#cloy saccharine

[jimmyspades]

[ob4yme]

having a think about how saxon!master is always unapologetically, outwardly cruel, while gomez!master at times cloaks her cruelty in a kind of gentleness.

[femmefaggot]

hmm. cloying... suffocating... i feel theres another word.

[alltheshadesofamber]

I think I might be allergic to Christmas romcoms

[deirdreskye]

commenting "cloying and saccharine" under a pic of someone's baby

[maydaymadier]

everyone should get 1 consequence-free major injury of their choosing at some point in their life, just to try it out

[daistea]

Might I… request a fic about Kabru and Mithrun (respectively) encountering a succubus that appeals to them by taking on the form of the reader. While the reader is standing Right There

oh my goodness this was so fun for me. However, it was only after I finished writing it that I realized what 'respectively' implied. So this did not happen respectively, I'm sorry. I think it's funnier this way, though, if that's any solace.

If you still want this prompt done for them both separately, then let me know and I'll be happy to do that!

Mithrun x Reader x Kabru (not a love triangle, no established relationship)

2000 words!

no tw except for a very mild implication

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

The first sign of danger was the cloying, saccharine smell that consumed every inch of the room. It was as if the air had been replaced with pure perfume created to appeal to a specific victim. 

Kabru’s eyes fluttered as he recognized the scent of Utaya’s fields, especially the moments when the breeze would roll across the wheat and envelop him in a warm hug. Then, there was the hint of Milsiril’s kitchen, which wasn’t a scent he would usually describe as appealing. Yet, it sunk into his skin and made his heart clench.

To Mithrun, the petrichor was faint, but recognizable. It was just a hint in the back of his mind, bringing up a split second memory of the rainy, rolling green hills of the Northern Central Continent. Since the demon, though, he’d never been particularly sentimental of his home. As if the source of the scent read his mind and realized that, the perfume in the air gently switched to something savory, like elf cake. He didn’t care about that either. Again, the scent switched to wildflowers. He didn’t care about that either. And once more—

Succubi were so annoying, so invasive. Mithrun sighed and nudged Kabru with his elbow, “There’s monsters nearby.”

Kabru caught on almost immediately, “Succubi?” Without waiting for an answer, he glanced over his shoulder at you, of all people. His expressions weren’t as well-guarded when with you and Mithrun, and the Captain recognized the concern that flickered over his face. Mithrun’s hand twitched with the urge to grab Kabru by the hair and redirect his stare elsewhere, perhaps onto the life-sucking mosquito monsters that were slowly approaching from the shadows. 

The dungeon was a collapsed ruin, but still traversable to those determined enough. You had insisted on coming with Mithrun on one of his regular explorations of the ruins. Once Kabru had discovered that you were going with Mithrun, he insisted upon coming along as well despite his obvious distaste for the place. There was some deeper reasoning behind his decision, Mithrun knew. Whether or not you knew that, though, remained to be seen. 

There was rubble in the corners and moss growing between the cracks in the stones. One wrong step and the ceiling could easily fall. It was wise to have more than one person when encountering a succubi, yet all the times Mithrun had encountered them in the past had ended up in his favor. The succubi didn’t quite know what to do with him. He cast you and Kabru a wary glance, though— you two were far more susceptible. 

“Just stay close,” Kabru said as he took a careful step forward. He reached out a hand behind him, grabbing for your wrist. You let him take your arm, and Mithrun felt his shoulders tense. 

“The wisest thing to do would be to cover your eyes,” Mithrun mused. As he spoke, he took your other hand. In response to that, Kabru released your wrist and also held your hand. For a moment, you felt like the rope in a game of tug-of-war. It wasn’t the worst feeling, but perhaps one of the most confusing. 

Mithrun and Kabru led you through the ruined room. The shadows were thick and alive with the scuffling of feet, the brushing of wings against the wall. Kabru did his best to hide his concern, but his adams apple bobbed as he swallowed down whatever he was feeling. A quick glance at Mithrun confirmed that the Captain was not at all bothered by the cloying scent of succubi, their calling card and greeting. They could strike at any moment, yet he remained calm. 

“It will be fine,” Mithrun’s voice cut through the tension, “just close your eyes.”

Kabru sent him a look over his shoulder, “‘It’ll be fine’ is easy for you to say, Captain.”

“It is, the succubi have never really known what to make of me.”

You imagined a life-sucking, giant mosquito monster just staring at Mithrun as it tried to process what it was seeing. Yet, just the other day, Mithrun had expressed a small desire for a specific dish. 

You snorted, “Your desires are coming back, though. You never know, it may take the form of an unseasoned elf casserole.”

Kabru put up a gloved hand to stifle his laugh, “Yeah, with boiled chicken and white rice without an ounce of salt.”

You could practically feel the heat of Mithrun’s stare on the back of your neck. “Elven cuisine is an acquired taste.”

“As in… once you actually acquire taste, you’ll move onto much better food?” You asked. 

You would’ve liked to share a high-five with Kabru over that one, but the familiar buzz of a mosquito interrupted the laughter. The three of you froze as a flicker of mana filled the air. Mithrun didn’t seem worried, this succubi obviously wasn’t for him, but—

Kabru put out an arm in front of you as if to shield you from… yourself. 

An exact copy of you stepped out of the shadows. Its eyes were wide with a look that could only be described as desperate desire. Its cheeks were flushed and brows furrowed, every ounce of attention focused precisely on Kabru. 

Both you and Mithrun looked at him. 

Kabru cleared his throat and looked away. The red on the tips of his ears was undeniable. 

How were you supposed to feel about that? Flattered? There was some flattery in it, though it was mixed with mild horror at the absolutely breathless and desperate version of yourself that he apparently desired. Was that what you looked like? You were sure you never made a face like that. (You did, last week when Melini had a heatwave and Kabru had fetched you a glass of water. The memory haunted him.)

To your right, Mithrun raised a shaking hand. His shoulders trembled a little and he closed his eyes. His brows furrowed as he exhaled shakily. He looked as if he was only held together by a thin piece of string and a wad of chewing gum. The sight made your heart skip a beat in panic until you noticed the slight twitch of his lips. 

He was trying not to laugh. 

You choked on air. Kabru also choked on air, but for a very different reason. The succubus copy of you slowly sauntered toward him– you do not saunter like that, you would never saunter in such a manner, with that hungry look in your eyes and your lips parted ever so slightly. Horrifying. But like all good horrifying things, it also made you want to kneel over and start laughing until your stomach hurt. 

“Kabru,” you gasped, barely holding yourself together, “You—”

“Shut up!” He snapped as he took several steps back, “Don’t overthink it! It’s nothing! It’s–”

Mithrun interrupted with a heavy, resigned sigh. He took a casual step forward and touched the succubus version of you on the shoulder. Its eyes widened and it tensed, but before it could react, it was gone. You were pretty sure he teleported it into a nearby wall, judging by the muffled, strangled hisses coming from nearby. 

Kabru was still red, “I can explain.”

“I don’t think that requires an explanation,” Mithrun said flatly. 

“You know what?” He glared, “Not everybody can be as unaffected as y—”

Another buzz, another footstep on the stone floor. The three of you froze once more as another succubus stepped out of the shadows. 

It was also you. 

Fortunately, this version of you was much less desperate. Yet there was something about it that reminded you of a painting in a cathedral. Perhaps it was the look in its familiar eyes, the sheer love and affection it held as it stared at Mithrun as if he was the only person who ever existed. 

“That’s not mine,” Kabru said.

And it obviously wasn’t yours. Both you and Kabru looked at Mithrun. 

The Captain was tense, his body taut like the string of a bow. His fingers twitched at his sides as he stared at the succubus. His good eye was wide and he kept blinking as if that might help clarify the existence of a version of you that looked at him so adoringly. 

He schooled his expression and casually pointed at the love-struck succubus, “That’s not mine.”

“Of course it’s yours!” Kabru snapped, “Who else’s could it be?!”

Mithrun only shrugged. The soft tinge of pink on his cheeks betrayed his feelings. 

Once again, you were at a loss of what to think. It was sweet. Your heart fluttered and emotion filled your throat. Yet, did he truly desire for you to look at him like that? Did he lie awake at night, wondering what it would feel like to have every ounce of your attention on him, to value him so dearly that you were incapable of seeing anyone else? The very idea knocked the breath from your lungs. 

Except, Kabru ran a sword through the adoring, angelic version of you, and the mosquito monster screeched in a very not-you way. Mithrun only grimaced and chose to stare at the wall instead.

“Okay, so hopefully that’s the last of them,” you said. Your cheeks felt very warm. Kabru and Mithrun both desired you, though in different ways. You didn’t think that was possible. There was nothing more you wanted to do at that moment than run and hide and mull over possible explanations for what you’d just seen.

“Wait,” Mithrun stretched out an arm in front of you, “there’s one more.”

Despite his serious tone, awkwardness permeated the air. You were practically choking on it, unable to breathe normally because all your body could process was sheer embarrassment. Kabru’s ears were red. Mithrun looked more dead inside than usual. None of you would meet each other’s eyes. 

The last succubus stepped out of the shadow. First, you saw a brown boot, then a familiar hand, then a familiar face. 

You gasped, holding your chest as if afraid that your heart might burst through your skin. “I-It’s you…”

Mithrun and Kabru both looked at you. “It’s…” Mithrun couldn’t finish his sentence. 

But Kabru could, “Your biggest desire is… The meat pie vendor who sets up shop on the corner on Thursdays?!”

He said it as if that was a bad thing. 

The meat pie vendor smiled seductively and held out a fresh, steaming hot meat pie. You took a step forward, your hand trembling as you reached for the treat. 

“You don’t even want him romantically!” Kabru yelled, “You just want him to give you food!”

Once again, he said it as if that was a bad thing. 

Before your hand could brush along the flaky, warm exterior of the meat pie, Kabru pulled out his sword. Mithrun grabbed a broken piece of wood from the ground. It happened too quickly. There was no time to defend your desire. You gasped as the sword ran through the beloved meat pie vendor’s stomach, and as the wood was teleported through his neck. With an inhuman screech, the succubus collapsed to the floor. 

Your friends, who wanted you, had just killed the one thing you wanted… Your heart was torn in two. 

It was a complete mystery why both Mithrun and Kabru stormed out of the dungeon without saying one word to you. You were the one that should’ve been mad. 

Still, as you took Kabru’s hand in your left and Mithrun’s in your right, they both gave your fingers a light squeeze. 

Still, “We’re never doing this again,” Kabru said. 

Mithrun nodded. You grimaced. And none of you ever spoke of it again. 

[rooksunday]

people draw fox smoking but if he was going that route my vote would be a meiloorun space vape. cloying, saccharine clouds curling out of the vents in his helmet as he heelies around the senate rotunda. mouse droids beeping behind him with space febreze.

[rinhaler]

I Finally Decided On You

✧˖*°࿐ : 18+ only, no minors.    ✧. ┊ rin itoshi x f!reader

Genre: smut & angst Notes: in my feelings abt a friendship break up so have some angst heheheee Warnings: 18+, mutual pining, angst, pet names, cheating, dacryphilia, tit sucking ♡, vaginal sex, choking ♡, love bites, breeding kink, creampie ♡ Words: 5.8k

“You’re lonely, aren’t you?”

Your breath hitches as the words make their way into your brain. His eyes have been fixed on you for what seems like a lifetime, but it’s only after you hear him ask something so personal, so intimate, that you can bring yourself to look at him. His glimmering, jade eyes are so striking, so captivating, you can’t help but want to bare your soul to him.

“You shouldn’t ask me something like that.” you whisper, unable to hide your smile as you are both all too aware of the irony of your sentence. There are so many things neither of you should be doing right now.

And yet, here you are, allowing the 4am sky to encase your bodies in a melancholic blanket. You’re waiting for one more sentence to spill from his lips that will have your deepest secrets tumbling from yours.

You know him.

He knows you.

And it’s so comforting.

You’ve never felt like this with anyone before. He’s so easy to talk to, and even easier to be around. It’s almost like a punishment. The worlds cruellest joke that you’re being subjected to.

“You shouldn’t be in my bed, but you’re here. So, talk to me.” he smiles, effortlessly. A smile that he’d only ever show you. An expression that only you are worthy of and the only person he’d ever trust to experience it. It’s so loving. It’s like being home.

You’re quiet, your own smile fading slightly as you think about his question. What had you done to make him even ask it? You’re lonely. Is that true? You have friends, family, a lover. Realistically, you can’t be lonely.

“I am.” you tell him, honestly, finally finding his gaze once more. Allowing him to scan your trusting eyes so he can see there isn’t a trace of a lie. And he does, stare, until he looks at your lips briefly, and then back to your eyes.

“You’re lonely?”

“Yes.”

He hums, thinking about it for a moment. You don’t deserve to feel that way. Though it may be his heart talking. It might be the fact that he’s head over heels in love with you.

Every moment with you is so saccharine, so disgustingly dizzying that it could make him vomit from excess. He can’t get enough of you. He’s ravenous for you.

Your taste.

Each kiss you allow him to take is so seraphic, your candied lips cloying his insides. It hurts to be with you sometimes, he knows what this is and what it will be. He knows what he is to you and what he will never be. He hates himself, and honestly, he hates you a little bit in that same breath. Though he locks that feeling of loathing deep down inside, he doesn’t want to feel it. He doesn’t want to care that much.

Whatever you are to each other now, in this moment, is enough.

His face nears yours, and you observe him as his eyes close. Yours close too, gently, and you feel his lips on yours. His hand cups your face, his thumb gently caressing your cheek as he deepens the kiss only slightly. He pulls away, eyes glittering as he observes you. He’s making sure you’re okay, that what he just did was okay.

And it is.

He pulls you closer to him, enveloping your body in his before carefully planting his lips on your cheek. He sighs, a little. The heavy, disheartened breath rushing through your ear canal. It makes you shudder, so he holds you tighter.

“You aren’t alone, you know.” he tells you, quietly. You feel tears pricking at your eyes as he starts speaking. He cares, so much, you can almost feel his passion vibrating from his skin and passing through you. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know.” you sniffle. “It’s just hard.”

“I know.” he agrees, kissing atop your head as a show of comfort. He just can’t get enough of you. He can’t stop himself from being with you like this, even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t. These moments with you are his main source of happiness. Getting to know you so viscerally is everything to him. Whenever you’re together, like this, he gets to peel back another layer of who you are.

“I’m so—” you stop, your eyes catching his again before you brush away the thought. You’re playing with fire, with him. You’re letting him scrutinize your body as you bare your self-inflicted gaping wounds. Allowing him to decide whether to pour alcohol and salt into your ruined flesh. “I’m just sick of feeling like shit all of the time.” you sigh a little before laughing.

“Don’t.” he huffs, his thumb stroking your face again. It’s a bid to make your body submit to his. “I don’t like it when you perform for me.”

You smile, again, nodding in acceptance as you take his word as truth. It makes sense why he isn’t fond of you acting for him, though for some reason you can’t seem to help yourself. Wrapping your body in an invisible gauze as you do all that you can to prevent your lacerated skin from becoming infected by him.

“Rin?” you whisper again, almost hoping he won’t have heard you say his name. “Do you love me?”

The question almost wounds him. You see his eyes begin to tremor as he wonders if you want him to answer that. And answer it genuinely. He rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. Your bodies are mirrored up above, and he can’t help but stare at his own reflection as he contemplates how to answer. His heart skips a beat when you inch closer to him, wrapping an arm around his torso as you caress him and await his response.

He hates how little effort you need to make to force him to smile.

“Yeah.” he tells you. But he doesn’t look at you, still staring at himself in the mirror above. It’s a confession for him as well as you. “I’m in love with you. Is that okay?”

Of course he’s asking for permission to love you. Though even if you were to say no, it’s not like he could just stop his feelings. It isn’t okay, of course it isn’t. Nothing about what you’re doing is okay. Whatever you’re not meant to do always makes you feel most alive. It makes you feel excited. And right now, you feel wanted. You feel loved.

You don’t feel lonely.

You’re quiet for a moment, but you hope the smile you’re donning will show that you’re appreciative of his honesty. It takes you a while to think about how to respond. You could say it back, but what good will it do? If you don’t say anything, you’re sure he’ll be upset, but he won’t tell you that. You don’t want to hurt him, that’s the last thing you want.

“Thank you.” you tell him.

He doesn’t say anything to that. He closes his eyes, a soft chuckle emanating from him as he processes the rejection. In his mind, that smart, logical mind of his, he knew you wouldn’t say it back. Why would you? Even if it was true, it’s too messy. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, you both know it, so why would you say it back? But then again, why would you ask his feelings in the first place? His heart is screaming at him with every aggressive beat against his ribcage. It’s telling him, despite the logic working overtime in his brain, that you love him too.

“Do you love me?” he wonders, finally allowing his head to roll to the side again so that you’re making eye contact once more.

And you’re silent. You can see in his eyes that he’s pleading with you to reciprocate his feelings. To verbalise them. He wants you to mean it, though. He’d rather you not say a word than lie to him.

But, he knows you.

He knows your mind body and soul and he truly believes that you feel the same way about him. So tell him, won’t you? Lay your heart bare and just tell him the truth. No matter what the world throws at you, he’s certain you can handle it, together. Whatever concerns you have, he’ll protect you. Any repercussions you think will follow you from following your heart, he won’t allow. He’ll do anything for you. Anything to be with you. So look into his emerald eyes and be honest with him.

Be honest with yourself.

“Please,” you start, “please never ask me that again.”

The words cut like a knife. Or rather, he feels like he stopped existing the moment you finish your sentence. It’s like being in a car accident and dying on impact. He looks up at the ceiling again, closing his eyes, knowing the tears are soon to pour from them if he doesn’t get a grip.

Why would you say that?

You still haven’t given a clear answer. And really, he knows why you said what you did. It’s self-preservation. Maybe you think you’re protecting him, too. But you aren’t. You’re the reason his heart beats and this is the reason that it will stop. Every moment from now will be agony. Without an answer, you’ve given him one. And he despises you, now. He thinks you’re selfish.

He thinks you’re a fucking coward.

“Then… what is this?” he wonders, still not daring to widen his eyes and give you the satisfaction of seeing him cry. You can barely stand to look at him now though. Not when he’s being like this. You don’t want to hurt him, truly. But there’s no use in giving him hope that isn’t there. This is for the best, you’re sure. “Have you just been using me for the last two years? When you’re… fucking lonely.” his own breath hitches and he wants to disappear. From your line of sight, from the room, from the fucking planet.

“It’s not like that, Rin.” you sigh, and it’s almost breathless as you try and conjure the right words to alleviate his pain. There’s nothing you can say that won’t hurt. The damage is done. You’ve broken him. “You know the first time was a mistake… and then it just kept happening… and then—”

“And then you—” he balls up his fists until his arms begin to tremble. But he takes a breath, anger leaving him as he exhales. He’s always been good at that. He always knows when he’s getting too worked up and knows how to take it down a notch and compose himself. He’s calculated with everything he does. But he supposes you’re the exception. There was nothing calculated in regard to you. He fell into this fucking mess with you, because it’s you. “… Don’t you think the fact we’ve been making the same ‘mistake’ for so long means it might not be a mistake.” he talks, quietly. You can’t tell if he’s asking you a question or simply speaking words for you to hear.

You don’t answer. What can you say? You can’t contradict yourself now. It’s a valid point, of course. Is a repeated mistake truly a mistake? Maybe you and he are made for each other. Being with him could be easy, if you wanted. Being honest with yourselves and those around you might be easier than you think. Being able to hold his hand and go out on dates like a normal couple. Could it really be so simple?

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” you respond, bluntly. It’s harsh. The words make your mouth swell with discomfort and a horrendous desire to burst into tears. Nothing else will get through to him, you think. Being nice is getting neither of you anywhere. You gulp, and it’s like swallowing razor blades as you see how fucking shattered his face becomes.

He scoffs, a little, and sits upright in bed. You chase him, somewhat, sitting upright beside him and placing your hand on his shoulder. And you gasp, quietly, as he shrugs away from your touch. Your defeated hands fall into your lap as you continue to sit beside him, your eyes alternate from looking at his side profile to your twiddling thumbs.

Rejection was always bound to come eventually. He wishes he never opened his mouth, though. The delusion could have carried on a little while longer. Why did you have to ask if he loved you? You surely knew already. His mind roars at him to run. He’s staring at his sneakers placed meticulously by his wardrobe as he thinks about where he could go. Anywhere away from here.

Away from you.

But the child in him… is resilient. He’s never been one to accept true defeat. He’s never been the type to give up on his dreams or quit when he truly believes there is a chance at happiness for him. You see his hand move to his obscured cheek, and you’re sure he’s wiping away a tear.

It’s all but confirmed when he looks at you. Teal eyes almost illuminate the room as they look at you. Crystalline droplets reside in his lashline, and his eyes keep shimmering as they take in every solitary detail of your beguiling face. He can’t lose you. You’re perfect for him.

And he loves you.

He leans towards you, and you don’t fight it. Your lips slotting beautifully against one another as you melt into his kiss. It’s prolonged and it’s deep. You feel as though he’s giving you everything he has. Everything he is as a final farewell. The thought of never seeing him again makes you break away, panting desperately before you comb his hair out of his face.

“What are you doing, Rin?” you whisper.

This time you’re left without an answer. He grips his fingers into your soft hips and helps you move above him, straddling him so that he can look up into the eyes of the woman he loves more than he ever has or will love anyone.

“Play with my hair, please.” he whispers back against your bare skin as he lifts your tank top to expose your breasts. You do as he asks, combing your fingers through his hair again as he sweetly kisses your erect nipples. The only sound filling the room is his puckered kisses and your laboured breaths.

You hum, intoxicated, as kisses turn to suckles. They’re soft and careful, your skin breaks out in bumps as your flesh tries to huddle together to keep in the warmth. Your heart skips a beat when he looks up at you, briefly, before focusing on your tits again. He wraps his arms tightly around your torso in a bid to pull you closer. Your cotton-clad mound humping against his straining cock in the process.

He grunts against your skin when he feels the wetness pooling on your panties transferring to his boxers. One of his hand roams to squeeze the fat of your ass, a squeaking yelp escapes you as you feel thick bruising fingers dig into your supple flesh. He gentle nibbles your swollen tits, eliciting a mewl from you that speaks to your infatuation with him. Whether you care to admit it or not, he knows your body enough to understand the truth.

“Rin,” you shudder, throwing your head back in an attempt to gain some distance from what is happening and retrieve your thoughts. He doesn’t stop, though. But his eyes meet yours again when you return. He’s listening. He’s clinging to your every thought. “I-Is this really what you want?” you ask him. And he nods, slowly, relinquishing one nipple from his mouth with a pop and licking his cherry bitten lips.

 “’m not a mistake, baby…” he tells you in hushed tones before sucking your neglected nipple momentarily. He means it, too. You don’t think he’s a mistake. In truth, you think the world of Rin Itoshi. You wish you met at a different time. Things could be how you both want them to be. But this is how things are. You feel tears you hadn’t given permission begin to roll down your cheeks as you think about how lowly he views himself because of you. You are a fucking coward, you always have been. “I can be right for you, princess. I can.”

You hear him sniff a little before he continues making out with your aching tits. And you push his hair out of his face again, getting a perfect view of his lusciously long eyelashes. You can’t see his pretty green eyes from this angle, they’re focused intently on your chest. But his eyes snap to your when he hears you sniffling too.

“Rin… I-Is this—?”

“Do you want to do that thing you like?” he asks, breath fanning over your spit soaked tits as he snaps you from your thoughts. He encourages you to move a little as he hooks his fingers into your panties and tries to pull them down your legs. It’s clumsy, and it makes you laugh as you shuffle around awkwardly until they’re off. And he throws them across the room before your lips crash together again.

Your arms wrap around his neck as you kiss him. He swallows your moans like they’re holy and he’s fucking greedy. He manages to snake his hand between your bodies to free his length. And your vision strays to see it. His gorgeous, pretty cock. It’s beautiful and pink, though the darkness of the room hides it well. You know it from memory by now. But you can’t mistake the drooling precum leaking from his slit and down his shaft as he strokes his length at a steady pace while he kisses you again.

But you break it once more.

“You like it… you like it, too.” you smile, thinking back to what he’d asked you moments ago. He smirks against your lips, kissing you again before looking down at his length as he attempts to guide it into your heat.

“That’s right.” he nods, licking his lips. “’n it feels the best when you ride me… so sit on it.” he commands. He clenches his teeth as his tip sits comfortably in your sticky interior. You’re so tight and wrap around him so heavenly. As though you’re made solely for him. In his mind, though, that’s exactly what you are. He hisses, eagerly, as he feels the conflicting constrict of your cunt tightening and releasing repeatedly as he remains there. It’s like you aren’t sure if you’re trying to suck him in further or push him out completely.

His fingers curl around your dainty wrist, guiding your hand to his neck and encouraging you to squeeze. You do, softly, and you can’t help but smile when he laughs breathily.

“Sit on it, princess. S’all yours.”

The squeeze becomes tighter as you slowly sink on his length. Your jaw drops willingly as you moan through the stretch. And Rin, God, he’s fucking beautiful. His eyes roll over white as your pussy envelops him until you feel his pretty tip nudge your g-spot. You kiss his cheek. Again, and again and again until his vision returns to you.

He likes it. No, he loves it. But only because it’s you. He’s been with plenty of women, but he’s never been in love. He’s had feelings for partners, but never love. He can’t imagine letting any of them choke him the way you do. It makes him heady, but only because it’s you. The first time you did it he wanted to protest, to tell you in no uncertain terms that he isn’t interested in that kind of thing. But the word no could barely escape his lips before he came inside you after you squeezed the sides of his neck oh so deliciously.

“F-uck, Rinnie…” you moan as you start to rock your hips against him. His hands gently hold your waist and help you in your efforts, your breath catching in your throat as your clit catches against his pubis and trimmed hairs. “You’re s-so deep. Feel you h-here…” you point to your lower abdomen as you carry on rocking against him, your grip on his neck easing as you feel pleasure begin to surge through your nervous system.

He's speechless, though. He knows he’s big and doesn’t feel a need to reiterate it. Instead, he pushes his palm flat against your tummy as you continue to get yourself off. You moan, louder. Drool forming in the corner of your mouth as you keep going and going until your legs begin to give. And he pities you, he does. So much so that he holds your hips tightly and helps you rise and fall on the full length of his cock again and again.

Each impale is rapturous. The pleasure is fucking blinding as his heavy tip slams repeatedly against your sensitive soft insides and you mewl blaringly, no care or consideration for neighbours that might be trying to get a full eight hours before that dreaded sunrise approaches any minute now. You can’t possibly care, not when a cock so perfectly made to mould the shape and ridges of your pussy to suit it’s domineering size is ruining you so divinely.

“Don’t stop.” he reminds you, his hand covering and squeezing your own around his willing neck, encouraging you to persevere. The way your clutching fingers hug the column of his throat is beauty personified. Like a scene from a renaissance painting before your very eyes. And his eyes are blown to hell, full of lust, “harder.” he smirks, greedily. And you always do as you’re told. You want to be good for him after being so cruel. You want to please him after being so cold. You want to love him after being so harsh.

“I—” you start, your words becoming trapped in your throat as your cowardice springs to the forefront of your mind. Though, is it really cowardice? Or is it just the right decision for both of you? For peace of mind and an easy life, it is.

“Yeah?” his eyes practically glitter in expectation as he awaits your sentence to be brought to completion. You are cruel, cold and harsh. Because you’ve gotten his hopes up yet again. And you can’t have that, you just can’t.

“I’m, c-close…” you alert him. His eyes widen in surprise. It hasn’t been so long since you started. Are you lying? He can usually tell. He studies your face and feels the way your cunt constricts around his length as you draw near your demise. You’re honest, only sometimes.

“N-N.. uh… can you hold it? F-For me, princess?” he asks, pleads, really, if his watery eyes are anything to go by. You aren’t sure you can, but you nod anyway. You’ll try your damndest, for him, anything for him.

He manoeuvres you carefully onto your back so you’re lying beneath him. You remain wrapped around him the entire time, like he can’t bear to be apart from you for even a second. You can’t blame him, either, you don’t want to remember what life feels like without him snug inside of your welcoming cunt.

His eyes roam your body as he cages you in below him. Emerald jewels taking in each and every inch of your perfectly bare skin. Every detail, every crevice and pore. It’s all so beautiful to him, and hasn’t become a boring sight to behold in the entire two years you’ve been doing this.

Both of your hands cradle his head, fingers interlocking through the back of his hair. He looks into your eyes and you can’t help but smile. This is how your life should be. When you see how much love pours from his eyes as he looks at you, you know this is how things are meant to be. But it’s a shame, they aren’t. You feel your heart break in two as reality crashes around you once again. But he leans down to kiss you, silently asking your permission to keep going.

“Please, Rin.” you nod.

“Okay, I’ve got you.” he kisses your neck as he begins to shallowly thrust into you again. You mewl softly as you feel him suckle the skin covering your clavicle, and it’s sure to bruise, but you don’t care. You’re sick of caring, now. You just want to feel this. Enjoy this moment. You want to enjoy Rin.

He pushes your thighs gently, spurring you to wrap your legs around his hips in a bid for you to hug him tightly. You hook your feet against one another, and you feel like a koala clinging onto a tree. You don’t mind though. You feel safe, like this. A safety you’ve never felt from anyone at any time. He’ll keep you safe, always, because he loves you. All he wants in this moment is for you to feel good and for him to be the reason. You cock your head, curiously. And he wastes no time satiating your lust with a kiss.

Your moans feel suffocating as your throat swells with the desperate need to share them with him. But you can’t. Not when he’s pressing his lips to yours and trying to inhale your every breath and any other offering you can muster for him. He can’t let you go for even a second, he thinks. This is all he has. He needs to remember.

He looks upset when you turn your head to break the kiss, but his thrusting doesn’t cease. They slow, however. Opting to fuck you deeper. He wants to explore depths in your cute cunt that neither of you know even existed.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, voice quiet but laced with concern. It’s hard to even think as his thrusts seem to be whisking your brain into a pink mushy paste.

“I can’t—” you pant, “hold it… m-much longer!” you warn him.

“Oh.” he chuckles, and burrows his head into the crook of your neck. He kisses. Sucks. Makes it known that you’ve been with him. A final bid to make you his, though it will surely amount to nothing. “That’s okay, let go, baby…” he tells you.

You bite your lip. A momentary gesture before you find your pleasure crescendo from his faithful pace. He kisses sweetly along your jawline, humping into you hard enough that there is a steady slapping resounding through the bedroom. You note how the sun seems to rise and birds begin to chirp as you topple over the edge of your orgasm.

He could bathe in your sweet moans for the rest of his life, he thinks. They seem to harmonise with the birds singing outside. Your fingers dig and claw into his shoulder blades as you don’t let up. It’s all so tantalizing, a song he’d happily play on repeat for the rest of his miserable life if he could.

You clamp around him and feel a swell of pride in your chest as you hear him moan for you, too. Your cunt floods with warmth and you’ve never felt so wanted. Part of him wishes you weren’t on birth control. Part of him wishes that it would fail so that there’s a reason he can truly make you his. But he knows he isn’t that lucky. And he knows it’s wrong to want those things, too. He doesn’t even want a kid, really.

He just wants a reason to keep you.

Your chest heaves as he collapses on top of you, hugging you closely. You fear that your sweaty bodies may meld together permanently, until the breeze from the open window rolls in. Cooling your dampened skin slowly but surely. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, though. Being stuck to him. There’s always fantastical ideas conjured from absurd imaginations that give you cause to be together. It’s the only way, you think.

It can’t be as simple as you want to be together.

You can’t just love each other so much you can be together.

You need a reason.

A very good fucking reason.

“Are we going to be okay, Rinnie? Things haven’t changed, right?” you ask him, almost scared to speak but not enough to stop the flow of your words. You feel his body tense up, and at that point you know things have indeed changed. But change can be good… you might just be delusional, though.

“I’m going to shower.” he says, coldly, peeling his body from yours. And it stings. He couldn’t give you an answer, and you know that translates to him only having an answer you won’t like. He’s cruel, mostly, but never with you. With other people he can be rude and mean. But he’d rather be silent than do that to you. And it hurts. Fuck, it hurts. It’s all such a mess and everything is fucking ruined. “… are you coming?” he asks, looking back at you as he heads towards the bathroom.

And there it is.

The flame of hope he can never truly let die when it comes to you.

Your eyes flicker open, the room fully bathed in the light of the mid-morning sun. Rin is sitting at the edge of his bed. Legs covered by grey joggers and his torso bare. The shadows and light contrasting each other and painting an alluring portrait of toned musculature across his back. He shields it from you, though, as he pulls a t-shirt over his head.

He stands up, collecting the towel he dropped on the floor as he got changed. And that’s when he sees you’re finally awake again. He curses himself when he smiles at you, still unable to believe how easily you can make him do so.

“How was your nap?” he asks, calmly, tossing the towel expertly into his laundry bin.

“I don’t even remember falling asleep…” you admit.

Though you do remember cuddling into his side after your shower. Your towel is loose around your body, the one wrapped around your hair is crumpled up atop your pillows. He didn’t sleep a wink, he savoured the feeling of you clinging onto him like you might actually love him. But his mind was also plagued by the future. About what happens next. He doesn’t get nervous, usually. But now, as he looks at you in your most natural form, he’s legitimately scared. Scared of everything crashing down around him.

“I… your clothes.” he tilts his head, gesturing to the folded clothes on your bedside cabinet. You thank him, quickly, dropping your towel and hurriedly getting into your jeans and tank top you wore over here in the middle of the night. “I want to be with you, properly.” Rin confesses, focusing intently on his hands before daring to look up to you. Your expression is sullen, unsure of how to respond. You hadn’t expected to hear him say something so bold, not after what you said to him earlier. But you suppose he’s had time to think.

“I just don’t know what you want me to say, Rin.” you sigh, shaking your fingers through your still damp hair. Little droplets flying to the wood floor below.

“I want you to tell the truth… I know you love me. I know you’re just scared. I know you want to be with me, too. I don’t get why you’re doing this. I don’t know why you’re punishing yourself… or me.” he approaches you, walking around the bottom of the bed and grabbing your shoulders with fervour as he wills you to be honest for the first time in your life.

“No.” you shake your head and move away from him. “It isn’t right, you know it isn’t.”

“It’s not right? I’ve loved you for two years and you’re telling me that’s wrong? And I know you feel the fucking same, so please, please baby—”

“I have to go, I can’t do this.” you feel fresh tears roll down your face as you begin to search for your purse. You feel like your fucking heart is going to explode. And he doesn’t bother hiding his upset, either. Because he’s made up his mind.

“This was goodbye, then.” he informs you, and your movements halt as you look at him.

“What?”

“I’m not being this… joke. I’m not going to be your shoulder to cry on when you’re lonely. I’m not going to fuck you, you can’t just come here when you feel like it. I’m done, I can’t do it.” he takes a deep breath as he finishes, knowing that this is really over. It’s killing him. “I love you, and it hurts. This really hurts. But you’re not the girl I thought you were. I thought you were kind and I know you love me too and that’s why it’s fucking— I feel like I’m dying. I don’t get why you’re denying yourself of this.”

You sigh, slipping your feet into your white slides and trying to fight back tears. He thinks everything is so simple. He thinks you can both just live a fairy tale life and be happy, but that isn’t realistic. He isn’t being realistic and maybe that’s your fault. You thought you’d been clear about what this is between you. You hadn’t intended to make him feel used. You didn’t want to hurt him and you didn’t want things to end like this.

“Okay.” you shrug, fingers grasping the door handle as you prepare to leave.

“What’s so fucking special about Sae?” he sobs, quietly. You can’t bear to look at him. Your heart is already breaking and you know looking at his defeated face will give your vital organ cause to split into quarters. “As kids, he was always better at football. He’s older, he’s the favourite. But he doesn’t even treat you right, he doesn’t love you. I do, I love you so what’s so special about him, princess?” he drops his weight onto the bed below, sitting on the edge again as he wills you to face him. His stomach ravaged by butterflies as he waits for an answer. Any kind of answer that will give him some clarity.

“Nothing’s special about him, Rin…” you sigh, again, giving into his desire and offering him the eye contact he craved. “I just met him two years and a few days before I met you.” you sniffle loudly before hurrying out of the door, slamming it behind you unintentionally as you run to the elevator.

He lets his head fall into his hands as he begins to bawl. The knowledge finally setting in that this is really the end of this chapter of his life. The story of you and him is complete and the ending is fucking devastating. He rests his head against the wet pillows you’d left in such a hurry. The scent of your lotions and perfume still clinging to them. And he cries more, covering his face entirely with his hands.

He’ll always lose to Sae, that much is clear.

If only he’d met you first.

© 2023 rinitxshi

[poplarbark]

i wish the therian community didnt feel so.... whimsical. its too positive and it rubs me the wrong way; feels infantilising. probably since im older than a lot of other therians, and thusly view my therianthropy/otherkin nature differently than others, but i find all these validity and affirmation posts saccharine, cloyingly sweet.

i am a stray dog, i find it hard to find kinship with other dogs. maybe this is my issue: i am jealous of those who can. but i stand by that cloying sweetness i see here.

i am a hound, i have teeth; where are the others of my ilk ?

[starryhutcherson]

hii, hru?

i have an idea for another clapton davis one shot:)

what if the reader is an spanish girl and she help clapton with his spanish homework but one thing led to another and yk it ends in smut

- 🫧

━━ NO HABLO ESPAÑOL

'୧ ‧₊ pairing: clapton davis x spanish-speaking!reader warnings: 18+ sexual content! oral sex (m!recieving), come swallowing, mentions of p in v, swearing, google translated spanish word count: 3300+ ⋆ ✩‧₊

Clapton’s bedroom is drowned in the drowsiness of a late-afternoon heat; the sunshine bleeds against his scattered memorabilia, stretching beams across the floor and illuminating the entire space in a picturesque light. It’s hot, too hot — sweat settles on your starfished body as you lie sprawled atop his carpet, surrounded by stationery and permanently tainted with a subtle flush of rose. 

Initially, he’d intended for this to be no more than a harmless study session — he was god awful at spanish, and you were a fluent speaker. You just happened to be unfathomably drop-dead gorgeous. It was pure coincidence, of course it was. 

He’d erupted in an animated grin when you’d agreed to help him, teeth gleaming in a wide display of genuine gratitude – he wasn’t entirely sure of the appeal of helping your friendly-but-not-a-friend classmate with their spanish homework, especially due to his apparent lack of intelligence — but you agreed all the same. You had your reasons, even if he didn’t know them. 

What he does know is that he’s struggling. With the Spanish, sure, though that wasn’t much of a surprise — he’s also struggling not to seize hold of you, hands splayed against your skin, taking you right here on this fucking carpet. The eye contact you’re maintaining is dangerous; that damn cloying smile, those saccharine sentences – the impact it has on Clapton is enough to shatter bullet proof glass and he’s not sure he'll be able to rope his caveman brain out of the gutter. Your voice is so sweet he swears it’ll give him cavities. 

“Alright, translate this one. Tomé al autobús.”

His forehead creases with concentration, trying to focus on the meaning of your words, and not the simmering spike of dry heat that spirals in his throat and his crotch. He narrows his eyes, inhaling a breath as if about to answer, but after a delayed moment all that escapes is a dejected huff.

“I got nothing.”

You tut at him disappointedly. “C’mon. We just did this one.”

He tries to think back, but it’s hard to cast his mind to one single moment with you, because every minute seems to blur hopelessly into the next one. Concentration is impossible when you’re this close to him, when he can hear every breath of yours like they’re his own, when his head is full of filthy fabrications in which your velveteen voice screeches while he slams into your g-spot with lethal precision. 

Get a grip. He swallows around the presence of nothing and tries to hold the crumbling pieces of his facade together. 

It isn’t working. 

“Uh, no we didn’t,” he teases slyly, attempting to reach for your own sheet, which is already full with all the answers. You snatch it away from his desperate hand, swatting his palm for emphasis. The desultory touch shouldn’t mean as much as it does. 

“Yes. We did. C’mon. I’ll give you a hint— bus.”

He does light up with a fraction of recognition. “Oh, shit, yeah. I got it, it’s uh— I’m gonna take the bus?”

You let out another dissatisfied hum. “Not quite. It’s I took the bus. Past tense.”

He rolls over onto his back with a tediously drawn out groan. “That’s like, the exact same thing, c’mon.”

“Uh, no it isn't. If someone asked you how you got home, you’d say “I took the bus,” not, “I’m taking the bus.” You taunt, a mocking twinkle in your eye that renders his body weak with desire. 

“Uh, actually I wouldn’t say either, because I get home by car.”

With mild amusement you roll your eyes, and Clapton’s head wanders yet again, to venereal visions where that eye roll is taken far out of context — right now, spanish isn’t the only thing that’s hard.

“These entire sentences are too hard to translate. Just gimme some words.” 

You scoff at his swift abandon, but you do oblige, reaching across yourself to grab the standard textbook for the grade, idly flipping through a few pages before finding something you deem to be his level. 

It’s a basic configuration of nouns, English situated on one side of the page and Spanish on the other; the lists are out of order and the goal is to match up each pair with the correct translation. You figure with a bit of your help, it’ll be easy enough. 

“Here,” you say, handing him the textbook. He hauls himself back to his prior position on his stomach, snatching a pen, examining the page, and then staring back up at you blankly. 

“C’mon, what am I, a kindergartener?”

You snort, shuffling marginally closer to him so that your shoulders just barely collide. The contact is faint, sure, but it’s enough to make his mind warp. Maybe his desire for you isn’t so one-dimensional. 

“I know it looks easy, but it’s about the words, Clapton, not the activity.” 

“Well it’s dumb. I liked the other stuff better.”

“You asked for this. Start matching.” 

He glares at you through narrow eyes, a semblance of their hazel hue present through the gap in his lowered eyelids — the irritation doesn’t last long. Not when his gaze meets yours and he can feel the gentle wash of your breath against his lips, dainty and dangerous simultaneously. He’d swallow it if he could; preserve the very flavor of your exhales straight from your lips to his. 

An obvious spill of crimson fragments blossoms against the dermis of his cheeks, every moment he spends around you is like being bathed in incandescence, like being roasted from the inside out. He’s a moth and you are a painfully hot flame. 

His eyes stray downwards in a weak attempt to hide his blush, grumbling to himself before beginning the work. He makes it through one and a half questions before he inevitably gives up for the second time. 

“This is too hard,” he admits. 

"Thought it was for kindergartners." You chuckle, to which he mumbles a low, "Shut up."

A measly moment passes before he's hit with an idea. "Let me test you."

"Seriously? You know I'm fluent. That'd be like me testing you on English."

He chuckles to himself, the smug sound leeches to the atmosphere and sends a fresh swarm of butterflies to thrash amidst your stomach lining. He’s too tantalizing for his own good, he’s your forbidden fruit. You’d love a taste. 

“Pretty confident then, huh?” 

The delicate development of his smirk doesn’t go unnoticed by you; it’s hot, the way his bottom teeth are just partially visible by the action, the way his eyes glitter with the promise of a challenge and his demeanor is altered from defeated to determined in one brief snapshot of a moment. 

“Seeing as I’ve grown up speaking Spanish, uh, yeah. I’d say I’ve probably got this in the bag.” 

His grin flourishes exponentially. “We’ll see about that.”

✩‧₊˚

Four minutes later, Clapton’s master plan at veering the pair of you away from doing the work is proven to be pointless — his assumption in which he could find some big word to stump you was dismissed after witnessing your effortless answers. 

“Sun?” “Are you kidding? Sol.”

He glances up from the textbook, where all of the answers are, huffing a little and searching for something more difficult. 

“Gimme something harder.” He can think of something harder. 

“Okay, okay. Uh… dance?” 

“Bailar,” you say, rolling the ‘r’ with a tantalizing flick of your tongue and he’s sure that by now the tightness in his jeans is obnoxiously prominent. “Seriously, these are so easy.”

“Okay, full sentence: “I’m gonna buy a coffee.”

“Hmmm… let me think,” you say mockingly, and he almost believes he’s got you until you answer with a mirthless chuckle: “Voy a comprar un cafe.”

A dull ache burns in his pants, even the most mundane sentences sound sultry when you use that tone. That fucking tone. He’s still minutely annoyed that you answered his questions with ease, but what did he expect, really? This was your language. 

“These are the simplest questions ever. You really underestimate me.” 

He snorts at this. It was impossible to underestimate somebody like you. He knows that much. 

“I don’t. Trust me.”

A sideways glance, a furrowed brow. You seem to dismiss the comment – it looks that way to him, at least. He’s unaware of the internal screams that loop in your head, cacophonous to the drill of your pounding heartbeat. He really knows how to throw you off your game, after all. 

He clears his throat at the lack of response, endearing albeit the awkwardness. “What even are these words anyway? They don’t even sound anything like the Engish version. I mean— Patio-day-jaygoes?” He flicks his eyes over some of the words in the textbook; his over emphasized, americanized interpretation of the syllables makes you chuckle. 

“Patio de juegos. It means playground— and I already told you that ‘j’ in spanish is pronounced like ‘h’ in english. Y’know. Heart. Hat. Hole.” 

“Doesn’t make any fucking sense. Like, look at this– Zapaytoes?”

“Zapatos. Shoes.”

“Days-fil-e?”

“Desfile. Parade. You really do suck at this.” He scoffs, but you can see the humor buried beneath his irritated disposition. “I told you that like a thousand times. Bay-so?”

“Beso. Kiss.”

Shit. He can feel the color prick his cheeks before your words even truly compute with him. There shouldn’t be any meaning behind them; just a simple definition. No hidden feeling lurking beneath your shallow translation. 

Right? 

Wrong. 

He has an idea. He wants to be cocky. Every single splintered thought is you, you, you, and he feels like if an opportunity presents itself he’d be an idiot not to take it. He wasn’t going to be an idiot. Not today. Not with you. 

“Oh. So… just out of, y’know, curiosity… how would you say, ‘I want a kiss?’”

His ulterior motives soar above your head – you’re so ingrained in helping him that you fail to recognise his confident grin. 

“Puedo tener un beso.” You reply, eyes combing through the familiar words etched against the textbook pages, completely oblivious. A beat of silence falls, a second of hesitation, before he goes in for it.

“Si, si. Uh… si puedes. ” Yes you can. He grins, clearly a little proud of himself.

If you’re being honest, it’s pretty cheesy, what with his eager eyes and butchered pronunciation. At least he’s trying — scraping together his kindergarten-level dialogue to form a simple sentence, and it’s sort of sweet, you think. 

“Was that a sincere offer?”

No harm in asking, right?

“Was it a sincere question?” He fires back instantaneously. 

And oh, he knows it wasn’t. You were merely answering a question, following the sound of his voice and the way it rose and fell like pebbled leather – but his taunting is tantalizing. Your desire is hungry and he offers to feed it – and why would you refuse?

He tastes sweet. Barely a moment of brevity was able to pass before your lips cradled his, sucking and soaking the flavor of lingering soda straight off his teeth. His tongue is his weapon of choice, breathlessly exploring the cave of your mouth, trying to mold himself right into your gums. 

His hands roam, up and down your figure, eventually settling on either side of your waist and thumbing circles into your hip bones, it’s sexy. Just as he is. 

You crook your head to alter the angle and he moans, completely unabashed, the sound passes through his mouth and into yours, and you know his mind is following the same dirty pathway as yours.

You tear away from him, reveling in the way he pants like a wounded dog, the way he struggles to leave your lips as if he’s magnetized to them. 

“I think I know how to help your spanish…”

“Mmm?” He tries to sound like he’s in control but it’s a vain and vacuous attempt. It’s cute. 

You don’t offer a response, but your fingers traipse lower, beyond the region of his shirt’s hem and dipping beneath his waistband. You glance at him, eyes seeking consent. He nods, words failing him as your fingers find his buttons and begin to tug. 

When his denim restrictions pool around his ankles, you guide him to sit on the edge of his bed – his thighs are quivering in anticipation and a saturated spill has soaked his boxers, where the defined shape of his dick has begun to show. 

You grab the spanish textbook from beside you before spreading his legs with your hands. Your pace is agonizing. 

“C’mon, you’re killing me,” he croaks, eyes struggling to stay on you with the weight of this moment heavy on his shoulders. 

You have a spark in your eyes, one that’s ignited and waiting to devour – your thumb encircles his clothed tip and a shudder licks at the base of his spine. His twitching hands come to rest in your hair, interlacing with a grip that stings like rope burn – you’re not opposed to the pain. It’s proof of his lack of control over himself, and the thought itself is enough to make you, in turn, shudder as well. 

“You— fuck. You’re totally evil.” 

A few painful moments of you tracing him through the fabric and he’s getting a little bit frenzied – his jaw is uncomfortably taunt and his hold on your hair is only growing tighter. You decide to indulge his whispered pleas. 

Your hands shift from their position splayed on his thighs and delve into his boxers, making a show of drawing them down his legs until they join his jeans at his feet. His cock’s hard, weeping as he writhes with want. He thinks if you don’t do something, he’ll actually die. Just something. 

“Can you— ah– just do something?” His voice sounds scratchy, punctured by his longing. 

“Ask me in spanish.”

“What?” He’s maybe a little delirious, what with all the blood leaving his head. 

“I’m here to teach you, Clapton.” Your devious grin sends him reeling— his cock shivers with him as he scrambles to open the textbook, trying to find some stupid page that’ll give you what you want. 

He thinks it’s cruel, dangling yourself in front of him like this, mocking him every minute that those decadent lips aren’t wrapped around him. He wonders what Spanish would sound like when it’s muffled by his cock. 

Your hands, callous-free and creamy with the vestige of vanilla lotion, inch gradually upwards along his thighs, enjoying the way their feather-light touches cause tension to erupt across his nerves. He’s trembling in the mid-may heat. 

“Uh— fuck— por– por fay– por-far-vor pay-paydo tenarlo?” You can barely understand the massacred words, and when you do— por favor puedo tenerlo— you deem it to be a little vague. But at least he’s trying. He just needed some motivation. 

When you finally allow him solace in the comfort of your mouth, he goes a little dumb. His jaw slackens with an audible sound as his tongue falls from the roof of his mouth — he was previously rolling it around to try and find any remaining taste of you. He was unsuccessful, of course, but it didn’t matter anymore. 

Not when his cock was buried in the narrow channel of your throat, not when you’re groaning against him as his weight settles against your lapping tongue, not when your teeth graze along his shaft and his hips wildly buck off his bed. It’s so filthy, but it’s everything he needs. 

“Shit— shit, that’s good, yeah, just like that. Fuck that’s— ah!” 

His English is nearly as bad as his Spanish right now, and can you blame him? With every trembling buck forwards he’s thrown deeper into your mouth, your trachea, all accompanied by that greedy glint of lust in your eyes that’s damn near tangible. 

His eyes are rolling backwards, up into the depths of his skull so all you can see are the alabaster parts of his sclera. Your own eyes are misty; soaked with spills of tears that taste like a reward, a reminder of your efforts. He’s breaking and it’s all because of you. 

“Holy fuck,” he rasps, his hands still settled in the roots of your hair. This might not be his first blowjob, but it’s certainly his best one. 

His length prods deeper, bruising at the palate of your mouth, drooling pre-cum around your gums, sousing them in his salty scent. You fall into a rhythm and he falls into you, teetering on the brink of bliss with every prolonged suck that you give him. 

By the time his edge is impending, his cheeks are kissed with stains of vivid cherry red, hair is tousled and slick with sweat, and he’s managed to regain control of his rolling eyes, keeping them trained on your figure with a bout of concentration. Good. 

Your lips leave him, just for a moment, matching your previous pace with your hand and ignoring the desperate whine he emits from the action. 

“You gonna come?”

He looks almost ashamed, as if the prospect of it occurring so early is anything but what you wanted. 

“Well – yeah. Yeah– fuck— if you, if you keep going like that, then yeah.”

His voice cracks like distant thunder and his body bites back another pitchy whimper. 

“You gotta ask nicely.”

The words sound a little foreign as you spit them from your mouth, but you’re too stuck into the experience to care. Your hand chafes against him with the dry friction, and he yearns for your lips once more. In this sticky-sweet moment, he thinks he’d do anything for them back. 

“Please. Please– please, I gotta, you gotta just–”

You interrupt him with a tut. “In spanish.”

En español. 

He fumbles for the book, his hands sliding from your hair with a begrudging expression – he can’t stay infuriated for long though, not when you're subtly slinking your head back to nuzzle his tip. Fuck. 

“Por— por favor.” 

His docility is almost pathetic. 

“Por f– fuck, do I really gotta– ah– do this?”

When your hand threatens to leave his cock completely, the panic he exudes is nearly comical. He’s been wanting this for so long, he’s not losing it now.

“Okay, okay! Por favor, por— shit– por favor. P– yeah, that’s it, you’re so good, so hot, shit—”

His endeavor is ultimately scrambled when your mouth makes its return around him, and you know the moment his eyes begin to lose their focus that he’s gone. You let his consciousness leave, with every desperate thrust into your throat, with every dulcet whimper – your hands extend to fondle his balls and ultimately he’s nudged off into the void of blissful oblivion, by you and you alone. 

His wail is weak but encouraging as he comes, polluting your throat with opalescent ribbons, he tastes like seaside salt and everything you’ve been missing. Indulgent. His shattered voice is the most gratifying sound, incomprehensible praises clotting between his lips and washing over you, and you bask in it. 

You're battered and probably bruised, your jaw aches and your knees are raw, but it was all for a good cause. Seeing him like this, quaking with the pleasure that you carved into him— maybe it’s the orgasmic haze but Clapton swears you’re glistening in the afternoon sun. An angel on Earth. 

Un ángel en la tierra. 

You don’t end up leaving his house that night — instead you lie against the quiet ebb of his heartbeat, tangled in his sheets and woven into his arms where you rightfully belong. His homework still isn’t done, his room carries the scent of sex and sweat and all things filthy, but neither of you have the cognitive ability to worry about it. 

So, you sleep; rocked into exhaustion and sharing a pillow. Your flesh sears as his gentle hands stroke it, he can feel your smile as it forms against his chest. 

Aquí es donde usted pertenece.

reminder, my requests are always open

masterlist

✩‧₊

[ginandtobacco]

Lips as Red as Blood

@erisweekofficial

Day Six: Retellings

Pairing: Eris x reader

Summary: A female in a glass coffin with hair as dark as ebony wood and lips as red as blood. Cursed trees with pitch black apples that melt from the branches and fill the clearing with the scent of rot. And Eris Vanserra; who just wants to go home to his dogs.

Word Count: 1.7k

Author's Note: a little late, my bad

Eris really should have expected things to get weird. Weirder than just popping over to the continent to kill a seemingly immortal death god trapped in a crumbling palace in the middle of a cursed lake. If he was being quite honest, killing Koschei hadn’t even been that weird. Bloody, and difficult, and his arm was definitely still bleeding, but just the usual mind-breaking cauldron-created magic he’d come to expect from the Archeron sisters by now.

Perhaps it was a failure of imagination on his part, or a lack of his usual paranoia now that Beron was firmly six feet under, but he hadn’t thought things would get weird after Koschei died. 

They’d found his soul stored in an unnaturally red apple (par for the course) hidden in the laboratory/torture chamber beneath the ancient stone palace (also not surprising) and when Elain Archeron had driven the ancient sword Gwydion (of course she had it) through Koschei’s apple/soul abomination all of the caged demonic creatures in the laboratory had turned into human females (the intended outcome but they were all a bit surprised it actually worked).

Now, however, they were all scouring the small island in the lake searching for humans that had been unceremoniously transformed back into their original bodies without any warning. Eris was using this as an excuse to escape from the oppressive tension between the shadowsinger, Elain Archeron, and his brother. Only the night court could manage to turn a world-rescue mission into yet another opportunity for interpersonal drama.

The fact that the forest seemed to be composed only of overgrown apple trees should have been his first sign that things would continue to be strange. The fact that the apples had been red when they’d first arrived on this cauldron-forsaken island and were now black and slowly melting from the branches should have been his second sign. But Eris was far too busy congratulating himself on being above the sorts of childish drama that Rhysand and his followers seemed to constantly create everywhere they went. He was quite pleased with himself for managing to escape before they dragged him into whatever uncomfortable argument was no doubt beginning.

The clearing in the middle of the forest was what had given him pause. The trees around the perimeter were taller than any apple trees ought to be, towering over the perfectly circular clearing, their branches reaching out to each other like spindly fingers and tangling together far above his head. The sky was almost entirely blocked out by emerald leaves and midnight-black apples. The only sunlight that managed to pierce through the canopy shone in a perfect circle at the center of the clearing; illuminating a pristine glass coffin.

This was a type of strangeness Eris had not prepared himself for. It was the magic of times long past, when Prythian was a land of magic that flowed from the earth like sweet wine and High Kings wielded cauldron-made swords. It was the sort of magic he expected to find between the pages of the storybooks he’d read Lucien when he was small, not staring him in the face after he thought they’d finally created a bit of peace in the world.

The worst part was that he could feel the magic of this place. It hung heavy in the air, clinging to the trees and his skin like cigar smoke. The curse intensified the cloying sweetness of the rotting apples, filling his nose with their saccharine scent and making his eyes water. It was oppressive in a way he hadn’t felt since Amarantha had first cast her curse under the mountain. The pure volume of magic in the clearing threatening to suffocate even a newly minted High Lord under its weight.

Suddenly, he was standing above the glass coffin. Eris had no memory of crossing the clearing, no memory of even considering doing so, but now he felt the coolness of the glass beneath his palm. The thrall of the curse and the scent of the apples ebbed slightly, and he kicked himself for being stupid enough to wander into a curse. He should have known better, should have been more careful about walking around the island of a death god. But if he was already in the middle of this curse, it couldn’t hurt to investigate it a bit more.

A young fae female peered up at him through the glass. Well, her eyes were closed and she was probably dead so she wasn’t looking at anything, but Eris could see her face. Fae ages were terrible things. She looked twenty-five, but for all he knew she was a thousand year old tyrant who’d been imprisoned here for bathing in the blood of newborns to keep from aging. Or perhaps she really was twenty-five, barely an adult in fae terms, and Koschei had locked her here for some twisted reason.

It was odd though, there was something in the sharp planes of his face that bothered him. Like he had seen her before and couldn’t quite recall the event, or perhaps that she resembled someone he already knew? 

Perhaps it was her hair, he thought. Hair as black as ebony wood lay in gentle waves around her face. Or maybe her lips, as red as blood. Perhaps she shared those features with someone he had met once. Eris had lived a long life, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

He doubted she was evil. It was nothing more than a hunch based on the fact that Koschei had a penchant for cursing innocent young females, not elderly tyrants. Eris wouldn’t admit it but it was also based upon the shape of her blood-red lips, the way they were tugged ever so slightly downwards. People were meant to look peaceful, at rest, in death; but this female looked as if her natural expression was one of distrust and worry. 

It endeared her to him, which struck him as a very Lucien-esque impulse. Saving feral cats from wells, nursing baby birds back to health, befriending cursed humans; those were all things kind, caring, Lucien with his heart permanently affixed to his sleeve did. Refusing to help mutilated fiancées, meticulously planned patricide, mouthing off and getting himself strangled by an angry shadowsinger; those were the things in Eris’s wheelhouse, not empathy.

But this female, with her once golden skin turned ashen and grey with death, was inspiring such strong feelings of empathy from him. It was probably the curse, he knew this. Eris wasn’t an idiot, he could feel the way the magic still clung to him like heavy smoke, sinking deep into his lungs and perfuming his clothes. It muddled his mind, holding him here and twisting his thoughts back to this female. 

But as he dragged his hand across the cool glass of the coffin he could tell that there was something more about her that was drawing him in. More than just this strange magic, more than just whatever curse Koschei had cast on her. Something more than just this magic that was bewitching him. Something more about her that made him deeply curious about who she was. He wasn’t quite sure what it was and it aggravated him that he was unable to identify it.

Eris’s lithe fingers traced their way across the coffin, pausing as he encountered a sunken texture on the glass. Carved into the smooth surface were words, as crisp and pristine as when they’d been written:

Fairest of them all

Her father’s bargain came to call.

Poison’s kiss and magic’s slumber

Keep this fair maiden under.

A worthy prize

Many have tried.

Only true love that bleeds red

Will raise this princess from the dead.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Eris mumbled to himself as he read the strange poem. It wasn’t very good, all things considered, but he didn’t think Koschei had been concerned about his little rhyme when he’d cursed her.

It wasn’t exactly carelessness that had caused Eris to forget about the wound on his arm; moreso his insatiable curiosity about the strange coffin in the woods. Or probably it was the magic that twined itself through his thoughts. It wanted him to forget the bleeding gash on his arm, wanted him to stand right there above the coffin; too deep in his own thoughts and this strange magic to think of anything else. 

He remembered it now though, as he watched a single droplet of his blood fall onto the glass below.

It was horrifying, really, the moment the curse released its hold on his mind and he realized just how screwed he was. The single drop of blood began to spread across the carved words. It was unnatural, the blood seemed to be growing and multiplying in order to slowly fill each carved out letter. It was like rot taking root in the trunk of a tree; growing and spreading until it took over.

Panic. Panic and resignation to his own stupid choices filled him as he looked on helplessly; the last letter slowly filling until the entire damned poem was glistening red. What monster was he unleashing on the world? Something that scared Koschei enough to trap it in this state? He had endlessly criticized Rhysand for letting that thing, Bryaxis, out into the world; but this had the potential to be far worse.

The blood grew, sinking into the coffin lid and spreading, tinging it in transparent crimson before dissolving the glass entirely. As it disappeared Eris watched the face of the female below, resigned to whatever fate the cauldron had in store for him.

It wasn’t dramatic. Just a few moments of held breaths before the color returned to the female’s face all at once. Death’s pallor chased away in the blink of an eye, leaving behind tanned golden skin and warm life beneath it.

Her eyes blinked open. Eris stared back. 

Her eyes blinked open. Eris heard the plucking of a single violin string, a golden chord stretching between them.

Her eyes blinked open. Eris was certain this female would not kill him, but that he was a dead male regardless.

Her eyes blinked open. 

They were violet.

Eris Vanserra began to laugh.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: きのう何食べた? / Kinou Nani Tabeta? / What Did You Eat Yesterday?

Kinou Nani Tabeta? (which I'm going to abbreviate here to NaniTabe) is a live-action adaptation of a manga with the same name, which tells the story of two middle-aged Japanese gay men as they navigate their relationship, their families, and their professional lives, all while having some good meals.

Do you want something nice? Do you want a show that's just ... nice? Not saccharine, not cloying, not reductive, but just cozy and kind? This! This is what you want. Every episode deals with some events in their lives, and then the action will pause once or twice while someone demonstrates how to make a meal. There's no real overarching plot. You just get to peek in on them every so often and see how they're doing.

...Shit, I'm just going to steal the GagaOOLala second-season synopsis, it's perfect:

Shiro Kakei and his partner, Kenji Yabuki, live a life full of some hardship but mostly happiness together, with Shiro's speciality cooking affordable and delicious dishes. As they turn 50, they begin to experience different changes, but Shiro and Kenji are still gentle with each other as they move on to a new stage in their lives.

So here I am, a middle-aged gay who cooks affordable and (mostly) delicious dishes and treats my partner gently, serving you a five-course meal of reasons that you should watch this show -- especially if you too are a middle-aged gay, in which case I'd say this goes straight from "should watch" to "unmissable."

1. Help, my face hurts from smiling too much

Prepare to get your heart warmed whether you like it or not.

Kakei Shiro, the main character, is a closeted gay attorney in his forties whose main likes are cooking and saving money. He lives with his slightly younger boyfriend, Yabuki Kenji, who is a very openly gay hairstylist. They're an incredibly unlikely couple who somehow manage to make a relationship work, kind of to their mutual surprise.

I called bullshit on the show early on: This relationship is cute, I said, but this is not the behavior of guys who have been together a decade. But as the show unfolded, it became clear that I was so wrong -- their behavior is perfect, because these middle-aged boys actually haven't been together nearly that long. In fact, once you finally get the story of how their relationship started, yeah, it explains a lot of their insecurities and awkwardnesses about one another. Combine that with how Shiro's a neurotic mess who absolutely does not want anyone to know that he's gay, while Kenji lives on eggshells for fear of rejection, and it all starts to make sense.

It helps that the two leads have incredible chemistry. Not in a horny way, mind you (the show is incredibly, and intentionally, nonsexual, but more on that later), but where they genuinely make one another smile and laugh. Nishijima Hidetoshi plays Shiro as an anxious mess who slowly learns to become at least a little more comfortable in his own queer skin. I have a t-shirt that says Oh, Honey and I want to put it on every time he does something.

Meanwhile, it would have been so easy to make Kenji a caricature, but Uchino Seiyou skips right past the stereotype and plays the behavior that the stereotype comes from. He minces his way along as Kenji so perfectly, I was surprised to find out he's married to a lady in real life. He's got to be doing an impression of someone he actually knows, because his faggotry is just too accurate.

Their relationship is far from perfect. They're capable of annoying the tar out of one another, sometimes on purpose. They keep secrets and avoid talking about feelings. They get jealous over completely irrational things. They want things the other person isn't comfortable giving. They get into petty little arguments over petty little shit.

And because of all that, it feels real.

Also, if you're one of those Jane Austen bitches who swoons every time lovers scandalously brush knuckles, well, here you go.

2. Surprisingly educational about the state of gay life in modern Japan!

This is not incidental: Like the manga, the show uses this cute food-based story to present a fairly realistic snapshot of what it's like to be a middle-aged gay couple in Japan right now.

Like the manga it's based on, the show goes out of its way to be incredibly nonsexual, to the point where Kenji and Shiro barely touch, much less kiss or even hint at getting naked together. It is very consciously and deliberately attempting to counteract the stereotype of the hypersexualized, salacious homosexual by presenting two gay men who are delightfully mundane.

It is not, however, homonormalization. There's no attempt here to make an argument that gay people are just like straight people, only with incidentally matching genitals. Every time someone falls prey to the pressure to conform to cishet gender norms, it ends badly for them. While the first-episode conflict establishes that Kenji tops, he's also the fruity hairstylist who does the housekeeping. Shiro's the straight-passing suit-and-tie guy, yet he's the one who cooks and goes grocery-shopping. They have a division of labor based on personality traits, not gender roles. In fact, their relationship as presented challenges a lot of those norms by decoupling gendered expectations from the necessities of everyday living.

(This isn't even just me getting my queer studies goo all over everything! Allow me to be a good academic and send you to two people who've done even more thinking about this than I have: the unfortunately paywalled "Queer Cooking And Dining: Expanding Queerness In Fumi Yoshinaga's What Did You Eat Yesterday?" by Katsuhiko Suganuma, and the more freely available "Queering the Palate: The Erotics and Politics of Food in Japanese Gourmet Manga" by Keiko Miyajima.)

Every so often, one of the episodes' conflicts will have to do with how gay people in Japan do not have equal rights and protections under the law. This doesn't just mean they can't get married -- not having a spouse and children actually messes with a lot of legal stuff, including inheritance and government assistance. Sometimes the show will even take a beat to have one of the characters explain to another what a certain statute says. Changing laws about same-sex partnerships even get factored into the story!

And sure, I don't know these things, but I bet a lot of straight people in Japan don't know these things either. Well, if you watch the show, now you do!

It's important that no one is ever outright shitty to Shiro or Kenji. No one calls them slurs or hate-crimes them or refuses to serve them at a business or anything like that. In fact, the majority of people they encounter are perfectly chill and even outright supportive. The most serious challenges they face are bigger than individual people being dicks. They're about systemic barriers to equality.

That said, there are still plenty of instances of individual people being dicks -- just not maliciously. In fact, most of the homophobic sentiments in the show come from the mouths of people who are otherwise supportive of Shiro and/or Kenji! These nice people seem like they're way okay with the gay ... and then they let slip that, no, they're actually not as okay with it as they think they are.

And I love that the show includes that, because I know that feeling way too well. When these things happen, our boys don't throw a righteous fit or cut the offender off completely. They just ... absorb the blow, sigh quietly, and keep going with the belief that the person in question means well. It just sucks, you know? It sucks to have to know now that your straight lady friend who thinks it's great that you're gay would be uncomfortable if her daughter were a lesbian. You're not going to stop being friends with her, and you're not even going to hold it against her, but it lives in your mind now, and you're going to add it to the I Am A Disappointment To My Parents rotation of intrusive thoughts.

Speaking of parents, Shiro's incredibly fraught relationship with his aging parents is hands-down one of the best parts of the show. They love him, he loves them, but they don't always know how to love one another. As their childless only child, Shiro finds himself having to support them in spite of a lot of hurt they've caused him because of his sexuality. He would in many ways be justified in cutting them off -- after all, many other gay people in the show no longer speak to one or both of their parents! Shiro wants to keep them in his life, though. He'll just have to learn how, for his sake and for Kenji's, to lovingly set boundaries.

This, to me, is the most important lesson a show about boring gays can teach a straight audience: There's always a background level of suck. You can be as chaste and normie and regular as you want, but you'll never be normal, because there's literally nothing you can do to erase the background level of suck.

It's easy to reduce someone else's oppression to Big Bad Events, and then to assume that the absence of these Big Bad Events means that oppression has ceased. That's like thinking there's nothing left that needs to be done about racism because the US had a Black president and you've never personally seen a cross burned on somebody's lawn. Once other people's oppression stops being Big Bad Events, it becomes Everyday Stuff You Can Ignore. And that's worse.

NaniTabe pushes back against this in two directions. The first is to show gays who are not miserable, but are instead living happy, fulfilling, and exceedingly regular lives on their own terms. The second is to give reminders that what gay-related misery they do experience largely comes not from their being gay, but from society's giving them shit for being gay. This misery doesn't destroy the happiness, but neither does the happiness make the misery go away.

By the way, this is true of any non-normative identity! The gays do not have a monopoly here. There's always going to be a level of suck when you don't inhabit an area of privilege, and it's very easy to be unaware of someone else's background level of suck when you yourself do have that privileged status! One of the best ways to become aware is to listen to stories about people unlike yourself! Hooray for empathy and learning!

3. tfw your bffs are straight-up freaks

If you're queer, and especially if you're queer and the vast majority of the people around you aren't, you know all too well that sometimes you wind up being friends with people you'd never associate with otherwise, except that you're queer and they're queer, and buddy, if you thought the queer dating pool was shallow, the queer friendship pool can sometimes be even worse.

That's how you get Kohinata and Wataru.

When I said earlier everything about how nonsexual and normie the show is, I was intentionally glossing over whatever the hell is going on with Kohinata and Wataru, the bizarre boyfriends who become Shiro and Kenji's gay besties. You know that couple where you think, I cannot imagine how this relationship works because if you were my partner I would want you stab you every minute of our lives, but it clearly does, so I'm happy for you both? Yeah, that's these two.

The elder of the pair, Kohinata, is a butch, severe man -- except when it comes to his boyfriend, the much younger and worse-behaved Wataru. Then he's reduced to a complete simp, catering to Wataru's every whim. Wataru knows that throwing a tantrum and being bratty is the way to get anything he wants from Kohinata, so he's just a little shit recreationally. He loves saying bitchy things and pointing out people's flaws, while Kohinata chides him ineffectually.

And I love how much this is totally a sex thing for them, except that when you put it in the context of an otherwise extremely PG-rated show, the kink of it flies completely under the hetero radar. Ha ha, look how generally funny these two weirdos are! While Shiro and Kenji are over here doing the thing where somebody calls their partner "master" in front of you, and you're like, I wish you wouldn't.

Their presence is great for the acknowledgment that gay people can be maladjusted freaks in a whole spectrum of ways! They also make the point that a great deal of your ability to openly be a maladjusted freak is related to your job and your level of wealth. Wataru works from home and Kohinata works with celebrities, both of which bring in high incomes and allow for way more deviance from social norms. They're in positions of privilege that allow them to be themselves, but the price of being themselves is that they're always going to stick out in a society that values harmony in sameness.

By contrast, Shiro's good-but-not-great-paying suit-and-tie job means he has to behave. Because of this, he has plenty of angst about being Not Gay Enough, through which the show reinforces time and again that not all gay existence is about barfing rainbows. You're still a valid homosexual even when you're a dull one.

So just remember: When you feel like you're not queer enough, remember that there are always worse queers out there in the world. Oh, they're not worse at being queer. They're just worse in general.

4. Itadakimasu!

This show, like the Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty and Otoko Meshi, is a food-centered show that is very dangerous to watch if you're hungry, so be prepared! Snack first!

It's also got actually followable recipes! Unlike those other food-centric shows I've done recs for, this show actually gives pretty precise measurements, lists all the ingredients, and walks you through basically the whole process. Aside from a few "add the incredibly Japanese thing I bought premade at the store" steps, Shiro's cooking methods are replicable at home.

...It is here that I should probably put up a warning for the occasional bout of very Japanese-typical and gay-man-typical fatphobia, which can be a heck of a combination. I don't think it's a dealbreaker, but you should be aware of it going in. However, I will say that the show almost always comes down on the side of positive moderation: Sometimes you need to eat like you're an aging homosexual watching your cholesterol, and sometimes it's a special occasion so you should enjoy yourself without guilt. It also never once conflates "eating healthy" with eating disappointing meals. If anything, it's mostly just being honest about what happens to your body's relationship to fried food when you hit your forties.

The other nice thing is that Shiro's not some trained chef. He makes good food, but he's a dedicated amateur at best. There's not a single super-fancy technique in anything he does. Much of the time, he's just winging it, combining techniques he knows with what he's already got in the fridge. Sometimes he uses recipes he found on the internet. Occasionally he cooks alongside other, more experienced people and learns techniques from them. Once in a blue moon he just tries a thing to see how it works. (Of course, he does have the unfair advantage of being fictional to cover for how none of his meals ever turn out bad, which, you know, must be nice.)

Sometimes you even get to see other people cook when Shiro's nowhere around! Some of them follow instructions to the letter, while others just sort of wing it with whatever's on hand. And that's okay! For a show so much about cooking, it is very unpretentious about food. The manga drives home even more strongly the point that you don't need fancy meals and a million perfect side dishes to be content. It's great if you're perfectly happy microwaving a pork bun! What matters is that it works for you and your family.

...Now can we please convince subbers everywhere to translate "Itadakimasu!" as "Itadakimasu!"? Please? I think my favorite bad choice is "Bon appetit!", which, okay, good job, you took an opportunity to teach English-speakers a non-English phrase that has no good English translation, and instead you chose to bank on their extant familiarity with a different non-English phrase that has no good English translation. Just keep it what it is. It's just something you say before you eat. It's obvious from context clues. I promise.

5. Makes you, an aging queer, feel real weird about some stuff!

Over the course of the show, Kenji and Shiro go from their early/mid 40s to pushing/over 50. Their parents age, have health scares, and even sometimes die. They deal with losing eyesight and hair alike. They get promoted. They make household budgets and purchases. They worry about saving enough for the future. They work late. They go on vacation sometimes. They wear the same clothes they wore a couple episodes ago.

However, they do all this while also wrestling with their unequal status as gay men in Japan. All their discussions about retirement are colored both by Kenji's tendency to impulse-buy ice cream and by the fact that they can't get married. The choices Shiro makes about his job rest both on his desire for a good work-life balace and a fear that his profession would react badly to his coming out. They have to make all the normal decisions expected of men their age, and then they have to make all the extra decisions to compensate for how "normal" doesn't account for gay.

To pick one issue running throughout the story: Shiro is an only child who is himself childless. This comes up fairly often, in fact, as various circumstances make him aware time and again that he's not making his parents into grandparents, and he won't someday have someone to take care of him like he does for them.

The first time the show brought this up, I thought it would be a one-and-done thing, where the conclusion of the episode got to be that Shiro learns to be happy without being a parent, the end. Nope! It isn't a constant stressor, but it never goes entirely away. Shiro is happy with his life, but he's also reminded that he's failing to live up to social standards. He doesn't want to be a dad. Or does he? No, he actually doesn't. But he also doesn't want not to be a dad, if that makes sense. He doesn't want to disappoint everyone by not having a wife and children, but at the same time, that disappointment isn't enough to force him back into the closet. But it's always going to be seen as a failure on his part.

As a middle-aged queer with no kids, yeah, I feel that hard. I don't want kids! But I also don't want to not have kids. I know I'm always going to be a little bit of a misfit in my family compared to my siblings, who are all parents now. Besides, I think about all the things I do for my parents, and all the things they did for theirs, and yeah, it kind of scares me to know I won't have that when I get older. And we're just basic-ass white people! Japan takes filial responsibility to a whole 'nother level!

So I really, really like that this show doesn't resolve that tension. Shiro has chosen what's right for him. It just also sucks sometimes. The honesty of that narrative is refreshing. Sometimes your best choice still kinda sucks. Sometimes the only way to get closure is to say, you failed me and I failed you, so we're even.

It's a frequent thing for the show to present the realities of people's lives and choices, and to say, maybe this isn't everyone's perfect solution, but it's the right decision given what the circumstances will allow, and you are still allowed to be happy despite the imperfections. It's not that you need to settle for less than perfection because you're gay -- everybody settles! Everybody makes choices and then has to live with the consequences of those choices. You'll never know if things could have been better if you'd done something different, but that doesn't stop what you have right now from being able to be pretty damn good.

I'm not going to say you must be a middle-aged queer to watch this show, because did you read the whole part earlier where I talked about how you should consume stories from experiences that are not your own? Right? Right.

I will, however, say that if you are a middle-aged queer, a lot of it's likely going to hit real close to home, and often in uncomfortable ways. I've seen a couple people say they had to take breathers after some episodes. I know I've been left chewing over a few things in the days and weeks since watching. There are definitely parts where you're laughing because you know exactly what that feels like, and if you don't laugh, you'll do something else.

But you know what? I like that. It can be nice to see people go through situations similar to yours and emerge realistically happy. It's nice to be able to laugh about things, or to know that you will laugh about them someday. The world is fundamentally hostile, but there are people who love us and watermelons are on sale this week, so instead of despair, let's have lunch together.

bonus: porn!!

I want to make it clear that the mangaka isn't some erotophobic dishrag who fetishizes gay men so long as they don't have any of that icky nasty smex. Oh no. The proof that NaniTabe's sexlessness is intentional is how Yoshinaga Fumi made six fairly explicit pornographic side stories that fill in some of the sexy gaps in the larger narrative. You can read all six volumes scanlated right here! ...though if you want to avoid spoilers, I'm going to recommend you wait to dig in until after you watch the show and/or read the actual manga to the appropriate points.

Enjoy the confirmation that Shiro is a freaky size queen (at least in theory, as is the case with maybe most freaky size queens).

Are you hungry for this show yet?

Tragically, this one's a little hard to watch. If you're in Japan (or you have a VPN that can fake it), you can see the first season on Netflix. Otherwise, the preposterously named GagaOOLala is probably your best bet. The watch order goes like this:

Season 1

the New Year's Special

the Movie

Season 2

While the two movies and the second season require a subscription, the first season is available for free. So if you want to give it a try, you've got a whole twelve episodes to see if you like it!

Maybe it'll get a third season someday? We can hope! After all, there's still much more manga left to adapt! All I know is that I'm very sad that I've run out of new installments of it to watch, and I look forward to going back and starting again from the beginning soon.

...Boy, it's funny to see behind-the-scenes shots and think, wow, they're so much snugglier in real life! That's how not-snuggly the show itself is! You think I'm joking but I'm not!

[anantaru]

icanf stop thinking abt dainsleif and choking T_T his pretty hands around your throat while he fucks u… rough actions but words filled with praise and as sweet as honey!!! telling u he loves you and how pretty you look like thattt 💕

cw. rough, choking, fem! reader

a/n. currently very busy travelling to different countries due to my work, so enjoy this little drabble i wrote on my notes app while flying 🩷

dainsleif loves how you feel under his roughened palm— how he can recognize your hard gulps and swallows while he‘s pressing his digits into your neck just a little bit more, not too much but also not too faint, so he could notice and experience each flex and hiccup you’d do— in a certain manner, you could state that it‘s the perfect amount of pressure as he saw it.

"fuck— i love you." he pants and fully jerks himself into you, hips spent but determined to push you towards a curling climax— until you feel all bubbly and warm while blissfully crowded with his erect cock. it's almost shameful, how the pearly drops of pebbles threatened to slip from under your sticky lashes at the stimulating stir on your lower region, "you’re so- so pretty." he whimpers above your lips, exhaling the swelling air from his lungs when he feels you more.

"so pretty like this."

dainsleif angles his head towards your direction, winding over your jaw and lips to muffle your like saccharine tasting sobs as the nauseating air surrounding you was beginning to pitch heavier and thicker— cloying, the lack of breathing control teleported you towards bottomless bliss and spirals as your nostrils nose over the penetrating smell of filth and sex, mind overcasted with clouded pleasure.

his hips were relentlessly brushing past the tight ring of your hole and limitless of stamina— slapping erratically into your softness over and over while leaving it to your pretty perfect cunt to gnaw and clench down on his girth to keep him in, languidly stroking him with your spongy insides.

"i love— love you too." you somehow manage to choke out, by how drunk on his cock you appeared to be it was a clear miracle that you were able to squeeze something out at all. your eyes were turning glassy at the stern grip on your neck as his fingers still served as your most dearest necklace— you flutter your lashes open to peevishly admire your lover; how his biceps were wholly tensed and his wet lips widened, his brows eagerly scrunched together as his hips worked in keeping with your own small needy ruts up into his length.

while this alone was almost too much for dainsleif to properly function anymore— he's so terribly addicted and in love with you, it's comical, almost. how you cannot stop drifting your eyes off him, petulantly blinking and pouting at him from under your splashed lashes, all pseudo shy and stimulated, pleased by him and him alone.

even for a man with his level of self restraint, he needed to cum now, all over you— and mark you from the inside out, until you‘re gushing and guzzling up all he gives you, until his heavy cum webs further into your skin and fills your womb with nothing but his whites.

your cunt helplessly pulses around his girth and he nudges his cock closer to you, most prominently deeper until ghosting on to the deepest pleasuring spots in your puffy pussy, settling all the sloppy mess of his seed and your liquids inside of you while the overflow coated him up entirely, leaving nothing untouched.

©2023 anantaru do not repost, copy, translate, modify

[justblades]

⌕ DULCET MUSINGS

⟢ CHARACTERS : dan heng, gepard landau & sampo koski x gender neutral! reader WC : 1.4k

⟢ IN WHICH they celebrate your day in their own special way <3 tooth rotting fluff

dan heng — beams a sweet smile as he fixes the little gift's wrapping that nestles in his gentle soft palms. he closes his eyes for a little while, envisioning your reaction once he finally gives the item he carefully prepared for you. although silent most of the time, dan heng is the type to pay attention to your preferences, your dislikes, almost everything that you babble about to him.

with his eidetic memory and meticulous nature, his present, without a doubt will cater to your liking. but apparently, two hands cover his eyes, making the male flinch from the sudden presence behind him. "oh, what could this be?" you query, scooting closer to the male, scrutinizing the gift box before him.

"wait, remove your hands first." dan heng protests as he attempts his best to gain his vision back. a chortle slips from your lips and eventually gave in, letting the male breathe free again without the restraints of your hands plastered on his face. he arises from his seat and hands you the gift, teal eyes glimmering with excitement although not that evident from his expression.

sometimes, a small smile from his lips and his long lashes fluttering are all you need to know his heart is brimming with happiness and excitement. dan heng is usually perceived as a cold yet nerdy type, it's actually a privilege you get to see him like this.

gepard — whisks the mixture carefully, having a full on chef look from the apron tightly wrapped around his snatched waist and a hand towel draped on the front pocket. aquamarine irises glancing from one dessert to another he intricately made for you, euphoria pools inside him - feeling satisfied with everything he did so far.

every dessert is different from the other in spite of each one belonging in the same category, he made sure that your taste buds won't cloy from eating too much sweets of the similar variety. the blonde male suddenly takes a trip down the memory lane, moments of when he tried to perfect each sweet dish flash in his mind.

with enough perseverance, he finally perfected the arts of it— thus, he calls you from your room, masculine yet gentle, affirming voice chiming into your ears from the other side of the wall. "coming!" you respond with such enthusiasm and once you got to meet up with your partner face to face, your eyes avert to the desserts prepared on the glossy tabletop.

pudding, ice cream, muffins, everything. the extra toppings were even in your favorite flavor, you also noticed how majority of the courses were also in your favorite color. a miniature doodle adorns the pudding's gleaming surface, supposedly a chibi version of you and gepard together bound by a small heart.

the doodle looked different yet adorable in its own way, baby pink hues flushing his pale cheeks. "it's not much but . ." you immediately cut him off by pressing a quick chaste kiss on his lips, "this is everything to me already. it's a lot, it's not 'not much'!" gepard's heartbeat picks up, embarrassed from how he looks disoriented in front of you. "i'm lucky to have you."

sampo — is usually deemed unreliable and a ridiculous person, leading you to doubting yourself how did you fall for someone like him. sometimes it's unbearable to hear people dissing him and even the male knows it well. however, he sports that usual smug look on his face and shrugs it off by saying "it's not a big deal."

you knew him very well so it was natural for you to not heed any mind to those comments. your perception of your boyfriend is always a 50/50 and never exceeding past that number. 50 of happy for having him, 50 of wanting to strangle him because he always does questionable things that irk you.

no matter the outcome, sampo never fails to grant him a saccharine smile from your lips. he has his ways to make you happy - but he might be crossing the line just now. today is your birthday but the male is nowhere to be seen, he was gone since yesterday and you couldn't help but heave a sloth sigh in the end.

traversing the boulder town with no particular plans in mind, you find yourself seeking companionship from whoever could improve your solitude in the streets. your eyes land on the moles and they do so too; hook trekks towards you followed with her other two playmates, curiosity glinting in her eyes. "huh? isn't it your day? where's your blue haired lover?"

kids can really rub salt on the wound sometimes and your nervously chuckle, "it's okay, he's probably busy." when suddenly, a confetti pops from above, glittering shiny paper shreds fall down in a horizontal blur from your sight. you quicly whip your head, your eyes greeted by the lush green ones- and the iconic cocky smile.

he bows lightly with a gloved hand on his chest, sampo gestures for you to look at your left and three unknown men make their entrance. one man was holding a bouquet of roses, one was holding a box of chocolates, and the remaining guy hands you an envelope, seemingly a handwritten letter for your lover. "i hope i'm not late." he says, holding your right hand and seals a lingering kiss on the back of your palm.

my masterlist !

[slowd1ving]

Hi! I love your lookism fics, I would love to see your take on Seongji Yuk x gn reader. Something sweet and simple would be great!

I see that you like using science metaphors and im curious to how many can you use in one fic. I’m a complete chemistry nerd 🤓 😂

THE MUNDANE . 　⁺ ✦ SEONGJI YUK

In which an amateur stargazer finds that no, they do not teach biology in Cheonliang, and yes, gravity does in fact affect everything with mass. woah... gravitational fields.... woah inverse square law... woah, G.... ik you probably wanted more chemistry but I couldn't resist the physics gnawing away/// arghhh pairing: seongji yuk + gn reader warnings: prejudice (quite literally lookism) wc: 1.3k

LOOKISM MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

There’s a monster living in the Cheonliang mountains. 

A flutter of cloying kindness greets you when you first pull up to the rural village: tires burning on summer asphalt, senseless droning of cicadas, and warm rain seeping through your thin clothes. No rhyme or reason as to why you decided on this particular village to stop by; though, the rhyme might just be the hiccuping couplet of your pulse. Specifically, this pair of beats as your motorcycle drives past the tunnel; heavy, like two black holes encountering each other for the first time. Spinning, spinning. As the wheels on your bike do, naturally. 

Six fingers and toes, he’s cursed by the gods! Hark, my children—

Newton’s theory of gravitation dictates any particle with matter attracts any other with a force inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. This is the inverse square law. It’s used for practical and theoretical applications, but it’s pretty useful when considering why people are drawn to something when they are close to it. Emotionally, physically, empathetically. Psychologically. See, once one begins to increase the proximity of two souls, there is a certain degree of attraction that occurs consequently. 

Pray should you ever encounter this one, for he is but a merciless, mad beast.

It’s a stagnated hum that twines through the fields. Little kids begin the verse, and their elders finish it while you leisurely drive past. Over and over. They play hopscotch to the rhythm in their secluded playgrounds, clap their small hands to the beat, and seem to have no eerie feelings behind their bright smiles. A distorted tale, wound through with the modest price of one person’s dignity. There’s a basis for every tale, after all—bitterly warped to suit the storyteller’s perspective. 

Do not pity the one abandoned by all. 

Thus, when you begin the winding slopes through the fields and up around the mountains, it reduces the distance between you and the epicentre. You trust your gut. You believe (mostly) that what compels you to park your motorcycle on this particular trail is no madness, but rather a tangible, logical reason. A scientific one, if you will. You’re a mass, the monster of Cheonliang certainly is a mass—thus gravity objectively binds you both. 

It’s not entirely implausible to suggest the rumours entice you as much as anything, but the heavy telescope bound to your vehicle is as good a reason as any to stop by this eve. And that: the buzz in your very cells, that seem to divide simply to tug you in the direction of the sprawled forest. Stargazing in Cheonliang it is, then. 

Despite your idle curiosity, you don’t go looking: quietly setting up your equipment in a clearing where the breeze flows cleanly, like fragile forgiveness in a peaceful room. It’s a saccharine solitude—as sweet as tanghulu when you close your eyes. 

“It’s dangerous.” Those are the first words you hear in this village that aren’t blighted by eerie insinuation. Here, where the mountain is solitary and sepulchral, that is the only time you find someone who isn’t the real monster in this mired town. Human, flesh and blood and warm. 

“Isn’t everything?” You peer through the eyepiece experimentally, focusing on the calm tide in his voice—

“No need t’be a smartass.” His cadence becomes slightly rougher as you hear a dull thump; by the movement of syllables, you’d judge he just leaned against a tree. “Was a piece of friendly advice.”

Hmm. You look away from the sky that’s somehow cleared up—miserable grey giving way to faint periwinkle, then atrament smattered with incandescent freckles—then at the stranger peering right back at you. 

“What should I be wary of, then?” There’s a relaxed sort of ease in your body, one you’re unfamiliar with. 

He stares at you askance, as though you’re an idiot. 

“Strangers,” he answers brusquely, pointing at himself. “Haven’t you heard the rumours about this place?”

“Oh.” You turn back to the equipment, leaning down to bring the height of the scope up comfortably. Stars, you think dreamily. “That stupid song? Here I thought you’d say boars or something.”

“Stupid song?” he echoes. “And you still went up?”

Six digits on his left hand as it sways downwards, six on the right hand nestled in his pocket. He’s tall, so much so that anyone would feel intimidated staring up at the guy. Close—he’s close by, which is perhaps why you gravitate towards him. Two masses, feeling greater force with greater proximity. This was the epicentre that drew you here. 

“Is biology class illegal here or something?” you counter incredulously. “Do I need to pay attention to fear mongering?”

“No,” he murmurs thoughtfully. “I guess you don’t.”

It’s strange. Your first encounter with Seongji Yuk can only be classified as abnormal. Gazing at the massive bodies scattered across the heavens, it’s perhaps common sense that the man next to you interests you as much as those heavenly giants. He’s closer, after all—kneeling down beside you so he can peek up at stars just as large as him. 

Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s simply science that ties the two of you together. He gives you his name, you offer yours in return. Seongji Yuk. Lying in the grass with damp seeping into your shirt, you ramble about astrophysics, while he carefully coats fruits in molten sugar. Shards as sharp as the words at the base of the mountain, though far sweeter. 

He’s cautious—you can feel his eyes on you as you sit on his wooden steps. In fact, his eyes trail after you when dawn breaks and it’s time to move on to your original destination. 

“I’ll come visit,” you vow, for the cycle of orbit has already begun. Two masses have drawn closer to each other, and naturally begin the spin round their counterpart. 

“No one told you about stranger danger?” You’re too damn trusting: haloed in ditzy stars, the type in cartoons when characters hit their heads. Except it’s permanent, and you don’t look stupid, but rather awash in their glow. 

“Everything’s dangerous,” you evade sheepishly, and that’s that. 

Summer comes and goes, but it’s fine not bringing your telescope in the chill of autumn. After all, you’ve found something equally as captivating to stare at. Inky eyes, dotted with such a shine that it looks like a star’s emerged rather than a pupil. 

It’s as if the year is put into distillation—monthly visits condensing into fortnightly ones, then weekly ones, before you’re driving the hour down to this place every few days. He’s made you a little space in his house: one where you can snooze on a spare futon with little worry for safety. For there’s no place more secure in a ‘monster’ lair than by the side of a so-called ‘monster’. 

“Quit staring,” he warns, matter-of-factly while the axe collides with the wood on the stump—cleaved neatly in two, almost too cleanly. 

“You’re pretty, I just can’t help it,” you sigh, leaning back on the creaky porch. There’s a book by your side: a thick text filled with particles and numbing quanta. 

You’re strange. He’s had this thought for a while, but especially today. In fact, you may be more supernatural than he, for each time you say such things, his heart skips one or two beats. Like clockwork, the mechanical nature of your spell is guaranteed: mouth going somewhat dry, ears seeping with a faint crimson, eyebrows creasing minutely. 

Why? 

“Have you seen yourself?” you counter incredulously, and that is when he realises he did not keep his thoughts silent. “You’ve literally got stars in your eyes, man. You….”

Ah. It’s moments like these where he feels so utterly ordinary; listening to you ramble on about things he doesn’t particularly understand, just like anyone else his age. 

It’s nice being bound to someone like this: close to another, experiencing the gravity that draws two people together for himself. 

Science is a perfectly plausible thing to believe in, after all.