#which also sort of function differently to me

[r0manceplanet]

okay yipee yay!! haven’t done these in a hot minute so apologies if this isn’t that great… i’m trying >_> !

fandom: forsaken plz!!

pronouns: they them

gender/sexuality: non-binary androsexual (best way i could put ittt ^^)

personality: ummm… i think i’m generally a pretty nice person, i’m rlly empathetic and i luv to talk yap yap i like to run my mouth! i cannot keep it shut and i’m rlly bad at keeping secrets oops. i’m kindaaa stubborn and a big over thinker but i try reallyyy hard not to be;;; i just wanna have fun and b chill ^^

hobbies: ummum arts! anything artsy! like graffiti. baking is sooo awesome and fun doing things with your hands is great. i love music a LOT (specifically rock/metal/alt) and enjoy going to concerts!! i’m also big on conspiracy theories & psychological philosophy :3

likes & dislikes: i generally like weird/creepy things, any sort of horror media! & being outside & doing things, like exploring or looking for bugs. like i said i <3 philosophy but i also love the unknown!! and theorizing!! and debate!! collecting/hoarding things i like is fun too, like knives & license plates. oh and rubber ducks. photography!!! pictures are everything to me!!! i don’t dislike much but i guess umm… the dark! i hate that. strong smells & loud noises freak me out. ppl who are mean to animals babies and old people are a different kind of evil.

mbti & zodiac: enfp 4w5, gemini!!

love languages: acts of service above all but i also adore words of affirmation!! i don’t care much for gift giving.

what i look for/want in a partner: someone who can keep up w/ me, i guess! i get bored quickly, i usually wanna always go do something. i hate silence and i hate distance, i need to be able to vibe & have fun with them always!! i’d also prefer someone who isn’t shy ^_^ .

thank youuu my goat please take your time!!! 🧡

FORSAKEN MATCHUP #1

A/N: Ahhh my first request for a matchup!! And to whoever sent this ask to me thank you so much!! And I hope you enjoy who you get! And, matchups for forsaken are open to everyone!

Press “Read More” to see who you have been matched with!

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You have been matched with… Chance!

• It took me some time to think about who to match you with, and I did have a few characters in mind before I thought of him, and when I did he seems to match you the most, I feel like you two would function so well together.

• Chance is a really calm dude, he can work under pressure and is able to talk to anyone really, I mean, who wouldn’t like him? He’s never fallen in love before you, he was always focused on gambling and the casino he owned. Before meeting in forsaken, you would’ve met him in his casino while you were hanging out with your friends.

• When he met you he was immediately focused on you, why? something about you made him interested in you, maybe it’s because of how much you love to talk with him, and he’s always listening to you yap and adding into the conversation, it’s refreshing for him to find someone to match his energy.

• When you guys start dating, he would spend ALL his money, which you would have to stop him before he goes broke. But he would buy an entire store if you wanted one thing, that’s how devoted he is to you.

• He would definitely bring you to concerts, I can see him as someone who would go to concerts of bands he likes, you guys always have a blast whenever you’re at a concert to see your favorite band, and as a surprise he’s arranged an appointment for you to meet with your favorite idols.

• He always compliments your artwork, he’s in awe whenever he sees your paintings or drawings, he’s someone who would point out the smallest details in your art, and he LOVES it whenever you bake, and if you bake anything that he likes he’s gonna eat it all in 1 minute and ask for more.

• He loves hearing you talk, including if it’s about theories you bring up, he’ll love to theorize with you and debate, you can get him to talk about ANYTHING, off topic but, whenever you guys are chilling at home or out on a date, he would take pictures of you that have amazing views.

• Whenever you’re overthinking about something, or anything that’s bothering you, he’ll always make sure to tell you that you can go to him for anything, and he is of course… He’ll be your emotional support animal if you want. No matter what situation you happen to be in, you’ll always have him, and he’ll always have you.

Round-Ups:

Shedletsky, John Doe

[perachel-heretic]

the protestant reformation being real in solangelo's relationship makes me Think so much, mostly about silly little disagreements it would cause (beef over the eucharist, weirdly strong opinions about different books in the Bible, Nico going to bat for Mary) but also about how those backgrounds would impact their thought process when they're introduced to camp and the Gods.

I honestly cannot remember for the life of me if its canon that Will has a bookshelf with mythology texts or if its just a long held fanon belief but regardless I do think his approach would be text based. Will knows the Bible and how to read it (remembers his grandma's worn copy covered in pink highlighter and sticky notes, knows the passages his youth pastor pointed him to when he admitted to having a crush on a boy, can recite the exact verses that taught him shame) and his first reaction is to get his hands on Homer and Hesiod and Ovid and pull out his own pink highlighter to draw his own conclusions. Being a son of Apollo but also brought up to read and interpret religious text, that sort of poetry would just click in his brain. It would seem very natural to him for each camper to have a personal relationship with their godly parent, which would of course make it sting even more when it turns out Apollo doesn't really touch base all that often and he was actually lucky to even be claimed in the first place.

Nico, on the other hand, would probably not even consider that meeting a God was remotely possible even if they were real if he wasn't introduced to three of them within his first 24 hours as a demigod. It makes perfect sense that he would align himself with the minor Gods because what is a Catholic Saint if not functionally a minor God and therefore the logical first point of contact in Nico's mind. And on that note of course he's obsessed with mythomagic!! That shit is like Catholic prayer cards with stats!! He probably doesn't know much about the Bible itself, but coming from a very old and established religious culture, he knows all about art and ritual. Will probably grew up with some Kinkade-esque illustrations hung around a prayer hall, but Nico's memories of mass consist of zoning out and looking at mosaics and paintings, and then when he had those memorized moving on to architectural sculpture and endless gilded decorations. He can't name a Bible verse, but he can remember that St Lawrence is associated with the grill and a winged lion means he's looking at St Mark. When he sees the blue Will's eyes for the first time he thinks not of the sky, but of the blue of Mary's cloak, the blue of purity, virtue, and devotion. He takes to Greek art and architecture before he processes the written mythology, and after appreciating the number of male nudes he's allowed to look at, it also occurs to him that much of it is actually very, very familiar. He thinks the first statue of Apollo he sees is Christ at first before he notices the lyre. Will might be weirded out at first by the little rituals he's introduced to around camp, something buried deep in his brain yelling about demons when he incinerates his leftovers for the first time, but Nico adjusts a little easier. Incense and wine smell like his childhood, and his general creepiness might stem more from his comfort level with death and martyrdom than the underworld.

At some level I also think Nico associates divinity with sacrifice and suffering, leading him down a hero's path and contributing to a bit of self martyrdom, while Will associates it with salvation and teaching. He also feels a sort of personal responsibility for that salvation which could manifest as an evangelizing instinct but mostly urges him to heal as many people as possible.

[ofswordsandpens]

90% sure this is just the nostalgia speaking but god if you were a kid in the early 2000s it was like the crème de la crème of live action fantasy kid movies. like big budget, high production value, (mostly) well acted kid movies and I really don't feel like those get made much anymore

[icewindandboringhorror]

Little bright colored outfit with a fun vest ~

(shoes from ebay like 10 years ago. everything else is thrifted)

[blood-orange-juice]

About Childe and his weird ethics.

He reminds me of what I know of real world medieval knights. Chivalry was a thing only applied to equals.

There was no glory in harming noncombatants and generally you would want to avoid that, but if you absolutely needed to sack a city (or take a city hostage to lure out its patron deity) then no one would blame you.

There was a lot of scheming too.

There's certain irony in wanting to be a fairytale knight and becoming a real one instead.

[moe-broey]

Memory Log: 13

[arolesbianism]

Oh yeah here’s my current progress for an extremely rough concept for the stalien planet map, ignore how fucked it’d look projected on a sphere (I checked btw it sure is a thing)

[inbabylontheywept]

i once accidentally dated someone for a few months. its very difficult to explain how this happened, but the gist is that i thought we were hanging out, and she thought we were on dates, and it was just a very painfully highschool thing.

she was a little bit confused that i hadnt tried to pull any moves, at all, even a little. like, didnt even try holding hands because, and i cannot emphasize this enough, i did not know we were dating.

so, halloween rolled around, and she thought, you know, why wait for destiny, when you can grab it? so she hit me with a clue by four.

babylon, she said. babylon. my mom's gonna be out of town on halloween, and im gonna have the house to myself, and it's going to be kind of lonely. would you like to come to my house and watch scary movies with me?

you know, kind of a netflix and chill thing. except, and i cannot emphasize this enough, i did not know we were dating. also autism. so i took it at face value and said: oh! yeah! thatd be fun! and she thought she got her point across, but she didnt and it was a mess.

skip forward to halloween: my family has a block party every year, right? and at that point i was too old to really trick or treat, but we still wore costumes for our role in the block party, which in my case, was handing out cotton candy. so i took the first shift, and my costume was this homemade abomination minion thing. i had full yellow body paint, and goggles, and a bald cap, and overalls. the kids who saw it were like, uh, hm. overly realistic minion. and adults were like, oh, some kind of hills have eyes hillbilly with jaundice. very scary.

(it was not my best costume.)

my little brother swapped me out for second shift, and i was getting ready to change out to head to her house when i was like: no, she'll get a real kick out of this. this is one of the worst things i have ever worn. so i kept it on and just brought a change of clothes thinking i could shower real quick and change at her place after she saw my nightmare getup.

so i left after that, got there, knocked on her door, and she said come on in. so i went in, and there was this very long hall with an abrupt right turn into her living room where the tv was, and i went down the hall, and i made the turn, and my field of view went from beige drywal to her, on the couch, naked. naked in the paint me like one of your french girls pose. super naked.

i panicked. this was my first time seeing a real person like, full on sex naked,which is a totally different beast from other kinds of naked. you see one kind of naked and you think yeah, im ready for all the kinds of naked, but you arent. i wasnt at least. i really wasn't.

so my brain crashed to BIOS. she also crashed to BIOS, but for different reasons. of all the ways this could have turned me, having me show up in yellow body paint and overalls was pretty pretty low down the list.

so we sat there a while, and you know, she wasn't getting any less naked, which really wasn't helping me get my brain sorted out. it really wasnt much of a surprise when she got her bearings first and started asking questions.

"babylon," she said. "babylon. what are you wearing?"

and i was like, kind of rebooted, but i was nowhere near full functionality, so symbolic language wasnt loaded in yet. i had nothing running but my trusty autism.exe, so i said

"overalls"

and she looked at me like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked at her like she was the first naked person i had seen in real life who got naked specifically for me, and my upper level cognitive process went: "listen man, we are not going to get our shit together as long as 80% of your brain power is devoted to not blinking. you gotta get out of here."

and if id communicated that, maybe things would have been less of a mess, but instead i just kind of turned around and walked back to my car. i figured i could drive a few loops around the block, get my brain in order, and figure out what the hell we were gonna do.

the only thing i had said to her since arriving was, again, overalls.

first loop around, i was like: oh god fucking damnit. oh shit. oh shit. shes gonna get like, an eating disorder from this. oh no.

second loop around i was like: oh NOOOOO oh WHAT THE FUCK oh SWEET JESUS PLEASE. i dont wanna go back man. i just wanna bury this and forget about it. please. please. let this bitter cup pass from my lips.

and after my third loop, i went and i knocked on her door again.

she answered it this time, and i counted my lucky stars that she'd changed into some pajamas. she was all teary eyed which was the saddest thing ever, and we sat down in her kitchen and talked. it was pretty bad - i figured out we'd been dating, and she figured out that trying to jump from home plate to 3rd base is considered ballsy in baseball, least of all dating. no real winners there. and i can remember after all that, we sat there a bit a bit longer, just steadying ourselves, and i was like "well, im actually really glad we figured that out. guess i'll see you at school tomorow' and she said "WAIT. wait."

"lets watch shrek 2."

so we did and it was horrible. we did not look at each other. we did not say a word. we just sat in stony silence, while shrek 2 played in the background, and when it was done we shook hands. i think we might have been able to salvage that as a friendship if it hadnt been for shrek. as it was she turned white as a sheet and ran away every time she even got a glimpse of me at school, and that summer she moved to a new state to live with her dad. all her friends said she moved just so she wouldn't have to go to school with me anymore, and i dont actually think they were lying.

every time i hear relationship counselors talk about how important communication is, and i'm tempted to roll my eyes, i look back and go, alright. alright. theres probably some poor bastard, somewhere in the world, who doesnt even know that hes married.

and god help him when he figures it out.

other bad dating story here.

[ixtaek]

Working on theories about Hyrule’s geography based solely upon my vague notion of direction. Featuring the crummiest maps known to Hyruleankind

[drchucktingle]

As an autistic person, did you struggle to make and keep friends? And have you found friends through the writing world? I ask because my mom always said i needed to find my people. I did finally find them (they are neurodiverse trans nerds, haha), but not until i was like 30. And i wonder if its true of other autistic people too. So i guess my question is: did you find your people, and when?

thank you this is good question. i have always had a LOT of CLOSE BUDS even from a very young age. i would actually say that i am unusually socially adept in my way and that it is partially BECAUSE of my autistic trot. LETS TALK ON THAT FOR A MOMENT

'BUT CHUCK YOU SAID YOU ARE ON THE SPECTRUM AND AUTISTIC BUCKAROOS CANNOT BE SOCIALLY ADEPT' some say. and sure it is UNUSUAL overall, technically speaking, but there is also an important reason we talk about this as a spectrum of buckaroos and not a monolith

when buckaroos ask me what it is like to be autistic i try to explain like this: there are certain cues and markers from the outside that serve as a sort of identification checklist but because of masking they are not always correct. instead i see it as question of WHAT IS IT LIKE INSIDE YOUR BRAIN?

internally my brain is different. its taking in way more information all the time, including the stuff that neurotypical buds block out, and that can become overwhelming. it is hard to navigate because i do not have that automatic neurotypical 'here is what is important here is what is not' function

so yes i can be easily distracted and zone out as i watch the patterns and fractals spin off. and yes i can miss certain things in social situations. in many autistic buckaroos this makes large groups overwhelming and the OUTPUT of behavior matches what we typically know as signs of autism

FOR ME however, same thing is going on inside, but i have managed to HARNESS that information. even from very young age i see that everyone is DOING THE HUMAN ACT but instead of rejecting that and shutting off i think 'well okay i am just going to do THIS because thats what they actually want'

in other words, most neurotypical buds say one thing that has a kind of spiraling social-cue-related OTHER MEETING (they do this ALL the time) and instead of rejecting that i have trained myself to be REALLY REALLY good at knowing the hidden meaning. it is EMPATHY but on a sort of LOGIC BASED level

and because i have always been pretty good at that, people like to trot around me and say 'wow this is a good friend they understand me'. now for ME that can be a little exhausting and there are things i need to do and stims and all that to release the effort, but overall it is worth it to me

OTHER THING is that i was a successful CREATOR AND ARTIST BUCKAROO from an early age which is socially seen as 'cool' especially when you are trotting around in your youth. it is not particularly FAIR but it is true that some level of fame makes buds treat you well even if you are 'weird'.

of course it can be a sort of FAKE 'treating you well' but as an autistic buckaroo it is still more of a chance than you might otherwise get. this timeline has sort of carved out a very special little sliver of social grace for the token odd artistic weirdo to have a seat at each cool kids table

ANYWAY that is the trot of my life. it is a unique trot that i dont get to talk on much but since you asked THERE YOU GO. every chance i get to say 'I LOVE BEING AUTISTIC' and talk on HOW MUCH IT HAS IMPROVED MY LIFE i try to take a moment and do that. when i was young i had few autistic heroes

and OF COURSE it can be difficult and overwhelming and we need to have space for those stories and voices, but i want young buckaroos who get this diagnosis to know there are ALL KINDS of stories and trots on the autism spectrum. MINE IS PRETTY DANG COOL and maybe yours will be too. LOVE IS REAL

[littlcdarlin]

Event Horizon

summary: When you start university to do your master’s in physics, you are more than surprised to meet your professor: Joel Miller, an old friend of your parents' who moved away years ago. word–count: 15k warnings: professor kink, power imbalance due to Joel being reader's professor, illegal relationship (overage & consenting), dbf!Joel, big fat age gap (unspecified but written with early 20s & mid 50s in mind), unprotected piv, just overall daddy issues (no use of the word daddy)

note: Okay, time to tell you I am a big nerd and studied physics in uni. Truth is, I quit to pursue a career in the arts, so my knowledge of masters level physics is...a little rusty. Please be lenient with me if I messed anything up. Also, I know most people hate physics, but I promise Joel makes it hot. Warning: explanation of the Dirac equation as foreplay. Also, I'm European and have no fucking clue how the American education system works but I don't care enough to do research. Enjoy <3333

event horizon noun ASTRONOMY a notional boundary around a black hole beyond which no light or other radiation can escape. a point of no return.

Uni felt different at eighteen, when everything was about moving out, drinking beer at frat parties, and kissing boys who didn’t grow up in the same town you did. It was an exciting time, the degree itself fading into the background of all sorts of new experiences, but now that you’re doing your masters, you plan on focusing on your your grades more than on partying.

You enrolled in a new university, farther away from home, with a better physics program, and although you’ve grown up considerably, you still feel that tingle of anxiety you did when you first walked to your dorm, fresh out of high school. This time you won’t have to share with another student, spending your saved money on a bit of privacy that is a single dorm room, but still, you wonder if you’ll make friends here, or if you’ll spend your night hauled up alone, watching trash TV and crying because you’re lonely.

The room is small, blank, but functional with a bathroom you share with another student and a small kitchenette, and immediately you dream of all the ways you could decorate it. You didn’t bring much, just a big suitcase and a few boxes your Dad dropped off earlier. You feel slightly guilty for leaving your parents behind, but the relief outweighs the guilt – you won’t have to come home every Sunday for dinner, visits will be scarce. You love you parents, but the distance is much needed.

You get to unpacking your clothes, reveling in the fact that you can listen to music without headphones in your very own space. You could do it in your underwear, or naked, you could sing and dance along, and nobody would be bothered by it. It’s going to be a tough two years, the program you chose more than challenging, but a childish sort of giddiness fills you – no roommate to be considerate of, no parents to visit and take care of every week. This time in your life is about you, and only you – your career, but also your well-being. You promise yourself to do what makes you happy, instead of looking out for everyone else all of the time, and you’ll start by ordering Thai food and watching the trashiest movie with the hottest actors you can find on the little flatscreen you brought with you.

***

Your first lecture is Computational Physics – the one you’re looking forward to the least. The reason you decided to study physics at all was the predictable logic behind each problem, but the more you studied, the more complex the problems got, until they were impossible to solve analytically. Now you get to solve fluid dynamic equations and simulate quantum systems on a Monday morning instead of having a peaceful cup of coffee and taking a walk around campus.

The lecture hall is big, and you pick a seat that is neither too far away to be able to read the professor’s notes, nor close enough to immediately be pinned as an over-eager teacher’s pet. In the end, you plop down next to a girl who’s sitting alone, something about her shaved head and countless earrings making you think she wouldn’t make fun of you even if you didn’t understand a single thing all lecture.

"Okay if I sit here?", you ask somewhat timidly, trying hard not to sound too much like an eleven year old Ron Weasley boarding the train to Hogwarts.

"Please," the girl answers, "I don’t know anybody here."

"Did you move here, too?"

"Yeah, I’m from New York."

"You look it," you say with a smile, eyes drifting over her clothes and jewelry.

"Thanks…I guess?", she answers, her grin revealing a charming gap between her front teeth. "I’m Alva."

You introduce yourself, thankful to have found someone you can stick to already. Throughout the lecture you find out that apart from being much cooler than everyone else in the room, Alva has a biting sense of humor, and a near endless knowledge of computational physics. You make a mental note to ask her to study together, her explanations much easier to understand than the professor’s.

The two of you spend your lunch break together, and you tell her a little bit about yourself, but way too soon it’s time to go already – you have Advanced Quantum Mechanics in a different lecture hall. This you find way more interesting, basic quantum mechanics was one of your favorite lectures during your bachelor’s degree. As Alva and you sit down, you find yourself hoping you’ll be able to help her out this time, or you’d feel like a leech for making her help you with Computational. She doesn’t seem bothered, though, and keeps babbling happily about a band she recently discovered.

"– Britpop, but they only put out two albums. I think they were like a student band or something? They’re wildly underrated, I’ll send you a song, their debut is called The Sun Is Often Out."

Your thoughts start to wander off a little, eyes drifting over the old-fashioned chalkboards, when the door at the front of the lecture hall opens, and a tall man walks in – a man you recognize.

"Holy shit," you whisper, interrupting Alva’s rant about the Longpigs, and she turns her head to look at what you’re staring at.

"Damn," she says with a grin, "if I wasn’t gay, I’d want a piece of that."

"No," you snort, "I know him. He’s my Dad’s friend."

Alva opens her mouth to say something, but at that moment, Joel Miller steps forward, checking to see if the microphone is working, and introduces himself to the hundreds of students in front of him. His voice is deep, and as warm as you remember it, but that’s where the accuracy of your memories ends – your childish brain failed to register the tanned forearms and rolled up sleeves, the carelessly styled curls, the perfect side-profile. He’s got grey streaks in his hair now, which should send you into a crisis about time passing and your own little life being finite, but instead it makes your stomach swirl with something dangerous. Joel Miller, the Joel Miller, who organized backyard barbecues with your father and bought your favorite vegan sausages when your Dad rolled his eyes at you, who made strawberry lemonade instead of lemon, because he knew you preferred it, who helped you with your physics homework when you were graduating high school and didn’t rat you out when he caught you smoking at seventeen – he’s handsome.

There’s still a familiarity about him, the way he moves and talks, although it’s unsettling to see him in such a different environment. You’re used to band-tee-Joel, beer bottle and tongs in his hands, a breezy smile on his face. He looks different here, in a white button-down, with a stern expression on his face, as he’s reading the names on his list to check attendance. When he calls Alva’s name and she raises her hand, his eyes flicker upwards, but he doesn’t look at you. Still, your stomach lurches. If you listen carefully, you can detect that southern twang in his voice you’re sure most people would miss, and it fills you with satisfaction to know you’re the one who knows him best in this room – you’re sure half the lecture hall must see how attractive he is.

When he reads out your name, there’s a surprised lilt to his tone, and your heart threatens to skip a beat.

"Here."

Your eyes meet, and although his expression doesn’t change, he holds your eyecontact for a second too long. Alva nudges your side and grins.

Your plans about outshining Alva and returning the favor of helping with a lecture are quickly buried by Joel Miller’s beautiful hands – thick fingers holding a piece of chalk almost tenderly, twirling it around when he isn’t writing on the chalkboard. You vaguely register him introducing the Dirac equation, but as interesting as you would normally find it, your thoughts are stuck between memories of barbecues and the realization that you will have to call the man who taught you to drive Professor Miller.

If Alva notices your wandering mind, she doesn’t comment on it, which you’re thankful for. You do notice her throwing you a couple of knowing glances, as you copy down what Joel is writing down, mixing up gamma, delta, and the Dirac spinor.

"Alright, so you all know how Schrödinger’s equation works great for quantum mechanics, but it doesn’t play nicely with Einstein’s relativity, right? That’s a problem because electrons move fast, sometimes close to the speed of light, so we need an equation that respects both quantum mechanics and special relativity. That’s where Dirac steps in."

He’s still got that warm way of explaining things your Dad never managed when you needed help in high school, like he enjoys clearing things up for people. He’s a born teacher, patient when you panicked in the car because you confused the clutch and the break, persistent when you wanted to throw your physics book against a wall. Look, kid, think of it this way: Push harder, it moves faster. Make it heavier, it’s harder to move. If you apply a force F to an object with mass m, it will accelerate a. That’s why your Dad’s car takes longer to stop than your bike. Even now, he manages to make a far more complex equation than Newton’s second law tangible.

"Dirac's equation is like the grown-up version of Schrödinger’s equation. It explains how particles with spin-half, like electrons, behave when they move at relativistic speeds. The gamma mu matrices make sure the equation works in four-dimensional spacetime, meaning three space dimensions plus time. The psi is a spinor, which is just a fancy way of saying that an electron isn’t just a simple wave function, it actually has spin built into its nature. Now, can anyone think of a situation where we would need to use this equation instead of the regular Schrödinger equation?"

Nobody raises their hand, most people still busy with writing down Joel’s complicated notes, and as if on cue, his eyes are on yours when you look up from your notebook. He raises an eyebrow, and you see the corner of his mouth twitch almost imperceptibly. Then, he calls your last name, a formal Miss dripping off his tongue as if he hasn’t called you kiddo for most of your life. It’s almost like he’s making a joke only the two of you are able to understand, and the thought thrills you to your bone. Two can play this game – you smile back.

"Sure, Professor Miller. You’d use it for studying high-energy particles, like electrons in particle accelerators, because it accounts for relativistic speeds. It’s also needed for situations where particles are created or destroyed, which Schrödinger’s equation doesn’t cover."

Again, his eyes linger on yours, and his slightly amused smile turns into a more genuine one at your answer. You let out a relieved sigh.

"Exactly," Joel answers, his attention on the rest of the class again, "Someone payed attention during Basic Quantum Mechanics. Now, here’s where it gets wild. When Dirac wrote this down, he realized it naturally predicts antiparticles, meaning for every electron, there should be a mirror-image particle with opposite charge, which we now call the positron. That was a huge deal because it wasn’t something people were expecting, it just fell out of the math."

For the rest of the class, Joel doesn’t continue that little game between the two of you, but whenever he asks a question, his gaze flickers over you, and your stomach gives an embarrassing little jump. Alva grins whenever this happens, but for most of the class she’s busy following Joel’s explanations.

"I want you to read up on today’s lecture," Joel says at the end of the lecture, and writes down a few page numbers on the chalkboard, "and solve the problems I mentioned earlier. Attendance isn’t mandatory, we’re all adults here, but I urge you to come if you’re interested in graduating in the next three years. Trust me, it’s easier to just do the work here than in your dorms. Now, enjoy the weather, see you Monday."

You and Alva pack up your things, and before she can ask you which class you have next, you pick up your backpack.

"I’m gonna say hi to him," you tell her, nodding in Joel’s direction, "my Dad and him go way back."

"Sure," Alva says, a cheeky smile on her face, "it’d be rude not to."

"Meet you outside?"

"I’ll be at the vending machine. Go get him," she jokes, and you snort.

Joel is packing up his course materials when you make your way down the steps and to his desk, but he looks up when he hears you coming towards him, and immediately his face splits into a smile. If you were anywhere else and ten years younger, he’d probably ruffle your hair.

"Good lecture," you say, "Dad didn’t tell me you’re teaching again."

Joel puts his piece of chalk into a tin box and nods.

"I don’t think he knows. You know how it is, we never get around to callin’ and I haven’t been home in a while."

So this is a new development, perhaps even Joel’s first semester back at university, too.

"What about the contracting? Don’t you miss the…pipes?"

He chuckles at your lack in basic contracting knowledge, his eyes not moving from yours.

"Ah, that was always Tommy, he just needed a little help. Company’s doin’ well now, though, so he’ll manage without me."

You think you remember Tommy – a man good-naturedly chasing you and the rest of the giggling neighborhood kids with a harden hose – but the memory is too vague to be sure it’s really him.

"You’ve grown up," Joel says, almost accusingly, and you shrug and smile. "Doin’ your master’s already. How come you’re familiar with Dirac?"

His accent is much thicker now that it’s only the two of you, and you notice a hint of pride when he asks about your correct answer to his question during the lecture. The satisfied feeling it gives you is still the same as when he high-fived you after your drivers test, or when he patted your back after you solved a problem for school without his help.

"Summer reading," you admit, trying hard not to sound like a nerd, "Basic Quantum Mechanics was my favorite lecture as an undergrad."

Joel smiles at you, and puts his notes into his leather bag. He slings it across his shoulder, and nods towards the door.

"How would you like to grab a coffee and tell me all about what’s been goin’ on with you and your old man?"

Your eyes flicker briefly over his hand, gripping the strap of his bag, and you raise an eyebrow.

"What’s the policy for staff having coffee with their students, Professor?"

Joel holds your gaze, the corners of his mouth twitching.

"I’m actually not sure, Miss, I’ve never had to check before."

He’s playing along, and it feels dangerously blurry – yes, he’s your Dad’s old friend, your childhood neighbor, but it feels like more than just joking around.

"Does that mean I’m your first, then?", you ask, voice sweet and close to flirting now. The smile freezes on Joel’s face, and his gaze becomes almost calculating.

"Am I yours?" he asks you softly, and the double-meaning behind his question isn’t lost on you. You feel a thrilling pang in your stomach – Joel Miller is flirting with you.

***

You do end up getting coffee after you tell Alva you’ll meet her later, Joel reassuring you it won’t get him into trouble, and you’re fascinated to see he still drinks it black. What fascinates you even more is that you remember how he takes his coffee, and you wonder why your brain filed this fact away as important, not to be forgotten.

"So, when did you graduate? Sorry I missed it."

There’s honest regret in his voice, which surprises you. Joel was always a warm person, but you figured he cared for you as much as he would have for any kid living across the street.

"Last June," you tell him, dropping a sugar cube into your cappuccino. "I spent the summer working, and now I’m here."

"How d’you like it so far?"

You give a nervous chuckle, torn between the honest truth and pleasant small talk. You opt for the former – this is Joel, after all, not some stranger.

"To be honest with you, I oscillate between enjoying my freedom away from Mom and Dad, and being scared shitless by starting over somewhere new," you admit, looking at your coffee. You haven’t told people about your fear, and it feels good to finally admit it – the grip your parents have had on you makes your newfound freedom almost uncomfortable.

"What d’you mean, startin’ over?", Joel asks, his voice strikingly gentle. You sigh, and shrug.

"I know the distance is good for me, but it was comfortable, just doing what my parents expected of me. I had good grades, nice friends, and just the right amount of drunken nights for them not to worry about my social life too much," you explain, "and now it’s like…there’s so much room to be someone else, cause they won’t see it anyway."

You look up, embarrassed to have spilt your guts like this, but Joel looks thoughtful, his thumb moving along the handle of his coffee cup.

"Sorry," you mutter, "I know they’re your friends, but they can be…"

"Overbearing?"

You smile at him gratefully and he smiles back.

"Look, I know your parents pretty well. They love you to bits, but as an adult I imagine it must be stiflin’.“

"Yeah," you sigh, grateful for his understanding, "I feel like I don’t know who I am when I’m not…their kid."

Joel nods, and sips his coffee, apparently pondering what you said.

"I promised myself I would only do what makes me happy while I’m here," you tell him sheepishly, as if it’s a secret, and Joel laughs.

"Well, I’m not expectin’ you to hand in any homework, then."

You grin, too, and shake your head. It’s surreal, Joel being your professor, and you wearing your heart on your sleeve for him.

"Don’t worry, Professor Miller, I’m not dropping your class."

"You’d better not, it’d really hurt my feelings," Joel says, eyes trained on yours. Again, that blurriness set in motion by the change of his role in your life: neighbor to professor to – what?

"What about you, though? This your first semester here?"

"Second," he tells you, "but I still don’t feel at home. Once a Texan, always a Texan, I guess."

You cock your head and watch him drain the last of his coffee, the cup tiny in his hands.

"What?" he asks you, curiosity evident in his voice.

"You look so different," you say, and Joel scoffs.

"Well, that’s real nice. Know I’m not thirty anymore, but geez–"

"No," you say with a grin, "it’s not that. I don’t know, I’ve just never seen you teach before. Or dressed this nice – I remember you mowing the lawn in a Fleetwood Mac shirt, not checking attendance in a button down."

Joel’s cheeks go slightly pink, and he scoffs again.

"Well, I can’t show up here in a band tee, can I? Gotta dress the part," he mutters.

"I get it. You suit it," you tell him, if only to see that blush appear on his face again. He looks up at you, holding your gaze for a couple of seconds, then he shakes his head.

"What were the odds of us meetin’ like this, huh? I gotta call your father and tell him."

Something about that bothers you, you’d prefer for your parents not to know. You like sitting here with Joel, reminiscing the old times, without anybody getting a peek in.

"Or not," he says gently, seeing the expression on your face.

"Sorry," you say, "course you can tell him."

"You apologize a lot," he tells you, and you fight the urge to say sorry once again. "It’s okay, I’m not tellin’ anyone, kid. ’S just you n me."

That pang in your stomach again, and you nod.

"Alright," you answer, "just us."

You get a refill for the two of you, and a blueberry muffin to split, which feels strangely intimate, but Joel pats his stomach and jokes about keeping an eye on his figure, so you grin, and ask the barista to cut it in half. Joel asks you about your friends, and you tell him about Alva.

"Oh yes," he says and swallows a bite of the muffin, "that punky lookin’ kid who sits next to you?"

"Yeah, she’s nice. Haven’t really met anyone else."

"Geez, I’m not keepin’ you from findin’ frat boys to hook up with, am I?"

You laugh, the idea of sitting here with a twenty-something year old kid named Cole or Josh instead of him so absurd, you can’t help it.

"No," you tell him, "I’m honestly enjoying the fact that I don’t have to have someone else in my dorm anymore."

"Well, that’s a relief to hear," Joel says, "they’re all dipshits."

You remember him telling you something similar about the boys in high school, and it makes you smile. He’s still got that protective streak, then.

"To tell you the truth, I’m glad you’re here," you say quietly, "if I’m not making any friends, I can come crying to you."

Joel watches you for a couple of seconds, not laughing as you intended, but taking your words seriously.

"Course you’ll make friends. Give it a couple of weeks, and you’ll have forgotten all about physics cause you’ll be skippin’ classes left and right to hang out with people."

You don’t tell him, but you think it’s very unlikely you’ll skip any of his classes. Still, you appreciate his words and how confident he seems to be in your ability to open up to people.

"Well, will you give me the answers to your exams if I skip your class?"

"No way," he says with a cheeky smile, the crinkles around his eyes prominent. "I don’t do preferential treatment. You wanna split another blueberry muffin?"

You grin.

"Thought you were watching your waistline."

"I am, that’s why I’m only eating halves."

***

Your afternoon with Joel leaves you on a high for the rest of the day, feeling much less lonely now that you’ve had a conversation beyond the usual so how many siblings do you have? and where did you do your undergrad?

You start spending your lunch breaks with Alva and some friends she made in another lecture, all of whom are very nice. In the evenings you all go to see a movie or have dinner together in any of your dorm rooms, and although you walk around campus holding out one eye for Joel, you don’t see him for the rest of the week. There is always a nudge of disappointment in your stomach, when you glance in the direction of his office, and the door is closed, but you’re so busy, you don’t dwell on it too much. The days pass in a blur of new lectures, swapping music with Alva, and evenings spent as a group of six, and suddenly it’s Sunday again. You aren’t too sad the weekend is already over, and you know exactly why you’re looking forward to Monday, but you don’t allow yourself to think about Joel any more than you can help.

In the afternoon, while you’re doing Joel’s assignment for the next class, your mother calls, and you answer the phone with a mixture of feelings.

Hi, my darling, how are you doing?

"Hi, Mom. I’m good, just doing my work for tomorrow. How are you?"

Good, good. How was your first week? Did you meet anyone nice?

Hah, if she only knew. It feels deceptive, not telling her about Joel, but you like that for now, he’s just yours.

"Yes, this girl called Alva. We and some guys hang out a lot, there’s a cinema near by, but the lectures are pretty hard, so we only have the evenings off."

Well, I’m glad you found some nice people! Dad says hi, he’s making dinner. Anyway, baby, we miss you terribly. Do you know when you’ll be coming home?

"I just got here, Mom."

You sigh so quietly your mother can’t hear it, guilt already nagging at your heart. Sunday is the day you would usually be coming home for dinner, and you know it’s no coincidence your parents called you now.

Of course, you’re right. It’s just not easy for your Dad and me, you know? You’ve never been this far from home, and you’re our baby.

Yeah, you think, your adult baby. You sigh again.

"I don’t know if I’ll come this month, I’m still sort of settling in. But I’ll let you know if there’s a free weekend next month, alright?"

Sure, that sounds great. Will you send us some pictures of your friends, and your room?

"Sure," you say, but it bugs you that you’re giving in. Already, you’re breaking the promise you made yourself, and letting your parents further into your life here than you’re comfortable with.

"Mom, I gotta go, I’ve still got some problems to solve and I’m meeting Alva for dinner soon."

Okay, darling, enjoy your night! And make yourself heard. I love you!

"Love you, too! Talk soon."

Your kind, clingy mother, whose greatest pain is not knowing if you’re safe. In a way you miss her, and you feel guilty for being annoyed. Still, you know you have to gently nudge her away from you, or she’ll suffocate you one day. It makes you angry with yourself, because you know your Mom would have liked nothing more than to hear all about your week, but as soon as she asked you a question, you felt like your seventeen year old self again, getting yelled at because you stayed up past your curfew, and your parents didn’t know where you were.

Tears of frustration spring to your eyes – the mix of feelings too much for you to handle. You wipe them away with the back of your hand, breathe in shakily, and try to focus on your assignment again, but now you’re riled up, and the tears won’t stop.

It’s hard for you to deal with disappointing your parents, forcing them away when they would like nothing more than to know everything that’s going on in your life. So, instead of preparing for Joel’s lecture, you cry on your bed, feeling lonely and angry with yourself for hurting them. You know your reaction is disproportionate, but everything you kept buried while you lived close to your parents comes bubbling out of you.

You call Alva, tell her you have cramps because of your period and just want to stay in bed. She’s understanding, asks you if there’s anything she can do, even offers to bring you takeout or a hot water bottle, which makes you feel all the worse for lying to her. You decline her offer, tell her you’ll meet her Monday morning. In the evening, you regret not letting her bring over a real meal, eating cold pasta in your underwear, tears still running down your face and making your head pound.

***

On Monday, you feel slightly better, your headache is gone and your face isn’t as puffy as you expected it to be. Still, you’re in a solitary mood, and are glad to find Alva is able to keep up an entire conversation virtually by herself – you just grunt from time to time, or give noncommittal movements of your head in vague agreement. You hope if she notices your bad mood, she just thinks it has to do with your period.

Computational Physics is hell – you dislike it on the best of days, but guilt ridden and tired, you’re barely able to pay attention at all, and the professor’s handwriting is so bad, you end up copying down Alva’s notes instead. She’s kind about it, slides over her notebook at an angle that makes it easy to read, and you make a mental note to thank her for being so kind to you while you’re offering nothing but a scowling expression all day. Maybe you’ll cook for her, or make a mixtape of your favorite songs, just to show her you’re interested in being actual good friends.

Lunch passes easily, as always you sit with Alva and the guys, and there’s enough people for you to stare at your mashed potatoes and repeatedly stab them with your fork instead of eating them. They taste like flour mixed up with water, and you dream up your father’s Sunday dinner instead, but it does little to help with the taste.

"So, you lookin’ forward to flirting with Miller in front of the whole lecture hall again?" Alva asks you, as you’re making your way to said room. You glare at her, but can’t help the corners of your mouth twitching.

"Wasn’t flirting with him," you answer, kicking a pebble, "I grew up across the street from him, I’ve known him practically my whole life."

"Whatever you say, grumpy," Alva teases, nudging your shoulder with hers. You’re overcome with a rush of gratitude for the way she treats you, persistently kind and humorous. You chuckle, your mood lifting slightly.

"He’s probably been waiting for you to turn legal," she continues, and you groan.

"Gross, Alva, he’s not a creep."

"I’m just saying, if your little connection gets you the answers to his tests, you could sell them and become rich."

"I already asked him, he said no," you say darkly, thinking of the nights you’ll have to spend studying to pass his exam. This makes Alva laugh her brilliant laugh, and you can’t help but smile, too.

"Damn," she grins, "I’d try if he wasn’t a guy."

You snort.

"You try with Professor Carter, I need the answers to Computational," you suggest, wiggling your eyebrows suggestively.

"You’re joking, but I bet once you get her out of her frumpy cardigans, she’s a real–"

"Okay, stop," you grown, the image of Professor Carter taking off her cardigans worse than her keeping them on – if possible. Alva giggles.

"I’ll help you with Computational," she says, "if you help me with Quantum Mechanics."

"You’re good at both," you argue, and Alva shrugs.

"Not like you, though. I spent like four hours doing Miller’s assignment last night."

You want to tell her you didn’t do it at all, but before you can open your mouth, she spots a friend in the crowd, grabs your arm and drags you over to him.

The three of you sit down together, closer to the front than the week before, which gives you a direct line of sight to Joel’s desk. When he walks in, your stomach jumps – he’s wearing a tie today, a dark burgundy or blue, you aren’t sure from this distance, flecked with specks of white. Again, his hair is styled in that carelessly disheveled look you like so much, and the image of him putting gel in it makes you smile. He gets out his materials for the lecture, and looks up, his eyes finding yours – you smile and he gives a small nod. Again you’re struck by how different he acts in front of the class, how serious he seems. You think of his laid back manner when you had coffee, and struggle to make the images align. Joel clears his throat, and the chatter around you stops.

"Quiet, please, everyone. Thank you. So, last week, we found out that Dirac’s equation predicts the existence of antiparticles. But instead of just accepting that, let’s think deeper—mathematically, what feature of the equation forces this conclusion?"

Joel jumps right into the lecture, and just like last week, nobody raises their hands – you curse the people around you for their lethargy, because sure enough, Joel’s eyes land on you. Before you can shake your head to signal to him not to ask you, he calls your name.

"If I remember correctly, you were already familiar with Dirac’s equation last week. What would you say, what does the existence of negative-energy solutions tell us, and why couldn’t we just ignore them?"

You wish you could answer him, know he asked you because he was sure you’d know the answer, perhaps hoped your enthusiasm for the subject would get the rest of the students to participate more, but you didn’t do the assignment, and you’ve already half forgotten his question. You swallow.

"Um…I…I’m not sure, Sir," you say, watching the way his brows furrow, and looking down at your notes. Alva shoots you a curious look, and when she sees your expression, she raises her hand. You’re thankful to have Joel’s attention diverted, feeling like a fool in front of hundreds of students you’re trying to make friends with.

"Dirac’s equation gives positive and negative energy solutions, and at first, the negative ones didn’t make sense. Dirac suggested they represent antiparticles, like the positron, which he predicted. The idea was that electrons could, like, jump into these negative-energy states, creating a hole that looks like a positron, which was later confirmed experimentally," Alva explains instead of you.

"You're close, but electrons don’t actually 'jump into' negative-energy states. Instead, Dirac proposed that these states are already filled, forming what he called the Dirac Sea. A positron isn’t an electron jumping down, it’s actually a 'hole' left when a negative-energy electron gets excited to a positive-energy state. That distinction is important because it explains why positrons have the opposite charge. Good answer, though, thank you Ms. Bennet."

Joel’s eyes flicker over to you again, but you show no reaction, and he continues with his lecture without asking you another question. Alva glances at you inquiringly, and you sigh.

"I wanted to do the assignment yesterday, but my cramps were really bad," you explain quietly, and she nods sympathetically.

"Call me next time, I’ll send you my answers," she whispers, and you smile gratefully. It seems you really hit the jackpot in friendship when you sat down next to Alva.

***

After Joel’s lecture, you and Alva make your way over to the vending machine, because it has the sour patches she likes, and in her own words she’ll combust if she doesn’t eat some right fucking now.

"Shit," she curses, "they’re stuck."

"Let me," a voice comes from a behind you, and when you turn around, Joel is smiling at the two of you. "Took me a while to figure this thing out, too."

Alva steps aside, and Joel bangs his palm against the side of machine. You jump, but the sour patches make their tumbling way down to the dispenser.

"Great! Thanks, Professor Miller," Alva says, ripping the bag open and offering it to the two of you. To your surprise, Joel takes her up on it, and Alva grins at you.

"You were quiet during today’s lecture," Joel says tentatively, when he’s swallowed his sour patch "everything alright?"

You glance at your shoes.

"Um, yeah. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday, and I left your assignment for last, so…I didn’t do it."

Joel’s expression grows worried, and Alva glances between the two of you.

"Hey, I’m meeting Max for coffee," she tells you, "see you later?"

"Yeah," you answer, grateful she’s granting you this time alone with Joel, "see you, Alva."

When she’s gone, Joel is still looking at you with that worried look on his face, and you sigh.

"Sorry about the assignment," you say, "won’t happen again."

"I’m not worried about the assignment," Joel says earnestly, but then he turns his head, and you know he doesn’t want someone listening in. Sure, you can be seen chatting in the university cafe, but this conversation is rapidly blurring the lines between scholarly and – something else.

"I…have some materials in my office that might make it easier for you to catch up with the lectures again," Joel tells you, and you understand the underlying meaning. Let’s talk in my office.

"Thank you," you say, relieved, and Joel nods, eyes still glued to yours, brows still furrowed. You walk to his office making smalltalk about the lecture, which to anyone listening in would seem like a normal conversation between a professor and an interested student.

Joel opens the door to his office for you, and lets you step in first. It’s small, cramped bookshelves on the walls and a sturdy desk in the middle that is littered with notes, pencils, books, and a couple of old coffee mugs. You notice he put part of his books sideways onto the shelves, which you find weirdly endearing. This is the Joel you know – clutter and warmth.

He closes the door behind you, and you turn around to watch him drop his bag and walk over to the kettle in the corner of the room.

"Coffee?"

"Please," you sigh, "if you don’t have anything stronger."

He raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t answer, just turns on the already filled kettle, and gets two clean cups for the two of you.

"I only have drip coffee," he tells you, "I don’t drink that crap the machines brew up."

"That’s fine, I enjoy the medieval feel of it."

"Watch it," he answers, a smile tugging on his lips, "don’t insult my coffee filter in front of me."

You grin, and walk over to his bookshelf to have a look.

"So, what’s going on?" he asks you while pouring the boiling hot water over the coffee grounds. Again, the Joel you remember – empathetic, but unusually direct. You sigh, turn around and shrug.

"Mom and Dad called yesterday, and I could tell they missed me, but I just…I cut them off after two minutes."

Joel places the cups on his desk, and leans against it. His sleeves are rolled up again, and when he crosses his arms, you feel that familiar pang in your stomach.

"And now I…I don’t know, I feel so guilty, Joel. They’re not even being dicks about it, but I just know they’d prefer for me to check in with them more…and the worst thing is, I know it’s not a big deal. They’ll get over it, they’ve got a good life without me constantly in it, so I don’t know why my stupid brain can’t just let this go, you know? One I miss you, darling, and I’m reduced to this pathetic mess, instead of just, I don’t know, getting my shit together."

You shake your head and clench your teeth, once again embarrassed to come crying to Joel about your parental issues, but he’s the only one you can tell. Sure, Alva would probably listen, but you don’t feel like explaining your family to a near stranger. Joel just gets it. Joel knows you.

He’s looking at you, arms still crossed, and for a second you worry he might not want to hear about your little breakdown, but then he sighs.

"You have your shit together all of the fuckin’ time, kid, I think that might be the problem," he tells you quietly. "You’ve always been so hard on yourself."

He’s right, once again he sees what you struggle to show the world, and his words make tears spring to your eyes. You will your eyeballs to suck them back in, but of course, Joel sees.

"Hey now," he says, taking a tentative step towards you. One tear drops from the end of your lashes and down your cheek, and the dam is broken again – they come spilling in floods. Joel crosses the room in a second, and there is a slight moment of hesitation between the two of you, before you bury your face in his chest, and let your restraint fall. You cry quietly, feel him wrap his arms around you, as he rocks you back and forth.

"You’re alright," he tells you, "Shhh, it’s okay, you’re alright."

"S-s-sorry about the assignment," you manage, and Joel’s hand starts stroking your back.

"Jesus, kid, stop worryin’ about the fucking assignment," he tells you, voice low and worried. "You don’t gotta be so strict with yourself. You’re doin’ just fine."

He smells so much like home, you think you might never stop crying.

"I don’t know what’s wrong with me," you hiccup, "One week here and I’m a mess already."

You feel Joel rest his chin on your head, and his arms tighten around you.

"There’s nothin’ wrong with you, you hear me? You hold yourself to high standards. Creates pressure, kid."

As always, he’s right of course – you want to excel academically, you don’t want to hurt your parents, you want to stay true to yourself and do what makes you happy, you want to make friends without compromising your grades. It’s impossible.

You breathe in shakily, your eyes closed, face buried in Joel’s chest, and for a second he is all that exists – just Joel, all around you, pulling you to the earth. Slowly, your breathing calms, Joel still rocking you soothingly, holding you close.

"There we go," he mutters, when your chest stops shaking, "that’s good."

When you pull away from him, he puts his hands on your shoulders to really look at you, and although you’re embarrassed by your outburst, you’re glad he doesn’t shy away from you.

"I want you to start being a little more lenient with yourself, alright? You don’t need to worry about an assignment on top of everything."

His hands are rubbing your shoulders, his eyes are kind and warm.

"Maybe not about yours, but I have like five other lectures –"

"Okay, so try to stop worrying about my assignments, just mine. Won’t bite your head off if you don’t do them, and I’ll only ask you questions when you raise your hand, alright? In fact, for the rest of the term, I want you to hand them in late."

Despite yourself, your lips pull up in a small smile.

"That’s silly, Joel," you say softly, but he shakes his head.

"It’s not silly, it’s practice to get you out of your comfort zone."

You consider his words for a moment. You do keep a pretty tight reign on yourself, and just the thought of doing every assignment late makes your skin crawl with anxiety. But when will you get another chance to step out of your comfort zone as safely as now, with Joel? He’s offering you a way to try it without actually risking your grades. And who knows, perhaps it actually will take a little bit of pressure off of you.

"Okay," you answer, staring up at Joel with puffy cheeks and teary eyes. "Alright."

He smiles at you, but he still looks worried and you wish he’d pull you close to him again. It’s such a relief to have this sort of human contact with someone who really knows you.

"Feel better?"

You sigh, and nod.

"It’s just a lot, you know, uni and my parents, and every social interaction feels like such a chore, cause I don’t know people yet. I feel like I’m not even relaxed when I’m asleep."

Joel hesitates for a moment, before he speaks, but when he does, he sounds determined.

"Come over tonight, I’ll make us somethin’ to eat, and you don’t have to worry about talkin’ to anyone. We’ll watch whatever you’d like. You still enjoy those crappy horror movies?"

You smile at the shared memory – Joel letting you use his living room to watch slashers your parents didn’t want you to see. One summer, when the heat was so stifling you barely went outside, you practically lived at his place, and when you’d seen all the DVDs he owned, he got you more from the video store.

"I do," you say quietly, the fact that Joel remembers more important to you than his proposal to spend the evening together. You feel significantly less alone, all of a sudden.

"Alright, then. Be over at seven,“ Joel tells you, and you nod, wiping your wet face with the back of your hand.

"Thank you, Joel," you say, and hug him again, because you don’t know how to tell him in words what you’re feeling, and his big, warm body against yours feels more than soothing.

"Course, kid. Just don’t tell Alva, or they’ll fire me."

You smile, your arms still wrapped around his neck, as he holds you.

"But I don’t wanna get you in trouble, what if–"

"No," Joel interrupts you, "no what ifs. No worryin’. I forbid it."

And you accept it, leave it to Joel, because he tells you to – because you don’t have any room in your head for more worries, and because you trust Joel not to do anything reckless. You trust him, period.

***

You text Alva you’re having dinner alone, that your cramps are still acting up, and you do feel slightly bad for lying, but you would never risk Joel’s job. The idea of having dinner with him at his place should make you nervous after your change in feelings about him, but you’re just looking forward to having a meal with someone who knows you, and lets you be yourself.

Joel asked you to be there at seven, so you spend the rest of the afternoon in your dorm room, wondering if you should change your outfit or if it would seem desperate – in the end, you keep the jeans but change into a blouse instead of a sweater. The part of you that stares at Joel’s forearms during class now wants to look pretty for him, so that he’ll ask you over again. You know you’re being ridiculous, but it doesn’t stop you from putting on your nicest perfume.

You’re ten minutes early, so you sit in your little second hand car and try not to panic. You know Joel is merely trying to be a good…friend? Ex-neighbor, Dad’s best friend turned professor? There’s no real etiquette to cling to in this situation, for either of you, and although you’re positive Joel doesn’t have any ulterior motives with you despite his flirting, you know he could lose his job if someone finds out you went to his house. Even if you just watch slashers together the way you did ten years ago. It makes you anxious to know he’d risk something clearly important to him for just that – he moved to a different state, quit his old job, started over completely, and is now willing to endanger that new life just because you’re stressed. At the same time it seems ridiculous anyone could forbid the two of you to spend time together after having known each other your entire life. The thought is absurd, and still, you need to be careful.

You get out of the car before you start to hyperventilate, and ring Joel’s doorbell – it feels strange for him to live in a new house. He opens the door with a smile, and absurd relief floods your veins when you realize he’s wearing an old Led Zeppelin shirt and a pair of worn jeans. This is your Joel.

"I come bearing gifts," you announce, stepping into the house.

“Christ, where did you get this?”, Joel asks, taking the six pack of beer from you, so you can take off your jacket. “I didn’t know they sold Shiner Bock outside of Texas, I’ve been survivin’ on Bud”.

“Brought it with me,” you explain, “figured it’d help if I got homesick, you know, in multiple ways.”

You grin, and Joel shakes his head good-naturedly.

“Old enough to drink, well I’ll be damned. I remember when you begged your Dad to let you have a coke and he asked me if I thought the caffeine would stunt your growth.”

“Did it?”

“It might’ve,” Joel says with a chuckle, “but he didn’t let you have it.”

“Well, he isn’t here now, so let’s put those in the fridge.”

“No," Joel mutters, “no, he ain’t.”

While Joel puts the beer away, you take a look around his living room – despite your reservations about the new house, it reminds you of his old place. It’s got the same masculine and warm feel to it, dark wood, books all over the place, no bells and whistles. Joel is a practical man, and it’s charmingly etched into every part of his life – except for his new work-look. The room isn’t as cluttered as you remember Joel’s old house back in Texas, but you assume he hasn’t had time to accumulate clutter yet. No old newspapers are lying around, no birthday cards stacking up. You wonder if he’s lonely here, teaching all by himself, hundreds of miles away from the place he last grew roots in.

“Do you miss home?” you ask him, when he comes back from the kitchen with two bottles of beer in his hands. He looks at ease, much more himself than back at university. His jeans are faded, his shirt a little too big on his already broad frame, and his hair is clean and curly the way you like it – no gel twisting it into all sorts of un-Joel-like styles. Warmth floods your chest at the sight of him taking a swig of his beer. His crowfeet are a little more pronounced, and his hair has more grey strands than it did back home, but he’s still got that distinctly warm, no-nonsense feel to him.

“Sometimes,” he answers, offering you the second bottle. Your hand brushes his when you take it from him. “But I’m pretty busy here, you know, got a whole lotta lectures to plan, papers to grade and that sort of stuff.”

You nod, and sip at your beer.

“Have you…you know, met people? Made friends here?”

Joel plops down on the couch, and smiles up at you.

“You worried about my social life?”

You shrug, and smile almost timidly.

“You know me, kid, I like bein’ by myself.”

That’s true, for as long as you’ve known Joel, he’s been alone. You know he has nieces and nephews who adore him, and your Dad mentioned a woman once, but it must have been at least twenty years since they were together. You wonder why Joel doesn’t seem to want that sort of a domestic life, surely many women would be happy to let him put a ring on them.

You walk over to the window, and watch a blackbird tug at a writhing worm.

“Have you met someone at uni you wanna be by yourself with?” you ask with a small grin, turning back to find Joel already watching you. “I heard Professor Carter’s still single.”

“She’s very intelligent,” Joel says earnestly. You give him credit for not laughing about his colleague, and suddenly you feel bad for calling her frumpy with Alva. “But I think I’ll leave her to her simulations. Why am I bein’ interrogated?”

“Sorry,” you mumble, and glance out of the window again, “just making conversation.”

“Your turn, then,” Joel answers, and takes another swig of beer. “Any frat boys catch your eye? Or frat girls?”

You glance at him, a smile on your lips, and raise your eyebrows.

“Hey, I don’t discriminate. I thought, maybe Alva…”

“No,” you answer, feeling fond of him for considering the possibility. “Alva’s a friend. The guys are…well, they’re frat boys.”

 Your voice carries enough disgust for Joel to laugh.

“Right,” he says, and his eyes are warm when they meet yours again. “Just us two loners, then."

“Cheers,” you say with a smile.

“Cheers.”

***

Joel’s cooking is a mystery to you – he loves to eat, and when he does cook, it’s always delicious, but he only ever makes one of five dishes. Again, that practicality shining through. Why try something new if you’ve perfected your routine? He made pasta for you, wasn’t sure if you’re still vegetarian and makin’ your Dad’s hair fall out, and you smile into the neck of your beer bottle, when you watch him drizzle dressing onto a carefully arranged side-salad. Throughout dinner, you tell him how much you love it at least five times, because you can tell he put effort into the meal. You know it’s not technically a date, but having a dinner he made just for you, in his home – it feels like one.

You steer the conversation away from heavy topics like your parents. Although Joel offered you this evening to make you feel better, you want to spend it with him rather than in your head, so you ask him about books and music, about his lectures, about Tommy and the kids. You like watching how his face lights up whenever he talks about something he particularly loves. Joel is a quiet man, but you found out years ago it isn’t shyness, but a disinterest in most mundane topics – he doesn’t like gossip or superficial small talk. When he tells you Tommy made him godfather of all of his children, the pride is evident in his voice, and you don’t have to fake your enthusiasm, although it amuses you, too – Tommy loving his big brother enough not to consider anyone else.

"She calls me uncle Joe," he tells you with a chuckle, "Can’t pronounce her Ls yet, but I’ve considered legally changing my name."

When you’re done eating, you help him clear the table, but when you reach for the sponge to do the dishes, Joel shakes his head.

"Let me do that later, kid. You wanna watch a movie?"

So the two of you plop down on the couch with a bag of M&Ms and another round of beer, and Joel hands you the remote.

"Go wild," he says, chuckling when you excitedly turn on he TV to open Netflix.

"Wow, a streaming service? I thought you’d just hoard DVDs for the rest of your life."

Joel huffs, and instead of answering, he leans forward, and reaches for something under his couch table. When he turns his head, he’s got glasses on his face, thick-rimmed and black, and so startlingly sexy, you almost drop the remote.

"You…you’ve got glasses?"

"Yeah," he answers, his eyes meeting yours, and you swallow. "When your eyesight deteriorates, that’s when you know you’re gettin’ old."

You hum but don’t answer, just hold his gaze for a second and look back to the screen. You try to ignore the familiar pang in your stomach at the sight of Joel in his new glasses, and skip through movie after movie, mumbling seen it, seen it, that one sucks, seen it, until Joel reaches over and snatches the remote from you.

"Hey–"

"I can’t read anything if you skip through them that quickly."

"You’re not supposed to read, you’re supposed to go with the vibe of the cover."

He glances at you with furrowed brows.

"Okay, sorry, didn’t know you’re a filmbro," you grumble, but it’s almost entirely fake – you couldn’t be annoyed with him, not when he pushes his glasses up his nose, and carefully considers which button to press on the remote.

"I don’t know what that means," he answers, and starts reading the description of a romantic comedy about Christmas.

"I’m not watching that."

"You don’t even know what it’s about."

"It’s September, Joel."

He huffs again, but finally reaches the horror movies. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take the two of you long to pick one, and the thought of two hours of brainless, scary entertainment on a couch with Joel makes you practically melt into his couch.

You can feel Joel’s eyes on you during the opening credits, so you glance over and he smiles.

"Comfy?" he asks, his voice hoarse from relaxation.

"Yeah," you answer, and smile when hands you a blanket. He’s not exactly close to you, but it still feels a little intimate when you spread the blanket out and offer him the other end. He moves over a little, so that the blanket covers his legs, and when you concentrate you can feel his body heat next to you, so you try hard not to – and instead get lost in the movie.

It’s not particularly good, but the story does get under your skin a little, and when there’s an unexpected shriek, you violently jump and instinctively move closer to Joel. He chuckles, but doesn’t give any reaction to your arm suddenly pressing against his. He doesn’t move away, either, so you don’t, fear suddenly not being the only thing bubbling up in your stomach.

"Jesus," you mumble, the creeping music making you anticipate another jumpscare. You’re right, it does come, but prepared though you are, you still wince, and turn away from the screen slightly. Out of sight, out of mind. Joel turns around, too, and when he sees your widened eyes, he grins.

"How’s that Christmas movie lookin’ now?"

"I’m not scared," you say, and there is some truth to it, "I’m just not good with jumpscares."

When the next one comes, you can’t help it, you clutch his arm next to you, your nails digging into his firm muscle, and Joel glances at you again.

"Sorry," you say quickly, letting go of his forearm now marked with five tiny crescent shapes. "Jesus, Joel, sorry."

"It’s fine," he says, and the amusement is evident in his voice, "you sure you’re into this? There might be some cartoons–"

He stops talking when you glare at him, but his mouth is twitching under his beard. You’re determined to watch the entire movie, and you try not to let any reaction show, wanting to prove Joel wrong.

There is one particularly scary scene – it’s not necessarily violent, but the music and shaky camera movements make your pulse race, and you turn your head slightly, so as to look at something else. Joel glances at you again, but he doesn’t laugh this time, just puts a heavy hand on your shoulder. It’s grounding, the warmth of it, how his thumb digs into your muscle and his fingers spread out over your back and neck.

"You don’t gotta force yourself to watch this, kid," Joel says gently, all teasing humor gone.

"No," you say stubbornly, but move even closer to him. His touch is a welcome distraction from the movie, and although you know it’s stupid and reckless, you lean into him, and Joel puts his arm around you. It’s closer than you’ve been to him except for hugging, and your heartbeat starts to quicken for all the wrong, non-horror reasons. When you flinch, Joel tugs you against his side, and it feels natural to hide your face in his shoulder.

He was never touchy with you, or anyone for that matter, so something must have changed. You wonder if he’s trying to comfort you, or if you might not be the only one who can feel that strange pull between the two of you.

When the movie ends, Joel regrettably removes his arm from around your shoulders to switch off the TV, and although you’re slightly disappointed, you scold yourself for expecting something else.

"Not bad," Joel says with a small smile, and pushes his glasses up his nose. "Very brave."

You scoff, but feel the corners of your mouth twitching, too.

"I used to be less of a wimp, but I guess you soften with age."

"You’re twenty-three," Joel argues, "that’s young."

Yeah, too young. Too young to lean over and kiss him, or climb into his lap, or expect anything other than paternal care when he’s got his arm around you. You look at your lap, all of a sudden feeling stupid and silly for having dreamed up an absurd fantasy about the man in front of you.

"Hey," Joel says gently, "what’s wrong?"

"Nothing," you say quickly, "nothing, I had a really great evening. Thanks, Joel."

You can tell you’ve confused him, but he nods, doesn’t question your sudden change of mood, and stands when you get up from the couch.

"Anytime, kid. You call me if you’re havin’ a bad time, alright? My door’s always open."

He’s so kind, so recklessly, stupidly, lovingly kind, and all of it is directed at you. You curse yourself for it, but again you feel that familiar burn in your eyes. Joel reaches out and easily pulls you towards his big body, hugging you the way he did in his office just this afternoon. He doesn’t ask you what brought on your tears, just lets you cry into his Led Zeppelin shirt that smells so much like home, like a childhood you won’t get back to. You remember whiffs of that smell when you were watching movies on his couch while he was at work, too pissed off at your parents to spend the summer at home. This scent was there when you attended a neighborhood barbecue after fighting with your father and Joel grilled some vegan sausages for you without comment or question. He’s always looked out for you like this, quietly, without demanding an explanation, just a solid, comforting presence in your life.

Your tears stop after a couple of minutes, and you take a step away from Joel, wiping your face. He looks so worried again, brows all furrowed and arms hanging limply at his side. Didn’t he flirt with you, though? Didn’t he prepare dinner for you the way a date would, ask you about your dating life, ask you to coffee? You don’t think you would be able to handle another evening like this one not knowing what Joel really thinks, so in a moment of hazy recklessness, you lean up.

His eyes meet yours, all warm and strangely unguarded, but before your lips brush his, a hand on your shoulder stops you. Without saying something, you move away from him, and nod to yourself, his reaction all the information you needed.

"Sorry," you say very quietly, not managing much else now that you’ve humiliated yourself in front of the only person you really know in a six hundred mile radius. Joel runs a hand through his soft hair, and inhales deeply.

"No," he says, his voice a little strained, "no, don’t be. I just…Jesus, kid."

He rubs his palm over his beard in such a familiar way, your chest aches a little. It’s ridiculous how much you want to touch his face, to feel him again, skin on skin. So you don’t turn and run the way your embarrassed heart is telling you to, just watch him collect his thoughts, standing in front of him like a wet and beaten dog.

"Look," he begins, "I won’t say I’m not flattered, but that’s…it’s a bad fuckin’ idea. It’s…it’s chaos, and on top of that most people would argue it’s wrong."

You swallow. You know all of this, have turned it over in your head ever since you stared at Joel’s rolled up sleeves for two hours on that first Monday, but hearing him say it makes your stomach churn.

"Yeah," you mutter, and trace Joel’s shadow with the very tip of your foot, "yeah, of course. Sorry I put you in that position, wasn’t right."

Your face still feels puffy, and you know you’re probably all red and pathetic looking, begging Joel for scraps of his attention, but all of a sudden, he lifts his hand up to your face, and cups it in his broad palm. His thumb strokes your cheek, and when you meet his eye, the expression on his face is tender.

"It’s alright," he tells you softly, "I can see you worryin’ at the speed of light in that pretty head of yours."

Something in your chest flutters at his words, at the rough and warm cadence of his voice. He reads you so easily, one turn of your head and he knows you’re lost to your thoughts.

"I shouldn’t have let myself toy with this idea," he continues, and your stomach flips. "I should’ve realized you’d pick up on it. It’s on me, alright? It’s on me not to start anythin’."

You can hear the implication – I’m the adult here. It’s not what you want to hear, but just the mention of Joel toying with this idea, as he put it, is enough to lift your spirits. So you weren’t crazy.

"I’m an adult," you say weakly, never having felt more like a child. Joel nods.

"You are, but I’m still in a position of power here. Be wrong, to abuse that."

His thumb is still moving over your cheek slowly, making it hard to think straight.

"So dinner and a movie doesn’t abuse it?"

You don’t want to argue, you don’t know why you keep disagreeing with him, and the way his face falls, you wish you hadn’t said it.

"No, it…it does, you’re right. Jesus, of course it does. I don’t blame ya for bein’ ang-"

"I’m not angry," you say softly, and tentatively turn your head in Joel’s hand. You press a kiss to his palm, his warm skin pressed right against your mouth. "I’m not your student, Joel. I mean, of course I am, but I know you. It’s different."

Joel’s eyes are glued to your face, and he looks so conflicted you wish he’d just throw you out of his house, if only to solve his dilemma.

"It’s still wrong," Joel mutters, his eyes glued to your lips since they brushed his skin "even if you take away the fact that I’m your fuckin’ professor. Your Dad…"

"My Dad is half a continent away and finds a way to be unhappy with whatever choices I make, so I might as well make the ones I want to."

The very first day, before you even met Joel, you decided to do what makes you happy while in university, and although this certainly wasn’t what you had in mind, you know it’s what you want. The only thing you want, in fact.

Joel sighs, and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.

"Joel, I’m not trying to…look, if I’m wrong about this, just tell me, but I feel…I just wanna be close to you all of the fucking time," you say quietly, "and it’s okay if you don’t, really. I just…I want you to know it’s not nothing to me."

Saying I don’t just want to hook up with you would feel too straight forward or crass, but you think Joel gets the gist of what you’re trying to say, and he closes his eyes briefly. You study his face behind his glasses, the wrinkles and freckles from years in the sun. You do feel anxious about his answer, but whatever it is, you’re glad you told him. It’s out in the world now, the way you feel when he holds you, and he can do with it what he pleases – you’ve handed him the reigns.

"I…I know what you mean. Me too," he says very quietly after a beat, his eyes open and looking directly into yours again.

A triumphant pang of affection pulses through you, and you put your hand over Joel’s, which is still resting on your cheek. He looks conflicted, but his other hand holds your waist now, and tugs your smaller body closer to his again. He’s solid as a brick wall in front of you, and you figure you’re allowed to touch, so you rest your hand on his shoulder.

"What am I gonna do with you?" Joel mutters, and strokes your lower lip with his thumb. If you had more guts, you’d let it slip into your mouth, but you’re still afraid he’ll pull back if you make a wrong move, so you just let him caress your mouth tenderly.

"Whatever you’d like," you answer just as quietly, and you know it sounds sexual, but you mean it in every way – if Joel wants to be nothing but your professor, you’d take it, and if he wants to keep you here in his house indefinitely, you’d let him. Joel keeps looking at you, taking you in as if he’s considering whether the risks outweigh whatever magnetic or gravitational pull the two of you have between you.

"Stay," he say after a while, and although his face looks slightly regretful, his voice is determined, "just…sleep here tonight. I like havin’ you here."

You want him to kiss you, to pull you onto his lap on the couch, to take you upstairs right now, but Joel seems to be restraining himself, so you just nod.

"Me too," you whisper, echoing his words back to him, and for just a second, his thumb digs into your lip a little harder, but then he pulls away.

"Testin’ my goddamn restraint," he mutters, and takes a step away from you. "I’ll get you something to sleep in."

***

Joel gets you one of his band tees you love so dearly, and just the idea of being enveloped by something that smells like him all night makes it a little easier when Joel tells you he’ll take the couch instead of inviting you to sleep with him in his bed.

"No," you say softly, "it’s fine, you just sleep in your bed, Joel. I’ll take the couch."

He looks critical, so you offer him a soft smile.

"I don’t know if your back could take it," you tease, and he seems torn up between laughing and frowning. In the end, he just shakes his head, mutters something that sounds a lot like bad fuckin’ idea, and gets you a blanket and pillow.

He brings you a clean toothbrush and towel, let’s you use his bathroom (you look at the shower the entire time you’re brushing your teeth, trying hard not to think about what Joel looks like using it in the mornings), and when you’re done changing, you unlock the door again.

He’s there, sitting on the edge of his bed, his eyes trailing over your form in his much too big shirt. It’s long as a dress on you, coming down to your naked thighs. Joel visibly swallows and gets up from the bed.

"You got everythin’ you need?"

"Yes. Thank you, Joel."

There’s a beat of silence and you almost think Joel’s about to cross the room, but he just runs his palm over his beard the way he always does, and nods.

"Alright. Just shout if there’s…well, you know. I’ll be here."

"I will."

"Alright. Okay…goodnight, kid."

"Night," you almost whisper, voice soft, and right before you reach the door, Joel clears his throat.

"I…you were right about dinner and the movie. I wasn’t just tryin’ to be friendly," he says quietly, and your stomach swirls. Before you can walk over to Joel and do something about it, he sighs.

"Sleep tight, sweetheart."

Sweetheart.

***

You wake to the sound of something dripping, and when your eyes flutter open, you can see Joel’s back from the kitchen. He’s wearing his work outfit again, a white button down and dark pants, sleeves rolled up. It smells like coffee, and with a smile you realize he must be brewing his beloved coffee – no machine, just a filter. He looks broad, even from your spot on the couch, and you enjoy peeking in on him. You study his movements, the way he reaches for a cup, how his fingers absentmindedly drum on the kitchen counter while he waits.

When he turns around, his eyes find yours, and he smiles.

"Mornin’. Did I wake ya?"

"’S fine," you yawn, pulling the blanket up to your chin, not yet ready to get up. "I have classes at ten anyway."

"’S eight," Joel tells you, "Coffee?"

"Yes please," you answer, and stretch your limbs under the blanket.

Joel brings you a cup, complete with a little bit of milk and sugar, and you move your feet so he can sit down on the couch.

"Sleep well?"

You sip your coffee, let it burn your tongue and close your eyes at the taste. When you open them, Joel’s gaze lingers on your face.

"Yeah," you answer, "thank you for…you know."

He nods, takes a sip of his coffee, and looks at his lap. He looks like he wants to say something, but he’s very quiet, and you feel anxiety bubbling up in your stomach.

"Joel, do you want me to leave? It’s fine if you do," you ask him softly, not wanting to make things awkward for him. It would be rational of him to ask you to leave, the smart and ethical thing to do.

"No," he answers quietly, still not looking at you, "I want you to stay."

Stay? On a Tuesday morning, after you almost kissed him and he told you he couldn’t do that, after you spent the night on his couch? When you have classes in two hours, haven’t showered yet, are half naked and wearing his clothes, on his couch under his blanket? When you’ve got friends wondering where you are and probably ten unanswered messages from Alva?

"Alright," you say, agreeing as easy as breathing.

Finally, he looks up, and his expression is so conflicted you reach out for him. Your hand finds his and you squeeze it. He keeps looking at you, his hand limp in your grasp, as if any movement of his muscles would incriminate him.

"You shouldn’t," he tells you earnestly. "Stay, I mean. You shouldn’t stay."

"I know."

You don’t let go of his hand. He doesn’t move his away.

"It’s a really, really bad idea," he adds, and you’re not sure who he is trying to talk out of whatever this is. "It’s risky. Could blow up both our lives."

"Yeah," you say, and watch him sip his coffee, "okay."

Then, a tentative flex of his fingers against yours, and finally, he’s squeezing your hand just as tightly, and before you can process what that means, Joel is leaning over you, dangerously close. Your breathing quickens, you register how soft his hair looks, how strong his hand is. He leans in further and you sit up a little, still cocooned in his blanket. His face is close to yours, his eyes fiery with something you can’t pinpoint, and you sigh, when he closes the gap between you.

He tastes of coffee and toothpaste, and you wish you’d gotten the chance to shower, but the thought disappears almost immediately when you hear Joel groan. His kisses you languidly, deeply, and your fingers come up to his beautiful arm, barely wrapping around half of his biceps. He cradles the side of your face, pulls you closer, makes your stomach clench with need. It feels inevitable, the way he touches you, like you only exist in a physical form to be touched by him.

His free hand peels the blanket off your body, lets it slide to the floor without ever stopping his the kiss, and you moan softly, when his hand touches your waist. The sound makes him break away, stare down at you, pupils blown wide.

"Fuck, you look good in my clothes," he mutters, nudging your jaw with his nose, and pressing a kiss there. "You should really, really go home."

Your head falls back slightly to give him better access to your neck, and he brushes his lips over your pulse point. Your heart skips a beat.

"I – I know," you breathe, fingers digging into his arm. His beard scratches your skin deliciously, and it takes everything in you not to whimper or beg. Joel’s hand slips under your shirt – his shirt – and instead of finding your waist again, he digs his thumb into your hip, stroking the fabric of your cotton panties. The fire in your stomach burns brighter, and you almost buck up into him. Joel Miller, the Joel Miller who until recently had a key to your childhood home, who lent it to you whenever you forgot yours inside – he’s sucking bruises into your skin, and toying with your panties. It’s dizzying, his familiar voice when he hums in satisfaction, even rougher than usually.

His fingers trace the waistband of your panties towards the front, until they find a small, silky bow, and Joel groans. He doesn’t take your underwear off, doesn’t even touch you where you need him the most, just keeps playing with the little bow, until your hips twitch without your permission. A little lower, and he would be able to feel how wet you are, how wet you have been all night. You didn’t do anything about it, not while you were a guest in his house. It would have felt wrong. You can’t imagine anything feeling more right than Joel’s mouth and hands on you, though.

"Jesus," Joel curses, "I should stop bef–"

"No," you whine, all dignity turned to hot air by Joel’s fingers, "please, Joel, please don’t stop."

He curses again, and moves his big body so that he’s not just hovering above you, but actually on top of you, your thighs falling open for him easily. At the movement, his shirt hikes up your thighs, and you know you’re basically on display for him, your soaked underwear leaving little to the imagination. He’s still fully clothed, his perfect button down all wrinkled now.

"Look at you," Joel breathes, lightheaded with desire, "this all for me?"

So he saw, when you moved to accommodate his broad form, saw how soaked you are, knows you ruined your panties just because he kissed you.

"Yes," you breathe, "yes, please–"

Before you can beg further, his finger presses down on your clit, and he watches your face contort in pleasure, as it shoots up your spine. You whimper, staring into his eyes, and he stares right back, as you start to grind your hips against his palm.

Your head feels blissfully empty, all worries about this relationship, uni, your parents, gone from you with a simple, practiced movement of his hand. The whimpers keep falling from your lips, and Joel curses.

"So beautiful," he mutters, "tell me what you need, angel."

It’s not a question, it’s an order.

"I – fuck, I need you i–inside," you groan, and Joel’s lips find yours again.

"Yeah? Need me to fuck you good, even though they’ll throw us both out?"

It shouldn’t turn you on. You’re jeopardizing both your own and Joel’s career, and he’s turning it into dirty talk. Still, your pussy doesn’t lie, and the way it throbs for him, aching to get him inside, makes all doubts disappear from your mind.

"Yes," you answer, unable to say much more as Joel keeps drawing tight circles into your clit.

Your hands drift from his arms towards his front, and Joel curses, when you paw at his belt buckle. It takes you a second, but then it’s open, the sound of the metal exciting you – it sounds like a promise.

Joel finally tugs your panties down, and for a second you’re self–conscious about not being clean shaven, but the second he sees you bare and glistening for him, his fingers dip into your folds, gathering your wetness with no hesitation.

"Fuck me," he groans, bringing his hand up to his face and tasting you, holding eye–contact the entire time, "prettiest pussy I’ve seen in my life."

You twitch under him, dragging your gaze away from his eyes and to his fingers. A moan escapes you, your hands have gone slack on his waistband, and Joel smiles down at you. Then, he does the same motion again, drags the tips of his thick fingers through your sticky arousal, but instead of sucking them clean himself, he holds them up to your mouth. His eyes burn, when you wrap your lips around them without a moments hesitation, and he feeds you your own slick.

"Taste so sweet, huh?"

You don’t answer, just swirl your tongue around his fingers, and suck on them. Joel watches your mouth intently, lets you take your time.

"Good girl," he praises you, and you clench around nothing, "so fuckin’ needy for me."

He drags his fingers from your mouth, and finally pushes into you, the stretch much tighter than with two of your own. Your head falls backwards, and Joel curls his fingers.

"No, baby, look down here," he orders, and immediately you lift your head again, and watch him pump two thick digits in and out of you. It’s dizzying to think it’s the same hand that waved to you from over his fence for years and years. You feel a coil building in your stomach, and you moan.

"Fuck, Joel," you moan, his name leaving a delicious aftertaste in your mouth. His beautiful forearm flexes with every movement, your slick is dripping down his fingers, and those damn sleeves are still perfectly rolled up.

With a few more curls of his fingers, you gush around him, barely having time to warn him, and he praises you, calls you his good girl, drags his fingers against that spongey spot inside of you until you see stars.

When he slips his fingers out of you and holds them up to your face again, you clean them up with your mouth as Joel watches with bright eyes. To think that he’s the same man who taught you Dirac not twenty-four hours ago – already, you want him inside again. When you’re done, he fumbles with his own clothes, and you watch him this time instead of helping.

"You look so good like this," you mumble, eyes raking over his broad form, "Professor."

His eyes snap up to yours, and you grin.

"Fuckin’ Christ, kid," he mutters, popping open the buttons on his shirt, "you can’t say shit like that."

"You don’t like it? You know, I watched you during your lectures and dreamed about…well, about this."

His expression is unreadable, but if you’re not mistaken, his hands move even faster now, and then he shrugs out of his shirt. You almost moan at the sight of his naked torso, so broad and solid.

"You need to pay attention in class," Joel answers, as he opens his pants. Your breathing grows a little shallow when he reveals his boxers underneath, his bulge huge.

"Can’t," you mumble, "not with you looking like this."

He chuckles at that, at the honesty and need in your answer.

"Don’t worry," he says softly, "I’ll fuck it outta you. Won’t be needing’ me in class, not if I’m still leakin’ out of you."

Your lips part, your pussy clenches – a smile tugs on the corners of Joel’s mouth at your reaction. He drags down his boxer shorts, and your eyes snap towards his cock, so thick and dripping in precum. You whimper, you can’t help it, and Joel’s smile widens.

"We’ll make it fit, baby," he says, reading your mind, and then bends down and kisses you again. You try to tug your shirt upwards, but Joel’s hands find your wrists and he holds them tight.

"No, want to fuck you in it," he breathes against your lips, and you press your hips upwards until he groans. He pumps his fist over his cock a couple of times, and aligns it with your entrance.

"Deep breath, baby," he mutters, and you obey, staring up at him as he starts pressing into you. It’s tight, much tighter than his two fingers, and your eyes glass over with pain, but Joel goes slow. His hand strokes your tummy, helps you relax, while he pushes on consistently. You feel like he’s punching the air from your lungs, eyes wide with the stretch of him, as he nips at your jaw and neck to distract you.

"Know it’s a lot, but you can take it, angel."

"Y-yes," you moan, and screw your eyes shut, "please don’t stop, Joel."

 Joel’s breathing is ragged with restraint, and suddenly his hips snap forwards – and he’s fully buried inside of your tight body, nestled right against your cervix.

"Back to Joel, are we?" he teases, and gives you a couple of seconds to get used to him. You whimper and claw at his arm.

"I – ah – I’ll call you Professor Miller ’f you want," you slur, as he starts dragging his cock out of you again. You tremble under him, the feeling almost more intense than when he pushed inside of you.

"Yeah? That get you off? Or – fuck–  is it the fact that I’m friends with your parents?"

It really, really should be a turn off, to be talking about your parents right now, but the way Joel says it, the way he points out just how debauched it is what you’re doing – you can’t help but moan. You blush, too, can feel the heat in your face, but you’re tired of being ashamed of wanting him the way you do.

"Both," you answer, and this time Joel groans, his hips snapping into you at a rougher pace. The head of his cock hits your spot every time, and you let out little sounds of pleasure with every drag of his cock, unable to form a coherent sentence. Joel’s hand finds your clit again, rubbing circles as his other one pressing down on your stomach.

"Feel that?" he asks you, and you do, you feel him all up in your guts, "you take it so well baby, take all ’f me."

"Yes," you answer, eyes glassy with pleasure, "want all of you, Joel."

He bites your shoulder, keeps rutting into you, and soon you feel another orgasm building.

"Close – ah – so close," you whimper, and Joel speeds up his thrusts just slightly. You clench around him, right on the edge.

"Come for me, angel, give it to me."

You do, your hips bucking, back arching.

"Ah – fuck, Joel, Prof–"

"Say it," Joel orders, fucking you through the waves of pleasure.

"Professor."

He comes, too, twitching deep inside of you and spilling rope after rope of come. It feels right, like you’re his. His groan is rough, his thrusts sloppy, and you feel your pussy spasm around him in a third, weaker orgasm, or maybe it’s just aftershocks from your second. You’re limp underneath him, letting him use your body how he needs to.

"Fuck," he curses, "did so good for me."

He slips out of you, and you can feel his spend drip out of you. You’re weak, soft like jelly, sweaty and entirely satisfied.

"Jesus," you breathe, when he falls down next to you, his couch mercifully being big enough.

"Yeah," he answers, "Jesus."

***

Turns out, Joel Miller is a dirty talking bastard during sex, and a big softie afterwards. He makes you tea, strokes your hair while you sip it, then carries you up to his shower and gently washes your body his his sponge. Throughout, he’s quiet, and you wonder if it was too much, the mention of him being your professor, of your parents, but you’re too afraid to ask. He brushes your forehead with his lips when he dries you off, and pulls another of his shirts over you head. Your panties are entirely ruined, it’s all you’re wearing.

When you’re clean again, and relaxed, Joel pulls you onto his bed, wrapping you up in his arms.

"Did you…was that too much?" he asks you softly fingertips tracing over your thigh lazily.

"It was just right," you answer quietly, and he hums.

"You didn’t feel like you…I mean when you called me Professor, you wanted to do that, right?"

You look up at him, and press a soft kiss against his jaw.

"Of course, Joel. Wanted everything we did, I promise."

He nods, but you can tell there’s still something bothering him.

"You know that’s not what you are to me, though, right?" Your voice is soft. "You’re just Joel."

He brushes the top of your head with his lips.

"I mean it," you press on when he doesn’t answer, "it’s like a costume, Joel. I know it’s your job, but it’s…I don’t think of you as like, an authority figure or something. I just thought you looked hot in that slutty shirt."

"Slutty–?" he sputters and you laugh.

"Sure, you know, with your sleeves rolled up, and that first button popped open."

"’S not slutty."

"You showed your forearms. Half the lecture hall felt like a victorian man seeing ankles for the first time."

Joel makes an exasperated sound, half amused and half offended.

"I mean it," you say again after beat, humor gone from your tone, "and it’s not just sex to me. You know that."

"Yeah," Joel answers slowly. "’S more to me, too."

It’s a hell of an admission.

"What are we gonna do?", you ask quietly, and Joel sighs.

"You’re gonna go to class," he says, voice dark, "and I’ll try very, very hard not to call your father and tell him I’m fallin’ for his daughter."

You bury your face in his chest. With anyone else, it would be too much, too fast, too intense. But this is Joel. It’s not fast if you’ve known him your whole life, is it? You kiss his chest, and he seems to understand.

"We’ll figure it out," Joel says quietly, pressing a kiss to your hair.

For a second you do want your parents to know, want them to see that someone does treat you like an adult, want to look them in the eye and say I’m with Joel now and there’s nothing you can do about it. I have my own life now and it includes this kind man. It’s childish, you know it is. You lean up, catch Joel’s mouth in a kiss.

"Yeah," you answer, “We’ll figure it out, Professor.”

[nouearth]

red right hand.

pairing. henry cavill x male reader.

word count. 7.3k.

summary. if there was one thing to give your dad credit for (other than helping create your very existence), it was that he has an insanely hot best friend. it was a universal admiration your neighborhood shared with one another. though, how many actively feasted upon their fantasies regarding that hunk of a man? probably only you, because mr. cavill was more than a crush, he was an addiction. and on one summer day, mr. cavill realized that so were you.

content warning. college!reader, dad's best friend!henry, neighbor!henry, age gap, blowjob (r!giving), degrading, throat-fucking, choking, gagging, spitting, kissing, humiliation, body and muscle worship, rough-play, size difference, dirty talk, verbal, praising, size kink.

The warm wind fanned the sweat off your forehead when you slid your window open. The ledge stained your fingers with particles of dust. Grimacing at the fuzz and simultaneous stickiness, it also provoked a storm of laziness as steel reminders from your dad got caught up in the commotion: CLEAN THE HOUSE.

CAR MAINTENANCE.

STOP ORDERING TAKE-OUT AND COOK.

SORT THE ATTIC.

TIDY GARAGE.

CHECK STOVE IGNITIONS BEFORE LEAVING THE HOUSE.

LOCK THE DOORS.

Ya-dah, ya-dah…

Honestly, how could you check-off any of these tasks with this heatwave currently going on? You were sweating bullets, been sweating enough to bathe in your own salt for days now—which you technically were already doing. It was summer, the long-awaited season after the agony of allergies. A temporary relief to your studies as well, until the humidity hit you like a truck and made you realize that living back in a dorm wasn’t so bad. 

At least the building had a functional air-conditioner. 

“Uh-huh, yep.” Your dad’s voice was going in one ear and out the other as you rummaged through your cabinets for a snack. Cereal; stale. Canned meat; too heavy. Potato chips; not heavy enough. “Dad, you know you’ve gone on business trips before, right? This isn’t the first time I’ve been alone.”

“I know, but I’m just making sure. It’s a new house, and I’ve been watching these true crime documentaries about men leaving clubs and—“

“Well, the first mistake was going to a sketchy club in the first place…” You muttered, peering into the fridge, and then lingering, because refrigerator air has never felt so cooling against your skin. You duck your head to puzzle yourself into the cold box, dumbfounded that the heat had gotten you irritated enough to claim a bag of deli meat as your bunkmate for the time being. The sound of your dad’s frustrated sigh on the other line curled your frown into a smile, and you laughed, “I’m a big boy. Stop worrying, and go enjoy—Ow!“ You bumped your head against the door on your way out.

“How can I not worry when you just referred to yourself as a ‘big boy?’ Not even a man?!” You never realized how theatric the man was. It was like his presence never left the house, exaggerated hand movements and all wafting the smell of his homemade meals whenever he would scold you in his favorite place: the kitchen. You smiled at the fond memories.

“Good point—“ Though they were made at your old house, you were sure that once he’d returned, your dad wouldn’t be opposed to creating new memories of scolding your ass off on whatever trouble you’d get into. If you do, that is. You’ve grown since then, finding yourself too tired to socialize.

“Remember, spare key’s in the birdhouse. There’s a compartment at the side of it. Hopefully birds haven’t evolved enough to pick it open.”

“If they have, they’d be picking at our locks right now to kidnap me and probably feast on my body.” Luckily, the fridge was stocked before your dad had left. You crucified him for being overly-prepared at times, but for this month, it was an exception. You picked at a slice of deli meat and cheese, and stuffed it down your mouth.

“Not funny, (M/N).”

“I’m kidding, Dad. Lighten up! I know you’re nervous about presenting, but they invited you to talk to an audience for a reason. They like you. Just be yourself, and remember not to speak so fast. Have some water on standby too.” And speaking of the devil, you gulped down a glass of iced water to cool down your body as your dad chuckled in your ear.

“I know, I know, thanks.” A muffled sound on the other end filled the silence, sounds of people passing and cars honking passing through your ear. “Alright, my ride’s here. I’ll call as soon as I get to the hotel, okay? You better answer—Oh! I forgot to tell you! Henry’s coming over later to look at the car.”

“Henry—Oh, Mr. Cavill? He’s in the neighborhood?” The name rattled a familiar feeling inside of your stomach. Something rather warm, suddenly ravenous when you thought about the last time you saw him.

“Actually, he was the one that told me about this house! He lives down the street. But tool’s in the garage if he asks for them, okay?” 

“Y-yeah, okay. Got it.” You hadn’t seen him many times. Only when you’d come home from semester breaks, yet the mere mention of his name had you flustered as if he was a long-lost friend or something. 

“Okay, gotta go. Love you, and remember, lock your doors! Bye!”

“I will! Bye…” Your phone blinked back to your previous app after ending the call.

You knew he was your dad’s best friend; a divorced father and a bachelor unsurprisngly made a match in heaven.

He was someone that shared your father’s interest in tabletop games and comic books. A replacement for yourself you thought earlier on, but he was way more knowledgeable about those interest than you ever were. You grew up on your dad’s nostalgia. For Mr. Cavill and your dad? These memories altered them who they would be in the future.

He was a friend that would help your dad out on building projects, like that birdhouse he had mentioned. He was a charming man that built the PC you currently use after hearing you complain about the previous laptop you had. And best of all, his looks were as abundant as his kindness. Standing over six feet tall, with a chiseled face that matched an equally sculpted body; he’d been a little crush since you first met him, being the only man who was capable of rendering you utterly speechless.

And in present, the only man who had the power to tighten your briefs and shorts with only a passing thought of his body; muscular and athletic in all the right places. If only your dad could somehow muster up a beach day before summer ended. Either way, the image of his bare body excited you, the blood flow immediately rushing south in agreement. Your dick kissed your shorts at the thought water cascading off his hulking body like meltwater over an ice shelf, freezing you in your place to not-so-subtly gawk.

“Jesus…” Your body couldn’t catch a break, could it? With the ramping heat and the constant sweating, your erection only added fuel to the bonfire that was the pores of your skin. Your cock pulsed madly within the constraint of your briefs, teasing yet begging to be released, to be sheathed from its slick, because it knew you had the key to its relief.

Or rather, Mr. Cavill did.

It was pathetic. You’d been at this for a year now. As much as you were unfamiliar with Mr. Cavill’s disposition, it was certainly the opposite regarding his physical appearance. Though it hadn’t exactly occur to you when this crush of yours had been tiptoeing along the lines of obsession. 

Wait, was it an obsession..? No, no, it was just a crush. 

You hadn’t done anything wrong. All you had done was browse through his social media—he did follow you, and you mutually pursued—and stalked—no—scrolled through his posts. Thank god, he was an avid poster. Pictures of his selfies, his knack for grilling, his love for his pet dogs, his pride over his geeky hobbies, his friendship with your dad and mutual buddies—all of these pieces attributed to allowing you to get to know him more as you were rotting away on campus, missing life back at home. Like clockwork, looking at his feed brought a sense of comfort, a hope that maybe you could be part of his life as well.

“God, what I’d do to ride that mustache…” You blurted out your thoughts, hyper-aware that you were alone in the house. You’d been waiting for this. You’d been surrounded by your roommates 24/7, and then once break started, your dad wanted to insert himself into your schedules as much as he could before the next semester starts. 

As much as you loved them, you needed space. A space bigger than the privacy of your own room. You deserved the whole house to yourself after enduring months of agony from overdue assignments; stress from bickering roommates that led to chaos within the dorm. You haven’t jerked off properly in months, often resorting to a quick session that comforted you on the occasions you’d have to pull multiple all-nighters to get a project done.

You needed relief.

You needed pleasure.

“Fuck,” Your eyes had been fixated on Mr. Cavill’s social media feed as you stripped yourself free of clothing. On one hand, it helped your body cool off from the heat building in the house. On the other, you felt vulnerable, like someone could walk in on you any second, and god, was that a turn-on. 

A grid of his life displayed happily before you, and your thumb scrolled aimlessly in pursuit of multiple pictures ingrained in your brain that had your cock throbbing in your palm. You laid flat on the couch, earbuds fit snug in the canals after briefly switching apps to play your favorite porn in the background of your search. Your stomach sunk deep when the man began moaning in your ears. Hot like the blistering sun outside; you can imagine Mr. Cavill breathing against you like that, as you took his cock in like the video you had playing. Your balls pulled when the man grunted, “Right there,” and you couldn’t help but pull at the ache of your cock, then at your balls to fondle at the loose stretch of skin.

“Right there,” you repeated when your thumb paused at the desired video of Mr. Cavill. Another major part of his lifestyle was working out. Strength training, cardio, marathons. You name it, Mr. Cavill did it all, exceptionally well, and the crème de la crème of it all was that he bared his torso for most of his videos. “Fuck, you’re so big… Fuck, fuck…” 

It was like watching a warrior prepare for battle. Sweat dripped off the holiest parts of his body as he pumped his muscles with heavy weights. Grunts, heavy and lewd sounds filled your ears while Mr. Cavill powered through his body’s resistance. You wondered to yourself if he could take you like that. Force you to take him with brute strength like the weights in his muscular, veiny hands. You were stroking yourself to him, every part of him, palm slick with sweat and spit. Two fingers would get the job done, stretching you out in preparation for his cock. Though, you knew deep down that it would take more than that. Three, or maybe even four, considering the hunk of a man was seemingly built from metal. The video replayed multiple times before you remembered that he had more than enough content for you to jerk off to. You were barely five minutes in, but this was already more pleasurable than whatever you had endured back at the dorms. Your cock felt pleased, spitting out dribbles of thick pre-cum that loosened the stick of your palm as donation to your generosity.

“Fuck, Henry…” You rarely referred to him by his first name. It felt unusual. You were much younger than him. Addressing someone closer to your dad’s age felt rude, like you were trying to assert your dominance despite your age difference. You were many things, but disobedient was not one of them. However, you couldn’t lie. His name felt polishing to your tongue, something that could improve the taste of dreadful meals if one were to whisper it before taking a spoonful.

His name felt like a miracle.

Your sexual appetite was nourished by the frames of Mr Cavill’s second video. He was completely unaware he was bulging, free-balling in his sweaty shorts while he pursued his vitality through jumping jacks, lunges, toe-touches—cardio galore that made his heavy cock bounce in rhythm. You could tell he was large, gifted with insane girth to the point where you could make out the shape of his cock just from him stretching. And the smell; sweat sticking on thick curly hairs on his chest, and a happy trail that seemed to promise a world of musk if you ever had an opportunity to endeavor upon your curiosities. You were practically salivating for him, saliva pooling where your tongue sank, while your cock leaked. You pumped yourself quicker and harder at the frustration that your desire to taste Mr. Cavill’s cock would remain a pipe dream.

All that left you was your imagination, and your own musk. Pulling up at your glans, you squeezed out thick loads of pre-cum before swiping it with your thumb and tasting it off with a suck. Salty, bitterly pleasant on your tongue, and satiated enough to not let your libido falter at the disappointment that it wasn’t Mr. Cavill’s pre-cum, but rather smolder.

“Oh, fuck my mouth… I need that cock, Mr. Cavill. Please—“ The frames of the third video showcased him flexing his arms and torso. His body bursted with pride, veins surging through every fiber of muscle like they were charging him and his very existence. It was veiny too, wasn’t it? His cock. Large and veiny, like how you’d like it. You would struggle fitting him inside of your mouth while his cock veins pulsed with great pleasure knowing that it was Mr. Cavill’s kink that you couldn’t take him. 

No one could.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck—“ Your eyes rolled back. The slurping sounds from the porn increased by tenfold as you pumped the volume by a few decibels. Lewd, slick sounds you wished you could perform on Mr. Cavill himself violated your ear drums. Pleasure him. Thank him on your knees for being so kind to your father. For building your PC without compensation. For providing you temporarily relief while you were away on campus, and could only jerk off under the blanket. You were grateful for him. For Mr. Cavill. For his thick arms. For his veiny forearms. For his dashing good-looks. For his muscles. For his strong cock. You’d give yourself to him if you could. Worship every inch of his step, every inch of his body, and that still wouldn’t be enough to show your appreciation towards him. 

Your fist tightened. Your other hand had grown limp by now, dropping your phone to the floor by mistake, but you were too fixated on the pleasure your cock was receiving to retrieve it back. You could watch it from where you were laying, just like this, slickly twisting and pumping your cock to the sound of the porn, to the sound of Mr. Cavill grunting simultaneously as if his thick cock was being feasted on like a hungry beast. “Mr. Cavill, please—I’m going to—“

One earbud slipped from the sweat building on your body, but you were close. So fucking close to coming. And when you do, you’d come on your phone.

All over Mr Cavill’s pecs. His abs. His crotch. His face. Anywhere, as long as it was your friendly neighbor, because—

“Enjoying yourself, (M/N)?”

A voice from behind you alerted your body to jolt and whip around upon instinct to defend yourself. Naked or not, you weren’t going to die, not in the hands of a burglar.

Though, as soon as you did, you regretted it. You felt like stone. Cold, hard stone as all signs of life seemingly felt like it had been sucked dry out of your body, with your erection taking up most of the produce surprisingly as you confronted the intruder.

The six-feet, muscular, handsome, and familiar man of an intruder. 

“M-Mr. Cavill?! What—When did you—“ You were flustered. Radiant heat blooming like the season of Spring across several patches of your naked body. It also didn’t help that your porn could be heard from earbuds once you took the remaining one out, albeit a bit muffled. And your phone, it was facing the ceiling, looping the video of Mr. Cavill training over and over again. Right before him.

Your body was shaking, physically evident despite your efforts to conceal the tremors as the man stared you down, unfazed by the drama of it all. “Fuck—“ You didn’t know what to turn off first. The porn? The video of him working out? Or maybe dressing yourself should be a priority because—Mr. Cavill was still staring, blues lingering on your naked body, seemingly outlining every drop of sweat that followed the contours of your figure. There was movement that naturally caught your attention. 

It was his hand, large and muscular over the center of his shorts. Rubbing, squeezing, fondling at an evidently large mass that made you dry-swallow. You mustered up the courage to finally pause the porn, then clicked your phone off. “H-how long have you been watching?”

“Since the beginning.” He chuckled, stating matter-of-factly. “Your dad told me to come look at your car. Your garage was open. Thought you did that for me, but I guess you really just forgot about closing it considering…” He nodded towards your cock, licking his lips when it acknowledged him with a throb. “Was coming to get you, and I found you like this.”

“And you just watched?!” You sputtered out in distress, hastily dressing yourself back into your clothes, stumbling over your feet in the process. Sweat always made it more difficult to put on clothes.

“Well, I did call you for while I was coming in. You didn’t hear me over your video, and…me, I suppose.” It was smug. Amusing to him that you were in this state of embarrassment after being caught red-handed. You groaned, burying your head into your knees after sitting back down on the couch. The heat was unbearable, but to face Mr. Cavill after being caught jerking off to his videos, you were overcome with horror at the ghastly spectacle of the situation.

“Don’t tell my dad about this,” Your fingers scraped through your scalp out of frustration, but also to keep your head pressed to your knees as they interlaced around you. You refused to even spare one more glance at the man when you felt him practically hovering over you, a gentle smile riding along the coattails of his composure. “…please.”

“I won’t,” Mr. Cavill’s voice sounded clearer, closer than before. Right above you, but still, you maintained your position despite the pleasant scent of his cologne almost breaking away your focus. “Just as long as you suck me off.”

Those final words hit you like a truck. 

You were astounded, confused by the turn of the situation. It felt like a taunt, and it was treated as such because it worked. You whipped your head up upon Mr. Cavill’s demand, almost insulted because it was how guys on campus used to taunt you.

What you expected to grace your eyes with was his face; charming as ever with a mustache that was reliable in stirring immense feelings inside of you.

Instead, you were met with a face full of flesh, Mr Cavill’s heavy and large cock. It sported a strong curve, throbbing veins to prove its accelerating lust, with thick balls swinging low to entice you into a hypnotic state. If someone was to grade you upon your predictions, you’d score a perfect mark, because god damn, he was huge. Hairier than you’d expected, though just as arousing, if not more, because this was unexpected for Mr. Cavill as well. He would’ve cleaned himself a bit if he had a plan to meet you under these circumstances.

“I—You’re serious?” With the string of thick pre-cum dripping from the very slit of his head, it seemed like your question was answered. You could smell him. The musk of his pre-cum. It tingled your nostrils, enchanting you akin to what fresh pastries would’ve done for you on normal, non-libido provoking circumstances.

“Does it look like I’m kidding? Come on, I’m waiting. You didn’t even say ‘thank you’ to me in person when I built you that PC for Christmas. It’s the least you could do, right?” Without warning, he took ahold of his cock and tapped the center of your lips with it. Your orbs shook as you looked up at him, hesitant through the tremor of your lips as Mr. Cavill stared back, determined for you to accept his plea offer with some kind of answer—with your mouth preferably. “Been teasing me for so long… Think I didn’t notice the way you looked at me whenever I came over? How you kept massaging your cock under the table during dinner? Always in those shorts too… God, you were begging to be fucked with your thighs showing like that.”

“No—I-You’re my dad’s friend, I can’t—“ Your hand said otherwise with your fingers taking initiative on their own, wrapping over his large cock, right above Mr. Cavill’s fist. It was a two-hander, a fucking two-hander, yet your fingers struggled to close around his girth. “Fuck, you’re so…”

“Your dad doesn’t have to know, right? I won’t tell. You won’t either. We don’t want to hurt him, right?” One of his hands found its way to the back of your head while he took a step closer, bringing his cock closer to your face. Before you could pull away, there was true grit to the palm of Mr Cavill’s hand as he applied pressure to the back of your head, pressing your cheek flush to the underside of his cock. “Look at you, you don’t have the heart to say no, do you? You’re obsessed with my cock, aren’t you?”

“Y-yes, Mr. Cavill…” You were under his control. Locks of your hair bundled under a grip while he ground his cock against your supple skin, making you smell him; his musky cock, the sweat buried in the deep hairs of his pubic area. It was a glorious scene that returned your cock back to its original state of arousal by tenfold. 

“You’re going to be a good boy and suck my cock off, right?” Almost in your mouth. You parted your lips open to trap his cock into your mouth with the way he maneuvered your head like a rag doll, a brute strength your nape now, pulling and pushing your head as his cock rubbed against your face, but Mr. Cavill pulled at the last minute, right when you were one lick away from tasting meaty flesh. “Close your mouth. You will open your mouth when I tell you so.”

“I—I—Yes, please...” You were pathetic. He held you still, head tilted upwards to face the ceiling and his towering body while his cock and balls laid over your face like a table runner, a perfect heater to warm his meat. A t-shirt remained on his body, and that was a true testament to his appeal, being able to get you off like this half-naked. You reached down, back to fondling at your sore cock, at the blue balls you’d given yourself earlier, sniffing, inhaling the heavy delightful scent of his sweaty cock. Guess his house was having air-conditioning difficulties too.

“I can use your mouth however I want?” He dragged his cock over your face, the head leaking out pre-cum in midst of its journey to introducing itself to every one of your facial features, saving your lips for last. 

“Yes,” You gulped at his rousing speech, breathing in the drying musky pre-cum on the perimeter of your skin. “Please fuck my mouth, please—“

“If you’re good, then this can be a regular occurrence, yeah?” You slipped your shorts and briefs off again, jerking yourself off to simply the teasing taunt of his cock, tapping at your skin, brushing over your eyelids, pushing up against your nose. You felt humiliated. You’d been marked by Mr. Cavill, pathetically as it only took his huge cock to make you submit to him. “You’d like that? Sucking your dad’s best friend off?”

“F-fuck, yes…” His cock was a wand to your body. Every time Mr. Cavill was seemingly about to push into your mouth, you willingly opened it to no avail, even if it was obvious that he’d pull away. You could only get off on his scent for so long. He’d draw your tongue out when he squeezed pre-cum out the tip of his cock, right above your pink flesh. It would sink, drip, slowly like syrup, in thick strings, until it wasn’t anymore with the sudden obstruction of Mr. Cavill’s finger swooping in to nick the sticky web, and letting it waste away on the carpet. “Please, Mr. Cavill… I-I’ll be good…”

It was amusing to him, watching you desperately try to taste and watch him in any way you can, to the point of going cross-eyed as he would center his cock in your vision. He waved his cock like a flag as if he had conquered you. Humiliated you with several heavy slaps to your face, thick smacks that you took in whimpering grace because Mr. Cavill had stolen the resources to your insanity.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Mr. Cavill didn’t waste a single second for you to prepare yourself. The pressure on your nape steeled, bruising to make you open your mouth and whimper, and maybe that was the point, because he seized the opportunity to charge his cock inside of your mouth without warning, making you gag on your own desperation. It was a forewarning. A brief prologue on how you should take his cock as he quickly pulled himself out to properly prepare yourself. In the meantime, he slapped your cheek multiple times with the spit you had already layered him with, cooing at how incredible hard and big he was against your dazed face.

“Fuck, your mouth is so warm. That’s it, you can take it. Good boy.” Saliva spilled out of your mouth like a popped water balloon when he pushed himself inside of your mouth again. You couldn’t control it. You couldn’t control what Mr. Cavill had stripped away from you with the strength he had on your neck. Not to mention, the mass of flesh gagging you into oblivion, leaving you completely incapable of stopping him, as if you wanted him to. “Come on, use your hands too. Don’t be lazy.”

“Mm-mmf…” A compliance that was muffled by a slur of slick sounds, but Mr. Cavill knew what you meant. Amusement played on the corner of his lips as you struggled to fit a hand around the base of his sticky cock, sloppily stroking what was left neglected by your mouth, or rather your inability to take in. You suckled on the head of his cock, plump and heavy on your tongue as it throbbed with every lick you provided him. Stroking its slit with the tip of your tongue, you then dug and slobbered over the salty taste of his pre-cum. “So big… Just like I’d imagined.”

You pulled away to marvel at the size of his cock, taking your time to lube his cock with your spit from tip to shaft before your fist flushed to his pelvis to slap his meaty cock on the pouch of your tongue, lewdly flinging your spit in the air. It was your favorite move, often reliable in coercing a reaction out of the men you’d sucked off previously. The roll of his eyes, the flex of his muscles, the grunt from his gut; you slobbered all over his cock, worshipping every inch with your mouth, polishing the cock knob clean with your tongue and stroking what you couldn’t with two deft hands. Mr. Cavill was no different, he was a man with needs like you, with needs like the rest of the men you’d given head to, and you exploited the hell out of it. You loved making them feel in power, making them feel like you were worth time out of their day, despite their original pleas to use your mouth.

He briefly pulled back to rest a kiss on your lips, one that you’d treasure for the rest of your life. Not only was it because it was your first kiss was him, but because of how delicate he was with you. Warm and inviting like he usually was, his large hands cupped at the end of your jaw, holding you as if you were made of porcelain. “Making me so proud right now, fuck. Take in more of my cock, would you? I like it when you gag.”

“Mm-hmm…” They always do. You mumbled against his lips, no longer needing his guidance to finish what you’d started. Your eyes were glued to Mr. Cavill, aroused by the look he was giving you. A famished stare that demanded to be satiated, by means of sheer persistence as you knew it was going to be difficult to down him with your throat.

Mr. Cavill drove a hand into your hair, cuffing the strands to keep you still, to keep you from pulling away, to dominate you. He watched you without an ounce of kindness, muscles flexing, cock and balls hanging obscenely as you found a better position on your knees with a throw pillow guarding you from bruising. “Want you to throat-fuck me, Mr. Cavill.”

“Fuck, who knew you had such a mouth on you…” He sturdied his stance, spreading his strong legs while manhandling your head between them. You licked a stripe over his balls, then the underside of his cock until your tongue reached the scorching skin of his precum-slicked tip. Approaching the end of the journey, your mouth opened wide to welcome Mr. Cavill back into your mouth, and like tugging on a loose knot, you drew out moans from within his gut, his body loosening in turn of your hot mouth. “Fuck, just like that…”

With a thundering heart, and a building pleasure so morbidly big, you sunk and lowered your head lower, taking in Mr. Cavill’s horse-cock like a fleshlight. Crimson rose to your cheeks, to your neck, as you strained to maintain him inside of your mouth. He was too big. You’ve utilized all the tactics you’ve learned on campus, on a few buddies, on your roommates. Breathe through your nose, relax your tongue and jaw, let your saliva drip out. Yet you’d barely taken a few inches more than you had done prior before a couple of gags alerted you to take a breather. Your head pulled back, but it was met with violent opposition as Mr. Cavill brought your head back down to further shove himself down your throat.

“Mmm—gggrgh!” Your body jolted in defense, stiffening your body into an upright position when you couldn’t refrain from gagging on his cock. Your hands braced on his strong thighs for balance, squeezing at the muscly flesh of skin to distract yourself from the uncomfortable stretch your mouth was receiving.

“Fuck, yeah. Fuck, fuck, just like that. You’re taking it like a good boy.” You were making him proud, so fucking proud. You coughed, gagging, almost choked on your own spit, but the stuffing of Mr. Cavill’s large cock simultaneously emptied your mouth of saliva as it all came flooding down your mouth in lewd webs. “Shit, look at that. I’m making your mouth water, aren’t I? Fuck, what a waste.”

He yanked your head back, pulling him out of your throat, and you had never felt such relief. Breathing, exhaling and inhaling deep to compensate for the prediction that Mr. Cavill wasn’t going to let you spare a second of abandoning his cock like that. Your eyes watered, reddened from straining your muscles to make him fit inside of your mouth. You knew there was a shift in the room when you looked up at him like that, glossy in the eyes, tremors involuntarily making your knees unsteady, coughing as you held onto his thighs. He towered over you, you were beneath him, beneath the ravenous gaze he simultaneously terrified and seduced you with. You couldn’t complain now. You did your job. You made him feel powerful like you’d wanted. Dominating, as his cock leaked in your spit, and spit your saliva back onto your face.

“You were fucking hungry for my cock, weren’t you? Look at you. You’re a bloody mess…” With one swipe, he gathered the layers of spit you had generously supplemented his cock with, and smeared it across your face. You took his humiliation with good grace, moaning at your loss of pride with every smear. It deducted the more he messily layered your face with your own spit, but as demeaning as it was, there was immense merit to the satisfaction on Mr. Cavill’s face. “Open up.”

“M-mm, ah—“ Your mouth opened with a vulgar sound. If Mr. Cavill had something to compare it to, it would be like sticking a spoon into a cup of jello, and then scooping its content out. Sweet and glorious to his ears, salty to your mouth as he bought your head forward again, and plunged his cock back down your throat, deeper, and further within the confines of your throat. You squeezed around him, eyes clenched tight while he brought your face flushed to his pelvis, the hairy bush of his public area gentle abrasive against your nose. He smelled as delectable as he tasted. A hint of spice, sweat, salt, you could lick at it if it was made into a popsicle, lap it up if it was in a bowl and you were on all fours, bowing to his feet.

Your cheeks bulged as your mouth churned internally to produce more slime to seemingly ease the slide of Mr. Cavill’s cock thrusting inside of you now. He was careless, half-bent over your head to lock you into a tight embrace while his spit-polished cock rubbed at either side of your cheeks, rut against the roof of your mouth, then thrust himself into the depth of your warm throat. You couldn’t have escaped if you had wanted to. He was too strong. Two hands unrelenting around your head while he packed his large cock deep into your mouth, pelting into your gags and whimpers with fast, sharp thrusts, the sound of his wet dick choking you mutually turning you and Mr. Cavill on. You want to quit, yet he was choking you too good. Water streamed down your cheeks. Whether it was your own spit, sweat, or tears, you couldn’t comprehend it because Mr. Cavill was uncompromising, refusing to yield for your comfort.

You were fucking grateful. That was what had been missing from your college experience. A man. Someone taking charge for once. Someone utilizing you like the whore you made yourself out to be. Mr. Cavill saw right through you, through your taunts from several breaks ago, and he was fucking furious for making him wait.

“Shit, I’m close,” Fucking your mouth furiously. You could get off like this. Fuck, no. You were getting off to this. Fucking your cock with your fist, doing your best to match the pace of Mr. Cavill’s hips. You wanted to look up, to watch his face morph from admiration to animalistic desire as he utilized your throat at his own disposal.

You blinked away your tears, even if they had stung, and gawked at how captivating Mr. Cavill was for being selfish, thrusting into your mouth with one hand keeping your face free of your hair from obstructing his view. A frown permanently framed his mustache, and his dark brows furrowed at the approaching climax. He wasn’t looking at you. Rather, he was scrutinizing your wet mouth as it was jam-packed with his cock. How could a mouth look so pretty while doing something absolutely obscene? How could a throat feel so tight, so addictive, even after piping his cock down its drain several times? How could you let him treat you like this, a complete stranger, completely violate and humiliate you on your knees, like a broken doll whose purpose was to fulfill a man’s deepest desires? Maybe he needed to have a talk with your father. Talk about how broken you were, and that you needed fixing. Spend a nights with him at his house, and he would help you rewire your brain. He’d fix you. Fix you with his cock. With his lips. With his hands. With his body. Your eyes rolled back at the thought, fisting your cock faster, twisting to his heavy grunts as he was nearing closer and closer to the edge of his insanity.

“Mfghm!” Your throat felt raw, the subtlest whimper scratching at your throat like claws on chalkboard. But you persisted, pumping your shaft vigorously, your ears lapping up Mr. Cavill’s constant appraisal for your performance. Good boy. That’s it. You’re taking my cock like how I want it. You want your reward? Fuck, sloppier. Spit on it. Spit on my dick. I like it sloppy. 

Sweat pebbled every inch of your skin. You couldn’t take it. It was coming. Your stomach sank and steeled upon the sudden rise of fulfillment, and you quickly released your grip after a final stroke before coming into the air. Thick ropes catapulted upwards, your cock throbbing with every pulse, and your balls emptying itself more and more with a bounce, a twitch, and a jolt. “F-fuck, ugh…”

“Fuck, yeah. Look at all of that cum. Fuck. You came that much just from my cock, look at that…“ Your body spasmed as the carpet soaked up your semen. His voice gruff yet gentle at the same time, making your cock twitch once more before softening. 

“Come on, not done yet. Suck me off.” He spat out, tugging your head forward after a quick breather.

Something in you clicked, and you began sucking his cock off like it was your job. Twisting, stroking at the slick shaft while nipping at the head while you caught up to your breath. Suddenly saltier on your tongue as some of your cum had landed on your hand before it was smeared across Mr. Cavill’s dick. You’ve never tasted yourself before, but it was a found contentment you didn’t expect to turn you on.

Then, you took one last breath, cleared your throat, and charged forward. Long, thick inches slid into your throat once more, and you’d hold yourself there upon his final warning, mouth agape, lips pressed into the fur of his pubic hair. Your tongue flattened at the underside of his veiny cock, and your nails dug into the back of his thighs as you felt a thick warmth rush down and coat the inside of your throat. His cock throbbed, and Mr. Cavill’s grunts emptied from his gut with every spill. You could feel every heavy pulse as Mr. Cavill came down your throat in heavy, creamy spurts. You didn’t want to swallow. Not yet. You wanted to savor him. Savor the taste of his cum. You’d pined for it for so long, for all you could know, this could be your last opportunity to properly taste him. Slowly, but surely, his loads rose and pooled in the back of your throat upon barricading it with a tighten of your trachea. The rest of his spurts emptied on your tongue as he pulled himself out, and milked himself to completion. 

“Don’t swallow yet.”

You nodded, panting, awaiting for his nuts to be emptied as he flung his cock a few times, hurling drips of cum and your spit over your tongue and face. When he was seemingly emptied out, his gaze fixated on his cum pooled in the back of your throat; semi-translucent and filthily swimming with your own spit, and then Mr. Cavill’s own saliva, as he then spat into your crowded mouth. 

“Now swallow.”

You whimpered at the vulgarity of this affair, yet you were highly-aroused by this shame you were feeling. Mr. Cavill’s gaze stilled, anticipating with calm amusement while petting at your cheek. With one clean gulp, you downed your guilt, scrunching your nose when the salty taste of his spunk throttled your tastebuds, and sighed in satisfaction.

“Does your throat hurt?” He was on his haunches, carefully examining your throat as if he had his hand around you from the outside. It was a surprising return to his normal self, at least, the man that you knew as your dad’s best friend. Caring and patient, as he tended to your neck with apologetic kisses, and a gentle massage around your nape, where he must’ve gripped too hard upon your jolted reaction.

“A little… Didn’t take you were one to be rough like that.” Your knees gave out, letting yourself fall back onto your butt knowing that the couch would catch your position.

“Not usually, no… You just… happen to rile me up for some reason.” He was smiling, joining you on the floor, and nuzzling his furry mustache into the crook of your neck as if he wasn’t choking you with his cock a few minutes ago. It was unusual, yet charming. “Seriously, don’t tell your dad, okay?” He whispered into your ear before turning your cheek to look deep in his eyes.

A meaningful stare, a beat of silence, before you spoke, “Only if you promise me something.”

“What’s that?” Mr. Cavill pressed a kiss to your swollen lips, another apology for stretching your mouth without much warning.

“You really meant it that this would be a regular thing if I did a good job?” Mr. Cavill scoffed at first. It was almost embarrassing. Were you being naive? Was this too good to be true? Your cheeks flushed red, and you solemnly casted your gaze downwards, defeated because that was that it felt like. The sound of rejection always came with a scoff, everyone knew that. 

“Well, it was going to be a regular thing even if you had accidentally bit my dick off.” He suddenly laughed at how susceptible you were by the smallest actions, and at this moment, you were surprised that maybe this crush wasn’t so one-sided after all. He teased at your frown, kissing the corner of your mouth until it was a smile, and then prodding at your sides when you resisted. “Come on, you couldn’t possibly think this was a one-time thing.” 

“Tempting…” You snuck a head in between his thighs, reaching for a certain tool that had brought in so much pleasure and pain to your body. “I don’t know… we don’t talk much. I don’t know you that well.” 

“Don’t.” Mr. Cavill teasingly warned, stopping you by taking ahold of your wrist. Though, one step too late, as you already cupped his flaccid cock, tormenting his balls with a few tugs and squeeze of your palm as an act of revenge for your throat. “Well… then let’s get to know each other. No problem doing that, right?”

“Mm-mm, guess not.” Pursing your lips, you nodded, feeling placated by his words.

He sighed into your mouth, kissing you again, licking at the inside of your mouth, tasting your tongue and then your cheek, to soothe his selfish stain on your body with the work of his mouth. 

“First, I want to hear you say ‘thank you’ for building that PC of yours before I promise you anything.”

“Jesus, we’re still on this?”

“Yes! Do you know how long that took me?”

“I didn’t ask you to build me one—“

“God, you’re an ungrateful brat.”

nouearth. please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works. and if you like this story, please reblog and leave a like!

[doberbutts]

Hello all, informative trans guy post here. IF you are taking testosterone as part of your HRT or transition process, you've probably heard several times that testosterone is a controlled substance, very difficult to source, and that you are limited on the amount of which you can have at one time. You may even be wondering the truth of these claims.

Well... the answer is... that it's mostly true. But I can tell you how to make things a bit easier on yourself, if you're having a hard time.

This "guide" is 100% USAmerican based. Sorry, but I live here, and don't know how this works outside of my own country.

1: Testosterone is a controlled substance.

Well... it is. Testosterone is a controlled substance in the United States, being a Schedule III drug along with drugs like ketamine. This means that in some states, it can be very difficult to source at all and even harder to source in significant or consistent quantities. This is largely due to people taking anabolic steroids, and very little of testosterone's controlled status historically had anything to do with transgender people using it as part of their medical transition, though that is beginning to change as trans men become more visible. There are now some laws restricting the usage of testosterone for the purpose of transitioning, especially in cases of minors and young adults transitioning through their teens.

This is a little different from estrogen, which is prescription-only in its injectable form but does not have controlled status on a federal level. Testosterone, by comparison, is controlled in all of its forms and possessing it without a prescription is very illegal. While it is possible to source and make testosterone without a prescription, much like estrogen, the legal consequences for doing so are much more severe. For this reason, this is not a guide to doing so without using a prescription.

2: Testosterone is difficult to source.

Provided you have a doctor willing to give you a prescription, and either insurance or financial means of covering the cost of said prescription, testosterone is only difficult to source if you are living in a state that heavily restricts the ability to source Schedule III drugs (or has introduced laws restricting the ability to dispense HRT to transgender patients) or if there is some sort of shortage happening.

Testosterone is available at every national pharmacy chain in various forms, and can also be ordered online by pharmacies that may legally serve your state provided they operate within the state's laws. Remember, cis men take testosterone in various forms for their own hormonal function at times, so this is far from a niche transgender-only drug.

Your state may have restrictions on exactly how much testosterone you may pick up from the pharmacy at any given time, how frequently you're allowed to get it, and occasionally how much you're allowed to have in general. This may also change depending if you are picking your testosterone up from a physical brick-and-mortar pharmacy, or if you are ordering online for home delivery.

Some pharmacies will try to tell you they legally can't dispense more- this may conflict with what your doctor tells you, so if your doctor is willing to give you the maximum your state allows you to have and your pharmacy says a different maximum, you need to get your doctor to advocate for you.

Certain forms of testosterone are more prone to shortages and backorders than others. Gel appears to be commonly backordered, and manufacturer shortages are not uncommon. For this reason, my doctor prescribes me a three month supply at a time. For a long time, CVS would argue with me that they legally could only fill one month at a time. I mentioned this to my doctor, because this inevitably means that with the pharmacists at CVS screwing around with my meds that I am not consistent on my dosing month-to-month because when a shortage happens I simply have to go without until they finally get another shipment in.

Now, thankfully, she wrote me a prescription to navigate around that with the three month supply, but she also had someone from her office call and give them a dressing down on why they needed to actually comply with her orders for her patient. I happen to live in a state that the maximum is truly a three month supply, so CVS should not be arbitrarily shortening a doctor's prescription just because they don't think they should be dispensing that many.

Similarly, testosterone is unfortunately not cheap. I happen to take the gel version, which retails at about $400 USD per bottle, and each bottle lasts one month, so that's about $1600 USD worth of medication sitting on my bathroom sink in that photo with four bottles. Now, thankfully, I have insurance, and the insurance I have allows me to pick up all of my medications for free provided the insurance is actually willing to cover it. This means that I spent a grand total of $0 USD on these bottles. Insurance costs vary greatly, so it's wise to see exactly how much a larger supply will cost you prior to actually committing. My current insurance does not allow me to order medications online, but my previous insurance that I did actually have to pay for medications was often cheaper to order online ($40 for a three month supply) than pick up at the CVS ($20 for a one month supply). This is something to consider depending on your individual coverage.

3: You can only have so much testosterone at once.

As for why I have four bottles- due to my job change, I had an insurance change as well as introduced my state's version of Medicaid as a secondary insurance. My initial insurance did not cover these bottles but did cover individual gel packets dispensed as a sealed box of 30. My current insurance does not cover the individual packets but does cover the bottles. The packets are a slightly different dosage than the pump on the bottle, and when making that switch my doctor accidentally under-dosed me, which then created a significant excess when I went to pick up the next month's bottle. As a result, that initial bottle lasted roughly two months before we caught the under-dosing via my bloodwork, which means I opened the second bottle right as I was getting ready to pick up the third (and fourth and fifth).

This is not an illegal situation as there is a clear paper trail within my medical record and prescription history detailing this situation playing out, but it can be dangerous in certain states to have this much over the amount you're supposed to have. It can be illegal to stockpile a Schedule III drug, so I do not recommend intentionally creating this sort of situation for yourself.

That being said, this sort of worked in my favor. Schedule III drugs often need a prior authorization from your insurance before they are willing to cover these medications. Drugs that are not necessarily expected within your demographic, such as being marked as female but taking testosterone, also often require a prior auth. A prior auth can take up to a month to go through insurance, though usually is less than a week. I just passed my testosterone anniversary in late September, which also means my prior auth expired, as they're only good for one year. Instead of, you know, telling me my prior auth expired, CVS just sent me a text stating they were having a problem with my order and that they were in contact with my doctor about it. A week went by with no change so I called my doctor, who reported they never received anything from CVS but would look into the issue and see what the problem was. They called me back the next day to tell me about my expired prior auth and that they fixed it. I then got the text from CVS saying my prescription was ready to pick up about 5 minutes later. That does mean that if I did not have this excess, I would have once again simply not had testosterone for about a week.

4: Public vs Private Insurance

Whether or not your state's insurance will cover testosterone depends entirely on your state. Obama, when creating the Affordable Care Act or now known as "Obamacare", did make it so that states are supposed to be required to cover HRT for transgender adults and even minors in certain situations. Trump did away with several of these protections, which then emboldened certain states to whittle away at what was left. Other states, like my own, strengthened their protections in response, making it easier to access HRT.

This means that while my own state allows me to get free testosterone through the state's insurance (which is income-based eligibility, and I'm making a significant amount over minimum wage but still considered below my state's poverty line) - a friend of mine in another state cannot access HRT using his state's Medicaid, and is required to use private insurance. Additionally, I have insurance through my job, but it does not cover a large enough percentage for it to be feasible. This means that legally, I have to pay for my workplace insurance (barf, that's $200 out of every paycheck) but on the flip side because of my income eligibility I also can still have the state insurance as my co-insurance and that will clean up whatever leftover costs my private insurance leaves me with.

It also means my top surgery will be free, provided I can get it approved through my private insurance. My public insurance will pay the remaining balance of whatever my private insurance is willing to cover, but will not pay for things my private insurance isn't willing to cover at all.

This also means I have to attend exclusively doctors that will take my public insurance if I want to do things this way- however that's a fairly robust list in my state compared to others, so I didn't have to change doctors at all.

This situation is not always the case for every state's Medicaid- but it is worth looking into if you need options and your current insurance sucks or if you're not insured at all.

[cologona]

The fact that Jason’s wearing his murderer’s old title is a fun detail for angst but good god, “taking ownership of his trauma” is not his primary reason, or even secondary reason for doing so.

Practicality is core to Jason’s character. He did not learn to use bombs because he died from an explosion, he used them because they’re destructive and remote controlled and that’s useful for his goals. Even his theatrics are for a purpose of communication. Remember that he spent all of Lost Days in the same ratty track suit, and never took credit for anyone he killed or anybody he saved. If he isn’t saying something to someone he doesn’t bother.

So what is the practical utility of taking on the Red Hood persona?

It’s crap as a symbol of fear. Unlike the silhouette of giant bat, which stokes the imagination, the sight of some guy in a helmet hardly inspires anything more than perhaps thoughts of motorcycles. The name itself is merely a reference to the costume and the costume is just a thing to hide your face. It’s the most spartan, pared down persona one could have. That it used to be Joker’s hardly helps because it was only his back when Joker was just an ordinary man— and a rather pathetic no-name fall guy at that. Anyone clued in enough to know about it is more liable to think of Jason as another nutjob than to be intimidated.

But that’s the point. Jason doesn’t need a symbol of fear because he gives people perfectly tangible reasons to fear him. The Red Hood persona is nearly devoid of expression, but because of that it’s very effective at the one thing it does express- “I am a criminal. Refer to me by color because there is nothing more to know.” Its association with Joker taints anyone else who uses it with the implication of insanity, but insanity is useful when any crook or businessman worth his salt in Gotham knows not to bother questioning the non-negotiables of its local lunatics.

Jason is an especially acrobatic single-operator pushing a seemingly altruistic agenda. It would’ve been very easy for him to get labeled as another vigilante. One that is more comfortable getting blood on his hands maybe, but a vigilante nonetheless. That he’s able to function the way he does, while still being taken seriously a rogue and crime lord is due in large part to his very deliberate presentation.

Why, if Jason thinks what he does is good and necessary, does he present himself this way? Maybe because from the start, his beliefs were more nuanced than one would be lead to believe. That Jason thinks his actions are necessary does not mean he must also think they should be attributed to righteousness or justice. He explains in Outsiders: PAYG— what it means for a ‘bad guy’ to do something is different from if a ‘good guy’ does the same thing. Jason essentially makes the same point Tim once made to Huntress about public trust in heroes but from the opposite angle.

The assertions modern comics make about why Jason has the Red Hood mantle (and why he uses a crowbar) ring very hollow to me. It feels like an almost deliberate push to erase the complexity he had as a villain in favor of a squeaky clean redemption arc. The way I see it though, so long as Jason remains Red Hood any sort of “redemption” he has is a false one. He’s still holding onto the symbol of his convictions, just because he’s willing to betray himself and others for love doesn’t mean that he’s changed his mind about how it all works.

[weaselle]

i wanna do a thing where i lay out studies that show things in different primates that show us parts of ourselves as humans. Call it Primates: Through the Looking Glass or The Monkey in the Mirror or something

There are studies and documentaries that show things about Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Baboons, Macaques... that just make sense to me. That if shown right would make sense to a lot of people, i think.

like... they were studying this one group of gorillas --

okay wait. First of all, you know a silverback (the Big Male) of the group is not the leader or in charge or anything, right? He has a role, and it includes a certain amount of control, which i’ll explain briefly, but he’s not, like, in charge.

wait, you know all that Dominance/Alpha theory about wolves is all wrong, right?

wait wait wait, and also that like, the bull or the stag or whatever in a herd is not in charge of anything, right? right?

hold on. the wolves is it’s own post, the herd thing i might get back to, we’re on gorillas, okay. Silverback is basically just the male head of an extended family in which plenty of the leadership is handled by the women of the family.

There are often 2-4 silverbacks, but one, usually the largest, will clearly be senior to the others who are often his sons or brothers. Silverbacks have three main roles

1: defend the group from all physical threats aside from people, these threats are mostly random male gorillas, chimpanzee baby-snatching gangs, and the occasional leopard. Just his alert presence handles most scenarios, and then maybe a few times a year he has to risk his life fulfilling this responsibility. It is this role that provides most of whatever actual power he has over the group, namely this: while he isn’t necessarily the one deciding when and where the group goes on a daily basis, if the most powerful/capable silverback does decide to travel a direction, they pretty much have to go with him, the family isn’t safe without him.

2: make babies. And this is one area where the ladies of the group will sometimes sort of vote with their ovaries, and favor a silverback that isn’t the main one, like “yeah, Frank, you are the biggest, but honestly you’re a dick and we’re going to make sure the next generation of silverbacks isn’t another one of you.” When you see a main large silverback in a group of gorillas, it isn’t, like, his blindly loyal harem, they have to approve of him. Also gorilla females move between groups, and sometimes they take members with them or start new groups and stuff. Anyway i’m getting off track, one of the silverbacks jobs is making babies

3. keep the peace This functions a lot like being in the back seat with your siblings with your parents up front. Basically any disputes within the group have to be handled within a certain parameter of decorum, because if it gets too out of hand HE’s going to come over, and He’ll be upset, which is low-key terrifying because He’s huge, and there’s no telling who He’ll decide is at fault or what he’ll do about it, so letting a situation get out of hand is a losing scenario for everyone involved really. Tho typically he will favor senior females in disputes, in a “don’t you talk that way to your mom” kind of way.

one last thing, silverbacks don’t actually transfer power between silverbacks via battle every time.

Like i was just reading accounts from a multi-generational observational study of some wild gorillas that featured one big silverback just straight up taking over by performing the silverback duties better and becoming preferred by everyone else in the group. There was no fight, it just became, i do the job better, everyone likes me better, kicking my ass can’t change that, and boom, he was the primary silverback. And the other silverback might have been a bit dull, or a bit of a bully, but like us their species’ success is largely dependent on social intelligence; once he saw the writing on the wall, that other, slightly larger sivlerback didn’t even bother trying to change the situation with a physical fight, he understood what had happened.

okay so all that was just to tell you all this story. lol. Here’s what i saw in one documentary:

This very big, getting old silverback, who was hugely popular and successful, with a very large and tightly bonded family group, and a couple of his hulking adult sons backing him up. Everybody in his group seemed to love him a lot, he was particularly calm in that gentle giant sort of way, a safe, emotionally steady presence, happy to help raise his sons and daughters with kindness, and who could become a raging nightmare if pressed by a leopard ... exactly what a band of gorillas wants in a silverback.

But one of his adult sons had plenty of silver on his own back, and was getting itchier and itchier to be main man of the group, and this is where we start our little drama

It seems to be coming to a head, and the observers are nervous about a fight for the position. The silverback and his son are both are huge, probably approaching 400lbs, mostly muscle, with long thick fangs and skulls topped with jaw muscles as big as human biceps to wield those teeth, which nature has given them primarily to fight other gorillas with. 

But then the next day, the old man leads the fam up the mountain.

it’s winter, which is why they have come down the mountain in the first place. But as we discussed, if he goes somewhere, they have to go, so they all follow behind.

up he goes, and then he sits. And waits. It’s cold and there is much less food up here at this time of year. There’s nothing to do but sit hungry in the cold. His size and metabolism makes him the most able to withstand the cold, but even he is pretty uncomfortable. 

And so he sits. And his family, perhaps confused, but loyal, sits around him.

But his son, the other huge silverback, with years of training even as an adult under his wise father, is ready and able to go off on his own. Finally, he stands up, makes clear his intentions to leave this uncomfortable place. A small handful of the other gorillas stand with him -- if he goes down the mountain, then they can safely leave as well. He turns and heads down the mountain. After a moment, a few more gorillas leave the main group to follow. All in all it winds up being nearly half.

The wise older silverback thoughtfully watches his son leave with about half the group. He sits a while longer in the cold, in the company of those most loyal to him, and then takes them along a different path down the mountain

And those two groups still ran into each other sometimes, and were friendly. And sometimes a couple gorillas would change between the two groups. They were still close.

But i just thought that was such an elegant, meaningful way for that gorilla to handle that whole situation. And it makes a completely human sort of sense to me. 

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do homicipher characters experience arousal?

i want to preface this by saying that i am not in any way, shape, or form criticizing other homicipher writers and/or their headcanons. i absolutely adore the work i’ve seen from everyone and am grateful to be able to read it! this is simply my personal thoughts on this topic so i hope it doesn’t come across like i’m trying to demean anyone else’s work.

additional note: i write reader insert so i will be referring to us as the reader rather than mc, but my post should work for both interpretations ^^

this is something i’ve been thinking about a lot since i’m working on some nsfw homicipher headcanons myself. from what i’ve read, a lot of homicipher work headcanon the characters as not really experiencing and/or knowing what arousal is, at least until they meet the reader (which is extremely endearing and flattering, i love the concept, and there’s nothing wrong with it!) but i personally came to the conclusion that homicipher characters do experience arousal, and have experienced it before meeting the reader. however, i believe their perception of arousal differs from ours.

to start, the reason i think they experience arousal to begin with, is because arousal isn’t just an emotional or mental response, but also a physiological function. similar to other physical needs (ie: food, sleep, water)—which i think they also require though that’s for another post—arousal doesn’t necessarily require conscious thought or emotional processes. arousal can be merely a response to touch or certain sensory inputs, something that happens regardless of how we think or feel.

while i think arousal is a natural function for them, i don’t believe they are likely to have had sex with other homicipher characters. the reason for that is also why i say they experience arousal differently—they don’t understand attraction. this is based on both my personal bias of wanting them to ourselves, but also the in game interactions with mr. hood and mr. silvair, where they fail to grasp the concept of ‘liking’ an individual.

since they don’t experience attraction (yet!), i imagine their perception of arousal would be a mechanical or instinctual one; just something their bodies respond to. much like thoughtlessly scratching an itch, they likely address it more as a physical need to take care of, rather than associating it with any deeper desires or having it directed/related to another person.

my silly little reader insert loving self does insist that they feel some sort of attraction towards us, though, which i believe will be a newfound feeling for them that can change how they experience arousal. with them able to feel attraction towards us, their once neutral and unassuming need can become something more intimate, romantic, or even obsessive depending on the character.

tl;dr homicipher characters have always experienced arousal but only as a bodily function, as they don’t understand attraction until meeting and developing interest in the reader, which changes their perception of arousal to something more complex and intimate.

thank you everyone for reading my silly little shower thoughts. i hope this was coherent enough and made sense! (>^ω^<)

feel free to leave any of your thoughts below if you have any comments on this! and feel free to argue with me if you think i’m yapping nonsense... (･･;)