#become a full stack developer

[shaker917516]

Embarking on the journey to become a Full Stack Developer is a rewarding endeavor. Full Stack Developers are proficient in both front-end and back-end technologies, capable of creating complete web applications. This role demands a versatile skill set, including proficiency in various programming languages, databases, and frameworks, making it a highly sought-after profession in the tech industry.

[anushkarathi26]

Salary of a Full Stack Developer in India - 2023

Full stack developers are considered to be the multi-taskers in the work of web development. Hence, the responsibility and role of the profile depend upon the organization's requirements. However, these are some of the areas that every full stack developer is responsible for.

To become a full stack developer, one needs to learn about multiple skills and programming languages. It is advised to take the best pay after placement full stack developer course, to excel in the field with the help of the best trainers and professionals.

Read more: https://fingertips.co.in/blog/salary-of-a-full-stack-developer-in-india-2023

[boffinwebtech]

At Boffin Web Technology, we’re passionate about turning aspiring coders into industry-ready professionals. you through the roadmap to becoming a full-stack developer and how our course can help you break into the tech industry—confidently and successfully.

[qualifyed1]

Become a Full Stack Developer Complete Online Course

[iihtsuratsblog]

Becoming a Full Stack Developer: A Guide for 2023

A full stack developer is a software engineer capable of working on both the front-end and back-end aspects of a web application. This means they possess the skills to design and create the user interface (UI) and manage the server-side logic that drives the application.

The demand for full stack developers is high, as businesses increasingly seek professionals who can handle a wider scope of responsibilities. If you're interested in a software development career, pursuing the path of a full stack developer offers an excellent starting point.

The necessary skills for becoming a full stack developer can vary based on the technologies you intend to work with. Nonetheless, some fundamental skills encompass:

HTML and CSS: These form the fundamental elements of any web page's structure and styling.

JavaScript: This programming language empowers the interactive elements of web pages.

Back-end programming language: This could involve Java, Python, Ruby, or other prevalent languages.

Database: This is where the web application's data will be stored.

Version control: Employing a system to track code modifications.

Web framework: Utilizing a pre-built code collection to expedite development. Discover the details : How To Become A Full Stack Developer In 2023

[arjunsinghadvocatenagina]

Best Full Stack Web Developer Roadmap 2023 - Iqontech

At the heart of the Full Stack Web Developer Roadmap 2023 lies a solid foundation in programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These form the building blocks of the web and allow you to create visually appealing and interactive user interfaces.

[bookshelf-dust]

promise to take care of my heart

carmy berzatto x fem!reader

gif by @emziess

word count: 1,830

warnings: nothing? a little swearing, but this is pure fluff and that’s all

synopsis: carmy wants to cuddle with you for the first time.

a/n: hi! new character, i know. but i’ve become rather attached to carm in the past few months and i had a cute idea for him and here we are. he’s bringing me so much comfort right now and now i’m gonna share that with you <333

————

“Why don’t you pick out a movie or somethin,’ bub?” 

“If I could find your damn remote, Carm, I would.”

He lets out a breath of a laugh, eyes on his hands where they sit deep in the dishwater below. Good luck, he thinks. 

You scan the coffee table, the rug below the shabby couch. It’s not like there’s any use checking the tv stand because it’s still a fucking table tray. You know he doesn’t even own the full set of four table trays? He’s just got the one? That knowledge keeps you up at night. Just like how he doesn’t have a ceiling fan pull and has to get tweezers to change the speed.

You find the remote nestled in a stack of freshly organized books. You helped Carmen assemble a very simple bookshelf so that his stash of cookbooks wouldn’t have to live on the floor anymore. 

Just getting to help him turn his apartment into something other than a place to sleep brought you a contagious giddiness. Carmen’s chest aches with how much he’s laughed since he met you. 

Look at all my muscles, Carm. I’m practically ready for my dick now, don’t you think? 

Where’d you even get these? He’d looked down at the little allen wrench in your hand and said I don’t know, they were just here one day. 

Now you have a bookshelf, Bear. What a grown up. 

Carmen wouldn’t let you help him with the dishes after he cooked you dinner. He’d just kissed your shoulder and said, “Let me take care of it, alright?” with that little raise of his brows and quirk of his lips telling you not to argue because you’d never win. 

And when Carmen tells you to let him take care of something, well…you listen. 

You haven’t been dating very long, but it’s been enough that you’ve both developed this rhythm, this way of moving around and with each other and you just…work. 

He doesn’t understand how you can dial his shyness, his hesitance, so quickly, how you can make him feel like a human again so easily. But you do. 

You settle against the back of the couch, flipping through the tv guide (because Carm has never subscribed to any streaming services) until you find something worth listening to. It’s already a few minutes in, but you’ve seen the movie enough times that it doesn’t really matter. 

The overhead light in the kitchen switches off and Carmen pads out to the living room, socked feet dragging on the hardwoods. Your biggest pet peeve is people who don’t pick up their feet, but somehow it’s more tolerable when it’s him. 

He sits down on the edge of the couch. Just sits. On the edge. That means he wants to say something. You give him the time to psych himself up. 

Carmy chews on his thumb nail and rubs his nose before he turns to you, placing his hand on the couch. His blue eyes burn into yours, and the intensity of his gaze, trained on you, makes you feel like the most important person in the world. 

“H-hey, um…can we—could we snuggle, maybe?” He flushes at the fact that he just used the world snuggle. Richie would have his ass so quick if he’d heard him say that. 

Your grin is brilliant. You’ve never cuddled properly with Carmen before. Maybe a head on a shoulder or a leg tossed across another, but never a real cuddle session. “Fuck yeah, we can, Carm.” You giggle and the sound softens that bubble of fear in his chest. 

He bites the inside of his cheek, letting out the barest laugh. 

“How did you want t-to lay, Bear?” You blink at him. “Were you just gonna—” 

He starts to nod. “I was just gonna lay on your chest, honestly.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, that works.”

“Y-yeah.”

You snort. “Lemme’ stretch out for you and then you can be a teddy bear.” 

“Seriously?”

“Yes.” Carmen shakes his head at you. He lets you pull that shit because he likes it. Secretly.

When you have a pillow under your neck and are laid out on your back, Carm slips beside you against the back of the couch and clumsily settles on top of you. He doesn’t want to crush you or anything, so he settles between your legs, only allowing the weight of his torso to envelop you. 

One arm wraps around your back, the other cradling your hip, his curls brushing your chin. He turns his head to face the tv and lets out a satisfied sigh. 

On instinct your hand threads through his tangled hair, scratching at his scalp gently and sorting through any piece that feels knotted. 

“What is this?” Carmy asks, nodding in the direction of the screen. 

“The Wedding Planner. It has Jlo and Matthew McConaughey in it.” 

“Chick flick?”

You hum in agreeance. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t hate it. Jlo’s character is like you but if the restaurant was a wedding planning business and you were, you know, a chick.”

He laughs lightly against your stomach and you can feel the puff of air over your shirt. 

The weight of Carmen’s body on top of yours is easily the most calming feeling you’ve ever experienced. You can’t get enough of him. 

“This okay?” you ask, scratching his scalp a little more for emphasis. This is a new way of showing affection. Uncharted territory. 

“Hm?” He looks up at you briefly, blue eyes fluttering closed. “Oh yeah, feels nice. I like it.”

You grin and continue to play with his hair. He’s right. It does feel nice. It is. 

The next few minutes go by without any conversation, just silence. But it’s so comfortable. Carmen’s tired gaze is on the tv. You can feel him breathing, feel the way he scratches over your back absently. You don’t know if he’s aware he does it, but he nuzzles his nose against the soft of your stomach every now and then like it’s keeping him safe. 

“You know I thought about being a wedding planner?”

Carmy pushes up onto his elbows, looking at you with the smallest smirk playing on his lips. “Really?”

You playfully bat at his shoulder and he moves to lay back down, but not before pressing a kiss to your sternum over your shirt. “Mhm. Still think about it sometimes.” You pause, but Carm doesn’t say anything yet because he knows you aren’t finished with that thought. 

“I guess I just thought it’d be nice to help put things like that together? The organization would make me feel…complete, I guess. And you know I don’t like to help people in such an extroverted way? I like to be behind the scenes.” You laugh, a little self-deprecatingly. “Does that make sense?”

Carmen squeezes your side. “‘Course it does. And then you could come home and tell me stories about all the family drama you eavesdrop on.”

You giggle, and Carmy loves that he can feel it where he lays on your chest. He can feel your joy, and that’s fucking cool. “That I could.”

He rubs your back in small, gentle circles. “And you know, I happen to have some friends who make pretty good food and would be happy to help if you ever needed.”

“Oh, do you? Well, that’s very helpful, Mr. Berzatto. You’ll have to give me their number.”

Carmy laughs into your chest. A pure, genuine laugh. It’s such a beautiful sound, and you truly think you’d have it tattooed all over your body if that was even remotely possible. His glee makes you laugh, and then you’re both snickering like you’re teenagers doing something that’ll get you in big trouble. 

You reach for his hand, the one that’s resting on your hip now, and he lets you lift it towards your face. He bites his cheek, fighting the smile that rises when you press your warm and chapstick covered lips to his knuckles. 

“You have such pretty hands, Carmy.”

He pinches your back. “I still don’t get why you’re so fascinated by them.”

“Because they’re pretty. And, look—” You hold yours up to his. “—they’re so much bigger than mine. And I like your tattoos, obviously. I like that I know how talented you are with your hands and how capable. I’m very lucky to hold such capable hands, Bear.”

“Capable, huh?” He gives you a look, one that makes you want to both tackle him and smack him on the arm. Instead you roll your eyes and he raises up to kiss you. 

“Capable of being the world’s biggest pain in the ass.”

Carmy laughs. It’s that little chuckle, light and airy and like he can’t believe what he’s hearing but he wants to hear more anyway. He flops back down on your chest, making you let out a rather loud oomph. 

You take Carmen’s hand in yours again, rubbing over the dry patches on his knuckles, the scabs on the insides of his fingers, the scar on his palm. His whole life is written in these hands. 

You start massaging the pads of his fingers without even thinking about it. No one’s ever been that gentle with him—definitely not with his hands—and a little part of him melts at the feeling. 

You kiss the tattoo on the back of his hand and just look at his skin. You’re determined to memorize each line and freckle and fucked up cuticle he’s got. 

“At least your nails don’t look like Richie’s, Carm.”

His chest moves with the giggle that travels throughout his body. 

“Trust me, they didn’t look like that when he was still with Tiff.”

You grin, your eyes falling back on the television. Maybe Carm would be open to setting it on the bookshelf? That table tray has put in a lot of work. It deserves a break. 

Carmen can see why you’re so fond of this movie. It’s one of those that doesn’t require much thought, that has humor and feels more human than most. He knows he shouldn’t think it, but you having said what you said before makes him wonder if you’ll plan your own wedding…with him. 

Shut the fuck up, he tells himself. But maybe we’ll get there. 

You catch him smiling when they fuck up the statue in the garden and pretend not to notice. You both keep quiet now, but Carm reaches up and puts your hand back on his head.

Your fingers thread through his curls again, scratching at his scalp gently. Your other hand does the same thing to his back. You know it’s going to lull him to sleep. 

When you say it, he’s already dozed off. But you are so happy that you get to make him feel safe. That he’s comfortable enough to sleep on you like this. Lucky is an understatement. 

“Thank you for letting me in, Bear. I don’t think my life has ever been this beautiful.”

————

please let me know if you liked this! feedback is always appreciated!! comments and reblogs mean more than you know. <33

note: none of the gifs or images i use are mine! i get most of my images from pinterest or here, and gifs from about the same. please let me know if i ever don’t credit someone properly!

[acmeangel]

♡ Levi hires you to work at his tea shop, and the two of you become close.

♡ SFW fluff! ♡ Postwar!Levi x Fem!Reader ♡ One shot, soft Levi, friends to lovers vibes ♡ Word count: 2416 ♡ Summary: Levi hired you years ago to work at his tea shop, back when it was brand new. Over the years, you became close friends, and recently developed into more. You're both a bit rough around the edges, but get each other in a way no one else can. You're like two black cats in love.

It was years ago that you'd walked by Levi's tea shop in Marley and noticed the piece of paper pinned to the door that simply said "Hiring." in bold, slightly messy, handwriting.

Your eyebrows raised despite yourself, slightly amused by the straightforwardness of the sign -- no frills, no details, no niceties.

Marley had only just started to get on its feet again after a full year of scraping by while rebuilding, trying to shake off the lingering fears and treat the deepest wounds. Everyone was on the precipice of healing, and you figured it was as good a time as any to bring back some normalcy into your life. Working at a tea shop seemed like a decent enough way to do that; quiet, peaceful, easy enough. You were never much of a people person, but you could handle basic customer interactions.

When you'd entered the tea shop, you were met with Levi, who was behind the counter, a focused -- but not harsh -- look on his face as he neatly stacked boxes of tea into an orderly pyramid, a small display of the tea flavors. The bell above the door jingled as you entered, and he looked up at you, his gaze narrowing slightly, his hands pausing their precise movements. You got a clear look at his face -- the cloudy white eye, the healing scars tracing patterns into his skin.

"Hiring?" You asked, simply, nodding toward the sign on the window.

His eyes darted toward the sign, as if he'd forgotten that he put it there, and then fell back onto you.

"Guess so," he answered, his voice lacking any sort of feeling about the matter. "You want to work here?"

Before answering, your gaze scanned along the interior of the tea shop -- it was small and sparsely decorated, but not in a cold way. It was simple, comforting. Small wooden tables dotted the perimeter, intricately painted ceramic tea cups were stacked behind the counter, a few plants sat in the windowsills, drinking in the hazy sunlight.

"Yeah." Your gaze found his again, and you nodded. "I do."

"'Kay." His focus returned to the pyramid of tea boxes, his hands continuing to organize the stack. "What makes you qualified?"

"It's making tea," you retorted, dryly, without thinking. "Not mechanical engineering." You regretted it the instant you said it, realizing you'd likely butchered your chances of getting hired and that you should've made something up about having a passion for serving the community.

Without moving his head, his eyes drifted toward you, and you could see the faintest look of amusement tugging on his lips.

"Fine." This was all he had said, and you waited for him to ask more questions to evaluate you further, but they never came.

You stood there, somewhat awkwardly, watching as he continued working on his little display of boxes. Once he was finished, he tossed an apron over the counter toward you, which you caught, the fabric balled up into your hands. You were hired.

Surprisingly, it didn't take long for you to get accustomed to working alongside Levi. Neither of you were particularly talkative, preferring to keep to yourselves as you did your individual tasks; but, even separately, you worked in perfect harmony together, a seamless fit.

Over the years, it became less that you worked for Levi, and more that you worked with him, the tea shop turning into something that belonged to the both of you. It was never something that was discussed, it was just understood.

You'd started adding your touches to the shop -- art hung on the walls, pillows on the chairs, little knickknacks here and there. The shop was undeniably warmer and more inviting, and even though Levi would narrow his gaze each time you added something new, he never stopped you.

One day, he'd even shown up and placed a small ceramic cat on the counter, adjusting its position just so, though he wouldn't tell you where he got it. You'd teased him, somewhat relentlessly, about it, to which he blushed despite himself and muttered that it was never going to happen again, that you were a horrible nuisance in his life; you called him "such a baby", but made him a cup of black tea and all was forgiven. He brought a new plant into the shop the following week.

You'd share knowing glances with each other whenever a customer was particularly talkative or bothersome, and after they'd leave, you'd gripe to each other about it.

During breaks or lulls in the day, you'd both hover over the same book on the counter, reading simultaneously, your shoulders brushed together just barely. You wouldn't say anything, or even share your thoughts or opinions -- you'd just read, together, settled into the quiet of the tea shop.

As the time passed on, you'd begun to care for Levi, in a way you hadn't expected, hadn't experienced before. When he'd occasionally burn his hand on the stove, you'd hold the ice to his hand. When he had a cold (which he'd never admit to), you'd bring him soup from the cafe down the street. When you could tell he hadn't been sleeping well, you'd tell him to go home early and you'd handle cleaning up and closing the shop.

He'd always frown slightly and say something about how you shouldn't go through the trouble, that he can take care of himself, but you could tell that he appreciated it, that he might have even begun to count on it. You'd usually just tell him to shut up. He'd laugh, barely.

You knew, somehow, that you were the only person he let treat him this way -- gentle, caring.

You two had developed a quiet sort of friendship. You didn't talk all that much, you never saw each other outside of the shop, and you were both a bit rough around the edges. But, you fit together. Understood each other. It was as simple as that.

That was how it had been for years, which is why it took you by surprise when, on one particularly cold winter night, Levi insisted on going with you as you walked home after closing. You'd hesitated for a moment to answer, recalling all of the rainy, snowy, cold late nights that you'd walked home alone before, but the expression on his face told you that any protesting would be pointless. So, you let him.

Once you'd arrived at your front door, the two of you lingered silently on your porch, the only sound the soft creaking of the wood below and the brisk wind shuffling through the trees.

"Thanks for taking me home, Levi," you'd said, pulling your key out of your coat pocket and beginning to reach for the door. "Goodni-"

His hand clasped around your wrist, halting your movement. Your eyes snapped to his face, his gaze secured onto his grip on your wrist. A stretched moment of quiet passed between you two, as you waited for him to say something, but he didn't.

"Okay," you said, drawing the word out, raising an eyebrow slightly as you look at him. "Are you holding me hostage because you think it'd be funny to see me freeze to death out here, or...?"

The tension in his expression dissipated slightly, your dry, teasing tone eased his frayed nerves with a comforting familiarity. He'd gotten used to you, to the way you spoke; it became one of the few, small things he'd ever allowed himself to rely on.

"Y/N," he said, his tone taking on a softness, a somewhat pleading vulnerability that you'd never heard before, as his eyes finally drifted up to meet your gaze. The cloudy grayness in his eye faded into a pale, ethereal blue under the moonlight, the features of his face illuminated, exposed.

He didn't have to say another word. You knew exactly what he meant. That was just the way you two worked.

"Yeah," you'd whispered, knowingly, the word pillowing into the cold air.

His hand slid down your wrist to your hand, his rough, calloused fingers gripping around yours with a sense of uncertainty and newness, like he was learning a new language. He tugged gently, drawing you in, close enough that when both of you breathed, the visible clouds mixed together.

His free hand rose to your face, slowly grasping around your jaw. His teeth clenched slightly, a hint of self-consciousness in his gaze as he looked at the gap his missing fingers left on your cheek; feeling unable to hold you completely.

"Don't," you whispered, somewhat sternly, urging the self-doubt out of his gaze. Your hand flew up to cover his, holding it against your face, the missing fingers not even a thought in your mind.

"You always do that." The words came out as a rough, tumbling statement.

Your lips curled into a faint smile, your head tilted into his palm. "Do what?"

"Protect me," he whispered, his eyes searching yours, "from myself, mostly."

"Can't help it," you whispered back, the words softening his gaze even further.

Before he could think about it more, before he could stop himself, he pulled you in closer, only a sliver of cold air between your lips. He paused for a beat, drawing in a shallow breath, before closing the space. His lips trembled against yours for a fleeting second, before melting against yours. A perfect fit.

His grip on your cheek tightened slightly, his lips moved against yours with a quiet desperation, as if communicating all the words he'd been wanting to say.

He broke the kiss just as suddenly as it started, his lips remaining parted, soft and glistening.

"Goodnight, Y/N," he whispered, before leaning in to press a kiss on your cheek by your ear, his thumb brushing against your jaw one last time. He took one last look at you, his expression somewhat unreadable, before turning and leaving you at your doorstep.

That night was not too long ago, only a few weeks had passed since. Your relationship was like a delicate melody -- starting slow and gentle, then blooming into a perfectly synchronized symphony.

He'd started bringing you home every night, and he'd come inside for a while, sitting on your couch with you, talking more than he ever had (which still wasn't much, by most people's standards). You'd make dinner for the two of you, drape a blanket on his lap on the couch, gently tend to the scars on his face when they'd occasionally get irritated.

You'd lean your head on his shoulder, intertwine your fingers with his. Sometimes, he'd lean into your touch, slinging an arm around you and letting his head settle into the curve of your neck. Your fingers would stroke his hair softly or trace patterns up and down his back.

He'd always thank you at the end of the night and kiss you as if you were about to disappear into thin air. While he never specified what he was thanking you for, you knew he was thanking you for taking care of him.

That's all you really wanted to do -- care for him. You knew that his scars ran deeper than the visible ones, and the more he shared bits of his past with you, you could tell that he never had it easy. His life, until now, was one of fighting, survival, and loss. All you wanted was to alleviate some of the pain, some of the weight that had built up within him for so long.

So, you did these little things to dote on him, to show him what true affection felt like, in hopes that someday, he'd realize how deserving he is of it. That over time, the little things would grow into bigger things, that affection wouldn't be so foreign and unsettling to him. You were willing to wait.

He was by your front door now, slinging his jacket onto his shoulders, preparing to head home after another night spent together. You'd sat on the couch, his head on your shoulder, and he'd just finished telling you a simple story about Furlan and Isabel, who you'd learned about recently.

"Levi," you begin, your eyes shifting toward the window, at the powdery snow flurrying through the air. "It's freezing outside, you need more than a jacket."

His gaze follows yours out the window, his expression remaining unfazed. "It's just snow, Y/N."

You ignore him, and grab a knit, brightly colored scarf from the coat rack and hand it to him, your expression stern, but gentle. "Wear this."

"What? You can't be serious. I'll look ridiculous," he looks at you and the scarf dubiously, his brows pressed together with distaste. "I'll be fine."

"Would you just shut up and take it?" You roll your eyes, but you smile, affectionately. Before he can object further, you wrap the scarf around him, earning a groan from the back of his throat.

His nose scrunches slightly in disapproval, and the corners of his lips curve downward, but he lets you finish placing the scarf around his neck.

"Thanks, Y/N," he mumbles, leaning in to kiss your cheek, the touch soft and fleeting.

Mhm, you hum softly, satisfied with your little victory. You think he's about to turn and leave, but he doesn't -- he’s there, still, looking at you for a long moment.

"What, hoping to get a matching beanie?" You tease, warmly, a laugh escaping your lips.

He shakes his head.

"I told you a while ago that I never felt like I had a home before. Not a real one, anyway. But..." he says, his voice taking on a softened introspection, a gentleness to his face that you've discovered he reserves only for you. "I think this is it."

"Marley? Yeah, it's not so bad. Told you you'd get used to it," you say, a gentle, affectionate teasing in your voice, your fingers adjusting the scarf around his neck.

"No, Y/N. Not Marley," he corrects, his voice barely above a whisper, his gaze remaining intently fixated on yours. "You. You're my home."

Your expression melts, a faint pink blush rising to your cheeks. Your hand drifts up from the scarf to cradle his cheek, your thumb tracing his cheekbone.

He turns his head, his eyes remaining on you, and he presses a soft kiss into your palm. The kiss feels like he's making a promise to always be yours, and for you to always be his.

Masterlist

Requests are OPEN!

Requested by @beautiful-is-boring

[1800titz]

THREE

The one where Y/N and Harry are neighbors in an apartment complex, he's got a bunny called Snuggles, he makes softcore porn spanking people (it's a REALLY LOUD HOBBY), and Y/N has definitely called the police for a domestic disturbance next door.

WEE third part and she's a big one, this is where the plot kind of heavily starts to differ from the OG. This one definitely gives more of a deep-dive into Harry's character to set things up in that aspect. Reblogs/feedback always super appreciated. If you like a fic, sharing the work with the reblog button and leaving a comment/sending an anon keeps writers motivated to keep posting on this platform for free! (ꈍ◡ꈍ) <3

FETISH masterlist : PATREON masterlist (316.7K+ words of content and updating) : MAIN masterlist

CONTENT/WARNINGS: rumors, a DIY pastry delivery service (flavor: apologetic), sexual undertones/smutty insinuations, impact playing/spanking mentions

WC: 13.3K

Some people collect souvenirs. Harry collects tote bags.

It’s not inherently a purposeful, curated trove of keepsakes— not in the same way an avid mug collector would eye one of those kitsch ceramic cups with a city name stretched across it on a trip abroad, and then add it to their collection. It’s just one of those things that keeps happening. A bookstore here; a street fair there; a pop up farmer’s market that sold homemade pepper jam and, incidentally, merchandise that could not be ignored.

He likes them. They’re convenient, and whoever had started the stigma against man-purses just had an agenda to steamroll practicality. As a child, he’d had the hardest time wrapping his mind around it— seeing his mother with a heavy purse perpetually slung over her shoulder, always assuming the practice was some normatively imposed hassle, rather than a beacon of functionality. As an adult, however, Harry can confidently admit, with full disclosure, that he was naïve, misinformed, and frankly, uneducated.

From the array, he has his go-to’s— a jute edition with a singular green sardine embroidered into the center (both a durable option and quirky in its minimal, offbeat design), and a cloth alternative with the word NO in plastisol ink. Simple, effective, all caps, midnight black lettering; it speaks for itself. The third option is another cloth variant, but it’s decorated with the outline of a steaming mug, and he’d picked the piece up from a poky coffee shop during a trip to France, years ago.

Most from the assortment, however, remain as untouched bundles of fabric stacked in the corner of his pantry as soft, vaguely judgmental relics of errands past. There are four tote bags that he hasn’t used in over a year. One is from a pop-up wine shop. Another has a sardonic quote about late capitalism on it, and he only ever reached for it when he was in the midst of a particularly antagonistic streak. One is too stiff to fold properly and therefore exiled. The last one— plain canvas, no print, worn soft at the corners— has inexplicably developed a smell he can’t quite place. Not bad, just faintly of old paper and maybe a foreign shampoo that’s never existed in his possession— something that feels achingly, too closely squeezed between nostalgia and a sense of impending existential upheaval. He keeps intending to throw the bag out, but there’s something threaded into its lived-in texture that feels a little too personal to discard. It’s been to all the best places with him. He once brought it on a third date with a girl whose name he can’t quite place anymore, and he suspects that’s part of the reason he’s held onto it for as long as he has; sentiment by proxy. The bag has stayed, for whatever reason, even as the woman it vaguely reminds him of has almost completely faded from memory— face, and name, and all. 

It’s the kind of thing Harry doesn’t notice has become a habit until he’s opening up his pantry door and discovering the tangle on the floor, shoved up under the lowest tier of the shelving unit. Something he’s reminded has calcified without his conscious awareness. The tote bags. The particular corner by the door where he deposits his keys out of muscle memory. The rhythm of casual consistency interacting with the other tenants carries: a nod in the hallway; cheerful smalltalk; one of those instances where one of the elderly ladies Harry has befriended in the complex— by the grace of God-given dimples and a sense of charm his friends scoff at— (Barb, who lives on the same floor, and Eunice, who resides on the seventh) ropes him into a conversation and ultimately hands off a plate of baked goods. It’s consistent— it’s comfortable. 

Which is why, Harry supposes, the shift in energy feels so loud. 

It’s been four days since Y/N had confronted him head-on with her grievous misconceptions— in the middle of the night, surrounded by a half-awake cohort of their neighbors, no less— and despite his upfront explanation, within those four days, the rumors have multiplied at a rate that defies science. 

Only a couple of days ago, he’d stepped out to water his plants and overheard a group of girls, unbeknownst to his eavesdropping— a circle of collegiate roommates, as far as he understands, given that he’s heard them discuss Kappa Sigma’s infamous Brett’s cock in disgustingly avid detail (is girth more important than integrity? The world may never know)— conversing out on the balcony right beneath his own. Once, he’d sat through four whole minutes of what sounded like an intervention about “the ethics of fucking your lab partner for Adderall.” The conversation wasn’t nearly enthralling enough to stomach more before he finished his joint and went back inside, but this time, the snippet he hears gives him pause. He stands still with his watering can in his hand, hovering over Monte (a bushy thing that’s tripled in size since he first acquired it from the plant nursery), and his pink mouth slowly settles into a grimace the longer he listens. 

“I heard he was on house arrest, but they removed the ankle monitor early.”

“No, no, he’s just in witness protection. But like, bad at it.”

“Wait, I thought he was an ex-cop?”

“No, he’s a dom.”

“…A what?”

“A dom. You know. A professional one.”

“Like a dominatrix?”

“Isn’t that just a woman?”

“I don’t know, I just know he runs one of those torture chambers and probably wears leather.”

“Holy shit, Jess.”

Oh, Jess. A 3.9 GPA— honestly, impressive, given that she’s spent more time scrolling GreekRank gossip forums and contemplating professor tier lists based on cuddle game than studying— and still, somehow, so, so off.

When someone else tacks on, after an awed pause, “…Do you think there’s a sign-up sheet we could hit?” and a peal of girlish giggles erupts, the man literally has to muscle down his eye roll. The last group of people he wants on his roster are a freshly-legal coalition of matching crop tops with vodka breath. It’s not exactly his ideal demographic.

Harry walks back inside off the balcony with a new understanding that day; according to the messy sorority circle in the apartment under him, apparently he’s a dom-for-hire. Which is also— he discovers in the oncoming days— probably one of the friendlier, more innocent assumptions.

It’s not overt; it’s not like anyone says anything to him directly, or plasters misdirected anger management flyers to the back of his door. It’s soft-burn, subtle things. Quieter than a simple dirty look pointed into his direction. 

For starters, the man in 9E, who unironically refers to him as buddy, in the way only a middle-aged dad does during a Superbowl party with an amicable shoulder-clap, doesn’t return much more than a brisk yep in response to some cordial, small-talky joke Harry makes in passing regarding a local sports team. It’s an instance that isn’t inherently suspicious, but when taken into consideration alongside the way the lady in 9G with the green glasses doesn’t smile back at him all of a sudden... well. It packs a little more of a punch. Even the yappy little pomeranian leashed around her knuckles— who typically opts for self-strangulation via collar in its pursuit to get closer to him and paw up at his knees— seems to hang back, sniffing at the air as he passes and choosing to chase its own tail instead. 

Harry doesn’t consider himself to be paranoid. Intuitional, contemplative— sure. Paranoia, though, that’s for the type of man that trims a duct tape square to stick over his laptop camera and tells someone that 5G will give them brain tumors. And yes, in theory, every semi-curt interaction he’s archived with his neighbors over the prior days could be chalked up to perfectly excusable coincidences in a collective bad experience, entirely unrelated to him, but Harry simply has awareness. It does not operate off of a tinfoil hat or a conspiracy rant posted onto a niche online forum— it involves that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach and dresses itself far better than delusion. A group of ladies stops and stares in the mailroom, huddled like an overly lip-glossed coven— all pristine acrylics, and Gymshark workout sets, and coconut dry shampoo— in a way where Harry can feel their eyes searing into the muscle along the side of his shoulder.

It’s not guilt. He knows that much. It’s not quite shame, though, either. No, he’s long past shame— that’s a mechanism he discarded a long time ago when he’d started wearing those tiny running shorts that ride high on the thigh and realized he didn’t particularly care who watched him haul a bag of frozen peas out of Trader Joe’s while donning them. 

It’s something worse.

It is a vague, creeping certainty that a version of him now exists that he can no longer control. 

It’s always existed, somewhere, at some point, he supposes. It varies— mutates— wears one face in a group chat somewhere, takes another shape in a soft-spoken recollection over a plastic coffee cup, one girlfriend to another. He’s been around— a… polite, genteel euphemism for the flyer miles he’s packing below the belt, Harry supposes— gotten around enough, to know that this piece of him lives like a shadow and occasionally reinvents itself through word-of-mouth. He’s self-aware. Probably alive as a screenshot and a one-sided story in a group chat or three.

The problem with this edition, though? It’s alive, and it’s false, it spores. It magnifies, and it reaches, and it’s current— it does not exist like a weak echo in a group text; it smears itself over his face like a clear film as he walks the halls, and he can’t wipe it. It is a version constructed out of silhouettes, and assumptions, and just enough circumstantial evidence to stick. 

He’s lost control of the narrative on a large scale, and he doesn’t know how to get it back. 

It’s not that he even cares what people think, not necessarily. He’s a grown man. He pays his bills on time and almost every lighting fixture in his home is bluetooth. He doesn’t crave approval from a bunch of twenty-somethings who, as far as he can tell, spend their nights screeching over which of their exes had the best dick game and arguing over whether or not a “real feminist” would get lip filler. He’s not interested in being a topic of conversation among girls named Kennedi and Tiffani with an “i.” He just… would prefer not to be accused of domestic violence in a vague, wafting way that only groupthink and mildly traumatic social media exposure can concoct.

The thing is, he can’t even find it within himself to be truly upset with Y/N for the fallout. Not in a sincere way, at least, like a burgeon of spite rooting in and gnarling into a grudge. He’s a little miffed, sure, (frankly, justified, given that having his reputation dismantled over adults exploring consensual bruising techniques was never exactly the ideal), but he doesn’t fault her for her vigilance. In fact, he would probably have similar assumptions and a similar moral dilemma; if only he wasn’t on the other end of the misinterpretation, and if he wasn’t aware that what sounded like violence was just a consensual implementation of a fairly aggressive fetish. 

He thinks he can pinpoint the incident that’d caused the spiral, vaguely, but really it’s a bit of a raunchy blur given the usual rotation, isn’t it? Really, it’s basically, probably Katy’s fault for being so loud in that session with the hairbrush over an overdue parking ticket (not quite short and sweet, but she’d literally asked for it, please and all), which in turn translates into it being his fault for not coaxing her to practice a little more restraint with her pipes.  

Anyways, he can technically retrace the steps and find the root of how a little agreed upon accountability has branded him into public enemy number one, but he’d at least like some benefit of the doubt (given that every unsmiling neighbor has entirely bypassed the fairly thorough explanation he’d given the girl). A little guilty-until-proven innocent action. It’s the bare minimum, really. 

The man stares up at the popcorn ceiling and a little frown envelops the pink corners of his mouth, tucking them down. Guilt is strange, he thinks, especially when he’s technically done fuckall wrong. It’s not that it’s a foreign emotion by any means, but so many times he’d resided on the other end of the equation, with the guilty party strung over his lap, or on her knees between his legs, or caught up between his fingers. He can’t fathom how the sensation coiling in the pit of his belly could ever be twisted into an aphrodisiac, but he supposes it’s a bit different when a power exchange is involved. 

Something taps his socked foot. Slowly, the man lifts his chin and blinks down from the angle where he’s craned his neck flat against the back of the couch. Snuggles climbs over his foot nonchalantly. 

It would blow over. Of that, Harry was grotesquely certain. Canceled Tuesday; forgotten by Friday. People, as a collective, mostly remembered rumors with the clarity of a windshield smeared in expired mayonnaise— foggy, patchy— and had attention spans mirroring all the longevity of a soap bubble in a hurricane. Right now, he’s become the unfortunate centerpiece in the monthly community scandal, but it would only take one yoga mom inevitably starting an affair with her personal trainer, and the spotlight would be diverted. Eventually, the soft-core cancellation would fossilize into one of those half-remembered stories, not nearly exciting enough to be retold, and the mythos rots. 

Besides, in a world where a man could get a sponsorship for reviewing moisturizer on TikTok while actively evading tax fraud allegations, Harry figures a mild spanking kink has ever been grounds for permanent exile. It’ll be fine, the man reminds himself. There is absolutely zero call for spiraling.

Y/N is spiraling.

As the days pass and the realization of what she’s done— what she’s managed to accomplish with a cracked moral compass and a sense of justice wired too tight— truly settles, the consequences, (uninvited, overdressed, in heels), anchor somewhere behind her ribcage. It does not crash. It glides in, quietly, like a cat with blood on its paws circling her ankles, and the young woman steeps in the tracks the longer she weighs it out in her head and picks it apart. Puts it back together. Picks it apart again. 

The little investigatory descent into his digital footprint had, shockingly, been for the worse after all— it’d only fostered a new dilemma. Because now, not only did she feel bad about the accusations, but she was catastrophically aware of his large hands and what they looked like doing pixelated, raunchy (terrible, horrible for whatever flimsy scaffolding of morality she was still clinging to, and his dignity, in that order) things.

It is with this vague sense of impending doom that Y/N decides she probably owes the man a formal apology. The only question— a daunting conquest she’s been left to unpack— is how. A note left stapled to his door, despite the efficiency, feels far too impersonal (given the… weight of her transgressions). A note slipped offhandedly into the envelope collection residing in his mailbox, on the other hand, feels downright intrusive and borderline stalker-ish. It’s soaked in the same energy of shoving love notes into locker grates in junior high, retreating with a whistling speed walk, and the sheer notion nearly puts a bad, familiar taste in her mouth. Surely if Zachary didn’t appreciate the method fifteen or so years ago, her next door neighbor wouldn’t, either. She doesn’t have his phone number, but sending a text would probably feel just as sterile as the first idea, chock-full of the same emotional sentiment as elevator music.  

Hey, so— sorry I accused you of being a felon! (cup-pong attachment). 

This conclusion, of course, is what leaves her clumsily following an apple pie recipe off of Pinterest on her day off, flour smeared across the crests of her sweaty cheeks and dusting the front of her Arctic Monkeys sleep shirt. The best way to express regret and make amends— the valiant, adult method— Y/N decides, is to confront the conflict head on, face to face, in the flesh; and the proper measures to decrease the likelihood of having a door slammed in her face would be the introduction of a baked good alongside her tight, awkward smile. A touch of sweetener.

The pie— honestly, as Y/N had pessimistically expected, despite the way she’d gingerly followed the digital instructions to the T— had dissolved into the kind of spectacular failure typically reserved for first-though tweets and mid-season AMC finales. 

The filling soaked through the undercooked base. The crust was too aggressively homemade— patchy in some places, too thick in others, with a venting cut-out that had vaguely resembled a uterus, or possibly a jellyfish. It was a shape that was hard to place. Ultimately, it was the kind of in-the-flesh reminder of her aggressively consistent inability to bake that had prompted her to opt for store bought treats. Namely, the cute little scones her cafe offered; partly due to the employee discount, and partly on account of how popular the menu item seems to be.

So, here she is; metaphorically twiddling her thumbs in front of his door on a Saturday afternoon with her knuckles curled around a paper bag of edible reparations, attempting to convince herself to just knock. 

Just knock. Just… knock.

She’s not entirely sure if the way she feels her pulse rabbiting (a steady, progressively intensifying thrum that makes her head feel a little light) in her throat should be credited to her general sense of apprehension addressing this, or the different lens she sees him through, courtesy of his video diary archive. She had always found the man next door attractive (it was unavoidable, really— she had a working set of eyes, after all), but the little research project had spun him up into a new light, and the lewd details still web across in the pit of her underbelly. For courage, Y/N puckers her mouth and blows out a deep breath, and then she lifts her free hand and raps her knuckles against the door. 

And for a long moment, there’s no answer. Shifting her weight from one knee onto the other, the young woman lets her eyes peruse over the crown molding that decorates the hallway. The only noise in the lull is the sound of the paper bag in her hand crinkling and the undeviating whir of the AC pumping along the floor. With all of the delicate, calm patience reserved for the waiting room in a dreaded dental appointment, Y/N casts a glance to her own respective door, only a few, short steps away. The stretch of lingering silence reminds her that he may not even be home at all, given that it’s a weekend, (and this whole thing is so impromptu, and strange), and—

Before the young woman’s paper-thin shred of courage inevitably combusts, the familiar sound of a door chain slipping open on the other side and then the door lock unfastening breaks through the haze of her thoughts. She freezes. 

As the door peels back to reveal her innocuous (tenderly sleepy-looking) neighbor— bare feet, sweats (the kind that cling to and hang from all the right places), conspicuously vulgar tee (Safe Sex!: two cartoonish, faceless lilac figures with their arms crossed and their hands fisting over the others’ phalluses), and gently sleep-mussed curls— Y/N can only blink up at him with all the words she’d rehearsed so meticulously lodged at the back of her throat. 

Finally, as if her sense of social awareness has kickstarted into recalibration, the young woman pastes a smile over her mouth, so flimsy she feels her lips wobbling as they curl around her teeth and so wide that her cheeks burn from the strain. The vague sense of anxiety coursing through her blood spikes, and the hammer behind her ribcage forces her numb tongue into motion off the roof of her mouth as her cheeks blister and her head swims.

“Hi. I, uh— I have scones. There’s, uh. Three of them, here,” Y/N launches, glancing down at the paper bag and nearly prying it open as she over-explains the unanticipated visit. “They’re not poisoned,” she tacks on, lashes fluttering as her nervous system forges on in overdrive, and the idiotic statement nearly has her gnawing her tongue in half the second the words slip off its textured, wet landing, “…don’t worry.”

With all the energy of a man limned in fatigue, facing a door dash delivery he’d never ordered, Harry blinks.

Y/N is a nice girl. Up until only a few days ago, in fact, Y/N had been just about the picture-perfect definition of Harry’s ideal next-door tenant; relatively reserved and just polite enough to bypass the awkward inconvenience that rode on the recurrent issue of their mail interchanging. There was, of course, the misaligned streak of vigilantism, but at her core, Harry’s sure that Y/N is still a nice girl. 

This theory in mind, the curly-haired brunette genuinely feels a little bad at the level of amusement swelling up within him as he watches her, with no apparent trigger, self-destruct in real time. Although, if he’s being entirely honest, it’s only a faint echo of a thought— all things considered— and is significantly outweighed by his mirth.

There’s a flavor of entertainment— a rare, emotional genre that lives in that exclusive umbra between secondhand embarrassment and morbid fascination, the kind that morally treads the same bandwidth as laughing at a video of someone getting hurt in an unpredictably ridiculous manner. And Harry— still fuzzy around the edges with the kind of creeping, misty stage of somnolence that dozing off midday entails (he’d been in the midst of a particularly important ritual; lying spread-eagled on the couch with one leg kicked up onto the back, half-engrossed in a documentary on luxury trains, eating dry cereal out of the bag when the drowsiness started settling like fog in the hollows of his limbs)— watches Y/N flounder with the same mild fascination he reserves for Youtube compilation videos of cats falling off of countertops. 

Her hair is slung up into a messy, haphazard updo, loose strands climbing out and stretching in soft static wisps to cup her cheekbones, and she’s wearing a short sleeve brown tee with a small Sip Happens logo embroidered over the left corner of her chest. It’s a coffee shop that the existence of vaguely lives in the dells of his memory, based on how often the man passes by it on his runs, and the wardrobe choice implies she’s either an avid punch-card user, or she works there. Tiny, almost imperceptible dry flakes of mascara cling to the soft skin of her under-eyes, like the layer of pigment has crumbled off her lashes over the course of the morning. Her cheeks are flushed as if she’s run a mile, and her grin (if it can even be called that) resembles trembling enamel more than friendliness. It’s cute in a way that probably shouldn’t be, doesn’t intend to be. Oddly endearing.

Apparently she has baked goods— scones, three of them, unpoisoned (which is a mildly relevant detail)— and she feels the need to announce it, so, based on context clues, he can only assume this element is related to her presence at his doorway. He thinks he can deduce what this is supposed to be (apology with a capital A; one that comes wrapped around café-sourced penance), but he hasn’t quite uncurled the warmth from the stretch of skin where his forearm had pressed into the couch for two hours too long, and her dewy pupils are cha-chaing behind her lashes like she wants something from him, so.

“Hey,” Harry murmurs, finally. His voice sounds thick (aggressively all too familiar to the kind of husky sounds she’s heard from the other side of the wall); vocal cords blatantly weathered in sleep, (verve cudgeled in sex, palm probably all sore and stingy from)—

The curly-haired brunette clears his throat, and Y/N simmers in the heat welling up under her skin. 

“Are these—“ Harry nudges with his chin, pointedly into the direction of the paper bag lodged under her clammy fingers, “…are you sharing?” 

“Yes! Yeah. They’re, well,” she holds the bag out to him, her tone laced with only the kind of over-enthused notes nervousness could conduct, “they’re for you, actually.”

Slowly, one of his hands reaches out, and as he locks his fingers over the side of the bag— right beneath where she’s got her own grip clasped over the haphazardly rolled top— the only thought that the young woman can conjure is a hysteria-laden mental-screencap of an image she’d rather not describe out loud.

As if entirely to dismantle Y/N’s sanity, the sheer size of his palms and the way they cradle the bag as she hands it off is enough to make her feel like something vile and wicked is clumsily somersaulting in her stomach. The indisputable fact is this: they are just hands. Long, delicately svelte fingers; colossal, massively, unjustifiably large hands, but hands nonetheless. 

The other irrefutable fact? These are hands Y/N has watched in incredibly obscene action. 

The thing is, by all technicalities, he is so soft, and his current state does no favors to dispute this impression. Right now, sleep-tousled and low-toned, words spilling like honeyed molasses in the languorous husk of his words, the whiplash spills through her like dense ink. Delicate tattoos reside over and under his kneecaps in fine lines, and in every other circumstance, a soft beam chisels dimples into his cheeks as he casually toes the line between real, alive man and fresco escapee. Behind the door somewhere, he’s got a rabbit called Snuggles, and that’s the brutal anomaly, Y/N decides. It is the foundation to which the geometric edges of her brain refuse to bend around. Because there is a fine, fine line in the way his soft, indigo-lacquered hands stretch out to accept an olive branch sown from overly-processed carbohydrates, and the way they move on camera; the way they plant flat, open-palmed blows on warm skin like bruising kisses, the way they trace the pink welts smacked alive in their wake with a delicacy reserved for reverence. They’re strong, rugged, steadfast, mean—

The young woman’s molars squeeze into the smooth, gummy lining along the inside of her cheek. There’s a little vein that runs up along his wrist, and that tendon bracketed by that jut of bone flexes in a manner so heavenly when he pauses to shake his fingers out. The bag, by no surprise, is dwarfed in his grip, and Y/N stands there with his eyes feeling like sticky, heavy inkpools drilling her into place. 

“How thoughtful,” Harry responds, eventually, faux musing, and an undeniable, little smile teases at the corners of his mouth on the latter fragment of the statement, “thank you for the… unpoisoned scones.” 

Sensing the man’s amusement at her awkward introduction, Y/N restrains the vivid sense of embarrassment that buoys to the surface, instead opting to tell him, “Right! Yeah. You’re welcome,” as her face flushes. With the original point of the delivery in mind, the girl clears her throat. “It’s… well, it’s actually, like, an apology-slash-please-don’t-sue-me gift,” she admits, gnawing into her lower lip. 

He leans a shoulder onto the doorframe then, brows shifting (rising) just a smidge, as an almost imperceptible symbolism of intrigue, before they settle back into place. “Is that hyphenated?”

Y/N stares. 

“Apology-slash-please-don’t-sue-me gift.”

“I— maybe?”

For a moment, her neighbor doesn’t say anything. Meaty arms crossed, paper bag hanging out from the hand that’s tucked under inky, smooth muscle, dark, cherubic ringlets coiling around his forehead. He purses his pink mouth like he’s biting back another simper, and then he sighs theatrically. 

“I won’t sue you,” he murmurs, faux-rolling his eyes playfully, as if the notion involves him being the bigger person and shedding a grudge, rather than letting her settle into a rightfully earned consequence. “Do you wanna come in, then? Miss Hyphens. I’ve got tea.”

His teeth— the front two, blocky and just a tad longer than the others— gently lodge over his plump lower lip expectantly. “Or coffee,” he tacks on, casting his gaze briefly onto her workwear. “Whatever goes with… scones.”

Y/N, for all the time she’s spent living next door to this man, despite sheer proximity, has never actually, fully held a conversation with him beyond simple mail-swap pleasantries. And for a man she’s so thoroughly defamed— a man she’s practically publicly sacrificed on the altar of assumption— he’s almost unexpectedly forgiving. Sure, the sweeteners are working just about as brilliantly as expected, but the invitation, unanticipated nonetheless, throws her so heavily that for a long beat, Y/N can only wordlessly blink at him from the hallway. That is, until her social awareness mechanism, sculpted by a handbook of socially acceptable etiquette rules hammered in from her from kidhood, kickstarts for— what? The third time? Maybe the fourth? In all honesty, she’s lost track, and frankly, it’s by no fault but her neighbor currently interacting with her. The thing is— he’s not even inherently doing anything. Just standing there, propped up against his own door frame, curls tufting around his ears, dewy eyes vibrantly taiga-like. And in all honesty, perhaps the only thing worse than dragging his good name through the mud, like a public medieval ritual, is the way she’d turned around right after the fact to sexualize him behind his back. That part? The softcore porn part? The way something low in her tummy had swirled, seeing him like that, rings denting faint shapes into skin? That’s something she will not— will not— revisit contemplating while standing in the radius of his jawline. It’s not even a jawline, she thinks. Not really. It’s a weapon. 

And despite however shitty of a person Y/N believes herself to be in this particular moment, libel and objectification and all, the rational fragment of her mind (chiseled by those social expectations), considers that accepting a warm drink from her neighbor when prompted— as opposed to wordlessly gawking— is the right choice. The normal option. Something a normal person would do. The alternative is spontaneous death on his welcome mat, and frankly, she doesn’t have the social stamina for that kind of posthumous legacy. There are only so many seconds a person can stand there, sweating through their coffee-stained work shirt, before offbeat, maybe semi-endearingly awkward takes a sharp pivot into the direction of downright strange.

And right now? He’s looking at her like she’s still in the former. 

So, with her face hot and her hands cold, Y/N blinks and nods, anchoring as much nonchalance into her voice as she can manage given the circumstances, “Yeah. Yes. Sure.”

The young woman is not entirely sure what she expects of Harry’s apartment. Not anything in particular really, beyond the fact that the layout should, in theory, be a mirror of her own home right across the drywall. What she discovers, inching quietly across her neighbor’s living room, is that while the general floorplan is almost a precise duplication in terms of spatial organization (that, while they share the same, pasty painted walls and worn beige carpet), the actual integrity of his design sort of puts her own to shame. On the granite peninsula that juts from the wall in the little kitchen beside the living room, in place of where Y/N has a stack of half-sutured envelopes— various bills, coupons, credit card offers, that one cancellation notice from her car insurance she’d received months ago (now resolved, but something she’d forgotten to bin)— there’s a stack of apartamento magazines with a half-burned Le Labo candle on top like a paperweight. In place of the barstools she’d picked up from a garage sale, there’s a record stand: wide, wooden, sleek, and by educated hypothesis, probably full and meticulously organized behind the doors. A tall shelf lined with books resides beside the sliding glass door to the balcony; classics, topics on philosophy, fiction, and self help. One book is all about failed utopias of the twentieth century, and another is on the cultural significance of soup. A hardback edition of the Kama Sutra is crammed into the corner. 

Y/N’s couch was a hand-me-down from a cousin. A ratty, jet black recliner that looked like it withstood the tale of time, surrendered over into her possession when said cousin’s wife finally convinced him into a new one after their ugly little maltese scratched up the leather. Harry’s looks like it’s a direct derivative from an Eames design catalog page. It stands facing the flat screen on the other side of the room, and beside it, there's a floor-level chair that, paradoxically, manages to somehow look both comfortable and like the stiffest resting invention to ever exist. In the center, there’s a dark, wooden accent table and on top of it there’s another pile of magazines, as if for the sole sake of decoration, and a stack of ceramic tile coasters with mismatched mid-century patterns, each one seemingly a different retro motif— abstract fruit, vaguely psychedelic squiggles. Beside the handful of other eccentric decorations Y/N notes (a framed architectural drawing on the wall, a marble fig with a chipped stem on the bookshelf, a tray with exactly seven multicolored lighters— three of them are red— an arc floor lamp with a tan paper-shade that dramatically arches over the couch), she can’t help but recognize that the apartment is painstakingly clean. Organized. Enough for her to gingerly toe off her non-slip sneakers by the door before she makes her way further into his home. 

Instead of immediately taking a seat, the young woman hovers. 

The first words out of her mouth are: “Where’s your bunny?”

“Probably off eating cardboard, somewhere. He’s a very… independent sort of bloke.”

Y/N nods, as if the admission is entirely in the ordinary. The man turns toward the television, operating on low volume, currently detailing some sort of video inside of what looks to be a carwash, with a close up of a mechanism being the shot that plays as he acknowledges it. His brows furrow. “Care to learn about the… wonders of carwash mechanics— I dunno what the fuck this is actually, I was watching something about trains.”

He looks up at her, a lopsided smile ticking the edges of his lips when he recognizes that she’s just lingering by the coffee table like she’s unsure of what to do with herself. “You can sit, you know.”

Y/N blinks like a deer in headlights as she’s called out, limbs unraveling from the way they’ve caged over her chest in universal symbolism of apprehension. “Oh. Thanks.”

She’s kicked her shoes off, and she’s standing in his living room in a fashion that implies she’s afraid to touch something (lest it break), and it’s a sight that’s still, from a morally dubious standpoint, sort of deliciously entertaining. But, he’s a decent host after all, and she did go out of her way to bring him baked treats, which is a considerate notion, so he’s not going to let her literally stand there and stew in her own awkward hesitancy, no matter how amusing the view is.

“You brought scones,“ the curly-haired brunette twists his chin over his shoulder as he passes into the kitchen, quipping playfully, “That’s at least fifteen minutes of hospitality.”

When Y/N takes a seat on the couch, hands gluing to her knees— opting for the safe choice (she’s not quite ready to discover whether the leathery, pillow-looking togo chair on the other side will sculpt to her posture or annihilate her tailbone)— she discovers that this seat, at least, is more comfortable than she’d anticipated. She’s still not quite sure what to do with herself though. What to say, whether she should launch into an apologetic monologue on the misunderstanding (given his unexpectedly cheery disposition, she supposes she won’t have to grovel for forgiveness, which is a reassurance). Meanwhile, her neighbor busies himself in the kitchen, picking up an electric kettle from the counter and propping the lid open with a button on the handle, filling it with water from a filtered container beside the sink, and then setting it back onto the heating base that’s plugged into the wall. The process takes an entire, silent fifteen seconds.

“I like your place,” the young woman settles on, eventually, her eyes still wandering over the expanse of his decor. Her gaze ends up resting on a little bear statue on the TV stand. “It’s… nice. Like, quietly cozy.”

“Surprisingly no screaming women,” Harry responds nonchalantly, still turned away with his back in her direction. 

The comment catches her off guard, and the squeezy, sick feeling coils up her stomach at the reminder. Right. The monologue was… probably the correct choice, after all.

“Oh, God.”

“You said ‘quiet,’” Harry pivots, still only half-facing her (granting her the sight of his hulking shoulder), but he sounds far more amused then disdained, like he’s muscling it down and teasing, and a dimple presses into his cheek like punctuation before it fades out, “Not me. Tea? Coffee?”

“Yeah, please. Tea. I’m… sorry. That was— I don’t even know.”

Y/N wants to bury her face in her hands. She doesn’t. She keeps them very politely sealed over her knees, because that’s a new level of self-pitying pathetic she won’t let him witness, but she can’t bridle her grimace as she contemplates what had happened, nonetheless. It’s like a… bad memory she can’t burn out from behind her skull. 

Pulling open the kitchen cabinet across from him, Harry retrieves a plate alongside two mugs. One is a deep shade of blue, hand-glazed, with just enough imperfections to insinuate he’d either picked it up as one of those hand-made junk-donations from a thrift store or wheel-thrown it himself. The origin is the latter; he’d sculpted the creation in a little pottery shop downtown with a group of friends, years ago, and, admittedly, the shots the cohort had taken before taking on the crafting experience shows through its craftsmanship. The other is a white mug with a little doodle of an orange jellybean on one side, and it has a chip on the rim. Not sharp enough to cut, but just misaligned enough to require constant lip navigation. From the same cabinet (different shelf), he also culls a sealed cardboard cylinder of loose-leaf black tea that he prefers to order online. He reserves the chipped option for himself and carefully shakes out a serving into each cup.

“Hm, yeah. Horribly offensive,” Harry murmurs offhandedly, his voice laced with faux-disappointment as he twists the lid back on, “You should be flogged. But I’ll accept the scones as a plea deal.”

Despite the way the joke is delivered with no openly coy motive, spoken with the same energy as a jesting “jail” comment (no intended innuendo), something twists deep in Y/N’s belly when it lands. Something distinctly different from the shame that’s been bubbling. 

A nervous bark of laughter squeezes at her vocal cords, scraping its way out from the back of her throat before she clears it and pivots the topic of conversation sharply. She is not going to soak in that inadvertent double entendre or attempt to dissect what the suggestion means. 

“What do you do, um, for work?”

As the kettle continues to heat to the required setting, with the tea stored back into its spot and the cabinet door softly closed, Harry turns back to face his guest and reaches for the bag of scones he’d set onto the peninsula.

“I’m a videographer.” For a moment, his features crinkle up, green irises skating to the ceiling as if in brief thought, then smooth, “Well. Kind of. I was, now I just mostly stick to the editing side. I do, like, real estate listings for social media.”

“Oh,” Y/N says, genuine notes of intrigue coloring her tone, “that’s awesome.”

One of his shoulders rides up in a shrug, like the job is what it is, as he one-handedly spills the packet’s contents out onto the plate he’d earlier set aside— scones, three of them, unpoisoned. Although the job itself is comfortable and remote, with a wide spectrum of clientele (courtesy of his networking abilities), it has its difficulties as much as its perks. The man sets the plate up onto the peninsula as he discards the bag into the bin. “It’s alright. I used to do weddings and I always thought groomsmen choreography was tragic, but I’ve learned that you don’t know despair until you’re working with a realtor that looks like they’re being held at gunpoint because there’s a camera in their face.”

Last week, he’d been sent a collection of files in which, in the most polite terms possible, no clip was any better than the last. While technically filmed well (given that he partners with other reputable videographers he’s worked with before, usually borderline unemployed college kids looking for gigs, comfortable taking a cut of the profit— Harry had realized early on he couldn’t handle directing camera-shy gen x-ers without feeling incredibly drained by the end of the day, and honestly preferred the almost entirely remote work), it was the behavior of the agent being filmed that had made him cringe. He’d sat there, one hand dug into a bag of Hippeas and the other on the mouse, with the monitor screen providing the only light source as he watched through the attachments on the drive. It genuinely took so little effort to forge some drive into whatever pre-scripted spiel they were giving— check out these custom cabinet handles! or this gorgeous flooring, genuine wood, dates back to…— and flash a few smiles into the direction of the lens that Harry was sure just about anyone could do it. And watching some of the horror-show clips he’d received back left him slightly unsure of how exactly some of these clients managed to make a living to begin with. In theory, these people should already know how to sell a house, and the entirety of the process should be even easier given the fact that there are no limits on exactly how many clips are taken. And still, somehow, Harry had sat through about nine of the same— similar enough— recordings of an agent completely demolishing what little hope Harry had for the industry. 

Some involved long pauses and mispronounced words. Others involved awkward body language through the delivery— hangs swinging nervously, eyes lingering to the side where he imagines cue-cards were held up. Every clip involved the same lifeless tone and the same uncomfortable posture. A genuinely dismayed, semi-disgusted sound had spilled from his mouth as he witnessed the fallout before he’d plucked another puff from the bag and chewed. The thing is, yes— Harry can alter the footage. Cut any awkward breaks, sew clips together seamlessly enough if anything doesn’t work. But he can’t actually alter whatever the person is doing on the clip, and when every sentence sounds like someone is threatening them from the other side of the camera, he can’t even opt for voice-overs over b-roll. 

Needless to say, sixteen hours of editing later, Harry had a semi-presentable product to send off, but he also had a headache and a distinct mental note to never work with that man again. 

“That sounds… unreasonably bleak for a job involving marble countertops and voice overs.” 

“It is,” Harry admits, deadpan, “It’s like if HGTV and a hostage video had a baby.” 

He turns back to the kettle as it chimes, signifying the water has heated to the optimal temperature, and then lifts it off the base to pour water into both mugs and let the tea steep. 

“And I’m gonna assume,” he says, twisting his chin over his shoulder at her in acknowledgement as the water trickles, plumes of steam seeping up from the tops of the mugs, “you’re a barista? Lucky guess?”

Y/N blinks, batting her lashes at him from the couch at the assumption. “Why do you think that?”

With the kettle back in its spot, Harry turns slightly, one hand planted onto the counter and the other situated on his hip. The one on his hip motions out as he pretends to mull it over, brows furrowing, “Well, you’re either the Sip Happens unofficial brand ambassador, or you work there.”

He blinks and nudges his chin pointedly at her choice of wardrobe, a slow smile unfurling over his lips as the girl glances down and the realization hits her. She’d forgotten, for a moment, that she was still wearing her uniform from the morning shift, and she blinks back up at him with sheepish recognition swelling in her features, a little half-smile cresting her mouth. 

“Oh. Right. Yeah.”

“Milk?” his pointer taps against the granite, “Sugar?”

Y/N takes a deep breath. “No thank you and yes please.”

As the man turns on his heel and picks up a jar of sugar situated beside the kettle and then pulls a spoon out from a drawer, Y/N swallows and clears her throat again. The sound of the metal spoon clinking against the edges of ceramic overlaps with her inquiry as he mixes the sugar into her respective cup. “How did you get into videography?”

“I went to school,” Harry answers once the sugar’s been mixed into the hot beverage, and the leaves are in the process of settling to the bottom, swirling around in the liquid. He sets the utensil into the sink, and takes a mug in each hand. “And then I realized that law felt like a… very expensive way to slowly rot from the inside out. Just about as soul-sucking as everyone promised.”

The proximity between them decreases as he explains, and by the end of his statement, he’s stood ahead of her in a way that has her chin tilting up to meet his gaze. His fingers are cupped over the rim of the mug in a purposeful way— to have the handle readily available for her to take. She glances down at the offering, gingerly curling her fingers over the curved attachment so as not to burn her skin on the heated ceramic, murmuring a quiet thank you as he hands the tea off.

“Don’t worry,” he assures, voice low and teeming with low grade playfulness, “It’s also not poisoned.”

“Ha,” Y/N responds flatly. Despite the molten heat spilling through the ceramic and the way it stings at her fingertips when she touches it, she takes the mug by the handle and grazes the other side with the opposite hand. The heat, to some extent, grounds her. 

That same nervous edge itches into her veins as she watches him pick a coaster up from the stack on the accent table and set it down ahead of her. Then, he sets the plate of scones into the center, on top of the magazines, plucks one up, and takes a seat on the togo chair with his own respective mug. 

“What about you?” Harry asks, motioning out with the treat between his fingers before he takes a bite, “Caffeine always been your calling?”

It’s a good scone, he’ll give her that. He can almost taste the notes of apology sewn into the blueberry flavoring as he chews. He watches her shoulders sag as she breathes, her gaze skidding to the side in thought before it settles back on him.  

“Surprisingly enough, it’s incredibly hard to find anything besides museum curating or glorified church janitor work with a bachelors in anthro,” Y/N nods, a little simper gracing her mouth before she cups the mug up to her mouth and puckers her lips into a soft ‘o’ to blow over the heat. 

He takes another thoughtful bite, chewing slowly as his brows furrow before he swallows the mouthful. “Church janitor work? You need a degree for that?”

As Y/N takes a sip of the beverage, she raises her eyebrows over the top of the mug in response before she answers softly, “It’s technically a historical monument.”

“Hm.”

The third bite is the final one, and he works it over for a longer, quiet beat. And he looks so sexy like that, is the thing, Y/N thinks— carved jaw flexing, thighs split wide, gaze pensive, off to some corner of the room as if in deep thought. It has her head swimming, and simultaneously, the self-awareness has her pulse thumping heavily in her throat. She peels her gaze away from him, opting to sling it onto the television instead, where some stocky male is discussing something about car washes, and she buries her mouth against the mug as she tips it for another drink. It burns her tongue a just a tad, but the way the warmth spills down into her chest is a solid enough distraction from whatever is going on in the chair beside her. 

The silence, of course, doesn’t last. 

“The girls downstairs think I’m a dom-for-hire,” Harry comments with little to no warning, and the admission is so sudden that it catches the young woman off-guard mid-sip and causes her throat to close up around the heated liquid.

She presses the backs of her fingers to her lips as she chokes on the mouthful of scorching liquid, all to prevent coughing and spewing tea all over his carpet and his nice accent table. Summoning every morsel of strength to inhale through her nose and swallow the rest down, Y/N clears her throat as she glances over at him. She thinks he might be fighting down a grin, but it’s hard to say.

“I’m… sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Harry tells her as she clears her throat again, lifting a shoulder. She thinks he might be done. But then he says, offhandedly, like he’s just nursing this odd icebreaker and not currently wringing her guilt like a twisted wet shirt, “I reckon it’s a nicer thought than what some of the others must think.”

Y/N frowns, glancing down at her tea, where her own shiny, wounded-eyed reflection meets her over the burnt umber depths. Sincerity bleeds into her cadence, and she meets his gaze earnestly to repeat the words, “I’m sorry. I really do feel so horrible about it.”

There is, typically, something so oddly delicious in hearing a pretty girl say sorry. Watching it; in the right context, of course. It’s a strange predilection, really, and sort of sounds oddly cruel, but in all honesty, it’s because of how doughy they get. Because they become all doe-eyed, dewy; soft. It doesn’t have anything to do with some weirdly misplaced remorse in actuality, or genuinely negative emotion. Of course, that’s only in the right context, and seeing Y/N, truly frowning, a little ruckle creasing its way between her brows— the posture of her shoulders folding in just slightly as she holds his gaze and then apprehensively casts it down to the hot tea cupped between her palms— has a little burgeon of… not pity, it’s not quite that. It’s more cautious, and it blooms apart in that soft space between his lungs and his ribs. As misguided as his neighbor had been in her assumptions, his intent wasn’t to pestle her down over it, or contrive some sort of revenge by any means. Really, his intention was only to tease the girl, and he tucks as much earnestness as he can manage into his soft tone as he blinks and meets her eye, ducking his chin a bit.

“I’m just messing, yeah?” Harry tells her then, shaking his head, “It’s all good, really. I understand where you were coming from. And I’ve already accepted your scones as a plea deal,” his lips twitch, “remember?”

Y/N doesn’t immediately respond, and for a moment, Harry thinks she might start crying— God forbid— or something equally as uncomfortable, and then he’d probably truly be fucked, because what does he even do in that situation besides awkwardly side-glance? He’s already starting to mull it over, he remembers he might have a pack of tissues still tucked into the coffee table somewhere, courtesy of… things (whichever direction one would like to think in: probably yes), and—

“Do you think,” Y/N’s soft voice breaks him out from his thoughts, and he redirects his sight from the corner of the floor he’d reluctantly driven his eyes into to avoid the fallout in its full, uneasy glory. She’s looking at him from under her lashes, her short nails scratching over a divot in the sculpt of the mug, “they could work as a rebrand? A mass baked goods handout?”

The quip catches him so off guard that it takes him a second to respond. And then he recognizes that she’s attempting to jest— he pauses, intrigued, settling with his back fully against the backrest as he pretends to ponder. 

“Damage control in the form of a baked goods giveaway… I like it. I figured we let the press cycle cool down, first.”

“Right,” Y/N ducks her chin into a nod, “Standard protocol. Lay low. Tasteful radio silence. Avoid the balcony.”

A slow-splitting grin shapes its way around his teeth, dimples engraving into his cheeks, “Exactly,” and then he schools his features into a mask of mock-seriousness, draping himself in fabricated contemplation once more, “Maybe leak a blurry photo of me donating books to an underfunded library.”

“We can give you a rescue dog to hold,” Y/N offers, holding one hand out, palm up. 

“You’ll need to be seen crying on a bench,” Harry muses, raising his eyebrows and directing his index at her, before he rubs his palm down his jaw in consideration. “Something tasteful. Cashmere coat. Glossier skin tint. A latte you’re too tired to drink. Public remorse, but chic.”

“Strategic vulnerability,” Y/N nods, chock-full of agreement, as if they really are on the same wavelength, and then her brows pinch together, “What about a pinned instagram post? Empty chair, caption starts with something like, ‘I don’t owe anyone an explanation, but—‘“

“No, that’s too deflecting,” Harry waves out with his hand, reciting the plan as if he’s got the whole thing figured out to the minor details, “We draft a joint Notes app apology. Story post. You take full responsibility. I forgive you graciously.” 

“And I’m assuming…” one of her brows climb as she talks, “I’m writing this?”

“You’re head of PR,” Harry deadpans, blinking, “It’s literally your job.”

To stifle her smile, the young woman buries her teeth into her lower lip. She clears her throat and then asks, “Do I get health benefits?”

“No,” Harry responds, eyeing her over the rim of the mug where he’s hiding the beginnings of his own grin. He takes another drink, swallows, and then asserts, like it’s all common sense, “You get tea.” 

The duo settle into a comfortable silence, then. The kind of comfortable neither would have really anticipated, but with Y/N’s feelings on the matter clearly regulated and with the man’s (Y/N has assumed) issues on the manner squared, both parties feel as though they can breathe and just co-exist. Tentatively, Y/N is the one to shatter the lull this time.

“How did you, um. Get into that?”

A gust of air spills out from his nostrils, something like an almost-laugh. “Fake press management or the alleged spanking enterprise?”

Y/N raises an eyebrow once more, this time pointedly. “…Alleged?”

Behind the mug, a little smirk paints over the man’s mouth. “Very delicate segue.”

Harry had never really been a fan of labels. Titles. 

Roleplay-adjacent nomenclature; whatever the grand performance of slipping on a new skin before climbing into bed (or worse, therapy-scented kink discourse spaces) is called. Labels— well, those are cementing. Not in the warm, anchored, adult-in-therapy sort of way, but in the slowly-filling-sandbag-on-his-chest kind; the kind that wouldn’t let him wriggle out even when he’d decide he changed his mind.

They’re too serious. Too official altogether, and there was always something about the label-happy subculture associated with kink, in particular, that made him a little itchy. Acronyms, micro-identities, moniker-wrapped semantics, all to take the form of raunchy, glorified LARPing, clad in latex knee-highs, bull-whip draped around a nape like an explicit rendition of a loose winter-wear accessory, specifically tailored for those who liked to edge others just to see them cry— 

He just didn’t identify with it. Dom-status. Disciplinarian— he doesn’t like that one. It’s a word that, in his opinion, belongs more to the musty back corner of a Catholic prep school than to anything involving arousal. Something with chalk dust in its teeth and a ruler clutched in one authoritarian fist, the kind of persona that comes with polished oxfords and an aggressive disdain for late homework. It wears a waistcoat and has strong opinions on proper trouser ironing techniques (he doesn’t particularly care how many people say it’s hot— there’s nothing remotely erotic about a title that sounds like it comes with a pocket watch and a library card).

It just wasn’t him. Isn’t.

And still, somehow, he now exists, tangled several years deep into an increasingly absurd, niche pattern of carefully arranged connections with women who want one very specific thing from him: structure, and the inevitable sting that follows when they break it.

He likes spanking. That’s the clean-cut version, at the very least, that doesn’t devolve into the complexities surrounding why arousal and red-hot bruises go hand in hand. That’s all. That was how it started, and how it remains— more or less— though the logistics have evolved into something far more complicated and softly bizarre, the way simple shrubbery mutates into a crawling jungle over time. And the way it all began? It wasn’t even his idea, really. It hadn’t been a lifelong compulsion, or some neatly traceable fixation formed in adolescence that sharpened over time into a clean-cut kink identity. It wasn’t that profound. Or that romantic, or nearly as organized. He didn’t find kink through an orphaned copy of the Story of O left on a bus seat, or through anything nearly as intentional as looking for it. Instead, looking back, it was something that had settled over him slowly, then all at once, until he couldn’t remember a version of himself that hadn’t been holding the reins. He’d fallen into it in college, the way people fall improv groups or casual coke habits in that weird semi-adult stage where nonchalant self-destruction masquerades as self-discovery. Accidentally; socially. 

It started with an ex, naturally. One of those shitty apartments he was renting on the outskirts of his university with mold along the bathroom ceiling and a sink that groaned like it resented being used. The air always smelled vaguely of canned soup and boyish delusion, and the windows didn’t shut all the way, which meant everything— relationships, tea, existential spirals— happened against a soundtrack of distant sirens and someone else’s Spotify Premium echoing through the wall, including the throwaway comment about whether he’d ever considered putting someone over his knee. 

The ex in question was a second-year film major with a horizontal tongue piercing. She wore thrifted leather boots year-round, almost perpetually had this little patch of chipped red polish on her index finger that drove him weirdly mad, and once insisted she could tell if someone had divorced parents based on how they held a cigarette. (Apparently, Harry was obvious. He still refuses to comment on what kind of emotions that psychoanalysis stirred up). 

There were exactly three tattoos on her body: one was a poem for her mother, another was a joke no one else understood, and the third was just the word reminder in verdana font, tiny and delicate in that soft spot along the inside of her elbow. She claimed that last one literally served as a reminder for whatever trivial detail she needed to remember in the humdrum of a day, and offhandedly commented that the pain getting it done had felt strangely good, which in hindsight, should have been… an indicator.

Harry’s usual type had always been a tragic amalgam of self-titled tender parasite and art-soaked amateur philosopher.

Usually at least mildly broken. INFP’s, typically, because— yes, MBTIs carry more rational bearing than star signs. There was something vaguely magnetic about their (usually) self-imposed torment, the way they pressed into an old, metaphorical bruise on themselves like they wanted to feel the ache again. Creative types with unresolved emotional turmoil. It’s not that he has knight syndrome— he doesn’t feel the need to be needed and he’s never been compelled to fix anyone. Maybe it’s the fascination. Maybe, without ever acknowledging it, he has more in common with them than he’d ever be willing to admit. But maybe? It’s just easier to justify the fallout when it was always partway broken.

It’s always worked like this: he chases, coaxed by some deep itch inside of him he hasn’t quite ever been able to dissect, and they meet him halfway. And for some reason or another, he’d always seemed to gravitate toward something usually halfway to collapse. 

Emotionally battered baristas with bite, who’ll flirt by mocking his order and blushing when he tips; the Etsy shop entrepreneur with an anxiety disorder, hand-stitching lingerie as she watches true crime. Bookstore clerks with a collection of expired bus passes, calmly annotating erotica with a pencil behind the desk. Music school girls with frayed cuticles and a pack of nicotine gum next to their crumpled sheet music. 

And back in the day, a film major with snake eyes and a bruised peach of a laugh? She went right in the drawer of Harry’s mental taxonomy marked bad decisions with excellent legs. There was this trick she had with the tip of her tongue during oral (probably courtesy of the snake eyes— apparently wildly controversial in the piercing community) that, without fail, made his toes curl into the carpet like he was grappling to keep himself physically grounded. It was euphoric. 

They’d been seeing each other for a few months. Maybe less. Time was slippery in college—measured more in backlogged assignments and 2 AM curry fries than any real emotional awareness. It didn’t happen during sex, which— statistically speaking— would’ve made more sense: a bit of rough play, a tap that landed harder than expected at an awkward angle, a moan into his mouth in response. No, when the actual conversation happened, they were sharing a tea bag between two chipped mugs, and she was still waiting on the third coat of polish to dry on her toes with two of those stupid-looking foam-spreader things on her feet, and she’d asked the question the same, nonchalant way someone might ask for a stick of gum.

“Would you ever spank me? Like, for fun. Or, well— like, not for fun, too.”

It was spoken politely, offhandedly, like it was just another item on the grocery list. Eggs, coffee, a handprint across her ass. It was asked like this particular inquiry wasn't about to rearrange the way he saw sex, power, touch, and trust in the span of one aggressively under-furnished semester. Harry genuinely doesn’t remember the exact reaction he’d had, but the word spank had hit him square in the dick like a cartoon piano falling out of a third-story window, and logically speaking, he was probably weird about it. He was twenty. He still got flustered when someone made eye contact while eating a popsicle. He was weird about everything. He was still getting off to whatever suggestions existed in the first three queues of the Pornhub homepage, and had no sexual creativity, and he thinks he might have settled on something eloquent like, “Uh.”

He probably tried to be cool after that. Said something like, “Define spanking,” in that insufferable way he was just learning to mold flirtatious, which was an important development considering he’d only recently learned how to avoid burning scrambled eggs and still called his mother with a debrief of how his week was going every other night. 

He’s not entirely sure what it was even about him that didn’t just make her scoff and roll her eyes, but maybe he should give his past self more credit. 

Anyways, he did it, despite the entirety of the awkward preamble. He was careful, moving through the motions wearily, like he thought he might break something. Which, to be fair, was entirely the right, justified instinct— only the thing is, he’d missed the mark a bit by assuming it was her body that needed caution. It wasn’t. It was his own.

Because something in that moment short-circuited. Not in a cartoonish, lightning-strike way. More like a slow-burn short fuse in the recesses of his brain, something cellular, and ancestral, and alarmingly simple— he liked it. Maybe too much. More than he’d anticipated. It didn’t feel dark, or deviant, or devouring. No. It felt… focused. Singular. 

Harry didn't plan for it to become a recurring motif. It was never intended, from his perspective, to anchor him, and it certainly wasn't there to define him. At the time, he'd thought it was a one-time thing, like waxing his chest, or trying hot yoga, or letting someone gaslight him into believing that olives don't just taste like someone preserved despair in brine. At best, he'd figured it would be a strange, mildly entertaining story to pull out after drinks with a select, close-knit group of attendees. It'd fall in line somewhere between the one about the dentist with the singular nipple piercing and the time he'd mistakenly crashed a wake because the GPS rerouted him through a church parking lot.

And then she called him Sir.

One minute he was perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed he'd snagged off of Facebook marketplace (suspiciously low price tag— maybe haunted), wondering if tilting her too far would result in blunt force trauma via nightstand, and the next, she was twisting her chin to look at him over her shoulder, voice low and syrupy-sweet, eyes half-lidded as she was saying it— Sir— with this kind of reverence that made him feel like someone with gravity. Purpose. Like he was something more than a financially unstable, sleep-deprived undergrad sporting a semi; like something cracked open in her ribs every time she used it, and he was the only one who could crawl inside.

He remembers the sex was really good after. Her on top, nails digging jagged, rosy pink lines into his pectorals, her warm ass in his hands. Somehow, it made him cum harder, holding onto that; the warmth there. Feeling that. And after, she fell asleep on his chest, like she didn’t short-circuit the last decade of his sexual development in the span of a singular afternoon. 

Retrospectively, that was the beginning of the end.

A kind of slow-brand over the pit of him that he wouldn’t recognize had fundamentally changed his outlook until it was just… his norm. 

Anyways, of course he went to the party. 

Not a sex party— he wasn’t that interesting yet. Party was a form of loose, glorified nomenclature for the impact play mixer said film major later dragged him to. A very specific, curated event deep within the subgenre swamp of the kink community was a fairly unconventional idea for date night, but at the time, most of their dates consisted of glassy-eyed coffee stops between study sessions or makeout intervals on a creaky couch with something random on the TV in the background. He thinks it might have been called Spankapalooza, or something equivalently tragic, and it was held in a borrowed warehouse that smelled like spilled spearmint lube and leather conditioner. There was a registration table and color-coded wristbands. There were demo tables and a table spread of gluten-free baked goods.

He didn’t play. Just watched. Took mental notes while people negotiated scenes like they were unionized actors: pacing, tone, tools, aftercare methods. Someone got lectured in a New Zealand accent about not cleaning the kitchen counters. Someone else got paddled, smiling and bound, with a toy that was being handed around a group of three other people. It was all very adult in a way that felt mildly deranged and weirdly beautiful.

It was also, oddly enough, incredibly peaceful. Everything negotiated. Everything explained. Nothing creepy, or secret, or shameful. Just people with wristbands, and name tags, and decades of learned wisdom about which parts of the body bruise best and why it matters whether someone uses a bath brush or a frat paddle. One man— Gene, possibly the most soft-spoken person Harry had ever met— casually mentioned that he typically tasked his submissive with picking out a switch from the backyard if she forgot to charge her phone overnight, and (wow! Okay! moment) Harry had to physically sit down for a second just to process that reality (it was the only incident, to date, that ever managed to top the first time he’d had a threesome and had just ended up starfished on a beanbag afterwards in a state of catatonia).

And here’s the thing: he liked it. Not the performative bits. Not the leash-wielding, collar-clanking theatricalism of it all; it was the honesty. The focus. The moment of contact, the sting, the way a breath hitched when someone realized they were being paid attention to, thoroughly and with care. It felt like the kind of intimacy no one admitted to craving. It felt like holding something steady while the world spun stupid around him.

What struck him most wasn’t the spectacle. It was the precision. The ritual. The unblinking sense of acceptance, because this was normal, and attainable, and safe, and something that made him feel like he was on fire and so strangely serene all at once. The structure didn’t take away the heat— it was the heat. Like edging, but emotional. Like someone had found a way to turn boundaries, and sadomasochism, and niche methods for conflict resolution into foreplay. It made everything feel deliberate. Made the intimacy feel earned. 

It was an intimacy in and of itself.

When he and the film major broke it off, eventually, inevitably— blocking each other on social media but staying logged into the same Netflix account for the next three years— she was gone, but the idea of it, of this, had already imprinted itself somewhere deep in his wiring.

And the rest? Well. That’s as they call it, history. 

The blog was an offhand thing. Not entirely intentional. He’d launched it a year later with another girl he was seeing, and it was her idea, yet again. They filmed it (without their faces) because watching it back made her wet. It was grainy, and shot on his old iphone 4S with poor lighting. There was some animal documentary on in the background and the camerawork was shit in his shaky hands when he picked the phone up off the dresser to film the color her skin bloomed into. But then came a comment about branding sex in a cinematic light, something-something authentic kink education— her words, not his— and he’d laughed and said something noncommittal. They put it up. 

Eleven million profile views later it's just a thing. Another collection, like the totes, only this one is intentional— personal, and feels far more like an art form than a pile of cloth sacks in his pantry. It’s a folder of observations. A quietly color-corrected archive of records. Documentation of the way someone melts when they’re understood through restriction like it’s softness. The quiet smugness in knowing exactly what someone needs and how to deliver it in increments of five. 

When his casual flings rotated out like seasons, the blog stayed, and so did the growing name. The brand. The requests. Women kept showing up. People he’d meet at events, or friends of friends, recommending him through the grapevine like a sordid new lunch spot to hit up: “Have you tried Rings&Paddles? They have really good… service.” Although that analogy sounds far more prostitutional than it’s ever been, and he’d like it to be known— officially, on the record and all— that orgasms are not an actual menu item, readily available for order. More of a secret menu arrangement type-deal. What he does, according to the fact that the only currency he takes is obedience and punctuality, is basically just civic duty. 

Charity work, practically, according to the young woman who once messaged him on FetLife to say his videos made her feel "more emotionally regulated than therapy," which was both flattering and a sign that the world was very, very deeply broken.

He never labeled himself a dominant. Still doesn’t. The title feels too large, too performative, like a costume two sizes too big, even with an excel spreadsheet detailing his usual churn of dynamics, rules, preferences, timestamps, and all. The more rule-heavy type stuff, the kind that leans into that prep school punishment cosplay he’s actively disavowed? That didn’t come until later, and wasn’t inherently by his own volition, anyways. It escalated, as these things do, somewhere between a girl getting a recommendation from a friend for a method of mild catharsis (because she had a shitty receptionist job and little to no coping mechanisms) and the way he’d let her sit on his lap after and cry into his hoodie for twenty minutes like his loungewear was baptismal cloth for her emotional exorcism. 

Despite his inflated reputation and the nature of the hobby, less of these things were actually sexual than not. Not every session led to something carnal. Not every dynamic cracked something open beyond this deeply intimate genre of connection and, ironically enough, casual politeness afterward. Some girls showed up, got spanked, said thank you, and left like they were clocking out of a very niche part-time job. Some messaged him twice a month like it was a recurring dental appointment. A few never made it past one session, deciding— respectfully— that it just wasn’t their thing, or that Harry wasn’t their particularly-sought flavor of authority, and that was fine.

He didn’t push it. He didn’t chase it. The structure (or the psychological purge, depending) was what most of them came for. The sex, when it happened, was entirely incidental. But he did make friends along the way. Eventually, he’d sit with a repeat visitor after and discover they both liked the same music, or had the same disdain for couples matching roman numeral tattoos, or some equally surface-level interest that whittled a genuine bonding moment. 

And that? Those evolutions, probably alongside the whole mechanism of aftercare paired with vulnerability— incredibly important step to the whole process, in his opinion— started to foster something new. Just an… unacknowledged softness. An edge of rawness that started showing up in the way they wrote to him.

More emojis. More thank you’s. One of them left him a voicemail once— completely unprompted, completely uncalled for— just to say that he was helping her feel like a person again, that no one had made her feel this safe in years. That she didn't know how to explain it, but it mattered.

Harry had listened to the recording exactly once, standing in the cereal aisle at Trader Joe's, staring down the shredded wheat like it had personally wronged him. He'd paused it, locked his phone, and then bought two boxes of something sugary and chocolate just to reassert control over his own autonomy. It didn’t help.

Initially, Harry didn't like the feeling. It was strange, being mistaken for someone capable of that kind of generosity. He wasn't safe— he was consistent, and that was only because he was a stubborn creature of habit that was allergic to change. But the girls kept coming. Kept asking and saying things like, "Would it be okay if I told you when I mess up?" and "You don't have to reply, I just like knowing you're there."

And what was he supposed to do? Say no? Say, "Sorry, I'm only emotionally available when someone's bent over my lap with their skirt hiked up and a very clear safeword system in place" or, "Actually, I'm more of a benevolent pervert than a real support system, but thanks for the vote of confidence"?

He just said, "Sure."

And then he added a new tab to his spreadsheet, and then he re-sorted it by name and infraction type and timestamp. He never meant to become a fixture in anyone’s story, but apparently, structure— when delivered with a calm voice and a little spectacle— sticks. Even when the rest of it doesn’t. He was good at it. That was the problem. He was too good at it— too good at tone, at pulling someone across his lap and delivering a scolding that made them blush before he ever lifted a hand. He was the type of person who didn't make things weird. Who could calmly say things like that's ten for the attitude and two more for being late, isn't it? and could make a girl feel like following some arbitrary rules was the fun part, but breaking them, just a little, just enough to get his attention, was even better.

It’s sort of a bit like very hands-on therapy, in a way. Nowadays, only a handful of them, if that, are rule-heavy (and looking back, it was always that way— a full spread kind of catering project, instead). Not all of them are punishments. He tailors. Sometimes someone wants routine emotional regulation. Other times, a girl he’s been fucking basically asks for glorified lovetaps and his nails lightly trailing over the backs of her thighs before his fingers find their way between her legs. It’s not about control. It’s about closeness, the quiet calm that settles into his bones. The way he knows he’s giving the other person the same.  

But he likes spanking. All kinds. Silly, giggly bratting that ends in threats and cherry-red skin. Lazy, indulgent swats between kisses. Stern, structured correction with lectures, and safewords, and someone blinking up at him like they need to hear it— that what they did mattered, that someone’s paying attention.

And when it is disciplinary— when it’s not about sex, or flirting, or fun— he expects to be called Sir, because every man needs a little gravitas to offset the fact that there is a hungry holland lop roaming the same living room, between their feet, like an equal shareholder in every square foot of the property. It’s not about the title. It’s about the shift. The mutual recognition that they’re stepping into something together, something that requires structure, presence, follow-through. Something that says, I will hold you to this, because you asked me to, and I care enough to do it right.

So, that’s the story. There’s no deeper meaning. No psychosexual backstory he’s ready to unpack in therapy. And sometimes… 

Harry sits up and stretches over the table to reach for the next coaster available, setting his mug on top of it as he gives his palms room to motion. Folding his hands and his lap and pursing his lips as he stares down at a piece of the carpet across the room, he chews over where to begin. Eventually, he meets her eye. “So, there’s this girl in uni, right?”

Sometimes, when it’s late and the room is warm and someone’s looking at him like they trust him to know when enough is enough, he lets himself think that maybe that strange little corner of connection is the closest thing to intimacy he’ll ever not run from.

Read the next 8.3K here now or > access on tumblr 06/02/25 sign up with a browser (not the app) to save money!

[opashoo]

Hi! This is a question about your (really cool) Scuglang. Now, I have noticed that you sometimes use the Rain World symbols and script for your Scuglang. Because of the language not being a European-based language, I'll assume that there isn't really an alphabet, so to speak. How did you apply the Rain World symbols to your Scuglang, and how does it work enough to be able to be written?

Edit: Here is a link to a reddit comment where I've posted up some info about a Yongasabi font that I've developed, as well as a download link for the font. The glyph documentation document is here, though it is largely information taken from this post and elaborated.

Hello and thank you for taking interest in my (really cool) Scuglang Yongasabi, I am very proud of it. I have yet to make a more comprehensive guide as to how the writing system works but I threw together a very rough and simple guide on my work computer with mspaint and a mouse just now. I have since added some new images so this doesn't apply to all of them anymore. So this should actually cover everything about writing in Yongasabi. Have fun!

Here are all the isolated consonant and CV syllable glyphs in Yongasabi. Note that the first row is for isolated consonants. Not included are punctuation or CVC syllable blocks because I'm not hand drawing 1734 glyph combinations, and it would be incredibly unhelpful to do so. Instead I'll just explain how to synthesize CV and CVC blocks below.

A key as well, since that may help.

So at its core, Yongasabi uses an abugida, so all regular consonant characters are pronounced with an added A by default (ka, ga, ta, pa, etc...) As you can see by this diagram, writing a line above the character changes the A to an I (so ka becomes ki) and a line below changes it to an O instead (so ba becomes bo).

Then there's the long vowels. For standalone long vowels, the Monk symbol is written within the long vowel characters. When combining the with a consonant, the Monk symbol is replaced with the consonant (as you can see here with P and S).

CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) syllable blocks, syllables that start and end with a consonant, are written by stacking the consonant characters. By default, they are read as CaC, but writing a line above turns it into CiC. Separating the characters makes it CoC.

CVC syllable blocks with long vowels, including CaeC, CuC, and CeiC, are formed differently. CaeC and CuC are formed by encompassing the equivalent CaC syllable block within the long vowel glyph. There is a special rule for Caeh blocks, as noted below.

CeiC syllable blocks are formed by surrounding the initial consonant glyph with four marks and placing that above the final consonant. As noted, n and d glyphs in initial position will join to the final glyph.

VC blocks (vowel-consonant) where the syllable starts with a vowel and ends with a consonant, are formed like CVC blocks but with the Monk symbol in place of the initial consonant.

Here are some more specific rules that I've finally written down properly (and edited into this post several months after originally posting it). It can get to be a lot to memorize, but it's possible. Several people have already reverse-engineered all the rules just by observing the behaviors of the font I developed, which is bonkers to me.

Punctuation in Yongasabi has fewer strict rules than English and tend to reflect the way one would speak. The symbols are as follows:

Full stops act like periods, marking the end of a sentence.

Pauses act like commas, marking a natural pause in speech, such as when listing items or separating clauses and ideas, though it is sometimes used to mark the end of a sentence with a less complete pause than a full stop.

The text end symbol is used to mark the end of a text, usually the end of a section, chapter, or book.

Gate brackets are used like parenthesis, to add additional information that may not be necessary.

The exclamation and question marks behave as in English.

Arrow brackets are sometimes used like gate brackets, but more often are simply used for decoration.

Long dashes are used to express an elongated sound like (aaa would be writing instead like a—) and to intensify exclamations and questions (!!! and ??? are instead written as !— and ?—)

Ellipses represent the writer trailing off or becoming quiet.

Short dashes are used almost exclusively to link names and titles to addresses (maki-andae, omi-tei, maya-ijun)

Quotes are quotes.

Here's an example of the language written with the writing system, then romanized, translated, and broken down into its grammatical parts. It took a lot of time tuning the writing system to account for all the possible syllable block combinations but I'm happy with the results! Funny enough, it started as an attempt to make a working writing system out of Rain World's glyphs, just as a thought exercise, and eventually I wanted to make a whole language to support the writing system (then the writing system changed radically to support the new language.) Thank you for asking, and hopefully I'll have a release post for the language ready soon, since it is actually finished at this point.

[mide404]

My sister says: Let me tell the world about the heat of the tent… 💔

The heat that melted everything: the color of our skin, our emotions, our dreams, the colors of our clothes, the stacks of deodorant cans, the lipstick and eyeliner pencils I’ve kept for nine months without using—just to remind myself that I am still a woman.

We toss and turn in the tent from one corner to another, like schnitzel pieces frying in hot oil. Sweat covers our features until we taste its salt, burning our eyes, destroying our hair that once enjoyed oil baths and healthy routines, exhausting the pores of our skin that were once used to care and pampering.

In the tent, everything is unbearably hot: the mattress, the pillow, the blanket, the water container, the cups, the plates, the sand, the towel, the only chair. Even the drinking water, which is supposed to cool us down, is so hot you can see bubbles rising from the lone stainless steel cup standing on the tent floor.

In the heat of the tent, your body becomes a fingerprint scanner for ants, mosquitoes, lice, fleas, flies, heat rash, and other things.In the heat of the tent, you share space with lizards, rats, scorpions, and insects you’ve never seen before.In the heat of the tent, no one can keep their true nature intact: the calm are no longer calm, the dreamers stop dreaming, the obedient grow defiant, and it’s rare to find someone who maintains their understanding of others as before.

In the heat of the tent, headaches are constant, blood pressure fluctuates, skin rashes appear, kidney problems develop, bones ache, bodies wither, and a general fatigue overwhelms you. There’s a suppressed cry every time you feel suffocated by your own sweat.

I am Mahmoud Saleh. I plead with you to look upon my torn and displaced family with mercy and give them the chance to continue their lives in peace. I stand here before these compassionate hearts, full of hope that you will help what remains of my family and provide them with a better life, one where they can live safely and peacefully.

@officialspec @naggingatlas

@pcktknife @lana-baumgartner @xxlunawarriorxx

@solarpunkwitchcraft @zivazivc

@dearmouse @sotogalmo @85-rend @the-meme-monarch @peachdeluxe

@classychassiss @northern-passage

@sillysymbol

@dailyquests @tiredguyswag

@transguyhawkeye @ender-slime @miss-galaxy-turtle @see-arcane @spitblaze

@ballwizard @prisonhannibal @beserkerjewel @cultofthorns @davepeta

@cuntylouis @wander-bunnies @sagescider @jinsouled @gotinterest

@longseasons @boffix @vaugarde @moonscape @bamsara

@busket @fox-guardian @cherryflavoredbutch @stardustfanfare @infernal-heart

[ditzyblues]

Do you have like a guideline/tips for how you draw Casey? I always try to draw her but it comes out wrong 💔

thank you for the question!!! i'm hesitant to answer this one, since casey has gone thru a super long process of like. Redesign. a lot of my casey is self indulgence (but not thoughtless.)

i'm far from her canon design at this point. in fact i don't think i've ever drawn it. but i haven't seen anyone horrifically misinterpret my design for her, so maybe I'm closer than I think.

FACIAL FEATURES:

my touchstones:

upturned, sharp eyes (going for monolid.) i always forget the eyeliner tho dont do that

HOOKED NOSE!!! even the canon forgets abt this.. a damn shame

sharp rectangular jaw

eyebrows that thicken at the end rather the inside

these are the four most important things i think abt while drafting her out... it's tougher to interpret casey's features since she's racially ambiguous, but i think it's safe to say she's east or southeast asian. i operate on the headcanon she's mixed filipina and white (like her voice actress.)

again, even with all these features in mind, her proportions can vary. I'm not even the most consistent with her, just because there's so much room in interpretation.

her cheekbones are pretty high, and i tend to highlight them. her nose is small for a hooked nose, and her lips are usually full enough (not as full as april's tho)

BODY TYPE:

touchstones:

broad shoulders bc of her back and arm mass (pronounced traps too)

buff arms. she lifts you see.

cinched but solid waist

wider hips, but nothing that takes from her shoulder width.

no one HAS to draw her beefy, given she's a stick in canon, but i think it kinda serves an arc. do u think she ate well in the foot clan...? NO! but now that she's free, she can bulk up and develop a good relationship with nutrition. Protein.

also she becomes more synonymous with the Casey Jones name. also stacked, muscular women are awesome and I think we need more. Also her being top heavy contrasts with April's more bottom heavy design. everything i do comes back to capril

MISC NOTES OF VARYING IMPORTANCE:

her haircut genuinely does not matter. as long as its close to her scalp in length and straight, she looks like casey.

red eyeliner certainly helps, but isn't needed. (saying this to cope with the fact i always forget it)

her black lipstick helps a lot. along with her ear cuffs on her left ear.

sticking to her black and red palette is great, but browns, deep blues, whites, pinks, and denims are fun too. have fun.

thinking of her as butch instantly gives her sauce in the drawing process

at this point in drawing her, i'm not thinking of her recognizability as foot recruit. she's evolved into this post canon, beefcake lesbian version of herself that has little pieces of my heart with her. i love her very much if u couldn't tell.

[janicekao]

Perfectly Made

Pairing:Bill Skarsgard x Black oc Summary: A young woman who has had her fair share of meeting people gives up on the pointless dating apps and opts for a personal android companion who has some interesting wiring. Warnings:#Android #S3x-Bot #R0ughs3x #Cr3amp1e #Dom&FemSub #FanFiction #DarkRomance #Smut #Br33dingKink #18+ #Toxic etc. 7968 words Wattpad link

Enjoy my babies <3 ------------------------------------

New York has been more rainy than usual. And with rain, comes the immense pressure of feeling alone being that you're stuck in the house by yourself.

Twenty-six year old Holly Marie Jennings is no stranger to loneliness. But being in her late twenties, she's also had her fair share of dating and extroverted activities. Although a fan of dating, and a huge fan of sex, she's absolutely through with the repetitiveness of dating. The swiping right, matching, twenty-one questions, getting to know each other, and polite banter— all just to realize that after a few dates you aren't compatible after all.

With casual dating being the biggest scam in history, Holly has made the decision to spend all of her hard-earned money on something that will keep her content... a man, a man perfectly made just for her.

After a wet day of grocery shopping, Holly comes home to her newest buy getting soaked on the steps of her porch. Her android boyfriend by the famous scientist Marco Nanimo has finally arrived after a month of shipping, and being that the robot is the most expensive thing she's ever brought, she wants it into her house and out of the rain as soon as possible.

As Holly drags a box that is far bigger than herself inside, she becomes full of excitement knowing how life-like her android will be being that he's already as heavy as a real man. From the online assessment, product development, and extremely long shipping, she knows that once she opens this box whatever she lays her eyes upon will be one hundred percent worth the money.

Crashing to her kitchen floor beside the box, Holly takes a moment to catch her breath. The cardboard is soaked and full of unnecessary damage as if he were already opened or had gone through shipping-hell... she only can hope that her android is unharmed. As her energy regains, Holly opens the already tattered box and lays eyes on her new literal boy-toy. The android looking as human as ever lays in a bed of packing peanuts with his eyes closed. He looks as if he were an angel asleep, peacefully still with a gorgeous physique, chestnut hair, and full pouty lips.

When described the type of bot she wanted in the online assessment, all that she asked was that he'd come tall, strong, a slim-muscular build, olive skin, and brunette or blonde hair... but this— this far exceeded her expectations.

The android is well above six feet tall. He nears six-five and almost two-hundred pounds, his brunette hairstyle is handsomely cut with matching body hair that isn't too much or too little. Holly's eyes travel down his handsomely long frame, eyes growing at the image of his manhood. Laying nude in this box takes her breath away at the sight of him being more than well-endowed. Even flaccid he seems to be large, maybe larger than she's ever taken, however he is cut and slightly curved in a way that makes her mouth absolutely water.

Far too overwhelmed, Holly stacks a small pile of styrofoam across his groin to protect whatever dignity they have left. Beneath his right thigh are directions. Holly sighs in relief, glad to see that there are instructions and that she won't have to guess the whole way through. Her fingers run across the tip of the singular page of instructions, there's two tiny holes there as if it were stapled to more pages, however, as she searches for the rest, they aren't anywhere to be found— must've been torn and lost in transit somehow.

After scanning a few introduction paragraphs, she finds the first steps and decides to begin. "To power up, pump android's chest as if performing CPR." And so she does. Holly sits onto the lap of her android with her knees knelt on each side of him as she places her hands together and begins to pump.

1...

2...

3...

After three pumps, the android awakens. A gasp falls from her lips as large green eyes stare back at her, she didn't think that he could get any prettier, but here he has already surprised her again.

With a sudden grasp to her waist, the android sits up in his box. The action causes Holly to place her hands on top of his strong shoulder blades for stamina as his hold on her presses her further against his chest. Chest to chest, she even begins to blush. The android studies his new user's face, eyes softening as if he is already captivated by her appearance.

An inch apart and close enough to kiss, Holly can't believe the wind of his breath that crosses her flesh, the feel of his skin, and the warmth of his body... He's so real, and he's all hers.

Unsure of what to say, Holly scrambles to flip to the back of the singular page of instructions, praying for a second step before she melts in his arms. "Uhm— sorry, just give me a minute."

"Hello." The android speaks. "Please introduce yourself with your name, and then please assign me a name for myself."

"Oh!" Holly sees that his high-quality setup might not be so difficult after all. "Well, my name is Holly... And for you, your name can be— I don't know, Derrick maybe? Or-Or Jonathan? No, it should be something simple, easy to remember."

"Bill." A light bulb goes off in the midst of her extremely confused mind. "That's right, your name is Bill."

...

Holly sighs. "Bill, I don't even know where to start with you..."

He smiles with a polite chuckle. "What do you mean? We've already started. Tell me about yourself, Holly. How can I serve you as an AI companion?"

She lifts herself from his lap and gives Bill a hand to stand. As he takes her assistance, he stands and nears the ceiling... hovering over her in a way that makes her seem more doll-like than he is.

"Wow." With a craned neck to look up at him, she can't imagine the fun that they are soon to have being that his cock nears the height of her belly-button.

Clearing her mind, she becomes able to finally answer his question. "Well Bill, if I'm honest, I bought you to become my— my boyfriend. I know, I sound pathetic but it's such an annoying and difficult task to get to know someone over and over again on these dating apps, then having a shitty time together, and have to repeat it all over again with another stranger. I want to skip all of that. All of the formalities, the 'hey, how are you doing?' texts... I want something real with someone who will be mine, all mine."

"Then why start with boyfriend? Does husband sound better?" Bill asks, curiously reading every inch of his new user's body language.

She blushes, actually stirred by being flirted with by a robot. "It sounds perfect, actually. Can we just do it like that? Can we really skip the whole dating thing and be— companions?"

"We can do whatever you want, Holly." Bill steps his bare feet completely out of the box, shaking any extra packing peanuts off of him. "Let's shape my personality to cater to your needs. What are the traits you'd like me to have and follow?"

"Uhm... Well, I'd like you to be my best friend." She begins, "I wish for you to be gentle, sweet, warm, and understanding. I'd like you to share my interests and be a good listener... Other than that, I think I want to play things by ear. Maybe without too many rules, what we have can feel more real... ya know? Are you like— able to do that? Sometimes respond in ways of your own?"

"As in fill in the blanks?" He asks, voice deep and warm like honey. "Yes, Holly. With my artificial intelligence database, I'm constantly evolving and learning. Holly, I can do and be all that you want, and more."

Holly watches in disbelief. "Bill, you are absolutely incredible." She smiles. "Come on, let me give you a tour of the house and uhh— get you some clothes while we're at it."

———

Just as promised, in four short days Bill has picked up on things and paid more attention to Holly in ways that none of her ex-boyfriends ever could.

From cuddling her and treating her like a princess, to sharing each other's humor, and consistent laughs. Bill has it all.

With his AI intelligence, he's quickly created his own personality, constantly surprising Holly with interesting conversation and unique actions... Even being such a gentleman by cooking her favorite meals and handling all of the house's chores. She hasn't had to take the garbage to her bins in days. He's extremely helpful, and even on the days that she is feeling down and out, he spoils her with longing hugs, kisses, and consistent reassurance. Bill is all that she's ever wanted, and it's the most fun she's had in years.

Although he continues to learn more about Holly to give her the AI experience of a lifetime, Holly has been doing the same with him. So far she has learned that although he can cook, he doesn't eat or drink, and when he goes to sleep for the night, it's at her command to 'power down' and he simply recharges right beside her. At night, cuddled into his arms is one of her favorite parts of the day. Impressed with his body warmth and the imitated sound of a human beating heart in his chest, he feels more real than any human could standing right in front of her.

"Should I pour more?" Bill continues to spoil his 'wife' with her favorite red wine on their fourth night of dinner spent together.

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" Holly flirts and allows him to fill up another inch.

He chuckles. "I do enjoy seeing you relaxed, my love. Come on, that tv show you like is coming on in an hour, let's move this to the couch."

With a slight tipsy-wobble in her step, Holly agrees, joining Bill in his strong arms as they light candles in the living room and plop onto the couch.

Swirling her glass of red, she watches her newest beau flip through channels on the television to find her favorite show and how he wraps her in the couch's throw blanket... Everything he does is so very catered to her, Holly can't help herself from taking her eyes off of him tonight.

"What is it?" Bill grins. "Something on your mind?"

She watches his lips closely, becoming heated by either the wine or the way each word leaves his tongue like butter. "I just want to— I want to kiss you."

Although he's her property and an inanimate object, it's still mind boggling the way that he can make her so nervous to the point of asking for his consent. "So kiss me then, Holly."

With a gentle lean, Holly connects with Bill through a gentle kiss. She unintentionally makes it clear that she wants more, he chuckles, "come here."

The soft demand has her stirring in her seat. Holly does just that, coming closer to him she presses her body against his chest and accepts the tongue kiss that Bill pushes onto her.

As Holly places a hand to his chest, Bill's strong fingers begin to roam all over. He makes her purr under his touch as his fingertips creep down her spine and lightly grip on her ass. Their heated kiss has him drawing her nearer, fingers now lowering her bra straps on each side of her shoulders as he laces her flesh with his sweet love bruises.

Falling slave to his touch, Holly drops her glass of wine to the hardwood floors as her eyes roll back in her skull and her mind disconnects with the actions of her body. Never has she felt a touch so deeply, so breathtaking. As her delicate hand continues to roam down his sculpted abdomen, her touch ends in his lap where he clearly has a heightened reaction to their display of affection.

"How?" Their lips smack apart as Holly becomes confused by the hardening of his cock.

"Aren't you initiating sex?" He asks.

The question catches her off guard, almost too embarrassed to answer him. "Y—Yes..."

He nods, "I thought so... Holly, I'm fully equipped and I'm prepared for it. I can't wait to give you satisfaction."

The dark-cotton shirt from around his body suddenly comes from around his head. Shirtless, Bill awaits her next command.

"I want you to take full control." Watching her handsome android strip out of his clothes makes her absolutely feral with lust. "Fuck me— use me like your slut."

With a gentle caress to her cheek, Holly is sure that he can't do it. She programmed him to be gentle and kind. As she waits, Holly is sure that the dominant rough sex that she craves tonight is something he won't be able to deliver... of course until the gentle caress becomes a harsh grasp around her throat.

"Take your fucking clothes off." Holly gasps from the sudden force around her throat and the darkening of his wide green eyes.

Too shocked to follow his directions, Bill does it for her. Using his free hand to tear down her panties beneath her house gown and tearing the silk robe-tie open to reveal the flop of her breasts.

Loosening the grasp around her throat, he becomes amused by the sound of her fragile gasps of air and gentle moaning as he manhandles her. His fingers force themselves between her ungodly thick thighs, curling through the lips of her cunt as they come back wet and syrupy. "You're so fucking wet, Holly. All this for me? Huh?" He takes his digits to the bed of his tongue before kissing her again, letting her have a taste of how sweet she really is.

Goosebumps riddle her skin everywhere that he watches, his eyes glue to the large perky breasts bumping against his chest and the way that she writhes her hips against him, yearning for anything on his body to tease and please her.

"So needy aren't you baby?" His soft tone of pure taunting creates a waterfall between her thighs, she nods with haste, begging for a merciless fuck before she implodes.

Bill lowers his slacks and briefs until each of their clothes are in a mess of a pile nearing the stain of wine on the floorboards. He shoves her into the couch, getting a good look at what she looks like eye-level with his long cock that stands towards her lips. "You like kissing so much, don't you? So kiss that."

Tears of shame and a disgusting loss of self respect flows down her cheeks, not only does she want to kiss the handsome cock but she wants to memorize the feeling of its every curve and vein against the back of her throat. She wants him to fuck her face until she's a mess of tears and slobber, however, it wouldn't do much for the tightening spring plaguing her in the midst of her core.

Holly kisses his cockhead, allowing him to ram his entire length down her throat with a grip to her coily afro. He chokes her with his thick dagger in four deep strokes, just enough to lube his erection for what they both really want— earth shattering, filthy sex.

Lifting her as if she were weightless, Bill places her in the corner of the couch cushions, angling her legs around his waist as he stretches her apart for another glance at Holly's plumped womanhood, drenched in arousal and inviting. "Please." She begs, overwhelmed with the need to be full of cock and fucked numb. "Bill, baby please fuck me."

He breaches her tight entry with cockhead as his brows furrow and jaw laxes from the snug fit. As for Holly, being split in two has never felt better, needing to know and desperate to feel him bottoming out against her hilt and the way his sack will bounce off her ass. "More!"

Tightly against her, Bill's large body splits her thighs further apart. His demolition begins with thrusts that nearly knock the framed photos from off of the walls. With a fierce grasp to each sides of her hips, Holly watches Bill hammer into her, in disbelief that her tiny frame can even take all that he's giving her. "Mmm-uhh!!" She complains over the fact that she just can't keep up. "Fuck, Bill!!! I'm gonna— ah!" His lips are tight and teeth are gritted as he gives it his all, wrecking her canal and molding her to his exact shape... Making sure that with him around, there won't ever be another cock that she could ever prefer.

With indecent gropes to her tits, Bill amuses himself with the soft puffiness of her tawny areolas. Programmed to be infatuated with the buxom minx, his hardware must be working on overdrive from the way she has him beyond enamored. He feels his peak approaching as his sack draws up beneath him, working tirelessly he needs to make sure that his sweet Holly gets hers before he gets his. From the touch of her breasts, Bill finds his way across her plush belly to the mound between her thighs that he continues to pound cock into. His thumb presses at her clit where his strumming begins, Holly's back arches from off the couch cushions and her pleads become inaudible moans.

The lewdness of his wet sloshing through her cunt comes to a slow place as Holly's walls begin to flutter and clench around him. She becomes impossibly tight and soaks his pubic hair as her climax rains upon him. "Fuckkkk." He complains as the grip on her greedy pussy causes him to fall over the edge. "So good for me baby, my god. Keep going, keep fucking squeezing me slut."

With eyes half-lidded and fucked to a pulp, Holly awakens when a familiar eruption occurs... Bill's final plow is a criminal plunge against her cervix where ropes of cum are shot into her womb. Holly gasps, soon cut off by a moan and a second  cum when the hot seed fills her to the brim and lays claim over her cunt. "Wait!! No way. Did you just— you just—"

"Ejaculated." Bill pants and becomes weak against her body.

Confused about the extreme realism, Holly begins to freak. "Yeah no shit! What is it?"

Bill rolls off of her, lips parted as he heaves overly-pleasured and exerted breaths. "Non-toxic synthetic solution to mimic male ejaculation, should I turn this setting off, Holly?"

"No. I just—" Her worry leaves her with a small chuckle. "Sorry, it just felt so real. I'm ovulating right now... nearly freaked out thinking that you got me pregnant or something. You see, morning-after pills don't work for women who are ovulating, I'm just glad I don't have to worry about things like that anymore."

Bill grins, slowly beginning to kiss at her sore belly that just recently had been bulging with the shape of his cock. His kiss reaches further to the fat warm cunt full of his synthetic cum, he swipes a stripe of tongue through her sensitive folds and Holly breathes out gently. "Holly my love, with me, you don't have to worry about anything ever again. Now tell me, where do you want me this time?"

———

As day five approaches, Bill and Holly become even more inseparable. The night after their first fuck was spent with more of the very same events. Busy with steamy pastime to the point of Bill's exhaustion, Holly's shaken legs, and thighs covered in loads of pearly pleasure.

"Baby, please! I have to go!" Holly giggles into his lips this morning as Bill continues to pull her by the waist into his addictive kiss. "And you need to get dressed too! My sister Melissa is going to watch you until my interview is over, so I need you to behave!"

"I just wish we could crawl back in bed, watch you lose yourself on the bed of my tongue for a little bit..." His dirty talk has Holly biting her lip and wondering if getting a job is really that important after all. But she knows that she has to make this interview... After spending thousands of dollars on her android, she needs a better job to keep up with all the bills.

She hates to decline his offer, but regardless of her lovely new husband, life must still go on. "Although I'd love to take you up on that, it'll just have to wait honey."

"And babysitting me?" Bill continues to try and coerce her into staying home with him. His mouth finds the crook of her neck, bringing her to explicit moans and failing knees. The only way he keeps her propped up in his strength is the vulgar grip on her ass against her interview's pencil-skirt, a grip so deep that his digits seep through the lips of her clothed cunt. "Haven't I proven to you how much of a man I truly am?"

"Yes, more than you realize." She becomes weak in his embrace.

"Good girl." He coos, causing her to lose herself even more. "And, I'm programmed to be a thirty-five year old man. So I think I can handle staying home by myself."

"And I'm sure you can!" Holly exclaims, realizing on her wristwatch that they are becoming far too late for the interview. "But I just worry that you'll get stuck somewhere or something. Listen we have to leave! Bill, honey, I just want to be sure you're always safe. Just comply for me— please!"

The android sighs and follows the commands of his user. "Fine baby, I'll go and get dressed if that's what you want." 

Holly chuckles with a heart warming smile that could even win over the heart of a machine-man. "You're the best sweetie, thank you!"

———

Hand in hand as they enter Holly's sister's job, Melissa's eyes widen at the sight of Holly's new man. "Wait, he's the Nanimo android?!"

Holly chuckles, "I know right!!!"

"I heard about these robots... Super lifelike and at first were being used for Space exploration to send back data about how humans would react on different planets. I just didn't know they'd be so hot!" Melissa continues to circle the couple and soon stops at the sight of her sister. "Holy shit, a damn android has you glowing like this? Holly, you look so happy."

She blushes. "I am happy— well, we are happy." The comment makes Bill smirk, full of pride to be Holly's companion.

Melissa runs a boutique part time in Manhattan for some big time designer, luckily today the store is clear and Melissa can keep an eye on Bill as she tends to the register. "Melissa, I really appreciate you looking after Bill for me. I have this interview down the block for desk services at this swanky hotel and I'm running late. Just text me if you need anything! Oh, and if the whole android thing begins to freak you out, just tell him to 'power down' and he'll sleep until I come back and wake him up. Okay?"

Melissa shrugs, already scanning through a magazine as she rests behind the register. "Sounds good to me Sis, good luck!"

Unfamiliar of his surroundings and being away from his user, Bill takes a seat nearby and has light conversation with Holly's sister to use up some of their time.

"Hey, who's this?" After a half hour of talking, Melissa and Bill are interrupted by the owner of the boutique.

"Who?" Melissa chuckles. "Don't you mean what?"She continues. "This is a robot worth eighty-Gs, a Nanimo android, AKA my sister's new fuck-bot."

"Holly?" The boss frowns. "She's such a cute girl, what in the hell does she need with a sex-bot?"

"It's more to it than that..." Melissa sighs. "My sister has always had to make things difficult in life, even when it comes to dating. Now she's at an interview hoping for a new job since she spent all of her money on— him."

"Well speaking of a sex-bot..." Melissa's seventy-year old shop owner begins to prod her with his erection from behind. "I've taken a few Viagra and wanted to see how much you really wanted that ten-dollar raise."

The man flips the opened sign on the door to closed. "Tell me Melissa, can I be your sex-bot?"

Melissa grinds herself further against her sugar daddy's lap. "You want this pussy? Well I want the hourly raise and my allowance boosted to three-thousand a month."

He lifts Melissa's skirt and lowers her panties. "Mmm, would you look at that ass. How about we add a Rolex to that too?"

She bites her lip with a nod bending over the register to be pounded by a man who could be her grandfather. "Bill..." She gulps. "Power down."

As directed, Bill powers down and drops his head as his system goes on rest.

The backshots begin as Melissa lets the old man fuck her for money, having to give the sugar part of the deal to her sugar daddy if she wants her allowance to continue to grow.

The old man smiles deviously as he uses the young woman like a whore. He takes pride in knowing that she'll do whatever he asks of her, and always will have the upper hand in the say adds to his kink. Fuck-bots can come in many different ways, for some in the form of a silicone dummy, and for others in the form of a twenty-eight year old girl thirsty for status and cash.

Melissa's hair becomes a wild mess as she continues to grow even more disgusted with herself about what she is willing to do to keep up this Upper Eastside lifestyle she's determined to live, but she also knows that Red Bottoms and Prada don't come cheap. As her boss continues to drill into her, Melissa gasps at the sudden eye contact with Holly's bot... Not only did Bill ignore Melissa's command to power down, but he watches with what seems to be a sinister smirk at his lips. "Bill!" She shouts through exasperated breaths. "I said power down!"

...

She again goes ignored.

"Wait, we have to stop!" Melissa's skin crawls with the embarrassment of the entire act and Bill's way of staring without even a blink! "The android! He's watching— I need you to stop."

"So let it watch!" The old man's arthritic fingers dig deeper into Melissa's bare hips. "If you want everything that I promised you, you'll shut your goddamned mouth and quit stopping me, understand?"

Melissa's face becomes smashed against the register's keys as her sugar daddy arches her in an even further stance, smacking her ass like a prized pony. Tears flood her cheeks as she watches Bill for the remainder of the time and he watches back just as attentively. "Yes..." Her soul breaks. "I understand."

As an hour or more passes, Holly is back from her interview with excellent news. She can't wait to share the fact that she was hired for the job, but being that ever since Melissa's quickie ended, she's been trembling like a leaf on a tree and Holly has to make sure that she's alright. "I got the job— Melissa? Are you okay?"

Standing from his chair, Bill meets Holly at the door with congratulatory kisses. He tilts her chin to meet his kiss. "I'm so proud of you baby, I just knew you would impress them."

Her cheeks redden from his kiss, she watches up at her tall husband as his eyes darken with arousal and his grip becomes tighter on her waist. "Thank you, honey." She giggles slightly from the known fact of once they are finally home, they'll be all over each other once again.

"Can I have a word?" Melissa trembles with a second glance at Bill. "In private, please?"

Holly frowns in curiosity. "Yeah sure... Bill, power down." As his head drops and his body becomes motionless, Holly continues carefully. "Melissa? Is everything alri—"

"Take him back." Holly is quickly cut off by her sister's irrational fear. "Something's wrong with him! I had a— a male friend of mine come over, and well— we decided to have a quick fuck. I asked Bill to power down, and it was like he faked it!!! Right in the middle of the act, I turn to him and notice him watching the whole time. I tried the command twice after that, and he still never stopped watching."

"That's ridiculous Melissa." Holly scoffs. "Look at him! I just used the command on him and he's out like a light! Are you sure you used it correctly?"

"Yes I'm sure!" The sister becomes enraged. "Do you think that I'm some liar?!? Holly, I'm telling you exactly what happened! Look— I'm afraid his system is hacked or something! Maybe even a glitch, but he's not safe. You need to send him back to be rebooted and fixed!"

"Send him back?!" There isn't any getting through to Holly. "Reboot him and erase everything that him and I have shared?!? You're insane!"

"HOLLY—"

"I LOVE HIM." Her sudden outburst has her sister muted, feeling that this relationship with a robot has seriously gone too far.

"Love?" Although Melissa's whisper is soft and understanding, Holly reads it as her being belittled. "Sweetheart you don't know what love is. He's a robot, Holly. He isn't real. I thought you were using him for the same reason a woman buys a vibrator, but love? This isn't healthy Holly, take him back."

Her words sting, and Holly's wonderful day has quickly turned for the worst. "Bye, Melissa. I'm not doing this with you today. Bill wake up, let's go."

———

Their dinner is extremely quiet tonight. With Holly in her feelings and held up in the deepest and darkest corner of her mind, not even Bill's brilliant cooking and doing chores can make her smile.

As she comes from her bath wrapped in her warm bathrobe, Bill kisses gently at her forehead right below her hairline, inhaling her scent of hair conditioner and fresh soap. "I hate that your day got ruined."

"It's fine—"

"It's not." He interrupts. "It seems like every time Melissa calls or texts your phone, your mood completely changes! And now that we went and seen her today, she's made you even worse. Melissa isn't good for your happiness, baby."

Holly becomes almost convinced as she begins to feel whole again wrapped in Bill's arms. "She's my sister, Bill. What can I do?"

"Focus on yourself." He caresses her face as she lays sweetly in the palms of his hands. "Do whatever makes you happy, stop letting her steal your light. Don't worry my love, I know just what will make you feel better. Clean hot sheets for a good night of rest."

With a basket of fresh laundry, Bill makes the bed in warm clean sheets. His attempt to make Holly feel better makes her laugh. Although he's only an android, at least he cares for her happiness, and for that, she shouldn't be shamed the way Melissa treated her today.

As they dim the lights to sleep, Holly rids her robe wanting to feel the clean sheets against her bare skin tonight. Bill cuddles up closely to her and his hands begin to roam over her addictive physique. "So beautiful doll." He compliments gently as his lips meet the skin of her delicate flesh. His long fingers move slowly between her legs as his fingertips swipe gently through the lips of her pussy. He tries to tease her at her pearl to initiate the rainfall of her nectar, but being so depressed tonight, her body just won't react to it. "Mmm please? That pussy feels like magic baby." He tries to woo her with his explicit charm...

But not even his deep baritone full of lust can sway her. Holly's mind replays a hundred and one questions about the experience her sister had with Bill today... What if she wasn't lying? What if something is actually wrong with him? "Bill? Why did you ignore Melissa's command today?"

"Her command?" He questions. "I'm not sure what you mean... A man came into the shop, and after that all I can remember is you coming back from your interview. What command did I ignore?"

Holly sighs. "I don't know— she said that she powered you down and that you didn't listen, but I used that very same command right after and you listened to me immediately! I hope she's not just fucking with me... I'd hate to think my own sister would be out to destroy my happiness."

"If anyone knows how to push your buttons, it would be your sister." He grins. "I'm telling you baby, it's just something about her energy."

Holly begins to think out loud. "You're probably right, but—maybe I need to order another instruction manual for you, there could be something that I'm missing."

His eyes darken, he feels the distrust radiating off of her and it's all Melissa's fault.

"Like at night, some times you get up! Where do you even go?" Holly frowns, making small room between them and removing his touch as she questions her robot. "And—And in the bathroom... I hear the shower and the toilet flushing. What the hell are you doing in there?"

"It is my job to mimic reality. With your request I am to make your experience with me extremely real. I am to do what any other human husband would, even if it means that I have a self timer to flush the toilet every once in a while to mimic the sounds of restroom use." Bill chuckles and holds his wife's hand to calm her as he explains. "And as for showering, although it isn't necessary, I am waterproof. Can I interest you in a relaxing dip in a romantic bath?"

His slight joke makes Holly giggle. "A romantic bath?"

"With rose pedals, and candles?" He persuades.

She chuckles. "It is tempting... But what about when you leave the bed as I sleep at night? Where do you go?"

"Even androids get curious and wander around a bit, especially if I'm charged enough." Bill shrugs. "All these questions, Holly.... What? Do I look like some kind of monster?"

"No baby..." She smiles. "I just gotta stop letting people put bugs in my head is all. I trust you Bill."

"And you love me." His fingers trace the curve of her jaw. "I heard you. Holly, I love you so much more. I'll take care of you forever, I'll never hurt you." The sweet admission and the heavy slumber attacking her tired eyes has Holly relaxed and falling asleep in Bill's arms, too distracted by his love to realize exactly what he has just said...

He heard her? He heard her in the store when he was supposed to be powered down...

As Holly continues to fall asleep, Bill slides out of his hold around her and presses his lips to hers as he kisses her goodnight. Now that she is fast asleep and forgot the command to make him sleep beside her, Bill is free to roam the house. And in the midst of his roaming, a late night knock on the door has him curious.

He gets to the door before the knock can wake Holly up and notices that it is her sister Melissa making an unexpected appearance late tonight. "Melissa? Can I help you?"

She scoffs. "No, actually you can't. I'm here for my sister, I don't like how things ended today. I need to speak with her."

"Well that's too bad isn't it?" Bill steps his large body between Melissa and the door, refusing her entrance.  Her eyes open widely in disbelief of his ability of the sudden cruel sass. "You've done enough, Melissa. Holly is already asleep, and I'm sure she doesn't want to hear from you."

"I fucking hate AI." She rolls her eyes, "move out the way and let me see my sister!"

"Do you know what Holly said about you?" A psychotic dazed look in his wide green eyes has Melissa afraid and taken a step back. "Holly says that you're nothing but a nasty whore. You mock her about having an android husband yet to afford your way of living, you bend it over for geriatric patients. You aren't better than her Melissa, better yet, you're jealous of everything she has. You're sick. You're disgusting. Get a life, and get a man."

Tears swell in her eyes, unsure of what he's saying that Holly said about her is true, she knows that it doesn't sound like something her sweet baby sister would say... But regardless, the words are painful and makes her hate herself even more.

The tears hurt her throat as she swallows the pain back down. "She isn't safe around you."

Bill chuckles with a threat that shakes Melissa to her core. "No Melissa, it's you that isn't safe around me."

———

With their one-week anniversary approaching, Bill assures the next few days are spent in unforgettable romantic ways. Although their time together has been short, the way that Bill caters to Holly's every need, it feels like they've known each other for years and were meant to be.

He spoils her with romance that has her mindless to all of her life's issues and worries. Fucking her to a pulp of cock-drunk mush and steadily expelling gallons of his synthetic spend into her cunt. The mind blowing sex and princess treatment in a way is to celebrate their anniversary and the rest of their long lives together, but it is also to distract Holly from having conversation with her sister...

As Bill's love for Holly continues to grow and consume him, so does his hatred for Melissa.

She's been trying to reach her sister for days now. Multiple calls and texts gone ignored being that while Holly is bent over and spewed across Bill's cock, he takes the time as a distraction to delete all evidence of Melissa's texts and calls from her phone.

But today is the day it all will end... Either Bill blocks Melissa's number, or he sends her a text pretending to be Holly wanting to meet up where he will kill her and end her pestilent presence in their lives... How far he's willing to go is completely up to his unstable mood and wiring today.

As Holly confidently applies her lipgloss this evening, she continues to glow from the benefits of being in a happy relationship.

He kisses her cheek, adding a gentle love-pat to her ass as she continues to bend over the sink towards her bathroom mirror. "My baby." He hisses sweetly, "so fucking perfect."

Pure usually, his compliments heats Holly's cheeks into a delicious blush as she continues with her soft-glam makeup today. He takes advantage of her being distracted again by lifting her phone and typing the password he memorized after a few times of watching her put it in. He heads straight for Melissa's number and as soon as he goes to press block, a text message pops up from an unsaved number.

As curiosity kills him, Bill begins to rummage through the messages of this unsaved number, finding that it's one of Holly's exes easing back into her life and worst of all... Holly is entertaining him.

Bill's system begins to boil as he lays eyes on flirty texts from Holly, dates planned, and even nude photos of her body... a body that Bill is convinced should only belong to him.

"Who the fuck is this?" Not being able to hold his tongue any longer, Holly needs to explain what she's been up to.

Her eyes meet the texts being shown to her and she snaps. "What the hell are you doing going through my phone Bill? Seriously, not cool."

"You're fucking this guy? An ex?" He questions with an unfamiliar ferocity in his tone. "HOLLY, ANSWER ME."

"Bill!" She snatches her phone back. "Stay in an android's place! Whatever I do with real people isn't any of your business. Honey, you're perfect. But what we have at home is what we have at home, don't tell me you expected me not to see other humans, come on now."

"Have friends, Holly. I don't want you to be alone...See anyone else other than him." He pleads, "but not him. Not a man that wants what is mine."

"What is, yours?" She scoffs at his sudden display of possessiveness, with an android she had hoped that she would be able to skip this part of having a man. "You know what? I damn sure didn't turn on any jealousy traits, so I tell ya what, Bill power down."

...

He takes a step forward instead, instigating whether he wants to put hands on her or not.

His defiance frightens her. Holly steps back as the large man hovers over her and she drops her phone, shattering the glass screen and breaking it into pieces. "Bill you're scaring me!" She blurts words of her fear unsure of this change in him.

Her sister was right. He does ignore his power down command and he's been hiding it all along. "Don't push me, Holly. Maybe I should take my role of a husband up a notch and discipline my dishonorable wife. Huh? Is that what I need to do?"

She trembles. "Please, Bill just power down."

He looks down upon round brown doe eyes that absolutely fear him. Guilt fills him and he immediately softens. "I'm sorry, Holly... baby I'm— I'm sorry." He takes a seat in the nearby recliner, dropping his head as he powers down and Holly is able to breathe again.

She dramatically exhales the shaky breath she had been holding and begins to cry, scared and confused however all she can think about is calling her sister to tell her that she was right.

As she presses on the shattered screen of her phone, it's clear that the device is too far broken to be able to call anyone. She watches Bill with one hundred percent distrust. Just because his head is down, she doesn't trust that he's actually asleep. Needing air and space from him, Holly finds herself running to her porch. Outside, she takes gigantic breaths in, glad to be able to take in its fresh air. As she glances down the street, she notices the garbage truck about a block away. "Just great." She scoffs, wiping her tears as she walks back in the kitchen to grab her trash. "So busy worried about who I'm fucking and being jealous, he didn't even take the trash out today!"

Holly knots her kitchen trash and takes it behind her house to her bins. She already knows how full they'll be being that the street's garbage truck picks up once a week. She could use Bill's brawn to pull the week's worth of trash up to the curb, but if that means waking him up, then she rather not.

She sighs in aggravation as she notices her bins full of not only her mounds of trash, but at least ten pizza boxes. With NYU just around the corner, her neighbors are teenage boys that live in a frat house together, too damn cheap to buy into the weekly garbage service, they always dump their trash in hers. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me." Holly groans, annoyed with the extra work when the garbage truck is now only a few houses away.

With her anger at an all time high, she begins to think of ways to get the young college boys in trouble, like maybe snitching to their landlord or better yet their dean! But her ruthless thoughts come to a quick halt as a young pair of dirty tan legs and bare feet poke out from behind her bins underneath a tattered tarp. She gasps. Her young neighbors are always drinking themselves stupid but to end up behind her house passed out is a new one. Worrying for the handsome young man's safety Holly shakes his shoulders to try and wake him... He hasn't a heartbeat and he's not breathing. "Oh shit! Fuck! Fuck!" She puckers his lips and blows air into his lungs, pleading with the young man to be alright and not dead in her backyard. Holly begins to pump his chest as she performs CPR and is immediately taken aback by the first words he chooses as he regains consciousness. "Hi, welcome to the programming of your personal Nanimo android, shall we begin?"

...

Her legs give out as her world starts to spin. She falls backwards in the mucky water of garbage puddles and the garbage truck passes her house by.

It can't be... It just can't.

She nears cardiac arrest as her heart continues to beat like a drum out of her chest. If this is her actual Nanimo bot? Then who the hell is in her house?

Puzzled and hyperventilating on the cold dirty ground, all of the small things that have happened this week begins to make sense. The broken in box, the missing instructions, Bill's bathroom breaks, showering, realistic climaxes, and the refusal to power off. No, Bill isn't an android at all.

The multiple pizza boxes are his, not the frat neighbors, and they are the food that has been fueling him. Food that he orders when he leaves the bed at night with no excuse... And God, his sex... He's been filling Holly's fertile womb with his seed multiple times a day for a week. Pumped with a strange man's cum and probably in the early days of pregnancy by now.

Holly pukes, the sicko in her house has been pursuing his sick fetish and using her loneliness as a way of getting exactly what he wants. She peels the rest of the tarp over the real android's body and she finds clothes that Bill must've tossed when he decided to swap his body with the bot and pretend to be artificial. With his clothes is his wallet— empty with only his true identity, and of course... the rest of the android's instructions that Holly had been looking for.

New York's very own Keith Toshko, a criminal who has preyed on a Holly's loneliness for his own pleasure.

"Sweet Holly, now you know as your husband it's my duty to take care of the garbage, why are you out here?" From behind, Holly is immediately caught by surprise as Keith sneaks up behind her. "Today is trash day isn't it? Fuck, I only had one more day and all evidence would've been gone. You should've let me handle it baby... then you wouldn't be so hurt right now."

"Stay back from me!" She points with his ID and nearly trips backwards over the body of her android. "You sick bastard, I know who you are! KEITH! I swear to God don't come near me!"

"It's Bill, remember my love? And come on, does it really change anything?" The psychopath even begins to laugh. "Or are we in far too deep? May as well continue with what we have being that you'll be having my baby by the end of the year."

She gags. Violated in the worst ways possible, her body doesn't even feel of her own now that she realizes she's been gladly taking his seed as he had fed her lies, and now she's currently growing it. "You're sick."

"Maybe I'm not an android. Maybe I saw an undeniably perfect opportunity when this bot was delivered to your doorstep while you were out grocery shopping. But every word that I ever said was true. I'm here to serve you, Holly. To be yours."He darkens into the monster that he truly is, Holly can't even recognize who she fell in love with during the coarse of this one week. Bill flashes a knife from behind his back with the utmost terrifyingly sinister smile. "Now, are we going back inside? Or will I have to lay your lifeless body under this tarp too?"

[ohhappyday123]

Office Dynamics

The usual chaos at Dunder Mifflin was in full swing as you settled into your desk. You glanced around the office, noting the familiar faces: your best friend Pam at the receptionist desk, Dwight giving one of his many stern warnings to an uninterested Jim, and Michael hiding behind his office door, occasionally peeking out to see if anyone needed "managing."

You had been at Dunder Mifflin for a few years now, and over time, you had built strong relationships with your coworkers. You were especially close to Pam and Dwight. Pam was your confidante, the one who shared your love for art and a good cup of coffee. Dwight, with all his quirks, had become a surprisingly loyal friend. And then there was Jim, with whom you'd developed a complicated yet exciting "fling."

The camera crew caught you at your desk, and you gave a small wave before starting your work.

Interview with Y/N: "I love it here. Everyone's so... unique," you laughed. "Pam and I have been friends since I started, and Dwight, well, he's an acquired taste, but he's a good friend. Michael... he kind of sees me as his secret favorite. I don't know why, but I'll take it."

As you typed away, Michael's voice echoed through the office. "Y/N! Can you come into my office for a second?"

You rolled your eyes playfully at the camera before standing up and making your way to Michael's office. He shut the door behind you, a serious look on his face.

"Y/N, I need your opinion on something very important," Michael said, his tone hushed.

"Sure, Michael. What's up?" you replied, curious.

"I've been thinking about the next office party theme. What do you think about a ‘Scranton Renaissance Fair’?" he asked, his eyes wide with excitement.

You couldn't help but smile. "I think it's a great idea, Michael. Everyone will love it."

Michael beamed, clearly satisfied with your response. "I knew I could count on you, Y/N. You're the best."

You left Michael's office, feeling a bit lighter. As you walked back to your desk, you noticed Jim watching you with a smirk. You raised an eyebrow at him, silently asking what he found so amusing.

He got up and sauntered over to your desk, leaning against it casually. "So, the boss's favorite, huh?"

You shrugged, trying to hide your smile. "What can I say? I have a way with people."

Jim chuckled, his eyes sparkling. "Well, you certainly have a way with me."

Before you could respond, Pam appeared beside you, a stack of papers in her hands. "Hey, Y/N. Got a minute?"

You nodded, grateful for the distraction. As Pam led you to the break room, you glanced back at Jim, who was still watching you, his smile never wavering.

In the break room, Pam set the papers down and turned to you, a knowing look on her face. "So, what's going on with you and Jim?"

You felt a blush creep up your neck. "Nothing, really. We're just... having fun."

Pam raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh. Just be careful, okay? Jim's a great guy, but office flings can get complicated."

You nodded, appreciating her concern. "Thanks, Pam. I'll keep that in mind."

As the day went on, you found yourself in the middle of a prank war between Jim and Dwight. Dwight had somehow managed to get himself locked in the conference room, and Jim was pretending to have lost the key.

Interview with Dwight: "Y/N is one of the few competent people in this office. She understands the importance of structure and discipline. Jim, on the other hand, is a menace."

Interview with Jim: "Y/N and I have a good thing going. She's smart, funny, and knows how to keep Dwight in check. Plus, she's got this amazing smile that just... well, it's something special."

As you tried to mediate the situation, Michael called another impromptu meeting. Everyone gathered in the conference room, and you took a seat next to Pam. Jim sat across from you, giving you a playful wink.

Michael started the meeting with his usual enthusiasm. "Alright, everyone! I have exciting news. We're going to have a ‘Scranton Renaissance Fair’! And it was all Y/N's brilliant idea."

You felt everyone's eyes on you, and you gave a modest smile. "It should be fun."

After the meeting, as everyone was getting back to work, Jim cornered you near the copier. "So, a Renaissance Fair, huh? Any chance you’ll dress up as a princess?"

You laughed, shaking your head. "Only if you dress up as a knight."

Jim grinned, leaning in closer. "Deal. But just so you know, I'm pretty sure I'd be the one saving you."

You felt your heart race as you looked into his eyes. "We'll see about that."

The rest of the day flew by, and as the office began to empty, you found yourself alone with Jim. He walked you to your car, his hand brushing against yours.

"So, dinner tonight?" he asked, his voice hopeful.

You nodded, feeling a warmth spread through you. "I'd love that."

Interview with Y/N: "Jim and I... we have this connection. It's fun, it's exciting, and it just feels right. I'm not sure where it's going, but I'm enjoying the ride."

As you drove home, you couldn't stop smiling. The day had been filled with the usual office antics, but amidst it all, you felt a sense of happiness and anticipation. Tonight, you'd get to explore whatever this was with Jim a little further, and you couldn't wait.

[paramortality]

I can't be the only one sitting on this so I'm taking you all down with me

CW blorbo death HC (it's about Laird)

Laird and Emmrich have a long, inseparable 37 years together. Laird, his rusty red mane– now a strawberry silver sunkissed by life and age– can't cope as well as everyone thought he could. Even knowing it was coming for so long, it felt like he hadn't prepared at all when it finally happened. It was peaceful of course; cold in Laird's arms one Wintersend morning.

Lucanis makes the trip from Minrathous with his wife Neve of nearly as many years. Bellara's Aravel is escorted through the Nevarran streets to at Vorgoth's behest as she's an old friend of their son's and ofc a hero of the Veilguard. The blight no longer in the world, Davrin has made it to his greying years with no calling and arrives with the mountain little Assan has become. Laird was there for Shathaan, Harding, and Isabella's funerals, so of course Taash makes a show of force with the Lords of Fortune at their backs to be their for Emmrich's. He was just as gilded as they were, and they found some Nevarran artifacts in some looter's den that needed returning anyways.

The funeral was beautiful, people making pilgrimages thedas-over to pay respect to the now second fallen member of the Veilguard. Laird seemed to be holding it together really well; He'd never tell anyone how bad it hurt. Even if Neve saw through him like a glass house, he'd argue politely he'd be okay. There'd been quiet concerns he'd turn to the lich lords to "fix it" at his lowest moment, but he never visits them. "How many exceptions until tyranny," he reminds himself.

It's not even a full week after the funeral they all receive a letter again. This time in what may be Vorgoth's hand but is too shaky to really be theirs, right? Laird had been found at Emmrich's headstone after being unaccounted for for a couple of days. Shrouds kiss had already started growing unnaturally fast around the headstone and over Laird's shoulders, petals pressed gently against the pages of a memoir of Manfred's development they'd written together in their final years. Manfred was his own man, off in search of a lost hypogeum with his own research team much further down in the Necropolis. He's grief stricken but unsurprised his fathers went one right after the other when a letter finally reaches his expedition camp some days later. His only regret being he missed Emmrich's funeral for simply not knowing. Time loops on that one charnel bridge really delayed the letter's delivery. No one's fault.

All the gang returns, just as they had for Emmrich, but the grief now stacked twice as high. The man who believed in them all, went to hell and back, killed three gods, and was the wind at all their backs as they saved the world together was gone, just like that. If happiness could be a thing in times like this, they hoped the Fade gained two inseparable wisps of curiosity and determination that night. Neve never looked at wisps that pestered her in pairs the same way again.

Taash, trying to keep a stoic face– like the casket before them didn't hold the first person to ever really listen to them, who outed his own gender identity to help them find their own– forces a dry humour smile at the podium and swallows a tightness in their throat. They knew he never wanted his funeral to be doom and gloom.

"Hey. His hands finally stopped rattling. Bet he's happy about that."

It was the only time anyone in the world had ever heard Vorgoth laugh.

If y'all need anything I'll be fighting my brain in the Waffle House parking lot for this.