#i think about them a lot but my brain never comes up w stuff for them djdjdjjdjdjdjd | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

endlessthxxghts · 7 months

Text

Animals

DBF!joel miller x afab!reader || W/C: ≈2.5k

Summary: Joel randomly calls you and tells you to meet him outside. Your parents are home though, and you can't necessarily tell them that Joel, your father's best friend, is asking you to go with him somewhere. Do you give a little white lie and leave, or do you wait until it's safer?

Warnings: Age gap (unspecified, but legal). Reader still lives with parents but she is an adult. Nosy and controlling ass parents to their child who's a grown ass adult. SMUT 18+ MDNI. Inappropriate car activities while driving. Handjob. Blowjob. Pulling into a parking lot in broad daylight to do some stuff... P in V unprotected. ✨Save a horse, ride a cowboy (in a parking lot)✨ Reader has bit of a size kink. Cum swallowing... Is there a term for kissing with semen in both y'all's mouths??? (Don't look at me...). Possessive kink. Spanking (just once though). Getting caught... Exhibitionism...😵‍💫 I think that’s as much as I can say without spoiling anything, so! After you read it, let me know if there’s anything that I should put in here that I missed out on!

A/N: One of my all-time favorite songs is Animals by Nickelback. As of lately, though, with all my Joel brain rot, I can't NOT think DBF!Joel every time I play it... so... here we are... I recommend listening before or when you read, just to really add to the experience hehehe.😈 @javierpena-inatacvest I hope you’re hungry!😋 Enjoy, y’all!!!

MASTERLIST

You’re beside me on the seat,

Got your hand between my knees,

And you control how fast we go by just how hard you wanna squeeze.

“Two minutes, get your ass outside.”

Your eyes nearly pop out of your head. You blindly brought your phone up to your ear with your parents in the room with you, not taking the time to check the caller ID.

“I-” you start as you head to the bathroom, not wanting your parents to overhear anything. “I can’t just leave right now, and especially not with you.” He scoffs over the phone. “I was at the dining table with my parents, jackass.”

“But you’re not anymore, right?”

“No.”

“And they didn’t question you?”

“Didn’t give them the chance to.”

“Just get out here. I’ll drive off quick, no one will see,” he states matter-of-factly.

“Joel,” you say, your tone betraying your logical responses.

“Now,” he says before ending the call.

Your heart racing, you peer at yourself in the mirror, making sure you look semi-presentable even though you know Joel’s intentions are going to ruin your appearance anyway. You leave the bathroom, heading for the front door as fast as possible.

“Who called ya?” your dad asked.

“Going somewhere?” your mother followed.

“Just a friend. And I’m gonna step out real quick, I’ll be back in a bit,” you say nonchalantly, not trying to raise any suspicion. Your mother raises her brow at you.

“I really hope you both find the value in respecting people’s privacy,” you say, stepping out the front door as you speak, erasing the chances of any further commentary. That may have come across more harsh than you would have liked, but even into adulthood, the three of you have gotten into huge fights for your whereabouts. It’s not like you left them in the dark all the time or kept them up late waiting for you to get home. You were living under their roof, so you still respected their time. Yet, it was never enough. And you were too wound up thinking about Joel to bite your tongue.

He parked a house away, and you’re practically running at the speed of light to get into the passenger side so he can pull away before your parents decide to make it to the window to gain any more information they can.

As soon as you get into the passenger seat, though, Joel has different plans as he immediately puts one hand around your waist and the other on the thigh closest to him. You’re barely able to shut the door before he pulls you into the middle of the bench seat of his truck, your body flushed against his. You squeak out at his quickness, his strength. He smirks at it.

He lets his hand on your thigh drag up your body and situate itself on your jaw, turning your face to his and kissing you deeply, all tongue and teeth and thickened spit due to how fucking turned on both of you are.

You pull away, breathless, “Baby, you need to drive off, now.”

“Shit, sorry,” he says, releasing his hold on you. “Stop distractin’ me,” he playfully scolds, a smile full of trouble across his face as he pulls out of the neighborhood.

You scoff at him now, perplexed at his audacity to tell you that you’re distracting him. It makes an idea pop in your head. You’ll show him a distraction.

You shift your body to face him. Your hand lands on his thigh, running up and down lightly, getting closer to his hardened bulge that’s been begging for your attention since he dialed your number.

His grip on the wheel tightens, his jaw twitching, “Darlin’,” he grits. “What are you doin’?”

“Oh, nothing,” you say as you lean in closer, licking a stripe up his neck, your mouth at his ear. “Just,” you cup his erection, “being a distraction.”

His hips push up into your hand. He is painfully hard right now, his entire neck and face a bright red from your ministrations. You unzip his jeans, pulling it and his underwear down to let his cock free. You moan at the sight.

“I’m warnin’ you, girl.”

“Want me to stop?”

Silence.

He moves his arm closest to you to sprawl along the back of the bench seat, giving you complete access to him as he attempts to drive you two to God knows where.

You scoot closer in, and let out a content giggle. You place a wet kiss at his pulse point, whispering in his ear, “Thought so, baby.”

You bring your hand up to your mouth and let your spit pool in your hand, bringing it back down to his length, spreading it all over before you wrap your fingers around him.

“Joel, baby, fuck-” you moan in his ear as you slowly begin pumping him, “look how fucking big you are in my hands,” you whine. “Can barely wrap my hand around you,” you say as you nip at his neck again.

Joel begs his eyes to stay on the road, knowing that if he were to look down right now, he’d lose every ounce of his control — on both his self restraint and his damn truck. But, God damn, the slapping sound of your hand on his spit-soaked cock as you whine and writhe at his side has him desperate. He glances down for barely a millisecond, and he can’t help the groan that leaves his throat, his head threatening to throw itself back in utter pleasure.

“Am I doing good, baby?” You ask him. “A good distraction?” You add, your lips ghosting his jaw with each syllable.

“F-fuckin H-hell, baby,” he stutters, hips softly meeting every push and pull of your hand. “G-gonna make me c-crash this f-fuckin’ car.”

With his admission, your grip gets a little tighter, pumps get a little faster, and you're giving extra attention to the head of his cock. He’s pulsing beneath you, breathing erratic, and you can’t stop the urge to lean down and take him into your mouth.

On instinct, Joel’s foot falls a little heavier on the gas, causing him to drive a little roughly over a bump on the road. His dick pushes deeper into your mouth, causing the tip to hit at the back of your throat.

The spit that forms from your gag reflex gives you an easier ability to devour him just as he likes—warm, wet, and sloppy. Your head begins to bob faster, your hand still supporting the base of him as you periodically cup him below, and he’s an absolute mess.

You pull away for one moment in a choked breath, your hand now jacking him off, and you look up at him through your eyelashes.

“I know you’re close, baby, I feel it,” you gasp out as your hand squeezes a little more, at the pressure you know makes him break. “Need you to cum, baby, need you to fill my fucking throat,” and with that, your mouth is back on him.

“Oh, f-fu-…” Joel nearly growls out, immediately pulling into some random parking lot, thankful the nearest slot was empty. The second the car is in park, he’s shooting his load down your throat, his hand flying to the back of your head to keep you stuffed full of him.

The way that you’re so turned on right now just by giving him the sloppiest head he has ever experienced has you absolutely dripping—an absolute moaning mess, vibrating him into overstimulation. He pulls you off, and you can’t help the blissed out smirk that forms on your face as you swallow almost everything he gave you, residue dripping down your chin.

He brings your face to his, and his tongue collects up his own spend, feeding it back to you in a desperate, sloppy kiss—if you can even call it that.

As your lips tangle in a nasty embrace, he’s quick to rip your bottoms off as he settles you on his lap. The feel on your pussy of his spent cock slowly getting erect again has you moaning into his mouth, your hips grinding down onto him, arousal coating him, urging him back to his full, hard length.

“Sh-shit,” falls from your mouth as his trails further down, leaving kisses down your throat. Joel brings his hand down to pump himself a few more times, ensuring he’s at full attention. Your hips lift up on instinct, Joel notching his tip at your soaking entrance.

You lower yourself onto him, going in with ease with how wet both you and him are, the stretch of him still providing that delicious burn. No matter how prepared or lubed up either of you are, that burn will never go away. You never want it to. It flips a certain switch of lust within you—an animalistic need—knowing just how fucking big he is, knowing that it’s all for you.

Usually when you’re on top, he’s extra sensitive, and you wait for him to give the signal for you to move. That need is there, though, and you can’t wait. As soon as your hips are flushed with his, you’re immediately lifting back up and dropping down on him again, maintaining a brutal pace that has you both uttering incoherent filth.

You place your hands on either side of his head, gripping the back of his seat to give you better momentum as you bounce on him. His hands are gripping at the globes of your ass, guiding your movements, fingertip-shaped bruises threatening to form. “Fuck, sweet girl,” he lets out, “just like that, baby.” His face is nuzzled in between your breasts, nipping and licking at them with every bounce of your thrusts.

His words cause your pussy to flutter, a possessive feeling gliding down your spine. Your one hand releases the chair and grasps at the curls on the base of his neck. “T-tell me,” you stutter, “t-tell me who my p-pussy belongs to,” you get out, licking into his mouth before you let him answer.

His hips begin to meet your movements, his pubic bone providing the cherry on top to unravel you. His lips are against yours, breaths intertwining into the thick air, windows beginning to fog. “Mine,” Joel growls. Your hips speed up, the truck shaking and squeaking with every movement. “This pussy is mine. You,” he breathes, “are fuckin’ mine,” a stinging pain fills your senses before your brain registers the slap to your ass.

Your thighs begin to shake and your body goes rigid, your climax teetering against the edge.

“Joel,” you cry out.

“I’ve got you, pretty girl, let go for me,” he coos. And just as he’s about to hold you down to fuck up into you, a car parks right next to you, door immediately slamming as the person gets out and urgently peers into the driver’s side window.

Both of you are too close to stop your movements, the person’s face outside the car falling into pure horror and shock at what’s going on inside.

“Oh!” you scream out, both of you using all your strength to stop but unable to.

“That’s my dad outside the car!”

Oh please, the keys, they’re not in the ignition,

Must have wound up on the floor while we were switching our positions.

Before you know it, you’re pulsing around his cock as he fills up another one of your holes with thick, hot ropes of his cum.

Neither of you realize just when your father scrambled back into his car and drove away, but the idea of getting caught turned both of you on more than you’d ever admit.

You don’t get off of him just yet, both of you sitting in each other’s sweaty embrace as you let your breathing and heart rates return to normal.

“So…” he says, rubbing circles on the small of your back.

You look up at him, chin perched on his chest. “So,” you giggle.

“What the fuck do we do?” he asks, wordlessly referring to the mishap with your father.

Not as worried, you mess with him before giving a serious answer. “Mmm,” you say as you place a light kiss to his chest, “I was thinking you give me your boxers since you ripped the only bottoms I have on me, and you deal with the jeans chafing your balls until you get back home.”

His eyes go wide, completely forgetting that he did that, and silently cursing himself for doing something so stupid. Luckily he decided to actually wear underwear today.

“Oh, fuck, baby, I’m so sorry, I just-” he pauses for a moment. “You fuckin’ distracted me!” he says before he completely busts out in laughter, a deep howl filling the car. You smack his chest, your laughter following suit.

“You motherfucker,” you say, sitting up a little straighter, pulling him in for a chaste kiss.

He smiles at you, pure warmth and adoration in his eyes. He clears his throat, his face a little more serious. “I, uh, I was actually talkin’ about your old man, though.”

“I know,” you say, completely unbothered.

“Are you not worried?”

You shrug your shoulders. “No.”

“You don’t think he’s gonna try and wring my neck out?”

“Baby,” you laugh, “no, he’s not gonna wring your neck out. I wouldn’t let him, anyway.”

“Oh, gee. Thanks,” he deadpans.

“I promise you, I’ve got it taken care of.”

His fingers grasp your chin, pulling you in for another kiss, a little longer than the last. “I trust you.”

As soon as you enter the front door, you see both your parents at the dining table again. Though, this time around, instead of controlling and angry, they look pale and embarrassed.

You stroll to the dining table, not caring to sit down, and you get straight to the point. They can’t even look you in the eye.

“So? Did we learn our lesson about-”

“Yes,” your parents say in unison, “please just,” your mother continues as your dad starts to retreat anywhere else but here. “Let’s not talk about it.”

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles in your chest.

“You’re a grown woman,” your mother says, rigidly. “It’s really not our business what you do anymore.” You peer at your father. He throws a thumbs up at your mother’s words, eyes still trained on everything else but you.

“Glad ya guys came to your senses,” you say, offering a smug smile. You can’t help it. If catching you having the steamiest sex in an older man’s car is what causes them to stop breathing down your neck, then so be it. You’d have intentionally done something like this ages ago if that’s what it took.

You start heading to your room when your dad finally speaks. Still unable to look you in the eyes. “Tell Joel I don’t give a fuck what he does—what y’all do—just,” he pauses to take a breath. “Tell him not to address any of this with me. Ever.”

“Deal.”

No, no matter where we go,

‘Cause everybody knows,

We’re just a couple animals.

End Note: Well. That killed me. The amount of laps I took writing this...🥴 Thank you all so much for reading! Likes, comments, reblogs, etc, — all your support means the absolute world to me. I wouldn’t be able to do this without all of you. Thank you so so so much. There are genuinely not enough words to express my gratitude. As always feedback for my stories (at a technical sense) is also super super helpful whether it is constructive or positive! Anything helps me to be the best writer that I can be. All my love! Xo

Tags: @javierpena-inatacvest @katiexpunk @farmerlarrry @mellymbee @jobee403 @soavenuepenguin @rainbowcosmicchaos @untamedheart81 @babygal-babygal @pedritoferg @akah565 @pedrostories

EDIT: As of the new year 2024, I no longer do taglists!! Follow @endlessthxxghtsnotifs and turn on the notifications to be updated when new stories come out!!

1K notes · View notes

macfrog · 2 months

Text

san angelo | one shot

what happens when joel miller meets his star-crossed lover?

big love to @mrsmando and @5oh5 for cheering me on with this one, and @bageldaddy for being my eyes, my ears, and - only sometimes - my brain.

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader summary: it's the summer of two thousand eight. after two weeks following his little brother cross-country on the back of a harley, joel follows him through the doors of a dive bar - where fate delivers him to you. warnings: story is inserted into canon, so cordyceps outbreak happens, sarah dies (off-page), joel dissociates, doomed love, lots of mention of fate, alcohol consumption, reader is a smoker, cursing, drunken one-night stand, oral sex, unprotected piv, joel's cock is massive, a lot of angst, a lot of fluff, a lil smut to tie it all together. enjoy! word count: 9.8k

moodboard | main masterlist | playlist [in case you wanna vibe in sad] | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🤍

Palm lines.

It’s the first thing he thinks as soon as she stops moving in his arms. The second her little whimpers cease, the moment her chest stops heaving and her eyes glaze over. Suddenly, Joel’s little girl weighs more than he can bear.

Palm lines. And he has no fucking idea why.

He closes his eyes and there you are. The whir of the ceiling fan, the tinkling of bracelets loose on your wrist. You have sorta earth hands, you told him. Or, well – they could be water, if you look at ‘em this way. I don’t really know. I’m still learning.

You told him that air hands were long, spindly. And Sarah was always a lanky kid – tallest on the soccer team, head and shoulders above the other girls by the third grade. Her hands, he thinks, must be air. They must be.

Her fingers are still twisted around his right now. Lifeless, slippery with the blood still wet and quickly cooling.

Joel cradles her, squeezing so hard that he wonders whether he might be able to fuse their bodies together. Lock them in some white-knuckle grip so that he never has to let go of her – never has to leave this hill covered in dirt and blood.

His palms are ruined; a maroon river carving its way down his heart line, dirt deep in the groove of his life line. Why does he even fucking remember what they’re called?

Why the fuck are you what he’s thinking about, right now?

“Tommy,” he says, opening his eyes again. “We gotta…we gotta get to…”

She’s limp, draped over his thighs as though she’s nothing more than a stretch of crimson curtain. He looks down at her and begs her to come back, begs her to open her eyes and look up at him again.

But the night is passing and she’s still not breathing. Dawn is breaking and Joel’s daughter is dead.

He sucks in a shattered breath. “…to San Angelo, Tommy.”

The younger Miller stuffs his gun into the back of his jeans and paces over, soles coated thick in shit and grass. “I hear you, Joel.”

“You ain’t listenin’ to me, I –”

“I’m listenin’ fine, Joel.” Tommy hooks his hands under his niece’s arms. “Now, help me lift her. We can’t…” his voice strains, fighting the death grip his brother has on the girl, “…we can’t leave her here.”

Joel’s frozen to the spot; sinking further and further into the earth. Staring at his open hands, the stains like rust on his palms. He says to San Angelo again, and Tommy snaps.

“Jesus, Joel, enough! I’ve heard enough goddamn it! I see your hands, now – we gotta fuckin’ bury Sarah.”

Your fate line, your nail tickled, and Joel held his hand steady, It can change, if something big is coming.

Somethin’ big? he asked. A little younger, a lot more naïve. Still a healthy dose of belief in the world, an echo of the god-fearing faith that raised him.

His hand felt so light, cradled in two of yours. He half hoped he’d never have to let go – just lie there with you forever. Your legs tangled with his, the sheets disturbed; the room injected with amber from the streetlights outside.

You nodded. A big shift, or something.

And he scoffed. He actually scoffed, right there and then. Incredulous. The hell kinda big shift is comin’ our way? he asked, laughing.

You just smiled back, shrugging. You were so fucking casual, that whole night. It would’ve unnerved him, if he hadn’t been so swept off by the sparkle in your eye, the glowing cherry of your cigarette.

Guess we just gotta wait ‘n see.

It’s August thirtieth, two thousand eight.

Almost five thousand miles on the back of a Harley, and Joel just wants to go home.

He arches his aching back, palms flat against the crests of his hips, and blinks in the light from the food mart in front of him. Twenty-six, he thinks to himself, only twenty-fuckin’-six.

It’s ninety degrees out. An uncomfortable heat, for a man who feels ten years older than he really is. For a man who hasn’t had a decent shower in almost two weeks. For a man who’s spent the last six hours tailing the brake lights of his little brother’s bike.

The sweat gathers sticky between his shoulder blades, prickles along the nape of his neck. There’s dust spattered down his bare arms and buried in the grooves of his knuckles.

He’s tired. He’s tired, he’s dirty, and goddamn, he wishes he was back home.

He holds a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, the yellow sky melting to a purple haze. Squinting, he follows the soar of two swallows overhead, looping through the sky, until he’s rubbing the image from his eyes with the back of his wrist.

He’s gotta remember to call Sarah before she goes to bed.

The door opens with the tinkle of a brass bell older and rustier than Joel feels. A swaggering figure splits the glow from the store in two – a figure with a pack of Marlboros in one hand and an already half-empty bottle of water in the other.

Tommy holds them both out to Joel, who swipes the water with a scowl.

“Ain’t killed you yet, brother,” Tommy scoffs, stuffing the cigarettes into his back pocket. He swings a frayed-denim leg over the seat of his Harley.

Joel drains the bottle, panting as he crushes the plastic in one fist. “Damn near tryin’,” he mutters, tossing it in the trash. He runs his tongue across his bottom lip.

“Where are we?” Tommy asks. He glances over his shoulder, staring from the cracked roads to the telephone wires overhead. A Syclone pulls into the lot; a dehydrated squeal as it rolls to a halt.

“San Angelo,” Joel says. “Only a few more hours to go.” He settles on his own bike, pulling his leather jacket over his shoulders. “We passed a Super 8 coming into town, if you feel like restin’ up. Or – we leave now, be home around midnight.”

Tommy chuckles. “What’s the rush? We ain’t gotta be anywhere anytime soon.”

And Joel agrees – for the most part.

His mom is watching Sarah while they’re gone, and he reckons she’s hardly missing him. Too smart for her own good, Joel’s realizing: plotting and scheming her way into staying up past her bedtime, drinking Pepsi at dinner, watching Curtis and Viper – and swearing that her dad lets her do it all, too.

But, still. He misses his kid.

It’s the most they’ve ever been apart – time or distance. The longest he hasn’t had her climbing up his back or hanging off his arm. The least he’s been called Dad since he was eighteen years old.

He just…misses his kid.

He sighs, drumming his fingers on the body of the bike. “Tommy, I gotta get back home to Sarah.”

“Look,” Tommy says, and Joel knows that the argument is lost already, “By the time we got back, she’d be asleep anyways. Let’s leave in the morning – first thing, I swear – and we’ll be home in time for breakfast. Deal?”

They stare at one another, a stand-off in the parking lot. Both waiting for the other to break. The swallows gather on the roof of the store, basking in the weak wash of flickering fluorescents.

“Come on, brother,” Tommy pleads, “It’s one more night.” He lifts his helmet, punching it over his mop of shaggy hair, and kicks the bike to life.

Joel growls to himself, watching it drift over to the side of the road.

He considers heading to the Super 8 alone, grabbing a room only to shower and get some food, then hitting the road and leaving his little brother in the dust. Waiting for him to stumble through the door tomorrow morning – tired, groggy, probably hungover – while Joel, fresh as a daisy, drizzles syrup over Sarah’s pancakes and pours her orange juice.

He’s a pragmatic man. He’s a grown-up. Scares away the ghosts and ghouls and monsters of his daughter’s nightmares. Shushes her back to sleep in the crook of his arm, tiptoes as lightly as he can out of her room so as not to wake her.

Things like God, like the universe, things like horoscopes and laws of attraction…for the most part, Joel can do without them. Has done his whole life.

But then – the glow of indigo overhead, and the mysterious shadows lurking behind the buildings. The birdsong tittering in his ears, the twinkle of the sun in Tommy’s helmet – something distant in the dusty sphere.

Something, someone, winking at him from far away.

Something a little heavier than the breeze nudges at his spine, and Joel’s arms lift – fitting his own helmet over his head. He swings the heel of his boot into his kickstand and revs the bike, Harley roaring as it joins Tommy’s out on the boulevard.

Murphy’s is a small, green bar on the corner of an intersection. All peeled paint lettering and buzzing fluorescents – the y burnt out and pulsing.

Joel doesn’t think Tommy picked it for any reason other than the huge Lone Star mural on the side of the goddamn building, the way he tosses his thumb to it as they park up. A squint smirk on his face, muttering something like ‘s good to be home, big brother, as they hook helmets over handlebars.

Tommy leads Joel inside, their boots tacky on the wooden floor. Walls paneled by aged frames and sun-bleached photographs; air hanging thick with a smell like vinegar. The babble of slurred conversation is pierced by the sharp crack of pool balls breaking.

Metal-plate belt buckles snaked through strained jeans; low eyes which shift to size-up the two strangers. They all turn back to their fingerprinted glasses when Joel and Tommy settle into an empty booth.

It feels hotter in here than it is outside, stuffier. A thick humidity which clings to Joel’s bones, humming like the string lights draped from beams above his head.

Tommy reclines between the creaking leather cushion and the wall. He pokes at a yellowing poster of some Western, hums to himself, and then looks across the table.

Joel’s eyes loop once around the room before they meet his brother’s. “What?” he asks.

“First round is yours, old man.”

“Oh, is it, now?” He cocks an eyebrow. “Thought this was your idea?”

A weedy grin stretches across Tommy’s lips. He needs to fucking shave, Joel thinks. Whiskers poking from around his small mouth like pine needles. “’s my birthday trip,” he reasons.

And can Joel argue with that? Does he have the fucking energy? Will it get him out of here and back to Austin any quicker?

“Goddamn it,” he grumbles. He pushes himself to his feet, heels of his palms against the tacky wood.

He wanders over to the bar, tugging on the front of his tee to unstick it from his damp chest. Slots in beside an ivory cowboy hat with a pair of jeaned legs. The man fixes his bolo tie and watches Joel’s hand as he flags the bartender down.

And then he feels it.

You.

Then he feels you.

First, the weight of you – crashing some into his back. He shunts forward from the suddenness of it, knocking his ribs against the bar, and lifts a hand to brace himself on the ledge.

And then – heat, like an iron. Like every hair and freckle on your skin is branded into his the second you come into contact with him. A feeling like the roll of a wave against his spine, a hand hooked around his forearm when he begins to turn.

“Shit,” you hiss, steadying yourself on the curve of his shoulder. You glance down at your feet, clicking between your black boots. “I’m sorry, that was…that was my bad.”

“’s alright,” Joel says instantly. He holds his arm still until you let go and he sidesteps – though only a little. He watches, dumbstruck, as you rest your elbows on the bar and lean forward. His eyes linger on your back, trailing the crisscross straps wrapped tight over your spine.

You squint up at the menu pinned above shelves of crystal bottles. Your eyes move back and forth across the chalkboard, slowly descending until they’re meeting his in the speckled mirror opposite – a sweet smile growing on your lips.

It runs like whiskey through Joel’s veins: warm and dangerous.

And the way his head spins, the way the world blurs for a moment into one swipe of color around you; the way your cooing laugh echoes between his ears long after he’s heard it –

Joel’s already intoxicated.

He’s still staring when you pull back and motion to the bar. “You can go first, by the way,” you say, waving a hand. “I wasn’t cuttin’ in line. Just trying to read the drinks.”

“I’ll wait,” he replies, remembering how to be polite, how to be charming. Old cogs long out of use jerking to life inside him again. “Can’t read any of ‘em, either, anyways.”

It draws from you that same little laugh, a puff of air from your nostrils. You nod, biting your bottom lip.

He’s quickly forgetting why he’s stood in this room, why he’s in this city. He’d probably forget his own fucking name if you asked him right now what it was.

“’nother drink, darlin’?” a low voice interrupts, and you’re turning away.

Joel’s eyes follow you – a moth chasing something golden and radiant – as you face the wiggle of a snow-white mustache poking from beneath the brim of that ivory cowboy hat.

You shake your head, lifting two fingers with a bill slipped between them. “I’m good, thanks, George. Maybe next round.” You wave to the kid behind the bar – some name that Joel’s too fucking mindless to hear. Too distracted by the glint in your eye, the sparkle of your crescent moon earrings in the light.

If only he knew this feeling. If only he could put a name to it. As familiar as the sun and yet, brand new like dawn. His stomach swirls in a fleet of butterflies – as though he’s fifteen again, bumping elbows with his high school crush.

You nudge him, thumb pointing in the direction of the bartender.

Joel shakes his head. “Ladies first,” he says, heart skipping when you hold his stare.

“Nuh-uh,” you shake your head, “Told you I ain’t jumping in.”

He asks the guy for two beers, barely taking his eyes off you. “Alright,” he leans in, lowering his voice, “Then let me buy you a drink. Make up for gettin’ in your way just then.”

You prop your chin on your knuckles, grinning as you push your twenty around the wooden bar top, dodging pooled rings of alcohol like it’s an arcade game. “I don’t do that,” you say, eyes tracing the slick trail left by the bill.

“Do what?”

“Accept drinks from strange men in bars.”

His tongue presses against the back of his teeth, the taste of humor honey-sweet. “Yeah? ‘n how long have you known…” he nods to the – what is he, sixty? Sixty-five? – year-old on your right, “…George?”

Your gaze lifts, eyes wide. Apparently as impressed by Joel’s confidence as he is himself. “We’re actually in a very serious relationship. Marriage proposal imminent.”

“Damn,” he mutters as the bartender reappears with two Coors, “And here I thought I had half a chance.”

You hum to yourself, studying him. Looking from his jaw across the span of his shoulders, his wide-knuckled hands and then back to his lips. Curious and wary, judging the strange animal stood before you.

And he knows he’s weathered from the weeks on the road, and all the years before that. Dirt under his nails and the light sheen of sun on his forehead. The flecks of gray through his thick, brown beard.

You take a deep breath, eyes twinkling, and tell him, “I’m here with my friend.”

“Ain’t that lucky?” Joel glances at Tommy. “I’m here with my brother.”

You look across to the dirty blond, sat tilting a glass candle in his hand. “He single?”

Joel nods. “Is she?”

You nod.

“Alright. You wanna come sit with us?”

Your smirk answers his question. You take the beers, rings clinking off the glass. “Rum,” you call over your shoulder, wandering off, “I drink rum.”

Joel’s gaze lowers to the sway of your hips. “Rum it is,” he says, turning back to the bar.

“So…a cross-country bike trip, and you wound up in San Angelo?”

You’re on your fourth drink, the first one Joel hasn’t paid for – and he only allowed it because it’s a Diet Coke (and maybe you got to the bar first, held his wrists with one hand so he couldn’t stop you from slapping your own money down).

“Yep,” Joel replies, pinching the lime from his drink and dropping it onto a napkin. “Just passin’ through. Shower, sleep, then head on home.”

“Where’s that, then? Home?”

“Austin.”

“Austin,” you pout, “Nice.”

Joel smirks, licking citrus from his fingertips. “Is it?”

“I’ve never been to Austin,” Brooke chirps, fiddling with the umbrella in her piña colada. She twirls the paper canopy and glances up to Tommy.

He snaps out of his slack-jawed gaze when he realizes what she’s implying. “Oh – yeah, well…” his head wobbles as he stutters, “…you two ever come down that way, we’d be happy to, uh…show ya ‘round, huh, Joel?”

Joel doesn’t reply, staring back at his brother with the same amused expression you are.

You’ve been an inch apart all evening – doused in the dive bar darkness, the shrouded conversations and muffled TV static. The tip of your nose and curve of your shoulders lit only by the luminous signs dotting the walls.

Tommy and Brooke are already deep in conversation again about the best car Tommy ever owned. Joel watches as your eyes flit between the pair, entertained by the way they trip over each other’s sentences. Your cheeks lift when Brooke lays a hand over Tommy’s, and he squeezes her fingers back.

Where did you come from? Joel’s thinking. He takes a swig of his whiskey, feeling your eyes on him. As he lowers his glass, you lift yours. When he turns in his seat towards you, you’re already facing him, back against the wainscotting. He smiles, and so do you.

Every movement feels choreographed, some merry dance only you two know. You’re in your own little world.

Where did you come from, again, and where have you been my entire fucking life?

“So, what about you?” Joel asks instead, swallowing – all warm-bellied and brave. “You grow up here?”

You shake your head, taking another sip. “Nope. Just liked it enough to hang up my coat for a few months. I grew up in Phoenix.”

“You travel a lot?”

“I’ve been around. This is the longest I’ve stayed in one place since I was a kid.”

He thinks of home: of Austin and its silver-snake river, burnt-orange jerseys and the pleated bunting lining Sixth Street. He thinks of late nights on lawn chairs, nursing a beer and shooting the shit with his brother. Keeping their voices lower than the buzz of the cicadas, looking more at the dusky sky than at each other.

“You don’t ever get tired of it?” Joel asks. “Of moving around so much?”

You scoff, breath clouding the inside of your glass. “Three weeks on a motorcycle starting to get to you, huh?”

He breathes a laugh, loose again. The cicadas fade from his ears.

Your head tilts in a shrug. “I don’t know. I guess the universe keeps on surprising me.”

Joel doesn’t do this. At least, he hasn’t done this since he was a teenager – crate of beer under his arm and a chest full of courage. He’s long forgotten the feeling of heat blooming in his cheeks, the twitch of his heart anytime you look at him.

But fuck, if there isn’t something about you. Something in the way you move, the way you look at him. Something in the way you play with your straw, knocking ice cubes around and chewing on the plastic once you’ve drained the glass.

Something – though it’s a little too early and Joel’s a little too tipsy to tell just what. He tries to remember that he’s pragmatic. A grown-up. He chases away the monsters in his daughter’s –

“Oh, shit,” Joel says suddenly, scrambling to pull his cell from his pocket. It’s nine thirty. He was supposed to – “I forgot…”

A miserable tone from his Motorola cuts him short. The screen flashes an empty battery before fading to black. He jams a thumb into the keypad a couple more times, cursing at the winking symbol.

“Someone you gotta call?” you ask.

He meets your eye and winces. “Yeah, I’m…I said I’d call an hour ago.”

“You wanna use mine?” You twist around, fishing in your purse for your own. “We can go outside.”

“No, no, it’s…it’s alright, I’m sure she won’t mind, she –”

You shake your head. “Shut up. Come on, let’s go. I could use some fresh air, anyways. Be back in a minute,” you tell Brooke – who nods and turns straight back to Tommy.

Joel extends his hand to help you out of the booth, then follows you to the door. The cool air tugs every nerve in his body to attention, pin-sharp when he steps out of that lazy heat. Under the emerald glow of the Murphy’s sign, he settles his glass on a window ledge. “Next round’s on me, alright?”

You roll your eyes, pushing the phone against his chest. “Just call, Joel.”

One last apologetic glance, and then he’s dialing. He makes to wander along the curb, the tone already pulsing in his ear, when he notices –

“You ain’t brought a jacket?”

You’re sitting on the ledge, clutching your elbows. Swatting midges from the light you’re bathed in, charms on your bracelets jingling. “Hm?”

He tuts. “A jacket. Here.” He shrugs his own off, sitting it around your frame. It’s warm from the bar and from Joel’s body heat, and you sink into it – letting the dark leather drown you as you rummage through your purse again.

“Nice,” Joel’s eyes narrow, “Fresh air.”

You hum into your hands, flicking your lighter. The cigarette trembles when you murmur, “We all got our skeletons, I guess.”

He turns on his heel when a familiar voice picks up.

“Hey, hey, M–Yeah, sorry it’s late…Yeah, we got held up. My phone died, so I’m using…Is she still–? Can I–? Oh, Sarah. Hi, baby.”

His little girl begins chattering down the line immediately, telling Joel everything she’s been up to since they last spoke this morning.

“…and then, Emily thought I was one of the Armadillos – I don’t even know how, ‘cause they play in red, remember Dad? – but she did, and she slide tackled me so bad that Coach Thomson had to sub in Akari for me so I could ice my ankle. Grandma was kinda mad about it, but she took me to Burger King after to cheer me up, and…”

Joel wanders back and forth, smiling to himself and scuffing the heel of his boot along the concrete – barely able to squeeze more than two words between her chirping. It’s all, Yeah, baby? and Wow, sweetheart; all uhuhs and mhms until she finally quietens, excitement plateauing again.

“Alright, well. You know what time it is, right?”

“Yeah,” Sarah groans. She knows it all too well.

Bedtime.

“…But you didn’t call when you said you would, Daddy, and it’s Saturday, it’s –”

“I know, baby, I know. I’m sorry. Just…somethin’ came up. But I’ll see you tomorrow, right? We’ll be back before you know it.”

“Where’s Uncle Tommy? Can I talk to him?”

Joel turns to face the bar. “He, uh…I’m not with him right now, sweetheart. I’ll tell him you asked after him, though.”

Sarah concedes, and then begins asking questions Joel knows she’s only asking to stay on the line a little longer – to stay awake a little later. But still, he answers each one – humoring her and, at the same time, letting himself listen to her voice just a little more before he has to let her go.

He thinks of scooping her up in the morning; thinks of being slumped on the couch after dinner with her head on his stomach – fast asleep with whatever movie she chose droning on in the background.

Despite the thousands of miles and close to two weeks between them – she makes him feel closer to home. She always does.

When Sarah asks where he is, he glances your way. Clocks your flat expression, the half-burnt cigarette hanging from your fingers.

You flick ash to the ground. Eyes unreadable beneath low brows, a tiny crease between them that Joel’s only just seeing for the first time.

“Uh…” he clears his throat, “…just a little – a little north of you, baby. Home first thing, I promise.”

He tells her he loves her and she says it back, and he tells her to sleep well and she says that back, too. And then he’s hanging up – Alright, see you soon, bye, Sarah, bye-bye, byebyebye – and pressing his thumb into the red button.

He wanders back over to you – ears flat like a guilty dog, though he isn’t quite sure why. He mumbles a quiet thanks as he passes the phone back, then stuffs his hands in his pockets.

You lean back, ankles crossed, studying him. Swirling what’s left of the cigarette in your fingers – the smoke lifting like a winding snake to the dark sky. “So,” you pout, “What are you doing flirting with me, if you got a wife and kid back home?”

His jaw ticks, a hand coming up to scratch his beard. “I don’t have a wife,” he says.

You stare blankly, filter back against your lips. “Okay, then – a girlfriend. Does she know you’re out tonight with us?”

He shakes his head. “No wife, no girlfriend. I don’t have an anything.”

“But you have a kid.”

Joel nods once, tongue in his cheek. “Uhuh.”

And then the penny seems to drop. A small oh; your jaw slack and eyes wide. The cigarette smolders between your fingers. “Fuck,” you whisper, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“No, hey,” Joel steps closer, “You didn’t know. It’s alright.”

He straightens the jacket on your shoulders. When you finally look at each other again, you snort.

“Sorry,” you repeat, shaking your head. “Is she okay? Your daughter – is she…?”

“Sarah,” Joel says. “She’s…she’s fine. Thanks.”

You look down, stubbing your cigarette against the brick. Voice quiet, you ask, “Her mom’s not around anymore?”

Relief settles in his chest: you’re softening to him again.

Joel slots onto the ledge at your side. Shoulder to shoulder. He reaches behind and lifts his drink. “Not since she was a year old.”

Your mouth pulls in a wince. “Jesus. That’s rough.”

He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to – you’re not asking him to explain – and he doesn’t want to, either.

You’re not stupid – you’ve seen enough of the world to hear what he’s really saying. The darkest, dustiest corners of it – all the places no one ever wants to look.

You don’t seem disturbed, barely even moved by the reality that…well, shit happens. People leave, families break; a two-car driveway is suddenly taken up by just a pick-up truck and a little pink bike with tassels.

He figures you get it. You don’t need to know how can that be? – you just…know that it can.

“So, uh…” you look up at him again, “…my apartment is, like, five minutes away if you wanna…you know. You can charge your phone, can shower – if it’s bugging you that much.”

Joel’s eyebrows lift. “Oh, really?”

You simper, eyes thin. “Really.”

“Charge my phone ‘n shower?” He stands, palm flat against the wall above your head, and leans in. His face is inches from yours.

You look up, mirroring his expression. “Yes,” your voice curls in a half-truth, “What’s the big deal?”

“What a goddamn line,” Joel says, smirking. “How long you been sittin’ on that one for?”

His blood thrums faster, harder, louder in his veins when you stand up, hands on your hips.

“It’s not a line, I’m serious –”

“I didn’t take you as the type, baby, I really didn’t – but if that’s how you wanna play this, then –”

He feels you before he sees you moving, like he’s stood at that bar all over again. Your hands on his jaw, your chest pressed to his. Your lips – soft as satin, with a tinge of sweet rum and smoke – against his.

Joel barely misses a beat. He closes his eyes and lifts a hand to the back of your head, kissing you back. It’s dizzying, the taste and feel of you so close; the wet of your tongue on his. The little scratches of your nails in his beard, the moans caught in your throat.

Dizzying – and fucking perfect.

You break apart and lean in to each other, catching your breath. Joel’s hands slip beneath the heavy leather of his jacket onto your waist.

“Unless…” you whisper, pulling away from him, “…you don’t want to. In which case, I’ll just…” You twirl back towards the door, batting your eyelashes.

Joel smiles. He catches your wrist and reels you back into his body. “I want to,” he breathes, kissing you again. “I want to.”

“Let’s go.”

You make it to your apartment door, fumbling with your keys – and Joel’s hands are glued to your waist.

You miss the lock over and over as he kisses your neck, grazing the skin with his teeth. Anything to satiate the hunger quickly taking over, the tightening in his jeans.

He pulls you against his hips – rough denim grinding into the curve of your ass. He can smell your flowery perfume, a strange melding of peony and menthol sharp in his nostrils.

It’s the hungriest he’s ever felt, he thinks – a starved animal pinning his prey to her flecked apartment door. He pauses, bottom lip damp against your neck; breathing a liquor-laced laugh over your skin.

You jam the key into the lock. The door finally shunts open and you spill inside, dragging Joel with you.

Your place is dark. Angled strips of streetlight thrown high up the bare walls and across the ceiling, splintered by tilted shades. The spill of a blanket draped over an empty couch; a pair of sneakers left on the rug. Joel’s knees brush by a houseplant guarding the door – heavy leaves which pfft when they sway out of his way.

It’s half-decorated. Temporary. Caught somewhere between home and away. Little fragments pieced together into something the shape of home: a mosaic vase that scatters light across the surface of the coffee table; a beaded curtain pinned around the closet doorway.

Like you’re a little magpie, collecting trinkets of silver and gold until your nest feels like yours. Bags dropped long enough to keep a Monstera plant alive, not to put nails in the wall for the frames propped against the skirting board.

You shrug Joel’s jacket off, dropping it over the back of the couch. When you spin back around to him, he lifts your chin with two fingers and presses his lips to yours. You lead him down the hallway, tumbling into your room.

He follows you over to your bed, collapsing onto a tousled mess of sheets with his hips between yours. The hem of your dress rides up your thighs, bunching around your hips and revealing a flash of pink lace underneath.

The world around him seems to sober up for a second, sharpens into focus. It begins to seep in: the realization that he has you – some girl he met no more than two hours ago in a bar – pinned to your mattress. A slick gathering in your underwear and a weight building in his.

Right now, he should be sinking into squealing bedsprings in a Super 8. Bathing in the flicker of a television set twenty years too old. He should be showered and rested – ready to head home at sunrise, if not sooner.

But then something led him to you, and – well.

There’s no fucking helping him now, is there?

Joel’s fingers hook around your panties. He pulls down, leaving a trail of kisses along your bare leg, until that same pink lace is dripping from your ankle.

His eyes flash up to yours, love-drunk and sparkling. He pushes your knees apart, watching your velvet folds open for him, and – oh, he thinks, staring at the glistening arousal smeared around your cunt. Such a slick little mess for him already.

“Goddamn, darlin’,” he licks his lips, “She’s so pretty.”

You hum, hands lowering. Your fingers separate, spreading your pussy for him. Your middle finger swirls around your clit, dips along your seam. And the n, silky and shining, you lift your hand again and slip your fingers into your mouth.

“Tastes even better than she looks,” you murmur, dappling your fingertip along your bottom lip.

Joel growls. He pushes down on your thighs, ignoring your little yelp, and drags the tip of his tongue through your slit.

“Oh, shit,” you gasp, back arching. Your fingers knot in his hair, twisting and tightening. “Shitshitshit.”

“Mhm,” he hums against you, tongue pushing inside.

Fuck, you’re just so perfect: so soft and warm and fucking dripping for him. He laps at your sweet center, wet already spreading all over his mouth and beard.

A dampness blooms in his boxers. He’s throbbing, fucking aching the longer he goes untouched. He grinds against the mattress, denim rough against his solid erection.

He lifts his chin, panting – satisfied by the way you squirm under the weight of him. “You like that, huh?” he asks, a sodden kiss to your mound. “Fuckin’ love it.”

He spits a thick bead of saliva, watching it dribble down your folds to your ass. His tongue swipes it back up, circling your clit, all slippery and swollen.

“Fuck, Joel,” you moan, tugging on his hair. Your legs spasm, hips lifting.

He loves the sound of his name when you say it. Broken in two, a lilt to it as it rolls from your tongue and down his spine. Like it’s yours as much as it is his, now.

He sucks hard on your clit, his tongue flicking. And he can tell you’re close; can feel your hips starting to lose rhythm, see your back desperately arching higher and higher.

Joel groans, pushing up to hover over you. He cups between your legs, dabbing two thick fingers at your entrance, and pushes in.

Your pussy draws him in knuckle-deep. Your chest lifts, the loose neckline of your dress exposing more and more. You grab your breast, pinching your nipple – a roll of pebbled flesh between your fingertips.

He lowers his lips to your ear – watching as you toy with yourself. “Come on, baby,” he grits his teeth, “Give me one. Let me feel this pretty cunt.”

Your head rolls back into the pillow; a high sob as your orgasm crests. Clamping tight around him; a warm flood down his fingers.

Joel kisses you as you come. You look so pretty, he thinks, with ecstasy behind your eyes and his fingers between your legs.

Christ, he wants to be inside you so badly. Wants to feel your cunt do all this around his cock instead.

The blood rushes between his hips.

His fingers slip in and out, bringing you back around. Joel’s lips are on your neck, murmuring, “Good girl, that’s my girl,” as you resurface.

Your eyes open again – glossy, glazed with the aftershock of your high. “Fuck,” you breathe, playing with the hem of his shirt.

He pulls his fingers out and sucks them clean. Whips the tee over his head in one motion; another kiss tucked under your chin as you peel your dress from your body. He tosses it to the floor.

Still dazed, your body still trembling, you ask, “Do you have a condom?” All dreamy and distant, your hands trailing along his belt.

Joel pauses. Tilts his head, frowning. “I’m on a road trip with my brother, baby – the hell would I bring condoms for?”

You roll your eyes, sighing. It’s the cutest thing Joel thinks he’s ever seen. You thread the belt through the loops of his jeans. “In case you meet a really cool girl at a bar and wanna take her home, maybe?”

He lifts his eyebrows, impressed. He slips his salty tongue over yours again.

You moan at the taste. “It’s just I’m…I’m all out.”

His belt drops to the floor; buckle clinking against hardwood.

“Well, shit,” Joel whispers.

It’s not exactly a scenario he predicted, setting off from Austin. Meeting you wasn’t on the bucket list for the trip. It’s another three, four, probably five things to add to the list of shit he doesn’t do, shouldn’t do, wouldn’t fucking do if it hadn’t been for you.

No, Joel thinks, groaning as you palm the solid shape of him – he didn’t bring a goddamn condom. Jesus, the most he has in his pockets right now is fifteen bucks and a stick of gum.

You unzip his pants, shrugging the denim loose. “We can just do it…without,” you offer.

Joel stares down at you. “You sure?”

You nod, biting your lip. “Just pull out, right?”

“Just pull out…” he echoes. Your hands are cold on his heated skin, but he’s not about to fucking stop you.

You tug his underwear down with his jeans, following the darkening hair from his navel down. Another quiet pull out passes your lips – your voice dissolving when you spot the thick base of his dick.

Joel’s shaft springs free, heavy against the inside of his thigh.

“Holy shit.” You push yourself up on your elbows, eyes flooding black.

His tongue runs along the bottom of his teeth. He thrusts forward into your hand, a glassy drop of precome dribbling from his slit.

Your thumb swipes across his flushed tip, fingers wrapping around his width. You roll his balls in your other palm, massaging and squeezing just the right amount.

“Easy, easy,” Joel whispers. Too much, too soon. He can’t come yet, not until he feels your fluttering cunt around his cock.

Instead, you reach up – snaking an arm around his neck. You pull him back down, his naked body flush against yours, and hike a knee over his hip.

He grinds into you, his cock nudging between your legs. They fall apart for him – pliant and keen, like petals unfolding. He covers himself in your slick, his tip catching below your clit.

“Pl-ease,” you whine, scratching at his shoulders.

Joel nips at your damp neck. “Please, what?” he taunts.

Your breath is hot against his cheek – a stifling request which curls up in the shell of his ear. “F-fuck me.”

And his hips roll into yours.

“Jesus f…” your face buries into his chest, “…you’re…you’re so fucking big, Joel, I can’t –”

He nudges between your walls, groaning into your skin. You’re even tighter around his cock, even cozier. “I know,” he pants, “I know. Take it, baby, know you can take it.”

You stretch around him, opening up the deeper he pushes. “Fuckfuckfuck,” you pant, the thick hair at his base finally brushing against your clit. “Fuck, Joel.”

“Look at me,” he taps your jaw, “Hey. Look at me. Breathe.”

You exhale, hot and shaky across his lips.

“Good, that’s good.” Joel nods. He holds you by the waist, lets you adjust to his size.

He pulls back, your cunt clamping around him. Halfway out, and then in again. Feeling you open up, inch by inch, until he builds a steady rhythm.

“Jesus, baby, she’s so…” he moans, “…she’s so goddamn tight.”

You drape an arm over his shoulders, a hissing pain where your nails dig into his skin. Yelping each time he bottoms out, your leaking cunt wrapped snug around him. “So – goddamn – big,” you whine, a ruined smile on your lips.

He slams his body into yours again, watching the way your tits bounce. Nipples hard, skin tacky and shining with sweat. Your pussy pinches, and he starts to unravel.

Fuck the road trip, Joel thinks, fuck all of it. This is where he should be: in the middle of your bed, burrowed deep between your legs. This is the only place he wants to fucking be, right now.

So he fucks you harder; the headboard hammering against the wall. A fistful of the pillow, his knuckles whitening. He guides his cock when he slips out – a filthy sound as your clutch sucks him back in.

“Fuck,” he growls, gripping your hips so hard he worries he might bruise you. His thrusts become sloppy – quick and desperate.

“So close,” you gasp. You’re squeezing him so tight that he sees stars. “I’m gonna – I’m…”

Perfect, Joel thinks, watching you bloom. You’re so fucking perfect.

He coaxes you through it. Slows enough to feel you come around his cock, your warmth as it gushes all over him. “That’s it, baby, I got you. Shit, you’re gonna make me come.”

He pulls out just in time to coat your stomach; a throaty groan as he comes. He pumps his shaft, covering from your sternum to the plush of your tummy. It dribbles down your waist, spurts between your breasts.

He collapses over you, pressing his forehead to yours. His dick, soaked and softening, smears the ejaculate across your skin.

You giggle, leaving sticky kisses along his beard.

“You okay?” he asks, breathless.

You nod, and his tongue dabs at the inside of your lips. You taste like sex and sweat – sweet and salt.

Joel shifts to the edge of the bed. He feels you follow, your lips featherlight on the curve of his shoulder.

You make to stand – going to clean yourself up, he reckons, your tummy dripping with his semen – and he locks a hand around your bare thigh.

“Stay,” he says, voice low and rough – sex still smoldering. “Let me get you a towel.”

You smile, resting your chin on his shoulder. Your fingers link around the other side of his waist. “I’ll get it. Just relax.”

And for a minute or two, you stay like that. Hooked onto one another, tired eyes closing over, breathing in rhythm. Your cheek on his shoulder, your knee brushing against his tummy.

It’s simple; quiet and still. Joel feels like half a person – the other half tracing her chipped nails along his bare thigh. Eyelashes fluttering, teeth holding back a grin that she thinks might give her away.

Eventually, you move. Shimmy yourself down the mattress, swipe a crinkled tee from the ottoman – and slink off to the bathroom.

Joel lies back against the headboard, body sticky hot. He watches the shadow of your figure stretch across the open door. His eyes drift upwards to the looping ceiling fan – only half as dizzying as the sound of your humming in the next room.

And just when he starts to think he might be fucking missing you, you reappear in the doorway. Leant against the frame, some worn band tee hanging from your shoulders. Arms crossed; smiling back at him.

A rush of words floods to the tip of his tongue. You look beautiful. Your makeup’s smudged, chains of your necklace twisted; your shirt is frayed and splotched with faded stains – and you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

He holds his arms out and you prance over.

You crawl over his figure, kissing your way up to his lips, and then turn in his lap. Cradled against his broad chest, your head nuzzling into the dark threads of hair between his pecs. You clasp one of his hands in two of yours.

“Offer’s still there for a shower, if you want it,” you whisper, kissing the pads of his fingers.

Joel tilts his head, mumbling against your temple, “Will you be in there with me?”

You answer something shaped like a tease, just as sharp with wit – but he’s too busy watching your nails trace his open palm. Too distracted by the sweet scent of your skin: a fresh burst of fruit, singed with the edge of tobacco.

“What do you do for work?” you ask.

He makes some sort of sleepy sound – a grunt, a hm? into your skull. “Oh, uh – I’m a contractor,” he says.

Your chin lifts. “That why your palms are all…?” Your thumb strokes light as lace against his worn skin.

“Probably,” Joel admits. He draws shapes on your thigh with his free hand.

“Do you sand the wood with your bare hands, or somethin’?”

Joel scoffs. “Alright, alright. You liked my hands plenty, twenty minutes ago.”

Your cheeks lift, a low hum caught in your throat. You angle your head to let his lips trail along your shoulder, pressing into the hinge of your jaw. A dark nail following the landscape of Joel’s skin – each score and divot, the callused pads at the bottom of each finger.

“You have sorta…earth hands, I think.”

It sits in the air for a few seconds before Joel turns to you. “What?”

“Earth hands. Or, well – I guess they could be water, if you look at ‘em this way.” You open up his hand, fingers stretched. “I don’t really know. I’m still learning.”

He looks down at you. Feels the now-steady pulse of your heart on his sternum. “Learnin’…hands?”

You snort. “Palm reading, Joel.”

His brows draw tight. He licks the inside of his whiskey-stained cheek. “You’re into all that hippie sh…stuff?”

You knock your knuckles against his chest, still staring at his hands. The hills and their valleys, the ravine-like lines; the worn skin and hatch marks.

“Let’s see…Your heart line,” you whisper – more to yourself than Joel, but he’s listening all the same. “It’s pretty deep, which means the relationships you’ve had have been…important. But it’s kinda…it tails off right here, see? It’s broken. So…I guess they didn’t end too good.”

Joel raises an eyebrow – playful, encouraging your timid smile. Keep figuring me out, he thinks, stoking the curious flame behind your eyes. “Alright,” he says, “Now tell me something you didn’t already know about me.”

You gawk, holding his wrist up. “You don’t see that? The way it breaks up? I’m not bullshitting you, Joel, it’s –”

“Naw, I see it,” he nods, squinting a little at his palm, “Just – tell me more. What’s all these other lines mean?”

“Well,” you adjust between his hips, “you got your life line right here. Short, which means –”

“Don’t tell me that part.”

“No,” you roll your eyes, “It just means you’re independent. You never needed much from anyone. And it runs past this mount – these are called mounts – right here. Venus: all to do with love and sexuality.”

Joel holds your open palm next to his, comparing them. He takes less than a second’s look, lines his lips to your ear and says, “Seem like a pretty good match to me.”

You wriggle when he tickles your ribcage, trying to twist out of his grasp. You’re laughing again – the same laugh he’s been hearing all damn night. The same giggle that’s had his stomach somersaulting since he first heard it.

The room seems to light with it, this glow he feels from you – as if you’re the sun. Spent and still half-drunk; lazing with a stranger in the middle of her bed. Tracing the lines and scars on his palm, telling him how logical and grounded he’s supposed to be.

As if the world orbits around you – everything you touch turning to molten gold. And for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, Joel looks at you and wonders: Where the hell did you come from?

You hold your hand against his, folding your fingers perfectly together. The evidence of your night flaking from Joel’s knuckles; sweat still simmering on the nape of his neck.

He hasn’t done this for years. Hasn’t felt this gentle aftermath. It’s usually a rush, a hastened zip and clink of his pants. An awkward dance, plucking clothes from the bedroom floor and pacing back to his truck.

It’s never like this. Talking and laughing, holding and kissing. Questions about his parents and yours; his biggest dream as a kid, or the time you broke your arm falling out of a tree.

He tells you stories about growing up with Tommy; tells you Sarah’s favorite flavor of cake. He tells you about the time they tried to make it for a school bake sale, forgot to turn the oven off, and almost burned the damn kitchen down.

You snicker and tell him that never would’ve happened if you were there.

Yeah, well, Joel smiles, I wish you were.

He notices you’re drifting off, despite your slurred protests and your weak grip on his wrist. He pulls you under the covers, curving his body around yours, praying that the quickening drum of his heartbeat won’t wake you.

His nose nuzzles into the curve of your skull, his hands link in front of your tummy. And he wonders whether his body was made with yours in mind.

He glances out at the sky – light starting to bleed from the horizon – and wills the turn of the sun to slow. Only a little; just let him stay here a little while longer.

Just a little while.

Dawn forces her way in eventually – more unwelcome than ever before.

There’s a throb between his temples which swells to life when the light floods past his pupils. “Jesus Christ,” he grumbles, face turning back into the pillow. He gives you a gentle squeeze and then pushes up from the mattress.

You roll to the middle of the bed, still sound asleep. The sun spills golden all over the valleys and crests of your body. The bedsheets carve pathways up to your hips, dipping at your waist.

Last night, there was something so mystical about you – so otherworldly. Joel felt himself drawn towards you like a compass needle shooting north, the second he felt your weight crash against his spine.

A figure behind a cloud of smoke, like the mountaintops disappearing into a thick mist. And now, blood drained of alcohol, you’re just you.

Your shirt is twisted around your shoulders. Your lips puffy, mumbling to yourself in your doze. Makeup smudged like chalk under your eyes, and still – just as beautiful. Just as radiant as you were ten hours ago.

Joel rubs his eyes, sitting on the edge of the bed. He blinks down at his bare feet, the morning sharpening into focus. As he lifts his phone from the nightstand, the cable drops – hitting the wooden floor with a snap.

He pauses, shoulders hunched. Hears you stir over his shoulder, and turns around.

The earth of your body shifts beneath cotton hills, clouds of sleep clearing from behind your eyes. “Hey,” you whisper, voice pretty and broken.

A little bird in the palm of his hand – that magpie curled up in her nest of gems and trinkets.

“Hey.” He leans down and kisses your cheek. “Sorry, darlin’, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

You wrap your arms around his wrist, tugging. “Are…are you…leaving?”

Joel feels a pang in his chest, and he doesn’t know why. He takes a deep breath. Your scent fills his lungs and steadies his heart. “I…” he sniffs, “…I gotta go home, baby.”

You give a slow and heavy nod. “S-Sarah…”

He strokes your head with his thumb. “Yeah. Shh, go back to sleep. It’s still early.”

He glances at his phone – it’s just after six. He knows Tommy will be waiting for him, parked outside the Super 8 and wondering where the hell Joel is. He knows Sarah will be, too – sat by the living room window, listening for the rumble of their bikes.

And still, he thinks – How do I fucking leave you? Leave this?

He shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought. He has a kid waiting for him back home; soccer practice, packed lunches, homework and bedtime stories. He has work to do, bills to pay, a roof to keep over their heads. It’s all waiting in Austin, two hundred miles away.

As though you can see the question flipping in his mind, you pull him closer. A weak finger in the palm of his hand, drawing circles. Your bleary gaze meets his, and you whisper, “In the next life.”

Joel smiles. Twelve hours ago, he’d have laughed at the idea of it. Now, he’s not so sure. He kisses your knuckles, muttering, “Promise.”

Another wave of sleep washes over you, and you’re gone again.

Joel pushes himself from the bed, reaching for his clothes. His back twinges as he stretches, pulling his T-shirt over his shoulders. He steps into his jeans; pinches his belt between two fingers and lifts it from the floor.

He leans over and tilts your shades the opposite way, dulling your bedroom. He unplugs the charger, neatly winds the cord, and sits it on your nightstand. He fixes his side of the sheets: folds them over the mattress, tucks them in at your back.

With a deep breath, he makes for the door.

His jaw turns, eyes still low. Your dress is in a heap at the foot of the bed; a tube of lip gloss lying next to it. He looks up, following the landscape of sheets – the slope from your ankle to your hip. Your hunched shoulders, your cheek smushed into the pillow.

If he looks too long, he’ll never leave.

The image burns golden into his eyes. He hopes for half a heartbeat that you’ll wake again and pull him back into bed. Kiss him all over, whisper something sharp and sweet in his ear. Touch him and graze him and wrap yourself around him – anchoring him right here and now.

But you don’t.

And Joel slips out of the room.

Jackson stirs to life over his shoulder.

A white lump in the snow-covered valley, the settlement seems so far away now. Tommy sets off up ahead, leading the way to the outpost. The blizzard is picking up – it almost swallows the silhouette of him whole.

Joel had tried to warn him: the weather would be too bad to see five feet in front of them, never mind any infected. But Tommy argued with the same determination that dragged the pair of them into that dive bar thirty years ago, and Joel didn’t have half the energy nor the will to argue back.

He’s thinking about you. He always is.

Your searing gaze over the rim of your glass; the weight of you against his chest. The tickling of your nail on his palm, severing each line and changing him forever. You and your palm lines.

You were just learning to read them. Joel didn’t know a thing about any of it, and he told you so. You took his hand in yours and said, Here. Let me see.

He runs a thumb down his fate line, swaying in time with his horse. And he shakes his head with a little smile – he still remembers which one is fate and which is heart.

He still remembers all of it. He has earth hands. All salt and soil and solid as stone. His earth hands have gotten him this far, right? Twenty-five years and he’s still here. Gray and grown; stiff joints and sewn-up scars.

His head line has channeled more strangers’ blood than Joel can count. Mounts that’ve stopped breath in the throat of any man who crossed him. He doesn’t think you’d recognize his hands anymore, if your fingertips traced over them again. Broken and bruised and bloody.

And he doesn’t think he’d want you to – doesn’t want you to meet the shadow of the man you knew back then. He’d prefer you remember that same brown-eyed, soft-touched stranger with enough charm and naivety to survive anything. No need for bone-breaking fists or bloodstained hands.

Where are you, he wonders?

The answer knots deep in his stomach: the same old rope twisting into the same old shape. A fist of anger, of guilt. Some terrible cocktail of both, spilling poison through his veins.

He’s terrified to wonder what might’ve happened if he had ever made it back there. What he might’ve found in your apartment – what he might not.

Where would you have gone, that day? Would you have fled, or would you have stayed?

You were smart, he knows that much. He saw the cogs of your mind turning right in front of him, standing opposite each other in that bar. Barely thirty seconds in and he could’ve sworn you had him all figured out.

But – oh, Jesus, you were kind. Open and willing to help a stranger with a dead phone and a tired smile. Would that kindness still glow as bright against the flicker of a world on fire?

A lone hawk swoops down before him, shooting straight between the pines. Joel slips his glove back over his freezing hand.

He thinks about you every day. Every fucking day, and it never eases. Never loosens. It keeps him up some nights – the truth he’s too afraid to look square in the face.

You live now in the back of his mind like a little ghost. His little ghost – still floating around that dusty city; the warm light of life and innocence still bright in your eyes.

Tommy glances over his shoulder. He gestures ahead as if to say, Would you take a look at this goddamn storm?

And Yeah, Joel thinks, I’m lookin’, brother.

All he wants is to go home. Jackson, Austin, the bedroom of your apartment in San Angelo. Just let me go back.

He blinks, and the snow melts to cracked asphalt under a lilac sunset. Tommy’s holding handlebars instead of reins. The horses’ hot puffs of breath darken to clouds of smoke, choking from the exhaust pipes of the Harleys.

You’re somewhere on the other side of town, waiting for him in the faint glow of a jukebox. Sipping what’s left of your rum and Coke, fishing a twenty from your purse for the next round.

Just let me go back home.

He tugs on his horse’s reins and pulls off after his brother.

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #the last of us #tlou #tlou fic #joel miller smut #joel miller one shot #san angelo

1K notes · View notes

lokisgoodgirl · 8 months

Text

A Lot of Boning [Asgard!Loki Oneshot]

A Link to My Masterlist is HERE Summary: Asgard!Loki loses bet and must wear a corset on a night out. Loki is very pleased about this. (w/c 2.5k) Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI. Loki/corsets. Smuttish. Language. Heavy petting. Spoiled, flirty prince behaviour. Stupid stuff. Ridiculous HC lore. Asgardian crones. A/N: That tik tok wouldn't leave my brain. Sorry folks.

“A-HA, brother...you have been bested most thoroughly!” Thor’s voice boomed around the pillars, spilling over the balcony. Loki raised an eyebrow, stiffening and clenching his fists while a smile threatened to betray him.

“Indeed, brother” he purred bitterly, making sure he sounded surprised. "How awful."

In the training courtyard below, Sif held Volstagg pinned to the ground, her sword inescapably pointed to his throat. “It seems I underestimated her.” “And what of the bet, then?” Fandral coo-d, his face emerging between the brothers shoulders. Loki shot a questioning glance at the thin fingers now curled around his triceps, before looking to their owner. “I shall adhere to the stakes agreed. Obviously.”

Thor clapped Fandral on the back, chuckling loudly and shaking his head.

“Brother no one expects you to parade the Asgardian night taverns wearing a corset. Norns, Fandral was only joking. Weren’t you, Fandral?” Fandral smirked, reaching for his goblet. He tipped it briefly towards them both, before sipping.

Loki studied the man’s face, watching a tinge of pink creeping up his neck. He tilted his head.

“I very much think he was not joking, brother” Loki said calmly, seeing Thor’s jaw drop out the corner of his eye. “But never let it be said that a son of Odin reneges on his wagers.” “Loki you can’t be ser-” Loki held up a hand, eyes closed towards his brother’s protestations. “But your reputation...the scrolls of gossip which will circulate. Father." Thor's eyes widened. "Brother I implore yo-” “Enough,” Loki murmured malevolently, shooting Thor a silencing stare. The blonde’s lips hardened in a thin line, as the god of mischief shook dark hair back from his shoulders.

“The usual place?” he drawled, pushing himself away from the balustrade. Thor nodded reluctantly.

“Very well,” said Loki, with a feigned sigh of lament.

When he arrived to his chambers, the staff were dismissed with a wave of his hand.

All save one.

“Wait here,” he soothed as he passed her, trailing a knuckle down her bare bicep. Every goosebump he left in his wake was a promise. “I will have need of you.”

He smirked as she smoothed the front of her silken apron. Loki licked his lips at the memory of the taste of what lay beneath those skirts, already soaking for him he’d wager. That is a bet I wouldn’t intentionally lose, he mused as he threw open the ornate doors to his garment-room. Arms spread wide, he basked in the pungent smell of leather which overcame him. It was warm, and rich. Decadent, just like that chambermaid’s sweet little quim.

He clasped his hands ceremonially behind his back, pacing slowly forward. Loki enjoyed every faint rustle of his leather trousers, each measure thump of his boot on polished marble. The sound of his velvet-gloved fingers brushing together was like the flurry of a lovers skin. All these things and more, he always noticed in the moments before he disrobed. He could feel himself hardening already at the prospect of what was to come. The god smoothed his hair behind his ears and stretched in front of him, lacing his fingers. His knuckles cracked. He stretched his neck to one side, then the other; and with a parting of his digits – a secret compartment blossomed into view.

This was his very favourite selection of garments, each handmade by only the finest knobbled fingers among the Asgardian Crones.

Although responsible for all the royal families more intricate ceremonial costumery....these...they made only for him. For his cabinet of debauchery. And they were well rewarded.

He trailed the pads of his fingertips across displayed fabrics as he moved. Robes of chiffon and silk and leather which cut and hung to his body like honey, so much so that the very sight of his immortal frame wrapped in their embrace had been known to make his lover climax. Into every sinful negligee, every blindfold, every erotic ensemble, every fluttering tail in a well-worn crop; the Asgardian Crones had worked their spells.

‘Are you certain, my Prince,’ one had crooned doubtfully, craning closer to his sketch. Her fingers shook as she did so, tracing the lines of his elaborate request.

“Quite,” Loki had replied with the air of one who did not expect to be asked twice. She observed him craftily, creased skin trembling as one decrepit eyebrow rose. She’d always been a flirt.

“I’m not sure there’s time – tis a lot of boning, Prince Loki-” she hummed, coy undertones fresh even in the creak of her voice. He waved his hand dismissively with a sultry chuckle.

“The tales you could tell about boning, eyh Lagartha?” he purred wickedly. “I’ve heard the songs.” Lagertha’s wrinkled skin had flushed a pale pink as he’d leant across the large cutting table, ensuring to spread his fingers against the wood, making the veins she enjoyed in his hands flex.

She would be able to see down the loose tie of his tunic neckline, to the shifting ropes of muscle beneath. To his naval, most likely. The scent of him, the warmth, the pure essence of masculine, sexual power that flowed from his skin to her nostrils. He watched her cloudy pupils dilate.

A wolfish grin had spread his lips. “Or if you prefer...I could tell you some of mine” he’d winked.

The crone cleared her throat suddenly, hacking. “Are you alright, darling?” the Prince said with excruciating sensuality.

Lagertha hacked louder.

Two new crones had rounded the corner at an alarmingly slow pace. Loki rolled his eyes as they shuffled towards their ailing sister. Loki returned to a standing position. “I shall return next solstice to collect it,” Loki had said pointedly to Lagertha, making a show of stretching out each leather glove before pulling it on. He arched a brow.

Lagertha, close to expiration in her chair, nodded.

The other weavers shot him dirty looks as they began a lacklustre, synchronised fan of her face.

Loki had almost skipped back to his chambers that day. And now, as he rested his thumb beneath his chin in wonder at the finished article, he felt the same elation. He had waited for the perfect debut for this most treasured piece. Oh, how he had waited.

And finally, here it was.

Fandral thought to cast tarnish on his masculinity? On his virility? On his very power and reputation in this realm? Well, Loki thought with a smile as his eyes tracked every immaculate detail of the corset; he thinks wrong. His brother might be excused for being blinded to Loki’s ability to outplay any trickster-like attempts, but Fandral? Loki had given him far too much credit in the past, clearly.

To save time, Loki peeled the clothes from his body with magic. New garments unfurled around his limbs, having been drawn from the everyday closets outside. Tight dark chinos, and a thick cotton shirt; such a depth of green it was almost obsidian.

The thrill of unfamiliar Midgardian clothes on his body sent a shiver of anticipation up Loki’s spine. They were so light. Almost like being naked. If not for the tightness. His cock ached, heavy desire throbbing with renewed vigour. The demon thickened against his leg, each wince from the cotton pants making him hiss as he screwed his eyes shut in pleasure.

Migardians and their fascination with tightness, he mulled as he spun towards the flickering doorway.

“Girl?” he called expectantly. There was a pause, before the chambermaid’s brisk footsteps sounded, stopping abruptly in front of the door to the concealed portion of Loki’s closet. Her eyes were wide in wonder, gazing around until they stopped at his feet. She worked her way up his statuesque body, legs wide and triangular; arms crossed and straining against the shirt. “My P-prince,” she stammered, covering her eyes. Loki chuckled. “Come now, you don’t look this bashful when I come to you with sword in hand,” he teased as he straightened his back. She lowered her hands, revealing only her eyes. They shone. I really should move these ‘suits’ to the cabinet of debauchery, he pondered; watching the chambermaid squirm.

He suddenly wondered how she would fare on her knees, fumbling with the other-wordly zipper, biting her lip as she salivated impatiently for his cock. No time, he chided as he raised a hand, beckoning.

“I require your assistance with this,” he gestured to the side.

He didn’t. Not truly. But Loki Odinson knew how to wring every last screeching sliver of drama from a production. And after the time he had waited for this debut, he would make it drip until its last drop.

Her eyes grew wider. “Loki...” she murmured in awe, protocols forgotten.

The corset handcrafted by his loyal crones hung perfectly lit, showcased on the wall. Exquisite boning curved the sides, cutting inward at the perfect dimensions to cinch the sluttish nips of his taut waist.

The bodice was boned to perfection, thick strips of Nilfheimian narwal tusk holding shape. Golden flashes glinted at the shoulders, down the deep V of the neckline. His richest shade of royal green adorned the bodice, silken threads stitched so close it slid beneath the fingertips like polished glass.

“For what do you require my assistance, my Lord?” she murmured, letting her eyes fall wantonly to his curled lips. Loki slipped the corset from its display, swirling it elegantly over his arms and slotting it in place, much like a reverse waistcoat. “For this,” he said, spinning slowly on his heels. He raised his arms, raking his hair into a messy bun; fingers fastened to his scalp, exposing his neck.

The back of the corset splayed open. A long thread of ebony silk unfurled in Loki’s hand. One end of the ribbon poised upward from his palm like a snake, head pointed to the maid. It lunged towards her before stopping abruptly.

“Take it,” Loki smouldered, “it won’t bite.” The chambermaid’s trembling hands diligently wove the silk through the intricate holes of the corset, each pull of the length together making her groan gently against his back in spite of herself. She was taking her time, wondering at the creases of shirt beneath the boning. Wondering at him.

Loki’s eyes closed, the press of her fingertips between his shoulder-blades making fucking her over the nearest chaise greatly tempting. She pulled the binds tighter, looping strands with a final flourish. Loki hummed quietly, clenching. “I hope this is acceptable, my Prince” she murmured, trailing her fingers wilfully down the criss-cross of ribbon. Her breasts pushed flush to his spine, her words low and sultry. “I have not laced a corset since my lady Frigga’s.” “Do not speak of my mother,” Loki moaned quietly as he guided her hand to the crook of his thigh. His cock met her palm, the resulting squeeze rewarded with a buck of his hips. He spun towards her and guided her to the wall.

Her lungs emptied as he pressed to her, feeling her digits tugging gently at her handiwork. Loki could feel the boning press against her curves, the tight outline of his glamorous armour making her struggle for breath. His lips traced hers with the lightest of touches, her hot breath filling his throat. She thrust against the thigh pressed between her legs, gasping like a virgin as he nudged upwards to her sex.

“Pretty thing,” he whispered warm and wet into her ear. She whined, bucking against him. Loki released a dark chuckle. “Be here to undress me on my return.”

In Asgard’s busiest tavern, the evening’s festivities were in full swing. Thor stared into his tankard, watching thick bubbles pop lazily on the surface.

“Oh Fandral, what have we done?” he lamented, sliding a meaty palm further up his cheek. “He will be here at any moment. Reputation? Ruined.” Fandral scoffed, glancing at the door for the third time in as many minutes. “Do you think he’ll wear a garter?” announced Sif, swinging a leg over the bench with two large tankards in each fist. Volstagg spat ale in a cloud of laughter. "I bet he wears a garter," Sif continued seriously. "I hereby claim first attempt to rip it off with my teeth." "No fair," Fandral whined. “-Tis no matter of mirth,” Thor snapped loudly. Plates on the table rattled. Fandral patted his hand with a sigh. “Your brother knows us well enough. He is Asgard’s biggest tease. He will not wear ladies underthings - not in public anyway..." he paused, momentarily taken away. " I am most sure of it," he continued breezily. "Fragile masculinity, most likely.” But as he spoke, his face simmered with excitement.

Sif narrowed her eyes at him warily, realising in tandem with the others that the raucous tavern had grown quiet. The four of them spun to face the door, where a hundred other patrons also stared, transfixed.

“Brother?” Thor murmured disbelieving. But there, in all his splendour, was Loki.

The figure cut against the star-littered sky, the outline of his body as crisp and clear as carved marble. Thick curls spilled over his shoulders, fluttering in the nights chill. Long limbs strode rakishly over the paved floor, the click of his heels making onlookers jump as their arousal fizzed like malevolent static.

His cheekbones slashed, the determined set of his smoulder making him look like a king. A demon of the night.

Simply the sight of him moving across the floor made the captive audience hold its breath. The tight grip of the unfamiliar style of shirt to his muscles, the mercilessly cinched nip of his waist which exploded the breadth of his shoulders. A golden brooch in the crest of a snake was pinned to the centre of his chest, complimenting the lavish glint of the corset piping. The god of mischief's ordained colours were saturated by the auburn glow of candlelight. Loki smiled wickedly, winking at an unsuspecting woman grasping feverishly at her friend’s shoulder. He stood at the end of the table, spreading his arms wide before clasping them behind his back. “Well?” he asked smugly, giving them a slow spin. There were a series of thumps as members of the Asgardian public hit the floor. “You know midgardian garments are frowned upon,” Thor grumbled, casting glances over his shoulder. Loki rolled his eyes. “It’s about the ensemble, brother” he snipped. “Although I wouldn’t expect you to understand that.”

Fandral cleared his throat, standing and raising his cup towards the ceiling. “Prince Loki you look-”

“-Ravishing,” Loki drawled. “I know.” He cast a scathing glance down Fandral’s body, making his way leisurely back to his face. “Smarts, doesn’t it? To see me the victorious antithesis of your childish plot to humiliate me.” Sif snorted. “He just wanted to see you in a corset” she remarked, pushing her tankard from one hand to the other. Loki’s lips pursed, folding his arms as he spoke. “The evident stirring in his breeches betrays that much.” Fandral sat down immediately to the sound of raucous laughter round the table.

A crowd had begun to gather at a respectful distance around the dark prince, dozens of eyes combing over every deliciously wrapped inch of him. The air was bubbling with sexual energy. Hair on Loki’s arms bristled. He was just about to bestow greetings upon his inflamed public when Thor tugged his shirt sleeve.

“Brother, the gossip-scrolls will still remark on this…”

Loki scoffed, rolling his eyes. “What care have I? I look incredible brother, as you well know. Desist with your petulant jealousy.” He straightened, enjoying the wistful longing in Thor’s gaze as it swung from Loki’s cinched trunk trussed in boning to the feral, shifting stares of his lustful devotees. And tonight, that was everyone it seemed.

Loki paced around the table, settling his hands on his wary brother's shoulders. “It was supposed to be funny” Thor grumbled, shaking his head while Fandral squirmed beside him. Loki’s mouth twitched in a knowing smile as he watched the man run his palms down his thighs repeatedly. Trying to distract himself. He lowered himself, hovering between Thor and his misguided best friend.

“The wager did not include that we were to wear lace and brassiere and frill and garter. Although I do have those effects in my personal collection, too.”

He winked at Fandral, who flushed crimson.

The god of thunder folded his arms. “It’s just very...you” he whined. The envy, Loki mused, is palpable. His fingers curled around Fandral’s bicep, giving him a knowing squeeze. “Exactly, brother” Loki whispered with finality in his siblings ear. The triumphant god straightened before raising his arms. Dying embers nestling in the tavern fireplaces roared to life at the command. Tonight, he was a king. And the squeals of the crowd grew to a roar.

Tags (contd in comments x) @lokischambermaid @meowmeow-motherfucker @gigglingtiggerv2 @imalovernotahater @avengersalways @littledark11 @lokikissesmyforehead @simplyholl @fictive-sl0th @thedistractedagglomeration @loopsisloops @glitchquake @holdmytesseract @jaidenhawke @silverfire475 @morriggannlostinfandoms @marygoddessofmischief @sebstanwhore @xorpsbane @peacefulpianist @yelkmelk @wheredafandomat @mistress-ofmagic @acidcasualties @ozymdias @your-taste-on-my-lips @lokidokieokie @kikster606 @peachyjinx @tbhiddlestan83 @trickster-maiden @skymoonandstardust @justjoanne242 @thenotoriouserg @ladyofthestayingpower @wolfmoonmusic @brittbax @smolvenger @liminalpebble @joyful-enchantress @kaleenjackson @fictional-hooman @kellatron55 @fandxmslxt69 @icytrickster17 @multifandom-worlds @morgan-wolf @muddyorbs @buttercupcookies-blog @vanilla-daydreaming

#loki x reader #loki smut #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki x reader smut #loki odinson smut #loki laufeyson smut #loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki imagine #loki marvel #loki gif #loki x female reader #loki of asgard #lokismut #corset! Loki #loki

634 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 5 months

Text

Imagine one day a new social trend starts spreading. It’s something unbelievably dumb. Not harmful per de, but truly silly to believe. Let’s say, I dunno, healing crystals start going mainstream. Everybody’s talking about their crystals. It becomes impolite to criticize people who believe in healing crystals. They become a big part of people’s personalities, and people on TV start talking about them, and one day years down the line politicians are debating funding for crystal-based medicine. And through it all you are sitting there going, what the fuck is happening. I thought we were all on the same page on this. You want to get along and be friendly and open minded but you cannot pretend to believe in healing crystals, this is nonsense, and when the topic comes up you refuse to lie about it. This eventually starts to have social consequences—they’re that popular!—but what can you do? You cannot pretend a lump of quartz can cure the flu or whatever. It’s just all so unbearably embarrassing.

I think what the centrist/liberal/center-left reactionary turn driven by culture war stuff feels like. And I think the key emotion is probably cringe. Not hate, not fear, though those emotions may reinforce the turn. I think in a lot of cases people who imagine themselves pretty open minded and flexible have as part of their worldview something they thought was bedrock social consensus—on the level of “healing crystals are silly woo”—so bedrock maybe that it didn’t even need to be a conceptual boundary they actually policed in their minds.

For instance, when she started her anti-trans turn, JK Rowling made a big show of not being really anti trans, just arguing that Some People Had Gone Too Far. She wasn’t a frothing religious reactionary, after all. And I believe that’s probably true! I think Rowling probably did have a mental model of sex and gender with a little bit of give in it—of the “we can humor the odd weirdo” type. But as the discussion of trans rights in the UK got more serious over her lifetime, trans people went from “the odd weirdo” to “a recognized minority,” and eventually this ran against a bedrock belief that on some level men are men and women are women and never the twain shall meet. To act otherwise was just too embarrassing. And she wasn’t going to embarrass herself in the name of political correctness.

Other people whose brains have been eaten by the anti-woke mind virus (as @eightyonekilograms calls it) have something going of the contrarian in them, who enjoys yelling “up yours, woke moralists!” or w/e. Im thinking of ppl like Glenn Greenwald here, or Dave Chapelle, people who seem not to feel alive except when people are mad at them. That’s a separate but interesting dynamic. And there are people like Graham Linehan who become totally unhinged through this process of auto-radicalization, moths drawn ever closer to a particular source of validation within their chosen reactionary subcommunity, until they are truly parodies of themselves. That is also an important dynamic, but it’s one that only takes hold after the initial turn has begun.

I think the role of that feeling of cringe, that refusal to entertain an idea because it is too embarrassing (even if it does actually have a decent body of research behind it, unlike crystals) is important to think about, because I am interested in how to get people over it. I know that feeling has affected my own thinking over my lifetime. I wasn’t raised particularly conservative, but I had to learn not to cringe at a lot of feminist thought before I could appreciate it and learn from it. I explicitly didn’t have that cringe when it came to gay people for whatever reason, so it never entered my mind that it might be a problem. I remember being surprised to learn when I was very young that some boys wanted to marry other boys, but my response was “huh. Go figure.” Because for whatever reason I had not picked up that this was something I was supposed to be grossed out by. A general doctrine of empathy, of trying to understand people on their own terms, can help forestall some of this stuff, but it’s not foolproof in either direction—I don’t want to believe crystals have healing powers if it becomes socially popular to do so, just because it is socially popular to do so! And if they do, I don’t want to not believe they do just because it is socially unpopular!

(Obviously the crystals thing is not a one to one metaphor for the trans thing, so don’t read too much into that. Maybe astrology would have been a better analogy. Also I’m not talking just about people whose reactionary turn is predicated on trans issues—I think this dynamic applies to everything from gay rights to the Tridentine Mass. But trans issues are a handy example bc, as the adage goes, somebody posts once about trans people and they never post anything normal again. I think the classic rapid-onset trans derangement syndrome is closely tied to the fact that gender norms are a really deep element of many people’s social-consensus-based worldview, and so challenged to that worldview are felt as really cringe.)

I’m curious if other people who grew more liberal in their thinking over time had a similar experience of having to overcome what was basically a feeling of embarrassment at certain ideas.

373 notes · View notes

cod-sins · 10 months

Note

Hi! :)

Can I request könig w/ a insecure chubby s/o headcanons? (If you're okay with writing that) I read your könig headcanons and this came in my mind

Have a good day!! :33

.ೃ࿐ Format: Hcs.

.ೃ࿐ Reader: Undisclosed. Fat/chubby/plus-sized.

.ೃ࿐ Ratings: SFW. NSFW UNDER CUT.

.ೃ࿐ Word Count: 725.

[A/N: Why not kill two birds with one stone? It's not just big girls he likes, it's big boys too! König likes 'em all. Also if this seems a little repetitive sorry my brain is fried and so is my laptop. P.S. My gay ass really likes cheek cupping so yall gon see a lot of that.]

König understands what it feels like to be insecure about your own body. He was the tallest boy in his class and always felt singled out by his fellow classmates. There were times were he absolutely dreaded going to school knowing he would be ridiculed and teased about how tall he was. To him it was one of the worse things he experienced so he would never want anyone to deal with that ESPECIALLY his partner.

You would stare at yourself in the mirror, constantly comparing yourself to other people you saw. You always felt as if you weren't good enough when it came to everyone else. You tried to ignore it but the feeling always kept crawling back. It would get to the point where you feel like you weren't even good enough for your own boyfriend. You began hiding your shape, wearing clothes that were double your size, and switched out your things for stuff you'd normally wear in the Winter/Fall.

König would start to pick up on this. Noticing that you started skipping meals or wearing clothes that weren't usually your type. He would gently pull you aside to find out what's wrong. Probably waiting until you were both lying in bed to ask, so you couldn't dodge his questions.

"Liebe," he said softly while repeatedly rubbing circles into your back. "is, everything alright with you?" He continued with pauses in his sentence. You mumbled out that you were fine but this answer didn't satisfy König. He pulls you up, rearranging y'alls position so that you were making direct eye contact with him. Even on his lap he still managed to hover over you.

He asks you once again with a more focused look in his eye. “Schatz, what's the matter with you? You have been acting so…different lately. You aren't yourself these past few days.” He says frowning.

Unable to hide it any longer you begin to cry into his arms, confessing that you don't feel worthy about being his partner. You tell him how you don't feel attractive and that you aren't comfortable with your body anymore. König pulls you into a hug, kissing your head while muttering “Oh Liebeling, can't you see how beautiful/handsome you are? You shouldn't hide or change any part of yourself. You are so perfect the way you are, that's why I fell in love with you in the first place.” He says solemnly while cupping your face.

To counter the way you're feeling König would start spoiling you with brand-new clothes, taking photos of you, and giving lots of attention to parts of your body. Don't like your stretch marks? He's tracing them up and down with his fingers smiling. Dislike your stomach/fat rolls, well he doesn't! It's natural and a sign that you're body is alive and you're well taken care of. Think your fat fingers are unappealing? He's already placing them on his face and gently kissing them.

König is going to make it his mission to make sure you feel good about yourself.

Even though his social anxiety is bad he would try and take you out places to flaunt you off. He wants you to know that you can come to him when you feel bad about yourself he's your boyfriend after all.

[A/N: That was the SFW now for me to be a horny degenerate with some once again mild (very self-indulgent) smut. Picking up from the crying part.]

The only time König wants to see you cry is when he's overstimulating you, so after he's done soothing you he starts kissing his favorite parts of your body starting from top to bottom. He kisses your cheek before moving down to your neck, sucking and lightly grazing it. Spending a considerable König continues to go lower and lower until you're on your back and his mouth is on your heat.

He'd spend hours down on you, sucking your dick/clit, eating your ass/pussy making sure you feel loved. He gets so much pleasure from watching your legs shake after giving him your third orgasm. You're vision is hazy and you have your hands buried in his hair. You could feel him slightly humping the bed for some form of relief.

By the time you're done you're covered in sweat and ripped lingerie. Bite marks, hickeys n bruises are speckled all over your body. König would savor this moment forever keeping a polaroid photo safely tucked away just in case he misses you too much on a mission. <3

704 notes · View notes

dr3c0mix · 6 months

Note

DRE DRE OMG DRE!:O

I JUST HAB THE GREATEST IDEA OF ALL TIME DRE!

So, so I was thinking at like 1:33 am cuz ye, and I thought,

WHAT IF THE READER, HAD LIKE, A DISABILITY , AND IT CAUSED THEM TO LIKE NOT BE ABLE TO MOVE AROUND MUCH, AND AND THEY FEEL USELESS, SO THEYRE LOVER COMES IN, AND IS LIKE” u know ily right?” OUT OF NO WHERE, AND IT MAKES THEIR DAY???

I mean you dnt have 2, but it would still be like so cool:3

*me running at Usain Bolt speed in order to get away from sleep cuz insomnia helps brain go brr*

But have to sleep so go night night>:(

Yanderes x Disabled!Reader w/ a Mobility Disability

My OCs x Disabled!GN Reader

yall have no idea how long I've wanted to write this *sobbing*

CW: Adrian is stupid and ignorant a little, mentioned kidnapping themes, stalking, theyre a little bit too caring for you..

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

Adrian doesn't use your disability to make fun of you, he's an asshole not a monster. But he is painfully ignorant of things when it comes to people with disabilities. Prepare to be asked a lot of shallow and sort of weird questions, not because he's judging you, but because he wants to learn more about you and maybe learn how to take care of you once you two get married and live together. He'd ask in random times "So why do you use a wheelchair?" "Can you piss correctly?" and a plethora of other things. If you use a wheelchair, he'd insist, no, demand that he'd push for you, he doesn't give a real reason for it other than "Your arms will get tired." If you're an amputee, he'd secretly save and steal money in order to buy you prosthetics if you ever showed your desire for one to him. He honestly doesn't care if you feel useless, you're his and he loves you and no matter what you think, he will always be there for you. "Are you fucking kidding me? You went to the library all by yourself yesterday! You played with those kids in the playground, and you carried that group presentation in math class! You're not useless, you dumbass, you're amazing!"

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Brandon, despite how ditsy he is, researches a lot about your disability, how to take care of a person with your disability and stuff that could improve your mobility. It's his duty as your boyfriend to give you the best care possible! As much as he loves to take care of you, he knows for sure you're able to do things yourself, he helps you with physical therapy if you ever need it. Being the star player of the lead team has its financial benefits too, so if there's something you found online that could help with your mobility, he's definitely buying it for you immediately!! There are times when you feel insecure about your disability but he's always there to give you lots and lots of reassurance and love! But to be honest, his way of cheering you up sounds more like a pep talk more than comfort, but it's his way of cheering you up :) "Who cares if you're not like other people? You're awesome and never forget that, with or without a disability!"

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Valeth, I shit you not, is taking away your wheelchair, your crutches, your prosthetic limbs, anything you need to move around on your own. He doesn't want you being able to escape his house and tell the authorities about him. Besides, why need those when you have him to carry you around and spoil you rotten with gifts and affection? If you let, him, he'll kiss the parts of your body that are affected by your disability, your legs, your arms, your amputated limbs, he wants to remind you how much he loves you despite your immobility. He'll whisper how much he loves you every night or when you feel sad. "You're perfect my little duckling, so so beautiful..."

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

The Horde is keeping you in your bunker 24/7 unless you tell them you want to get out, but even then, they're right by your side the entire time. Bo is in charge with making sure you're never in pain or discomfort, physically and emotionally. "You're so beautiful darlin'..I wouldn't change a thing about your pretty little self~.." Screw rummages around the mall to find anything to help you move around like items from the medical areas. "I found this..uhm..do you like it?" Soda and Ribs don't really understand but they love you either way, regardless of your body. Ribs might steal your prosthetics or crutches though; you have to pry them out of his mouth like a dog that doesn't want to give up a stick.

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Wolfie thinks you're hurt and whines whenever he sees you struggling of sad, he licks the places of your body that are 'hurting'. Even when you reassure him that you're ok, he won't let go, he needs to make sure his little mate is ok! Forget wheelchairs, or crutches or prosthetics, he'll let you ride on his back, anywhere you want! Just give him lots and lots of pets and scratchies, good boy deserves it!

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Dorik is your loyal servant and will help you whenever you need anything. Oh, your wheelchair is folded up and you need help setting it up? Nonsense! He can carry you anywhere you want! Prosthetic limb nowhere to be found? Just stay in bed, he'll take care of it! Found out he's been hiding all your stuff so you depend on him and only him?...nuh uh.. and if you ever feel down, he'll be right there cuddling you and whispering sweet kinda creepy things to you. "You're my little angel, master~ A fragile mortal like you should be cared for with a gentleness of a thousand silks~!"

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Kalva forges high and low for anything that can help you. while he does enjoy keeping you nice and safe in the nest, you need some sunlight! He gives you branches, sticks, rope, anything you need to help you move around even just a little bit. With his nest building abilities, he would make you a prosthetic limb or cane for you. If you're a wheelchair user, he can just lift you up and prop you outside with him while he preens you. He might not know what's wrong but he tries his best to make you feel better. "My mate is so lovely, my lovely lovely mate! So pretty and cute!"

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Jasper can't help but be much more protective of you. He knows you can do stuff on your own, but he thinks as your best friend and future lover he needs to take care of you. He'd gladly be your caretaker if you ever need one, but he beats himself up for not accepting that you know how to handle yourself. Please let him draw and paint on your prosthetics or wheelchair! If you don't want anyone to touch your stuff, that's ok with him, but that won't stop him from making little artworks for you, like tiny paper stars with cute doodles drawn over it. If ever you feel sad, he has a nice cozy room, a weighted blanket, hot chocolate and his cat to comfort you. He's not the type to give pep talks, but he's a good cuddler.. "It's ok to feel sad, baby~..let's just lie down together alright?"

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Silas, Viktor and Garrick pester you every day to just let them turn you. You could be in unbearable pain, and you still refuse to be a vampire??? You could just have a minor limp or amputated leg and they're blowing your disability out of proportion, comparing you to a fragile porcelain doll. Imagine how much better you'll feel when you can no longer feel pain! Or when you have the ability to walk properly! It bugs you, it even makes you feel worse. If they go too far, they quiet down and sulk like sad puppies, whining and begging you to forgive them. They're sorry they took it too far..they just wanted you to be happier and healthier... "We're sorry darling, we just want you safe is all.." "Indeed my dove~ but we love you either way~!" "So cute and so fragile~! I don't know what's up with those two, but I wouldn't change a thing baby~!"

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Baron is always there for you, you dont even need your wheelchair or crutches anymore with how much he takes care of your needs. He says it's all part of his job but you don't really think making adorable little snacks for you is part of it.. looking at the little orange slices shaped like snails and cookies decorated to look like cats on your tray, you wonder if his doting is really his duty or if he just really wanted to take care of you.. Apart from that, he often watches as you look in the mirror and just frown. He gets up and checks how you're feeling as if a switch activated in his brain when he saw your sweet sad eyes. He can't bear seeing you so insecure when you're the most amazing person he's ever met.. "Boss, I don't care what you or others think, you are wonderful and worth regardless of your disability. In fact, it makes you even more admirable.."

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Caspian can relate to immobility. Out of water, he's more or less paralyzed from the waist down because of the weight of his tail, so you two hang out and joke about it together. He helps you cope by giving you someone to see yourself in. He daydreams about one day using some kind of magic to give you a fish tail so you can live in the ocean together like a happy couple. Sometimes he brings you to the shore of the cave you live in so you can soak your feet in the water while he sings for you. "My beautiful treasure~ your body does not define you. I see your soul, your heart, and it is beautiful~.."

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Hallow just sees it as an excuse to keep you locked up. He baby-proofs everything so you don't accidentally bump into something and get hurt. Yes, he takes away your wheelchair or prosthetics when you disobey him. He's a menace but he makes up for it by caring so much for you, you don't even have to lift a finger. If you're good, he gives your stuff back, all of them decorated with stickers and doodles all over it, mostly hearts and flowers. If ever you feel insecure, he coils around you in a warm hug and kisses you all over, you're not getting out until he hears a giggle come out of you. "My doll~ my darling~ my love~ my pretty little toy~ so cute~ so small~ your body is perfect~ just the way it is~!"

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Ashvan is on high alert 24/7, what if you get hurt? Or someone knocks you over and you can't get up? What if you can't move in a dangerous situation??? Stairs?!?!? He's absolutely panicking over you, but you being a cleric, you can simply use magic to get around. He knows full well that you can look after yourself but he can't help but linger around wherever you are to make sure you're ok, especially in fights. He's never far from you, acting like your defense as you heal the other members of the clan. He may or may not watch you sleep. Just being there for you! On days when you're not so confident in your abilities, he comes up to you with flowers he picked so he could hopefully make you smile again. "H-hi there! u-uhm..I-I picked these for you! heheh..uhm..g-good job during that battle! You were uhm..amazing..~"

259 notes · View notes

iraprince · 1 year

Note

do you have any advice on how to take a day off and do things that are satisfying and enjoyable and will recharge you, while not putting excessive pressure on yourself or (on the other extreme) doing nothing but scrolling/lying around with executive dysfunction and not actually enjoying what you're doing? thank you 💙

i feel like i say this all the time but: slightly tough one for me to answer, bc i struggle w this myself all the time and i think i'm still at a point where i fail more often than i succeed :') let's try, tho!

so, similar to scrolling, my main unsatisfying timesink is dumb mobile games. like merge dragons and shit. the endless easily fulfillable to-do lists that set off glittery casino-noise dopamine bursts are catnip to me, but like scrolling, i can do it for hours of my free time and then suddenly emerge at the other end and realize i haven't actually ENJOYED any of it, and that i wish i had spent the afternoon doing something else.

on the other hand, tho, the solution is not to say "well, that's stupid!" and confiscate all dumb unfulfilling phone games from myself forever — i like having them! sometimes i DO enjoy them for real, and it's nice to have something to turn my brain off at the end of a long day. similarly i think attempting to totally ban mindless social media scrolling is like, a reasonable thought, but not actually pragmatic most of the time.

i just don't find a lot of success with trying to ban/confiscate anything, or forcing myself to do anything in general. what i HAVE had a little success with, when i remember to do it early on, is reminding myself that i would rather do other stuff instead. "ugh i've been playing fucking merge dragons for an hour, i need to stop and go do the other stuff i had planned today" does not work; i end up internally going "yeah, yeah, i will. right after this." and then next thing i know it's 10pm or whatever. what's MORE likely to work is reminding myself "okay, hey, this is easy and i'm comfortable — but at the end of the day, am i going to be, like, STOKED that i spent all day playing merge dragons? is future ira going to be satisfied + happy that that's how the day went?"

the answer is almost never "yeah!", so sometimes that gives me the motivation i need to get off the couch; but also, sometimes i think about it and actually i don't mind the idea of spending my day of decompressing with games on the couch, which then means i can continue but without feeling naggingly guilty about it at the back of my mind; it can become a choice that i know i actually thought about instead of just something that Happened to my day.

so, summary: ordering myself around is not compelling and also just literally doesn't work; reminding myself that my time is limited and i'm going to have feelings and opinions about how i spent it is a lot more compelling, at least to me. there's a reason you want to do specific things on your day off, and reminding yourself of that desire and those motivations is imo always gonna be better than just flattening them into Things You Have To Do, And Can Therefore Fail At Doing (which is where excessive pressure on yourself will come from)

hope this helps a little!!!! and enjoy ur next day off!!!

197 notes · View notes

gabessquishytum · 9 months

Note

I misread one word, ONE (1) WORD, and now my head is full of anal training AU again. 😩 It's been too long, anyway.

Human AU, student!Hob, rich who-knows-what!Dream. So, Hob has a sexual awakening when he signs up to a sugar baby website (he's putting himself through college, working as a dishwasher AND at a gas station, and he is still short on money and tired all the time) and makes a mistake, accidentally signing up for daddies instead of mommies. He never took the time to think deeply about the fact that he finds men attractive as much as he does women. But when a gorgeous older man messages him and asks whether he'd be alright with regular dates so the "daddy" can make sure Hob is really studying and not blowing his money on alcohol and parties, Hob realises that he'd really like to suck this man's cock under the table of some expensive restaurant. He says yes and accepts the offer.

Dream spoils Hob. Like, absolutely spoils him. Expensive foods ("no, little one, you cannot eat ramen six times a week"), buying schoolbooks for him, pretty clothes and jewelry, and all he asks for most of the time is a date, 1-2 hours of Hob's time. Sometimes, Hob is told to get on his knees - in a toilet stall, on the floor of Dream's limousine, in Hob's own room if all his roommates are gone for the night - and he quickly learns how to suck Dream's cock in a way that makes him groan and tug at Hob's hair. But mostly, it seems like Dream just wants company.

That all changes when Dream learns that Hob is a virgin when it comes to butt stuff. After having his brain blue screen and reboot seven times in a row, Dream offers to buy Hob any car he chooses if he lets Dream fuck him and pop his proverbial cherry. Hob, who at this point is head over heels about his mysterious and charming sugar daddy, says he doesn't need a car but he'd like Dream to be his first. And as the "price" for that, he conveniently suggests they could take a short vacation at some luxurious resort. A nice rental cottage with full service where they'd be comfortable but have a lot of space to themselves. Dream readily agrees to that and books such a place for the first week after finals are over.

That's one month away. And that has to be enough time to prepare Hob to be the best anal slut that has ever walked the Earth. Of course Dream's cock is above average and Hob's slims waist speaks about how tight he'll be. So, Dream supplies Hob with silver, gem-decorated butt plugs and has him wear them to their dates or even just during the day, increasing their size day by day. Of course, Hob doesn't have to wear them to his finals, but he actually... really likes being full while taking a test. It keeps him grounded. And it reminds him that if he gets good grades, Dream will reward him handsomely.

- 🚒

I do so adore sugar baby Hob. He's the cutest little himbo, isn't he? Thank goodness he's got Dream to take care of him now.

I just love thinking about Hob getting absolutely spoiled by Dream. He's never had any luxuries but Dream takes him to designer boutiques and has clothes tailored just for him! Hob is absolutely shook by how confident and attractive he feels in clothes literally made for him. He gains a bit of healthy weight, now he's eating better and Dream has given him the use of an entire private gym. Dream takes huge pride in showing him off to all his fancy friends/colleagues.

Hob does feel like he owes Dream for all this, but... apart from that, he feels this massive affection for the guy who's just meant to be his sugar daddy. He's got a major crush on Dream at the bare minimum. He wants to please him and make him happy. He's also absolutely feral about losing his anal virginity to Dream. He's secretly hoping that if he makes it the most amazing night ever and performs to absolute perfection, maybe this can be the start of an arrangement that will go beyond sugar-dating and into real dating.

Hob is very book smart and surprisingly, training his hole fits in very well with his studying regime. He smashes his way through his exams with his tight little hole clenching around the gorgeous plug Dream lovingly wiggled into him in the morning. With his last test finished he heads straight to the bathroom and snaps a picture of his arse for Dream - with the jewel winking between his cheeks.

Hob is a little shy when he turns up for their getaway. Dream has booked a gorgeous cottage (it's so big it looks more like a mansion, but it's still cozy) with a small but private stretch of beach. But he quickly loses his inhibitions and is soon shedding his clothes and playing in the waves. Dream watches (and paddles a bit) and enjoys the excellent view of Hob’s very gorgeous arse. He's seen a lot of it lately with all the training, but that view is never going to get old.

Hob gets to have his first time bottoming in an enormous, beautiful bed surrounded by twinkling strings of lights. There may also be rose petals. Dream is a romantic at heart, and he really wants this to be special. Something that Hob will look back on and remember with true happiness.

And of course his hole is just perfect. It's been perfectly stretched to accommodate Dream’s size, but it still remains amazingly tight. Hob doesn't hold back his noises as Dream fucks deep inside and slowly jerks his cock at the same time. Its like a perfect embodiment of how Hob feels when he's with Dream: safe, content, and more well taken care of than he's ever been before. If Hob accidentally squeaks out a little "I love you" when he cums on Dream’s cock for the first time, who can blame him?

(Dream is honestly just relieved because he's organised so many romantic activities for their time away together and it might be a little bit embarrassing to declare his love for his sugar baby over champagne and caviar only to be rejected. Dream knows he can be a bit much. Luckily he's starting to work out that Hob loves it when he's too much <3)

#🚒 anon #the sandman #dreamling #nsft

113 notes · View notes

gowonders · 6 months

Note

So sorry, my writing kinda sucks

I meant G!P Hyeju as a Yandere Idol who’s like obsessed w her gf (reader) but reader cant tell anyone because Hyeju is a very loved idol and no one would believe her? I’m sorry if this doesn’t make sense, my brain isn’t working rn😭😭

nooo bae don’t apologize, my english isn’t perf so i definitely don’t understand things a lot… 😋 also idk if this is good.. i don’t really write dark stuff like this and g!p.. but ykw.. i tried ⭐️

minors dni<3

warnings: english isn’t my first language, not proofread, implied dubcon, drugging, toxic + manipulative hyeju, somno????, jerking off to you.. lmk if i missed any!

a grin across her face as she places a small tablet that could ruin hyejus career in your drink, swirling around the fizzing capsule before placing the glass in front of you. “mm, drink up, hon.” she says flatly, taking a sip of her own drink. your shaky hands reach out to wrap your fingers around the glass. you knew what would happen, if you drank it, you’d wake up feeling all fuzzy in the morning. if you didn’t, you were in for a nightmare of the world of hyeju threatening everything and anything about you. with a regretful sigh, you take a sip, or two, or another.. till the glass is gone. “see.. wasn’t that hard at all. was it? wasn’t that good?” hyeju coaxes, coming up behind you to rub at your shoulders. “yes but.. hyeju. the drinks you give me always make me feel weird.. like.. i wake up and feel staticky.” you mumble, looking down at the empty glass between your hands. this makes hyeju scoff and shake her head. “doll, it’s all in your head. why would i do anything like that? i’m an idol after all, you’d think out of all people, i’d be scared of being drugged. not some normal person like you.” she says in a flat tone, taking your glass to rinse it in the sink. “baby, aren’t you tired? why don’t we get you to sleep.” she says, and that you do. because you can never reject hyeju. what she says, goes.

you’re asleep. and unbeknownst to you, hyejus night isn’t near over yet. you’re so pretty when you sleep, lips parted, eyes shut, soft breaths as your chest rises and falls.. you look so vulnerable. so.. innocent. and it was really a shame that hyeju has to do this, but she really doesn’t want to be a bother, after all, you sleeping here was more than enough.

with a stiff groan, she’s already pulling her waistband down just enough to make her cock spring out. her eyes dart all over your unconscious body, and her fingers ever-so-slightly wrap around her length, her eyes gliding to your thighs, and a stifled moan leaves her at the thought of just being able to touch them. use them. to her own expense. you’d be so, so easy.

she was in for it now. all you had to do was wake up, she’d use you, all confused and sleepy for her.

#gyuish: thinks #gyuish: writes #gyuish: smut #hyeju #hyeju x reader #hyeju imagines #hyeju hard hours #hyeju hard thoughts #hyeju smut #olivia hye #olivia hye x reader #olivia hye imagines #olivia hye hard hours #olivia hye hard thoughts #olivia hye smut #loona #loona imagines

36 notes · View notes

soleilnomoon · 10 months

Note

Prompt: “I don’t like them; I can barely tolerate them.” for Abarai Renji. Once again, I leave it up to you what you wanna do (but maybe enemies to lovers) Yes, I might be on a little Bleach binge right now but it's okay you like it. kiss kiss

*hides face* ok, ok, ok, hear me out, let's pretend i didn't take *insert accurate length of time here* and say i wrote this in a few days. i am so sorry i took forever and ever with this but as u know i can only give u top quality work or else i'll never forgive myself. renji is.......well *motions to him* yk how that man is, he made me suffer!!!! in a good way!!! but still i suffered!!! yk how much i love enemies 2 lovers u big brained beauty 🤭 so ty baby❤️️ also this is my first renji fic and i can't belev it.

5.2k words (don't look at me, just don't), fem reader, nsfw, 18+ mdni, enemies 2 lovers, angst city, angst angst city biiiitch (yk the vibez babey), smut obviously, no fluff bc who do u think i am? feat. renji being a mean petty bitch (i guess that makes him a mean dom maybe yes), sub reader bc that's what i want; there's a party with alcohol, ichigo and co. make brief appearances, bathroom sex, choking (he's sf romantic), a lot of cursing bc they're grown that's why, renji is a beast when he's jealous, reader is a lil bit of a brat but lbr who wouldn't be in that situation; mutual ""unrequited"" pining, lots of tension, fingering, rough (consensual) sex, lil bit of degradation, lil bit of a size kink, lil bit of praise kink, idk there's probably more stuff but i'm so tired rn i can't think; um renji obviously comes w his own gd warning; reader is determined to not let this man win but, hello, it's renji he always comes out on top wink wink. (if u see spelling errors/mistakes no u didn't hottie)

“when i write about all of this it becomes its own kind of violence. / i retell the story as myth, as if it were my own body devoured.” — caitlin scarano & “so much of love is violence. the desire / to be split open, invaded, mangled / and made new.” — erin slaughter

HATRED X TASTES X SWEET

you’ve never been cut out for this line of work, but your insistence on eliminating all your shortcomings is commendable. brave, even. it’s something you don’t really think about unless you want to spend the night half-drunk, rambling about the things you should’ve done but never had the courage to do.

like telling a certain red-haired, bullheaded lieutenant that he’s the most ridiculous and excessively arrogant man you’ve ever come across. all in all, you’re pretty sure telling him off won’t phase him; nothing ever does, not really anyway.

at first you try politeness; your grandmother would be proud of how well you’ve learned to bite your tongue. it’s ungraceful, but you fake it well enough that others think your emotional maturity is far above theirs. little do they know, you actually have to literally bite your tongue; simply remaining silent isn’t easy for you anymore. so, when you bite, it’s with rage, months of unshed tears and accumulated spite; you bite your tongue so hard you bleed more every time.

your unsaid words bunch together — tiny soldiers determined to strike in unison without fail — and sit heavily in the back of your throat, ready to launch forward at your command.

but you never say them, and you choke more than once; an unbearable shame to carry with you as he continues to slash at your patience, thin ribbons cascading off you like confetti. you wonder if your anger will lead to your death— or if it’ll lead to his. you intend to keep all of that hidden, though, and keep reminding yourself that eventually he will tire from berating you, from talking to you as if you’re the most incompetent being in all of soul society, from looking at you like your very being disgusts him.

that’s what you tell yourself these days. you like to conveniently ignore the way his dark eyes linger on yours during meetings — you’ve noticed that people have taken to describing them as soulless, cold and critical, unimpressed at everything and anyone.

but you see him — all of him; the raw, feral, powerful and severe side that not many have the misfortune of knowing. they think they get the real version of renji whenever they deal with him, but they never do; you know that now. you doubt it’s even intentional on his part, or maybe — just maybe — he really does hate you.

to put it plainly, as you’ve told rukia and rangiku, the sixth division lieutenant has the biggest fucking chip on his shoulder. despite the walls he continues to put up to keep others from carving out a place for themselves in his life, despite the way his words roll around his mouth, clumsily coasting down the length of his tongue before they pierce the air around you with their toxicity — you’re tired of the way he purposely singles you out time and time again to point out your inadequacies without remorse.

abarai renji is also sick of dealing with you. whenever he thinks he’s found a means of scaring you off, you scurry right back more determined and more obnoxious than ever. which is rich, coming from him.

he claims you’re inconsequential, a nuisance — a pest, even — one that he intends to get rid of permanently. it’s harsh and he’s more than aware of that, but he finds that this is the most appropriate solution to his problem. he could easily ignore you; he could try to keep his comments to himself and try to be somewhat cordial whenever you cross paths. but he won’t. and he has no damn idea why.

“no, no come in, i have plenty of snacks for everyone.”

rukia’s voice is a constant in his life that he’ll always be thankful for. he watches her glide into the room, grinning at the friends she’s invited over, her laughter like soft bells that is easily recognizable even with all the conversation happening. when he feels his chest constrict, an uncomfortable, yet familiar warmth stretching over his skin, he decides to drink so that he can ignore the sensation and forget.

a feeble attempt, because he knows how this will all end — with him drunk off his ass in an even worse mood than he started.

mouth opening, renji prepares to tell rukia to get better sake, when rangiku leads you into the living room where he’s lounging comfortably. the bottle in his hand grows heavier by the second and suddenly he’s not very interested in drinking anymore. already, his foul mood from earlier returns, and every step you take only fuels his irritation; it bubbles underneath his skin, making him frown and grip the bottle tighter.

you don’t need to look at him to know that he’s glaring at you — he always is. rangiku feigns obliviousness as she encourages you to go make yourself comfortable while she fetches snacks with rukia. you stare at both of them, wide-eyed, confused — a pleading look sliding onto your face after a few moments, but they assure you both that they’ll be back shortly.

with a sigh you sit on the armchair adjacent to him, determined to just remain quiet in the hopes that he’ll just ignore you for once. sitting up straight, discomfort finds its way to the pit of your stomach, swirling around as you fidget with the bracelet around your wrist. his eyes watch your movements with an obsessiveness that startles him; there’s no reason why he should be interested in the shape of your fingers, there’s no reason why he should be interested in the way you keep brushing stray curls away from your face, and there’s no reason why he should be interested in possibly fucking you when he knows for a fact that he is absolutely uninterested in you.

his disinterest runs so deep it spoils the taste of the sake, but he takes another swig anyway. the alcohol burns as it travels swiftly down his throat, and it just so happens that you glance over at him — innocuous, an attempt to gauge his annoyance level — as his throat bobs and your mouth dries at the sight.

you turn your face away quickly, a traitorous flush crawling slowly along your skin, unjustly warming your cheeks. inhaling deeply, you do your best to will the blush away to no avail. where the hell are rukia and rangiku? surely it can’t take that long to grab snacks. you’re tempted to go find them, but you have a sinking feeling that it would turn you into a coward.

and you refuse to give that man any more ammo against you.

IT’S X (NOT) X YOU

what initially starts as a small get-together, quickly turns into a party; leave it to rangiku to liven things up, her laughter infectious and whimsical, flitting about like a persistent hummingbird as she encourages everyone to play drinking games with her. experience taught him better than to engage because despite his high tolerance, there’s really no beating rangiku when she’s on a roll.

but when you emphatically agree to play with the rest, fury rises in his chest; your audacity, it seems, knows no bounds — and, yes, he understands the hypocrisy in his critique. he just doesn’t care.

the games are every bit as simple and ridiculous as you thought they’d be, but as everyone seems to be in relatively good spirits, you play along. not normally competitive with things like this, you get into the swing of things when you win round after round.

cheers resound nearby at your success, but throughout the evening, you feel renji’s stare and do everything in your power to not give in and look back at him. a tough feat to say the least, as you are always acutely aware of his presence; and when you do happen to sneak another glance, his legs are spread and you curse under your breath for finding that attractive.

foolish, you chide, so fucking foolish.

renji sucks his teeth as he feels a heaviness in his head; groaning loudly he swirls around what little sake he has left in his glass before finishing it.

“you lose again,” rukia’s voice is soft and teasing, but he’s annoyed and can’t be bothered with talking to her right now. she pats his shoulder gingerly before standing up to head to the kitchen. his mind is a mess and he blames you for it completely.

“i don’t fucking care,” he says gruffly to her retreating figure, not bothering to elevate his voice as he’s sure she heard him. and he really doesn’t care; he’s trying to tell himself to calm down, but he can’t.

the fault completely lies with you — of course it does, everything you do agitates every cell in his body. the reason is simple, and he hates that he doesn’t want to admit it — he’s so undeniably attracted to you that it pisses him off. he takes in your appearance for the twelfth time that night, admiring the softness of your cheeks, the fullness of your lips, the way you seem entirely too animated as you laugh at someone’s lame joke — and yes, he can tell it’s not funny from how your laughter dies down after a few seconds.

if he had better sense, he’d stop looking at you, but he can’t now; he might blame the sake for this later.

the intensity behind his gaze is enough to bring an inextinguishable heat along your skin. it’s only unpleasant because it travels down to your lower abdomen and brings about an agonizing ache between your thighs. at first, you do the sensible thing and ignore it; but the longer he stares, the more you want to look over, until finally you can’t take it anymore.

“i’ll be back,” you mumble to the other guests, although you doubt they hear you with how rowdy everyone is being; the noise isn’t unwelcomed, the distraction serves to mask your footsteps when you scurry from the living room to the back corridor, turning corner after corner until you find the bathroom.

a coward — that’s what you are.

you barricade yourself in there without thinking, heart pounding loud enough to disorient you. after several long minutes, you splash water on your face and take a few deep breaths.

“i can’t believe i ran away,” your voice is so soft you barely hear the words — almost as if you’re still in disbelief over the entire situation. there’s something off about renji tonight; the tension between you was more palatable and tangible than normal.

even though you feigned nonchalance as best as you could, there were so many moments where you couldn’t help but watch him too. pitiful. absolutely pitiful. there’s no excuse for it, and yet you struggle to find one anyway.

as you look at your reflection in the mirror above the sink, you try to convince yourself to head back out there. sooner or later, people will realize that you’ve gone missing — and rangiku is nosy enough and like a bloodhound when she’s drunk. your time is incredibly limited now.

there’s no reason for you to continue to avoid the inevitable, so you sigh and give yourself a small pep talk before heading back outside.

TRUTH X OR X …

renji’s mood doesn’t improve at all; in fact, it worsens the moment ichigo sits right next to him. he’s not even sure why this sets him off, but even closing his eyes and counting backwards does nothing to keep him calm.

with slight difficulty, renji grits out, “what do you want?”

undeterred, ichigo stares at renji pointedly, voice steady as he says, “you could go after her, you know.”

again, renji sucks his teeth loudly, arms folded against his chest, right leg bouncing slightly as he taps his foot on the floor. punching ichigo would be pointless, and then rukia would get involved and he doesn’t have time to deal with the fallout from that so he keeps his hands to himself.

besides, his anger is obviously misdirected right now. he knows — he knows —but he doesn’t care, so he doesn’t mince his words when he responds with, “go after who?” through his peripheral, he can see ichigo’s patience has also reached its limit.

“you’re not that stupid, so stop acting like it.”

normally, renji would take the opportunity to mes s around and argue back and forth, but he might actually fight his friend if he doesn’t walk away. so, he does; abrupt and without looking back, footsteps heavy on the hardwood floor.

maybe he just needs to change his approach with you, maybe talking things out would work in his favor; or maybe he needs to fuck you hard enough to purge you from his mind.

he lies to himself when he considers the first option, because it’s the second option that drives him to walk a little faster, head full of impossible thoughts as he wonders just how far you’d let him go.

when renji finally finds you, you’re in the middle of rebuffing the advances of an unfamiliar guest — they’re drunk, handsy, and keep oscillating between giving you cheesy pick-up lines and berating you for rejecting them. but you stand firm, and your voice is relatively loud when you tell them, “for the last fucking time, go away.”

under normal circumstances, renji would let you handle this yourself; he has no desire to play prince charming or be a knight in shining armor. you’re more than capable, and he’s seen the way you fight and argue to defend yourself — but, it’s when they place a wandering hand on your hip that he loses sight of all of that.

a brief moment passes, where your blood boils as you contemplate how best to kick their ass, but you never get the chance. a rather large shadow hovers over you both, but you already know who it is without having to look properly.

renji is a force to be reckoned with on a good day, but he’s at his fucking limit right now.

he doesn’t ask, doesn’t give any options for retreat, doesn’t say a word when he yanks them off with a brute strength that surprises even you.

now, can he really be blamed for throwing them into the neighboring wall hard enough to make a noticeable hole? and is it really his fault that the drunk can hardly walk as they clutch their broken arm while murmuring something unintelligible, something that renji takes as a sign of them wanting a repeat demonstration?

consequences be damned, he gives the drunk a lethal look before they scramble away in fear.

“loser,” he says loud enough for them to hear, but they don’t double back or even try to go toe-to-toe with the hot-headed lieutenant. you watch, half-amused and half-impressed with the unnecessary machismo, but still, you know better than to chastise him right now, especially when your heart sputters out of control from his proximity.

“…thanks,” you say, a faint flush on your cheeks, voice soft, head fuzzy when you realize that renji — aka mr. “i’ll fight you on everything any day of the week unprovoked for no reason other than to drive you crazy” — saved you. unprompted at that.

you make the mistake of looking up at him, your nerves prompting you to take a small step back when you realize that the usual hostility that renji reserves for you specifically is nowhere to be found. in its place is something more unreadable — or, rather, you don’t want to read into it for fear of being wrong.

renji steps closer, which makes you back up again until your back hits the wall and you’re no longer able to escape.

“we need to talk,” he says suddenly, but you shake your head, non-verbally objecting to the idea, curls bouncing wildly with your exaggerated movements. since he knows he’s pressed for time, he grabs your face with his large hand and stops you from moving. “that wasn’t a request.”

swallowing rusty nails would be better than dealing with your conflicting feelings over renji right now, because he’s much too close to you and now you’re forgetting why it is you hate him in the first place. ironically, he’s in the exact same position. so far, he’s acted on impulse over you more times than he can count tonight, but he supposes that’s to be expected — you are a wildcard, after all.

“what if i don’t want to.” your response is clumsy, the words tumbling one after the other. “what if i want you to leave?” you don’t actually mean that, but you throw it at him anyway, to see if maybe this was all a fluke, and maybe, just maybe he’ll remember himself and you both can go back to fighting like usual.

he considers your question, goes so far as to release your face to wrap his hand around your throat instead. your sharp inhale and parted lips tell him all he needs to know.

with a slightly raised brow, he asks, “well, do you?”

because if you do, he’ll walk away right now. but he knows what your answer will be, he just has to drag it out of you. he squeezes your neck to remind you to hurry it up, and before you can answer him properly, he places his leg in between yours, pressing close enough that you roll your hips forward while whimpering softly.

he really didn’t think any of this through, but luckily the adrenaline from it all won’t wear off anytime soon, so he’ll improvise along the way. he spent most of the night dealing with a semi-hard cock that wouldn’t listen to reason no matter how many times he tried to stop thinking about you. but now? all of that restraint goes out of the window, and before he can question it, he kisses you.

you’ve kissed plenty of people in your life — some good, most were mediocre and uninspiring — but renji actually takes your breath away. everything about him commands all your attention; from the way his lips move against yours greedily, leaving behind burning kisses that make your nipples harden underneath your clothes — to the way he thrusts his tongue in between your plush lips, licking inside of your mouth hotly, igniting an inextinguishable flame deep inside of you.

he grabs your hip with his free hand, squeezing hard, fingers digging firmly. all the irritation from earlier dissipates completely, leaving you feeling lightheaded and needy; you grind against him recklessly, arousal dampening the front of your panties, clit sensitive as it rubs against the delicate fabric. his cock presses against you — thick, long, and hard — and you wonder if this is why he’s so angry with you all the time.

was it always that simple?

if you asked the question aloud, he wouldn’t know what to tell you — it’s a combination of things, but mostly he’s an idiot; he knows that now, but likewise you’re an idiot too. you just don’t realize it yet.

it’s renji who pulls away first, lightly panting, breath warm against your lips as he releases his hold on your neck. he doesn’t know where he finds the strength to string together a coherent statement, but his voice is low and husky when he speaks. “answer my question.”

you blink at him, completely in a daze, lips slightly swollen from all the kissing. “wh-what?” you don’t remember what he asked you, and you don’t care.

“do you want me to leave?”

for some reason, you completely forgot that you told him that. you rub your lips together and run your hands along his chest. “no.” the answer comes out automatically, without hesitation, and that’s all the encouragement he needs.

“good.”

SAY X IT X LOUDER

he picks you up with ease, almost as if you weigh nothing; a small squeal spills out of you as you wrap your legs around his waist, and renji gives you a sly smile — one laced with mischief and an unspoken promise of what’s to come.

you’re back in the bathroom again, this time sitting on the counter with renji standing in between your legs. his hands coast along your curvy hips and down your thighs. he’s touching you but he’s not touching you and it’s driving you crazy.

with hurried, eager hands you both undress, and for the umpteenth time you internally curse this style of uniform; still, it doesn’t take too long before his hands are on you again, calloused palms rough and warm against your skin. he places a kiss on your jaw, then another on your neck right underneath your earlobe; each kiss he leaves behind distorts your common sense, makes you feel irrational and impatient. your hands are soft and well-practiced, stroking his stiff cock as his hips jerk forward from your touch.

he can’t remember the last time someone had him this worked up, which pisses him off a little; because that means him fucking you once won’t settle things. at that thought, renji bites your neck and your startled yelp quickly morphs into a moan when he runs his tongue along the mark. he dips his hand in between your thighs, rubbing his thick fingers against your slit. a loud banging on the door has you looking over, and you can’t remember if he bothered to lock it once you both were inside.

your attention nearly falters, but when he pinches your clit you buck your hips, a shiver shooting down your spine at the slight pain.

“eyes on me,” is all he says, seemingly annoyed that you would dare to focus your attention elsewhere, “always keep them on me.” what he means by that, he doesn’t know, but you take the command at face value and nod while swallowing. he slides a finger inside of your wet pussy, and while you initially wanted to keep quiet to avoid suspicion and to prevent anyone from intruding, but you can’t now.

“renji,” you breathe, fingers trembling as you hold onto the counter for support, he thrusts his finger in and out, quick and hard, before inserting another. you clench around him, hips rocking forward as he fingerfucks you and grinds his palm against your clit. you close your eyes and moan louder than you mean to, chest heaving, thoughts jumbled and incoherent. he scissors his fingers inside of you, but quickly removes them without prompting.

“fuck!” you open your eyes again and stare at him in disbelief. “why did you stop?”

he laughs darkly and grabs your face roughly, fingers pressing into your soft skin without remorse. “what did i tell you earlier?” everything about this situation is laughable. he gave you very specific instructions, ones he thought were easy enough for you to follow. for some reason your movements are sluggish, mind in a haze as you scramble to remember but nothing comes to mind.

as you open and close your mouth, looking every bit as adorable as you are alluring, he decides to show you a bit of kindness.

“get down.” his command comes swift, his patience practically nonexistent; precum glides down the head of his thick cock, but he ignores it for the sake of teaching you a lesson. you don’t bother waiting for him to repeat himself and slide off the counter. “turn around.”

like a doll, your movements are dictated by renji with simple, short statements. nothing about that phases you, though; it’s all very exciting, so when you do turn to face the counter, you bend forward and lean over the counter. renji admires the roundness of your ass and slaps it hard.

again, you find yourself moaning loudly, without shame and not caring about the volume of your voice. surely the others won’t pay attention, as they’re still very drunk and are entertaining themselves with more games. another slap on your ass has you grabbing onto the counter again, legs shaking, arousal dripping between your thighs in anticipation. if renji doesn’t fuck you soon, you might actually die.

he knows he’s taking too damn long, but it’s much more interesting making you work for him. he rubs the tip of his cock against your puffy pussy, gliding it in between your slick folds, your moans sweetly wrapping around him once he pushes inside of you slowly. someone bangs on the door again, making you look over, anxiety quickly filling your head with unnecessary what ifs that almost command your full attention.

with narrowed eyes, renji grabs onto your hair, curls soft in his hand, and yanks hard.

“the fuck did i say earlier?”

goosebumps travel down your arms as a different kind of awareness and clarity surges through you quickly. you blink at your reflection, watching the way he towers over you, his muscles hard and defined — sculpted from years of training and dedication to honing his skills. it hits you then, what he’s really asking you.

“to,” you swallow thickly, throat dry, “to keep my eyes on you always.” you say it all in one breath, gasping when he runs his tongue along the curve of your ear. you don’t know how much more you can take, but you know if you complain, if you say anything he might stop altogether.

renji’s smile is wicked and dark, his lips graze your earlobe, voice deep and gravelly, a huskiness that wasn’t there before as he thrusts into you, burying his cock deeply.

“good girl.”

he refrains from kissing you properly, instead pushing you down so you can lean over the counter again. your mind melts from it all, and you’re panting, heart beating faster and faster as he firmly places a hand on your back.

“you’re squeezing me so tight,” he remarks thoughtfully, although you note the slight strain in his voice; as much as he tries to act like he’s not that affected by you, you know that isn’t the case at all. your pussy is every bit as enticing and heavenly as he knew it would be; he pulls back and slams his cock into you all over again, filling you completely. you try to keep watching him in the mirror, but he’s fucking you like he’s angry with himself for being so attracted to you.

and he absolutely is. it’s a truth he fought against for so long that he’s given up on denying it now. your moans drip onto his skin like caramel, sticky and sweet, and when you say his name like that — your voice going higher and higher from the ferocity of his thrusts — he nearly loses his mind.

“fuck,” he says out loud, grabbing your hip roughly, your wetness coating the length of his cock, “you’re taking me so well.” he knows you can’t really answer him, and he likes that; you’re beyond caring at this point, instead focusing on the way his cock reaches a spot that has you bouncing your ass and fucking yourself against him. normally, renji would play around and edge you in retaliation, but he’s too far gone, completely under the spell of your pretty pussy, with how soft and tight it is.

you’re not sure how you got here, but you’re drowning in ecstasy right now. he instructs you to lift your leg to rest it onto the counter, pulling out momentarily to help you position and spread your legs further apart. he plunges his cock into you again, keeping his hips closer as he gives you shorter, frenzied thrusts. your head spins and you can’t think straight, but that doesn’t matter. all you care about is the way renji is angling his hips, rolling them forward to pound into your cunt roughly, balls heavy as they smack against your ass.

“oh, oh, oh.” you swear your life flashes before your eyes, because something possesses him, his strokes shorter, brutal, and frenetic. drool slides down your chin, your voice hoarse from how loud you’ve been. you’re sure someone’s heard you by now, but you don’t care.

how can you?

with renji fucking you like this — merciless and possessive, fingers brusing your skin, almost as if he wants to make sure you’ll be as obsessed with him as he is with you — your common decency, your morals, everything that makes you you, they don’t exist.

all that’s left is this burning desire to let him have his way with you for as long as he wants. thankfully, you have enough sense to not admit that out loud; who knows what kind smugness you’ll be subjected to if renji knew.

but you’re pretty damn transparent about it, he can tell from the way you can’t stop clenching your pussy around his cock, from how your pussy makes loud, lewd squelching noises — ones that he’ll commit to memory so he can revisit them from time to time.

tears roll down your cheeks and you sob as you hold onto the counter as best as you can, back arching, hips rocking against him with a neediness you never knew you had. there’s a tightening in your stomach and your pulse skyrocketing as a flash of white practically blinds you. he watches the way your pussy keeps swallowing the length of his cock, and you finally fall over the edge, orgasm suffocating you with its intensity.

your cunt flutters around him, gummy walls soft and hypnotic, an addiction he never thought he’d have; breathing heavily, his muscles tense and renji groans something that suspiciously sounds like your name. the thought alone makes your face burn and warms your chest in a way that doesn’t make sense. and when he finally cums, he humps into you, cum thick and hot as it spills inside your pussy, mixing with your slick wetness. a completely messy affair, but he doesn’t care — it’s not his bathroom, after all.

legs trembling, you’re limp and incapable of movement, whimpering and whining until he finally pulls out of you.

renji runs a hand down his face, feeling spent but more than satisfied. suddenly his shoulders aren’t so tight and tense, and his mood is much more tolerable. you do your best to stand but almost fall — your legs are useless, turned to jelly because of the man behind you. he chuckles at that, then clears his throat once he realizes. he fully expected there to be a moment of awkwardness after, but it never comes. when he sees your face — lips bruised and swollen, face flushed, eyes glazed with a faraway look — he feels compelled to kiss you again. so, he does. it’s not sweet, nor is it tender, but it still makes your heart swell all the same. he holds you close as you wrap your arms around his neck, doing your best to keep standing, even though your legs are ready to give out.

you don’t know exactly what any of this means, but you do understand him a bit better now. he’s terrible with expressing himself, but you kind of like that about him; and maybe this isn’t the healthiest relationship, but life was uncertain and you’d take renji fucking you like it’s his last day alive over him openly hating you any day.

83 notes · View notes

ecoamerica · 2 months

Text

youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

17K notes · View notes

wellnoe · 11 months

Note

hi! I love your art so much?? you’ve really reignited a love for the x-men that I haven’t had since I was a kid <3 I wanted to ask if you had any advice for making comics? have a nice day!!

ah!!! ty!

when i make comics on my own (most of the single page stuff i post on here) i have a different process than when i make comics with other people. i usually start with a couple of strong visuals i have in mind, then i’ll break down what i want to be conveyed by the paneling (basically: what are the main beats i want to hit?), and then i finally do dialogue. i sometimes put in placeholder dialogue to remind me of information that absolutely has to be conveyed in the layouts/pencils stage, but most dialogue only gets added in after a page is completely done, colors and all. this is the most intuitive way to do comics for me, and i think that’s my first piece of advice, which is find a workflow that makes sense for how your brain conceives of scenes. anyway bc thats my process all of my advice is basically about drawing comics.

(this is the 'coming up with visuals' stage for a comic i'm working on currently. you can see that i'm basically just throwing anything at the wall to see if it works, and leaving a couple words/notes for myself so i know whats going on. its not even really a layout, the panels are not arranged how they would be on a final page.)

my other piece of advice is to pick apart paneling and comics you love? don’t just redraw them (though that can help too), but study what the paneling and composition conveys, and how that accentuates the story (which it often does!). i’ve done this w watchmen, a couple of moon knight runs, and some x-stuff, and i find it really helps me learn a lot about pacing, how time works, and how to economically convey information (bc you have a lot less room on a page than you think!). as a part of that: an exercise i think is a lot of fun/really helpful is to take pages/scenes you like and recompose them. use different paneling to convey the same scene and see how the meaning changes! do it intentionally, planning on pulling focus to something the original scene slides by. you can do this with your own stuff too:

(this is me picking apart a redraw i wanted to do of a comic i posted on here a couple of years ago. first i redrew the comic in the left corner so i could see the composition, then i made notes to myself about what the original comic was supposed to be about, and what i wanted to add to it to improve it. sorry for how blurry it is, the pencil smudged.)

here’s some rapid fire stuff i like to keep in mind while making comics: time does not exist in comics the way it exists in movies or in prose. the gutter? anything can happen there. it is potentially literally any amount of time. its up to you to convey via panel content and composition how much time has passed (which can be very little!) same deal with space. things happen in between panels, and people move, but also panels overlap, or squish, or disregard scenery. that said! this has to be done intentionally. how panels are organized, their size, their relationship to one another, all convey information to your reader. my point is the sky's the limit here. so yknow. have fun w it.

finally i think you just need to do it a lot. i have a ton of comic layouts or pencils that i never posted bc they honestly just aren’t that competent, but i learned nevertheless. there’s other stuff that never made it past the layout or sketch stage bc i was just doing it to practice, so there was never any need to ink or color it. making comics like any other drawing is about continuously assessing intention and communication.

hope that was helpful in some way!! i like making comics a lot, and i have a lot of fun thinking about paneling and the like. i hope you have fun making comics too <3

#idk if this is what you were looking for or if you wanted more like. definitive technical advice #but i hope this was helpful in some way #w.ask

56 notes · View notes

andbrokenmemories · 8 months

Text

So it's weird how like. The Kennet girls are good at everything, aren't they? [pale spoilers ahead]

Like that's obvious, it's textual -- it's very textual, other characters being in something like awe over it over and over and over across the story. The girls are very good at this, and they have a deep well of power. This comes up continuously.

what's weird is thaaat a lot of the fanbase seem to like, enjoy that. Enjoy having protagonists who can play around with magic in a way Blake never ever could have. I kind of get that, I won't like shit-talk it too hard. (I do like Verona, y'know?)

But it's an interesting fact. Because Wildbow's the underdog protagonist guy! At least in action scenes, that's his whole thing! Taylor and Blake have to eat shit and die to claw their way to victory, and often those scenes work for me. And it's one of the things I think WB gets the most praise for? Like, from his established base. It's a conscious choice to not do that for Pale. He like, introduced the idea that this kind of wild practitioner would be especially powerful. He made that up for this book.

I wonder what that decision looks like -- after Ward, and Ward's issues, especially, since that seemed to be the first break from this. Underdog protagonists seem to be the default, for him; the thing he has most experience with. I've seen posts from him describing his process -- put characters against the wall without having a pre-planned out for them, so WB himself has to puzzle out exactly what they can use to make it out alive -- and he seemed to derive like... An actual enjoyment, out of it?

Yeah, there are fights in Pale where they're up against the wall... even one where, with Dire Consequences for us all, Wildbow had them lose because he couldn't see a way for them to win!

But it's not the same. I'd honestly say they usually lose because of their like, lack of full maturity -- their child soldier-y emotional rawness and uncertainty -- their lack of cohesion, as the book usually plays it. Lucy cannot stop John from joining the Contest because she can't hold her nerve against him. The girls cannot stop the murder plot from coming to fruition because they lack unity, aren't working together as a team. Emotional stuff. The girls have more tools in their box than any Wildbow protagonist before them, by far, but they can't always use them properly to get the W, for emotional reasons, for character reasons.

In theory, that's an interesting direction (maybe, possibly), and I should be relieved that Wildbow is trying something fresh. In practice... I've said I don't like Pale's fight scenes. I think Wildbow is plainly worse at this than the content of his previous works.

Part of this is seen in the Contest. Or, at least, how Wildbow Posts about it. If you can't tell, a specific WoG lives in my brain: Wildbow said once that he kept the story going past Break because he genuinely did not believe the trio could beat Maricica. I can imagine him doing his typical calculus for this, and what led him to that conclusion, maybe. For example, we've heard a lot about the ability of the Fae to manipulate stuff, aaaand to have the girls come along and undo all of that with minimal information to begin with wouuld sort of. Damage our belief in Faerie significance. Still, though -- cards on the table, here -- I think this was a Dumb and Bad choice. (It's a sidenote to this post, but I think it's very strange that, in-story the straw that breaks the camel's back is shown to be the Alabaster allowing shit to go on rather than throwing in with John, effectively a betrayer revealed moment -- a thing that, even if sorta his intention from the start, he could simply say 'aw beans i never really planned this out far enough' and just drop. for the sake of wrapping up a better story. and naturally i believe this would have been better also because it means we never would have fucking gotten White Woman Animus!! i digress. i digress.)

Maricica had weaknesses the story gave us to nibble on, and those weaknesses... are just kind of dangling threads, now? As of where I hopped off? like, guess she can't be that inexperienced with people if she became a goddess and started a cult and helped with all that red heron shit lol

So it's that thing I said, about fight scenes being more character driven. But then also, he's clearly thinking about this the same way as ever! As shown by his weird logic with framing the story going past Break as a thing he Had To Do, for Logical Reasons, or at least that weighing on the decision. a thing that is silly and i disagree with on it's face. right?

And then this shows in the sheer quantity of fight scenes -- if the girl's main limiter is internal emotional context and stuff........... uh... why are there so many fights? Why wouldnt the story naturally curve towards. having fewer fight scenes when theres no other way to square things away. that progress character arcs. whyyy do i care about fight scene 129 when i know how strong these girls are. whyyy are we fighting so many random others, and dedicating genuinely long segments of story to them, rather than montaging that shit? Getting it over with? If it has to be there at all? (for reference -- I just tried to think of a Random Pale Fight i fully don't think mattered. i selected the random like. angel summoner guy? with the fortnite constructor angel. that's a part of the musser invasion or whatever. this is a character with literally no substance, just a musser-side goon. From him entering the ongoing! fight to Lucy getting out of dodge is 4.6k words. Plague 12.7, the Mannequin fight, up to Mannequin leaving -- that's almost the entire chapter -- is 6.9k words. on the worm wiki, i saw there's a brief 'major events' summary of that chapter. i couldnt tell you the major events of the Pale chapter, of which that section of fight is like a third, maybe. lucy gets a bit more upset. lucy gets in a few quips against musser-side characters that actually matter but actually dont matter much to how that broader conflict is resolved. i guess.)

Wildbow writes any random fight the girls get into as being worth as many words as his fights in the past! the scrappy, pay-offy ones. bleh. My point in all this: you cannot simply set your protags up in the way I'm positing, here, and then continue to use the same vocabulary of every other serial anyway. it straight up doesn't work. it's exhausting. The Future is An Eternal Slaughterhouse 9000 Arc. Look, thats a criticism that boils down to 'web serials are too long'. And I'm not sure I care too much about web serials being too long! I have read longer web serials with longer fight scenes! I have written fiction with a longer average word count per chapter than Wildbow, at least during Worm! its a real criticism, but its not one im amazingly interested in personally. But the Kennet three could've had weaknesses to play around -- or at least, more weaknesses. We are in a Post-Pact world, and in this Post-Pact world, the magic in Pale really barely feels like it, uh, relies on discourse and presentation. like at all. And that seems like an option to give these characters obstacles! An option Wildbow gestures at during the Musser meta-arc!

but what struck me getting that word count comparison earlier, skimming that fight? The girls just aren't operating in that world. There's never a thought for presentation -- maybe sometimes, for a slight edge. But it never really matters, certainly not after the blue heron. They're using glamour as a workhorse tool, covering goblins in it for brief misdirects to get an edge in a fight; they're calling on the same shrine spirits over and over. They don't build up tools over a portion of story then cash them out for a satisfying win, they're just... strong. They have more items in their bags than Wildbow probably knows what to do with. Strong enough for just Lucy to dunk on any random set of practitioners, but not strong enough for the story to just skip that part, and not strong enough to just solve the plot until it's time to go fuck up Charles and end the story.

I know you could argue that I'm making this up, or that it's what some people prefer to what Pact was doing. But I just think it's not even what wildbow is good at! (and i always theorize that when wildbow is writing kind of bad, it's probably because he's not actually engaged or happy with what he's putting himself through. did he read a specific thing that made him personally excited to make the girls so versatile? I don't really know, but I don't get that vibe.)

And I have a couple of specific things I want to point out to try and prove this is like. a thing at all, to wrap up on: First, Glamour is used as this very, uh, soft magic thing, this very basic narrative tool. A pure mechanic of, like, mental states. If you're shaken, if you're uncertain, your glamour gives out on you -- if you shake your opponents, make them skittish, your glamour is better at misdirecting them. This is fiiine? But too vague for what Glamour is. Wildbow simply failed to properly present tradeoffs to one of his character's main action verbs, one that literally had those tradeoffs in Pact. And one last example to try and prove this: they dont even wear the hats and cloaks anymore duuude. Like, in my eyes: there was a very simple to read gambit being made, with the hats and masks and cloaks? You are awakening early, you will always have awoken early: You accepted an early shield against what that meant. A constructed image in place of the image of a fully-fledged adult, masking that youth; Whimsical and inherently magical, inherently wild. It's a very basic tradeoff, and one the story promises you it knows: even if they really would rather not have to go through the whole song and dance of suiting up, if it's tactically suboptimal or else they mature out of it and realise it's not for them, they will never be able to escape it -- not without giving up power. A mark accepted that cannot be given up. A mechanical restriction on their powersets to make up for some of their advantages, that also has some character relevancy. The Good Stuff.

except yeah it can. be taken off. it doesn't super matter. not really. they do plenty of magic without all the stuff on or even any of the stuff on -- it's rarely presented as an obstacle. it doesnt really matter. Because then, you see, they couldnt mature out of it and do cool stuff! it'd be. annoying. frustrating. they'd have to like. deal with changing past the natures they made for themselves. they'd have to. be characters. with character issues. that present themselves in fight scenes. you know?? what are we doing.

#ramble analysis #look. this is long but im not super confident i have the deets to back it up #analysis of my memory of pale ass post #but! the books long. frankly #so this is what you get #pale #wildbow #pale web serial #palecrit

43 notes · View notes

theprinceandagcd · 6 months

Text

home is where the heart is (but God I love the English)

Summary: Alex's relationship with "London Boy" by Taylor Swift is an emotional journey.

Words: 4,026

ao3 link

Notes: via @KeptinOnZeBridg on Twitter: "alex continuously teasing henry with taylor swift's "london boy" and singing it over and over again when they shop, when they get to bed, when they cook, and when their friends are over"

So. Anyway. I'm not entirely sure what this is? Is it a crack fic? It might be a crack fic. I hope you like it anyway. I do :)

----

you know I love a London boy

I enjoy walking Soho, drinking in the afternoon

he likes my American smile

like a child, when our eyes meet

darling, I fancy you

----

Alex wouldn’t consider himself a Swiftie, necessarily.

June has been obsessed since they were little and still in Texas – Alex has distinct memories of her strumming a guitar and covering Our Song repeatedly because it was the only song she learned at the time. When Taylor Swift stopped in D.C. for the Reputation tour the year after his mom get elected, he’d tagged along with June and Nora, dressed in all black at the girls’ insistence to fit the vibes.

It’d been fine. He’d had a good time.

But he doesn’t know her entire discography and only pretends to keep up when someone starts diving into the Taylor Swift lore, like who her best exes are or why there were five holes in a fence in an Instagram photo years ago. Her music is good, and he doesn’t actively want to turn it off most of the time when he hears it – he doesn’t understand why that can’t be the end of the conversation.

Still, when Lover comes out in late August of 2019, only a week after he had to clean cake out of places he never wanted to clean cake out of, he finds himself lounging back on June’s unnecessarily fluffy pillows, Nora and June both curled up near the foot of the bed with June’s phone as midnight rolls around. Snacks are scattered around them, like they’re preparing for some kind of fucking apocalypse instead of listening to a pop album. He’s got his HRH Prince Henry fact sheet open on his lap as they start playing the first track for the first time, because he’s here for the snacks and to make June happy, and he’s supposed to be committing this stuff to memory at the same time.

The album isn’t bad. He nods his head along to some of the songs, taps his fingers in tune with a few, and he doesn’t really offer a lot of commentary.

“Okay, this next one is… London Boy.” He isn’t looking, but he feels June’s eyes on the side of his face. “Ooh, wonder if it’s about your new best friend.”

Alex frowns, glancing up at her. “What?”

“Henry, obviously,” June says, grinning around a mouthful of Pop-tart. She gestures vaguely toward the file in his hand. “Doesn't he qualify as a London boy?”

“There’s at least a ninety percent probability that it’s about her boyfriend,” Nora supplies, unhelpfully, as she rips open a bag of skittles.

“And the other ten percent?” June tilts her head and smirks, clearly enjoying this too much.

“I’d say like, eight percent that it’s Harry Styles.”

“And?”

“Probably at least one percent that it’s Henry." Nora shrugs. "He’s the more attractive option of the two royal English men within a decent age range.”

June turns back to Alex, eyebrows raised high on her forehead. “See, there’s a chance.”

“Just play the goddamn song, Bug.”

Nora throws a yellow skittle at his head. “Boo, party pooper.”

June plays the song, as requested, and it’s good.

Except.

Except it’s a little too... boppy for his taste.

Except now he’s stuck thinking about pristine blonde hair and stupid blue eyes and an upturned perfect nose because June has made the association in his brain before he’d even been able to give the song a chance. He breathes in deep through his nose and stares at the words in front of him and tries to push down the irritation rising in his chest. Random facts about Prince Henry are staring back up at him, mocking him and reminding him that he has to fix this stupid mess that wasn’t even his fault.

Well, not really.

“It was cute,” Nora says once the song has stopped.

Alex just shrugs. “It’s not my favorite. Next.”

He pretends not to see the glare that June shoots at him. It’s easier than trying to figure out why his stomach is in knots just from thinking about Henry.

It's probably just pure annoyance.

----

Taylor Swift has bad timing.

On January 3rd, two days after Henry kissed him on New Years’, Alex is antsy and irritable and needs to distract himself because he's definitely being ghosted. So, he’s trying to get a head start on reading for his classes that don’t start for another fucking week because he has to do something when Idris Elba’s voice comes through the speaker playing a random pop playlist on Spotify.

He hates that he recognizes it immediately, even though he’s pretty sure he’s only heard it twice since it came out. Even more, he hates the way it immediately makes him feel.

His stomach drops and twists, and the book he was holding slips from his hands because they’re suddenly damp and he can’t hold onto it. He fumbles in his hurry to slam his hand on the volume down button of the offending piece of technology, and the book crashes to the floor beside his desk, loud and jarring. The silence that follows offers little comfort, the tune still playing in his head, echoing between his ears.

Reflexively, he unlocks his phone and opens his message thread with Henry, reading back over the texts he’s sent – questions of if Henry is alive and if they can talk and—nothing. No new messages or missed calls or even a fucking like on his most recent Instagram post. That had been a stretch, he knows - a desperate attempt to get anything from Henry, but the radio silence has only continued. It feels like he’s lost something, something monumental, which is fucking stupid because they weren’t anything, not really. Acquaintances, at best. Fake friends, at worst.

It’s what Alex tells himself.

It doesn’t feel true.

He counts out four minutes in ten second intervals in his head and then turns the volume back up on his speaker. Another song has started playing, one that doesn’t remind him of cold air and warm hands on his cheeks and soft lips pressed to his underneath a tree in the White House garden.

It’s another story, he guesses, if that’s all he can think about anyway, regardless of what song plays. He’ll still blame Taylor Swift for the crack in his chest that he presses a hand to as he picks his book back up, opening it up and not comprehending a single goddamn word.

Maybe he should have just let the stupid song play. He feels like shit already, anyway.

----

He plays it for Henry in Paris, just to annoy him.

They’re eating apricots and tarts and laughing curled up together on the bedspread in their robes and nothing else, and Alex gives Henry an airpod and they go back and forth picking songs. Alex pokes fun at Henry’s Bowie choices and Henry rolls his eyes when Alex plays the Beatles, but they’re giggling and it’s stupid, really, how this moment feels stuck in time. He knows minutes are passing and he knows Henry will have to leave soon, but their heads are tucked close together and Henry’s palm is warm on Alex’s leg, and he wishes they could just stay here forever.

Here feels like somewhere else, safe from prying eyes and people who wouldn’t understand. Here, they’re just two boys curled together in a Paris hotel room that are friends, that sort of understand each other, that know what the other tastes like when they come and where to kiss to make the other squirm. It’s a little terrifying, this feeling blooming in his chest and expanding. It feels beautiful and fragile, and Alex isn’t sure he’s capable of not fucking it up.

It would be on brand for him, if he’s being honest.

So, he types the song name into his search bar and clicks play. He cuts his eyes up at Henry with a grin, because this is supposed to be something casual, not something that makes him feel like he might die if he loses it. The song is just silly enough, and Henry rolls his eyes and shoves him away, complaining that he needs to take a shower before he heads out.

He hands Alex back his airpod and gets up, but he smiles at Alex before he disappears into the bathroom. Alex lets the song finish playing as he hears the shower turn on, and part of him kind of wants to take off his own robe and join him. Henry would probably let him, but Alex has already skirted the edge of what this is supposed to be this morning, when he watched Henry sleep and traced the ridges of his spine with his fingertips.

Taylor sings “you know I love a London boy” in his right ear, the other airpod tucked into his fist, and Alex, for just a moment, wonders if he could.

Or if he’d even be allowed.

----

The song haunts Alex on his worst day.

When Henry leaves the lakehouse, the rest of them stay for one more day, like they had planned originally. Alex asks to leave and let them enjoy the last day without him, but everyone refuses to let him go anywhere by himself, and Alex doesn’t want to ruin their vacation, too.

He’s pretty sure he already has.

Nora and June hover around him, and he tries to humor them, but his heart feels torn open and shattered. No, his heart feels gone, ripped from his chest and halfway across the Atlantic by now, probably. He wonders if Henry has cried over him at all, too, or if leaving was easy for him. Has he thought about texting Alex back? Has he stared at their text message thread and considered responding and giving Alex any semblance of an answer? Of a reason?

Does he understand what Alex has lost?

If, he thinks bleakly, he ever had it to begin with.

Alex lets his sister and best friend pull him onto the porch, into the warm sun that does nothing for how cold he feels, and Nora turns on some music, and he tries very hard not to open his Instagram and scroll through Henry’s feed, and he tries very hard not to wonder what he did wrong, and he tries very hard not to cry.

“We could go driving in, on my scooter-“

A broken noise slips past Alex’s lips before Nora can grab her phone and change the song. The door slams forcefully when Alex runs inside, before he's even realized that he was moving, into the room that still fucking smells like Henry. Pain laces through his scalp and – oh – he was pulling his hair. He squeezes his hands into tight fists and presses them into his eyes as his tears start to fall and fall and fall.

He was so fucking stupid.

It’s like he can still hear the godforsaken lyrics even though he knows the song was turned off, taunting him, words about loving British mannerisms and “just wanna be with you”s, and he isn’t sure how he read it so wrong, how he misunderstood the way that Henry had looked at him, how he’d let himself fall in love with someone who never planned on being there to catch him.

He curls up in Henry’s bunk and cries into one of the last things that Henry touched that he still has with him, ignoring June when she knocks on the door, apologizing profusely.

It doesn’t matter.

None of it matters.

----

The song winds up being a comfort when he needs it.

Curled into a seat on a private plane the night after dancing with Henry at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Alex slots his airpods into his ears and plays music to try to calm his racing thoughts. He brings his hand up to his sternum, feels the lump of the key and ring hiding under his shirt and clings to that feeling, that hope.

“I want you to know, I'm sure. A thousand percent."

If Alex closes his eyes, he can still feel Henry’s soft jacket underneath his fingertips, the way his palms had slid into the dips in Henry’s waist as they’d shuffled back and forth around some of the most beautiful art in the world. Or, at least, Alex assumes it is. He didn’t see much of it, too focused on Henry, on making sure he took advantage of every second that he was allowed to hold him, to press kisses into his cheeks and jaw and neck, to love him the way he deserved to be loved.

The way that Alex is going to love him forever.

He isn’t really paying attention to what’s playing, until his brain registers a familiar cadence, and he realizes that London Boy is playing.

It makes him laugh, quick and surprised, the immediate visceral reaction almost making him skip it. But, the song plays, “but something happened, I heard him laughing, I saw the dimples first and then I heard the accent” and his finger stops over the button. It’s catchy, for one. It’s true, for another.

A lot of things will probably remind him of Henry breaking his heart in Texas, at least for a while - the lake house, bunk beds, this song. He can't change what happened, but he's certainly changed his perceptions before. He did, after all, spend the first twenty-one years of his life thinking that he was straight and now he has a boyfriend.

Things can change.

He leans back against his headrest and lets the song play, humming along. Cash shoots him a funny look from his seat, but Alex just looks out the window and breathes and creates a new memory for the song – a feeling of elation, of knowing that the future is uncertain except for one thing, the one thing that Alex is more sure of than he’s ever been of anything. Before the song ends, he takes a screenshot of the Spotify app as it plays and sends it to Henry, texting, miss you already xo

Henry’s response is quick: I’m never going to escape that bloody song, am I?

Alex grins. not if you’re with me, baby.

Guess I’ll just learn to love it, then. And then, immediately after: I miss you, too.

----

Henry doesn’t escape it.

June plays London Boy on purpose after the inauguration in January, her grin wide and wicked. Alex lolls his head onto Henry’s shoulder and sings along immediately, poking at his side until that beautiful fucking smile pulls up his boyfriend’s features.

“You’re a menace to society,” is what Henry says, but his cheeks are pink and his lips are warm when he presses them to Alex’s temple.

Alex just buries his face into Henry’s neck, pressing his own kiss to the soft skin there, before trailing up to Henry’s ear and, around a giggle, whisper-singing, “Dahling, I fancy you.”

Henry shakes his head, but his eyes are bright, and his grin is infectious, and Alex just wants to live in this moment forever. His mom and Leo are somewhere – grabbing champagne, he thinks. Nora is curled up on Alex’s other side, and June is sitting on the ottoman in front of them with her phone in her hand, and Henry’s arm is looped around Alex’s waist from where he sits next to him, and it’s everything.

He swallows past the sudden emotion in his throat and then laughs as June and Nora grab remotes and start using them as microphones, serenading Henry until his blush has spread all the way down his neck. They love him, too, Alex knows, and as he joins in with them, singing loudly and off-key, he thinks that this is what Henry deserves – to be loved this fully and wholly and unconditionally and, sometimes, a little comically. Nora leans over Alex’s lap to ruffle Henry’s hair during the bridge of the song, and Alex presses his “just wanna be with youuu” into the crinkle at the corner of Henry’s eye. June fakes a gagging motion, but then she gets up and smacks a kiss on Henry’s opposite cheek, which makes him splutter as he pushes her away.

During the last chorus, he glances over at Alex, as if in need of salvation, but Alex just smirks. Henry rolls his eyes, but the hand around Alex’s waist squeezes as the song ends, and Nora and June devolve into a giggling fit just as his mom and Leo appear with a bottle of champagne and 6 glasses. They toast their wins, all of them, including Henry, who flushes but clinks his glasses with everyone.

They’re all talking over each other and it’s chaotic and messy but there’s still something warm and tangible beating through his veins, comfortable and encompassing. Alex looks over at Henry, who smiles and laces their fingers together like it’s the easiest thing in the world before giving his attention back to Leo, and Alex knows – it’s home.

----

Alex adds London Boy to their move in playlist when they’re putting all of their things in the brownstone, credenzas and way too many shoes and everything in between coming together in a jumble that will probably take them weeks to work through.

But it’s their stuff and their mess, and unpacking boxes with Henry feels nearly therapeutic, like the culmination of everything that they had to go through to have this, a home that belongs to both of them, closets that they share, and decisions that they get to make together.

Henry lets him craft the playlist, which is a mistake on his part, but Alex takes advantage and then bides his time, waiting patiently as they unpack boxes and rearrange furniture and argue over which cabinet the ceramic bowls should go in, which is so fucking domestic that Alex actually kisses Henry mid-argument, fingers curling around the back of his neck as he licks into his mouth. Henry’s hands flutter for a moment around Alex’s shoulders before settling around his waist, and Alex’s grin breaks their lips apart.

Henry swallows, eyes dark. “Um, I-“

“Put the bowls wherever you want, baby.”

The bowls go on the counter, for the time being, as Henry drops to his knees, and they christen their kitchen before they’ve even finished unpacking the first box.

Later, London Boy starts playing while Henry is setting up their coffee and tea bar and Alex is stacking glass cups in the cabinet beside the refrigerator. Immediately, Alex puts the dishes down and grabs Henry around the waist, effectively pulling him away from his work and into Alex’s arms.

“What are you – oh my – Christ, Alex, really?”

Alex laughs as recognition flashes in Henry’s eyes, keeping one hand in Henry’s as he twirls himself around once. Henry’s arm winds around his middle as he comes back, and then he’s rocking back and forth with Alex, silly and perfect and his. Alex is so deliriously happy as he obnoxiously sings the lyrics, feeling like he’s holding everything he's ever wanted in the palm of his hand.

And, well. He guesses he is.

----

It becomes a bit, something Alex always knows he can do to get a smile out of Henry. He’ll play their stupid song, and sing it off-key in Henry’s ear, and they’ll dance around their kitchen or their living room or their bedroom or whatever space they find themselves in. Henry eventually even stops complaining, unless he’s critiquing the accent that Alex sometimes tries to emanate as he belts the lyrics.

Alex adds London Boy to nearly every playlist they have on their shared Spotify account, including their chores playlist. So, it always seems to come on when they’re sweeping their dining room or dusting their ceiling fans or cleaning their kitchen countertops. They always stop, they always dance. Alex always feels like it’ll never get old, the way that Henry looks skyward for a moment and laughs and lets Alex keep doing it anyway. He’s lucky, so lucky, that this is the life he gets to live, with this man that he loves and that loves him, too, even when he’s ridiculous or overdoing it.

Henry never seems to think so.

Once, when Henry is washing the dishes, the song comes on and Alex puts down the broom that was in his hand to wrap his arms around Henry from behind. His fingers trail across Henry’s abs from over his sweater, squeezing lightly. He presses his lips to the shell of Henry’s ear and hums, “home is where the heart is, but God I love the English” in the most exaggerated bubble gum pop tone he can manage.

Henry pulls his lips between his teeth to try to hide his smile. “Your love for the English is singular, you cretin.”

Alex just kisses his jaw noisily and keeps singing, rocking back and forth, and moving both of their bodies in a way that makes Henry fucking giggle, and Alex might spend the rest of their lives trying to get that sound replicated as often as possible.

“You know I love a London boy

I enjoy walking Camden Market in the afternoon”

Henry sighs, finishing the last dish and drying off his hands before turning to rest his hip against the counter. He tilts his head in a way that Alex recognizes, slightly exasperated but endearingly fond. It still makes his heart skip a little in his chest.

He loves that – the way his entire soul still reacts to even the slightest bit of affection from Henry. It’s like he’ll never fully get used to it, even as much as he knows that Henry loves him, that Henry is staying forever. He hopes the thrill never goes away, either.

Alex curls himself into Henry’s chest, still singing along with the song as he stretches up on his toes. Henry kisses him, cutting him off and effectively shutting him up, and Alex melts, reaching up to cup Henry’s cheeks in his palms. Their noses brush together when they pull away. “I love you.” Alex grins. “London boy.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re insufferable.” Henry scrunches up his nose, and Alex leans up to kiss it. Henry rolls his eyes. “But I love you, too.”

----

At the end of the year, when they get their shared Spotify account Wrapped, London Boy is their top played song, because Alex plays it while they’re cleaning, while they’re getting ready in the morning, when they have friends over for game nights, as often as he can. He does it for the sole purpose of teasing Henry, of getting to see the splotches of color that rise on his skin and know that it’s born out of love. Plus, as much as he didn’t like it when he first heard it, he thinks that opinion was based on his feelings about Henry getting in the way. In hindsight and objectively, he was too harsh on it. It’s a good song.

When they go shopping at Target and the song plays over the store’s speakers, Alex’s eyes go wide and he sings it to Henry in the middle of the aisle, and Henry tries to run him over with their shopping cart.

When they get married, Alex adds it to their wedding reception playlist, delighted when it blares through the sound system and makes Henry blush, prompting Henry to pull Alex close and hide his face in Alex’s shoulder, his ring sparkling in the light when he covers his eyes with his hand.

A few years later, when they adopt their first daughter from an agency based out of London, Alex posts a photo to Instagram of Henry holding her, small and wrapped in a yellow blanket that has tiny water spots dotting the top of it from where they’ve both cried on her, captioning it, “you know we love a London (girl).”

June comments both a pink heart and an eye rolling emoji, then texts him asking for caption credit.

After all, she made him listen to the song in the first place.

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwarb #firstprince #alex x henry #my writing #firstprince ff #i actually really like this idk why #i hope yall do too

24 notes · View notes