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#can someone come with me to steal books
johnbly · 8 months
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WIP game!
i was tagged by @tortoisesshells ✨
so i have two fics going one rn: 1) in the boat purgatory in at world's end, james comes across gov swann and the two have a final conversation together (not using that for this since i haven't done too much but something to look forward to i guess) and 2) bolt's "what if james had a dragon" fic and subsequent discussions and questions has me now doing a "what if hornblower had a dragon" fic so here is an excerpt from that:
“Who are you?”  The dragonet is speaking French, and internally Hornblower swears. Is French the only language the creature knows? It’s no issue for him, of course, but how can it be expected to be a British dragon if it only knows French? “Captain Horatio Hornblower, most recently of the HMS Sutherland,” he replies, also in French – awkwardly so, because it’s a ridiculously formal introduction to make to a dragon, but in light of never having conversed with one before he’s fallen back on the old habit of saying more than is necessary. “That is not a French name,” the dragon says. In English. “Non – no, it is not. You speak English, then?” “I do.” Pause. “That was a long introduction. I hope you don’t want me to use it whenever I want to call on you?” The idea of a dragon wanting to call on him at all is no less ridiculous than having a conversation with one, but it – he? The voice is deep – has a point. “You can call me 'Hornblower',” he says.
i don't remember who all is writing things that hasn't already been tagged, so if you see this and are a writer, feel free to share!
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fragmentedblade · 8 months
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I've been reading about xiangqi a bit and now I'm even more obsessed with that one video of Jing Yuan
#Obsessed with the fact they made a point of him not leaving the palace#Anyway I was rewatching this because I still find very amusing that you can see when he steals that piece from the board#Which is something that makes I think more sense considering the ways in which you can check and win in this game#It seems pretty fun actually I think I'll try. Maybe with this being different this time I'll be able to convince someone to play with me#No one wants to indulge me when it comes to chess and I don't like playing online#Hmm actually this game seems less unpleasant to play non physically based on aesthetics#With chess I always have to take out a physical board and it's sort of annoying. The pocket chess I carry around is not much better#Yes I think I'll give xiangqi a try. And look for good books about it and its evolution. I hope I find something#It's always so hard to find things worth reading about topics like these. Like with fencing. Still unsure about what I got about that#After rewatching the video again I have half a mind to make gifs to keep track of his moves. I just really find it very amusing#I love how the move and what is happening in the rest of the video work with what we see him do in the actual game#Personality wise yes but strategically#I think I actually rambled about this in a post a few days ago? Oh wait that was in my main blog I think#I don't know why I make sideblogs if I end up reblogging the posts in the main after all. I always do the same thing#I'll stop now but oh I am really so so fond of him. I think I could talk for hours haha#I talk too much#Jing Yuan#Right now it doesn't seem to appear in the general tag for me but I'll check in a bit again#I really don't know how to organise my rambles anymore with this feature#I miss the five tags thing#Now no matter how much I talk it seems the general tag will always find my posts
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firebuug · 2 years
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I love the name julian i think i found the name of all time fr fr
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lets-share-neen · 2 years
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My workplace sent an invitation to everyone for a christmas party and overnight stay at the end of the year. Oh the horror I experienced reading that email. Everyone seemed excited and that it will be 'fun' but I was just quiet. After contemplating what to do for a couple days I just declined the invitation and I know this will have consequenses.... I feel so anxious already and don't know what to say if people ask me why but I already made a comment like 'I think our definition of fun is very different...' and they shouldn't be surprised at all. I just don't know how to get out of this cause everyone is always expected to come - but they can't drag me to a party in another branch with a stay in a hotel, alcohol, people and no way to escape. Hell nah 😕
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lady-ashfade · 4 months
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Our comfort
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Platonic!Yan!Camp Half-Blood x Comfort!Goddess!Reader. (Percy, Annabeth, Grover)
—£ Yes I know I haven’t finish the book but I actually couldn’t wait anymore. So, this is me with little knowledge so bare that in mind.
—£ Warnings: Book/show spoilers, Yandere! Behavior, Being bound to a place, Possessive behavior, Obsessive behavior, Manipulation, Characters fighting for the reader’s attention. Short.
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You weren’t a known for too long goddess, much younger then rest of the gods. A teenager like age compared to them. It was strange to have more powerful gods look to you for comfort but you love it. As you are the goddess of comfort.
But, as the other gods started to have many demigods you saw how miserable they could get. You hated the fact they didn’t care for their children so you decided to stay at the camp for half-bloods when the time came.
The campers cling to you. You bring a comfort they never quite felt before. It was like a warm hug, like the ones they wanted from their parents.
You couldn’t leave, and at the beginning you were glad to accept that fate.
Almost always you are found surrounded by demigods and they just relax in your comfort. You are the one they go to with every worry in their mind.
Being close to Aphrodite, her seeing you as a sister and a younger child. Stories of your love for one another are still told today, as she gave ideas to the mortals of how great your relationship was. But in reality there wasn’t much to tell.
So her children have a mentality that they are your favorite and because of their mother, they have some sort of claim to you above the others. But that never works because you love the children equally.
The demigods have less nightmares with you around and watching over them.
Ares children fight often for your affection. They will constantly get into fights with others to show they deserve more time with you. Which you always scold them but it never sticks. They kiss their weapons each time to you, like a sign of good luck. Aries children are one of the worsts ones because they get aggressive at times, even with you. But the golds make them stop by punishing them, mostly their father.
Hermes children are hard to explain really. They aren’t aggressive, but they are mischievous. They take their revenge of stealing things from the other campers, pulling pranks. Or trapping some of them up and go straight to you before they can get there. Luke for instance, is always looking around for you and talking about his day. He’s either laying down next to you, or making you watch him train.
Many games of all houses take place just for you.
AnnaBeth, is constantly by your side when she has free time. She scares off people with a glare behind your back, knowing that she could put plan them. She also trains and makes you watcher her and needs your praise. Maybe, somehow you are her older sister. But, sometimes she just chills by your side not saying anything, she’s like a lost duck at times.
Grover however is actually a lost duck. You comfort him when his past missions fail and he loses kids. You are so nice to him and makes him feel special and brave. When he has to leave he keeps a coin in his pocket with your face on it and prays a lot. He’s not possessive much. He’s willing to take what he can get and is just happy to be there. But maybe if someone comes in when he’s “crying” and having you fuss over him then he’ll be a bit mad but never does anything about it.
When a new camper arrives you devote your time to them because they need it a little more. They come into a world they know nothing of, waiting for the parent they hardly know to claim them. You claim them like your own until the time comes.
So when Percy comes you feel something off with him, like he is special and in need of a lot. He lost his mom, taken from the world he knew.
Percy becomes the most possessive out of all of them.
He feels out of place but you are always there to listen to him. It doesn’t help that you follow him to make sure he’s okay. At the beginning you’re both following each other around.
“It’s okay, Percy.” You brush his hair lightly like his mother used to do. “You’ll get claim, and you’ll have glory.” And he doesn’t care if you say that to everyone because you make him feel special. 
Also, you protect the new bloods. So you’ll show up when he gets bullied and just raise one brow and they all back off. Can’t risk making you mad at them.
When Percy gets claimed he’s all alone again, no friends and the campers looking at him funny. Being one of the top threes son isn’t fun or easy. He shares a cabin all to himself.
So he starts to be the worst of them all. Raising his voice when you try and leave him and he manipulates you to stay with him. Can’t you see how alone he is?
He can’t sleep unless he knows your watching over him.
You pick no sides of the war. Your family will figure it out themselves, while you take care of their children.
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sashaforthewin · 2 months
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Multi-chapter fic on Ao3
Steve had been enjoying a nice relaxing lounge by the pool despite it being night. He had his hearing aid off and his fruity drink and a romance novel Robin had let him borrow. He was determined to have a good time despite the circumstances. 
Someone tapped his foot, scaring the crap out of Steve and making him drop his book and nearly knock over his drink. 
It was a fellow cruise passenger and he was saying something. Steve turned his hearing aid back on.
“Sorry, what?”
“I asked why you were out here instead of at the concert,” repeated the man with a smile.
“Oh, um. I’m not actually a fan of metal music. It gives me headaches if I listen to more than one or two songs in a row,” Steve admitted sheepishly.
This stranger was still clearly a metal head, but he looked significantly less scary than most of the ones he had seen so far that day. Everyone Steve met had been nice, but Steve hadn’t felt comfortable telling anyone he wasn’t a fan until now. Maybe because it was just the two of them out here and he was smiling so cutely. 
“Not a metal fan? Well damn, not to critique your life choices, but I think maybe going on a metal cruise wasn’t an ideal choice for you? I’m Eddie, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Steve.”
There were plenty of deck lounges around, all empty, but Eddie sat down on Steve’s right next to his legs. 
“Steve. So Steve, why are you on a metal cruise when you don’t like metal? These tickets were not exactly cheap and there’s no way you missed the theme, it was pretty clearly advertised,” Eddie asked teasingly.
Steve looked Eddie over, noting that he was actually pretty cute. Pretty eyes, nice full lips, dimples, and he was that type of lanky Steve was drawn to. He had good skin and his hair had some volume and texture to it, Steve could work with that. Bit of a fixer-upper, but a better starting point than most of the men that had flirted with him since his last failed relationship. He also had the vibe, so Steve decided this guy would be fine to open up to. 
“Well, Eddie, I bought this ticket for my dear friend Dustin for his birthday, but then the little shit went and outed me to my parents. Accidentally, of course, and he feels like shit about it. But still, that got me kicked out of my home so maybe I’m being petty but I decided he shouldn’t get to go on this cruise after all. I forgive him, it really was an accident, but still, gotta teach him a lesson.” Steve shrugged. “And I would’ve gotten the ticket refunded but the money would’ve gone back to my parents and they clearly don’t deserve to get anything back from me. So, instead of trying to figure out how to sell a ticket to a very niche interest cruise, I figured I deserved to just come and treat myself for four days before I have to go back to living in my ex-girlfriend’s basement. It’s actually pretty nice to have the ship to myself while all you guys are in there shaking your heads to loud music.” Steve gestured to the pool and the drink.
“Ex- girl friend’s basement?” Eddie asked.
“Shut up, I’m bi.” Steve smacked Eddie on the arm with his book. 
Eddie grabbed the book and looked at it as he replied, “Hey, just checking to make sure I’m not barking up the wrong tree.”
“Oh? Is that what you’re doing, barking up my tree?” Steve said, playfully.
“If you’ll let me,” Eddie flirted back.
“So how come you’re not in the show right now?” Steve asked, gently stealing his book back from Eddie’s grasp.
“Oh, I’m touring with those guys right now, I have heard them play the same set like fifteen times already. I’d much rather be out here getting to chat with you. You know you’re beautiful, right? How come you don’t live with your boyfriend? Or girlfriend?” Eddie asked, quite obvious in his fishing for information.
“I’m single and yes, I do know I’m beautiful, but I still like hearing it. Are you like a roadie or something?”
“Actually,” Eddie said, “I’m the lead guitarist in the headlining band. We play tomorrow night. Can I buy you another drink? Maybe dinner?”
“The, uh, the bill goes to our cabins,” Steve answered, too shocked that an apparently famous musician was asking him out to respond appropriately.
“Baby, I’ll put your entire tab on my cabin if you’ll let me. You are the most beautiful, and dare I say cleanest man on this entire boat. Metal heads are great, but they aren’t really my type.”
Steve takes a sip of his cold drink just to make sure he’s not fallen asleep and dreaming. The ocean is calm and the moon is full and he is most definitely awake.
“And what is your type?” Steve asked. 
“Handsome men with soft hands who will let me pamper them,” Eddie said, picking up Steve’s hand and feeling his lack of calluses. He placed a kiss onto each finger tip. “These hands aren’t meant for labor, let me spoil you rotten.”
Well, Steve reasoned, even if this ended up being just a weekend fling, it was going to be worth the price of admission.
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charliemwrites · 3 months
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…. So Mister(s) steal your girl, huh?
Bombshells, you always thought, were supposed to making a whistling sound before landing. A high pitched warning of impending doom. Too late to escape the incoming devastation, but at least it wouldn’t come out of nowhere. There’d be some time to brace, for all the good it would do.
Maybe you watched too many movies.
Three months. That’s how long you got to enjoy the bliss of engagement before the world began to fall around you.
Your fiance came home and sat you down, his hand around yours. You thought he was breaking it off for some reason. What he did instead was worse.
In the aftermath you can only remember snippets of the one-sided conversation. Like tinnitus, an awful running in your ears left over from a dropped bomb.
Things like,
Still young, I want to explore…
How will I know you’re my forever unless I know what’s out there?
Last bit of freedom before being tied down…
If you love me and our relationship…
You love your fiance and your relationship. You don’t want to lose it just because you’re selfish. He’s still coming home to you, after all. You’re the one with the ring and all the plans for the future. So what if he wants to… explore? He’s even offering the same to you.
An open relationship, he calls it, like it’s some innovative idea.
You’ve heard of them before, never had much interest. Still don’t, honestly, but it was that or the desolution of 4 years.
You insisted on a long engagement. Your fiance promises that you two can revisit the open relationship when you’re married.
Within a week of agreeing, he’s leaves for the weekend. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going, who he’s meeting. He comes back Sunday evening smelling like someone else’s perfume with a hickey on his collarbone. When you refuse any advances, he sighs and says he “understands that this is a transition” and goes to shower.
It’s like that for six months. Weekends without him. Sometimes sending him off Friday morning and not seeing him until Monday evening. Lipstick on his collars, strange perfume invading the laundry. You start doing his clothes separately.
Six months. You spend months suffering in silence, sniffling through Saturdays and drifting through Sundays. Adjusting meal plans to cook for one.
The last straw is when you try to make plans on a holiday. You and your fiance haven’t done on a proper date in months. You want to go out, have all his attention on you, not shared with his phone.
“Ooh, sorry dear, I’ve already got plans with Malorie. Rain check, yeah? We’ll do something next week.”
You decide to go out anyway, sick of feeling sorry for yourself. Nothing fancy, just a bit of self care. You buy yourself a cute new outfit, put on a bit more makeup than usual, do your hair. Find an interesting little late night book shop. They serve wine and food and have comfy booths for people to read or talk or play board games.
The perfect place to be out but alone.
You’re debating the merits of a romance novel when a voice comes from your left.
“Love that one.”
You blink, glance up. Find a handsome man with eyes simultaneously so dark and so warm. Coals, you think. There’s a cheeky little quirk to his mouth as he nods at the novel.
“It’s good if you like will-they, won’t-they.”
You hum. “I’m more in the market for something… easier? If that makes sense.”
He hums, gives you a solemn look. “It does. Here, you might like this then.”
He plucks a book off the shelf and offers it for inspection. You feel awkward reading it the summary thoroughly, especially when you can feel his eyes on you. But you skim it, it looks promising, and a hot guy just suggested it, so…
“Read a lot of romance?” you ask curiously.
He ducks his head a bit, endearingly shy. “A bit, yeah. Call me hopeless.”
You bite the inside of your cheek, but can’t help saying. “I think it’s just romantic.”
His eyes light up. “Yeah? And what kind of books d’you usually like?”
Before you know it, you’re talking thrillers and horror novels with him. Recommending your favorite spooky novel and then following up that you always read a comedy afterwards as a palette cleanser.
You end up touring each other around the shop, talking books and authors and genres. Yet you’re somehow surprised when he asks if you’d like to sit with him. But you agree, a little thrill in your stomach that you haven’t felt since… a while.
You each buy a stack of books, then claim a booth and proceed to read none of them. He tells you his name is Kyle, that he’s in the military but on leave right now, stocking up on entertainment for flights or long spans of hurrying up and waiting.
You’ve never met a military guy before, and you trip over your curiosity. Trying not to pry but interested in what he does. He’s polite and patient, admitting there are a lot of things he can’t tell you but he’ll answer. You don’t stay on the subject long, figuring the last thing he wants to talk about it work.
He gets you back in the department of uncomfortable topics when he notices the ring on your finger. You’re quick to explain the situation, hot with shame all over again, eyes stinging despite yourself.
Instead of mocking you or just getting up and walking away, Kyle sits back looking flabbergasted.
“That’s fucking mental,” he says, “excuse me for saying.”
You burst into laughter. Haven’t told anyone any of this out of embarrassment, but hearing someone on your side is… good.
“I thought so too, but… he’s happy,” you admit.
Kyle frowns. “What about you?”
You blink, can’t look him in the eye. You know the answer but make a show of thinking about it.
“I’d… like to be again. This — the open relationship thing — seems to be working for him. So… maybe it’ll work for me too?” You shrug. “Worth a try.”
Kyle reaches across the table, a big warm hand enveloping yours. There are callouses you’re not expecting. Tantalizingly different.
“Would you like to try it with me?” he asks. “Don’t have to put a label on it or anything. But my schedule is a bit… it’s hard to keep up a traditional relationship, you know? But I like you, and I think your fiance is a knob.”
You snort, but flip your hand around, thumb brushing over his.
“Yeah…” you muse, and after saying it, a surge of confidence infuses you. “Yeah, I’d like to try this with you.”
His smile is absolutely brilliant. You won’t admit — not even to yourself for a long time — but you fall in love a little right then and there.
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papercorgiworld · 3 months
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No girls, no fights, no smokes
The things Mattheo Riddle does for love
This is like Theo’s ‘Tutoring first years’ a request based on the scenarios from Pansy’s Interrogation.
If you want a little more context, you can read Pansy’s interrogation, but it’s not a must.
No warnings except maybe foul language, but mostly just fluff and a bit of angst.
Picture source: https://pin.it/4r1PsBsvn
Not proofread. Feedback is as always very welcome. Happy readings, my dears!
“Slughorn is too lenient with him, because Riddle suddenly decided to show up to class, he gets an assignment to improve his grade. Ridiculous.” Hermoine says and Ron raises his eyebrows. “Slytherin privileges.” Harry joins his friends in their judging. “Not just that, Slughorn is making the same mistake he made when he trusted his father and told him about the horcruxes instead of sending him straight to Azkaban.” The three of them are startled to hear Mattheo’s voice from behind them. “You want to say that to my face, Potter!” Harry curses himself, he really wasn’t looking for a fight.
The trio turns around to face Mattheo, but they all keep their mouths shut and surprisingly so does Mattheo. The rage in his eyes is undeniable, but he simply walks by giving the trio only a quick death glare. When the trio is sure Mattheo is out of earsight Ron is the first to speak up. “Odd.” Hermoine shakes her head. “Not as much as you would think.” Harry and Ron give their friend a questioning look. “I don’t know why but he’s been on his best behavior for the past weeks. When was the last time he punched or hexed someone?” No one can immediately come up with an answer, proving Hermoine’s point.
***
“Matt, that’s my jacket.” Theo drily states thinking Mattheo mistakenly took his, while Mattheo searches every pocket of Theo’s jacket. “I know, I’m stealing your cigarettes.” Mattheo mutters with clear frustration in his voice. “You lose your own?” Theo asks as he takes his cigarettes off the nightstand to offer one to Mattheo. “No, I quit a month ago, remember.” Theo thinks for a moment, eyebrows knit together. “I honestly thought that was a joke.” Mattheo just flings Theodore an agitated glare. “Look, Matt, you can’t quit smoking, fighting and fucking at the same time.” Mattheo doesn’t say a word and lights the cigarette, just as Enzo enters the room. “No smoking inside!” “Say that one more time and you’ll be the first I punch in two months.” Enzo stops in his tracks at Mattheo’s ice cold voice and looks over at Theo with raised eyebrows.
“So, if I’m correct, no sex or blowjobs for three months, no fights for two months and almost one month of no smoking.” Mattheo lets himself fall on his bed. “Theodore?” Mattheo asks calmly, making both Enzo and Theo hold their breath. “Shut up.” Enzo can’t help but laugh as Theo rolls his eyes. “Pansy and Blaise were right the other day weren’t they? You’re doing this to impress (y/n).” Mattheo forces his eyes shut. He can barely admit it to himself, leave alone to his friends, but it is true. He so desperately needs you to like him. You are always nice to him, but you rarely ever approach him and honestly he can’t blame you.
***
Transfigurations, that’s where Mattheo realized that you weren’t just nice on the eyes. Three months ago Mcgonagoll had assigned everyone new seats and Mattheo had ended up next to you. Suddenly you weren’t just a kind stranger anymore, you became the girl that he can so easily talk to and laugh with.
Mattheo smiles when he sees you’re the first in the classroom. “Eager to score points with professor Mcgonagoll.” You look up and instantly a little blush creeps up your face. “Apparently, I’m not the only one.” Mattheo avoids your eyes, but takes his seat next to you. “I’m not early for Mcgonagoll, trust me princess.” You stare at your book and press your lips into a line in an attempt to not look like a total love struck idiot. Mattheo glances over at you while reaching for his books. When he notices your cheeks redden his heart fills with joy.
A few more students enter the classroom, forcing you both out of your love bubble. You watch him out of the corner of your eyes, while you gather enough courage to talk to him about what you saw yesterday. You lean closer to him so you can talk without being overheard and Mattheo turns towards you. “I’m sorry about what Harry said yesterday. He’s an idiot sometimes.” Mattheo keeps his eyes focussed on you, but it takes all his effort to not get angry again especially now that he knows you heard what Harry said. “I want you to know that despite that they’re my friends, I really don’t think like they do.” You slowly move your hand to lay on top of his arm as a way of showing him you care and aren’t afraid.
Mattheo searches for words, but all his mind can think of is how badly he wants your arms around him and not just your hand on his arm. When he finally opens his mouth Mcgonagoll walks in and you pull your hand back and focus on her. Mattheo adores you quietly before quickly brushing his fingers against yours. You turn to look at him and he leans in. “I know you don’t judge like they do. Maybe you should hang out more with me, could be fun?” His sweet whisper and genuine smile have your cheeks redden again. You smile and nod, thus silently agreeing that you should most definitely hang out more with him.
You spent the afternoon studying with Mattheo and right before dinner you even spent some time with his friends. It made it obvious that there was something blooming between you two and when you finally said your goodbyes you walked away the happiest girl at Hogwarts, unable to hide that happy glow around you.
***
After you spent yesterday afternoon together, Mattheo hadn’t been able to talk to you. It was like your friends were purposely keeping you away from him or maybe you didn’t like spending time with him. Either way Mattheo’s mind was working on every possible worst case scenario. Part of him wanted to stop pursuing you, because getting attached and then losing you would be worse. Maybe that thought is why he couldn’t keep his cool this time. “Everyone knows his dad’s evil and insane, but I mean his mum must’ve been absolutely mental.” Mattheo clenches his jaw but decides to turn around and follow his friends to the great hall. “Why else would the whore fuck someone like Voldemort.” At those words Mattheo snaps, dropping his bag and taking a few long strides to tackle the asshole who was talking. “Didn’t you hear that you need to keep your mouth shut, ‘cause their son is equally insane.” His fist hits the guy right in the face, causing his nose to start bleeding. The second punch doesn’t come in as hard since Blaise already has a hold on Mattheo.
When Blaise puts some distance between Mattheo and the other guy, Mattheo takes a breath and looks away from the douchebag. Mattheo’s heart breaks when his eyes land on your horrified face. No need to worry about losing her anymore. You just lost her, well done. You watch his figure disappear in one of the hallways and make your way to the great hall for lunch. You feel miserable for not being with him. Even worse, you can’t spot him anywhere in the great hall. During transfigurations the chair next to you stays empty and it’s almost impossible for you to pay attention, but you try your best to make notes with the intention of giving them to Mattheo later.
No need to worry about losing her. You’ve already lost her, well done.
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***
The knock at the door of Mattheo’s dorm startles him mainly because he doesn’t hang out with the kind of people that knock. I’m either going to punch, smoke or fuck the idiot that’s come to bother me. He opens the door to see your flustered face, making him drop his attitude. “I first thought you were in the infirmary, but I’m glad to see you’re alright.” Mattheo nods still shocked to find you at his door. “You came to check on me?” For a moment you feel a bit like an obsessed person, showing up at his dorm without invitation, but then you remember your notes. “I also brought you these.” Mattheo laughs a moment and you look confused. “That’s sweet, thanks.” You feel awkward, but Mattheo notices. He clears his throat and opens the door a little more. “I’m really grateful for these, I just- my mind wasn’t thinking about class at all.” He signals you to come inside and you carefully take a few steps. “I honestly didn’t expect to ever see you outside of class again.” Mattheo admits, making your eyebrows knit together as you shake your head expressing confusion.
“The fight, earlier, I know you hate it, me.” You take a step towards Mattheo when you sense the vulnerability in his voice. “I don’t like it when you fight, but I do get that some people really deserve to get punched.” Mattheo stares at you trying to figure you out, but failing miserably. “I remember your face from a few months ago when I was fighting, I’ll never forget the disgust in your eyes and today again you looked horrified.” A soft chuckle escapes you as you feel the embarrassment boil up about what you’re going to confess. “I probably made that face, because I hate to see your pretty face all beat up. That’s why I was so relieved that you didn’t get hurt today.” At a terribly slow rate a bright cheeky smile creeps up on Mattheo’s face. You can’t help but feel like you’re dying of embarrassment as his face lights up at your confession. I’m such a love struck loser with my notes and petty excuses. He totally knows I’m in love with him. This is so embarrassing. You get pulled out of your train of thoughts when Mattheo’s hand reaches for the back of your head pulling you into an intense and loving kiss.
When he realises you really like him.
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hier--soir · 3 months
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a lover's pinch | eight
joel miller x f!reader
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pairing: professor!joel miller x f!reader rating: explicit, 18+ mdni summary: the one where they get caught. warnings/tags: au, university professor joel, age gap [20 something years diff], ethically dubious relationship due to inherent power imbalance, domestic bliss, gratuitous descriptions of joel reading, joni mitchell, explicit unprotected piv sex, delayed gratification, dirty talk, finger sucking, biting, academic praise kink, cream pie, who's in the pic on joel's desk??, angst, confrontation, an orpheus and eurydice metaphor uh oh, those blue panties from 3 come back to haunt us. word count: 6.9k nice series masterlist | main masterlist chapter moodboard a/n: i need someone to make me write [or not write] the way j miller phd does in this... also sorry and i hope you like it and sorry again follow @hier--soirupdates if you'd like to be notified when i share my writing this is part eight of ALP. you can read the previous parts here: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
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Winter descends over Maine not with a bang, but with a whimper.  
The days and weeks fold together in a blurring mess of sleep ins and papers and coffees, until suddenly a month has passed, and you hardly noticed it slipping through your fingers.
You spend less time at home, and more tucked on one side of Joel’s couch, your feet in his lap as he lounges down the other end. You dip pale toast in runny yolks at the table, listening to him on the phone to Sarah in the other room. Hear him say I’m good, baby girl… I’m really good when she asks how he is.
You ride shotgun in the truck between his place and the university, slipping out the passenger door a little early every time. Walk the final stretch lest someone notice his glasses, your hair through the windscreen.
On campus you watch him up there on his stage, a burn in your chest, and see how he seeks you out in the after. How he props you above him and returns your gaze finally. Curls his body around yours and repents for every time he had to look away.
It's warm and it’s kind and it’s trading books with scribbled notes in the margins.
It’s rain smacking against the windows as you read, his scruffy chin nesting in the slope where your neck meets your shoulder, two sets of eyes staring at the same words.
It’s nodding off in his bed where the sheets have started to smell like your perfume, eyelids heavy as you wait for him to get home. It’s wearing only his clothes and being woken up by his face between your thighs, pupils blown and lips slick.  
It’s finding each other at the end of a long day and hearing him say, I thought about you all afternoon.
And this feeling of familiarity writhes between the slats of your ribs. A comfortable, quiet fondness that you see reflected in his eyes when he looks at you; that you hear when that tender mouth forms your name.
You gorge yourselves on it. Put lips to the crooks and thorns in each other’s bodies and suckle on that fondness, swallow, swallow, and watch the well never run dry.
The bleed is endless. Beneath the stain of time it floods and flurries, melting the two of you together until you start to feel certain it could never end.
Until, of course and at last, it does.
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Sunday.
It’s late, you think. Somewhere in the mess where time blurs between sunset and midnight, Winter stealing hours that feel like minutes.
The curtains in his living room are drawn, low yellow light warming the room from a tall lamp in the corner. Blue spins in the on the record player, a gentle sway of sound that fills the room.
I like listening to Joni on Sundays, he’d confessed in the bathroom, bashful as he rubbed a towel over you, drying the wet ends of your hair and the slick skin of your shoulders.
He reads at the table now, strong chin cupped in his palm as his eyes flit across the pages of a textbook.
Something to do with conservation; a Minoan palace in Knossos, you think. He’d explained it earnestly, but his curls were soft and fluffy from the shower and his glasses were resting on the tip of his nose and so you’d found yourself zoning out, eyes going from round to heart shaped as you nodded along from the couch.
Every few minutes he grips his pen and jots down a note before glancing up to check on you. And whenever this happens you avert your eyes quickly, pretending to be enthralled by the half-finished essay on your screen. You have a feeling he catches you each time, because he keeps laughing softly, tutting under his breath as he goes back to reading, foot never stopping its tap-tap-tap in time with the music. The only time he gets up is to flip the record, and soon those little laughs and huffs start to mix with Joni’s bell-like voice, and the opening lyrics to California swell through the room as you type at a glacial pace.   
She sings, I met a redneck on a Grecian isle, and you glance up again, eyes turning wide and doe-like when you find Joel already watching you. He gave me back my smile, Joni sings. But he kept my camera to sell.
“How’s the writing going?”
“Good.” Liar. “Great, even.” Bad liar.
Joel’s eyes narrow behind his glasses, lips twitching in a clear attempt to smother a laugh, but he just nods, looking back down at his book.
He’s wearing home clothes. That’s what he called them. Home clothes.
When he’d said it, still pulling them on, you’d wanted nothing more than to grip his hands and stop him in his tracks, but you’d sequestered yourself to the other side of the room instead, sorely committed to the study evening he’d suggested. But he’s in soft grey sweatpants and an even softer looking white t-shirt, and every time he sips his coffee he hums happily against the rim of his mug, and his bare foot goes tap-tap-tap and Joni sings Oh, will you take me as I am?, and—
“Come here.”
You blink. His eyebrows raise expectantly, lips split into a broad smile now.
“Unless you’d rather stay over there and keep starin’.”
You reach him as The Last Time I saw Richard, the final track on side two, begins to spin.
Joni sings, all romantics meet the same fate, and Joel’s knees fall apart, thighs splayed so handsomely across his chair, inviting you to take a seat. You ignore the woeful lyrics and focus instead on the knowing smirk on his face, taking a step forward, and another, until you’re stood between his open legs.
He doesn’t touch you. Just smiles, all saccharine and easy, leaning back in his chair.
“Much left to do?” He points at the laptop in your hands.
“Maybe another hundred words,” you grumble and put it down on the table. “Today, at least.”
Joel hums, eyes flicking down. His gaze skirts across the bare skin of your legs, the soft sleep shorts you’re wearing; ones he puts on you himself, and knows you don’t have anything beneath.
“Come here.” He pats his thigh; stops you with a soft tut when you try to straddle him. “Naw, baby, like this.”
Soft hands tilt your hips, turn you until your back is to his chest and he’s drawing you onto his lap.
“Oh.” You smile, leaning your head back onto his shoulder.
Nose turned into the side of his face, you brush a kiss to the edge of his jaw and sigh in relief as he wraps his arms around your middle and squeezes.
The space between his chest and the table is a little tight; small enough that if you were to lean forward a few inches your ribs would knock against the wood.
As if he’s thinking the same thing, Joel leans forward. Presses you against the table, one hand coming up to hold your face. His fingers are soft on your skin, offering small amounts of pressure as he grips your jaw and encourages you to look forward.
“Gonna tell me what’s on your mind?” he asks.
The hairs on the back of your neck stand up a little, skin prickling at the shift in his tone. Still soft, still quiet, yet with something… demanding, shifting just below the surface.
“You,” you say, cringing at the way your voice takes on a higher quality all of a sudden. Steeling yourself, you add, “You’re distracting me.”
“Wasn’t doing anythin’,” he responds simply. “Just sittin’ over here, minding my business while you burn holes in my head.” 
“You know what you’re doing.”
“I cooked dinner.” He squeezes you again. “Fed you. We showered, and now I’m readin’.”
“You were humming.”
Joel kisses the shell of your ear.
“And tapping.”
He flutters his fingers against your hip.
“S’that such a crime?” he murmurs.
“No, but…” You sigh when his tongue snakes out, tracing the soft curve of your earlobe. “But it…”
“But but but,” Joel mocks, and you can feel his sick smirk against your neck, teeth teasing along your carotid now. “But all you can think about is my cock, ain’t that right?”
Your stomach falls away. Everything firm inside you turns to goo as he laughs, knowing he’s right.
“So needy,” he taunts you, holding your hip tighter as his length begins to thicken against your ass. “Had all day to ask for it.”
You don’t respond, tongue tied and more uninterested in your essay than ever.
“Just lookin’ for a distraction now,” he teases lightly. “The more you put it off, the harder it’ll be to get it done, baby.”
“I know.”
“If you know.” He hooks a finger over the waistband of your shorts. “Then finish it.”
“S’not that simple,” you whine, rolling your hips over his lap. A sharp puff of air warms the back of your neck, so you do it again. His hand tightens around your jaw.
“Just a hundred words, right?” he coaxes gruffly. “Come on now, I’ll make it worth your while.”
You feel his thick cock beneath his sweats, stiff and pressing between the crease of your thighs, melting what’s left of your resolve. You want to grind down against it. To pull your soft sleep shorts to the side and let him sink inside with no more pretence. But you put your hands on the desk, eyes on the screen, and Joel slides his warm palms beneath the hem of your t-shirt. Floats them over the curve of your stomach, the soft flesh around your ribs, waking thousands of tiny hairs that cover your skin until his fingers meet your chest, and he cups your breasts.
You shiver, lids growing heavy as he squeezes and tickles at your skin. Your nipples harden to peaks against his rough palms, and he sighs at the feeling, face resting against the back of your neck as he plays.
“Fuck,” you sigh, voice a broken buzz in your throat as he pinches one of your nipples between his thumb and forefinger. “I thought you wanted me to write.”
“I do,” Joel murmurs unconvincingly. “A hundred words, go on.”
Hands like lead on the table, it feels like an impossible task. Even more than it did ten minutes ago. You force yourself to lift your fingers to the keyboard, vision sharpening as you look for where you left off. You try to shut him out, try to ignore the way his tongue warms the skin on your neck, the way the hairs on his thighs tickle against yours, and begin to write.
But he doesn’t make it easy.
The second you finish the first sentence one of his hands drifts down your stomach to cup your pussy over your shorts. You flinch, heart galloping in your chest when he sighs in your ear.
“Joel,” you whimper, pleading already. “I can’t if you…”
“You can,” he soothes. The warmth of his palm is suffocating, so hot against where you’re already wet and wanting. Thick fingers press against the fabric, nudging it between your slick folds until it goes damp. “Just ignore me, baby.”
“Easier said than done,” you reply. You type five more words, chest rattling with heavy breaths as he paws at you, thumbing at your clit through your shorts.
His breath is hot and heavy against your neck and his soft curls tickle your skin as you try to focus.
“Ignore me,” he repeats, and you squeak as he tilts you forward. A rush of breath spills from your mouth, chest flush to the desk, ass suspended above his lap as he shifts behind you. And when he pulls you back down, you sigh pathetically over the fact that he’s pushed his sweats down.
The full weight of his length presses against you, nestled between the rounded flesh of your ass, and you manage to mumble his name.
“Just—” You’re panting now; considering begging. “—I can do this later. I will finish it later, I swear, just—”
Joel nudges your shorts to the side and presses a finger between your folds. A ragged gasp stutters out of you, finger jammed against the keyboard. A steady stream of kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk fills a line of the document as he smears your wetness up to your clit.
“Fuck,” you mumble, hips tilting forward, trying to chase the feeling.
“None of that,” he tuts quickly, other hand slipping down and pinching the skin at the inside of your thigh. You’ve only backspaced half of the k’s when he slips two fingers inside you. “Come on, now.”
Thirty words fly as he crooks his fingers inside you. Slow and gentle, thumb rubbing messy circles against your clit as he works you open.
“That’s it,” he coos, pressing a third finger inside. Your cunt sucks desperately at his fingers, the skin of your face warming as you catch a glimpse of your reflection on the laptop screen. Jaw hanging low, a silent prayer for relief written across the open slant of your mouth. “My smart girl. Knew they didn’t give you that degree for nothin’.”
You gasp and swat at his wrist, but a satisfied little smile cracks your face for a moment when he laughs. Only for it to fall seconds later when he lays a sharp bite to the back of your shoulder. You moan, voice cracking around his name, rutting desperately against his hand.
“You can do it,” he flatters you, sickly sweet and entirely convincing as he strokes at your insides. Curling and stretching until you’re turning to a wet trembling mess in his lap, wobbling through half-assed sentences that you aren’t sure even match up with your essay outline anymore.
“Good,” Joel murmurs. “That’s good.”
“Don’t look,” you slur out, heart pounding at the idea of him reading anything you’ve written in this state. “It’s f-for your class, you can’t look.”
“Not lookin’.” He noses at the back of your ear. Presses an open-mouthed kiss to the hinge of your jaw. “Just lookin’ at you, m’always just lookin’ at you.”
“I’ll finish it.” You switch up your tactic now. Voice low and breathy, the back of your head resting heavy on his shoulder, eyes longing to close. “Tomorrow, I’ll write it—”
“Tomorrow?” His thumb drags harder on your clit.
“Yes,” you gasp, stomach tensing. You feel a bit floaty all of a sudden. Locked out of your own mind, all thoughts spilling from between your thighs as desire grips you, consumes you. “Please, just…”
“What, baby?” he prompts. “Say it.”
“Just let me sit on your cock,” you groan. “Please, I can’t think right now, I’ll finish it, I promise.”
“You fuckin’ promise—Christ,” he grumbles, fingers drifting from your tight clutch. “Just a little more, baby, for me.”
You don’t even really know how it happens after that. Ears roaring, skin tight, everything is a blur as you write and write and write and he presses his leaking tip between your folds works you down onto his length. Hands everywhere, so warm, so rough, holding your thighs, your waist, your breasts, your shorts to the side. Slower when your gasps spin higher, you think, always knowing when to ease up, when the burn gets too much too quick.
Joel grips your thighs, prying them apart until your calves are on the outside of his, and then he’s shifting his legs open wide, giving your own no choice but to follow. You feel the full weight of him in this position. The long, thick stretch of his cock inside you as your legs dangle listlessly over his lap, toes straining and failing to reach the floor. You can do nothing but rest heavily across his thighs, those hands still everywhere all at once, and whine pitifully as your walls spasm and clench around him, coil inside pulling tighter and tighter.
Vision waning, the text on your screen warbles as Joel slips the pad of his finger against your clit and begins to play with it. Soft little rubs that have you going tense and leaning forward on the table, braced on your elbows and grinding down into his lap, desperate for release, for movement, anything. It feels like your brain is splintering into a thousand tiny pieces inside your skull.
“You’re so wet,” Joel rasps, forehead heavy against your shoulder blade as he groans. “Pretty pussy’s drippin’ all over me, honey. You really need it that bad?” 
You say something you think, mouth moving and eyes rolling as his hips shift up in a weak little thrust. Just one.
“Keep goin’.” He sounds pained, half-drunk as the words stumble out of him.
Your mind slips further from your grasp and you’re typing pure gibberish. Slurring messes of letters cloaked in perfect punctuation. Your fingers fly across the keys, painting commas and full stops and semi colons around complete and utter bullshit as your cunt flutters and your belly stirs.
His finger glides and his cock pulses and your vision darkens and you come. Shoulders hunched, table digging into your forearms, you fold forward and cry out as an agonisingly brief orgasm rips through you.
It’s over before it’s even begun, but Joel groans and offers a shallow thrust, your cry turning to a gasp as he grips your thigh for dear life.
“Oh good girl,” he murmurs, fingers slowing against your nerves, not wanting to overwhelm. “Fuckin’ squeezing me so tight, baby.”
“Joel.” There are tears in your eyes now. Liquid frustration that pools against your waterline and threatens to spill when he still doesn’t fuck you how you need him to.
“How much left?” he asks roughly, rocking his hips against yours in a steady pace now. Gentle, rolling movements that snag on the heels of your orgasm and hold it close.
“Huh?”  
“How many words?”
“I don’t…” Your eyelids flutter. “I don’t know.”
“Shit, sweetheart,” he laughs a little then, rueful but not unkind. “That’s gonna be hell to edit.”
With a furious groan you slam the laptop closed, the sharp smack of metal on metal filling your ears as he grips your hips and really starts to fuck you.
It’s not fast though, not rough. Just deep, lingering strokes that grind against the end of you and nudge you stumbling toward the edge. He pinches your clit between the tips of his middle and ring fingers, rubbing slow drags up and down against the hood like that. Moaning and sweating, you slip your hand over his. Press lower and let your fingers glide around his girth, thick and vascular between your thighs, hot skin wetter every time he pulls out of you.
“Feel that?” Joel pants, teeth nipping at the top of your spine. “You’re creamin’ for me, baby. Fuck, I—I need to taste it.”
“Shit—oh god.”
He grips your wrist and drags it up, chin harsh against your shoulder as he sucks your fingers into his mouth.
The groan he lets out is filthy as his hot tongue snakes out to lick the webbing between your fingers, and you tip your head to watch his eyes roll back. His thighs tremble beneath you, but you can’t be sure it’s not just the vibrations of your own body tricking you.
But no, it’s him. His hips stutter against yours, deep plunges stilting into shallow movements, and he stalls deep inside your cunt for a second on the end of every thrust, as if his brain is short-circuiting.
You hook your fingers in his mouth, the tips digging into the gums behind his teeth, and tug him back to reality. He nips at your fingers and moans, hand falling heavy between your thighs again. And he doesn’t stop now; keeps pushing and pinching and fucking and grinding until your pussy is pulling tight and slick around his length and your fingers are fanned loose and shaky across his face, and you can hardly breathe except to say Joel or please or oh my god.
“Can feel it,” he grunts breathlessly, skin smacking against yours in a sharp staccato beat. “Deep breath, baby, c’mon, let me have it.”
“Your teeth,” you gasp feverishly. “Bite me again.” 
“Fuck,” he snarls and then he’s grating the hard line of his incisors along your shoulder.
The sweet pinch of his canines digging into your back sets your cunt aflutter around him, mouth hung open in silent ecstasy as he fucks you full of his seed and you suck it in deep, tight with longing, still panting and high when it begins to drip from where you’re connected, spooling around his cock and smearing between your thighs and his.
His chest heaves against your back. Chest hair damp wet sweat, dripping through your thin shirt until it can’t decide whether to cling to his skin or yours. There’s an ache at the base of your spine, maybe a muscle pulled, and his thumb presses into the flesh there as if he can sense it.
Sounds come back slowly. Joni’s finished and the needle tracks around the runout groove on the record, a little crackle flaring every few seconds where the two channels join. Joel’s breathing too, rough against your shoulder, harmonising with the wet sound of his lips peeling from your skin.
You tilt your head to the side.
Wild eyed, cunt-struck, Joel knocks his nose against yours. Groans low when you flick your tongue out to graze across his bottom lip. He’s bitten it rough and ragged and red, and you want to soothe the sting. His glasses are on top of his head, smudged lenses tucked amidst wild fluffy curls.
You try to kiss him, hard and wet, but he stops you with a hand to your jaw. Cradles your face and strokes your cheekbone and wipes the spittle from your lips before kissing you lightly. Chaste and gentle, like the two of you are ten and have never kissed anyone before, have never been brave enough to use your tongues.
That invisible bleed in your chest drips heavier. You picture a thick spurt of red against your chest cavity as he kisses the corners of your mouth, the tip of your nose, your eyelids.
“You good?” he asks quietly.
You nod, smiling when his lips catch and drag across your skin with the movement of your head.
A moment passes like this. Searching kisses dotted over your smiling face. The swell of your cheeks, the ends of your eyebrows.
“Sometimes I feel like you aren’t real,” Joel confesses. A bare bones whisper that tickles the skin between your eyebrows, where his lips rest now. “Like you might just melt away if I don’t hold on tight enough. Disappear if I look away too long, and I’ll be stuck tryna convince myself that you were ever really here.”
Twisted up in his arms, you can feel the way his heart batters against his chest, thrashing through to vibrate against your back. He might as well be plucking the admission straight from your own mouth.
“I’m real,” you murmur against his neck. “I’m here, it’s real.”
“Me too,” he says. Something wet tickles your skin, but it’s gone in a second. Rubbed over by his thumb, soothed with another kiss.
I love you, you think, but when you speak it comes out as, “No melting.”
Joel laughs softly. Kisses you again. “No melting.”
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Thursday.
“It was too much.”
“It was fine.”
“I said the word grateful three times.”
“Four, actually.” You chew the inside of your cheek and shrug apologetically. “I counted.”
“Jesus,” Joel sighs, reaching up to a drag a hand over his face.
He’s pulled his desk chair all the way across the office. Tie loosened and top buttons undone, he slumps in it a little. His thick knees almost brush against yours where you sit in his armchair.
“Hey, I liked it,” you smile, bumping his knee. “It was nice - shows you care.”
“Well, you ain’t all that hard to please,” Joel smarts, lip quirking up into a sly grin.
Mouth open in a scoff, you feign offence, dragging your laptop from your satchel and making a show of ignoring him.
“How the mighty fall,” he continues, sighing dramatically and tilting his head over the back of the chair. The light coming in through the window hits his face just right, and the grey hairs in his curls shine. “Grateful to have been your professor… asshole.”
“Don’t be precious,” you laugh softly. “You’re just embarrassed because you said you were going to miss us.”
“That was a lie,” Joel tuts, brushing you off with a hand in the air, biting back that grin. “I ain’t gon’ miss any of you assholes. And when those final papers come in—” He taps a finger against the top of your laptop “—I’ll be sayin’ my prayers that any of you can string a worthwhile sentence together.”
“If you’re lucky,” you drawl, batting his hand away. “You’ll teach some of us again next year. And when that semester finishes, you’ll say all of that shit again, because you’re a sap, Joel Miller.”
Joel stares at you for a moment, face softening, and then clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Smart ass.”
“And you love it,” you quip easily, only balking a moment later when the word hangs awkwardly in the air. Hands pausing on your keyboard, you glance up, neck hot, only to find Joel watching you still. Face suspended in a small smile; eyes light as he nods.
“I do,” he says after a moment. “But you’re on thin ice, wise guy.”
He plucks a book from his desk and spreads it open on his lap, either not noticing or simply not caring as you watch on, slack jawed. I do.
After a moment, Joel taps his foot against yours again. “Write.”
So, sucking in a breath, you do. Time passes and rain starts to drizzle against the window as you write, and Joel reads. Having forgotten to put a record on like normal, he hums lightly under his breath; some tune you can’t place but still nod along to. Every few minutes he turns his page, and the sound sends a shiver down your spine.
You hate the way he holds books. Hate the way he cradles the spines, thumb hooked around the footnotes to hold his page. Hate the way his fingers trace the stanzas as he reads, tender and patient, and always afraid to miss something. Hate most the way the tendons on the backs of his hands flex when he turns the page. How the veins around them go fat and blue the longer he does this, as if all the blood in his body is sprinting towards the words. It’s a dangerous sort of eroticism, watching him read. You hate how much you love it.
In need of reprieve, you focus on your own hands. Crack tired knuckles and stretch out cramps and aches, taking a moment to peer over at his desk. The picture frame you’d once been so curious about is propped on the edge of it once again.
You can see Joel behind the glass panel, sporting a shit-eating grin with Sarah, clad in a graduation gown, tucked proudly against his chest. Taken the day she finished high school, you know now. And you’d never noticed it that first time, months ago, but Ellie’s face rests in the corner of the picture. Pink tongue stuck out and eyes pinched shut; she’d snuck her head into the frame at the last second apparently.
You gaze fondly at it, and feel that familiar warmth in your chest over the fact that he’s put it back out. No more hiding.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” Joel glances over his shoulder, and then smiles.
“It’s a good photo,” you say. “You look so happy there.”
“I was. It’s one of my favourites,” he nods, adjusting his glasses on his nose. He seems to consider you for a moment, eyes flicking around your face, fingers fidgeting with the corner of his page. “Hey, I uh… Sarah actually called yesterday.”
He pauses. Takes an unusually deep breath and folds the book shut.
“Okay.” You blink, confused. “Is she alright?” 
“Yeah.” He nods quickly. “Yeah, yeah, she was uh, she was askin’ about the holidays, and if—”
The office door creaks open, and Joel’s mouth seals shut as Rachel walks hastily inside, rushed words filling the small room.  
“Joel, sorry, I need to grab—oh.”
There’s an odd pause after the words catch in her throat. A moment of uncomfortable stillness as the three of you inhale all at once, glancing around the room as if seeing it for the first time.
You and Joel aren’t touching, but your knees rest close, one of his feet in the space between yours on the carpet. Laptop propped on your knees, your final essay still lays open with a stream of edits pasted through the margins, cursor blinking at the end of the word nostos.
Joel, tie undone and sleeves rolled up, looks painfully casual in your presence.
“Sorry.” Rachel blinks, hovering awkwardly as the door clicks shut behind her. “I didn’t realise you had a… a meeting today?” The end of her sentence flares up, as if she’s confused, phrasing it like a dubious little question.
You offer a smile in her direction and hope it comes across as relaxed, a little encroaching even; as if you are the one who has interrupted; the one who should not be here.
“It’s fine,” Joel supplies easily, straightening in his chair to give her his full attention. His face gives nothing away. Stoic and calm, the way you’d imagine him to be if you weren’t here at all. “Everything alright?”
“Yes,” she says, frowning like she’s affronted by the question. Looks between the two of you again, listless fingers curling at her sides. “Just came to get that Livy copy back
You look back at your screen and will yourself to type something. To appear casual, studious, as if your heart isn’t lodged in the base of your throat.
“Sure,” he nods, gesturing vaguely toward his desk. “It’s in one of the drawers on the left.”
Rachel nods, walking over to the desk, and as her back turns you spare a glance at Joel. Find him already looking at you, eyebrows pulled down a little. Pink lips mouth It’s fine, married with a soft nod of his head, and for the second time in seconds you attempt a smile. 
There’s the sound of wood sliding against wood, and then a soft, tired kind of silence. The lack of sound seems to swell, the air in the room thinning, your eyes focusing on Joel’s fingers on the armrest of his chair, tap tap tap, Rachel’s unruly curls somewhere past that, her face downturned, looking at something. Wary breaths held in unison, synced heart beats racing. It’s fine, it’s fine, no melting.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
Your head snaps up. Joel turns in his chair and begins to ask what’s wrong, but all that ends up coming from him is a sort of choked noise, rough around the edges, and breathless in the middle. Chest on fire, you let yourself look past him to where she stands.
Her gaze is hard as she stares Joel down from across the room. A slip of blue; soft material visible between her fingers, held up for a stunned chorus to see.
Your hearing deafens a little as you look on, motionless, a vague memory of birthday boy and got your cute little panties all soaked thinkin’ ‘bout my cock? playing in your mind. Of a damp patch on his shirt as he tucked blue into his desk drawer.
Joel says Rachel’s name, you think. Can see the way his jaw moves, the way her dark eyes sharpen, flitting back and forth between the two of you. And then, like a volcanic eruption or the swell beneath a wave, realisation crests the hill and It’s fine cracks and crumbles and turns to dust in your grasp. You don’t know what she knows, or how she knows, you just know that she does.
“You… what is this?” Rachel’s face shifts into something uncomfortable. A warped, grotesque shot at a smile. But as her lips curl upward, eyebrows down, it’s nothing but a contorted mess that blurs endlessly between confusion, surprise, and then horror. “This… her? She’s the reason you—”
“Rachel.” Joel’s entire body is wound tight. You can see the edge of his jaw from where you sit; the way his shoulders pull back, tight he watches her.
Your body seems to hold itself together for a moment. Breath caught on an inhale, lungs expanded, eyes frozen on the hard line of his nose, the arm of his glasses—places you feel safe to hover. But then she speaks again, and everything lurches back into focus. Like a needle scratching on a record, or tires squealing as a car pulls to an abrupt stop at a red—the words make you cringe, chest deflating and face crumpling.
“Jesus Christ, Joel,” she’s saying, and her voice raises, louder to match the disbelief in her tone. “You… she’s a fucking student.”
When the fear hits it doesn’t come slowly. It strikes hard and solid; an icy sheet of dread that sucks at your fingers and numbs your extremities. Cool and abrupt, it sinks to your bones and promises that you’ll never again feel anything but this. It laughs in the face of your warm kind month, pressing its chilled ice picks to the back of your eyes until they burn.
Her words hang heavy in the air, thick weights that press down on three sets of shoulders, and you have never wanted anything the way you want to see Joel’s face right now. To look at him and believe that this isn’t as bad as you know it to be. See that mouth tell you it’s fine and remember how it tastes.
Instead, a fear-stricken Orpheus, you will yourself not to look at him. Despite that longing, the way your arms beg to stretch out, to hold and be held, you do not look. No, you don’t think you could suffer the double death of both knowing this is happening and seeing him know it too.
In his place, you let your eyes turn to Rachel, and find that she already stares at you, small mouth cracked ajar in incredulity.
Mind whirring, racing, stumbling; fumbling to pin back together the pieces of who you once were in her eyes and who you are now. This woman you admire so, whose career path you’ve dreamt of, whose wit and quirk has propelled you, invigorated you.
It’s agonising to watch—the way her face morphs into something so unfamiliar as she looks at you now. An expression that once held only admiration, kindness, marred here by an inexplicable sense of pity. Not hate, or contempt, which perhaps would be easier to handle. Easier than the way those dark orbs go round and solemn with worry as they fall upon your anguished frame. It’s a slap in the face; camaraderie washed down the drain like the dregs of a long overdue bath, as she grips your soiled underwear in her fist.
Joel says her name, you’ve lost count of how many times he’s said it now, and she spurns his attempt at placation like a snake. Fast and deadly, venom dribbling from her tongue. 
“Someone else?” she says, and her voice is like never before. Mirthless and cold, fury laced through every word. With a sharp jerk of her elbow, she tosses the underwear across the room. They land against Joel’s chest, caught silently in his fist. “You’re fucking sick.”
“This isn’t what you think it is—” Joel starts, and you think you hear his voice shake.
“It isn’t?” She laughs cruelly at that. “You haven’t been sleeping with one of our students?”
The cursor blinks on your screen. Nostos, nostos, nostos, nostos.
“Listen, can we talk about this somewhere else?” he asks. “Not like this, I—”
“Oh, is this not a convenient time for you?” she scowls. “Jesus Christ.”   
The urge to speak bubbles in your chest. You don’t even know what you’re going to say until the words are spilling from your lips, disjointed and warbled, a voice that doesn’t even sound like your own.
“I pursued him,” you say.
You can feel them looking at you. Can hear the way you must sound to her, like some kid and not a woman who’s almost thirty years old and just as much to blame. But you can’t stop it.  
“We’re both adults. He never made me do anything I didn’t—”
Joel says your name sharply. His fist, in the periphery of your downturned gaze, grips your balled up underwear so tight that the blue is entirely invisible within the thick masts of his fingers.
You suck in a breath, and it feels like the last bit of air in the room disappears into your lungs, so you hold it there. Keep it safe inside and figure that if all three of you were to suffocate then at least the truth, and all the foul consequences that come with it, would die here with you.
“Can you give us a minute?”
Silence falls in the lull after those words, and it takes a moment for you to look up, finally. To realise that the double death wasn’t in looking at Joel, but in understanding that he’d spoken these words to you, not her.
Eyes locked with his, you feel the fear move to your side. Hang low until it ebbs and flows in the space beneath your ribs—a sharp ache with no end in sight. He looks tired; resigned. Mouth thin and downturned, cheeks splashed with red.
You think you must say something. Some fumbling, awkward acknowledgement, because Rachel is giving you that look again and you can’t bear it. Can’t stand those eyes, that misplaced pity.
You collect your things, hands numb as you pile them into your bag and head for the door, skin prickling in defence against the silence that follows your movements.
Outside his office, alone in the long corridor, you know you should go. Should follow the wall down the stairs, out to your car, and not look back. Can you give us a minute? But that sharp ache leaves you cowering against the wall, limbs heavy, ear to his door. 
“Rach,” Joel says softly, and it’s so familiar that your stomach rolls, lids fluttering closed. “It isn’t what you think, just let me explain, alright? We met before the term began; before she was my student. Before.”
“And then?”
“What?”
“I said, and then?” Rachel’s voice is steely. “You met her before and, what, you saw her in class and decided it was fine to let it continue? You—”
“Everything was consensual. You know me, I would never—”
“It’s not as simple as that, and you know it. Did you not think about what would happen if you were found out? Her credibility will be destroyed, Joel.”
“I know—”
“I mean for fucksake, her first major presentation was given at a conference where you were the keynote speaker. How do you think this will look?”
“Fuck, I know. Can you keep your voice down, please.”
There’s a brief silence. You hear shuffling, feet against carpet, and a dull spike of fear flares in the back of your mind. The idea of getting caught a second time, eavesdropping from outside the door. Against better judgement, you don’t move, and Rachel speaks again.
“You’re wrong,” she says. “I don’t know you. I… you aren’t the man I thought you were.”
You don’t hear Joel’s response over the drumming in your ears. Hot blood thrashes and roars inside your body, veins pounding with terror. Hands shake damp and weary at your sides, thinking hard, hard, grasping for solution, for the chance to say I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, this is my fault.
But he must have said something because then you hear it. A low fragment of a human voice, words spoken clear as day. They slice through your ears and have you peeling away from the door, swallowed by a white-hot longing to disappear as you stumble down the hall, the stairs, until you’re sucking in cold air on the pavement outside.  
It’s raining hard now. Thin spray that comes at you sideways, lashing at your face and blinding you. You curl your back to the downpour and search thoughtlessly for your car, hands outstretched, those words of hers ricocheting off the inside of your skull.
When you find it, you press your key into the door and slump inside, and you still can’t avoid it. She might as well be standing right by the door, peering in at you. Shock in the jut of her brow, disappointment in the slant of her mouth as she whispers those words over and over through the crack in your window.
"I don’t care if you love her, Joel. I have to report you.”
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refs:
joni mitchell's 1971 Blue album. [life changer]
the hollow men by t. s. elliot [fat juicy banger of a poem]
orpheus and eurydice from metamorphoses by ovid, tr. by a. d. melville
thank you for reading x
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chaoticbardlady99 · 4 months
Text
Pinkie Promise? (Astarion x F! reader) MDNI 18+
Author note- this is specifically for @spitfireunhinged who wrote a beautiful little post with a concept that I adored. I hope I did it justice and you enjoy!
CW- NSFW, mentions of SA
Synopsis- You tell Astarion that you don’t think sex is as good as people say it is. Astarion is determined to prove you wrong.
*not my pic. Please let me know if it is yours so I can give credit
I rewrote this like 7 times. This draft is lightly edited, but I couldn’t wait to post it!
Part 2: I Triple Dog Dare You
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Astarion had heard the phrase “pinky promise” before. It was usually between Leon and Victoria before Leon left for a hunt. She always made Leon pinkie promise that he would come home and Leon always swore it- his pinkie hooked with hers.
The whole thing made Astarion vomit, but he thought it was just a “them” thing since he had never heard it before.
Then you used it on him and he had hurt your feelings terribly. He had called you a child and then proceeded to mock you.
You had just smiled at him sweetly like you usually do, apologized for invading his space, and for crossing his boundaries.
When Astarion had come by an hour or two later to drop off a book he ‘borrowed’ (it was his book, but he wanted an excuse to talk to you again), he heard you sniffling and asking Karlach if you were a child. You were so upset by his judgment because you like him as a person and thought the two of you were friends. Karlach said that some people just aren’t capable of being nice.
Astarion found you after Karlach went to sleep and pinkie promised to never call you a child again (and that he doesn’t think you are a child).
Suddenly, it was your thing and it slowly became more enduring as time went on. A part of him was envious if Karlach or Gale offered you the gesture first and you would give them one of your breathtaking smiles. He wishes he could initiate it, but it feels far too intimate to him. Asking someone to promise him something? Perish the thought! No one can truly be trusted. Well- maybe you can be trusted.
Astarion doesn’t know when he became so infatuated with you and your existence. Maybe it was that first night at camp when the two of you got to know each other a little bit better. You hadn’t been able to sleep because you were struggling to adjust to the new environment. You asked him lots of questions that he honestly had struggled to answer, but you were actually interested in him- not just his body.
Astarion was beginning to crave your presence and he despised sharing it with anyone else. One time he even went as far as making you pinkie promise you wouldn’t kiss Gale when he had called you over. You had scoffed and said that is ridiculous because “Gale would not kiss you ever, yuck!” , but did it anyway.
Low and behold- Gale did not get his kiss. He’s tried since, but you have rejected his advances. Astarion likes to think it’s because you like him more- want him more.
So maybe that’s why he was quick to drag you away from the Tiefling party after you had made your rounds- not wanting to watch you be with another person a second longer. You let him take your hand and you giggle as he chastises you for taking so long to talk to everyone else.
“How dare my self-proclaimed ‘best friend’ spend so much time not in my presence!” Astarion melodramatically states, “I am hurt, Darling. I thought we had something special.”
You blow air out of your mouth with an eye roll and smile at him.
“Well of course we do,” you say matter of factly, “but I also knew the minute I went to talk to you that I wouldn’t talk to anyone else.
“I’m the fearless leader!” You say with emphasis, “Leader of the Freakshow- welcome one and all to the most traumatized individuals alive!”
Astarion’s chest bursts with laughter, “how very on the nose of you, my Dear.”
“I must keep all of us humble, my Sweet,” you say boldly.
He tsks at you and twirls you around, “I’m afraid you aren’t allowed to steal my lines- that is going to cost you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Certainly.”
“Name your price.”
Astarion pauses- right now doesn’t feel like the moment to go full throttle. He has more work to do.
“I need time to think,” he says lewdly, “there are so many things I could ask for, after all.”
You hum in agreement and smile at him coyly.
Maybe it’s because you are the first person he has actively sought out since he has been released from Cazador’s grasp.
Astarion guides you to a spot in the meadow he had found earlier. Well- actually he had followed Gale to it earlier- Astarion just found an even better spot like 10 yards away.
Gale had stupidly announced to Wyll around the campfire that he was going to ask to spend time with you alone tonight.
There was immediately not a chance in hells that that was going to happen. Gale found a nice spot in the forest- Astarion found a better one. Gale brought a blanket and wine? Pfft, Astarion can do that.
You stop in front of the blanket and wine before you look at him- a nice blush running up your neck.
“Is this for-?” You seem surprised.
Which Astarion finds very interesting considering you are from Noble society- shouldn’t you be used to being courted? Astarion is almost certain you’d have at least a hundred suitors.
“For you?” He smiles charmingly, “well of course, only the best for you, my Dear.”
You duck your head and you blush even harder. Astarion guides you to sit with him. You both drink the wine and talk. You ask him questions about himself and he asks plenty about you.
Astarion isn’t sure when the conversation turns into talking about sex- that had always been the original intention of the conversation.
“Sex can’t possibly be all that great.”
“Pardon?”
You shrug your shoulders and slightly slur the sentence again with emphasis.
“Sex can’t possibly be all that great.”
Astarion is shocked to his core. You flirt back and forth with him as if you’ve bedded at least a couple men.
“You’ve never?”
“No.”
“How?”
You look at him with a puzzled expression. You are staring at him as if he’s grown a second head.
Hypocrite. You’re the one spewing none sense!
“How?” You state incredulously, “you have looked at me right?”
Oh yes and I’ve imagined fucking you until you are screaming my name, but that’s beside the point I suppose.
“I’m nothing much to look at. I’m always the friend- never the girlfriend or the lover or whatever!” You emphasize with your hands, “no one has ever felt that way about me and if they have- they’ve never gone for it so I assume it’s just not that much fun.”
Astarion feels like he’s dying all over again. That was your assumption? Not that you might be horrifically oblivious because he’s only tried to to get in your chance several times. One time he quite literally asked you to come to his bed that night and you showed up with a book.
“Darling,” Astarion’s exasperation obvious, “I’ve been trying to have sex with you for a couple weeks now. Probably even more than that at this point.”
You stare at him with wide, unblinking eyes.
“You,” you stammer, “you want to? With me? No way.”
You laugh nervously, “you are beautiful and intelligent and-“
“No, no way.”
Astarion raises an eyebrow at you and smiles seductively. Your lips part slightly as he pushes you on your back and parts your legs with his knee.
Your arms automatically wrap around his neck- your pupils blown wide with lust. Astarion kisses to the left and right of your lips- grinning when he hears your huff in frustration.
“You sure do keen a lot for someone who doesn’t think sex could possibly be ‘that good’, Darling,” Astarion coos, you tighten your lips in embarrassment.
Astarion rolls his eyes at you and cups your face while putting his thumb in your mouth, pressing down on your tongue. You hum with pleasure and peer at him through hooded eye lids. Astarion feels his cock strain against his pants
“So, my Dear,” Astarion drawls, “do you want me to fuck you? Would you like to see all the bliss you are missing out on?”
You nod eagerly and Astarion presses his thigh against your growing heat. You whine around his thumb and you run your tongue against his skin.
Fuck.
“Are you going to be a good girl for me?” He asks hotly.
You nod- Astarion can smell your arousal and feel it seeping through both of your pants.
“Pinkie promise?” He says teasingly, pulling his thumb out of your mouth to hold out his pinkie.
You hook your pinkie with his and whisper, “pinkie promise.”
Astarion pulls you in for a mind numbing kiss- caressing your lips with his until you are keeping up with his pace. He feels your arms around his neck pull him in deeper.
Your kiss against his lips is sweet and intoxicating- for a second he completely forgets about the purpose of the evening. Astarion could sit here and just kiss you like this until the sun comes up.
Your breathing hitches and Astarion watches as you desperately try to find release by riding his thigh- your movements erratic and wanting. The sounds you are making fill him with excitement and for the first time in a while- he’s actually eager to be inside someone.
He realizes your moaning has become muffled all of a sudden and he looks up to find you covering your mouth- your cheeks and ears are bright red while you pant with arousal.
Astarion laces his fingers through yours and holds your hands down on either side of your head- your pupils are blown wide from lust. The galloping of your heart is like music to his ears.
“Oh no,” he whispers seductively, “do not keep those delicious moans of yours from me, Darling. You promised to be good, remember?”
“Y-yes,” you say between heavy breaths- this time you are the one to surprise him by closing the space between the two of you with a needy kiss.
Astarion unlaces his fingers from yours as he begins unlacing your trousers- quickly discarding them to reveal your soaked underclothes. He growls involuntarily as the smell of your arousal hits the back of his throat- you smell incredible.
Astarion could leave it at just taking your pants off for now, but Gods does he want to see more and if you are willing to let him, then he is not going to deny himself the pleasure of being able to touch and kiss every inch of your body.
Your shirt is next and you don’t even fight it- helping him get the article of clothing off and helping him discard his shirt as well. Astarion stops and looks down upon your naked form.
“Gods you are exquisite,” Astarion says as he begins to kiss down your naval, “open your legs for me, Darling.”
He leaves tiny love bites as he goes- wanting to make sure everyone knows exactly who you belong to. You are a whimpering mess underneath his touch as he presses his fingers to your clothed clit- teasing you slowly.
“Asta-“
You are cut off by your own sounds of pleasure leaving your throat as he slips your underwear off- slowly pushing one finger into you while playing with your clit using his tongue. A string of curse words leaves your mouth as he begins to pick up the pace with his fingers and basks in the way pleasure looks on your face, how your body is writhing for him, and the tumbling praises for him echo through the clearing.
He rolls your sensitive nub between his teeth and he has to hold your hips down as you keen underneath his touch. Astarion adds a second finger- still meeting some resistance, but you aren’t stopping him, in fact- you are giving him complete access using your tadpole right now (intentionally or not) and he can feel how desperate you are to feel fuller. Then he adds the second fingers and the euphoria that rings through your body goes straight to his groan. Astarion can feel his cock straining against his pants as he brings you over the edge with his fingers and mouth- your sweet pleasure dripping down his chin and his fingers. He languidly cleans his fingers off with his mouth, humming in delight while making eye contact with you.
Your eyes are half lidded and glassy- your mouth is slightly parted open. He leans forward and leaves a chaste kiss on them and begins unlacing his own pants- slipping them off and throwing them to the side- his underwear quickly following.
Astarion lines himself up with your entrance- your orgasm coating the head of his cock and he has to fight the urge to slam into you right away. He lines himself up with your entrance- teasing you. You look more nervous now than lustful and Astarion feels his gaze soften. He hovers over you and caresses the side of your face with his thumb. The last thing he wants is to start with you in the wrong headspace.
"Wrap your legs around my waist."
You obediently comply- your back slightly arching and your pert nipples are touching his chest. You sigh in arousal at the contact.
“This may hurt a little,” he says, “we can stop whenever or however much you need- we can stop completely and try again another time even.
“But do you want me to continue?”
You smile up at him with relief and nod coyly.
“I trust you, but please go slow,” you whisper.
Astarion feels a tightness in his chest when you look up at him. Your eyes are so vulnerable and of all the people you’ve decided to trust you chose him. Astarion is fighting not to dissociate- wanting to give you his full attention.
Astarion slowly begins to push inside you. You cry out and clutch at his shoulders- taking a sharp breath as he slowly sheaths himself inside you. Astarion has to fight the want- no need to go faster- you are so damn tight and Astarion is almost wondering if he should have done more foreplay.
He rocks in and out of you- making sure to check on your facial expressions. There are tears pricking your eyes, but your look of discomfort is becoming more and more euphoric as he keeps rolling his hips into you gently.
“Hells darling,” Astarion manages to moan out through clenched teeth, “you feel so fucking good.”
You whimper at his praise and Astarion lifts you up by the hips so he can get a better angle. He thrusts a minuscule harder this time and the whimper that leaves your mouth is making him feel positively feral.
“Astarion,” you whine, “ple- please I need more.”
You definitely don’t have to tell him twice. Astarion snaps himself up into you at a faster pass- your keening only encouraging him to go faster- both of you moaning and gasping while clawing at each other. For the first time in the last 200 years- Astarion does not want to stop. Despite the feelings that are always there, this may be the only time he’s actually experienced bliss while being with someone.
"Such a good little pup, aren't you?"
You clench around him at his words, you beg him to fuck you harder, and he drops your hips back to the ground before putting his face into the crook of your neck- kissing and praising you as you ride out your high.
“You were such a good girl for me,” he breathes into your air, “thank you.”
Your hands find purchase in his hair, tugging his lips to yours. If he needed air, the kiss would have suffocated him from how intense and wanting it was- the air between the both of you feels alive and Astarion barely registers that he’s finishing inside you until he’s collapsed on top of you- his head resting on your chest as it races in time with your breathing.
“That was amazing,” you say breathlessly and Astarion can’t help but laugh.
“I told you so.”
You plafully slap his arm and laugh- the sound filling his body with comfort. He can hear your heart beat begin to slow down and your breathing becomes deeper.
“Thank you Astarion,” you say sleepily, dozing off with your hands teasing his curls, “not just for this- for everything. I feel worth something when I’m with you.”
You yawn and Astarion tries to focus on the sound instead of the twisting guilt in his stomach. He cares for you too and that might be where he fucked up.
Your breathing quickly evens out and he is drowning in the smell of sex and rose water- a scent he heavily associates with you. Astarion stays there with his head on top of your chest- trying to get his bearings together. That was like no other sexual encounter he has experienced before- it was blissful- so why the hell is he about to have the melt down of the century?
“Shit,” you jolt awake, accidentally pushing Astarion off you- your eyes are still glassy “sorry I should probably not just fall asleep here- I’m sure you want to get back to your tent…”
Astarion pulls you back down and against his chest as if it’s exactly where you belong. The idea of you leaving right now makes his soul twist painfully. No, he needs you to stay. Existing is easier with you around- it has been since he met you on the beach.
“Stay,” he whispers, “please.”
There is a pause and he worries he may have overstepped his bounds. You look up at him with sleepy, kind eyes. If peace were to have a face- it would be yours.
“I’ll stay as long as you want me to.” You smile at him sweetly.
The word leaves his mouth before he can stop himself, “pinkie promise?”
You give him the biggest, toothiest grin he has ever seen. Astarion is certain you may be the single most beautiful person he’s ever met.
You take his pinky in yours and then place a soft kiss against his cold lips.
As you pull away, you whisper against his mouth, “I pinky promise.”
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povlnfour · 4 months
Text
ੈ✩‧₊˚ TALES OF CANDOR (LN4)
pairing: lando norris x f!author!reader
summary: lando’s girlfriend has a secret identity. she’s not quite the girl next door everyone assumed, and he might just be the inspiration for more than just her instagram captions.
warnings: some hate comments
* faceclaim: mélanie, aka wailcester on ig (please imagine her as you see fit)
ੈ✩‧₊˚ landonorris just posted a photo
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landonorris some days @ home
👤 tagged yourusername
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user i hope ur enjoying ur time off!
user no hate but like what does his gf actually do?
user literally nothing she’s jobless💀
user it’s giving🏅👷‍♀️
user lando i love u but half naked pics of ur girl isn’t helping how much we dislike her…
user what’s she reading!!!
yourusername a thousand splendid suns by khaled hosseini!!
user ofc u are. i totally believe u acc read well written books. u probably just read gossip columns but want to seem interesting🙄
ੈ✩‧₊˚ musingsofcandor just posted a photo
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musingsofcandor biscuit approves of the final draft🤍
👤 tagged acatcalledbiscuit
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user HELLO??? CANDOR DOES THIS MEAN WE R GETTING A NEW BOOK
user i love that we know more abt candy’s cat than we do her…
user can’t wait to read it🥹🥹
rickriordan has to be my favorite thing you’ve written!
user RICK’S READ IT??? OH YOU KNOW ITS GOOD
user lando norris in the likes he’s just like all of us fr
ੈ✩‧₊˚ yourusername just posted a photo
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yourusername ‘when she finally got the camera film developed, seeing his face made it all come rushing back’🦋🫧🧚🏻
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user im sorry i know we r meant to be supportive but she annoys me sm. is she just living off of lando’s money?
user omg the caption!!!
user i recognise it, where’s it from?
user it’s from ‘tales of peter rourke’ by candor!!!
user 🤢
user we get it… ur dating someone rich. now get a job!
ੈ✩‧₊˚ mclaren interview
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[captions:
interviewer: what have you been up to in your break?
lando: a lot of lounging around with my girlfriend. read a few books too!
interviewer: anything good?
lando: i’m really into magical reality at the moment! that kind of it’s all normal till it’s not stuff, you know?
interviewer: any good recommendations?
lando: if you like that same genre, i recommend ‘the right side of upside’ by candor! it’s pretty recent, i finished it last week.]
comments
user he likes candor??? he’s so real for that
user KNEW I COULD TRUST HIM
user bad taste in women good taste in books
ੈ✩‧₊˚ musingsofcandor just posted a photo
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musingsofcandor thank you for all the love lately on ‘the right side of upside’. insane seeing so many of you recommend it, biscuit and i are eternally grateful. love, candy🤍
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user QUEEN DID YOU SEE LANDO RECOMMENDED IT
user CANDY HAS A MAN???
user love u forever ur so talented
user CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU DO NEXT. CANT BELIEVE WE HAVE TO WAIT NOW
musingsofcandor it might be sooner than you think ;)
user UM. candor is this a soft launch?????
ੈ✩‧₊˚ landonorris just posted a photo
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landonorris got some super helpful race advice today
👤 tagged acatnamedbiscuit, musingsofcandor
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user OH MY GOD MY WORLDS ARE COLLIDING
user LANDO WE NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING IS SHE CUTE I FEEL LIKE SHES CUTE
user break up w ur gf and date candor when
musingsofcandor biscuit says he can’t be held responsible for the outcome🐾
landonorris can i hold you responsible instead, candy?
user UHHHH WHATS GOING ON HERE
user i just know y/n is feeling THREATENED
ੈ✩‧₊˚ yourusername just posted a photo
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yourusername all mine
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user LMAOOO U STARTED SWEATING HUH
user candor could steal ur man if she really wanted to
user GIRL YOU’RE SO OBVIOUS
landonorris yours🖤
user STOP LYINGGGG
ੈ✩‧₊˚ an exclusive interview with candor : entertainment weekly
interviewer: so candor! tell us how it really feels having the world at your feet!
candor: [laughing] honestly quite normal! it’s a blessing and a curse, really, not having my identity revealed. i get to live my life without those pressures, but i don’t get to see anyone and thank them for reading!
interviewer: do you ever get the urge to approach someone reading one of your books?
candor: all the time! whenever i go browsing in book stores and see someone looking at or buying mine, i have such a temptation to scream THANK YOU at them!
interviewer: do you see a future in which you reveal your identity?
candor: maybe! there are a few of my fans who know who i am, those who attend the secret events and signings, but i’m very lucky that they all respect my privacy and haven’t shared anything further. perhaps one day soon i’ll finally let everyone in on the secret.
interviewer: and we can’t talk to you and not bring up your cat — or rather, who your cat met the other day…?
candor: oh! i’m assuming you mean lando norris? yes! he’s a pretty good friend of mine, he’s been a big support over the last few years and we found some time in our schedules last week to meet up.
interviewer: so you’re a formula 1 fan?
candor: huge fan! i’m a big mclaren girl so lando and i met through their events!
interviewer: oh fantastic! see folks reading this, she really is just like us!
ੈ✩‧₊˚ yourusername just posted a photo
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yourusername cars going vroom vroom makes my heart go boom boom
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user lmao posting before and after candor’s interview. girl ur not subtle.
user im so sorry but ur clearly so threatened it’s hilarious
user i don’t get all the hate in here??? she’s just in love n happy?
user shes a gold digger
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musingsofcandor told you it wouldn’t be long🫧 ‘thomasin jeffe, the cat, and the diplomat’ will be with you next friday. a lot of love poured into this one over the past few years, i just couldn’t wait any longer to give it to you🤍
already a member on my website? check your emails🦋
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user WHDHSJSJSJSJS
user OH MY GOD ITS HAPPENING
user THE EMAILLLLL🥹
user candy omg where do you live that looks so pretty!!!!
musingsofcandor monaco !!
landonorris 🖤
user lando using the black heart and candor using the white… i’m sorry to his gf (not really) but they’re meant to be
ੈ✩‧₊˚ user just posted a photo
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user the best day of my life!!! thank you so much candor for being the absolute sweetest human and taking time to talk to each and every one of us! i cannot wait to read thomasin jeffe, the cat, and the diplomat🥹🤍
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user YOU MET HERRRRE???
user WHO IS SHE TELL TELL TELL
user candor asks us not to share her identity so i’m gonna respect that but LET ME TELL YOU I WAS SHOCKED
user i recognise her from just that inch of her face but i can’t tell whERE FROM
musingsofcandor it was WONDERFUL to meet you! i hope you enjoy the story🤍
user wish people on twitter were as kind as this,,, there’s photos of her going around :/
ੈ✩‧₊˚ f1wags just posted a photo
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f1wags the internet has been in PIECES after famous author candor’s recent book signing. photos have emerged of the popular anonymous author from the event, revealing her to be none other than LANDO NORRIS’ GIRLFRIEND, Y/N! turns out, she has a job after all👀 (pictures taken from y/n’s instagram!)
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user i… cannot believe this
user see. when y’all were hating on her you were secretly worshipping her
user @ everyone who was an arse to y/n… KARMA IS A BITCH!
user WHAT????
user HOLY SHIT LANDO HAS BEEN DATING MY FAV AUTHOR THIS WHOLE TIME????
ੈ✩‧₊˚ yourusername just posted a photo
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yourusername well. the secrets out. it’s been a long few years, but it’s nice to not have to hold it in any more.
both my accounts will remain active for separate purposes, but i’m excited to be able to introduce you to candor as she is in her whole truth — just like her name suggests🤍
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user ironically this is exactly how i picture marian elsie from thomasine jeffe looking. full fairy
user i am. so sorry. so so so sorry. i know nothing can ever compare for the things we said but i really am
yourusername thank you. no hard feelings on my end🤍
ੈ✩‧₊˚ landonorris just posted a photo
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landonorris my candy. it may not have been how you intended, but i’m glad i get to show off how proud of you i am.
i’ve watched you as both candor and y/n for a while now, and i love both versions of you entirely. i cannot wait to see what you do now you have the freedom to be whoever you want to.
and hey, pretty cool to be able to say i’m the inspiration behind some of your characters, huh?🖤
ps. so glad i can finally share photos of mY CAT. even if he does hate me biscuit is MINE as well
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user love the clarification that the most important thing to lando is sharing photos of his cat😭😭
user MORE PICS OF BISCUIT PLEASE
user i’ve always been in love with her i can say that confidently
user oh so you’re a successful fanboy
yourusername biscuit told me to tell u ur smelly for using him for likes
landonorris you literally said to me omg i can post about biscuit now YOU FEEL THE SAME DONT LIE
ੈ✩‧₊˚ musingsofcandor just posted a photo
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musingsofcandor i’ve had a bit of inspiration for some time🤍
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user MOM AND DAD
user i can’t believe this. my worlds are colliding
user I KNEW CAPTAIN ROURKE FELT FAMILIAR IN THE TALES OF PETER ROURKE
user i can’t believe my fav ever love interest is based on lando….
landonorris i love you. thanks for immortalising me🖤
————
a/n: hello hello! another one whilst i recover!
so this was based on an anon request and i have had so much fUN writing it!!!! whilst i don’t normally do requests generally due to being overwhelmed easily, this one stood out to me as i Love books so i was inspired. to the anon who requested, i hope this is what you imagined🤍
in terms of further requests! whilst i can’t promise i’ll do them, if you have any pressing ideas you think would work with my style , do feel free to send them in ! i always love to hear your ideas (and any thoughts on my works!! please send feedback as well!!) and will try gradually to get through some🤍
fun fact: all the book titles are based on actual books i have written hehe
fun fact pt2: yes her pseudonym is chosen bc i watched divergent last night
taglist (found in pinned post): @idkiwantchocolatee @vellicora @alessioayla @bborra @crimeshowjunkie @minkyungseokie @paolexsstuff @celestialpato @champagnelovers101 @loxbbg @hobiismyhopeu @tsukishitm-a @moonypixel @champagneproblems17 @ironmaiden1313 @lqvesoph @sunflower-golden-vol6 @six-call @skatingiswalkingincursive @peqch-pie @m0cha-bunny @woozarts @he6rtshaker @iluvvmeeee @goldenalbon @izzy-marvel @lucyysthings @lichterfee @tallrock35
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augustinewrites · 11 months
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when the kids had first moved into the apartment, the first thing you and satoru sat them down and established was that you were not going to be their new parents. satoru, and eventually you, were just their legal guardians. 
then a year later, megumi had shyly asked if you’d come to his mother’s day lunch at school. 
after that, everything you’d said that first night had gone out the window (especially after tsumiki had given satoru a mug that said ‘my dad is rad’ with his face on it).
and you were both okay with that, because they were cute kids, and over the years you’d grown to love them like they were your own. everyday you spend with your little family is a special one, especially days like today.
instincts, perhaps, are what prompt you to get up much too early on sunday, a day where you typically sleep till…well, at least 8am. but there’s noise coming from the kitchen that concerns you. 
satoru has no such instincts, still snoozing away next to you. you shake his shoulder, hoping to pass off responsibility for whatever’s transpiring to him, but he simply nudges his face deeper into his pillow. 
so you take your own pillow and smack him with it. 
he wakes up with a start, eyes still heavy with sleep as he looks around. “what? what’s happening?” 
you point to the door, where the sound of the record player’s soft tunes are accompanied by something almost foreign to your household.
it takes him a minute to process the sound, but once he does, he looks just as confused as you feel.
“is that the sound of laughter coming from our two moody teenagers?” you ask, genuinely bewildered. “do you think they’re laughing at each other?” 
satoru sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “i think we should probably get out there. someone’s definitely holding them at gunpoint.” 
he slides out of bed to grab and hand you your robe, very obviously hiding something behind his back while trailing out of the room after you. arms crossed, you step into the kitchen to see the two teens working together to set up the table.  
“what is going on here?” you ask, eying the mess on the kitchen counter and prompting them both to turn around. “i hope you both know that i’m not cleaning this up.”
“of course not, babe. it’s your day,” your fiancée tells you, wrapping an arm around you and pressing a bouquet of flowers into your hand. 
“my day? so that means you’ll be cleaning up?”
“obviously not. that’s what the two freeloaders are here for. as for how i’ll be treating you today…”
the kids roll their eyes as he pulls you in for a longer than necessary kiss, stealing your breath away. megumi coughs loudly, prompting you to pull apart so you can start breakfast.
like every year, your spot is already set up with a plate of fluffy pancakes, eggs, and a steaming cup of coffee. 
“what, nothing for me?” satoru pouts as the kids load their own plates up and get settled at the table. 
“you’re not our mom,” megumi huffs. 
“yeah, but i’m your—”
“don’t call yourself daddy or i swear to god—”
you hide your smile behind your mug as you glance between the two. it wouldn’t be a family meal without satoru and megumi’s petty snipes. 
it also wouldn’t be mother’s day without gifts. satoru would never let them hear the end of it if there wasn’t. 
there’s a very…abstractly wrapped book from megumi, a perfectly knitted sweater from tsumiki, and classic ‘do the dishes’ coupons and the promise of a spa day.
“we really are grateful for you,” he says, pressing a kiss to the backs of each of your fingers before entangling them with his own. “i could never do this without you.”
“well, it’s a good thing you’ll never have to,” you tell him, pressing a quick kiss to his lips before slapping a coupon onto the table. “except when it comes to the dishes.”
(and after he gets sealed, you realize you’d never thought you’d have to do any of it without him.)
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astrologydayz · 6 months
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ASTRO SEXOLOGY NOTES🔞 - NATAL CHART3
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Venus in 12th house, or 5th/8th house ruler in 12th house can get into "love" affairs while being on vacations/retreats/In foreign countries/while they're in a hospital/psych ward, and even in prison
Mars square/quincunx MC makes u so damn fine! U can carry yourself a bit "rougher" tho/look unapproachable = "people being intimidated by u", & u being a little "what the fuck u staring at", and we love it💋🤣. People with Venus conjunct/trine/quintile Eros asteroid - 433) r really sexual individuals. But they most of the time need a "personal connection" of some kind, before jumping in2 bed with someone. They ooze sexual confidence tho, because they know what they want&need sexually🤤🫦. Casanova asteroid - 7328) in Libra/7th house/aspecting Jupiter can “stray" away from their partner, quite easily. They can quickly find somebody else, that they find more "fascinating". They get bored fast! But this mostly applies 2men tho💻📓.
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Inner planets in earth signs = very sexual beings, so idk what the fuck people r on about. We just don't fuck the 1st John we c on the street🤷‍♀️. Really picky when choosing a sexual/romantic partner, and we also need 2 know that you're trustworthy 1st. But when you finally pull through, we'll show u what freaky means😘.
Scorpio Mars in/8th/12 house in a MAN'S chart can go 4 hourssss 😵‍💫😵‍💫🫠🫠. Unless Mars is afflicted by other planets, like Saturn, or Jupiter. Saturn ruled people got piercings almost always - body/head/genitals🫦👅). Saturn rules piercings, (restriction, and Steel). Add a little pain 2 the mix, &😍.
Pluto conjunct Mars in a MAN'S chart = some serious sex appeal. They're so fucking smooth2, and have no problem with showing their dominant side. They can easily steal yo girl⚠🍆🔮. Everyone wants a piece💦🙄🤣👄.
Venus/Mars/Pluto in 3rd house likes 2 talk during sex. "U like that baby?" "tell me how much u want it", "yeah I like it, when u got your mouth full🍆🍑". They also get off on how much u can "out smart them" - Book smart or Street smart, either way🧏🤭🤓.
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Sun opposite Black Moon Lilith can look for sexual partners that looks, or reminds them of their dad🤷‍♀️(Daddy issues).
Funny how people say that Mars/Venus in 8th/8th house in Scorpio people gets more interested, if u make us jealous??? I will literally erase u🫠🧐. If we wanted to share a person, we would have gone 2 a strip club instead.
Venus square Jupiter does not mean that the individual is "addicted 2 sex", unless anything else shows so.
Jupiter in 9th house/Jupiter aspecting 9th house can show that u have big hips/big thighs/long legs💛👅.
Asteroid Varuna (20000) conjunct/trine your 7th house means that your sexual partners makes u famous, "worldwide attention" because of who u date/have close relationships with✨. If it's in Gemini (example), then u could date famous singers, actors, motivational speakers, things like that.
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POF conjunct 5th house can cause the individual 2 be very experienced in the department of love, by the end of their lives. They've dated a lot of different people most of the time, and have had all kinds of relationships - polyamorous with some, monogamous with others - examples.
Records asteroid - 30718) conjunct/opposite Mars in a MAN'S chart, can show that he "enchants" people (usually worldwide) with his sex appeal🤤🫠. The opposition shows a "complication", when it comes 2 this = wanting 2 break records for your talent/s/work, & not only4sex appeal👽.
U don't have 2 have Venus/Mars aspecting each other 2 be fine af/gain a lot of attraction from others bc of your looks/sex appeal. Look at Zac Efron - when he was young, Jungkook - BTS, Tupac🤤, Jackson Wang, Hyunjin from Skz, Rihanna, Marilyn, Austin Butler, Justin Bieber - I don't think he's hot, but some people do - I could keep going.
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Women with Mars/Venus conjunct/in 8th house = typically sexually attracted2 "misunderstood individuals" - "someone who's bad, &only good4her" kind of thing. She needs an EVERYTHING BUDDY! A loyal lover/best friend/partner in crime! someone who will never doubt her, but challenge her/someone who brings a healthy amount of “competition"/sexy bantering. She also want someone who's REALLY ready2dominate the fuck out of her, bc she's so used2 dominating people on a daily basis💁‍♀️.
Eros - (433) conjunct 11th house = being sexually attracted 2friends/finding fwb relationships 2be the perfect "arrangement"🎉💃.
Mars conjunct/trine "Dominiona" asteroid - 24899) in a MAN'S chart = a VERY sexually dominant man😤👅. "Big daddy takes little daddy energy" - they can command 10 men like that🤌. Won't let anyone try2run up on em, at any time🫠🤤. Masters at dominating "brats"2, they'll put yo ass in place babe💋.
Venus quincunx Eros asteroid - 433) shows us that an individual typically feels like they're not as sexually "appealing" as people say they r/they won't believe others words. They won't "realise" that they're sexy as hell! They let their insecurities speak4them a lot. But once they start getting that “self assurance/self confidence” = they'll quickly realise that they're the shit, when it comes 2 "seducing" - "enticing" others❤️🍒.
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THANKS4READING!!!
APPRECIATE U, ALWAYS💋
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number1jeonginstan · 3 months
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Reader asking to tie a bow to it? :3
A/N: LMAO, I love this because it's so funny. I also was talking to this girl about this and we both started cracking up.
warnings: fluff and suggestiveness and some smut? idk man!
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Chan:
"You want to what?" he asked, confused at what you are implying.
"I wanna tie a bow around it, think about it, your dick would be so coquette!" you giggled as you pulled the ribbon that was in your hair, showing it to him.
"You are being serious aren't you?" he asked as he watched your hands make their way towards his shorts.
"Very." you replied before palming his soft cock through his shorts.
"What ever the lady wants, I guess" he sighed "Happy wife, happy life, or whatever they say"
"I'm not your wife though?" you asked with a perplexed look on your face.
"Not yet" he giggled before dragging you into his lap, kissing your lips. "Now what was that about tying a bow?"
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Lee Know:
"So you want to tie a pink bow around my dick?" he asked, lying on his stomach on your shared bed reading a book.
"Yes" you replied as you laid down next to him, batting your eyelashes at him.
"Are you crazy?" he asked, marking his page in the book and setting it down.
"No, but just imagine it. Your dick all pretty while I suck on it" you giggled, not wanting to take no for an answer.
"Is all of this a ploy to suck my cock?" he asked looking directly at your face.
"Maybe"
"You should have just asked kitten" he said, kissing your lips and dragging your hand underneath him, feeling his already semi-hard cock.
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Changbin:
"Binnie" you whispered as you laid on his chest, the two of you watching a movie.
"Yes bunny?" he replied, placing a chaste kiss on your lips.
"You know how I put a bow on your bicep and recorded you breaking it by just flexing?"
"Yes, you got so many likes on that tiktok, made you want to keep me all to yourself, you didn't let me leave the house for 24 hours, afraid someone was going to steal me from you"
"Shut up, it's not my fault you are so hot" you groaned, "but I want to try something else"
"Yeah baby, what is it?"
"Can I wrap a bow around your dick?"
"You wanna see Binnie's cock all pretty for his bunny?" he asked while playing with your nipple, causing you to whimper.
"Please?"
"Anything for you"
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Hyunjin:
"Babe, can we do this?" he asked, running up to you. He showed you a tiktok captioned "if he loved you, he would let you wrap a bow around it"
"Think about how pretty my dick would look with one of your hair bows around it" he whined, throwing himself onto you.
"Are you being serious, because I was too scared to ask you" you replied, his entire body weight pressed against yours as you were typing something out on your computer.
"Why wouldn't I be, I want to look pretty for my girl, even if it means my dick would be even prettier"
"I mean you do have the perfect dick for a bow" you giggled as a smile spread across his face, "I told you!!"
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Jisung:
"I need you to imagine something" you ran into Jisung's room, more like barging in while holding a pink ribbon in your hands.
He quickly scrambled, throwing his blanket on top of his dick, he didn't need you to know that he was jerking off, especially to you his best friend.
"Could you knock next time, please" he whined as you ignored him.
"Imagine this bow wrapped around your pretty cock, leaking with pre-cum as I lick it up!" you stated as you slowly pulled the covers of his blanket down, revealing his already hard cock slapped against his toned stomach.
"What!" he screamed, trying to cover himself up.
"Come on Sungie, you don't think I wouldn't notice my pink lace panties missing? It's the least you can do for me"
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Felix:
"I know you've seen it" he grinned as he manspread on your couch, with nothing but grey joggers and a tanktop on.
"Seen what?" you asked, placing the cake and coffee you had brought in front of the two of you.
"Baby, if you want to tie a bow around my cock, you should have just asked" he grinned, taking a sip of the ice americano you placed in front of him.
"What, how did you know?" you asked, tilting your head to the side.
"Baby, I saw the pink lace ribbon on your desk, not to mention you texted me instead of your friend on tiktok saying you guys 'had to do it on your boyfriends'" he giggled before kissing your lips.
"Are you serious?"
"Go ahead and get that ribbon baby" he giggled.
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Seungmin:
"You are such a weird little puppy" he whined as you slowly added the bow around his cock, sucking at the tip.
"I still can't believe you roped me into doing this with you" he whined as he stroked your hair.
You slowly released your mouth off of the tip of his cock, lapping at the pre-cum
"I promised you I would do anything if you let me do this to you" you giggled as you slowly took more of him in your mouth, the ribbon near his balls covered in your spit and a bit of his pre-cum.
"That leash is going to look so fucking good on you" he groaned before bucking his hips into your mouth, causing you to moan around his cock.
"Fuck, such a good little puppy, why don't you hump me while you are at it"
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Jeongin:
"You know how you have the perfect dick?" Your friend with benefits just looked at you with an exasperated look on his face.
"I have a perfect what?" he replied, his brows slightly furrowed.
"A perfect dick, like it's so long and the tip is such a pretty pink" you started rambling on, causing his face to heat up.
"Baby, can you please stop talking about my dick like it's something you worship" he groaned, covering his face with his hands.
"But it is something that makes me cum every time, ergo something I worship, and something I could worship even more if you let me put a bow around it"
"You are not putting a bow around my dick" he replied, his hands slowly coming off of his face only to see your pouting face.
"Please Innie" you whined, attempting to give him your best puppy dog eyes.
"Fine" he groaned, knowing all his attempts of convincing you would end up futile.
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bidisastersanji · 6 months
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Was thinking about French gendered terms and Zoro trying to suss out if Sanji’s into men and I had some thoughts and oops now i wrote a thing so here you go:
In the early days Zoro drives himself nuts trying to figure out if Sanji bats for his team too or not. He listens in intently whenever the conversation steers the cook towards talk of his past dalliances, but, just his luck, none of the words used indicate their gender. And there ain’t no fucking way in hell he’s asking him or anyone on the crew directly, lest they immediately understand how bad he has it for the stupid cook.
He bides his time, surely someday he’ll slip up and mention something about the people he’s slept with, right? And sure enough one day, at a feast, a drunken Usopp starts asking what people’s types are. His face still schooled into a nonchalant, neutral expression, he does his best to hide how desperately he waits for Sanji to speak up about his type, only to once again be met with more general terms about people- someone with a kind heart, dependable, an equal… he’s so concentrated on trying to pick out any gendered terms he doesn’t notice the weird look Nami throws his way at each new descriptor in Sanji’s list of desirable traits.
He’s always known Sanji speaks French, finding it endearing whenever the cook curses (even at him), whenever he goes into small little rants to himself, or the face he makes when he can only think of a word in French, rapidly snapping his fingers until it comes back to him. But it’s only when they get to a town where Sanji starts speaking to a vendor excitedly about his produce that he realizes just how much this thing, this endearing thing that’s always been there, truly affects him, and his face burns at how different the cook’s voice sounds when he actually speaks it, how enchantingly low and throaty the foreign syllables ring in his ears.
Attached to living another day, he decides that stealing a book from Robin is a bad idea, and resigns himself to ask her directly for a favour. He swallows his pride and asks if she can lend him a French learning book and a dictionary, curious as to whether he can learn it a bit, and understand whatever the hell Sanji keeps cursing and muttering about around him, and what kinds of insults he’s been throwing his way. With her ever mysterious smile plastered on her face, a chain of Robin’s arms retrieve two books from her library and hand them to him. “Do come to me if you have any questions, Mr. Swordsman. My French is pretty good if I do say so myself.”
He’s out of the room, red as a beet, before she even finishes that sentence.
Learning the curse words comes to him unsurprisingly quickly given how often he hears a litany of « putain de merde », « fait chier! » and « enfoiré! » spilling from the blonde’s distracting mouth.
He’s very happily surprised when he learns that French is apparently a heavily gendered language- and that he can glean someone’s gender just from whether the adjectives applied to the subject are masculine or feminine. Now if the stars aligned and the cook would talk about his love life in French…
Zoro starts by going through the basic first chapters, taking great pains to hide and quickly dissimulate it in his haramaki anytime someone walks in on him- especially the witch. It definitely changes his usual routine on his watch in the crows nest, he muses to himself.
Weeks, months pass, and he advances further in the lessons, his vocabulary slowly growing, while he often goes to his dictionary for the more… colorful insults Sanji throws his way. He never says a word of French himself, not knowing how he could even justify knowing any without looking suspicious, and pretty sure his pronunciation would be way off anyways. But he starts to really enjoy it, being able to understand even a tenth of the things Sanji thinks he can say without the crew (save Robin) understanding.
And then Saobaody happens. And now he doesn't have time to think about learning French, not if he wants to get strong enough. Not if he wants to protect his crew.
He's at the table with Mihawk and Perona when his mentor asks for the salt (Passez moi le sel, s'il vous plait), and he executes himself without thinking. A quiet settles over the room and he looks up to see those intense red eyes boring into him, unnerving as ever.
"You speak French?"
"Not really," he grumbles, not wanting more excuses to think of the shitty cook, and his shitty cooking, and his stupid curly brow.
"Then you will. Consider this a natural continuation of my trying to beat some manners into your brutish mind."
Two years later, and he can't wait for dartbrow to show up. His pronunciation may still be shit, but he can't wait to use his newfound skill to his advantage.
With his now solidified grasp of the language, he slowly begins to understand that what he at first though was a mistake on his part- that he must’ve missed a part of a sentence, or mixed up some words- was not an error at all. It turns out, some of the French things that Sanji yells at him aren’t insults at all.
In fact… they’re sometimes downright complimentary.
And that's definitely a problem for Zoro, who now not only needs to keep pretending that he doesn’t know what Sanji is saying, but needs to pretend he doesn’t understand it when Sanji screams at him that he has a “stupidly pretty face” or that his “tits are even bigger than Nami’s and how is that even fair” . He doesn't know what to make of it.
And then one day… the stars align.
It’s another post battle party, and the cook has been drinking a bit more than usual, a tightly gripped glass of wine in his left hand, a cigarette in his right. Zoro is nursing his very own barrel of Ale when he hears the conversation turn to more gossipy topics, as it usually does the further into the night they are.
“Chopper was really into that nurse on Zou, wasn’t he?” Usopp starts to poke fun at the crew’s youngest member, laughing as the reindeer turns all red and tries to deny it.
“I mean it makes sense that she’d be his type! Right Nami?”
Nami nods at him, grinning wickedly. “Yeah, not all of us can be into rich little blonde girls can we?”
“You’re right, some of us are into rich blue-haired princesses,” he shoots back.
"At least I had the balls to do something about it before I left her island-"
Zoro is already tuning them out when Sanji sits down next to Robin just a few feet away, across from him and the campfire, his tongue loosened from a few too many refills and unconsciously reverting to his native tongue.
"Ils ont de la chance, ces deux là." he gestures to Usopp and Nami. (They're lucky, these two.)
Robin smiles at the cook, wordlessly prompting him to continue his thoughts.
"Qu'est ce que je donnerais pour pouvoir avoir quelque chose de plus qu'un coup d'un soir." Sanji sighs wistfully, lighting his cigarette. (What I wouldn't give to have something more than a one night stand.")
Robin chuckles. "Ne sont-ils pas satisfaisants?" (Are they not satisfying?)
At this point Zoro has tuned everything out, intensely focused on hearing what the blonde has to say, and not at all feeling a small churn of jealousy in his stomach for whoever shared Sanji's bed. His heart initially skips a beat at the plural masculine pronoun ('ils') used by Robin before remembering its actual neutrality in this context, as it's referring to the ""one night stands", a masculine word. Damnit. French is so dumb.
"Tu sais bien que je ne dirais jamais de mal à propos des belles demoiselles qui ont bien voulu m'accorder ne serait-ce qu'un baiser ou une étreinte. J'ai de la chance rien que d'avoir pu exister en leur présence."
(You very well know I'd never say a bad word about any of the beautiful ladies who've been kind enough to give me even a kiss or an embrace. I'm lucky just to have existed in their presence.)
Zoro feels his heart drop, a heavy feeling settling in his stomach. He's always known the pervert cook has been into women. Why was this confirmation hitting him the way it was? His eye darts up at his two crewmates, confirming that only Robin has noticed his eavesdropping. She opens her mouth to say something but Sanji continues, the glow of the flames dancing against his flushed skin beautifully.
"Et dans mon état normal tu sais que, par respect pour les sensibilités d'une dame, je ne te divulge pas beaucoup de détails sur ceux qui font l'affaire le temps d'une nuit. "
(And in my normal state you know that, out of respect for a lady's sensibilities, I don't divulge many details about those who do the trick for a night.)
Ceux. That's a masculine word for "those", isn't it? Zoro shakily takes another sip of his drink.
The archeologist's smile widens. "Oh, ne te fait pas de soucis pour mes sensibilités. Je brûle d'envie d'en savoir plus, et ne m'épargne pas les détails..."
(Oh, please don't worry about my sensibilities. I'm burning to know more, and don't spare me the details...)
"Je ne suis que ton humble serviteur...si ça peut te faire plaisir" (I'm but your humble servant…if it pleases you). Sanji's cheeks seem a tad more flushed than before. "En vrai ce n'est pas qu'ils ne sont pas satisfaisants...c'est qu'il ne sont jamais... assez."
(It's not that they're not satisfying…it's that they're never...enough.)
"Ah? Et que recherches tu? Qu'est ce qui serait..."assez"?"
(Ah? And what are you looking for? What would be… "enough"?)
The cook exhales another cloud of smoke, and nervously looks around. His eyes settle on Zoro, and indecision flits across his eyes for a second before continuing. Zoro can feel his gaze, can almost make out the deliciously unfocused expression on the blonde's face in his peripheral vision as he continues speaking French. His heart feels like it might beat out of his ribcage.
"Lui." (Him.)
Zoro forgets how to breathe.
Part 2 up now , and part 3 part 4
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seat-safety-switch · 2 months
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Vans aren't "cool," but they are enjoying a sort of renaissance of sorts. The desirability of these boxy, cargo-hauling conveyances represents some admittedly minor hope for the future. If vans regain their ancient popularity, there is a chance that we can overthrow the dictatorship of the pickup truck and return to our traditional values as a society.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not some wacko van fundamentalist. Sure, I do get into theological arguments with Ford people about which generation of the Econoline is derived most purely from van theory, but that's on our own territory. Not something for the regular folk to see.
You have nothing to fear about me giving you a shank if you accidentally call a half-cut container truck the deeply unfunny slur that is "cube van." I won't even get mad if you prefer a hatchback. Anything that can haul cargo in an enclosed vessel, and does so often, is an honorary van in my book. And it's a good idea, before we proceed, to talk about just why vans are becoming more popular.
Vans are in fact the only houses that many people can own. Sad but true. You could live in a pickup truck, too. Nobody is denying that, but that's like living in one of those strange Arizona desert homes where there's only enough roof for your bed, a novel about libertarianism, and a small overhang to keep your ammo and canned beans dry. Just not enough enclosed area. No sense of security. Throbbing paranoia at all minutes that if you stop at the Home Depot just for a minute that someone will steal your groceries out of the bed.
Me, I like to have a nice personal space which will be largely protected if I roll the thing into the ditch doing triple the speed limit. It's bad enough already without having to walk half a kilometre back from the impact site, picking up all your strewn possessions from the roadside. Better to keep the sleeping bags, provisions, and pet chickens on the inside of the vehicle.
If there can be said to be a downside to the growth of van popularity, it is that they are more popular than ever. Demand means resale value skyrockets, which means I can't easily get a new van to replace my old one when it gets towed by the cops or love-taps the bollard in the Tim Hortons drive-thru. That's why I've started investing in motorhomes, which are the van for people who can't afford vans or houses. They just so happen to come with big-ass V8s, too, like all of the other places I've ever lived. It's like I was never evicted at all.
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