#that does something for me. i like the idea

[reignpage]

Physics Tutor!Nanami

Law of Love: following the stars across the universe to you

Content: final chapter of the pre-relationship arc, fluff and smut, 18+ mdni, not proofread Word Count: 6.1k Guide

Nanami Kento is a man of science. 

Always has been, likely always will be. 

Everything is measured, from his coffee (exactly one and a half tablespoon of coffee grinds and three hundred millilitres of hot water, no sugar, straight off the boil), to the temperature of his shower (thirty-eight degrees) and even to the number of steps it takes to get from his shared apartment to his Monday morning lecture hall (one thousand, six hundred, and seventy eight usually). 

So, it would be no surprise to anyone that he’s counting down the seconds till the clock strikes five on a Saturday afternoon, phone in one hand in case you get lost, or universe forbid, bailed, and coffee in the other.

He should have done this a long time ago, should have invited you here, or invited himself over to your place, anything to get you alone. No, not in a creepy way. He just wants to talk, to get everything out in the open, to fix things. 

After an embarrassing night of drinking more alcohol than he really should have, he resolved to send you a message imploring you to come to the Eden Observatory. Nanami isn’t exactly sure why he chose this place of all places — a girl like you should be taken somewhere fancy, like a five star restaurant, dazzled on an ice rink, or led through a mall and told to choose anything and everything you want. 

Palms sweaty, he wipes them on his slacks. That’s another thing. He hasn’t opted to wear something cooler. Dressed in a plain, clunky sweater and overly formal trousers, he groans inwardly and regrets not having taken Haibara up on his offer to wear some of his hoodies and jeans. 

He can still picture his roommate’s lopsided grin and the enthusiastic thumbs up he gave which only made Nanami furrow his brows, feeling oddly like a child being dropped off at their first day of school. 

With the sun setting, he stands in front of the doors, fiddling with the keys, and waits rather impatiently. He’s booked it for the evening so there won’t be distractions. It’ll just be you and him and all the things left unsaid. 

A smile flutters on his lips. 

You came. 

You emerged from your car, a hot pink mini, and are walking up to him with a sway in your hips that is distracting him from the frown on your glossy lips. Dressed in a denim mini skirt and a thin sweater sloping off one shoulder, he wonders if you’re cold. It might not be full blown winter yet but it’s the kind of weather people usually sigh at. 

“That coffee better be for me because I desperately need it.”

“Is that so?” He hands you the coffee, a caramel frappe so sickeningly sweet he feels a toothache coming from just looking at it. You take it from him with manicured hands and pat his chest in a thank you, eyeing your surroundings. 

Rambling, you inform him, “I woke up at seven today. Seven, Kento! Like, actually seven. Why, you ask? Well, because I wanted to make sure I didn’t oversleep. Which is stupid because our meeting’s at five pm so I’m not really sure where I got the idea that I could somehow sleep through it from. And, like, I didn’t even sleep at all last night.”

“Oh, dear. That’s terrible.” Truthfully, Kento could tell you’re frazzled this afternoon; there are bags under your eyes and there’s a slight quiver in your hands. He’s clearly not the only one nervous. Strangely, that does nothing to soothe that ache in his chest. 

“And like, I really shouldn’t be here, y’know? It’s not smart, even my sister said so. But here I am anyways. Because apparently, I can’t get enough of sexy, blond nerds.”

Kento smiles, feeling content to stand outside, alone with you forever. The sun is peeking through the clouds, shining a warm beam on your face. You’re glowing. 

It’s the kind of scene a scientist gains nothing from seeing; it only highlights the daunting reality that there are mysteries in the world that will never be solved in one’s lifetime and can only be theorised, like a black hole. It’s all consuming, a rare and magnificent sight to behold, but one mustn’t dare get too close for once they cross it, they might never return. 

But your pull is so strong he just can’t help himself. 

“You were totally a pain in the ass last night, y’know?” You mutter, casually checking the chips in your nail polish. You’re just saying whatever comes to mind now. 

He grimaces. He remembers everything and gosh did he wish he didn’t. “I’m sorry for having been a bother.”

“It’s alright. God knows I’ve bothered you more often and far worse.”

Nanami wants to argue. He wants to say you’ve never bothered him, never once irritated him, but there’s nothing he could say to erase all those words he had spoken and wished he could erase. So, instead, he pulls open the door and offers his hand to lead you in. 

Immediately he regrets that. Why would you need his hand to cross through a doorway? Did he not get the memo that you’re living in the twenty-first century? 

Despite the twitch of his fingers, you give him a knowing smile before you grant him some mercy. Your hand is soft. So very soft. It feels light in his, and he worries that if he holds you too tight, he’ll break you like a beaker. Faint memories from last night come back to him, reminding him this isn’t the first time he’s held your hand. And he hopes it won’t be the last. 

“What are we doing here anyways? When you asked me to give you the opportunity to talk, I thought you meant in a cafe, or in your place. In fact, I was kind of hoping it’ll be in your place.”

He leads you through the grand foyer, the shiny marble floors perfectly polished despite the day guests. “I was hoping this would be somewhat like a date.”

“A date?” You screech. “Nanami, you didn’t tell me this was a date!”

“What difference does it make?” It sounds rhetorical, but you know better. He’s pleading, genuinely asking if making his intentions clear from the beginning would have made this outcome different, if you wouldn’t have come, and he would have been left wondering ‘what if’ for the rest of his life. 

Instinctively pulling your hand, you stumble into his chest when he doesn’t budge, doesn’t let go. Face burying between his pecs, you’re practically smothered in his hard body and his clean, musky scent. It’s so easy to forget that Nanami Kento, being a nerd and all, is actually an elite member of the List for a reason.

Your classmate isn’t like all the boys you’re surrounded by in frat parties. He isn’t a boy at all. The strength he carries in every limb and muscle reminds you of all the things he could do to you, of all the things you want him to do to you. 

He doesn’t push you away and you don’t make an effort to leave. Instead, he takes your frappe from your hand, worried that it’s dangerously close to tipping over onto your clothes. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t say it was a date. I didn’t mean to trick you. And well, it doesn’t have to be one if you don’t want it to be. But I’d like for it to be a date. Our first date.”

“But why would you want to date me? Haven’t I been horrible?”

Nanami feels something break inside. He likens it to the feeling one gets when they receive an anomalous result which throws off their entire research. Sighing, he attempts to nudge you so he can see your face but you only bury yourself in his chest further. He waddles you both over inside the double doors on the right with some difficulty, bringing the straw of your drink to your lips when you lift your head. 

“You haven’t been horrible. Not at all. In fact, I fear I’ve been horrible.”

“No! You’ve been great. Brilliant, even. You could never be horrible.”

He shakes his head. “I snapped at you that night. I jumped to conclusion and acted irrationally and emotionally. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no. I was wrong for lying to you and luring you to the party. I was wrong for teasing you this entire time. It’s so mean and so stupid and I hate myself for it. But I just really liked you. You have the best reactions and I wanted to see them all. And it’s all just so stupid. Ugh, I’m sorry.”

A blush is rising up his cheeks. It’s clear neither of you are going to relent. Maybe you’re both to blame for the unnecessary back and forth, for this farce that eluded you in some cruel twist of fate. Maybe it’s neither of you. Maybe none of it matters. Not anymore. Not when you’re here, not when you came and you’re looking up at him like he’s…something. 

That trusting, longing expression on your face threatens to sweep his legs out from under him. He feels like he’s suspended in air, free diving with the ground nowhere in sight, and judging by the way his fingers twitch, seeking to touch your softness, he suspects he’s been falling for eternity.

“Don’t apologise,” he finds the courage to breathe out, “Not anymore. Let’s just enjoy what I’ve got planned.”

You beam, eyes darting to what’s behind him, the conversation already forgotten. Marvelling at the hall you didn’t even realise you entered, you pull away from him and spin around, trying to catch sight of everything. 

He’s led you to the planetarium. Having spent many hours doing demonstrations and lectures here to tourists, students on school trips, and for birthday parties, it was the only place he could think of that might impress you. And though he was worried you’d find this lacking compared to your other potential experiences, those fears vanish the moment your eyes fall on his again and a huge smile is pulling at your lips. 

“Ken! This place is beautiful.”

Nanami gulps. 

You just called him by his first name. No, by a nickname. Like before. Like how you used to. And he feels his knees wobble a little. Not even his family calls him by a nickname, and admittedly, he’s never been fond of people taking creative initiative on his name but he likes it when it comes from your lips. He’d consider changing his name to ‘Ken’ permanently if it means you’ll call him that forever. 

"Can you believe I've never been here before? That's actually like so crazy."

Space is projected above both of your heads, countless stars twinkling in the abyss, forming constellations and glittering around planets and galaxies. Ever so slowly, the picture moves, disappearing to the right and allowing more of the universe to be observed. 

He’s so thankful he pleaded his case to his manager, the elderly man who owns the place, arguing that it’s for a special cause, to cheer up a friend, that it would be informative for their tutoring session. Mr. Tanaka insisted that it’d be too costly to shut down the observatory for even just an evening and for something so trivial.

However, when Nanami had said, ‘she’d really appreciate it’, Mr. Tanaka’s entire demeanour had shifted from grouchy old man, to giggling gossip. 

“Oh, well why didn’t you say it was for your lady, Kento? Of course, you can lock up and bring her over. Show her around, really make her day. I’ll let you in on a little secret, old boy. That’s exactly how I wooed my wife. Oh, she was so overjoyed she could barely stop gasping. How glad am I that a kid as serious as you actually has an appetite!” Mr. Tanaka laughed heartily, and laughed even harder when Kento blushed.

Having thanked him profusely, Kento was just about to leave before Mr. Tanaka added, a wistful tone in his gravelly voice as he caressed a picture on his desk, “You have fun, alright, Kento? You enjoy every second of it. Don’t get lost in what the universe has to offer you when everything you could ever want is within arm’s reach already.”

Feeling somewhat unnerved by the sudden seriousness in the old man’s face, he could do nothing but listen, absorbing every drop of wisdom as if he’s being shown the key to the beyond of the conceivable universe. 

And then, Mr. Tanaka smiled so brightly, the student almost missed the agony pulling his lips down. 

“Because that’s the beauty of the stars, Kento. They twinkle for love.”

Seeing those very stars reflected in your huge, wondrous eyes and the way his heart stutters, Kento feels inclined to listen to the rambling, grumpy senior more often.

Sitting down onto the centre velvet seats, the coffee stands in the cupholder on the armchair separating the both of you. The seat’s are plenty spacious and they even recline. You both make yourself comfortable, looking up at the dancing stars. 

“Oh, look! That’s Orion. I like him best because he’s fashionable,” you announce,  pointing at the ceiling. 

“Fashionable?”

Explaining like it’s obvious, you fix him a stare., “Because he has a belt, Ken.”

And who is he to argue with you?

Nanami had learnt that, though you’d much prefer to gain your information from him than anywhere else, there are some things he simply cannot change your mind on. One such example would be the great pancake versus waffle debate that had taken up almost forty-five minutes of one of your tutoring sessions. 

You sincerely, with every ounce of your being, believed that waffles are better than pancakes. You insisted, pleaded, urged him to see your cause, but he wasn’t having any of it. 

“That has no relevance to thermodynamics, y/n,” he had said with a deadpan tone. “And in any case, they are made of the same thing so I don’t understand what difference texture makes.”

“Can’t we just take a break from all the physics talk? I wanna chat and gossip.”

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is hardly the appropriate setting.”

“So,” you elongated, “take me on a date and we can argue about it.”

Nanami didn’t understand why one would spend a date arguing something as trivial as waffles versus pancakes when they were both the same damn thing but he couldn’t bear to encourage you. Instead, he clasped his hand and gave you a look he hoped would convey his thoughts. 

You only grinned at him toothily.

He gulped, then cleared his throat as he took his glasses off to wipe some invisible dirt. Opening the textbook at the correct page and slamming one thick half of it onto the table with more force that he had intended, he could only mutter, “I like waffles better too.”

“Aha!” You celebrated like a beautiful madwoman. 

Watching you clap and boo at planets and galaxies with seemingly no rhyme or reason, his opinion of you doesn’t change. You are just as crazy as ever. Whether that was yesterday, a month ago, or two years before. You still shine brighter than any celestial body. And maybe you’ll continue to do so in the years that follow. He hopes he gets to see for himself. 

Time passes as you two take turns highlighting asterisms and comets, discussing their history, their discovery and the next time they’ll pass again. Though he’s clearly the more knowledgeable of you two, you could give him a run for his money. 

“Cassiopeia, easily distinguishable because of her signature ‘W’ shape, was a vain queen from Greek mythology, punished by the gods for her arrogance. Her stars sparkle as though still boasting her beauty,” Nanami rattles off, almost on autopilot, just like he had been trained. 

“But because of the Earth’s rotation, her ‘W’ sometimes flips into an ‘M’, right? It’s almost as if the stars themselves are correcting her vanity.”

“That’s right.”

You’re more talkative than last night and he hypothesises it must be because you’re quiet when you drink. He was so nervous and out of place at the party he hadn’t even noticed just how much he resents not hearing your voice. Until now when he feels at bliss hearing your smooth cadence lull him to comfort.

Nanami prides himself in being a man of restraint. For many years, despite the girls who have twirled their hairs or pressed their arms next to his, his resolve to focus solely on academia had never wavered. Not once. His eyes never wandered up the legs of a woman or down their low tops, and he had never fantasised about much more than a cordial, research-based relationship with anyone. 

However, in this very moment, encased in the darkness of the planetarium, his eyes are sliding over to your crossed legs, bare and smooth, the fats of your thighs pressing against each other. Occasionally, they also venture upwards where your breasts are squished together on top of your crossed arms, and up that slender neck, settling on your glossy lips.

He gulps.

Shuffling in his seat, he’s trying to ignore the sudden tightening in his trousers. But it’s so very difficult. Especially when your perfume invades his senses and your plump lips wrap around the straw of your drink and you make a slurping sound that sends shivers down his spine. 

“W-whenever you’re ready, we can head to dinner,” he offers, attempting to distract himself with the next stage of his plans. “There’s a great place ran by a family friend who’ll make whatever you want, on and off menu. He’s truly a terrific chef and an even better man. 

“Dinner sounds great and all. But Kento,” you begin with a hum, sparkling gaze shifting to him, “is there a reason you’re gripping the armrest like it owes you money?”

You’re teasing him again, he can tell. He’s grown painfully familiar with that saccharine tone your voice takes when you’ve got him in the palm of your hand. 

The atmosphere has changed. The light and joyful air has evaporated and neither of you are laughing over how wrong those Ancient Greek philosophers were anymore. Instead you’re adding fuel to a fire he’s been trying to douse, lest he burns you with his impure thoughts. 

Clearing his throat, he attempts to deny your accusations. “I’m not.”

“Oh, so now you’re lying to me with the stars as our witness, Ken? And what’s next? You’ll lie to me when I ask why you seem to have a situation right…over….here?”

Nanami is powerless against the gravity of your long nails scraping along his tensing thighs. It’s merciless and climbing higher and higher until he feels a rumble in his chest, and he finds himself gripping your wrist with his shaky hand and he’s hauling you over. 

In a sudden turn of events, you find yourself straddling him, hands clutching his broad shoulders for purchase, whilst his own grab your waist. Nanami has no idea what came over him. Perhaps it was that animalistic urge that humans have yet to evolve past taking control for a second. Just as likely, it was the long buried desire to put you in your place. 

“You tease too much,” he whispers, taking your hands, fingers skimming underneath the sleeves of your sweater to tickle the inside of your wrist, and lifting them to the metal frame of his glasses. 

You pull it off and as you watch it dangle in your fingers, the glass reflecting the universe, he surprises you with his lips engulfing yours.

He kisses you, at first, like you’re fragile, like this moment is precarious and one wrong move could set it all off. But once the taste of you settles on his tongue, his resolve snaps altogether and he’s deepening it like he’s dreamed of doing for far longer than he’d care to admit.

Gasping, you allow him inside your mouth, tongues clashing and winding together. It’s a little messy, a little clumsy, but it’s making you hot all over. It’s the way he’s moving with no method, no rhythm, and instead, allowing himself to be guided purely by a desire to taste, to explore, and to consume you. 

“Ken,” you moan into his mouth. 

Nanami groans, digging his fingers into your waist, a pinkie tucking itself under the hem of your sweater, amazed by the softness he finds there. “You taste so sweet.”

You part from him to peck at his jaw, the stubble there eliciting a low whimper from you. With a giggle, you say, “That’s probably the coffee you got me.”

“Whatever it is, it’s delicious and I want more of it,” he growls. It’s a kind of noise he had never made before, didn’t even realise he was capable of making. A hand crawls up your back, embedding itself in your hair before it pulls your head back to crash against his lips again. 

Your hips are grinding together and the hardness there is meeting your moistening panties perfectly. You hope you don���t make a mess on him but that worry is thrown far in the back of your mind when he bites into your bottom lip. Emboldened by his firm, wandering hands, you grab that cold thing beside you and make enough space to take a sip. 

Kento is confused, dazed, but he can barely see without his glasses, and so, in the blur of it all he fails to see you’ve picked up your frappe until you kiss him again and something creamy and sugary tingles his tastebuds. His eyes roll back. Your tongues are mixing it up, really rubbing it in, and he sucks all that you’re willing to give him in desperate gulps. 

Feeling your hard nipples poke him through your sweater and his, he bucks his hips up, nudging your clit and you both moan. 

“S-stop,” he breathes out. “W-we can’t.” 

Blinking furiously, you nod, pushing off but his arms cage you in, keeping you in his lap. ”Ken?”

“I’m sorry. I promise I want to. Really. But, I d-don’t…”

Picking up his forgotten glasses and sliding it back into place, you then cradle his face. His eyes meet yours clearly and he smiles sheepishly, feeling more vulnerable with it on. His lips are shiny with both the coffee and your liquid, you swipe with your thumb. “You don’t what?

“I don’t… I mean, I’ve never…”

“You’ve never been with a girl?”

Nanami nods, thoroughly embarrassed. There’s no way you’ll like him now. He’s ruined the mood. He came so close to having it all but he just had to go and destroy everything by revealing he is the stereotypical nerd and you’re way too good for him. He feels an urge to run, to hide and pretend none of this ever happened, that he hadn’t gotten too big for his boots and thought he could conquer a huge mountain and get to the peak with you. 

You must be disgusted to have been touched by a loser like him. Maybe you already knew from the clumsy way he kisses or the shaking of his hands, and the way he seeks your gaze but cowers when you meet his.

Nanami Kento is a man of science and he should have stayed that way, should have never dared venture further than a man like him was ever meant to. 

But when you smile at him, staring up through those long, fluttering lashes, he decides right there and then that he’s more than willing to submit to a higher power. For there is no probable way you were made by chance like he or anyone else was—you must have been sculpted by God himself, and sent down to tempt his honour, to humble his arrogance, and crumble the very foundations of his character. 

And how gladly he’d let you. 

“Kenny, you silly man. I don’t care about things like that. In fact,” you whisper conspiratorially and lean in close, nibbling on his ear, “I’m getting really wet from knowing that I’m going to be your first.”

He dies. 

Right there and then, Nanami dies. 

He feels his soul, of which he only discovered a second before, leave his body and ascend high into the celestial clouds, mingling with those stars that seem to twinkle harder as if amused by the dumbstruck look on his face. 

Like something had completely changed in his DNA make up, he takes you by surprise and presses his palm against your soaked gusset. You jolt. 

“You’re really wet.” He thumbs at that little bulge, watching the way your jaw drops. Piercing his body, your moans echo through his ribs, pounding against his heart and filling his veins with something far too addictive. “Does knowing that you’re the first girl I’ve ever kissed, ever wanted to taste here, and wanted to know how she feels inside turn you on?”

There’s no hint of playfulness in your voice any longer when you whimper a 'yeah, Ken', hips stuttering against the pressure of his palm cupping your heat in its entirety. He can’t fathom how someone like you could find someone like him attractive, and to this extent, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care enough to map out all possibilities and make hypotheses — he doesn’t want reason and logic and practicality. 

Not now. 

No, all Nanami wants is to know you, inside and out. So, he pulls your panties to the side, hands still shaking a little, and he groans at the disastrous sensation of your drenched core leaking onto his skin. There’s no technique to his touch; he’s just feeling you. There are folds and bumps he’s theoretically aware of but to touch in person is insanity. 

Your face is making all sorts of expressions: brows furrow when he follows the seam of your lips, nose twitches when his finger teases at your quivering entrance, and your mouth parts when he bumps against your clit. 

“Tell me how you like it,” he pleads. “Tell me how to make you feel good.”

‘Pitiful loser’ must be written all over his face because you smile. You smile and thrust your breasts in his face just as your fingers wrap around his and you guide him. Urging two fingers inside, you allow him to sink in slowly, observing using his tactile receptors the pulsing heat of your walls, the squishiness, the texture, and the way he’s gliding inside. 

“Just touch me, Ken. Feel me. Get familiar because you’re going to make this your second home, okay?” 

“Okay.”

He thrusts those fingers in, seeking that spot that’s supposed to make women gasp and writhe. The sounds coming from you are obscene and it’s making him delirious. You’re growing impossibly wetter, hips stuttering, grinding on his palm, and he’s watching everything. 

Something about how hard he’s staring must make you uncomfortable because you laugh and slide your thumbs under his glasses, holding his lids close. 

“Don’t stare so hard, Kenny, you look like you’re trying to work out an equation.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles. And then you take off his glasses again, baring his face to this otherworldly dream, but when he opens his eyes, what he sees threatens to collapse his own world beneath him. You’re wearing his glasses, or at least he thinks so; his vision is blurry. How he hates his visual impairment more than he ever has before. 

Pressing a kiss on his forehead just as you moan against his skin when he hits a good spot inside you, you shakily ask, “H-how do I look?”

“Beautiful,” he breathes out. 

You laugh again and he throbs inside his trousers. Then, his vision is being obscured all together by your sweater — you’ve encased his head within and his face lies between your lovely breasts. 

Nanami’s heart stops. 

He swears it does. 

“Play with them a little, won’t you, Kenny? I like my tits teased before I cum.”

He doesn’t know which part of what you just said is that final stake in his heart but he does as you say. He licks and sucks and nibbles, listening out for your moans and feeling for which makes you clench harder on his fingers. Nimble hand not slacking for a second, he rubs your clit with his thumb and prods that soft spot you seem to really like. 

Never understanding men’s obsession with breasts, Kento is more than aware of the irony of the situation now that he’s moaning around your nipple, rolling it on his tongue. There have been so many Tuesday evenings spent watching these very same breasts press against the desk as you complain about all the worksheets he had prepared for you. So many walks along campus to get to his next class spent grumbling about how you really should wear a bra more often if you’re planning to jump around like that in front of those jocks. 

But now, he has those very same breasts surrounding his face, threatening to suffocate him, and he thanks the heavens you didn’t wear a bra today. 

“Oh, Ken, fuck!”

“Gosh, a-are you orgasming?” His words are muffled around your nipple and the vibrations seem to fuel you. 

You giggle breathlessly, “It’s ‘cumming’, Ken. Can you -ha- say it for me?”

“Are you c-cumming?”

Through some sort of miracle, you eventually do cum on his fingers, and he hurriedly untangles himself from your sweater to observe the way your face crumples up in bliss, to see the way you flood his hand with your intoxicating cream, and how you’re spasming in his lap. 

It’s all through the fog of his poor vision but the awareness that you’re cumming because of him, in his arms, wearing his glasses and fogging it up with your heady breaths pushes him over the edge just as your hand brushes against the bulge of his trousers. 

“Oh, ngh! I’m s-sorry! Gosh! I'm so sorry.”

The bliss runs deep, filling his head with the scent of you, and for a second, through the haze, he swears his vision clears and you're magnificent face comes to him like a message from something divine. He might just cease being a man of science at this rate.

Panting, you slump against each other. The stars are still dancing above but neither of you pay attention. You’re simply taking deep breaths, trying to reorient yourself, and enjoy the warmth the other is radiating. 

“For your first time fingering a girl, you were pretty good. Which I’m not surprised by — you’ve always been a quick learner, isn’t that right, Kento?”

“P-please don’t tease me.”

With his glasses sliding off your nose bridge, you kiss his lips in apology before you slot the frame back onto his face. He thanks you with an awkward pat of your pussy before he brings his fingers to his face. 

“Isn’t it incredible how our body produces natural lubrication?”

Rolling your eyes you whisper against his stubbly jaw, “Don’t get all sciencey on me now, baby. We still have to talk about the fact that you came in your pants and I hadn’t even touched you.”

Nanami blushes. Hard. He’s humiliated himself in front of you once again. For a second there, he had genuinely believed his inexperience wouldn’t make a difference, that he’s not a teenager and he’ll pull through as a man by instinct alone if need be. How wrong he was. 

“Hey, now. Don’t start thinking too hard. I wasn’t complaining. I actually thought it was really hot.”

Still eyeing the shiny string that forms between his fingers from your essence, he clears his throat and concedes, “If you say so.”

Silence passes by for a beat or two, and all Nanami can think about is how uncomfortable he feels with his cum drying in his boxers and he realises you must feel the same way. Just as he’s about to voice these concerns out, you meet his eye with a strange kind of twinkle. 

“Wanna taste it?”

Before he can even ask what you could possibly mean, you’re already guiding his fingers back to your core and spreading your wetness all over his hand once more. Then, that wetness is being spread along his lips and he doesn’t disobey when he sucks them into his mouth. 

The taste is strange. Not bad, but new and odd. It’s mostly tasteless but it is a little tangy, and sweet. And he is obsessed. 

“How do I taste, Kenny?”

Nanami Kento is a man of science. 

He isn’t a poet. He doesn’t mince his words, doesn’t use flowery language or muses about nature and the fragility of humanity. No, he says it like it is. The world exists in black and white, there are no greys, no rose tinted glasses hiding the truth from him. He is a man of fact and truth. No more, no less.

But with the exhilarating, inebriating, and electrifying taste of you flooding his tongue, he realises, every man is born a poet, and the world silences that visionary within. However, there comes a moment in every man's life where that poet is awakened and they see the world not as it is, but rather as it should be. They simply need a muse. 

“Like a star,” Nanami rasps, completely and utterly weakened, defeated, and vanquished. “More. I w-want more.”

You chortle. “No, Ken. Not here. Some other time, okay? ‘Cause I’m actually really hungry now. But you’ve got a bit of a situation in your pants and you can’t easily hide it so maybe we should go over to your place and you can cook me up something instead?”

Liking the idea very much, he kisses you and lifts you up so you can both stand on your own two feet. The drying cum is proving to be a pain but it doesn’t bother him. Nothing does in this moment. Not the fact that he’ll have to sneak into the security office and get the CCTV footage deleted, or preferably sent to his phone and then deleted from the main system, not the thought of all the work he has yet to do in preparation for all his classes next week, and not even the knowledge that he’ll have to kick Haibara out for the night. 

“Does this mean you and I are… well…” He trails off, unsure how to phrase it. 

Giggling, you go on your tiptoes and peck his lips. “Yes, Ken. We’re dating. We’re exclusive. I’m your girlfriend and you’re my boyfriend. So that means I get to flirt with you all the time and you can’t pretend you don’t like it anymore.”

“That sounds like a fair deal. Will you come back to class? Let me tutor you again?”

“Wasn’t me coming here to begin with not answer enough, Ken? Of course, I’m coming back. Especially now that it means we can have secret sex during our tutoring sessions. Oh! Can we fuck in the library? I’ve always wanted to do that. And then you can tell me off for being too loud. Can we? I also really want to have sex in your car. Mine is a little too small but yours will work just fine. Oh! And maybe you can let me touch you in the lectures? We can sit at the back where no one can see us! You have to meet my sister. And my friends. And the rest of my family. Then I'll meet yours. Eek! I'm so excited. We'll go on dates every day, won't we? Oh, wouldn't that be so fun, Ken?”

Nanami gulps. 

Stepping away from the world of science and into a world of you seems much more daunting now than ever. Maybe he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Maybe he’s not cut out for a life outside of academia. Maybe he won’t be able to keep up with your appetite. Maybe you'll drain him dry and leave him a husk of himself, which doesn't sound so bad if he's being completely honest.

Everything you said leaves him a little lightheaded at the thought and he can't fathom how he could possibly meet every one of your expectations.

But... he’s always been a fan of the trial-and-error method. 

So, he supposes he’s just going to have to work it out like he always does. Because as you grin up at him, sweat making your skin slightly shiny, he can’t think of anything worse than disappointing you. 

Smiling, he brushes a stray strand away from your cheek and lays a lithe kiss on your nose.

“Whatever you say, my little star.”

[gloomwitchwrites]

How about some silliness.....reader/you is superrr drunk from a night out with friends or high from anesthesia and the guys are trying to take care of them and we are all like "get your hands off me or my husband will kick you ass!" Or "omg you're so hot are you single??"...and they are just dying laughing like "I am your husband!"

I just watched one too many tik toks of this 😂🤣

Oh, I love this. I don't think I've actually seen these videos before (at least on TT) but I do know what you're talking about. Maybe I've seen it more in other media? Like movies and television? Anyway, I understand what you're asking for, so I hope you enjoy what I've cooked up!

For the masterlist and how to submit your own request, click HERE

Task Force 141 x Female Reader

Content & Warnings (MDNI): swearing, established relationship, fluff, mild alcohol use, shenanigans due to drunkenness & anesthesia

Word Count: 800

ao3 // main masterlist // imagines & what if masterlist

John Price

John stands beside you on the passenger side of the car. The car door is open, and all you need to do is slide inside. Instead, you’re arguing with him, insisting that you can get in yourself, and that you don’t need help.

“You just had surgery,” chides John.

“Minor surgery,” you correct.

“It’s still surgery.” John sighs, and then places his hand on your back. “Let me help you.”

“Hands off, sir. You’re not my husband.”

John does not move his hand. “I don’t remember us getting a divorce, love.”

You wave him off and John snorts. “He’ll kick your ass,” you insist. “Punch you right in the nose.”

John’s stern demeanor cracks, dissolving into a wide smile and a soft chuckle. He shakes his head in disbelief. “I’m your bloody husband. You’re stuck with me. Forever.”

“I’m serious,” you say. Turning, you attempt to jab him in the chest with your finger. Everything tilts, and you only hit air.

John sighs, exasperated. “Get in the car, love.”

“No,” you groan, pushing at his chest. You surrender to him, allowing John to help you into the front passenger seat.

“I hope you remember this after the drugs wear off.”

John "Soap" MacTavish

You’ve been out with your friends all evening, and you have no idea what times it is. It’s dark, and you didn’t leave until the bar closed, forcing you to make an exit. Someone called for a car, and you all piled in, dropping each of off one by one.

As you enter the dark bedroom, you kick off your shoes, slightly stumbling to turn on the bedside light. You turn it on, and immediately wince. Vision swimming, you rub at your eyes, and then notice the massive lump in your bed.

“Turn off the bloody light, will you?” mumbles Johnny.

A devious plan forms in your head.

You climb onto the bed, crawling toward him. Noticing, Johnny turns toward you, eyes dreary with sleep.

“What?” he asks just before you flop your entire body onto him.

“Hi,” you whisper.

“Hi,” he deadpans.

You wiggle over him, pressing the tip of your nose against his. “You seeing anyone, handsome?”

Johnny arches an eyebrow. “Did you hit your head or something? I am your husband.”

“Lucky me.”

Johnny blows raspberries. With one good shove, he flips you onto your back on your side of the bed.

“Go to bed. You’re drunk.”

Simon "Ghost" Riley

Your liquor-addled brain tells you to do it.

Across the bar is danger, the kind you want to play with—to sink your teeth into. Why resist temptation when it’s clear that the masked man across the bar can’t seem to take his eyes off you? Every time you glance in his direction, his gaze is focused and intense, daring you to approach him.

Which is exactly what you do.

He follows your every step, even if there is a slight sway in the way you walk. As you approach, he leans back in his chair, legs widening as if in welcome. It’s easy to reach out, to place your hand on his shoulder, to straddle his thighs, and stare into his eyes.

“You’ve been staring at me all night,” you slur. “Plan on going home with anyone?”

“I am,” the masked man replies.

“And who might that be?”

“My wife.”

You turn in his lap, looking around at all the other patrons in the bar. “Don’t see her.”

“Course you don’t,” he chuckles. “Because she’s sitting in my lap.”

You blink. “Is she?”

“You’re my wife,” he whispers.

“I am…aren’t I?”

He shakes his head. “I’m cutting you off.”

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick

The alcohol is an enabler. You shouldn’t have had as many drinks as you did, but this is a party, and you’re not the one driving.

Why not have a bit of fun?

“Hi.”

Kyle arches an eyebrow. “Hi,” he replies, drawing out the greeting in slight confusion.

You cozy up next to him, shoulder brushing against shoulder.

“So,” you begin, head tilting toward him like you’re about to whisper all your secrets. “I’m going to be a bit bold…”

“Go on.”

“But I think you’re cute. Wanted to know if you’re seeing anyone.”

Kyle’s single raised eyebrow becomes two. There’s a long pause, so long that you notice the absence of conversation.

Kyle’s confusion cracks, becoming a wide smile, followed by his adorable, familiar laughter. “You’re taking the piss, love.”

“I’m not joking.”

He laughs harder, clutching his chest like he can’t breathe.

“I’m your husband,” he manages to say between wheezing breaths.

“I know,” you reply. “Just checking to make sure you’re still loyal.”

He waves his hand in the air before him. “You’ve had enough. Give me that.” He plucks your beverage right out of your hands.

“Excuse me,” you protest, but Kyle is already downing it.

taglist:

@glitterypirateduck @km-ffluv @tiredmetalenthusiast @miaraei @cherryofdeath

@fern-reads @tulipsun-flower @miss-mistinguett @ninman82 @eternallyvenus

@beebeechaos @smileykiddie08 @whisperwispxx @chaostwinsofdestruction @weasleytwins-41

@saoirse06 @glassgulls @ravenpoe67 @sageyxbabey @mudisgranapat

@lulurubberduckie @leed-bbg @yawning-grave81 @azkza @nishim

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@itsberrydreemurstuff @z-wantstowrite @keiva1000 @littlemisscriesherselftosleep @blackhawkfanatic

@sammysinger04 @kylies-love-letter @dakotakazansky @suhmie @kadeeesworld

@keiva1000 @jackrabbitem @arrozyfrijoles23 @lovely-ateez @waves-against-a-cliff

@ash-tarte @marispunk @gingergirl06 @certainlygay @greeniegreengreen

[millionthcephalophore]

Okay. A few things here. This is still bad! Buuuuut I would encourage people to read some full articles and get some context on Torres’ work to see exactly HOW these missteps could be justified and why they may have happened.

Portrait of Ross in LA is by farrrr Torres’ most famous candy portrait but it is not the only one! Plenty of them are frequently displayed in a line like the Smithsonian’s installation, is that less effective? Maybe. But it’s not out of line with his work. Nor is the plaques listing of an “ideal weight” or the exhibition’s listed concerns.

Gonzalez-Torres made a lot of work about AIDS and he made it exceptionally well. However, it was not his only artistic concern. This exhibition focuses on his innovations in portraiture and his lateral thinking about the genre. It would be absolutely disingenuous and sinister for the exhibit not to mention AIDS, but if I’m going to be a little honest I don’t have a problem with an exhibition placing its focus elsewhere. He was a brilliant artist and deserves recognition for all of his ideas, not just those related to his suffering.

The work is displayed and plaqued in a way that’s consistent with his other work and doesn’t go against the works’ certificate (basically it’s artist-stipulated display instructions). So from a curatorial standpoint it IS the same piece.

According to the curators a separate piece of wall text near the piece DOES further contextualize it reading, in part, “Gonzalez-Torres cared for his partner Ross Laycock, named in the candy work’s title, who died from HIV/AIDS in 1991. So there are some mentions of AIDS throughout the exhibit. I still think that this is not enough contextualization, but again, I see how it happened.

The display’s main problem is that its supremely fucking out of touch.

Portrait of Ross in LA means something to people, its more than just a portrait its a symbol, its a memorial, its grown past the artist and become something for an entire community that has frequently been robbed of the ability to openly mourn. I’ve gotten the privilege of seeing it in person a few times and it commands a reverence like nothing else I’ve ever seen. I keep the wrappers from my visit just to remind myself of that experience of twisting brilliant inadequate grief that it evoked in me. I keep the wrappers because it felt morally wrong to throw them away.

You have to treat Portrait of Ross in LA with fucking respect.

The conditions for respect have already been outlined, like several articles point out, we’ve already been here. The Art Institute did basically the same thing a few years ago and it was made clear by public outcry that caring for this piece and its significance means including a proper wall label. Its being respected by museum goers not already familiar with the piece is contingent on that wall label, people are less likely to read the other wall text.

SO. All in all I think that the curatorial decisions made here were pretty standard and I’d need to actually see the exhibit to make a ruling on their potential erasure of AIDS and Gonzalez-Torres’ sexuality within the exhibit as a whole. BUT the display also shows an ignorance of the work’s significance and a disregard for prior discourse/ meaning making surrounding it. It feels a bit like a slap in the face.

Anyways here’s another article with some more comments made by the curators if anyone wants more context:

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/felix-gonzalez-torres-national-portrait-gallery-untitled-portrait-of-ross-in-la-controversy-1234731113/

the david zwirner gallery and the felix gonzalez torres foundation in the smithsonian removed the descriptive plaque for portrait of ross in la by felix gonzalez-torres. the old plaque explained portrait for ross' origins as the artist's partner's aids related death, and replaced it with a plaque with absolutely no information about the piece itself, who ross was, or who gonzalez-torres was either. portrait of ross was also reeranged to lay on the floor long ways instead of in a pile as it typically is situated, and the plaque outside the exhibition FOR GONZALEZ-TORRES omits his sexuality, as well as his aids related death. i'm in utter disbelief

[dreamsicle262]

Dead Plate AU Information

This is a masterpost detailing my AUs for Dead Plate, which may soon become their own fanfics—if given enough time—since I plan on trying to write out a few. There's a lot of text so be warned: there's a long post underneath the cut. I tried to describe character designs when necessary because there's currently no images like character sheets/references yet. Hopefully I'll get there. This post might be edited if I have more AU ideas, or if I add pictures.

As a note beforehand, I do have a headcanon involving Vincent not having a sense of smell, since being able to taste goes hand in hand with being able to pick up on scents. If he can’t taste things, then he likely cannot smell anything either. This headcanon remains consistent with him in these universes, unless stated otherwise.

Vampire AU

Dead Plate, but Vincent is a vampire. That’s pretty much what this AU is.

At some point prior to the events of Dead Plate, Vincent got turned into a vampire. He has only been dealing with it for a short amount of time, and his fangs have been taking quite a while to grow in. He didn’t really think anything of it at first. He still couldn’t taste foods, his appetite generally remained low, and he usually didn’t experience hunger very strongly.

He does murder Manon still. It’s during this time that Vincent is suddenly aware that he’s able to smell blood. Naturally, he figures that if he can smell blood, then he might be able to taste it. However, he doesn’t drink any of Manon’s blood to test this; whatever she has to offer he’s not interested in. It’s at this point that his plans have changed, and figuring out if he can actually taste something aside from nothing at all becomes his main priority. The whole ‘cooking with love’ thing is put off to the side for the time being. This could be attributed to him being selfishly inclined.

It's only when Rody accidentally cuts open his finger the next day that things change, and he actually does take the opportunity he’s been given to taste test his blood. As expected, this is an awkward situation for the both of them afterwards.

I haven’t fully decided on where I’d like to go with this AU to make it any different from the main plot of Dead Plate, but maybe an incident happens during the dinner party or something. I’ll figure it out when I actually get to writing the potential fanfic for this one.

There are no design changes for this AU aside from me giving Vincent fangs. He looks normal otherwise, and his fangs aren’t visible when his mouth is closed. There’s general vampire lore that I use that’s different from what’s usually expected of vampires but that probably doesn’t need to be elaborated here. I’m always open to questions on my AUs for further clarification though.

Florist + butcher AU

Rody is a florist, and Vincent is a butcher.

Vincent wasn’t able to open up a restaurant in this AU, but was content with opening up a butcher shop instead, still providing quality service to his customers in the process. Despite his shop being popular, it isn’t as large as it could be. In order to not put as much pressure on himself, he does have a few employees managing the shop’s orders, which mostly consists of providing custom cuts of meat or preparing special deliveries since his business is still a fairly big deal. Vincent himself mostly deals with the actual butchering in the back, instead of serving customers directly. He’s very picky about where he sources his products from, only accepting offers from places with a track record of animals raised to be high quality. Sometimes, this makes his store’s selections limited, and because it takes time to get new shipments in occasionally due to the distance, the products rotate every two days. Vincent lives above his business.

Rody is a florist, having managed to open up a store by saving up enough money to rent out an available building right next to Vincent’s butcher shop. He did this in order to cope with his break up, and to hopefully impress Manon and get her back. Since he’s managed to start his own business, it’s working out for him, surprisingly. Even if his business is for her sake and not his, at least he’s making progress with some personal growth and success. Rody still has a few issues with sourcing his products if he can’t grow them himself, but is otherwise doing okay. It is due to this reason that he is unable to deliver flowers, and majority of his customers are walk-ins instead. The only exception is if they happen to live nearby and he can reach them that way with his bike. Some of the flowers he sells come from his rooftop garden, which is contained within a greenhouse so he doesn’t go out of business every winter. His new apartment is below this garden, but above his flower shop. It is still considerably messy, but he tries to make improvements where he can.

Manon never had a rebound with Vincent, and was only aware that Rody had opened up a flower shop when he happened to get an advertisement in the newspaper and she saw it. Since then, she has opted to stay in contact with him, and occasionally visits like she used to. She lives somewhat nearby both stores. Given how Rody is making personal progress instead of being too self-sacrificing for her, she’s been trying to encourage him to invest more into his business instead of worrying about her all the time. It’s worked a little bit so far. Sometimes, Rody gives her nice bouquets of flowers that have meanings behind them since he knows quite a lot about flower language now.

Plot-wise, Rody will be staying in his chosen location near Vincent's butcher shop until he has enough money to relocate, but during that time he will get to know Vincent more due to their close proximity to each other constantly. Vincent, while originally annoyed by Rody's presence, starts to become intrigued by him and wants him to stay just so he can observe him some more. Of course, this leads to problems when he catches wind that Rody will be leaving soon, and is later told by Rody himself that he'll soon be 'out of his hair' in another month or so.

In response to this, Vincent starts sabotaging Rody's business by messing with stuff regarding the building (electrical cables, etc etc) and killing off his most frequent customers in order to cook into meals for him as potential bribery to stay. All of this negatively impacts Rody's business, especially financially, so he has to remain where he is longer than expected. He doesn't even know that Vincent is killing his business (quite literally) right next to him.

Design-wise, Rody wears an outfit similar to his casual clothes, but with his shirt buttoned up. His undershirt is a faded mossy green. Over his shirt, he has a dark brown apron with small, white floral patterns embroidered at the bottom to make it more noticeable. He also has an upper left pocket in the apron that he uses to tuck one flower in every day. It is usually roses of varying colors, but can be other flowers that mean love as well. Sometimes, his hair is tied back in a small low ponytail.

Vincent's design remains relatively the same, save for a kind of yellowish apron that goes over his outfit as well, and a pair of black gloves. His apron used to be white, but, given the nature of his work, it ended up giving it a look similar to old and yellowed book pages. It definitely has a few stains on it, but that comes with the job.

Manon retains her usual design. Can't improve perfection.

Zombie apocalypse AU

I had the vague idea for this AU, and @dollsteaparty helped me out with some other bits.

This AU is after the Table for One ending.

The zombie apocalypse happens and Rody primarily remains in his apartment during the beginning of it. He doesn't dare leave, and he doesn't even bother to look outside. The prospect of it scares him shitless, and for good reason. However, at some point he starts running out of food, and he can really only think of one good place in order to stock up. This forces him to finally venture out of his safe haven of his apartment and go back to Vincent's restaurant.

Unfortunately, Vincent is undead by this time, and isn't in a very good shape. His mouth is all fucked up and generally looks kinda like that one doodle in the upper left corner of a page by one of the devs that looked like it was based on a game or something. To make matters worse, he regained his ability to taste when he got turned in the first place, but his jaw is weakened and he can't bite down as well as he'd like or move it as much as he wants to most of the time. He can taste just fine but can't eat well, which has the expected side effect of pissing him off greatly with how ironic it is. Other than that, he's pretty well put together as a zombie, aside from the obvious ravenous behavior and poor muscle control that comes with being one in general.

When Rody does find Vincent, he's in the freezer room, and while Rody is strong enough to hold him off, it quickly becomes annoying to have to do. Eventually he's able to come to a compromise with Vincent, since apparently he's able to be reasoned with even in his current condition. Rody stitches up the sides of Vincent's jaw to the best of his ability to make it look more normal, but his handiwork isn't the best since his hands were so shaky. He was just nervous about them being near Vincent's mouth and the possibility of being bitten that comes with that.

The two then enter a relationship of forced codependency due to Vincent wanting to reopen his bistro even though it's the apocalypse since he's dead set on continuing business as usual and he can finally taste food, and Rody needing a safer place to stay where there's a food supply available, not to mention weapons. In fact, Rody's return helps the restaurant reopen, since beforehand people were too scared to enter the place, and they didn't even know it was technically still functional. It's still clean and everything too, because there was no way in hell Vincent would let his bistro fall into ruin.

The place becomes tense neutral ground where no violence is permitted in the dining area, and people are advised to use their best manners. It's a fine dining establishment and they will act accordingly. Both alive and undead customers show up, but now there's a sign outside the bistro that has a set of rules that everyone has to abide by if they wish to live. Besides, Vincent is capable of either reasoning with or even outright threatening other undead people if they don't act nice to their living counterparts while inside or around his esteemed establishment.

No one can have their weapons out or in view, customers cannot fight amongst themselves, no one except for staff are allowed in the kitchen, don't ask about the screams coming from the freezer, no one is advised to make sudden movements like running (something about predator drive and sudden movements making even valued customers look like prey), no one is advised to send the meals back to the kitchen since they most likely don't want their scent on it (they'll be associated with the food and have to be killed anyways), and if anyone has a problem, they can take it up with Vincent personally in the freezer. True to his word, Vincent still doesn't serve human meat... to his human customers. Any undead customers will usually be consuming human meat in their dishes because they can actually appreciate it.

Rody is the only one allowed to serve the customers in the dining area because all of the cooks working for Vincent are also undead, with the exception of the one cook that was fired since they got rehired. They help to desensitize their undead coworkers to a human in their midst, and also are a familiar face, so they have a lower risk of getting attacked. The zombified cooks and their fear of Vincent overrides any instincts that they might have as zombies, so he's capable of keeping them in line and certainly isn't afraid to enforce his rules in the kitchen. Both Vincent and his employees are in a much better preserved condition than any zombies outside the establishment due to them having access to a functional freezer. Also, Vincent does still pay whoever works for him. Vincent's apartment just upstairs has largely not been used in awhile, so that is where Rody stays, along with people who are looking for a safe place to stay for only one night. Vincent gets oddly upset when there's guests and Rody has to stay with them, but he does know it's for the better. Rody is also responsible for going on resource runs for cleaning supplies or ingredients, and for also stitching up the cooks when necessary.

Speaking of the cooks, sometimes they are put in the freezer on meat hooks as a form of solitary confinement for messing up very badly. They look miserable through that window in the freezer room door and Rody can very clearly see them when this does occur. That one human cook isn't stabbed with the meat hook and is usually just tied to it instead. If Rody gets the same treatment, he is usually tied up and left to sit on the floor for awhile, but typically doesn't remain in there for long since he either has to serve customers or Vincent deems his expression too 'unpleasant to look at' and lets him go anyways.

Character designs aren't too different aside from Vincent looking a little messed up in regards to his jaw, and Rody looking a lot more unkempt.

I also don't know where I'm going with this AU and if I particularly want Rody to be zombified or not... but I did think about a scenario where that would happen, as a treat. He would be turned by Vincent personally if he was dying somehow, and he'd probably try to get to his heart to eat it first before Rody turns completely. Something about wanting to taste what love really tastes like since it's his heart... and for Rody, laying his heart bare (literally in this case) and being able to love in such a way that it practically seems like he's serving his heart on a platter. Very big fan of the character design and what it could mean or show about him. Also I think Rody should lose the ear he lost in the actual game too. Just because.

As for that one human cook, Vincent would probably just get another cook to make them into a zombie if they were on the verge of death. They're not worth his time.

Plushie platonic soulmate AU

(Disclaimer: I actually am not fond of soulmate AUs in the traditional sense (aka almost exclusively romantic in nature) so this is platonic. Vincent is aspec to me in some way to begin with, so there's that too.)

During his emotional turmoil following his break up, Rody receives a mysterious plushie at his doorstep that looks like someone he’s never met before. He doesn’t know who sent it. This plushie is Vincent, but Rody doesn’t really know that yet. He’s heard of him since he’s a world renowned chef, but he’s not very familiar with his appearance. Either way, he reluctantly decides to keep the plushie, before eventually discarding it after it keeps showing up in his kitchen despite him putting it on a shelf somewhere. Also, his utensils seem to move in different places every day, so it’s creeping him out. It’s during this time that he’s looking for a job, but doesn’t take up the opportunity to work for Vincent, and instead opts for a simple fast food job. The Vincent plushie keeps showing up despite Rody’s attempts to get rid of it, so he just gives up and lets it remain in his apartment. One day, he wakes up to a fresh lemon tart, but no evidence that it was baked using his kitchen, especially since he doesn’t even have the ingredients to make that dessert. Beside it is the plushie, sitting there innocently.

On the other side of things, Vincent also receives a plushie of Rody that appears in his apartment one day on his living room table. He simply discards it, uncaring of where it came from. However, it keeps appearing again and again and it’s frustrating him to no end. At some point, he mutilates it with one of his knives, then trashes it again. When it comes back just as new, he puts it in plastic packaging and tosses it out of his window into the alley. When it returns yet again, he finally gets so fed up that he shoves it into the oven and sets it on fire that way. The plushie ends up coming back again and Vincent just puts it on his desk in his room, unwilling to mess with it anymore. He has no idea who the plushie was supposed to be because he’s never seen anyone like that before in his bistro. On top of this being strange, he also feels the strange urge to hide this plushie from Manon, since he doesn’t want her knowing that he has this. It’s unnatural and out of character for him to have something like that when it doesn’t serve any real purpose.

At some point, Rody and Vincent get to find the other person with their plushie counterpart and are both left thoroughly confused as to what it could mean.

Character designs for this AU do not vary.

Vincent forced therapy AU

Funnily enough, this AU came to me in a dream with one vague scene, and then it just went from there after discussing it with @vinylbiohazard. It's also exactly what it sounds like.

This AU is set after the Best Served Hot ending.

Vincent somehow survives after his restaurant was set on fire, but does have severe burns and some blood loss. The only reason why he doesn’t have severe blood loss is because the wound on his neck was cauterized by the flames, so it ended up not bleeding as much anymore. There’s still the glass shards that needed to be dealt with, though, so he does still need medical attention. One of the luckiest factors in this is how his restaurant was running out of cooking oil anyways, which is one of the reasons why he was even able to get out in the first place before his exits were blocked off.

Whenever the information of his bistro burning down becomes public, the general assumption of what happened is that he had been drunk, suddenly ‘snapped,’ and then tried to commit suicide while also taking his business with him. Essentially, his life is ruined, because he doesn’t seem too stable to the general population, and the media is having a field day with headlines. He does end up in the hospital trying to recover, and he’s not permitted to speak much for a while so his neck can heal. He technically still can since his vocal cords weren’t damaged, but it’s best that he doesn’t talk for some time. His neck is still in bad shape, but it could have been worse; the wine bottle that he was stabbed with narrowly missed the major veins and arteries in that area. By the end of everything, he does heal enough to look relatively normal, aside from the burns and scar tissue.

During this time, Rody is laying low at his apartment. He never comes out with the truth regarding his missing ear, and everyone just assumes that he lost it in an unrelated accident for being clumsy. While he would ideally like to stay away from the food industry, he does end up finding another job at a fast food place. When he learns that Vincent is still alive, he’s initially still upset, but since he’s had some time to cool down following the incident, he mostly just feels horrible. After all, he had expressed some concern about Vincent losing everything if something were to happen to his business. While not ready to approach him about it in the direct aftermath, Rody decides that he will try to talk it out with him at a later date.

As it gets closer to the day where Vincent can be released from the hospital, Rody shows up to talk to him, or, more accurately, speak his mind. He can talk to him without being interrupted, so he’s taking his opportunity to explain why he was so upset and why he acted the way he did. Adrenaline and trying to make rational decisions don’t mix well. Vincent has to sit there and listen to Rody rant for a little bit, all while he’s still not supposed to speak. At some point a nurse asks if the two were friends or something, and Rody has to awkwardly go along with it and say yes. Vincent is probably grumbling to himself mentally as this occurs.

Unfortunately, since Vincent’s apartment was above his restaurant, he doesn’t have anywhere else to go but Rody’s apartment following being released from the hospital. Rody’s not too happy with it either, but he’ll manage. In fact, he’s the reason why Vincent even gets to go to therapy in the first place. He’s the one to suggest it.

Vincent keeps taking Rody’s knives in his apartment because he doesn’t use them, they’re sharp, and he’s been considering killing Rody off anyways from being forced to live with him for so long. He has to keep getting them confiscated by Rody due to this. Whenever he’s scheduled to have therapy, however, he brings at least three knives with him and keeps them hidden. He doesn’t actually get to take them into the room where he’s supposed to have a therapy session and he has to begrudgingly give them all back to Rody beforehand. He may have been fully intending on using them to murder the therapist. It doesn’t look good for him, but he essentially has a mentality similar to ‘I’ve lost everything so why does it matter what I do now?’, so he doesn’t care.

There are no design changes for Rody in this AU, but Vincent has a few. There’s scar tissue on the right side of his neck from being stabbed there, as well as burn scars. There’s additional burns on most of his upper torso and arms. Any other burns aren’t as major, and most of them on his body healed over. In the hospital, he had bandages on over these while they were still healing.

[fanzou]

Here's an idea? The OP guys. Sanji, Zoro, Law, (separately, of course) with a reader who has a crush on them, and they KNOW IT. (But nobody else does) So he just messes with her and gets her to blush, as his was of saying that he likes her too.🤭

Big, Fat, Crush

✗ Pairing(s): Zoro Roronoa x Fem!Reader, Sanji Vinsmoke x Fem!Reader, Law Trafalgar x Fem!Reader

✗ Summary: What do they do knowing you have a crush on them?

✗ CW: Reader is wearing a dress in Zoro's first half, Teasing... and it's RUTHLESS, Law makes reader cry but he makes up for it, it gets a little suggestive at the of Sanji's part [Let me know if I missed any]

✗ Total WC: Zoro’s Ver. (1.8K), Law’s Ver. (2.3K), Sanji’s Ver. (1.3K)

✗ A/N: Wow. If you couldn't tell I loved writing this. I didn't intend for it to get so long but here it is! Enjoy love.

ZORO RORONOA

“You want me to get you any more sake, Zoro?”

“Yeah sure, thanks.”

The bar is crowded, but not so much that it was unbearable. You and Zoro found yourselves at the little table across from each other in the very back of the room catching up and debriefing about today’s events. But the day wasn’t so very eventful, otherwise he’d probably be drunk by this point to alleviate and level himself. He liked to really enjoy the end of his day like this. It was a good day.

You were tipsy, but he on the other hand, always held his alcohol well.

“What do you wanna do tomorrow before we leave the island?” You ask him, he liked the silence between you two, even in a rowdy bar, but he didn’t hate when you talked to him either. You asked all the right questions, you weren’t obnoxiously dumb like the rest of the crew, even when you were under the influence.

“Not too sure yet. I didn’t get the time to check out what they had with your excessive clothes shopping.” He says so nonchalantly, taking a sip of the drink you got him.

You pout with your brows furrowed, cute, “I did not buy that many clothes!”

“It probably felt that way ‘cause I was carryin’ the bags all damn day.” He grinned at you, a mischievous one.

You roll your eyes at him, but then giggle into your own drink, “You’re insufferable.”

He doesn’t miss the way you blush at his harmless teasing.

He never does.

-

So…

You end up a little more drunk than anticipated.

And you can’t for the life of you remember what you did last night. Your head was pounding, like, real life pounding through your skull almost like it was angry for you being so reckless just a few hours ago.

But to your relief, your back on the ship, clothes from last night still on and somewhat in tact— a little wrinkled, and your dress was ridden up a bit more than you were comfortable with. You pull it down immediately in embarrassment. Hopefully Zoro didn’t see that. Anyway, you scope out the girl’s quarters to see that Nami and Robin weren’t anywhere to be seen, and there was none of the usual liveliness in the ship that you knew and loved, no running footsteps, bangs, booms, nothing. Assuming that the green-haired man probably took you back to the ship in your drunken state and took his own personal stroll into the small town at the island, you relaxed.

But you were probably gonna get an earful from the crew since Zoro had a tendency to get lost.

Your shame settles in, and you mentally curse at yourself for being so reckless when the team counted on you for being the more careful one of the two. But something about his energy was so comforting, and you felt so safe around him. The fact that he safely took you back to the ship was living proof of that and you got a little flustered at the thought.

How did he carry you back? Bridal? On top his shoulder? Were you faced forwards or back? Maybe not even carried at all, just arm slung around his shoulder— Whatever the case, the thought of the close proximity made you nervous to think about.

To your astonishment you hear a knock on the door to the shared room. “Come in!” You say, your head immediately punishing you for it.

To your surprise, Zoro opens the door, and comes in. He closes the door before he faces you. “You feelin’ alright? You kinda got a little ahead of yourself.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I have the worst head ache of all time.” Your head is in your hands and your hair looks ten times more disheveled than it did when you woke up. You fight the feeling of discomfort and look up at him through messy stands of hair, “What, you’re not going back to enjoy your time with out me? I wouldn’t be so offended.”

He thinks to himself for a moment,

“I was waiting for you to get up.” His arms are crossed onto his chest now. His words are so effortless when he makes your heart jump.

“Zoro, it’s gonna take me a long time to get ready, how ‘bout you just go on ahead?”

You push away the hair covering your face to get a good look at his; his expression is borderline unreadable. It looks foreign on him.

It was all-knowing, it was up to no good. And you can only imagine what that meant.

“I’ll wait.”

-

So, Zoro waited the hour and a half for you to get ready, even though it meant that most of the day was already wasted. He insisted on taking you with him to the town you guys went to only yesterday, stating that it was simply because the crew wouldn’t let him hear the end of it had you both separated. It’s funny though, because you could swear that he was moving a bit differently than he was just yesterday. Whether good or bad, it was off-putting nonetheless. You’ve never seen him act this way.

After dabbling in his fair share of store-visiting to try to tie with yours (Spoiler: he did not.), it was already sunset, and he wanted to go to the bar, but you insisted that you didn’t want a repeat of last night. In his surprising obedience, he listened. You did, however, both meet in the middle for a late night food-grab and settled on a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant. You and Zoro quickly ordered and waited for the delicious meals that you knew you both were going to absolutely demolish.

You finally relaxed your form into the seat, taking advantage of the comfort you felt after walking around all day. You hardly exchanged a few words since you got into the restaurant, presumably because of how much time you spent together all day, so it was a surprise when Zoro opened his mouth to finally speak.

“Y’know, you talk a lot when you’re drunk.”

You halt in your comfort, God, you thought he was gonna forget about this already. Zoro teased you a lot but since you got on this island, it’s easily become relentless. And whatever your shenanigans were about last night were ground for it now.

In an effort to move away from the topic, “Hmm… yeah, don’t we all? Amirite? I’ve heard you say some crazy stuff when you were black-out drunk!” You laughed, lightly slapping the table to emphasize how “funny” it was. He seemed unfazed though, if anything, a little more confident in the words he would utter. His head was resting on his on the palm of his hand now, and that same smirk from earlier returned.

“Guessing none of them were love declarations, huh?”

Time stopped, save for your heart dropping down to your asshole.

Your eyes were wide, and you were praying to God that you misinterpreted the insinuation of what he just said.

“W-What do you mean?” He seemed so fascinated by the situation unraveling between the two of you, his grin never faltering. It was shocking, Zoro never really talked this much about nonsense, if you could call it that.

He chuckles at your shock almost sadistically, “You tried kissing my face the entire night and kept telling me how handsome I was, and how much you lo—”

“STOP!” Your hand not so subtly smacks his mouth shut, and the staff gives you both a weird look.

Great, now I’m making it everyone’s business!

You slowly remove your hand and try to avert your gaze elsewhere, while still fending for yourself. “I’m j-just a loving drunk... I-I guess…” The embarrassment is getting to be too much now, and whatever what you say at this point is just going to look like a lie, a big fat lie. And you wanna crawl into the nearest hole and die there. How can you even face the crew anymore? How can you look at him in the eye? Where’s the nearest exit so you can just run far, far away from him?! It seems like you’re plotting for the rest of how your life is gonna be from this point on, until he puts an end to your thoughts.

“C’mon woman. Get real. Why don’t you just face up to it? I see the way you look at me all the time. Drunk or not.” Zoro is leaned all the way back in his chair when you look up, his arms are crossed just how they were this morning. And you just want to melt into your chair at this point. Get away from anything and every thing that exists. Especially Zoro, if it wasn’t obvious. “God, you're naive, naive as hell.”

Embarrassment subsided for a moment, you sit there with your brows furrowed, now trying to piece together his new and probably much more embarrassing revelation. “…What? Why do you say that?”

He scoffs at you, “Y’Really gonna make me say it?”

What?

Zoro was never the articulate type and you respected that, but if there was an instance where you really hated his lack of speech; It was now.

For a split second, he looks a little conflicted on what he was going to say next. Like he was fighting the next words to come out of his mouth, his arms twitch a bit and he lets out a little sigh, shaking his head in what looks like defeat. But before you can say anymore; he gets out of his comfortable position, leans toward you and over the small table, grabs your shirt and…

Kisses you.

It was short, but Zoro thought he was going to die inside trying to build up the courage to say I love you instead. And this, this was so much better.

He would’ve mistook you for a tomato across from him when you sit back from his attack on your lips. He’s a little flustered himself, he does well to mask it, but it was worth your reaction. And since it was late at night the restaurant was almost dead at that point, with you both once again, sitting in the very back. So he wasn’t too crazy about who was watching.

“I’m… I… Um…” you’re trying so hard to get your words together. What the hell just happened. “I…”

Before you can say anything, you eat your words again. The server comes with your long anticipated dinner. He chooses to disregard the absolute mess you look, and some of your lipstick on Zoro’s mouth— and puts your food down onto the table.

“Enjoy you two lovebirds! My, what a beautiful couple you both make!”

LAW TRAFALGAR

The Polar Tang was full of energy today. In the dining hall, the crew sat down and talked the night away.

Penguin and Shachi were laughing it up and finding comfort in their drinks, you and Ikkaku talked about personal affairs over the amazing meal you shared, then Bepo joined in and you three all got a little too into some dumb gossip amongst another pair in the crew.

Safe to say everyone was having the night of their life. Something the Heart Pirates couldn’t do a lot.

All except your captain.

Always buried in his books and studies, Law claims that he wish he could have time to spend with you all, blasé blasé bla, but there was always an excuse that was thrown in your faces. Always. You respected his time and effort, it was something that not a lot of people could do.

So that’s why after your conversation with your friends was drawn to an end and they either resorted to drinking with the rest of the crew or just enjoying more talk, you decided to slip away for a moment. You didn’t know what possessed you to do this, (you did, you just wanted an excuse) but you fix up another plate and swiftly make your way towards your captains room. The food was delicious so, why not? What’s the harm?

The closer you got to his door is the more an anxiety rose in your chest, and your hands were getting a little shaky. There was nothing to be nervous about!

Just maybe seeing his handsome face focused so strongly on a certain text, the way his rough, calloused hand grips the pen so gently, or your favorite part— his parted and unbuttoned shirt, where you can see a window of his chest, not a lot but just enough to leave some imagination to how the rest of his tattooed body might look... And you stop yourself for a second, physically and mentally.

I’m being such a pervert right now.

You resume your slow and anything but steady walk to his quarters and you finally meet face to face with the door.

You pull your first up to knock after taking a very deep breath, but before your skin could touch the surface his voice is already urging you to step inside. And so you obey.

Once inside you immediately start to scan the sight before you, and it wasn’t much different from the one you had in your imagination. Of course this meant that you were a bit flustered coming to him, but you manage, “‘Just wanted to drop off some food for you, in case you couldn’t join us tonight.” You say with a little softness in your tone.

“Thank you. You can put it down on my desk.”

And you obey, again. Walking up to his desk full of papers and books/ You realize that it was a little messy and not clean enough to set the plate just anywhere, and his hands scramble through the paper to find a place for you to set the plate down until you finally do. Then, another thought emerges from your fantasy world.

“Do you need help organizing your desk, cap? I have some time and I don’t really feel like going to sleep anyways.”

He smiles softly at you and calls your name in a way that you wish you could hear over and over and over again, and he thanks you once more, “You’ve done enough for me tonight. I appreciate it.” You hide your disappointment in his words, but nod and make your way to the door anyway.

You exchanged your good night’s and make your way to your room. And when you fall back on your bed, you take your pillow and scream into it like a crazed schoolgirl in love.

-

The next morning comes, and you can guarantee that the crew has already started on breakfast. You rub your eyes and start to get cleaned up and fetch a new pair of clothes for the day.

Once you’re all freshen up, you make your way to the dining hall, surprised to hear no ruffling and noise. Maybe everyone was suffering the consequences of last nights drinking challenges, you thought. But even so, it wouldn’t be this quiet.

Your met with Law’s figure in the dining hall and he’s making tea for himself. He notices you, “You’re up really early.”

“Did you even get a wink of sleep?” You say in concern.

He’s silent for a few seconds, and he makes his way to the table to enjoy his freshly brewed drink. “I couldn’t.” Or more like he wouldn't.

You sigh, yup, that was your captain. You thought for a second, thinking about what you could do in order for him to feel better about his own consequences from a lack of sleep. But you know he would just decline most of your suggestions. Instead, you plop yourself in the seat across from him. You both sit in a comfortable silence while you waited for your coffee to be made, and you take a second to scan his tired features.

He does well to hide it in his mannerism, but his face betrays him. You can tell he's deathly tired, and if he let's his eyes close for more than a second you're sure he'd plop right onto the table.

“Take a picture, maybe it’ll last longer.”

You blink, and you blink again. “O-Oh, sorry…” he’s not offended, if anything his face is smug. You’re quick to defend yourself with a little scoff, “Can’t a woman be worried for her captain? You don’t look the best anyway.” You quickly cover your mouth, seriously, how dumb did you have to be?

But he only laughs at your remark, he shakes his head and his smug expression does not leave his face. “It’s a little hard to not point out when you do it all the time.”

“I do not!”

“Do too.”

“I don’t!”

“Don’t what?” Shachi comes into the room completely oblivious to what you guys were bickering childishly about. He’s rubbing his eyes, “Why are you both up so early? Especially you,” he points at you, “You drank a lot.”

You roll your eyes, you hardly drank. And now you were a little embarrassed at his public revelation, (though it was a secret to nobody but Law,) and your face grows a little red.

The rest of the crew gets up one by one and soon enough breakfast is served. You barely pick up your head anymore out of shame of your earlier dispute, if you could even call it that, with your captain. Bepo is talking about something he encountered a while back while on an adventure with Law, usually you’d be invested, but you were far too in your zone.

And so you get up and make your way to your room, the gloominess practically radiating off of you. Your absence is barely noticed due to the focus everyone had on Bepo’s story.

Law notices, though.

He excuses himself and Bepo gets a little upset, but he understands and respects his captain, so he resumes his dramatic story that keeps everyone on the edge of their seat. You, on the other hand, were now face flat on your pillow mumbling self-deprecating comments to yourself after the terrible situation you were just in.

That was so embarrassing. My captain hates me. It’s so obvious. Why do I do this to myself. Why did I think that was okay. I’m going to escape. (You were under water) This is dumb. I’m du—

*Knock Knock*

You lift your head up even though you didn’t want to, “No.” is all you could manage.

“It’s your captain.”

As much as you wanted to tell him to piss off and let yourself drown in the shame you felt, you couldn’t. Because at the end of the day, it was as your captain proclaimed, though you wanted it to be much more, there was nothing you could do. Nothing, especially after today's consequences.

After a bit of hesitance and a lot of hurt in your voice, you tell him, “You can come inside.”

He cracks the door open a smidge to further observe your well-kept room and there you were, lying on your stomach with your arms crossed, face laying against them and your eyes away from his. It wasn’t the most appropriate sight for your captain to walk in on, but you two were close enough for him to get comfortable enough to let the door open and let himself all the way into your room.

He walks towards you and pulls a chair over, turns it around and manspreads against it to take his seat-- and you really wanted to take in the sight completely, but even that wasn’t enough to get your mood back up and running.

“You left.”

“Why do you care?” You turn your head the opposite way facing the wall beside you. Law doesn’t say anything for quite some time and you can almost bet on your tears slipping soon. He was making this so much more worse than it had to be.

He calls your name, and you just wanna melt into the soft fabric beneath you. “Look at me.”

You disobey.

After your reluctance to his order, he draws out a sigh. You always were the most stubborn of the crew. So with this, he thinks long and hard on his next words or actions, and finally lands on one possible outcome.

“You leave me no choice.”

“Wha— Law!” He turns you around by your waist and forces you up with just one hand. Then, before you know it, your body is slung across his broad shoulder while he finds his bicep tight around your thighs. You were facing backwards while he carried you. “Now you’re calling me by name, no captain anymore?" he laughs, "I think I’ve gone too soft on you.”

“What are you doing!?” You say, trying to get out of his grasp, but even with all of your strength, he was no match for you. “Someone will see!”

“No they won’t. I’m taking you to my room.” He opens the door in one swift motion and kicks it in another.

“And you’re not explaining why!” You hit his back in defiance. You were halfway through the corridor to meet his room already, so you just give up.

He takes no time in entering his room, finally putting you down and ordering you to sit on a spare seat in the grand environment. You were insanely nervous at this point, taken aback by his sudden action and the intimacy of it all. He’s peering down at you with a seriousness in his gaze that makes you put your head down in the worst shame you’ve felt since you’ve woken up.

You always thought that maybe, you might have had a chance with him one day. All that was thrown out the window now.

And it's time to swallow your pride. You take a deep breath, and build a whole lot of courage, and:

“I’m sorry, for saying that about you in the dining hall. And getting smart with you. And calling you by your first na—”

“You’re really stubborn, did you know that?”

And there it is, you feel the tears build up once again, and it hurts. Because the firmness in his voice is always the same. So demanding and... so difficult for you.

“And I don’t know why I’m attracted to you. I don’t understand why I tolerate the things you do.”

You start crying now, because you don’t know what else to do. You don’t know the sincerity of his words, and you hold yourself in the chair that you sat on, trying your best to look away from him.

He walks towards you and gets on his knees in front of you, It was a little bit of a blow to his own pride, and it wasn’t something he would do for anyone else at all. But you were different. You’re still crying and you weakly try pushing him away and looking to the side and the new guilt starts to form itself inside of him, but he insists that he stays where he is. He’s whispers an I’m sorry before his hands find solace on your jaw while both of his thumbs wipe your tears away. You look down at him with the most beautiful eyes he’s seen, your gaze softens at him and your crying calms down a little bit seeing that he wasn't so serious anymore, but instead his expression was a little desperate.

-- He’s still got a lot to make up for, and he knows now was not the time to press you on anything else— there was nothing to press anyways. You were perfect, in every aspect of the word. He just enjoyed the idea of teasing you, not anyone else, but he took it too far.

When he was sure that you were more comfortable in his arms, he pulled you down and pushed the chair away. He takes you in his embrace and whispers his apologies into your ear so genuinely.

“This wasn’t the way I thought this would go.” He lets the thousandth sigh out of his mouth today. You look into his eyes with a questioning expression, “I mean that, I fucked it up.”

It was your turn to feel guilty again, but you were tired of words.

You just take his face in your hands just as he did not so long ago, and you both look at each other for a moment. His eyes look to your lips for a second, and if you didn’t know any better you would’ve thought he was just as eager as you, maybe he was. His lips inch towards yours and they take no time in meeting.

It’s slow, soft, sensual. And it takes a while for your mouths to part. When they do, all you can do is stare at each other.

You finally breathe, “Okay,” you face turns to the side to escape his beautiful one.

“Maybe all of that was pretty worth it.”

SANJI VINSMOKE

You’ve been avoiding Sanji all week.

And he can’t decide if he should talk to you about it or not, he’s leaning more towards the latter, just because he’s too into the nervousness that suddenly appears on your face when you’re in close proximity. Then; you’re scrambling to the nearest door and half-assing an excuse about where you need to be or what you need to do.

He personally loves when it’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner and he gets to not only cook your favorite meals and you can’t escape him, otherwise the crew would immediately worry for your absence. He also enjoys how embarrassed you get when you can feel him staring at you. Alas, he can’t stand the inability to talk to you and be in your unwanted presence anymore, he needed to make his move on you quick.

You see, earlier this week a battle occurred between you, Sanji, and an enemy that threatened the Thousand Sunny.

You and Sanji had both agreed to guard the ship while the rest of the crew had prepared their own duties on the foreign land, he insisted that there would be no good food supply and there was already enough stocked up from the last. It was a no-good devil fruit user, who wielded the ability to make its opponent confess a super big secret, to then throw them off completely, and defeat them. It was like a weak spot-- psychological warfare more so. And… he got you.

Can you guess what your secret was?

For certain, the devil fruit did its magic. And Sanji was surely taken aback, but adamant on defending the ship and more importantly, you, he did his part and tried with all his might to fight the bad guy off and made a mental note to immediately come find you afterwards.

You were close to passing out from shock after the bewildering confession, but when you came to, the blonde sat right beside you in a shit-eating grin, “So… you’re crushin’ on me, princess?” And you wanted to pass out again, but instead you just run for the ship and locking yourself in your room, ignoring his pleas to come back and talk about it.

Ever since that day, the atmosphere between you two had been a bit awkward. Conversations weren't as light and smooth, you tried finishing your food as fast as possible and managing a quick thank you before making a bee line to the girls room, and most importantly— everyone took notice of how distant you got from Sanji.

Usopp fell victim to the awkward encounters more often than the rest, and it was safe to say they were getting on his last nerve now. "Whatever you did, you should apologize, man!" He pats his back as a sign of encouragement. And for a second it almost felt like you and him were a married couple having problems, it brought a smile to his face.

Not to worry, he had a plan.

-

You joined Robin in a comfortable silence below the deck, praying to the heavens you wouldn’t hear from the blonde cook while the sun set so beautifully. Your original ploy was to just act like it never happened, but anytime you saw him it was like re-imagining the entire scenario over and over again.

Your head is hanging off the chair while you doze off and Robin is reading her book— appreciating your silence, the weather was just a little windy and the sky had a nice orange and red gradient to it. The waves were crashing against the boat but it wasn’t overbearing, it was just fine.

You asked Robin to read her book out loud, even though you weren’t following the storyline, you found comfort in her melodic voice and how softly she read it and sure enough she would be lulling you to sleep soon.

But before you could finally reach sleep like you intended, there’s a presence you can sense, and Robin puts her beautiful voice to a halt. You don’t want to open your eyes but it almost seems like you have to.

And you immediately regretted it.

Above you was Sanji. “Hi.”

“Sanji!” He moves a little back from you, and you straighten your posture, wide awake. “I was just leaving actually, I have to clean the girls room! I lost a bet a while back. So… I’m gonna go do that.”

“I don’t think that bet ever happened but, I’m not entirely opposed to you doing that for us.” Robin says smugly. You loved her but the betrayal on your face spoke volumes in that moment.

You’re already defeated and you’re trying to muster up another shitty excuse, “We can’t delay this anymore than we have.” He takes your hand and you can only burn eyes at the skinship. You’re lightheaded again, just like that day you confessed.

And he drags you into the kitchen with him before you can defy him a hundred times over, he locks the door to slow down your escape, and if anyone came in on the two of you.

He finally turns around to look at you with the most frustrated expression littered all over his face.

“Why are you avoiding me?” He asks you in desperation, and you kinda wanted to slap him out of your own mixed emotions, because it was pretty obvious as to why. He catches on shortly after, “Okay, scratch that. Why is it necessarily a bad thing that you have feelings for me?”

“Please Sanji, let’s just forget about i—”

“How do I forget something like that? Why are we holding this off? Are we just never gonna talk about it?” You sense some repressed anger boiling up inside of him, and to tell the truth you’ve never seen him speak to any woman like this, so raw and nothing to hold back. “Listen, the cat’s out the bag, right? What’s the point in hiding it if we both feel this way about each other?”

…

…

…

“You… felt the same way… and you’re just now telling me this?” You walk towards him, he looks away in shame.

“It’s not about how you feel towards me, I’m just not worthy of you. I don’t deserve you.” You push him out of sheer frustration, and he just lets you.

Sanji assumes you’ll just use him as your personal punching bag at this point with the amount of self-deprecating thoughts he’s already throwing at himself in his head, but all of them were replaced once you took him by the shoulders and pulled him into a powerful kiss. He was in shock, but he quickly melted into it, grabbing you by both sides of your face, and you pull away.

“All you did was tease me and taunt me and put me over the edge these past few days, for what? Just to reveal that you wanted me too?” You scoff, but your lips betray you. You lean back into the kiss and it’s so much more passionate than before. His hands find comfort in your hips.

After the kiss got a little too passionate, and Sanji already making his move on your neck, you all but gave into him. So willingly.

“You locked the door, right?” You ask.

He grins into the quick kiss, excited by your insinuation, “Yeah.”

meanwhile, on the deck

Chopper quickly becomes your replacement for Robin, although not as quiet, she does equally enjoy her time with you both.

Choppers stomach gives him away, “Robin, I’m hungry. Do you know if Sanji’s making dinner soon?”

Robin smirks, and pats Chopper on the head.

“He’s busy with something right now, I think it would be best if we didn’t bother him, either.”

[luveline]

Ohh for your consideration, Hotch and a chubby ditzy/dreamer reader, and the idea of him saying something like “you’re so soft” while getting a little handsy with the double meaning of like, “your body is so soft/lovely and I’m in love with you” and also “I feel hardened after so many years of witnessing the cruel capacity of mankind and yet you make me feel soft/hopeful with your good heart and etc” and reader is none the wiser and is just like “I’m glad he can appreciate my body etc that’s so nice”

I’m obsessed with your Hotch loving on chubby reader if you can’t tell😭I read it whenever I feel bad about my body(often)🥲reading your works is like comfort from a friend and I love you miss jade❤️❤️❤️

“Can you do that thing you do?” you ask softly. 

Aaron wraps an arm around you casually. “I’d love to,” he says, pressing his chin into your forehead, “but I’ve no idea what thing you mean. But as soon as you tell me…” 

“With my ear?” 

Aaron hums in understanding, curling his arm upward, fingers vying for your earlobe. It’s an absentminded touch, hard to describe; he’s not rolling it or tugging it, just sort of touching it, but it makes you shiver with pleasure and curl further into his chest. 

Aaron stops you from disappearing into his neck. “What do I get in return?” 

“This isn’t given just ‘cos you like me?” you ask. 

“Nope.” He presses a nice kiss under your jaw. “This is ‘cos you asked me to, but I never said it was for free.” 

“Alright.” You let your fingertips run down his back like gentle rain. “What do you want, honey?” 

“What do I want? Everything.” 

You laugh near his ear, and it’s like– like spun sugar, something delicate and sweet, it drives him crazy. He has no choice but to let his hand slip behind your ear and neck, to hold you in place as he kisses beneath your jaw. His free hand trails down over your chest, stopping at your ribs, thumb pressing into the plushness there as it usually does. 

“You’re so–” He laughs to himself under his breath. “You’re soft,” he whispers. 

You grin. “Thanks. It’s nice that you like it.” 

“Who wouldn’t?” 

“Don’t act like I’m everybody’s type.” 

Aaron smarts. “That’s not what I meant, and you’re still wrong. Who wouldn’t like this?” he asks, letting his hand inch up to bordering impolite territory under your chest. 

“Well, what did you mean then?” you ask, just the hint of a pout on your lips. 

Aaron decides to kiss it off. “Don’t be like that,” he murmurs, warming your lips with his breath, “you’re perfect, it’s just not what I meant.” 

You kiss him back with a distracted little hum before pulling away. “So I’m soft in some other way?” 

“You are. It’s like… like coming home to… I don’t know, like fresh linens.” 

You wrinkle your nose, but it’s not a bad expression, far from disgusted. “It’s nice to have washed sheets. It feels luxurious.” 

He laughs. It’s not like he knew what he meant when he said it beyond the overwhelming feeling of you, but you’re not far off the mark. “You’re not like anybody else I’ve ever met,” he says, leaning in to press a lingering kiss to the bridge of your nose. He stays there with his eyes closed for far too long. 

When he pulls away, you’re smiling, as you so often are. 

“Soft girl,” he says, pinching your chin between a careful thumb and forefinger. “But don’t tell anyone I said that.” 

“Oh, I won’t.” You cross your fingers plainly. “Your secrets are safe with me, honey.” 

[shy-writer-999]

1-800-LONELYCHEF . ₊ ⊹ .

Summary: The same man calls you every Friday at 11:30PM. It seems like he has nothing better to do. After months of the same routine, you've started to take a liking to him, which is a problem, considering that he's your client... and you work at a phone sex hot line. WC: ~7k. CW: NSFW content! ANGSTY! Afab reader w/gendered language (she/her pronouns). Masturbation, oral sex. MDNI plz!

“Hello?”

You’re very familiar with the caller on the other end of the line. He calls you once a week—every Friday, after his shift at the bougie restaurant he works at, 11:30PM on the dot.

He must be very attractive, or at least that’s what you’ve garnered over talking to him for many months.

At first, he was evidently too shy to make use of your more… explicit services. This is a phone sex hotline, after all.

He honestly sounded like he just needed someone to vent to. So, you listened, as was your job. After the first few months, you both got more accustomed to one another. His shyness melted away. He got friendlier.

It’s been six or seven months since he first called. You’ve become very fond of him, but you have no idea what he looks like. So, one day, you decide to ask.

“Your voice is so sexy,” you start, giving him a line that you gave everyone, except this time you mean it. “I can’t help but wonder what you look like, Sanji.”

With other callers, you’d have to check what their name is before you say it. But you’re far past that point with him, and every time you say his name it makes his heart flutter.

“Well,” he says. “I’m blonde. And my eyebrows have a little… curl to them. I’m a decent height and I have a bit of a goatee.”

“And what color are your eyes?” You ask, trying to get the full picture.

He notes that question. It’s a thoughtful one. You’re thoughtful, in general. He knows that you are just being nice to him because, well, it’s your job, but also… he can’t shake the feeling that you have a soft spot for him. Do you talk to everyone like this?

“My eyes? Hmm. It depends on who you ask. I don’t know, really. Some people say they’re black, other people say grey, I’ve had a few tell me they’re blue. I’m not sure.”

You hum in response. There’s a beat of silence.

“What sort of eyes do you like?” He asks. He’s cheeky like that. You have the feeling that he has a real soft spot for you, too. Why else would he call you every week? There are plenty of others he could call. But he just sticks with you every time.

You respond. “It depends on who you ask. But historically I have liked guys with black, grey, or blue eyes. Do you happen to know anyone who fits the bill?”

He can tell that you’re smiling. He finds himself blushing, getting giddy for a few moments before he realizes that oh, right, you are at work, and oh, right, he is paying you to talk to him, like the loser he is.

His voice falters a bit the next time he speaks, a couple of seconds later. You know the exact thought that just went through his head. It’s something you are well aware of but… it does make you a bit sad with him. You like him far too much for your own good.

You wonder if you would like the look of him in real life, painfully single as you are. You wonder if he would like the look of you.

You might have a teeny tiny crush on this guy you’ve never met. Teeny tiny is a massive understatement. Just because he’s so consistent—you’ve never met a man as consistent as him—and so kind, and such a gentleman, even on the phone.

But tonight, the call ends earlier than usual. It seems that your open flirtation was a bit too genuine for him. Hit a bit too close to home. He finishes the conversation and dodges your attempt to take it farther.

“Thank you as always, beautiful. It’s a pleasure to talk to you. See you next week.” The phone hangs up abruptly. He’s gone now.

He always calls you beautiful, like everyone else does, but… it just means something coming from him. Maybe because he’s the only caller who has ever wanted to truly know something about you. And every time he hangs up, he says ‘see you next week,’ even though you never see each other. It’s cute.

You find yourself wishing he was still on the line. You’re a bit bummed that he hung up this early, not because you’re going to be left wanting for money (he always overpays), but because you always look forward to talking to him.

When you take the next caller, you’re quickly reminded that Sanji is by far the youngest and kindest of anyone who has ever called you.

---

“Hello?”

He’s on the line again. It’s Friday again, 11:30PM sharp.

You respond, tone warmer than it needs to be, given that you’re speaking to a client. “Hi.”

You’re glad to talk to him. Very realistically, this is the only interesting thing you have to look forward to—it’s not like you can afford to go out and party on the weekends. Or any day, for that matter. He’s your Friday night date every week. That doesn’t escape him.

“How was your week?” He asks, like he always does. He’s the only client who has ever asked you that.

You respond as frankly as you can without overstepping. “Hmmm. It was alright. Pretty boring, in general. It could have been better. How was your week?”

He pauses for a moment. “It was pretty good.”

“Tell me about it.” You prompt, and he begins detailing his week for you, as is your routine.

The things you know about this man’s life are random and vast, among them, you know that he lives in the city next to yours, he eats oats every morning for breakfast, and that he chain smokes as often as he can get away with (which is almost 24/7). You’ve been privy to him trying to cut back on his nicotine intake more than a few times, and he has never forgotten that you cheer him on every time he tries.

Among other things, this week he had to go to work on his usual day off (Wednesday) because the sous-chef called out (again). You can hear him roll his eyes when he says that. You roll them too, even though he can’t see.

He vents about that, and you hear him out.

“The sous-chef sounds like a real asshole,” you say. “Always has. Didn’t he call out a couple weeks ago?”

He laughs out loud at your honesty. “I fucking know, right? And yes, he did. It’s ridiculous.” Then his heart skips a beat. You really do pay attention to what he says.

“They don’t appreciate you as much as they should, Sanji. I bet I could talk some sense into them.” You say, and you both chuckle for a moment.

“What else happened this week?” You follow up, genuinely wanting to know. This man fascinates you. With how charming and sweet he is, it’s a wonder to you that he’s single. Also, the life he lives is quaint. He is a man of routine, a hard worker, and he’s driven. He has a strong and warm personality.

When he replies to your question, you can’t quite make out the tone of his voice—is that reluctance? Hesitation? Shyness? Or awkwardness? It’s hard to tell.

He responds to your question. “Well… I went on a date last night.”

Before you can wonder why, your heart starts to sink. Fuck. You really do have a crush on this guy, don’t you?

You regrettably (internally) acknowledge your disappointment. You do have a massive crush on this guy. And he’s your client. So, get a grip.

Your acting skills have to be excellent for this job. You make good use of them now. “Oh, a date?” You emanate the pinnacle of excitement for him. “How was it?”

This has happened maybe half a dozen times before. The dates always go well but the follow through rate is bad. Obviously. Or else he wouldn’t be here. But every time it has happened, your heart always sinks. Not a fun feeling.

“It went really, really well.” Sanji’s voice is happy. “Might have been the best date I’ve ever been on.” You know he’s smiling right now. Positively beaming. Your heart breaks a bit before you reprimand yourself. You have no right to like this man the way that you do.

He probably wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot-pole if he met you in real life (you tell yourself this, and you know it is a lie, but you try to say it to make yourself get a grip… needless to say, this strategy doesn’t work.)

“How was she?” You ask because you know he wants to talk about it.

“She was thoughtful, kind, and considerate. Very sweet. Kind of like you, actually.” He says, not realizing how much those words make your smile fall. “One of the cooks set us up. Like a blind date. I had no idea what to expect but she was gorgeous. Wow. So funny, too.”

His voice trails off. It’s your turn to talk.

“Awh, Sanji, I’m so glad. You deserve some attention.” Your voice is sugar coated like usual and his heart patters.

The conversation wanders into various topics. The woman he went on a date with is a veterinarian. That sours your mood. She must be real swell. Caring for sick animals and all that stuff. Ugh. The whole topic is forcing you to accept the fact that you like this guy wayyyy more than you should. You have no business having this intense of a crush on him, having this intense of a crush on a man who is, ostensibly, and for all intents and purposes, using you as his rent-a-girlfriend.

The pair of you then talk about relationships—has he ever been in one? (Yes, ages ago.) What is his love language? (Physical touch and acts of service.) What’s his type? (Essentially, you.) You ask him questions and he asks you them back. It’s a nice conversation, an intimate one, one that would have you feeling better if not for the fact that he just happened to have an amazing date.

After a while, the conversation dwindles. You know that he’s in the mood to do what this whole thing is really about—phone sex. When Sanji is in a really good mood or a really bad mood, he takes advantage of your expertise in this area. Tonight is the former.

“Is there anything else on your mind, handsome?” You ask, gauging what he’s up to tonight.

“Mmmm, there is. What are you wearing, gorgeous?”

You smile. He’s cute. Usually, you lie when men ask you this question. But with Sanji you tend to be a bit more truthful. Maybe it’s the fact that you feel like he’s going to get taken off the market soon and never call you again one day, or maybe it’s something else, but you’re getting the urge to be more candid and flirtier with him than you’ve ever been before. Real flirty, not work flirty. You’re getting the urge to step out of whatever character you put on when you pick up the phone.

“Do you want the regular client answer, or the Sanji answer?” You say, bold and not giving a fuck. Why not? He can have the real answer, hell, he can have some realness because you’ve talked for so long, and because you like him so much. Like you said, he deserves some attention.

“Oh. How about both?” He’s tickled and intrigued. “I’m flattered that I have my own option.”

“You always do. Well, the regular client answer would be that I’m wearing a babydoll slip dress made of black mesh… with a black lace thong and thigh-high black stockings. Do you like that?” Your voice starts to transform; it starts to drip pure lust, candied in honey and flattery. It’s a well-trained skill. Sanji gets hard almost immediately, tenting his pants and widening his thighs.

“I like it very much.” His voice is getting huskier, thicker. You love it when he sounds like that. His voice really is sexy. He continues. “Now, tell me the Sanji answer.”

“It isn’t nearly as glamorous. Do you still want to know?”

He nods, but it’s not like you can see him. “Of course.”

“I’m wearing a black tank top and blue plaid sweatpants. No bra, but I actually am wearing a black lace thong.” You laugh. “Very sexy, right?”

His voice comes out raspier this time. “It is, though. I much prefer the Sanji answer.”

“You’re sweet.” You say, and he can tell you mean it. “Now, what are you wearing?”

Sanji blushes and his erection strains against the fabric of his boxers. “Do you want the regular client answer, or the You answer?”

You laugh again. “How about both?”

“Well,” he continues. “The regular client answer is that I’m in black slacks and a white button down. A few buttons are undone and my sleeves are rolled up to my forearms. I’m wearing black loafers and black socks. Now, the You answer isn’t nearly as glamorous. Do you still want to know?”

“Mhm.”

“I don’t have a shirt on and I am coincidentally wearing blue plaid sweatpants as well. Can you believe that?”

“No way. Really?”

“Yep.”

“Anything underneath?” Your voice is coy and his erection pulses.

“Yep. I have boxers on. Boring black ones.”

“And what’s going on underneath of those?”

He dryly chuckles and reaches down to rub his hard on for a second. “A lot.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.” You practically purr and he runs his palm over his bulge in response.

He lets out a soft groan that make you feel some sort of way. “Oh yeah? Y’know, even though I don’t really know what you look like, I just know that you’re looking sexy in your pajama outfit right now.”

Your witty reply is stopped short. He’s the only one who is this real with you. Most of the men on the other line tend to be creepy, old, and just downright weird. This is a dying profession, after all. Sometimes the other clients are rude and dismissive, too. But Sanji… you know he really means what he says.

“You’re adorable, Sanji,” you say. “I’d venture a guess that you look pretty good right now, too.”

“Mmmm.” He hums, heartbeat rising as he continues to palm himself. “I wish I could see you right now.”

You can’t tell if this is part of the fantasy. You really did wish you could see him, though.

“What would you do to me…” your voice is smooth as silk. “If I peeled off my tanktop and shimmied out of my sweatpants?”

Sanji’s breath hitches. Something feels realer than usual about this—knowing what you’re wearing right now, what you’re really wearing, is turning him on beyond belief (assuming that you’re telling the truth, but he always chooses to believe that you are).

“If I was there, I’d kiss you, actually.”

His answer catches you off guard. You’re not sure he’s said something like this before.

There is silence for a second. You don’t know how to respond, really. You decide to just respond honestly, without appearances. Fuck it. He’d probably be off the market soon if his amazing date was anything to tell for it, so might as well.

“Wow, that’s really sweet. I’m not sure anyone has said something that nice to me in years.”

He tuts. “That’s my lowest bar of sweetness. I can go much sweeter than that, my love.”

He’s never called you that before, either. You’re starting to forget that this is a work call. It feels distinctly different than one.

“I’d like to see how sweet you can get, Sanji.”

His cock twitches again. Fuck. You really have a way with words. You get him more riled up than anyone he’s ever met before.

You continue. “After you kiss me, what would you do to me?”

“I would kiss every inch of you.”

Your heart melts. Fuck. Is this guy a saint? Where does he get off being so suave?

“Mmmm. That sounds nice. I’d like to return the favor.” Your tone, to Sanji, is effortlessly erotic. The thought of you kissing every inch of him—yes, even those inches—has him grinding the palm of his hand over his cock.

“Sounds even better. Then, if you let me, I’d go down on you.” The blonde is starting to get worked up. You can tell from his voice—when it gets all husky like this, you know he’s about to start touching himself, if he isn’t already.

Also, the fact that he said ‘if you let me’ really struck you. No one had ever said that before in your line of work. He has the tendency to say things you’ve never heard before, and he always surprises you.

“Of course I’d let you go down on me,” your voice gets softer. “What exactly would you do?” You wonder if he’d be any good. Maybe his answer will be elucidative.

“I’d start by kissing up your thighs, one at a time. Then I’d very slowly, very gently kiss your clit. Hopefully it would feel good. After a while, I think I’d be able to tell if you liked it. I’d run my tongue downwards and taste you. And tease you as much as you’re willing to put up with.”

“Mmmm. I think I could put up with a lot.” You let out a breathy sigh. You’re starting to warm up between the legs. With that voice, and those words, and that mental image… it sounds divine. You’re about to let yourself get carried away. It’s tempting.

“Is that so?” Sanji decides to keep going with the fantasy as long as you’d let him. Frequently, this happens the other way around. You usually describe to him, in great detail, what you would do to him. Apparently tonight it would be the other way around.

“In that case,” Sanji continues, “I’d take my time with you. I’d push my tongue inside of you delicately at first, then harder, and switch between that licking your clit.”

You can feel that you’re getting wet. It has only ever been with Sanji that you’ve actually gotten aroused while talking to a client. Usually, you’re as dry as the Sahara when talking to clients. But this man does things to you. Sinful things.

“What else?” You ask, biting your lip and sneaking your hand lower. You decide that, just this once, it’s okay to get carried away.

He can hear it in your voice. The synthetic, sugary (but still very much erotic) tone is dissipating and he’s hearing, for the first time, your voice bathed in genuine arousal. Your breaths are quicker than usual, your tone is less composed, and he can tell that you’re hanging onto his every word.

At the same time that his hand goes under the waistband of his boxers, yours goes under your underwear. He starts to stroke himself, relishing the first ripples of pleasure from his hand, and you do something similar. Each movement of your fingers is accompanied by his voice, by some filthy image he puts in your head.

“When you’re moaning loud enough, I’d press my middle finger into you slowly, to make sure you’re comfortable. After a moment, I’d move my finger and caress you inside a bit, and if it seemed like you liked it, I would press my ring finger into you.”

You start to mimic what Sanji is describing. It feels dangerously good. A barely audible sort of gasping sound falls out of your lips and Sanji hears it. His fist goes faster. He hasn’t ever heard you make that sort of noise before—he’s heard fake moans, sure, they were still hot (and he always told himself they were real). Anything you did was hot. But this sort of noise was the sort that could only be caused by one thing—pleasure.

Sanji’s fist goes a bit faster when he concludes that you may be touching yourself. The idea makes him feel like he’s on fire.

“I’d curl my fingers inside of you and find your g-spot… draw circles around it and press it while I place some kisses on your clit. Would you like that?”

His question catches you off guard—you’re getting lost in the act of fingering yourself.

“Mmmm. I would like that, Sanji.”

“How would I know that you liked it?”

“I’d, fuck,” another soft moan slips out of your lips and Sanji squeezes his cock tighter. “I’d run my fingers through your hair and pull you closer. Buck my hips into your tongue so you, ah, get deeper.”

“What would you say?” His voice is low now, and you can hear a faint sound in the background. He’s fisting his cock to your conversation, which is nothing new, but it brings you more of a rush than usual right now because you’re touching yourself too. “What would you say if you liked how I ate you out?”

“Don’t stop,” you shudder, and it sounds like it would if he was actually eating you out. The noise makes his heart flip. He can hear wet sounds from your end of the phone, too. He can hardly believe his ears, but sure enough, he can make out the noises of you bringing your fingers in and out of yourself.

“I wouldn’t,” Sanji says and then groans. The obscene noise goes straight to your aching core. You’re going to orgasm soon. “I wouldn’t stop until you came all over my face and I licked you clean.”

“Fuck,” you mewl. “That sounds, ah, sounds like it would feel good, Sanji.”

“Does it feel good?” He counters, twisting his hand over the head of his cock. His fist brings down the precum that has been beading at his tip, and the sensation makes his hips rock up inadvertently.

“Mmmmphhh, I—yes, it feels good, Sanji. Feels so good.”

You curl your fingers inside, searching for the spot that Sanji mentioned before. You press on it as you speak. You know he’s going to love the noise you make.

He grunts and throws his head back. He’s going to cum soon. He’s going to cum if you say his name some more. He wants it. “Say that again.”

“Fucckkk, Sanji. Feels so good.”

“I love hearing you say my name. I’m—hah—‘m gonna cum if you do it again.”

“Sanji. Sanji. Sanji, fuck, Saannnjjjiii.” On repeat, you moan his name through your orgasm, which you finally allow to wash over you. He can hear it in your voice, can hear you trying to force his name out of your mouth between keens.

Your voice has never sounded so good. He’s sure now, sure sure, that you’ve been touching yourself this whole time and that you just came. It’s a first for him. He’s suspected your arousal at other times, but this time, it’s a confirmed fact. In an instant, the fantasy fades and he can see the moment for what it is—you’ve thrown away the pretenses, acting skills, and flattery, and, for a handful of minutes, you’ve been 100% yourself with him, more so than ever before.

That’s what makes him cum. Your unreserved sincerity and desire. It’s the hardest he’s cum in a long time—and that’s a high bar, considering the fact that any time he broaches these activities with you he cums hard.

When you’re both panting in the euphoric aftershocks of your orgasms, Sanji whistles. “Damn.”

You hum in agreement. “Wow.”

He cracks a joke. “So, am I supposed to send you an invoice after this one?”

He’s hilarious in general, and this one makes you laugh. “I might allow it.” Your tone is uncharacteristically bashful. You’re about to say something you’ll later regret. “I think you’re the only person who has ever gotten me off over the phone.”

Sanji is taken aback for a second. “Really? I’m honored. And surprised.”

You almost instantly regret oversharing, chuckling awkwardly before you realize that this is a work call, and you should act accordingly. But it’s hard to pull yourself out of the intimacy of this moment and you don’t want to. So… against your better judgment, you don’t.

“I’m impressed, Sanji. Maybe we should do this more often,” you say, and Sanji’s heart thumps again. “You don’t have to only call me once a week, you know.”

“As long as you won’t get sick of me, I would love to. And we can do this again any time, gorgeous. It’s seriously my pleasure. You don’t know what you do to me, it’s only fair that I return the favor.”

While he’s saying the last part, Sanji realizes that this isn’t a favor, really. He tries to brush off that sad feeling for a moment but finds himself wondering what you really think of him.

It’s time for him to go to sleep, he concludes. He’s exhausted after a long shift and a hard orgasm.

“So, same time next week?” His voice is chipper.

“Mhm. I look forward to it, Sanji. See you later.” When the words leave your mouth, you wonder if he feels butterflies, too.

“See you later, sweetheart.”

Sanji hangs up the phone.

In your respective bedrooms, you’re both wondering what the fuck just happened. This call was full of lots of firsts and, little do you two know, the other feels elated.

But Sanji thinks about it more. He weighs his feelings for you against the practical understanding that he is, presumably, nothing more than a client to you. His heart aches at the thought.

And then he looks at his phone. The person who he went on a date with texted him while he was on the phone with you—she’s asking for another date. She says she looks forward to seeing him.

---

A week passes.

It’s Friday again.

11:30PM comes and goes. No call from Sanji.

In a span of over six months, this is the first time he hasn’t called you.

As you sit and wait for him, passing off other phone calls in case he decides he wants to speak to you tonight, your heart starts to sink.

Was last time a mistake?

Ten minutes go by.

Twenty minutes go by.

Many minutes go by. The time is now 12:30AM.

You’re left to conclude that last time was, indeed, a mistake.

You decide to take the night off. Your tears are making it hard to get any work done. You can’t put on that sultry voice and moan at old men in your current state.

There’s no denying it—his absence hurts you. Bad. Especially after last week. Especially after you admitted to him that you had never orgasmed over the phone before, and that you wanted to talk to him more often.

Why hadn’t he called you?

You wrack your brain for possibilities, but one major thing stands out. That date he went on. Maybe he went on another one and decided he liked them better.

Liked them better? You ask yourself after realizing what you just thought. He’s paying you to talk to him on the phone. Get over it. He isn’t going to keep calling you forever. What did you expect after last week? That he would just confess his love, offer to pay all of your bills, and that would be it?

You frown harder, hurting yourself deeper with your own rhetoric. The tears won’t stop.

It’s excruciating to realize that you like Sanji this much. You really like him. You know almost everything there is to know about him, too. And as much as you generally try to avoid giving out personal information, he knows a large chunk about you. Maybe that’s why it hurts so bad.

No, you tell yourself. Don’t kid yourself. You know it hurts this bad because you were hoping he liked you for real. You were hoping that this man, who you had never truly met before, who you had never seen, would, against all odds, decide that he wants you, even if he hadn’t seen you.

Fat chance, you tell yourself. Never do that with a client again, and this will never be a problem again.

---

Sanji does not call you back the next week.

Or the next week.

Or the week after that.

Or the month after that.

You are over it by the time the second month rolls around.

It’s pretty good timing, on your behalf. You think you’re really over this huge crush on a man you’ve never seen before. By the fifth month, you’re still telling yourself that you’re over this “crush”.

But that’s a delusion—any time you’re in public and there’s a blonde man, you find yourself scanning his face. Does he have a goatee? Could those eyebrows be considered curly? What color are those eyes?

When you see one that you think might be him, you always work up the courage to speak to them. But it never is Sanji. You would recognize that voice anywhere.

You wonder what you will say to him if he ever calls you again. Or if you see him in person. You decide that if he ever calls you again, you’ll either curse him out or break into tears.

In your most down-bad-hour, you contemplate showing up at the restaurant he is the chef at. You contemplate asking if you can see the kitchen. You just want a glance at him. A glance will keep your heart quiet.

But the joke’s on you—his restaurant is too expensive for you. Truly. You couldn’t afford a drink there if you tried. Okay, maybe just one. But you refuse to stoop to that level of desperation.

You’re a call away from him. He just has to dial your number.

You, on the other hand, have no way of calling or texting him. The service you work through scrambles client numbers before they’re patched through to you. The only way you know it’s Sanji is when he calls, at 11:30PM on the dot, on Friday nights. That’s Sanji time.

But it seems like Sanji time has come and gone.

You can’t shake the feeling that he did you dirty—but then you remember that he doesn’t owe you anything. This is your line of work. Phone sex. And that’s what you had. You just stepped over a boundary that you usually stay far away from. Whose fault is that?

No amount of logic can shake that feeling, though. You develop a little grudge against this man who you will never meet.

That’s what you tell yourself—that you’ll never meet him. But there’s a nugget of hope inside that, someday, he’ll call you. Someday he’ll kiss you. You try to obliterate that nugget though, as it is antithetical to the remedy to your lovesickness that you’re seeking.

Which will come first, him calling you, or you quitting this job that you’ve been meaning to quit for months at this point?

You hate to admit this to yourself, but he’s the only thing that was keeping the thoughts of quitting at bay. Maybe you really will quit this time around.

---

It is a Saturday night and you’re working again. It’s an unfortunately slow night, which sucks, because you really could use the money.

You’re scrolling on your phone, waiting for the next call to come in. It has been three hours with no calls. Guess all the creepy old men have plans tonight, which is such a shame because you need to pay rent soon. Sigh.

Time passes. You check the clock. It’s almost 11:30PM. The time doesn’t remind you of him anymore (well, much).

Maybe if you channel some of your good karma, ask the universe to cut a check of it right now, someone will call you for one long, lengthy conversation. You can help get them off as many times as they want. Five times in a row. You’ll break that record and go for six times if they just pay you. No questions asked.

Sure enough, a call comes through. You check the clock again. It’s been moving at a snail’s pace tonight. It’s 11:35PM. Hopefully whoever this is feels like talking.

“Hello?”

Your heart stops.

It sounds like Sanji for a second. But there’s no way. It’s been five fucking months.

“Hi.” You respond in your sugared up, sultry voice.

“It’s been a long time, gorgeous.”

It is Sanji.

Your heart flutters and your stomach flips. You’re speechless.

Don’t forget your game plans: curse him out or cry. But you can’t bring yourself to do either now that he’s waiting on the other line. You’re about to hang up the phone. You owe this man nothing and he owes you nothing—it’s that simple.

As you go to press the end call button, he speaks again.

“I’m sorry.”

The tears start now. The dam inside of you breaks. Hot tears pour out of your eyes and down your cheeks.

You didn’t think that hearing his voice would have this strong of an effect on you. But the heartbreak that you once thought faded away is now back in full force.

He’s waiting for a response before he hears shuddering breaths from you as you cry. Your tears are all the confirmation he needs—he knows that he was right months ago when he worked up the courage to confess to you. He should have done it. He knows that he was wrong to take the coward’s way out. And he knows he was wrong to tell himself that you didn’t care about him and wouldn’t care when he disappeared, because he was just a client to you. He was so terribly wrong. The sound of your sobs shatters him.

“I should have called you before. I’m so sorry. And maybe you hate me for waiting this long to call you again. I understand if you do. I just couldn’t keep it inside anymore, I—”

“Where the fuck were you?” You cut him off. Your anger is starting to seep through the tears. Maybe the first game plan can still happen. “I waited for you, Sanji.”

He doesn’t even try to think of a comeback or excuse. He tells you plainly what happened and, even though it breaks your heart some more, it makes sense.

“Well… I finally found someone. Last time, after I hung up, I had another date with that person I mentioned, and it went really well. So, we just kept going on dates. It didn’t feel right to keep calling you when things with her were progressing so quickly. We got together, and—”

“I understand, Sanji. That’s all I wanted to hear. Thanks.”

You slam your finger down on the hang up button. Your heart is broken enough as it is. He can keep all that yapping to himself. Good for nothing heartbreaker.

So what, he was with whoever that was. So what, they love each other and have been together almost half a year at this point. So what, he was just a client the whole time and you had gotten your hopes up for nothing and—your catastrophizing is stopped in its tracks when your phone starts to buzz again. You feel like it’s Sanji.

You pick up the phone. It is.

“Wait, wait, don’t hang up, please let me finish, please.”

“What, so you can tell me how much you love your girlfriend? I get it, Sanji. You paid me to talk to you for so long that of course you got sick of it and finally got what you had been after the whole time, a loving, very real partner. I understand that I’m just a service to be used and discarded later. That’s fine. Goodbye.”

“No. Listen to me.” Sanji’s voice is stern and harsh, a tone you’ve never heard from him before. “We got together and then she very quickly dumped me. Do you know what she kept saying to me? She said I was too absentminded. She thought I was thinking about someone else. Dumped me after two months because I couldn’t give her what she wanted. Absentminded.”

His words hang in the air for a few moments while you try to process why the fuck he’s explaining any of this to you and why it matters. He continues. His voice is emphatic, hurried, and nervous sounding.

“And if I’m being honest, I was absentminded. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I know this sounds fucking ridiculous because we’ve never met, and I understand if you tell me to go fuck off because I’m sure this happens to you all the time, but… I can’t get you out of my head. I’ve tried to for months. Three months. I told myself that I was an idiot for falling for someone out of my league. And the crazy thing is, I don’t even have to see you to know you’re out of my league. The way you act is out of my league. YOU are out of my league. You’re thoughtful, and kind, and considerate, and you pause before you respond whenever you talk because I can tell you’re really thinking over your response. And you’re funny. And witty, and charming, and you never once made me feel weird or less than for calling and finding solace in you. I’ve been lonely for years. I make the first move all the time, but it never works out. And I know I fucked this one up, and I know I didn’t have a chance in hell with you to begin with, but I just, fuck, I had to get this off my chest. I love you. I fell for you the first conversation we had. Now please tell me to fuck off.”

You can tell that every word he is saying is sincere and earnest. You can hear the emotion in his voice. While you wipe your tears dry and mend your heart together, you take deep breaths. He can wait for your response. Like he just said, you’re intentional about your responses to people. Every word matters. Especially with Sanji.

“Do you know how bad it hurt after our last conversation to not hear from you again?” You start.

He winces. He knew that was coming.

“I’m so so sorry. I’m so sorry. It was disrespectful of me, and callous, and if you hang up and never want to speak to me again, I understand and I deserve it.”

“You do deserve it.” You say, regaining some composure. “You really do, Sanji.”

“I’m sorry.” You can hear his frown. It’s a cute one. Fuck. His cute words are playing back in your ears too. So, he loves you?

Should you tell him how you feel? How you’ve felt for a long time?

One part of you is screaming at you to get a grip. But the other part—all the other parts—are finally, finally hearing what you’ve been wanting to hear for around a year at this point. That he likes you for you. That he sees you as you, and not some dolled up object of affection that’s only there to get people off and talk dirty to them. It has never been like that between you.

“If I accept your apology, Sanji, what then?”

“I—I actually didn’t think I would make it this far. But if you accept my apology, my next step is to ask you out to dinner with me. And to ask for your phone number. Your real phone number.”

You let out a long, deep sigh. “Sanji. My love. You could have told me these things months ago. It would have saved both of us so much heartbreak. I was devastated. Do you know that?”

You know that he already profusely apologized but you feel like driving it home a bit more. He deserves it. But while you talk, his hopes start to rise. You’ve never called him ‘my love’ before. Maybe that bodes well?

“I’m so sorry. I really am.” He sounds like he means it. You trust him enough to know that he does. Well, fuck it.

“Don’t think I’ll just forget about this because I’m head over heels for you, okay?”

“You—what?” He’s caught off guard. “You are?”

“Sanji. Yes. And you could have found out ages ago. Now, when are we going to dinner? You can apologize to me again then, too. And even if you don’t like what you see, you have to pay for everything. I’m getting an appetizer, an entrée, a dessert, at least two drinks, and whatever else I want. Okay?”

He laughs in relief. “Yes, okay. Yes. Holy shit, I didn’t think you would say that. I wish I could kiss you.”

“Wait—one last thing. If you decide you don’t like me after our date, Sanji, you have to tell me there on the spot. You can’t leave me waiting for another five months. You just can’t.”

“I promise, I won’t leave you waiting. I promise.”

When you hang up the phone a few minutes later (after more twisting the knife), you’re so thrilled that you can hardly breathe.

You can’t believe this is real life. You also can’t believe how quickly you just forgot your dignity, but you’ll unpack that later.

Dinner is set for tomorrow night. 7:30PM on the dot. Sanji is calling out of work, and he’s taking you to the (second) nicest restaurant in town (his is the first, obviously, and he wants to save that for a night where he can really plan ahead and spoil you).

---

When you get to the restaurant, Sanji is already there, waiting outside with a large bouquet of flowers.

He’s more handsome than you could have imagined. Of course he is. You do have great intuition, and you knew from the start that he was sexy. But… goddamn, he is sexy.

It makes sense now what he meant by curly eyebrows. He’s dressed well, too. He’s wearing black slacks and a white button down. A few buttons are undone, and his sleeves are rolled up to his forearms. He has black loafers and black socks. And he smells good. And he smiles good.

He’s so nervous he could puke. He hopes that when he sees you the nerves will melt. But they get 20x worse because he’s enamored with you. You’re beyond his wildest dreams—no number of fantasies could have led him to guess that you look like this.

He’s so obsessed that he starts to stammer before you tell him to calm down, and that he’s making you nervous.

Over dinner, you catch up on everything you’ve missed in the past few months of silence. You fill him in on details in your life that you previously kept to yourself, and he sees a whole new side of you.

At the end of the date, he tells you that he still loves you, that he loves you even more now, and that he’s so so sorry. He says that he’s mesmerized by you, that you’re more than he could have ever dreamed of, and that you can count on him for anything.

You seal the night with a kiss. A long one. It’s so romantic that you feel a bit disturbed with how happy you are after.

And it turns out that yes, this is your big happy ending. You make a perfect pair.

Epilogue: The day that Sanji finally shows off the techniques he told you about long ago, you’re more than satisfied. In fact, it seems like he was actually underselling himself there. You always knew he was the modest type.

thanks for reading! this was inspired by a whole lot of laufey! i hope you liked it. i love sanji so much it hurts me ;(

here's my masterlist if you're interested!

divider courtesy of @cafekitsune tag list @eggrollforyou

[aventurineswife]

🤔 do u have a thought about shrau with amphoreus ?

If I'm not wrong, they just believe in titan as their god right? What about shrau amphoreus with reader as a creator?

Like just Imagine it, when they knew about reader as a creator or aeon reader and how they will react

OKAY OKAY, I MAY NOT BE GOOD AT THIS BUT HEAR ME OUT!

If Amphoreus is a world that reveres Titans as gods, then suddenly discovering the Reader (aka you) as a Creator/Aeon would shake their entire belief system to its core. The Chrysos Heirs, warriors devoted to slaying corrupted Titans and recovering their Coreflames, would have to face the terrifying realization that the entity they’ve been unknowingly serving might be above the very gods they worship.

The Chrysos Heirs—Mydei, Phainon, Castorice—are devoted to prophecy and divine will. If they discovered that the true weaver of fate, the one who oversees their struggles and triumphs, is actually you, their entire worldview would fracture.

Mydei, the Undying Warrior, might react with reverence, but also conflict.

"The Coreflame trials, the prophecy, the Titans... were they mere threads in your tapestry? Have I only been playing my part in a story you have already written?"

He would feel both honored and trapped—knowing that his fate was not his own but also that his suffering had purpose.

Phainon, the Deliverer, might be the first to fully embrace you.

"If you are the one who spins the threads of destiny, then everything we have done… it has been for you, hasn’t it?"

He’d see it as a blessing, a sign that their struggles were leading toward something far greater. He might fully devote himself to you, no longer just as a warrior, but as a disciple.

Castorice, the Daughter of the River Styx, would have an eerie calm about it.

"Death and fate have always danced hand in hand. If you are the one who weaves, then I have been treading upon your strings all my life."

She might not even be surprised—only resigned, knowing that she had always been walking the path you had set.

The people of Amphoreus, especially those who still worship Titans as gods, would be terrified. If they learn that their world is merely a fragment of your design, it could split the faction into two:

Those who believe the Titans are still divine, and you are merely another force in the cosmos.

Those who believe you are the true god—the one above all, the being who even Titans obey.

Some might fall into despair, realizing that their gods are no more than pieces of a larger game board, and that your will can rewrite their fate at any moment. Others might become fanatical, believing that serving you is the only true path.

The Coreflames, remnants of the Titans’ divine power, might now take on an entirely new meaning—if the Titans were once creations under your will, then does that mean their power also stems from you?

If Mydei and Phainon failed the Coreflame Trial, was it because you willed it?

Phainon, who vanished after the trial, might see it as a test from you—a call to prove himself.

Mydei, bound by honor and sacrifice, might struggle with whether his suffering was truly his own choice… or merely an inevitable step in the story you wrote.

The most horrifying realization for them? That every battle, every struggle, every death was something you already knew would happen.

If Mydei has died a thousand times, then you—the Aeon of Fate—must have allowed it each time.

"You… knew? Every strike, every wound, every death I suffered—you saw them all?"

The idea that they were never free, that their victories and failures were written into existence, could be devastating.

Some would see you as salvation rather than as a distant, cosmic force. They’d offer the Coreflames to you as divine tribute, seeing them not as remnants of fallen Titans, but as pieces of a world you once shaped.

The most devout warriors might seek to serve you personally, casting aside their oaths to the Titans and the prophecy.

Mydei, should he fully accept your will, might become your sword of fate, carrying out your judgment across Amphoreus.

Phainon, ever the perfectionist, might strive to prove himself worthy in your eyes, seeking to become your chosen deliverer.

Castorice, attuned to the whispers of death, might become your priestess, ensuring that those who fall in battle meet their end as fate intended.

Once the truth of your existence reaches Amphoreus, the world would never be the same. The Titans' worshippers, the Chrysos Heirs, the Coreflame Trials—everything would shift under the weight of the realization that you have always been watching.

Some will fight for you.

Some will fear you.

Some will desperately seek your favor.

But no matter how they react, one truth remains: they were never beyond your reach.

[solxamber]

Valentines day event woowoowoo (dont burn yourself out aye!!)

Idia, romantic, "absolutely smitten" by Dodie (if i got that right-) :]

Hope it could be a fun one ! Stay safe ayeaye

i love the pining potential in the song!!! hope you like my interpretation of it <3

"I'm absolutely smitten" || Idia Shroud

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞'𝐬 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭

𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐠: Absolutely Smitten by Dodie

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 670

𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐬: Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers

Idia first sees you during orientation. Not in person, of course—there’s no way he’d willingly subject himself to a room full of loud, unpredictable people—but through his tablet, streaming the event from the safety of his dorm.

It’s routine, really, just scoping out who he’ll inevitably be avoiding for the next few years. But then the camera pans across the crowd, and he sees you.

And something unfamiliar stirs in his chest.

It’s a strange, unquantifiable feeling, something too big for him to handle, too much for his ribs to cage in. His fingers tighten around the tablet as he watches you smile at something someone says, and a thought creeps into his brain before he can stop it.

I wish that were me.

It’s over for him. Absolutely, completely, no-respawn doomed.

And when he actually gets to know you? Oh, he’s done for. Every interaction with you is a critical hit to his heart. You are bright where he is shadowed, warm where he is cold, a force of nature where he is content to be static.

And yet, somehow, you seem to like being around him. You talk to him, seek him out, sit with him even when he fumbles through his words and hides behind his hood.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Idia Shroud, the ghost of Ignihyde, the one who would rather face a boss battle on the highest difficulty than make eye contact with another human being, wants nothing more than to be close to you.

He wants to talk to you about everything that makes his mind race at 3 AM, wants to know what makes you tick, wants to kiss you until he forgets what loneliness feels like.

But he can’t. Because you are you, and he is him, and the idea of ruining what he has with you is a fear greater than any horror game could ever conjure.

So he does nothing. He pines. He wonders.

Are you just being nice?

Would you ever see him that way?

Is he even worth your time?

And yet, he doesn’t know that you are just as smitten.

The day you met him is engraved in your brain like a prophecy fulfilled. You think he’s the one. It sounds ridiculous, impossibly romantic, something straight out of a visual novel, but you can’t shake the feeling that you and Idia are meant to be.

And so, one day, when you’re sitting next to him in his room—shoulders almost touching, his leg bouncing like a loading screen buffering at 99%—you slide a little closer.

“Idia.”

He stiffens. “W-what?”

“I like you.” A pause. “I really like you.”

His brain blue-screens.

You barely have time to process his expression—wide golden eyes, parted lips—before he starts tearing up.

“Wait, wait, are you okay?” You panic, reaching for him, but he shakes his head rapidly, hands clutching his hoodie like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

“You—” His voice cracks. “You actually—?”

You nod. “I mean, yeah. Kinda thought it was obvious.”

Obvious? Obvious? He’s been agonizing over this for months, drowning in his feelings, convinced you were nothing more than a dream he was too scared to wake up from. And yet, here you are, looking at him like he’s the greatest thing to ever happen to you.

He doesn’t know what to say. But you do.

So you pull him into a hug, letting him bury his face in your shoulder as he trembles. His hands hover before finally clutching the fabric of your shirt, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he holds on too tightly.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Idia feels whole.

He pulls back slightly, and when he looks at your soft smile, something inside him clicks into place. He’s never letting you go.

And when you look at his teary-eyed grin, you think the same thing.

Masterlist ; Valentine's Event

[cyborgartalchemist2]

Need to point some queer rage at something, white cishet persecution kink it is.

I absolutely despise this kind of cishet nonsense. And here's why-

White cishets recognize that being different is an automatic point against the rest of society. They know that marginalized groups are disqualified by the oppressors for the most basic of human experiences like finding love.

But they stop at that.

Because instead of letting that information strike a nerve they see 'a thrilling experience' to write/read about. The forbidden romance. A star crossed love doomed to be denied by all around the lovers. But, instead of including some form of marginalization like... one of them having a different skin color, being transgender, or disabled and considered incapable( incorrect) of fulfilling their half of the relationship, one of the lovers is a different species(still white and nearly human, think twilight or acotar) or this kind of rubbish where the only disqualifier for their relationship is that doctor/patient is frowned upon and can have power imbalances... not sure if it goes against the hypocratic oath, but it does have the possibility for damaging reputations..

Why make up these ridiculous reasons for a romance to be forbidden instead of taking from the laundry list of actual reasons a couple might experience aggression and refusal of acceptance?

Because they want the drama, pain, and angst that comes with marginalized romances without losing their privilege. They want "I love you, even though I know I shouldn't." But they want it without having to dismantle their own prejudices or do any work to understand that the reasons that make some romances forbidden are wrong and harmful. They don't want to admit that society is full of bigotry and prejudice, they just want dramatic romances where against all odds, the lovers come together.

I know white women who write these are often disadvantaged by being ciswomen, but it doesn't erase the fact they make up arbitrary and downright ridiculous barriers for their white het romances. It's an insult more than anything. It's someone saying "I recognize that some love is denied by the systems of power in place, but instead of accepting that I can do something about it by discussibg it, I'm going to appropriate the energy and flavor that comes with forbidden romances but with completely normal and acceptable members of society who would never experience this kind of denial. Simply because I want to read something dramatic without feeling guilty or being confronted with my own privilege."

And don't get me started on those made up slurs... like... balleraggot is disgusting. Tell me you don't understand the creation and use of slurs without telling me. Honestly... where did 'gonna make slurs that are ripped off of real and truly harmful slurs' sound like an even remotely good idea?

[tsuyalovebot]

don't make me wait forever.

pairing: xia yi zhou / caleb x reader (love and deepspace)

cw: sfw. semi-prominent reader characterization (spoiled, occasional use of she/her pronouns, referred to as a "little sister" once). kisses. casual touches. throat holding (both by reader and by caleb). use of "older brother" to address caleb (not by reader). pipsqueak as a term of endearment. reader wears makeup. some spoilers from tender moments, memoria, and bond story. caleb typical warnings (manipulation if you squint).

wc: roughly 3-4k words. unnecessary word vomit.

author's note: a man who yearns is a man who EARNS. hi, it's me again! i had an idea and had to bring it to life. enjoy! ( ^ -. ^ )

Caleb wasn't lying when he said he spoiled you too much as children.

You didn't quite get it at first—he was nothing but sweet with the occasional menace during childhood, sure, but he didn't spoil you spoil you.

You were leaning into his chest, eyes closed while listening to the TV in the background as his large arm wraps itself around your waist. Tucking you against him, feeling his lips against the crown of your head.

"I baby you too much," he sighed, a mellow cheeriness beneath his words.

"And yet, you sound so happy over it," you grumbled. Sleep is so close yet so far, and you'd been squirming around in search of the closest boarding gate. His touch delicate as he pulled you onto his lap.

You snuggled closer on instinct. Picking up on the faint smell of sandalwood and something finer, richer. There was movement on your back, Caleb's palm stroking up and down, while the other held you by the back of your neck like an infant.

"I spoiled you, too."

You frowned, looked at him blearily. "Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh." He pushed your head back onto his shoulder. "Go to sleep."

Sure, Caleb took extensive measures to ensure your comfortable upbringing with him. But you weren't spoiled.

Right?

But you go on your first date with someone that isn't him, and it kind of hits. Making an offhanded comment about how the water temperature was more cold than warm—you asked for room temp—doesn't result in your date immediately requesting another glass or them buying you bottled water from the convenience store across the restaurant.

Instead, you're told, "they probably forgot, it's fine" and the date continues. You watch the condensation form on your glass quietly. Every rational droplet is speaking to your acrid gut feeling—it's just water. It'll be room temperature eventually.

Later on, your date messages you. They asked if you got home safely, all the while you'd been drinking a glass of lukewarm water in Caleb's dining room. You pressed block once you heard his familiar, curious voice asking how the date went.

"It was meh." And you asked for another glass.

Another time, you'd been hanging out with old high school friends as a simple gathering. Though, you hadn't expected that it would lead to seemingly endless anecdotes in relation to you. Over fruit smoothies and café pastries, they'd all been exchanging stories once the conversation turns over to yourself in high school.

"Remember when she would always ask us to do stuff?" One girl laughed, cutting into her french toast.

Another cleared her throat, exaggerating her voice into a falsetto, "hey, can you get me a bun from the cafeteria? Oh, there's no more? Then, a banana milk and whatever pastry they have."

It earned a crackle of laughter along the table of five people. You, the object of discussion, smiling at the head of the table. Rather awkwardly, too, as you sipped on your drink.

"You forgot to add on the "you can do that at least, right?" at the end!"

"Oh, oh, the sulking too, if you don't do it!"

"She'd always complain about our fans, too."

"Oh my God, yeah. "Why does your fan battery run out so quickly? Did you not charge it?" Like, hello?"

One of the girls face you amidst the active exchange, grinning. Despite the recollection of your nature in the past, they weren't mad. Simply taking the entertainment value in it.

"Don't worry," and she said your name, placing a hand over yours on the table.

"You've got an older brother, right? It may have been annoying, but we're friends. You were like, our little sister."

A muscle in your jaw ticked. His face popped up in your face and you wanna punch him, despite him being nowhere near you at the time of this event. But, you laughed and nodded; acquiescing to her reassurance was easier this way.

It slipped out once more when you go out for movies with Tara. It's the same theater you and Caleb always frequented before. You already swiped your card for payment of movie food, and had besn walking to the screening room.

"Tara, can you check the bucket? Make sure it has enough butter on it?"

"Hm? Okay," she replied. While you scrolled on your phone, you heard the plastic lid of the bucket pop open.

"Seems good to me. You check."

When you move your attention over to the bucket, you're met with mediocre-looking buttered popcorn. The golden syrup of butter scattered over the pieces. You frowned. Since when were they so shy about buttering literal corn?

You stopped walking, brows furrowed. "It's so... pale. Let's go back and ask for more, I didn't pay for that."

"Huh? Oh, okay?" You didn't really register Tara's confused tone of voice until after you had a spat with the person at the popcorn station.

It was some moody teen probably working minimum wage. He was scowling while you talked about the butter portioning.

He sneered, "over some popcorn? Really? Were you that spoiled as a kid?"

It winded you. Tara was pulling at your arm, seeming to try and hold you back despite you being frozen. The manager came out once the commotion seems to stop, only because you were gobsmacked.

He'd been apologizing profusely to you and Tara upon recognizing you both as hunters; his eyes had landed on you with so much familiarity. He's probably been working here for a decade or so. Long enough to have previously seen you and Caleb at movie screenings.

Tara's at the butter dispenser of the self-service station—something they closed over half a decade ago apparently, but frantically opened for today, coincidentally—with you behind her when she finally spoke

She was a bit bewildered, but it was easy to pick up the lighthearted tone. "I didn't take you for the pampered type. That was the normal amount of butter on popcorn for most places."

You shook your head. "No, it wasn't. I was a regular here in the past. Every time we got a bucket of popcorn, they were always so generous with the salted butter."

"By yourself?"

"No, with my friend."

There'd been a pause between you two. She pressed the lid back into place and begun shaking it, the popcorn rattling. Then, she turned to you, like she knew something that you didn't.

"And you never once thought this friend scared the employees into putting extra butter for you back then?"

It always went back to him.

Whenever you'd go to a colleague's place and bore holes into the crooked cuts of the apple slices on a plate, you found yourself recalling Caleb's expert cuts. These ones weren't even red delicious apples.

You're a bit peeved when the food from the monthly catering service at the Association doesn't taste the same way that Caleb makes it, even though the food is the same kind and recipe.

Your next trip to Skyhaven is definitely highly anticipated. You're been exhausted and haggard for the past few days. It only amplifies as the day stretches on, grimacing when Caleb opens the door. He's surprised to see you, panting and sweaty in his white tanktop. Fresh from a workout, most likely. It makes you a bit, a tiny bit, mad.

"Pipsqueak? What's the occasion?"

"You," you hiss, releasing your hold on your suitcases. You kick off your shoes as you push your way into his place, pointing an accusing finger to his chest.

Caleb's confused. It's clear in the furrow of his brow and frantic blinking that his synapses are doing rapid fire checking of what today is, what he's said or done recently, what stores are on sale, and what snacks you need.

Despite being the one who said he himself spoiled you, he clearly has no idea how it's manifested in your life, and it pisses you off even more.

"I'm the occasion?" He squawks, confused. "It's too early for my birthday—"

"You and your stupid past self. I should have your head on a stake," you bark, slamming your fists onto his pecs, pushing him further into his own home.

He laughs a bit, still completely in the dark, but his voice gets a bit more pitchy.

He leans down, cranes his gargantuan ass down to your height. It's polite. You know this, he's done it countless times. But your gut speaks to you. You're going to throttle him.

"Huh? What did I do?"

"You piss me off!"

His face softens with concern. His hands come up, ghosting over yours. He murmurs your name—

Then you're gripping him by the neck. You get to drink in the way his eyes widen to saucers as your fingers delicately wrap around his throat, palms on either side. You don't squeeze, and instead, aggressively shake him. "Pipsqueak?"

"You spoiled me!" You shriek, voice shrill with accusation.

Frustration, the buildup from the past couple of weeks comes to full fruition in this very moment. It's only for a split second that you see realization dawn on Caleb's face before you continue yelling.

"I relied on others to get me snacks because of you, I complain over batteries because of you, now I want specific water temperatures, I can't stand pale popcorn because you demanded extra butter, I'm picky over food—"

"Hey—"

"Don't you hey me, mister!" You jut your finger up at his face, and he shuts his mouth instantly. "I'm like this, because of you!"

You don't miss the glitter of mirth in those stupidly ethereal eyes of his, and it's wholly unreal how your anger amplifies when you notice his twitching lips. He found this funny.

"You're laughing?" You whisper, low and indignant. You squeeze his throat, feel his breath pass under the skin. Adrenaline riveting and real in the low thrum of your heartbeat.

"I'm here, devastated over the effect of your stupid actions on my life, and you're laughing?"

"Devastated?" Caleb echoes. The idiot sounded delighted over this. Like he was finding a great deal of validation in your admission.

A grin quirks his lips into its signature, charming curve, and he's leaning down into you some more. One of his hands sliding over yours with a gentleness only he could emulate. Your resolve stutters, and he's quick to take advantage of that.

"Oh, please, pipsqueak." He chuckles. "That's not true and you know it."

His fingers gently slide between the gaps of yours, making room for himself and filling the emptiness. Effectively peeling them away from his throat, and doing the same to the other hand. You relent, letting your arms hang loosely at your sides.

Caleb's still smiling when he takes a step forward, crowding your space now. It doesn't register that he's cornered you until your back is flat to the closed door and you're surrounded by him and everything about him.

The very man who's fed you every granule, acquainted you with the taste of having the world at your every whim. A charged zap runs up the base of your spine when he lifts your chin.

"If you were really devastated, you'd have come here cryin' instead. You'd be on your knees, weepin' over how I've ruined you. Not yelling and screaming and accusing me," he coos, sickly sweet. His thumb rubbing below your lower lip.

"Are you done? Do you feel better after getting it all off your chest?"

His gaze feels abysmal. Two pools of an oceanic depth, spatial and intergalactic and beyond your comprehension. Hungry.

Something darker lurks there. That one look that flickers in and out of conversations whenever you're close to him, or when the topic tilts into something that you know you shouldn't be touching. Like he's satiated, but still craving more and more. You feel small under it every time.

"Even a kid knows how to manipulate their guardian into givin' them what they want."

The double meaning, one of comparing you to an immature brat, isn't lost on you. Heat crawls up your skin as your cheeks round with the scrunch of your nose. Ready to retaliate with equal venom, even if his words weren't inherently insulting.

But, before you even could, the expression on his face stops you in your tracks.

It's like looking at the colonel. Caleb cocks his head to the side, expression clinically cold. "When someone is speaking, we?"

He stares. He's waiting for a response, you realize.

You finish his sentence, pacified. "We listen."

"Good. Seems you still have the manners I taught you."

Your face heats up.

That stupidly patient smile on his lips was grating on your nerves, far more than any revelation of his ingrained presence in your every action, thought, word, and emotion.

His thumb is soon pressed flush to your lips. He isn't prying it open like he did before, instead rubbing the pad of his thumb along your lips, caressing the divot of your cupid's bow. He's playing with the glossy texture and film of your lippie, smearing it past the corner of your lips.

The first thing you want to do is push him away. Shove him, hard, and make space between the two of you so that your train of thought could return. Yet, the softness that decorates his grape-colored irises was making you hesitate. He's an annoying guy, someone who gets on your nerves, with featherlight caresses and an admiration so sincere.

Rouge stains the pad of his digit when he draws it back. He's curious, his gaze thoughtful as he examines the pigment. Then, you're watching as he lifts it to his mouth with a deliberate kiss. Lashes fluttering over his cheekbones.

When he drops his hand, the scarlet pigment is smeared over his lips like a brand.

You're burning alive. You reach up, immediately trying to wipe it from his lips. "You—"

"Weirdo? I know." Caleb catches your hand with ease, beaming with half-lidded eyes. "Buuut, you're just as weird as me for lettin' me do that, y'know."

He's making a point. You're going to gut him alive, you think to yourself. In stealing an indirect kiss from you, he's replicating every scenario you've ever bared yourself to him. How easy it is, to melt in one's earnest wonder and affection, unable to say no.

In an attempt to regain your composure, you scowl with all the feigned vitriol you could muster. "You're even weirder for condoning my every action."

He cocks his head, like he was reloading a couple memories from the past. The countless times he let you get away with things.

"It's... not that easy for me, pipsqueak."

"Yes, it is." You huff and free your hand from his grip. Settling your palms flat over his chest, fingers curling into the stretchy fabric. "Telling me no couldn't have been that hard."

"Yeah?" He teases. "You think it's that simple for me?"

"Grandma could handle me."

Caleb deadpans at your mention of her, his face relaxing into something like bemusement.

"If Gran or I took away your stuffed animal to clean it, you'd kick and scream and cry. If I denied you of your favorite food or a candy apple, you'd say you hate me."

You blink. That wasn't the response you were expecting. All of a sudden, you feel like someone's wiped your mind of everything you've ever known, and redefined your recollections of childhood. Embarrassment crawls up your face in burning streaks.

"Gran could handle you?" He repeats, shakes his head with a sad look.

There's a pained aspect to his current physiognomy, the furrow of his brow, the deepened set of his mouth. "That's because it's her. Of course, she wouldn't mind your cries. But I did."

He crouches, and for a moment, it was as if he was falling. The sunlight filtered in through the glass of the door behind your head, catching on the nutty brown strands of his hair. Cradling his head against the junction of your neck and shoulder, hiding away his face.

"I didn't want you to hate me." He admits, the words fanned over your throat. You inhale deeply, and his familiar scent invades your senses. You hope that stupid central organ wasn't too loud, or else he'd hear the beating of your pulse working double time.

Caleb's a constant in your life. He was a pillar, from youth 'til now, that never failed to offer you assistance regardless of the circumstances. You knew him to be reliable, persistent, generous. Perhaps it plays into the way he's coated your teeth in sugar, nipping at your enamel in a thick film that tastes of sweetness.

Yet seeing him like this, frustrated and amused and annoyed—it was unfounded.

"I didn't know much." The vulnerability was low yet blaring. "I just knew I didn't want you to hate me. I knew I loved seeing you happy. And if I denied you, you weren't happy."

It's too black and white. So childish and simplified. It's an easygoing description of his feelings toward you during early youth, one that could easily be swallowed up and consumed by the nasty nature of the world.

Yet, you card your fingers through his hair. Press your lips to his temple all the same, and listen to his utterances.

Your bottom lip is jutting out before you can stop yourself. And in spite of his own admissions, the uncomfortable nakedness that comes with it, you mumble a pointed, "you made me high maintenance."

"You're only figurin' that out now?" He snickers against your skin and the subsequent vibrations make you jump. "Pipsqueak, everyone's known you're high maintenance."

You protest, "that's not true."

"Yes," he says, amused. "It is."

Peeling away from your neck, Caleb's face is less grave now. Relief floods your senses and you cup his face, smoothing over the corners of his lip to wipe away the frowns. There's a weight behind you that isn't the door, his palm a welcome touch as his fingers splay over the small of your back.

His other hand resting on the side of your throat, fingers resting on your nape and thumb rubbing the ridge of your jaw. The motion is soothing, and you close your eyes to memorize its rhythm.

"Even if you're high maintenance, I'm the one who caused it. Allegedly."

You bristle and your eyes fly open, "allegedly? There's proof—"

"Ah-ah."

Caleb's brows are raised on his forehead as you pipe down, amused by how quick you were to correct your behavior.

"Much better. As I was saying."

Despite the extra firmness to his voice, his touch on you was nothing short of gentle. Like your body was carved from marble, reinforced by a fragile porcelain, he does that thing where he tilts your head with the hand on your neck. His thumb rubbing your earlobe.

But the most violating part had to be those intense, smoldering eyes that beheld you with utmost priority. How did you ever think he didn't care for you?

Caleb's tone of voice is chiding. "You're high maintenance because of me, and that makes you mine to maintain."

He's talking down to you. Treating you like one would to a child learning how to tie their shoelaces, his voice chiseled with the vines of condescension. Heartbeat speeding in your chest, distinguishing your heartbeat from your rampant thoughts became far more difficult.

The little smile that's on his lips seems manic. Far away, distant, as you slide your hands over his pecs. A shudder ripples over your skin.

"After all, it's my fault for making sure you're comfortable. It's my fault for prioritizing you above all else, as children and as adults." He starts, chillingly calm. He shakes his head to himself with a deep sigh, and tilts your head back against the door. Examining you with an unblinking, almost detached visage. Yet, his words were anything but, thick with emotion.

You breathe slow, torturous inhales and exhales, feeling Caleb's hand wrap itself around your throat. Alarms ring out in the back of your mind—loud, incessant, disturbing, yet you close your eyes and let him hold you there.

He won't hurt you. He never would, intentionally.

Quietly, like a forbidden fruit to not be consumed or heard, he mutters, "it's my fault for wantin' nothing but the best for you, because it's what you deserve. Nothing less."

Oh, you breathe out.

There's absolutely no pressure to the way he holds your neck. His palm wasn't against the column of your throat, instead, the pads of his thick digits were clasping the skin with a touch so invisible it almost felt nonexistent. When you swallow, the flexed skin presses itself up to his touch.

"Do you really want me to take it back?" Caleb asks, breaking the momentary silence and taking you out of your thoughts.

You blank out for a moment too long. "What?"

"You came over to let me know I've spoiled you beyond reversing repair, without wantin' me to change?"

Why did you come over? Why did you decide to come up to Skyhaven one day, literally days away from your regular times of visiting him? Over something like this? Literal outdated information that you've only recently discovered.

Why? You don't know, but you're rushing to speak, holding onto his top. "That's not what I—"

"It's not what you what?"

He tilts his head down toward you and every coherent thought exits your headspace instantly. God, his eyes. They're darker now. Frustration brimming in the burning fuchscia, the indigo of his irises all-consuming.

"I can stop pamperin' you starting today." He offers.

The surfacing ache in your chest is abrupt, disruptive.

"Starting today, I won't buy your favorite snacks. I won't ever pat your head again. I'll leave you to fend for yourself in every fast food line, and you can get your own stuff when we go shopping. You can even do your shopping alone. Is that what you want?"

No. No, it's not what you want, but how do you express that? An entity, so puissant and arresting, is crawling up your esophagus, scraping at the backs of your teeth, trying to pry your mouth open, and wail its truth into the minimal distance between you and Caleb. It's an ugly feeling, one stripping you down to your base needs.

Pain bleeds into his expression, his eyes only softening as a thought crosses his mind. "Are you gonna tell me you don't need me again?"

"Caleb, no," you manage.

"If not, then what's the problem? It's too late. If I've ruined you, you've destroyed me."

You destroyed him? When? You've never... When have you ever—?

Your chagrin spikes in time with your bewilderment. "I never did anything like that."

Caleb peered into your eyes. Your soul. Questioning, a bit disbelieving. Like he can't really believe your own blindness. An incredulous laugh slipping through his nose when he realizes you weren't lying.

He takes a step forward. You're fully sandwiched between him and the door now, and one of his arms come up to rest above you on the surface. "Caleb–"

"I can't go through the grocery store without thinking of what you want for dinner." He admits, the revelation so tender and tied with candor. Your words die on your tongue and dissolve.

"I can't do my laundry anymore unless it's with your brand of fabric softener, since it reminds me of you. Every time I try on a new jacket, I wonder how it would look good on you."

The information comes pouring out of him like a geyser. And his voice is full of nothing but love. You press your hands to his chest with more force, but he won't budge. Your ears are scalding and you're avoiding his gaze now, his face.

"You dedicated a journal to me. You came to every basketball game." Caleb laughs, breathless. A little in awe of you, so full of adoration. "You always visited Skyhaven when I moved out. You pretended to be my girlfriend. You didn't want me to get a girlfriend. You kissed me at my graduation."

He stutters over himself at the end, sighing deeply and it's making your stomach do flips. "God, you kissed me."

Really? You're burning. Did he have to bring that up?

He's pulling you out of your thoughts yet again, using his hold on your yielding neck to find your gaze once more. You could crumble into ashes right now. In fact, you hoped the floor underneath you would just swallow you whole and leave nothing behind for Caleb to dissect.

"You're think you're spoiled, pipsqueak?" Another laugh, and it's mixed with raspy agony and disbelief, shining in his stare. "I'm rotten."

In Caleb's home, you never really heard much commotion. Simply the low hum of the television in the background, the living room a few paces away. Yet, your heartbeat was the soundtrack to his life, and he's made it his favorite ringtone.

You could feel his own racing heart under your palm. He looks defeated now, conflicted. Oh, Caleb.

"You never wanted me to take it back." He says it to himself. Like he's trying to get himself to believe it.

"You just wanted reassurance that I'd never leave you, no matter how coddled you are."

The heart that's thudding rapidly against your ribcage was so fickle, so naïve. It might jump out of your throat at this rate—God, Caleb could probably feel your pulse like this.

Your mind's racing. There's only one way you could resolve this rift formed from these series of revelations and confessions. You weren't going to lose him again. He has no right to leave after this.

"You're so quiet now. Don't tell me you're thinkin' of runnin' away, pipsqueak." His voice is lighter, more in jest now. The first sign of distance, denial.

You clasp his wrist, and whisper, "I'll take responsibility."

"What?"

"I'll take responsibility. For ruining you. In exchange, take responsibility for me too." You declare, louder. You sound more sure.

He's blinking at you now. Then, his brows furrow and a bewildered laugh leaves him. Before he could reply, you push forward, not allowing him any time to recover.

"I'm in your hands now, aren't I? You said so yourself. You did this to me. I did this to you. I'm yours to deal with."

You wind your arms around his neck, hearing how his breaths stutter and feeling his hand leave your throat. You're on your tippy toes, pulling him down so you could settle back against the door, feeling his grip settle over your waist. It's a lovely sensation. One so right. It cements your resolve.

"The only ones who can handle us are each other. Nobody else."

You don't know what you're saying anymore.

But you know you like the rising determination, you like whatever this is. You like the hope that swims in his gaze. The fear that's within them, terrified of this being one of your pranks. It wasn't; you'll prove it to hom.

"You can't make all these promises and leave me alone," You speak in a hushed tone, finality thick in the waver of your voice. You're leaning in before you can stop yourself and whispering, "I won't let you."

You can't help but feel like whatever game you two are playing now, you've lost. He's won yet again. Yet it doesn't quite feel like a loss this time around, not when Caleb's face is smoothing out into one of relief. One of contentment as he closes the distance.

The breath that fans over your mouth is hot and his voice is full of yearning, "I never planned on it."

[roanniom]

There's Something About You

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: 18+ ONLY, NSFW, handjob, dirty talk, inexperienced!Eddie

If one thing is for certain, it's that Eddie has no idea how he's found himself here. In the bedroom of a cheerleader honor student goddess who shouldn't even know he exists. Yes, you've smiled at him from a distance in class. From time to time he's caught you giving him a little wave from across the cafeteria. But to be quite honest with himself, Eddie always assumed you were fucking with him. Throw a wink at the school freak and watch him get an embarrassingly unprovoked boner.

Yet here you were. Sitting next to him on your bed - disarmingly pink and covered in soft cushions and frills and all things girly and diametrically opposed to all that is Eddie Munson. Dark and crass and bumbling and weird Eddie Munson.

"If you flunk out of Mr. Flout's class one more time, what's going to happen to you?" you had asked him casually earlier in the day as you'd walked by him staring at his test marked with a big red F. Eddie had looked up at you, shock quickly melting into an indifferent smirk.

"There's always trade school, baby," he'd shrugged and thrown up a peace sign.

That was when you suggested he come by your place that evening for tutoring.

Eddie is no fool. He knows what girls like you want. So he'd made sure to come equipped with his trusty lunch pail full of treats that would take the edge off being Miss Perfect / Daddy's Little Girl / Goody Two Shoes - whatever mantle it was that you wished to pluck off your head and cast gently aside for one blissful night. He assumed maybe a downer, maybe an upper, maybe a combo of both. He didn't know you well enough to assume. You seemed happy enough when skipping down the halls with your gaggle of friends, but maybe there was a secret side of you that wanted to disappear. You seemed focused when you were working on papers or quizzes in your shared classes with Eddie, but maybe you needed something that would give you that much more of an edge. Something to help you lock in.

Or maybe you just wanted to be able to turn your brain off for a bit. Eddie knew what that was like.

Sitting in your room now, however, Eddie was less sure. You hadn't closed the door behind him and immediately asked to check out the merchandise. You hadn't proffered up cash in an attempt to speed along a transaction. Instead you'd sat him down with a textbook and a notepad and actually started studying. It was weird. Eddie wasn't used to this kind of drug dealer foreplay. He assumed you were just nervous, though, so after a while, he decided he would have to be the one to make the first move.

"What's your poison, princess?" he asks, after a few moments of silence has settled between the two of you. You look up from your own book and furrow your brow. When you don't speak, Eddie continues. "Upon which journey of medicated oblivion do you wish to depart?"

That doesn't seem to make it any clearer for you.

"Huh?" you ask. The way your nose wrinkles in your confusion is kind of cute, but Eddie does his best to ignore it.

"Drugs. What drugs did you ask me here to sell you?" He speaks plainly because apparently you aren't ready for euphemism. Wow, you must be really new to this space.

Surprise ripples across your face, followed by immediate amusement.

"I didn't ask you here for any drugs. But you're welcome to partake if you like, of course." You gesture to his pail, proving you had known what was inside all along. Eddie shakes his head.

"I don't sample the goods, sweetie. I just sell 'em."

You snort in response, a decidedly unladylike reaction.

"You and I both know that's bullshit, Munson. I've seen you in class. Nine times out of ten you're high as a kite."

Eddie smirks and runs a sheepish hand through his hair. Oh you'd seen him, huh? You were looking?

"Guilty as charged. Then what did you ask me here for?"

"To study," you answer simply. The look on your face, however, implies that isn't all there is to it.

"And...?" Eddie presses. Your smile grows wider and you close your book. You shift on the bed beside him in a way that shifts your skirt, baring your thigh. Eddie's eyes go straight to that exposed swath of skin, right on cue.

"And...if we fool around a bit, that's a nice bonus." You say it as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. Obviously that's an additional thing that would happen on a study night like this. As obvious as a round of flash cards or a homemaker mother coming in with a tray of cookies and juice.

Which reminds him...

"Aren't your parents around?" Eddie asks. He adds a lilt of humor to his voice, though he means the question seriously.

"They're in Indianapolis for the night. I'm here all by my lonesome," you say with a faux coquettishness that causes an ache to begin forming in his throat. "You're here to keep me company."

All of a sudden the closed door to your room emanates with a kind of vibrating anticipation. A rushing begins in Eddie's ears, followed by a high pitched ring. Is he going to pass out?

You take the book from his lap and place it on the floor.

"So what's your poison, Eddie Munson?" you ask.

This is it. Eddie is actually short circuiting. He swallows but the sound resonates as a cartoon gulp.

"We don't have to...that's...we don't need..."

You place a hand on his shoulder and it just about burns through the fabric of his shirt.

"I know we don't need to do anything. What do you want?"

Eddie hesitates, but you read it as him not wanting to push, so you take matters into your own hands. Literally.

'Wait, what are you - oh fuck." Eddie's eyes blow wide as you sink to the floor in front of him, kneeling between his legs with one hand on his thigh and one hand on his crotch.

"I'm narrowing down the options for you, Munson," you say with a grin. "Helping you make a decision. I know it was hard to decide what you wanted. Really hard, it seems." You put more emphasis on your innuendo as you begin to stroke him through his jeans. You're right. He's hard. Just from this fucking teasing conversation he is hard as a rock. His cheeks and ears burn with humiliation. 

“That’s…fucking…”

“Well I wouldn’t say it’s fucking. But maybe a version of it,” you chuckle. Before he even understands what’s happening, you’re unbuttoning his jeans and lowering the zipper. If he hadn’t been wearing relatively constrictive boxer briefs he knows he would have all but sprung out the moment you freed him from the denim. You cup him through the fabric of his underwear and slide your hand up and down. “Now what have you been hiding from me, hm?”

Eddie can’t speak. He truly can’t form words. This can’t be happening right now. The amount of times he’d fucked his fist to the thought of you…this was absolutely absurd. He must have smoked too much weed and slipped into a catatonic state, trapped in his own erotic fantasies because what the actual fuck. 

Eddie’s continued lack of response does start to unnerve you, though. You slow your hand on his clothed cock and look up at him, trying to keep humor in your voice. 

“What’s going on? You’re acting like you’ve never had a girl on her knees before.”

“Um…”

“Stop messing with me,” you snort. But when Eddie continues frowning, you drop your hand from his lap. “You mean to tell me…”

“You can get up for this conversation,” Eddie says quietly, reaching out a hand. He doesn’t like the juxtaposition of the power dynamics. You on your knees in front of him. A situation that should objectively make him feel powerful, and yet all he feels right now is small. You take his proffered hand and allow him to pull you up to your feet. When you take a silent seat beside him on the bed, Eddie knows he’s going to have to explain. 

“So…yeah. I’ve never ‘had a girl on her knees’ before.” You nod understandingly, but Eddie knows you can’t possibly fully understand yet. “I’ve never ‘had’ a girl…period.”

A beat passes.

Another beat. 

Eddie had been staring down at the leather bracelets encircling his wrists, fiddling with the frayed edges. But at the continued silence he looks up to find you watching him, eyes wide with comprehension. 

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t realize, I wouldn’t have pressured you -,”

“No!” Eddie says a little too emphatically, making you jump. He grabs your hands to keep you next to him. “You didn’t pressure me at all. I want…this. I want…you. I just…”

“You just…?” you prompt, dipping your head down to force him to meet your eye despite his dropped chin. 

“I just don’t know what I’m fucking doing here, babe,” Eddie forces out with a humorless chuckle. You bite your lip to keep from laughing along. 

This is uncharted territory for you. Yes you’re experienced, but you’d really only ever been with guys who had way more experience than you. It was kind of where your forced confidence and teasing personality came from - a little bit of a fake it till you make it mentality. It usually kept guys from bowling you over or taking too much if they got the sense that you knew what you were doing. That you knew what you wanted. 

This is a completely different situation. You look at the shaggy-haired metal head in front of you and your heart throbs. Before this evening you’d seen him as a fun little roll in the hay. A cheeky little ‘fuck you’ to your overbearing parents and to the pristine nature of your wholesome image. Eddie was brazen at school. A loud-mouthed, swaggering, innuendo-spewing class clown with a guitar and a million things to say. You’d thought he’d be a decent ride, if nothing else. But now you see him, uncertain and shrinking into your bed, and you realize that you don’t know him at all. And based on the way he’s looking at you with fear and shame, he clearly doesn’t know you either. 

“That doesn’t matter to me, you know. Especially since I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, that I can tell, sweetheart.” Eddie’s laugh is genuine this time. He adjusts himself at the crotch, an action that calls your attention to the bulge still protruding in his boxers through his open jeans. He’s still hard. In spite of all the embarrassment and discomfort. Eddie Munson must really want you. 

Well good. Because you’ve decided that in spite of everything, you really want Eddie Munson.

When you reach down and push aside his hand, Eddie recoils only for a second. Your hand closes around his cock and he melts into the touch. 

“Jesusfuckingchrist,” he exhales. 

“That feel good?” you ask. 

“That better be rhetorical. Because this feels better than anything I’ve ever felt in the goddamn world.”

“That’s an exaggeration, Eddie,” you say, rolling your eyes. 

“No, it reeeeally fucking isn’t.”

“Well then you’re gonna explode when I do this.” Before Eddie can even realize what’s happening, you’ve peeled down his underwear, exposing his cock to the cool air of your bedroom. Your hand wraps around his length, feeling the velvety skin over his throbbing hardness and Eddie all but yelps. 

“Holy FUCK.”

“Yeah?”

“Ok now that is better than anything I’ve ever felt.”

You lick your hand and bring it back down to glide more easily along his shaft. You watch Eddie shudder.

“You do realize it will only escalate from here. You can’t keep saying that.” 

Eddie grips at the denim on his own thigh and grits his teeth. Your hand has begun to pick up speed. 

“Little newsflash for you, babe. I’m not exactly in control of the words coming out of my - GAH.” 

You smooth your thumb over the mushroom head of his cock, pleased by the wetness gathering at the tip. 

“You touch yourself, don’t you Munson? This can’t be so revolutionary.” You’re teasing him but you love how responsive he is. Love the way he looks at you like you’re made of shining gold. 

“My hands don’t feel anything like this and you know it.”

You lift one of his hands with your free hand and smooth your fingers over his skin. 

“Yeah. These calluses from guitar?” 

He can’t believe you’re speaking so casually while still continuing to jerk him off into oblivion. He’s the one being stimulated, sure, but how can you remain unphased when it feels like all of the heat in the universe is being concentrated in this room right now. Surely he can’t be the only one whose every molecule is on fire. 

When Eddie doesn’t respond to your callus question, you decide to take escalation into your own hands. Or rather…Eddie’s. 

When you place his hand on your breast, it has the exact effect you think it will have. Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline and his jaw drops to the floor. 

“Uhhh….” 

Dumbstruck. 

You decide that’s how you like him. 

“You gonna just sit there?” you ask playfully, dropping your hand and marveling at the fact that Eddie’s remains light and motionless when you left it. 

“What…can…how…?”

“Play with them,” you reply with a little shrug. When Eddie hesitates, you nudge him to move back up the bed. Once his back is up against your pillows, you straddle his thighs - just before his knees - and immediately get back to work on his cock. 

This time Eddie reaches for both of your breasts, and this time his grip is a little more firm. He begins to squeeze and release. When he finally gets adventurous enough to lightly twist your nipple through the fabric of your top and your unpadded bra you reward him with a moan. 

“So that…felt good?” Eddie asks hopefully. 

“You watch porn, Eddie. What do you think?” 

“I think I want to take these puppies out, let them breathe.” Eddie looks up at you with the biggest shit eating grin you’ve ever seen, clearly finally feeling more comfortable. 

“Ah, there’s the little shit I know and love,” you laugh. Your words send a zing through Eddie’s bloodstream but he suppresses it. There are more pressing matters at hand. Like the way your blouse simply falls away after he unbuttons it. And the way your breasts sit up in your bra - plump and ready for him to have his way with them. 

And so he does. 

When Eddie’s hands engulf your breast this time, their grip is definitive. You inhale sharply with the strength of his squeeze. Finally some stimulation. 

“It does feel good,” Eddie smirks. Your pleasure must be clear on your face. 

“Don’t get cocky,” you try to admonish him. It’s time to up the ante, so you wrap one hand around the base of his cock and begin moving your other hand faster up and down. 

“Holy shit.”

“There we go,” you say, satisfied. You’ve enjoyed being in control. This is such a rare luxury for you and you’ve decided you like it. The wet warmth blooming between your thighs definitely indicates that. 

“Hey…slow down…”

“Too much?” you ask, immediately slowing your motions, worried you’d pushed him too far. Eddie’s hands grip your breasts, almost as if to ground himself. 

“No it’s fucking amazing I’m just…I’m gonna cum - oh!” 

You immediately pick up the pace right back to what it had been a second ago. 

“That’s the idea, handsome.”

Eddie is lost in a flurry of sensation. Nobody has ever called him handsome before. But nobody has ever jerked him off before either, so maybe that’s not the most pressing thing for him to ruminate on. There you sit straddling his thighs with your hands moving on his cock, your breasts bouncing in his hands. He feels like he’s going to pass out if you don’t stop immediately. 

“Take off your shirt.”

“Huh?” Eddie asks, squinting up at you. Your words make no sense in the haze of his pleasure. 

“Take off your shirt,” you repeat, relatively urgently. He does as he’s told, ripping his shirt off by the back of the collar. When the fabric pulls up and over his face, he is greeted by the sight of you now without your bra. 

“Holy fucking shit.” 

You spit in your palm and begin stroking him again in earnest. With both of your hands focused on his length, your arms push your breasts together. Eddie moans on the verge of agony. 

“I’m gonna fucking cum.”

“This your first set of tits, Munson?” you ask, amused. This language is much more crass than you’d usually use, but there is something about Eddie - his lack of experience or maybe his unabashed enjoyment - that makes you feel comfortable speaking this way. 

“The first set that I can actually physically touch, yeah,” Eddie replies with full honesty and roguish smile. He surprises you by getting a big handful and pushing them together. His thumbs play with your exposed nipples and your hips begin to move against him. 

“You’re so turned on right now, aren’t you,” Eddie says through gritted teeth. His eyes squeeze shut against the divine pleasure of knowing that you’re rocking against him just as much as he’s rocking into your hands. 

It’s a glimmer of the dirty talk you might eventually be able to get from him. You like it. Like the teasing quality and the way it matches up to the way you’ve been addressing him. It does things to you and you know it would balloon his ego to know that you’re soaking through your panties right now. 

So you say the one thing that you know will throw him over the edge. 

“I want you, Eddie Munson. I want you inside of me.” 

The sputtering of words catching in his throat matches the way his hips stutter, cum spurting up and over your fists. It splashes hot and wet against his abdomen, which you had thankfully had the foresight to make him bare. Eddie lets out a guttural, shuddering groan. 

“Are you…fuck…jesus…are you fucking kidding me?” His hands fly off your breasts to cover his face. “God DAMN it.” 

Surprised by the sudden tone switch, you lift your wet hands from his leaking cock. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s….that was…I didn’t get to…” Eddie sounds confused and frustrated and breathless all at once. When he drops his hands from his face he looks up at you with a crumpled expression. “What about you?”

You have to bite your cheek to keep in the laugh that you know would hurt his feelings. 

“You just had your first handjob and you’re worried about me?” 

Eddie furrows his brow. 

“Well yeah. I want you to cum.” 

You shrug and gently dismount him. Reaching for your bedside table you grab a couple tissues, one which you hand over to Eddie. 

“That’s a hit or miss kind of thing, so don’t even worry about it.” 

Eddie wipes gingerly at the cum on his stomach and around the base of his flagging cock. 

“You mean…you don’t always cum?”

“Not always. But that’s normal.” You glide around your room, picking up your discarded clothes and dropping them neatly in your laundry basket. You open the top drawer of your dresser and pull out a gauzy white nightgown that, when pulled on, floats just to the upper middle of your thighs. You drop your skirt off your hips, leaving you in just a pair of panties beneath the delicate fabric. 

Eddie watches from his seat on your bed, still bedraggled from your shared sex act, shirtless with his jeans and boxers pulled down and his member now resting on his belly. It twitches with interest, however, at the sight of your nipples peaked through your nightgown. 

“I…I’d like to help you with that.”

Your face, and heart, soften at the earnestness in his voice. This poor, sweet, inexperienced weirdo in your bed wants to help you cum. Something that countless jocks and hot guys never even gave a passing thought to. Eddie stumbles to his feet and pulls up his boxer briefs and jeans. 

You climb back onto your bed into the space he’s now vacated. 

“Yeah? You want to help me cum, Munson?” You tease him as you lay against the pillows, one hand on your breast while you plant one foot on the mattress to bring your knee up. Your nightgown just barely covers your center, meaning Eddie can see a small swatch of your panties. Light pink. He feels his jeans tighten immediately. 

“I do.” He’s eager. It’s adorable. Eddie places a knee on the edge of your bed, mesmerized by the way your hands move over your body. 

“We’ll get to that,” you say quietly. Your voice breathy and inviting. 

“We will?” 

“Want to know the first step?” you ask. Eddie nods emphatically, eyes still trained on your hands, one of which has migrated to the apex of your thighs. 

“You’re gonna go home -,” You’re interrupted by a disagreeable harumph from Eddie. You smile. “You’re gonna go home and I’m going to touch myself to the thought of your cock.”

You can physically see the way the wind is knocked out of him. 

“Okay?” you prompt when he doesn’t reply. Eddie shifts restlessly. 

“Or I could help you now.” 

“No,” you disagree firmly. “We’ll build up to that.”

Eddie frowns. You know he’s disappointed, but you can feel your heart rate increase as you swirl your fingertip over your clit through your panties. Orgasms are hard for you to come by - pun intended - so you felt the urge to chase this one without additional variables. 

“Next time,” you add, hoping Eddie can see the promise in your face. He watches you silently for another moment, committing the image of you laid out and touching yourself to memory, before he nods and takes his knee off the bed. 

“Next time.” 

When Eddie leaves a few minutes later, the sound of his noisy van shuddering to life and peeling out beyond your window, you finally indulge yourself in the feeling you’ve been waiting for all night. 

You enjoy sex, sure. It wasn’t something that you had given much thought to. You’re pretty in a small town. You’re a cheerleader. It came with the territory that you were an object of lust and desire. Other young men enjoyed getting you naked and emptying themselves of their pent up hormonal tension. You found pleasure in the weight of their bodies and the knowledge that you were wanted. But there had never been much more to it than that. They rarely focused on pleasuring you beyond a tepid rub at the general vicinity of your clit. Their cocks sometimes rubbed a long neglected place deep inside of you, but the friction was always short lived. The occasional orgasm was always welcome but always fleeting. Even in the privacy of your own bed you found that they were often more work than they were worth. 

But tonight, you’d had a different experience. The man was beneath you, not on top of you. You had helped him reach a peak he’d never known before. And he’d looked at you like you were a goddess. 

When your fingers delve deep inside of you, you’re barely able to reach the place that aches with the promise of deeper pleasure. But for once, you have the feeling that somebody might be able to get you there.

When you cum from vigorously pressing on your clit, you cum with the vision of Eddie Munson in your mind’s eye. 

Next time, you think as you ascend. Next time. 

~*~ 

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I really hope you enjoyed this. PLEASE tell me if you did and what you liked about it. I want to see if it is worth doing a part 2 <3

[wesavegotham]

I (thankfully) have seen fewer people online write claims like "Bruce deserves better than a brat like Damian" in recent times, but I'm still grateful for every comic writer that let's Alfred comment on having a déjà-vu whenever Damian says something edgy/bratty because Bruce is often insufferable as an ADULT and him apparently being even more annoying as a child/teenager makes a lot of sense to me.

Add Bruce's questionable dating history to this and...yeah, why would he have a "well behaved and adjusted" kid? Bruce is difficult, his most famous love interests are difficult, so a mini-him with even more issues is actually the only realistic bio offspring I can see Bruce having.

And don't get me started on how many things Damian gets shit for that are things Bruce has done as well.

I guess I simply don't get people who have somehow convinced themselves that what Bruce does is always cool and right because he's their "male power fantasy" while they hate Damian because they dislike the idea of Bruce having 100% responsibilty as a basically single biological father (only pointing this out because with his adopted kids a writer can always blame their bio parents) and because they have problems self-inserting into an "uncool" child character.

Which is kind of ironic considering that Damian acting childish is more understandable than 40+ Bruce constantly still having no clue how to not be an asshole to his friends and family.

Anyway, I'm living for Alfred pointing out that teenage Bruce was annoying and edgy and that Bruce having to deal with that himself in the form of Damian is simply fair.

[seewetter]

"ofc we’re stupid and illiterate our schools suck!!!"

The whole framing is wrong.

Why are people talking about "stupid" Americans? Because they're discussing why America so often is plagued by decisions with foresee-ably terrible outcomes.

But America is an oligarchy, it's participatory elements are minimal and often pure aesthetic. How much control do people exercise in a first-past-the-post electoral system with massive corporate bribes (Superpacs) that also influence media reporting, which is also a surveillance and police state?

Rhetorical question, right? So if Americans barely exercise control, what are we criticizing? Are we criticizing the >70% of Americans who don't even own a firearm? Or the majority of Texans that vote Democrat...even though it's a "red state" due to how their laws work? Are we criticizing the American majority that shows sympathies for Bernie Sanders, support abortion, queer rights, trans rights, realizes climate change is real and is the reason why "woke" (diverse) Hollywood movies make such money?

Why criticize Americans for watching Marvel, when Marvel viewership numbers have collapsed over the years?

Why criticize Americans for not knowing who James Baldwin is, when James Baldwin is in many ways not someone who affected the course of history or someone who Americans -- who I am CERTAIN use the public library all the time -- would necessarily stumble upon when reading in a public library. What, did you learn about Baldwin from watching Nosferatu? Or maybe a Cronenberg movie? Would Americans borrowing books on history naturally stumble on Baldwin? If they borrow the collected speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. or the Autobiography of Malcolm X, will these reference James Baldwin?

People know who James Baldwin is because he is an excellent writer and certain white Jewish intellectuals in the 1970s stumbled across his prose and made him famous and later Baldwin would burn those ties and became famous within progressive activist circles. This does not mean that a visit to a public library will make people aware that he exists. You have to know what to look for.

Also progressives often know who he is but not what he said. How many progressives do you know who don't care that James Baldwin talked about the "myth of race", that James Baldwin considered post-racial thinking to be more progressive than identity politics? Most progessives who know Baldwin quote him second-hand or third-hand, why are you not mad at them? Why some nebulous idea of "Americans"?

"because you assholes have had FREE ACCESS to THOUSANDS of books and audiobooks and classic films this ENTIRE TIME you’ve been blaming your schools for your elected ignorance!!!"

In 19th century anarchist literature, a distinction was often made between the freedom to do something and the capacity to do something. The freedom and legal right to buy a yacht is nice...but if you can't actually buy a yacht, you have the freedom but not the capacity.

Like how many holidays and free weekends does the average American have? There has to be a better way to educate people with a busy schedule than shaming them about their ignorance, especially when ignorance is tied to class. DON'T misread me. I'm not saying working class people are ignorant. I'm saying some people can afford a very nice education for their kids and other people can't. "Oh, it's on the internet, which is free" is not how people spontaneously become enlightened.

Like: just have a chat with a Joe Rogan listener. They're mostly Trump supporters, but all of the ones I've met are achingly sincere. They really do have the wool over their eyes, they're usually not malicious. And they're really really ...like they don't have a good research strategy. They don't even know what that looks like. They think they're "studying" when they listen to podcasts. That's a thing they think. Do you think free access to libraries and internet has given these people all they need to free themselves from their shackles and the risks they pose to others? Do you think people just spontaneously sit down and every week for a year devote all available time to researching academic literature on a hot button topic? Many of these people don't even know where to find appropriate academic literature ("It's too expensive" thought one Rogan listener I know) and many of them associate these resources with academic agendas.

Look up "hermeneutics of suspicion". It's when people approach a topic looking for ways to confirm their suspicious feelings. That's what's going on there. People read some academic article and they suspect it's all BS. If they don't understand a concept, they assume someone is trying to manipulate them. And why shouldn't they, the media is blatantly dishonest, academia has a number of crises and universities have certain conflicts of interest. Why shouldn't these people spontaneously start from such a place? It's not your job to shame them, because if you do, they assume you are doing so from a place of ideological fanaticism, rather than from a place of informed frustration. You know the meme where trans people talking about gender is represented as Plato and Aristotle in the agora, having a debate, while trans people talking to cis people about gender is represented as a mom helping her toddler assemble building blocks? That analogy applies to any topic. There are a lot of adult "toddlers" out there and if you call them toddlers to their face, they will rightfully be ashamed and upset. They put a lot of work into forming their beliefs, they just don't have a good starting point. Or decent tools. Or non-judgmental 24/7 help. And they exist in a quagmire of bullshit claims. And they relate to misinformation in a vibes-based way if the information otherwise seems to be applicable and more useful in their life.

If someone lives in a media environment that reassures them that they are currently studying the (alternate) facts and informing themselves, or that they are currently getting the gist of the facts from experts, then people won't necessarily use the library or grasp its value. Also you have to use the library correctly.

"and if you expect me to you’re classist and 18 year old Americans are too stupid to know bombing foreign countries kills people so it’s okay if they choose to do that rather than work at McDonald’s and of course I have no idea what stocks are or what colonialism is and MCU is the height of cinema and it’s feminist to wear makeup like."

I find teens accusing every intellectual impulse of being classist and ableist unbearable too, but not so long ago, this website popularized the idea that the only valid criticism of feminism was an anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-ableist, anti-transmisogynist, anti-perisexist etc. criticism.

In other words "I refuse to course correct unless you show me how my current course hurts a minority."

So yes, people will defend American complacency using ridiculous "anti-classist" rhetoric. Because it's the only defense they've seen modelled and maybe even the only defense that's socially permitted in their circle of friends.

Defenses of war crimes are horrible. Period. If people think Americans don't have a partial responsibility just because they were ignorant, they're wrong. But partial responsibility isn't full blame and more importantly: are real Tumblr users actually saying that exact thing in good faith? Are people out there defending ignorant Americans who never talked to a soldiers about what a bomb is and does or who never watched a bomb dropped in a movie?

I agree Disney adults can be irritating, but I think that most Americans aren't Disney adults and those that are... are from all walks of life and varying degrees of ignorance. Are Disney adults, Marvel fans, the ones who don't grasp that bombs kill people? Or is this a weird mishmash of stereotypes that don't capture why America, as a state institution, is such a horror? To me it's also sad that Americans get overly emotional about Mickey Mouse and that Marvel movies got so successful, but I think this is not really connected to America. Marvel movies and Disney parks aren't uniquely American, America is just -- at gunpoint -- the largest economy in the world, so a lot of junk that people worldwide consume comes from there. Disney Parks in Japan or France do quite well and also involve Disney Adults, we just don't hear about them so much and the money is ultimately made by America, a country with military bases in almost every other country. Is this the fault of Disney Adults in Orlando, Florida? I don't think so.

Also makeup is an "unfeminist choice", but feminists should, in fact, fight for people's freedom to make unfeminist choices. Kate Harding had an entire essay on that.

As for the reply:

When trying to convince someone that their reasons for believing something are faulty, always make sure to point out what they may have missed and try not to miss anything yourself.

Let me provide a few examples:

"Did you know that to get to a library here, you have to travel?"

The person you are responding to wrote (and you acknowledged it with "I'm glad you found a way to access our libraries") that to read the contents of a library, all that is needed is digital access.

So then "did you know you have to travel" doesn't make sense as the next sentence. It's on its face unconvincing.

"Since you know so much about us, you must know that our public transportation system is all but non-functional, and a lot of people can't even afford bus fare, let alone their own vehicle, and most of our cities are not walkable. The closest library in the town where my half-siblings grew up was a 30-minute drive away. But there are digital libraries, of course!"

Of course! And their existence invalidates all the detailed descriptions you just provided for the inaccessibility of American libraries. Americans that don't use the libraries don't use them because (A) they forget these exist (B) they don't want to use them (sometimes out of shame, sometimes out of misguided conviction).

"Did you know that not every single one of us stupid Americans has access to a home computer and internet?"

The OP you are responding to was concrete about being frustrated by kids (18 19 20 year olds) on Tumblr. If they're on Tumblr, they must have internet and must be able to access an internet library.

"Did you know that exceptionally strict conservative parents monitor their childrens' internet usage and restrict what they can see?"

Yes and.

Yes, and this influences blindspots that some Americans have.

See, on its own "do you know some parents monitor internet" creates a strawman example, where the people OP was attacking (people who freely use tumblr.com, "the queerest site on the internet") are somehow being treated as if they have parents that monitor their internet usage and censor all content that might burst their conservative bubble. I hope we can agree that these are two different groups of Americans.

"Did you know that school library media centers (computer labs) restrict access to a lot of websites and information that do not pertain to curriculum? Of course you did."

But if the people are goofing around on Tumblr calling others "classist" for expecting them to know stuff, how is the computer lab not restricting their Tumblr access? How does Tumblr pertain to their curriculum?

It's possible that this is a censorship oversight or something, but again, the real counterargument against OPs nonsense isn't "Americans aren't free to know new information" and rather "Americans often lack the capacity to even know what they're looking for". I don't think OP name-dropping James Baldwin and stocks will have given people any real idea of what they need to look for, especially if they need comprehensive education on everything from ecology to statecraft and civics to economics, to history, geography, moral philosophy, epistemology, foreign policy, marginalized perspectives and activism, statistics, organizing, protesting safety, IT security and data protection, narrative structure, narrative experimentation, artistic craft, avant-garde sensibilities (I'm being entirely unironic about that.), reading comprehension, project management, culinary skill, survival skills, networking skills, the list goes on.

This also isn't merely an "American" problem. I know plenty of Australians, Kiwis, Canadians, Europeans who use gmail accounts, don't understand imperialism and need a crash course in epistemology every time a hot button issue comes into discussion because they just keep shouting at each other without treating the other party as a human being with their own heuristic for gathering, evaluating and processing information.

"Did you know that lobbyists are trying very hard to defund and even actively shut down our libraries. Partially because they don't want us to have access to free recources, but also because ignorance works in their favor? Did you know book bans are being placed in libraries across the country, based on what conservatives deem inappropriate?"

Most of those points seem a little off topic (lobbyists trying to defund libraries may affect future ignorance but doesn't account for ignorance today), but I grant that the book bans really might have some kind of impact that prevents people from having heard of James Baldwin. It's a decent reply to the OP, who seems to think all libraries serve up the same information to all Americans. But you should be fair enough to recognize that it still is a bit weird when the people who show up ignorant are ...Tumblr users smart enough to be making accusations of classism.

"Since you know all about how we are educated, you must know that American curriculum is designed to discourage curiosity and create the illusion that we are far and above all other nations and that everything we are taught in our classes about others is simply all there is to know."

What I've heard is that many public school teachers in America are extremely dedicated well-meaning people. I've met a few American teachers and their German counterparts, for example, earn about 20 times what they earn. So American teachers often really are in it to help kids learn.

I'm not sure that the American curriculum really exists to "discourage curiosity", that sounds a bit weird to me. I do know the Texas board of education tried to ban critical thinking and I know American schools have some weird national anthem singing and I bet they teach American exceptionalism. But I would say perhaps the only reason any of that sticks is because Americans often can't afford to visit other countries.

I have not heard that Americans learn that school teaches them all there is to know, but when I think of ignorant Americans, they often give me the opposite impression: that of a "do your own research type" who doesn't think "I know everything from school" and instead just never bothered to buy a book about Atmospheric Phenomena (or grab a illegal free .pdf copy) and therefore thinks some glittering orb in the sky is a alien spacecraft. Genuinely, ignorant people are often really nice people who try to learn about the world, have a real desire to learn new things... and then they watch Graham Hancock or some other well-designed nonsense and they mis-educate themselves and get very defensive if anyone tries to correct them, however gently, in part because they lack even the basic skills to know whether the correction is plausible.

"So, with all of this information that you clearly already had at your disposal, do you genuinely believe these children are cognizant or at all concerned with how much they know about other countries and cultures?"

I think the better question to ask is "Do you really think only Americans would fail at "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?""

Because let's face it, I've seen European versions of that premise, where they go out into the street, ask a basic question ("What's the equator?") and get embarrassing answers ("A line that floats in the sky above the center of our planet").

OPs gripe with "Americans" is that they know other countries exist but just don't care. But hey, are Europeans that much better? In Europe, people know European countries...because countries are small and these are almost like American "states" in a way, especially since the EU is in many ways a country in all but name (and lack of military). How many Europeans know how many African countries there are, what their names are, what their capitals are, what their history is, what colonial powers kept which country under control when and for how long? How many Europeans know anything about Laos or Cambodia? Do Europeans even know which continent Cambodia is on?

And I've talked to Japanese people and found incredible ignorance. And do we imagine that the education system in, say, Burkina Faso or Brazil produces much more worldly individuals?

If you want to criticize specifically American ignorance you need to things: you need lots of real-life examples AND you need to prove these examples are unique to America.

Like India recently managed to get a lot of kids into school long enough to learn how to read, which is awesome! But if someone from India (like OP) is attacking American ignorance, OP is likely doing so from a certain degree of "wealth in the family". That's not a criticism, just a (hopefully humbling) observation. Countries around the world can blame their widespread ignorance on colonialism...and then get upset at ignorant colonizers. But maybe no place on Earth really produces a completely sufficiently informed citizenship.

"Adults who are groomed through adulthood to believe that "bombing foreign countries" and selling their body to their government is one of the only accessible options to receive further education."

Isn't the American military facing historically low recruitment numbers and worried about morphing into a "warrior caste" (their words, not mine) because their recruits mostly come from old military families where everyone's in the military? Not to say the poor person going to the army doesn't exist, but aren't most Americans pretty anti-military, especially these days?

"You believe these people are simply bumbling idiots too self-absorbed to want to learn about the history and inner workings of every other nation around them?"

Why emphasize that public schools brainwash the kids with American exceptionalism and then turn around to argue that the people leaving public school AREN'T self-absorbed about their own country? That comes off as overly defensive, not as a reflective response. I doubt OP found that argument very convincing.

"Like, you understand that not knowing what you don't know is a thing, yes?"

But OP must at least be partially correct. Like -- I would blame maybe feelings of overwhelm at all the information, and maybe mistrust of information sources -- but it does often come across, at least at first glance, that a lot of Americans can't be bothered to understand basic geography. Like they know countries outside of America exist, but aren't bothered enough to find out what they are.

Again, this is probably not a purely American problem, but one does sometimes get the impression that many Americans approach conversations without making sure they have a bit of an overview of the topic. They often just seem to research the talking points of their side in a debate (i.e. they know the history of colonialism better than they know which countries have Spanish as an official language, so it's easy to make them look stupid or they have to ask what tariffs are but they already think tariffs are great since Trump is doing them...like why aren't they reading the "tariffs" page on Wikipedia or whatever, to get at least a general idea? What's going on?)

"I would go as far as to point out the hypocrisy of all of your shaming when the beginning of your post clearly states that you were ignorant of a resource available to you before it was pointed out to you."

Now that's a sick burn. But don't get cozy.

"Your time spent belligerently accusing a whole society of people which you deem unintelligent of being willfully uneducated and unwilling to reach beyond their own privilege would be better spent sharing resources you've found and encouraging others to broaden their own horizons. But hatred of the American public as a whole is a lot easier when you can paint us all as intentionally dumb and heels-dug-in fascists."

It is hard for people to grasp how little control Americans have over their society. When America always advertises itself as "land of the free" it seems like they freely choose to be giant assholes on the world stage.

And it's only with a lot of reflection and/or research that people realize just how much the game is rigged. But still...the people who just flat out support tariffs, for example, without wasting a single braincell on experimenting on how they can find information on it that doesn't come from a possibly biased pro-Trump source...like it feels like willful ignorance. Part of me can't believe it isn't.

ever since i got access to american library cards thanks to tumblr user anneemay (pbuh) 2 weeks ago ive lost even the 3% sympathy i had for americans crying ofc we’re stupid and illiterate our schools suck!!! because you assholes have had FREE ACCESS to THOUSANDS of books and audiobooks and classic films this ENTIRE TIME you’ve been blaming your schools for your elected ignorance!!! from my home in India I’ve listened to eight audiobooks and watched half of cronenberg’s oevre and I’m watching nosferatu (1922) today and I can’t even go to a library in person and you people have had these things your entire life yet you come on tumblr at 18 19 20 and say you don’t know who james baldwin is and if you expect me to you’re classist and 18 year old Americans are too stupid to know bombing foreign countries kills people so it’s okay if they choose to do that rather than work at McDonald’s and of course I have no idea what stocks are or what colonialism is and MCU is the height of cinema and it’s feminist to wear makeup like. my god. you people are going to go through the rest of your life being incoherently stupid and it’s not because you’re poor and it’s not because your schools suck but its because you’re so ensconced in your American privilege that you will never be forced to confront the realities of life and you can go on living your Disney adult fantasies because you’ve destroyed your innate human curiosity and potential at the altar of hyper consumption.

[murasaki-cha]

After the Ithaca Saga, I believe that Odysseus thought he and Athena were officially done forever and would only occasionally see each other because she was mentoring Telemachus now. He really thinks there's no way they can reconnect anymore and attempt at a friendship this time, but he's fine with it, he can accept it.

That is until Telemachus goes up to him one day like:

"Hey father, can I ask you something?"

"Yes son, of course."

"You mentored under Athena before right? Do you happen to know a friend of hers?"

"Oh I... I wasn't aware Athena had friends before. She was very adamant about that "No Friends" rule back then... kind of stings."

"Oh really? She talks about him a lot."

"Does she now? *mumbling* must be so special about this fRieNd of Athena..."

"Yeah she told me about this one time he wanted to impress someone, so he climbed on all the way to the tree branch next to the balcony of their room and leaned against the trunk to look cool, but he kept talking to Athena in her owl appearance so he didn't notice the other person going to the balcony and he got so spooked when they called out to him, he turned too fast and lost balance, slipped, smacked his ass on the tree branch and broke his arm when he fell, so he had to wear a sling for 3 months and couldn't sit down for 2 weeks."

"....call Athena right now."

"Why-"

"ATHENA!!!"

The second Athena appeared, Odysseus threw himself at her, on one hand going "YOU CONSIDER ME YOUR FRIEND WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO!?!?!?!" and on the other going "WHY ARE YOU TELLING MY SON ALL MY EMBARRASSING STORIES!?!?! THAT WAS BETWEEN ME, PENELOPE AND YOU!!"

He was actually crying. Athena has absolutely no idea what is happening or what she should do. Telemachus just discovered a whole new side of his dad and might know where he gets it from now....

[kaisentine]

݁ ִ  ۫ ⸺ ❝ 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔　.ᐟ　❞

⌗ ⸺ ❝ 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯’𝘵 . . ! ❞ the one thing you dread the most is your friends overanalyzing and hyping you up all because of a simple interaction with your crush—so annoying! ft. michael kaiser, itoshi sae, shidou ryusei, nagi seishiro, & oliver aiku general cw. just idiots in love, reader is so deep into denial it’s infuriating, highschool au, shidou, fem reader . . . ( MY BAD ) sticky-note i think i just yapped my brains out with this one ( what’s new! ). bomb idea, explosive writing! NAWT PROOFREAD

sticky note. BAEE 😁 thought of this cuz i was also doing snapstreaks

𐔌 . 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐋 𝐊𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐑 is apparently so into you because . . . ❝ he snaps you in the morning ! ❞

your friend seems way more excited than you are. it’s way too early for her to already be geeked out at you opening kaiser’s snap for streaks. “i don’t get it,” you say as you open the image—he’s still at home even though most students are already in their respective classes, it’s the side of his face and really nothing special ( if you didn’t like him ). “he’s the epitome of ‘i don’t snap til i’m done with training.” she explains further yet you still don’t understand why she’s pointing it out. “does that quote even exist?” you ask, she’s off with your phone to observe the very thought out ( not really ) photo and shoves your phone into your face with her manicured finger pointing something out. “never mind that! look!” she has effectively made your brain’s circuit cut short because you don’t understand. you grab her wrist to control the distance so you can actually see. why is she pointing at his hair? “what am i looking at?” you voice your exact thoughts. “not tryna be mean to your crush or whatever, but it’s clear he has bed head!” she exclaims, attempting to remove your hand from her wrist, “there’s a reason he only snaps after training . . .” she ends in a murmur. “ha-ha, very funny. i still don’t get it.” you fake laugh at her sly comment and finally surrender her arm—letting it drop. “he hates people seeing him in the morning because of that,” she contemplates saying what she is just about to say—when has she ever done that? “maybe he wants to be the first man you see in the morning, that’s why!” she giggles, and your jaw drops; that is the biggest stretch she has ever came up with! “are you a lunatic?!? the last thing i’d want to do is show him me in the morning . . . he probably hates me!” this reaction of yours wasn’t what you friend wanted to get out from you. she was expecting to see a gleam of hope in your eyes but instead she’s met with a gloss of panic.

actually, your friend was spot on—he snaps you in the morning because he wants to be the first man you see in the morning. the strategy isn’t as effective as he would like it to be because despite the fact he has a pretty reasonable schedule like how he sleeps 7 hours every night, he only knocks out at about 2 am. he’s probably more effective at being late for school if anything. however, he’d rather you see him as at least one of the first males you see at such an ungodly time with ungodly bed head than you seeing him rush into the classroom because he’s late for the first time you glance at his ( glorious ) face that day. the man also decides he’s way too good for the stupidly cute filters you can find on the app so those are out of question—random wall photos are too. gets ness to hype him up and then chastises him if you don’t even look his way.

sticky note. i feel like this is a stupid reason but it’s such a funny concept

𐔌 . 𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐒𝐇𝐈 𝐒𝐀𝐄 is apparently so interested in you because . . . ❝ he ate a fry . ❞

your friend is dead serious but you’re just looking at her like ‘oh you actually serious?’. “sorry, what?” you bring your ear closer to her mouth in hopes you probably just misheard what she said. “he. ate. a. fry.” she repeats—nope she is definitely not joking with you. “i don’t see how sae eating a fry relates to him liking me,” you start deadpanning at her attempt at convincing you itoshi sae likes you—she sucks at this! she cocks a brow and gives you a dirty look, “i have a theory you might not actually like him . . . God that man hates fries.” she shudders at the thought. “they were the fries you brought!” she adds on, quickly regaining her composure from pure terror. “okay . . . yeah but it was one singular—not plural—fry, are you okay?” yes, you have a point, it was one fry, and now you’re concerned for you friend. she raises her hands up in surrender while sighing like she was just defeated—have you finally tamed the hostile creature? nope. there’s a sudden stupid smirk on her face that looks straight-up devious, “and plural—not singular—reasons why he is sooo interested!” she elongates and dramatizes the ‘so’, and you mentally slap yourself to make up for the stupidness you can feel radiating off her words. “i can never win with you, can i?” you ask but the answer is already clear—you cannot.

yup, sae hates fries, dearly—that isn’t some kind of secret because he is pretty open about it. once even telling you friend to . . . “fuck off,” when she thought it was a good idea to offer him the stick of pure deliciousness ( hence why she gets shivers thinking about it ). he doesn’t care about a lot of things like how he doesn’t bother himself with keeping most things private or public because he simply just does not give a flying shit. neither does he really care if he makes his feelings clear or not—mixed signals king! sure, he likes you but that doesn’t stop him from being nonchalant. the only time he’ll make openings are in soccer and anything other than that—he just lets it happen. that means if he is given a chance to ‘make a move’ and it’s served on a silver platter without him needing to excerpt any more effort? he’ll take it. if he isn’t, he waits for the next time. but that man doesn’t know anything about feelings so he thinks eating something you brought is making a move.

sticky note. this man is a FREAK but he’s a simple guy promise

𐔌 . 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐎𝐔 𝐑𝐘𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐈 is apparently so downbad for you because . . . ❝ he said ‘if i was a velociraptor, i’d eat y/n first’ ? ! ❞

your friend reads off her phone and accidentally pushes her desk towards your chair. “HUH?” you’re just as surprised as your friend is—shidou ryusei actually said that? “you have to look at this,” she states and smacks you in the face with her phone ( deja vu WHO ), it’s the school’s blog and the post is exactly what she just said. “that’s just . . . i mean—what?” you find it quite hard to comprehend what you were reading because what do you mean the weird guy you like posted that? “is that edited?” you ask for confirmation—you literally can’t believe it. she clicks the profile and it is him, you feel your face flush when you’re bombarded with images of him. “i get it! i get it!” you bark and swat her hand away, “whydoievenlikehim—“ you mutter before covering your eyes like you just saw something so distasteful. “girl, i don’t know . . . but he totally likes you,” she shrieks, turning off her phone so such madness is no longer seen. you aren’t entirely buying it, “i doubt it, if i was some kind of carnivorous animal, i wouldn’t eat the guy i like—at all!” you say with a frown on your face. she looks at you, looking even more horrified at what you just said to her. “his thinking process is probably out the window, y’know? he probably just means he wants you to be with him forever!” “in his stomach? no thanks.”

what makes you think shidou ryusei is okay in the head in the slightest? if he likes someone—he makes it so obvious! he doesn’t second guess his words, much less his online posts so as soon aas he was done typing out the words, he clicked post almost immediately. doesn’t regret it one bit. his eyes land anywhere but sae? that is truly a feat . . .

sticky note. does this even happen. also nagi really likes sleeping

𐔌 . 𝐍���𝐆𝐈 𝐒𝐄𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐎 is apparently so desperate for you because . . . ❝ he sleeps on your shoulder . ❞

your friend is referring to the multiple times your crush has decided to accidentally fall asleep on your shoulder. “so . . .” you urge her to elaborate her point further than she already has. “and he only does it when he’s next to you,” she discerned, whipping out photo evidence in the form of a printed piece of paper. it’s really nothing too special—just the two of you sitting next to each other on the waiting lounge’s couch, waiting for your guys’ turn for the school’s mandatory medical check-up. he looks quite comfortable, arms crossed and manspreading ( 😭 ) but his head is rested on your shoulder—sleeping. “. . .why’d you print it,” you gasp at such an absurd action to prove a point and you quickly rip the paper out of her hands, “you’re insufferable.” you shake your head in disappointment. “a girl gotta do what she gotta do, y’know! how much more obvious does he need to be???” ugh, she’s being so dramatic—he’s just sleeping on your shoulder. “he probably realized i . . .didn’t mind so he doesn’t care,” you reject the idea. “you might be the insufferable one—why do you think he keeps doing it?” she says and you so want to side eye her but you aren’t going to turn sideways to do that because that is mad embarrassing. “i don’t know! he’s just some sleepy guy like,” you give her a pout before continuing, “. . .and people said that they feel sleepy around me.” you admit. “nah, they’re just saying you’re boring!” she giggles—did you not put that together? you playfully push her shoulder in annoyance. “but i’ll give you the answer—he wants to close to you, or in other words; he likes you!”

nagi is the type of lazy where he thinks it’s too much of a hassle to confess first but thinks making physical advancements don’t count. he can easily sleep anywhere, honestly. he likes his sleep but he loves good sleep and you just feel like a good person to sleep on so he decides to try it—and he’s right. he did do it accidentally the first time, it was on his mind but he really didn’t mean to! sleep just drenched his eyes and he was out cold—on your shoulder. there, he decides he likes you more than just a comfy pillow to doze off on.

sticky note. i feel like reader is very justified LMFAO. yk i have a friend who has more than a mu or a situationship but aren’t dating and she said he longest more than friends but not not dating was like 4 years

𐔌 . 𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐈𝐊𝐔 aiku is apparently so smitten for you because . . . ❝ girl, he confessed . . . ❞

your friend resists the overwhelming urge to bitch-slap you because you long-pressed your dms with him. the message wasn’t some kind of special confession just a simple ‘hey i know we just started talking but i think i’m inlove with you’ God reading that made you cringe. “yeah nope, not buying it.” you know he probably knows you saw it because of that stupid green dot on your profile but his message is still left on delivered. “why not?” she asks, “he knows you’ve read it, why edge him?” she pulls out her phone from her bag and faces her back towards you. “what are you doing . . ?” you’re honestly scared what she’s planning because even though you could also just stand up and look over her shoulder—she’d run out of the classroom and disappear. “texting someone,” she says while she’s rapidly typing out something, her shoulders shaking. “i don’t like the sound of that,” you refer to the hidden underlining of her tone, “you’re scaring me—ugh—whatever. i just started texting him, he barely knows me, he’s probably had 4 girlfriends in the span of 5 months—what makes me any different?” like—not trying to degrade yourself but you’re worried that he’s just going to play you too. “if he does, i’ll break his heart!” she says in resolve, doing the cliche moment of lifting up a fist and you giggle at her. there’s a quick buzz from your phone and it’s from the girl in-front of you, “what’s this?” you raise an eyebrow, clicking the notification pop-up. “just read it,” okay . . . if she insists. dot. dot. dot. there’s invisible crickets going off in your head. “is this from sendou?” “uh-huh.”

unbeknownst to you, your friend was actually texting her situationship ( of like 8 months LMFAO )—sendou shuto to ask him about oliver’s confession since they’re friends and all. ‘aiku n y/n? oh yeah he’s totally smitten man, i ain’t never seen aiku talk about a girl like he does w her’ is the message she forwarded to you that let the crickets rip! no but seriously, he normally has cycles like when he’s with one girl but then breaks up with her because he got eyes for another but now he promises that he only wants you!

bonus on why reo likes you because i might not be writing as much as i did this week because of school :p

mikage reo ⸺ ❝ he bought your entire christmas wishlist . . . ❞