#strangers on the street [anonymous];

[everything-is-contaminated]

[j0at]

.

[star-suh]

Livin’ La Vida Loca

Bang Chan x Male Reader

cw: top chris, stripper reader, anonymous sex, protected sex, marking, pulling the thong to the side, chest play, riding, in the desk, against the door, hungry sex (like it's something chris was craving for so long), facial.

—

“finally, it's saturday” chris hummed, it was a tiring week full of work, so a free day was refreshing to him. he was walking down the street filled with street food stands, shops with colorful lights and neon signs when something caught his attention.

“little shop of eros… what a curious sign” he obviously knew what the sign meant but still curiosity got the best of him, “i guess a strip show wouldn't be that bad to relieve my stress” little did he know it would do more than that”.

“welcome gentleman, here let me take your coat” the man in the door extended his arms and chris handed him his coat, “welcome to little shop of eros, home to one of the best strippers in the country. you might want to use this mask if you don't want your identity to be known” then the man pointed to one of the seats near the bar, "please take a seat, the show is almost starting" he adds.

chris accommodates himself in the seat asking for a whiskey on the rocks when suddenly all the lights are gone, “what” he muttered quietly. then the lights are turned on again but this time they're all red. the figure of a man appeared, he was wearing very short shorts that left nothing to the imagination, some straps that went from the front of the shorts to the back of it and it covered his nipples, a little bow tie and a mask.

he started to dance on the silver pole, going up and down of it with swift sexy movements, movements that caught chris’s attention. the stripper kept on dancing and started to discard his clothes, it's not like he has a lot of them anyway. first the straps, they fell and revealed his nipples, they were hard and with a red mark due to how tight the straps were. then it’s turn for the shorts, he unzipped and unbuttoned them, they went down slowly, he was teasing the spectators, to make them eager to see his almost naked body.

“so sexy”; “fuck! i need him”; “i want to touch it” and more things can be heard in the public, they all were watching yn dancing again in the pole but this time with just a thong the front part covering his bulge while the back part, a fine strap of fabric, was in between his ass cheeks.

something rose in chris's pants, a big bulge was forming after seeing him, his suggestive movements, his sexy body. chris would be a fool if he doesn't so something to meet yn. “i see you're quite interested in him” a man near him says, staring at his bulge, “you can meet him backstage” the unknown man chugged the remaining alcohol on his glass “he's the one who decides if he accepts you or not tho” he adds and then leaves.

seeing the opportunity he quickly drinks all the glass of alcohol and went backstage looking for his room. he knocks but no ones opening the door, he knocks again until he hears a “coming” from the other side of the door. “hello stranger” he greets. chris saw him without the mask, he's even prettier. “umm hello?” yn asks again “how can i help you?”.

“i wanted to meet you” chris replied quickly. “i see.. what's your name?”; “chris” he almost yells it, causing yn to laugh a little, “okay mr. chris please come in”, yn opens the door completely letting the masked man enter.

it started as a gentle kiss session, they're mouths connected to each other, chris’ plump lips tasted like strawberry due to the lip balm he was using. their tongues intertwined with each other, saliva being shared and lips being bitten. “you taste so good mr. chris” yn said with clenched teeth biting the other's lower lip, “i say the same” he replies.

chris takes a small package out of his pocket and opens it using his teeth, taking out the condom from it. "wow, you came prepared for this, didn't you?" yn spits and sucks chris’ shaft for few seconds and then slides the condom little by little. “so heavy and thick” yn blurted out while massaging it a bit and kissing chris’ neck. the top accommodated himself on the chair in a comfortable position and yn sat on top of him, pulling his black thong to the side, letting his hole swallow that juicy dick. “hngh… i missed this feeling" mentions yn "a delicious cock stretching my hole”. chris moved his hips in a slow sensual manner, opening those insides. “you're so tight” he cooes and kisses yn’s chest, swirling his tongue in his erect nipples and leaving some bite marks on it, while yn ride him, loving the burning sensation he's feeling inside.

the both were enjoying the slow, almost sensual, pace but chris wanted more. he hugged yn tightly, his thrusts were gaining speed “i want more” he said, neediness in his tone “i want more of you, may i?”.

“shi…” yn murmurs, the pleasurable sensation kicking in “just don't break me, man” he joked giving chris the green light to let him do whatever he wants.

chris lifted yn from the chair with his cock still buried deep inside him. yn rode him like that, trusting that chris’ strong veiny arms would not let him fall to the floor. “is so fucking good… mr. chris” yn whimpered, his ass cheek clashing against chris’ heavy cum-filled balls. “your hole is top tier yn, the best hole i've ever had” he praises.

chris sat yn into the desk and make him lean so he can receive his cock properly. yn's sweaty back steaming the mirror. the thrusts become so harsher that the desk started moving. “i… told you not to b-break me b-but that doesn't mean y…ou can break my… my things” yn managed to say while his sweet spot was being brushed by chris' tip.

chris white shirt was starting to get wet, it sticked to his body making him look way sexier. the sight of the sweat beads rolling down his toned chest made yn hornier. he unbuttoned the shirt enough to see the other's chest, ‘so sexy’ he thought. the mirror was completely fogged up, the sex session was being a success. both people fulfilling their needs in such a passionate and sexy way, it felt as if they were the only ones in the world right now. yn pinched his nipples, gripped his tits so hard it let his handprints on it “i love how they jiggle while you pound my hole”.

once again chris lifted him and made him stand facing the door, yn was being pushed against it while chris rails him and covered his mouth to muffle his moans. “i’m gonna cum” he said. he grabbed the strings of the thong grabbing it and then letting it go, adoring the sound it made when it clashed against the other's ass. chris grabbed both ass cheeks, gripping them hard, to make yn meet his thrusts. it was like yn was his toy and he wasn't complaining, he hadn't felt that good in such a long time. “mr. chris i have a request” he breathes deeply “i wanna see your face while you cum in mine”. chris hesitated but then agreed, as a way to make him know he was grateful for that amazing night he is having.

yn was speechless, chris was so pretty, beautiful, gorgeous. those words weren't enough to describe his looks. “what?” chris asked with some concern. “nothing.. it’s just that you're so beautiful, i-i-i really mean it” chris can almost see stars sparkling on his eyes, ‘cute’ he thought.

with just a few more strokes chris came on the other’s face, some of it landing on his tongue so he swallowed it, “i like your flavor mr. chris” he clean his face and kissed him.

“thank you so much for tonight” chris bowed to yn, “i’ll never forget it”; “me neither” yn replied with a smile adorning his face, bowing back.

since that day little shop of eros was like a second home to chris, he went there almost every day just to see and chat with yn, sometimes they even had sex too. a cute relationship was born since that first night, that unforgettable sex night.

[forleavingscenes]

Police response to the Charleston church shooting and Dylann Roof's arrest

After leaving Mother Emanuel AME church at 9:07 p.m. on June 17, 2015, Dylann was surprised to see that no police had shown up to the church, as he later claimed that his plan was to shoot himself when the cops showed up and ultimately chose not to kill himself before he was caught because he “decided that it’s just a bad idea”. Evidence taken from his GPS shows that he traveled for 20 miles along I-26 to Branch AME Church in Summerville, which also holds a bible study every Wednesday night. Dylann did not stop at the church and said in his interrogation that the reason he didn’t go to another church is because he was “worn out”

For several hours, the only description given of Dylann was “younger white male, approximately 5’9”, slender build”, as well as two photos of him entering the church, his ID photo, and two photos taken from facebook. This vague description was what led Austin Rich, a photographer from Charleston who happened to be wearing a similar outfit to Dylann's, to be arrested under the impression that he was the shooter.

From Austin Rich's Facebook: “Tonight as many of you may already know I was detained as a suspect for the shooting that took place on downtown Charleston. I want to assure everyone that I am safe and innocent. I was interviewing strangers at the scene when I was mistaken as the shooter because of my grey t shirt, black pants and tan shoes. I was told to get on the ground with my hands up. I laid on my stomach, gently placing my camera on the ground. The officers rushed over to handcuff me. I told them to please be easy with my camera and gear as they picked me up off the ground. I understand that the officers were simply doing their job and they did it well. I was compliant and escorted across the street, to the Marriott Courtyard Hotel and then questioned. I gave them the details of where I was and who I was with. They asked several questions, checked my phone records and told me I was clear to go. I am thankful for the professionalism of the officers on duty.”

At 10:30 p.m., someone claiming to be the killer called a local TV station to claim that he placed a bomb near the church, which would detonate at 11 p.m. However, when the area was checked, no explosives were found, and investigators were cleared to go back inside by 11:30. 

The next morning at 5:50 a.m., Dylann went to a Shell gas station in Charlotte, North Carolina. He used the ATM by the door and went inside to buy a bottle of water and a bag of Doritos. The employees didn’t recognize him and thought of him as just being a “polite, quiet guy”.

A few hours later, a woman named Debbie Dills spotted Dylann’s car while she was on her way to work. She then called her boss, who then called the police, to confirm that it was Dylann. Police quickly caught up to Dylann and pulled him over at a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina (Dylann later said that he was on his way to Nashville, Tennessee). He rolled down his window, told the police that the gun was in the backseat, and let the police frisk and handcuff him without resisting. He was finally arrested at 10:44 a.m., 13 hours and 37 minutes after he left the church. He was then brought to the police station, where he would be brought a meal from Burger King after he said he had only eaten the bag of chips he bought that morning (Note: many people claim that Dylann was brought to BK before he was brought to the police station, which is not true. Bringing food to suspects is a very common interrogation technique, often to build rapport.) Shelby police Chief Jeff Ledford said “He was very quiet, very calm. He didn’t talk. He sat down here very quietly. He was not problematic.”

In the hours after Dylann’s arrest, vigils were held for the shooting. Vigils held at Allen Temple AME Church, West End Community Center, and Morris Brown AME Church all had false bomb threats anonymously called in and had to be evacuated.

At 7:28 p.m., Dylann was booked into Al Cannon Detention Center.

[whoisthis234]

anyway, don’t be a stranger (stsg)

based off the strangers project

i came across this beautiful letter at the strangers project and instantly was reminded of stsg. highly recommend to check out the project’s socials, the anonymous letters are beautiful. inspired by scott street as well! there are a lot of details i tried to put, here is the original writing:

[poppy-metal]

I feel this is a safe space for me to reveal my freak a little. Want to suck a guy off at a sex club glory hole so good he's fucking my throat and forcing me to swallow several loads only for me to walk out and come face to cum covered face with my daddy art who's horrified about what he did to his little girl and hates himself for getting hard again :((

OHHHAUGHHHH and if i said...... stepdad!art,,,,

both you want to try something elicit. you're sneaking out because you've heard of this club by word of mouth - a bdsm club. the glory hole section has always appealed to you the most. you can let your imagination take hold without the whole body of a stranger in front of you - just a cock for you to suck. it could belong to anyone - your professor, your neighbor down the street, anyone.... the anonymity makes your cunt throb. on your knees on the other side salivating at the beautiful cock that pushes through the hole - flushed and hard and pink at the tip.

arts there for more of the same reasons - he thinks you're sleeping over at your friend's for the weekend - and he never really allows himself to indulge in any selfish desires like this - but god, he needs this. he just needs his cock sucked. so bad. it's been years since he's felt a warm wet heat around him - slick and velvet and pulling him inside - he's dedicated his life to being a good father figure to you, pushing down any wants he had for himself. he didn't need a wife or a girlfriend - that's what he told himself. but he was still a man. he had needs. needs his hand wasn't meeting anymore.

the vulgarity of someone he couldn't even see laving his cock with attention was so hot to him - he could get lost in fantasy. didn't need to think about the shame of what he was doing, he just had to unbuckle his jeans and feed his cock through a hole and into another - warmer - one.

neither of you expected to enjoy it so much. you worship that cock. focusing on his head at first, swirling your tongue around and around the bubblegum tip - kissing your pouty mouth around it, massaging it with your tongue. his precum drips down your throat as he jerks in your mouth - you hear the moan coming from the other side of the wall and take him deeper - you love sucking cock.

you would suck it all day if you could - but men rarely had the patience to allow you to nurse on them like you really wanted to - your mouth fills with spit and saliva pools in your pallet, bathing this man's dick in a warm bath.

it feels like fucking heaven - bliss he's never known - arts lips part and his forehead falls against the wall - and he fists his hands against it - grunts but doesn't speak - because it's not about that - it's not about knowing the person - it's purely about sensation - getting lost in it - without the worries of the outside world and manners and etiquette in the way. he didn't have to worry about if he tasted okay, or if he was too big, everything is so fucking wet and warm.

you maxed your time out there - both of you - sucking warmly at his cock, tugging and swallowing around the thick length rested against your tongue while the man behind the wall sighed and moaned his pleasure.

you don't know how much time had passed, your mind hazy - before you felt a warm spurt flood down your throat - the man's moans growing in intensity as he came and pulsed in your mouth. you hummed around his cock and slowly pulled back, lapping at him all the way, kissing around the head again because it was just so fucking tasty.

and this was supposed to be the part where one of you left and the other followed and nothing else happened. except when he pulled his softening cock away, words spilled out of your mouth before you could help it - a nervous speaker - "thank you," because you were thankful. for this experience - for his cock. it was the best one you'd ever tasted and felt in your mouth - you already missed it. "that was really fun."

a choked sound comes from the other side of the wall. a shaky breath - the clinking of his doing back his jeans halts the moment the words leave your mouth and you immediately flush, realizing you probably ruined the fantasy for him by putting a voice to the mouth he just spent hours getting tongue bathed by -

"im sorry -" you start to say but then a familiar voice cuts you off, shaky and small - from the other side of the wall.

he says your name. and your breath catches in your chest. seizes there. because you know that voice. you'd heard it just this morning when you reassured him you would be okay and you'd be safe and he shouldn't worry about you so much.

art donaldson. your stepfather.

[mojoflower]

So You Want to Tumbl?

There are lots of newcomers here these days, and I thought I'd spell out how to begin and what it means to ‘curate your own dash’ for folks who haven't grown along with Tumblr for the past decade.

If you're coming from a platform where content is fed to you, Tumblr can seem barren and intimidating in the beginning.  But that's actually a good thing!  What it means is that you will see what you want to.  If you're in a fighting mood, go find political discourse.  If you're feeling fragile, make your dash nothing but art and nature.

How to begin?

You’ve made your blog and picked out your icon (seriously, choose an icon:  otherwise you’re indistinguishable from bots).  Feel free to be anonymous.  Most of us are, and it’s wonderful to have a place that’s not tied to your Real Life.  Here you can be a fandom freak (like me!) and no one judges you and your boss will never find out.

Now seek out tags that interest you.  For example, I was just looking through #moss because I like peace and green things and old-growth forests.  (And, apparently, beautifully naked fae-men, heh.)

Now you follow that tag (if it's a popular tag, it'll say how many followers the tag has, which is beneficial to know if you're making a post that you want to reach all its interested audience) and posts with that tag automatically fill your dash. Voila, you have begun to curate your experience!

Do Follow:  tags; blogs in that tag that you like; people who comment on posts in the blog/tag you follow that seem like they’re up your alley.  The more people you follow, the more varied and nuanced your dash is.

Don’t Follow:  people who make comments or posts that raise your blood pressure.  Topics that upset you.  Discourse that has you arguing in your head for the rest of the day.  PLEASE avoid toxicity.  Real Life is hard enough.

How to be Social and Interact

If you want to find your tribe and interact, it’s best to start following individual blogs.  (If you follow a blog, they have an opportunity to follow you back.  Simply following a tag is a passive, one-way street.)  To Tumbl is to be in a vast cocktail party, and you need to mingle and eavesdrop to find the things that galvanize you.

How to be seen and heard

💬Comment on posts (please always stay positive and enthusiastic:  we really try to avoid toxicity).  You can read other comments (and reblogged comments) by clicking on the notes:

🔁Reblog posts you like, both to show your support and to show other people what kind of things get you excited.  Reblogging is essential to the tumblr ecosystem, because it’s the only way posts move around and get seen.  You can also “like” posts, but that's a much more passive way to interact. Also, reblogs and your own original posts show up on your blog and prove that you're not a bot.

Create your own posts and remember that the first 20 tags you use are essential, because that’s what gets you seen (and followed) by strangers.  Tags 21-30 are good for searching and archiving on your own blog, but they don’t count on the dash.  Instructions on how to Make A Post.

Participate!  Once you find your crowd, you’ll discover that there are always things going on.  For example, in fandoms, we’ve got writing events, art events, crafting and cons.  The more you try to be involved, the more new friends you’ll discover.  Tumblr allows for such an organic community.  One person has a thought, and many others build on that thought, creating something far greater than the sum of its parts.

There is no real algorithm beyond using those first 20 tags.  This may be discouraging to folks who are used to working an algorithm, but we like it fine here, because it keeps everyone real and keeps obnoxious social climbers/capitalists out of your face.

Be patient!  Just like in real life, when you find yourself in a crowd of people you don’t know, it takes a while to form connections.  Watch and listen, and learn to read the room.  Honestly, the thing that will win you the most friends/followers is honest enthusiasm about your space.

Don’t aim for the big names to become your new buddies.  You’re more likely to find a thriving coterie among other fresh faces.  Don’t assume that because they’re small or new they have nothing to offer you.  Often, this is the fire that keeps any given corner of Tumblr going.

Tumblr Etiquette

NEVER REPOST (without explicit permission).  Reposting is when you cut and paste from someone else’s content and then make it into a brand new post under your own blog name.  That is stealing and is very condemned.  Reblogging is when you use 🔁and the OP (original poster) remains attached to their post and continues to see and be in charge of interactions.  

Reblog in addition to Liking. A post that you 'like' is static. You are not helping it to get to a broader audience. If the post or poster is something/someone you support, then REBLOG that sucker: it deserves to fly!

Reblog and add your own content.  One of the best parts of Tumblr is that you can comment on a post, or even add to it in your reblog (as long as you’re not being a dick, okay?  Or changing the topic, which is known as ‘hijacking a post’).  Here is a wonderful example of the Tumblr ecosystem at work, where someone had a thought, other people had thoughts about that thought, and then a bunch of artists jumped in.  Tumblr posts BUILD COMMUNITY, and you can be a part of that conversation.  (Do try to refrain from reblogging with vacuous comments just because you want people to notice you rather than because you actually have something to add, though.  That’s just clutter.)

The most important part of “curating your experience” is learning to Block.

You can block individual blogs, Anons, people in the comments that you find upsetting.  Here's a post on How to Block.

Block entire tags or keywords if they are triggers for you.  (Here is a post on how to do that.) 

Blocking is self-care.  It is not a platform to demonstrate to the community how much you hate someone and how they should, too.  Usually the blocked person never even knows you’ve blocked them.  If they do something egregious (like tell you or someone else to kill themselves), then ‘Report’ them.

You can block something (like #US Politics) if you can’t handle it at the moment, and then unblock it later.  Block a friend if they’re spamming something you don’t like and then unblock them later.  It’s all good!  You are in control of what shows up on your dash.

But doesn’t this mean my dash will be single-topic and boring?

The simultaneous joy and pitfall in following individuals is that MANY blogs are not single-topic.  You will be exposed to all kinds of reblogs/ideas/other people from the folks you chose to follow, and can decide for yourself if you (a) want to be involved in that topic, (b) are indifferent to that topic, or (c) want to run from it screaming.

Also, the blogs you follow will move from hobby/theme/passion over time, and you can move with them, appreciate their new topic without vibing with it, or drop them altogether.

And THIS is how you curate your dash, my friends.

***Install New XKit extension.  It’ll make your life easier!

***Here's the Tumblr Help Center, where you can learn more details.

[chewnotchoke]

tropes i'd give to boynextdoor + their theme songs

it's my first time writing here on tumblr so i hope u like it! reading experience would be better if ypu try to listen to the songs! enjoy <3

sungho - strangers to friends to lovers

- song: get you by daniel caesar

𓍯 it all started from the cliché 'i was dozing off and was too sleepy after school i slept on his shoulder without my knowledge.' he smiled to himself once you got off of the bus because he thinks you were too cute.

𓍯 you started running to each other often ever since you take short walks by the park every afternoon, and sungho walks his dog there as well. (he saw you once walking and he started doing the same so he could see you everyday)

𓍯 "can i pet your dog? what's his name?" you slouched to pet the corgi you thought was cute. "sungho." "pardon?" you chuckled. "ah-i mean sochi."

𓍯 you started being friends with him when you offered to walk his dog one day. luckily, sungho lives across the street in the same neighborhood.

𓍯 walks with his pet turned into walks with sungho himself where you would find yourselves eating at a restaurant for dinner. sungho would offer to walk you back home just so he could spend more time with you even though your house is just five minutes away from his.

𓍯 sungho has always liked you from the beginning. you liked him when you two were walking late at night and he was yapping nonstop about his hobbies, favorites, and of course he would also ask about your interests. you realized he's so nice to also talk about you and he wasn't that narcissistic guy who just talks about himself. "what about you, do you like this too? i didn't think you'd like that...oh! i felt like you were into these kind of things!"

𓍯 you never found out you two have met before at the bus until you asked sungho his first impression of you.

𓍯 "ms. y/n..have you ever dated before?" he dropped a random question on a normal day where you'd walk with him and sochi. "uh..i haven't...?" it was kind of embarrassing for you that you've never dated before. "then would you be fine with dating a guy like me?" he stops walking and faced at your direction as the corner of his lips form a smile.

riwoo - second chance romance

- song: everything by the black skirts

𓍯 this hurts because you're in the same circle of friends with him. at first, youre the type of exes who would walk past each other without a word. riwoo's heart would ache everytime

𓍯 couldn't and would not entertain other girls because he's waiting for you to come back

𓍯 he would message your close friends in the circle to ask how you're doing. one time, he found out you were sick and your friends were all busy and your classmates didn't know where you lived so he rushed to your apartment with medicine and porridge and ended up taking care of you. despite knowing your door passcode, he knocked on the door to give respect without actually barging himself in until you let him inside.

𓍯 "are you okay?" he hugs you out of worry. "riwoo, you can't just hug me like this." he snaps out of it and realized what he's done which might have put you in an uncomfortable situation. "i'm sorry." he apologizes. "no, it's okay. i'm worried you might catch it too. thank you for taking care of me."

𓍯 he's very caring and thoughtful even as exes. when he notices you're down, he would anonymously leave your favorite food on your desk because no one else knows you best aside from him. he knows you would not eat it if you knew so he tries his best to keep it a secret from your friends.

𓍯 cried on your shoulders when he was at his peak of vulnerability because he misses you so much and he said he could not handle walking past each other anymore and acting like nothing happened between you two. "can we try again?" he looked straight into yours with his eyes pooled with tears. "only if we both promise we'll do better this time." and from that day onwards, your relationship with riwoo was better than before.

jaehyun - 'i wont give up until you fall for me'

- song: adore you by harry styles

𓍯 this man is a down bad loser in love for you. when i tell you there's no other woman in the world for him, trust me.

𓍯 he likes you a lot but not in an overwhelming way. he just wants to prove he can take care of you well.

𓍯 jaehyun is very open when it comes to expressing his love for you. social anxiety is scared of him because he's always verbal about his feelings even when surrounded with a lot of people. "can you slow down, pretty?" you've been trying to walk in a fast pace because he's been calling you pretty. you weren't trying to run away because you hate it, you just don't want him to see your red face because you honestly love it when he compliments you. "there's so many people can you please stop calling me that?" he quickly catches up after you. "then you should stop being so pretty and cute in front of me." he sniffs like it was so easy for him to say that. the people around you looked in your direction and smiled at jaehyun's remark.

𓍯 would intensely stare at you every chance he gets because he loves admiring all your features. "has anybody told you you have such pretty eyes?" his comment would leave you all flustered. "when will you stop looking at me?" you rolled your eyes. "hm...until you melt?" he gave you the sweetest wink, teasing you.

𓍯 you started dating when you accidentally confessed he's good looking and he makes your heart race. "i bet there aren't any other guys in the world like my boyfriend!" your friend starts bragging about her man. "tch! i bet no one's as handsome and sweet as jaehyun!" both jaehyun and your friend were surprised with what you just said that you started running away when jaehyun was asking you to repeat your words. "what? you think i'm handsome? does that mean you like m—oh my god! do you like me too? are you my girlfriend now?!" he jumps around the street with how happy he was to finally win your heart.

taesan - brother's bestfriend (jaehyun as your brother)

- song: sweater weather by the neighborhood

𓍯 your brother brings him home a lot to play games and you'd ask your mom if she has prepared some snacks for them just so you can enter their room to deliver the food and shoot a glance at him

𓍯 you know a lot of girls like him and you're glad he's best friends with jaehyun because you get to see him hang around your house.

𓍯 although he's not the type to strike a conversation first, he actually looks at you when your brother talks to you and you would accidentally meet eyes with him where you would immediately look away

𓍯 he unconsciously grew this habit of watching out and taking care of you after all the times he has seen your relationship with your brother. one time jaehyun left the two of you at the park after forgetting something at home. taesan would grab the end of your shirt to pull you closer after a bicycle just passed by. "be careful, jaehyun might scold me." no. it wasn't because of jaehyun. it's because he cares for you.

𓍯 he tried to keep his little crush on you a secret because he's scared jaehyun might not like him for you.

𓍯 "hey! you're supposed to wash the dishes today! dont even dare to pass that job to me again and run away later!" you threw a pillow to him before walking away. you glimpsed at taesan who was sitting beside him before you run upstairs. jaehyun chuckles, "ah that kid...isn't she cute?" jaehyun glued his eyes on the tv while pressing the keys of his game console. "yeah, she is." taesan didnt know it would come out of his mouth. jaehyun slowly turned his head to the flustered taesan. "what did you say..?"

𓍯 your first kiss with him happened when you were reaching your brother's book in the shelf. when you turned around, taesan was towering you while he reaches the book for you. your faces were too close he ended up kissing you with consent and that's how you started dating.

leehan - slowburn/first love

- song: spring snow by 10cm

𓍯 he's just so first love coded!

𓍯 the opposite of jaehyun. he tries not to make it obvious that he has fallen for you.

𓍯 the type to look at you when you're not looking. he knows you were looking at him from afar at the cafeteria and when your friend talks to you, he'd grab the chance to look at you the same way and he would find himself smiling on his own.

𓍯 would tilt the umbrella towards your side while his shoulders are already wet just so you wouldn't get rained on.

𓍯 loves admiring you from afar because he gets to look at you without feeling embarrassed.

𓍯 during a class retreat, you got asked by your classmates what's your ideal type. leehan was too dense to realize you were talking about him. "someone with sparkly eyes...and fluffy hair? someone who looks like they'd make a good partner?" you answered. 'hm? is there some guy like that in our school?' he thought to himself.

𓍯 king of acts of service. not good with words but he's insanely good in expressing his feelings through actions.

𓍯 it took wayyy too long before the two of you confessed to each other. it was so obvious to all of your friends that you like each other but you and leehan are the only ones who don't know about it. maybe because you're refusing to believe he would like someone like you.

𓍯 "how could you fall for someone like me? i don't think i'm as good as other girls and you're just...way too out of my league." your eyes were glued to the ground, in a disbelief that leehan likes you. "what do you mean 'someone like you?' you're everything i could ever ask for..." he brushes your hair with his fingers before pulling you into a hug.

woonhak - friends to lovers

- song: this is what falling in love feels like by jvke

𓍯 he's very extroverted, but when it comes to expressing his feelings, he tries to be nonchalant about it. (he doesn't want to be teased by his friends).

𓍯 would get this and that for you because he remembers you mentioning how much you liked it. "what's this?" you asked wonhak who placed a cinnamon bun on your table. "just saw it when i was passing by." he answered without looking at you.

𓍯 would use "y/n, wanna try the newly opened restaurant down the street?" as an excuse to go out on a date with you because he infact have been to that restaurant already.

𓍯 you knew you were starting to fall for him because his smiles started to hit different than normal days. "oh, woonhak? i dont remember you being this cute?" woonhak shyly rubs his nape, at a disbelief that you found him cute.

𓍯 you fell asleep on their couch while hanging around his house and he pulls the blanket over your body so you won't get cold. he started admiring you in your sleep and thinks you have such long eyelashes. he'd flinch when you move and pretended he was doing nothing.

𓍯 "hey! woonhak! look at this!" you were all giggly while playing around the water fountain and he was standing, watching you have fun before deciding to get himself wet and play with you around the fountain as well.

𓍯 he offered to dry your hair with a towel. he'd be so playful with it and mess with your hair for fun. "hey! stop it!" he would laugh and then pat your head with so much affection.

𓍯 you love teasing him that he likes you because he's so cute when he gets flustered like his secret has been revealed to the world, but you didn't expect it to backfire immediately. "what would you do if i do like you?" he says.

reblogs are very much appreciated ><

[hardly-an-escape]

what's in a name? | Dream/Hob | 9300 words | rated E

this is my submission for @designtheendless's 3K commission giveaway: a Dreamling fic based on their fanart above!

tags: alternate universe - human, photographer Hob Gadling, artist Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, model Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, strangers to lovers, snowed in, only one bed, light dom/sub, oral sex, face fucking, anal fingering, anal sex, anonymous sex, Dream of the Endless is a horny little weasel, and Hob is no less of a horny little weasel, brief Princess Bride references, alcohol consumption, impulsive decision making, callous disregard for the geography of northern California, they go from 0-60 because they’re both nuts, neither of them are in a great place but they do make each other better rather than worse

Hob is on an ill-fated road trip through California. He’s making his way slowly down the coast toward Los Angeles when, trapped by a snowstorm in a small town near Mount Shasta, he meets a mysterious stranger in a diner. They share a night of anonymous passion – but when the sun rises, Hob finds that he can’t just leave the stranger behind…

this story developed partially from Picture Perfect, one of my Fluffbruary 2024 fills. I also incorporated some of designtheendless's other suggested image prompts, so do make sure you check their original post! and thank you so much for extending the deadline, it meant I had time to get my CHBB fic submitted before pivoting to finish this... and even so I'm still barely getting it done in time just because of who I am as a person :D

Hob leans forward over the steering wheel, brows furrowed as he peers through the driving snow at the street ahead. The windshield wipers are going like mad; he’s seen a plow or two out, but they seem to barely be making a dent, so traffic has slowed to a crawl. Which is, frankly, for the best, since the weather is bad enough that only a true nutter would be out in it at all.

Well… nobody’s ever accused Hob of being sane.

His GPS instructs him to take the next right and informs him that his destination will then be on his right. He can just make out the neon sign through the thick flakes: Townhouse Motel. “Vacancy,” it says below the old-timey script, blinking on and off. In the distance, the sun is just beginning to settle behind some mountains that he’s sure would be beautiful if they weren’t hidden behind such inclement weather.

He pulls in the driveway. The lot is nearly empty, so he parks right next to the office door and jams his winter cap on his head before hurrying through the flurries.

The bored teenager behind the front desk barely looks up from the reality show playing on her tablet as she runs Hob’s credit card and gives him his door key – an actual, physical key. Room 1389. He decides it’s not worth it to ask why the room number has four digits when the motel has maybe a dozen rooms total.

He does ask if there’s somewhere nearby to get a bite to eat and a drink.

“There’s a diner across the street and down a block,” the teenager says, “but they don’t serve booze.” Then, finally looking up, perhaps seeing the bags under his eyes and his generally downtrodden demeanor, she relents. “There’s a liquor store about two blocks past that. You can bring stuff back to your room, I guess. It’s not like anybody is going to ask questions around here.”

That, Hob thinks as he heads back outside and moves his rental car a little closer to his door, is obvious. There’s a general air of neglect clinging to the motel, and indeed to the whole street, from what he can see: the buildings are a little more weatherbeaten than can be plausibly explained by a cute vintage aesthetic, and at least one storefront seems to be permanently boarded up. The recession has clearly hit Northern California just as hard as it has the rest of the United States.

What a time to be playing tourist. What a time to be – well, he won’t think about that right now.

His room is clean, at least. Someone, at some point in time, has made a half-hearted attempt to decorate it with a seaside theme. The bedlinens are various shades of blue, rather than your typical beigey-white. There’s an unfortunate painting of a mermaid hanging over the outdated television, and a slightly less unfortunate painting of a lighthouse above the bed. The bathroom wallpaper has little seashells on it.

Hob leaves his camera bag on the desk and his duffel on the end of the bed, grabs his wallet, turns his collar up against the cold, and heads back out into the snowy evening.

The diner is, as promised, only a short walk down the street, but Hob is shivering by the time he gets there. The wind cuts right through him – silly British man that he is, he thought California would be warm, even in winter. He hadn’t really reckoned with unpredictable mountain weather, or with the cold front that was chasing him down through the southern end of the Cascades. The weatherman on the radio had been calling it “freakish.”

A little bell tinkles merrily when he pushes open the door. A waitress calls out a greeting, tells him to sit wherever he likes and she’ll be right with him. There’s only one other person in the diner, a slender man dressed all in black who is hunched over a cup of coffee at the counter. He glances up and immediately back down as Hob stomps the snow off his boots and takes an empty booth far enough away from the front door that he won’t feel the rush of cold air if anyone else comes in.

The waitress bustles over, bringing him a cup of coffee without even asking. Hob wraps his fingers around it gratefully. He doesn’t normally drink coffee this late, but it’s been the kind of day that calls for it: so cold, so uncomfortable and distressing, that the sturdy ceramic mug is exactly what he wants. The bitter note of slightly burnt coffee is tempered by the cheap, artificially flavored vanilla creamer he only ever uses at this kind of greasy spoon diner. He breathes deep and feels something inside him start to thaw.

When the waitress comes back with a menu, he warms up even more. She is middle-aged and comfortable, nice and no-nonsense, the sort of person with an indeterminate American accent who could have come from anywhere: Illinois, or Florida, or five minutes down the road. She recommends the olive burger with fries, and a side of fried pickles, because they’re the best in the county, and then her excitement simply bubbles over.

“I’m just so darn tickled to have two Brits here in the same night!” she enthuses. “Oh gosh, is that okay? Can I call you Brits or is that rude?”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Hob laughs. “Two of us, eh? That is a coincidence.”

“I know, right? Okay hon, lemme just get your order in and I’ll be back to warm up your coffee in a sec.”

She bustles away again, and Hob looks curiously at the man at the counter. He must have heard her comment, but he hasn’t turned around, or indeed acknowledged Hob in any way since he came in. He shrugs mentally and turns away to look out the window at the thickly swirling snow. It’s dark enough now that streetlights have come on, casting cones of light in which the flakes dance like a very slow sodium-tinted tornado.

He wishes he had a book. Or a crossword puzzle, or one of those packets of crayons they give to kids at restaurants. Something to keep his hands occupied and his mind off of everything that was threatening to consume it, off of the last few days, off of her –

Then the man from the counter slides into the booth across from him.

“Hello,” Hob says.

“Hello,” the stranger says. His voice is surprisingly deep and resonant, coming from his slim frame, and he looks to be in his late twenties, perhaps a few years younger than Hob. He is very pale. His dark hair is sticking up rather wildly and his eyes are a cold, clear blue that reminds Hob of the way the sky had looked this morning, before the clouds had descended.

“Who are you, then? Aside from a fellow Brit?” asks Hob.

“No one of consequence.” He’s lugging around a small backpack, which now rests on the bench beside him.

“I must know,” Hob says in a very bad Inigo Montoya accent.

“Get used to disappointment,” the stranger says with a smirk, and Hob laughs.

“Oh, we’re going to get along just fine,” he says, holding his hand out across the table. “My name’s Hob, yes that’s my real name, and yes, it is a long story.”

The stranger shakes his hand briefly. His palm is warm from cupping his coffee cup, but the tips of his fingers are cold. “Pleased to meet you, Hob.”

“And do you have a name, stranger?”

“I do. Several, in fact.”

“Any of them for public consumption?”

The stranger shrugs. “Will you forgive me if I maintain a certain level of mystery?”

Hob shrugs too. “That’s your lookout, mate. No skin off my nose.”

They chat. About the weather, and how odd it is, and how different to England. About books – the stranger appears to be a voracious reader, and Hob had loaded up an old iPod with audiobooks in preparation for a lot of driving, which sparks a lively debate on the merits of printed books vs reading aloud. In the midst of this, Hob’s food arrives, and he is derailed momentarily from the conversation by an overwhelming need to unhinge his jaw and stuff as many chips into his gob as humanly possible. The stranger watches in amusement.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Hob says, muffled by his burger. “Been driving pretty much all day and I didn’t really want to stop, so…”

He’s suddenly self-conscious, very aware that the man sitting across from him is slender and willowy and dressed all in black, and that he himself is very much… not that. Dressed for comfort and warmth in slightly baggy jeans and a flannel shirt and his puffy jacket balled up on the bench beside him. But the stranger seems unbothered, simply smiling slightly and snagging a fried pickle off the plate between them, which Hob had invited him to share moments after it had arrived.

They are good; crispy and salty and uniquely American. Hob is certainly prepared to believe they’re the best in the county.

“So are you staying here in town, or is that shrouded in mystery as well?” he asks, once he’s slowed down a bit.

“I’ve been staying in a cabin up the mountain, a little way out of town. With my family.” He said the word family as though it is faintly dirty. “One of my siblings thought it would be good for us to get away together. But I have found it… trying.”

“Up the mountain, eh? Are you going to be able to get back in this?”

Hob tips his head toward the window. It is very dark now, and the snow is falling more thickly and wildly than ever. A crease appears between the stranger’s eyebrows.

“To be honest, I had not thought that far ahead.”

“Do you have much experience driving in the snow?”

To Hob’s surprise, the stranger actually blushes, just a gentle stain of pink across his cheekbones. “I… walked.”

“You walked?”

The waitress, stopping by the table to warm up their coffees, echos Hob’s surprise.

“Oh, honey,” she says. “In this? How are you fixing to get home?”

“I was planning to walk back,” the stranger says with some asperity. “But I admit I was not anticipating this kind of weather.”

“Let me check on the roads for you,” the waitress says kindly. “Which cabin did you say you’re at? My brother-in-law lives up that way, I’ll give him a call. I’m sure we can find you a ride.”

She goes back behind the counter and picks up the phone.

“I’m happy to give you a ride,” Hob says quietly. “If she thinks it’s safe.”

“You do not have to do that.”

“‘S okay. I want to.”

“Bill? It’s Jan. I have a question for you,” says the waitress.

Hob realizes, suddenly and with some surprise, that it is quite true, that he is not just being polite: he does want to help this mysterious stranger, who talks like a 19th-century Byronic hero and dresses like a college goth. His stomach is doing the tiniest little swoop every time they make eye contact, and he doesn’t want it to stop.

The waitress calls over to him.

“You got four wheel drive, hon?”

Hob thinks about the little Honda Civic in the motel parking lot. Thinks about mountain roads and snow. Shakes his head no.

Scraps of the waitress’s conversation float across the diner and Hob takes another bite of his burger.

“– well they’re foreign, Bill, they don’t –”

He snickers just a little; can’t help himself, really, because the waitress is just so kind and helpful and also clearly more than a little bit befuddled by their presence in her diner. These two Brits, total strangers, so unalike one another – and yet here they are, sharing a booth and a plate of fried pickles, five thousand miles and change away from home. He exchanges a look of camaraderie with the stranger and eats some more chips. They’re good too.

“– and tomorrow? What’s the overnight –”

After another minute or two the waitress thanks her brother-in-law and hangs up the phone. Her face is serious when she comes back to their table.

“Well, boys,” she says, “I don’t think anyone is going anywhere tonight. Bill says it’s pretty bad up there, and only getting worse. The plows aren’t even going out yet on account of the snow’s still coming down so hard, it doesn’t make sense to try and clear anything. You going to be able to find a place to stay?” she asks the stranger.

He looks at Hob. “Did you mention a motel?”

“Yeah, the Townhouse?” Hob says, and the waitress nods along. “I don’t know for sure if there are rooms available, but it didn’t look like the parking was full.”

“Probably not, this time of year,” interjects the waitress. “It’s a fine place, and Paulie can certainly use the business. I’ll bring your checks by in a minute, guys.”

She leaves them again. Her sensible sneakers squeak against the floor tiles as she walks.

“Thank you again for your offer of a ride,” the stranger says quietly. “That was very kind of you.”

“Course. I’m just sorry you won’t be able to get home tonight,” Hob says.

“It is my own fault. I should not have behaved so impulsively. But my siblings…” The man frowns. “As I said, they can be difficult. I would have done something regrettable, had I remained in the house.”

Hob waves a hand. “Ah, it happens to the best of us. Especially around family. You should hear some of the fights I’ve had with my sister, we can scream the paint off the walls when we get going.”

“Indeed,” the man says darkly.

“I’m glad you did come to town, though. It’s been kind of nice,” Hob says tentatively. “Having someone to talk to tonight.”

“Indeed,” his stranger repeats. But this time one corner of his mouth lifts in a tiny smile. “It seems to have worked out in my favor.”

Hob smiles back. “So, are you really not going to tell me your name?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Fun, eh?” Hob glances down at his own hands, folded on the table, back at the stranger. “Is that what this is?”

The stranger smirks. He leans forward and plucks another fried pickle from the plate. He opens his mouth, sticking out his tongue just a little bit farther than necessary to pop the slice into his mouth. He chews, and smirks some more, and gives Hob an unmistakable up-and-down appraising glance, and underneath the table he presses one ankle against Hob’s instep.

Oh. Hob feels a surprising but not unfamiliar spike of arousal in his gut. So that’s where this is heading – has been heading, since he pushed open the door and the stranger had glanced up at him. Had he blushed, when his eyes met Hob’s? Or is he applying more detail to that brief interaction after the fact, now that he thinks he knows what his stranger is thinking?

And when had the man become his stranger?

“I see,” he says, and presses back against the bony ankle under the table.

Ten minutes later, they’ve settled their bills – his stranger had apparently eaten a club sandwich before Hob had arrived, and he’s weirdly relieved that the man has consumed something more substantial than coffee this evening – and are gearing up to head back into the cold. Hob is zipping up his coat when he realizes the other man appears to have only a thick black hoodie and a knit beanie (also black, of course). He glances out the window, where it’s still snowing pretty hard, and raises an eyebrow.

“You going to be okay in just that?”

“You said it is only a couple of blocks? I will be fine. I tend not to feel the cold. And,” he adds defensively, “when I originally walked down the weather was not quite so… inclement.”

“If you say so,” Hob says as he opens the door. The waitress calls out a good night and he waves to her over his stranger’s shoulder. Wonders, just for a moment, what she thinks of the fact that they’re leaving together, or if she will ever think of them again at all. They step out into the snowy evening. “The girl at the motel said there’s a liquor store down the street. Mind detouring there? I was thinking of picking up some whiskey, or something. Something to keep a man warm.”

The man chuckles and they head down the street. It’s not until they’re away from the diner windows that he takes Hob by the elbow and gently draws him just outside the circle of a street lamp.

“Surely,” he says, voice low, stepping into Hob’s space, “there are many ways for a man to… keep warm.”

And he kisses him.

His lips are warm and dry, a little chapped. It’s a simple kiss, a chaste one, just their lips touching and the barest pressure of the stranger’s belly and chest pressed against Hob’s, swathed in layers of winter gear. It lasts for a heartbeat, two, and then the man steps back with a hum of satisfaction.

“Oh?” says Hob, giddily. “It’s like that, is it?”

“Obviously,” responds his stranger.

“Well, I don’t know, mate,” says Hob as they make their way down the street. He resists the urge to link their arms together. “Maybe you play footsie with every guy you meet in random diners in Northern California.”

“Perhaps.”

The liquor store is a brief respite from the wind and the snow. Hob selects a mid-range bottle of whiskey and they trudge back to his motel room. The snowflakes and the streetlights and the swirling wind make everything feel more than a little bit surreal, like something out of a dream or a fairy tale. The two of them could be adventurers, explorers, wading through an arctic wasteland in search of shelter. The mountain looms behind them, dark and mysterious, like a great castle or some monstrous beast.

“Do you mind if I take a shower?” asks his stranger, kicking off his boots dropping his backpack by the desk. “I’m afraid I did get rather sweaty, hiking down earlier. I wouldn’t mind cleaning up.” His gaze, beneath his long eyelashes, feels heavy and significant.

“Go right ahead.” Hob gestures toward the bathroom. “I’m just going to nip down to the lobby and get a bit of ice.” He retrieves the ice bucket from the desk, brushing close to his stranger as he does. The brief contact jolts him back to the real world. They’re not in the arctic waste; this handsome, ethereal man is here, in his motel room. He is pulling off his somewhat sodden hoodie and draping it over the back of the chair, and sniffing dubiously at the sweater he wears underneath it. He is real.

Hob waits until he hears the shower turn on to slip out the door.

Although he has his moments of cluelessness, Hob is not a stupid man. He knows where this is going. He recognizes the signs, the coy little dance they’ve been doing around each other for the past two hours, and no, he’s not a stupid man, but if he were a better one he might be able to resist the temptation of falling into bed with a beautiful stranger who won’t even share his name.

But there’s something about this man. Hob wants him. Already can’t resist him. Wants to wrap him up and keep him warm and kiss his collarbones and, yes, wants to fuck him, wants to feel him shudder and moan and wants to watch his cheeks flush and his head fall back in ecstasy. He hasn’t felt like this for a long, long time, and now it’s come out of nowhere to slam into him and hook into his gut, this wanting.

He throws a few scoops of ice from the machine in the motel lobby into the bucket and goes back to the room.

He’s kicked off his boots, unwrapped one of the shitty plastic cups, and poured himself a couple fingers of whiskey by the time he hears the shower shut off. There’s the usual shuffling noise of towels, a brief blast of the cheap hair dryer mounted to the wall. Then the door opens and the stranger emerges, and Hob is slammed from the real world right back into a surreal dream.

The man is even more beautiful without his clothes on: Hob would compare him to an elf or a fairy prince, but he’s too busy choking slightly on the spit that’s suddenly flooding his mouth at the sight of long, slim limbs, a narrow waist, and a temptingly well-defined Adonis belt that disappears under the cheap motel towel wound around his hips.

There’s a long moment of silent eye contact. Hob’s leaning up against the desk, cup cradled in one hand. His face heats as he watches his stranger’s eyes travel slowly down the length of his body and back up, pursing his lips slightly. His mouth is very pink, with the kind of full bottom lip that’s made for nibbling on, and the rest of his skin is as pale and smooth as… well, as snow, with just a touch of redness from the heat of the shower spreading across his chest.

Hob downs half of his whiskey without even thinking about it. He can’t look away. He can’t think, can’t even blink. He’s afraid that if he does, this vision will disappear and it’ll just be him, alone, a saddish man alone in a motel room with a bottle of booze and a bag of expensive camera equipment, and then who knows what will happen?

His stranger gives him one of those tiny half-smiles, suggestive, not quite a leer, and stalks across the room toward him.

He widens his legs and his stranger steps in to stand between his feet. He takes Hob’s drink out of his hand and tosses back the last swallow of whiskey before setting the plastic cup aside. Then he hooks one finger into the collar of Hob’s flannel shirt and pulls him into a kiss. His mouth is a study in contrasts: warm from the whiskey and cool from the ice, soft tongue and sharp teeth. They sink briefly, gently, into Hob’s bottom lip, and Hob pulls the man close against his chest and returns the favor.

The kiss is turning wet and messy when the man pulls back far enough to start fumbling with Hob’s shirt buttons. He’s pulled the tails of the shirt out of Hob’s jeans and has it about halfway unbuttoned when a phone starts ringing.

It’s not the room phone – it’s coming from a pocket of the man’s backpack.

“Ignore it,” he mumbles into Hob’s neck. “We are busy.”

The phone rings three times; four times. The stranger has finished with Hob’s shirt and is pulling the tee beneath it out of the waistband of his jeans by the time it finally stops.

His fingers are toying with Hob’s belt buckle and ghosting over the seam of his fly when it rings again.

The stranger groans audibly.

“Do you think,” Hob says with the carefully deliberate cadence of the very turned on, “that your family might be worried about you?”

“I do not care,” his stranger grumbles, and sinks gracefully to his knees.

Eventually the phone stops ringing again.

He’s worked Hob’s belt and fly open and is nuzzling into the opening of his jeans, nosing at the base of Hob’s cock through his underwear and Hob is panting, his stranger’s hot breath so close to where Hob wants him most – when the phone rings a third time.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” snarls the stranger, and stands.

He fishes a slightly battered-looking BlackBerry out of an outside pocket of his backpack and stabs at the call answer button.

“What.”

He turns away, so all Hob can see is the furious, stiff line of his stranger’s back. He can’t hear the other half of the conversation, and he doesn’t think he wants to; every fibre of the man’s body radiates anger and discomfort and perhaps a little bit of shame. Hob adjusts himself discreetly, rezips his jeans, and tiptoes over to sit down on the edge of the bed.

“Obviously I am alive. I am fine.” A pause. “I took a walk.” Another pause. “Yes. Yes, I know what time it is. No, I am assured that the roads were too bad to make it back to the cabin. I am in a motel room in…” He looks over to Hob. “What is the name of this place?”

Hob supplies the name of the motel, and that of the town as well, just for good measure. The man relays the information into the phone. There is another long pause.

“That is none of your business. Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about. And if you speak to me like that again I will hang up the phone.”

There is another, longer pause, during which the stranger’s face grows progressively redder. He is very deliberately not looking at Hob.

“No. I said no. I will arrange for my own transportation in the morning. I –”

The person on the other end of the phone must say something truly outrageous, because his strangers eyes bug out in a way that looks almost uncomfortable.

“Do the entirety of the known universe a favor and crawl back into whatever slime hole you emerged from and leave me alone,” he hisses. “Goodbye.”

Hob can’t quite muffle a snort at this crowning line. Siblings.

His stranger hangs up the phone with a vicious jab of a button and slams it down on the desk; then seems to reconsider, retrieves it, and shuts it off entirely before throwing it into his backpack. He sighs, a surprisingly tired sound.

“I will have another drink, if you don’t mind,” he says. “And then I would like it very much if you would fuck me. Please.”

Hob’s cock, which had been feeling distinctly neglected, gives a twitch.

“I think that can be arranged,” he says. “Are you –”

The stranger waves a dismissive hand. “I am quite sober enough to have sex with you. And I could easily afford my own room, if that’s a concern. I am here because I want to be.”

“Glad to hear it, but that actually isn’t what I was going to ask,” Hob says mildly.

“Oh,” the man says. A faint blush rises on his cheekbones. He scoops up the whiskey bottle and uncorks it, taking an unceremonious swig. The towel hangs dangerously low around his hips. “What were you going to ask?”

His stranger pauses with the whiskey bottle against his lips. Hob watches the long line of his neck work once, twice, as he swallows, and figures he may as well put his cards on the table.

“I was going to ask if latex condoms are okay. For when I fuck you into the mattress in a minute here.”

The man clears his throat. “Oh,” he says again. “Yes. Latex is fine.”

“Good. Anything you don’t like? Hard boundaries?”

He pauses. “I do not enjoy being choked. Or having my hands restrained in any way. But I like… I like it a little bit rough. It feels good. To be used.”

Hob leans back on one elbow. “Is that what you want me to do? Use you?”

“Yes.”

The word drops into the quiet room like a handful of snow might drop off a tree branch – soft and muffled and sending the same delicious shiver down Hob’s spine.

“I can do that.” Oh, yes. Hob can use this beautiful man, if he is offering himself up to be used. “C’mere, then.”

His stranger walks slowly across the room to where Hob is half-reclining on the bed, feet still planted on the floor. He kneels between Hob’s legs and runs his hands slowly up and down his thighs from knee to hip. “And you?” he asks. “Your boundaries?”

Hob considers. “I’m with you on choking, not a fan,” he says. “I’m not big on pain, generally, but I can give it to other people, if they need it.”

“Alright.” His hands are still rubbing up and down Hob’s thighs, a slow, hypnotizing rhythm. When he speaks again his voice is thick. “Would you consider the preliminary negotiations to be concluded now?”

“Don’t you have anything better to do with your mouth than spout off like a horny nineteenth century robber baron?” Hob counters.

His stranger smiles, a proper smile that crinkles the corners of his blue eyes, and unzips the fly of Hob’s jeans.

In short order he’s pulled them open and pushed Hob’s boxers down just enough that he can get his cock out. He’s not quite hard, not yet, but he gets there quickly between his stranger’s gentle, surprisingly soft hands and the way he immediately buries his nose in Hob’s pubic hair and breathes deeply as he looks up through his eyelashes.

Then he opens his mouth, and wraps his tongue around the head of Hob’s cock, and Hob’s brain makes a noise like radio static.

Oh, he is good at this. Unfairly good. Supernaturally good. He teases Hob for long, long minutes, working up and down his shaft with light touches of just his lips and tongue, ducking down now and then to mouth gently at his balls, until Hob is twitching and swearing and straining, perched on the edge of the bed. When he finally has mercy and takes Hob’s cock fully into his mouth, it is barely a relief. He is so wet, so hot, and he sinks down on Hob with no resistance, no trace of a gag reflex. Before he can stop himself, Hob’s hips jerk forward that final fraction, and suddenly his stranger’s nose is brushing his pubic bone and his throat is contracting around the head of Hob’s cock.

He’s expecting the man to pull back, to splutter in indignation, but instead he makes an encouraging noise and squeezes Hob’s thigh before folding his hands almost primly in his lap.

“Fuck,” Hob mutters. He makes an experimental shallow thrust into the tight, wet heat of his stranger’s mouth. “Really?”

His stranger can’t nod, not with Hob’s prick in his mouth, but he moans. Hob feels it vibrate all along the length of his shaft and has to stifle a whimper of his own. He sinks one hand into the soft riot of the man’s hair, still a little damp from the shower, and cradles the back of his skull. The bone feels sweet and finely formed in his hand.

“You want me to fuck your pretty face?” he asks, soft and just a tiny bit mean. “Yeah? That’s what your mouth is good for, isn’t it?”

He thrusts again, in and out, and the stranger’s eyes roll back a little in his head, so he does it again, and again. Soon he really is fucking his face, not too hard but deep, fingers tightening in his stranger’s hair as his eyes fall nearly shut, narrowing to crystalline blue crescents.

Hob pulls back briefly to let his stranger breathe. Runs his thumb along his bottom lip, dripping with spit, before he pushes back in. He doesn’t stop until he can feel the first tendrils of orgasm beckoning to him; but as tempting as it is to keep going, to empty himself into this perfect mouth, he’s made a promise. And Hob is a man of his word, so he pulls the man off his cock by the scruff of his neck. He makes an obscene noise as he goes, and another thing string of saliva dribbles from his puffy mouth. His eyes are slightly glassy as he looks up at Hob.

“Get up on the bed, baby,” Hob orders gently.

When the man stands up the towel is just barely clinging to his narrow hips, and his erection is stiff and straining against the terrycloth. He’s so hard, Hob thinks wonderingly, just from having Hob’s cock in his mouth for a few minutes, and his own prick throbs in sympathy.

“Hands and knees,” Hob says, and the man crawls up on the bed. The towel falls away as he goes, languid but obedient, so that he’s entirely naked when Hob positions himself behind him. The contrast between Hob’s clothes and the other man’s nudity is delicious – Hob’s rough denim against the man’s soft thighs, Hob’s hairy wrists poking out from worn flannel as he runs his fingernails along sharply elegant shoulder blades.

He allows himself one long, gentle caress, from the nape of his stranger’s neck down to the shallow dimples in the small of his back, before he grabs at the man’s buttocks and unceremoniously spreads him open.

His hole looks surprisingly loose and relaxed already. Hob runs the pad of one thumb over it.

“Were you prepping yourself in the shower?” he asks, delighted. He presses gently and the furl of muscle gives, just a little, pink and fluttering.

“Hng,” says his stranger, shuddering. “Yes. I thought – I thought about your hands. Oh. I liked the thought that you were just outside the door. While I had my fingers inside myself.”

“Impatient little minx,” Hob says fondly. He kisses one of the lovely knobs of his stranger’s spine and pinches his backside for good measure before pulling away. “Stay here.”

He has to dig down to the bottom of his duffel bag in order to find the box of condoms and the little travel sized bottle of lube. He’d felt a little self-conscious when he’d packed them back in his flat in London – like he was presuming something – but then again he had been preparing for a supposedly romantic road trip with his girlfriend.

He’s glad, now, that he has them.

His stranger has remained on his knees, pitched forward to rest on his elbows, face pressed into a pillow and cock hanging heavy between his legs.

“Good boy,” Hob praises, and runs his hand along the man’s flank. “Beautiful. Oh, darling, I’m going to make you feel so good. And then you’re going to make me feel so good, aren’t you? You already have,” Hob coos, drizzling lube directly onto his arsehole. “And I know you’re going to keep being a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

Before the man can answer, Hob slips a finger inside him, right up to the first knuckle. He’s rewarded with a whimper and the feeling of his stranger pushing back against him, silently begging for more.

And then not so silently. “More,” moans the stranger. “Fuck. More, please.”

Hob strokes his finger in and out, petting the velvet inside his stranger.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get more.”

He tries to spend as much time torturing his stranger with his fingers as his stranger had spent torturing him with his mouth, but by the second finger he finds his resolve dissolving like so many snowflakes on warm skin. The man is making such wanton sounds, and his knees skid wider and wider on the slippery motel bedspread, opening him inexorably to Hob’s hungry eyes and questing hands.

“Oh. Oh,” he says. “Oh, yes, fuck,” he moans. No more well-crafted phrases or erudite words; the only thing dropping from that perfect mouth are noises, guttural and breathy by turns, only half-muffled by the pillow his face is smashed into.

“Please,” he begs, “please, in me, I – please, I need –”

Hob obliges.

He’s pretty sure he’s never been harder in his life as he shoves his jeans down around his thighs and rolls the condom on. He has to do it one-handed, clumsily, because some frantic corner of his brain is convinced that if he lets go of the stranger’s hip then the man will disappear, between one blink and the next, and this whole night will turn out to have been some snowblind fever dream.

But his stranger stays where Hob has put him, desperate and writhing, begging for Hob’s cock, and when he finally pins the man down to the mattress and pushes into him, that first hard thrust is enough to silence both of them.

The room is utterly still for a heartbeat, and then another, and then one more, until Hob pulls out in order to thrust in again and his stranger wails and then Hob is fucking into him in earnest, fucking him hard, until the sound of their skin slapping together almost drowns out the sounds his stranger is making beneath him.

Almost.

His stranger moans and pants, and Hob answers him, thrust for thrust and moan for moan, Yes and Ah and Christ and Fuck, fuck me, use me, yes. He grips his stranger by the hips, so hard that his fingers leave little white divots behind when he shifts his grip, so hard that he worries he might leave bruises, and still the man pushes back against him and begs for more.

He comes, when he finally comes, untouched, rutting gracelessly against the mattress. Hob stills, grits his teeth, not wanting to overwhelm the other man as he seizes in pleasure, but his stranger continues to move against him, if anything even more desperate, even in the throes of orgasm.

“Don’t stop,” he gasps, “don’t, oh God, fuck me through it, don’t stop –”

So Hob hauls him up and pushes him down, one hand on his waist and one shoving his chest down into the mattress as the man’s hands scrabble at the sheets and he sobs and Hob pistons into him until he empties himself, until his prick is oversensitive and his stranger is twitching around and beneath him, and the room is finally quiet.

Then Hob takes the condom off, knots it and tosses it towards the wastebasket. He rolls them both away from the wet spot with only middling success, but he’s too tired to care. He shucks the rest of his clothes off. He is boneless and spent, and his stranger is inserting himself relentlessly into Hob’s personal space. They lie there for a long, long moment, sweaty and panting, until their breathing starts to even out and the desperate closeness has receded into normal cuddling. Hob presses a kiss to his stranger’s sweaty temple and marvels at his luck.

“I realize I neglected to ask you why you find yourself in Northern California,” his stranger says, tucked against Hob’s side, voice drowsy and hoarse. “Do you care to share?”

“It’s a long story,” Hob says. “I was – well, I am – on a road trip. With my, ah. With my girlfriend. Well. Ex-girlfriend, now. Actually.”

His stranger tenses slightly, and Hob doesn’t blame him; he knows how it must sound. “It sounds like there is a story there?” the man says, almost tentative.

“Yeah, we… we came over together, about two weeks ago. We flew into Seattle, were planning this whole big trip, right down the coast and all the way to Los Angeles. See the redwoods, do some wine tastings, the whole bit. I’m a photographer, I was thinking I could turn the whole trip into a photo essay, maybe even a book.” He sighs. “Then she heard about this yoga retreat, ashram sort of place. Bit culty, I don’t really go in for all that, but she absolutely had to check it out, so we did. Two days later, out of the blue, she tells me our chakras are misaligned and gives me the boot. Turns out Guru Todd Thingummy, who ran the retreat center, was very aligned with her chakras. As well as other, less… metaphysical things.”

There’s a sound from the vicinity of Hob’s armpit that he realizes with delight is a snort. The snort blossoms into a chuckle, and then his stranger is laughing, a frankly horrible honking sort of laugh, shaking in Hob’s arms with it, and Hob laughs along.

“I’m sorry,” his stranger gasps. “I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t laugh at you. It’s just… Guru Todd.”

“I know!” Hob snickers. “You can picture him, right? White boy dreadlocks and a fucking… shell necklace. Utter tosser.”

“I feel like I’ve probably met someone almost exactly like him, truly.” Eventually his stranger’s horrible laugh subsides. He shifts against Hob, playing idly with his chest hair, curling it around one finger. “In a way, I am also escaping a recent ex. She was the first person I dated after some… difficult experiences I had about a year ago. But in the end I was far more invested in the relationship than she, and she became. Uncomfortable. With my ardor.”

“She’s a bloody idiot then,” Hob says automatically, and his stranger looks up, startled.

“Do you think so?”

Hob briefly considers backpedaling. Don’t come off like a madman, he thinks to himself. Not when he’s finally talking to you. But there’s no hope for him. “Well, yeah. I mean, I’d say your ardor is my favorite thing about you so far.” He lets one hand drift down and gives his stranger’s arse a cheeky squeeze, and is rewarded with a squeak and another snort.

“You are kind to say so,” the man says, and interrupts himself with a yawn.

“It’s true. I… I’m really glad I met you,” Hob says honestly. Too honestly. He can’t help himself; the man is just so beautiful, mouth kissed red and limbs loose, fucked out and soft everywhere he’d been hard and prickly before.

Hob still doesn’t know his name.

“I’m glad I met you, too,” the man says softly.

Hob snuggles them both down into the lumpy motel pillows and pulls the blanket up firmly around their shoulders. The wind blows outside, he reaches up to switch off the lamp, and they fall asleep.

He wakes in the night and stumbles to the bathroom to take a piss. When he comes back, his stranger has starfished out and is taking up a full two-thirds of the bed, sleeping like a stone. Hob manages to reinsert himself into the remaining third and then simply lies there for a long few minutes, looking at the other man.

The skies must have cleared, at least a little, because there’s a few strips of moonlight filtering through the blinds. The pale light turns his stranger into marble, a work of art; he practically glows against the blue sheets. Hob’s fingers itch for his camera.

“You’re going to fuck me up,” he whispers. “I’m going to wake up next to you and never want to leave, and it’s going to fuck me up so bad.”

The sleeping man does not respond, of course; doesn’t even stir. Hob lies there, and gazes at him, until he slips back into sleep himself.

When he wakes again it’s fully morning. The sun is that peculiar thin shade of blue that you get on very cold mornings, but when Hob peeks out the window, the sky is clear and the snowplows have clearly been out making the rounds. He tries to tamp down a sudden feeling of disappointment.

He gets a drink of water, and when he returns to bed his stranger is stirring. First one blue eye opens, then the other.

“Morning,” Hob says.

The man hums and stretches luxuriously, rolling from his belly to his back. The sheets fall down around his hips, revealing one elegant hipbone and a tempting glimpse of dark curls. His pale skin practically glows against the blue sheets in the morning light.

“Enjoying the view?” his stranger asks, and his voice is rough with sleep and slightly hoarse.

“You could say that,” Hob says. He puts one knee on the bed, reaches out to run a hand lightly down the long, lean line of the man’s thigh. “God, you’re… you are so beautiful.”

“Come here to me,” the man says, beckoning to Hob.

Hob ducks his head and kisses up the ladder of the man’s ribs, takes one pert nipple gently between his teeth.

“Can I take your picture?” he says suddenly. “Not in a creepy way. I can even keep your face out of it if you like, I just… there’s something about you, in this light.”

“I don’t mind,” the man says.

Hob’s heart leaps.

A few minutes later, he’s gotten his camera out and adjusted. The room is so quiet, so still, that each click of the shutter sounds almost sacrilegious. He shoots in black and white. He thinks the sheets will show dark, almost black, and the man’s skin will show light and luminous against them. His stranger poses like a dream, languid and biddable, moving here and there on the bed, wherever Hob arranges him.

“You’ve done this before,” Hob accuses. He’s kneeling above the other man, shooting straight down, and his stranger has one arm thrown over his face so only one eye is visible. “Posed, I mean. You know how to move for a camera.”

“I have,” the stranger admits. “Mostly for life drawing classes, though I imagine the principle is more or less the same.”

“Incredible. Are you an artist, then?”

“I suppose.”

Hob tugs the sheet a little lower, so that it’s just barely covering the stranger’s prick, which has plumped up a little – whether from the attention of Hob himself or of the camera, he’s not sure, but it’s one of the sexiest things Hob’s ever seen. The neat patch of dark hair blending into the dark sheet. The gentle swell beneath it. His mouth waters.

“You suppose?”

“I find it difficult to call myself an artist. To claim that title. But I make art. If that is the same thing.”

“Hmm. I reckon so.”

Hob pulls the sheet another fraction of an inch lower. He can feel himself getting distracted. The itch he’d felt to photograph the beautiful stranger, now mostly satisfied, has transformed into an altogether different kind of impulse. He takes one more shot, barely paying attention to the framing. Catches himself licking his lips.

“Hob.”

“Yeah?”

“Put the camera down.”

He hastens to obey.

He’d pulled his boxers back on at some point last night, but they do little to hide his arousal as he slides under the sheets and slots himself in behind his stranger, rubbing his nose in the riotous bedhead and kissing his neck as the man tilts his head to one side to give him better access.

“I like how you say my name,” Hob murmurs. He grinds against his stranger’s narrow arse and reaches around to make a loose fist around his hardening cock. “You’re really not going to tell me yours, are you?”

“Mine?”

“Your name.”

“I –” The man’s breath hitches as Hob tightens his grip, stroking slowly up and down. “I haven’t – decided yet.”

“Well,” Hob says against the smooth skin between his ear and his shoulder. “Let me know what you decide.”

They writhe together under the sheets for a few minutes, until they’re both fully hard, until Hob’s chest is slightly tacky with sweat where it’s rubbing against the stranger’s sharp shoulder blades. He’s grunting, underwear pulled down, making quick little thrusts in the crease of the other man’s thigh, sticky and warm and so good.

“Fuck me again,” his stranger says. “Please.”

“Don’t be a madman,” Hob chides. “You’ll be so sore.”

But he doesn’t say no. And he slides a finger between the man’s arse cheeks and pets over his hole, still a little loose from the night before.

The stranger twists his neck around to look Hob in the eye. “I don’t care. I want you,” he says. “I want to feel it.”

And Hob tries his best to be a good person, he really does, but when confronted with this bald-faced desire he is only, after all, a man. So he mumbles Fuck, okay, yeah, okay against his stranger’s shoulder, and tears himself away to retrieve the lube and a condom. He fingers him open, as slowly and as carefully as he can bring himself to do it, and rolls the condom on, and he fucks him again. Face to face, this time; one knee hooked over his elbow, and long arms clinging to him like a drowning man, and panting, open-mouthed kisses that are as much simply breathing the other’s breath as they are real kisses.

The stranger comes first, his beautiful face screwed up in ecstasy, and Hob follows him over the edge mere seconds later.

The other man falls back into a doze almost immediately, drifting off as soon as Hob has disposed of the condom and wiped them down with a handful of tissues, but Hob is buzzing with too much energy to lie back down. He cleans himself up, splashing water on his face and brushing his teeth quickly, before dressing quietly and creeping down to the motel lobby to look for breakfast.

There’s a coffee machine, a few muffins – prepackaged, not fresh – and a rather sad fruit bowl with some mealy-looking apples. He assembles what he can and shoves some creamers and sugar packets in his jacket pocket. He asks the bored teenager at the front desk (a different one than the night before, although bearing a distinct family resemblance) about the weather report, and learns that although it’s supposed to stay cold, no more precipitation is in the forecast. Then he goes back to the room.

His stranger stirs again at the rush of cold air when Hob lets himself back into the room.

“I come bearing provisions,” he says, setting the coffees on the bedside table and dropping the rest of his meager bounty in the man’s lap.

“Foraging for our survival?” he asks dryly.

“Something like that. It’s slim pickings out there, I’m afraid. But hey –” he picks up a muffin and wiggles it “– chocolate chip!”

His stranger snorts and mutters something about being spoiled.

Hob is very careful not to say anything about how he’d like to spoil this man very much, actually, for the foreseeable future and possibly beyond that, because Hob has so longed for someone to care for, and because this man so obviously needs it. Hob eats his muffin, and very carefully does not say anything reckless or emotional.

They finish their motel snacks, and drink their coffees (Hob’s with a little creamer and one sugar; the stranger’s with no cream and an absurd amount of sugar). And eventually Hob broaches the subject that’s obviously hovering between them.

“So,” he says. “What do you want to do now? I’m still up to give you a ride to your cabin, if that’s what you want. The roads are supposed to be cleared by now.”

“I suppose I should,” the stranger says, fiddling with his styrofoam cup, not meeting Hob’s eyes. “I did tell my sibling that I would return in the morning.”

“Okay.” Hob clears his throat. “Alright then. Whenever you’re ready.”

It takes them another hour to leave the room. Hob showers, and then his stranger decides he needs to rinse off as well, and then there’s a frustrating search for car keys that turn out to have been kicked or dropped halfway under a bedside table at some point the night before.

Then the stranger stops Hob in the doorway with a hand on his elbow and kisses him, long and slow and wordless, before they step out into the brilliant snowy sparkle of the late morning.

The drive is very quiet. The stranger directs Hob out of town and along a rather steep road that winds up the thickly forested mountainside. It’s certainly not a road that Hob would have wanted to drive in last night’s weather, and even with clear skies and plowed roads he takes it slow, acutely aware of the grip of the rental car’s tires on the snowy highway.

Only one time does the stranger wince and shift uncomfortably when Hob cannot avoid a bump in the road. Hob smiles, and swallows his smile, and deliberately wrenches his mind away from the vivid memories of just why his stranger might be wincing and shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

His stranger is silent, except for when he briefly tells Hob when and where to turn. The farther they drive up the mountain, the stiffer he becomes, until he’s gripping the seat with white knuckles and his mouth is one firm line.

Hob doesn’t think it’s the wintry roads that are making him so tense.

They pull over, eventually, at the base of a long driveway. Through the trees Hob can see a large house – not really a cabin by any stretch of the imagination, but built of logs, and with a wisp of woodsmoke floating up from a picturesque brick chimney. They both gaze up at it through the trees. Hob puts the car in park but doesn’t turn it off.

“Well, here we are,” he says.

“Indeed,” his stranger says, and his voice sounds tense and slightly strangled. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Hob waits for him to open the door and walk away.

The man does not move.

A minute stretches by, and another, and another, and still his stranger has not opened the car door.

Hob dares to hope.

“Come with me,” he says suddenly.

His stranger looks up, startled.

“I mean it. Come with me. Go get your stuff and we’ll just. Drive away. Go down the coast, find somewhere it’s actually warm. Or don’t even get your stuff,” he adds hurriedly, aware that his voice is sounding increasingly unhinged. “Say the word and I’ll just turn the car around. We’ll go. Anywhere you want, just… come with me.”

The man looks at Hob with an unreadable expression for a long moment. “You know nothing about me,” he says finally.

“I know I like you. A lot,” Hob says. “I know last night was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time, maybe one of the best nights of my whole life. I know I’d regret it if I didn’t at least ask. So, I’m asking. Come with me.”

“I haven’t even told you my name,” says his stranger. “I could be a serial killer.”

“You could be, yeah. But I don’t think you are. I think… I think you just want someone to want you.” Hob reaches across the gear shift and briefly touches his stranger on the cheek. The man’s eyes flutter closed and Hob doesn’t think he’s imagining the way he leans ever-so-slightly into the gentle touch before he looks down. “I want you.”

There’s another long silence, punctuated only by an occasional call from the chickadees flitting through the trees.

“My name is Morpheus,” he says to his hands, clenched in his lap. “But some people call me Dream. People – people close to me. Call me Dream.”

Hob smiles. “Can I call you Dream, then?”

Dream nods. “Let’s go,” he says. Hob’s smile widens.

“Want to get anything from inside?” he asks.

“No. I think not,” Dream says. All of a sudden it’s like the tight strings of his body are loosened: he leans back in his seat, crosses his ankles, looking relaxed for the first time since they’d gotten out of bed. He lolls his head to one side and peeks at Hob and his face looks fey and happy in the afternoon light. “I believe I have everything I need for now.”

Happiness wells up in Hob’s chest, a rushing feeling like a mountain spring swollen by melting snow. He puts the car in gear and reaches over to take Dream’s hand.

“Right then,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Read on AO3 >>>

[unclefathersantateddy]

New & Improved Fresh Meat Teddy!

When Denise left, the divorce hit Teddy hard. He stopped sleeping, developing severe insomnia, which started detiorating his health. His skin lost colour, his eyes started to hollow and form intense under-eye bags. His every thought was enveloped with Denise and the life he had lost. She was not good for him, but she was his everything.

Her absence triggered Teddy's abandonment issues that began with his parents' constant arguments, all he knew from his early life was that love is conditional, and if he was not useful, all his loved ones would leave eventually. He was desperate for consistency and stability that he simply had never experienced. These thoughts are what kept him up at night, all night, every night. These thoughts are what he needed to escape from, so he started going for night time walks in seek of distraction.

Wandering the streets at night exposed him to specific vices that he quickly learned were not for him. He wasn't a brothel man, nor was he a stripclub man. These options were fine, but they did not fill the void in his head and heart. He was a family man through and through, no amount of anonymous sex or drugs could pacify that.

So it came as a great surprise when he stumbled across a dingy diner, open much later than any other greasy spoon on Ocean Avenue. He hadn't seen this restaurant open during the day, maybe this was a soft-opening night? But there was only one customer inside, the owner of the morgue next door. "Not much of an opening" he thought to himself, looking through the greasy door window.

*Ding!* the bell chimed as he opened the glass door, which he noticed was slick to the touch. Rubbing his now-slimey hand on his slacks, his eyes arose and were immediately met with the furrowed gaze of the ethnically ambiguous, explicitly balding-yet-hirsute, angry-yet-perplexed-looking man behind the counter. "What can I get for you, champ?" emerged from his mustache-covered mouth, in an unexpectedly welcoming tone.

"Champ", a word Teddy had not been called for the better part of 30 years. A word so far-removed from his identity - yet remarkably familiar - coming from this otherwise-unyielding stranger, invoked an unfamiliar feeling.

A feeling that Teddy couldn't pinpoint. A feeling that made time stop. A feeling that Teddy wanted to last forever.

"A cheeseburger, please." The mustachioed man nodded.

Little did Teddy realise, that nod would be the start of something like never before.

[septimusmoonlight]

Anonymous: You reblogged a slime gif recently and it got me thinking alongside the slime in your womb ask. What if it does something to you, that the slightest brush of something against your cunt/clit/ass will make you cum. Just by having an object inside you, unmoving, you are constantly cumming. Good for the slime, because it can grow and reproduce at a faster rate, but you, you can collapse in the middle of street from a powerful orgasm just because your pants touched your slit. You can grow infinitely

Oh, I can roll with this…

A slime gets into my womb, but instead of just making me horny all the time, it makes me hypersensitive and feeds off of the chemicals my body produces at orgasm. Because of this, it gets bigger and bigger even in the first few days that it’s inside my body - I can’t stop masturbating, cumming over and over again on toys, my fingers, my own fists.

Maybe it also influences other people, so that strangers will sometimes just pull my pants down and fuck me in the street whenever my jeans brush against me in the wrong - or maybe the right - way. Not only does that make me cum even harder, but the slime inside of me can also feed off of the contributions of strangers, creating a feedback loop that sometimes results in a small crowd all waiting to fuck my dripping cunt, the slime compelling other people through some kind of pheromones to help fill my pussy even more.

I can only imagine that I would eventually be left as a perpetually-cumming mess, naked, leaning against my own massive belly and completely broken, only capable of ecstasy as baby slimes pour out of my womb in a near-constant stream. The slime came a long way from turning me into a run-of-the-mill kinky wierdo into a mindless breedsack - but I wouldn’t have it any other way, always impossibly swollen and always obsessed with getting more, more, more.

[nebulaedaniel]

isn’t it crazy how dan and phil happened. imagine having someone whose love is so palpable that it draws strangers in. they could have just been anonymous strangers on the street to the public eye and their relationship would have been the same. they would still spend every second together, reading the same books and watching the same shows together. different anecdotes but still dripping with affection.

it’s just so fascinating that they built all of this, and they weren’t supposed to meet. or maybe they were destined to.

[justagalwhowrites]

Halcyon - Ch. 1: Can I Buy You a Beer?

You run into someone you don't expect when out for a drink. A continuation of Halcyon, a modern no outbreak AU TLOU fic found on Tumblr here.

Yes it's a Javi gif but we're gonna say he's Joel because Joel is in his 30s for this fic, OK?

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Modern No Outbreak AU, No use of Y/N, Slow burn, 18+ only, Minors DNI

Length: 5.7K

AO3 | Prologue | Next Chapter

Austin, Texas

September 30, 2022

You were going to strangle Alyssa. 

It sure as hell hadn’t been your idea to go out drinking to celebrate the end of the first month of the school year. Definitely not your idea to do it at a bar that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned this decade. And it absolutely was not your idea to try to pick up a guy while out at said dingy bar. 

But it apparently was Alyssa’s idea of a good time. 

You sighed as you watched people go to and from the bar from your seat tucked in the corner. You tried to come up with stories for the people you could see in the dim light, like they were characters in a book you were writing. The biker in a leather vest, you decided, had been an accountant for 20 years when he bought a Harley during his midlife crisis. He’d become a mechanic when he became too obsessed with the bike to be satisfied behind a desk. His wife was pissed but his son thought he was way cooler now. The couple at the end of the bar were on a second… no, third date. She was deciding whether or not to fuck him. You thought it was going to go in his favor.

Alyssa had moved out of the seat next to the guy she’d taken up with and into his lap. You wondered if there was a world record for how far someone’s tongue could be down another person’s throat. It had to trigger her gag reflex at some point, right? Or maybe she didn’t have one. That must be nice. Maybe that was the key to being good at oral. Maybe you’d be better at it if you didn’t have a gag reflex. Maybe you’d still have a husband if you were better at oral. 

You downed the last of your Shiner and rapped your fingers along the side of the glass. That was one upside to being back in Texas, at least. Shiner Bock on tap was a nice perk. 

Next time you went out with Alyssa, you were driving yourself. If there was a next time. 

But you’d probably cave before too long. You didn’t have many friends and you liked her. Even though this night hadn’t been much fun and getting to know her at all had been awkward at first. Alyssa was a few years younger than you and the first time she’d stumbled into your office she had your book in her hands and a wide smile on her face. 

“I am so sorry if this is weird,” she said after a brief introduction. “But… I’m in love with your book and I am dying for you to sign it!” 

“Sure,” you laughed a little and she passed it to you. You flipped to the title page and scrawled “Alyssa, Thanks for reading. With love, your coworker” before you penned the signature you’d practiced a million times with your agent below and handed it back. She squeaked, a little giddy,  before offering to show you the best restaurants near campus. You didn’t have the heart to tell her that you’d grown up in Austin so you had plenty of favorites without any extra help. 

Still, you had this strange drive to have Alyssa see you as a normal person. Award-winning author famous was, thankfully, not the kind to get you recognized on the street but it still made you uncomfortable. Book signings and readings were exercises in misery. There was the acute agony of being observed and noted, the strange knowledge that, for these strangers, this brief encounter was going to be something they remembered. They’d remember if you had a mustard stain on your shirt or if there was lipstick on your teeth or if the stress you were under as you traveled from city to city while your marriage fell to pieces around you made you snap at someone. You never realized how keenly you valued anonymity until it wasn’t an option anymore. 

The very last thing you wanted was someone who was a fan with an office two doors down from your own.

So, you’d decided to have her be a friend instead. Make it so she saw you as a person and not someone from the inside of a book jacket. The two of you had gone to lunch a few times and out for a quick drink once, too. It had been nice and, ever since, it felt like she had stopped watching you like a pseudo-celebrity and started seeing you as a friend. Or, at the very least, a friendly acquaintance. 

So when she’d asked if you wanted to get some drinks tonight, you’d said yes, envisioning the lounge she’d suggested the first time you’d gone out, one with jazz music playing quietly enough that you could chat over it. 

That was not where she suggested this time. 

But you were already here and edging in on tipsy and if you were going to spend the night alone at a bar and, eventually, at home with your vibrator, you may as well be drunk doing it. 

You made your way to the bar and ordered a tequila shot and another beer, drumming your fingers on the bar top as you waited for your drinks. 

“Well hey there, beautiful,” a man who had to have at least 10 years on you sidled up next to you at the bar. “What’s a pretty thing like you doin’ getting your own drinks?” 

“No one else was volunteering,” you gave him a tight smile. “But I’m not looking for company so…” 

“Don’t tell me you’re here all by your lonesome?” He smiled a lopsided, cocky smile, looking you up and down. The accent felt a little heavy handed and the cowboy hat put it over the top. You wondered, idly, if he was hiding a bald spot under there. 

“I prefer flying solo, but thank you,” you said, peering around him to watch the bartender flirt with a girl who looked like she was newly 21 and probably here slumming it at this bar that was far from the school. You sighed and settled in to wait even longer for your drinks. 

“Girl as pretty as you shouldn’t be all on her own,” he said, leaning against the bar and blocking your view. “No way someone hasn’t snapped you up yet, a face like that…” 

“Oh my face has nothing to do with it,” you smiled, forcing your eyes to go wide enough that you looked a little crazed. “It’s because I’m a murderous sociopath with six bodies buried beneath my house.” 

The man just blinked at you, a puzzled look on his face. You could practically see the wheels turning in his head and you considered, for a moment, timing him to see how long it would take to piece it together. 

“She’s right you know,” a familiar voice from behind you made you stiffen. “There's a reason she's here alone. This one’s insane, she’d chew you up and spit you out, man. Best you find someone else to try n’take home.” 

“Sorry, man,” he said. “Didn’t know she was spoken for.” 

You watched the man shove himself back from the bar and prowl off to find another woman to try and bed before turning, slowly, to the man standing at your back. Your heart beat picked up in spite of yourself when you saw him, as tall and broad and somehow even more handsome than ever. 

Joel Miller smiled, one of his cocky, lopsided smiles that made his cheek dimple. 

“Hey, Goldie.” 

***

It was you.

Here, in this shitty bar in his corner of Austin on a Friday night was you. 

Joel froze when he saw you, sitting in a corner by yourself, watching the bar with a far away look on your face. 

It was a look he knew intimately, even though it had been 11 years since he’d last seen your face in person. You’d get that look when you were thinking about something important, something you wanted to remember. You’d have that look and then you’d open up that gold notebook of yours and write furiously for a minute or two before stashing it away. 

“You ever gonna let me read any of that?” He’d teased one day as you sat, curled up in the corner of his couch, your notebook on your knees. 

“No,” you scoffed. “Trust me, you don’t want anywhere near this disaster area. It’s basically just the word vomit version of my brain, it’s a mess up there.” 

Joel didn’t push you on it but, truthfully, he’d have killed for a chance to see inside your mind for a moment. He wanted to crawl inside your skull and look at whatever you’d let him see. He wanted to memorize you, carry you with him, wrap himself up in you at every opportunity. You felt like home, more than anything else he’d ever had. Of course he wanted to be close enough to you to see inside your mind. 

But that was a long time ago. Yes, it had been 11 years since he’d seen you but it had been even longer since he’d seen you when you weren’t pissed at him. In fairness, he was pretty pissed at you, too, but you’d started it. 

And he wasn’t even sure why. He didn’t know what set you off to begin with. One night it was prom and the next thing he knew, you were gone. Taking off across the country before graduation without so much as a goodbye. You changed your number and your mom wouldn’t give it to him and you were just gone. Like the two of you hadn’t spent every day together for the last three years, like he had all meant nothing at all to you. 

Joel saved up the money to buy a bus ticket to your fancy fucking college, intending to find you there and demand an explanation, but that hadn’t gone as planned. He just settled into not knowing and not understanding why the most important relationship in his life had been ripped away from him without a word. 

But it had been a long time. He’d moved past the resentment of it and now he was all but awestruck at seeing you again. 

“Hey, do you want…” Tommy’s voice trailed off and his eyes tracked where Joel’s were looking. “Holy fucking shit, is that…” 

“Yup.” 

“Did you know she…” 

“Yup.” 

Tommy was quiet for a moment.

“Know she was gonna be here?” 

“Hell no.” 

Joel caught a glimpse of his brother nodding out of the corner of his eye - he wasn’t about to stop looking at you, he was worried if he did you might disappear again - and sighed. 

“You gonna talk to her?” Tommy asked after a moment. 

“No idea.” 

“Shit dude,” Tommy clapped his hand on Joel’s shoulder. “Good luck with… whatever the fuck is gonna happen there.” 

Joel glared at him for a second but kept his eyes on you. One of the other guys on the crew went to get the first round, something he appreciated because it meant he could keep watching you at a distance. He wasn’t sure what the fuck to say to you and he wasn’t about to just go talk to you with nothing to say. 

But then you went to the bar and a guy was clearly annoying the hell out of you and, before he really knew what he was doing, he was heading for you. 

“Hey, Goldie.” 

You looked at him for a moment. You looked as surprised to see him as he was to see you. 

“Hey, Joel.” 

He smiled a little wider. 

“Can I buy you a beer?” He asked. 

“You’re a bit late, I’m afraid,” you said. “Already put it on my tab. But that’s assuming the bartender remembers I exist which seems like it might be aiming a bit high…” 

Joel hung over the bar and hit the top of it a few times.

“Hey, Jimmy!” He yelled. The bartender whipped his head around. “Stop fuckin’ around, get my friend her shit, yeah?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, turning back to the woman he was talking to for a second before making you a shot first and then pouring your beer. He set both in front of you at the same time.

“Thank you,” you said, both to Joel and to Jimmy, and you did the shot, wincing as the tequila went down. 

Joel whistled

“Shit, you lookin’ to get fucked up?” 

“Well,” you coughed a little on the liquor before taking a sip of beer. “I already need to take an Uber home because the friend I came with is currently being devoured by that charming gentleman over there…” You nodded to a man at a table against the wall, a brunette draped across his lap who looked to be surgically connected to the man at the mouth. “So I figured, fuck it, may as well get hammered.” 

Joel laughed a little at that. 

“Since you’ve got no one else to get hammered with,” he shrugged. “Want to do it with me? Catch up a bit?” 

You thought for a second, taking a sip of beer. 

“Sure,” you said. “Yeah, that sounds good.” 

Joel got a beer, too, and followed you back to your table before he settled in beside you. Part of it felt so natural, being next to you, but it was so different, too. You were different, fuck knows he was different. 

“So,” he said, watching you. “You’re in town.” 

“I am,” you nodded. 

“Visiting Anna?” He asked, even though he knew the answer. It had made news, the fact that you were coming to teach at UT.

“Work,” you said. “Moved back a few months ago.” 

“So what do you do now?” He asked. “For work, I mean.” 

“Teach, mostly,” you said. “I’m at UT now. Literature and creative writing.” 

“Seems right up your alley,” he nodded. “Always liked that sorta thing. You ever write that book?” 

You nodded, taking another sip of beer. 

“Yeah,” you said. “Just one, though.” 

“Ever publish it?” 

“Yeah,” you nodded again. “A few years ago…” Joel laughed and you frowned. “What?” 

“You really think I don’t know you wrote a fuckin’ book?” He asked. “Course I know you wrote a fuckin’ book. Jesus, Goldie, your name is on fuckin’ posters and shit! You think I live under a rock?” 

You laughed. 

“You dick!” You shoved him playfully. “Look, you’re basically illiterate, I didn’t want to assume…” 

“Hey just because I do shit besides read does not mean I’m illiterate!” He laughed. “You’re just a nerd…” 

“You only finished high school because I’m a nerd,” you rolled your eyes. “Pretty sure your coach was ready to make me an honorary member of the team since me hounding you about homework was the only thing that kept your ass grade eligible.” 

“Oh, you were the MVP,” he smiled, watching you take another sip of your beer and you smiled that amused little smile, the one you had when you were humoring him, the same one you’d had since you were 15 years old. “No question about it.” 

“Since you know all about me apparently,” you teased. “What’s been going on with you?” 

Joel shrugged, taking a drink. Mostly to buy himself time. 

Did he want to admit to you that he’d all but taken his life and driven it into the ground since he last saw you? 

Not that he ever felt like he had much potential, anyway. You and his mom had been the only people who’d ever really seen anything in him. But then you left and she died and was he even failing anybody anymore? Certainly not himself. And everything he did now he did to make sure he didn’t fail his daughter who, for the last 10 plus years, had been the only thing in his life that made it seem like all the shit was worth something. 

But he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell you about her, either. It seemed cheap, to bring her up in a bar to you of all people, one of the only reasons she existed in the first place. 

“Kept busy,” he said instead with a shrug. “Workin’ construction. Roped Tommy into it about a year ago, too. His dumb ass kept getting into it with people, told him I wasn’t going to keep bailing him out of jail if he didn’t at least look like he was trying to get his shit together.” 

You nodded and took another sip of beer. 

“Do you like it?” 

He shrugged again. 

“Pays the bills.” 

“Not what I asked, Joel.” 

He looked at you. You were watching him in that keen way you had, your head cocked slightly to the side, your eyes looking at him like you could cut through everything, everything he ever had or was or would be, down into the lanky boy he’d been when he’d first met you. 

“Not sure why it matters,” he said after a minute. “But it’s fine, I guess. Crew’s good. Work’s steady.” 

“It matters because you deserve something that fulfills you,” you frowned slightly. “Don’t you think so?” 

He laughed once, looking at you for a moment. 

“Haven’t thought about shit that way in a while,” he said. 

Since you left, he added silently. He didn’t say it. Wouldn’t say it, even though part of him wanted to. Wanted to demand an answer, wanted to yell at you, wanted to cry at you and make you answer for the destruction that you left behind you. Destruction that Joel wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever really recovered from, just found a way to live in the rubble of it all. 

But you were here now, talking with him again. 

“When was the last time we did this?” He asked. 

“Did what?” 

“Talked.” 

You smiled a little. 

“You mean besides the time you decided to yell at me about my romantic choices at my mother’s funeral?” You asked, brows raised. “Been a while.” 

“Since prom?” He asked quietly. 

He watched you clench your jaw before nodding and taking a drink. 

“Since prom.” 

Joel picked at the label on his beer bottle for a moment as you sat with your hands between your knees and looked anywhere but at him. Eventually, you picked up your drink glass again with your left hand and Joel traced your bare ring finger with his eyes. 

“Thinkin’ I might have been right about the romantic choices,” he teased lightly and you frowned before he nodded at your hand. 

“Ah, right,” you said, extending your hand in front of you and running your thumb over the inside of that finger like you would if there was a wedding band there. “Yeah, it turns out going on a book tour when your marriage is on the rocks isn’t the best way to handle things…” 

“Shit,” he shook his head a little. “I’m sorry, Goldie, that…” 

You scoffed. 

“No you’re not,” you put your hand back in your lap. “You hated him. You said all of three words to Gale and you hated him…” 

“OK first of all, his name was fucking Gale,” Joel cut you off. “And second of all, he was a fucking douchebag.” 

You snorted into your beer, coughing and choking on it for a moment and Joel clapped you on the back as you held on to the table, trying to laugh and breathe at the same time. 

“You alright there?” He asked, leaving his palm in the middle of your back. 

“Fine,” you coughed, pounding your chest with your fist. “I’m fine, I just… It’s so funny, but Gale isn’t even his birth name.” 

Joel gaped at you. 

“You’re shitting me,” he said. “That asshole chose the name Gale?” 

You nodded, still coughing and laughing. 

“He did,” you said. “He did, he thought it made it sound him more authorial and academic, he changed it before he started teaching. His birth name is fucking Bradley - his mom still calls him Brad - and I only found out when filling out the marriage license.” 

“What a fuckin’ dick,” Joel laughed, his hand still on you. He was touching you. He hadn’t touched you in so long and he was touching you. “Jesus Christ… Sorry if you’re still hung up on the guy but shit, you can do way better than that.” 

“It’s fine,” you laughed, calming down a bit and nodding to yourself. Joel watched you, uncertain. “Really, it is. I’m not going to pretend like I entirely agree with you but… things look different once you’re outside of the marriage and not in it anymore… Anyway. You married? Kids?” 

“Not married,” Joel said, still not sure how he wanted to tell you about Sarah. If he even should, if the two of you were going to just go your separate ways after tonight and never speak again it felt wrong to share her. “Not even dating, really. At least, nothing steady…” 

You laughed. 

“Christ, why am I not surprised?” You teased. “You always had a way with the ladies. Haven’t outgrown that yet I take it?” 

Joel smiled a little. 

“Why outgrow what’s fun?” 

You smiled a little back. 

“Fair enough,” you said. “Don’t you want that, though? Something stable?” 

“Is anything stable?” He asked. “Shit, half the people we went to school with now are fuckin’ divorced, what difference does it make?” 

“Yeah, I guess I am one to talk,” you said, polishing off your beer. 

Joel winced. 

“Fuck, not what I meant…” 

“It’s fine,” you shrugged. “I just… it didn’t work out and that’s that, right?” 

“Right,” he said, watching you closely for a moment. “Hey, since you’re lookin’ to get hammered and I don’t got shit else to do tonight… shots?” 

You laughed a little. 

“I don’t know that I want to get that hammered,” you said. “I’m not a teenager anymore…” 

“C’mon, Goldie,” he teased. “It’s on me. Plus it was my birthday the other day, gotta do at least one with me for that.” 

��Oh shit,” you said. “It was, wasn’t it? You turned 33 on… Monday? Monday, right?” 

“Right,” he laughed. “So, you in?” 

You laughed a little back. 

“Alright,” you said. “You’ve sold me. But I’ve got the first ones, it was your birthday, after all.” 

The two of you moved to open bar stools on the end of the bar and ordered the first two shots - tequila - and clinked your glasses together before downing them, slamming them down on the bar top when you were done. 

“See?” Joel teased. “You still got it in you.” 

“If you say so,” you coughed a little and then laughed. 

“Another?” He asked. 

You looked at him for a moment. 

“Fuck it,” you said and Joel flagged down Jimmy and ordered another round. 

By the time it was last call, your friend had come over to say goodbye, her lipstick smudged around her lips and the mouth of the man she’d been draped across, and the bar had gotten quiet, just a handful of stragglers left even on a Friday night. 

It took a few shots but you’d given up on keeping any distance from Joel at all, your bar stool sitting against his, your body pressed against his side, your head on his shoulder. 

“Hey Jimmy!” Joel slapped the bar top a few times. The man came over and leaned on the bar, looking at you tucked against Joel. “Think you can get me a cab?” 

“Sure as hell not lettin’ either of you two idiots drive,” he replied, going to get the phone. 

“Hey,” Joel nudged you. “Where… where do you live? Need an address, gonna get you home.” 

You thought for a second and then devolved into half drunk laughter. 

“I don’t know,” your words were slurred. “Oh fuck, I’ve only lived there like… a few… a few… fuck. When did I move?” 

“Before the school year?” He asked. 

“Right,” you nodded. “Prob’ly right, that’s… that’s when. S’not long. I don’t know where it is, oh shit…” 

“S’OK,” he said, putting an arm around you. “Just… just come home with me, s’fine.” 

“Yeah?” You asked, raising your head slightly. “You… you don’t mind?” 

“Don’t mind, Goldie,” he said gently. “Never mind, not with… not with you.” 

You nodded and dropped your head back to his shoulder. 

Joel had to half carry you to the cab and you dozed off against him on the drive, pressing your warm, soft body against his, passed out enough that you were drooling on the shoulder of Joel’s t-shirt, soaking through to his skin. He didn’t mind. 

“She gonna be alright?” The cab driver asked as Joel paid him and nudged you awake. 

“M’fine,” you waved him off. 

“You know this guy?” The man asked, watching you in the rear view mirror. 

“Him?” You asked, brows raised. “‘Course I know him, this… he’s Joel, he’s my best friend, s’fine.” 

The driver nodded once. 

“Good,” he said. “Take care of her, alright buddy?” 

“Sure,” Joel said, setting you down in the back of the cab. “Always have.” 

He got out and went around to the other door, almost tripping on the curb, before tugging you out of the backseat and against his side. You laughed and then shushed yourself. 

“Sorry,” you tried to whisper but failed. “S’late, I should be quieter….” 

“S’fine,” he slurred. “The neighbors think I’m trash anyway, not gonna ruin my reputation…” 

You snorted at that. 

“Assholes.” 

He helped you up to the front door and fumbled with the lock, the two of you stumbling in. Julie, Sarah’s babysitter, shot up off the couch, a groggy look on her face. 

“Wha?” She blinked for a second. 

You yelped and Joel shushed you.

“Sorry,” you failed at whispering again. “But Joel… there’s a teenager in… you’ve got a teenager on your couch.” 

“Yeah, she does that,” he tried to whisper back. “S’fine. How’d it go, Julie? Everything OK?” 

“All good, Mr. Miller,” she stretched and got up, meeting Joel in the entry way. “She went down at 9:30 after trying to talk me into watching Coyote Ugly…” 

“Oh lord,” Joel sighed. “Last thing she needs is to get it in her head that she should be singin’ and dancin’ on a bar…” 

“Don’t worry, I said no,” she smiled. “But I think one of her friends at school is obsessed with it, not sure how else she’d know about it… Anyway. How about you pay me next week?” 

“Oh shit,” he said, going for his wallet. She laughed. 

“Seriously, don’t worry about it,” she said. “Not sure you’d remember paying me right now and I’m even less sure you can count.” 

“Thanks,” he said, grateful. “You drive safe, alright kiddo?” 

“Will do,” she laughed a little. “Night, Mr. Miller. And Mr. Miller’s… friend.” 

“Night!” You said, a little loud before clamping your hand over your mouth and laughing. Once the door was closed, you turned your attention back to him. “Ooooo you’re Mr. Miller now.” 

“Yeah, I’m gettin’ old,” he said, guiding you inside. “Here, I’m gonna put you to bed and then I’ll take the couch…” 

“You absolutely will not,” you snorted. “I’m… I can sleep on the couch, not… not letting you take the couch in your own house. ‘Specially not when you’re old enough to be Mr. Miller.” 

“Goldie…” 

“I will move and sleep on the floor.” 

He sighed and started moving you toward the couch. 

“You ever gonna be less stubborn?” 

“Nope,” you popped your lips on the p as he set you down. He got the blanket Julie had been asleep under and draped it over you as you snuggled into the couch. “Hey Joel?” 

“Hm?” 

“Who was that girl?” You asked, eyes already closed. “Why… why did you have a teenager in your house? This is your house, right?” 

“S’my house,” he said, tucking you in. “And don’t worry ‘bout it. Just go to sleep.” 

You yawned. 

“Thanks, Joel,” your voice was groggy. “For taking care of me. Missed you.” 

He stopped and looked back at you for a moment. 

“Missed you, too.” 

He went to bed, trying not to think of the last time you’d fallen asleep on him. 

***

The Morning After Prom

May, 2008 

The pink and orange of dawn woke you up. You were on Joel’s chest, his shirt unbuttoned so you could feel his skin on yours and your dress was still bunched around your waist from when Joel had slid the straps down your arms the night before. 

You enjoyed it for a moment. The feel of Joel’s skin, how his chest rose and fell with his breaths, how the early morning light caught in the curls that had broken free of the gel you were sure his mom had put in it the night before. He smelled good, like cologne - the kind that a man would wear, not the Axe shit that drenched the hallways of your school - and soap and a hint of sweat that just felt like the essence of him. You wanted to stay like this with him forever. Be this close, know him in this way. It felt right, it felt beyond just good. 

And then you remembered, you weren’t supposed to be here. 

“Joel,” you whispered, sitting up from him and shaking him gently but urgently. “Joel, wake up!” 

“Hm?” He mumbled, groggy, his eyes opening slowly. 

“We fell asleep,” you said, still whispering even though there was no one here to hear you. “We’re not supposed to be up here, we have to go!” 

“Shit,” he blinked the sleep from his eyes and looked you over and you were suddenly fiercely aware of how naked you were, how the light of day was creeping in and casting over your exposed skin. Joel reached out and cupped your cheek. “Sorry, didn’t mean to pass out…” 

“It’s OK,” you said quickly, clutching your dress over your naked breasts as you slid the straps back on. “But we should get home, we didn’t tell our moms that we were going to be out all night, I’m sure they’re pissed…” 

“It’s prom,” he said. “Think they expected it to be a late one. But… you’re right, we should get going.” 

Joel got up and offered you his hand, pulling you to your feet. It wasn’t until you moved your lower half that you realized how sore you were between your thighs, your skirt falling back down to your feet. Joel held your hand for a moment once you were standing and his skin felt hot against yours. You dropped his hand and cleared your throat awkwardly. 

“You should button your shirt,” you said quietly, nodding to his bare chest. “And… um… Zip up your pants.” 

“Oh,” he looked down. “Um… Right. Right.” 

He moved quickly as you looked over as much of your dress as you could see and Joel used the glass of the press box as a mirror to adjust his hair. 

“Do I look OK?” You asked when he was done, turning so he could see the whole dress. “Not like… not like we….” 

“There’s… um…” he cupped the back of his neck awkwardly. “I think we made a mess of the back of your dress, I didn’t think… should have moved it, I guess…” 

“Shit,” you twisted, trying to spot it. “Do you think…” 

“Just don’t turn your back to your mom,” he said quickly. “Should… should be OK.” 

“Right,” you said. “Yeah, that’s… right. OK.” 

Joel led the way to his car and the two of you sat in silence on the ride home. You kept glancing at him out of the corner of your eye, his elbow propped on the door of the car, hand on his mouth, his face drawn. 

What were you supposed to do now? You’d never done… this. You’d never been in this position and now you were here with Joel, the person who was your best friend, the person you knew better than anyone else in the world, the person that everything had felt so right with it had been impossible to stop. 

But what did you do now? 

He stopped in your drive way and sat there, staring straight ahead. 

“Thank you,” you said. He looked at you, his eyes a little wide. “For taking me to prom, I mean. It was… I had… It was good. I liked it. It was good.” 

“Yeah,” he nodded after a moment. “Yeah, I’m glad I… got to go with you. To prom.” 

“Right.” 

You looked at him. You wanted to kiss him. Wanted him to hold onto you and tell you that everything was going to be OK and that you were going to figure this out and it would be you and him together just like it always had been. 

Instead, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. 

“I’ve got church this morning,” he said. “And then we’re goin’ to help my grandma in the afternoon so I don’t think I can see you until tomorrow…” 

“I’ve got that doctor’s appointment in the morning,” you said. “So… I guess I’ll just… I’ll see you at school?” 

“Right,” he said. “Yeah, right. I’ll… I’ll see you at school.” 

You smiled tightly at him and leaned in slowly to kiss him on the cheek, hoping that he would turn his head and press his lips to yours the way he had the night before. 

He didn’t. 

“Thanks, Joel.” 

“Yeah.” 

You went inside and got undressed in your bathroom, looking at the stain on your dress, hoping you’d be able to get the stain of your blood and his come out before your mother noticed and it ruined anything else.

Next Chapter

A/N: Eeeeeeee! I'm so excited now that this story is properly going!

I hope you enjoy exploring Joel and Goldie with me. I really love their friendship and the way they care for each other and I think there's so much to explore with the both of them.

I do have an updates blog. Follow it here and subscribe for alerts when I post.

Thank you for being here! It really does mean so much to me to share this story with you. Love you!!

[catboybiologist]

In the quiet, unassuming town of Willowbrook, lived a young man named Sierro. Online, he was known as "catboybiologist," a name that had earned him a modest following on Tumblr for his unapologetically explicit artwork and commentary. Sierro was a marine biologist by day and an artist by night, channeling his creative energy into works that challenged societal norms and celebrated queer identity.

Despite his bold online persona, Sierro was introverted and often felt misunderstood by those around him. His Tumblr blog was his sanctuary, a place where he could express himself without fear of judgment. His followers adored him, and he found a sense of belonging in the online community that he had never felt in the real world.

One evening, after posting a particularly provocative piece, Sierro received a message from an anonymous follower. The message was unusually aggressive, accusing him of corrupting young minds and spreading harmful content. Used to trolls, Sierro dismissed the message and moved on. However, the messages kept coming, each more threatening than the last.

Sierro's friends urged him to report the harassment, but he shrugged it off, not wanting to escalate the situation. "It's just some internet troll," he told them. "They'll get bored eventually."

But the threats didn't stop. One night, after a long day at work and an intense drawing session, Sierro decided to take a walk to clear his mind. The air was crisp, and the streets were empty, casting an eerie silence over the town. Lost in thought, he wandered further than he intended, finding himself in an unfamiliar part of Willowbrook.

Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him. Turning around, he saw a shadowy figure lurking in the darkness. His heart raced, and he quickened his pace, but the figure matched his speed. Panic set in, and Sierro broke into a run, his breaths coming in ragged gasps.

He darted into an alley, hoping to lose his pursuer, but it was a dead end. Trapped and out of breath, Sierro turned to face the figure. In the dim light, he could make out a mask covering the stranger's face. The figure approached slowly, a menacing aura emanating from him.

"You think you can corrupt our society without consequences?" the masked figure hissed. "Your filth has no place in this world."

Sierro backed away, his mind racing for a way out, but there was none. The figure lunged at him, and Sierro felt a sharp pain as a knife plunged into his side. He screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the empty streets.

The attack was brutal and relentless. Each stab was filled with a hatred that Sierro couldn't comprehend. His vision blurred, and the world around him faded as he collapsed to the ground, blood pooling beneath him.

As his life ebbed away, Sierro's last thoughts were of his online sanctuary, the community that had accepted him for who he was. His art, his voice, silenced by the cruelty of the real world.

The next morning, the residents of Willowbrook were shocked to find the lifeless body of the young artist. The police investigation revealed little about the attacker, who had vanished without a trace. The news of Sierro's death spread quickly, and his online followers mourned the loss of "catboybiologist," a vibrant and courageous voice silenced too soon.

In the aftermath, his friends and followers rallied to honor his memory, sharing his artwork and stories, ensuring that his legacy would live on. Yet, the senseless brutality of his death remained a haunting reminder of the dark undercurrents that could surface in the most unexpected places.

Honestly the most insulting part about this is calling me an artist

Its insulting to actual artists

[veryace-ficrecs]

Tim Joins the BatFam Early Fic Recs

This list will include all ratings and tags, so read at your own discretion! :)

the butler's neighbor by deargalileo - Rated G

it starts with a baseball, thrown onto the wayne's property. it's alfred's job to deal with such happenings, of course. but over tea and galas, it turns into so much more.

after all, why should bruce be the only one allowed to adopt any child that he finds?

the capillaries in my eyes are bursting by Scarlet_Ribbons - Rated T

Bruce grunts, standing up. “Jenkins said the same. What about what you weren’t told?” And without dissembling, Jason says, “I think they fucked that kid up, B.” [Jack and Janet die. As things get weirder and weirder, it feels like Tim might be at the center of the unfolding conspiracy.]

An (almost) Foolproof Lie by HiddenDreamer67 - Rated T

“No, they don’t leave me totally alone.” Tim hurriedly explained. “My neighbor Bruce Wayne looks after me.” Batman stared at him for a long while. “Bruce Wayne.” He parroted slowly. (A young Tim Drake gets kidnapped by Falcone. When Batman rescues him, Tim tells Batman that Bruce Wayne is his temporary guardian. Oddly enough, Batman isn’t fooled by this perfect cover story.)

Anton Syndrome by Anonymous - Rated M

Tim's parents have been away for six months and counting—the longest he's ever been left alone at one time—and it's starting to have some unpleasant side effects. Luckily, he has a solution. OR, the one where Tim attempts prostitution to cure his touch starvation. His plan goes wrong pretty much from step one, but it all works out for the better.

I'll Stand By You by TaraLaurel - Rated T

"I'm not going to ask you why you're out here, kid," Jason nods. "That's your business and you don't know me or Dick to trust us." Not true. Tim trusts Jason Todd and Dick Grayson with his life. Just not with, the other stuff. "But," Jason continues, "if you want to tell me what got you here, or you just want to talk about anything, you can, with me. Dick too. He's an annoying ray of sunshine that won't ever shut up most of the time, but he is actually a good listener. I'd know." OR When Tim's parents find out Tim's secret, they kick him out. Now, on Thanksgiving, Tim is living on the streets and is thankful for the two strangers currently saving him from getting his face pounded into the pavement. Wait...those aren't strangers...

Just a Typical Monday Morning by Writer_loves_tropes - Rated T

There are three things in life that Timothy Drake knows for sure. One, Tim is the greatest retro Guitar Hero player in the world (even if the wonderful people at the Guinness Book of World Records won’t rightfully acknowledge this fact). Two, Tim is allergic to walnuts. He’s convinced his parents that he’s allergic to spinach too because he hates it. He’s pretty sure when his parents find out, they’re going to make him eat spinach casserole for dinner for a whole week as punishment. And the third thing Tim knows for sure? He’s sure that on this typical Monday morning, the entire Gotham High School thinks Timothy Jackson Drake is Robin, Batman’s vigilante sidekick. A random locker check and the real Robin stashing his suit in Tim’s locker is all it took to turn Tim’s typical Monday morning into one of the craziest Mondays of his life.

Brother Wanted by Vamillepudding - Rated G

Well-behaved boy (10) is looking for big brother (11-15). Must meet up with me three times a week, for at least two hours each. Overall duties include helping me with homework, playing videogames with me, and showing me how to play catch. 10$ per hour. Tim, lonely and in desperate need of company, decides that if his parents are not going to give him a sibling, he's going to hire one instead. Luckily, Jason Todd-Wayne shows up in the nick of time.

Holy security breach, Batman! by destiny919 - Rated G

Janet finally shoos him away towards the hors d'oeuvres or drinks table with the tacit understanding that she doesn't want to see him again until the end of the gala. And probably not even then, it wouldn't be the first time the Drakes forgot to take him home with them and Tim had to discreetly call an Uber before the host noticed and made Tim embarrass his parents. For this gala, however, he almost hopes they forget him again, because tonight Tim has a plan. They're at Wayne Manor, and Tim is going to find the Batcave.

wrong number by adelfie - Rated G

There’s a few rings, then the phone picks up. “Wayne Residence.” That’s funny, Tim thinks, Mrs. Mac doesn’t sound like herself. -- On a hot July evening while home alone, eight-year-old Tim gets a fever. He means to ask Mrs. Mac for help — but ends up accidentally calling Alfred Pennyworth. Somehow, even in sickness, he wins all the hearts of the Wayne family in one fell swoop.

assaulting existence with improbability by destiny919 - Rated T

"Where's Batman?" the kid demands. "We need to show him." Jason decides to go with the easy question. "Show him what?" The kid gives him an incredulous look. "Proof you didn't kill Garzonas, what else?"

5 Times Tim Spends the Night at Wayne Manor + 1 Time He Comes Home by motleyfam - Rated T

Tim is good at galas.

No, scratch that—Tim is great at galas. He’s been attending them ever since the age of three, when his parents first stuffed him into his little Gymboree tuxedo and gave him a stern lecture about ‘sitting quietly’ and ‘speaking when spoken to.’ He knows all the rules: what to wear, how to stand, when to smile, what to say, what not to say. He knows how to come across as polite and intelligent and charming, and on absolutely any other day, he would be rocking this.

[acourtofkindness]

Thank you for sending in all the stories, here you can find the collection! Some of these are one-shots, some are longer stories, just click your way through them and also check out their other fics!

Dear Lucien, Dear Elain: An Epistolary Fic

by @zenkindoflove and @crazy-ache After the winter solstice in ACOSF, Elain and Lucien exchange letters as a means to get to know each other away from prying eyes. This fic is a collection of those letters.

Summer Heat

by @zenkindoflove Summer Court is hosting the Summer Solstice Summit and the Night Court is sending their best emissaries to attend. It will be Elain's first time mingling in another court, and it's a good thing she has an expert guiding her: the mate she's been ignoring for the last two years. Meanwhile, Eris has been sent to the summit to spy on Summer's developments. What he doesn't anticipate is entangling in a steamy, forbidden romance.

playgirl

by @damedechance Under the anonymous screen name witch_hazel, Elain Archeron has been moderating the chatroom of rising OnlyFans creator, swiper-no-swiping (Lucien) for a little less than a year. When he comes to Velaris from out of town, they agree to meet up, and the unspoken attraction between them reaches a boiling point.

Separate My Body From My Soul

by @crazy-ache from the fic summary: When Lucien Vanserra is held captive by his father in the cruel depths of Autumn, there is only one force more powerful than politics that can save him—his mating bond with Elain Archeron. She must make the choice to save him, even if it means binding their souls forever.

Realizations, Finally

@trappedoutside124 (ao3) The meeting of the High Lords in Adriata means that Elain will be face-to-face with her mate for the first time in months. Despite herself, she can't help but wonder where he goes each evening when he leaves the castle with Vassa and Jurian. So, she decides to find out.

The Dance of Day

by @wyse-ink (ao3) It's not the first time Elain thinks she could get used to the perks of the Day Court, even if she can't get her mate out of her mind.

The Things that Go Bump in the Night

by @fieldofdaisiies At breakfast Elain and Lucien’s daughter has some questions about the things she heard the previous night, a little afraid her parents were fighting, and of course Nesta and Cassian are present, making it even more uncomfortable; this is inspired by a scene from bad moms 3

Our Hearts Still Beat the Same

by @zenkindoflove "She stood on the bridge for a few minutes, hoping that the rain might wash away the seething anger and bottomless anguish that crackled under her skin. More, more, more, repeated again and again to a steady beat. His heart beat." Elucien, Two-shot, Post-ACOSF. Part One is Cozy Tension. Part Two is all smut.

They Say I Did Something Bad

by @separatist-apologist Elain Archeron's fiance is a total stranger to her, though his family's reputation for cruelty and avarice is not. Dreading a lifetime with a cruel, cold man, Elain decides to have one last night of freedom. Attending an infamous masquerade ball, Elain meets a stranger who offers to show her pleasure beyond her wildest dreams. It's just one night of debauchery. What could possibly go wrong?

Emissaries With Benefits

by @velidewritesWhen diplomacy fails, Prythian courtiers Elain and Lucien like to resort to a steamier kind of negotiation.

I Know Places We Won't Be Found

by @separatist-apologistapologist They'll be chasing their tails trying to track us down Elain Archeron and Lucien Vanserra are two sides to the same coin, not that they'd ever know it. After nearly four years of ignoring each other, the mating bond between them, and their trauma, Lucien has had enough. While Lucien is ready for resolution, Elain is still trying to figure out who she is now that she's not human, and unravel her cauldron-blessed powers which seem to intensify with each passing year. When an accidental street fire prompts Elain to call Lucien for help, Lucien decides to take Elain from the Night Court entirely, effectively kidnapping her. Tucked away in the Spring Court, far from prying eyes, Elain will have to reconcile who she was as a human with who she is as a Fae, and decide if the man she's mated to is who she wants to spend the rest of her immortal life with.

I Like You

by @fieldofdaisiies Elain decides that she is ready to make a move towards Lucien. And yes, it is a bit sad.

All You Have Is Your Fire

by @clockwork_ashes (on ao3) 'I can hear your heart beating through the stone.' For the briefest of moments, Lucien wondered if his mate would know exactly when his heart’s steady rhythm came to a sudden stop. Elain goes to the Autumn Court demanding an audience with the High Lord to save the mate she can barely stand to be in the same room with. She ends up having to stay much longer than she bargained for.

Tales of the Fox & the Fawn

by @lucienarcheron A series of short snippets to fill my Elucien heart <3

Heading Straight to You

by @lucienarcheron Inspired by a tumblr post I've also linked below: "I need elain to have her anthony bridgerton moment where lucien asks if she wants him to sever the bond and leave & she goes “do you think there’s a corner on this earth that you could travel to far enough to free me from this torment? you are the bane of my existence. and the object of all my desires." So I decided to give elucien their own bridgerton moment :) Enjoy!

This Time, I'm Ready

by @lucienarcheron Inspired by Long Story Short by TS. I was listening to it randomly and a scene of Elain started playing out in my head. Recommend listening to it while reading :)

Throw Me To The Flames

by @separatist-apologist Elain only ever meant to deliver a message to Vassa on behalf of her sister's court. She never intended to see Lucien. And she CERTAINLY didn't mean to get in the way of a knife that was only ever meant for his chest. Kidnapped, and dragged helpless to the continent, the two will have to work together if they want to survive.

The Last Of The Real Ones

by @separatist-apologist I'm here in search of your glory, there's been a million before me; that ultra kind of love you never walk away from. Elain Archeron finds fate to be cruel when her youngest sister, Feyre, cuts down a wolf one frozen, winter night and a beastly Faerie Lord named Tamlin demands retribution in the form of her life for the Fae lost. Elain is dragged into Prythian and eternal Spring where a mysterious blight has made magic more dangerous than ever. Navigating eternal Spring is made more difficult by Tamlin's infuriating emissary Lucien Vanserra and his sharp tongue. As the blight spins out of control, Elain will have to decide how far she's willing to go to keep her new home safe. ACoTaR re-write; just come inside.

Sounds of Summer

by @animezinglife Time seems to move more slowly in the Summer Court, and Lucien and Elain take in every second. A short scene of the two in Summer.

Never Not Mine

by @separatist-apologist Elain Archeron has been betrothed to the seventh born son of Autumn for as long as she can remember. With her family's reputation in the balance, Elain is resigned to her fate. That doesn't mean she has to like it...or that she has to make it easy for him.