#might as well just tag these posts the same way i suppose?

[firstprincehornyramblings]

Hello everyone! I'm getting a start early, by queueing this post for tomorrow morning, look at me go. Thank you who much to @tailsbeth-writes for the tag <3 I have ... 3 wips again, because I have no self control, so we're doing all of this under the cut, because it's gonna be long, and maybe a lil nsfw <3 LET'S GOOOOOOOO.

------ George Villier's inner dialogue during an Orgy (that's the working title on this, please bare with)

It wasn’t that George had always been this way, but an ascension into power had nurtured his hedonism prone nature. If he was to be blessed with the gift of beauty, he would take all the power and pleasure that came with it. He’d earned it after all, his bed of lovers, his social standing, influence, and wealth. Each a result of unsavory acts; but that made them so much more deserved, did it not? He could have anything he wanted, like a god among men, and so he should be worshipped the same. Though he was more than content with devotion in the form of flesh; he’d certainly used his own body as currency often enough. Even now, anything that wasn’t handed to him willingly, with a brush of lips, or a clandestine slip to knees, could become his. That in itself was testament to all he’d done, that his willing submission was as effective a bargaining tool as his power.

WATERSPORTS FIRSTPRINCE (aka, Alex is funny and Henry has a weak bladder)

“You… think it’s- what?” Henry choked out, “You think it’s hot that I pissed myself in the middle of our kitchen? Is that your idea of a joke?” “I-” the brunette could feel his own cheeks heating up now, “It’s not a joke, I do, I’m sorry, but I do,” he managed after a moment. “Oh,” the blond’s eyes shot straight down to the shorts Alex had on, falling on the visible hardness there, “Oh,” he repeated, but with much more understanding this time. There were still tears sparkling in the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall, but he was visibly less mortified, “Alex, that is so disgusting...” “I know, shit baby, I’m s-” “I can get into it.” “What?” “I said, I can get into it,” Henry repeated, “Well, honestly, I could probably get into anything that makes your cock hard, because- well frankly I reap the benefits of that. Would you like to fuck my throat?”

AND A NEW WIP, Hairstylist Henry and his least (read as favorite) Client Alex

“Alright, tilt your head back,” both of Henry’s hands rested on Alex’s temples, carefully moving the other man’s head into the perfect place, “Do you want me to stop under the jawline?” “Whatever you think looks best, sweetheart.” Normally, Henry would hate that, some businessman using a pet name on him. But usually it felt demeaning, when Alex did it, it felt genuine, perhaps that was why he didn't mind it. He would rather accept that than admit it might have something to do with how hot his cheeks felt or how his stomach flip flopped. Instead, he chose to focus on something else, like the familiar but luxurious scent becoming more evident the closer he was to Alex. “Santal 33?” the blond asked, running the trimmers over the other man’s jawline, making careful precise lines that would accentuate the sharp angles there. “Yeah,” impressively, Alex had answered that without much movement of his face; Henry was astonished. “Makes sense.” “What is that supposed to mean?” this time, the brunette moved, but he did have the mind to wait until Henry was running the trimers along his throat with less chance of Alex’s jolt messing up something. “It means you look like someone who has good taste, don’t move.” “You’re worse than a dentist,” Alex grumbled. “Stop moving, christ you’re an absolute menace, I’m going to slice your throat open.” “With an electric trimmer?” “I’m certain if I make enough effort, I just may be able to pull it off,” Henry snapped.

OKAY, that was a long one, if you stuck around thank u I love u. TAG LINE UP!!!!

@taste-thewaste @eusuntgratie @henrysfox @thighzp

@softboynick @catdadacd @sheepywritesfics @henryspearl

@basil-bird @caressthosecheekbones @henfox @onthewaytosomewhere + literally anyone else I'm sleepy and forgot, or anyone who sees this and wants to tag me, I love reading yall's stuff. <3

[ao3userforgets]

okay, here is the first thing i wrote of john in my gale centric clegan fic, not sure when this takes place, just that gale’s psyche has been doing the mental equivalent of punching him repeatedly in the head :) daddy issues don’t care if you’re fighting in wwii, they Will get you :) and so will the voice of your dead mother :)

“John, a ways down the bar, John, as broad shouldered and flare bright as he gets. His mouth is whiskey wet around a canine sharp smile and his narrow eyes shift away from the cluster of baby faced airmen huddled around him, the flick of his eyes too fast to be searching, knowing Gale is right where he left him.

Just like your daddy. It’s Mama’s voice, inflected with Gale’s own self accusation.”

[djevelbl]

Kill the cringe cop in your head, do what makes you happy.

[moongothic]

Crocodad AU where immidiately after having left Dragon and his baby boy Crocodile finds an 11 year old Robin. And while he's 100% only recruiting her so they can make a beeline for the Poneglyph and Pluton in Alabasta by the two of them... Crocodile accidentally sorta kinda adopts Robin.

At this point Robin's been running for her life from the Government for three years so her deep trust issues and fear of betrayal are starting to take root in her little heart. Like perhaps they haven't taken fully over yet, and being still a child I'm sure Robin might've still had that genuine hope that she could find a safe place to stay in. But I'm sure the though of "what'll he'll do with me once he gets what he wants?" would be nagging at her at the back of her mind. Meanwhile Crocodile's struggling between the pain and hurt he's already gone through and given him his trademark trust issues, as well as the aftermath of The Dragodile Divorce. But he also has his Fresh Paternal Instincts and probably misses his baby. So when given a small, scared child who is running for her life, being chased by the very same Government that'll want his son dead if they ever find out about him... Yeah that might fuck with your brain a little

You know this post was supposed to be just that first paragraph and just a few footnotes from the following two paragraphs. And then I kept on Having Thoughts. And I kept on writing them down. And oh no what happened when did this post get so long (Look I was going to either kept on writing my Additional Thoughts in the tags or I just put them in the actual fucking post)

Like considder this: based on this one SBS, we can kinda tell that if Crocodile was given a chance to raise a child, that child would be a spoiled little shit, right

So in this scenario, where Crocodile's looking after lil Robin, would he be kind of torn? Unsure how to feel about her?

Because on one hand, this strange child would have the potential to not only ruin his plans, strip him of his Shichibukai Privileges by outing him and his plans to the World Government, but also put his son in grave danger by extension (if she found out about him having been involved with the Revolutionaries and/or having a child). But on the other hand, his paternal instincts could make him want to spoil this poor little girl rotten. But only because he needs to (perhaps literally) buy her trust so she'll behave. No other reason, he doesn't feel sorry for her one bit, no sirree. (But maybe he did feel sorry for her, since his son could very well end up exactly like her. Poor little thing) (Which is why he needs to nuke Marijoa out of orbit as soon as possible, no matter the cost, and this child can't get in the way of Crocodile protecting his son) (But also this is a child. Like how bad could she be. Besides all he really needs to do to win her trust is be nice and make her feel safe, right?)

Of course, while I'm suggesting Crocodile could have some parental instincts, realistically, he hasn't actually spent any time being, you know, a father to a child (looking after his newborn for an unknown though short amount of time aside), so it's possible he wouldn't even know how to parent Robin even if he wanted to, would he? (Like taking care of a newborn and an 11 year old kid aren't the same either) So if he was kind of just emotionally flipflopping between No Trusting Ever and It's Just A Kid for God's Sake, Crocodile trying to be nice to Robin to make her feel safe and then telling himself to stop being so soft and vunerable... Yeah that would make for an absolute mess of a relationship. (Not to mention, let's be real, dude's a scary motherfucker too, and a bloody giant compared to itty bitty baby Robin. He could keep on accidentally scaring the shit out of Robin (who would be On Fucking Edge To Begin With) by just Being Himself. Like for example, can you fucking imagine if he caught Robin trying to cheer herself up with a little "dereshishishi" only to tell her to stop because "it was stupid"? 'Cause I can imagine him doing that, and boy howdy would that make Robin feel bad)

Or who knows, maybe Crocodile was just Born To Be A Dad, maybe he just Fucking Gets It. Like Crocodile is canonically pretty good at manipulating people to do what he wants them to do (see: how he played Vivi like a fiddle), so knowing Robin's position and understanding how she feels, maybe he COULD completely nail how she needed to be treated. Not being too familiar but still making her feel safe and happy, knowing exactly when to be stern and when to spoil her, etc. Dude just goes off and wins the Dad of the Year Award while being a deadbeat dad himself. The only thing Crocodile would have to worry about then would be making sure HE doesn't get too fond of her. And certainly that could never happen, he's so in-touch with his own feelings and so grounded, he's not a softie, get outta here. Or maybe he does but never realizes until it's too late and good luck backpedalling on those emotions now dumbass

Alright so, the reason I went on that whole rmble is just that like. I'm so interested in the relationship Robin and Crocodile already have in canon. I'm so facinated and curious about how the two feel about each other, considdering they did spend 4 whole years of their lives together as criminal business partners, though neither ever trusted the other. A partnership that was only ended because Robin betrayed Crocodile, out of her own trauma. (God, I want to see these two "reunite" so bad, I want to know how they feel about each other now after the timeskip and Robin joining the idiot in flipflops who foiled Croc's plans)

My question here is just that... if they had met 13 years earlier, would things have been different? Especially if Crocodad Real? Because as I mentioned in the begining, Robin would've been on the run for only 3 years by this point, as opposed to 16 years before running into Crocodile. Simultaneously, this would be before Crocodile went onto spend an entire decade all alone, slowly losing his marbles in his emotional solitude. They'd both be emotionally traumatized, yes, but would it have been as bad in this scenario? Like I did start this post kind of joking about Crocodile adopting Robin, and for clarity's sake I don't think they'd have like a father-daughter relationship nececarily. But it would be a strange relationship still, because we'd have two broken people, both struggling to trust anyone. One who had lost her mother and her only friends, leaving her all alone and afraid while running for her life. The other a father who had just given up his son whom he probably missed dearly. Both having these holes in their hearts from loss of family, holes that could not be filled with replacements. But could they find comfort in each other anyway, because they still as people occupy similar roles to their respective loved ones? If they both could just get over those trust issues?

Okay I've been going off on the Emotional Side Of Things for this AU Concept, THERE'S PLOT TOO

So if Crocodile did pick Robin up like 19 years ago, that should be before he set up base in Alabasta, long before he had built is homebase and financial empire etc.

Now the thing is, while we don't know when, where and how Crocodile learned about the Ancient Weapons, Pluton specifically and how the lead on it would be in Alabasta... Considdering Crocodile did once upon a time aim to become Pirate King, it would make perfect sense if he had learned about Poneglyphs during his past adventures, as he would have needed to get the Road Poneglyphs to find One Piece. And while the World Government did bury the truth about why Ohara had been burned down and why Robin had been given her bounty (remember, the WG claimed it was because she had sunken a fleet of battleships, which she had not, it was because she could read the Poneglyphs), considdering this is a Crocodad AU specifically, you could totally make an argument Crocodile could've learned about what actually happened to Ohara from Dragon and co. So, just to make this AU work, you could just assume Crocodile learned about the concept of the Ancient Weapons from Dragon. And who knows, maybe he overheard the truth about why Robin had been given her bounty from Dragon too (maybe Dragon was able to get intel from Garp in secret) or while going to Marijoa himself to attend a Shichibukai meeting or something IDK.

Maybe he learned about Pluton being in Alabasta before finding Robin by accident, and maybe they made a beeline for Alabasta the second Croc recruited Robin. Travelling takes time and the guy would've most likely had to find an Eternal Pose to Alabasta just to get there (also canonically Robin didn't enter the Grand Line until her 20s so they should've met in West Blue probably, since that's where Ohara was) Or maybe Crocodile had to haul Robin around for a few months while looking for That Missing Piece of Information that would lead him to Alabasta. (Imagine the two travelling from like island to island, library to library, Crocodile trying to find that leads while Robin's just so excited about ALL THESE BOOKS (she's helping too with the research) (but to her, research is playtime, so she's just having the time of her life) (Also, notice how Crocodile's Theoretical Child is a fucking loser ass nerd? Yeah Crocodile would encourage Robin reading and studying, surely. And that would be fucking cute))

But like, once they set sail to Alabasta...

Sure, Crocodile could try to do it The Slow Way that we know he tried in canon, building trust and creating his little empire etc. But also, in canon, Crocodile couldn't have jumped into action head first because without Robin, even if he had found the Poneglyph he couldn't have read it and found the location of Pluton. Crocodile choosing to do it the slow way may have been partially because he didn't have much of a choise and it could've felt like the smarter move long-term.

But in this scenario, he already has Robin. Yes, he could do it the slow, secure way.

But what'd be there stopping him from infiltrating Cobra's palace and kidnapping him (in the night, when nobody suspects a thing), demanding Cobra to spill the beans lest Crocodile kills him and/or his pregnant wife* (*Vivi was born 10 months after Luffy so depending on how long it's been between Crocodad leaving Luffy behind and this scenario... Yeah either the wife is there, still pregnant, or there's a newborn Baby Vivi)

Like it'd be a risky move but depending on how ballsy Croc's feeling and how confident he feels in being able to kidnap the king without being noticed... Yeah he could probably do it. And I'm sure he'd have no problem killing Cobra either, if anything it'd be required if he didn't want the Government to find out he was out to find Pluton, and god knows Cobra would tell on Crocodile if left alive. I could see Crocodad being maybe a little iffy about killing Baby Vivi though (it's not like the newborn baby could report him to the WG anyways), but if nothing else, he just needs to be able to pull off the bluff of his life to convince Cobra to do as he's told. And we all know Crocodile's good at convincing people.

The only question is, how would Robin take that?

Watching Crocodile go into Full Murder Mode, hearing him say he'd kill a pregnant woman/a newborn baby if he didn't get what he wanted? Like yeah, I'm sure 11 year old Robin would be fine with that, that wouldn't make any alarm bells go off in her head at all, it'd be fiiiine. IT WOULD NOT BE FINE, SHE'D BE SCARED SHITLESS. That fear of "what will he do with me when he gets what he wants"? Well, Robin may not have found the answer to that question in particular, but she certainly found the answer to the opposite question, and it's not good

So say Cobra, kidnapped (perhaps with Baby Vivi) by Crocodile in the night, guides the two to the Poneglyph under the tombs. Crocodile puts Cobra out of his misery because he's not needed anymore. And he asks Robin to read the Poneglyph for him.

Robin, who has spent the last little while, be it weeks or months with Crocodile, him having become her "guardian", the thing keeping her safe. Crocodile, who has now shown how cold blooded and cruel he can be. Robin, who might be scared out of her mind. Of him.

And the Poneglyph says Pluton, the thing Crocodile wants, isn't there. It's in Wano.

What's she going to do?

EDIT: I wrote a sequel post, enjoy

[navybrat817]

Puppy Dog Eyes

Pairing: William Miller x Female Reader

Summary: Will feels betrayed by someone he thought was his ally.

Word Count: Over 1k

Warnings: Fluff, humor, established relationship, talk of threats and interrogation, slight feels (it's me, okay?), William Miller (he's a warning, okay?).

A/N: Inspired by this post @ghotifishreads tagged me in. ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

Will counted the seconds in his mind as he stared his adversary down. Someone he should've considered an ally. Maybe even a friend. But now? He didn't recognize the beast in front of him.

He was used to people playing dirty behind enemy lines, but this? Betrayal in familiar territory? The sting was like a bullet to the gut.

“Before you test my resolve, I want you to know that I have forty three confirmed kills.”

A huff was the only reply he got.

Crouching down so he was at eye level, he huffed, too. His enemy was much smaller in size, but looks could be deceiving. “Now, I’m not going to hurt you. It wouldn't do either of us any good,” he said, tapping a finger against his thigh. “I just want to know why.”

He didn't get an answer. Only a defiant stare. The silent treatment. That was fine. Nothing he hadn't faced before. He had ways to make enemies talk if it came to that. And the puppy dog eyes wouldn't garner sympathy from him.

Battle had hardened him too much for that.

Shut down. Control. Manipulate. That’s what he did with his human instincts until he completed his mission.

Will continued the staring contest until the smaller one whined. It wasn't an answer, but it was a start. “You made this personal, you know. And I’ll throw you out in the rain if you push your luck,” he threatened, tilting his head to maintain eye contact. “No. You don't get to look away. Not after what you did. After I took you into my home.”

And how did he repay him?

“Honey?”

Your voice pulled Will’s attention away from the task at hand. “Yeah, baby?”

You leaned against the doorway, a smile tugging at your kissable lips. “Are you interrogating Bandit?”

Bandit, the puppy Benny got weeks ago. The puppy you offered to watch since his brother was going out of town for a few days and he didn't want to board him. The same little rascal who chewed up a pair of tennis shoes. New tennis shoes.

And hadn't touched a single one of his chew toys.

Will nodded to his ruined shoes. “You saw what he did.”

“I did and I'm sorry,” you said, though you had no reason to apologize. It wasn't like you chewed them up. “He’s a puppy and they’re going to do those kinds of things from time to time. Is it really worthy of an interrogation?”

“Yes, it is.” Bandit swung his head toward you and whimpered. “No, don’t you-”

“Aww. Is the former Captain bothering you?” You walked over and scooped him into your arms. The light golden puppy snuggled close, but looked at Will like he was taunting him. You had a soft spot for dogs and Bandit sensed that. Used it to his advantage.

“Taking his side?”

“I’m always on your side, Will,” you said, softening his resolve. “Now, Bandit, you know you aren't supposed to do that. Play with your toys, not shoes. Okay?”

Bandit barked. He actually barked for you. How did you do that?

“And apologize to Will,” you urged.

He barked again.

“Good boy,” you smiled as Will stood up and crossed his arms. “And don't worry, we won't throw you out in the rain.”

“I still might just to teach him a lesson,” Will half teased. “Or I can just put him in his cage.”

Bandit whined and hid his face. “Don’t you dare. He’s a puppy, not a soldier. And you were happy with watching him until now. Besides, he said he was sorry,” you said, giving Will your own set of puppy dog eyes.

You had a point. Bandit was a pretty well-behaved puppy, all things considered. He didn't bite. Didn't make a mess when he ate. Went to the door when he had to go outside. And he seemed content to sleep in his dog bed and didn't demand to sleep with the two of you.

“Fine. No cage,” he relented.

“Thank you. And I’m sure Benny will buy you a new pair of shoes once he gets back,” you added.

“Maybe,” he said. He wouldn't hold his breath to get new shoes or money for the damage done. He may be Benny’s big brother, but Benny adored his puppy and would likely blame him for leaving them out in the first place. He had a routine though. He put his shoes in the same spot after he exercised.

To be fair, he should've been more careful. He would be in the future. If anything, he could try to see the positive side of things and use this as a learning experience. That's what you tried to do when you ran into unfortunate situations.

“Is it a bad time to suggest we get our own puppy?” You asked, smiling as you lifted Bandit up higher and put his cheek against yours. “Chewed up shoes and a scratched up couch aside, it might be nice.”

Dogs did make for great companions. He’d be lying if he said he hadn't pictured the two of you having a kid and a dog for them to grow up with. Someone who would be a friend to and watch over his child.

“What do you think?” You smiled when he stayed quiet for too long.

He softly smiled. Most people couldn't sway him to do anything, but you had a way about you. Maybe it was because he loved you. “I’ll think about it.”

You put Bandit down before you leaned in and brushed your lips against Will’s. “Thank you.”

He went in for another kiss, but stopped when the words fully registered. “Wait.” He narrowed his eyes. “Did you say scratched up couch?”

“...Did I say that? I don't recall.”

“I remember everything you’ve ever said to me,” he told you.

You put a hand over your heart. “That is so romantic.”

“And you said ‘chewed up shoes and a scratched up couch aside, it might be nice’, so what exactly did he do to our couch?”

Your eyes widened as you took a step back. “Run, Bandit!”

And he did.

I couldn't help myself. Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[drtanner]

You know, I think I'm starting to understand why the sharing culture on this site is such dogshit now.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I spent several solid hours going through my art and writing tags as far back as 2012 and manually deleting everything I found, including all of my own reblogs, because I don't expect my opt out from having my blogs' data scraped to be honoured, and seeing the difference in the way people interacted with my work back then and the way they interact with it now (or the way they don't interact with it at all, more specifically) was deeply and tragically enlightening.

tl;dr, despite having had a fraction of the followers back then that I have now, as well as being an objectively better artist and writer than I used to be 10+ years ago, my work travelled further and people engaged with it more, and they also sent me asks with drabble prompts and questions about my OCs all the time, whereas none of that happens at all anymore. This place was a lot more communal back in that pre-2016 era and generally a lot more rewarding and fun.

There's been plenty of posts going around over the last few years begging people to reblog because that's how this site works, but every one of those posts always winds up lousy with people saying they just click "Like" on things because they like them but not enough to put them on their own blog, or because they don't want to clutter their blog, or because tagging things is too much effort or whatever, and I'm noticing a pattern. There's something that all of these common responses have in common:

All of these people are wholly concerned with themselves and the way their blog looks, or what their blog is supposed to be for, or some other similarly entirely self-centred point of focus.

Listen. Other people have already tried to explain to you that that's not what this place is about or what this place is for or that you can make as many sideblogs as you want if you're trying to curate something specific, and they've had little success in emparting understanding to you, so I'm going to try a different approach.

Here are ten (10) benefits of reblogging that will make this site more fun and engaging for you, personally! ( b ._.)b

You get to keep the thing for yourself, but you also get to pass it along for other people to play with, too! Best of all worlds. How often do you get to keep a thing and share it?

Look in your Activity after you reblog something you enjoy to find other people who like the same things that you do! This is a terrific way to find new people to follow.

Sometimes you'll make a comment when you reblog something and later find that an awful lot of strangers are reblogging it from you directly for some reason. This is usually because someone else later down the line made a much stupider and worse comment and those strangers are now all clicking on your reblog so that they can reblog the post without that other person's stupider and worse comment on it. I like it a lot when this happens. You can get a lot of new followers this way, too!

Even if you don't have the time or spoons to play with jpegs like dolls yourself, your reblog can put the post in front of those folks who do. Playing with jpegs like dolls is half of what makes this site function; give it a bit of time, and the jpegs will cross your dash again with new additions. As it is with anything you love, set it free, and the love will come back to you one hundredfold. 💜

Look in your Activity after reblogging some art or writing to see people going nuts in the tags. You can also go nuts in the tags if you want; everyone loves seeing this when it happens, especially the artist or writer themselves.

Commenting with your reblog is like raising your hand to share your opinion with the whole room, whereas reblogging with your comment in the tags is more like whispering to the person next to you and keeping it between yourselves. Contrary to what you might have been told by others, both are perfectly fine and good and they each have their place. You can do both on the same reblog, even! Take part in the conversation!

If you're too shy to talk, reblogging without commentary is a lot like parallel play. You're all enjoying the same thing quietly together!

When you reblog things a lot, you'll start to see the same people popping up in your Activity feed all the time. These people are your friends whether you actually talk to them or not.

Stuck for something to say? Point out something you liked about the post! It can be something small! Acknowledging things that make you happy out loud is good for your mental health and also your soul.

Reblogging also invites other people who are doing all of these things to find and follow you!

There's so much to do on here beyond checking your dash and occasionally looking at the For You tab. You can discover all kinds of people and things by making a bit of an effort and having a poke around in your Activity feed and on the blogs of people who interact with the posts you're seeing and passing along! I promise you don't need an algorithm to do this for you; the action of exploring the landscape around you on this website is fun in its own right!

Get out there and see who your neighbours are. 💜

[quin-ns]

Fake Blood (Ethan Landry x Reader)

Word count: 5.6K

Summary: spoiler: the blood isn’t fake. alone in your apartment after your friends had been attacked, you ask ethan to stop by. he does in an unexpected way and you get more than you bargained for

Tags: (18+), friends to lovers, minor violence, knife tw, flirting, making out, virgin!ethan, virgin!reader, fingering, unprotected p in v sex, the ghostface robe stays on during sex, denial ab ethan being a murderer :) (if bad why hot?)

A/N: just watched scream 6 for the first time only a few days ago and couldn’t get this psycho out of my brain (tiktok edits didn’t help lol). timeline might be a little wonky but tbh it’s not relevant. also this follows the theory that ethan did the big apartment attack. I really wasn’t expecting this to be this long but it’s worth it yall I promise

cross-posted to ao3 • scream masterlist • main masterlist

As much as you liked Mindy, if you knew becoming friends with her would lead to you being integrated into her friend group of past and present serial killer victims, you might’ve thought about asking someone else to partner up with you for a presentation in your film studies class.

When you’d asked her, it was mostly to avoid having to accept an offer from a guy named Jason, who had always stared at you during that class and brought up the ‘Stab’ movies whenever he could (this was before you knew your friends knew him, but you still got a weird vibe from the guy).

She’d been excited to hang out with you after you two gave your presentation, and that’s how you wound up spending most days with her and her tight knit group of friends.

You were probably closest with Mindy, but you liked her brother too. For a guy named Chad, he was actually pretty chill. You got along with Tara as well, who was in a bit of a rebellious phase after being attacked and nearly killed, which you only learned about once they trusted you enough. Her older sister Sam was mostly cool too, but a bit overprotective. There was a gloomy aspect to her, but you supposed it made sense given that she was betrayed by her murderous boyfriend and now the internet peddled theories that blamed her for a series of killings in their home town of Woodsboro.

They had a tight bond, and even though you grew close with each of them, you knew you’d be an outsider. Like Tara and Sam’s roommate Quinn, Mindy’s girlfriend Anika, and Chad’s roommate Ethan. You all had shared multiple conversations about their trust issues. It must’ve been hard to even start to trust people after all that.

Out of all of the other “newcomers” as Mindy once put it, you got along with Ethan the best. He was a little quiet and sorta dorky (which your friends would tease him about a little—all friendly, of course) but he was fun to talk to. You guys liked a lot of the same stuff, including horror movies, and it didn’t hurt that he was cute.

In your opinion, with his curly dark hair and eyes to compliment, the whole “shy guy” thing was part of the appeal.

You wondered if he’d ever make a move, or if he even knew you were curious about him in that way. You wouldn’t go so far to say it was a crush for your ego’s sake, but you wouldn’t send him running off with his tail between his legs like you did with most guys.

Like that guy Jason from film class, who, just before Halloween, was killed alongside his roommate by a masked killer.

“Didn’t he have a thing for you?” Mindy asked you as you were all gathered around the TV, finding out the news together.

You were sitting crammed in a chair next to Ethan since the others had all taken up the couch space. He didn’t seem to mind, but it did unfortunately make it easy for them all to look your way and stare. You didn’t like the attention.

You were in shock at the news, especially when the anchor revealed Jason had also killed your film professor. Ethan pointed that out, saying if the guy was crazy enough to do that he might’ve even gone after you.

“Maybe the killer who killed him did you a favor,” Quinn suggested in response to Ethan.

The thought terrified you. You looked around the group. “Do you guys think he really would’ve hurt me? He seemed weird, not psycho.”

“We talked not that long ago, nothing seemed off,” Tara revealed with a grim look. “He asked if you and Sam were gonna come to the party.”

You hadn’t planned on going—what the hell would’ve happened if you had?

You exchanged a look with Sam, who seemed to have the wheels in her head turning.

You zoned back into the news as the reporter explained the mask found was a ghostface mask—like from the Stab movies. And of course, the actual Woodsboro killings.

“Pack a bag,” Sam told her sister, springing up to move around the apartment building.

Sam and Tara argued, which was a little weird to witness. You tried to sink back into the chair, while Ethan looked at you like he wanted to say something.

Hopefully it wasn’t “get out of the chair” because you didn’t think you could move.

The night ended with you going back to your little apartment alone. Your roommate was out of town and so your anxiety was on high alert.

A lot had happened that night apparently, including Sam and Tara getting attacked in a convenience store and them being questioned by the cops.

As much as you cared about them, you feared what would happen if you were with them.

That’s why the next night when you were invited over, you had been hesitant. A government paper was the perfect excuse, but you had FaceTimed with them so you all could keep an eye on each other.

You sat at your little desk, your laptop opened to work on your paper, and your phone propped up on your cup so you could talk to them hands free.

Apparently everyone was together at the apartment except Ethan, who told you he was studying in the library when you texted to ask him. You responded that you were working on a paper and that if he wanted to come over to keep you company, he could.

You’d spent some time alone with him, but not a lot when you really thought about it. It was always in the group—who were all murder suspects, according to Mindy’s movie rules.

You knew you weren’t the killer, and you had absolutely no motive. The others were still suspicious of you so that hurt a little (maybe that was another reason why you were keeping to yourself), but you did your best to understand that they weren’t just suspicious of you.

Everyone was a suspect, and no one was safe.

You felt even less safe when Mindy said she’d call you back. You didn’t know why she had to hang up so urgently, but you had a feeling it had to do with the emotional conversation Tara and Sam had been having in the background. You couldn’t make out most of it clear so you avoided mentioning it.

You sighed and checked your chat with Ethan. He hasn’t responded to your text. You were getting nervous now that you weren’t video chatting with your other friends anymore and the thought of being home alone didn’t bring you much ease.

You thought about just going over to the Carpenter’s (and Quinn’s) apartment, not wanting to bother Ethan further. Maybe he was ignoring you on purpose.

However, it was a far walk there. You didn’t feel safe making it alone at night—especially with a killer on the loose, likely targeting your friends. If you had a car, maybe, but you were a broke college student who could barely afford a place to live.

You sucked it up and double texted Ethan, this time asking if he could come over and that you were worried.

When he didn’t respond right away, you gave it a few minutes.

A little while longer passed and since you now couldn’t focus on your paper, you tried to call Mindy back. Then Tara. Then Chad. Then Sam. Then Quinn. Then Anika.

Not a single one of them answered.

You took a deep breath. Then, you went to double check that your door was locked.

You tried to call Ethan, but his phone went immediately to voicemail. It must’ve been dead or powered off.

That left no one else to call, and you felt more alone than ever.

You sat down at your desk and tried to focus.

You ended up going to your bedroom, putting on sleep clothes, and watching a comfort show under all your blankets instead, paper completely forgotten.

Your phone dinged from your bedside table and when you looked at it, you saw a message from Ethan. Only a few hours late, but he said he was on his way up.

That was sudden. You tried to not overthink being alone with Ethan too much.

A few moments later, there was a knock at your front door.

You climbed out of bed, not really caring that you were wearing sleep shorts and a baggy shirt. Your friends had seen you go to class in about the same when you had all night study sessions.

When you got to the door, you got a little nervous. But you knew it had to be Ethan, so you tried to push the anxiety aside and unlocked then opened the door.

You were met with shock and horror.

Towering over you in your doorway stood a figure in a black robe… and a ghostface mask.

You tried to slam the door, but the person caught it. You choked on a scream when they shoved their way in, holding a knife. There was a small stain of red on the metal blade and a darker, bigger mass on the robe.

Blood. Blood was red.

You scrambled back and tried to think of where to go. None of the doors in your apartment locked, not even the bathroom door.

Your heart and mind raced and suddenly you were spewing words.

“I don’t know what to say to make you not kill me, but I please don’t,” you rushed out.

The person—the killer—moved closer to you after shutting and locking your front door.

You ran, but there was really nowhere to go. The killer ran too. You tried to lure them to the bathroom and shove them in, but they dodged and had you almost within their grasp.

They didn’t slash the knife, though.

You ran for the front door, but the killer grabbed you by the arm. You were shoved back against your hallway wall and pinned. Your back slammed against the wall, but not hard. They held the knife to your throat—not too close, but it was still there and still kept you frozen.

“Are you gonna kill me?”

The words came out before you could stop them. You internally scolded yourself. That’s the kinda shit the girls who got murdered asked.

There was a laugh, and then a familiar voice.

“I’d never do that.”

By the time the killer reached for the mask and pulled it off, you still hadn’t processed your shock.

“Ethan?” you gawked up at him while he gave you a cheeky smile. He let the mask drop and the hand holding the knife fell to his side.

“You should’ve seen your face,” he said through a smile, excited eyes scanning your face for realization.

“Is this… is this a fucking prank?” you questioned, finally comprehending. “Ethan, what the fuck!?” You shoved him back by his shoulder, admittedly a little pissed. “You’re covered in blood!”

He stayed standing in front of you.

“It’s fake, I promise. It was just a joke,” he reasoned, looking a little guilty. “Y’know, cause Halloween and… alright, maybe my timing isn’t great.”

You scoffed out a laugh at that. “It’s terrible timing. There really is someone after us.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Ethan apologized with a small, apologetic smile. You stared at him, still surprised. He looked so innocent for someone that could pull off, let alone come up with, such a messed up prank.

“Is this where you’ve been? Dressing up to mess with me while there really is a killer after us?” You questioned, raising your brows and crossing your arms.

“Y’know, if there really is a killer after us, we probably shouldn’t let each other die virgins,” Ethan stated in a flirtatious way he easily could’ve played off as a joke. Maybe it was entirely a joke, but you played along in a different direction.

You scoffed. “And you’re just assuming I’m a virgin?”

He shrugged, the long fabric of his costume rustling. “I see how you are with guys. They want you, you never want them.”

“So what, I’m a tease?” you guessed, used to hearing that but a little disappointed to think it would come from him.

“No,” he clarified quickly. “But they’re just never good enough for you and you know that. Like that jerk Jason.”

You cringed a little at the mention of him, and then felt bad about that. The guy had been murdered, after all.

“Don’t say that, he’s dead.”

“So what?” Ethan asked plainly, surprising you a little. “He was a killer too. He could’ve gone after you, you should be grateful to whoever did it.”

You furrowed your brows. He was starting to sound like someone else. “Grateful?”

“It’s okay, you’re allowed to be.” Ethan’s expression as he spoke was one of reassurance. “You could’ve been next, you never know. He was one of those guys who couldn’t take a hint that he was beneath you.”

You had no idea he thought that way about you—that there were men he deemed unworthy. It was enough to distract you from the shift in his demeanor.

“And what? You’re saying you’re one of the guys who’s good enough for me?” you couldn’t help but wonder. You never thought about your dating history (or lack of) like that.

“Hell no,” he said, surprising you yet again. You were expecting a ‘yes’ with the way he was coming onto you all of the sudden, but what he said carried even more of a self-depreciating brand of charm. “But I’m hoping maybe you’ll pity the loser who’s had a hopeless crush on you for a while now and give him a chance.”

“You’re not a loser,” you said before you registered the rest of his words. When you did, you were taken aback at the confession. “But you’re not usually this… bold, Ethan.”

You wanted to ask him if something was wrong, but there was a lot wrong these past few hours.

“What can I say? I’ve been feeling more confident recently.”

You hummed, understanding that in a way.

“Maybe it’s the whole ‘we could die any second’ thing,” you ventured a guess.

He smiled to himself, like you’d just referenced an inside joke you weren’t a part of.

“Could be,” he agreed. He laughed a little and looked down at himself, then met your eyes again. “Sorry about scaring you. It was in poor taste. We both like horror movies… I don’t know, it was stupid.”

You scoffed, but you weren’t really mad anymore.

“I like horror movies, I don’t want to be in one,” you told him, eyeing the knife he held loosely in his right hand. “Is the knife real?”

“What?” Ethan asked, feigning confusion. He lifted the knife and examined it. “This knife?”

“Yeah, that knife,” you parroted back his playful tone. “You said the blood is fake, but is the knife real?”

A devious look crossed Ethan’s face. He held it to your throat slowly, holding it horizontally. You didn’t flinch, much to his pleasure. He seemed almost impressed.

“Gotta be authentic, right?” he mused, eyes flicking to your parted lips as you breathed steadily. “Can I kiss you?”

When his curious eyes looked back at yours, you couldn’t help but notice he still held the knife. The rush of excitement you felt scared you more than the fear of him letting it slip forward.

“What’s the knife for?” you asked with a surge of confidence, taunting him a little. “If I say no?”

Ethan laughed at that. He pulled it back and let it drop to the floor. It clattered against the wood, and you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. But it wasn’t from fear—it was from anticipation. Maybe your curiosity was a little more than that after all.

“You’re safe with me,” he assured. “Promise.”

His words felt layered, but in a way you couldn’t define.

Perhaps it was his way of saying he’d protect you. Maybe it was strange, especially given his entrance, but you found yourself feeling exactly that with Ethan. Safe.

Nothing was going to hurt you, certainly not him.

“About that kiss…” you started, giving him the indication that he was looking for.

Ethan took the hint and ran with it, lips crashing into yours in the blink of an eye.

His lips were soft, but the kiss was needy and hungry. You tried to move your lips in sync with his, but he was much more dominant.

A joke that you’d never say flashed by about him practicing.

It was easy not to laugh when Ethan’s hand threaded into your hair and his tongue began to explore your mouth.

The leather glove felt strange. It made you pull back a little, which you almost couldn’t do with the way Ethan eagerly chased your swollen lips with his own.

You glanced over his costume again. It looked really legit—when did he have time to get it? Was he actually gonna wear this for Halloween? You swore you remembered him and Chad talking about some other costume he made out of cardboard for the frat party.

Before you could spiral down that path, Ethan pulled the leather gloves off quickly and cast them aside. It was like he could read your mind. Both hands went to your face, pulling you to meet him halfway in another searing kiss.

You didn’t know what was coming over you, but whatever it was was causing arousal to stir in your belly.

You figured out the answer to that pretty quickly.

It was want. You wanted Ethan.

“Is the other offer still on the table?” you uttered softly when you and Ethan had to part for air.

He grinned, unable to contain it.

“Thought there was no way in hell that would work,” Ethan admitted a little breathlessly. “Thought I never stood a chance with you, but I liked you anyway.”

Ethan had a boyish charm about him usually, but now that was combined with a streak of deviance that you finally now noticed.

You weren’t expecting to be as intrigued by it as you were.

“Give yourself a little more credit,” you told Ethan, raising your hand to cup his cheek. He leaned into your touch a little. One hand rested on your shoulder and the other fell to hold your hip, tucking under your baggy shirt and rubbing your skin beneath. “You are pretty cute.”

Ethan’s smile only grew, but when you leaned in to kiss him again his lips met yours.

He wrapped his arms around your waist and guided the two of you to the ground with your back leaning against the wall. He was in front of you, on his knees, with you in his lap.

You ran a hand through his curly hair and you guided his lips back to yours. From what he’d revealed, Ethan hadn’t had a lot of experience with girls. It was a damn shame, because the boy was a great kisser.

His hand caressed your thigh as he trailed upward. You gave him a soft sound of encouragement when his fingers found their way to the waistband of your shorts.

“Is this okay?” Ethan asked, which made you want to grab him and kiss him again.

“Yeah.”

His hand slid into your shorts and your underwear.

One finger—you guessed middle—pushed inside of you. A small gasp escaped you at the intrusion and he watched your face.

Ethan was making sure the sound wasn’t of pain, which it wasn’t, and you appreciated that.

He withdrew the digit, then pushed in again. He repeated the motion a few more times before adding his index finger.

Ethan’s breathing grew heavy as he felt you squeeze around his fingers. He thrust and curled them inside you with rhythm. He managed to find one pretty quickly. That plus his thumb rubbing at your clit, you were falling apart in mere minutes.

Your brief orgasm rocked your whole body, leaving you clenching his fingers and quivering.

Ethan muttered things to you, but you could hardly hear over the sound of your own heart pounding in your ears.

Your head rested back against the wall as you caught your breath, still trembling from the aftershocks. Ethan withdrew his hand from between your legs and out of your shorts.

Your eyelids felt heavy, but in between slow blinks you saw him lift his fingers to his lips. You watched breathlessly as he placed them into his mouth and moaned at the taste of you.

No words would come out of your mouth, but he took rendering you speechless as a compliment.

“I’ve thought about that,” Ethan started, voice a little ragged. He was watching you, but his hand had moved off to the side. “What you’d look like… what you’d sound like… what you’d taste like.” The awe in his eyes as he spoke left you swooning.

“And?” you managed, sitting up a little straighter.

With the change in your angle, you could feel the bulge in his pants, even though the added layer of the costume he had yet to remove.

“You’re better than I ever imagined,” Ethan finished.

A scrape against the floor alarmed you. You looked to the sound and saw Ethan grabbing the knife off of the floor.

You watched as he brought it between your bodies. He first tucked it through the leg of your shorts, the cold metal sliding against your skin as it caught under your underwear as well. Then, he pointed the sharp side facing out. Finally, he sliced up through the fabric. You gasped a little as the cold air of the room hit your newly exposed skin. He did the same with the other leg, then pulled the tattered material away from your body.

You did the honors of pulling off your shirt. You didn’t have a bra underneath and you almost laughed at the way Ethan gawked at your fully naked body when you cast it aside.

“Your turn,” you told him. You were completely undressed, while he still wore the long, black disguise.

“Actually,” Ethan said a little eerily. There was something in his eyes you couldn’t quite pinpoint. “I was thinking I could leave it on?”

It was a question, there was room for you to say no. Maybe you should’ve, it was a little weird. But you weren’t really thinking about that. You were more focused on how badly you wanted Ethan to fuck you, and that clouded your brain.

“As long as you don’t put the mask back on,” you relented in a joking tone.

“You’re so fucking cool,” Ethan rushed out before slamming his lips into yours. The knife was cast aside again—you didn’t see it happen, but both of his hands were on your face.

You laughed a little against his lips, dazed and drunk on arousal. You didn’t really care about the logistics of it.

His hands moved down, but you were distracted by his lips dominating yours.

You heard the sound of his zipper being undone and he moved a little—you guessed shoving his pants down his thighs.

There was no time to look down because in a rush, Ethan was pinning you back against the wall with his body. One hand gripped your waist, holding you in place for him. The other was presumably guiding his cock to your entrance.

You gasped a little against his lips when he started to press forward while simultaneously pulling you down into his lap. The fabric of the costume draped over your thighs, blocking your view.

The stretch of his cock pushing into you was more intense than you could’ve predicted, but your whole body trembled with pleasure at the feel.

Finally, he either got too excited or lost his patience, and guided you down the rest of the way until he was fully sheathed inside of you.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ethan cursed to himself, body straining to keep from moving. His head dropped to your shoulder, heavy breaths hitting your neck. He leaned against you, forcing you against the wall.

His cock twitched inside of you and his body tensed, trying to hold back.

You panted slightly, trying to get your breath back. You ran a hand up his back and you felt him shiver. Your hand moved up the back of his neck and into his mess of curls.

You always liked Ethan’s hair.

You gave a small, barely qualifiable tug, but it had an effect. His body jerked, causing him to move inside of you. You gasped a little, but the motion felt good.

He lifted his head to look at you. His face was a little flushed and the lust blown look in his eyes made you quiver.

“You can move,” you whispered out, not trusting your voice.

Ethan didn’t need to be told twice. He secured the arm around your waist a little tighter and he put the other hand on the wall, giving himself leverage.

The slow drag of him moving out of you made you gasp for breath. The thrust back in knocked the air out of your lungs.

He set a quick pace after that, hips slamming eagerly into yours as the pleasure and excitement overwhelmed him.

It felt good, really fucking good.

Neither of you knew exactly what you were doing, but you were sure you’d figured it out because your whole body tingled with pleasure.

You cried out his name, which only spurred him on.

In a jarring movement you could hardly track, Ethan dragged you from the wall to the floor. He put himself on top of you, never once withdrawing from inside of you.

He watched your face as he pounded into you. Ethan had more leverage this way, able to grip your hip in one hand while the other held the top half of him off of you by being planted on the floor near your head.

You wrapped your legs around his waist, which you couldn’t see because the bottom half of your body was covered by the black costume. You hardly paid any attention to that aspect. You didn’t care that he wore it, not when you were this caught up in pleasure.

(In hindsight, you should’ve).

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Ethan breathed out, hips starting the stutter with every thrust.

The knot in your belly started to tighten as he buried himself into you over and over.

You couldn’t speak, your breathing was so labored as you reached to cling to him.

His head dropped down to your shoulder as he allowed more of his body weight to fall onto you. You found yourself enjoying the feel of him truly being on top of you.

You hardly noticed the fake blood smearing onto your bare skin. When you did, you were too gone to care.

You bucked your hips, meeting his stuttering thrusts. He was getting close to his edge and so were you. You moaned beneath him as his forceful thrusts sparked pleasure through your entire body.

“I’m close,” you managed to moan out against his ear.

“Oh, fuck,” Ethan groaned out, cock pulsing inside of you at the thought. He lifted his head enough to be able to watch your face. “Come again for me, please,” he panted out, nearly falling over the edge at the mere anticipation.

The begging was hot, and your body was already ready to give him what he wanted.

You noticed his eyes flicking down your body, seeing the red stains on your skin. That was quickly forgotten by you when your whole body began to tense and quiver. You held onto him tight as waves of ecstasy crashed over you.

You didn’t see his eyes linger.

Ethan couldn’t hold it together, not with the way your body tightened around him as your orgasm rocked you.

He collapsed on top of you, holding you against him as his forehead pressed to yours. His eyes were clenched shut as he frantically shoved his hips against yours, burying himself deep. His cock twitched, his whole body shivering as he spilled himself inside of you with a moan.

The sound of him alone was enough to prolong your pleasure as you rode it out, but the extra movement and the feeling of him filling you was an added bonus.

He kissed you hard on the lips, effectively pulling the air from your lungs.

After a moment, he found the strength to roll off of you, only to then drag you to his side.

“I can die a happy man, now,” he joked morbidly.

You shoved him a little by the shoulder like you had before, but not enough to actually make him go anywhere.

“Don’t say shit like that,” you argued weakly.

He flashed you a brief grin. “I meant it as a compliment.”

You rolled your eyes and did you best to laugh it off.

You lost track of how long it took you to move from the floor to your couch. The same thing happened between the time it took for you to get from the couch to your shower.

It was a tiny shower that couldn’t fit two people, so you rinsed off as quick as you could. You were tired, and your legs felt weak, and you knew you’d be sore in a way that would make it hard to keep calm tomorrow.

Whatever he had used for the blood, at least it washed off fast. You were able to finish up in a matter of minutes.

You threw on new pajamas and crawled into your bed, managing to tell Ethan to take however long he wanted and that he could stay over if he wanted.

You found yourself hoping he would.

You were nearly asleep when the shower shut off and Ethan finally joined you in bed. He was only in his boxers and a black t-shirt, which he must’ve been wearing under the costume robe.

A thought nagged at the back of your mind about the costume, wondering why he’d gone through all of that just to mess with you for a minute—albeit a terrifying minute. It didn’t seem like him, but then you remembered you’d only met him a few months ago.

You were so exhausted you fell asleep in his arms, not awake enough to care about all of the weird details. In fact, the only thing you could think about was how much you liked falling asleep with Ethan’s arms around you.

In the morning, you found out your friends had all been attacked.

You showed up with Ethan after the feed on your college’s chat app blew up with images of cops swarming and ambulances outside of Sam, Tara, and Quinn’s apartment.

Mindy seemed relieved to see you, but not so much when she realized Ethan was with you. Maybe she’d cleared you as a suspect in her head.

She yelled at him to stay back, accusing him of being the killer. Nobody was taking Quinn’s death well, but Mindy was especially heartbroken over Anika.

“Stay back!” Mindy yelled at Ethan, who did as she commanded.

Everyone turned on him then, even Chad. Everyone except you. They demanded his alibi.

“How do I know you’re not the killer, roomie,” Chad spit at him, amped up.

“I was with Y/N last night,” Ethan defended, holding his hands up in a small show of innocence, before you could say a word. “We were… preoccupied, alright?”

You wanted to elbow him for how he worded it, he couldn’t have been more obvious if he tried. It might’ve been on purpose, you weren’t sure.

He wasn’t close enough to do that, though, and now all eyes were on you.

“Yeah, he was with me,” you backed Ethan up.

You weren’t going to leave him hanging because it was the truth, but you knew what that implied, and so did your friends. They all shared subtle—but not unnoticeable—looks. Your face felt warm, while Ethan bit back a prideful smile.

“So you guys, um…”

“Chad, stop,” Tara scolded him before he could point out the obvious.

“Point is, we had nothing to do with this,” Ethan stated.

We?

They were suspicious of him, and now he was lumping the two of you together. There were always two killers in the movies—you began to doubt if the alibi would ease their anxiety or only spike it.

You thought back to when he had showed up to your apartment in that costume. He’d scared you, but you accepted it when he told you it was a joke that he mistakenly took too far.

It made you wonder. What if it was him?

If he wanted to hurt you, he easily could’ve. That didn’t seem to be his intention. What was? Seeing how much he could scare you? Get your heart rate up? Seeing if you wouldn’t believe him?

Or was it seeing if he could put the evidence right in front of you and have you ignore it because of a crush?

Fuck. Maybe it was some weird combination of all. Were you that gullible? Or were you overthinking it now?

Your brain struggled to come up with a conclusion.

You wanted to believe Ethan was innocent. You really, really did.

It was easier than believing you had slept with a killer. Or potentially worse, that you had feelings for one.

Ethan gave you a slight, assuring smile.

Your head told you one thing, but your heart told you another.

Maybe you shouldn’t have, but you kept your mouth shut and gave him one back.

[askablindperson]

In what way does alt text serve as an accessibility tool for blind people? Do you use text to speech? I'm having trouble imagining that. I suppose I'm in general not understanding how a blind person might use Tumblr, but I'm particularly interested in the function of alt text.

In short, yes. We use text to speech (among other access technology like braille displays) very frequently to navigate online spaces. Text to speech software specifically designed for blind people are called screen readers, and when use on computers, they enable us to navigate the entire interface using the keyboard instead of the mouse And hear everything on screen, as long as those things are accessible. The same applies for touchscreens on smart phones and tablets, just instead of using keyboard commands, it alters the way touch affect the screen so we hear what we touch before anything actually gets activated. That part is hard to explain via text, but you should be able to find many videos online of blind people demonstrating how they use their phones.

As you may be able to guess, images are not exactly going to be accessible for text to speech software. Blindness screen readers are getting better and better at incorporating OCR (optical character recognition) software to help pick up text in images, and rudimentary AI driven Image descriptions, but they are still nowhere near enough for us to get an accurate understanding of what is in an image the majority of the time without a human made description.

Now I’m not exactly a programmer so the terminology I use might get kind of wonky here, but when you use the alt text feature, the text you write as an image description effectively gets sort of embedded onto the image itself. That way, when a screen reader lands on that image, Instead of having to employ artificial intelligences to make mediocre guesses, it will read out exactly the text you wrote in the alt text section.

Not only that, but the majority of blind people are not completely blind, and usually still have at least some amount of residual vision. So there are many blind people who may not have access to a screen reader, but who may struggle to visually interpret what is in an image without being able to click the alt text button and read a description. Plus, it benefits folks with visual processing disorders as well, where their visual acuity might be fine, but their brain’s ability to interpret what they are seeing is not. Being able to click the alt text icon in the corner of an image and read a text description Can help that person better interpret what they are seeing in the image, too.

Granted, in most cases, typing out an image description in the body of the post instead of in the alt text section often works just as well, so that is also an option. But there are many other posts in my image descriptions tag that go over the pros and cons of that, so I won’t digress into it here.

Utilizing alt text or any kind of image description on all of your social media posts that contain images is single-handedly one of the simplest and most effective things you can do to directly help blind people, even if you don’t know any blind people, and even if you think no blind people would be following you. There are more of us than you might think, and we have just as many varied interests and hobbies and beliefs as everyone else, so where there are people, there will also be blind people. We don’t only hang out in spaces to talk exclusively about blindness, we also hang out in fashion Facebook groups and tech subreddits and political Twitter hashtags and gaming related discord servers and on and on and on. Even if you don’t think a blind person would follow you, You can’t know that for sure, and adding image descriptions is one of the most effective ways to accommodate us even if you don’t know we’re there.

I hope this helps give you a clearer understanding of just how important alt text and image descriptions as a whole are for blind accessibility, and how we make use of those tools when they are available.

[ihavethedreamies]

Mine | Jaemin

Na Jaemin - NCT Dream

Rating: M (18+) MDNI

Word Count: ~9.3k

Pairing: Jaemin x AFAB!Reader

Genre: Reader-Insert, Fluff, Jealousy, Friends-to-Lovers, Smut

!!This is smut…if that much isn't clear you should probably leave now!! MDNI!

Warnings: She/Her Pronouns used, Swearing, Kissing, Oral (F! Receiving), Fluffy Smut

Author's Note: This is for my bestest friend in the world. Jaemin is her ultimate favorite and this might very well make her explode. Which is the goal. She didn't ask for smut, but… That is why it’s a bit more…fluffy/vanilla than my other stuff, because it's for her >3>

There is a bit of cross-over between groups here. Changbin and Felix of Stray Kids are in it directly and Wooyoung of ATEEZ is mentioned.

Fun Fact: the middle pic in the banner is actually of Hyunjin

Edit (8/25/24): I changed the text/chat pictures to just text.

I am cross-posting this on Archive. Please reblog! If you know anyone that would like this or future fics but they aren't on here my name and icon are exactly the same on the other site. Happy reading!

"Hey, you know my friend Changbin?" your friend asked as she applied her lip balm, looking in a handheld mirror. You simply blinked at this, considering it wasn’t even tinted and you pondered why she needed the mirror.

"Yes?" You shook your head, looking back to your laptop. You and Yuna were sitting at a table in one of the on-campus cafés . Studying in the library was hard because you two could get kind of rowdy and it was hard to stay quiet.

"He’s been trying to get me to set him up with one of my girl friends…" She drifted off, casting you a not very subtle look. You had never seen the guy, just knew he was a gym rat, and he was friends with your ex. Rubbing your eye as your vision blurred from staring at your screen too long, she leaned into your blind spot, which startled you when your eye refocused.

"What?" You grumbled and she sighed dramatically, resting her cheek on the table.

"Please?" She immediately started to beg, just repeating the word over and over.

"Oh my god, fine!" You relented. A bit hesitant since he was so close with Wooyoung. You weren’t sure if it was a good idea to go out with a friend of your ex.

"What if we do a double date?" Yuna could tell you were a bit hesitant, and the thought of tag-teaming was better.

"Okay, like a double blind-date thing?" you asked, and her face lit up.

"Yes! Bring me someone hot." She winked and you huffed. Going over your own friend group in your head, you tried to figure out who was best for her. You immediately threw your roommate Jisung out. He was way too shy and quiet for her, and she was a lot for anyone. Chenle was also out, that would be way too much loud in your life since he essentially lived with you as well with how much he was over. Renjun wasn’t Yuna’s type, she doesn’t go out with guys she claims are prettier than her. Mark was…something was going on with Yuta that you didn’t have the time to ponder on. Donghyuck could work but he, surprisingly, was pretty serious when it came to dating and wasn’t a fan of flings. Jeno? He could work, but you were pretty sure he was supposed to be going somewhere for a cycling race. That left Jaemin. The thought made your stomach twinge a bit, but you couldn’t pinpoint why. His stupid goofy grinning face flashed in your mind and quickly changed to the cocky smirk he wore when he flirted. Which he did a lot. You decided you were nervous for Yuna because he was such a flirt, but then again, so was she. Deep down you knew you had a bit of a crush on him despite the fact that you declared you never would. Every time some guy rose in popularity on campus, they were immediately disqualified. He had been your friend before that happened to him, but you begrudgingly followed the crowd as he rose to be number one pretty fast. I mean, you weren’t surprised, you had eyes. Jeno was also really high up there, but he seemed more like a brother to you. He was like a sweet puppy dog, Jaemin was more like a lion. Lazy and beautiful.

"I’ll ask Jaemin…" You mumbled to yourself, and she perked up.

"Wait, Na Jaemin?"

"Yes? That okay?"

"Fuck yeah, that’s okay, holy shit!" She cackled to herself, and you grumbled, typing out a quick message to him.

☀️: Wanna go on a blind date? 🐰: Why would I be blind? ☀️: You know what I mean dumbass. 🐰: who ☀️: My friend Yuna. She wants to set me up with her friend and so we decided to do a double. 🐰: you too? ☀️: Yeah that's what I mean by double... 🐰: who ☀️: Her friend Changbin. He's one of Wooyoung's friends too. 🐰: hm

What did that mean? There were two ends of the spectrum of messaging Jaemin. You either got very short answers like right then, or way too many emojis.

🐰: hm 🐰: works out a lot? ☀️: Yeah, him. 🐰: hm ☀️: What does that mean? 🐰: wouldn't you like to know

You rolled your eyes and waited as the little dots bounced as he typed. Then they would stop, then start, then stop. What the hell was taking him so long.

🐰: wouldn't you like to know ☀️: You good, fam? 🐰: yeh, i shall go ☀️: You shall? I didn't even say when... 🐰: when then

"When are you thinking?" You turned to Yuna who was typing on her phone, probably with her guy friend.

"Friday night, 7?" She didn’t even look up from her phone.

"Where?" You got ready to relay the information.

"Uh…he told you to pick." She sniggered at something else on her phone, so you went back to yours.

🐰: when then ☀️: Friday at 7. 🐰: where ☀️: You decide. 🐰: hmm ☀️: Hurry up, I need to keep working. 🐰: have your computer program decide ☀️: I'm coding a program for the periodic table it can't do that.

He was getting on your nerves, and you pondered why the hell you even liked him. For probably everything else but how he texted, but that was beside the point.

☀️: I'm coding a program for the periodic table it can't do that. 🐰: taeyong's place ☀️: That's expensive... 🐰: so? ☀️: Not all of us are financially stable. 🐰: I...will pay~ ☀️: You will? 🐰: not for him ☀️: I'll make sure it's okay...

"Ask him if he’s okay going somewhere fancy. Our friend started as a chef at some place called Kwangya, but it’s pricey. Jaemin said he’ll pay for us." You put your phone down to pull up the website to get an idea of the prices. It wasn’t like a Michelin star-level place or anything, but it was nicer than most college students would usually go for. Looking over the menu you saw the cheapest entrée was still like twenty dollars.

"Oh shit, that looks good, let me ask him." Yuna leaned in, resting her cheek on your shoulder to look at your screen, then she went back to her phone.

"He said that’s perfect, he’ll pay for you he said." Your friend wiggled her eyebrows, and you exhaled through your nose.

☀️: I'll make sure it's okay... ☀️: You're in luck. He's in and will pay for me too. 🐰: no ☀️: No? 🐰: i pay ☀️: It wouldn't make sense for you to pay for me and your date... 🐰: I pay ☀️: Okay, whatever, you two can figure it out then... 🐰: wear pink ☀️: That's not your decision. 🐰: hm

You rolled your eyes; he was so freaking odd sometimes…Most times. After all the details got ironed out, you both went back to studying and working before heading your separate ways around four. When you got back to your apartment, your eyes immediately found a foreign pair of shoes by the door. Jisung was always sure to put his on the shoe rack with yours, and Chenle’s were simply thrown somewhere on the floor, but these were set nicely by the rack. Who was there? Dolphin laughter could be heard from the living room, and you guessed Chenle had maybe brought someone. Jisung didn’t have too many people he knew past the other six. The rest of their friends would almost all just have their shoes in a pile or would use the rack…

"Noona~" Chenle shouted in delight as you came in and you couldn’t hide a smile.

"Hi, Lele."

"Did you get your program finished?" Jisung’s much quieter and deeper voice brought your attention as he came out of the laundry room. There definitely was third person there, an unfamiliar bag was resting against the coffee table. Maybe they were in the bathroom.

"Who is here?" you asked and Jisung stiffened, worried you might be upset. Little did he know, you could never be upset with your most precious.

"My friend Felix." Chenle was strewn across your armchair.

"The one from Australia?" You made sure you got it right and he nodded. He was looking at his phone as he typed, a growing look of distaste spreading over his face.

"What’s wrong?" Jisung asked the other guy, moving to sit back down on the couch, picking up his laptop. You could hear the washer going and you really hoped he didn’t put too much soap in again. As you joined them in the living room, you set your bag down next to the couch and flopped on the opposite end of your roommate.

"Jaemin." Is all he said, and you rolled your eyes, understanding his sentiment. Guess he was being weird with everyone today.

"I hope it’s okay, I might have stained the sink…" A deep voice caught you off guard and you turned so fast to see the owner your neck popped. He was…beautiful.

"What do you mean?" You finally registered his comment after a few seconds of staring.

"His pen leaked." Jisung answered and Felix showed you the faded blue stain on his hands.

"Oh, that’s okay." You assured him, still gaping. He came to sit back on the floor at the coffee table and gave you a smile made of sunshine.

"I’m Felix."

"Right, yes, I’m (Y/N)." You introduced and Chenle burst out laughing.

"You’re going on a double date with Jaemin?" The second youngest looked at you and you groaned, slumping further into the couch.

"I’m not going with him. I set him up with Yuna and she set me up with her friend." You corrected.

"Yuna? Song Yuna?" Felix asked and you nodded as you straightened back up.

"Oh, I’m friends with her too. Who is she setting you up with?" He looked up from the pen that he was holding, probably a little weary it might leak as well.

"Changbin?" When you spoke the name, his face shifted from slight worry of the writing device to an amused look. He sputtered a laugh, and you weren’t sure how to take that.

"You dated Wooyoung right?"

"Yes?"

"He’s going to have a field day…"

"Why?" Was that a good or bad thing?

"Changbin’s liked you since before you broke up with Woo." The blonde huffed another laugh as he started to jot down notes from his textbook.

"Seriously? I’ve never even seen him… How did he know about me?"

"You were Woo’s background. You might still be, actually…" He mentioned it so casually, but you were once again shocked. You had broken up like four months prior.

"She’s Jaemin’s background too." Chenle had begun to chew aggressively on some licorice. Your licorice.

"Hey, give that back!" You stood so you could confiscate the candy and he whined pitifully and loudly. Then what he said hit you as you sat back down.

"I’m Jaemin’s background?!"

"It’s that picture of when you and Renjun fell in the mud at the park." Jisung finished and you sighed, rolling your eyes. He always had the embarrassing pictures.

"She’s still Wooyoung’s background?" The youngest turned to Felix.

"I think so…" The three boys fell back into the lull of whatever they were doing, and you sat and pondered.

"When are you going on the double date?" Jisung’s soft voice pulled you from your thoughts.

"Day after tomorrow, why?" You looked up from your phone and he looked deep in thought before he looked at his own phone.

"Just curious. I’m going to Chenle’s for a movie marathon."

"Avengers!" the other boy cheered.

"Where are you going?" Felix piped up and you were once again floored by his deep voice, especially with that pretty face.

"Kwangya. Our friend Taeyong just got the position of head chef." you replied.

"He’s such a good cook." Jisung added and you nodded.

"That place is expensive…" the eldest boy was scrolling through his phone, presumably looking at the menu, then he giggled.

"Order the most expensive thing possible if hyung is paying." His mischievous smile was freaking adorable. You snapped, and pointed at him, "sure thing."

"Oh my god, I am so freaking excited." Yuna bounced as she leaned over your vanity, putting her lipstick on. Since Jaemin had told you to wear pink, you had your friend do so instead. Her dress was light pink with plum blossoms printed over the fabric, the tight dress ended about midthigh and had an asymmetric over-the-shoulder top. You were a bit worried about her walking in the tallest heels she owned, but she liked being near the same height as her date. She had her hair up in a curled ponytail and long pink crystal earrings. You had already gotten ready and had a natural makeup look on with pretty much just mascara, eyeliner, and lipgloss. Your dress was a deep purple with a high keyhole style top. There was a belt around the upper part of your waist and as the dress flowed down the purple faded into black at the end of a circle skirt. Your tallest heels were barely even heels, but they were black, and you had dark sheer tights on as well. Your black metallic hoops matched the bangle you had on your left wrist and the rings on your index and ring fingers of your right hand. Your hair was tied back and flowed down your back in loose curls. Not normally one for manicures, Yuna had gotten you both press on nails instead and yours were almond shaped, simply black with silver accents. Hers were the same pink as her dress with cherry blossoms. She couldn’t find plum blossoms, but most people didn’t know the difference anyway.

"I hope he meets your expectations." You huffed and she rolled her eyes.

"Girl, I know what he looks like, I couldn’t care less about his personality. I even broke out my fancy panties." She smiled and for some reason this really bothered you. You honestly didn’t know if Jaemin was the type to sleep with a girl on the first date, he didn’t talk much about his love life around you. You shifted on your feet, reaching behind you to adjust the band of your bra through the fabric of your dress. Your bra and panties were somewhat plain, just black with a little bit of lace. It didn’t matter anyway. Even if you really liked Changbin you weren’t going to bed him on that first date. Unless he was like…really freaking hot, which was a possibility. For some reason though, even thinking about it made you feel guilty. The thought of Yuna sleeping with Jaemin made you feel even worse, and you tried to ignore it.

"Is my makeup okay?" She shoved her lipstick back in her little bag, white with a gold chain.

"Yes. Mine?" She looked over your face quickly and clicked her tongue.

"Of course. Why’d you even ask?" She grumbled and you giggled as she fixed a few stray hairs, then you went out to your living room to wait. Jisung had left only about fifteen minutes prior, peeking his head into your room to say buy. He got a faint dusting on his cheeks seeing you all pretty and dressed up and he mumbled something as he left. Not even two seconds after you sat in your armchair, your phone went off.

🐰: Here ☀️: The restaurant? You're like twenty minutes early. 🐰: your building ☀️: Oh, I thought we were meeting there? 🐰: coming up

You shook your head; he had been acting weird the last few days and you wondered why he even agreed to this whole double date. He didn’t seem particularly into it… When your door buzzed, you didn’t even get up as you heard him keying in your door code.

"He knows your code?"

"They all do. They tend to come here when they are drunk." You shrugged, still looking at your phone. You had been scrolling through your pictures and deleting everything of you and Wooyoung. It still irked you a bit that you might still his phone background, but you weren’t going to tell him to take it off, what if it wasn’t? You weren’t sure if he knew about your date with Changbin either, and you hoped your past relationship didn’t come up. When Jaemin finally entered, you heard him coming down the hall, evidently still in his shoes. You were going to scold him when he finally came into view, but your words fizzled out. Fuck. He was wearing a white blazer over a black dress shirt. Said shirt was unbuttoned at the top, not starting till a little above the end of his sternum. A tie was tied around his neck loosely, the two ends tucked into his shirt, highlighting the exposed skin. His slacks were black as well as his shoes, and his silver-colored hair was styled up just enough to stay out of his eyes. When your eyes met his after you had scanned his outfit, the look was so intense it made you flinch.

"Fuck." Yuna whispered and you cleared your throat, standing and grabbing your bag.

"Ready?" he asked, forcing his gaze away from you. His face softened into a cocky smirk as Yuna came to stand with you.

"Yuna, right?" He scratched his neck casually and she nodded, giving her best smirk.

"Yes. Everyone knows who you are Na Jaemin." She finally stepped up to him and linked her arm around his.

"Let’s go." You forced a smile onto your face and led them out of the apartment so you could head to the restaurant. As they flirted in the elevator, it was like you could only kind of hear them, your ears ringing like you had gotten hit in the head.

"Is Changbin meeting us there still?" you asked Yuna, and she nodded.

"He should get there around the time we do." Leading them to the small parking garage next to your building, you get in the car and wait for the other two. Jaemin held the door open for your friend and she got into the back where he joined her. You felt more like a chauffeur like that, but you just swallowed down the bitter thoughts and left the garage to head the right way. When you arrived, the valet took your vehicle and there was a guy waiting outside near the door. He was short for a man but still a bit taller than you, and holy fuck was he built. He had a white button down on, the buttons struggling to contain him. A black vest struggled over the shirt as well, and his black tie rested perfectly on his chest. The sleeves were half rolled up near his elbows, his forearms on display. A thick black watch drew your gaze to his hands, a simple silver band on his index finger. His slacks, also black, hugged his thick thighs wonderfully and you wondered if they would split from the strain if he moved the wrong way.

"Woah." He whispered, recognizing your presence when Yuna shouted his name. He came to stand in front of you, his gaze was scanning but polite. You watched carefully as his eyes trailed over your face and neckline, before quickly jumping to your waist and legs.

"You’re even more beautiful in person." He smiled and your face warmed. He took your smaller hand in his where it was rested on your bag, bringing it to his face and placing a light kiss on your knuckles. You heard Jaemin scoff lightly, and you chose to ignore it, focusing on the man before you.

"Let’s go in, I’m starved." your friend groaned dramatically and Jaemin held the door open for her, very pointedly letting it go when Changbin followed. That gave him the opportunity to hold it open for you though, and you nodded in thanks with a smile as you entered the restaurant.

"We have a reservation for seven." Yuna leaned against the podium where the host was as she typed into the tablet.

"Name?"

"Song."

"For four?"

"Yep."

"Please follow me." She grabbed four menus and led you into the establishment to a table in the back corner. The place was busy, but thanks to the ritzy environment, it wasn’t overly loud. The black and white décor and furniture were accented with different kinds of plants and other green things. Jaemin moved to sit down, pulling the chair next to him out. You waited for Yuna to sit but Jaemin was staring at you. Changbin shot Jaemin a look you didn’t notice, but your friend did. Changbin did much the same, sitting across from you and casually pulling the chair back with one hand for his friend. Your guy friend rested back in the chair nonchalantly, holding the menu in his hand on his lap, slinging his arm around the back of your chair. You didn’t even react, too busy looking over the menu, but the other two sure did.

"Order whatever you want, pretty girl." Changbin smirked when you glanced over your own menu at him, his resting on the table. You couldn’t help but marvel at his arms where they rested over the menu. His black hair was parted asymmetrically, his bangs brushing over his eyebrows. He was very handsome, in a more masculine way than Jaemin, who was more pretty.

"Are you sure?" you asked, Felix’s words flashing in your mind; you wanted to make sure.

"Of course." He smiled, looking back and you nodded, ignoring the numbers listed by each meal.

"Hello, I’ll be taking your order today." The waitress had come over and bowed slightly, ready to get your drinks. You simply ordered a water, not feeling like alcohol. Yuna did order a glass of wine, one that Jaemin picked out. He knew jack about wine, but he acted like he knew his stuff, he didn’t even drink. His order was simply for a Coke and Changbin ordered some kind of soda-liquor mix.

"Is this on two tickets or…" The waitress started.

"Two, me and her." Changbin nodded at you and before the waitress could start writing, Jaemin piped up.

"One, actually." You turned your head to look at him in shock and Yuna smiled coyly, resting his chin on her interlinked fingers. She hummed and Jaemin hadn’t even looked up from his menu but to meet your glance.

"I suggested the place, might as well. Tell Chef Moon Jaemin is ordering, so he better cook it really~ good." He smiled at the waitress, and she flushed a bit at the smolder, but nodded and headed off. His arm was still on the back of your chair, and you glanced at Yuna who bit her lip as she looked over the man next to you.

"What are you thinking of getting?" you asked your date and he hummed, flipping to the other side of the menu.

"The cream pasta looks good, but I don’t know if I would want chicken or shrimp." Changbin hummed, then looked up at you with a smile, "what about you, (Y/N)?" The way he said your name made your heart thump, was he normally so sweet or was he playing it up?

"She wants the lobster." Jaemin didn’t even look up from his menu and you glared at him. He wasn’t wrong…you loved it even if you didn’t get to eat it very often.

"It’s not even on the menu today." You tried not to snap at him.

"I think I’ll get the cream pasta with shrimp." You decided.

"Perfect." Changbin smiled and when the waitress came back with your drinks, your date ordered for both of you.

"Give me the steak." After Jaemin ordered, he took his menu and yours to hand them to the waitress. Yuna hummed, giving you a look, and ended up getting some kind of fish. When your guy friend ordered you grimaced. He knew you didn’t like beef, even just the smell bothered you. Though, if he was paying, especially with the prices being so high, you wouldn’t say anything.

"I know we don’t know each other super well yet, but you’re too good for Wooyoung." Changbin started and you gave him a shocked look. Yuna looked surprised at the comment as well and Jaemin huffed in what seemed like agreement.

"W-what do you mean?" you asked.

"This is the kind of place to go to. A beautiful restaurant for a beautiful girl. Let me guess, your first date was at an amusement park?"

"W-well…yes. We were first years in college though…"

"Still, you’re a lady not a middle schooler." He shook his head and you flushed some at the comments. You didn’t see yourself as a lady, but it made you feel special.

"Lady, huh?" The guy next to you kind of scoffed and you rolled your eyes. What was his deal?

"She’s more of a lady than this one that’s for sure." Changbin jutted his thumb at Yuna who sent him a scalding look.

"Fuck you, Bin."

"I would rather you didn’t." He smirked, turning the look to you. Letting out a small chuckle, your cheeks felt even warmer, the ice water a nice contrast as you took a sip. Focusing on the older man, you two passed likes and dislikes back and forth, just getting to know each other. You weren’t sure what the other two were discussing, but you could feel the tension leave Jaemin slowly. Yuna was batting her eyelashes every once in a while, and you had a feeling her heeled foot was brushing over his shin, if not higher. You tried not to think about it, going back to your date. When the food finally came, you smiled at how good the food looked and smelled. Luckily, your food more or less blocked the scent of Jaemin’s steak. As you twisted the pasta around on your fork against your spoon, as you went to bring it to your mouth, you noticed Changbin hold his own up.

"Cheers?" He smiled and you giggled, bumping your pasta swirl against his, then eating it. It really was so good, and you could tell it was definitely Taeyong’s.

"I was surprised I couldn’t hear you from the kitchen." A familiar voice chuckled, coming up to the table."

"Hi, Taeyong-oppa." You smiled at his comment to Jaemin.

"Hyung~" He cooed and you both huffed.

"I didn’t know you were going to be here too, (Y/N)." He glanced at the other two, "You’re Yuna, right?"

"Sure am." She seemed to be in a flirty mood, her tone was still lilted.

"You are…" He pointed to the other guy.

"Seo Changbin." He nodded respectfully.

"Double date?" Taeyong’s gaze moved to you, and you nodded. He simply hummed before his gaze met Jaemin’s.

"Enjoy the food, I’ll make sure you get a discount." He bowed and then left and Yuna watched him leave.

"Oof."

"Really?" You deadpanned; she was literally on a date with Jaemin.

"I need to go to the bathroom, come on (Y/N)." She got up, grabbing her bag and you did the same to follow her. You really didn’t understand why girls always went to the bathroom together, but you would literally just follow along. When you got in there, another woman was just leaving, but otherwise it was empty. Yuna went to look in the mirror, pulling her make up bag out to touch up her eye makeup. You rested your back against the counter, it seemed neither of you actually had to go.

"Sorry that Jaemin is being weird." You grimaced a bit, your mouth going straight.

"Well, it’s obvious he is here for you so…" She didn’t seem bothered at all.

"W-what?"

"Oh, please, girl. It’s obvious he’s jealous and just came so you he could keep an eye on Changbin. I’m more here to help you not be too uncomfortable, it’s just a bonus I get to flirt with Na Jaemin." She started to put on more lipstick, but realized she still had to finish eating, so that wouldn’t make sense.

"Y-you think?" You turned to look at her and she scoffed playfully.

"Here, I’ll play it up and see what he does." She got everything back into her bag and you both went back to the table. You had no idea what those two had been doing or talking about, but the tension was thick. After you sat down, the mood lightened, and a smile came back to Changbin’s face.

"Here, have more of the shrimps." He picked a few off of his plate to give to you before you could protest. Shooting Yuna a look, she winked, and stabbed a piece of fish with her fork, holding it up to Jaemin. She hummed and you made sure not to watch, so you missed his side look at you. The small talk continued with your date, and it seemed as Yuna notched up her flirting, so did Jaemin. You two weren’t so forward, keeping it more innocent.

"Oh, here." You noticed he had some sauce on his cheek, too far away for his tongue to reach. You grabbed your napkin and dipped it in your water so you could get it off. He smiled and the warm look made your face heat, and you sat back all the way down. You yelped when Jaemin curled his ankle around the leg of your chair and hauled you closer to him so he could whisper in your ear.

"The hell are you doing?" His tone was sharper than you had ever heard from him.

"What do you mean?" Your tone hardened as well. He simple glared down at you and you scoffed, aggressively yanking your chair back to where it was, resting your chin on your palm, closing yourself off from him.

"Sorry, he’s being a dick." you whispered to Changbin, but he didn’t laugh, just sent a look at the other man.

"What’s your deal?" He shot at Jaemin whose face immediately lost its flirty grin. He could be really freaking scary when he wanted….same thing with Chenle.

"I just have a problem with people who don’t know their place." He rose an eyebrow and you swallowed hard. You really wanted the chocolate lava cake on the dessert menu, but you were getting fed up. He offered to pay for everyone, so you stood and aggressively slung your bag on your shoulder.

"Let’s go Yuna. He can get home on his own." She immediately followed you and you stopped, looking at Changbin.

"I had fun with you, I’m sorry he’s being such a douche. I’ll get your number from Yuna." You smiled, giving him a slight bow and he nodded, watching in shock as you both left.

"(Y/N)!" Jaemin shouted after you and you just picked up the pace. Yuna’s heels clicked on the tile of the restaurant floor and then on the concrete as you left. Tears were pricking at your eyes, the warm drops cold in the blowing wind.

"Hey, you okay?" She stopped you, noticing your face starting to get blotchy.

"He’s a fucking jerk." You sniffed and she sighed.

"Hey, I’m not mad, I wasn’t expecting the world from the date-"

"Not that, how he was with Changbin. If what you said it true…" You licked your lips, and she wrapped her arm around your shoulder.

"The reason it hurts so much is because you like him. It’s hard to see someone act like a dick when you think highly of them." She informed wisely as you both waited for the valet to get your car. You wished you parked down the road so at least you could get away faster. Waiting outside meant there was the possibility of Jaemin getting to you before you could leave. Speak…well, think of the devil, and he shall come.

"(Y/N)!" He had pushed the door open so hard; the thick plexiglass wobbled a bit in the metal frame. You groaned and told Yuna to take your car back and began to storm down the sidewalk toward your building.

"Fucking- (Y/N), wait!" He dashed past your friend, and she knew your shorter legs wouldn’t get you far if he was going that speed. As he caught up to you, you almost took off your shoes so you could start running. You tried to not wipe at your eyes, your mascara was waterproof, but your eyeliner would probably smudge.

"(Y/N)!" Jaemin finally reached you, his hand wrapping around your wrist, and he halted you in your tracks. Why was he so freaking strong? When you tried to get away, he pulled you even closer, holding both hands to his chest.

"Let go!" You were full on crying, and he was a bit shocked at this. He did as you asked and you were going to turn around and keep going, but a car, your car, pulled up next to you. Yuna got out, handed you your keys and you went to get in. Before either of you could say anything, Jaemin grabbed the keys himself and went to the driver’s side. You scoffed as he shut the door but got in the other side.

"Can you get home?" you asked her, and she nodded, waving you off.

"Changbin will get me home." You nodded and got into your car; it was a bit weird riding in the passenger seat. The ride back was silent, tension rising in the car fast, and you tried rolling the window down. Didn’t help, just made more noise. You rolled it back up, the seal making a ‘shunk’ as it closed. You licked your lips, just watching out the window. No words were said as he parked in your spot in the garage. You wanted to fester a bit in the car, but he pulled your door open and stared you down, prompting you to get out. You slammed the door shut and stomped forward past him to get into your building. You keyed in your code to the side door and didn’t even hold the door open for him. You could hear him following you though and he did all the way up to your apartment. Your door slammed shut and you both stood in the entryway, panting. Sighing, you toed the straps of your shoe and kicked them off, storming further into your place. It seemed he had done the same and was hot on your heels. As you left the entry hall and started to head into the living room, Jaemin grabbed your wrist, and you yelped as he yanked you. You found your back to the wall, halted just right so your head didn’t bang into it. His hand slammed against the wall, pinning you in, the other one still holding your wrist. You gaped at him with wide eyes, your hand held up and against the wall as well. He was PISSED. He didn’t get mad like that too often.

"What the hell is your problem?" You tried to psych yourself up, feeling incredibly small. Not only did his harsh gaze make you shrink in on yourself, but he was also bigger than you really realized. Taller and broader, he fully surrounded you. He scoffed, looking away and you sneered. He finally turned back to look at you.

"Are you really that dumb?" His tone pierced you and tears came back, frustrated and hurt.

"What?" Your voice was quiet, you face had fallen flat. Jaemin licked his lips again, biting his bottom lip before pressing both together hard. His eyes met yours and your breath hitched.

"You seriously, of all people, asked me to go on a double date with you, but you were there for someone else?" His face was close to yours; he was so close in general that you had to tilt your head to meet his eyes.

"Then, you showed up looking like that, but it wasn’t for me." He motioned with his head down, and you shuffled. Jaemin’s leg had shifted closer, his knee touching the wall.

"You even went so far as to flirt with another man in front of me." His words made you look back up to him from where you had been looking at his leg between yours.

"What’s it to you!?" You countered, trying not to move too much, he was so close, "why do you care?"

"I care because I love you, and you’re supposed to be mine!" He finally got it out. All of the fight left you and you simply gaped at him like a fish. Jaemin swallowed, not sure how to take your reaction.

"You love me?"

"Yes!" The hand pinning yours up pulled away, so your arm came down to rest limply at your side. Jaemin then rested it on your elbow, the hand on the wall shifting so his forearm was pressed against the surface. His forehead met his arm, the side of his jaw pressing against the top of your head. Your eyes couldn’t help but fall to the swath of skin revealed by his open shirt, it was right in front of you after all.

"I really wish I could have done this differently." His voice was quiet, the sharpness gone, and he spoke right into your ear. The sound seemed to rumble through you, and you didn’t know his voice could get that deep.

"Love?" You finally managed to get out and he huffed, pulling back enough that you could see each other’s faces. Jaemin brought his hand to his tie, and despite it being loose already, he loosened it further and just took it off. The fabric floated to the floor, and he took another step back so he could take off the blazer without hitting you. As he shed the garment, he continued to move away, throwing the jacket down. He turned away from you and you slumped further against the wall, watching as he rolled his sleeves up, so they bunched above his elbow. You couldn’t help but stare at his revealed forearms, a watch gracing his left wrist. On his right hand sat the ring he and all your friends shared. You had one even, but you kept in your jewelry box and only wore it when you were all together. The more you looked at Jaemin, like really looked, he had gotten way more muscular than you even realized. He caught you staring and in any other circumstance he would have smirked, but he just huffed, nearly scoffed.

"My eyes are up here, (Y/N)." He clicked his tongue and he started to walk back toward you. He had put his left hand in his pocket, the right held up with one finger out, and he poked you hard on the forehead. You flinched and yelped when your head hit the wall. Jaemin sighed, letting his arm fall and putting his other hand in his pocket as well.

"You really had no idea?" The question was unexpected, and you honestly had trouble thinking about what he meant, still out of it.

"No idea about what?" You shook your head, trying to get your bearings and he sighed dramatically, a slight whine in the sound.

"Me loving you, dummy." You blinked in response.

"N-no?"

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"What about you?"

"About me, what?" He groaned in frustration and sighed really hard again.

"Do you like me back at least?" He finally decided to be direct. You simply blinked and he shook his head a bit.

"I’m going home-" He backed up and moved to leave, but you stopped him, gently wrapping your hands around his elbow.

"Wait." Your voice was so quiet he almost didn’t hear, but he halted immediately. His back was to you, so you stepped closer and wrapped your arms around his middle, laying your cheek on his back.

"I…I think I love you too." You truly didn’t know for sure, never really feeling that way. You were still in denial about having feelings for him at all only an hour ago.

"You think?"

"I really don’t know…I’ve never felt this way before-" Jaemin pulled away from you roughly, but then turned to you, his hands on your jaw. When you opened your mouth to continue, his lips met yours instead, swallowing the start of your next words. Honestly? Best kiss you ever had. You didn’t know if it was because Jaemin and you liked him so much, or if he was just good at it. With a whine, you brought your own hands to his, lightly gripping his wrists. Jaemin pulled back, his expression still intense but in a much different way.

"Tell me now if you don’t want to go beyond kissing, because I need to know before…" He drifted off, his eyes still pinned to your lips.

"Y-you can do what you want." Your words were shaky, along with your body, but it was more nervous excitement than anything.

"Yeah?" You hummed in response and that same cocky grin you were so used to spread over his stupidly attractive face.

"Don’t tell me that, love, I’ll hold you to it." He had leaned in as he spoke, his lips softly brushing over yours.

"Please." You nearly keened and he kissed you again. It was rougher than the last one, deeper, his hand wrapping around your ponytail and digging into your hair. He tilted your head to get a better angle. His other hand started at your waist before sliding down the sleek material of your dress till it landed on your butt. He squeezed and you gasped, allowing his tongue to slide into your mouth. Your head was swimming, and you weren’t sure if it was from lack of air or just how good it felt to have his tongue tasting yours. When Jaemin finally pulled back, you whined at the loss which made him chuckle.

"Come here, love." His arm wrapped around your waist, the other going to the back of your thigh, picking you up with ease. You whimpered, wrapping your legs around his waist and you kissed over his neck and collarbone as he headed down the hall to your room. Luckily Jisung was at Chenle’s, and little did you know, it was because Jaemin had told him, "if this night goes according to plan, you will not want to be at home." And while the plan hadn’t gone exactly as Jaemin planned, the end result was the same. Your door was closed but not set in the frame, so he was able to kick it to get it open. It swung hard and slammed into the wall, luckily there was door stop, and he kicked it closed as well. When he got close enough, he literally dropped you on the bed. You bounced with a yelp, and you stopped as you tried to steady yourself, your eyes drawn to him. With rapt attention, you watched as he deftly unbuttoned the rest of his shirt and untucked it, throwing it harshly to the floor. As he continued, the smirk on his face grew more and more devious, his confidence growing a little too much from your stare.

"Wanna touch?" He teased as your eyes traced every line and ridge of his torso. Without thinking, you nodded, and he laughed. The noise snapped you out of the trance, and you frowned.

"Jerk…" You mumbled and he chuckled, stepping forward slowly, prowling. His right hand gripped his belt and the waist of his pants, and when he was close enough, his hand went to your chin to tip your head. Jaemin crooked his eyebrow, and you wilted a bit under the look, more nervous excitement buzzing through you. When he stepped back, your eyes went to the hand on his belt and watched as he undid his belt, pulling it out of the loops with a snap and it clattered to the floor. Your mouth watered, and he tried not to laugh, "Your eyes are gonna burn holes through me." You flinched back, purposefully looking back to his face.

"Look all you want, love." he said, the smirk coming back. So, you did. Your eyes zeroed in on his hands, he first removed his watch, letting it clatter onto the floor as well. Same thing with his ring, he didn’t want the others having any part of this, even if it was through the friendship ring. Next, and you weren’t sure if he actually did it slowly or it played in slow-motion through your eyes, but he undid the button on his slacks, and they fell. You gasped, he did still have his underwear on, but he was just that much closer to being bare before you.

"You have too many things on." He decided and strode forward, falling to his knees at the foot of the bed where you sat. His hands went to your hips and pulled you all the way forward so hard and fast, you fell, back hitting the bed.

"Are these those tights that don’t tear?" His question threw you off a bit.

"Uh, no they were like a few dollars-" RIP. He just tore them right at the seam of the crotch.

"Jaemin!" You scolded by he ignored you; finishing ripping them and then pulled the pieces off. He could have just pulled them off normally… When the scraps were discarded, he flipped the end of your dress up, exposing your black panties and your face flushed as he just stared.

"D-don’t stare like that!" You covered your face with your hands then practically screamed when he unexpectedly buried his face between your legs.

"J-Jaemin!" You yelped, his tongue brushing harshly over the fabric, tasting your wetness though the material.

"Fuck~" He cooed at your taste, and you were extremely grateful he didn’t tear your panties off as well. What you didn’t notice though was that he pocketed them as his mouth met your bare cunt. Your back arched, breath leaving you, his tongue delving into your core. Jaemin let out an obscene groan as your walls clenched around his tongue and you whimpered. Why was he being so freaking noisy? Again, a startled yelp escaped you when his hands grabbed your thighs, roughly holding your legs open, preventing your hips from moving. It seemed he planned ahead because when he sealed his lips around your clit and sucked, your entire body jerked, the air leaving you.

"Jaemin! Wait, fuck-" You sucked air in harshly, the rising pleasure so intense and before you knew it, with one last flick of his tongue, you fell of the edge. He moaned as you whined, his voice fading into a low chuckle as your orgasm ebbed. Falling boneless onto the bedding, he got up from the floor and cooed at you.

"Oh, sweet love~" His normal playful tone was weaved with heat, his words seemed to rumble through the room. Gently, he helped you sit up, kissing softly at your neck and jaw as he pulled the zipper of your dress down. You let him pull the garment up and off your head, your glazed over expression going straight to his hardening cock.

"So pretty~" Jaemin huffed in delight, leaning over to kiss you again as he unhooked your bra and slung it somewhere to the side. With a mewl, you let him pick you up again to move your further up the bed, laying you down softly and making sure your head was settled on the pillow. His next kisses were incredibly soft, going from your mouth to the crest of your cheek, your jaw, neck, collar, sternum, the swell of your breast, then his mouth sealed over your nipple. It made you shiver, but he quickly moved on, kissing to the other side, and licked over your other nipple.

"Jaemin~" You whined, needing more. He smiled, not a smirk, going back up and kissing your forehead. The man laughed when your arms lazily wrapped around his neck, trying to get him closer to kiss him again. Instead, he let you kiss over his face, his hands going to your hips and adjusting you so your legs wrapped around his waist. When he grinded his still covered hard-on into your bare core you let out a low whine.

"I need you to let me go so I can get a condom…" He laughed when you shook your head no, holding on tighter.

"Okay." He relented, wrapping his arms around you again and you yiped when he easily hauled you up and got of the bed. Holding onto him like a child, he laughed at your antics as he stooped to get his pants and get his wallet.

"You always keep one there?" You grumbled and Jaemin continued to laugh, going back to the bed.

"No, love. I planned ahead~" He let out his characteristic little-shit giggle as he laid you down again, just as softly.

"Hurry!" You wiggled, letting your legs fall so he could maneuver and get his tight black briefs off. Your jaw went slack and the smuggest simper you had ever seen on his face. No wonder he was so freaking confident all the time.

"I’ll fit." He teased and you wanted to get annoyed but was too distracted as he rolled the condom over his cock. You swallowed.

"You’re sure you’re okay with this?" His hand gently went to your cheek, rubbing his thumb over the soft skin. You turned your head, kissing his palm, and the soft gesture made his smile soften as well.

"Okay, love." Jaemin shifted, lightly gripping your hips and you buried your fingers in his soft silver hair as he brought his cock to your core, stroking it through your folds before starting to ease in. You gasped, trying not to clench too hard. It had not only been a while for you, but he was bigger than you were used to. Your whole body shivered, and you tried to relax and not clench him too much. You watched his brow furrow; you were tight around him and he couldn’t believe he finally got to be inside of you.

"Breathe, love." He smirked, helping you relax as he bottomed out. The walls of your cunt fluttered around his cock, trying to get used to the stretch and you tried to not dig your press-on nails into the skin of his back. He would change that though, planning on having red welts decorating his back when he got done. When he felt you relax more around him, and your body wasn’t as tense, he brought your legs up higher around your waist and gave a very shallow thrust.

"Fuck!" You moaned and Jaemin groaned, starting a slow pace, not wanting to overwhelm you yet.

"J-Jaemin!" You threw your head back after he gave his first hard thrust, nearly pulling all the way out before his hips snapped, carving his shape into your core.

"Oh, love, you feel so fucking good~" He let out a breathy chuckle, sitting back on his heels more, the angle change let the head of his cock hit your sweet spot. With each thrust, he fucked a little noise out of you, every once in a while, it would be his name or nonsense babbling.

"Hold on, love." He grunted, getting up on his knees more, his strong hands gripping your thighs so hard he would leave bruises, and threw your legs over his elbows. Jaemin smirked, rolling his hips and as the head of his cock hit the deepest part of your pussy, you came. It was sudden and your breath halted, and he froze, eyes clenching shut. He wanted this to last longer, and while he knew he could go more than one round, he really wanted to prolong it. You shivered slightly when it was over trying to catch your breath and he groaned, shifting on his knees, and grabbing another pillow to shove under your hips.

"Okay, get ready~" He practically giggled, and he began to fuck you in earnest. Your cunt was sensitive from cumming twice, but it still felt too good, and your mind was starting to fog. Your hands that were digging into the bedding scrabbled, gripping his back, not wanting to tear your sheets. He groaned as the rounded ends of your press-on nail dug into his skin, scratching down and leaving stinging lines all over his back. Jaemin chuckled deeply as you whimpered and moaned.

"You’re so good for me, huh?" You whined in response.

"Like my cock?" Whine.

"Fuck, I love you so much." He slumped forward, burying his face in the crook of your neck, sucking, and licking at the skin. His thrusts stayed hard, but they lost their rhythm as he got closer to his own release. Your hands moved to around his shoulders, one still scratching up his back, the other in his hair.

"Love~" You mewled, and he huffed, burying his cock as deep as he could and came. Someday, he vowed to feel the raw heat of your pussy around him. Slowly he pulled out and you whimpered, feeling incredibly empty. He realized then that he had only brought one condom…

"Great." He grumbled, but when he saw you laying there, eyes unfocused and body limp, he realized that might be for the best. Smiling softly, he leaned down, brushing the sweat-soaked hairs from your forehead and laying a kiss there.

"Be right back, love." Jaemin pecked your lips and got off the bed. You were only semi-conscious as he went and cleaned up. He came back quick, helping you get under the covers, and he turned the ceiling fan on, so you didn’t get too hot. Somehow, you managed to stay awake as he took a cold shower and you mewled for him when he came back.

"(Y/N)~" He cooed dramatically, back to his goofy self. He had put pants back on but left his shirt off, knowing you would ogle him. Giddily, while giggling, he wiggled under the covers with you.

"You’re cold…" You mumbled and he nodded with a hum.

"Warm me~!" He opened his arms to you, and you tiredly shuffled closer and slumped into his hold. You were too tied to really appreciate laying on his half-naked body, and he soothingly pet your hair, nuzzling the top of your head.

"I love you." Jaemin whispered and you mumbled something, and he huffed, "what?"

"Love you too~" Your voice was slurred with sleepiness, and you nearly instantly fell asleep. He soon drifted off as well, but about an hour later, he was awoken by a commotion.

"Noona~!"

"Chenle, wait!" Jisung shouted after him but couldn’t get to him in time as he dashed down the hall and threw your bedroom door open. When all he saw was Jaemin propped up, glaring at him with a lump next to him, the younger stopped dead.

"Get out of there!" The youngest scolded, purposefully NOT looking as he grabbed the other one and hauled him out.

"THEY FUCKED!" Chenle nearly screamed and Jaemin collapsed to the bed with a groan and Jisung dragged him down the hall, trying to get him to shut up. You grunted a bit and Jaemin smiled, you were so cute. Your eyes fluttered open and he smiled warmly.

"He’s so freaking loud." You pouted and he dramatically acted like he had been shot in the heart.

"Oh~ So cute~" He enveloped you into his arms, holding you close and rocking back and forth. It forced a tired giggle from you, and you went limp again when he finally laid still.

"You’ll be my girlfriend." It was more like a statement than a question. You hummed.

"Of course." You ran your fingers over his collarbone, finally getting to feel and see him. Another cocky grin spread over his face as you didn’t hold back, your hands stopping on the waist band of his pants. He smirked, rolling on top of you, making sure you didn’t hold his full weight.

"For now~" You furrowed your brow, wondering what he meant. One day, my wife.

Master-Master List

NCT Master List

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddie-week.

Long Long Time

Day #3 - Prompt: Mutual Pining | Word Count: 1050 | Rating: T | CW: Language | POV: Steve | Tags: Post S4, Eddie Munson Lives, Idiot 4 Idiot, Mutual Pining, Miscommunication, Platonic Stobin, Robin Knows What's Up

It's not one realization. It's several, over and over again. A steady falling, until he's in so deep, there's just nothing to be done about it. 

"Stop pining, dingus," Robin says, and Steve looks up at her and smiles.

"Impossible," he answers.

"Just tell him," she urges, and he shakes his head. Eddie isn't interested. He's made that pretty clear with the distance he's put between them. 

"Nah, that's not cool. He's getting ready to go," Steve says, "no reason to make it uncomfortable now."

"Dingus. No. Stop it. I can promise you Eddie is pining for you just as hard."

Steve shakes his head. He knows that's not true. Steve's tried all his best moves over the last two years, everything he knows, and has nothing to show for it, except a heart that's maybe not gonna be his anymore.

Steve sits on the floor of Wayne's house, and helps box tapes. Eddie's going. He's really leaving, and soon. 

And Steve's sure that's gonna hurt him for a long, long time. 

"So, what're your big plans for this summer, Harrington?" Eddie asks.

Missing you, Steve thinks, but doesn't say.

"Oh, I don't know. Hang out with Rob, I suppose. Find new jobs. You know we like to change it up every so often. Wreak havoc elsewhere."

Eddie laughs, and it makes Steve smile.

"You could come with me, you know," Eddie offers, but keeps looking down at the box he's packing. "Both of you. All of us."

It's not a real offer, Steve knows that. He knows he's supposed to say no, supposed to let Eddie go, without throwing an anchor around his neck. 

"Oh, you don't want that," Steve rebuffs, and Eddie looks up. "I'll cramp your style."

Eddie laughs, "Yeah, you know me. Party animal."

Steve grins, "You might become one. You won't want me tagging along for that."

"But, what if I do?" Eddie asks, and Steve looks up at him.

"Eddie," Steve says, trying to cut this off before he embarrasses himself.

"You're one of my best friends, and we could have fun together."

They could. Steve knows that's true. But he can't go live in an apartment with Eddie. Can't watch him spread his wings and date, right in front of Steve's face. That'd be too hard.

Even if part of Steve wants to say yes, desperately, just to cling onto anything that's being offered.

But he's trying to be better about that. Trying to grow, and shit.

He can only let his heart get trampled so many times, and he's nearing his limit. He definitely won't be able to survive it happening under Eddie's boot.

"C'mon, Steve. For me."

And that almost does it. He hates to deny anything that Eddie might want, but sometimes, you've got to save yourself first. Put on your own life preserver, then worry about everybody else. Robin's taught him that. Or, has at least tried to.

"I can't."

"Why? Robin? I said she can come, too!"

"Because we don't feel the same way about each other, Eddie!" Steve snaps, and Eddie turns into himself, immediately.

"Oh. Oh shit," Eddie says, "I didn't know you knew. Wow, that's embarrassing," he mutters, and it kind of makes Steve mad. 

"I'm not embarrassed. I can't help who I lov-. Like. Whatever. But I just can't torture myself, man. I want you to be happy, I do. And I'm the wrong guy for making that happen, obviously, so let's just leave it. While we're still friends."

Eddie's nodding, still packing, then he's suddenly frozen in place, "Wait. What? You make me the happiest."

"As a friend," Steve clarifies.

"Well, yeah. But, if you were into it, as more, too."

"Wait. What?" Steve asks, repeating the same thing Eddie had just said. This is gonna turn into Who's on First? if they aren't careful.

"I mean," Eddie says, shying away, "I know you aren't interested like that. But I still want you around."

Steve laughs, fucking cackles, like he's crazy. He feels crazy.

Was Robin right all along? Was Eddie doing the same kind of pining, and Steve just never noticed? Fuck.

They are both goddamn idiots, if that's the case.

"Well, don't laugh," Eddie says, and he sounds dejected.

"Wait, Eddie, hold up," Steve says, crawling across the carpet towards him, putting his hand on Eddie's forearm. "Do we have crossed wires here? Do you like me, like me? Like I like you?'

"You like me?" Eddie asks.

"Uh, yeah," Steve admits, "I have for a while, to be honest."

"Jesus H. Christ, we're idiots," Eddie says, pushing his hand into Steve's hair.

"Dinguses, if you ask Robin," Steve says, smiling, and Eddie's so close he could kiss him. 

Steve thinks he will, and leans in, where Eddie meets him halfway. Kissing him, and it's everything, more than Steve hoped it could ever be.

When Eddie pulls back he's smiling, eyes crinkled at the edges, fucking happy.

He looks thrilled, and Steve decides to go all in. In for a penny, in for a goddamn pound.

"I think I'm gonna love you for a long, long time," Steve whispers in a sing-songy way, because even as happy as Eddie looks right now, Steve's still scared his love won't be wanted.

But Eddie just grins even harder.

"What made you think of that song?" Eddie asks, eyes big and bright, almost shiny.

"You hum it all the time," Steve answers, "under your breath. Like it's soothing."

Eddie wraps his arms around Steve's neck, pulling him tighter. Harder. Closer. They're on their knees, so that kind of hurts, but Steve refuses to let him go as Eddie whispers, "It was my mom's favorite song. She'd sing it to me at night."

"Kind of a sad lullaby," Steve says, and Eddie smiles.

"I was kind of a sad little boy," Eddie admits, and Steve runs his hands up and down Eddie's back.

"Well," Steve says, pressing his lips to Eddie's briefly, "if you'll let me, I'm gonna make sure you're not a sad adult."

Eddie kisses him hard at that, and Steve really will. Even if it takes his whole damn life. 

"I'll definitely let you. For a long, long time," Eddie echoes, the beginnings of a promise.

And Steve will take that deal.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddie-week and follow along with the fun!t

The title is from the Linda Ronstadt song of the same name.

[ns-media]

Incredibly long analysis on Oda's thoughts on romance, way of portraying romance and LuNami in One Piece

Okay, so I want to make a LOOOOONG post about something interesting that's been on my mind for a while, about romance in One Piece. I was originally going to post it on Twitter but this post is way too long for that platform. I always preferred posting here, but not too many people are here nowadays. Anyway, onto the main topic here. I'll be talking about Oda's portrayal of and thoughts about romance, how he views it, why he puts a good chunk of it in "non-canon" material and so on. This post is to understand Oda's perspective on romance and why he goes about it the way he goes about it. I'm a LuNami fan, so this is also to make a point about how he decides to portray them.

Do not read this if you don’t want to see me express unfavorable opinions (and also factual information) about LuHan and other ships I just don't see working out, as they basically don’t fall in line with how romance works in Oda’s work. I'm not mean-spirited about it though. (Also I'll be bringing up SanPu for a bit too, in a favorable way) I am guaranteed to get at least one eyebrow raise or a "What the fuck are you talking about?" from any person reading this whole thing, but that's fine. I'll only tag LuNami because this is for LuNami fans.

Anyhow, in an interview with Aoyama back in 2022, Oda stated how he doesn’t want to include actual romance into his story and how he’s fine with one-sided stuff. His reason is because he fears he would lose certain fans for doing so. This is an interesting statement.

First, if you read this up here, it essentially confirms how Oda doesn’t see one-sided affection as romance so there’s no reason to think that Sanji or Boa’s affection are hints when they’re both for comedic effect.

The reason they're one-sided in the first place is not because he's teasing you with the idea that the other might return that affection one day, no he treats it as a joke, it's as straightforward as that. I don't understand how people try to act like it's not purely for humor. If he intended on making something like Boa and Luffy’s relationship as something to seriously consider being “romance” then Boa wouldn’t be so humorously delusional even after being rejected twice in back to back chapters, she’d be taken aback at the very least. But doesn’t. Why? It’s a joke.

I mean for heaven’s sake, whenever this gag is used with Nyon around, she’s the voice of reason, y’know, a woman who also experienced the same kind of delusional love once? Again it’s all a joke, the entire point of Boa’s gag is that it’s love that’s supposed unreciprocated.

Also, the second time he rejected her was him rejecting her before she even got to ask anything...

This lets us know that Luffy knows how persistent she in trying to get with him and also implying that Luffy is going to say no, no matter what, as he knows how desperate and persistent she is about it. Now that I think about it, Rayleigh left Luffy to train by himself for 6 months before the timeskip fully ended, Rayleigh's supervision made it to where Boa couldn't get to Luffy, but after he left, was fully capable of doing so. I mean just look at Boa down here:

Yeah she said she won't go and remain strong for Luffy's sake, but with her being the way she is, I wouldn't be surprised if Boa in those 6 months went to the island and was asking Luffy multiple times which was how he was able to reject her before even knowing. If what we saw in Chapter 598 was the first time he rejected her, he wouldn't be so quick to know that she was gonna ask it again when he rejected her the 2nd time on panel. We know that the Kuja girls KNEW that Rayleigh left half a year ago as well, meaning they must've gotten to the island itself if they found this out. Unless Rayleigh told them directly, which, to be fair, is likely, but if he didn't, this implies that Boa has been talking to Luffy on the island in those 6 months, and if so, would definitely have brought up marriage at least once, or a lot, honestly, thus explaining Luffy being able to shut down her marriage request before even knowing what she was going to say, because he already heard it THAT much in those 6 months. Now, I don't truly believe that Oda thought of it like that, but it does make logical sense so I figured "why not bring it up".

Also, in a 2014 interview with Fuji TV about the 3D2Y special, Oda mentioned that not only Buggy but BOA bring in the comedic elements into the arc and how they're comic relief characters, again making it obvious that Boa’s infatuation is a complete joke for the sake of comedy. Same with Sanji. Being a gentleman is part of his character but he tries to score every woman. Why? Jokes.

Even if you somehow use the argument of “Oh but this behavior of his is even stronger towards Nami specifically” I don’t see how any of that can be seen as a “shipping hint” and not a gag that’s exaggerated even further, cause he’s still hitting on every woman. Besides, the first time he actually got his heart broken by a woman was by Pudding, and never Nami, Robin and every other woman despite getting rejected a billion times by them. Why? Because the Nami/Robin affection is for comedy while the story between Sanji and Pudding is supposed to be taken seriously.

It's why Oda went out of his way for Sanji to write a dedicated story between the two, with Sanji getting genuinely sad when Pudding talked shit about him only for everything to turn around by the end where she actually likes him. THAT is a romance story with substance behind it, and Oda clearly wrote it like there is merit to it. There is obviously a story written here with a beginning to an end, Sanji acts no different towards Nami in Wano than in say, Punk Hazard. Beginning of Whole Cake vs end of Whole Cake Sanji is on entirely different terms with Pudding and she is on entirely different terms with him. There is development, a plot, a purpose that impacts the plot. Not just "Haha jokes".

Soooo yeah that’s the first thing I wanted to address regarding that statement.

Second, Oda saying “I don’t want to include romance because I don’t wanna lose fans” may seem like an odd thing for him to say at first given how Oda post-timeskip portrays actual romance in his story, and plenty of times, I might add. This was when Oden/Toki was relatively fresh too so there’s no way he forgot he did so. Because of that, Oda is referring to romance for specific characters rather than for the characters he’s already written romance stories about.

So this basically means that Oda’s fear of losing readers obviously doesn’t stem from the romance stories he has already written, it’s very clear from the interview that he’s hesitant to write romance out of fear of losing some of his readers. But of course as we know, he clearly has written blatant romance already, primarily with non-main characters like Rebecca’s parents, Rouge/Roger, etc. It makes plenty of sense for Oda to not be afraid or hesitant to write romance stories/romantic elements for those non-main characters.

Because well, those stories written are basically all backstories that are over in a few chapters (Senor Pink/Russian) or briefly talked about (like the aforementioned Rouge and Roger.) As such, there’s no long-term impact on the story.

Notice how in the only case of a STRAW HAT having a blatant romance story (Sanji/Pudding), it is a character who's most defining character trait is his lovey dovey/romantic behavior? Oda most likely felt more comfortable giving a romance story to Sanji specifically as that goes with his personality, and likely felt he would not be getting backlash for giving the LOVE cook a romantic story. (Because again keep in mind he clearly stated he's hesitant to include romance due to losing fans of the characters getting romantically involved)

But STILL, even with all of that, the impact of this love story from Sanji's perspective is just erased entirely as Pudding erased his memories, as if Oda is being particularly protective of the Straw Hats getting impacted by any obviously permanent romantic development. (Because as I said SanPu is on entirely different terms from the beginning to the end of WCI, so their romance plot had impact on the story.)

So, because of how romance in One Piece is basically all deceased/minor characters having short backstories or in the case of the one Straw Hat who got a blatant romance story, (I said blatant cause you could say Usopp/Kaya, but it’s not super obviously blatant the way SanPu is) erased from his brain, there’s no obvious long-term impact that romance seems to have in One Piece.

I very much think that this “obvious long-term impact” is what Oda wants to avoid so badly, particularly for the Straw Hats (the main characters of the story). This is because this long-term impact would make it apparent to his readers that romance has a fundamental and established role in the story of One Piece as something important, which goes against his target audience of boys, who, from his point of view, don’t like it.

This idea Oda has stems from how Jump used to be when he was a kid, as clearly stated in the interview with Aoyama. It’s his own experiences with how boys manga are “supposed” to be coupled with his insecurities about being embarrassed to write romance that makes him hesitant to do just that.

This is why I scoff at the idea of “No romance in the crew” being used as an actual argument. People use that argument as if Oda himself is completely against the idea of anybody in the crew getting together, despite the painfully crystal clear reason for “no romance in the crew” being to not alienate readers and lose said readers as he is under the impression that boys won’t like that because of how he thinks that everyone still has this idea that they should be segregated due to how it was when he was a kid himself. It's why he said "People are so supportive of couples!" all surprised in the interview with Aoyama, clearly being surprised about the positive reception it gets that he didn't think it would get. It has nothing to do with him hating the very concept of romance, it's him being under the wrong impression on what his young male readers would find acceptable or not.

There is a reason why almost every single time that he brings up or hints at any, ANY hesitance or opposition towards romance in the crew, he brings up his readers. ALMOST. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. He tries to please his target audience. “It’s a shounen manga” or “the readers” he keeps saying, despite not even being asked about his readers' opinion. "I don't think there will be any romance in that crew" is said clearly because "It's a shounen manga THEY won't be interested" not because "OMG WTF I HATE ROMANCE BETWEEN THEM GTFO!" the way people intentionally misconstrue this to be. He even says "Nami probably sees all the good aspects/qualities of those guys, BUT One Piece isn't a romance" So he LITERALLY says that his reason isn't "She does not like any of her crewmates in a romantic way!" but instead says "Well it's not a story about romance and I think only girls care so I won't show or depict it because I think my primary young male audience wouldn't give a shit". Nothing about himself. Legitimately nothing about his own opinions about supposedly being disgusted with nakama romance. Gotta love the made-up narrative being presented as a fact to the fandom at large.

Oda's "but" could have EASILY been followed up with something like this: "Nami probably sees all the good aspects/qualities of those guys, BUT she doesn't see them in a romantic way and I don't want it to be that way" or something, but instead essentially opted for "Nami probably sees all the good aspects/qualities of those guys, BUT think of my young male audience! They don't care about romance. They'd probably hate it if I decide to capitalize on Nami seeing their good qualities as romantic, right? After all, only girls want it! It must only be them for asking this!" What I am saying isn't even me grasping at straws, it's RIGHT THERE. "I don't think there will be romance in the crew cause boys will not like it". Bam, that's all it is. I know I am repeating myself but it seriously bears repeating because of how so many people see that one answer in particular as the ultimate evidence against Mugiwara romance. Oda seems like he's being evasive on purpose with that answer, talking about how concerned he is about the opinions of boys while not once talking about whether or not he would like to write it or not.

Also for the love of everything can we get someone who has the untranslated version of this answer? Given how Japanese language works I would not be surprised in the slightest if he's even more evasive than in VIZ's translation.

How people come to the conclusion that he’s disgusted by the very idea of a Mugiwara couple being a thing is beyond me when it’s as clear as day that he opens his mouth about “his readers” and “his audience” for a reason.

I mean hell, Strong World was originally going to be a movie about Nami’s past and the reason he changed it was because of how he kept his TARGET AUDIENCE in mind. He kept the young boys he appealed to in mind despite clearly wanting to write something else at first.

Him pleasing his audience doesn’t equal “I really don’t want this to be a thing”. If anything, he restricts his desires purely on the basis that he thinks whatever he wants to write is not what other people want, why the hell wouldn't you think this applies to the idea of "no romance in the crew" when he literally spoonfed us the reason being exactly that in the earlier photo of the Jump Fests '09 interview?

He clearly wants to avoid it because of this idea that his male audience will take issue with it and not because he doesn’t wanna do it himself. This why he said “Seriously!?” all surprised when Aoyama said he wouldn’t leave if he decided to implement romance into his story, and he was saying this to a man who writes romance and has already said “I love romantic comedies” 2 sentences ago. Oda is THAT unsure of himself and he's THAT much under the impression that males have no interest in romance. I rarely if ever see people bring this up.

There's a sense of insecurity Oda has on the topic of romance. When Aoyama said “I guess you have no interest in love comedies” Oda didn’t say yes or even imply that he's right about that being the case. He just said “I’m not confident I could draw those, it's a bit embarrassing” Again, he's insecure about it. Not AGAINST it. He basically spells it out for you. But many people still pretend as if he's saying all of this because he's supposedly disgusted by romance among the crew being a thing, only because that made up narrative supports what THEY want to be the case, instead of looking into the actual reason for as to why he's saying all these things.

As I said before, almost every single time he is hesitant to write romance he mentions his audience, but in the situations he doesn't bring up his audience, he instead mentions how he's embarrassed to do it. I mean when asked in a 2019 interview with Oda, he was embarrassed when asked if he incorporates arguments with his wife into how Nami argues, perhaps showcasing how he's embarrassed to talk about his wife (ya know, the person he loves) in other words, the person he's romantically attached to. This is definitely a stretch so I'm not saying that I seriously think that this is more proof on how he's embarrassed/insecure about romance, but I figured it was worth bringing up. But embarrassment aside, he also cares a lot about his manga keeping face to his boy audience.

This leads me to the next thing… Oda’s involvement with the movies. Notice how, every single time he’s involved with writing the plot there’s always some LuNami stuff he wants to throw in there?

Strong World obviously, as well as parts of Film: Gold. Now, at first things seem… odd. The LuNami hints between the two in those films are quite a bit more on the nose than anything Oda has written in the manga, like a oh-so clear parallel between Tesoro and Luffy. At first it puzzled me why Oda would relegate these stories and moments to movies. And then, if you read the Aoyama interview, things start to make sense why he approaches things this way.

Movies aren’t treated as a main part of the story by people, it’s not the manga. You have to go out of your way to see the movie. There's no need to watch the movie to understand One Piece's main manga story. Look at the contrast between Chapter 0 and Strong World itself. Chapter 0 is manga content and it seems so much more concerned with the action and hype the young boys are there for (obviously cause it takes place decades before the current canon but that was a deliberate choice, it could've easily been like how Glorious Island, being a prequel to Film Z, was contemporary to the story). While there still is a bunch of that hype/action in the movie itself, there are also romantic elements thrown in there. It's kind of like Oda's experimenting, testing the waters with those movies. It makes sense for him to approach it this way. People who so happen to hate the addition of (LuNami) romance are willing to let things slide and overlook it because said romance is in a movie they don't have to watch.

So basically a non-mandatory-to watch movie provides Oda with more leeway, or rather makes him more comfortable to add what he wants, allowing him to put just a little bit of obvious romantic themes revolving LuNami.

Although it’s just a BIT of leeway, as Oda still kept the young boys in mind as he, of course, changed the movie from what it was originally supposed to be from something darker to something more light-hearted.

Here's where we get to the main point of this long wall of text: After three seconds. See, this could have easily, EASILY been animated into the movie, it’s as simple as having a 1 minute scene of everyone hearing the final part of the message, it could have easily been the post-credits scene, heck 1 minute is probably a lot more than what was necessary to show after three seconds animated. So why did it not happen in the movie? Probably because Nami was blushing.

Blushing is the most cliché and obvious way to tell if someone is into someone else (unless it’s physical like kissing). Oda, likely due to him keeping his young male audience in mind, relegated it to something even MORE obscure than a movie you don't necessarily have to watch, instead of through said movie, it’s through… these pin things? I honestly don’t even know what the heck it’s supposed to be. I know that One Piece Color Walk 6 featured it...

...but I don’t know the origin of this or how it was distributed before the color walk. Was it given to people in theaters? Was this purchasable merch? Did it come with the DVD/Blu-Ray as an extra? There's so little information online on where in the world this came from, and that just goes to show how oddly obscure it is, as if Oda did this on purpose just so that as little people would find about it. As if he thinks “Okay my intentions will be too obvious if this gets put in the movie itself, let me try something else”. It makes sense given how he's clearly shy about the whole romance thing as I explained earlier. Of course in the movie proper Sanji still mentions the whole love message thing but without Nami explicitly blushing at Luffy hearing it, naysayers can easily just interpret it as one of Sanji's self-serving delusions as always, as Nami doesn't show explicit emotions (blushing) giving away that it's really a love message.

Yes, everything I am saying about this isn't some guaranteed factual info or whatever, but this makes WAY too much sense. He had no reason to make this featuring Nami blushing but he did anyway, like it’s a way for him to draw what he wanted without being overly concerned with his demographic at large getting to see this, you know. And it worked! For example, a lot of the LuNami naysayers point out how the message wasn't romantic and they all say it without the knowledge of After three seconds. Oda did a good job with keeping this art on the down low because let's be honest, who outside of the shipping community or people analyzing shipping to insane degrees (me right now) even know about after three seconds? Exactly.

And by the way, you can’t even say that Nami is blushing out of embarassment for everyone hearing it. In that artwork where she blushed, she knows damn well at that point that the only person on the ship who didn't hear the last part is Luffy, so she’s clearly blushing because of how LUFFY SPECIFICALLY heard it, she blushes once she’s realized that he heard it, it’s that straightforward. And Oda wrote Nami saying "It's embarrassing!" in reference to the message.

Oda is the same man who is embarrassed to write very on the nose romance. Not saying "Oh dude this totally means Oda is projecting how he feels writing after three seconds/the ending of Strong World onto Nami by making her say it's embarrassing meaning he sees this as romantic because HE is embarrassed about romance!" ....Well okay I totally AM saying that buuut I am not saying that it's actually true. I just wanted to bring it up lol.

Another perfect example of relegating obvious romantic things to obscure content is a certain sketch. And it’s in the heroine novel, obviously aimed at girls instead of boys, and oh would you look at that:

Oda does a complete 180 and features Nami with Luffy’s hat on with a HEART IN HER HAND… seriously, how more obvious can this sketch get? It can't! And it doesn't need to be subtle this time! Oda knows that on average more girls are going to care about romance so why be subtle here? In the past he said specifically that he thinks girl readers keep asking him questions related to romance, as I clearly said before, and this here novel is targeted at girls as opposed to boys. There’s no reason for Luffy’s hat to be on her, especially because, well, he has nothing to do with Nami's novel, it's not like he plays a role in it. Nami post-timeskip is pretty much never seen wearing his hat before this sketch, making it very peculiar for him to draw her like this here on something aimed towards girls, the demographic he keeps mentioning "loves romance and keeps asking me to include it in One Piece". Seriously, the ONE TIME to bring it back in like, a decade, and it’s done like this? It feels ridiculous to call people crazy for thinking it has to mean something given all the context I have provided.

I mean, notice how in the main manga storyline, Nami hasn’t had his since SKYPIEA??? Hell, even then, she has only had it on her head once in the main manga in Arlong Park, yet Oda made Nami wear the hat in color spreads, which are treated as not important at all by a lot of readers. Color spreads by casual or young readers are usually looked at like “Huh cool artwork I guess, not going to extensively think about it though”, again giving Oda a liiitttle bit more leeway than his main manga story. Why else do you think that Luffy and Nami are CONSISTENTLY portrayed as King and Queen in color spreads and not the main manga storyline? Because from Oda's perspective it gives naysayers or the boys who in his mind supposedly hate romance leeway to say "Oh it's just a color spread! Just fun little aesthetic stuff!", in other words, nothing to take seriously. If he wrote it into his main manga story he would have to explain why Luffy and Nami would dress up as King and Queen too, again making things a loooot more explicit depending on the way he goes about it, and he's already insecure about it, so.... I'm just saying.

Also come on, there has to be a reason why Oda has portrayed Nami with Luffy’s hat plenty of times after Skypiea yet none of those times were in the story proper, just like the movies he's involved in being heavily focused on Nami herself or LuNami. He himself wrote Tesoro and Stella's romance, he himself said that ROMANCE WAS A GOOD IDEA FOR FILM: GOLD yet is much more adamant about romance being included in his manga storyline and it was HIS idea to parallel the romance for Tesoro/Stella that he wrote with Luffy/Nami. Almost as if he is less concerned with a certain audience for the movies and side material than he his for his manga... Nah, that's ridiculous!

Isn’t it just weird how a lot of the side content Oda makes/is involved in is more on the nose with shipping hints? To me it seems like his thought process is “Okay! I can finally do something I want to! I want to make a movie about Luffy saving Nami with a few romantic undertones thrown in there… I could’ve easily made an arc like this in the manga but, can’t let my main audience be disappointed, can I?” Arlong Park and Skypiea are the only times in the manga in which Nami gets to be saved by Luffy. (Funnily enough they’re both are the only times in the main story where Luffy gives Nami his hat.) Both arcs were so long ago. It just seems to me like he wrote Strong World and the romance aspect of Film: Gold to scratch his “Nami gets saved by Luffy” itch. Even with the Zou hug being a thing, it is not something that Oda puts emphasis on at all, it’s pretty zoomed out in the manga, as if he is avoiding any overly direct intimacy that the readers he’s catering to would catch on to. It’s all too suspicious to me.

All this isn't to say that Oda doesn't do any LuNami stuff in the main manga storyline, it just that he's not mega obvious with it at all and doesn't plan to include said mega obvious hints as long as his concern with his boy audience remains there. So it doesn't invalidate any LuNami hints that people think happened in the manga like Nami blushing over the CPR Reiju gave (naysayers could easily say she was just shocked unlike Strong World where it's blatantly her blushing over Luffy hearing what Sanji called a "love message") or things that are more subtle like Nami's "I don't want to marry yet" in Thriller Bark, I'm just saying that cliché hints of romance is what he would like to avoid, something cliché enough that his shounen audience would figure out.

As a side note, Oda's "People seem so supportive of couples!" is also interesting as before his Aoyama interview he always knew/thought that girls are always the ones ask him for romance and as such of course he would know the female demographic would care more about it, so this surprise about people seeming supportive of couples may or may not be him realizing that it's not just girls who are interested, but perhaps boys too. Of course we all know that Oda drew Luffy and Nami together for Aoyama, the author he just talked about romance with. Now again not saying "Oh man this HAS to be a LuNami hint!" because they talked about much more than just romance, but still, something to consider!

Oda's "Ah, seriously!?" is still funny to me when Aoyama said he won't leave if One Piece were to include romance, despite Aoyama writing romance in Detective Conan, interesting reaction from Oda given how Aoyama literally said "I like love comedies" just earlier. As if to convince himself that Aoyama is writing the romance in his story to pander to his female audience instead of doing it because he likes doing it. Anyway I think I am digressing.

I think my theory may hold some water, but hey if you disagree, that’s totally fine. I’m not the best at articulating myself so the way I talked about some things here may just be seen as completely wrong, but hey, that’s okay! If you have something to add, you can do so. I know there will be people disagreeing with me, including even some LuNami fans, but again, I don't mind at all.

My verdict is this: Oda likes the idea of LuNami but due to his concern with his target audience, he won’t make any obvious advances that young boys would pick up on and as a result, tries to sneak in more obvious hints into supplementary/more obscure content like Movies, After three seconds, a sketch, etc. because people take those less seriously/not at face value like stuff that happens inside the manga's story, so only puts more subtle or non-cliché hints in his manga and the less subtle ones in secondary material. (I mean seriously dude, wearing Luffy's hat with a heart in your hand? A romance parallel in a movie? Blushing at the "love message" being heard? Come on, that so much more on the nose than anything in the entire manga)

I guess you can say there are layers to how far Oda is willing to go to show LuNami more explicitly lol. The more of a low profile he think he has from his boy readers, the more explicit it'll be. That is seriously a trend I have been noticing from him.

Honestly, with all this being said and done, I think the only way he will feel totally at ease with including explicit LuNami romance is if he is convinced that his boy audience doesn't mind romance at all and wouldn't leave in salt, bitterness and passive aggression.

I think One Piece will continue to be written like this without on the nose romance. The best we can hope for is a sudden LuNami ending once the story is over, because 1. By then he stops writing One Piece and doesn't need to be walking on eggshells to please his audience and 2. Romance not being written doesn't necessarily mean characters won't end up together as BF/GF, husband/wife. Portraying romance is simply showing us the way that lead to the BF/GF husband/wife relationship in the first place.

Keep in mind that the whole interpretation I have about Oda's portrayal romance and LuNami could be entirely wrong!

To talk about the "Boys don't like romance" thing, I'm a man, and look, I wrote all of this stupid shit. To me it's funny that he still is under the wrong impression that all, or at least most, boys don't like romance. I am not a shipper of everything in fiction myself, LuNami is one of the few ships I even care about. If your audience grows attached enough to a series they would get attached to the characters too, this attachment can lead to a desire of wanting to see these characters be more, that is how I started to love LuNami. I think a decent amount of male One Piece fans feel the same way, for guys like me liking a ship usually takes a slow burn, whereas, usually from what I observe, women ship things much quicker than guys. I also feel less willing at expressing my love for a ship, a big part of it being that guys just "support" a ship instead of going balls to the wall insane for a ship with a million essays about how great the ship is, on top of that they almost always support the ships I think are lame where it's stupid one-sided love for 95% of the story (For example, Western men support LuHan so much more than LuNami on average it's not even funny) For a long time I was sitting in the back, keeping my interest in LuNami to myself. And what better way to "come out the shipping closet" I guess you can say, than to make... whatever the hell I wrote here? I don't know man at this point I'm so drained I'm starting to doubt that anything I even said here made any sense, I just flung all the things stored in brain at this post so it may be all over the place but whatever!

Hope you loved reading this regardless! See ya!

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

To a Tea 3

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc. 

Part of the Sweet and Spicy AU 

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as dubcon/noncon, and other possible triggers. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk. 

18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you. 

Summary:  A demanding customer grows increasingly needy.

Character:  Raymond Smith

The title is a pun, don’t @ me.

Please comment and reblog if it’s not too much. I always love getting to chat about these stories and hearing all your ideas! You all are wonderful and loved. 

Six days in a row and you’re ready to keel over. Amid your busy schedule, you hadn’t a chance to fill your quickly dwindling cupboards and fridge. So, after a ten-hour shift on your feet, running all around the tables and between tea rooms, you expend the last of your strength on a quick trip to the shop. 

It isn’t too far out of your way. It’s just a half-block away from your stop. You could wait until tomorrow, your day off, but you’re dying for a strawberry shortcake mochi before you tuck into bed. The rest of your night isn’t too unusual; you’ll be happy to fall asleep to an episode of the same old sitcom that you know by rote. 

You yawn over the bask hooked over your elbow. You have your mochi and a few other staples to get you through; eggs, oat milk, and your favourite brand of granola. You rub your forehead as a stitch threatens to imprint itself permanently. Tomorrow you’ll do a proper shop. 

You stop just before the cashier and peruse the discount shelf. Those chocolate-covered gummy worms are deadly. You shouldn’t. 

You reach for the package, eyeing it up, blinking away another yawn. Those will only have you waking up with a sore tummy. 

“You’d be better off with the dark chocolate, or even the peanuts,” someone says. The timbre is dulcet but firm, and strangely familiar. 

You look over at the figure standing around the side of the shelves. You fear you might be hallucinating as you stare at Raymond. He has a square of protein chocolate in hand but sets it back where he got it, making certain it and every other bar is straight. 

“Oh, hi?” You stammer.  

The tea shop is busy and you’re certain you’ve probably crossed paths with at least one customer outside store hours, but never like this. If anything, you both look the other way and carry on. Instead, he’s intent on you, shifting to face you fully as he sets his shoulders, clutching his hands before him. 

“Though I do suppose you’ve already got the ice cream, it hardly matters what else you add to your lot,” he muses. 

You look in your basket then at him. Is he judging you? Mr. Black Tea, plain. You hang the bag back on the hook. As you do, he steps forward and you shuffle back on your heels. He pulls the bag in line with others, rescinding his hand with a flutter of fingers. 

“If you’re in the mind for something sweet, there’s a place near here, it has a sticky toffee pudding more worth the expense,” he suggests. 

You don’t know what to say. You haven’t seen him since he muttered about your apron strings. In the two weeks after, you assumed he might not come back. As particular as he is, you thought you’d gone egregiously over the line. And yet, you’d forgotten about him for all the other bodies passing through the door. 

“Thanks, I’ll look into that,” you say. 

“Mm,” he hums and his eyes flit up and down behind his lenses, “you sound different.” 

“Do I?” You reach to scratch your neck. 

“You look different too.” 

You tilt your head and give a confused grimace, “well, I...” you glance down, “suppose I'm not wearing my apron.” 

“Must be it,” he agrees, “you sound tired.” 

“I guess... yeah,” you take a breath and let it out slowly.  

It’s strange. He’s not a customer here, there is no need to please and yet you feel you must. You poke the tip of your tongue out then hide it behind your lips. 

“Not in a bad way,” he assures you.  

“Right, thanks,” you say in a fracture, “that’s nice, but uh, I... I’m just on my way home.” 

“I know,” he says. 

“...so then I’ll just be--” you point towards the checkout and falter, “what did you say?” 

“Yes, down Trafalgar. I know. It’s late,” he peers over towards the transparent walls along the front of the shop, “these parts aren’t too safe this time of day.” 

“Trafal--“ you begin but can’t finish, “Raymond.” 

He blinks, his expression scarily placid. 

“Details,” he says evenly, “it is best to keep note of them. It is dangerous not to mind them.” He raises a finger, “one might not notice the shadow that walks behind theirs or the window they left open in the kitchen.” 

Your lip trembles as your heart sinks, “have you... have you been following me?” 

“Following... that sounds sinister,” he gives a crooked expression, “no, no, I would consider it... I keep you safe.” 

“Safe. From what, exactly?” 

He narrows his eyes and his lips straighten thoughtfully.  

“Well, from men like me.” 

His words turn your blood to ice. Men like him. What does he mean? 

“I...” you take a step back and he moves with you. You put your hand up to stop him as you still, “Raymond, do not come any closer.” 

“You don’t understand, I wouldn’t hurt you,” he says, “that’s what makes me different. Not like those other men.” 

“I mean it,” you warn him. “If you come any closer, I will make a scene.” 

Your adrenaline courses through you. You’re awake now. The yawns have dissipated and your eyes are wide. 

“Ah, and that’s where I am like the other men,” he shrugs, “it doesn’t matter if I come closer to you right now. Hardly matters. Because I can wait. I have waited. And when I...” he steps towards you and you put the basket between you, his stomach pressing against it, “come closer, you will not even see me coming.” 

You stare at him, horrified. His blue eyes gleam and he reaches to straighten his glasses. He smirks and his brows draw up coyly. He leans in and you lean away. Then suddenly, he backs off and tugs his cuffs straight, then fixes his tie. 

“Don’t forget to close your window,” he says as he spins on his heel, “wouldn’t want some nocturnal creature creeping in.” 

You gape after him as he saunters off. You can’t quiet move as disbelief has you stuck to the spot. It’s all so sudden. So unexpected. How could you ever predict something like this? The uptight man from the tea shop, a stranger really, a face who disappeared for a whole fortnight, and he’s just shaken your entire world into disarray. 

Men like him? You don’t even know who he is. Only his name and how he likes his tea. 

[malgomy]

new wave dreams

Malleus smiles. You know this smile. In all your time with him, you’ve become intimately familiar with his different smiles. This smile, you fear, spells your doom.

This smile is smug.

“I recall Grim whining about spilled milk on his fur,” he hums, expression deceivingly serene. “Just before he went to sleep, he was telling me about how you have to clean up yet another mess and how dreadfully clumsy his henchhuman is.”

Oh that snitch.

or;

You're clumsy, Ramshackle has outdated appliances, and Grim is incapable of keeping house secrets.

tags: 2.7k words, cross-posted on ao3 under the same name and the same alias. this is my first work on here cries have mercy on me when it comes to formatting, ok. title is from P.U.N.K. Girl by Heavenly

You have a problem.

An issue, a predicament, a conundrum, even.

See, you’ve developed a bit of a … bad habit. Grim is a very deep sleeper and ever since you’ve been thrown into Twisted Wonderland, you are decidedly not. Whether it be unnerving dreams that wake you up or just plain insomnia, you’ve spent many a night kept awake with only Grim’s incessant snoring to keep you company.

And well… it’s not like your stomach stops working either. So maybe it’s not uncommon for you to sneak down into the kitchen and make yourself something to eat, and maybe it’s not uncommon for you to sneak back into your comfortable bed and eat while under the covers. Maybe. 

You’re so used to the sound of boisterous laughter coming from the kitchen in Ramshackle that the dead of night just makes it… eery. Not to mention, the ghosts who live in the dorm have no sense of when is a good or bad time to play a silly little prank on you. Is it really so bad to want the comfort of a wall against your back and blankets trapping your warmth while you enjoy a home cooked meal? 

It’s just that… your hand might have slipped while crawling into bed and you might have spilled your cereal all over your bed while Grim was still sleeping in it. Oops. 

This is where your predicament lies. Grim is now partially awake, bleary eyed and upset at having been woken up at 2 am. Your sheets, comforter, and pajamas reek of milk. Class is at 9 am sharp, and if you leave things the way they are, you have no doubt that your room will reek of spoiled milk.

Which would be fixable, except for the fact that your biggest issue is that Ramshackle doesn’t have a laundry room.

Or… well… it does. Technically. Except you may have smacked the washing machine a little bit too hard to get it started once, and it hasn’t turned on ever since. You’ve been doing your laundry in Heartslaybul with either Ace or Deuce accompanying you ever since.

But that is definitely not an option right now! Let alone the fact that Riddle would undoubtedly take your head if you snuck around and did laundry in his dorm at 2 am, you know for a fact that Ace would have a field day if he found out why your sheets were soaked with milk at this time of night. No, Heartslaybul is certainly not an option.

Which leaves… no options at all. You suppose you could just use the kitchen sink… or maybe the bathtub? 

“I’m not cleaning this,” Grim grumbles. He’s rubbing his eyes and lets out a big yawn. Despite his insistence, he really is more catlike than anything else you’ve ever seen. When he looks up at you with his big blue eyes, you can’t help but forget how annoying he can be. Aw, now you feel bad. 

“I wasn’t gonna make you, d’worry,” you mumble back. There’s no other option, you suppose. You begin peeling the sheets off the bed. It’s heavy, and it doesn’t help that your movements have a certain grogginess to them. Just your luck, you’re starting to get tired after you already made a mess. “I’m gonna head downstairs to clean this, you go back to sleep.”

Grim doesn’t respond to you, so you assume that he nodded off even without your prompting. When you make it downstairs though, you almost trip over him running right past you.

“We’ve got a visitor!” 

You almost drop your clothes to rush over to the window. From your spot in the lounge, you can’t make out what Grim is seeing. “Huh? Who?” 

“Who else visits ‘n the middle of the night?” 

The clothes are unceremoniously dumped in the sink and you rush to the window. Sure enough, green sparks fly around a familiar silhouette underneath your porch.

Talk about bad timing. “I can’t just leave him out there, can I?” 

Grim just shrugs up at you. Ugh, your bleeding heart. How could you leave a friend out in the cold when he came all the way just to see you? The ghosts would scold you for even entertaining the thought. 

With strengthened resolve, you glance out the window one more time. Sure enough, Malleus is still standing on your porch. He’s staring intently at the doorknob, but as soon as you move the blinds, his eyes meet yours. 

You don’t even give him the opportunity to knock.

“And what are you doing out here, unsupervised in the dead of night?” You say in lieu of a greeting. You grin up at him and open the door wide as an invitation to come in. Malleus slips into the foyer, but not without dramatics of his own.

“Might it be that I’m unwelcome into your humble abode?” He sighs, forlorn and melancholic. You’d almost believe that he was hurt, if not for the fond smile he gives to you and Grim and the airiness of his voice. “I suppose I ought to make myself scarce, and hope the loneliness of my dearest friend’s rejection doesn’t take my weary heart.”

“We can’t have you dying yet, now can we? Your retainers would have my head, I fear.” You flick the lights on, and lead the way further in. “Not to mention your family — I can’t have an army sent after me at my delicate age.”

“Oho! So all you care about is your own life? Careful, should you offend me too much, I may very well send the armed guards after you regardless.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes at the dramatics. He’s too attached to you to do anything of the sort. “You’re welcome anytime, just make sure you leave your retainers a note or something.”

“That one guy’s too noisy when he doesn’t know where you are,” Grim grumbles. 

“They should know very well by now to check for me here before breaking out into a frenzy,” Malleus breaks out into a grin, self-satisfied. “I am no babe; they haven’t a reason to fret over me so often.”

Grim lets out a little hmph! at that. “Betcha they're more worried ‘bout what you’re getting up to, going out at night all sneaky-like.”

You all pause for a moment at Grim’s statement. “Y’know Grim, it’s very rare that you say something smart.”

It takes a moment for what you say to process. Grim goes from smiling to attacking your leg in the blink of an eye. 

“Hm, that very well may be it then,” When you glance up at Malleus, all you can describe his expression as is preening. “I trust that your word will be a suitable alibi then, should they assume that I’m up to mischief?”

“Oh I doubt it, with what we’re always up to? They’ll probably assume the worst as soon as you say my name.” A light hum is all that you get in response. Typical, Malleus tends to zone in and out of conversation. You lead him to the lounge with Grim still hanging off your leg, flicking lights on and fixing things up as you go. Everyone’s awake now, so there's no need to go traipsing through the dark. Besides, Malleus’ eyes seem to glow like a cats in the dark, and you don’t feel like going through that heart attack right now.

Malleus sits by the unlit fireplace, picking up a random book from the coffee table. Grim stays behind with him while you take a moment to head into the kitchen, ignoring the pile of sheets you dumped in there in order to grab some fruits. The living arrangements may be poor and decrepit, but never let it be said that you weren’t a good host. When you make it back, the fireplace is lit, and Grim is curled up in front of it. “He asleep?”

Malleus nods. His gaze washes over the fruits before settling on your face. “For me?”

“They’re chilled, but I think I remember you saying you liked ‘em better that way.”

He reaches out for a grape, plucking it from the vine with a delicate hand. He’s just about to pop it into his mouth when he pauses for a moment. “Ah.”

“What?”

“I’m not supposed to eat anything my retainers haven’t cleared first,” he sighs. “Poisoning and the like, you understand.”

You nod in understanding. You’ve never had Malleus decline anything you offered him before, but…

Wait a minute. He’s laughing. 

“That is not true!” You dump the fruits on his lap, leaving him to place them delicately on the table. Malleus hums in amusement as you settle into place by his side. “I can’t tell when you’re joking, it’s not fair.”

“No poison you could get your hands on could harm me,” he says. “Let alone anything you could disguise with the taste of fruit.”

You think he’s joking. Malleus doesn’t force you to respond, content to nurse through the fruit in front of him. He alternates between giving you a handful of berries and popping them into his own mouth.

“Why was Grim awake at this hour? I seem to recall him to be a heavy sleeper, if nothing else,” Malleus murmurs out the question, like it’s not important enough to be articulated properly.

But it is. Because this is embarrassing. There is no way that you are going to reveal to the crown prince of any nation that you spilled cereal all over your bed while Grim was sleeping in it! Not even if you were tortured. 

“Oh! I think he ate the leftover tart from Riddle’s unbirthday party,” you laugh, like a liar. “You know how it is, sugar highs and all that.”

“Really?”

“Mhm,”  you nod. “Must’ve worn off by the time you got here.”

Malleus smiles. You know this smile. In all your time with him, you’ve become intimately familiar with his different smiles. This smile, you fear, spells your doom.

This smile is smug.

“I recall Grim whining about spilled milk on his fur,” he hums, expression deceivingly serene. “Just before he went to sleep, he was telling me about how you have to clean up yet another mess and how dreadfully clumsy his henchhuman is.”

Oh that snitch. 

“It’s not important,” you rush to reassure Malleus. You wave a hand dismissively, hopefully putting an end to the subject matter. “Grim must’ve just been yapping, you know how he is.”

Before you can even process it, Malleus grabs your hand with both of his. Shocked but not uncomfortable, you don’t deign to snatch your hand back. If you didn’t know him any better, you’d say he even looks earnest. “I would be willing to lend you my aid no matter the situation, whether the problem be big or small.”

You can’t stand to look him in the eye like this. “It’s really not that serious.”

“Tell me what is troubling you, I will have it dealt with.”

… ominous. His grip on your hands is loose, his palms warm and dry. If you don’t catch yourself, you might start to lean into him. 

Also… isn’t Malleus… a dorm leader? With access to his dorm’s laundry room? Really, maybe his late night arrival was just the solution to your self inflicted problems. Is it even taking advantage of the situation if he asked you?

With strengthened resolve, you lean in conspiratorially. “Nothing I tell you can leave this room.”

---

As it turns out, Malleus does technically have access to his dorm’s laundry room. Technically.

He just doesn’t know where it is.

“Hornton, aren’t you in your third year?” 

“I’m well aware,” he shoots you a look. Man alive, is he pouting? “I just rarely have a reason to come do laundry myself.”

“It’s ok,” you tell him. Roaming Diasomnia’s halls in the wee hours of the morning with a trash bag over your shoulder filled with milk soaked sheets was never on your bucket list, but at least you have company! Even if the walls are tall and cold, Malleus is like a heater by your side. “We’ll find it together.”

The two of you, notably, do not find it together. 

In your defense, Diasomnia is big. Malleus might know his way around these halls, but you are notorious for your horrible sense of direction. Seriously, you might as well be in a corn maze. 

By the time you’ve scoured what you think is the entirety of the upper levels of Diasomnia, you’re about ready to throw in the towel. Far be it from you to ignore the sweet call of sleep. 

“Malleus, I think we should just leave it,” you murmur. “With the way things are, I’ll be ok sleeping on the ground.”

You would not be fine on the ground, actually. But you are nothing if not a liar and exhausted.

“I suppose we should check the basement before we give up,” he hums.

…

You do not want to check the basement. The apprehension must show on your face, because all Malleus does is laugh. This man laughs at you. 

“Worry not,” he breathes out between chuckles, “I won’t let any harm befall you.”

How comforting.

The door to Diasomnia’s basement is just like the rest of the dorm: cold and tall and imposing. When Malleus reaches out to open it, the door creaks open itself. Creepy.

“Can I let you go down by yourself and I stay up here with the living?” 

Malleus casts you a sidelong glance. “The safest place is by my side.”

You can’t even respond, snarky or otherwise, because he’s not wrong. 

“You go first,” you pat his arm. That way, if anything jumps out at you, he’ll get the brunt of the attack. “I’ll be right behind you.”

When Malleus takes the first step, you think you can hear an ominous thudding. But that’s probably just the paranoia speaking. 

Your descent down the stairs is marked by you cowering behind Malleus and jumping every time you think you feel something ghosting over your shoulders. On the bright side, the basement seems to be well lit with torches. 

When you make it to the bottom, you take a moment to examine your surroundings. It’s an open room, marked with chairs and a stack of baskets lined up against one wall. Along the opposite wall, however, stands the prize that you’ve been searching for all this time. Your long lost lover… 

A row of washing machines.

“Oh finally!” 

You don’t hesitate to run over to the first washing machine you see, tossing the trash bag you’ve been carrying over your shoulder onto the ground as you shed tears of relief. Not literally though, because you can only stand to embarrass yourself so many times in one night. 

Malleus hovers behind you while you punch in the code for the rinse cycle and load the machine. He offers to help, but drops it when you almost bite his hand. No way are you letting him in close proximity to your dirty laundry. Once you’ve finished loading everything up and have slammed the lid to the machine shut, you get up to face him again.

“Well Malleus, I think we did good here today,” you nod, satisfied with the outcome of your journey. “I’m glad we could discover the location of Diasomnia’s laundry room together.”

“Dismissing me already? Humans can be so cruel,” he offers his hand to you, leading you to the seats on the other side of the room. “I believe you still have quite some time left before this load is finished.”

“Don’t remind me,” you whisper. As soon as your back hits the chair, you’re slumped over. It doesn’t help that Malleus is so warm next to you. “I’m exhausted.”

Malleus hums. “Then rest. I’ll wake you when the time comes.”

---

You wake up to your alarm sprawled over Ramshackle’s couch, a gray quilt tucking you so tightly you almost fall off the couch trying to get out of it. 

On the table next to you are your clean folded sheets and a note. 

Thank you for the company last night… I enjoy our time together greatly. I suppose the time to wake you never came. Apologies. 

You don’t think he’s very sorry at all.

[that-one-anxious-mango]

Hi love! I hope you are feeling/doing better! I was just thinking about the Days of Our Love series. Any chance we might get an update soon? I miss it!

Oh, New York. How I Love You. (1)

Summary: Austin's best girl comes to visit him in New York to cherish the time they have together before he leaves to Australia, in what becomes a very eventful two weeks together.

Word count: 8.2k

Warning: LONG POST!

Contents: Lots of fluff. Mentions of childhood trauma. Sexual Content (Oral: Fem receiving, hand job: Male Receiving), emotional situations.

A/N: Hello beautiful humans, it has been a minute. Don't drag me please. I just always take so long because I want to always put out the best content. Would you believe me if I said this went through TWO edits. Geez! But all in all, I hope you enjoy.

PS: Everyone feel free to comment, send more letter, and reblog! Much Love *hugs* Tags: @purejasmine, @wacoshuffle , @flyestvenustrap , @louisejoy86 , @unicoreads, @incorectly

______

“ Are you seriously going to take all of that to New York with you? Why don’t you just take one suitcase and then buy some outfits to wear there, ya’ know. “ Phoebe chirped from her spot laid out across your bed while flipping through a HG magazine. 

“ I agree. Buy some cute outfits and surprise him that way. Then you’ll have room to bring back the clothes you buy for you and us.” Alex continued to play a riveting game of tug of war with Magnus on the floor.

Her last comment made a laugh erupt from you in the closet, “ Yeah nice try, buddy. I’m not bringing you heifers anything back but some damn keychains and the lasting scent of the smug and smoggy New York air on me the next time we see each other.” You yelled back. “ And plus it’s gonna be cold outside.” 

Phoebe laughed while Alex scoffed, “ UM! Excuse me ma’am, but as a friend, need I remind your ass that this was a part of the deal. Since you’re abandoning me, The Travel Buddy, to go FORNICATE with Mr. Goldilocks in New York instead of HOME with me for the Winter Wonderland Festival. You promised to bring me back something nice to add to my outfit for the Warner Bros. charity event next month.” She recalled the promise that you did in-fact make to cease her tantrum at the time. 

“ And on top of that, I’m also the one silk pressing your hair for this trip, ma’am. AND taking care of my fur nephew that you’re abandoning as well. Therefore,  I DESERVE SOMETHING.” She added. 

“ This is true.” Phoebe co-signed, continuing to flip through the pages. 

You cut your eyes at her when you entered the room again to walk a pair of shoes over to your bursting suitcase.

“ Yeah. Yeah. I’ll make sure to bring you back something for your pain and suffering. Brat.” You muttered the last part. “ AND fyi his hair is black now.” 

Alex grinned while blowing you an air kiss that you grab and pretend to smush in your hands. 

“ You know you LUHHHHH me, girl.” She teased. “ Now hurry up because I don’t have all night to do this. I don’t know why you didn’t just get braids or some passion twists put in like a normal person going on a trip .” 

“ What’s love got to do with it?” You sassed. In return you were met with a pillow to the side and giggles around the room. “ And don’t rush me! I’m almost done.” 

“ What time is Austin supposed to be coming to get you from the airport? Phoebe questioned. 

“ Noon.” You answered fighting to try and fit a scarf into your luggage. “ My flight leaves at noon and I should be there by evening. I’m not exactly sure when, I just know their three hours ahead. 

“ Okay. Cool, just make sure you let us know when you’re in the car and everything. “ Phoebe noted.

You scoff, “Like yall asses won’t be watching me on 360 anyway. Stalkers.” 

“ Hey! You should be happy that somebody cares enough to stalk your ass. People go missing everyone, B.” Alex mocked the line from Paid in Full. 

“ Yeah. I know. I do the same thing with ya’ll.” You huffed, “ Okay. I think that’s it.” 

“ Good! “ Alex jumped up, “ Now go and grab my hair bag. So we can start on this head, honey. All this dang hair.” She looked at the long blow dried mess on your head. 

“ I know damn well that is not a damn hot comb.” You deadpanned. 

“ Do you want the hair straight or not? We have heat protectant, so relax. Whenever we both get back I’ll come over and we can do a treatment to make sure your curls revert back right. I got this. Now tilt your head down..” 

Phoebe giggled watching the two of you fuss at one another, “ Yeah you better sleep pretty tonight, babes. Head on hands, silk scarf, and turn a fan on so you don’t sweat.”

“ I'm aware.” You sighed, settling into the chair and began to listen to Phoebe as she started her descent into her plans while you would be away.

“ OW! ” You jumped at the sudden sharp burning feeling on your scalp, “ Alex really.”

“ I barely touched you! It’s the steam.” She giggled at the scrunch on your face, “ Hehe. My bad.” 

______

The Next Day…

After a couple goodbyes to your fur baby and helping your driver wrestle your large suitcase into the back of the car Austin had sent for you against your wishes, you found yourself tiredly weaving about through LAX. 

You’d already pre-checked everything, so once you went through security and went to make sure your gate existed, you’d found a very overpriced coffee place and ordered a little danish and iced chai to settle the nerves.

It wasn’t until you were in a seat by the terminal happily scrolling away on your phone that you got a text message from Austin. 

Sweet Baboo: can’t wait to see you. enjoy your flight. love you. :3

Once you boarded, the flight had been fine and you’d done exactly what was predicted of you.

You’d read for a good couple of hours and then slept a good chunk of the rest of it. The flight was smooth with no delays.

When the pilot announced your descent, anticipation began to build up in your chest

Quickly you pulled out the mini mirror from your carry on bag and went to fix your minimal makeup and undid the head scarf on your head to reveal the flowy silk press that fell down your shoulders. You combed it out and fixed your little cute airport outfit in preparation to get off.

Seeing as you were in first class, against your wishes also,  you were one of the first to exit the plane. You made it to baggage claim where a nice older gentleman with a sign had begun setting your luggage up for you on a cart and offered to push it down to the terminal.

“ For Miss Y/L/N.” He’d smiled.

“ Yes, I’m her.” You nodded. 

“ Wonderful I’ll be helping you with your luggage. Compliments of a Mr. Sweet Baboo.” He told you with a grin on his face.

You stifled a part of your laugh as the two of you began walking through the airport, “ Did he really ask you to say that? “ 

He nodded, “ Yes, He did. But I don’t mind. One of the more milder things I’ve been asked to say in my time doing this job.” 

“ I can only imagine.” You laughed. 

“ Quite cold outside. But you look bundled up.” The man smiled.

“ Oh yeah. It’s the Sahara in here. I think the breeze will actually help cool me down.” 

The sharp chill of the evening wind swiped at the little exposed patches of your face as you made it to the extremely congested pick up and drop off area. It felt near impossible to try and find which car belonged to your boyfriend in the sea of what felt like a thousand black SUVs littering the street.

It wasn’t until you spotted a familiar head of slicked back raven hair stuck out one window that you recognized your boyfriend as he made his way out the car.

A squeal unintentionally left you and Austin smiled a mile wide as he opened his arms up to you, “ There’s my girl.” He laughed, catching your body that was flung into him. “ Hey there. Mr. Sweet Baboo.” You giggled into his neck, placing a kiss there.

He’d taken his time unlatching you from him until he offered to quickly help the man load the trunk since he’d spotted what he believed to be the shine of a camera in the distance. 

You didn’t have time to breathe once you both were inside and the door shut. The partition was already rolled up and once the car started to move, and so did Austin’s lips against yours. Your body had suddenly felt like it was on fire with a flame that only he could put out. 

Your hands were attached to his face while his own were free to roam the parts of your body he’d missed in his absence. 

A small moan escaped you at the sensation of his hand kneading your thigh under his touch and pulling you further into him to the point of being in his lap now. 

“ Fuck, I missed you, Baby.” He groaned.

“ Not as much as I missed you.” You mumbled in-between kisses, hands feverishly grabbing at anything on his body that would keep him tethered to you. 

He smiled into your lips, “ Is that a challenge? Because believe me, before this car even hits the main streets I can prove that I missed you most.” He whispers, hand sliding to rest just under your abdomen. Your breath hitches and the most indecent thoughts begin to pool around in your brain. 

You giggled feeling his fingers sliding up your cardigan, “ Okay..okay..okay. I believe you.” 

“ I can’t wait to get you home, all to myself.” His words came out muffled, but had all the same effect as you found yourself pacing your breath and clenching your legs together. 

“ You look cold, sweetheart. Let me warm you up.” 

The ride had been agonizingly long with Austin teasing you every chance you got. 

When the two of you arrived at Austin’s brownstone, your eyes couldn’t register just how beautiful it looked from the outside. Almost like something you’d see in movies like Autumn in New York or Maid in Manhattan. 

“ Aus it’s beautiful.” You mumbled out taking in the glistening snow that littered the cement steps beyond the black steel gate.

“ Thank you. Can’t wait to get you inside of it.” He smiled, pecking your lips before getting out.

To your protests, he’d gotten all of your bags himself and took them inside as you huffed and whined, “ I wanna help! It’s my stuff. Aus! It’s too cold for you to be out here doing this by yourself.” 

“ Nope. Just get your cute ass in the house. ” You rolled your eyes at his smug grin.

The minute you stepped inside the foyer of the home Austin had literally swept you off your feet, dipping his face into your neck to administer kisses. 

You laugh and thrash in his arms the entire way to his gorgeous couch, ridding yourselves of your coats. 

“ So, first, “  He plopped down next to you, instantly reaching his arms out to pull your body into his lap. “ Are you hungry? I know you didn’t eat on the plane. And before we do anything else I wanna get you fed if need be.” 

“ No, not really. “ You leaned back against him, “ I think I’m just hyped up on the adrenaline of getting to see you.”

“ Yeah me too.” A finger traced along your neck just where your hair fell past, , “ Damn. Look at your hair. I knew it was long, but I’ve never seen it like this. It’s beautiful.” 

“ Thanks. I wanted something a little more manageable since our itinerary is a bit packed. It’s not big and unruly like usual.” You played with your ends. 

“ Stop it.” He scolded, “  Big? Yes. Unruly? No. I love your hair in its natural state babe. It’s cute. I love watching you take care of it. It reminds me to stay up on my shit.” 

“ Yeah, no 2 in 1 conditioner for you buddy.” You reached to pick at one of his dark locks close to his ear. It was still taking some getting used to. 

“ Hey.” He turned to nip at your hand, “ There wasn’t any 2 in 1 shampoo before you and there damn sure won’t be any now that I’ve been exposed to the good life.”

And a good life it was! You’d exposed Austin to all the skin care, shea butter, oil pulling, essential oils and everything else needed and now mysteriously you had products coming up empty all the time.

“ I know babe I’m just teasing. Excited for this weekend with you.” 

“ So am I. Gonna’ feel good spending time with my girl. Kinda miss my little buddy though. “

“ I know me too.” You pout, “ But I promise you he’s living his best life with his Aunt Alex. He’s already had a pup cup, two treats, and last I knew was taking a nap in her office on a pile of heated blankets.” 

“ You’re going home to a diva, baby.” He smirked, imagining the little dog buried in blankets fast asleep. “ So, back to this itinerary that was mentioned.” 

“ Yes! It goes by day to optimize experiences and time.“ You pronounced proudly, bouncing on the couch.

“ Really? “ 

“ Truly. I wanna make the most of our time together.” You replied. 

“ Okay, do tell. “ His eyebrows raised in amusement, “ What’s on today? “

“ Today’s agenda is light because it’s the first day and I already knew I’d be tired. So the only two major things on the list are having dinner with my Sweet Baboo and unpacking.” 

“ Nice! And we can make all that happen. Let’s take a look at the other days.” 

And you did, together you examined the well planned and thought out itinerary in front of you.

He nodded , “ Looks good. We may have to make a couple of adjustments if that’s okay with you. I have some surprises in store.” 

“ Ouuu! What?! Tell me.” You practically bounced in his lap. 

He smiled, “ If I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise then, would it.”

“ Not even a hint.” You whine, slightly puckering your lips, and playfully batting your mascaraed eyelashes. 

“ No. Nuh uh. Not gonna happen. But you’re cute though, baby.” He pecked your lips.

You groan, “ Fine! On second thought I am hungry. Feed me seymour.” You goofed trying to imitate the rich voice of Levi Stubbs. 

The lines of his lips curl, “ C’’mon then Audrey II. You can keep me company while I start dinner.” 

And you did just that perched on a chair at the island while the two of you made small talk.

“ That can’t be all.” He softly laughed, “ I haven’t seen you and I wanna really know how my girl is doing? Tell me. I know there's something.”

“ I mean there really isn’t much to tell, baby. I told you. It’s just been work..writing…Magnus..and missing you.”

“ How about that lease? “ Austin said, rolling out the dough in front of you.

Your shoulders tensed, “ What about it?” 

“ You talk to your building manager about whether you're renewing or not this spring, yet? ” He inquired about your plans for your apartment, which was really his not so subtle way of asking if you’d thought anymore about his offer to move in with him after Elvis was estimated to wrap this summer.

Although you and Austin had been together for almost six months at this point, you weren’t exactly sure if you were completely ready for that kind of commitment yet. Granted when the projected time of wrapping would come around the two of you would be coming up on a year, you still had some things holding you back about the whole ordeal.

“ It’s on the to - do - list…” You stretched, “One of the many adult things to eventually be handled.” 

“ Uh huh. I see. “ He mused,” Well like I said before. I wouldn’t mind coming home to you and Magnus every night. And when I’m home you're either always at my place or vice versa. In my eyes it would just make sense.” Austin explained. 

Your hands fidget with the brown place mat in front of you, “ I hear you and I understand, babe. And I promise I’m really taking all of this into heavy consideration. “ You settled. 

“ Good, I can live with that. Now get up, come over here and help me by cutting the sheath on these asparagus.” Austin instructed, while heating up his rosemary and pepper butter mix in his skillet.

Your eyes widened at the opportunity to help, while you could cook you were unashamed to say that you had hard limitations of what you could and couldn’t make. Whereas Austin on the other-hand was practically a chef with the way he could make his assortment of dishes. Which in turn made him the primary cook of the relationship while you were always happy to be captain of the clean up crew. 

“ Oh yay. I get to help.” You hopped up, “ And you're going to let me use a knife! Sick! “ 

Now becoming skeptical, Austin cocked his head rethinking his offer of a sous chef position, “ On second thought maybe you should stick to being my honorary taste tester. Quite good at that job, peaches.” 

“ Nope. I’m helping. “ You rolled up your sleeves, “ Now prepare to see some clean beautifully mutilated asparagus, babe. “ 

“ Jesus.” Austin groaned, placing the steaks in the sizzling pan.

______

Your dinner of sirloin, seared asparagus, garlic and herb mash potatoes, and bread you couldn’t pronounce right was absolutely splendid. 

And now being presented in-front of you was just the dessert to top the night off: A thick and nice slice of strawberry drizzled NY cheesecake.

Favorite of yours.

As you began to indulge in your sweet treat you teased yourself by wondering if there was any way the night could possibly get better. 

Then it hit you…you could knock one of your tomorrow's itenary items off tonight without any worry.

So, yes. It definitely could. 

“ You know what would be really good, right now.” You mused aloud at the island. 

Still turned Austin asked, “ And what would that be, sweetheart? “ He continued loading the dishwasher. 

“ A nice hot relaxing bath. “ 

“ Uh huh.“ He sounded

Grabbing the towel off the stove handle, Austin walked over to the island to lean in. 

“ Okay. “ He simply said, “ Your wish is my command.” 

“ Really? “ You nervously scraped your fork against your plate.

“ Of course. This trip  is all about you. So, if the best girl wants to end the evening with a bath. Then it’s my job to make it happen.” He washed his hands. 

“ Just stay here and finish your dessert. And then come up. Alright? “ He instructed, coming around to stand in front of you, taking your face into his face.

“ Okay. “ You nodded.

He returned the gesture and placed a chaste kiss to your forehead on his way out before heading upstairs. 

You could hear the faint sounds of water running as you struggled to calm your weirdly nervous stomach and finish your dessert. 

By the time you made it up stairs and into the bathroom the lights were dimmed and  the aroma of jasmine bath salts and vanilla bubble bath filled your senses.

You weren’t spooked when you felt him appear behind you. 

“ Let me take this off of you.” His fingers danced along the curves of your side as his hands moved along to lift your shirt over your head. 

You sucked in tiny breaths the rest of the time he took to undress you. Ever so often you’d catch his eyes and smile, turning away to blush.

Once you were as naked as the day you were born, he gently helped you step into the creme claw foot tub.

“ You wanna get in? “ You sheepishly grinned.   “ Plenty of room.” Kicking up your feet over the side to expose the suds and bubbles that dripped down your legs.

Knowing that he’d already restrained himself while helping you undress, Austin wasn’t too sure he’d be able to handle any accidental slips of the hand or touching by any means without immediately yanking you out the bath and into the bedroom for some extremely intentional touching of his own to you.

“ No, I’m okay. This is about you. So, enjoy your bath, babe.” He smiled leaning over to grab at the loofa.

, “ Stop it. You’re fine.” Austin playfully scolded, watching the pout spread on your face.

“ If you want we can both sit on opposite sides. “ You offered just as a lightbulb went off in your brain, “ OH! Or you could lay with your back against my chest and my arms around you like Vivan and Edward in Pretty Woman. I’ve actually always wanted to do that.” You confessed your little fantasy. 

“ Plus. You did say this weekend was about me.” You moved to place your hands on the tub and rest your head on them, “ And what I want right now is for you to come in here with me. Now,“ 

Austin’s cheeks warmed in affection and amusement as he watched a twinkle appear in your eye at the idea of getting to live out another one of your little rom-com fantasies. And how you’d suddenly gotten a bit bold in your request. 

He sat there for a moment contemplating when ultimately he decided who would he be if he couldn’t be the person to fulfill your fantasies and desires. 

He blew out air, “ Fine. I’ll be the Edward to your Vivan, babe. But just know the accidental touching and moving needs to be kept to a minimum. “ You watched as he stood up to pull his shirt above his head and shimmy his pants. “ I mean it. I am a man of virtue after all, honey. A delicate flower you could say. So, I expect to be treated as such.” He teased.

You didn’t have a smart remark to quip back at him because your mind and eyes had both been polluted with the images of him bare before you in all his glory.

Instead you mustered a playful cat call, “ Yeah take it off! Look at those cheeks! “ 

All Austin could do was smile and shake his head as he walked over and maneuvered himself to get in and sink in between your legs. Your arms found a home around his shoulders and your lips made quick work of placing innocent enough kisses to his skin in places you knew may be less…inflammatory than others.

And you could tell by the low and almost soulful groan Austin let out once he was fully  submerged in the calm of the warm water that this was something he needed too. “ Feels good..” He mumbled letting his head back to rest in the valley of your naked breasts. 

“ Good.” You replied, as you too were enjoying the warm intimacy of the atmosphere. 

“ We don’t do this enough at home.” Austin sounded as you used the soft silicone loofah to scrub and wash his chest.

“ What? “

“ Relaxing…soaking like this.” He rubbed at your knee that was exposed out of the water. 

 “ I agree.” 

“ So..” He squeezed the sponge he’d grabbed and dipped into the water on your back, “ You excited for tomorrow? “

You nodded, “ I am. I’ve visited here once on a family trip and another time for a work thing. But I’ve always felt like I’ve never gotten the true experience. And since Aunt Kiki lives here now I’ve been wanting to visit her. But of course she’s away on a work trip this time of year.”

“ Mhmm.” A hum can from Austin as you move your hand lower.

“ Watch yourself.” Austin mumbled, grabbing that hand to interlock it with his. 

And you did, you made it a point to keep your hands clear of the southern equator of your man. That was until you felt him let guard with a sigh and push back into you. 

This was the moment you took your opportunity.

A breath hitched, “ Y/N…what are you doing? I thought I made it very clear the stipulations of this arrangement. “ 

You crane your head down to rest your lips just above the shell of his ear as your hand continues to move toward its desired destination. 

He tensed against you when you went to lightly grip at his now half-hard cock in your hand. You moved it up and down a bit before stopping and using the pad of your thumb to quickly run across his tip.

Involuntarily Austin lets out a small hiss at the sensation, “ Alright, that’s enough of that. “ He hand comes to try and halt yours. But you use your leg to stop him.

Instead you ignored him, keeping your attention focused on guiding your hand to stroke him up and down. The water of the tub has begun to sway from the movement, “ I’m not done.” You whispered in his ear.  “ You said this weekend was about making me feel good.” 

Your tongue darts out to lick and bite at his ear,  “ You wanna know what would make me good? 

“ Yes.” His answer sounded strained against his voice. By now he’d ever so slightly begun to move his hips upward into your hand, beginning to get lost in the sensation of his touch.

“ What would make me good right now is for you to be a good boyfriend and cum all over my hand for me.” You say, mindful to increase the pace of your hand. “ Please can I have it, baby. Will you give it to me? Will you give your cum, baby? “ 

“ Oh fuck.” Austin’s head dives back against your breast and his eyes are tightly shut as his  body begins to become overwhelmed with pleasure. Your words doing something to him, of course he’d heard you be verbal during exchanges, but never like this. “ I’ll give you anything you want.” He groaned. 

“ That good, Aus? “ You used your free hand to come from its place on his chest, to grip at his chin and guide his head to loll to the side. It gives you access to attach your lips to his in what could only be described as a sloppy exchange of love. You swallowed his grunts and groans in your throat while he allowed your soft whimpers to enclose his lips. 

By now the water of the tub began to slosh with bits beginning to fly out of the tub and onto the floor from the impact of Austin’s hips coming to meet the pace of your hand.

He reluctantly forced his mouth away from yours, saliva collected on his cheeks. “ Fuck, just like that. Baby you’re gonna make me cum if you keep doing this.” 

“ Yeah? That’s what I want, baby. Give it to me, Aus. Show me how much you missed my touch, baby.” You moaned dipping your head to suck on skin you’d long ago identified on his neck to be his “ sweet spot.”

With that he couldn’t contain himself anymore and you watched as his face contorted into a beautiful display of pleasure and angst,  his eyelashes fluttered as he shot his thick ropes of cum in your hand. You keep stroking him through it until a hand shoots out to stop you. This time it succeeded as you ceased your movement, and watched his chest heave up and down.

Your hand rubs at his shoulder to help ground him and bring him back to you.

After a couple of minutes with a huff he speaks, “ Was this your plan all along? To get me in this position, baby. So you could use me this way, as your play thing?  “ He accuses. 

“ Guilty.” You whispered, thinking about how this all was in-fact a long game in getting him here. You knew had it been in the bedroom or anywhere else he would have undermined your advances and made your own pleasure the main focus as usual. But you figured that if you could essentially “ trap him “ into a smaller more controlled environment where you could take the reins a bit, you could finally have a moment to adore your boyfriend the way he always makes sure to adore you. 

“ What am I gonna do with you?” He groans and you smile, placing a kiss on his head. 

Eventually with no more funny business involved, you both take turns cleaning each other off before he gets out and wraps a towel around his waist. And then comes back for you, plucking your wet body out of the water. 

Routines are done and pajamas are thrown on quickly before he ushers you both to lay in the big king size bed. 

You relish the opportunity to sleep in his arms after so long. It seemed like it’d been a day and forever. When really it’d been about five and a half weeks. 

“ Quite the little show you put on there in the bathroom.” He whispered.

“ What can I say, I missed seeing the faces you make like that in person. All those facetime calls just don’t do those flushed cheeks or sweet strangled moans justice,baby. Needed to see it.” You shot back, and went to lightly play at the dip in his shoulder.

“ I see we’ve grown quite bold in my absence.” He muttered, trailing his eyes to your thigh that peaked out from the slightly raised shirt.

 “ So what about me? When do I get my own personal refresher of your moans and the way your body arches off the bed when I use my fingers to touch your spot? “ 

At his words, you could feel your heartbeat begin to race and the all too familiar aching and yearning you’d been feeling throughout your body return.

“ I don’t know. I haven’t felt like that in a while. I’m not as good as you with my hands, baby. “ You casually say.

“ Well. I don’t particularly plan on using my hands tonight. I’ve got a bit of a different approach since we’re so eager to try out new things. “ He said.

And then he said something that knocked the wind out of your chest.

“ Instead I want you to come and sit that pretty pussy on my face.” 

It would take you many moments and labored breaths of shock before you mustered up your bewildered response, “ You want me to what?! “ 

“ You heard me.” Austin laughed from underneath you. You were straddling his lap while he lay flat on the bed and you were pretty sure that maybe he wasn’t getting enough oxygen down there as it was.

“ Aus. You can’t be serious. I-I’m not a Polly Pocket sized girly, babe. I have a nice amount of meat on these here bones.” You countered, “ I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“ What? You don’t think I can handle you? Is that it? “ His voice purred, fingers dancing up along the curve of your spine. 

“ Of course not! “ You clarified, “ It’s just that…that.” You huffed trying to gather the right words together.  “ I want you to be able to breathe , babe. HOW WILL YOU BREATHE?! “ 

You watched his face turn in amusement at your flustered state, “ Don’t you worry about that, babe. I’m a big boy. I’ll figure it out. And if not…. when they find me you tell them I died happy and stuffed in-between the sweetest place on earth.” He said, immediately you felt your cheeks flush, “ These thighs.”

“ AUS! “ You softly slapped at his chest, “ Be serious.” 

He laughed ,“ I am. They’ll find me with a permanent glistening smile.” 

You groaned trying to shimmy off of him but his hands at your sides stopped you. “ Uh huh. From when good ole’ Rick and Mortis set in.” 

“ I’m not asking again, darling. “ You yelped when he grabbed your thighs and moved you further up his chest, close to your neck, “ Get up here.” 

“ But Aus I- “ You cut yourself off with moan when you felt his hand come to fondle at your breast. 

“ What was that? I’m sorry I may not have caught that.”

“ I-w-well-” 

He had your virgin ass absolutely flustered. 

“ Take em’ off. I want em’ off of you.” He mumbled,scooting you further and tugging at your night shorts. 

Obliging, you somehow managed to rid yourself of your shorts and his shirt. At that moment it took all the courage not to fold right there. 

You leaned forward against the pretty dark wood headboard to grip at its edges in a fair attempt at stabilizing yourself in your squat. 

The plan had been to lower yourself down nice and slow, but leave it to your boyfriend to be an absolutely impatient brat to knock the wind out of you by slamming you down against his face. 

You went to make a remark of protest but soon found that the second his tongue touched you, you’d been left unable to form long coherent sentences. A simple moan of, “ Austin!” Was all that was mustered. 

He groans as he begins to eagerly lap and lick at your drenched pussy. The vibration alone makes you tighten your grip. 

Using his hands he bares down pressing you further into him as you cry out from this new intense feeling. He's calculated with how he uses his tongue to tease the entrance of your opening before gliding it back to suckle at your poor throbbing clit. 

The more and more sucks, the more your juices uncontrollably leak from you, until now the sounds of lewd slurping and your moans come together to echo off the walls. 

“  That feels so good.” You mewl, unable to control how you begin to grind your pussy against his face. 

He lifts up a little bit to mumble, “ Yeah? Am I making this pussy cry with my tongue? She talking to me, honey?” He sends a long lick up your slit making you jump. 

“ Yes! Your tongue is so good, baby. It feels so good.” You cried out. 

You could practically feel him smile into your pussy when he closed the gap, obviously satisfied with desensitizing you this way. 

From there he really started to lay into you, when he laid his tongue completely flat on your clit you couldn’t help the pleas that spilled from your mouth, “ Yes! Yes! Yes! Just like that! Aus, PLEASE.” You began riding his face with more urgency. 

A hand came to smack and grip at your ass to help you with your motion, by now your stomach had begun to build up into that all too familiar knot of delicious agony. 

“ Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! “ You squealed, “ Aus I’m close! I gotta get up.” You tried scrambling off him and out of his grip, out of fear he truly wouldn’t be able to breathe from how hard you were about to flood his face. 

Little did you know that was all the motivation he needed to go harder, using his tongue and mouth to take a grip on your clit that outta to be illegal. He sent a series of smacks to your exposed ass to let you know that you had better not go anywhere. 

Tears sprang in your eyes, “ I-I. It’s too much! “ 

You white knuckled the headboard as your body began to heat up and spark with your impending orgasm. “ Aus I’m about to cum all over your fucking face!” 

“ That’s it, baby. Let go for me.” He moaned out against you. 

Gripping your ass harder he helped grind you faster against his tongue until he felt your body begin convulsing above him, “ I’m fucking cumming! Aus! Yes! Yes! Yes! “ You hissed, feeling the floodgates overtake you. 

After cleaning you up with a couple more licks and slurps, he catches your limp body and gently lowers you to lay next to him. 

Through hazy pleasure ridden eyes you look over to see that previously mentioned glistening smile set across his face as he lays triumphantly next to you!

You feel the bed dip as he disappears into the bathroom and returns with two damp towels: one for you and one for him. 

He goes to really clean you up before hoisting you in his arms and carrying you to the bathroom to pee. 

After everything is said and done, he brings a now sleepy you into his chest, arms creating a warm cage of comfort, “ So, will I be doing that again this weekend?” His hands rub your back. 

You nod and he smiles, “ That good? “ 

Voice cracking you whisper back, “ Could you not tell by the way I left Lake Erie on your face that it was fuckin’ amazing.” 

“ Just checking. “ He laughed, “ Next time we’ll try for the Mississippi, yeah?” 

_____

Next Day

Madison Square Garden 

New York Rangers vs Philadelphia Flyers Game 

“ I can’t believe I’m actually doing this. I’ve always wanted to go to one of these.” You squealed looking out at the crisp white ice while you were surrounded by thousands of other people.

Cup of water in hand and popcorn in lap, you’d dressed in thick wool lined jeans , a Flyers jersey, converse, and had your baseball cap to the back in spirit of your first time seeing a Flyers game in person. 

Austin laughed and took a sip of the wine he’d gotten. “ I’m glad we’re enjoying ourselves. I keep forgetting you told me you were a little hockey fan. Would have never guessed.”

You laugh, “ Yeah. When I was little my Aunt dated the guy who did the sound at the games for the Blue Jackets so we always got tickets. She’d go and take us up on the weekends and I can remember just always having the best time. Ever since I’ve become quite fond of hockey. The smell of the wet ice when they redo it, the chill of the arena, the way the glass rattles when the players zip by. I love it.” 

Austin noticed the way you hadn’t taken your eyes off the ice the entire time you were talking about this little passion of yours. A smile passed his face in satisfaction that he’d learned something new about you. For most of the rest of the time he got more pleasure from watching you watch the game then actually paying attention to what was going on himself. 

The way your nose scrunched when a shot was missed, your little squeals when your team regained the puck, and even how you held your own and  weren’t afraid to get back with surrounding audience members who may have said something to you out of the way.

This was hockey after all.

By the time halftime rolled around you were content at watching your favorite little segments. 

Kid of the game, celeb look alike, and your personal favorite: The Kiss Cam. 

The cliche track by Sixpence None The Richer echoed throughout the arena as you watched couples old and young peck each other and giggle for the camera.

It warmed your heart, but what happened next made it drop to your ass and roll onto the ice.

Because suddenly, your face made up in about a million pixels on the big kiss cam screen, there you and your grinning boyfriend were on display for the whole world.

People around you had begun to cheer and you could see Austin’s face was turning a shade of candy apple red. 

“ Aus.” You whispered, half covering our face.  The encouragement and cheering only grew louder and you felt Austin’s hand come to remove yours from your face. “ Hey. C’mon we can’t let everyone else have all the fun.” 

“ Just pretend it’s you and I. Only us. Okay?” He whispered, taking your face into his hands. 

You nodded and took a deep breath closing your eyes with a mixture of excitement and nerves pinging through you as your lips connected with his in a sweet little innocent kiss. 

The whoops and cheers intensified around you and when you pulled away you saw the wide smile Austin had his arm around your waist and you both waved to the camera one last time. 

After you were off Austin wrapped his arms around you, placing a kiss on your head, “ Always wanted to kiss a pretty girl on one of those things. Never thought I’d ever get the guts to do it.  Guess dreams come true.“ He laughed.  

You could still feel your heart pounding in your chest a bit thinking about how you’d replay that moment in your head for who knew how long to come, “ Yeah. They really do, they really do.” 

He placed a kiss on your hand and the both of you returned your attention back to the screen just as an older couple appeared. 

Eventually after some shouting, another small bag of popcorn, and twenty autographs from Austin to some fans later, the game was over, the Flyers beat the Rangers, and the two of you happily walked along to the car. 

“ Home for a nap. “ Austin suggested. 

“ Yes Please.” You yawned, feeling the excitement of the day beginning to catch up with you. 

______

Austin’s Brownstone - 8:23pm 

“ Well, Good Evening sleepy-head.” Austin greeted your groggy figure as you sat up with a pile of blankets sliding from you. 

“ Evening?! “ You yawned while looking around at the dimming sky outside the big bay window in the living room. “ My gosh, babe. How long did you let me sleep? What time is it? Don’t we have reservations? “  

You looked over to the loveseat where Austin had his feet propped up with a book in hand.

“ Woah. “ He held up a hand, “ Slow down. Take a breath.”

“ I let you sleep because you needed to rest, Babe. It’s about eight-twenty five right now and I called and canceled the reservations we had because truth be told I’m a little tired too. “ 

Your bottom lip stuck out and you went to protest but he held up a hand. 

“ So, instead I thought maybe you’d want to order in. Your choice. Thai, Italian, Mexican…”  He threw out the options. Nothing sounds good.

“ Do you know any good sandwich places? “ 

______

Forty five minutes and two wrapped hero sandwiches later…

“ Two-truths and one lie go.” You randomly said, reaching for one of his fries. 

“ Hmm. Alright. Well, I once shared the same production lot with Beyoncé and met her. “ He began, “ Two, I used to come home every single day in elementary school to eat lunch with my mother, and I once played a sad tree in my acting group’s play when I was younger..” 

You threw up your grease ridden hands, “ Automatically I'm gonna assume that the Beyonce thing is unfortunately untrue because I don’t think you would’ve held out on me like that. And I’m almost positive from that picture your sister showed that you were a sad bird in that play. So,I don’t know…maybe the lunch thing. I wouldn’t think an elementary school would let a kid walk home like that? Right? “ 

Austin smiled, “ Well my dear. Unfortunately this one you’d be wrong because all through elementary school I did in fact have a standing lunch appointment with my mother everyday.” He revealed.

“ Really?! And the school just let you go? “ 

He nodded, “ Yeah. We started doing it because of how shy I was. I couldn't really make friends at that age because of it, so sometimes it was hard being in school. Everyone knew everyone in town so the walk home and back was a breeze. We always ate P & J’s and watched cartoons or old westerns.” He recalled the fond memories. “ I know with work and other things at the time I’m sure her doing it wasn’t exactly ideal, but she still always made it work.” 

Your heart swelled for him as you reached out to rub his shoulder.

“ Awe, Austin, that sounds so sweet. She seemed amazing. “ 

“ Yeah, she was.” He sighed, “ She really was.” 

“ Wish I’d had a mom like that.” You sighed, “ I wish I would have had a mom period. “ 

As soon as the words left your mouth and you saw the look on Austin’s face, you instantly felt embarrassed. 

It wasn’t like Austin didn’t know about your situation, it just wasn’t something that you had in-depth discussed before. And you also really weren’t trying to make this seem about you either. It was just a little slip of word vomit.

You backtracked, “ I mean I do have a Mom. Just, it’s rather I just…have no idea where she is. Sorta…” 

Noticing you were about to say more but held yourself back, Austin encouraged you to continue, “ Hey. It’s alright. Tell me.” 

“ Okay well. From what I know, my Aunt said after I turned a year my mother wasn’t really around much. Started going out and hanging around with friends all hours of the night, and she just really didn’t seem that interested in Gracie and me anymore. Even disappeared for days at a time.” 

“ She left my Dad a note one night. On it she explained that she couldn’t imagine another day of being a mother. Specifically she said that it was draining something out of her that she was afraid she’d never get back. That we’d all be better off without her being there, herself included.” 

 “ I was only a year and some change and Gracie was almost five. And Dad did the best he could raising two girls by himself. He didn’t date much or anything really. Just was a devoted GM Plant worker and an even more devoted Dad.” 

“ A couple years later he found out that she’d remarried, moved to a part of Spain, and had more children. So, he made the decision to go to court and officially file for full custody of us. Which she didn’t contest, naturally.” You continued, “ I don’t think he ever really got over it, unfortunately.” 

“ He never talked about her at all.  And when he passed away when I was thirteen from congestive heart failure we went to live with our grandmother in Georgia. Gracie graduated and decided to move to Texas to pursue a career in public service. And after graduation I got a scholarship to Arizona State, so my grandmother moved and then decided to travel the world.” 

“ If you don’t mind me asking, has she ever tried to reach out? “ Austin questioned. 

You nodded, “ Only once. Not to me though.” You clarified.

“  When Gracie got married. Somehow she’d found Gracie’s address and sent a letter. Gracie read it but never responded. And she never told me what the letter said either. Her silent way of still protecting her little sister. I guess.” 

“ Would you have wanted to know what it said? “ 

“ I don't really know. Maybe? Maybe not? “  You answered. “ She wrote it just to Gracie. So, I'm sure there’s a reason for that.” 

“ Being honest….” You started feeling your lip begin to quiver and eyes water at the incoming thought. “ I always wondered if I was the reason she left? Like maybe I was hard to take care of or if carrying me did something negative to her. I-I *sniffle* It doesn’t sound like she wanted to leave when she had Gracie, so why after me? Why didn’t she stay? “ 

Your vision had full on fuzzied out now and your cheeks were slick with tears, turning his head to look at you all Austin could do was feel his heart ache. 

He tried to reach out  but you instinctively moved away trying to cover your face, “ Don’t. It’s fine.” Your voice cracked. 

He frowned, “ No it’s not, babe. You’re upset. My best girl is crying. Nothing is ever fine when my best girl is crying. It’s very far from fine actually.” He fussed moving toward you still. 

“ Hey.” He cooed, while reaching over to gently grab you and pull you onto his body, “ Hey. Shhh. It’s okay. Let it out.” He encouraged, rubbing your back and placing a kiss to your head as small sobs still escaped you. 

A hand went to your head to hold against him as he offered you all of his love and comfort.

After a while you’d began to settle and quiet at the warm feeling of being enveloped in his arms and calmed by his words. He hated that you were feeling this way. In situations like this it truly made Austin appreciate his mother, he couldn’t have imagined ever having any other maternal experience then what he had. He wished everyone could have had that. 

“ Hey, look at me.” He cupped your face and wiped at the tears while you sniffled, “ Anyone would be lucky to have you in their life, sweetheart.” 

“ I’m lucky to have you in my life.” He affirmed while making sure your eye contact never broke, tears forming in his.  “ You hear me? I love you.” 

You nodded, clinging to his shirt, “ I love you too, Austin.” 

He smiled, “ Of course. Snot and all.” He teased making you giggle and shriek away from him. 

He went to lean over and hand you the tissue box he’d snatched.

“ Now, let’s get into bed. How about a shower and a movie? Any movie you want.”

At this declaration you perked, “ Any movie? “ 

Now a bit skeptical, Austin still nodded, “ Any movie.” 

______

“ Okay, I changed my mind. Any movie but this one.” He groaned.

“ Austin.” You mirrored his groan. 

“ Fine.” He mumbled dragging you into his arms as the beginning of Lilo and Stitch played on the screen.

“ You really like this movie, huh? “ Austin chuckled into your headscarf. 

“ It’s my favorite! I was obsessed when I was little. I had a lilo and stitch lunch box, bed set, and all kinds of stuff.” You explained.’

“ And have you ever been to Hawaii? “

“ Nu uh. Haven’t gotten around to it. Maybe one day.” 

“ Uh huh.” Austin yawned.

Maybe one day real soon…

[hallowpen]

Hello! 👋 First of all i just wanna say, as someone who isn’t very familiar with Thai culture your explanations have been very enlightening and just give TLP another layer of depth, so thank you for posting them 🥹🙏. With that said, I was reading one of your posts that said “the social class nods are subtly woven into their interactions” and I was just wondering if you could maybe expand on that?

Hello!!! 😊😊😊 Aw... thank you!!! That actually means so much to me because this series means so much to me. I've been anticipating the adaptation of The Loyal Pin for who knows how long, at this point. I love the novel! (I own both the Thai and English versions. Though I haven't actually read the English translation yet, so I don't know how accurate it is to the original hehe) Once FreenBecky were attached, I was SOLD. Then the MOC decided to back the series and I knew how monumental this series would be, not just for Thai GL, but for Thailand in general. It makes me extremely proud to see important sapphic media, on such a large scale, originating from my home country. I could never have imagined something this grand happening just three years ago. It makes me emotional.

Before I get too in my feels, let me actually answer your question...

Just for clarification purposes, the ask is referring to my tags on this reblog of @dragonsareawesome123's gifset.

It's important to understand that Anil and Pin's whole dynamic is built around their social rankings, so it makes sense that their interactions reflect that... even if it's not entirely conscious. Anil is royalty, and because of that she is afforded certain liberties that Pin is not. Her 'mischievous' behaviors are excused and overlooked because, yes she is young, but she can also do as she pleases. She never faces any repercussions in the same way that Pin does. It's one of the perks of being a highly ranked Princess. Anil is favored in the palace because it's her home.

Pin is a guest. Yes, she holds the rank of 'nobility', but it is a title reserved for what higher ranking royalty would consider a commoner. She was afforded the privilege to live in the palace because Princess Pattamika took her in. Pin was not born into royalty. Neither was Pattamika, for that matter. Pattamika is strict with Pin, in much the same way Pin is strict with herself. Because neither of them can afford to have her fall out of line. Pin holds favor with Anil and her family, but it does not afford her the freedom to betray her social standing. If anything, it only enforces it. It makes you think...would they sill favor her if she were to go against their wishes in any way, shape, or form?

Pin is forever on the outside looking in... and she subconsciously knows it. And, in some ways, Anil subconsciously knows it as well.

"People say that it is so hard to hear Lady Pin uttering a word. As if you’re afraid something will fall out of your mouth." Anil to Pin

Unlike Anil, Pin must hold firm to palace rules.

"Why did you hit her?" "Lady Pin failed to take good care of Your Highness. She disgraced you by putting you in danger." Pattamika to Anil

"Please feel free to do as you wish. As if you would listen to me if I try to stop you." Pin to Anil

She dares not to disobey Pattamika, because she knows and understands why she'd be punished if she were to do so. And she cannot talk her way out of it, the way Anil can.

"Although she might be strict, meticulous, and strongly adherent to tradition... she loves me dearly, and continues to teach me and educate me in many things." Pin about Pattamika

"Poor Lady Pin, I really pity her. She often gets punished because of Anil."

She keeps her feelings of adoration for Anil hidden as secret treasures in her room.

She's quick to question Anil's lack of adherence to formal etiquette:

"Aren’t ladies normally supposed to [dance] with a gentleman? It would look peculiar if we do it together."

The only times she feels comfortable and gets to be herself is when Anil, for lack of a better word, 'allows' her to be. And Pin feels indebted to her because of that.

"Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to get through those lonely and miserable times. Thank you for being my friend, my home, and my everything."

So to answer Anil's question, Pin would feel incredibly lonely should Anil ever leave her... as she would no longer have an escape from society's class structure and expectations.

"With you, my life in the palace is never lonely." Pin to Anil

[toji-sweetheart]

𓍢ִ໋ please be aware that all of these will be smutty and some will have dark content, make sure you curate your experience and read my tags and block as you see fit!

𓍢ִ໋ most of them will be longish fics 1-3k and some might be longer! I might do random drabbles from a kinktober prompt post though! these are subject to change at any given time with no warning! all characters are written to be over 21!

𓍢ִ໋ feedback such as reblogs & comments are always appreciated! please note that some or even all might not even get done or I might switch a few around, some of these were pulled from last year's lineup that I didn't get to also I know I said I wouldn't share this until September but I'm too excited and look how pretty it is!!

𓍢ִ໋ every single reader will have pubic hair and it will be described! and since I had a few things pop up this will extend into November..possibly December...

hybrid - Toji x fem reader

synopsis: After your breakup with a long-time boyfriend who decided that stalking is the best way to get back to you it seemed that you needed protection and since you've heard good things about hybrids it was time to go adopt one, you just had no idea it would end up with him being more than just a protector. 

wife sharing - Ino x Kento x fem reader

synopsis: Takuma looks up to his mentor Kento more than anything, after all, he is his hero who just happens to be married to be his biggest crush as well, after one night and a spilled secret later Takuma finds himself invited into your shared bed.

roleplay & breeding & dubcon - Shiu x fem reader

synopsis: What was supposed to be a little bit of joking around about how your husband was the only one who found you attractive you both end up at the bar to see how many drinks you can get from random men while your husband watches acting like one of them. 

bdsm - Enji x fem reader

synopsis: What happens when a private recording between you and number one pro hero Endeavor goes viral the day after your honeymoon?

partner swap/orgy - SaShiSu x fem reader

synopsis: You and your wife wanted something different in the bedroom and bringing in her two best friends seems like a good idea to do so but what happens if you all fall in love?

threesome + breeding - Shiu x fem reader X Toji

synopsis: It wasn't something that he tried that hard to hide, being attracted to his best friends wife is a bastard thing to do but there's no way Toji can decline when you offer him a threesome that leads to more than any of you bargained for.

kidnapping - Touya x fem reader

synopsis: After finding out his dad has remarried and is happier than ever to have a second chance, Dabi takes it upon himself to ruin his father's happiness the same way he took his.

glory hole - Draken & friends

synopsis: Being with Ken means a lot of nights out filled with drugs and partying thanks to his friends, it truly was the best way to spend your life with the love of your life next to you and you were even talked him into going to a party where you're the main attraction.

omegaverse/hybrid - alpha! werewolf! Toji x alpha! werewolf! Shiu x bunny-hybrid f! reader

synopsis: You needed a week away from your house for a very intense heat, after running out of suppressant you knew you needed time alone but you didn't think that forging for food in the woods you'd come across two alphas who happened to be in their ruts. - this is for a collab!

virginty loss - Toji x fem reader

synopsis: Being the daughter of the only pastor in a small town you have a certain image to uphold, but the man next door to you is a temptation you want to indulge in. - this is for a collab!

bdsm - Toji x fem reader

synopsis: Your husband wants to show you off in the best way possible.

food play - Kento x fem reader

synopsis: After signing up for a bake sale for your neighborhood, Kento decides to help out not knowing how baking could turn someone on so much.

cucking - satoru x fem reader x suguru

synopsis: Satoru has always wanted to watch his best friend fuck you, it's always been a deep dark secret until you catch him jerking off to the thought of it and it's only fair to make his dreams come true since he's done it for you.

monsterfucking + knotting - alpha! Katsuki x fox! hybrid fem reader

synopsis: You've always assured Katsuki you could take his knot despite him always telling him no, you catch him in a rut and finally get what you're asking for.

makeup sex - Toji x fem reader

synopsis: With Toji coming home from a mission you were excited to see your husband but he has other plans to see his friend first.

rough sex - Sukuna x machoist! fem reader

synopsis: You love to push your husbands buttons to have him put you in your place, but what happens when you go a bit too far?

monsterfucking - dragon! Toji x fem reader

synopsis: It's always been a rumor of the dragon that lays on top of the mountain protecting it's treasure and you're a desperate thief wanting a better life for yourself so you sneak in to find the sleeping dragon, only to end up at his mate forever.

omegaverse - alpha! Toji x pixie! fem reader

synopsis: Toji video records himself fucking all sorts of toys but his fans request a cute little fairy so he sets a trap for his next toy.

bdsm + clicker training - dom! Toji x submissive! fem reader

synopsis: You've always been the perfect sub for John, always willing to go the extra mile even when he doesn't ask but yet there seems to be missing something.

free use - Katsuki x fem reader x Izuku x Shoto

synopsis: Playing seven minutes in heaven is childish to you until end up in the closet with the big three on campus.

stalking + kidnapping kink - Sukuna x fem reader

synopsis: Asking your fuck buddy to help you live out a fantasy seemed to good to be true and you didn't realize how good of an actor Sukuna is until you learn he isn't playing anymore.