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mint-yooxgi · 1 year

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{4} - Paradise Gardens - Yandere!Demonic Entities!Ateez X Reader

Yandere AU & Demon AU - Book Two to Hotel California

Genre: Mature, Horror, Angst, Fluff, Slight Humor

Pairing: Ateez X Reader (Focus on Seonghwa, Yunho, & Yeosang)

Words: 9,390

Warnings: Petty jealousy, nasty comments and name calling, slut shaming (not done by any of the guys). Minor violence, blood mentioned and the use of it to smear against someones's back in a show of dominance, unconventional cleaning of wounds. The later half of this chapter isn't edited, so please excuse any weird mistakes. This is a Yandere story, it will contain themes such as stalking, violence, obsession, possessive natures, and just general overall creepiness and swearing. You have been warned.

A/n: Here it is!!! The next part!!! I'm very excited for this chapter, and the following ones to come. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to enjoy the next one a lot *wink, wink* hehehe, anyways, as always feedback is greatly appreciated! Enjoy~

Also, gentle reminder that I don’t do tag lists.

Mini Masterlist - Part One - Part Two - Part Three

A vast expanse of red and golden rocks stretches on before you as soon as you transport to the harpy’s nest. The badlands are dry, raising at odd peaks which round out above your head as the sun shines in a cloudless sky. You can practically see the heat rising off of the stones as you shift your gaze, three males surrounding you.

“Their nest lies beneath the ground,” Yunho explains. “We just need to await their messenger.”

You nod your understanding. “I know this is way off, but I am so tempted to make a joke about hunting for dinosaur bones right now.”

“The only carcasses you’ll find here are from last weeks' hunts.” A feminine voice sounds from between the hoodoos. “I apologize for Riza making you wait to be seen. You should have been invited to appear inside.”

The woman is beautiful, there’s no doubt about it as she steps into your line of sight. Her skin is a pale blue, a stark contrast to the red hue of the stones surrounding her. Feathers line her arms, bright red in colour to match her hair which falls nearly to her waist. Her arms are crossed, and on the tips of her fingers, you can just make out the faintest outline of claws.

“Wow.” You cannot help the breath that escapes you in awe.

The smile she sends your way is polite, albeit apologetic, and you notice short, pointy teeth lining the inside of her gums. It appears as if there are two rows on top, the front slightly shorter than the back, and only one row on the bottom.

“These three know me, but allow me to introduce myself now,” she addresses you fully. “My name is Rita, the youngest of the harpy sisters. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

She inclines her head in your direction, blinking at you lightly with dark brown eyes.

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” You incline your head back, introducing yourself as well.

She smiles. “If the four of you would follow me, we can get this meeting underway. My sisters are waiting for us inside.”

Immediately, she begins to lead you all deep into the heart of the badlands, beginning to descend into an opening with crystals lighting the way. You notice she hardly spares a glance in Seonghwa’s direction, and his shoulders seem to relax the more time passes without her making a comment his way.

You hum lowly to yourself, noticing Yeosang quirk a brow in your direction subtly. A second later and you’re leaning slightly into Seonghwa. “I understand.”

It’s slight, but his breath catches in his throat, a nervous smile being sent your way.

The deeper into the tunnel you descend, the more you notice other harpies peeking their heads out to look at you. All of them seem to have that same pale blue skin that glimmers beneath the light of the crystals, along with vibrantly coloured hair and wings. Some have their feathers lining their arms, while others have large wings which protrude from their backs. There are even some with more bird-like features, including beaks and plumage around their necks and eyes, highlighting their sharp gazes and pointed teeth.

“They’re just in the main chamber,” Rita says, leading you through a separate hallway once the path diverges. “I honestly don’t know why they insisted to wait inside. We literally could have taken all of five minutes to come to an agreement, but you know my sisters. Always have a flare for the dramatics.”

You can’t see her face, but you bet more than anything she’s just rolled her eyes.

“My apologies for that,” she mumbles, a slight sigh escaping her lips.

Reaching the end of the hall, Rita pushes open a large set of double doors. Stepping through, she doesn’t bother to close them as more harpies begin to fill out the grand hall where you see three thrones near the front. Two thrones are currently occupied by a female each whom both seem to be chatting with a third person, but harpy they are not. At least, not with the way their hair seems to slither and hiss with every movement they make.

“Rika! Riza! Will you act like the leaders you are and greet our guests?” Rita clicks her tongue, shaking her head in clear annoyance.

The two harpies sitting on their own respective thrones straighten slightly. The one on the middle throne immediately locks on to Seonghwa, a sultry pull of her lips upwards as she sits forwards. Her bright green wings twitch in excitement behind her, hands grasping the arms of her chair for support. Her dark brown hair, almost black, falls to her shoulders, and she’s quick to brush some strands out of her eyes.

The other, with deep purple feathers trailing down the skin of her arms looks you all over, a curt nod being sent your way in greeting before she’s turning back to the gorgon in front of her. She has bright orange hair, cropped short to her head and styled in every direction messily, but it suits her well.

“Oh,” the one on the middle throne seems to flick her gaze over to you for the briefest of moments, nothing but a look of disinterest crossing her features, “you’re here.”

“Nice to meet you,” the other one gives a tight smile in your direction. “I’m Rika, the middle sister, and this is Riza. The eldest. You’ve met Rita already, but we’re the harpy sisters.”

“Thank you for hosting us today.” You incline your head, introducing yourself quickly afterwards.

Riza snorts, rolling her eyes quite pointedly as she leans back in her seat. “Save the diplomacy, we all know why you’re here.”

Yeosang’s eyebrow twitches, Yunho exhaling a low breath as he crosses his arms over his chest. Seonghwa goes to take a step forward, but your hand on his shoulder stops him. A movement of which you notice causes Riza’s eyes to narrow where your skin makes contact with his.

“Always such a warm welcome with you.” Seonghwa huffs, not bothering to hide his irritation.

“For you?” Riza leans forward, that sultry smirk pulling onto her lips once more. “Always.”

You cannot prevent the way your eyebrows raise in response, eyes widening slightly as you blink in disbelief.

“I apologize for my sisters,” Rita directs her comment at you, another sigh escaping her as she shakes her head. “They aren’t usually like this.”

“This is the coldest greeting we’ve ever gotten from you.” Yeosang observes, tone cool and calculating as his gaze flicks over the two sisters still sitting on the thrones before you all.

Your brow quirks, gaze darting between the three sisters before you.

“Bring better company next time.” Rika shrugs, turning her attention back to the gorgon before her.

Yunho takes a deep breath to steady his building rage, but at one small brush from you against his mind, he manages to calm himself enough to stay where he is.

“Didn’t realize this meeting was for an approval committee.” You deadpan, shrugging cooly in the next second. “Not that your opinion of me matters all that much.”

“You seem to regard yourself highly.” Riza huffs, clearly unimpressed.

“I’m not one to waste my time bragging to someone who hasn’t learned the difference between incompetence and imbecile.” You shrug, and you hear Rita snort out a laugh from your left. “You’re a leader, aren’t you? Learn some respect before you demand it.”

“Oh, I like you!” Rita points at you eagerly, noticing her eldest sister practically fuming in her seat.

“Well, so far, you’re my favourite.” You turn to her, grin tugging at the corner of your lips. “You must be the head sister. You’re certainly the most mature out of the three of you.”

You notice both Riza’s and Rika’s feathers flare in irritation.

“I’m glad someone’s noticed,” Rita grins right back, back straightening as she stands a bit prouder than before. You swear a pleased coo escapes her, too.

“Oh, shut up, Rita,” Rika rolls her eyes. “You literally fall to your knees for the first person who praises you.”

You turn to Rita, brow quirking playfully. “Praise is rather flattering when it’s earned, juxtaposed to an air of preeminence.”

“Not our fault it’s a great ego boost.” Rita crosses her arms over her chest, shaking her head quite sassily at her sisters.

“You’re agreeing with the human who just insulted us?” Riza scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest as she leans back in her throne.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d say she’s sulking. You particularly don’t appreciate the way her gaze keeps flicking over to Seonghwa, hoping for both his acceptance and support.

“Don’t dish out what you can’t dish in.” You shrug casually. “I really don’t have time for petty jealousy.”

“Me, jealous of you?” Riza replies, incredulously. “As if!”

You lean slightly into Yeosang’s side. “How old did you say they were again?”

“What does our age have to do with anything?” Rika frowns, staring down at you from her throne.

“You two are acting like young human teenagers.” You shrug, somewhat nonchalantly. “I thought I left that shit back in high school.”

“You’re really going to let her talk to us like that?” Riza shifts her gaze between the three males beside you, purposely leaving Seonghwa for last so she can stare at him with mock hurt in her eyes the longest. “Do I mean nothing to you?”

The way your breath catches in your throat does not go unnoticed by any of them. You stiffen, and it’s Yeosang who places a comforting hand onto your lower back.

Rika smirks.

“We’ve already dealt with the jealous ex, we don’t need another.” Seonghwa states, rather bluntly as his scrutinizing gaze trails over Riza’s figure. “Not that you could even be considered an ex. We were never together.”

“Yet, you kept coming back for more.” The way she smirks is nothing short of malicious, especially when she turns to look down her nose at you.

You bite your tongue to keep the retort you have building within you from escaping your lips. Only, it’s as if your void has slipped, and Seonghwa has read your mind.

“But am I with you now?” He quirks a brow, a clear look of skepticism on his face.

“You could be.” She hums, a sultry look pulling onto her features as she practically spreads herself out on her throne for him. Almost as if she’s trying to entice him in every and any way she can.

You cannot hide your appall as you blink up at her in disbelief. Your lips part slightly as your eyebrows raise, your head tilting the slightest bit to the side.

The entire room is silent, both Rita, Rika, and the gorgon looking between both you and Riza periodically. It’s as if they are waiting for a bomb to drop, noticing the way the three males practically shake in rage beside you.

“Oh, sweetie,” you shake your head, tutting all the while. “Desperation isn’t a good look on you. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. You’re the eldest of the harpy sisters? Really? I’ve met dogs with more manners than you.”

“Did you just call me a fucking bitch?” She stands from her seat so quickly, you swear it almost topples to the ground as her feathers ruffle.

“If the shoe fits.” You shrug, nonchalantly.

“You come into my home-“

“You insulted her first, Riza.” Rita cuts in, stepping in before her sister can swoop down upon you from her position atop her throne. “Not everyone is going to put up with your shit.”

“It’s about time someone put you in your place.” Rika chuckles, standing from her own throne and descending the steps to stand before you. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I apologize for my sister’s eccentric behaviour.”

“Older sisters,” you huff out an amused breath, lips quirking at the corners. “Am I right?”

“Literally, you could not be more correct.” Rita nods along with your words, quite enthusiastically.

“Hey!” Rika shifts to ruffle her younger sister’s hair. “It’s not like you’re a pile of daisies, either!”

“Don’t we have things to discuss?” Riza calls, irritation clear on her face as she glides down from her throne to join the two of her sisters standing before you.

“We do.” Yunho replies, quite sharply. There’s no hiding the irritation on his face, that all too familiar darkness swirling within as he glares at Riza for the moment.

“I see Sudaem has already arrived.” Yeosang shoots a pointed look towards the gorgon still standing off to the side.

“Unlike some, she’s actually welcome here.” Riza replies, somewhat pointedly in your direction.

The three males don’t even attempt to suppress their growls any longer. If Riza is going to throw all sense of diplomacy out of the window, then so are they.

“Riza.” Rita hisses, smacking her sister harshly on her arm.

“Sudaem is our friend, and also the current leader of the gorgons.” Rika informs you, a light smile pulling at her features - her way of easing the sudden tension between all of you.

You notice the gorgon tilt her head in your direction when she senses your gaze on her. You bow back, a small, polite smile gracing your own features.

“She was worried Jongho was going to be attending the meeting.” Rita says, causing your eyebrow to quirk at the almost dreamy way she speaks his name. “He scalped their last leader.”

“Yeah, cause she tried to assassinate us.” Seonghwa retorts, his entire body tense as he stands beside you with his arms crossed over his chest.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you notice Riza inching closer to him.

“Talk shit, get hit.” You blink, turning back to the three sisters in front of you.

“Oh, I really like you.” Rita grins, her fangs on full display.

“You’re nothing special.” Riza mumbles, now being the sister standing the closest to Seonghwa.

Faintly, you register the side of her wing brush against his arm.

Irritation flashes in his eyes as he steps away, shifting closer to you for the moment.

This time, you don’t even react when the eldest sister says this, turning back to face Sudaem.

“You’re still contemplating whether to join the alliance, right?” Once she nods, you continue. “Then, join us. We’ve got a lot to discuss. This affects you as much as them right now.”

“I thought we were already in agreement to join you?” Rita frowns, looking between her older sisters for the moment.

“After the way this one,” Riza jerks her chin in your direction, “has treated me, I’m having second thoughts.”

“Riza, can it.” Rika shoots her sister a sharp look. “No one wants to listen to you whine.”

The eldest harpy huffs in response, a subtle pout tugging at her lips. Again, she shifts closer to Seonghwa, almost as if she’s hoping he’ll comfort her.

Her wing brushes tenderly against his shoulder, and this time, he shoots her a dark look. He eyes her figure pointedly, disgust pulling at his features. “Don’t touch me.”

Riza clearly looks taken aback by the malice in his tone. Enough so, that she retracts her wing. For now.

“So, this alliance,” Rika begins once Sudaem has joined the seven of you. “You mentioned we’d be going up against Malik, and the sorcerer Dimitri?”

“Yes.” Yunho confirms with a nod. “Miyeon convinced Malik to stage that coup twenty years ago, and now we’re seeing all the uprisings her little rebellion cause has started. They’re determined to make a ‘New World’ for all. Dimitri has simply been caught in the crossfire: he’s suffering under mental manipulation from her, even after her death.”

“You mean you haven’t freed him, yet?” Riza quirks a skeptical brow in his direction, clearly unimpressed.

The way Yunho purses his lips does not go unnoticed by you. You frown.

“You’re weaker than I remember.” She hums, beginning to pick at her nails.

“Don’t you dare speak down to him.” Your brow is furrowed, eyes blazing with a building rage.

You can handle insults being thrown your way just fine, but the moment something is said against someone you love, you have a little bit more of a difficult time controlling yourself. You have half the mind to tell Yunho to fuck with her own mind right now, but you’re not that petty. Yet.

“Riza, he could tear you apart in an instant if he wanted to.” Rita reminds her eldest sister.

“We’ll just call San to do it.” Yeosang shrugs, noticing how all three of the sisters seem to stiffen slightly in fear.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Riza feigns confidence, scoffing in disbelief.

Again, she attempts to move closer to Seonghwa.

A blink and you’ve wrapped your arm around his waist, pulling him into your side and away from her. Her arm just misses brushing his, but from the faint rumble you can feel emanate from his chest, you know that he’s far too caught up in the feeling of you holding him against you to notice.

Seonghwa practically melts into your touch, immediately wrapping his own arm around your waist as Yeosang removes his hand from your lower back for the moment. The eldest can feel his heart pounding in his chest, a certain pride swirling within as your actions wash over him. You wanted to protect him.

Perhaps his fantasies are coming true. Maybe, just maybe, you are jealous.

Riza scowls, but you simply raise a brow in her direction. If she wants to challenge you, and disregard Seonghwa’s own boundaries, you are more than happy to remind her of her place.

“You said they have an army?” Rika draws your attention back to her as she asks this.

“Dimitri’s sorcerers and hunters for one. Plus, all of the demons that have pledged their loyalty to Miyeon and Malik’s cause.” Seonghwa replies, briefly filling them in on all of their other allies, too.

“Damn sirens.” Sudaem scowls, her hair hissing along with her. “Greedy bastards. Never content with just one thing.”

“No wonder Miyeon propositioned them with an alliance, then.” You huff dryly, shaking your head.

“Did she ever try to attack you herself?” Rita asks, meeting your gaze curiously.

Your lips purse, shoulders tensing slightly. A fact which you know the harpy beside Seonghwa notices.

“Multiple times.” You say, steeling your features for the moment as you attempt to keep your voice from shaking. “She succeeded once.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rita’s expression drops, worry taking over her features as she notices how tense the three males become beside you. “The few times I had the displeasure of meeting her were rough. I can only imagine what she was like with a personal vendetta against you.”

“No one deserves that.” Rika agrees, concern shining in her eyes as she notices you swallow thickly.

“Thank you, I appreciate that.” You tilt your head in acknowledgement to their words, your lips quirking upwards slightly despite the smile being tight.

Riza seems to hum in disappointment beside you, and you notice Yeosang’s hands twitch at his side.

“Our magic should be more than enough to combat the sorcerers.” Rita continues, looking directly at you as she says this. “After all, their spells don’t work against us.”

“They don’t?” There’s clear wonder in your voice, eyes lighting up as you meet her gaze.

“You mean you didn’t tell her about us?” Riza huffs, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You weren’t important enough to mention.” Seonghwa states, rather bluntly as his sharp eyes dart beside him.

Her jaw clenches, clearly irritated by his response.

Rika chuckles. “To answer your question: yes. We can’t cast any spells of our own, but we have magic flowing through our blood all the same. Witches and warlocks do not affect us in any way, unless they choose to physically attack us.”

“That’s really cool!” You say, eyes lighting up in awe. “Having your own immunity to magic must come in really handy.”

“For sure!” Rita nods enthusiastically along with your words. “It’s like having a built in forcefield around us at all times.”

“Do you feel it if a spell gets deflected off of you, or is it undetectable when magic is used against you?” You ask, that curious gleam ever so prominent in your eyes.

A look which three males know all too well, and despite the irritation they feel towards a certain sister, they all cannot help the way fond smiles begin to pull at their lips while looking at you. It’s nice to know that you’re still curious about their world, and that you want to know more about the different creatures that reside within them. They would tell you themselves, but what better way to learn than from that species themselves?

“Sometimes we feel it, and other times we don’t.” Rika answers, a smile pulling at her features as she sees you turn your bright gaze towards her. “It depends on the level of the spell, the intricacy in it’s casting, and the power of the wielder.”

“Though, only those with casting magic in their veins can perform spells.” Rita adds. “If there’s no trace, the spell won’t work.”

“A caster doesn’t even need to have any training for a spell to work for them.” Sudaem chimes in. “Though, it depends on how much stored magic said castor has. If it’s a high level spell, like summoning or inflicting damage on an opponent, then they have to come from a strong line of casters.”

You blink, as if realizing something. Subtly, your grip tightens around Seonghwa’s waist.

“Sorry, can we just pause for a second.” You raise your free hand in the air. “You just said that a caster can performs spells properly without knowing as long as they have powerful magic stored within them?”

Riza rolls her eyes, mumbling how you need better comprehension skills. You ignore her, as do the others for now.

“Yes.” Sudaem nods, meeting your gaze. “That is correct.”

“So, say someone read from a ‘book of spells’,” you put those words in air quotes for the moment, “for fun, but it actually worked. That means that person has casting magic lineage?”

Realization crosses the three male’s faces, eyes going wide at what this means.

“Most likely.” Rika confirms with a blink.

“Why? Do you know someone who is unaware they can cast spells?” Rita’s brow furrows, head tilting in curiosity at you.

You look between the three males surrounding you, amusement dancing in your gaze. “My best friend is a witch, and none of you bothered to tell me.”

“Your best friend?” Sudaem’s brow furrows slightly. “Did she summon them or something?”

“You could say that.” You reply, amusement dancing in your eyes.

“Summoned, how?” She presses, tilting her head slightly in curiosity. “Physically?”

“No, not physically.” Seonghwa answers for you. “It was only through a mirror at first.”

A snort of laughter is heard from off to your left. “Weak ass witch could only summon you through mirrors?”

Again, you ignore her, but that doesn’t stop your brow from twitching in irritation.

“Do you remember the name of the tome you used?” Sudaem meets your gaze.

“Uh…” you grimace slightly. “No, I do not. My apologies.”

“There’s only two clans of casters that are powerful enough to summon the Eight Kings.” Rita shifts her gaze between all four of you standing before her. “What’s your friend’s clan name?”

“Clan name?” Your brow furrows before realization crosses your features. “Oh, her last name is Ciervo.”

A brief look is shared between Sudaem, Rita, and Rika. Even the three males seem surprised by this revelation, for you’ve never spoken your best friend’s last name in front of them before.

“Has she ever discussed her magic abilities with you?” Rika turns back to face you, running a hand through her hair and causing the spikes to stick up in new directions.

“I didn’t even know she had them.” You reply, somewhat in awe as you blink.

“You didn’t know your best friend is apart of one of the most powerful caster clans in the realm?” Sudaem frowns slightly, nothing but a meek curiosity in her gaze.

“I don’t think even she is aware of it.” You exhale a low breath. A second later, you meet Sudaem’s gaze. “How do you know so much about casters?”

“Subject of interest.” She shrugs lightheartedly, a bashful chuckle escaping her shortly afterwards as she smiles.

“Our dear Sudaem here has been attempting to impress the head of the Sintra clan for years.” Rita affectionately wraps an arm around the gorgon’s shoulders, shaking her lightly.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t seem to be working.” The gorgon grumbles, looking down at her feet.

“Their loss, then.” You hum, and you notice her head whip up to look in your direction.

“You think so?” She meets your gaze, a sort of hidden hope shining behind her eyes.

“Anyone who puts in that amount of dedication to learn something about the person they like is definitely worthy of praise in my books.” You smile at her, nodding your head all the while. “Don’t waste your time on someone who sounds like they don’t deserve your energy. You’re better than that. You deserve better than that.”

She averts her gaze somewhat bashfully, only causing your heart to warm.

“If you have anymore questions, just let me know.” Sudaem mumbles, her hair swaying softly around her as the serpents coo affectionately.

“Oh, boy! Do I ever!” You immediately perk up, and loving chuckles are falling from Yunho’s, Yeosang’s, and Seonghwa’s lips. “Though, I don’t want any of my questions to come across as rude, or potentially ignorant.”

“Go for it,” Rika shrugs, straightening out her shirt for the moment. “If what you’ve said about them not telling you shit about us is true, you must be curious.”

“You honestly have no idea,” you breathe, meeting her gaze.

“Then, ask away!” Rita encourages you with a soft smile.

“Okay, this might be really ignorant of me,” you turn to face Sudaem once more, “but isn’t your gaze supposed to be able to turn people to stone?”

The one corner of her lips quirks upwards. “It does.”

Your eyes widen in awe, but before you can ask, she continues.

“We have a second set of lids that cover our eyes like a film. We can retract them at any time to allow our cold gaze to freeze anyone we see fit.” She explains. “It’s clear, so you don’t notice it, but if you know what to look for, you’ll be able to tell when it’s there.”

“That’s so cool!” Your lips part, a pure look of wonder on your features as you gaze at her. “I’m still wrapping my head around learning that all of these incredible species I’ve long since believed to be mythological are real. It’s incredible, and I’m honoured to be in your presence.”

Again, you incline your head in their direction, and you notice the smiles stretching wider on Rita’s, Rika’s, and Sudaem’s faces. Hell, even the corner of Riza’s lips twitch upwards.

“You should have seen her when she met the dragons.” Seonghwa hums, nothing but pure affection dripping from both his tone and gaze as he shifts to look at you.

“Apparently, she left quite the impression. The babies imprinted on her.” Yunho adds, pride clear in the way he stands a little straighter.

“We heard Wyno gave you her blessing.” Sudaem comments, her own eyes lighting up in awe. “That’s incredible!”

This time, it’s your turn for your cheeks to warm. Averting your gaze to the floor, you mumble out a ‘thank you’.

“It’s been over one hundred years since the alpha of the dragons has granted anyone her blessing.” Rika comments, clearly impressed. “You must both be extremely special, and have done something incredibly selfless to earn that bond.”

“She did.” Seonghwa confirms, a hint of roughness to his voice.

You squeeze him tighter.

“She is.” Yeosang adds, his loving gaze turning to focus on you as you briefly meet his own.

The smile you share is nothing short of tender, and you faintly hear some soft cooing coming from around the room. Your audience seems to be able to pick up the amount of love you have between you and Your Kings, and even Sudaem, and The Three Sisters all have to admit that your bonds are obvious.

Riza’s expression falls.

“I have been allowed to thrive thanks to them, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.” You admit, heart swelling in your chest at your own words. You speak nothing but the truth, and every person in that chamber can tell.

Three content hums from Your Kings greet your ears, each of them taking the time to brush tenderly against your void.

Sudaem smiles. “Do you have any more questions for me?”

You turn back to her, eyes lighting up with that familiar spark of curiosity. “Do I ever!”

Her whole demeanour perks up. Ever her serpents hiss excitedly.

“So, with the dual lids, do they change your eye colour at all?” You ask.

“Slightly.” Sudaem confirms. “Our natural eye colour is slate toned, but the lid makes them lighter. Would you like to see? I can’t show you my true eyes, lest you be turned to stone, but I can show you a half comparison.”

“If you’re okay with that!” You nod eagerly.

A few steps and she’s in front of you. The way her serpents slither to rest behind her shoulders to make you more comfortable as she gets closer warms your heart. Slowly, she leans in, and you watch her eyes as a clear film begins to shift over the one pupil. It raises about halfway before stopping, and you can see the bottom half of her iris is a slight shade darker than the top half.

“Wow.” Your lips part in awe, blinking a few times as you both lean away from each other once more. “That’s incredible!”

“Thank you.” Sudaem returns to her original spot, clasping her hands bashfully over the front of her body.

“Oh,” Rita teasingly wraps her arm around the gorgon’s shoulders, shaking her lightly, “someone’s getting shy.”

“Shut up.” Sudaem mumbles, her hands beginning to fiddle with each other, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

“Aw, our little Sudaemie is gonna develop another crush,” Rika joins in on the teasing, moving over to poke the aforementioned female’s cheek affectionately. “How will I ever survive my love leaving me for yet another?”

The way you see the serpents on her head begin to playfully nip at Rika’s finger has you laughing. You can just tell how close friends they all are.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you notice Riza remaining oddly quiet for the moment. Her own gaze is calculating, never once leaving Seonghwa’s profile as she studies him from head to toe. The way your hand still rests comfortably on his hip has her pursing her lips.

“You three remind me of Reina and I.” You grin, failing to notice how the three males grin slightly along with you. “Teasing and all.”

“You mean you purposely continue to flirt with others despite being in a relationship?” Riza cuts in, clear malice on her features as she feigns shock. “Kings need someone loyal to them, not an ugly whore who spreads her legs for the first thing that gives her attention.”

Both Yeosang and Seonghwa nearly lunge at her right then and there. Only, your hand raising in front of all of them prevents either male from doing so.

“You certainly have a lot of pride for someone attempting to be a home wrecker.” You reply, somewhat bluntly. “You clearly have your own personal vendetta against me, and I’ve already dealt with someone much worse than you. You’re about as intimidating to me as a chicken.” You sigh, shaking your head before pretending to think about it. “Actually, no. At least chickens are intimidating.”

Rita bursts into laughter almost immediately after the words are out of your mouth, slapping her eldest sister playfully on her arm. Even Rika has a difficult time muffling her laughter, while Sudaem can barely contain her own.

“If all you’re going to do is stand there and insult me, I’d really rather you get it all out of your system now.” You motion her towards you, clearly unimpressed by her. “I’m sure the King you’re trying to impress will love you threatening His Queen, seeing as it worked out so well for the last one.”

Her wings flare out in irritation behind her, scowl pulling at her features.

“At least I’m not some weak, pathetic mortal who needs saving every ten minutes.” Riza spits, taking a threatening step towards you.

Only, you perceive it as her wanting to get closer to Seonghwa again, given the way she goes to reach for him. So, you do what you feel is best: you push him behind you as you fully turn to face the harpy beside you.

“Sorry, how long have we been talking?” You tilt your head, almost mockingly at her.

If she’s going to continue to be a bitch, then you’ll gladly match her energy.

Immediately, her wings spread out behind her in attempts to intimidate you. You can see the irritation shining clear as day on her features, fingers flexing at her sides as her claws glint in the light.

The way you hear all three males growl warningly behind you lets you know that her flaring her wings like that holds some deeper significance. The next words you hear only serve to confirm that fact.

“Riza, not the wings.” Rika warns lowly as a commotion begins to stir within that chamber.

All of the other harpies present begin to whisper, their feathers ruffling as more enter to see what all the fuss is about. A few even go so far as to take off into the air, hovering around to get a better view of the action that might be about to take place.

“Don’t challenge her.” Rita adds, a hint of worry shining in her eyes as she sees the dark gazes of the three males behind you.

“No, if this wannabe Queen wants to come into our home, and insult me, then she should expect retaliation.” Riza spits, rather harshly. “I’m not going to stand here and take this disrespect.”

“Riza, you’re being a huge hypocrite right now.” Sudaem grimaces, glancing between her friend and the three Kings whose black eyes are all on full display. Her serpents hiss nervously, shifting restlessly over her head.

“Can it, Sudaem.” Riza hisses, feathers ruffling as her wings flare once more. “This is between me and her.”

“I literally never took issue with you to begin with.” Your tone is blunt, a bored sigh escaping you. “You’re the one who’s had it out for me since we walked in here. Just get it all out now, I’d really rather not have issues on the battlefield.”

“Who says we’re going to align with you?” Riza’s fingers twitch once more, snarl pulling at her lips.

“So, you’ve wasted all of our time.” You nod your understanding. “Good to know.”

“No, wait! Please!” Rita reaches out for you before stopping herself. With how tense the three males look beside you, the last thing she wants to do is actually touch you. Who knows how they might react. “We’ll align with you! We have in the past, and if the sirens have truly agreed to fight with Malik, then our friends in the gorgon territories aren’t safe!”

“You’ve had my allegiance since you mentioned that fact. Besides, I really like you.” Sudaem nods firmly in agreement. “We’ll support you in any upcoming battles.”

“Thank you. That is very much appreciated.” You smile at the three other women off to your right.

They all smile back, shoulders slightly drooping in relief as they believe this issue to be resolved. Only, you know better.

Riza still does not back down.

“Well, since we’ve now done what we came to do,” you incline your head respectfully to the two younger harpy sisters, as well as Sudaem. “We’ll take our leave now.”

“Thank you for meeting with us.” Rita bows to you, along with Rika and Sudaem. “I would extend an offer to return, but not until out eldest here learns some manners.”

Riza’s nostrils flare, “how dare you sister-“

“Can it, Riza.” Rika’s eyes narrow at the female. “Don’t shame us any further because you want to fuck her King one last time.”

The harpy purses her lips, smartly remaining quiet for the moment. From the way her wings twitch, though, you can tell she has more to say.

“We’ll be in touch,” Yeosang states, rather bluntly. “Be ready for anything.”

“We will.” Rika nods, Sudaem and Rita adding their agreement.

“I’ll walk you out.” Rita practically skips over to you, a joyful glint in her eyes as she smiles your way.

“I would enjoy that very much.” You return her expression.

Shifting back to the open doors of the chamber, you begin to make your way back out of the caves. Your right hand comes to settle on Seonghwa’s lower back, an added protection and assurance for both you and him against that piercing gaze you can feel watching your every movement.

You get all of two steps before a loud huff is heard from behind you.

“Wait.” The voice is calmer than before, but still urgent, desperate in a way.

You feel it long before you register what has actually happened. You had been expecting something like this, anyways. Considering the way Riza couldn’t resist continuously reaching out for him, you knew she would most likely try one last time.

Your hand is around her wrist before the tips of her fingers can ever graze Seonghwa’s back. There is an unbridled fury burning behind your eyes as you meet her own, shock clear on her features. With a brief look around the room, you know she’s not the only one.

“I though he told you to stop touching him.” Your voice is deadly; calm in the way a storm is before it hits.

Riza’s wings flare out behind her once more, feathers expanding to make herself appear bigger as all eyes are on the two of you. Even the males can only watch on, a certain sense of pride and smugness welling within as they observe the scene. Yet, none are as affected as Seonghwa is.

You protected him. You defended him, and made sure this damn harpy knew her place. Despite the tension and rough patches in your relationship, you chose to fight for him. A fact which sets his entire body alight, soul blazing with that all too familiar burning desire and love he always feels when he looks at you.

Nothing could have ever prepared him for this.

“Don’t touch me!” Riza seethes, ripping her wrist out of your grip and managing to catch the skin of your palm with her nails.

Blood begins to drip onto the floor of the chamber, and the three males cannot contain the threatening snarls that escape them. Long since have their eyes flashed black, immediately shifting into offensive stances as they stare down the eldest harpy before them.

Alliance be damn, she just hurt their Queen.

“Oh, so you are aware of the notion of consent.” You hum, nodding to yourself as if you’ve just learnt something astounding.

“You bitch!” She lunges.

A screech tears from her in a blinding rage, her claws extending as she reaches for your throat.

The only assurance the three males get is you calmly brushing against their minds.

In the blink of an eye, you’ve flipped the eldest harpy over your shoulder, implementing the training both San and Jongho have taught you this past week. The fact that Riza doesn’t expect you to do this works to your advantage, momentarily stunning her, and using her own momentum against her.

She flips herself onto her stomach, attempting to lift herself back to her feet. Only, she doesn’t get very far.

Riza is forced to the ground, her face in the dirt as you step on her back, right between her wings. Each of your hands grip at the plumage of her feathers harshly, the bones groaning from the strain. Subtly, you lean in to her as you press her into the ground, your blood staining her bright feathers red.

“Get off of me!” She shrieks, arms trying, and failing to push her up from the ground. Your hold on her is too strong, and besides, every time she moves around too much, you tug on her wings, pain filled cries escaping her in tandem.

“Why should I adhere to your wishes when you continuously disrespect My King’s?” You hum, feigning innocence as you tilt your head mockingly down at her. “You challenged me first. I’m simply answering the call.”

Whispers reach your ears from around the room, overhearing some of the harpies whispering about how Riza did flare her wings at you earlier. From what you can gather, the eldest harpy sister has garnered no sympathy from the crowd.

“You wanted to test my patience. Now, you have to suffer the consequences.” You spit, tugging firmly on her wings yet again as she cries out for someone, anyone to help her. “Do not touch what isn’t yours, Riza.”

You lean in closer, dragging your foot purposely down her spine as your injured hand comes to rest between her shoulder blades. Squeezing your hand into a fist, you purposely let your blood drip onto her skin, smearing between the space between her wings as a crazed look takes over your features.

“Let this serve as your reminder,” you begin, voice booming around the room as you command everyone’s attention. “I am not some weak, pathetic mortal that you can walk all over and treat however you please. If you strike me, I will strike back. If you so much as lay a finger on someone I love without their permission, it will be the last thing you ever do. I only have respect for those who respect me, and if you ever disrespect My Kings, or me, their Queen, again, I will not be so forgiving.”

Shoving yourself off of her, you step back. Making a show of it, you wipe your hands together, cracking your neck all the while.

Your eyes flash. “Do not test me again.”

A silence so still settles over that chamber as you step away from the stunned harpy on the floor. Turning back towards the two younger sisters and Sudaem, you notice them tense as your fiery gaze meets their own. Firmly, you incline your head.

“Thanks again for today.” Your voice is somewhat gruff as you step back over to your three Kings. “We’ll be in touch.”

The moment those words escape your lips, Seonghwa’s hand is on your lower back. You can feel the way he physically trembles as his fingers press into your skin, immediately transporting you home. The foyer greets you in the blink of your eyes, and you let out a long sigh.

The others appear instantly, having both heard your sigh, and smelt your blood.

“What happened?” The worry is clear on San’s features, the memory of the first time you came back from visiting the dragons flashing through all of their minds.

“Nothing.” Your reply is short, tone pointed as you swallow thickly.

Jongho takes a step closer to assess your hand.

“I’m fine.” You raise your palm to him, the cuts now on full display.

“You’re clearly not fine, My Love,” Hongjoong’s brow creases in worry as he grabs your bleeding hand in his own. A single thought prevents him from healing you for now, instead choosing to take the pain away for as long as he can. He turns to the three males standing across from them. “What happened?”

Both Yeosang and Yunho share a look between each other, the corners of their lips twitching upwards seeing as the eldest cannot form a coherent sentence. A few words later, and they’re sharing their most recent memory of you putting that damn harpy in her place from mere minutes ago.

Seonghwa’s chest heaves, breathing ragged as he cannot tear his eyes from you. Hongjoong’s arm is currently wrapped around you waist in comfort, and the elder male cannot help the way his jaw twitches in slight irritation. That should be him right now. You protected his honour, and now, all he wants to do is worship you. He wants to show you how grateful he is, and show you just how much what you did for him means to him.

More than all of that, though, he wants to pull you into his arms and tell you how you just made him feel.

The warmth flooding his veins sets his skin tingling, electricity coursing through his very soul as he continues to stare at you. His eyes are hooded, nothing but that familiar darkness swirling within his gaze for you as he attempts to control himself for the moment. The fact that you went out of your way, not once, not twice, but three times to protect him today has an ecstasy unlike ever before running through him.

All he wants to do is please you. To show his Queen how grateful her King is for her very existence.

After all, it’s what he’s always wanted. It’s what you’ve always deserved.

Your voice manages to pull him out of his thoughts, grounding him to the very reality before him.

“I’m not jealous, I’m angry.” You seethe, pacing rather pointedly back and forth. “I’m fucking angry that that chicken-“ Mingi and Wooyoung both snort in laughter at this, “had the audacity to disrespect My King’s boundaries. Multiple times.”

“How do you think we felt, listening to her insult you the whole time?” Yunho hums knowingly, Yeosang quickly agreeing with him.

“Oh, insults I can handle.” You freeze in your spot as you turn to look at him. “After the shit I went through with Miyeon, I can handle some petty comments thrown my way. But the moment, the fucking moment those comments or actions get turned on any of you?”

If you were holding onto something, you would have already thrown it at the wall in attempts to dispel some of your anger.

The eight males straighten all around you, low, pleased growls emanating from their chests.

“I doubt that chicken will do anything else to you now, Angel.” Wooyoung chuckles affectionately, stepping towards you and wrapping you in his arms. “You’ve really put her in her place.”

“Yeah, and smearing your own blood over her back where her wings protrude?” San whistles lowly. “Power move.”

“I wish I could have been there to see it first hand.” Mingi sighs, almost wistfully.

“It was certainly a pleasant sight to see.” Yunho grins, eyes shining with that fondness you’ve become so used to from him. Not only that, but the way you can see that same pride lingering within sets your heart racing inside your chest.

A look you know is mirrored on all of their faces.

“Looks like all that training is coming to fruition much sooner than we thought.” Jongho wears a smug look on his face, chest rumbling in content as his hooded gaze zeroes in on your every move.

“How did it feel, Baby?” San asks, taking a step closer to you to join Wooyoung in holding you in his arms. “How did it feel to put that bitch in her place?”

You turn to him, sparing a glance out of the corner of your eyes as you finally get your breathing under control for the moment. Gently, your hand comes up to rest on the skin of his forearm, grounding yourself as you avert your gaze to the floor.

“Amazing.” You breathe, voice barely above a whisper as you shift your gaze up to meet Seonghwa’s eyes across from you. “Like it has always been what I’m meant to be.”

“And what is that, My Love?” Hongjoong asks, an eager gleam shining within his gaze. A look which he knows is mirrored on all of his brother’s faces right now as they watch you intently, hearts beating erratically within their chests.

Your back straightens and you take a deep breath in.

“Your Queen.”

Eight pleased snarls greet you in response, Wooyoung going as far as to affectionately nuzzle his face into the side of your neck. Even San’s grip on you tightens, but you’re slipping out of their hold in the next second. Much too soon for either of the two male’s liking.

This whole time, Seonghwa has yet to stop trembling. His eyes track your every movement as you approach him, shamelessly leaning into your touch the moment you reach up to cup his cheek.

For a moment, nothing is said between you. The silence is calm, welcome as you search his face. For what, you’re not quite sure, but the way you trail your hand down to grasp his own, tugging him towards your room for the time being, Seonghwa knows that everything will be okay.

The others don’t bother to stop you, nor do they say anything as you walk passed them. Even Kuroo seems to be nowhere in sight as you shut the door gently behind the two of you.

Softly, you guide him over to your bed, sitting with him on the edge of your mattress. A blink, and your hand is back on his cheek.

“Mars,” the way you call his name, so tenderly and full of nothing but love for him as your eyes fill with concern has a shudder caressing his spine. “Are you okay?”

He leans into your touch, eyes fluttering shut as he absolutely revels in this moment here in time with you.

Still, he cannot keep himself from shaking.

“I should be the one asking you that, My Divine.” His eyes blink open, that same fond look shining through as he stares deeply into your own.

“I’m more worried about you.” You admit lowly, thumb stroking along his cheekbone as he blinks at you. “I’m sorry I let her push your boundaries so far.”

“No, My Divine,” he shakes his head, shifting all the more closer to you as he cups your own face gently in the palms of his hands. “What you did for me today, what you said, has made me so unbelievably happy. Even now, I can hardly contain myself from ravishing you on this very bed to show you just how deep my gratitude for you lies.”

You cannot deny the way your heart simply flutters from his confession, breath catching in your throat.

“The fact that you wanted to look after me, that you wanted to protect me means more to me than you’ll ever know.” He tilts your head forward slightly in order to place a gentle kiss onto your forehead. Allowing his lips to linger against your skin for as long as possible, he mumbles, “Now, let me take care of you.”

Carefully, he reaches down to grasp your injured hand in his own, pulling away the slightest bit to get a better look at the cut. He’s glad Hongjoong listened to him, allowing for him to heal you after everything that you’ve done for him today.

You didn’t even notice you were still bleeding, blinking down at the open wound. There seems to be about three small slits, the blood flow slowing, but still enough to have droplets of red swelling against your skin.

Seonghwa’s breathing deepens, intently staring down at the blood that gathers in the palm of your hand. His touch is nothing short of tender as he caresses your wrist in his hold, and from the way you can feel his finger pressing into your pulse, you have a feeling you know exactly why he’s in such a trance.

“Please, My Queen,” he’s nearly panting at this point, eyes locked intently on your hand. “May I-“ he swallows thickly, grip tightening the slightest bit on your wrist. “I promise to be gentle, just please,” his tongue darts out to wet his lips, “may I have a taste?”

Your own breath hitches in your throat, and you notice his eyes flick upwards to meet your own. You swallow thickly. “You may.”

Seonghwa’s heart positively leaps for joy in his chest, eyes flashing black as the significance of this moment washes over his very soul. The fact that you’re even allowing him to do this, and he’ll be doing so after such a monumental event that happened today, means more to him than you’ll ever know.

Slowly, and with the greatest of care, Seonghwa raises your hand slightly, leaning down all the while. Gently, his fingers hold your palm open, his tongue lightly dragging over your wounds.

The very second that your blood touches his tongue, he moans. All sense of composure is thrown to the wind as he cleans your blood from your hand, his tongue nothing more than a gentle caress over your skin.

With every drag of his tongue, those small cuts begin to heal until there is nothing left. Still, he holds you to him, laving his mouth sensually against the skin of your palm as he begins to place wet, open mouthed kisses over your hand.

Shamelessly, he moans against you, guttural groans escaping him as he begins to trail his kisses up your palm, and to your wrist. Purposely, he laves his mouth over your pulse, feeling the way it stutters beneath his lips for him and him alone.

His tongue continuously darts out to taste your skin beneath him, slowly making his way up your arm with his kisses until he can go no further. The barrier of clothing irritates him, but that does not prevent him from wrapping his one arm around you and pulling you flush into him.

A moment later, and his forehead is pressing against yours once more.

“I love you, My Queen.” He breathes, the ghost of his breath fanning over your lips and causing tingles in its wake.

“Mars-“

“Please,” his voice is desperate, and he knows this as the words escape him in no more than a whisper, “My Divine, may I kiss you?”

This time, you don’t even have to think about your answer. Hopefully, you won’t be interrupted again, either.

“Yes.”

His lips are on yours without a second thought, pulling you impossibly closer as he pours all that he is into the kiss. The way he can feel you hum against him is simply icing on the cake, and he cannot prevent the way he begins to smile against your lips.

A moment later, and he deepens it, one hand coming up to support the back of your neck as he holds you to him. The way you shift to crawl onto his lap has a pleased growl escaping him, his eyes flashing as he feels you gently push him down onto your bed.

You can taste the faintest bit of your blood lingering on his tongue, but it doesn’t bother you at all. Not when he’s holding you like this. Not when he’s kissing you like you are the very air he needs to breathe.

He groans, hands holding onto your waist tenderly as you pull away from him in order to stare down at him from your position above him. A position he has fantasized about more time than he’d care to admit.

“My Queen,” his voice is nothing more than a pleased rumble as his thumbs begin to stroke tenderly against your skin beneath your shirt. “Kiss me more.”

You smile: a simple, seductive pull of your lips upwards as you lean into him once more. He can feel the ghost of your words against the skin of his lips, and he shivers, pulling you closer, “With pleasure.”

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tickle-minion · 8 months

Text

Out of Uniform

Re-post of a story that Tumblr took down. Which is strange, because this was pretty vanilla tickling for me.

"You're out of uniform."

Dave heard his boss close up behind him. Dave turned his head to look over his shoulder as he knelt at the computer, editing a picture of an older couple who were on the cruise.

"Uh, no. I'm wearing shorts and a shirt. And even though it's kind of weird, I'm barefoot, too. I'm completely in uniform."

Dave's boss shook his head.

"You need to read over your contract a little more closely. You're showing your feet to the customers, and your feet are dirty. Says right in the contract your feet are supposed to be clean so we don't look unhygienic."

Dave stopped what he was doing, stared at his boss, and blinked.

"Uh, sir, you want us to be barefoot. Of course my feet are going to get dirty. What did you expect?"

His boss crossed his arms.

"What I expect is a little less lip from you and a little more work at keeping yourself in line with our policies. Come with me."

Dave's boss turned and walked away towards one of the back offices, leaving Dave to follow after him. Dave was prepared to be yelled at and fired, but that seemed excessive for having some dirt on his feet.

What Dave saw inside the room surprised him. There was a large sink, several buckets and pails, big bristle brushes on the wall, and one single chair right in the middle of the room.

"Take a seat," the boss said as he walked to the sink. As he sat down Dave watched his boss fill up a bucket. This whole thing was getting stranger and stranger.

His boss walked over to him with the bucket of water and put it down on the floor in front of Dave.

"Put your feet in there and let them soak."

"Excuse me? You want me to do what?"

"Are you hard of hearing, kid? I said put your feet in the bucket and let them soak. It's either that or you walk out of here and go find yourself a new job."

That wasn't going to be possible. Dave really needed to make money this summer to pay for college, and it was too late in the season now to find something new. He was stuck with this job whether he wanted it or not. With a sigh and a shrug, Dave lowered his size 11 feet into the bucket. The water was warm and kind of comfortable.

"You get up out of that chair for any reason, you can consider yourself out of a job, you understand?"

Dave's boss now had a large white bar of soap in his hands. The boss got down on his knees in front of the bucket and dropped the soap in, watching it sink. Dave could feel it as the bar settled on top of his toes.

"Hope you're not too ticklish, kid," the boss said. He reached his hand into the bucket, took the bar of soap in one hand, one of Dave's feet in the other, and started rubbing the sole of Dave's foot with the soap. Dave jumped in his chair.

"Whoa now, what the fuck do you think you're going!?"

"You're out of uniform with those dirty feet, so I'm helping you get back into uniform. You are free to leave at any time if this is too much for you"

"Do we really have to do this, it's so weird..."

His boss nodded and continued to work the bar into a soapy lather. He put down a towel and brought one of the feet out. He rubbed the foot all over, from the ankles to the tips of the toes, lathering the whole thing is white sudsy soap. Dave, for his part, bit his lower lip and clenched the seat of the chair with his hands... his feet were ticklish and this was torture.

Suddenly those slicked fingers were flossing between his toes and Dave barked out a laugh. Embarrassed by the outburst, Dave started to blush.

"Ticklish one, eh? Well, you might not like the next part."

"Next part? What's the next part?"

Dave's eyes got wide as his boss picked up a large bristle brush, one that wouldn't look out of place cleaning shoes or brushing down a horse. The bristles were long, brown, and coarse.

"Wait, sir, wait, stop!"

His boss didn't stop. Holding Dave tightly by the ankle, his boss brought the bristles to Dave's sole and started scrubbing.

"No! PLEASE! HA HA, PLEAAAASE!"

Dave begged and started laughing. The feeling was intense, but he couldn't stand up. If he stood up he was out of a job. The urge to stand, to escape the ticklish punishment, was almost as strong as his need to stay employed.

"There, that isn't too bad, is it?" His boss grinned at him. He started vigorously scrubbing Dave's heel, working every single inch of it. Dave shook his head back and forth, trying to keep his laughter down.

He couldn't keep it in anymore when the brush moved up to his sole. The tickling tore through his foot and right up his leg. It tore through his entire body. Dave threw his head back and started to cackle. This was too much, he felt like he was going to die in this chair.

"Shit, you're loud, kid. Everyone's going to hear you and wonder what's going on."

Dave couldn't help it, the way the brush was scrubbing over his slick wet soles was driving him inside. After what seemed like an eternity the brush moved up to his toes. As the bristles teased the sensitive skin right under and between his toes, Dave's face was bright red from laughter and his eyes were bleary with tears.

Finally it all stopped. Dave hunched forward, taking in deep shaky breaths. It was over, it was finally mercifully over. His whole body was a sweaty mess and his hands hurt from gripping the seat of the chair so tightly.

"Alright kid, that's one foot down, one more to go!"

#malefeet #feet #male feet story #male tickling #gayfeet #gay tickling #guy feet #gay foot play #tickling story

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spockandawe · 1 year

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RAKSURA TIME! I live for this book series, guys, I know murderbot really caught the internet's attention, but Martha Wells wrote such a good fantasy series before that, I highly recommend.

First up, we've got a fusion fic! Imagine ffvii. Imagine cloud. And then just.... superimpose him onto moon. It matches so well. And then you just need to stack a good four loving husbands on top of him to love and cherish him deeply! Look. I promise. Just read the Raksura Core series, there's even a fresh new au of an au that didn't make it into this edition, so I'm gonna be rebinding this at LEAST once more in the future.

Then, pure raksura fic! How River Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Moon. River.... River. He's exactly my kind of character, which means he's an asshole who almost burns down his whole life in ways that are largely but not wholly self-inflicted and I derive great, GREAT joy by watching him attempt to scrape the ashes back together and seek personal growth and happiness. I find it so, so rewarding. I ran out of gold foil this week, but I may be attempting some more elaborate cover decoration one more arrives, only the best for my best boy.

And then some miscellaneous short stories from the author's patreon! I live in a state of perpetual low key stress over the impermanence of digital media and that goes extra for sites that aren't designed to work well as archives. I hope, desperately, that someday Martha Wells publishes more raksura, maybe even including these stories! I will buy it immediately. No thoughts, wallet empty. I own all her other raksura books in literally three formats, fingers crossed that by printing this, I can actualize a formal official printing of these stories by the author 😂

#crafts #bookbinding #binderary #binderary2023 #books of the raksura #sunderedstar #final fantasy

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herri-writes · 1 year

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魔法の鏡

2wink x Reader (F) (!)

Note: Looking Glass broke me. Made me cry a river at the true ending.

Warning: Herri-Angst mode: on

Everything that occured in this story is not connected to the timeline. In short, this is pure fiction. My angst demons is being creative rn... Haha what if I put Setsubun in the later part of the story and change the ending...

Well, sht. My writing in angst is too shtty that I lost my angst demons. Curses... My writing in angst is too rusty and broken... haha....

The links of the translation died a long time ago and I can only send you the link of the translated lyrics.

btw, happy birthday to the aoi twins

In the small living room of a cozy home, a book was left open on the empty table. Its pages were left revealed to the unknown. As the wind blew from the window, it fluttered the pages open, as if it was quickly read by an unknown entity. This empty sight was seen by a certain magician who recently graduated, let out a sigh.

"Did someone left that there...?" He picked up the book from the table and read the text on the cover.

He muttered the name of the story. He saw the contents of the book and it was all handwritten. There were scribbles and crossed-out lines of the narrator and the characters in every page, none was left not corrected by the author. He turned every page with his slim fingers gently as if he treated it like glass. His eyes gazed on the names written on the story.

The names are perfectly written by hand. The names written are treasured by the author who wrote the story they wrote by heart. His eyes softened at the way the author wrote the names on the handwritten literature.

He chuckled. "It seemed like the story is complete. I'll return it to where I picked it up."

He gently placed the book on the table, still opened and remained on the page where he last saw when the wind fluttered the pages open. As he was about to leave the room, he turned back to where the book is and smiled.

'Looking forward to see your story edited and published, (Name). May their names be remembered in history of our old Alma Mater.'

A child tried to reach an eye-catching book that was designed for children's curious mind. Sadly, it was too short for the child to reach as it was on the top part of the shelf that was meant for an adult to reach.

The child stopped jumping to reach the book when they heard the door opening and closed shut and a sign that their parents are home were evident when the voice said "I'm home" in a welcomed tone.

"Mama!" The child skipped its way to their mother and greeted her with a hug and the warmest smile. The mother, tired from her work, happily returned the gesture their child gave her. The child pointed to the doorway to where the living room is and repeatedly said "Story... wanna read..."

The mother gleefully nodded. She took her child's hand and they escorted her to the living room. They entered the living room and saw the book her child wanted. She sighed, "Your father forgot that you can't reach the top shelf... Sorry, dearie."

The child just smiled. They've forgiven their mother. It always happened whenever their father finished reading the story for them. The mother took the book out of the shelf. It was a picture book. She began to trace the picture with her hand on the text of the cover.

The name is what she always mentioned in her dreams after their loved one died.

"Mama...?" The child called her and brought her back to reality. "Ah, I'm sorry. Do you want Mama to read this...?" She asked and her child nodded. She happily obliged. She sat on the sofa and her child followed her and sat on her lap. The child giggled in excitement as this was their favorite story.

The author published this story in a form of a picture book and written literature which was written for all ages. The story is about the girl, whose happiness was ephemeral and lived in a dream for who knows how long found a mirror in the attic and met the wizard who revealed himself from the mirror. The wizard shows happiness, whose tears hadn't been shed for the others knows how long when he had last cried. The girl shows sadness, she only expressed it because of her ephemeral life.

It was said that it was inspired in a lucid dream that the author had experienced, another one is their life story that they had spent time with. It was also told by the author that it's dedicated to their dearest friends who showed pure sibling love and sacrifice to protect each other. And it was also dedicated to the one in loving memory.

"Now then, shall we begin?" She asked her child and they happily nodded. She opened the book to reveal the first page, it was revealed a girl, who have bright orange hair and chartreuse eyes, its gaze was revealed sadness and pain. Behind the girl is a patch of butterflies and behind it is a full moon.

Above the ceiling, is a small, narrow room, that no one ever visited

"The tale begins with the moon, whose life is "short-lived". She found an attic, where an old mirror was hidden," She narrated the story and the child listened. She continued, "In the middle of such a lonely world, she dreams of happiness, an "ephemeral" girl."

"Hm, I wonder where the twins had gone to...?" A girl wandered around the halls looking for a certain pair of ginger-haired twins. "Did they hid at the band room? Oh, well..." She sighed. She turned to a different direction and head to the band room, where the band club is in.

The moment she turned at the corner, she heard giggling behind her and stopped in her. She let out a smug look and grinned and continued to walk towards her destination.

She arrived in front of the door of the band room and waited for the twins' voice and laughter to be heard from the other side of the door. It was quiet, eerily quiet. She arched her brow the moment she heard silence as she leaned her ear to the door and pretended to listen.

She heard someone sneaking behind her with those quiet and careful steps. As the person behind her is about to reach her, she gave them a good scare. "BOO!" She spooked them along with her frightening gesture. "Wha—" The pranksters who attempted to scare her had their own tables turned by her as she saw them falling to the floor and hurt their bottoms. "Ouch..." She could only hear the noises they let out out of pain and hold her laughter. "You deserve that."

"Again...? You always scare us before we do, (Name)." The sunshine twin rubbed his behind and you just laughed in response. You held out your hand and he accepted it and you helped him up. "That's because your footsteps are loud, Hinata." You told him and let out a sly smirk. He grimaced, "Are you a fox? Because you seemed like one."

"You..." Your eye twitched, signing that you're irritated at his words, which that made him laugh. "Now, now, Big Brother, stop teasing (Name) and Sakuma's waiting for us." His twin brother said and he grinned, "Alright, Yuta. Let's go!"

The mother turned the page and revealed the girl seeing a reflection on the mirror. It's not the girls's reflection but it was someone else.

"It happened on day; in an old mirror, an image of a young boy was suddenly reflected," She continued to read and said the girl's line, "And she said, "He introduced himself as a wizard, and laughed, his smile exactly like mine." The girl said as she began to admire the reflection in front of her."

You jolted and let out a squeak. One of the twins poked your sides. You turn around to see who and there was no one behind you in sight. You stood up from your seat and you saw Hinata crouching behind your chair, clutching his stomach to surpress the laughter seeping out of his throat.

You pinched his earlobe and he winced in pain. "Owowowowowow— Sorry, (Name) haha..."

"Hinata. Aoi." He can sense the danger at the tone of your voice. "The moment I found peace and quiet is your biggest opportunity to annoy me." You pulled his necktie and glared at him. "Time for punishment, sweets lover~"

Hinata could only see white the moment you poked his sides and tickled him.

"Hahahahahaha (Name)— Stop!" "Suffer."

"Both of you are too loud—" Yuta was about to scold you both for being loud but stopped when he saw their smiles. He felt like time had just stopped when he saw you laugh. The joy you expressed is too genuine for him to see.

And he focused on yours, completely.

'Her smile... is like mine and Hinata's...'

"The girl thought, 'Our fate began to turn, my daily life was changing.' on the moment she saw the boy on the other side of the mirror."

He always saw you smile in a teasing way, a smug one, or a sly one. This time, it's too genuine and too real for him to never leave his eyes on you and your smile. He always wondered why you never smiled nor laughed like that before.

And he thought that you only showed that to Hinata. Only his twin brother, his older twin brother.

"Suddenly, she said, "Would it be all right to say you're my first「friend」!?" which left the wizard flabbergasted at her words."

"Owiee...!" Hinata winced when you pinched his sides where his ribs are. He still laughed when the ticklish feeling lingered on him. "That's what you get for disturbing me while studying." You huffed in victory.

Yuta can only look at the two of you in pain. He could only just stand there. You spent time more often with Hinata that he hoped of you doing the same. He shook his head and called the two of you.

"Oi, why are you both on the floor?" You and Hinata look at the door where Yuta is. "It's almost time to wake Sakuma up. Not to mention, we have a dog on the loose."

"Yes, sir!" Hinata abruptly stood up and saluted and dashed out of the room with Yuta in tow. You could only just follow them while the twins are on their way to complete their job under Rei's orders.

"As moments pile up across the mirror in confusion, the magic is cast "Could you call my name?" She said as her hand touched the mirror. The wizard did the same."

By touching your hand, your voice that reaches me is so warm, that suddenly tears begin to spill over

"Hinata, Yuta..." You called the twins but they seemed to pay no attention. You tapped your pen on the coffin and pinched the bridge of your nose. "Can you please... let go of me? I have work to do."

"Hm... no." Hinata said while not letting you go in his embrace. Meanwhile, Yuta laid his head on your shoulder. The two were completely tired and in a mood to annoy you that they invaded your personal space when they found you in the band room. "I understand that both of you are tired after practice but please give me space."

"Mhmm..." Yuta hummed in response that he removed the stack of papers from your lap and placed it behind the coffin and laid down on your lap. "Good night..."

"I don't want Senior Sakuma to see this. It made me think of us as kittens cuddling each other for warmth." You retorted at the twins' actions and you sighed. 'How funny, it's winter right now...'

The warmth you three shared felt like comfort and home. 'Is it all right to hold onto you like this, forever?' You thought while combing his hair with your fingers. Tears threatened to fall from your eyes from the gentle warmth you felt. The only ones you felt safe is no other than them, the Aoi twins.

In this lonely world, I was waiting alone, for such a long time, for your gentle hands, from the other side of the mirror.

February arrived and it was that time of the season. The moment you saw black and red colored track suits, it was known that it's Setsubun Fes. Hinata is on the side of the "demons" and Yuta is on the staffs' side so Hinata have no other choice but to run away. You could hear Hinata's rambling about wanting to be with his brother that it annoyed you and concerned you at the same time.

You remembered about the prank he did to you back then that the first person you're looking for is no other than Hinata himself. The moment you laid eyes on his running figure from the distance, adrenaline and euphoria washed over you like a tsunami.

"Hinata Aoi! This is payback! Out with demons, in with fortune~!"

"(Name)?! Waaaaah! (Name) is here?! Sora! Help me!" Hinata sprinted like his life depends on it and dashed far away from you and Yuta the moment he heard your voice from the distance.

You don't know when to stop running that the adrenaline is pumping inside you. You could barely feel your breath but when you noticed how your heart palpitated loudly, you tried to stop running but it was impossible for you to stop.

"Yuta, (Name), we'll meet once again once the "Setsubun Festival" is over, so! Sorry, for today, I'm going to run away, okay?"

"Aaaaand he's gone... like that..." You kept running until you both have lost sight of him.

You stopped from your tracks and heard Mao talking to Yuta from the distance. You could barely hear anything because the way your heart throbbed. It's loud, too loud that it'll be mistaken as a drum beat.

"....u've been acti... so ...endl... to ...ch oth... tha... it ...eems un...ral. Were you two ...ways so con...de...te to each ...her...?"

The loud throbbing gradually lessened and your ears caught Mao's words that made your heart sank.

"Right now, you guys actually seem like strangers."

"The magician granted all my wishes. My illness was cured, and I was able to walk again."

"The long-lasting war finally came to an end and the laughter in this quiet room increased. Everything I had wished for in my dreams, was granted by you."

"Mama, the girl couldn't walk for this whole time?" Her child asked and she nodded. "Yes, she called herself ephemeral because of her illness. Thankfully, the wizard cured her and she was finally happy."

"The girl told the magician with pure euphoria, "I saw it in a dream, long ago, some childhood memories where in a beautiful castle, I was the princess. I could remember it so vividly, it became almost nostalgic and now, even that has become reality. Even so, it feels like I'm missing something..." Her tone faltered and realized something. She continued, "That is, what is right before me; the "magic" only you can cast.""

"Yuta! Have you seen Hinata?" You panicked, looking for the older twin. Yuta shook his head.

You left the corridor and went anywhere Hinata could go to near the area. As far as you know, most of the "demons" turned into staff members so their safe locations are decreasing in high speed.

"(Name)! Come with me!" Yuta called you and ran towards the stairs. You both climbed up and reached the rooftop. The first thing you saw is the orange sunset shining on the whole land, blinding you the moment you took a step on the rooftop.

Yuta huffed and wheezed, "I-I finally found you, Big Brother!" You look to where Hinata is and you saw him, sitting on the top of the fence...?

Your eyes widen at where Hinata is. 'He's going to fall!' is the first thing you mentally said. "Hi...Hinata... Get down... from there..." You barely breathed for air. You even wasted your own breath to say something.

Your hearing became faint and your vision became blurry. If only you didn't overdo yourself chasing Hinata, you would've heard or see everything clearly.

You swore the gods gave you a chance to hear everything clearly once you're back to normal when someone you knew said something that made your heart drop too many times.

"If you care for "2wink", then Yuta has no other choice but to let me go."

Arguements from the twins came back and forth. You knew that it was about their own family. You knew you shouldn't pry into their personal life. And yet, here you are, finally knew everything from them.

"It's not as if the two of us really share a single body. Not a single drop of blood will be shed," Hinata blankly replied, "Yuta can continue living as Yuta, you know?"

"In order for us to be happy, one must had to become the sacrifice."

How many times did you felt your heart fall? Twice? Thrice? You couldn't count anymore as if your brain tried to count how many times your heart beated on this very day.

"If everyone thinks together, I'm sure a nice idea will come up." Yuta said and held out his hand. "So. Rest assured, Hinata. There's no need for you to disappear," He paused for a moment and looked at his brother. "Don't ever throw "me" away again."

You could almost hear his voice cracking. You prayed that Hinata won't fall but Yuta said your thoughts out loud. "...Don't jump from there, I'm begging you. Let's hold hands, and return to the place where we belong."

Hinata sighed and agreed. As he jumped off from the fence, he accidentally slipped from the railing and lost his balance. Your body dashed forward and you managed to grab his hand on time out of pure instinct. Your eyes widen at the look of horror on Hinata's face.

"Y-Yuta... help me..." You could barely hold on to Hinata's hand. You prayed to the gods to give you at least an ounce of strength. Yuta rushed to your side and held out his hand to reach Hinata's other hand. Hinata hesitately reached Yuta's hand but your hold on Hinata is loosen as you could feel him slipping out of your grasp.

"Hinata...! Please hold on to the ledge!" You closed your eyes and pulled his arm. "Hurry!"

"Please, never let go of my hand..." You sobbed, your strength fading. "Hinata..."

Just as about Hinata reached Yuta's hand by a centimeter, he slipped out of your grasp.

The world felt slow as you helplessly watched him smile as he fell from the building.

"Hinata!!" "Big Brother!!"

"The girl prayed, "I wish that I can stay like this forever, with no one else but you, so right now, please, won't you come to meet me?" She haven't seen the wizard in days. She missed him, her only friend."

After the incident, you have no one but yourself. You gave distance with Yuta for two years. No communication, no interaction, or you didn't even made a small encounter with him. You continued to blame yourself for those two years ever since the incident, which caused you to distance yourself away from Yuta. You feared that he blamed you for what happened to Hinata. After all, you also blame yourself for not holding Hinata tight before Hinata reached Yuta's hand.

You also blamed yourself for losing Hinata and was too late to stop him from slipping of the handrail accidentally. You blamed yourself for losing your dearest friend right in front of Yuta.

Yuta asked himself if why you're distancing yourself from him. He knows that none of this is fault. He knows that he was too late to reach him. That sunshine twin he always knew was a facade of his to hide the pain he felt while Hinata protected him. Yuta knew everything from the start and wanted to protect Hinata but he failed to do so.

When he always saw you running away from him or him wanting to talk to you, he could only just hold out his hand and tried to call you but your name remained stuck in his throat.

It wasn't your fault. It was no one's. That's what Hinata would always say when either of you made a mistake. That burden in your heart is what keeps you away from him. It pains him to see you like this. At the same time, he wants to know the true reason why. Was it because of him? Was it because of Hinata? Or was it something else?

That was you broke down into tears when he found you alone in the band room, where you only felt safe and release your tears once the memory triggered you horribly.

As much as Yuta wanted to be with his brother, he couldn't leave you.

"She leaned on the mirror and lamented, "I'm so lonely that I can't sleep; could you gently call my name?" She glanced to the mirror to see if the wizard is there. To her dismay, he's not there, as the girl had expected."

"She quietly whispered, "I'll be waiting, always..." and touched the mirror, hoping that the magician will respond to her."

"The magic ran out all too soon and the lonely girls "dream" has become reality." The mother narrated and the child commented, "It's sad..." She comforted her own child and replied, "It is. But things that disappear comes back when you least expect it."

'Just like you, who I remind of that certain someone I had lost before came back to me. You're just like him...' She continued in her thoughts.

"The wizard told the girl, "I have to leave soon..." "Please, don't go." The girl begged the wizard to stay." She continued to read and held her tears.

"He replied, "The spell will break if I don't." He continued, "I have to bid you farewell..." His words saddened the girl that she pleaded, "Don't say it""

"The magician wanted to reach her but it was impossible because of the mirror seperating them. He only held out his hand and wiped the mirror as if he wiped her tears. "I beg you, please, don't cry." His words saddened the girl even more that her words are faint like light."

"She said, "Don't go." but the magician behind the transparent glass began to fade, slowly."

It's always like this in your dreams. You always saw Hinata smiling, holding your hand and take you somewhere you two could be alone with him and Yuta. You were always stuck in your dream, playing, pranking each other, and spending time with them. You always dreamed of it. You wish that those dreams become reality and last forever.

On the other side of the mirror, was a "world where everything is reversed.

And yet, wherever you go, whenever you dream, Yuta is also there.

Opposite "destinies" that never should have crossed.

"I've just returned whatever you gave me," Hinata said and held your hand. "Your smile and your tears, I'll never forget them."

"So, that's why I beg you;" He let go of your hand and took a step back. You saw him fading away. Particles of light taking form of butterflies were seen as he dispersed in your dreams. You tried to reach him before he could completely disappear but you were too late to reach him, again.

"Please don't forget me..."

And yet, it repeated over and over like a song on loop. It never ends. You always dreamt of him. It pains you so much. Unknown to you, it also pained Yuta. Even though you may not show it, he knows what you felt.

Whenever that dream occured in your sleep, you began to loathe butterflies. And yet, in the end, you knew that he is always there, by your side. At the same time, you wished that those happy dreams last forever or trapped in there for your whole life. No matter how many times you wished for it, it never came.

"The girl never got to say goodbye to the wizard. After the wizard left, she said these words that she wanted to say, "If only you could've stayed with me forever, even if you have no magic, I want to stay by your side. So one more time, let's meet somewhere. I'll polish this old mirror and always be waiting no matter how much time passes," She let out a smile that she always wanted to express her happiness. Even the magician couldn't see it, he knows that he could see her smiling."

"I will always be waiting here, for you..."

The mother closed the book and turned her head to child only to see them weeping. This worried her and asked them if they're alright. The child shook its head in reply.

"Mama... Why am I crying...?" The child sniffed and hicced as they wiped their tears. "This is the first time I cried... after we read the story..."

She comforted her child and shushed them softly as she lulled them to sleep. "The story is sad. You didn't notice or realize that before. That's why."

"Mama?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Why does the wizard in the story look like him?"

The mother went silent. The child asked a different question. "And why does the girl's dress has papa's favorite color?"

She couldn't hold her tears anymore. She hugged her child gently in a firm embrace. She couldn't hold her sadness anymore. It's too heavy for her to bear the weight she have in her heart whenever she remembered her past memories.

Because it reminded her too much about the twins she spent so much time with in her years as a student of Yumenosaki.

"Mama...?"

She shook her head, ignoring her sadness. "Nothing... Nothing's wrong, dear."

"Do you miss uncle Hinata...?" Hina asked you that your tears fell like waterfalls. You saw her sleeping in your arms. You touched her forehead and quietly nodded. You answered with a small yes. "I missed him, so much..."

Your words faltered the moment you saw the transparent form of Hinata. The Hinata you knew in your first year days, the Hinata you knew ever since you transferred to Yumenosaki, the Hinata you always shared your laughter with.

Right in front of you, is Hinata Aoi, who looked the same before he died after he fell on the day of the Setsubun Festival.

His smile remained the same. The prankster you always defeat in every prank war you made with him is right in front of you, smiling like he always do.

You hugged your child firmly and gently. You looked at Hinata as if you're trying to look annoyed but your tears fell which that made him chuckle.

"You look so silly~" He giggled. You raised your hand out of habit that you forgot your human body will pass through his transparent soul. You grumbled, "You're lucky this time you dummy..."

"At least I'll be able to say that I'm glad you married my brother and had a child with him. Not to mention, I even asked you that if I can be his best man in your wedding but," He said and you look away. He continued, "Unfortunately, that didn't happen because I'm dead."

"You have a daughter? She looked like me~" Hinata inched closer to the child in your arms and cooed, "Hello there~ It's me, your uncle Hinata~"

You placed your child on the couch and shooed Hinata away. "She can't see you, dummy."

"I know~"

"But I can."

You turned your head to see Yuta at the entrance of the living room. His tears fell from his eyes the moment you saw him looking to where Hinata is.

Yuta muttered, "You idiot..."

"I didn't mean to do that..." Hinata looked away and breathly laughed and looked at where your daughter is.

"As much as I wanted to see my cute little niece, I felt like something forced me on not wanting to see her."

Even after all of these years you've suffered in your dreams, you were blessed with a daughter who inherited the looks of an Aoi but the personality is like Hinata's. She became the light in your life fogged of sorrow— even after you married Yuta. Her presence brightened your life and so does his. It breaks your heart when you saw her almost the same as Hinata, who loves pranking, who loves to eat sweets, and the Hinata who always protect his loved ones.

But if your daughter proclaimed to sacrifice herself to protect the ones she loved, you'll stand by her side and support her, unlike the one who sacrificed themself and removed himself from their existence.

"I know what happened back then is an accident. I wanted to reach Yuta's hand but I know I couldn't forgive myself for saying those words to him that I hesitated." Hinata said and a tear fell from his eye. "I'm sorry, really..."

"You really are an idiot." Yuta said and he wiped his own tears.

"I really am... hm?" Hinata felt something and he saw his form began to disperse. It's almost the same how Hinata disappeared in your dreams. Your heart sank— the same feeling you felt before Hinata fell.

"Hina..."

Though he's fading away, you only stood there, frozen.

He chuckled at the name you gave him, the same name you gave him after you met him. "So you finally said the nickname you gave me. How nostalgic—"

"No..." Yuta embraced him tightly. "Not now... I have so much to tell you! Don't go... please..."

You know that Yuta hasn't moved on since then. Even after healing each other from the pain you both had shared, the scar that remained in your heart aches. The wounds in his heart remained fresh that it took years for him to heal. Until now, it still bleed to this day.

"I told you this many, many times in my dreams, "I'll be waiting for you. I'll wait for you and finally say goodbye." that it repeated too many times before you disappeared, over and over again." You said and Hinata responded, "I believe this is an opportunity for me to let you go and say goodbye..."

"Well, now, you finally did."

"Yuta?" Hinata called Yuta, "Yes, Brother?"

Hinata embraced him back and smiled. A tear fell from his eye and whispered to him,

"Good night. I love you."

He disappeared. He's gone.

Yuta knelt to the floor and weeped. His heart heavy, his tears flow constantly. He held his cries. He began to wail. You immediately comforted him and held him close to you. You embraced him gently and patted his back. You felt your shoulder wet from tears. You could feel your own tears flowing out of your eyes.

Yuta's cries became quieter. He sniffed and wiped his tears. He sobbed and embraced you tight. Hequietly whispered something that only he, you, and Hinata can hear.

"Good night. I love you too."

W/N:

Side eyeing and eye twitching, crying and lying down on the puddle of my tears, yeets the setsubun story, kicks the Looking Glass, punching the air, sends threats to the twins' father.

#written by herri #ensemble stars #enstars #ensemble stars x reader #enstars x reader #2wink x reader #2wink #hinata aoi x reader #aoi hinata x reader #hinata aoi #aoi hinata #yuta aoi x reader #aoi yuta x reader #yuta aoi #aoi yuta #farewell my angst demons. you will be missed

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emmaelix · 1 year

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Kiss You In Public: Monoma x Wife! Reader

Neito Monoma X Reader Short Story. I apologize for any mistakes, I'm my parent's house for Thanksgiving and my younger sister's birthday and I forgot my computer so this was written on my phone but I wanted to post it now. I'll probably edit it this Saturday when I get back to my house.

I DON'T OWN MHA. OR MOMO YAOYOROZU, OR NEITO MONOMA.

Y/n Monoma sat in front of the interviewer, who was openly ogling her frame in the dress she wore. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she sat before him, listening to his increasingly annoying questions.

Her husband, Neito, sat next to her in his tux, sitting relaxed in his chair. Of course, no one but close friends and relatives knew they were married. It was easier to be Pro Heroes that way.

"People have been wondering recently, are you in a relationship?" Y/n unconsciously fingered her wedding ring, which she wore on her middle finger in public.

Before Y/n could answer the interviewer butted in. "If not, I'd love to take you on a dat-"

"She's married," Neito said, crossing his arms and glaring the interviewer down.

"To who? She's never out with any men."

Neito scoffed. "She's married to me."

Then he took Y/n's ring off her middle finger, placed it on her ring finger, arranged his own, and kissed her.

The interviewer wrinkled his nose. "You married him? He's an asshole."

Y/n audibly laughed. "You're one to talk, jackass. You've been following me around for weeks, and you creep on women as part of your 'job'."

The interviewer's eyes bulged out and he started pleading with the woman who was quickly approaching. "Out."

"I don't know who ever hired him in the first place," Momo Yaoyorozu said with a shake of her head.

"Sorry, Y/n, Neito. I didn't realize he'd be asking the questions."

Neito looked at Y/n before grinning back at Momo. "It's alright, I can kiss my wife in public now."

#monoma neito x reader #Y/n x monoma #This is short #i wrote this on my phone #don't judge me #MHA #my hero academia fanfic

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disconnected-dragon · 8 months

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"Alright people let's set some things straight.

"My name is Miguel O'Hara. I was not bitten by a radioactive spider, and for the past ten or so years I have been Nueva York's one and only --Spider-Man. How it happened is a bit of a long story, my dad liked to throw stuff, I got a job at Alchemax, threw stuff there, blah blah blah, long story short, the head scientist, Dr "Olivia Octoavius" got hired by this huge guy in a suit to "make some Schpida-people" to sell to the US government as super-soldiers. I said I quit, Olivia said ok, but not before spiking my drink with super-cocaine. She then told me "ok Miguel, either you work for us or you go onto the streets." I told her to "suck my dingle-berries Liv" and threw myself into the Spider-Machine. Did I mention I was seventeen years old at this point I feel like I should mention that. It edited my DNA to be abt 50 percent man and 50 percent spider. So instead of Spider-Sense and sticky fingers, it gave me talons, fangs, and paralyzing venom. Hey don't give me that look, at least I'm not Man-Spider.

"A lot of the stuff that followed was standard Spider-Man stuff, got hit by a drone, got choke-slammed by Venom, disappointed my mother, tried to run a Spider-themed speakeasy which you should not do under any circumstances, so I'm just gonna tell LYLA to fast-forward to-- ehhh here. Where I choke-slammed a teenager into a moving train. Really-- not my proudest moment. I was in the wrong here, my bad Miles, I lost my temper. I'm gonna write an apology as soon as the multiverse gets back on track. Here's an e-card LYLA made in the meantime. But, look, you have to get here-- I have one morse confidential thing to say. Which involves the multiverse.

"You probably noticed in my origin story that I'm not a typical Spider-Man. I don't have the canon events. I wasn't even bitten by the spider. And you're probably saying "Miguel, you're a hypocrite, why do you enforce the rules so much on me and my annoying friends? You didn't even have a dad event!' Which, you're right, I don't. The second my dad was gone I threw a party over his dead still-warm corpse but we don't have to go into that now, I don't have daddy issues. (Shut up LYLA) The point is, I know that I'm an anomaly. That's the other reason I do this.

"There can only be one anomaly in the universe at one time. LYLA ran the calculations and they're flawless. I know. I programmed her myself. And because there can only be one anomaly without complete and utter collapse. My existence puts the multiverse in danger, and I know that. I learned that when my daughter dissolved in front of me. So I dedicated my life to keeping the multiverse on track, on time, and tightly running with no deviation. It's lonely, but it's what I have to do. It's what I have to do to make up for existing at all.

"So without me, the entire Arachno-Poly-Humanoid-Multiverse would fall into complete and utter oblivion. There's only one anomaly in this web. And you're looking at him."

____________

a/n: you ever get really pissed off abt some mad miguel takes on twitter so you write a speculative thing abt his backtsory in btsv? lmao couldnt be me.

do note i havent read his comics, only the wikipedia page for his comics, and i edited out some of that information that didn't seem to fit with his astv character. so please don't think im truying to make miguel look better or anything i just *think* this is the direction they'll go with for his backstory if they decide to do it. I *think*. don't hold me to it.

Also, cross posted to AO3 if anyone wants to look:

#across the spiderverse #across the spiderverse fanfic #atsv fic #miguel o hara #miguel atsv #this is really just a speculative thing i wrote in response to some bad miguel takes #and also what i hope happens in btsv #i hope i wrote it in his voice #i read that in the comics miguel has a very dry and sarcastic sense of humor and was like finally my time has come #and speaking of those comics i havent read them #i read the wikipedia page #i also cut out some info that didn't seem to be in keeping with miguels atsv character because i *think* thats what theyll do for btsv #i *think* dont hold me to that #so please dont think im trying to make miguel look better #i just read some bad twitter takes and got mad #so uh thats that #cross posted on ao3 #if anyone cares #so yeah #im stalling i need to post lol

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ladyazzyscoffeecorner · 5 months

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20 questions for fic writers

Tagged in this from @crossroadsdimension

If I need to re-edit this to credit someone, please let me know. Tumblr is a strange place for me and I'm still learning.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

33 works and hopefully counting!

2. What’s your total word count? 92,157 published on Ao3. It's closer to 110,000 considering some of the backlog I have for two fics. I really want to get back to writing some more but life has lifed.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Predominately Tales of Arise, the Tales of Series (Symphonia & Vesperia <3), a smattering of Persona 5 fics, and one Final Fantasy 16 fic with a multi-chapter planned burning a hole in my pocket I want to finish and then begin posting. I have no doubt this list will grow the longer I write and post.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

What's Included in a Promise (175 kudos, Tales of Arise), Is the Coffee Hot or Cold? (160 kudos, Tales of Arise), Fighting Spirit (70 Kudos, Tales of Arise/Tales of Symphonia), Paperwork (62 kudos for the lone FF16 oneshot) and lastly, Law (50 Kidos, Tales of Arise)

5. Do you respond to comments? Always!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Side Quest Blues, is a Tales of Arise canon compliant very short one-shot. I like my happy endings as much as I like my tragedies but I definitely skew towards writing happy.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hmm probably my ToA Modern AU, although that is three separate stories with an overall happy ending that timing-wise happens in the second fic in the series? Does that count?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have yet to get hate on my fics and my fingers are crossed it stays that way.

9. Do you write smut?

Nothing published and only an experiment. I doubt that I'll ever post anything.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Technically yes! If you count crossovers between different Tales of games. Crossovers have been love of mine for a very long time <3

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! I feel like this would either be a labour of love done by myself or someone asking (and if so I'd be honoured).

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Never co-written a fic but I have been a part of a collab with the Keep The Flame Alive Discord server! This Magic Burns My Soul

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Does my marriage count?

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

Zephyr lives. I'd love to write more of it! But that's almost a whole freaking re-write of the game tweaking canon events, which considering I plan to do so with What's Included in a Promise? I feel my soul want to leave my body. I should have one-shotted this one. Thank You For Being My Home

16. What are your writing strengths?

Ooooo. I want to say character interactions and dialogue. But I also know that I've done excellent scene work. The subtly of characters interacting with others or their world? Hmmmm I live for that writing.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plotting. World Building. Remembering to describe more than just the characters. I get a little too invested sometimes and have to remember there is a world the characters live in, not just their immediate surroundings or dialogue.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

I think you should at least learn some of the language you're writing dialogue in if you do not already speak it, OR have someone who speaks/writes it willing to review the translation you want to use. Google Translate only gets you so far.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Oh. Oh I feel old now.

In the before times many many years ago when I was a new face to the interwebs, it was probably Naruto. Do I have those fics or files? Absolutely not. They died with an old computer that will never see the light of day again.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Dad!Duke, my Tales of Vesperia one-shot. But it is tied with Fighting Spirit because without Fighting Spirit introducing me to one of my best friends, the idea of Dad!Duke wouldn't have existed. But it is the fic I get some of my favourite comments on.

#ao3 #tales of arise #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #fanfic writer #tales of series

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talkinfanfic · 1 year

Note

Hey I am just wondering if you will be making another episode podcast? I like the episodes. Sorry for bad English :)))))

Thank you for listening, and your English is perfect! Indeed, over the past year I have spent so much time writing I have neglected the podcast! I'm trying to finish up the epilogue to my latest story, and then I'll have much for free time to set up interviews, edit, and hopefully entertain. The short answer is -- YES ! There's a couple of authors I'm waiting to see about. And then I've got one that I have my fingers crossed can happen soon. If so that will be really cool, because they do some really fucking great work that is also different than anything I've talked about so far. And then if the dozen or so gcest fans still want it, sister and I have been meaning to do the Oasis lyrics episode. We did a bit of analysis in episode 303, but this would be full tin hat. We might even make actual tin hats and wear goggles. 🤓

ALSO COOL AND RELEVANT NEWS, besides the Fanfiction History episode which is still my most popular (and one you can sort of tell your friends about, lol) the @jeevey interview, Episode #304 is currently my most downloaded episode!! Pretty good for a "problematic" fandom, ehh??? My smallest fandom author is getting the most listens. I think it says something about the difference between what people will tell you (online or in polite company) is interesting and compelling-- and what they actually find interesting and compelling in a deeply human way. RPF and incest are two of those things that many of us find rich for exploration. So I'm proud I could shed some light and conversation on those topics, with the help of a great author like jeevey.

(Or maybe it's just that the Oasis RPF fandom is small but mighty, and likely thirsty for content. Probably a bit of both. Either way, thank you for everyone who listened!) ADDITIONALLY IN COOL NEWS @fanficmaverickpodcast and I will be at Planet ComicCon in Kansas City, on Saturday afternoon (March 17th)! I'll make a post about that really soon!! Thanks all for keeping the podcast on your app. Stay defiant, amateurs!! Love and light, Sara

#talkin' fanfic #fanfiction podcast #RPF #bandfic #gcest #gallaghercest #proshipping #defiantly amateur

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gillianthecat · 11 months

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thoughts while watching Happy Merry Ending (episodes 4-6)

Episode 4:

This creep this creep omg I'm finding this CEO viscerally disturbing. Even when he's just sitting there. Kudus to the actor (and to the production in general). Oh no, he was Seung Jun's CEO too? This show is breaking my heart for this man, and the open-hearted person he was Before. He once was going to be an idol himself. And now I'm worried for this new idol that the CEO is probably trying to groom.

This actor can actually dance! I'm guessing he's an idol himself? I haven't checked.

One thing this show does very well is instantly create a feeling with the blocking, camera work, lighting, music, editing, etc. Yet subtly enough to not hit you over the head with it. It's immersing me in the emotions, and I think is also an important way of being efficient with the storytelling in such a short show. Anyway, the CEO here, all in black standing between Seung Jun and the mirror, is mildly terrifying.

Still feeling undecided about Jae Hyeon, and his aggressively inserting himself into Seung Jun's life with very few green lights from SJ. Still, he does have his awkward charm.

That final moment has me mostly convinced that Ho Yeon does have a crush on Seung Jun. Which, on the one hand I ship it cause I love Ho Yeon. But in the other hand, knowing his backstory now, I also wish for Seung Jun to have a good platonic friend solidly in his corner.

I've become quite impressed with Seung Jun's actor in this. This might end up being another one of those shows where I fall head over heels for one of the main characters, and the other one is... just kinda there. Not as much as in the last KBL I watched [redacted so I don't have to tag it], but my main interest in him is how he makes Seung Jun feel. (Unsurprisingly, it's another golden retriever seme paired with a reluctant uke that makes me feel this way.)

Episode 5:

Oh Ho Yeon. My baby. I changed my mind. I ship these old friends. The sadness on his face. The way he tried to rally for Seung Jun and be happy he was coming out of his shell.

Ok Jae Hyeon. The sunglasses get you MAJOR points. And them walking together after is cute. You're right, JH, it is nice to see SJ smile. But also. You keep apologizing for being intrusive, but then you do it again. I realize the seme in this sort of plot needs to be this active or the story won't go anywhere. But idk, I guess this character doesn't have quite enough charm to completely pull it off. At least for me.

What the fuck bro! Did you just KIDNAP Seung Jun?! And confiscate his fucking phone? I get it's supposed to be sweet caretaking, but y'all don't know each other like that yet. Are we sure this is a BL? I am NOT getting good vibes from this guy right now. And I was just thinking I really liked the show. How it wasn't my favorite trope but it the whole thing was well made. Please don't ruin in for me with an indistinguishably rancid new love interest to replace the rancid ex. 😩🥺

Unfortunately, that beach scene has converted me fully to second lead syndrome. They have so much better chemistry! I can see their connection. I could maybe imagine that eventually Jae Hyeon could develop that with Seung Jun, but he's rushing things along way too fast. That love confession left me completely cold. Which is not what I want from my love confessions! As for the kiss... 😂 well at least they tried, bless their hearts. They avoided a dead fish kiss. Did it look like either of them were paying any attention to each other as they moved their mouths? No, but I'll still give them credit.

I think at this point it's best for me to just watch this show not as a BL but as Seung Jun's story of healing. With Jae Hyeon just one of the people around him. And cross my fingers that the beautiful Ho Yeon, love of my life, doesn't end up being creepy and possessive too.

Episode 11: And then Seung Jun, having gained confidence from this whirlwind romance but realizing he doesn't actually know or even like this man very well, dumps Jae Hyeon and sees that the one he's been searching for has been there all along, steadily supporting him, quietly loving him. And he and Ho Yeon live happily ever after. No? That's not how it's gonna end? It already does in my mind. (I will SHRIEK with joy (and shock) if Ho Yeon turns out to be end game.)

This date would be cute if I shipped them.

Seung Jun telling Chan Wu that he can call, offering support to this new idol who could be in the same vulnerable place he was, Before. (I'm not entirely sure that's what the show is going for, but it's how I've decided to read it.) Also, I've really liked seeing Seung Jun's confidence when he's in teacher mode. This actor is giving him layers.

*whimper* every time this ceo is on screen I feel actual dread in my stomach. He doesn't feel like a cartoon villain, like many abusers on screen, he seems horrifyingly plausible. But Seung Jun manages to tell him off, which I'm guessing took a lot of courage. (But also, I'm still confused about what their relationship had been. Were they involved sexually? Did Seung Jun think they were dating? The episode title called him the "X" but also everything they've shown could just be Svengali-like grooming with no official lines crossed.)

Episode 6

Oh my darling. You were finally starting to heal and take risks and the this evil piece of shit comes to try and ruin you again. But you can be proud of yourself for holding it together while he was standing there. (Both actors are so good.)

You can see how much Ho Yeon is aching for him and wants to make it better but doesn't know how.

(Honestly these scene with Jae Hyeon don't manage to penetrate my brain, now that I'm not thinking about it as his story)

You evil manipulative shithead. Brave Seung Jun for facing down the source of his trauma to help this next generation of victim.

Oh Chan Wu. I can't even be mad at you. Poor thing is going to have to live with the guilt; I can see him feeling it, even if he doesn't understand what the manipulations are all about.

This confrontation scene was very well done. Too much to write about briefly.

But I'm also pretty sure that it clarifies that they were "romantically" together.

A brief bright flare of hope that Jae Hyeon was going to recognize his creepiness and the second half of the show should be a reckongk g. But no. Deflation. It seems he's just reminiscing fondly about it, and inspired to a second round of invasiveness. (Yes, Seong Jun ghosted him and yes he has the right to be concerned and sad. But. Still.)

So. This show is kind of odd. First of all, it's very well made. But it also seems to trying to tell two stories that are at odds with each other? There is the very classic seme-uke BL, with an extreme version of those roles. But then they went and made the "uke" way too complex for that, with too realistic a backstory to be fitted in to that trope-y slot. So Jae Hyeon is chugging along being a BL hero, unaware of all the undercurrents, while Seung Jun, who's been kind of drifting through life in a PTSD haze, seems like he's drifted into this relationship because it's there, and it's something new to try to escape the fog. But not because he had any real connection to this person who wants him but doesn't understand him.

Like this fight scene. It was well done. But Jae Hyeon comes running up like the hero seme protecting his uke from Generic Threat. Which feels kinda irrelevant to the work Seung Jun has done to heal and face his abuser. Not that he shouldn't get help; I appreciate the assist. I guess it just feels off to turn this complexity into a Romantic BL Momement. Or a possessive pissing contest between the alpha men. "I don't know what it was like before, but now I'm not letting him go." Like. How is that the right line for this situation?

I don't have PTSD, but this portrayal of it also feels grounded and real. Just to add to the dissonance. Not that there couldn't be a good BL involving a healing character. But one with this sort of genre-constricted seme ain't it. Not just my personal dislike, tonally and structurally it makes no sense. (I like this show a million times better than LITA. But this is a much gentler version of that same problem.)

Well. 40% or the show remaining, and I'm not really sure how they're going to use it. I know what I wish for, but doubt I (or Ho Yeon) will be that lucky. But with these two conflicting genres we're in, I can't guess what story will take precedence.

(Also, these eps are only 15 minutes and yet my notes keep getting longer and longer. Oh well, c'est la vie.)

#happy merry ending #gillianthecat reacts to bl #kind of like liveblogging

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qzwrites · 8 months

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Blackmail Boyfriend DVD Commentary Edition

This was fun! But it's a pain in the ass to figure out how to format something like this! Many of the places I looked used colored text or italics for their commentary and I hated that and thought it was inaccessible! So I have set my commentary off and also indented it. Let me know how that reads.

It was convenient to share a hotel room with the only teammate who knew Aidan was trans. It was unfortunate that said teammate was blackmailing Aidan into having sex with him, but Aidan did really need the help keeping their other roommate from noticing anything amiss about Aidan. Aidan figured at least with Trey in the room, Richard wouldn’t do anything.

He should have known Richard better by now.

I talked about this in the original author's notes but this sure is a scenario that occurs all over manga both vanilla and hentai. In high school I read a romance manga about a girl cross-dressing to go to an all-boys school to be nearer to her favorite soccer player and ending up roommates with him, and I have also read comics where it's like "Surprise! The new ace player is Actually A Girl!" which leads to, at best, dubiously consensual sex (whether or not the author seems aware this is dubious is, itself, dubious). Once I had rotated this concept in my mind enough times, I thought it would be not terribly difficult but definitely interesting to start from this extremely dire transactional relationship and end up in an actual romance, especially if, as was usually the case in these "secret cross-dresser" manga, it was about teenagers. So I had the backstory for Aidan and Richard worked out first, but I thought the part where Aidan realized Richard actually liked him was more interesting, which is why I start here.

Aidan was almost asleep when he felt Richard shift behind him. That didn’t alarm him on its own, but then Richard’s hand was on Aidan’s hip.

There were lots of things to dislike about Richard blackmailing Aidan into sex, and one of them was the way Aidan’s stupid pussy did not dislike it. Unlike the way flicking the bean only ever made Aidan uncomfortably aware of his dysphoria, getting pounded somehow wasn’t triggering at all. To add insult to injury, it was way easier to come from. Even though Richard was a transphobic, misogynistic asshole, Aidan’s stupid pussy lit up the second Richard touched him.

I actually hate the word "pussy" but I also think euphemisms and circumlocutions indicate a different type of trans dude. Since I didn't want to write about someone dealing with too much dysphoria on top of the blackmail situation (because how the fuck are you going to come around on someone who is constantly triggering dysphoria? No matter how good the sex is or how nice Richard is, it would just be an overall more negative experience) I thought straightforward but not clinical terms would be best. Also IDK man, I'm also trans, and for whatever reason I find it a lot easier to write a guy talking about his pussy than a girl doing the same. Boypussy is fine, I guess. I also started this story not long after I finished Exciting New Levels of Heresy, in which I managed to avoid using any clear words for Nic's junk literally at all. That wasn't me trying to be coy, I just found it difficult to accept the idea of Nic thinking about zeir body in any of those terms. In the extras set further in the future, ze uses the word "cunt", but freshly-deflowered Nic was just too embarrassed about having and enjoying sex to say something like that. Whereas I kind of wanted Aidan to feel like...you know, a teenage boy. "Pussy" feels like a very teenage boy way to refer to it.

Aidan tried to squirm away from Richard, but Richard just followed him to the edge of the bed, until Aidan had nowhere to go. Aidan hissed, “Trey’s right there!”

“So be quiet,” Richard murmured, sliding his fingers under the waistband of Aidan’s shorts. He pulled Aidan back against him. Aidan wasn’t surprised to feel he was already hard. Sometimes it felt like Richard could go from flaccid to throbbing instantly.

After weeks of taking advantage of Aidan, Richard knew Aidan’s body and how to manage his dysphoria as well as Aidan did. He only used his hand down the front of Aidan’s underwear to shove it down and out of the way. Once he had his cock nestled between Aidan’s labia, he reached up Aidan’s shirt to play with his tits.

Aidan had to bite his knuckles to muffle the sounds he wanted to make. Between Richard’s cock sliding against his pussy and Richard’s fingers pinching his nipples, he was wet enough to take it in no time at all.

Aidan resented how much he enjoyed fucking Richard. Richard misgendered him when they were alone, even if it had been a while since he did so, and he had immediately demanded to fuck him when he found out Aidan “was a girl”. But having to avoid sexual situations that would out him did approximately fuck-all to calm Aidan’s raging teenage hormones, while Richard’s stupid dick actually let Aidan blow off some steam and be less sexually frustrated. It was easier to concentrate on his schoolwork, he had less trouble falling asleep at night, he even played better since Richard started fucking him. It was monumentally unfair. Fucking someone to keep them from outing you should not be so enjoyable.

Richard stopped bothering with condoms after he found out Aidan was on birth control, which Aidan knew was irresponsible but couldn’t bring himself to seriously protest. He told himself it was because fighting Richard on it might lead to Richard outing him, but it was at least half because of how good it felt to not have to stop when Aidan was wet enough for Richard’s cock to just slip right into him, as it did now.

I know I'm not the only person who did stupid things I knew were stupid even as I did them when I was a teenager purely because I was horny. Aidan probably could have found a way out of this situation, even if it would have been tricky to avoid being outed, but he didn't try very hard.

Aidan turned to press his face into the pillow to stop his groan. Richard tugged him away from the edge of the bed, then pushed Aidan down on his stomach and rolled on top of him. Aidan reached down to shove his shorts off one leg, so he could spread his legs that much wider. Richard’s breathing grew harsh and ragged as he humped Aidan like a badly-trained dog.

The lamp between the beds clicked on. Aidan froze. So did Richard, although his cock twitched a bit inside Aidan like it was less on board with this interruption. Trey’s voice said, “What the hell are you guys doing over th–oh my god, are you fucking?”

I tried to push this piece back into being more cartoony, the way some of my older art is, and I'm of two minds about how it turned out. I did have a lot of fun doing the lighting! And Richard's expression cracks me up. Information Aidan does not have available that the reader is getting from this illustration, I guess.

Aidan’s heart raced. He was pressed against the mattress with Richard on top of him, the blanket was still mostly over them. Trey couldn’t see Aidan’s breasts or his lack of dick. It was entirely possible Richard was fucking him in the ass. That’s what Trey would assume.

Except when Richard walked in on Aidan initially, he was adamant that he wasn’t gay, even as he demanded to fuck another guy, because he refused to acknowledge the fact that Aidan was a guy. He could very well out Aidan to avoid letting Trey think he was gay. Fuck fuck fuck.

Richard turned his head to face Trey, but didn’t otherwise move, staying draped over Aidan’s back. “Ugh,” Richard said, “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was, but the sound of what I thought was one of you jerking it woke me up,” Trey said. “Are you two seriously doing it?”

“Trying to,” Richard said. He still didn’t move from on top of Aidan. It was embarrassing as hell, but Aidan had to admit it kept Trey from seeing much of Aidan’s body.

“Dude,” Trey said. He sounded more offended than disgusted, thank god. “With me in the room?”

I have no idea what the differences may be between spending the night in a hotel with a sports team versus a drama club or Academic Decathlon team, but I assumed they couldn't be too different. I don't think anyone ever had sex in the hotel rooms on any of my trips for competitions, but it didn't seem like it would be too hard to arrange if one was so inclined. The main problem, of course, is that they usually put us three or four to a room. But, having Trey in the room to address that and add some risk and excitement to the sex also allowed me to make Richard and Aidan talk about things. And it meant I had an easy set-up for Aidan getting walked in on and outed again, which let me contrast Richard's initial reaction to his new reaction, which forced them to talk some more. It did mean another character to keep track of, but at least I didn't have to get too in the weeds with him. (Shakes fist at all the boys in Childhood Friends, especially you, Paul)

“I thought you were asleep,” Richard said defensively. “We don’t usually have a bed.”

“Can you choose one or the other?” Aidan demanded, face hot. If Richard wasn’t going to be a cowardly asshole and out him, then he really didn’t want to prolong this situation. “Either talk to Trey or fuck me.”

“Uh, I hate to break it to you,” Trey said, “but I don’t think I’m going to be able to fall back asleep.”

Aidan groaned and pressed his face back into the pillow.

Richard shrugged. “I don’t care if you watch,” he said.

“Richard,” Aidan yelped, very nearly making a terrible mistake and bucking him off.

“Oh, calm down,” Richard said. He rolled his hips, leisurely. The felt good enough that Aidan relaxed against his own will. He might also have moaned a little.

“Jesus Christ,” Trey said. His voice broke on the last syllable. He cleared his throat. “Look, I don’t mind if y’all are gay or whatever, but I’m not.”

Aidan tensed back up again. Richard, confusingly, rubbed Aidan’s arm soothingly, on the side Trey couldn’t see. Richard said, “Fine, turn the light off then. I just want to finish.”

“You’re a freak,” Trey said. “Um, Aidan?”

Aidan had to pull his face out of the pillow to answer. “Honestly at this point I don’t care, I want to finish too.”

Richard put his mouth against Aidan’s ear to murmur, “Of course you do, slut.” He rolled his hips again, still slowly enough that it was torturous. His breath was hot on the side of Aidan’s head. “Slutty little faggot.”

Being called a slur should not have made Aidan shudder and clench around Richard’s cock, but it was the first time since Richard first saw Aidan naked that he’d said anything to acknowledge Aidan was a queer guy and not a straight girl. Aidan moaned before he could help it.

Important to establish that, despite being a crude and physically needy guy, Richard was not in fact continuing to misgender Aidan. It takes a special kind of guy to make calling the POV character a faggot an improvement, but it didn't feel like much of a stretch that Aidan would be into it. He is, after all, the kind of person who is unbothered enough by being coerced into sex to not try that hard to get out of it. Him being kind of into it makes that seem more explicable.

“God,” Trey said, and the light clicked off.

“Thanks, man,” Richard said, and started humping Aidan again.

“I hate you,” Aidan said. Richard only grunted and bit Aidan’s neck.

Aidan had a much harder time keeping quiet now that he knew Trey was already awake. Yeah, it was embarrassing that Trey was hearing all the moaning Aidan was doing, not to mention the extremely audible slapping of Richard’s hips against Aidan’s ass, but…he already knew. And with the light off again, the chance he’d notice Aidan was trans was effectively zero.

After a few minutes, Trey made a noise in the other bed. He said, “It does not make me gay to jerk off to this, okay?”

Aidan laughed, which made the muscles in his pussy do something that made Richard groan. “Sure,” Aidan said.

“I’m listening to people have sex,” Trey said. He was out of breath. Fuck, he was actually jerking off listening to Richard and Aidan go at it. “It’s a normal physical reaction.”

I did find myself thinking a lot about a time in my college dorm where I was laying awake with insomnia hearing a weird noise like "what the hell is my roommate dong over there" and didn't realize until years later that she was masturbating. I spent all year waiting until she went to the practice room with her violin! Honestly!!!

Aidan laughed again, and so did Richard. “Yeah,” Richard said, “nothing but normal physical reactions in here tonight.”

Thankfully, after that he settled back down to fucking Aidan. Apart from labored breathing and rhythmic slapping sounds, Trey was quiet as well. With the light off but no worry about waking Trey up, Aidan felt comfortable enough to push himself up on his knees. Richard murmured into Aidan’s ear, “God, you’re such a slut.” Still, he adjusted the angle he was thrusting into Aidan so his next stroke slammed into Aidan’s g-spot. Aidan cried out. Then he was coming, and Richard was still slamming into him, and Aidan was still coming. God, it was fucked up that Richard knew his body so well.

Richard must have come at some point in there, because by the time Aidan was cognizant of anything other than his own overwhelming orgasm, Richard was pulling out of him with some extremely wet squelchy sounds.

Aidan collapsed onto the mattress to get his breathing under control. Now that he was the one listening to someone in the other bed get off, he had to admit Trey had a point. He’d just come, after all, and he wasn’t into Trey, but his pussy still had trouble calming down while he could hear Trey panting and jerking off.

Richard tugged on the hem of Aidan’s shirt. “Roll over,” he mumbled.

“Why?” Aidan asked, but did it. He was a little surprised when Richard leaned over and kissed him. It was hot and sloppy, and he got a bit of Aidan’s nose at first. Richard had really only kissed him the first time they had sex. Considering how short Richard’s fuse was, and how humiliatingly easy Aidan was, Richard didn’t usually bother with much foreplay. He grabbed Aidan’s left boob through his shirt. Aidan groaned. This was not helping him be less horny.

“Knock it off,” Aidan tried to say, but Richard wouldn’t stop kissing him enough for it to be understandable. Richard pushed Aidan’s shirt up and pinched his nipple. “Ah!”

Without Trey in the room, they absolutely would have gone for another round here.

“God, are you still going?” Trey asked. The sound of him stroking his dick did not pause as he spoke. That was definitely not helping Aidan be less horny.

“Well, now we’re listening to someone jerk off,” Richard said. “It’s a natural physical reaction.”

Trey started to laugh, gasped, and Aidan was willing to bet that weird breath he took meant he came. That was embarrassing for him, but also pretty funny.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Aidan said, squirming out of Richard’s grasp. At least with the light still off, Aidan didn’t have to worry about the fact that his unbound breasts were clearly visible under his shirt, especially with one of his nipples all hard from being manhandled. He didn’t much like pulling his underwear and shorts up when he could feel Richard’s come oozing out of him, but even with the light off Aidan didn’t feel comfortable walking around the foot of the bed to the bathroom naked from the waist down.

Once the bathroom door was shut, Aidan turned the light on. His hair was a mess and his boobs were indeed visible in this shirt, but Richard hadn’t left any marks on his neck. He peed, and then spent a not-insignificant amount of time wiping up the mess. He knew dicks were only supposed to ejaculate a teaspoon or some small amount like that, but he would swear Richard came more than that. Although Aidan supposed it was kind of hard to tell apart what came out of his body versus Richard’s. God knew he got pretty damn wet when Richard started pawing at him.

I don't know that Aidan is even thinking about this consciously at this point, but vagina owners please pee after PIV sex! Our urethras are too short to not clean out whatever may have gotten in there during sex! Save yourself the UTI! Also I did establish earlier that they weren't bothering with condoms, which was purely so I didn't have to figure out how to get a condom into this scene without waking up Trey or disrupting the pacing, but also makes the clean-up extra necessary.

He turned the light off before he left the bathroom, then waited until he could see well enough to be sure the light in the main room was still off before he opened the door. He made it back to the bed and under the covers without incident.

“Swear to god,” Trey said from the other bed, “if you assholes don’t go to sleep now, I’m telling Coach.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Richard said. He rolled over and put his arm around Aidan’s waist. Aidan tensed, but all Richard did was snuggle into Aidan’s back. Aidan wished he knew what the hell was going on in Richard’s head, but he was too tired to think about it for long before he fell asleep.

Richard is totally in love with Aidan and Aidan is just like "wtf has he always been cuddly?" The answer is yes, actually, but it's pretty hard to get in those post-coital cuddles when you're having quickies in the locker room.

Being stealth at school wasn’t as hard as Aidan had worried it would be. Enough guys changed for gym in the bathroom stalls because they were shy that it wasn’t that notable that Aidan did it too. It was slightly more conspicuous in the locker room for practice, but most of the soccer team didn’t pay too much attention to him at first, and then they liked him enough because he was a good player to not give him shit about it.

So maybe he’d gotten a little complacent about changing in the locker room. He was on birth control that stopped his periods now, so he didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing pad wings or tampon strings or whatever, and he wasn’t about to bleed through his underwear. More than once he’d actually gotten down to his binder with someone else in the room, without them noticing, because no one was paying attention to him change. So one day after practice, when he was really sweaty and muddy and everyone else had already left, Aidan thought, as long as everyone else was gone, he might as well take a shower.

Literally I don't understand why teen media acts like everyone is fine with changing in front of everyone. This was not the case anywhere I went. Maybe sports teams were more generally blase about it, the way most of the drama kids were, but even after four years of changing in front of each other for shows, there were some people who always changed in the bathroom. I never once used a shower at school until I lived in a dorm, though. Although again: theatre kid instead of sports kid.

He’d almost gotten away with it, even when Richard came back in to get something he’d forgotten in his locker. The showers weren’t easy to peek into from the path in and out of the locker room. Richard called out, “Who’s still in here?”

If he hadn’t responded, Richard definitely would have come to check it out, so Aidan shouted, “It’s Aidan!”

Richard laughed, because he’d been one of the other guys who fell in the mud. “Alright, see you tomorrow,” he called back, and Aidan relaxed.

Too soon, as it turned out, because a minute later Richard was at the doorway to the shower, saying, “Hang on, you never even change in front of us, let’s see what you’re so shy about, anyway.”

Gee, Richard, why are you so curious about seeing Aidan naked?

None of the showers were really set up to provide enough privacy to keep Aidan from being partially exposed. He yelped and spun around to put his back to Richard, but Richard had already gotten an eyeful.

“Holy shit,” Richard said, “you’re a girl?”

He didn’t pay any attention at all to Aidan’s protest that he was not, in fact, a girl. His very thoughtful rebuttal was to gesture at Aidan’s body and say, “Boobs, vagina.” It was annoying enough that his suggestion he could keep his mouth shut if Aidan let Richard fuck him was almost a relief.

I think not writing this out as a full scene makes it stronger. Aidan's extremely judgy narration cracks me up. And it didn't feel like it needed it; the fact that it happened at all is what's important for this story, and I've already gotten the requisite S2B2 sex scene out of the way.

By then, Aidan was done showering. He tried to wrap himself in a towel and go to his locker to get dressed, but Richard grabbed him, pushed him up against the outside wall of the showers, and kissed him. He’d already been hard, and that made Aidan kind of dizzy even if it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Aidan’s gender.

“What, now?” Aidan asked, breathlessly, like Richard’s dick hadn’t made that clear.

“Why, you got somewhere else to be?” Richard asked, and didn’t wait for an answer before kissing Aidan again.

Aidan lost his virginity on a damp towel spread out on the floor of the locker room. He didn’t come, but it was a near thing. Aidan swore to himself he wouldn’t get off on it the next time he let Richard fuck him, which turned out to be comically over-confident.

Aidan woke up the morning after having sex in front of a teammate with Richard pressed up against his side, his hand up Aidan’s shirt. He was grabbing Aidan’s boob in his sleep. Aidan didn’t know what he’d expected. It was under the blanket, at least. Aidan nudged Richard off of him, then lifted his head to see if Trey was awake. Trey was on his side facing away from them, so Aidan couldn’t tell. It would be too conspicuous to try and wriggle into his binder under the blanket, so Aidan reached for his phone to check the time.

He was just messing around on his phone, aimlessly scrolling social media, when Trey got up from his bed and walked to the bathroom. Aidan immediately dropped his phone to grab his binder. He wrenched his shirt off, pulled his binder on, and was rewarded with the bottom edge of his binder rolling up and digging in painfully, the way it always did he when he tried to put it on too fast. Aidan kicked Richard under the blankets, while he struggled to pull his binder down.

Aidan heard Richard groan, then felt the bed shift as he moved around. Then Richard said, “Oh, shit, where’s Trey?”

“Bathroom,” Aidan said. “But I think he’s only peeing. Give me a hand.”

“Yeah,” Richard said. He grabbed the back of Aidan’s binder and pulled. He reached up with his other hand to straighten out the hem without Aidan having to ask. Since he always wanted access to Aidan’s boobs when they were having sex, he’d helped Aidan in and out of his binder enough times to be decent at it. It was one of the weird ways he was considerate even though he’d blackmailed Aidan into this.

While Aidan adjusted the way his boobs were laying in the front of his binder, Richard grabbed Aidan’s discarded shirt and turned it right side out. He held it out so all Aidan had to do was put his arms and head through it. While Aidan did that, he heard the toilet flush. Richard murmured, “You good?”

I think it says something about Richard (and his relationship with Aidan) that, even though Aidan doesn't realize Richard likes him, he still doesn't hesitate to demand assistance with his binder. They've been doing this long enough that Richard has clearly established that he's going to help Aidan stay closeted, despite theoretically holding the threat of outing him over his head. I don't know if anyone else even noticed this, but Richard going above and beyond by prepping the shirt for Aidan to get into is him doing a really good job of helping Aidan get dressed. I don't mention it in the story, but Richard doesn't have any younger siblings or anything; his experience dressing someone else is all Aidan. He's trying so hard to be boyfriend material without saying anything about it. Idiot.

Aidan yanked the shirt down and flopped back onto the bed. “Yeah,” he said.

“Good,” Richard said. He also laid back down, pulling the blanket up over their chests. He yawned. “What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty,” Aidan told him.

Richard groaned. “That’s too early to be up on a Saturday,” he said, and rolled over to press his face into Aidan’s shoulder.

“Stop that,” Aidan said, shrugging him off. He heard the bathroom door open, and then the sink ran. He was as prepared to face Trey as he was ever going to be. He would have felt more secure with another layer of clothes on, but he’d known he wouldn’t have time to get completely dressed, and it would be weird to get partially dressed and then stay in bed. Aidan wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep, but he didn’t completely disagree with Richard that it was too early to be up. And there wasn’t much he could do in the hotel room if Richard or Trey went back to sleep.

“Are you guys up?” Trey asked from around the corner.

“Yeah,” Aidan said. Richard groaned and pulled the blanket over his head.

“So,” Trey said, coming around the corner and heading for the bed he’d slept in. “Usually I wouldn’t want to be nosy, but I feel like I earned it.” He sat down on the edge of the bed facing them and leaning back on his hands. He was still in the t-shirt and plaid boxers he’d slept in. “Are you guys gay?”

At least that was a question with a simple answer. “Only in the umbrella sense,” Aidan said. “I’m bi.”

Richard flipped the blanket down off his face. “If being into Aidan counts,” he said, “then I guess I am too.”

Aidan looked sidelong at him. That was a pretty clever way to sound like he was saying something he wasn’t. The thing about Richard was that he was inconsistent about the gender thing. He’d been adamant he wasn’t gay and it wasn’t gay for him to fuck Aidan, but he never slipped up in front of other people. That wasn’t Aidan’s typical experience with people who didn’t believe or understand that he was trans. When they had sex, Richard worked around Aidan’s discomfort with having his clit touched. Aidan genuinely couldn’t tell how much Richard was being considerate versus just humoring Aidan in order to have continued access to Aidan’s body.

And now it sounded like he was fine with Trey thinking he was bi, even though he’d been vehement at first that he wasn’t gay.

Richard saw Aidan looking. “What?” he asked. He was blushing. He was blushing?

It was early, and Trey already knew they had sex. Aidan said bluntly, “I kind of figured I was just a convenient hole to stick your dick in.”

Richard shrugged. “I feel like you’d be less irresistible if you were.”

That made Aidan blush. He always thought Richard was just horny, not that he found Aidan especially attractive. That…put some things in a different light.

“For pete’s sake,” Trey said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t make me listen to you two have sex and a relationship discussion.”

“It’s too early to be talking about this shit anyway,” Aidan said. He sat up. “Breakfast is in the lobby, right?”

It was an obvious change of subject, but they both let him get away with it. Aidan steadfastly ignored the way he was still blushing and got up to get dressed.

Richard was in the middle of an argument with Jake about some video game when Aidan and Trey finished eating breakfast, so Aidan and Trey walked back through the hotel to their room to get ready for the day without him.

“Hey,” Aidan said, when the door to the room was closed behind them, “sorry about last night. I did try to tell him no ’cause you were here, but, uh. Not very hard, I guess.”

Trey sighed. “I mean, it sucked to get woken up like that, but it’s not like I’ve never done something stupid because a girl put her hand down my pants, so. Don’t worry about it.” He sat down on the foot of his bed and kicked off the shoes he’d worn to breakfast. He went on, “I mean, we’ve all walked past that nook behind the band room and pretended we didn’t see whoever was making out back there.”

Based on a real nook behind the band room at my high school. Literally on the path to the only bathrooms in the building, and we all collectively went I Do Not See It

That was an extremely generous word for some of what went on in the nook behind the band room. Aidan had never walked past anyone outright fucking back there, but it went a lot further than kissing. “Well, still,” Aidan said. “It was rude to do that to you. But thanks for being nice about it.”

“You know, thinking about it,” Trey said, “I did notice Richard was being nicer to you lately.”

“Ah,” Aidan said. He hadn’t been sure he wasn’t imagining that. Before Richard called him irresistible, Aidan thought any niceness he wasn’t imagining was due to misplaced sexism. Now he didn’t know what to think. To Trey, he said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Trey yawned. “Hey,” he said, “do you mind if I try to take a nap before we have to go?”

“Nah, go ahead,” Aidan said. “Want me to wake you up?”

“I’ll set an alarm,” Trey said. He kicked off his shoes. Aidan didn’t bother, but he made sure to pull the covers up so his shoes didn’t get in the sheets or anything. Trey climbed into bed, messed with his phone for a minute, then closed his eyes. Aidan grabbed the book he was supposed to finish this weekend out of his backpack. After a second, he realized he should text Richard to be quiet when he came back to the room, did that, then went back to reading.

They were playing two games today, so Coach told them to pace themselves. He looked right at Richard when he said, “Don’t push yourselves too hard. We’re trying to build stamina, not let you hurt yourselves.” Richard attempted to look innocent. Coach didn’t fall for it any more than Aidan did.

This got all the way to the S2B2 editorial team without anyone pointing out that I had never named the fucking sport they were playing. It was always soccer in my head, but I sure didn't have that in the initial drafts!

The first game was good. The other team, who they hadn’t played before, had clearly gotten a similar talk from their coach. It was a chill, fun game that felt more cooperative than competitive. It was nice, although Aidan would get bored if every game felt that way.

It made Richard noticeably restless. For a second in the locker room after the game, Aidan thought Richard was going to follow him into the bathroom when he went to change. He didn’t, though, and Aidan took a moment to be thankful he was trans and no one could tell if he was turned on through his clothes. They’d literally just done it last night, why was Aidan already soaking his shorts at the thought of Richard following him into the bathroom? Stupid hormones.

The cafeteria wasn’t staffed, but the coaches had ordered catering and set it up in there. Aidan expected the catering was better than the cafeteria food anyway, so he wasn’t going to complain. He grabbed some sandwiches and a bag of chips, then went over to the water fountain to fill up his water bottle.

When Aidan got to the set of tables the rest of the team had claimed, Jake was laughing at Richard. “Man, you need to lighten up,” Jake said. “Forget superstition, maybe you should get laid before games, work off some of that energy.”

“He did,” Trey said. “It obviously didn’t help.”

Aidan froze in his seat. He was sure Richard did too.

Jake looked from Trey to Richard, then, inevitably, at Aidan.

Trey said, “Oh, dammit, was that–supposed to be secret?”

A story about being repeatedly outed, RIP Aidan

The table roared as everyone who’d heard them demanded details. Aidan didn’t know if he was surprised or offended at how quickly everyone determined Richard had sex with him, and not Trey, before either of them even said anything. Aidan didn’t bother to fight his blush. He only ignored it and unwrapped his sandwich.

“I thought you hated Aidan,” Mark said to Richard.

Before Richard could respond, Joseph said, “Come on, that was obviously his immature little way of flirting.” Aidan had come to a similar conclusion himself, given how quickly Richard jumped to “have sex with me” when he decided Aidan was a girl. He had to have been attracted to Aidan on some level before that, and “finding out” Aidan was a girl let him acknowledge it.

So this isn't a thing I've only seen in one place, but the example that jumps to my mind is Eurotrip; the main character finds out his German penpal is not a dude, as he assumed, but actually a girl, and immediately is like "oh I'm in love with her she's the one". Hey? Hey dude? That's fucking gay. Richard even admits it later, that finding out Aidan "was a girl" let him realize his feelings for Aidan were a crush. Like, I don't know how "latent bisexuality" isn't the only possible answer for this very rapid conclusion. If the only thing that's keeping you from fucking your dude friends is thinking they're dudes, but as soon as you have any reason to think that's not true you're like "okay take off your clothes"...that's actually pretty gay, dude. (This also happens a lot in gender-bender hentai manga. Hey guys? Your dude friend having tits now should not immediately lead to you fucking him and feeling totally secure in your heterosexuality, actually. That's a fucking wild reaction to this situation.) ("Ani it's just a porn premise" WELL SO IS THIS BUT I PUT SOME THOUGHT INTO THE EXECUTION AT LEAST)

“I just thought we’re not that close, I didn’t hear about it,” Trey said. He looked wretched enough that Aidan felt bad for him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Richard yelled, to be heard over the din. “It’s not like we told you not to tell anyone.”

“Is this recent?” someone asked.

“Are you dating?” someone else asked, teasingly.

“No,” Aidan said firmly, in unison with Richard.

“You can’t say you’re friends with benefits,” Mark said. “You’re not friends.”

“Why aren’t you dating?” Joseph asked. He was closer to Richard, but he looked down the table in a way that made it clear he was including Aidan in his question.

Aidan looked at Richard, who stared back at him. Richard was wide-eyed, but the look on his face didn’t tell Aidan anything about how he wanted to handle this. Of course this was when everyone else would shut up enough to listen. Nosy bastards. Finally, Aidan said, “I don’t want to have this conversation in front of other people.”

“Yeah,” Richard said at once, “me neither.” He looked around the table. “It’s none of y’all’s business.”

They do not have this conversation in public because I didn't want to write this conversation with so many other people involved. I can write a big group meal talk, but it's hard, and honestly I don't think it would have been worth it in this case!

“God, I’m sorry,” Trey said, looking from Richard to Aidan. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine,” Richard said.

It was annoying, but Aidan hadn’t heard any homophobia, just nosiness and some I-told-you-so’s. It was far and away the better outing he’d had at this school. “It’s okay, Trey,” Aidan said. He smiled, and hoped it didn’t look as forced as it was. “It’s not your fault nothing in the world can chill Richard out.”

Aidan told himself he didn’t feel bad, redirecting the teasing back to Richard alone. Richard rolled his eyes, but he let Jake resume giving him grief, so Aidan turned his attention to his lunch.

There were an uneven number of teams, so their team had a break after lunch, before their second game. They went to watch the other games that were happening. Aidan hoped he’d fall off the radar of the rest of the team, but he wasn’t that lucky.

Mark climbed over the bleachers to sit down next to Aidan twenty minutes into the game. “Hey,” he said quietly, “are you really hooking up with Richard?”

“I guess,” Aidan said. He didn’t know what else he could say. At least Richard had been just as firm at lunch about the fact they weren’t dating as Aidan had; that could have been awkward. Well, more awkward.

“And you’re…okay? With that?” Mark asked. “I mean, he was such a dick when you joined the team. No pun intended.”

Aidan shrugged. “I assumed Joey was right, and that was his messed-up attempt at flirting. Or dealing with his feelings, anyway,” he said. He wasn’t sure it counted as flirting if you didn’t know why you were doing it. He added, “I don’t think he’s ever been into another guy before.”

I mean, if one of your friends who was kind of bullying a guy suddenly turned out to be having sex with that guy, it seems reasonable to be concerned that something unsavory is going on there. And there is! Or at least there was! So here we see Aidan being offered an out for the first of, like, three times in this story. But he is now invested enough in also protecting Richard, as well as continuing to get laid, that he isn't even conflicted or concerned about taking it without simultaneously outing himself. It doesn't even occur to him! Mostly he just doesn't want to be talking to his teammates about this.

“I guess that makes sense,” Mark said. He scratched his scruffy goatee. “But I don’t know, man, my sisters always say you shouldn’t reward guys who do stuff like that. It’s kind of a red flag, isn’t it?”

Great, he thought Aidan was some kind of foolish damsel. Aidan guessed that was technically better than people knowing he was trans and treating him like a delusional girl. Not by much, though. He said, “I don’t know about Richard, but this is one reason I didn’t want to tell people. It’s complicated. And personal.”

“No, I know,” Mark said, holding up his hands. “You’re a big boy, you can make your own decisions. I just thought, I dunno, someone should check on you. We’ve all known Richard longer than you, I didn’t want you to be, you know, forgotten about.”

Aidan didn’t know what to say to that. “Thanks?” Aidan said.

Mark sighed. “I should have told Trey to do this,” he said.

Aidan laughed. “Trey wasn’t worried,” he said. “I bet he would’ve told you not to worry, too. Not to be vulgar or anything, but there is a reason I’m hooking up with him.”

“Oh,” Mark said. He made a face. “Really?” he asked after a moment. “I mean, you’re right, I don’t think Richard’s ever been into another guy before, and it doesn’t seem like that would lend itself to being good at gay sex.”

Aidan shrugged, still smiling. “I was honestly shocked,” he said. “But it’s really good.”

“Damn, okay,” Mark said. Aidan glanced at him, and saw he was blushing. About time someone else was embarrassed about this. “I guess that answers that.”

In the locker room before their second game, as Aidan walked over to the bathroom stalls, Jake said, “Ah, now we know why Aidan changes in the bathroom. To avoid inflaming Richard’s lust!” Most of the team burst into laughter.

Well, Aidan thought, face hot enough it felt like it might burst into flames, at least this was all sending them off track. No one would guess he was trans if they assumed it was all about Richard, the way he’d hassled Aidan at first, and now not being naked around the guy he was hooking up with when they weren’t having sex.

“Yeah, yeah,” Richard said loudly. “Very funny. I have some self-control, you know.”

“Not according to Trey!” Jake said, and set off another round of laughter. Great, so Aidan could assume everyone knew they’d had sex while Trey was in the room. The guys had probably already started texting other people from school about it. Not only were people going to know Aidan was sleeping with Richard, they’d know he didn’t have enough self-control to override his libido.

He did still prefer that to people knowing he was trans. At least Aidan being horny for Richard was something it made sense to treat him differently for.

The second game was rougher than the first one. This team was not taking it easy. Aidan wound up in the dirt more than once, although he didn’t get injured. Richard was in his element. While Aidan was on the sidelines, trying to catch his breath and hydrate after Coach subbed him out, he found it difficult not to watch him.

Former soccer player had to look up the rules of soccer for this story. Shameful. (It has been like...literally twenty years. It's not actually shameful, it's just annoying because dammit I still had an eidetic memory when I played soccer why can't I find that information in my brain it has to be there somewhere)

Jake elbowed Aidan. “Keep your mind on the game, perv,” he said.

“Shut up,” Aidan said reflexively, but he could feel himself turning red again. “Like you haven’t told us all a thousand times how hard it is not to pop a boner when you go to Crystal’s games.”

“Mm,” Jake said, nodding. “It is hot when people are good at things. Still, embarrassing to be into Richard.”

“If you guys don’t stop saying stuff like that, I’m going to tell you exactly what I enjoy about Richard,” Aidan said. If he chose his words carefully enough, he wouldn’t even be lying. “And I doubt he’d mind me bragging about his dick.”

Jake groaned. “He would not,” he agreed. “Okay, message received, I’ll shut up now.”

“Thank you,” Aidan said, as primly as he could. Jake laughed.

They lost the game, but only by a single point. Considering the other team had at one point managed a four point lead, they felt pretty good about that. After they showered and changed, there was a goofy little closing ceremony, but it was short. Not short enough that Aidan wasn’t ruing and lamenting his extremely sweaty binder. Being able to take a shower before this would be nice.

Except he didn’t know if he’d even be on the soccer team if he was out. Or be allowed to use the showers, if he was. It didn’t usually bother him this much, but two games’ worth of sweat made his binder unspeakably itchy.

Write what you know sometimes means writing about how fucking itchy binders are. Starting T made it so much more urgent for me to get top surgery because being extra-sweaty while binding is a nightmare.

Finally back in their hotel room, Aidan immediately started gathering his things for a shower. The bathroom here locked, and even if it was a pain getting back into a binder not fully dry–and if he was locked in the bathroom with his clothes, he never got totally dry–he had a clean one to change into, and he wouldn’t have to worry about Trey or anyone else seeing him.

“Hey,” Trey said, “I really am sorry about, like. Outing you both, I guess.”

“It’s fine,” Aidan said. He was dithering about if he could get out his clean binder while Trey was right here without him noticing. He didn’t keep his binders in the main pocket of the suitcase, since that was so easy to look into if someone walked by. Was that paranoid? Probably. But as much as binders didn’t look a lot like bras, they also didn’t really look like something a cis boy would have in their luggage. It might invite questions or investigation.

Richard flopped backward onto the bed, jostling Aidan’s suitcase. “I should have asked you not to say something,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I mean,” Aidan said, “I don’t care if people know I’m bi. Honestly, everyone seems more shocked anyone would fuck you.”

“No one is shocked someone would fuck me,” Richard said, frowning. “They’re shocked you would fuck me.”

“Well, by the end of the day he was threatening to tell everyone all about the apparent wonders of your dick,” Trey said, “so at least the whole team understands my pain now.”

Aidan laughed. “Sorry,” he said.

Trey waved him off. “Anyway, I thought I’d clear out until dinner,” he said. “If you wanted to have sex without an audience for once.”

“Uh, thanks?” Aidan said. “But I’m going to enjoy a nice, private shower. Get all this damn dirt off.”

“Also valid,” Trey said. “Have fun.”

He left, the door clicking locked behind him. Aidan yanked off his shirt and threw it to the ground, then grabbed his binder and yanked that off, too. “Fucking hell,” Aidan said, scratching his chest. “That was too long in one binder.”

“Hey, you want me to get your back?” Richard asked.

On the one hand, that felt really intimate and kind of weird to let Richard do, but on the other hand, Aidan could not reach the itchiest parts of his back on his own. He shoved his suitcase to the foot of the bed and sat down with his back to Richard. “Please,” he said.

The mattress shifted as Richard moved over to sit behind Aidan. “My mom always asked my dad to scratch her back after workouts,” he said. “She said her sports bra was way worse than her regular bras for making her back itchy.” He ran the nails of both hands down either side of Aidan’s spine. Totally unable to help himself, Aidan moaned.

I spent my childhood scratching my mom and sister's backs after they took off their bras. Such an important part of being good friends to someone with boobs that require support, IMO. Also just like...the intimacy of this is so not sexual. Especially since Aidan is sweaty and feels gross right now. Although maybe that's my bias as someone who mostly did this for family members before I got married.

“More on the shoulder blades,” Aidan suggested.

Richard moved his hands up. “So, uh, sorry I didn’t tell Trey not to tell anyone,” he said.

“Hm?” It took Aidan a second to process that, lost as he was in the euphoria of having his itches relieved. “Oh. No, it’s okay. Like I said, I don’t care if people know I’m bi. And I mean, you heard them in the locker room, now they think I don’t change or shower with everyone because of you. That’s great for me. Not…as great for you, maybe.”

Richard was quiet for a minute. He moved his scratching down to the red mark the bottom of Aidan’s binder left, where it dug in. Eventually, Richard said, “It’s fine. Kind of weird, but whatever. It is strange to hear you’re giving out rave reviews of my dick, though.”

Aidan blushed even though Richard couldn’t see him. “You can’t be surprised by that,” he said. “Unless you think I’ve been faking it this whole time.”

Richard laughed. “No,” he admitted. He moved back up to Aidan’s shoulders. “I actually started wondering if some of the girls I was with before were faking. You know, in comparison.”

Aidan snorted. “Probably rude to assume,” he said. “I mean, if they said they liked it, I’d believe them.” Although he guessed it was possible some of them had been faking. Aidan would say this for having sex with someone just to get them to do what he wanted: he’d had no incentive to stroke Richard’s ego about how good he was making Aidan feel, which could very well have made Richard try harder. He hadn’t not tried to make it good for Aidan, at least.

“I guess,” Richard said. “Again, I don’t think any of them went around bragging about it.”

“It seemed like the best way to get a bunch of straight guys to stop asking questions about us,” Aidan said. “I don’t even have to lie.” He sighed, and stood up. “Thanks,” he said.

“No problem,” Richard said. He was looking up at Aidan with a weird expression on his face. Aidan wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it had been a mistake to let Richard scratch his back after everything else that had happened today.

Aidan unzipped the pocket of his suitcase he had his clean binder in, then paused. He looked up at Richard. “You’re not going to be coming in and out of the room, right?” he asked.

“No,” Richard said, looking puzzled. “I was just going to sit here and watch stuff on my phone.”

Aidan nodded. “Then I’m going to leave my clothes out here,” he said. “I mean, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Richard grinned at him. “Yeah,” he said. He stopped leering and nodded his head at the bathroom. “I hate how moist my clothes get when I take them into hotel bathrooms. Even when they’re not wet, they’re, like, clammy.”

Richard is trying so hard to be Normal, I cannot deal with it

“Right?”

The water pressure in the hotel shower was crap, but the water heater was in no danger of running out of hot water. And again, this point could not be stressed enough: it was private. Aidan didn’t have to worry anyone would see him. Even on the other side of the door, there was only Richard, who already knew about him. Aidan had a long, adequate-to-satisfactory shower. He got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and draped another one over his head, then brushed his teeth and moisturized. Hotel bathrooms never had decent bathmats, either. And the towels just got completely wet right away if you tried to use them as bathmats. No wonder their clothes always felt wet.

Hotel bathrooms never have decent bathmats. This must be some kind of law.

Aidan dried his hair and tossed that towel over the door of the shower stall. He went out into the room with just the towel around his waist. Richard looked up and let out a low whistle.

“Fuck off,” Aidan said, rolling his eyes. He put on clean underwear, then the jeans he’d worn to and from the school where they’d played. Those were clean enough, although he was planning to put on a fresh shirt. He thought his torso still wasn’t dry enough to try putting on his binder, so he rubbed himself down with the towel again.

“I don’t want to prove everyone right,” Richard drawled, “but I have to admit watching this isn’t not turning me on.”

Aidan rolled his eyes again. “Yeah, there’s nothing sexier than me desperately trying to dry my back,” he said.

“It makes your boobs jiggle,” Richard said, which Aidan had to admit was true.

The door opened. Aidan jumped and completely lost hold of the towel. He snatched up his binder and held it in front of his chest, like that was going to do anything now. Richard leapt to his feet on the other side of the bed, which was about as useful.

Trey slammed the door behind him and leaned on it, as though someone was going to follow him in. His eyes were so wide they looked like they’d pop right out of his head. “You’re a girl?” he exclaimed, in the exact incredulous tone Richard had shouted those words in.

“Don’t be stupid,” Richard snapped, “of course he’s not a girl!”

Despite himself, Aidan laughed. “What the fuck,” he said. “Since when do you believe that?”

Richard flushed and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted when Trey said from the door, “Oh, are you one of those, uh, people who was born in the wrong body?”

Aidan grimaced. He kind of hated that phrasing, because Aidan mostly liked his body. Even the parts of it that other people thought made him a girl were fine, on their own. Binding was more annoying than having boobs, honestly, but people wouldn’t treat him like a guy if he didn’t do it. But that was also still the main narrative cis people heard, and the only one they really seemed to understand. If Trey didn’t remember the word transgender, he reached for the definition he had in his head. Aidan said, “Yeah, I’m trans.”

I try not to soapbox too much when I'm writing, but it's so hard to know what people will or won't know about trans people, even writing for a primarily queer audience. This is definitely happening after I was in high school, because Richard talks about watching something on his phone, which was only barely possible when I graduated. I think this part also establishes, if less definitely, that it must be happening closer to its 2023 publication date than the 2005-2009 period I was in high school. Obviously I don't know if anyone at my high school was trans and stealth, but I do know the openly trans kids were generally the ones who either couldn't be closeted or had way too much dysphoria to stand it. Aidan doesn't have that much physical dysphoria (or at least has figured out how to manage it by the time the story happens) but he clearly has enough social dysphoria to lead him to being stealth. I figure he got lucky, relatively speaking, with boobs that bind flat enough to pass and a figure that doesn't immediately scream "my endocrine system was estrogen-dominant during a crucial period of physical development", but I did also make sure to establish really early on that he's on period-halting birth control and his physical dysphoria causes sexual problems for him. I try not to give every character just the exact relationship to their body and dysphoria that I or my wife have, because while that is obviously easier for me to write, I don't want to contribute to any ideas about there being a right or normal way to be trans. Aidan has different dysphoria than me even though I'm drawing a lot on my own experiences as someone who was assigned female at birth but was never entirely comfortable with it. It doesn't come up in this story, although I might write a little extra about it, but Aidan is not on testosterone during the story. I would have to do research about how exactly it works, but I'm in the USA, and I wrote this from the assumption it's set in the USA, so in the back of my head was the idea that Aidan's parents' insurance won't cover transition stuff before he's 18. I guess it's possible they also wouldn't cover it before he was 16, and he didn't want to draw attention to himself by starting second puberty in the middle of everyone else's first puberty. Richard absolutely thinks Aidan is on testosterone, because he's like "well this is what trans guys do and Aidan passes, therefore". Aidan is going to roast him about how stupid that is when Richard knows damn well that Aidan does not have to shave his face. The other stuff is in comparison, so Richard gets a pass on, eg, Aidan having a smaller clit and a higher voice, but facial hair growth is usually a pretty early development in testosterone puberty and Richard should have noticed that Aidan literally never has any stubble.

Unfortunately, at the same time, Richard snapped at Trey, “Don’t be insensitive, that’s an outdated way of talking about it.”

Growing up, I didn't know about my dad's lesbian best friend, I just knew he made lots of gay jokes. I'm pretty sure I learned the word dyke from my dad throwing it around in what I'm sure he thought was a jocular manner that was fine because Denise said it. But when my wife came out to him, he did a hard 180 on her (he had previously stopped liking her the instant it became clear we were dating) and sent her an excessively girly gift as...a coming out present? I guess? (Except he was a boomer and it was 2014, so he sent her a My Little Pony t-shirt. He tried, is my point.) Anyway I'm sure that's where my soft spot for people being aggressively progressive about things they themselves have been shitty about comes from. Sometimes it's hard to understand that context changes how things are received, especially if they're not the kind of person who thinks too much about the actual meaning of their words. I do think it also makes a nice change from the, like, soft progressivism. How soapboxy can it be when the guy snapping about misgendering is also cussing and rude the whole time? Anyway anyway: Richard clearly did a lot of research if he got in deep enough to see people talking about the "trapped in the wrong body" narrative being problematic and outdated. And still, he did not tell Aidan this. A fool.

“Are you kidding me?” Aidan demanded. “You’re telling someone not to be insensitive? You decided I was a girl the second you saw me naked, too! And then argued with me about it!” With one hand, he gestured at the door, which Trey was still leaning against like it or he would fall over otherwise. “At least Trey didn’t demand to fuck me!”

“Dude,” Trey said, and frowned at Richard, “what the hell.”

“Shut up, you did the same thing,” Richard said. He was blushing again.

“Screw you, no I did not,” Trey said. “Even if Aidan was a girl I wouldn’t demand sex with her! Who does that?”

“Okay, yeah, I guess that was fucked up,” Richard said.

“You guess?” Aidan and Trey both asked.

Richard threw his hands in the air. “Okay, it was definitely fucked up, but it worked out okay!” He pointed at Trey. “And you’re not gonna tell anyone about Aidan, right? You can tell this is a fucking secret, I hope.”

“Of course I won’t tell anyone,” Trey said, frowning. “What do you mean, it worked out okay? Aidan,” Trey said, looking at him, suddenly alarmed, “if you want to tell Coach or someone that Richard was, like, taking advantage of you, I’ll back you up.”

Trey belatedly realizing this situation is sus and panicking that he shouldn't have taken it in stride.

“If I was going to do that, it would be better to talk about it not in front of him,” Aidan pointed out. “But I’m not–it’s fine.”

Trey looked skeptical. “If you say so,” he said.

Aidan grabbed his binder from where he’d dropped it when he was yelling at Richard. “I mean, I think we…have some stuff to talk about,” he said. “But you don’t need to be here for that.” He started the process of pulling his binder back on.

“Yeah, why did you come back early anyway?” Richard asked.

Trey blinked and looked around the room. “Oh,” he said. “I left my wallet here. I was going to give Mark money for pizza.”

“Oh, do you think I can get in on that?” Aidan asked. He yanked on the bottom of his binder to get it down where it was most comfortable.

“Sure,” Trey said. He was not looking at Aidan in a way that felt unfortunately pointed, but Aidan guessed that was better than staring. “I mean, if he hasn’t already ordered.”

“It’s only been a few minutes, I’m sure it’s fine,” Aidan said. He turned around to dig his wallet out of his backpack. He heard Trey cross the room to go through his stuff as well. Richard sat back down on the edge of the bed, where he’d been when Trey opened the door.

When Aidan walked around the bed to meet Trey and give him the cash, Trey glanced over at Richard. He asked Aidan quietly, “You sure you’ll be okay if I leave you alone?”

Aidan made an effort not to roll his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. He understood where Trey was coming from, but it was…Aidan didn’t know what it was, but it had been a long time since he didn’t feel safe around Richard. Richard never had hurt him, or even threatened him directly. Aidan apparently had no clue what was going on in Richard’s head, but he was less worried about being alone with him than ever. Maybe that was foolish. But nothing had changed for him since he reassured Mark earlier that day.

When Trey was gone, Aidan turned to Richard, who was still sitting on the edge of the bed. “Okay, first of all,” Aidan said, “since when do you actually believe I’m a guy?”

Richard blushed and looked away. “Since like…the second week we were doing it,” he said. “I got curious and looked up some of the stuff you said online, and…yeah.”

“What the hell,” Aidan said. Thinking back, Aidan guessed it was true Richard hadn’t said nearly as much gendered bullshit after the first few times. Aidan had still been expecting it for weeks afterward, and been on edge about it the whole time, but Richard hadn’t actually called Aidan a girl again. Of course, he also hadn’t said anything to imply he understood Aidan was a guy until last night, when he called Aidan a faggot. Aidan asked, “Why didn’t you say something? Jesus, Richard, half the reason I didn’t want to fuck you is because I thought you thought I was a girl!”

“I thought if you knew I believed you, you wouldn’t let me keep having sex with you,” Richard said, his shoulders up around his ears.

Aidan stared at him. At least it looked like Richard knew he’d messed up. Aidan shook his head and asked, “Why would you believing me when I said I wasn’t a girl change the fact that I didn’t want other people to know? I agreed to have sex with you so you’d keep your mouth shut.”

“I don’t know!” Richard exclaimed. “I wasn’t thinking straight, I just knew I’d somehow managed to get you to–” He snapped his mouth closed on whatever he had been about to say. He started again. “I worried if I said anything,” he said, “you’d realize this was stupid.”

He didn't want to say he'd somehow managed to get Aidan to fuck him, because that sounds bad. Because it was bad!

Aidan rolled his eyes. He walked back to his side of the bed and pulled his clean shirt on. “I already knew it was stupid,” he said. “But it’s slightly less stupid if you’re not thinking I’m a girl the whole time.”

“That’s not true,” Richard said. He looked over his shoulder at Aidan and laughed. “Aidan, it’s so stupid. I’m so stupid.”

“Well, yeah,” Aidan said, adjusting his shirt. “But, you know, on the bright side, you’re a good lay.”

Ani Mosity stories: yes your personality is atrocious, but you're good in bed, so it's kind of a wash tbh

Richard laughed again, sounding a little manic. He dropped his head and put his face in his hands. “Okay,” he said. “Can I–can we start over?”

“What?” Aidan asked.

“Ugh, no,” Richard muttered, “I’m doing this all wrong. At least I can’t get it worse this time, I guess.” He sat up and turned to look at Aidan. He was blushing again. “I already had a crush on you,” he said. “That’s why I was such an asshole all the time. I didn’t–I didn’t realize that’s what it was until that time in the locker room. And then I thought you were a girl and I realized I had a crush on you, except then you weren’t a girl but I couldn’t convince myself I didn’t have that crush on you. And the whole time you were letting me fuck you and it seemed like, you know, you didn’t hate it. So I decided if I didn’t say anything it was fine, because, like…at least you’d keep having sex with me.”

After a moment, Aidan said, “Wow. No, you’re right, that’s very stupid.”

“I know,” Richard moaned. “I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “I won’t tell anyone if you want to stop. I mean, I won’t tell anyone no matter what. That you’re transgender. I don’t know if it makes sense to not tell anyone we’re not hooking up anymore. And, well.” He waved at the outer wall of the hotel room, indicating the walkway. “I don’t think I’m gonna convince anyone we weren’t hooking up.”

Aidan let out a deep breath. “Thank god,” he said.

Richard looked over at him as he sat down on the bed next to Richard. “Huh?”

“Trey was worried just now because it would be really stupid to keep fucking someone who was blackmailing me,” Aidan said. “But if you’re not blackmailing me anymore, then it’s way less stupid to keep fucking you.”

Richard frowned, confused but hopeful. “You don’t want to stop?”

“I mean, we just established I enjoy sex with you enough to use it as a weapon against nosy people,” Aidan said. “So I guess the question is, do you want to just keep hooking up, or do you want to go out with me?”

Richard’s mouth fell open. “You would date me? After all this?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Aidan said, “it’s totally about the sex for me. But even when you were blackmailing me, you were, like. Less shitty than you could have been. You know, helping me in and out of my binder and stuff. So why not? You already said you like me.”

“I do,” Richard said. “Fuck, Aidan,” he said, turning to face him and grabbing Aidan’s hands, “I’ll be the best boyfriend you’ve ever had. I swear I’ll be less of a stupid asshole.”

“You’ll be the only boyfriend I’ve ever had,” Aidan said. He could feel himself blushing again. He was used to Richard being handsy and kind of smug about it. He wasn’t used to Richard being earnest. Even at practice, Richard was usually more snarky than sincere. It was disarming, as well as cute.

“Really?” Richard asked. He looked pleased.

“I mean, I had a girlfriend in middle school, if middle school dating even counts,” Aidan said. They hadn’t done more than kiss. Aidan hadn’t been out then–hadn’t really known he was trans beyond vague discomfort with the idea of being a “young woman”–but Melissa talked a lot about how hot butches and cross-dressers were. That had been Aidan’s introduction to the idea that people could play with gender for reasons other than sex. He and Melissa went to a dance once in matching dress shirts and ties.

- The idea of middle school wlw attending a dance in matching suits is very cute. I bet Melissa is also not cishet!

“I feel like if my middle school girlfriend ever found out I said it didn’t, she’d appear out of nowhere and wring my neck,” Richard said. He leaned over, taking one of his hands off Aidan’s and putting it on his jaw. It was surreal, to have Richard kiss him gently like this. Even when he’d thought Aidan was a girl, he had been too horned up to bother being gentle.

Richard's middle school relationship was tsundere-for-tsundere.

It made Aidan perversely turned on. Or maybe he was just used to only having sex with Richard. Either way, he pulled away, then swung his leg over Richard’s lap to straddle him. He stooped down to kiss Richard again.

A little while later, Aidan pulled back just enough to ask, “How long do you think we have before Trey gets back?”

Of course, that was when the lock beeped, and the door scraped open. Aidan slumped in Richard’s lap. Richard murmured, “Not long.”

“Oh, great,” Trey said, closing the door behind him. “So talking about things just made you horny again.”

“It is our god-given right as teenagers to be horny all the time,” Aidan said, craning his neck to see Trey.

“What are you, some kind of homophobe?” Richard asked. “I’m not allowed to make out with my own boyfriend?” Yeah, Aidan already found the hypocrisy endearing instead of obnoxious. Was he that easily swayed by good sex or did he just have bad taste?

“Good lord, this trip has been a nightmare,” Trey said. He walked over to his bed and grabbed his hoodie off of it. “Joey wanted to do a movie night after the pizza got here, so I can give you two hours alone, and if you have sex while I’m in the room after that I’m going to smother you with your pillows.”

“Sounds fair,” Richard said.

“You are a lion among men,” Aidan said to Trey over his shoulder. “A diamond in the rough.”

“You sound like you’re drunk,” Trey said, rolling his eyes. “Is the sex that good?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer that. Just keep it in your pants until the pizza gets here.”

“Thank you!” Aidan climbed out of Richard’s lap, because he didn’t trust either of them if he stayed there. He looked at Richard from beside him. “You should eat dinner before that, then.”

“Yeah,” Richard said, looking back at Aidan. He started blushing again, and Aidan couldn’t imagine why. Then Richard asked, “Will you walk with me?”

“This might actually be worse than hearing you have sex,” Trey muttered.

Aidan laughed. “This is at least partially your fault,” he said, leaning over to grab his shoes.

“You must know that makes it worse,” Trey said.

“Sucks to suck,” Richard said. Yeah, Aidan probably needed to resign himself to the idea he had bad taste.

Still, once they both had their shoes and jackets on, Aidan followed Richard out of the hotel room. Richard hesitated a moment, then reached out for Aidan’s hand. Aidan took it, and they walked through the hotel and down the street to the Taco Bell, holding hands the whole way.

Teen romance can be complicated, and teen romance can be holding hands while you walk to a fast food joint. This was not a story I had trouble ending! It happened sooner than I expected, as you may be able to tell by the fact that it is under 10k words, but I feel good about the tight time-frame everything happens in. We don't need to see the months of having weird transactional sex, we just need to see the effects of it, with both boys being comfortable with each other, and Richard clearly being more into Aidan than Aidan realizes. Once someone else knows about it and starts asking questions, there's no reason to draw it out.

#blackmail boyfriend #fic dvd commentary

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