#like. like he JUST DOES. he refuses to acknowledge how he feels until he physically can’t deny it anymore and then it’s so much worse and

[miraclewoozi]

SWOONWORTHY pls someone catch me rn im going to faint

DON'T SWEAT IT. - l.jh

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you.

pairing; lee jihoon x fem!reader.  content; fluff / gym crush au / strangers to lovers / kinda idiots to lovers / smut towards the end (MINORS DNI). w/c; just a breezy 18k- and some change? warnings; swearing, this is only proof read once because if i read it again i was going to lose my mind. please let me know if i've forgotten any. smut tags under the cut ( not sure that this counts as a warning but a heads up: the gym weight units, whenever mentioned, are in kilograms not lbs because i’m british and the metric system, am i right? sorry if there are any other british-isms, i try really hard to avoid them/catch them on a proofread but there are inevitably some that have slipped through the net.  )

note; gym-selfie jihoon, you will never not own my ass. ( screaming internally this is the first fic i've written since my dan + phil youtube era. i don't know what i'm doing. this has been in my wips for about two months. it's a bit all over the place. that's. literally just me. bon appetite. <3 )

smut warnings: making out, grinding, fingering (f rec), oral (f rec), blowjob started/implied (at the end), protected sex (be safe out there gang), little bit of biting, no huge power dynamics? reader & jihoon are both switches (and simps), some use of pet-names (good girl/baby).

—————

He first sees you around lunchtime on an otherwise unassuming Sunday. 

As you walk in, the gym is wonderfully quiet. A handful of regulars mill about, making full use of the rare freedom of the machinery. One of the club’s personal trainers is marching an impossibly steep incline on a treadmill. It could just be any other weekend session in this criminally over-equipped and under-used gym: the town’s worst kept secret. But when the door slams shut behind you, his head jerks up; it, in this moment, is the loudest sound in the room. It’s sort of the only one he hears at all.

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you as he sits with dumbbells rested against his thighs. He catches his breath as he wonders who you are, if you’ve ever been to this gym before, why he doesn’t recognise you. Are you a new potential regular, maybe? Or just visiting the area and making good use of the cheap pay-as-you-go rates? Maybe, he considers, lips turning downwards in thought… maybe you’ve been coming here for a long time and he’s somehow just always been so in his own head that he’s never noticed.

The last, he thinks, is sort of unlikely. No. He would definitely remember a face like yours.

His heart rate slows more than he usually lets it as he finds himself watching you fill up your water bottle at the fountain, taking a long sip on your way over to one of the stairmasters. His brain blanks out when he realises that he’s not just looking anymore, he’s sort of staring, and swallows the saliva on his tongue hard, looking back at the mirror. He doesn’t want to be that guy. He isn’t that guy – he just got distracted by the loud noise, and this is exactly why he checks the damn battery on his headphones before he leaves the house. 

The only problem is that now, he can’t remember how many sets he’s done. He lies back and stares straight into a slightly sketchy light-fixture, neglecting to pick up the dumbbells that he put aside for his next set of pushes. Jihoon adjusts the position of his shoulders against the bench, arches his back off it slightly, digs his heels into the spongy floor beneath them and pushes the ones still in his hands until failure. 

Today, he finishes his routine and leaves the gym without allowing himself so much as another glance your way.

He neglects to notice that your eyes are avoiding him right back. 

—————

You smile at him for the first time on a Tuesday. Not the following one – a week and a bit later.

Seungcheol is with him tonight. Jihoon prefers to train alone nine times out of ten: this is a truth widely acknowledged, accepted and respected among his friends. Gym time is his down time, his equivalent of movie marathons and comfort food, of face masks and glasses of wine. But it’s not a hard rule: occasionally, someone will ask to tag along and use one of his guest passes, and Jihoon very rarely says no. There are two reasons. One, he isn’t actually rude, contrary to approximately eighteen running jokes in the group-chat. But also, it adds a little bit of variety to his otherwise very set-in-stone regimen, and mixing it up doesn’t hurt. Like tonight, for example. Seungcheol is pulling him into the studio off the main gym floor, his own gym bag packed with boxing pads and gloves for them to play with.

Variety.

Jihoon grumbles a little at the idea, at first. He has a very love-hate relationship with cardio, favouring a simple steady-state run over everything else, and it just feels a bit against his moral code to use gym time for something like this. However, he comes to discover very quickly that smacking Seungcheol’s hands is very therapeutic; Jihoon knows he’s maybe getting a little too into it when his friend asks if they can switch around, grimacing and shaking out his wrist after a particularly beefy punch. 

He agrees, albeit reluctantly, tugging off the gloves he’s wearing and pulling on the pads instead.

This half of the activity is considerably less enjoyable for Jihoon; he starts to cool down and loses his flow almost straight away and after about thirty seconds, his breathing is back to normal and he feels ready to go again. Even so, he does what he needs to do to be a good workout partner, and goes one step further into ‘good friend’ territory as he allows Seungcheol to vent about the bad day he had at work in-between hits, offering murmurs and looks of disgust when it feels appropriate. Suddenly, the impromptu request to come to the gym tonight makes much more sense, as does the slightly bizarre choice of activity, but Jihoon tries not to ask about it in too much detail.

They swing at each other for a few more rounds apiece, working up a healthy sweat and getting out a few frustrations as the hour wears on. On the last set, Jihoon switches out Seungcheol’s hands for a punching bag, putting a lot more of his weight behind every hit and really tiring himself out. By the end, his hair sticks to his forehead and his cheeks have flushed bright red; he only stops when he gets that weird, metallic taste in the back of his mouth that says he’s probably overdone it. Again.

“Hit the shower?” Seungcheol asks breathlessly as he finishes his last set of Russian twists and lies down flat on the floor, equally sticky and flushed all over. 

Jihoon pats his face dry with his towel, shaking his head. “You go ahead. I’ll have one at home.” 

He doesn’t give Seungcheol much of a chance to respond, already cleaning down anything he’s touched or managed to sweat on and riding out the high of the endorphins flooding his veins. Secretly, he hasn’t had a cardio session this high energy or this satisfying in a long time. He isn’t going to readily admit to that though.

“Nah, I’ll do the same,” Seungcheol agrees. He starts packing the gear he brought with him into his bag and they leave together after, heading towards the exit. 

That’s when he sees you again. 

He doesn’t notice at first; you’re stowing your things into one of the higher lockers, and you have your headphones slung around your neck as he walks past. It’s the sound of a song he vaguely recognises through your speakers that makes his head snap over from the conversation he’s in the middle of. They walk past at the moment you drop down from your tiptoes, and you flash a small (but insanely pretty) smile at Jihoon.

By the time he manages to process this fact, he’s already walked past you and you’re headed over into the main gym area, so even though he turns around to try and catch your eye, all he sees is your retreating figure. He stumbles over his own feet, not looking where he’s going, and just barely catches himself on Seungcheol’s upper arm before he actually does fall over. His older friend glances down at his bicep before he adopts a look that Jihoon has seen many, many times before: just never directed at him. His cheeks heat up further and he looks away.

“What was that?” Seungcheol asks, one eyebrow so far up his forehead that it’s disappeared almost entirely under his soggy hair. He looks so smug, so incredibly entertained. Jihoon wants to smack that expression off his face, immediately.

“Nothing,” Jihoon rushes, managing not to act on the violent thought even though he wants to. He clears his throat. “No-one. I-... they’re new, I think. I don’t know.”

Seungcheol lets out a soft laugh, pushing the door open for them both to leave through. “Yeah,” he scoffs, eyes glimmering with something Jihoon doesn’t think he likes the look of. “Nothing, my ass.”

—————

Three days later, he hears you speak for the first time.

Granted, you aren’t speaking to him – at least, not at first. But that’s not really what matters.

It’s late, and it’s a Friday night. Fridays are usually Jihoon’s days rest days, but sitting around his apartment had him feeling impossibly twitchy, with far too much energy to burn and no way to do so without leaving the house. And he knows that he needs to take days off, now and again. He knows that they’re good for recovery and that it’s healthy to take time to himself that involves not lifting weights. But what he also knows is that if he doesn’t manage to shake the weird buzzing feeling in his muscles, in his joints, in his veins, he’s never going to get to sleep. So, here he finds himself at almost 10PM, walking down the street to get to the gym.

To begin with, he doesn’t know (or really care) who it is that’s coming up behind him. He can hear quite clearly that the mystery person is on the phone, and that they’re in the middle of what seems to be a rather heated argument: his brain latches onto occasional words, phrases, curses. Every now and again, their voice drops to a deep, frustrated mutter and he cringes slightly, making a point to keep his eyes forward and down so as not to draw attention to the fact that this presumably private conversation has become everything but.

He touches his entry fob to the sensor on the door as he arrives and pushes it open. Jihoon uses the opportunity to stand still, to glance back at whoever it is that’s walked behind him for the past four and a half minutes, and his eyes come to land on you. He falters, noting how your eyes are a bit glassy and your cheeks are stained with what he can safely assume are tear-tracks. In this moment, he wants to run; he doesn’t want anything to do with that, and he certainly doesn’t want to hear any more of your call. It’s none of his business, and he feels plenty weird enough already with what he has overheard. But, for some unknown reason, he stays in place.

“No – no, you don’t get to-...” you hiss into your phone. “It was our fucking anniversary, you asshole.” Jihoon’s face tightens at that, lips drawn between his teeth and his eyes blowing slightly wide. You pass through the door in front of him, flashing a small smile as you go. Another smile, he thinks to himself, but he’d be an idiot to compare them in any way; this one is so dramatically dissimilar to the first, he thinks it could almost have come from a totally different person. 

Unfortunately, there’s nothing ‘insanely pretty’ about it this time. Your smile is tight-lipped and exhausted, slightly apologetic. Maybe even forced. He does try to return a warmer one to you, but he doesn’t know if you notice. 

“Look, I’m at the gym – we’re not doing this right now. I’ll call you later.” You hang up the phone with the kind of sigh that groans in the back of your throat.

A small part of him wants to take this moment and use it to ask if you’re all right, but an even larger part of him doesn’t. It isn’t because he doesn’t care. In a weird way, considering this is only the first time he’s clearly heard your voice and he knows absolutely nothing about you, he does care. But there are a few things that stop him. Not only are you a near-complete stranger, not only would he have no idea what to say to you if the answer happened to come out as a ‘no’, not only is he already coming over a little bit clammy at the thought of having a conversation with you… Jihoon isn’t stupid. He knows from the sound of your voice and the way you’re rather aggressively typing a message into your phone that it’s a ridiculous question.

You’re walking into the gym at 10 o’clock on a Friday night, your eyes literally brimming with tears. Of course you’re not all right.

He’s still standing in the open doorway mulling all this over, but Jihoon only realises when a gust of wind slaps over his calves and sends a draught not only through the reception area, but up the length of his spine. He comes inside fully as you close the locker you’re using – he notices, but he isn’t sure why, that it’s the same one as last time – and throws his things into the one he always uses. Two below and one to the left of yours.

It’s quiet tonight: just the pair of you and one middle-aged guy. Jihoon recognises him as the friendly man who seemingly knows everyone who comes in here – including you, apparently, judging by the way he strikes up a short but energetic conversation. When the other guy walks away, you clamp your headphones back over your ears and return to what you were doing before, occasionally bobbing your head or moving your lips in time with whatever it is that you’re listening to. Jihoon steals little glances at you now and again when you’re in-between sets, watching how you breathe deeper, how your skin glows with sweat as you tap your fingertips against your thighs.

He almost drops the bar he’s holding when you catch his eyes in the long line of mirrors. He turns away, swallowing hard, completely missing how your own gaze lingers.

Jihoon becomes so obsessed with not being caught looking at you again that he doesn’t even notice when you disappear off the gym floor completely. It’s only when he pulls his headphones off at the end of his session and glances around that he registers your absence: your third companion is long gone, and he assumes you must have snuck out without him noticing too. He settles the speakers back over his ears before pulling on an old zip-up, flicking the hood over his head to shelter him a little better once he gets outside. But he’s in no rush to get home so he takes his time, resting his bag between his abdomen and the lockers, replying to a few messages and clicking his tongue at some of the nonsense being spewed into the group-chat. 

He isn’t sure exactly how long he’s standing there for, but he does know precisely what pulls him back to the world outside of the device in his hands.

To begin with, he doesn’t notice you approach, lost completely in his screen. He doesn’t hear your footsteps, or the way you politely clear your throat to announce your presence so he can move out of the way. He misses your moment of realisation that he’s listening to music and has no idea that you’re standing three feet behind him. He doesn’t even see you walk up next to him, your hair still damp from your shower and sitting loose over your shoulders.

It’s only when you try to reach over him to grab the last of your things that he snaps out of his trance. The fragrance of your body wash hits him first, and oh boy, does it hit him. Sweet, and delicate. Then, he gets something beautifully fruity: it’s not a perfume (it doesn’t smell like a perfume), but it’s you. Your shampoo, maybe? A conditioner? He can’t tell. Whatever it is, the combination of fragrances has him feeling like he’s been slammed into by a damn freight train. He drops his bag to the floor, freezing for a second, and then finally moves away just as the little door swings open. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says hurriedly, tugging his hood down and pulling his headphones off completely. “I didn’t even think you were still here.” He can’t shake the smell of you, nor the feeling of your warm frame leaning so close to his own. God, why is his heart pounding like he’s just finished a round of sprints? Why can’t he breathe?

“No – hey, no, don’t be,” you rush, shaking your head. You finally succeed in pulling your coat free and start trying to get it on; Jihoon wonders if you often struggle to find your sleeves like this, if you’re always chasing them around like a puppy after its own tail. He does it too, sometimes. He gets it. It’s cute. “It’s okay. I was trying not to disturb-... I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine,” he tells you. For the first time, he’s able to smile back at you properly. 

Why is it so hot in here, all of a sudden? Do they shut off the air conditioning after hours or something? He’s breaking out in a sweat.

“Call it even?” you suggest shyly, extending out a hand now you’ve managed to get both arms through your sleeves. He looks down at your fingers for a second before reaching to shake your hand once, a semi-firm grip securing the ‘deal’. (He feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted after, but he tries not to make that too obvious).

It goes awkwardly quiet for a moment then, and Jihoon wishes deeply that he had it in him to say something. Anything. But his brain has gone completely empty and apparently, all he knows how to do is stand completely still like a fucking statue. He shifts his gaze from you, to the wall behind you, to the carpet beneath his shoes, all the while tugging at the collar of his sweatshirt as if it might bring him a tiny breath of fresh air. The gentle sound of you clearing your throat has him looking back at your face again though; he assumes for a second that this is maybe you about to announce taking your leave. All the while, he’s cursing himself out in his own head for being totally inept, and he’s not entirely sure that it isn’t written all over his face.

“Alone, today?” you ask, idly fiddling with your zipper and succeeding in taking him by surprise. He really didn’t think you were going to continue this. And yet…

“Hm?” he questions. 

You swallow before answering. “You… the last time, you were with a friend?” you explain, and now it’s your turn to look away. He wonders if you’re a little warm too, if he’s right in what he was thinking about the air-conditioning. 

“Oh. Right.” 

He nods. An annoying train of doubt in his mind wants to know why you’re asking about Seungcheol; if maybe it was him that you smiled at the other night, even though he knows your eyes weren’t looking up at the man he brought with him. He thinks maybe he should be used to these turns in conversation by now – you certainly wouldn’t be the first person to ask if one of his friends is available, after all – but somehow, he isn’t, and he has a slightly bitter taste in the back of his mouth as he goes on.

He really didn’t have ‘you being interested in one of his best friends’ on his bingo card for tonight, that’s for sure. 

“Yeah. I think he’s with his partner, or… I don’t know. I don’t really bring other people, often. That was a one-off.”

You nod silently and Jihoon can’t quite get a read on what that means. He wonders if you’re upset at the revelation of Seungcheol’s partner, or maybe that he doesn’t tag along to every session. Or maybe, maybe, you were just being polite, and you don’t really care what his friend is up to that means he isn’t here. But whatever it is that you’re feeling, you do far too good a job at hiding it; he’s suddenly very overcome with the desire to run, again, except this time he might just bury his head in the sand too for good measure.

“How much were you deadlifting, just then?” you ask in the lull, just as he thinks he might have perfected the best way to say goodbye that doesn’t make him come across as even more of a tool than he probably already has. It throws him off kilter, but somehow, he manages to answer you in reasonable time.

“Oh, God… uh, one… 160?” He says uncertainly. “That’s not… I can do heavier-...” In his mind, he slaps his forehead. “Wait, no, that’s-... I mean, it’s true, but I didn’t mean-...”

You bite back your smile as he talks himself in a circle but Jihoon is too flustered to notice, convinced that he now sounds like every arrogant gym rat on the planet. God, he’s given himself the ick.

“I guessed you could,” you say. 

Oh boy, this freezes him. Mid-thought, mid blink, mid-breath: he’s completely stuck. What does that mean? What does that mean? He only just manages to unstick his now suddenly dry tongue from the roof of his mouth, looking at you with surprised, confused eyes and parted lips. There aren’t any words on them, though. Like a deer in headlights, he just… stares.

“I mean, okay. Come on.” Your eyes visibly drop as you look him over, gaze lingering at his shoulders, his biceps, his waist. “You can get another twenty on that at least, right?”

He doesn’t know how to explain what’s happening to him, but if he thought he was burning up before? It was nothing compared to this, now. And there’s no way you haven’t noticed how everything from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears has suddenly started staining scarlet. He bows his head and pinches his lips tight, wrestling away the train of thought that appears as you drag your bottom lip between your teeth momentarily, still eyeing his arms. God, he’s never felt so overwhelmed in his life. 

“Something like that, yeah,” he strains. He’s trying so hard to be nonchalant, even though he knows all of his personal bests by heart. Deadlift, 195kg. He hit it a few weeks ago: a couple of days before he first saw you.

“Mm. You can tell.”

Jihoon tries to shake off the compliment, but he fails. In equal measure he wishes you’d stop (he doesn’t know how much more blood can rush to his cheeks before he keels over) and never wants you to stop talking. It’s all going straight to his stomach, though, and he doesn’t remember having felt this specific brand of nervous and excited and stupidly shy since he was in high school.

He can hardly keep up. This is the danger zone.

Maybe it’s a bad idea that he says the next thing that comes into his head in a desperate attempt to change the conversation away from how much he can pull. But somehow, his voice doesn’t break when he asks, “are you parked far away?”

What? It’s dark outside, and this part of town isn’t exactly known for its upstanding citizens and pretty flowerbeds.

“Oh,” you say, eyes a little wide. “I’m-... just staying close-by. I walked here.” The space between his eyebrows must crease a little too quickly because you immediately hurry to speak again. “Really. It’s like… not even ten minutes. All main streets. It’s nothing.”

“Ten minutes longer than I’d walk around here at night on my own,” he says lightheartedly. In tone, at least. He’s actually completely serious.

You laugh at that; he lets out a chuckle, too. Now, Jihoon doesn’t believe in fairies but he thinks that if they were real, they’d giggle just like you do. 

With a smile still on your face, you say, “what? A strong guy like you? Come on, now.”

Do you have to keep doing that? Fuck, he’s absolutely done for.

He tilts his head forwards, eyes closed, trying so hard to stop the muscles in his cheeks from lifting in a grin that it becomes a workout in and of itself.

“I mean it,” he says, taking what he hopes is a subtle breath to settle the fluttering in his chest. The next thing he knows, he’s leaning one shoulder against the lockers, a little reminiscent of every douchebag in every teen movie ever made. If he doesn’t think about it too much, he won’t cringe into oblivion until he gets home and replays this interaction over and over in his head instead of going to sleep. “Maybe I’ve just lived here too long. I might be jaded, but it’s still true.”

“How long is too long?” you ask.

“All my life,” he tells you.

“No way?”

“Mm.” A beat. “What about you?”

“I’m just staying with a friend, right now.”

“Oh, right.” He falls quiet again as he remembers the first time he saw you, remembers making the list in his head of all the possible reasons he hadn’t seen you before. The second was true, then.

Why does that feel like the worst possible scenario? He decides not to unpack that here.

“Maybe-...” you start, glancing down at your hands, which have been twisting in front of you for a few seconds now. Your chest inflates, filled with the words you’re about to speak, but only a breath comes out when you shake your head instead of saying them. “No, don’t worry. Scratch that.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, because he thinks that whatever you were about to suggest, there’s not much he would have said no to. He feels like it’s only fair to give you another chance to say it.

But you don’t.

“Yeah, it’s nothing.” You pause. “I… should probably get going.” He glances over your shoulder at the clock mounted on the far wall, squinting to see the time. 11:45.

“Shit. Yeah, me too,” Jihoon agrees. He didn’t realise it had gotten so late, so fast: he’s hardly ever out at this time. Lord, he already knows it’s going to be an open inquisition when he gets back to his apartment. His neighbours, Soonyoung and Seokmin, are about to have a fucking field day. 

But it’s already long past the time he usually goes to bed, so he asks his next question anyway. He still can’t shake the thought of you walking back on your own at this hour. “Do-… you need a ride?” 

He’s not sure if you actually consider it, or just wait a moment before you answer just to be polite. Either way, you end up shaking your head.

“It’s okay. I’ve-… got a call to make, so.” Your voice is a little quieter, lips tweaking up into a regretful half-smile, and Jihoon curses in his own head. How had he forgotten about that? “Thank you, though. Really.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. “Just… get back safe.”

You smile and nod, taking a step towards the door and Jihoon does the same. He reaches the exit first and holds it open for you; when you’re both out in the street, he suppresses a shiver and looks in the direction of where he left his car earlier. Feeling the full force of the cold, it crosses his mind to ask again if you’re sure about walking home, but you’re already pulling a beanie down over your still damp hair and tapping something into your phone, so he doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you around, uh-…” you start to say, only looking back up when you falter, realising that this is the first time you’re about to use his name and it occurs to you both, at the same time, that you haven’t done this part, yet.

“Jihoon,” he introduces himself, lips quirking into a side-smile. His gaze is expectant and you respond to it perfectly. 

“Y/n,” you introduce yourself. 

“See you around, y/n.”

You split off in the opposite direction to where he’s heading. Before he clamps his headphones over his ears for the short walk up to his car, the last thing he hears is the retreating sound of a dial-tone. 

—————

He doesn’t see you then for two whole weeks. 

For the first couple of days, he only idly notices; it’s not a big deal — it’s not like you’re always there when he is, and he’s sure it’s the same vice versa. But he notices your absence, nonetheless. By the end of the first week, he casually wonders if you’ve had a change in schedule. Maybe you’re on a different working pattern, something that means you can’t be there on Monday and Thursday evenings and at 11:45am on Sundays. 

It’s not weird. He only knows this because prior to that first conversation, acknowledging you as you crossed paths by the free-weights became part of his routine. It’s fine that he sort of misses those little interactions, isn’t it?

Maybe you’ve decided to start training ridiculously early in the morning instead? He tried that once. Never again. It then occurs to him, in the middle of a self-enforced rest day as he sits in the dark nursing a headache, that perhaps you’re not well. He sort of wishes he’d had the guts to ask for your number the last time he saw you, now: he thinks he’d check in, see if you were okay, ask how work was going or something. 

Deep down he knows he’d probably actually just be staring at a blank text thread with a ‘casual’ message typed, tweaked a few hundred times, and ultimately unsent. But that’s fine. It’s the thought that counts. 

The next time he sees you isn’t even in the gym, at all. It’s a Sunday afternoon — he finished his morning session, went home, showered, and headed back out into town after some lunch with a few errands to run. He finds himself spoiled with the luxury of a spare few hours to kill and dips into his favourite coffee place, thrilled beyond belief to find that it’s not obnoxiously busy and that there’s only one other person in the queue waiting to be served. 

Oh, he thinks when he looks up from his phone and sees a vaguely familiar set of headphones sitting on top of a definitely familiar mane of hair, standing right in front of him. Oh, shit. It’s you.

Jihoon goes back and forth with himself over it but ultimately decides he probably doesn’t know you well enough to just say hello out in the wild like this, so even though the urge to do so strikes, he holds himself back. It’s agonising, though. He really wants to. 

You step forward to order and he’s typing out a reply to a message in his, Seokmin and Soonyoung’s three-way group chat, in which he’s literally been fighting for his life as of late. He made the mistake of mentioning you in passing a few days ago and ever since, he’s had to vehemently deny that he has developed his first gym crush, insisting that actually, he’s just made a friend. They don’t believe him, because of course they don’t. That would be far too reasonable. Seokmin says that Jihoon wouldn’t be blushing just from saying your name if you were really ‘just a friend’. Soonyoung argues Jihoon wouldn’t have mentioned you at all.

“I’m so sorry — bear with me, just-…” your voice is quiet but Jihoon hears you apologising to the cashier in front of you, and it snaps him clean away from the tiff he’s having with the men who live in his building. He glances up and you’re elbow-deep in the bag over your shoulder, red in the face with your bottom lip pulled between your teeth. He turns his head slightly and sees the small hand-written sign that says the card machine isn’t working, and they’re cash only, today. 

He can hazard a guess at your predicament. 

After another few seconds of you trying to find whatever it is you’re looking for in your bag, he starts feeling bad for you. This, right here, is his own worst nightmare. Should the roles be reversed, he thinks he would’ve just turned around and walked out. It’s exactly why he doesn’t bother with backpacks and satchels day-to-day: if it doesn’t fit in his pockets, he doesn’t take it out with him. The system isn’t perfect but it has saved Jihoon a decent amount of public distress. 

But the roles aren’t reversed, and he has his wallet already in his hand, so… he only gives himself a few seconds to wonder if it’s appropriate before he does the stupid thing anyway.

“Don’t worry — I’ve got it,” he says, stepping around you, pulling out the cash to pay for your order. You’re dumbstruck when you look  at him, head tilted to the side. The person stood behind the counter glances at you, then at him, and back at you; you don’t see this, however, because your eyes haven’t left Jihoon’s face since he appeared — as far as you’re concerned — out of thin air.

“I can’t ask you to…” you start to protest, but your hands have stopped fishing around and he’s moving the cash further towards the barista, who hesitates just a second longer. 

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. I’ve got you.” He says this with such finality that you quite literally can’t argue with him. The lady behind the counter accepts the cash and you nod, shyly, mouthing a thank you. He orders his own drink — an Americano, nothing exciting — and you both go to stand at the other end of the counter while you wait.

“Hi,” you finally say, and Jihoon can’t help but give a small chuckle. 

He doesn’t have anything hugely witty or creative in his arsenal, though, so he comes back with a matching, “hey.”

“How… have you been?” you ask. 

“Can’t complain, really,” he says. “Are you okay? I haven’t seen you around for a few weeks.” Oh, God — the second the words are out of his mouth, he wishes he could take them back. Why did he have to add that last part? Why didn’t he just leave it at the question? 

“Yeah — about that,” you breathe, ducking your head to conceal the heat that’s spreading over your cheeks. “You know how I said I was staying with that friend?” He nods, and you continue. “I was waiting for some stuff to get sorted out with an apartment and it all finally got resolved, so… I’ve been moving my stuff over to a new place.”

Jihoon feels his heart sink for a moment, but he keeps his expression pleasant and engaged. His fingers threaten to give him away as they fiddle with the aglet on the drawstring of his sweatpants. 

“Sounds tiring,” he says lightly, and you laugh again, nodding. It’s odd, having his heart taking residence low in his stomach and somehow also in his throat, all while hammering away at a mile a minute. All the caffeine in the world couldn’t have this effect on him. “Is it going okay so far?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “It’s a process, but… it’ll be worth it.”

The barista behind the counter announces herself by clearing her throat and slides your drinks across the marble surface with a little glimmer in her eye. Jihoon picks them both up, extending yours out to you. There’s a pause (in which he swallows a large helping of self-doubt) as he glances to the door, working through several combinations of his next words in his mind before he looks back at you. 

“Do you… maybe have ten minutes to sit with these?” He asks. You light up immediately, not even checking the time on any of your devices, nor the wall clock behind your head. He doesn’t let himself think about why it makes him giddy that you’re accepting the offer, just like that.

“Yeah — yeah, sure.” You smile, walking through the lines of tables and sliding into one of the big, comfy chairs by the window. He unzips his jacket and slings it over the arm of the other chair before settling in himself, his long fingers wrapping around the to-go cup. The drink warms his perpetually cold palms and he sighs sweetly.

“You must be excited to get into the new place, then?” he asks after taking a sip, letting it heat him up from the inside. It could be argued that this job is already being taken care of, but Jihoon is not about to go there.

“Oh, God yes.” You nod, relaxing back in the seat with your own cup. Jihoon subconsciously leans a little forward in tandem. “It’s been fun staying with my friend, but…” You pause, lips slightly parted, before going on. “Okay, a warning: I’m a terrible person for this, I know. She’s done me a huge favour, letting me stay there — but I can’t deal with how untidy she is. It’s driving me nuts.”

A chuckle bubbles in Jihoon’s chest, cheeks starting to ache as his smile grows and grows. It hasn’t fallen since he sat down opposite you, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, any time soon. “That bad?” he asks.

“You have no idea,” you groan, covering your face with one hand. He wishes you hadn’t — he thinks you look quite lovely when you’re all lit up like this. “She doesn’t clean her dishes after she eats — she piles them up in the sink for like, three days. I don’t think she’s used the vacuum the entire time I’ve been there. I keep finding wrappers and packets and mismatched socks everywhere —” 

His snort of laughter rolls off the back of his throat rather ungraciously and he settles back into his chair. You gently bump his ankle under the table with your foot, beaming at him. “I’m serious! I can’t live like this, Jihoon. I can’t!”

The more you speak, the less he can control the fits he’s descended into, and his abs start to ache after a while; there’s desperation in your voice but it’s just wrapped up so cutely in your lighthearted frustration and decoratively tied together with your sunshine smile… he can’t help it — he’s in pieces. It’s okay though, because you’re laughing too: it makes him think of fairies again, and he can picture you with dainty, intricately patterned wings under the soft lighting in the café. He wipes the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand as he starts to calm down, taking a few deep breaths all the way into his stomach.

“You’re so much stronger than I am,” he says.. “I couldn’t deal with that.”

“You know, I had a feeling you’d be a clean person, too,” you say, sipping at your coffee again. “I mean… I’ve never seen you use the gym showers, so I wasn’t sure, but…”

“Hey,” he says, mock-defensively. “I don’t trust the locks, okay? I shower at home!”

Your cup is lifted to your mouth and he can only see you from the nose upwards, but by the creases at the corners of your eyes, he knows you’re concealing a smile behind it as you nod back at him.

Ten minutes turns to twenty and then somehow becomes thirty — Jihoon starts feeling like you’re someone he’s known for years, and not just the person he accidentally ended up paying attention to in the gym just a couple of weeks ago. He bounces off you and you bounce off him. Both of you have long-since finished your drinks, too: there’s no real reason for either of you to still be here.

Except the obvious. 

“So, the apartment,” Jihoon says, leaning forwards again with his elbows resting on his knees. “Is it…?” He makes a few circular gestures with his hands with which he tries to imply something to the effect of ‘local’, or ‘nearby’, but he can’t quite bring himself to say that out loud. You seem to catch on though. Somehow.

Then again, you did say — a few subject changes ago — that Jihoon is on your wavelength. Maybe that’s it.

“About… a fifteen minute walk from here? Give or take,” you say, and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead so fast it’s like they’re on strings, being controlled by someone else. He doesn’t realise for a few seconds, by which point he isn’t even sure how to relax them. 

“No way?” he says, trying to feign nothing more than an idle interest. Obviously, he’s soaring. 

“Yeah. I’ll want to get back training soon, too, so there’s some incentive to get this done quickly. I miss it,” you tell him.

Jihoon comes out with what he says next without thinking. His mouth is moving before fully engaging his brain. It’s the coffee jitters. Apparently.

“Well, if you need any help with anything, I’ve got a car.”

“You’re too sweet,” you say. “I really couldn’t put you out like that, but…”

“You wouldn’t be,” he assures you with a shrug. “If I’m not working or in the gym… I’m never really that busy. It’s up to you, but-… I’d be happy to.”

You bite the inside of your lip for a moment, apparently mulling this over, before wiggling in your seat to pull your phone out of the front pocket of your jeans. You unlock the device and hand it over on a ‘new contact’ screen. 

Jihoon goes completely stupid: he thinks his brain stops functioning as he takes it to put his number in — for a moment, he’s staring dumbstruck, struggling to even remember the order of the digits now he’s under pressure, but it comes back to him eventually. His thumbs dart across the screen and he checks, double checks and triple checks that he’s typed it right before placing it back in your waiting palm. 

His fingertips brush against yours and it tickles, sending small shockwaves up his arms and straight into his chest. You smile down at your phone before glancing up at him.

“You need an emoji,” you tell him, and he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Huh?”

“Everyone in my contacts has one — I’ve been doing this since I was in high-school. You need to pick one, too.”

“Oh, uh-…” Jihoon swallows, and for some reason he’s completely forgotten every single little emoticon option there is. He draws a blank. “I can’t — you pick one for me. I don’t know.”

You narrow your eyes at him for a second, pouting your lips as you seem to scroll through the endless options. Now and again, you look up at him, as if trying to see what best fits him before you continue your search. He waits. And waits. And waits. He’s about to throw in an admittedly useless suggestion of some sort of boring animal when you turn your phone around to show him what you’ve chosen.

Jihoon, the contact name reads. And there’s the little angel face next to it.

“Oh, come on,” he says, blushing deeply. “You can’t be serious.”

“I totally am,” you say proudly, turning it back and pressing to save it. He hides his face in his hands. “If you won’t pick your own, you get what you’re given. You did this to yourself.”

“Wow,” he chuckles weakly, sliding his hands up into his hair and raking it back off his face. Your eyes move quickly across every inch and boy, does he notice. You shrug in response and test it, sending the same little emoticon to him. He blushes harder when it comes through and he saves your number into his own phone before placing it face-down on the table. 

More than an hour after buying your coffee, Jihoon stretches his arms above his head and checks the time on his watch. He frowns slightly, not sure how the afternoon got away from him so fast, and lets out a sigh.

“I think I need to get going,” he says reluctantly. Leaving you is absolutely the opposite of what he wants to do, actually. Alas, “I have some friends coming over tonight.”

“Yeah — yeah, of course,” you smile, leaning to one side to pick your bag up off the floor. “No worries.”

You both move to stand up and he throws his coat over his arm, leading the way out. He holds open the door for you to leave first, then follows you outside into the afternoon sun. 

“It was really nice to see you,” you say, turning to face him. 

“You too,” he agrees. “Text me if you need anything, okay? But actually do. Don’t just say you will?”

You laugh sweetly. Fairies. His ears might have actually caught fire this time. “Okay, okay. I promise. I’ll text you — thank you.” There’s a pause, but only a tiny one. “And for the coffee, too.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he insists, waving it off. You shake your head. He thinks your hands are twitching when you stuff them into your pockets but he can’t be sure. Your breath definitely stutters, though. 

“No, really. Um… next one’s on me?” 

He blinks, and blinks again. Next one? The next one? He feels like he’s malfunctioned and been forcibly rebooted. The next one? 

“I-…” he starts, his throat dry. “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” You nod, smiling with — what he doesn’t realise is — relief. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah — I’ll see you, y/n.”

—————

Jihoon has no choice but to admit defeat to the group chat that night when Seungcheol and Jeonghan come over for a takeout.

Within minutes, his oldest friend is asking about the girl from the gym — he’s been just as relentless as Seokmin and Soonyoung in quizzing Jihoon, except it’s slightly harder to deny to Seungcheol because he did witness, first-hand, the way you had his friend tripping over his own feet with a single smile. At first, Jihoon tries to shrug it off. Play it down. Change the subject. He doesn’t mention that he’s actually spoken to you since he and Cheol trained together, or that he accidentally bumped into you and paid for your coffee, or that you stayed talking with him for as long as you did. He definitely doesn’t say that you exchanged phone numbers. 

He absolutely won’t confess to being smitten. 

All Jihoon willingly admits to is that from what he’s seen of you around, you seem nice, and with a roll of his eyes he does agree that he thinks you’re attractive. He gets a bit of a glare later in the evening when  Jeonghan asks if he’s thought about where he wants to take you on your first date, and Jihoon tells him to stop asking stupid questions and eat his chicken before he eats it for him. But all in all he thinks he evades the worst of it pretty well. For now, anyway — he knows their pestering isn’t going away any time soon. 

Especially not when, on their way out, Seungcheol leans close and whispers that whatever is going on with his gym crush, it suits him. Jihoon jabs him on the arm and the two men leave, laughing brightly.

It’s about an hour after his friends have gone home, having washed the dishes and cleaned up his apartment that Jihoon is sitting on his living room floor doing a few lower body stretches before he turns in for the night. He finds himself tapping into your text thread — not for the first time this evening — and skimming over the short conversation you had earlier. You messaged him when you got back to your friend’s place to thank him for the third time, and Jihoon replied back telling you that if you didn’t stop being silly, he was never going to respond to you again. Your reply came in the form of a “:(“ and his was a simple “:)”. That was it, but he’s been thinking about the exchange ever since. 

He’s not sure why. Nor is he certain what about that has him looking down at the messages and grinning like a fool in his apartment, alone, at 10:30pm on a Sunday night. He could probably take a stab in the dark at what it means, though. He rubs at the back of his neck with one hand as he changes conversations and types out a short message with the other. 

jihoon: fine. you’re right. 

seokmin: ?

soonyoung: probs true, does need context

jihoon: about the gym girl. you’re right. 

soonyoung: OH

seokmin: Hahahahahaha

seokmin: Yeah, you’re definitely the last to know, dude

soonyoung: fr even chan and hansol know atp lmao 

jihoon: they what?

jihoon: how do they know?

jihoon: they don’t go to my gym! i haven’t seen them in weeks!

soonyoung: because we told them????? 

seokmin: So, we might have told everyone

jihoon: blocking both of your numbers immediately.

seokmin: Hey! We’re just glad you’ve accepted it

seokmin: When do we get to meet her?

jihoon: blocked.

Well, great, Jihoon thinks as he fights the urge to lay face down on the floor and let the laminate cool his searingly hot cheeks. 

At least he’s admitted it now. 

He’s vaguely confirmed in writing that maybe he has a bit of a thing for you — it’s out in the open and at minimum, two of his friends know that it’s real. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Fingers. Whatever. No doubt by morning, all of his friends will have found out. The point stands that he hasn’t confessed to something like this since he was approximately sixteen years old, so whatever you’re doing to him, whatever this… is, it matters. 

So, he asks himself, standing up off the hardwood floor and stretching his spine, arms locked behind him and pushed back as far as they can go. He turns off all the lights, checks the front door, goes through the motions to get himself ready for bed. So… what the fuck am I supposed to do now?

—————

Come Monday evening, he’s about ready to hit the roof.

As far as bad days go, Jihoon thinks he’s in the running for one of the worst ever. He slept awfully, tossing and turning through the night despite the usual winning combination of freshly washed bed sheets and his white noise machine drowning out the occasional disturbance from the street below. He wakes up two minutes before his alarm is due to go off, only to discover he fell asleep before plugging his phone in to charge overnight, and it’s sitting at a very risky 13%. The gel he uses to keep his hair off his face at work has gone weird and only does half a job, strands tumbling back in front of his eyes the second he goes to leave his apartment, very nearly forgetting his keys. Then, to really put the cherry on top, he sees that — at some point between getting home yesterday and now — someone has scraped his car while parking up next to him. There’s a large scratch right down the passenger side, with no note nor reliable CCTV in his apartment’s parking lot to confirm who it was, and of course, the space is currently empty. 

All this before he even gets to work.

He fundamentally knows that starting the week off with a bad attitude will only lead to a really shitty remainder, but when Vernon sends his routine ‘Monday Motivation’ booster message — “you’re going to have a great day, today!” — into the group chat, Jihoon responds with a crude photo of his middle finger, right in front of the massive scuff on the bodywork of his Hyundai. Jeonghan replies with an ‘oof’, Wonwoo with a ‘yikes’, and Joshua, ever the comedian, sends a picture of Garfield lying face-down captioned ‘Mondays’ that nobody replies to. All responses feel kind of appropriate. But he pockets his phone without sending anything else, sighing again; he locks the car and checks the handle just in case before he finally heads into the building.

It’s going to be a long day. He just has to get through it.

Things don’t necessarily improve. He ends up in and out of meetings all day, so when 5 o’clock rolls around and he’s on his way out the door, he’s feeling a bit like he’s done nothing of actual value. Just, for some reason, thinking about you and tapping out a catchy beat on the top of his desk as he pretends to pay attention to useless presentation after useless presentation. But it’s still somehow been exhausting on his brain and on the drive back to his apartment, Jihoon feels so drained that he contemplates skipping the gym altogether and going straight to bed. This internal argument takes up most of his journey, but it does keep him occupied during the rush-hour traffic if it does nothing else. 

Nothing has ever been fixed by ruining a perfectly good routine, however — so no sooner than he’s back in his apartment, he changes out of his button-down and trousers and into his regular gym gear. His protein shaker is ready on the counter for when he’s home again, the lights are off, his bag is on his shoulder and the door is locked. He pushes against it a few times, checking out of habit, despite the fact that his only neighbours on this floor are Soonyoung, Seokmin and an elderly couple with a cat they’re not technically supposed to have. Nobody tells, though, because Boots has become everyone’s emotional support animal. The only actual security threat is Seokmin maybe stealing something from his fridge, but he’s only ever satisfied after the third test anyway. 

A quick warmup and a few easy stretches later, Jihoon sets about his business. Mondays are for training legs (and often, as a result, incapacitating himself for the rest of the week), and these workouts are always some of his most intense.

So intense, in fact, that he’s sweating buckets and cherry red when he steps away from the squat rack, tugging up the hem of his t-shirt to dry his face, a brief flash of his toned abdomen on full view. He’s just about catching his breath when he glances in the mirror, and his knees nearly give out when he sees you walking in. You lock eyes and smile at him in the reflection as you start to walk towards him.

It’s not just any smile, but he’s way too flustered to notice.

He spins around to face you, mortally embarrassed that you definitely just saw that, but in a weird way… kind of elated? You drop your headphones to sit around the back of your neck to greet him as you get closer. He pushes his hair back off his forehead and tries to act as cool as he can, but Jihoon suddenly becomes incredibly aware of everything about himself in this moment: his posture, how his arms hang by his sides, the exact positioning of his feet. The fact that he’s breathing pretty deeply, that his pulse is so loud in his ears that he can see your lips moving but can’t quite hear what you’re saying.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit — you’re talking. Focus. He needs to focus. 

“Sorry — what was that?” he asks, eliciting a soft laugh from you.

“I like your shirt,” you repeat, a fraction clearer. Jihoon glances down at himself, at the same sweatpants and tight black workout top he wears in here several times a week, and looks back at you with a raised eyebrow. God, he lets himself think for half a second, entertaining his own stupidity with the idea that you’re finding this as hard as he is, too. Maybe I’m not alone in this. 

“Oh?” he says. “Um — thank you?”

“How’d it go with your friends last night?” you ask, hardly skipping a beat, and he’s a little thankful that you skim over his poor attempt at gratitude for a compliment he isn’t sure he deserves. Instead, his confusion wraps itself around the fact that you actually remembered what he was doing last night. Hell, even he’d forgotten in the heat of the day he’d had, but you remembered. He’s sweating over it a little and briefly wonders what the chances are of the gym floor opening up and swallowing him whole.

Slim, he decides. But not zero. 

There’s hope.

“Yeah — yeah, it was nice,” he says, internally kicking himself for overthinking this so much that he’s apparently lost his ability to speak. In the space of 24 hours, he’s gone from giggling over coffee with you to completely weak just at the sound of your voice. It should be easier here, if anything — this is home turf for him. His comfort space. He supposes the tight fit of your gym clothes accentuating your hips and thighs isn’t helping matters, and neither is the wide neckline of your own t-shirt exposing your throat and a collarbone. But still. He’s not a teenager. He should be able to handle a little bit of skin. 

He clears his throat, rolling his head side-to-side. Focus. “Sorry — I’m-… I just didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.”

“Yeah,” you chuckle. “I-… couldn’t stay away. Missed it a little too much.”

“I get that,” he concurs, willing his eyes not to drop down your frame to a newly exposed area of skin just around your waist, your t-shirt riding up as you adjust your bag on your shoulder. “It’s good to-… have you back, anyway.”

“Good to be back,” you agree. “Hey — can you leave that set up for me, when you’re done? I’m on legs today, too.”

Jihoon doesn’t want to say that he knows Mondays are your leg days, as well, so he doesn’t. Even if it is true. He wonders if you would find it odd that he’s remembered. “Sure,” he says with a small smile, which you return. Just as you’re about to walk off to drop your things into a locker, he pipes up again. “I mean — hey, if you wanted a spot, or to-… do, you know… anything…”

“Are you asking me to train with you?” you ask, eyes bright and smile wider than he thinks he’s ever seen it. This is torture. He’s not even lifting anything and his heart is about to burst out of his fucking chest — God, maybe this was a bad suggestion.

“I-…” he starts, but he lets the breath out of his lungs and shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah. I am.”

“Give me two minutes,” you agree, hurrying off to put your stuff away and fill up your bottle.

He manages to squeeze another set of squats in before you get back, which is sort of a miracle seeing as how his knees have gone completely weak ever since you arrived. He’s scrolling through his playlist as you cross the gym floor on your way back to him, but he looks up and smiles as you approach. 

“You go ahead — I’ve just finished.”

He knows he’s really fucking done for when, after the first round, you add plates onto the bar to out-lift him. All before he’s even positioned himself behind you to be a good spotter.

Jihoon doesn’t go down without a fight though, and things get a little competitive from there. Both of you throw some of your favourite (see: most agonising) exercises into the mix over the course of the hour, taking it in turns on the equipment and creating a session that just about has him able to move by the time you’re finished. You talk to each other when you’ve got the breath to do so, otherwise focussing on your workout with more intensity than either of you remember training with for a long time. 

And so what if he has to turn away from you once or twice to compose himself when breathless whines spill from between your lips on your last few reps, the sheer effort of the movements pushing your muscles to their absolute limit? So what if he feels his entire body run a thousand degrees every time you sweetly encourage him to manage just one more? So what if his palm stays tingling for fifteen seconds every time you high-five him for a set well done?

You slide out of the hamstring curl machine with a deep breath and legs like two sticks of jelly at the end of the session, and he holds a hand out to steady you as you regain your ability to weight-bear.

“You okay?” he asks, and you nod, patting what’s exposed of your chest and neck with your towel. 

“Yeah. Yeah — just… fuck.” You laugh, laying your hand over the top of his and squeezing. Only for a second — not even, only for a breath — and really just to let him know that you’re okay to stand on your own, but Jihoon feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted straight up his arm all the same. “You don’t come to play, do you?”

“Says you,” he scoffs, only now moving his hand from your upper arm. “I was wrong about you — you’re insane. Clinically insane.” 

Using the paper towels he went to gather while you were finishing up, he wipes the machine clean as you stretch out your now slightly exercise-swollen thighs. 

“I was just gonna finish up on one of the stairmasters,” you tell him, taking a long sip of your water. His eyes widen to the point of comedy, eyebrows high on his forehead. You snicker at his horror, the rim of your bottle hovering tantalisingly over your bottom lip. “What?”

“That’s-… got to be a form of masochism,” he says, exhausted just at the idea of marching up the never ending staircase even for a minute. You almost choke on your mouthful of water, only just swallowing it in time before a sudden, uncontrollable laugh erupts from your chest. 

“How?!” you ask, covering your mouth with your hand. Just like yesterday, the urge to pull your arm away, to reveal your hidden smile strikes him. He doesn’t act on it, but he wants to.

“What do you mean, how? Why would you put yourself through that after what you’ve just done?” It’s completely lighthearted, and the rush of heat on your cheeks intensifies at the cocktail of shock and awe in his gaze.

You shrug your shoulders once. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just better than you.” The way the tip of your tongue teasingly sits between your teeth as you grin at him sends bullets of adrenaline through his veins and Jihoon runs his hand over his face.

For about three seconds, he tells himself he isn’t going to take the bait. He’ll lose, he’ll admit it — he’ll put his hands up and say you’re absolutely, definitely better than he is, if it means he doesn’t have to push through a round of cardio after surpassing every single one of his physical limits. But God, he thinks you look completely irresistible standing there challenging him like this, your hands on your hips. His eyes don’t leave yours and yours don’t leave his; both of your chests stutter, just a little bit, and he can see your smile grow in his periphery.

How the fuck is he supposed to walk away?

“Ten minutes,” he concedes, matching your footsteps as you start to walk backwards towards his least favourite line of equipment in any gym, ever. “And you’re definitely getting the next coffee, now.”

——————

That Friday, you finally text him again.

His muscles have just about returned to a working state and Jihoon is quite proud to say that he has regained the ability to sit down without needing something to hold onto. He got home from work, showered the day away and has just settled down into the sofa to start on the book Wonwoo has been on his ass about reading when his phone vibrates on the side table. He reaches over for it, trying to figure out which of his friends might be trying to get hold of him early evening on a Friday, and already going over excuses in his head as to why he can’t go out to do whatever they’re inviting him to. But when your contact name flashes up on the screen, every single thought disappears from his brain.

y/n: hey :)

y/n: just out of interest, how good are you at assembling furniture?

He furrows his brows at this. There’s a very obvious answer, which is that he’s not. He doesn’t want to reply saying so, though, so he goes for what he thinks is the next best thing.

jh: well…

jh: what are you trying to put together?

y/n: a bed :(

y/n: today’s your rest day, right?

y/n: can i bribe you with dinner after? :)

Oh? His brain stalls, fingers hovering over the keypad. He can literally see your face forming a little pout before growing into a hopeful grin in his mind’s eye. He doesn’t see how he could ever say no. 

jh: apparently yes, you can.

jh: text me the address? i’ll leave in 5.

He changes out of his basketball shorts and hoodie in record time, abandoning Wonwoo’s book on his couch in favour of attempting to look at least somewhat presentable for you. He tugs on a pair of jeans that he hasn’t touched in about 6 months and one of his nicer t-shirts instead, even going as far as to spritz aftershave on the column of his throat. You’ve sent him your address and he makes to leave, doing his regular essential item pat-down on his way out the door. He puts your new apartment into his phone as he crosses the parking lot, stupidly delighted to discover it’s only 7 and a half minutes away from where he lives, and settles into his car with a series of deep exhales.

The breathing exercises don’t achieve much. His head is still spinning when he parks up in the street by your new place and lingers just outside the building. He sends you a text to say he’s arrived and you reply saying you’re on your way down. You appear in the lobby just a few minutes later.

“Hey,” you greet him warmly, crossing the space and putting your arms around him in a hug. He goes limp for a fraction of a second before his arms slide around you, too. God, he hopes you can’t feel his heartbeat right now. He thinks that the effect you have on him should be considered dangerous. But whether you can or not, you tighten your arms to squeeze him once before you unwind them from around his neck and step away. 

“Hi,” he says, feverish from the tops of his ears all the way down to his toes. His hands find his pockets as you take a few more polite steps back.

“Thank you so much for this.” Your bottom lip finds temporary home between your teeth before you’re nodding back towards the stairwell. “I’m on the third floor. Follow me.”

He does. He walks up the stairs behind you as you ask about his day at work, and he tells you that he thinks today has probably been one of the best he’s had in about 2 months. When he asks how your day went, you turn your head back to look at him and stumble on the next step, gently laughing and saying that you think you’re at your tether’s end with D.I.Y, but it’s been pretty good otherwise. By the time you reach your floor, his thighs are aching, a bit of residual fatigue from your session earlier in the week making it a little harder than it ought to be. He can’t imagine how you’ve coped every day since then; if his own building didn’t have an elevator, Jihoon thinks he’d have been sleeping in his car.

You give him a little tour of the apartment, and he stands next to you at the window as you point out where you were staying with your friend a few blocks away. He thinks the view is seriously pretty in the evening light, enchanted by how he can see the tops of the slightly lower buildings and the street below, lined with neon storefronts and currently alive with shoppers and bar-goers, but… He cringes at himself for thinking it, but the view through the glass is nothing compared to the one he has inside. 

You’ve started to put up a few decorations and knick-knacks around the place too. He doesn’t know you very well, but he still thinks it’s very you — all of it, and he likes them. Even with the room full of boxes and half-unpacked cases, there’s so much personality in it already. Charm. He brushes off your attempts to apologise for the ‘mess’, as you called it, despite everything being neatly pushed out of the way of the main space. It’s easily tidier than any other mid-move apartment he’s ever been in. 

“Did you want a drink?” you ask him, walking over to the refrigerator and resting a hand on the door. “I’ve got wine, or-… anything, really.” 

“Just some water would be great,” he says appreciatively, and a few seconds later you’re handing him a bottle, turning another one over in your hand. “I really wouldn’t be much help after a couple of glasses, trust me.”

“Does this mean you are good at it, then? Before a drink?” you ask him. Is it hope in your voice? Or do you somehow know how hopeless he is, and are you teasing? He can’t tell. Regardless, clearly his evasion earlier wasn’t quite as successful as he hoped it would be.

“About that…” He chuckles, taking a sip from the bottle and glancing sideways at you. “I’m sure between the two of us, we’ll figure it out.”

“My knight in shining armour,” you say with a laugh, closing your fingers around his wrist and leading him through the door to your bedroom. You’ve managed to separate all of the individual pieces, but you haven’t made any real progress otherwise. He settles himself down on the floor and reaches for the assembly manual, pursing his lips as he looks at the little baggies of screws and bolts and various other things he doesn’t know the names of.

“Okay.” He frowns, looking back up at you where you’ve kneeled down a couple of feet away. You’re grinning innocently back at him, but Jihoon’s lips are more aligned with a pout. “You maybe should have mentioned that the instructions are in Swedish.”

——-

Ignoring the fact that you can’t understand the directions printed on the flimsy little pieces of paper, you get to work. It’s… an interesting process, but somehow between the pair of you, you successfully manage to assemble the bed in just under two hours by mostly following the diagrams (and having to backtrack several times because Jihoon managed to miss a few steps). At three minutes to nine, you’re both finally standing up off the floor, stretching out stiff joints and tight muscles; the bed is fully assembled and made up with your sheets in the centre of the room, headboard against the back wall, the lamp you set on the dresser casting a pleasant orangey glow on every surface.

“We did it,” you say, a little in shock, a lot exhausted, and absolutely starving. At least, that’s what he assumes you’re feeling, because it’s what he is. “We actually did it.”

“I mean, you did most of it,” Jihoon says. It’s true; at a point, he was just handing you the pieces you asked him for and holding parts steady so that you could fit them together. But if you want to call it a joint effort, he isn’t going to stop you, and the roll of your eyes tells him that you do want to call it that. 

“Shh. You helped,” you scold him, bumping his upper arm with your elbow. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“If you say so,” he chuckles, taking another sip of his water. Jihoon isn’t sure he believes you, but the way you’re challenging him to argue further with your tongue pressed against the inside of your cheek scrambles his brain. Any remaining argument dies on his lips. “We make a good team.”

“We do,” you agree, expression shifting into a shy smile, bumping his arm again, your elbow lingering against him for a second longer. “Come on, I think I promised to feed you, too. What are you in the mood for?”

A movie has been playing in the background for about an hour by the time your food arrives and you’ve eaten everything. Jihoon relaxes back against the cushions of the couch and you’re settled comfortably next to him: there’s plenty of space on either side of you both, so there isn’t really any need for you to have your upper arm basically pressing against his, but Jihoon is too comfortable to say anything and you certainly aren’t making any attempts to move away. You shift your legs after about ninety minutes, bringing them up underneath you so your thigh is pressed against his now, as well, and you’re twisted slightly so you’re physically facing him but your head is still turned towards the TV.

Everywhere your clothed body touches him is scorching, and he wonders if maybe he should’ve worn a thinner t-shirt, or at the very least something a little less heavy on his legs. His jeans, slightly tighter around the thighs than perhaps would be their peak level of comfort, are clinging to him everywhere and he’s so aware of himself, so aware of you, of your sweet body wash, your fruity shampoo, every single one of your breaths… He’s cursed people out for breathing too loudly around him before, but he thinks he could replace his white noise machine with an eight hour track of just this and he would sleep like a fucking baby.

One of your elbows is propped against the top of the cushions behind you and you’re resting your head in your palm, and (not for the first time this evening) he glances sideways to look at you. They’ve been fleeting glances thus far, only stealing fractions of a moment before he turns his attention back to the TV. But this? This is the wrong moment. Entirely the wrong fucking moment because as his head turns, so does yours, and you catch him in the act. Fuck, if he thought he was burning up, before? He’s pretty sure he’s somehow just descended straight to the second circle of hell, greeting all the other lusty sinners like old friends. Several of his thoughts tonight have been considerably impure, and in this half second of blistering eye contact, they all come rushing back.

The universe is really testing him this evening, and Jihoon is stumbling. It feels like any minute now, he’s going to explode.

He straightens his spine and looks back at the TV, trying to force his eyes to focus even though he’s completely swallowed by the feeling of your arm straightening across the back of the couch, your fingertips grazing over the skin at the bottom of his hairline. He can feel your eyes still on him, your gaze burning into his cheek, no doubt following as his tongue darts out subconsciously over his lips. But he can’t quite help himself, can’t get the image of how sweet you looked out of his head; he clears his throat quietly and looks over at you again, coming over almost completely blank the second he notices the glimmer your eyes hold when they’re trained on him. 

Any. Fucking. Minute. 

“Jihoon, I-…” you start to say, and he turns himself a little bit so that he’s facing you better, completely forgetting about the movie now. That’s not a great loss: he couldn’t explain the plot even if he tried. “I don’t know if-… you can tell me if I’ve read you wrong…”

“You haven’t,” he hurries. Relief starts to ease the tension between your brows, before you scrunch them again and cock your head to the side. “I’m sure you haven’t, I mean.”

In this new position, one of his legs is bent and sitting up on the couch beneath him and you’ve adjusted your own posture to accommodate. Your knee sits just over the top of his, more of your impossible body heat radiating through his clothes, and he glances down at the site of contact before he looks back at you. 

“I just-... I don’t know, I think I knew I was interested in you from the first time I saw you, but the last few weeks especially…” You’ve been rehearsing this. He can feel it. It’s written in your eyes, holding the weight of the words you’re struggling to say, and behind them he can see cogs turning as you try to get the words in the right order. (He knows how that goes, because he’s been trying to figure out how to tell you, too.) He nods, urging you to keep going.

“I can’t get you out of my head. I really like you.”

He short-circuits, then. Even though part of him knew what you were going to say, hearing it out loud flips a switch inside him and he stops functioning. Blinking at you slowly, lips parted, heart racing – he feels as if his brain has been sucked clean out of his ears and is floating somewhere way above his head. Way outside of a contactable range, way beyond any level of rational decision-making. Jihoon knows what he wants to say, of course – he knows that he wants to say that he likes you, and that he has for a while, and that maybe you should let him take you out on a date or something, but all of that sits just behind the barrier of his teeth, so…

He leans forward and kisses you, instead.

He almost can’t believe that he’s only wanted this for as short of a time as he has; it feels like it’s been building inside him for so much longer. Relief floods through his veins, the emotional dam finally breaching. It only lasts a few seconds, but with his lips pressed to yours and yours pressing back, the static in his brain goes quiet, the movie falls silent: everything stops, except you. He thinks you could’ve been carved from stone around each other — he thinks something just feels so inexplicably right. Your hand tightens in his hair and he gasps softly as he pulls an inch back, eyes heavily lidded and looking straight at you through his lashes. You move forward, leaning your forehead against his, and the feather-light hold he has on your chin slides up to your cheek instead. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to-…” he says after a long, long moment of remembering how to breathe, how to blink, how to exist in your space without combusting on the spot. He still isn’t sure he knows how to do any of those things, especially not now he can see every single line of your face this close. He’s trying, though. “But — shit, I’m crazy about you.”

You kiss him, then, harder than before, colliding in a mess of half-finished breaths and bumped, stinging noses. His other hand comes up to sit against your rib cage, yours pressing into the material of his t-shirt over his chest. He smiles and parts his lips as yours move against them, your tongue gently sweeping into his mouth, finding his own; a soft, low moan tickles the back of his throat, his fingertips curling slightly to tighten his hold. 

Jihoon isn’t sure how you end up on your knees, straddled astride his legs with one of his hands tucked between your thigh and calf, the other on the curve of your ass — he just knows that he doesn’t mind one bit. You’re warm and comfortable, the arch of your back pressing you into him deliciously. He’s kissing you like his life depends on it (he really fears that it might), and you’re doing the same back, licking against his tongue and rocking slightly with every separation and reconnection of your lips. He feels your fingers brush at the hem of his t-shirt and slip just underneath at the same moment as you pull away from him, and he’s so dazed, so fuzzy, so lost in you that he can only tilt his head back to stare up at your face. In your current position, you’re towering over him. It’s easily the best view he’s ever had.

“Can I-…?” you ask breathlessly. The new roughness to your voice goes straight to his cock and he has to restrain himself from bucking his hips upwards.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning forward slightly to try and aid you. Your hands tug at the bottom of his shirt and peel it up over his chest: he raises his arms slightly and soon, you can toss it to the unoccupied side of the couch. He shivers slightly as he relaxes back, both at the chill in your unheated apartment and upon noticing the way you’re staring down at him. It’s addictive. 

“Oh my God,” you whisper, jaw a little slack, smoothing your hands over his shoulders to feel every ridge of hard-earned muscle. You travel down his arms, over to his chest, down his stomach… Jihoon sucks in a breath, your warm hands absolutely searing against his skin, and his abdominals tighten beneath them. Tilting your head, you press a line of kisses down the side of his neck, your lips brushing against one almost unbearably sensitive spot when you continue. “Fuck, you’re so hot.”

He smiles bashfully, rolling his head to the side and giving you all the access you want. Your lips tickle euphorically against him as he tugs you flush against his chest, both his hands now tightly pressing against your ass, fingers kneading the muscle concealed by your pants. You’re sitting right over his clothed cock and he’s reasonably sure he can feel your pulse between your thighs, letting out a soft grunt when you roll your hips deliberately down into his own. Your kisses travel to the swell at the curve of his shoulder before moving back up to his lips, where he meets you with a fire that he’s never kissed anyone with, before.

“Says you,” he murmurs into your mouth, your teeth clashing, his hips pushing slightly up off the couch. Just enough to make you sit back from him, just enough for Jihoon to open his eyes and look at you. His hair, thoroughly scrunched up and pulled around by your desperately gripping fingers, fans out at all sorts of angles and his chest has taken on a rosy hue since you last looked at it. With swollen, shiny lips, glossy eyes, breathing deep, he looks completely blissed out, like a man who could unravel beneath you if you moved just right. All from a little tongue action. He’d usually feel embarrassed, but it’s hard to when you’re the person on top of him; to be honest, neither of you would mind much if he did.

You’re pushing yourself up and off him before he can really get his bearings and an audible whine of despair parts his lips at the loss of your weight against his cock. Fuck, these jeans were a bad idea: he’s straining against the denim so much that it hurts, and there’s a near perfect outline of his hard-on. He stops pouting the second you take hold of his hand and tug him upright, though, your eyes dark and determined and intense. He thinks he might faint, actually: from standing too fast and feeling as though all the blood in his body is pulsing through his aching dick, he has to take a moment to stop the edges of his vision going dark before you’re pulling him through to your bedroom.

Something flips inside him the second you have him there. Jihoon, who was more than happy to sit beneath you and let you take all the control in the living room, is pushing you back onto the mattress by your shoulder and slotting himself between your parted thighs the moment the door is closed behind him. He’s past the point of wanting you, now: he needs you, and he needs you to need him, too. 

And God, do you. You prop yourself up on one elbow, staring at where he’s now leaning over you with wide eyes and your bottom lip drawn between your teeth. He bends down and kisses along your jawline in response, nipping gently just below your ear. Your back arches up and in a flash, one of his hands is beneath you, snapping open the clasp on your bra with a few slides of his fingers.

“Wh-…” you start, giggling and panting at the same time. He smirks against your pulse point. 

He flattens his tongue against you and licks a salty bead of sweat off your skin. “What?”

“Had no idea you could-…” You’re cut off by a gasp as one of his hands slides under your sweater, slipping beneath the garment he just unfastened. His fingertips graze over your breast and a pleading sob escapes you. His smile grows even wider. “You were so…”

“So what?” he prompts, pinching your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Another one of those beautiful sounds breaks the air above you. He does it again, massaging your breast with the palm of his hand. “Come on… talk to me.”

“So good,” you gasp, lying down flat and tilting your head back against the pillows. He rocks forwards to press his cock against you again and your thighs tighten around his hips, one leg hooking around his to keep him there. “So-… fucking good.”

You’re so impossibly irresistible to him, especially like this, and he sits up, settling on his knees to look down at you. Jihoon doesn’t even get the chance to move his hands towards the hem of your sweater to tug it off you though: you’re already grabbing it yourself, crossing your arms to pull it over the top of your head. He can see your bra now, and hell, it’s pretty even if it is just hanging off you. Baby pink and lacy. He thumbs over the material as he helps you pull it down your arms, briefly letting himself wonder if-…

“If only you’d been patient enough to see the set together.”

Oh, so you can read his mind now, too? 

You glance down to the small space between your bodies and his eyes follow, lips slightly parted, a heavy sigh on his breath. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck — he wishes he had. Even imagining it, he’s throbbing.

“You wear all this for me?” he asks, hands creeping up the insides of your thighs. You nod up at him and he smiles down at you. “Fuck. I bet you didn’t even need my help tonight at all, did you?”

You’re bucking your hips now as his thumb brushes, agonisingly slowly, over your clothed cunt. One arm has come up to cover your face: for the first time, he acts on his impulsive need to see you shy, see you needy, and leans over you to gently pull it away and pins your wrist down against the mattress. He kisses you, his fingers on the other hand pressing slightly more firmly to where he’s pretty sure your clit is.

“Y/n, you’re so pretty. Let me see you.”

“I didn’t,” you admit, voice wobbling as he works you up so much you’re actually soaking through not just your pretty underwear, but the leggings you’ve had on all night, too. He can feel it against the pad of his thumb and he raises his eyebrows for you to continue. “Just… really wanted you to come over…”

“Mhm. I know,” he soothes, bending low again and kissing down towards your chest. His lips purse over one of your nipples and he sucks it up into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the bud. He releases your wrist with the hand currently taking most of his weight and leans on his elbow, teasing your other tit with his fingers. The weight of it in his palm has him murmuring soft praises against your skin, telling you over and over how good you feel. You push up onto your elbows to try and press him closer — when his teeth tug just slightly, you’re about ready to beg.

“Jihoon, please,” you murmur. He short-circuits, again. Goes blank. His name has always sounded so much sweeter on your tongue, but this? This? Oh, he doesn’t know if he’s ever going to recover. That sound is going to stick in his head for days, months, forever, if he has anything to say about it. But even if his brain isn’t working, his body moves on autopilot: he sits up and hooks his fingers under your waistband, pulling your pants down your legs and discarding them onto the floor. 

He’s staring between your thighs with zero functioning brain cells and literal galaxies in his eyes, trying to figure out what cosmic miracle brought someone like you into his life, how on Earth he’s ended up between your thighs. The question is so overwhelming in his mind that he barely notices that you’re moving, at first. Jihoon doesn’t know what causes you to try and bring your thighs together — if it’s shyness or arousal, desperation, a search for friction? — but he stops you as soon as he realises, laying a hand on each of your legs, pinning your knees down now, instead.

“Keep your legs wide for me?” he asks, to which you punctuate a nod with an assenting hum. “Good girl.” 

You’re so wet that when he strokes two fingers over your covered pussy, pressing the fabric of your panties into your heat, they come away thinly coated in the arousal that’s seeped through them. He brings his fingers to his lips then, eyes fluttering as he licks your slick off them. You taste otherworldly and he doesn’t hesitate to tell you so with a groan.

“God,” he murmurs, tugging at the waistband of your panties with his other hand. His eyes ask if you’re ready — if you’re sure, and when you nod down at him, he pulls them off completely too. His middle finger slips between your folds, collecting the wetness dribbling out of you, and he drags it slowly upwards towards your clit. He repositions himself again, leaning down over you with his head at your neck, the heel of his hand resting against your lower abdomen. He draws small circles over the bud, laying open-mouthed kisses at your collarbone and listening to the gorgeous sounds you make, learning what you like, following each gasp and moan and chasing as many of them as he can draw out of you.   

At the same time as you start rocking your hips up to meet his hand, your nails scratching gently against his scalp again, Jihoon slips his finger down from your swollen clit to press it inside you. You gasp, high-pitched and needy, your cunt spasming around his finger and pulling it in deeper. He’s only in up to his second knuckle but the way you keen for him has him pushing further until it’s buried inside your pussy completely. 

“S’this okay?” he asks, but he knows your answer thanks to your vocal responses to him already slowly easing his finger in and out, in and out. You nod your head almost aggressively as he glances up at your face, your eyes squeezed tightly shut, jaw tense, throat bobbing as you swallow hard. 

“More — please,” you say not long after. A breath hitches in your throat when he does exactly what you ask, pressing the heel of his hand against your clit and positioning another finger at your entrance. He flexes his wrist slightly to get comfortable, pumping both fingers into you now, and he curls them upwards at just the right time to make your back arch off the bed. “Fuck — mhm, just like that—…”

He moves down your body slightly, reattaching his lips to one of your nipples as he fingers you deep and slow. He’s in no rush: Jihoon thinks he could do this all day and just deal with the RSI later on. You look so unbelievably hot with your face scrunched in pleasure, your thighs quivering as you fight to keep them apart like he asked you to, with your hips twisting down against his hand to try and get his fingers deeper and faster. When he lowers himself all the way down, settling completely between your thighs, he flicks his tongue out over your clit and your back arches up off the bed with a gasp.

“Don’t stop,” you whine, all high-pitched and rushed, both syllables merging into one hurried sound. “Fuck, fuck — please, don’t stop.”

“I’m not going to,” he murmurs, keeping pace and rhythm as he works you towards your high. God, he thinks there couldn’t possibly be anything in the world more sexy than watching you come undone from this angle. Your chest rising and falling in stuttered breaths, your hips rocking down against his hand, your pussy right on his mouth. Just the thought of it has his cock jumping in his boxers. “You gonna come for me, huh?”

“I-…” you start, releasing your death-grip on the bedsheets to bring a hand to cover your face. He clears his throat deliberately — perhaps it’s sort of closer to a growl than a cough — and he thinks maybe you really can read his mind, or maybe you’re learning that he wants to see every inch of you (especially like this), because a second later, it’s tangled up in his hair and holding him in place. “Y-yeah, fuck, I…”

“Good girl,” he coos again, and that breaks you. Your pussy tightens around his fingers and you feel yourself convulse, muscles clenching and releasing as you go over the edge with a cry. He eases you through your climax, tongue laving over your clit, fingers slowing but not stopping inside your cunt until your thighs close around his head in your oversensitivity. He takes the hint, then, and he slowly pulls away, sucking his fingers clean of your arousal while you take a few breaths to recover.

“Oh, my God,” you sigh as he moves back up and starts pressing small pecks over your chest and collarbones, your fingers lacing through his hair again to pull him up to kiss you. You groan softly at the taste of yourself on his lips, and can’t blame you. He still isn’t over it, either.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he tells you in-between kisses, one hand supporting the back of your neck to keep you close. “So pretty. So sweet. So good.”

“Shh,” you giggle, but he doesn’t. Just about every adoring adjective Jihoon has in his arsenal is murmured against your lips until you’ve gathered enough strength to get up on your knees and push him back onto the mattress, fumbling with the button of his jeans. 

He groans at the relief as you tug them down over his hips and thighs. “We don’t have to do anything else if you’re—”

“Shh.” This one’s a little more insistent, and he makes a show of clamping his lips back together. “You wore the tightest jeans on the planet, had your cock on-fucking-display for me all evening, and you think I wanna stop now?”

His jaw falls slack at the words that come out of your mouth. The incredulous way with which you say them has him involuntarily bucking up into nothing. Your expression matches his when you finally get his jeans all the way off and his thin, black boxer-briefs are the only barrier between you. The outline of his cock strains against them, tenting the fabric: Jihoon doesn’t miss the way you lick over your lips before glancing up at him through your eyelashes. It’s your turn to give him the look, now, asking that this last part is okay, with your fingertips hooked underneath the elastic waistband. He nods feverishly up at your heavy gaze.

“Please,” he groans, lifting his hips so you can pull them off. His length springs free the moment they’re pulled low enough, slapping back against his abdomen, sitting pretty against his toned muscles, thick and veiny and red-tipped. Desperate. His underwear joins the pile of clothes down the side of the bed as you throw one leg over him; sitting across his thighs, you take his cock into your hand, giving it a few gentle strokes. He fucks up into your palm when you squeeze your fingers around it.

“I need you so fucking bad,” you murmur, head spinning, and Jihoon isn’t in much of a better state himself; he’s fighting to keep his eyes open, fighting to keep his breaths coming. He sits upright, one arm behind him for support, and kisses you hard as you continue to tug at his length. 

“Need you, too,” he breathes, shifting so he has both arms around you. In a swift movement, muscles rippling, he lifts you off him and turns you over so he has you sitting on your now impossibly scrunched comforter.

He finds home back between your legs as you reach over into the drawer at your bedside and fumble around for a few seconds. He hears a little clatter and a rustling and when your hand resurfaces, you’ve pulled free a small foil square. You don’t even give him a chance to lean forward and take it; you’re ripping it open and looking up at him with the biggest doe-eyed stare he thinks he’s ever seen. He nods at the silent question, a grunt tumbling free as you roll the condom down his length. This is the most pathetic little bit of contact and he’s fighting demons.

“Okay?” he asks, shuffling back a little and giving you space to lie down flat on your back. You nod up at him, already wrapping your arms around his shoulders. 

“Mhm, just-... take it slow?” you ask him, anticipation rendering you already a little breathless. “S’been a while.” 

A grin blooms all the way from his lips to his eyes and he leans down to kiss you again, positioning his tip at your hole and pressing forward just enough to tease.

Your thighs tighten around his hips and he pushes himself further inside you with a stuttered groan, agonisingly slowly, inch by inch. He stills every few seconds, both to give you the time to adjust and so that he can take a steadying few breaths and not collapse at how good you feel wrapped around him; he stops pressing his hips forward before he’s fully sheathed inside your pussy and you let a whine slip, the stretch slowly easing. 

“You can move,” you tell him, laying a kiss to his chest. “I’m okay.” 

Jihoon gives a soft laugh. Oh, he wishes this was just to be polite, but no. He’s in real danger of losing control any second. “Yeah, this isn’t for you, baby.”

“Oh?” you ask. You clamp around him and he gasps at the tightness, hips jerking forward until he’s buried up to the hilt. Fuck, there’s a bruised cervix if you’ve ever had one; a high-pitched whine erupts out of your lips and he ducks his head down to your ear.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You just-... fuck, you feel so good.”

“Mm, says you.” 

It’s another moment before he thrusts with intent, though. But when he does? When he pulls out halfway before sliding all the way back inside you, losing and regaining the feeling of your heat enveloping him entirely, hearing your gasps against his collarbone? The invisible reigns holding him back unravel and he settles into a slow but intensely deep rhythm, guiding your legs around his waist. You hook your ankles behind his back and somehow, you suck him in deeper still, your bodies touching everywhere they possibly can, so impossibly close.

The arm not holding his weight slides beneath your hips and raises them just a little. Now, at this angle, every time he rolls into you he grazes against your sweet-spot and you’re reduced to an incoherent mess within a few minutes. Good, he thinks, because he’s not doing much better, himself.

You hug him tighter after one particularly well-angled thrust, sinking your teeth into the muscle of his shoulder. He hisses at the sting, and your lips part as if you’re about to apologise but he doesn’t give you the chance to; he bumps your nose with his own to ask you to lift your head slightly, before he bends down and kisses you hard.

“Do that again,” he gasps, almost all of his weight against you as the hand not around your hips comes up to rest on your cheek. When your brows tighten, he swipes his thumb over your spit-covered, swollen lips. “Please. ”

So, you do.

Maybe not as harshly as the first time, but your teeth find his collarbone and you suck a bruise into his skin, drawing from him the highest pitched sound you think he could possibly make. He squares his jaw, ducking his head back down, biting on his bottom lip before he has no choice but to speak.

“I’m close, y/n,” he confesses, fucking into you slower, trying to stave it off for a few more seconds, his hips stuttering. “Can-... can you give me one more…?”

You nod, the knot in your stomach already growing tighter and tighter with every movement he makes, and when one of your hands unwinds from around his back to slide between your sweat-slicked bodies, he moves slightly away, letting you reach down.

It’s the sight of two of your fingers finding your clit and rubbing your favourite movements out on yourself that takes him past the point of no return, his cock sliding in and out of you messily, desperately, chasing the high that he’s right on the brink of. He kisses and nips just below your ear, breathy groans tickling your neck, and your high-pitched whine tells him you’ve hit your orgasm just as he starts to spill his into the condom, gushing around him, your walls fluttering and milking him for all he’s worth. 

—

You offer for him to shower first – an offer he gratefully accepts. While you’re taking your turn afterwards, Jihoon hunts down a fresh duvet cover in your room; he changes it, grabs you a glass of water for when you’re done, and sits on the edge of his bed with just the towel wrapped around his waist, scrolling through his phone. He looks up with a bright grin as the door opens and you emerge through it in your pyjamas, glowing from the light behind you, stray droplets of water clinging to your arms. 

You pause gently rubbing your hair dry with the towel, eyes brightening when you see him. “You didn’t have to do all this,” you say, and he pushes a hand through his own still damp hair with a laugh.

“It was the least I could do,” he counters. You raise your eyebrows at him, crossing the room to sit opposite him. He drops his phone down onto the mattress. “I couldn’t leave and make you change them yourself.”

“Leave?” you ask, picking up one of his hands and playing idly with his fingers. 

“I mean, it’s getting pretty late, so…” he says. “I probably need to get going at some point.”

“Or…” you say, tongue darting out over your lips. “Maybe you don’t.”

Jihoon looks down at your hands, then back up at you. Are you suggesting what he thinks you are, or has he still not quite come back to himself from earlier? It’s hard to say if the look on your face is hope, or something else.

“Are you… asking me to stay?” he asks. 

“Only if you want to,” you tell him. He lifts your hands up, pressing a kiss to one of your knuckles, then using it to tug you closer to him until he can plant one on your own lips. “I’ve probably got an old t-shirt you could sleep in.”

“Of course I want to.”

So you slip away from him to go rummaging through your drawers, trying to find the promised article of clothing. The whole time, he’s awestruck. Jihoon can’t take his eyes off you.

——————

He wakes up next to you for the first time on a Saturday morning. His sleep-fogged brain registers lying on an unfamiliar mattress, tucked beneath new bedsheets, eyes fluttering open to take in a room he doesn’t quite recognise at first. Part of him wonders if he’s still dreaming. When he rolls over onto his side, and his eyes land on the curve of your shoulders, the fall of your hair down your back, he has to ask himself the same thing again. 

All of last night must’ve been a dream, he muses, smiling shyly to himself and watching your frame rise and fall with every slow breath you take. There’s no way you really told him you liked him, too. There’s no way any of it could have really happened.

“Y/n?” He asks in the gentlest of whispers, only wanting to stir you if you’re awake already. When there’s no response, he moves a tiny bit closer to you, hesitating before he slips his arm around your waist and settles with his chest pressed against your back. A wildly insecure part of his brain tries to argue that just because you wanted what happened last night, that doesn’t mean you want all of this now. Maybe you only wanted to sleep with him, or maybe you’ll have changed your mind somehow now the sun’s come up. He considers moving away again, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling until you wake up and he can have a real conversation about where both of your heads are at with everything, but he barely gets a chance.

Those thoughts are silenced almost immediately, his brain falling quiet the second you roll over in his arms. You bury your head in the valley between his pectorals, tucked away from the world beneath his chin. His arms tighten around your sleep-warmed body.

“What time is it?” You ask. He contains a shiver at the softness of your voice, bliss running the length of his spine. Jihoon thinks that he could get used to this.

“I don’t know. Early, I think,” he murmurs, and you whine softly, burrowing deeper against his chest. “Go back to sleep.”

“Not if you’re awake,” you say. He’s not entirely convinced you can stick to that promise, though, with the way you yawn and he feels your eyelashes fluttering. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he tells you, the tips of his fingers ticking against your side. He ducks his head, pressing a kiss to your hair. A soft hum rumbles in your throat and he can’t hold back the smile that spreads over his lips. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

True enough, you fall back asleep curled up against him and Jihoon, to the sounds of your slowing breaths, drifts off too. A few hours later, at a far more reasonable time, you wake him up with a press of your lips to the tip of his nose.

Innocent, exploratory kisses grow heated in the warmth of the sun that streams through your blinds. Hands start to travel, sleep clothes get discarded, and you have him lying on his back, pressing kisses down his chiselled stomach when his phone starts to vibrate on the floor next to the bed.

He groans at the distraction, again as you shuffle up to sit on your knees and look at him expectantly. 

“Are you gonna answer that?” you ask, the tips of your fingers grazing his thighs. He shakes his head, no. “Come on, Jihoon. It might be important.”

“Not important enough,” he sighs. 

“At least see who it is,” you laugh. Despite a huffed protest, he props himself up on one elbow, leaning over the side of the bed and glancing down at his phone screen.

Seungcheol.

The arrangement to go for a run this morning comes rushing back to Jihoon, who slaps a hand to his forehead and reaches down to grab his phone off the floor, looking at you apologetically.

“Give me two seconds,” he says, and you grin wickedly up at him, ducking low to press a kiss to one of the lines that disappears down into his boxers. 

“Take all the time you need.”

He answers the call frowning, flopping his head back against the pillows. 

“Hey, look – I’m really sorry,” he starts to say, but Seungcheol’s voice cuts him off almost straight away.

“Jihoon, where the hell are you? I got to your apartment and your car wasn’t here, and Seokmin said he didn’t hear you come home last night. We all thought you’d died,” he hurries. Jihoon can picture the expression on the other man’s face perfectly, which is pretty unfortunate seeing as how you’ve moved to start palming his hardening cock through his briefs.

“I stayed out,” Jihoon says, a little wobbly. “I can’t make the run, someth-... shit.” You press an open-mouthed kiss to the outline of his length, the heat of your breath through the fabric sending him into overdrive. “Something came up-...”

The line goes silent for a second, and his breath stutters as you do the same thing again. Each press of your lips is euphoric agony, and he’s really not hiding this as well as he wishes he could. One look down at you tells him that you’re very proud of that.

“Dude,” Seungcheol gasps, snickering suddenly. “Tell me you’re not with a girl right now.”

“Shut up. Go away,” Jihoon grunts. “I’ll call you later.”

“Oh my God, is it gym girl? Did you finally-...”

“Bye, Cheol,” he hurries, hanging up before his friend can say anything else. He drops his phone onto the mattress, fake-glaring down at you and shaking his head. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Yeah?” you ask, pulling at the waistband of his briefs to tug them down his legs. “Let me make it up to you, huh?”

[periprose]

Hi! :)

I’m craving some Logan Howlett angsty fluff and I really like your writing style… Do you think you could maybe do a fic where either Logan and reader are in the heat of the moment and his claws come out and he scratches her. Or where Logan has a nightmare and the same thing happens. Either way the reader ends up comforting him.

Thank you! 🩷 :)

Hi!! So sorry for getting to this so late 🥹 loved the idea btw :) ended up doing a bit of a mix of both? If that makes sense.

/

"Out with it."

Your voice rings out clearly among the X-Men, the throng of battle no longer around you all. It was a more exhausting battle than you would've thought, but nothing irks you more than knowing that Logan has been apparently thinking of you as someone to play babysitter to. He hadn't trusted you to make your final blow to the enemy, and instead scooped you away to safety before lashing out with his own claws.

Logan clearly has something to say to you, and you want to hear it. You're not going to let him escape again- the way he always does, nonchalantly, refusing to acknowledge how he treats you.

Charles stiffens next to you in the helicarrier. Watching the tension, feeling the palpable heart-wrenching sensation between you and Logan. He doesn't know how you got to this point.

"Listen. Just because you didn't have it doesn't mean you're not a good X-Man-" Logan starts dismissively.

"But I did! I did have it!" You shout back at him, and then inhale carefully. "Nobody told you to rescue me, Logan. If I was about to die, then I was. I wanted that to be on my own terms."

"Don't talk like you're a fucking martyr when you've never had the privilege, kid." Logan's unnecessarily harsh tone has you flinching. "Do you know how many people I've seen die, for no good reason? Do you really want a bunch of Pentagon psychos to be your last memory?"

"Shut up." You shift in your seat, feeling small. "We don't get to choose when we die. Not like you."

Logan becomes visibly angered with that, the little taunt you've made towards his immortality. "That doesn't mean you have to go seek it out, dumbass."

"Oh really? Don't tell me you're getting soft, Logan." You glare at him, and Charles and Jean and Scott look at each other uncertainly. "Just because your life is so long doesn't mean the rest of us have forgotten what it means to be alive."

There's an unspoken, sudden charge in the air, now that you've mentioned what everyone else has the good sense to shut up about- Logan having lived so long and not caring about the consequences of his actions. Logan's eyes narrow until you feel sure that you've pushed him too far this time- he looks more animal than human, more Wolverine than ever- and you feel yourself inching forward, letting the anger of not being understood push you to fighting him- and Charles suddenly raises his hand in protest.

"Please, you two. I'm not sure what has transpired today, but I know you are better than choosing to have a physical altercation on a helicarrier flight." His calm, soothing tone makes you feel a little disappointed in yourself, and you settle back in your seat, refusing to meet his or Jean's glances of concern.

/

All you really wanted was an apology. A "Sorry, I won't do that again." Or even an explanation for why Logan keeps tabs on you all the time, never letting you be a real part of the X-Men, always safely on the sidelines. Were you just too weak?

Should you even be here?

You feel guilty for what you said to him. It's not a bad thing, you know, that Logan doesn't want you to get hurt- it's just that you want to do your job. You're not a kid.

It almost, almost justifies how you treated him, but even you know that was too far. You can't act as if you know Logan's life story- not even Charles or Jean would claim to do that, and they've searched his mind for memories several times.

Like it or not, the man was mysterious. He kept to himself on a lot of things, citing past hurt as his reason why- and you should've respected that.

"Maybe I am weak." You mutter to yourself, wondering why you can't restrain your emotions around Logan.

You're practicing shooting small, psionic blasts towards the target in your room- it's a great way to pass the time when you can't sleep- when you hear a groan, a shudder, an angry, deep growl-

It sounds like Logan. His room is right above yours, and the sounds are definitely coming from there- you hear him yell, and before you can stop yourself, you're bounding up the stairs to the third floor of the X-Mansion, bursting through his room's door with a ready hand, in case you need to fight.

/

Logan watches as you berate him in his dream.

Actually, it's not quite you- it's some venomous, evil, witch wearing your face. You giggle at him- you call him old- you don't take him seriously.

With every taunt, you fire another bright purple blast at him- and for once, his body doesn't heal instantaneously. He is getting old, getting hurt, watching as blood pools out of him. It's agonizingly painful.

He's going to die this time, without making it right with you- he's afraid that you're right about him, that he's a washed up sad old man who can't ever let people in.

"We don't need you anymore, Logan..." The not-you whispers softly, smiling a smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes, and Logan can't help but believe it.

His self preservation instincts kick in, and he launches forward, snarling, claws out with a sharp snikt sound. He feels that even though he'll regret your death, he'll miss you immensely, it's just one more tally mark to several others.

/

"Logan. Logan!"

You're leaning over Logan's sweaty, clammy body in his bed. You watch as his hands fist in the sheets, and he tosses and turns in agony- you breathe in hesitation, in fear that he's not going to be okay- he grunts suddenly, and you're reminded of how Rogue tells you about his nightmares. They're frequent.

How out of touch could you have been today?

You gently-yet-firmly grab Logan's arm, shaking, and his arms move forward in a self-defense mechanism that seems practiced, as if he's been attacked in his sleep before, and before you can move away, there's a sharp snikt sound, a quick wave of claws, and a searing pain in your side.

It all happens before you can even blink. You fall off to the side, on the floor, writhing in pain. Logan's claws just nicked your side, it's essentially a scratch- but the pain is so much worse than you're expecting, and you fall to the floor again as you try to get up.

You breathe in harshly, holding back a sob, as you feel wet blood pooling through the side of your night dress.

"Jesus Christ." Logan pounces off the bed, waking to blood all over his claws, and he's leaning over your body, as you blink up at him hesitantly. He immediately panics, lifting you up and resting you on his squatted thighs. "Kid! Hey, kid, don't close your eyes-"

"..." You're just barely hanging on, but you listen.

And Logan feels that same sense of shame he felt when he attacked Rogue, when Jean "died", every single time he had accidentally unsheathed his claws towards someone who didn't deserve it.

Doubly so, considering it's like his terrible nightmare has come to life. But you absolutely didn't do anything wrong- he can't believe he was so angry with you.

He calls for help, in a slightly broken tone, and no one seems to be coming.

"Just a scratch." You try, but Logan shakes his head.

"No, no, no." Logan spits out. "How could I- I never meant to-"

"I'm sorry, Logan." You cough, and Logan feels awful that you're apologizing while bleeding out due to his actions. "I shouldn't have said what I said. You're not some unreliable old man who doesn't care..."

You flinch at a sudden, sharp pain, and Logan motions for you to stop talking, but you keep going.

"If anything, you're the opposite. You're there for me. And I'm sorry that I got so... so angry at you for that." You mutter to yourself, not aware of how Logan hangs onto your words. "You're protecting me from making mistakes, and I'm grateful."

"No, kid. You had a point before." Logan interjects, but you shake your head.

"Did I? Or was I being a brat?" You grimace at yourself.

"You did have a point. I was being selfish," Logan shakes his head and then swallows that urge to push you away. "I don't always know how to leave people well enough alone. Sometimes I'm too much."

He hesitates, and then continues on. "Like, I treat you as if you're a nuisance, right? But I always... I always want you next to me. And I know I should just sort my shit out like an adult. But I'm scared."

"Scared?"

"Of what happens. What always happens." Logan sighs in defeat. "I fall in love, and they die. I find my people, and they leave me because I'm such a jackass. There's too much surrounding me that just... ruins everything."

"No, no. I won't leave." You tighten your hand around Logan's, and he, despite wanting to say that you're wounded because of him, believes you. He's so grateful to hear you say it- he had no idea that's what was weighing on him so badly.

He loves you, he knows he does. Logan has never been the best with feelings, but for once, he's glad he was honest.

The first thing Scott sees when he finally makes his way to Logan's room, from all the way across the X-Mansion, is Logan whispering "I'm sorry," and... he thinks (he's not 100% sure), "I love you," to your very forlorn, softly curved-around-him body.

It's a very tender moment, and Scott feels he should leave.

Then Logan presses a firm, shaky kiss on your forehead, and then your lips, and you, with your limited reserve of energy, kiss him back, and then Scott interjects with:

"Hey!...?"

He seems taken aback as you both look at him. "I heard screaming? What is this, some sort of weird cult sacrificial scenario?"

"Logan... had a... nightmare..." You wince, and Scott sees the red on your night gown. "I need... medical attention."

"On it." Scott glances at Logan for permission, and he's currently trying to push all these mushy feelings back into his chest where they belong, and he wants to be there to help you in the clinic, but he's flustered with everything that's happened and he can only hand you to Scott without looking at him.

Scott smirks to himself as he runs you to the clinic of the X-Mansion.

"You and Logan, huh? I knew there was something in that fight today." Scott remarks as you cling to him.

"It's taken an embarrassingly long time for me to figure it out, but yeah." You blush. "Has everyone else...?"

"Jean's been running a bet for the last year." Scott laughs. "She says you both are two sides of the same coin."

You can't help but agree.

[nastybuckybarnes]

Comfortable

Pairing: Bucky X Reader

Summary: Bucky finds out that you’ve never climaxed during intimacy and he’s not happy about that.

Warnings: Smut, Crying during sex, Overstimulation (mental and physical), Language, Fluff, Minor Angst but not really

Word Count: 2.8K

A/n: Kinda based on life but without bucky coming in and setting things straight lol. I’ve also got the first like 5 parts of a new series written, so that’ll be coming soon hehe. anyway, I hope you guys enjoy, and I love you all very much! 

~*~

“I don’t know, Nat, I just... I guess I’m just never... I don’t know. I’m in my head a lot, I guess.”

The redhead snickers, elbowing her sister and sharing a look with her before both of their gazes return to yours.

“Barnes lacking?”

You shake your head quickly, trying to clear his name.

“No! No, God no! He just... it’s not him, it’s me. I think too much, I’m focused on making sure it’s good for him, making sure he finishes that I... I don’t know.”

Yelena purses her lips, “does he know he hasn’t made you cum yet?”

You swallow hard and shake your head, dropping your gaze to your lap.

“I... I fake it.”

The assassins exchange glances again and you huff a sigh.

“He’s good, he’s really good and he makes me feel good and I get close but... I just can’t... I can’t cum. And it’s not like it’s just him, I’ve never cum with anybody I’ve been with. I just... can’t do it. Maybe I’m broken,” you whisper that last part mostly to yourself, but both women jump in and shake their heads.

“It’s an intimate thing. You probably just want to feel one hundred percent comfortable with the person before giving that last bit of yourself to them. Orgasming with a partner for the first time is... intense. You should talk to him about it, tell him the truth and explain it. Maybe you guys need more foreplay, maybe you need to be in control more, but you’ll only figure it out by talking to him about it.”

You bite your bottom lip and shake your head at Natasha, “I don’t wanna hurt his feelings though, Nat. I just... how the hell do I gently tell him that he hasn’t made me cum and I've been faking it the whole time?”

Two sets of trained eyes dart over your shoulder just as you hear the door to your apartment shut.

Tension pulls your shoulders up and you squeeze your eyes shut, praying that he didn’t hear you.

The way the two Russians in front of you press their lips into thin lines gives you your answer, and you drop your head forward, hating the fact that this is now a conversation you need to have with your boyfriend.

“Well uh, I think we should take that as our cue to leave,” Yelena says awkwardly, pressing on a smile and offering Bucky a small wave as she rises to her feet, Natasha following after.

You stay rooted in place on the couch, refusing to even acknowledge his presence as he putters about in the kitchen, waiting until your friends leave before finally making his way into the living room.

Your eyes don’t leave your hands as he takes a seat on the floor in front of you, his hands, one cold and one warm, finding yours and squeezing gently.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, squeezing your eyes shut and trying to take deep breaths.

If you were to look at him, you’d see that his face is confused, not angry. Not a hint of anger could be found within him. If anything, he’s upset that you hadn’t told him before. That you didn’t feel comfortable confiding in him and telling him the truth.

The entire time he was under the impression that you were enjoying the sex and getting just as much out of it as he was.

“Why are you apologizing, sweet girl?”

You sniffle and shake your head, fear icing your veins.

You don’t want him to be mad at you and you don’t want him to feel offended.

“I just... I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head and reaches one hand up to cup your jaw, raising your head enough so that you finally, finally look into his eyes.

Your beautiful eyes are filled with tears and it makes his heart ache in his chest.

“Why the tears, honey, what’s wrong?”

You shake your head and sniffle, dropping your gaze only to raise it when he squeezes your chin.

“C’mon, sweet girl, you can talk to me. I... I don’t want you to ever be afraid to talk to me, okay? What’s got you so upset?”

You take a deep breath and squeeze his hand, trying to muster up your courage.

“I just... I don’t want to make you mad.”

He furrows his brows and shakes his head, absolutely flabbergasted at the fact that you think he’d be mad at you for being honest.

“Why would I ever be mad, baby? If you’re upset, I wanna know what I can do to make you feel better.”

You take another deep breath then slowly nod.

“I just... I know that sex is a sensitive topic for a lot of guys. Especially... their performance. And yours is great! The sex is great and I love it and you’re amazing! I just... I haven’t... ya’know. I never have with anyone else either. I’m starting to think that I can only do it by myself,” you whisper glumly, your shoulders sinking in.

Bucky is quiet for a moment. He’d already heard every word you’d spoken to Natasha and Yelena, and, he’s not gonna lie, it punches at his pride to know that his girl isn't enjoying it as much as he is. All he wants is for you to feel your best in every aspect of life.

“Well, why don’t we talk about this a bit more, huh? You said that it’s not just me, but everyone you’ve been with?”

He knows this isn’t about him, it’s about you, but he really hopes that you’re not trying to soften the blow. If other people have made you cum, he wants to know how and when and then he wants to cut their fingers off for ever touching you.

You nod, sniffling. “Yeah, I just... I don’t know if I get in my head too much or if I’m... not comfortable enough, but I just... I can’t.”

He nods slowly, trying to gather his thoughts and figure out a solution.

“What can I do to make you more comfortable, honey?”

You shake your head and push to your feet, hating every word of this conversation.

“I am comfortable with you, Buck. I just... forget I said anything, it doesn’t matter anyway.”

His long fingers wind around your wrist, stopping you from fleeing like you so desperately want to.

“It does matter, honey. It matters a lot, actually. I’m not mad and I’m not offended. I just... I want you to feel the same intimacy that I feel when we have sex. It’s... amazing. And I want you to experience it. So tell me how I can make you feel better.”

Your glossy eyes raise to his and, when you see nothing but honesty and love, you nod slowly.

“I don’t know what’s missing or what needs to happen. You’ve got me really close, but I just.. maybe I think about it too much? I don’t know.”

He cups your cheeks and presses the softest kiss to your forehead.

“You’re gonna need to direct me, baby. Next time, you’re gonna need to tell me what you like, what feels good, okay? And when you get close, you tell me and I’m gonna keep going until you actually cum, is that all right?”

You nod again.

“Okay.”

He kisses your lips gently then pulls you into a tight embrace.

“Okay.”

~*~

The next time the opportunity to be intimate arises, it’s after a small get-together at Yelena’s place.

You’ve already had a sizeable glass of wine, and now all you want is your boyfriend’s hands on your body.

He pushes open the door to your shared apartment, a grin on his lips as you pepper kisses along his jawline.

“Hey, sweetheart. You want something? Hmm?”

You nod, lips not leaving his skin as you push his jacket off of his shoulders.

“C’mere.” His metal arm dips beneath your thighs, hoisting you up, while his flesh arm wraps around your waist, keeping you held tightly against his chest as you wrap your legs around him.

He leads the two of you through the apartment and into the bedroom, laying you down gently on the bed and pulling away to pull his shirt off.

You shimmy out of your dress and toss it to the ground, leaving you only in your matching black lace set.

Bucky’s eyes devour your figure and he’s quick to shed his pants and join you on the bed, crawling between your legs and smoothing his hands over your thighs.

“How you feelin’, pretty girl? You okay?”

You nod, bottom lip tucked between your teeth as he looks at you like you’re the only woman on the planet.

And to him, you might as well be.

“You gonna let me eat you out, baby? Please?”

How could you possibly say no to that?

When you nod at him, he grins, beyond pleased, and slides his fingers beneath the fabric on your hips.

He pulls your panties down your legs and brings them up to his face, holding your gaze while taking a deep breath through his nose.

“Fuck, you smell good. Taste even better, though.” And with that, he situates himself between your thighs and flattens his tongue against you, licking you from your dripping hole up to your throbbing clit.

You sigh happily, fingers tangling through his hair as he works his tongue over your clit and dips two fingers into your heat.

“Just like that...” you whisper, your head digging into the pillows as he plays you like a fiddle.

He continues fucking his fingers into you, pausing when you give a particularly hard tug on his hair then repeating exactly what made you do that.

You can feel it slowly building, each pass of his tongue and thrust of his fingers brings you slightly closer, and you can’t help but feel your heart begin to race.

“Fuck... just like that, Bucky...”

He follows your instructions perfectly, doing exactly what makes you feel good.

He watches your face scrunch, feels your heels dig into his back and your nails scratch at his scalp and - Goddamn is this what he was missing out on? This is what you look like when you’re really about to cum?

It takes all of his self-control to not grab his phone and take a picture of you.

Your chest rises and falls more rapidly and your eyes are squeezed shut as your walls start fluttering around his fingers.

Fuck, you look gorgeous.

It’s such a strange feeling, having him bring you closer and closer to the edge. It’s so foreign yet so right and you tug at his hair and roll your hips up to his face.

“Bucky, I... I’m gonna.... oh fuck, please... I’m gonna cum, please!”

God, hearing that is like music to his ears.

He continues, bringing his free hand up to yours when you reach for it.

You interlock your fingers and grind your teeth together as your release washes over you, far more intense than anything you’ve ever been able to bring yourself.

A sound that’s half-moan half-gasp falls from your lips and you squeeze his hand harder while your walls clamp down around his fingers.

Bliss fills you, sparks flying from every nerve in your body, head to toe, and Bucky watches in awe.

He’s not sure how he believed you before when you were faking. The way you look when you cum is something he’s never going to be able to forget now.

Your body is wound so tight, your thighs clenched around his head and your nails digging into his scalp. Your walls are pulsing and clenching and, fuck, it feels incredible. He can’t wait to feel it around his cock.

He continues slowly fucking his fingers in and out of you while working his tongue over your clit, only pulling away when you tug your hips back.

He smacks his lips together and pulls away, his eyes connecting with yours.

Your chest heaves and your forehead has a light sheen of sweat on it, and you look like the Goddess you are.

“How you feel, baby?” He asks gently, smoothing his hands up your sides and rubbing his thumbs over the soft skin of your stomach.

You only nod at him, your hands coming to rest on his wrists.

“Words, baby. I need words.”

You lick your lips and take a deep breath before speaking.

“I feel good, Buck. I-I feel really good,” you whisper, eyes prickling with tears at the intensity of the moment.

He smiles lovingly down at you and leans in for a gentle kiss.

You taste yourself on his tongue and it makes the moment even more erotic.

“Gonna let me fuck you, baby?” He asks against your mouth, trailing his lips down your neck and kissing your skin gently.

You nod, sighing softly as tears trail back into your hairline.

He pulls back for a moment, just long enough to situate himself comfortably between your thighs and align himself with your entrance.

And then he’s pushing into you slowly, making you feel every single inch of it.

Your mouth drops open and your legs wind around his hips, pulling him even deeper than before. He’s pressing against every sensitive spot inside you and it feels heavenly.

“Fuck, you feel good, baby. Feel so good... God... nice n’ tight... wet... shit you’re like heaven.” He rasps the words against your throat, lips trailing up over your skin to rest on yours for a quick moment before he pulls back to gaze into your eyes.

“I love you, pretty girl. I really do.”

Your heart swells and you lean up to kiss him, gasping against his lips when he pulls his hips back and slams them forward.

He starts a steady pace, smoothing one of his hands over yours and interlocking your fingers.

“I wanna feel you cum for me again. Wanna feel it on my cock, baby. God, you look so pretty when you cum. Wanna take a picture of it and frame it, I swear.”

You squeeze your eyes shut and whine softly, arching your back and groaning when he hits deeper inside of you at the new angle.

“Right there... oh fuck, please...”

He buries his head in your neck, peppering the skin there with kisses while his free hand travels between your bodies to find your clit.

He circles the bundle of nerves with expert precision, lifting his lips to yours to swallow your moans.

You’re barely kissing. No, it’s more of just breathing each other’s breaths and moaning in each other’s mouths, but the intimacy is unmatched and the passion is flaming through your soul.

You wind your free arm around his shoulders, pulling him down to press more of his weight against you, and you can’t help but feel more secure and more comfortable.

“I... Bucky... I’m gonna... oh fuck.”

He nods, showering your face in kisses.

“Cum for me, honey. C’mon, please. I wanna feel you cum on my cock.”

You can’t very well deny him when he’s asking you so nicely.

His fingers move against your clit faster and faster while his hips continue grinding into yours firmly, making your toes curl and your back arch further.

Your chest presses against his and you rake your nails against his back so hard you're sure you’re drawing blood, but you can’t find it in yourself to care.

Not when you’re falling headfirst into the most intense and powerful climax of your life.

Your vision goes white and your ears start to ring, and all you can do is squeeze around him.

Your legs tighten around his waist, your nails dig into his flesh, and your walls clamp down around his cock as fireworks erupt in your belly.

Bucky fucks you through it, keeping his pace steady as you tremble and convulse beneath him, your mouth open as soft whines fall from it.

God, the feeling of you, all hot and tight and wet around him... he’s ready to die happily now that he’s gotten to truly experience the glory that is having you cum around him.

His pride swells and he can't help the way his ego inflates when he pulls his head back to look at your pretty face.

He did that.

He made you feel that good.

He’s the only man, no, the only person in the world besides yourself that’s ever made you cum. And he’s going to be the only one.

And now that he knows how to do it, now that he's gotten you there with his mouth and his cock, he’s never going to get enough of it. He’s gotta make up for lost time, doesn't he?

[trippinsorrows]

ltye + gym time

authors: this was inspired by a request/suggestion by @romansthrone we all know smut is hit or miss for me, but this felt very much like something that needed to be done, so here we are. i.e. idk wtf this is, but we're just going with it, friends.

warnings: smut

words: 2k

gif belongs to @romanreigns (don't know why the stupid tag never works smh)

Solana has come to enjoy training. Come to enjoy feeling herself growing stronger: mentally and physically. It’s a different but welcomed experience. So, it’s no big deal to her when Bayley and Naomi text that they’re stuck in traffic due to a bad accident that essentially shut down the interstate. Knowing they’re going to be more than just a couple minutes late, they instruct her to get started on her stretching until they get there. Not a big deal.

She’s confident enough to do that all on her own.

But therein lies the issue.

She’s not alone.

Because walking into the home gym, she’s met with none other than the hulking 6’3 frame of her husband who’s in the middle of a bench press.

“Oh.”

Solana was unaware of the fact that Roman planned to come back home after leaving their bed around 7am this morning. She figured he’d get his workout in elsewhere, maybe the Warehouse. Not at their home though. Especially not when she needs the space to train.

But her reaction is not one of anger or irritation. It’s something…..else. Something that’s solely driven by the fact that Roman’s physique is something crafted by the Gods themselves. His massive shoulders and bulging biceps are on full display in the sleeveless dri-fit workout top, and she would never admit it out loud, but it’s hard for her eyes not to focus on the bulge that’s pressing against his workout shorts as he pushes his muscles—and her self-control—to the limit.

It’s only when he goes to sit up that she redirects her attention to another machine. Anything to hide the truth of what she was really staring at.

“I—” She clears her throat. “I—I have training today.” Solana grips her water bottle, tightly, as she forces her gaze back on him. Her stomach caves in just ever so slightly watching him stand up and walk over to her. “I—I need to stretch.” Something flashes in Roman’s eyes, something she recognizes but refuses to feed into. “Bay—Bayley and Naomi. They’re—they’re running late.”

“Mmmm.” Her body is practically on fire under his intense gaze, the way his eyes can’t seem to decide if they wanna focus on her face or her chest. “How late?”

But, it’s that question that makes Solana realize she has to take some control. Stepping to the side of him, she moves over to the area with matts that face a section of mirrored walls. “I—I won’t bother you.”

She hears Roman behind her. Sees through the mirror how he can’t seem to rip his eyes from her ass. “You never bother me, Solana.” It’s an almost sweet sentiment that makes her smile a bit until the next part comes out. “But you damn sure distract me……”

No, no, no

Walking back over to him, almost shuffling, she takes a deep breath, doing her best to stay focused and not distracted like him. “Okay, we—we can share this space. I do my stretching and you just….like….do what you do.” She nods and can acknowledge the fact that she’s not sure just who she’s trying to convince. Him or her. “Okay?”

Roman doesn’t say anything, just tilts his head to the side, tongue licking his bottom lip.

Oh my god.

“Okay,” she says over a shaky breath, turning to walk away so she can get started and be done. Maybe she can talk the ladies into training outside today, because it’s clear Roman just got started and won’t be done anytime soon. And his focus seems to be on everything but working out, which is no good for her when she’s also struggling to remember her reason for even coming in here….

To her credit, Solana does well. Ish. Because every so often, she’ll look into the mirror and accidentally catch Roman’s eye. Sometimes, she can tell he was already looking in her direction. Other times, it’s truly a coincidence. Regardless of the reason, it helps her realize one very important thing.

That she’s just as distracted by him as he is by her.

But, she stays strong, stays as focused as possible.

Until she does one too many moves, one too many distracting moves. 

Solana is bent over, hands on her right foot, enjoying the stretch of her limbs, the releasing of all tension in her muscles when she feels it. Feels him.

Solana gasps and shoots upward. Roman is directly behind her, his erection pressed into her ass, his hands on her hips. “Roman!”

“You really expect me to just stand here watching you bend over every which way and not get hard as fuck?” His hand moves to her stomach, bracing her against him. Solana’s hand moves over his as her eyes flutter shut.

“Roman….” The resolve is practically gone, and even she can admit she sounds more needy than anything. That nothing in the way she says his name indicates she wants him to stop, wants him to move away.

“You said you need to stretch, right?” He’s so cruel, the way he shifts behind her, almost teasing his rock hard dick against her ass cheeks at the same time he moves his hand upwards and gropes her breast. “So let me stretch you out.” 

It should be a no. Should be a declined offer. Something that doesn’t result in clothes and plans being discarded in favor of carnal temptations being fulfilled. 

She needs to be ready for training. He needs to lift. 

They had agendas that shouldn’t be altered, but the minute Roman looks at her through the mirror, full lips lifting into a smirk as he slips his hand into her sports bra and gently squeezes her breast, she knows that it’s a wrap. 

And in what feels like only seconds, Roman has her shorts off, her panties somewhere thrown about and her hands planted on the mirrored wall as he thrusts deep into her from behind.

“Roman.” When he’s inside her like this, dick throbbing and pulsing, it seems like the only word in her vocabulary is his name, a couple of profanities, and a few almost slurred indistinguishable sounds that could be words but really aren’t. “Mmmm”

Roman, however, can’t seem to take his eyes off her ass, the way it bounces off his thick dick that’s coated in her essence. “All this body you got, and you really thought I wasn’t going to touch you?” His hand moves to the small of her back, helping to steady her. “Wasn’t going to bury my dick inside you and watch you come apart?”

Solana says nothing, too focused on trying to keep her knees from giving out. Roman’s thrusts are controlled and focused but powerful and profound. It’s hard to keep her arms steady as he drives into her with all the passion and desire.

“P–please—” Eyes crunched up, Solana has the hardest time not screaming, yelling, shouting, anything to release the influx of overwhelming emotions—and pleasure. It hurts, but it doesn’t. It’s good, but it’s amazing. Too much but not enough. He’s giving her everything she needs yet more than what she can handle. “I—ca—” Moving one hand off the glass, she reaches behind her and struggles to get out a logical request. “It’s too—”

At that, he pauses, stops completely, his dick only halfway in her, and she’s never been so annoyed. “Am I hurting you?”

If not for the fact that remembering her name is a struggle with how good he feels inside her right now, Solana would feel a little bad. Would feel guilty for making this man think that anything about how he’s fucking her currently hurts. What hurts is the feel of only a part of his girthy member inside her, teasing her.

“No,” she answers confidently, unsure as to what her goal was in the first damn place. 

“Good.” Solana moans and whimpers as he’s cruelly slow with shifting his hips as he works his way back inside of her. “Then take it, baby.” God, this man is unreal. “You can do it, can’t you, sweetheart? You can take all of me. Just like you did last night.”

Just the memory alone of Roman slamming into her, holding her legs up high and on his shoulders is enough to make her come. To make her finally lose all control and fall to the floor as her orgasm tears through her, hindering her of all autonomous mobility. 

“C’mere.” Once again, she protests when he completely removes himself from her. Solana hates the hollow and empty feeling between her legs. Roman then turns her around, and she gasps as he hikes her on his waist and moves her so that her back is against the wall. 

With one arm supporting her weight, she is both embarrassed and impressed how he manages to position and guide his dick inside her wet, velvety folds. It’s enjoyed and welcomed, but what’s neither of those things is Solana’s thought at him having to hold her up. 

“Ro, I’m—” She bites down on her bottom lip, hands on his shoulder as she rocks into her. “T–too heavy.”

The last thing she wants is this man getting hurt, but the almost insulted expression on his face seems to indicate that’s the last thing on his mind.

Roman’s big hands dig into her hips as he asks with an almost haughtiness. “Do I look weak to you, baby?”

Nothing. Nothing about him screams weak.

And he emphasizes that strength as her head is naturally rocked back against the mirror while  he starts to fuck her from this new position, deeper almost, more intimate. Her breast bouncing against her ribcage from the force of his thrusts. 

Roman groans again, pushing his dick into her, mesmerized by the almost discombobulated expression on her face. He fucking loves how much she loves this. How much she loves the feeling of him inside her almost as much as he loves being inside her. 

“Goddamn, this pussy gripping the shit out of me.” He nips at her neck, hissing as Solana’s short acrylics press into his skin. “Soaking wet and just for me, huh?”

She moans into his shoulder, shaking her head, that stroke of Roman’s ego encouraging him to shift her up higher, this different position just enough to help him find her spot. The evidence in how her whimpers and moans get louder combined with those thick, luscious thighs tightening around him. 

“Love the pretty sounds you make, baby. All fucked out like this on my dick.” Roman is almost certain he could spend the rest of his life fucking his wife and never grow tired, never want to pull out or not experience the majesty of her wet ass pussy. “You gonna let me fuck you like this tonight? Hmm?” It’s a wicked thing to do, Solana thinks to herself. Mean for him to ask her something like that when she’s in no position to deny him. An impossible thing with how good he’s making her feel. “Gonna sit on my face so I can eat that pretty pussy till you’re pushing me away?”

Fuck.

Roman’s filthy talk during intimacy is something she’s certain she’ll never get used to, even if it does make her cunt flutter and throb with need. 

“Y—y–yes, baby.” Because only a fool denies a god. “Oh, shit, right there—”

“Damn straight.” He squeezes her ass, wishing he’d taken her top off. He loves her titties almost as much as he loves her ass and wishes he could have them in his mouth right now. “My sweet girl letting me take care of her.”

And take care of her does he. In every way, especially like this. Always like this. 

Solana holds onto him, clutches him close as he continues to talk her through it. The perfect combination of nice and nasty, tugging and pulling her closer and closer to her limit, to that edge where stars are the only thing she can see as a burst of intense, almost painful pleasure shoots through her, making her hold him even tighter. Roman’s tender voice is in her ear, encouraging her to ride it out, to let him fill her up as his own release arrives over him. 

He’s gentle in the way he   pulls out of her, uncaring of the cum, both his and hers, that saturates his dick. He’s too focused on the excitement at watching it spill down in between her legs and the way she continues to hold him, clearly unable to stand and walk on her own.

Solana lays her forehead against his chest, panting, “that—that was—”

“Always is,” his smart reply is also accurate. Intimacy with her has easily become one of his top three favorite pastimes. Her pussy is fucking addictive. Smirking, he does his best to ignore the fact that he’s still technically semi-hard and could absolutely prop her right back on his dick. Kissing the top of her head, he dances his fingers across her lower back, half-joking, half serious when he suggests, “you should let me stretch you out more often.”

[wen-kexing-apologist]

I'M BACK BABY! Takara's Treasure, Ep. 7 Scene Breakdown

I was settling in to bed last night when @twig-tea screamed so hard about this week’s Takara’s Treasure episode that I felt the need to get out of bed and watch it immediately. 

WORTH. 

IT. 

After months and months off writing essays, I’ve finally started getting back in to it and today I want to do a scene breakdown of Taishin’s confession scene because- 

TAKARA I SEE YOU! YOU CAN LIE TO YOURSELF! YOU CAN LIE TO TAISHIN! BUT YOU CANNOT LIE TO ME! 

First of all, let’s acknowledge that the episode starts with Takara ever so gently pulling the covers up more over Taishin, such a simple act of care to make sure this boy stays warm and comfortable. He continues that warm and comfortable trend with the coffee that he makes for Taishin when he finally wakes up. 

gif by @usertoxicyaoi

We get our first initiation of physical touch from Takara under the guise of checking Taishin for a fever. And Taishin looks at that man like a marvel. Konoshi Eito truly capitalizes on those baby doe eyes of his for this character and it works so well. Takara lingers, lingers, lingers by Taishin’s side until the moment that Taishin starts to apologize for being rude the night before. Now, that apology is almost certainly for taking his bed and making Takara sleep on the floor, but crucially Taishin did something else last night that might have Takara a little bit hesitant about apologies. 

But Takara never allows himself to have emotions, and the conversation he is about to start is one that is liable to actually cause some level of emotion to arise. So what does he do?

HE SCURRIES HIS LITTLE ASS AS FAR ACROSS THE APARTMENT AS HE POSSIBLY CAN. HE SANDWICHES HIMSELF BETWEEN THE BED AND THE COFFEE TABLE. 

gif by @ellsieee

Takara needs distance, if he is going to handle emotions then he needs the physical distance between them. When he sits, his eyes automatically go down towards the floor, his head does too, he makes his body slack, keeps his posture loose and open, playing at a level of availability and openness he definitely is not capable of achieving. His eyes move first to look towards Taishin and his head follows, opening himself just a little bit more. 

The staging of this scene is brilliant because Takara is sitting behind a glass table we can see his entire body. But Taishin is sitting behind a wood table, so we can only see the upper half of his body, which results in a much more closed off feeling, irrespective of how tense Taishin’s body is (and it is tense). 

gif by @usertoxicyaoi

The part that absolutely kills me about this scene the most is Takara’s face when he asks Taishin if it was a joke. He is definitely not making eye contact at first, and to me personally it doesn't even look like he’s firmly rooted in his own body. It takes him an eternity to settle his gaze back on Taishin’s face like he is assessing Taishin, gathering information about his reaction, and even if the way he sits is loose, there is no question in my mind that Takara is steeling himself to ask the question, steeling himself to the possibility that Taishin was just joking and Takara’s crush (which he refuses to admit he has) is not reciprocated. And Taishin is so tense. Takara’s hand is resting on his knees, his hand is open, and Taishin’s hands are closed in to a fist but he has barely ever tears his eyes away from Takara. When he does, it’s clearly out of overwhelm and embarrassment rather than Takara’s lack of eye contact that is fueled by fear and practiced repression. 

gif by @usertoxicyaoi

When Taishin is hesitating over the words, when he starts to admit that he wasn’t joking Takara’s eyes are GLUED, intensely, unblinkingly on Taishin. And the second that the truth is out, the second that Taishin is himself emotionally honest and vulnerable, and admitting to this crush, he slides his arms off the table and sinks them in to his lap.

Super fucking tense about the whole ordeal. When he admits to liking Takara he starts with eye contact and ends without it, and Taishin immediately believes that Takara is not happy with his confession because Takara looks away. (and because Takara is hot and popular and certainly has had far too many people crushing over him). 

gif by @usertoxicyaoi

I just cannot get over the way Takara engages in this conversation, every single time he starts speaking he has to look away from Taishin, to me it literally feels like he cannot look Taishin in the face until he is certain no emotion is going to leak out with his words. He cannot look at Taishin until he is certain he has control. 

And even though it is Takara that initially puts the distance between them, it is Takara that calls Taishin to his side when the truth is out. It is Takara that reaches out and takes Taishin by the wrist and pulls him down at his side. I love the dichotomy between these two, Taishin could not hide an emotion to save his life, so all his control has to go towards keeping them from spiraling in to something huge, thus he is tense, he is curled in on himself when he sits down. Takara cannot show an emotion to save his life, so all his control is dedicated towards making himself seem uncaring and calm. 

photo from @biochemjess's far more succinct post

When Taishin sits down next to Takara, Takara having invited him in to space, Taishin is crying, and once again it is Takara that initiates contact. Soft and caring contact, as he brushes away Taishin’s tears with his thumb. But now that he is up close and personal with Taishin he makes Taishin do all the rest of the work. He can’t admit that he likes Taishin too, he has to talk in riddles, he has to make Taishin try different questions until he settles on the right one. 

Seriously though, watch this scene and see that every single time Takara starts a sentence he looks away from Taishin first. And then we get to my FAVORITE PART. 

“There’s a win-win scenario, isn’t there?”  BECAUSE TAKARA DOES NOT LOOK AT TAISHIN AT ALL WHEN HE SAYS IT, OR EVEN IN THE SILENCE AFTERWARD, AND HE SWALLOWS HARD WHILST TAISHIN IS LOOKING DIRECTLY AT TAKARA PRETTY MUCH THE ENTIRE TIME. This is Takara getting as close to admitting his feelings as he possibly can, and he can’t even face Taishin head on at any point. Where normally he will eventually look at Taishin directly to read his reaction, here he only leans his head in a little, like he’s listening for something, he looks out of his periphery of his vision rather than turning his head to see Taishin clearly. He is not giving Taishin the chance to read him, he is not giving himself the chance to read Taishin, he is simply nervously waiting for a response. 

And there is something to the way that Takara’s head moves upright, his body gets a little bit straighter, seems a little bit more open when he tells Taishin to try asking him on a date. And in their own little mirrored image, when Taishin asks Takara to go on a date with him, he is looking away from Takara and Takara is looking directly at him.

gif by @usertoxicyaoi

AND THEN TAKARA POUNCES. Seriously there is barely a breath between “there you said it” and Takara pinning Taishin to the bed and kissing him. 

gif by @usertoxicyaoi

That man has been holding back for far too long. The first time he makes direct eye contact with Taishin is immediately after the kiss when he agrees to date Taishin. Taishin has confessed, Taishin has asked, Taishin has not reacted poorly to the kiss, Taishin’s feelings are his own, Takara’s desire has not influenced Taishin’s decision and now Takara can face him. 

gif by @usertoxicyaoi

And the second Taishin goes back to emotions, the very moment he asks Takara “you like me too?’ Takara goes right back to his detached, uncaring facade. He looks away from Taishin, he physically turns his entire body. He denies the statement. He can’t allow himself to want anything, to be seen to be wanting anything. Takara admits that he was planning to let his feelings go if Taishin didn’t catch on, then admits to being upset and annoyed when Taishin started to back away (again he says this without looking at Taishin). 

And the very first time Takara smiles in the entire scene, and hell one of the first time he truly smiles in the show is in response to Taishin’s reaction to the kiss. The way Taishin is still processing what happened, the way he touches his lip. And I love so much that after all the stoicism from Takara and all the tension from Taishin, we end the scene with Takara smiling and Taishin in a more relaxed and open body position.

[athanasius-symposium-of-writings]

If you could write a little thing with fem!tav and astarion where tav brings up the topic of having children? Just would love to see what you do with it and how Astarion would react, etc!

@dexpairs-blog asked: Could i request Astarion reacting to tav babying the owlbear cub and Scratch 24/7? Like baby talk, holding them like babies, playing with them and showering them with all their attention as soon as they set foot in the camp

pspsps what if i made it painful lol

Rated: M

He has no particular interest in children. They are bothersome needy creatures that he has no intention of entertaining. Astarion never understood why you like them so much, brats all of them. The time you give such caring words to the tieflings children, helped Mol out of her contact, to let some kid stay at the camp because the kid's mommy was missing.

Astarion didn't see the point but did see how you interacted with children, this gentle side of you with the bright smile he enviously wants only for him.

The Vampire Ascendant does not need to be. He already owns your body and mind.

You currently are watching Scratch run around playing with the kids in the park, your sweet giggles as the two children pretend to be heroes fighting imaginary villains with their fearsome battle dog! The owlbear is in the Crimson Palace enjoying his afternoon nap after being fed. Astarion is usually with him, you notice he has grown closer to it in recent years.

"Little love," You jump when he wraps his arms around you, "Enjoying your toys?" It… Bothered you long ago by what he calls everyone you have a harmless interest in (or interact with) toys, which is a step up from being cattle (not by much). You long ago stopped trying to convince him otherwise.

"The children are enjoying themselves. Scratch is going to sleep well tonight." You speak as kisses are placed on your exposed back, his arms pulling you closer, "Astarion," It is hard not to squirm as he hums with minor acknowledgment and seeks you out physically. Luckily you are hidden under a shaded tree while the children are pretty far from your secluded spot. "Not here." Denying him is impossible, both because he won't be denied and because you need him.

"I promised you a decade in each other's arms," resting his chin on your shoulder with eyes closed, "Yet, here you are outside without me." Hurt. Astarion seeks you out like a shark to blood, he fiends for you in a way you never thought possible.

The ascension changed him, you remind yourself.

"Soon," Tilting your head against his, "Allow me to stay a little longer."

One might think he wants time away from him.

When you pull away, your warmth leaving him, your hand catches his, "Come." You tug for him to follow.

When darkness falls, when the streets fall silent, the taverns are full; he has you close to him. Normally, he would go hunting to bring prey to feed you however tonight he does not leave your side. Laying next to one another in the bed, your eyes looking into his.

The conversation comes up over a petty argument and you still feel the tears on your cheeks.

"A child?"

"Yes, our own." You place his hand on your stomach, "We can make one. Father," The title spoken with some defeat, "Granted me that ability."

Astarion is aware, Kanchelsis gave his blessing for his beast child to be the consort of the Ascendant.

"Now why would you want a little bugger running around here? Isn't babying that dog and owlbear of yours enough?

The day you found that dog, Gods above, you refused to leave the camp until Lae'zel dragged you out. Then the owlbear! Halsin was not a damn help as he also pet the creature too.

Strange, he misses those chaotic days at times… Especially Gale.

"Mine," With a raised eyebrow, "Says the vampire who cuddles with said owlbear when it is having a nightmare." The indignant look he gives you makes you chuckle, "I only brought it up because…" His hand on your stomach slides up your chest until it reaches your face, a sad face. "Family with you… I dream of it. Of us."

He can see them, though the tadpole is long gone, the vampire can peer into your mind. Share thoughts and feelings between the bond of master and spawn— Lovers. The dreams are vivid, he can hear and picture the child that looks like him but shares parts of you too.

A family.

Your mind feels him sneer, the dislike, the fear. The fear of being a terrible father, be like how Cazador was with his family—turning and enslaving them.

"Astarion," Staring up as he moves to pin you down, "Ah!" Biting your neck and drinking from you.

"Ask me for anything and it will be yours," His lips bloodied, "This however I can't."

You are disappointed but you understand Astarion may never be in the right mindset to have a family. Too much trauma that though you tried helping him, it festers in him never to truly heal.

His forehead rests on yours, his fingers intertwined with yours keeping your hands pinned down above your head.

Sex is different this time. Of course, it feels good– Great, but this time he entertained something you hadn't expected him to do. "You... Don't have… Astarion, you don't need to." The way he fucks you is as if he was going to breed a child into you. As if every round is driven with the intention of seeing your stomach swell with his child.

It is a fantasy he entertains, speaking the filthiest words as you cry out for him. Maybe he is trying to make up to you for his rejection, you don't know. You do know after, in the silence of the aftermath, as you play with his messy white curls, his hand rubs your stomach.

A longing that he cannot ever give you this one desire.

[icarusredwings]

Rewatched Deadpool 1. Took notes.

WARNING: Discussion of mental illness topics, ending yourself, trauma, violence, etc.

Civil debate/ conversation welcomed. Sorry its super long. I think a lot.

Notes:

You know what? We see Wade coloring a lot. What's our status on just giving him cartoons snacks and coloring books? He needs it.

I think we all forget how actually impressive this man is. I just watched this cancer having fucker do like 50 flips.

Whatta man is so Logan Howlett coded.

"Bad deadpool" "good deadpool!"

Deadpool has been helping kids for a while. He terrified a little creep while he himself was a huge creep.

Missed up his words and Vanessa smiled at him. With that "aw hes cute" kinda thing.

When talking about their childhood (whether he's lying or not, hes not about the uncle) and he outdos her so much that she giggles.

The first date he takes her ducking skiiballing instead of yk prostitute stuff

Hes so romantic oh my god.

Theyre giggling and joking like all the time. Personally thanksgiving is my favorite scene before he proposes with a fucking ring pop.

I shouldn't laugh but the way he said "wtf" when passing out

Vanessa instantly jumping to "what can we do? There has to be something" makes me instantly respect her as a chronically ill person myself. Partners who medically defend each other make me so happy because a lot of people divorce their partners when they get "too sick" let alone dont show up to specialist appointments.

Him accepting death so quickly is a sign of mental illness, and you can see him be confused on why shes so upset. Shes crying and hes sitting here like "why do you care if I die or not?" He physically feels so unloved that he just doesn't get it.

"I dont know. Might further the plot. " Oh, so you know about wades little mental tv show he puts on in his head as a coping mechanism?

Also... Weasel.. YOU KNOW WHO ELSE IS A WEASEL!? Shit sorry wrong movie.

Its not until now that hes crying because he realizes if he does then no more vanessa. We already know hes very co dependent and many people only care about themselves BECAUSE of other people. Which is also considered a sign of wanting to ☠️ self.

The whole "superheros are all lame ass teachers pets" thing is so funny if you think about how much beef he has with the xmen when in reality I have a feeling Wade would love charles in a "Ugh im in trouble with Daddy wheel chair again." COUGH "old bald heavens gate looking mother fucker" COUGH

"Thats not nice" No. But wade is genuienly not nice either.

"This is embarrassing. Please stop, " Colosus said what we all were thinking.

Bro literally cut/broke off his own hand and didn't whine a single time. If you ever. EVER hear this man express pain it is 99.9% his own choice to let you know that it hurts.

During his changing process, Francis says "the only thing that doesn't survive is a sense of humor" wade says "we'll see about that" and smirks.

What also makes sense to me is that he did NOT break easily. They did test after test after test and this man still wasn't breaking. His spirit is incredibly strong and as much as we enjoy joking about how stupid he is, Wade is extremely resourceful.

Its like he has created an alter ego of humor and kindess in order to keep up with the fact he DOES understand how fucked up this world is and whats happening/happened around him but refuses to acknowledge it until he has too. Ussually for survival.

Ive seen theories that he has DID or a type of Scizophreania and the voices in the comics are obviously in his head. I have mixed feelings about it because even his thoughts have thoughts of their own in some cases. Talking to no one is often a sign of abadonment, esspecially in children who are school age and get lonely when taken from their families to attend school. Its almost as if wade never lost his and hes subconsiously talking to himself to keep himself calm/ from panicking in high stress situations.

"But then how does he know hes in a movie" thats the thing. He doesn't. Hes pretending to cope. Main charaters cant die and until he dies he has this mental show/movie going on to keep himself from realizing all of this is true. That this is reality.

Cunningham mentions breakfast for his kids and suddenly, wade wakes up. Hes not joking anymore. This is a "oh shit... I wanna make breaktsst for my kids too... with my wife vanessa" moment.

"So whats wrong with him?"

Diiiiiddd we all forget about scout master kevin? Uncle? Dad? That fact that the oxygen was physically taken from his brain and was given Co2 poisoning over and over? For multiple days? This is the same man who blew himself up just to escape because they told him he wasnt going to see vanessa again.

And then he fought a guy naked, survived the entire building burning down, and now is so insecure about his looks that he thinks he made the baby cry in the street.

Theres people staring at him, flinching away, called names, people see him and cross the street. (So when he tells Logan that he knows his pain when it comes to public settings, hes not lying)

Blind Al is literally the reason deadpools suit is what it is. Why the idiot thought white was gonna be a good idea- See above. Unlike Al, who could smell the blood/ bleach.

I really love al. She's like the adult Toph.

"I hear everything in this duplex." OH, you poor thing.

"The guy that turned me into this freak-"

Al: *bitch im blind face*

As far as she's aware, he looks normal. Which is beautiful when you think about it, but it's funny when you think about the fact that he's so insecure about his face that he purposly found a blind room mate that couldn't judge him.

And they cuddle while he gets dating advice from grammie 🥹❤️

I really like how the entirety of Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Children (HellHouse in the comics) stood up for Weasel. They're murderers. But they're family.

What they did to vanessa was straight fucked. Her fiance up and leaves without notice, youre just trying to work and live your life, you get kidnapped.

Negasonic is so cool. I love them.

Dopinder (The cab guy) is so cool too. I love him too. Kill that guy in your trunk. "Mr. Pool" reminds me of Tom holland spiderman.

"It is not boy band >:(" Suurreee it isn't.

"Wheres your duffle bag?" You mean his dollar general store tree hello kitty book bag filled with guns?

"Cue the music" *no one even gives a fuck at this point when he talks to the imaginary cams*

Negasonic mid battle: Hold on- "Hey Yukio, yeah I just gotta fuck shit up real quick, ttyl?"

"Sure thing! <3 You go baby!"

I dont know anything about negasonic but she reminds me of Gambit with her energy powers.

Like I said. Hes smart when its a serious situation because he immediately threw his katana into the glass so vanessa could breathe, only to immediately turn sappy and childish again when he sees her stab francis with it. Heart hands, is hallucinating because theres a knife in his brain (literally), sex joke. Etc.

Colossus shut the fuck up. Let this man kill him. He's hurt Soooooo many people. A bullet costs less then a dollar. His amount of therapy alone is going to be like *checks calculations* 80 billion.

"Not the nethers" Wade can and often does show proof of hurting but hed rather cut off his hand then let vanessa punch him in the balls. "Ow- owie 5000"

Hello Hugh Jackman.

After not seeing each other for so longer they instantly go back to the fibbing. "I live in the house with 12"

"You live in a house??" Funny guys get the girls. I should know. My wife says im super funny (yes im in therapy)

Pinky promises really matter to him.

Hes such a silly billy he brought out the phone with their song on it. God what a romantic idiot.

[leggerefiore]

whenever you find yourself with some time would you be willing to do nsfw cyrus hcs? and/or steven stone? i have it bad for twenty-something men with blue-gray hair and you write cyrus so well <3

cw: 18+ content, AFAB reader, gen sexual hcs,

characters: Cyrus, Steven Stone

Minors DNI

🌌Cyrus🛰

☄️ The Galactic Boss struggles to comprehend sex for the most part. Does he feel arousal? Yes, naturally. Does the urge strike him to go find his partner and have a round occur to him? He would prefer to just have a quick jerk off session and get back to whatever he had been doing before the need had arisen. Yet, it was not easy when you were around. Suddenly, your own needs came into the fray. Cyrus truly struggles to overcome this at times, afraid that he will underperform for you or simply worries too much in general. Being naked is such a vulnerable state, he truly prefers not to be, but you clearly enjoy his body.

☄️ Cyrus admittedly hesitates to initiate or reciprocate due to the feelings of it all. Sex can be purely physical, but not with someone he cares about. Your arms and legs can wrap around him when he is on top, or your hands press against his chest when you ride him. The touch… it all feels too intimate for him. He truly feels like he does not deserve it, but dares not say a word when your pleasured sounds echo around the room. Eventually, he loses himself in the throes of passion and lets the physicality take over his worries for feelings.

☄️ His usual locations for sex are almost entirely at home, but he does have moments where you end up pinned against his desk being rutted in by a frustrated Galactic Boss. There are few places he really feels comfortable having sex. The idea of anyone seeing him, and you for that matter, in such a vulnerable and compromising position truly distresses him. Though, at home, he does not do it anywhere too odd. Never in the kitchen, too worried about germs. The couch and bed are his favourite spots. You popped on some lingerie to tease him while visiting him at his office, you may find yourself pressed against the starry skies of his office wall depending on how wound up he is.

☄️ Cyrus has no idea what he is doing when it comes to giving head. Honestly, he is horrible and will not do it. He also struggles to receive it, as he completely has his mind go to the fact you have been eating things. You will have to brush your teeth for him to even begin to agree. Though, he might agree depending on his mood. Usually, it will be a no. Basically, no head for and from Cyrus.

☄️ Cyrus is a switch, but not in the traditional sense. He vehemently refuses anything related to anal (his paranoia about germs rising up again), so no pegging him. He also is not exactly a sub while being ridden. There is always some distant sort of control understood by you both. His hands will hold your hips as you bounce up and down on his cock. Your moans sting his ears while he lightly bites at your collarbone. Nails digging into his back barely register with the sheer amount of pleasure. Though, he also certainly tops. The feeling of his desk pressed into your stomach as he ruts into you from behind is not uncommon at all. Any knocks on his door go ignored as the roughness of his thrusts grow, and he hits deep inside you.

☄️ The blue-haired man does not really have any specific kinks. Well, not any that he would care to name and acknowledge. Certainly, he shows a certain leaning towards being praised by you, however. It is very subtly and something that can be overly exploited. But, your words about how good he is making you feel or how wonderful he is make him suddenly need to work harder to please you – to meet your standards. He definitely leads to being dominant as well, but not anything domineering. Cyrus just prefers to have more of a sense of control.

☄️ The Galactic Boss honestly has low libido. He never thought much about it until it came to meeting his partner in the middle with the sex. If you have more than him, you likely will end up having to do much of the work since he just struggles to catch up to your needs. He does want to fulfil them usually, but he has moments where he offers a vibrating dildo he made for you and dips. Cyrus is difficult to arouse, too. The best way might be to use a few praises smartly on him and some well-timed affection. Suddenly, he is more agreeable and interested. A hand comes to rest on the inside of your thigh when he finally surrenders himself.

☄️ Dirty talk from his is honestly rare. He does not like to talk much during sex, since he tries not to force himself to think too much about everything that he wants to fret over. Sporadically, though, he does. His arms locked around you while you ride him in his lap, he pleads barely above a whisper, “Beloved… More.” You are much too eager to meet his simple quest. Or better, when he has you under him pressed against something and completely bottomed out inside you, he suddenly mumbles out, “Your body is so close to my idea of perfection… No other being could ever make me feel as you do.” He then picks up his pace, desperate to hear more of your lovely sounds.

☄️ His sexual “no 's” are pretty simple. He hates the idea of public sex, and he is not into any kind of impact play or choking. He just… cannot. That is not an appropriate way to treat a loved one, even if they consented. As stated, he does not feel comfortable with anal. Asking that of him will result in a firm no and plain refusal. Daddy kinks are also out. Does he look like your father – actually, don't answer that. He is only twenty-seven and calling him that is honestly repulsive to him. Not opposed to being called master, though. It might make him think of his subordinates, though. Otherwise, he is pretty good with most things.

☄️ His aftercare sucks. He lays there dead to the world, post nut and then gets up to take a long shower. You may join him, but it will absolutely not be anything sexual and be entirely focused on just washing off all the fluids from sex. Cuddling does not really usually happen, but there are a few times he makes an exception. There are few words spoken, too. Give him time to recover, he struggles with strong emotional states. He does care; he is just overwhelmed.

💍Steven Stone💎

🪨 He is pretty casual when it comes to sex, actually. Is he super experienced? Well, not overly so, but he is also not a virgin. As a champion and an heir to a company, Steven was not above having one-night stands and flings. He definitely had stopped after getting with you, though. He does feel a bit embarrassed to tell you about some of his past experiences.

🪨 Steven enjoys numerous things about sex. Being close to his lover, the overwhelming nature of it, how it acts as a bonding activity. He could go on and on about it. His positions are almost certainly quite plain. The chair position, cowgirl, missionary – He prefers facing each other. Watching how you react to him thrusting into you is part of the fun, and his expressions when you grind down on him certainly are absolutely worth seeing, too. His hands do always seem to be on you as well.

🪨 His locations for sex are pretty normal for the most part. When he is home, it is nice to have intimacy with you. The sounds of the waves lapping on the shoes of Mossdeep certainly add a lovely ambience. Hotel rooms are also quite common due to his frequent travelling. There is something thrilling about getting together in some of the more luxury places that he stays. When he was Champion, he also was not above having you visit him in his chambers for a round when it was horribly slow or in his office. Of course, the most debatable places are in caves. A few times of him fucking you above some stones and gems that he found absolutely beautiful were definitely not the best choice, but he was strangely infatuated with the idea.

🪨 Steven is pretty good at head and loves to do it. There is no sight more enchanting than Hoenn's pretty boy champion between your thighs. His light hair is surprisingly soft as it tickles your skin. The flat of his tongue presses right up against your clit just right to make your toes curl. His steely eyes stare up at you as he enjoys your reactions. The steel-type trainer does enjoy receiving, but not as much as giving. His hand rests on your head as your tongue swirls around his cock head Then, a lovely groan leaves him when you bring your lips to take his dick into your mouth. He is pretty easy to please, honestly.

🪨 Steven is also a switch, but he does not really skew any which way in dominating or being submissive. He likes to work with his lover on whatever they want for that particular session. The blue-haired man has been laid out on the floor of the champion's room while you rode him. You bouncing up and down on his dick left him completely wordless. His groans echoed off the wall to a point that he was worried Drake might pop in to check on him. Then, there are times he has had you pressed against the wall of a cave. Steven rutted into you as your walls tightened around him. His rings dug into your hips when he held on to you tighter. So, the trainer definitely works with whatever his partner wants.

🪨 Kink wise, Steven is also pretty vanilla. He certainly is willing to try a thing to please his partner, but he himself barely has any requests. The few he does have are weird. He loves to gift you jewellery with stones that he adores even more. Wearing them during sex triggers some odd ferocity in them as he watches them dance on your body. It probably is a unusual marking kink, but it seems to be more focused on the stones more than anything.

🪨 Steven's libido is pretty average. Not too high, not too low. He can easily meet whatever his lover's level is, whether they need more or less than him. After all, he does enjoy sex in general. Though, an issue might arise with how busy his schedule gets occasionally. He would try to make up for it whenever he could, though. It is really easy to get him going. You could boldly walk in front of him nude but with a few of those aforementioned accessories on, or you could just run a hand down his arm and mess with his rings with a few choice words. As long as he is not busy, he is down for a quickie.

🪨 Steven does not do the best dirty talk, but he may very well try. Nothing degrading, that is not something he likes, but he tries to focus on praise and compliments. “Mmm – yes, please more, it's so good,” he babbled out while your hand gripped his cock just perfectly. His eyes rolled back as he gripped his hand tightly. Or when you had him pressed against those fancy hotel sheets and his hands desperately held your hips, “My gem – you feel so good! You're more wonderful than the strength of a Carbink...” He always somehow manages in a random rock comparison, too.

🪨 His sexual “no 's” are pretty simple. He does not really like any kind of impact play or choking, so that is out, nor does he like a daddy kink or really any authority kink for him. Might be into playing along with his partner a bit, but not letting it completely overtake things. He does not truly want public sex (excluding caves). Degradation is out. He is pretty simple.

🪨 For aftercare, Steven does quite well. After you both come back down, he offers a bath to you and likely will join you to help scrub up together. He also loves a nice cuddle session afterwards and may even order take out if it worked up an appetite. He literally will probably do whatever you want to do to unwind. So, just ask away.

[anxious-witch]

On Charles, Edwin and Crystal's relationship with violence and how it does(and doesn't) solve their peoblems, and the inherit privledge of considering non-violence can always be the answer.

Before I get to it, sorry I cannot for the life of me find the post that talked about DBDA's relationship to violence aka that it shows that there is always a better solution and how most of the problems are solved through other means. It is a really good post, so if anyone knows it, please send me the link so I can put it here.

Anyway. What I wanted to say is that while yes, I partially agree, I don't think that's quite correct. Or not always. The series definitely makes a point of saying that things should be solved by other means whenever possible, but I think we see 3 instances where that isn't true. The first meeting with The Night Nurse and Charles, Crystal meeting David in the woods, and in part, Charles getting Edwin out of Hell.

Before I get to breaking down how each one was necessary, I think what kind of bothers me is the reaction Edwin and Crystal have to Charles attacking the Night Nurse. Not so much the inital reaction because I understand that they both have trauma connected to violence, but them insisting his reaction was extreme slightly...irks me?

I understand it from Crystal-she had a lot on her plate in the past few weeks and she just got out of abusive rs. Not to mention, she doesn't know Charles and Edwin for that long. But Edwin? My god did I wanna shake him.

Like, don't get me wrong, I love Edwin to death and the fact that he is flawed is part of that but I wish it was acknowledged that his disregard for self defense and to be able to not only refuse violence, but in many cases when Charles steps in to protect him to not even move aside because he knows Charles is there for what it is-a privledge. The fact that he never had ti physically defend himself ever since he got out of Hell is a privledge because Charles does it. And to no small personal cost. I don't think Charles likes to be violent. He doesn't revel in it, and we actually see him break down several times over thinking he is a bad person because he uses violence to defend himself and his friends.

Does he sometimes use it impulsively? Yes, as seen in the episode with the Devlins'. And he pays dearly for hi error, being stuck in a loop that's directly related to his own trauma.

But in some situations, there was no other answer. The Night Nurse would have made him and Edwin relieve their trauma until they gave in. Crystal couldn't help and in that moment, neither could Niko. Charles' violence gave them more time, which gave Edwin and then Niko, more time to think of a peaceful solution. Of a bargain. But it would not have been possible without Charles kicking her off the cliff.

For the scene with David in the woods-yeah, sure he didn't solve the whole problem of David altogether, but he did A) male him fuck off for the forseeable future and B) helped Crystal feel safer due to the fact he defended her when she was powerless. With the violence, he gives her time to gain her powers back, to come and resolve it directly when she feels safe and confident enough to do so.

We see it once again when he goes to save Edwin in Hell. Yes, they get out of Hell by running, but when Charles initally suggests it, Edwin is terrified. "If I run it chases me," he says and he doesn't move. So what does Charles do? He throws a bomb at the Dollhead Spider. Which once again, gives them time to run and escape and perhaps more importantly makes Edwin feel safe.

Violence is considered bad for a reason. But I think who and why someone uses violence is very important. A bully throwing a hit for fun and a victim throwing one back to defend themselves aren't the same. They cannot be the same. And bullies, no matter the form they take, sometimes only understand violence.

I am not saying go ahead and kill someone for bullying you. But I am saying that sometimes, the teachers don't listen until you throw a punch back. Problems should always be tried to solved peacefully, but if you think every problem can be solved non-violently, I think you had the privledge to never have to do so.

Charles takes on the burden of being a protector, of using violence as means of protection and I really hope that's acknowledged at some point. Because while yes, Edwin obviously has his own talents, Charles does his job at a great personal cost. And sometimes, while violence cannot solve the root of the problem, it can give you more time and space to get to the root. And that's okay, as long as you don't lose sight of why are you using measures you are using.

[vampwritesstuff]

if you dont mind, can i request sfw headcanons on how the tmnt show affection towards their (gender-neutral) crush/partner before and after getting together? your tmnt headcanons are so cute ❤

TMNT Brothers Showing Affection

Yes !! So requests may come out slower because I’m currently in trouble with my parents and I won’t have much time to post headcannons and stuff- oops but I will work on some of the requests that I do have during this time and close my requests until I can post more !

Type: Headcannons

TMNT Version: unspecified, but I imagined 2012/Bayverse while writing this !

Requested?: Requested, refer to ask above

CW: None, gender neutral reader

LEO

- Before you guys get together, he’s actually very respectful of your boundaries and doesn’t really go past hugging unless you initiate a different form of physical contact like hand holding.

- Short circuits if you even hold his hand before y’all start dating.

- Will give you a nickname or two but they’re usually just plays on your name and not like pet names.

- Although he totally uses them like pet names and uses them to flirt.

- Poor boy just wants to grab your face and kiss you all over 😔

- He gets much more bolder with his affection after you get together.

- Is actually the one who initiates most cuddle sessions.

- He’s touch starved so please just hold him and he’ll melt like putty.

- Likes to just nuzzle his head into the crook of your neck while hugging you from behind and doesn’t care what you’re doing.

RAPH

- Before you start dating, he’s not really affectionate at all.

- Seriously, all you might get is a fist bump or a high five.

- However there may have been a few occasions where he got really happy and actually picked you up into a bear hug and spun you around while shouting.

- Refuses to acknowledge that ever happened though.

- Totally a softie once you start dating though.

- And those bear hugs? LAWD HIS HUGS WOULD BE LIKE HEAVEN.

- Very very good hugs, 10/10 absolutely recommend.

- He’s like your personal weighted blanket, he will just lay on top of you whenever he feels like it.

- But obviously he doesn’t put his full weight cause he’s afraid he may crush you.

- If you’re shorter than him, he’s definitely picking you up to reach high places.

MIKEY

- Not much of a difference before and after you start dating, he’s a very affectionate person in general.

- Maybe his hugs and such become a bit more romantic feeling than friendly?

- Loves holding your hands, like literally can’t get enough of it.

- If he hasn’t gotten to see you in a while he will quite literally koala hug you and not let go for a solid 10 minutes.

- Gives you head pats. That’s it. That’s all I gotta say on that.

- He plays with your hair, doesn’t care how short/long/etc. it is, he’s finding a way to run his fingers through your hair.

- 10/10 head massages.

- Speaking of massages, he has a habit of rubbing your shoulders when you’re feeling stressed.

- Likes to cuddle up on the couch of the lair while you guys eat pizza and watch tv.

DONNIE

- This man does not know how to function around you before you start dating.

- Literally cannot handle any physical affection because he just short circuits.

- He just sticks to trying to impress you with his inventions.

- Eventually is okay enough to handle simple contact like quick side hugs.

- Oh but after you start dating? He is ALL over you.

- Loves to have you sit on his lap while he’s working in his lab.

- Quite literally made a chair that makes it possible for it to happen while being very comfortable at the same time.

- Still gives you lots of gifts that he makes.

- Please tell him that his inventions make you happy, he loves hearing that from you.

[pruneunfair]

"My feelings on" part 5. How to get my husband on my side and how it properly tackles abuse, eating disorders, and relationships.

Another super popular manhwa that I can understand why it's so beloved. The Borgias were actual people in history that inspired characters like the protagonist Ruby, and the title itself already feels different since the world of OI is all about being a perfect badass woman, funnily enough, HTGMHOMS does this better than most.

Rudbeckia/Ruby starts off with the behavior of the og fls that a lot of OI make fun of. She is surrounded by what appears to be loving family members and is already being prepped to be married of to Izek, she looks excited and ready to do whatever her family wants until her inner monolog reveals how she really feels about them especially her older brother Cezar. She hates almost all of them and her real reason for being excited for marriage is so she can get away from her abusive household and avoid death which shouldn't be hard since the transmigrator doesn't plan on poisoning her sister in law like og Ruby did. She's a master of hiding her feelings already which is attributed to her past life in a similarly abusive adoptive household.

Right off bat, Ruby is shown to be strong in the mental sense. Not only is she walking on eggshells she also suffers from an ED (likely bulimia), there a quite a few scenes where she's throwing up, refusing to eat a lot, or in later chapters, eating a lot more out of stress. Her family too is whole new level of psychological horror. They aren't cartoonist evil, for example Pope Borgia is usually kind to his daughter and treats her with respect until he feels like she's defying him, all of a sudden that kind caring nature is gone, then he becomes threatening, or her older brother Cezar who has been abusing her for years both physically and sexually, he keeps her in place through fear, intimidation, and attacking her on occasion which is only enhanced after he kills Rubys bird and feeds it to his turtle which gives Ruby a phobia of turtles. It's actually heartbreaking with how eerily realistic it is when these types of people are easily placed like normal family members in certain scenes, because that's often how abusive family members blend in, almost no one knows what they are really like and if you looked at a first glance without context, you'd think "Ah yes, that's just a brother next to his siblings." They're never truly gone, they just know how to hide their true colors so well.

This is why Ruby is so much stronger than a lot of people give her credit for, she's dealing with all of this at the same time and her only hope of respite is being as far as possible from her home country. It's easy to jump to the conclusion that Ruby is just a weak stereotypical protagonist everytime you see her pretend to fawn over Izeks presence but if you read further, you'd know that Ruby doesn't like it any better but she thinks she's doing what's right to avoid Izeks Wrath since she's the only one who knows what he is the one who kills the og Ruby in the novel.

Speaking of which, while Izek isn't my favorite ML ever, I still was shocked to find that I liked the typical cold nobleman persona on him. Unlike a lot of ML's Izek is allowed to be flawed and his negative traits and moments aren't brushed aside, they cause some issues like Ruby going out of her way to appear dainty and sweet so Izek won't kill her. He acknowledges how he has hurt her and grows from it and doesn't push her boundaries. It's possible for the cold Duke archetype to work but a lot of the time, the whole war hero past gets thrown to the side for baseless fan service or they're just unapologetically abusive. Izek however is in the in between. His cold and dangerous persona stays consistent but that doesn't make him one note and he gets to have geninue moments of care for those in his life rendering Izek to still be likeable.

Ive noticed that the narrative also makes sense instead of twisting itself for a stupid chance at a fan service plot. An example is Ellen and Freya.

An unfortunate sideffects from the fandom was on and off hatred of Ellen for considering what Freya had to say, taking her side or not even choosing a side at all. The readers know that Freya tried to get Ruby killed by tricking her into going into a monster infested forest or when she tried to frame Ruby for poisoning her, but does Ellen know that? Realistically she's not going to immediately turn her back on Freya since they were childhood friends along eith Izek but that doesn't mean she screams at Ruby either. Ellen does care about Ruby but she knew Freya longer than she knew Ruby. From her perspective, it' makes sense that Freya would be innocent.

But perhaps the best part about Ellen that makes her my favorite character is how she notices the little details on others. She's the first to find out that Ruby has an eating disorder and it's not out of nowhere either, Ellen and Izeks late mother also suffered from a eating disorder that Ellen witnessed more than once so it gives an explanation on how she can tell what Ruby is going through.

Side characters are treated just as well as the main cast too. From the other guards to the friendly monsters to minor antagonist and even the children are all given attention to be their own beings, it doesn't have to be a lot since most of what I mentioned are minor characters but then you got characters like Ivan who has a life outside of just being by Izeks side.

Out of all the side characters I gotta say the monsters are my favorites. It makes me wish there was a side story where Ruby successfully runs away forever and lives as a little witch with monster companions.

Of course like all media, HTGMHOMS has its flaws but I think I'll chill on this one since the flaws aren't large enough to ruin it and I want to stay positive on something I like for once.

Conclusion: This is a story that does such an amazing job with its commentary. Instead of just saying "Cezar abused Ruby in the past! Feel bad for her now!" For example, we are given actual flashbacks to respect the show don't tell rule. Other characters besides Ruby suffer from their own traumas and they get their own arcs on their hardships and how they recover from it, it handles eating disorders and trauma responses in a respectful way that has an actual effect on the plot. Most of all, it does all of this with the type of protagonist that has been deemed as "weak" before in the manhwa community. Ruby isn't a boss girl who is always successful and smart. She makes reckless decisions, she cries, she isn't always able to one-up her enemies like Freya. She's a human woman stuck in a world that's not her own but she still rises to the task at hand even with all her blunders. Ironically making her more feminist then many of the female leads before her.

[nerdraging4point0]

The Scorpion and the Scales //Chapter Seventeen// Poly-AU

Tropes and Tags: MF, MFM, MFMM, instalove, too much sex, tattooed musicians, polyverse, friends to lovers.

Content warning: 18+ only MDNI, PinV, PinA, oral (f!recieveing, m!recieving), threesomes, light BDSM, voyeurism, exhibitionism, partner sharing, jealousy, angst.

This work below is fictionalized ideas and stories involving real people but does not directly reflect their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction.

Fanclub: @tearfallpixie @ladyveronikawrites @synthetic-wasp-570 @yournecessaryevil @dominuslunae @awkwardalex @rumoured-whispers @beaker1636 @mysticdoodlez

For the past few months, the four of us had been navigating the uncharted waters of our unconventional relationship. Noah was on a sold out European tour, he’d been gone for nearly a month, returning to us in just a couple of days. This time around he kept all of us in the loop during his time abroad. The group chat was a flurry of activity, with Noah regularly texting small, amusing anecdotes about the hijinks he and his bandmates were getting up to between shows. And even cute messages about how he missed us and couldn’t wait to be home.

Sometimes I'd look up and across the room, Chris would be bent over his phone, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he texted his boyfriend. They’d certainly fallen for each other, communicating in private almost as much as I did with either of them, sometimes I wondered what they would say to each other. While Rick had initially been open to the idea of the four of them exploring intimacy together, it took him some time to fully embrace the deep connection between Noah and Chris.

There was an undeniable, almost primal energy that crackled between the two men, as if they had unlocked a hidden part of themselves that only the other could access. Their bond went beyond mere physical attraction - it was a meeting of souls, a melding of spirits that left the rest of us feeling almost like outsiders looking in.

It was hard to spend time together, not one of us lived in the same place at the same time. With the guys touring separately, Noah living out west, Chris and Rick both owned property in Pennsylvania-one of which I now lived in, leaving the apartment to move in with Rick-Chris on a whim bought property down south, overseeing the renovations for the next two months. It was hard to know when we’d all be together again.

Even as the four of us loved each other dearly, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy watching Noah and Chris together. There was a level of intimacy there that I knew all too well, but my stubborn Virgo refused to acknowledge it.

With him, I felt complete in a way that the others could never replicate. And yet, there was always an elusive quality to him, a part of him that seemed to hold back, keeping me at arm's length no matter how tightly he embraced me. Sometimes this was maddening, leaving me aching to fully possess every inch of him. Other times, it was easy to forget, to lose myself in the all-encompassing comfort of his love. But the nagging feeling that he was hiding something, guarding a piece of himself, was always there, a persistent undercurrent that I could never quite shake.

We’d flown into Tampa for the weekend. A few days from now I'd be departing with Noah on a Caribbean cruise-our own mini vacation. But until then Rick and Chris were mine.

They had booked us the high-end suite, complete with a private sitting room, fully-equipped kitchen, and a spacious balcony offering a breathtaking ocean view. The real excitement, however, lay within the master bedroom, where the boys had me completely at their mercy.

Blindfolded and helpless, my naked body trembled with anticipation as I felt the soft fleece lining of the cuffs binding my wrists and ankles in a tight hogtie. This was Rick's favorite restraint system, one he had learned about from Chris. At first, Rick had been mesmerized, his curiosity piqued by the sensations and power dynamics. Now, he wielded that knowledge with a confident, commanding presence.

I lay there, utterly exposed and vulnerable, my body restrained and senses deprived. The sturdy stretching bar forced my knees up and apart, leaving me open and accessible. Cuffs securely fastened behind my back, rendering my arms immobile. The satin blindfold sealed off my vision, plunging me into total darkness. Without sight, my other senses strained to compensate, hyper-alert to every subtle sound and sensation. The quiet hum of the air conditioning reverberated through the room, while the gentle whirring of the distant fan created a soothing, ambient backdrop. The flickering candles on the dresser crackled and popped, their warm glow no doubt casting enticing shadows, though I could only imagine them. I waited with bated breath, heart pounding, every nerve ending electrified as I anticipated the unknown.

The door slowly creaked open, the frame softly sliding across the carpet floor. Shifting restlessly on the bed, I felt the heavy weight of the plug nestled deep inside me. The foreign sensation elicited a soft, needy whine from my lips, all I could do to quell the overwhelming sensations coursing through my body.

"I told you she looks pretty tied up like this," came a voice, laced with pride and underlying lust that made me shudder involuntarily.

Chris.

"Pretty is an understatement," purred another, Rick's voice dripping with carnal desire as it hit my ears. "She looks delicious."

At those words, large, cool fingers ghosted across my lower belly, causing me to jerk forward instinctively, arching into the tantalizing touch. Long fingers cupped my breast in a sickly, possessive manner. I mewled softly, pressing into their touch, aching for more.

Chris leaned in close, his warm breath caressing the delicate shell of my ear. “You up for a game, precious?”

The familiar wetness pooling between my thighs was enough of a ‘yes’ in my book. My mouth simultaneously went dry, then flooded with saliva, as my body betrayed the hunger stirring within. With a breathy, obedient tone, I uttered the words he longed to hear - "Yes, sir."

His touch shifted, feeling two fingers glide up and down the throbbing pulse point of my neck. "The game is this," he purred. "Rick and I are going to touch you in different ways, and you have to guess who is touching you. If you guess wrong, you get punished." My breath caught in anticipation at the prospect of punishment, but- "What if I guess right?"

"Then we keep going," Chris replied, his voice shifting as he moved around the room. My ears strained to track his movements, desperate to pinpoint his location, but the room seemed to swallow the sound of his footsteps. "Are you ready to play, little one?" he murmured, now directly in front of me, the predatory edge in his tone sending a delicious shiver down my spine.

“Yes. Sir.” I breathed.

Tension hung thick in the air as I waited with bated breath, every nerve ending on high alert. I had been anticipating this moment, craving the feel of their touch. My heart pounded in my ears, the rhythmic thumping drowning out all other noise as I struggled to steady my erratic breathing.

Then, without warning, a feathery caress grazed my left arm, the delicate fingertips trailing slowly up my triceps and back down again in a tantalizing, sensual glide. A shaky exhale escaped my lips as I concentrated on the electrifying sensation, willing my breath to even out.

“Rick.”

The fingers that had been caressing my skin with languid, soothing motions paused for a moment, and I was met with a low, rumbling affirmation, his warm breath ghosting across the sensitive skin of my neck in a way that made me shiver.

"Very good, baby girl," he murmured, his lips brushing against me in a soft, fleeting kiss before the contact was gone leaving me bereft and aching for more.

Tugging gently at the metal cuffs encircling my wrists and ankles, I tried to ground myself, to focus on the physical sensations rather than the maelstrom of emotions raging inside me. Suddenly, a familiar hand caressed my calf with a featherlight touch, I wet my lips trying to steady my racing heart.

"Chris," I breathed, pride swelling in my voice as I recognized his tender, masterful touch.

"Very good, precious," he purred, more words of approval dripping from his lips. Someone climbed on the bed, rolling me softly to my side.

“No need to guess, baby girl,” Rick teased as I felt him fumble around hearing the click of the cuffs releasing my wrists setting my hands free. I helped roll myself onto my back, my arms stretching out searching for my boys. A pair of hands slid up my arms interlacing our fingers as they gently pinned me to the bed.

“Hands stay above your head, baby girl.” Rick’s commanding yet playful tone sent delicious shivers over my body, and I obediently kept my hands raised exactly as he had instructed, knowing full well the mischievous grin that must be gracing his handsome features.

Rick's rough yet tender fingers glided sensuously down the bare skin of my arms, igniting sparks within me. Every point of contact between our bodies felt heightened, hyper-aware, as though my nerve endings had been set alight. Fighting the urge to reach out and pull him closer.

I could feel their eyes roaming hungrily over my naked body, drinking in every curve and contour. The vulnerability of being so openly displayed before them, helpless and at their mercy, sent lightning bolts of exhilaration coursing through me.

Their breathing was nearly imperceptible, the only giveaway the faint, tantalizing whispers of air that occasionally reached my ears, hinting at their proximity. I was acutely aware of every shift in the air, every subtle vibration, my body tense and quivering with anticipation, unsure of what sensations might come next. Suddenly, I felt a weight settle on my belly, the cool touch of leather sliding teasingly across my skin, dipping into the sensitive hollow of my navel before vanishing altogether, leaving me aching for more contact. The brief caress ignited a smoldering desire within me, my skin craving their touch. The anticipation was maddening, my mind racing to keep up with the tantalizing game they were playing.

"That's not fair," I gasped, my voice breathy and strained with barely restrained need. The words tumbled out before I could stop them, betraying the desperation I felt.

Chris's deep, rumbling voice came from my left, a delicious contrast to Ricky's taunting, teasing tone sounding from my right. "That's not a guess, little one,"

"Guessing is part of the fun," Rick purred. I was surrounded, enveloped by their powerful presence, my senses heightened to the point of overwhelming sensitivity.

I swallowed hard, taking a deep, steadying breath before responding in a quivering voice, "May I have it again, please?" I could hear shuffling all around me as I lay there, my senses heightened, waiting in anticipation. The familiar touch of supple leather grazed my belly once more, sending a shiver through my body. I tried to focus, to guess who might be wielding that delicious instrument, but the sensations were so overwhelming that it was difficult to think clearly.

The flogger began caressing my stomach, slowly working its way down towards the sensitive juncture of my thighs. Instinctively, I parted my legs, aching for the sweet bliss that was sure to follow. But just as the blissful contact was about to meet my throbbing, needy core, the flogger was cruelly torn away, leaving me whimpering with want. I had to guess, and guess quickly, before the torment continued.

"Chris," I breathed, his name falling from my lips as I waited with bated breath. The slap of the flogger against my belly wasn't too harsh, but the unexpected contact still caused me to curl in on myself defensively.

A shiver ran down my spine as Rick's dark, authoritative tone filled the room, enveloping my senses and sending a flush of warmth through my body. In my mind's eye, I could vividly picture him standing before me - his dark locks framing his chiseled features, his smoldering gray eyes lit with intensity as he gripped the flogger in his strong hands. I imagined the way his pink tongue would dart out to slowly wet his full lipd, a mere preview of the wicked things that mouth was capable of.

“Wrong, baby girl,” the flogger slapped at my thighs. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

I took a deep, steadying breath, trying to compose myself before responding to his declaration of my misstep. But before I could utter a word, another stinging slap landed on the tender flesh of my thigh, causing me to involuntarily roll to the side.

Rick's voice was low and dangerous as he leaned in close, his warm breath caressing my ear. "I'd like to up the stakes, precious," he purred. "Three more wrong guesses and I'm going to edge you till you're begging me for release. Three more right guesses, and one of us will give you the orgasm you're dying for." The tantalizing promise sent a fresh wave of arousal coursing through me, my body thrumming with anticipation for the delicious game of chance that lay ahead.

I could feel the bed shifting as the two men hovered over me, their presence looming large and commanding.

Rick's calloused hand began caressing the red stinging skin of my thighs, sending tingles of pleasure through my body. I rolled my hips, desperate to feel more of his touch, to be closer to the heat and hardness of him. "Please," I whimpered, my voice quivering with need. Chris's lips brushed against my cheek as he teased, "Then be good."

The game was on, and I was ready to play. A featherlight kiss was placed just below my navel, and I knew instantly it was Rick's familiar touch. "Rick," I said confidently, and was rewarded with Chris's praise. "That's one. Good girl."

The men moved around the room, the sounds of rustling and shifting sending my imagination into overdrive. When I thought I might be left untouched, a hand suddenly grasped my exposed nipple, rolling and pinching the sensitive flesh. My back arched, a gasp escaping my lips as the delicious sensation radiated through me.

“Chris.”

I could hear his wicked smile, his dark chuckle echoing off the wall as his hand slid down my torso pushing my thighs open wider. My body ached to be touched, desperate for the stimulation it craved.

My hips bucked when a warm tongue slid into my entrance, circling slowly before withdrawing, I let out a needy mewl. The sensations were exquisite, setting my nerve endings alight. I strained to focus, wanting desperately to guess correctly this time, knowing the consequences if I didn't.

"Rick," I breathed, the name tumbling from my lips before I could stop it. I braced myself, uncertain of what was to come next. But then Rick's lips closed around my swollen clit, sucking firmly, and all rational thought fled my mind. My back arched up off the bed as sparks of pleasure shot through me. Rick's skilled tongue flicked and teased, sending shockwaves through my trembling form. I panted heavily, my hips rolling in time with his mouth, the tension building steadily within me. The lines between Chris and Rick blurred as their touches melded together, overwhelming my senses. I was utterly at their mercy, my body a livewire of sensation, aching to be satisfied after so much tantalizing anticipation.

As Chris stroked my forehead tenderly, Rick’s talented tongue slid in and out of my aching, sensitive entrance in a steady, rhythmic motion. I could feel the coil of pleasure building deep within my core, a familiar tension that threatened to unravel at any moment. The tip of Rick's nose brushed against my swollen, throbbing clit with each pass, the delicate sensation sending shockwaves of ecstasy through my body. I desperately wanted to tangle my hands in his hair, to urge him on, to pull him closer, but Chris was quick to react, using one hand to stop my moving wrists pinning my arms down. "Don't ruin it, precious," he taunted, his voice dripping with smug satisfaction. "Wouldn't want to have him stop now, would we?" I shook my head vehemently, my hips rolling and jerking in response to Rick's probing tongue. God, no, I couldn't bear the thought of him stopping, not when I was so close, the coil of pleasure tightening with each passing second.

"You gonna come for him, little one?" Chris purred, and I could only pant out a desperate "Yes, yes" as I felt myself careening towards the edge. The moment Rick's moan vibrated against my throbbing sex, I shattered, my thighs trembling as I came undone, wave after wave of ecstasy washing over me. His strong hands held me open, allowing him to ride out my climax, his tongue lapping at my sensitive flesh until the last shudder had passed.

As I slowly regained my senses, I felt Rick's weight lift from between my thighs, leaving a void that yearned to be filled once more. Tugged by my wrists, I sat up on the bed, blinking rapidly as the blindfold was pulled from my face. My eyes adjusted to the soft lighting, and there he was - Rick, gazing down at me with a mesmerizing smile that was equal parts beautiful and unsettling.

My gaze drifted downward, drinking in the sight of his naked body. I ached to reach out, to wrap my fingers around his heated flesh, to run my tongue along his length, to take him fully into my mouth and savor his musky taste. My mind was consumed with wanton thoughts, craving to experience his body in the most intimate ways.

"You ready for the real fun?" He purred, his voice low and dripping with promise. Chris reached over unclasping the bar holding my legs open, softly caressing the points where I had been restrained. Without hesitation, I nodded, my tongue darting out to wet my lips in anticipation. He closed the distance between us, pulling me into a passionate, searing kiss that reignited the fire within my core. I could taste the remnants of my own arousal on his tongue as it plundered my mouth, and with my hands now free, I eagerly reached up to caress his face, twirling the silky strands of his hair between my fingers.

As Rick pulled me slowly off the bed, breaking our passionate kiss, he spun me around, my back pressing against his firm chest, and began kissing and nipping at the sensitive skin of my neck. The sensation of his lips and teeth on my flesh made me let out a soft, needy whine. Glancing across the bed, I watched as Chris, also naked, positioned his long, muscular body on the mattress. I watched, transfixed, as his hand wrapped around his hard cock, stroking it slowly up and down. The sight made a heat pool in the pit of my stomach.

Suddenly, Rick tugged sharply on my hair, pulling my head back to rest on his shoulder. "Listen, baby girl," he murmured in a low, authoritative voice. "You did good. We're going to take you together. That's what this..." His free hand slid down my back, over the curve of my ass, and between my cheeks to tease the plug still nestled inside me. "Was for. Are you ready?"

"Yes," I breathed, my heart racing with a heady mix of anticipation and nerves. Rick kept a firm grip on my hair and upper arm as he guided me up on my knees into the bed.

"But first," Rick chuckled, his voice dripping with a dark promise, "Let's have your mouth do some work."

He urged my head down pushing me forward, my face falling into Chris’s lap. I opened my mouth wide, and he swiftly slid himself between my eager lips. Closing my mouth around his throbbing shaft, I swallowed him down to the very hilt, feeling him hit the back of my throat. Chris let out a guttural hiss and bucked his hips up into my face. I gagged slightly, unable to pull away as Rick had a firm, unyielding grip on the back of my head. Bracing myself on my hands, I dug my palms into the soft mattress beneath us, preparing myself for the onslaught to come.

Without warning, Chris began thrusting his hips rapidly, pounding his cock into my mouth at a rough, relentless pace. I felt the tears welling in my eyes, but I forced myself to relax my throat and breathe steadily through my nose.

"Such a good girl, remember to breathe," Rick cooed encouragingly. I coughed once as Chris delivered a particularly hard thrust, driving himself deep into my throat. Suddenly, Rick yanked me back by hair, his lips brushing against my ear. "Very good. Sit on his cock, baby," he growled.

When Rick released his grip, I crawled towards Chris, whose strong arms were outstretched and waiting for me. Lacing our fingers together, I straddled his lap, reaching down to grasp his rigid shaft and guide it to my entrance.

[fizziepopangel]

A Fizziepop Take: Let's talk about Blitz's new look at Stolas

Ok, so in the past, I’ve talked about how the incident at Ozzie’s put more strain on an already fragile relationship, thus solidifying the idea a certain imp had in his mind that he was essentially beneath Stolas in every way he possibly could be and therefore unworthy of love. This ideology made the relationship between the pair appear strictly transactional since Blitz wouldn’t let it be anything else because he himself feels that that’s how it should be; that it’s all it could be. Now don’t get me wrong, Stolas isn’t completely innocent in making the whole relationship feel more like a transaction than a relationship, but in this instance, we’re gonna focus on Blitz and what I believe his turn around will be based off this newest episode because I believe that it could be a game-changer for their relationship and Blitz’s own character development. So let’s get into it!

As I’ve pointed out previously, Blitz has felt like he’s been used as a glorified sex toy since the beginning of their relationship. And given the hierarchy of the demons, Blitz is already pretty low on the totem being an imp while Stolas sits somewhere on top…. We can see that Blitz understands that when he’s tripping balls in “Truth Seekers”, but because of this, it seems that Blitz got it in his mind that Stolas was less than ‘human’ (for lack of a better term). Because of the status difference, Blitz always just assumed the other demon was unfeeling, uncaring, and essentially indestructible; building this image of the demon prince in his head that is a romanticized version of him that truly was worlds above where Blitz sees himself. And until “Western Energy” came out today, this is really the only version we’re shown of Stolas because we seem to be seeing the man the way Blitz does. Is he whiny? Sometimes. But do things hurt him? From Blitz’s point of view, no. 

We as the audience see maybe two or three times where Stolas is truly vulnerable but it seems to end just as quickly as it starts. Blitz doesn’t see that side of him. Granted, I believe Stolas does want a relationship with Blitz where he can be vulnerable in ways he never was able to before and because he has a preconceived notion of what their relationship is, Blitz shuts down any attempt Stolas tries to initiate intimacy… But I think in the imp doing this and Stolas just blindly going with it to try to appease Blitz has given the image of someone made of stone… And being so used to the abuse from Stella, Stolas doesn’t see that he’s almost restarting the cycle with Blitz by allowing the imp to be as mean as he is to him; even going as far as to tell Blitz through text that he can be mean to him if it’s what he wants. I think this genuinely leads Blitz to believe that Stolas can't be hurt in any way, emotionally to physically.

In all honesty, it’s interesting to look at Blitz in this light where he seems to unintentionally be another abusive relationship that Stolas is trapping himself in because you can see that the imp does genuinely care for the owl, even if he thinks he shouldn’t. That is why the incident at Ozzie’s was such a big deal to him, because after some time, I think Blitz was slowly trying to open himself up to Stolas and whatever little progress he made was pretty much crushed when Stolas basically refused to acknowledge the fact that he’s out with him in public when confronted. For someone like Blitz who struggles with communication and bases their self worth on how others view him, Stolas not wanting to be seen with him in public but being kind to him when no one else is around would have destroyed every sense of security he may have been starting to feel with the other man. Like just shredded it. Which in turn, is going to cause a rift that Blitz will rationalize as just him not being worth anything more even though he is actively contributing to the rift by refusing to communicate.

Now, the interesting part: in the newest episode of Helluva Boss, Blitz actually has a chance to view a more humanized idea of Stolas. It sucks that it took Stolas being damn near murdered and hospitalized for Blitz to see him on a different level, but it does happen. I think this in turn may give us a more freely feeling version of Blitz down the line. We can already see small fragmented moments when Blitz is genuinely worried about Stolas, genuinely cares about him, but he still keeps himself distant…. Seeing something bad happen to Stolas does open the man up a little, prompting him to text the man while he’s in the hospital to let him know that he hopes he feels better. Despite how minor that may seem, I think it is a step in the right direction, and I do think he’ll see a more personified version of Stolas which could prompt him to want to be closer to him, meaning he would have to stop pushing his feelings down to allow himself to wander into this territory of emotional vulnerability he may have seen but never experienced.

While I trust Vivzie completely in this journey she’s taking us on, this is definitely a route I really hope she takes because I truly do want to see the two men get a happy ending of some sort whether that’s at the end of the series or it advances their storyline together through the rest of the series.  But this is just a Fizzie take on things so far. I would love to hear what your thoughts are on how Blitz and Stolas’ relationship seems to be going.

[spinecouture]

book of carol spoilers inside

FIRST AND FOREMOST: this is my opinion. you don't have to like it. this is a very opinion heavy post, with jabs at the writers and even some at norman (sorry pookie).

here is my issue with daryl kissing isabelle. or really anyone for that matter: it completely disregards and contradicts his character he has spent over a decade building. going as far back as the beginning of season three, when carol makes that joke "wanna screw around?" after he helped with her shoulder. daryl shows discomfort and despite not explicitly saying no, he clearly is not interested in getting busy with anyone.

i'm not even against caryl shippers. if you want them to kiss, cute. connie? adorable. but there is a reason daryl hasn't ever made a move on them, or anyone. even when carol pushes for daryl to ask connie to dance, daryl doesn't explicitly say he doesn't want to, just that he had work to do.

another glaring detail: the words 'i love you' do not leave daryl's mouth until the very end of the walking dead. he has known carol for years, and we only hear it once. that's not to say daryl doesn't love anyone, because clearly he does. but it's about trust. this man is heavily emotionally damaged, far before the outbreak. trusting someone enough to show vulnerability is an ongoing theme for daryl. you see him slowly become more comfortable with things like physical touch, comfort, forgiveness, over the seasons. but never, ever, does he feel like he can be romantic with anyone.

the only time this changes, is in season 10, when we find out about leah. i refuse to dwell on her as a character for a long time, as i simply dislike how they wrote her and her relationship with daryl. but i will say, he killed that woman without a single ounce of hesitation to save maggie, and we barely hear about her again after. overall, his arc with leah comes off forced, rushed and honestly? a way for the writers to prove daryl fucks.

it definitely feels like these writers in the spinoff read a small bio of daryl's character, saw how the audience foamed at the mouth for him and ran with it. and norman isn't off the hook, either. he knows this character, lives and breathes this character. so why would you change so much after years of perfecting him?

those are just a few reasons a romantic relationship between isabelle and daryl does not make sense, subtracting the obvious distaste me and many other viewers have for her as a character. the way they have written this nun as a character is not bad, persay. the issue comes in when you throw her at daryl, a man who woke up a million miles away from his family, who already hated that he was leaving anyway, and has never shown an ounce of comfort towards anything romantic besides leah (who was low-key a bitch anyway???).

now, i want to make it clear that i have not watched all of the book of carol leaks, and probably won't. i will more than likely read reviews and articles, watch some clips and come to my own conclusions. these twd spinoffs in general kinda piss me off, but that's a topic for another time. i think it is entirely possible this kiss between him and isabelle is something of a goodbye kiss, a thank you kiss, or something else. i think it could make sense to write it as him being exhausted and lonely, missing his family that he's not 100% certain will be there when he gets back, and he kisses her impulsively. it doesn't feel like something daryl would do, but that would be better than him deciding he loves her and wants to be with her...

i dunno. i don't even wanna get into what norman said about beth because that is so problematic and confusing i don't even wanna acknowledge it.

feel free to share your thoughts or call me a psycho for writing all of this .

[j0kers-light]

Hi chaos! I hope you’re having a good day!

I saw your headcanons post for joker x reader who struggles with anemia & loved it so, so much! It’s always lovely when we get to see our favorite characters caring for us in little ways like that, especially when it comes to our daily struggles that often go largely ignored by society. I was wondering if you’d be willing to do a joker x f!reader with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome sometime? And as always, no pressure at all <3

— 🌹

Welcome my sweet 🌹anon!!

You ask, and I deliver! I had to do some extensive research with my mom to make sure I was accurate with this request! I learned so much via articles and short documentaries! Shoutout to my chronic pain sufferers! Chaos acknowledges you and I loves you!!

If anything doesn't sound right let me know 🌹 anon so I can correct it! I hope you enjoy! There are several sub-types of the disease but we'll focus on hEDS for this head canon 🖤✨

Since your disorder is rare and hereditary, there isn't any known treatment or any medical studies/research done to cure the illness. There isn't even a test done to diagnose its so vastly ignored! 😡😡

Society turns a blind eye to _EDS, simply chalking it up to hypermobility and being non-life threatening. WRONG.

hEDS is life threatening and sources fail to address the lifelong chronic pain and other debilitating issues that the rare disease causes. There are 13 sub types with their own crippling ailments.

Joker would hardly notice anything wrong until you go and hurt yourself, which is rather easy due to your fragile skin and joints.

Your body doesn't heal well after injury so bruises linger, scars are permanent, and dislocations are a common occurrence. Yay to pain. 🙃✨

Growing up, it was cool to show off your double joints and overly flexible body but as your age hit the double digits, you noticed the complications of your parlor tricks pretty quickly.

Muscle weakness was the first indicator followed by scarier issues like weak blood vessels and potential organ ruptures. Chronic pain is a reality that you have to endure since your body fails to function properly.

Life grinds to a halt when you have a flare up and Joker arches an eyebrow when you stay in bed for days at a time and work remotely.

Just moving is an impossible feat and your body punishes you for defying its demands for rest. You still have to live your life! Somehow.

Joker tries to crack jokes but you roll your eyes and ignore him. You’re just not in the mood.

He doesn't understand how you can go from practicing yoga in the sunroom to being bedridden in the same hour so he assumes you're faking being sick and that thought makes you cry.

Knowing that your lover believes that you are acting, hurts more than your aching joints and Joker immediately notices when your mental health begins to decline.

Now he's worried. When you can, you do as much as you're able, never knowing when your body will betray you and confine you to bed. Every moment is precious and Joker will never understand that.

Life returns back to "normal" but Joker demands answers. He's still in shock.

Weren't you on death's door just yesterday? Now you're returning to work, laughing and smiling, as if nothing is wrong. He doesn’t know what to think.

So he disappears to search the internet and after hours of clicking away, he's just as confused as when he started. (I feel you J..)

Joker refuses to believe there is nothing he can do to help his Bunny. This hEDS can't keep you down forever. Right? 👀

Why aren't there any studies, or any institutions pledging to find a cure for this?! Does he have to kidnap a doctor or two to get the ball rolling?

Joker remembers he does have a doctor on his payroll. He calls up Sarai and bombards her with the same questions he typed into Google.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BUNNY?🧑‍💻

Sarai doesn't give him much else to go on except keeping you comfortable, well medicated if you take any, and to continue your physical therapy but not too much exercise as to aggravate your joints.

Great... so he's back to square one!

Joker hears you groan from the next room and goes to check on his poor Bunny. He would find a way to make you feel better himself.

You had dozed off for a long quick nap and woke up to the sound of something falling over in the bathroom.

It still hurt to move but at least it wasn’t agonizing anymore. This current pain level you could tolerate.

You were willing yourself to toss the covers back when Joker appeared in the doorway looking rather sheepish.

“Hey doll. Uhh are ya feeling up to move?” He scanned you over as if he could gauge your pain tolerance by sight. Your small smile gave him some hope.

“Mmm. I gotta get up and fix something to eat.” You were weak and probably dehydrated from lying in bed all day, but that was to be expected.

Joker watched you swing a leg over and rushed to your side. “I uh.. ran a bath. If ya want. A Reddit post mentioned ah.. hoT water being helpful.”

It didn’t dawn on you just what Joker was saying. All you heard was the latter part of his sentence. “You have a Reddit account?”

He smacked his lips while helping you slowly walk towards the en-suite bath. To your surprise, the bath was waiting for you with a rolling cart next to it, hopefully with something to snack on.

You were speechless. “J… you did all this for me?”

He looked away and you got the impression that he was blushing. He still had his clown makeup on so you couldn’t tell for sure.

“Thank you J. I mean it.” He helped you sit on the nearby wooden bench after you kissed his cheek. “Um. I can undress myself.. if you need to—ah! Okay! You’re seriously doing this.”

Joker started with your socks and worked his way up until not a single thread of fabric was left on your body. You felt so exposed sitting there nude while Joker dipped his hand into the bath water.

It was hot enough to be medicinal but not scalding. He snapped his fingers and dashed over to the storage area to grab your bag of epsom salt before dumping a few cups in.

You got to see a rare softer side of Joker hard at work. No one would believe you if you reported this. The Joker, Gotham City’s worst nightmare, was preparing you a bath with the greatest care.

“All-right-yyy ya ready pretty girl?” Joker’s voice snapped you out of your daydream. He playfully flicked some water at you to get your attention.

You couldn’t flinch away and huffed your displeasure.

“I couldn’t resist, Bunny. Now in ya go! Hold onto my shoulders, yeah?” He picked you up as if you were made of glass and gently lowered you into the bath. “Easy doll, I know it’s hot. Just relax.”

Joker shushed any whimpers you made and held you steady underneath the water. For the next few unbearable moments, Joker was right there whispering sweet nothings to calm you down.

Finally you relaxed with a deep sigh, “This is perfect.”

“Good. If ya want, you can rest a bit. I’ll keep you.. well you know.. from drowning. But ya do need to eat something first. Here.” He dried his hand off and fed you a [insert favorite snack].

You felt like royalty and Joker had no issue helping you adjust to the role. He fed you piece by piece, offering you sips of water in between while holding your hand and rubbing soothing circles on your skin with his thumb.

The contact warmed your heart. Joker may not know much about your medical condition, but he would always be there to support you.

You couldn’t ask for a better partner.

[kataraslove]

katara isn't sutble at all in her interest in aang i think zutaras have their blinders on if they can't see how much she was into him. its why i find that fandom so frusterating i've never seen a pairing that was so obvious and yet they act like it was one sided.. when katara was all into him since ep 1 to wanting to run off with him when he got banished. if that dont scream girl is gonna fall in love with main character i dont know what does.

in order to understand katara’s feelings for aang, you need to understand katara’s character at a fundamental level. unfortunately, many, many people in the fandom do not and refuse to understand. for an example, a common misconception is that katara crushed on jet because he was the tall, good-looking “bad boy” archetype. while she did have an instant infatuation for jet because he was tall and good-looking, he was also brave, charming, and heroic and a natural leader to her - all components that katara’s described about aang throughout the series.

“You’ve been training for this since the day we met. I've seen your progress. You're smart, brave, and strong enough.” Katara in Nightmares and Daydreams.

the depths of katara’s love for aang can be seen in the ways that she speaks about him:

“Aang is the bravest person I know!” (The Storm)

“Please don’t go, Aang. The world can’t afford to lose you to the Fire Nation. Neither can I.” (The Winter Solstice Part 2)

in the ways that she’s fiercely protective over him:

in the ways that she’s physically affectionate with him:

in the ways that she gets immensely happy when he acknowledges her power or calls her heroic:

in the ways that she cries when they’re apart:

and in the ways that she cries when they’re reunited:

or when he tells her how much she means to him:

I mean, after they get through a really emotionally charged moment, or overcome danger or death, just look at the way she looks at him. look at the way she hugs him.

only in the atla fandom will someone look you straight in the eye and say that character A kissing character B (after the characters literally had an implied cave kiss) on the cheek before they’re separated isn’t meant to be romantic, but rather maternal.

and okay, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt: it’s true that katara’s feelings were intended to be “ambiguous” up until the climax so that we don’t get any canon verbal confirmation that she was in love with aang. i am critical of that. but nothing in the narrative suggests that katara ever viewed aang as a brother or worse, as a son. katara herself does not admit to that when aang brings it up in the ember island players episode, even when she had time to state that she did view him as a brother or, at the very least, did not see him as a love interest.

if you believe that the ambiguity of katara’s feelings for aang is far too much for you to ship them, that’s fine by me. but at the same time I’ve seen people say that katara had feelings for haru just from one blush. or feelings for zuko from their conversation wherein they bonded over their mother’s deaths in crossroads of destiny. if the hug at the end of the southern raiders can be read as romantic by these same people, why not the many hugs, cheek kisses, face touches, and emotional reactions katara feels towards aang? i do have to believe that the reason why it’s so hard to view these as romantic for people is because aang does not look the part of the stereotypical romantic lead, ie he’s bald, younger than katara, and shorter than her.