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#its a lot more plausible to do.
insertsomthinawesome · 10 months
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Sometimes I think now and then about uploading more speedpaints of my art on here... I haven’t for the longest time cause I didn’t know how to watermark them 😂 but I recently took the time to figure that out (and if I forgor already I can figure it out again asdlfkjSDLKJSDGS) I keep going back and forth on it because most  of them... well the quality is kinda crunchy? Its not going to be some 4k looking masterpiece, and especially some of the smaller details might get lost in translation (Clip Studio’s Speedpaints especially are always crunchy 😔) IDK if I’d still upload them very often, cause If I record them raw with OBS i actually have to. ya know. VIDEO EDIT (Sometimes I listen to the same songs on loop for 3 hours and I gotta silence their screams of pain xD) But eh I think it could be fun. If i did they also probably wouldn’t have any music. But IDK if ya’ll have any braincells about it I’d be interested to hear. I make no promises either way because I could just decide its not worth the effort ^^;; but I felt like rambling about this on main so *throws this down like a cake on pavement*
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opens-up-4-nobody · 1 year
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the good thing about asperger's no longer being a diagnosis is that it's just called level 1 autism spectrum disorder now. i know i probably shouldn't be poking around in the mental health of strangers online, but as an autistic person myself, your struggles resonated with me. ever since i've been able to accept, understand, and begin to provide myself accommodations for my autism, my mental health has improved tremendously. autism is also co-morbid with oodles of other conditions, so it is definitely possible to have autism and other conditions that may have overlapping symptoms
It's funny, I was diagnosed, accepted it, over analyzed and rejected it, subsequently forgot about it entirely, then when the only helpful counselor I ever had brought up the idea I was like: Oh yeah! That makes sense. And went through the same process over again. I will say, having someone point out that something might be inhibiting my ability to interact with people was extremely helpful. Because I just thought I was really bad at it and processed it as a point of failure (which was intolerable). At one point she said "You don't have to do things you don't want to just because you feel like you should" and I think about that a lot. That should have been obvious but it was like she slapped me with a fish
#i used to pretend to be a person a lot more. now im just like im too fucking tired to not be anything but myself#ill wear whatever weird patterns i want. ill avoid all eye contact and say whatevers in my head. bc usually its nothing#harmful. perhaps a bit blunt but usually in a way thst makes ppl laugh. with me or at me idk but whatever#ill be as weird as i want. i wear fucking white moon boots around everywhere lol. ay now im just being defensive bc#these r the things my sister would make fun of me for lol. point is im probably autistic and overthinking it#but in the past few yeas when the obsessive compulsive behavior started to become a more and more obvious problem i was like hm maybe its#something else and my brain restricts even the words i use in the context i use them so i became no longer allowed to say oh yea im#autistic. which is annoying. thr malignant force that is my obsessive compulsive tendencies. which again im not allowed to name bc its not#allowed without an official diagnosis bc thats how my brain work 👍#level 1 autism sounds Hilarious tho. the teired heavens of autism. ive only ascended to level 1. allegedly.#god. my brain. y do i have to plausible deniability myself. its like im waiting for someone to collect evidance and make an arrest bc of#messy liguistics. ay ay ay. there r 2 wolfs inside me. one is trying to drown the other lol#unrelated#me when i have to b around ppl: actually im an insect person. an alien studying humans. watch them go#but no no im not one of them. im simply an observer
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doctorwhoisadhd · 29 days
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hmm. im aromantic in the same way that my dog is a dog
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sonknuxadow · 1 month
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I believe that IF Silver IS a descendent of Sonic/Shadow/Amy/anyone else, he's a descendent via adoption because the only Sonic character that I accept having kids is Vanilla.
honestly part of the reason im not a fan of the ideas of silver being a descendant of other characters we already know is because i just dont see why its necessary for them to be related ..? idk i just dont think anything that could be gained from him being shadows kid or sonics descendant or whatever is worth losing part of whats already compelling about silver and also making things super confusing. plus none of the pairings of already existing characters people have suggested as silvers bio parents make any sense, usually because its impossible from a timeline perspective but also because theyre always picking characters who would NOT have kids either in general or with the specific people theyre being paired with
#i also just kinda have a hard time imagining most sonic characters who arent already parents (so. most of them) wanting to be parents#it just does not feel right to me#i guess part of it could be an age thing . being a parent is an Adult thing and most sonic characters are not adults#so imagining them doings things that only adults do by in universe standards just feels strange and foreign to me#even though these scenarios would obviously take place a couple decades into the future#but also even when specifically thinking about it through the lens of ''would this character want to be a parent when theyre older''#the answer is usually no or idk#because there are a lot of characters where it just doesnt feel like it fits them?#sonic and rouge are a couple characters i can name off the top of my head who i know for sure would not have kids.#shadow im not so sure about either. yet he is the most common choice for silvers bio parent. pain#thing about shadow and silver is i think a timeline where shadow is actually around to meet little silver and is like#a mentor/older brother/guardian figure of sorts does kinda have potential to be interesting but i dont really want that to be made canon#but shadow straight up being his dad? idk man. not really into that. shadow being his biological dad? ABSOLUTELY not into that .#people having the present version of shadow whos a teenager barely older than silver being a dad to him?? weird as hell. no#asks#also part of what bugs me about the shadow as silvers dad stuff is people pretending its anything more than a baseless headcanon#like im not saying all headcanons have to have proof behind them but people act like the shadow as silvers dad thing#is an actual plausible theory that could be true and has tons of evidence? when it really doesnt ??#i feel the need to specify that im not trying to police what people do or aynthing just sharing my opinions
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obsidiannebula · 1 year
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Deep into the ninja war in Naruto rn and I've said this a lot while watching it, but I cannot imagine having to watch this as it aired. We've been watching a couple episodes a day and it still feels like this war has been going on fooooorevvvvveeerrrr. Y'all really watched this a little bit at a time over the course of several years? Canonically it takes place over the course of like two days. How did y'all live like that
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truly fitting re: billions to have the lose-lose that if winston is written out i get to be disappointed for obvious reasons and if winston isn't written out i get to be disappointed for being denied ever knowing peace
#winston billions#winston rotation is evidently not contingent on ''is there new & recent canon material''#taking it back to the original [showing up for season four] days like i got to be mad abt like what; having to wait until may & june???#having More to wait on at all???? like Win in theory absolutely. in practice like at least once a half yr i have to reckon w/mortality like#or even the [suppose i'm alive though] precarity of like ughhh if i can't Readily know Of new billions material?? gonna be so mad fr....#think winston's been treated as pretty disposable the whole time so if they just actually do kick him out ever it'd be perfectly in line...#annoying & disappointing too but that also applies re like. The Limits Re Approaching Your Autistic Character That You Could Easily Surpass#i Don't give billions a lot of benefit of the doubt regarding whether its writing sees winston so much more differently than characters do#however it does see him as a funny little guy who adds flair & flavor and will can so readily wrangle & crush even this material thrown out#talking to michael greif about it all again. an edit of him in that one deh video#just substitute in some ''taylor mason''s and ''scintillating dynamic'' and etc like yeah it all still applies so hard#Not Thrilled abt the plausibility they write him off early or sm shit but also just like sigh yeah they would. if i'd be upset abt it more#then i guess that's just something to find out if it happens lol. did some work on being deeply bothered out of the way back w/s5 even....#anyways i'm half sort of humorous abt all this half sort of serious all [humor isn't Unserious anyways. it's not not a framework that#allows for and is even all the more capacious for completely genuine matters] and the nuance & granularity betwixt them is a secret.#really what it is is simply I'm Having My Very Exact Experiences and the internal philosopher symposium has it all covered#like sighing & invariably facing disappointment from billions? regardless does not mean in general complaining abt billions lol#profound differences in complaining probably. got things covered like i'm Liking & [Smh]ing in my exact & thorough ways thank you#like the completely self contained [winston billions] times....#anyways it Will be more of a direct disappointment if he's banished in ep two or some shit of course.#just also as usual: it wouldn't be the middle of billions production / anticipating the next season if it didn't seem perfectly possible#at least by this point i'll upgrade expectations to ''yeah i don't think they'd simply write him off offscreen between seasons'' but eh.#that's still a ''Probably not'' scenario....but writing him out at all? giving it a generous 50/50
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a-passing-storm · 1 year
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So about my fic that I posted (very scary). It’s a Matrix fic, and it’s got an aro character, and I am like... so very surprised that it is the first Matrix fic to have the “Aromantic” tag on AO3. Like, I was expecting 10. Or so. I know 10 still isn’t a lot, but I was expecting more than 0. I’m actually very surprised. 
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fagbyatt · 2 years
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okay sorry ill stop making posts soon but I hate when dms think their players are stupid for not picking up on things
#.txt#idk i feel it Generally takes a lot of collab and 'metagaming' to figure things out#maybe ive been playing com for too long but ! idk#i dont always like dnd. i dont wanna roll an insight check on someone to figure out their intentions.#i wanna trust npcs bc they are (or should be) people. with motivations.#best example actually came from my gm explaining stuff ooc#(which happens at the end of every 'arc' or when it isnt plot relevant (#and we found out my FAVORITE npc ks a thief and basically used us all#like she still thinks of us as friends but friends do not come before money for her#i was also told and idk if i even shared this in my group chat bur#but* 😑#if she hadnt been hospitalized while i was an avatar it would have been bad bc she can#basically One Time steal smth she deems interesting enough which!#would have been my powers if she had seen me#i still love her dearly btw#com blogging#i lost the plot. anyway even tho she was selfish i liked and trusted her and didn't need a definabi#metric of how much my character trusted her or believed her to make anything any more fun#and esp w npcs (or even puzzles but thats another post) belittling ur players for not seeing#bad signs in them is shitty. like. if u arent giving the npcs plausible deniability its no fun#i hate being overly suspicious of Every Little Thing and i think dnd perpetuates that a whole lot. makes it less organic#[checking for traps every five seconds] like it works but at what cost. it feels like an obligation. as do a lot of dnd mechanics#its why I've stopped joining games without asking how they approach 'evil' races. im not fighting goblins for the sake of it.#I've typed so much i could go on but i must b reaching tag limit if i haven't already
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mcmansionhell · 3 months
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we've found it folks: mcmansion heaven
Hello everyone. It is my pleasure to bring you the greatest house I have ever seen. The house of a true visionary. A real ad-hocist. A genuine pioneer of fenestration. This house is in Alabama. It was built in 1980 and costs around $5 million. It is worth every penny. Perhaps more.
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Now, I know what you're thinking: "Come on, Kate, that's a little kooky, but certainly it's not McMansion Heaven. This is very much a house in the earthly realm. Purgatory. McMansion Purgatory." Well, let me now play Beatrice to your Dante, young Pilgrim. Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
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It is rare to find a house that has everything. A house that wills itself into Postmodernism yet remains unable to let go of the kookiest moments of the prior zeitgeist, the Bruce Goffs and Earthships, the commune houses built from car windshields, the seventies moments of psychedelic hippie fracture. It is everything. It has everything. It is theme park, it is High Tech. It is Renaissance (in the San Antonio Riverwalk sense of the word.) It is medieval. It is maybe the greatest pastiche to sucker itself to the side of a mountain, perilously overlooking a large body of water. Look at it. Just look.
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The inside is white. This makes it dreamlike, almost benevolent. It is bright because this is McMansion Heaven and Gray is for McMansion Hell. There is an overbearing sheen of 80s optimism. In this house, the credit default swap has not yet been invented, but could be.
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It takes a lot for me to drop the cocaine word because I think it's a cheap joke. But there's something about this example that makes it plausible, not in a derogatory way, but in a liberatory one, a sensuous one. Someone created this house to have a particular experience, a particular feeling. It possesses an element of true fantasy, the thematic. Its rooms are not meant to be one cohesive composition, but rather a series of scenes, of vastly different spatial moments, compressed, expanded, bright, close.
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And then there's this kitchen for some reason. Or so you think. Everything the interior design tries to hide, namely how unceasingly peculiar the house is, it is not entirely able to because the choices made here remain decadent, indulgent, albeit in a more familiar way.
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Rare is it to discover an interior wherein one truly must wear sunglasses. The environment created in service to transparency has to somewhat prevent the elements from penetrating too deep while retaining their desirable qualities. I don't think an architect designed this house. An architect would have had access to specifically engineered products for this purpose. Whoever built this house had certain access to architectural catalogues but not those used in the highest end or most structurally complex projects. The customization here lies in the assemblage of materials and in doing so stretches them to the height of their imaginative capacity. To borrow from Charles Jencks, ad-hoc is a perfect description. It is an architecture of availability and of adventure.
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A small interlude. We are outside. There is no rear exterior view of this house because it would be impossible to get one from the scrawny lawn that lies at its depths. This space is intended to serve the same purpose, which is to look upon the house itself as much as gaze from the house to the world beyond.
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Living in a city, I often think about exhibitionism. Living in a city is inherently exhibitionist. A house is a permeable visible surface; it is entirely possible that someone will catch a glimpse of me they're not supposed to when I rush to the living room in only a t-shirt to turn out the light before bed. But this is a space that is only exhibitionist in the sense that it is an architecture of exposure, and yet this exposure would not be possible without the protection of the site, of the distance from every other pair of eyes. In this respect, a double freedom is secured. The window intimates the potential of seeing. But no one sees.
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At the heart of this house lies a strange mix of concepts. Postmodern classicist columns of the Disney World set. The unpolished edge of the vernacular. There is also an organicist bent to the whole thing, something more Goff than Gaudí, and here we see some of the house's most organic forms, the monolith- or shell-like vanity mixed with the luminous artifice of mirrors and white. A backlit cave, primitive and performative at the same time, which is, in essence, the dialectic of the luxury bathroom.
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And yet our McMansion Heaven is still a McMansion. It is still an accumulation of deliberate signifiers of wealth, very much a construction with the secondary purpose of invoking envy, a palatial residence designed without much cohesion. The presence of golf, of wood, of masculine and patriarchal symbolism with an undercurrent of luxury drives that point home. The McMansion can aspire to an art form, but there are still many levels to ascend before one gets to where God's sitting.
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astranauticus · 5 months
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not to beat a dead horse but im watching todd in the shadows' debunking james somerton video and for some reason the one that really got to me was him disproving the 'detective chinatown 3's box office numbers were faked' claim with just .... no? it was just a really popular movie?
#asto speaks#like honestly i laughed like i think i watched that video with that claim in it before i watched the detective chinatown movies but like#its SUPER plausible for that movie to do absurdly well like a. the detective chinatown series is INCREDIBLY famous and popular in china#like the first two movies were MASSIVE smash hits#b. the lead actors are all super famous? like liu haoran is one of the big rising movie stars in chinese cinema#and this is the franchise that more or less made liu haoran#and wang baoqiang is also a *super* famous movie actor#also as far as i can tell dc3 being the japan one and therefore tsumabuki satoshi was gna be it also probably helped#oh thats another funny detail bc a LOT of people were there for the gay ship of liu haoran and tsumabuki satoshis characters#like dc2 set up their r/s but hiroshi noda (tsumabuki's character) wasnt that big in it but he was supposed to be a much bigger role in dc3#like yknow. ironic in context#also 'holiday weekend' doesnt quite capture the impact that is 'released on lunar new year weekend'#like that is THE blockbuster time slot of the YEAR#especially since detective chinatown is such a. idk whats the word. patriotic sort of series#i mean its called detective chinatown. its about two chinese dudes going around the word solving crimes#also dc3 is riding the high of dc2 which was 70% shitting on america by volume#(also the movie that ruined welcome to new york by taylor swift for me wonder how much they paid for the rights to that)#i mean i dont *like* dc2 but i have to acknowledge that it was probably the most popular detective chinatown movie#like the detective chinatown movies are perfect lunar new year movies like day after the family gathering dinner and you got like#all these people and nothing to do like ok lets go watch a movie thats 30% cool people doing cool things 70% bullshit slapstick comedy#so yknow. this is really obviously a movie that was primed to do super well in every possible way of course its numbers are gonna be good
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nsomniacsdream · 2 years
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I have a hard time talking about American law enforcement, because I have ptsd (like a therapist told me this and everything) from my own experiences with cops and because it's so balls quaking insane.
Like, a cop in the United States can pull you over for any reason. Which is a nice way of saying no reason, because literally anything can be used after the fact as justification. A cop can say its cuz you looked at him, or didnt look at him, or it looked like you were holding something, or looked like you were driving too perfectly for it to be natural. It's insane.
There are apparently no circumstances where a cop can't just kill you. The line the courts have applied is "reasonably believed" you were a threat, but that's such a nebulous nothing limit that people get shot for reaching for their license, having their phone in their hand, you're running away with no weapon, not being able to follow conflicting commands, like anything. And cops are almost never charged, because every court is going to believe he could "reasonably believe" he was threatened. Fuck, if you give me enough time, I can make any situation seem juuuuust plausibly threatening enough to pass that bar. It's insane.
A cop can just rob you. Like tell you to give him your wallet, take all the cash out, and just walk away with it. Exactly like you would imagine getting robbed in an alley would go, except no one can help. And he doesn't even have to hide it, he just drops it in a box at the station and they put it in their bank account. It's legal. You can't prove it wasn't drug money. I can't prove any money wasn't at some point drug money. It's insane.
If a cop just walks in your front door and says "I'm here to kill you and your entire family" YOU ARE GOING TO PRISON IF YOU STOP HIM. There is no positive defense for assaulting a police officer in the United States, and doubly so if you kill him. You have effectively no defense against a homicidal cop, which happens same as any other job. Unless for some reason you have cameras all thru your house and clearly caught the audio of him saying that he's there just to kill you, you have zero chance of not going to prison, probably for life. And that's assuming you aren't killed "resisting arrest" while being taken into custody. It is a crime, in this country, for you to defend yourself under any circumstances if the person you're defending yourself from is a cop. That's insane.
You don't have civil rights if a cop says so. You have the right to have a gun, right? A lot of states have open carry. A cop can shoot you if he sees you have a gun. Doesn't matter if you have a license and everything. So you effectively don't have the right to bear arms if a cop can shoot you for exercising it. You have the right to protest. Unless a cop tells you to stop. He doesn't need a real reason to tell you to stop. And if you don't stop, you can be arrested or shot. So you don't really have the right to protest, do you? A cop cant just search your car or house, right? Unless he claims he heard something, or smelled something, neither of which can be proven. So a cop can search whatever he wants, as long as he pretends there was a "reason". So you dont have protection from unreasonable search and seizure, do you? These are no longer rights- they're things the cops allow.. for now. But legally, those rights have already been found to not actually be rights, because any random cop can decide to take that right from you, for any reason. It's insane.
These aren't like crazy things that I'm just making up, these aren't some weird twisted way I'm looking at something, these are all very real things that we all just.. ignore? Police abolitionists and the media bring these things up all the time, and the overwhelming response to it is: so what? Don't break the law and it won't matter. Blue lives matter. More police funding. Cops should have tanks. It's insane. And I always feel like im just rambling and sound insane when I say this kind of stuff because if you wrote a book and had the dystopian government doing the stuff that the police in this country do every single day, those same people who "back the blue" would line up to say stuff like "*Books government* wouldnt have a chance before us real americans stopped them" on twitter and not even get a hint of the irony.
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capslocked · 18 days
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PROXIMITY
male reader x chou tzuyu
25k words
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You’re not a bad person. And you know how that sounds apropos of nothing - defensive, unscrupulous - but it’s true. You’re like anybody else: full of mistakes, but good, mostly. 
You are also aware of the way she looks at you. None of that has changed.
The slight quirk at the corner of her lips. A flicker, a smirk. A game, all doe-eyed and deep dimpled - she's playing the seduction one. It isn’t subtle, and you're losing by proxy. So you're backtracking, drawing your conclusions; you're reading into the line of her jaw, the fall of her hair. Measuring the weight behind each blink.
"You were wrong by the way," Tzuyu starts, indifferent. Through some act of divine retribution, she laughs. "Because to tell you the truth, I used to have, like, the biggest crush on you."
She’s young, and - well, she’s a lot of things. A terrible idea. Incredibly off-limits. She is anathema, red tape, an original sin. You shake your head at her, smile fading - which for anyone keeping score, is an admonishment, however faint.
Because Chou Tzuyu, you recognize, is categorically, unequivocally: never supposed to happen.
-
If you want a read on your current dilemma, then this is how it pans out:
You’re walking headfirst into one of the multiple terrible, terrible scenarios you've probably had an anxiety dream about. It’s an ambush, really.
There’s the text from Mina, explaining all the ins and outs of her winter hideaway, the logistical whereabouts, and the pinched photo from the outside, the endless winding driveway, the clearing in the woods. The remote location, the unfussed snow, the towering trees. There are no neighbors to speak of, just seclusion and isolation and that makes you, among the seven billion or whatever, the only one who will know precisely how fucked you are.
The door to the cabin swings open on its hinges. You kick the snow off your boots, and the air smells indistinctly of peppermint tea.
It’s a cozy place, you think. A slightly rustic aesthetic. There’s a pair of skis decommissioned over the mantle. Mina, as usual, has good taste. You peek around: the foyer, the open living space, the wood finishes, the sunken fireplace. You almost make out a bathroom, through a half-opened doorway - and the kitchen, maybe, is nestled around the far corner.
You settle in, find your bearings, and start taking these leisurely steps down the hall.
That’s when you see her. Wearing a sweater that's a size too big, draped over her frame - sleeves tucked, exposing the barest hint of skin on her wrists, her delicate fingertips. You blink once, twice. That’s a dangerous flare. The rest of her, this canvas of pale skin and soft, endless legs, the hollowed stretch of inner thigh-
Actually, you know what, you are going to delete that out of your mind; as far as you're concerned, Tzuyu absolutely does not have her long, satin-like mahogany hair spilling over her shoulder, her bare legs poking out from under that bulky cotton blend, and she definitely, very absolutely has not given you a complete lack of boundaries, so it's more than plausible for her to slide onto a stool near the countertop with her painted-toes peeking out from beneath the folded press of her thigh (the pedicure, really, now?) and look over at you like you aren’t perfectly familiar with that goddamn face. Those eyes, that jaw.
And her collarbone is out too. Ouch.
Tzuyu rests her chin in one of her perfectly manicured hands, and tilts her head: she’s very blatantly checking you out.
The problem is, you’ve recognized her immediately.
Which - god, the bottom-lines, the blurred borders. It’s been years. She's twenty-three, twenty-four now, and as it turns out, she's taller than you remember. She's thinner, taller, actually a bit filled out too-
Right, okay, no. Just. Delete that image from the internal memory.
"Oh," you breathe, because there's not a single thing you're sure you’re supposed to do. It takes a split second too long to put the brakes on everything in your brain and say, "Tzuyu." It takes even more control not to tack an unthinkingly fond 'miss' to the front of her name - you're a god-honest lost hope - but at the last minute, you settle for, "hi."
It’s unnatural. She's actually somehow prettier than you remember, and the tousled brown curls flowing down her shoulder make it worse. She smiles, gently; this soft-spoken, "hey."
She’s at the kitchen island, holding a bowl of cereal and looking at you like she’s taking inventory. The strap of her bra is black, loose around the curve of her left shoulder; she's barefoot. Any other context, and it's your favorite kind of combination, basically: casual and messy and haphazard. Perfect. She's so tall, christ.
"We've met a few times," and she's not even phrasing it as a question - because she knows for a fact that you know her - and now, well, you can see how that's a problem.
"Yeah." You drop your bags. "Nobody said anything about anyone being here, so, I'm just a little-"
“Relieved?” Tzuyu tries, and if it sounds conceited, you’ve imagined it.
“Surprised,” you amend, quickly. There is a massive amount of distance currently between the both of you - several feet and an island counter to top it off. That's good, you think.
Tzuyu runs her hands over the top of her hair, a half-effort at putting it up into some sort of a ponytail, or maybe a bun. You see now that her nails are bare. "I'd heard from Mina," she starts, "that Sana was coming here-"
And you watch, absentmindedly, as Tzuyu slides down off her chair. You watch her too carefully almost, for a beat. You want to follow the length of her legs with the same ease and shamelessness - like it's instinct or just expected; it's ridiculous and wrong to think, but-
"-with, uh, someone. She left it purposefully vague." Tzuyu finishes, then pauses. Her gaze slides across you. If the awkward stretch of silence is weird, she doesn't comment on it. “Then I heard the flight got delayed because of all the snow."
"Just Sana’s," you correct, and that's not information you should be simply giving away. She just stands there, blinking up at you.
"Huh," she says, eyebrow lifted - slower than is explicitly necessary, “so you’re like. All alone until she gets here.” She simply eats a spoonful of cereal, chews for a moment, and adds, “bummer.”
It’s true, in some sense. You sigh, rake a hand back through your hair, and your jacket falls further down on one of your shoulders; she drops her gaze down, almost imperceptibly, following the motion.
There is definitely a point where you could take notice of a lot of things, and they include, but are certainly not limited to: the fucking languor with which she is licking the yogurt off the back of her spoon, her stupidly long eyelashes fanning on the tops of her cheeks when she glances down, the frankly risque neckline of her sweater. Those kinds of things. Those kinds of details. Really, you wouldn’t dare.
"It sounds like she’ll be getting in tomorrow evening," you decide to inform her, though she didn't ask, and now she nods, focusing still on the yogurt and granola at the bottom of her bowl.
You walk into the kitchen. Rap your knuckles on the countertop. Tzuyu’s right there, and your mind is filling up with images you could really do without. That's the unfortunate, traitorous nature of all this: in any universe, Chou Tzuyu fawns over you. And she will, on accident or purpose, test you. And as for your hesitation - that's an instinct that gets activated every time you so much as meet Tzuyu in person, this invasive little impulse. 
"Well," Tzuyu says, way too casually. “It’s just us then.”
"Yeah." you agree, stilted. “Just us.”
"There's wine," she decides, tilts her head. Then, matter of factly, "and coffee, hot cocoa. Mina’s more or less stocked on everything."
Her voice hits the room all nice, sweet, syrupy - god, fuck, maybe there's a window or a door here somewhere that you're supposed to open to clear the air, but when you look, there’s frost on the glass; it’s the subalpine frigidity. Tzuyu flashes you this other sort of glance - her teeth scrape the rounded spoon's tip before her lips fully fix around it. The drowsy, delirious feeling is almost involuntary at this point.
"I should unpack my things, is what I should do, probably," and now you are saying things for the sake of saying them, as an escape. "Hey, seriously. Sorry for the inconvenience."
“Don’t be,” she tells you. "The weather isn't anybody's fault."
(Here, a premonition. You look at Tzuyu, who raises an eyebrow back.)
The next logical move is: leave. Tzuyu folds her long limbs back up onto the stool, and you're - trying not to look. You're also trying not to do it consciously, actively - you're not, and not. You fail, like you did a few years ago, too - the eyes have a bad habit of wandering. She's made of porcelain, all thin wrists, thin neck, soft curves and delicate lines. She's made out of glass - she’s at her most dangerous when you’ve gone and broken her.
It’s possible, you think, she could break you too.
-
Look, contextually - it’s Murphy’s law, or maybe your own very specific curse. A lot of stuff happens, so here’s a rough draft, your best effort at an approximation, a smudged-pencil sketch:
Tzuyu has been on vacation in the Alps from the start of the week, or maybe the week prior - she's alone in this stupidly big cabin you're supposed to be meeting Sana in for two weeks and change of pure unadulterated, hedonistic fun. Skiing, lounging, stargazing, drinking, screwing, consummating a situationship. You know the drill.
However there ends up being an actual, literal avalanche - with snow and rocks and ice and whatever the fuck - the power goes out, and you can only assume the whole mountain's gone dark. It's like a classic, a cautionary tale: hey, dude, you're on vacation with this drop-dead gorgeous girl who will let you do whatever you want to her - in the name of love and lust and a loosely legal liability. She says she'll be yours forever, except you also heard her say that the universe is entitled to laugh at you, a bit - so you do something you'll regret (which, okay, you've done countless things you'll regret) and now you're getting punished for it, and so is the stunning temptress currently shivering in the bed next to you. Seriously, whatever you do, do not fuck her, don't let her get too attached, because oh, man - Tzuyu really likes to make herself comfortable, huh? To nestle herself into your arms, let her hand stroke circles in the dark fabric of your t-shirt, warm her cold nose into your chest, and cuddle the night away. She's so easy to give in to, isn't she? This walking, talking paradox of everything she's not supposed to be and everything she'll willingly do anyway - there's her expression, placid and rapturous in equal measures, the sleepy mumbles against your skin that sound like prayers, her damp breaths.
You should know better. You should know that this is the universe, laughing its ass off at you.
And just for the record, there is sound reason for everyone to feel, in some sense, extremely concerned by the narrative that your life has slowly, unceremoniously devolved itself into.
The first time you meet Chou Tzuyu is years ago. She’s dramatically, devastatingly, problematically, young.
It was all happening before you could really clock it, and it was morally reprehensible, and it was, in fact, probably all your own doing.
And it’s even more obvious in retrospect: how she would react to the way you reach back and ruffle your hair when you laugh, the casual appeal of your smile, the depths of your tone, how you cut it as close as you can get it. A girl will trip all over herself to let you look after her; that’s the basic blueprint, that's the default. See, you're in your twenties, an adult - not having figured out much, but having certainly figured out this - and it's very much not lost on you that the girl should not be flirting with you - but she does, and the very worst of it is: you let her.
“Are you out of your mind?” Jihyo had said at the time, and, in fairness, yeah. That more or less sums it up.
So you end up making a point of never getting to know her, to always keep the conversation nonexistent. Or in the worst case scenario, brief - on surface level topics. The weather. Your job. Food. If you like her sunglasses. (They look protective, you’d told her, very practical. Very safe.) It's the essentials, a light, professional rapport - never once crossing the border from casual conversation to candid disclosure. 
She's infatuated, of course. You're not mincing words here. It's actually rather unfortunate, how gone she is for you. You could’ve probably stood to dial it back; you, and your charm. Your smiles.
Because Chou Tzuyu was however many years young, very much off-limits - and like a lot of people it seems, totally hooked on your whole deal.
-
(Theoretically, that's how it all starts. Which is why, pragmatically, you will never, ever lay a finger on her.)
-
So, the plan to get through this was simple and to the point and as follows:
* Avoid unnecessary physical contact
* Maintain social distance, in fact - something covid-esque sounds great, about six feet
* Do not offer opinions/advice unless specifically asked
* Minimize speaking, just to be safe
* Do not exchange gifts, especially personal ones
* Be wary of the temptation to take a voluntarily-tipsy Tzuyu to bed, because you'll want to - and god knows Tzuyu will make it extremely clear that you could; this is exactly how shit turns south-
* Adjust and reframe
* Reinforce
* Remind yourself
* To just fucking think about literally anything else
It was working fine, so far - really fine, especially if you consider how early into the stay you're sitting there, telling yourself off in the bathroom mirror, get it together, you dumbass. What is wrong with you, don’t you know better by now - before an unapologetic knock on the door snaps you out of it, and the click of the door opening a moment later forces a heavy inhale from your chest: you just need a fucking second, thanks - not a half-decent excuse or a rearrangement, not a careful restructure, just a split second in your own head; that's not even the sort of thing you're prone to needing, because it's you, but with Chou fucking Tzuyu-
A soft breathy laugh, "are you okay in here?"
Tzuyu pokes her head into the room, her hair a wavy curtain that tumbles down past the middle of her back. You have this vague, fleeting impulse to run your fingers through it.
"Well," and there goes all the shit you'd managed not to think about, or contemplate, or dwell upon for that one glorious, naive, misinformed second. "Sort of," you say, offering her a quick glance.
"Really?" Tzuyu says, not catching onto the whole existential crisis thing. "Is there anything else you need? I mean," and then your eyes fall upon her; she's put a sweater on, pants, which all things considered, is a huge victory, a total rout - her baggy sweater drapes on her, practically brushing her thigh where the material stops, the hem. "I guess not, just. Um," her teeth catch her bottom lip for a quick moment, and this time she glances back towards the hall, the granite-finish tiles. "Wanna make s'mores?"
"What," you ask, because honestly, what the actual fuck-
"I went into town to get fresh groceries earlier this week. Everything just kinda landed in my cart," she says, the beginning of an explanation - the backstory, if you will. "And there's a fireplace. Momo always says the calories don't count if it's social eating, so." She makes a small shrug.
"Oh,” you say, like you understand. Your throat feels tight. “She’s totally right.”
She offers you a small nod. Tucks her hair behind her ear. You wonder if she knows how suggestive even the smallest of gestures she makes are; and more so, if she does it knowingly, or simply without thought - if it's a facet of her own effortlessness.
"Um," you say, for no particular reason other than that Tzuyu is fucking distracting. "Okay."
The edges of her mouth tick upwards at that. "We could put something on the tv,” she suggests. “For the vibe."
"Oh yeah, for the ambience."
"For the ambience," she nods.
(And fuck her, seriously. You might be a goner already.)
-
"A winter weather advisory," Tzuyu reads, squinting slightly at the tv. A minute later: "Just stay home," followed by another pause, and a frown: "hail and ice too. Yeah, no kidding."
She's reading the weather report. You're pretending you have any idea how to work the fireplace while she sets her eyes on the news, hands running over the blankets she has huddled around herself - legs folded, tucked into the edge of her chest. She'd gotten as far as logging into her Netflix account before the suggestion of cuddling was so obviously implied, her hands patting the cushioned space beside her that you were required by moral law to flip through the cable options until you found the least sexy, least rom-com-y option you could find: a newscaster reporting on the ongoing inclement weather, a forecaster saying 'near zero chance of improving, so travel is heavily discouraged, we strongly advise against-'
"Wonder if Sana's even going to make it," Tzuyu breaks the relative silence, and you are acutely aware of how casual she has been referring to Sana, the complete and utter lack of jealousy or any emotion related - or you guess, inspired. She's not even the slightest bit irked. “If the airport opens, maybe," she adds, and, after a beat, "let's hope."
-
It gets colder. You can barely see three feet past the front door. The forecast only gets worse, the storm intensifies and swells, it snows and snows - and this isn't a cottage somewhere on the lake, you're a couple miles down a single-track, woodsy road, far, far away from society.
-
If only these walls could talk, honestly. You're like, caught in a moment. With Tzuyu and marshmallows and these tiny, sticky wooden skewers. This is a story you will tell nobody, ever.
"I don’t mean to say I told you so," she says, but it comes out with a mouthful of chocolate and graham cracker, and marshmallow, which sort of takes the bite out of it. "But the movie is a little more entertaining."
You pretend like you weren't staring at her mouth a beat prior. "Right, a cinematic masterpiece." 
Tzuyu tugs a marshmallow off the stick, and looks over at you again. Smiles around the impromptu pastry. She's just such a bright, wholesome thing - soft-hearted, selfless, so innocuous and so pleasant. It's absolutely sick. You have a fucking pavlovian response to Tzuyu simply existing.
And you’re pretending like the white, tacky remains on her mouth haven't permanently solidified that look into memory: the melted chocolate, the whipped sugar, the dimple. You could really do without this specific feeling - for however much longer it'll last, should the storm linger.
"You don’t ever have stuff like this, just for a quiet, carefree time?" Tzuyu licks it off her skin, and the question kind of drags your attention elsewhere.
You breathe in, slow.
Maybe she can feel it too, you think. Because Tzuyu drags the pad of her thumb against her bottom lip, and a question she doesn't ask flickers to life in her gaze: if you'll break or not, if there is an absolute limit.
But it’s impossible to read her. Tzuyu takes up this real easy-going disposition, all quiet and stoic, sort of, and maybe that's the dangerous part of her - the stillness. Other moments, she has this uncanny knack for conversation. She's charming in that way, you have always thought, a bright face. She has a keen understanding of things too - maybe sometimes too much; maybe a little bit beyond her years, really, a little too knowledgeable.
"When the gang does," you answer, diplomatically. “Sure, I suppose.”
There's another smile at that, which is how you know that the back and forth, this coolly cool, somewhat-stiff exchange is sort of becoming a game. A bet on who cracks, who turns. She won't tell you it's you, and you'll never in your right mind acknowledge her. It's some version of honesty. A bit like Russian roulette.
"I used to think we were friends, you know," she muses, like it's some great mystery - all very deliberately cryptic. Like it's funny.
"Hey, you were like, a teenager," you're grasping at straws. You’re spinning the bullet round the conversational chamber. “And I have this thing-”
"You have a thing?" Her eyebrow is raised again - sweetly challenging.
"-like, a principle, a standard - if there's nothing there, and let's face it: there's really not something here-"
"Aw," Tzuyu fakes pouting, which is simultaneously very mean and also like, painfully hot, and she makes this pitiful coo, "you really have nothing to say at all, do you."
Which. Fuck, she’s right. The 'thing' here is the no touching, the no messing, the no making anything resembling a move. She's sitting over there with her mouth covered in sugar, batting her goddamn eyelashes. Which you ignore, thank god for impulse control, or the instinct of it, and Tzuyu pushes a graham cracker past her lips to placate her own expression.
And so it goes. She keeps looking at you and looking and looking and you stare, transfixed, back at her. The edges of her jaw, the rise of her nose, the jutting curve of her collarbone; you say something dumb or clever and you're making her laugh, and every time she does, her teeth catch on her bottom lip and you could really do with a distraction right now, but it's impossible not to flirt. 
It's just the way the universe has constructed you - this starvation, a twisted desire. There’s cruelty in the design.
-
(Things take a turn for the worse, of course. You don’t know how, but she gets to you agree that you two should've gotten closer in all that time-
"Well, I’m sure you were just so busy," you'd shrugged, indifferent, and she'd pressed the sleeve of her sweater to her mouth, just to hide how bright the smile was.
-which, honestly, fuck you - given all the context. Because now she's right here in the cabin; she's an arm's length away, and all this time, you've meant to stay the fuck out of reach.) 
-
Tzuyu does the worst thing. She returns from the kitchen, hands full, with two squat tumblers and a bottle of dark brandy. She sets one down next to you and asks if you want some.
You look. You mean, what are you even supposed to do? It's a catch twenty-two, it's a joke - what can a girl be thinking, standing there. Bending the right way, hair framing a face like hers.
Yeah, sure - it’s the voice of someone who's slipping, who’s gonna say the same thing three more times. "Hm, why not."
The ice clinks against the glass. Then, the pour. Toast to good health, a clean conscience, safe passage; you’ll take whatever you can get. 
You watch Tzuyu knock back an impressive amount and make an impressive face. There’s maturity there, you cope. Because you want to touch her jaw, thumb over her cheekbone, breathe baby, it's too strong, slow down on her lips, watch her mouth open slightly-
The fire pops.
She leans toward you. “Are you going to keep stealing stories from me, or are you going to supply anything good to the discussion?"
"About me, personally?" you say, purposefully pedantic.
Tzuyu’s smirk is half-present, half-playful. She sets down her tumbler on a coaster - Mina would be appreciative - and hums at you. “What do you think I mean?”
"I was really hoping the inflection would help clarify."
She levels a gaze with you. You fight back for a hot second - this slow-burning heat under the skin, your resolve threatening to buckle, shatter, spill itself everywhere - and in the end, she is the one that looks away, softly laughing, a pfft under her breath. You’re left the opportunity to just - look. See where the glow from the wood-burning fire has cast this gorgeous gold over her face, all her defined curves, her delicate features.
"I don't care, it could be anything," she poses, settling back into the pillows. Smiling. "Please. Entertain me."
Her cheeks are rosy. You realize, quite suddenly, you are not totally sober either. This is exactly how Sana talked you into something however many moons ago, then however many moons later, surgically unattached all the strings. Sana’s good at talking. At convincing. And you don't do shots like her, or apparently like Tzuyu does - but hell, it's that maddening, pretty little dimple of hers - the one that's always there when she does her mischievous smirk - a deeply devastating look, a devil-may-care demeanor, and you're dead-drunk on it, honestly.
"Want me to talk about Sana?" you offer, "seems like an obvious choice."
"I think you’re projecting," Tzuyu teases. “You just miss her, I'm sure.”
"Mhm. Sure."
Tzuyu makes a noise halfway between a chuckle and a snort, and draws the blankets more tightly around her. "What," she says, nonplussed, "who doesn't want to hear some gossip about their friends?"
You're fucking up, right? Fucking up the same way you did years ago when you caught the wrong kind of feeling for an entirely, altogether inappropriate woman. But you'll blame the drinks. And the mood. And the ambience, the fucking fire that's almost suffocating, the closeness of her body next to you-
"Hey," you say, and it's such a mistake. You're pointing to a spot on your chin. You're making it worse. "You got a little, uh-"
You watch as she lifts her hand, glides it through the air - brushes her own cheek with her fingertips, smoothing out an imagined blemish.
"Did I get it?"
"Uh, well, sorta-" and she knows you’re lying.
Tzuyu tries again. Comes up short, and when her hair falls in front of her face, she’s looking at you like maybe you’ll help take care of that too. She’s a total fucking coquette - though maybe she hasn’t even done it on purpose, maybe she's just that unaware, innocent. Not the second one, you figure. You're leaning, tilting closer and closer to her - in any other scenario, there'd be the shortest possible time between her touching herself and you, cupping her jaw with one of your hands.
But your mouth feels like it's moving of its own accord. "No, wait, let me help you," you continue, before you know it. 
Isn’t it disastrous; all ice and hazard, this is the advisory in effect; a napoleon-goes-to-russia caliber calamity, a colossal write off, a write in. You could have, should have stopped, except you didn't and now you're reaching, gently, until your palm cups the side of her face - until you press, until you hold her steady. Her head tilts. She lets you, blinking up. Her eyes are this hazy, intoxicated coffee-brown, honeyed and burnt and fucking beautiful.
You swipe your thumb along her bottom lip. The gesture is slow, languid, intentional; you think, through some cosmic error, that might just be the end of it.
"There," you say, smiling, naive.
"Yeah," Tzuyu breathes out, and she winds her fist into the fabric of your shirt. "Thanks."
You lean, or she does; you go down, or she pulls you; there's no difference, really.
She is kissing you, this soft little press. A tug in every direction. You hadn’t kissed her, at the very start, but when her fingers thread through your hair, gripping hard, bringing you closer until you groan, parting your lips slightly, and - and her tongue flits past yours - your brain does this wild mental leap that you ought to be questioning later.
But everything starts to sink. 
One of your hands lands on her waist, thumb slipping under the hem of her sweater and pressing against bare skin, and her knee nudges between both of your legs - until Tzuyu hums this low, pretty sound in her throat. There is something fervent here, all-consuming, devouring; her mouth moves like it's frantic for air, for oxygen and fuel, and her whole body melts under yours like she's completely falling apart.
Fuck, you think. There is a deep, smouldering heat in the pit of your stomach.
Because she’s perfect. You always knew that, didn’t you. She is firelight and perfume and muted gold; everything else falls into shadow, fades into the background. Her lips are velvet-soft, and they open again and again with these heavy exhales of hot air - so much so that you have to shift the hand you'd set on her waist lower, a little, her hip bone under your palm, a touch ghosting towards the dip and the swell.
Somehow you have this knowledge: at the end of everything, it'll be her name falling helplessly off your tongue.
"You were wrong by the way,” she stops to say. 
"About-" You press another kiss into her jaw, and her mouth parts around the same slow sigh. "Wait." You lean back enough to look at her again.
“Whatever you said earlier." Tzuyu’s eyes go half-lidded as she starts petting your hair back into place, thumb stroking your jawline. "I'd have made time."
Oh, christ-
"Because to tell you the truth," her tongue wets her lip, shiny, wet, "I've never really forgotten. Like I just thought, that whole thing was so… fleeting, you know, like the last time, when you let me text you - god, I was crushing so hard."
You breathe, shaking your head. 
"Don’t," is what comes out of your mouth after, quick, sharpened. 
“Don’t what?” Tzuyu taunts, pushing another inch further. That small grin on her face, her long, nimble fingers combing through your hair. 
You are trying to think, and there was an apology, right? You'd had this one in you. The one that began as a guilty soliloquy, a rueful acknowledgement; something that should have been directed toward Tzuyu, told her, at one point, or another: look. Sorry it's like this.
But there is a hand tracing the collar of your shirt - a sensation that follows all the way to the base of your throat; you lean further into her touch, almost involuntarily - a simple motion, and yet. "You shouldn't. You shouldn't say things like that to me," and you mean: these things you already know. "It's not good."
"Doesn't feel that bad," she tells you, a breezy sort of whisper, warm. "I think I'm getting the opposite impression."
"Maybe for the wrong reasons," you remind her. And to remind yourself, actually. "Probably for the wrong reasons - trust me, it is.”
"Trust you," and it’s the slightest bit ridiculing, a tease - Tzuyu drops her smile, pulls you in by the hair, whispers low. "Sure," the syllable soft, pressed against your throat, "I trust you not to hurt me," and the 'not' gets hung on for an impossibly long moment, stretched out thin. 
She's sinister; she has to be, or some amalgamation of the most potent version of every word she’s ever said. A dream girl, the definition and essence of a temptress, this shameless attraction - an insistent siren begging for your attention; the incepting mind-game; the entity that stalks the halls in the deepest trenches of the night, whispering your worst fears right into your ear. You fall further into Tzuyu, the prettiest of nightmares.
(Oh, it's the dimple that does you in, really: if there's any possible way that Chou Tzuyu has unintentionally ruined your life, she's done it with that innocent little smile.)
"You can kiss me again," Tzuyu says, permissive.
And you do. You kiss her, and kiss her like you’ve no choice - like you've decided, at least in this very moment, if Tzuyu can own a piece of your soul, you can take something too.
-
(The thing about a cautionary tale: sometimes it is really just a story. Sometimes it happens and the world is left unscathed. There were a lot of warning signs, yes. But this could be a coda, a moralistic adage, a story to turn the page on and laugh and be embarrassed by and say, oh, no, I'd definitely do better; a blip. We’d never do anything like that. It's all history, honestly.)
-
It's not romantic, and it's less gentle than you’d have expected: Tzuyu bites your lip at one point, and you grab her hip so hard she yelps. The pause in the after is filled with a provocation, a stare, a tilt of your head, and her saying, “hey, easy now.” You cup her face in your hands, and run your thumb over lips. The calm is pretty short-lived. She gets her hands working frantically to tear your shirt off over your head. Then it's a haphazard stumble into the doorframe of the bedroom, with her pulling you in too-hard by the waist, bumping your nose against hers in this rough meeting - until your lips fit together. 
“Mm,” Tzuyu’s mouth pushes insistently into yours and your tongue immediately laves at its underside, coaxes it to slide against yours and soon she’s sliding forward on purpose - on her own initiative, pressing the steady line of your cock against the seam of your pants, the pressure sudden.
"Watch it," you murmur, breaking away a little to glare at her, which just makes her smile, like she likes pissing you off or something, likes watching you get mad at her, or whatever - if she says it's true, then it is, probably - she's honest.
Her small hand darts up, gripping the sides of your jaw tightly and moving in, kissing like it's easy; like she knows what the fuck she's doing. Her head tilts and she does it again, except it's a few times in a row, making out in the doorway. 
"And if I say no?" She grins, hand at your dick again, just palming through the fabric and getting off on your soundless reactions to it all. "Like, is that really enough? I feel like you'd have to like - tie me up. Something - you know?"
"That sounds like a you problem."
A mischievous smile steals across her lips and you feel yourself doing the same. "Yeah, you're right," she responds, dragging her thumb and forefinger from the zipper of your jeans to the hard line of your cock, pinching gently along the shape. "It is my problem."
She feels pliant, more than willing, but it's a calculated type of softness. Still, you get a hint, a vague message and you figure, the way this girl's smirking in her lips: she likes being held down, held fast and steady, so you pin her wrists above her head - her eyes stay on you, don't drop; you pin her, and her expression becomes that shade more dark, more teasing. Oh, you'll go slowly, you think, until Tzuyu gives. You'll climb a hand further under her sweater, let it skim over her ribs. You'll kiss her again, open-mouthed, and slow, until she can't breathe.
Her head knocks into the wall, she bites and smiles like a promise, and all her muscle flexes under your grip. "Oh, seriously," Tzuyu whispers into your mouth. "Y'know, this is like a fantasy of mine.”
And that's kind of it: she has that look. In the morning, you can see yourself chasing her down into sheets - just pinning her with the weight of your whole body, feeling each tensed curve of her against you. She pulls you closer, into her; she seems the type.
"I’d really rather not hear that, Tzu.”
"And I want to hear you say please, more than anything," Tzuyu laughs at herself, something hard in it, "but I think you want to fuck me so bad, it'll come naturally. Like, the second you have your fingers inside me. And that's what you want, right? Tell me."
"I'm thinking about your legs,” you tell her, running your palm around the curve of her thigh. Fuck, she’s perfect. “Think they'd fit around my waist."
"And hook my ankles? I’d love that." Her eyes crinkle. "Is that it, though?"
"Maybe I'd keep my hand on your throat and fuck you like that, too. That's on the table."
Tzuyu laughs: a real, actual sound, but not at you. "It is. You're smart."
"To be completely transparent," you mutter. "I don't plan on asking you very nicely at all."
The lines in Tzuyu's face go a little blissful, contented, like she's so, so pleased with this, like she approves, and she kisses you again, the length of your bodies pressed together, except where her hips cant up and meet the space between your thighs. You drag a hand roughly along her waist, kneading muscle there, down to the rise of her jeans - which, fuck, you need to help her shimmy out of and find the pull of the sweater, whatever - and she grinds out some noise, something caught between her throat and her teeth, but mostly in the place where your hand's dragged under the material, tugging gently at the wire of a bra, and you'd actually kind of forgotten it was a thing.
It's when you hear her own rasp, when she slips the side of your zipper open with a few quick strokes, shoving her fingers inside to hold the base of your cock, that you finally decide:
She's yours and you'll prove it. You'll make sure she knows: the evidence, the fingerprints,  the bruises blooming the size of your thumbs and she'll be the one showing them off with pride. She'll let you do whatever you like, which'll be a lot. She'll appeal to all the worst parts of you; she'll say thank you; she'll whimper while you're pulling her bra off and simply letting it flutter to the ground; she'll be crying within the first half an hour of you touching her. You can read it right off her gorgeous face. She'll be so damn breathtakingly-pretty, bouncing on your cock, folded under your weight - it'll be incredible. She'll be yours.
"Come on," Tzuyu breathes. "Yes. Please," she adds, as though it's an afterthought, her free hand tangling in your hair, pulling. "Hurry, or something - I fucking love this but we need to- I’m literally going to, like, die if you don’t touch me right now."
"Yeah," is what you get out. Her jeans finally fall to her ankles and she kicks, to get them to puddle onto the floor. "Yeah. Alright, maybe."
You won't even need to hear her begging, you already know how she sounds: a little annoyed and very turned on, rolling her eyes at herself. This part - she's playing at resistance, but she's giving in. A kiss back, hotter than you were expecting, as you slip a hand up the back of her bare thigh and the edge of her underwear, a thin strip, like it's done on purpose.
When you tuck a finger inside the waistband, feeling a little guilty about the way her whole body reacts - the flex, the pull, the weight of all her muscle straining against how her legs fall open - Tzuyu manages, her face in the hollow of your cheek: "you've waited long enough, right?"
God, she knows where the wounds are still fresh. Which bruises will hurt most when she puts a finger right into one - a reminder you couldn't possibly ignore. She's playing this whole thing a little bit sadistically; she wants this to be your fault, you can tell.
And your mind isn't unbending. You push a finger into her cunt and the girl absolutely shakes apart, body jerking like you've severed a lifeline. She's so wet, and so pretty, so sensitive. Maybe you really have.
"Tzu," you tell her. The hand in your hair tightens, a warning, as you let two, then three, fingers shove inside her. She's breathless; the slow, rough motions, her entire body riding the heel of your palm. "Do you want me to tell you how good you are for me, right now? Is that it?"
"Yeah - do. Please, fuck - please say it."
"I was right," is what you manage, biting your tongue.
"Right?" She asks, her fingers locked, urging your thrusting to turn punishing. "Please."
"Do you want me to make this a nice, pretty little memory? Suck the bitterness out and - have something sweet to go back to, the next time someone hurts you."
"I can take it." She snaps, not even responding to your comment. "Tell me you need me and you're leaving me no choice."
You smile into her hair, because she's a dream. Your thumb pushes into her clit and you can feel her seize up with a pathetic whine.
"Pretty," you mutter, as she slumps her chest to yours. You kiss it right into her hair. “I need you, Tzu.”
And the idea's seductive: keep her pinned and fuck her right into the wall. See her wrecked by the end; the swell of her thumb bloody from how she was biting into it, how she's wrenching at your wrist. Your lips land over her collarbone - no, hers do, to the side of your head - she'd be bent in half if it wasn't for the wood at her back. Her leg crossed in the small of your back. A proper, all-consuming kind of wrecking, with your name on it.
"Yes." Tzuyu nods into your temple, “just- that.” 
You're kissing the crook of her neck; your fingertips sliding right against the end of her, your fingers pressing into her and stretching the girl to her limits, making her tremble in her own skin, making her insides melt for the next round, and the next round, and the next; the best, and worst, and longest-lasting kind of high. Your fingertips push together, flutter apart, and Tzuyu's eyes open all of a sudden, locking onto yours.
"Please," she gasps, this one thing. She has tears in her eyes: her face falls into your hands like water, a long drip, and she's all but unraveling.
"I'm going to make you cum, okay?" you tell her, and it sounds so sincere that she simply nods. She trusts you. Implicitly. You see how something in her relaxes, muscles unwinding as though for one last moment. Then you lean down, to her ear, to murmur: "say you're mine."
Her teeth are gritting. You can feel every last point.
"Just yours," she mutters, and it's barely even audible, but she'll say it: over and over, as her orgasm builds, before her mouth goes slack. "Always been. From the very beginning, please-"
“Fuck,” you bite down, and she looks like she’s won.
“So long, y’know?” she manages, in her halting voice, as if you haven't got two fingers up her sweet, perfect cunt, which is, currently, gripping the shit out of your hand, the hungry slutty muscle spasms, a slippery fist; it's not too hard getting Tzuyu to talk dirty and vulgar like a total degenerate - all it takes is the circle of your thumb and she’s perfect and pliant and absolutely out of her mind. “Since like, forever-”
You need her to stop. Need her to be quiet. Your palm lands over the shape of her mouth. She's murmuring something else, but it's muffled - and that's perfect, really. You’re not going to hell; all the devils are already here, getting off on the impropriety-
On the fucking drag of your fingertips. If it isn’t mean, it’s definitely cynical. Each curl of a knuckle unwinding her, a little more, a little further. The gush of her slick that’s collected on the webbing between your fingers is getting unruly, and you’re pressing her mouth flat against your hand, muffling the sheer appreciation.
“Shh,” you tell her, and she seems to calm - insofar you find a spot inside her that makes her eyes roll back and her chest shudder. “Don’t. Hold still for me, I want to watch you cum, Tzu.”
The only thing you can hear beyond the stilted breathing against your hand is her wet cunt getting stretched and fucked on your fingers. It’s so simple. So straightforward. The front of her orgasm makes her jolt against your hips and you pin her again, just to see those gorgeous eyes opening and shutting in sync.
It's this beautiful thing, watching her cum; her flushed cheeks, her pupils blown.
"Good girl," is the only thing you manage in response. "Such a good - such a good little-"
She moans into your hand and finally the muscles of her core tighten, tipping over the precipice as she tips back from the edge. "Ah, you - oh, it feels so-”
You tell her not to talk, and thumb her sensitive clit until the girl's screaming.
Her cries cut through the hallway: the friction, your movements - she's grinding desperate to ride her own orgasm. The absolute highs wracking her silent. She doesn't seem capable of getting off her tiptoes, or opening her eyes properly. Her mouth's still gaping beneath your palm with a whimper, her lungs heaving, and her cunt practically burning-hot - or, she just is, she's overheating, and everything else is burning around her.
"I'm going to fuck your pretty little cunt, Tzu," you tell her as her hips jump and her eyes open. You drop her leg, which buckles instantly. "You're going to be good for me, won’t you?"
"Yes, sir," Tzuyu promises you - it makes you wince - like she'd say anything else, with her hips pushing into your hand like she can't remember how not to. 
Even with her brain turning to mush, Tzuyu finds it within her to tease, to pull, to coax - as her slick slides down the seam between your fingers, like she's gushing, a wet ribbon coating the backs of your knuckles. There's a fantasy in it, you think - and it's always the unapologetic type, like, they never admit it: they want the dirt, the debasing. There's always a blueprint to it; they want to hear how terrible it is and then have some fun playing into it, playing a part.
Only Tzuyu’s lip is wobbling; she’s looking at you like you’re going to fuck her apart and she’ll thank you for it. There's no play. Tzuyu wants your cum and she's so open-legged about it you can't pretend it's not exactly that simple.
She’s going to fall apart if you don’t shove your cock in her tight cunt. You need to pin her there - fuck her until she’s shaking. You can already see the face she’ll make when you shock yourself inside her-
"What is it, baby?" you ask her, and a beat later, you draw your zipper down with a steady hand, the other working in her mouth, pressing down the tip of her tongue - not exactly holding, not exactly pulling out of her.
Tzuyu sighs, heavy on her eyelids and slow. Very pretty.
"I want-" Her head is lolling. She's in a daze, now, you can tell: her mouth wet and trembling, her legs kicking weakly, a full-bodied tremor overcoming her. Everything wraps around you as your cock slides inside her: the pale-soft underside of her legs, her slender arms. All those lovely, endless tensed lines, her strong abs. She can hold you like this, with only her abdomen tightening, the rest of her almost liquid. Her head knocks into yours. "Fu-fuck my cunt, fill it, please.”
You use the angle, the approach. Her pussy's practically spasming on the thick tip, milking the hardness there - but the deeper, more confident strokes, you feel it in every one of her shaky breaths. The only thing you can see is Tzuyu's dumb little doe eyes, the one-to-two second interval, fluttering in between slow, heavy blinks. The walls of her pussy are all at once so gentle and smooth, her cunt a plush, warm vice on your cock; she's clinging, and hot, and you're so buried inside you could probably pick her apart with a few words alone:
"Please," she's muttering to herself, and every single cry gets stuck in her mouth and vibrates between the both of you.
Your fingertips hook into the curve of her waist, until your nails are sinking into the flesh, pinching gently, and watching her expression twist, you grip her hips with all the bruising-strength in your hands, yank her back onto your cock. Her spine goes rigid as a line of curses fall like rain from her mouth. A shuddering gasp - you have to steady her against you, where her knees lock tight around your waist as though she's worried you're leaving, like she's scared you won't stay-
"Baby," you grit out, like you'd beg too, "Oh- fuck, my baby, you're - you're all mine, okay."
You bury yourself balls-deep - and there's no pretense, it's just you and her, the pace making Tzuyu's little repeating "ah" go choppy with your thrusting, her eyes clamping shut, her limbs locking around you.
"Too deep," she groans. "Jesus, it's-"
"Uh uh," you mutter against the bend of her chin, and press in, still, maybe just to spite her. "Fight me. If it's too deep."
There’s tears in her lashes, she’s sobbing; you’re fucking her so properly you think she wants to kill you. It might even be written into that glossy expression: death, your demise. But her pretty eyes glint with mischief and her lips split into a grin.
"Try me," and this laugh, coming up from your chest - low, amused. "Go ahead. Put my neck in your hand, if you want-"
There's only ever a couple of moves. Like in chess, the combinations repeat, patterns emerge. Tzuyu pulls into your kiss; her wrist pinned to the wall behind her with one of your hands, the other knocking her thighs apart. Her ankles hook into your hips, just as you knew they would. There are so few options for a person; the only solution's the natural one - the urge to match each other's needs; to lose yourself in the easy push and the easy pull.
It doesn't take long before she opens up beneath you: until there's nothing between the hard pound of your hips and her tender, creaming cunt. Then there's that final gasp, this violent pulse as she takes her hands back from you to cup around your ears and press her lips to the line of your cheekbones and nose and mouth, with her tear-slick skin and saliva and, god - she's a whimperer, you now know, but Tzuyu holds her body still enough to not sway. The picture-perfect example of a good little girl -
That's how you push your mouth to hers: the steady-languid thrust of your cock between the hot clamp of her legs. "Oh, god, you’re gonna make me cum again, christ," her cries go, all muffled, right into your lips. She’s a little lost. Fucked-out. Blissful.
It's not right, though; just pinning the girl against a wall - no, she deserves better. You don't let her fall as you drag her into the bedroom. Not until a tumble into the sheets. She doesn’t try to control the fall, you land on top of her, and Tzuyu laughs a little, but it dies into the hard breaths you can feel bouncing back against your mouth. Her soft thighs pressed beneath your weight, quivering still.
"Fuck your cum into me," She huffs out, softly, more air than noise. You’re practically crushing her. And then the tilt of her head, almost inviting, like a question. "Please. I want it."
In hindsight, the real memory of this moment will be a soft and lovely thing - fabricated mostly: her tiny frame shaking, trembling in its effort to take you in, her voice giving out around a cry as she cums again - there's something sacred there, surely, a holiness that isn't altogether safe, considering what this girl is.
You’ll try not to remember how you fucked her and buried your face between her tits, though she did look up at you through her tears and made it sound sweet, said your name just so, or even the fact that she watched her whole body get filled and only smiled with contentment. That part won’t survive - nor the fact you’ll hold the girl down later and cum inside her three times. Until she’s leaking. Details to be confined to Mina’s cabin-secrecy - or at least, to whatever depth of oblivion, past your will to suppress it, her mind reaches when you bury your hand in her hair and pull her head back to really make sure you've hit every corner of her and left your cum there, marking her insides, turning her warm.
And look, Tzuyu doesn't balk. Instead she lets you pull her in close, her nails raking into the nape of your neck, the muscles under your skin. She drags scratches down your back as you sink into her cunt, hot, willing - she’s so fucking wet you’re bottoming out in each sloppy thrust.
"Tzu," you can't stop yourself from muttering, almost reverent. You were right, on all accounts. The girl is a problem.
One that is currently collapsing under you. You push her knees up to her elbows, and all her weight melts under your hands, limp and helpless.
"Fuck, your pussy is unbelievable.” You shouldn’t be fucking her this hard, but, well, you are - “Tzuyu, baby,” and when your hand comes up to her jaw, she palms it. Takes your thumb into her mouth and sucks. Fuck, it’s all slipping, consuming, you need to cum in her, need to bury your cock deep in her cunt and cum right into that wet sopping mess. Fill her up where she’s molten hot and her walls are gripping you so hard they’re practically begging-
"Yeah," she repeats around the digit, flitting her tongue against your fingertip. “Yeah. Cum for me.”
That's how she likes it. She'll scream, if you let her. If you give her the deepest fill. She’ll apologize and she won’t know for what. You already know how her expression will shift as soon as it hits. Head falling back. Her hands fisting in your hair, the bedding - her knees nearly get drawn up, and you push them apart by your fingertips. She whimpers, and whimpers, and you can't stop from fucking the pretty noises right out of her lungs until she's dripping - soaking you, all over the sheets. You want her to feel it when you leave. Your presence. It’s only fair - she should remember some part of you, in exchange for what she’s traded and stolen away - ideally forever.
You thumb at the tear tracks and lift her by a fistful of that pretty dark hair. And for her, you can be kind, you let your lips graze hers. As tenderly as you can manage, which isn't much, but then the angle settles lower, your cock hits deeper, all the right spots - and god, Tzuyu is so easy to fuck. She slips a little, and you’re catching her, pushing deeper, harder - she’s easy to pound too, to hold down and smother and grind deep, to have under you, all boneless, insensible-
"So pretty for me, Tzu," you growl into the shell of her ear, because you can, and another stroke, another velvety drag has you cumming in her hot, little cunt.
Each throb brings more, pumping her full of your cum, and she likes it. Keeps muttering baby, baby please in your ear, and fuck, you almost slip a hand down and make her fall apart too - but - her fingers wrap around your wrist before they get there, so tight.
"Can feel it. So deep," she whispers, when your eyelids screw shut and the mess floods out of her - gets fucked right back in: your hot cum and her thick slick, the creamy mess leaking from her cunt. You pull your cock out halfway, and she does sob - that sounds just like you'd imagine, too. "Please. Oh, my god- sir. That's it. That's it, let it out, sir. Sir, all your cum feels so good in me - please. Please- just give it to me, sir, yes-"
She’s not even taunting or mocking on that ‘sir,’ you think, not the way she sounds now, the halfway-slur. It's all torn up and tired. It makes you press closer, making the head of your cock swell between the thin walls of her pussy. It hurts - the squeeze. And then the soft, pleading sound she makes.
"Anything for you, sweetheart," you groan, a last attempt at a condescending tone. But she's so raw, so broken down by now that nothing is quite right.
"Fuck," she mutters against your mouth, "fuck, thank you," and your palm drags down the length of her sternum, following the angle of her jaw, slipping your palm onto her tits, thumbing at the indent. It's soft, pliant skin, and you pinch: not anywhere sharp or cruel, not especially sensitive, just in a line below the ridge of her rib cage, and it's too pretty a picture not to smile at her, when her entire chest jolts at the contact, the intake of breath. "Sir. Fuck."
"I'm still fucking you later," you assure her, as if her breathing could've convinced you otherwise. "But I wanna hear your voice some more. Hum a little. Give me a yes, sweetheart. Can you do that?"
The noise is barely audible, almost nonexistent, except it is: she hums her assent as you dip two fingertips back into her swollen, well-fucked cunt, scooping out some of the mess. Your fingers hook into her cheek and her mouth opens, because she's so obedient, because that's why it has to be like this.
You rub her bottom lip. Her eyes open into yours; a wet mouth. It's impossible not to see what's right there. It's easy, really, to press through and in, and give her that taste, that warm, velvety brush, like she's been sucking your cock, and maybe - oh, yeah, you'll remind her about it tomorrow, how she's a needy little slut for it, can't get enough - how you could've fucked her face until she was drooling and out-of-her mind - but the way her eyelashes flutter against your touch; the look-
You’ll take your time. You know what she wants: more than anything. It's the thing you can read. Maybe the hot, sticky mess, the flush in her cheeks. A touch to her face. Your thumb in her mouth, too, stretching, prying, holding. More cum falling beneath her tongue, dripping in those gaping, half-open red lips.
She’s licking your load from your knuckles, your Tzuyu. You can’t believe it.
"Swallow," you tell her.
"Mmm," and it’s there: this gorgeous expression on her features, her eyelids dropping, the shimmer, the shine. You'd do anything to keep it there.
You let your thumb leave the corner of her mouth and it stays open, just the tip of her tongue darting out to taste what little she can. The rest of her lulls back with a satisfied murmur, eyes half-closed, clearly the type of content-afterglow of wanting the man who'd just ruined her. A gratitude, or a simple, silly thing, if he would just pick her up in his arms: "thank you, sir."
Her panties end up back around her hips, and a new shirt's thrown haphazardly on, a soft, gray cotton which rides down, slipping past one pale shoulder. And then she turns over, to the side, her back curling into the heat of your chest. There's no attempt at leaving or any plans either. The arm you've loosely wrapped around her waist simply tugs. It's not subtle or even nice: your hand rucks up the fabric and snaps the waistband, and the soft cotton doesn't stop it from being painful.
"Fuck me again." Tzuyu shakes off with a shrug. She's wiggling her ass, practically. She's not wrong, you suppose - your cock hardens easily, more of a reaction. "Are you just going to - keep teasing?"
“Such a brat,” you say, and that makes her whole body tense; she makes the most beautiful sounds for you, but words, praise, humiliation - those always hit harder. You know your girl.
"Your brat," says Tzuyu, easily. "You can do whatever you want." 
Your grip on her hip is brutal. Of course you know. That doesn't mean you can't look for loopholes, anyway, right? You don't move, but the threat's there.
The look she shoots over her shoulder is smug. "I like it rough, or something. Doesn't it make you mad that someone could've had me before?"
"Should I be?" You're swiping your cockhead through her folds before you have a chance to say, "Should I care that some guy's had my little cocksleeve before? Should I be angry that someone used my pretty toy before I got to?" You thumb at the tightness, and Tzuyu gives up the front immediately and jerks her hips backward. "If I wasn't the first?"
"Not exactly," comes Tzuyu's mild answer, "not if I was always thinking of you. Plus, they didn't make me feel like that." She tips her head up, to nip at your jaw. She's smiling so fucking coy when she adds: "please, don't hurt me too bad."
You wrap your hands around her. Press a kiss into her shoulder.
“Or do, maybe. Whatever feels natural, you know," she bites down.
"The hickeys are going to be difficult," you agree. "People are gonna see them and they'll picture themselves, probably, with you spread out, huffing, gasping - fucking you out of a brain."
"As they should," she says, and then hums this low, heartfelt note into the mattress. "So how hard can you do this, hm?" She's moaning into the pillow as you slip back into her cunt, but it's a challenge, the tilt in her voice. "Like, if I ask, real nicely."
Who’d have ever guessed she was so filthy. All hidden behind the pristine, the perfection. The prim girls are always the worst: all that beauty means more to them wrecked than revered - it means they've won, again.
Well, that works just fine. She's won you over.
You lean into her shoulder, murmuring, “you’re pushing your luck here, Tzu.”
“Am I?” Her head tilts back until it finds the curve of your jaw. Those deep brown eyes flashing. She knows what’s coming, her pussy tightening prettily. "I'm sorry, sir. I’ll clean up my act."
And the little smile. The fucking dimple, proudly stitched into her cheek - right as you pull her back onto you again, your length working its way slowly into her cunt. The way her ass fits in your hips lets you know you're no match for this girl: how unbelievably good it feels to be inside her. Hot, tight, wanting. Pressed tight between her gorgeous thighs.
“Guess I never noticed,” she says, before falling quiet with the soft punch of breath as you drag her backwards, against your body and the rocking press of your hips. Her eyelashes tremble while your cock nudges its way fully inside her pussy. The rest, as it seems, is silent: only the crash of skin, the sound of your breathing.
You’re already gathering her hair into your fist when you tug her back to your waist, mouth hovering right at the shell of her ear: "fuck, you take my dick like you're made for it. Do you even know how good your pussy feels? I'll ruin you if you let me. We can find out together," you tell her, pulling her back onto your cock. A wordless, pained, perfect whimper.
Tzuyu lets herself go slack against your chest.
She's taking you like a dream and that's it, that's enough, all you've got to say, and Tzuyu, jesus-fucking-christ, she does it with a laugh: this awful, melodic, bright, sweet, airy fucking thing: "don't fucking test me, Tzuyu -" you repeat, a warning.
Tzuyu bats those long lashes, like it'll mean anything, like this isn't all the proof you need. 
"Okay. Don't tease, then.” Her hand reaches up to the nape of your neck, finds your body close and hot. She sighs. “I want to feel it, sir. So much that I can't walk after. That I'll still have you in me. I want it all to hurt. Is that too much?"
All she does is try to hide her smiles, and she's terrible at it. There's a gasp buried underneath her giggling, one that Tzuyu loses every time she moves her body with yours. There are only two conclusions now: either she's that perfect of a fuck or she's as full of shit as you are. Either way, the dimple's giving her away - her smile, her lips, the full, syrupy brown of her gaze.
Tzuyu wraps that leg up and back around you and the angle is devastating.
"Baby, I want you- I want your cock deeper - yes, baby. Deeper - as deep as it'll go. I want you to fuck me until I can’t think, until there's nothing I can do. Seriously. Fuck me." 
Her hand dives over the shirt; there's no question when your gaze follows the trail she takes over her tensing body, over the curve of her breasts and down to where she's dragging at her pussy, where she's exposed herself. She finds the space and lets the fingertips flutter down, onto her needy, swollen clit; the place where your bodies join and separate; the throbbing pulse of her pussy.
"And then fuck me some more,” she adds, like that'll help. Her pussy fits you like a glove - it’s not fair. It’s not right.
But she's so beautiful up close, eyes fluttering in pure, concentrated rapture as she loses the tension in her face - one more thing that the facets, angles, and shades of Tzuyu become, something you tuck away in a vault somewhere safe; a secret just between the two of you.
Her hand runs up your thigh, fastens back on your hip. “You owe it to me, to use my body a little bit, don’t you think?”
There's no sense fighting it, not anymore - maybe there never was - and when you grip Tzuyu's upper thigh, tilt her leg upwards, she gives you an anticipatory hum. This light sound. An ankle lands over your hip, and what follows is a tight, enveloping slide, your cock buried in her wet pussy. So close together that she can't move much at all except to take it - the hard thrust, the one that forces its way up to the hilt. She's impossibly, overwhelmingly soft, a pleasure unlike any other. The absolute worst kind.
She knows exactly the danger of getting involved with you, and when she cums, once, again, and once more - her eyes water, her voice flooded - you think, so do you.
-
It’s in the hours of the morning that’re not quite today, nor quite tomorrow when Tzuyu leans on the end of the bed as she stretches. A loose t-shirt is draped over her petite body - you glance over at her as the bottom of the fabric lifts, exposing more skin across her legs. No matter the circumstances, the space she inhabits will always feel charged. She could wear a potato sack and have the same effect, you suppose, because that's just how she is: Tzuyu is magnetizing.
"That is definitely not yours," you say, finally.
The girl has a lovely arch to her back, a golden glow of perfection that you can't find elsewhere. That's when Tzuyu laughs and spins around. "Is that a question?"
You only have yourself to blame. Of course it's not hers. The shirt's oversized and could fit all five feet, eight inches of her like a tent. It doesn't belong to her, but her heart-shaped lips make you feel stupid, so you're giving her a second chance. You really need that shirt back. You packed light, it's your favorite tee, it’s a family heirloom, or something - whatever makes her get it off, you guess. You sit up against the bed, and watch her fingers hook into the hem as it slowly peels off from her frame.
And that is - a vision.
You already knew - but it's worth repeating, or forgetting your name and every last bit of your existence for; the sharp collarbone, the striking red lines beneath them, the palest, sweetest chest. Her breasts, a bit smaller, a bit rounder than normal (not that you would know), sit heavy in her hands, soft and full - oh, the hickeys, the perfect peaks and the bruised nipples - she's an aphrodisiac.
"I want one later," she tells you, and runs a hand over her breast, pressing against the angry red marks that color the pale skin.
"A shirt?"
She turns back toward the mirror, an image reflected tenfold - a beautiful flush on her high cheekbones. It's only a small win to think that those rosy cheeks are there because of you. Only a little one, if at all. "One of yours, sure."
You laugh, but she looks taken aback. "What, you mean like a keepsake?"
"Hey, if it smells good." Tzuyu brings up the neckline to her nose, eyes fluttering shut for a brief second before they snap closed. "Yes. Like a keepsake, is that so unnatural?"
"Has anyone ever told you that you are, like, really forward." You thought you knew, but there's this part of you that wonders. Why the sudden revelation. "Not that it isn't obvious. I meant...with the rest. Just to clarify."
"With sex, you mean?" Her smile turns a little sheepish. "I can tone it down a little. I don't even notice sometimes, I just talk."
You walk forward and wrap your arms around her waist. You fit easily around her. "Don't," you say, quietly, against the back of her neck. "It's nice, in a way."
She cranes her head to trade the reflection of your eyes for the real thing. Her body is soft, warm. "You like to talk too."
"Right."
"Your favorite past-time."
"Point taken." Your thumb runs down the middle of her breast and traces her nipple. It's tender, you note. You can’t really keep your hands off her waist, or stop touching her tits - because who would ever let something so delightful pass them by? Not you. No way. "Want to hear a story?"
"If it's coming from you," she whispers, a little smile, a lot of entendre, "I’ll listen to anything."
"Do you see the wall over there?" You nod to the window. She follows it with her gaze, her chin jutting towards your shoulder, her long neck arching. It's hard not to kiss it. There's a clear stretch of drywall beside her desk. She nods. "When I came here with Sana and Mina last," and your nose presses into her hair, inhaling her, the way she smells like something tropical: vanilla and citrus. Something far from here. "I put up a few paintings. I'm handy sometimes, a hammer seeking a nail sorta thing."
Tzuyu almost snorts, and sways a bit in your grasp. You tighten your hold, not wanting to drop her. "Oh?” she teases out, suggestive. “Show me."
-
(You shouldn’t. You can’t stop, frankly. Fucking Tzuyu is in its own category: the luxury, the treasure, the extravagance; feeling between your fingers the finest silk, the richest cashmere.
Her palms slide higher up the wall, fingers splayed. The curve of her back, the pull of her hair. Tzuyu kissing you like the world will end and the moon will be the first to know, her fists curling into your back, a furious, frantic urgency - Tzuyu fucking you. Well. Tzuyu always, always kissing you; it's the universe resetting, it's a timeline rewritten, it's trading everything sweet for salt, giving you teeth and tongue, the insides of her lip rubbed raw - she tastes like 80 Proof, a sticky, melting liquor, and it goes down too easy. "Why are you making this hard for me." It's not a question, her face in your neck - then she says, like there's a hundred other things, a hundred thousand ways you can ask:
"What makes you think I want to make this easy?")
-
The power goes out early in the morning.
Which means you're in the dark. But, it's alright. You consider for a moment the omen-like timing, if such an idea is ludicrous in the first place. This could be a metaphor. After all, what is Tzuyu if not a classic trope? It isn't fair to judge anyone based off their flaws. For starters, you have more than you can count. You consider a moment longer, that the timing isn't metaphor-worthy. After all, if this was a punitive force, you're certain that it would've been more apparent, more explicit, if the electric panel had burst into flames or the cable box was shot-out; something bigger, flashier, less like something that you'd play up for theatrics. And it probably would've been when you had the girl on all on fours, your handprints seared into the round of her ass-
Or, when she got on her knees. The snap of darkness setting in as you slipped your cock out of her lips and spilled a rope of hot cum on her face, in her hair. The way she just relaxed into it, a reverence to her being baptized, kneeling. “Oh, Tzu,” you said, with a fist around a cock, and jerked the rest right out on her tongue. You probably would have heard her sniffle after, still recovering from her choking a bit.
Or, when you had half a mind to kneel down between her legs in the shower, suck her clit until she was dripping, fucking her open with your tongue; you could taste her sweat, her slick, and imagine how hard it must be to put up that front: biting into a washcloth, trying not to fall apart.
(Karma arrives late, or it doesn't arrive at all. Or, something. Who knows. It doesn't matter. The outcome would have remained the same.)
Tzuyu opens the sliding glass door to the balcony.
You watch her from behind - there's a small pile of snow at the edge. The whole mountain has gone into complete darkness. No moon, no lights, no light poles, or blinking bulbs or strobe signs or house lights - just night. How eerily romantic, that. And if there was an excess amount of snow before, it only got heavier, thicker, now weighing on the steel bars of the railing.
Tzuyu rests her hands there, leaning her hips a bit forward, so far that her knees lock. Her back bends. "It's so weird," she breathes out, and you can see your exhales, both of yours. "I feel like you and I are the only ones here right now. Everyone else is probably taking shelter. Maybe the power went out for everybody."
"Maybe."
"It's all a bit spooky. Or creepy. But, exciting too, yeah?" She turns, just enough. Her fingertips run along the side of her face. "In the mountains, yes." She doesn't even need to say the rest, doesn't need to ask: does that appeal to you? All this isolation? I could scream and scream and nobody would ever hear it. I'm yours to fuck, to have, to own, to do anything to-
"It'll probably be fixed in the morning," you tell her. "Who would turn it back on tonight. To this place. They'll start at the closest areas to town and go out from there."
"Mina has a generator," Tzuyu supplies helpfully. "No living clue where."
"Want to look for it?"
She lets her head tilt, as if to follow the expanse of trees leading up into the rocky ground. "Would it kill us to wait for tomorrow?" Her bare toes curl into the floorboards. The blanket stays wrapped tightly around her shoulders, and a single line of her wrist can be seen when she tilts her arm a certain way. "We won't die or anything."
You wouldn't die, not before being smitten with a different death, falling headfirst and in love; and that's what you've felt since the start, since the beginning: you've always wanted more. It was always inevitable, her letting her weight fall backwards, in the living room - all your filthy secrets falling out. It felt like the sky had dropped. All over the bedroom floor.
"Then let's get some sleep," you say, but still step closer, as you do with anyone, to brush aside the strand of hair over her ear.
-
It feels like the temperature must have dropped dramatically. Not that it bothers either of you very much, you note, when you move under the blankets together. Some might feel embarrassed by the necessity, but then, most aren't half the people that you both are.
Tzuyu presses her fingers under her thigh to keep her legs shut. To avoid the cold, she claims, but you can hear the slippery noises that her cunt makes as her body shakes with each thrust of her fingers. You almost suggest that you heat her up in an entirely different fashion, but the smile, her smile, gets the best of you. Instead, you let yourself touch and trace, and feel her wherever it may land. There's no sense in pretending either, so you tangle yourself into her: a finger between her legs. Another in her palm, resting against her hip. When you press your thumb against her cunt, she begins to smile, too, as if to show you exactly what kind of person she is. That is to say, completely insatiable.
You let your free hand slip under her chin. Tilting her head up, exposing the faint pulse-points. You wonder if she's imagining the things you'd do if the snow never cleared: toying with her hair, petting the top of her head, speaking pretty and dirty and pressing kisses against her bare back, in a rhythm, as you fuck her without care - something close and tight like the little noises she makes and how they die off, finally, when you push your cock deeper, still.
There are no words between you anymore, maybe - but she's not laughing, and you're not angry, and it's only one second before your mouth is on her neck, kissing the column of her throat. It's easy to sleep with her - so, so simple, if not anything else.
"I don't have anything in the morning," you murmur to the top of her shoulder, barely moving as not to break the moment. To tell her it's fine to leave her body or keep it forever. Either way. Both, if it's an option.
She smiles. Her eyes are still closed. "It'd be weird if you did."
She can be a tease - a complete brat - sometimes. Like now. But then again, who would you be if not the person who falls for exactly that.
And that is a weakness: you have a very specific kind of hunger, that won't fade, that can only be sated. She knows it, and yet her coy grin remains. It's a habit, not a mistake. "Yeah, well," you lean up onto your forearm, pressing the knuckles of your right hand against her soft cheek. "This is the most inconvenient of all places, but- don't worry about it."
"Meaning?"
"I don't think they sell birth control or morning after pills or anything up here," you explain, lightly. Your gaze passes from her eyes to the pink of her bottom lip and back, again.
"Do I look like I'd care?" Tzuyu sighs and takes your wrist, pulling your arm over her body. "I know what I'm doing," she adds, which might actually be a lie. "Obviously. You don’t need to pretend you’re like, responsible, or whatever."
Yes, obviously. As if it was all as easy as pulling strings, deciding exactly which points to tease, to stress. You should know. You just kissed and held down and fucked and fucked your cum into this one: you know how to move her strings better than any.
-
You flip the switch in the kitchen. Up, down, up, down: except, nothing. The electricity is still decidedly off by mid-morning, and you and Tzuyu end up having actual, quality, conversation. 
You sit her on the kitchen counter - though it’s not fated to last long, because her legs loop around your waist, and she tugs your sweats down as you try to fix the two of you lunch - Tzuyu gets what Tzuyu wants, of course - so you're standing there fucking her while her head leans back on the cool marble, her silky dark hair tumbling off the end of the counter.
She ends up propped up on one elbow. Eyes hazy and half-lidded, fixed on the glide of you into her creamy folds, spreading her wider, wider.
Tzuyu asks questions - all innocuous, at least to the ear. About your past. Who you were before all this. Whether you want kids, when, whether you were religious, once. She gets personal before you have her cumming and incoherent: how you sleep, in what positions. How often you jerk yourself off. What you're thinking of when you do. How you'd use her - not the lewd version, the spitting, filthy iteration, just the you and her and her being yours part. And she gets specific about that. She'll slide up to you and bury her nose in your throat, wrap her arms around your shoulders, mumble about wanting you closer - you feel her, maybe more than you should - but every few seconds you're sliding home into that pussy and her chest heaves out a deep breath-
"I want what's in here," she finally says, her delicate palm cupping your balls. She's pulling you into her on each stroke like the fucking sun's gone out and this is her last chance - she's magnetism, gravity, a blackhole you'd give up the rest of the universe to. She's got one fist on your shirt, and the other hand on your sack, and her pussy's fluttering around you, and she's watching you watching her, and it's infinity:
"The idea of you." Tzuyu smiles at the way your eyes narrow, the way the word turns itself over and over on your mind, her. She tilts her face to look at your expression. "Like, in here. All your cum. There's so much. Can I please have it-"
You swear.
"Pretty please, baby," Tzuyu's asking if you'll fill her up, if you'll make her your cumdump, keep fucking her even with all your cum inside her, asking what the worst of your fantasies are - you fuck harder, deeper, and she nods eagerly, tightens that fist in your shirt. "Can you give it to me? Please, it's the only thing I need, and we both know I always need something, please."
"Jesus fucking christ," you tell her, helpless, and it's never felt better: her cockwarming on your lap, her teasing and teasing until your self-control's paper thin - won't you? won't you? fucking breed this slutty little cunt? won't you cum until I'm so full it's spilling out-
The snap. Like falling, it’s something you notice right away, but only ever understand a long ways down. 
"Yours," moans Tzuyu, half in an accusatory fashion - fuck - she's almost gasping: "fuck - just use me, use your cumdump, 'cause you'll never have a tighter cunt than this."
God. Damn. Her. You cum so hard it aches, and there's no hesitation:
"My cocksleeve, my good girl, shit-"
"You could leave a baby in me, even, just like that. Couldn't you. Isn't that hot. And nobody could do a fucking thing." Tzuyu’s tits are spilling out the sides of her camisole and she looks like pure porn, in person. Your cum is dripping out of her and you watch as it spills on the marble.
"Is that what my girl wants? 
She smiles, again, so prettily.
“You wanna be full of cum, is that it?" You grab Tzuyu's hair; pull just enough to get the point across. "Is that it? You're a perfect cumslut who needs all that fucking cum, huh? Wants it pumped deep? You like being full of it, right Tzu? This needy little cunt loves the thought of getting bred? Knocked up? Goddamn, Tzu."
"That's me," agrees Tzuyu, in the afterglow. Dimple dug deep. "Yeah. Your personal cumslut, sir."
She just grins when you reach between her thighs, pressing your fingers into the cum you've fucked into her, before you decide that the wet warmth is yours and you’re going to fuck her even further into delirium.
Her hips come up off the granite, desperately.
"Uh-huh," she mumbles, already drifting - you put her off her balance, for real. "God, yes, please," she's whispers, as if all the ways you'd ruin her were prayers, like she wants to start a new religion all her own: you're a god, and it's all about Tzuyu - just you, and her, asking, again, the questions piling on top of other ones, the sweet drawl, the sinful want, the curiosity-
Fuck. She wants everything about you, your dirty secrets and your nice manners - the stories behind your scars, your funny little quirk of raising just one eyebrow at a time-
You turn her around. She's made for this, intelligently designed: her tiptoes just touching the floor, the delicious curve of her lower back, your cock sliding effortlessly into her and hitting a spot she arches into like it's divine intervention and that pussy making its first church of your name. The cum you'd already left in her cunt is making everything wetter, making those obscene sounds echo in the space around the two of you. It's rapturous; you let her feel it slow, and deep, and it’s bliss.
“Tighter,” you growl into her ear, and her cunt clenches like you own it.
The girl's figure is pristine, an ass that belongs under spotlights, on camera; those thick lips, the curtain of her hair when she tips her chin down. It's all been in magazines, billboards, it's been idolized - she is the icon and you're the follower, but, this weekend, here and now-
"So. Fucking. Good-" she gasping, falling apart. She’s collapsing and it’s not even noon.
"Oh, the world knows." You pull her up, hold her body in yours and snap into her cunt. Her skin's hot, feverish, the light that filters through the blinds and the snow slows outside.
It all happens without a moment’s notice - Tzuyu reaches behind and clutches your thigh, as if she could ever pull you deeper, like it wouldn't tear her in half. But you find yourself in a position to grab the edge of the counter; your phone buzzes. It's Sana, probably asking what's up. You want to ignore it and keep fucking Tzuyu from behind. You want to hold her hips, be mindful of the marks, the bruises, sink your fingers into her hair, her tits - you end up murmuring things like please and fucking perfect and if we were a little more religious then you'd be a sin to remember-
Fuck, you're cumming again. The writing’s on the wall as soon as your cock makes her breath draw short and her eyelids snap shut. She’s exquisite, a masterwork - you’re painting in broad strokes, all over the beautiful curves of her ass - not only because you’ve needed to see it cast in hot streaks of white, all debased with your cum, but simply to prove a point; to say that you can. You cum on her cheeks, her cunt, you pump your fist around your shaft and cum in the crotch of her panties too.
"That's it, Tzu," you croon, "look at that," your spent cock twitching against her plush thighs, her dripping pussy lips, and she's sagged forward, onto the counter, your thumb running through a particularly thick rivulet. Her face dips down, pressed to the cold surface, and the words coming out aren't coherent, are just filthy and true; but they're there: she's taken you and kept you, all for herself.
(Thank you, she says, for making me into your little cockwarmer, your toy, for breaking my fucking cunt, baby - thank you, please, thank you-
You could end your career tomorrow, it wouldn't matter. Just saying, man. This girl, fuck.)
There’s a beat, the strained breathing, the panting, the disbelief. She ends up kissing your chin after sliding back to her feet, a saccharine imitation of chaste. Pulls up her shorts without a second's consideration. Her panties, still sticky with your spend - well. She puts those back, too, grinning dreamily. 
Oh, how is a woman like Tzuyu even real, huh? You really do need to find out, somehow.
"Your imagination is…" you say, your tone flat. “I swear.” But you don't deny that the sex isn't. You don't think of her that way. She doesn't ask you for your hopes or your dreams or the full gambit of life, as some people might. She asks about what you think about at three am when she's got one hand on her tits and one on her clit and one finger in her mouth:
"Anything we can think of," she corrects, her long limbs squeezing her tighter to your front. Her grin bright, so perfect she's beyond believable, and how can such a dissonance exist in something, someone, you're holding on to? "I mean, we can if you want."
-
"Maybe we'll talk about that - how you can handle me," is what Tzuyu rasps, softly, tying her hair up afterwards: and you realize this is her post-coital. For her, sex makes her nice. Sweet.
You've already fixed her lunch; Tzuyu comes to sit down at the table with you. "Like, for future reference." You're raising an eyebrow. She grins at that, kicks her feet. Her hips don't do the same, though - no doubt still a little sore, like her lips. She's worn out, finally. She won't try to slice off and claim any more of your aching soul.
“You have no business thinking about babies.”
“Tell that to my ovaries.”
"You have a breeding kink, is what it is, really. I’m being completely serious."
"Well, am I pregnant yet?" Tzuyu flutters those lashes, puts those big pretty eyes on full display. "No? Then I'm getting off on something else, clearly, isn't it obvious, like maybe there's something about being on the other end of someone so big. Have you considered how wet you make me when you-"
"Tzuyu, cut it out," you chide her. The little brat's giggling. You aren’t going to let her know how pretty the noise is.
"Fine." She reaches across the table, puts her small hand on your larger one. "Like I said - how to handle me." Her tone is placating, the sharp edge to her personality blunted. It's different with Tzuyu - after sex, she gets like this: playful, easy, fond. The mess you've just made, the cunt you've stuffed full, that's another Tzuyu altogether. "For your... benefit."
"My benefit, really?"
"Aside from getting my brains fucked out," she explains, "is what I meant."
"Not making this easier, babe."
Her mouth curves a slow smile. She likes when you call her names, cute shit like that.
"I need to call Sana back," you explain, finally.
Tzuyu nods.
"In a bit," you add. "Also," you're saying, leaning forward. Her head tilts toward yours.
She's receptive, her whole body pliant and lazy, after that, well, marathon - she'll roll with whatever you're suggesting. This has always been a dream to her, she's mentioned. (Who has dreams like that? Someone so young, that innocent - well, yeah.)
But you kiss her temple, lightly. "Gimme a minute."
Tzuyu blinks, in that catlike way she has of staring, intent. Her mouth slightly pouty.
"Then you get your turn," you offer.
"Deal," she nods.
And that makes her beam - your beautiful, very good, very perfect, little toy.
-
"You're going to have to slow down," you tell Sana over the phone. "I have zero reception up here, sorry."
"The highway is shut down, I literally can't get to the other side of town," she yells over the sound of tires rolling on snow. Sana does not sound in the best spirits. If anything, she sounds slightly desperate. "Part of the mountain collapsed on a cliff somewhere. Fuck's sake. The weather is still terrible and they're shutting everything down. Literally shuttering every road off the base of the mountain."
"You sound good," you deadpan, and when Sana grumbles, say, "try the next exit, head around and take a back road-"
"Yeah, except it's snowing like nobody's fucking business right now - I'm not going to risk exposure to try to get there on my own."
"What should I do?" you try, a bit helpless. "Stay here?"
"Why are you even asking," Sana scoffs, "yes, stay there, stupid. Tell Tzuyu you can't drive in snow, that she can't possibly expect me to deal with any of you leaving a safe situation." There's another brief pause. "Ah, seriously, there is not a single living human being near here that can be helpful - and they're supposed to bring us new tires? Here? No, fuck's sake."
"Oh," is all you say.
"Don't worry about me." Sana's voice goes up a notch. "Just be there, alright? Stay warm, okay?" A crackle, more radio waves or distance.
"Text me," you urge. "Tell me you're getting in safe."
"Of course, of course," and that's when you get the click, the abrupt disconnection. You stare at the device in your hand and consider the possibilities, and the outcomes, and how to stay sane while alone with temptation incarnate for a couple nights.
Maybe this really is hell. Or it's a trial. There’s the storm, and there’s your angel, contextually out of place. You're incapable of controlling yourself, clearly.
You sigh, let your gaze slide. The lights are still out, and in their absence, Tzuyu has dragged every available blanket or bed sheet within her reach into the living space, spread a dozen pillows across the sofa and is now occupying one of the corners: there's a book, opened onto her lap, as her nails run circles down the blanket draped over her lower back.
"Tzu, what exactly did Mina mention to you about the generator," is the first thing you blurt, upon entry, and Tzuyu smiles, holding up the page against the fading daylight - which is currently hardly much. "Better question: how are you able to read in the dark?"
"Takes a lot to shake me off, honestly,” she says, which you already know to be true. “Also my eyes aren't old like yours, so."
"Wow."
"What?" Tzuyu grins, tilts her chin. "Do you want me to say that you're ageless? Thirty, flirty and thriving. So impressive, your youthful vigor, that sort of deal? How attracted I am to your experience," the insinuation, this sudden intimacy. She laughs. "Seriously. Let me read."
"Apparently we're going to be stranded for a few days."
"That's cute." She pauses. "Sucks for Sana."
"You don't know what sucks for Sana."
She peeks over the corner of the page, then, grinning, the teeth of a joke. "What's on the menu, then? Hm? So far, the best part was waking up beside you," and you almost grin, at how honest she manages to be without seeming conceited. How shameless Tzuyu has become in the ways of liking you, and maybe a bit of who she thinks you are. And why that's dangerous, really, and it makes the guilt burrow down beneath your ribs a bit: "my ass hurts," she's complaining now, which is only going to encourage the teasing-
"As it should," you comment, then watch her eyes sharpen, glint with mischief. "Oh," you realize, with a shrug, "do we get to cuddle again."
(Let's hope, for a moment, this isn't really karma. Because really, it'd just be an uncalled-for injustice: Chou Tzuyu delivered down on all fours, head tucked into your thighs as a fist grabs a handful of her hair, a slow push and pull - your cock sinking into the velvet warmth between her lips, again, again, and again until she's ruined and crying and still swallowing you whole - as she, not the universe, forces a massive dose of her own medicine down your throat. You see how that might not be quite fair.)
"But I'll have to leave again," you're protesting - no heat, no vitriol. "There's, like. Stuff I gotta grab."
"Then grab me," she sighs, pats her lap, "read over my shoulder. Make out with me. Just keep me warm. That'd be very helpful, and I would be so grateful."
Well, fuck. You're not one for inflating egos - at least not anybody else's - especially when, unchecked, that tends to do the exact opposite of keeping them grounded.
"Fine," you're muttering, and you clearly have a habit for capitulation wherever Tzuyu is concerned, the quirk in her lips, the quiet pride in her dimple, the cadence in her speech - which she's already smug about.
"Wonderful." She taps the back of her fingernail against a book page, waits, just a few more seconds, her grin spreading as you begin to fumble around. "Please," she says, flicks her gaze back down, a tease, "take all the time you need."
-
The thing about mountain air is it has a way of clearing your head, cooling down the frenetic thoughts of indecision and uncertainty and moral conflict.
Well, maybe that's a slight overreach, the mountains also have a way of getting you killed, but the intention was to look upon the white caps and ponder. It didn't work.
-
You eventually find the generator. You hear the clicks of metal and electrical wiring, the roar of the motor kicking on, a steady hum. Then, Tzuyu pokes her head out from behind the shed, her cheeks tinted a warm pink; her eyebrows rise up a beat.
"Yes?" you prompt.
"Is it working?"
"Does it look like it's working, miss?"
"Looks a-okay to me," and she presses the heel of her mitten into her teeth, tries to bite it back down her wrist; she stumbles, a moment, slightly clumsy in the snow. You instinctively reach out. Your hands brush the outer seam of her pajamas, the heavy fabric of her coat - "oh," you can feel the instant the shivers start, "fuck, I'm cold.”
“We’re both probably pretty due for a hot shower,” you say.
"Yeah, you came in my hair. Er, sorry, I meant, we both need a hot shower."
"It was really adorable when you were rutting back on my dick like some horny animal," you snort. "Admit it."
"No comment."
"So shy."
Her smile cracks open, and her breath is a white plume. "Fuck you."
"Sure, babe," you're agreeing, the tone almost saccharine. "If you insist."
She blinks back in mild surprise, the blatant answer - and god, her fucking eyes: soft, dark, her eyelids barely lift up. Even when they should've narrowed. That was another thing to learn. (Maybe, god - who knows, maybe she's still learning how not to care.)
She runs a hand through her hair. The scarf around her neck is fluffing up. There's white clumps settling on the fibers, slowly dissolving into a damp mess.
"Listen," Tzuyu murmurs, wraps an arm around yours to help herself up. 
Your palm settles on the round of her thigh. She shifts, her hand dropping lower - tugs at your arm until she has an elbow in hers. The backs of her knuckles settle against your hip bone, her fingertips sliding across the waistband: you walk backwards through your snowprints, gently - the side door to the cabin is unlocked - Tzuyu's stumbling toward it.
"Going to the shower, we're turning the water on," she explains. You grin, feel your own arm, a slow drag around her lower waist; she tilts into it, steps closer. Presses a finger to your chest: "dinner's gonna be in half an hour," she announces, "and before you ask, I've been craving those boxes of instant mac & cheese in Mina's pantry."
"I haven't had one of those in ages."
"Me neither," and with her heel, she kicks the side door shut; Tzuyu yanks on a cord, pulls the blinds closed. It's pitch black. You're chuckling low, turning around - one of Tzuyu's hands smacks over a nearby light switch, illuminating the room just a shade lighter than it was prior. She presses a hand to your chest, a single-minded goal to your front.
You put your hands on her hips.
"It's the kinda thing that makes me feel like a kid again," you hear her say, just slightly; that, and how the white fabric of her sweater twists, pulled to a single point.
"Happens," is the best explanation you can give. She slaps the lightswitch again. Kisses you. You shove a leg forward. She whines. "Be good," you're chiding, though you both stumble until her back is pressed against the wall. "You were just complaining that you're still sore."
"Maybe I can't help it, maybe that's all on you," the end of the sentence fades. Her nails slide up the sleeve of your arm. There's the soft hitch of a moan. "It's just you. So unfair." She rubs up. Swallows like it's instinct, at the slightest hint of friction. You curl your hand, your thumb grazes the waistband of her underwear; her fingertips tighten, her blunt nails sink deeper - press like she means something else, wants something more.
It'll be a few days, at least, more likely a week; and by then, this girl will have you right where she needs you. She's proven, time after time - you can never just say no.
-
The days bleed together after the snow.
You fuck her, but slower; sometimes softer, a little less raw, the hurt. Not that you'd ever try to take too much: the thought is unthinkable, un-imagined. Infinitely impossible. You'll pull out and empty everything you have, paint her skin, make her ache, fuck until you know exactly where the bruises are and how to touch them, how to breathe the hurt down from her ribs.
But some mornings: she rolls over onto her side, opens her eyes and smiles. Brilliant like the sun, something that would warm your heart even without trying. Some afternoons, you put the fire on; read something aloud from Mina's bookshelves, and watch the red-orange flames turn Tzuyu's cheeks and neck pink and honey. Evenings, especially the colder ones, you're wrapping her up, blankets, sweatshirts, pulling her close: into bed with the lights turned off. She wants the touch, she craves it, she'll almost whimper when you get near her - and it's you, whispering words against her ear; tracing fingertips lightly against her temple, down the nape of her neck, her lower lip-
"How come you don't kiss me, hm?" She sounds sleepy. "Baby. Don't pretend you're a stone. Like, an unfeeling brute."
"I have my limits, princess."
"Like not kissing someone you're fucking." Her face drops from your sight, and Tzuyu turns over: she curls into her comforter, and her legs nudge the back of yours. "That's so fucking cruel," her voice a little whiny. "But okay, okay - tell me the reasons. Just so we can keep going."
"Keep going, huh. Even though I'm mean."
"Well, yeah, I've done much, much worse," the worst, if you think about it; and it's almost true. Maybe her morality was on the rocks long before yours. "Obviously."
You drop a kiss into her hair. "We both know what that mouth of yours is capable of."
She grins into your skin. Presses her lips, like a sign, and stays.
-
A girl like her inspires the worst in a man, and that's just about it: you think a man would burn the world down for her, with her, and maybe that would be how all things end, someway, somehow - not because of him or her, the full spectrum of his intentions, all the intricacies and subtleties, and hers too. You're both complicated creatures, sure; both very capable and wanting. Of big feelings, deep attachments: the overflow of your good hearts, perhaps; or, rather: the deficits.
She appeals to your worst impulses, in the plainest terms.
"Jesus Christ," you hiss, hands firm on her lower back; your voice breaking; Tzuyu has shed the bedsheets and climbed into your lap, one leg bent at the knee, digging the other into your ribs - her shirt hitches up and over the curve of her spine and then pools at her neck.
"Tell me that's good," she murmurs, hips gyrating, rocking her pussy along your cock. "Like that - right?"
"Fuck- yes," your cock slides into her, your entire length, the rest of the world fogged out: even the fire is quiet. "God, tzu. Feels amazing."
Tzuyu rolls her body forward, rides you with ease, and puts one small hand against your mouth. Her shirt hitches up and over the curve of her spine and then pools at her neck.
"I want to make you cum," she says, all quiet determination and wily confidence, "only you." She rolls her hips in your lap and then finds it: the steady, rhythmic grind down, down. Her ass crashes into your balls; the first telltale sign of that wonderful orgasm to come. "Is it wrong to want this? Like, you and I? Fuck. It feels like your cock was made for me."
"Yeah,” you grit, “fucking you feels - like it's meant to be, huh?"
"Sir," she says with an unhealthy smirk. She’s loving this more than you are, and you can’t really blame her for it: there’s no other sound quite like the slick, wet noise that her pussy makes as her body drops to yours, your cock filling her completely. It's music to your ears.
You grab at her ass, her hip, and pull her closer. She smiles, tilts her face down to you.
"Me too, you know, me too," she murmurs, kissing you softly; when you cup her breasts her breath hitches. "God- fuck- just-"
When she does cum, it's with the faintest little groan; a small, intense quiver in her thighs. You kiss her to swallow down the sound; and feel yourself tip over, and when she fucks you through your orgasm - her smile is dark, wicked, totally satisfied.
-
And everything else follows, because you're weak: because she makes you want to say no, even while simultaneously being your very favorite yes. You warm your cock inside her with some slow, gentle rhythm, her nipples hard against your shirt, her cries as sweet and earnest as all the best promises; a slow grind down, her fingers scrabbling for the headboard, you lean and lick her breasts, roll her nipples on your tongue - she gasps, tenses, digs her nails hard into your nape.
You'll have her again in the morning, she's adamant.
Her hands find your back, her legs circle your hips. The taste of her sweat. The taste of her nipples; her chest flushed, hair disheveled, pupils blown.
"Not letting me go." She whispers. Her cheeks are a lovely pink. "Even after this?"
You kiss the corner of her mouth, inhaling, wondering what to say.
"Good," Tzuyu tells you, tilting her jaw: "that's really-" She catches her lips with her teeth. "That's so fucking good."
-
(Her pussy grips your cock like it's the home she's always missed, her lifeline, her safe harbor. And it's dizzying, it's heaven, hell; and, in the morning - when everything is sepia-warm and sleepy - you fuck her again.
A promise, a hope, a plea. It's what makes a girl fall for a guy, in theory.
It's what makes her heart beat. )
-
"My phone's charging," Tzuyu sniffs the next morning: you're brushing out her hair. The sheets are warm.
You continue combing.
"Sana told me she would be texting, or trying to call."
"Well, that's nice," is all you can manage.
"Babe-" she leans back a bit: turns her gaze to the ceiling, exhaling sharply, "what if she got caught in a whole different avalanche, or fell from the top of a mountain, or something-"
You let go, letting her rest her weight against your thigh. "Honestly? Would serve her right. A little cold, a little damp-"
"If you don't take that back-"
"Alright. Alright. I'll send an apology prayer when I get around to it."
"No you won't." She curls in further, and you stroke her neck, shoulder blade; down the ridges of her spine, across the width of her back.
Tzuyu shudders slightly under your touch.
"Haven't I earned enough good faith, or a clean conscience?"
"Sir, don't pretend."
"Let's pray for Sana, then," you mutter. "Wherever the fuck she is."
"With respect," Tzuyu pipes up, eager: "bitch ain't found."
"Jesus.” You laugh out loud. “At least your brain isn't fully turned to mush, yeah?"
"Give yourself some credit. I can hardly fucking walk. You really pounded the feeling in my legs away."
"Too bad."
"Sorry." And she noses at your collarbone, tugging the waistband of your boxers; "feel free," the drawl of an old, forgotten song, "to make me repent. Baby. Do your thing."
"Right, I forgot that I could convince you to do anything by sliding my dick in your throat. Yikes."
"Baby, just, uh- do whatever." Tzuyu grabs hold of your cock through the thin fabric: one light tap of a finger, "my lips are numb," the suggestion. You really could be her everything: and maybe if you said, stop, please, you won't. She'd pause; look at you like you're insane and maybe spit out what the actual fuck is wrong with you. Like the reality:
This doesn't have to end, no?
"Sorry about your phone battery," you tell her, brushing out the knot at the base of her skull. She exhales, goes soft; lets you tug lightly. "We’ll figure things out when Sana can actually text you, okay?"
"Dumbass. When it's warmer and you drive down to meet her."
"You're not jealous," you tell her. You’ve decided for her.
Tzuyu rolls, leans down on her back, smiling prettily-
"Nope," she agrees, pulling your cock out: already hard, ready to cum down her throat. Her fingers pump soft, slow, the anticipation- "just not done."
"Crazy."
She shrugs and lets the silence calm the world around the two of you; at least for a little while. "Takes a certain kind," she agrees.
"Permissiveness. Like what I'm seeing. Your brand or whatever."
"It’s straight from the heart." She shoots up, making a face you want to kiss. "Honestly."
"Absolutely sincere," you deadpan, and she ignores the jab.
"Tie a bow with my hair," she chuckles, the laughter light, and your fingers graze her temple. "Come on. I'll make you so proud. So pleased. Sir. Let me, let me-"
"Only if I can finish down your throat," you retort - half-joking, but, her eyes grow warm, molten, the lust is immediate - you tip her head, lower it gently - she bites down onto her lip, nods a bit.
-
You don't take her right away. Not at first. You’re trying to show some restraint, trying not to think about how Tzuyu wears clothes like a vice. She's that kind of girl. Like an accident waiting to happen. She's moving around the kitchen later, poking about the cabinets. She's slid into some jeans that fit her a little too well, and one of those obscenely thin t-shirts.
You watch her back muscles work, how the cotton bunches as she leans, arms extending. Her chest's flat against the counter to grab whatever item's out of her reach. You catch the ribbon in her hair bob slightly back into place when she stands back up. The hairline on the nape of her neck catches a long highlight of a morning, the thin strands a brilliant brown, a spark of warmth in the midst of a muted winter morning - and it's honestly amazing to look at.
(Her ass hangs out in the open like an invitation. Your eyes are running down every curve of denim like they can't help but search.)
"Tzu," is the warning, and she flashes a grin; turns, the expression shifting, wide. "I can literally see everything you have."
"Hm." The front of her shirt lowers, too - her black bralette, barely a scrap of lace and string, visible through the thin fabric. "If I'd known you'd like that so much, you could've told me earlier."
"It's not your job to figure me out."
"Well, I'm not sorry." The words are sugar sweet, with an almost fake concern: her feet pivot, her ass filling your vision- Tzuyu spreads her hands down her outer thighs.
"Be nice," you reiterate. "C'mere."
Her legs snap to you quick.
-
You are careful, tentative and slow. You leave the ribbon in place and everything; just your mouth, like you have a right to lick down her breasts, her stomach, her clit - like you deserve the faint marks where your hands pressed down onto her waist.
The slow licks, the soft kisses; you could eat her out until the sun sets and Tzuyu was left sobbing through the overstimulation. Her fingers rake your hair like it’s exactly what she’s hoping you’ll do.
When Tzuyu does let go: she doesn't drop. There is no shame, nor shameful whimpers. Instead, she fucking screams, so high and clear it doesn't seem possible: a singer's wail.
"Sir!" she's crying, you can feel it through every tremble. "Oh my god, please-"
You get her to climax twice before the tears fall, your fingers tracing her spine, pressing deeper, a knuckle, then two-
She looks at you in abject reverence, "God, you don't know," is the gasp, "how perfect you are," and you're sure. You'll never get it right again: at least, not without her.
She cums a third time, shivering, collapsing: her eyes wide, glossy, breath shallow, limbs giving in. The sweat clings to her like a lover, a life she doesn't know how to leave.
So, you ask:
"What now, doll?"
Her tongue sweeps the corner of her mouth, a tiny wrinkle.
"Whatever," Tzuyu exhales. "Fuck, whatever, seriously, that was like- amazing- but my throat is actually going to murder me."
"Was the screaming really that necessary."
"Not sure- about anything," is the groggy admission, "like, honestly. Too horny to care, but." She pauses for a second. "You," she finally decides.
"I," is the immediate reply.
"I’ll let you do - anything, but I- can I, like, get a breather? For a minute. Can you wait, like, just."
Her arms open: you settle against her side, and a shaky hand starts combing through your hair. Her other palm lifts to rest against your cheek, cupping it. The nails tap gently along your hairline. 
"Been waiting so long, Tzu, honey," and it doesn't sound as cruel or glib as the slip up should be construed - doesn't even bother to count on forgiveness, either. Maybe you're beyond all of that, honestly, and more or less in love, as a result. It’s kind of fucked. What’s a minute more?
She laughs softly, a cough catching up and sounding pained. She's lost her voice, the poor thing, she’s cummed herself hoarse and ragged and you’re proud of your handiwork.
"Honey," you hear her say, and she shakes, pulls herself closer, kisses you back: like the old, gentle motion can ever fully cure the fever of desire that grips the two of you. It's a pipedream, and you're kissing her. It's a pipedream, and you know it.
-
The calls start coming in after the sun sets and the cabin grows cool with the dark: you feel, faintly, that it's inevitable. That the snow would clear and time would start marching on, a predetermined cycle. (That, maybe, something in the universe - at this stage, almost a hundred years of weather, tectonic plates, astronomical phenomena, interconnected - knew the two of you needed that bit of seclusion.)
"I dunno, just some bog-standard hotel, holiday suites or something. The point is: the roads don’t open until tomorrow and I've been holed up for a while." Sana sighs into the phone. The static pops. "Oh my god, I'm bored out of my mind. I've had like, three full bags of crisps in one sitting, which is just plain wrong."
"You're basically living off carbs." You say this from in front of the fireplace. Tzuyu is sitting on the opposite side of the couch paging through a stack of magazines, wearing a big jumper and sweats and socks pulled up to her knees. Her hair is falling around her shoulders in soft waves, and it makes her look small and domestic and a bit docile - she’d re-tied the ribbon in her hair after you’d fucked it off her, and that more or less completes the look.
"Yes, I have gone off the deep end. A tragic, awful spiral. Because you're not here. Fuck, you have no idea."
"Ah- Sana." You stop. Take a deep breath.
"Do you have any idea? The state of me right now? seriously. I packed so many fucking condoms and the idea of bringing them back home is more defeating than anything else." She lowers her tone a little, then adds, "because, not to be weird, I was kinda sorta hoping we might use them when I got up there."
You blink. Tzuyu isn't even pretending to look anywhere else. Her whole face is shifting into a satisfied expression, and when she catches you looking, she winks.
"Right. Now this might sound like a surprise," Sana is continuing, her voice full of amusement, "but when I get stuck somewhere, alone and thinking about the weather- I'm often in need of a fuck. Please be prepared to service, because god damn, I've got nothing and it's gonna have to be the battery."
"Is that Sana?" Tzuyu interrupts, the tone hushed, but lofty.
You make a face, like: who the fuck else - but that makes her smirk; Sana sighs, then laughs.
"So if you like, you know. If you feel like the vibe is there. I'd appreciate the hand out."
Tzuyu walks over: sets herself down between your feet and kisses your knee. Just to fuck with you. Because she wants to. She holds the kiss, the bow in her hair, done up tight and shiny, visible. You want to tug the stupid thing until it unravels; all your fingertips, her lips, and she sighs-
"Oi," Sana's saying on the line. You can hear her crash onto her bed. "You still there?" 
"I'm sorry," you say, "are you uh, asking for phone sex - or did I totally read that all wrong."
"Nope. Pretty direct." Sana laughs, and the sound should make it easy to close your eyes, picturing it: a silver smile, the low slung skirt and a stretch of stockinged leg, the twinkle of a drink as the ice hits her mouth. It’d be easy, y'know, if your gaze wasn't pinned on the girl who's settled at your feet.
"Oh, jesus, okay," you manage to breathe. Tzuyu hums a little: reaches for your fly. "Is there anything, anything that you want me to do?"
Sana's laughter drops to a murmur: the air goes heady as Tzuyu parts the zipper and rolls down the waist of your pants- "ask me what I'm wearing, duh."
"Boring," Tzuyu breathes into the air. Because apparently Sana's defining trait is being loud. The kiss to your clothed cock is hot, teasing - her eyes never lift away, "always, always start with, 'darling, sweetheart,' or something stupid, sweet." Her tone is pure syrup: you can feel the warm, the wet; a fucking tease, all the way to her core.
"What are you wearing, darling?" you ask, dryly. Tzuyu rolls her eyes.
Sana's grin widens and you swear it's audible, "oh, just these boring pajamas." She draws it out slow and sexy and completely aware. "It's all loose cotton, and it doesn't hang off me, just folds."
"Is it the type that comes down to the mid-thigh? The white kind, where you can see through to the skin?"
"That's a little presumptive, don't you think? A bit on the nose? Yeah, fine, I'm wearing the kind, if you absolutely insist. These legs, bare. Maybe you'd want to bite. Y'know. Mark 'em'. Whatever."
Tzuyu is kissing the outline of your shaft. Pulling your hard-on out from its confines - all gentle and tentative. Her pretty brown eyes dart upward, gauging: okay, just do your thing - you shrug - but it'd be so helpful if you could scoot to the end of the cushion for me, can you-
"Yeah," you're agreeing into the phone, somewhat vague - to no one in particular. You don't give Tzuyu just an inch; instead, you lift your thighs toward her. Sliding, Tzuyu pulls your pants down: enough. There's a delicate pressure applied at the bottom of your cock, right at the base, right where Tzuyu drags her nails. "Let's have that show off a little," your breath comes shallow, "then. Strip, real slow. We can try for something sexy I guess."
"You," Tzuyu kisses the base and shuffles up the rest of your shaft, "just love bossing people around," then her lips part: the slightest graze, then warmth, the faint suction. “Don’t you?”
"Uh-huh," says Sana, and then the rustle of cloth: and you could imagine her, really, lifting the shirt up, off, sliding it along the inside of her ribs, over the tips of her breasts - she'd cup them, lean into the contact. Sana's hands are always on her tits, or the spread of her hips - she likes the shape of her body more than anyone else. "Sometimes, that's the best way," she tells you. Her breath is hot, full of sex. "Being told what to do. Isn't that true, hm?"
Tzuyu tilts forward, lets your cock drop over her bottom lip. It leaves a smear of spit in its wake, the sensation electric. Her head falls, swallows the whole of the tip: her tongue immediately swirls. A hot little pulse. Her cheeks hollow.
"Yeah. Some could probably argue," your breath catches, the weight of the sensation, the fullness, your hips arch, your spine straightens. The electricity goes through your stomach and down your spine; you can feel the wave rolling along. Tzuyu giggling into the stiff line of your cock-
"Telling us both?" Tzuyu smiles again, running her lips slowly up and down the sides, teasing with her breath and her fingers running down the ridges. "What you want." She hums low, into the hot air.
You press your phone to your neck. "Can you, like-
Tzuyu pulls her mouth off your cock. Just sits there blinking. “Hm?” she asks, tugging a strand of her hair from the corner of her mouth.
“Just please stay quiet, or something- this is already harder than I thought it would be," the joke is as unsubtle as they come, "jesus, okay-" and put the phone back to your ear, "shit, Sana- can you, like-"
Her fucking mouth. The seal, the press - the tongue swirling around your head. Fuck.
“Yeah, babe? What do you want to know?”
The words aren't coming and a very obvious swallow is, Tzuyu leaning closer, and her fingers tangle with yours - guiding you closer, guiding your hand to the ends of her hair.
"Explain," is somehow where you land, shaky. You stick the landing just enough that Sana might buy it. "What are you doing now?"
"Slow circles. On my nipples, pinching," her voice strains, then settles,"yeah, the tip's so sensitive. Jihyo was laughing that guys always obsess over her tits. Always wanna suck, or nibble and I'm like, girl, what the hell are you complaining for?" - Tzuyu inhales a huge breath, and then another: her lips, those eyes - open and glossy, every movement steady like she knows just how to make the wait worth it - "or, or maybe I'm just weird, because the first time I felt someone's teeth and their tongue. Fuck, like, I almost screamed. Or, cried. Literally."
"Hah," and Tzuyu brings her lips lower. Moves her hair gently out of the way to take the rest of you into her mouth: bobbing up, her lips puckering in some rhythm, and her tongue darts, swirls the edge of the cock. Tongue at the slit. The pressure. Fuck, your head falls back. Every breath sounds heavy, loud. "Fingers,” you huff, “are good too I'm sure. I’d be paying close attention. Making you feel good."
"Mhm." Sana agrees. "The little pinches, ugh, I could die happy if you did just that, it's that fucking amazing."
"Baby," you half-moan. You’re struggling. The mouth stops, then sinks: down, all the way. Fucking amazing. Fucking hell.
"Oh?" Sana laughs airly, "are you touching yourself, hm? No fair, are you going to leave me all lonely here-"
You can see that smirk. The fuckery that would come: Sana's version.
"Sir," Tzuyu mumbles, sounding muffled. Her mouth is a tight vise of warmth, and your hand threads through her hair again. You hold, tighten the ribbon a bit, and Tzuyu stares at you through half-lidded eyes: you don't think she'll blink until you make her cry, and by then-
“Fuck,” Sana says, totally flat, "I'm actually pretty wet," the emphasis, "so I'd like some real advice, y'know-"
You see her legs. The tops. The bottom, all the way down- and you inhale sharply, too much and too hard.
Tzuyu has her fist at the base of your cock and her palm is sliding down the slick flesh and, a moment later, up, meeting her mouth at the top of its stroke - and, without a goddamn care, she hollows her cheeks - puckers her lips along the surface.
You were right. "This is hell."
Sana hums a laugh. "Need me that bad, huh? We're missing each other by just a couple days."
You stroke the top of Tzuyu's hair, her bow bobbing in a nice little bounce. Sana would know better than to wear her hair up. To even go near this, her throat - you hold her jaw steady, maybe a second, the moment of recovery to make Tzuyu slow and careful: her tongue does a pass at the sensitive, rigid underside of the crown, the sudden movement - before she speeds up.
"Picturing your hand." She tells you in a languid tone.
"God," you half-say, half-moan, and Tzuyu is good. So fucking good, and the mouth is too damn eager and it's difficult to think.
You barely get your hand free to switch to speaker, then let it clatter to the side. Tzuyu grinning, her lips flushed red and wet and dragging over your cock, sliding down, her tongue doing another pass, swirling at the center, the flare-
"Thinking about you, actually, fuck," Sana has a hitch to her breath that wasn't quite there before. "Doing those things, that mouth all over, Jesus Christ - ah- my legs, my breasts, fuck- are you jerking off right now? You sound, well, pretty uh, yeah."
"Just saying," you breathe, as the shock and the sensations rise and fall; Tzuyu's edging you in her mouth, her own head starting to shake, her chin bobbing up and down the full, long line of your dick - she's never done anything by halves. "It's getting- I'm thinking about you, Sana, of course, and your- pretty cunt, god, of course, so- ah, close- you said you were wet?"
"Huh? Of course, dripping. Imagining you - your thick, your cock," Sana sorta giggles, out of it then-
Tzuyu moans. Her body is pliant and her shoulders roll; she sucks, her cheeks dip, her back arches, and all of the noises hit the air thick, all while Sana's voice sharpens - both girls, two. You're slipping off the cushion, and probably out of your mind. The ache builds and burns and yearns for some sort of release- 
"-how wet and tight I would feel, after so fucking long. Please, fuck, fuck-" you hear Sana, "would you, fuck, c'mon, how I would look, on top of you? Could feel- the stretch, your cock deep inside. The, fuck- friction."
There’s this beat, where it’s just Sana’s stiff breathing; you can picture her wrist between her thighs, the pump, the twist as her fingers run over and over again through the sound of her slick. You’re left wondering if she can hear too, the mouth trailing kisses along your balls, tongue gliding back up and swallowing your length whole.
“Mnph.” Tzu chokes down a little.
And you look down, you have to eventually - to see the steady stare. Tzuyu's brows pinched and her eyelashes fanning out over the hollowed curve of her cheekbones. Pretty, fuck. Beautiful. So sexy: she looks up, swallows you back, like a fucking slut. Her mouth, wet, messy, hot, and her body-
"Third finger, by the way," Sana strains, "'cause- fuck, my pussy - my tight little hole would be swallowing your cock so damn good."
"Mmm, fuck." You're reduced to your base instincts, pulling Tzuyu's hair, dragging her wet, velvety mouth onto your shaft - she follows willingly, no question of her pace slowing, but - more, and more, and you could probably cum in her mouth if her hands weren't clasped firmly over your thighs and you weren't brushing away the tears pricking the ends of Tzuyu's lashes- you won't tell. Not with your fingers. Fuck. Her nails bite at the skin of your bare legs. She looks angry, insistent. Choking.
Sana sounds just as out of sorts, out of breath, "you would feel so fucking good. Look so good. Let me have it- whatever I need, yeah?" And you think she's close: it's that keen edge, a faint, broken whine. She's never going to finish any way except- "would you, inside me? Y'know- make me cum, real full. God- are you close? Would you make a mess out of me? Of my pretty pussy?"
“Okay, holy fuck-" and the question barely even hits you. 
Tzuyu is glaring now, shaking: she wants you to lose it, and she looks furious, holding her fingertips, her thumb on the base of your cock: a new pressure, a new feeling, a new pulse, a new high- she wants you to forget about Sana, maybe. What she sounds like, how she looks. Her legs wide, her bare, slicked skin on display. For you, yes. Fucking her until she- "uh, baby," and this time, your voice makes her smile, and her teeth drag. You wince. Her pupils are blown out, and there's a flush building in her chest. "Where are you?"
"Laying down. Flat- god. Where I'm always-" and you imagine a plane of soft, tanned, toned legs, her wide hips, "I'd, yeah, in a second. Pressure at my back- it would feel so fucking good, y’know, if you were here."
You have no doubt in your mind: Sana would be gorgeous. Even from the back, she'll be hotter, fuck, she always is, especially like that - and the movement of Tzuyu's fingers tightens against the straining, needy ache, and- 
"Please, fuck, fuck- need to-"
"Would cum- a lot, that's it- over my back. Oh, yes, all over my back. My ass. Messy. fuck that's actually so good, jesus christ-" and then Sana lets out another soft keen and a shout - and it's so sweet and high-pitched and familiar, almost musical; she's cumming, hard. You're only a second, a third behind and-
Your balls draw tight and a coil in your stomach unfurls-
Tzuyu sees you, grins, your eyes trained on the pink of her mouth and her perfect, wet lips and the deep brown eyes - her dimpled cheek is the softest fucking thing - but the rest, her mouth, her wet heat: it's pure sensation. The tight vise of a throat swallowing, the taste on the flat of her tongue. You've got your cock shoved deep in her mouth, and you're not easy to take. Fucking Tzuyu's face, thrusting and the throbs of your cock pumping out a hot, heavy spill. More and more: sticky, filling, spreading out from the corners of her lips. Tzuyu gurgles, struggling - fuck, finally letting go with a weak pop, falling back, and the white mess runs hot over her mouth. Your release smeared across her lips, dripping off her jaw - fucking christ - her tongue, her eyelashes - a wild mess of fluid. It splatters against her pale skin - runs down the hollow of her throat to the edges of her chest. She has her fingers working fast still, a squelching tight fist: you cum all over the stupid, cutesy bow too. It's all you see, the only thing-
“Fuck,” Sana says, oblivious. “That’s good.”
-before your eyelids shutter close, a ringing in your ears and your heart racing; and, not far, another sigh, followed by the slide of your phone down the couch.
"Aw, you done already?" Sana says. Lazily. You can see the look on her face, probably rubbing her pussy and thinking about more - if there’s any two ways the girls compare, it’s this allergic reaction to anything like temperance or moderation. You need new friends, new lovers; this can’t last.
"Uh-huh." The back of your head digs into the couch cushions. Fuck. Sana. Phone. On speaker. Oh. Right. Shit. "But I was- mnph. Uhh." Your brain has lost a lot of blood. It's doing nothing. Nothing but losing blood. You wish it’d stop. “I’m here, Sana, talk to me.”
Sana giggles at that, delighted, "don't tell me you're in such bad shape I need to save you-"
"The uh," your voice slurs. Then you're pulling the phone to you, closer. Fuck. Yeah. You're an idiot. Your breath is heavy: "I could go for more, yeah, how’re you feeling?"
"So fucking tired." Her breathing sounds less ragged. A full breath. A pout: a poor me.
"Hmm." Tzuyu crawls onto you. Slides the fabric of your shirt between her palms, up and down your ribs. She pushes the sweater and tee away. Bares your stomach- then kisses there. Lower, and then rises, looking through her lashes. It's clear: a demand. She'll be insisting, pressing down on you, kissing, running her teeth along the edges of your shoulders, your neck. She’ll kiss you right now if you let her - until she sinks into a promise at the center of your body. Your back is arching off the leather from the sensitivity, and Tzuyu has her lips all over you - smiling when your hands tangle with the long strands of her hair.
She pauses. You drop a hand to Tzuyu's waist. Pinch.
"Ow-" she says, coming across slightly betrayed. 
And, satisfied with the expression her face, the phone cradled between your chin, her lips warm over your ribs, her head tickling the edges of your jaw, you keep laughing, or you want to, but Tzuyu takes you between her thighs, lifts a little on your cock - her eyes widen: she's testing your flexibility. Trying to drag this out, trying for teasing. She’s good at that (a verifiable truth), but you’re you - you see right through it: she likes how it feels, the thickness and size of you. Tzuyu keeps sliding slowly down the full length, letting you fill her inch by inch - her slick heat feels unbearable.
“God,” she mutters, and she’s making the dreamiest expression - the blush in her cheeks, the eyelids hung low, the mouth slightly agape - she lifts up, then slams all the way to the base, flush. You grab anything you can to hold onto. Her legs. Her ass. Her thighs. Her jaw. That perfect little fucking waist.
She’s sublime. Your cock is bathing in her slick, the wet heat, the throbbing pulses - she's gasping in your lap, like she can’t believe how good you feel filling her cunt.
"Sana," you grit, "there's- nothing else in the world I'd rather do right now than shove my cock-” 
“Ugh,” Sana sighs in agreement, in imaginary bliss. “In my little fucking pussy- you’re making me miss you, or something, jesus-”
You squeeze her thigh and her lips quirk, just barely, a challenge.
"Want put a nice thick load" - the hand on Tzuyu's hip brings her down in your lap, fucking up hard as her chest racks with breath - "in your slutty little cunt" - you fuck her faster, the sounds of flesh against flesh obscene - "fill up your pussy, princess. Would cum in it until" - and the last inch of your cock, filling Tzuyu’s cunt, you've no control - "you're a mess, you're dripping in it-"
Tzuyu's movements still. A pause. Her hips. Your own, and all the rest, every nerve in your body is on fire. 
She moves with the most graceful slide, her wet lips gliding - gripping - up your cock. Then, down. The quiet. The lull. The pause before she does it again. She has cum all over her face, and she’ll kill you. You’ll let her.
"God. We'll have to get around to it," Sana finally tells you, dryly, "when this fucking snow clears. Say hi to Tzuyu for me won’t you?"
-
You're not a bad person. 
(The reassurance that you aren’t - or don’t want to be? - is probably still not super convincing. There's some line drawn there, blurred, crossed, and thoroughly annihilated by your actions, you think, vaguely, but maybe it's better if no one sees, hears, finds out. The finer details matter a lot less at that point.)
You're like anybody else: you get desperate to hold onto something, somebody, even for just a moment. Sometimes you don’t even need a reason at all.
Tzuyu is stepping out of the shower, her head bobbing: it takes everything in you not to drag her back in there. She’d let you. She wouldn’t even complain.
You can hear the catch and the slide of a bath towel, the wisp of water hitting the bottoms of her feet and trailing, an exaggerated moan - a gesture, meant to entice, a suggestion: fuck her right back in the shower until her hair is plastered to her cheeks, and she's panting. Or the steam lifts her breasts in a gentle, humid press. That mouth on the tiles - sobbing.
“Tzu,” you call out, and she just continues humming some indifferent tune. 
You pull a thick sweater over your head: it's gray wool, and it's all clean and good and new. When she wraps her arms around you, a deep inhale: a grin, then a shiver. She's naked and dripping everywhere, wet hair leaving a trail in its wake. She burrows her face in the folds of fabric at your spine - and if you turned, the slightest movement, the smooth line of her torso would be exposed, and your fingers could trace down her belly button, the tips dipping between her legs-
The window is fogging at the bottom, the steam slipping out in tendrils - but the heat can't compete against the girl all wet and dripping, and it does nothing but give way to the cold, seeping in.
"I still think it's funny," she says, all matter of fact. "It's weird that this isn't awkward."
“What’s that?”
She's at the doorway.
“Us. Being here.”
You turn, and Tzuyu pulls at your sweater: looking for attention, always seeking out the easy praise. Her hand automatically slides beneath the cloth of your collar, drawing your jaw up for a short, hard kiss.
"Okay," and there's a small nod, the line of her throat pulsing as she breathes, "yeah," her chest rising and falling.
"Look at you,” you tell her. “All dry and tidy. Cute. "
A dumb comment earns you the tiniest smile, then she's leaning back, taking her hands to her hair and wringing out the water, pulling and tugging at the tangles - the towel wraps around her waist again and again, and she looks good, clean: it makes you think of what comes later. Not having to give a fuck - at least not for a little while.
"Jeez," she's shivering, still, and rubbing the tops of her arms, "and Sana is gonna be, like, all over you once she gets the chance. Wants a nice lay too, from the sound of it. Was being honest about that. Seems pretty pent up."
“Maybe you can help,” you offer, a bit flippant. She smiles - but in all seriousness, it’s a resounding: no.
There's something else, too, as she runs her fingertips, absently, through her hair - it falls flat on her neck and around her bare shoulders, dark against the lightness of her skin, but somehow you get the impression that she's not entirely preoccupied. "Y'know, I had a really good time and all, but I'm not the homewrecker type, yeah - it's not worth the stress," a slight shrug, like she isn't certain, her mind a little more tangled than usual, and for good reason, too, "probably won't hook up ever again."
"Gloomy," you tease.
"Don’t act like you're not going to miss it," she says, conspiratorial - and Tzuyu plants herself where you can feel her in your space - but she doesn't press. "Even when you're keeping busy, you'll have the smallest reminder, like - aha, Tzuyu would've really liked this, or that - when, y'know - you're stuck somewhere, thinking about the weather," and her cheeks are heating with color as her tongue forms the syllables - and the meaning is clear now as it always was.
“Even if you’re like, totally smitten, or whatever with her,” she adds, smirking.
"Sana will be back to her usual antics in no time. Being annoying and forward and whatever," you reply. "Won't miss much."
The girl's expression flickers a little - a slight twitch - but otherwise, a flat look.
She fixes the lay of her towel across her wide hips. You reach for her arm: pull at it, pulling her toward.
"I mean- Sana and I have a few things in common, anyway. Something in common. Can both be a spoilsport. Dull. Can be a bit, uh, territorial, if you you know-"
The rest is cut off, the words running into a kiss, deep and desperate; there's no place like her mouth: soft, eager, hot.
"And our usual antics?" she asks.
She leans into you, the chill starting to set, a fire burning nearby: something clandestine that maybe shouldn't last as long as it does. A log settling against the others, another plume of heat, and you say, a touch solemn,
"Dunno if we've ever been in common about anything, babe."
"Jeez. You don't have to spell it out like that, do you?" Tzuyu laughs lightly, holding the bath towel at her hips - her breasts are bare. They fall without support, her nipples, the slope of her ribs, everything. "I mean, how cruel."
(It isn't really. Because, here's the thing. In the grand scheme of things, Chou Tzuyu was never really supposed to happen at all.)
-
The snow clears, like all things you suppose, slowly and with a sigh: with the change in winds and a promise for a gradual spring. Tzuyu steals a shirt. Doesn't seem inclined to return it, says she's good at letting her imagination do half the work in lieu of the actual sex. (The nip is like a sting: it'll last longer, apparently. The bruising at the edges of her waist is more abstract.)
You’re in the driveway. Tzuyu’s leaning back on her luggage.
She kisses you like she wants to make you lose something: her lipstick, her mind, her heart or soul. And when her arms slide, her mouth parting - her tongue darting and sweeping, taking - Tzuyu knows a good many things about herself. She knows you, too. What makes her wet, what gets her off. What part of you will always come back to her. But her hair falls heavy: so much silk. She's laughing - a grin and she's licking the pink right off her teeth and she's beautiful and you think you'll want this always:
A girl like her, kissing so eager for you-
"You can totally say it first," she tells you, that mouth at the edge of your ear.
"Um," you say, and she settles down a little further, her wrists locked behind your neck. "You are so: clingy."
The look she gives you is adorable. All dimple, no worry. “Yeah, so?”
“How is that fair?”
"I don't really care if it is or isn’t. We’d be good together - and that’s a fact. So say something good, or I'm getting in that cab right now."
So you do. You do. The first word, the syllable, the way you ask her, the sound that is something like: mine, and the way it dries the edge of your throat; you kiss it away and she giggles because maybe this means, after a while, you really are as terrible as she always hoped.
She'll give you everything. She says, yours, and it would always be you; she halts a bit, and says it like she’s thawing a revelation, one that’s been there since the start - says she loves you and she always has. You laugh and she says it again: always.
-
Sana ends up standing in the cabin a day later. The same place you stood, watching Tzuyu lick yogurt off her spoon. Her coat looks expensive. There's her purse. The boots. That red-painted mouth. Her eyes are fixed, and she sees nothing out of the ordinary. Which is probably, you think, ideal.
"That's funny," her face betrays nothing.
The cabin smells a little like burning wood, vaguely: peppermint tea. An electric kind of heat and the warmth of the sun. It had smelled like evidence prior, the way a girl gets with her underwear missing, hair a tangled mess, body sore and aching, a wet bed. You'd looked like a pair of kids caught in a terrible storm, a lovers' quarrel in a small space - or, just: well-fucked.
"What's funny?" is how you finally manage.
"I just mean," she starts again, "she used to have like. The craziest crush on you. It would’ve been cute if it wasn't sorta sad. Did you know? You couldn't, I guess." She shrugs: a heavy lift of her shoulders, a release. The tension is leaking everywhere. "Must've been torture for her to get stuck here with you."
"Huh," you say, like you were missing something, which is exactly the wrong tone and definitely the wrong sentiment. “Oh, the crush. That. Sure.” You’re suppressing a smile. “Torture, yeah. Hey. Don't worry about it. I’m sure we’ll be fine."
-
(You can’t stop running it back through your head, her long dark hair disappearing into the cab. She loves you and you love her, and it’s got this beautiful caveat of being something simple-complex. Like, who would ever believe any of this? Like, who else even matters? 
You say, you belong to me, and she agrees without even thinking. 
“You always knew, though. From the start, you always did. I was never going to be anyone else's," and then she pouts. "Wouldn’t hurt telling me, from time to time."
And the mountains have a way of feeling like the end, sounding like the closing score, the credits - you look out at the white caps and reflect: maybe you shouldn’t have let her go. Maybe you should chase after her. Maybe you could still make it work. Maybe you should consider that a promise.
You look up at the sky, the pale blue - and maybe you can afford to let her go. 
You know you’ll only find your way back.)
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indigovigilance · 8 months
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A Nightingale Sang in 1941
This is my inaugural meta (yay!) Eventually I will learn how to add gifs and whatnot to make this more interesting but today, I give you a wall of text.
I need to give credit where credit is due to three existing metas that I’m drawing upon heavily here:
A speculative continuation of the 1941 story, which includes an almost-kiss while “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” plays on the gramophone,
A behavioral analysis of Aziraphale during the S2E6 finale (will find ref later if possible)
A meta-analysis of the way in which “coffee” is used as a symbolic equivalent for liberty and freedom of choice, a running theme of this show (will find ref later if possible)
I’m going to expand upon meta #2 and #3 and explain why I think there is are very compelling reasons to believe that #1 will be canonized.
At the end of S1E6, an instrumental version of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” plays diegetically, but the lyrical version plays non-diegetically over the credits (we hear it but the protagonists don’t). So we the audience could plausibly say “that’s their song,” but as of the close of S1, we have no reason to believe that they know that it’s their song. Even Aziraphale’s S1E3 (1967) suggestion that they dine at the Ritz could be a reference that only he gets, or just a fancy restaurant suggestion.
So when I was watching S2E6 and Crowley said “no nightingales,” I was jarred. What does that even mean? We know it has something to do with dining at the Ritz, but what does it mean to them? The reference only works if they know it’s their song. But we’ve only ever seen them hear it together after the averted apocalypse; if this is the direct reference that Crowley is making, it leaves our 1967 reference contextless and twisting in the wind.
If we assume that there was a romantic story beat in 1941, wherein “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” (which, incidentally, was written in 1939 and saw the height of its popularity at the end of 1940, so timeline-wise it’s spot-on) became their song, then a lot of events get renewed interpretations through this lens, in a way that makes this story much more cohesive and the “no nightingales” comment even more soul-shattering than it already was.
Let’s presume that immediately after this became their song and just as they were discovering their romantic potential, they were forced back into hiding. Forever after, references to the song serve as a macro for “I’d like to pick up where we left off that night.”
The 1967 suggestion of “dining at the Ritz” now becomes a directly romantic suggestion. It also gives better context for “you go too fast for me.”
Actually going to the Ritz in 2019 is not simply a celebration or even a callback to 1967, it’s a callback to their almost-romance of 1941.
When Crowley says “no nightingales” in 2023, this isn’t to say “we’re not going to eat together at the Ritz anymore.” It’s saying that the romance that began that night, the precious, fragile romance, is over.
I’ll give you a moment to dry your eyes before we move on to metas #2 and #3.
In light that this is what has been going on - they know they want a romantic relationship but have gotten so used to hiding and denying it that they are more comfortable keeping the status quo static and quo-y then trying to achieve their ideal - a lot of S2 behavior can get a fresh view.
Crowley’s reaction to Nina isn’t a realization that he’s in love - he knew that already. You can only ask someone to run away with you so many times before you are forced to admit some things to yourself. No, he’s realizing that trying to hide it (which was justified by survival), hasn’t been working, but despite failing at being stealth nothing bad has happened. He’s realizing that it may finally be safe to show it.
Crowley’s confession, then, is not a revelation. It’s making the subtext text. He’s not telling Aziraphale anything he didn’t already know. He’s saying it now because he thinks he’s safe to do so. Pin in that.
Lots of people have lots of theories about Aziraphale’s motivations in the S2 finale, which can more or less be divided into 4 camps: the genuinely held belief, the coffee theory, the lie theory, and the mutual trick theory (some version of the body-switching at the end of S1). Let me start by saying that I love all the fans and all their theories and I find their analyses to be insightful. The genuinely held belief theory, while I believe it to be erroneous, has been incredibly conducive to so many wonderful conversations and I love being in a community that has those conversations. But I’m going to explain why I think the lie theory finds the most support in canon.
Re-watch the finale (when you feel like you can) from 35:18 to 36:19 and then from 40:45 to the end, paying very close attention to Aziraphale’s words and his eyes. Michael Sheen is telling us a LOT with his eyes, and in the back half of the finale scene, with pacing.
For 60 seconds of footage, this setup is doing a lot of work. If Neil Gaiman wasn’t doing enough to beat us over the head with how evil the Metatron is, that glare at Crowley at the end with the non-diegetic ominous horns should convey the message. But again, focusing on Aziraphale. He initially refuses to talk to the Metatron; he’s made his position quite clear. There is no hint of regret or wavering; this is not someone who’s aching to return to the fold. The Metatron ignores his refusal and functionally forces him to accept a “cup of coffee.” The coffee isn’t spiked, but it is a metaphor. It is symbolic of choice. The Metatron is going to force Aziraphale to make a choice. Meta #3 does a great job of exploring the idea that a choice between anything and death is never really a choice. Hang onto that thought.
Notice I had you start up again 3 seconds before “The Conversation.” That’s because it’s important to note where the Metatron is right now. He is across the street, staring straight in through those giant windows to where our protagonists are about to have The Conversation. He is watching.
When Aziraphale returns, Crowley begins his “let me talk” riff. Aziraphale ought to be interested in what Crowley has to say, since the preamble is pretty compelling. You’ll notice that Aziraphale quickly turns to the window and back, through which he (but not we) can see the Metatron standing there, watching them. Aziraphale is then doing his best to get Crowley to STFU without raising the suspicion of the Metatron, eventually having to cut him off.
Because unfortunately, Crowley’s entire impetus for speaking up now is that it’s safe to do so. Only Aziraphale knows that they are in very real danger (or at least, Crowley is, but I’ll come back to that).
You might take something from the fact that he’s shaking his head while talking about “incredibly good news,” and seems to self-censor his criticism of Metatron (or more specifically, he takes ownership of any criticism of the Metatron, censoring out Crowley’s role in that, with the emphasis on I in “I might have misjudged him”).
Notice in the flashback that he begins the conversation reasonably relaxed. The Metatron also says a series of things about him that not only are false, but everyone, including the Metatron and Crowley, know are false: Aziraphale is not a leader, he’s a defector; he’s not honest, he lies all the time, in fact this entire season revolved around his one huge lie of hiding Gabriel. Not only does the justification not make sense coming from Metatron, but it shouldn’t make sense that Aziraphale would accept these reasons and it shouldn’t make sense to Crowley either. So is Aziraphale including these details in his recounting to Crowley so that he will get suspicious and figure out the jig? Maybe. Let’s continue.
Immediately upon being offered the job of Supreme Archangel, Aziraphale says “but I don’t want to go back to Heaven.” This is direct evidence against the genuinely held belief theory. If returning to Heaven and making a difference was a genuine motivation, we would have gotten a different response at this moment. But then we get something more.
“Where would I get my coffee?”
This is a beautiful response for a number of reasons; coffee should be trivial compared to the opportunity to be a Supreme Archangel, so it serves to highlight just how little interest Aziraphale has in returning. Taken at face value, it’s the Aziraphale equivalent of “not even at gunpoint.” But remember that coffee is a metaphor for liberty in this universe and this season. So what Aziraphale just said, in the language of Neil Gaiman metaphors, is:
I don’t want to go back to Heaven, I would rather have free will.
What does the Metatron do next?
He brings up Crowley.
Watch Aziraphale’s eyes before and after the mention of Crowley. He goes from confused to eye-flicking panic in the space of two syllables. Aziraphale already understands that his “no” is not being accepted, and that bringing Crowley into it can only possibly serve as a threat.
So the coffee, the choice, is a false choice. No one ever orders death. The Metatron has forced Aziraphale into a situation that looks an awful lot like a choice (it comes in a blue cup, after all) but it isn’t.
We definitely have some reliable narrator problems here. I’m going to presume for purposes of analysis that these cut-outs are accurate but incomplete, and that a more explicit threat about what would happen to Crowley if Aziraphale did not return to Heaven was made.
If we assume that Aziraphale has been made aware of a threat and is trying to hide that from Crowley, the rest of this scene reads very differently. Aziraphale cannot say, “you are in danger but you will be safe if you swear your allegiance to Heaven” or “I have to go, no matter what, and the only way we can be together is if you come with me,” but nonetheless he now has to convince Crowley to do the one thing he ought to know Crowley definitely doesn’t want to do all through subtext. Which we’ve spent an entire season establishing that they can’t communicate well when they are allowed to use their words. Disastrously, this is not a magic trick that Aziraphale can make work when it counts. Their failure to practice good communication means that, right now, when it counts most, they are not going to pull it off.
We see that Aziraphale is very hopeful that Crowley will pick up on his cues and play along. Obviously, he doesn’t.
If the whole riff about Hell being bad guys and Heaven being the side of truth and light is taken as genuine, it discards a massive amount of character development that we’ve witnessed in Job, Edinburgh, etc. (again, to all the genuine belief subscribers, I think it’s a compelling argument but it simply doesn’t account for the evidence). So if it’s not genuine, why say it? Again, to alert Crowley that something is Off, because Crowley should know that Aziraphale doesn’t actually believe that. They saved humanity from Heaven and Hell. They hid Gabriel from Heaven and Hell. Crowley knows that Aziraphale knows that Heaven and Hell are just two sides of the same coin. Notice again that Aziraphale glances out the window while he’s talking up Heaven; he knows the Metatron is watching, he can’t not defend the position of Heaven. I think it’s also worth noting that Aziraphale forcefully glances and gestures off to Crowley’s left (away from the window) when talking about Hell, and then turns his head to Crowley’s right (towards the window) to try to get him to realize that a representative of Heaven is literally standing right over there, just look out the window please dumbass!
When Crowley is asking Aziraphale if he said no, and we see the back of Aziraphale’s head, again we can see him turn his head to glance out the window. This is also when he changes strategies, and admits that Heaven could use a little reform. Because now there’s a problem almost as big as getting caught, which is that he won’t be able to get Crowley to go with him.
Which unfortunately makes the next part of this so much more heartbreaking. Because when Crowley begins his speech about being a team, Aziraphale wants to hear it. He can’t bring himself to shut down Crowley again, even though it could get them both in massive trouble. Notice that he glances out the window again during this, and the look of panic on his face. He begins to shake his head when Crowley mentions that Heaven and Hell are toxic; this can be taken a lot of ways but I’ll argue for the interpretation that he’s trying to get Crowley to STFU and stop saying shit that could get him destroyed.
After Crowley puts on his sunglasses we are in the “back half” and Sheen is doing a lot with phrasing here, specifically pregnant pauses.
“Come with me… to Heaven!”
“We can be together… as angels!”
Based on the pacing decision I am thoroughly convinced that the first half of each of these statements is intended to be the message to Crowley and the second half is always a qualifying statement to satisfy the Metatron.
Unfortunately, these pregnant pauses are completely backfiring in their effect on Crowley. The sentiment gives him hope and the qualifying statement crushes it again immediately. He is being taken on a horrible emotional rollercoaster with these declarations which are only further amping up his instinct to run away.
The only truly genuine, unaldulterated statement I think we get from Aziraphale is
“I need you!”
When it becomes clear to Aziraphale that there’s been an irreparable breakdown of communication between them and the subtext is not getting across, he says:
“I don’t think you understand what I’m offering you.”
He means this literally. Crowley has not understood that Aziraphale is offering him protection from whatever threat the Metatron has made.
Which makes this part extra-devastating and also absolutely in keeping with a major running theme of this season.
“I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do.”
Your understanding and my understanding are different understandings.
Crowley views the offer to return to Heaven through the lens of his trauma. He understands what life in Heaven would be like. But he doesn’t understand that Aziraphale is offering him protection.
But Aziraphale just heard Crowley say that he understood everything, and he’s still going to leave. There might be a little suspense of disbelief here to believe that Aziraphale really interpreted the statement this way, but we know that Aziraphale isn’t always the brightest battery-operated candle in the drawer. So under the assumption that Crowley did understand him and is still rejecting the offer, rejecting him—
“Well, then there’s nothing more to say.”
Please pay very close attention to Aziraphale’s body language for the next part. He’s active, agitated, turning side to side, arms swinging. This is a very fidgety angel.
“No nightingales.”
Aziraphale is now completely still. He’s feeling that feeling. You know it. The one where your entire body is getting sucked into the pit of your stomach. The aching paralysis.
This is their song, the one that began their romance in 1941, the secret code for all other attempts at flirtation. Crowley has walked out on him before, Aziraphale has been stubborn and obstinate before. But they always came back together, sometimes with an apology dance or other rituals that belonged solely to them.
But now the song is over.
By saying this, Crowley has broken up with Aziraphale. We can see in Aziraphale’s sudden transition from fidgety to paralysis that he has understood it this way.
Then he turns away from the window so that the Metatron won’t see him cry.
The kiss was heart-wrenching already. But we’re not done with this analysis.
During the kiss, Aziraphale has a choice to make between two very compelling bad choices. This is the Job dilemma. But worse.
If he doesn’t kiss Crowley back, he will let Crowley think that he doesn’t love him. He will have missed out on this (maybe/probably their first kiss?) and regret it forever.
If he does kiss Crowley back, in full view of the Metatron, they are in deep trouble.
He seems to do his best to split the difference. I would even go so far to say that the awkward arm waving is Aziraphale acting for the Metatron’s benefit, to try to portray that he doesn’t want this even though he absolutely does (just not like this). The anguish when they break the kiss is absolutely real, and the first thing he does is glance out the window. Through all this he has remained painfully aware of their spectator.
He wants to say I love you. He mouths it. He breathes it.
But the Metatron is watching.
He can’t tell Crowley I love you. So he has to say the only other thing that has always unequivocally meant “I love you” when he said it to Crowley. He has to hope that Crowley understands him now, even though he never has before.
Spoiler alert: Crowley doesn’t.
My forgiveness and your forgiveness are not the same forgiveness.
One more point against the genuine belief fans (I love you): if the offer to let Crowley back in is what changed his mind, then Crowley declining removes that incentive. Aziraphale should/would have consequently retreated to his last stated position of “I don’t want to go back to Heaven, where would I get my Crowley—I mean, coffee?” [post-publication nod to @theonevoice for a great little meta] It simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
I think a lot of fans were already making these assumptions about the use of the nightingale song so this meta may not feel revelatory, however, it isn’t canon (yet), and I’m sure I’ll find company that agree that canonization of this connection would strengthen a lot of these story points, as evidenced by how it is already assumed by many fans.
If you made it to the end - omg thank you! Please leave a note and tell me your thoughts!
Bonus: somebody already made the song connection here
~~~
if you liked this, you may also like:
Book of Life and what it means for Crowley
The Erasure of Human!Metatron
Baraqiel and Azazel
~~~
Recommended related (lie theory) metas by other people:
making the subtext text by @theonevoice
Aziraphale's Decision Matrix by @yowlthinks
Nothing Lasts Forever: META by @phoen1xr0se
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psychoticallytrans · 9 months
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I believe very strongly that if you want to be an ally to marginalized groups, you should absolutely read and watch material bigoted against them.
This is because one of the big things that radicalization pipelines benefit from is the principle I've seen framed as "milk before meat", where they feed you palatable, easily digestible ideas, often with a kernel of truth, in order to work you up to the core of the bigoted ideology. If you go to the meat first, you will choke on it. This will make you more easily able to spot it when they try to feed you the milk, and more resistant because you know the meat it's building up to.
There are two keys. First, you need to start with the meat, and second, you need to read it with a sharply critical eye.
If you're looking to read something fatphobic, for example, Harry Potter may be a great mainstream example, but it's in a way that is so culturally acceptable that it can slip by if you aren't looking for it. "None For You: How Fat People Are Ruining America and the Planet and What You Can Do About It", on the other hand, is rather obvious in its biases, allowing an amateur to see them clearly for easier interrogation of the premise. Most bigoted material can be acquired by piracy or through your local library. This is one of the big reasons that libraries stock bigoted material.
Then, start noting down all of the things that the material says that seem to make sense, or that you are sure are true. There's no shame in this. Bigoted ideas are ingrained in your upbringing, and on top of this, a lot of bigots will take real problems and build on them in ways that are bigoted.
For instance, anti-immigrant sentiment in the USA is often bolstered by the fact that wages in the USA are effectively decreasing, along with job security. They say that this is because immigrants are taking the jobs, decreasing the amount of value that is available to USAmericans. To a USAmerican who does not know much about immigrants, but does know that their paycheck buys less and less, this sounds like a plausible explanation.
Then, later, look up exactly what they are saying. What are the real issues? (Racism and unchecked capitalism.) Why are they being used to bolster this argument? (Because it takes the heat off of powerful people and puts it on powerless ones, redirecting the hate to people it can more easily hurt, which satisfies the rage of the USAmerican, drives a wedge between them and immigrants, and takes heat off of the powerful.) What are real ways to tackle the real issue? (Solidarity with immigrant workers, especially undocumented ones, unions, and working for better social safety nets.) Why did I fall for that? (You did not have enough information.) Can I notice this rhetoric in the future and avoid falling for it? (Yes.)
Know that many of the ideas you encounter will be normal. Much bigotry is normal. Normal is not automatically good or right.
Know that there will be useful ideas interspersed with some bigotry. A lot of people with useful ideas have been bigots. This does not mean we must discard their ideas, nor that we must accept the bigotry. It does mean that we need to critically examine the ideas to see if they are rooted in and/or affected by the bigotry, and if it is possible to effectively remove them from their bigoted origins, or if the bigotry is so wound into the ideas that they is no longer useful if you wish to avoid harming the group the thinker was bigoted against.
This is difficult work to do. It is intellectually intensive, and emotionally exhausting. You will start seeing bigotry in all kinds of places, including media you thought of as "good" and "progressive", and that will also be emotionally exhausting and dispiriting. It will also mean that you are no longer passively absorbing those bigoted ideas because you settled on the idea that this media is "good" and that as long as you only consume "good" media, you will be free of bigoted ideas- a premise that is disturbingly popular for how incorrect it is. Knowing how to recognize and discard bigotry in works is far, far more useful than flatly refusing to consume more overtly bigoted works.
One way to make it easier is to form reading groups, so that you can lean on each other when reading something that's affecting you badly. It also means that there's more than one person processing the bigotry, so other people might notice more subtle parts of the bigotry that slipped past you in your own reading, allowing you to have a fuller picture of the book. If you can't form a reading group, more famous bigoted works often have criticism available online for you to read through. Remember to do your own research. What makes doing this so valuable is increasing your own ability to detect bigotry and to think critically about material you are consuming.
You do not have to limit yourself to traditional media, either. There are forums and social media bubbles that are hotbeds of bubbling, seething bigotry that is more extreme and repugnant than the vast majority of published work. Reading these conversations can be useful for the exact same reasons that reading overtly bigoted books, articles, letters, and essays can be, and they often contain more up to date dogwhistles. However, this is a riskier move. Social media is built to make you keep scrolling, and you can easily find yourself at your wits end and vulnerable to a bigot whose rhetoric is slightly less obvious than the others. In addition, it can be tempting to interact- at which point the bigots will either attack you or try to recruit you, both of which are damaging to you. Only read the conversations of bigots if you are well supported and have strong impulse control, and read them in small doses.
You are not immune to propaganda, but you can partially inoculate yourself into being less vulnerable by consuming it in controlled circumstances that match your ability to recognize it as such and reject it.
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transmutationisms · 4 months
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from a non-academic, i find parts of comphet to be useful (heterosexuality becomes compulsory when you’re raised in a heterosexual society) but the foundations . suck. what do we do with theories like this, that have touched on a truth but also carry a lot of garbage? can we separate the truth from the founder?
i have to be slightly pedantic and say that i don't think rich's essay is an example of this phenomenon. my central issue with her formulation is its bioessentialist assumptions about human sex and therefore also sexuality. if i say "capitalism includes economic mechanisms that enforce heterosexual behaviour and exclude other possibilities", then what i mean by "heterosexual" is plainly not the same as what rich means—and for this reason i would seldom formulate the statement this way, without clarifying that i am talking about the enforcement of heterosexuality as a part of the creation and defence of sex/gender categories themselves. so rich and i do not actually agree on the very fundamental premises of this paper! rich was not the first or only person to point out that economic mechanisms as well as resultant social norms enforce heterosexual pairings; i actually don't even think the essay does a very clear job of interrogating the relationship between labour, economy, and the creation of sex/gender; she means something different and essentialist to what i mean by sex and sexuality; and i think her proposed responses to the phenomenon she identifies as 'compulsory heterosexuality' are uninteresting because they mainly propose psychological answers to a problem arising from conditions of political economy. so, in regards to this specific paper, i am actually totally comfortable just saying that it's not a useful formulation, and i don't feel a need to rescue elements of it.
in general, i do know what you're talking about, and i think there's a false dichotomy here: as though we must either discard an idea entirely if it has elements we dislike, or we accept it on the condition that we can plausibly claim these elements and their author are irrelevant. these are not comprehensive options. instead, i would posit that every theory, hypothesis, or idea is laden with context, including values held and assumptions made by their progenitors. the point is not to find a mythical 'objective' truth unburdened by human bias or mistakes; this is impossible. instead, i think we need to take seriously the elements of an idea that we object to. why are they there? what sorts of assumptions or arguments motivate them, and are those actually separable from whatever we like in the idea? if so, can we be clear about which aspects of the theory are still useful or applicable, and where it is that the objectionable elements arise? and if we can identify these points, then what might we propose instead? this is all much more useful, imo, than either waiting for a perfect morally unimpeachable theory or trying to 'accept' a theory without grappling with its origins (political, social, intellectual).
a recent example that you might find interesting as a kind of case study is j lorand matory's book the fetish revisited, which argues that the 'fetish' concept in freud's and marx's work drew from their respective understandings of afro-atlantic gods. in other words, when marx said capitalists "fetishise" commodities or freud spoke about sexual "fetishism", they were each claiming that viewing an object as agentive, meaning-laden in itself (ie, devoid of the context of human meaning-making as a social and political activity) was comparable to 'primitive' and delusory religious practices.
matory's point here isn't that we should reject marx's entire contribution to political economy because he was racist, nor is it that we can somehow accept parts of what marx said by just excising any racist bits. rather, matory asks us to grapple seriously with the role that marx's anthropologically inflected racism plays in his ideas, and what limitations it imposes on them. why is it that marx could identify the commodity as being discursively abstracted and 'fetishised', but did not apply this understanding to other ideas and objects in a consistent way? and how is his understanding of this process of 'fetishisation' shaped by his beliefs about afro-atlantic peoples, and their 'intelligence' or civilisational achievements in comparison to northwestern europeans'? by this critique matory is able to nuance the fetish concept, and to argue that marx's formulation of it was both reductive and inconsistently applied (analogously to how freud viewed only some sexuality as 'fetishistic'). it is true in some sense that capital and the commodity are reified and abstracted in a manner comparable to the creation of a metaphysical entity, but what we get from matory is both a better, more nuanced understanding of this process of meaning-making (incl. a challenge to the racist idea of afro-atlantic gods as simply a result of inferior intelligence or cultural development), and the critical point that if this is fetishism, then we must understand a lot more human discourse and activity as hinging on fetishisation.
the answer of what we do with the shitty or poorly formulated parts of a theory won't always be the same, obviously; this is a dialogue we probably need to have (and then have again) every time we evaluate an idea or theory. but i hope this gives you some jumping-off points to consider, and an idea of what it might look like to grapple with ideas as things inherently shaped by people—and our biases and assumptions and failings—without assuming that means we can or should just discard them any time those failings show through. the point is not to waste time trying to find something objective, but to understand the subjective in its context and with its strengths and limitations, and then to decide from there what use we can or should make of it.
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hedgehog-moss · 1 year
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The story of my 3-year-long quest to identify a very rare bird
So I've been trying almost since I moved here to figure out what bird made this strange call that I sometimes heard near my house:
I tried to google "european bird that sounds like a laughing hyena?" and also to imitate the noise over the phone for a friend who once took an online bird course, but she had no idea. (Well, she said "that's a hyena." I said, "but I hear it all the time! Near my house!! Wait I'll do it better." She said, please stop making a hyena noise :(( and I stopped because the cats thought I was losing my mind)
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Eventually I managed to record the actual bird call on my phone, and used a Shazam app for birds—but once again, no luck. The first app I tried just assumed it was being trolled and was like "it's you, isn't it? That's not a bird that's your stupid human laugh, you're making fun of me. I'm not an idiot"
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The second birdsong app was more insecure and apologised a lot for failing to identify my bird. I thought it must be a rare bird! (The only uncommon bird I know of in this region is the vulture but it sounds less like a hyena and more like if elephants were birds.) Every time I heard the call (usually during the day) I opened the window trying to a) get a better recording so my app would finally have an epiphany, and b) see something flying off a tree.
At one point I was cutting brooms in the pasture and heard the call very loudly, as if the bird was just a few metres away, and it wasn't coming from the sky. I googled every possible version of "flightless (?) bird that nests in thorny bushes?" and found nothing, and started wondering if it was actually a mammal. But I couldn't think of any plausible local mammal that would make this sound—definitely not a fox or badger, who say WAOOHHH, and nothing like the polite whistle of marmots. We've got pine martens in the woods and I found a video called "mating pine marten scream bark" and thought oh!! that must be it! ... but then I listened to it and it sounded like yiiiaaaaaeeeeee, like if you stepped on a baby banshee's toe, nothing at all like the heheeheuruurhh of a hyena who just heard a good joke.
Anyway, this morning I was in the pasture and I once again heard the hyena laugh! I was standing by the moose butler tying up the hay net, away from any trees or shrubs and the call came from just behind me. I turned around thinking there was absolutely no way for the mystery bird to hide, it had landed on the ground behind me and this time I was going to see it!
And
it was HER:
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Absolutely no doubt. I saw Pampy's throat vibrating along with the last echoes of the hyena laugh. All these years I've been saying that llamas are very quiet animals who just make cute little "hum-hum" sounds (I rarely hear adult llamas humming to one another, it's mostly for mother llamas to communicate with their baby and with me) and I had no idea that the shrieking hyena-bird I occasionally heard outside my house was Pampelune! I googled "llama alarm cry" and immediately found youtube videos featuring llamas making this exact sound. There was a stray dog nearby this morning that Pandolf eventually chased away, so maybe Pampy was the first to hear him and sounded the alarm. Maybe she uses this cry to tell Pan to go do his guard dog job, because he left the pasture and ran into the woods when she made the sound (while I was turning round like "aha! you can't run, hyena-bird!")
I wanted to share this discovery! I've had llamas for nearly 4 years and I'm only now finding out that they can laugh like hyenas when the situation calls for it. I feel bad for the poor birdsong app that I've repeatedly gaslighted feeding it a llama call and insisting that it identify this bird for me while it hung its head in shame like "I swear I don't have your bird in my database. I'm so sorry. I'm a bad app."
Llamas are fascinating creatures. Please experience their majestic alarm call again, and be alarmed:
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