when you first got down to the creek—just a gentle trickle, really. You hadn’t been crying then, either. But, watching the water work at babbling over stone, you let yourself feel it. Here, where you’d had so many good memories. You’ve gone and tainted it, now. But for whatever reason, you’d just wanted to be here. Arms curled around yourself and fingers digging into drenched sleeves, you don’t wipe away the tears or cover the sounds of your crying. You let the stream hear it; it’ll sweep it right up and down the way. Somewhere far off, where you don’t have to feel it anymore. 

You realize that, usually, you’d be over at Kai’s right now. The fact that his room was not the first place you thought you could go to anymore is a punch to the gut. You drop your face into your hands and cry harder. Really, you’ve got to stop doing that to yourself. Thinking of sad things—putting your hurt under the microscope to see it closer. It’d be easier to just fold it up and tell yourself that it’ll pass, and that relationships end all the time. 

It’s not him that you cry over. Well, maybe some of it is. Rather, it’s that you have absolutely no idea where you’re going. Where you are. Finally, you’d built yourself a raft to get off the shore and go out to sea, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and it’s breaking apart right beneath you. And, stranded and alone in the water, you’ve got no way to get back to shore to build yourself another raft. You’re stranded, and the scariest bit is that you’re doing it all alone. You weren’t supposed to do this alone. You two made promises back then. 

You suppose that a promise is one of those things you were supposed to leave faith in back on shore. 

The raindrops are heavy over you. The fall of it roars against the ground, a torrent downpour. It’s not coupled with whipping wind or flashes of lightning—just straight, still falling. It’s a somber feeling no different from the gnawing in your chest. 

Like chimes, there’s a distant, gentle sound. Maybe water falling over creek rock, but it’s more like suggestion. A sweet sound that you shouldn’t even be able to hear over the rest of it, it’s as if it’s right in your ear. A whisper.  

You fix your blurry eyes with a wet sleeve. Rain falls right back into its place, but you see it: a silvery, whimsy haze. And the moths. They jump and call you, this time. Their glow bounces off the rainy mist against the grey of night’s arrival. Then, all you can hear is the whispering. Where you stand frozen, your feet beg to move. To follow them. 

So you do. 

Their entourage of moondust trails them where they go, wrapping you up and weaving between raindrop and space. You don’t worry where they’ll take you, or even try to wrap your head around this happening again. You just follow, mind glossed over and entranced with how beautiful it is. When you’d seen them before, it’d made you uneasy. Mostly because it looked so unearthly and unbelievable. But this time you just follow. 

A far-off voice, one oh-so-familiar, peaks through the haze. It’s not enough to stop you, but then you hear it again, louder and closer. 

You blink a few times. Once to break away the fog, and then twice to focus your eyes on Kai stood in front of you. His hair lays in wet spikes over his eyes and beads of rain trace the planes of his face. He’s as soaked as you. 

“Kai?” you say. Looking around you, you’ve ended up somewhere in the field between your houses and the creek. But you’ve got no recollection of walking here. Whatever that mist is, sentient or not, had swept you here.  

His voice is strained, but you appreciate hearing it. “Break up with him,” he tells you. 

In his eyes, as you search them, there’s stardust glowing like reflection. Your face twists up. “What?” you say, breath a puff of smoke ahead of you. Summer had come and gotten away from you so fast, and now it’s gone all cold again. 

“Break up with him,” he echos, face solemn. He looks ruffled. 

“Why?” you ask, “And why are you out here?” 

“Because I’m moving out today, and I think I deserve to at least see you before I go.” His eyes look over you. “And... your dad said you went down to the creek.” 

He’s moving out today, and you had no idea. And really, it’s your fault. You’d driven that wedge between the two of you. “I did break up with him.” 

Downpour fills his quiet for a few moments, his face swirling with emotion like the clouds above you. He nods. “Good.” 

There are a few more long minutes between you; just you two searching each other's faces, antsy to say so much that it bunches up in your chests and stalls. It’s what a summer of longing does to you. Even with Yeonjun, even trying to slowly chip away the stitching that had connected the two of you at the hip, you were helpless to stop the gnawing of the love you bear for him. Even just seeing him now, you feel those threads mending back up. God, why does it have to be so hard? 

He just looks at you. For a few beats, he just looks at you. There are so many questions in his eyes. They flit across and turn over, but all he settles on is, “Why?” 

There’s so much you want to tell him. Words pile up to the top, some threatening to spill over. But you know that if you tell him some of it, just to make up for all the time you’d missed out on together, it’ll all come crashing out. And you don’t think you want him to know just how much you accepted, the way you let yourself get treated. So, you shake your head and say, “It doesn’t matter.” 

Kai looks like he wants to push that issue, but whatever look he finds on your face deters him. “Come with me,” he pleads. “I want you to come with me.” 

Your throat tightens. Curling your arms around yourself harder, the rain only coming down on you harder, you say, “Kai, I want to. I want to. I just... I don’t want to freeload off you, because you’re doing great things, and I’m just...” Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, but they’re already as soaked as the rest of you. “I’m just going nowhere. And I don’t want to be a burden, or ever be the reason that you can’t do what you dream of. If staying here means that you become everything that you’re destined to do, then I’m happy with that, Kai. I am.” 

He shakes his head, stumbling toward you. “No, no you don’t get it,” he says, frantically taking your shoulders into big hands. Under his touch, every taut muscle goes slack. You melt. “You don’t get it. You are the music. Every single song is about you. Every single fucking song is about you. I want you to come with me, please. I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you, and I thought you’d loved me too, and I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone.” 

He loves you. Kai loves you. The enormity of it rumbles the ground where you stand on legs you fear might just give in. You flex your fingers to combat the tears pricking your eyes. It doesn’t work; they brim and well up, spilling down over your cheeks. “What?” you say, voice softly breaking. “Kai, I didn’t...” 

“And just when I thought I finally had you, you left me,” he says, throwing a hand up beside him in a big gesture. “You left me! I woke up thinking you’d be there, and that maybe you loved me too, and you had left me. And then you threw me away for some piece of shit, and you stopped coming around.” His chest heaves for breaths. 

Your face contorts. That night, the one where you two had slipped up, you’d fallen asleep curled up against his chest on undiluted contentment. When you woke up, you had panicked. You thought he’d wake up and pretend it hadn’t happened, or he’d be uncomfortable, or even be disgusted and regretting. You couldn’t handle that, so you slipped out before he woke up. It’d been an attempt to protect your tender heart, but looking at the twitching of his lip now, you begin to think it’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done. He thinks you used him and left him. Your stomach twists. Voice thick, you say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you, Kai. I thought you didn’t... I thought you didn’t see me that way. I was scared. I’m sorry I hurt you.” 

Brows knitted together, he says, “Thought I didn’t love you?” His hand cups your cheek, warm against the soft frozen skin he finds there. “I’ve... I’ve dreamed of you almost every night of my life. In my sleep, I see you, and you’re happy and glowing, and that damn... mist is all around you. I couldn’t get away from you even in my sleep.” 

Darting between his eyes, soft and reflecting your face back to you, it’s hard to breathe. Kai’s dreamt of you; he’s as sickly in love with you as you are him. Thunder claps, and the ground shakes, and the heavens open up above you, the trumpets belt, and you two are in love. Somewhere deep in your center, you feel it—your soul nodding yes. 

The mist. You know exactly what he’s talking about. “I saw it. That stuff, those moths. The stuff we saw back then.” 

“I did too,” he says, wet spikes of hair bouncing with a nod. “Not that long ago. It was the first time I saw it out of a dream since that day.” 

Back then, you two had only budding, innocent love for each other. Things hadn’t become mangled and lost to confused hearts or expectations. When they’d appeared to you, you hadn’t needed it. This time, you’d followed it. And it had led you here—somehow had led you right to the very spot you needed to so that every last piece might fall into place. For this moment to happen. You know why it did. 

“I’ll go with you, Kai. I’ll go wherever you go; I love you. I’ve loved you since forever,” you say, each and every word massive and lovely on your tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.” 

So unlike the last times your mouth had met, he brings his mouth to yours with a dazzling clarity. No longer is it confused kisses; he locks his lips against yours with the urgency of so many years being unable to. Kai’s hands cradle your wet cheeks, hold you so tenderly into his kiss. His touch grounds you, makes the moment real. You melt into him—your fingers curled into his shirt as if holding him there so that he won’t disappear like something of an incorporeal dream. He sighs through his nose, kissing you harder. Even if it all were fake and this was nothing more than a feverish figment of your imagination, you think you could die happy just knowing this once. 

But it is utterly real, and utterly yours. You kiss him harder, too. 

When your lungs start to burn and plead for breath, you two pull away from each other. Your eyes flutter open to capture his. Warm and brown and the same ones you’ve stared into so many times before, but not like this, you sink into them. He runs his thumb over your cheek as he sinks into yours. His tongue darts out to lick lips painted with you. In the inches between you, space no longer feels heavy or charged with grievances. Every last unsaid thing had been answered. 

“I have my stuff up in the truck,” he says, breaths soft. Brown eyes dart around your face. “I’ll help you add your stuff to it.” 

You shudder out a breath. Add your stuff to it. A nervous energy settles down over you, but it doesn’t seem so bad if you’re doing it with him. Together.  

“Okay,” you whisper, a balmy secret just like the ones you used to share in small, giggly voices so many years ago. “Okay.” 

⚝⭒ 

Shivers seize you like jittering bones, all wrapped up in a blanket. The velour cushion seats beneath you have soaked up water and become damp, but Kai’s got the heater blasting. You wind around back roads, headlights illuminating the way ahead of you. Stray droplets whip in them, but nothing much. Isn’t it funny how the rain had just stopped like that? That’s just how the weather is, out here. You wonder how the weather might act wherever you’re headed. 

Your teeth chatter as if your jaw had its own will. The two of you had the windows down thinking that the wind might dry you off, but all it’s done is lap at your bitten cheeks. You reach down for the handle to crank it up. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you—either you’ll eventually dry off, or you can pull off at a rest area to change in a bathroom. The wet clothes are really not helping. 

With an arm up on the steering wheel, Kai turns his attention on you. You know that smile. “Cold?” he asks, eyes darting between your face and the road. With the hand he’s not got working the steering wheel, he runs fingers over your thigh. Soft, gentle massages, yes. The number it does on your core is absurd. Each mindless digging into your thighs and brush of his thumb, sparks sputter there. You’ve sat here, right in his passenger seat, so many times before. Day trips up to the lake, the one he’d joined your family camping at for so many summers, all the times he’d driven you to school in this truck, and even just a quick run down to a convenience store for a late-night snack. You’d deemed it your seat. But never once had you sat in it like this. Your heart does a flip. All those times you’d wish he’d reach over and do just this—a small gesture that would’ve been so big then. And it’s your reality, now.  

“Freezing,” you say. A brush of his fingers nearer the apex of your thighs sends you pressing them together and shifting in your seat. “But not everybody runs as hot as you, though, so.” 

His eyes catch the movement in just the split second he looked over to you. “Huh,” he says. He turns to look at you, his gaze flickering with something anew. Something that you’d only ever seen once before. “Is that it?” 

It’s hard to swallow. His fingers brush higher, and higher, feather-dustings of calloused fingertips that sends tingles shooting up your spine at the slightest suggestion of where he’s headed. “Yes,” you say, feigning indignance to cover the shiver that threatens to overtake you. When his fingertips dance at the waistband of your bottoms, it does so anyway. “Kai,” you say, blood hot in your veins. “You’re...driving.” 

His eyebrows pinch into a taunting furrow. “I am,” he says, nodding. “Don’t worry about it, baby. I’ve got us.” 

And he does; fingers slipping under the band of both your bottoms and your panties, he doesn’t even tear his eyes off the road. He’d driven these roads so much, you think he might be able to do it asleep. Even drawing a mewl from you with a brush over your clit, he doesn’t look away more than a quick glimpse at your pinkened cheeks. 

Two fingers dragging up your folds, right over the source of the mess. “You get excited so easily, huh?” he hums. “You like it when I play with you.” 

When he presses those fingers at your entrance, you can’t help but be taken back to that night. It echoes and reverberates through you. Long fingers, strong and punctual brushes against the sweet spot—he was criminally good with his fingers. Playing guitar did more for him than just music. He seemed to know exactly how to utilize those roughened fingers and trained flicks. Your muscles flicker as he abandons your hole for more brushes at your bud.  

Those teasing, sly touches turn to something more serious. His fingers roll over your clit, slow but enough to have you sighing and rolling your hips against the seat belt. But last time had gone just like this, him touching you and receiving nothing. He should feel good, too. “Shouldn’t you pull over?” you sigh, muscles taut. Your breaths come out shuddering and half-controlled, interrupted by the tightness that each delicious swirl provokes. The door takes the brunt of your grip, white-knuckling the interior. 

He laughs, a husky sound that is tinder to fire. He knows what you mean. “Maybe,” he says. “But I think I’m enjoying this plenty. I think I want to see you cum on my fingers again.” 

Fingers pinching and flicking faster, you grow breathy and whiny, hips rolling against the seatbelt and back into the seat. Your muscles, all the way down your thighs and deep in your belly, jump and twitch each time his fingers run over your clit in just the right spot—that tender spot that’s so good that it teeters on overwhelming. The kind that makes you hiss and then want more. “Shit, Kai,” you whine. “Right—there, keep going."  

He doesn’t answer with any teasing words. No, he just doubles down right at that angle and pressure, leaned back into his seat and driving as if he wasn’t fingers-deep in your panties right now. His sculpted profile at total ease—it does something for you. A delicious tightness curls its fingers over your center, promising a sugary ecstasy that you can’t help but chase. Bucking into his hands as best you can, you go quiet. Right there—right there, you feel it. The cusp. Your fingers brush over it, clenching around nothing and squeezing your thighs tight around him. Every last drop of blood in your body reaches for it, singing and dancing through your veins and making you dizzy. 

And then he stops. Your mouth drops open, whiplashed and helpless to its slipping away from you. You whittle your gaze into something sharp and turn to him. “What—why?” you complain. The tide slips further and further and further back, but you still taste sea salt on your tongue. Frustration sets in its place as you feel it go. Seriously, you’d been right there. “You’re so mean.” 

He slows and then with the clicking of the turn signal, he’s off the road and pulling the truck into park on a little secluded side road. Where the headlights pierce the pitch black, nothing but gravel and field surrounds you. He doesn’t kill the engine, instead pulling his hand free from you. 

Your heart, still stuttering with your lost orgasm, kicks back to life as he smears your slick over your mouth, dragging it over your lips and then taking his thumb to run it right over the plush of your mouth. “Am I?” he says, fingers taking your chin to meet your eyes with his. Endless hunger, pupils so blown that his eyes look black, pins you. “I don’t think you’ve seen mean yet, baby.” 

Darting your tongue out to clean your lips, you look at him through your eyelashes. “Show it to me, then.” 

Something dark passes over his face. It has your skeleton jumping out of your body. Then, he says, “Is that what you want? You want mean?” 

Brain gone to mush that can only really think about him touching you, a slow nod is all you can manage. 

The engine’s hum prevails for some long, thick seconds. And then, he tilts his head in a gesture. “Get in the back.” 

Holy shit. You want to sit there frozen in an overwhelming sort of excitement, but his seatbelt clicks undone and you’re set into motion. In a flurry of giggles and clumsy limbs, you climb up over the center console and into the backseat. He slips out of the front seat, not bothering to even kill the engine. 

The door beside you opens in a swirl of cold wind. In nothing more than a blink, a strong hand has both your wrists pinned to the cushions and your back flush against it. Nose-to-nose, his breath hot over your face. “I’ve got plenty of ideas as to how I can warm you up.” 

You appreciate each other’s faces for a beat more, you looking up at him big-eyed and waiting. Kai breaks the moment to attack your neck in a procession of bites and kisses. Your mouth falls into a silent sound. 

“You know,” he says, free hand working your pants off. His eyes are trained on you, though. “I thought about doing this to you all summer. Touching you again.” He moves on to your top, pushing the fabric up until your chest is freed, clad in soft cotton. He eats the sight up. You want to reach down and cup the back of his head or feel his hair between your fingers as he presses his mouth against the soft beginning of your cleavage, but he’s got your wrists firmly planted. So much so, that you wonder exactly how he’s got you so secure with just one hand. Kai is strong, but maybe you hadn’t seen just how strong. Your skin aches under the purple bites he decorates you in. The sight of him—face in your chest and marking you up so lazily—has your teeth abusing your bottom lip. Whatever sounds you might make otherwise would be embarrassing. Kai lifts his eyes to you. “And I think you thought of me, too. Didn’t you?” 

“Oh, god, yes,” you say, writhing beneath him. He’s going so slow. You want him all over you. “So much.” 

He likes that. He takes your pebbled nipple into his mouth through the fabric. Soft grazes of teeth and sucks, you’re burning all over. When he pulls back, he’s left you dark wet patches when the bra had only just dried against your body heat. “Good,” he rasps, taking his big hands demanding and hungry over your torso. They swallow your frame up, soothing skin but lighting it aflame all the same. “Good girl.” 

You never thought just words could unravel you, but those did the job. Not a gasp, nor a sucking in of breath—no, you go silent and brainless, fumbling for rational thought. 

The dropping of your jaw has Kai delighted. “You’re so pretty,” he says. In a swift and powerful hoist, he’s tugging you down the cushions toward him with greedy fingers. He’s got your thighs pressed up to your chest. You’re bent right in half. 

Out of breath, you huff out, “You too.” 

A quick laugh falls from his mouth, lips pulled into a smug tilt. He nips at your calf up by his face. “So sweet, it almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do to you.” Reaching down for your panties, he pulls back on the suffocating press for only enough time to drag them up your legs. Those get discarded somewhere on the floor. Who cares about that right now, though? All you can register is the metallic clinking of his belt being undone. It’s got your nervous system twisting up. 

And, those words. Electricity shoots bolts of pure, sizzling revery into your core. What I’m about to do to you. You imagine a great deal of things that he might mean, but still, you think that none could hold a candle against the promise his voice held in saying it. 

Kai presses his body to your thighs and hooks your calves over his shoulders, and it all becomes real. The press of his heavy cock to your folds, the digging of his fingers into your outer thighs, his pretty eyes sparkling with something feral. As real as it gets—more real than anything you’ve ever felt in the entirety of your life. Your hands find perch flattened to his broad chest. 

The position leaving you two no option but to look right into each other, he holds your gaze and begins slow drags of his hot length up and down your slit. Tantalizing, awful, awful drags. When his tip nudges your eager clit, you jolt. And then he does it again. And again. 

“Kai,” you mewl. A press against your hole has you hopeful, and he lingers there for a moment, but doesn’t give it to you. Can’t he just fuck you? You’ve never been more pitifully in need of something in your life. 

“Shh.” His ruts get more daring, smearing your slick up onto your belly. “Take it.” 

You wiggle your toes in the air and make passes at arching yourself into him in search of better friction. He’s got you pressed so suffocatingly into the seat that it does absolutely nothing for you. In fact, he holds your harder and changes tack so that your thighs press together. At the very apex of them, his weeping cock slips through the seam. 

Pressing his cheek into your calf, he watches you. Every gasp and shaky inhale, he watches. It spurs his rutting on, sticky sounds and pants eating up the air. Your nails claw at his hands as, finally, a knot tightens in your core. 

“Yes, please,” you breathe. He fucks your thighs harder. Faster. Every nudge at your clit and hole becomes euphoric. “Kai, baby—I’m gonna—” 

Just as furiously easy as last time, he rips it all away from you. The rushing away of the buzzing and promise of shaking thighs—he takes it from you again. It brings prickling tears to your eyes. “Kai?” you hiss. “Again?” 

His eyes aren’t playful. He pulls your calves back over his shoulders, handling your hips into a better position to press his cock right at your entrance as if you weigh nothing. Face utterly straight, he says, “I don’t think you deserve it, do you? Not after what you did with Yeonjun.” 

A swallow goes down your throat hard. He presses himself just a bit harder into you. Not in yet, but right there. 

When he does begin sliding in, the stretch of it... You cling to him and squirm between him and the warm cushions behind you. Each inch is a heady feeling, all the way up to the hilt of him. He shudders a controlled breath. “You’re so fucking tight, though,” he grits out. “Did he not fuck you right?” 

Slaps of skin bounce off the car interior and between your bodies. He starts off at a brutal pace; you know it’s meant to make your brain go foggy. Squeezing your eyes closed, you manage, “I... didn’t fuck him.” It comes out strangled, voice bouncing as he fucks you into the car seat. 

Thumb tugging your bottom lip down and then dipping into your mouth, he watches the show of your ecstasy down to every last detail. “Yeah?” he says, voice shaking and almost desperate. “Always thinking of me, huh? Such a good little princess. You know exactly where your heart belongs.”  

You want to answer him, even just with a whine or moan. You try to. But with his thumb pressing down on your tongue, enough to pin it to the floor of your mouth, it’s not gonna happen. He tastes salty in your mouth. 

His truck consists of his grunts and whines, and your taut groans for some moments that seem to stretch forever. The planes of his groin grind against your clit when he delivers occasional pointed rolls, but mostly it’s just an animalistic, feverish dancing of your two sweaty bodies, holds growing more frantic the closer you get.  

Thumb wet with saliva; he frees your mouth. The hand trails slowly down your face and your chin, brushing feather touches, until he finds your neck. 

Your eyes fly open, wide. He pressed his fingers into your neck—no real pressure yet, he looks at you through damp strands of dangling hair and says, “Want my fingers around your neck?” His thumb brushes over the buzzing pulse point there. 

“Yes,” you grit out, body bouncing and back raw with friction against the coarse cushion’s surface. Your breath stutters, your mind stutters. Even your blinks stutter, eyelids too lazy to keep up. “Please.” 

The pressure of his fingers there—it frightens you and has you tightening around him at the same time. But you would trust nobody more with your life than Kai. 

He presses his cheek to your calf to indulge in the sight of you like this: underneath him, folded in two, nowhere to go but to take his pistoning hips, cheeks blazing, and his fingers pressed into your windpipe. If the way he becomes sloppier and more desperate in his tempo has anything to say for it, it does something for him. 

“Gonna be my pretty little girlfriend, huh?” he says. His voice is tight—so is your belly. You’re both so close. Hopefully, this time he’ll let you cum. “Take you to every show; show you off to everybody. Fuck.” 

Brain like static and swimming with a pinched flow of oxygen, you slur your words. “You’re—hah—gonna have other girls all over you.” 

The taunting, split-second raise of his brows flips your belly. You tighten around him again. If he keeps hitting that spot, tip ramming into the soft spot deep inside you that he’d taken such delicate care of finding last time, you’re going to burst into sparkling flame and firework. He growls, “Well, I’ll just have to knock you up so that they know I’m yours, huh?” 

Holy shit. You like the sound of that. Your nails dig into his wrist around your neck, but you cry out a pitchy, “Yes!” 

“Oh, you like that?” Kai releases your throat to take both your hips. You gulp for air, finding nothing but the thick air of sex and humid breaths, at the opportunity. He’s ramming into you like he’s found a purpose. “Isn’t this the perfect position to do it? Get you pregnant?” 

With every last bit of brain power you’ve got, teetering on the edge excruciatingly close to salvation, you groan a long, hoarse sound. “Fuck, yes! Please, Kai, inside—” A hot trail of tears roll down your temples. 

It’s all he’s got to hear to still inside you. His growl rumbles deep in his chest, holding you in place and filling you with his hot cum deep in your cunt. That feeling, coupled with his short grinds against your clit as he fucks his seed deeper, takes your soul by sinful claws and crumbles it down into nothing. You burst into a shaking, whimpering peak, sucking your lips into your mouth to bare through the sheer twisting of your insides and the flame that consumes up your thighs and cunt. 

He falls on you heavy, face in your neck. Warm kisses against your clammy skin meld with your slow floating down, the two of you a beautiful, nasty picture of fucked out. He stays right inside you—the absolute stillness of him, you think he has no plans of pulling out any time soon. His long fingers card through your sweaty locks of hair. 

Finally, he presses himself off you. You get a glimpse of the window behind him—fogged up and filthy with your affairs. Anybody to see the truck from the outside would know exactly what went on inside, but right now, you don’t care. Not one bit. Your panted breaths drag in nothing but musk and thick, hot air. The drumbeat in your chest tells you that, despite how you feel ripped straight from your body, you are very much still alive. More alive than ever. 

“Warm?” he says, pushing sticky hair off his forehead. He’s a mess, too. His hair is ruffled with your touch, his clothes rumpled the same, beads of sweat rolling down the planes of his cheeks and neck, and his eyes a lazy smolder. As much as he looks like sex personified, a soft smile twitches at his lips. 

You snort. You can’t help but feel giddy, here with him. You’re with him. Nothing has ever felt more right. Unplugged when he pulls out of you, your mess trickles down onto the seat below you. “Yeah,” you say. “Very.” 

Warm is not enough to begin to describe how you feel. In your ears, you hear whisperings. Soft and gentle. Perhaps it was divine intervention, or the fates lending you their word, or maybe just rational thought. It says: 

Home. You are home. 

✎୭ ashlynn's note how do we feel about this pair? i really didn't mean for this to get so long, but i ended up RLLY liking their chemistry. i had to do their story justice. also, i finished this with kai as a guitarist and then his drummer performance came out... hmm.

﹙🏷️ ﹚@lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @hyucktapes , @bewitchless , @prince-jjae , @blankliving , @yaoizee , @stormy1408 , @missychief1404 , if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

[ditzycafe]

Frustrated

˚🥂⋆｡˚ ⋆ Warnings; 16+ WfW, sub!reader, dom!sevika, thigh riding, sexual frustration, hair gripping, body gripping, sexual talk, use of pathetic towards reader!

˚🫧⋆｡˚ ⋆ Announcements; Omg you guys went insane on my last post thank you so much!! Also i’m going to try to post at least twice a day my next post will probably be about caitlyn! but send me some recommendations for imagines for you guys! Also this is not proofread and my first language is. or english stick with me please😭

There you lay in your bed rubbing your thighs together pathetically, trying to create some friction to relieve the ache in your cunt but truthfully it’s no use. You just can’t seem to make yourself feel as good as Sevika does, he thick fingers are the only thing that can actually fill you up and give your that mind shattering orgasm, you’ve tried yourself time and time again but it was just no use. You needed her.

You hear the front door open and you walk downstairs with a solemn expression on your face “hey honey…oh what’s wrong?” Sevika ask confused, to her you seemed fine before she left to go do things for Silco but little did she know you were sexually frustrated and have been for days. But of course her being silcos right hand women she had stuff to do, all the time. Leaving her poor baby all pent up and frustrated (how sad) but of course you weren’t gonna say anything because you didn’t wanna bother her with your little issue when she had bigger ones to handle.

“oh nothin..” you say sighing softly with a small smile trying to ease her worries, but Sevika doesn’t let it down she knows something’s up because normally you’d come running into her arms while she’s barely in the door giving her a big kiss. “Yeah right, something’s up now sit down and tell me.” Sevika says sternly as she guides you to the couch pushing you down, “spill it.” she says looking down at you with her arms crossed. You look down at your lap embarrassed, wondering if you should really tell her or not “ ‘s really nothin…” you mumble as your cheeks heat up.

But before you can get anything else out Sevika is grasping your chin making you look up at her “i’m not gonna tell you again.” Sevika says sternly, you can see the irritation in her eyes growing with each second passing as you keep holding back what to tell her, so finally you just decided to blurt it out. “i’m just frustrated okay you’ve been so busy and have made no time for me and now that stupid ache won’t go away and only you can fix it!” you squeak out, Sevika hearing this makes her smirk as she hears you blurt out you just need a little love in…certain areas.

“hmm i see…you just want some attention huh?” sevika mumbles raising a eyebrow, sitting next to you on the couch patting her thigh, you redden as you perch yourself on her right thigh. You feel that wet spot in your underwear get ten times worse as soon as your thigh meets her leg, you whimper as you feel her thick, muscular thigh flex, Sevika smirks “oh you poor thing just so worked up…” Sevika mumbles as she traces her fingers across your collarbone. “go ahead, rub yourself on my thigh.” sevikas mumbles as she sit back putting her hands on the sides of her lap, you look at her with needy eyes and “but!” you whine just wishing she would do it herself cause you just can’t get yourself their like Sevika can. “you want it so bad do it.” Sevika says sternly. You look at her as you place you hands on her thigh grinding your hips down, you let out a pathetic whine and Sevika chuckles “look at you” she coos as she grasps your hips in her hands pushing you down harder and moving your hips for you, “ngh f-fuck sevika..” you moan softly as you feel your stomach tighten. “already so close…” Sevika whispers in your ear, kissing down your neck making you move your hips faster seeking out your high, your juices leak down her thigh as she watches you with a smirk. “mm gonna cum” you mumble as your head falls forward against her chest.

Sevika laughs “go ahead baby cum for me” she helps you move your hips a little faster, bringing you to the edge. Your orgasm hitting you like a train, you moan loudly as your juices leak all over her thigh creating a big wet spot “mm look at that..” sevika chuckles as she pets your head that’s laying on her chest “feelin better?” sevika asks softly, putting a finger under your chin and lifting your head. You nod as you catch your breath, Sevika stands up with you still in her arms carrying you towards the bedroom. She lays you down on the bed, crawling on top of you, you look at her confused “you didn’t think we were done right?” Sevika says laughing as she kisses down your neck “oh baby we’re just getting started” she mumbles huskily. Oh you’re in for a long night…

[neowinestainedress]

SECRET — lee jeno

𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐋𝐄: secret

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: lee jeno x fem!reader

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄: smut, fluff (at the end), established relationship, kink discovery, relationship development

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: jeno has a secret he can’t tell anybody, not even you.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆: sub!jeno, dom!reader (it’s their first time reversing roles so they’re both exploring how it feels like), implied masturb*tion, n!pple play, kinda hand-free org*sm/coming untouched, an*l fingering, riding, overstimulation, praise kink, minor degradation, size kink (but reversed??? reader is not bigger than jeno but somehow jeno feels small and likes to feel like that), ch*king, names used for jeno (baby boy, good boy, pup/puppy, pretty boy), names used for reader (ma’am, miss, mommy), big d!ck jeno, there’s nothing wrong with being a sub but jeno has issues because he has to always be strong so it doesn’t feel right for him, count the times I say ‘please’ in this (not my fault jeno is the bestest boy ever), aftercare (and kink discussion)

𝐖𝐂: 10.202k

𝐀/𝐍: a gift for my love @yellowgirllsblog, I converted her to subjenoism so I’m on a mission to let more of you see the light of the day and appreciate sub!jeno more. ps: you will never catch me call twitter ‘x.’ enjoy and if you do, please reblog and leave feedback! love u!

Jeno has a secret.

Once you’ll find out what it is, it won’t seem a big deal, but to him, it is.

It’s so big, so stressful, and so shameful, he can’t even talk to you — his sweet, loving girlfriend — about it.

It’s stupid, really. Deep down Jeno is well aware of how dumb it all sounds, but every time he faces it, it looks like a big mountain he can’t climb — and that will probably crumble on top of him, smashing him on the ground.

Stupid or not, big or small, it haunts him every day. Yes, every day. At first, Jeno thought it was just a temporary thing, something that piqued at his curiosity for fun, but soon enough, he fell down the rabbit hole. Looking back at it now, he probably was buried deep in the rabbit hole since forever but he —and the perception others had of him— did a good job at polishing the place real nice and don’t make him realize where he was.

Jeno accepted he is far gone a while ago, but he still can’t wrap his head around it. How is that possible? How could he, out of all the people, like something like this, be like this.

And that’s why he keeps it to himself, praying that if he doesn’t act on it, if he pushes it out of his mind, it will just leave. He’s strong, and fit, and he pounds into you every night, giving it to you like you want it. He can’t be anything else other than this, nothing but a confident, strong man that can’t be vulnerable.

But it turns out that pushing it out of his mind is not as easy as it seems. Jeno might be weaker than he realizes when he keeps going back at it, sipping on it at small doses, almost as if whatever he is holding in it’s a drug he doesn’t want to get addicted to — not knowing he already is. But for now — and forever, he thinks — this is just a fantasy, he can’t get addicted to something that is not real, to a version of him, no matter how authentic it feels, that can’t come out. But he slips further every day, hiding in your shared bedroom with his laptop or phone when you’re at work and he can have a bit of time to himself, when he stares at the box with your toys and lets time pass by because he doesn’t dare to do the next step, and lastly when he fucks his fist with your used panties and calls your name… or well, how he wishes he could call you.

And then clarity hits him again, making him groan as he rushes to the bathroom on wobbly legs, throwing your stained panties inside and starting the washing machine while he questions himself; why? He feels pathetic; masturbating over you as if he needs to fantasize about you, as if he doesn’t have you every night, and every day, and yet, it’s still not enough, it’s not how he wants you. But he feels guilty, he feels like he won’t be enough if he confessed to you, if he let you know his secret. And most of all, he’s terrified he’ll lose you. This version of him is not the one you picked, is not the one you love. And he’d damn himself forever if he lost you for something so silly.

So, he sighs, takes a deep breath, and then exhales deeply, rubbing his teary eyes before pushing his tired body up from the wall to walk back to your bedroom and fix himself.

Jeno has a secret, and he will take it to his grave.

Your boyfriend has been acting strange for a while now. At first, you figured he was stressed because of work, but now, you don’t think that’s the only reason.

Your brain goes crazy, imagining the worst-case scenario, the top one: he wants to break up with you. So, you start acting strange, too. Panicking, over-analyzing everything, and mostly, bracing yourself for the worst. Every time he starts talking to you with a serious tone, you fear that those words will come out of his lips, especially when before starting the conversation he stares at you for minutes and thinks so loudly you can almost hear his thoughts.

But the worst never comes, this goes on for weeks, and even if your boyfriend does act strange, nothing of his weirdness leads to a breakup, literally nothing can make it plausible, and even your brain gives up keeping you up at night with the fear of you losing him.

Jeno has never been so touchy. His hands are always on your body, any excuse is valid to let his fingers wander on your skin; if he needs to help you pick up something, if he needs to reach for the remote, if he has to leave for work, anything as long as he gets to feel your warm body.

And that doesn’t shock you much, Jeno has always made it clear how much he finds you attractive and how obsessed and in love he is with you and your body, but well, not like this. His fingers seem almost fearful, and so are his lips when he kisses you, and even something about his eyes doesn’t seem quite right. And then there are those unsaid words that you can see pending from his lips, and yet, they never come out. Every phrase Jeno starts is followed by a stutter and a quick shake of the head, other times his cheeks turn bright red as he zones out and you have to shake him out of whatever he is thinking, and then he goes back to act though and shrug it all off as if nothing happened.

You don’t get it, and every time you try to ask if something’s wrong, he acts surprised and tells you everything’s alright. You don’t buy it, but you feel that if something’s annoying him, he will come talk to you when he’s ready, so you leave him alone.

Jeno has a secret, and you have to find out in a way you don’t like.

You don’t like to roam around and stick your nose in things that aren’t yours, honestly, you hate doing so because you would hate if somebody did that with your things.

But you’re bored, laying on your bed, waiting for Jeno to come out of the shower, and your phone is somewhere in the living room, and you’re bored.

Picking up his phone to play some games is not an invasion of privacy, it’s the only thing you do with his phone, and Jeno is fine with it — he even lets you download those ugly, ads-filled, games that pop up in ads of other annoying games, he doesn’t get them, he hates the graphic of most of them, and he doesn’t understand how you can survive so many ads, but it’s fine, anything that makes you happy because you saved the King from drowning, cleaned a hotel room or built a pretty land.   

You would’ve minded your business if it wasn’t for one of those stupid games and ads, causing the app to crash and make you huff.

You’re pissed as you click the left bottom on the bottom of his screen to see all the apps and go back to your game, hoping it won’t die again, you’re so caught up that you almost miss the other window of Twitter and some other apps he used before.

But well, what you see is too shocking to make you go back to the business of your hotel.

You freeze, and a lump forms in your throat as you blink speechless with your mouth wide open. You feel the world could collapse under your feet but then you shake your head.

Dumb asshole, it’s fine. He might be bisexual, he’s not using you as a beard, right?

But you still stare at the video in shock, the only focus is on the naked man with a choker, moaning while the vibrator edges him, and the playful touches on his nipples make his hips rut.

And when Jeno comes out of the shower you’re still dumbfounded. Your eyes look up, and his smile drops as soon as he sees your face, it looks as if you saw a ghost, and he fears something has happened to you, but he barely manages to let out ‘are you ok?’ before you stop him.

“Are you gay?” You ask, nothing of the more rational questions you came up with before passing your lips.

He giggles nervously, eyes skimming you. “What?

You feel a lump in your throat and then reply. “What is this?” you lift the phone, video playing on mute, you can’t bear to hear the moans again. “Why are you watching porn and why are you watching porn focused on men? If you want to try something out you can tell me, but please, tell me I’m not your bearding girlfriend and this wasn’t all a lie.”

“A lie?” Jeno screams, feeling his heart pump hard in his chest. “It’s not and I’m not gay, I might be bi, but I never wanted to question much about it but... Wait, would it make you love me less?”

“No, God, no, but I don’t understand this,” you squeak, voice breaking a bit for the confusion you feel and also because his face dropped even more.

“It’s nothing,” Jeno says, abruptly taking the phone from your hand and closing the tab. His hands are shaking, he can’t believe he’s so fucking stupid, how could he not think about it? He always makes sure to close everything so that you can’t find out.

“Nothing?” You ask, eyes wide and a bit of sarcasm in your tone. “Why are you watching that kind of video...”

“I — I... It’s just something dumb the boys sent me,” he justifies, scratching his neck, but his eyes are everywhere except on yours.

You would believe him if only he wasn’t so evasive with his answers and body language, he’s a nerve wreck, he has to be hiding something. “Is it? Why would they do it?”

“I don’t know, you know they’re dumb,” he says and then pauses, biting his lips nervously before he gathers the courage to speak. “Did you watch it?”

You furrow, mumbling for a few seconds before replying as if it was obvious. “Yes.”

“All?”

“Yes, it’s not that long,” you reply without getting where he wants to go with these questions.  

Jeno nods and bites his lips, strategically avoiding your gaze.

“Jeno...” You call and he hesitantly raises his face. “Are you sure you’re not lying to me? If you like men and only them it’s fine, I would be heartbroken, but I want you to be happy, and I —”

“Stop it! It’s not that,” he snaps, face burning red when your eyes meet and you’re looking at him with curiosity. He feels doomed, you don’t even get it so how can you be into it?

“Oh.” You gasp. “Oh.” It clicks. Your mind replays the video, catching the details you missed, and you get it. He wants those things to be done to him. He doesn’t want a man; he wants you to do that to him.

Jeno stills, fearing the worst from you. “I’m not into it, that video just came up and I was curious,” he tries to save himself but it’s too late.

“No,” you stop him, “you are into it. Don’t lie to me,” your tone drops a bit, and you study his reaction, he trembles, and his face reddens even more. You’ve never seen him so embarrassed and vulnerable in all those years you’ve dated. Jeno, Lee Jeno, blushing bright red and stammering on his words right in front of your eyes. You’re dreaming, that must be it, maybe you have a fantasy you’re not aware of yet and this is your brain poking the thought into you.

But you shake your head, rub your eyes, and he’s still there.

“Jeno?” You call his name again when he gives you his back, quickly trying to find his clothes and make this less embarrassing, considering the only thing covering him is the white towel he put on before. “Look at me,” your voice comes out stern when he doesn’t listen to you and with a big step forward you have him trapped against the wall. Your fingers reach his chin, lifting his face resolutely.

But Jeno still doesn’t reply; you see his Adam’s apple move in his neck and you feel his breath get discontinued, but nothing comes from his mouth.

You have two choices; play the game he wants you to play or have a serious conversation about this. You’d rather go for the last one, you’re not so sure you’d be a master at doing what he wants you to do, but it seems like there’s no room for a decent talk right now.

You cup his chin, squeezing it enough that his lips pout, something he always does to you. His eyes widen, and his hand immediately wraps around your wrist, yet he doesn’t try to push you away.

“Tell me, Nono,” you coo, voice low and teasing, “do you want to be teased like that?”

He shakes his head, quick movements causing some still damp strands of hair to fall on his eyes, “No, no, I don’t.”

You scoff, shaking your head before leaning closer. “Why are you lying to me?”

He mumbles, struggling to talk for the embarrassment and the hold you have on his face. “I’m not,” he cries out.

“Oh, really?” You ask, letting his face go, making him lose his balance now that he can’t hold onto you. “Then you have nothing to hide, right?” He nods, biting his thumb and looking at you like a dog with his tail between his legs. “So, I guess you won’t mind if I took your phone right now, right?”

His eyes widen and his thumb falls from his lips. “Bu-but wh-why?”

You burst out laughing, holding your stomach in an exaggerated mocking move. “Bu-but wh-why?” you taunt him, imitating his high-pitched trembling voice. “Phone, now.”

Jeno’s not sure how to feel. This is what he wanted, right? And you don’t seem… mad. So why does he feel so embarrassed as he grabs the phone and hands it to you?

You smile and then open Twitter. You notice he has two accounts and when you scroll through the likes, the retweets, and more, you’re speechless. Well, now that you have him in front of you, so pliant, shaking, and red in the face, it’s not surprising anymore, but the Jeno you’re used to is not like this.

Men tied up and edged until they whimper and beg to come, rough face sitting, pegging videos, and captions about ‘good boys’ being used as sex toys by their ‘dominant mommy’, are all you see. You sigh and throw the phone on the bed carelessly.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno cries out, falling on his knees right in front of you. “I didn’t mean to disappoint you. I don’t need that, I swear I don’t, I can still be your usual boyfriend, I’ll fuck you so good, I promise I —”

You shut him up with a kiss, it’s rough and quick, enough to leave him surprised and, momentary, speechless. “Will you stop mumbling no-sense?”

“But I —”

“No, shh,” you say, thumb on his lips to keep him quiet. “Did I say anything? Did I look disappointed?” You ask, tilting your head to the side and he shakes his head. Honestly, he has no idea, he was too worried panicking to actually pay attention to your reaction. “Did I ask you to apologize? Do I look disgusted to you?”

“N-no,” he mumbles, but his eyes are still leaking tears.

“No, exactly,” you reassure. Your hand moves to the back of his neck, wrapping around the long hair at the nape before tugging and yanking his head back. “Now can we be serious and face this or do you want to keep crying at my feet?”

That shouldn’t make his dick twitch in the — now incredibly tight —towel but it does, still, he hopes you didn’t catch it, and nods swiftly.

“Good,” you smile slyly. You saw it, but that’s something you’re going to deal with later. “Stop lying and be honest with me. Do you want me to do this to you?” Your other hand moves down on his neck, creeping on his toned chest until it reaches his hard nipples, and when you brush one, he whimpers. Jeno tries to hide it, closing his eyes and pressing his lips together, but his body is reacting on its own, and it has never been more of an open book.

You never paid his body much attention, always letting him do anything to you, so this is… new, and interesting.

Your fingers play with the other one, rubbing against the sensitive tip and watching him struggle to keep it all in. “Sensitive much, aren’t you?”

He nods quickly, head falling down but you tug it back again, making him groan lowly.

“Head up,” you order, leaning down to come face to face, breath fanning against his, “and answer me. Do you like it when I play with your nipples?”

“Yeah — yeah, I like it,” he breathes out, leaning in to kiss your lips but you pull away.

“Ah, ah,” you click your tongue, shaking your head, “not yet, baby boy. You’ve been naughty, keeping important things from me. So now you’re going to earn it, alright?”

Jeno nods faster than he would want to, hips shaking on his heels in excitement like a dog wagging his tail.

You think it’s cute, he’s cute. And you still don’t quite know how to do this, how to be on the other side, but something inside of you makes you feel confident enough to think it’s worth giving a try. You like to be on the receiving end, so you have to give him what you usually like to receive. Also, you’ve encountered femdom content before, even liked it, never explored it much, but this might be fun.

“Words.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You raise a brow at the title, but you like the way it rolls from his lips, and it makes your body react, pussy clenching around nothing and stomach twisting in anticipation.

“Good boy,” you reward him. You love being called a good girl, so you think he’s going to like that too, and he does. His smile grows bigger, cheeks tinting red again, and most importantly, his dick reacts, twitching against the towel.

You think it’s time to set it free, so your hand grabs the hem and pulls the white clothes off him. Jeno whimpers, hands quickly going to cover his hard, throbbing dick — well, trying to, it’s too big to hide anything.

You laugh at his lame attempt, slapping his hands away. “Getting shy now? I’ve seen it and felt it countless times, don’t you agree? Or, I don’t know, have you forgotten? Maybe your brain stops working when you’re… like this,” you finish with a teasing look from his head to his bent knees, rubbing against the hard floor and becoming red.

Jeno shivers, shaking his head, but for some reason, he feels even more embarrassed. He’s not used to being in this position, and all the times he imagined to be here, he didn’t think you would be like this. You’re not much shorter than him, but you are, and now you’re towering over him, your gaze is piercing through his soul, and your voice is sultry like it has never been. He wanted this so badly but even if he fantasized for months, now, he doubts he can take you.

You sigh, rolling your head. “How many times do I have to say it? Words.”

Jeno frowns momentarily, he knows you’re having a ball because usually, he wants you to talk back to him even if he’s fucking the fourth orgasm out of you. But his ‘anger’ doesn’t last. He nods, and then apologizes. “Sorry, I’m so sorry, ma’am. You can see it.”

“Of course, I can,” you say, kneeling to his eye level, “it’s mine.” Two of your fingers brush on his hard cock, tracing the thick vein that run on the side, the one that rub your sensitive walls so good when he’s pounding into you.

He nods quickly, swallowing hard to don’t moan shamelessly, and then stutters on his words. “You-yours. You can do — do whatever you want.”

You smile widely and tilt your head because it’s not a dominant smile. You might like this a lot. You might like this more than you anticipated. There’s something thrilling about having him like this, in your hands, to play with, to tease, to edge, to push to the limit. He’s yours, like always, and yet, in a way he has never been.

“Tell me what you want me to do?” You order, those videos are not enough to give you the green light. You need to hear it from him, a bit because you’re lost on your path, but also because you need to hear him describe those things out loud and beg you to do that to him.

Jeno thinks his face might burn up in a second. Sure, if he ever dared to bring this up to you in a conversation, he would’ve had to explain it to you, but he would’ve been dressed, not hard, and his brain would’ve been functioning. Now he’s none of these things. Yet, he tries.

“I — I want you,” he starts, wetting his lips. but he fails to find the words. You want explicit things, he knows it, he can see it in your eyes burning up with desire, but he wants to be honest first, at least now that he has a bit of rationality left. “I want to be your good boy. I want to — to just give up control for once and let you do everything. I want you to control me, to move me around, to make me feel light, to make me feel like I’m… nothing but not really nothing, I want to…” he gulps, forcing himself to keep eye contact because he wants to be good, but it’s not easy. Nothing happened yet, and he’s already a victim of the electricity that’s running in the air. “I want to don’t think. I want you to fuck my brain out until I forget who I am, I want you to tell me what to do, to order it to me. But I also want to feel safe… taken care of.”

It takes you a while to metabolize everything he told you, especially the last part, and you put a reminder in your brain to discuss that later. But now you kiss him, finally giving him what he craves. You wanted to make him wait a bit longer, but you feel like he needs it. It seems that all of this has been bothering him more than you think, and he needs comfort.

“And I’m going to give it to you, if you trust me,” you say when you pull away, softly caressing his cheek with your other hand.

“I do, I trust you,” he replies, hips rubbing against your hand. You give him a quick, stern look and he stops, smile dropping.

“Get on the bed and you won’t have to hump my hand like a puppy in heat,” you order and he’s quickly — stumbling and almost falling — on his feet, walking to the bed.

Once he’s laying on the bed, you follow him, crawling on top of him, your legs trapping him down. You leave kisses on his neck, and as a response his head rolls back, leaving you more room to paint his skin with bites and kisses. And while he’s distracted with that, your hands reach his nipples. His hips buck up and he whimpers.

He’s so sensitive, you can’t believe you didn’t discover this before.

Your fingers play with his sensitive buds, at first, you just rub your fingers on them, but then you get more adventurous studying his reaction. Jeno likes it when you pinch them between two fingers, it makes him hiss and moan, while his hips grind against you. He also likes it when you roll them, low curses escaping his tortured pink lips.

After a while, you decide to pay attention to his whole chest. You won’t lie, you always loved his tits, but you appreciated them from afar, when they were wrapped under the skintight white shirt he loves to wear, or when they played hide and seek under his loose tank tops. When he fucks you, your hands always wander somewhere else, busy trying to hold onto his arms and back for dear life. But now, your hands caress his skin, cupping them as you try to hide a giggle and stay in your role — you definitely need to work on your dominance — and tease his nipples every now and then.

“Fuck,” Jeno bites his tongue, dick rutting against your body, droplets of white shamelessly dripping from his head, staining his length and abs.

“You’re so sensitive it’s almost pathetic,” you try out, testing the waters. You fear you might trigger him, but instead, he moans louder at your words, throwing his head back more, and his dick throbs. “I’m barely touching you and you’re already a mess. You dreamed this so long, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he whimpers, his hips still grinding against you, desperately chasing for release, but you pull away. “No, please,” his voice breaks and tears swell at the corner of his eyes. Jeno is so fucking pretty like this, you have to fight back the urge to reach for the phone and snap a picture.

“Just relax, and focus on the parts I’m touching,” you say, kissing him to shut his whines down. “Let me take care of you.”

And he would, he does, he wants you to take care of him. If only this wasn’t so embarrassing, whimpering and squirming just from having his nipples played with. He wants to hold it in, he can push back an orgasm, but all his good intentions fly out of the window when your mouth wraps around the left sensitive one and your fingers pinch and twist the other one.

It’s not his fault he’s so sensitive.

“Oh God,” he cries out through gritted teeth, knuckles going white for how hard his hands are clenching around the sheets. Jeno feels dizzy, your mouth sucks harshly on his sensitive spot, quickly moving from one side to the other, never leaving him with no stimulation, your fingers are just as swift at taking the place your lips left. “Please, please, fuck,” he begs, hips stuttering messily, and legs parting as his body jerks with pleasure.

“Be a good boy and come for me,” you mumble against his skin, eyes looking up at his. And that’s the last drop for him; the realization that you saw him — and made him — this weak, even the slight humiliation he feels with it.

Jeno comes undone. Long, whiny moans and whimpers slurring out of his plump lips as his body stills before breaking into violent trembles, it’s powerful and overwhelming, and it makes him cry. Mumbles of your name follow when you don’t stop, fingers and tongue moving quickly on his nipples.

“Please, please, stop,” he cries, trying to push you away, “can’t take it anymore.”

You pull away, snickering as you watch the cum drip down his body. His chest is heaving, and his body is slumped against the headboard.

“Was it good?”

Jeno nods, his movements are slow, and his eyelids are almost close, but he still makes out your face, and smiles shyly. “More,” he begs and then adds, “please. If you want to.”

You smile, he’s so polite. “Are you sure you can take more?”

“Yes, yes, I just — I needed to calm down,” he explains, running a hand through his hair that covered his eyes messily.

“Lay on the bed,” you order before standing up.

He follows your order, feeling his body ache as he gets in position, but it all fades in the background when his gaze falls on your body, watching you move to throw your clothes on the floor.

“So,” you’re on top of him, you got rid of your skirt and top, the only clothes on your body are your — drenched — panties and the bra, “what do you want me to do with you?”

Jeno thought the embarrassing part had passed, but, lord, if he was wrong. Because he’s not prepared in the slightest to ask you what he’s about to ask. You will break up with him, this will be the last straw.

“Pup?” Your voice brings him out of his delirium, and he coughs. “You with me?”

He nods, struggling to find the words. “Please,” he whines, “don’t — don’t leave me.”

“Leave you?” You ask, a small frown forms on your forehead while your head lightly bends to the side to look at him. You almost look so innocent and harmless like this, but you’re not. You have all the power and control, and Jeno loves this and hates this at the same time. Maybe all of this is more mental than what he thought in the first place, or maybe he needs to relax, stop worrying so much, and just beg you. Beg you to fuck him, beg you to turn him into a brainless mess in the same way he had done in these past few months: pleading with his face smashed against a pillow to muffle his pathetic moans and his fist wrapped around his cock or his fingers inside of him, fooling himself that was you doing that to him.

“Please, fuck me,” he breaks, eyes panicking and looking around the room before you grab his face with a strong old on his chin.

“Say it again,” you order. Your face is relaxed now and the pout on your lips is rapidly swiped away by a sly smirk.  

“Please, please, fuck me, ma’am?” He asks, eyes softening as he looks into yours. He’s such a good boy, so obedient, so, so good. So, you’re about to give him what he wants, and what you want, grabbing the base of his hardening dick and teasing it against your pussy, moving the crotch of the panties to the side, but he surprises you.

“No,” Jeno cries, voice breaking again, “not like this. Not now.”

You stop, stilling and looking at him, eyes blinking as you try to understand what he means. “Not like this? And how do you want me to fuck you?”

“I — I,” he stutters, flashes of warmth heating his body up again, not that it ever really stopped, to be honest, it just keeps getting worse.

“You — you?” You urge, mocking him, mimicking his voice with a condescending tone.  

He frowns offended — and his dick throbs, but he won’t pay attention to that — but then goes on. “I want your — your fingers.”

“Oh,” you say, a smug grin on your face. “A handjob?” You know what he wants, you know where he wants it, but what you want, is to mess up with him.

“No, no,” he whines, shaking his head, reaching for your hand with his before you slap it away, making him groan in annoyance. “Please.”

“Please and no, are those the words that a good pup says?”

“No, miss, I’m sorry.”

“Good, then use your big boy words and tell me what you want. Details, or I won’t give it to you.”

Jeno swallows, inhaling deeply before confessing. “I want your fingers in my ass, please. I want you to fuck me with your fingers, miss.”

“Oh, now that’s clear,” you say, smiling tenderly and patting his head. He melts under your touch, and you keep a reminder to yourself to head pat him more often. “Good boy, telling me exactly what he needs.”

You get up to grab the lube from the drawer but when you open it, it’s not there. You scowl, scratching your head as you try to remember if you finished it and didn’t buy it again, but you don’t use it that often, so it can’t be.

“Where the hell —” you stop when, turning around, you see the blue bottle peeking from under the bed, you kneel to grab it and see that it’s badly closed. “You fucked yourself before?” You enquire, tilting your head, watching his face flush bright red even more, he tries to avoid your gaze, but you trot to him and force his face on you. “You were so desperate you couldn’t help but fuck yourself with your fingers?”

“I’m — I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to,” he justifies, throat dry and heart beating fast. He doesn’t want to disappoint you, he would’ve waited, he wouldn’t have done that, but he needed that, he was terrible at putting this fantasy behind and he needed a release. But he’s still you’re good boy, right? You’re not mad at him for this?

You scoff, clicking your tongue, crawling on the bed. “You didn’t mean to, sure… fucking yourself behind my back, pff,” you scoff. “Tell me, were you thinking of me? My fingers deep inside of you? My hand wrapped around the base of your cock?” Jeno nods eagerly as you pour lube on your fingertips. “Were you calling my name? Whimpering like the desperate puppy that you are? Calling me ma’am and miss, maybe even mommy when you fuck yourself good enough,” all throughout the talk your fingers slip deep inside of him, making him gasp and hold onto the sheets under him.

“Fuck,” he curses, not expecting you to push two fingers inside with no warning. But the surprise turns into bliss in the beat of an eye. Your fingers are slender, and yes, they’re not as long and thick as his are, but they are yours. And you’re so good at moving them inside of him, curling them up, moving them with a firm rhythm, reaching the bottom, and then pulling out, that he has nothing to complain about. “Feels so good,” he somehow manages to let you know. You think it’s cute, his voice doesn’t sound like the usual, it’s whiny, trembling, and full of desperation. His eyes are watery, and you think the red on his cheeks won’t disappear soon.

Jeno is lost in the pleasure, thinking he has never felt better, he’s almost relaxed, lulling in the sensation that sends sparks down his spine. But you want to give him more and your other hand folds his balls, making him hiss and shaking him out of that haze.

“It’s alright, baby boy,” you reassure him, but he’s not sure. Especially when you spit on his dick, adding to the mess of his cum, and run your hand on his length. He wishes you would keep doing this, but instead, you torture him; while your fingers work him open, your hand focuses on his frenulum, massaging his most sensitive spot until he’s a crying and trembling mess again.

“No, no,” he whines when your lips start kissing his leaking tip. “Sensitive — I’m…” his voice breaks and dies in his throat when your lips wrap around it. He has you everywhere and he’s not used to this. He’s not used to feeling so much and giving so little — in his mind, to give you nothing, but to you, he’s giving you a lot. This vulnerable side of him is much more than anything else. “I — I can touch you, I can —”

You shut him up with a slap on his thigh. “You can lay there and take it,” you say firmly but without stopping your movements.

He nods quickly, lips pressed in a thin line, but the pleasure is so big that his moans and whimpers just rumble in his chest.

“Moan, Jeno,” you call him out. “I want to hear you moan for me.”

“But —”

“But?” You scold, glaring at him and stilling your fingers inside him. “Are you going to talk back to me and tell me what to do?” He shakes his head quickly, mumbling apologizes. “I think so, do you want to be my good boy?”

“Yes, yes, please,” he cries, hips bucking up, at first you think he’s doing that to feel your fingers but he’s just that desperate. He truly acts like a puppy too excited to be your good boy to even think straight, his body moving on its own. If he had a tail, he would wiggle it like crazy.

“You want to be my good pup?” You ask again, your fingers pull out and then push in, dragging a low gasp from his lips.

“Yes, I want to. Want to be your good puppy, please.”

“Then do what I tell you to do,” you remind him, your hands go back to his cock, throbbing on his abs and leaking pre-cum. It’s almost… funny how big he is —body and dick— and how helpless and powerless he looks, begging for attention as if he couldn’t just take it from you, ordering you, fucking you. But he lays there, pathetically drooling on the pillow, while his dick drips on his stomach and his ass clenches around your two fingers.

His sounds are like music to your ears, and the vision in front of your eyes makes your pussy drool more, you can’t believe you’re so turned on when fifteen minutes ago you were almost throwing a tantrum for this. But Jeno looks like the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen, and you wonder if he feels this way when it’s the other way around. All you know is that you’re mesmerized, eyes stuck where your bodies connect, his hole fluttering around you, the lube squelching in and out, and his toned, strong legs spread open just for you. Then they move up, the way his dick is throbbing in your hand and spills pre-cum, his chest rising fast, his hands clenched around the sheets. And his face, his eyes are closed but you know they’re rolled back behind his eyelids, his lips are swollen and dark pink, parted open to fill the room with the most desperate whines, his hair is a mess again, scattered around the pillow and his forehead.

“Fuck, fuck,” he whines, lifting his hips from the mattress when you hit him deeper and your hand starts moving faster on him. “Feels good, feels so good, you’re so good, you’re — you’re perfect, I love you, I love you,” he cries out, head rolled back as he lets the pleasure rush through his body.

You smirk at his words, the desperation and devotion behind his voice making shivers run down your spine. “Are you going to come?” You ask, already knowing the answer, watching him nod quickly. “Yeah? Will you be a good boy and come from my fingers only?” Your hand leaves his dick, eliciting a disappointed noise from him, but his breath gets cut off when you add another finger inside of him.

“Please,” he cries, the stretch of the three fingers making his hips move even more from the mattress, only to stop when your hand, flat on his stomach, keeps him pinned down.

“Stop squirming, or I won’t make you come and keep edging you until you pass out.”

It should be a threat, but it doesn’t even sound so bad to him, but not now, maybe one day, now he wants you, and wants to come as soon as possible. So, his hips still, the nervous twitching passing down to his leg but it’s fine, it doesn’t get in the way.

“Good boy,” you praise, patting his head, and making him smile. “Be even a better boy and come for me.”

You don’t have to tell him twice before his orgasm erupts, his body shakes before stilling completely, spurts of white spilling on his stomach, even reaching the sheets as his cock throbs in release and his hole flutters around your three fingers that are still pumping in and out at a fast speed. Slurs of curses roll from his tongue, and so does your name, while his chest rises fast before his body slumps against the mattress.

“Please, please, stop,” he cries out, feeling overstimulated.

You listen, pulling your fingers out and cleaning them on his thigh before leaning forward to kiss him.

“Want you, mommy, please,” he pleads, tears rolling down his temple while his hands look for the warmth of your body. “Please, fuck me, need to feel you.”

“Calm down,” you say, giggling at his cuteness and eagerness and get rid of your panties, throwing them behind with no care, and then follows the bra.

Jeno feels less embarrassed now that you’re exposed too, and gets lost in your body for a few seconds before he bites back a moan when your warm and wet skin makes contact with him. “I — I can fuck you, I can make you feel good, too,” he promises. “Be your good boy and fu–fuck you well.”

You smile tenderly, teasing him as you grind your hips rubbing your pussy on his dick that’s resting on his stomach. “Oh, I know you can.”

“Please, please,” Jeno cries out more. His dick is incredibly sensitive, it’s painfully aching, begging to be wrapped by something after all this teasing. You barely paid it any attention this whole time. “Let me be your good boy, use me,” his voice breaks and he almost chokes on his words as his pleading eyes stare at you for mercy. “Use my — use my cock as you please. Use me like your toy,” he says, “your good toy.”

It almost breaks your heart; he needs validation so badly and you feel genuinely bad for never noticing this before. You just thought he was always so strong and confident; you didn’t think he needed reassurance so much.

“Here, pup,” you say, sinking into him.

Jeno’s head rolls back, his hands clasping around your waist, but his hold, even if it’s strong, is different from all the other times before.

“Fuck, mommy, feel so good.” The way your warm walls wrap around him send him straight to heaven, you’re wet and fit perfectly around him.

“Yeah, you too, baby. You feel so good,” you curse through gritted teeth. He might be a mess underneath you, whimpering, crying, and begging, but that doesn’t make his cock shrink. Jeno’s big, and you should be used to it by now, but somehow it still feels like it splits you open every time.

“Please, fuck me!” Jeno laments loudly, bouncing his hips against yours, but a stern look from you makes him stop and apologize, “So-sorry, fuck me, please?” This time his voice is soft and polite, a desperate edge but with no eagerness behind — yes, there is, but he tries hard not to show it.

“Oh, fuck,” he screams when you lift your body up and slam back into him. You’re a lazy rider usually, and to be more honest, you’re just never a rider, 90% of the time riding his dick is a punishment to make you work for it, but now… well, you kept your skills well stored in. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” he whimpers, hands clenching hard around your waist until his knuckles go white.

“What? You wanted me to fuck you so badly, and now? Bit more than you can chew? Is this too much for you, pretty boy? You can’t take it?”

Jeno shakes his head. “No, no I can, ma’am, I can,” he whimpers, biting his lips harshly.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” you hum in satisfaction. Your hands fall at the sides of his head, your smaller body somehow still hovers over him and makes him feel smaller than ever. Your intense stare pins him to the mattress even more, making him shiver. “Give me your hands,” you order, but Jeno doesn’t listen — he doesn’t even hear, too lost in you to pay attention to your voice. “God,” you huff, rolling your eyes back, “I really have to do everything on my own because you’re just that dumb.” You forcefully grab his wrists, pushing his arms over his head and keeping them locked against the bed.

“No, I’m — I’m sorry, I — I wasn’t.”

“Yeah, you weren’t,” you mock, stilling before starting to pick up the pace again, “you weren’t listening ‘cause you can only focus on how good I’m making you feel, right? Stupid, dumb puppy can only think about his pleasure.”

“No, no, please, forgive me,” he begs, tears streaking down his face, and words coming out between gags and moans.  

“Can you fuck back into me? Or are you too fucked out to do that?”

“No, no, I can. I’ll be good, I’ll be good for you, miss,” he promises, lifting his hips to meet you halfway, but his body feels so heavy and his brain is mush, unable to send signals to his muscles.

Your head rolls back and your hands wrap tighter around his wrists, you find yourself grinding against him, rubbing your clit every time you bottom all the way down. But Jeno’s thrusts are sloppy and messy, he’s not even that bad when he’s about to come. “Stupid puppy,” you taunt, slapping his ass. “Can’t even fuck me after all the pleasure I gave you.”

Jeno sobs, literally, loud cries coming from the back of his throat making him almost choke, and you’re about to stop everything in worry before you realize that’s not because you went too far — partially, maybe, he’s not really happy to be said he’s bad — but because he’s close again and he loves the way you talk down to him and slap him.

“Are you coming again?” You ask in utter surprise because you can’t believe it.

But he shakes his head, he’s fighting against himself to hold it back, and for the sake of having at least an orgasm too, you stop your movements.

“I won’t — won’t come,” he mumbles, lips quivering. “Can’t you… can’t you just use me?” he wails. “Please, I’m too tired. Just… use me like a…” The last words are a slur lower than a whisper, and his head turned to the side doesn’t help you hearing what he said.

You tilt your head to the side, cupping his chin to force him to look at you. “Repeat loud and clear if you don’t want to regret it.”

Jeno gulps, nodding vigorously, but his voice still shakes, and his cheeks burn red again as he repeats. “Use me like a dildo, please.”

“Oh… so, this is how you want to be good to me?” You ask, grinding your hips against him, the stimulation is bare for you but so much for him that you trigger whines and whimpers out of him.

“But it will feel good, even if I don’t move, you know it,” he tries to reason, pleading with his glossy eyes. “I can eat you out after, or — or now, whatever you please, miss.”

“Whatever I please, uhm?” You ask, grinning.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll do whatever you want.”

You smile, caressing his face, smearing the wet mess around before your hand pats his head. “You’re lucky I want you exactly like this, like a toy.” You start fucking him with no warning, and a gasp rips from his vocal cords before he starts moaning again.

His eyes roll back at each of your hard thrusts, and you see his hands itch because he can’t touch you, but you don’t loosen the hold on him. You feel strong, a kind of power you didn’t even know you had in you, and you don’t want this to stop.

Jeno’s entire body trembles when your hand wraps around his neck, squeezing just enough to dim the flow of air in his lungs. It’s hot but unexpected, just like it’s unexpected that he almost comes on the spot.

“Oh, oh,” you hum in delight, the corner of your lips lifting as you stare at him. “You like it…” Jeno tries to deny but you can read his body; you felt his dick throb inside of you, his eyes flicker to you in light panic before rolling in his skull again, and his breath falter. “Don’t deny it, it wouldn’t be the most pathetic thing you get off to,” you mock, making him blush again. “It’s alright, you can be my naughty boy, I won’t judge.”

He can only hum, and now that you look better in his eyes, you see there’s something completely different behind them. He’s in a completely different headspace, and you fear he won’t last much longer.

It’s the same for you, the thrill and adrenaline can only push you so far, you’re not used to this, bouncing your hips harshly on his cock and having control, your thighs are starting to scream, and your brain doesn’t want to pay them attention but you both know you’re both at the finish line for this first time. Not to add, you’re in desperate need of an orgasm.

“Ti-tight,” Jeno gasps when your hold on his neck loosens enough to let him breathe in normally again, just the time that he can take a few breaths before it fastens again, it’s not too tight, it’s your first time, you don’t want to end with him passed out on the floor, but it’s enough to do its job.

“Yeah? Too tight for you? Can’t take it?”

He moves his head randomly, frenetic movements as he moves his lips to talk, useless. Your cunt is sucking away every coherent thought in his mind, the only thing filling his brain: you and the need to release.

“Don’t talk, don’t need it. I know you’re too sensitive, wanted me so much only to shake underneath me because I’m fucking you too well. Can’t even form a coherent thought in that stupid, little brain of yours, can you?”

He shakes his head, tears streaming down, but you kiss them — lick them — away.

“It’s alright, I don’t want you to think. I like it when your brain is empty. Your just my pretty boy, right? Pretty, good boy that let’s mommy fuck him?”

His nods are eager, and without even realizing his tongue lolls out. You pout at the view, patting his head when you let go of his neck, making him breathe. “Good pup. Just look pretty for me.”

“Pre-pretty,” he whimpers before a fucked-out smile paints his face.

“Yes, baby, you are,” you kiss his lips, petting his hair another time.

“Co-come, wanna come, please. Let me — let me come, ma’am,” he cries out when he has enough air in his lungs and sense in his brain. “Be-begging. I’m beg — mmph,” his words die in his mouth and his eyes squeeze tight when you voluntarily squeeze harder around him.

“Begging? Is this how a good boy begs?” You ask, looking at him sternly, not that it lasts long, because when his eyes open into yours, you fold.

“’M sorry, so-sorry,” he apologizes, “please, miss, let me come, let me come inside of you, let me fill you up. You’ll — you’ll feel good, I promise,” his words are all slurred out together, spit drips from his lips down to his chin and neck, and his body is burning up, if it didn’t mean to edge and denying an orgasm to yourself too, you would probably push him farther, curious to see how far he can go. But for now, it’s fine, he’s a good boy, he deserves it, and so do you.

“Please, please, please, ma’am.”

“You’ve been so good, baby. You can come.”

When you give him the green light, his body explodes, his hips even shyly chase the orgasm up against you, fucking back into you lazily. His head rolls back and as soon as your hand sets him free, his hands find your hips, holding them tight, hissing and groaning when you hold yourself up on his chest, nails digging into his skin as your body keeps bouncing up and down, riding your orgasms.

Your body collapses on his, exhausted and boneless just like his, and his arms wrap around it right away while he still sobs and whimpers in the crook of your neck.

“Shh, it’s alright, you’re alright,” you whisper in his ear while your hand caress his hair, wet again but not with water.

“Don’t — don’t pull out,” he whines when you lift your body, “nooo, don’t leave me.”

“I’m here,” you reassure him right away, carrying his body with yours so you lay on the side and can pull him in a hug. “I’m right here, baby. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” he mumbles, hiding between your chest and neck. “Tha-thank you, mhh, thank you for —” his voice breaks and his sobs get a bit louder as he hides more in your hold.  

“Hey, it’s fine, take your time,” you say, still soothing him with circular movements on his back and soft rubs on his hair.

Jeno wants to talk, he has many things to say, damn, even an explanation to give to you, but he feels his body is heavy, he feels on a cloud, and you are the softness all over him, he feels safe, something he’s not used to feeling. You didn’t get mad at this, you won’t get mad if he falls asleep for a while, right? If he lulls in this sense of comfort and the aftermaths of what happened.

And almost as if you read his mind… “You can sleep if you want,” you say, kissing his forehead gently and rubbing his nape.

And he has no strength to reply as his body falls into a deep sleep.  

When he wakes up, he’s not naked anymore, a big white shirt is around his body, covering just enough so he’s not completely exposed. The mattress is stripped from the dirty sheets and there’s a glass of water on the bedside table, but you’re not next to him.

Jeno almost panics, feeling the post-nut clarity made you run away scared and disgusted, but then the door opens, and you’re there. And it’s the same you he loves deeply. He can breathe again.

“Oh, hi, babe,” you greet with a big smile. You’re holding something in your hands and you’re wearing one of his shirts. “Feeling better?”

Jeno gulps, nodding and smiling at you, words are hard to find.

“Still too fucked out to talk?” You joke, slumping on the bed next to him, handing him the package of his favorite snacks. “Figured you needed some sugar after all that whimpering and squirming.”

“Oh, please, shut up,” he says, hiding his red face behind his hands.

“Hey, you were cute,” you say, grabbing his hands to move them out of the way. “I — I liked it. Did you?”

He nods quickly, okay maybe he’s still a little into that headspace.

You smile and then pout. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me about it. I’m always so loud and open about everything I want to try and… it never crossed my mind you might have different needs. I don’t know if you’re hiding anything else, but you can talk to me about everything. I love you and even if I might not be into something I won’t let it be the reason for a break-up, or a fight, or worse, making fun of you,” you say, grabbing his hands. “We can always try and then see the outcome. I mean, all that dominance before was improvisation, I was nervous as fuck too, I just tried to act like you usually do, tell me I was good,” you say, scrunching your face as you wait for his opinion.

Jeno laughs, it’s a genuine laugh, and you can almost see the weight being lifted off his chest. You still feel guilty for not making it feel like you could be a safe place for him, but it’s over now.

“You were really good,” he reassures you. “And… yes, I was a bit afraid of your reaction, but it was also something that had to do with myself. I’m — I’ve always been the strong one since I was a kid and then growing up it also turned into being this big ass man with muscles, so the pressure didn’t help.”

You nod in understanding. It makes you feel a bit less guilty, but you feel like there’s something else. “Is this all?”

“I also always have to be confident, but… I get insecure. I just feel like people are so used to me never making mistakes that they don’t even see my struggles or how hard I work for things, so all my hard work goes unnoticed. But I… I want to be… praised, I want to be told I’m doing good, I want people to tell me they’re proud of me.”

You cup his cheek gently and then kiss his nose, making him giggle. “I’m so proud of you, I tell you that, don’t I?”

“Yeah, you do, you’re the only one,” he says, leg bouncing nervously as he tries to find the words. But you’re holding his hand, rubbing circles on his palm and that’s calming him down a bit, or maybe not because he feels like he’s about to cry again.

“Hey,” you caress his chin and then rub your thumb on his cheek, your touch is soft, and his brain shuts off once again. It’s like he’s taking back all the wasted time he had to act tough and don’t melt in your touch. “I’m here, alright? Take your time.”  

Jeno nods, small hums slipping out of his lips before he finds the courage to talk. “I don’t know, sometimes I just… I want to feel small. And I want to be the one getting cuddled and petted, and just taken care of. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love doing that for you, but… I always see you being so carefree when you’re with me and sometimes I get… so, so jealous because you can… you can loosen up, turn your brain off and no one will judge you. But if I do it, if I get… vulnerable in your hands, I don’t know what people will say.”

You caress his cheek before your hand runs in his hair, not only because it’s covering his handsome face again, but also because you learned he likes it a lot, and as expected, he smiles. “Do people need to know?”

He tilts his head and furrows in confusion. “They don’t?”

“I doubt people care about our sexual life, or what we do in our home. So, this can be our secret, at least until you’ll feel comfortable enough to let loose even outside of these walls. If you’ll share this with me, it will be less heavy, right?”

Jeno nods, smiling and pushing back tears.

“Hey, crybaby today, aren’t you? Come here,” you say, pulling him into a hug. He holds you tight, still afraid you might slip from his hold, and breathes deep your scent.

When you pull away, Jeno’s looking into your eyes and you hum to signal him he can talk.

“Thank you, I don’t know what I would do without you. Seriously, you made me feel safe and not judged, it means the world to me.”

“It’s the way you make me feel always, I’m glad you could feel that way too. And I proved I can protect you even if I don’t have all your muscles,” you joke, lifting your arm and flexing your not-trained bicep, making him laugh. “But seriously, I would never judge you, and I really love this version of you, so, unleash it more often.”

Jeno smiles widely, his eyes turning up in his usual half-moons, and then he lays on the bed, tapping the space next to him. You beam and crawl next to him, pulling him closer again, his head rests on your chest while your hands caress his hair and you just relax in the silence of the house.

“I love you,” you whisper, kissing the top of his head, his hair tickling you for a second. “And I’ll love every version of you, in any universe.”

Jeno still has a secret, but luckily, he has you to share it with.

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @rbf-aceu ; @shiningnono ; @jaeminsbebu | general taglist: @froggyforyoongi , @wingsss45 ; @tddyhyck ; @technologyculturedneo

© neowinestaindress; all rights reserved. do NOT repost, modify, or translate any work from this blog on any other platform and claim it as yours. you can find my works on ao3 (neowinestaindress) and wattpad (winestaintedress_; currently inactive).

[hyomaslut]

──★ ˙🌟 ̟ !! gold star redemption program. 18+!

☆⌒(ゝ。∂).ᐟ ᴛᴇᴀᴍ ʙʟᴜᴇ ʟᴏᴄᴋ's ғᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ᴍᴀɴᴀɢᴇʀ

✿ ─ synopsis: you are the new manager for team blue lock and you have a great idea to make the players get along better. after all, positive reinforcement worked really well on dogs, why not men? ✿ ─ characters: isagi yoichi, bachira meguru, shidou ryusei, itoshi rin, chigiri hyoma + kunigami rensuke referenced ✿ ─ cw: smut, fem!reader, she/her pronouns used, aged-up!characters(18+), pet names, kissing, penetrative sex, oral receiving/giving, semi-public sex, unprotected sex, hair pulling, overstimulation, rough sex, deepthroating/face-fucking, non-exclusive relationships, lots of jealousy, pda, use of foul language, suggestive themes, shidou is an asshole, rin threatens murder, somewhat proofread ✿ ─ notes: okay so every is going to ignore the logistics and mental gymnastics done to put all these guys on the same team and have any of this go on, right? cool. this work was requested by @anastasiablossomlove pls enjoy!

managing team blue lock was no task for a person of average conviction. anyone with less of a spine would be easily trampled and consumed by the members, all with big personalities and even bigger egos. you took to the role with exceptional organizational skills and a positive attitude that didn’t falter, even under the cold glares of the less compliant men of the team (cough cough itoshi rin cough cough barou shouei). before the end of your first week you had drafted up detailed and individualized meal plans, unique to each of them. by the second you had worked with the coach to create special training regimes that works towards their fitness goals while providing challenge and variety. right under their noses you dug your pretty fingers into every part of team blue lock, finding every issue and soothing every conflict, turning a group of somewhat wild animals into a well functioning machine with you at its core.

and not a detail slipped your eye. you could always tell when kunigami had pushed himself too hard in the gym by the stiffness in his shoulders. honestly you doubt you would’ve been able to convince him to let you help him if he wasn’t just as sore as you predicted. but the minute your palms were pressing into his back he was groaning in relief, “you’re an angel” grumbled under his breath. he’s a bit less embarrassed the next time around, blushing while asking you to fix him like you did last time.

you quickly took responsibility for doing chigiri’s hair before every practice and game. after seeing it fall out of its style and flap wildly in his face whenever he reached top speed on the field, you decided he needed something a little more reliable to keep it out the way so his eyes could stay on the ball. though when his hair was this soft, who could blame you for taking a bit longer than necessary, brushing through the knots and gently scratching at his scalp. plus, he didn’t seem to mind all that much, always red faced and all smiles, leaning into your touch. the thank you kiss he plants on your cheek lingers long enough to leave a matching blush on your face as a token of his appreciation.

being the backbone of their system earned you respect, acknowledgement, even affection from the overly friendly members of the team (cough cough bachira meguru cough cough shidou ryusei). no one could deny the benefits of having you around, always offering all kinds of helpful advice and showed not a shred of judgment when listening to their problems. and you weren’t exactly ignorant to the fact that your constant support was causing some of your new friends to become especially attached to you. maybe to someone else it would be a bigger concern, but in your eyes, this was only another opportunity to do more for your team.

that’s why you implemented the gold star redemption program to help motivate them. it was quite simple to follow, you had a chart with all of their names along with cute, slightly wonky doodles of them, and a list of ways to earn gold stars. from goals and assists to being on good behavior, whatever way they earn their stars, team members can then cash them in for certain prizes from you. the list had looked something like this…

2 ☆ = snack or drink of your choice 4 ☆ = a home cooked meal 5 ☆ = a kiss <3 7 ☆ = a massage <33 10 ☆ = private training session <333

the objective was to give incentives towards cooperation. not to mention, it’s always good to strengthen bonds with your team members. it seems, however, that you underestimated how much of your time this new system would take up. or maybe you just overestimated how easy it would be to keep up with the greedy desires of so many egoists at once.

ever since your arrival, anyone with eyes could see that isagi yoichi carried a torch for you. you let him talk your ear off for hours about tactics and players, never tired of his company or too busy for his rambles. it gets his heart thumping obnoxiously loud in his chest. so yoichi makes it his objective to dote on you as much as possible to try to make up for all the time you spend fussing over everybody else. always staying after practice to help you or walking you home. so when you start handing out stars for that kind of stuff, isagi is already making a steady income. he considers himself a gentleman, so at first he spends his stars on meals. and he’s more than happy to eat your cooking, stirring up all kinds of wifey fantasies in his head and enjoying his lunches with you. but at night, when he’s lying in bed, the big ticket item at the bottom of the prize board haunts him. and when he can’t take it anymore, he slips into your tiny little office that you share with the coach, a self-satisfied smile on his face when he lets you know that he just finished the stat sheets you asked him to fill out, earning him his tenth gold star. enough for one private training session.

in all the times you thought about sex with isagi, you’re not sure you ever pictured it to be like this. bent over your own desk, tennis skirt bunched up around your waist, your star player too eager to sink into your pussy to even push down your underwear. they stayed tugged to the side, thoroughly soaked from the way his hips meet yours in sloppy desperate thrusts. “i knew i needed to fuck you when i saw this skirt,” he confesses, eyes fixed to the point where you connect, mesmerized by the way his cock disappears inside you, “you’ve been tempting me all day, so be a good girl and take my cock, okay?” before you can respond he hooks a finger into the elastic of your panties to let it snap back against your skin, drawing a small yelp from you. he changs the angle to fuck you harder, deeper. you wonder if this could be the same sweet yoichi that carries your things and bashfully tells you your outfit looks good.

apparently that yoichi doesn’t exist once he’s balls deep inside you, all that’s left is the side of him you’ve only caught glimpses of when he’s dominating his opponents on the field. and if you thought that it was a chance encounter, you’re sorely mistaken as week after week isagi makes sure he earns his ten stars and you get to know just how mean he can be. his grip is always tight around your hair, whether it’s pulling and steering you into the position he wants or guiding your head down to take more of his dick. god forbid he asks you nicely for something like he always does when you’re not ‘training’. one time you even had the gall to suggest the idea to him and lived to regret it as now if you want anything from him, isagi is only accepting the most convincing of your begs. “c'mon princess, mind your manners, if you wanna cum then you’re gonna have to ask really nicely.” and no teary eyed puppy dog look will get you what you want, even when he makes getting your words out so difficult. truthfully, he never intends to be so hard on you, but having you crying and begging for his cock is the only way to soothe the devil on his shoulder that tries to tell him to take you for himself. in the aftermath, you start to recognize your yoichi again, sheepish in his apologies for how rough he was with you, kissing away the tears that run down your face. he’s lucky you’re too fucked out to charge him for them.

there’s not a world where you offer bachira meguru sexual favors in exchange for playing soccer and he says no. he was already gonna do that anyway, and now not only does he get to make even more of a game out of it, but his reward for winning is the cute little manager he’s had his eyes on for far too long? consider him sold. bachira knows it would be most fun for him to save up and have sex with you as soon as possible, but all of a sudden he has five and he’s itching for a kiss. one he decides to give you right before practice starts… in front of the whole team. but can you blame him? he’s already been waiting forever to feel those pretty glossed lips on his, you couldn’t really expect him to make it through the next few hours when he’s so close to getting what he wants. and you could maybe understand that, but was it really necessary to go for a full open-mouthed wet almost make out that left you panting when everyone’s eyes were already on you? you suspect not, but bachira doubles down, telling you it was of upmost importance that he got it in, else he wouldn’t be able to focus. he neglects to tell you that he overheard reo in the locker room talking about what he was gonna do now that he had five stars. shidou already made it very clear that he would be first to ten, so bachira had to be crafty in order to secure at least one first from you.

meguru was certainly one of the more needy players, right under nagi that required some form of encouragement every step of the way to get anything done. bachira usually does what you tell him to, but not without whining about deserving a prize for being good. quite frankly, you dread having to ask anything of him, because he is determined to be fully compensated for even the smallest of requests. even a task as easy as grabbing something on a high shelf was met with a cheeky smirk and a request for a kiss. and don’t think he’ll budge either, holding the item hostage if he thinks he can squeeze two out of you. it didn’t make it any easier that bachira didn’t possess a shy bone in his whole body, openly showering you in affection when the others were around, holding your hand and nuzzling his face into your collar. it was enough to make even a professional like you blush. he acted as if he was oblivious to the jealous stares of his friends, but the smug cat-like smirk he sends them and the way he only holds you tighter when you try to shyly brush him off gives him away. it may come as a surprise considering his reputation for being a bit delusional, but bachira tries to root himself in reality for once. he frequently reminds himself of the nature of your relationship and tries his best not let his imagination run wild with anything that would be beyond the boundaries you’ve clearly set. things like picturing himself taking you on dates, coming home to you at night, introducing you to his mom. they were all too dangerous to let his mind settle on them for too long.

and what better distraction than burying his face between your thighs. it’s hard to think of much when he hasn’t bothered to stop lapping at your cunt long enough to take a breath in a couple minutes. suffocating was the least of his concerns when the clench around his fingers lets him know your orgasm is just around the corner. meguru swears that your pathetic little whimpers and the slick dripping down his chin are like a straight hit of dopamine to his brain and he’s at real risk of addiction at this point. lidded amber eyes travel up to watch your expression twist into one of pleasure as you gasp out his name. now that catches his interest. when your vision clears and your brain is functioning again after that intense high, you search for his comfort as if you had done any of the hard work. but all you’re met with is that signature wild look that he gets when he brushing past the enemy team’s defense straight towards his goal. it’s your only warning that he’s far from tired and even farther from sated. “if i can keep going, so can you baby. i know you have more for me. jus’ need t’see you make that face one more time.” you have no room to protest, his tongue already finding your clit and working towards bringing you to the edge once again. by your fourth time cumming, you’re sobbing for a break and debating whether you should charge him four times over or give him a star for each one.

someone who was on board with your system from the second that you explained how it worked, was shidou ryusei. what better way to celebrate another one of his blood pumping, heart stopping performances than racing to the locker room to blow a load in his favorite girl while his teammates debrief with the coach? to him it was simple, you fuck him, you feed him, you take care of him, you spend time with him. shidou is, by all of his definitions, dating you. while some might be turned off by the idea of dating someone who isn’t offering exclusivity, he didn’t see it as much of an obstacle. not when he spent star stickers like a gambler on a slot machine, having you multiple times a week if the economy allowed it. and if he’s short a few, no worries, ryusei is quite the negotiator. it starts one week when he’s only missing a star or two, promising he’ll pay back the difference, you know he’s a good customer. it’s probably not a good idea to give in to him though, as the next time he wants a private training session, he’ll insist they’re only nine stars for him. he has made all kinds of fake coupons from 50% Off! to Buy One Get One Free! to even a homemade punch card in his own terrible handwriting. shidou was the first one to ever get a star taken away when he tried to give you an arby’s gift card in exchange for a blowjob. he didn’t try that tactic again.

the worst is when he tries to haggle in the middle of sex. your legs are thrown over his shoulders and his tip is kissing your cervix when he chooses to whine about not being able to kiss you because he has no stars left. he worked too hard to get good star credit, he can’t go into star debt!! “ and with his lips just hovering over yours, his hot breath fanning across your face, how could you say no? in a moment of weakness, you have unfortunately given an inch to shidou, infamous mile taker, and now it’s hard to get him to pay for any of his kisses, especially while he’s fucking you. you thank god that at the very least no one knows he’s been getting them for free… if only shidou would allow your life to be that easy. even worse than giving him an inch, you expected shidou to keep a secret. and you thought his big mouth was something you liked about him. until he’s using it to brag to everyone that he’s your favorite, practically your boyfriend, all because you let him get away with a smooch here and there. let’s just say you had to give out a lot of free kisses to smooth over the problem his bragging habits created.

honestly ryusei was starting to cause a lot of confusion outside of the team with his antics. what with his always hanging off your arm, giving you as much affection as you’d tolerate, calling you sweet nicknames. the people in your life were actually starting to believe you two were dating. not that shidou does anything to discourage such rumors, only grinning and agreeing every time someone mistakes you as a couple. hell, he was starting to get you confused, saying things during your training sessions that certainly didn’t fit the transactional nature of the act. “holy shit you’re so tight- love this pussy, l-love you so much. say my name. c’mon baby, say you love me and i’ll make you feel so fucking good.” and only because ryusei always makes good on his promises do you allow yourself another moment of weakness.

itoshi rin didn’t have much interest or faith in you upon first introduction. he sized you up as some nobody doing this whole manager thing as a fun extracurricular, so as long as you stayed out of his way he didn’t care what you did. with his luck, he shouldn’t be surprised that you were immediately in his way, extremely often, rambling to him about ideas and strategies that he had no intention on listening to. although even he could admit, he understood why the others were so easily charmed by you. he was wrong about how seriously you took your job. not that it changed anything. at least that’s what rin tells himself, but in reality your relentless efforts and endless dedication to supporting all of them was something that spoke to him, made him a bit soft for you. it didn’t help that you were his type in every sense of the word, your attractiveness doing nothing but make feigning indifference a lot harder for rin. your seemingly endless patience didn’t help either. you always responded in kind to all of rin’s harsh words and cold stares, never let his sour attitude deter your subtle acts of service like getting grass stains out of his uniform and making sure he stays unbothered during his yoga. against his will, he was slowly warming up to you, but you were still caught off guard when rin started cashing in his stars, even if it was just a meal. he had lots of them sitting idle on the chart waiting to be used, so you supposed it was only natural for him to get some free food out of it. but you were even more taken aback when a couple days later he requested a massage from you with insistence that he only asks because he’s been extremely tense as of late. which wasn’t entirely untrue. rin had been very tense. just not from anything soccer related like he’d like you to believe. he was tense from the stress of his budding feelings for you combined with the dread of knowing he probably will never have you all to himself. at least not with this stupid reward system in place.

he despises it. he absolutely hates going about his day knowing there are other guys, his shithead teammates, that are getting your time, attention, and affection for the price of a couple of stupid fucking stickers. he misses the days when shidou’s incessant bragging about how many times he was able to make you cum or bachira’s unnecessary details of what your pussy tastes like didn’t bother him. now his blood boils to hear them talk about you like that. that kind of anger makes it clear to him that being your friend was simply not an option anymore. which is how he settled on getting a massage from you. he would satisfy this overwhelming craving he has for you and go back to normal and be able to focus solely on becoming best in the world again without thoughts of you plaguing his mind. that was his hope going into it, but feeling your warm touch on his bare back, melting away years of untreated knots and neglected aches in his body, he could almost blush at the intimacy he feels. especially when that foreign kindness he loves so much is on display as you reassure him that there’s nothing to be embarrassed about and that you’re proud he finally put his pride aside long enough to let you help him. you’ve got him, hook, line, and sinker now. no use in struggling so hard, he supposes, as some part of him knows he’s doomed to fall sooner or later. perhaps it’s time to surrender. he fought a good fight, but his greed for you was candidly too tough of an opponent.

and to rin, surrender looked like asking you when’s the soonest he could book a private training session. you don’t think you could look any more shocked. rin had a quick turn around from someone you doubted even liked you, to someone reserving as much of your time as his stars could buy. the more often he was with you, the less time you spent giving those lukewarm brats the treatment he wants reserved for him. and he wishes he gave in a lot sooner when he feels the wet heat of your mouth around his cock for the first time. how fast he would’ve folded if he knew how pretty you would look on your knees for him. rin tried to be gentle and let you set the pace, but between hissing out curses and barely biting back moans, that same greed to get more from you has his hand twisting itself in your hair and pushing down on the back of your head. he couldn’t help it. and it was so worth it to watch you choke and sputter around his length but never pull away. he knew you weren’t a quitter. “shit, feels good… don’t stop,” he all but gasps, hips instinctively jumping to reach further down your throat, grip tightening when you try to come up for air. after a long moment of breathing through your nose you relax enough to let him ease himself the rest of the way in. rin sighs in relief when your nose finally presses against his pelvis. the way you look up at him starry-eyed and full of adoration made his chest feel heavy with desire to be the only one you ever look at. it drives him crazy that any guy on the team can see you like this, and that heartache has rin fucking your face to forget it. “fuckkk. don’t look away, eyes on me, g’nna cum in that pretty mouth.”

you couldn’t deny that your new attempt at encouraging the team had its kinks. while overall the amount of arguments that broke out between players lessened to keep on good star-earning behavior, you could tell that it came with its own set of tension creating problems. you also couldn’t deny that being pulled in every direction by men vying for your attention was both very time consuming and extremely gratifying, but you think you manage it well. save for when they were already pumped up with adrenaline from a game, that is when real issues arise. especially when a player from the enemy team thinks it’s a good idea to try and hit on the cute little lady holding the clipboard. fatal mistake.

it starts with your favorite pot stirrer, bachira, calling out from his position, making everyone else on the team aware of the situation. “no shot dude, she don’t want you! focus on losing!” you’re confident you can diffuse whatever is about to go down before you notice rin leaving the ball alone in centerfield to beeline straight towards you. threats are flying from his lips on approach, quick to get in the guy’s face, planting his hands on his shoulders to shove him back. “what the fuck do you think you’re doing? i’ll kill you if you don’t get the fuck away from her.” you think maybe you have a shot of getting rin under control if you just- your eyes widen in horror as a flash moves in from your peripheral. there are no words, just shidou drop kicking this poor stranger at top speed. you cringe as you watch shidou knocks this guy off his feet, cleats first, taking rin down with him. what a way to earn a red card.

this was a fun project and request tysm!!! i just went about it in the interpretation i found most interesting, i really hope it was to your liking!!!

© 2023 hyomaslut. please do not copy, translate, or repost any of my content onto any other sites.

[konigsblog]

younger!stepmom!reader x perv!loser!stepson!könig plsplsplsplspls

tw/cw; stepcest, perv!loser!stepson!könig x stepmom!reader, smut, non-consensual touching, dub-con, groping, manipulation. MDNI 18+

note; könig is aged to be in his mid-twenties in this.

ever since you married könig's father, he hasn't been able to keep his filthy hands off of you. he's way too touchy-feely, brushing it off as him just building a relationship with his new stepmother, a perverted and deranged weirdo being your new stepson.

he stalks you constantly, steals your lingerie and uses it for his own enjoyment. könig wraps your lace panties around his lengthy shaft, his muscular body large and aching. he hasn't been in the military for long, only in his mid-twenties. he's never been in a relationship before, conventionally unattractive and unpleasant to be around, clinging to his stepmother for affection and pleasure.

könig is a loser, he's been deprived of the warmth and tightness of your gummy, velvety pussy around his meaty, girthy shaft, fantasising about fucking you while watching taboo, stepcest porn on his computer. könig spends the majority of his time on leave groping you, rubbing up against you and kissing you messily, forcing your face into his. you have to push him away at the realisation that he's trying to slide his big, hung cock into you, his thick fingers curling inside your tight hole like the creepy pervert he is, with his leaking dick bigger than his father's.

he'll compliment everything, from the clothes you wear, the perfume scent on your neck, to your cooking. he's a big boy, he'll eat anything and everything, asking for seconds and thirds just to appeal to his beloved stepmother.

due to his stepfather marrying later on in his life, he has extreme mommy issues. his craving for a relationship is intense, unable to differentiate his stepmother from a girlfriend.

[obj4soul]

Women's clothing sucks. And I now firmly believe that one of the reason women are more obsessed about their weight is because of clothing. Growing up I mostly wore mens/boys clothing and I never had to think about size, waist, etc. The clothes won't hug my thighs in the sense that would make me conscious of them while moving. If the waist was too big id grab a belt. Plus the design of pants and tshirts was pretty standard.

Now during my late teens, early twenties i started going towards more women's clothing. Because i felt I had to look more feminine. And HOLY SHIT. It sucked. BAD. First the material. Its so bad and thin and cost more than guys clothes. No standard Tshirt fit, everything has a different shoulder to chest ratio. The pants are either too tight, hug your ass and thighs too much or are too baggy to be comfortable. And the waist. Holy shit. Ive been underweight till I was 23 (medical reasons). And I didnt have a lot of problem with the waist thing then (see where this is going) but the moment I kicked my illness and gained weight and got into normal weight range, dude the waist thing became a big issue. FIRST of all. For guys the waist end at waist, the hip bone area. Not for women. Most clothes go above the hip bones, some even over the belly button. If the thing feels right standing up, youll suffocate sitting down. And even if its elastic waistband, its sitting on your stomach, it does not have a bone to support it and it feels uncomfortable. (Maybe I have some sensory issue, I don't know about yall but I dont like being conscious of clothes sticking to my body). And now to the main point. I never had any issue with waist being uncomfortable when I was underweight or when I wear boys pants (really pants made for boys get more humanly consideration than women) and the moment i got into normal range, the womens pants saying they are my waist size fit pretty snug and tight around my waist, ass and thighs. But still till this day I never face this issue with my boys pants. Today while trying on some pants that my mom gifted me that said their waist was a size bigger than mine I found then uncomfortable and started thinking should I lose some weight? And that fucking blew my mind because I am already thin and in a pretty normal range of BMI. Those clothes feel comfortable as long as you are underweight. That is insane. Seriously. Ladies if this the case with you all. Or maybe some of you. Ditch the women's section. If you are short like me, go for the boys section or else mens. These fucking clothing sizes and designs are not made thinking of your comfort in mind. Now im gonna go to the store and exchange the pants for some boys khaki pants.

I think this is just one face of how the system is designed to make you feel uncomfortable and doubt yourself. You see how much waist room guys get? We are the same species after all. What the fuck. Do you make different size clothing for male and female cats or monkeys? No fucking other species have such a wide difference in body shape than what humans are told we have.

[hazbinwhoree]

General Adam Headcanons

SFW

100% dresses like Adam Sandler under the robe

Pronounces bruh like “brah” unironically

Has a high body count, but not as high as you’d expect

He has abandonment issues cause of Lilith and Eve

He’d never admit it but losing both Lilith and Eve to Lucifer really fucked him up

Lilith left him for Lucifer, and Eve cheated on him with Lucifer

Due to knowing the pain of being cheated on, he will never cheat despite the fuckboy persona

Man can actually settle down with the right person

Wears his mask all the fucking time, he only takes it off to sleep

He thinks it makes him look badass and his favorite feature is the horns

He’s tall as fuck (6’5) but he’s kind of thin, so he wears a big ass robe to make up for it

You can only tell by his arms

He likes to appear big

His favorite thing about himself is his dick (surprise)

Listens to heavy metal

Can’t cook for shit

Needs therapy but will never accept therapy

Doesn’t realize how misogynistic he is and if you tried to tell him he would get defensive

“What, I fucking love women, they’re hot.”

Says “nuh uh”

Cried in front of Lute once– they never talk about it

Shockingly, he doesn’t have any STD’s and he’s very proud of that

Sees Lute as a best friend but he’d never let her know she means that much to him

Has a colorful vocabulary of cuss words and unique nicknames, ie “Danger Tits”

Is really good at coming up with unique insults too

Never get into banter with him, he will hurt your feelings

Sleeps like a rock but moves a lot in his sleep

Seriously, he’ll hit every position in one night

His band is actually really popular in Heaven, and he’s renowned for being the best guitarist

Of course, that only strokes his ego

Ego bigger than his dick, for real

But if you can get past his ego, he can be fun to be around

Touch starved

Cares for very few people, but he would die for the people he does care about

NSFW

Absolutely has a size kink

He’s tall and he loves to be able to look down at his partner

It makes him feel powerful, but he also finds it cute

Has tried every sex position possible but his favorite is missionary

Rarely does he do missionary however because he only likes it with someone he cares about

Phenomal at giving head

He has a long tongue and he knows his way around a vagina

Actually has a big dick, he’s not kidding

Like no wonder he walks around like he’s a god

Also has a virginity kink and it’s definately related to his abandonment issues but he’ll never address that

Whenever he has sex, he always goes for a round 2 in the shower

Actually hates being called things like “daddy” and “master”

While he has some kinks, he’s actually not a very kinky guy

But he’s down to try anything

Has been pegged, doesn’t prefer it

His third and final kink is a breeding kink

He has no idea why but its imperative that he finishes inside his partner

Messy, loves being feral in the bedroom

The kind of guy who’s gone right after a hookup

But if he has a partner, he insists on cuddling after sex

Perfers tits over ass

Will bury his face in his partner’s while they cuddle

One time he came from looking at himself in a mirror during a hookup

Eye contact goes crazy with a partner

Needs to see partner’s every reaction and expression

Also needs control the whole time

Will never sub again, he hated it

[annabelle--cane]

i wasn’t here when tma reached the height of its popularity (i only joined last year) so could you describe the Vibes (how bad the drama was, did it feel like there were too many people, etc.)

only if you want to :]

I've said this before, so this may be a familiar spiel to longer term followers, but 2020 tma fandom was honestly not the worst fandom I've ever been in, it was just by far the biggest thing I have ever been actively into at peak popularity and so the 1% of insane people that are found in every fan space were 1% of a much bigger total population. most people were fine and chill, but there were a vocal minority who Weren't.

major ingredients in the discourse pot:

from my observations, tma had a small but devoted listener base for its first few years, then it got a little bump in mid 2018, then a considerable bump in late 2019, then hit proper virality in early 2020, so there were a lot of people with hipster complexes about being Real Fans who were there first and weren't just part of the masses.

at this point I'm not even sure if this part was true, but the above was compounded by the perception that the earlier og listener base were mostly adults and the new wave of fans were mostly tweens and teens. whether the different waves actually fell along those age lines or not, a lot of people felt like the fandom was split into 80% Cringe Zoomers Who Are Here For Ships And Memes and 20% Millennials and Gen X'ers With Media Literacy Who Are Here For Horror. nice dichotomy, idiot, now what lies outside it, etc and such and such. our blessed fandom etiquette vs their barbarous dni lists.

which isn't to say that suddenly having a huge number of people, including young people, become interested in a single piece of media at a time of global stress where everyone had to be much more online and the content of the media itself was at its darkest and most socially relevant had no downsides. oh no. Oh No.

"my headcanon is not only objectively the best headcanon but it actually invalidates all of yours and if you hc something different then it's an act of bigotry against my Correct Headcanon." / "I have drawn up a list of Good Characters you have to like and aren't allowed to criticize and a list of Bad Characters you have to hate and can't acknowledge exist unless it's to make fun of and completely condemn them." / "I saw her username in the kudos of a jonelias fic" "girl what were YOU doing in the kudos of a jonelias fic" / "this latest episode handled a social issue unforgivably badly, I haven't experienced it myself but the vibes were off, everyone demand accountability and boycott the rest of the show" "hey that one was actually based on jonny's personal experiences" "ah fuck not again. well boys let's remember this for next time. this latest epis--"

honestly most of the discourse was down to like two or three friend groups. there was one group of people who you will probably remember if you were there at the time whom I have sometimes seen referred to as the Clown Gang. Clown Gang were ground zero for a good 90% of fan discourse ("hcing melanie as ace is ableist and lesbophobic" "fan content that focuses on jon's asexuality is biphobic. what's pansexuality I've never heard of it." "desolation tim aus are inherently ableist and racist"), but eventually they had a big falling out with Clown Prime and things calmed down. to be very clear I hold no ill will towards any of these people for four year old bad takes, hence why I'm not using any names, but god was it a time.

and this is only about the tumblr side of things. I was barely active of twitter so idk what it was like there but I was on tiktok for about a year during that time and the vibes were wildly different. iirc people there were less confrontational and there wasn't really a callout culture like on tumblr, but the extremes of the takes were FAR worse.