#Hand Shower Manufacturers

[elkosbathfittings]

Taps Manufactures in India -  Elkos Bath Fittings

Elkos Bath Fittings is a leading Taps Manufactures in India of high-quality bathroom faucets for residential and commercial applications in India. They offer a wide range of styles and finishes to fit any décor, and all their products come with a lifetime warranty.

Address: 458/466 Shambu nath compound, Gali no-8 , Friends colony industrial area , Delhi -110095

Contact us: +91-8447000301, +91-8178346074

Visit us: https://www.elkosbath.com/bathroom-taps/

[neverendingford]

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[apl-apollo]

Manufacturers Of Hand Shower For Bathroom - APL Apollo Pipes

APL Apollo showers are the best option for those looking for a smooth water flow in their bathroom. Made with high-end materials, the showers offer the ideal bathing experience at a reasonable cost.

[gym-hotels-facilities]

Buy Gym Amenities At Affordable Prices From Petra Hygienic Systems’ Petra Soap

Petra Hygienic Systems’ Petra Soap is your club's one-stop shop for bulk shampoo, dispensers, towels, liquids, brand-named amenities, cleaning wipes, and all gym amenities. To check out our products, visit our website.

[artificial-transmutations]

Night of the were-himbo

Dave's heart was pounding fast when he finally arrived in the relative safety of his apartment. He took a few moments, leaning against his door to calm down and wipe away the cold sweat from his forehead.

What in the world was that? He had trouble wrapping his head around what he had just experienced, and he needed to make some sense of it to keep his sanity.

While he sat down on the couch, he noticed that he was wearing his hastily thrown on shirt backwards, and it was soaked with sweat. No wonder, really. It all started after work, this afternoon. Dave, who was working in electronics manufacturing, had one of the rare days that he craved a beer from a bar. Okay, no, this wasn't entirely honest. It had been one of the rare days that he had felt low-key horny all day, and he went to the bar with the hope of meeting a beautiful girl there. Truth be told, that was a rather faint hope, because in about one hundred percent of the few times he tried, he went home alone afterwards. Still, no reason not to try, right?

Surprisingly enough, especially for a Thursday evening, he really did meet someone. The girl - a woman, really - was absolutely stunning. Her long blonde hair was cascading down her slender, well-shaped back, and the tight dress she was wearing was revealing every curve of her body. And, even more surprisingly, she was all flirty and... interested in Dave. That was something new indeed. So, the two of them talked a bit and one thing led to another. A few drinks later, Dave found himself accompanying the woman he didn't even know the name of to her place. He should have been suspicious of how easy it had been to hook up with her, but he had been drunk and horny and, frankly, she was smoking hot.

As soon as they entered the apartment, the woman, whose name Dave still didn't know, was all over him, kissing and making out. He figured that she, too, must have had quite the dry spell period and was kind of needy because of that. Even when he noticed that he didn't carry any condoms, she just laughed and said it was no problem, because they could just do anal. Dave had never actually done that, but he had seen enough porn to know where everything was supposed to go, so, he agreed, because why not?

However, when he found himself working on her ass, with her legs up in the air or on his shoulders, he noticed something odd for the first time. Her legs were really hairy, for a woman. In hindsight, he was pretty sure they hadn't looked like this before, but back then, he didn't pay too much attention, because he was kind of occupied.

He had to admit that he closed his eyes at some point, not to be distracted by the surprisingly strong and hairy legs, and her low grunting didn't seem too strange as well. But, after he came inside of her, he opened his eyes again, and...

Dave wiped away his sweat again.

The beautiful woman wasn't there anymore. In her place, a muscular *man* was sprawled across the bed, with his obscenely large cock still hard and a puddle of cum on his torso.

Needless to say, Dave panicked and threw on his clothes before the man could come back to his senses and ran. He ran until he arrived here.

That was... paranormal. Dave had been so sure that he didn't hook up with a man, and there had been absolutely no possibility that she had been exchanged for a guy, while was still balls deep *in her*. There was just *no* rational explanation.

Dave wasn't homophobe, but he was straight. There was no way he'd hook up with a guy, even when drunk. He... needed to take a shower. Perhaps a cold shower, to get rid of this... confusion.

As he undressed, he looked at his body. He was average. Not overly strong or weak, with a light amount of body hair and a slight belly. A normal man, in any way. His involuntary sex partner on the other hand, had been far from that. *He* had been fit and broad, muscular and hairy. Given, Dave hadn't really paid him too much attention and had been focused more on getting into his underwear, but he could recall some details, such as the broad chest and the bulging biceps.

Dave shook his head. No. He wouldn't mind having a body like that, or at least the fitness part. The amount of body hair wasn't something he was too fond of, but the small amount he had didn't bother him enough to shave it off.

Even after the shower, his thoughts returned to the man. Not in a sexual way, but the whole thing had just been so weird. And even when he went to bed, his dreams kept returning to the encounter.

Dave couldn't really recall the exact nature of his dreams, but when he woke up, he was sweaty from head to toe and his bedroom *reeked* so much he could smell it himself. As he removed the blanket, he groaned inwardly. There, at about groin-level, was sticky half-dried evidence that his dreams had been quite vivid and erotic. His underwear had absorbed a lot of the cum and were stuck to his body, but it was obvious that he had climaxed several times throughout the night. How embarrassing. It had been *years* since he had a wet dream. It was no use. Even though he was already borderline late for work, he hopped into the shower and changed into clean underwear before he left for his job.

The morning hours went by fast, but as the day progressed, Dave felt bored. His gaze wandered over the room. Working in a male-dominated field meant of course that only a few of his co-workers were woman. But somehow, even though they were wearing their work uniform, they seemed particularly good-looking today.

Dave tried not to stare. Most of them were married, and also, don't fuck the company, but he couldn't help himself. He noticed that, even when they were just doing mundane tasks like lifting boxes or carrying cables, their bodies moved in a way that seemed particularly sexy. Dave didn't consider himself a pervert, but he felt his body react to the show.

It took him a lot of self-control to avert his gaze, but still, his erection did not subside. He shifted around uncomfortably in his overall, trying to conceal the bulge. Luckily, he was just as average in that department as he was in the rest of his body. His dick was neither very thick nor very long, so it wasn't *too* obvious.

But his hardon was persistent. No matter what he did, his dick wouldn't go soft again, and just as he was contemplating on how to best sneak to a bathroom to jerk off, a coworker - a male one, thankfully, called Sebastian - addressed him.

"Hey Dave, is everything alright?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Everything fine."

"Sure? You look like you feel hot."

It wasn't wrong, Dave was sweating more than usual. He wanted nothing more than to get out of his overall, but that was hardly possible. However, Sebastian continued:

"Ehm... And you smell a bit strongly, too, actually. It doesn't bother me, I just thought I'd let you know that you maybe forgot to put on deodorant this morning."

That surprised Dave. It was possible that he forgot in this morning's hurry, but he never had a problem with body odor before. It didn't matter if he wore deodorant or not, he just didn't smell. Usually. How embarrassing! Dave felt his head redden and, apparently, Sebastian noticed, too.

"No, no, don't worry, I'm sure it's not that bad."

Sebastian stepped a bit closer and sniffed, which didn't really help with the situation. It only made Dave feel even more self-conscious when Sebastian backed away a bit and coughed.

"Yeah, uh, not bad. Really. It's just a bit stronger today. But I'm sure you're okay. Uh, just..."

Dave didn't need a doctorate in medicine to notice that the man was a bit uncomfortable now.

"Anyway, I just came to ask if you can help me a bit, we're a bit understaffed, and I can't manage all these boxes by myself."

Sebastian worked in logistics and usually, Dave didn't particularly feel like helping out there. However, perhaps that would help him get his mind under control again.

"Yeah, sure."

Dave was thankful for the distraction. The two of them lifted and carried around the heavy equipment, and even though his muscles were complaining, it felt good to do some hard work. What it did not help with, however, was his sweat situation and his hornyness. Even though there were no women in sight, his cock was throbbing in his pants, and he feared it was starting to be noticeable. If it was, however, Sebastian didn't comment on it.

However, the longer they worked together, the less comfortable Dave felt. It was like his clothes were ill-fitting all of a sudden, and every movement caused the fabric to tense and stretch. It was like the overall he was wearing was at least one size too small. However, that was not what preoccupied Dave's mind the most. That was Sebastian. Truth be told, Dave didn't really know much about the other man, they didn't meet much at work, given that Sebastian didn't work in manufacturing as Dave did. But as the hours went by, Dave couldn't help but notice that the other guy was... good looking. He didn't know how to describe it. Sebastian wasn't 'beautiful', like a statue of Michelangelo, but he was kind of... handsome. Normally, Dave wouldn't have been able to tell. He didn't look at other men that way, so he had no idea on how good-looking another dude was. But Sebastian...

Dave scratched his itchy chest, and as he lifted his arm, another cloud of strong scent filled the area.

No, Sebastian was kind of... hot? From an objective perspective of course. Dave certainly didn't find him hot, he wasn't a woman, after all. And, he had to add for himself, he was not gay.

God, his cock throbbed in the tight confines of his underwear. When did that get so tight, really? Didn't he wear spacious boxer shorts?

Dave tried to ignore it, but the scent in the air was getting stronger, too. At first, it had been a slight hint, but now, the air was getting heavy with the smell, and even the other workers around had started to look at the two of them. The fact that it was him who smelled like that only made things worse. Thankfully, the end of his shift was just around the corner, so he could go home and...

"Hey, Dave, do you want to come to my place and watch the game after work? Drink some beer?" Sebastian casually asked.

"I, uh, yeah, sure, sounds great. But I gotta go, uh, take a shower first, I'm afraid. I'll be right over."

"You can use my shower. I live close by, so it would be a waste if you had to go home first."

Did Sebastian's gaze lingered on his surprisingly prominent bulge right now? No, he must have been imagining things.

"Uh, sure, thanks, man."

Dave had trouble focusing. He didn't remember a time he had ever been so horny. Sure, there had been some nights where he masturbated like five or six times, in his teens, but now, he was just constantly horny. And it was surprisingly hard to think straight, as if his thoughts somehow were slowed down.

Thankfully, work was over soon, and Dave accompanied Sebastian to his apartment. He wasn't lying: It really was close by. When they arrived, Sebastian first got Dave a cold beer, and then a towel.

"For your shower." He hesitated for a tiny bit, and Sebastian added: "If you want to take one, that is."

"Uh, thanks. I really should take one, I stink like... uh, a lot."

That was, again, really unwitty.

"I don't mind." Sebastian shrugged, and Dave thought he had seen him lick his lips subconsciously. Deciding to ignore that, Dave gave the towel back.

"Well, okay, if you don't mind."

He looked around the typical bachelor apartment.

"Do you live here alone or with a girlfriend?"

"Na, it's just me. I'm between boyfriends right now, if you want to put it that way."

Boyfriend? Was Sebastian...?

"I see."

Dave took another sip from his beer and felt more and more uncomfortable in his clothes. He still felt hot and, after learning that Sebastian was gay, for some reason, he felt even more horny. His dick was achingly hard, and his underwear was damp with sweat and precum.

"Sorry, work clothes are killing me right now." Dave laughed and tried to change the topic to distract himself.

Sebastian shrugged again. "You don't have to keep them on. I can give you one of my shirts, or you can go without one, if you like. It's just us guys, after all."

Dave didn't think about that. He was already pulling the zipper of his overall down, and then, pulled his arms through the sleeves. A moment later, he was standing half-naked in the middle of his colleague's apartment and was looking down on himself incredulously. That wasn't his body! Instead of the fairly average built man he was used to seeing in the mirror every day, a muscular chest with a more than generous coating of hair stared back at him. Where the hell did these pecs and biceps come from?

He was so distracted, that he didn't even notice Sebastian approaching him, until the other man was just an arm's length away.

"You smell pretty good." The other man said, almost like drunk or in trance. Of course, after opening his overall, all the musk had flooded the apartment, and Sebastian stared almost hungrily at his hairy chest, with his eyes darting to his armpits.

"No, that's not-"

Dave didn't even know what he was trying to say, and, without noticing it, his hand wandered down his chest, caressing the new body hair there. His arousal grew even more, and spurt after spurt of precum soaked his groin. Sebastian was rock hard as well, that was clearly visible through his pants, but unlike Dave, this didn't change him. Dave watched in amazement, as his body expanded further. Calves, thighs, his entire lower body filled with muscle, and the legs became hairier as well.

"Fuck!"

With that exclamation, he got out of the rest of his overall, standing there just in his filled to the brim and soaked boxer shorts, watching as his transformation was far from over. His ass filled out, and his torso grew even larger. His stomach was quickly adorned by a four-pack but didn't stop there until a cobblestone road of a furry eight-pack led the way from his two large plates of pectoral muscles towards his fuckstick. His thoughts slowed even more as he watched his bulge further expand, his cock growing even bigger until the fabric couldn't contain his monstrous cock anymore and started to rip. He looked at his changed hands, hairy and strong, and felt his chin, which was not cleanly shaven anymore. Following an impulse, he raised his arm and when Sebastian buried his nose in the damp armpit and began to lick his sweat, Dave finally started to grin. There was no more brain capacity for worry, and he pushed his coworker deeper into his pit while ripping his underwear off for good, grinding his groin against the other man.

"Let's get this party started, man!"

He said with a lower, gravelly voice.

The next morning, Dave woke up cuddled against Sebastian in a bed that was clearly not his own. He remembered everything, even though the memory seemed hazy. Slowly, he looked down at himself and was relieved to see he was back to his old self. And, he wasn't gay anymore, he was pretty sure about that.

Just then, Sebastian stirred and smiled at him.

"Do you want some breakfast, or do you want to continue where we left off?" he asked with a wink.

No, Dave wasn't gay. Not yet, anyway. But he couldn't help to get horny again from the lewd comment, and as he saw the hair grow in and his muscle swell, he realized that there was no escaping this new reality. He was a were-himbo now, ready to fuck everyone and everything (although he preferred men, then) once he got horny. And his last realization, as his thoughts grew dim again as his cock rose was, that he got horny pretty easily these days...

[genderqueerdykes]

Feminizing HRT Overview, Guide & Information for All People Seeking It

we also have a version of this post for testosterone/masculinizing HRT as well. we wanted to write a companion piece as many folks have asked about this. it has take a bit of time, but here we are!

The testosterone HRT post is here.

Getting Your Prescription

To start taking estrogen, you will need to find a general practitioner, family doctor, endocrinologist or informed consent clinic where you can discuss gender affirming care with knowledgeable staff. Planned Parenthood is a good option for many trans people in general. Your mental health may also be evaluated, and your heart health and screening for a few other health conditions, as well as having access to your family health history if possible will be required.

Check to see if you have medical insurance, either through your family, your job, or if you are low income, a program like medicaid. Search for low income insurance plans in your area if it is needed, many places offer insurance plans for those who can't afford care on their own.

Here is a map of informed consent HRT clinics in the US.

You will discuss any gender dysphoria, gender presentation needs, if you have a support network, how you are impacted by your gender in your every day life with your provider and so on before being given a prescription. You will only be given a prescription after you discuss the risks of HRT and are screened for possible health problems and diseases or ways your body could react negatively to HRT. If you have needle trauma or phobias and can't inject hormones, it's best to bring it up before you get your prescription to save time and confusion.

The Medications

Treatment typically starts with spironolactone (aldactone), an anti-androgen that blocks androgen receptors ("male" sex hormones) for a few weeks, and then add estrogen, but many folks start with spiro and estrogen at the same time. Spiro will lower the amount of testosterone your body makes. For some people, spiro isn't necessary at all!

Some forms of spironolactone are reported to make folks pee like crazy, others do not have as bad of a time with it. Your mileage will vary depending on manufacturer. Spironolactone is intended to be a blood pressure medication, meaning it is a diuretic and is intended to help your body flush out fluids + salt. You will need to keep yourself hydrated if you notice this effect, as well as increasing electrolyte intake where possible.

Estrogen also lowers how much testosterone your body makes, and triggers changes in the body that occur during puberty in afab & adjacent people. Estrogen can be taken several ways, and is usually taken daily, and several times a day. You can take it in a pill or shot, and several forms of estrogen that can be applied to the skin like creams, gels and patches.

Make sure you thoroughly sanitize the skin of any injection sites or areas you will be applying gel or patches. If you are given topical estrogen, make sure you wash your hands after application and do not have someone else apply it for you. Make sure you do not go swimming or shower within several hours of application to make sure your skin absorbs the hormone.

You may not need to take anti androgens if you are doing estrogen injections, depending on how effective the estrogen injections are for you. Some people may not end up needing anti-androgens at all, and may be able to skip that entirely as spiro has unwanted side effects. Your natural hormone levels will dictate whether or not it's necessary, but it is not necessary for everyone.

You may end up being recommended to switch from one form of estrogen to another as your transition progresses, depending on how your body responds.

It's recommended to not take estrogen as a pill if you have personal/family history of blood clots in a deep vein or in lungs (venous thrombosis).

Some people also end up taking progesterone as well alongside estrogen. Progesterone is typically taken to encourage breast tissue growth, as this is the most prominent effect of the hormone. If sufficient breast tissue growth isn't seen from estrogen alone, progesterone can be added to your regimen, though this is only done later on into treatment, around a year or so in.

If you choose injectable estrogen, make sure to listen to your provider and ask for instructions about how to use needles and syringes, as well as injection angles, how and where you'll be injecting. Do not inject in the exact same spot every time, this can prevent the issue from healing properly and create scar tissue or cause infections or skin tissue necrosis (death). You also need a sharps container to safely dispose of your needle tips. Never re-use a needle, even if it was used previously on yourself. Always ask the pharmacy if you need more needles. A lot of places let you get them in bulk.

If you are going the injection route, make sure you know whether or not you are instructed to do intramuscular or subcutaneous injections. Intramuscular injections usually taper out of the system more quickly and need to be done more frequently, where as many patients find subcutaneous injections less painful and easier as they can be done less frequently.

For more information on safe intramuscular or subcutaneous injection for estrogen, please read here.

Another option for feminizing HRT is to take gonadotropin-releasing hormone (Gn-RH) analogs. They lower the amount of testosterone your body makes and may allow you to take lower doses of estrogen without using Spiro. Gn-RH analogs are usually more expensive, but are an option if for whatever reason the conventional route can't work for you.

DON'T GIVE UP IF YOU DON'T SEE THE EFFECTS YOU WANT TO SEE RIGHT AWAY! Many of them can take a long time to develop, often times patience is the key. If you wait it out and still don't see the results you'd like, you can try another route. Don't give up, a lot of people get deterred in the early stage of transition, you'll get there with patience and communication.

Stay patient, stay positive!

What to Expect from Feminizing HRT

Less facial and body hair growth: typically happens 6 - 12 months after treatment starts. Full effects within ~3 years on average.

Slower scalp hair loss: begins 1 - 3 moths after treatment begins. Full effect between 1 - 2 years on average.

Softer, less oily skin, and changes in general skin texture: 3 - 6 months after treatment starts, full effects within 2 - 3 years on average

Rounder, softer features including face and body, and more body fat: 3 - 6 months after treatment starts, full effects in 2 - 5 years.

Breast development: begins 3 - 6 months after treatment starts, full effects within 2 - 5 years on average or more, according to medical studies, but it can vary wildly from person to person, give dosage and hormones taken. If desired effects are not seen, progesterone can be taken alongside estrogen to help after around one year on estrogen. When breast growth begins, it starts with hard lumps under the nipples along with some soreness and itchiness. Some have sore breasts for a long time, and some may get scared and think they have cancer during this stage. Breasts will be swollen and tender for good while, and nipples may be especially sensitive to even light touch.

Reduced muscle mass/density: 3 - 6 months after treatment starts, full effect in 1 - 2 years on average

Potential decrease in libido if on estrogen alone, though not guaranteed: If it happens, it's generally within 1 - 3 months in and can last a while, but may even out over time

Fewer erections, decreased ejaculate volume, and erections that can become painful or uncomfortable if frequent erections are not maintained. This begins 1 - 3 months after treatment starts, and the full effect is within 3 - 6 months. Regularly maintaining erections and frequent ejaculation can ease some of these uncomfortable feelings in some people.

Changes in how orgasms feel, changes in texture and degree of sensation of penis and scrotum skin as well as changes in body odor: typically begins within 3 - 6 months, though it varies from person to person. Often times the way one's body responds to orgasms completely changes, many people find themselves experiencing full-body orgasms and more intense erogenous zones elsewhere in the body other than the genitals.

Smaller testicles, or testicular atrophy happens within 3 - 6 months and the full effects are usually seen within 2 - 3 years.

Increase in size of bladder and decrease in size of prostate over time which can lead to making one's gspot harder to find, and make prostate examinations more difficult, though they are still vital, as prostate cancer is still a possible factor.

Potential mood fluctuations while adjusting to the hormones, many report increased crying and sadness during the first 3 - 6 months with this tapering off after a full year at most.

Increased fatigue while adjusting to the hormones, sleepiness and becoming easily exhausted are common reports. This can vary drastically from person to person, ymmv.

If you have testicles and choose to have them removed, you may need to take testosterone as well as estrogen in order to have a healthy endocrine system. You will need to discuss the effects of this with your specialists if you want to go this route. If your androgen levels get too low because your body cannot synthesize enough testosterone after bottom surgery, you may need additional medication.

Potential infertility, though this is not a guarantee, and safe sex should still be practiced at all times. No timeline projected though the longer one is on E the more likely it becomes.

Monthly cycles akin to menstrual cycles: these are not present in everyone, but many people report entering a cycle of extreme fatigue, body aches, abdominal cramping in the approximate area where a uterus would sit, headaches, and more for around the duration of a menstrual cycle (4 - 10 days on average).

Progesterone inversely to estrogen can cause an increase in libido in most who take it, and is the primary hormone used for breast growth. Lactation may also occur while taking prog, if this happens, talk to your doctor right away.

Keep track of your progress when and where you are able, and don't be afraid to bring up any concerns you may have with your professionals or trans friends, or any other trans resource. Your transition is in your hands and you're allowed to modify it as you see fit. If you do not see the effects you want from traditional HRT, you may be able to seek the Gn-RH route, and if you aren't seeing the results you want from just estrogen, progesterone might be of use to you.

You will need to keep an eye on your bone health as high levels of estrogens can increase your chance to develop osteoporosis, and potential new cancers like breast cancer may arise, as well as heart problems. Getting checkups as frequently as possible and communicating with your doctor/s will be of great use when and where possible

Either way, we hope this helps in some way! We will add to it as we find/think of more information. Good luck to everyone seeking feminizing HRT, you deserve to look and feel like yourselves!

[theambitiouswoman]

Hygiene tips

Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially before eating, after using the restroom, after coughing or sneezing, and after touching public surfaces.

Carry a hand sanitizer with you. Make sure the sanitizer contains at least 60% alcohol and rub it over your hands until dry.

When coughing or sneezing, cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your elbow to prevent the spread of germs. Dispose of used tissues immediately.

Refrain from touching your eyes, nose, and mouth as much as possible, as these are entry points for germs into your body.

Take showers or baths regularly to keep your body clean and fresh. Use soap and water to thoroughly cleanse your body, paying attention to areas like armpits, feet, and groin.

Brush your teeth at least twice a day for two minutes each time, using fluoride toothpaste. Don't forget to clean your tongue, and replace your toothbrush every three to four months.

Keep your nails short and clean to prevent the buildup of dirt and bacteria. Use a nail brush to scrub under your nails regularly.

Regularly clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces in your home, such as doorknobs, light switches, countertops, and electronics. Also, keep your living space well-ventilated.

Wash your clothes, bed linens, and towels regularly, following the manufacturer's instructions. Use the appropriate water temperature and detergent to ensure proper cleanliness.

Avoid sharing personal items like towels, razors, toothbrushes, or makeup.

Practice good food hygiene by washing fruits and vegetables thoroughly before consumption. Cook food to the appropriate temperature to kill harmful bacteria, and refrigerate leftovers promptly.

Keep your surroundings clean: Regularly clean and disinfect commonly touched surfaces such as doorknobs, light switches, phones, keyboards, and remote controls. This helps eliminate germs that may be present on these surfaces.

Maintain clean and healthy feet: Keep your feet clean and dry to prevent fungal infections. Wash your feet regularly, dry them thoroughly (especially between the toes), and wear clean socks and well-fitting shoes.

Ensure that the water you use for drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene is clean and safe. If necessary, use water filters or boil the water before use.

If possible, use a shower filter.

If you are sexually active, use barrier methods (such as condoms) to protect yourself from sexually transmitted infections. Get regular check-ups and screenings as recommended by healthcare professionals.

Take care of your mental well-being by managing stress, getting enough sleep, engaging in regular physical activity, and seeking support when needed. Good mental health is essential for overall well-being.

Sleep with aloe vera on your face to help with scars and acne.

Massage your body with oils and lotions after shower or before bed.

Eat greek yogurt to help fix PH balance, acne and odor in your private area.

Wear cotton based underwear.

Do not treat your body like a trashcan.

To smell good during the day:

Regular bathing helps remove sweat, dirt, and odor-causing bacteria from your body.

Apply antiperspirant or deodorant to clean, dry underarms to control sweat and odor.

You can also use baking soda and lemon to get rid of under arm odor.

Put on freshly laundered clothes each day. Clean clothing helps prevent the buildup of odor-causing bacteria and keeps you smelling fresh.

When choosing clothes, opt for natural fibers like cotton or linen, which allow air to circulate and help wick away moisture from your body. Avoid synthetic materials that can trap sweat and lead to unpleasant odors.

Brush your teeth at least twice a day, floss daily, and use mouthwash to maintain fresh breath. Don't forget to clean your tongue as well.

Apply a pleasant fragrance, such as perfume or cologne, sparingly. Avoid excessive application, as it can be overwhelming to others. Focus on pulse points like the wrists, neck, or behind the ears.

Keep your feet clean and dry to prevent foot odor. Wash your feet daily, dry them thoroughly (especially between the toes), and wear clean socks and well-ventilated shoes.

Regularly brush your tongue, as it can harbor bacteria and contribute to bad breath. Visit your dentist regularly for check-ups and cleanings.

Drink plenty of water throughout the day to flush out toxins from your body. Staying hydrated can help prevent the buildup of odors.

Certain foods, such as garlic, onions, and spicy dishes, can contribute to body odor. Pay attention to your diet and make choices that minimize strong odors if you are concerned about smelling good.

Keep a small travel-sized deodorant, wet wipes, or refreshing body spray with you to freshen up during the day, especially in hot or humid weather.

Ensure your clothes, towels, and bed linens are washed regularly. Use a detergent with a fresh scent to keep them smelling clean.

Spray perfume on your brush or use natural oils that are safe for your hair.

Wipe front to back to avoid infections. Use toilet paper then wipes.

moisturize your skin.

When washing your hair, make sure you are using products that clean your hair without drying it out.

Keep feminine wipes with you.

[saltofmercury]

As someone who has just fallen for König, thank you for the reading material. He's just more adorable now. May I request a 'there was only one bed' trope with König? If you don't feel comfortable with it or need anything else please let me know. <3

First of all, very very special thank you. You are the first to make me think of TWO ideas for this prompt but I will be publishing that one later.

Second, I’m surprised I never thought of this prompt for myself!

Anyway I love u and I hope you like this version and I’ll tag ya in the second one.

“There’s only one.”

At the start of your relationship, König was polite. Too polite. Maybe it was the cultural differences or the military instilled in him but between you two but he always kept his distance from you.

He asked to hold your hand when many other men would just simply grab your hand and intertwine their fingers against yours.

He asked if he could have a kiss, it was cute, almost innocent the way he asked as if he would get in trouble if he stole one.

Further down your relationship when you spent the night at each other’s houses he would leave you in his room while he took the couch. Same thing when he stayed at your house. He took your couch and never gave it a second thought.

You always respected this, even appreciated that he was so gentle with you, he was never one to be so forward with you, but it was just eating you up inside… does he really like me?

*

One afternoon while you two were building a puzzle together he casually brought up a “holiday” for you two.

“It’s not far, it’s technically up north from where we are now.”

You looked up at him from the table still holding a blue piece clearly not finding its spot. Was this extra?

“You want to go up north?” You say, still concentrating if the manufacturer had given you 501 pieces instead.

“I think it would be fun. A change of environment” he had said simply. He looked down now hoping you would say yes. He was fidgeting in the middle of the puzzle. König was so backwards to you. He worked on the middle of the puzzle and then slowly worked out.

You thought it over.

It was harmless, you needed a break from work and you craved a little more interaction, affection from him.

“Okay let’s do it.”

*

The ride up north should have been long, tedious, and never ending. Surprisingly it had become a great window of opportunity for the two of you. He told you about his childhood. A restless, dangerous, and tornado of a child in his backyard.

You loved when he talked to you about his childhood, it helped you piece together the guy that he was today. You laughed and smiled at all his expressions, his concentration to storytelling.

When you had arrived at the hotel, he took the opportunity to unpack for you and carry your luggage as you went to reserve a spot for dinner.

You requested an outside table, the wait would be about 30 minutes, right as the host called out to you, and he appeared in front of you half an hour later.

“Jesus,” you said sarcastically.

“Was pretty sure you abandoned me.”

He smiled at you, “No, just last minute details I needed to fix.”

You wanted to ask what details he was referring to, but the waiter approached your table to discuss specials.

*

It wasn’t until after dinner that you noticed him off. He kept fidgeting and finding an excuse to not go to the hotel.

“Do you want to see the park?” “Maybe there’s a fun event happening tonight.”

It has been a pretty long drive and a long day. What you really wanted to do was unwind for the day, shower, and wear cozy pajamas.

“No, maybe tomorrow, why don’t we go back?”

He looked nervous. Took a deep breath and agreed.

“Okay, let’s go back.”

*

You approached the hotel, rushed upstairs with him. Commenting on their choice of artwork.

Would you look at the rug? Gosh it makes me feel dizzy.

Look at this picture, it’s teal and the carpet is red!

He responded with small hums.

He opened the door for you, you ran inside the bathroom. You needed to wash away the sweat and grime of the day.

Once finished, you stepped outside, looking for your lotion and pj’s. You saw König sitting at the edge of the bed, elbows to his knees, rubbing his hands in circles.

“Are you washing your hands there?” You joked.

He said nothing. You kneeled toward your suitcase, got ready for bed in the bathroom.

“You okay there?” König kept fidgeting with his hands. Why did he seem ..Anxious? You approached him.

“Are you alright?”

He spoke softly, “There’s only one bed.”

“So?” Then it hit you.

Bed. (Singular)

One bed. (Sharing?)

König was sitting at the edge of ONE bed.

Maybe the universe had finally pushed aside the boundaries that König had been so fixated on. You had secretly said a small prayer —thank you so very much.

“Is that a problem?” You asked.

“No.” He was firm, but quickly added “I just want to make sure you’re comfortable. I didn’t plan this.”

You laughed. Only König would think because you shared one bed with one another it was malicious on his part.

“Would you stop it?” You shook your head and pulled him up towards the bed. You pulled back the sheets, nestled the pillows up around you. You pat down the side next to you and wiggled your eyebrows. He settled in. You settled yourself right next to him, a leg over his, an arm over him.

“This is okay. This is more than okay. This is the best..” you yawned

He was stiff. “… dove”

but as he peered down at you, seeing how relaxed you were, you closed your eyes against him, he then got comfortable with you.

“This is okay.” He says back. A confirmation. “The best.”

His heart warmed up with the thought of you being so comfortable, so at peace with him. You didn’t even think twice about sharing a bed with him and he did. Maybe he needed to shut off his brain when it came to you because this felt like home. This felt better than the couch.

He made a mental note of this moment.

It isn’t until weeks later that he confesses to you one night as you snuggle up next to him at his house —

“I don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner…Sleeping next to you is easy.”

[lovebugism]

hiii idk if you’re still taking requests but can you do something smutty with steve in season 3 w his scoops ahoy uniform on after he gets home from work or something🙏🏼🙏🏼

like sub!babygirl!steve is so 🤤🤤😽😽 and a

dom!femreader 🫶❤️❤️ AND OMG HE HAS A MOMMY KINK😧😧 I BEG OF YOU

✶ ┄ OH, BABY !

summary: after a long day at work, steve harrington needs someone (*cough cough* you) to take care of him. pairing: sub!steve harrington / f!reader word count: 5.6k warnings: sub!steve, brief use of a mommy kink, r calls steve daddy like twice i think, mention of a breeding kink, 18+ mdni (ignore any typos, i am way too tired to proofread <3) a/n: hi, it's me again, turning a blurb request into a full length fic. also i can't stop writing for sub steve apparently. all i can say is baby girl is baby girlin real hard in this one lol thanks so much for your request! enjoy xoxo

( BLURB SLEEPOVER ) | ( MASTERLIST )

It’s sunset by the time his shift at Scoops concludes. He serves the last few remaining customers while Robin less than kindly ushers out the loitering teenagers that have stuck around all day. 

A group of moms clad in vividly colored spandex tells him “we’re being bad today” like some sort of mantra that makes them feel better about ordering plain vanilla ice cream. Some middle school aged girls with a mouthful of braces, crimped hair in pigtails, and absolutely wreaking of fruity perfume and daddy’s money try helplessly to flirt with him while they use a matte black card to purchase a banana boat sundae.

His last customers of the night are an old married couple, all gray and wrinkly and smiling like life’s still so new to them. They order one strawberry cone to share between them and hold onto each other’s shaking, frail hands as they make their exit.

Steve smiles as he watches them go. He sees a lot of you and him in them. He hopes by the time you both are all old and brittle, you’ll still be happy like that, still so in love.

Working in the downstairs abyss of Starcourt makes him feel crazy sometimes. With no windows and only manufactured fluorescent lighting for ten hours straight, it makes time feel less and less real.

Sometimes he’ll be in before sun out and cower like some sort of vampire when his shift is over. Other times, he’ll come out when it’s pouring down rain and be absolutely baffled at the sight of it because it was perfectly sunny when his shift started.

Everything else but ice cream all but ceases to exist in the hole of Scoops Ahoy — weather, time, life.

Even though it’s closing when he leaves, Steve doesn’t realize how dark it’s gotten outside until he’s walking through the desolate parking lot to his car. The bustling mall has fallen asleep with the rest of the town. The sky has long turned to a navy velvet, the stars and full moon bright white silk. 

It makes his limbs heavy and his eyelids heavier as his tired bones ache for rest.

Steve makes the longer drive out to the cabin rather than his own home to see you. Hopper’s out for some conference which means El gets to spend every ounce of her time at the Wheeler’s and you and Steve get to play house. 

He doesn’t bother to knock before he comes in. He shuffles through the entrance like his feet are made of lead and leans his weight against the door after he clicks it closed.

The sound of his arrival gets your attention from where you scurry around the kitchen. A smile pulls slowly at your face as you turn over your shoulder to look at him, placing a cover over a pot of something that smells like your infamous chicken alfredo.

“Hey, Stevie,” you greet with a beam and a sort of sunshine in your voice that Steve’s been missing all day.

His body relaxes for the first time since he got up this morning at the sight of you, freshly showered and in your pajamas for the night — an oversized t-shirt that definitely didn’t belong to you before, because it used to be his.

You look more like home than any four walls could ever be to him.

Steve tries his best to give you a smile in return, but it’s weighed down by fatigue and not all there.

You can see it all over him, every ounce of exhaustion on his lax and tired features. Slinging ice cream for less than grateful customers for ten hours straight has taken an obvious toll on him. The bright blue sailor’s uniform makes him look more boyish, but no less tired — or hot.

Your heart swells at how cozy he looks, fatigued and warmed and in dire need of being taken care of. It makes you glad that you started dinner earlier than normal, even happier that you’ve got the house to yourselves.

You exit the kitchen and walk the short distance to him, taking his scruffy cheeks in your palms and rubbing your thumbs against his cheeks.

“Hard day?” you wonder softly and smile to himself when you feel Steve nestle further into your touch.

The boy hums lowly in reply — neither a yes or a no, but a short hmph that means he doesn’t want to talk about it now. He doesn’t like thinking about work when you’re in his arms and all over him. He’d rather pretend like you’re the only thing that exists and let the rest of the world slip slowly away.

He turns his face to kiss the inside of your wrists. You smell like lavender, he finds, and it makes him that much more tired and needy for you.

His hands settle on your arms, fingers wrapping themselves just below your wrists. “Just tired,” he answers finally. “How was your day?”

“Better than yours, I’m assuming,” you quip with a smile. Your hands drag from his face, down the tense columns of his neck, and settle at the white lapel of his uniform. Steve lets you pull him down by his red neckerchief until his lips press against yours, the pillows of them far cozier than the bed and blanket he so craves right now.

He grows somehow heavier against you. He exhales deeply through his nose as his aching muscles start to relax, the warmth of it brushes against your cupid’s bow. His hands fall to your back and ball into your shirt as he clutches so ardently onto you, as though terrified he might have to go another agonizing ten hours without you.

Your smile contorts against his mouth. A laugh exhales sharply through your nose at this tired boy, exhausted and too willing to let you swallow him whole.

As much as you want to take care of you him, you want him to get a little food in his belly and fresh clothes on his skin.

He’s got freshly laundered cottons sitting in a drawer you cleaned out in your room especially for him and a pot of his favorite food simmering on the stove. He’ll be golden in an hour or more and you’ll happily take care of him then.

Steve whines when you pull away from him. The pathetic sound bubbles from his throat and his face screws up like you’ve actually pained him by not kissing him more. He ducks down, looming over you, as his lips chase yours.

You giggle at him, letting him kiss you — one, two, three quick pecks and a fourth sweeter, more drawn-out one he presses against you as the two of you stumble back into the living room.

“You need to eat first, okay?” you protest when you part from him again, lips clicking wetly as they separate. “You probably haven’t had anything all day.”

“I had half a banana in the break room at lunch,” he retorts, half-heartedly.

“Exactly,” you scold. “Go get changed and then we can eat, ‘kay?”

“If you wanted to see me naked so bad, you could’ve just said.”

You roll your eyes at him and how he’s still so sly despite being so damn tired. You push playfully against his chest and squirm out from under where he’d cornered you between his body and the back of the couch. “You smell like a sundae and cheap cologne—”

“Blame those assholes from Abercrombie.”

“—hit the showers, Harrington,” you tell him with a playful sternness, swatting him on the ass as you pass by him.

The action stopped surprising him a long time ago. He’d complained relentlessly about corporate and the stupid outfit they made him wear to work every morning until he realized how much you liked it. 

After that, Steve figured he could put up with the itching and the chaffing and the weird stares from other mall-goers. As long as it meant you being unable to keep your hands off of him, dropping to your knees in front of him before he left for work, visiting him at lunch because you just had to see him again.

“You comin’ too, or…?” he jokes in reply, already inching towards the bathroom, but secretly hoping you’ll say yes.

You refuse to amuse him, though, and instead tell him that you have to keep stirring the pasta so it won’t burn. He’s too tired and too excited to wash all the muck of the long workday from his body to beg.

You knew just what he needed — like you always do. He’s as good as gold by the time he gets out of the shower, smelling of your shampoo and practically glittering at how good he feels.

His skin gets to breathe for the first time all day when he slips on a pair of boxers and a faded forest green Hawkins High sweatshirt. They’re freshly washed. He can tell by how soft they feel and the way they smell of fresh detergent. 

It makes his heart swell. 

While he’s been slinging ice cream and questioning all of his life choices, you’ve been washing his clothes, folding them and putting the in their own drawer in your dresser. You’ve been cooking him his favorite dinner, knowing he hasn’t eaten all day, because you know everything about him. 

You do it all because you love him. You don’t have to think twice about it before you so effortlessly take care of him.

He swears you’ll feed him if he begs hard enough, but Steve hasn’t reached that level of tiredness yet. He does, however, force you to sit halfway in his lap while the both of you opt to eat on the couch in the living room rather than the kitchen table.

A repeat of Miami Vice plays on the tiny television across the room and you tell him about what you’d done on your day off in between shoveling forkfuls of pasta into your mouth with your legs slung into his lap.

Most of it was spent taking care of chores, a feat made harder without Hopper and El to take on the extra workloads but easier because their absence meant less shit to get done. 

You drove Dustin and Lucas to the Wheeler’s house later that morning, then doubled back across Hawkins when Max called and all but begged you to free her from the hellscape on Cherry Lane, as she so lovingly put it. You picked her up and dropped her off with the rest of her friends.

And even though they all swore they had rides back home, they’d called again some hours later and asked too sweetly if you could take them back across town.

You complain and grumble about it, but you do it for them anyway.

Because you take care of people. That’s just what you do.

“So you were a personal chauffeur for a bunch of kids all day?” Steve jokes and laughs to himself as he swipes a smudge of alfredo sauce from your chin with his thumb

“Basically,” you nod in reply.

When that’s all done — and the episode is over and the dishes are in the sink and your teeth are freshly brushed — you tell Steve to get into bed, and then to get his head out of the gutter at the look he gives you after.

He’s pleasantly surprised when you bring a whole basket of things from the bathroom and into your bedroom. He watches silently, obediently, as you light a candle on the far side of the room before climbing into bed beside him.

“Scoot down a little,” you tell him. “And take off your shirt.”

He does it all without question. He rises, strips himself of his top, and tosses the thing mindlessly on the floor beside the bed. With his lean torso and bare chest on display, spotted with tufts of chestnut-colored hair and smelling of your body wash, he lazes back onto the bed again with his head on the pillows.

Steve holds his breathe when you straddle his chest.

“Comfy?” you ask him quietly.

He can only nod in response.

His eyes are wide, twinkling with love and curiosity. It makes you smile. He’s always so soft in his way, so compliant with you — and, fuck, if you don’t love how he looks when he’s underneath you.

You lean down to press a chaste kiss to the chiseled tip of his nose then reach for one of the many bottles stacked inside the wicker basket. You drip the rose-scented liquid onto a cottonpad and tell him that it’s cleanser.

“I thought I was already clean?” he retorts.

“Well, this shit is gonna make ya glow like a baby, Harrington,” you tell him and swipe the stuff up and down his face — across his forehead, along his nose, and around his stubbly jaw. “Which means it’s perfect for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Means you’re a baby,” you quip once, then smile lovingly down at him. “My baby,” you correct.

“Damn straight,” he hums with a soft smile, then shuts his eyes when you trade the cleanser for what you call a liquid exfoliator. He doesn’t ask what that means. He doesn’t say much of anything really, because he’s enamored with the way you dote on him.

Your day has been just as busy as his, maybe not as mind-numbing, but still busy. You’ve been bouncing all across town, trying to make sure a bunch of kids weren’t putting themselves in total danger — Steve knows firsthand how hard that can be.

And yet, you keep caring for him, like it’s more important than how tired you must be.

The way you’ve settled on top of him is just a bonus. It’s not as domineering as you usually are in this position, straddling your legs over him and forcing his face between your legs with your fingers tangled in his hair. He wouldn’t have minded if that’s what you’d done in the first place. He would’ve thanked you for it, really.

It’s comforting more than it is anything, the subtle weight of you on top of him, keeping him grounded.

You rub something that feels like lotion into his skin. The tips of your fingers massage his face — they dig softly into his temples, relieving all the strain there, then trace around his curve of his jaw. Steve sighs and melts into your touch. It makes you laugh.

“Look at you,” you giggle, all soft like the moonlight streaming in rays from the windows. Then you tease him. “My baby’s gettin’ all pampered tonight, huh?”

“That stuff smells really good,” he notes. “Think it’s safe enough to taste?”

You know he’s joking, but you flick him in the center of his freshly moisturized forehead anyway, when his tongue darts out the side of his mouth to lick around his lips.

“You’re such an idiot,” you scold with a laugh. “There’s no way we’re gonna be able to have a kid if you keep acting like one, Steve Harrington.”

The boy's eyes fly open. “…A kid?” he repeats in something short of a whisper.

You only hum in reply with a little shrug like you’re trying to play it all off. Like you didn’t just drop the biggest bomb on him and left him to pick up the pieces. Like it isn't the sweetest goddamn thing he’s ever heard in his life (even though you are sort of making fun of him).

“You want a kid with me?” he presses, eyes sparkling and full of hope.

“���Course I do,” you shrug again, focusing on capping the moisturizer and putting it away rather than meeting his intense gaze. “Want anything and everything with you, Stevie.”

The boy doesn’t bother to hide the grin your words put on his face. He’s all but beaming from where he lays beneath you, trying to make sure he’s still breathing because his heart has started to flutter something fierce.

It was something the two of you only ever talked about in passing — usually him bringing up the idea of having kids and you swatting them all down.

“We’re too young,” you tell him. “We’re too broke”, “we’re too dumb.” The occasional “my dad is literally in the next room, he’ll kill you if he hears you talking like that” shuts him up real quick.

But here you are now, telling him you want a baby with him, that you want everything with him. It drives him absolutely insane.

“Yeah?” he hums in response, idle hands rising and settling upon your bare thighs, rubbing at the smooth skin there, petting you almost. The room gets suddenly and unbearably hot with the look he gives you, innocent and knowing and hungry.

You feel him shift from underneath you, the hardening cock in his boxers making it hard to stay as comfortable as he had been.

“You wanna be a mommy, honey?” he all but coos. “Wanna take care of our kids like you take care of me?”

Though his words set a fire in the pit of your stomach, the tone of them makes you roll your eyes. It’s like flipping a light switch when it comes to Steve. It takes next to nothing to turn him into a puddle of mush.

He’s always raring to go when it comes to you, and you’d be lying if you said it was totally invigorating. 

“What happened to my sweet, sleepy, baby Stevie, huh?” you tease, hands leaving his face to caress the ones he’s got resting on your thighs. “Thought you were too tired?”

He shakes his head defiantly. “Never too tired for you.” 

“I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” you scold with bubbly laughter when you feel his large hands trail up your legs. His finger falls beneath your shirt, the tips of them sneaking into the rounded hems of your underwear, all but cupping your ass to drag you further up his chest.

He’s practically salivating at the mere thought of tasting you. Of knowing that the only thing separating you from him is a couple of inches and the thin fabric of your underwear.

He knows that when he slides them to the side, you’ll be wet and needing him underneath, slick enough for his tongue to slip right in.

And, truth be told, oral sex wasn’t the easiest when you weren’t alone. It was too precarious of a position. If Hopper knocked on the door and barged in hardly a moment later, you needed to break away quickly.

So when your dad and little sister were home, it was easier to use your hands to get each other off. And, maybe, if Steve was real good, you’d let him fuck you.

But his mouth on you? There wasn’t enough good he could be for you to let him do that, not when your father was on the other side of the door in the living room. Because you’re pretty sure death would be easier than your dad catching Steve Harrington giving cunnilingus to his daughter. You’re pretty sure you’d die on the spot, anyway.

But Hopper is miles away. Your sister is on the other side of town. And you’re alone with your boyfriend, hidden away in a cabin in the middle of the woods. It’s the perfect recipe for the best sex of your life.

“Don’t care,” Steve murmurs, pressing kisses to the inner parts of your thigh when he settles you more intently over his shoulders. “Wanna make you feel good.”

“Yeah?” you croon. From below you, the boy notes the arched brow and knowing glint in your eye that usually means trouble. “Daddy wants to make mommy feel good, huh?”

Steve knows exactly why you said it. Why you chose to say it like that. It’s the same reason you brought up the kid thing in the first place. Because you knew it would drive him crazy.

And it’s not like you ever had to try to make him mental, all you really had to do was walk into a room and he was done for. But you didn’t just want to just make him go insane, you wanted to ruin him. 

And you know you’ve done just that when a groan spills from his mouth and two strong hands dig rather ruthlessly into your hips. He pulls you down without warning, pressing your clothed pussy closer to his face and dragging his nose between your covered lips. A moan leaves your mouth in a heavy exhale when the tip of it nudges your clit.

“Like being called daddy, huh?” you tease through bated breaths.

Steve nods in reply as he hooks a finger through the hem of your panties and slides them to the side, putting your pretty, glistening pussy on display for him.

He was right about what he said before — you were soaked. 

All but drunk on the sight of you, he presses open-mouthed kisses to your inner thigh. “Like the other thing, too,” he mumbles against your skin, like he’s hiding himself there.

“The other thing?” you question with pinched brows. The confusion ebbs like a rolling tide as you realize: “Oh. You wanna call me mommy, Stevie?” you ask with a joking lilt.

“Shut up,” he groans against you.

He’s pleasantly surprised when your hand grabs the strands of his hair like reigns, pulling him back just before he puts his mouth on your pussy. He’s even more stunned at the stern expression taking over your features, not nearly as playful as you’d been moments before.

Suddenly you’re ten feet tall, and he’s nothing more than an ant, at the mercy of your boot.

“That’s no way to talk to your mommy, is it, Stevie?” 

He shakes his head with glazed over eyes. “Sorry.”

“Sorry… what?”

There is an underlying tone in your voice, something teasing and yet somehow serious all at once. It’d make him roll his eyes if he weren’t lying beneath you like this. Now, with your pussy mere inches from his face, he isn’t quite sure how to be anything but obedient.

“Sorry, mommy,” he corrects.

A flip switches and you’re smiling again. “Good boy,” you praise and it makes his cock twitch in the confines of his boxers. Your hand guides him to your pussy again.

Steve’s always been good at oral. A little too good, actually. It made you jealous sometimes, to know that his technique has been perfected over years of experience.

“All the other girls were just practice for you, honey,” he’d soothe your seething rage with a wink and a tongue shoved deep into your cunt.

You believe him now, that every other girl was just an obstacle for him to get to you, because no one’s had him like this. No one will ever have him like this.

You’re the one who’s got him on his back with his mouth on your pussy. You’re the one who’s got him calling you mommy.

And it makes you feel like a fucking giant.

He wastes little time to envelope your cunt with his mouth. You feel the muffled grunt he lets out at the tangy and familiar taste of you. His tongue pushes into your cunt, licking you with the intent of devouring you entirely. His nose presses intently against your clit, prodding the little button as you ride his face. He encourages every thrust, guiding your hips up and down his mouth.

“Fuck, Stevie,” you whine and feel him smile drunkenly against your pussy, never ceasing his assault against your sensitive skin.

Your head falls back, suddenly too heavy to hold up. Your gaze settles on the ceiling, though you’re not exactly looking at it, and moans fall from your open mouth and into the heavy air — billowing laments in the moonlight.

“You make me feel so good,” you murmur to yourself, but to him especially, knowing he turns into a ticking time bomb when he’s praised. “Always make mommy feel so fucking good, baby.”

He groans against you, and it makes your hips twitch over his face.

Your head turns and your glazed over eyes fall on the hard cock trapped in his underwear. It’s more than apparent against the thin fabric with a wet patch of precum darkening the plaid cotton. The sight of it, paired with his lips wrapped around your clit, makes you moan most pitifully.

“Fuck, Steve,” you cry. “You’re gonna make me come. Holy shit, baby— gonna come so hard in your mouth.” The promise makes Steve double his efforts against you, wanting nothing more than to taste every drop you can give him. “I’ll ride you after, 'kay? Make you come so hard you can’t see straight. Fuck. I’m so fucking close.”

You figure his muffled whine is an affirmative.

“If you make me come now, maybe I’ll let you come inside me—”

You barely get to finish your sentence before Steve’s wrapping his arms around your thighs and keeping you pressed against his face. His tongue works overtime inside of your cunt, attentively flicking against every part of your velvet walls that it can reach, while his nose nudges your clit most relentlessly.

It has you reaching your climax within seconds, hips jerking against him while his hold on you tightens. Steve only lets you go when he’s certain you’ve ridden out every inch of your orgasm.

You’re shaking and half-numb when you unfold your body from his and settle next to him on the bed. You press yourself over him as your lips swallow his, tasting yourself on his mouth that glistens with you.

Your torso is splayed over his bare one, knees digging into the mattress at his side as you arch your back to push yourself further into him.

“Was that good for you?” he mutters after you’ve pulled away, sliding the tip of your nose up and down the bridge of his.

A laugh escapes you in a sharp scoff. If he couldn’t have felt how good it was for you — after you all but writhed against him — surely he must’ve tasted it dripping like honey from your cunt.

“It’s always good,” you assure him, then murmur more quietly, “Always so good for mommy.”

You keep the promise you’d made him no more than minutes beforehand. You pull down his boxers at the same time he’s trying to get you out of your shirt, and it’s just a mess of yearning limbs until the both of you are naked.

You rub yourself over his cock a few times, getting it all slick with you in the place of lube, because you know taking him is never an easy feat. The stretch of his dick inside you is always delicious but fuck if it doesn’t burn. It’s like fire in every sense of the word, hot and filthy paired with a distant ache.

Steve lets you set the pace as you get used to his length nestled deep inside your velvet. His hands rest compliantly on your hips as you grind against him, honeyed gaze fixed on your fucked out features as you take him — brows pinched, eyes squeezed shut, bottom lip trapped between your teeth.

Then, when every inch of him is snug in your cunt and your senses return to you, you deny him of his want to touch you. Your fingers wrap around his wrists and push them into the pillow on either side of his head. “Mommy didn’t say you could touch her, did she?” you purr to him as you lean over him. He shakes his head obediently, if only it meant that you kept fucking yourself on top of him.

And you do. Most ardently.

You keep your bare chest pressed against his fuzzy one, nose-to-nose as you slide your hips over his. And even though he’s had you like this before (in this position and many others), it feels brand new every time. It’s like he’s never felt you before despite how familiar you feel.

It triggers his body into a sense of fight of flight, as though frightened he’ll never get to have you again. It leaves him fucking you like it’ll be the last time he’s inside you, every fucking time.

It never is, though — obviously. Most times he only has to wait a couple minutes or more before he gets to take you again.

But now, with his hands balled into fists beside his head and your’s braced on his chest, digging into the patch of hair there as you rock back and forth on his hard cock — the tip of it nestled deep inside of you and hitting every sweet spot that makes you keen — has left him an absolute wreck beneath you. 

He’s chasing his pleasure like he’s never felt it before. Like he won’t feel it again.

“Your cock feels so good, Stevie,” you moan above him.

“‘M not gonna last long, baby,” he mutters between harsh and labored pants.

“’S okay… I want you to come,” you promise and press a too sweet kiss to his swollen, pink lips. You move your hips more intently over him. The sound of skin slapping against skin fills your bedroom. “Want you to fill me up.”

“Yeah?” he breathes out in something short of a whimper. His eyes are glassy and his brows are furrowed and it takes everything in him not to fuck up into you — because he wants to be good, he wants to be good for you. 

“Yeah… Want you come in me… Fuck me until it takes,” you babble over top of him, knowing exactly what it’s doing to the whining boy beneath you. “Wanna give you a baby— fuck— I wanna make you a daddy, Stevie.”

A whine spills from his throat. His toes curl into the fabric of your comforter, eyes rolling back into his head, body tensing as he digs his fingers into the skin of his palms that still ache to touch you.

Your name spills from his mouth along with a string of curses and pretty little cries when he stuffs you full of his come.

You happily accept every load he shoots into you as work him through every aftershock of his orgasm. Yours doesn’t come so easy — you roll your hips over yourself and rub your clit until you’re twitching right along with him. 

You come down from your highs together with a tender softness. You lay over him, one hand combing through his curls and the other stroking softly at his sweat-slicked bicep. You watch with heavy eyes as his orgasm rolls over him. 

His chest rises and falls with every heavy breath, stuttering when another pang of pleasure hits him all of a sudden. “Fuck,” he whines harshly into the heavy air.

He’s happy you don’t deny him when his arms wrap around your waist, hands rubbing up and down the expanse of your slick back.

You press tiny kisses to his face as he comes down — his nose, his cheeks, his forehead his stubbly chin and jaw. You press one, two, three pecks to his lips before you slide off of him, then laugh when he whines.

You’re gone for hardly more than three minutes, but to Steve, it feels like an eternity’s gone by.

You return from the bathroom, wiped freshly clean, and blow out the nearly burnt-out candle on your dresser before you slither back into his side. One of his arms curls beneath your shoulders to pull you closer to him with his other rests on the back of yours that’s settled on his chest.

You share one pillow, noses inches away from one another’s, while you bask in the warm moment and the sex-coated air around you before you have to break it.

“You know I’m still on the pill, right?” you ask him.

He nods.

“And that we’re—”

“Way too young to have a kid right now?” he finishes for you, though the idea makes him sad. He nods.

“Yeah… And—”

“Too broke? I know that too.”

“Also my—”

“Your dad would kill me if I got you pregnant?”

It makes you laugh. You hadn’t realized you’d talked about having kids this many times — at least, not enough for him to memorize all the reasons why it’s not the best idea right now.

“Yeah, I know it’s not happening any time soon,” Steve says with a sigh. “I like to pretend, though. Plus, it’s not even about that to me, you know? I just… I just like being with you and… everything.”

Everything, you repeat to yourself. A word that means so much and nothing at all.

No one knows what everything means, they just know that it’s a lot, a whole lot. That’s what makes it so special. Steve wants it all with you — the overbearing dad, the sister with powers, the teenage kids who never let you have a single second to yourselves when they’re around. 

It’s a lot sometimes, most times, but he’ll weather it all with you.

“You like being with me?” you echo just to see him nod.

He does. “I love being with you,” he corrects.

“Love calling me mommy, too, huh?”

He realizes then, the sincere moment was just a set-up for that stupid joke. He groans and flops his head back on the pillow, but makes no move to distance himself from you.

“Oh, my god,” he moans in annoyance. “Am I gonna have to deal with this the rest of my life?”

You nod. “Sorry, Harrington, but I’m never letting that shit go.”

Good, he thinks to himself, even though he pretends to hate it because it makes you laugh. He never wants you to stop.

[jethrowest]

Another drabble because I don’t have the concentration to write a full-fledged oneshot or fic right now.

Warnings: a smutty Homelander morsel that includes a concept I’ve been wanting to explore for a hot minute. Might try to expand on later. In short, he can’t get enough of you. 18+

He’s between your legs, tongue delving deep. Your thighs contract just as he swirls the tip along your clit, and his cloaked fingers grip you tighter as if that will pump more out for him to drown in.

You’ve never had someone be as attentive as he is. As obsessive, pacing your folds like he’s in the middle of a life-or-death decision.

In a way, he is. He loses control too much and you cease to exist. You’re surprised by your vehement reaction to that notion, a desperate moan vibrating against your throat he could have crushed minutes prior.

The bridge of his nose severs a precise divide between left and right, split directly down the middle. You undulate and writhe against him as much as you can. He wants you to stay.

Your orgasm tingles across your scalp and spreads, your body falling asleep and jolted awake, weight heavy and light.

He makes sure to lap up what he desires, one of his thumbs circling your clit. And- you’re grateful you catch this act beyond your blissful haze- he removes one glove and uses that hand to gather what melts from your core.

Slowly, he rakes those fingers through his hair, now wet and shiny with your fluids, bits and pieces having sneaked out of perfect, sticky place. He sighs wantonly, inhaling you and making sure you know. You mask the stiff, manufactured scent of what he presents to the rest of the world.

It’s an anomaly you can’t shake. Mere mortal you are, you should be the one bathing in him. You should be at his altar, begging him to spare whatever parts he manages to find useful, rotten apple you are.

Instead, you are being worshiped. Instead, he is vulnerable to your essence, unabashed in his violent, primal pursuit of you and all the love you have to offer.

It’s his.

You’re a life-sustaining perfume; elixir. He looks like the heavens parted, as your legs never hesitate to, allowing your rain to shower him in its pelting affection.

You are his. And when has anything or anyone ever truly belonged to him? You are something unscathed by the cruelty that shaped him. You’re accepting of the mold he leaks from, infecting what was meant to be pure and gold.

You don’t want him god-like. You want him raw and bloody.

You want him as he wants to be.

Right now, it seems he wants to be you- as deep inside as he can go. What else can you do but let him all the way in?

[elkosbathfittings]

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[hoseoksluna]

HEAVEN-SENT | knj

pairing: idol!friend!namjoon x f. reader

genre: fluff

word count: 2.8k

summary: when a certain bad experience with a guy makes you run to namjoon, he heals you and changes you once and for all.

warnings: lack of willful consent in a way, crying, religion, smoking (namjoon smokes a cig, reader vapes), the context of this fic is of sexual relations though none are described, heavy daddy issues.

note: after i sat down to write last chapter of berries, i discovered that i simply couldn't because of what happened to me this week. there was nothing left for me to do, but to run to namjoon in my head and let him heal me. yes, unfortunately, the events that i wrote about in this fic happened to me. the dream, i had it last night. and the consolation in the form of words in the fic, i constructed it from everything my friends told me. to be honest, i feel deeply healed. i finished it in two hours or so and i feel so much better. now, like the reader i put myself into, i'm gonna take a shower and wash everything away. i'll be able to write berries after that. i love you, guys. sorry, if this is triggering in any way. i just needed to get it out.

“I think I heard… God in that dream.” 

Your words create a wisp of tenderness in the air. Saddened, moist with the tears that sting in the back of your eyes. The sun of the summer has descended, hid beneath the city—and you feel as though the same occurred in your life, despite the fact you’re being held by someone who holds the skyscrapers and the manufactured greenery in between like a burden on his shoulders and could easily stop its departure if only he looked up to the heavens with puppy eyes. 

God would’ve nodded. Flicked his fingers. The source of light and warmth would’ve paused, stared down on you, shone a little more mercifully. Beckon you out to breath in the fresh air, breathe in the protectiveness you find yourself to be in the middle of. 

God protected you from a boy who had different intentions from you, led you into the arms of a man who’s able to take your pain and transform it into an eternal artwork of beauty and importance. A harmonious poetry, mixed with English and Korean, flooded with colors akin to the ones your eyes would stumble across on a field of wildflowers. 

It’s where you are right now. No blanket, just the soil, the blossoms, the warmth from Namjoon’s body, your bruised knees and rawly abraded elbows—your injury from earlier that the boy feignedly kissed, but didn’t care much about. A means to get you into bed, nothing else. A banana vape in your fist while Namjoon holds his cigarette backwards, shielding the smoke with his palm, even though you’ve told him multiple times that you didn’t mind it. 

You smoked so much of them with him within the hours you spent here and didn’t receive any sort of alleviation from it that you grew a certain distaste for it in your mouth. Settled for the sweetness of your vape. Enjoyed it as much as you enjoyed Namjoon’s closeness and a sense of safety that he radiated as he let you rest your head on his clavicle, leaning his entire weight on just one hand, and nothing else. 

So unlike the boy, who would’ve kissed your feet if you let him take the endeavor further like he wanted. 

You were on a first date with a boy you didn’t even know for a week. With a boy who stuck his tongue down your throat. Almost fondled the most private parts of your body, had you not stopped him. And who didn’t drive you home after. 

The prose of the shallow, insolent face of a young male, who didn’t want to be provided with your love and empathy, who kissed you to shut you up, in fact. And the demons of your brokenness, conspired with your father complex, manipulated you into believing that he was moved by it, rather than repulsed by it as his only objective was getting you comfortable enough so you willingly give over something that doesn’t belong to him. 

Your purity. Your private parts. Your femininity. 

Two days later after the date, you had a dream. While you slept beside your best friends who spent the night smoking with you on the stairs outside of their apartment, helping you realize the truth—popping your bubble of pink vapor gained from the kiss and the male attention you’ve always had so little of. Many dreams swam past your sleeping consciousness, but only one resurfaced upon waking up. 

A large beige room; a man standing in the middle of it as he made your bed while you stood clutching your pajamas to your broken, dejected form. You were looking at him, regarding him from head to toe. From his shortly cut, blond hair, to his broad shoulders and toned, muscular arms that would lift you without blinking. From the tank top he wore, to the dark shorts. And once you viewed the same bruises on his body that were on yours, concealed from his sight and awareness, you heard a gentle voice inside your heart. A voice, entwined with the purest form of love, which told you that this was the man you were supposed to be with, not the boy you were seeing. 

You listened to the voice, obeyed it in a way that you didn’t quite understand—silently, tenderly. While you internally quivered in fear in regards to the male species. You were frightened of the man who was taking care of you—not because of who he was or what he potentially had done or would have done, but because of a very simple reason. 

He was a man. 

And you didn’t trust them. 

Not anymore. 

Namjoon was different. Namjoon was a man who was your friend for the longest time. A poet who nurtured his life. Who viewed the world’s secret poetry and sought it in every way he could. He was as much like you as you were like him. But you weren’t his and he wasn’t yours. 

It wasn’t written in the prosaic constitution of this wretched world; and never will be. 

He’s not the man in the dream. 

He never made your bed, although he would if you needed it. But his heart doesn’t belong to love. It is tied to the arts; tied to the people he takes care of, works hard for. His heart belongs to his voice. 

And his voice was silenced in deep indignation when you told him what happened to you. He’s known you for years; he’s known of your lack of manliness in your life—has supported it for as long as he’s walked beside you. Wrote you poems about how perhaps that’s what life is. Aloneness and the arts, the heartbreak if it crawls inside and what you do with it after. You’ve read them, worshiped them, obeyed them, even though your need for love always persisted within you. 

And it led you here. Back to him, needing his poems, although now your deeper brokenness asks for his recitation. 

But he’s still silent. 

Not silent to your pain, however. Not silent to the tornado in your sternum that makes you pause between your words due to its intensity. That makes you look at the leaves of the grass instead of the earth within the pools of his eyes. But you can feel the strength of his indignation that is mightier than the whirlwind in your bones. And it’s warm, so terribly warm, growing warmer the longer he looks at you, in spite of the lowering of the heat of the sun and the evening sweeping past the field, the coldness of the soil as if it never had been touched by that heat. 

Like you, almost. 

“I think it was him who told me that,” you continue, brushing your thumb over your yellowing bruise upon your knee from your injury. “It’s why I remember the dream so vividly. Why it made me never want to see the guy again. Why it suddenly made me understand why my friends reacted the way they did when I told them what happened.” 

You believe it, and nothing could cover your belief due to its force—its quiet, tender force that graces you with a little bit of strength to be here with him, to be able to share it with him with the said understanding and calmness, calmness so akin to nothingness. 

How delightful it is, that state of emotions. 

You feel as though you’re telling the story of another person. Perhaps Namjoon has done it in you by letting you talk without interrupting like your friends did. They outburst so colorfully and it made you feel so small and so stupid. Namjoon did no such thing—through his silence he put great meaning into your story. 

And it feels nice. More than nice. You appreciate it with the little you’re able to feel towards a man. 

“Why did you let him kiss you again?” Namjoon asks, softly, breaking that nearly long season of his silence with the kind of gentleness that only he’s capable of. 

He must be a different breed, you conclude. One you’ll never have the opportunity to know, intimately. 

Your mouth rounds in a faint pout because you know your answer, and sheepishly you camouflage it by taking a puff of your vape, expecting the banana flavor to give you the courage you need in order to say it. 

You hear Namjoon follow you suit, sucking on the bud of his cigarette before he puts it out in yours and his makeshift ashtray—a bottle of water that you both drank. The hiss and the dying out drives you quicken your scrambling of bravery and you don’t really know where that vague sense of impatience comes from. 

Namjoon is anything but impatient. 

You sigh, taking another puff, blowing it into the wind, watching it where it takes it to. Wish you were taken elsewhere, too. By an invisible hand that means well. Take you to a place of joy and respect, of devotion and care. 

You wonder if a place like this exists, at all. 

“Because…” you trail off, the tornado in you thickening, threatening your calmness and you can’t stop the blooming of your pout, the deepening of it, either. “Because it was my first real kiss with a guy and I wanted experiences like that. I wanted to live. I wanted to have what everyone else has so easily.” 

A beat of silence. The tornado enlarges. And you feel as though you were in the middle of it, not the other way around. The raw truth, you’ve said it. Thank God you said it to a person that knows he must handle it with care. It’s the reason why you ran to him. Why you invariably do. 

“But he didn’t have your consent. He didn’t ask for it, so he didn’t have it. He just grabbed your head and kissed you. And because you wanted experiences doesn’t mean he had your consent.” 

You furrow your brows, out of step with him. “It was me who kissed him at one point. I even bit his lip.” 

For some reason, your uttered words cause you to look at him. With his arms wrapped around his knees and hands interlocked, he scowls. His scrunched brows cast a shadow upon his marble face, upon the thin line of his tightly pressed lips, and you fear you did something wrong. 

“Did you kiss him because you wanted to kiss him or did you kiss him because you wanted experiences?” 

That question shocks you and you can’t speak. You swivel your head back in shame, tipping it, and you twiddle your thumbs, the answer raw and obvious, out in the open without needing any transportation of words.

You felt comfortable with the guy. Had chemistry with him that would run deeper if you were on the same page as him. But there was something about him, which you still can’t pinpoint, that built a translucent wall between your heart and him. You didn’t find him attractive enough to kiss. You didn’t expect to be kissed either by the end of the date. But you went on with it for one sole reason. 

The tornado explodes through you and Namjoon can feel it. 

He places a hand on your shoulder. Makes you look at him with that singular gesture and your eyes well with tears, the residue and effect of the explosion. 

“Never, and I mean never, do that again. Never do things that you aren’t innately hungry for and never do them in order to live a life you think you should,” he says and it’s a proverb that must be written in the book that had opened within your dream. “I don’t believe in God, but I do believe that you were protected from that piece of shit, who had the audacity to put his hands on you.” 

And there it is, the recitation of a different poem, one you didn’t quite want, but find yourself to be in need of. Your tears flow without direction, dripping onto the petals of the violet and pink wildflowers that brush against your legs with every breath of the wind. 

And you nod. 

Maybe they needed it, too. Maybe that’s why you’re here, why God put that lesson in your life that made you run to Namjoon. He took your hand and gave you a role. 

To be a helper of his. 

Quench the thirst of the flowers and quench yours, too, through that work. 

“No one is allowed to think they can touch you like that on the first date. I know how guys think. They think that because they paid for you, they paid for your body—and I’d kill them for that if I could,” he breathes out, waggling your shoulder to emphasize the importance of his words. And you breathe them in, consider them the scolding of a father, one that is done out of love and care and one that is good for you. Not meant to harm, not meant to express the voice of his upper hand. It’s meant for you. For your well-being. “He was dead to me the moment you told me you had to stop his hand from going further down. And the moment you told me he didn’t drive you home at night. That’s not someone you experience life with. That’s someone you walk past.” 

You nod and you sob, weaving your way into his step, believing his words—the depth of them, the meaning of them, the end to the sentence piercing your heart because that’s how you met the guy. He stopped you on the street and chatted you up. Gave you a false sense of comfort and safety.

Namjoon kisses your worth over and over again, clutches your brokenness and puts it together with his gentle touch—all through his grip on your shoulder, through the verses of his poem. 

He doesn’t dare to go further. Because he’s respectful, because he’s older, because he cares for you, regards you as human and not a piece of meat meant for satisfactory purposes. Thrown away after the deed is done. 

You take mental notes of those attributes. Write them somewhere upon your flesh to remember later on. 

Respectful. Older. Caring. 

The antonyms of the boy you were seeing. 

“Someone will come along who will serve life to you on a silver platter. He will find you and he will respect you. Will be afraid to touch you because of how golden you are; afraid to stain you. He will love you and only then will you love him back. That’s how you’ll know he’s the one. He’ll love you first,” Namjoon recites on, your tears dropping onto the back of his hand and trickling down his fingers. He grasps your hand and you feel the liquid of your understanding on his skin. Somehow it locks it in. “He’ll wait before he kisses you. And you’ll be filled with so much longing to kiss him that you’ll feel like bursting. That’s how it should be.” 

You nod for the last time, overwhelmed, but changed. You believe the tornado won’t find you for a long time—for as long as Namjoon is here. 

“Don’t rush. Do what you love to do, your hobbies. Read. You’re not missing out. You’re living already. You’re alive. You’re experiencing life, even if it means you’re doing it in the company of your friends, in a platonic realm. It counts.” 

The last stanza. 

He hugs you. Grateful, healed, reassured—he seeps those new attributes in you by giving names to them as he wraps his arms around you and you perceive that’s precisely what you’re feeling. 

Grateful. Healed. Reassured. 

And you perceive he showed you how love is meant to be expressed. The man does it first. 

And when a storm rolls in and the wildflowers startle against your skin, Namjoon walks you home. Doesn’t leave until he knows you’re safe inside. 

Heals what he didn’t break. Reteaches what you’ve been wrongly taught. 

You’re living. You’re alive. You repeat those words to yourself as you undress yourself and wash away the wrong touch from your body, this time with great consciousness and will. And the vapor from the water, different from the one that was conjured from your madness of falsely living, seals in Namjoon’s touch on your skin, writes upon it the stanzas of his proverb. 

You’ll remember them the next time. 

And there will be a next time because you’re living. You’re alive. 

Namjoon is a different breed because he must be an angel, dressed in white as he was. A helper just like you, ordained by God he doesn’t believe in for you. 

Otherwise he wouldn’t be in your life at all because while you quenched your thirst, he filled up your hungry belly. 

𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: @tkslovechild, @jjk7k, @parkinglot-nights, @bethvar, @Sexytholland, @yoongibaybee, @crystaleah,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan, @euphoricmyth.

© 2024 hoseoksluna, all rights reserved

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[micamicster]

Super Rich Kids

Close my eyes and feel the crash...

I wrote this one on post-its on a trans-continental flight after my phone (where i was re-reading the raven cycle) died. 0/10 plane experience would not recommend but I did manage to entertain myself! And now hopefully you as well!

When Ronan pulled into Monmouth Manufacturing he knew Gansey wouldn’t be there. Adam Parrish was, though, sitting on the steps in the golden afternoon light, bike dumped to the side in dying grass. He didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid when Ronan bootlegged the BMW into an approximation of parking on the far side of the lot, which was fine because that’s how he would have parked the car anyway, whether or not Adam was here.

Ronan was pretty sure that Gansey had arranged a shift system with the other boys, to prevent Ronan from being unaccompanied on the rare occasions of his own absence. The idea of a babysitter should have rankled Ronan, but Adam did not seem particularly invested in his role. Small favors.

As he got out of the car he gave Adam his customary once-over, as brief as it was habitual. You could notice a lot in a single glance, if you were Ronan, glancing at Adam.

Adam was wearing long sleeves (his father? Or just because it was October?) and his faded camo pants, the ones Ronan said made him look like a jingoistic meathead. They had recently acquired a tear in one knee. Not in the stylish, deliberate manner in which Ronan’s own jeans were shredded, but awkwardly, in an L-shape, where they had caught on some jagged edge and given way before even careful Adam had noticed and unhooked himself. The tear gaped open at times, like it was doing now, revealing Adam’s knobby left knee and, worse, a triangle of his brown thigh.

Ronan looked away.

Ronan never allowed himself, even in dreams, to trespass beyond the carefully demarcated boundaries of Adam’s clothes. And Adam was usually helpful in the maintenance of this boundary. Unlike Gansey, who could be found working on his model Henrietta in boxers at all hours of the night, or wandering to and from the shower in a towel, absent-mindedly forgetting his clothes in bathroom or bedroom. Unlike the boys Ronan played tennis with, who stripped down casually in the locker room after practice. Unlike even Ronan himself, who’d never met a shirt he couldn’t rip the sleeves off; Adam was always fully covered.

This summer, foolishly, Ronan had imagined that this might change. Now that the hideous secrets Adam protected with his long sleeves were no longer his alone. But by now he knew what kept those sleeves in place, something that Adam had already understood: that knowing and seeing are two very different things.

For example: this. Ronan knew that Adam, like most people who walked around on earth under their own power, possessed thighs. Two of them, attached in the normal way to other body parts, such as knees and hips. To know this was one thing.

Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t stop seeing it. The way his knee bent, and the muscle above shifted as Adam made room on the steps for him. Ronan was looking away, out at the familiar, grounding, skid marks on the concrete of Monmouth’s lot, but he could picture in their place with deadly accuracy the hinge of Adam’s knee, the tanned skin of his thigh, scattered with golden-brown hair. He could dream about pressing his face against it.

He picked up a rock and hurled it. It glanced off the side of the soulless suburban and fell anticlimactically into the grass dying by the rear tire. It didn’t help.

Adam shifted next to him, subtly.

“What?” said Ronan. “Impressed?”

“Surprised, more like. I thought you were supposed to be the tennis star.”

“You think you can do better?” Ronan pried another hunk of gravel or concrete out of the dirt and tossed it in his left hand, tauntingly.

“I know I can.”

“But?”

“But,” said Adam, with some hint of exasperation coloring his voice, “I’m not going to sit here chunking rocks at Gansey’s car to prove it. My ego’s not that fragile.” His accent slipped out on chunkin’, not as if Ronan had pissed him off enough to forget to hide it, but as if it was a word he’d never used any other way.

Ronan threw his rock again. This was, if anything, a worse throw than before, and it skittered harmlessly across the suburban’s roof.

Adam made a small but contemptuous noise.

“Don’t give me that shit, man. You know he hates this fucking car.”

“That was for your shitty aim.”

“Come on then.” Ronan hefted another piece of gravel. “Ten points if you knock out his taillight.”

“It costs a hundred and five dollars to replace a taillight on that make and model. Plus tax.”

Ronan’s brief cheer was collapsing again. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to bust Dick’s lights.”

Adam blinked slowly, his dusty eyelashes obscuring the contempt in his eyes for a brief moment. “I’ll leave.” (He wouldn’t).

Ronan dropped the rock. Next to him Adam sighed. Abruptly, he put out his hand. “Telephone pole. Six feet from the top.”

Ronan swept back up the rock and dropped it into his hand. Their fingers did not touch. His heart thudded.

Adam tossed the rock once, testing its weight while his gaze, cool and assessing, remained on the telephone pole. It was a splintered, tilting thing, shamed by his attentions. In one smooth, economical movement, he rose to his feet and let the rock fly. His leg went forward, knee jutting out of his clothes, his back curved, and his arm swept around in an arc, fingers scraping at the blue October sky. Ronan didn’t need to turn his head to know if the rock hit—he could see it in the brief hard satisfaction on Adam’s face.

Adam turned back to him, one eyebrow cocked.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to earn that hundred,”

Adam shrugged. The gesture was disinterested, but there was a quirk to his mouth that contradicted it. “I know nothing blew up, but…”

Ronan already had another rock in his hand. “West corner lightbulb. It breaks or it doesn’t count.” Adam rolled his eyes, but turned agreeably to watch Ronan miss.

“Would you like to get your tennis racket?”

“Eat me,” said Ronan. (Maybe).

They traded shots back and forth for a while, calling increasingly specific and complex plays.

“Bullshit. Bullshit.”

“Get the government to pay for some glasses, Parrish, and then come back and try to tell me that wasn’t a fucking bullseye—”

“It wasn’t even close! You—”

“You calling me a liar?” Ronan loomed, and Adam, as usual, was unimpressed.

“Just because you don’t lie doesn’t make you right all the time! Like when you said that quote on Tuesday was Seneca. It doesn’t stop being Martial just because you’ve got a child’s sense of morality—”

“See, right there.” Ronan pointed triumphantly at an invisible scuff mark on the doorsill, marking where his handful of gravel had made impact.

Adam gave it a skeptical glance. His face was faintly flushed from exertion in the cold air, but his eyes were as cool and considering as ever. “What we need,” he said, “is a knife.”

Ronan was not allowed knives.

~

“Are you trying to stab each other in the feet? Why are your shoes off! It’s October!”

“Equal playing field.” Ronan wiggled his toes against the cold asphalt. “Parrish’s shitty knife is no match for my boots.” Over Gansey’s head, Ronan tried to catch Adam’s eye, to share a ‘can you believe him’ sort of look. Adam’s embarrassment over being caught acting irresponsibly meant Ronan could expect the look to be rebuffed, but he couldn’t help himself from trying it anyway.

Adam was bent over, eyes hidden. He carefully dusted off his socked feet one at a time before sliding them back into his shoes, as though the socks or sneakers could look any worse. A little parking lot crud might improve their appearance, actually.

Next to him, Gansey was still fussing. Without the pressure release valve of eye contact with someone who knew Gansey was overreacting, Ronan snapped, “Come off it, man, I’m not going to slit my throat while Parrish watches. He can’t afford that caliber of snuff film.”

Gansey’s concern transformed into revulsion, but underneath it he looked hurt, which was far far worse.

Adam straightened up. “We were just using it to mark where we hit. Honestly, we could have done it tossing a sharpie, but neither of us had one.” He sounded conciliatory, which pissed Ronan off. But Gansey was letting it go, returning the knife to Adam with an apologetic smile. Sorry for the fuss. Sorry for Ronan. Ronan’s bare feet were cold against the asphalt.

“Well? Are you going to throw or not, Parrish?” he said belligerently.

Adam rolled his eyes, but obligingly stooped for gravel and let one fly at Ronan’s open bedroom window, a shot he made easily.

Gansey whistled. “You’ve got quite the arm on you. How come you’re not on the Algionby baseball team?”

Adam shifted his feet, awkwardly.

“Please,” scoffed Ronan, “he’s not a team player.”

Gansey did not let it go. “Bet you’d have a better fastball than both our pitchers.”

There was a pause, during which Adam’s face clearly showed all of the thoughts he was trying to corral into a polite response to Gansey’s unconsidered enthusiasm. Ronan got there first. “Yeah, Parrish, why not hitch your wagon to the star of organized sports, like every other rags to riches wannabe?”

“Ronan!” said Gansey, Ronan’s offensiveness registering where his own had not.

“Hitch my wagon to a star?” Adam was unruffled. “I thought quoting Transcendentalists could get you excommunicated.”

“Who said I know it’s Emerson. It’s a sourceless idiom to those of us who aren’t sad little nerds.”

Adam smirked. The smirk said, I never said Emerson. His words said, “Gansey’s damning me with faint praise. No one’s going pro out of an Algionby sport team. Even tennis.”

“Ouch,” said Ronan, cheerfully. “Hit me where it really hurts. My school pride.”

~

Now that Gansey had arrived, his plans for the day took precedence over noble pastimes such as flipping pocketknives at each other’s feet. His plans involved comparing readings from various instruments and then placing said various instruments in various new locations, all of which were equally arbitrary (to Ronan’s eyes) and inaccessible. Gansey’s plans involved him waiting by the car to monitor the readings while people hiked with antennae to the outermost reaches of the signal. People, in this instance, being Ronan and Adam, Noah having mysteriously and silently fucked off, as he so often did when a job required carrying anything.

Ronan put his head down and trudged. It was brambly here, and slightly damp, and he was beginning to work up the kind of counter-intuitive sweat that appears from working in the cold, the kind that makes you colder later.

As the person leading the hike, custom would dictate that he should catch and hold the long clinging arms of the brambles for the following hiker. This presented a dilemma. Ronan compromised, and set about stomping the multiflora into the ground as he walked. Scarlet hips burst under his feet, invasive and beautiful, spreading their millions of seeds across the damp earth. Noxious weeds.

“It’s too unreliable,” said Adam, into the silence. “Sports. It all depends on… your physical condition.”

“And your condition is shit.”

There was Adam’s ironic smile. “Yes. So.” He shrugged. There was the part they weren’t saying, which was that his physical condition could always get worse. Unexpectedly.

“My dad hates baseball.” Ronan heard himself make the slip—hates and not hated—and a spark of fury burned through him, brief and inconsequential.

“My dad loves it.”

They marched on in silence.

Adam swore as a bramble Ronan had beaten down sprang up again, catching him right across the tear, where his skin was exposed. He bent to unhook it from the camo with deft, deliberate hands. “What?” he said, like he could feel Ronan’s eyes.

Ronan looked away. “Why not the military?” He kicked purposelessly at the bramble and heard Adam sigh. “And don’t tell me you never thought about it. Test scores like yours out in hicksville high school, you must have had recruiters hopping all over you like fleas.”

“Would you believe I had a moral objection?” Adam’s smile was self-deprecating. Ronan studied it.

“No.”

Adam shrugged. It, too, was self-deprecating.

“I think you had a superiority objection. You think you’re too smart for that shit.”

Adam blinked at him. “Do you think I’m wrong?”

Ronan snorted. “Hell no. You can do better than getting blown up in a desert for the United States government.”

The smile, when it came, was small and stunning. “Damned by faint praise again.”

[velvet-games]

ficlet inspired by this post @theautotrophic made. it ended spiraling into something very different lol but it's still kind of the same idea? I just needed to explain why vox joins the hotel in my universe.

“Ugh! How is this still happening?” Charlie moaned, turning off the TV. “I don’t think we can make any progress if we don’t start creating our own news coverage.”

“What was that?” Alastor stepped closer to the couch she and Vaggie were slumped on, suddenly curious. 

“It’s Vox. He’s making almost every channel about how much of a failure the hotel is – even though we just proved redemption is possible – and I think it’s actually gaining a lot of traction.” Charlie sighed. “It’s just … I thought everything would get better after we saved the day and my dad could help out, you know? But we’re still fighting just to get people to give us a chance.”

Vaggie put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re the ones with actual proof. I’m sure if we make our own announcement–”

“Wait! Alastor, you made that commercial last time, right?”

“Oh, uh, about that, Charlie–”

“You can make more to counter Vox’s stuff. Hey, and you were friends with him at some point too, right? So you know how to deal with him–”

“Charlie.” Vaggie spun Charlie around to face her. “Sorry. It’s just …”

“Vaggie made a deal with me so that I would never have to work with those picture boxes again,” Alastor finished cheerfully. 

Vaggie visibly deflated in shame. “Uh, yeah, something like that,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry.” Her expression became even more miserable as Charlie seemed to deflate too.

“Oh,” Charlie said. “Well, maybe you could–”

“But!” Alastor interjected, holding up a finger. He was far above drawing any attention to the Vees unprovoked, but this was about as good of an excuse as any. “The purpose of the deal was to prevent me from having any obligation to use the medium for producing entertainment. I would be happy to … take care of the interference from Vox.”

“Great!” Charlie’s eyes shone for one perfectly naive second before her face twisted in suspicion. “Wait … what are you gonna do?”

“Oh, just mess with his wires a little; nothing extreme, dear.”

—

A loud BOOM shook the building as Vaggie failed for the third time to get the TV to turn on. She sighed. “Goddammit.” None of the TVs were working, the Vees’ website had crashed, and Alastor had been gone for the last 24 hours. Vaggie could almost see the expression of horror on Charlie’s face when she found out Alastor had absolutely done more than “mess with his wires a little.” Vaggie rushed to the window, and yep. There it was: a giant red deer demon with shadow tentacles shooting out of it as a much smaller blue smudge darted around with trails of electricity following it. She sighed again. “Charlie? Come down; Alastor’s being an asshole again.”

—

“And I had a great idea for a new show that was gonna air today too!” Vox narrowly dodged another hit from Alastor’s shadows. 

“Another new show? My dear, you really are proving just how much you’re throwing rocks at the wall in the hopes that they’ll miraculously stick.” Alastor turned as Vox appeared behind him in a shower of sparks. “And was it really your idea? Or did you just have your little unpaid underlings come up with it for you?” 

“Fuck you!”

“Oh, I think we’re far past that possibility, darling.” Alastor chuckled, finally managing to grab Vox before he could jump into another streetlamp. “What was the idea? Another reality dating show with manufactured drama? Really, is anything you produce even remotely original nowadays?” The shadow tendril threw Vox into a nearby building. What remained of the terrified pedestrians scattered like ants as Vox fell, several bricks going with him. “What a pity. You used to at least come up with half-decent stories, even if the endings were always laughable.”

Vox groaned, trying to hold several shards of his broken screen in place. “N-No one cares. No one fucking cares what you think; I’m the one who built the empire. You have like, three listeners on that ancient radio show.”

“And each one of them has told me how much they like it, that it’s their favorite, even!” Alastor leaned down. “Would anyone watch you without the hypnosis, without other people’s hard work masquerading as your own?” He smirked. “Would anyone love you without manipulation?”

That last part caused Vox to look up, teeth bared. Several wires shot out of the building behind him and attached themselves to his head, lifting him up to be at eye level with Alastor. “Would anyone love you without manipulation?” Alastor kept smiling despite the surge of electricity that hit him; he quickly batted Vox out of the air, cutting off the attack. 

“I’ll have you know that nearly everyone who meets me adores me, whether they admit it or not,” Alastor replied smoothly. “Including you.”

Vox was on his knees, wires falling as he coughed up what became a puddle of blood. It was always startling how red it was, despite the mechanical nature of most of his body. “Yeah, have a fucking laugh.” His voice became quiet, muffled by static. “Have a fucking laugh about the fact that I loved you and you threw me away like a box of scraps.” He sniffed, standing up shakily and wiping a trail of red from his mouth. “Well, I’m the one with all the influence now, aren’t I? I’m the one with an actual team. You were fading even before you left; I bet you really did ask an angel for help, just to stay fucking relevant. Most of the other overlords aren’t scared of you anymore, and they’ll fucking kill you when none of them are.” 

Alastor narrowed his eyes. “You loved me? Is that why you ran away with that moth to make ‘entertainment’ even you won’t watch?” He started shrinking to his usual size, stepping forward. 

Vox scrambled back, one hand generating a few weak sparks. “Val loves me.”

“Valentino knows you’ll gnaw on any affection you get like a starving dog with a soup bone.” Alastor pushed Vox to the ground again, reaching down to wrap his fingers around Vox’s throat. The sparks in his hand died. “He knows you’re too selfish to make a real connection with anyone.”

Tears welled in Vox’s eyes, round and filling up nearly all of what was left of his screen. “I-I still love you,” he managed to choke out quietly. 

Alastor tightened his grip. “You love money. And I was stupid enough to care for you before I realized that.” Vox’s eyes managed to get even bigger as he started to really choke. “But you’re just dirt underneath my feet, and I’ll kill you every day that I have left here so you remember that.” Alastor just watched Vox’s face for a moment, then pulled out a small knife with his other hand. “Actually, you know what? I have angelic steel with me. I think I’ll just finish you here.” He drove the blade into Vox's side before he could respond, prompting a pained, strangled sound. It wouldn’t kill him quickly. He’d feel it for hours as he bled out if no one helped him. 

“Alastor!” a shrill voice called. He turned to see Charlie’s panicked face, her chest jumping with labored breaths as she stumbled to a stop. “Stop! Stop; I’m sure he’s had enough.”

Alastor stood up, giving one last petty kick to Vox’s leg. He put on an upbeat tune. “Hm, alright. I was just about getting bored with him anyway. How about we go get lunch at that new place around the corner? I’m absolutely starved!”

“I–” Charlie blinked. “No, Alastor, he–” She looked around his shoulder, flinching when she saw the state Vox was in. “Shouldn’t we help him?” she whispered. 

“And whyever would we do that?” 

“Well, I mean …” Charlie started, then appeared to brighten a little. “Actually. I have an idea.” She straightened her shoulders, putting on her “aggressively-kindly” face and voice. “As princess of Hell, I command you to leave the Vees and come help with the hotel. And make up with Alastor.” She glanced at Alastor apologetically before mumbling quickly, “onlyifyouwanttothoughyoudon’thavetodoanythingyou’renotcomfortablewith.” 

Vox blinked, managing to look unimpressed despite bleeding profusely and only having a quarter of his original face visible between all the cracks and glitching. “I would literally rather kill myself.”

Charlie blushed all the way to her ears. “O-Oh.” 

Alastor just burst out laughing, making a show of spinning his cane as he stepped closer to Vox. “Well, old friend,” he said, lifting a heeled boot above Vox’s chest and pressing down. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary if you refuse our help.” Vox sputtered a little as Alastor continued to push. “How about this: Lucifer can heal your wound, and you take a temporary break from working with the Vees, just long enough to help us create a presentation for the angels.” He let his gums show with a smirk that probably contained enough smugness to kill a horse. “And I would love to have you for dinner the night you leave. Is that a deal?”

Vox immediately blushed despite clearly being too lightheaded from blood loss to fully understand what Alastor was saying. “You bastard” – Alastor pressed harder – “Fine! Fine, yes. It’s a deal justliftyourfootholyshitfuck–”

“Wonderful!” Alastor lifted his boot, leaving Vox coughing and bending over on his side. “Now. you two have fun; I’m afraid I need another visit to the tailor,” he said. He brushed off his lapels and straightened his cuffs. “Oh, and Vox? It wasn’t angelic steel; I just think desperation suits you.”

Alastor was gone before the cries of indignant surprise assaulted his ears.

[spiegelgestalt]

I want you to want me (Part 1/3) - Privileged boy learns to consider other people's feelings

So here's the thing. I don't believe Jinshis communication issue is keeping his desires to himself. That boy if he wants something will make his desire known if you want it or not. He will chase you with his gaze, he will try to feed you honey, he will shower you with gifts, he will declare that he will marry you in front of everyone via symbolism anyone who isn't pretending to not get the hint would get the hint.

Jinshis real issue is recognizing boundaries, excepting them and not treat people like things. He actively has to fight the mindset that he just can do everything what he wants. And in the beginning no one his helping with this (sorry not even Gaoshun and Surei). This is an issue people with power/privilege often run into because the more power you have the less people will tell you no directly to your face. You have to intuit it.

Let me show you some of the development Jinshi goes through in LN 1 (consider this your spoiler warning also my hand slipped, this will be long and disorganized and will have a part two)

The hairpin scene

"This hurts Sir!" This time she didn't hide her displeasure. [...] "Does it? I give this to you"

The scene begins with Jinshis getting closer and closer to Mao Mao who for once isn't wearing her freckles. Gaoshun notes that he looks like a boy who's playing with his toys. Banter starts then Mao Mao tells Jinshi that she disguises her face because she doesn't want unwanted attention from men. She doesn't want to be raped, she doesn't want to be kidnapped, she wants to be left alone. Jinshi learns that Mao Mao isn't in the rear palace because her family sold her into it but because she was kidnapped and sold. But it wouldn't make a difference to her either way. This does something to him because he has to consider for the first time that Mao Mao isn't in the Rear Place because of her own choice. She's unfree and that makes him feel bad. So how does he react to that revelation? He doesn't ask what she needs or wants he just stabs (HA! I'm so funny) her with his own desire to protect her and leaves it at that. And thing is, giving Mao Mao the hairpin is a nice thing to do - the hairpin is basically Mao Maos ticket out of the rear palace if she wants to use it. It's protection, it's safety, it's freedom in a certain way. BUT it also means that she belongs to him and Jinshi doesn't consider even for a second that this is something Mao Mao wouldn't want. Even though all she's giving him are dirty looks. He wants her, so she belongs to him. She is his toy. He's absolutely blindsided by Mao Mao not relying on him. That's why he thinks he has a right to question Mao Mao who Lihaku is once she used Lihakus hair pin instead of Jinshis. And to give credit were credit is due he accepts that Mao Mao doesn't want to use his hairpin. He accepts the boundary once he realizes it's there. But this is something he really struggles with.

Please execute me with poison

This is another important scene for Jinshi and it shakes him to his core: after a Courtesan kills herself Mao Mao tells him point blank that she can't refuse him because he has the power to have her executed. And this manufactures non consent even if Jinshi would never ever give the order. This is something Jinshi didn't realize and didn't want to know. Powerful people rarely want to know why people consent to their actions.

But once he knows he wants real enthusiastic consent from Mao Mao. He just has no idea how to get this consent. And he doesn't know yet that Mao Mao feels safer when she's just a tool but he will learn that too, because he values Mao Maos feelings even though he will make a lot and I mean a LOT of mistakes on the way. Some of those mistakes might be dealbreakers for some people. Not me though because i see this through line and I find it important! It's his character arc. One of the reasons Jinshi and Mao Mao get to have the semi equal relationship they have in LN 10 is because Jinshi actively wanted her to be his equal. Mao Mao would have been fine to just follow orders. Gaoshun notes that she is a useful and willing tool. Jinshi makes everything more difficult for himself. But only because he does, there is a chance for a real relationship to bloom.

(SN: This makes him different from Lakan who I really like but let's face it: Lakan doesn't respect Mao Maos wishes at all. Lakan desires Mao Mao as a daughter and wants to take her away. He never even stops to consider that Mao Mao already has a father. He also never considers that she might like the brothel she grew up in. He just wants to be close to her. In one of the later Novels Mao Mao mentions that she can't give him even an inch because he would never let go afterwards. It's this desire she dislikes)

.

[farawayfiction]

Sparkle (Batman)

“Take a sparkler.” Jason handed one to Damian without waiting for a response.

The youngest regarded it with disdain. “Sparklers are for children,” he sneered.

“And you’re a child. Knock yourself out, brat.”

Jason lit the end with a Bic and watched with unveiled satisfaction as his brother’s expression changed. The awe surfaced in Damian’s eyes as the sparks jumped from the stick in showers of green. Close by, Cass unabashedly weaved giant letters into the twilight sky and danced to music only she could hear. Further on down the gravel driveway, Dick and Tim lunged at each other with swords or wizards’ wands. The narrative changed second by second depending on their whims. The play was intense and short-lived as the sparkers burned down and died. Then they rushed back to the stash of unlit fireworks almost all at once.

Dick tossed the used sparkler into the metal bucket. “Smoke bombs?” he asked excitedly.

“Yeah, before it gets too dark,” Tim added.

“I do not see the appeal. Smoke bombs are a tool, not a toy.” Damian jumped the leftover stick, its end still glowing a slight red.

Cass smiled and put one in his palm. It was yellow and chalky, the texture definitely different from the smoke bombs loaded each night in his utility belt. “Punk?”

Damian’s body language stiffened. His brothers called him names all the time, affectionately but openly rude. It was unlike Cass to join the fray. He opened his mouth to return fire, but Dick stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He passed Cass the slowly burning stick Jason had lit at the beginning of the evening, used to ignite the remainder of the fireworks. “It’s called a punk,” he explained.

“You’re a punk,” Jason directed at Dick.

“Takes one to know one!”

Tim groaned. “I’m back in middle school.”

“You never graduated middle school, replacement,” Jason lobbed.

“Nobody graduates from middle school,” he returned straight-faced.

Cass followed Damain out a short distance. A second later, they backed away as the ball spewed forth a cloud of yellow smoke. It seemed to turn a darker color as more emanated. Then the smell hit them.

Tim nearly gaged, the wind wafting the sulfur right under his nose.

Dick chimed in with a grin. “‘He who smelt it, dealt it!'”

“That is revolting,” Damian declared.

“Toss me the blue one.”

“Blue balls. That sounds like a personal problem. You should see a doctor about that.” Jason handed him the cheap plastic lighter.

“‘Flick my Bic?'”

Jason flipped him off without hesitation.

“I have more balls,” Cass added, triumphantly beaming. She held up a cannister with a bright label of purple and gold. It read Fu King ~ Purple Dragon.

“I can attest to that statement. She does in fact have more balls,” Jason replied, deadpan. Nobody among them was willing to disagree.

“Wait,” Tim reached for the package in genuine disbelief. “Fu King?”

“That’s Fu King unbelievable,” Dick threw in, his thoughts mirroring Tim’s.

“No, that’s Fu King amazing,” Jason countered.

Tim pointed to the label, then his inspecting gaze shifted to the other fireworks that were laid out ready to use. Several of them were sported the same manufacturer’s name. “That’s-“

“Totally legit.”

A moment of silence followed as all eyes turned to Jason, who’d purchased 95% of the fireworks they planned to set off. It was Dick, who witnessed his brother keep a carefully constructed neutral expression, who spoke first. “You’re full of shit.”

Jason cracked, enjoying the fruits of the long con. “Custom made. Took you dipsticks long enough.”

Damian chose his next canister after some deliberation. “My balls are ‘Screamin'”, he informed them, never one to be outdone.

Cass snorted. Tim made a similarly strangled noise. Dick looked eminently proud.

Jason was the only one who commented. “I’m not touching that.”

“Yet you have touched all the other balls.”

“I’m gunna kick your balls, twerp.”

Cass gestured to the small patch of gravel where a variety of other spent carcasses lay abandoned. Damian took the invitation and stepped out before her. He scrambled backwards as the fuse burned and the first ball left the tube with a distinctive thump. A scream split the air, followed by another thump thump and still more ear deafening screams. Cass put her hands over her ears and tracked each as it rose, twirled, and exploded horizontally in galaxy shapes. Alive with beauty for just a second, then gone in the blink of an eye.

A piece of debris fell and bounced off of Damian’s head. Cass reached over and ruffled his hair. “Light fireworks. Not head.”

“That is indeed the plan.”

Cass took her turn. The rest cycled through with their own choices. Spinning ground blossoms, tanks, expanding black snakes. Bruce sat silently on the sidelines, watching his kids and listening to the banter. He’d been treated to the first round of hot chocolate while the others occupied themselves. At Alfred’s insistence, he’d wrapped himself in a few extra layers. The temperature outside was dropping rapidly, heat and daylight bleeding away by the minute. After a long regiment of antibiotics and inactivity, they’d finally gotten the pneumonia under control. The lingering smoke irritated his still healing lungs, but it was a price he was willing to pay to be present. Jason dropped into the extra chair beside him. “Holding up, old man?”

Bruce lifted his mug a little, warm and comfortable in his hands.

Jason craned his head to view the interior. It was almost empty. “You want a refill?”

“Later.” He didn’t want to deprive Jason of time with his siblings. He also knew that Alfred was making regular trips outside to check on him. To check on all of them. To check that the house and grounds weren’t burning down in a feat of pyrotechnic disaster. He watched as Tim retrieved the Roman Candles, the kids forming a firing line.

“Back in a sec.”

Bruce stalled his departure with a hand on Jason’s forearm. “Watch the trees,” he begged, his voice little more than a raspy whisper.

“Check your angles, assholes!” He rushed out to grab his own, lit each going down the line, then joined them at the end. Shot after shot ascended in fiery streaks, a barrage of greens and reds. Christmas colors cascading in July. Only one came too close to the trees. They had the hose close by just in case, along with a first aid kit for accidental burns. Hopefully they’d need neither. They made it to the cakes without incident, flat bricks with multiple fireworks lit from a single fuse that went off in sequence. These were the finale pieces, the longest and most elaborate.

“We should do this every year,” Tim proposed as they paused for snacks, gathering around Bruce. They stuffed their mouths with cucumber sandwiches, potato chips, and popcorn. A smattering of glass soda bottles surrounded them. Each of the kids had staked a location claim, making it easier to identify their own drinks. Once they were done, hot chocolate, cake, and ‘Independence Day’ awaited them inside.

“Father has responsibilities elsewhere.” It was always Damian who pointed out the facts, whether anybody wanted to hear them or not. In this case, he referred to the Wayne Foundation’s Fourth of July Gala held yearly. Had he not been sick, Bruce and a majority of the kids would have been downtown, watching the professionally stagged fireworks go off over the city.

“I like this better.” Dick’s honest statement seemed to resonate. Cass nodded in agreement. They waited expectantly for Bruce to weigh in.

“We’ll see.” It wasn’t a no. That in itself was worth celebrating.

“Sweet,” Tim muttered as Cass drummed out a happy dance with her feet.

They rounded up the night with the most massive brick, saving the best for last. The Dragon Rising measured two feet by four feet and contained over 300 shots. From the base shot out rapid fire columns of red, sweeping in a moving arch from left to right, followed immediately by overlapping peonies of gold and white. An onslaught of purple fountains sprayed in a dome in all directions and from the heart exploded a dazzling array of white waterfalls. The interval abruptly sped up to an overwhelming number of ignitions, some simultaneous. It was grander, closer, and more wonderous than anything they could have witnessed from behind skyscraper glass. Then there was silence and the stars.

Cass started to laugh. Tim let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Dick wrapped an arm around Damian’s shoulders and dropped his gaze from skyward to his younger brother’s face. That expression of awe had returned.

“Fuck yeah,” Jason exclaimed. “And thus concludes the night’s entertainment. I bought ‘um, you clean ‘um, losers.”

There was a collective groan before the hunt began but no words of objection. Jason, with the better end of the bargain, wandered back over to his father and sank back down. Two of his siblings produced cell phones for flashlights and the gathering of the trash began. With nothing left to accidently ignite, he pulled out a cigarette. Then stopped. Put it away. A thick haze hung in the air, but it was drifting away from the chairs. Away from Bruce.

His father wordlessly offered him a lighter.

Jason froze, not knowing what to do or think. Then he took his first real look at it in the dim light. It was silver. Or silver plated. The metal pocking created a uniform pattern on the body’s exterior. A tiny dent in the flip lip betrayed its previous use. It was a hefty weight in Bruce’s outstretched palm. “Take it,” Bruce prompted.

Jason eyed him suspiciously but did as he was told. The weight surprised him. Definitely solid. “Heavy motherfucker,” he commented, flipping it open and lighting it. “Smooth action.”

“It was my father’s.” It’s yours now.

Again, he froze. “Bruce-“

“Please.” I’d like you to have it. Bruce sat his mug aside and pulled the blanket around his shoulders tighter across his chest, his now free hand disappearing under the wool like it did under his cape on other cold nights.

Jason couldn’t say no. He didn’t want to say no. Instead, he rolled it over in his palm a few times, got used to the feel of it. To the idea that it was now his. Then he rose, turned, and repositioned his chair a few feet farther away from his dad so the wind was his ally. Still close enough to converse and share a space with the man who mattered most in his life. Then he pulled out the cigarette he’d previously stowed and lit up.

(a/n: Happy belated 4th, y'all.)