#and they in general never listen to my ideas and then a few months later someone thinks of the same thing and everyone's like wow

[penelopehere]

How They Became Demon Hunters HCs With Huntrix

Rumi

Her backstory is partially explained in the movie, and I built my own headcanons of how her parents met in another one of my post

However it’s very clear that she was raised by Celine to hate her demon side, wanting to hide and even destroy it from a very young age

She was constantly pushed towards being perfect in every aspect of her life, whether that be in sparring, singing, social skills etc

This was all done in the hopes of eventually getting rid of her marks and protecting the world

However, she also thought that being perfect would make up for the fact that she was a mistake

Despite not knowing exactly how her mum died, I believe she would still blame herself; thinking that being half demon brought misfortune to her mum

In regards to her father, she just pictured him as an evil figure that managed to trick her mum and never considered the fact that he may have been a good person

She would also be homeschooled and sheltered for most of her life, any public appearances done purposefully in order to build her life as an idol

Because of this she would be put on a lot of korean variety shows and do interviews when she was a teen in order to get public support early

On the side, she would also train and even hunt demons with Celine so she would be strong enough to lead the next generation of hunters

However the feeling of loneliness would constantly consume her since she had no one that could understand her life as a half-demon, and she didn’t have any genuine friendships at this point

Celine would notice this and tried to reassure Rumi that this was all for the greater good, and that the hunters were all she ever needed

However, this only worked to a certain extent

Eventually though, Celine would introduce Zoey to Rumi for the first time

Rumi finally felt like she could let her guard down a little, instantly bonding with the other teenage girl

She still felt insecure about her demon blood, and Celine warned her to not reveal anything about that side of her so she wouldn’t lose her new friend

So Rumi stayed silent, not saying anything about her heritage even after Mira came to join the group a few months later

Rumi vowed to do whatever it took to protect the world, even if that meant lying to those she loved

Mira

Similar to Rumi, Mira would most likely also be a legacy

However the difference being that not everyone in her family had hunter abilities, so a lot of them had no idea what demons even existed

This was further emphasized by the fact that most of her relatives that did carry these powers were deceased or estranged

Because of this, Mira always felt like the odd one out and never truly knew what made her so different

She tried to express how she felt through her clothing and artworks, but her family- being rather strict- didn’t appreciate her creativity

They refused to listen to her, causing Mira to act out in many ways

She often spent late nights outside by herself, doing whatever she felt like

From this she would spot her first demon, sucking the soul out of someone until they died

She didn’t know how to react, not fully understanding what she was seeing

Once she managed to snap out of her fear she would go to check on the victim, only to find the body was no longer there

From there she would just run, not knowing when to stop until she subconsciously came all the way back to her house

She wanted to scream and tell her parents what happened, but the moment she walked through those doors she realised they wouldn’t believe her and that she was truly alone

She would carry this fear with her as she got older, not truly knowing if there was something wrong with her brain and making her see these things

Sometimes she would try to fight the demons she saw, rarely succeeding due to her lack of proper training

She had to constantly see people because of this, traumatizing her even further

One day however, she was listening to a song and began singing, not noticing the demon in front of her until it began to get repulsed by the music and ran away

She tested this out the next time she found one, blasting the song towards it while fighting

This is when she realised the demons were weakened by the music

She’d track down the artist of the song, eventually finding Celine in a fan meet and trying to see if she knew anything about the monsters she was seeing

She’d try to be subtle at first, not fully revealing everything she saw just in case Celine thought she was crazy

Mira got her contact information, and was told to meet her in a couple days

From this Celine realised Mira also had hunter abilities, and began to train her in secret

Mira’s parents wouldn’t care about her extended absences, relieved that their daughter was no longer getting in trouble with the police or acting out at home

Celine would reveal what hunters and demons were, explaining their history

Mira was skeptical at first

However, with everything that had happened, she had no choice but to believe Celine and for the first time in her life she didn’t think she was crazy

They trained together for a couple months before Celine introduced Mira to two other young teenagers who had the gift; Rumi and Zoey

From then on Mira finally felt like she had a family, and would do everything she could to keep them together

Zoey

Zoey would be a partial legacy, with only one side of her family knowing about demons and hunters

She didn’t know of her abilities at first, thinking all the monsters she saw as a kid were just a figment of her imagination

Especially since by the time she looked back, one of her family members would be there innocently waving and telling her to go play

It wasn't until she was older was it revealed that she had hunter blood inside her, and that she could begin training to become one

Zoey would be ecstatic, believing she was a real life superhero; wanting to tell all her friends and the rest of the family about it

However, this idea was quickly crushed as it was explained to her the importance of protecting their secret; not wanting to worry others with matters they couldn’t control

They also believed it would keep the non-hunter family members safe if they didn’t know about demons or Gwi-Ma

From then on Zoey had to live a double life, training and hunting demons in secret while also pretending to be a normal girl

This was exhausting, especially since she hated lying to parts of her family and felt as though they couldn’t understand her if they didn’t know who she really was

Then with her hunter relatives, because they were all older than her, she constantly felt like she skilled enough to keep up with them

Therefore she was constantly trying to prove herself to both sides, being the perfect kid and warrior at the same time

Her only solace was writing lyrics and using them against demons, feeling as though this was the only time she could unapologetically be herself

However, all these negative feelings eventually began to hinder her training, since she felt too alone and unworthy to focus on fighting

One of her relatives got the idea of contacting a friend in Korea, sending Zoey there to meet them

She was then introduced Celine, who empathised with her difficulties living a double life

Being an idol and hunter, she understood the difficulties that came with lying to those you loved

However, she assured that Zoey that her fellow hunters would always be there to understand her

For a while, Celine assessed and developed Zoey’s skills, impressed with how she could make her own songs in such a short period of time

She then introduced her to Rumi, the two of them instantly connecting over this feeling of loneliness

To Zoey, it felt like they were the only people in the world that understood each other

When Mira came a couple months later, they welcomed her to their small family

Zoey couldn’t believe there were others her age who felt the same way she did, and never wanted any of them to feel alone again

[kitchensinksurrealism]

thumbnail that says "staying in my band until I feel appreciated" and the video is 3 years long

[shy-writer-999]

1-800-LONELYCHEF . ₊ ⊹ .

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

“Hello?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

“Hello?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He vents about that, and you hear him out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You laugh again. “How about both?”

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

“Mhm.”

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

“No way. Really?”

“Yep.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I would kiss every inch of you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mmmm. I would like that, Sanji.”

“How would I know that you liked it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fucckkk, Sanji. Feels so good.”

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

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

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

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

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

You hum in agreement. “Wow.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“See you later, sweetheart.”

Sanji hangs up the phone.

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

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

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

---

A week passes.

It’s Friday again.

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

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

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

Was last time a mistake?

Ten minutes go by.

Twenty minutes go by.

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

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

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

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

Why hadn’t he called you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

Sanji does not call you back the next week.

Or the next week.

Or the week after that.

Or the month after that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But it seems like Sanji time has come and gone.

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

“Hello?”

Your heart stops.

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

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

“It’s been a long time, gorgeous.”

It is Sanji.

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

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

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

“I’m sorry.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You pick up the phone. It is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He winces. He knew that was coming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

click here for part 2! also here's my masterlist if you're interested!

[wooahaes]

the little things in life

pairing: non-idol!mingyu x gn!reader

genre: fluff. established relationship. husband!gyu.

warnings: vague references to food. husband!gyu being doting. reader being the kind of person who enjoys simple things.

word count: 1.1k~

daisy's notes: ohhhh doting husband gyu... how i need someone like u in my life....

“Are you sure this is all you want for your birthday this year?” Mingyu’s voice was quiet. “Just me cooking for you and a massage?” He chuckled a little. “You can get that anytime, you know.”

Mingyu’s hands were like heaven as he hovered above you, kneading away the tension that’d been plaguing your spine for far too long now. His weight was pinning your thighs down against the mattress as he worked, careful with the sensitive knots he had found. If you had asked, he would have paid for you to go to a professional. To have a proper spa day in general, too: whatever you wanted, he would do it for you. Instead, all you told him you wanted were home-cooked meals and a massage since you needed it. He’d pitched other ideas to you in the month leading up to the day: a week-long vacation since the two of you were long overdue for it (you shot it down to save it for your anniversary in a few months), or even a weekend away on the beach or something. You’d shrugged the suggestions off instead.

“I dunno. I’m bad at knowing what I want, I guess.” Your cheek rested against your arm, face turned so that he could hear your voice clearly. “Like… It’s not that I don’t like material things…”

“You just don’t want fancy things.” Mingyu shrugged. “I know you.” 

With a slight stretch, you settled against the mattress again. “Exactly.”

He kept his thoughts to himself: I feel like a bad husband, though. He’d seen the kinds of things his coworkers bought for their partners. Expensive jewelry, or trips to nice restaurants, or tickets abroad that result in more expensive things and memories. It felt… weird knowing that you didn’t ask for anything you could show off to people. Not even a nice bracelet or a watch or something: you were more than content with reminding people that you had a loving husband at home who would cater to your every whim if you ever asked for it. Not that you did: he liked how independent you could be. That you knew that Mingyu was there to catch you if you fell, but that you still stood on your own and handled things by yourself so that he could rest when he needed to. 

That’s what he loved about you, actually. Mingyu loved caring for people, making them laugh or doing anything that showed he was there, listening, and ready to lend a hand. You let him help when you needed him, but you’d told him many times over the years to rest before he burned himself out. And in the times when he did burn himself out, you were there to listen and take care of him while he finally rested to you (always telling you that you could say “I told you so,” even though you never did). His way of caring was loud like him, and bold and obvious. You, on the other hand, were much more subtle in it. He’d realized it back when the two of you were dating, somewhere within that first year. Wonwoo had been feeling a little sick, and you had gone with him to keep him company while he made Wonwoo soup. 

At one point, he’d heard him coughing—the kind of wet, nasty cough that most people would immediately back away from. You’d merely quietly excused yourself, asking where the bathroom was, and a few minutes later he’d heard you talking to Wonwoo. When he peeked into his bedroom, you’d donned a mask and were saying something about how you found medicine for him and thought you’d bring it in so he wouldn’t have to get out of bed. Wonwoo’s gaze had been soft, thanking you for it and making a comment about how he understood why Mingyu liked you so much.

Maybe that had been the moment he realized he was fully, wholeheartedly in love with you: he loved the quiet way you did things for others without being asked, just to make things easier for them. That you were it for him, and he hoped that the same could be said for you.

He kissed the back of your shoulder now, letting his lips linger against your skin before he sat back up. “If there’s anything that you want… You know I’ll go get it for you, right?”

He watched as you shut your eyes, humming to yourself as you thought. “There is one thing… But you don’t have to do it today.” 

“What is it?”

“My favorite sweater has a hole in the sleeve. I tried to sew it, but it just came undone the next time I wore it.” You frowned to yourself. “I’ve been meaning to buy another one from the same place, but I haven’t really had the time.” 

“That’s the store next to my work, right?”

“Yeah.” You paused for a moment as he hit another sensitive spot in your back, teeth gritting together. “Fuck, sorry—”

“Don’t apologize.” He frowned. “Just come to me next time, before it gets this bad. I’ll go by the store tomorrow, just tell me which one you want.”

“Thank you,” you said with another soft hum. “Sorry. It’s not that I can’t go myself, I just—” 

“Don’t apologize!” He said again. “I’m your husband. And I like doing things for you.” Including sewing up the hole in your sleeve for you, but he’ll wait until tomorrow morning to do it. It’d be easier for him to surprise you that way, after all. He’d buy you multiple sweaters when he went, just so you could wear the things that made you comfortable whenever you liked. “Do you know what you want for dinner?”

“I do, actually. I’ll show you the recipe I found. We might have to go to the store, but I don’t mind going with you.” You curved as best as you could, propping yourself up on one elbow. When he shifted back so that you could move a little more freely, you reached up to cup his cheek. “I love you, by the way. Thank you for taking care of me.”

He kissed your thumb, smiling at you. “That’s my job.” Any other time, he’d say a cheesy Thank you for marrying me, a little throwback to one of his earliest drunken rambles a few weeks after you got married. Seungcheol had dragged him home that night, telling you he managed to get one glass of water in him before he brought him there. Instead, he just leaned in to peck your lips. “Happy birthday, my love."

[blueberrypancakesworld]

Any headcanons for Erik Campbell as a father? Preference for female reader (I love your posts)

Erik as a father - HC

warning : fluff, emotional, no use of Y/n

info : Hi dear anon of course i have some hc for Erik as a father, and thank you so much that you like my works for him. Thanks for the request and happy reading ;)

masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

°Since he has been in a relationship with his girlfriend, Erik and her have never really thought about each other, neither at family celebrations nor when they slept together. It wasn't until a few years into their relationship and a proposal later that Brenda hinted at becoming a grandmother that the young couple wondered if they were ready.

°They weren't...whether he had knocked her up planned or unplanned, when she came out of the bathroom completely beside herself with the test, Erik almost fell over before he took her in his arms, “Whether you want to keep it or not, I'm always there. I mean, someone has to pass on these cool tattoos,” he tried to loosen the sitaution a little, but it was hard for him when they both decided to keep the little pile of cells for now.

°In the early months, they were both doing their best, taking tips from their family, reading books and listening to parenting podcasts at work. Together they joked about names, bought and resold things until the months progressed and Erik was fascinated to see that his wife was carrying their child, “The prettiest ball I've ever seen,” he said proudly, placing his hand on her increasingly round belly as he realized what they had both created.

°Of course Brenda, Stef and Julia had immediately searched through all the magazines, colors and furniture that looked pretty and cute, but Erik's “We have our own idea, but thank you all” as he stood in front of the door with the wooden sign that still had no name engraved on it. Taking his wife's hand, they opened the future nursery together and immersed the family in a colorful and dark sea of colors. Erik had painted the walls black, his wife had added little rainbows and decorated the furniture with little bats and lightning bolts.

°Even on the day of the birth, when Erik almost had several accidents while driving to the hospital with her, they were not prepared, the rest of the family had to pack their bags for the hospital. He was with her the whole time, holding her hand, cheering her on and trying to give her the support he would want. There was the fear of losing both of them, his own family history, the deaths of the past, but when he heard the small shrill cry of the child, Erik also had to cry when he saw the most beautiful thing: his wife holding the little creature in her arms.

°A little boy with dark hair and his mother's eyes was the first grandchild of the family and the new generation of Campbells, “He's so little” Erik sniffled and wiped away tears as he cried again when the little hand closed around his finger. It was emotional, special and overwhelming for both of them but together with the support of the whole family they always had each other to lean on. Whether it was in the hospital or at home when they had to get used to what it meant to care for a little human being.

°When Erik took the early shift at the studio, the first thing he did was look after the little one, drinking his coffee while holding it in his arms. Above all, he proudly returned a few days later, on his forearm, next to the tattoo for his 'father', a lettering of his son and his wife, “The most important people” he had announced and he was quite enraptured when his wife had gotten pircing stickers with the first letters for him and his son.

°When he had to go out later he still made sure that the little one had everything he needed, it was important to him that his beloved got enough rest, “It's important that you get your strength” he made clear when he accompanied her to the gymnastics classes and cheered her on from the sidelines with the little one in front of his chest. Erik took every opportunity to rub everyone's noses in how incredible his wife was, how pretty she was and what a cute baby she had with him.

°Erik is a good father who would do anything for his wife and son. He is always there when you need him and does his best, even on stressful days he tries to manage everything somehow and when the son is asleep in the crib he always gives his wife a kiss before they can both at least sleep for a few hours before the crying starts again...but if you ask Erik this was the sound of the happiest marriage and the comforting feeling in his heart that he had done everything right.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

@butchrgoth , @nearest-x-dearest , @captainthomasrobbie , @monkeydoll5 , @zombiepoe , @starry-eyed-wild-child , @porterroths , @amandalove1355 , @mythicalcowboyatheart , @rhaenyrathecruell , @aashy723 , @luluscoff1n , @fapqueen , @sadslasher13 , @everdxen-mellark , @yearsbecomingcool

[kaysfanficcorner]

The Camgirl and the Millionaire, Part 2

Pairing: Harry Castillo x Camgirl Reader

Summary: You tell Harry what you don't do for a living, and the charity concert heats things up a bit.

Author's Note: Oh my goodness, I was not expecting to post the second part to this immediately after posting part one. But it was already written and I was happy with it so here ya go! Thank you for the love and support on part one, your interaction with that introductory chapter means the world to me! I am so stoked to share what I have planned for these two, and I'm aiming to tie this up as a neat little five part fic. But, I have a tendency to go overboard and find excuses to make my fics longer (looking at you, Out of This World), so we shall see if I can stick to that or not!

I want to go ahead and warn that I am not a fluent Spanish speaker. A novice at best. But, my partner and I are casually learning the language and there are a few moments involving Spanish in this chapter. Part two is heavily influenced by my obsession with a certain Latin American artist (you'll see), and so I make a reference to some lyrics. I did my best to ensure that the translations are accurate. I love the language and I would like to do it justice if I am going to reference it in my work.

New note, 6/25: I went back and made one small edit to this chapter. In it, Harry originally said it was June. For the outline I have planned I needed to move things up two months to August, so now I just made Harry make a vague reference to it being summer. You’ll understand when part 4 comes out!

Song Inspiration

Warnings: Drinking; Smoking THC; Harry is a little intoxicated and horny; Reader is too; Lying is stressful and bad, don't lie if you like someone a lot; Reader is bisexual; More descriptions of Reader's cam sessions; Cursing; Grinding; Kissing; Dancing; A little dirty talk; No Smut yet but we are edging towards it.

Minors DNI; Strictly 18+

Ao3

*****

Harry’s body is close to yours as you lean your back against the wall in a semi secluded corner of the venue. Sipping your drink, the third one since you started talking to him nearly forty-five minutes ago, any trepidation you felt about him before has left your person for the time being. The job subject hasn’t come up again. Instead you were able to slyly gloss over it, starting a new conversation by asking him his favorite thing about life in New York, and then things evolved from there.  

You’re both about to need a fourth drink by the looks of each nearly empty glass, but you’re not so sure if a fourth drink is a great idea. Harry seems to be holding his liquor just fine, but you’re a pot smoker at heart and you don’t normally drink this much. You know you’re tipsy, and you don’t want to take things too far and risk ruining the night for yourself. Vanessa never came back, and you’re not sure how she’ll react to know you’ve been getting semi drunk with a stranger. Then again, she’s been practically begging you to try and meet someone ever since she and Charles got together. Who knows, maybe she’ll be thrilled.

All you know is, you’ll be thanking her later when the two of you eventually make it back home. Harry Castillo is much better company than that silly vampire prince. 

You’re too lost in watching the skin around his eyes wrinkle with laughter at the dumb joke you just made a moment ago, and the beautiful dramatic curve of his broad nose when he turns his head to look briefly at the empty stage. He’s gorgeous from every angle, but that side profile of his is something else entirely. And his laugh? What a gift that sound is. 

“Are you listening?” The man you're mesmerized with asks as his chuckles fizzle out and he looks you up and down, brow lifting. “I asked you a question and you just stared at me.”

“Honestly, no. I wasn’t listening. You’re a little distracting when I’ve had three vodka sodas with generous pours. Have I told you that you’re handsome, Harry?” You’re unable to stop yourself as your hand lifts up and you run three manicured fingers through the hair just above his ear. You’re careful not to mess it up too much, and you revel in the softness of it.

Harry leans down, mouth hovering six or so inches from yours as his brown eyes bore into you. “Have I told you that you’re beautiful?”

Your chest swells and your stomach flutters at the question, lifting up towards him slightly. It would be so easy to kiss him, and it would also be utterly insane. Instead you force yourself not to. 

“Can we get some air? It suddenly feels like a million degrees. I guess I need to pace myself with these.” As you say that last sentence, you lift up your empty glass and send him an embarrassed little look while you shake it about and let the ice clink around. 

Harry’s eyes darken slightly with a vaguely lusty countenance, his free hand coming to rest on the wall right behind your head as he grins down at you. “I don’t think it's the booze heating things up in here. I could use to cool-off as well.”

With that, his hand slides from the wall and his fingers graze the side of your neck. A shiver runs up your spine as those fingers delicately run along the line of your jaw, before the tip of his index finger curls just under your chin. A small bit of pressure from him and you’re lifting up even more to meet him. You’re sure he’s going to kiss you for a moment, but then he simply shakes his head as if he cannot believe the sight before his eyes. 

“You really are beautiful.” 

Finger leaving your chin, his arm is suddenly weaving through yours, hooking at the elbow as he begins to pull you towards the huge glass doors of the terrace. Along the way you both discard your empty drinks, and then he’s leading you out into the warm summer night air. The two of you have the terrace all to yourselves, as everyone else seems to be inside anticipating the concert to begin at any moment.

“Do you smoke?” You ask him, squinting a little as you gauge his reaction. 

“I used to smoke cigarettes. Quit in my thirties.” Harry shrugs, eyeing you for a moment before looking out at the surrounding city. 

The view is pretty spectacular, and the night sky is as clear as it can be in a city this large. There’s a full moon peeking out from just behind the tallest building you can see at this angle. It’s picturesque, but none of that really matters right now in his presence. 

Pulling the thin little dab pen from your small black purse, you hold the sleek looking thing to your lips and take a long, satisfying drag. He looks back at you just as you decide to blow it out, so the vapor leaves your mouth through a sly grin as you hold the pen out to him. “What about weed?” 

Brows raising, he takes the pen from you and lets his warm fingers linger against yours for a long moment. That’s practically enough to make you dizzy. 

“Occasionally. Usually in more private settings and not at an event like this. It’s expected that I keep up appearances, you know.” Harry examines the thing, then he puts the mouthpiece to his plump lips and pulls a hefty drag of his own.           

God what you wouldn’t give to bite that bottom lip of his, body heating up as you watch the black plastic tip of the device rest indented against the pouty pink flesh there. A moment later he lets the vapor go with a sputtering, wide-eyed cough.

“Easy. Down, boy,” the phrase leaves your mouth along with a fit of giggles as you smack him lightly on the back.

“Jesus,” Harry blurts out between coughs, “you did that like a pro. I feel like a blundering novice.”

“I’m a seasoned veteran,” you say with a small bow, fully aware of the cleavage shot you’re gracing him with as you take the pen back.

“Apparently so,” Harry says with a chuckle, eyes lingering on your offered chest for a moment. “God, my throat burns.”

You frown a little, not wanting to have hurt him. “Yeah, sorry. Vapes are kind of awful. But they do nicely in a pinch, or when I’m out and about like this.” 

“So you go out often, then? Just not in the circles I run in, I suppose.”

“I can’t say that Van and I spend a lot of time with late forties businessmen, no.”

“I wish I didn’t. What kinds of circles do you run in, then?” As he asks this question, another more important question seems to dawn on him. A wild look of realization washes over his face. The dab pen certainly made him a bit more emotive, and you can’t help but find it endearing. “Oh! Do you have a boyfriend?”

A giddy little smirk finds your lips, happy to know that’s a concern of his. “No boyfriend. No girlfriend. No relationship. And, honestly, not that many circles. I have a handful of friends, but usually I enjoy doing things on my own most of the time. Reading, going to the movies, making food.”

Harry’s lovely brown eyes, red and squinting now, widen comically as a look of stoned pleasure takes over his handsome features. After that, his facial muscles relax considerably.  You know he’s feeling high when a warm hum escapes him as he says, “Mm, nice. I love movies. And books. And food.” Then his eyes grow even wider, as if he just remembered that food even exists. “Oh my god. I love food. We should get food after this. Something greasy?”

Harry’s enthusiasm sends you over with giggles, shaking your head at your handsome new friend. Clearly he doesn’t smoke as much as you do. “I’d get food with you, Harry. Who doesn’t love food?”

“Weirdos, I’m sure,” he chuckles confidently, smiling at you. “Do you speak Spanish?” He asks, suddenly changing the subject as he leans an elbow over the railing. “I got the impression that your roommate does.”

You nod, “She’s Mexican, so good call. It was her first language. I’m not fluent or anything but I’ve spent so much time with her that I can understand it much better than I can speak it. We watch a lot of Spanish language films together, and she’s influenced most of my current taste in music. But even still, I get so nervous that my accent is atrocious.”

“Say something in Spanish,” he softly commands, nodding once with more of that charming confidence of his. He’s going to send you over the edge just by existing, you just know it. There’s a gorgeous view of the city you love so much behind him, but he’s the only thing you can see right now.  

Stoned and nervous, you hide your face in your hands and say the first thing that comes to mind, “ Frijoles negros .” 

Harry barks with laughter and embarrassment immediately floods your system. You frown, looking down at the street below for a second. 

Harry seems to notice this, shaking his head and smiling at you fondly with reddened, squinting eyes. “Hey, no. I didn’t mean to laugh. Your accent is actually lovely. You should feel more confident in your Spanish. I just wasn’t expecting you to say black beans. ”

Shaking your head with a laugh, it’s a relief to know he wasn’t picking on you. You feel brave enough to shove him in the upper arm, deciding to use a term that Vanessa throws around a lot. “Yeah, well, you didn’t have to put me on the spot like that, cabrón. ”

He laughs even harder for a moment. Then a sudden look of realization washes over his face, and his brow furrows. “I just remembered. You never did tell me what you do for a living.”

There it is. He slipped it in so perfectly after your guard had fallen so far down.You nearly choke on the next hit of the dab pen, sputtering as you let the vapor leave your lungs and hand it over to Harry once more. 

Recovering, you try your best to smile and act as if that had simply been a cough. “Well,” you begin, prolonging the inevitable even more, “I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’m a college dropout with no degree from a poor family. School wasn’t for me. Couldn’t afford it and didn’t apply myself so I stopped before I put myself in debt for no reason. After that I moved here to become an actress. That was a little over a decade ago. Acting didn’t work out, but that was never really my dream. This city was my true dream, and that part did work out eventually.”

He hits the pen twice more and hands it back, his handsome voice taking on a serious tone. “I don’t care if you have a college degree. Life is what teaches us how to live, not some expensive school. I was fortunate to have the money for that kind of an education, but ultimately my path was picked out for me regardless of my schooling. I learned how to do what I do by spending summers working as my mother’s assistant. Whatever you do, you don’t need to feel embarrassed about it.”

“Ha,” you scoff, looking away from him momentarily. “I usually don’t. In front of you, I do. You’re a little intimidating, Harry.”

Harry frowns, most likely at your continued reluctance to tell him. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry so much. You really do intrigue me, that’s all.”

With a wave of the hand you try to brush that statement off. But inside you’re screaming with joy that a man of his caliber is saying things like that to you. “I’m really not that interesting.”

“Now that’s simply not true. Because girls like you don’t come to things like this. Your jewelry, for example.” Harry reaches his right hand towards the left side of your face, his thick index finger hooking behind your dangling earring. His eyes cast down at it for a long moment, and the most adorable little grin finds his lips. “I’ve never met a girl who wears bat earrings before. Especially not in the dead of summer, to an event like this. But it’s tasteful, and it fits your look very well.”

With a shrug, your left hand lifts to graze his wrist. “You can’t blame an ex-goth for hanging on to her old aesthetic a little bit, can you?”

Harry surprises you then by grabbing your fingers, bringing them up to meet his lips, kissing the matching ring. “That, I cannot.”

He nods thoughtfully, holding your hand close to his mouth. Close enough you can feel his warm breath. “You seem to have money despite your background. More so than your friend. The way you carry yourself suggests that this is a recent development in your life. I’m old money. New money is easy enough to sniff out when you’ve been stuck around these people your whole life. Maybe only a year or so for your financial success?”

“About two,” you blurt out, hand darting out of his grasp, flying to your lips. 

You stupid stupid bitch! Shut UP!

You’ve already said far too much to this man and if you’re not careful you could ruin what is turning out to be a beautiful evening. Normally you’re not shy about your profession. You’ve told plenty of the men and women you’ve casually dated over the last two years. You’re not ashamed of what you do when you’re talking to someone on your level, but you’ve never even been close to these kinds of people before tonight. 

To put it plainly, you simply enjoy expensive things because you had to grow up wanting for so much and having so little. Somehow you managed to find a job you genuinely enjoy, which allows for you to have the money to afford the life of casual luxury you always wished for. That doesn’t mean you look to surround yourself with other wealthy people. Most of your friends are still starving artists much like Vanessa. The fact that he called himself ‘old money’ just now is proof enough that he was born on a different plane of existence. 

Harry Castillo is so incredibly far above you on the food chain when it comes to New York City’s elite. He could chew you up and spit you out if you let him. Someone of his social stature could never know the truth about what you do and look at you the same way. You’re certain of it. 

If he knew that this time last night, instead of a designer dress, all you had on your body, or in your body rather, was a jeweled plug and a ring gag. If he knew there had been a weighted chain connected to both of your expertly hidden nipple piercings. If he knew that while you facefucked yourself with a pretty pink dildo, a much older and much less attractive man than Harry was fucking himself with a fleshlight to it on the other side of the video feed. If he knew that right after the session you used your wand to give yourself a quiet, grunting orgasm as your well earned treat after faking a big loud one for your client… If he knew any of that , Harry Castillo may not think you’re as beautiful and intriguing as he does right now. 

But he does think you’re beautiful and intriguing right now. He said so himself. And you haven’t said anything that could ruin your chances with him yet. So you scramble to think of something to say, and finally an idea comes to mind.

“I’m sorry I’m being so cagey about telling you. It’s just not something I like to discuss with someone I’ve only just met. I’m…,” your brain scrambles again, a split second of doubt stopping you from lying. But then the loosened inhibitions from the alcohol and smoke make you blurt out the only lie that makes any sense, and the decision is made. 

“An author!”

It’s not a total lie. While you haven’t completed anything novel-length yet, a handful of your short stories have been featured in a few fetish zines and smut compilations. Real, published ones. You never see any real money from those ventures, but it still counts. Your Ao3 account has about twenty-five contributions. All you ever read is smutty romance. This is a subject you know enough about to craft a believable fib around it. Guilty as that makes you feel, given that this is the most you’ve liked someone new in a hot minute. 

But, Harry Castillo comes off like a man you’ll never see again after tonight. So what’s a little white lie going to hurt in the grand scheme of things? The two of you are from completely different worlds. One night with a man like him is a blessing. Any more nights? That's asking for trouble.

His eyes light up at your not-true confession, lips spreading across his face in a wide, handsome grin. 

Oh no. Perhaps you’ve been in trouble from the very start.

Harry’s so enthusiastic as he exclaims, “You have to let me read your work!”

You’re blushing, and sweating a bit. “Oh, that’s kind of you but I’m sure what I write is not your speed whatsoever.”

Harry’s firm on this, shaking his head once. “I insist. I’m going to look you up as soon as I go home.”

Is this man fucking real? There’s no way he exists in this realm. 

“You won’t find me,” you say abruptly, quickly adding, “I use a pseudonym!”

He leans in, hovering close to your face as he pouts that damned lower lip ever so slightly. “Tell me your pseudonym? Please ?”

Your pulse quickens, palms moistening as you shake your head again. “I’d rather not, Harry.”

“Why? Do I make you nervous? I’m sure you’re a fine writer, and I’d like to see for myself.” Those big brown eyes are pleading with you, and it’s almost too much entirely. “At least tell me what genre you write in.”

“Uh, romance mostly,” you blurt out. “Like I said, not your speed.”

He shocks you when a bashful look crosses his features. “Actually, and please don’t out me for this, my guilty pleasure is romance. A night in with a bottle of wine and a steamy book or a sappy movie? Ideal. Please, let me read your work?”

Deflecting, you say, “My work is a little more intense than your mainstream romance. Steamy doesn’t even cut it.”

But Harry’s once again surprising you with his reaction. “Oh, really? You write erotica? Fascinating! Now I really must read something of yours.”

Your voice nearly waivers, but you hold fast. “ No , Harry.”

“Why not? Is it me?” Harry’s face falls, disappointment written all over him. A kind of shyness and vulnerability finds his voice, you’re certain of it.

You’re frowning, and for a split second you consider backtracking and telling him the truth. He really does seem to like you, and perhaps there’s a chance he would understand. But are you brave enough to take that chance? 

No, evidently you’re a coward. 

Fuck me, you think. And since you’d love for this night to end with Harry Castillo doing just that, you decide to speak from the heart as much as you can without revealing too much. The web of lies you’ve begun to weave is already starting to stress you out a little, so you take another decent puff on the dab pen and stick it back in your purse. 

“It is you, but not because I don’t like you. It’s because that is a very personal part of me,” you say. Not a complete lie. Okay, good. Keep going. “The smut I write comes from my real deepest darkest desires.” Worried that what you just said sounds sketchy, you quickly recover by adding, “Kinky, but nothing worrisome. My stories are not just about sex, they’re about the love between the characters. Those bonds are sacred, fictional representations of what I eventually want for myself with a real partner. Forgive me if I don’t feel comfortable sharing that with you when I don’t know you very well and I certainly don’t know if I can trust you. Perhaps if I got to know you better I would eventually let you read my work. But as of right now I reserve the right to deny you access. That part of my life is very private, and the small amount of success I see from it allows me to afford the lifestyle I want to live. So it’s important that my two worlds don’t collide. My parents don’t even know. Neither does my sister and she thinks I tell her everything. They all think I gave up acting to do clerical work for a law firm that happens to pay really well.”

Harry stares at you for a long time, but then his furrowed brow softens and he nods. A little smile creeps onto his lips, and the distance between you feels lessened all of the sudden. 

“You know,” he begins, a hand reaching up to move a curl from your eyes, the tips of his fingers finding your cheek, “that’s extremely fair. More than fair, actually. If you let me see you again after tonight I think I’ll make it my life’s work to earn that trust from you.”

Your breath hitches at such a forward statement, and you worry that you’re in much deeper shit than you meant to get yourself into. So much for never seeing him again after this.       

Attempting to deflect again, you tell him, “Just know that’s not an easy task. A lot of walls to break down and all that.” As you say this, he's leaning forward even more.

His lips are hovering just an inch or so above yours. “I have walls of my own, you know. Everyone does. Totally normal.”

Just as your lips graze his ever so lightly, a huge uproar from inside the venue causes you both to jump apart in surprise. Then some dramatic strings begin to play, followed by the beat of a hiphop style track.  

You shriek . Shrill and unforgiving. Harry winces at the sound of it. Without thinking, you grab Harry’s hand and begin yanking him towards the big glass doors you came out from. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Oh my fucking GOD! Vanessa wasn’t making this up!”

*****

“Is that the secret musical guest?” Harry asks, brow to his hairline in surprise as he lets you pull him easily. He can’t quite make out the song, but people seem to be going crazy inside for whoever it is. Then he squints, as if that will help him to hear better, and that’s when Harry realizes that your pen made him much higher than he usually gets when he partakes in the indulgence of marijuana. The three drinks, not including the one he had before he ran into you, aren’t assisting him to feel very sober now either. His senses are on a bit of an overload, but it feels good at the same time. Then a familiar set of music notes hits his eardrum, and a deep male voice sings the word dime in Spanish twice and his jaw drops a little. “Wait. Is that… Bad Bunny? ”

The wild look you throw back at Harry is absolutely adorable. This is clearly the reason you came to this event in the first place, and suddenly your presence here makes a little more sense to him.

“It IS! Holy fuck I am going to lose my MIND. Please come dance with me, Harry. I like you and I want to experience this with you,” you plead back at him with a soft and genuine expression that melts every single part of Harry Castillo into a helpless goo.

As if he was going to choose to be anywhere else tonight after meeting you. 

Your hand makes it to the doorknob, and as soon as you’ve pushed it open the cacophony from within is nearly too much. The screams from the crowd are more deafening than the music itself. The houselights have gone down and there’s a frenzy of new multicolored lights strobing Harry’s vision. It feels as if the two of you walked back inside to a completely separate event and Harry, for lack of a better term, feels high as balls. 

Harry has to really focus on raising his loud enough voice to tell you, “Wow, I can’t believe the guest is someone I actually listen to!” 

You turn to him, adorably wide-eyed as you yell back, “You like him too?!”

Harry nods, deciding that it’s time to be a gentleman and take the lead through the suddenly dense crowd. He switches things so that his hand is the one more in control of your now linked fingers, nodding down at you as he moves past and starts to lead you instead. “I do! One of my favorites!”

“I would have never guessed that in a million years!” You shout, expression dumbfounded. He frowns at you a little, mildly self conscious as he shouts back, “Why? Because I’m old?”

Harry feels relieved when that question seems to surprise you, and he loves the way you roll your eyes at him in a bratty sort of way, raising your voice to tell him, “You’re old-er, not old! And no, because you’re a fancy rich guy and this is not the kind of music fancy rich people listen to.”

“There’s more to me than meets the eye. And the pocketbook, for that matter,” Harry says, willing you to feel how true that statement is for him.

“Me too,” you concede, face softening.

The two of you lock eyes for a long moment, and Harry feels this swelling in his chest he’s never felt before. The pressure of it is nearly painful, but then it morphs into something else entirely as it unfurls through his being like a warm drink on a cold day spreading through his belly. He really must be more intoxicated than he realized.

What the hell was that?

*****

Harry leads you into the main room of the event space, and the crowd is literally losing their minds over the man sauntering across the stage with a microphone in his hand. As he spouts off lyrics in Spanish and the crowd joins in enthusiastically, a grin spreads across the musician’s handsome features. His stylish outfit is impeccable and his curly hair looks so soft, even at a distance. He’s more attractive in real life than you could have anticipated from pictures and music videos. But even still, he doesn’t hold a candle to the suave gentleman whose fingers are laced with yours. You’d thought Bad Bunny was going to be the one and only man holding your attention tonight, even back when it was still a huge possibility that Van was full of shit. 

You hadn’t accounted for meeting Harry Castillo. 

“Oh, fuck ,” you say to yourself, but loud enough for Harry to hear over all the noise. “I can’t believe it’s really Benito! This is not how I expected my day to go when I got up this morning!”

“Those are always the best days,” Harry responds, grinning as he yanks you forward more. “Do you want me to get you all the way down to the front? I’ll stay with you and keep you safe.”

“Please stay with me,” you agree, still marveling at the fact that there’s a man here who’s captivated your attention far more than the musician you came here to see. 

Harry nods once and tightens his grip on your hand, starting to strongly push his way through the crowd onto the main dance floor. It’s such a contrast to how this place looked an hour ago, and seeing all of these stuffy people in fine clothing bump and grind is a sight you didn’t think you’d ever see. The energy feels like that of the raves you used to attend as a younger woman. 

It takes a few moments, but eventually Harry’s able to shove his way through the various groups and couples and you’re right up in front of the small stage. A flash of familiar light pink to your right catches your attention, and you see Vanessa and Charles dancing together just beside you. Harry must have brought you to her on purpose. Good thing he’s tall enough to see over the crowd, because you never would have spotted her. 

When Vanessa notices you, she lets go of Charles and flings herself into your arms with a girly, high-pitched squeal of delight. 

“Thank you, bitch!” You scream to her, grinning like a madwoman.

“You’re welcome, bitch!” She screams back, and then, at no surprise to you at all, she presses her lips to yours in a quick but heated kiss. Her lips massage yours, uncaring if lipstick gets misplaced along the way. Just as your tongue flicks along the tip of hers, she breaks apart from you with a wink and a grin. You give her a disappointed little huff for ending that so quickly. 

When you both notice Harry and Charles staring at the two of you with slack-jawed expressions, you and Vanessa both burst out into laughter. It’s all barely audible over the concert. The men lock eyes for a moment and then share a quick shrug of confused comradery, and at that moment Vanessa flings herself back into Charles’ arms. She’s definitely drunk, because drunk Vanessa’s favorite thing in the world is kissing. And she’s already got her tongue buried so deeply in Charles’ mouth that you’re sure word of their confirmed relationship will have spread around to all of their coworkers by morning. So much for secrets. 

With a shake of the head you’re facing Harry again, and he’s looking down at you with lust in those inviting chocolate eyes of his. 

Slightly dilated pupils land on your lips for a moment, and his tongue darts out from between his teeth to wet his own a little as he lifts his hand to his own face. When his tongue appears again not a moment later, this time to run slowly over the pad of his thumb, a distinct and familiar throbbing heats up between your legs. All at once you’re desperate to feel that tongue run slowly over your aching, needy nub.

Harry’s palm finds your cheek, and he swabs his moist thumb just below the corner of your mouth. You just knew some of Van’s pink lipstick had smeared onto you, which is surely in contrast to your own dark red lip liner look. As he wipes it away, you can’t help but think that if you were in a different setting you’d have half a mind to draw the appendage between your lips and show him just exactly what your intentions are with a move far too sultry for a public place. 

You realize that you’re the one staring at his lips now, licking your own in anticipation. Once Harry’s finished ridding you of the unwanted lipstick, you nod at him in an attempt to give your silent approval if he truly wants to kiss you. A great thrill runs through you when he leans down and presses his lips to yours in response.

Finally , you think blissfully as your eyes close and your hands immediately find the lapel of his suit jacket, clinging to him for dear life. He tastes of whiskey and your dab pen, and his lips are so incredibly soft and inviting as you brazenly deepen the kiss with your own parting mouth. He lets you do it easily, and you’re so desperate to feel his warm tongue touch you anywhere if you can’t feel it touch you there .

His other hand flies to your waist, fingers gripping into the fabric of your dress. The two of you stay like that for a long moment, but then suddenly Harry is breaking the kiss, spinning you around to face forward towards the stage. His mouth is against your ear, “You came here to see him, so watch him. You can have plenty of me later. If you want me, of course.”

“I want you,” you breathe honestly, relishing in the truth of it. You feel his nose brush your bare shoulder, mustache tickling you before he presses a chaste kiss to the exposed flesh. 

Harry’s hips find yours from behind, and his hands find generous amounts of your body to hold on to as the music really starts to flow through both of you. Song after song you and Harry move in sync. 

Occasionally Vanessa comes back over and the two of you share a moment of joyful hip grinding, hands and lips briefly all over each other before she goes back to Charles. That only seems to rile your own dance partner up more.

Sometimes, much to your surprise when you first hear it, Harry dips his head in and you feel the rumble of him singing along to the lyrics as he presses into you. He hadn’t been full of shit when he said that this was music he actually listens to.

When Bad Bunny is halfway through HIBIKI , Harry has the audacity to sing the line “ b aby, te lo meto si me das permiso” which you know roughly translates to “baby, I'll give it to you if you give me permission.” The song itself is sexy sounding but angsty in content, and yet even still Harry is somehow masterfully using the promiscuous lyrics to his advantage. This man knows exactly what he’s doing. With his hot mouth up against your right lobe and what you’re sure is the beginnings of a hard on pressing just below the small of your back, you’re certain you’ve never wanted to fuck someone so bad in your entire life. 

Then a line later, you can feel him slip the hairpin holding your bun from your head, and your hair falls down over your shoulders in a cascade of waves.

Harry’s hand moves the tresses off your right shoulder and his voice is in your ear, singing, “Jalarte po' el pelo, despeinarte toda, después te doy chavo pal′ beauticion.” With that he very gently tugs on the locks once, before running his fingers up under your hair to massage the back of your head. As Harry sings the next line after that, his other hand slyly slinks around to bunch up the fabric of your skirt and you feel his warm hand grazing your inner thigh. “En ese totito cabe perfecto mi bicho.”

Pull your hair, mess it up, then I'll give you money for a beautician. That little pussy fits my dick perfectly.

Thank god the venue is so loud that you’re probably actively getting hearing damage, because otherwise the moan which escapes your mouth would have probably drawn attention to the increasingly inappropriate dancing going on between you and Harry Castillo. A quick glance around the pit suggests that nearly everyone seems to be dancing like that, some not holding back whatsoever, and so you suppose what you and Harry are doing probably looks tame. 

But it doesn’t feel tame. It feels like he’s tapped into that deeper part of you and you’re ready to let her out. 

Mercifully or tragically, you’re not sure which, the music switches over from hip-grinding hiphop to hip-swaying salsa, and Harry’s grip on you eases up. Your skirt drops back down just past your knees and the spot where his hand was feels empty. Wishing to see his face again, you spin around in his arms so that his hands are practically cupping your ass. 

You’re tired of shouting, so with hands on his broad shoulders you’re lifting up on your tiptoes to speak directly into his ear.

“Do you know how to salsa?” You ask.

He shakes his head, causing his earlobe to graze your lip. Then he’s brushing your hair to the side to speak in your ear again, “A little when I was a kid, but not really. I’d love to take lessons if I had a good dance partner.”

 “I would too,” you agree, looking over where Vanessa and Charles are doing the moves perfectly. “Those two make me so fucking jealous, but don’t tell her I said that.”

“So I don’t have to worry about her stealing you away tonight?”

“Nah, Van is a very lovey dovey drunk and I am her very willing and bisexual best friend. Usually we’re out at a club when she’s like that and I’d rather have her kiss me than some skeezey dude who might want to roofie her drink. That’s her boyfriend, Charles, she’s dancing with. So I’m off the hook tonight.”

“Mm, good,” Harry breathes, smirking as his eyes flick down to your lips. “More for me, then.”

*****

A few songs and an encore later, your favorite musician is gone as quickly as he appeared, and the surrealness of the last nearly hour and a half washes over you just as the houselights wash over the dissipating crowd. You’re covered in sweat and so horny you’re sure you’re going to burst. Harry hasn’t left your side since the moment the two of you locked eyes at the bar, and after feeling him grind into you like that for so long you’re determined not to leave his side until you’ve been satiated. This man has you so feral for him that you’re not even processing the fact that you just got to see your dream musical performance. 

He’s ditched his suit jacket, keeping it flung over one shoulder as he guides you away from the stage with a hand on your moist back. Vanessa and Charles are following close behind, attempting to keep their hands to themselves now that their coworkers can see them. You’re dying to tell her that ship has already sailed, but they can figure that out for themselves.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” you marvel, ears ringing in the quiet left behind from the show. 

Harry smiles at you fondly, “I’m glad I didn’t leave when I was going to. That was great, and I’m grateful I got to experience it with you.”

“Me too,” you agree, blushing a little from the genuineness of Harry’s tone. “So tell me how you got into him, because I am dying to know. You really knew your shit out there.”

Harry shrugs,  “My brother’s about your age and he’s obsessed. We did a week in Mexico for his bachelor party last year and he played Bad Bunny nonstop. After that I was hooked.”

“Mm, fair. Is your brother here?”

Harry grins wickedly, “No, he didn’t want to come. I cannot wait to rub it in his face when I head to the office on Monday.” Then he’s grabbing your hand to kiss the back of it. “Thank you for dancing with me.”

Seeing the older brother side of him for a moment strikes your heart with a little flare of something more than lust for this man. He’s wonderfully adorable. “You were an excellent partner, Harry. Did you enjoy being high for that?”

He nods, glancing at you almost knowingly. “It certainly enhanced things. It’s mostly worn off for me, though.”

A sly smile finds your lips. “I could use some more.” 

“You could use some water ,” Harry practically chides, though that smile he’s wearing for you doesn’t falter. “I’ll get you some, stay here.”

With that, he leaves you standing by a marble pillar as he slides up to the crowded bar. 

Vanessa moves in beside you, poking you in the cheek with a pink fingernail. Charles seems to have gone off to do his job. 

“Someone’s going to get laid for real tonight!”

“Shh! Keep your fucking voice down!” You hiss, mortified. What she said was vague enough that anyone within earshot would just assume you masturbate a lot or something, but that feeling of dread in your chest just sobered you up more than the dancing had.  “He doesn’t know about that.”

“Are you going to tell him?” She asks.

You shake your head grimly. “I told him I’m a smut author.”

Vanessa scoffs loudly. “Bitch your Ao3 does not fucking count.”

God, you could kill her just as much as you could kiss her sometimes. “It was the best I could come up with, Van. I’d like to see you come up with something better if you were in my position.”

She frowns, looking at you seriously. “If you see him again after tonight you need to come clean. He seems like a catch and he seems completely enamored with you. Maybe you can actually reel this one in.”

“He’s not a fish,” you say with an eye roll. 

“No, he’s a sexy rich man who’s exactly your type.”

“I don’t care that he’s rich, you know that.”

“But you do care that he’s devilishly handsome and older than you.” 

“Boy, do I,” you say dreamily as you watch him turn from the bar with three bottles of water. 

“He doesn’t have to be a sugar daddy to be a daddy.” Vanessa sends you her signature wink at that last statement. 

You shove her playfully. “That’s enough out of you. He’s on his way back. You and I will discuss this at home.”

“Aye aye, captain!” Vanessa says with a giggle and a salute, clearly still feeling her alcohol. Then her eyes widen as she looks over your shoulder and suddenly shouts, “But I’m going home with Charles, just so you know!”

Glaring sharply, you know exactly what she’s doing despite whisper-asking her, “What are you doing?!” 

“Getting him to take you home,” she whispers back. 

As if you needed help. 

“Did I hear that you need a ride?” Harry asks, handsome as ever as he looks down at you. He looks so good that it’s overwhelming, dark hair even darker now that it’s damp from dancing, the pink flush in his cheeks slowly starting to fade. His white dress shirt seems damp in a few places and he’s rolled his sleeves up to expose his toned forearms. Harry hands you and Vanessa a bottle of water before unscrewing the cap of his own and downing several gulps with his head turned slightly. There’s that beautiful side profile again.

Christ have mercy, how are you turned on by watching someone drink water? The way his lips are pursed against the bottle, the bob of his Adam's apple as the drink flows down his throat. The little flick of his tongue on the edge of the rim to catch that last stray drop. 

Fuck .

Vanessa elbows you, and you have to literally shake your head to dislodge from the stupor he just had you in. Words? What are those?

“Uh, yes, I was just going to grab a taxi,” you say, taking a generous sip of your own water while you recover. 

“I’ve already called for my driver to come pick me up. I’m happy to take you somewhere.” Harry offers generously.

You smirk. “I distinctly recall someone wanting to get greasy food after this.”

He grins. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“I was really high, wasn’t I?”

“You were. But I liked it, and I’m craving a cheesesteak.”

“A cheesesteak it is, then.”

The two of you stand there, staring into each other’s eyes for a long moment, sharing a silent mutual agreement that the rest of the night is about to be shared in each other’s company. Though, as is the delicate dance between men and women, and despite how forward Harry had been with you on the dance floor, you’ll both still skirt around the subject until it actually happens. 

*****

Next

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Masterlist

[capslocked]

KINKVEMBER DAY: 6

[prompt: blowjob]

male reader x hyeju

12k words

“I mean, don’t you think,” Hyeju says, wagging a finger at you, “that when you suffer through a bad date, the world ought to owe you something?”

"Like what?" you ask.

"Better taste in women - maybe more orgasms; I dunno, a blowjob?" She shrugs. "The general idea is just that someone gets to cum."

You nearly choke on the air in front of you. "Jesus, Hyeju, warn a guy."

“What? I’m trying to commiserate with you,” Hyeju laughs. “Wouldn’t that be funny? Being able to kiss someone who actually, you know, might love you back, and at the same time. Imagine not hooking-up just to forget a shitty day. Sounds wild, right?"

"Utterly deranged."

"So wild."

-

The first time you hook up with your roommate, it’s because of genetics - though not in the weird, uncontrollable way your body gets rigid and sensitive to any pretty girl who wears nothing but a towel moving between her bedroom and the bathroom, or how her eyes might flick fast from your chest up to yours - or given that the absolute shape of her is a blessing from one god or another (benevolent, clearly). That's not why Hyeju and you find yourselves only a few months later grinding on each other after the clock ticked past midnight, making out on New Year's Eve.

No, it has to do with the fact that Hyeju's nearly failing the nine AM section of molecular genetics because she's spent every lecture doodling stars and planets and planets shaped like asscheeks and planet-ass constellations while everyone else writes notes or doom scrolls twitter or whatever and she is somehow simultaneously the only student who never slept with her face on the lab desk or missed an assigned reading and the only one who absolutely needs a tutor.

It's just cosmic odds that you'd be that one: her roommate, who shouldn't be talking so loudly in the library about sex (in a sort of non-sexy, Mendelian kind of way) or be thinking the kind of things you've started thinking when Hyeju wears one of her more sleepshirt-esque long sleeves, her voice getting lower as you rattle off, "fruit flies and thale cress, definitely, it's just an error of fate or chromosome splitting..." before trailing off into a question.

"This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me," she finally tells you. You listen to her sigh into the binding of her textbook, facedown. "I'm really going to bomb this exam."

You tap her hand twice with your highlighter across the desk. "Then you're pretty damn lucky, if you think about it."

She turns to you, smiles a bit. "Okay, point. The worst thing will be having to retake this stupid fucking class."

"Why didn't you ask for help or go to office hours if you knew you were... failing?"

"Maybe because doing anything more than the bare minimum to get through a class I don't care about is my definition of, failing," she mumbles. "Why didn't anyone tell me a single lab is worth half my grade? Or that the TA is this fucking unreliable? How is this the one thing, really, beyond the basics, that can't be taught by wikipedia, a wikihow article and a youtube video?"

You scoot your seat closer to her. "You really need to relax."

"Fucking tell me about it."

You turn it over in your mind a few times, capping the top of your highlighter.

"Want me to get you off?"

And it’s not like you really mean it, when you say it, which is the strangest thing: you wouldn't actually suggest it, normally, wouldn't mention it in passing and then leave yourself open to the follow up and cross examination; yet there it is, after three, four hours of cramming notes on heterochronicity and the sloshing of gametes - you actually did propose it.

Hyeju jerks up, surprised.

"Are you serious?" She looks around, nearly snorting. "In the library?"

The face you’re giving her makes her scoff.

“You’re absolutely nuts.”

You have character flaws; the inability to admit wrongdoing chief among them. Hell, maybe it's from your mother - or maybe all your brains are just scrambled by the fact that Hyeju's sitting there with her pen against her pretty lips, hair glossier than usual as she scans your face and makes your entire body feel like a reactor core in meltdown.

Maybe you can blame what comes next on that.

"I'm always serious. I'm asking a serious question," you whisper, closing the textbook and resting your elbows on top. You look around quickly, like you're sneaking something in instead of this perfectly reasonable exchange, the perfectly platonic - except maybe not so much - way for friends to help each other.

"And I'm wondering what you're asking." Her cheeks are definitely pinker, you think, or the way it fills out her face, from the bottom up, is just that easy to imagine.

“I’m saying you haven’t gotten laid in months.” Here, you realize, these blocks of mental logic that definitely weren’t there when you blurted it out start to coalesce into something solid as you go on.

And you hadn't been wrong when you thought no one had given Hyeju a helping hand in a long, long time: you've heard through the walls or the floorboards at odd hours of the morning that she spends far too long fingering herself to a mind-numbing, tear-worthy frustration that leaves her knuckle-deep but never, ever sated or satisfied.

"No one's around, you'll feel better. You said it yourself."

Not a work of your imagination here - her ears are fucking burning.

"Wait a minute." She pushes her chair back, away from you and your gleaming offer. It clatters on its back legs, and a librarian waves her finger in warning. You wave back, sheepishly, until she stops and Hyeju stands and moves away from the table to talk, hands crossed over her front.

She turns and asks in a hushed-down-voice, "how did you know - did you hear something last night?"

"You couldn't keep it down even if you wanted to, honestly."

Hyeju turns further and throws a glare at the library doors, because obviously her noisiness and their collective noisemanship, or whatever the hell the word is, is clearly the root of the whole goddamn problem.

"Look - if not, no big deal - but I'm just saying you'll probably get over it and at least think less about sex. Or at least the wrong kind of sex."

You expect her to turn, sigh, and ask if you've lost your mind. Expect her to gather her jacket from the back of her chair, take her books and stomp out the room. Or even burst out laughing at the insanity, before slapping your arm lightly, in playful retaliation - anything other than the serious look she gives you in return, tilting her head, pressing her lips.

She turns up at the ceiling for a moment, contemplating something. And it's cute. It's so very, very cute, how her mouth pouts as she considers the possibility, right up until she says, "okay, fine."

The moderate twist of surprise taking hold in your brow must be visible.

"Oh, don't tell me that was all talk. Get me thinking about the right kind of sex or whatever."

You laugh, which has the librarian staring at both of you - until the librarian stops staring and probably sees Hyeju sliding back into her chair, the full, pent-up weight of her concentration pointed your way, knees inching apart - you, and Hyeju waiting, your knee bumping into her inner thigh, leaning closer as the textbook hits the floor.

"Don't laugh."

"Not laughing, seriously. Not laughing," you stammer. “I just think you’re just full of surprises.”

She spreads her knees further and sits taller, looking right at you.

"So then, surprise me," and then presses her cheek to the crook of your elbow.

You slide your chair right into the space next to hers, nuzzling up into the space under her ear. “Keep studying, Hyeju, you’ve got shit to do.” And then you slide your hand beneath the waist of her sweats, knead the swell of her thigh until you find the seam where her leg meets her body, press your palm down on the place just next to her center, your thumb in the middle. All this perfect pressure.

"Fuck," Hyeju says under a shudder. She's breathing heavier when your hot, open-mouthed kisses start landing at her neck, and she probably tries to read her textbook for about forty-five seconds longer. But there's the clench of her jaw right as your middle finger begins tracing circles beneath the fabric of her panties, and her gaze is blurring until she can't tell the difference between an allele or your fucking name.

"Shh-shh," you quiet her, finger tapping harder, playing with the slick wetness beneath all those layers of thick cotton and pressing two fingers there until her knees part like they’re not interested in resisting at all. Your lips press a kiss to the shell of her ear and she tenses all at once, hand shooting up to cover her mouth.

She simply leans back, closes her eyes, and lets you take care of her.

“Okay, you’re right,” she says, shaky and uneven, “that really did take some of the edge off. Did we ever review - poly- uh, pol-polymers here?"

The sweatshirt sleeve falling off your shoulder is a hindrance to any actual reading; her shifting against the chair isn't helping either, but you manage to push down the thoughts of stripping her down completely and giving her your tongue as yet another distraction.

"What did the syllabus say? I don't know if we need to read too far on 'polymers'," you say, having going through an entire afternoon without considering this once, but as you curl your fingers and take an honest crack at cramming the remaining chapters into her head, the knowledge that no one else is getting her this wet - except for whoever she's got in her mind's eye at three AM - is enough to get you feeling a little dizzy.

-

It’s probably supposed to be weird, given that you’ve never gotten any of your other friends off spontaneously in the library, or there's the fact that you can't really avoid each other afterwards, how she shows up in a silk negligee when you're pouring coffee before sunrise to prep for another day and you have the opportunity to notice - yes, she has amazing taste in underwear, yes, you might not have really appreciated her chest and figure enough before - yes, fuck it. She catches you noticing that first time, after coming downstairs with nothing but one of her cropped t-shirts and her board shorts, and she smirks when she realizes you're still thinking about it that afternoon, when her foot grazes yours while you're both washing dishes, and she dries the plate in her hand with a slow swipe.

And it is weird, actually, to describe what’s going on between you in words. 

A few words, anyway, like a one-word label to describe what it was: friends or roommates-with-benefits, or - fuck buddies - god, it's even worse. Fuck buddies? Fuck friends? Something equally terrible and stupid that still makes sense, like something out of a shitty rom-com: it doesn't capture any of the rest of the myriad ways in which things can feel less or less friendly between two people.

So, friends was never, ever going to cut it. Roommates - although technically correct - is just this side of too clinical. And let's be clear: strangers don't wake up every morning together, walk to the same class, sit close together in the middle seats, secretly flick a strangers' skirt up in an empty lecture hall and get on their knees and work your mouth onto her pussy and watch the legs of the desks shake when her feet arch into the floor.

"The notes you've got are better than mine," is how Hyeju tries to put things, the next day and every time after that, standing in the doorframe, or at the foot of your bed and looking every bit the disheveled and hopeless mess you imagine she might spread out over the sheets of her own.

-

It gets complicated, which isn't really a surprise.

"You think your roommate is going to be home tonight?" is the question that comes up multiple times - from a revolving door of pretty names and faces. Hyeju has at least one opinion, if not more, on each of them.

"Tell Jinsoul I say hi," she says once, watching you get ready for a date, and you nearly bang your knee on the edge of the bathroom vanity. 

It's one of the more harmless comments she's offered.

Another, backhanded: "if you’re just looking for a blowjob everyday between lunch and our physics lab, let Hyunjin or Heejin or whatever-her-name-is know she's easily my favorite," Hyeju says on your way out one morning, still under her covers.

Or,

Hyeju's texted a simple "uh, Chuu? really??" when you mention, once, how much fun you've been having - and what kind, as you make a round of self-conscious and rambling phone calls the next day that land you with only one prospect for the night - but your roommate's also no longer being your roommate by the end of it, bouncing against your thighs in the bathtub and moaning something about please more and fuck or fucking make me cum; the details escape you a bit.

That's what friends are for, probably.

Still, in the same, bare-bones explanation, friends also aren't for falling asleep on you - or letting you hold her - or fucking you awake in the middle of the night. Friends aren't for pushing down your jeans when the early-morning dew settles on the back patio, or jerking you off in the seat beside yours with a sweatshirt over your lap when a group project is due later and you all should probably work on that and instead get yourselves off and leave the mess of what you're doing half-finished. Friends aren't, probably, for offering to watch you rub your palm up and down your cock the night before next semester's exams when you can barely sit in a single chair and you can't think about molecular biology or neurochemical transcriptions when your whole body aches to do the transcribing. (If you can catch that drift.)

The lists of who are and are not good enough for you goes on and on - the latter longer than the former.

So, there's Choerry, who according to Hyeju is 'straight up, a total slut'. Yeojin, who gets mistaken for your little sister enough times that Hyeju refuses to - in good faith - let you keep sleeping with her. Both Heejin and Gowon are apparently too pretty for you. "Kim-lip?" she asks, in the middle of peeling garlic, "is that one name or two?" And laughs into a bottle of beer, loud, while you're telling her to quit being nosey and watch her fingers with the damn knife.

"You have a problem."

"Why, because I asked a few simple questions? I think anyone would be a little curious with the -" she pauses to wave her fingers - "I'd be remiss to not be interested in the very drama that unfolds literally across the hall."

She waggles her eyebrows.

You look up at the ceiling. God save you, you think. "Hyeju."

("Seriously," Hyeju chimes in one evening, arms around you, and a mouthful of the dinner you'd cooked.

"You need better taste in girls. Don't waste time on anyone too dumb, or who drinks the milk straight from the carton, or doesn't wash her socks with the same load of laundry. Oh, and - no one who chews loudly. No one who can't tell you're going to cum. The worst is someone who doesn't know what you like, trust me on that. And remember the last rule: don't do anything with someone who eats at a really slow pace, it's incredibly depressing."

You rest your chin on her shoulder from the spot behind her. "Duly noted, oh Master of all Knowledge."

She sighs into your arm, but in the next moment, her voice gets a lot softer, her hips fidgeting slightly against you. "I just mean you're the kind of person people would want to sleep with again," she says, before turning to say your name and kiss you again and again as your bodies curl inward.

"I wonder what that means, Hyeju," you say.

"Fuck," Hyeju groans as you slide further into her, pushing her back into the sofa - hands on her shoulders, legs bent on her either side, "don't tease me like this.")

-

The first snowfall of the year is mild, a tiny dusting, nothing that sticks on the pavement in the alley or on the sidewalks - or the lintels - or in Hyeju's hair, but by evening, when the snow picks up and everything goes quiet, Hyeju has changed into flannels and wool socks in anticipation, curled up like a cat at one edge of the window ledge as the world begins to go white. It's enough that you even pull on a thicker sweatshirt, open up a book, and join her.

She turns toward you, quiet.

You've reached a point in the semester where this, the silence, doesn't unsettle you anymore. It's the space you fill up with time in-between, where you can see the contours of her body against the orange lamplight of the space heater, or watch her kick off the top half of the duvet at night as you fight over space in her bed and wonder about the bare skin peeking out from her shorts.

"Feeling bored?" She slides her foot a little closer to yours, almost imperceptibly. "Am I keeping you entertained enough?"

Her lips pull up at the corner. You chuckle.

"Oh, no."

She scoffs and puts her hands on her knees, pushes herself closer to the window sill and bumps her elbow into your shoulder. The bare skin of her neck and shoulders and face is getting a little redder as she cranes it forward. "Okay, if not, do you need someone to entertain you, maybe."

Your mouth twists, fighting a smile.

Hyeju is so close to you, you could kiss her really, really easily and not care how she'd feel about that. It's not a habit, not as often as it used to be, but every once and a while - she starts this game. Every once in a while, Hyeju just starts smiling like that, and leans into you like she's daring you to play along, hard round of chicken until it's clear what the two of you are doing with each other; the minutes pass by, one, then two, and then - maybe she pushes first, her leg on yours, or a kiss to your jaw or a palm on your back as she walks behind you - and then you'd turn and kiss her full on the mouth and pull at her clothes like nothing's holding you back.

She cocks a smile, and says, "why don't you go and call what's her name."

"Because."

You glance out at the cold, gray light outside. If you had a better understanding of any of the workings inside you, you could reach forward and tell her everything that's stopped you.

-

You're supposed to meet the girl-of-the-month at a New Year's party. Hyeju looks disgusted within the first ten seconds of the whole story.

"Heejin dumped you once, like, two months ago? For no reason."

"It wasn't a break-up. We talked about what we did wrong and we're doing better," you say, lifting one finger.

She glares, then, tilts her lips into this unamused purse that you can't take seriously at all when she starts walking back and forth across your living room, hands moving emphatically to the sides as she speaks, like she's in the process of unveiling a brilliant argument and is using both palms to guide your eyes toward the unquestionable logic. "God, you're the worst. You're just her easy fuck and you'll still answer her late night calls, really."

She leaves the rest unsaid - that she's just not that into you.

"I don't tell you which boys or girls you can call up," you try, putting on a boot. "If you'd like, I can. Name off the list, and make sure that the right name leaves my mouth this time."

Hyeju doesn't blush when you glance up, which is the surprising thing. No - her cheeks have grown a little more sullen, and she stares down at her socks in contemplation. You're in the middle of fastening up the lace and getting to your feet, waiting, wondering if Hyeju's going to continue this conversation, when Hyeju takes one small step forward.

And her hand goes out to touch your chin, thumb at your lip, fingers holding it in place - like you'll turn if she lets it go - the sharp shock of the sensation like a short circuit, before her knee comes between yours, and your body tingles, at the root and stem. "Hey," she says, eyes meeting yours. The edge of her nail flicking gently as she drags the curve of her thumb downward.

"Hyeju, please - I need to get going."

When you start walking toward your car, she calls out from the window. Something about how you better have the time of your life, fun for the two of you - it’s only fair.

(You feel, somewhere, a certain strange loss.)

"What, are you going to stay up and wait until I come back? Or am I interrupting your session for the night."

You can barely make it out, the smallest look passing over her face. "Maybe," she says, and then: "god, it's fucking cold."

-

New year's parties have this sort of quality of being simultaneously the most thrilling, exciting prospect on earth and the absolute worst fucking event in the history of the planet - depending on the venue, how egregious the racket is for a gin and tonic, the guests - oh, and the company.

Jinsoul and Choerry are both in attendance; in separate corners and in equal states of undress and intoxication, which seems fine by every present party, who are for the most part busy ogling one or the other in the full spirit of the New Year - as you would too, if the stars are aligned and Heejin hasn't already gone upstairs with half the guestlist, her arm wound with someone else's, as per her recent habit; if you haven't been tossed aside for any of the usual, less forgettable prospects and for something bigger, better and certainly much more enjoyable.

Which, if there were any way to track these things down with math, you'd already be reaching for your pen and notebook, as Hyeju would describe this sensation in a phrase she picked up from some podcast. Inevitable means necessary, or something.

"Good party," says Heejin, throwing back another drink.

"Yep. You said that," and you finish yours in one long draw, hissing through your teeth.

Heejin is a goddamn delight, of course, in all the simplest of ways. When she looks up at you - mouth pink, hair framing her face - she is so clearly and completely aware of what she is, and exactly what the world has in store for her, what it has set aside.

"Do you want to know what happened at the other New Year’s party we went to last year?"

"I - yeah. Hit me. Tell me all about (another date you were on) Heejin, that’s exactly what I’d love, let’s hear it."

She throws her head back and laughs, before starting into an overlong recount of her latest, greatest conquest, you on the outside. This is the thing - this is how a pretty face, with just a hint of a flirt, will make you feel for a beautiful, attractive, vivacious - absolutely shameless, raving sex-crazed lunatic of sorts who, apparently, loves to run around town and make a bunch of your closest friends fall in love and heartbroke-er, with every passing notion of her beauty, her charm - just the tilt of her chin, and some poor fucker is lost, absolutely lost.

 Even she knows it's a bad habit of hers. 

But who doesn't have a weakness? You've got plenty of your own - plenty, Heejin can admit - everyone does, in a way, and so Heejin, the other sloppy drunks milling about the party, and Choerry and Jinsoul all agree - someone like her just happens to have the best kind of weakness - so, so many of them, in fact:

"Can you believe how easily a few words get Jinsoul riled up? Or how it only takes a couple drinks for Choerry to pull up the hem of her skirt, not knowing the effect that'll have?"

And as for the last, and arguably worst kind -

"Hyeju, huh? What a great start to the New Year," is her final word. Heejin reaches across and downs your drink. Her expression turns just shy of grave, a pensive look. "Not your smartest idea, the living-together situation. Who in their right mind would put themselves in such a mess?"

"Thanks for the great advice." You wave her off, irritated.

There's another laugh before Heejin leans her face onto the table.

"Though maybe she's onto something, now that I think of it. Who needs anyone for the New Year?" and it's almost convincing the way her mouth, lined up with the rim of the glass, smirks when she drinks. "Mm. All a matter of taste."

-

The snow is halfway up your calves when you realize you need to find a cab at 11:30 PM on New Year's Eve. (Which, categorically, is the worst time to need to find a cab on New Year’s Eve.)

Or just:

11:36 PM and the nearest bus stop is too far away.

11:41 and the temperature feels like its dropped by fifteen degrees, like you should start wondering what hypothermia symptoms look like and what signs to look out for in yourself, your future wife and your children. You try not to think about why, but you get your phone out and immediately call Hyeju, so you're not sure what you think you're denying.

"No party?" she asks. Her voice is distant and sleep-ridden, but Hyeju's quick to pick up, like always.

"It sucked, I'm trying to find a way home early. Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year." There's a long pause, filled in by the squeak of snow beneath your boots. "Get a kiss?"

"Uh, not yet. In the market, I guess."

Hyeju's low hum isn't reassuring, either. "Well, you're kind of missing your window. Bad time to start looking."

"Says you, and here you are - still up for someone to spend the night with. Look at you," you respond, all this snark in your voice that she clearly hears. There's a long sigh.

"Actually," and Hyeju, much to the confusion of you and possibly the whole world, doesn't respond, and for a few seconds, the line goes completely silent, leaving you hanging.

She breathes once and comes out of her sleep with a yawn.

"I actually," she begins. There's a lot less preamble this time - this tone - and when she speaks again it comes through not nearly as sleepy, "was sorta wondering. Are you on your way home?"

"If I don't freeze to death, yeah."

"Yeah - no, yeah," and that's it. That's the sum total of what makes any difference between where you were a moment ago, and where you are right now, head spinning, fingers buzzing. Hyeju waits and there's the wind on the line, snow settling on your hat and in the corners of your face.

"I - sorry. I probably woke you up. Are you expecting someone else," you say, very small. Your foot drags behind the other. The cars whizz by you faster, passing.

"Hm. You're the only one, I guess," and after that - just static and the muffled sounds of her footsteps on creaky floorboards - or the tick of her ceiling fan? You can't make heads or tails of the rest of the background noise. All those words she said.

You bite your tongue to stop whatever curse words start pouring out from the jumble and cross streets, or the pedestrian underpass; snow gets stuck in your lashes and burns, but your chest is like a molten furnace. You consider telling her right there on the line, everything you're feeling - so hot, it feels like fire, Hyeju, I'm not used to getting heated and desperate and impatient - that even if you're not here now - just imagining your face - the sound of your breathing, it feels like I'm on the cusp.

"Yeah. Sure - good - okay, Hyeju."

"I guess, see you soon?"

"In a bit."

(It takes 33 minutes, trudging through cold and wet. It's all very dramatic, you think, and there's no one there to even watch you suffer for it, or - though you try not to think about that particular line - really, no one at all.)

-

You hear the way your key grinds in the lock - it's been like this, jammed since summer, when you pushed the front door in late at night a little too hard and something came undone and made a sound like a small stone tumbling down the world's deepest well. The hinge squeaks, and there's ice on the stoop, on the doormat, on every nook and corner you can see, all the way up your neck.

And your face, too. You shake off your hat, undo the buttons on your jacket, and pull off your boots before hanging them and all the layers to dry.

You can make out the outline of her profile at the edge of the door frame, right in the kitchen - barefoot, hip pressed against the island, pajamas - the dim lights illuminating the shadow of her head, hair over her face -

- but you don't pause. The next layer. There's nothing left to say. You're too cold for excuses, too smart to use the same ones you'd been taught, like: this is a normal, acceptable circumstance; everything, anything, will be perfectly normal if the two of us act as though that's the case; pretend we're both acting within the norms of reason, within our senses and logical thinking and I won't make myself go out in the cold a second more - won't stand for more than five minutes with your eyes looking like they're waiting.

So you move instead toward the kitchen, where the heating is better and she's already pouring coffee. There's a heat radiating out of the oven, and it smells sweet in there, like cinnamon and warm butter, and you wish you weren't still shaking, blood barely thawed, but there it is - her face, watching you - eyes gleaming as you wrap your hands around a mug, steam rising up - a shiver running up your arms; her knees skirting yours when she takes one step back and there's the cabinet door shut, then open again, and then a palm on your back.

Hyeju presses a cup of the fresh coffee, now warm enough to drink, to your chest, and says, softly. "What the fuck happened out there?"

She starts reaching out to wipe the frost and slush from your face. You let her hand hold you still, eyes wide.

"Oh you know," and her palm stays, even though it's obviously - suddenly - gotten warmer, and wetter too, and the longer she stands there and lets her fingers warm the pale bones of your cheeks, her wrist, the base of your forehead and ears, the more expectant the look on her face grows. "The usual."

Her eyes go as narrow as they ever can. For just a moment. "You're gonna die a slow, pathetic death someday, just for the record."

"Don't forget how this starts," you try, and feel your neck go warm, throat and breath tight. And not even when her shoulders shift, her mouth going smug - just looking at you.

“I mean, don’t you think,” Hyeju says, wagging a finger at you, “that when you suffer through a bad date, the world ought to owe you something?”

"Like what?" you ask.

"Better taste in women - maybe more orgasms; I dunno, a blowjob?" She shrugs. "The general idea is just that someone gets to cum."

You nearly choke on the air in front of you. "Jesus, Hyeju, warn a guy."

“What? I’m trying to commiserate with you,” Hyeju laughs. “Wouldn’t that be funny? Being able to kiss someone you actually, you know, might love you back, and at the same time. Imagine not hooking-up just to forget a shitty day. Sounds wild, right?"

"Utterly deranged."

"So wild."

When Hyeju sighs and gives a long, nonchalant hum, leaning her body closer, pressing up until her waist hits the cabinet top and you're pressed together chest-to-chest, she looks at you and her hips settle, the heel of her foot reaching around your calf.

There's that tingle. Again and again. You're not even trying to not think about what it might mean.

But then, you start, silently and unconsciously, trying to answer the question: why don't you, maybe. Why don't you, actually - Hyeju kisses you, pulls on the loop of your jeans and lets your lips brush the corners of hers and pulls away, suddenly, mumbling and head-turning. And just as abruptly, your nose buries in the space between her neck and her shoulder, where it's all warm. And when she puts her palms on your hips and squeezes and twists her knuckles into the fabric there, it seems she wants your hands up her shirt and under the small of her back.

And her hands - they're fidgety tonight, fingers curled up to keep their nails and the chill away, moving lower - one on your ass, while the other comes forward and begins rubbing circles, a handful of times - enough so you're letting a deep, low breath escape into the space just above her collar, your knee working its way between hers.

"That," Hyeju breathes, lips at your ear, hand reaching down to trace the hard curve of your cock pressing in the spot right between you, and there's that small rush again, familiar now, like you've caught a rhythm and she wants to feel it in its fullness: "is how you can make it up to me. For making me stay up. Worrying about you, god knows why. Waiting."

You're still half-frozen in a way, slowly thawing. "Hyeju, I've been trudging through the consequences of my actions this entire night. What am I about to suffer through now?"

"It's no consequence, honestly."

You squint.

"Just an idea, but," she breathes again; your bodies getting closer, and looking up at you, she grins and reaches down to touch the very root of you, her fingers drumming. You make a sound, and at that she says, her voice coming out thick, low:

"Want me to get you off?"

She squeezes again for good measure, just to be clear. Just a slight curl of fingers that's enough to send a flash of heat and the transient thought: why, why, why is she always wearing those fucking shorts, even in the winter?

Your blood thrums through the pulse at the end of your cock. You shake.

"Alright," is the response you let out.

And at that, Hyeju takes your wrist and leads you upstairs.

"There's that look. Don't worry. We'll find a way," is all she says as your feet walk forward, up step-by-step and higher and further up to her room. "After all, isn't that what we've always done?"

"It's usually whatever will make me stop talking."

Hyeju puts her chin on your shoulder. Her eyes follow the lines and shapes in the patterns of wallpaper as you turn onto her side of the apartment, and even through the wall and behind the doorway, her arm still around you, she pulls at your chin until your faces turn and you both can share each other's heat.

"Who, you and your awful habit of talking out-loud in your head while you work through equations?" and she brings her lips to yours, close and warm.

"Hey. Fuck you," and your voice breaks into an odd, low laughter when she kisses you harder.

"Yeah, I know," she whispers as her hand dives past the band of your boxers, palm sliding easily until she's gripping you fully and letting her fingers rub. She holds you there, in her room, her arm looped through yours, another arm resting at your belly.

And she stops there. She stays like that: holding your gaze.

"Look, Hyeju," you say, unable to not, though this can hardly count for anything; this, what you're about to admit, is nothing new. You swallow. "The thing is - you shouldn't."

"Don't want me to touch you?" she says, finger to your lips.

"Well, that's different. Maybe. Is there - maybe it's not the best thing to ask you right now."

Hyeju considers for a brief moment and tuts under her breath. "Can you at least do me the decency of waiting until I'm done wringing you dry before you say shit like that."

And she moves then, toward the bed.

So:

No. Yes. Maybe. Who knows, you tell yourself. Maybe, but only because you'll do anything if it makes you feel less sick, like a creature standing over its own skeleton - an abandoned shell; a relic, something to be feared and disgusted, as you let her go between your thighs, kneel beside the bed.

"I mean - since when - have you felt," is just as far as you're allowed to go before Hyeju presses her nose into you and pulls you out of the thin, cold fabric - palm, thumb, all those slender fingers swiping over your head - and now there's just the smell of her room and the shock, the buzz that runs down your spine and settles somewhere, somewhere inside the small and desperate movement of your hips and the tension building just below.

And god, fuck, Hyeju’s lips.

These soft, wet, pouty fucking things that could suck you straight off if you were feeling any less stupid or inexperienced or sentimental - if she wasn't solely intent on teasing it out of you first; a slow drag of the tongue up the underside; the tip of it poking, tracing the rim, like she's figured you out, just where to lead you. She's ready to smoke you out - always - until you're not taking in a breath every ten seconds but starting to close your eyes to the overwhelming, needling pleasure, too sharp, the way she knows you like best.

"Now you're finally - mm - starting to sound hot," and that smirk comes back to the corner of her mouth, teasing the sensitive belly of your cock and tracing her tongue everywhere. "With the voice and -"

You're losing track, her thumb and fingers circling the whole length of you - just, one after the other - mouth a hair-breadth away, her breath hovering like a promise.

"- that face."

"Don't, fucking tease me-"

The sound of your cock going in is like nothing else.

Wet and filthy in all the right ways.

Just the suction in her throat has your eyes nearly roll back into your head - Hyeju's gaze calmly watching the terrible sort of helplessness that washes over you like this: her lips wrapped around, bobbing - her hair falling into the wet mess of her mouth and sticking there. Hyeju likes being a little sloppy, likes feeling that spark run up the length of her tongue when she slides. It's the wet and the heat that gives everything away.

"I don't have much of a choice -" her jaw and chin is smudged when she pulls back off of your cock, mouth glossy and glistening, "and honestly, wouldn't it be a better use of our time, or my talents if I actually do that thing?"

“Which is?”

She looks up for a bit and sighs, the flush blooming pink to the tip of her ears and into the rounds of her cheeks and all across her neck. "Since, as far as I can see, what you really like - is, oh I'm just spit-balling here," and she stops just to bite her tongue and look into your eyes, "it's letting the girls take care of you? Isn't that right?"

You want to tell her, no, not always, that it's not as though you enjoy giving control completely - that that would be completely and unarguably, the opposite of true -

That most of the time you love it when the person you're with is a little bossy, a little crazy for you. You know some guys really get off on a strong woman and maybe, maybe if a girl's pretty and dressed up, and - sure - a little wet, but that's hardly -

“You know I’m right,” she says, a flicker of mischief skittering across her features. “These walls are paper thin.”

You want to tell her, perhaps remind her, that she likes someone in charge just as much as you do - to be taken care of, told what to do - to have a hand curled up around her throat and the other at her tits while a guy fucks her the right way and takes the reigns when she needs. So who are you, when it comes to knowing her better? And who, really, are you fooling?

But before you can get any words in: Hyeju dips, lips parting where the head of your cock throbs, and then disappears; and the hot wet warmth, enveloping all around your shaft and back; the curve of her throat contracting.

You moan - a lot, and louder this time - into the whole feeling. The way her fingers work the distance from the base, twisting and twisting and twisting into the pout of her lips; or how the sound is like nothing - a whimpering, messy sound - almost a whine and definitely not a slurp as your cock sinks further and further, until it's all one big, heavy throb.

And it's like Hyeju can read your thoughts, the visual you have of her lips screwed tight around your shaft - cum leaking from the corners, and her eyes scrunched up tight, as she looks up to watch your face unravel - this perfect image of her taking you, all of you, swallowing each drop as your hips start rutting up into her and - and - and.

Or else she gets impatient, because then Hyeju gives one long pull off the tip of your cock - saliva mixed in the precum there, and that shiny string of fluid hanging, caught in the middle between your bodies - a disgusting and irresistible sight. Her jaw slack, lips swollen and full, and her mouth gone wide open, wanting.

"Fuck - that's good. Don't stop," you start to whimper, desperate, at the sight, the smell. Her hot breath coming quick over the red wanting wetness left behind - then touched by the cold air - fuck -

She slaps your cock to the corner of her lips as she speaks.

"Can you believe what's going on down here?"

"God, can you -"

"And to think most guys wanna jump straight in. That or fuck a load out between my tits."

"Hyeju, shit, come on -"

She kisses the soft tip, right where it’s most sensitive, rolls it along her lip. Then, back down the length of your shaft where she's generous with her mouth inch after inch - lapping, licking, laving - and Hyeju begins working her way down and downward, nestling in at the edge of the bed and between your thighs.

Your eyes blow up the first time she dips low enough to put your balls in her mouth. 

“Mmhm,” she hums.

It’s killing you and she knows it; it’s killing you and she can feel the pre-cum leaking from your slit - the thumb she has moored there, keeping everything right where she wants it, running circles up the length with such little intention - she could bring you to the end just like this. 

"Am I supposed to believe it?” she asks out from beneath the shadow of your cock, looking up at you with her eyes all wide and brilliant - pupils dark as sin. “That not a single one of those girls ever did you proper?"

You curse under your breath. Hyeju seems amused, at least, like she can't help but love doing that to you, which is almost worse and honestly the sexiest thing a girl can be. You groan - wanton, raw and desperate and feeling exactly what she wants you to feel when her nails drag along the dip of your hip bones.

"Did they not leave you fucked-up the right way?"

Her wrist flicks out these twists and turns, making your spine bend to her control. Like even when you're sure to be bundling her hair in your fingers and fucking the whole length of your cock down her throat, all of this is the worst kind of power-trip for her - not the other way around.

Her tongue runs through the tangle of your balls, slowly, lasciviously, as though the plan is to memorize and map every detail. 

And the worst part is, how much it's making you desperate for the warmth of her mouth - where she'll run her tongue up and down and over and around and inside - before sucking you off nice and slow.

"Or maybe," she laughs; another flick to the top and then suddenly her hand goes faster and the fist pumping the rest of you tightens. "They left you so needy you're resorting to having the bestie suck you off so that you won't be desperate the next time you date. Oh my god-" 

Hyeju breaks into this fit of laughter, and you're nearly cross-eyed at the feeling of your entire existence - not just your cock - so wholly held within her mercy, and her pity, and you're breathing so shallow now you'd think this is the real reason people have died and will die - this exact moment where you're choking and stuttering at the edges, so very close to cumming and going absolutely bonkers with how good Hyeju is with her hands, her tongue, her mouth - everything - how much she's wrecking you, and your jaw drops, wide open, her name dripping like molasses off your lower lip.

"Are you going to cum?" she asks, curiously. All as if she can't see you nodding, collapsing under pressure, and then and there: "should we make it official?"

Her nose tickles the seam of your balls. And your toes begin to curl and uncurl - all this anticipatory, coiling pleasure burning from her throat, shooting from the pit of your stomach; the tightening spiral, twinging and stretching every nerve - as her lips enclose around the end of your cock, softly.

And oh, just excruciatingly slowly.

You watch the irresistible shape of her mouth travel down until her throat feels so incredibly, beautifully, and unbelievably tight, and then, just like that - Hyeju starts fucking herself onto you; pushing forward and down the full, rigid length of you, hard and fast - each time hitting deeper inside her - all that sticky, messy, wet squelching.

"Unh-unh, yeah. Unh. Mm-!" you say, or moan, or some animal version of that, maybe, it’s incoherent.

But regardless:

It's messy and your hands scramble for purchase in the sheets of her bed when you feel that snap, the tightening of a trigger; when your balls roll up and it builds, and builds, and it comes faster - harder and -

"Hyeju," you pant, and it sounds so, so filthy. "I'm gonna cum, if you - gonna cum-"

Hyeju pulls you free from her lips, quite possibly at the most final of final moments, to rub the base up and down, just right, between her fingers. Your cock is resting right on her cheek when it all happens. When she squeezes her fingers around your balls just enough to hear you wheeze and make a sound no sane man should have the right to. And fuck, you're cumming all over her face - or just one side of it - which is already just -

Okay, fuck.

She makes a startled sound and her fist closes tightly around your shaft when you pump another fresh load of white up onto her eyebrow.

"I'm, ah-shit," your mouth moves faster than the blood in your veins - and now the shame - oh god, the humiliation, it's pulsing right behind you. "Hyeju," you apologize.

Only, Hyeju has no interest in any of it. She doesn't seem offended or disappointed in proportion to how you're ruining her pretty face: "no, just do it, cum wherever you fucking like."

Which isn't what you're expecting at all, because Hyeju makes no effort to close her lips, let alone avoid any of it; nor is she making a fuss about the sticky mess in her hair, her mouth, nor as another stream of cum throbs from your cock, all tangled up in the long dark eyelashes that sweep down across her cheek.

It’s fucking filthy: you're cumming all over her and she's just kneeling there, telling you, "good boy."

See, she pushes through it, languidly - all those filthy sounds, and those watery little tears gathering at the edge of her eye and all of that, mixing up together until you're rolling your head back with your orgasm, shuddering, feeling weak - drained dry -

Except,

Hyeju's pushing a finger to your chest, kneeling up tall from the side of the bed. She turns her body toward the center of the bed and wipes a bit of the cum on her knuckles into the sheets. Here you feel like you've done something terrible or at least regrettable, like that last round at the bar when you have a test the next morning; a dick move, all of the sort that requires apology.

"You gotta give me a minute, if you're thinking about hopping on."

"Hmm. Sounds like a lot to ask."

"Wait," you grab her arm. Hyeju grins and there's nothing stopping the shake of your knees now, that weakness between your thighs: "let me get you a drink."

"Or."

"Or?"

Her tongue peeks out, running along her upper lip. Her eyes drop again, hands dipping below, beneath the hem of her shorts and oh. She slips a hand past her bra. The whole outline of it. And you -

"Mm, I could show you what that actually means." She lowers her chest, her breasts, and a lot of skin to the mattress while keeping your cock firmly in her hands. "That look tells me you wanna stick around a bit. Stay up past New Year’s, you know?"

You're almost unable to parse her words, there is so much to look at: the jutting curve of her chest, cleavage pressing into the mattress as her body settles between your knees. A soft chuckle; a sigh: "you are seriously the best lay, no-one else can get hard the minute after they just fucking exploded all over me-"

"Fuck, watch it," you hiss, because there's oversensitivity - and then there's Hyeju's mouth on the line of your cock, polishing you clean.

And it’s not that she isn’t trying to prove a point. Or that she's not trying to tease - that's an inherent quality of her character: a naturally dominant position with a high appetite for your lust. That much, Hyeju gets from you, whether you've got your head down between her thighs or the other way, too, so that her neck is arched around and her ass pushed up high in the air, legs open, and if she had any idea you would spend the next twenty minutes or more just going down on her, licking into her creaming cunt while two fingers work over her aching clit, then really, Hyeju would only encourage it - maybe get on top, force you to gag - and so you don't know where it comes from - how and why you want nothing more than to drive your fingers inside her and work her until she's a wet, squelching mess, not when this was always Hyeju's role of being the aggressor; and yes, sure, even the aggressed.

Surely not because you came so hard, still somewhat shivering with the remnants of a rather abrupt, painful, sudden and all-consuming orgasm.

"We're not doing anything else," she says, lips pulled up into a smirk right at the crown of your cockhead. But before you can respond she pushes a hot open kiss, and goes lower. She presses the flat of her tongue to the seam, just below the head. Licks a line right up to the tip and finishes with a tender flick that sends you fisting the bedspread in your fingers and leaning back as your mind begins to disintegrate -

"I'm not going to ride you yet, or going to get my hips in your hands so you can fuck my pussy real hard until I cry and pass out. Nothing of that sort is gonna happen." She licks one long drag of her tongue. Then, the other way. "I want to make this very clear: this isn't some huge favor - and if you want it - want it so bad, you can stay there and I'm going to do everything for you. We will get there - together," and with her voice shaking as she brings the wet, glistening skin of your cock just inside her mouth, she looks up. "We'll get each other off, just like this," and it's the deep, dark, throated moan that makes your thighs and all the nerves in between stiffen and buck when she swallows you again.

Hyeju's hands tug, pull her whole body closer still as it slowly bends, curves - her ass raised, her stomach lying on the bed. Her mouth takes you another few inches, until the tip of her nose is barely visible, but when she pauses to lick the cum still left over - the cum that's starting to leak out again - to breathe through it, then squeeze her palm and bob her mouth down, take another inch, until the sides are stuffed and emptying out again, that's when she finally has something to say: "got anything left? I'm a little starved."

"I. Christ, yes-" you whine, which doesn't help your case at all: the image, the image of you lying flat - back with Hyeju's head tucked between your knees, her hand pulling out your cock.

Sloppy, slimy-wet.

She presses an innocent, not-at-all-innocent kiss right to your tip, puckering - 

"You know what I did learn in that genetics class?" she muses, tongue flicking over her lips. Hyeju's about ready for a second helping - you're losing it. "When I first saw that DNA diagram - the double helix and all those little base pairs, and everything - it made me think of your cock. Your cock and me. Specifically our DNA. Did you know-"

She presses her palm over the head and rolls it - teases and strokes her palm - her knuckles - her fist - the whole nine. "When I hold your big fucking cock, mm, and just get it right - up in here, rubbing all along my walls - so deep, it gets me in my fucking ribs, makes me choke like I never been choked before, ah-mm," and it's this thought sliding toward the front of your mind, this perfect picture: Hyeju, getting fucked hard and open and stuffed full and stuffed good and stupid; you’ve got more than a few inches on her, can make her feel small and delicate; you know how to do her right.

But here you have Hyeju stroking the shaft - holding her hand tightly up near the head, rolling and twisting and sliding down and pushing her whole body right into the side of your legs: the soft, solid length, warm flesh and curves everywhere pressing into you.

You sit back, and just watch Hyeju with her eyes cool and composed, like half of her fucking face isn't streaked with your cum, mouth wrapped and looking fucking satisfied to be a total, gorgeous mess. She makes a dramatic display of kissing the tip again, just before telling you words you probably dreamt up at some point - either sleep deprived, or, during three AM jackoff, fantasizing. "Sometimes, just from riding your cock, I can't sit up straight."

"Fuck," and you feel your whole body run rigid, because apparently that's something you’ve been aching to hear.

You're covering her mouth again. White streaking onto her lips - where she's catching it in the well beneath her tongue and letting it spill out of the corner of her mouth. Into the crook of your thumb, which catches a drip here and there and rubs it down the length - down the curve - and pushes it back between Hyeju's pert little pout.

"Doesn't count, mister, just more pre-cum," she says, all with the audacity of a wink and smile; her words are a little garbled around the head of your cock between her teeth. And when you nod and realize just how painfully your jaw hurts, your throat becomes tight and raw, a knot pulling the underside from the center. Hyeju slides her lips lower, lower down, to the hilt and stays there, just like that - one hand holding down the flat of your belly to keep your hips still, her chin hanging - bobbing-as she feels every pulse, every twitching shift. You curl one hand around the side of her face, over the sharp edge of her jaw; rub a thumb into the delicate skin of her throat.

She shifts. You start to tell her what you like: how hot the rush comes when a girl puts her tongue against the slit at the very tip, and licks at the precum in nice, quick circles, soft and fluttering. And how her fingers shouldn't hesitate either, Hyeju's not even struggling to give it to you - god - just giving and -

She jerks her head up, swallowing down her next breath like it's one of her last. "I'm serious, if you're going to fuck a hole, start with my mouth - we can move onto everything else after."

"You're ridiculous -"

She meets her lips to your head, kissing once. Again. Kissing every inch, letting her mouth wrap around and then just - staying, just - staying like that and humming, with you, enjoying the fullness, the smell of you, the taste, the shape, just the weight and size and you.

There is spit fucking everywhere.

And if it's not clear what you're supposed to be doing - her fingers weave through yours, squeezing hard at the wrist and you can imagine: pulling her forward by her hair and holding her down while she chokes on your cock. "Fuck, Hyeju," you say, and your voice comes out way shakier than you'd like, "when, how did it get like this, huh? You always - always did, shit, always want your mouth filled."

"Never figured you to be someone who'd get turned on watching their friend sucking their cock like this."

"Doesn't everybody love the sight of their cock in a pretty girl's mouth?

"You were really convinced they weren't lining up behind you? Or anyone in the queue who can't keep their eyes off of this thing. Tell me, and try not to lie, try not to bullshit this one out: how many girls have you come home and fucked and creamed their brains out - then asked for the sloppiest, most -"

"Honestly."

"- Filthiest, nasty, ball-busting, gut-wrenching blowjob ever to make them think - to make them really start wondering what the hell it was you did - like it's gotta be something that leaves them so ruined, they can't ever not compare - can't ever not compare this moment, right here. Ever. When you give them the hardest fucking of their life, compared to any other guy - can't not, because no-one, literally no-one's cock can fuck like you do-"

"Fuck-"

"Any harder. Come on, seriously, tell me it isn't true. Come on."

Her voice - her fucking words, the tone she uses and how her words roll: honey-warm and soaking with sweet, thick degradation - she talks like sex, and that's exactly what gets you harder, like it’s something else; like it’s nothing, like it’s less, so much worse - you feel this guilty-dirty heat pool at your tailbone and push down the hard press of you throbbing all the way to her nose. And Hyeju smiles as much as she's capable around the fat, round stretch, humming around the warm taste of you, before opening wide and sinking her throat on it.

There's nothing like it.

You've got two fists in her hair; she's so tight and wet around every god-damn inch. Her cheeks flush - hot to the touch; her tongue laving in slow, long drags, slicking your shaft nice and warm until you're balls-deep and pushing her further: a small shift to the hips, a push here, a harder, faster pull, and Hyeju's feet behind her go curling like an angry cat, wanting the tug.

A long, satisfied breath slips from the hollows of her throat.

There are tears threatening, thickening her lashes, and though she doesn't choke - you're just afraid. Every sound that she pulls out, her eyes blinking up to you as if it's only natural to love getting used by her friend's cock, like the very premise of it - swallowing down the very shape of you, dragged over her tongue and brushing cum into the back of her throat - is something she can’t go without.

But this is nothing compared to the noises from where her lips are pressed tight around you, where you're hearing and even feeling:

That gluck, gluck - where her chest spasms just the slightest when her nose gets nuzzled right into your belly and you remember how much she likes to hear you talk dirty, how fucking wet it gets her. The heavy, deep breaths, gasps; the strangled moans when your hips just buck - the heat and the thrill, and this is better than every other time because there's just something in this moment -

"I'm not gonna come again, not like this. Not in your mouth. You can’t-"

But Hyeju refuses to hear a word; just pumps your shaft faster, feeling it's familiar hardness grow and throb and ache and retch, all her effort paying off: you're slick with precum and spit, hard and straining, the whole shaft begging for release - all because of her. And Hyeju won't stop, she pushes her cheek onto your thigh and then taps a hand there to pull your hips. The motion drives your cock further still inside her. Until it’s bathed in her spit, your cum, all this mess.

Until it's reaching, choking her, and the muffled sounds she's making are filthy and wet and so incredulously hot.

But god. Hyeju has something of a temper and a habit, too: with those big beautiful eyes and the perfect plump of her pouting lips, her tits swelling up around, when your grip slips on her shoulder, and her mouth goes tighter - how the pleasure begins to make you unbearably cruel and you push her away from you, only for a second -

She doesn't wait or seem to care; Hyeju follows the cock with her whole head and whimpers so hotly in her throat when it plops right back on her tongue. "That's more - more like - fuck, oh, there we go," her nose and fingers prodding.

You groan through a high, strangled whimper, a helpless shiver that turns into an uncontrollable roll of the hips - you can't believe it: she's already so thoroughly debauched and defaced; just fucking painted with it. Your cum dripping off her chin and rolling down her neck.

"Fuck - gonna make me - ah, Jesus -"

When Hyeju seems to have reached her fill, the feeling, you're cumming - pumping the length of your shaft. And the moment she feels you twitch and throb and that first hot spill lands in the bend of her mouth, it's as if she understands and holds herself tight - her legs going stock-still while your eyes blow up behind her, your cock spewing another and then another thick, milky load into her mouth, over her tongue: all along the topography of her throat - sticky cum landing in every ridge and valley -

Hyeju catches as much as she can. What little she can. You cum and pump and gush so much that when you're finally finished - done - every last drop spent and given - your cock throbs soft between her fingers; her chin is a complete and utter mess and her chest heaves with the sound of her catching her own breath. Hyeju groans softly and just swishes the load around in her mouth for a bit as if wanting to remember its feel and weight before lifting her eyes to look into yours. You can just barely see the color.

"Jesus, Hyeju-"

The entire bit of it, slick and shining-wet. With a small moan, a sound from the back of her throat: one swallow and the cum is gone, disappeared, vanished. She smiles like she didn't just ruin your entire goddamn life and, with her body limp and exhausted beside you - her gentle hand rubbing a flat stroke over your thigh before yours slips up to meet her chin.

"You," you curse and roll your eyes, catching the mess at the edge of her jaw, the very little left in the corners of her lips. You feed the cum over her bottom lip - her chin, her throat - watching your friend: Hyeju's throat, bobbing. "Really didn't have to," you start, but you realize just how useless a point it is to make.

She's smiling and biting and showing you what's left between the tips of her canines. "Do you always do this to the people who suck you off?"

"That's an awful habit. A pretty girl's lips aren't meant to get that messy," you reply.

"Oh." She frowns. "Well, I do a lot of things I shouldn't."

"God, seriously," and you think there's no greater hell, no sweeter pain than whatever's lingering in these little aftershocks - this fizzling and dying sort of pain, where the body is buzzed with all you're aching for. It's impossible to stop this train of thoughts, is the fucking feeling of her-

But just then, Hyeju rises to her knees, a new spark in her eyes, as she grabs ahold of your wrist and tugs you off the sheets, a few inches closer.

"And you," she purrs as she drags the palm of your hand across her neck and collarbone, collecting what remains and making the perfect image, "well - you are going to help clean me up, like you said before." She sits tall; the arch of her spine is pronounced - her back, so, very, slightly tapering, to where your hand slips right off the last of it: the wide flare of her hips. "Now isn't that the gentleman's thing to do?" she asks.

"Of course." You sigh, resigned and in desperate need of water. "Of course," you add and smirk a little and slip your hand lower, toward where her skin is getting hot, and her body, "let's get you clean."

"Mm." She's already grinning. "You know what wasn't in those textbooks?"

"Oh, I can only guess." You bite your cheek and start to lower yourself back. "Give it a try."

Hyeju drags you by the wrist toward the hall, the bathroom, ostensibly the shower -

"There's no way in hell you don't want to put a baby in me, like, right fucking now."

"Is that what we're doing?"

Hyeju makes a face like you're stupid - she might've grabbed a towel on the way out. She wipes her chin a little while walking - the corner of her mouth where, well - where it looks like a little dribble has somehow remained. "No. But you’re going to fuck me like it is."

-

(There's got so much on her mind. 

The door of the shower rattling in its frame as she struggles standing up against it. Getting fucked so fast and full, the feeling of both your hands cupped beneath the weight of her breasts. It's not the fact of where you are and your situation, per say - more about the immediate, the imperative nature. About fucking you. She was already feeling herself like, leaking the moment the door shut, so all that waiting, all that patience, really - and it's what drove her insane when you were, well: like that, after she put her mouth around your cock, made a right and proper mess of herself, and sucked you off.

Though there's less on her mind, clearly, when she cums all over your cock.

She's crying with her tits up onto the glass, your palm holding her ribs. Your cum-slick cock working itself hard again as it slips, back and forth, as you're fucking her open, spread apart. It's your finger in her asshole. That's what's on her mind then. How the press of your knuckle lights her entire fucking spine on fire - how the other hand finds her clit in all this, too, when you're no longer supporting the both of you but rather Hyeju is folding on her bent knee and trusting, on shaking and shivering, raw nerves, that you're not going to collapse.

"Fucking. God, please-"

There's the harsh slap of flesh - skin on wet skin, your palms against the sides of her ass and the curve of the breast. But otherwise - it's you, sighing - soft and gentle, like you can't get over the feel of her. "Hyeju, oh-fucking, god, fucking," is what you're saying, and it doesn't end up really mattering which one of you came last because she can feel you twitching, squelching in and out with how badly you're wanting to explode inside, but also you can feel her cunt absolutely begging, this fucking fluttering and clamping down on every thrust and the moment you manage to grind this angle she loses her ability to speak properly because you're not just, like - fucking her-

Just, absolutely, completely pounding her pussy, stretching her insides, dragging and sliding along the walls; each rough rub and thrust makes her knees quiver until her body is trembling and falling. But mostly her voice, the sharp gasp that shakes into her, how her nails are scraping the walls of the shower stall and she's saying - telling, crying and asking and wondering and pleading - just utterly astounded:

"Amazing," she huffs, breathes coming out cloudy and true onto the pane of glass, "you - it’s, fucking amazing.")

-

“And I am… Ironman.”

Your eyes flicker awake, hazy, as Tony Stark snaps his fingers, killing himself alongside Thanos’ army in the process.

The TV's long been running on background noise, though not as ambient. Its characters now bickering between the rubble and ruins and being picked up for the end credits. In the dark of the screen, you see Hyeju had nodded off and slumped over the side of your body. A new year means new beginning means resolutions and diets and gym routines -

Maybe no sooner than the sun can come up, apparently.

You lean over to grab your phone from the table: 4:14 A.M.

There's a lot of things you want to say, even more you want to hear, but your mind has begun to settle a bit - a lazy and dreamy thing that fills you with this sort of, tired kind of - not sad, or empty - no, of course not. That's hardly fitting; not after tonight. You want to wrap this in an idealistic sort of sentiment - maybe hold Hyeju close and let the hour carry you and the comfort be enough to forgive whatever there is to miss: like the fact, it's still really dark, so dark even outside. The moon reflecting off the sheet of snow on the street. And not even a distant dog barking, or car driving by or someone playing loud music in the early hours of the new year.

As the film drifts off into another set of commercials, you slip into an easy sleep that feels effortless. Your head drops, landing on the cushion by the arm of the couch, where Hyeju's hand begins to slip mindlessly across your belly, tickling your waist and causing you to slightly squirm - things are cooling down, but still a little agitated.

"Don't tell me you're waking me up, cause I just -"

She kisses the pulse at your throat and answers, mumbling half-words into the spot below your ear. "A kiss for a new year."

And maybe the world doesn't owe you anything at all.

Maybe it just gave you more than enough.

[puckinghischier]

Tattoos Together

Nico Hischier x fem!reader

summary: based off of the song tattoos together by lauv

notes: this idea was way better in my head, but i still think it’s cute and turned out alright. i’m obsessed with this song and knew i just had to write a nico fic based off of it asap. also, i know the timeline is all over the place bc nico is captain in this, and holtzy and dawson are here, but it technically takes place after jack’s rookie season. the beauty of fiction is that literally nothing is real, so let’s just all pretend everything is normal and chronologically correct 😊. hope you enjoy!! :)

[2.7k]

~

Summer was your favorite season for a number of reasons. First of all, you loved the warm weather. Being able to sit outside and soak up the sunshine was something your body desperately craved during the bitter New Jersey winter. You also loved the overall happiness of the general population that seemed to radiate during the summer months. Your favorite reason, however, was the fact that your best friend was always available to do whatever you wanted him to, because hockey isn’t played in the summer.

You hated that the Devils didn’t make the playoffs this year. You were as devastated as they were during that last game of the season, but you can’t lie and say you weren’t also ecstatic. You knew, the moment they lost the game that eliminated them from any sort of play off position, you were going to get a summer full of sun and fun at the lake house.

You had decided to take the warm season off from any internships or courses, not wanting anything to come in-between you and nearly four, uninterrupted months with your boys at the lake. You had decided to transfer to a college in Jersey so you could spend more time with Jack, not so you could stay in a strange city while all of your friends go to your favorite place on earth.

This year was especially exciting, considering Jack had convinced a group of his teammates to join in on the summer antics. Your anticipation for the warmer weather to arrive was only heightened once you learned a certain hockey captain would also be in attendance at the lake house.

You had been drawn to Nico from the first moment you met him after Jack’s rookie debut. Jack was so eager to introduce the two of you. He had made quick friends with the Swiss player after his arrival in the garden state and he wanted nothing more than his oldest and newest friend to meet one another and hit it off. Nico gave short, but kind, responses when Jack called you over to speak to him outside of the locker room; you assumed he was just tired and wanted to get home, but once you had seen him leaning against the wall in a crowded bar a few hours later, you made it your mission to make a friend out of the quiet hockey player.

You found yourself enjoying his conversation a little too much, basically neglecting Jack on his big night. The two of you talked about anything and everything. Nico had been in the middle of a story about his siblings back home when you suddenly realized the danger you were in. You hadn’t even been around this man for more than a few hours, and you could feel yourself falling for him. His kind eyes, the deep dimples when he smiled, and the care and attention he showed every single person that came up to congratulate him on the win, while also never failing to listen to your stories and stay engaged in the conversation with you, was making you spiral in the best way.

You knew you couldn’t go there, though. He was a big shot hockey captain, and you were only here for school. With the team’s busy schedule, you didn’t know when you would see him again. As soon as the light feeling in your chest had appeared, you forced it to make its exit. You couldn’t fall for him. You wouldn’t let yourself fall for him.

Over the next few months, however, you found yourself in Nico’s presence more often than not. Any team event that Jack dragged you to, you always found your way to where Nico was, striking up innocent, friendly conversation. If you were attending a home game at the Prudential Center, you were always cheering for Nico anytime he made a particularly important or skillful play. When he would come over to yours and Jack’s shared apartment, you always had some excuse for needing to be in the kitchen when they were, or passing through the living room and then planting yourself on the couch between the two ‘out of boredom’.

Nico wasn’t making it easy for you, either. Anytime the captain would score on the ice, it was you he was pointing towards during his celebration (or sending a text to ask if you were watching as soon as he was in the locker room for intermission, if it was an away game). If he had plans with Jack he would always send you a message, inviting you to tag along. Nico had even memorized your class schedule and your coffee order, bringing you your caffeine fix on lecture mornings when he would pick Jack up for morning skate. You found yourself talking to Nico almost more than you spoke to Jack, finding it harder and harder to keep your promise to yourself.

Jack could sense the underlying feelings you had for his captain, being able to pick up on all of your tells from the many years of friendship. He saw the way your gaze would immediately start sweeping any room you entered until it settled on Nico. He pretended not to notice the way you would always come out of your room on the mornings Nico was coming by before practice, hair and make-up already done, sitting in the kitchen to ‘work on homework’ before your lectures. He noticed when you bought his captain’s jersey, alternating between the 13 and 86 jerseys every other game. He noticed the way you would instantly perk up at the mention of Nico’s name in any conversation.

Jack also noticed the way Nico tried, and failed, to hide the feelings he had for you, as well. He noticed the way Nico would skate out for warm-ups and look around the glass until he saw you, waiting a few minutes before he made his way over to the glass where you were standing, pretending to be surprised when he turned around and found you behind him. Jack noticed the way Nico suddenly wanted to always come over to his apartment instead of Jack going to what the team refers to as the ‘captain’s quarters’. He noticed the way Nico would always come back with your favorite cocktail in hand anytime you were with them on a night out.

The back and forth between you and Nico continued for months, neither one of you ever taking the next step to admit feelings for one another. Jack wished the two of you would just get it over with at this point, the inevitable apparent to everyone but yourselves. So, when Jack opened the lake house invitation to Nico, Alex, and Dawson this summer, he can’t lie and say he didn’t have some ulterior motives.

Now, as you and Nico walked ahead of everyone else, lost in your own little world, he knew he made the right decision.

You had just eaten dinner, Jack having made reservations at a local seafood place he was dying to take everyone to, when you announced you wanted ice cream. You had suggested the small ice cream shop a short walk from the restaurant, wanting to stay out in the small lake town a little bit longer. You had sat next to Nico at dinner, staying in your own conversation most of the meal, being brought into the larger conversation happening around you only if either of your names were mentioned. The conversation followed the two of you outside, talking about his upcoming trip home.

“So, when are you leaving this utopia?” You asked him, shoulders bumping as you walked on the sidewalk beside him, a car driving by, causing your sundress to ruffle and flow in the passing wind.

“Not until the end of the month. Why? Can’t wait to get rid of me?” he responds with a playful smile, putting his hand on your back, pushing you over to the inside of the sidewalk, placing himself closest to the active road beside of you.

“Not even close,” you link your pinky with his, a habit you’ve gotten into anytime you’re walking beside him. “Dreading the day, actually. This is your first summer here, and you don’t even get to experience the best part!”

“I thought the best part was that you were here?” he references the statement you made when trying to convince him to make the trip to Michigan for the summer.

“Well, the next best part,” you respond, waving off his words. “You’re going to miss the boat parade on the Fourth of July!”

“A…boat parade?” Nico questions.

“Yes! A boat parade! Everyone decorates their boats and then drives them around the lake. Everyone here goes crazy for it. People don’t spare a single expense when it comes to boat decorations. One family even paid those statue street performers to play Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty on their boat one year,” you explain, earning a laugh from Nico.

“Why do I have the feeling you would have done that if you thought of it first?” he asks in-between chuckles.

“Because I would’ve! I was so mad that I didn’t even think of it. The only year we haven’t won it. Well, other than the years we haven’t been able to make it up here,” you shrug, thinking of all the time you’ve missed out on in the past few years.

“Well, you’ll have to come up with something even crazier this year. To make up for all the lost time,” Nico squeezes your pinkies closer together, knowing how much you hate the summers you can’t come here. “Look, you could go get a tattoo of the American flag, or something. Decorate your body, not just your boat. Really commemorate the summer,” he points to the tattoo shop you’re walking past, laughing at the craziness of the idea.

Maybe it was the heat finally getting to you. Maybe it was all the lake water you had swallowed the past few weeks. Or maybe it was the build-up of the months worth of feelings you’ve had for the man in front of you, but something in you made you say “Let’s go do it.”

“What?” Nico stopped in his tracks, looking over at you like you had three heads.

“I said let’s do it,” you said again, a serious look on your face.

“As in let’s go let you get a tattoo of the American Flag?” he asked again, confirming the idea forming in your brain.

“Yes. Well, I mean no. But yes,” you start, letting go of his pinky you were still holding on to. “I mean, let’s go get tattoos to commemorate the summer, like you said.”

“Like…right now?”

“Yes, right now. Why not? It’ll be fun. At the very least it’ll be a story to tell one day,” you try to convince him, acting as if this isn’t the most out of character thing you could suggest.

“I mean, what would we even get?” Nico asks, the word ‘no’ never coming out of his mouth.

“I don’t know, whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be anything big. Or anywhere where everyone will see it. It can just be something we know we have, y’know?” you continue to try to convince him.

“Hey! Why’d you two stop? The ice cream shop is another block down.” Jack asks as the rest of the group approaches the two of you.

“Y/N is trying to convince me to go get a tattoo with her right now,” Nico tells everyone, earning a collection of shocked faces.

“You two? Getting matching tattoos?” Dawson asks, looking between the two of you.

“They don’t have to be completely matching. Just something to make us think of this moment. This summer,” you explain. “We could all get one, actually. As a group!”

“You’re out of your mind if you think any of us are getting tattoos right now,” Jack speaks up, not scared to call you out on your stupid ideas.

“I don’t think it’s that crazy of an idea. It could be fun,” Nico surprises everyone.

“Cap, are you serious? You’re thinking about going and getting a tattoo right now?” Alex questions.

“I’ve been thinking about getting another one for awhile now, so why not right now? Like she said, it’s a good summer memory, Holtzy” Nico shrugs, sounding like he’s made up his mind.

“Of course you would agree to get a matching tattoo with her. You guys are practically attached at the hip anyways,” Dawson says, causing both you and Nico to flush a light shade of pink. “You guys go have your fun, get matching tattoos, but we’ll be eating ice cream, loving the taste of no regrets,” Dawson gives up the fight.

“Just…don’t get each other’s names on your foreheads,” Jack says, shaking his head as he walks away.

Dawson and Alex follow Jack, grumbling about how they can’t believe you’re actually going to do this. Alex slides in a “at least ask her on a date first, cap” as he walks away, Nico praying you didn’t hear the comment.

You turn towards Nico, holding your hand out. “You ready?”

He takes your hand, letting you pull him into the tattoo shop’s open door. “Let’s go get tattoos together.”

An hour later, you and Nico walked out with two fresh wounds on your ankles.

Both of your tattoos were so small you truly had to look for them to notice them. You had ended up getting tattoos that were technically matching, but could have meaning on their own, too. The artist had laid out a bunch of stencils she had ready to go, letting you pick from the pile which ones you wanted. You had found a small heart with devil horns, pointing it out to Nico and jokingly suggested he get it to show his Devils heritage. At almost the exact same time, his eyes landed on a small heart with a halo over it, his eyes lighting up.

He had agreed to get the devil one only if you got the matching angel one. So, twenty minutes later, the stencils were placed and you both sat on the table as two different artists tattooed you simultaneously.

The rest of your small group teased the two of you about it for the rest of the summer. After Nico left at the end of that month, the conversation shifted from teasing about the tattoos, to teasing about when the two of you were finally going to admit your feelings to each other. You waved off their words, sticking to your explanation of you two being just friends, but they didn’t let you forget that, in their words, you ‘basically branded’ their captain.

When Nico arrived home, Nina immediately clocked the small tattoo on her brother’s leg, questioning him about it. He told her it was just a last-minute decision, something to do after the season was over, not wanting to hear any nagging about how irresponsible it was that he let a girl he was even dating talk him into getting a matching tattoo. But, when Nina saw your Instagram post at the end of the summer, the very last picture showcasing a small, familiar looking angel tattoo, she barged into Nico’s bedroom, demanding answers.

“Nico, you better explain to me what the hell is going on here, because last time we spoke you hadn’t even told her you have feelings for her yet,” Nina interrogated Nico in their native language.

“Yeah…well that hasn’t really changed. Just…haven’t found the chance yet,” he avoids talking about the tattoo, choosing to talk about the other half of her question.

“Well after this, what the hell are you waiting for?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. What if she doesn’t feel the same way? What if she moves back home after she graduates next year and just leaves me behind?” Nico voices his fears to his older sister.

“Nico, she asked you to get matching tattoos. There’s no way she doesn’t feel the same way as you. I haven’t even fully met the girl, only having talked to her on your facetime calls, and I can see that she’s head over heels for you,” Nina encourages Nico, causing a warm feeling in his chest at his sister’s words.

“Well, when you put it that way…” Nico trails off, thinking about the events of this summer in full. “You know what, you’re right. As soon as I get home, I’m telling her. What’s the harm? And if she doesn’t have feelings for me, well, at least we’ll always have tattoos together.”

[bansheeoftheforest]

*knocks on the door*

Hello? Is anyone here?

Hi Banshee! I was wondering if you’d be willing to write a few hcs for Hytham? Among all the voices echoing through Tumblr, yours speaks of him with the most depth. And your Valhalla and Mirage storytelling? It’s magic; the kind that makes people stay a little longer just to hear one more tale! ✨

*sets down a small bundle*

I brought a few snacks, enough to share with anyone else who might be gathering around! We’ll be sitting here quietly, happily listening —ready for whatever you choose to share!

AAAAAA HI!!!!!! First of all you have no idea how happy this made me, I'm so glad you think so highly of my stories and storytelling!!! 😭

I will be so happy to share my hcs!!! Because I have an rp that involves Hytham with a friend, I have... Well... A LOT of personal, niche hcs and some more general ones I've seen around Tumblr. I'm also just going to ramble up as many as I can because I am a yapper at heart and I like throwing things at walls and hope that they stick 🫡 All of this is in absolutely no particular order and regarding no particular Hytham pairing as well! And it ended up. Long. Hence a read-more link!

He 100% was raised by a single mother and I don't think he either knew much about or liked his father at all. Solely based on the fact that he is orphaned in Mirage and he only mentions his mother, not "family" or "parents". My very personal hc here is that his father passed away before he was born, so it was always just him and his mother. Lately I also hc his mother's death as being directly related to the Order, hence why she was avenged by a Hidden One and why Hytham is so strongly passionate in his hate to the Order.

(We never get to know if Hytham actually has a 'last name' or second name at at all, he is always just Hytham, but I'd like to think he went against tradition and chose a matronymic instead of patronymic. It's not like he even still exists according to the Caliphate, since he joined the hidden ones, so no one can really stop him.)

Having been raised by a single mother could also be (one of) the reasons Hytham attaches so much to Basim! I'm thinking mostly in the sense of the father/son bond that is more or less the canon version, like that boy is probably desperate for fatherly approval he has never experienced before and he certainly has been around Basim more than he has been around Rayhan, even if Rayhan is his "true" mentor.

Anyways. Other hcs! He is a polyglot. He knows a LOT of languages for someone that never really had a formal or expensive education, like Syriac would be his mother tongue (since he canonically is from Syria), then when he ended up in Baghdad he learned the more commonly used older Arabic, when he was formally introduced into the Hidden Ones he learned Persian since Alamut is in what today is Iran, in his later teens when he and Basim were in Constantinople he learned the older Turkish or equivalent of the byzantine empire/the region they stayed in. Then he of course learned Norse and Old English when staying with the Norsemen in England. I also fully accept the hc that he is a big fanboy of the Greek Myths so I think he taught himself a bit of Greek as well.

The injury he gets after the fight with Kjotve is so vague but I personally think most of his problems come from broken ribs and at least one broken leg that never managed to get set correctly afterwards. He limps quite a lot (more or less severely depending on the day) and he always have to be careful with his torso movements to not make rib fragments poke into his lungs. There is probably some nerve problems there too with how mangled he was. Shakey hands? Occasional tremors? Fatigue and muscle tension? Yes pls. He probably handles it all quite well but better during the warmer months, all of this + his general inexperience with the cold just makes it all miserable.

On that topic: SEASONAL DEPRESSION! England being rainy and miserable and the winters being cold and dark and damp and he feels like he never sees sunlight for MONTHS. And all he can do is still light some candles and strain his eyes against the light as he tries to work, being relieved when Yule passes and the days grow longer and the snow begins to melt. Not to even mention how vitamin-c deficient he must be.

On the contrast I bet he loves the English/Northern spring and summer. It isn't as warm as back home (for better and worse) but everything would be lush and green and vibrant and full of LIFE and if that doesn't just sum up everything he loves with the world... Assuming he doesn't have any allergies, that is.

When he leaves Ravensthorpe after Basim's 'death', he promises Tove he will grow his hair out so she can braid it when he returns (game canon be dammed). She makes special metal beads to thread the braids through too, coz this promise is the 1 promise he gives them that he will not be gone for good.

What can I say, the people of Ravensthorpe loves him. Be it as a friend or in a "poor dear has been inside all day, does he even eat dinner? He looks so sickly and skinny, should we give him some soup? What if he doesn't survive the winter? :("

Also can we all agree he mourns Basim much more severely than the game makes him out to? Like regardless of how one views their relationship, Hytham and Basim were each other's closes person, so of course he would mourn his mentor. Even if that mourning just seems like apathy and throwing himself back to his routine and his work to forget and not think about Basim dying mad and alone somewhere in the mountains of Norway.

Also. Hytham seemingly watched his mother's death (hence why he knows she was avenged). It would not be far off to say that Basim's death reminded him of that, in the way where he was just helpless and could do nothing but prevent the closest person he had from disappearing from him.

Hytham and Eivor are good friends. But imagine trying to act like everything is normal when your friend just told you they were forced to murder your closest friend/mentor/parent in cold blood. I personally think Hytham avoided Eivor for a while, not because he blamed him or thought he did the wrong thing, but because he kept flinching and shut down when Eivor was around.

... Anyways, some better hcs! If he became a father he would be a girl dad.

I also have never played the Wrath of the Druids DLC but despite that being decidedly not canon, I have decided he and Azar are old friends.

I've seen this hc a few times but I do find it funny to imagine Hytham having beef with Octavian regarding theories and translations of various greco-roman myths. Like Octavian is the one (1) person that is not an enemy of any kind that he just actively does not like.

A few people in the settlement wants to bell Hytham like a cat because he keeps (unintentionally) scaring them because his footsteps and he in general are very quiet.

Hytham sleeps curled up. I only thought of that hc bc his bed in the bureau seems quiet small in comparison to himself.

Reda and Hytham at least once has a one-sided 'pointing-spiderman-meme' moment when Hytham hears Reda tell the (other) settlement children about the story of Aya and Bayek and Hytham obviously recognises it.

I think Hytham in general (the Valhalla version of him, at least) is quite a mellow and generally content or happy person. In Mirage he has the teeniest bit of an attitude and, while i have not read The Golden City, the wiki summary makes me believe he had some teenage attitude. I think he can still be quite sassy if he wants to, but I also think he is just content with what he has and the situation he is in, in a way he wasn't really in Mirage and TGC. In Valhalla it is not like he is stuck on towers or nearly murdered every other day, after all.

Ooooh on the topic of murder attempts. Scars? I would assume it is a TGC canon scar bc many fics mention he has a large scar on his inner thigh and honestly, hell yeah. I bet he like many Hidden Ones have quite a lot of scars and knicks on his body and hands, especially from when he was beginning to train with actual metal weapons early on.

I also find it fascinating that Hytham doesn't hide his amputated finger or have a protective cover over it like Basim does, I suppose this could be that he doesn't feel any need to hide it, that the scar is very well-healed (in part because he kept having it out in the open, and therefore hardened/didn't become as sensitive), or perhaps that he has a bit of like. Texture issues? Like I wouldn't want to walk around with a single-fingered glove all day either.

I think Basim has given him at least a handful scars from their many many fights/sparring matches/training sessions. No hard feelings, of course, I just don't think Basim was as easy-going on Hytham as Roshan was on him in terms of actually fighting one's own student. Assuming one ignores the end of Mirage, that is.

Cant believe it's been around 1.3k words and I haven't mentioned Hytham being muslim yet. Anyways. In my mind he is muslim. That or syrian orthodox-christian, but I generally go for muslim. Either way he is religious and he takes his faith very seriously. Another hc I've seen before is that he told Eivor about the practice of Ramadan and Eivor entirely misunderstood and thought Hytham was actually not eating at all for 30 days.

I'm not at all well-versed in the more 'modern' games from more recent time periods but Bayek is religious so I will say that it is ok that Hytham is too, even if the modern assassins frown upon religion.

I feel like I sadly cannot say a lot about Hytham's personality because all my thoughts on it are vague and change from fic to fic. He is a lil jokester, he is passionate, idealistic, optimistic, and I think he is sassy and can have an attitude at times. Certainly more so pre-kjotve than afterwards, but I cannot get over his damn sass when Basim teaches Eivor to wield a hidden blade. He is a softie with dry humour, has a soft spot for animals and kids, and throws sarcastic comments out now and then that have the witnesses be absolutely bewildered because they had not expected for HIM of all people to say something like that. Occasionally he feels bad for sayings things like that, sometimes he feels it is entirely deserved.

This is long. My brain is fried. I cannot distinguish what is a hc and just a statement anymore /d

Hytham sees himself as a weapon and after Kjotve he feels kinda useless. What is a dented sword? A broken arrow? A bow without string? What is he if not a weapon? What is he if not a blade to which justice can be served? He becomes a shield on a wall and tries to find another purpose and tries to tell himself that he is okay with that because he is still alive.

I have so many thoughts regarding Hytham's injuries and how he coped with what he did, most of which i put in the Hytham of Ravensthorpe fic, although it wasn't canon-compliant. At some point I just think he has been through so much that he isn't continuing full force by sheer willpower, as he is choosing to pick up the pieces of himself and try to mend the metaphorically broken pot. He is not living as much as he is trying to work with what he has and make something worth continuing for.

I think that is also another part to why he kind of mellows out after Kjotve. In a way he learned his lesson with his own impulses and hubris, in another way he is fatigued, and in another he is just choosing to try to be better and try to be kinder, gentler, more thoughtful.

According to a TGC review/summary Hytham states he'd like to be a father one day and I think that if he never settled and actually got a child, training future generations of Hidden Ones sooths that urge, so to speak. Especially when he is older and the age gap between him and his students are larger, rather than when he and his first four students are all around the same age.

If an 11 year old came up to him and told him their parents were dead and they wanted to be a Hidden One he could NOT say no even if he reasonably knows that he should. RIP to Basim and RIP to Roshan the curse of the student wanting to be the opposite of their mentor continues.

And on my last hc of this list that took me approximately 3 hours to write. Hytham's fave fruits is citrus fruits and pomegranates. Why? No idea, but my brain says so 🫡

Is any of these hcs something you were actually looking for? No idea! I will happily elaborate on them tho, as I said, I'm a yapper at heart 💃

[scaredshadowsswap]

Hey! Hope you're doing alright. What do you think the staffs general music taste would be?

Hey, thanks! I got a minor bout of finals flu and had to do research on a bunch of different music genres so forgive me for my tardiness XD

Clef:

Clef seems like he’s well-listened, and pretentiously so. Most likely a fan of classic rock, but he can also lecture you about the reason a particularly crunchy jazz chord was significant to the meaning of the piece. He also seems like the type of guy who can name the album that a song is from and the year it was released. Clef just really likes music.

Despite this, I don’t imagine he can play very well. Maybe a few songs on the ukelele, but Clef seems like the type to get good at something and then drop it a few weeks later, so I don’t imagine they’ve stuck with anything long enough to play super well.

Favorite artist: Has too many to choose one; depends on the day.

Kondraki:

I think it’s cheating to say I came up with any ideas for Kondraki, because it says on his personnel file that he thinks classical music is ‘‘the only kind worth listening to”. However, while I do think he’ll make comments about Draven’s music being “noise” occasionally, I think he holds back a lot because he wants to listen to Draven’s music with him.

I don’t know if they canonically say that Kondraki plays any instruments, but I imagine he plays piano very well and is proficient in violin (less so than piano, though).

Favorite artist: Chopin

Gears:

Gears seems like he’d enjoy smooth jazz. Just the mellow vibes that he can tune out a little bit more easily when he needs to lock in. Despite this, I imagine he really secretly enjoys the music Iceberg plays. Just because he doesn’t express emotions often doesn’t mean he doesn’t like feeling stuff sometimes.

I think Gears could’ve been forced to play piano as a kid and been really good at it, but the emotion was never there. He could play Rachmaninoff particularly well, but was never able to be creative or fluid enough for jazz.

Favorite Artist: Mary Lou Williams

Iceberg:

Iceberg, as cold as he is, has a very fiery personality and I think he’d be into metal, although he tries to pull back a little and sticks to hard rock when playing music around Gears because he doesn’t think Gears enjoys the extremity of it. One of his favorite genres is symphonic doom because it makes him feel cool when he’s running explosives tests. He wears thick headphones to block out any loud noises from the explosions, and then blasts his music at full volume.

Definitely did not play any instruments except for maybe a few self-taught songs on guitar. This man can sing Wonderwall at you.

Favorite Artist: Lethian Dreams

Shaw:

Shaw has heard it all, they are over music at this point. They just feel neutral about all of it, honestly, and not much music really speaks to them anymore. Shaw also seems the most likely to be the type to listen to one song on repeat until they get sick of it. If anything at all, they miss the disco era and still occasionally listen to funk.

They have been around long enough to play most instruments with reasonable skill. They can carry a tune on 30+ instruments easily.

Favorite artist: Although they feel pretty neutral now, they were into The O’Jays.

Glass:

Glass gets overwhelmed by music very easily, but I imagine he likes pop music generally. Generally only listens to whatever’s on the radio or whatever is playing, although he will take the time to listen to any song request given by patients.

I think Glass probably played a woodwind in middle/high school. Clarinet maybe? Not good at it, but never got rusty in terms of skills.

Favorite Artist: Taylor Swift

Rights:

Rights doesn’t have a specific genre, dabbles in lots of places, but that’s exactly how she likes it. She also likes the mysterious vibes that come with not telling people what she listens to, so she’ll never clarify. She goes through phases, but punk rock was a long one spanning 8 months.

I don’t think she ever played an instrument, but I think she’d be a quick learner if she ever decided to.

Favorite Artist: Destroy Boys

Strelnikov:

Strelnikov doesn’t listen to music in English because he likes to be able to relax while listening, and spending all day translating is well…not easy. Despite this, I don’t think he’s into the gopnik stuff like dubstep. He’s a military man through and through, so old songs from his childhood are usually what he plays.

I really like the idea that he plays guitar. The picture of Strelnikov on the wiki looks like a man who could play guitar. Can do fingerstyle Russian lullabies or just play the chords and sing along.

Favorite Artist: Definitely doesn’t remember the names of artists at all, but he’ll say he “like music from old soviet movie”. his favorite movie soundtrack is by Aleksandr Zatsepin

[ivysturnss]

Transition -Sturniolo Triplets

Summary:Where the triplets come back home and have some news waiting for them.

Warnings: FLUFF!!! Usual swearing , mentions of surgery , crying ,questioning ur gender and I think that's it.

Pairing: older bro!triplets x ftm!reader

A/N: reader is 17 in this and I'm sorry if its bad I thought of this on the spot

Nick Matt Chris MaryLou You

Divider- @ issysh3ll

You was currently sat up on the kitchen counter with my mom infront of u calming u down whilst small tears run down ur cheeks "What if they don't accept me!" "Buddy look at me please" you wipe ur nose with a tissue your mom had given u a few minutes prior then drifting ur eyes to look at her. "Are you listening to yourself right now , one of your brothers is gay and they accepted him ur not any different sweetie!" "I am though , nick hasn't changed he just likes boys but ive changed completely I haven't seen them in 9 months and the last time they saw me I was their little sister with long curly hair and braces." you say slightly raising ur voice and tears were now flowing heavily.

It was true the last time u had seen ur triplet brothers u had curly brown hair what hung just past ur chest , braces with pink bands , nails did but very short what u was forced to have done by ur best friend. None of ur friends and family knew at the time but just before ur brothers had came 9 and a half months ago u was questioning ur gender , long nights spent scrolling through tiktok and Pinterest looking at hairstyles for boys , male clothing just anything "boyish" in general and that's when it dawned on you. Im trans! You took inspiration from matts anxiety journal to make your own journal but instead of it being for anxiety you named it "Transition Journal". Any spare time you had you would write down ur thoughts , ways to tell ur family, name ideas and in the end it was full to the brim. It was a mix of a scrapbook and a diary it had photos cut out of outfits and where to buy the clothes and accessories from written next to it aswell as haircuts cut out so when u came out and got ur hair done you could show the barber what u wanted.

"No one else in the family views u any different so I highly doubt they will but if they dont they are getting the next flight back to la and never coming back in this house!" This makes you let out a little laugh and smile "That's not very nice you can't just kick them out like that" " I suppose that is a bit mean but whatever it takes to have u happy!" "Thanks , I'm so tired after all this crying so I'm going to get out of this and take a nap but can u text me when they are here and where they are in the house?" "Of course I can I'll also tell them not to go in your room have a good nap!"

3 hours and 15 minutes later

Your pov:

I wake up from my nap and automatically hear shouting and laughter downstairs so without even checking my phone I know my brothers are home , I sit up against my headboard and grab my phone and reply to a few of my friends who messaged me before checking my moms message.

Mom

-Hey buddy , we are all sat in the living room but we are watching a film so they are distracted so if you want a drink you will be able to get to the kitchen if you move quick enough.

You

-Alright I'll come down now please keep them distracted

read

I put my socks back on and fix my hair a bit before grabbing my phone and putting it in my pocket then quietly making my way to the stairs. I get halfway down and look to my side to see them all engrossed on the tv so I make a run for it running down the stairs and into the kitchen. I open the fridge and take out one of my Arizonas and slowly walking into the living room. When I reach the couch i sit down beside Chris casually taking a sip of my drink placing it on the small wooden table next to his pepsi. "There you are how was ur nap flo?" he asks still not taking his eyes of the tv but hearing him call u your dead name just felt weird the last time u was called it was a few months ago by a substitute in school but that wouldn't happen anymore as u had just graduated. I didn't answer him as technically he was speaking to no one and this makes him look at me , his head hadn't even turned half way before he quickly stands up Infront of me "What the fuck are u standing up for!" All i do was stare back at him as my body just froze there was two ways this could go he could either hug me and support me or could shout at me and leave and i wasn't sure what was happening. Matt and nick look over at me and do the exact same thing as chris and stand either side of him and because none of them where speaking i decide to.

End of ur pov

"I um.. I transitioned" your voice came out quietly but loud enough for everyone to hear. Your parents thought it was best for u to have this moment alone so they got up and walked into the kitchen shutting the door behind them. "We can see that, when did this happen" he asks in a soft tone but still in shock. It was pretty obvious to those around u that you wasn't a girl anymore u had short hair, a light stubble , you looked more masculine and u was currently wearing black and blue plaid pj bottoms with a vintage tee u had thrifted a few days ago. "Before u came the last time I was questioning it and I made a entire notebook full of things I still have it if u wanna see but anyway I told mom and dad like a month or 2 after u left and it just went from there I guess." "And why did u not tell us sooner?" "Well I wanted to tell u guys in person so that's why I waited till u came back and that's what I'm doing now". The 3 just nod and sit on the floor infront of u "Do you have a name like a name u want to be called from now on?" Matt asks putting on of his hands on ur knee comfortingly "Yeah I do actually , it's Finn but mom and dad call me buddy aswell!" "Good choice bud I like that name". "Do you think you'd ever get surgery?" "Well we looked into it and I'm at the right age as u have to be 16 and I'm 17 but we want to wait a bit before I do as we just wanna go day by day and not jump into it all at once y'know!". Matt looks over at nick and nick just nods knowing what he was going to say "Finn I don't wanna sound rude but who do u like?" "What do u mean who do I like?" "What's ur sexuality like I'm straight so is Chris and Justin but nicks gay so what are u?". I take a deep breath knowing this question was coming and try to hold back the tears but that doesn't happen. Nick is fast to move and sits beside u pulling u into a hug. "You don't have to tell us right now if u don't want to we can wait." "Mhm we will wait as long as u want us to wait" "No ill tell u" you sit back up but take nicks hand and he rubs his thumb against the back of ur hand. "As you now know I'm trans so ur probably thinking I like girls but I don't I still like boys". "Thank you for sharing this with us we are proud of you" "Just so you know we love you even more" "I love you guys aswell" "Guys do you know what this calls for?" "If I'm thinking what ur thinking I'm totally down" "Celebratory McDonald's?" "DUHHH". Nick and Chris run off to the car whilst matt stays back with you. "How about u get that notebook of urs and we can look at it whilst having our McDonald's." You nod and run up stairs to get the notebook whilst matt goes to the car.

35 minutes later

You was all sat in the McDonald's parking lot finishing up ur food and going through ur notebook. "Whys there a photo of my head? Chris questions pointing at the photo "It's because this is one of haircut pages and I liked ur hair back then so I was going to get it but I didn't in the end." "I think you would suit it you should definitely try it one time". "Hold on this is a very important question." "What is it?" "Do u watch RuPaul?" "I love that shit I watch it all the time" "MATT DRIVE US HOME RIGHT NOW ME AND FINN A STAYING UP ALL NIGHT AND BINGE WATCHING RUPAUL START THAT ENGINE!" the car erupts into laughter as matt starts the car to drive you guys home.

@6ix9inewiturmom @nicksbf @thenickgirl @soontosturniolo @delilahsturniolo @dirtylittleheart333 @pvssychicken @nicksbestie @talulahinthestars @nicksgirlfriend @schlutt4matty @obsessionsarenotfortheweak @zariyam @little-bisexual-intern @toysizee @sturniolowh-0-re @sturnobsessedwh0re @vanteguccir @mattthemunchsbiggestfan @delimeats-000 @sturnfannn @slutforsturnioloss @evie-sturns

[tossawary]

I was rewatching some episodes of Bleach a few months back and I still have a fondness for it. It's one of the first animes I ever watched at all, though I never got very far past that first big Soul Society arc; I used to watch episodes on TV as a kid with my family and I saw cool Bleach cosplays and other stuff frequently at anime conventions. I have a general idea of what happens later thanks to some fanfiction and other forms of Fandom Osmosis.

And I realized while listening to the episodes play in the background that I had... no idea where Urahara's kids came from??? Why are there two children just living with the former Soul Society captains??? I'd never gotten that far (if it was revealed in the main manga or anime at all) and had never come across the information in fanworks or on the few wiki pages that I'd browsed. So, I looked it up on a wiki, and it turns out that Ururu and Jinta are artificial souls like Nemu (this is revealed in one of the novels). Which made sense! I'd been expecting something like that or adoption of random spirit-sensitive humans (this was my guess) or whatever.

But it does make me wonder HOW something like that happened... and also WHY? It's very funny to me that someone in the Urahara-Yoruichi-Tessai throuple (non-canon to my knowledge, unfortunately) apparently decided that they wanted kids (with superpowers, of course) and Urahara just... made some. (Or Urahara was just experimenting and then decided to raise his mad science experiments properly. Maybe it was a "I can do ANYTHING better than that fucker Kurotsutchi and I'll fucking prove it" kind of thing.) Ururu and Jinta are Ichigo's younger sisters' age (uh, maybe, hard to know with artificial souls), so it kind of looks like this mad scientist babymaking went down after Ichigo was born.

My mind keeps going back to that "Text your partner: 'I want a baby'" meme from several years ago as a fic idea.

Tessai: I want a baby.

Kisuke: we already have the cat

Yoruichi: I'm baby

Yoruichi: fuck kisuke beat me to it

Yoruichi: kisuke this is your fault I told you not to let him hold ichigo

Tessai: He's very cute.

Tessai: I want one.

Yoruichi: where are you gonna get one? I'm not doing it

Kisuke: we are also exiled criminals, that feels pertinent to mention here as a consideration when family planning

Tessai: :(

Yoruichi: I mean we've done stupider shit

Yoruichi: still not doing it

Tessai: :'(

Kisuke: wait, don't ask another guy, I'll do it

Kisuke: give me a week

Kisuke: what color?

[oldfaneworld]

I need some clarity.

I don't know how I want to start this so I'm going to ramble this out. The discourse around Lanolin is something I don't really get in all honesty. The plot we have been following since the beginning of The Misadventure arc isn't anything new. The Fandom has dealt with trickery and guile before so I don't understand why this is such a hot topic to begin with. I have a few ideas why it's a hot topic and I'll touch on it soon but first I want to make this very clear. Looking back at the few posts I have on this website, I think I've made It very clear that Lanolin is my favorite character in all of the idw run. I can say this with my chest she is tied as my number 2 favorite character in this franchise with Bunnie d'coolette from the Archie run of the comics both reboot and pre-boot. My number 1 being Sonic from the story book games specifically the sonic and the black knight game.

I have only ‘recently’ gotten back into being a fan of the franchise about a year ago and most of that time has been me sitting down quietly playing Forces, Frontiers, Shadow Generations and reading first the entirety of the Archie run of the Sonic comics and then later the IDW run of the Sonic comics(i’ll get to fleetway soon i’ve just haven't gotten there yet). As for someone who’s been quiet for most of this time, seeing the Lanolin discourse flare back up because of the Riders arc is very interesting to me.

The big thing that gets me about the majority of it feels disingenuous to me from both sides. I am someone who has been very lucky to have patient friends that are willing to listen to me for a few hours on end talking to them about all of this. I am a Lanolin defender if it wasn’t already clear, so to my fellow defenders please don't go out of your way to call people misogynist(its true that there are some who are, but please be a bit more tactful when you do it) just because they don't like Lanolin. More often than not you're just throwing the wrong label at someone and it’ll just make things worse and poison the water for everyone. To those that dislike Lanolin you need to cool your jets just as hard, calling for violence to be done to her and to kick her out of the comics entirely because she’s been tricked is wild to think about especially because we have characters that are beloved that have been tricked and done way worse then she has that never received this kind of backlash. 

My reason why I think Knuckles, Silver and Shadow haven’t received the same kind of backlash Lanolin currently has is for a few reasons. The first is because all of their mistakes they’ve done have been nearly a decade ago if not longer so there's so much real time that buffers them from receiving such a backlash on top of that. Also we didn't necessarily have places like twitter, tumblr, or reddit back then like we do now.

The biggest reason why I think Lanolin is getting so much backlash where the others never did was (knuckles got it the worst but in the end it was turned into a gag) because of the medium her story is being told in. Everyone else was in a game Knuckles (S3&K, SA1, SA2), Silver (06), Shadow(SA2)  in comparison to Lanolin her’s is in the comics. A medium that is way slower than that of the games, just because of the nature of how long it takes for an issue to come out not including any delay. So I honestly think because of the slowness of comics in general people were allowed to sit and let an annoyance at best (in a games case) fester to hate (because of the comics timeframe).  A sonic game can be done at fastest in a few hours (forces) or a month (Frontiers) and that's not including 100 precenting a game. where in the comics Lanolin’s arc is taking longer than a year and a half and it's still going. 

Comparing her story to the three above we are what 2/3rds ¾ of the way through her personal arc about learning how to be a new leader and the challenges that brings, especially when she’s forced to make a choice that feels right in the moment but is wrong in the long term. People saying you can't compare her arc to Silver, Shadow or Knuckles is being dishonest in my book. The only difference in the way the arcs works is that the three’s arcs are done and hers isn't. Silver and Knuckles were tricked by their villains respectfully and Eggman and Mephiles nearly won because of it. Once they realized what they did they worked just as hard to fix what they messed up. Shadow was ruled by revenge allowing himself to work with eggman so he could get closer to the Ark to get rid of the Earth but Amy and others were there to open his eyes and it nearly cost him his life to fix what he allowed his rage to start.

So we know we aren’t done with Lanolin’s arc yet so why is there so much hate? We are just starting with her being redeemed. Why are people so adamant with burying her? I can't imagine another character in this moment of the comics that deserves her redemption more than her. She’s been here since issue 2 of the run and has been working hard in the background since, to get where she’s at and with her first real mistake and people want to tear all her accomplishments away from her. I don't get it? What I do get is having a casual dislike for her because of the way she talked to Silver and Whisper(misadventure) and Sonic and crew(Riders).

With all of what I have said, can someone please explain to me what I'm missing? Even in the newest issue when she is at her lowest she puts herself in the same position she put Silver in! She gave Tangle and Whisper the same power as before to vote her out because she knew she messed up and she’s not holding herself above any of the consequences she placed on other people. This is admirable she messed up and is willing to lose maybe her only chance to make a real difference in her world instead of doubling down and trying to make herself look right.

[orchideous-nox]

The Amazing Devil are underrated storytellers

Like I'm sure many people did, I discovered alt-folk band The Amazing Devil through Joey Batey as a fan of The Witcher. Someone on TikTok was talking about the song Fair and how the actor who plays Jaskier (or Dandelion, depending on preference of material) from The Witcher sang it.

Instantly, I knew I had to listen to this song and I sat with it on repeat for an hour, picking through references and laughing at how pure and simple the love conveyed in those words was. It's the kind of love you dream of, where your partner completes you and life without them seems impossible. A love that goes beyond you both, as if there was no choice but to fall for one another. It's not pretentious or impossible to understand. It's universal and I fell in love with it.

Months later, I found Battle Cries, a song of overlapping whimsies. It tells the tale of two lovers ending their relationship and trying to find pieces of calmness in the uproar of their breakup, comparing it to a war not just between each other but within themselves. There a metaphors deeply woven within the lyrics and each line is magic as Joey and Madeleine sing over each other, words occasionally syncing up, representing the way they struggle to feel in tune with each other at the end of their relationship.

Battle Cries lead me to Marbles, the story of a couple where one of them is suffering from memory loss, the trials and tribulations of watching the person you love forget who they are and who you are too. It is a beautifully told story that feels so genuine, making me wonder how close to home the inspiration was. This song is an absolute guarantee at tears while also making you laugh.

Ruin came to me next, as wells as Drinking Song for the Socially Anxious and The Horrors and The Wild, three songs with such incredibly different vibes that don't just need to be listened to but thoroughly devoured.

Finally, a song I can never praise enough, Inkpot Gods. This song brings together so many ideas and images I love. Again, it is heavy on its use of metaphors but contains one of my favourite references they have ever used. The song discusses the love you can hold for another person and the lengths you will go to so you can protect them. It talks of breaking generational expectations and being there for someone when they can't defend themselves.

The best part of Inkpot Gods, however, is the Lord of the Rings reference where Madeleine sings "you might not fear a man//but to a woman by the end you'll kneel and plead". This is popularly theorised to be about Eowyn in The Return of the King and the line "I am no man" she speaks as she ends her foe's life, a show of her strength not despite of her gender. Easily the best line of the trilogy to me, and hearing it in song form cements this, following it with "I'm more than what my mum told me", breaking this tradition what what a woman can or should be.

While Joey Batey was the draw to The Amazing Devil's music for me, Madeleine has kept me there, she has such a beautiful voice and her and Joey together have made some stunning music that I will always love. They tell these fantastic stories within a few minutes, creating characters worthy of epic tales and narratives so deep and complex it leaves you thinking for long after.

[fatratinatophat]

Hiatus update, the future of the blog, and my plans for summer (For the blog obviously

“Wow Crumb I’m so glad you’re telling us this I missed you so much, I missed your art” said nobody but whatever, here

There’s a TLDR at the bottom if you don’t wanna listen to me yap.

So I’ve been on hiatus for a while, mainly because I’ve been sick and thus not at school and we just had April vacation, and I draw most of my art during my classes not at home so I haven’t been drawing. This hiatus SHOULD end soon, I’m currently drawing things I want to draw right now, but I WILL KEEP MY PROMISE of my first update being a New Craft page, I’m just getting back into the swing of things and finding the motivation to do so. But I need to talk about something else first:

If you haven’t noticed I’ve had like 0 motivation to do any art things for a long time

The constant hiatuses and lack of NC updates aren’t random, it’s because I dread drawing them. And I believe I’ve figured out why: The fucking schedule. I’ve noticed every time while drawing today that I end up rushing through and drawing stuff I don’t particularly want to just to fill my stupid quota and get my stupid drawings done to shove them in my queue. The result is rushed art, lack of experimentation and thus things getting stale, and dreading having to do it so taking breaks. Also the barrage of boring, transparent background bs.

This also causes a lack of notes, especially for some reason after DW became trending I’ve seen to become a bit less popular for whatever reason, getting less notes per post. NC seems to be the only thing that gets me good notes (Other than that stupid fucking Goob post I did forever ago I spent like maybe 10 minutes on that blew up, that’s STILL getting notes) and do I even have to mention any posts with my ocs on it that aren’t sketch pages that also include DW ocs, that get like- less than 10 every time.

So uh yeah not much motivation and an unhappy Crumb, but I’m here for solutions not to bitch. So, I’m NO LONGER going to have an upload schedule for my art. I’ll try and upload once weekly at least but I’m sick of rushing on everything. I’m also going to try and stop making posts with no backgrounds and just one or two characters standing around (Ironic cause I’m drawing another one but that’s more for study than to make something peak) I will however continue to do my asks that have been sitting in my inbox since LAST FUCKING YEAR (I’m slow as HELL, also all my recents have been One Forsaken request and daily fucking Gaza posts from someone I suspect to be a bot since they’re always on anon???) so that won’t change

But yeah, that’s for the general blog but now we need Crumb lore.

So, for the past 18 years of my life, every summer, I either hardly draw at all or DO NOT AT ALL for the entire few months. It helps me basically “reset” and be able to more easily dump the stuff I don’t like about my art. This has never been an issue before this cause I’ve never had actual fans and more than like 10 followers that aren’t friends before now (Insane how much I’ve grown in one year)

So the summer uploads are a bit iffy but I have 2 ideas:

-Upload nothing all summer, reblog some posts here and there to show I’m alive and return once I start college or sumn

-Upload less frequently and use the break to be REALLY experimental with things, I’ve also been toying with the idea of making a comic surrounding some of my ocs and then would be the perfect time to plan it and make it IF I DO, I dunno what I’d do and if I’m ready yet so it’s unlikely

No I’m not asking what I should do I’m saying what I could

I’ll decide later what I want I guess and of course give you guys a heads up what I’m gonna do once that time runs around. I have like a month left of school and maybe I’ll get into a rhythm and wanna keep going idk. We’ll all have to see.

Also, I WILL FINISH FUCKING NC BEFORE I DO THAT. I will upload them one after a fucking nother if I have to I want this stupid comic off of me, I’ll explain why once I’m done with it. Also chapter 2 is cancelled.

Also my Discord server is basically dead (Died after I had One Palworld hyperfixation) and I think most of them all lost interest in DW so if you guys wanna join please do I’m lonely there’s like 3 people who actually talk now help

But yeah I think I’m done. I bet like maybe 3 people read this entire thing. Anyways time for your TLDR:

-I have zip motivation for anything lately I’m trying to fix it

-I WILL BE MAKING THAT NC PAGE

-NO MORE UPLOAD SCHEDULE, it’s killing me. I’ll try uploading once weekly but don’t count on it

-I’ll try stopping the boring no background one guy standing there posts and make my posts more interesting and dynamic

-I may stop posting art over the summer, may be more experimental and upload less, might even make an oc-based comic idk

-Before I go on my summer hiatus/low uploads, I will finish New Craft, also chapter 2’s cancelled

Ok I’m done my head hurts ow

[stiricidewrites]

The Damage You Do: ch 36, pt 10

Slide back into existence

Hello again ._.

So, I know this is a bit deranged, but I injured my foot and can't go for my twice daily walks (although I have hopes that later this week I will be able to!). As a creature of near obsessive habit, this has left my life in a disarray, and writing fanfiction kept getting pushed aside.

I return. I likely won't be posting Tuesday or Wednesday this week, and then because my partner is visiting for a few months, my posting schedule might change based on date nights and general chaos (creature of habit, and all).

But I swear! Even when I vanish for spans of time, I shall return to my beloved stories!

Previously

~

Seriously, what was wrong with him? He’d never even thought about other people doing things like this to him before. Sure, there had been some passing thoughts about enjoying the idea of people seeing his cocklet, but this entire situation was so, so much more, and—

And nothing. It was perfect, and lwj was there, summoning over Harold because wwx was continuing to babble without actually intending to, a soft train of “Yes, yes, please? Can you?” leaving his mouth without permission.

It was perfect, and lwj was there with him, his abnormally large cock once again hardening in his pants—and when had it softened? Probably when he had also been softening, in the midst of his disgust over his too-wet feet and the cum splattered over them. Now, listening to the soft sound of his dom questioning Harold as to whether he thought Lyra would be comfortable with such a thing—and wwx was really happy to learn that the employees’ comfort was taken into account—both of them were stiffening again.

If he started to rut against his dom’s leg, would lwj stop him?

Something told wwx, that under the current circumstances, he might not. Still, wwx was hyper aware of just how sore his poor little dick was getting. The gentleness of his last two orgasms had definitely helped, but it was definitely complaining about having blood pumped into it yet again—not complaining so much it couldn’t get hard again, but definitely letting him know that eventually it would be filing a workplace complaint—

wwx snorted, his shoulders shaking as he tried to suppress the silly image of his dick submitting a complaint about this treatment. How would it fill out the paperwork? Could he type it out with his cock? Mix ink into his cum? It was all so highly inappropriate, and yet—

“What is so funny?” lwj asked, giving wwx’s hair a gentle tug and removing him from the safety of his chest. The soft look that greeted wwx when he met his dom’s eyes… wwx didn’t think it would matter what he said he was laughing about; it felt like lwj would continue giving him that look of soft appreciation even if he claimed he was laughing about one of A-Yuan’s so-totally-not-funny TV shows and then went on to describe it in excruciating—and again, not funny!—detail.

Resting his chin on the man’s chest, wwx grinned up at him and related his ridiculous thoughts about his dick submitting a complaint to human resources. “Are you human resources?” he asked, wondering if the Lans had anything like that. The Jiangs didn’t—you just sucked it up or quietly murdered someone. For the Nies, however, one of nhs’s minions—although wwx had his doubts as to whether nmj knew the woman was actually beholden to his younger sibling—had become the de facto person anyone with a problem with their coworkers went to for help.