#i have no idea what was going on in general

[bedsidecakeart]

Guys I’ve got another angst date everything idea..

Tw suicidal thoughts/bad mental health/abandonment issues (maybe self harm if you squint)

Sorry if this is unproperly tagged or too long I just kind of let the river flow

Ok so the idea(s) is as follows;

The player has been struggling with there mental health their entire life, and when they received glasses it didn’t help. the realization of these ‘people’ have been watching and judging them kinda drives them crazy, they can’t cry or act out because they’re basically standing on a stage.

They make good friends with everyone, but make sure to keep everyone at a ten foot pole. (Meaning not letting them to close) they struggle with attachment issues, and general self deprecating feelings. (Dorian is one of the people that understands the player, to an extent and is one of their closest friends)

So when Skylar talks about ‘realizing objects’ they see an opportunity to get these ‘people’ out of there home. So they can kill themself. Also they have feelings of the objects not loving/caring about them and they are just using them as a meal ticket.

I think it would be fitting that the first people the realize would be, Keith, Jean loo and Tina

First Jean loo, Jean loo being first (so they can go to the bathroom without guilt) with Jean loos retaliation he basically runs off to be a crapper (note: cool rapper) but becomes a account and stops answering/receiving the players calls. The player tries to brush this aside, ‘he’s busy, and beside there’s 99+ dateables to realize anyway’

Second Tina, Tina is mean but she at least cares and is real. Right? (Wrong) with Tina’s realization the narrator literally says that she doesn’t keep in contact with the player and just goes on to live television. The player tries to brush this society and even though seeing her on TV saying third times the charm all of them couldn’t be like that. (Right?? RIGHT??)

Then the final nail in the coffin, Keith. They’ve been strong so far, yes they’ve wanted to cry and brake the glasses a handful of times, but this gets better right? Just a few unfortunate guesses with people. But Keith he reveals they’re fears, he doesn’t care or love them. They’re only a pawn in his scheme. The player is stunned, they don’t argue, they don’t shout, they don’t beg for him to stay. He leaves and there’s a few hours of silence as they slowly process everything. They sit on their bathroom floor with the mini first aid kit in their lap. Just thinking if ‘it’s’ worth it.

Eventually, they talk themselves out of it saying they didn’t want an audience so they go on their plan on trying to realize every object so the object like they always do and get what they were going to do. Of course (some) of the objects know what’s happening to some extent.

I feel like the objects that have the most awareness and care and vigilance to help would be;

Dorian (like said before he does come off and fuel closed off like the player)

Hector (Hector watches the players behavior from every room, he knows his love. I don’t think he would be able to understand why the player hates themselves as much as he hates himself because he loves the player and their every detail or ‘flaw.’) LOOK WHOS TALKING

Betty (Betty is more perceptive to the player and them and when they’re in their mood or upset #BedRotting she loves the player, you get to know a lot about a person ‘sleeping’ with them)

Mateo (similar to Betty. I almost grouped them together, but I feel like he would be able to provide some kind of therapy dog/animal thing and give the most amazing snuggles ever and maybe be able to take some weight off the shoulders. I feel like he definitely when he was younger he felt depression and/or apathy, but has sense got better, and has good coping mechanisms)

MORE ANGST maybe when the player is/was contemplating they realizing they have no one, no one to call In an emergency or to talk them down, no one to find their body. No one to read their suicide note.

I have more EVIL PLANS and EVIL THOUGHTS

Maybe…religious trauma with air fryer guy, making them avoid using the kitchen as little as possible. But yet they come back because they feel dirty and need to feel the nostalgic pain, but can’t bring themselves to be around him for too long.

Maybe…bouncing back and forth on seeing, Talking and hanging out with the hanks and totally avoiding them because they have trauma with frat guys and the player hating themselves for it because the hanks are nice and have nothing to do with ‘them’ and don’t even know.

Ok I’ll stop here I have to maybe make another post because this is getting to long. I wrote a lot at this point I might as well rev up the A03 friars and start writing like Alexander Hamilton (half joking)

(While writing Keith’s bit I went on a semi off topic rant about realization. (I decided to delete it because it was derailing) So it kind of gave me another idea for a fanfic…please release me from the shackles of this hyper fixation. Also, whenever I post these/start writing them, It’s the most horrible early time in the day and I’m sleep deprived kill me.)(Sorry if anything is misspelled or grammar out of whack im dyslexic started writing at 6 AM and now it’s almost 9 o’clock.)

[kit-kat-katie]

a royal flush

a/n: switch update for date everything just released, so hopefully I'll be able actually finish the game before I open another Google doc (yeah no that won't happen KXNXNX) yeah I wrote another 14.5k words for these two in like 5 days LEAVE ME ALONEEEE

relationship: eddie x volt x gender-neutral! reader (established romantic relationship)

cw: hurt/comfort that nosedives into SMUT - you have been warned. Threesome - M/M/GN! Reader with a vagina (words like hole, clit, cunt, entrance, and sex are used), soft dom! eddie / switch! volt / sub! reader (but I headcannon them all as switches don't worry), reader suffers from body dysmorphia, overthinking, general anxiety, and a bad experience with a previous lover, vague spoilers for their romance route, words like beautiful/handsome are used to describe the reader but they're gender-neutral in my heart, vivid sexual fantasies because reader is high-key a FREAK, foreplay but they play cards instead of touching, reader receives oral multiple times, overstimulation, fingering, LOTS of body worship, marking/creating hickeys, tiny bit of electroplay, table sex (sorry abel), sex in the bar (sorry fans of the "no sex in the bar" rule), implied! m! masturbation, implied cumming in pants, feral munch! eddie my beloved <333

summary: one bad thought leads to another with you, but you've never shared your negative thoughts with eddie & volt until now. they have a... creative way to help you feel more comfortable with your body. 14.5k words - [ao3 link!]

“You are such a fucking CHEATER!”

Normally, Parker's loud voice would be drowned out by a crooning shower or a loud French rapper, but Keyes’ soft piano playing does little to hide his voice.

An accusatory finger lands on Chance's chest as you take in the surrounding tables of the Breaker Box.

Everyone's staring at us.

Your arms are crossed on the table, and you choose to bury your head in them in order to hide your embarrassment.

“We played according to your rules, Parker. You know I didn't cheat.” Chance defends himself, but Parker is having none of it.

“I'm board games, motherfucker, I KNOW when you cheat!”

“But I didn't cheat. …Maybe you're just bad at the game?”

Chance's suggestion does little to quell Parker's fury.

“You think I, the personification of board games, would lose at a card game?” He scoffs at the thought. “Isn't that ridiculous?” 

Parker shakes your shoulder, trying to get an answer out of you, but you won't budge.

“Don't drag them into this-”

“-because they'll back me up?” Parker's grip on you tightens, and you're worried that he might accidentally slam your head into the table if he keeps shaking you.

Hair rises on the back of your neck as you hear footsteps approach your table. You don't need to look up to know who is standing right behind you.

The two men at your table immediately shut up at the presence of someone new, and Parker lets go of your arm.

“Is something the matter?” You can picture the smile that doesn't quite stretch to Volt's lips.

Chance and Parker start talking over one another.

“Sorry, he didn't mean to-”

“-Chance was calling my bluff-”

“-we'll be going now.” Chance cuts Parker offer, and you lift your head just enough so your eyes can see them. 

“What an excellent idea.” Volt agrees before letting his hands rest on your shoulders.

You lock eyes with Chance and offer him a small nod before he grabs Parker's shirt and drags him out of the Breaker Box. Parker protests as he's drug along, but his voice is slowly drowned out by Keyes’ playing.

The soft piano is a welcome respite to your friends’ high energy and quirky mannerisms. Volt’s touch is warm and inviting, and you’re tempted to fall asleep as you nuzzle your head into your own arms.

“I never imagined that I would be getting a noise complaint from your table, live wire,” Volt’s voice drops in volume as he leans in close to you, “especially during working hours.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You lift your head up so Volt can hear you.

“So you’ve decided to come out of hiding, my sweet spark. How adorable,” Volt sweetly coos at you, which causes a hot flash of warmth to spread across your cheeks, “but I think that’s a topic best discussed when we’re alone.”

“Oh!” Your face grows even hotter once you realize he’s talking about the noises you make in bed. “Volt-”

An uncomfortable whine leaves your mouth before you try to hide your warm face in the safety and comfort of your arms. Volt’s hand moves quicker than you do, and he places his hand on your forehead to prevent you from retreating into yourself.

“Do not hide yourself from me,” His voice is stern for a moment before he relaxes, “I want to see the effect I have on you.”

Why would you ever want to see me?

“I’m not something to be admired, you know.” You try to use your hand to hide what you’ve said, but the important parts reach his ears.

Specifically, the part that tells him that you don’t admire your body in the same way that he does.

You swear the lights flicker for a moment as Volt gently grabs your chin and forces you to look him in the eyes.

“Live wire, why would you ever say something like that about yourself?” The charismatic host completely fades away as a concerned lover looks at you now. “You are worthy of admiration and worship. Spark, I… do you understand the effect you have on us?”

“No.” Your voice threatens to break as the honest-to-God truth comes out.

Volt looks heartbroken, a complete shell of his usual self, as his hands move back to your shoulders. His hands work magic on your shoulders as you feel the tension slip away.

You feel horrifically bad as you quietly reflect on your conversation with Volt. How could you let your own insecurities affect him, especially after you had hid them for such a long time?

I need to apologize.

A simple “I’m sorry” would suffice, but the self-sabotage just comes too naturally to you. 

“I’m sorry for disappointing you.” 

The words fly out of your mouth - cold, harsh, and unforgiving - before you can stop yourself.

“Enough,” You can practically taste the electricity in the air as Volt talks, “You won’t speak to yourself that way. Not with us here.”

You know you’ve upset him further, which only increases the pool of guilt that settles in your stomach. You can’t decide if you want to throw up, run away, or curl up into his arms until the world melts away.

The air suddenly feels thick as you struggle to swallow your own spit.

Was it always this hot in here?

Despite your own cruelty - a refusal to simply acknowledge yourself as a being worthy of the admiration of your lovers - Volt still treats you kindly. He begins to place small kisses on your scalp, and they gently fall down your shoulders, where his hands work to comfort and love you as best as he can.

“I don’t-”

Deserve you, is what you want to say, but Volt cuts you off.

“Not another word, unless it’s something nice about yourself, little wire.” A lingering kiss is pressed to the shell of your ear, which makes you shudder. “If you won’t see yourself as I do, then I’ll make you see it.”

It’s somewhere between a promise and a threat, and your body appropriately responds by melting into his touch. Volt’s eyes linger on the deck of cards in the middle of the table as a wicked smile spreads across his face.

You have no time to question him as Keyes finishes her performance. The tables around you burst you into applause, and you politely clap along as you try to study your lover’s expression. His eyes meet yours for a second, and a twinkle of mischief and adoration settles in his eyes before he looks back at the stage.

Oh, you were so fucked.

The host persona settles right back on Volt's shoulders, and it's to your surprise when he goes on stage and thanks the crowd for coming before saying his goodbyes.

Wasn't there supposed to be an open mic after Keyes’ set?

Confusion rests on your face, but Volt pays you no mind as he mixes and mingles with the different objects as they leave the Breaker Box. 

You think about getting up and sneaking away, but you get the distinct feeling that you're better off staying put and behaving.

Besides, Volt would tell Eddie what you said, and the two of them would have a whole day to think about how to press you on the issue.

It's better to get it over with now.

So you grab the deck of cards from the middle of the deck, and they feel natural in your hands as you sort through them. You didn't have the most graceful shuffling, but it was serviceable and got the job done.

The bar is eerily quiet by the time the last few guests leave. You normally would expect Eddie or Volt to approach with an invite for drinks or to ask for a bit of help with maintenance. This time, there's nothing but the small undercurrent of electricity that buzzes in your ear.

You glance over to see Eddie and Volt talking at one of the bartending stations. They're deep in discussion, completely oblivious of your scrutinizing gaze.

A different sort of fear strikes your heart as you look away from them - what if they hate you over this?

Volt seemed so upset with what you said, but what if he was mad at you?

Of course he was mad at you. Have you met yourself?

Spiraling, spiraling, spiraling - your mind finds any negative thought and picks, picks, picks until you find an insecurity or create a new one. Every flaw pushed to the front of your mind, completely visible and raw to you and you alone.

Maybe if you're the most ideal version of yourself, you can avoid their wrath. 

You're taking up too much space with your bad posture, so you readjust it. Your stomach sticks out too far for your liking, so you suck it in. Your arms seem so big, and so they fall to your side.

You feel like you're grasping at straws - will any of this make a difference if they've already made up their mind before they walk over? - as your mind tries to cling to a rational thought.

It's fine, you're fine, it'll all be fine. Just let them come over and comfort you.

But what if it's not? - You've gone over the edge again.

The cards feel slippery in your hand, just like the slippery slope in your mind, but you manage to keep a grip on them. It's something to ground you to the world. Not enough to ground your thoughts, but enough to keep you here. 

You're in the Breaker Box, and Eddie and Volt are nearby.

And that has to be enough, for now.

A hand on your shoulder - it's the only thing that causes the runaway train in your mind to come to a screeching halt.

“Live wire?”

Eddie's voice is a bit haggard, but it's lined with that special softness that is only reserved for you and Volt.

“Hey.” 

It's a drier greeting than your usual warm smile or the occasional playful tease before you lean in for a kiss. It wouldn't matter if Volt told on you or not - you pretty much put a giant flashing sign above your head that said HEY THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME!!

But Eddie doesn't pry - not in the way that Volt does with words - instead, he sets a drink on the table for you to enjoy. 

It's a whiskey sour, which is your favorite drink to order at the Breaker Box. Not because it's your favorite; rather, it feels like a warm, comforting hug because it reminds you of your lovers.

You tentatively reach out for the drink - a soft comfort that your mind desperately needs - but Eddie pushes the drink right out of your grasp.

“Volt's worried about you.” Is all he says as your eyebrows furrow.

“I know,” You murmur under your breath, “it's my fault. I said something that upset him.”

“What did you say?”

It's a natural question to ask, a good inquiry after your previous statement, but you still didn't want to answer him. 

Is it because the truth is too ugly to bear? You have a gaping, festering wound that's been inside of you for years, and it never seems to heal over because you keep picking at it like it's your favorite bad habit to indulge in.

You're spiraling again.

Those thoughts come racing back to you all at once - a convoluted spiderweb of anxiety that you can't detangle a single coherent message from.

It consumes you again, and the buzz of the bar disappears as you're pulled back into the darkest trenches of your mind.

You don't linger there for long as someone grabs your hand. It's at this moment that you realize that you're still holding the deck of cards, bending and twisting them just as your thoughts bend and twist you.

“Hey.” Eddie sounds a bit more assertive than usual, but you're too mentally removed to jump or react.

His grip on your hand loosens as his fingers dare to dance over your wrist. The deck of cards easily slips into his hands as you just let go.

Discomfort rests on your face as you slowly tilt your chin upwards to look at Eddie. You expect pity, fear, or even anger on his face, but none of those emotions are there.

Worry rests on his features, just as you assumed, but there's something soft and tender in his gaze as he studies you. It translates into his touch as his fingers gently interlock with yours. Every touch is cautious and slow, as if you'll break at the slightest miscalculation or misplaced bit of affection.

The cards lay on the table, completely forgotten, as Eddie lets his free hand rest on the polished wood.

No pushing. No pulling. There's just space for you to think and to eventually talk, when you feel ready.

The words don't come easy, and they even threaten to not come at all. You manage to say something, even after your eyes look downwards to break the intense eye contact.

“I just…” You pause, trying to collect your thoughts.

How could you possibly begin to describe the mess that floats around in your head? The endless chatter that always ends up souring your opinion of yourself?

“I don't like myself very much,” You wince as the harsh, unfamiliar words fall from your lips, “Not that I think I'm a bad person or anything! I just don't like my body… or the way that I look.”

You can't bear to look at Eddie, but you can feel his eyes judging your every move.

If it was possible, you'd snap your fingers so the ground would swallow you whole. Your legs feel glued to the seat beneath you, so running away feels like a far gone option. There's only you, Eddie, and the uncomfortable weight of the things you've just said.

I just don't like my body… or the way that I look.

You almost feel a burden lift off of your shoulders as you turn the words over in your mind. It felt good to name and shame the thing you've been dealing with for so long. 

“Don't like yourself?” Eddie softly repeats your words back to you, “How could you possibly not like-”

He cuts himself, and you're sure that there's a bright red flush on his face.

“I've been asking myself the same question, Eddie.” 

Volt makes his presence known by a warm kiss to your cheek. His fingers dance over some exposed skin on your neck, but he doesn't quite touch you yet.

“Is that what you were worried about?” Eddie asks.

“And you aren't worried?”

“For fuck's sake, Volt, of course I'm worried.” The stress is evident in Eddie's voice. “Why couldn't you just tell me?”

They were definitely mad at you.

You feel a bit of bile rise in your throat, but you manage to force it back down with tears in your eyes. They've both seen you cry before, after a long day of fixing other objects’ problems, but the stormy weather that's threatening to break through will be more than a few tears.

Wouldn't it be nice to just let go, to be safe around someone else instead of crying into your pillow whenever you feel bad about yourself? 

The rational part of your brain tries to bring you comfort, but every other part of your brain screams at you for such a ludicrous idea. 

Let go? You can't possibly let go. You've never let go, even in your most intimate moments. You turn the lights off during sex, shield your body from them as much as you can, beg them to let you clean yourself up, and then hide every bit of skin that makes you want to vomit.

You're disgusting. Who would ever want you?

Volt breaks through the bubble of self-hatred that you've wrapped yourself in.

“Because you needed to hear it directly from our live wire, and they needed to say it.” 

The salty taste of a tear brings you fully into the moment - you're crying, and they're going to figure out that you're crying and then they're going to judge you for it.

Your free hand, as subtly as possible, slides over your mouth as you try to hide the sniffles and cries that come from your mouth. Your gaze stays fixed on the floor, unwilling to acknowledge what's happening around you.

It doesn't work - it never does, you should know this by now. 

One of Volt's fingers comes to rest right under your chin, and you're sure he can hear your heartbeat as he gently guides your head upwards.

You don't fight him. You're tired of fighting this mess of thoughts in your head. So you let your hand fall to your side, allowing a small sniffle to break through the silence.

“Oh, spark.” Volt's voice nearly breaks as your eyes finally meet his.

You're forced onto your feet within seconds, and Eddie's hand leaves yours. His arms wrap around you, and you're pulled into a warm back hug that makes you instantly melt.

You try to pull back the tears, but they keep coming. The most you can do is bite your tongue to prevent the sobs from escaping you.

“I'm sorry.” Is all you can choke out before the despair and agony inside of you bubbles to the surface.

“Don't apologize.” The stubble on Eddie's face tickles your neck as he buried his head in the crook of your shoulder.

One of your arms comes to rest over his as the other is gently held by Volt.

“You're safe, darling. We're here for you.” Volt reassures you just as the first sob escapes from your lips.

Neither Volt nor Eddie move to shush you; rather, Volt closes in on you so you can rest your head on his chest. One of his hands plays with your hair as the other runs up and down your arm in a circular motion.

Years upon years upon years of pent-up emotions flow through you. The small comments that you internalized as a child: “You look terrible when your hair is like that.” “You're not-so-bad-looking when you actually put in effort.” “You're getting a bit pudgy, aren't you?” 

They turned into the 24/7 live broadcast of self-hatred and disappointment that feeds into your brain. You can barely remember a time when you actually had a positive opinion about yourself. Was there even a point in time when you looked in the mirror and you liked what you saw, or was any hope of feeling okay with yourself completely snatched from you before you had a chance to claim it for yourself?

Everyone just brushed aside your self-loathing as teenage insecurity. That's how teens felt, with acne-covered skin and awkwardly-shaped bodies. But that wasn't your case. Your friends could look at their reflection and fix what they didn't like. You couldn't even bear to look at the rear view mirror in the car you were learning how to drive because it made you self-conscious. That, or you'd spend hours squeezing the skin of your stomach, hoping you could slice some parts off with scissors.

But that was just the teenage years. You'd grow out of it once you became a full-fledged adult, right?

You didn't. You knew you wouldn't, despite what others said. Every stare from a stranger felt like negative commentary on your body. So you stopped going out and meeting people. You had your few close friends, and that was enough for you.

Then you got the dateviators, which completely turned your life upside down. The idea that your house was a judgment-free zone when completely out of the question. Every little thing that you had come to enjoy was now perceiving and judging your every move. Well, they always had been, but you had been blissfully unaware of it.

Would the objects harshly judge you on your looks, just as you judged yourself? Would someone finally be meaner to you than you were to yourself?

To your absolute surprise, the eccentric group of objects in your house were much nicer than you expected. Very few of them made comments about your body, and even the ones that slipped through were filled with praise. You wondered if some of them knew - after all, you did tend to mutter some of your negative thoughts aloud from time to time. If they did know, then they did a very good job at hiding it.

You couldn't hide your thoughts from them forever, as the occasional bad day made you want to curl up in bed and never be seen by anyone ever again. The self-loathing would crash over you in endless waves, and it felt like you were doomed to be stuck in bed until the end of time.

You weakly reached out for the dateviators, and once they were on your face, Betty would pull you into her arms.

“It's alright, lover,” She cooed at you as you buried your head into her warm chest, “I'm here. Let it all out.”

After your tears had all dried up, she sat you up and directed your gaze at your bedroom mirror. Amir would appear in front of you, a small scowl on his face.

“Azizam, don't tell me that you're thinking those horrible things about yourself again.” He sighed as you weakly nodded, “Come here so I can fully appreciate your beauty.”

So you'd sit in front of him for hours as he, in vivid detail, recalled every bit of you that he cherished and adored. Once he was thoroughly convinced that you were feeling better, Amir led you into the bathroom to see Barry, who would eagerly sit you down and begin to work on you.

His nonstop talking was the only thing that could silence your racing mind as he made small adjustments to your appearance. It wasn't anything dramatic - he'd help you brush your teeth, apply a bit of skincare, and then add just a touch of make-up to your face.

“Not that you need it, darling,” Barry said, “you are absolutely radiant.”

You then headed back to the bedroom, where Betty and Amir would shower you in praise until it was nighttime. The two would share a knowing smile before Betty looked at the bedroom door.

“I think you could use a drink or two, hmm?” Betty bit her lip before she continued on, “Perhaps one that's dark, moody, and handsome while the other is tall, charming, and absolutely electrifying?”

Warmth rushed to your face as you realize that she is, indeed, not referring to cocktails.

“Okay, okay, I got it.” You quickly waved her and Amir off before you approached the electrical closet. 

“Sure you're feelin’ up for this?” Dorian appeared before you grabbed the door handle. “I'm not sure that those two are the sort that you want to see after…. a day like today.”

“I'm feeling better, I promise.” You waved off his concern with a genuine smile. “I just want to see Eddie and Volt.”

“If you insist…” He trailed off before stepping aside, “but if those two ever do anything to you-”

“-I'll let you know.” You finished his statement before heading inside of the Breaker Box.

Every worry about your body is immediately forgotten as Volt welcomes you into the club with warm arms and a few quick kisses. A glance at the bar provided you with a look at Eddie, who regarded you with a small smile and a quick nod before continuing on with his work. How could you possibly think badly about yourself when you had those two around to distract you?

After a night of too much dancing, laughing, and drinking, you had made your way back to your bed, where Betty welcomed you with open arms.

“Good night?” She asked, but she already knew your answer from the starstruck look on your face.

“Oh yeah.” 

You noticed that her gaze had turned stern after you had finished changing and taking off your make-up.

“What's wrong?” You asked.

“Have you talked to them yet?”

“About what?” You tilt your head in confusion.

“About this.” She gestured to a pillow that still had a few tear-stains on it.

You looked away in shame.

“No.”

“Lover,” Her tone was stern yet full of love, “they adore you. If you don't tell them, they'll figure it out on their own.”

Betty was right, like always. But you didn't feel like now was the time to reflect on that.

Eventually, the sobs that come from you turn into sniffles, and those sniffles eventually turn into nothing but the occasional hiccup as the torrent of tears finally begins to slow down.

For once, your mind and body feel like they're in the same place. You can actually feel present in the presence of your lovers.

You're used to wandering hands and playful touches with them, so it's shocking how rigid and intense their affection is. Neither of them have moved - perhaps they're terrified that if they move, then you'll break even further?

But there's nothing left to break, not when you've sliced yourself down to the atomic level. This is you, raw and messy and unfiltered. The worst part of yourself, freely on display to be ridiculed and mocked.

There's no mockery to be found here, nor ridicule. Just concern for you.

Your tongue feels heavy as short gasps of air enter your lungs. Have you forgotten to breathe? How long has it been since you broke down? Time feels weird and foreign at this moment, so you push that thought aside.

They stayed.

It's the only thought that comes to the front of your mind, and it's a welcome reprieve from the usual confidence assassination that you receive.

My hair is a mess, my face is puffy from crying, and I look like an absolute wreck, but they stayed.

You cling to that thought for dear life as you allow Eddie and Volt's touches to softly ground you.

When your breathing slows, and only a few tears dot your face, you peel your face away from Volt's chest so you can look him in the eyes.

“Volt.” 

You say his name like a reverent prayer, a plea to just be here with you.

He says nothing, but his hands gently cup your face as he wipes away the last of your tears with the pad of his thumb.

You can't stand the way Volt looks at you with so much love and tenderness and devotion. It makes your heart ache, so much so that you lean in to kiss him. 

Your breath touches his lips, a gentle breeze amidst the stormy weather, but you hesitate before you kiss him.

The last time a lover had comforted you, you had reached out to kiss them as a way to show your love and thankfulness.

Instead, they pushed you away.

“Clean yourself up first, then we'll talk.”

You kiss Volt anyway, expecting a similar reaction. To be pushed to the side and disregarded. But that rejection never comes.

The kiss you share with him isn't as intense or thrilling. He's not pulling you towards him after a long night of dancing or trying to catch you off-guard while you're helping Eddie with repairs.

It's a deeper mix of emotions that you can't quite place your finger on. A kiss that feels more like a comforting hug during a thunderstorm, or a gentle hand on your lower back to help guide you through a crowd.

However, just like every other time Volt kisses you, your breath is caught in your throat once you break away from him.

You're able to grab a single gasp of air before Volt's lips meet yours again. His kisses grow more and more passionate as your mouth meets his again and again and again.

Meanwhile, Eddie's hands gently wander your body, choosing to gently squeeze and poke at all of the right places. 

These two…

You're left a panting mess by the time Volt is through with you.

“Live wire, you're…” He pauses before a dastardly grin appears on his face, “Shockingly addictive.”

Eddie grunts into your shoulder before raising his head to whisper in your ear.

“I'll kick him out if he keeps saying shit like that.”

Volt gasps in surprise and horror.

“You wouldn't dare-”

“-oh yes I would-”

Their argument is cut short by your laughter, which rings out across the empty bar.

Volt flashes you a handsome smile while Eddie presses a small kiss to the back of your neck. You can feel the smallest smile on his lips as he pulls away from your skin.

“Your laughter never fails to brighten up a room, spark.” Volt lays the praise on thick, but you certainly don't mind it.

You thank him with a sweet kiss on the lips before turning your body and attention towards Eddie.

You want to kiss him, and you come incredibly close to doing so, but his hand stops your lips from meeting.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks.

Okay doesn't feel like the best word - you haven't really felt okay for a long time.

“Better,” is the word you choose to answer him with, “Better than I was.”

“Good.” 

Satisfied with your answer, Eddie kisses you once before pulling back again.

A small whine escapes you, and he softly laughs before his expression turns serious again.

“What can we do to help?”

Your heart warms at the gesture - they really do love you, don't they? - but you're not quite sure how to answer that. Body dysmorphia doesn't have the same fixes as a burnt bulb or a faulty wire. To be honest, it isn't really something you can fix. You'll probably have to deal with these negative thoughts for the rest of your life, but you don't have to be alone while they terrorize you.

“It's enough for you two to be here, with me.” You sigh before explaining, “I have good days and bad days when it comes to my thoughts. Some days I don't think about my body at all, and other days I can barely pull myself out of bed because it's all I think about. …Or I'll have a good day, but then I'll say something and start overthinking everything.”

Like today, you think to yourself before continuing.

“I don't know if there's an exact thing you can do to help - I barely know how to help myself when I get worked up. It's nice to just have some place to relax and unwind that isn't my bed. Plus, I get to see the two of you!”

Volt chuckles before grabbing your hand, “You will always have a table here, with us, live wire.”

He gently kisses the palm of your hand as Eddie speaks.

“You can always come in before we open,” His head turns away from you as a prominent blush rests on his cheeks, “to help with inventory, or whatever.”

You comfort him with a smile.

“I'd like that.”

“Really?” Eddie's in disbelief for a moment. “Uh… only if you want to.”

Eddie looks over to Volt, who offers him a sympathetic nod.

“We would be thrilled to have you accompany us.”

Your smile only grows wider before you give each of your lovers a heartfelt smooch.

It might not have been the ending I expected for the night, but it was a better night than I thought it would be a while ago.

Their hands finally untangle from your body, and you think that you can make your escape for the night.

Betty would be proud of you for finally saying something.

You barely take a step forward before you're pinned to the table behind you. You yelp as both of your wrists are held down, one by each of your lovers.

“Where do you think you're going?”

Alarm bells ring in your head as you look over at Eddie.

“Huh?”

Volt gently plays with a strand of your hair as his eyes scan your face.

“My sweet spark, don't you remember what I promised you?”

Promised me?

You're very confused as you look from Volt, to Eddie, and then back to Volt. They're obviously not going to tell you, so you have to push through the fog in your mind and remember.

There was the card game I was playing with Chance and Parker before Volt came over. Those two left, and then Volt and I started talking. I said something to him that he didn't appreciate, and he started going back and forth until-

“If you won’t see yourself as I do, then I’ll make you see it.”

Oh.

Oh!

Your cheeks burn as you vividly remember how he eyed you and the deck of cards on the table.

“Now?” You whisper.

“Yes, now,” Eddie clarifies, “unless you're not feeling up to it.”

“I-” You pause before giving your answer.

You could just go back to your bed, but you were really, really curious about what those two had planned for you. 

Especially if that plan was authored by Volt.

“Yeah.” It's barely audible, so Volt leans in closer to you.

“Was that a yes, spark?”

“Yes.” You turn your head so your lips can briefly connect with his.

“Good.” He hums before pressing another kiss to your cheek. 

“What… did you exactly have planned?”

“Don't you worry your pretty little head, live wire. We'll make you feel good.” Volt chuckles as your jaw drops. “How about a round of drinks first?”

Volt saunters off in the direction of the bartending area, leaving you without a chance to question him.

What are they going to do to me?

Your thighs squeeze together in an effort to relieve the sudden pressure and heat between your legs. Your imagination runs wild as you let yourself indulge in your fantasies.

Your favorite one, the one that gets you off the most, is Eddie viciously eating you out while Volt holds you to the bed. You're a panting, moaning mess - your ability to articulate words had left you three orgasms ago.

Volt is sweetly singing praises into your ears - “you taste so sweet, live wire”, “look at how much of a mess our Eddie is for you”, “you can give us just one more, right?” - but it all sounds distant in your ears as you focus in on Eddie.

You live for the occasional grunt or curse that falls from his lips as he devours you, his tongue hitting every place that makes you moan their names. His death grip on your thighs is the only thing keeping you from rolling your hips into his mouth.

Eddie doesn't talk much when you're positioned like this, but when he does, you have to hold on to Volt for dear life in order to keep yourself from cumming instantly.

“I'm almost done, live wire, just keep your legs open for a little longer. You can do this for us.”

A strangled cry falls from your lips as your juices freely flow into his mouth. Eddie happily laps up every bit of you that he can get. Tears flow from your cheeks - you don't know how else to express your pleasure at this point.

Volt is saying something to you, but it all sounds like static as you lock eyes with Eddie. He gives your sensitive sex a small lick, which causes you to whimper.

“One more, spark, that's all I want.” He quietly murmurs before feasting on you again.

You're almost tempted to believe him, as if he didn't say that after every single orgasm that you've had tonight.

Your eyes stay focused on him, and the world around you melts into a blob of nothingness as you reach your climax again and again and again-

“Spark?”

Eddie's voice pulls you out of your daydream, and your head snaps to look at him.

He's no longer pinning your wrist to the table; rather, his hand is securely slotted in yours. 

It's hard to focus on Eddie when you're still thinking about his tongue exploring inside of you, savoring the flavors that make you so irresistible to him.

“What are you thinking about?” 

A small smirk rests on his face as a knowing glint enters his eyes.

Oh God, he knew what you were thinking about.

It didn't help that your free hand was resting just above the waistband of your pants, or that you were biting your lip hard to keep any sounds from escaping you.

It'd be easy to deny, deflect, disengage - but you've never told him or Volt about your fantasies. You didn't feel confident in your body or yourself - who would want to spend hours between your flabby thighs, looking up at your pudgy stomach to see you?

But you felt safe and secure tonight - safer than you have in a long time, and secure enough to finally say what your mind has been thinking.

“You,” Is the answer you give Eddie, a teasing invitation for him to ask for more.

“Me?” His voice is breathy, and the blush on his face tells you that he's starting to fantasize about you too.

Eddie leans in a bit, giving you the space to either lean in to meet him or back away. A gentle squeeze of your hand reminds you to act, so you lean in to whisper in his ear.

“I was thinking about you eating me out,” Your voice is barely above a whisper, but it grows even quieter when you next speak, “multiple times.”

The pounding in your chest is a mix of arousal and concern - what if he didn't like what you said? Sure, he had given you oral once or twice before, but you made sure that it went as quick as possible so Eddie didn't notice the stretch marks and other imperfections on your skin. Never more than once in one session - you always directed his attention elsewhere after you orgasmed.

Something sparks behind Eddie's eyes, a warmth and fire that you've never seen before. 

“Is that what you want me to do?” His voice is low yet inviting as one of his hands comes to rest right above your hip.

“Yes, yes, please, Eddie-”

You're hoisted on top of the table before you can finish begging for him. Your hands desperately latch on to his shirt before you tug on it, pulling him in for a passionate kiss.

His hands wander down to your legs, and his fingers bury into the fabric of your pants.

“You're wearing too much clothing.” Eddie says after breaking away from you, and you whine in agreement.

You kiss him again before grabbing his hands and placing them under your shirt. He needs no further direction as his hands move to remove the jacket from your shoulders first before returning to your shirt.

“You two cannot help yourselves, can you?” Volt interrupts the two of you with a cheshire-cat grin on his face.

“I-” Warmth floods to your cheeks and your sex - getting caught turns you on. “Eddie?”

Eddie doesn't speak. He only turns his head to look at Volt, and the two silently communicate for a while before Volt's grin grows even bigger.

“You've been holding out on us, haven't you?” Volt purrs as he sets two whiskey sours and a glass of water next to you. “My sweet spark, we fantasize about you too.”

We?

Oh yeah, the whole ‘not one object but also not two completely separate objects’ thing that they explained.

…Does that mean that they know what the other fantasizes about?

Your eyes widen at the thought.

Fuck, that's hot.

Volt chuckles, seemingly able to read your thoughts, before pressing a teasing kiss to your cheek.

“Since you told Eddie, it's only fair that you tell me what you were thinking about,” Volt closes in on you to whisper in your ear, “in exchange for one of our fantasies about you.”

You shudder at the thought - how could they possibly think about tearing you apart? - before you softly whimper.

“Our poor little spark can hardly speak,” Volt continues his ruthless teasing, “and we've barely even touched them.”

It's always been a push-and-pull dynamic with them. When one closes in, the other opens up. When Volt teases you like this, you bury your head into Eddie's chest so he can comfort you.

His hands come up to rest on your head - one gently tugs at the strands of your hair while the other keeps your head close to him.

“Volt, be nice.” 

“I am being nice-” Volt defends himself.

“-you're being cruel-”

“-I thought you liked it when I was cruel?” Volt retorts.

“...Whatever.” Eddie brushes Volt aside before they share a warm kiss. 

You're still embarrassed from how easily you were aroused, so you nuzzle your head into Eddie's chest until one of them addresses you.

“You are just too easy to please, live wire,” Volt says as you pull away from Eddie to look directly at him, “and we adore that about you.”

“Thank you.” You murmur before bashfully looking away.

“Cute,” Eddie remarks before kissing your cheek, “but I think Volt should be the one to share first.”

“Ah, what an excellent idea, my dear.” Volt grabs the long-forgotten deck of cards on the table. “Recognize these?”

You cautiously nod as you eye the cards.

“I was thinking that the three of us could play strip poker.”

I beg your pardon?

No words come out of your mouth as you figuratively pick your jaw up off of the floor.

“I- uh, I'm not very good at poker.” You manage to say after a moment of heated silence.

“I know, spark, you are far too easy to read.” Volt can't help but relish in your surprise and excitement. “The same rules could be applied to any card game, really. Your choice, of course.”

The ball’s in your court now - you have your choice of card games, and you can pick one that you could easily win.

“But?” You tilt your head, knowing there's a catch coming.

“The winner picks the item of clothing, and second-place has to take it off of last-place,” Volt's voice drops into a dangerous, seductive range before he adds, “and maybe the last-place person indulges the other two in a fantasy or two of theirs.”

…Holy shit.

If you weren't hot and bothered before, you certainly were now. You could practically feel their hands tearing off your clothes, their mouths touching all of the places you'd dreamed that they'd explore-

Wait.

Did they think that you were going to lose? Was the plan to get you all worked up so they'd have the pleasure of stripping the clothes from your body article-by-article?

Fucking cheaters.

Not to mention the whole sharing thoughts thing - this was a game that was practically rigged against you. Of course, it was all under the disguise of fair play. You picked the card game, after all.

You could call them out on their bullshit, but you're still dying to know what the plan is after they've stripped you of your clothing. Would they pounce on you, or wait for you to make the first move?

…And you could use a bit of pampering after the day you've had. It's a win-win scenario, really.

Eddie and Volt share an expectant look as you pretend to mull over their offer.

It was always going to be a yes.

“Okay,” You tentatively agree before a wicked smile appears on your face, “but I have one more suggestion.”

“Which is?” Volt asks.

“The winner can't touch the loser, at all. If they do, the game ends.”

Your suggestion has thrown them both for a loop, which is exactly what you were hoping for. You knew that they both would try to turn you into putty with soft touches and caresses in-between rounds. It would be a waiting game until you snapped.

This new rule, however, would test to see if you'd snap first, or if Eddie or Volt couldn't handle watching the other have you all to themselves.

A fierce blush appears on Eddie's face as Volt looks at you with unbridled enthusiasm.

“I like the way you think, live wire,” Volt winks at you before offering you his hand, “what game are we playing?”

You take his hand, and both him and Eddie help you off of the table and back into your seat. You think over your options - poker was out, obviously.

Your extended family had played many card games when you traveled around to their houses for the various holidays. You had your pick, yet there was one that was always your favorite.

Probably because you had fun fucking over your relatives by holding cards.

“Seven-Up.” You answer as Eddie looks at you in surprise.

“Really?”

You know damn well why he's asking you that. The whole deck would be passed out between the three of you, and if the two of them worked together, they could figure out your hand and then fuck you over.

That, again, would be dependent on their ability to trust and cooperate with one another. Which you hoped you would break with your little no-touching-the-loser rules.

It was a long shot, but it could work.

Key word: could.

“Really.” A saccharine smile appears on your face. “I used to play it all of the time with my family. It's one of the few card games I'm any good at.”

“I look forward to seeing how you perform.” Volt says in a teasing tone, and you almost wonder if you're caught.

Yet again, that would force both of them to admit that they were cheating, which you were sure that they would deny.

“You sure you're up for this?” Eddie offers you one last out, but you turn him down.

“I'm okay, I promise,” You say before muttering up the most innocent look you can imagine, “there's no way to guarantee that I'm the one who takes something off first, right?”

It takes every bit of willpower inside of you to keep yourself from cackling as Eddie looks away from you, trying to hide the guilty look on his face.

I knew it!

…Is this how Parker feels all of the time?

You set that thought aside to focus on the upcoming game. Volt sits to your left as Eddie sits to your right. Volt begins to shuffle the deck, but you find yourself distracted by the movement of his hands.

His fingers weren't calloused and rough, like Eddie's, but fuck did they feel good inside of you.

Volt didn't set a steady pace - he would start slow, then quickly speed up as you clenched around him. Adding and removing fingers as he pleased while reveling in the pretty sounds that you made for him.

You'd be begging, screaming, pleading with him to let you orgasm as you approached your climax.

“Only because you asked so nicely, spark.” He'd tease before finally setting a pace that's allowed you to finish.

You come back to reality when all of the cards are dealt, and luckily for you, neither of them seem to be paying attention to you; otherwise, they'd notice how your thighs were glued together and the small bits of sweat that had accumulated on your face.

I need to take more cold showers.

You quickly wipe the sweat away from your brow before placing the seven of hearts down - the agreed-upon leading suit.

The tension is thick in the air. No one speaks as the cards fall from everyone's hands. No one is too aggressive nor too passive. You find yourself playing along with their rhythm while trying to study their expressions.

Volt and Eddie appear to be more focused on their individual hands, but they share the occasional glance that tells you that your suspicions are probably correct.

Plus, it's sweet how neither of them can look you in the eye.

Volt is the first one to empty his hand, and - surprise, surprise - you lost.

“I thought you said that you were good at this?” Eddie smirks as he finally locks eyes with you.

I am, but you two are scheming!

“I said I was good, not the best.” You clarify before pressing him, “When did you get so good at this?”

Eddie doesn't even get a chance to answer - Volt jumps in to save face.

“We have many talents for you to discover, live wire,” Volt takes a sip of his drink before leaning back in his chair, “now let me have a look at you.”

Reluctantly, you turn and stand in front of Volt. His eyes hungrily scan your body as he tries to determine what he wants to take off of you.

He could ask Eddie to take off your underwear, and then sit back and watch as Eddie's face invents a new shade of crimson. 

But Volt's not that mean - not yet, at least - as he licks his lips before answering.

“Jacket.” 

You spin to face Eddie, who rises to meet your eyes. His hands hover over your shoulders, awaiting the okay from you.

You nod before he slides the jacket off of your shoulders. Goosebumps immediately appear on your skin - the bar always ran cold when it was just the three of you. Eddie's touch is featherlight as he runs his hands up and down your arms in an effort to warm you up.

You'd normally be flustered by such an action, but you're too horny to think of anything except him taking you on the table.

Maybe if you asked really, really nicely he'd do it?

Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth.

Maybe not. 

Eddie's eyes linger on you for just a moment longer before you both sit down. 

“Don't you have something to share with us?” Volt collects the cards on the table before passing them to Eddie.

Ah, yes. That.

You know Volt's intrigued by what you told Eddie earlier, but you won't let him have that one. Not yet, at least.

Instead, you decide to tell him about the little daydream you just had, in an effort to gain the upper hand over Volt. With the way they were both acting, and how worked up you were, there were plenty more salacious thoughts to be had.

“While you were shuffling those cards, I was thinking about how your fingers felt inside of me.” You look Volt dead in the eye as you allow every syllable to fall from your lips.

You're not surprised by the sound of cards hitting the floor - you're more surprised that the entire deck doesn't hit the floor. You aren't even looking at Eddie, but you can imagine the tight-lipped, grin-and-bear-through-it expression that he's sporting.

Right now, you're shocked at the faint blush that appears on Volt's face. You're unsure if he's actually blushing, or if he's just taken aback by your brutal honesty.

It doesn't really matter, as his practiced tongue recovers before the rest of him does.

“Tell me, what do my fingers feel like inside of you?”

And now you're the one who's hot in the face. Your poor underwear must be soaked by now.

You stumble over your words for a few moments, trying to find something other than good and please fuck me now to say.

“Relief. God, it just felt like sweet relief-”

“Knock it off,” Eddie growls from the other side of the table, “Both of you.”

His voice has that low timbre that you love, and you barely suppress a moan as jolt of pleasure runs to your core.

God, I don't think I can take this much longer.

You're surprised by your ability to still form rational thoughts with how needy and desperate you feel at the moment.

I should’ve just told them to rip the clothes from my body.

You could, and you’re sure that they would, but that biting competitive spirit deep inside of you will not relent. 

Especially since Eddie and Volt haven’t admitted that they're conspiring with one another.

So, with a head held high and your thighs as squished together as they could be, you carefully watch as Eddie finishes shuffling the cards and begins to deal the next round. His fingers flex in just the right way - stop it stop it you NEED to stop - as the cards slide over to you and Volt.

Your breathing finally evens out as the last card is dealt, and you finally feel like some of your desire is under control. You’re still uncomfortable, to say the least, but you can manage.

Eddie tosses out the seven of hearts, and you quickly set the eight of hearts out. Volt hesitates for a moment before setting out the six of hearts.

If the tension was thick before, then it's absolutely suffocating now. Eddie and Volt don't even look at each other now - an occasional glance your way is the closest their eyes come to meeting.

No one dares to speak, to break what's hot and heavy and hanging in the air, until a few turns later.

The game is all locked up, at least for you. You don't have anything of the leading suit, and all of your other cards are too high or too low to be played. With an eye roll, you pass your turn to Volt, who also passes.

You expect Eddie to play the last available card on the table, which would make you pass again and basically secure a victory for him; instead, he plays a lower card from the leading suit, which gives you an opportunity to play.

Finally!

“Why would you-” Volt pauses to look at Eddie before he realizes his mistake. 

An easy slip of the tongue after a well-orchestrated performance. Volt gracefully smiles like he knows he's been caught, while Eddie sighs and shakes his head.

“I fucking knew it.” You mutter between gritted teeth.

You, maybe a bit too excitedly, set your hand down and take a small sip of your whiskey sour in victory.

“How long-”

“-the whole time.” You jump in before Volt can finish. “I'm not an idiot.”

“I told you this was a bad idea-” Eddie starts, but Volt interrupts him.

“-was it, though?” Volt tilts his head back before looking at you. “Our live wire seemed to enjoy themselves.”

You take another sip of your drink to avoid answering Volt's teasing.

“What exactly was the plan?” You ask after a brief period of silence.

“Eddie and I noticed that you don't let us take your clothes off of you before we…” Volt's cheeks have a dusting of pink on them before he continues on, “so we thought that this would help you feel more comfortable with us.”

That's so sweet!

As always, they had noticed your behavior in bed, how you'd shy away from too much intimacy with either of them in fear of rejection and humiliation due to your body dysmorphia.

You realize that it was a part of you that they were willing to accept and work through, rather than turn away. This ugly part of you that you denied was something that they'd help you face, directly or indirectly.

It shouldn't surprise you as much as it does - you saw them at their lowest, with faulty wires and power outages abound, and you chose to walk through it with them so Eddie and Volt knew that they had someone they could rely on, in whatever way that they needed.

So why wouldn't they do the same for you?

“Volt,” You set your drink aside and climb out of your seat and into his lap, “you know you could've just asked, right?”

“If we did, would you say yes?” 

There's no teasing or bite behind Volt's words. He's genuinely asking you if you would've felt comfortable with that.

“I mean, it depends on the day,” You give him an answer that feels true to how you normally feel, “but right now?”

You pause for dramatic effect.

“Yes, you two can rip the clothes off of my body and do whatever you were planning on doing.”

Volt gives you a wicked grin before pulling you in for a heated kiss.

“You never fail to surprise or delight me, live wire.” His words make you shudder. “Shall I return the favor?”

Fuck yes!

You answer him with another kiss that Volt happily accepts. He deepens the kiss before his fingers dig into the flesh of your hips.

Your arousal returns to you with a fiery passion as he lifts you up and sets you on the table. Volt deepens the kiss, and you allow his tongue to explore your mouth for a bit before you pull away from him, panting and moaning his name.

“My needy little spark,” Volt sweetly teases you before playing with the hem of your shirt, “I'm not going anywhere.”

The fabric easily slides off of your body, along with any other undergarments on your torso. The cold air in the bar nips at your skin, but that isn’t the reason that your arms wrap around your waist.

This is the first time that Volt or Eddie will really, truly see you naked. They had seen you naked before, but only the small glimpses that you would allow between moments of pleasure. No lingering looks at your body or time to find your every fault - just how you thought you liked it. 

So you're a little nervous about this. You're not exactly retreating back into your negative thoughts, not yet, but the self-consciousness is still there, even when you're worked up.

“Let me see you, live wire,” Volt softly asks as his hands run up and down your arms, “please. Let us worship and admire you in every way that you deserve.”

You whimper at him before pulling your arms away from yourself. Your hands nervously rest on the table as Volt fully takes you in.

He looks at you with such reverence, as if you were the finest art piece he had ever seen. As if you were the brightest star in the sky, the only one that would illuminate his path forward.

You want to crumble, to tell him to stop, but you know that's not right. You are a human that deserves to feel loved and cherished, even if it's just for one night.

You're not given a chance to hide yourself again as Eddie pins your arms to your back. He doesn't even have to verbally tell you off - a warning look from him is enough to tell you that he knew what you were thinking about.

“Amps sake, spark, you're…” Volt trails off for a moment, “stunning.”

Volt's hand gently lays on your stomach, and you immediately suck it in - a bad habit that you've carried since you were young.

“Live wire.” Eddie lightly scolds you as his hands keep yours behind your back.

“But Eddie-”

“He won't move until you relax.” He cuts you off, not entertaining anything else that you could say.

You go quiet for a moment, just so you can take a few breaths, before your stomach relaxes to its natural position.

This is it, I guess.

You brave yourself for a negative reaction that never comes; instead, Volt's hand moves from your stomach so he can press his lips to your skin.

“You're gorgeous.” He murmurs into your stomach, which causes a flash of pleasure to strike your core.

Volt lightly bites on the skin before sucking, creating a dark mark in the middle of your stomach. You whine at the feeling of his lips and tongue touching a sensitive part of you.

You don't have time to adjust as a trail of kisses is led from your stomach to the middle of your chest.

“And bewitching.” He adds on to his earlier statement before repeating his earlier actions - a warm kiss to the spot before marking you there. 

Endless praises fall from Volt as his lips and tongue slowly explore every part of upper body.

Entrancing. Beautiful. Handsome. Alluring. Ravishing. Dazzling. Irresistible. Magnetic. Enchanting.

Each one comes with a kiss and a hickey, which makes you a writhing mess by the time he places a few wet kisses along your face and neck.

“Your face is just as striking as the day I met you.” He finishes before creating a hickey on the most sensitive part of your neck. “I cannot wait to ravish you.”

You don't suppress the loud moan that comes from you - you're far beyond caring about what they or anyone else think. You wriggle out of Eddie's grasps so your fingernails can bury themselves into Volt's back. With how hard you're holding onto him, you may manage to mark him up through his shirt and jacket. 

“Volt!” 

You cry out his name, and you're rewarded with a passionate kiss to your lips.

“Yes, spark?” His fingers find the bottom of your chin, and he carefully forces it upwards so you're looking at him. “What would you like me to do to you?”

An open-ended question on an open-note test. You're tempted to answer anything and everything, but you know that he'll want specific instructions.

Your mind wanders back to your earlier daydream, the one about his fingers curling up inside of you, and your thighs clench at the thought.

“What is it, my light? What has captured your attention?” Volt has a devilish grin on his face, but his eyes are soft and warm.

“Earlier, when I told you about what I was imagining… that's what I want you to do to me.” You give him a breathy, shaky answer, but an answer nonetheless.

“My fingers?” He asks, and you whine at the mention.

“Yes, please, Volt, I need them inside of me.” You softly beg for him, but he shushes you with a quick kiss to the lips.

“As you wish, live wire.”

Volt, along with a bit of help from Eddie, makes quick work of your pants. Eddie's hands run up and down your sides, helping to keep you in place as Volt pulls at the waistband of your underwear. His fingers are so, so close to where they need to be, and you're honestly half-tempted to shove them into your hole yourself.

“Do you want me to keep these on?” Volt asks, but he doesn't look you in the eye; rather, it seems that he's asking Eddie for permission.

…Probably because you'd tell him yes a thousand times over.

The room is hot with anticipation as Eddie thinks to himself. You can't crane your neck backwards to look at him, to beg him to choose faster so you can finally get some relief between your legs.

“Keep them on,” He says as you let out a whine of disapproval, “I want to take them off myself.”

Now that was an idea you could get behind.

“Very well.” Volt nods before his hand finally slips underneath your underwear.

One of his fingers circles your entrance, and you throw your head back in pleasure. A breathy moan escapes you as your hole clenches around nothing. You hold onto Volt as if he's going to disappear while Eddie keeps your hips grounded on the table.

He teases you a little while longer, as two of his fingers work to massage the outside of your clit. Your back arches as a familiar coil springs to life inside of you.

You scream when two of his fingers dip inside of you. His fingers are barely knuckles-deep inside of your hole, yet you can feel your orgasm rapidly approaching.

“Our poor little wire really worked themselves up…” Volt muses as his fingers begin to move inside of you.

There's no teasing from him - he keeps a steady rhythm as his fingers quickly enter and exit your hole. That relief that you felt in your daydream quickly comes crashing over you as you hit your climax.

There's still plenty of heat inside of you as Volt lets you ride out your orgasm on his fingers. You whimper when his fingers leave you, but you're delighted by the sight of him licking your fluids off of his fingers.

“Feeling good?” Eddie checks in with you after your breathing begins to even out. 

His stubble kisses your shoulder before he does, and you respond by pulling him close to you.

“Yeah, I feel good.” You nuzzle your head into his chest as his hands wrap around your torso.

You relish in Eddie's warm affection as Volt looks on in amusement.

“Enjoying yourselves?” 

You hum as Volt's fingers run up and down your thighs. You can't help but imagine him running his tongue all over the bare flesh of your thighs.

“Volt, could you…” You pause to think about your phrasing, “mark up my thighs?”

Not the most graceful execution, but it gets the job done.

Volt chuckles as his hand massages some of the skin on your thigh.

“I'd love to, spark,” He says before leaning in to seductively whisper in your ear, “but I think that someone else would prefer that more.”

You sigh at the thought of those rough, hard-at-work hands pinching and pulling at the flesh of your inner thighs. His stubble gently caressing your skin as messy, wet kisses trail up further and further until you-

Your daydreaming is so rudely interrupted when one of Volt's fingers enters your hole again.

“But I'm not done with you yet, live wire. You can give me just one more before Eddie has a turn, right?”

If you die tonight, you die in pure ecstasy.

His finger curls up inside of you, eliciting a moan from you.

“Yes.” You move your head up and down before your nails dig into Eddie's arm.

“I'm right here,” He mumbles before lightly biting down your shoulder, “focus on Volt.”

You yelp as Volt fucks you with his fingers. The pace he sets is much slower, which helps your orgasm build at a steadier rate. It's one finger, then two, then three as he continues to stretch you out.

This is so much better than anything you've ever imagined.

Your moans and whimpers are far too tempting for Eddie, and he can't help but make marks of his own on your back as Volt continues to pump his fingers in and out of you.

You don't last long between the two of them, and a shriek of both of their names signals that you've orgasmed once again. Eddie's arms are there, warm and comforting, as you pull yourself down from your high once again.

“You did so well for us, live wire.” Volt cleans his fingers once again with his mouth. “You always do.”

Your hips grind against the table - God, had you always been this needy for them? - as Volt laughs.

“We want you just as badly as you want us.” Volt reassures you before sending a small electrical shock to one of your thighs.

That tingly feeling that you've come to love runs through your system, your legs involuntarily spreading apart for easier access. 

Eddie keeps a tight grip on you as Volt walks away from the two of you. You lazily reach your arms out for him, but he doesn't come back to you.

“Volt's just grabbing some blankets and pillows from the VIP section so you're more comfortable.” Eddie explains as one of his hands travels down to your thighs.

Like Volt, Eddie provides a small electrical shock that goes straight to your sex and makes you shudder. You laugh as the fluttery sensation travels through your body.

Eddie contains your laughter in a romantic kiss that sends another shockwave through you. 

Once his lips part from yours, he chuckles to himself for a moment. You'd bottle up the sound of his laughter in an instant so you could hear it any time you wanted; however, there was something special about these small intervals of time where Eddie just lets himself go.

You etch this moment into your memory - the way he smiles at you freely before pulling you in for another kiss. This time, his teeth bite at your bottom lip, asking for entry in your mouth.

You moan into his mouth as his tongue meets yours. You briefly fight for dominance before letting him take control - after all, who were you to stop Eddie from taking what he wants?

Occasionally, his teeth will nibble on your lower lip, making you playfully whine in response.

“Eddie!” 

You try to sound annoyed, but your laughter gives you away every time.

“Let me in,” He'd complain as if his tongue wasn't nearly down your throat, “I need a distraction.”

“From what?”

“From how badly I need you.” A bit of red rests on his face as he bashfully looks away from you.

“Oh, Eddie,” You murmur before lightly kissing his cheek, “I need you too.”

You share another kiss with him before Volt returns with an assortment of comfortable items. 

Eddie lifts you off the table for a minute so Volt can arrange them before laying you down on the table

Your head rests on a small stack of pillows that allows you to still see beneath your legs but rest comfortably. A few blankets are laid over the table to caress the other parts of your body while a smaller pillow lifts your hips ever-so-slightly into the air.

You'd feel tired if you didn't feel two pairs of eyes feasting on your body.

“You are a masterpiece, live wire,” Volt closes in on you first to lean down and press a kiss to your lips, “and we will devour you.”

His hot breath on your face only excites you further as you lightly tug at his shirt and jacket.

“Please?” You sweetly ask with the tiniest pout on your lips.

“How could I ever say no to you?” Volt complies with your wishes and begins to take off his coat. “Especially since you asked so nicely.”

“Eddie?” 

Your breath hitches as you desperately look around for him. You're ecstatic to find that he's already positioned himself between your legs, and you're even more thrilled when you realize that his shirt is already off.

“I'm right here, live wire,” Eddie says before licking his lips, “and I'm not going anywhere for a long time.”

His voice dips slightly lower, right into that range that drives you crazy. You groan as you feel a familiar heat build between your legs.

God, I cannot wait to feel his tongue explore inside of me!

Steel eyes meet white before Eddie advances. Volt grabs a chair and gently places it against the table so he can be as close to you as possible. 

“Spark, can you move your hand?” He asks, and you nod weakly. “Take Eddie's hand in yours and show him what bothers you.”

Volt looks offended by his own words, and you know why. He sees no imperfections where you see all of them.

You do as you're told, and your hand lays on top of Eddie's on one of your thighs. You've done this routine in your bathroom mirror a million times, so it's easy to guide his hand to every stretch mark, mole, scar, and skin tag that's on both of your thighs.

“Good little spark.” Volt rewards you with one of your favorite nicknames from him, and you shiver at it.

Your hand comes back to rest on the table as Eddie and Volt silently communicate with their eyes. You're not quite sure what they're thinking of, but whatever it is, Volt smiles as their eyes break apart from each other.

That's not good.

“I think they'd like that, darling.” Volt purrs before turning to you. “Relax and enjoy. Remember, this is about you.”

You're something between terrified and extremely aroused as Eddie's hands lightly massage your thighs. His fingers rub into the most sensitive parts of your thighs, which causes you to moan. Those calloused fingers knew how to work magic on breaker boxes and lovers alike.

Meanwhile, his mouth follows the same pattern that you showed him earlier. Messy kisses are placed all along your thigh, and when Eddie finds a spot of interest, he lightly nibbles on the flesh before making a hickey there.

He makes a notable detour when he reaches your underwear, but quickly resumes the same pattern on your other thigh.

You can't squirm since his hands are keeping your thighs on the table, so you can only offer small whimpers and stifled moans to show your pleasure.

Eddie goes off-track a few times, only to mark up parts of your inner thigh that make you whine and attempt to writhe out of his grasp.

It's hard to form words, to even think coherent thoughts by the time Eddie finishes up. Your mind is begging him to touch you in any way possible in order to relieve the need in your core.

Your eyes are stuck to the ceiling, and your cheeks are flushed. You can practically taste your arousal in the air.

A finger gently rests against your face, and you curl into the cool touch.

“Look at Eddie for a moment, little wire,” Volt says with a teasing smirk on his lips, “you'll want to see what he does next.”

You force your eyes downwards so you can look at Eddie directly. His fingers lie on the waistband of your underwear, but he makes no movement to remove them with his hands.

Instead, his lips press a few gentle kisses above your underwear - God, his tongue is so fucking close to where I need him - before his teeth latch on to the waistband.

Eddie gently pulls your underwear down your legs, at a painstakingly slow speed, with his teeth. You feel his teeth scrape against your inner thigh, and you moan in pure delight. 

He quickly pulls them out of his mouth and tosses them aside as his eyes spot something much more exciting in-between your legs.

“I'm- I'm not going to last long.” You warn him as his head approaches your sex.

“I know, spark.” Eddie says before a smirk appears on his face.

Your eyebrows furrow in confusion as you look at Volt. His palm rests against your cheek, and his cold hand feels very nice against your face.

“You told him that you thought about him feasting on you multiple times,” A playful smile teases Volt's lips, “and he intends to make that dream a reality.”

Volt's thumb traces over your lips as you nearly explode at the thought.

God, it doesn't take them long to figure out what buttons to push, does it?

“Fuck, Eddie, please-” Your begging is swiftly answered by the man between your legs.

“Tell me what you want me to do.” His voice sounds like it's ready to break, like any self-restraint left once he had you pinned to the table.

“-God, please just eat me out already!”

You'd normally be embarrassed by such language, only used to entice your lovers once you had them alone, but you scream this loud enough for the heavens to hear you.

“They're eager.” Volt laughs as he gently traces the curve of your nose with one of his fingers.

“Good,” Eddie pauses for a moment, “I am too.”

And then he feasts.

Your daydreams do not do justice to the pure shocks of stimulation that Eddie's tongue is providing to you. Sure, you had always imagined him as an eager giver, but you never could've imagined this.

There's no teasing, no slow licks to your entrance to find out what makes you tick. He's exploring every fold and crevice that his tongue can manage to fit into at a speed that you cannot even begin to describe. 

Your juices flow into his mouth just as your orgasm crashes over your body. You didn't get to feel the build-up before you reached your climax and went sailing over the edge.

Your legs are shaking ever-so-slightly as you start to feel the effects of your third orgasm for the night. Your tongue feels heavy, and your thoughts are very scrambled, but it's not like there's anything meaningful you have to say at the moment.

Well, except one thing.

“Relax,” You pant heavily before turning to Volt, “how the fuck am I supposed to relax when he does that?”

“I think you'll stop caring after a while.” Volt places a soft kiss to your forehead before brushing some hair away from your face. “Go on, Eddie.”

Eddie grumbles something into your core - I wasn't looking for permission, perhaps? 

It's not like it matters when his tongue dips inside of you again. You moan out his name as the heat between your legs reappears in an instant. 

Eddie's much messier this time as his tongue dives in and out of your folds at an unforgiving pace. There's no breaks, no time for either of you to breathe, as the heat inside of you builds and builds and builds until you explode.

You cry out in pleasure as a rush of warmth comes over you. Volt was right - you're starting to care less and less as a comforting fog begins to creep in the back of your mind. Your vision blurs, and there's a soft ringing in your ears, but you can feel every little thing around you.

The blankets under your body softly cradle you as you nuzzle your head against the familiar warmth of the pillow. Volt's hand works to cool your face as his fingers brush against your skin.

“If only you could see how divine you look, little wire…” Volt murmurs in admiration.

Some sort of semi-coherent sound falls from your lips, and Volt shushes you with a tender kiss to the cheek.

“Relax.”

A simple command from Volt, but one that you are more than happy to adhere to.

Eddie's mouth is on your sex again, and you can barely register anything but pure ecstasy as he hits every bundle of nerves that makes you whimper and whine. Everything just feels so good when your legs are over his shoulders and he's devoting so much attention to you.

Your body is shaking long before you orgasm, and gentle tears fall down your cheeks at the overwhelming feeling of it all. Volt quickly works to wipe them away with the pad of his thumb.

You barely let out a moan when another orgasm hits your body. Whatever state of bliss you're in transcends all human language that you could hope to use.

Eddie finally moves his head far enough away from your entrance that you no longer feel his breath inside of you. His fingers still trace the marks on your thighs while he occasionally nibbles on parts of your inner thigh.

“How are you feeling?” Eddie asks after catching his breath for a bit.

You let out something between a giggle and a snort as a response.

A carefree laugh escapes Eddie as his hands run up and down the length of your legs.

“That's not an answer, live wire.” He teases.

You're used to the banter and teasing with Eddie, but you've forgotten how un-fucking-bearable he can be once he realizes that he has the upper hand.

“Eddie-” You moan his name, hoping that he'll cut you some slack. 

“Tell me something, anything,” He slowly leads a trail of kisses down your leg, stopping just short of your entrance, “and I'll fuck you again.”

A small lick to your entrance inspires you to form words.

“Fuck, Eddie! I- …Good. God, it was amazing,” Your babbling praise continues on, “you were amazing. You and Volt.”

“Better than you imagined?”

You can see that handsome smirk on his face as he draws out another moan from you. 

“Fucking asshole,” You mutter before he pinches some skin on your inner thigh, “Eddie!”

“Cute, but not an answer.” 

As a bit of encouragement, you receive a playful kiss to your clit from him.

“Yes, Eddie, your tongue and Volt's fingers were much better than I imagined.” You manage to say in-between panting breaths.

Eddie groans at the response, which satisfies you. 

Volt? …where is he?

You don't feel the coolness of his touch anymore nor did you hear him in your conversation with Eddie.

“Volt?” You call out to your other lover, and you hear a low curse in the distance.

“I'm here, my sweet spark, I- I just-” His voice breaks as you hear a belt drop to the floor.

Immediately, you sit up, your elbows coming to rest on the table.

“Come here, Volt, let me-” You’re stopped by Eddie pulling on one of your legs, which forces you back down on the table.

“He wants to watch,” Eddie clarifies as you breathe heavily, “and that's all he gets to do.”

You bite your lip as Eddie settles himself near your sex again.

“I'm going to go slower for Volt,” He mumbles against your entrance, “unless you want me to go faster.”

“I-” Your cheeks burn as you speak, “I don't think I'm going to last either way.”

So go fucking nuts, you think to yourself.

A tentative lick to your sex causes you and Volt to moan in unison. Eddie laughs, particularly pleased by this power he has over the two of you, before his mouth explores inside of you once more.

The slower pace he sets is none-the-less pleasurable to you; instead, you're quite pleased with how Eddie carefully lets his tongue touch and explore every bit of you that he can reach. Occasionally, he pauses to breathe and squeeze some skin on your thigh before diving back into you.

He finds a nerve that makes you moan especially loud, and he flicks his tongue against it so you'll make that sound again. 

The only thing grounding you is Volt's groans and other lewd sounds that grow louder and louder as your climax approaches.

Eddie only focuses on you, devouring you, as you squirm and writhe in his grasp.

That familiar red-hot feeling ignites all over your body, and it threatens to consume your very being as you cum hard.

Volt cries out not longer after you do, and you hear Eddie curse into your cunt as he cleans the juices from your sex and thighs.

Your vision is spotty as the ringing in your ears slowly dies down. You can barely focus on anything but the sensation of hands massaging your hips and thighs. Your head is swimming in a blissful state that you don't want to leave any time soon.

You can hear Eddie and Volt chatting in the background, but it sounds like murmuring and muttering to you. You only pick up the occasional mention of your name as another pair of hands comes to rest on your shoulders.

“You get off?” Eddie gruffly asks Volt as your ears begin to pick up their words.

“Of course, my dear Eddie. And you…” Volt pauses for a moment, but you can't tell what he's looking at, “ah, I see. I'll take care of them while you clean yourself up.”

“You sure?”

“I'll be fine, Eddie, just go.” Volt shoos him away before turning his attention to you. “Live wire?”

“Volt?” Your voice is hoarse and quiet, but it's there.

“Can you sit up?”

You slowly rest your weight on your elbows as you force your body up from the table. You blink a few times, allowing the bar lights to blind you for a moment before you can look at Volt.

“Good little spark,” Volt removes his hands from your shoulders so you can sit up fully, “are you sore?”

He walks around the table, fully taking in your body as he scans you for injuries.

“Not that I can tell, no. I think the blankets helped.” You say before Volt grabs your hand.

He interlocks his fingers with yours before pulling your hand to his lips.

“Let us help you feel more comfortable with yourself.” He mumbles into the skin before kissing the back of your hand. “We want you to feel safe around us.”

Your face warms at the gesture.

“I will, Volt, I promise.” A peaceful smile rests on your face.

He kisses your hand again before shooting you a wink.

“Let's clean you up, then.”

With a nearby washcloth and bar towel, Volt makes quick work of the mess between your legs.

“Not like there's much to clean up,” Volt chuckles to himself, “ Our Eddie made sure of that.”

Small kisses are placed all along your thighs as Volt finishes up. A bit of his electric-white hair touches your thigh, and you laugh at the calming buzz it sends through your body.

Volt warmly smiles before brushing the hair back from his face. He moves closer to you, just so he can rest his head on your thighs. He looks up at you with pure admiration and love in his eyes, which makes you melt.

His other hand comes to rest on your stomach, and the two of you stay like that until Eddie returns.

“Come here, Eddie,” Volt calls out to him, “I've got the best view in the house.”

“I can see that.” Eddie laughs - God, that laugh was going to be the death of you - before folding his arms and watching you two from a fair distance away. “Are you done yet?”

“Just a moment longer.”

His eyes take in every mark that was made tonight, and every perfect imperfection on your skin, before he nods at Eddie.

Together, the two of them carry you into the loft that they share. You're surprised when you're set in the bathtub rather than the bed, but the feeling of warm water on your skin doesn't make you question their decision.

Hands reach for and grab the limbs that you're too weak to move. A wave of fatigue rushes over you as the warm water threatens to lull you to sleep. You have to fight off a yawn as soap meets your skin and washes away any sweat or slick that's left on you.

You fully dissolve into their gentle touches and affections as you're pulled out of the tub, dried off, and slowly dressed. 

You rest your head against Eddie's chest as Volt holds your waist from behind.

“Tired?” Eddie moves a bit of your wet hair out of the way as you nod. “We're almost done.”

They lead you to the bed, and you're quickly presented with a glass of water and a bite to eat as Volt pulls you into his arms.

Sleepiness comes far too easily, and once you've finished downing as much food and water as you can take, you curl up into Volt.

“Sleep well, live wire.” He softly kisses your lips before turning your head towards Eddie.

“G'night.” You yawn before leaning over and kissing Eddie's cheek.

“Night, spark.” 

Your head hits the pillow, and you're out before you know it. But who could resist sleep when you're safely tucked between your two lovers who love every bit of you?

[pr0cyon-lotor]

AU where SY is ZZL's uncle from his father's side, so he's a snake demon. Transmigration or not, doesn't matter, he's here and delightfully clueless.

He took up raising ZZL after his brother and sister in law skedaddled. He doesn't force ZZL into anything and is proud of him when he becomes a general.

He is close enough with TLJ and SXY that when she dies, she entrusts her baby to him. Baby LBH has no sealed off demon powers because SXY trusts SY to give him a good life. He takes the baby, but has no idea what to care for the little squishy thing that cries a lot.

He somehow wings it (the fact LBH is half demon was coming in clutch real hard). He's doing well enough. Eventually, he encounters a demonic cultivator that tries to kill him for his venom or something and for baby LBH since he's a heavenly demon. That's when a cultivator saves him.

YQY was around by coincidence, attending some diplomatic meeting nearby when he sensed a lot of demonic energy in the distance. When he was done, he tracked down the energy. He dispatches the demonic cultivator, but completely hesitates to kill the snake demon because it has a baby.

He can tell the demon has the same protective love he had for his Xiao-Jiu, and he contemplates just turning his back on the incident. He really does think about it until the snake demon stops him and begs to know what a human baby should be fed.

YQY again hesitates and turns back to the demon. He rattles off baby safe foods like it's second nature and eventually asks to see the baby to see how old it was.

The snake demon hesitantly does, and YQY freezes when he realizes the baby is a heavenly demon. But he logics it out that the baby is probably half human and has a chance to be a spiritual cultivator (he can't bring himself to kill a baby).

He offers the snake demon to stay with him and allow the baby to become his disciple. The demon agrees wholeheartedly.

Yada, yada, yada. They bond during the trip back to the mountain and SY shares his name and what happened. YQY has an oh shit moment. SY says something surprisingly insightful about how no matter what as long as Old Palace Master was around, TLJ and SXY were going to end in tragedy.

They get to YQY's home and SY gets a whole wing of the house to himself (I hc that the sect leader leisure house was meant to originally be the headquarters of the sect before it became the 12 peaks so the home is really big). SY and YQY take care of baby LBH, SY taking care of feeding and most things because well that's his baby >:[ and YQY takes care of teaching him cultivation.

Okay so now that I tricked you into following me into this dark alley, I think it's a good time to mention this with be a freak4freak thing... Also that in my head SY's demon form is something like this

This is a DND Yuan-ti. Kinda fitting lmao. And like SY would be like a REALLY pretty snake. Because it's SY.

Anyway back to our irregularly scheduled programming.

SY also teaches LBH demonic cultivation (to balance LBH and make sure he can't get corrupted yk) , but they make sure that he knows it's a last resort sort of thing. When LBH gets older, YQY starts taking him to spar with him, but SY was to get to a tiny snake form and hide in YQY's robes when he goes out with them.

For some reason SY starts like hardcore crushing on YQY (it's not hard to just look at him 🥴), so he starts trying to get to know YQY and starts stalking him because like no one around TLJ is normal about affection. It works a little, SY starts giving YQY gifts he likes, which gets him attention in return.

But during one of his stalking moments he finds YQY having tea with SQQ. SY immediately gets jealous because YQY acts so much softer with this man that glares and insults him than him and their child. He starts overanalyzing to see what possibly could this man have that he doesn't?

SY concludes that the thing this man has over him is that he's a peerless beauty. So what does he do? Lock in on cultivation so hard until he can force himself to have a human form. Obviously.

So because he's busy with that, he starts letting LBH and YQY alone with their training. YQY thinks it's because SY feels weak and wants to be strong enough to protect LBH, which he's like "why? does he think I can't protect him? I need to try harder then :(" And LBH somehow reverse logics his way into the right conclusion and he's all for being able to walk around with his baba in the open.

Eventually during one of the training sessions, someone sees LBH and YQY. And that's like obviously his secret kid or something because that kid is a noisy disciple that loves starting shit.

It soon gets to SJ's ears and he's pissed. How DARE someone knock up his gege without his knowledge! He goes to MQF (always assume I'll somehow sneak in mujiu if the ship is yueyuan) and demands to know WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!

And MQF is like "I haven't delivered any mpreg babies in a while" and SJ concludes his Qi-ge knocked up a woman, which is strange because he headcanoned his gege as gay and his headcanon CAN'T be wrong.

Around the same time SY unlocks the human babe skin on his avatar and shows YQY. YQY is going through it, and his erectile isn't dysfunctioning now. SY is all proud of himself thinking that YQY will like him better now, and YQY is panicking because Helen of Troy is in his house.

LBH is happy because he can go on walks with his father AND his baba. So he's basically winning. Especially because he's finally old enough to join the sect.

LBH's dads (he has so many fathers his greed sickens me) are going through it in the background as he's having his first day at school. Something happens that I'm too out of to figure out and now he's crushing on MF.

MF feels like he's being hunted but every time he looks he just finds the sect leader's son looking at him like this

So obviously he thinks he's going crazy and moves on.

SQQ eventually sees LBH and thinks "FUCK he has my gege's eyes! The rumors are true!" He then becomes determined to make MF beat LBH at everything else. MF is confused, but he's not going to disappoint his father figure.

Around now YQY is still freaking out about Helen of Troy being in his home and also a demon. And with a little Airplane logic he's like "Well, fuck me I guess. I have to eventually introduce him because he's LBH's dad, and I'm also like LBH's dad. Co-parenting would leave too much room for questions. I guess we're getting married."

YQY uses a seal to hide SY's demonic energy and forges marriage papers and hides them in the records to make it seem like his master had allowed them to elope in secret.

Anyway my point is stupid slice of life romance anime shenanigans that might become serious as it continues but then returns to stupid slice of life romance anime shenanigans

[cosmickid-inmotion]

Trans Joy Writing/Art Event

Header by the amaaaaazing @perotovar

Hello everyone!

Me, @perotovar @sp00kymulderr and @qveerthe0ry are so excited to announce our Trans Joy event! While this is geared more towards the Pedro Pascal Fandom, this event is open to everyone! 

(Plz rb for a wider reach)

We’ve heard from people that they have been curious about writing trangender representation, but are unsure how to start or are scared of doing it wrong, or even being offensive or incorrect. We understand it can be intimidating at first, so we created this event to help make it accessible to everyone. At the end of the info and rules, you’ll find links to terms, information on transitioning and articles on queer theory as well as links to multi-cultural trans perspectives.

We will also be offering judgement free good faith sensitivity reads so you can get your piece checked out if you are nervous

Steps

Look through the articles, learn if you are unsure. 

Play around with concepts, genders, and prompts

Ask questions to me or any of those running the event

Write or draw!

If you would like a sensitivity read, you can either DM one of us you know best, or you can DM me and I’ll send it to the others and we can see who is available

Post it on tumblr! Make  sure to tag us and link the event so others can see it! We will be reblogging pieces. (Note: Not every piece will be reblogged by everyone. We all are busy, so we can’t read everything. However, if no one has read yours feel free to reach out. It’s never intentional, and we aren’t trying to exclude anyone)

EVENT RUNS THROUGH AUGUST! If you need an extension, reach out.

Rule

No dark or incest. We aren’t hating, we promise. This is just not the event for it this time around.

Due to issues around the fandom, you may have one of us blocked, or one of us may have you blocked. We will not be discriminating, unless there is an extreme reason. If one of us are blocked by you or vice versa, interact as normal with the other admins! Unless extenuating circumstances arise, we will just go on as normal. No biggie.

General rules about no minors, no minor characters in sexual situations. We are allowing trans kids, as there is nothing sexual about trans children. Discussion around hormones, binding, etc are normal and fine, we just ask not to get too detailed if you have a minor transitioning. Things like surgery or such just avoid. They can be discussed with adults. If you need clarification, let us know!

One character must be trans, but it doesn’t matter who. Joel can be trans. OC can be trans. Reader can be trans. Steve can be trans. 

MTF, FTM, non binary, demi girl/boy, bigender, any variety of genders are allowed. We’ll have some basic trans identities listed but you don’t have to stick to it!

You can play with a canon character. It’s okay for Joel to be a trans man. Joel can be non binary. But Joel can also come out as a trans woman, if you want. We’re not going to police you.

Again, Pedro fandom is the focus here but all fandoms welcome <3

Prompts

We encourage everyone to write how they are comfortable. We love stories that are just a normal story with a trans character and it’s no big deal. But we do have some prompts that are specific trans based. Again, you don’t have to follow any of these! This is just to help give ideas.

First time having sex with genitalia (I.e, Javi G. likes women, has never had sex with a dick before, first time with a transgirl)

First time having sex after bottom surgery

Helping someone recover from surgery

Coming out

Trans child coming out (I.e Ellie is non binary)

Trans child transitioning (info below on what minors transitioning actually looks like)

“I don’t owe you androgyny/masculinity/femininity” Someone demanding they be called what they are even if they don’t “present” how someone thinks they should.

Choosing a new name

Helping give shots

Songs

Here are some songs explicitly about a trans person to inspire you!

Big Butt Billy- Willi Carisle (non binary masc)

Mary, Queen of Arkansas- Bruce Springsteen (trans fem)

Candy Says - Velvet Underground

 King for a day - Green Day 

Born a girl - manic street preachers 

Annabel - Goldfrapp

Lola- The Kinks

Delicate, Petite, and other things I’ll never be- Against Me!

Silloettes- Avicci

Information

Trans MTF (male-to-female): A transgender person who was assigned male at birth but identifies and lives as a woman.

Trans FTM (female-to-male): A transgender person who was assigned female at birth but identifies and lives as a man.

Nonbinary: A person whose gender identity doesn’t fit strictly into the categories of male or female.

Bigender: Someone who identifies with two genders, either at the same time or shifting between them.

Genderqueer: An umbrella term for people whose gender identity is not exclusively male or female and may reject traditional gender norms.

Agender: A person who does not identify with any gender or feels a lack of gender entirely.

Genderfluid: Someone whose gender identity shifts over time or in different contexts.

Demiboy: A person who partially identifies as a boy/man but not fully or exclusively.

Demigirl: A person who partially identifies as a girl/woman but not fully or exclusively

Guide to being a trans ally

https://lgbt.foundation/help/a-guide-to-being-a-trans-ally/

Multi-culteral perspective

Trans children/ Youth facts and myths

No children are getting surgeries

Kindergarteners are not on puberty blocks

Puberty blockers are NOT the same as hormones treatments

Children are not being forced or groomed into being trans

You have a higher regret rate of knee surgery than you do regretting gender affirming surgery

People who detransition are real and valid and shouldn’t be silenced, but they are the minority. 

Detransitoning rates vary but generally under 10%, and those who detransition, by and large, do it not because they aren’t trans but because of the stigma they face. Most transition again later.

Check out the MTF and FTM reddits!

Feel free to ask us about transitioning. Everyone's transition choices are different. Some want surgery and hormones, some just want a haircut. It’s all very personal, as the experience can be!

With this event, and with the threat of defunding by Donald Trump and his administrations policies, we are encouraging, if you are able, to donate to The Trevor Project. Money goes to education and funding their LGBT suicide hotline.

If you are based in the UK you will be aware of the Supreme Court recently ruling against trans women being legally recognised as women, and the increase of TERF rhetoric in the mainstream media. if you are UK based please consider donating to https://transactual.org.uk/ or https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/

We look forward to everyone's participation in the event! Here are some trans fics that might help you get an idea how to write!

Lover Boy by @sp00kymulderr (tranamasc reader)

About a Girl by @cosmickid-inmotion (transfem reader with info on transitioning)

Never Say Never by @djarinmuse (non binary reader)

Non Binary!Frankie @cosmickid-inmotion

Anticipation by @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

any other recs are welcome!

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

who is marty mcfly? #2, pages 7-8

original pages + pages w/ no effects + a bunch of bonus stuff including yap session under the cut:

so i read this comic ahead of all the other ones bc i heard it was the best one, and as i was reading it i was like hm yknow this would be fun to redraw. like i'm not going to do it, obviously, because that would be a lot of work and i haven't even read all the other ones. but it would be fun! not going to do it though

so erm..... was that a lie or what. i'll be so fr what tipped me over the edge was the "little flaw" bit of dialogue bc i came up with the framing of him being really small in a panel and it was like shittt i'm cooking i gotta draw this. also the double meaning of "little flaw" (marty's existence in the timeline but also just marty himself) just kind of amused me haha

my process for this was to copy down the dialogue and then NOT LOOK AT THE PAGE ANYMORE. so aside from the dialogue and the general actions that the characters were doing, everything on the page was from my own ideas! if you compare the two i might've deviated slightly from the original. just a little. nothing too crazy of course of course. not like i changed like. everything

i am addicted to inserting more panels for every single expression. if you look at the sketch version of page two there was even going to be an extra panel at the end just for an additional expression and no dialogue but it made the page crowded as i was drawing it so i took it out RIP. in the end i drew 25 panels compared to the original's......... 11. oops

re: dialogue inflection i've noticed that comics tend to emphasize at least one phrase per speech bubble. if you read it with said emphasis usually it's alright but sometimes it flows kind of weird? ("wash your hands" is the biggest one here imo) which is why i changed the inflections i thought it flowed better. also i added a couple of minor things (most notably two waitaminutes i think gbgkbjgjk) to make it sound more natural but overall i stuck to what they were originally saying

ok so the "not look at the page anymore" part of the process is entirely false i did look at it again to shamelessly trace that car. so if you were wondering how i managed to draw such a nice car it's because i didn't LMAO. i think you can tell which cars were traced and which ones i actually naturally drew bc some (re: one that i just copy pasted bc i was lazy.) actually look car-proportioned and some (literally everything else sorry marty's truck) do not. also this is why in the 3rd yugo panel there is no lining in the back of the car. there was no back for me to trace and i was tired.

here's the color test (+ learning how to draw professor irving) i did! unfortunately did not have the oversight to color test the background colors too. i was in the art trenches with those. i hated drawing those backgrounds so much you can tell all of them are half-assed GBKGGJ

speaking of colors i think that the first one's colors are better but i was so done with the whole comic making process (aka. the backgrounds) by the second page that i 1. took like two months off of drawing it and 2. just threw shit at the digital page to get it over with LMAO. like sure ig we doin dark red now

also don't look at the backgrounds too hard. the garage/storage unit thing (changed from a truck trailer bc 1. not sure how you'd install a sink in there? the sink in the storage unit was already stretching it. how did you get plumbing in there man that thing's a rental. and 2. no way in hell i was drawing ANOTHER VEHICLE) is very spacially inconsistent and while this annoys me idrc i'm just here to draw characters in situations.

in the original he's wearing his puffy vest over a white shirt and another red shirt (so his normal outfit but To The Left) but i didn't want to draw that so i gave him a different fit. it's based on apparently this photo from the previous issue? i remember seeing it prior to drawing these but i could've sworn his inner shirt was yellow in the picture and also it looked different. guess it was white the entire time? or maybe i have the issue wrong and this is a completely different picture of marty wearing the red sweater + collared shirt combo. oh well

i keep reading "i know who you are" as "i know what you are" and it never fails to be funny to me. leave him alone dawg

tried to make irving a little more menacing in these considering he's a stranger that just happens to know about the time travel stuff and also who marty is and how to contact him? i actually don't really remember how he got this information but i'm sure it was sketchy as hell. also marty just kind of. agrees to go with him? with no further question. by himself. at night. luckily for him this was not irving's current intention but i've learned that marty is very easy to kidnap. he followed directions to the second location so easily. marty have you not heard about stranger danger?? stay safe out there. your list of traumas is already so long you don't need to encourage another one

my favorite bit of framing is the mirror shot. do you guys think the mirror shot is cool i think it's cool. irving my man back up let him wash his hands and contemplate his existence with his personal space intact thanks. my second favorite is irving throwing the napkin bc i think it's funny

last bonus before the conclusion of this post: a doodle i did as i was making these based on my impression of how the comic was going

[kumasakka]

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ❝ 𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐁𝐔𝐋𝐄 ! ❞

　you are his hiding one and only place or sweet headcanon’s about your relationship before dating and during dating !

featuring. itoshi rin !

content. 0.7k wc , latibule (n.) a hiding place; a place of safety and comfort , fluff fluff fluff , slight crack , rin may be ooc , pre & while dating headcanons , safe for minors , spoiler free , crappy writing , this was a request.

author’s note. a quick and easy request >< next time, please read through the bio, anon! I clearly stated that i’m currently only writing for sakamoto days and gachiakuta but since this was quick one, I still decided to write your request. please enjoy to the fullest <3

PRE DATING.

how to start even? oh boy you're in for a lot as soon as he is aware of his feelings. and to be honest it will take a quite while for him to realise his own feelings because rin is a little dense when you're talking about feelings.

what I can imagine is — how he drops subtle hints to show his feelings so you can come to the idea by yourself.

it would be something simple like sharing his things (like pens, notes, books etc.) with you and that without hesitation. also something like buying a drink from the vending machine and then also buying your favourite drink because he "put in too much coins."

god, he's actually so sweet with his actions that everyone is already aware of his little crush about you. never has he ever shown so much interest in something or someone besides from soccer which is actually kind of crazy.

but unfortunately everyone notices but you. you just think of his actions to be kind and sweet, something a best friend would do. and yes you two somehow are close enough to be best friends — not going to lie, I cannot imagine rin falling in love with someone who isn't close to best friends.

that also leads to much trust. rin puts a lot of faith into you, another sign of his crush. how can you not notice it already? are his actions too subtle? should he be more open?

he's the type to overthink a little bit.

but he also isn't very patient, already annoyed by your dense brain (it's not your fault, he's just not obvious with his hints). that's why he decides to confess on a random day of school while sitting next to you in english class.

"I like you. Are you dense?" something like that or also,

"Ilikeyou."

"Sorry, I didn't follow. What did you say?"

"Oh god." sighs out in annoyance, "Ilikeyou."

WHILE DATING.

while dating? oh boy, it's so awkward between the two of you — unless you're the social type of girlfriend. someone who doesn't shy away from opening up a one-sided conversation.

but on the other hand, you may have been friends before or even best friends yet it will be awkward (for him) since he doesn't know how to act. you're most likely his first girlfriend and he does not know what he should do to be a good boyfriend.

not even the videos he watched helped him but that's fine, you're here with him. you either go in together without having prior experience and learn together. or you are already experienced and guide him through the relationship.

it doesn't take long until you've grown a lot closer which leads to a lot of dates like you watching his matches, going out after club, various activities during picnics like soccer or sports in general and also playing horror games together.

rin is the type to not show much affection or interest yet he tries and you can always see his effort.

something like — sweet messages as soon as you wake up, running up to you whenever he sees you walking at the front, bringing you drinks during the short drinks, walk you home despite living in different directions.

lots and lots of study dates because he needs help in most of the subjects. after all, he has to pass all the exams or he can't play soccer in the club anymore.

sometimes he dozes off and sleeps soundly, showing his rather vulnerable side — if you're in public he would lean against you, either placing his head over your head or your shoulder, depending your height.

oh god the day you meet his parents? you're hella nervous but he reassures you quietly by holding your hand the whole time and confirms you're the one for him. his parents are quite pleased with you being his girlfriend!

the day he meets your parents? also nervous but not as nervous as you of course. he plays it off coolly, well he tries to play it off but it's not easy when your parents are kind of different than his. yet he tells them straight something like, "I want to marry her."

all in all? pretty cute, 7/10 because he doesn't have a lot of time (playing soccer 24/7). still, he tries to make up for that!

© 2024 kumasakka — do not plagiarize , copy , modify , translate our work !

[yuhi-san]

also thre has the additional help that it doesn't have to worry about walking the thin line of doing what it wants now but still being constricted by "if i stand out too much i will be melted down". both perihelions crew as well as the PresAux people know what its deal is.

and while three is clearly different from murderbot the PresAux people have by now a rough idea about what they are dealing with.

but yeah three doesn't know exactly what it wants but its very consistent with: i want to help! it wants to help its clients even if it now doesnt have to. it wants to help the random other three people! murderbot especially! its the base for murderbot 2.0 that helped set it free! also everyone around it really wants to help it too! it later wants it to use its armor because that would really help it (though frankly murderbot doesn't understand that).

it empathizes on multiple occasions I want to help

three is very clear about that. it has a bit more trouble verbalizing the spesifics like with the armor situation but still. murderbot is also really dense about subtle and not so subtle attempts of others to care for it. considering his general trouble with other sec units a lot of murderbots not understanding three is it kind of shying away from connecting with it.

three is also very brave because it was in unknown waters, just got threatened with brutal death by the monstrousity that ART is and still went to 1) confront it to disagree with its plan and tell it its a fucking dumb plan (but in more polite terms) and b) try to strongarm it into helping the barish-estranza people

which yeah it didn't need to do the second part because ART was going to drop them off anyway but three didn't know that. its all about helping

underrated funny part of system collapse is murderbot repeatedly being like 'no one knows wtf three wants to do ever because three doesn't know how to want things yet' but most of three's narration in network effect was 'i want to rescue murderbot. i want to do a good job rescuing murderbot. i hope i get a good grade in rescuing murderbot. i want to rescue murderbot so bad that im going to attempt to talk a terrifying murderous spaceship out of its plan for a planetary bombardment' mb just consistently says the most blatantly wrong shit about everyone it's ever met lmao

[queer-scots-geordie-dyke]

You're one of the only non-Jewish online people I've seen consistently blaring the alarm bells about antisemitism so I hope you don't mind ne talking about this. I'm not Jewish but figured something was up soon after Oct 7th.

I'm knackered. I don't know about you but I'm just exhausted and so I can't imagine how it must be for Jews. I'm trying to find out how to combat antisemitism online without joining big social media sites bc they terrify me. I've stopped interacting with fandom because everywhere. EVERYWHERE. You see it. People have got absolutely no idea how bad antisemitism has got. They are utterly convinced it's just anti-zionism. It is like arguing with a brick wall that's so in denial its convinced bricks don't even fucking exist.

I dont know if you feel this way too. But I genuinely feel like I'm losing my marbles a bit here. I am so scared of what will happen next. Its been 2 years of me going "something terrible is happening". I thought it was bad when the embassy members were murdered. Then an elderly Jew got literally burnt to death in public and it...it was out of the media within a week. How does that happen. I don't understand. Hasn't the world learned a damn thing from history??

I do understand exactly how you feel - a frighteningly huge amount of people have spent the last almost two years diving headlong into extreme levels of antisemitism disguised as activism, justifying and celebrating rape and murder and torture, and generally betraying every single value they pretend to hold and acting like that makes them righteous, while most other people pretend it's not happening, and speaking out about it at all gets you huge amounts of abuse.

The only advice I really have is to continue to call it out when you see it, and listen and learn from Jewish people. Campaign Against Antisemitism is a great organization I support and they have some excellent resources on their website and YouTube channel. I highly recommend their podcast that you can find through the website.

I have a lot of Jewish mutuals and followers, so hopefully some of them will also see this because they, much better than I, can advise how to be most effective.

[prettydaisygirl]

Hi love! Congrats on 1,000 followers that’s amazing! I have a request if you like it. Something along the lines of the fem!reader having a hard time and struggling (it could be depressed!reader or something more vague like just a lot of stress currently or something- just a general idea) and calling up the marauders and needing their comfort because it gets bad at night(whichever marauder you feel or all of them as friends or roommates and they notice her up - whatever you feel really) with the prompts “I’m barely holding on” “Thank you for being here for me”and “It’s okay I couldn’t sleep anyway”

hi nonnie! thank you so much for requesting and celebrating with me!! i hope you enjoy this one, i made it platonic with remus, james, and sirius <3

marauders and "thank you for being here for me"/"i'm barely holding on"/"it's okay, i couldn't sleep anyway." ✿ 701 words

cw: reader has been closed off for a few days and is struggling (can be read either as depressed or general stress), the marauders help her feel better

°˖✧✿✧˖°

You’re surprised to find Remus awake when you creep into the living room in the wee hours of the morning. You’d been planning to grab some water, your throat so dry at this point that it almost hurts to breathe, but now…

Part of you wants to try and sneak past him, grab a cup of water and dart back to the dark and quiet sanctuary of your bedroom. But you know Remus is smarter than that, and it’s proven when he speaks to you without even turning around.

“Come sit, love.” 

You follow his words easily, which is strange because these days it feels like nothing comes easily. You slide down next to him, taking a seat beside him on the couch. 

“I haven’t seen you for a couple of days.” He says, but his tone isn’t judgmental. It’s just… soft. 

“I’m sorry.” You say it like it’s a reflex.

“You don’t have to be sorry.” Remus whispers, giving a soft smile in your direction. “I’m glad to know you’re alright.”

You don’t say anything else. Neither of you speak for a long moment, and you’re okay with that. Until you remember that you came downstairs for water. 

Remus grabs your wrist when you move to stand, opening his mouth to speak, but is interrupted.

“Here, doll, I’ll get you some water.” Sirius comes bounding down the stairs like it’s the middle of the afternoon and not the middle of the night. He shoots you a wink as he ducks into the kitchen, and you try to give him a smile back but his appearance does something to your heart. It squeezes like it’s too full, like it’s going to burst, and you find you can’t do anything at all. 

Your eyes burn.

The first tear falls when he hands you the glass of water, and you crumble when you realize he got you a straw. You hold the glass with both hands, taking small sips of the water between sobs. Remus and Sirius sit there, a quiet comfort without being overwhelming. 

“Thank you for being here for me,” you say through sniffles as you use one hand to wipe at your eyes. “I’m… I’m barely holding on, to be honest.”

“It’s okay,” Sirius whispers softly, a hand finding your back, but not moving. Just there. Just warmth. “I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

Remus shoots Sirius a look, but his own hand finds your shoulder, just so you know he’s there. “We’re always here for you when you need us, dove.” 

There’s a moment when everything gets tense as James comes bounding down the stairs. He’s ready for the gym, which means it must be approaching dawn, and he looks just as in shock to see you as you all do to see him. 

“Well, have I not been invited to the family meeting?” He asks, making his way over to the three of you where you’re huddled on the couch. Remus cringes, Sirius tries to signal silently to James to stop, but you… the corner of your lip turns up and you sniffle one final time, wiping at your face. 

“We-“ you clear your throat, “we’re talking about what to have for dinner this week.”

“Oh, and you didn’t think it was important to include me in this?” James looks truly offended as he takes a seat in the chair across from the couch. Your heart does that squeezing thing again, but it doesn’t hurt so bad this time. 

“We knew if we invited you that you’d ask if you can make pot pies.” Remus’ honesty makes Sirius laugh brightly, and James’ eyes narrow.

“I can make pot pies.” James pouts and crosses his arms. 

“No, you can’t!” Sirius says through his chuckles, “James, you mess it up every time and we always have to order takeout!” 

“It’s my mother’s recipe!” 

“And she would be horrified!” Sirius insists before breaking into another fit of laughter. Remus follows shortly after, and then James breaks too.

You can’t stop the small giggles that bubble up in your throat. Their energy is infectious, and you can’t help but get sucked in. 

For just a moment, as the sun is rising, things feel lighter. 

°˖✧✿✧˖°

© prettydaisygirl

[shuastar]

of silks and steel (pt 3)

pairing: duke/commander!seungcheol x daughter of duke!reader (arranged marriage au) wc: warnings: 1 ankle injury, jealous cheol, some flirting w mingyu, oral (m receiving), fingering, cucking??? except you're in the other room..., orgasm denial, p in v sex, mirror while fingering, resolution? a/n: silks and steel is finally finished!!!! i started this late may and i cannot believe it took me like 3 months to finish this.. i hope you like this, even though the ending may be a little rushed... i may or may not add on a part 4 later :) thank you guys so much for staying with me for this!!

masterlist | prev (part 2)

y/n

The hall is dizzy with color – paper lanterns hanging in layered rows from the vaulted ceiling, glowing soft pinks and creams, flickering gently with the help of an open falme. The long banquet tables are lacquered crimson and gold, inlaid with ivory cranes and tiger lilies and rose of sharons. Courtiers in fine silk lean close to whisper behind delicately painted fans. 

Jeonghan, resplendent in white and silver, sits next to the king. 

As you and Seungcheol walk in, Jeonghan breaks out into a smile. 

You have an itching urge to punch him. 

“Fucking asshole,” you mutter under your breath, fingers pressing against the soft violet silk of your dress, the amethysts pinned in your hair jangling with every step you take. 

Seungcheol, glittering in his full military formal, glances down at you, eyebrows furrowing. “What?” he whispers. 

Your lips purse and you shake your head. “Nothing.” 

You look down at your feet. And then at the way your arm interlinks with Seungcheol’s. 

You look married. Polished. Unapproachable. 

And it’s like the banquet hall doesn’t remember how tense it was when the northern estate sent word weeks late confirming you’d be in attendance. 

To be honest, it’s all Jeonghan’s fault. 

You received the letter from Jeonghan two weeks after the imperial house sent out invitations. Seungcheol was the one who told you that you didn’t need to respond to the imperial house’s invitation. Yet, when you opened Jeonghan’s letter, Seungcheol told you to send a response. That you were going. 

It read: 

Dearest Duke. Dearest Duchess,

The capital prepares to bloom. It would be quite the scandal if its most talked-about couple failed to appear for the Spring Festival. A united front is required — by the court, by the press, and by me, your beloved friend.

You may wear matching colors. I’ll pretend it was your idea.

All my threats are affectionate,

— J.

You had half a mind to burn it. 

And yet, you found yourself sitting in the lacquered black and ivory carriage, creaking gently down the sloping road towards the capital, floral wind pressing through the narrow windows. The scent of fresh blossoms – white plum, pale apricot, something sweet and early, curling into your lungs and refusing to leave. 

Which is how you’re here: being escorted to the middle of the high table. 

Jeonghan stands to greet you with a kiss to your cheek. 

“Lovely as ever,” he whispers, gaze slipping sideways towards Seungcheol. “Try not to make your husband too jealous tonight.”

If Seungcheol hears, he says nothing. 

You get seated between him and General Kim Mingyu – someone you’ve seen on the estate a couple of times. Tan, tall, built. Cute smile. He’s also one of the youngest officers in the northern command, bright eyed, sharp jaw. Rumored to be dangerously good with a bow and worse with court women. 

As soon as you sit down, Mingyu turns. 

“Duchess,” Mingyu says with a grin, offering you a polite bow from his seat. “They say the north has frozen away the south from you. I see now it was just in time – before the capital lost all composure.” 

You arch a brow, glancing at the rice wind jug in his hand. “Is this how you greet all married women, General?” 

“Only the beautiful ones,” he shoots back, head leaning on his hand. “And only if they let me pour.” 

So you let him. 

And he pours. 

When you raise your cup to your lips, you make sure to not look at the man sitting silently at your right. 

Mingyu’s laughter is warm and just loud enough to be heard two seats down. 

“Careful. Letting me pour too many might make the Commander start a war.” 

“Let him,” you say, sipping your wine. “It’s what he’s trained to do.” 

The conversation flows. Court gossip, military drills, upcoming trade shifts. You match Mingyu line for line, and you’re not too sure whether the blush on your cheeks is because of the alcohol or because of how Mingyu tips his head back as he laughs at your jabs. The man in front of you is distracting enough to ignore how Seungcheol hasn’t touched his food, his drink, or you. 

Until suddenly, you feel a hand brush your lower back, too firm to be polite. 

Seungcheol. 

You feel his fingers tighten around your waist. 

“Duchess,” he says, voice low. “You’re tired. We’re leaving.” 

It’s not a question. Or a suggestion. 

Your cup halts mid-air. A pause in conversation. You turn to look up at him, expression blank, chin tilted just enough to be defiant. “Am I?” 

He doesn’t flinch as he leans over to murmur, “You’ve had more than enough.” 

He offers you a hand. A peace offering. Or a threat. 

You don’t take it, but you still rise. 

The room quiets just slightly at the sight. 

Jeonghan raises a curious brow. Mingyu watches you with an amused little bow of his head, all mock chivalry and mischief. 

“Until summer training, Duchess,” Mingyu teases, turning back to the table. 

You don’t answer, letting seungcheol lead you away. First out the banquet hall, and then through the side corridors gilded with moonlight, then into the carriage. 

The entire time, he doesn’t speak a words, fingers gripping your wrist. When the carriages gives a start with the horses, he doesn’t speak. Not when the doors open. Not when he walks you up the steps to your shared Capital estate suite. And not when the servants rush to open the sliding wooden doors. And definitely not when the servants dismiss themselves, sensing the tension between the two of you. 

The moment the doors close, you wrench your wrist out of his grasp, turning to face him. 

“If you have something to say–” you start, turning on your heel, almost tripping over the silk hem of your hanbok. 

“--don’t let him touch you like that.” 

You blink. What the hell? 

“And who are you to tell me what to do?” you snap, crossing your arms. 

Seungcheol’s jaw tightens but he doesn’t say say anything. Yet the way his fists clench at his sides, the way he looks at you like you’ve betrayed him back in the banquet room itches the wrong part of your brain. 

Finally he says, lowly, “You’re a duchess.” 

As if that’s something you’re not aware of. As if that’s supposed to mean something to you. 

So you laugh, bitter. “Thank god you remember! If not for you, I would’ve continued on not knowing.” 

He ignores the jab. “You’re my wife.” 

Even more so, like that’s supposed to mean something to you. Like you don’t know he’s regretting that fact ever since he signed his name on that paper. 

“By order,” you say, “Not by choice.” 

That makes him look at you – really look at you.

And for a moment, you think he might say something – admit something, maybe – but instead, he just turns his back, pulling at the collar of his formal jacket until it comes loose. His voice is like ash. 

“You drank too much.” 

“So? It’s a feast. You’re supposed to drink.” 

Silence. 

“So I’ve realized. Drink and let other men pour you drinks, right?”

You exhale, deep and sharp, fury trembling just beneath the surface of your skin.  

“Why do you care who pours my wine? Just fucking act like yourself. Why do you return back to stupid excuses? Just say that you want me to sit still and act pretty and be a quiet little wife you can control because you–” 

“--because I care, y/n!” He turns around, hair mussed, collar uneven and crumpled. “I care, y/n,” he repeats, stepping closer. 

He’s close enough now for you to see the brown flecks in his eyes and smell the wisps of his cologne left on his silks and the rose water he washes himself with. You can see the way he swallows. You can see the way his eyes dart from your eyes to your lips to your throat and then back up at your forehead, only to settle somewhere in the middle of your face. You see the way his fingers twitch and the way his brows furrow. 

Everything pisses you off. The fact that he pulled you out of the hall, the fact that he’s taller than you, the fact that he looks handsome under the dim candle light, the fact that he said those words, and the fact that you know he meant it.

You stare at him, heart hammering. You swallow. “I never asked you to.” 

Silence. 

And then. 

“You think that absolves you?” Seungcheol’s voice hardens, cracking through the quiet like a blade drawn through rock. He steps closer. You take a stumbling step back. Apparently that was not the right thing to say. “That just because you didn’t ask, I’m not supposed to–”

“-Supposed to what?” you snap back, sharp and cold. “Care from a distance? Pretend to be indifferent in court and play the devoted husband in private?”

“I am indifferent in court because every single fuckin’ time I look at you, someone’s watching,” he growls. “You think I don’t notice? You think I want to make this harder for you–”

“-Then stop! Stop making it fucking harder!” you shout, suddenly, violently. You feel your throat close. “Why do you keep doing this?” you gesture wildly around you. “Tugging me in only to push me away like you’re the only one suffering from this– this arrangement!” 

His jaw clenches. “You think I’m not?” 

“You’re not!” you scream, tears blurring your vision. You sound hysterical, even to your own ears. Like something is seriously wrong with you. “At least you get fucking everything,” you cry, foot stomping down on the ground. “You got everything,” you breathe, “Your position, your title, your reputation, a new Capital estate, a southern duchy, a cunt to shove your fucking dick in when it gets cold, and a virgin wife.” Your words are sharp and cold and so very rushed, chest heaving.

Seungcheol is suddenly in your face, glowering. “I don’t fucking care that you’re a virgin. I don’t fucking care about the houses. Don’t fucking delegate a consensual night into something that you didn’t fucking want.” 

You throw your hands up. “Okay, fine! Fine! Fine!” You slam your fist into your chest, tears finally overflowing down your cheeks. “Then what about me? Me? I got handed over to another man like some– some pet to be managed!”

“And you think that was my choice?” 

The room rings with it. 

Your breaths are ragged now. Yours and his. 

You’re sure everyone has heard your fighting match, word for word. 

He steps towards you, slow and deliberate, voice shaking with restraint. “You think I don’t hate myself for what I’ve become to you? For what this has done to us?” 

You flinch. “Us?” you repeat, scoffing, mocking. “What us, Commander? What fucking us? You made sure there was no us.” 

He exhales like the wind’s been knocked from his lungs. “That’s not fair, y/n.” 

Your eyes sting. 

You wish he would stop saying your name. 

His voice drops, dangerously soft. “I watch you. Every day. I memorize your voice, your habits, the way your fingers twitch when someone says something stupid. And it kills me.” 

“Then stop watching me,” you whisper. 

“I can’t.” 

Your fingers tremble at your sides. A tear drops to the floor between your feet. 

“Don’t you get it?” he says, almost desperate now. “If I let myself feel anything more than duty, I’ll ruin you. I’ll ruin everything.” 

The words crack through your ribs like thunder. 

And then your hands are on his chest, shoving him back. 

His back hits the wall with a dull thud, breath punched out of him, and you step in fast – heat and fury and grief all tangled in your limbs – and your mouth finds his, hands pulling at his hair. 

It’s not soft or tender. 

It’s raw and angry and laced with years of silence and sacrifice. You kiss him like you hate him. Like he’s a wound you’re digging your fingers into to tear open further. Your teeth catch on his bottom lip, pulling, biting down. His hands tangle in your hair, rough, helpless, arm winding down to your waist to pull you closer. His body collides with yours like it belongs there.

When he groans, it sounds like surrender. To you. To himself. To this shitty situation. 

And when you finally pull back, breathless, trembling, back on your feet, looking up at him, you whisper, “Then ruin me.” Your hands fist the lapels of his robe. “Maybe then I’ll think you actually care.” 

Seungcheol stiffens. His jaw clenches. His breath fans hot against your cheek. 

“I–”

But the words die on his tongue. 

Your hands slip beneath his robe, cold fingers trailing down – his chest, stomach, hips. 

He exhales, head lowering, sharp and shallow, when your fingers tease the waistband of his pants, pulling down until they wrap around him, already half-hard and aching. You give him no time to react, no room to think. You drop to your knees on the polished wood floor of the hallway, lit dim by a flickering wall lamp behind the rice paper screen.

"Wait," he manages, but you’re already pushing the silk of his waistband down and taking him into your mouth, slow and spiteful and hungry.

His breath hitches. His head falls back against the wall with a thud.

"Fuck—"

You hollow your cheeks, dragging your tongue along the underside of his cock, slow and cruel. You let him feel the wet heat of your mouth wrap around him inch by inch — until your lips press flush against the base and your nose brushes skin.

He curses again, voice rough and cracking, his chest rising in sharp jerks. You hum around him, just to feel the tremor in his thighs.

Your gaze never leaves his face — narrowed, wet eyes glinting with something colder than lust. Not out of submission, but anger. And it shows. Every stroke of your tongue says this is what you could’ve had, and every swirl over his tip says but you didn’t want it.

He tries to touch you — a trembling hand reaches for your cheek, your hair, desperate for connection, but you slap it away without pausing. He groans, caught between pleasure and punishment.

“Let me—” he breathes out, but you sink down harder, deeper, making his hips jerk against the wall.

He’s trying not to fuck into your mouth, but you’re not giving him a choice. You grip his thighs tight, fingers bruising, and set a brutal rhythm — fast, slick, wet — dragging moans from his throat as you bob your head with precise vengeance.

Drool spills down your chin, and your tongue flattens and twists with purpose, tasting him, memorizing him. Your throat tightens around him as he hits the back again, again, until he gasps your name like he hates himself for it.

You feel him twitch, hips stuttering forward despite himself. His legs shake. He’s so close — you can feel it in the way his stomach tightens, in the ragged way he breathes, in the broken sound that tears out of him when you moan around his cock.

But just when you feel him start to unravel — right when he shudders and his hand fists at his side, trying not to beg, you stop.

You pull off with a wet, obscene pop, leaving him flushed and shaking, chest heaving, cock glistening with spit and still rock hard.

And when he looks down at you — dazed, ruined, aching — you just wipe your mouth, tilt your head, and whisper, “You don’t get to finish if I don’t. What happened to chivalry?” 

He barely has time to process it when you grab his hand and shove it between your legs, right through the slit of your skirt, soaked underwear pressing to his knuckles. 

You lean your cheek against his thick and straining bicep, lashes fluttering up at him, mocking. You give his shoulder a kiss. 

“Do it,” you murmur. “Since you care so much.” 

And gods, he does.

His fingers hesitate only a second before slipping past the ruined silk, parting you. The tips find your entrance, wet and pulsing, and slide in. Two of them — thick and unrelenting. The stretch makes you cry out softly, high and sharp into his chest, but you don’t stop him. You can’t. You won’t.

You ride the pain. You need it — the intrusion, the fullness, the raw friction of it all. Like something in you’s been starving and only this kind of hurt can fill it.

He presses his palm firmly against your clit, dragging maddening circles that make your thighs tremble, and your body lurches against him. Your forehead drops to his chest. You fist the front of his robe, gasping, whimpering, barely holding on as his fingers work deeper — curling, thrusting, relentless.

The sound of it is obscene — slick and wet, your breath catching with every pump of his hand, every grind of his palm.

“Fuck—” you whisper into his collar. “Don’t stop. Don’t you fucking stop—”

Your legs buckle. The wall is the only thing holding you upright — that, and the firm grip of his free hand on your waist, steadying you, grounding you as everything inside you spirals higher.

It builds fast, almost violently. The heat in your belly tightens to a breaking point, pleasure clawing up your spine, sharp and wild and terrifying. Your hips jerk against his hand. Your eyes squeeze shut. Your mouth falls open in a silent scream—

And then you shatter.

Your cunt clenches down hard around his fingers. Your whole body convulses — chest heaving, muscles locking, slick gushing out around his hand as you cry out into his skin. It’s raw. Ugly. Devastating.

You gasp for air like it’s been stolen from you. Your hands tremble as they clutch his robe. Your thighs are soaked. Your vision blurs.

He’s still inside you — still holding you like you might fall apart completely. You feel his pulse hammering where your cheek rests against his chest, feel the way his breath has turned shaky too, like he’s just barely holding himself back.

And maybe he whispers your name. Maybe he tries to hold you tighter. Maybe there’s a softness in him now, something tentative and real trying to reach you.

But you don’t let it.

Not now.

You peel yourself off his chest with shaking limbs, his fingers slipping out of you with a wet drag that makes you twitch.

Your fingers wrap around the wrist of his hand that just fucked you, bringing it up to your face. Before he can say anything, you lower your mouth until your tongue touches his fingers and then your lips envelop it, tasting yourself on his digits. 

Seungcheol lets out a sound stuck between pain, awe, and disbelief. 

You pull his fingers out of your mouth with a pop, letting go of his wrist. 

He stares at his hand for a second before looking back at you. 

You meet his gaze, lips still red and kiss-swollen, straightening your skirts.

You smile, bitter, and say, “Too late.” 

Then you turn around, leaving him standing there in the entrance way into your two rooms, chest rising, cock still hard, fingers wet with your slick and spit, blushed cheeks, and wide eyes. 

It’s a blur to your room. 

You slam the sliding screen door shut harder than you mean to, hands laid flat against the handle. 

The silence in your room is deafening. 

Your skin tingles – from his touch, your mouth, the look of desperation in his eyes. The press of his fingers inside you lingers like an imprint beneath your ribs. 

You groan, head in your hands. “What the fuck were you thinking,” you mutter to yourself, slipping behind your changing screen to undress, shrugging out of your heavy skirt, undoing the ties of your blouse, slipping into your nightgown. The rush of coll fabric against your skin barely helps calm the hum in your chest. 

And then, just as you duck behind your sleeping screen, you hear it. 

At first, it’s faint. 

A soft creak. The sound of footsteps. A door sliding shut. 

And then, a low grunt. 

The unmistakable slick sound of skin against skin. 

You freeze. 

The walls between your chambers and his are paper-thin — old hanji stretched across wooden frames, meant for beauty, not privacy. And now you can hear everything.

Another moan. This time sharper, followed by a frustrated curse, his voice muffled but deep, feral.

It’s Seungcheol.

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know they put you in the room next to his for the visit. He doesn’t know you can hear every breathless groan, every low murmur of your name on his lips like a prayer spat from the tongue of a sinner.

Your breath catches. Your thighs clench involuntarily.

You press a trembling hand between your legs before you can stop yourself. And when the next moan comes — ragged and broken, his pace quickening — you let yourself fall back onto the floor cushions and close your eyes.

It’s shameless. It’s humiliating.

And yet your fingers slip lower, easily, greedily. You touch yourself with shaking hands, matching the rhythm of his breaths, grinding against your own palm as the sounds on the other side of the wall grow louder.

You can hear how hard he’s fucking his fist.

You imagine his face. The way his brow furrows when he loses control. The way he must be thinking about you — mouth swollen, skirt bunched at your hips, legs spread in front of him. The way you looked when you left him trembling.

Your hips buck. Your breath turns choppy.

And when he groans — loud, desperate, and then shudders through his release with a rough, guttural sound — your name ghosting out of him like a dying ember—

You fall over the edge with him.

Your body tightens and shudders, fingers buried deep, head thrown back as pleasure takes you like a flood. You bite your knuckles to keep from crying out.

And then it’s quiet again.

Just the sound of your own breathing. Of your heartbeat thudding in your ears. Of the faint drip of cooling oil from the lantern on your desk.

You lie there behind your screen for a long time, dazed and trembling.

—

The lanterns above the Capital’s main avenue glow soft and golden, swaying gently in the spring breeze. Music spills from every corner – drums, flutes, the laughter of children. The scent of street foot curls through the air: sweet rice cakes, grilled meats, steaming dumplings, soft tofu. 

You should’ve been back at the estate by now, but you didn’t want to face the empty halls yet. 

So you told him, simply, “I want tteokbokki,” and began to walk towards the stalls like you hadn’t noticed how long he hesitated at your words. 

To his credit, Seungcheol said nothing. He just followed behind you, one hand resting on the sword strapped to his hip like a soldier on watch. Since two nights ago, his silence continued, tense and rigid, drawing a thick line that you’re both too stubborn to cross. And tonight was no different. He hasn’t looked at you since breakfast at the palace. 

You would enjoy the sudden distance if he at least looked you in the eyes for more than point five seconds. You would enjoy it if it didn’t hurt. 

You squeeze through the crowd, the back of your silk hanbok trailing just slightly behind you. You look back once in a while to see if Seungcheol’s behind you, and all five of those times you see him reach for your skirt as if to keep it from being stepped on or touching the ground. If it wasn’t here, you would have laughed at how he looks with your cup of sweet rice balls in one hand and another on his sword. 

You navigate past a pair of laughing teenagers when you look back. You can’t see him for a second, separated by the group coming from the side. 

When you look back in front of you, you see a flash of fabric from your left. 

A burly man barrels into you from the side: drunk, probably, and loud and careless. His shoulder slams into yours and his elbow jabs your side. Your eyes go wide and before you know it, you feel a foot stomp down on the back of your skirt, a hand from the same shoulder shoves your back, knocking you off balance entirely. You feel it in slow motion: your foot twisting wrong against the uneven stone walkway as you stagger forward. 

It’s almost immediate: you hitting the ground hard, pain radiating sharply from your ankle to your knee, hands scraping against the dirt floor. 

Your hands fly to your ankle as a gasp bursts out of you, face scrunching in pain as you lower your head. You feel dirt under your legs, skirts ripped in some places. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

The street seems to come to a standstill. 

You look up, eyes blurring with tears. 

Seungcheol. 

His voice is ice – cutting. You glance up to see his hand slam into the stranger’s chest, the cup of rice cakes gone from his hand, tucked in somewhere into the folds of his robes. He shoves the stranger back hard enough to nearly topple him. 

The man stumbles back, confused. “What– wha’s yer pro’lem?” he slurs, swatting the air a few seconds after Seungcheol’s hand leaves his chest. 

You blink as Seungcheol gets into the man’s face. “You just knocked over a woman in the middle of the street and didn’t even glance back.” His voice is dangerously quiet, the hand by his sword twitching at his side like he wants to do more. “Are you blind or just fucking slow?” 

The man raises his hands, blinking at Seungcheol’s face. “I-I didn’t mean to-! How was I supposed to know she’s your–”

The man pales before he finishes his sentence. His eyes widen as he seemingly registers Seungcheol’s face, stumbling into a bow.The weight of exactly who he just shoved to the ground, maybe. 

Only then does the man give you a weak and awkward bow, laughing weakly. “My deepest apologies, madam – duchess! – I didn’t see–”

You’re barely listening to him because the pain pulses up your leg like a heartbeat, and your hands shake from the shock of it, head spinning. You try to stand, hands pushing up against the ground, but wince, ankle giving out beneath you. 

You wave away hands when a crowd of women swarm forward. 

In a flash, Seungcheol’s crouching beside you. 

“Don’t,” he says softly, and for the first time in days, he looks you in the eyes. “Don’t try to walk on it. Let me see.” 

You open your mouth to protest, to say anything, but he’s already pulling off one of his gloves with his teeth, gently pushing up the hem of your skirt to assess the swelling. You flinch at the warmth of his hand, calloused and careful. 

He exhales slowly, lowering your skirt. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. “It’s twisted. You need to elevate it.” 

And without asking, he lifts you, one arm under your knees, the other around your back. 

You almost jump out of your skin. “Seungcheol–” Your eyes go wide. 

“Shut up,” he mutters. But there’s no heat in it. Just panic and guilt, as if you falling was his fault. 

When he rises, your hand instinctively goes around his neck, hands tight on his shoulder. 

You can feel it now. His jaw is clenched tight, his grip trembling. Everyone is staring and whispering and bowing and staring. Your cheeks warm at the sudden attention on you. 

When he parts through the crowd, arms firm against your weight, you lay your head against his shoulder, swallowing. 

He looks down at you briefly, the hand on your shoulder coming up to move you hair from your face. 

He looks so worried, so guilt-stricken that the words escape you before you even know it: “I’m fine.” 

“I know. But I’m not.” His voice is thick and low, vibrating against you. 

And the silence resumes, his arms never shifting, his pace steady despite your protests that you can walk just fine. 

“You’ll make it worse,” is all he says, jaw still tight. He doesn’t look at you once. 

When you reach the residence, the servants scatter at his glare, you in his arms, and a single command: “Bring bandages and a cold compress. Now.” 

By the time he lays you down gently on your floor mattress, the sun has long dipped beneath the rooftops, the lantern light glowing soft against the rice paper walls. You’ve discarded your outer jeogori behind the screen, clad only in your skirts that hang from your shoulders, one of the straps of your skirts slipping down your shoulder. The spring air feels heavier than it should as you sit there, quiet, fiddling your fingers. 

Seungcheol kneels in front of you, sleeves rolled past his forearms, brows furrowed as he carefully presses the cold cloth against your swollen ankle. You flinch at the sudden change in temperature. So he moves slowly, as though he’s afraid to hurt you more. Or maybe afraid of what he might do to you. 

When he begins to wrap the bandage, your foot resting on his thigh, you whisper, “Do we have anything for the pain?” 

He pauses, looking at you. “You should sleep.” 

“I said for the pain,” you repeat, already knowing what you want. 

You see the instinctive answer flash in his eyes before he says it: no. 

But you tilt your head and murmur, fingers lightly brushing the back of his hand. “Please?” 

So he sighs, disappearing briefly, only to return with a familiar bottle of sake – pale glass, expensive, the same from your academy days. He brings with him two cups, though you’re almost 100% sure it’s just for formality or some weird respect for your wishes. Whatever it is, he only pours in one cup – not much, just enough to warm your chest. 

You down one cup. 

He pours one more

You down the second. 

Another. 

You down the third. 

You lean back on your palms, cheeks flushed, eyes half-lidded as the warmth of the drink settles into your bones. 

He watches the third with a frown and a shake of his head. 

“That’s enough.” 

You pout. “You’re no fun.” 

“I’m not supposed to be fun. I’m you–” he cuts himself off before he can finish the word, the air between you turning tense. He averts his gaze. In this lighting, he looks so handsome. 

“You know,” you say slowly, swallowing, “you never came to find me.”

His brows furrow. “What are you talking about?” 

“The entryway,” you say, dragging the syllables, teasing. ��After I left. That night.” 

His entire body stills, frozen. 

You keep going, powered through by the alcohol or maybe just some weird sort of bravery. “I thought you’d maybe knock on my door. Drag me back – finish what I started, you know,” you say, tilting your head, mock-innocent. “But you didn’t.”

Seungcheol looks away, jaw flexing, hands in his lap. 

Your shift on the mattress, your bandaged foot tucked just under your crooked good leg. “So you either didn’t want me that badly–” 

Seungcheol’s head whips back, brows furrowed. “--Don’t.” 

But you continue, grinning. “--or you helped yourself.” 

You see your words hit him, registering his brain as well. His gaze flicks to you, sharp and dangerous, and you can almost see the way he’s searching for the right words. “You really want to know?” 

Your smile is already crooked. “I already do. The walls are made of paper, remember?” 

He goes quiet. Then, almost too lowly, he says, “Should I have said your name?” 

Your breath catches in your throat. 

He stands slowly, forcing your head to tilt up. “That night,” his voice is hoarse, rough, “I–” he stops himself, looking down at you like he’s trying to memorize the sight of you, all confused, staring up at him with parted lips and tight chest. “I should have come to you.” 

That sounds like a statement rather than a question. 

You blink once. The sake in your veins buzzes louder than your few coherent thoughts. 

He takes another step closer. “But if I had, I wouldn’t have stopped,” he whispers, leaning down. “And you deserve much more than that.” 

You laugh – soft, bitter, and disbelieving. “I don’t even know what I deserve anymore.” 

He kneels, the bottle between you. The past between you. Your breaths between you. His hands, careful as they rest beside your hips on the mattress. 

“If I may be so bold,” he murmurs, eyes flickering down to your lips, “I know what I want.” 

And suddenly, like the oxygen’s been sucked out, the room feels very, very small. 

You can hear Seungcheol’s breath – shallow, caught somewhere between restraint and collapse. 

The silence stretches. 

You can hear the faint rattle of spring wind against the hanok’s wooden beams, the hiss of your own exhale as you blink slowly – still tipsy, but too aware. Of him. Of the heat beneath your skin. Of the fact that he’s still kneeling between your legs, bandages long forgotten.

“You always come back when I’m hurting,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “Is that all I am to you?” 

“No,” he answers. Too quickly. Then quieter, hoarser: “It’s the only time you let me near you.” 

Your breath stutters. 

And maybe it’s a mistake – maybe this is all a mistake – but your fingers curl into the bedding. Not to push him away but to steady yourself. 

“You always want,” you say quietly, the alcohol loosening your tongue just enough. “But you never take.” 

He flinches like you’ve struck him. 

“I take what’s offered,” he says after a moment. His gaze dips to the curve of your collarbone, the undone lacing of your undershift. “And you–” his voice breaks, just slightly. “You never stay long enough to give.” 

You tilt your head, a smile playing at the corner of your lips. “So take, Commander.” 

It’s a dare – threatening – slurred with the remnants of three cups of sake and years of resentment. Yet there’s something else in it too – something more dangerous. 

You reach for the bottle from the side and take one last sip before crawling forward, your movement forcing him back onto his heels. You swing a leg over his lap and settle there, straddling him lazily. The silk of your nightdress rides up your thighs, exposing bare skin. Your palms brace lightly on his shoulders. You can feel his breath stutter beneath you, can feel the tight coil of his thigh muscles tense where your body meets his. 

His hands hover near your hips, not touching, but shaking, almost. 

You reach behind you without breathing eye contact, dragging your floor mirror towards the two of you. He watches, confused at first. But when the lacquered wood clinks into place and your reflection blooms between you both – your flushed skin, your tousled hair, the loose shift of your clothes – his lips part slightly. 

“Let me teach you,” you murmur, fingers drifting down the center of his chest. “How to tease properly.” 

Seungcheol’s eyes narrow. “You’re drunk.” Yet his fingers grip against your waist. 

“Tipsy,” you correct with a sly grin. “And honest.” 

His voice comes out low, face too close to yours. “You think you know how to tease?” 

“I know how to make you look,” you say. 

And then you start to move – barely a roll of your hips, but it’s enough. Enough for the friction to make his hands finally – finally – travel up your back. 

“You shouldn’t play with things you don’t understand,” he hums, nose brushing your cheek. 

“Oh, I understand just fine.” You glance at the mirror, letting your gaze rake over the way he’s holding you, the way his knuckles go white where he grips your skin. “You’re the one who’s out of his depth.” 

Seungcheol exhales through his nose. There’s a storm that you can feel building in his chest. You can see it in the mirror – his jaw clenched, his throat working around a swallow, his arms flexed from the effort of holding back. 

But then he moves. 

One swift motion, and he pulls you flush against him, your back pressed to his chest now, thighs caging you in place between his legs. Your gasp is sharp, shocked, and then his hand is wrapping around your wrist and dragging it down to rest on your own thigh. His palm covering yours in the reflection. 

“You want to tease?” his breath ghosts along the shell of your ear, low and dangerous. “Then watch what it does to someone.” 

He spreads your legs just slightly with a firm nudge of his knee. The shift is subtle but electric. His hand on yours begins to move, slow and deliberate, guiding your fingers beneath the hem of your thin shift. The air hits your inner thighs and you shiver. 

“I want you to see what you do to me,” he murmurs. “I want you to feel it. Hear it. Know it.” 

You’re breathing hard now, chest rising and falling in uneven rhythms, your eyes locked on the mirror – on the raw, molten thin between you both that has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with what you’ve never let yourselves say. 

His other hand comes up, threading into your hair, tilting your head so your gaze can’t stray from the reflection. “Keep watching,” he says. “Don’t look away.” 

You watch as his hands skim up your thighs, slow and patient, thumbs brushing soft circles into your skin. His gaze doesn’t leave yours, not even when he leans down to press a kiss to your temple, forcing a small, sharp gasp as his hands move lower. 

And yours do too. 

Your breath catches the moment your fingers brush over his, both your hands moving in tandem, sliding low over the curve of your hip. His palm is hot beneath yours, his touch deliberate and grounding. The image in the mirror is almost too much: your flushed skin, your parted lips, his broad frame curled behind you like something just barely kept at bay. 

He presses his mouth to your ear, voice low and dark. 

“Baby,” he mumbles, mouth to your ear, “slower.” He guides your fingers with his. “Let it ache, yeah.” 

You try to resist – just to be difficult and just to prove that he doesn’t own you – but the second he rolls his hips forward, the weight of him pressed against your back, that willpower disappears. You inhale sharply. 

Two fingers slide through your folds, gentle at first, testing. You flinch at the sudden intimate contact but fall back into his embrace as his other arm comes to wrap around your middle, pulling you tighter against him. His breath stutters, and he leans closer, one hand bracing himself beside your hip while the other works you open with excruciating slowness. The slick sound that follows is obscene. 

He watches your face as he curls his fingers inside you—every twitch of your mouth, every shift of your brows. He adjusts to the rhythm that makes your thighs tremble, makes your breath stutter in your throat.

“Say something,” he breathes, like he needs proof this is real. “Say anything.”

You don’t.

You reach for him instead—his collar, his hair, something to hold onto—because your voice will betray how much you missed this.

Missed him.

When you bring his lips down onto yours, he whispers, “Good girl,” against your pout. 

The words tremble through you. 

You jolt, knees drawing up instinctively, but his legs trap yours open and trembling. You make a small, strangled noise as he presses harder—fingers circling, teasing, just shy of giving you what you want.

“You asked what you deserve?” he murmurs. “This. To be touched slow. Worshipped. Ravaged.”

“Then why—” your voice cracks as he slides one finger inside you, dragging it out agonizingly slow, “—why do you only do this when I’m broken?”

His rhythm stutters. The pain in his expression ripples across the mirror before he controls it again.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly, pressing another finger inside, pushing deeper. “Maybe because I know you’ll let me break with you.”

Your throat tightens around a sob you don’t let out. He begins to move faster—not cruelly, not punishing—but there’s a simmering desperation behind it now. A silent apology. A confession without words.

You arch against him, your palm gripping his wrist as your breath turns into whimpers. “Seungcheol—”

“Let go,” he says, biting at your shoulder. “Don’t hold back. You never do when you hate me.”

The words are a challenge, a punishment, an invitation. You break the second he crooks his fingers and leans in to whisper, “Let me feel you fall apart.”

And you do. With a cry muffled into his throat, you fall apart like a dam finally giving way. You twitch, tremble, collapse against his chest as your body clenches around him, pulse loud in your ears. He doesn’t stop—not yet. He works you through it, past it, into it again, until you’re sobbing into the crook of his neck, hiccuping and writhing in his lap, trying to twist away from the overwhelming sensation.

But he holds you in place. A hand at your navel, firm. “One more.”

“Seungcheol—” Your voice is wrecked. “I can’t—”

“You can.” He sounds wrecked, too. “I’ve got you. Just one more.”

His fingers are slick, relentless. You try to crawl away, but he only presses you tighter to him, whispering your name like a prayer, like a curse, like everything he never got to say in that hallway eight years ago.

 You’re still shaking when he finally slows, fingers slick and buried to the knuckle inside you. Your breath hiccups against his collarbone, chest heaving, face hot and wet and buried in his neck.

“Shh,” he whispers. “I know. I know, baby.”

You want to push him away. You want to pull him closer. Your legs twitch with the aftershocks and your throat is raw, but you still cling to him, like drowning people do to the thing that’s dragging them under.

His hand finally withdraws, and you whimper at the loss. He doesn’t let you go far.

“Still with me?” he murmurs, lips brushing your temple. You nod, barely. Your muscles are boneless, useless, but when you feel the heat of him—his cock pressed hard and aching into your backside—you realize just how much restraint he’s been holding back with.

Too much.

You turn your head slightly, enough to see him in the mirror again. His pupils are blown, lips red from your kiss, hair falling messily over his brow.

“Cheol,” you breathe. Your voice is hoarse.

He hesitates—but only for a moment.

“Tell me to stop,” he says. “Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll—”

“I want it,” you whisper.

He exhales hard through his nose like something in him finally snaps loose.

And then he moves—fast, but not rough, shifting you gently onto your hands and knees across the vanity bench. He makes sure you’re steady, one palm splayed against your lower back, the other curling around your hand on the bench as he lines himself up behind you.

You’re still so wet it doesn’t take much. The head of his cock slides through your folds, teasing, nudging—and when he finally pushes in, slow and deep, the stretch makes your entire body lock and quake.

Your mouth falls open with a broken gasp.

“God,” he chokes, forehead dropping to your spine. “You feel the same. Still the same—tight, warm—fuck, I missed you.”

You don’t answer. You can’t. All you can do is shudder as he sinks all the way in, slow and sure, letting you feel every inch. He bottoms out with a groan, hands gripping your hips like they’re the only things anchoring him to this world.

He stays there for a moment, buried inside you, breathing hard.

You think he might pull out and slow it down again—but he doesn’t.

He pulls back and thrusts in once, deep, and your whole body jolts forward.

You cry out.

Again—harder this time.

And again.

Your hand scrabbles for the floorboards, for anything, but he doesn’t let you fold forward. He keeps you upright with a hand splayed across your belly, the same way he did when he made you come on his fingers.

“Keep watching,” he growls into your ear, his rhythm picking up. “You deserve to see what you do to me.”

You catch your own reflection: flushed and wild-eyed, lips parted, hair clinging to your sweat-damp face. And him—behind you, over you, inside you—like he’s been waiting years for this moment. Maybe he has.

“Tell me again,” he pants, slamming into you. “Say you want this.”

You can barely think. But you manage it—wrecked and slurred and desperate.

“I want you,” you cry, eyes glassy in the mirror. “I always did.”

That breaks something in him.

His thrusts grow erratic, almost frantic, like he’s trying to bury himself into you so deep he could stay there forever. Like if he just fucks you hard enough, he can rewrite the years between you.

And when you fall apart again—louder this time, his name a raw, sobbed whisper—he lets go too, right after you, spilling into you with a groan that’s all teeth and guilt and grief.

He doesn’t pull out.

He doesn’t move.

He just slumps over you, breath stuttering, hand still clutching yours.

You feel your head loll and tears flow down your heated cheeks, face buried in Seungcheol’s arms. 

He doesn’t speak at first.

Neither do you.

The room is still, save for the sound of your uneven breathing and the quiet creak of the wooden floorboards beneath the both of you. You're half-slumped in his lap, your body spent and trembling, his chest pressed to your back as he holds you with both arms wrapped firmly around your waist.

His touch isn’t greedy anymore. Just warm. Anchoring. Like he’s afraid that if he lets go, you’ll vanish with the night.

Your body aches. Your thighs are sticky with a slow warmth that’s beginning to cool against your skin. The silk of your underskirt is bunched around your hips, half-soaked, and there’s a dull, pulsing soreness blooming between your legs that makes it hard to even think about moving. You should clean yourself up. Fix your clothes. Pull away.

But you don’t.

Maybe you don’t know how.

Maybe you don’t want to.

“…Are you going to stay?” you ask, your voice hoarse and small. It barely carries through the room.

You feel his breath hitch before you hear his answer. His nose brushes against the damp strands of hair at your nape, his grip tightening just enough for you to feel the way your question sinks into him.

“Only if you let me,” he murmurs.

You nod—so slightly he might not have felt it, if not for your hand fumbling back to find his. Fingers still sticky with what you did together, trembling faintly, but you find his palm and pull it over your chest. Right over your heart.

He laces your fingers together. Keeps them there.

Neither of you speak after that. Not when he shifts to sit up straighter, not when he gently moves you off his lap and onto the low sleeping mat set atop the wooden floor. His touch never strays too far. You feel him rise to his feet beside you, feel the draft of the room as he pulls on his under-robe loosely and walks over to the basin.

The sound of water pouring into a shallow bowl is faint, but it echoes in the stillness. You turn your face into the pillow. It smells like herbs and starch and a little like him. There’s a whisper of cloth being wrung out, a quiet sigh, and then the softest touch at your knee.

“Can I?” he asks.

You nod, barely lifting your head, eyes fluttering shut.

He’s gentle.

A warm, damp cloth runs along the inside of your thighs—slow and tender. Never rushed. He doesn’t speak while he cleans you, but he works with the kind of reverence that makes your chest ache. He holds your ankle to shift your leg just slightly, dragging the cloth up through the mess between your legs, wiping you down until it no longer feels raw, but soothed.

Every pass is careful, like he’s trying not to wake whatever fragile thing exists between you now.

When he finishes, he presses a dry cloth between your thighs to pat you clean. Then he tugs your underskirts back down and pulls the blanket over your body.

You expect him to leave.

Instead, he crouches beside the mat again and lies down next to you, easing onto his side. 

The words escape you without warning: “Do you regret it?” 

“Regret? Regret what?” seungcheol gives you a confused look, eyebrows furrowed.

The distance between you is small—just enough to feel like it’s deliberate. As if he’s still giving you the chance to send him away.

But you don’t.

Your eyes are hooded with sleep. “This. Sex. Fucking me. Whatever you want to call us.” 

Seungcheol is quiet before he speaks again. “I will never regret anything with you. Even more so, since we’re married.” 

You huff out a breath, eyes fluttering shut. You can hear the rustle of fabrics as Seungcheol climbs into the bed with you. “Not even the marriage? You don’t regret that?” Your voice sounds so meek, even to your own ears. You’re not too sure why – maybe because you’re afraid of the truth? Of his truth? Or perhaps because you already knew the answer to the question and the fact that it would be articulated with Seungcheol’s own mouth scared you shitless. 

Seungcheol’s body is firm and warm behind you. And it just stays like that – behind you, not touching, not brushing, his breath barely whispering across your neck. 

“Storm,” Seungcheo murmurs, and the sudden nickname you haven’t heard in a while makes you flinch, “if anything, I regret that the least.” 

Quite literally, you’re at a loss for words. What does a woman reply to that anyways?

So you fall asleep like that. Facing the wall, the scent of clean linen and the echo of his touch on your skin.

–

When you wake, the light seeping through the paper windows is pale and silvered, like mist. The brazier has long gone cold, and the air has taken on a sharpness that bites faintly at your skin where the quilt has slipped down your shoulders. The ache in your limbs makes itself known slowly—your hips, your thighs, the inside of your legs still tender. A dull soreness radiates through you, layered with a kind of sweet, aching fullness.

You’re not sure what woke you—whether it was the cold, or the emptiness of the space beside you.

Then you feel it. A presence. Still. Solid.

He’s still there.

You shift slowly under the quilt, your pulse catching as your eyes adjust. He’s lying flat on his back, arms folded behind his head, his gaze distant as he stares at the ceiling. His robe has loosened in the night—parted slightly to reveal the clean line of his collarbone and the faint shadows of old scars, pale against his skin. His hair’s come undone, loose strands brushing the side of his face, his expression unreadable.

You wonder if he regrets it.

Or worse (better?) — if he doesn’t.

You watch him in silence for a long moment. You’re not sure if he knows you’re awake until his eyes flick over to you. Just once. Brief.

You don’t look away.

Neither does he.

“…You’re still here,” you say quietly.

There’s a pause. His lips part as if to speak, but nothing comes out. Instead, he turns his head more fully to look at you. His eyes soften just slightly.

“I said I would stay,” he says, voice low.

“I wasn’t sure if you meant it.”

“I wasn’t either.”

You don’t know what to say to that. Your throat tightens with something too complicated to name—something that sits between hope and pain, old wounds and older want. You shift onto your side, slowly, and reach for him. Not with purpose, not seduction—just need. Your hand finds the edge of his robe, your palm coming to rest gently against his waist.

His whole body tenses. Not because he doesn’t want you close—but because he does.

You inch closer.

You drape your leg across his, your hand over his chest, and your forehead presses against the slope of his shoulder. The space between you vanishes, and you feel the exhale escape from his chest like he’s been holding his breath for months.

He doesn’t say anything. But he wraps an arm around your back, his palm pressing between your shoulder blades. You hear the rustle of the quilt as he tucks it more securely around you both.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” he murmurs. The confession is so quiet it almost disappears into your hair.

Your voice is softer than his. “What do you mean? You don’t have to do anything.”

“That’s not true,” he says after a moment. “I—” His voice falters. Then steadies again. “I thought keeping my distance would protect you.”

You swallow. “From what?”

He hesitates. His hand stills against your back. “From everything. From court. From rumors. From me.”

You lift your head slightly, just enough to look up at him. “You think I needed protection from you?”

His jaw clenches. “I didn’t want to be the reason people started whispering about you again. After what happened with your father… after the court…”

You flinch at the mention of it, but don’t pull away.

“I thought,” he continues slowly, “if I stayed out of your way, if I said nothing, I could forget how much I—” He stops.

The silence rushes back in too fast. It almost makes your ears ring.

“You could forget?” you echo, staring at him. “Is that what you’ve been trying to do all this time?”

He doesn’t answer. But the answer is written all over him. In the bags under his eyes. In the way he grips the back of your nightclothes like he’s trying to make up for months of not touching you. In the way he hasn’t left.

“I missed you,” you whisper.

He doesn’t respond right away.

But when he does, it’s not with words.

His hand lifts to your cheek, warm and shaking slightly. His thumb brushes along your jaw, and then he presses your forehead gently to his. Eyes closed. Brows drawn. As if he’s trying to will everything into place just by touching you.

“I’ve been missing you this whole time,” he says. “Even when I tried not to. Especially then.”

You close your eyes.

“I hated you for it,” you murmur. “For pretending like I didn’t matter to you.”

“I hated myself more,” he says simply.

There’s a pause.

“You never said anything,” you say. It comes out quieter than you mean it to.

“I didn’t think I had the right,” he replies. “Not after I waited too long. Not when you’d already started not to care.”

Your heart cracks open in your chest.

“I didn’t stop caring,” you breathe. “I just stopped letting myself hope.”

His hand slides into your hair, curling there. He kisses the top of your head. Just once. Just enough to shatter you a little more.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “For waiting. For making you doubt. For—”

You stop him with a soft shake of your head. You press closer, curl your fingers into his robe, and let your breath even against his skin.

“Don’t leave,” you whisper. “Even if we don’t know what to do.”

He holds you tighter.

“I won’t,” he murmurs. “Not unless you ask me to.”

You don’t ask.

You stay like that. Twined together in silence, bathed in the quiet light of the morning you never thought would come. The ache in your body has dulled, but something deeper still throbs inside you. A yearning. A grief. A hope.

But for the first time in a long while, you’re not alone in it.

And neither is he.

: ̗̀➛ of silks and steel

@gyuguys ; @theidontknowmehn ; @gyuhao365 ; @heelariously ; @asyre ; @peachytokki ; @chisskaa ; @vnstennis ; @armycarat2612 ; @living0livia ; @hanniehq ; @minhui896 ; @Syluslittlecrows ; @reiofsuns2001 ; @madywoopz ; @sillygoosegoose ; @idubiluranghae ; @seniorbarbie ; @arshiyuh ; @denimtangerine ; @cherrymoonchild ; @jungkookisthetypeto; @dutchelfandkpoplover ; @nahyuckism ; @so-da-1 ; @arshiyuh ; @lukeys-giggle ; @fayhaflyyy

[dova-kiin-got-bored]

This got so long, whoops. Everything is under the cut because I don't feel like clogging everyone's feeds.

I am STEALING THIS but also have so many thoughts as to how it could work for adoptions and other such complications

Is it even possible for an adopted child to see the ghosts, like is there a certain ritual they can do to officially magically adopt a child that's older than their birth children(or maybe they have no children, what if they're infertile? Coming back to that thought) so they're recognised by whatever magic tomfoolery is happening here? Or do you have to share DNA for it to work? Could the adopted kid like. Drink their adopted parent's blood everyday to see the ghosts temporarily?(if so that implies that it's possible for more than one kid to see the ghosts at once if they consume the blood)

What if the oldest kid dies, does it go to the next oldest kid? Would that create a type of hierarchy among the kids? It would certainly effect the social habits of the upper class and royalty. Or does the ability just stop point blank if the eldest dies? That would greatly incentivise parents to prioritise the eldest. Would they hide the pregnancy/existence of the kid for the first few years so they aren't just assassinated? If you had multiple children in a short span of time but only revealed them when they were 8-10 you could lie about who the eldest is, which has a lot of social implications of how lying and deciet between families is treated and alliances are handled. What if one royal family is told their oldest will marry the oldest of another family but they instead marry the second oldest?

Would alliances be formed by promising the eldest to another royal family? They would have to have a contract for that surely, to make sure that if lied to they'll receive justice or compensation. Then there's a whole bunch of things to think about regarding royals interacting with each other and how betrothal works and whether or not inbreeding is a Thing they do often to preserve the family ghosts among the bloodline despite the risk of death for the children(pretty counter protective. Coming back to the infertile thought.) And higher possibility of infertility. Many dynasties have probably fallen due to the ruler just not being able to have kids. If the passing-to-the-next-oldest applies, do relatives try and straight up assassinate the current ruler so a younger sibling can take the throne and have kids.(that has SO MANY implications).

Actually on the topic of relatives;

Actually scratch that thought for a minute thought of something else.

HOW would marriages between royal families work? Because if only the oldest child can see the ghosts, then only one family would be able to see both families' ghosts which generally seems to be a terrible idea if you want to keep control of your kingdom in the family. Maybe it only happens in the case of two kingdoms forming an empire that want to combine their lines(this also implies a black hole of sorts, as one family can just keep taking ghosts from other families. Also implies a lot in regards to kidnapping and forcibly taking ghosts from other families via rape. That made think of something else actually will pick that thought up again later). Right. Where was I?

Ah yeah. Ok so if the eldest child can see the ghosts, that means one family will have multiple lines of ghosts that only certain people would be able to see

If you've got 3 brothers who conquer a kingdom to start with, some 6 generations down the line you'll have 3 distinct lines of ghosts, which is such a juicable concept all on it's own. Specialised branches of the family tree for warfare, for agriculture and inter-kingdom relations. Your entire royal council just being the 8 current leaders of each branch, their oldest children and the 200 ghosts is an amazing writing idea and could lead to some true comedy gold with the constant game of telephone as the current leaders have to tell each other what all their ghosts said(it's own telephone game) and then pass it onto the relevant generation of someone else's ghosts. Heck, imagine the generational gossip. The potential never ends.

Tangentially related(this is all just one big tangent), how are ghosts present in the world? Can they physically interact with objects like quills, sticks, coins etc. to communicate with others or do they have no physical presence in the world and rely soley on their descendant? That would give even more of a monopoly to the eldest child if they're literally the only one who can commune with the family ghosts.

Are the ghosts stuck in one place? If they remain tethered to the place/area they died then that would be such a pain in the ass, imagine needing to travel like 200km to a different castle just to ask your great-great-grandmother where she hid her sister's how-to-kill-a-fuck-off-big-dragon handbook, or to ask your great-grandfather about a law he made. Or always needing to go to one particular bathroom to talk to your mother who died of dierriah. If one of them died over seas in enemy territory then your out of luck, lol.

Could the ghosts be bound into a particular item that's significant to them for easy travel? Imagine a ruler with a belt full of keys and spyglasses and knick-knacks with a whole arsenal of heavy, thick rings on their hands and a magically ghost infused sword with the whisper of their ancestors in their ears telling them how best to kill and conquer.

Or are they bound to significant places instead of places of death? Coronation grounds, wedding grounds, childhood get away, etc. You'd have the same problem as the above.

Oooh, what if they were bound directly to the person? Like they can't go any further than 200m away from the currently living ruler because they're all bound to their kids who were alive when they passed. That'd be cool.

You could have them be free roaming, work as the world's best spies and informants. That would be bothersome though, if you needed them in an emergency unless you had a way to snap them back to you.

Ok, tangent over. Where the fuck was I at. Right yes. Could a royal family have a harem of noble families that they rotate through for marriage? So they keep all the ghosts and don't massively inbreed with each other. For that to actually work you'd have to have at least 12 noble families you rotate through. Hm, what was the average number of noble families per country in history? Ok don't want to go down a rabbit hole, let's just say that there'd be a hierarchy difference even between nobles - those in the marriage rotation and those not. It'd probably be a great honour to be in the rotation, and there'd probably be a lot of bragging about how recently a family was married into royalty or if they married a particularly prominent figure in history. There'd also be shame of a sort if you hadn't been chosen for a long while or married a particularly rotten ruler.

What of the topic of bastard/illegitimate children? How would Sex Ed be affected by this concept? Oh, now that is something oozing potential. Young ruler-to-be is enamoured by some farmhand and gets her pregnant or gets pregnant. Imagine the possibilities. Ruler dies but his eldest can't see him - oh whoops turns out he has a bastard child out there somewhere and they have to track them down to get their ghosts back. Imagine some carpenter or farmer out there who can suddenly see the ghost of the dead king and knows exactly what that means. They could feel crippling anger and sadness that their mother got pregnant by a king when she had been with their dad (a nice carpenter/farmer with a heart of gold) longer than they've been alive. Utter dispare that they won't see their aging father when he dies and instead they're stuck with a bunch of uptight rulers. The alienating and humiliating process of being dragged from everything you've ever known and shoved into royal attire and stared at by nobles and your apparent siblings and relatives for the rest of your life while learning manners and knowing nothing about ruling. Ohh the POTENTIAL.

On that same note(and what I thought about earlier when I mentioned the black hole bit), can you magically disown your eldest child or have them pass the ability onto the next in line, to avoid needing to kill one of your beloved family members or to side-step the above scenario. If that was a thing the ritual would probably be very difficult/expensive to set up and most likely very overwhelming and dangerous.

Ok I think that's all the ideas I can squeeze out of my head for the moment. Phew.

actually fuck you worldbuilding

world where lines of succession and first-born are extremely important (not just for royalty, but also for common folk, but more emphasis is placed on royalty) because when you die, you can choose to stay behind as a ghost. except only your firstborn child can see and hear you.

royal families are built on this, with long lines of ghosts standing behind whoever the current ruler is. craftspeople who always have their parents in their ear telling them exactly how to be perfect.

this is consistent; a ghost can only see the ghosts it would have been able to see in life, so passing information from generations past is always a game of telephone.

of course this whole thing can be bluffed and exploited in a variety of extremely fun ways.

[sleepytopia]

Hiii, another request idea from meee! Yandere big 3 vs yandere class 1a? (Bonus: if reader is just giving up watching this from the slide lines while they choke each other out)

a/n : TEHEHEHE I love the idea of thisss !!! (hope you enjoy this !!)

This Is Fine

Yandere!big 3 vs Yandere!class 1a x reader

Summary: The Big 3 and Class 1-A are locked in a full-scale war over your affection. Powers are flying. Alliances are breaking. Teachers are pretending not to see it. Meanwhile, you’re watching the drama unfold from a playground swing, sipping a juice pouch, and slowly losing the will to live.

You wanted a picnic.

That’s all. A stupid, peaceful, sunshine-filled picnic where you could wear your cute lil summer fit, maybe feed ducks, and for ONCE not be stared at like you were made of diamonds and dreams.

But no.

Because you smiled at Tamaki a little too long while handing him a cookie.

Now you’re watching the battlefield that used to be the school courtyard as if it were a particularly exhausting anime. Sitting crisscross on a bench with a half-eaten croissant, you deadpan as Todoroki ices the ground under Mirio mid-sprint, sending him skidding sideways into a tree.

“Oi, nerd,” Bakugou snaps, voice full of smoke and jealousy. “You give him that damn cookie on purpose?”

“Bakugou,” you mutter around your croissant, “it’s a chocolate chip cookie. I am not summoning Satan.”

“You’re summoning my rage.”

Tamaki appears beside you—shy, flushed, hood pulled up—and silently offers his sleeve so you can wipe your fingers. Behind him, Kaminari is being aggressively held in a chokehold by Nejire, who says, “He’s mine now. He’s cute and dumb. Like a pet.”

“Someone take her down!” Jirou yells, flinging a wave of sound.

Meanwhile, Midoriya is visibly spiraling.

“We’ve done everything right,” he mutters. “We’ve loved them, supported them, made snacks, made scrapbooks, watched over them while they sleep—"

“You WHAT?”

“SHOJI SAID IT WAS FINE!”

Over on the rooftop, the teachers watch through binoculars.

Aizawa doesn’t even blink. “I told Principal Nezu this would happen. Emotional dependency breeds dysfunction. But does anyone listen to me?”

“Kiddo brought All Might chamomile last week,” Mic mutters, rubbing a tear from his eye. “They’re such a sweetheart. No wonder everyone’s in love with them.”

Midnight sighs. “Should we intervene?”

“Wait until the knives come out,” Aizawa replies flatly.

Back at the Warzone Formerly Known as the Quad, Mirio has Kirishima in a headlock.

“Love is about devotion!” Mirio beams, not even breaking a sweat. “Did YOU hold [Name] while they cried after failing that patrol sim?! HUH?! DID YOU RUB THEIR BACK FOR FORTY-FIVE MINUTES??”

“YES I DID, TWICE!” Kirishima howls.

Meanwhile, Mina is collecting dirt on everyone and yelling blackmail like spells: “Midoriya still has their baby pic in his locker!” “Bakugou made a playlist called ‘explosion of my heart’!” “Koda made a garden in the shape of their name!” “Momo wrote them a love haiku in Latin!”

“DON’T YOU DARE,” Momo shrieks, launching projectiles.

“I used to think I was insane,” you mutter from your bench. “Turns out, I’m the only one left with functioning neurons.”

You stand up, brushing off crumbs, only to have two arms wrap around you.

“Let’s go inside,” Tamaki whispers, eyes soft. “It’s too dangerous out here.”

Before you can even answer, Midoriya appears like a cursed jack-in-the-box, eyes wild. “Don’t go with him. He’ll try to confess. Again.”

“I ALREADY DID—YESTERDAY!” Tamaki yells, suddenly snapping.

And that? That sets the powder keg off.

Final Boss Battle:

Bakugou and Todoroki are now fighting Mirio. Sero’s trying to web up Nejire, who’s floating Kirishima by the hair like a balloon. Tamaki, having finally snapped, has summoned a squid tentacle. Midoriya is muttering strategies like a war general. Shoji is shielding you with all his arms while Koda sends birds to harass your suitors. Monoma is livestreaming it.

And you?

You’re eating your second croissant. Watching them scream. Thinking, maybe I’ll transfer to Shiketsu.

Bonus Ending:

“Enough,” a voice booms.

Everyone freezes.

All Might, in Small Might form, steps between the madness. “If you truly love [Name]… then STOP FIGHTING IN FRONT OF THE CANTEEN.”

You raise a hand. “Also, stop breaking school property. I’m pretty sure I saw Yaoyorozu use a tank.”

“… It was metaphorical,” she mumbles.

“NO IT WASN’T,” Hagakure yells from the distance. “I WAS IN IT.”

© sleepytopia do not copy, translate, or plagiarize any of my works

[denpadokei]

Is this how it should be?

This isn’t how it should be-!

static miku from a gif by rice deity ofc

rambling + better off worse (VocaCircus) flower in the spoken for stage below (tw - ketchup?)

also rice’s art. ignore how they have no shadow I’m horrible at editing I do this with my notes app-

I highly recommend you read the comments, I was just gonna point out the other utau girls, the gunshots and potential tattoo reference in “shaving off the numbers” taken literally. And of course the “Go for a Perfect?”. I think this comment phrased it really well.

The fact she’s not there at the end screen (that I am using for both of my images) is as concerning as it could be hopeful.

also I think I accidentally made static miku giant whoops

MORE:

- I’ve already said it but this song gives me such dread. I love it and it’s perfect but I was sobbing on the floor for hours bro. I mean I may already be mentally unwell but shush. I don’t even relate to it in the slightest

- do you think they’re all going to be 4:04

- I wish the silly bit in the intro was on streaming services. I hope it’s in a potential album ver. Assuming this project is an album. Do you think they’ll all begin with S.

- I love how they’re going with cartoon mascots in specific styles so far. What could be next?

- I actually don’t think the next song is gonna be Neru. I think they’ll save Neru for the end and complete the triple baka trio then. Not sure who to expect in between. Kaito? Meiko? They even got quite the history with fame, especially Kaito. I kinda hope for Fukase. “He was the meme man of vocaloid. And this is him now.” Maybe the Utaus in this? Xin Hua OR Xia Yu Yao? That Chinese Miku “Rip off” Dong Fang Zhi Zi? Utatane Piko? The REAL mascot boy, Ryuto?

- I said it when static came out, but I have no idea how it’s going to feel in the future when these songs are staples of vocaloid. Where are we going from here? I thought we peaked at mezzy, it’s a little overwhelming- Good, of course. And they’re ENGLISH songs. We need a new “vocal synth songs every fan should know” at this rate. Maybe solely for English ones.

- would this have been as popular as static if it came out first

- I’m kinda glad it’s not, static is a little happier and less triggering than this.

- I feel this could NEVER really outdo or be the next Static either. It’s not got that weirdcore, creepy edge. It’s not unnerving in the same way. As I mentioned, I absolutely LOVE the way they’re doing this.

- can JamieP CALM DOWN for ONE SECOND and stop making BANGERS

- I really hope this isn’t the truth directed to the audience/a cry for help from the producers- I know better off worse was kinda like that- I doubt it is. I uh I really really hope it isn’t.

- the way the chorus isn’t built to be a chorus if that makes sense? Like it sounds more like a verse, so in the final chorus there’s this constant feeling of “we haven’t reached the peak yet” especially since the peak is at the bridge. I think it’s reflected most in the horns (my favourite part of the song!). And the way the bridge isn’t very different from the chorus! The way each line is the start of the chorus but not quite hitting it! Just like the feeling that she’s not good enough! And the way that actually transitions into the final chorus! Sorry this doesn’t make any sense.

- again, no clue how they do this. I’m very interested on how it goes from an idea in someone’s head into this. Does the concept come first? Or the music? It’s so extremely impressive. It’s like they got the branding everywhere immaculate, the vibe, but the viewer experience is never negatively affected by that gggfrdffgghhdr

- each of the song pages on the flavor foley start with an emoji, and the one for spoken for is 💖 which is my favourite emoji 😭

here’s some ramblings from the nightcord about vocaloid in general

thanks for reading

[the-meme-monarch]

if tenna knew about the dessapearence then that would make his dialogue before the raise up your bat minigame a lot more....

messed up.

FUCK THAT WAS SOMETHING I MEANT TO BRING UP i don’t get the impression that tenna knows about dess going missing, Because of that dialogue. i joked to my siblings that it feels like kris fucking Glared at tenna, the way he seems to like, backtrack, but I don’t think he knows why, I’m not sure he knows why kris would want to shut that line of thinking down

he didn’t even know asriel went to college, but he Does seem to know abt asgore and toriel’s divorce. and i imagine this has to do w him being the dreemurr’s living room tv and therefor what he can actually see and hear due to Being In The Living Room. i can guess he didn’t know about dess’ disappearance and asriel going to college bc those acknowledgments and conversations didn’t take place in the living room, i mean they probably would’ve been saying their goodbyes to asriel outside. or in dess’ case, they may not have talked about it at all after the fact. and abt the divorce, well. toriel says the couch is used to being used as a bed.

If That scc Dialogue Were Kept, I think it’s Easily just normal-style sweet and capn being sympathetic and kk being cagey and/or trying to cheer them up. but under the idea that they act the ways they do bc ‘oh noelle got kidnapped and everyone already knows that years earlier her sibling went missing, that’s fucked up’ i could see darkners potentially knowing abt dess’ disappearance being bc well. small town gossip. darkners in dark worlds that are public spaces and could have Any lightner passing through, that darkners as objects would just be present for.

wait wait wait wait wait potential theory based on scrapped dialogue falling apart bc no queen didn’t even know dess does she. bc she didn’t understand why noelle was continually searching “december holiday” ? she didn’t recognize that was a person bc she put a bunch of calendars w december 25th circled to correlate to those searches. like i think it’s implied searching “december holiday” wasn’t yielding any results for a missing person or a Person at all, just. the december holiday yeah the holiday that is in december yeah christmas. or like. she knew asriel she had a search generated room for him in her mansion. kris brought the laptop home so she likely knew tenna, and ramb talks abt how kris and noelle would play With the laptop and other objects like him and the cards and whatever else so she Knew noelle when she was little, she knew noelle before the dreemurrs and holidays fell apart she would’ve Known dess right. even if dess never used the laptop bc dess has their own computer in their room. but so does asriel. but is this just. does asriel have a generated room bc he used the laptop before getting his own computer. did he use the laptop regardless of having his own computer sometimes. did dess just not play along with noelle and kris in their not-toy games and therefore not actually Acknowledge the laptop so queen didn’t “meet” dess. does queen only know dess as dess and not that their full name is decemebr holiday. did she not put together noelle holiday googling december holiday over and over and hmmm I haven’t seen dess around in a long time. knocking on toby fox’s door Harrowed and bald i have questions for you i have things I would like cleared up

[angelofthemornings]

One issue that frustrates me is I'm old and remember growing up with AOL Kids and in some ways it was good to have a space where you could be stupid about anime with other thirteen-year-olds, and in some ways it was bad. The worst way is that if you hang up a sign saying "There are only children in here!" it's...well, it's pedo bait. More than one pedophile attempted to groom me in childhood off of the AOL Kids forums and the kids only chatrooms, and a handful of my online friends also had their own dealings with adult predators. I don't mean like, nineteen-year-olds who are making the lousy decision to roleplay smut with a high schooler, I mean middle-aged people telling seventh graders "I'll pay for you to get to Wisconsin so I can" aaaaand I'll stop there rather than trigger someone. This was COMMON.

They weren't really posting on the forums themselves, but you'd get messages from them and might strike up a friendship, and without adults actively monitoring the entire AOL Instant Messenger network for *everyone* (that's "everybody has their own personal Homeland Security agent watching them joke" levels of unrealistic) there'd really be no way to make sure children weren't talking to predators. Even if you put in filters or flags or something for an account owned by a minor, they could possibly hop on a parent's account, or you could take the conversation off-platform - that sort of thing. (The filters and flags might have also done undesirable stuff like keeping sexually abused minors from talking about what's happening and getting support from their peers.) I think there's really no way you could effectively keep predators or adults in general out of children-only spaces online, which makes having kid only spaces to begin with kind of fraught.

Conversely, there have already been a lot of conversations about how you can't keep 100% of minors out of online spaces meant solely for adults, either. So what we're inevitably going to have almost everywhere is a general community, maybe with side spaces of some kind for adults and kids that people are inevitably going to come in and out of at will (more on that in a bit), and it's kind of...look, no matter how you (general you) feel about it, adults are GOING to talk about adult things like sex and violence and personally, I don't really feel the need to bend over backwards to be palatable just in case a child is nearby.

I think the real, sustainable answer is that we get people used to safe and open intergenerational friendships (the best way to shut down a predator is to have multiple adults you trust who you can talk to about stuff like if this guy they've been talking to feels fishy to a grown-up) and also getting people used to the idea that if they see BDSM porn or something by mistake the worst thing that'll happen is they get confused or grossed out. (Even the worst shock site shit is probably just gonna give you a few nightmares, honestly. I've never heard of anyone who was permanently debilitated and disturbed by watching Chechclear, although I do not recommend it.) I believe that young people are empowered to have some personal responsibility since whatever *content* they might come across is legitimately pretty low-risk. As for dangerous *people*, that's a high risk that can be mitigated by having a lot of safe adults around them who can see a great deal of what's happening in the community + safe adults who have made the choice to befriend children. Something that children from difficult backgrounds often don't have offline, by the way.

(Personally I'm not super comfortable talking to kids and I don't really want minors around my blog or in my servers, but back in the day in more general spaces I had adults who thought my passion for Digimon or whatever was charming and we could talk about the music from the show and stuff, and *those* adults were above the board, so...it's perfectly fine to be friends with kids if this is something you choose to do. Being a pal to kids is not some kind of mandatory responsibility for every individual adult - I myself don't want to do it - it's just nice when it happens, and in general spaces it often does.)

These ideas would probably take some societal change. Right now I think it's good that spaces are kind of porous so that kids can meet a variety of safe adults and learn what normal adults and adult-child interactions are like, and that strictly grown-up content is tagged or in an 18+ Discord channel with a clear idea of what can be found in there, so that children (or anyone else who doesn't want to see NSFW or gore or whatever) are empowered to stay away from what is clearly a dead dove. Kids should also expect that maybe people are gonna be saying wild shit that's violent or horny but not so much so that the poster felt it needs a tag...etc. It's a little difficult to know exactly what needs a tag or what conversation needs to be herded into an 18+ channel, and you're not going to be able to sequester everything with 100% accuracy, *and* it's not all that desirable to constantly worry about whether something you're saying or doing has to be hidden, so kids should have the expectation that if they venture where adults are, they're probably eventually going to overhear some adult talk that they don't understand or like. (Honestly not much different from when your IRL aunties are passing around the bottle on a holiday and getting kinda rowdy.)

The porosity can be a problem in some ways - like, now we all gotta have strong political opinions and defend them on Twitter, and children don't have the life experience to come up with good ideas about a lot of things. (I don't think there are "puriteens" so much as kids who aren't that comfortable with sex, as a reasonable developmental stage, and now they're kind of in a climate where half of everybody on the internet is taking a strong stance about sex in the media or whatever, and so if they're on the internet they probably want to have a stance too. And they're going to be forming that stance mostly out of their personal feelings and worldviews, as less mature people are wont to do.) (I do think this is merely annoying rather than some gargantuan Issue, though.)

But real life is porous, if I go for a jog at the park then kids are gonna meet me and vice versa. This is the default almost everywhere offline. So what we need to do here is find a way to empower the child to deal with situations that aren't tailored entirely to them. (Honestly, maybe that wouldn't take societal change at all - you could possibly do that just by telling them they are. Adults talking to each other is not that scary and won't hurt them.)

Maybe instead of asking what if a kid sees/hears this adult thing, we ask why is that kid in an adult space and get them to leave, instead of forcing all the adults to change and cater to the child who wandered into THEIR SPACE.

[goomyloid]

there's been a lot of anti kriselle sentiment going around lately (now that The Youtube Let's Players™️ are finishing chapter 3) so i just wanted to remind you - and whoever else needs to hear this - that cringe is dead and darkships/comships are made to be fascinating character studies, not a test of your irl morality

keep being you ❄️♥️

thanks! i think people should be able to explore what they want generally. although i dont really know what comships or darkships are and i think ive only ever seen them be used on tiktok (which i outright refuse to use most of the time) so im unfortunately inclined to believe theyre more made-up terms to put ships into even more weird categories out of some attempt to stay Morally Correct (in a performative way where it doesnt actually mean anything. i put it this way because i kind of got sucked into this ideal when i was like 16 but more in a Problematic Media sense than actual ships) (boring goomy lore no one asked for)

idk if it needs to be said but generally all my pages are pretty Proship DNI, mostly because if i have a say in it, i would rather not interact with people who like pedophilia/incest/etc. sure fiction ISNT reality but it certainly can have an effect on it and act as a reflection of it, at least imo. but like again, im just not interested in interacting with proshippers, im not gonna go around policing ships or something because 1. i dont have that kind of time or energy and 2. it clearly doesnt work (proof: all the people coming at me for drawing the Evil Toxic Kriselle and me only being reaffirmed in my desire to draw it). if i see something i dont like, 99% of the time i just ignore it and/or mald over it in private

said strategy of Ignoring and Moving On when you dont like something is very good and saves a lot of stress. i dont particularly like kralsei all that much, but i dont have a problem with anyone who does like it either, so whenever i see it im just like Neat and i keep scrolling. (i choose to believe that if toby wanted ralsei to be a legitimate stand-in for asriel somehow he would have made it super duper clear by now, and i also choose to believe that most kralsei enjoyers do not think that ralsei and asriel are very similar or meant to directly reflect each other) (i.e. i like to believe most people are normal. i enjoy giving the benefit of the doubt)

that was a massive tangent sorry, but i guess what im getting at is there’s a particular line between exploring a “darker” ship for the sake of analyzing the characters and story and exploring it to achieve self gratification (whether it be sexual or otherwise, but usually sexual). for example, with weird route kriselle, a lot of the appeal of it to me isn’t the romance within the abuse (although its interesting to dissect sometimes) but rather the romance despite the abuse if that makes sense. its the kind of thing only achievable with both parties being victims of the third party’s abuse, rather than just one partner abusing the other. its because kris and noelle are both victims that makes it so interesting, but a lot of people still tend to overlook kris’s victimization. even with their bathroom crashout in ch4, lots of people still view kris as a surface level abuser without taking a moment to really think about how they feel.

i feel like all of this is worth explaining because there are certainly people who “explore” the ship rather distastefully. lately that tends to involve turning the SA undertones into something to be fetishized and trying to make implied abuse/assault into something Sexy or pornographic. i feel like its unfortunately a common thing for artists’ intentions to be overlooked in favor of categorizing all portrayals of a particular idea under the same umbrella. there could be two drawings both depicting a sensitive scene/idea, where one might come from a place of sorrow, understanding, maybe even relating to the events taking place, while the other is clearly voyeuristic in nature and looks like it belongs on r34 instead of tumblr. the line isnt always that clear, and you cant always tell simply by how it’s drawn, sometimes the nature of the piece could be neither of these things or maybe it could somehow be both, who knows. It depends. It really fucking depends i think

ANYWAY im almost done sorry. i just wanted to add on that when we put these characters in Situations, obviously they’re not real and no one’s getting hurt (in theory), but what you choose to draw and create does reflect who you are as a person on some level. there’s pieces of yourself in everything you make, after all. thats a reason i myself feel like i need to be careful about what i make just in general, not because im Secretly Weird but just because i dont WANT to come off as weird by random passersby who wont take a minute to think about my work… which i guess returns to your original point. none of this is directed at you in particular anon, i just wanted to use your ask as an excuse to get some thoughts out, lol