#there's too much anime on this list lol

[non-un-topo]

Tagged by @laviejaguardia. Thank you, Lina! <3

last song: Genesis by Otyken

currently reading: The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

last film: The Boy and the Heron (amazing!!)

currently watching: Berserk (1997)

currently craving: Something salty and some wine, but I can't drink wine anymore or it'll give me tummy hurty

currently consuming: Nothing, but I just had dumplings

three ships: Joe/Nicky, Andy/Quynh, Guts/Casca

first ship: Beast Boy/Raven, I think

favourite colour: Green

currently working on: A Quynh-centric fic I impulsively started writing yesterday. Hoping to finish it very soon because it's just a little thing. And school readings. Oh, so many school readings.

Tagging @spacegirlsgang @the73rdpostscript @polarcell @captainshakespear @maddielle

Apologies if you've been double tagged!

[elegyofthemoon]

reading springfest now after everything in nagazora is making me crave more fu hua and mei interactions. i feel like thus far in my go through, i've never actually seen them interact, but it's kinda fun that the person who made the recommended reading order put springfest after nagazora (though of course this is probably in preparation for whatevers going on with senti/fu hua rn in ch 19)

but the way that the empyrea isolates herself so she doesn't have any attachment to those who she will outlive and how she winds up becoming lonely as a result threw me back to mei isolating herself in world serpent so that she can protect kiana and just... idk..... i think the two talk about that isolation would be interesting

also. i love fu hua. she's still at the top of my list for best character so i'm just a happy little guy getting more fu hua content now in the story :> yippee fu hua

[pyromaniac-cyndaquil]

Hello! I've been trying out your new mod (It's amazing, btw! Thank you for answering my dreams!). I haven't played too far yet. But I did want to point out something about Cubone! (I do not know if this applies to the other R&B og partners) but it is missing a few portraits, specifically ones EoS has that R&B didn't. It either replaces or doesn't use one. Which isn't awful, but I thought you should know!

Thank you, glad you're enjoying it!!!! :D

But hmm - yeah if by that you mean portrait types eos has that rescue didn't, it's likely chunsoft didn't bother making those extra assets for cubone due to it not having the need for those emotes in normal gameplay. It's possible that someone who contributes to the pmd sprite repository might've made some though, so I could check that out at some point.

Probably a good opportunity to point this out too - certain newer pokémon have VERY few portraits as of now - the ones I've noticed in particular are the paldea starters, but there's probably a few more. Anyone picking those should probably stay prepared for that!

[lavenderslug]

I GOT TO FEED AND PET CAPYBARAS TODAY 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[snazzyturtles]

@ followers (or whoever wants to help out) - pick the next anime i watch!

i suck at making decisions for myself, so i decided to make a list of shows i haven’t seen yet but want to- ones i’ve seen a lot online, recommendations from friends, etc. listed in no particular order of significance, i just add them as i hear about them (list below cut)

write in the comments which one you think i should watch next! or if one isn’t listed but you think i should check it out, say that too! helps a lot bc i’m so indecisive to the point that it hurts lol

list ⬇️⬇️⬇️

[vixvaporub]

help how do I stop procrastinating and watch/read every anime/manga I've been wanting to watch 😔

One step at a time lol and focus on whatever is catching your attention atm that's all I can really give for advice

[sanchoyo]

general lil life update!! trying to refill my queue the past 2 or 3 days so it actually seems like I'm Online, despite still kinda bein on an Internet Hiatus in general lately. but! I felt very productive today out of nowhere and was able to clean, journal, work out and cook a bit after like 2 weeks of not being able to do much bc Sick (which, I need to go to the dr about, but have been piddling on for a few reasons...) so that random burst of energy felt super nice! also its rainy out so that def is a mood booster. my dog and I sat on the porch and just enjoyed the rain together this morning and that was super sweet 🥺 I just took him and my journal and a blanket and we cuddled and I wrote down a couple recipes and stuff <3 I ended up starting a new journal thats different from my regular one that I treat as a diary and. I realize carrying 3-4 notebooks everywhere is EXCESSIVE probably, but also, it's SO FUN. I'm really grateful to be able to have journaling as my low-effort creative outlet lately while I haven't been able to draw or write much ;w;

hope u guys are doin okay too!

[transurgender]

i keep seeing bombass trigun fanart and now i wanna watch it...

[kcrossvine-art]

Hi fellow adventurers!! A few weeks ago i caught wind of "Delicious in Dungeon". I'm not really an anime person, but I am a TTRPG, CRPG, and cooking person- . And holy shit. It is so good i  convinced my partner to binge read the whole thing. I'm caught up on dungeon meshi, the anime, and just yesterday i also finished dungeon meshi, the manga.

Its rare to come across a serialized story that is so thematically cohesive and knows its characters so well. All of the bonus content like the artbooks and monster tidbits are just the icing on top.

So, inspired by Ryōko Kui's writing and illustration I'm going to attempt to create a recipe for every single Delicious in Dungeon recipe!-

Today that means Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom hotpot is on the menu!

(As always you can find the cooking instructions and full ingredient list under the break-)

MY NAMES CROSS NOW LETS COOK LIKE ANIMALS

SO, “what goes in to a Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom hotpot?” YOU MIGHT ASKThis is one of the pricier dishes until we get to the kelpies and dragons of the menu-

Rock lobster tail

Porcini mushrooms

Shiitake mushrooms

Snow fungus

Small potatos

Fensi (glass noodles)

Water

OPTIONAL: your choice of dipping sauces

There was a crossover/promotional event in Shibuya which featured various realworld dishes from the series. They had one for Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom, but they used prawns.  while those cook better in a hotpot, they also didn't look enough like the scorpion for me, they also used udon noodles for the slime and a seaweed/kale(?) mixture for the algae. If you're looking for substitutes due to price or availability i would start with those ingredients.

AND, “what does a Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom hotpot taste like?” YOU MIGHT ASKI hope Senshi would forgive me for technically cooking the lobster outside the pot, once he tastes it.

Okay im always partial to veggies but wowowowowowowoowowowow the snow fungus and the mushrooms tasted soooooooooooo good in the lobster stock

A nice delicate layering of different flavors

Try to get a bite with the lobster meat and shiitake together, dip in butter then chili- trust me

Its up to you what texture you prefer if you want to put the noodles in at the end or put them in halfway through the meal. Either way dont go for eating those first as theyre very filling

I think this would pair well with a citrus drink, something light and clarifying

This would also pair well with being extremely high and hungry (if you feel safe cooking while inebriated lol) very calorically dense

For the trial run I did one lobster tail in the pot with everything else, and one lobster tail off to the side to be picked apart. The former is more in spirit with a hotpot, but it got rubbery as the meal went on and lost its nice taste. The latter may be a bit more work but all you have to do still is boil it and set it aside. I found it held up much better. It was also easier to get inside the shell.

. If you have hardshell maine lobster available, i think it would be superior to rock lobster (keep in mind crustaceans will get rubbery if cooked too long in the pot) . Green onions and/or lotus root would make excellent additions

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

From getting the ingredients out to sitting down and eating, id say it took maybe 30 minutes max? It'd vary on how fast you can prep vegetables and get the various implements heated.

Hotpots are not something i do very often as i'm usually just feeding myself. I think thats why a hotpot makes perfect sense to start the series off. If you want to set the tone of "take care of yourself, eat food with others, and use what you have" (generally speaking) there is nothing more simplistic, flexible, and defeats-the-purpose-if-you-eat-it-alone than a hotpot. Gather around and let your friends bring ingredients to the pot if you want to fill your heart up extra full <3

I'm doing something different here because unlike previous recipes where i used a bunch of different sources and made my own recipe out of hodge-podging it, or just used another persons recipe entirely if they did it really well, i made this more whole-cloth based off of what i had available, what I could discover through research, and my existing knowledge. Instead of the recipe being 50/50 original, this one is more 20/80. So. I'll pass the final verdict off to you guys :D 

What would you rate this recipe out of 10? (with 1 being food that makes one physically sick and 10 being food that gives one a lust for life again.) Did you love it, did you hate it? What're your thoughts on what I could do different, and what would you have done instead?

🐁 ORIGINAL RESIPPY TEXT BELOW 🐁

Ingredients:

2 Rock lobster tails

3 Porcini mushrooms

2 Shiitake mushrooms

Snow fungus (a good handful, should rehydrate in the hotpot)

2 Small waxy potatos

Fensi (glass noodles)

Water/lobster stock

Method:

Lightly rinse all of your vegetables beforehand and let them dry.

Vertically slice the porcini mushrooms. Cut off and dice the stems of the shiitake mushrooms. You can slice the tops if youd like.

Peel and cube the potatoes, roughly an inch each.

For the lobster tails; Boil a pot of salted water. Keep the shell on. Weigh the largest tail and add 1 minute of cooking time for every ounce of weight.

When done, strain the lobster from the water. Pour the water into your hotpot as the base. Serve the lobster on the side so people can pick the meat out to dip into the hotpot.

Bring the hotpot to a simmer. Add the potato cubes, snow fungus, mushrooms, and noodles.

OPTIONAL: this wasnt in the show, but its fun having sauces on the side :) i had oyster sauce, dry seasoned chili dip, melted butter, and soy sauce available

[peachypinkygloss]

call me soon — jjk

Jungkook finds himself obsessing over you a bit too much than he'd like to admit, but you two get a chance to see more of each other during a hot summer night where you both are lonely, desperate and horny.

☾ pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

☾ genre: strangers to fwb to lovers, summer break au, university au, smut

☾ word count: 5.9k

☾ warnings: alcohol consumption, mention of driving under the influence of alcohol (jk had one beer okay 🙄 no car crash lol), hello tae and oh — jimin?, hurt and comfort 🧐, mentions of masturbation (m), dry humping, clit stimulation, tits play, praising, unprotected sex & oral sex, blowjob, cum eating, cum play, multiple orgasms, brief overstimulation.

a.n.: i tried something and i think i like it 😼 put y'all seatbelts on because this is the best smut i've ever written 🫡 *no taglist!!

Jungkook knits his eyebrows together, deeply lost in his thoughts. At this point, the music blasting through the house doesn't make his body shake anymore, it doesn't make his heart beat faster nor does it make adrenaline rush through his veins.

He feels the vibrations under his feet, though. It's intense, but not enough to distract him. The pad of his index finger mindlessly circles the neck of the beer bottle he's holding, his other hand shoved in the pocket of his baggy jeans.

His friend's elbow sometimes nudges him in the ribs because of how animated he is when talking, but he doesn't make Jungkook turn his head nonetheless. He hears him laugh and curse while he looks away, gaze lost in the crowd of people, eyes shifting between all the faces without a thought about them.

He's too busy thinking about yesterday, that cursed night where he just wanted to fill up his gas tank and unluckily fell upon you at the gas station.

He thinks he never looked at his phone so many times in a day before, never thought a stupid call would turn him crazy, obsessively scrolling through his contact list to find your name.

Every time the day ended, he worried that maybe you had deleted his number, but your name has always been there. A part of him hoped you would have deleted him from your phone. It would have explained why you never called and then perhaps he would have felt less crazy.

But no. You just didn't bother pressing on his name and sticking your cellphone to your ear, waiting for him to pick up as you listened to his ringtone.

And that's quite a bit worse than being erased from your contact list because that means you just didn't think about him. Not once were your thoughts about Jungkook.

He could be wrong, but he prefers to torture himself.

Anyway, it's not like you were much bothered by the fact that you totally ghosted him back at the convenience store. 'I forgot', how horrible that sounds?

But then, all he wanted to do at this moment was to forgive you, tell you that it doesn't matter, that he doesn't really care, that it's no biggie. He can't blame you and that's so fucking stupid because all he did was eat you out.

Yet he finds himself thinking about you more than he'd like to. He even jerked himself off to you, playing back in his head the moment you were whimpering his name and pulling on his hair, clenching your thighs around him. He's not super proud of that — kind of cringes him a little bit when he thinks about it — but he got really hard imagining your pussy leaking down his knuckles.

You were a good hook-up and yes, he thought it could happen again. He hoped you two would do it a second time, maybe a third — how many you'd like to.

He likes sex and his obsession for you started because of that, but he would lie if he said hanging out with you like friends doesn't sound good to him. It sounds so fucking... nice.

In the end, he knows you two as friends wouldn't work. He works for your dad to pay his scholarship that is incredibly expensive even for a public university.

You, you don't need that. You don't need to work, don't have to lift a finger. You're treated like a princess — have the life of a princess — and you might even think of yourself as a princess too. Fuck him for liking it. Fuck him for fantasizing about possibly being your knight.

"This party fucking sucks."

Jungkook's eyes finally focus on something else than the void, laying on his best friend Taehyung. He doesn't know where he comes from, he only remembers him leaving the kitchen area when everyone was in the depth of a conversation.

"Why's that?" He asks instead of agreeing, knowing he can't really complain when he hasn't been in the mood to party at all.

Taehyung leans his back against the counter beside Jungkook, taking a sip of his soon empty beer bottle. "It just fucking sucks," he shrugs, a scowl on his face as if it's a justifiable reason. It might be because Taehyung's not so difficult to entertain.

It might be because of something else, Jungkook believes, though he doesn't have the heart to ask. He'll do it another time when he won't smell like rejection and when his head won't be filled with a woman's giggles who's out of his league.

So he only hums in agreement, silence installing between him and Taehyung.

A couple of minutes pass, Taehyung has opened another bottle and Jungkook is still quiet. Usually, he doesn't mind slipping in conversations, sharing his own perspective of things. He rarely says no to games, bringing his competitive ass over and crushing everyone's chances of winning.

Today isn't usual, that's why it fucking sucks.

"I'm gonna go get some fresh air," Jungkook says to Taehyung and this one nods.

"I'll probably head home soon anyway."

"Be sure to take an Uber."

"Of course, you know me," he chuckles, waving Jungkook goodbye.

His friend does the same, a slight smile painted on his face as he walks to the front door, opening it and stepping out of the house.

His eyes get used to the darkness as he closes the door behind him. He notices someone sitting on the stairs, typing quickly on the keyboard of their cellphone. He approaches the figure, hearing them sniffing as if they've been crying.

They suddenly drop their phone, muttering a 'fuck' as the device lays on the ground. Jungkook decides to go reach for it so he walks down the stairs and bends to catch it, turning around to hand it to the owner.

"Here." He looks at the person's face and his heart jumps in his chest when he recognizes you. He doesn't know where to look for a second, his eyes shifting down to the screen of your phone.

He catches a glimpse of a conversation with a certain 'Jimin' and immediately looks away, feeling guilty for not minding his business.

You thank him in a tired voice, taking back your iPhone. He stands there uselessly as you seemingly give up on your previous message, turning off your phone's screen with a defeated sigh.

"Is everything okay?" He asks, taking a seat beside you on the stairs.

As you wipe your tears away with the tips of your fingers, he wonders who could have hurt a princess like you. Princesses shouldn't cry. They should be covered in diamonds, not have pearls falling down from their eyes.

He wouldn't have let something like this happen as your knight. He knows for a fact that he would have protected you, and he thinks that whomever is pretending to be your knight right now is doing a really bad job.

"Yeah, I just... shouldn't be here," you respond with a shaky voice, eyes strained down on your feet.

"Where else should you be?"

You turn your head toward him, looking at him like a poor hurt puppy. He doesn't want to compare you to something so defenceless as a puppy, but that's what your eyes tell him. It's not like you're weak, it's more like you've given up on being strong.

"I don't know," you scoff, shaking your head. "Somewhere I belong."

Jungkook thinks he understands what you mean by that. He thinks, but he doesn't know if he really does. It's complicated to relate to someone who's so different from you.

But he wants to try. Relating to someone is not mandatory to be friends, anyway. Nor is it to be in love.

He hums, leaning his forearms on his knees and looking in front of him, watching the night butterflies flying under the dim lights of the street lamps. "Wanna get home?" He proposes, thinking that's maybe where you want to be right now. "I can give you a ride."

Your reddened eyes look up at him and he looks back at you. "No, not home..." You mutter, shaking your head from side to side. "Tomorrow will come too fast," you sigh and break eye-contact, tapping on the screen of your phone to check what hour it is. One a.m..

Is it a coincidence that every time you two are alone the clock indicates one? Should he believe in coincidences or only in the ones that concern you?

"We're already tomorrow," you groan.

Jungkook smiles — he can't help it. "You can't stop the time, baby" he laughs lightly, still staring at you, at your side profile. A blessing to the eyes, a downfall to his heart. "It won't wait for your call to finally start."

You scoff again, this time because you know what he's referring to. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm just bad at relationships... or whatever this is," you apologize, certainly coming out a bit blunter than intended. Blame it on the alcohol in your system.

"It's already forgotten." It isn't, but it may be forgiven. He'll surely have this one on his heart for quite a while, though it won't make him stay away from you. It possibly can't.

You send him a sad smile, having pity for him — or maybe for you — he doesn't know.

"Wanna come to mine, then?" He offers, sporting an innocent smile on his face even though he has no intentions of sharing a cup of tea with you there. Unless that's what you want.

"Where do you live?" You ask, a bit tempted by the proposition. And anyway, you need a place to sleep.

"Downtown," Jungkook replies. "We'll be there in five minutes if we go now," he smirks, trying his hardest to convince you.

It never takes too much to convince you.

"'Kay, let's go," you smile back, biting down on your lip.

·˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ♡

When you entered his apartment, you didn't really pay attention to the decoration, you were rather more bothered by his lips on yours. The moment you stepped foot into his place, his lips were already searching for yours and you didn't refuse him.

So now he's hurriedly leading you to his bedroom, messily kissing you and roaming his hands over the curves of your body. His fingers sometimes get caught under the hem of your dress, making the flimsy material roll up over your plushy thighs.

There's no time to think, no time to ask questions. There's only a need to discover and devour your skin, only a huge desire to finally touch what he hopes will be his one day.

"Oh, be careful," he mumbles against your lips, stopping you from entering his room, his arms wrapped around your waist. "There's a step."

He swiftly lifts you up, his hands placed on the back of your thighs. He can't help but knead them, sinking his fingers into the meaty flesh.

He walks in, making you avoid all the annoying steps to his bed, the covers carelessly thrown everywhere from this morning when he got up. You continue to kiss him, your nails gracing the side of his face as you cradle him in your hands.

Soon enough he lets your back hit the soft surface of his mattress, a soft gasp escaping your lips while he crawls to you, his lips never far away from your hungry ones. He nudges your nose, attempting to connect your mouths together. He does it again and you let him have you, exchanging your saliva like it’s a sweet nectar, him a bee and you a sunflower.

Your hands on his cheeks lower to his neck where you pull on his nair, nails scratching his skin. He groans into the kiss, palming your ass very roughly, fingers sneaking under the hem of your dress.

He has the slight impression that not only your tongues are tangled, but also your souls. Bodies colliding, clashing against each other at the pace of your heartbeat. 

His knees dip into the bed on each side of your body, his arms supporting his weight beside your head. He bucks his hips against yours as you quietly moan into his mouth, feeling his growing bulge pressing down on you.

Blood rushes to his cock so fast, it's like his own brain is begging for him to just fuck you. No protection, fucking raw. Make it messy, make it unforgettable, make it so every time you're with a guy other than Jungkook you regret him.

But he takes his time. That's how he learned it; time is what a woman needs, not a prick who wants his dick wet and to get it from behind. As if doggy is a position that can make her cum.

"Fuck, I'm so..." Jungkook breathes out, his forehead laying against yours. His eyelids flutter shut as he swallows to ease his dried throat, opening his eyes again when he begins to speak. "I'm so fucking hard."

"I know," you whisper, glancing down where he grinds his bulge against your clothed pussy. "I feel it."

He groans at that and moves his hips against yours with more insistence, the material of his jeans rubbing against the soft cotton of your panties. You moan at how good it feels to have his hard cock pressing down on your clit, your hands coming down to push on his butt.

"Shit, baby," he hisses, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip. He frowns cutely and looks down too, deciding to raise one of your legs up, making more room for himself. "Do you like that?" He asks, continuing to hump you as if you were both deprived horny teenagers — and he won't lie, he may still act like one sometimes.

He notices a wet patch on your panties just over your core, the area has darkened where your pussy gushes arousal out. "Oh, god- yes, Kook," you moan out, the new position creating more friction.

He almost whines at the nickname, his dick literally twitching happily in his boxers. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, feeling the pace of his heart accelerating, his breath becoming irregular.

He holds your thigh up and he loves how plushy it is, how your skin looks so tender. He'd bite into it, just chew onto it to have a little taste of you.

"You smell so sweet," he states, his hot breath hitting your skin, making goosebumps run all over your skin. He kisses your neck, soft and warm, leaving a wet trail behind.

He rolls his hips against you, his erection now aching, wanting to be inside of you, but he can't seem to think about anything else than your quiet moans gracing his ears and your odour invading his nostrils.

"Jungkook," you whine, scrunching his t-shirt between your fingers, pulling on it desperately as he keeps smooching the skin of your neck.

He understands your silent request and he swiftly gets rid of his t-shirt, throwing it somewhere on his bedroom's floor. Your hands immediately travel his abs and you feel his muscles flexing under your palms.

You then pass your arms around his shoulders, bringing his lips to yours. He moans into the kiss as he keeps rubbing his hard cock against your pussy, but your little pleas make it difficult for him to focus.

He sneaks a hand between your two bodies and you grip on his hair when he reaches your puffy clit, pulsating so hard for him. "Do you want me to touch you there?" He asks in a raspy voice, his big fingers teasing your sensitive bud, his touch familiar at this point. "Hm, princess? Want me to make you feel good?"

He always finds a way to tease you even when his jeans are really tight, his cock so swollen from your dry humping session from seconds ago.

"Yes, please," you breathe out shakily, a moan escaping your mouth when he starts to draw slow, sensual circles on your clit. "Fuck, Kook." You have your mouth agape, letting out sweet moans as his digit presses down on your bud, making the knot in your stomach tighten.

He lowers his fingers to your core, feeling how soaked your panties are. "All wet for me, baby?" He purrs and you nod your head, breathless. "Good girl," he praises, a little smirk crowning his pink lips.

You pull on the hair at the nape of his neck, closing your eyes as you enjoy the pleasure he's giving you. "Faster, please, Jungkook," you beg, his finger stroking your clit sending so many tingles through your body.

So he fastens the pace of his digit, rubbing quick circles on your bud of nerves and he absolutely loves the sight of you bucking your hips against his hand, growing impatient. Your nails sink into his skin, leaving little crescent forms all over his neck. He grits his teeth at the pain, but he'll suffer through it as long as it means you're feeling pleasure.

"Yes, yes," you moan, so close to your high, your mind getting fuzzy. He doesn't stop stimulating your clit, the pad of his finger skillfully circling it over your damp underwear. "I'm gonna cum," you hurriedly say, the muscles of your thighs tensing as soon as the words leave your mouth.

Your orgasm shoots through you and you grab Jungkook's wrist, but he keeps moving his finger to drive you off your high. You tense down, hearing your heart beating in your rib cage, chest heaving rapidly.

You flutter your eyes open and they meet Jungkook's gaze. You look into each other's eyes as you slowly calm down. His hand shifts to hold your waist and you bring him in for another kiss.

You don't wait longer before sliding your panties down your legs, raising your hips up from the mattress and letting the material fall on the ground. He breaks your kiss to see your pussy totally nude, glistening in your juices. He swears it's the sexiest he's ever seen before, so cute and always so fucking wet.

He has the urge to lower down and have a taste. He could never forget your flavour, but he'd pretend to so you let him eat you out for a second time.

Exactly when he's about to devour you, you push on his chest and switch positions with him. He lets you take the top, watching you remove your dress and reveal the most intimate parts of your body to him, naked.

"You're beautiful," he compliments, the most honest he's ever been. His eyes roam over your body, scanning your breasts and your perky nipples pointing at him.

You're a pretty woman, but he wonders if his heart beating faster is really the result of your beauty or perhaps the feelings he might have for you.

"So are you," you smile, giggling when Jungkook's still staring at you with hearts in his eyes.

He's brought back to reality when you place yourself on your stomach between his legs. "What... What are you doing?" He swallows, his big brown eyes settled on you.

"Returning the favour," you respond, passing your finger on his stomach just over the band of his Calvin Klein's that peeks out of his pants. "Would you like that, Kook?"

"Yeah," he mutters under his breath, watching closely the movements of your hands, slowly unbuttoning his jeans and pulling down the zipper. You undress him from his pair of jeans and socks, coming back up to his crotch after.

He parts his legs wider for you and you lay a hand over his bulge, feeling how hard he is just for you. "You're so big, Jungkook..." You say in astonishment, visibly really pleased with his girth.

You palm him over his boxers, closing your hand around him, imagining how it'd be without his underwear on.

"Hm-mh." Jungkook passes his fingers through your hair, making you look up at him. "Think you can handle it, baby?"

You squeeze your grip on him, which results in him hissing. He's really sensitive, especially when he's been sporting a boner for quite a while now.

Though nothing will compare to the time you left him just after he made you cum on his tongue. He sucked it up, but fuck, nobody told him before how complicated it was to drive with an erection. It's really distracting. Luckily, his work was done, so he could go straight home, but still.

He had to jack off in the shower, thinking about you and how your pussy would close around him so tightly.

"I'll try," you smile.

You pull down his boxers, leaving them just below his ass, and his cock springs up, the head slapping down on his stomach. He lets out a sigh of relief, finally free from his briefs.

You wrap your fingers around him, looking so small compared to his penis, and bring him up to your lips. His tip is glistening in his pre-cum and it twitches in your hand, just so happy to see you.

Jungkook hasn't shaved, he didn't expect any of this to happen after all. He hopes you don't mind, but you don't seem to, quite the contrary even.

You start to gently and slowly pump him, passing the pad of your thumb over the little slit, spreading his arousal over his length. You leave a kiss on the head and he wonders if you're not getting revenge for all the times he teased you.

You tilt your head to the side and kiss his length all the way up to finally open your mouth and insert the tip in. Jungkook curses under his breath, taking a handful of your hair in his fist, making your scalp itch.

You keep eye-contact with him as you lower down, gradually taking all of him in the warmth of your mouth. "Fuck, your mouth feels so good around me," he moans, looking at you with lustful eyes. He can't take his eyes off of you, he's literally hypnotized by the way your lips slide so smoothly over his hard cock.

You hum, the sound a bit muffled by his dick in your mouth. Tears start to form in your eyes, throat burning as you get used to his size and the stretch of your mouth.

When you've reached his base, nose touching his pelvis, you gag around him, but manage to make the feeling go away. Jungkook believes he's in heaven right now, having his cock nestled deep in your mouth, some strands of hair falling down in front of your eyes.

You blink several times, trying to see clearer, but the water makes your vision fuzzy. "It's okay, princess," he sighs pleasantly, seeing that you struggle, your throat starting to burn badly. You gag another time and he has to concentrate if he doesn't want to cum right now. "Shit... Don't- don't force yourself," he hisses, pulling your head up.

His cock falls back down on his tummy, hearing a wet slap since he's entirely covered in your saliva. You catch your breath and wipe your lips with the back of your hand, immediately taking him back in your hand.

You stroke him, running your palm up and down his girthy length. You swallow to ease your throat and glance up at him with teary eyes. He pouts, cupping your cheeks and swiping his thumbs under your eyes to get the little pearls away.

"You don't have to take everything... I'm already happy to have you with me," he admits and he hopes his words don't scare you away. You don't know each other for that long, but sometimes he just has to be honest about his feelings.

You smile, nodding your head in response. He moans when you take him back into your mouth, flattening your tongue underneath him. He knits his eyebrows together as you bob your head over him, a hand wrapped around his base.

His short nails dig into your scalp, making you wince, but it doesn't make you stop. Jungkook lets out heavy breaths and moans, his hand gripping your hair and guiding you over his wet cock.

His other hand, his tattooed one, scrunches the bedsheets in his fist, the pleasure too good it becomes overwhelming. His eyes are strained down on you and every time your gazes meet, his heart skips a beat.

It feels too good to be true, yet here you are, pleasuring him like nobody else's ever did. You both like to give and he hopes it won't make sex difficult between you two. Well, if it ever happens again, which he really wishes it will.

"Yeah, just like that," he approves when you hollow your cheeks, continuing to bounce your head over his stiff erection. "Such a good girl," he adds on and loosens his grip on your hair, delicately patting you instead.

You almost purr under all the sweet praises he tells you, loving how he makes you feel confident and proud of yourself. Your free hand is laying on his thighs, sensing his muscles tensing and calming down each time he controls himself to last longer.

But even though he tries his best to not shoot his cum into you right now, your mouth does wonders and his orgasm is approaching really fast.

"I'm not gonna last long, baby," he warns you in a breathy voice. "Shit," he curses, sucking air through his teeth and feeling his balls tightening. Your tongue is so warm and wet, he can't resist you any longer.

You pull out and stroke his length, a string of saliva connecting your lips to his tip. It breaks as you lick them, fucking Jungkook with your fist. He groans, gritting his teeth, and his grip on the covers tightens, signs that his high is really close now.

He curls his toes, the burning sensation at the pit of his stomach growing. "Holy fuck," he spits out profanities and his cock twitches, hot cum spilling out from his red, swollen tip.

You moan with him, turned on by the sight of him releasing himself on your hand. He throws his head back and closes his eyes, all of his muscles flexing as you milk him dry.

"Oh, god, Kook," you coo, lazily stroking his cock and caressing his thigh to make him relax. "There's so much," you comment, literally amazed.

Jungkook opens his eyes and looks down at his crotch, seeing your hand still wrapped around him completely covered in his cum. He bites down on his lip at the view, even more aroused when you bring your fingers up to your mouth and lick the remains.

"Shit, you fucking minx," he says, but there's no intention to insult you, he's just so down bad for you.

It makes you giggle, encouraging you to do something even nastier. You sit on your knees and spread his cum on your tits, circling your nipples with your fingers.

Jungkook smiles, his affection for you growing, and takes a hold of your jaw, pulling you in for a long, sloppy kiss. You moan into his mouth, his cock brushing against your pussy, still hard and ready to wreck you.

"You have no idea what I want to do to you," he groans, looking into your eyes like they are the whole galaxy, endless so he can lose himself in them.

"Do what you need to do to me," you allow, offering yourself to him and more if he desires to.

When those words leave your mouth, he picks you up and gets up from his bed, your legs locked behind his back. You gasp when he pins you against the nearest wall, placing your arms around his large shoulders, holding onto him tightly.

"You sure? Because we're only done when I say so," he breathes onto your face, his forehead against yours, bangs slightly damp from his sweat.

"One-hundred percent sure," you grin, but lose your smile as soon as he pushes his cock into your pussy, ripping a loud moan out of you.

Your nails dig into the skin of his back to give him some of the pain he's inflicting to you by penetrating you with his big cock. He holds you up against him, his hands on your ass, touching you so sensually and lovingly, appreciating every part of your body.

He sinks his dick into your pussy, sliding in so easily without any restraint, cunt absolutely soaking wet. "God, pussy's so fucking tight," he rasps out, finally bottoming out into you. His balls touch your ass, his pelvis flushed against yours, meaning he's completely in.

You whine, feeling absolutely full, pussy clenching helplessly around him. Jungkook doesn't wait — he can't anymore — and starts pounding into you, his balls slapping against your skin. The room smells like sex, it's strong and quite obvious, but he easily ignores it, he practically can't even smell it.

He slides his cock in and out of your pussy, making you moan sweetly, a beautiful melody to his ears. He doesn't hold himself back and fucks you hard against the wall, but you're nowhere near against it, you're loving it.

Your boobs jiggle on your chest because of Jungkook's harsh thrusts, both of your skins glistening under the light of his bedroom, covered in a thin layer of sweat.

"I'm so full, Kook," you moan softly and he can't look away from you, finding you so pretty and sexy.

"Yeah? Full of my big cock, baby?" He asks, darting out his tongue to wet his dried lips, passing over his piercings.

"Yes," you cry, breaking eye-contact as you close your eyes, head rolling back and hitting the wall behind you.

His hips are powerful, never missing a beat and brushing over your sweet spot repeatedly. Your pussy has adjusted to the size of his girth, some of your wetness dripping down to your butt and coating his balls that slap against you.

He pushes some of his cum into you as well, the rest you haven't licked off your fingers or spread on your tits. He still can't believe you did that, but god, did he find it hot. He never thought you playing with his cum would turn him on so much. He sure will think about this moment when he's going to be alone with himself.

His eyes shift down to your bouncing breasts and he has to put one in his mouth, even if it means tasting a bit of himself too.

He catches one nipple with lips, wrapping them around your hardened bud. You moan his name and pull on the hair at the nape of his neck, pushing his head down toward your chest.

It sends more tingles to your belly, your walls closing around him tightly. He lets out a grunt, knowing his orgasm will come close if you continue clenching around him as if you want to suck him up.

"Jungkook!" You exclaim when he turns you both around, walking back to his bed. He lays your back down on the mattress, still in you, and continues his assault, snapping his hips against yours.

He pushes up your thighs over your stomach, getting a better view and access to your pussy. "Take my cock, baby. Be a good girl for me," he says, completely obsessed with you and your cunt. If you weren't made for you, he doesn't know how he'll trust life again.

Putting you on his way just to get rid of you... No, if you're not his, you're nobody else's and if he's not yours, then he doesn't know what life is fucking worth.

"Yes, yes, Jungkook," you confirm in a moan, or maybe your brain is too mushy to find something else to answer.

You place two fingers on each side of your hole where Jungkook keeps pounding in, watching his cock entering and exiting your sloppy cunt. You pull on your pussy lips, feeling the knot at the pitch of your stomach tightening again, a more intense orgasm waiting for you.

You bring a finger to your clit and begin to draw fast circles on it, impatient to feel the burning and euphoric sensation of your upcoming orgasm. Jungkook moans at the sight, making him more desperate to reach his high as well.

"Shit, close, princess?" He questions and you nod repeatedly, humming in agreement. "Me too..." He states, breathless and chest heaving rapidly.

He's tired, but somehow he still has the energy to fuck you. Honestly, fucking you might be the only thing he'll never get tired of, that's for sure. It's so addicting, so good, he simply can't get enough.

"Please, please, Kook. Faster," you beg, even though he's already going at a quick pace that will probably leave the skin of your thighs sore and bruised.

You stroke your clit from side to side and he pounds you so hard it makes you dizzy and kind of drunk off the hormones you're both releasing.

He hits your magic spot multiple times, eliciting loud moans of pleasure out of you, your eyes rolling back. "Yes, like that," you cry, the last thing you say before your thighs start shaking.

Your back lifts up from the mattress when your orgasm hits you, passing through you like a tsunami, leaving you out of breath. Your pussy clenches around Jungkook and he's so close, too.

He drives his cock into you, making you whine in overstimulation, and he feels the familiar burning sensation in his stomach. "Oh, fuck, baby," he moans and slips out of you rapidly, jerking himself off just over your quivering pussy. "Gonna cum."

With a last thrust of his hand, he cums on your cunt, making a dirty mess on you. You moan when ropes of white cum land on your pussy, dribbling down to your hole and ass.

Finally, little beads spurt out of his cock, falling on your sex. You collect some on your fingers, pushing them in you and Jungkook watches with lazy eyes, slowly pumping his cock to drive off his high.

He picks you up and places you both side by side on the bed, recovering from the heated session of sex you just experienced. He lies on his back while you're cuddled up to his side, one hand on his chest.

He turns his head in your direction and you're already smiling at him, drawing little forms on his stomach, following the lines of his abs. "Was good," you whisper.

"Yeah," Jungkook agrees, frowning slightly, wondering if maybe, potentially you share the same feelings as him.

The next morning, you dress yourself back up, having taken a fresh shower while Jungkook was still sleeping. He watches you putting back on your dress, his arms crossed behind his head.

When you're done, you spin around and face him. "What about..." You begin, a playful smile gracing your lips. "You call me soon?"

He looks at you, taking a moment to answer, just admiring the happiness you radiate. He compares your mood of when he's found you sitting on the stairs at the party to the one of this morning and he tells himself that you're feeling better because of him.

If you can both make each other happy, he doesn't see why you two can't work — as friends or more, it doesn't matter as long as he's the reason why you have a smile on your face.

"Sure."

·˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ♡

.

.

.

part 1: call me later ☼ part 2: call me soon ☾ part 3: call me tomorrow ☼

[midnightorchids]

Hellloooo- the only thing I wanted to say about Jason Todd is that he is probably actually really playful and fun to be around. Like it's not too much because homeboy is traumatized but is still one of the most playful in the batfam

Like even in his evil voiceless as red hood there were still some playfulness in his tone,I sincerely believe he is more laid back and chill then dick Grayson.

No because this is so true, Jason is definitely super fun and playful!!

Also, this just inspired me to make a little list of silly!Jason headcanons, I hope you like them! Enjoy!

- jason is a pretty serious guy when you first meet him, but he’s actually really funny! i think his humour is very dead pan and sarcasm heavy, but he laughs at most things lol

- sometimes, he makes dad jokes and they’re honestly so bad that they’re kinda funny

- i’ve said this before, but i’ll say it again! he definitely uses humour to cope and he makes a lot of death jokes or he just simply says “kill me again” at every minor inconvenience (real)

- he’s really easy to get along with because he’s super laid back and chill

- he also has nicknames for most people (and things) and they’re really dumb, when he uses people’s actual names they’re like oh shit because that means he’s angry

- he has a really contagious laugh, it’s deep and attractive

- BUT sometimes it’s so stupid, like he’s giggling so hard, clutching his sides and hitting people (im guilty of this) and it’s like bro is it really that funny LMAO

- also when he does this type of laugh it’s usually funnier than the joke

- oh and he definitely struggles to get out a joke if he thinks it’s funny, he’s laughing so hard before getting to the punchline and you’re just staring at him like man finish the sentence please

- i genuinely think he makes commentary when he’s fighting someone on patrol

- he’s very chatty once you get know him

- his voice gets a little higher pitched when he talks to kids and animals, he baby talks to cats (but only when no one is around)

- also cat memes.

[hier--soir]

a lover's pinch | four

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: professor!joel miller x f!reader rating: explicit, 18+ minors dni summary: after a conference in new york, you and j miller phd take things a step further. warnings/tags: au, university professor joel, age gap [20 something years diff], ethically dubious relationship due to inherent power imbalance, i think i describe reader as having sweaty palms about 1500 times so it deserves a warning, alcohol consumption, the plight of being a woman in academia, oral [f receiving], unprotected piv sex [IN A BED ??? GASP] for you filthy animals, prone bone, a little roughness and then not much at all, uhhh pet names during sex.... uhhmm intimacy errrrrr.... soft!joel... feelings... okay bye word count: 9.3k series masterlist | main masterlist a lover's pinch playlist a/n: hey folks, thank you so much for all your patience as i took my sweet sweet time writing this. we get to know our prof a little better in this one so a fair amount of dialogue for you but yeah anyways i hope you enjoy it, and i'd love to hear what you think! [and if i Fell Off because of the depression, don't tell me lol] A WORD ABOUT THE TAG LIST: i will continue the taglist for this part and for part five, and after that i will rely solely on my notifications account @hier--soirupdates so pls follow that and turn on notifs to be told when i post writing x this is part four of ALP. you can read the previous parts here: one, two, three.

Saturday.

The conference centre is vast.

A large space that protects you from the threatening clouds that loom over New York City, and exposes you to countless dense conversations.

An NYU teacher’s assistant is glued to your hip, parading you through the centre with a wayward index finger that points out the bar, the room where the keynote speech will be given [large, with an imposing stage], and the room where you will give your presentation [less large, with a far less imposing stage].

Your presentation.  

You fight the urge to pull up the email for the thousandth time while she explains how there will be fifteen minutes to set up beforehand, and advises on when the doors will open for guests, and reminds you that you have a strict allotted time of 20-minutes, do you understand?

But the email is branded on the inside of your eyelids after this morning’s flight was spent reading and rereading and rereading the words. So you nod and smile and placate her on the tour of the centre, as you run through it in your mind.

We look forward to welcoming you to NYU’s Annual Classics and Ancient History Conference. Our team was intrigued by the presentation devised around your translation study in Athens…

“Did you hear me?”

You wish she wasn’t dressed so casually.

Loose balls of lint are collected on the back of her cardigan like trinkets, weighty and threatening to fall off in a sort of bread crumb trail behind her every movement. It makes your dress feel all the more serious, all the more formal. Navy blue and a little tight, with sleeves that slant across the middle of your bicep and a hem that cuts modestly across your lower thigh. Professional, smart, sexy, but not too sexy. You and Nora spent two hours at the mall picking it out last weekend. And you can see people in suits, in blazers, in dresses, everywhere you turn, but your eyes keep returning to the TA’s cardigan. Little pills, sad morsels of broken fabric.

She says your name sharply.

“Yes,” you snap to attention, and clock her poor attempt not to roll her eyes. “You were saying?”

“It’s an open bar,” she continues from a few steps ahead, slowly back away while raising her voice to be heard over the countless others sprouting across the room. “And food is served after the Keynote.”

Finally free of her and her cardigan, you scale the edge of the hall, curious eyes glancing across faces familiar and not. You notice some other postgrads from UNE, and some professors from your alma mater. But it isn’t until three hours into the conference that you notice him.

You’re in a painfully long conversation with Professor Carmichael, an ancient history department head from Boston, when you notice them.

“Well you see,” he’s saying, slowly. “The First Roman Triumvirate was very unique. Surely you agree with me there, my dear?”

“Of course,” you nod amiably. A waiter floats past you holding a tray of glasses. You grasp one with a grateful smile, and turn back to face him with a sip of cold white wine moving down your throat. “The Big Three, it’s all very interesting. Although I must say, I am personally more interested in the second triumvirat—”

“Oh they all say that,” he waves his hand. “Everyone is so taken by Antony and Octavian that they forget about Crassus! So tragic.”

“A very tragic death,” you offer an exaggerated frown. “I agree.”

Carmichael hums, eyes narrowing as if you’ve said something wrong. Sipping your wine, your eyes float over his shoulder, determinedly trying to spot any sign of food, gaze spilling across countless faces and tables and waiters and professors until one set of people makes you pause.  Wild dark hair atop a floral dress floats in your vision, her pale hand hovering over the sleeve of a tall man in a suit. You watch the backs of their heads; the way the woman tilts her chin upward to speak to the man and laughs at what he says in return. That laugh. You frown, and feel yourself take a step forward, a step in their direction.

“Is something the matter?” Carmichael asks and you halt, flash him a sweet smile and shake your head.

“No,” you rush, practically tasting the opportunity to escape the conversation. “I’m sorry, Professor, I thought I saw someone waving me over. If you don’t min—”

“Always so many people to talk to at these things,” he says in a sing-song tone of voice, smiling obliviously. “All in due course, dear. You’ll find them later I’m sure.”

It’s not until fifteen minutes later that the tap comes on your shoulder. You turn and feel relief wash over you as you come face to face with Rachel, with her tangle of curls and bright orange dress. But then a jolt shudders through your frame, for you spot the man accompanying her; the man you watched her traipse around the room with, the man in the sleek black suit—Joel, hovering a step behind her.

“Rachel,” you blink. “Joel. Hi—”

“I didn’t know you’d be here!” Rachel says. Her eyes are wide, lips pulled back into a crooked grin that immediately sets you at ease. Joel, on the other hand, looks uncomfortable to say the least. You watch him tuck his hands in his pockets and then take them out again quickly, lips pursed together in a tight line as he glances between you and Professor Carmichael.

“Joel,” she grips the sleeve of his blazer and tugs him forward to stand beside her. You watch where her hand grazes him - the ease with which she jostles him around. “Did you know?”

“No.” He stares for a moment, lips parted and eyes darting across your face, shaking his head. “No, I didn’t know.”

“I’m giving a presentation,” you explain quickly, eyes darting between the two of them, fingers tightening around your glass every time your eyes settle on him. He trimmed his beard again; the hairs are shorter, neater—almost too short and too neat for your liking. His shirt is pressed and crisp, shock white beneath the midnight black of his jacket. He’s wearing different glasses. Tortoise shell glasses. Someone clears their throat to your right, snapping you out of your reverie. You apologise quickly, “This is Professor Carmichael.”

“Of course,” Joel nods, stepping forward to grip the older man’s hand. “Good to see you again, Professor.”

“And you, Professor Miller,” Carmichael chuckles, patting a shaky hand against Joel’s shoulder. “When was the last time we crossed paths? A year ago?”

“Must’ve been a year,” Joel smiles easily. His eyes slip to look at you every few seconds. “The conference in Ottawa.”

“The conference in Ottawa!” Carmichael cheers, nodding away. A weight sinks in your stomach like a cinder block as you watch the Professor gear up to wrangle Joel and Rachel into another conversation about Crassus’ untimely demise. But then Rachel slips away, called out to by someone across the room. And before Carmichael can open his mouth, Joel is speaking again, that honeyed drawl like music to your ears.

“Excuse me, Professor Carmichael,” he smiles again. Two of his fingers grip your elbow, tugging you a step backward. “Do you mind if I steal my star student for a few moments?”

Joel tilts your body to the left, and then the two of you are veering off into the crowd, wandering through throngs of people, his warm fingers pressed against the soft flesh above your elbow.

“Didn’t know you’d be here,” you say under your breath, glancing around warily, trying to spy any curious eyes that might notice the two of you.   

“Could say the same thing,” he murmurs, dragging you to a stop at the edge of the hall with his eyebrows raised. “When’s your talk?”

“At one. Overlaps with the Keynote, which I’m a little relieved about,” you smile, a pinched, tense thing. “Hopefully everyone will go to that, and I’ll have a smaller crowd.”

Joel’s eyebrows raise. You think you notice his shoulders stiffen. “S’that right?”

A persistent pang of hunger stabs through your stomach, you rub a hand over the front of your dress and nod. Curious brown eyes follow the movement.

“Here,” Joel reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. His fingers graze your skin as he tucks the shiny rectangle of foil into your palm. “They don’t put out any food until after the Keynote.”

It’s a granola bar. Peanut butter and banana. You stare at it for a moment, almost dumbfounded by the kindness of the gesture. By how attentive he is; how much he notices without you even having to speak.

“Thanks,” you say. Nestle it into your purse and give him an appreciative smile.

“Sure,” he nods jerkily. Adjusts the glasses on his nose. “I’m disappointed to miss it.”

“Oh?” you blink. Your eyes focus then, flitting downward to focus on the badge hanging from his lanyard.

Joel Miller, Ph.D.

University of New England.

Keynote Speaker.

“Oh, shit.”

“Mhm,” Joel squints at you. “Sorry if I don’t share the sentiment that everyone comes to watch me instead of you.”   

“Why didn’t you…” you gape. “You didn’t say you were giving a talk?” 

“You didn’t ask.”

“The Keynote speech is a big deal,” you say, as if he wouldn’t know.

“I was their third choice,” he shrugs you off with practiced ease. “First two weren’t interested.”

“Third time lucky then,” you smile, and he chuckles. Someone calls Joel’s name then, and you both spin to see Rachel across the room with a group of people, all eagerly waving him over. Something nasty curls in your chest – something bitter and unwarranted and cruel. You smother it with a mouthful of wine and a soft smile of farewell to him as he turns and walks in her direction.

A hand clasps down on your shoulder and you flinch, turning to see Professor Carmichael beaming.

“Where were we then, my dear?”

You eat Joel’s granola bar at the back of the hall five minutes before your talk and walk onstage with the taste of peanut and banana on your lips, brushing crumbs of dried oats off your fingers.

Fifteen people attend, spotted miscellaneously across the amassed rows of chairs. The slide clicker is damp in your palm, and your thumb hovers trembling over the button, awaiting each moment you need to press down.

“Working alongside some fantastic translators,” you tell them. “We focused on studying the disparities between how Greek texts are translated by men and women. Particularly, we aimed to delve into the way emotive language has been downgraded or elevated depending on the lens through which a text is being viewed.”

Professor Carmichael sits in the front row, those sun-spot covered hands clasped in his lap, offering an encouraging smile as you shift upon the stage. Rachel is a few rows back, and she nods intently whenever you glance in her direction.

“One of our main points of focus,” you continue. “Was to understand points of difficulty in translating while accounting for cultural nuances, and how the context of differing authors can impact upon this. In my next slide—”

It’s as you turn to glance at the display that you notice them for the first time. Three rows from the front, where a group of men sit. Two of them young, maybe around your age. You change your slide and watch them whisper in each other’s ears. One of them points at you. Or not you, rather—your legs.

And you yearn for it to be meaningless. A meaningless gesture between colleagues. Meaningless legs, meaningless dress, meaningless curves and slopes and dips and spins. But as you continue, you know it can’t be. The way they talk through your presentation, as if they aren’t bothered to be heard. The way they leer at you over Carmichael’s shoulder, grinning to each other. Your words in one ear and out the other—simply a talking point for them, a blue dress, something to stare at. Your dress feels hot, tight, and your chest feels hotter, tighter under the lights as those eyes glaze over you. You glance back towards Rachel. She gives you a thumbs up that doesn’t serve to cool your nerves.

“When translating word for word in our field, it’s uncommon,” you stutter to a stop, eyes flashing warily. “Sorry, it is not uncommon to find that narratological creativity dwindles.”

You hear a chuckle to your right and swallow down the urge to shoot daggers in the direction of the sound. “Translators struggle to maintain the in-depth imaginative expression that the original Greek text inspires. But through my discussions with Professor Samaras, we found that…”

It’s in the final minutes that you notice him. Tucked away in a back row of the room, arms folded across his chest. You pause for a moment, words caught in your throat. But Joel merely gives you a short nod. The faintest hint of a smile, of the corner of his eyes slanting upward, and it’s as if a cool breeze washes over you. Hands steady, knees lock, and you push through. You don’t look at any of their faces until it’s over.

And when it is, and scattered applause decorates the air, you can’t help but cast a smile in Joel’s direction. A smile that slips and wavers when you spot the broad expanse of his back, that sharp black blazer, as he slips out the doors without wasting a second.

The rest of your audience follows suit, a slim line that wanders out the doors without a second glance—spare Carmichael, who tells you he was quite taken with how you presented yourself, my dear.

You hear your own name and turn to see Rachel approaching, a burst of floral frock and swinging earrings. Her smile is wide and crooked, and you can’t help but smile back.

“That was wonderful,” she cheers, squeezing your shoulder. “I was so taken by how you spoke about the importance of linguistic quality assurance when translating emotive texts. Brilliant!”

Your face warms. “Thank you,” you shake your head quickly. “It was… thank you. That’s very kind.”

You glance over her shoulder, wondering if he’ll reappear – perhaps share her sentiments, maybe shower you with praise. He doesn’t.

She catches you looking. “Joel was in a rush,” she offers easily. “Lots of people wanting to talk to the man of the evening.”

“Of course,” you swallow thickly. Another smile.

Rachel stares at you curiously. “He’s very impressed by you, you know.” Her voice is warm, gentle—soft spoken like a mother who can sense the slightest flash of insecurity. You cringe immediately, feel your arms cross protectively across your chest. Don’t give the game away now. “Honestly, I think he read your comparative paper on the katabasis three times. Practically raved about it when I asked what it was.”

“Oh,” you blink, shifting uneasily under her gaze. “That’s… wow, I’m flattered.”

“He sees a lot of potential in you,” she says.

“Right,” you nod. “Well, he’s a grea—you’re both great teachers. I’m very lucky to be learning from the two of you.”

She doesn’t speak for a moment, and you fear your face grows warmer in the silence. Can feel the slick on your palms returning, the flash of heat in your chest, the longer you sit in it. You make a quick and tumbling excuse to flee the scene, spitting a mess of thank you so much and just need some fresh air, before you’re stumbling out of the hall and wandering outside on newborn deer legs. You snag a flute of something bubbly off the bar on your way, and find yourself on a secluded bench in the breezeway behind the conference centre.

You sit there alone and watch the grass, the way the light from inside shines out across the green. Feel the chill of the wind slip past you, rustling your hair and raising goosebumps on your bare legs. Sip dry Cava and contemplate how many more of these things you can feasibly imagine attending in your career. There’s a single text from Nora on your phone, asking how the presentation went. You tuck it into your purse, leaving the message unanswered.

By the time you hear the door hinges creak, the glass is near empty. You spy a shadowy form snaking its way down the path, headed in your direction.

“Mr Keynote Speaker,” you hum. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Funny,” Joel mutters dryly, knees cracking as he falls onto the bench beside you. A heavy sigh slips from between his lips, fingers lacing together in his lap as he gazes across the breezeway. You down the last of your drink and place it on the concrete by your feet. “Needed some god damn peace and quiet. All that chit chat drives me insane.”

You murmur in agreement and stare at the side of his face – the neatened beard, the thick frame of his glasses. Purposeful or not, the side of his body is pressed against yours. Thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder – he’s sat directly in the centre of the bench. Heat radiates off his body and it’s almost too warm, and yet you find yourself relaxing against him.

“First time at one of these?” Joel asks gruffly. He’s still not looking at you, his eyes trained on a pigeon pecking at a discarded foil wrapper on the grass.

“Is it that obvious?” you grimace.

“Only because I’ve been to twenty of the damn things,” he says. “Y’learn how to smell the nervous energy comin’ off the first timers.”

“Twenty?” you mutter. Feel your stomach curl and twist at the idea of doing this day nineteen more times.

“Somethin’ like that.” Joel glances at you from the corner of his eye. “Went to a lot during my second degree. Had to get good at talkin’, fast.”

“Ahh,” you say. “So, you weren’t always such a sweet talker then?”

He lets out a low chuckle, as if amused by the thought. “Sweet talker, huh? That what I am?”

You shrug, suddenly emboldened by him following you outside, by how close he is, by how open he seems.

“I suppose,” you say slowly.

“And what gave you that idea?”

“You here alone?” you offer a poor imitation of him, voice low and breathy with your awful take on a Southern twang. “Meet me in the bathroom.” You wink, quietly delighted by the way his lips have tightened into a flat line.

“Funny,” he says again, entirely unamused now.

Something warm shifts in your lower stomach. Something wet—a vivid memory of him on the ground behind you in the bathroom of a bar, of hands spreading you open, of his tongue pressing inside you, of The Eagles playing faintly in the background.

“You do that kind of thing often?” you ask.  

“Do what?”

“Approach young women at bars,” you wiggle your eyebrows, smirking. “Rob them of their virtue in the bathroom and then hope you never see them again.”

“You? Virtuous?” Joel rolls his eyes. You can see the corner of his lip curling upward. “Must be gettin’ yourself confused with somebody else.”  

“Maybe,” you smile.

“Sometimes,” he casts you a look, after a moment. “Not… often. And not young.”

“Younger,” you counter quickly.

“I didn’t expect you to be…” he trails off and shakes his head. “It’s not a thing I do, alright?”

“Of course not.”

“It’s not.”

“You don’t date then?”

He tilts his head at you curiously, eyes planted firmly on your face now. “Not for a long time.”

“Why not?”

“Been busy,” he grunts, clearly growing impatient by the line of questioning.  “Spent a lot of time studying. Working.”

“Where did you study?” you press.

“This twenty fuckin’ questions?” he snaps, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Came out here for—”

“You came out here,” you interrupt. “Because I came out here.”

He glowers at you, but doesn’t try to deny it.

“Night classes at Texas A&M for my undergrad,” he grits out. You smile sickly sweet, pleased. “Did my postgrads part time at UT Austin,” Joel says.

Your eyebrows kick up again, the teasing pretence all but forgotten. “Sounds… unconventional?” you offer softly.

“That’s one word for it,” he agrees vaguely. “Spent the better half of a decade at school just to end up teaching at one. Ain’t that somethin’.”

“And before that?” you press.  

“Before that,” he continues with a wry grin, one full of distaste and frustration and resentment. “Was a contractor for a long time. Houses, buildings.” He rests a hand against his shoulder, fingers pressing against the muscle there, as if working out a decade old knot.

And for a moment you can see it. Can almost taste it. Collared shirts and glasses replaced with hard hats and hammers and dirt in the lines of his palms. Joel carrying a plank of wood on his shoulder, wearing a toolbelt. Joel on his knees, sweat shining on his forehead while he wields an electric drill.

Your dress feels too tight suddenly. Too warm.

“A contractor,” you say distractedly, and hope he doesn’t notice how your thighs press together.

“Mhm,” Joel nods. “With my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

He ignores that. “Where did you study?”

“San Diego State,” you flash him a grin. “Go Aztecs.”

“Good school,” he hums. “You’re a long way from California.”

Only a little further than Texas, you think.

“You did good up there,” Joel adds.  

Your smile dips and wanes into a scowl, uninterested in the change of subject.

“What?”

“It was…” you shake your head slowly, face warming as you glance down to your lap.

“What?”

“It just wasn’t what I expected.” You pick at a loose thread on the hem of your dress. “That’s all.”

“And what did you expect?”

“To be listened to,” you grunt. “Not gawked at by some ancient jerkoffs that were only there to stare at my ass when I turned to change a slide.”

Joel nods, quiet.

“I wanted it to matter,” you mutter. “Wanted to… fuck, I wanted to impress them.”

“I was impressed.”

“Oh yeah?” you snort, finally looking up. “You hightailed it out of there pretty quickly.”

Joel shakes his head and stares back at you, gaze heavy. His hands tighten into fists against his thighs, knuckles lightening to white as he squeezes. You shuffle on the seat—ignore the flare of heat that erupts where your shoulder nudges firmer against his. 

“I guess you could say,” he speaks slowly. “I’m tryin’ to keep my distance.”

You arch an eyebrow and attempt to swallow the laugh bubbling up your throat.

“Well, you’re doing a great job,” you smirk.

Joel laughs and your smile falters, mouth going slack at the sound. How rare it is, and how much rarer to have it all to yourself like this. For all of his sharp angles, his sweet talking, his harsh words, and harsher touch—that laugh is the cruellest part.  

He jostles his shoulder against yours a little. An acknowledgement; perhaps a glimpse inside. Something that says, I know, I see it, I feel it, I can’t stop either.

“You make it hard,” he says then, and his voice is soft—almost a whisper.

“How’s that?” You match his tone, as if you’re two little kids who’ve snuck outside to share secrets where no one else can hear them.

“You bein’ here,” he murmurs, eyes searching. “Startin’ to feel like you’re everywhere I turn.”

A breeze swims past and you shiver, locks of hair floating in a mess around your face until you pat them down. Joel moves almost imperceptibly, curling his side tighter against yours to shield you from the onslaught.

“I know the feeling,” you admit.

The muscle in his jaw ticks and he clears his throat, looking out across the green again. For a moment the pair of you sit in silence. Not as professor and student, but simply a man and a woman on a bench. Breathing the same air, soaking in a shared silence that only the two of you could understand. And there are so many more questions you want to ask him, so much more you feel compelled to know, but instead you settle for this—sitting on a bench together, shoulders and thighs and chests pressed side to side, two frames moulded around the welcoming shape of one another. For now.

“It gets easier,” Joel says then, jaw tense as he spares a glance back in your direction. “This stuff, these people, all the talkin’.”

You acknowledge him with a small smile, just the slightest twitch of your lip. Don’t bother saying, maybe for you. Maybe for a man.

“You know,” you suck in a breath and give him a lazy smile instead. “I think this might be the longest conversation we’ve had without ripping each other’s clothes off.”

“Mm.” He leans his head back to rest on the wall, eyes focusing up towards the sky.

“I like it,” you say quietly. Hear how vulnerability chimes in your voice – a wobble that begs to be ignored and understood all at once. “It’s nice… talking like this.”

Joel’s head tilts towards you, dark eyes locked on yours. He doesn’t say anything, but you can see that wariness in his eyes. The same wariness that poured out in flecks of brown and amber and gold in the light of your bedroom a week ago, when he told you he was fifty. A hesitant curiosity, an incessant suspicion, a bark of disbelief. You feel the desire to pluck the feeling out of him and swallow it whole. To lock it safely inside yourself and make it so he never has to feel it again.

So you lean in a press your lips against his. Painfully soft, just a whisper of two mouths slotting together. Chapped and dry from the wind, he tastes like bitter sparkling wine. You sigh into him, uncaring. Hook your ankle around his, place your hand on his thigh, and sink closer, deeper.

He pulls back an inch, mouth still hovering over yours, the tip of his nose pressed into your cheek.

“Shouldn’t do this here,” he warns quietly, eyes still closed. His breath is hot against your face, and you inhale the taste of mint and Cava and Joel.

“I know.” You grip the lapel of his blazer and kiss him again. Firmer this time, grazing your tongue along the seam of his lips until he welcomes you inside to taste behind his teeth. The frame of his glasses presses into your nose, your cheeks, and you smile into his mouth. Rough palms and lazy fingertips graze the skin of your bicep, your neck, until they find a home at the nape of your neck. His thumb presses against the hinge of your jaw, hot wet tongue working your mouth open until you’re whining, teeth nipping at his bottom lip and fingernails digging into the meat of his thigh.

Only when you move to press a hand beneath the collar of his shirt does Joel pull back again, this time to stand and take a step away from the bench. A tinge of scarlet creeps its way from the hollow of his throat to the apple of his cheeks. He clears his throat and glances over his shoulder, towards the door. When he looks back, there’s something new there. Some dangerous that flashes in his eyes and lingers when his gaze dances down the curve of your body against the seat.

“Where are you staying?” you ask, breathless.

For a minute he doesn’t answer. Simply stares, contemplating, broad chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. The lenses of his glasses are fogged, and you watch them slowly clear.  

Then— “The Pendry.”

Joel reaches into his pocket and retrieves something small and laminated. You take it from his outstretched palm carefully. “Fifth floor.”

You stare at it for a moment. Turn it over in your palm once, twice. Read the room number printed on the key card before tucking it safely into your purse. When you look up again, Joel is already walking back inside.

It’s nearing midnight by the time you arrive at the Pendry – a high rise in Manhattan West, the kind with a fancy lobby and a doorman in a neat black suit. The polar opposite of the hotel where your suitcase lies unopened across the city. You feel out of place in an instant, but you’re still in your dress, and the staff don’t bat an eye at your presence. The key card he gave you is hot where your fingers curl around it, plastic damp and foggy with the sweat from your palms. By the time you reach his door you have to wipe it on your dress before the sensor will recognise it.

A hollow beep echoes through the hall, and his door presses open with a soft hiss.

The room is enveloped in darkness. Moonlight shines in through a slim gap in the curtains, highlighting vague edges of the space. A desk against the wall, a large bed on the left of the room. For a moment you consider that he isn’t here—that he got caught up at the conference, sweet talking into the midnight hour with other professors and alums. You can hear sounds from the street, music and car horns blaring, even from the fifth floor. But nothing else. No Joel.

Tentatively, you take a step inside the room. And then another. Kick your heels off and feel rough carpet hairs sift between your toes. Holding your hands out into the darkness, fingertips ghosting the wall for support, you venture further into the room, only pausing when your shin thumps against the corner of something sharp and sturdy.

You spit a surprised curse and stumble into the wall, hands falling to grip your leg where it throbs and smarts.

“Jesus fuck,” you hiss, smoothing your fingers against the already forming lump.

A lamp flicks on, and the room lurches into view, tinged in a soft yellow light. You jump, eyes squinting against the sudden brightness. Bed sheets rumple and shift, and Joel is frowning at you from his place amongst the pillows, a hand raising to drowsily scratch his chin.  

“The hell are you doin’?” he rasps.

Heat flares in your face as you straighten up, mirroring his frown. He moves slow, a sluggish stretch out of bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a t-shirt, and he looks almost concerned. It gives you pause for a moment, eyes unsure of where to settle, as you note just how much of his body you’ve never seen before. The soft muscles in his legs, the dark hair over tan skin. You can see the slight round of his stomach through the thin fabric of the shirt.

“Were you asleep?” you accuse.

“Thought you weren’t coming,” Joel mutters, and the sound is a fractured medley of words and yawns. You feel a dull pang of disappointment in your chest as you watch him rub sleep from the corner of his left eye.

“Were you hoping I wouldn’t?”

He doesn’t respond.

“You gave me a key.”   

“I know,” he sighs.

“Of course I was going to come.”

He nods. Yawns again, hand snaking upward to cover his open mouth.

You turn your back on him slowly. Take a glass from the little kitchenette and let the faucet run a cool burst of water into it. Little specks of water splash up, dotting against your hand. Your feet ache from wearing those damn heels all day, but you wilfully ignore the pain, gulping down half the glass while staring at your reflection in the splashback. Blue dress, hair tucked behind your ears, charcoal smudged around the curve of your eyes.

Joel’s fingers wind around yours, peeling the glass from your clutch so he can steal the final few sips. He discards it on the counter and leans against it. You try to make out his expression in the shadowy light, wiping your water-dotted arm against your side.

“S’a good dress.” He looks more alert suddenly, eyes sharp and focused, wide shoulders squared.

“Yeah?”

“Mm.”

“Didn’t say anything about it earlier.”

“Was tryin’ not to think about it,” he says plainly. “And how badly I wanted to take it off.”

Your hand stills. That misplaced disappointment slips out of the room, an unwelcome third party, and you grin at him. A sleazy, sleepy smile, and walk backwards in the direction of the bed without taking your eyes off of him.

“So take it off,” you challenge.

Your heartbeat is a steady thrum against your breastbone as he crosses the room. Badoom, badoom, no less than three strides and he’s there, gripping your waist to turn you so his chest is against your back.

Your zip is a low whir in the air, spinning downward slowly, slowly, from the nape of your neck to the sloping base of your spine. Deft hands trace skin, grazing every mark, every freckle as they are revealed to him, until the material of your dress is a gaping smile across your back. You shiver as the air rushes to meet your bare flesh, and then careful—cautious—you feel a pair of lips press against the top of your spine, soft pink against steely vertebrae. You say his name, low and surprised, and he doesn’t say anything. Those hands push the dress down your arms, and you watch it tremble and fall, a mess of blue at your feet.

You can hear his breathing; the way it stutters and jumps as he traces the clasp of your bra, the arch of your spine beneath it.

“Take it off,” you say again, and feel a sharp scratch of desperation that perhaps this time he won’t deny you this. This something that you’ve not experienced even once, and yet you find yourself missing.

The idea of his skin against yours is something prophetic, something inevitable, something divine—something determined far before the two of you met in that bar. It’s out of your control or his, irrevocable—a beast bred from desire that claws and snaps at the bars of its cage, calling you kicking and screaming into each other’s arms.

His fingers pluck at the clasp, and you smile. Sigh in relief as your bra hits the floor and the weight of your breasts are borne to the increasingly warm air. Joel is still behind you, still not seeing you. But broad palms splay across your back, massaging and flexing into your skin as they roam your sides, your stomach, up your front to cup your breasts. You gasp, eyelids fluttering as he squeezes softly, palms warm and solid against the stiff peaks of your nipples.

“Fuck.” Joel’s nose buries itself in your hair, his forehead against the back of your head. Your legs shake, and you lean back into his chest, your body a soft and tremulous thing that would surely float away if he weren’t here to hold you up.  

His hands are on your breasts, sweet and tender and finally, and you wonder how long this wanting will feel like burning. Like nicks of flame that gloss over you and spit embers at anyone who dares to get too close—at him, sparking and sputtering as they collide in a spitfire symphony. This man who lives set ablaze in his own right. This man who welcomes your flame every time—swallows it whole, and lays kisses against the back of your neck with lips still warm.

Calloused fingers roll and circle your nipples, playing gently, listening for every gasp, every sigh, before diligently repeating whatever it was that called the sound forward. Your underwear is all but ruined, already damp and clinging to the slick skin between your thighs. And you can feel him against your lower back, albeit unmoving—not grinding against you, not pushing you down onto the bed, but waiting – for what, you can’t be sure.

You turn around faster than he can stop you. Hook fingers into the band of your panties and drag them down in a swift movement before straightening, holding his gaze all the while. And Joel—

He looks in pain. Dark eyes lock onto on your face and don’t stray. Don’t dip downward, don’t glance around the room. His hands hang by his sides, palms facing upward in a dejected fashion, jaw slack as he just—waits.

“Why won’t you look at me?” you whisper.

“You don’t….” he shakes his head. “If I look, I won’t be able to forget. And I—I can’t—”

There’s a flash of that memory again. Sweating in the dark bathroom of a bar in Portland. Joel wiping stained lipstick from your chin. The words I’m gonna remember this dripping from his swollen lips.

You take a step forward. Feel your nipples graze the soft material of his shirt. “And what if I don’t want you to forget?”

He says your name quietly, shoulders tense. But when you grip the hem of his shirt, he doesn’t stop you. Rather, he lifts his arms and lets you drag the fabric over his head. You marvel at the bare skin, eyes dancing across jutting collarbones and the soft swell of his stomach. Watch the way his chest rises and falls as stilted breaths flurry inside him before spilling into the air between you. Admire the trail of dark hair that rests between his bellybutton and the soft band of his underwear. His eyes don’t leave your face as you push the boxers down his legs.

“So handsome,” you say and Joel exhales, hands hovering a hairsbreadth from your waist. The weight of the moment hangs heavy between you. This moment of more. To be with him like this feels like more. To be naked feels like more.

You grip his hand and raise it to your breast again. Squeeze your fingers over his. His thumb flicks across your nipple and you gasp. His eyes darken, nostrils flaring as he fights to restrain himself.  

“Joel,” you whisper. “Look at me.”

Finally, he does. Those brown eyes flickering downward to rake in the sight of your body.

He’s on you in a second, mouth slanting desperately against yours while his hands drift aimlessly across skin, untethered in their access. Fingers pinching and grabbing and squeezing, teeth searing at your lips, and you gasp as his cock presses against your stomach. The long, thick weight of him, drooling and needy. Your fingers slip around him, rub softly over the underside of his head, the vein on the underside of him. Joel grips your wrist and pushes you backward a step, his lips leaving yours with a wet smack.

“Sit on the bed,” he orders firmly.

You wander backward, stumbling onto the edge of the bed when your calves collide with the heavy wooden base. He watches you, hand drifting to wrap around the base of his cock. He strokes himself gently, black eyes tracing vigilantly over every inch of your body. And you expect him to push you down, to crawl on top of you. Instead, you watch with bated breath as Joel drops to his knees in front of you. His knees crack as they bend but he ignores it, nudging your thighs apart so his broad frame can fit between them. Hooded eyes gaze between your thighs, roaming across all of the bare skin on show. Slowly, he lifts a hand and rests it gently on your mound. Calloused fingers stroke over the dark hair there, stroking through the short curls. You sigh and cant your hips up, but Joel only grunts, his free hand squeezing your thigh to hold you against the mattress.

Before you can process it, he’s leaning forward, nose nestling in your hair as his warm tongue parts your folds. You groan in unison, your fingers carding through his curls to hold him against you. He murmurs something that you don’t quite catch over the roaring in your ears, but you don’t care. Too caught up in a smooth slide of his mouth slotting against you. The flat of his tongue glides up and down your sex, smearing a mess of slick and saliva in his wake. You gasp as it flicks sharply across your clit, your jaw tensing at the harsh sensation. Joel notices—pulls back.

“Tell me,” he urges.    

“Slower,” you say quickly, voice feeble and desperate.

“Slower,” Joel repeats with a nod, and he massages your thighs as he licks into you, fingernails scraping your skin as his grip tightens and loosens and tightens and loosens. He traces slow circles around your clit with the flat of his tongue that have you gasping and bucking against his face. And when his tongue presses inside of you, you moan, fingers twisting in his hair and tugging.

“Fuck,” he growls into you, and he likes that. You do it again and his eyes flick open, pupils blown, gaze darting wildly across your stomach, your arms, your breasts, your face – watching, admiring, taking in every detail of the offering that you’ve laid so generously at his altar. The tip of a finger curls inside you and he grins when your thighs tense around him. He rears his head back to watch how you welcome him inside, eyes locked on the way your weeping cunt clenches and drips around one of his fingers, and then another.

“Yeah,” you sigh, nose scrunching at the slight stretch. “Yeah, like that, fuck.” 

“Look at you,” he mutters. “Christ.” And then the cut of his wet red mouth is back on you, lips parting to suck against your clit until you’re crying out, voice a hoarse shout as you speed rapidly towards your end.

“Shit, Joel,” you gasp. One of your legs kicks out straight and his hand drops from your thigh, one set of fingers working you open while the other comes up to part your lips, giving himself more access. As he lathes wet kisses against you, the coarse hairs of his beard scraping your inner thighs, you can feel it. That liquid heat that coils and stirs in the base of your stomach.

“Joel, I—ohh—I think I’m gonna come,” you whimper, hand shooting out to grip his shoulder. Your nails dig into the tense muscle there, using the leverage to rut your hips against his face.

He groans into your sex, fingers moving faster, unforgiving against that spongy spot deep inside that sets you alight. His teeth graze against your clit, the lightest brush, and your stomach is tensing, every muscle in your body locking up.

“Give it t’me,” he says gruffly. “That’s it, come on, baby.”

A choked gasp falls from your lips and then you’re coming, twitching against his face, pussy bearing down on thick fingers that stoke you through the high. Your hand leaves his shoulder to grip the back of his neck, holding his face against where you’re aching for him still. Joel moans, a low sound from deep in his chest, dragging his fingers away so he can drink down every heady drop of your orgasm.

Baby.

The word rings in your head, bouncing inside your skull, a fierce ricochet. Baby.

Trembling fingers feather across the cowlick at the crown of his head, twisting and petting soft wayward curls as his mouth pulls back, a wet drag across the skin of your hip. You catch a glimpse of his cock, heavy and throbbing between his thighs.

Joel’s teeth nip at the sensitive skin of your thigh, a sharp pinch that makes you flinch. Tired muscles tensing, face twisting up as he sucks and licks, hot tongue soothing over the stinging red mark. He breathes your name, mouthing the sound into your flesh once, twice.

“I’ve been tryna remember this,” he murmurs. “Only ever had it for a second.”

You whimper as he licks into you again, slowly. And you’re so sensitive, and maybe—maybe—it’s too much, too soon, but he doesn’t care. He grips your calf and tucks it over his shoulder. Holds it there in a vice grip.

“Wasn’t enough,” he says. Dark eyes look up and you’re rapt in them—bound and boneless simply from having those eyes on you you you nothing but you all he sees is you and he loves it, you can tell. Thrives on the way you melt beneath his rough fingertips, the wet drag of his tongue. “Remember that first day in my office?

Remember, remember, remember, how could you forget? I’m gonna remember this this this.

“Yes.” Your leg trembles against the side of face, the coarse hairs of his beard scratching your skin. The tip of his tongue lathes slow circles around your clit. A cruel, leisurely slip of flesh on flesh that has you gasping and twitching beneath his hands.

“I wanted this that day,” Joel rasps. “Needed it. But you were gone so soon, ‘n’ I couldn’t help myself.”

“What—oh fuck—” He flicks his tongue faster, hot swipes from side to side that have your thigh clamping down against the muscles in his neck. Your mind is a blur, eyebrows furrowed as you try to make sense of his words.

“Fucked my fist the second you left,” he growls. “My fingers in my mouth, the taste of you—Christ, couldn’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout it.”

“Joel,” you gasp, impatient. “I—get up here. Please, just—”

Strong hands push you up, push you back, further onto the bed until your head hits the pillows. His hair is a wild fray around his head, knotted and mussed from your fingers raking through it.

“I don’t have anything,” he says.

“I don’t care,” you say.

His knees press onto the mattress on either side of you and his eyes glance down your chest before he grips your waist and he’s turning you. Your stomach meets the sheets and you move to arch your back, to tilt your hips up towards him, but a firm hand rests on the small of your back, and keeps you down.

“Like this,” you hear him say. “Trust me.”

His chest is flush to your back, and you can feel him there, knuckles brushing the flesh of your ass, spreading you apart so his cock can press inside. The pillow swallows your wet gasp, and your eyes pinch shut against the stretch as he sinks deeper and deeper. Every delicious inch splits you open wider, further, carving out that space that’s just for him, and it’s more. Your vision blurs and you clutch at the sheets, fingers tangling in linen as Joel’s breathy groans fill the air.

“God,” he grunts. “Always so fuckin’—tight.”

You cry out as he begins to move, pressing you further into the mattress. The stretch of him is so broad—so deep—it has hot tears pricking in your eyes. Your legs are straight, almost clamped together, leaving the smallest gap for him to break through. His chest melts against your back, sweet sweat sliding from skin to skin. And his stomach is soft against the base of your spine, but his teeth are sharp where they nip and smart against the skin of your shoulder, your neck. He sets a pace that has you biting down into the pillow to muffle your groans. It’s almost overbearing how good it feels, how he surrounds you. Flat against the mattress, there’s nowhere to hide from the pleasure, no way to twist or curl your body away from how good it feels. A choked moan is muffled by the pillow.

And then his fingers are in your hair, dragging your head up.

“What are you fuckin’ doin’?” he grunts. You gasp, eyebrows furrowed and mouth ajar as you take take take. He pulls your hair harder when you don’t respond, presses his chin against your shoulder, lips curling against the skin of your neck as he speaks. “Don’t do that, not here. No more hidin’, I wanna fuckin’ hear it.”

He grips your hips and drags you upward so you’re on your knees, bracing against your forearms, and then his hand snakes around the front of your body, fingers dragging between your thighs as he begins moving again.

“Oh fuck,” your eyes widen in surprise, jaw hanging slack as he rolls his finger in expert circles over your clit. “Fuck, fuck.”

“Yeah?” he gasps.

“Fuck,” you repeat, mewling every time one of his thrusts sends your face forward into the pillows. “Yes, oh god.”

“Yeah, you fuckin’ like that.” Each word is punctuated by a thrust of his hips. “That’s it, lemme hear it.”

“Joel,” you cry out, voice cracked and broken. “So good.”

“I know, baby,” he grunts. “I know.”

“You’re so—deep,” you gasp.

“I know,” he soothes.

“I missed this,” you babble, mouth moving faster than your mind. “Missed you.”

“Christ,” he spits, pulling you up until you’re leaning against his chest. His fingers are a blur against your clit, cock a fast wet shift in and out in and out.

You tilt your head back against his shoulder, mouth hanging open as you press your ass back into him.

“Missed me?” Joel says, and his cheek is warm against yours. Wet. Your face is wet. “Gonna show me how much?”

“Yes,” you moan. His free hand grips your breast, squeezing and pinching.

“Need to get my fuckin’ mouth on you,” he growls.

“No,” you beg. “Joel, don’t—fuuuck, fuck, don’t stop.”

“Wanted to,” his hips stutter against you, losing momentum for a second. “Jesus, wanted to take my fuckin’ time.” You snake a hand behind his head to grip his hair again, to press his face into your neck. His mouth latches onto your skin, spit mixing with sweat where his teeth and tongue trace your roaring pulse. Your thighs are trembling, knees weak and wobbling against the mattress as he pistons into you, unrelenting, unforgiving.

“I’m—” your eyes start to roll back. You can feel your back arch and twist against him, toes curling into the sheets. “Oh my God.”

He says your name in a panicked hiss and pulls out.

You gasp at the loss, eyes flying open in alarm. He moves your body, not wasting a second as he lowers you down onto your back presses inside again, hands gripping the underside of your knees, holding them against your chest. Practically bent in half, you tremble in his grasp, eyes blurred and wet as you sob his name.

“Lemme have it,” he goads you, voice a dull vibration against your chest. “Bein’ so fuckin’ good for me, yeah, just like that.”

And it feels like something splinters within you as heat floods your senses, vision whiting out until all you can see is the soft edges of his curls against your chest, the wet smear of his tongue over your nipple. All you can hear is the words he speaks against your skin.

I’m close, he warns, and you say yes, say please, say I want it, because you do.

“Where?” You call the shots.

And you say, Inside, say, I want it, because you do.

Because you want everything. Everything he has and whatever dark matter is left after that. And everything is a naked thought, a stark realisation, a frighteningly bare streak of madness that zips down your spine and melts in your belly, and you can feel yourself tightening around him with the enormity of it. Can feel your body squeezing and sucking and holding it holding it holding it and with black eyes, spheres of a night sky’s pitch, he stares at you. Unruly eyebrows pinched tight. Mouth slick and swollen and snarling, white teeth grit like prison bars, keeping everything contained inside himself, just out of your reach.  

“Fuck,” Joel spits, pleading, desperate. “Don’t—”

But his hips are bruising against yours and you relish in the ache. The jut of bone amidst the softness of his skin, a reminder of the coldness in him, the determination, the impatience. And you know that you can only have so much softness until there is stone. But you cannot understand don’t, you never have with him, so you grind upward. Meet him thrust for thrust, and shiver in delight as a tortured expression passes over his face. And when you come again he curses, broad palms bearing down on you, holding your frame into the mattress as he pushes you through it, prolonging that naked thought, that fearsome idea. You only hope that he cannot see how your own everything spills. How it cools and congeals around him with its palms spread open, longing to receive as much in return.

Joel comes with a shout, hips dragging backwards so his spend can spill across your stomach and the puffy lips of your sex. He grips his cock, milking himself for all he’s worth until wet ropes of his come are smeared across your thighs too. You gasp and writhe against the bed, trying in vain to keep your heavy eyelids open, not wanting to miss a second. The shine of your slick on his thighs and lower stomach is clear in the dim lighting, and you smile at the sight of it – your claim on him. Chest heaving, he follows your gaze, fingers swiping across his skin before sinking into his mouth. He groans around his fingers and you stomach lurches as he lowers his chest to the bed, mouth drifting between your splayed thighs.

You cup his jaw and hold him still.  

“I can’t,” you murmur, and your voice is cracked and broken. “S’too much.”

And he agrees, tracing the marks on the inside of your thighs with his mouth until your eyes drift closed.

Time passes slowly after that. You don’t open your eyes for a while. Too fucked out, too tired, too tender.

There’s a warm glide of something soft and wet over your stomach, your thighs, between your legs—Joel cleaning up his mess. You almost wish he wouldn’t.

“Sorry,” you mumble a few minutes later. “I’ll go in a second.” But your eyes are closed, and the sheets smell like him.

You feel the mattress dip beside you. Hear a soft click as he turns off the lamp, and darkness swells around you once more.

“S’okay,” he says, and his voice is so close, as if he were whispering against the shell of your ear, breathing the words into you. “Don’t have to go.”

And it makes sense not to go. To stay, to stay, to stay. To sink deeper into the hotel mattress, and let the sounds of his heavy exhales lull you further to sleep. He doesn’t touch you. Doesn’t come any closer. But you can smell him. Can feel his warmth, a radiating sun that shines across the side of your body closest, and you sink deeper still.

You think of the katabasis - the hero’s journey spiralling down into the underworld. Of Orpheus seeking the safe return of Eurydice, his love lost too soon. Of Odysseus, guided by Circe to discover Teiresias on his quest for homecoming. Of Aeneid, venturing downward to meet his father and hear his true destiny. This descent into the afterlife, into the realm of the dead, wherein upon return our hero is irrevocably changed. But to stay, to stay, to stay. So warm it is here, you think, so lovely and warm to descend wholly into this wanting, this burning, this everything.   

“Is this a good idea?” you murmur, voice a drowsy call into the darkness. “For me to stay?”

Joel doesn’t respond.

tags: @lovely-ateez @nana90azevedo @stevie75 @evyiione @dameron-grant-spector @brittmb115 @ashhlsstuff @casa-boiardi @bbyanarchist @hopplessilse @joeldjarin @anoverwhelmingdin @bluevxnus @kelp-dreaming @prettyinpunk85 @spacelatinos4life @iluvurfather @mrsquill @sarap-77 @sunnywithachanceofjavi @alleyy-katt @zeida @mendessi @love-the-abyss @myrealmofchaos @a-roving-woman @punkshort @gracie7209 @whichwitchwanda @fellinfromthetop @bitchwitch1981 @suzmagine @@lmariephoto37 @harriedandharassed @cumberpegg @tonysttank @ourautumn86 @my-tearsricochet @shotgun-shelby @5oh5 @psychedelic-ink @what-is-your-wish @sugadolly @elissaaa @nobodycanseeinsidemysoul

thank you for reading! x

[avocado-writing]

Could I request headcanons for Astarion, Gale, Wyll, Halsin, Dammon, Rolan, and Zevlor react to his gn crush who is so oblivious that they told him with confidence that no one would be interested in them romantically?

yes of course lovely, it’s always a pleasure writing your prompt lists 😊💕

Astarion

definitely thinks you’re joking at first.

laughs, then sees the defeated lag of your shoulders, the way you can’t tear your gaze from the ground.

wants to do his usual blasé retort, but is torn because well. he really cares for you.

I think, after a moment of silence, he reaches out and takes your hand. threads his fingers through yours.

“darling… there is so much of you to love, it’s mesmerising.”

he can’t look at you while he admits this of course, but he feels the way you squeeze his hand in yours and his dead heart skips a beat. 💕

Gale

utterly baffled.

of course someone would love you romantically?

from a practical point of view he just starts listing things off: you’re kind, a good leader, big-hearted, have a strong moral compass…

and then he just lapses into the things he likes about you.

that you’re so lovely. so good-looking. that your hair is nice and your eyes are spellbinding.

only realises he’s gone off on a tangent when he sees you grinning at him, then gets a little embarrassed…

gives you the confidence to press a kiss to his cheek though, and after that he’s beaming for the whole day 🥰

Wyll

shocked. shocked and appalled that you think that way about yourself.

takes you out for a stroll, just the two of you, and ends up waxing lyrical about all the things you have going for you.

he tries not to turn it into a confession but my man is a romantic, and soon he ends up spilling everything.

the way every time you smile at him his heart speeds up and his cheeks get hot. how you deserve someone who’ll be by your side through everything, and he’s not afraid to be that someone despite everything you’ve faced on the road.

he’d keep going if you didn’t muster up your courage and pull him into a long kiss 💕

Halsin

is old enough to understand self-doubt doesn’t just go away in one day. he’s admired you for a while so he tries to start actively courting you.

little gifts appear for you. carvings of your favourite animals, flowers you’ve mentioned liking the perfume of.

he finds a reason to be by your side every day. always tries to make you smile and laugh.

and eventually you realise… oh, what you believed before? about nobody ever feeling romantic love towards you? that was totally wrong. because there is your Druid and you’ve just realised his heart is totally devoted to you.

when you have this moment you immediately run to find him and throw yourself into his arms rom-com style lmfao ❤️

Dammon

“that’s… that’s not true! there would be plenty of people who’d love you.”

you look up into his eyes. they’re soft and sweet, and there’s a desperation behind them as the words come tumbling out of his mouth, too late to stop them.

“I’d love you. I do love you.”

a moment passes. he’s worried he’s messed up.

then you stride across the room to bring him into a kiss and his face gets hot enough to rival his forge… 🔥

Rolan

”don’t be so foolish.”

you’re utterly gobsmacked, because you were being so vulnerable, admitting your worry. “excuse me?!”

he tries to backtrack and make it look like he didn’t just insult you, lol

”there’s nothing wrong with you. you’re… wonderful. anyone would be lucky to have you.”

cheeks a bright crimson, and he’s so bad at hiding his emotions that you clock what this is instantly. it’s a confession.

“oh…” “don’t worry, forget it, I didn’t say anything—!” “rolan, would you like to get a drink tonight?”

he might combust. but he squeaks out a “yes.” because honestly? he was worried about the exact same thing you came to him to confide…

Zevlor

is firm in how silly you’re being, but kind.

holds your face in your hands to get you to look at him.

swears how lovely you are, his words like a pledge. like a prayer.

and when this paladin tells you all this? how could you believe him to be wrong.

maybe someone would love you romantically. gazing into his warm eyes, maybe someone does.

[leqonsluv3r]

bf!leon kennedy

—ID!leon kennedy x soft!croquette reader, a headcanon list

masterlist taglist

an: i cannot be controlled anymore. i promised i’d make it a series and im delivering slowly but surely. have faith in me lol, im doing my best to get requests out. i have them closed currently just so i can catch up and write them all in a timely manner. enjoy ID!bf leon kennedy in the mean time.

bf!leon kennedy who is getting too old for the soft cream sheets on your bed, he wants to just rip them off and demand something more mature. but he knows you wouldn’t like that. you practically yell at him anytime he tosses one of your stuffed animals too hard off the bed.

bf!leon kennedy who takes you out to dinner, makes sure your happy. he knows he’s not around as much as he should be so he takes the time when he can to treat you special. your his girl, he needs to.

bf!leon kennedy who makes sure your sleeping constantly when your next to him, even when he wakes up from nightmares. your scent of jasmine and laundry detergent makes him at ease, proves that everything is real and he’s really here with you.

bf!leon kennedy who lets you pack him notes in his lunch when he heads to the agency everyday. your cursive hand writing is sloppy but adorable, always writing for him to have a good day and that you love him. he’s just happy he has you to remind him when things get hard.

bf!leon kennedy who lets you press kisses all over him and hug him to death whenever he comes home unscathed from a mission or just a regular day at the agency. he loves when you show your love for him, always making him feel special and good. like all the things he had endured at this point have been worth it.

bf!leon kennedy who takes you shopping on his days off, not happy he has to stand around and hold your bags. but when you try your cute little skirts and dresses on, it makes it a tiny bit worth it. you would look pretty in a paper bag and he would still look at you all the same.

bf!leon kennedy who has your morning and nighttime skincare routine down, he watches you do it every morning and every night, never knowing that so many pieces came with you looking so pretty and gorgeous for him. but anything to make you happy, even if you don’t need all that to be beautiful in his eyes.

bf!leon kennedy who watches you organize your books on your bookshelf, clean up your shared space of your guys shared bedroom. all your little knickknacks and jewelry and frilly clothes. he doesn’t know how you do it, or why you like such a mundane looking room, but if it pleases you, it’s fine with him.

bf!leon kennedy who lets you crawl on-top of him in the early hours of the morning before he goes to work and press kisses everywhere. your lips pressing across his jaw, his cheeks, his neck and his lips. any place your pretty little self can reach, he’s letting you do it. you waking him up like this is another reason why his heart is so enamored with you in the first place.

bf!leon kennedy who helps you when you need to wash all your stuffed animals and sheets, helping you with chores. he likes being domestic with you, it makes him feel like he’s normal, like this is a normal life. like this matters, like his life has purpose with you.

bf!leon kennedy who drives you to the park or to the plant nursery so you can be around nature. he loves how you admire each plant anytime your out like this, the way you care for such things. it makes him happy to see you enjoying such a small part of life, gives him hope.

bf!leon kennedy who celebrates your guys three year anniversary, buying you anything and everything you want. taking you out all day. he cooks for you and makes your favorite dish, he buys you pink roses. he lets you dress in your dress and be all pretty for him.

bf!leon kennedy who eats with you, talking with you like he normally did everyday. but this time it’s different and leon is going to prove just how much he loves you. he slides a box out and watches your face change. you open the box and feel your eyes water when you see a diamond engagement ring.

bf!leon kennedy who watches as you nod rapidly, pretty tears and say yes over and over again. he slips it on your finger and smiles softly at you, watching as you practically hop over the table and hug and kiss him like your life depends on it. you smother him and kisses, tangling your sweet mouth with his.

bf!leon kennedy, who is very proud to not call himself your boyfriend anymore. but your fiancé and he’s proud of that title. of making you so happy and obligating to do that every single day for the rest of his life. he wants you everyday, every night and everywhere in between. he’s found his safe haven in this world, and it’s you. it always will be.

an: thank you for reading, reposting and likes are greatly appreciated. i’m trying to keep my posting schedule up and should have requests open when i’m finished with all the ones in my drafts. thank you guys for being patient with me. i love you all, kisses. xx

[sailorstarr-chan4]

I absolutely love how my tastes in anime have actually kinda improved over the past decade, while my tastes in manga have only become exponentially trashier lmao 🤣

[dreamlifebunny]

manifesting ideas: gifts from the universe!

while any desire can come true with the power of your mind, how much fun is it to receive an unexpected gift from a magical source? here is a list of ideas of “gifts from the universe” that you could manifest into your life! (original request: here)

you wake up to a small box next to your bed with a note that reads, “love from the universe.” what could it contain?

a beautiful necklace with your birth stone or favourite crystal in the centre that turns you into a “magical girl,” giving you the superpower you were destined to have! invisibility? mind control? you don’t know until you put it on, but you can be sure it will be the superpower of your dreams! you can also be sure you'll get the glowy anime transformation experience too lol.

a pendant that you can put on your stuffed animals or pets that allows you to understand and talk to them!

a collection of all of your favourite comfort treats that have been discontinued or are impossible to find, and every time you reopen the box it fills up again!

a letter from your favourite fictional character, telling you how excited they are to find out that you exist and that they plan to travel to your world soon. are they going to become your partner? your best friend? a close family member? whatever the character is to you in your world, they are about to become the best version of that in yours! (or; a letter from your favourite fictional character giving you detailed instructions on how to find the entrance to their world!)

a collection of long-lost items and stuffies from your childhood that you never expected to see again!

a glass potion bottle filled with iridescent liquid that slowly changes colours. attached to the lid with a piece of string is a note with your SP’s name on it and instructions that read, “drink to make them fall in love” (it’s literally just water girl they already in love with you 🤫)

a glowing portal that illuminates once you open the lid, that takes you anywhere you’d like at any time! a different reality, back in time, to the void, etc.

a note from your future self that details the time, date, and place that you will meet your soulmate or best friend!