#winter-anathema
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whitewingedcrow · 11 months ago
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Monthly prompt for Anathema! Winter cold isn't an issue with a nice warm fire :)
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rimouskis · 1 year ago
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you are so strong i think if super cool but overpriced vintage pens item was in front of me my brain would melt from the warring factions of my brain. i spend a lot of time online looking at secondhand items for all of my interests and when i open the ebay app and they say look at these wares!!! they could be yours!!! for a million trillion dollars!!!! it’s so much easier to ignore than if the wares are within arms reach
I might have been weaker had I not just bought a new phone and also am trying to save for My Travels This Summer... but I held strong... also one piece was a little too small and the other would have been very oversized... and NEITHER are suitable for summer and would have been unwearable for the next 5 months!!
the thing about me is if given enough time I can talk myself out of most any purchase. I just have to walk away for long enough and ✨poof✨ ive convinced myself to save my money
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mylostlenora · 3 months ago
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by Ian Haskins
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capslocked · 7 months ago
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PROXIMITY
male reader x chou tzuyu
25k words
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You’re not a bad person. And you know how that sounds apropos of nothing - defensive, unscrupulous - but it’s true. You’re like anybody else: full of mistakes, but good, mostly. 
You are also aware of the way she looks at you. None of that has changed.
The slight quirk at the corner of her lips. A flicker, a smirk. A game, all doe-eyed and deep dimpled - she's playing the seduction one. It isn’t subtle, and you're losing by proxy. So you're backtracking, drawing your conclusions; you're reading into the line of her jaw, the fall of her hair. Measuring the weight behind each blink.
"You were wrong by the way," Tzuyu starts, indifferent. Through some act of divine retribution, she laughs. "Because to tell you the truth, I used to have, like, the biggest crush on you."
She’s young, and - well, she’s a lot of things. A terrible idea. Incredibly off-limits. She is anathema, red tape, an original sin. You shake your head at her, smile fading - which for anyone keeping score, is an admonishment, however faint.
Because Chou Tzuyu, you recognize, is categorically, unequivocally: never supposed to happen.
-
If you want a read on your current dilemma, then this is how it pans out:
You’re walking headfirst into one of the multiple terrible, terrible scenarios you've probably had an anxiety dream about. It’s an ambush, really.
There’s the text from Mina, explaining all the ins and outs of her winter hideaway, the logistical whereabouts, and the pinched photo from the outside, the endless winding driveway, the clearing in the woods. The remote location, the unfussed snow, the towering trees. There are no neighbors to speak of, just seclusion and isolation and that makes you, among the seven billion or whatever, the only one who will know precisely how fucked you are.
The door to the cabin swings open on its hinges. You kick the snow off your boots, and the air smells indistinctly of peppermint tea.
It’s a cozy place, you think. A slightly rustic aesthetic. There’s a pair of skis decommissioned over the mantle. Mina, as usual, has good taste. You peek around: the foyer, the open living space, the wood finishes, the sunken fireplace. You almost make out a bathroom, through a half-opened doorway - and the kitchen, maybe, is nestled around the far corner.
You settle in, find your bearings, and start taking these leisurely steps down the hall.
That’s when you see her. Wearing a sweater that's a size too big, draped over her frame - sleeves tucked, exposing the barest hint of skin on her wrists, her delicate fingertips. You blink once, twice. That’s a dangerous flare. The rest of her, this canvas of pale skin and soft, endless legs, the hollowed stretch of inner thigh-
Actually, you know what, you are going to delete that out of your mind; as far as you're concerned, Tzuyu absolutely does not have her long, satin-like mahogany hair spilling over her shoulder, her bare legs poking out from under that bulky cotton blend, and she definitely, very absolutely has not given you a complete lack of boundaries, so it's more than plausible for her to slide onto a stool near the countertop with her painted-toes peeking out from beneath the folded press of her thigh (the pedicure, really, now?) and look over at you like you aren’t perfectly familiar with that goddamn face. Those eyes, that jaw.
And her collarbone is out too. Ouch.
Tzuyu rests her chin in one of her perfectly manicured hands, and tilts her head: she’s very blatantly checking you out.
The problem is, you’ve recognized her immediately.
Which - god, the bottom-lines, the blurred borders. It’s been years. She's twenty-three, twenty-four now, and as it turns out, she's taller than you remember. She's thinner, taller, actually a bit filled out too-
Right, okay, no. Just. Delete that image from the internal memory.
"Oh," you breathe, because there's not a single thing you're sure you’re supposed to do. It takes a split second too long to put the brakes on everything in your brain and say, "Tzuyu." It takes even more control not to tack an unthinkingly fond 'miss' to the front of her name - you're a god-honest lost hope - but at the last minute, you settle for, "hi."
It’s unnatural. She's actually somehow prettier than you remember, and the tousled brown curls flowing down her shoulder make it worse. She smiles, gently; this soft-spoken, "hey."
She’s at the kitchen island, holding a bowl of cereal and looking at you like she’s taking inventory. The strap of her bra is black, loose around the curve of her left shoulder; she's barefoot. Any other context, and it's your favorite kind of combination, basically: casual and messy and haphazard. Perfect. She's so tall, christ.
"We've met a few times," and she's not even phrasing it as a question - because she knows for a fact that you know her - and now, well, you can see how that's a problem.
"Yeah." You drop your bags. "Nobody said anything about anyone being here, so, I'm just a little-"
“Relieved?” Tzuyu tries, and if it sounds conceited, you’ve imagined it.
“Surprised,” you amend, quickly. There is a massive amount of distance currently between the both of you - several feet and an island counter to top it off. That's good, you think.
Tzuyu runs her hands over the top of her hair, a half-effort at putting it up into some sort of a ponytail, or maybe a bun. You see now that her nails are bare. "I'd heard from Mina," she starts, "that Sana was coming here-"
And you watch, absentmindedly, as Tzuyu slides down off her chair. You watch her too carefully almost, for a beat. You want to follow the length of her legs with the same ease and shamelessness - like it's instinct or just expected; it's ridiculous and wrong to think, but-
"-with, uh, someone. She left it purposefully vague." Tzuyu finishes, then pauses. Her gaze slides across you. If the awkward stretch of silence is weird, she doesn't comment on it. “Then I heard the flight got delayed because of all the snow."
"Just Sana’s," you correct, and that's not information you should be simply giving away. She just stands there, blinking up at you.
"Huh," she says, eyebrow lifted - slower than is explicitly necessary, “so you’re like. All alone until she gets here.” She simply eats a spoonful of cereal, chews for a moment, and adds, “bummer.”
It’s true, in some sense. You sigh, rake a hand back through your hair, and your jacket falls further down on one of your shoulders; she drops her gaze down, almost imperceptibly, following the motion.
There is definitely a point where you could take notice of a lot of things, and they include, but are certainly not limited to: the fucking languor with which she is licking the yogurt off the back of her spoon, her stupidly long eyelashes fanning on the tops of her cheeks when she glances down, the frankly risque neckline of her sweater. Those kinds of things. Those kinds of details. Really, you wouldn’t dare.
"It sounds like she’ll be getting in tomorrow evening," you decide to inform her, though she didn't ask, and now she nods, focusing still on the yogurt and granola at the bottom of her bowl.
You walk into the kitchen. Rap your knuckles on the countertop. Tzuyu’s right there, and your mind is filling up with images you could really do without. That's the unfortunate, traitorous nature of all this: in any universe, Chou Tzuyu fawns over you. And she will, on accident or purpose, test you. And as for your hesitation - that's an instinct that gets activated every time you so much as meet Tzuyu in person, this invasive little impulse. 
"Well," Tzuyu says, way too casually. “It’s just us then.”
"Yeah." you agree, stilted. “Just us.”
"There's wine," she decides, tilts her head. Then, matter of factly, "and coffee, hot cocoa. Mina’s more or less stocked on everything."
Her voice hits the room all nice, sweet, syrupy - god, fuck, maybe there's a window or a door here somewhere that you're supposed to open to clear the air, but when you look, there’s frost on the glass; it’s the subalpine frigidity. Tzuyu flashes you this other sort of glance - her teeth scrape the rounded spoon's tip before her lips fully fix around it. The drowsy, delirious feeling is almost involuntary at this point.
"I should unpack my things, is what I should do, probably," and now you are saying things for the sake of saying them, as an escape. "Hey, seriously. Sorry for the inconvenience."
“Don’t be,” she tells you. "The weather isn't anybody's fault."
(Here, a premonition. You look at Tzuyu, who raises an eyebrow back.)
The next logical move is: leave. Tzuyu folds her long limbs back up onto the stool, and you're - trying not to look. You're also trying not to do it consciously, actively - you're not, and not. You fail, like you did a few years ago, too - the eyes have a bad habit of wandering. She's made of porcelain, all thin wrists, thin neck, soft curves and delicate lines. She's made out of glass - she’s at her most dangerous when you’ve gone and broken her.
It’s possible, you think, she could break you too.
-
Look, contextually - it’s Murphy’s law, or maybe your own very specific curse. A lot of stuff happens, so here’s a rough draft, your best effort at an approximation, a smudged-pencil sketch:
Tzuyu has been on vacation in the Alps from the start of the week, or maybe the week prior - she's alone in this stupidly big cabin you're supposed to be meeting Sana in for two weeks and change of pure unadulterated, hedonistic fun. Skiing, lounging, stargazing, drinking, screwing, consummating a situationship. You know the drill.
However there ends up being an actual, literal avalanche - with snow and rocks and ice and whatever the fuck - the power goes out, and you can only assume the whole mountain's gone dark. It's like a classic, a cautionary tale: hey, dude, you're on vacation with this drop-dead gorgeous girl who will let you do whatever you want to her - in the name of love and lust and a loosely legal liability. She says she'll be yours forever, except you also heard her say that the universe is entitled to laugh at you, a bit - so you do something you'll regret (which, okay, you've done countless things you'll regret) and now you're getting punished for it, and so is the stunning temptress currently shivering in the bed next to you. Seriously, whatever you do, do not fuck her, don't let her get too attached, because oh, man - Tzuyu really likes to make herself comfortable, huh? To nestle herself into your arms, let her hand stroke circles in the dark fabric of your t-shirt, warm her cold nose into your chest, and cuddle the night away. She's so easy to give in to, isn't she? This walking, talking paradox of everything she's not supposed to be and everything she'll willingly do anyway - there's her expression, placid and rapturous in equal measures, the sleepy mumbles against your skin that sound like prayers, her damp breaths.
You should know better. You should know that this is the universe, laughing its ass off at you.
And just for the record, there is sound reason for everyone to feel, in some sense, extremely concerned by the narrative that your life has slowly, unceremoniously devolved itself into.
The first time you meet Chou Tzuyu is years ago. She’s dramatically, devastatingly, problematically, young.
It was all happening before you could really clock it, and it was morally reprehensible, and it was, in fact, probably all your own doing.
And it’s even more obvious in retrospect: how she would react to the way you reach back and ruffle your hair when you laugh, the casual appeal of your smile, the depths of your tone, how you cut it as close as you can get it. A girl will trip all over herself to let you look after her; that’s the basic blueprint, that's the default. See, you're in your twenties, an adult - not having figured out much, but having certainly figured out this - and it's very much not lost on you that the girl should not be flirting with you - but she does, and the very worst of it is: you let her.
“Are you out of your mind?” Jihyo had said at the time, and, in fairness, yeah. That more or less sums it up.
So you end up making a point of never getting to know her, to always keep the conversation nonexistent. Or in the worst case scenario, brief - on surface level topics. The weather. Your job. Food. If you like her sunglasses. (They look protective, you’d told her, very practical. Very safe.) It's the essentials, a light, professional rapport - never once crossing the border from casual conversation to candid disclosure. 
She's infatuated, of course. You're not mincing words here. It's actually rather unfortunate, how gone she is for you. You could’ve probably stood to dial it back; you, and your charm. Your smiles.
Because Chou Tzuyu was however many years young, very much off-limits - and like a lot of people it seems, totally hooked on your whole deal.
-
(Theoretically, that's how it all starts. Which is why, pragmatically, you will never, ever lay a finger on her.)
-
So, the plan to get through this was simple and to the point and as follows:
* Avoid unnecessary physical contact
* Maintain social distance, in fact - something covid-esque sounds great, about six feet
* Do not offer opinions/advice unless specifically asked
* Minimize speaking, just to be safe
* Do not exchange gifts, especially personal ones
* Be wary of the temptation to take a voluntarily-tipsy Tzuyu to bed, because you'll want to - and god knows Tzuyu will make it extremely clear that you could; this is exactly how shit turns south-
* Adjust and reframe
* Reinforce
* Remind yourself
* To just fucking think about literally anything else
It was working fine, so far - really fine, especially if you consider how early into the stay you're sitting there, telling yourself off in the bathroom mirror, get it together, you dumbass. What is wrong with you, don’t you know better by now - before an unapologetic knock on the door snaps you out of it, and the click of the door opening a moment later forces a heavy inhale from your chest: you just need a fucking second, thanks - not a half-decent excuse or a rearrangement, not a careful restructure, just a split second in your own head; that's not even the sort of thing you're prone to needing, because it's you, but with Chou fucking Tzuyu-
A soft breathy laugh, "are you okay in here?"
Tzuyu pokes her head into the room, her hair a wavy curtain that tumbles down past the middle of her back. You have this vague, fleeting impulse to run your fingers through it.
"Well," and there goes all the shit you'd managed not to think about, or contemplate, or dwell upon for that one glorious, naive, misinformed second. "Sort of," you say, offering her a quick glance.
"Really?" Tzuyu says, not catching onto the whole existential crisis thing. "Is there anything else you need? I mean," and then your eyes fall upon her; she's put a sweater on, pants, which all things considered, is a huge victory, a total rout - her baggy sweater drapes on her, practically brushing her thigh where the material stops, the hem. "I guess not, just. Um," her teeth catch her bottom lip for a quick moment, and this time she glances back towards the hall, the granite-finish tiles. "Wanna make s'mores?"
"What," you ask, because honestly, what the actual fuck-
"I went into town to get fresh groceries earlier this week. Everything just kinda landed in my cart," she says, the beginning of an explanation - the backstory, if you will. "And there's a fireplace. Momo always says the calories don't count if it's social eating, so." She makes a small shrug.
"Oh,” you say, like you understand. Your throat feels tight. “She’s totally right.”
She offers you a small nod. Tucks her hair behind her ear. You wonder if she knows how suggestive even the smallest of gestures she makes are; and more so, if she does it knowingly, or simply without thought - if it's a facet of her own effortlessness.
"Um," you say, for no particular reason other than that Tzuyu is fucking distracting. "Okay."
The edges of her mouth tick upwards at that. "We could put something on the tv,” she suggests. “For the vibe."
"Oh yeah, for the ambience."
"For the ambience," she nods.
(And fuck her, seriously. You might be a goner already.)
-
"A winter weather advisory," Tzuyu reads, squinting slightly at the tv. A minute later: "Just stay home," followed by another pause, and a frown: "hail and ice too. Yeah, no kidding."
She's reading the weather report. You're pretending you have any idea how to work the fireplace while she sets her eyes on the news, hands running over the blankets she has huddled around herself - legs folded, tucked into the edge of her chest. She'd gotten as far as logging into her Netflix account before the suggestion of cuddling was so obviously implied, her hands patting the cushioned space beside her that you were required by moral law to flip through the cable options until you found the least sexy, least rom-com-y option you could find: a newscaster reporting on the ongoing inclement weather, a forecaster saying 'near zero chance of improving, so travel is heavily discouraged, we strongly advise against-'
"Wonder if Sana's even going to make it," Tzuyu breaks the relative silence, and you are acutely aware of how casual she has been referring to Sana, the complete and utter lack of jealousy or any emotion related - or you guess, inspired. She's not even the slightest bit irked. “If the airport opens, maybe," she adds, and, after a beat, "let's hope."
-
It gets colder. You can barely see three feet past the front door. The forecast only gets worse, the storm intensifies and swells, it snows and snows - and this isn't a cottage somewhere on the lake, you're a couple miles down a single-track, woodsy road, far, far away from society.
-
If only these walls could talk, honestly. You're like, caught in a moment. With Tzuyu and marshmallows and these tiny, sticky wooden skewers. This is a story you will tell nobody, ever.
"I don’t mean to say I told you so," she says, but it comes out with a mouthful of chocolate and graham cracker, and marshmallow, which sort of takes the bite out of it. "But the movie is a little more entertaining."
You pretend like you weren't staring at her mouth a beat prior. "Right, a cinematic masterpiece." 
Tzuyu tugs a marshmallow off the stick, and looks over at you again. Smiles around the impromptu pastry. She's just such a bright, wholesome thing - soft-hearted, selfless, so innocuous and so pleasant. It's absolutely sick. You have a fucking pavlovian response to Tzuyu simply existing.
And you’re pretending like the white, tacky remains on her mouth haven't permanently solidified that look into memory: the melted chocolate, the whipped sugar, the dimple. You could really do without this specific feeling - for however much longer it'll last, should the storm linger.
"You don’t ever have stuff like this, just for a quiet, carefree time?" Tzuyu licks it off her skin, and the question kind of drags your attention elsewhere.
You breathe in, slow.
Maybe she can feel it too, you think. Because Tzuyu drags the pad of her thumb against her bottom lip, and a question she doesn't ask flickers to life in her gaze: if you'll break or not, if there is an absolute limit.
But it’s impossible to read her. Tzuyu takes up this real easy-going disposition, all quiet and stoic, sort of, and maybe that's the dangerous part of her - the stillness. Other moments, she has this uncanny knack for conversation. She's charming in that way, you have always thought, a bright face. She has a keen understanding of things too - maybe sometimes too much; maybe a little bit beyond her years, really, a little too knowledgeable.
"When the gang does," you answer, diplomatically. “Sure, I suppose.”
There's another smile at that, which is how you know that the back and forth, this coolly cool, somewhat-stiff exchange is sort of becoming a game. A bet on who cracks, who turns. She won't tell you it's you, and you'll never in your right mind acknowledge her. It's some version of honesty. A bit like Russian roulette.
"I used to think we were friends, you know," she muses, like it's some great mystery - all very deliberately cryptic. Like it's funny.
"Hey, you were like, a teenager," you're grasping at straws. You’re spinning the bullet round the conversational chamber. “And I have this thing-”
"You have a thing?" Her eyebrow is raised again - sweetly challenging.
"-like, a principle, a standard - if there's nothing there, and let's face it: there's really not something here-"
"Aw," Tzuyu fakes pouting, which is simultaneously very mean and also like, painfully hot, and she makes this pitiful coo, "you really have nothing to say at all, do you."
Which. Fuck, she’s right. The 'thing' here is the no touching, the no messing, the no making anything resembling a move. She's sitting over there with her mouth covered in sugar, batting her goddamn eyelashes. Which you ignore, thank god for impulse control, or the instinct of it, and Tzuyu pushes a graham cracker past her lips to placate her own expression.
And so it goes. She keeps looking at you and looking and looking and you stare, transfixed, back at her. The edges of her jaw, the rise of her nose, the jutting curve of her collarbone; you say something dumb or clever and you're making her laugh, and every time she does, her teeth catch on her bottom lip and you could really do with a distraction right now, but it's impossible not to flirt. 
It's just the way the universe has constructed you - this starvation, a twisted desire. There’s cruelty in the design.
-
(Things take a turn for the worse, of course. You don’t know how, but she gets to you agree that you two should've gotten closer in all that time-
"Well, I’m sure you were just so busy," you'd shrugged, indifferent, and she'd pressed the sleeve of her sweater to her mouth, just to hide how bright the smile was.
-which, honestly, fuck you - given all the context. Because now she's right here in the cabin; she's an arm's length away, and all this time, you've meant to stay the fuck out of reach.) 
-
Tzuyu does the worst thing. She returns from the kitchen, hands full, with two squat tumblers and a bottle of dark brandy. She sets one down next to you and asks if you want some.
You look. You mean, what are you even supposed to do? It's a catch twenty-two, it's a joke - what can a girl be thinking, standing there. Bending the right way, hair framing a face like hers.
Yeah, sure - it’s the voice of someone who's slipping, who’s gonna say the same thing three more times. "Hm, why not."
The ice clinks against the glass. Then, the pour. Toast to good health, a clean conscience, safe passage; you’ll take whatever you can get. 
You watch Tzuyu knock back an impressive amount and make an impressive face. There’s maturity there, you cope. Because you want to touch her jaw, thumb over her cheekbone, breathe baby, it's too strong, slow down on her lips, watch her mouth open slightly-
The fire pops.
She leans toward you. “Are you going to keep stealing stories from me, or are you going to supply anything good to the discussion?"
"About me, personally?" you say, purposefully pedantic.
Tzuyu’s smirk is half-present, half-playful. She sets down her tumbler on a coaster - Mina would be appreciative - and hums at you. “What do you think I mean?”
"I was really hoping the inflection would help clarify."
She levels a gaze with you. You fight back for a hot second - this slow-burning heat under the skin, your resolve threatening to buckle, shatter, spill itself everywhere - and in the end, she is the one that looks away, softly laughing, a pfft under her breath. You’re left the opportunity to just - look. See where the glow from the wood-burning fire has cast this gorgeous gold over her face, all her defined curves, her delicate features.
"I don't care, it could be anything," she poses, settling back into the pillows. Smiling. "Please. Entertain me."
Her cheeks are rosy. You realize, quite suddenly, you are not totally sober either. This is exactly how Sana talked you into something however many moons ago, then however many moons later, surgically unattached all the strings. Sana’s good at talking. At convincing. And you don't do shots like her, or apparently like Tzuyu does - but hell, it's that maddening, pretty little dimple of hers - the one that's always there when she does her mischievous smirk - a deeply devastating look, a devil-may-care demeanor, and you're dead-drunk on it, honestly.
"Want me to talk about Sana?" you offer, "seems like an obvious choice."
"I think you’re projecting," Tzuyu teases. “You just miss her, I'm sure.”
"Mhm. Sure."
Tzuyu makes a noise halfway between a chuckle and a snort, and draws the blankets more tightly around her. "What," she says, nonplussed, "who doesn't want to hear some gossip about their friends?"
You're fucking up, right? Fucking up the same way you did years ago when you caught the wrong kind of feeling for an entirely, altogether inappropriate woman. But you'll blame the drinks. And the mood. And the ambience, the fucking fire that's almost suffocating, the closeness of her body next to you-
"Hey," you say, and it's such a mistake. You're pointing to a spot on your chin. You're making it worse. "You got a little, uh-"
You watch as she lifts her hand, glides it through the air - brushes her own cheek with her fingertips, smoothing out an imagined blemish.
"Did I get it?"
"Uh, well, sorta-" and she knows you’re lying.
Tzuyu tries again. Comes up short, and when her hair falls in front of her face, she’s looking at you like maybe you’ll help take care of that too. She’s a total fucking coquette - though maybe she hasn’t even done it on purpose, maybe she's just that unaware, innocent. Not the second one, you figure. You're leaning, tilting closer and closer to her - in any other scenario, there'd be the shortest possible time between her touching herself and you, cupping her jaw with one of your hands.
But your mouth feels like it's moving of its own accord. "No, wait, let me help you," you continue, before you know it. 
Isn’t it disastrous; all ice and hazard, this is the advisory in effect; a napoleon-goes-to-russia caliber calamity, a colossal write off, a write in. You could have, should have stopped, except you didn't and now you're reaching, gently, until your palm cups the side of her face - until you press, until you hold her steady. Her head tilts. She lets you, blinking up. Her eyes are this hazy, intoxicated coffee-brown, honeyed and burnt and fucking beautiful.
You swipe your thumb along her bottom lip. The gesture is slow, languid, intentional; you think, through some cosmic error, that might just be the end of it.
"There," you say, smiling, naive.
"Yeah," Tzuyu breathes out, and she winds her fist into the fabric of your shirt. "Thanks."
You lean, or she does; you go down, or she pulls you; there's no difference, really.
She is kissing you, this soft little press. A tug in every direction. You hadn’t kissed her, at the very start, but when her fingers thread through your hair, gripping hard, bringing you closer until you groan, parting your lips slightly, and - and her tongue flits past yours - your brain does this wild mental leap that you ought to be questioning later.
But everything starts to sink. 
One of your hands lands on her waist, thumb slipping under the hem of her sweater and pressing against bare skin, and her knee nudges between both of your legs - until Tzuyu hums this low, pretty sound in her throat. There is something fervent here, all-consuming, devouring; her mouth moves like it's frantic for air, for oxygen and fuel, and her whole body melts under yours like she's completely falling apart.
Fuck, you think. There is a deep, smouldering heat in the pit of your stomach.
Because she’s perfect. You always knew that, didn’t you. She is firelight and perfume and muted gold; everything else falls into shadow, fades into the background. Her lips are velvet-soft, and they open again and again with these heavy exhales of hot air - so much so that you have to shift the hand you'd set on her waist lower, a little, her hip bone under your palm, a touch ghosting towards the dip and the swell.
Somehow you have this knowledge: at the end of everything, it'll be her name falling helplessly off your tongue.
"You were wrong by the way,” she stops to say. 
"About-" You press another kiss into her jaw, and her mouth parts around the same slow sigh. "Wait." You lean back enough to look at her again.
“Whatever you said earlier." Tzuyu’s eyes go half-lidded as she starts petting your hair back into place, thumb stroking your jawline. "I'd have made time."
Oh, christ-
"Because to tell you the truth," her tongue wets her lip, shiny, wet, "I've never really forgotten. Like I just thought, that whole thing was so… fleeting, you know, like the last time, when you let me text you - god, I was crushing so hard."
You breathe, shaking your head. 
"Don’t," is what comes out of your mouth after, quick, sharpened. 
“Don’t what?” Tzuyu taunts, pushing another inch further. That small grin on her face, her long, nimble fingers combing through your hair. 
You are trying to think, and there was an apology, right? You'd had this one in you. The one that began as a guilty soliloquy, a rueful acknowledgement; something that should have been directed toward Tzuyu, told her, at one point, or another: look. Sorry it's like this.
But there is a hand tracing the collar of your shirt - a sensation that follows all the way to the base of your throat; you lean further into her touch, almost involuntarily - a simple motion, and yet. "You shouldn't. You shouldn't say things like that to me," and you mean: these things you already know. "It's not good."
"Doesn't feel that bad," she tells you, a breezy sort of whisper, warm. "I think I'm getting the opposite impression."
"Maybe for the wrong reasons," you remind her. And to remind yourself, actually. "Probably for the wrong reasons - trust me, it is.”
"Trust you," and it’s the slightest bit ridiculing, a tease - Tzuyu drops her smile, pulls you in by the hair, whispers low. "Sure," the syllable soft, pressed against your throat, "I trust you not to hurt me," and the 'not' gets hung on for an impossibly long moment, stretched out thin. 
She's sinister; she has to be, or some amalgamation of the most potent version of every word she’s ever said. A dream girl, the definition and essence of a temptress, this shameless attraction - an insistent siren begging for your attention; the incepting mind-game; the entity that stalks the halls in the deepest trenches of the night, whispering your worst fears right into your ear. You fall further into Tzuyu, the prettiest of nightmares.
(Oh, it's the dimple that does you in, really: if there's any possible way that Chou Tzuyu has unintentionally ruined your life, she's done it with that innocent little smile.)
"You can kiss me again," Tzuyu says, permissive.
And you do. You kiss her, and kiss her like you’ve no choice - like you've decided, at least in this very moment, if Tzuyu can own a piece of your soul, you can take something too.
-
(The thing about a cautionary tale: sometimes it is really just a story. Sometimes it happens and the world is left unscathed. There were a lot of warning signs, yes. But this could be a coda, a moralistic adage, a story to turn the page on and laugh and be embarrassed by and say, oh, no, I'd definitely do better; a blip. We’d never do anything like that. It's all history, honestly.)
-
It's not romantic, and it's less gentle than you’d have expected: Tzuyu bites your lip at one point, and you grab her hip so hard she yelps. The pause in the after is filled with a provocation, a stare, a tilt of your head, and her saying, “hey, easy now.” You cup her face in your hands, and run your thumb over lips. The calm is pretty short-lived. She gets her hands working frantically to tear your shirt off over your head. Then it's a haphazard stumble into the doorframe of the bedroom, with her pulling you in too-hard by the waist, bumping your nose against hers in this rough meeting - until your lips fit together. 
“Mm,” Tzuyu’s mouth pushes insistently into yours and your tongue immediately laves at its underside, coaxes it to slide against yours and soon she’s sliding forward on purpose - on her own initiative, pressing the steady line of your cock against the seam of your pants, the pressure sudden.
"Watch it," you murmur, breaking away a little to glare at her, which just makes her smile, like she likes pissing you off or something, likes watching you get mad at her, or whatever - if she says it's true, then it is, probably - she's honest.
Her small hand darts up, gripping the sides of your jaw tightly and moving in, kissing like it's easy; like she knows what the fuck she's doing. Her head tilts and she does it again, except it's a few times in a row, making out in the doorway. 
"And if I say no?" She grins, hand at your dick again, just palming through the fabric and getting off on your soundless reactions to it all. "Like, is that really enough? I feel like you'd have to like - tie me up. Something - you know?"
"That sounds like a you problem."
A mischievous smile steals across her lips and you feel yourself doing the same. "Yeah, you're right," she responds, dragging her thumb and forefinger from the zipper of your jeans to the hard line of your cock, pinching gently along the shape. "It is my problem."
She feels pliant, more than willing, but it's a calculated type of softness. Still, you get a hint, a vague message and you figure, the way this girl's smirking in her lips: she likes being held down, held fast and steady, so you pin her wrists above her head - her eyes stay on you, don't drop; you pin her, and her expression becomes that shade more dark, more teasing. Oh, you'll go slowly, you think, until Tzuyu gives. You'll climb a hand further under her sweater, let it skim over her ribs. You'll kiss her again, open-mouthed, and slow, until she can't breathe.
Her head knocks into the wall, she bites and smiles like a promise, and all her muscle flexes under your grip. "Oh, seriously," Tzuyu whispers into your mouth. "Y'know, this is like a fantasy of mine.”
And that's kind of it: she has that look. In the morning, you can see yourself chasing her down into sheets - just pinning her with the weight of your whole body, feeling each tensed curve of her against you. She pulls you closer, into her; she seems the type.
"I’d really rather not hear that, Tzu.”
"And I want to hear you say please, more than anything," Tzuyu laughs at herself, something hard in it, "but I think you want to fuck me so bad, it'll come naturally. Like, the second you have your fingers inside me. And that's what you want, right? Tell me."
"I'm thinking about your legs,” you tell her, running your palm around the curve of her thigh. Fuck, she’s perfect. “Think they'd fit around my waist."
"And hook my ankles? I’d love that." Her eyes crinkle. "Is that it, though?"
"Maybe I'd keep my hand on your throat and fuck you like that, too. That's on the table."
Tzuyu laughs: a real, actual sound, but not at you. "It is. You're smart."
"To be completely transparent," you mutter. "I don't plan on asking you very nicely at all."
The lines in Tzuyu's face go a little blissful, contented, like she's so, so pleased with this, like she approves, and she kisses you again, the length of your bodies pressed together, except where her hips cant up and meet the space between your thighs. You drag a hand roughly along her waist, kneading muscle there, down to the rise of her jeans - which, fuck, you need to help her shimmy out of and find the pull of the sweater, whatever - and she grinds out some noise, something caught between her throat and her teeth, but mostly in the place where your hand's dragged under the material, tugging gently at the wire of a bra, and you'd actually kind of forgotten it was a thing.
It's when you hear her own rasp, when she slips the side of your zipper open with a few quick strokes, shoving her fingers inside to hold the base of your cock, that you finally decide:
She's yours and you'll prove it. You'll make sure she knows: the evidence, the fingerprints,  the bruises blooming the size of your thumbs and she'll be the one showing them off with pride. She'll let you do whatever you like, which'll be a lot. She'll appeal to all the worst parts of you; she'll say thank you; she'll whimper while you're pulling her bra off and simply letting it flutter to the ground; she'll be crying within the first half an hour of you touching her. You can read it right off her gorgeous face. She'll be so damn breathtakingly-pretty, bouncing on your cock, folded under your weight - it'll be incredible. She'll be yours.
"Come on," Tzuyu breathes. "Yes. Please," she adds, as though it's an afterthought, her free hand tangling in your hair, pulling. "Hurry, or something - I fucking love this but we need to- I’m literally going to, like, die if you don’t touch me right now."
"Yeah," is what you get out. Her jeans finally fall to her ankles and she kicks, to get them to puddle onto the floor. "Yeah. Alright, maybe."
You won't even need to hear her begging, you already know how she sounds: a little annoyed and very turned on, rolling her eyes at herself. This part - she's playing at resistance, but she's giving in. A kiss back, hotter than you were expecting, as you slip a hand up the back of her bare thigh and the edge of her underwear, a thin strip, like it's done on purpose.
When you tuck a finger inside the waistband, feeling a little guilty about the way her whole body reacts - the flex, the pull, the weight of all her muscle straining against how her legs fall open - Tzuyu manages, her face in the hollow of your cheek: "you've waited long enough, right?"
God, she knows where the wounds are still fresh. Which bruises will hurt most when she puts a finger right into one - a reminder you couldn't possibly ignore. She's playing this whole thing a little bit sadistically; she wants this to be your fault, you can tell.
And your mind isn't unbending. You push a finger into her cunt and the girl absolutely shakes apart, body jerking like you've severed a lifeline. She's so wet, and so pretty, so sensitive. Maybe you really have.
"Tzu," you tell her. The hand in your hair tightens, a warning, as you let two, then three, fingers shove inside her. She's breathless; the slow, rough motions, her entire body riding the heel of your palm. "Do you want me to tell you how good you are for me, right now? Is that it?"
"Yeah - do. Please, fuck - please say it."
"I was right," is what you manage, biting your tongue.
"Right?" She asks, her fingers locked, urging your thrusting to turn punishing. "Please."
"Do you want me to make this a nice, pretty little memory? Suck the bitterness out and - have something sweet to go back to, the next time someone hurts you."
"I can take it." She snaps, not even responding to your comment. "Tell me you need me and you're leaving me no choice."
You smile into her hair, because she's a dream. Your thumb pushes into her clit and you can feel her seize up with a pathetic whine.
"Pretty," you mutter, as she slumps her chest to yours. You kiss it right into her hair. “I need you, Tzu.”
And the idea's seductive: keep her pinned and fuck her right into the wall. See her wrecked by the end; the swell of her thumb bloody from how she was biting into it, how she's wrenching at your wrist. Your lips land over her collarbone - no, hers do, to the side of your head - she'd be bent in half if it wasn't for the wood at her back. Her leg crossed in the small of your back. A proper, all-consuming kind of wrecking, with your name on it.
"Yes." Tzuyu nods into your temple, “just- that.” 
You're kissing the crook of her neck; your fingertips sliding right against the end of her, your fingers pressing into her and stretching the girl to her limits, making her tremble in her own skin, making her insides melt for the next round, and the next round, and the next; the best, and worst, and longest-lasting kind of high. Your fingertips push together, flutter apart, and Tzuyu's eyes open all of a sudden, locking onto yours.
"Please," she gasps, this one thing. She has tears in her eyes: her face falls into your hands like water, a long drip, and she's all but unraveling.
"I'm going to make you cum, okay?" you tell her, and it sounds so sincere that she simply nods. She trusts you. Implicitly. You see how something in her relaxes, muscles unwinding as though for one last moment. Then you lean down, to her ear, to murmur: "say you're mine."
Her teeth are gritting. You can feel every last point.
"Just yours," she mutters, and it's barely even audible, but she'll say it: over and over, as her orgasm builds, before her mouth goes slack. "Always been. From the very beginning, please-"
“Fuck,” you bite down, and she looks like she’s won.
“So long, y’know?” she manages, in her halting voice, as if you haven't got two fingers up her sweet, perfect cunt, which is, currently, gripping the shit out of your hand, the hungry slutty muscle spasms, a slippery fist; it's not too hard getting Tzuyu to talk dirty and vulgar like a total degenerate - all it takes is the circle of your thumb and she’s perfect and pliant and absolutely out of her mind. “Since like, forever-”
You need her to stop. Need her to be quiet. Your palm lands over the shape of her mouth. She's murmuring something else, but it's muffled - and that's perfect, really. You’re not going to hell; all the devils are already here, getting off on the impropriety-
On the fucking drag of your fingertips. If it isn’t mean, it’s definitely cynical. Each curl of a knuckle unwinding her, a little more, a little further. The gush of her slick that’s collected on the webbing between your fingers is getting unruly, and you’re pressing her mouth flat against your hand, muffling the sheer appreciation.
“Shh,” you tell her, and she seems to calm - insofar you find a spot inside her that makes her eyes roll back and her chest shudder. “Don’t. Hold still for me, I want to watch you cum, Tzu.”
The only thing you can hear beyond the stilted breathing against your hand is her wet cunt getting stretched and fucked on your fingers. It’s so simple. So straightforward. The front of her orgasm makes her jolt against your hips and you pin her again, just to see those gorgeous eyes opening and shutting in sync.
It's this beautiful thing, watching her cum; her flushed cheeks, her pupils blown.
"Good girl," is the only thing you manage in response. "Such a good - such a good little-"
She moans into your hand and finally the muscles of her core tighten, tipping over the precipice as she tips back from the edge. "Ah, you - oh, it feels so-”
You tell her not to talk, and thumb her sensitive clit until the girl's screaming.
Her cries cut through the hallway: the friction, your movements - she's grinding desperate to ride her own orgasm. The absolute highs wracking her silent. She doesn't seem capable of getting off her tiptoes, or opening her eyes properly. Her mouth's still gaping beneath your palm with a whimper, her lungs heaving, and her cunt practically burning-hot - or, she just is, she's overheating, and everything else is burning around her.
"I'm going to fuck your pretty little cunt, Tzu," you tell her as her hips jump and her eyes open. You drop her leg, which buckles instantly. "You're going to be good for me, won’t you?"
"Yes, sir," Tzuyu promises you - it makes you wince - like she'd say anything else, with her hips pushing into your hand like she can't remember how not to. 
Even with her brain turning to mush, Tzuyu finds it within her to tease, to pull, to coax - as her slick slides down the seam between your fingers, like she's gushing, a wet ribbon coating the backs of your knuckles. There's a fantasy in it, you think - and it's always the unapologetic type, like, they never admit it: they want the dirt, the debasing. There's always a blueprint to it; they want to hear how terrible it is and then have some fun playing into it, playing a part.
Only Tzuyu’s lip is wobbling; she’s looking at you like you’re going to fuck her apart and she’ll thank you for it. There's no play. Tzuyu wants your cum and she's so open-legged about it you can't pretend it's not exactly that simple.
She’s going to fall apart if you don’t shove your cock in her tight cunt. You need to pin her there - fuck her until she’s shaking. You can already see the face she’ll make when you shock yourself inside her-
"What is it, baby?" you ask her, and a beat later, you draw your zipper down with a steady hand, the other working in her mouth, pressing down the tip of her tongue - not exactly holding, not exactly pulling out of her.
Tzuyu sighs, heavy on her eyelids and slow. Very pretty.
"I want-" Her head is lolling. She's in a daze, now, you can tell: her mouth wet and trembling, her legs kicking weakly, a full-bodied tremor overcoming her. Everything wraps around you as your cock slides inside her: the pale-soft underside of her legs, her slender arms. All those lovely, endless tensed lines, her strong abs. She can hold you like this, with only her abdomen tightening, the rest of her almost liquid. Her head knocks into yours. "Fu-fuck my cunt, fill it, please.”
You use the angle, the approach. Her pussy's practically spasming on the thick tip, milking the hardness there - but the deeper, more confident strokes, you feel it in every one of her shaky breaths. The only thing you can see is Tzuyu's dumb little doe eyes, the one-to-two second interval, fluttering in between slow, heavy blinks. The walls of her pussy are all at once so gentle and smooth, her cunt a plush, warm vice on your cock; she's clinging, and hot, and you're so buried inside you could probably pick her apart with a few words alone:
"Please," she's muttering to herself, and every single cry gets stuck in her mouth and vibrates between the both of you.
Your fingertips hook into the curve of her waist, until your nails are sinking into the flesh, pinching gently, and watching her expression twist, you grip her hips with all the bruising-strength in your hands, yank her back onto your cock. Her spine goes rigid as a line of curses fall like rain from her mouth. A shuddering gasp - you have to steady her against you, where her knees lock tight around your waist as though she's worried you're leaving, like she's scared you won't stay-
"Baby," you grit out, like you'd beg too, "Oh- fuck, my baby, you're - you're all mine, okay."
You bury yourself balls-deep - and there's no pretense, it's just you and her, the pace making Tzuyu's little repeating "ah" go choppy with your thrusting, her eyes clamping shut, her limbs locking around you.
"Too deep," she groans. "Jesus, it's-"
"Uh uh," you mutter against the bend of her chin, and press in, still, maybe just to spite her. "Fight me. If it's too deep."
There’s tears in her lashes, she’s sobbing; you’re fucking her so properly you think she wants to kill you. It might even be written into that glossy expression: death, your demise. But her pretty eyes glint with mischief and her lips split into a grin.
"Try me," and this laugh, coming up from your chest - low, amused. "Go ahead. Put my neck in your hand, if you want-"
There's only ever a couple of moves. Like in chess, the combinations repeat, patterns emerge. Tzuyu pulls into your kiss; her wrist pinned to the wall behind her with one of your hands, the other knocking her thighs apart. Her ankles hook into your hips, just as you knew they would. There are so few options for a person; the only solution's the natural one - the urge to match each other's needs; to lose yourself in the easy push and the easy pull.
It doesn't take long before she opens up beneath you: until there's nothing between the hard pound of your hips and her tender, creaming cunt. Then there's that final gasp, this violent pulse as she takes her hands back from you to cup around your ears and press her lips to the line of your cheekbones and nose and mouth, with her tear-slick skin and saliva and, god - she's a whimperer, you now know, but Tzuyu holds her body still enough to not sway. The picture-perfect example of a good little girl -
That's how you push your mouth to hers: the steady-languid thrust of your cock between the hot clamp of her legs. "Oh, god, you’re gonna make me cum again, christ," her cries go, all muffled, right into your lips. She’s a little lost. Fucked-out. Blissful.
It's not right, though; just pinning the girl against a wall - no, she deserves better. You don't let her fall as you drag her into the bedroom. Not until a tumble into the sheets. She doesn’t try to control the fall, you land on top of her, and Tzuyu laughs a little, but it dies into the hard breaths you can feel bouncing back against your mouth. Her soft thighs pressed beneath your weight, quivering still.
"Fuck your cum into me," She huffs out, softly, more air than noise. You’re practically crushing her. And then the tilt of her head, almost inviting, like a question. "Please. I want it."
In hindsight, the real memory of this moment will be a soft and lovely thing - fabricated mostly: her tiny frame shaking, trembling in its effort to take you in, her voice giving out around a cry as she cums again - there's something sacred there, surely, a holiness that isn't altogether safe, considering what this girl is.
You’ll try not to remember how you fucked her and buried your face between her tits, though she did look up at you through her tears and made it sound sweet, said your name just so, or even the fact that she watched her whole body get filled and only smiled with contentment. That part won’t survive - nor the fact you’ll hold the girl down later and cum inside her three times. Until she’s leaking. Details to be confined to Mina’s cabin-secrecy - or at least, to whatever depth of oblivion, past your will to suppress it, her mind reaches when you bury your hand in her hair and pull her head back to really make sure you've hit every corner of her and left your cum there, marking her insides, turning her warm.
And look, Tzuyu doesn't balk. Instead she lets you pull her in close, her nails raking into the nape of your neck, the muscles under your skin. She drags scratches down your back as you sink into her cunt, hot, willing - she’s so fucking wet you’re bottoming out in each sloppy thrust.
"Tzu," you can't stop yourself from muttering, almost reverent. You were right, on all accounts. The girl is a problem.
One that is currently collapsing under you. You push her knees up to her elbows, and all her weight melts under your hands, limp and helpless.
"Fuck, your pussy is unbelievable.” You shouldn’t be fucking her this hard, but, well, you are - “Tzuyu, baby,” and when your hand comes up to her jaw, she palms it. Takes your thumb into her mouth and sucks. Fuck, it’s all slipping, consuming, you need to cum in her, need to bury your cock deep in her cunt and cum right into that wet sopping mess. Fill her up where she’s molten hot and her walls are gripping you so hard they’re practically begging-
"Yeah," she repeats around the digit, flitting her tongue against your fingertip. “Yeah. Cum for me.”
That's how she likes it. She'll scream, if you let her. If you give her the deepest fill. She’ll apologize and she won’t know for what. You already know how her expression will shift as soon as it hits. Head falling back. Her hands fisting in your hair, the bedding - her knees nearly get drawn up, and you push them apart by your fingertips. She whimpers, and whimpers, and you can't stop from fucking the pretty noises right out of her lungs until she's dripping - soaking you, all over the sheets. You want her to feel it when you leave. Your presence. It’s only fair - she should remember some part of you, in exchange for what she’s traded and stolen away - ideally forever.
You thumb at the tear tracks and lift her by a fistful of that pretty dark hair. And for her, you can be kind, you let your lips graze hers. As tenderly as you can manage, which isn't much, but then the angle settles lower, your cock hits deeper, all the right spots - and god, Tzuyu is so easy to fuck. She slips a little, and you’re catching her, pushing deeper, harder - she’s easy to pound too, to hold down and smother and grind deep, to have under you, all boneless, insensible-
"So pretty for me, Tzu," you growl into the shell of her ear, because you can, and another stroke, another velvety drag has you cumming in her hot, little cunt.
Each throb brings more, pumping her full of your cum, and she likes it. Keeps muttering baby, baby please in your ear, and fuck, you almost slip a hand down and make her fall apart too - but - her fingers wrap around your wrist before they get there, so tight.
"Can feel it. So deep," she whispers, when your eyelids screw shut and the mess floods out of her - gets fucked right back in: your hot cum and her thick slick, the creamy mess leaking from her cunt. You pull your cock out halfway, and she does sob - that sounds just like you'd imagine, too. "Please. Oh, my god- sir. That's it. That's it, let it out, sir. Sir, all your cum feels so good in me - please. Please- just give it to me, sir, yes-"
She’s not even taunting or mocking on that ‘sir,’ you think, not the way she sounds now, the halfway-slur. It's all torn up and tired. It makes you press closer, making the head of your cock swell between the thin walls of her pussy. It hurts - the squeeze. And then the soft, pleading sound she makes.
"Anything for you, sweetheart," you groan, a last attempt at a condescending tone. But she's so raw, so broken down by now that nothing is quite right.
"Fuck," she mutters against your mouth, "fuck, thank you," and your palm drags down the length of her sternum, following the angle of her jaw, slipping your palm onto her tits, thumbing at the indent. It's soft, pliant skin, and you pinch: not anywhere sharp or cruel, not especially sensitive, just in a line below the ridge of her rib cage, and it's too pretty a picture not to smile at her, when her entire chest jolts at the contact, the intake of breath. "Sir. Fuck."
"I'm still fucking you later," you assure her, as if her breathing could've convinced you otherwise. "But I wanna hear your voice some more. Hum a little. Give me a yes, sweetheart. Can you do that?"
The noise is barely audible, almost nonexistent, except it is: she hums her assent as you dip two fingertips back into her swollen, well-fucked cunt, scooping out some of the mess. Your fingers hook into her cheek and her mouth opens, because she's so obedient, because that's why it has to be like this.
You rub her bottom lip. Her eyes open into yours; a wet mouth. It's impossible not to see what's right there. It's easy, really, to press through and in, and give her that taste, that warm, velvety brush, like she's been sucking your cock, and maybe - oh, yeah, you'll remind her about it tomorrow, how she's a needy little slut for it, can't get enough - how you could've fucked her face until she was drooling and out-of-her mind - but the way her eyelashes flutter against your touch; the look-
You’ll take your time. You know what she wants: more than anything. It's the thing you can read. Maybe the hot, sticky mess, the flush in her cheeks. A touch to her face. Your thumb in her mouth, too, stretching, prying, holding. More cum falling beneath her tongue, dripping in those gaping, half-open red lips.
She’s licking your load from your knuckles, your Tzuyu. You can’t believe it.
"Swallow," you tell her.
"Mmm," and it’s there: this gorgeous expression on her features, her eyelids dropping, the shimmer, the shine. You'd do anything to keep it there.
You let your thumb leave the corner of her mouth and it stays open, just the tip of her tongue darting out to taste what little she can. The rest of her lulls back with a satisfied murmur, eyes half-closed, clearly the type of content-afterglow of wanting the man who'd just ruined her. A gratitude, or a simple, silly thing, if he would just pick her up in his arms: "thank you, sir."
Her panties end up back around her hips, and a new shirt's thrown haphazardly on, a soft, gray cotton which rides down, slipping past one pale shoulder. And then she turns over, to the side, her back curling into the heat of your chest. There's no attempt at leaving or any plans either. The arm you've loosely wrapped around her waist simply tugs. It's not subtle or even nice: your hand rucks up the fabric and snaps the waistband, and the soft cotton doesn't stop it from being painful.
"Fuck me again." Tzuyu shakes off with a shrug. She's wiggling her ass, practically. She's not wrong, you suppose - your cock hardens easily, more of a reaction. "Are you just going to - keep teasing?"
“Such a brat,” you say, and that makes her whole body tense; she makes the most beautiful sounds for you, but words, praise, humiliation - those always hit harder. You know your girl.
"Your brat," says Tzuyu, easily. "You can do whatever you want." 
Your grip on her hip is brutal. Of course you know. That doesn't mean you can't look for loopholes, anyway, right? You don't move, but the threat's there.
The look she shoots over her shoulder is smug. "I like it rough, or something. Doesn't it make you mad that someone could've had me before?"
"Should I be?" You're swiping your cockhead through her folds before you have a chance to say, "Should I care that some guy's had my little cocksleeve before? Should I be angry that someone used my pretty toy before I got to?" You thumb at the tightness, and Tzuyu gives up the front immediately and jerks her hips backward. "If I wasn't the first?"
"Not exactly," comes Tzuyu's mild answer, "not if I was always thinking of you. Plus, they didn't make me feel like that." She tips her head up, to nip at your jaw. She's smiling so fucking coy when she adds: "please, don't hurt me too bad."
You wrap your hands around her. Press a kiss into her shoulder.
“Or do, maybe. Whatever feels natural, you know," she bites down.
"The hickeys are going to be difficult," you agree. "People are gonna see them and they'll picture themselves, probably, with you spread out, huffing, gasping - fucking you out of a brain."
"As they should," she says, and then hums this low, heartfelt note into the mattress. "So how hard can you do this, hm?" She's moaning into the pillow as you slip back into her cunt, but it's a challenge, the tilt in her voice. "Like, if I ask, real nicely."
Who’d have ever guessed she was so filthy. All hidden behind the pristine, the perfection. The prim girls are always the worst: all that beauty means more to them wrecked than revered - it means they've won, again.
Well, that works just fine. She's won you over.
You lean into her shoulder, murmuring, “you’re pushing your luck here, Tzu.”
“Am I?” Her head tilts back until it finds the curve of your jaw. Those deep brown eyes flashing. She knows what’s coming, her pussy tightening prettily. "I'm sorry, sir. I’ll clean up my act."
And the little smile. The fucking dimple, proudly stitched into her cheek - right as you pull her back onto you again, your length working its way slowly into her cunt. The way her ass fits in your hips lets you know you're no match for this girl: how unbelievably good it feels to be inside her. Hot, tight, wanting. Pressed tight between her gorgeous thighs.
“Guess I never noticed,” she says, before falling quiet with the soft punch of breath as you drag her backwards, against your body and the rocking press of your hips. Her eyelashes tremble while your cock nudges its way fully inside her pussy. The rest, as it seems, is silent: only the crash of skin, the sound of your breathing.
You’re already gathering her hair into your fist when you tug her back to your waist, mouth hovering right at the shell of her ear: "fuck, you take my dick like you're made for it. Do you even know how good your pussy feels? I'll ruin you if you let me. We can find out together," you tell her, pulling her back onto your cock. A wordless, pained, perfect whimper.
Tzuyu lets herself go slack against your chest.
She's taking you like a dream and that's it, that's enough, all you've got to say, and Tzuyu, jesus-fucking-christ, she does it with a laugh: this awful, melodic, bright, sweet, airy fucking thing: "don't fucking test me, Tzuyu -" you repeat, a warning.
Tzuyu bats those long lashes, like it'll mean anything, like this isn't all the proof you need. 
"Okay. Don't tease, then.” Her hand reaches up to the nape of your neck, finds your body close and hot. She sighs. “I want to feel it, sir. So much that I can't walk after. That I'll still have you in me. I want it all to hurt. Is that too much?"
All she does is try to hide her smiles, and she's terrible at it. There's a gasp buried underneath her giggling, one that Tzuyu loses every time she moves her body with yours. There are only two conclusions now: either she's that perfect of a fuck or she's as full of shit as you are. Either way, the dimple's giving her away - her smile, her lips, the full, syrupy brown of her gaze.
Tzuyu wraps that leg up and back around you and the angle is devastating.
"Baby, I want you- I want your cock deeper - yes, baby. Deeper - as deep as it'll go. I want you to fuck me until I can’t think, until there's nothing I can do. Seriously. Fuck me." 
Her hand dives over the shirt; there's no question when your gaze follows the trail she takes over her tensing body, over the curve of her breasts and down to where she's dragging at her pussy, where she's exposed herself. She finds the space and lets the fingertips flutter down, onto her needy, swollen clit; the place where your bodies join and separate; the throbbing pulse of her pussy.
"And then fuck me some more,” she adds, like that'll help. Her pussy fits you like a glove - it’s not fair. It’s not right.
But she's so beautiful up close, eyes fluttering in pure, concentrated rapture as she loses the tension in her face - one more thing that the facets, angles, and shades of Tzuyu become, something you tuck away in a vault somewhere safe; a secret just between the two of you.
Her hand runs up your thigh, fastens back on your hip. “You owe it to me, to use my body a little bit, don’t you think?”
There's no sense fighting it, not anymore - maybe there never was - and when you grip Tzuyu's upper thigh, tilt her leg upwards, she gives you an anticipatory hum. This light sound. An ankle lands over your hip, and what follows is a tight, enveloping slide, your cock buried in her wet pussy. So close together that she can't move much at all except to take it - the hard thrust, the one that forces its way up to the hilt. She's impossibly, overwhelmingly soft, a pleasure unlike any other. The absolute worst kind.
She knows exactly the danger of getting involved with you, and when she cums, once, again, and once more - her eyes water, her voice flooded - you think, so do you.
-
It’s in the hours of the morning that’re not quite today, nor quite tomorrow when Tzuyu leans on the end of the bed as she stretches. A loose t-shirt is draped over her petite body - you glance over at her as the bottom of the fabric lifts, exposing more skin across her legs. No matter the circumstances, the space she inhabits will always feel charged. She could wear a potato sack and have the same effect, you suppose, because that's just how she is: Tzuyu is magnetizing.
"That is definitely not yours," you say, finally.
The girl has a lovely arch to her back, a golden glow of perfection that you can't find elsewhere. That's when Tzuyu laughs and spins around. "Is that a question?"
You only have yourself to blame. Of course it's not hers. The shirt's oversized and could fit all five feet, eight inches of her like a tent. It doesn't belong to her, but her heart-shaped lips make you feel stupid, so you're giving her a second chance. You really need that shirt back. You packed light, it's your favorite tee, it’s a family heirloom, or something - whatever makes her get it off, you guess. You sit up against the bed, and watch her fingers hook into the hem as it slowly peels off from her frame.
And that is - a vision.
You already knew - but it's worth repeating, or forgetting your name and every last bit of your existence for; the sharp collarbone, the striking red lines beneath them, the palest, sweetest chest. Her breasts, a bit smaller, a bit rounder than normal (not that you would know), sit heavy in her hands, soft and full - oh, the hickeys, the perfect peaks and the bruised nipples - she's an aphrodisiac.
"I want one later," she tells you, and runs a hand over her breast, pressing against the angry red marks that color the pale skin.
"A shirt?"
She turns back toward the mirror, an image reflected tenfold - a beautiful flush on her high cheekbones. It's only a small win to think that those rosy cheeks are there because of you. Only a little one, if at all. "One of yours, sure."
You laugh, but she looks taken aback. "What, you mean like a keepsake?"
"Hey, if it smells good." Tzuyu brings up the neckline to her nose, eyes fluttering shut for a brief second before they snap closed. "Yes. Like a keepsake, is that so unnatural?"
"Has anyone ever told you that you are, like, really forward." You thought you knew, but there's this part of you that wonders. Why the sudden revelation. "Not that it isn't obvious. I meant...with the rest. Just to clarify."
"With sex, you mean?" Her smile turns a little sheepish. "I can tone it down a little. I don't even notice sometimes, I just talk."
You walk forward and wrap your arms around her waist. You fit easily around her. "Don't," you say, quietly, against the back of her neck. "It's nice, in a way."
She cranes her head to trade the reflection of your eyes for the real thing. Her body is soft, warm. "You like to talk too."
"Right."
"Your favorite past-time."
"Point taken." Your thumb runs down the middle of her breast and traces her nipple. It's tender, you note. You can’t really keep your hands off her waist, or stop touching her tits - because who would ever let something so delightful pass them by? Not you. No way. "Want to hear a story?"
"If it's coming from you," she whispers, a little smile, a lot of entendre, "I’ll listen to anything."
"Do you see the wall over there?" You nod to the window. She follows it with her gaze, her chin jutting towards your shoulder, her long neck arching. It's hard not to kiss it. There's a clear stretch of drywall beside her desk. She nods. "When I came here with Sana and Mina last," and your nose presses into her hair, inhaling her, the way she smells like something tropical: vanilla and citrus. Something far from here. "I put up a few paintings. I'm handy sometimes, a hammer seeking a nail sorta thing."
Tzuyu almost snorts, and sways a bit in your grasp. You tighten your hold, not wanting to drop her. "Oh?” she teases out, suggestive. “Show me."
-
(You shouldn’t. You can’t stop, frankly. Fucking Tzuyu is in its own category: the luxury, the treasure, the extravagance; feeling between your fingers the finest silk, the richest cashmere.
Her palms slide higher up the wall, fingers splayed. The curve of her back, the pull of her hair. Tzuyu kissing you like the world will end and the moon will be the first to know, her fists curling into your back, a furious, frantic urgency - Tzuyu fucking you. Well. Tzuyu always, always kissing you; it's the universe resetting, it's a timeline rewritten, it's trading everything sweet for salt, giving you teeth and tongue, the insides of her lip rubbed raw - she tastes like 80 Proof, a sticky, melting liquor, and it goes down too easy. "Why are you making this hard for me." It's not a question, her face in your neck - then she says, like there's a hundred other things, a hundred thousand ways you can ask:
"What makes you think I want to make this easy?")
-
The power goes out early in the morning.
Which means you're in the dark. But, it's alright. You consider for a moment the omen-like timing, if such an idea is ludicrous in the first place. This could be a metaphor. After all, what is Tzuyu if not a classic trope? It isn't fair to judge anyone based off their flaws. For starters, you have more than you can count. You consider a moment longer, that the timing isn't metaphor-worthy. After all, if this was a punitive force, you're certain that it would've been more apparent, more explicit, if the electric panel had burst into flames or the cable box was shot-out; something bigger, flashier, less like something that you'd play up for theatrics. And it probably would've been when you had the girl on all on fours, your handprints seared into the round of her ass-
Or, when she got on her knees. The snap of darkness setting in as you slipped your cock out of her lips and spilled a rope of hot cum on her face, in her hair. The way she just relaxed into it, a reverence to her being baptized, kneeling. “Oh, Tzu,” you said, with a fist around a cock, and jerked the rest right out on her tongue. You probably would have heard her sniffle after, still recovering from her choking a bit.
Or, when you had half a mind to kneel down between her legs in the shower, suck her clit until she was dripping, fucking her open with your tongue; you could taste her sweat, her slick, and imagine how hard it must be to put up that front: biting into a washcloth, trying not to fall apart.
(Karma arrives late, or it doesn't arrive at all. Or, something. Who knows. It doesn't matter. The outcome would have remained the same.)
Tzuyu opens the sliding glass door to the balcony.
You watch her from behind - there's a small pile of snow at the edge. The whole mountain has gone into complete darkness. No moon, no lights, no light poles, or blinking bulbs or strobe signs or house lights - just night. How eerily romantic, that. And if there was an excess amount of snow before, it only got heavier, thicker, now weighing on the steel bars of the railing.
Tzuyu rests her hands there, leaning her hips a bit forward, so far that her knees lock. Her back bends. "It's so weird," she breathes out, and you can see your exhales, both of yours. "I feel like you and I are the only ones here right now. Everyone else is probably taking shelter. Maybe the power went out for everybody."
"Maybe."
"It's all a bit spooky. Or creepy. But, exciting too, yeah?" She turns, just enough. Her fingertips run along the side of her face. "In the mountains, yes." She doesn't even need to say the rest, doesn't need to ask: does that appeal to you? All this isolation? I could scream and scream and nobody would ever hear it. I'm yours to fuck, to have, to own, to do anything to-
"It'll probably be fixed in the morning," you tell her. "Who would turn it back on tonight. To this place. They'll start at the closest areas to town and go out from there."
"Mina has a generator," Tzuyu supplies helpfully. "No living clue where."
"Want to look for it?"
She lets her head tilt, as if to follow the expanse of trees leading up into the rocky ground. "Would it kill us to wait for tomorrow?" Her bare toes curl into the floorboards. The blanket stays wrapped tightly around her shoulders, and a single line of her wrist can be seen when she tilts her arm a certain way. "We won't die or anything."
You wouldn't die, not before being smitten with a different death, falling headfirst and in love; and that's what you've felt since the start, since the beginning: you've always wanted more. It was always inevitable, her letting her weight fall backwards, in the living room - all your filthy secrets falling out. It felt like the sky had dropped. All over the bedroom floor.
"Then let's get some sleep," you say, but still step closer, as you do with anyone, to brush aside the strand of hair over her ear.
-
It feels like the temperature must have dropped dramatically. Not that it bothers either of you very much, you note, when you move under the blankets together. Some might feel embarrassed by the necessity, but then, most aren't half the people that you both are.
Tzuyu presses her fingers under her thigh to keep her legs shut. To avoid the cold, she claims, but you can hear the slippery noises that her cunt makes as her body shakes with each thrust of her fingers. You almost suggest that you heat her up in an entirely different fashion, but the smile, her smile, gets the best of you. Instead, you let yourself touch and trace, and feel her wherever it may land. There's no sense in pretending either, so you tangle yourself into her: a finger between her legs. Another in her palm, resting against her hip. When you press your thumb against her cunt, she begins to smile, too, as if to show you exactly what kind of person she is. That is to say, completely insatiable.
You let your free hand slip under her chin. Tilting her head up, exposing the faint pulse-points. You wonder if she's imagining the things you'd do if the snow never cleared: toying with her hair, petting the top of her head, speaking pretty and dirty and pressing kisses against her bare back, in a rhythm, as you fuck her without care - something close and tight like the little noises she makes and how they die off, finally, when you push your cock deeper, still.
There are no words between you anymore, maybe - but she's not laughing, and you're not angry, and it's only one second before your mouth is on her neck, kissing the column of her throat. It's easy to sleep with her - so, so simple, if not anything else.
"I don't have anything in the morning," you murmur to the top of her shoulder, barely moving as not to break the moment. To tell her it's fine to leave her body or keep it forever. Either way. Both, if it's an option.
She smiles. Her eyes are still closed. "It'd be weird if you did."
She can be a tease - a complete brat - sometimes. Like now. But then again, who would you be if not the person who falls for exactly that.
And that is a weakness: you have a very specific kind of hunger, that won't fade, that can only be sated. She knows it, and yet her coy grin remains. It's a habit, not a mistake. "Yeah, well," you lean up onto your forearm, pressing the knuckles of your right hand against her soft cheek. "This is the most inconvenient of all places, but- don't worry about it."
"Meaning?"
"I don't think they sell birth control or morning after pills or anything up here," you explain, lightly. Your gaze passes from her eyes to the pink of her bottom lip and back, again.
"Do I look like I'd care?" Tzuyu sighs and takes your wrist, pulling your arm over her body. "I know what I'm doing," she adds, which might actually be a lie. "Obviously. You don’t need to pretend you’re like, responsible, or whatever."
Yes, obviously. As if it was all as easy as pulling strings, deciding exactly which points to tease, to stress. You should know. You just kissed and held down and fucked and fucked your cum into this one: you know how to move her strings better than any.
-
You flip the switch in the kitchen. Up, down, up, down: except, nothing. The electricity is still decidedly off by mid-morning, and you and Tzuyu end up having actual, quality, conversation. 
You sit her on the kitchen counter - though it’s not fated to last long, because her legs loop around your waist, and she tugs your sweats down as you try to fix the two of you lunch - Tzuyu gets what Tzuyu wants, of course - so you're standing there fucking her while her head leans back on the cool marble, her silky dark hair tumbling off the end of the counter.
She ends up propped up on one elbow. Eyes hazy and half-lidded, fixed on the glide of you into her creamy folds, spreading her wider, wider.
Tzuyu asks questions - all innocuous, at least to the ear. About your past. Who you were before all this. Whether you want kids, when, whether you were religious, once. She gets personal before you have her cumming and incoherent: how you sleep, in what positions. How often you jerk yourself off. What you're thinking of when you do. How you'd use her - not the lewd version, the spitting, filthy iteration, just the you and her and her being yours part. And she gets specific about that. She'll slide up to you and bury her nose in your throat, wrap her arms around your shoulders, mumble about wanting you closer - you feel her, maybe more than you should - but every few seconds you're sliding home into that pussy and her chest heaves out a deep breath-
"I want what's in here," she finally says, her delicate palm cupping your balls. She's pulling you into her on each stroke like the fucking sun's gone out and this is her last chance - she's magnetism, gravity, a blackhole you'd give up the rest of the universe to. She's got one fist on your shirt, and the other hand on your sack, and her pussy's fluttering around you, and she's watching you watching her, and it's infinity:
"The idea of you." Tzuyu smiles at the way your eyes narrow, the way the word turns itself over and over on your mind, her. She tilts her face to look at your expression. "Like, in here. All your cum. There's so much. Can I please have it-"
You swear.
"Pretty please, baby," Tzuyu's asking if you'll fill her up, if you'll make her your cumdump, keep fucking her even with all your cum inside her, asking what the worst of your fantasies are - you fuck harder, deeper, and she nods eagerly, tightens that fist in your shirt. "Can you give it to me? Please, it's the only thing I need, and we both know I always need something, please."
"Jesus fucking christ," you tell her, helpless, and it's never felt better: her cockwarming on your lap, her teasing and teasing until your self-control's paper thin - won't you? won't you? fucking breed this slutty little cunt? won't you cum until I'm so full it's spilling out-
The snap. Like falling, it’s something you notice right away, but only ever understand a long ways down. 
"Yours," moans Tzuyu, half in an accusatory fashion - fuck - she's almost gasping: "fuck - just use me, use your cumdump, 'cause you'll never have a tighter cunt than this."
God. Damn. Her. You cum so hard it aches, and there's no hesitation:
"My cocksleeve, my good girl, shit-"
"You could leave a baby in me, even, just like that. Couldn't you. Isn't that hot. And nobody could do a fucking thing." Tzuyu’s tits are spilling out the sides of her camisole and she looks like pure porn, in person. Your cum is dripping out of her and you watch as it spills on the marble.
"Is that what my girl wants? 
She smiles, again, so prettily.
“You wanna be full of cum, is that it?" You grab Tzuyu's hair; pull just enough to get the point across. "Is that it? You're a perfect cumslut who needs all that fucking cum, huh? Wants it pumped deep? You like being full of it, right Tzu? This needy little cunt loves the thought of getting bred? Knocked up? Goddamn, Tzu."
"That's me," agrees Tzuyu, in the afterglow. Dimple dug deep. "Yeah. Your personal cumslut, sir."
She just grins when you reach between her thighs, pressing your fingers into the cum you've fucked into her, before you decide that the wet warmth is yours and you’re going to fuck her even further into delirium.
Her hips come up off the granite, desperately.
"Uh-huh," she mumbles, already drifting - you put her off her balance, for real. "God, yes, please," she's whispers, as if all the ways you'd ruin her were prayers, like she wants to start a new religion all her own: you're a god, and it's all about Tzuyu - just you, and her, asking, again, the questions piling on top of other ones, the sweet drawl, the sinful want, the curiosity-
Fuck. She wants everything about you, your dirty secrets and your nice manners - the stories behind your scars, your funny little quirk of raising just one eyebrow at a time-
You turn her around. She's made for this, intelligently designed: her tiptoes just touching the floor, the delicious curve of her lower back, your cock sliding effortlessly into her and hitting a spot she arches into like it's divine intervention and that pussy making its first church of your name. The cum you'd already left in her cunt is making everything wetter, making those obscene sounds echo in the space around the two of you. It's rapturous; you let her feel it slow, and deep, and it’s bliss.
“Tighter,” you growl into her ear, and her cunt clenches like you own it.
The girl's figure is pristine, an ass that belongs under spotlights, on camera; those thick lips, the curtain of her hair when she tips her chin down. It's all been in magazines, billboards, it's been idolized - she is the icon and you're the follower, but, this weekend, here and now-
"So. Fucking. Good-" she gasping, falling apart. She’s collapsing and it’s not even noon.
"Oh, the world knows." You pull her up, hold her body in yours and snap into her cunt. Her skin's hot, feverish, the light that filters through the blinds and the snow slows outside.
It all happens without a moment’s notice - Tzuyu reaches behind and clutches your thigh, as if she could ever pull you deeper, like it wouldn't tear her in half. But you find yourself in a position to grab the edge of the counter; your phone buzzes. It's Sana, probably asking what's up. You want to ignore it and keep fucking Tzuyu from behind. You want to hold her hips, be mindful of the marks, the bruises, sink your fingers into her hair, her tits - you end up murmuring things like please and fucking perfect and if we were a little more religious then you'd be a sin to remember-
Fuck, you're cumming again. The writing’s on the wall as soon as your cock makes her breath draw short and her eyelids snap shut. She’s exquisite, a masterwork - you’re painting in broad strokes, all over the beautiful curves of her ass - not only because you’ve needed to see it cast in hot streaks of white, all debased with your cum, but simply to prove a point; to say that you can. You cum on her cheeks, her cunt, you pump your fist around your shaft and cum in the crotch of her panties too.
"That's it, Tzu," you croon, "look at that," your spent cock twitching against her plush thighs, her dripping pussy lips, and she's sagged forward, onto the counter, your thumb running through a particularly thick rivulet. Her face dips down, pressed to the cold surface, and the words coming out aren't coherent, are just filthy and true; but they're there: she's taken you and kept you, all for herself.
(Thank you, she says, for making me into your little cockwarmer, your toy, for breaking my fucking cunt, baby - thank you, please, thank you-
You could end your career tomorrow, it wouldn't matter. Just saying, man. This girl, fuck.)
There’s a beat, the strained breathing, the panting, the disbelief. She ends up kissing your chin after sliding back to her feet, a saccharine imitation of chaste. Pulls up her shorts without a second's consideration. Her panties, still sticky with your spend - well. She puts those back, too, grinning dreamily. 
Oh, how is a woman like Tzuyu even real, huh? You really do need to find out, somehow.
"Your imagination is…" you say, your tone flat. “I swear.” But you don't deny that the sex isn't. You don't think of her that way. She doesn't ask you for your hopes or your dreams or the full gambit of life, as some people might. She asks about what you think about at three am when she's got one hand on her tits and one on her clit and one finger in her mouth:
"Anything we can think of," she corrects, her long limbs squeezing her tighter to your front. Her grin bright, so perfect she's beyond believable, and how can such a dissonance exist in something, someone, you're holding on to? "I mean, we can if you want."
-
"Maybe we'll talk about that - how you can handle me," is what Tzuyu rasps, softly, tying her hair up afterwards: and you realize this is her post-coital. For her, sex makes her nice. Sweet.
You've already fixed her lunch; Tzuyu comes to sit down at the table with you. "Like, for future reference." You're raising an eyebrow. She grins at that, kicks her feet. Her hips don't do the same, though - no doubt still a little sore, like her lips. She's worn out, finally. She won't try to slice off and claim any more of your aching soul.
“You have no business thinking about babies.”
“Tell that to my ovaries.”
"You have a breeding kink, is what it is, really. I’m being completely serious."
"Well, am I pregnant yet?" Tzuyu flutters those lashes, puts those big pretty eyes on full display. "No? Then I'm getting off on something else, clearly, isn't it obvious, like maybe there's something about being on the other end of someone so big. Have you considered how wet you make me when you-"
"Tzuyu, cut it out," you chide her. The little brat's giggling. You aren’t going to let her know how pretty the noise is.
"Fine." She reaches across the table, puts her small hand on your larger one. "Like I said - how to handle me." Her tone is placating, the sharp edge to her personality blunted. It's different with Tzuyu - after sex, she gets like this: playful, easy, fond. The mess you've just made, the cunt you've stuffed full, that's another Tzuyu altogether. "For your... benefit."
"My benefit, really?"
"Aside from getting my brains fucked out," she explains, "is what I meant."
"Not making this easier, babe."
Her mouth curves a slow smile. She likes when you call her names, cute shit like that.
"I need to call Sana back," you explain, finally.
Tzuyu nods.
"In a bit," you add. "Also," you're saying, leaning forward. Her head tilts toward yours.
She's receptive, her whole body pliant and lazy, after that, well, marathon - she'll roll with whatever you're suggesting. This has always been a dream to her, she's mentioned. (Who has dreams like that? Someone so young, that innocent - well, yeah.)
But you kiss her temple, lightly. "Gimme a minute."
Tzuyu blinks, in that catlike way she has of staring, intent. Her mouth slightly pouty.
"Then you get your turn," you offer.
"Deal," she nods.
And that makes her beam - your beautiful, very good, very perfect, little toy.
-
"You're going to have to slow down," you tell Sana over the phone. "I have zero reception up here, sorry."
"The highway is shut down, I literally can't get to the other side of town," she yells over the sound of tires rolling on snow. Sana does not sound in the best spirits. If anything, she sounds slightly desperate. "Part of the mountain collapsed on a cliff somewhere. Fuck's sake. The weather is still terrible and they're shutting everything down. Literally shuttering every road off the base of the mountain."
"You sound good," you deadpan, and when Sana grumbles, say, "try the next exit, head around and take a back road-"
"Yeah, except it's snowing like nobody's fucking business right now - I'm not going to risk exposure to try to get there on my own."
"What should I do?" you try, a bit helpless. "Stay here?"
"Why are you even asking," Sana scoffs, "yes, stay there, stupid. Tell Tzuyu you can't drive in snow, that she can't possibly expect me to deal with any of you leaving a safe situation." There's another brief pause. "Ah, seriously, there is not a single living human being near here that can be helpful - and they're supposed to bring us new tires? Here? No, fuck's sake."
"Oh," is all you say.
"Don't worry about me." Sana's voice goes up a notch. "Just be there, alright? Stay warm, okay?" A crackle, more radio waves or distance.
"Text me," you urge. "Tell me you're getting in safe."
"Of course, of course," and that's when you get the click, the abrupt disconnection. You stare at the device in your hand and consider the possibilities, and the outcomes, and how to stay sane while alone with temptation incarnate for a couple nights.
Maybe this really is hell. Or it's a trial. There’s the storm, and there’s your angel, contextually out of place. You're incapable of controlling yourself, clearly.
You sigh, let your gaze slide. The lights are still out, and in their absence, Tzuyu has dragged every available blanket or bed sheet within her reach into the living space, spread a dozen pillows across the sofa and is now occupying one of the corners: there's a book, opened onto her lap, as her nails run circles down the blanket draped over her lower back.
"Tzu, what exactly did Mina mention to you about the generator," is the first thing you blurt, upon entry, and Tzuyu smiles, holding up the page against the fading daylight - which is currently hardly much. "Better question: how are you able to read in the dark?"
"Takes a lot to shake me off, honestly,” she says, which you already know to be true. “Also my eyes aren't old like yours, so."
"Wow."
"What?" Tzuyu grins, tilts her chin. "Do you want me to say that you're ageless? Thirty, flirty and thriving. So impressive, your youthful vigor, that sort of deal? How attracted I am to your experience," the insinuation, this sudden intimacy. She laughs. "Seriously. Let me read."
"Apparently we're going to be stranded for a few days."
"That's cute." She pauses. "Sucks for Sana."
"You don't know what sucks for Sana."
She peeks over the corner of the page, then, grinning, the teeth of a joke. "What's on the menu, then? Hm? So far, the best part was waking up beside you," and you almost grin, at how honest she manages to be without seeming conceited. How shameless Tzuyu has become in the ways of liking you, and maybe a bit of who she thinks you are. And why that's dangerous, really, and it makes the guilt burrow down beneath your ribs a bit: "my ass hurts," she's complaining now, which is only going to encourage the teasing-
"As it should," you comment, then watch her eyes sharpen, glint with mischief. "Oh," you realize, with a shrug, "do we get to cuddle again."
(Let's hope, for a moment, this isn't really karma. Because really, it'd just be an uncalled-for injustice: Chou Tzuyu delivered down on all fours, head tucked into your thighs as a fist grabs a handful of her hair, a slow push and pull - your cock sinking into the velvet warmth between her lips, again, again, and again until she's ruined and crying and still swallowing you whole - as she, not the universe, forces a massive dose of her own medicine down your throat. You see how that might not be quite fair.)
"But I'll have to leave again," you're protesting - no heat, no vitriol. "There's, like. Stuff I gotta grab."
"Then grab me," she sighs, pats her lap, "read over my shoulder. Make out with me. Just keep me warm. That'd be very helpful, and I would be so grateful."
Well, fuck. You're not one for inflating egos - at least not anybody else's - especially when, unchecked, that tends to do the exact opposite of keeping them grounded.
"Fine," you're muttering, and you clearly have a habit for capitulation wherever Tzuyu is concerned, the quirk in her lips, the quiet pride in her dimple, the cadence in her speech - which she's already smug about.
"Wonderful." She taps the back of her fingernail against a book page, waits, just a few more seconds, her grin spreading as you begin to fumble around. "Please," she says, flicks her gaze back down, a tease, "take all the time you need."
-
The thing about mountain air is it has a way of clearing your head, cooling down the frenetic thoughts of indecision and uncertainty and moral conflict.
Well, maybe that's a slight overreach, the mountains also have a way of getting you killed, but the intention was to look upon the white caps and ponder. It didn't work.
-
You eventually find the generator. You hear the clicks of metal and electrical wiring, the roar of the motor kicking on, a steady hum. Then, Tzuyu pokes her head out from behind the shed, her cheeks tinted a warm pink; her eyebrows rise up a beat.
"Yes?" you prompt.
"Is it working?"
"Does it look like it's working, miss?"
"Looks a-okay to me," and she presses the heel of her mitten into her teeth, tries to bite it back down her wrist; she stumbles, a moment, slightly clumsy in the snow. You instinctively reach out. Your hands brush the outer seam of her pajamas, the heavy fabric of her coat - "oh," you can feel the instant the shivers start, "fuck, I'm cold.”
“We’re both probably pretty due for a hot shower,” you say.
"Yeah, you came in my hair. Er, sorry, I meant, we both need a hot shower."
"It was really adorable when you were rutting back on my dick like some horny animal," you snort. "Admit it."
"No comment."
"So shy."
Her smile cracks open, and her breath is a white plume. "Fuck you."
"Sure, babe," you're agreeing, the tone almost saccharine. "If you insist."
She blinks back in mild surprise, the blatant answer - and god, her fucking eyes: soft, dark, her eyelids barely lift up. Even when they should've narrowed. That was another thing to learn. (Maybe, god - who knows, maybe she's still learning how not to care.)
She runs a hand through her hair. The scarf around her neck is fluffing up. There's white clumps settling on the fibers, slowly dissolving into a damp mess.
"Listen," Tzuyu murmurs, wraps an arm around yours to help herself up. 
Your palm settles on the round of her thigh. She shifts, her hand dropping lower - tugs at your arm until she has an elbow in hers. The backs of her knuckles settle against your hip bone, her fingertips sliding across the waistband: you walk backwards through your snowprints, gently - the side door to the cabin is unlocked - Tzuyu's stumbling toward it.
"Going to the shower, we're turning the water on," she explains. You grin, feel your own arm, a slow drag around her lower waist; she tilts into it, steps closer. Presses a finger to your chest: "dinner's gonna be in half an hour," she announces, "and before you ask, I've been craving those boxes of instant mac & cheese in Mina's pantry."
"I haven't had one of those in ages."
"Me neither," and with her heel, she kicks the side door shut; Tzuyu yanks on a cord, pulls the blinds closed. It's pitch black. You're chuckling low, turning around - one of Tzuyu's hands smacks over a nearby light switch, illuminating the room just a shade lighter than it was prior. She presses a hand to your chest, a single-minded goal to your front.
You put your hands on her hips.
"It's the kinda thing that makes me feel like a kid again," you hear her say, just slightly; that, and how the white fabric of her sweater twists, pulled to a single point.
"Happens," is the best explanation you can give. She slaps the lightswitch again. Kisses you. You shove a leg forward. She whines. "Be good," you're chiding, though you both stumble until her back is pressed against the wall. "You were just complaining that you're still sore."
"Maybe I can't help it, maybe that's all on you," the end of the sentence fades. Her nails slide up the sleeve of your arm. There's the soft hitch of a moan. "It's just you. So unfair." She rubs up. Swallows like it's instinct, at the slightest hint of friction. You curl your hand, your thumb grazes the waistband of her underwear; her fingertips tighten, her blunt nails sink deeper - press like she means something else, wants something more.
It'll be a few days, at least, more likely a week; and by then, this girl will have you right where she needs you. She's proven, time after time - you can never just say no.
-
The days bleed together after the snow.
You fuck her, but slower; sometimes softer, a little less raw, the hurt. Not that you'd ever try to take too much: the thought is unthinkable, un-imagined. Infinitely impossible. You'll pull out and empty everything you have, paint her skin, make her ache, fuck until you know exactly where the bruises are and how to touch them, how to breathe the hurt down from her ribs.
But some mornings: she rolls over onto her side, opens her eyes and smiles. Brilliant like the sun, something that would warm your heart even without trying. Some afternoons, you put the fire on; read something aloud from Mina's bookshelves, and watch the red-orange flames turn Tzuyu's cheeks and neck pink and honey. Evenings, especially the colder ones, you're wrapping her up, blankets, sweatshirts, pulling her close: into bed with the lights turned off. She wants the touch, she craves it, she'll almost whimper when you get near her - and it's you, whispering words against her ear; tracing fingertips lightly against her temple, down the nape of her neck, her lower lip-
"How come you don't kiss me, hm?" She sounds sleepy. "Baby. Don't pretend you're a stone. Like, an unfeeling brute."
"I have my limits, princess."
"Like not kissing someone you're fucking." Her face drops from your sight, and Tzuyu turns over: she curls into her comforter, and her legs nudge the back of yours. "That's so fucking cruel," her voice a little whiny. "But okay, okay - tell me the reasons. Just so we can keep going."
"Keep going, huh. Even though I'm mean."
"Well, yeah, I've done much, much worse," the worst, if you think about it; and it's almost true. Maybe her morality was on the rocks long before yours. "Obviously."
You drop a kiss into her hair. "We both know what that mouth of yours is capable of."
She grins into your skin. Presses her lips, like a sign, and stays.
-
A girl like her inspires the worst in a man, and that's just about it: you think a man would burn the world down for her, with her, and maybe that would be how all things end, someway, somehow - not because of him or her, the full spectrum of his intentions, all the intricacies and subtleties, and hers too. You're both complicated creatures, sure; both very capable and wanting. Of big feelings, deep attachments: the overflow of your good hearts, perhaps; or, rather: the deficits.
She appeals to your worst impulses, in the plainest terms.
"Jesus Christ," you hiss, hands firm on her lower back; your voice breaking; Tzuyu has shed the bedsheets and climbed into your lap, one leg bent at the knee, digging the other into your ribs - her shirt hitches up and over the curve of her spine and then pools at her neck.
"Tell me that's good," she murmurs, hips gyrating, rocking her pussy along your cock. "Like that - right?"
"Fuck- yes," your cock slides into her, your entire length, the rest of the world fogged out: even the fire is quiet. "God, tzu. Feels amazing."
Tzuyu rolls her body forward, rides you with ease, and puts one small hand against your mouth. Her shirt hitches up and over the curve of her spine and then pools at her neck.
"I want to make you cum," she says, all quiet determination and wily confidence, "only you." She rolls her hips in your lap and then finds it: the steady, rhythmic grind down, down. Her ass crashes into your balls; the first telltale sign of that wonderful orgasm to come. "Is it wrong to want this? Like, you and I? Fuck. It feels like your cock was made for me."
"Yeah,” you grit, “fucking you feels - like it's meant to be, huh?"
"Sir," she says with an unhealthy smirk. She’s loving this more than you are, and you can’t really blame her for it: there’s no other sound quite like the slick, wet noise that her pussy makes as her body drops to yours, your cock filling her completely. It's music to your ears.
You grab at her ass, her hip, and pull her closer. She smiles, tilts her face down to you.
"Me too, you know, me too," she murmurs, kissing you softly; when you cup her breasts her breath hitches. "God- fuck- just-"
When she does cum, it's with the faintest little groan; a small, intense quiver in her thighs. You kiss her to swallow down the sound; and feel yourself tip over, and when she fucks you through your orgasm - her smile is dark, wicked, totally satisfied.
-
And everything else follows, because you're weak: because she makes you want to say no, even while simultaneously being your very favorite yes. You warm your cock inside her with some slow, gentle rhythm, her nipples hard against your shirt, her cries as sweet and earnest as all the best promises; a slow grind down, her fingers scrabbling for the headboard, you lean and lick her breasts, roll her nipples on your tongue - she gasps, tenses, digs her nails hard into your nape.
You'll have her again in the morning, she's adamant.
Her hands find your back, her legs circle your hips. The taste of her sweat. The taste of her nipples; her chest flushed, hair disheveled, pupils blown.
"Not letting me go." She whispers. Her cheeks are a lovely pink. "Even after this?"
You kiss the corner of her mouth, inhaling, wondering what to say.
"Good," Tzuyu tells you, tilting her jaw: "that's really-" She catches her lips with her teeth. "That's so fucking good."
-
(Her pussy grips your cock like it's the home she's always missed, her lifeline, her safe harbor. And it's dizzying, it's heaven, hell; and, in the morning - when everything is sepia-warm and sleepy - you fuck her again.
A promise, a hope, a plea. It's what makes a girl fall for a guy, in theory.
It's what makes her heart beat. )
-
"My phone's charging," Tzuyu sniffs the next morning: you're brushing out her hair. The sheets are warm.
You continue combing.
"Sana told me she would be texting, or trying to call."
"Well, that's nice," is all you can manage.
"Babe-" she leans back a bit: turns her gaze to the ceiling, exhaling sharply, "what if she got caught in a whole different avalanche, or fell from the top of a mountain, or something-"
You let go, letting her rest her weight against your thigh. "Honestly? Would serve her right. A little cold, a little damp-"
"If you don't take that back-"
"Alright. Alright. I'll send an apology prayer when I get around to it."
"No you won't." She curls in further, and you stroke her neck, shoulder blade; down the ridges of her spine, across the width of her back.
Tzuyu shudders slightly under your touch.
"Haven't I earned enough good faith, or a clean conscience?"
"Sir, don't pretend."
"Let's pray for Sana, then," you mutter. "Wherever the fuck she is."
"With respect," Tzuyu pipes up, eager: "bitch ain't found."
"Jesus.” You laugh out loud. “At least your brain isn't fully turned to mush, yeah?"
"Give yourself some credit. I can hardly fucking walk. You really pounded the feeling in my legs away."
"Too bad."
"Sorry." And she noses at your collarbone, tugging the waistband of your boxers; "feel free," the drawl of an old, forgotten song, "to make me repent. Baby. Do your thing."
"Right, I forgot that I could convince you to do anything by sliding my dick in your throat. Yikes."
"Baby, just, uh- do whatever." Tzuyu grabs hold of your cock through the thin fabric: one light tap of a finger, "my lips are numb," the suggestion. You really could be her everything: and maybe if you said, stop, please, you won't. She'd pause; look at you like you're insane and maybe spit out what the actual fuck is wrong with you. Like the reality:
This doesn't have to end, no?
"Sorry about your phone battery," you tell her, brushing out the knot at the base of her skull. She exhales, goes soft; lets you tug lightly. "We’ll figure things out when Sana can actually text you, okay?"
"Dumbass. When it's warmer and you drive down to meet her."
"You're not jealous," you tell her. You’ve decided for her.
Tzuyu rolls, leans down on her back, smiling prettily-
"Nope," she agrees, pulling your cock out: already hard, ready to cum down her throat. Her fingers pump soft, slow, the anticipation- "just not done."
"Crazy."
She shrugs and lets the silence calm the world around the two of you; at least for a little while. "Takes a certain kind," she agrees.
"Permissiveness. Like what I'm seeing. Your brand or whatever."
"It’s straight from the heart." She shoots up, making a face you want to kiss. "Honestly."
"Absolutely sincere," you deadpan, and she ignores the jab.
"Tie a bow with my hair," she chuckles, the laughter light, and your fingers graze her temple. "Come on. I'll make you so proud. So pleased. Sir. Let me, let me-"
"Only if I can finish down your throat," you retort - half-joking, but, her eyes grow warm, molten, the lust is immediate - you tip her head, lower it gently - she bites down onto her lip, nods a bit.
-
You don't take her right away. Not at first. You’re trying to show some restraint, trying not to think about how Tzuyu wears clothes like a vice. She's that kind of girl. Like an accident waiting to happen. She's moving around the kitchen later, poking about the cabinets. She's slid into some jeans that fit her a little too well, and one of those obscenely thin t-shirts.
You watch her back muscles work, how the cotton bunches as she leans, arms extending. Her chest's flat against the counter to grab whatever item's out of her reach. You catch the ribbon in her hair bob slightly back into place when she stands back up. The hairline on the nape of her neck catches a long highlight of a morning, the thin strands a brilliant brown, a spark of warmth in the midst of a muted winter morning - and it's honestly amazing to look at.
(Her ass hangs out in the open like an invitation. Your eyes are running down every curve of denim like they can't help but search.)
"Tzu," is the warning, and she flashes a grin; turns, the expression shifting, wide. "I can literally see everything you have."
"Hm." The front of her shirt lowers, too - her black bralette, barely a scrap of lace and string, visible through the thin fabric. "If I'd known you'd like that so much, you could've told me earlier."
"It's not your job to figure me out."
"Well, I'm not sorry." The words are sugar sweet, with an almost fake concern: her feet pivot, her ass filling your vision- Tzuyu spreads her hands down her outer thighs.
"Be nice," you reiterate. "C'mere."
Her legs snap to you quick.
-
You are careful, tentative and slow. You leave the ribbon in place and everything; just your mouth, like you have a right to lick down her breasts, her stomach, her clit - like you deserve the faint marks where your hands pressed down onto her waist.
The slow licks, the soft kisses; you could eat her out until the sun sets and Tzuyu was left sobbing through the overstimulation. Her fingers rake your hair like it’s exactly what she’s hoping you’ll do.
When Tzuyu does let go: she doesn't drop. There is no shame, nor shameful whimpers. Instead, she fucking screams, so high and clear it doesn't seem possible: a singer's wail.
"Sir!" she's crying, you can feel it through every tremble. "Oh my god, please-"
You get her to climax twice before the tears fall, your fingers tracing her spine, pressing deeper, a knuckle, then two-
She looks at you in abject reverence, "God, you don't know," is the gasp, "how perfect you are," and you're sure. You'll never get it right again: at least, not without her.
She cums a third time, shivering, collapsing: her eyes wide, glossy, breath shallow, limbs giving in. The sweat clings to her like a lover, a life she doesn't know how to leave.
So, you ask:
"What now, doll?"
Her tongue sweeps the corner of her mouth, a tiny wrinkle.
"Whatever," Tzuyu exhales. "Fuck, whatever, seriously, that was like- amazing- but my throat is actually going to murder me."
"Was the screaming really that necessary."
"Not sure- about anything," is the groggy admission, "like, honestly. Too horny to care, but." She pauses for a second. "You," she finally decides.
"I," is the immediate reply.
"I’ll let you do - anything, but I- can I, like, get a breather? For a minute. Can you wait, like, just."
Her arms open: you settle against her side, and a shaky hand starts combing through your hair. Her other palm lifts to rest against your cheek, cupping it. The nails tap gently along your hairline. 
"Been waiting so long, Tzu, honey," and it doesn't sound as cruel or glib as the slip up should be construed - doesn't even bother to count on forgiveness, either. Maybe you're beyond all of that, honestly, and more or less in love, as a result. It’s kind of fucked. What’s a minute more?
She laughs softly, a cough catching up and sounding pained. She's lost her voice, the poor thing, she’s cummed herself hoarse and ragged and you’re proud of your handiwork.
"Honey," you hear her say, and she shakes, pulls herself closer, kisses you back: like the old, gentle motion can ever fully cure the fever of desire that grips the two of you. It's a pipedream, and you're kissing her. It's a pipedream, and you know it.
-
The calls start coming in after the sun sets and the cabin grows cool with the dark: you feel, faintly, that it's inevitable. That the snow would clear and time would start marching on, a predetermined cycle. (That, maybe, something in the universe - at this stage, almost a hundred years of weather, tectonic plates, astronomical phenomena, interconnected - knew the two of you needed that bit of seclusion.)
"I dunno, just some bog-standard hotel, holiday suites or something. The point is: the roads don’t open until tomorrow and I've been holed up for a while." Sana sighs into the phone. The static pops. "Oh my god, I'm bored out of my mind. I've had like, three full bags of crisps in one sitting, which is just plain wrong."
"You're basically living off carbs." You say this from in front of the fireplace. Tzuyu is sitting on the opposite side of the couch paging through a stack of magazines, wearing a big jumper and sweats and socks pulled up to her knees. Her hair is falling around her shoulders in soft waves, and it makes her look small and domestic and a bit docile - she’d re-tied the ribbon in her hair after you’d fucked it off her, and that more or less completes the look.
"Yes, I have gone off the deep end. A tragic, awful spiral. Because you're not here. Fuck, you have no idea."
"Ah- Sana." You stop. Take a deep breath.
"Do you have any idea? The state of me right now? seriously. I packed so many fucking condoms and the idea of bringing them back home is more defeating than anything else." She lowers her tone a little, then adds, "because, not to be weird, I was kinda sorta hoping we might use them when I got up there."
You blink. Tzuyu isn't even pretending to look anywhere else. Her whole face is shifting into a satisfied expression, and when she catches you looking, she winks.
"Right. Now this might sound like a surprise," Sana is continuing, her voice full of amusement, "but when I get stuck somewhere, alone and thinking about the weather- I'm often in need of a fuck. Please be prepared to service, because god damn, I've got nothing and it's gonna have to be the battery."
"Is that Sana?" Tzuyu interrupts, the tone hushed, but lofty.
You make a face, like: who the fuck else - but that makes her smirk; Sana sighs, then laughs.
"So if you like, you know. If you feel like the vibe is there. I'd appreciate the hand out."
Tzuyu walks over: sets herself down between your feet and kisses your knee. Just to fuck with you. Because she wants to. She holds the kiss, the bow in her hair, done up tight and shiny, visible. You want to tug the stupid thing until it unravels; all your fingertips, her lips, and she sighs-
"Oi," Sana's saying on the line. You can hear her crash onto her bed. "You still there?" 
"I'm sorry," you say, "are you uh, asking for phone sex - or did I totally read that all wrong."
"Nope. Pretty direct." Sana laughs, and the sound should make it easy to close your eyes, picturing it: a silver smile, the low slung skirt and a stretch of stockinged leg, the twinkle of a drink as the ice hits her mouth. It’d be easy, y'know, if your gaze wasn't pinned on the girl who's settled at your feet.
"Oh, jesus, okay," you manage to breathe. Tzuyu hums a little: reaches for your fly. "Is there anything, anything that you want me to do?"
Sana's laughter drops to a murmur: the air goes heady as Tzuyu parts the zipper and rolls down the waist of your pants- "ask me what I'm wearing, duh."
"Boring," Tzuyu breathes into the air. Because apparently Sana's defining trait is being loud. The kiss to your clothed cock is hot, teasing - her eyes never lift away, "always, always start with, 'darling, sweetheart,' or something stupid, sweet." Her tone is pure syrup: you can feel the warm, the wet; a fucking tease, all the way to her core.
"What are you wearing, darling?" you ask, dryly. Tzuyu rolls her eyes.
Sana's grin widens and you swear it's audible, "oh, just these boring pajamas." She draws it out slow and sexy and completely aware. "It's all loose cotton, and it doesn't hang off me, just folds."
"Is it the type that comes down to the mid-thigh? The white kind, where you can see through to the skin?"
"That's a little presumptive, don't you think? A bit on the nose? Yeah, fine, I'm wearing the kind, if you absolutely insist. These legs, bare. Maybe you'd want to bite. Y'know. Mark 'em'. Whatever."
Tzuyu is kissing the outline of your shaft. Pulling your hard-on out from its confines - all gentle and tentative. Her pretty brown eyes dart upward, gauging: okay, just do your thing - you shrug - but it'd be so helpful if you could scoot to the end of the cushion for me, can you-
"Yeah," you're agreeing into the phone, somewhat vague - to no one in particular. You don't give Tzuyu just an inch; instead, you lift your thighs toward her. Sliding, Tzuyu pulls your pants down: enough. There's a delicate pressure applied at the bottom of your cock, right at the base, right where Tzuyu drags her nails. "Let's have that show off a little," your breath comes shallow, "then. Strip, real slow. We can try for something sexy I guess."
"You," Tzuyu kisses the base and shuffles up the rest of your shaft, "just love bossing people around," then her lips part: the slightest graze, then warmth, the faint suction. “Don’t you?”
"Uh-huh," says Sana, and then the rustle of cloth: and you could imagine her, really, lifting the shirt up, off, sliding it along the inside of her ribs, over the tips of her breasts - she'd cup them, lean into the contact. Sana's hands are always on her tits, or the spread of her hips - she likes the shape of her body more than anyone else. "Sometimes, that's the best way," she tells you. Her breath is hot, full of sex. "Being told what to do. Isn't that true, hm?"
Tzuyu tilts forward, lets your cock drop over her bottom lip. It leaves a smear of spit in its wake, the sensation electric. Her head falls, swallows the whole of the tip: her tongue immediately swirls. A hot little pulse. Her cheeks hollow.
"Yeah. Some could probably argue," your breath catches, the weight of the sensation, the fullness, your hips arch, your spine straightens. The electricity goes through your stomach and down your spine; you can feel the wave rolling along. Tzuyu giggling into the stiff line of your cock-
"Telling us both?" Tzuyu smiles again, running her lips slowly up and down the sides, teasing with her breath and her fingers running down the ridges. "What you want." She hums low, into the hot air.
You press your phone to your neck. "Can you, like-
Tzuyu pulls her mouth off your cock. Just sits there blinking. “Hm?” she asks, tugging a strand of her hair from the corner of her mouth.
“Just please stay quiet, or something- this is already harder than I thought it would be," the joke is as unsubtle as they come, "jesus, okay-" and put the phone back to your ear, "shit, Sana- can you, like-"
Her fucking mouth. The seal, the press - the tongue swirling around your head. Fuck.
“Yeah, babe? What do you want to know?”
The words aren't coming and a very obvious swallow is, Tzuyu leaning closer, and her fingers tangle with yours - guiding you closer, guiding your hand to the ends of her hair.
"Explain," is somehow where you land, shaky. You stick the landing just enough that Sana might buy it. "What are you doing now?"
"Slow circles. On my nipples, pinching," her voice strains, then settles,"yeah, the tip's so sensitive. Jihyo was laughing that guys always obsess over her tits. Always wanna suck, or nibble and I'm like, girl, what the hell are you complaining for?" - Tzuyu inhales a huge breath, and then another: her lips, those eyes - open and glossy, every movement steady like she knows just how to make the wait worth it - "or, or maybe I'm just weird, because the first time I felt someone's teeth and their tongue. Fuck, like, I almost screamed. Or, cried. Literally."
"Hah," and Tzuyu brings her lips lower. Moves her hair gently out of the way to take the rest of you into her mouth: bobbing up, her lips puckering in some rhythm, and her tongue darts, swirls the edge of the cock. Tongue at the slit. The pressure. Fuck, your head falls back. Every breath sounds heavy, loud. "Fingers,” you huff, “are good too I'm sure. I’d be paying close attention. Making you feel good."
"Mhm." Sana agrees. "The little pinches, ugh, I could die happy if you did just that, it's that fucking amazing."
"Baby," you half-moan. You’re struggling. The mouth stops, then sinks: down, all the way. Fucking amazing. Fucking hell.
"Oh?" Sana laughs airly, "are you touching yourself, hm? No fair, are you going to leave me all lonely here-"
You can see that smirk. The fuckery that would come: Sana's version.
"Sir," Tzuyu mumbles, sounding muffled. Her mouth is a tight vise of warmth, and your hand threads through her hair again. You hold, tighten the ribbon a bit, and Tzuyu stares at you through half-lidded eyes: you don't think she'll blink until you make her cry, and by then-
“Fuck,” Sana says, totally flat, "I'm actually pretty wet," the emphasis, "so I'd like some real advice, y'know-"
You see her legs. The tops. The bottom, all the way down- and you inhale sharply, too much and too hard.
Tzuyu has her fist at the base of your cock and her palm is sliding down the slick flesh and, a moment later, up, meeting her mouth at the top of its stroke - and, without a goddamn care, she hollows her cheeks - puckers her lips along the surface.
You were right. "This is hell."
Sana hums a laugh. "Need me that bad, huh? We're missing each other by just a couple days."
You stroke the top of Tzuyu's hair, her bow bobbing in a nice little bounce. Sana would know better than to wear her hair up. To even go near this, her throat - you hold her jaw steady, maybe a second, the moment of recovery to make Tzuyu slow and careful: her tongue does a pass at the sensitive, rigid underside of the crown, the sudden movement - before she speeds up.
"Picturing your hand." She tells you in a languid tone.
"God," you half-say, half-moan, and Tzuyu is good. So fucking good, and the mouth is too damn eager and it's difficult to think.
You barely get your hand free to switch to speaker, then let it clatter to the side. Tzuyu grinning, her lips flushed red and wet and dragging over your cock, sliding down, her tongue doing another pass, swirling at the center, the flare-
"Thinking about you, actually, fuck," Sana has a hitch to her breath that wasn't quite there before. "Doing those things, that mouth all over, Jesus Christ - ah- my legs, my breasts, fuck- are you jerking off right now? You sound, well, pretty uh, yeah."
"Just saying," you breathe, as the shock and the sensations rise and fall; Tzuyu's edging you in her mouth, her own head starting to shake, her chin bobbing up and down the full, long line of your dick - she's never done anything by halves. "It's getting- I'm thinking about you, Sana, of course, and your- pretty cunt, god, of course, so- ah, close- you said you were wet?"
"Huh? Of course, dripping. Imagining you - your thick, your cock," Sana sorta giggles, out of it then-
Tzuyu moans. Her body is pliant and her shoulders roll; she sucks, her cheeks dip, her back arches, and all of the noises hit the air thick, all while Sana's voice sharpens - both girls, two. You're slipping off the cushion, and probably out of your mind. The ache builds and burns and yearns for some sort of release- 
"-how wet and tight I would feel, after so fucking long. Please, fuck, fuck-" you hear Sana, "would you, fuck, c'mon, how I would look, on top of you? Could feel- the stretch, your cock deep inside. The, fuck- friction."
There’s this beat, where it’s just Sana’s stiff breathing; you can picture her wrist between her thighs, the pump, the twist as her fingers run over and over again through the sound of her slick. You’re left wondering if she can hear too, the mouth trailing kisses along your balls, tongue gliding back up and swallowing your length whole.
“Mnph.” Tzu chokes down a little.
And you look down, you have to eventually - to see the steady stare. Tzuyu's brows pinched and her eyelashes fanning out over the hollowed curve of her cheekbones. Pretty, fuck. Beautiful. So sexy: she looks up, swallows you back, like a fucking slut. Her mouth, wet, messy, hot, and her body-
"Third finger, by the way," Sana strains, "'cause- fuck, my pussy - my tight little hole would be swallowing your cock so damn good."
"Mmm, fuck." You're reduced to your base instincts, pulling Tzuyu's hair, dragging her wet, velvety mouth onto your shaft - she follows willingly, no question of her pace slowing, but - more, and more, and you could probably cum in her mouth if her hands weren't clasped firmly over your thighs and you weren't brushing away the tears pricking the ends of Tzuyu's lashes- you won't tell. Not with your fingers. Fuck. Her nails bite at the skin of your bare legs. She looks angry, insistent. Choking.
Sana sounds just as out of sorts, out of breath, "you would feel so fucking good. Look so good. Let me have it- whatever I need, yeah?" And you think she's close: it's that keen edge, a faint, broken whine. She's never going to finish any way except- "would you, inside me? Y'know- make me cum, real full. God- are you close? Would you make a mess out of me? Of my pretty pussy?"
“Okay, holy fuck-" and the question barely even hits you. 
Tzuyu is glaring now, shaking: she wants you to lose it, and she looks furious, holding her fingertips, her thumb on the base of your cock: a new pressure, a new feeling, a new pulse, a new high- she wants you to forget about Sana, maybe. What she sounds like, how she looks. Her legs wide, her bare, slicked skin on display. For you, yes. Fucking her until she- "uh, baby," and this time, your voice makes her smile, and her teeth drag. You wince. Her pupils are blown out, and there's a flush building in her chest. "Where are you?"
"Laying down. Flat- god. Where I'm always-" and you imagine a plane of soft, tanned, toned legs, her wide hips, "I'd, yeah, in a second. Pressure at my back- it would feel so fucking good, y’know, if you were here."
You have no doubt in your mind: Sana would be gorgeous. Even from the back, she'll be hotter, fuck, she always is, especially like that - and the movement of Tzuyu's fingers tightens against the straining, needy ache, and- 
"Please, fuck, fuck- need to-"
"Would cum- a lot, that's it- over my back. Oh, yes, all over my back. My ass. Messy. fuck that's actually so good, jesus christ-" and then Sana lets out another soft keen and a shout - and it's so sweet and high-pitched and familiar, almost musical; she's cumming, hard. You're only a second, a third behind and-
Your balls draw tight and a coil in your stomach unfurls-
Tzuyu sees you, grins, your eyes trained on the pink of her mouth and her perfect, wet lips and the deep brown eyes - her dimpled cheek is the softest fucking thing - but the rest, her mouth, her wet heat: it's pure sensation. The tight vise of a throat swallowing, the taste on the flat of her tongue. You've got your cock shoved deep in her mouth, and you're not easy to take. Fucking Tzuyu's face, thrusting and the throbs of your cock pumping out a hot, heavy spill. More and more: sticky, filling, spreading out from the corners of her lips. Tzuyu gurgles, struggling - fuck, finally letting go with a weak pop, falling back, and the white mess runs hot over her mouth. Your release smeared across her lips, dripping off her jaw - fucking christ - her tongue, her eyelashes - a wild mess of fluid. It splatters against her pale skin - runs down the hollow of her throat to the edges of her chest. She has her fingers working fast still, a squelching tight fist: you cum all over the stupid, cutesy bow too. It's all you see, the only thing-
“Fuck,” Sana says, oblivious. “That’s good.”
-before your eyelids shutter close, a ringing in your ears and your heart racing; and, not far, another sigh, followed by the slide of your phone down the couch.
"Aw, you done already?" Sana says. Lazily. You can see the look on her face, probably rubbing her pussy and thinking about more - if there’s any two ways the girls compare, it’s this allergic reaction to anything like temperance or moderation. You need new friends, new lovers; this can’t last.
"Uh-huh." The back of your head digs into the couch cushions. Fuck. Sana. Phone. On speaker. Oh. Right. Shit. "But I was- mnph. Uhh." Your brain has lost a lot of blood. It's doing nothing. Nothing but losing blood. You wish it’d stop. “I’m here, Sana, talk to me.”
Sana giggles at that, delighted, "don't tell me you're in such bad shape I need to save you-"
"The uh," your voice slurs. Then you're pulling the phone to you, closer. Fuck. Yeah. You're an idiot. Your breath is heavy: "I could go for more, yeah, how’re you feeling?"
"So fucking tired." Her breathing sounds less ragged. A full breath. A pout: a poor me.
"Hmm." Tzuyu crawls onto you. Slides the fabric of your shirt between her palms, up and down your ribs. She pushes the sweater and tee away. Bares your stomach- then kisses there. Lower, and then rises, looking through her lashes. It's clear: a demand. She'll be insisting, pressing down on you, kissing, running her teeth along the edges of your shoulders, your neck. She’ll kiss you right now if you let her - until she sinks into a promise at the center of your body. Your back is arching off the leather from the sensitivity, and Tzuyu has her lips all over you - smiling when your hands tangle with the long strands of her hair.
She pauses. You drop a hand to Tzuyu's waist. Pinch.
"Ow-" she says, coming across slightly betrayed. 
And, satisfied with the expression her face, the phone cradled between your chin, her lips warm over your ribs, her head tickling the edges of your jaw, you keep laughing, or you want to, but Tzuyu takes you between her thighs, lifts a little on your cock - her eyes widen: she's testing your flexibility. Trying to drag this out, trying for teasing. She’s good at that (a verifiable truth), but you’re you - you see right through it: she likes how it feels, the thickness and size of you. Tzuyu keeps sliding slowly down the full length, letting you fill her inch by inch - her slick heat feels unbearable.
“God,” she mutters, and she’s making the dreamiest expression - the blush in her cheeks, the eyelids hung low, the mouth slightly agape - she lifts up, then slams all the way to the base, flush. You grab anything you can to hold onto. Her legs. Her ass. Her thighs. Her jaw. That perfect little fucking waist.
She’s sublime. Your cock is bathing in her slick, the wet heat, the throbbing pulses - she's gasping in your lap, like she can’t believe how good you feel filling her cunt.
"Sana," you grit, "there's- nothing else in the world I'd rather do right now than shove my cock-” 
“Ugh,” Sana sighs in agreement, in imaginary bliss. “In my little fucking pussy- you’re making me miss you, or something, jesus-”
You squeeze her thigh and her lips quirk, just barely, a challenge.
"Want put a nice thick load" - the hand on Tzuyu's hip brings her down in your lap, fucking up hard as her chest racks with breath - "in your slutty little cunt" - you fuck her faster, the sounds of flesh against flesh obscene - "fill up your pussy, princess. Would cum in it until" - and the last inch of your cock, filling Tzuyu’s cunt, you've no control - "you're a mess, you're dripping in it-"
Tzuyu's movements still. A pause. Her hips. Your own, and all the rest, every nerve in your body is on fire. 
She moves with the most graceful slide, her wet lips gliding - gripping - up your cock. Then, down. The quiet. The lull. The pause before she does it again. She has cum all over her face, and she’ll kill you. You’ll let her.
"God. We'll have to get around to it," Sana finally tells you, dryly, "when this fucking snow clears. Say hi to Tzuyu for me won’t you?"
-
You're not a bad person. 
(The reassurance that you aren’t - or don’t want to be? - is probably still not super convincing. There's some line drawn there, blurred, crossed, and thoroughly annihilated by your actions, you think, vaguely, but maybe it's better if no one sees, hears, finds out. The finer details matter a lot less at that point.)
You're like anybody else: you get desperate to hold onto something, somebody, even for just a moment. Sometimes you don’t even need a reason at all.
Tzuyu is stepping out of the shower, her head bobbing: it takes everything in you not to drag her back in there. She’d let you. She wouldn’t even complain.
You can hear the catch and the slide of a bath towel, the wisp of water hitting the bottoms of her feet and trailing, an exaggerated moan - a gesture, meant to entice, a suggestion: fuck her right back in the shower until her hair is plastered to her cheeks, and she's panting. Or the steam lifts her breasts in a gentle, humid press. That mouth on the tiles - sobbing.
“Tzu,” you call out, and she just continues humming some indifferent tune. 
You pull a thick sweater over your head: it's gray wool, and it's all clean and good and new. When she wraps her arms around you, a deep inhale: a grin, then a shiver. She's naked and dripping everywhere, wet hair leaving a trail in its wake. She burrows her face in the folds of fabric at your spine - and if you turned, the slightest movement, the smooth line of her torso would be exposed, and your fingers could trace down her belly button, the tips dipping between her legs-
The window is fogging at the bottom, the steam slipping out in tendrils - but the heat can't compete against the girl all wet and dripping, and it does nothing but give way to the cold, seeping in.
"I still think it's funny," she says, all matter of fact. "It's weird that this isn't awkward."
“What’s that?”
She's at the doorway.
“Us. Being here.”
You turn, and Tzuyu pulls at your sweater: looking for attention, always seeking out the easy praise. Her hand automatically slides beneath the cloth of your collar, drawing your jaw up for a short, hard kiss.
"Okay," and there's a small nod, the line of her throat pulsing as she breathes, "yeah," her chest rising and falling.
"Look at you,” you tell her. “All dry and tidy. Cute. "
A dumb comment earns you the tiniest smile, then she's leaning back, taking her hands to her hair and wringing out the water, pulling and tugging at the tangles - the towel wraps around her waist again and again, and she looks good, clean: it makes you think of what comes later. Not having to give a fuck - at least not for a little while.
"Jeez," she's shivering, still, and rubbing the tops of her arms, "and Sana is gonna be, like, all over you once she gets the chance. Wants a nice lay too, from the sound of it. Was being honest about that. Seems pretty pent up."
“Maybe you can help,” you offer, a bit flippant. She smiles - but in all seriousness, it’s a resounding: no.
There's something else, too, as she runs her fingertips, absently, through her hair - it falls flat on her neck and around her bare shoulders, dark against the lightness of her skin, but somehow you get the impression that she's not entirely preoccupied. "Y'know, I had a really good time and all, but I'm not the homewrecker type, yeah - it's not worth the stress," a slight shrug, like she isn't certain, her mind a little more tangled than usual, and for good reason, too, "probably won't hook up ever again."
"Gloomy," you tease.
"Don’t act like you're not going to miss it," she says, conspiratorial - and Tzuyu plants herself where you can feel her in your space - but she doesn't press. "Even when you're keeping busy, you'll have the smallest reminder, like - aha, Tzuyu would've really liked this, or that - when, y'know - you're stuck somewhere, thinking about the weather," and her cheeks are heating with color as her tongue forms the syllables - and the meaning is clear now as it always was.
“Even if you’re like, totally smitten, or whatever with her,” she adds, smirking.
"Sana will be back to her usual antics in no time. Being annoying and forward and whatever," you reply. "Won't miss much."
The girl's expression flickers a little - a slight twitch - but otherwise, a flat look.
She fixes the lay of her towel across her wide hips. You reach for her arm: pull at it, pulling her toward.
"I mean- Sana and I have a few things in common, anyway. Something in common. Can both be a spoilsport. Dull. Can be a bit, uh, territorial, if you you know-"
The rest is cut off, the words running into a kiss, deep and desperate; there's no place like her mouth: soft, eager, hot.
"And our usual antics?" she asks.
She leans into you, the chill starting to set, a fire burning nearby: something clandestine that maybe shouldn't last as long as it does. A log settling against the others, another plume of heat, and you say, a touch solemn,
"Dunno if we've ever been in common about anything, babe."
"Jeez. You don't have to spell it out like that, do you?" Tzuyu laughs lightly, holding the bath towel at her hips - her breasts are bare. They fall without support, her nipples, the slope of her ribs, everything. "I mean, how cruel."
(It isn't really. Because, here's the thing. In the grand scheme of things, Chou Tzuyu was never really supposed to happen at all.)
-
The snow clears, like all things you suppose, slowly and with a sigh: with the change in winds and a promise for a gradual spring. Tzuyu steals a shirt. Doesn't seem inclined to return it, says she's good at letting her imagination do half the work in lieu of the actual sex. (The nip is like a sting: it'll last longer, apparently. The bruising at the edges of her waist is more abstract.)
You’re in the driveway. Tzuyu’s leaning back on her luggage.
She kisses you like she wants to make you lose something: her lipstick, her mind, her heart or soul. And when her arms slide, her mouth parting - her tongue darting and sweeping, taking - Tzuyu knows a good many things about herself. She knows you, too. What makes her wet, what gets her off. What part of you will always come back to her. But her hair falls heavy: so much silk. She's laughing - a grin and she's licking the pink right off her teeth and she's beautiful and you think you'll want this always:
A girl like her, kissing so eager for you-
"You can totally say it first," she tells you, that mouth at the edge of your ear.
"Um," you say, and she settles down a little further, her wrists locked behind your neck. "You are so: clingy."
The look she gives you is adorable. All dimple, no worry. “Yeah, so?”
“How is that fair?”
"I don't really care if it is or isn’t. We’d be good together - and that’s a fact. So say something good, or I'm getting in that cab right now."
So you do. You do. The first word, the syllable, the way you ask her, the sound that is something like: mine, and the way it dries the edge of your throat; you kiss it away and she giggles because maybe this means, after a while, you really are as terrible as she always hoped.
She'll give you everything. She says, yours, and it would always be you; she halts a bit, and says it like she’s thawing a revelation, one that’s been there since the start - says she loves you and she always has. You laugh and she says it again: always.
-
Sana ends up standing in the cabin a day later. The same place you stood, watching Tzuyu lick yogurt off her spoon. Her coat looks expensive. There's her purse. The boots. That red-painted mouth. Her eyes are fixed, and she sees nothing out of the ordinary. Which is probably, you think, ideal.
"That's funny," her face betrays nothing.
The cabin smells a little like burning wood, vaguely: peppermint tea. An electric kind of heat and the warmth of the sun. It had smelled like evidence prior, the way a girl gets with her underwear missing, hair a tangled mess, body sore and aching, a wet bed. You'd looked like a pair of kids caught in a terrible storm, a lovers' quarrel in a small space - or, just: well-fucked.
"What's funny?" is how you finally manage.
"I just mean," she starts again, "she used to have like. The craziest crush on you. It would’ve been cute if it wasn't sorta sad. Did you know? You couldn't, I guess." She shrugs: a heavy lift of her shoulders, a release. The tension is leaking everywhere. "Must've been torture for her to get stuck here with you."
"Huh," you say, like you were missing something, which is exactly the wrong tone and definitely the wrong sentiment. “Oh, the crush. That. Sure.” You’re suppressing a smile. “Torture, yeah. Hey. Don't worry about it. I’m sure we’ll be fine."
-
(You can’t stop running it back through your head, her long dark hair disappearing into the cab. She loves you and you love her, and it’s got this beautiful caveat of being something simple-complex. Like, who would ever believe any of this? Like, who else even matters? 
You say, you belong to me, and she agrees without even thinking. 
“You always knew, though. From the start, you always did. I was never going to be anyone else's," and then she pouts. "Wouldn’t hurt telling me, from time to time."
And the mountains have a way of feeling like the end, sounding like the closing score, the credits - you look out at the white caps and reflect: maybe you shouldn’t have let her go. Maybe you should chase after her. Maybe you could still make it work. Maybe you should consider that a promise.
You look up at the sky, the pale blue - and maybe you can afford to let her go. 
You know you’ll only find your way back.)
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horizon-verizon · 7 months ago
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The fact that so many people think the Starks are honorable anticolonial fighters and the pinnacle of morality is absolutely insane, they literally built a massive wall to isolated a bunch of people they considered as “savages”, they hunted and slaughtered the Free Folk, the Children of the Forest, giants, exterminated whole houses and clans and took their daughters as “prizes” while conquering the North, etc. The Blackwoods were originally from the North and ruled most of the wolfswood, before being driven out by the Starks and forced to flee south. The Starks are the OG COLONIZERS in ASOIAF.
Even this did not give Winterfell dominion over all the North. Many other petty kings remained, ruling over realms great and small, and it would require thousands of years and many more wars before the last of them was conquered. Yet one by one, the Starks subdued them all, and during these struggles, many proud houses and ancient lines were extinguished forever. — The World of Ice and Fire – The North: The Kings of Winter.
I recently finished a Tiktok series that will probably just be as lost to the internet if we lose TikTok but I had to get out in response to a particular creator who bashes Rhaenyra while also proclaiming themselves as black stans. I think they are really more black stans because they hate Alicent personally and feels the thrill of the side-taking, but that's neither here nor there. 😏
To quote one of my mutuals here [rhaenin]:
It just rings so familiar to the way so many people view the other in real life. Because the Targaryens are overtly, and intentionally written as the other. It's the reason so many people identify with them, and it's the very same reason that other people vilify them. They're not just the in-universe other to the 'default' culture established in the text, but they're also given characteristics that we, the reader and audience, can recognize as other and even sometimes anathema to Western Christian culture. To paraphrase the annoying people that love to cite Ramsay when they feel like it: If you look at a morally complex family surrounded by other morally complex families in a morally complex world in a story that's famed for seeking to challenge your underlying assumptions, and think that their association with fire and brimstone is meant to signify their singular satanic evilness, rather than say... challenge that very Eurocentric assumption, you haven't been paying attention. This vilification mindset where the Targaryens are the singular evil of Westeros is so common to people who seem to want to consume ASoIaF without engaging with the criticisms of the Eurocentric worldview of history at the heart of it. And they end up using the convenient “others” to project all the wrongs of that world onto so they don't need to examine it any deeper. ........... It comes from the same place with how someone pointed out that the baffling bastardphobia that would have medieval peasants giving the side eye is so often people jumping at the chance to “cosplay” as bigots who base their arguments in misogyny and bio-essentialism. Because it's an acceptable channel to indulge in that mindset in a way that they'd often otherwise question, or at least hold back from expressing out of caution.
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foolishlovers · 7 months ago
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do you have any non-explicit fic recs? im having trouble finding some😅
here are some of my favourite non-explicit good omens fics
[you can request more fic recs here]
Stockholm's Other Syndrome by WaitingToBeBroken (T, 5k) Grand Duke of Hell Crowley kidnaps Supreme Archangel Aziraphale so he can finally do all those vile, nasty things he has always wanted to do to him. Like feed him sushi or force him to take a walk in the park. Hold his hand so he doesn't escape. Truly disgusting things.
Show me where the Nightingale sings by Sabotaged_Words (G, 6k) After settling into their new home in the South Downs there are still things to process for Aziraphale and Crowley before they can start a new chapter of their life. But winter is turning into spring. There is magic abroad in the air. And finally, the nightingale is back.
Fever Dream by AppleSeeds (T, 8k) When Anathema declines Crowley's invitation to go out for Halloween to stay in and look after her roommate who's feeling unwell after his flu vaccination, Crowley abandons his own plans and heads over there to do something to help Aziraphale (who he happens to have an enormous crush on) feel better too.
Slow by write_away (T, 9k) It started like this: A boy with the ability to warp reality met an angel and a demon and he made assumptions. You might say it started like this: An angel and a demon found a marriage contract hung on the wall of the angel's bookshop. They didn't question it. It also could have started like this: Once upon a time, the angel told the demon he went too fast. The demon took it to heart.   Aziraphale and Crowley find themselves somehow married. Crowley fears going too fast. Aziraphale forges ahead. Neither know how to ask questions of each other.
where the lights burn low and you're only mine by hopelessromantic549 (T, 13k) For the most part, Aziraphale sees himself as a rational angel who follows a consistent moral code. That has been his identity for millennia, and it comforts him, gives him stability in an ever-changing universe. What he feels for Crowley is decidedly not rational, and that's more terrifying than the Great Plan failing him. (Or, Aziraphale and Crowley move into a cottage together after the world doesn't end, and Aziraphale tries to be brave.)
muddle through somehow by curtaincall (T, 27k) Aziraphale Fell runs a successful food blog, Celestial Comestibles, where he shares mouthwatering recipes and heartwarming stories about his happy domestic life in a cottage with his husband and son. As promotion for his upcoming cookbook, his publishers run a contest: one lucky winner will get to spend Christmas with Aziraphale and his family. What the publishers don't know is that the real Aziraphale Fell is a single city-dweller. And if he wants to keep up his happily married persona, he'll have to acquire a cottage, husband, and son before Christmas. As it happens, his friend and neighbor Anthony Crowley has his nephew staying with him for the holidays. One fake marriage proposal later, and everything seems tickety-boo--as long as Aziraphale can keep from developing inconveniently real feelings for his pretend husband…
Fifteen Years of Heartache by mondlichtmaus (T, 20k) Crowley was roused from his nap by the sound of somebody opening the door. He didn't move. Maybe they would go away. "Excuse me?" someone called. They weren't going away. Crowley rose, lifting his head to squint at the intruder. A broad figure, silhouetted by the light of the hallway. He couldn't make out his face, eyes still bleary from sleep. Just a halo of light framing his head. "What?" Crowley grumbled. There was a moment of silence, then the intruder spoke again. "Anthony?" - They're teachers. They're in love. They're oblivious.
Flowers From Hell by entanglednow (T, 41k) In which Aziraphale makes more of an effort to be involved with Crowley's interests and hobbies.
Put Out The Fire by Aleakim (T, 133k) Aziraphale finds himself in a very awkward position as some sort of spell makes everyone merely glancing in his direction instantly fall deeply and desperately in love with him. Absolutely everyone. Well, apart from Crowley, that is. And while both angel and demon search for a solution to this fairly unique problem, Crowley can’t help wondering whether Aziraphale might finally figure out some things he kept hidden for so very long.
Married at First Sight by Aracloptia (T, 146k) “Well, that was a thing,” Crowley said once they were out of earshot. Without talking about it, they were both heading down the field, towards the lake where the photographer (and likely a few more people from the TV crew) was waiting. “That was a wedding,” Aziraphale replied, surprised at his own annoyance that somebody called a wedding a ‘thing’. “Yeah, obviously, didn’t miss that part,” Crowley said with a shrug, and waved abruptly in Aziraphale’s general direction. “Neither did you, from the looks of it, since you’re dressed like a wedding bride and everything.” “Excuse me, I am a—“ Aziraphale stopped himself, and started over. In which Aziraphale ends up marrying a rude stranger who wears sunglasses.
[and here are two of mine]
Where a Canvas Blooms by foolishlovers (T, 3k) It’s an Arrangement. Aziraphale knows this. He knows a lot of things, and others he doesn’t, but the most important things, he knows. He knows that the cheeky redhead in his arms smiles and purrs when he runs his fingers through his hair, knows that Crowley’s hands are rough from working outside, knows the softness of his heart. Aziraphale doesn’t know he’s in love with Crowley until he does. But it’s just an Arrangement. Is it?
Every Part of Me by foolishlovers (T, 10k) Heartthrob rockstar Antonia Harmonia, better known as Anthony J. Crowley offstage, has safeguarded his singing career from his best friend and long-term crush, Aziraphale, for nearly two decades. But when Aziraphale stumbles upon Crowley’s secret at one of his concerts, Crowley is suddenly confronted with unexpected consequences. Could the best of both worlds be within his reach? A Hannah Montana AU.
[you can find more fic rec masterposts here]
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hkblack · 4 months ago
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Let me tell you a story...
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It starts in the summer of 2021. Honestly it probably starts a little before that. 2020 through 2022 ish are a bit hazy because there was a lot of sitting around at home doing nothing.
Somewhere in that haziness my partner goes “wait, you haven’t watched this Good Omens show yet? And you haven’t read the book? … oh no. You should do that.”
And immediately after finishing the show I knew I was in trouble. I knew if I read the book I would absolutely fall down the fandom rabbit hole and be trapped, and so for a very long while, I didn’t. Until I did.
And then in August 2021, I wandered into fandom. I had been lurking. Seeing what AO3 had to offer. Crawling back onto Tumblr. But I had a story idea, and I needed a beta reader. And the last time I was in fandom, LiveJournal was still a thing, so I didn’t know where to go.
I found out about Discord, and I signed up for a thousand servers, it felt like, and in one server I bravely started sticking my neck out.
There was talk about someone writing a Human AU on a farm, and farm animals in general, and I chimed in about goat-scaping. And then I made the joke that would seal my fate.
“I don’t know if I could write a kid fic, but you know. I could write a kid (goat) fic.”
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It was meant to be a short, sweet, meet-cute. Professor Aziraphale has a goat from the goat scaping team break into his office. Based loosely on a campus experience where a member of the goat-scaping team at a campus I was on tried (and failed) to get into a classroom once.
A simple formula. Maybe a 4+1? 4 times a goat broke into Professor Aziraphale Fell’s office, and one time it didn’t.
I even found the first beta reading request. First chapter done, I’ve got four more planned. Rated T.
Ha.
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I started writing Chapter 5, you know, the final chapter, and realized—there’s more to this story. These characters have life, and story, and who doesn’t want to see more goats? Also, had I truly fulfilled the “kid-fic” portion of my joke?
I think we can all agree that no, no I hadn’t.
So, I kept writing. But I also found my stride in other Discord Servers and in Fandom in general. And in the winter of 2021, I went on a beta-reading blitz for the Gift Exchange happening in the Do It With Style Events Discord server. I read something like 14? 15? stories in a very short amount of time and in doing so, got to know some really amazing people and began to carve out my spot in the community.
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From this server I found folks with lived goat-experience who were willing to share and advise me. From this server I found beta readers and brit pickers willing to cheer me on and guide my writing to the best version it could be. I found friends and joy and I found community.
And if you look very carefully through the pages of Bleating Hearts, I think that at its heart, past the puns, past the obvious fast burn love story, and the crooked Luce Matin and demanding James Starr, and even beyond the goats, it’s a story about finding your place in a community. While we talk about Aziraphale and Crowley and their relationship, so many people have asked me about Anathema and Crowley at the chicken coop (we only got to see Newt and Aziraphale in the bedroom). The most commented on scene is Anathema pulling the car over and getting Aziraphale’s consent to go to Tracy’s for lunch.
It's a story with goats, romance, and drama. But it’s a story about community.
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I have thanked the people most involved a thousand times over, and I will always take an excuse to thank them again. @ambrasue, my ride or die beta reader. She is who to thank for the sentences making sense. And for me not beating you all over the head with the word “Gently.” HolRose, for the Brit-Picking and second pair of eyes when Ambra and I had gone cross-eyed, and always, always, always having a kind comment ready to go for every chapter update. @writingordinaryrealities, for all things Goats, and for not laughing at me when we met in person and I lost my cool over real life goats.
@mirjam-writes! Mirjam made me my first ever fanart for one of my fanfics! And so many more of you have followed suit and I never know what to say when I see it but I always make a noise and run excitedly to my partner and flap my hands and show him his heart and he always gets the dumbest smile and goes, “I love when people make you goat fanart. You are adorable when you’re verklempt.”
But also, the DIWS and Good Omens community. Every single person who shouted at one of my snippets when I needed a boost and shared a bit of what I was proud of. Every single person who tagged me in a goat video—you all have tagged me in so many goat videos. I watch each and every one of them. Every single person who got excited when I said I was finally ready to start posting.
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Because you see, that support, that community, led me to pay it forward. At TIC4 in 2023, I had just finished my panel on beta reading and was feeling a bit amped up. I saw in the chat that someone wanted to talk Slow Show and Human Aus and, I don’t know if y’all know this, but uh, I’m a big fan of human AUs. And so I hopped into the break out room and met J.
J is a lovely human who has been fandoming since the OG Star Trek days with Kirk and Spock. She had found a physical copy of Slow Show and just needed to talk to someone, anyone about it. She wasn’t sure what the Archive was, she was still learning her way around digital fandom, and I instantly wanted to reach out and help her find community and joy the way I had when I got started in the fandom. So, I sat down and I gave her my favorites. I told her how to find me on socials. We connected on Discord. We sent each other long letters back and forth on Discord sharing our joys and frustrations and our love of GO and talking about all sorts of other things. And it has been amazing listening to her stories and getting to know her.
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Unbeknownst to me, J had reached out to @brunheiffer to ask for a physical copy of Bleating Hearts. Now—I’m all for fandom in the physical space, but it’s never even crossed my mind to do more than something printed out at my home printer, hastily hole punched, and shoved into a binder so I could sneak fanfiction reading time during 5th period math class after I was done with my worksheets many, many, many moons ago. When brunheiffer reached out and asked if they could print and bind a copy for me—I didn’t know what to say. Or do. Or think. I think I keysmashed? I keysmashed after I made my partner read the message out loud. And then I went and looked through tumblr and all of brunheiffer’s excellent work. And then I went, “Do I say yes?” and he went “um YES OF COURSE YOU SAY YES. WHAT”
So, I said yes.
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I also said yes to progress shots and got to watch some of the coolest work ever. I didn’t know how books…ya know…booked. Witchcraft probably? I’m still convinced there is witchcraft involved, but there is also an incredible amount of skill, and time, and patience, and hard work, and love that is put into making a book a book. And learning what I did, and watching the process, and seeing the care that brunheiffer put into each of the three (THREE!) sets of books that were made (one for me, one for brunheiffer, one for J), was just stunning.
Do you know, J reached out to me and apologized for not asking me first and asked me if it was okay that she had reached out and asked if brunheiffer would do this for her? Why would I ever be against something so heartfelt and kind?
I cried.
I legitimately sat in my office and cried.
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When people ask me how I write the way I do, or why I write, or anything along those lines. I have the same answer. “I write for myself.”
Oh sure, I started to write Bleating Hearts to make Ambra laugh and/or have feelings, but at the end of the day, when I write, it is because I need to get the bed time stories I tell myself at night, the day dreams while sitting on the bus, out of my head and somewhere else—so that a new movie can play. And when I write, I write knowing that I will come back to that story. That I will forget the little pieces (because I have a pretty shit memory tbh), and I’ll be able to go back, and wrap myself up in the comfort of the story I have written, and be surprised by some of the little details I left as presents for myself. And be excited. And be happy. And watch my favorite movie again.
So every time I see someone make art of this story, or talk about how they love the story, or how happy it made them, or the feelings it inspired, or how reading goats made them want to write their own fanfiction—I get, well, like my partner says, “verklempt.” I don’t know what to do with that feeling, other than to just be overwhelmed that somehow something I made to entertain me has brought other people so much joy. Has helped people connect and find community.
What a powerful and beautiful thing that is.
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Not everything I write is going to be Bleati—y'all I am just going to call it Goats. Calling it Bleating Hearts feels so weird. It’s Goats. That’s the name of the story. That’s my name for the story.
Anyway.
Not everything is going to be Goats. I’ve got some wips in the hopper right now that are um…lots of angst and heavy spice. Not everything I write is going to be liked by everyone. Some of it may even offend you.
But knowing that this one thing has inspired you all to the point that I’ve been gifted the ability to hold my story in my hand?
That’s powerful.
And it only exists because this community, this Good Omens community, has come together and chosen joy.
There’s some bad apples out there, there are in every bunch. But I am liberal with my block button and have been blessed to find a welcoming and warm community that creates some amazing and incredible art—whether that’s like actual like digital or pen to paper art, or the fiction you write, or the podfics you record, or the meta analysis you write, or the playlists or the animatics or the beta reading or the shouting unhinged support or the role playing or the plushies, or the books you bind—this community is full of incredibly creative and amazing people.
So thanks, y’all, for letting me part of your community, and enjoying my silly little goat fic. And thank you brunheiffer and J for this amazing gift.
If you haven’t read it, or just want to reread it, you can read Bleating Hearts (GOATS) on Archive of Our Own.
All my love,
HK
(I am the most cringe sap on main right now. No regurts)
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erythriina · 5 months ago
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sort of but not technically for @terrortracks - here is an untitled ‘survives the expedition’ solving playlist for you all <3 (more commentary in the tags lol)
listen on 8tracks here
1. All These Things That I’ve Done - The Killers
over and in, last call for sin / when everyone’s lost, the battle is won
2. The Only Thing - Sufjan Stevens
faith in reason, i wasted my life playing dumb / signs and wonders, sea lion caves in the dark / blind faith, god's grace, nothing else left to impart
3. Wasteland, Baby! - Hozier
when the stench of the sea and the absence of green / are the death of all things that are seen and unseen / not an end, but the start of all things that are left to do
4. Blue Ridge Mountains - Fleet Foxes
terrible am I, child, even if you don't mind / in the quivering forest where the shivering dog rests…
5. We Both Go Down Together - The Decemberists
i laid you down on the grass of a clearing / you wept, but your soul was willing
6. Olympians - Andrew Bird
you start spitting out anathemas…
7. Love Love Love - The Mountain Goats
love, love is going to lead you by the hand / into a white and soundless place
8. King and Lionheart - Of Monsters and Men
in the winter night sky, ships are sailing … past the wondering eyes of the ones that were left behind / though far away / we're still the same / howling ghosts, they reappear in mountains that are stacked with fear / but you're a king and i’m a lionheart
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oodlyenough · 8 months ago
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fic: winter kill (1/2)
“You said it was an emergency.” Wright didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. “It is an emergency,” he insisted. “Look at him.” Summoned urgently to Wright & Co Law Offices, Miles Edgeworth finds himself out of his depth. ~3k part 1, Narumitsu. Set shortly after 1-4 Turnabout Goodbyes. Mostly angst.
Propelled by its third call in half as many hours, Miles Edgeworth’s phone skittered his desk, carving a short path through neat stacks of paper and disrupting his already-strained attention to dull post-trial paperwork. He did not bother to pick the phone up, or flip the phone over to check the caller ID on the screen. He didn’t need to; he knew it would be the same person who had called last, the same person who had called the time before that. He glared at the phone, willing its ring to stop.
There was nothing he needed to discuss with Phoenix Wright.
Perhaps Wright had chosen to extend his holidays well into the new year and was seeking mindless chit-chat to fill his time, but Miles had no use for such idleness. After being released from detention, Miles spent two days at home with nothing to occupy him but his thoughts and no company but the furnishings of a life he now recognized as a lie. By New Year’s Eve he was back at the prosecutor’s office.
“I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” Chief Prosecutor Skye had said, a judgment masquerading as concern. But returning to work was a matter of self-preservation. Busyness was a lifeline; boredom was anathema.
Watching the phone buzz, Miles considered his options. If he said as much to Wright, he might find a hobby beyond badgering Miles with unwanted calls.
Or Wright might take it as an invitation to do something interminably stupid, like show up at Miles’ office with a cake and balloon animals. Ugh. Not worth the risk.
Read on AO3
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wintertimestoryteller · 1 year ago
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Vermeil Adoration
Fierce Deity x Implied Deity Reader (can be Linked Universe or not) Drabble
Me, working on Act IIII and Act V of the LU Fairy Tale Collection: Alright so if we do this with slightly more sleep on us and figure a few things out for First I think it should be good to go-
Also Me: *remembers that because of the nature of the Fairy Tale Collection FD will be missing, is immediately assaulted with an idea, sighs, opening up a new WIP* You know what I'll come back to that, I can't not write for him if he's going to be left out.
For the FD Simps/lovers plus myself as I work on the Fairytale Collection, want to post two chapters at once and also crosspost on Ao3 plus life's been busy, apologies for the delay.
You were created from the breath of life itself.
You are the divinity found in the howling of winds cutting through the woods, the snarling of lightning down to the earth, attempting to touch something it may not have and scorch it so deeply new growth would flourish in a maddened frenzy, the sunlight kissing the ice tenderly though it may never do more than bring the crystalizing to shine, tears dripping knowingly from it's cold gaze as the water turns to rain, watering the land in it's unknowable grief in the closest way it could ever touch the sun in the sky. The joyful sound of wolves singing the moon's beauty with their howls, the birds merrily carrying the melody ever onwards so the sun may also partake of it, gleeful frolicking of fawns and foals discovering the world that the Golden Three left in their wake, the symphony of every animal and nature itself at it's finest.
You look at life itself and find divinity in everything.
So by the nature Farore so lovingly made sure you'd have, one would think you and the one hylians, hyruleans and beasts had dubbed 'The Fierce Deity' would never be able to coexist.
You've heard the one's watched over by your sister in divinity, ever watchful time herself with her diamond wings and gaze who pierced to the end of eternity itself with Nayru's patience whisper in primal terror and avarice drenched loathing about him to the trees in every corner of the land, heard beasts under the watch of death and rot himself curse his name to the winds and rain with as much ferocity and fury induced fear as the restless whispers of those denied existence, your brother in eternity with his shell of obsidian and the flames of Din's desire of consumption ever burning in his gaze daring not cross where the ivory and jade forged spirit passed. And of the horror and wonderment of your wild beings as they've hissed and howled and growled and screeched to the flowers and stones of nature.
A man like the hunt itself, divine without the vermeil breath of the primordial ones. The unrelenting slash of the blizzard gales in winter against any unfortunate to stand in their way, leaving the cold emptiness and silence behind, stealing the air from the lungs of living beings like the ocean for those unfortunate enough to fall with no sign of land. An ivory specter of death whom seemingly clawed himself from the void, an harbinger for the End with seemingly no rhyme or reason for those who he set his sights into, either to devour their divinity for himself or favor or bless.
A being like that should have been anathema to all you are and stand for. Or at least it's what anyone, including your divine sister and brother would reason.
Which is why you couldn't help but find it slightly comedic that the so called 'awful beast', capable of enacting such violence to consume divinity on a whim if tested. Was so very careful with you, head laid upon your lap in a rare moment of rest as you carefully weaved flowers into a crown.
You were curious, awfully so, like the foxes who roamed your woods in search of amusement and play, you just couldn't help yourself. You knew he was coming, how could you not, when the primal fear of living things echoed in the back of your mind, warning you as it warned animals of a bigger predator in the food chain? But you didn't run. Not in the face of narrowed, calculating pale eyes and alabaster hair and the scent of iron in the air, thick and old you couldn't mistake it for anything but blood and the marrow deep certainty of a lonsdaleite persistence.
Maybe you should of, in hindsight.
Instead you just blinked with evergreen curiosity, fascination bleeding from your lips before you could even think of stopping yourself, head tilted.
"My. Rumors are certainly exaggerated, you're beautiful."
The memory of his bewildered, flustered caution makes you smile a bit, as everything in between flowed naturally like spring petals on a breeze. You feel an armored hand on your cheek, so, so soft and careful, as if you were as fragile as a flower, and a calm, relaxed rumble of tourmaline lazy curiosity and aquamarine fondness, "Anything on your mind, my breath?"
You couldn't help your chuckle, emerald fondness running around the mosaic of your divinity as you gently run your hand through starlit hair, nuzzling the hand on your cheek and hoping to convey even half the warmth he gave you, "Reminiscing, worry not. Rest a bit more before you must go." You hear him sigh as you place the flower crown on his head, as pale as his hair, but as delicate as your sister in divinity's wings, threaded pthalo like the flame of his existence.
"... Must I? I was late this time, it's only proper I redeem myself for making you wait." He questions, reluctant and guilty in equal measure, fondness blooms over your lungs as you poke his nose, smiling bright, if dim as you answer him, "I'd dare not attempt to deny you your nature, I do not know what you hunt, what you're searching for. But it would be cruel to chain you."
The man many had dubbed 'Fierce Deity' nuzzles into your hand, nestling in close like a wolf over catch, you catch the hints of a frown on his face, "It's hardly chaining when I wish to stay, is it?"
Your breath almost is trapped in your lungs, but you shake yourself out of it, chuckling as you brush your lips over his markings, crimson affection as the carmine and lapis lazuli of his Hunt. The cheek of this man, for that's what you all are in the end, divinity or not, "Maybe not, though for all you rest here with me you still itch to run and hunt. Do you not, my dear warrior?"
The silence is only broken by the whispers of the leaves of the woods carried by the wind and the curious chirping of birds, his unwavering moonlit gaze giving away nothing. And it tells you enough.
You smile, brushing your noses together, spring breeze playful and sun warm, "If you're that worried, then just come back earlier, if you can. I'll have something new for you to look at, and I'll always wait. We have time."
In a flash, you find your positions reversed, your back and hair to the flowers and your wonderful, ever mischievous hunter above you, you yelp and you can't help but laugh before the sound is stolen by his lips. And he cradles your cheeky gently, so very kindly, and when he leans back he looks at you as if you're the first glimpse of water for a man in the desert, or the way a wolf longingly looks at the moon, and it cracks the phosphophylite of your soul and fills it with the gilded gold of emerald love, "... Thank you. I will not keep you waiting long again. I shall remain for now, though. The call can wait."
I love you. I want to stay with you.
"I know." Your hands gently thread through his hair, gleeful as you notice the rare curve of a smile as his cap lays abandoned in the glass, but your flower crown remains, "Be safe, when you do go. I'd be lovely if something happened."
I love you too.
He shakes his head, giving you an unimpressed look, "I cannot be harmed in any way that matters."
You fondly roll your eyes, pressing your index and middle finger to your lips, then touching it lightly against his own, he all but freezes. You refuse to allow him to distract you with admittedly charming affection, and you take the opportunity to tug him into your arms, shifting your positions so you can utilize him as a pillow, safer than you ever felt in your many eons of existence, more comfortable than the stars painting the canvas of the sky with their dance, "Promise me you'll be safe, and you can claim what's yours once you're back. For now I tire of your stubbornness."
You feel his chest rumble, maybe a laugh, maybe a purr or a growl, but he holds you close, steady and lovelier than even the world the goddesses created. "As you wish, my dearest blossom."
You both fall asleep to the songs of nature, you know he'll hunt again, you know he'll be gone soon like late night mist. But for now, a promise for an eternity of this, like how the mortals speak of, is enough.
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pod-together · 2 months ago
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Pod-Together Day 6 Reveals 2024
Of Soulmates and Assassins [text, audio] (Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Hawkeye (Comics)) written by 42donotpanic, performed by rscreighton Summary: Ronin and the Winter Soldier are two assassins in the same system. They cross paths a lot, but usually, they don't interact much. They don't mind; neither of them is particularly interested in getting to know the other. It's just that the universe seems to have other plans for them.
Bend & *Snap* [text, audio] (Stranger Things (TV 2016)) written by artaxlivs, performed by steddiestories Summary: UPS guy is pretty, for sure, those lips, that square jaw? Eddie dreams about sitting on his face, honestly. But it’s not like the cardboard-brown uniform is given away any secrets beyond well toned arms and thick thighs. Oh, man, his thighs? Fuck, Eddie has to force himself not to stare as those little brown shorts ride up on hairy thighs when the guy squats to pick up a box.
on monsters (Star Wars Prequel Trilogy) written by cabezadeperro, performed by korechthonia Summary: Obi-Wan was trained on the finding and killing on monsters. Experience has taught him that the former is always much easier than the latter.
Got You in My Sight (Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types) written by Elthadriel, performed by stargateinmybasement Summary: Echo and Fives haven’t been subtle—Rex doesn’t think they've been trying to be subtle—and he already knows how this will end. They’re a hard pair to want to say no to.
Survival to Flourishing [text, audio] (Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling) written by HadrianPeverellBlack, performed by Mangotart_reads Summary: Harry Potter is raised by his godfathers, Sirius and Remus. This is how everything changes
keep thy friend under thy own life's key (Good Omens (TV)) written by hiddendruid, performed by ReformedTsundere and hiddendruid Summary: The theatre owned by Anathema Device is close to declaring bankruptcy. Crowley and Aziraphale team together in order to save it.
Captain's Log, by Captain Dan "The Fox" Wilds [starting text written by Opalsong, with pensieve podfics by bluedreaming, GodofLaundryBaskets, litra, and MistbornHero] (One Piece (Anime & Manga), All For The Game - Nora Sakavic) Summary: The Fox Pirates pick up a new member in Loguetown before heading to the Grand Line. Nicky says there was some kid in a straw hat climbing the execution platform, glad they set sail before that nonsense went down. Captain's Logs of the Foxhole on its trip to the One Piece.
An Ambiguous Gift: Silver (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) written by RisalSoran, performed by BardicRavenReads, audio production by OneGoldenRaptor
blood/thirsty (Men's Hockey RPF) written by Robokittens, performed by cosmicanon Summary: Brady hadn't really thought about the logistics of the whole thing. Was it like when some girls get dumped, they get depressed and cut their bangs? Timmy got dumped and … got fangs?
Emojis as a Love Language (방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS) written by strangecobwebs, performed by celli Summary: Hoseok has a crush on Park Jimin from Payroll. He is super chill about it. Really.
rational and level-headed (Dimension 20 (Web Series)) written by travvymybeloved, performed by Poluche Summary: Cody was well-known for his normal and grounded reactions to things. He told himself that frequently. He was good at handling things with grace and poise and wasn’t notorious at all for blowing his shit at the slightest provocation. That was why he was handling being faced with the realization of a lifetime in a rational and level-headed manner. “You’re sitting in your bathtub and eating an ice cream sandwich because you’re sad but don’t have a tub of ice cream?” “I mean, yeah.”
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rythasbrenelle · 2 months ago
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Prompt #12: Quarry
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(Note: Reli belongs to @straycatte) Locke pretended he didn’t hear the branches shift behind him, didn’t hear the leaves rustle as they parted, didn’t feel the eyes boring holes in his back. The noises had started just a short while after he’d left the old man’s hut and decided to cut through the woods, walking a more direct path back toward Gridania rather than following the meandering road and all of its detours. At first, he’d thought nothing of them. Though the rain had passed, the Black Shroud was still drinking it in. Water freely dripped from its many leaves and branches, a staccato echo of the earlier rainstorm. Gusts of wind wound their way through the trees, the wood rasping and rattling. Little sounds, like he’d heard dozens of times back home when the thaw softened the foothills of the Skatay Range, if only for a short while. But with the thaw always came the stirring of life, roused from its winter slumber. The plants and animals not suited to the harsh winter would reappear, and the wind would carry birdsong again. There were no animals to be heard in this forgotten corner of the Twelveswood. No bleating, no chittering, no birdsong. A cloudy, patchwork sky of red, orange, and blue pressed down on the Black Shroud, the shadows growing longer with each passing tick, but there was daylight to be squeezed from the sun yet. The silence was unnatural. A forest asleep when it should have been alive. There was, however, breathing. Slow, careful, blending into the ambient noise of the forest. Almost perfect. Given away only by a low, barely perceptible hiss every time the source of the noise inhaled. Locke was being hunted.
His hand rested heavily on the handle of his revolver as he picked his way through the underbrush, his leathers scraping against leaves and wood. It added another sound for the faint wheezes of his stalker to blend into, but that was far from his biggest concern now. How do I kill it? had claimed the highest priority, just above What is it? and Why? He was no stranger to fighting predator animals. The Skatay had its share of beasts, and his master had often said a Veena wasn’t a proper Wood-warder if he couldn’t hunt or evade each and every one. But this wasn’t his homeland. Whatever parallels he’d noticed in his brief brushes with the people of the Black Shroud and their beliefs, neither the Green Word nor his thorough education of the beasts and fiends of the Skatay applied here. Still, he’d learned a couple things without the Green Word’s guidance too. For instance, a well-placed bullet was anathema to every living creature he’d encountered. Exhale. Locke took the first step into a small clearing. It wasn’t a lot of space, but it was enough that he could move freely. His right hand tightened around his revolver. His left hand twitched at his side. Hiss. Locke spun, drawing his firearm and leveling it at the source of the noise in one motion, cobalt eyes and silver barrel alighting on a towering mass of fur and teeth. Gun and beast howled. He wasted no time on sizing up the target’s condition or lining up a second shot, trusting instead that proximity and the creature’s size would do the work for him despite the recoil, and squeezed the trigger again. Another bark, another shock rolling through his arm. He thumbed the hammer a third time— Quick as thought and every bit as silent, the beast was on Locke, half a dozen quivering eyes hovering above him, drooling fangs snapping. He twisted back and away, trying to retreat, but insistent tendrils of wood found his legs and curled their way underfoot. He stumbled, falling backward, but he found enough space to thrust his left arm toward the beast, as if it was a voidsent and his arm a holy relic. Its mouth — or one of them, at least; in the splotchy light leaking through the canopy, he could see others scattered across its neck and torso — closed around the extended limb, and with a twist of its head, it jerked Locke up and back in. He heard, rather than felt, the crushing of metal and the splintering of wood. A shock rolled through the mangled mass that was his left arm, dispersing across his shoulder, a series of tingling pinpricks that insisted he should hurt. Instead, he finally appraised the creature, for what that was worth. It was a roiling mass of ink and ivory, black on white from head to claw, monochrome bleeding into monochrome under the heavy boughs overhead. Though it was undoubtedly solid, its silhouette danced like a shadow cast by an open flame. All save for a telltale glint of red hanging some ilms beneath its center mouth. Blood, where a bullet had caught it? A convenient weak point? Something else? Locke wasn’t sure. He lifted his good arm and jammed the revolver up against that spot anyway, or near as he could, and his fingers worked the trigger and hammer like a frenzied pianist, each chord a click and a clap of thunder. The echo of gunfire gave way to a muffled snarl and another twist of the beast’s head as it ripped the world out from beneath Locke. He hardly registered he was sailing through the air before he hit the ground, the air leaving his lungs. Locke scrambled to his feet, casting the revolver aside and tearing the gunblade from its place on his back. He scanned the clearing for some sign of his stalker, a hint of the shifting silhouette amidst the darkening trees. Gouges in the grass and dirt were clear where it had loomed and thrashed about moments ago, and snapped branches marked a path deeper into the wood, where the beast must have retreated. He licked his lips, tasting copper, and shook his head. This wasn’t the Skatay, and he wasn’t a Wood-warder. He was more than happy to let this beast go.
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blade-liger-4ever · 2 months ago
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Dragon Prince - Blade's Freestyle
So, in my take, there are only four types of Elves: The Tidebound, the Sunfire, the Moonshadow, and the Skywing (I'm keeping that to give Tui T. Sutherland a piece of my mind.) The Startouch exist as the equivalent of the Greek pantheon, though they maintain an elf-ish look in order to seem both familiar and distant from the rest; therefore, they're nicknamed "the High Ones". The Earthblood are like the Ghillie Dhu of Scottish myth: towering, tree-like beings who go along to get along, and generally nonviolent. The dragons are at the head of this hierarchy, as appointed by the Startouch, and thus the Elves are second to them, with humanity at the lowest tier of this creation order. Additionally, the dragons can shapeshift into virtually any form, and possess the ability to use Celestial Magic, and any of the Four Seasonal Magics.
Regarding the sources of magic, there are only four, all derived from the four seasons and connected to something tied to that season. The Tidebound, for example, are intrinsically tied to the spring and the ocean, with their power being based around water, healing, cold, wind, floods, tsunamis, and VERY specific oaths/tithes. When you make an oath to do something, or agree to a tithe that carries on for generations, you'd better dang well adhere to it or your life is forfeit. That's how severe and serious this business is.
The Sunfire are tied to summer and the sun, giving them talents in blacksmithing, warfare, heat, fire, metal, plasma (a rare and dangerous technique), wind, and truth finding. The Sunfire detest lies and deceit, as it goes against the sun, which brings light to all that goes on in the shadows. Thus, not only are they powerful warriors and capable in war, but excellent lie detectors. Any of their kind who turn to deception are anathema to the Sunfire, which also means they have a rivalry of sorts with the Moonshadow.
Speaking of, the Moonshadow are tied to autumn and the moon, giving them access to bending light, traveling through shadows (allowing them real fast travel), poisons of any kind, life cycle awareness and occasional manipulation of it, wind, darkness, and Spirit Sense/Walk, where they walk in a parallel plane between the world of the living and the dead (also allowing them to see/interact with ghosts throughout the year, though especially on full moons and the peak of autumn). For this they are the perfect assassins, but despite this, the Moonshadow have a strict code of honor, and will only take the life of those who have done serious crime in the eyes of the magical community - hence why 1 they're great bodyguards for the Royal Dragon Clan, and 2 why they're so loyal to the dragons. They know serving the dragons is the right thing, and that if they have to take a life, they're better off doing said tasks from the dragons.
The Skywings are the most unusual - and powerful. They're tied to winter and the magnetic poles, and have abilities tied to ice, cold, wind, snow, temperature, magnetism, light, tornadoes, hurricanes, sound, rain, storms, lightning, and can form the nigh-unheard of life-force bonds. When Skywings want to marry, they perform some kind of magical binding rite that is deeply private, to the point no one outside of a Skywing knows how to perform it. This bond is unbreakable and can reach each person no matter the distance, and will give the lingering presence of the deceased spouse to the one still living, often providing comfort from beyond the grave. When a Skywing intermarries with a dragon, a different elf, or - more rarely - a human, they teach the future spouse this rite. They marry for life, with divorce or "separation" practically unheard of; should they encounter one of another race who is divorced/separated, the Skywing will express disappointment or disgust, depending on the situation.
Now we come to Dark Magic.
It's more of an offshoot of Moonshadow Magic, as it still relates to the darkness. However, it's not corruptive; rather, it's tied to the shadows, dark nights, storm clouds, fog, mists, swamplands, bogs, dead forests, and grants access to "grave visits" - you can see and interact with the dead. You cannot bring them back to life, but you can find them and learn things from them. As the Elves were intrinsically tied to the sources of magic, and the Dragons bound to Celestial Magic, humanity had no tie to any source but death and destruction. So when they discovered Dark Magic, it had the Dragons eyeing them nervously, as it was dangerous if you got too into the grave visits, which have the side effect of driving yourself to death if you went to see dead loved ones too much.
The real taboo is Blood Magic.
Blood magic requires the use of blood from still living creatures, siphoning it while the person lives and using it for vile rituals that raise the bodies of the dead, twist people into horrifying monsters, drain the life out of certain targets at will, turn you into a cannibal who cannot live without feasting on human/elven/dragon flesh or blood, and drive you to insanity as you fall further and further away from humanity. Somehow, a Mage Apprentice discovered this magic, and used it before terrorizing the village he dwelled in. Thus began the Great Exile, when the humans were banished by the Elves and Dragons a thousand years before Callum's time to the Western Lands, where fighting had once more begun to settle land disputes and out rose various human kingdoms. However, some Elves also fell from grace, selling themselves out as mercenaries for hire, assassins, or even allying with humans in war.
This brought upon the Mage Wars, which lasted until three centuries before Callum's birth. With the Orphan Queen of Katolis, Queen Aditi, and Avizandum's collaboration, the Mage Wars ended, though the peace was fragile, and skirmishes broke out frequently over the next few decades. For this, Avizandum guarded the Border, the thin patch of land that kept Xadia and the Western Lands divided, himself. However, ten years ago, King Harrow, Vizier Viren, and General Amaya, snuck past Avizandum and killed him in his sleep, his heart being carved out by an apprehensive Viren. However, the egg of Avizandum's son, the Dragon Prince, was left in pieces, leaving all to surmise that the Dragon Prince had been killed.
For this, the world is teetering on the razor's edge of war, though attempts by Viren and a slowly repenting Harrow have stalled the outbreak of war. Amaya has receded into the background, apparently conducting good relations with the neighboring kingdom of Neolandia, likely to bring the countries together in case war breaks out.
However, on the eve of the anniversary of the tenth year since Avizandum's death, a group of Moonshadow Elves have broken past the borders of Katolis on a secret mission....
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foolishlovers · 11 months ago
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CHRISTMAS FIC RECS: Below you can find a quick list of all the Good Omens Christmas fics I’ve read this year so far.
I thought some of you might want to indulge in some cosy reading as well!
You can request more fic recs here.
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree How Terrified Your Branches by Supergeek21 (1.2k, G)
As their first Christmas in their cottage approaches Aziraphale asks Crowley if he wants to get a proper Christmas tree. He's surprised to learn the demon already has one.
Christmas Angels by TawnyOwl95 (1.8k, T)
It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas in London and that means there are lots of angels about. Aziraphale does not handle this well.
A half-penny will do by penny_archer (2k, G)
It’s Christmas in Victorian England and Crowley is trying not-very-hard to hide the fact that he’s been giving pickpocketing lessons to the disenfranchised youth of London. Oh, and he has a cute gift for Aziraphale that’s totally not a big deal.
The Nice List by GaryOldman (2k, T)
When watching Christmas movies with Anathema, Crowley can't work out why no one else seems to believe in Santa when he's been receiving gifts for years.
A Christmas Miracle by Santillatron (3k, M)
Crowley gets irritated at couples kissing under a holly arch. One thing leads to another, and a sprig of mistletoe makes a timely appearance.
Well, it's bad luck not to, isn't it?
Taking the Cake by Caedmon (3K, T)
Aziraphale has noticed his handsome neighbor, but hasn't had an excuse (or the nerve) to talk to him. He gets his chance, though, when a bakery delivers a package to the wrong door a few days before Christmas and his neighbor comes knocking.
And All Was For An Apple by Lindewen (3k, T)
The second winter after the Apocalypse didn't happen, Crowley and Aziraphale are out for some sightseeing and Christmas shopping along the south coast, simply because they can. But Crowley also has a secret errand to run--and, as it turns out, he can't always balance very well in his human form...
All The Lights That Light The Way by FeralTuxedo (8k, E)
On the run from a disastrous work Christmas party, Anthony Crowley encounters an angel singing in the streets of Soho.
Of Love and Lattes by edna_blackadder (9k, G)
A.J. Crowley, part time barista at Madame Tracy's Coffee Shoppe, only wants one thing for Christmas, which is to get through the joyous season without his head exploding. His coworkers are already not helping, and then the proprietor of the bookshop across the street develops an unfortunate addiction to seasonal espresso beverages.
Secret Santa by AppleSeeds (18k, T)
On the advice of his therapist, Crowley signs up to be a 'Secret Santa', an anonymous gift-giver for a community initiative aiming to bring some Christmas joy into the lives of people going through a hard time. He's partnered with Aziraphale, a librarian who has lost his home and bookshop in a fire. Through the power of Christmas Magic, Crowley ends up meeting Aziraphale in person when he takes his nephew to the library and is immediately smitten. He becomes determined to use his expertise and influence to give Aziraphale the only Christmas present that could really make a difference, but are some things too important to be kept secret?
muddle through somehow by curtaincall (27k, T)
Aziraphale Fell runs a successful food blog, Celestial Comestibles, where he shares mouthwatering recipes and heartwarming stories about his happy domestic life in a cottage with his husband and son. As promotion for his upcoming cookbook, his publishers run a contest: one lucky winner will get to spend Christmas with Aziraphale and his family.
What the publishers don't know is that the real Aziraphale Fell is a single city-dweller. And if he wants to keep up his happily married persona, he'll have to acquire a cottage, husband, and son before Christmas.
As it happens, his friend and neighbor Anthony Crowley has his nephew staying with him for the holidays. One fake marriage proposal later, and everything seems tickety-boo--as long as Aziraphale can keep from developing inconveniently real feelings for his pretend husband...
First Class (Hons) Christmas, University of Tadfield. by heloluv (41k, M)
Dr. A.Z. Fell is a renowned literature tutor at the prestigious University of Tadfield. December is upon the University, and Dr. Fell is leading the Christmas Charity Drive. He needs volunteers.
Dr. A.J. Crowley is a skilled plant ecologist who recently began his tenure at UoT. He can't stand Christmas, and nothing at all could ever possibly convince him to partake in "festivities". Until a certain literary expert catches his eye.
A Christmas and New Years fic, in which Aziraphale teaches Crowley how to enjoy the most wonderful time of the year.
bonus: The Christmas fic I wrote this year
The Anon Before Christmas by foolishlovers (58k, M)
When Crowley’s friend, blogging buddy and business partner Anathema announces her annual Secret Santa Exchange on Tumblr, she is very adamant Crowley should join this year.
The old-fashioned (but admittedly compassionate) man he gets assigned to send anonymous messages to every day until Christmas sounds awfully similar to the fussy bookseller that his friends adore, yet Crowley tries to avoid at all costs.
But surely his friends would have mentioned if Aziraphale had taken an interest in the Bad Omens fandom as well… right?
Or: An Enemies to Lovers Secret Santa Tumblr AU.
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addledmongoose · 4 months ago
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Good Omens Fanfic Rec (19 Jul 2024)
Started off as a human AU week, but I eventually read some canon stories.
Miracles on Ice (131K; Rated E) by @henriettarhippo-hrh
Human AU/Enemies-to-lovers. Holy cow, this was an absolutely fantastic, addictive read. I stayed up until 4am every night until it was done. This is the "Blades of Glory" Good Omens you never knew you needed.
Aziraphale and Crowley are Olympic men's figure skaters who loathe each other. After a fight on the podium gets them banned for life, they find a loophole that allows them to compete in pairs.
Of course, this being Good Omens, there's a lot more romance and sex than the Jon Heder/Will Ferrell movie. Gabriel is a real standout in this one as Aziraphale's (and eventually Crowley's) coach. He's a genuinely good person. Oh, and Crowley does not look good in this one at first. He's the main instigator of the public feud between them. (Not that Aziraphale is completely blameless). And in a first, the villain is Anathema (it's in the tags; I'm not spoiling by saying this).
***
The Invisible Touch (31K; Rated T)
Human AU. A really sweet story with little actual angst, though Aziraphale is both oblivious and has pretty low self-esteem, so he creates more angst in his mind than he deserves. The author, Appleseeds, is also a magician, so there's an element of verisimilitude to the story.
Aziraphale is reduced to a quivering mess just looking at Crowley’s face smiling up at him from the programme, let alone sitting in the front row of the theatre watching him perform, or standing face-to-face with him, with Crowley's hand on his arm, after he summons him to the stage to help him with one of his tricks...
When Aziraphale reveals that he too is a magician and the two actually become friends, Crowley soon realises that someone has severely knocked Aziraphale’s confidence, and becomes determined to do whatever he can to restore it.
***
Endless Night (32K; Rated T)
Human AU. University student Crowley has been crushing on his flatmate, Aziraphale, for months now, and when the opportunity to spend time with him in a haunted mansion presents itself, he jumps at the chance. He didn't expect to get stuck in a time loop, redoing the night over and over until he gets it right.
***
Dark Was The Night (20K; Rated E)
Reverse Omens AU. The author packs a lot into this story set in 1640. It's the first of "The Dove and the Dragon" series of cryptid stories with the demon, Azrafael and the angel, Crowley.
Wendigo: a mythological cannibalistic monster in the spiritual tradition of North American Algonquian-speaking tribes. It is associated with winter and described as either a fearsome beast that stalks and eats humans or as a spirit that possesses humans, causing them to turn into cannibals.
In the winter of 1640, Hell has claimed responsibility for the massive death tolls caused by the French/Iroquois War, and the desolation wrought to colonizers that have taken up residence in New France. Anthony has made it a personal mission of his to do everything to protect the peoples afflicted by this devastation, unaware of the magnitude of Hell's influence on these poor souls.
Meanwhile, Azrafael discovers Hell has unleashed a very powerful species of demon into the world, intent on destroying all life in the area, with Heaven's permission. The Wendigo has risen, and they have abducted Anthony. With the clock ticking, Azrafael sets off on a rescue mission to save Anthony before the Wendigo demons can consume his Grace and banish Anthony's soul to the void for eternity. The question is: With as powerful as these demons are, feared even by Lucifer himself, will Azrafael succeed in saving his beloved angel?
***
All the Desires of Rome (5K; Rated E) by @lemon-tart-221
Part of Lemontart's "A Special Ineffable Arrangement" series, through-the-ages one-shots of Crowley and Aziraphale meeting up for sex and friendship. This one is set in a Roman bathhouse after hours.
***
And if you enjoyed the previous Roman bathhouse story, may I also suggest
A Bathhouse Pretense (18K; Rated E) by @doonarose
Aziraphale seeks Crowley out in a Roman bathhouse that happens to be hosting an orgy. Aziraphale is there to discuss business, but when one of Crowley's demon enemies shows up, it gives them a flimsy excuse to turn it into more.
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humbledragon669 · 3 months ago
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Script to Screen comparison: Episode 5 – The Doomsday Option P2 – additions and amendments
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Standard Intro
Having followed the episodes through with the Script Book, I've tried to break the differences between the original script and the end result on screen into a couple of different categories:
Large changes (whole scenes/multiple lines of script.
Things that are in the original script but not in the finished episode (I'm calling these deletions).  These and the large changes are in part 1 of the write up for this episode.
Things that aren't in the original script but are in the finished episode (I'm calling these additions).
Things that have been changed (I'm calling these ones amendments).
Not all of the changes fit neatly into one category or the other (there are shades of grey...). The first three of the differences will be presented within bullet lists, with a description. The last of the categories will be presented in a table. I'll make comments about anything I find particularly notable after each category.
Additions
A shot of the scene unfolding outside the bookshop.
An additional shot of the interior of the bookshop as it burns.
Crowley screaming that he can’t find Aziraphale once he’s inside the bookshop.
The Quartermaster asking Aziraphale where he’s going.
The Quartermaster warning Aziraphale to get away from the model of Earth.
Two additional sentences of Adam demanding that The Them say something.
A shot of Dog whining, immediately following by a shot of Adam staring with glowing eyes, after he has forced The Them to grin.
Newt asking if Anathema ever does anything specifically “for yourself”.
A shot of War mounting her bike and speeding away through a multi-story car park.
Madame Tracy telling her clients she’s glad they enjoyed the séance experience.
Satan calling Crowley “darling” (via the radio).
A close-up shot of Adam with glowing eyes immediately before we see the effects of the dread sigil Odegra on ordinary motorists.
The newsreader’s speech as Crowley pulls the Bentley on to the hard shoulder on the M25.
The shot of Hastur (including the loop of Aziraphale’s message) stuck in the telephone system at the beginning of the call centre scene.
The interjections from the people that Lisa is calling.
The third pop-up message on Lisa’s screen reading “Another one bites the dust!”.
The sea of maggots that Lisa drowns in as she screams.
A single word from Hastur (“Right.”) after he says he needed to eat all of the call centre staff.
Shadwell retrieving the gun from the cabinet.
A couple of extra words from Hastur (“Funny, ha ha”) from Hastur when he tells Crowley he can joke all he wants.
Crowley putting the Mozart CD into the CD player in the Bentley.
Adam’s speech about The Them meeting his “new friends”.
The shot of Adam flying up above the treetops.
Adam calling the Horsemen to him (in voiceover) as they ride.
The last sentence (“Let them go.”) of the whispers after The Them and Dog have run away.
The flashbacks of Adam’s life and the events he has caused.
The flashback of Adam and his mother in the hospital.
Aziraphale’s line to Shadwell as the scooter takes off.
The shot of the Horsemen riding down the approach road that leads to the airbase gate.
The driver of the car that the Horsemen travel in.
A shot of Newt following Anathema into the military compound.
A shot of The Them cycling up the street in Tadfield.
Famine saying that the winter is “so cold”.
The Guard saying that the kids will be in “big” trouble.
A shot of The Them approaching the communications bunker on their bikes.
Dog barking at the soldiers as they walk towards The Them on the tarmac.
Most of these additions are pretty trivial, with the exception of the Newsreader’s speech about the M25 burning, which is several lines long. I don’t know that it adds anything and even feels a bit unnecessary – we’ve already established that the M25 is a ring of fire around London in the visuals and Crowley’s speech that immediately precede the newscast. The wording also feels a bit off kilter – I don’t think I’ve ever heard the M25 referred to as “the M25 London orbital motorway” before (we typically just say “the M25”, or perhaps Britain’s biggest car park). I understand this might have been done to provide some context to international viewers, but I don’t think the wording provides any more clarification than we already get from Crowley’s diagrams.
The couple of additions that I do think were worth having are the flashback scenes of Adam’s life. I feel like these are representational of what must actually be going through Adam’s mind at that time, every one of them inherently human and touched with love, and I think they really give us a sense of the reason for Adam’s sudden change back to the boy that everyone in his life knows and loves.
Amendments
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Couple of things I want to talk about from this list. And no, it’s not how irritating I find it that War says to get the show off the road instead of on it. I don’t care if it was intentional, it’s annoying. Nor is it how much better I think Crowley’s arrival is in the finished episode than the stumbling, exhausted version the script presents. First up, those amendments to Crowley’s ragey speech.
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So, obviously the version we get in the finished episode is much shorter. And David has done a magnificent job of conveying those raw emotions in the tiny handful of words that remain. In fairness I think his performance convey the sentiment pretty well at that point.
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I do feel like those missing bits of script might have really highlighted the grief that he feels at this point. As I’ve been writing this out, I’ve also realised that he doesn’t mention Hell or demons anywhere in this speech. Only angels and humans. And now I really wish we’d seen those lines delivered to explore the subtext properly.
Next up, another example of the meaning behind a sentence being transformed with a single word.
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Alright, so technically the script is two words of difference, but you get the gist. The original script is an offer from Crowley, the version we see in the finished episode is a statement. He’s already made up his mind. It feels so much truer to Crowley’s character that he wouldn’t hesitate to go to Aziraphale and rescue him, would never wait to be asked, doesn’t even want an invitation. And it fits with the way that Aziraphale deals with that side of Crowley, that he never asks for help outright, can be comfortable in the knowledge that Crowley will do whatever is in his power to see things right for him. This tiny little change makes an absolute world of difference, and I’m really glad it was done.
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This one is interesting. Not for the additional line (to the episode) about Crowley knowing where the Antichrist is, but for the missing one about the fire around London not being Hellfire. This is a pretty major plot point that I feel like we should know: Hellfire can’t hurt Crowley. Maybe it was taken out because it was deemed to make the ending for episode 6 too obvious, but I don’t see that. Goodness knows we’ve been given enough information about what holy water will do to a demon throughout the series. It would also highlight just how dangerous a thing it is that Crowley is about to do, and has already done when he entered the bookshop. Because if you’re like me, I didn’t actually think anything of his entering a flaming building in terms of his own personal safety. With the knowledge that fire is a real threat to him, that scene takes on a whole new level of angst.
Alright last one, but I think there’s a lot to be said about it (I’ll try to keep it brief).
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This one fascinates me. I’ve talked about The Them being parallels to the four Horsemen in the episode write ups. The idea that the four/eight of them would have matching bikes is brilliant; after all Pepper does have a red bike (just like War) and Adam a laid-back black one (just like Death). Why wouldn’t Wensleydale’s bike be a sleek black thing (like Famine’s) and Brian’s a beat-up, dirty white one (like Pollution’s)? I really don’t know why this wasn’t done in the finished episode, perhaps it was simply a matter of prop availability, but I feel like it was a brilliant opportunity for an Easter egg that was missed.
Aside from the instances or examples I’ve highlighted, I think most of the others are pretty trivial, but I’m happy to discuss any further. That’s it for this write up though, on to the next (last) episode! As always, questions, comments, discussion: always welcome. See you in the next one 😊
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