#why i never said anything or why i never wanted to do anything or why i didnt ever want to eat so i also felt like everyone hated me

[missdynamighttt]

HEARRRRR MEEEEE OUTTTT

you and older bf! bakugo katsuki on the beach together. and i mean.. OLDER. (reader at her early 20's, katsuki in his mid-30's)

the sun was high in the sky, casting a golden hue over you as the waves gently met the grainy sand with a salty breeze.

you were at the beach, peacefully sat in front of your boyfriend, katsuki, on a soft blanket as he smothers sunscreen on your back.

he insisted on putting it on for you. not because he wanted to touch your bare skin or anything, but because:

"why so insistent, hm, old man?"

"what, a man can't take care of his girlfriend 'nymore?"

you laugh, leaning back to kiss his cheek. "i suppose he can. such a considerate boyfriend you are."

"tch, damn right," he mutters, reciprocating your kiss by dropping an affectionate peck to your shoulder.

"gotta keep your pretty skin protected, doll. and don't get me started on your whinin' when you do get sunburned."

although he'll never admit, its a damn good excuse to feel your soft, warm skin.

after awhile, he finishes applying the sunscreen on your back and gives your ass a soft pat. "all done."

you turn around to face him with a smile, settling onto your knees in front of him. Your arms wrap around his neck, pulling him closer as your gaze meets his.

"you're so good to me, katsuki."

katsuki's arms quickly slide around your waist on instinct, raising an eyebrow at your suggestive praise. he doesn't mind, though. he always indulges his pretty little girlfriend.

"i plan to be good to you for a long time, doll. get used to it."

a small, affectionate smile spreads across your face as you feel your heart melt a little. he always had such a way with words, its sickeningly sweet.

you reach behind him and give his ass a playful squeeze, grinning at him. "c'mon, i'll do yours."

katsuki scoffs, a soft huff leaving his lips as you grab his behind. he nods, slowly untangling himself from you, his back facing you. "go ahead. and no messin' around."

you reach for the sunscreen and put some on your hand with a grin, taking your time to map out the contours and curves of his back. his own hands rest on your thighs as yours trail over his muscles, tracing every little dip and scar, admiring what makes him, him.

as your hands start to roam along his muscles, you can't resist the urge to give his muscles a quick, appreciative squeeze, feeling the tightness beneath your fingertips before you settle down to spread the sunscreen evenly again.

his hands grip your thighs slightly as he felt you grope his muscles, a quiet yelp escaping your lips.

"watch it."

"oh, don't worry. that was on purpose."

"tch, brat."

you laugh softly as your eyes rake over his physique, taking in the sight of his muscular back and strong arms.

"can't help it, katsuki. you're just so... hot."

he shakes his head in annoyance, but a blush spreads across his face at your comment.

"hush. we're in public."

"and? theres no one around! besides, i'm only calling you hot. my handsome, grumpy, jacked boyfriend with a huge dic-"

"doll, you're lucky i love you so much or i'd shut your ass up for good."

a soft chuckle escapes your lips as you smile, mumbling a soft "i love you too," as you finish with the sunscreen. "all done."

katsuki turns back to face you, looking around to make sure no one was really there, before he reaches out and grabs your waist, pulling you into his lap.

your eyebrow raises in surprise and amusement, a playful grin spreading across your face as you adjust in your position, straddling him, wrapping your arms around his neck.

"i thought you said we were in public."

"don't care. couldn't resist you 'nymore, sweets. sittin' there, teasin' me and lookin' all pretty. i'm only an old man, y'know."

"aww, katsuki," you tilt your head, wearing a soft smile. "think i'm sooo pretty, huh?"

katsuki lets out a soft chuckle, a weak smile on his lips as his eyes roam over your face. he reaches out and tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear, his hand cupping your cheek gently.

"baby, you're the most beautiful woman i've ever laid eyes on. of course you're pretty. so goddamn pretty that i wanna take real good care of you as a husband but i also wanna fuck you so hard until the bed breaks."

the grin on his face spreads. "or you. whichever comes first."

you were like a deer in headlights, your heart and pussy melting as you try to process his words. you knew he always kept his word, so...

"a-as a husband..?"

"you heard me. i'm sure i ruined other men for you 'nyway. hell, you think i'm gonna let anyone else have you, sweets? even if you don't have the ring, which you will... you're absolutely, my most drop-dead gorgeous fucking wife."

he looks at your bewildered expression, the grin still on his face as he reaches for your hand, kissing your knuckles.

"you have a problem with that, wife?"

you shake your head, still feeling flustered and a little embarrassed by his declaration. but you knew.. this was the moment you mentally declared you definitely wanted him to make you juno.

but before you can say anything, katsuki leans in and plants a gentle, soft peck on your lips. when he pulls back, his gaze is filled with nothing but love. "good. now, lets go swim."

you nod but before you can even begin to stand up, katsuki tightens his grip on your waist and lifts you up into his arms, adjusting you as you're cradled against his chest in a classic bridal style.

"katsuki!" you yelp, laughing, trying (and failing) to escape.

"what? you think i'm gonna let you walk when i can just carry you?" he grins down at you before he starts walking toward the ocean.

"katsuki bakugo, i swear to god, if you drop me-"

"me? drop you? baby, be serious. i'd never even dare to think about letting go of you."

you roll your eyes at him with a playful grin as his toes dip into the water. he starts to lower you both, settling into a comfortable position.

you straddle him once more, feeling his strong hands shifting you, adjusting your body so that it fits even more snugly against his own.

he looks up at you with a smirk as he plants gentle kisses on your shoulders and neck. his arms wrap around your waist and his bare chest presses against yours.

"katsuki.." you bite your bottom lip, feeling hot and bothered.

"hm?" he hums, as his lips ghost over your skin. "somethin' in that pretty little head of yours, baby?"

"this isn't really.. swimming."

"yeah? how is that my problem?"

"katsuki. we're in public. we can't—"

"baby, we could. no ones around to see anythin'. besides, when have we ever let that stop us?"

"still.." a small huff escapes your lips as your cheeks heat up. the memories flood your mind, feeling your heart rate speeding up and your core painfully clenching down on nothing as you try to keep your composure.

katsuki knew you were contemplating and he was encouraged. one of his hands slowly slid up from your hip along your ribcage, his thumb brushing gently against the side of your right breast.

"c'mon, doll," he coos, slipping his hand inside your bra, fondling you. "no one's gonna know. please, please let me fuck you."

you can't think clearly as he pinches your nipple, your moans echoing in your ears. your mind is fogged with thoughts of the need to feel him, to feel his cock filling you up to the brim. then, you find yourself nodding.

"good girl."

"not.. here though. saltwater feels weird and i'm scared you might step on a sea urchin or something."

katsuki looks up at you with a grin, his eyes meeting yours with a mix of amusement and willingness to do whatever it takes to please you. he nods, giving your lips a peck. "yes, ma'am."

katsuki's lips crash into yours, pressing them together in a sloppy, and intensely needy kiss as he lays you down on the blanket. there's a hunger behind his kiss that takes your breath away, feeling a little light-headed as he messily claims your mouth.

his hand desperately finds your inner thighs, rubbing your throbbing clit through your panties before pulling it to the side.

with his other hand, he takes his cock out, slowly aligning it towards your slit. the both of you gasp softly as the tip of his cock and your clit kiss.

your eyes roll to the back of your head as he slowly thrust his cock into you, holding onto your hips tightly.

"i'm suprised you.." you taunt him, wanting him to go harder on you, rougher. "still have so much energy, old man."

his eyes narrow at you, rolling his hips softly against yours as your chests heave together. "you've got jokes now, sweets?"

"uh-huh," you breathe out. "it's.. adorable you can still keep up with me."

"adorable, huh?"

"yeah.. i mean.. you're doing great for someone who remembers when condoms didn't exist.. thats why you're fucking me raw, right..?"

"call me old one more damn time.."

"what? gonna lecture me about respecting my elders?"

he doesn't bother with a response as he starts pounding into you harder, your moans echoing in his ears like a melody. he holds onto your hips tighter as he watches the girthy base of his cock covered by a ring of your creamy slick, roughly kissing your folds.

katsuki might've been an 'old man' but he never lacked the stamina to rail the shit out of you. he always managed to fuck you silly, dumb you down into a cock-hungry little thing.

"oh, fuck yes," he hisses as he feels your legs wrap around him. "still think i'm too old for you, huh?"

"no, no.. fuck, feels so good katsuki... don't stop, please, don't stop-"

"ain't never gonna stop, sweets," his hands crawl down to your ass, squeezing them hard. "not until you cum all over my cock, yeah?"

katsuki chuckles as you nod, pulling him in for a needy, desperate kiss. his tongue quickly delves into your mouth, his teeth catching your lip as he sucks on it gently.

as the kiss deepens, his hands on your ass pushes you harder on his cock, both of you swallowing each other's moans into the kiss, drowning in each other's taste.

katsuki pulls away, leaving you gasping and desperate for more. your voice is needy and a little pleading as you manage to speak, your words are ragged, breath coming in short, shallow pants.

"katsuki... 'm close, 'm close... please..."

"yeah? you close, baby? gonna cum for me, huh?"

your head nods as you desperately cling to him, your body is trembling with need.

"do it. be a good girl and cum on my cock, baby. cum with me, c'mon."

your body trembles and shudders with him, a wave of pleasure crashing over you as you finally let go, releasing all the tension and control you had been holding onto.

you feel your body growing limper in his arms as you sink into him as his cock fills you raw with his creamy, sticky seed.

"that's a good girl. that's my good girl," he whispers against your skin, peppering your skin in soft kisses, his hand gently rubbing your leg. "i've got you. you did so good, doll, takin' me like that."

he plants a few more kisses on your neck before he pulls back a little, his eyes meeting yours as a soft smile spreads across his face.

"you doing okay, doll?"

you nod weakly, your body feeling spent and weary, too tired for words. you can feel the strain and tension in your muscles, the exertion of sex act practically leaving you boneless.

katsuki grins, reaches for your hand and kissing your knuckles again. "talkin' a whole lot for someone who was spoutin' earlier about bein' able to keep up with you. don't tell me this old man tired you out?"

"katsuki.. shut up."

he laughs outright at your response, gently pinching your hands as he chuckles.

"what? am i not supposed to feel a little proud for makin' my girl so tired, she can't speak?"

you roll your eyes in mock irritation, a fond grin slipping onto your lips. "you're real lucky i love you, old man."

he chuckles, gently tracing along your chin with his thumb.

"oh, i'm most definitely the luckiest guy in the universe to have the most beautiful woman i love to death, love my grumpy ass back."

[moonlightwritingf1]

The Tension Between Us | LN4

જ⁀➴ᡣ𐭩 summary ━━━━━━━ Y/n, shy and reluctant, has been resisting Lando’s advances for months. After accidentally flashing him at a gathering, their tension builds, and Y/n eventually gives in to their chemistry.

જ⁀➴ᡣ𐭩 pairing ━━━━━━━ Lando Norris x she!reader

જ⁀➴ᡣ𐭩 word count ━━━━━━━ 4.7k

જ⁀➴ᡣ𐭩 warnings ━━━━━━━ +18, sexual content

“Lando, please, stop looking at me like that,” Y/n said, her voice a mix of exasperation and something softer she couldn’t quite name. She crossed her arms over her chest, as if trying to shield herself from the intensity of his gaze. But it was too late. He had already seen it—the way her cheeks flushed, the way her breath hitched when he leaned in just a little too close.

“Like what?” Lando smirked, his British accent curling around the words like a tease. He tilted his head, his eyes filled with desire never leaving hers. “Like I can’t believe how fucking beautiful you are?”

Y/n rolled her eyes, but the heat creeping up her neck betrayed her. God, why did he have to be so relentless? Six months of this—six months of him showing up unexpectedly, sending her texts that made her heart race, and saying things that left her speechless. And yet, she still refused to let herself believe it. Lando Norris, F1 driver, Monaco resident, and the man who could have anyone he wanted, was pursuing her. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be real.

“You’re such a flirt,” she muttered, turning away to grab her drink from the coffee table. They were at a friend’s house, some casual gathering she hadn’t expected him to show up to. But of course, he had. He always found a way to be where she was.

“I’m not flirting,” Lando corrected, his voice low and smooth as he stepped closer. “I’m stating facts. You’re stunning, Y/n. And honestly, I’m tired of pretending I don’t notice.”

Y/n’s grip tightened on her glass. Pretending? What was he even talking about? She wasn’t the one pretending here. She was the one trying to keep her feelings locked away, trying to ignore the way her stomach flipped every time he smiled or the way her skin tingled when he brushed against her. Meanwhile, Lando was… well, Lando. Confident. Charming. Persistent.

“You don’t have to pretend anything,” she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “But you also don’t have to say things like that just because—”

“Just because what?” he interrupted, stepping even closer until they were almost touching. His cologne—something subtle and expensive—wrapped around her, making it hard to think straight. “Because I mean it? Because I’ve been trying to get you to see that I’m serious for six months now?”

Y/n swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “Lando…”

He reached out, his fingers brushing against her arm in a way that sent shivers down her spine. “Do you really think I’d waste my time chasing someone I didn’t want?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, there was a loud crash from the kitchen. Startled, she jumped, her drink slipping from her hand. The glass shattered on the floor, and instinctively, she bent down to start cleaning it up. She bent down to pick up the shards, her movements quick and flustered. The loose, flowy blouse she wore—soft and barely clinging to her frame—shifted with the motion. The neckline dipped lower than she realized, and for a brief, heart-stopping moment, there was nothing but skin. Her breasts, bare and exposed, caught the light as the fabric slipped away.

Lando froze. His breath hitched, his eyes widening as he took in the sight. The room seemed to shrink, the noise of the party fading into a distant hum. He didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t look away. The curve of her breasts, the softness of her skin—it was all so unexpected, so utterly captivating.

Y/n straightened abruptly, her face burning as she realized what had just happened. She clutched the edges of her blouse, pulling it back into place, but the damage was done. Lando’s gaze lingered, heavy and unapologetic, before slowly lifting to meet hers.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the party. Her fingers fumbled with the fabric, trying to secure it, but her hands felt clumsy, betraying her nerves. She glanced up at Lando, who was staring at her with wide eyes and a grin that could only be described as shit-eating.

“Well,” he drawled, crossing his arms and leaning against the couch. “That’s one way to get my attention.”

“Shut up,” Y/n hissed, grabbing a napkin to wipe up the spilled drink. But as she moved, she could feel his eyes on her, hot and heavy, and it made her heart race in a way she couldn’t ignore. She stood up abruptly, tossing the napkin onto the table. “It was an accident, okay?”

“Sure it was,” Lando said, his tone teasing but his eyes still dark with something she couldn’t quite name. He took a step toward her, his presence overwhelming. “But you know what? I’m not complaining.”

Y/n glared at him, but there was no real heat behind it. How could there be when he was looking at her like that? Like she was the only person in the room. No, the only person in the world.

“You’re impossible,” she muttered, though her voice lacked its usual bite.

“And you’re adorable when you’re flustered,” he shot back, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered for a moment, sending a jolt of electricity through her. “But seriously, Y/n. Why do you keep pushing me away?”

She hesitated, her mind racing. Because she was scared. Because she didn’t believe someone like him could truly want someone like her. Because the thought of letting him in terrified her more than anything else.

But before she could answer, the sound of laughter from the kitchen broke the moment. Lando sighed, dropping his hand and taking a step back. “We’ll finish this conversation later,” he promised, his voice soft but firm.

Y/n nodded, her heart pounding in her chest. And as she watched him walk away, she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, she should take the risk. After all, Lando had spent the last six months proving he wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe it was time she stopped running.

---

Later that night, after most of the guests had left, Y/n found herself alone with Lando in the living room. The air between them was thick with tension, and she could feel his eyes on her as she sat on the couch, nervously playing with the hem of her shirt.

“So,” he said, breaking the silence. “Are we going to talk about what happened earlier?”

Y/n’s head snapped up, her cheeks heating once again. “Nothing happened,” she insisted, though her voice wavered.

Lando raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying it. “Right. And my imagination just decided to conjure up images of your—”

“Lando!” she interrupted, her face burning. But despite her embarrassment, there was a part of her that felt… bold. Empowered, even. He had been chasing her for months, and maybe it was time she stopped holding back.

Taking a deep breath, she stood up and walked over to where he was sitting. “Fine,” she said, her voice steady despite the storm raging inside her. “You want to talk about it? Let’s talk.”

Lando’s eyes widened slightly, but he recovered quickly, leaning back with a smirk. “I’m all ears.”

Y/n hesitated for a moment, then, before she could second-guess herself, she reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, exposing her bare chest to him. Lando’s jaw dropped, his eyes locking on hers with a mixture of shock and raw desire.

“Now,” she said, her voice trembling but determined. “What do you want to say?”

The room seemed to shrink as Y/n stood there, her chest exposed, the air between them thick with unspoken tension. Lando’s eyes flicked down for a moment, lingering on her bare skin before snapping back up to meet hers. His smirk had faded, replaced by something far more primal.

“You really know how to make a man speechless,” he said, his voice low and filled with a warmth that sent shivers down her spine.

Y/n swallowed hard, suddenly unsure of herself. “I… I didn’t mean—”

Before she could finish, Lando reached out, his hand searing against her hip as he pulled her sharply onto his lap. She gasped, her hands instinctively landing on his shoulders for balance. His grip tightened, one arm wrapping around her waist while the other slid up her back, fingers tracing the curve of her spine.

“Don’t” he murmured, his breath hot against her ear, “don’t try to take it back now.”

Her heart was racing, her body betraying her resolve as she felt the heat radiating off him. She should push him away. She should stop this. But she couldn’t. Not when every part of her was screaming to stay close.

Lando’s hands moved slowly, almost reverently, over her skin. His fingertips trailed along her side, sending goosebumps in their wake, before sliding up to cup her breast. She inhaled sharply, her eyes fluttering shut as his thumb brushed over her nipple, teasing it into a hardened peak.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, his voice rough with desire. “Every time I see you, all I can think about is this. About touching you. Making you feel good.”

Y/n’s breath hitched, her nails digging into his shoulders as he leaned in, his lips grazing the sensitive skin of her neck. She wanted to speak, to say something—anything—but words failed her. All she could do was hold on as he explored her, his touch igniting a fire she hadn’t known she was capable of feeling.

His mouth traveled lower, leaving a trail of kisses along her collarbone before latching onto her breast. Her head fell back, a soft moan escaping her lips as his tongue swirled around her nipple, sucking gently but relentlessly. Heat pooled between her thighs, her body arching instinctively into his touch.

“Lando…” she breathed, her voice shaking.

He pulled back just enough to look at her, his eyes dark with need. “Tell me you want this.”

It wasn’t a demand—it was a plea. And in that moment, Y/n knew she couldn’t lie to herself anymore. Not when every fiber of her being was crying out for him.

“I do,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “I want this. I want you.”

A slow, satisfied smile spread across Lando’s face before he claimed her lips in a searing kiss. It was hungry, desperate, full of all the pent-up desire they’d both been holding onto for months. His hands roamed her body, claiming every inch of her as if he couldn’t get enough.

Her hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer as the kiss deepened. She could feel his arousal pressing against her thigh, and it only fueled her own need. The world outside this room ceased to exist. There was only Lando—his touch, his taste, the way he made her feel completely and utterly alive.

When he finally broke the kiss, they were both breathless. He rested his forehead against hers, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” he admitted, his voice thick with emotion.

Y/n smiled faintly, her fingers trailing down his jaw. “I think I might have some idea.”

Lando chuckled softly, his hands moving to her hips. “Good. Because I’m not done yet.”

Before she could respond, he stood, lifting her effortlessly in his arms. She let out a surprised laugh, clinging to him as he carried her to the couch and laid her down gently. His body hovered over hers, his eyes locking onto hers with an intensity that made her pulse quicken.

“Let me show you,” he murmured, his lips brushing against hers. “Let me show you how much I want you.”

She nodded, her voice catching in her throat as he kissed her again, his hands exploring every inch of her body. His touch was deliberate, each movement designed to unravel her completely.

As his fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her jeans, Y/n’s breath hitched. “Lando…”

“Trust me,” he whispered, his lips trailing down her neck. “I’ll take care of you.”

And she did. In that moment, surrounded by him, she trusted him completely. When his fingers found her core, she gasped, her body arching into his touch. “Oh god…”

“That’s it,” he encouraged, his voice achingly soft. “Let go.”

And she did, her world shattering into a thousand pieces as he brought her to the edge and pushed her over.

Lando pulled back slightly, his breath uneven as he pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. Y/n lay there, her chest rising and falling, trying to steady herself after the intensity of the moment. He brushed a few strands of hair away from her face, his thumb tracing over her cheek as his lips curled into a soft smile.

“Hey,” he murmured, his voice soothing. “You okay?”

She nodded, her cheeks flushing as she tried to meet his gaze. “Yeah… I’m more than okay.”

He chuckled, leaning down to kiss her briefly again before pulling away. But instead of resuming where they left off, Lando reached for her shirt, which had been discarded earlier in the heat of the moment. Gently, he slipped it back over her head, covering her with care. She blinked up at him, confused.

“Lando?” she questioned softly.

He sat back, running a hand through his messy curls before meeting her eyes again. His expression was warm but filled with a new resolve. “Get your stuff.”

Her brows furrowed. “What? Why?”

“Because we’re leaving,” he said simply, standing up and offering her a hand.

---

Lando’s hand was warm against hers as he led her out of the party, fingers intertwined tightly, as if he were afraid she might slip away. The cool London air brushed against her skin, a stark contrast to the heat coursing through her body. She glanced up at him, his profile illuminated by the soft glow of streetlights, and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

“Where are we going?” Y/n asked, her voice trembling slightly. She already knew the answer, but she needed to hear it from him.

He turned to her, that mischievous smirk playing on his lips. “My place,” he said simply, his thumb brushing over the back of her hand. “Unless you’d rather not.”

She hesitated, her heart pounding in her chest. This was Lando Norris—charming, confident, and everything she never thought she deserved. But the look in his eyes, the way he spoke to her like she was the only person in the world, made it impossible to say no.

“I… I want to,” she admitted softly, her cheeks flushing.

His grin widened, and he pulled her closer, his free hand resting gently on her waist. “Good,” he murmured, his breath warm against her ear. “Because I’ve been thinking about this all night.”

The car ride to his apartment was a blur. His hand never left hers, his fingers occasionally tracing patterns on her skin, sending shivers down her spine. He kept stealing glances at her, his gaze lingering on her lips, her neck, her hands—anywhere he could touch, anywhere he wanted to touch. And every time their eyes met, the tension between them grew thicker, more intoxicating.

When they finally arrived at his building, Lando led her inside with an urgency she hadn’t expected. The elevator ride felt eternal, the silence heavy with unspoken words. She stood close to him, her shoulder brushing against his arm, and when he shifted slightly, their bodies pressed together, her breath hitched.

As soon as the doors opened, Lando tugged her toward his apartment, unlocking the door with practiced ease. He stepped inside, pulling her with him, and the moment the door closed behind them, he turned to her, his hands cupping her face.

“Tell me if this is too much,” he whispered, his voice low and rough. “But I’ve waited too long to kiss you again.”

Before she could respond, his lips were on hers, urgent and demanding. Her hands flew to his shoulders, gripping him as if he were the only thing keeping her grounded. He tasted like mint, intoxicating and familiar, and she couldn’t help but lean into him, her body humming with need.

His hands slid down her sides, settling on her hips, and he pulled her closer until there was no space left between them. She could feel the hardness of his chest against hers, the warmth of his body seeping into her skin, and it was overwhelming in the best possible way.

When they finally broke apart, both gasping for air, Lando rested his forehead against hers, his eyes dark with desire. “You have no idea what you do to me,” he murmured, his fingers tracing the curve of her jaw.

She swallowed hard, her heart racing. “I think I have some idea,” she teased, her voice shaky but playful.

He chuckled, the sound low and rumbling, and then he was kissing her again, softer this time, more intimate. His hands wandered, exploring every inch of her as if memorizing her shape, her curves, her reactions. And when his fingers found the hem of her shirt, he paused, looking at her with a question in his eyes.

“Can I?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

She nodded, her breath catching in her throat. Slowly, he lifted her shirt over her head, leaving her bare from the waist up. His eyes widened for a moment, taking in the sight of her exposed skin, the curve of her breasts, the way her nipples hardened under his gaze.

“Third time tonight,” he murmured, his voice thick with desire. “Still just as fucking breathtaking.”

Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t look away. There was something about the way he stared at her—like she was the only thing that mattered—that made her feel bold, unashamed. She arched her back slightly, letting him see more of her, and watched as his jaw tightened.

“You like what you see?” she asked, her voice low, teasing.

He let out a rough laugh, his hands sliding up her sides, fingers brushing against the sensitive skin just below her breasts. “Like? Y/n, I’ve been obsessed since the first time I saw you. But this…” His thumbs grazed her nipples, and she gasped. “This is beyond anything I could’ve imagined.”

His touch was electric, sending shivers down her spine. She reached for him, pulling him closer until their bodies were flush, her bare chest pressed against his shirt. He groaned, his hands moving to cup her breasts, his palms warm and firm.

“You have no idea how much I’ve wanted this,” he said, his voice rough, almost pained. “How much I’ve thought about touching you, tasting you…”

She bit her lip, her hips instinctively grinding against his. “Then stop talking and show me.”

A wicked grin spread across his face, and before she could react, his mouth was on her neck, sucking and biting in a way that made her knees weak. His hands never left her breasts, kneading them gently, his thumbs circling her nipples until she was gasping for air.

“Lando…” she moaned, her fingers gripping his shoulders for support.

“Tell me you want this,” he demanded, his lips trailing down to the curve of her breast. “Tell me you want me.”

“I want you,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “God, I want you so much.”

He didn’t need any more encouragement. His mouth closed around one nipple, sucking hard, and she cried out, her body arching into him. The sensation was overwhelming, every nerve in her body alight with pleasure. His free hand slid down to her jeans, popping the button open with ease, and she knew there was no turning back now.

He kissed her again, deep and passionate, his hands roaming freely now, teasing and tempting every part of her. And when he finally lifted her into his arms, carrying her to the bedroom, she knew there was no turning back.

The room was bathed in moonlight when he laid her down on the bed, his eyes never leaving hers. He stripped off his own shirt, revealing the toned muscles of his chest, and she reached for him, eager to feel his skin against hers.

“I want you,” she confessed, her voice trembling but steady. “All of you.”

A slow smile spread across his face, and he leaned down, capturing her lips in a searing kiss. “You have me,” he promised, his hands sliding under her hips to remove her jeans. “Every part of me.”

As their clothes fell away, leaving nothing but skin and desire between them, Y/n realized she had never felt more herself than she did in that moment. With Lando, she wasn’t hiding, wasn’t pretending. She was just her, and that was enough.

And when he finally joined her on the bed, his body pressing into hers, she knew this was only the beginning.

Lando’s lips trailed down her neck, his breath hot against her skin as he reached the curve of her shoulder. His hands roamed over her body, exploring every inch like he was memorizing her. She arched into him, her fingers clutching at his back, nails lightly scraping against his skin. He groaned low in his throat, the sound sending a shiver through her.

“God, you’re perfect,” he murmured, his voice thick with desire. His lips continued their descent, leaving a trail of fire down her chest until they reached the swell of her breast. His tongue flicked over her nipple, teasing it to a hardened peak before taking it into his mouth. Y/n gasped, her head falling back against the pillows as pleasure shot through her.

His hands slid down her sides, gripping her hips firmly as he moved lower. He kissed a path down her stomach, his tongue dipping into her navel before he settled between her thighs. He looked up at her, his eyes dark with hunger, and she could feel his breath ghosting over her most sensitive area.

“Lando,” she breathed, her voice trembling. She knew what he was about to do, and while the thought sent a thrill through her, she couldn’t wait. She needed more. Now.

He grinned, that mischievous glint in his eye she had come to adore. “Patience, love,” he teased, his fingers brushing lightly over her inner thigh. “I want to taste you.”

Her heart raced, but she shook her head, her hand reaching down to stop him. “No,” she said, her voice firmer than she expected. “I need you. I need to feel you inside me. Right now.”

Lando raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a smirk. “Someone’s eager,” he said, his tone playful. But there was no mistaking the heat in his gaze or the way his breathing had quickened.

She felt a blush creep up her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. Instead, she met his eyes, her own filled with determination. “You’ve been teasing me all night,” she reminded him, her voice low but steady. “And now… I need you. All of you.”

His smirk softened into something more tender, and he leaned up to kiss her. It was slow, deep, and full of promise. “Then you’ll have me,” he whispered against her lips. “But don’t think I won’t make you beg for it later.”

She let out a shaky laugh, her hands moving to his shoulders as he positioned himself above her. Her heart pounded in anticipation, her body already aching for him. When he finally pressed into her, she gasped, her head dropping back against the pillow as pleasure coursed through her.

Lando paused, his forehead resting against hers, his breath coming in shallow pants. “You feel incredible,” he murmured, his voice rough with need. He kissed her deeply before beginning to move, each thrust driving her closer to the edge.

Y/n wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper as her nails dug into his back. The room was filled with the sound of their ragged breathing, the soft moans escaping her lips only spurring him on. Every touch, every movement, felt like electricity surging through her veins.

“Look at me,” Lando commanded, his voice husky but gentle. She opened her eyes, meeting his intense gaze, and found herself completely lost in him. In that moment, there was nothing else—no doubts, no fears, just the two of them, consumed by each other.

“You drive me crazy,” he admitted, his pace slowing slightly as he brushed a strand of hair from her face. “In the best way possible.”

She smiled, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. “Good,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “Because you’re stuck with me.”

He laughed softly, the sound sending a warmth spreading through her chest. “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied before capturing her lips in another searing kiss. His movements became more urgent, his hips driving into her harder, faster, until she felt herself teetering on the brink.

“Lando,” she gasped, her fingers tightening in his hair. “I’m so close…”

“Let go,” he urged, his voice low and commanding. “I’ve got you.”

And then she was falling, stars bursting behind her eyelids as waves of pleasure crashed over her. She cried out his name, her body trembling as he followed her over the edge, his own release shuddering through him.

For a moment, they lay there, still connected, their breathing slowly returning to normal. Lando brushed a kiss against her forehead, his arms holding her tightly as if he never wanted to let go.

“Needy little thing, aren’t you?” he teased, his voice light but affectionate.

She swatted his arm playfully, though she couldn’t suppress her smile. “Only for you,” she admitted, her cheeks flushing again.

He grinned, that boyish charm that always made her heart skip a beat. “Good,” he said, his hand cupping her cheek. “Because I plan on keeping you very needy.”

Y/n laughed softly, but her heart was racing for an entirely different reason now. The vulnerability of the moment hung in the air, and she realized she couldn’t hold back any longer. If she didn’t tell him now, she might never find the courage.

“Lando,” she started, her voice trembling slightly. His thumb brushed against her cheek, his eyes searching hers as he waited patiently. “I… I need to say something.”

“Go on,” he encouraged gently, his gaze softening.

She took a shaky breath, her hands resting against his chest. “I don’t know when it happened, but… I’ve fallen for you. Completely. I kept telling myself it was just a crush, that it would pass, but it hasn’t. And it won’t. I care about you so much, Lando, and—”

Before she could finish, his lips were on hers, silencing her words with a kiss that left her breathless. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers, his own emotions shining brightly in his eyes.

“Y/n,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that.”

Her brows knitted in confusion. “What do you mean?”

He smiled, brushing his nose against hers. “Six months. Six painfully long months where I’ve done nothing but think about you. Wanting you. Yearning for you,” he admitted, his voice breaking slightly. “From the moment we met, I knew there was something special about you.”

Her eyes filled with tears at his confession, and she reached up to frame his face with her hands. “I wish I’d told you sooner,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Hey, none of that,” he said softly, kissing away the tear that slipped down her cheek. “We’re here now, aren’t we? That’s all that matters.”

She nodded, her heart swelling as he pulled her into his arms. “I love you, Lando,” she whispered, her words barely audible.

“I love you too, Y/n,” he replied without hesitation, his voice steady and sure. “So much.”

They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, wrapped up in each other and the overwhelming realization that they were finally on the same page. No more hesitations, no more holding back—just them, and a future they couldn’t wait to explore together.

[spatialwave]

Jayce Talis as a Husband & Father | Headcanons

➸ ask: "hiii i was wondering if you could do post s2 arcane headcanons for Jayce?? like jayce x wife!reader that have a newborn baby??" ➸ pairing: jayce talis x wife!reader ➸ word count: 923 words ➸ tags: mdni! sfw, fluff, comfort, mentions of jayce’s trauma, pregnancy, headcanons, childbirth, parenthood, canon-divergent ending. ➸ notes: i went really poetic with this idk why. also this definitely heightened my already terrible baby fever……. please for the love of god send me more asks about girldad jayce, i am begging you. i love writing these.

When you met Jayce Talis, you fell madly in love with him almost instantly—as did he with you. Within the first six months of your relationship, he proposed to you with a ring that he’d smithed himself, adorned with a hextech gemstone that sparkled unlike anything you’d ever seen. Of course, you said yes… and moved in within that same week.

Living with Jayce Talis meant dealing with the aftershocks of what he’d gone through during his time in the arcane and subsequent war. With a permanently injured leg and mental wounds that left him cursed by night terrors, you were they by his side to help him overcome his past. You were the rock he hadn’t known he needed, the one who encouraged him to keep fixing what he’d broken (and not without his partner, Viktor.)

Although he’d gone through hell and back, he found joy and happiness in you again. No longer was he filled with anger and guilt for allowing his naivety to take control of what was right—all Jayce wanted was to be happy. With you. 

When you found out you were pregnant, Jayce was over the moon, excited and horribly nervous. He constantly worried whether or not he’d be a good father, and the absence of his own in his life made him uncertain. He would spend countless evenings with his mother, asking her hundreds of questions about parenthood, which either made it better or worse depending on what he wanted to know.

However, the worry washed away when he held his little girl in his arms—weighing shy of six pounds and so tiny in his arms. It was a beautiful sight, a rugged man with messy hair, scarred arms, and calloused hands holding the love of his life.

Your daughter brings out a side of Jayce that Viktor told you is reminiscent of his life when they first met all those years ago: gentle, curious, nervous and much too excited. 

Jayce is messy and clumsy in his parenting, learning as he goes, but he is so dedicated. He’s used to being covered in stains but no longer in oil and soot from his work. Now it’s spit-up and dried milk… among other things. And to you, he’s never looked sexier than when he’s a mess.

Even though he’s still a councillor and working with Viktor on restabilizing hextech, he makes time for his family. The days of late-night tinkering in the lab or long council meetings are in the past because there is nothing more important to him than you two.

He is a very overprotective dad, constantly worrying about the little things and often getting sleepless nights because he checks on her one too many times to make sure sleeping soundly in her crib. He baby-proofs your home with everything he can make—doorstops, locks for the cabinets and removing any of his work from his home to the lab so there are no accidents. It’s cute, but considering that your daughter is shy of two months old, the baby-proofing tends to get in the way, but you let him. ‘Father knows best’ is a term he coins and uses, much to your annoyance.

Jayce always splits the tasks of parenting between you two but is never opposed to taking on more than you if you need the rest. As you slowly transition to include bottle feeding in your routine, he takes on nightly shifts for you. You find him asleep a few times, sitting up against the crib with a blanket covered in spit-up draped over his shoulder and an empty bottle in his hand.

He is a sentimental man. He makes a locket that he wears as a necklace every day, tucked beneath his clothing, and shows it off to anyone that he can—a photo of you and your daughter inside it.

You swear you’ve never been more in love with Jayce than you are now. A loving father and husband who doesn’t let his new role as a parent overshadow his love for you.

He’s just as romantic as he was the first time he took you on a date. A month after you gave birth and were far too stir-crazy to be at home any longer, Ximena watched your daughter, and he took you out on a date that reminded you of simpler times. Showering you with gentle touches and kisses that set your heart on fire and reignited your passion.

Jayce noticed how your confidence dropped since the pregnancy. He finds you looking at yourself in the mirror and trying to love the body that grew your daughter, hands over your still-rounded stomach and tracing the stretchmarks. Changes that look so large in your eyes go unnoticed by him, and he makes sure to cherish your body as a reminder that his love for you hasn’t changed.

Every night in bed, he kisses your stomach, your hips, your thighs—peppering your body with kisses and massaging you as he worships your strength and beauty, silently thanking you for bringing your daughter into the world. 

As with any relationship, there are good days and bad. Some days go so smoothly that you wonder if you both were naturally inclined to be the perfect parents. Then come the days when all you can do is argue, overcome with the stress, fears and worries of marriage and parenthood.

But you make it through because to be loved by Jayce Talis is to feel love unlike anything you have experienced before, and that is worth the hardships.

[voidmatic]

why do I need permission to delete something? who the hell am I asking permission to? this is my goddamn computer !

it's not a "maybe later" I'll never want to hear about your stupid AI "features", google!

and it isn't JUST computers, either. I go to work and every day we have people asking us why we don't have as many physical copies of certain games. it's because we didn't have trade-ins, our xbox section would be one small shelf - microsoft doesn't want to send us physical copies of most games, they want you to buy them digitally. the PS5 "pro" was released for over a thousand dollars and doesn't have a damn disc drive. you don't own anything digitally, we see it time and time again - they just don't want you to have a physical copy of something, because then you own it, you can share it with your friends and family, you can trade it in or sell it when you're done and want to play something new. they hate this ecosystem people have created.

we have to create sites to backup some games because of things like the eShop on 3DS just.. closing. countless titles with no ethical way to play them. like OP said, some flash stuff only exists because people care and they preserved it.

I don't want an ai shuffle for my spotify music. I don't want an image generator built into my google pixel home screen customization options. I don't want everything to look the same, with rounded corners and sterile bland white backgrounds and typefaces so bland they've lost any sense of character and logos that I can't tell apart and desaturated colours and no sense of humanity or personality whatsoever.

I get nostalgic when I turn on my first HTC smartphone, the one with the fun flip clock on the home screen, that used to animate raindrops when it was raining only to swipe them away with a windshield wiper. I could choose whatever annoying colour I wanted my text bubbles to be, and set the font colour to be as unreadable as I pleased. it was fun.

I won't forget when customization was key and fun and loud, I won't forget when physical media was common, and I won't forget when tech had personality.

I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

[chericos]

𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 ᝰ ⋆⁺₊❅.

CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES WITH THE JJK MEN!

you can definitely see my favorites...

Satoru Gojo:

Satoru would try and take you moose-back riding: keyword try

he grew up being exceptional at everything, so he thought this would be no different

boy, was he wrong

you walked up to your moose calmly, hands held out for the massive creature to sniff—to gain its trust. It seemed to relax in your presence. with a few reassuring words and a couple of pats, it allowed you the honor of being able to climb onto its back with ease. meanwhile, the scene next to you was anything but graceful. gojo was struggling. a lot. "why is he looking at me like that?" "i think it wants to kill me," "why doesn't he like me..." he all but whined "maybe he can sense your charming personality," you teased. gojo spent the majority of his time whining about the audacity of the moose (that he picked out mind you). and when he was finally able to mount it, for a few gratifying seconds, the moose bucked wildly, sending him flying backward. you guide your own moose towards where he lies sprawled out in the snow, trying to contain your laughter. "totally planned for that to happen." "sure ya did honey," let's just say gojo never looked at a moose the same way again.

Suguru Geto:

Suguru was skeptical when you brought up the idea of Christmas baking.

you wanted to do something to keep the twins, mimiko, and nanako, entertained

"are you sure this isn't going to end in a mess?" he asked, arms crossed over his chest as he stood in the kitchen doorway. "it's supposed to be messy, besides, they'll love it" mimiko and nanako were already perched up on the counter, smiling excitedly as they tried to get geto to join them, tugging on is sleeve and looking up at him with big puppy eyes. its no surprise that he gave in. mimiko was meticulous, carefully pressing cookie cutters into the dough with laser focus, while nanako was more chaotic, enthusiastically cutting out shapes in rapid succession—often forgetting to clean off the edges. geto couldn’t help but chuckle as he leaned over to help Nanako fix her crooked star cookie. “like this,” he said softly, guiding her hands. meanwhile, you were rolling out more dough when mimiko quietly came up to you. “can we make a heart one?” she asked shyly. You nodded, handing her the cutter. “of course, sweetie. maybe we can decorate it for suguru-nii later?" geto definitely overheard that. when it came time to decorate, the real chaos began. nanako somehow managed to get frosting everywhere—on her hands, her face, and even a streak across her cheek. “nanako, the frosting is for the cookies,” geto said with a sigh, though there was no real annoyance in his tone. mimiko, ever the perfectionist, took her time placing each sprinkle with care. “suguru-nii, look! I made a snowman!” she said, holding up her creation proudly. he smiled, brushing a hand over her hair. “It’s perfect, mimiko.” by the time you were done, the kitchen was a disaster. flour dusted the counters and the floor, and there was frosting on practically everything, including a streak in geto’s hair that he hadn’t noticed yet. (no one tell him) the girls were exhausted but happy, sitting at the table with mugs of warm milk and admiring their cookies. mimiko leaned against geto’s arm while nanako leaned against yours, both content and sleepy. geto glanced over at you, a soft smile on his face. “you were right, they loved it,” he murmured, his voice low enough that only you could hear. “told you,”

Kento Nanami:

tree picking with Kento was probably one of the most tedious tasks on the planet

you never expected him to be so serious about such a holiday, but you can't say you're surprised

nanami wasn't sure how he roped into picking out a Christmas tree with you, I mean, this wasn't exactly his idea of a relaxing afternoon. but with relentless begging and pleading on your end he found himself holding a saw in one hand while his other had his fingers laced between yours and secured in his coat pocket. "we should get this one" you gigglied while pointing towards a lopsided tree. "absolutely not." "but it adds character!" after what felt like hours of deliberation (and a lot of back and forth over the "symmetry of a tree") you finally settle on a tall, full tree, that met nanami's (ridiculous in your eyes) standards. decorating, however, was a different story. nanami was a perfectionist in every sense of the word. as he meticulously placed ornaments and adjusted the lights until everything was perfectly balanced. “It’s just a tree,” you teased as he redid the tinsel for the 3rd time. “It’s not ‘just a tree.’ It’s the centerpiece of Christmas,” he replied, dead serious. by the time the tree was finished, it was nothing short of a masterpiece. as you admired the warm glow of the lights, nanami handed you a cup of hot cocoa and let out a rare, contented sigh. “you were right,” he said softly. “It was worth the effort.” for the rest of the night, you caught him stealing glances at the tree, his lips curving into the faintest smile.

Ryomen Sukuna:

it took you 3 hours of incessant pestering for Ryomen to finally crack and join you on your holiday shopping trip

let's just say you end up regretting it.

sukuna couldn't care less about christmas. to him, it was nothing but an annoying excuse for humans to prance around in hideous sweaters and screech (sing) ridiculous songs to one another. so when you dragged him out to do christmas shopping, he made it his personal mission to ruin everyone else’s day. “why are we even here?” he grumbled as you wandered through aisles of ornaments and festive decorations. “because you need to get out more,” you replied, dodging his annoyed glare. but instead of helping, sukuna decided to make his own fun. anytime a kid got too close, he’d flash them a devilish grin, his sharp teeth on full display. “you better behave, or i’ll really give you something to cry about,” he said, voice low and menacing. cue the immediate screaming. “kuna!” you hissed, swatting his arm as the poor kid ran to their parents. “what? i thought this was the season for fear,” it got worse when he found an aisle with animatronic decorations (ok maybe this is just where I live but why is there still halloween decor out???). he’d activate the ones with creepy faces, making them jump-scare unsuspecting shoppers while he cackled in delight. “look at them! scrambling away like scared little mice,” he sneered, clearly having way too much fun. you, on the other hand, were mortified. “this is christmas, not halloween,” you groaned, dragging him away from the chaos he caused. but he just smirked, completely unbothered. “could’ve fooled me. everyone looks terrified.” by the time you finished shopping, the store staff was glaring at you, and sukuna looked smugger than ever. as you hauled your bags to the car, you gave him a pointed look. “you’re impossible.” note to self: never let him out to the general public.

Megumi Fushiguro:

megumi has been ice skating once in his life, at the age of 10

he fell flat on his ass and vowed to never touch the ice again

until you, that is

megumi still wasn’t sure how you convinced him to come ice skating. “it’s not like i’ll be good at it,” he grumbled, he was already mentally preparing for disaster. but somehow, here he was, lacing up skates while you beamed at him. a bright smile on your face as you tugged on the sleeve of his sweater (your favorite) and directed him towards the ice. the moment he stepped onto the ice, his legs wobbled like a newborn deer. he gripped the wall with a death grip, glaring at the ice as if it personally offended him. “this is stupid,” he muttered. you, ever the showoff, skated effortlessly back toward him, stopping with a little flourish. “you’re supposed to move, megumi, not cling to the wall,” you teased, holding out your hands. he stared at your hands, then at the ice, then back at your hands. “i’m going to fall,” he stated flatly. “probably,” you said with a shrug, “but that’s part of the fun!” begrudgingly, he let go of the wall and took your hands. his movements were stiff and awkward as you guided him across the ice. every slip and stumble made him scowl harder, his ears burning red from embarrassment. at one point, his balance gave out completely, and he went down with a thud. you tried not to laugh, but the way he just sat there, glaring and grumbling at the ice like it betrayed him, made it impossible. “go ahead. laugh,” he deadpanned. “i’m not laughing at you! just… near you,” you replied, wiping tears from your eyes before offering him a hand to get back up. he hesitated but eventually allowed you to help him. after a while, he found a rhythm—though he still refused to let go of your hand for long. by the end, he was still wobbly, still scowling, but there was a faint sense of satisfaction in his eyes. when you pointed it out, he rolled them and muttered, “it’s not like i enjoyed it.” he was a liar.

Yuji Itadori:

yuji was so excited to decorate gingerbread houses

at least, until the smell hit him

“this smells so good,” he said, already nibbling on one of the walls. “yuji, that’s supposed to be part of the house,” You watched as he sheepishly put it down… only to sneak a bite of a different piece when he thought you weren’t looking. you were. at first, he tried to stay focused. he squeezed out some frosting here, stuck a gumdrop to the roof there, and proudly showed it off like it was a masterpiece. but within minutes, you noticed the pile of gingerbread shrinking. at an abnormally fast rate. “yuji, for the love of—stop eating the house!” “i’m not!” he said, crumbs falling from his mouth as he tried to look innocent. “i’m just… quality checking.” "quality checking my—" by the time you finished your own gingerbread house, yuji’s was barely half built. instead of walls, there were just scattered crumbs and a single frosting-covered gummy bear left standing. it was a mess. “what happened to your house?” you asked, trying not to laugh. “it’s an abstract gingerbread house. very minimalist. also, i was hungry.” he shrugged, unapologetic. you couldn’t even be mad at him—especially when he offered you a piece of gingerbread with a sheepish grin. “want to split the roof? it’s the best part.”

Yuta Okkotsu:

it was a miracle that yuta was even in town for christmas

after a rough week-long mission you just wanted him to relax

yuta had just returned from a week-long mission, his exhaustion obvious in the way his eyes barely stayed open and the dark bags under them. his voice was hoarse from the travel and long days, and when he stepped into your place, he gave you a tired smile. “sorry, i’m late,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “it’s been a long week…” you didn’t mind, though. seeing him home was enough. “you’re not late,” you said softly, leading him to the couch. “how about we just spend christmas indoors? we can watch movies and… just relax.” his eyes flickered with relief at the idea. “sounds perfect,” he murmured, sinking into the couch beside you. you picked out a christmas movie to start, but the moment the opening credits rolled, you noticed his breathing slowing. yuta, still curled up in a blanket beside you, let out a soft sigh, his head leaning gently on your shoulder. as you ran your fingers through his hair, he gave a small hum of contentment. “you’re really tired, huh?” you asked quietly, looking down at him. “mm… a little,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. “just need to rest for a bit… your hands feels nice…” the movie played on, but yuta didn’t even make it halfway through the first one. his body shifted, and soon, he was completely asleep, his head still resting on your shoulder, his chest rising and falling slowly in deep, peaceful breaths. you smiled softly, continuing to run your fingers through his hair, the warmth of him against you making the entire room feel cozy. the movie continued, but no one was watching at this point. you pressed a sweet kiss to his forehead before whispering "welcome back, my love,"

an; i was gonna add toge but when I got home and clicked on my drafts I never finished his part and I couldn't for the life of me remember what I was going to do or think of a new idea so... sorry!

hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

unedited!

@ CHERICOS 2024 all rights reserved do not repost, edit, copy, translate or plagiarise my works

[lemqnie]

ARCANE CHARACTERS + NEW YEARS EVE WITH YOU

JAYCE TALIS

⤠ loverboy texts you that he won't be done in the forge until late. you try to hide your disappointment. you're already dressed to the nines--a shimmery gold dress jayce bought for your for your anniversary last month sticks to your body like second skin. you were looking forward to partying it up with the kirammans. you move to take it off when you hear a knock on your bedroom door. heavily, you drag your feet to open it only to gasp in surprise when it's jayce. he stands in front of you, a sheepish smile on his face and pink dusting his cheeks and neck. he's in nothing but a simple white dress shirt, sleeves rucked up to his elbows. there's a hint of mechanic grease on his chin and you reach out to swipe it away, when he steps forward and pulls you close, apologising with a kiss. "what's that for?" you ask. he reveals what his other hand's hiding behind him: a bottle of champagne and a modest bag of fruits. "i thought we'd skip the party," he says, "stay here. watch the fireworks from over there." he nods at your balcony, the soft december breeze filtering through your room. "you said you'd be late," you accuse. he laughs. "i am. i wanted to come sooner, but i had meetings and then some and, well..." you don't know why you're still standing. you pull the man of progress in your room and the two of you steal kisses as you await the great clock to strike midnight.

VIKTOR

⤠ you've had plans since october. god knows viktor could never make enough time for himself to simply enjoy unless notified at least two months in advance. "nothing big," you promised him. with a roll of his eyes, he reaches forward with a free hand and kisses your forehead. "okay, láska." and exactly at eight pm on the dot, you show up at his flat, a bottle of wine and fresh sweetmilk rolls and grapes in tow. he lets you in, hair freshly damp from the shower. you make sure he's settled in before you set it up. you explain to him how your family rings in the new year: wishing on grapes and drunk. he laughs, wincing a little when the motion catches his back brace in a bad position. you reach over, brushing your thumb over his furrowed brows and he leans into your touch, kissing the insides of your wrist. "so," he says, accent thick and eyes heavy, "you brought the wine?" in the end, you didn't get to do your grapes until much, much later in the morning on new year's day after you wake up on viktor's bed, tangled in the sheets with him.

JINX

⤠ she swears to you that you'll get no better view of the piltie fireworks than above the cracks. she's waiting for you by the alley outside your workplace, gearing to go. you ask her if you need to bring anything yesterday and she grins, something mocking but rounded to sweet when she taps your nose. "just sturdy shoes and study old you," she sing-songs. as you climb up the treacherous cracks with her, you make good use of the shoes she told you to bring. you two finally make it up over the lanes and as you settle next to her, your breath leaves you forcefully. the view is beautiful. you can see the long stretch of roofs that make the end of zaun, the elevators, and the city of piltover. she nudges your shoulder and points with her arm to the councillor's building. "it'll be over there," she whispers. "colours like you've never seen!" the child-like wonder in her voice is what gets you. even if its minutes before midnight, you throw caution to the wind. what the hell, you thought as you turn and place your palm over her cheek. her blue eyes are wide, but she doesn't pull away as you lean in. when you kiss, you hear it behind you: the burst of fireworks, the cheer of children, and--best of all--jinx's relieved sigh against your lips.

REQUESTS ARE OPEN: CLICK HERE

[wordsinhaled]

thinking of a scenario where when charles was little, his mum used to take care of his injuries and do the kissing-it-better thing, until he got older and his dad got wise to that and she couldn’t anymore. but it’s just something tiny that charles associates with comfort.

and so the first time, early on in the agency, that edwin gets badly hurt on a case and charles is patching him up, he leans in and presses a little kiss to the mostly-bandaged spot. it’s just the whole case gave him a scare, because he hadn’t seen edwin hurt bad before, and he’s just getting used to the fact that edwin’s his person, his to keep safe and he didn’t manage that this time, and in his distress he doesn’t even think twice.

edwin stiffens, and charles realizes he just kissed his best mate’s arm, and that’s not the sort of thing you do, is it, and maybe that’s really the sort of thing that’s going to get him knocked in the jaw. only edwin is just looking at him with curiosity, and edwin isn’t the sort of bloke who knocks people in the jaw but he is the type who could leave, could leave charles behind and... and now charles’s face is burning.

“sorry,” he chokes out, finishing the bandage hurriedly. “um, it’s just—something my mum used to do, y’know, kissing it better. when… um. when i’d get hurt as a kid, yeah? used to make me feel proper better, more than the plasters and all that. i know it’s silly, i didn’t think—”

“i did not mind it,” says edwin—who had never had any injury of his kissed better in his short life, and certainly not any of the damage he sustained over 73 years in hell.

“oh,” says charles. “that’s good, then.”

the next time edwin’s hurt it’s a significantly smaller injury, a really minor iron burn that’s already starting to look better even as charles applies the salve. he bandages it up anyway, though. but he’s surprised when edwin stays where he is once charles is done, still expectantly holding out his injured hand, not pulling away, as he usually does. and then he realizes that edwin is waiting for charles to kiss it better. and so he does—hesitant the whole time, in case he read edwin all wrong, up until edwin finally pulls his hand back seeming satisfied somehow, like charles has fulfilled some unspoken half of a bargain.

and that was twenty-some years ago. by now it’s just ingrained that every time charles tends to an injury of edwin’s, even one as minor as a paper cut from a page in edwin’s notebook, he kisses it better. edwin won’t move away until he does.

after edwin’s confession, things change. charles starts to notice that he feels a bit fluttery, the first time after hell that he leans in to press his lips to edwin’s scraped shoulder through a layer of bandage and the fabric of his shirt. and he tries to think nothing of it, only that then his mouth doesn’t connect with anything; because edwin has moved away, moved out of his reach, neatly risen out of the way of charles’s kiss so that he hovers, lips parted against empty air, feeling off-kilter and confused, something like hurt churning through him.

edwin had said he wanted nothing to change between them, and here edwin goes changing things himself. of course that hurts. but why does it hurt so much? and what was that fluttery feeling? and why can’t charles stop thinking about it?

[waterloverextreme]

I called these "taken by a Strange Mood"; Like in the videogame Dwarf Fortress. Sometimes you either find yourself doing or making something with extreme compulsion. Or fist-fighting the trees because it won't give you fur.

Normally I stay away from people cause I know I will try to pick fights with them.... So I go to the Kitchen; which I needed to ban myself from!!

Things I have done during a Strange Mood [Kitchen Edition]

Decided to make my sister a Hot Chocolate. Forgot what a hot chocolate was. Poured a mug up to the brim with hot water. Stared at it. Took the container of hot chocolate mix and DUMPED IT onto the mug. Was confused why it was all over the counter.

Stared at the metal coil stovetop as it was bright red after cooking. A few seconds later it was no longer burning red as I turned the stovetop off. Thought, "It's still hot, but HOW hot is it?". Proceeded to touch the heating element. Went "hmmm it's hot enough for me to be in a lot of pain", like a dumbass. As I've never touched a hot stove before what the frick was I trying to compare it to???

Made the most digusting meal of soggy wet white bread, and visibly moldy cream cheese. Because, "someone needs to eat this before we need to throw it out".

Stared at the ceiling until it looked like flesh moving

Took 12 cups and filled them with water. Placed them around my bedroom (different floor of the house) to feel what it was like to be Jack and Jill fetching water if they didn't fall down.

Wanted to re-experience being 5 and rolling down the stairs without getting a single bruise... I am too tall now and it was awkward and painful.

Spent hours imagining gravity shifted and I got stuck on the ceiling of the kitchen. Which still gets my heart pumping just thinking about it. Harrowing! DO NOT ATTEMPT

Laid down on the floor because that would hopefully stop myself from going outside. Got distracted by trying to retrieve the dusty cat toy under the fridge. The cats watched me.

Tell myself over and over to not put utensils in the microwave. Just cause I forgot a spoon in there once and didn't explode doesn't mean anything!

Spin. Like a lot. Especially right under the ceiling light which if I did the tiniest hop would impail my head.

These aren't the most interesting as I said. I have banned myself from the Kitchen. I only allow myself premade snacks like crackers or canned fruit. As like- I get real dangerous and dumb.

If I feel a strange mood coming whilst with people? My main way to deflect it is to unironically challenge people to "1v1 me on club penguin". That doesn't exist anymore so most people take it as a joke. Usually it defuses into me coming up with more wild and improbable dueling oppurtunities. At least until I can think of an excuse to seperate myself or direct the energy elsewhere.

Usually I try to put myself in the least dangerous location I can. Like I know the signs for myself, so I often put as much distance between myself, outside, and places with oopsie daisy objects as possible.

Shout out to the time I was locked out of the house so I decided to ought to live behind the shed. No one would find me there. I can hop the fence to come and go. Much like a wasp. As that's better for society. Unironically I was planning to restart my life and become a runaway. Since y'know wasps and bees are less likely to sting you if you are familiar to them. I am lucky the key to the shed was inside. I didn't get to interact with the gas canisters or live wasp nest.

Everyone is one Strange Mood from discovering the wonders of life or doing something they'd really regret.

As like- when I am in this mood I would unironically agree to taking a bus for hours to fist fight someone... Me, a person who handles pressure, competition, or conflict with the grace of a wrung out wet paperbag. In a Strange Mood that's all gone baby! I WOULD wrestle a crocodile to release it in a food court; Where it belongs!! Like God and Zoo Tycoon intended!!

I am so lucky I wasn't born in Florida

99% of "mysterious disappearances" esp of people in their 20s who start acting weird for 48 hours and then vanish are not mysterious, thats just when a lot of reality-obliterating mental illness tends to kick in and it's pretty easy to get a short circuit in your brain that makes you go family guy death pose in joshua tree national park. it's not any less tragic, it's just a documented phenomenon and not particularly predictable. its a big reason the medical advice is for people with a family history of schizophrenia to completely avoid weed and psychedelics. "people just go crazy sometimes" is a principle of human health that used to be a lot more accepted prior to the american midcentury and to a certain extent thats a healthier way to conceptualize and prepare for the risk, as opposed to the modern assertion that anyone acting weird is dangerous and broken forever.

[cosmicalily]

"till you tell me to leave" - a bangchan oneshot by @cosmicalily

author's note: i found a half-written draft for this in my old google docs with my other email account and immediately knew i needed to do a rewrite.

warnings: angst (breakup, exes to lovers)

Three days, twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes.

Four days.

Four days and one minute.

Another sleepless night. You didn’t mean to count the minutes, but your eyes remained fixated on your phone, half watching the clock, half staring at the lock screen you’d neglected to change.

Everything around you brought back floods of memories that you didn’t want to deal with. Pictures from photo booths, his arm slung around your shoulder, his hand on your cheek, his lips pressed to your forehead. The one hoodie you’d managed to hold onto, even after he’d packed all his other belongings up when he left. The pre-workout he kept in the back of your pantry. His toothbrush in your bathroom drawer. 

He’d been yours in every way, and you’d been his.

Maybe this was why you’d been so scared to love your best friend; you knew that more came with risk, chances of slamming doors, crying each other's names, and duffle bags hastily filled.

Even when you’d ended things, why were you still writing pages, when he’d been the one to close the envelope? Why were you spending hours nestled on the couch in his hoodie, staring at a black tv screen, unaware of the world around you?

new message from 'channie'

i think i left my hoodie at yours. you home?

i’m driving over.

A part of you wanted to run into the bathroom, brush your hair, remove the two-day old mascara on your eyes and change into something nice. A part of you remembered he’d seen you in every single form, and he loved you regardless. 

He used to tell you how beautiful you were every minute of the day, even when you felt anything but. Did he miss saying those things now? Or did he have another girl to call his angel, his baby, his darling? 

Just the thought made you feel sick to your stomach.

new message from 'channie'

outside.

Taking a deep breath and slipping on your sneakers, you began walking down the hallway of your apartment building. Even though the elevator wasn’t broken for once, you wanted to take the stairs. You needed time to think, and time to turn back if you felt the need.

Why were you so easily coming to him? Well, technically you weren’t, were you? He wanted his hoodie back, presumably the one you were currently wearing.

He’d broken your heart. No, not broken. Slowly tugged at it, until nothing that remained was a dull ache and your pulse.

You thought about turning back, about yelling in his face, about simply bursting into tears and curling up into a ball at the bottom of the staircase, until your neighbour came and yelled at you for disturbing everyone’s sleep at 12:29am.

You thought about these things, but you never felt like acting on them.

What was the point, anyway?

You never would have meant it.

You spotted his familiar black car, the scratch on the bottom from when he’d practised parallel parking, the Sharpie stars you’d drawn with him whilst drunk on his windscreen. You felt your heart swell a little, and even more so when the figure inside the vehicle turned his head to look directly into your eyes.

In silence, you walked over and sat down in the passenger seat, doing your best to look at everything but him. He nodded, pressing his lips together in a thin line, and started the engine. He looked down at your torso, noticing his hoodie, but didn’t make a move to retrieve it. You didn’t attempt to take it off.

“I miss you,” you whispered, barely audibly.

“Hm?”

“Your seatbelt isn’t on,” you replied.

“I was in a rush.”

There was a sudden quiet. The click of his seatbelt, then yours, then the gentle hum of the car as he began to drive.

“You’re wearing the hoodie I left,” Chris finally said softly, eyes focused on the road ahead.

You ignored him. You didn’t really know where he was taking you, and you honestly couldn’t care less. He almost felt like a stranger. A stranger you’d poured your heart out to, and spent hours with, pressing kisses to each other's faces whilst watching movies, watching work out in the gym, cooking food for and dancing while doing the dishes with. A stranger who had been the vast majority of your firsts, who knew your body like the back of his hand, and spent long minutes in the latest and earliest hours loving you, worshipping you.

A stranger who’d been your everything.

As you drove in silence, apart from the soft rhythm of his playlist in the background, his hand found its way to yours, and gently caressed your fingers, as if asking for permission.

You allowed your palm to open.

His fingers tucked into yours, and his thumb brushed against your hand. 

His hand felt warm, familiar. His fingertips were calloused; a result of the way he gripped his pen when he frantically wrote his lyrics late at night.

The car slowed down, then stopped completely. He’d pulled over on the side of a road, in the middle of nowhere. It was ghostly silent, and the trees cast shadows through the headlights.

It was oddly comforting.

“I fucked up.”

“I know you did, Chris.”

He covered his face in his hands in frustration, letting go of yours in the process. Your hand felt a sudden coldness.

“I didn’t . . . I don’t know why I left you. I nearly called you, right after I left. I thought . . . I thought you’d want space, thought I shouldn’t have to put you through anymore. And you were getting fed up with me, I didn’t think you wanted me anymore.”

“I was still in love with you.”

“Was? Past tense?”

“I still love you. I didn’t necessarily fall out of love, Chris, I just . . . I felt like I lost a part of me. Everything felt familiar and distant at the same time, and there were traces of you everywhere. I couldn’t sleep.”

“I can never sleep.”

“I know.”

“I’ve been sleeping even less since I left. The bed’s cold.”

“Same with mine.”

You paused, staring at each other. Chris faced you properly.

“I’m still in love with you. And I’ll try forever if it means I can make you fall again.”

You smiled a little, letting your hand trail up his arm and wrap around his shoulders, resting your face in his warm neck. His hands moved to your waist, moving under his hoodie and settling on your bare skin.  “We should probably get some sleep,” you mumbled into him.

“Your place?”

“Our place. I still have your toothbrush, I think. And more than one of your hoodies.”

“Even if you don't, it doesn't matter,” Chris replied, clasping your hand in his again and gesturing to the backseat. His duffle bag sat there, zipped up, seemingly untouched since he’d left. “I’m coming home. If you’ll let me, of course.”

“You won’t leave?”

“Not unless you say so.”

“So never?”

“Never.”

taglist: @hyunjiiza @velvetmoonlght @s3ungm1nxxl0ve @btch8008s @yaniluvs @ellemir2404 @bellarellasstuff - comment, dm or send an ask to be added

[zara-renata]

Sylus Qin, Girl Dad | masterlist

I keep seeing discussions of what Sylus would be like as the father to a daughter. So here's my take: a short story about Sylus being a dad to a teenage daughter. You can't tell me he doesn't respect the hell out of her and give her everything she wants. Sylus x fem reader, sylus x mc.

The kitchen is dark, except for the warm glow from the fireplace and the faint light drifting in through the floor to ceiling windows—twin nocturnal cityscapes, Linkon CIty and the heart of the N109 Zone replacing starlight, the blood red moon bleeding into white here at the border between light and dark, law and chaos, your world and his, where you and he have built a home overlooking both of your territories.

He’s sipping a glass of wine, lounging in one of the overstuffed armchairs near the open hearth, the fire crackling pleasantly. He’s scrolling auction listings, plotting what to give you for your upcoming anniversary. Nothing is good enough. Nothing is ever good enough, for you, his beloved. Every year, he fights the same battle—finding the perfect gift that’s worthy of his wife. This year is your twentieth. He swirls the wine, inhales its rich scent. He appreciates the warmth it sends through him with each sip, scowls at the inferior, the common, the unacceptable offerings available in the highest echelons of the antique market.

His thoughts are interrupted by quiet footsteps echoing in the marble hallway beyond the open kitchen door.

“Tiger?” He speaks softly, but his voice sounds loud in the quiet kitchen—the chef and staff are long gone for the evening. The footsteps pause.

“You’re up?”

A voice like rich, slow honey. A mix of Sylus’s own deep tone and his kitten’s sweet, steel-reinforced notes.

“Clearly,” he laughs, low. “Going somewhere?”

Finally, the vision of beauty that never fails to hijack the breath in his lungs appears in the kitchen doorway.

Sometimes he can’t quite believe it—that you forgot him, that he hurt you so terribly, that you let him near again, and in the end accepted him, all over again. That you reached back to him, finally, and offered your hand in return for his. That you said yes, at every turn. Yes, he could kiss you. Yes, he could court you. Yes, he could make love to you. Yes, he could marry you.

Yes, it’s a girl.

Yes, he could help raise the daughter you made, together. With all of his flaws. All of the violence in his hands, in his horns, his tail—you were still willing to let him hold the little mewling infant, the army-crawling roly-poly, the toddling chaos monster.

He could attend soccer games, school plays, choir concerts. He squinted at video tutorials on how to make brownies, cupcakes, for bake sales.

“I can just buy the school and fund anything they need,” he grumbled, trying to fish yet another eggshell out of the gooey batter.

“No, you can’t. That’s not the point of a bake sale, Sylus,” you murmured, wrapping your arms around his waist from behind, resting your head on his broad back. “And where is our spawn? She’s supposed to help you with this as part of the educational value of this whole circus.”

He leaned back, soaking in your warmth, savoring the press of your body against his. “She stuffed herself full of cookie dough and passed out. I put her to bed.”

In response, you slipped your hands under the Kiss the Cook, pink frilly apron he wore every time he cooked. A gift from the twins, trying to both pester and help their boss get smooches while in the kitchen.

“And why can’t I buy the damn school? This is utterly inefficient,” he groused, as you slipped your hand under the waistband of his comfortable pants. He groaned. “And if you’re not careful, kitten, I’m never going to finish these in time for tomorrow if you keep doing that.”

“Mmm, there go your claims of being able to multitask.”

“I’ll gladly admit that my powers of multitasking fail when your clever hands are involved, beloved,” he said, trying to turn in your arms.

“Oh well. Another time then.” You had squeezed, once, firmly, just to let him know what he was missing, before sliding your hands from his pants and striding from the room to the sound of his complaints about poor business practices, not delivering what you promise, how is he supposed to focus on the recipe instructions with this situation in his pants, the one you caused?

The years passed, stacked, spread, and you still say yes to him, every day, except when you’re deliberately trying to torment him. He never dreamt he could be so happy, for so long. His happiness only compounds, expands, fills his chest to the point of pain as he sees his daughter standing in the hallway.

She lifts an eyebrow. Meets his snark with her own in answer to his question of if she's going somewhere: “Clearly.”

He tries to suppress his smile, the pride washing through him. “And where are you going at this time of night, tiger?”

“Guess,” she says, and he has the strange feeling of looking in a mirror, and looking at you, all at once. Her eyes, rubies glittering in the firelight. The spill of her hair, just like yours. The snark—from him? From you? Not that it matters, because his daughter is also wholly herself.

He tilts his head, pretends to think. “Out with friends? Or one friend in particular?”

She hums, drifts into the room. Her scent smells like home to him, in a similar way to how yours does, ever since he found you again, all those years ago, while also being threaded through with distinctly different perfume, shower gel, hair product.

“Both,” she answers, and sits on the armrest of the chair he’s sitting in. She leans over, sniffs the wine in his hand. “Can I have a sip?”

“Why would I let you waste my wine, when the last time you tried it you said it tasted like depression juice,” he gripes, moving the wine glass away from her.

She pouts a little, shrugs. “You said it’s an acquired taste. How am I to acquire it if I don’t try it more than once?”

He sighs, indulges her. “One sip.”

She takes the glass by the stem, as he taught her, swirls it. Drinks. Scrunches her nose in an unbearably adorable way. “Nope, still shit.”

“You and your mother. Absolutely no refined palate,” he laments, enjoying how she just laughs at his feigned disappointment, just like you do.

She snorts. “I have a palate for actual yummy drinks.”

“And what do we do after each yummy drink, oh refined one?” he instructs in a way that makes her roll her eyes.

“A big glass of water. To ensure that I spend half the night waiting in line for the bathroom.”

“Maybe if you don’t want to spend half the night in the bathroom, drink less alcohol, tiger.”

“Yes, yes, thank you daddy.” She leans against him, rests her head on his shoulder, looks at his tablet. “Anniversary present?”

He grunts in affirmation.

“You know she’s just happy to spend time with you. You don’t need to outdo yourself, every year.”

“Just because she’s satisfied with the bare minimum, doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve the universe served on a platter.”

“She says the same about you. You’re both gross,” she laughs.

“Take notes, tiger. Never settle for anyone who doesn’t treat you as well as I treat your mother.”

“Ah, yes, and should I take notes on your pride and arrogance, too, daddy?”

He smirks at his heart leaning against his shoulder. He had no idea his heart was so big, that it could encompass both you, and another whole other person, until his little girl came along. Along with the all-encompassing love, comes the terror. His heart, walking around in two different bodies, out in the world. Yours. His daughter’s. “If it helps. You’re your mother’s daughter—you’re entitled to be as arrogant as you like, treasure.”

“Noted.” Her tone is long-suffering, but pleased. “Can I go now?”

“Is that what you’re wearing?” He flicks a gaze to her short skirt, knee-high boots. The black and red corset cinching her lovely frame.

She sits up, kisses his cheek. “Yes. Problem?”

He sighs. “You know what you’re doing. Where people are looking, when you’re dressed like that.”

She sniffs, looks bored. “Good thing I don’t wear it for anyone else, but for me. They can look all they like.”

He understands dressing to one’s own tastes. To standing out, being the center of attention based on flashy apparel. “You know what to do, if anyone does anything that makes you uncomfortable? Including your particular friend?”

She rolls her eyes again. “Tell them to stop.”

“And if they don’t?” He suppresses the murderous rage at the very idea that someone would disrespect his daughter in such a way.

“Explode their balls with my evol,” she intones, having endured this conversation with her overprotective father more times than she can count.

“And then?” he prompts, pleased.

“Call you, Uncle Aidan, Uncle Luke, and Uncle Kieran,” she sing-songs, getting to her feet. Getting ready to make her escape.

“And if the cops show up before your uncles, or me?”

“I will not answer any questions without my attorney present,” she mocks her father’s deep voice, his bored rhythm of speech.

“And you’ll keep your phone on at all times?”

“Yes, daddy,” she humors him. “And if I do anything that I know will piss you off or scare mama, I’ll still call you to come save me, and you promise you won’t be mad at me.”

“Oh, I’ll be mad, but you’re still just a kid, it would be absurd for us to expect you never to make a mistake.” He suppresses another smile at her scowl. She looks so much like you, sometimes. It hurts his heart, in the best possible way. “Your safety is more important than anything else. We can always discuss consequences later.”

“Okay, okay. I promise to call you even if I know you’re going to be unhappy. Can I go now?”

He looks at her, memorizes her face, the curve of her cheek, admires the intelligence, the humor in her bright, sparkling eyes. It scares the shit out of him, every time she walks out of his sight. He wants to protect her, in the same way he still wants to protect you, from the entire weight of the cruel universe, from all the vagaries of foul humanity. But he read that it’s important for teenagers to feel that their parents trust them, to try out what it feels like to be independent, with a safety net waiting below. He’ll tolerate the terror, for the sake of his precious daughter. With safety measures in place, of course.

“Have fun, treasure.” He releases her, watches as she walks with the defiant confidence of a teenager to the door, secure in her knowledge that she’s already all grown up, that she’s older beyond her years, that her parents just worry too much. His heart feels like it’s going to burst in his chest when she turns, smiles at him.

“Love you, daddy.” 

And then she’s gone, not waiting for his answer, because she already knows. One thing he has done right, in all of his lifetimes—one sin he will never commit. His daughter has never, ever had a reason to question how much he adores her.

He sips his wine. Turns his gaze toward the window, sees his own reflection in the glass. His own reflection, with his eyes that are no longer just his own, but the eyes of his daughter looking back at him.

“You vetted her new guy, right?” The voice of Sylus’s beloved interrupts his thoughts. He turns, sees you pointing at your own right eye, ensuring that her husband had ransacked the depths of her daughter’s suitor’s soul before letting her out the door tonight.

He smirks. “I might have paid a visit to his part time job when she first mentioned him."

“And he’s okay?” You stride over to him, slip into his lap. Take the wine glass from his hand, sip. Because you know that everything of his, is yours, and always has been. He wraps his arms around your waist, inhales the scent of your skin, your lovely hair.

“He’s a good kid,” he admits. “Not good enough for her. But good enough for her to toy with, if she likes.”

“And the app on her phone?” You ignore his cynicism, intent on ensuring that all precautions are in place. You worry about your daughter, as much as he does. Your daughter has no idea, however, that you’re the scary one out of her two parents. If someone dares fuck with your baby girl, they’ll have to face her mother’s wrath. Sylus would just kill them—quietly, efficiently. Problem solved. 

You would take your time with them.

He loves you so fucking much.

Which is why he instructs his daughter to call him and her uncles, and not you. Sylus is a practical man. There is simply no need to have to break his beloved out of jail for the gruesome murder of some handsy asshole when Sylus can make a corpse disappear with the snap of his fingers.

“Tracking as we speak,” he assures you.

“And the twins?”

“Already on their way to remain at a discrete distance on standby in case she calls.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, finally satisfied. You rest your head where his daughter just rested hers. What use are such wide, strong shoulders, after all, if not for cushioning the precious head of his beloved and his treasured child?

“No, thank you” He’s suddenly overwhelmed with the size of his gratitude. “For doing all the hard work. Making her. Raising her to carry your goodness inside her. For saying yes.”

You just laugh a little at his uncharacteristic speech. Lift your head. “You were very persuasive, in the end. You can thank yourself, for making me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“And what offer was that, beloved?”

“You,” you sigh. “Everything that you are, and ever will be.”

He sniffs. “You were always a poor negotiator, compared to the swindlers in the N109 Zone. Seems like I got the better end of the deal.”

You roll your eyes, and he sees his daughter in your face. “For someone with such a good eye for fine things, you’ve never been able to see the value in the mirror,” you tease. “But that’s all right. You’re arrogant enough already.” You’ll never understand how Sylus has always managed to be so proud, arrogant, and yet so vulnerable at the same time. 

You love him so much, for all of his complexity.

He takes the wine glass from you. Sets it next to the armchair.

“With our treasure out of the house, we’re alone right now,” he whispers into your ear. You shiver. After all these years, his voice still sends excitement along your skin, your spine. “How about I remind you why I’m so arrogant, until she gets home?”

You turn your head, kiss him softly. His lips are still so soft. He tastes like warm wine, like home. “Another offer I can’t refuse.”

He doesn’t need any other answer as he lifts you in his arms, carries you down the long marble halls, lays you down on the big bed you share.

He makes good on his offer. Sylus has always kept his word, from the very beginning, after all.

You daughter makes it home just fine later that night, as you're sleeping soundly. As Sylus reads a book next to you, one hand drifting absentmindedly up and down your bare back, waiting up for her footsteps. He experiences relief, a restored sense of wholeness when he hears them echoing down the hall.

No homicide necessary.

[straylightdream]

always

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: bang chan x f.reader

loving someone who can’t return your feelings can be heartbreaking.

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞(𝐬): angst, friends to ??

𝐚𝐮(𝐬): nonidol au, underground boxer au

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2k

𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: injuries from fighting, cuts, mentions of blood and stitches, talks about powerful men who want to get leverage on Chan, lots of tears, and angst

𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: pg 13

𝐚𝐧: sorry I haven’t posted a skz story in a minute.

𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐬.

It had been a rough night to say the least. You laid in the same bed with a foot between the two of you. The room was so silent it seemed to leave a ringing sound in the room. Chan wore nothing but his boxers that sat low on his hips. He was laying on his back with his hand holding his side that had a pair of cracked ribs. His breathing was pretty uneven because he was in so much pain. The night had left him stumbling into your apartment with a deep gash on right below his collarbone, that you had to stitch up as he sat at your kitchen table. Unfortunately Chan coming to your apartment beat up wasn’t anything new. This was a side effect to him being an underground boxer.

Biting your bottom lip, you stared at the man who seemed to easily hold your heart in his hands. Luckily, he wasn’t careless with your heart, he was well aware you were in love with him. He went out of his way to make sure you didn’t get hurt, but knew at some point he was going to break your heart without even trying.

Laying on your side you reached your hand out slowly as it shook. You wanted to touch him to pull him close to you, but you knew you shouldn’t do it. He wasn’t your boyfriend, and probably was never going to be. A normal friendship between a boy and a girl normally didn’t involve the boy getting the shit beat out of him and then crawling through your window beaten. Normally the girl wouldn’t have to stitch him up and then beg him to spend the night so you would know he was safe.

His eyes were closed as he attempted to get some sleep, but he wasn’t going to be able to sleep, at least not until you had a very important conversation. You were well aware he wasn’t asleep even with him laying there with his eyes closed.

Your hand reached out a little more so you could touch him, but before you were able to touch him, you pulled your hand away. You needed to tell him that you couldn’t take this anymore, but you were terrified.

“Chan?” Your voice was shaky as you were unsure of if you should even be speaking.

“Yeah?” his eyes opened up as they blankly stared at the ceiling.

“What is going on here?” You whispered as tears continued to slide down your cheek.

“I’m a selfish asshole,” he groaned as his head moved so he was blankly looking in your direction.

“Why did you come to me and not Changbin?” You needed to know if he returned your feelings.

“Because for some reason even though I know I need to leave you alone, I can’t seem to stay away,” he sighed. He knew he was being selfish, that he was well aware of your feelings, and that he should respect them and stay away from you since he couldn’t give you what you truly deserved.

“I don’t want you to stay away, but I need you to know how I actually feel.”

He nodded his head and moved his arm from his stomach where it was resting onto the bed so it was about an inch from your hand.

“Chan I’m in love with you and I hate seeing you get hurt, but what hurts most of all is that I know that no matter how much I actually love you…” you hesitated knowing that no matter what was said right now you were never going to be able to take back anything you said. “I’m never going to be able to actually be with you. You won’t ever feel the same way, and I understand but I just need you to know that it hurts loving someone who doesn’t feel the same way.”

There was a silence between you as Chan was taking in everything you had just said to him. He had known for a while that you were in love with him, and he had even let you know that he couldn’t be with anyone as long as he was illegally fighting. It was too risky to actually be with someone. He made a lot of money fighting and he had made some enemies along the way.

“Okay I regret saying all that,” you mumbled at the fact that he hadn’t even said anything in response.

“Hey,” he reached out and rested his hand on top of yours as he lay still on his back. “Give me a second to take in everything you just said to me. I know that you’re in love with me, and believe me I return the feelings. I have for a long time, but…” he paused knowing that what he was about to say was going to hurt both of you. You attempted to brace yourself for whatever was going to come after the “but”. “I can’t be selfish and put you in harm's way. I love you too, but if someone finds out that I have someone that I love, you would be the first person that people would use to get leverage. Too many powerful men know who I am, and I couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt because of me.” His hand that was resting on top of yours gave it a gentle squeeze.

Everything he had just said to you made your world feel like it was spinning. You knew Chan might have some sort of feelings for you, but you never actually expected him to say that he was in love with you too. As your brain was attempting to process the fact, he said he was in love with you, you were also realizing that it didn’t matter that you were both in love, because you couldn’t be together.

“What happens here then?” You sighed.

“I’m not sure exactly, I should probably give you space,” he moved his hand away from you.

You shook your head to yourself refusing to let him walk away from you right now, “Bang Chan you don’t get to tell me you love me, and then say you should give me space.”

He slowly moved so he was sitting up and you laid next to him still in bed wondering if he was actually getting up to leave. He stood up and groaned as he grabbed his side.

“Are you seriously getting up to leave?” You asked quickly getting out of bed. He groaned as he reached on the floor searching for his pants that were on the floor. “Chan,” you got up and ran to the other side of the bed so you were standing in front of him. He didn’t say anything as he reached his hand out so he was cupping your cheek. He stepped forward a little so there were a couple inches between you, you looked up at him as he held your face with one hand. The tension between them seemed to grow even more as you licked your lips as your breathing seemed to pick up. “Please don’t leave, I just poured my heart out to you,” you whispered.

“I’m so selfish when it comes to you, and it's not fair to you,” he sighed as his thumb brushed a tear off your cheek. “I want to give you the world, but I can’t.”

“I’m not asking for the world,” you reached up so your hand held his wrist. “I’m just asking for you to show me that you actually love me.”

“I can’t let you get hurt because of me,” he sighed. “I should start going to Changbin when I get hurt,” his hand was still holding your face as he attempted to convince you and himself that he needed to give you space.

“Chan, please don’t pull away from me, if you do that it will break my heart,” your hand held onto his wrist not wanting him to leave.

“We can’t be together, not right now at least,” he sighed.

Your breathing seemed to catch in your throat for a moment at what he had just said. The tears seemed to slide down your cheek even harder suddenly, and it was as if he held your heart in his other hand, and that he just crushed it.

“Okay,” you pulled away from him shaking your head. “You can have your space if you want it,” your voice was shaky as you were trying your hardest to not sob.

“You mean the world to me, and I don’t want to hurt you, but being with me isn’t safe.” He reached out to grab your wrist. He needed you to know that he wanted to be with you, but it just wasn’t an option. “I already lost my first love, I can’t deal with losing you too.” He never seemed to move on from his high school sweetheart passing in a tragic car accident almost a decade ago.

“Why does it feel like I’m losing you right now,” the tears continued to slide down your cheek.

“I’m sorry that can’t give you everything,” he took a step closer to you. You reached out and rested your hand on his chest and looked back up at him knowing that he was right. That even though you wanted nothing more than to be with him, you knew deep down inside that a lot of powerful men have lost money because of him. Chan is the best fighter in the city and that has made a lot of men angry. Ultimately it wasn’t safe to be with him. You had watched him lose his first love, and you knew how much that destroyed him.

“I understand we can’t be together, but I can’t deal with losing you as my friend too,” you sighed.

Silently he nodded his head and leaned forward so his forehead was resting against yours. You took a deep breath taking in the sudden closeness.

“I want to kiss you so badly, but I shouldn’t,” he mumbled.

Without saying anything you leaned forward and pressed your lips to his. You kissed him as if this was going to be the only time ever that you were going to be able to feel his lips against yours. His strong hand moved up and rested on your cheek holding you close to him as your lips moved together. Pulling away slowly you let out a sigh.

“What happens between us Chan?” You asked, wondering if things would ever be the same after tonight.

He sighed and said, “we attempt to be friends.”

“Okay,” you said softly. You didn’t want to be only friends but you knew it was for the best. “If one day you walk away from fighting, would you actually give us a chance?” You asked, needing to know if maybe one day you stood a chance at being together.

He nodded his head and gave you a sad smile, “I’m not going to ask you to wait around for that day, but when I’m finally no longer a fighter I would like us to be together.”

“Let’s go back to bed,” you reached down and laced your fingers with his. You led him back towards the bed. He slowly got back in bed groaning at the pain from his cracked ribs.

You laid in the bed in the same positions you had been laying in before. Your hand was resting on the bed between you, slowly he reached over and laced his fingers with your.

“Thank you for always taking care of me,” he said softly.

“I’ll always take care of you,” you said knowing that no matter what happened between you, that you would always care about him.

“I hope one day that I’ll actually be able to give you the world,” he said gently, squeezing your hand.

You couldn’t help but smile at the possibility that maybe one day you could be together.

[thelawfulchaotic]

Being a jerk to someone part of a different group (especially a morally judged group) is a grand old human tradition.

If violence is infliction of harm, the words you use to inflict harm on people are violent words.

Honestly, folks, consider removing the judgment words from your vocabulary. Not only are they violent, but they’re nonspecific and counterproductive — they invoke defensiveness and hurt.

“Cis guys suck”

vs

“I feel anger towards cis men, *because of* specific behavior x and y”

“Down with cis”

vs

“The people I work with have difficulty understanding gender identity and it often frustrates me because i want to be accepted/I want it just ignored/I find it triggering”

Okay these sentences are a lot longer, yes, much less efficient, but they put the attention where it needs to be: on SPECIFICS. If your friend bro hears you talking about how guys keep manspreading on the bus and hitting on you while you’re listening to music, he won’t be like “wow this is unpleasant for me”, he’ll be like “ah these are things I do not do because I am not an asshole and I know I am still accepted here.”

It also places emphasis on what you’re actually feeling and why you’re actually feeling it. Name! That! Emotion! Many people have trauma and issues recognizing what emotion they are feeling and practice helps; besides that, you’ll be able to focus on what the problem actually is, and maybe think up something specific for a solution. Want Kyle at work to stop making a big deal out of every pronoun? This is not the same problem as Steve now refusing to be in the same room alone with you now that you’ve come out.

And notice in none of these have I said judgment words like “unacceptable behavior” or “being the worst” or other ways to judge. This is not because I have no opinions. It’s because judgment interferes with communication. It’s a tactically nonviolent choice. If you come in thinking of someone as More Bad than you, you will behave in ways that show that judgment, on purpose or not. Even people who do bad things are people and usually have some way they’re reachable. It takes a toolbox that very few of us are taught.

It feels real good to judge people. Judgment and social punishment are reinforcing — to the punisher. You feel good while doing it, so you do it again. It becomes a habit. It becomes a dogma. It’s a trap. Punishment never works, and if it briefly accomplishes its intended purpose, it always comes with a thousand more negative effects down the line. Alienation of your non-in-group friends. Entrenchment in your social groups. Echo chambers. And the inability to make anyone listen to you about anything important.

However, if someone is not engaging with you in good faith, tell them what they’re doing that makes you feel that way, tell them how it makes you feel, and tell them you will not engage further until they come to the table for real. Not punishment, just ending the discussion without any uncertainty.

Hot take but I really do think that some of y’all need to consider how/why/when/how often you’re making fun of straight people for being straight

I do it too, I’m not going to pretend I don’t make jokes about the hets, or the down with cis bus, or whatever

But I recently befriended a cis, straight dude and I have watched him be dismissed, degraded, and unambiguously insulted for the perceived “crime” of being straight — all in queer environments where he is allegedly “completely welcome” and surrounded by ���friends”

This guy is not a toxic person! But I have seen him be made to feel so small and like his comfort and safety in those spaces are conditional on his silence and acceptance of being treated like a human dunk zone, and I think that some of y’all have had so much shit from straight/cis people that the second you feel like you’ve got an inch, you want to luxuriate in the perceived catharsis of bullying someone who— actually —doesn’t deserve it

And until he very, very carefully mentioned to me in private that it makes him feel bad, I didn’t even clock that I was involved in doing that, that it had become so instinctive for me to make casual jokes like that, and that— well meaning or otherwise —I had been contributing to an environment that made someone I really really like feel like shit

So, I dunno, I think maybe some of y’all should think about that too

[avelera]

*whispers* Viktor never once says anything mean or belittling to Jayce after they become partners. Not one insulting "you" statement, not one disagreement where he doesn't remained focused on the point of contention. He never makes ad hominem attacks, he never insults Jayce's appearance or intelligence.

Literally the single meanest thing he says to Jayce that could be considered a "you" statement is "Your mind has become rigid." Basically, he's saying that Jayce has suffered so much recently that it's closed his mind to broader intellectual possibilities like, that is barely an insult, and clearly Viktor just means it as a statement of fact, if not a challenge for Jayce to joyously consider possibilities again. And by the way? That statement is when Viktor is in his full his villain arc. It's remarkable because it's the only time he's pointed out a perceived flaw in Jayce since the night when he questioned if Jayce signed his notes out of being egotistical.

From the moment Jayce told Viktor about how beautiful magic could be, arguably once Jayce became a person to Viktor rather than a subject of academic discipline or skepticism, Viktor has not once leveled a personal attack against him as a person. Not even during the fight on the bridge. Not even when he called Jayce's Councilor work a waste of our time. Not even when Jayce was considering making Hextech weapons, Viktor still remained focused on the substance of the argument, expressed incredulity, anger, even disgust that Jayce would consider making weapons, but he never said it was because Jayce was stupid or privileged or blind. He pointed out specifically that he knew Jayce felt trapped by the decision, he knew Jayce was being manipulated, and then, in a very pointed manner, Viktor reminded Jayce that there's always a choice, challenging Jayce to stand firm and do what was right.

Even when they parted ways in 2.02, Viktor didn't say there was anything wrong with Jayce. He just said their paths had diverged, again not saying anything was wrong with Jayce, or even his choices, but rather that they're two different people who had stayed together longer than their diverging goals normally would have allowed because of the affection they held for each other.

I don't know, I get why people write Viktor as catty or mean or dismissive of Jayce. There's definitely some quotes from the day they met, before they become partners, that lend to the idea that Viktor can be quite dry and sharp with others. And conflict is the stuff of good fiction so again, totally get putting some conflict between him and Jayce in fic.

But I also think there's a tendency in derivative works like fic to Flanderize the characters, or worse, put them into narrow archetype boxes that are vastly different from their more interesting and nuanced canon selves.

How many times have we seen a wiggly man/straight man or blue vs. red personality partnership duo? How often have we seen those partners not be able to fucking stand each other, who are bickering all the time, who are snide or backtalk, or are perpetually sarcastic?

It's so common that I get why people see it with Jayce and Viktor but that's why it's so damn fascinating to me that they aren't like that.

Jayce and Viktor don't suffer each other unwillingly at any point, even when they're having a goddamn flying superhero fight in the final episode they're talking about how they're happy to see each other and praying that the other will please step away from this destructive path! They don't want to hurt each other, even verbally!

During the years of their partnership, they're constantly delighted by the other's presence, they are instantly comfortable together and never have a bad word to say to or about each other. They actually don't bicker! When they have disagreements, they stay entirely focused on the point of the disagreement and they never dip into personal attacks of any kind.

Even the tone of the time Jayce yells at him on the bridge, arguably their most acrimonious moment in the whole first season, isn't an actual argument, no more than a parent yelling at their child for running into traffic is an argument. Jayce says awful things but it's clear his anger comes from fear for Viktor and for their precarious situation. And it's clear this is a deeply unusual moment for both of them, Viktor is taken aback at how unusual it is, Jayce once called out backs down immediately, arguably because it's so unnatural for them to fight at all that it takes the wind out of the sails of Jayce's anger instantly when he realizes he's crossed a line.

No one can drag a bad word about Viktor out of Jayce, and vice versa! When Singed implies that Viktor might lose loved ones over his choices, Viktor immediately (and correctly!) states that Jayce will understand.

They are rigorously protective of one another too. Arguably all the times Viktor excludes Jayce from his Hexcore experiments in S1 is to protect him from his reckless and likely illegal experiments (as well as not wanting Jayce to stop him and wanting to live, but it can be many things). Jayce constantly cites Viktor as his partner and constantly reiterates that Viktor is his priority in life, that saving Viktor comes first. Jayce overthrows the goddamn founder of the city in order to protect Viktor!

Jayce's love for Viktor is so extreme that literally in S2, the only person who can convince Jayce to hurt Viktor, after seeing the post-apocalyptic Hell of a future that is caused by him, is Viktor himself. Jayce doesn't even get mad at Viktor after he learns Viktor is the cause of what he saw! He is instead desperate to get back, to avert the damage caused by their joint work in Hextech, and saved Viktor from the fate worse than death that is Mage Viktor's total isolation in the aftermath. And every step of the way, even knowing what he knows it's clear he's in agony at the thought of having to raise a hand to Viktor at all.

Now of course I'm getting into just how insane their love for one another gets in S2, but I just feel so baffled sometimes reading fic where Viktor is constantly undercutting, insulting, or belittling Jayce every which way. He never once does that after the partnership begins. And it makes me so insane because we have so many partnerships in media that do devolve into sarcasm, cattiness, and backbiting but Jayce and Viktor aren't one of them and that's really really fucking interesting and worthy of exploration I think.

[st4rpiece]

needing space after an argument pt. 2

SFW

characters: luffy, zoro, usopp, sanji x reader summary: they earn your forgiveness CW: groveling, making up, fluff, and over 600 words each

pt. 1 | pt. 2

────────────────────₊˚.༄

Monkey D. Luffy

Luffy wasn’t himself. It was the first thing everyone noticed after you left the ship. His laughter, usually loud and contagious, was quieter, forced. Mealtimes felt emptier, and the energy on the Sunny had shifted. He tried to act like nothing was wrong, but even the crew could see the shadow of regret lingering in his eyes.  

But now, here he was, standing in front of you in the quiet port town where you’d taken refuge after leaving the crew. His usual confidence was gone, replaced by a desperate determination.  

“I’m sorry,” he said for what must have been the tenth time. His voice was raw, almost breaking. “I didn’t mean it. I shouldn’t have told you to leave. I was stupid.”  

You stood with your arms crossed, your expression guarded. Seeing Luffy like this—so uncharacteristically vulnerable—caught you off guard, but the sting of his words still lingered, fresh and sharp.  

“Luffy, you can’t just say whatever you want when you’re mad and expect everything to go back to normal,” you said, your voice steady but tinged with exhaustion. “You told me to leave. So I did.”  

“I didn’t mean it,” he repeated, stepping closer but stopping just short of touching you. “I was mad and didn’t think. I... I need you on the ship. Not just because I want you there, but because you’re part of the crew. You’re important to us all and i shouldn’t have made you feel otherwise.”  

You searched his face, his big, earnest eyes pleading with you. You could see the regret there, the weight of his mistake hanging heavy on his shoulders. For a moment, your resolve wavered, but you quickly shook your head.  

“I can’t just come back because you say you’re sorry, Luffy. What happens the next time we fight? Are you going to tell me to leave again?”  

“No!” he blurted out, shaking his head vehemently. “No, I swear. I’ll never say anything like that again.”  

You frowned, unsure what to make of his declaration. “Luffy, words aren’t enough.”  

He nodded, his straw hat shadowing his eyes for a moment before he looked up at you with renewed determination. “Then I’ll show you. Whatever it takes.”  

True to his word, Luffy didn’t give up. He didn’t force you to return to the ship, but he didn’t leave the island either. Every day, he showed up—whether it was to bring you a freshly caught fish for dinner, fix something around the small inn you were staying at, or simply sit outside and wait in silence. He didn’t push, didn’t demand, but his presence was constant.  

When the ship needed supplies, he was the first to volunteer, taking on tasks he’d usually leave to someone else. The crew later told you how he’d started taking more responsibility, trying to step up as a better leader.  

Even when you didn’t speak to him, he never faltered. Every action, every small gesture, was his way of showing you how much he regretted his words.  

One evening, you found Luffy sitting on the dock, staring out at the ocean with his straw hat resting in his lap. He looked smaller somehow, as though the weight of his regret had worn him down.  

When he noticed you approaching, he stood up immediately, his expression shifting from surprise to cautious hope.  

“Why do you keep doing this?” you asked, crossing your arms.  

“Because I was wrong,” he said without hesitation. “Because I hurt you, and I have to make it right. Even if you never come back, I’ll keep trying. I don’t care how long it takes.”  

His sincerity stopped you in your tracks. He wasn’t making excuses, wasn’t brushing over your feelings like they didn’t matter. He had made changes—small ones, but noticeable—and for the first time, you truly believed he understood the gravity of what he’d done.  

You sighed, letting the silence linger before speaking. “Luffy... I’ll come back.”  

His eyes lit up with hope, his lips parting as though he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.  

“But,” you continued, holding up a finger, “this only works if things stay different. I’m not going back just to deal with the same problems again. I need to know you’re taking this seriously.”  

“I swear!” he said immediately, his voice brimming with determination. “I swear that things will be different. A good different. No more reckless fights for selfish reasons or saying things I don’t mean, I promise.”  

You studied him for a long moment, the sincerity and determination in his eyes unmistakable. Finally, you allowed a small smile to tug at the corners of your lips. “Alright, Lu.”  

Relief washed over his face as he heard the familiar nickname, and for the first time in weeks, you saw his grin return, bright and full of life.  

"I missed you so much, baby," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion and certainty, as he wrapped his arms around you.

The comforting warmth of his embrace, felt like home—safe, secure, and exactly where you wanted to be.

Roronoa Zoro

Zoro wasn’t one to grovel. Stubborn and prideful as he was, apologies didn’t come easy for him. But as he sat alone on the Sunny’s deck, replaying his words from the fight, regret gnawed at him like a dull blade.  

The memory of your face—shocked, hurt, and then resigned—kept flashing in his mind. He hadn’t just lashed out; he’d cut deep. You were trying to help, and he’d thrown it back at you, calling you controlling and annoying when you didn’t deserve it.  

He groaned, pressing his palms against his face. He hated how small he felt for failing to show up to the dates you’d so carefully planned, how your suggestion—simple and kind—had poked at an insecurity he didn’t want to face. And now, because of his pride, he’d pushed you away.  

For days, you’d been distant, giving him space, but that only made the guilt worse. He needed to fix this.  

You were sitting on a quiet hillside overlooking the ocean when Zoro found you. The breeze tugged at your clothes, and you looked peaceful—too peaceful, considering how much turmoil you’d left him in.  

“Hey,” he called softly, his voice unusually hesitant.  

You glanced at him, surprised to see the normally stoic swordsman looking... sheepish. He stood awkwardly a few feet away, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.  

“What is it, Zoro?” you asked, your tone calm but distant.  

He swallowed hard, his fingers twitching at his sides before he took a step closer. “I wanted to apologize.”  

That caught your attention. Your brows lifted in mild surprise, but you said nothing, waiting for him to continue.  

“I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” he said, his voice low and gruff, but steady. “You weren’t being controlling or annoying. You were just... trying to help.” He exhaled heavily as if forcing the words out of himself. “And I was an idiot.”  

You blinked, his sincerity throwing you off guard. “Zoro—”  

“Let me finish, please,” he interrupted, his eyes meeting yours for the first time. There was something raw in his gaze—an uncharacteristic vulnerability. “I’ve been thinking about it, and... I hate that I’m always late. I hate knowing you’re waiting for me while I’m stuck wandering around like an idiot who can’t follow a simple route. It’s embarrassing.”  

Your expression softened, but you stayed quiet, letting him speak.  

“When you suggested we go together, I know it wasn’t because you thought I was useless,” he continued, his voice tightening. “But that’s how it made me feel. Like I wasn’t good enough to get it right on my own. And instead of dealing with that, I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have done that.”  

He took a deep breath, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “But I don’t think you’re controlling or annoying. You’re the most patient and understanding person for putting up with me. So you deserve better and I want to be that.”  

The sincerity in his voice was almost overwhelming, and for a moment, you weren’t sure how to respond. He wasn’t just saying the words—he meant them.  

“I know I can’t just say sorry and expect everything to go back to normal,” he added, glancing away briefly before meeting your gaze again. “So, please baby just… give me a chance to make it right.”  

Your lips parted in surprise. Zoro wasn’t the type to take the initiative when it came to things like this, but the determination in his eyes was unmistakable.  

After a long pause, you let out a soft sigh, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “One last chance.”  

He nodded, relief flashing across his face, but there was also a quiet resolve in his expression. This wasn’t just a promise—it was a vow.  

The next time you guys went on a date, Zoro was ready. He showed up early, finally getting the chance to wait on you. He led you to a quiet clearing overlooking the sea, a picnic already set up with food he’d personally asked Sanji to help him prepare.  

The effort was clear in every little detail, from the way he chose the spot (easily accessible, no chance to get lost) to the careful decorations and crafts you mentioned liking/wanting to try. Showing that despite his stoic nature, he was listening to you during previous dates. Even now as you spoke, he would chime in at just the right moments.  

It wasn’t perfect—he stumbled over a few of his words and complained when a seagull tried to swipe the food—but it was Zoro, trying in his own way. And that meant everything.  

By the time the date ended, you leaned back on the blanket, gazing up at the stars, feeling closer to him than ever before. When he reached for your hand, you let him, squeezing it gently.  

Zoro glanced down at your intertwined fingers, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. His gaze softened, and he took a deep breath before speaking. “I know you agreed to give me another chance, but I need to know if you’re still interested in giving me that chance.”

Your heart softened at the rare vulnerability in his voice. You turned to meet his eyes, and they were steady, full of quiet determination.  

A soft smile tugged at your lips, and you leaned into him as the waves crashed gently in the distance. For a man of few words, Zoro was surprisingly good at them.

“Well,” you began, tilting your head with a teasing glint in your eye, “that depends. Are you going to keep being so dramatic about it?” You bit back a laugh as you watched the tips of his ears turn red, his expression shifting into a familiar scowl.

“Tch, not being dramatic,” he grumbled, looking away, but the redness in his ears betrayed him.

You chuckled softly and squeezed his hand, drawing his attention back to you. “I was being serious about giving you that second chance,” you said warmly. His shoulders relaxed slightly, and the tension in his jaw eased.

“But,” you continued, your tone more firm, “next time something like this happens, promise that you’ll communicate it properly. Okay? No more bottling things up.”

Zoro stared at you for a moment, his expression unreadable, before nodding once. “You have my word.” His voice was low but steady, carrying the weight of his promise.

“Good.” You smiled, squeezing his hand again as a soft breeze brushed past, carrying with it the sound of the waves.

God Usopp

The day had been quiet, almost too quiet, and the silence weighed heavy between you and Usopp. Since your argument, things haven’t been the same. You still spoke, but the words felt hollow, and the laughter you once shared now seemed distant and forced. He noticed it all—the way your smile never quite reached your eyes, the strain in your voice when you tried to act like nothing was wrong.  

And it tore him apart.  

Usopp sat on the deck after dinner, absentmindedly fiddling with a half-finished invention. His fingers moved on instinct, but his thoughts were stuck on your last conversation. He hated himself for the way he’d lashed out, for the way he’d let his insecurities push you away.  

As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sea in shades of orange and pink, he made up his mind. He couldn’t let this fester any longer.  

When you stepped onto the deck for some air, Usopp hesitated, watching you from a distance. Finally, he stood, his hands clenching at his sides as he approached you.  

“Hey,” he called softly.  

You turned, surprised to see him. “Oh, hey.” Your voice was casual, but your guarded expression told him you were bracing for something.  

“Can we talk?” he asked, his tone uncharacteristically serious.  

You nodded, following him to a quieter spot on the ship where the others couldn’t overhear. The soft sound of the waves filled the silence as Usopp struggled to find the right words.  

“I’ve been... thinking,” he began, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “About what I said. About the fight.” He looked down, unable to meet your gaze. Your brows furrowed, but you stayed quiet, giving him the space to explain.

“I know you don’t see me as weak,” he continued, his voice growing tight. “But hearing you scream for him... it made me feel useless.” He exhaled sharply, his hand tightening around the railing. “And I hate feeling like that. I know I’m not like Luffy, Zoro, or Sanji. I’m not the guy who can punch through walls or take down ten enemies at once, but... I at least want to be someone you can count on. Someone you can feel protected with.”

He paused, his words faltering slightly. “But instead of talking to you about it, I projected my insecurities onto you, and made it seem like you were wrong for asking our friends for help. For that, I’m sorry.”

The vulnerability in his words hit you hard, and guilt pooled in your chest. “Baby...” you started, your voice soft. “I’m sorry, too. I never meant to make you feel that way.” You stepped closer, resting a hand on his arm. “But you are someone I can count on. Someone who’s saved my ass more times than I can count. Your strength may not look like theirs, but it’s just as important.”

He finally looked at you, his eyes wide, searching for any trace of doubt. “You... you really mean that?”

“Heck yeah, I do,” you said without hesitation. “I trust you, Usopp. I always have.”

A small, hesitant smile tugged at his lips, and he let out a shaky breath, relief flooding through him. “Thanks... I needed to hear that," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion.

After a moment, he straightened and rubbed the back of his head, suddenly looking sheepish. “Actually, uh, there’s something I’ve been working on. For you. I wanted to make something that could help you in a fight.”  

Your brows lifted in surprise. “Really? What is it?”  

Grinning now, Usopp reached into his bag and pulled out a small, compact gadget. “It’s not finished yet, but it’s kind of like a smoke bomb, but better. It creates a flash of light to blind enemies and a smoke screen to cover your escape. I thought... you know, it might come in handy.”  

You took the gadget from him, turning it over in your hands. “Usopp, this is amazing.”  

“Yeah, well,” he said, scratching his cheek, his grin turning bashful. “I wanted to make sure you had another thing to keep you safe. In case no one else is around.”  

You smiled, warmth blooming in your chest. “Thank you, Usopp. I mean it.”  

He relaxed then, the tension between you finally melting away. “I’ll finish it soon,” he promised, his confidence returning. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll come up with even more stuff for you with full bragging rights.”  

"Thanks, now I can let everyone know just how my amazing boyfriend is," you laughed—genuinely this time—and Usopp’s chest swelled with pride. He knew he still had work to do, but for now, the weight of your fight had lifted, and the bond between you felt stronger than ever.  

Vinesmoke Sanji

Sanji stood alone on the deck, the moonlight casting a silver glow over his slumped figure. He leaned against the railing, a cigarette burning low between his fingers, though he hadn’t taken a drag in minutes. His mind replayed every moment of your relationship—the laughter, the stolen glances, the warmth of your touch. And then, inevitably, it would circle back to the breakup.  

He’d failed you. The person who mattered more to him than anyone else in the world. His actions—so thoughtless, so wrapped in habit—had made you feel second to strangers. The realization haunted him, clawing at his chest.  

Sanji thought of groveling, of falling to his knees and begging you to take him back, but he knew you too well. That would only push you further away. You were someone who needed actions, not words, and he knew his words had already failed you. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to give up. You were his person, his muse, his everything. How could he possibly accept a life without you in it?  

So he did the only thing he could. He began to show you through his actions.  

The change was immediate. The next time the ship docked at an island, Sanji didn’t so much as glance at the women who usually flocked to him. When they batted their lashes and called out for his attention, he brushed them off politely and kept his focus on his task. His compliments, once scattered freely to strangers, were now reserved only for you. Even when you ignored him, his words never wavered—soft, sincere, and meant only for you.  

In battle, Sanji was more relentless than ever. But his priority was always your safety, stepping in before danger could reach you, even if it meant taking a hit himself. When the crew sat down for meals, he made sure your favorite dishes were prepared just the way you liked them, his eyes flicking to your face to see if you’d noticed.  

And when he thought you weren’t looking, he’d linger nearby, silently watching you. There was a sadness in his gaze as he admired the person he’d once had the privilege of holding close. You saw him sometimes, hovering at a distance, and though you tried to ignore it, part of you couldn’t deny the pang in your chest. You still had feelings for him—of course you did. But you couldn’t settle for someone who had once made you doubt your place in their life.  

Weeks passed, and Sanji’s quiet devotion didn’t falter. Even now as he stood near the railing, waiting for you, his hands slightly trembling. He had spent all day preparing for this moment, and now the weight of his plan felt heavier than ever.  

When you finally stepped out onto the deck, he straightened immediately, smoothing his suit jacket with nervous fingers. "Hey," he called softly, his voice careful, like he was afraid of scaring you off.  

"Hey," you replied, your tone hesitant but curious. He’d been walking on eggshells around you for weeks, and now this—an invitation for "something special" without much detail. Against your better judgment, you’d said yes, curiosity getting the better of you.  

He smiled faintly, stepping toward you. "I, uh, thought we could spend the evening together. Just... talk."  

You raised a brow. "Talk?"  

He nodded, motioning for you to follow him. "Come on. I’ve got something to show you."  

Despite the uncertainty in your chest, you followed him across the deck, and your eyes widened when he led you to a corner of the ship bathed in soft, golden light from lanterns he had strung up. A blanket was spread out neatly on the deck, adorned with a small basket, plates of your favorite snacks, and a bottle of your favorite drink.  

"Sanji..." you murmured, taken aback.  

"I know it’s not much," he said quickly, scratching the back of his neck. "But I wanted to do something for you. Something simple. Something that doesn’t involve me screwing it up."  

You blinked, your hesitation softening slightly at his earnestness. "You didn’t have to go through all this trouble."  

"I did," he countered, his voice firm but warm. "I needed to."  

He gestured for you to sit, and after a moment’s pause, you did, settling down on the blanket. Sanji sat across from you, his hands fidgeting in his lap.  

For a moment, neither of you spoke, the quiet hum of the ship filling the space between you. Finally, Sanji took a deep breath and looked at you, his expression more serious than you’d seen in a long time.  

"My love," he began, "I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since... since we broke up. And I just... I need you to know how sorry I am."  

You looked away, unsure how to respond, but he continued.  

"I wasn’t the boyfriend you deserved," he admitted, his voice low. "I made you feel like you had to compete for my attention, and that’s unforgivable. You should’ve never felt like anything less than the most important person in my life. That’s on me."  

His gaze was unwavering as he spoke, and you couldn’t help but feel the sincerity in his words.  

"I still have feelings for you," he said, his voice trembling slightly. "I never stopped. And I don’t expect you to forgive me overnight, or even to trust me again right away. But I need you to know that I’ve changed. I’m changing. And I’ll do anything to prove it to you."  

You stared at him, his words hitting you harder than you expected. Sanji was always smooth with his words, but this was different. There was no charm, no performative flair—just raw honesty.  

"Sanji..." you started, your voice faltering. You swallowed hard, your hands gripping the edge of the blanket. "I... I still have feelings for you too. But..."  

"But you don’t trust me," he finished for you, his tone understanding rather than hurt.  

You nodded. "It’s not that I don’t want to. I just... I’m scared of getting hurt again."  

He reached across the blanket, his hand stopping just short of yours. "I understand," he said softly. "And I don’t blame you. I don’t want you to rush into anything you’re not ready for. If we have to take things slow, then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll show you, not just with words but with actions, that you’re the only one in my heart."  

His hand lingered near yours, and after a moment, you tentatively placed your hand over his. The warmth of his touch sent a shiver through you, and you looked up to meet his gaze.  

"Okay," you said quietly. "We can try. But slow, Sanji. No rushing, no grand gestures to win me over. Just... be honest with me."  

A smile broke across his face, softer and more genuine than any you’d seen in weeks. "Slow it is," he promised.  

For the first time in what felt like forever, the tension between you eased. You still had a long way to go, but as you sat there, sharing a quiet meal under the lantern light, you couldn’t help but feel that maybe, just maybe, things could work out.  

────���──────────────₊˚.༄

One Piece Masterlist

hey…I was supposed to post this yesterday but I ended up working a double 😭.

[this is lightly edited]

anyways I saw a couple people asking about a tag list ngl i don’t know shit about that 😭😭 but hopefully this finds you !!

and for the op women/queer smau I will be posting that soon as well but I got a really cute idea from anon yesterday and I want to start on that first.

[calysto1395]

it reminds me of something i think joseph gordon levitt once said about actors. about how actors used to play next to brothels - like down to earth - and now we’ve lifted actors up to an absurd degree when they are just people doing plays. like the idea of not getting to participate as a writer is like… people say how much they appreciate writers and put us on a padestal and stuff but theres never any like

i dont wanna say engagement but failing my second language i have to, there isnt as much engagement with the ideas we are pondering and wanna put out there. like i thought a lot about the worlds i write and often times much of that doesnt make it into the finished work and i wanna share and hear other peoples thoughts or i wanna get prompts from people and see their ideas if they want to trust me with theirs and people apologize? when i ask for prompts like. i dont understand why they feel the need to apologize, we are having a connection here! thats what fandom and community is all about

like there is this thing i love, i wanna tell you about it because i think you might love it, i wanna hear what you thought about it. i’m trying to start a conversation

i totally get people stopping to write when they never get a response. i write for myself and i know i shouldn’t ever expect anything from the readers but it does at times recently feels like going to a party dolled up and being the only one there

i hope this is coherend its almost 1am here but knowing how fandom was in the early 2000s i just miss it. it was wild and weird and i definitely saw things i shouldnt but it felt like you could find people everywhere, sharing love and it feels like its become harder and harder.

feedback and fic in fandom (3 f's of our own)

This conversation about feedback on fic says everything I’ve been wanting to say better than I could say it. But I’ll go ahead and try anyway.

Over the last five years or so there have been some great discussions around the rise of commodification of fanworks and decline of fandom community. This commodification looks a bit like enshittification of the internet: a cool site exists; its popularity makes someone realize they can get money from it; it has more and more ads; the site adds features to drive engagement, including The Algorithm; the things that made the site cool start to fall away. The site exists now as a vehicle purely to get clicks, and the people on it are on it solely to get clicks—to make money, to be successful, for some kind of social cachet.

AO3 doesn’t have advertisements. It’s not making money. But what is happening to fandom is proof of concept that enshittification changes the way we as humans engage. A cool website in 2004 was often a community space where you could meet people, have conversations, find cool things, and make cool things. A cool website in 2024 is either a content farm that will continually feed you enough content to hold your attention, or a social media site where your participation will come with stats to show you whether you are holding the attention of others.

AO3 wasn’t built to be a community space. It doesn’t have great functions for meeting people and having conversations. The idea was that, because fandom community spaces already existed, AO3 would serve the part of that community where you can find the cool things and store the cool things you made. It was meant to be a library in a city, not the whole city itself.

But it was also never meant to be a website in 2024, a content farm constantly generating content solely for your clicks and eyeballs and ad revenue, or a social media site where the content creators themselves vie for your clicks and eyeballs.

The most common talking point when people discuss the enshittification of fandom is the folks out there who are treating AO3 as that first kind of enshittified website: the content farm. This discussion is about how people treat fanfic as a product for consumption.

The post that kicked off the discussion on @sitp-recs’s blog was about someone who wasn’t getting very many kudos or comments on their fic, and was feeling pretty demoralized about it, then joined a discord server and found an entire channel dedicated to people loving their fic. But those on that server had never come to share that love with the author, which the author found really discouraging.

There are more and more stories like this. Someone on tiktok pulls a quote from a fic on AO3 and makes a 10-second video with them staring at a wall, the quote pasted at the bottom, music playing over it. It has 100,000 hearts, and 100 comments with people gushing over the fic, which has 80 kudos on AO3. Overall, people notice more and more hits on their fics, but fewer and fewer comments or even kudos. Fewer and fewer people seem to feel the need to interact with the author, instead treating the fic like a product to be used and discarded—which the enshittified internet (a stunning feature of late-stage capitalism!) encourages. The fandom community is dying, these stories conclude.

I agree. 100%. Both of the stories above have happened to me—viral tiktoks about my fic, secret discord channels to follow and discuss my fic—and let me tell you, it fucking sucks.

But from these observations about fandom enshittification, the discussion continues in a very odd direction. The solution to the death of fandom community is our favorite enshittification buzzword: engagement. We should engage the authors. They’re producing these products for free. We consume them at no cost. We must demonstrate our gratitude by paying them back.

It’s as though the capitalist consumption that the enshittified web encourages is so ingrained within us that we must think in terms of payment, in terms of exchange, transaction. Or as though, by forgoing payment, authors are some kind of martyrs defying capitalism, and the only way to honor their great sacrifice is comments and kudos.

Indeed, the discourse around this sometimes does veer away from capitalist rhetoric into something that smells almost religious in desperation. Authors are gods who bestow us mere mortals with the fruits of their labor benevolently, through love; the least we can do is worship them. Meanwhile the authors adopt the groveling sentiment of starving artists: I produce great art; I only humbly ask that you feed me in return.

These kinds of entreaties make my skin crawl for a number of reasons. I’m not a god. I’m not writing because I love you. I don’t expect your worship or even your praise.

I think the thing that disturbs me the most about it is that it suggests that authors (or, if the OP is feeling generous fan work creators) are the most important people in fandom. I’ve even seen posts stating that without creators, fandom wouldn’t exist—as though readers aren’t just as important. As though conversations where people discuss characterizations and plot points and randomly spin out interpretations and ideas and thoughts related to canon are meaningless. I’ve even seen people scramble to include folks having these discussions as “creators,” as though realizing that these people are necessary and integral to fandom communities but unable to drop the idea that the producers are the ones who are important. As though that person who just lurks can never count.

Is this what community is? When you join the queer community, are you expected to produce a product of your queerness? If not, must you actively participate and give back to the queer community in order to be considered a part of it? Or is it enough that you are queer, that you exist as a queer person and want to be around others who are queer, you want to be a part of something? What is community, anyway?

The problem with people raising the authors above everyone else in the community and demanding that tribute be paid is that they are decrying the “content farm” style of 2024 website out of one side of their mouth, but out of the other side are instead demanding that AO3 become a 2024-style social media website. Authors are influencers. “Engagement” and clicks are the things that really matter. They are in fact suggesting that the way to solve the commodification of fanfic is by “paying authors back” with stats.

Before anyone comes at me with the idea that comments aren’t just “stats,” I will clarify what I mean. There are literally hundreds of posts on tumblr alone claiming that any comment “helps” the author. Someone replies that they are shy to comment. Someone else replies that incoherent keyboard smashes, a single emoji, or the comment “kudos” are all that is required to satisfy the author, all that is required as tribute—all that is required as payment to keep this economy healthy.

I’m not condemning the comments that are keyboard smashes or emojis or a single kind word. I receive them. They make me happy. If anyone wants to leave such a comment on my fics, I’m really grateful for it. But this is not community-building. This is a transaction. In @yiiiiiiiikes25’s excellent response in the post linked at the beginning, they point out that “you have a cool hat” is something that is “perfectly nice” to hear from someone—and it is! We all want to be told we have a cool hat! But as they go on to say, what builds community is interactions that are deep and specific, interactions that are rich in quality, not in quantity. A kudos or a comment that says only ❤️are lovely things to receive, but they don’t build community.

My reaction, when I see people begging for kudos and comments as the only means by which to keep fandom community alive, is very close to @eleadore's. I want to say, “No. Readers do not need to comment or kudos. Believe not these hucksters who claim to know the appropriate method of fandom participation. Participate as you feel able, or not at all; nothing is required of you.”

I’ve been told before (several times) that I’m not qualified to participate in such discussions because I am an established author who has some fics with very high stats. It doesn’t matter that I have also been a new writer with almost no one reading my fics. It doesn’t matter that I still write in new fandoms where no one in that fandom knows me. It doesn’t matter that I, like any human being, still care about receiving recognition and attention and praise.

And maybe that’s correct. I personally don’t think that billionaires have a place in deciding the direction of the economy, and--if we're really going to consider fandom an economy--in fandom terms, if I’m not a billionaire, or even a millionaire, I’m definitely in the infamous “one percent.” So, just as no one wants to hear Elon Musk say “money isn’t everything,” maybe it’s not my place to say “kudos isn’t required, actually.”

That said, I’m not the only one who has a problem with the stats-based discourse around fandom community. However, the main counter-response to this discussion I see goes something like this: you shouldn’t be writing fic for validation. If you’re writing for attention, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Authors should write fic because they love it without any expectation of return.

This is, in my opinion, missing the point of what is meant by fandom community.

I wrote fanfic before I knew that fanfic, as a concept, existed. I read books; I wanted them to be different; I wrote little stories for myself with new endings, with self-inserts, with cross-overs, with alternate universes. I did it for myself in the 90s. It never occurred to me that anyone else would do this, much less that people would share.

As @faiell points out—creating and sharing are two different things. I created fics for myself, but I decided to share them in the early 2000s because other people might like them, too. And of course, I wanted to hear whether other people liked them. How could I not? I might decorate my home just for me and not for anyone else’s preferences, but when people come over and say my house is nice, how can I not enjoy that? And if a lot of people think my house is nice, which encourages me to post pictures of it online, isn’t it understandable I might do so with the hope that more people will say my house is nice? And, honestly, if no one is appreciating my pictures, I probably won’t continue to go through the trouble of taking them and posting them. I’ll just enjoy my house that I decorated without sharing, the end.

When I found out there were whole fannish communities where people discussed canon and tossed ideas around about it, made theories and prompts and insights into the characters, fics they had written and recs for other fics and analyses of fics and art based on fics and fics based on art—I wanted to be a part of that, too. Now, sometimes, I write fic not out of an internal need to do so but out of a desire to participate in that community.

The idea that we write fic only for the love of it, then post it only because we possess it, is a process entirely centered on the self. It’s fandom in a vacuum. The idea that we share this thing, that we feel pleasure if someone likes it but feel nothing at all if no one says anything about it, that it’s completely okay to be ignored and unseen—that’s not what a community is either. That’s some weird sort of self-aggrandizement through self-effacement—because yes, there is often a weird kind of virtue-signaling in this kind of discourse.

I say this as someone who has virtue-signaled in that way: “some people write for stats, but I write for myself.” It’s bullshit. Sure, I write for myself, but why post it on the internet? Honestly, said virtue has a whiff of the capitalist machine, which would like you to produce for the sake of production, work for the sake of work. The noblest among us expect no recompense for that which they give!

The reason that I’m bringing this back around to capitalism is that capitalism actively works to dismantle community. The reason that folks are out here pleading for “engagement” in order to “pay back” authors for the products they give us “for free” is because people no longer even have the language to discuss how to participate in meaningful community. And frankly, how to build back fandom community, in the face of enshittification, is getting harder and harder to see.

But I do think that if we value fanfic and the fanfic community, it’s really, really not constructive to judge whether someone’s reasons for writing fanfic are valid. It’s also weird to me that it would be considered wrong that someone’s reason for sharing fanfic is because they would like to receive some recognition for it, when in fact that seems to be the most natural reason in the world for sharing something so private and vulnerable with the world.

Let’s go back to that idea of how hurtful it is to find out your fanfic is trending on tiktok without anyone from tiktok saying anything to you about your fic, or how it can be painful to find out there’s a secret discord channel dedicated to your fic. The people who respond to that with, “Ah, but you shouldn’t be writing to get attention!” are missing the point. The fic did get attention. It got lots. Attention obviously wasn't why the writer was writing--they were writing to participate, and they didn't get to. At all.

However, if your conclusion is that the author was upset because these particular stats were not accruing under this author’s profile, thereby preventing them from achieving the vaunted status of BNF and influencer—I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I don’t think that’s why I, personally, have been hurt by these things, and I doubt it’s what hurt the people in these posts either. They’re hurt because they want to participate, and they have been systematically excluded by the very people they thought were part of the community they thought they could participate in.

Sure, if those folks from tiktok and the discord server all came and showered the author with kudos and comments that said “kudos,” the author might have felt satisfied enough with the quantity of this recognition that they would continue writing. But in the end, this still does nothing to address the problem of fandom community, in which the deep, meaningful recognition, interactions, and relationships in fandom are getting harder and harder to have and to build, as a result of how people now expect to engage in online spaces.

So, how to address the problem of fandom community? You probably read this long, long post hoping that I had an answer, and for that I must apologize. I don’t have solutions. My intent was to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. I wished to outline the problems that I’m seeing in what was hopefully a slightly new or at least thought-provoking way, rather than offer solutions.

But, now that I’m talking about being prescriptive, maybe I can offer one suggestion, which is—maybe the solution to this isn’t about prescribing behavior. I do understand the irony in writing a prescription saying we shouldn’t prescribe people, but I’m going to write it anyway:

Maybe we shouldn’t be telling anyone the appropriate reasons for writing fanfic or for sharing it. Maybe we shouldn’t be telling readers they need to kudos or need to comment. If we’re going to go pointing fingers, we should be pointing at the institutions of capitalism that have made the internet what it is today—but I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem either.

But I do think that describing this problem, understanding what it actually is, not blaming readers for it and not blaming authors for it—I do think that helps. The discussion I linked at the beginning of this post is what I think of as the fandom I miss, the fandom that's now harder and harder to access, the fandom that is dying. That fandom was a social space where people had opinions and disagreed and went back and forth and gazed at their navels and then talked about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In the words of @yiiiiiiiikes25, it was a fuckin’ discussion about hats. And we’re hungry for it.

[makeitmingi]

In Sickness And In Health

Genre: Romance, Fluff, Comfort

Pairing: Seonghwa x Reader (y/n)

Characters: Doctor!Reader, Boyfriend!Seonghwa

Summary: Seonghwa has always been known to be the mother of the group, the one that takes care of everyone. But what happens when he falls ill? Luckily, his girlfriend is a doctor and will nurse him back to the health, just like he would for everyone else.

Word count: 4.7K

Story warning(s): Mentions of needle used for medical purposes, medications, being sick.

"Seonghwa?" You called out softly when you entered your shared house, closing the door behind you, but was replied with silence. You dropped your duffel bag onto the counter to take out the IV drip kit, fluid bag and medication.

Earlier at work...

"Hey, Hongjoong. Sorry I missed your call. What's up?" You called your boyfriend's best friend once the patient queue was freed up and you had a small break.

"Sorry to bother you, (y/n). I know you're working... Hwa's probably gonna kill me for telling you this but he's sick."

"Hwa's sick...? What do you mean?" Your eyes widened.

"Yeah, he knows you're on night shift and you know him, he never likes to have people take care of him... But he sounded quite bad over the phone and he didn't even let us to over to check on him..."

"Mhmm, I know exactly what you're talking about. Thanks for letting me know, Hongjoong. I'll go take care of him." You said.

"Let me know if you need anything."

"Thanks, I'll update you." You hummed and hung up with the captain before returning back to work.

So that's why, before you left work, you grabbed an IV drip set and all the necessary medications from the pharmacy that you may need to nurse Seonghwa back to health. Being a doctor has it's perks in that sense. And you were so worried about Seonghwa's condition that you ended up leaving your shift early.

"Seonghwa?" You poked your head into your shared room and was surprised the find the bed empty. You frowned, where did your sick boyfriend disappear to?

"Did he go out...?" You walked to your office and it was empty too. Then you checked the guest room.

"Oh, there you are." You sighed in relief.

On the bed of the guest room, there was a shivering lump under the blankets. You approached quietly and pulled back the covers, not wanting to surprise him too much.

"Seonghwa..." Your heart broke seeing Seonghwa so sick. He was shivering so much, lips quivering and cold sweat on his forehead.

"(y/n)?!" Seonghwa opened his eyes and was shocked to see you standing there.

"W-What are you doing home early? Did something happen?" He blinked, as if he was worried you were a hallucination caused by his fever. You could tell he was worrying about you.

"Hwa, stop worrying about me right now. I came home because I heard you were sick!" You frowned. Seonghwa cursed Hongjoong's name under his breath, knowing that only his best friend would rat him out to you like that.

"Come, let's get you back to bed. Why are you sleeping in the guest room?" You asked, pulling the blanket away to help him.

"Because I didn't want to spread my germs on our shared bed and I've been cold sweating. I'm so gross. You can't afford to get sick, love." Seonghwa quivered.

"Ah, Seonghwa... You know I don't care about that. We're getting you back to our bed. Come on." You helped him up.

"You should wear a mask." He tried to cough away from you.

"Park Seonghwa. Let me take care of you, okay? Stop worrying, please." You begged. He looked so sick and he was still fretting over you, it caused an ache in your chest.

"Okay, okay." He noticed your desperate tone and slipped under the covers of your shared bed, letting you tuck him in.

"Here." You put the thermometer in his mouth then went out to get the IV supplies from the counter.

"Luckily Nurse Jung let me borrow one of the portable IV stands to take home." You chuckled as you wheeled the IV stand in and fixed the height beside Seonghwa. Then you removed the thermometer from his mouth and checked. Seonghwa's fever was so high if you didn't have the IV, you would have taken him to the hospital.

"Oh, Hwa." You softened, feeling guilt bubble in your chest. But for now, you pushed it down. Seonghwa needed your focus and attention right now.

"Let me wash my hands first." You went to wash your hands and prepared the IV port to put into Seonghwa's arm.

"It's alright, baby. Slowly." Seonghwa said when he noticed your hands shaking slightly as you wiped his skin with an alcohol swab.

"Take a deep breath." You instructed and inserted the needle with precision. Seonghwa's face scrunched at the pinch, which made you feel worse.

"Sorry. It's over." You pouted.

"It's okay, love. Not your fault." He gave you a small smile. You grabbed a syringe to add the ampoule medications into the IV bag.

"Alright, there we go. It'll help with symptoms and your fever should subside quickly." You told him as you adjusted the dial flow once the drip was hooked up to the bag.

"Can you hand me another pillow?" He requested. You nodded and placed a bolster under his IV arm so it'll be comfortable.

"I'll be right back." You went to get rid of all the trash in the area and wash your hands. While you were outside, you prepared a cloth and a bucket of cool water so you could wipe him down. And you put some juice into a tumbler for him.

"I missed you." Seonghwa smiled as he watched you put the tumbler of juice and bucket on his nightstand. You started with wiping his face, feeling how warm his face was.

"Your hands are cold." He chuckled, placing his free hand over yours on his cheek.

"They're not. You're just warm." You smiled softly as you gently wiped his neck too. Then you rinsed the cloth and wiped his arms.

"Hwa, careful." You hissed when he lifted his IV arm, trying to make it easier for you to wipe his entire arm. He pouted at you and placed his arm back down.

"I need to wipe your legs too." You told him.

"But it'll be cold." He whined, quickly gripping the blanket since he knew you were going to yank it away.

"Just for a bit, Hwa. Come on, be good~" You cooed at him, which made him frown. He liked to coo at you like you were a baby and of course, you will take the opportunity to do the same to him now.

"Fine." He sulked and let you pull the blanket away. His first instinct was to him to curl his legs up. You raised his pajama pant to wipe his leg, rinsing the cloth before moving onto the next. But when you were done, you didn't let Seonghwa cover himself entirely, only covering his legs from his hips.

"But I'm cold, baby." He said, shivering.

"I know, Hwa. I'm sorry but if you bundle up like this, you'll warm your body up too much. The air conditioning will help with the fever." You kissed his forehead.

"I'm going to shower. You try to get some sleep first." You told him. He nodded, eyes already half closed.

'Hey, Hongjoong. Thank god you text me, his condition was terrible... But I put him on a drip, he should be fine. - (y/n)'

'That's good to hear. Hwa's lucky to have a doctor girlfriend or else I would have to drag his butt to the hospital and that'll be a whole nother thing. - Hongjoong'

'He's a horrible patient. But I'll keep you updated. - (y/n)'

With that, you went to take a quick shower to wash off the smell of antiseptic and germs from the hospital.

"Soup... Soup... Soup..." Since Seonghwa fell asleep, you decided to start a soup going, digging through the fridge for ingredients.

While the soup was boiling on the stove, you quietly moved the air purifier from the living room, into the bedroom. You also refilled his waterbottle with cold water. Then you went to change the sheets in the guest bedroom.

"Myers' cocktail with Peramivir administered at 3:08pm. Temperature taken 39.2 degrees." You wrote down the information on your phone, just in case.

"That's done." You turned the stove off for the soup and went to check on Seonghwa.

To avoid waking him up, you used your forehead thermometer instead of the one that needs to be in the mouth.

"38.3..." You whispered. Covering your mouth to yawn, you went to retrieve the bucket and filled it up with fresh water, along with the cloth from before.

Were you tired? Of course, you worked the graveyard shift at the hospital last night. But your priority now was Seonghwa.

"Mmm..." Seonghwa let out a soft whine in his sleep.

"Sorry, Hwa. I'll be quick." You whispered, rinsing and wringing the towel before gently wiping his face and neck. Then doing the same to wipe his arms.

"Baby?" He croaked out, slowly opening his eyes to see you standing over him to wipe down his arm.

"I'm sorry to disturb your sleep, I just wanted to try and bring your fever down faster. I've made soup for you when you feel like it. You can go back to sleep after this." You whispered with a soft smile. He nodded his head, a small smile coming onto his face as he watched you take care of him.

Seonghwa always liked taking care of people, whether it's his family, his members and of course, he LOVED taking care of his precious girlfriend. He always put others' needs before his own.

Until now, he is still the best person that takes care of Hongjoong when he's busy being the captain of the team.

"Actually, I'm a little hungry." Seonghwa admitted.

"Oh, okay! It's good that you have an appetite. I'll finish here and get you some food." You threw the cloth into the bucket and brought it out. Then you got some soup for him.

"Here." You placed the tray on the foldable table on the bed. Then you helped him sit up.

"No rice?" He gave you a sad face.

"You know you can't eat rice when you have a fever, Hwa. When your fever subsides, I'll make you rice porridge." You told him, going to open the window to let some fresh air come in.

"Sit with me, baby." He said. You hummed, pulling a chair to sit at his bed side to watch him eat.

Seeing Seonghwa eat so slowly, you figured his throat must be hurting him. It hurt to see your boyfriend like this. You were out the whole night, taking care of others when you couldn't even care for your loved on who was suffering alone at home.

"This is delicious, baby. Tha- Why are you crying?!" Seonghwa panicked when he turned his head to see tears streaming down your face. You didn't even realise that you were crying.

"I'm sorry." You looked down, shaking your head as you wiped your tears with the sleeve of your hoodie.

"My precious baby. There's nothing for you to be sorry for." He reached out to hold your hand since he couldn't reach your face.

"B-Because... What kind of doctor am I? I treat people for a living and I didn't even know you were sick! Hongjoong had to tell me and I find you in that condition. You always take care of me and I can't even-"

"Okay, okay. Breathe, my love. Breathe." Seonghwa calmed you down, moving his tray away to make some space for you.

"Come here, love." He patted his lap and you moved to sit with him, being extra careful of his drip.

"Ouh, my precious baby. My love." You hugged each other for the first time that day, Seonghwa coddling you and cooing at you like you were his baby.

"No, stop! I'm supposed to be taking care of you! Not you comforting me." You wailed, wiping your tears. Seonghwa kissed your temple, rubbing your back. Honestly, this was what Seonghwa wanted to feel better too. He missed you and just wanted to have you as close to him as possible.

"I've been waiting to hold you since you came back but I didn't want to get you sick. And I'm so gross and sweaty." Seonghwa chuckled.

"You won't... Even if you did, I don't care." You mumbled.

"No, you need to rest." It took everything in you to separate yourself from Seonghwa's embrace and placed the tray in front of him so he could continue eating.

"You take very good care of me. You're a great doctor and a great girlfriend, your patients are lucky to have you. I'm lucky to have you."

"You always take such good care of me and I couldn't even do the same." You slumped.

"Don't say that. We take good care of each other. You've just finished a night shift and yet, you've been running around to take care of me." He held your hand in his, rubbing the back with his thumb.

"Eat while I get you your medication, okay?" You stood up and went out of the room.

"Your drip is done so you can take these." You handed him a small dish with the medication on it. Before he ate the medication, you disconnected the drip from the needle port in his arm. Then you carefully removed the needle, placing a band aid over.

"Thanks, baby." Seonghwa smiled and ate the medication, chasing it with gulps of water. You gave a small smile in return and cleared up the area before washing your hands.

"Luckily I didn't throw away your sharps bin." He called out to you as you were throwing the used needle away.

"It's not even half full, I just keep it around for cases like this." You replied.

"Baby, I'm being a good patient and resting. You should also be a good baby and rest. Come on, I know you haven't taken a break since you came back and you worked graveyard." Seonghwa said.

"I will... Later..." You replied, taking the empty juice tumbler and placing it in the kitchen.

"Baby..." Seonghwa frowned in disapproval.

"I'm fine, Hwa. I promise." You squeezed his hand, taking the thermometer and taking his temperature. Finally, his temperature was now a low grade fever.

"Thank goodness I don't have to take you to the hospital now. But I'll continue to monitor your temperature." You informed, taking your phone to note down the temperature and medication log. Seonghwa curiously leaned closer to you to try and take a peek at what you were writing down.

"Wow, I'm like your patient. Just that I have you to myself and I don't need to share you with other patients." He grinned.

"You are my patient. Even though it's usually the nurse that does the charts, not me. And you never have to share me, you know I'll alwyas prioritise you and your health." You scoffed.

"I know. I just like hearing you say it." He grinned.

"Hmm, on second thought, I think the fever has made you even more delusional." You chuckled, placing your hand on his forehead.

"That's impossible. I have the best doctor in the world taking care of me." He grasped your hand to kiss the back of it. You smiled and pressed your cheek against his.

"Now come to bed." He whispered.

"I will. Just let me clean up the kitchen. You should sleep more." You replied. He hummed obediently and let you tuck him in.

"Come back soon." He smiled. You closed the window and quietly left the room to let him sleep. Although, you didn't just clean the kitchen. You knew Seonghwa was particular about cleanliness so you did his daily cleaning routine for him, knowing he couldn't do it today.

"Lint roller, vacuum, wet tissue mop then lint roller." You tried to remember his cleaning sequence and took the necessary equipment you needed to clean.

However, you didn't want to wake him so you didn't use the vacuum, instead you used the broom to sweep the floor.

"Ah, finally done." You fell back onto the couch with the lint roller in your hand.

"Baby...?" Seonghwa came out, wrapped in his blanket. He woke up to find his bedside empty and when he felt how cold the sheets were, he knew you didn't come to bed like you said he would.

"(y/n)-" Seonghwa paused when he saw you asleep on the couch, still gripping the lint roller in your hand.

"Sweet girl." He cooed and put his blanket aside before gently easing the lint roller out of your hand and putting it aside.

Looking around, Seonghwa knew that you must have done his usual daily cleaning routine for him. He smiled softly, brushing your hair away from your face, you knew him so well.

"Rest well, my love." He kissed your head and placed the blanket over your body instead.

Seonghwa went to the room and took his temperature, writing down the reading and timing on a post it, knowing that you would want to log it in later. He was still running a low grade fever and felt aches in his body but he felt 10 times better than he did this morning, all thanks to you.

"Hongjoong ah." Seonghwa made the phone call in the room, not wanting to disturb you.

"Okay, listen Seonghwa. Before you come at me all mad, you were so sick and didn't want any of us to help you. That's why I told (y/n), okay? So it's your fault."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You so owe me." Seonghwa rolled his eyes, even though he knew Hongjoong couldn't see him.

"You have a doctor girlfriend to give you first class care. I don't owe you anything. But I'm guessing you're feeling better already?"

"I do, thanks to her. She's resting now, poor thing worked the whole night and came back to take care of me. She didn't even have time to sit down and catch a breather." Seonghwa sighed.

"You both take care of people before you take care of yourselves. See? That's why you're made for each other."

"Right..." Seonghwa scoffed.

"Anyway, do you two need anything from us? The others should be done with their schedule and I just left the studio. I can pick up whatever you need."

"You shouldn't be around the house for too long or you might get sick too. But if you could drop dinner off for us, it'll be a great help. I don't really want (y/n) to do anymore cooking or for her to be eating ramyeon." Seonghwa knew you too well.

"Sure. Send me what you want and I'll go pick it up, drop it off at yours."

"Thanks, Hongjoong ah." Seonghwa said and hung up. He texted over the food for Hongjoong to buy, knowing your likes and dislikes.

As much as Seonghwa wanted to snuggle with you, he had to hold himself back. Firstly, he didn't want to wake you. Secondly, he was still worried about getting you sick.

"Ah..." He winced and dramatically held his arm back as he stood before you.

"Once you recover, you can get all the cuddles from her." He took a deep breath and returned to the room.

And of course, he found his nintendo switch in the charger, you must have put it there, knowing he would be bored and want to play when he wakes up.

When you woke up, you sat up in shock. You didn't even know when you fell asleep. But the curtains to the living room were drawn and there was a blanket placed over you.

"Yeah, she's still sleeping... I want her to get as much rest as she can get since she worked graveyard... Thanks, Hongjoong ah. I'll see you." You heard hushed whispers from the bedroom and assumed it was Seonghwa speaking to Hongjoong over the phone, maybe updating him on Seonghwa's current condition.

"Oh, baby! You're awake." Seonghwa was heading back into the living room and spotted you standing there, half asleep and confused.

"Was that Hongjoong?" You asked.

"Mhmm, he picked up some dinner for us. I didn't want you cooking and I shouldn't be cooking for you when I'm sick." He said, placing the empty cups on the counter.

"Ah, I'm fine to cook, Seonghwa. And besides, there's still some leftover chicken soup for you." You yawned, shuffling to him.

"I know. But I also know you'll give all the leftover soup to me and make ramyeon for yourself." He stated.

"I..." Your cheeks heated up as he exposed you. Seonghwa chuckled, watching you stand there, still half asleep and a little lost, with the blanket wrapped around your body like a child.

"You should be resting... Let me do all the dishes..." You said to him.

"I feel better already, baby. I took my temperature down and even took the medications." He said, showing you the post it note with all the temperature readings, the medications he took and the timings of when he took them.

"Let me feel. Come here." You reached up to feel his cheeks and forehead in your hands.

"Your fever is gone. Let's hope it stays that way. But still, you're not fully recovered." You frowned slightly. You were relieved that his fever was finally gone.

"After this." He kissed your knuckles.

"Let me put this back." You bundled up the blanket and folded it properly, returning it to the bedroom.

"Gosh, I didn't even know when I fell asleep." You rubbed your cheeks and let out another yawn.

"Poor baby. You were probably so tired and running on adrenaline to take care of me. Once the food is delivered, we should eat and go back to bed." Seonghwa frowned sadly.

"Yeah, we should." You smiled softly.

"I bought some immunity juice thingy in the fridge. You should drink that. It's good for you." You pointed.

"It looks horrible. Tumeric, black pepper, orange, ginger, carrot, apple, cucumber... I think just reading this is making me feel more sick than I already am." Seonghwa took the bottle out, cringing at the colour and ingredients listed on it. You took the bottle from him and poured him a glass.

"It's good for you." You re-emphasised and held it out to him. Seonghwa sighed in defeat and grabbed the glass to drink it. He gulped the whole thing down, shuddering when he finished.

"Now, you. You're always around sick people, you should be drinking it too to build immunity." Seonghwa refilled the glass.

"But..." Your face fell.

"Be good, baby." Seonghwa shot you a pointed look, repeating your own words back to you.

"I take you being able to boss me around as a sign that you're feeling better." You raised an eyebrow with him but still drank the immunity juice. Seonghwa was right, the taste was vile.

"See? Horrible, right?" Seonghwa chuckled and engulfed you in a bear hug, rubbing your back while you nodded glumly.

"There, there." He comforted. Seonghwa's hugs felt like home, you nuzzled your cheek against his chest and closed your eyes. It doesn't matter how long you are away from him, you always miss his hugs and his warm embrace.

"My love, are you falling asleep on me?" He chuckled.

"Shhhhh..." You hushed him. Seonghwa sighed in defeat and stroked the back of your head. He guided you to the couch so he could tuck you under his arm.

"Don't sleep, Hongjoong's coming to delivery dinner soon. After that, you can sleep." He said.

"If you don't want me to sleep, stop being so comfy and cozy." You grumbled. Seonghwa laughed at your nonsense.

"Wait! You should be the one resting! Not me!" You shot up suddenly, making Seonghwa jump in shock. He didn't have time to protest as you pulled him up from the couch and brought him back to the room.

"There. Stay here until I get the food from Hongjoong." You pulled the blanket over his legs.

"My love-"

"Shh, rest." You placed the Nintendo switch console in his hands and exited the room to prepare his next round of medications, as well as fill up his water bottle for him.

"Hongjoong ah! Thanks again for doing this... No, he's not sleeping, you can see him if you want... That's right, you need to remain healthy as the last Matz standing... Don't make yourself sick taking care of the kids and not of yourself." Seonghwa heard you talking to Hongjoong, it was nice to hear you so comfortable with him.

The love of his life and his best friend.

"Mmm, I will. Take care and let me know if you need anything!" You bid Hongjoong goodbye and brought the food bags in.

"Stay there, Hwa! I'll plate everything up." You said just as Seonghwa was about to stand up from bed. You knew him too well to know what he would do.

"Do you have a camera in here?!" Seonghwa yelled back.

"What are you talking about?" You chuckled as you entered the room with a tray of food for him. You placed the tray on the bed for him.

"Where's your dinner? And don't tell me you will eat after me. I won't eat unless you eat with me." Just like you knew Seonghwa, he knew you very well too.

"Fine, I'll go get my food." Your shoulders slumped and you went to get your bowl of noodle soup.

A nice silence fell over the both of you as you ate, the both of you were rather quiet eaters. Just that usually, you and Seonghwa would put food on each other's spoons but with Seonghwa being sick, you both didn't want to risk cross-contamination.

"I'll go take a shower. I really want to get out of these clothes." Seonghwa said with an uncomfortable frown once dinner was done. You nodded and let him shower while you cleaned up.

"Don't go under the hot water for too long, Hwa! It might trigger your fever again." You knocked on the door.

"Yes, Dr (y/l/n)." He replied. You laid on your side of the bed, checking your phone for messages.

"I'm back." Seonghwa wrapped his arms around you from behind, pulling you flushed against his body. He was still slightly warm but the medication seemed to really help.

"Still feel ill?" You ran your hands through his hair.

"No, I'm a lot better but the body ache is still there." He smiled softly, grabbing your hand and kissing your fingertips.

"I've set an alarm for you to take your meds, so don't swear at me for waking you up later, okay?" You joked, knowing that Seonghwa would NEVER ever swear at you.

"You don't have to wake up, baby. I can wake up on my own to take the medication, just put it on my table." Seonghwa said.

"It's fine. I want to, it will make me feel better knowing your temperature and reaction to the medication." You insisted. He knew there was no persuading you otherwise so Seonghwa just nodded and pulled you to him. You both didn't care about getting you sick anymore, you just wanted to be as humanly near him as possible.

"Thank you for taking care of me, baby." He kissed your forehead.

"What's there to thank for? You're always taking care of me and making sure I'm at my best." You looked up at him.

"Yeah, but I like to take care of you. It's not a chore at all, it makes me feel useful knowing I can help you. And with your job, you always take care of patients. It's nice to be taken care sometimes."

"Seonghwa, you're always useful, no matter what. I've never saw you as useless." You said.

"I know... It's just a personal feeling." He shrugged.

"I could say the same for you. You're always taking care of the other members and especially Hongjoong. So you can take a break and let me take care of you." You giggled.

"We'll always be here to take care of each other. You know like they say... In sickness and in health." He stroked your cheek.

"Exactly." You smiled softly and closed your eyes to join him in dreamland.

~

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