#everything i knit in 2023

[vashti-lives]

The cursed cardigan is done!!!!!!

[eowynstwin]

professor price

professor price x reader. age gap. older man/younger woman. pining. pre-relationship. jealousy. angst. guilt. voyeurism. mvp alejandro. lightly explicit. - A Christmas gift to my friend @guyfieriii, centered around her own Professor Price au from all the way back in early 2023. I have linked each fic of hers that I reference in this work—highly recommend you check them out.

The first day of class you’re in the front row—center seat.

Old instincts never really retire even if the body leaves the field; a moment’s evaluation opens you like a book. Pencil pouch on your desk, set parallel to the edge. Syllabus in the middle, creased at the stapled corner but otherwise pristine. Water bottle at the corner, solid blue.

You: hair neat. Wearing clean slacks and a knitted sweater like a uniform, ankles crossed, buckled straps of your Mary-Janes intersecting in an obtuse V. Like a flock of birds in formation, flying southwards for the winter. There’s a curated look to you, a careful arrangement of details meant to declare the essence of who you are and what you’re about.

It’s clear immediately; from only a glance.

You’re a good girl.

The eager-to-please kind. The five A-levels kind. The kind who does her bonus assignments because they’re available, not because she needs them. Prim, polished, ironed at the creases.

Straight from a 90s teen drama, or porn of an equal vintage.

You meet his eyes—

And Price knows how it goes.

Boredom and professional stagnancy are the bane of active men. Men with egos. Men who long to fix things. Men who have reached the heights of every achievement now looking for the next peak to summit.

It’s the curse of middle age’s collision with machismo. How does a man prove his masculinity when there’s no proving left to be done? When the panopticon has finally turned its eyes away, satisfied at his self-regulation enough not to constantly surveil it?

Suddenly the performance can end, if he wants it to. Only, if it ends, how does the actor not disappear, when the role is the only identity he’s ever had?

In academia, the answer is—of course—simple:

Fuck a student.

And oh. It’s right there, in those wide, sweet eyes, looking up at him with the reflexive veneration of a star student.

You’re begging to be fucked.

Fucked right. Fucked by someone who knows what he’s doing. Fucked so good that it upends every clean line of you, like breaking furniture, like smashing crystal. Fucked crying, whimpering, groaning beyond recognizable language, sweaty and gross until it’s impossible to tell whether or not his body and yours have begun to fuse.

Fucked the way no snot-nosed twenty-something twat, the age-appropriate kind that sleeps in the back of his lecture hall and then emails him at the end of every semester begging for extra credit to fix his grade, could possibly fuck you.

He holds your gaze for too long. You smile at him, shyly, and he gives you a brusque nod before distracting himself with the papers on his lectern.

You’re too young for him.

Not that it matters.

Price is all about lines. Stark delineations between will and won’t. Before his untimely retirement, the lines had meant everything. They separated the kind of man he was from the kind of man he did not want to be, and they kept those men separate, even when the distance from one to the other narrowed so sharply that the differences between them were a matter of context rather than consequence.

The important one now is the one that splits his lectern off from the rest of the lecture hall. Students are allowed to cross it, of course, or else he would be neglecting his duty to them as their instructor. But they must inevitably leave, and his feet must remain planted squarely on his side of it.

It’s not even a line he drew himself, although he would have if need be. No—professors, at the beginning of their tenure, are warned. Students will construct feelings of intimacy with their teachers, interpreting their passion for academics as passion for the conduit thereof. Close relationships between mentor and mentee, to be sure, can be deeply beneficial for the young scholar’s development—

But they must remain impersonal. The work must be the lens through which student and teacher look at each other. That barrier must never be lifted.

So it doesn’t matter how old you are or aren’t, or that you’re a second-year grad student, or that every time you walk into the classroom Price wants to drag his desk chair over to yours because you’re the only one who seems like she gives a damn about what he teaches.

He may draw his lines, but he never crosses them.

He’s seen it before. Never done it himself. Phillip Graves has a reputation for it.

Of course, as the Americans like to say, innocent until proven guilty, but it’s hard to argue with the pretty girls Graves always seems to have floating around him every semester. Undergrads, even, though to his credit they seem usually to be the older ones.

Price doesn’t think that even Dean Shepherd’s lapdog could get away with fucking freshly legal coeds—mostly because, if Graves tried to pull something like that, Price might actually take matters into his own hands and kill the bastard himself.

As it is, he can’t actually prove that his colleague is sleeping with anyone he shouldn’t be. He’s not in the army anymore; he has no desire to lose sleep over staking out the man’s house.

The only consolation is that no one besides his students and the Dean seem to like Graves—something the man doesn’t seem concerned to rectify, if he even notices. Though Price can’t imagine that he hasn’t noticed. He’s always sitting alone at staff meetings if Shepherd isn’t present, and if he does try to talk to anyone, it’s usually the adjuncts, young women just beginning their careers in higher academia who know the drill by now and merely humor him.

So it shouldn’t surprise Price when, one day, he catches Graves chatting you up.

“Hey, congrats on the election, kid,” he hears him say to you, referencing your recent appointment as president to the student association of his department. Graves smiles, dimpling, all that American charm amped up to the maximum.

And Price sees red.

“Thank you, Professor Graves,” you say politely. You have your arms crossed over your binder, held to your chest, as if a makeshift shield.

“I’d have voted for you if I could’ve,” the other man says. “And hey, I know you Brits like your formalities, but it’s just Phil with me.”

“Erm…”

“There you are,” Price announces from the other end of the hallway.

You turn, and give look you shoot him is so relieved that, almost immediately, it clears the haze from his eyes, like a cool breeze moving through the hottest part of a summer day. Relief of his own floods him, washing the jealousy he’d barely had time to confront completely away.

“Hello, Professor,” you say, “I was just on my way to your office!”

“Good,” says Price, approaching. “Wanted to talk about your last paper. Had some issues with your secondary sources.”

You blanch, and he immediately feels guilty for the lie.

“Ah, go easy on the kid,” says Graves. “I keep telling you, John, no one likes a hardass.”

For some reason, there are two men in the department that Phillip Graves makes a consistent effort to interact with, and Price has the misfortune of being one of them. He’s not sure why—he thinks he’s made his distaste for the man very clear. It’s probably some dick-measuring contest for him; Price’s standing in the department, even despite Shepherd’s favoritism, is secure.

Whether it’s secure enough to withstand this…thing happening between you and him has yet to be seen.

“I hold my students to a higher standard, Graves,” Price says shortly. Then, to you, “Come along, and we’ll talk about it.”

He turns and leaves, and as he hears you hurry after him, an ugly kind of gratification begins purring behind his sternum. The two of you walk for a ways in silence.

“Was it the interviews?” you finally ask him, sounding genuinely upset. “I thought they would be okay, given that they were original transcriptions…”

“Your sources were fine,” Price soothes, unable to take it. “Just needed to give you a good out, didn’t I?”

You falter beside him, but quickly catch up. “Oh no, was I that obvious?”

He looks to you as he walks, catching the anxious expression on your face, and smiles, amused. “Don’t worry, promise you he couldn’t tell.”

Then you laugh. It enter’s Price’s bloodstream and pumps through his veins, all the way to the arteries in his neck. It fills the lobes of his brain, rapidly bringing the world into sharper focus.

“I’ll hold you to that, professor,” you say, and it’s a tether he welcomes, a sting of pleasure as its hook lodges in his ribs.

Price looks over his shoulder, and finds Graves watching the two of you walk away. He doesn’t like the expression on the other man’s face. It’s…knowing. Understanding, in the way of a man having competed for something and lost to the better opponent.

He catches the Graves’ eye, scowling at him; he means for the expression to be disapproving. For Graves to know that Price knows what he’s about, and has no intention of humoring it.

But he knows how it actually comes across.

Back off. She’s mine.

Price’s colleague and friend Alejandro Vargas is the only other man in the department that Graves cares to know, and, luckily for Price, Alejandro shares his dislike.

“He is too young to be acting the way he does,” he says one evening after work. He and Price share a pint at a pub nearby campus on a regular basis.

“Too young?” Price repeats. “What is he, thirty-five? Forty?”

“Who cares,” Alejandro says. “Anyone chasing after his students the way he does should at least be fifty. That way a midlife crisis can at least be a valid excuse.”

Price’s stomach turns. His forty-sixth birthday has already come and gone.

“So you’re sayin’—”

“Man his age can get his ego boost somewhere else,” Alejandro mutters into his tankard. He has a strange way of looking at things, sometimes; as if he were a much older man himself, and not in his prime at thirty-eight. “Don’t they make apps for that nowadays?”

“No excuse for messing with students,” Price agrees, although he tastes the bitter note of hypocrisy in the back of his throat as he thinks of you, and that rainy afternoon.

Driving you home was a mistake, although he can’t think of anything else he would’ve respected himself for doing. He clings to that excuse like a buoy in the ocean—no matter his feelings for you, leaving you on campus to wait until the storm passed, no umbrella, no coat, would have been unforgivable.

He’d played it off as simply doing a favor for his favorite student. A willingness to go beyond his usual responsibilities to you, since you excel beyond what even his high standards demand of you.

Something the two of you should keep between yourselves, for professionalism’s sake, because he has an obligation to treat every student equally.

I can be discreet, you’d said, the tone of your voice playful and also…not.

The way one says something that they mean, while framing it as a joke, just in case it’s taken the wrong way.

Mitigation.

Something he could’ve brushed off, if your hand hadn’t moved toward his.

Good girl. He’d moved his away. Focused on the line. Accepted your apology with grace, determined not to embarrass you for feelings that are only natural—

That are reciprocated, even though they shouldn’t be.

“That is less the problem to me,” Alejandro muses.

“What?” Price exclaims. “Mate, we have a responsibility to these kids. We can’t go treating classrooms like bloody Love Island.”

“It is about the man,” says his colleague. “If a man shows respect in his relationships, then it is not so important where they happen. Graves, he is not a respectful man.”

“No one his age should be with girls that much younger than him,” Price growls.

Alejandro fixes him with an intense look, a serious expression tightening the sharp lines of his face.

“This is what I mean by respect,” he says evenly. Purposefully. “Knowing who is right and wrong to be with. Girls that young? No. They do not know themselves, and Graves will try to tell them who they are. But not every girl is that young.”

Price shifts uncomfortably on his barstool, remembering one late afternoon—when Alejandro had stopped by his office, to find you sitting on the small couch there, studying, as Price finished grading essays.

Innocent, he’d thought. A mentor and his student, sharing space, making room for scholarship to flow between them.

He realizes now, chagrined, that Alejandro has always been too perceptive to accept what he merely observes.

“Mate,” Price says, measured, “It isn’t like that.”

“No,” Alejandro agrees, “it isn’t. That does not mean it can’t be.”

“Alejandro—”

“You are not your father, hermano,” his colleague says, knowing exactly where to strike. “That is the end of what I will say.”

And he sips his beer while leaving Price to seethe.

You’re seeing one of the twats.

Price convinced himself the first couple of times you walked out with him—Will—that you were taking on a charity case. You’re a student leader, after all. Helping a classmate with their ailing grades falls under your purview. You’ve hosted tutoring sessions before, and the pride of it had nestled glowing in his chest so warmly that he couldn’t help bragging about your academic promise to his colleagues.

Even outside of the ache for you that sits in his gut every time he sees you, Price could not be prouder. The students’ Historical Society’s fundraiser last month had gone off beautifully thanks to you, and everyone who had attended was still talking about it: from the brilliant idea for a fifties dress code, to the truly impressive array of antiques you’d convinced donors to contribute to the silent auction.

You’d looked so beautiful in your little red dress, too. The sharp lines of your burgundy lipstick had made your smile so bright all evening that he’d fallen asleep thinking about it.

His student. His protege, really. Of course you’d notice someone struggling, and make an effort to help.

Except, Price has never been very good at fooling himself. The truth is too valuable an asset for him to disregard.

The first time you leave with Will, he feels it clench around something in his gut. He has to remind himself he has no right to feel anything about it at all.

The second time, it starts burrowing deeper. Gnawing a hole in his stomach. The look on the twat’s face, as he follows you out like a lost puppy, is too smitten to allow Price his illusions.

Then one day, you take that twat’s hand in yours at the end of class, slotting your fingers between his.

It descends again. That film of red over his eyes. He stares at the two of you as you make your way to the door—and you throw Price a look, Price, aimed straight for his center.

You’re his. His.

And what has he done about it?

The accusation is in your eyes. It’s honed by everything he’s done—and hasn’t. The late-night chips after fundraiser planning. The cigars between classes, and the scotch in his office he pours every time you stop by to discuss your thesis.

The cufflinks he wears for every single class you’re in, and the box you wrapped them in sitting open on his beside table. Like a conduit for bringing the warmth of your touch into his home.

The same warmth, in his weakest moments, that he imagines wrapped around his cock. As his fingers find the soft give of your cleft. As his tongue meets yours, and tastes the liquor he now only drinks in your company.

Imagines, but never pursues.

Why had he believed you wouldn’t search for the same elsewhere?

The anniversary comes up faster than Price would have liked, despite the fact that the calendar isn’t missing any days.

He goes to the cemetery alone. Bouquet of English roses clutched in the vice of one hand. It feels like a day it should be raining, but the sky betrays him, the gray covering of clouds thin enough to let the dyed sunlight through.

He buried his mother in the plot she’d bought for herself and his father, Price the elder, according to her wishes. He’d buried his father beside her against Price the younger’s own.

It had happened within a year of each other. The chemotherapy hadn’t worked, after years of fighting it, and the last months of Mrs. Price’s life happened far sooner than it was fair. She hadn’t left any regrets behind, she promised in her will, but young John Price knew it for a lie.

He remembers sitting with her in the mornings as a boy, flipping through old issues of National Geographic. His mum would ooh and aah over exotic pictures of the American west—the Russian steppe—colorful bird’s eye shots of the Taj Mahal or Burj Khalifa.

“We’re gonna go there someday,”she would enthuse, squeezing him around his toddler-belly with one arm as he perched in her lap.

Even then he’d known it was a dream, and not a goal. All he had to do was look around at the yellow tint of their kitchen with its laminate countertops, the scuffs on the corners of its scratch-and-dent fridge, the mismatch of cookware hanging on a smoke-stained wall. Peeling wallpaper they didn’t have the right to tear off, because they needed their deposit back very badly when they moved out.

His father was a tradesman—they could barely afford to visit Wales.

And his mother, at the elder Price’s insistence, did not work.

It’s in a nice place, the grave. Far back away from the entrance, where it can’t be trivialized by passing cars or dog walkers. Price can stand at the end of it and reckon with death without having to think of life going inexorably on right behind him.

Except, it’s the years to the right of the dash that he stares at, not the left. Even as a boy, he’d always noticed the disparity between his mother and father. How, before the younger even turned fourteen, grey streaked Price the elder’s temples, scars of age furrowing deep from the corners of his nostrils— while the decades his mum still had left to face radiated from her so brightly that sometimes people took her for his father’s eldest, and not the baby she bounced on her hip.

Decades she never even got to see.

Price rounds to his mother’s side and lays the bouquet beneath her epitaph—Loving Wife and Mother. He’s almost as old now as she was, in her last year, and he feels the epicenter of it sit somewhere between his heart and lungs. It burns, furious, indignant.

“Got tenured this year, Mum,” he murmurs to her. “Probably pay off the house next.”

He hears birdsong in the tree line beyond the border fence. Tries to feel her fingers running through his hair in the breeze, and fails. It’s just wind.

His father—who he sees in the mirror too often lately—he does not address.

He makes the mistake all men eventually do—

He calls his ex.

“Hallo?” Ada says, after picking up on the second ring. She’s one of the few people he knows to keep a house phone these days. She’d explained she enjoys the novelty, and the surprise on the rare occasions it actually rings.

“Hi, darlin,’” says Price.

“John, hi! How you doin’?”

“I’m alright. How’s the new place?”

He hears a shift in the background, like she’s thrown herself at a haphazard angle into a chair. She’s always been like that; she moves through any space she occupies unafraid of what she might bump into.

“Tidy!” she enthuses. “Got a view of the sea down the hill. And there’s a market on Saturdays! I got the loveliest Gruyère from one of the stalls, says he ages it himself. Can’t wait to put it in a sauce.”

“Sounds nice,” Price says, meaning it.

“Yeah, it is,” Ada replies. He pictures her twirling the cord between her fingers. “Heard about your promotion, by the way, congratulations—you earned it, John.”

“Thank you,” he says. “Have you settled in okay there? Students giving you trouble?”

“Not at all! Bit touch and go at the start of the semester, but you know me,” she laughs. “That’s how I thrive.”

“I know.”

A pause. Long enough for Price’s regret over dialing her to make itself a part of the conversation.

She sounds good. She sounds better than good—she sounds great. Happy with where she is in life, and where she’s going.

Nothing like she did when she lived with him.

“So…” Ada trails. “I know you didn’t just call to chat, John. Not that I don’t appreciate it.”

“That obvious, am I?”

He can hear the sympathetic smile in her voice when she replies, “I can look at a calendar too.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just—just wanted to hear your voice. Hope that’s alright.”

“Yeah, it’s alright,” she says. “Didn’t stop caring just because I left, you know.”

He hears the unsaid: just because you didn’t follow.

“I know,” he replies. He leaves the me neither unsaid as well. “Ada, do you—do you regret it, at all?”

“Regret…what?” The tone of her voice edges toward the defensive.

“Being with me.”

“What? John, of course not!” She laughs, tension evaporating. “We had some bad times, sure, but we had some good ones too. I’m grateful for all of them.”

“Even the bad times?” he asks, frowning.

“Yeah, John, even those. They showed me who you were. And I liked that person, a lot. If you had—”

She cuts herself off from the what if John knows had been coming. The speculation about what their relationship might have looked like, if he’d made a different decision. It would only hurt both of them more to think about it.

“If you’d been a worse man I’d have left a lot sooner,” she amends. “But like I said. No regrets. It’s over now, and I’m sad about that. But I’m glad it happened.”

Something happens behind Price’s ribs—something hard, trying to claw its way upward, that he has to draw his lips between his teeth and sniff hard to foil its escape.

“Thanks, darlin,’” he says, hearing the tremor in his own voice, and, for once, not hating himself for it with her listening. “I feel the same way too.”

He catches you with the twat in the library. It doesn’t surprise him—he hadn’t expected anything else. You hadn’t even looked at him this time as you’d pulled Will out of the lecture hall, nor had you noticed him following at a remove behind.

So when he opens the door to the sound of smacking flesh, it doesn’t shock him in the slightest.

You’re on a reading table with your skirt flipped upward, underwear dangling from one ankle as you curl your legs around the twat’s hips. The boy’s arse quivers and clenches as he jackhammers into you with neither art nor precision.

The look on your face is one of concentration. Focus. Like whatever pleasure you could derive from this is something you must actively keep hold of, otherwise you’ll lose it.

Your eyes land on him then, and for a split second—a fraction of a heartbeat—you seem relieved. Pleasure radiates from you, and you begin to roll your hips as you hold him in your gaze—and then, suddenly, horror overtakes it. Your eyes widen. You raise a hand to grab Will��

Price shakes his head.

You freeze. Your chest heaves. (The twat is oblivious.)

He stares you down. Leans against the bookshelf with his hands in his pockets, unblinking.

His.

His.

The thing about lines is that they can be redrawn.

You run your tongue along your parted lips, hands coming up to rest on the twat’s back. Price looks down at the place Will’s body hides yours from his gaze, then back up.

He inclines his head. Go on, then.

And again, you move. Right as his command. Pull the body between your legs closer, brows creasing together, undulating into each thrust as you let Price’s eyes cage yours. You draw up higher and higher, the pitch of your breath thinning as your climax stretches taut inside you—you beg him with your eyes—

He nods.

You seize on the desk, throwing your head back, jaw dropping open. No sound escapes you—he sees the muscles in your throat work to contain it.

What will you sound like when he gets his hands on you?

By the look on the twat’s face next class, you’ve ended it. Price hardly cares. His phone is hot in his pocket, a grenade with its pin nearly out.

In case your memory fails when you find yourself thinking of me.

And, in the center of the photo, the exact thing the twat’s hips had been hiding away.

You’re there, in the front row. Every time his gaze falls on you, you shiver. The same skirt from before leaves the soft expanses of your thighs bare, for him, this time.

His. You know it now, too. It intersects the line, perfect in its perpendicularity.

You have lessons to learn. You’re already a good student; the despondent expression on Will’s face, even now, as he gazes at you like a lovelorn puppy from the back of the hall, proves it.

But you’re not there yet. You’re only just now catching up, after all. And only Price has the duty—the right—to teach you.

You’re too young for him—

Not that it matters.

a/n: If this seems disjointed or missing context, it's because a few things I reference are no longer available on the internet. Ash, I mourn daily what you have withdrawn from us.

Thank you for reading!

[goldsainz]

# HARRY STYLES — A COZY BIRTHDAY !

MASTERLIST !

001. SUMMARY !

✯ you decide to organise a cozy affair in italy for harry’s birthday.

002. WARNINGS !

✯ harry and reader are married.

003. NOTE !

✯ the last fic i wrote for him was 13/02/2023 which is crazyyyy! time flies by so so fast. this is short but i hope you guys like it (idk if i’ll write more for harry, but for now, have this) 🫶

word count : 579

The Italian countryside lay quiet beneath a pale winter sky, the crisp February air nipping at your skin as you stood by the kitchen window, watching the rolling hills dusted with frost. A fire crackled in the grand stone fireplace, filling the villa with its golden warmth, and the scent of fresh espresso mingled with cinnamon from the pastries you’d just set on the table.

Today was Harry’s 31st birthday.

You wanted the day to feel cozy, intimate—the kind of warmth that had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with love.

A sleepy shuffle of bare feet across the wooden floors made you smile before a pair of strong arms wrapped around your waist.

“G’mornin’, love,” Harry murmured, his voice thick with sleep as he nuzzled into your neck. He was warm against you, fresh from the blankets, his curls still messy from sleep.

You turned in his arms, smiling up at him. “Happy birthday, my love.”

His dimples appeared instantly, a lazy grin spreading across his face. “Mmm, best birthday already.”

You rolled your eyes. “You say that every year.”

“Cause it’s always true,” he murmured before pressing a slow, lingering kiss to your lips, his hands sliding down your back. You melted into him, savoring the quiet of the morning.

A gust of wind rattled the windows, making Harry shiver slightly despite the warmth of the villa. He pouted at you. “S’cold, babe.”

You giggled. “That’s why I made coffee.”

He let you go long enough to wrap himself in the thick knit cardigan draped over a chair, one of your favourites on him. Then he followed you to the breakfast table, where a steaming mug of espresso and a plate of warm pastries waited.

“You cooked?” he teased, eyes twinkling.

You gave him a playful nudge. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

He hummed as he took a bite of the cinnamon roll. “Marry me.”

You laughed. “We’re already married.”

“Marry me again, then.”

The silver band on your finger caught the flickering firelight as you reached for his hand. “I’d marry you a hundred times over.”

His gaze softened, and he squeezed your fingers. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The day passed in cozy bliss. You stayed wrapped in blankets on the couch, sipping hot cocoa while watching old movies. At one point, Harry pulled you onto his lap, burying his face in your sweater and mumbling something about how he was never moving from this spot.

But when evening fell, you led him outside. The stone terrace had been transformed—fairy lights twinkled under the pergola, and a small fire pit crackled beside a table set for two. The winter air was sharp, but the warmth of the fire and the thick blankets draped over the chairs made it feel just right.

Harry let out a soft chuckle, shaking his head. “You really are incredible.”

You grinned. “I know,”

Dinner was filled with laughter, his hand never straying far from yours. When the night deepened, you found yourselves curled up on the outdoor sofa, wrapped in the same oversized blanket.

Harry pulled you closer, his lips brushing against your temple. “Best birthday ever.”

“Told you I’d spoil you.” You smiled against his chest. 

He tilted your chin up, eyes flickering with something warm and golden. “You always do.”

And as the winter wind whispered through the trees, you knew that no matter the season, no matter the years that passed, every birthday would be yours to share—forever.

[scatterbrainedbot]

redraw of one of my very first tmnt drawings!!

had meant to do it exactly the one year later mark, but i blinked and suddenly april was may was june -- so ended up being more like a year and 1.5 months lol

May 11th, 2024 vs. April 6th, 2023

its so funny seeing them nest to each other now, but i remember when i finished the first version last year, i was so proud to have finally made a proper 'finished' piece.

like, yall, i struggled for years to every be able to create a piece i would ever call close to 'done'. part of that is me being a very knit-picky kinda person, and wanted to continue to tweak everything all of the time forever, but on top of that i also do work slow af, and before last year i didnt really have access to any digital media. and i love traditional mediums, but im defintiely not practiced enough to be able to get the results i was looking for with any sort of speed. like im genuinely not sure i created a single 'finished' work in my life -- not in school, not in work, not even in the free space of silly fandom doodles.

and then this piece happened!

and i knew even then that it was messy and rough af, but it had a background!! and color!! sure, the linework wasnt polished at all but still, for a silly little fanart? it was defined enough to distinguish the separate characters, and read expressions! there was even a little tiny bit of lighting!! i hate lighting!!

seeing the two versions side by side honestly i kinda have to laugh at how Rough the first version looks now. but you know what. im still so so proud of it. the colors are muddy, theres no shift in value; their clothing designs arent at all defined, leos teeth look weird af and theres lines on caseys face that are definitely from me accidentally dragging my fingers across the tablet when i didnt mean to but like. its there! its finished! i did it!

idk. ive never had a piece ive ever wanted to hang on my own fridge before. :)

[fayes-fics]

It's That Time Of Year

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x fem!reader, modern AU

Summary: It's that time of year... when you could use a fake boyfriend.

Warnings: 18+ smut, minors DNI, oral sex (m to f), vaginal sex, dirty talk, hand as gag, quiet sex, sex in childhood bedroom. Fake dating, family dynamics, lots of feelings, friends to lovers.

Word Count: 11.3 k (eek Im sorry)

Authors Note: Here's my tropetacular winter 2023 Benepic! Request fill for @broooookiecrisp (HERE), who wanted fake boyfriend trope with Benedict accompanying the reader to the USA to spend Christmas with her family. I hope you like it, my dear. Thanks to @colettebronte for the read-through. Enjoy and happy holidays! 🎄

December 20th 

“Thank you,” Benedict clinks his champagne glass against yours, “for everything.”

You blush and look down from his intense blue-eyed gaze, staring instead at the untied bowtie around his collar that seems almost more attractive than when fastened.

“It was nothing,” you demure.

“It was not nothing!” he scoffs, giving you a gentle shoulder bump as you both lean on the high-top table.

“Alright, it was my job then,” you modify, giving him a modest smile as you hotch slightly - beautiful though they are, you cannot wait to take off these high-heels.

“And you are excellent at your job,” he asserts before downing the rest of his champagne and refilling both glasses from the bottle before you. 

He is lingering much longer than you thought he might, long after all his family and all the guests have left. The event was over a while ago, and all around you, the venue staff are clearing tables and stacking chairs.

Tonight was indeed a rousing success. Your first-time event managing the end-of-year fundraising gala for the Bridgerton Family Foundation, they hit a new record amount raised. Standing next to you is the newly minted CEO of that organisation, Benedict Bridgerton, looking far too dashing in his custom-fitted tuxedo. Empathetic and naturally in tune with the needs of others, he is indeed the perfect replacement to run the charitable arm of the family business now that his mother has decided to retire. In previous years, you both took deputy roles - him to his mother, you to your old boss - this was the first year you both stepped up to the plate to run things, and if you do say so yourself, you have both done an excellent job of it. A delightful working partnership built on years of friendship since meeting at university as an exchange student.

“You deserve a long Christmas break after this,” he breezes.

“Going home to the States in a couple of days,” you nod. “I’m both looking forward to it and dreading it in equal measure, to be honest,” you confess, this second glass of champagne acting like a truth serum. You didn't want to or even get the chance to drink earlier, but a little tipple to round off the rewarding night is lovely, especially in present company.

“How come?” he seems genuinely curious, his forehead knitting adorably. Of course, he wouldn't understand; he comes from an idyllic family.

“I am very much the black sheep,” you shrug, twirling a finger absent-mindedly around the rim of your glass. “Being childless, unmarried and single at thirty-three in a midwestern family is unheard of and thus the subject of much ridicule.”

“Wow,” his eyebrows shoot up, “that's…,” he hesitates.

“Judgemental? Parochial? Small-minded?” you supply dryly on his behalf.

“I was going to say traditional… but sure, those work too,” he chuckles.

You giggle a little, then sigh. “So a mixed blessing, really. It's nice to see them all; I just wish they were a bit less them, you know?” you gesture vaguely into the air.

“A boyfriend would really take the heat off?” he queries.

“Hah!” you can’t contain the bubble of amusement at the mere thought. “Chance would be a fine thing. But, yes, that likely would take the edge off the worst of their barbs.” 

“Well, I’m at a loose end,” he comments, seemingly changing the subject. “The family is spread to the four corners of the globe this Christmas. Mum is going to Costa Rica for a retired ladies' trip with Lady D. Don't ask,” he adds amusingly, holding up his hands. “Kate and Ant are taking their kids to Lapland, and my various siblings are travelling or staying with partners. Weirdly, it’ll be our first Christmas apart. At least we will all reunite for New Year's at Aubrey Hall.”

“Aww, that sounds nice,” you offer neutrally.

“What I'm saying, y/n, is…,” he continues slowly as if waiting for the penny to drop, “if you need a fake boyfriend, I am available. It’s the very least I can do after all of this,” he explains, gesturing around the room. “Plus, it might be novel to experience a typical American Christmas,” he shrugs casually.

You can’t help it; you gape at him. Completely floored. The idea is utterly left-of-field and yet so exciting your heart pounds. If there is one downside to working so closely with Benedict these last few months, it has been the exponential growth of your inappropriate feelings for him. He is so sweet and handsome; no one would be immune, frankly. It was bad enough when you were at university together; now, well, it’s slightly lethal. Your mind boggles at him playing the role of a doting boyfriend; your body, however, seems very enthused, a warm flush creeping over your skin at the mere thought.

He chuckles nervously, a likely reaction to your stunned silence. “Listen, it was just a silly suggestion; you don’t have t-” 

“Yes!” you squeak, interrupting and grabbing his jacket cuff boldly when he seems to be withdrawing. “Please,” you add almost as an afterthought, unsure how to thank someone for such a generous offer.

His face breaks out into the most handsome grin.

“Excellent! Then, it's a date!” he exclaims, tilting his glass towards yours again. “Well, a fake date,” he amends with a lopsided grin that makes your stomach flip.

Oh god. What am I letting myself in for?!

___

December 23rd

“Are you sure about this? You can still back out...” you offer, fidgeting in the bag-drop queue at Heathrow three days later. 

“Please. What else am I going to do? Sit around my flat, billy-no-mates, and eat a sad M&S ready meal?! You are literally rescuing me,” he counters, probably exaggerating for your amusement.

Very much following the motto of not looking a gift horse in the mouth, you had texted Benedict your flight details that same night, and he has made it all happen in the hours since. Somehow, he managed to wave the Brigerton magic wand and secure what was probably the last seat on your direct flight two days before Christmas. Unluckily for him, he has to slum it in economy with the rest of the plebs like yourself. He couldn't even get a seat near you; he's stuck down the back, in the middle, near the galley.

“How about we swap seats at least?” you offer, guilt creeping in, looking at your printed boarding pass. Not only is Benedict doing you a favour, but he’s also pretzelling his tall self into an uncomfortable seat. The least you can do is offer him your aisle seat.

“I’ll be fine,” he dismisses, waving a hand and fishing out his passport as you are called to the desk.

“Travelling together?” the pretty, painted lady breezes at you, holding out a perfectly manicured hand to take your passport and ticket. Then you watch her practically melt as she claps eyes on Benedict.

Tsk. Typical.

“Not exactl…” you begin.

“Yes,” he cuts in with a winning smile. “Sadly, we couldn't get seats together, though,” he pouts a touch theatrically.

“Oh! Well, let me see what I can do about that… It is Christmas, after all,” she winks at him conspiratorially, then taps on her keyboard.

A few minutes later, your bags are checked in, and you are upgraded to Premium Economy. The lady was apologetic that you still couldn't get seats together but a row apart instead. You are pretty sure if there was space, the handsome bastard would have gotten you upgraded to business without even trying.

Oh, to be a pretty Bridgerton.

___

Twelve hours later, you are in a taxi, tired but grateful for the additional legroom on the flight, even managing a few hours of light napping. Benedict is similarly sleepy, both of your heads lolling around as the car zips down the road. By the time you reach your family home, it’s evening, but to your body clocks, it's the middle of the night.

As you slide out of the taxi, a long arm wraps around your shoulders, and you startle.

“Best to look convincing from the off,” Benedict mutters as he throws his duffle bag on top of your suitcase and trundles them up the path with his other hand.

You nod and dutifully wrap your arm around his waist over his puffer coat, slightly annoyed at how good it feels, as if your arm belongs there. 

“This is so American it's almost a cliche,” he jests, looking up at your parents' house, holiday string lights twinkling in the dusk.

You giggle at his remark and bump him with your hip, quickly escalating into a friendly tussle. He hauls you into his arms and swings you in front of him.

“What are you doing?” you whisper, your limbic system alive at the feel of him pressed into you even behind heavy coats.

“Just go with it,” he responds with an easy confidence and that dazzling smile. As if in slow motion, his lips descend, and you reel as they lightly brush yours, an explosion behind your ribs at this passing touch.

Over your shoulder, you hear the front door opening and realise it’s for show, for a particular audience. You are grateful for the forethought but completely discombobulated from this partial kiss.

How am I going to survive a week of this?

“Mrs y/l/n, Mr y/l/n,” he calls as you linger in his arms, not wanting to turn around just yet.

“Well, hello there. This must be the famous Mr Bridgerton,” your dad's opening line. “We have heard so very little about you. Before yesterday anyway,” he adds, already twisting the knife in early as you pull up to the porch.

“That may well be because I asked her not to,” Benedict rebuts smoothly, releasing you to give a firm handshake. “I love the element of surprise,” he adds with a smile you have seen him deploy before, a weapon’s grade charm offensive.

Your mother’s face is a picture. “Well, well, we certainly didn't expect someone quite so handsome to accompany our daughter,” she drawls, verging on flirtatious. 

Benedict drapes his arm around your shoulders and nuzzles your hair. “Whyever not? She is simply wonderful,” he sighs, his hot breath tickling your scalp before letting you go again.

Damn, he is good at this.

“Hello, mom, dad…” you greet politely before moving in for a short hug from both.

“Happy holidays, darling. Let's get inside,” your mother fusses.

Within a few minutes, after some casual pleasantries are exchanged as you remove coats, you watch your mother give Benedict a tour of their home, including, to your chagrin, your childhood bedroom, which is a time capsule from your teen years. At least the dog-eared band posters have been taken down. As you drift back to the living room, Christmas music plays from a speaker behind the tree. Your family loves to go all out on the holiday decorating. It does feel festive and cosy, though.

“It will be a full house with all of our kids and their spouses staying tonight. So there are no spare rooms. You are on the sofabed in the den, Mr Bridgerton,” your dad comments, gesturing to the room next door; the message very clear.

“That's fine,” Benedict huffs genially, “and please, call me Ben.” 

“I might actually head to bed now,” you admit over a stifled yawn. “My body thinks it's 2am.”

“Same,” Benedict chimes.

“Oh, you should stay up, try to get into the timezone,” your mother clucks, always with an opinion about how you are not doing things how she would. “Ben has not yet been introduced to Tucker, Travis, Tegan and their spouses. They are all still out at dinner…” she indicates, listing your siblings and looking most perturbed at your decision.

“Tomorrow, Mom,” you assure.

“Alright,” she capitulates with a sigh, mostly when she sees Benedict yawn behind his hand. 

“Goodnight…” you offer to all and go to leave the room, but as you get to the door, Benedict stops you with an arm shooting out.

“Don't I get a goodnight kiss, my love?” he pouts.

At first, you look up at him shocked, then a flick of his eyes over your shoulder makes you realise he is continuing the ruse. 

“Maybe,” you flirt back, jetlag somehow making you daring. An ideal excuse to be coquettish, even though your parents likely can't hear your exchange above the music playing. They can certainly see your body language, though.

“Oh, I see. What do I have to do to earn it?” Benedict plays along, a dangerous smile and a large hand low on your lumbar spine, pulling you into him. 

“Tell me you will miss not sleeping next to me,” you boldly request, a little cheeky smile tugging at your lips to see how far he will let you push this.

A long finger swipes a tendril of hair out of your face and behind your ear, a thumb curling under your chin.

“Every night I'm not sleeping next to you is my misfortune,” he replies, sounding wistful, his eyes seeming to burn with something approaching sincerity. It makes your stomach swoop like you are standing on a cliff edge on a windy day.

“Good answer,” you stumble in acknowledgement, pushing up onto your tip toes, heart in your mouth.

“I do what I can,” he answers against your lips and then draws you into a slow, plush kiss. 

His mouth doesn't open, but it doesn't matter; the hint of wetness on his pursed lips has your body reacting, a charge ripping through your being. A sudden yearning for him to push you against the wall and plunder your mouth with his tongue. When he withdraws, you know your pupils are blown wide, but you are taken aback that his are, too; the dampness on his lip shines in the glow of the Christmas tree. 

Your father pointedly clearing his throat breaks the spell, and you jump apart as if burned.

“Sorry,” you both mumble and Benedict pulls the most adorable ‘oopsie, my bad’ face. 

“Goodnight, y/n,” he says tacitly.

“Goodnight, Ben.”

As you climb the stairs slowly, exhaling the breath it feels like you have been holding since he grabbed your arm, you know that kiss will be replaying in your head for weeks. If he keeps this up, you may well combust. 

This was a fantastically bad idea.

___

December 24th

You awaken on Christmas Eve when it’s still dark outside. A glance at your phone says it’s right after 4:30am. Already knowing you won’t get any more sleep, you throw open your case and grab slippers and a hoodie, deciding to head down to make a coffee.

You almost jump out of your skin when you see a silhouette sitting at the kitchen table.

“Sorry,” Benedict atones as he sees you clutching your chest, “time zones.”

“Same… coffee?”

“Please…”

As you potter around, making a pot as quiet as possible, he scrolls on his phone. You join him once it’s brewing.

“How is the sofa bed?” you ask, wincing guiltily.

“I've slept on worse,” he obfuscates jovially. 

“Sorry, if I’d known there wouldn't be a spare bed, I would have booked a hotel,” you apologise, rubbing your temples.

“No, it’s tradition to stay with family at Christmas,” he rebukes with a smile.

“Thank you again for all this,” you mutter, shoving your hands into your hoodie pockets. “Have you done this fake boyfriend thing before?” your question is only partially in jest.

“No, what makes you say that?” he huffs bemused.

“You, uhh, have been doing an excellent acting job,” you shrug. “Thank you, by the way. I don’t think they quite believe I could land you, but I’d argue you have been very convincing regardless….”

“Don't say that,” he frowns, cutting in. 

“You don’t think they buy it?” concerned things may not be working as well as you believed.

“Not that,” he waves a dismissive hand, “the other thing. Why wouldn’t they believe you could ‘land me’?” he rounds off with a quotation gesture.

You bark a laugh. “Have you seen you?  

“Stop,” he seems genuinely ticked. “That is all shit. I would be lucky to have you,” he mumbles, not meeting your eye, staring out of the French doors into the inky blackness. It won’t be sunrise for another three hours this time of year. “I am lucky, in fact, to have you as a friend,” he adds, his thoughts sounding far away.

“Well, same. I still have no idea how to repay you for all of this…” you admit.

“I already said, none needed. Why would I not choose a little foreign adventure with a good friend when the alternative is Christmas alone?!” he scoffs as the coffee machine beeps.

Unsure quite what to say, you get up to make a cup, knowing without asking how he takes his. Retaking your seat, you pick at the idea again.

“I think we should strategise…” you mutter into your mug.

“About what?”

“The plan. Now you have some inkling of what they are like, maybe we should talk tactics…?” you trail off, not sure even yourself where you are going with this.

“It's simple, isn't it?” he counters, taking a gulp of coffee. “We hold hands, hug and kiss occasionally, you know, act like a couple….” he shrugs as if it's the simplest thing in the world. Maybe it is to him; his heart probably doesn't pound when you so much as touch.

“Okay, well, I guess we can improvise. But let me know if it all gets too much. Send me a secret code or something,” you offer.

“Like a safe word?” he chuckles.

“Something like that,” you allow, trying to mask the heat you feel creeping up your sternum at the very thought.

Just then, his phone vibrates on the table.

“Sorry, it's Ant. I should probably take this,” he apologises, standing up.

You swallow a sip of your coffee, trying not to think too hard about anything, when suddenly he leans over your shoulder from behind, the phone still buzzing in his hand.

“By the way, my safeword is Byron,” he rumbles silkily into your ear. “Not that I’ll ever need it,” he adds, walking away casually while you try to bring your heart rate back to normal.

Dear God, this man is going to kill me.

___

You take your coffee back to bed when Benedict doesn't reappear after a few minutes and end up passing out again for a couple of hours. By the time you are awake again, the house is a hive of noise and activity. You pass Kallie, your oldest brother's wife, in the hallway, and she punches your arm lightly.

“Welcome home, and well fucking done!” she winks, and you frown, confused what she’s talking about. She jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “That delicious slice of Britishness in there,” she elucidates. 

Shit! It just occurs to you that by falling back asleep, you left Benedict alone to fend for himself in the melee of your family. The poor man must be mauled alive by now.

So when you enter the kitchen, the last thing you expect to see is the sight before you. Benedict, with an apron on, tossing American-style pancakes like a pro on the hotplate while your family chatters around him, applauding as he serves up another perfect-looking batch.

“Darling!” he calls when he sees you. “Come here!” he exclaims warmly, holding out his arms.

Unsure what else to do and powerless to resist the opportunity, you walk over and allow yourself to be swept into his arms. He presses a kiss onto your cheek. He smells like butter and syrup, and you want to burrow into him.

“Sorry I left you alone in the lion's den,” you say close to his ear so only he can hear.

He smiles into your hair. “They are fine, honestly; I can handle it,” he assures mutely.

You pull back and swipe a tiny fleck of batter from his face, enjoying the round of his cheekbone as you do. What makes an odd weight land on your ribs is how his pupils dilate fractionally as you lick the dot off your thumb.

“Delicious, Mr Bridgerton,” again, unable to stop yourself from flirting with him now you have the excuse.

Something in him looks almost wild as your gaze locks.

“Get a room!” your brother, Tucker, jeers from the table.

Part of you wants to sass back some version of ‘apparently we’re not allowed’ and ‘I wish’, but all you can do is smile at Benedict as he mirrors your expression.

“More, please, Mr Brid-un,” your youngest nephew toddles over, holding up his plate expectantly.

Benedict finally looks away and ruffles the little kid’s hair. “Certainly, Brandon,” he offers warmly.

“What I find fascinating is how a proper British gentleman knows how to make good old-fashioned American pancakes,” your mother pipes up from her seat at the kitchen island.

“Oh, my nanny was an American,” Benedict waves the spatula as he pours more batter onto the hotplate and begins a new batch.

“Your grandmother was from the colonies?” Travis mocks, feigning outrage.

“Oh no… not that sort. My umm nanny nanny, as in the lady who looked after us as kids,” he explains, looking somewhat sheepish.

“Shhiittttt,” your sister Teegan drawls, looking up from her phone for the first time. “You’re like actual rich, huh?”

“Language Tee!” your mother warns from across the room.

Teegan pulls a face and then turns her attention back to Benedict, awaiting his response.

“Please, can you all not be so… y/l/n,” you cut in, holding up your hands to the gathered family. “For once, can you all just…?” you taper off, hoping they will read between the lines.

“How’d you two meet?” Dean, Teegan’s husband, calls out, ignoring your plea completely.

“We actually met at university many years ago,” Benedict explains, flipping the pancakes as they bubble. “But we started working together last year on various projects, and well, we grew much closer.” 

So far, so truthful.

“Then, well, one memorable day, when we successfully wrapped up a project we had worked on so hard together, I realised she meant so much more to me than a friend,” Benedict continues, sounding so sincere you almost believe it yourself. A tiny flutter in your chest that the project he refers to could be the Gala. “I kept it to myself for a while, but late one night, I couldn't resist, and I confessed my feelings. I am the luckiest man alive because it turns out she felt the same. And, well… here we are,” he concludes, shooting you a look so loaded you forget it's a yarn for a few seconds.

“Friends-to-lovers, I stan,” Claire, your other sister-in-law, comments. She always has her head stuck in some romance book.

As Benedict serves the next batch, the focus of the room is pulled to your nieces and nephews as they overload their pancakes with toppings, and you are grateful to be out of the glare of the family spotlight temporarily.

“How did I do?” Benedict murmurs into your ear as he sidles up next to you, wrapping an arm around your back. There's a tinge of pride in his voice. He knows he has them eating out the palm of his hand, and fuck if it isn't so attractive.

“I should tip you…” you joke, not wanting to give away quite how flustered you are.

“I accept payment in kisses,” he breathes, his smouldering stare sliding down to your lips as you crane your head to look up at him. 

It's only a few minutes later, as you grab a pancake from the stack that you realise he didn't say that at volume anyone else could hear… it was purely for you. And you have no earthly idea what to do with that thought.

___

The rest of Christmas Eve passes with your family’s usual rituals, with Benedict beside you, playing the doting boyfriend to perfection. Each brush of his makes your adrenaline spike—a divine torture. 

While dinner is cooking in the afternoon, your parents usher most of you out of the house for a walk in the bracing cold to build up an appetite. And so you stroll, Benedict’s gloved hand in yours.

“So Ben, is everyone in London not married with kids, or is it only my sister who can't seem to figure it out despite her old age?” your sister Teegan digs as she pushes the buggy next to you.

“Well, we are a similar age, and I'm not married with kids either,” he points out breezily.

“Yeah, but…” she halts, realising there is no response she can think of. “Wait, why don't you have kids yet? Don’t you want a family? I thought you said you had lots of brothers and sisters?”

“I do come from a big family, yes. And I suppose one day, yes, I do want kids of my own,” he adds, seemingly honest as you listen intently, your heartbeat in your ears, “but I feel no rush yet.”

“So you’re not knocking this one up anytime soon then?” your brother Tucker stirs, checking your shoulder roughly from the other side.

You can't help but feel a blush darken your cheeks at that and refuse to look up at Benedict. You open your mouth to tell Tucker to shut up, but Benedict cuts across you.

“If anyone has come close to being someone I would consider having kids with, it's your sister,” he admits casually, as if talking about the weather. But for you, it feels like you are back on that proverbial cliff edge about to dive over, heart racing. It takes every fibre of your being to keep walking and acting naturally, grateful for the gloves between your joined hands; not sure you could handle his skin touching yours as he says such things.

“Ooooooo,” Tucker singsongs, “going to the chapel, and they’re gonna get mar...”

“Cut it out!” you grouse.

He peels a laugh, then jogs on ahead to catch up with Dean.

“I’m sorry about that,” your apology hushed as you keep walking, Teegan falling behind you to deal with one of her kids' tantrums.

“Why? It's an inevitable question when you meet your other half’s family,” he points out, squeezing your hand reassuringly as you wander as a pair.

“Yes, but… it's a bit much, considering they just met you hours ago. They are intentionally stirring the pot. Trying to scare you off,” you frown, realising what they are doing as you say it aloud.

Benedict stops walking, and it makes you halt, too. “Nothing could scare me off,” he assures, his face soft with understanding as he cups your jaw. His cold, damp glove is a balm to your flushed, embarrassed face.

“Right,” you nod, “cos this is all fake…” you add quietly, trying to hide the defeated tone.

“Anyone who knows how great you are would not be scared off by the idea of a future with you,” Benedict says soothingly, a thumb stroking your cheekbone.

“Well, when you meet a candidate who fits that bill, send them over to me, yeah?” you quip brittly as you look off into the distance, unable to meet his hazy, sincere eyes.

His response is interrupted by your niece tugging on his coat.

“Uncle Ben, can I sit on your shoulders? Please? Daddy already has Brandon, and my feet are so tired,” she whines in that dramatic way only little ones do.

Benedict laughs and releases you. “Certainly, Sofia,” he smiles as he hauls her onto his shoulders, uncaring of the mess her little boots smear onto his coat as he does so.

“Faster! Go faster!” she orders, and genially, Benedict obeys, moving ahead and breaking into a light jog as she giggles loudly and holds onto his chin.

You try to ignore the flutter in your chest at the sight of him with a kid on his shoulders, as if he were born to do so.

This was such a mistake…

___

“When are you moving home, y/n?”

You knew this was likely coming. The question your mum has to ask every time you visit. And every year, your answer is the same.

“I don't think I will be, Mom,” you explain calmly as you pass the plate of peas to your sister, not wanting to look at Benedict, who sits opposite you at the long table. “I love London. It feels like home,” you add with a shrug.

“Yes, but this living abroad thing is supposed to be a phase—a young person thing. You are mid-thirties now. It's time you settled down,” she frowns.

“I am settled,” you reply neutrally, “I have a place of my own that I love.”

“Yes, but an apartment, sorry ‘flat’,” she self-corrects sarcastically, “that’s not a real home. A home is a house with a garden in a safe town with good schools for your children,” she lectures.

This line of discussion used to annoy and rile you up, but you have become weary of it over the years. The rest of your family is tucking into their food but listening smugly, having towed the traditional family line.

“I think home can be many things,” Benedict pipes up from across the table. “A home is about where you feel safe and secure, surely Mrs y/l/n?”

“Well, yes…” your mother falters, slightly taken aback by his interruption but still charmed by his effortless congeniality.

“Then I would say your daughter’s home is London,” he smiles disarmingly. “You should see her there; I encourage you to visit sometime. She has a home she has made beautiful. She has many friends, and she is amazing at her job. She is happy. I, for one, cannot imagine her anywhere else.”

Again, you can feel your heart beating at his sweet words, even knowing they are all for show; it's lovely that someone has your back for once, defending your choices.

“But what of the schools, Mr Bridgerton?” your dad piles in, “I have heard nightmares of the school system in the inner cities, in this country and yours,” he shudders.

“My family has always gone to a superb prep school in Chelsea. I see no reason why our children could not do the same when the time comes,” Benedict responds with a winning smile.

You almost drop the corn casserole at that line.

Plonking it heavily on the table and taking a deep breath, you finally pluck the courage to look over at him. Looking back at you is a playful smile and a wink. And suddenly, you know what he is doing. It likely appears genuine to others, but you know him too well; you know all his facial tells. He is doing this for sport. To entertain you. The kaleidoscope of emotions you feel is near exhausting, relief mixed with a tang of disappointment that it's all for show.

“Well, that's wonderful news, Benedict,” your mother squeaks. “I cannot wait to hear more once you are engaged,” never failing to find an opportunity to take a dig.

“You will be the first to hear, I promise,” he smiles winningly and takes a bite of food. “This is delicious, by the way,” he adds, “I hope you will share the recipe with me, seeing as we will likely be family one day...”

And just like that, he expertly manoeuvres your mother onto the only topic she loves more than marriage - cooking. As if he could intuit how to steer the conversation. Relieved, you sit back and finally take a deep breath, then a bite of your admittedly delicious plate. You are even grateful he manages to distract them long enough that there are no jibes about your weight.

Maybe this wasn't such a mistake…

___

A few hours later, with the little ones tucked up in bed, the adults gather around the tree with the fireplace roaring and the festive music softly playing. It's time for gift exchange, a family tradition away from the hubbub of Christmas morning with the focus on the children ripping through all the gifts Santa left for them.

You are enjoying the buzz a second large glass of wine provides when the focus turns to you. Benedict sits beside you and slides a hand onto your knee. Still, your body reacts, but you attempt to act as if it doesn't make your blood pump hard in your head.

“Benedict, we didn't know you were coming, so I'm sorry we have no gift for you to open,” your mother says sheepishly, “and y/n, we have done as you always ask; we have sent you a gift card over email,” she explains, “which makes me sad as you have no gift to unwrap….”

“That's fine, Mom, thank you. And don't worry, I don't need a gift,” you assure, taking another swig.

“Actually….” Benedict clears his throat, “I have a gift for my girlfriend if that is okay?”

You look agog at him.

“But… I didn't get you anything,” you splutter, even as he moves his hand from you and reaches behind his back, revealing a small navy velvet box.

“Don't worry. It's nothing really, just something small,” Benedict assures, even as you can feel everyone’s eyes on you as you reluctantly let him place it in your hands.

Slowly, you pull at the tail of the lovely soft gold ribbon until it relents. With your heart in your mouth, you snap open the box. Nestled in more navy velvet is a tiny, beautiful crystal penguin, your favourite animal.

“Ben…” you are lost for all other words, tears prickling the corners of your eyes.

“I remember you loved the larger one my mum had on her desk,” he explains lowly as you stare transfixed by all the facets catching the twinkling light. “Every time we had a meeting, you would stare at it or play with it. So I knew I had to get you one too, for your desk… or wherever you want to put it,” he modifies sweetly.

You can't help it - the swell of emotions makes you throw your arms around him as you clutch the precious item. It's like he has managed to distil everything you could want from a Christmas gift - something personal, tailored to you, nothing too extravagant but small, elegant and beautiful. And that he had the forethought to bring it across the Atlantic with him makes your heart burst even more. He is possibly the best friend you could ever have. You fervently wish he was so much more.

“I can't believe you remember that,” you mumble. “This is perfect and beautiful. Thank you, Ben, thank you so much.”

“Merry Christmas, my love,” he says into your hair at a volume you know is designed to be heard by the room.

“Merry Christmas,” you return quieter, only for him.

Vaguely, you hear your mother moving on to hand a gift to another, perhaps embarrassed by the display of affection between you. Grateful that the family focus seems to have shifted to someone else, you go to pull away from the embrace, but Benedict draws you tighter into him. 

“Lovers don't let go so quickly,” he whispers. “Now I'm going to kiss you again if that is okay…”

Your tummy flips. “Okay…” you barely struggle out the word.

Then his hand is on your cheek, and time seems to slow like treacle; his eyes burn into yours as he moves in, then flutter closed as his lips meet yours. Again, it is like a rollercoaster, a thrilling plunge as his lips move over yours. It's like the previous night, respectful with a closed mouth but so sweet and promising, so much more a whole ripple runs through your body. You need more, so much more, desperate to climb into his lap and demand a real kiss, audience be damned.  When you part, he tilts his forehead against yours and smiles gently, licking his lip as if savouring the taste.

“I'm glad you like it. The gift that is,” he clarifies, a sweet mumble.

You giggle. “I love it, Ben, thank you. I'm sorry I didn't get you anything; I feel terrible.”

“Being here with you is gift enough,” he assures in a voice that melts your insides, which you assume is for the audience.

My god, this man will be the death of me.

The rest of the evening passes in a pleasant fog of wine, your siblings holding court and telling stories as you listen, feeling the weight of Benedict’s hand again on your leg as he sips on a whiskey. Once again, you feel the creeping of jetlag and decide to turn in around 10pm. You give Benedict a peck on the cheek before he can draw you into another confounding kiss and make your escape upstairs with a glass of eggnog and your book.

As you settle into bed, you try not to let your thoughts spiral as you catch sight of the crystal penguin in its box. Instead, you tell yourself he is a good friend and rich; it's likely nothing to him, and not to read too much into it.

___

December 25th 

At some point, you drift off to sleep, book in hand, the timezone still catching you out. You only realise it when you are awoken suddenly around 2am by a knock on your door.

“Come in,” you croak, sitting up and rubbing your eyes to adjust to the light; you had fallen asleep with the bedside lamp on low while reading.

The door opens ajar, and Benedict’s handsome face pops in. “I saw your light on…” he says softly, “just wanted to check on you.”

You put your book aside, pull the covers around your neck and feel an odd flutter as he closes the door behind him. He looks cosy in long tartan pyjama bottoms and a soft dark t-shirt.

“I'm sure your dad would kill me if he knew I were here,” he jests as he hovers a few feet away.

“Come sit,” you pat the bed next to you, even as you feel strange about him being here, dead of night on Christmas Day. 

He nods gratefully and perches on the edge of your bed. It's a full-size mattress, bigger than a twin, but not a double bed. You can feel his weight tugging the bedding tight over your thighs.

“Thank you again for my gift, truly,” you gesture to the box on your bedside table.

“I had to. I couldn't think of anything more… you...” Benedict smiles that demure smile with downcast eyes that always makes you want to shake him and tell him to stop looking so fucking adorable. Or mount him. Or both. You have to bite your lip to stop blurting out your errant thoughts.

“But still to buy me such a wonderful gift and put up with my family… I mean… you deserve a medal,” you shrug.

A hand clamps onto your knee through the bedding, but it still surprises you. 

“Stop it,” he gruffs. “I'm going to need you to stop. Seriously. I chose to come here. It's been fun. Something different. Yes, your family is a bit… intense, but everyone’s is. Each has its own special blend of crazy. You’ve seen the Bridgerton brand of dysfunctional up close,” he points out, knowing without saying more how much you have watched them bicker over the years.

“But you’ve said all those lovely things, made up all these amazing believable stories…” you argue back weakly.

“Every single thing I have said to your family has been the truth,” he responds solemnly.

You replay a few choice record-scratch moments in your head. “But what about the stuff about me being the person you could see yourself having kids with and where these imaginary kids would go to school…” you point out, wincing as you do.

“I told no lies,” he answers each syllable enunciated slowly, staring you down.

It feels like your whole world tilts when he utters those words.

“What are you saying?” you query, breathier than you mean to sound but needing him to spell it out.

He sighs, but a mischievous grin twitches the corner of his mouth. “You are much smarter than this; don't be obtuse now, y/n,” he rumbles, something in the challenging way he says it catches a fire behind your ribs.

“Ben…” you warn, so many contradictory feelings at once.

“You are all the things I said and more, and you must know how amazing you are,” he offers softly as you feel your eyes misting.

“Please don't,” your last vestige of resistance, still not believing what he says can possibly be true, too close to a festive miracle. Part of you thinks that at any moment, you will wake up alone and bereft.

His fingertips brush your cheek, and you inhale sharply and look up to see him inches from your face.

“Fine, if you don't somehow believe my words, maybe you’ll believe my deeds…”

It's the last few words out of his mouth before his lips meet yours.

This time, it's not for an audience; it's just for the two of you, and it almost stops your heart. A hesitant, soft, sweet brush that becomes more as he leans in and deepens the kiss. His lips part yours as your mind grinds to a halt, tentatively following his lead, kissing him back… the catalyst, the permission he needs. A large hand rounds behind your head and pulls you forward. Suddenly, it's a tidal wave, his tongue rolling greedily over yours, becoming hungry, urgent, desperate, your body awash with chemicals, scarcely able to believe Benedict, the star of every one of your spicy dreams, is here in your childhood bedroom, kissing the very life out of you in the early hours of Christmas Day.

“Lay down,” he murmurs into your skin as his lips glide over your cheek, and you follow his order without thought, shuffling down obediently until you lie flat and stare up at him transfixed. 

It’s as if he’s taken your disbelief as a challenge to prove how very real this is. With one hand, he tosses aside the covers and crawls over you until he is engulfing you, surrounding you with his scent that makes your mouth water. His lips are hot on your neck as his hands map your body, lingering in places you are self-conscious about. 

“Do you have any idea how sexy you are?” he sighs as if disputing your internal monologue, his breath ghosting warm over your collarbone. 

“Stop…” you demure, wriggling under him, feeling bashful.

“No..” his crooked smile is lethal as his head pops up from worrying your throat with a little edge of his teeth. His hand skates your clothed breast, and on instinct, you push up into it, your nipple hardening as the heat of his palm seeps through your nightshirt. “Please take off your top,” he implores, his mouth finding your lips again. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dreamt of touching your naked body.”

“I can’t believe this…” you mutter, shaky, confounded that it could be true—the man you desire desiring you back just as wantonly. He lowers his body between your legs, surging his hips so you feel something insistent inside his pyjamas.

“Now, do you believe me?” he dusks into your ear.

“Benedict…” falls from your lips as an excited shudder.

“Say my name again, please,” he huffs right against your cheekbone, pinning you under him with his pelvis.

“Benedict,” you repeat, revelling in the effect it seems to have on him.

It gives you the courage to whip off your top. The noise he makes as he realises you are naked underneath it is a beeline right between your legs.

“Shh,” you hush, giggling, a rush through your veins, not wanting anyone to disturb this, as he slides his lips down over your skin towards your breasts.

“I cannot,” he remarks gleefully,  “not with such a bounty beneath me.” 

His lips clamp onto your left nipple, sucking and swirling his tongue with an intensity that steals the breath from your lungs.

“Might wake fam…” you stumble out, impressed you can even do that.

He pulls up, his biceps in tense relief as he balances on his fists curled on either side of your waist. “Then lock your damn door,” he growls in a way that has you clenching.

“No lock…” you squeak, wishing beyond belief you had one.

“Shit, really?” he sighs, leaning back down to kiss over your sternum. “I’m not sure I can be quiet; I’ve wanted this for too long…”

You go to query that statement, but he moves to your other breast and does the same, so the only sound you are capable of is a guttural moan.

“Shh,” he hushes you back cheekily, tilting his head up from your chest, eyes sparkling and face so achingly handsome you still can barely believe this is happening,

“We really do have to be quiet…” you point out reluctantly.

“I know,” he sighs into your breastbone, dropping a soft kiss there. “I want to tell you so many things….” 

“Whisper them to me…” you beseech, running your fingers through his lush, thick head of hair, tilting your breast back up to his mouth.

He smirks and catches your unsubtle hint, once again using his talented mouth to make you shudder under him. He runs a finger down your centre line to your belly. 

“Your body is perfect,” he sighs. You go to protest, but he shoots you a disapproving look, so you bite back your words. “I could get lost for hours tracing your lines,” he hums, his featherlight touch tickling as it crosses under your belly button, making you giggle. “Hmm, a little ticklish too,” he sounds utterly captivated by that discovery, throwing you a very troublesome expression.

“Don't use it against me…” you warn, knowing he will ignore you, a fizzy feeling at this playfulness.

“Oh, I just might…” he chuckles as he runs his tongue lower over your torso, a hot, damp line that leaves fluttering in his wake. “I could do this all night…your skin is so soft,” he purrs, inhaling deeply, nuzzling his nose above the line of your pyjama bottoms. “You always smell so fantastic,” he sighs, using his teeth to tug on the ribbon. 

You’ve never had someone be this vocal during intimacy. It makes you feel reassured but also slightly bewildered by just how aroused you are getting, Benedict’s resonant voice skittering compliments over your skin, making you embarrassingly wet. Your hands greedily pull at his t-shirt, hoping he will get the hint.

“If you want something from me, you have to say it,” he teases as he switches to using his fingers to undo the bow on your pyjamas. 

“Please take off your top, Ben,” you mewl, even as your heart pounds at the idea you will soon be naked under him.

“I will,” he promises, “in a minute…” 

As if sensing your apprehension about removing your last item of clothing, he leaves it in place, shuffling lower and stretching your legs wide with his shoulders. You gasp loudly as his mouth, hot through the thin cotton protecting your modesty, sucks insistently over your slit. A large hand curling around your hip to stop you canting off the bed. Your clit throbs, and your pussy leaks copiously down your bottom.

“Fuck I can tell how wet you are even through this fabric,” he stutters.

“I'm sorry...” you squirm, embarrassed.

He surges upright, grabs your hands from around his head and cages them on the mattress beside your hips.

“Let's get two things very clear,” his voice stern but achingly seductive. “One, your body is incredible, and you should know by now how much I desire you. Two, if you ever apologise again for being turned on, I will be annoyed. Do you know how proud I am? That I can do this to you? How absolutely rigid this makes me?” rutting his hard cock against your left calf to prove his point. “I want your desire running down to your knees. I want you mindless and trembling with need for me.” 

“O-okay,” you stumble out, entranced. This filthy poetry and feralness is beyond anything you could imagine him capable of. You have seen hints of his menacing potential, but full force, it’s breathtaking.

“Good,” he smiles crookedly, releasing your hands. “Now lift your hips so I can get you properly naked,” the slightly bossy rejoinder really working for you.

Mutely, you do as bidden, his fingertips trailing fire down your hips as he tugs the material over your thighs, impatiently pulling them from around your ankles and tossing them over his shoulder, his gaze locked onto your body. He groans a curse, and you again find yourself clenching around nothing at his untamed response.

Whispering his name is a reflex, your fingers carding again into his hair as he lowers his mouth and suckles the skin of your hip before slowly, almost torturously, winding his way lower towards your centre. Every place he touches feels alive and fluttering, him whispering reassurance and praise into your flesh, like a sensual requiem that catches your breath. By the time he trails his nose down the crease where your thigh meets your body, you are panting, eyes screwed shut, head tilted back, anticipation knotting your guts.

“Look at me,” he orders softly, his face framed by your thighs as you gulp and look down the plane of your body to him. “Don’t look away; I want to see your eyes when I do this,” his breath hot on your slit.

He unfurls his tongue and ploughs through your wet flesh, making your toes and fingers curl. You have to bite your lip and curse behind your teeth, the sensation overwhelming, his eye flashing fire in his blown pupils at your bodily reaction. You hiss loudly, needing to call out so bad your lungs ache. You twist your pillow to bite down on a corner but keep your eyes on him as told. He chuckles pridefully, the sensation shooting up your pelvis, then keeps going. Teasing around your clit with a lathing action that is nothing like you've had before, devouring, using his whole face, strong arms wrapping your thighs in a vice-like grip, held lewdly open It feels so good that within moments you are panting. Still, part of you is tense, scared about your ability to be silent.

“Relax,” he breathes, shaking your hip gently in his grip, sensing the tension in your being. 

“I'm worried I won't be able to stay quiet enough,” you admit, muffled around the pillowcase, looking away to stare at the ceiling as he busses a soft kiss onto your inner thigh.  

“One moment…” he withdraws and hops off the bed. You watch, vaguely dazed, as he drags a heavy chair against the door and wedges it under the handle so it can’t be opened. “There, now we should get some warning.”.

When he turns back around, you instinctively pull the cover over yourself to hide your naked body, even as you can’t help but stare at the tent in his pyjama bottoms, mouth watering at visions of what lies beneath.

“Don’t do that,” he reproaches softly, “show yourself to me.”

Reluctantly, you push the sheet away again, squirming slightly as his eyes roam your body lasciviously as he prowls over to you, stripping off his t-shirt as he does. His naked torso is perfect, toned and honed, and as he crawls over you, you are hypnotised by the view. 

“You are so beautiful,” he sighs, dropping a kiss on the tip of your nose, the scent of your arousal on his face. “Never cover yourself in front of me; you should be proud of your body.”

You’ve never had someone say that before, and your insides are molten, a need for him that burns so bright, an inferno purely of his making.

“Tell me what you want,” he proposes, lacing your fingers with his, kissing your fingertips, then sucking them into his mouth, looking at you expectantly as you stutter at his warm, wet, talented tongue lathing over your fingertips.

“Everything…” you blurt out honestly. “Anything. This is all wonderful… Can I return the favour for you?” you deflect, brushing your other hand tentatively over his bulge as he hovers over you.

“Yes, you bloody can,” he growls, releasing your fingers from his lips as his eyes flash dark. But he grabs your hand away from his cock, calming his tone. “But not tonight. Another time…”

“Another time?” you echo, temporarily stunned by the idea this isn't a never-to-be-repeated Christmas miracle.

“Yes. Why would you think this a one-time thing?” his brow knits as he drops a kiss on your cheek. “What about my actions and words tonight suggest that?”

“Nothing, I suppose,” you concede, “just history…”

He cups your jaw. “The past is the past. This is now and me,” he states clearly, running a thumb tenderly over your lip. “I will do whatever you want. If you tell me to leave this room right now, I will, and I won't think any less of you…”

“Don't you dare,” it's a snarl from some dark recess deep inside you, your legs twining around his to lock him in place.

“There she is…” he chuckles, that lopsided grin taking over his face before kissing a line down your throat. “Now tell me what you want, y/n.”

“I want you inside me,” you confess, running your hands over his naked back, loving the play of muscles under warm skin.

He groans at your words, an edge of teeth on your jugular, making you ripen, feel daring. If he wants to know just how wild he makes you, you are going to show it. You grab his face and drag it up until he is over you again, his pupils blown and his hair a mess from your tugging.

“Fuck me, right now, Ben,” you demand hotly, pushing your body up into his and delving a hand inside the back of his pyjamas to grab his shapely rear, keen for him to be as naked as you.

He snarls and pins your arms beside your head on the pillow.

“Do you have any condoms?” he breathes hot in your ear.

“Ah shit,” your head thumps back, chastising yourself for not planning better. But then this seemed like such an unlikely outcome, frankly miraculous; why on earth would you have?

“Good thing I came prepared then,” he teases, releasing his grip to produce a small packet from the pocket of his pyjamas.

“You….” you scold, equal parts impressed and irked, running your fingers around his waistband. 

“It was a sincere wish, not an expected conclusion,” he smiles bashfully, his lips meeting yours for a searing kiss as he slips off the last of his clothing.

A shiver runs down your spine as he bears you into the mattress, naked, his rigid cock brandishing the inside of your thigh. He keeps kissing you over and over until your lips feel tingly from the slight hint of stubble around his. You wrap all of your limbs around him, craving for your bodies to be melded.

When he pushes up slightly to rip open the packet, you glance down and see, nestled in a patch of trimmed hair, a sizeable but very pretty cock. You can’t resist reaching out and touching it, loving the feel of steely strength under the silky texture; his soft groan is like music to your ears. Sighing his name, you are impatient for him to be inside you, already knowing it will feel wonderful, part of you craving skin on skin. 

Again he wears that demure smile, looking up at you through his lashes, so you take over, eagerly rolling the condom onto that pretty cock and then pulling him down on top of you forcefully.

“I like it when you are just a little bossy,” he confesses into your mouth, one hand pulling the cover over you both, then sliding between your bodies to guide himself towards you.

“I like it when you are a little bossy,” you counter, but then all your words die out as his cock slides insistently into you.

Your eyes roll back as he inches inside, so much heat and girth, your body stretching to accommodate his invasion. You both seem to utter a curse, and your hands grasp each other tight.

“You feel amazing…” he murmurs as he bottoms out, the feeling of fullness so perfect.

You whisper your agreement as he withdraws and surges back in, your feet curling around his legs, toes sliding into the light fuzz on the back of his calves. There are soft sighs, both of you trying to muffle your sounds as he sets a languid pace, your body rolling with his; each push has your walls clinging to him, your breasts squashing against his broad chest. What strikes you most as you move together is that nothing is awkward; it all feels natural, predestined, an easy intimacy that suggests months or even years together rather than a first time.

He feels so good moving inside you, so perfect; all you can do is cling to him, trying to convey with your eyes what you dare not voice. Afraid that if you open your mouth, you will release the noises you are fighting to hold in, blazing in your lungs. His stare is blistering, too, a blush across his face that speaks of desire and denied words, his neck corded, a pulse beating wildly in his prominent vein, a sheen gathering on his forehead as he pushes into you over and over.

His breath is hot on your temple as he shifts, dropping a shoulder and reaching down, looping your leg into the crook of his arm, the sheet pulling taut around your knee as he does. He hits a new spot deep inside with his next thrust, which has you digging your nails into his back and whimpering behind your sealed lips. It's as if he is doing his damnedest to break you, make you cry out, and it's the best torture you have ever known.

You huff out of your nose as he does the same, both sounding winded, as he picks up the pace, your teenage bed starting to squeak in protest.

“Shhh,” you plead with the furniture as much as him.

He stops moving, buried in you, and reaches above, stuffing a throw pillow between the bedframe and the wall, his arms flexing deliciously right over your face, the scent of his body spiking your need. It makes you grasp your thighs around his hips and flip him over, landing with a bounce, him still inside as you are on top of him now.

“Wow, that was…” he looks both astounded and exhilarated.

“Surprising?” you supply with a triumphant crooked smile of your own, your hands tracing the lines of his pectorals.

“Wonderful,” he clarifies, his hands grasping your hips as you start to ride him. The way he looks up at you, with dark pupils and a bitten lip, makes you fearless. Starting a leisurely pace, you place your hands over his on your hips, fingers lacing as his eyes slip from yours briefly, transfixed by his cock disappearing into you.

He groans low, undulating beneath you, pushing up as you sink down, his eyes back to your face, a prideful expression as your mouth drops open, his cock nudging deeper than ever before, almost a dull ache that you need, moving faster now, chasing that hit with every downstroke. You can feel your body flushing hot from the exertion, your thigh muscles burning slightly. Still, you don't waver, too addicted to that feeling of being so utterly filled, his cock dragging all the right places inside that switch off your brain and forget everything, every doubt, every uncertainty about yourself and your body, and just chase pleasure. 

“My god, you are beautiful,” he gasps, “I love to see you like this, so untamed, so free…” 

The compliments just drip like whispered jewels from his tongue as he guides your joined hands up to your breasts and grabs them with a force that fans the heavy, hot feeling in your pelvis, his knuckles snagging your sensitive buds. It makes you want to ride him forever, your clit throbbing each time you sink down, tugging temptingly but not enough to quite tip you over. The clawing sensation of being so close makes you drag your fingernails down his torso and clench around his cock. He stutters and looks at you hungrily, possessed, and then, before you know it, the room tilts as he rolls you back under him, again never leaving your body.

He withdraws and thrusts back into you with such force the wind is knocked out of your lungs, the pillow muffling the thud against the wall. Something in the atmosphere shifts; an urgency, like the heat that has been simmering, is now boiling over for both of you. He grabs your knees and encourages you to wrap your legs high around his torso, tilting your pelvis to a new angle, and when he moves, you cry loudly behind your lips, his body glancing at your clit.

He hushes you with a prideful chuckle. So you grab one of his hands and place it over your mouth, knowing you cannot trust yourself to stay quiet now. The hitch in his breath as you gag yourself with his palm is like poetry. 

Oh, Ben, you have no idea what I may want from you one day…

Your errant thoughts run to your darker fantasies, things you’ve never done before but are intrigued by, and in every one of them, it's him. Treating you just a little rough while you beg for more.

“Whatever you are thinking,” he gusts into your ear, moving faster now, “I hope it involves me.”

You nod, feeling his fingers flex across your face.

“Good, I can't wait for you to tell me,” he rasps lowly.

A bead of sweat forms along his hairline as the whole bed rocks now, the trapped pillow muffling the sound, his punishing pace pushing you ever closer to orgasm, pleasure spiking with each thrust. His hand grips your jaw; something about that pressure and the sweet words he murmurs is a contradiction of primal and tender. Sex before has always been one or the other for you; blended together, it's a potent elixir.

He takes you hard, without mercy, and you silently beg him with your eyes for just that; his cock feels so hot and rigid, pounding into you as your cries are muffled by his tangy palm. The onslaught is perfect, and you are teetering on the edge just as he pleads roughly with you to come with him. So you let yourself go, your mind blanks out, your body bucking under his violently. Shuddering convulsions fanning out from your pussy, gripping tight around him and racing through every ounce of your being, muscles taut, eyes screwed shut, a scream trapped in your lungs. He stills above you, his hand releasing your mouth as that bead of sweat splashes down onto your nose. He curls around you, coming hard, huffing gulps of air and twitching almost violently with tiny aftershocks.

After a pause filled with panted breaths and strokes on overheated skin, he carefully withdraws and discards the condom.

“Merry Christmas,” you giggle into his neck as you collapse together.

He hauls you into his embrace, tucking you under his arm and kissing your dewy forehead. 

“Merry Christmas indeed,” his answer ragged, wrapped in a warm laugh.

And that is how you both drift off - exhausted, sated bodies entwined, damp skin pressed together.

___

A few hours later, you are awakened by overexcited nieces and nephews thundering down the stairs, eager to see what Santa has brought them. It takes a moment to recall what transpired overnight, a telltale delicious residual pang between your legs, followed by the realisation you are alone. Part of you relieved Benedict has snuck back to the safety of the den, but a larger part sad not to be waking up in his arms. Sighing, you roll over and spy a jaunty cartoon penguin Christmas card propped up on your bedside table. Upon opening, you beam, immediately recognising the beautiful, looped handwriting.

Y/n 

Thank you for the most magical night. Leaving this bed might be the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather be on Christmas Day or, indeed, any other day of the year. But I don't want your father to be angry with me. I have a lifetime to disappoint him… if you will let me. 

I can't wait to see you downstairs.

Merry Christmas,

B xx

P.S. I may have just booked a hotel for the rest of our stay. I think we deserve some privacy ;)

You giggle, elated; the exciting prospect of nights in a hotel and the pledge of a lifetime ahead makes your stomach leap—this could be the start of something. You momentarily clutch the card to your chest, revelling in your joy, before burying it into your book for safekeeping and going to take a shower.

When you descend the stairs, out of the picture window, you see most of the family gathered on the street with the kids circling on their new bikes. But as you round into the living room, a sight melts your heart. Benedict sitting cross-legged on the floor with Sofia, a novelty Santa hat perched on his head, surrounded by shreds of wrapping paper, festive music playing in the background as he puts batteries in some loud plastic toy that will no doubt drive everyone up the wall for the rest of the day. 

She whoops with delight as the toy noisily springs to life and runs away to play with it. That's when he looks up and sees you watching from the doorway, his face lighting up. Slowly, he gets to his feet, and then you gasp as he wordlessly pulls you into his arms, brings your hand to his face and kisses your knuckles before starting to waltz.

“I didn't know you could dance like this, Mr Bridgerton,” you tease, impressed, allowing him to lead you around, dodging haphazard toys and boxes.

“Oh, there are so many, many things you have yet to learn about me, Ms y/l/n,” he proclaims alluringly as Frank Sinatra croons from the speaker.

♫ It's that time of year  When the world falls in love Every song you hear seems to say Merry Christmas May your New Year's dreams come true. ♫

“I hope you don't have plans for New Year's,” he whispers into your hair as he brings you to a halt. “I would very much like you to accompany me to Aubrey Hall. As my girlfriend,” he explains, grinning. “Not fake,” he adds drolly after a pause.

You laugh, feeling lightheaded and giddy, but just as you go to answer, you are both interrupted by a little hand tugging on his jeans. 

“Uncle Ben, you are my favouritist,” Sofia declares solemnly. “Will you visit every Christmas?”

Meeting your gaze, his expression contains multitudes. 

“It would be my greatest honour, Sofia,” he replies to her, even though his eyes never stray from yours.

Benedict taglist: @makaylan @foreverlonginguniverse @iboopedyournose @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @margofiore @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @enichole445 @enchantedbytomandhenry @ambitionspassionscoffee @chaoticcalzoneranchsports @nikaprincessofkattegat @baebee35 @crowleysqueenofhell @fiction-is-life @lilacbeesworld @angels17324 @queen-of-the-misfit-toys @eleanor-bradstreet @divaanya @musicismyoxygen84 @benedictspaintbrush @miindfucked @sorryallonsy @cayt0123 @hottytoddyhistory @truly-dionysus @fictionalmenloversblog @zinzysstuff @malpalgalz @panhoeofmanyfandoms @kinokomoonshine @causeimissu @delehosies @m-rae23 @last-sheep @kmc1989 @desert-fern @starkeylover @corpseoftrees-queen @magical-spit @bunnyweasley23 @how-many-stars-in-the-sky @amygdtjhddzvb @sya-skies

Lights divider by @/saradika [x]

[myseungsunglove]

Say that again | Bc

Pairing: Bang Chan x reader

Warnings: fluff, almost smut but mostly just alluding to it.

Word Count: approx. 800

𖠫Summary: After watching Chan’s episode with the Felix and him playing with the twin girls, your mind is sent reeling by thoughts you’d never really entertained before. You voice those thoughts to Chan and find yourself quite surprised by his response.

✎A/N✎: I am not responsible for my sleepy thoughts. The thoughts that prevail and demand to be written BEFORE the damn stories I already have outlined. I guess be thankful you’re getting anything at all at this point. *laughs nervously* Also, domestic Chan makes me so weak and thus this fic was born. Not super edited because I sleepies.

◠ ◡ ◠᭚ιαᵕ̈

「© December 28, 2023 by myseungsungheart」

“Babe? Did you hear me?”

Chan’s voice shakes you from your thoughts. You’d entirely lost track of the conversation. Mainly because your mind was wondering to places you really never had let it before. The two of you had just watched Felix and Chan’s episode with the twins. Watching Chan with those precious little girls had really stirred something in you that you genuinely thought you didn’t want.

“Hmm?” the sound leaves you as your eyes meet his and he smiles softly at your dazed look.

“What’s going through that pretty head of yours?” Chan asks, a hint of concern in his voice as he reaches out and brushes his hand lightly against your jaw, this thumb caressing your cheek with care as he holds your gaze.

You find that words don’t immediately spring forth, so instead you lean forward and press your lips against Chan’s. He melts into the kiss, his arm snaking around your waist and pulling you closer to him on the couch, your mouths moving slowly together as the graze of his touch causes goosebumps to break out on your skin.

“That doesn’t really answer my question,” he chuckles against your lips, pulling away reluctantly and looking into your eyes again.

You sigh. It’s deep and meaningful. Chan can tell whatever you aren’t saying is weighing heavy on your mind.

“That bad, huh?” he asks hesitantly, letting go of your face to grab your hand instead, interlacing your fingers together. “Whatever it is, I’m always here, baby,” he assures you.

You close your eyes briefly, stealing up all the courage you can muster for the next sentence you’re about to utter. It really could change everything and your heart flutters at the thought. Your husband is a busy man, with producing music and working with the boys non stop. Is this really something he’d want? You haven’t talked about it in so long because you really thought you didn’t want this. Now, you are questioning everything you once thought.

“I think I want to you try to have a baby,” you say and it comes out all in a rush as if the sentence was just once giant word strung together.

“What was that?” Chan asks, his brows knitting together in confusion as he chuckles quietly at you.

“I want to have a baby,” you say, this time more slowly and with more certainty. “I know we haven’t talked about it in a long time because I thought I didn’t want that, but…”

Your words are cut off by Chan’s lips crashing into yours, the kiss raw and hungry, his tongue pushing into your mouth as he pushes you back against the couch and hovers over you. He pulls away breathless, his chest heaving, his eyes full of love and hope. Not the reaction you anticipated.

“God,” he whispers, leaning in to kiss your jaw. “Please,” he continues, the trail of kisses moving along your jaw to your neck. “Say that again,” he all but begs as his lips hurriedly kiss up along the column of your neck and back to your mouth.

You reach out for his face then, holding it mere centimeters away from yours and speak again.

“Let’s have a baby,” you whisper.

“I thought you didn’t want,” he starts but you cut him off.

“I thought I didn’t too, but really I just thought I’d make a horrible mom. Didn’t want to end up like mine, you know?”

He watches you carefully, brows knit together again as he stays hovered over your body. He’s shaking his head, but you power through.

“But watching you with those girls made me realize I could do absolutely anything with you by my side. You’d be such a great dad and god i want that for a kid. I want someone to feel so lucky knowing you’re their dad. I want our kid to know that,” you finish, your eyes darting back and forth between his.

“You’re wrong about one thing,” he counters, kissing your lips gently before speaking again. “You’re already great at loving people. You love me for god knows why. You love those seven crazy men I call my members and take care of them. You would make a great mom, of that much I have never had any doubt.”

You pull his lips to yours once more, your fingers running into the hair at the back of his head and hold him to you. You’re crying and you’re not sure when that started.

“Please,” you beg as Chan’s hips settle between yours, his desire for you evident as he presses in closer to you. “Chan,” you can’t stop the breathy moan that escapes you.

“I’d take on the world with you, do anything for you,” he says, pulling away from your lips long enough to look into your eyes. “Including starting a family,” he adds, his hips rolling into you and causing your back to arch up off the couch. “How about we see if we can’t make that happen, hmmm?” he says against your mouth, his hands now freely roaming your body.

“Yes,” you agree, your head spinning. “I love you,” you remind him as his hands move to remove your clothes and make your’s and his dream a reality.

“I love you more,” he assures you, before kissing you deeply once more and giving you everything you’ve hoped for and more.

[kathlare]

taste

Lando Norris x Amelie Dayman

Summary: Amelie navigates a moment of frustration after stumbling upon online gossip about her ex, Lando, and his rumored new romance.

Wordcount: 1.5 k

Warnings: none

full masterlist // request over here!

August 19th, 2023 - New York City, NY

liked by f1gossipgirl, wags_f1, and others

landoupdates: Lando spotted living it up in Ibiza with Portuguese model Magui Corceiro during summer break! 🌴🍹👀.

View all 483 comments

amelie4ever: Y’all, bring back the Amelie and Lando era. This ain’t it. → lando_obsessed: @amelie4ever Fr, we traded peak wholesome vibes for this Ibiza nonsense 💔 → lanmelie_sunshine: @amelie4ever Can’t believe he fumbled the literal QUEEN for... this.

f1tea_spill: Okay but are we sure this isn’t just a PR stunt? 👀 → gridgossip88: @f1tea_spill PR or not, I’m TIRED of this man acting like a walking red flag 🚩

magui_not_it: I’m sorry but MAGUI?! Out of all the people?? Lando, sweetie, no.

wicked4amelie: Y’all, remember when he used to simp HARD for Amelie on streams? I miss THAT Lando. → landoluvr88: @wicked4amelie The "Lanelie compilations" era hits harder now. 😭

mclarenmeltdown: I SWEAR if he’s actually dating Magui, I’m uninstalling this app. → lando_fanatic: @mclarenmeltdown Nah, sis, we’re ALL about to block him at this point.

amelie_supremacy: Can’t believe I used to root for this man. Amelie deserves SO much better.

f1teaqueen: NOT MAGUI AGAIN 😭😭 Lando really said "let me ruin my reputation this summer" 💀

-------------

The New York heat pressed against the windows of the rented studio, the kind that made the air feel heavy, like a humid blanket. Amelie sat cross-legged on the couch, her phone clutched in one hand, her jaw clenched as she scrolled through Instagram. The post had popped up out of nowhere, another notification from a gossip page she’d never followed but whose posts always managed to find her.

“Lando spotted living it up in Ibiza with Portuguese model Magui Corceiro during summer break!”

The caption was enough to send her stomach into knots, but the photo was what did her in. Lando sat in a club booth, his signature grin faintly visible as he leaned over to chat with someone she couldn’t make out. Magui, meanwhile, sat close beside him, her legs crossed and her phone in her hand. She looked effortlessly beautiful, like she knew the cameras were there.

Amelie tossed her phone onto the cushion beside her, leaning back with a frustrated groan. It wasn’t jealousy, not exactly. She was long past hoping for some grand romantic reunion with Lando, not after how they’d ended things and the fights that followed. But Magui? That was a name that still burned.

Rozzi walked in, carrying two iced coffees and a bag of pastries, her eyes immediately landing on Amelie’s face. —Oh no,— she said, setting everything down on the small studio table. —What happened? Who pissed you off?—

Amelie gestured toward her phone without a word. Rozzi picked it up, her eyebrows knitting together as she read the caption. —Ibiza, huh? Well, that’s a choice.—

—Right?— Amelie said, exasperated. —It’s not even about him being with someone... it’s her. She’s... God, she’s so fake, Roz. And the fact that she’s still hanging around after all the shit she pulled, ugh.—

Rozzi handed her an iced coffee, sitting down beside her. —Okay, so what are you gonna do about it? Besides glaring at your phone like it personally insulted you.—

Amelie took a sip, the coldness of the drink cutting through the heat in her chest. —I’m not doing anything about it. It’s not worth it.—

Rozzi gave her a pointed look. —You’re lying. I know that look. That’s your ‘I’m gonna channel this into something destructive but artistic’ face.—

Amelie smirked despite herself. Rozzi knew her too well. —Fine. Maybe I’ll write something. I mean, I’m here, right? Might as well use it.—

Rozzi grinned, reaching over to grab her acoustic guitar, which had been resting in the corner. —That’s what I like to hear. Let’s make this a masterpiece of pettiness. You wanna start with the hook or just rant your way through it first?—

Before Amelie could answer, Amy walked into the studio, her energy filling the room like a breath of fresh air. —What’s the vibe today? Drama? Sad girl anthem? Revenge banger?—

Amelie and Rozzi exchanged a look, then burst into laughter. —Revenge banger, definitely,— Rozzi said, tossing the phone to Amy. —Here, this is today’s inspiration.—

Amy glanced at the post, her eyebrows raising slightly before she handed the phone back. —Oh, this one’s gonna be fun. Alright, Amelie, where’s your head at?—

Amelie stood up, pacing the length of the small studio as she spoke, her voice steady but laced with underlying irritation. —I just... it’s not even about him. It’s about the audacity. She had the nerve to DM me when they were together, saying all this bullshit about how I was trying to steal him or that I couldn’t let go of him. And now, here she is, acting like she’s some perfect accessory to his life. It’s laughable.—

Amy nodded thoughtfully, her fingers already fiddling with the keyboard in the corner. —Okay, so we want something sharp. Taunting, maybe? Like, a ‘you’re in my shadow, and you’ll never be me’ kind of vibe?—

—Exactly,— Amelie said, her eyes lighting up. —I don’t want it to sound bitter, though. It needs to feel confident. Like, yeah, I know you hate me because I’ll always be in the picture, whether you like it or not.—

Rozzi strummed a few chords, the melody playful yet cutting. —How about something like this? It’s got that cocky energy but leaves room for the lyrics to really hit.—

Amelie nodded, humming along until a phrase popped into her head. —"Oh, I leave quite an impression, five feet to be exact..."— She paused, turning to Rozzi. —What do you think? It’s like, yeah, I’m small, but I’m unforgettable.—

—Love it,— Amy said, jotting it down. —What’s next? Something about how he can’t shake you, no matter what?—

Amelie smiled wickedly, her mind already racing. —"You’re wonderin’ why half his clothes went missin’, my body’s where they’re at."— She laughed as the words spilled out. —Petty enough?—

Rozzi’s jaw dropped. —That’s gold. Keep going.—

The next hour flew by, the three of them bouncing ideas off each other like they were in perfect sync. Amelie’s emotions poured out into every line, her frustration giving way to amusement as the song began to take shape. They leaned into the taunts, crafting a narrative that was unapologetically bold and dripping with confidence.

Amy played around with the track’s beat, layering in a sultry bassline that matched the teasing tone of the lyrics. —This is gonna be dangerous,— she said, grinning. —The kind of song you scream in the car with your friends.—

Amelie took the mic, testing out the melody with a smirk on her face. —"I heard you’re back together, and if that’s true, you’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you..."—

Rozzi whooped, throwing her head back in laughter. —Oh, she’s gonna hate this. And it’s perfect.—

As the song came together, Amelie found herself letting go of the tension she’d been carrying. By the time they reached the bridge, she was fully leaning into the catharsis of it all. —"Every time you close your eyes and feel his lips, you’re feelin’ mine. And every time you breathe his air, just know I was already there."—

Amy looked up from the console, shaking her head in admiration. —You’re savage, Am. This might be one of my favorites.—

They wrapped up the recording late that evening, the final version of Taste feeling like a triumph. Amelie leaned back in her chair, her body buzzing with the rush of creation.

Rozzi nudged her shoulder. —Feel better?—

Amelie shrugged, but her smile gave her away. —A little. It’s not like it changes anything, but... yeah. It feels good to take something shitty and turn it into something that’s mine.—

Amy grinned. —Well, whatever it is, this song is gonna light a fire under someone’s ass. And that’s the best kind of art.—

As they packed up for the night, Amelie glanced at her phone one last time. The gossip page was still there, but the knot in her stomach was gone. She smiled to herself, knowing that while the world might be watching him, soon they’d be hearing her.

[thesparklingwriter]

treasured moments

tags: established relationship, fem!reader, fluff, dragon zhong doing dragon zhong things (he's hoarding treasure)(he likes soft things)

"celeste, rin's birthday way in june--" shhhh.... i am 6 months behind on everything. hush.

lore: around the time of @zhongrin 's birthday, i very suspiciously left an ask for undisclosed reasons asking about things she thought Zhongli would secretly like. and in order to maximise the surprise I decided to wait six months before even starting the fic, AND almost forgot to add the one thing she said she thought he liked but I digress. nobody expected it, did they? i got you all. right? i got you right? you're all surprised?

masterlist | taglist

It’s a well known fact that dragons are hoarders. When they find something they hold dear, they will go to extreme lengths to protect it. They will fill their abodes with the things they love, collecting anything that reminds them of it—anything to curate their home to the best of their ability.

Your dragon is no different. Zhongli will often return home with small trinkets that you truly believe there is no space for, and you often tell him as such, albeit offhandedly. He’s good at decorating, and for some reason, the house never seems crowded or cluttered. 

Over time, you began to notice his preferences change. At first it was noticing the crystal and ores he found matching the colour of your eyes, or your hair, or a piece of clothing you hold dearly. You’d notice that sometimes, after pulling you close to him in the middle of the night, and quietly remarking about how soft you are, he’d come home with something knitted or plush. Things you mention to him in passing suddenly pop up in your room or on your bed. You know not to say anything about it, afraid of making him embarrassed or suppress himself out of fear of offending you, but it’s hard to express you’re gratitude without words.

When you hear the sound of the front door opening, you pull yourself out of the cushions and blankets you’ve buried yourself in (courtesy of Zhongli, of course) and head towards the door to greet him.

“Good evening, love.” He says when he sees you, putting his bag gently pulling you into a hug. “How has your day been?”

“It’s been okay.” You ask about his day too, before shifting you attention to his bag. “What did you get?”

“I happened upon these woven blankets during my walk home.” He watches as you look inside. “I thought they might be a welcome addition to the house.”

Before, you might have agreed quietly, desperate to not make him to aware of himself. But now, you think quietly to yourself. “I’ve been thinking that the seat in the study is somewhat bare.”

You aren’t looking at him, so you don’t notice the slight glimmer that appears in his eyes as you begin to devise where his latest trinket shall go. He isn’t bothered about where you choose to put the blanket or whether colours might clash, however. He knows that his true treasure is found wherever you are.

© 2023, thesparklingwriter. please do not copy, edit, repost, or translate.

notes: rin i hope you don't mind me tagging you but if you do I apologise and I hope everything in your life is getting better and your pillow is cold on all sides and---

taglist: @thelonelyarchon@aixaingela@medusuu

[alrightbuckaroo]

when life gives you lemons

With ao3 down, it seems like the perfect time to transfer more stories from my 100 Ways to Say I Love You series over here! Here's one from early 2023. Credit to this user for the divider and I hope you enjoy <3

“TK?” Jonah’s voice is quiet and TK can hear his confusion clear through the question. “Am I doing something wrong?”

He looks up at TK; his eyebrows knitted together, and his lower lip is jutted out. His green eyes showing slight defeat. TK doesn’t know how to do it; but he knows he wants that look to go away. “Of course not, buddy. We just need to be patient; someone will walk by, eventually.”

TK didn’t say it out loud; but he wasn’t too sure how true that would be with it being in the high 80s on a Thursday afternoon in the suburbs of Austin.

Jonah doesn’t seem too convinced by TK’s false optimism so TK tries his next best trick; distraction.

“Why don’t you inside, grab some more markers, huh?” TK suggests. “We can make some more signs, use some of that glitter glue we got yesterday.”

Jonah dejectedly agrees before hoping off of his chair and walking through the opened garage and into their house.

TK occupies his time alone by spinning the mixing spoon in the pitcher of strawberry fizzy lemonade and rearranging the red plastic cups. He feels his phone start to vibrate agains the table and hurries to grab it, at risk of the newly arranged cups becoming askew.

“Hey,” TK answers, not bothering to see who it is.

“Hey babe,” Carlos’ voice is cutting through the line and TK smiles to himself. He sounds exhausted but TK loves the sound just the same. “I’m heading home, did you want me to pick up anything for dinner?”

TK looks at the pitcher of lemonade again before answering. “Do you think we already have everything for chicken Alfredo?”

Carlos is quiet a moment, visualizing what they already have in the kitchen. “I think so, but, I’ll probably pick up some more Parmesan cheese anyways. We just had it a couple of nights ago, is it that high in demand again already?”

TK shrugs even though he knows Carlos can't see him. “It’s Jonah’s favorite and I think he just needs a little bit of a pick me up.”

“What’s going on?” TK can hear Carlos getting into this car, the sound of his voice becoming more insulated.

“We’re selling lemonade.” TK mixes the pitcher again as he sees some of the flavoring start to settle at the bottom. “Well, we’re trying to.”

“TK, I already told you we can afford the science camp we’re sending Jonah to this week.” Carlos jokes.

TK fights a laugh before he replies. “First of all, it’s math camp this week, science was last week and second,” TK leans against the back his chair. “You’re not funny.”

“Oh you know you laughed,” Carlos answers, seeing right through TK.

“Anyways,” TK says, moving swiftly on. “Last week they learned how to make fizzy lemonade as a science experiment. This week, they watched a School House Rock special about how to save money. Long story short, I have a seven year old who has decided to go toe to toe with Country Time Lemonade.” TK explains and Carlos laughs. “Though it’s not looking to good for us but Jonah doesn’t want to give up.”

“Well, he is your brother.” Carlos remarks, off-handedly.

“I’m assuming that’s a good thing?”

“It’s the best thing, TK” Carlos answers. “You never do anything halfway; you should have known Jonah wouldn’t either.”

“That’s true.” TK mumbles. “And we are both our mother’s child.” TK mutters to himself, thinking fondly about Gwyn. Gwyn always tried her best not to give up on anything, on anyone; on him. “It’s just, we haven’t had any customers and I can tell it’s starting to get to him. I don’t want him to be sad about something out of his control.”

Carlos is silent a moment before replying, “Well, between you and me, I think his luck might change soon.”

TK’s looking over the signs he and Jonah had spent the last 20 minutes working on. He points at a black and yellow blob. “And that is,”

“It’s a bumblebee, TK.” Jonah rolls his eyes. “Can’t you see the stinger?”

TK looks at the drawing closer, not seeing anything different. “Oh yeah, it’s right there.” TK points in a general direction and Jonah moves his finger down until he’s pointing at something completely different. “Ah, got it.”

He holds up the sign, “Why bumblebees? We’re not selling honey.”

Jonah releases a very purposeful and heavy sigh. “They’re yellow? Like the lemons?”

TK nods his head, “Oh yes, obviously.”

Before TK can continue to embarrass himself is front of the seven year old business mogul himself, he sees a movement out of the corner of his eyes. He turns slightly to see Carlos walking down the sidewalk. He’s still dressed in his uniform and TK can’t help but feel a pang sympathy for him. Last time he checked his watch it was 86 degrees; and that was an hour ago.

Carlos walks up to where both he and Jonah are sitting before saying, “Hey there, so I was in the neighborhood.

TK’s eyebrows furrow, “Carlos we’re married, we live together, this is our neighborhood.”

“Just go with it, babe.” Carlos says through a tired smile. “Anyways, I was in the neighborhood and couldn’t help but be drawn to this colorful sign. I really love the bumblebees.”

Jonah’s smile is so bright TK can feel himself falling in love with Carlos all over again. “Thanks! He didn’t even know where the stinger was.” Jonah using his thumb to gesture to TK.

“How could he not,” Carlos jokes and TK can start to see where this is going. “Isn’t it that,” Carlos points to exactly where the stinger is. “Right there?”

“Is there something we can help you with, sir?” TK asks the question; annoyed but more importantly, playful.

“Well, I was hoping to buy some lemonade, and this seemed like the perfect place.” Carlos smiles and TK swears he can see all traces of defeat leave Jonah’s eyes. “What do you have?”

Jonah begins to talk Carlos through the both options: classic lemonade, strawberry lemonade; both fizzy. “It’s twenty-five cents a cup.”

“Hmm,” Carlos looks over the pitchers, weighing his options. “How much for the both pitchers?”

“You want to buy all of it?” Jonah asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah, how much are we looking at?” Carlos asks, reaching for his wallet. TK gently nudges Jonah, whispering loud enough for Carlos to hear. “Overcharge him.”

Jonah ignores him as Carlos laughs and pulls out a five. Jonah does the math, and TK watches his work. He can see the math camp is doing him some good. When Jonah tells him how much it’ll be, Carlos hands over the five and tells him to keep the change.

“Thanks, Carlos.” Jonah smiles up at Carlos, one of his front teeth missing.

“Go put that with the money you got from the tooth fairy, okay?” TK suggests. “Then come back out here so we can clean this all up before dinner.”

TK watches after Jonah before turning and looking up at Carlos. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love it.” Carlos argues and TK sighs as he stands up and begins pouring the lemonade from the cups back into the pitchers.

“You know I do.” TK leans forward looking around them and the houses next to them. “Where’s your baby?”

“What are you talking about, you’re standing right there.” Carlos says the words casually.

TK smiles despite himself. “You’re cute, I mean your car.”

“Parked down at the Bakers; don’t worry, I let Mandy know.” Carlos shrugs, “Felt like parking in the drive way and walking up would ruin the illusion.” Carlos gestures to the plastic bag in hand, “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go put some Parmesan cheese in the fridge before this Texas heat causes it to spoil.”

TK grabs Carlos’ shoulder before he makes it too far, “Babe,” He looks up at Carlos. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you two.” Carlos smiles. “Chicken Alfredo paired with a ice cold glass of fizzy lemonade. Sounds like a pretty perfect dinner to me, don’t you think?”

TK smiles. “About as perfect as could be.”

[manias-wordcount]

Wedding Night (Ganondorf)

Kinktober 2023 Day Twenty-One: Size Difference

𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁: 𝗼𝗻𝗲 || 𝘁𝘄𝗼 || 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲

𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚? ⇒ 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧?

𝙗𝙪𝙮 𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚?

Your mother said that the night of your wedding might be scary. But she also said that if your husband was kind to you- if he was good to you, you would have nothing to worry about. You didn’t believe those words that she said to you when it was first announced that you were to be married into the Dragmire Family. But now that you’re here with your newly anointed husband right in front of you?

You don’t think the words could have rang any more true for another man.

Right now, you’re on your back. Your wedding attire was carefully discarded by your husband’s large hands all so gently, that you would have thought that the man was handling glass and diamonds and other precious jewels. By the time you were completely bare of everything, the nervousness must have been showing on your face. Because he was so quiet, so soft when he helped you lay down on the bed of consummation. So sweet as he helped you part your legs so, so slowly for him. 

And so kind as he took one finger and pressed it to your lower lips, watching carefully as the most private part of your body welcomes in a stranger so easily.

Oh, how you gasped, and oh, how you moaned at the intrusion. You’re no stranger to your own body. You have touched and toyed and played with yourself before. But his fingers? They were so much larger. They were so much thicker. Somehow they managed to accomplish the same feat that not even three or four of your fingers could accomplish so easily- filling you up so easily. So smoothly. So- so perfectly. It almost set you running- racing out of the bed. But a large, firm hand being placed on your stomach stopped you. It keeps you in your place with just enough weight for the message to get to you loud and clear.

So you stay. You don’t run. You don’t cry. You stay. And maybe, just maybe…

…you open your legs just a teensy bit wider at the sight of the small, encouraging smile the King of Gerudo flashes at you for listening to him so readily.

“I forget just how small you are compared to me.” Ganondorf murmurs before looking back down at your body, eyebrows knitting together as a look of deep concentration spreads across his face. You could only whine in response as you felt the finger move further and further in. A loud, pitiful sound that makes your skin turn warm and your blood running hot beneath your skin. Yet the man in front of you- your husband seems to only relish in the sounds you make. Because they’re all made because of him. Because they’re all for him. Your dear, dear husband. Your dear, dear Ganondorf. “I’ve been at this for so long, and yet, you’re still so tight for me. I wonder why that is, my dear. Hmm?”

He with a lifted brow at a quick glance at your blissful expression, he throws the question in your direction. But you don’t answer. You can’t answer. It’s far too embarrassing for you to use your voice right now. Or is it that’s impossible to use your voice right now? You’re not quite sure, but this has you feeling all sortings of things that make it hard to think about anything except for what’s doing to you. And just how good he makes you feel.

The way he stands above you at the end of the bed makes him feel even taller- even bigger than before. Your eyelids flutter every now and then as you fight the urge to just lay there with your eyes closed and ride the singular finger buried inside you until you reach that peak you’re both searching for. It’s hard though. It’s hard fighting that feeling. Especially now that he’s listening to all the dumb little noises that pass through your parted lips. And the chuckle he lets out as he leans into you a little bit more- it makes you feel so, so very small in comparison. So, so very small. 

“You're taking my finger very well, little one.” He compliments you, and you can’t help but coo at the words he says to you. “Ah, what a noisy little thing you are.”

He lets out another laugh at your lewd reactions and expressions to all that he’s giving you, and you can’t help but feel a wave of shame try to wash over you once more. But it’s quickly replaced by the tanned finger buried in your insides pulling back out and pumping itself in again at a pace that’s steadily starting to gain speed and intensity. It’s never too fast for you. It’s never too hard either. But it’s starting to curl and move like it knows what it’s doing. It’s starting to press and prod at places that make you gasp and whimper and moan clamp down on the offending appendage. But more than anything? It’s making you feel good. It’s making you feel warm and pleasured and a little bit dizzy. 

But your mother said that if your husband was good to you- if your husband was kind to you- that he would make your world go soft and your mind grow fuzzy before he even enters you. Though she never said that he could make you feel like a cloud floating among the stars with just one finger and the beautiful purr of his gentle voice. She never said that at all.

“You’re so perfect for me. So receptive. So sweet.”

Ganondorf continues on with his praises. Voice warm as it hits you low, low, low in your body where it matters the most. You whine again at it all, unable to hold it in as the feeling of being called perfect while he takes such good care of you and your body. Every single thing he says- every little word he speaks to you- only manages to make you slip further and further into this headspace. It makes it harder and harder to focus on multiple things- anything at once. So much so that you’re starting to forget your own name and can only remember his. So much so that all you can see when you close your eyes is his olive-colored skin and kind, amber eyes as he touches you in places where no one else has touched you before. So much so that you don’t even know that you’re jerking and shifting and moving your hips in a way that is very unlike the blushing bride you’re supposed to be.

“Ah, But I do wonder…”

Or that the big, and heavy thing now pressing up against your inner thigh…

“If I’ll even be able to fit inside my wife’s precious little pussy without splitting her into two.”

…is supposed to be inside of you before the night is done and over with. 

[dreamescapeswriting]

Most Wonderful Time Of The Year ~ LMH

WORD COUNT: 1.4K

PAIRING: Minho x GN!Reader

GENRE: angst with a softer ending, the boys not including you on something, feeling a little down about the season, comforting boyfriend,

⤜Copyright: © DreamEscapesWriting - September 2023

⤜MASTERLIST

A/N: Did I have christmas songs on while writing it? Yes..Yes I did hehe

Christmas had always been your favourite time of year, Maybe it was the fact that everyone seemed to be happier or had an extra spring in their step but you adored everything about the Christmas season. The darker mornings, the darker nights? What wasn't to love about curling up in front of the fireplace with your loved ones and spending time cuddling up together? 

Or waking up earlier than everyone else in the house was asleep and just listening to the quietness of the mornings, reading a book or just sitting there for a long time enjoying your time alone. Everywhere you went Christmas music was playing and usually everyone appeared to be in a cheery mood, speaking to you or just giving you a small wave hello. Everything about the season brought you nothing but joy.

Until now that was.

For weeks the boys had been talking non-stop about the Christmas party that they were going to be throwing, talking about what they were going to do and who was cooking for all of them. Something that they did every year by the sounds of it but you hadn't been invited to it and being the person that you were, you didn't ask about it.

You decided that if they really wanted you there then you would have been asked in the first place, no one wanted someone crashing their plans. Minho was rushing around at the last possible second, he'd been running late after waking up way too late and now he was panicking about not having everything with him.

"Your Secret Santa gift is on the kitchen table," You told Minho as you mindlessly watched the film that you'd decided to put on that morning while Minho got ready. The present had been left unwrapped for days and so you'd wrapped that while watching your first Christmas movie of the morning.

"Thanks, you didn't have to wrap it. I would have gotten around to it," He laughed nervously before coming to a halt in the doorway and frowning when he noticed you weren't dressed yet. The two of you needed to leave within the next two minutes if you were going to stand any chance of the boys not teasing you for it.

"Why aren't you dressed?" He quizzed, running into the kitchen and grabbing the wrapped box before coming back to the living room to find you staring at him dumbfounded by what you meant. You knew you were dressed, it was far too cold for you to be walking around the house naked - even with the heating on.

"Is this a dream where I think I'm dressed but I'm secretly naked?" You laughed looking down at your sweats and top that you were wearing,

"I am dressed." You mumbled wondering what he was talking about and he frowned shaking his head at you, he didn't have time to play any kind of games with you. If the two of you showed up late to a party again the boys wouldn't drop it, they always teased you because you were late to every group activity you did together.

"For the party. Why aren't you dressed for the party?" He moved so that he could stand in front of you, blocking your view of the television and making you sigh a little. This wasn't exactly how you'd planned on spending your day, you'd wanted to sit and watch cheesy made-for-TV Christmas movies and complain about how bad the acting was. 

"Because I didn't get an invite." You mumbled reaching for the remote and pausing your film as he stared at you, his eyebrows knitting together as he thought about it. Minho slowly lowered himself to sit on the coffee table in front of you as he thought about it some more Of course you were invited. Why wouldn't they invite you along? You and Minho had been dating for almost five years, it was a given that you were going to be spending Christmas together.

"What? Of course, you did." He laughed softly trying to think back on whether or not the boys had asked you or if he was supposed to have asked you.

"Baby, I didn't get invited." You looked at him as he frowned, shaking his head in disbelief. There was no way they wouldn't invite you out of spite, there had to be some kind of reason they hadn't done it.

"That's stupid, I'm sure they just forgot to invite you." He shrugged, playing it off as nothing and standing up from the table and holding out his hands for you to take.

"Or they don't want me there." Insecurity drenched your every word but you couldn't help it. The more you thought about it the more you worried the boys really didn't want you there. Maybe they didn't like you as much as you thought that they did and just put up with you because they had to for Minho's sake.

"Why would you think that?" His eyes and voice softened as he watched you closely,

"I-I don't know," Your voice shook and before you could even process what was happening tears began to roll down your cheeks, your chest beginning to ache as your cries left your throat. Within seconds Minho was sitting beside you on the sofa, wrapping his arms around you and dragging you into the tightest hug that he could possibly manage.

"They love you, you know that right? Felix always loves spending time with you and so does Seumgmin." He reminded you, rubbing his hands up and down your arms as you cried against his chest. Maybe it seemed silly to him that you were crying over not being invited somewhere but this was something you'd spent your whole life dealing with.

Even with friends of your own, you were always left out of group activities and made to feel like the bad guy if you ever asked why they didn't invite you. 

"They love spending time with you. I'm positive that there's going to be an explanation behind it all," Minho whispered to you softly, his hands slowly coming to a stop before he kissed the side of your head lovingly. The last thing he wanted was for you to be upset on one of your favourite days of the year.

"But-" You tried to speak but there was no way he was going to let you talk your way out of this one.

"Nope. You're coming with me, even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming," He smirked at you, tapping your arm a little but you still didn't move from his arms and he chuckled a little.

"You want to put up a little fight today, brat?" He teased softly, tickling your armpits before you wriggled away from him, his arm tightening around you so that you didn't fall on the floor and hurt yourself.

"Come on," He whispered when he heard your sniffling coming to a slow stop and helping you up onto your feet.

"Your outfit is laid out on the bed, yours will match my festive shirt," He smiled, proudly showing off the outfit he was wearing and smirking at you.

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! If we're late they'll tease us!" He yells as you take off in a sprint toward the staircase and toward your shared room.

It turned out that everything had been a miscommunication on the boy's part. They assumed that you would be spending Christmas with some family members this year and they'd spaced on just asking you about it. Chan had just placed down a card in Uno that you were all playing and you smirked a little. Everyone had finished eating and now you were spending time playing the new Uno game that Changbin had gotten for Felix,

"I'm still on Uno," Felix announced proudly before nervously looking at you and trying to take a sneaky look at your deck,

"Remember, I'm your favourite." He pleaded, begging for you not to do anything bad to him, but he'd won all of the games so far and it was about time someone taught him a lesson.

"I think you'll find I'm their favourite," Minho smirked, kissing your cheek softly before watching you smugly place down a plus 5 and laughing evilly as Felix proceeded to pick up more cards.

"Uno flip is stupid." He grumbled, looking down at his deck before the game continued, all of you laughing and joking about with one another.

Tagline: @chiisaiblog @hanasonmi @sw33tnight @taestannie @acciocriativity @scarletemeterio @halesandy @aerastus @laylasbunbunny @critssq @lenfilms @btsiguess-kpop @meowmeowisdaname @imafivestarkpopstan @lost-leopard-beanie @illicee @djeniryuu @backintomykpopphaseagain @choisoorin

[iznsfw]

Reputation, Or Whatever That Is

IZ Days of Christmas 2023: Day 12 - Jang Wonyoung

IVE's Jang Wonyoung x Male Reader Smut

7,063 words

Categories | daddy kink, brat!Wonyoung, squirting, blowjob, please appreciate Wonyoung's power bottom capabilities

Sorry, Yena is coming out sometime but I wanted to finally write something timely. JANG WONYOUNG WHAT THE FUCKKKKK.

Please bear with the religious metaphors, I have Catholic guilt and Wonyoung reignites it. I'm not sorry for all the other fucked up shit here I'm just ooga boogaing because what the FUCK

It’s a little brighter today than usual. The sun surely knows what's about to happen upon its rising. It has no plans of telling you beforehand, so you’re forced to find out yourself. 

You open Instagram, which is insane because you never bother to look at pictures—much less edited, filtered ones made for meaningless impressions. Your blissful ignorance of online concepts is what would make your fans hate you if they had space in their deluded hearts to. Or maybe that’s your age talking.

But today, clicking on that app is what you do, and that already should have been a sign that something’s not right. The usual run of your universe has gone off course. Who could have made that so?

Coffee. The black stillness that’s pure of sweetness and sugar. That’s supposed to keep everything normal. You sip on it as you scroll through clickbait, fan accounts, edits—

Then you wish you never took that hot gulp at all.

Wonyoung. 

It’s all because of her. 

She stands there from behind your screen, silky hair tangled in those lithe long fingers. She’s looking at the camera like she wants whoever took the time to click on her profile to come over and fuck her right now. Man or woman, poor or rich—it doesn’t matter. What ought to matter though is the fact that she doesn’t have someone’s hands slipped around her waist and pulling her close.

You shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

Usually, she’s dressed in knitted pink coats and miniskirts; looking fashionable but modest, modest but unplain. That’s what everyone loves about Jang Wonyoung: she’s prim, sweet, and the daughter of the nation. 

Now, she’s the ideal girl to take right home and have your wicked way with. Yes, you’d feel guilty since she’s so young, just the little age of nineteen. Still, that doesn’t mean you’d have any regrets. She’s the kind of girl you can’t get away from. You’ll always come back for more.

You’d hate to be so upfront, but there’s no other way to interpret it. 

There’s that fucking denim bra hugging her tiny chest, stitched up so high that her abs are on full display. That little pinch of a waist curves so perfectly right up to her wide hips that invite and invite and invite—

Remember to exhale.

So, yeah. That’s how Wonyoung ruined your day, and you barely had your morning coffee.

A text message from your boss appears. You nearly miss it because of how you’re staring all ogle-eyed at the tempting girl on your screen. Before you even click it, you already know what you ought to do. 

hey, it reads, you need to—

-

—go to Wonyoung, and for such a scandalous photo, she’s chosen a remote but classy hotel only the biggest stars know of to shoot it. 

There’s no going back when you drive like you’re running from the law when you’ll break one if you pull the wrong stunt with her. Your throat’s coiled with an unreleased breath that won’t go away unless you see her. It’s like traveling with the promise of meeting a goddess, and although you’re not religious anymore, you wear very, very close to rediscovering faith.

The hotel is grand—clear marble floors and shining chandeliers—and it’s no surprise. Wonyoung wouldn’t have things any other way. You know that when she’s come to your office to complain about her outfits and brands. 

You go up to the desk with prepared evidence for what you’re going to say. “I’m an associate of your client miss Jang Wonyoung,” you say to the lady tapping away behind her computer, “and I’ve come to visit her.”

Associate? It’s more like mentor. You’re a veteran idol whose efforts inspire the rookies, therefore getting you the responsibility of looking out for Wonyoung. So, father figure, maybe? You wince at that.

She makes a polite sad look, still not removing her eyes from the screen. “I’m sorry, miss Jang doesn’t have—”

Slide your ID card on the counter.

She glances at it, stiffens, then looks up at you. There’s only one of you in the entire South Korea, and although the 1x1 traces back to when you were a bit more youthful, it’s not hard to put two and two together. 

She apologizes quickly and offers you an elevator ride exclusive for VVIPs. Smile. It’s been a while since your last return to music, but everyone knows you here. Everyone knows your power.

Wonyoung’s place is the first room on the twelfth floor, a flinching irony.

Knock. You rap your knuckles three times for good luck and charm, because you’ll need it with her. Jang Wonyoung is everything save an easy girl. You remember the many times she refused to give up a debate on how she’s managed, how she’s styled, how she’s treated. She wants things to go her way only.

“Wonyoung,” you call out. Fidget with the handle of the door that refuses to budge. “It’s me.”

Knock a little more. There’s no eye behind the peekhole or a soft “come in.” You receive only the unlocking of the furnished knob and a welcome that makes you wish this could go the way your morals would want it to go.

The door opens you to a gorgeous suite that’s the supreme of all room tiers. This is the kind that only the richest of the rich are able to attain. Big as a house with a soft carpeted ground, there’s a queen-sized bed before a wide window of the city. Picture frames commissioned by the wealthy hang from the painted walls. All for the fucking aesthetic.

Even you, a star who paved the way for the Korean entertainment industry itself, aren’t used to this type of wealth. 

Find her sitting on the ledge of the window frame. Wonyoung has her hands resting on the sides of the window frame. She doesn’t try at least a stance at nonchalance—no admiring stare at the beautiful view, no worried gaze at her clean fingernails. Her interest is you standing before her like you’re afraid to touch her. She might be right, but it’s not like you’d ever have it in you to admit that.

Even you, a man lusted over by girls and women all over the world, aren’t used to this kind of woman—the kind that eats away at you.

“Wonyoung.” Inside, you feel like the weakest man in the world.

She has this smarmy, confident smile on her perfect lips that tells you that it’s no surprise that you’ve come all the way here for her. No surprise at all. She expected it. Anticipated it, if you will.

Don’t mistake the coquettish float of her lashes for theatrics. No, Jang Wonyoung’s just naturally someone you’d want to fuck, no matter the politics of it. “Yes?”

Her voice is also just that pretty. That’s a large part of why it’s so hard to act professional in front of her when she’s your mentee. Even more so by the fact you’re someone she’s looked up to for the majority of her trainee years, which is already something that would make people’s brows lift.

“Wonyoung.” You let your shoulders rest. “Why are you still dressed like that?”

You know all the dialogue that passes around the general public. Oh, Jang Wonyoung’s so gorgeous! Jang Wonyoung’s even more beautiful in real life! You hate to say you can’t disagree. She’s deadlier in person; her body’s there before the glass like she’s waiting for someone to give in to temptation. That coy simper can ruin careers. It can ruin yours. 

To think it all could be gone because of a nineteen-year-old celebrity with a tiny waist and legs you’d love to have around your head.

“Why are you still dressed like someone from the eighties?” Wonyoung taps her chin, then grins. She’s figured it all out. “Oh wait, you are.”

You’re not taking insults from someone who’s below you in experienced years and power. Unluckily, she’s not taking advice from someone above her or below her.

The step you take towards her, towards the little star seated comfortably waiting for you, feels like a sin. 

“You’re incredibly unprofessional for a girl who’s worked her way up here,” you note. Cross your arms and give her a reprimanding look. 

Wonyoung’s immune to nasty looks, too. She’s been doing this since she was a child. If someone gave her a glare that read all too well of a career assassination, she’d wink the bullet away sweetly. “Hm,” she says contemplatively, “I don’t think you get to say that, honestly.”

Your laugh is blunt and sarcastic. Unbelievable. Wonyoung’s the kindest girl according to the people who work for her, so why is she a rebel in your hands? It doesn’t make sense.

“Look here, we—”

You take three steps closer to her. You’ll keep your little rituals and superstitions to keep yourself grounded. Without them, you’d go insane. 

Then without her having to do anything, she comes nearer, like a doomsday foretold by a ticking clock. Who knows? That clock could be a bomb, and that bomb would set off if you dare to touch her with a trembling fingertip. You’d leave the scene injured. And eventually, you’d die the moment they try to help you, because the deed’s been done.

“Oh, I’m looking, alright,” she chirps. She’s doing what you’ve held yourself back from doing: letting her eyes wander. “And I really, really like what I see.”

You’re someone several awards her senior, and you’re still quite intimidated by her at this moment. She’s so sweet yet so honest—she won’t make up a lie to make you feel better and she won’t hide the truth to make you comfortable. Refuse the truth her eyes locked on your crotch tell. You won’t accept it. It’s not right.

“I’m serious.” Approaching her makes you want to go on your knees and beg the lord for a little saving. Do it anyway. No one will rescue you. That’s what the industry taught you. “You’ve made it all the way up here. All by yourself. There’s gotta be something. What are you throwing it all away for?”

She laughs. Funniest thing she’s ever heard. “I’m not. How am I throwing it all away?” 

“Those posts,” you hiss. Doesn’t she get it?

Before she could ask you what you’re talking about, you whip out your phone. Click on the app icon. It instantly shows you the opened tab containing Wonyoung’s recent Instagram posts. Look at her, wrapped in nothing, not even those curtains—giving the camera bedroom eyes when girls her age shouldn’t be shooting them at anyone or be aware of how to. 

It’s already massed a million likes in under an hour. But you know what people who turn on anyone easily will say, and what they say could blot Wonyoung’s bright future by a lot. A million people around the world have caught sight of the abs she’s worked hard for, her toned back, and just about everything. A loud minority with frisky influences can sabotage her whole reputation.

“These posts,” you continue, shoving the screen into the poor girl’s face, “can take away everything you’ve worked for. All that fame, all that money, you can’t brag about them after this.”

Wonyoung looks on innocently. She stares at the screen with uninterested eyes, then switches them back on you. She looks like such a good girl in that second, with her hands seated beside her and that face so full of sparkling perfection. 

Deception can’t lead you away. 

“So, what’s it gonna be, Wonyoung?” 

Long silence that builds up your frustration. Finally, she clicks her tongue. Gives you a shrug of her thin shoulders.

“You liked it.”

“What?”

She points to your phone. “You liked my post,” she repeats. “It says so right there.”

What the hell is she talking about?

You look at the device you’re brandishing. For a while, you can’t find out what she’s referring to. You can never take a liking to her posts, although if they switch on something you didn’t know you can feel. You’d die before—

The heart. 

Wait.

The heart button below her set of pictures is filled with red.

Your heart pumps faster, a button pushed and played.

Fuck.

You turn to her and open your mouth. No sensible words come out. You swear you didn’t tap twice on her update or take it to a private setting. How did it happen? Worse, even if you say that to her, she’d take it as a pathetic lie.

Wonyoung giggles. It’s a tinkly sound that’s adorable, but you’ve long realized that being cute is not all there is to her. She rises slowly, sets her palms over your blazer-clad arms, and gives you an empathetic face. It’s so condescending that you want to dissolve. 

“I know what men like you are all about,” she tells you. She speaks with a sultriness that makes you feel warm and has bumps appearing in masses across your skin.

She smiles. Her eyes disappear into crescent moons and the dimple appears on her cheek. You’re done for. 

“Come on,” Wonyoung continues, squeezing your forearms. “Here you are, a big old man known for being a good singer or whatever. You’re so popular that the first thing that pops up on Naver is your face. Everything goes right for you, doesn’t it?”

You have no idea where she’s going with this. You’re afraid to even ask. Your teeth grit as her massages grow stronger, harder. 

Something else is, too.

“Then, of course, you see me.” 

Her hand. It’s curling around your wrist and bringing your fingers right around that flawless waist. She closes them there tightly.

It’s so bad that it’s good. You want to keep touching her, maybe slip your gliding fingers down her jeans. Oh, you shouldn’t. You can’t.

“You see me, and you get all hot and bothered. And what’s so funny is I’m not even doing anything. I’m just being myself, you know. Being young and rich… a beautiful girl…” Wonyoung is unbuttoning your shirt and you don’t realize it. “You can’t understand how I’m allowed to be this hot when you can’t even fuck me with a normal conscience.”

It’s all so wrong. You want to shake her by the shoulders and tell her to shut up. But if Medusa has her eyes, Wonyoung has her lips to turn you to stone. They keep opening elegantly to speak the filthiest, most fucked up shit, and you can’t deny anything.

Her eyes are creased with knowing pride. Her youth doesn’t rescue her from being so messed in the head already. Those thoughts don’t go along with such a pretty face.

“That’s why you like to get rough with me. You tell me to watch how I speak, watch how I act. You tell me to stop talking to you like you’re no one. You tell me that I’m such a little brat. But you only do that so you can get to control me. That’s your most fucked up dream, right?”

Her mouth is the tiniest space away from your chin. 

You’re another word away from saving yourself a spot in damnation.

Her finger that scratches a flaw on your blazer beckons you to the fire. “You’re not breaking the law or anything,” says Wonyoung, “so why not break me instead, daddy?”

That’s a deal sealed with a rough kiss.

You grab her cruelly and cover her lips with yours. They’re more amazing than you imagined, soft and competent with how she pushes in deeper, depriving herself of the air she needs the most just to get what she needs just a bit more:

You. 

Your tongues collide and clash, striving to get the most taste. She pulls your blazer off (because fuck professionalism, right?) while she kisses you with a hunger that’s equally mental and physical. It’s not like she’d bruise up if you didn’t get your hands on her yet it’s close to that. 

And, in your case, it’s not like you’re breaking any law. She’s nineteen, not anywhere under the limits you’d kill others and yourself for touching. Nonetheless, you’re much older—by age, she could be your daughter; by career, she’s your junior; by power, you’re much stronger. 

So, it’s still so wrong.

Can’t be when Wonyoung’s fist, firm around your cock, feels so right. 

Can’t be when she lands on the edge of the bed with her lips parted in delight as she watches your dick stiffen under her service. 

“There you go, daddy,” she coos, smirking. “Just get all hard for me, then you can stuff that big thing up in my pussy.”

Her thumb toys with your cockhead. You purse your lips to hold back a groan. Let go of it anyway when her smooth, closed palm rubs your sensitive flesh. She cups your balls lovingly before gliding her teasing fingertips under your length, right up to your tip. The girl knows how to do this; she’s good at more things other than MCing and performing.

Wonyoung hones this skill with firmer pumps, giving you the handjob of a lifetime. Her long fingers are just made to handle dick. Each stroke is perfection that holds and pulls and slides. You’re leaking so much already. 

So you turn into the driver of the hate train, the press that loves getting her bad angles and the articles that slash up her name:

Blame it all on her. 

Because you have here a girl, young and pretty and confident, so of course you have to scrape off your sins and nail them all on her, like a quivering hand to wood.

“You think you’re getting it that easily?” you say. Your moan is squeezed in your throat. “Baby, you’re not even close to it.”

Wonyoung smirks. It’s that self-assured, elegant smile that tells you that won’t work on her. She might be a rookie, but she knows how to play the game. 

She tightens her grip painfully. That’s what you get for trying to one her up. Do that to anyone, just not Jang Wonyoung. Your cry goes unheard as she yanks you rather than jerks you off. Spits on your head for good measure. Wonyoung’s eyes make a connection with your soul and says, Yep, that’s what I’d do if you weren’t my senior. In fact, I’d do it regardless. I’d choke and spit and leave you to die, because a pretty Samaritan is better than a good one.

“You’re really out of touch, daddy.” 

With Wonyoung slathering her drool all over you, you’re forced to teeter on the line between heaven and hell. It burns yet the offer of pleasure leaves you sated.

“You think I’m like the pretty girls out there? Other girls might have broken down and begged you to come back.” 

Your rod is subjected to a brief torrid kiss, then a smile as the wicked girl looks up at you.

She laughs, gives you this smile full of haught and womanly power. “Too bad I’m Jang Wonyoung,” she says, her last words before taking you in.

Yes, it’s too bad she’s Jang Wonyoung. It’s too bad she’s not the other girls who’d kneel for a burning touch of stars like you. She wouldn’t be holding control over you with the power of her lips if she had sanity in that pretty head.

Her plump tiers wrap around you and seize everything, encasing it in softness and wetness. Her tongue, the one she uses as a killer expression for her selfies and Instagram updates, kills you all the same with how it swirls around your skin and tastes you. Trying to pretend the girl wasn’t a pro at this like she is with everything else is useless. She’ll keep proving you wrong and overpowering you.

The whole of your shaft is sucked in, then, when her cute nose is pressed directly to your stomach, she lets out a hummed laugh. You shudder—as much as it makes you feel good, fear grips your muscles and makes them limp. She’s loving how wrong everything is, and you’re not sure if you like it.

Her jaw slacks, and then Wonyoung’s swallowing you like you’re water. Can’t be water when you’re this solid in her throat. You let out a shivering groan. You can picture the bulge in Wonyoung’s neck and it’s the last thing you’d count on turning you on, but they did tell you to expect the unexpected. 

Her saliva becomes excessive, resulting in some dribbles down her chin that help her work her mouth on you. Wonyoung’s drool sheens you entirely and she keeps adding more. On the occasion she pushes her face into your stomach, your cock gets wetter. She does, too. 

“Fuck.” Cussing won’t help deter the onslaught of pleasure. You’re unsalvageable. Say it anyway. You babble meaningless, slurred words and not one gets to Wonyoung. All she can hear is the sound of your quivering moans and her mouth taking you all in.

She becomes less of an idol, less of the elegant princess for the cameras, and instead a fleshlight. However, she reminds you that it isn’t that way with a fierce sneer that stays on at all times. She’s not your girl—she’s Jang Wonyoung, and you’re already incredibly lucky that she chose to go down on you.

All that beautiful hair isn’t of any purpose if you don’t get to touch it, to gather it in a ponytail, to pull on it. Your fingers creep into her brown locks not only to give it a little meaning but also for sanity. 

That isn’t a thing in Wonyoung’s world. She pulls your hand off and slaps it on your side. “No,” she says with a shake of her head. “Daddy can’t touch me, not when he’s pretending that he’s hot shit.”

Her nails bury themselves in your hips. Oh, the manicured talons of a gorgeous monster. Oh, the pain that runs through your sides. Should you run before she devours you? Too late for that.

“Wonyoung,” you breathe, and then ask, genuinely: “What the hell is wrong with you?”

She’s so proper and serene on her shows that not even her most desperate fan would think she’s a terror. They don’t know she’s a girl who likes older, weaker men who’d ruin her if she hasn’t the pretty face and attractively black heart to do them the favor instead. 

“What’s wrong with you?” 

You’d respond if you knew the answer.

Wonyoung rubs her thumb under your dick, sending little sparks aflying. “Why’d you kiss me earlier?” Her lipstick decorates it as a kinder girl would to your face. “Why didn’t you grab my hair and tell me to be a good girl? Why didn’t you leave? It’s not my fault you want to fuck me.”

All these words of destruction and your cock remains standing. It’s a staunch reminder to her that you can say whatever you want and the hard evidence remains. You want to fuck Wonyoung. You want to do it to a rookie who’d turn the story around on you if it ever came out. You want to fuck her so bad it’s borderline pitiable.

“I’m just giving you what you want, daddy.” Her fingers caress your sides. “Trust me, I could be a very good girl if I wanted to.”

You almost didn’t believe that until Wonyoung started to suck you off again. 

Her lips stroke you effortlessly as if this were her pastime. That’s your most accurate guess, because this seamless performance—the one of her mouth working on you with the impression that this whole thing is nothing to her—can’t be a natural gift. The combination of dripping saliva and her soft lips is lethal.

It’s unbelievable how she manages to find all your tender spots. She preys on them, licking and licking until you’re very sure you were going to blow all over her. But you can’t give her that satisfaction. 

You’re very close to doing so though. She’s perfectly sloppy and rough. You glare at her when she lightly teases her teeth on your girth. She winks at you in response. She leaves you breathless in so many ways. 

“Wonyoung, Wonyoung, god—” you whine. It’s so hard to adapt to the girl sitting there with that innocent face and wild mouth that doesn’t dare give up on you. 

Her expressions on camera are always poised. Off camera, there’s this one she flashes you as she shoves her face into your stomach that looks downright evil. Although she’s already fucking you with her throat, Wonyoung partners it with strong suction that’s sure to drain you. 

“Yes, daddy?” She doesn’t pant when she goes up for air, replacing her sucking with her long fingers. 

“I’m really close,” you admit. It’s obvious from your shaking legs. 

Sounds of returned wet suction start to increase. Criticism and compliments prod Wonyoung on. How else would she improve in her idol life? In blowing you? In devouring you?

You realize you’re fitting the cliché. There’s you, an idol whose name is uttered on the daily by both young and old fans, igniting a scandal in the making by fucking a girl beneath you in everything. There’s this expensive suite where stars go for a little precious privacy to do what they want. There’s the two of you doing exactly what you desire: fucking each other. There’s the classic maneater trope with how it’s more like Wonyoung fucking you—she fucks you with her face, fucks you in the head, fucks with your righteousness. Well, fuck.

Wonyoung drools so much that you’re invited to a sea the moment your head pushes past her tongue again. It’s slicker, sloppier, and so much sexier because she’s so completely devoted to your cock. Her hypnotizing eyes trap you and so does her body, tight and tiny—that tummy is flatter than a board and only thin panties hide what her long legs lead to from the bottom.

The only time she stops sucking you is when she darts her tongue side to side with an unhinged pace on your sensitive tip. “Good. Cum in my throat.”

“Shit, god, I can’t—”

Wonyoung attacks you again, and there, in her warm orifice, your plentiful orgasm spends itself. Her throat welcomes you tightly every time. Her hot restricted breaths fan your groin and evokes more semen that spills with no care. 

Your hands ball into fists. Although you’re hot and shaking, you can’t touch her. Why are you following her rules when it should be the other way around? It’s a reversal of roles, a Stockholm’s Syndrome of some sorts whose victim is your cock never wanting to leave from the predatory embrace of Wonyoung’s puckered kiss.

Of course, after she gathers all of your cum in the pool of her mouth, she swallows.

She really could be a good girl.

“Awh.” Wonyoung pouts mockingly. “Daddy, are you crying?”

Touch your face. To your horror, she’s right. The electricity and shock of her continuous blowjob results in a few tears on your cheeks. You haven’t done that in years. Wonyoung is the first one to make you cry like this.

You flush. What more to hide your weakness than anger? “Wonyoung,” you start, then you realize you don’t know what to say, “I—you—”

She smiles. You aren’t going anywhere.

She shoves you to the bed. You’ve reached rock bottom in spite of the softness of the quality pillows. You’ll scrape your way out if not for Wonyoung finishing the job by keeping you there assisted by her legs. They close around you with not even a courtesy false promise of an escape. No negotiation, no coaxes. 

Wonyoung is sitting on your crotch but not on your dick, which is a problem. Which is a solution. Her hands are pinned to your chest while you try not to meet her eyes. It’s a losing game when your runaway glances are met by her grinding hips, silky thighs, and the hard, flexing abs of a perfection of a midriff. 

Her fingers tug on the waistband of her panties before slowly slipping them off. Her pink pussy clear of blemish or hair comes in contact with your length. Up and down she goes, her dancing hips always seeking for more friction. You understand their need because you share the same—Wonyoung’s splayed lips on your member feel heavenly. It’s kind of disappointing that she might as well have climbed her way out of hell.

If she did, she’s the prettiest little devil you’ve ever seen.

“Ohhh, don’t you get it?” Wonyoung asks. She moves so smoothly, you nearly forget she’s humping you rather than dancing. Her soft moan brings you back. It’s the first time you’ve heard it, and you’re melting; it sounds so seductive and innocent in the same breath.

You know her. She knows you. So it’s clear: Jang Wonyoung can be anything—supermodel, actress, dancer—but she cannot ever be innocent. 

Her gorgeous voice is silky when it twists into moans and gasps. Looking down at your crotches meeting and swaying is a better show than end-of-the-year performances. The blowjob and commanding you around must have turned her on by a lot—her flesh is hot and wanton with juices as it slides up and down you.

“You’re not going anywhere, daddy!” Wonyoung giggles. She kisses your nose, then your chest until her lipstick marks you. You burn up with feverish lust after each peck. “Daddy is only Wonyoung’s. And I knew your perfect cock would be mine when I posted those pics. I know men like daddy would do anything for me.”

“Wonyoung.” Breathe again, because you’ll need to after this, so why not do it now? “Why are you doing this?”

You thought her flirtatiousness in your office was just her coyness coming out to play. She’d rest her chin on your desk, suck a red lollipop on some days, maybe run her fingertips over your knuckles. Day in and out, she plays the same game. You didn’t know it would reach this level.

“Because I want to mess you up, daddy,” Wonyoung says. Her tongue swipes at the cavern of your mouth right until she nibbles at your lower lip. Her lipstick peppers your face. “I want to fuck my daddy up so bad he’ll never go a day without thinking of me.”

Swallow. The friction of your sexes is driving you crazy and close to the edge. All the same, you don’t want to make a fool of yourself cumming early for Wonyoung. 

What happened to your dynamics? Your relationship? There wasn’t a romantic one, but it was always you holding the reins professionally and her just being an insistent passenger. Now she’s wrapping that rein around your neck and claiming you for her own. Looks like you have control everywhere excluding the bed.

“That’s it?” you ask. Shut your eyes—just seeing her grind on you with her utterly wet cunt can make you bust. “Your career doesn’t matter to you?”

“I could say the same thing to you.” Wonyoung lifts herself up and flashes that wicked smile again. “But I want to feel this in me before you wimp out.”

You and Wonyoung fall down a bottomless hole of consequence and wrongs but Wonyoung makes sure to bottom out the first time she sits on your dick. She engulfs you whole and traps you there with her soaked, grippy walls that slide all the way down. 

You’d say her pussy has a vise grip, holding onto you like all goes wrong if it didn’t, except you think it has the grip of a vice. Need for her juices that coat you replaces the need for alcohol. Even if you get out of this suite alive, (which is a low possibility), you can see yourself always coming back for more. You could be addicted to anything—smoking, eating, cheating—but it just so happened your vice is Wonyoung.

“Daddy!” she yelps, and from there you can’t count the times she slams her cute butt down your thighs. “Oh my god, daddy!”

Her dainty, cute yells make you throb inside her. Perhaps it’s the kittenish quality of it that turns you on so much. She sounds so appealing, so fucking ruinable that it’s surprising to see that she’s doing the ruining here. Her expression in bed is more animated than the ones she makes onstage—her nearly closed eyes look upwards while her mouth falls open. 

The squeeze of her tight, wet cunt renders your knees weak. It’s a good thing you’re lying down. Wonyoung makes sure you stay that way by penetrating herself with you over and over again. Her being barely a weight on you doesn’t stop you from lying there uselessly. You know better by now not to challenge her, not when each time you enter her vagina is better than the last. Her pussy is slippery and tight, proving to be the smallest and the best fit for your shaft simultaneously. Her hole is too tight and too good. 

“Is this all for me, daddy? Huh?” Wonyoung circles her hips, making you moan, then continues her up-and-down movements. “You’re so hard, you naughty daddy. I know you got a b-boner when you looked at my posts. Now I’m giving you another one.”

You always thought of Wonyoung as justifiably confident yet arrogant. She told you once at your desk that she doesn’t deserve a stylist who only has a four-star rating. She lamented about the lack of competence of her staff preparing her comeback stage. All those you turned down to give the topics of her complaints the benefit of the doubt, but you know she’s right. She doesn’t deserve less when she’s better than the best. She doesn’t deserve less when she knows her place: a royal throne. So you can’t deny that she’s too hot to handle, undiscriminating to you whose connections always have impossibly beautiful women somewhere in there.

She’s so hot that her small breasts bouncing from behind that denim bra and tube top looks appealing. She’s so hot that the heat between her legs grows wetter. She’s so hot that when her soft ass crashes down on you again, you don’t find it a repetitive bore. 

She’s so hot that you’d let the slim, tall girl use you until dusk turns to dawn, even if the curtains behind her are drawn apart and the secret cameras get to snap a photo.

“Shit, Wonyoung,” you say, your core squeezing. “You’re so fucking tight.”

“I bet you’ve thought about this, daddy. You thought that one night, I’ll be so bad that you could book us a whole hotel and fuck me in all the rooms, just like this one. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yes, fuck yes.”

“You wanted to open my legs and use my little pussy all day long, huh? Until I’m yours to throw around and do whatever?”

“Y-yes.” Nod. Your face twists—she shouldn’t speak when she’s fucking you because all the filth she says makes you want to blow inside her already. It’s the kind of truth that arouses rather than hurts.

Wonyoung’s riding switches to a rapid intensity that makes you yell. She lets you in so deep to the point that her butt cheeks touch your heavy balls. She’ll drain them for sure; the pace she sets is terrifyingly quick. It seems that she becomes tighter after each bounce, and it’s not helping you hold out at all.

Watch the wildness in Wonyoung’s eyes become animalistic. It makes you all the more certain now of one solid fact: there is something seriously wrong with Jang Wonyoung.

She smirks. “Well, you got it wrong. I’m not all yours, daddy.” She leans down, resting her palms on your shoulders. “You are all mine.”

Her hands might as well be a chained collar waiting to close around your neck. Her devilish simper is supposed to scare you, not turn you on. Somehow, it does both. 

She flicks back her hair as she sits up again. Through it all, her riding doesn’t stop. “This cock?” she asks before slamming her pussy down it with a different kind of ferociousness. Cry out but she shuts you up with a furious kiss. “It’s gonna be my dirty secret. I’ll always go to daddy after my schedules so I can make him cum—over and over again.”

To think that a young girl like her has you at her beck and call is laughable, but there’s no laughing now. As you stare at Wonyoung’s fluid body and her hair bouncing beautifully, you realize she actually can have you for herself. It only took one Instagram post to lure you to her. She sees you’re falling deeper and deeper for her.

She didn’t exactly tell you how to escape.

“You gonna cum, daddy? Is my perfect pussy milking you?” 

You can do nothing except nod.

“Of course, I can feel you throbbing, i-it’s making me lose it,” gasps Wonyoung. Her whines are making you lose it yourself. “Let’s cum together, okay? You can only cum when you feel Wonyoung squirt all over your massive cock.”

She squeezes tighter on top of you when she reaches down to rub her clit. She’s in search of any kind of stimulation: the slap of her ass on your thighs, the upward shoves of your erection, the pulse of her clit. Her moans increase in their whiny girlishness. Their tender vulnerability makes you think she should be the one underneath your body though you’re aware that’s never going to happen. Wonyoung belongs on top, just the same with her name in first place in the list of brand reputation rankings, browser searches, followers.

Once upon a time, you took charge over her. You managed her lessons, her videos, her behind-the-scenes duties. Funny how it’s the opposite now, wherein she jounces on you freely with the domineering message of caution: don’t cum until she does.

And god, is she making that hard. Everything about her is so attractive, from the bounce of her hair to her midriff showing your entering cock to her pretty pink pussy clutching you. What gets you, however, is her face—everyone loves looking at that face. Today, you’re under an aphrodisiac for it: you’re in love with the roll of her eyes as she rides you, the pink on her cheeks, the part of her lips. 

“Fuck yes! Ugh, daddy, you feel so good inside me…” Wonyoung’s core clenches and slides your penis along its textured, sensitive walls. Her gasp is straight out of fantasies. “You’re balls deep, see? Look how your meat’s filling me. My pussy’s going to be so sore after this.” She chuckles. “Wait, who says we’re stopping?”

You shudder. You’re getting very close. Your earlier orgasm still has its effects on you. You’re afraid you’re going to do something you shouldn’t under her bedroom law. She’ll imprison you with her thighs and waterboard you with all the girl cum she promised until you confess that she’s the best fuck you ever had. 

“Daddy’s going to cum so hard he’s probably going to breed me. Then I’ll, oh, I’ll feel it inside my tummy and it’s going to be a scandal. Wouldn’t you like that? Getting to knock up Jang Wonyoung? I can hear you moaning. I think you really like that. I think that’s why you’re thrusting up in me. You want to be a real daddy and make your baby girl a mommy. That’s so fucked up, you know that, right? You shouldn’t be having sex with me, let alone breeding me. But you’re a fucking weak old man, so of course you like that.”

You’re burning up. They’re the signs of what’s to come. If her confident words inspire her young fans, her monologues of lust make you feel like you’re the worst person in the world. Of course, the boner is part of the effect. 

You groan. “Wonyoung, baby girl, please—”

“Oh god, daddy, I’m going to cum!” she squeals. Her emotions control her and tell her to go harder, bounce harder, squeeze harder. She’s pushing past her limits. “Agh, agh, you’re cumming, too, right? Cum for me. You’ll be—fuck, my daddy’s going to make me cum! I’m squirting all over his cock!”

She slams herself down roughly and repeatedly till your lower body’s flooded with her cum. You can’t take it anymore. It feels like dying because you swear you can see stars in the ceiling, stars of lust in her eyes. La petite mort. How poetic, since Wonyoung’s screaming still sounds as beautiful as her singing and speaking. 

Her shouts are close to breaking the windows’ glass. Anyone can figure out what’s happening without the destruction of the pane—the curtains are wide open, letting the world see the youngest icon of the new generation pumping herself onto her co-worker. 

You wonder if there’s actually poor watchers out there seeing you cream Wonyoung’s princess pussy, grab her ass to guide her, and kiss her when she leans down.

Wonyoung tastes the best when she’s squirting.

-

Consequences always catch up no matter what. You can hide under a cloak, in another country, underneath the earth in a secluded bunker and all that won’t help. You’ll be stuck dealing with the outcome, thorns from a rose you thought was too pretty to have some. 

That’s the first thing you remember when you wake up, wrapped in the bed sheets and by Wonyoung’s arms. Someone’s calling you. Bad news: it’s your boss—the ringtone itself sounds angry, too. 

“Hello?” you ask. You can’t help the grogginess of your morning voice, try as you may. If your boss didn’t know what happened, he can perfectly guess from the exhaustion riddling your greeting. 

“You dumb little shit.” You can feel the spittle of your boss’ insult from miles away, cities away, screens away. “You’re lucky I’m friends with the fucking CEO.”

“What happened?”

“Don’t give me that. Some janitor saw you from the wing. I needed to hear it from you: did you fuck Jang Wonyoung?”

Unexpectedly, a veiny hand you remember holding something else grabs your phone. Wonyoung leans against your shoulder wearing nothing as she holds the phone to her ear.

“Why?” she quips, loud and clear. “Wouldn’t you?”

[diwatopia]

★ melt ; hobie.

synopsis. the love hobie has for you is eternal.

info. fluff, hobie brown x gn!reader, 481 words.

warnings. words of affirmation (?), kissing, physical touch, couple uses of y/n, grammatical errors :P

the giggle that wisps past your lips is pure happiness to hobie.

the way your eyes crinkle when you smile your goofy, toothy grin. or how your eyebrows knit together when you're attempting to understand a joke. or the way you curl into yourself when laughing, clutching your chest as if it would help the chuckles die down.

you look so unbelievably pretty under the moonlight, eyes twinkling as the stars reflect in them. the way your laughter continues to float around in the night sky, echoing into his ears as a constant reminder of how beautiful you are.

it honestly doesn't surprise him, you're the epitome of perfect and as he continues to watch you underneath the moonlight, he can't help but helplessly gaze at you.

he silently watches you, listening intently to all the things you have to say because everything that puffs past your lips is too important for him to ignore.

"bee?" you're voice is soft like satin, eyes still holding that twinkle. he cracks a smile at your crooked grin, head tilting sideways as if silently asking what was wrong. "everything okay?".

he nods once, twice.

"what's going on in that head of yours?" you ask.

hobie shrugs, "you're beautiful, y'know that?".

his words are warmer than a cup of sweet black tea, and from the sound of it, it seems as if he was holding that in for quite sometime. your eyes grow wide alongside your smile. he smiles at the way you trip over your words, all twenty-six letters of the alphabet nowhere to be seen as you open and close your mouth like a fish out of water.

"w- well i — thank you, bee..." you finally say, bumping your shoulder into his as that all to familiar giddy feeling begins to wrap itself around your body like a warm blanket on a chilly night.

it takes you a second to collect your bearings, cheeks flushed a beautiful strawberry hue as you glance around the night sky. your heart is thumping against your chest at an animalistic pace as if you ran a marathon, your face hot.

"you're beautiful too," you whisper out into the night sky. hobie hums, scooting closer to you so your shoulders and knees were touching.

"so, so beautiful, bee. everything about you is —"

"perfect?" he finishes your sentence, easily catching your attention. you take a hard look at him, drinking in his features as you slowly nod. the two of you gaze into each other's eyes before you burst out laughing.

"yeah, i tend to have that effect on people" you joke around, placing your head upon his shoulder, wrapping both your arms around one of his lanky ones. "you're lucky i love ya', you geezer" he mutters, placing a kiss to the crown of your head before resting his cheek against it.

"yeah, yeah. i love you too."

⋆ ˚｡ ୨୧ reblogs / feedback are highly appreciated. thank you!

★ diwa's notes. lets hope this one gets more than 5 notes bc the last time was so unbelievably embarrassing (but also bc i was shadowbanned bc tumblr hates me)

© ilupearls 2023.

[33max]

After the success of Max Fest 2023, it is time for… Max Fest 2024!

What is Max Fest?

Max Fest is a fest dedicated to everything Max! Whether your work focuses solely on Max, or on a pairing including Max, Max Fest is a chance for Max lovers to create and consume all the Max content.

What could I do for Max Fest?

It’s completely up to you. Max Fest is available to everyone - writers, artists, creatives, bakers etc.

You could: write a fic, create some art, make a playlist, make a gifset, make a video, knit something… and much much more.

What pairings are allowed?

Any Max pairings are allowed, with the exception of reader insert. Just make sure you tag your work accordingly.

Is PWP or [insert genre here] allowed?

Yes, all genres are allowed and encouraged.

What are the requirements?

Your creation must be Max centric, either as the focus or as part of the main pairing.

Your creation should be a minimum of 1000 words, or a time equivalent if you are creating something other than fic.

When is the deadline?

30th April, and content will go live on 1st May.

Do I need to sign up?

No, it’s a no pressure fest. Simply upload to the collection before the deadline if you want to participate.

Where is the AO3 collection?

Here!

What should I do if I’m not posting to AO3?

If you can post your work to AO3, please do! However if AO3 doesn’t accept your art format then please use the tag #maxfest2024 on tumblr.

Is there a discord server I could join?

Not specific for Max Fest, but you can join the Golden Boots Boy Max Server if you want to find like minded creatives also taking part.

If you have any further questions on the event, or if you need some encouragement, feel free to drop me a message. I am really looking forward to feasting on all of the Max content!

[woso-fan13]

Comfortember 2023: 18 (Barca)

18. Cuddles

Mapi knocks lightly on her bedroom door before pushing it open. Peering inside, she’s met with a sight that makes her heart melt. Ingrid is propped up on pillows on her side of the bed, dressed in comfortable clothes with a clean face. She’s holding a book in one hand, quietly reading aloud from it. Her other arm is holding you against her. 

You’re cuddled up to the older woman, asleep with your head on her stomach. Your face is pale, red splotches coloring your cheeks. Your mouth was slightly open, allowing your sleepy breaths to escape. 

Mapi rounds the bed, perching on the edge of the bed next to Ingrid. 

“Has she been out for very long?” she asks. 

Ingrid shakes her head, “no. She got sick twice more, then I tried to get her to sleep but she couldn’t settle. Once I laid down with her, though, she was asleep within a chapter.”

Mapi reaches a hand out, resting it on your forehead to judge the fever radiating off of you. 

“Sometimes a niña just needs her mamá,” she winks to Ingrid. 

“Don’t make me feel old,” Ingrid says while gently hitting Mapi with her book, “I’m not her mother.”

“Just accept it, she’s basically our kid.”

Their laughter rouses you slightly, your brows knitting together as your eyes squeeze shut. This causes the women to quiet instantly, Mapi running a hand over the top of your head while cooing softly to you in Spanish. You settle back into sleep, face relaxing. 

“I’m going to shower quickly, but I’ll be back soon. I can bring medicine, do either of you need anything else?” Mapi asks. 

“No, we’re fine. Hurry, though, you’ve got an empty spot on the bed,” Ingrid replies. 

—-

Mapi quickly showers and gathers everything she could foresee the three of you needing in the next while. Loading it on a tray, she hurries back into her room and sets it on the nightstand before climbing into her side of the bed. 

You’re now sandwiched between the two women, sleeping peacefully as a fever rages through your frame. You don’t move as Mapi moves behind you, arm wrapping around you and settling to rub circles on your aching belly. 

Team mom cuddles were the best medicine. 

[yearnibo]

Seeing the current state of the Minecraft Story Mode fandom has really given me perspective of just how long I’ve been in the fandom. I first discovered the game in 2015, shortly after it came out via. Stacyplays’ Minecraft Story Mode series. I didn’t engage in the fandom at the time since I was 8 at the time. I officially joined the MCSM fandom in October of 2021 and posted my first MCSM video on my TikTok on the date 2021-10-10. It is now March 8, 2025, so I’ve been in this fandom for roughly 4 years (sometimes I would fall out of interest in the game and would stop posting videos for a short time until my passion for the game would randomly rekindle). Essentially, I’ve been in the fandom for longer than most people and have seen A LOT of drama, ranging from popular artists that were adults talking to minors to the downfall of every popular MCSM server. I’ve seen everything. 4 years have passed, many influential Minecraft Story Mode content creators from 2021-2023 have became disinterested from the game and left, as well as a lot of veterans of the fandom. The fandom was relatively small from 2021-2022. But as years pass, more people are bound to discover the game for the first time and join the fandom. The arrival of new people joining the fandom has completely shifted the energy of the fandom, making it more toxic. I’m not saying all new MCSM fans are freaks; however, I’ve met more weirdos than I have normal people. The current state of the fandom baffles me, as it has become filled with a large influx of weird and frankly toxic people that cause issues in the fandom. It seems like finding normal MCSM fans that are new to the fandom is impossible, and I feel very privileged that I’m in a group with amazing MCSM fans and wonderful mutuals, which seems very far and few in between to find in the current state of the fandom. I don’t want to sound like an oldie, but back in in 2021-2022 when my interest for the game rekindled and I officially joined the fandom and interacted with its members, it was a much more peaceful and tight-knit community with no drama, especially compared to the state the fandom is in today.

Guess I kind of predicted the future, aye?

Minecraft Story Mode fandom and members from 2021-2022, please come back because I miss you dearly.