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#but there's a long tradition of those dating back to the greeks so. were the greeks cringe? that's the real question

calabria-mediterranea · 3 months

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Occitan is still spoken in Southern Italy's Calabria

Blessed with one of the most beautiful languages, Italy is also home to a plethora of linguistic minorities, twelve to be precise, across fourteen regions, with almost three million speakers. The Occitan linguistic minority of the Alpine valleys of Northern Italy's Piedmont and Liguria is probably one of the most well known, also because of the importance the language had in the history of European culture and literature: the Langue d’Oc and its poetry inspired the troubadours of Provence, in Southern France. In those days, Occitan was spoken in the South of France, from the Atlantic to the Alps, but today only small pockets of Occitan-speaking people exists, mostly across the Alpine valleys of France, Liguria, Piedmont and in thr town Guardia Piemontese, in Southern Italy's Calabria.

How did Occitan speaking people end up from the mountains of Northern Italy to the southernmost region of the Italian peninsula?

It’s a long story, one that brings us back to the 13th century, to a religious minority called Waldensians and to the fact Calabria is known for being a welcoming land for all those seeking refuge, from Greeks to Albanians and Jews.

The Waldensian movement had developed in the Cottian Alps between France and Northern Italy towards the end of the 12th century, most likely thanks to the contributions of Peter Waldo (from whom the movement took its name). Waldensians lived a life of asceticism and poverty, but some of their more extreme views — lack of faith in transubstantiation and having associated the Catholic church with the “harlot of the Apocalypse” — turned them into religious pariah and victims of persecution across Europe.

A considerable group of Waldensians moved to Calabria in the 13th century to escape persecution in Northern Italy and the land of Calabria proved to be a blessing, because its fertile soil allowed the development of a prosperous community.

Guardia Piemontese is a town on the Western coast of Northern Calabria.

The date of Guardia's foundation is unknown, and the name of the place has changed several times in history. "Guardia" means watch or lookout, and this name is probably related to a lookout tower built in the 11th century. Such lookout towers were built to warn against Arab pirates, then called Saracens, ravaging the coast.

For the first century, the community of Guardia cohabited peacefully with their Catholic neighbors, but things tragically changed when the Waldensians decided to join the Protestant Reform: then, they became the enemy and victims of a religious persecution that was to obliterate them in the early summer of 1561. Those tragic events are still remembered today in Guardia Piemontese, thanks to a monument called La Porta del Sangue, (the Gate of blood), a memento to the violence that killed so many and forced many others to conversion.

Despite the suppression of their religion, the people of Guardia, or La Gàrdia, as they call it, have continued to use their distinct Occitan dialect, Gardiòl. Not surprisingly, it has been influenced by the speech of their neighbours in Calabria. For example, Gardiòl has adopted the use of retroflex consonants, common in Sicily and southern Italy.

The traditions that the Waldensians brought from Piedmont to Calabria, such as the Occitan language and certain customs, have survived over the centuries right through to the present day.

In 1863 the name Guardia was changed to Guardia Piemontese, to honor the geographical origins of the Waldensians.

On 5 June 2011, 450 years after the massacre in Guardia, the Waldensian Church opened a museum and cultural centre in the town. The museums tells the story of how the Waldensians arrived all the way in Calabria and preserves agricultural tools, the traditional clothing of Guardia Piemontese, made with a particular yarn of broom and the famous hurdy gurdy, an French instrument of medieval origins. In the Occitan valleys in Italy, the hurdy-gurdy was the traveling companion of buskers.

The Waldensian Church and the municipal authorities now collaborate closely in cultural affairs. Numerous ecumenical events have been planned together with the local Catholic community to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

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rabbitcruiser · 2 months

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Pi Day

Pi Day is on March 14, and any day that combines fun, education, and pie is a day worth celebrating! Pi, also known by the Greek letter “π,” is a constant value used in math that represents the ratio of a circumference of a circle to its diameter, which is just about 3.14….15…9265359… (and so on). Not only that, but the fourteenth of March is also Albert Einstein’s birthday, so all together it’s nothing short of a mathematician’s delight.

When is Pi Day 2024?

The beautiful constant pi (π) is celebrated by mathematicians around the world on National Pi Day on March 14.

History of Pi Day

To learn about pi, we need to go back a few thousand years and learn about this elusive number. The value of pi was first calculated by Archimedes of Syracuse (287–212 BC), one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world.

However, it was first baptized with the Greek letter as its name when William Oughtred called it as such in his works dating back to 1647, later embraced by the scientific community when Leonhard Euler used the symbol in 1737.

But how did Pi Day end up in a country-wide phenomenon? For that, we need to travel to the Exploratorium in 1988 San Francisco, where it was thought up by physicist Larry Shaw.

Shaw linked March 14 with the first digits of pi (3.14) in order to organize a special day to bond the Exploratorium staff together, where he offered fruit pies and tea to everyone starting at 1:59 pm, the following three digits of the value. A few years later, after Larry’s daughter, Sara, remarked that the special date was also the birthday of Albert Einstein, they started celebrating the life of the world-famous scientist.

Pi Day became an annual Exploratorium tradition that still goes on today, and it didn’t take long for the idea to grow exponentially, hitting a peak on March 12, 2009, when the U.S Congress declared it a national holiday.

Now, celebrated by math geeks all around the circumference of the world, Pi Day became a pop culture phenomenon, with several places partaking in the activities, antics, observations and all the pie eating they can.

Pi Day timeline

March 14, 1988

The Inception

Larry Shaw celebrates Pi Day for the first time.

March 12, 2009

It’s Official

The U.S Congress declared March 14 National Pi Day.

March 14, 2015

Super Pi Day

The first ten digits of pi were achieved on 9:26:53 a.m. (3/14/15/92653)

August 19, 2017

Legacy That Lives

Larry Shaw passes away as Pi Day leaves its mark on pop culture.

Traditions of the day

Pi Day gives math enthusiasts the opportunity to celebrate their love for numbers and the enigma that is the infinite pi.

Since 1988, the day has been celebrated at the San Francisco Exploratorium. The first celebration was organized by Larry Shaw, who worked as a physicist at the center. The staff participated by marching around the exploratorium and consuming fruit pies. This tradition has lived on since. Math lovers talk about math, host get-togethers, and have pi recital competitions. In schools, teachers arrange scavenger hunts, pie bake sales, and even Pi Day workouts to stimulate more interest in learning and practicing mathematics. Those folks who work in food marketing also love to get involved, so keep your eyes peeled for some discounts, deals, and freebies on pies, it’s going to be an extra tasty day.

By the Numbers

14th – of March is also Albert Einstein’s birthday

31.4 million – the world record held by Emma Haruka Iwao for calculating the most accurate value of pi.

4 – the number of months it took Emma Haruka Iwao to calculate the most accurate value of pi.

70,000 – the number of decimal places of pi memorized by Rajveer Meena in 2015.

10 – the number of hours it took Rajveer Meena to make the world record.

3.125 – the original number used for pi by the Babylonians.

22.4 trillion – the number of digits calculated by Swiss scientist Peter Trueb, using a computer.

24 – the number of hard drives on the computer used by Peter Trueb for calculating pi.

700,000 – the number of years it will take to recite the 22 trillion digits of pi.

15,000 – the number of digits of pi memorized by Mark Umile in the U.S.

Pi Day FAQs

Why is pi important?

Pi is very important for calculations in math, engineering, construction, physics and space exploration. Many often consider pi the most important number in all of mathematics.

Which pie should I bake for Pi Day?

Any you’d like. We do not play favorites when pie is concerned. Pies are really simple to make and can be made with several sweet or savory fillings. Apple Pie, Chicken Pot Pie, Pizza pie, be our guest!

Are there any places that give Pi Day deals?

Check restaurants, supermarkets and bakeries over on the Internet for special Pi Day deals. Places like Whole Foods, Boston Market and several pizza chains across the country have special day-long sales.

Pi Day Activities

Enjoy pie of course: Pi is a homophone of pie: the 2 words are pronounced similarly, but are spelled differently and mean different things. Celebrate Pi Day by eating lots of pie! Pizza, cherry, apple, you name it!

Throw a potluck party: Everyone loves to show off their family pie recipe. Make it a potluck and everyone will be inclined to bring their favorite pie to Pi Day, whether it's a pizza pie, a pot pie, a savory pie, or a sweet pie. Make a playlist that features songs like "I Like Pie, I Like Cake" and "American Pie.”

Try making a new pie: Ever tried to make a pie before? Now's your chance to bake your very own. Not into the sweet stuff? Don't worry, there are various savory pie recipes out there so that everyone can enjoy the warm buttery flakiness that comes with a fresh baked pie.

5 Facts About Pi

People compete in memorizing it: Rajveer Meena has the record for memorizing the most decimal places of pi at 70,000.

It’s used as stress tests for computers: Computing pi is a kind of “digital cardiogram” for computers.

A Givenchy men’s cologne is named pi: So you can smell like pi too if you are the intellectual and visionary kind.

It has other names: Pi can also be named “Archimedes’ constant,” or “Ludolph’s number.

It has been used by heroes: Spock foils the evil computer by having it calculate pi’s value in Star Trek’s episode “Wolf in the Fold”

Why We Love Pi Day

Pi is infinitely cool: Pi (π) is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter — and amazingly for all circles of any size, pi will always be the same. Pi is an "irrational number," meaning its exact value is completely unknown. Scientists have calculated billions of digits starting with 3.14159265358979323…, but no recognizable pattern ever emerges. We could continue on and on until infinity and we'd still have no idea what digit might emerge next.

Pi sounds like pie: If you are a nerd that likes pies this holiday is pretty much the best combination of the most interesting things in life: pie and mathematics. And of course that means that in order to celebrate abstract mathematical items that are somewhat irrational the obvious solution is to incorporate pie into the holiday.

Pi links mathematics to the real world: Maybe when you were in math class, you stared off into space wondering why on earth 'logs' or 'proofs' mattered so much. Pi is the answer, well at least, one of the things that links math back to real world uses. Because pi is linked to circles it is also linked to cycles, things like calculating waves, ebb and flow, the oceans tides, electromagnetic waves and much more. In addition, many natural world phenomena can also be calculated with pi — like the shape of rivers, the disc of the sun, the spiral of DNA and even the pupil of an eye.

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callmewrinkles3 · 1 year

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Book Extract 4

The second reason why I took so long to make my relationship with Em public is both more simple and complicated at the same time. Even now the only way that I can explain it is that I just had no idea how to put it into words. It’s been nearly two decades since the night we met, and I still can’t find the words to explain just how much I love her.

I know that people want stories about my past, about drinking and being in F1 in the early 2010s. But I’ll let you in on two things. Number one, my kids are going to read this book in the next couple of years and I don’t want them knowing about anything like that. And number two, with all due respect to everyone else, I started to forget any other names or faces the moment I met Em. It all got erased from my brain the night I finally got to kiss her in Monaco. I’ve had good relationships and bad relationships before, but I’ve never had anything like what I had then and still do have with her.

Nobody has ever loved me the same way she does. I won’t tell you specific details about my relationship and my marriage because those are still our secrets to keep. There’s so many things that I know people want to know about our relationship. There’s all the traditions we have, routines that we started in 2018 and we still do to this day, the ways we’ve spent time together going from being friends to dating to married to having kids. But it’s too personal. We’ve spent so long protecting our privacy and each other by denying what we are to each other that letting people into what we have is just hard.

What I can and will say is that I have never loved anyone the way I love her. Loving her was so easy to do, and it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done. People say that love involves a struggle. And yeah we’ve gone through hard times. Some of those times got plastered in the media. It was never a walk in the park. We went to hell and back and had to crawl our way back on our knees, but I would do it all over again knowing that I get to spend the rest of my life with her. It takes love, but it also takes time, trust, confidence, patience, and so much understanding. Even after seventeen years and three kids it takes so much work. It’s a lot of patience and so much talking about everything but at the end of the day it’s just worth it.

But actually falling in love? That was simple.

She’s the half of me that I had no idea was missing until I met her. She loves mythology, and told me this Greek myth about how Zeus was afraid of the original human, with two faces and four legs and four arms. So he cut them all in half and left them to wander the earth to find their missing half. Em’s my missing half. She’s the reason that the worst and hardest days of my life weren’t so bad. What we have goes beyond I love you. She’s my dreams come true, she’s love personified. I always tell her that someone went into my brain and pulled everything I wanted from my dreams and imagination and somehow turned it into this gorgeous, badass person and she always says I’m ridiculous. But it’s true.

She’s what I always wanted in a partner. The first time my parents met her they knew we would end up together. My mum has never been happier for me than the phone call to tell her we were engaged. She’s what I needed and what our family needed to thrive, and it’s why everyone loves her so much. But she’s exactly what our babies needed. I couldn’t imagine our kids having a better mum than Em. Before I met her I never imagined having kids with anyone but pretty soon after meeting her I could see having them with her.

It always felt like nobody could understand what we had. We were always like the one person, it felt like we were the same person. Everything about us being together felt right. It’s so cheesy but we’re two pieces of a puzzle that click together perfectly. It’s felt like that since the first time we locked eyes. I can’t explain how it works or when it started but our friends complain about our telepathic conversations and it’s true. How do you explain that it’s just right? That’s the only way we could say it.

From the first night we met we knew that there was something between us. And once we let ourselves feel there was no turning back. We always say that the reason our love is so pure is because we loved each other without expecting anything else. We were both clear about how things were. Em knew racing was going to be my priority, and I couldn’t put her first all the time. And somehow she was selfless enough to accept that and love me anyway. All she wanted was for me to succeed and to be by my side.

I never expected or asked her to change her life for me. I was convinced we could make it work. Long distance is hard, especially when you’re timezones away. Being away from her was one of the hardest things I ever did but I was convinced we could make it work. And then she hopped on three different planes to be with me in China because I said “I wish you were here”. She surprised me between FP3 and qualifying in Shanghai and did it to support me.

Then that September when we were taking some time away she asked me if she could travel with me for the rest of the year and I was the happiest man in the world. The offer was always there for her but I didn’t expect her to take it. She wasn’t even working with us at the time, that wasn’t until Japan and I realised she’d been working with us but not officially and fixed it. But she never asked me to change anything about her life, and I never asked her to either. Everything was out of absolute love, adoration, and devotion. Every decision we made was selfless. All we wanted was what was best for each other, and if we could fit in each others lives then it would be perfect. And somehow it magically did and everything fell into place for us to make it work.

It was never easy. Especially while I was racing. It was hard and tough and there were days - even weeks and months - when we weren’t sure we could make it work. But Em was so selfless and gave up so much for me. It’s only fair I do it now.

Em always says I’m the skeptic in our relationship. I always say that lucky charms and those kind of things and traditions are fairytales but she believes everything could be possible. She has a lucky shirt that she doesn’t travel without. She loves ghost stories, she believes in mermaids and selkies and mythology. She won’t walk under a ladder and she has a routine to do when she can’t find something that I will never learn how to do right but I leave her to it. She believes in zodiac signs and natal charts. She believes in soulmates and twin flames and I didn’t think any of that could be real until I met her.

There’s more than one reason why our paths never should have crossed. We never went to the same places in London, the only time I was anywhere near where she lived was for specific events. We didn’t live anywhere near each other, and I was rarely in the city anyway. One night she said “You’re the school drop out millionaire athlete who knows more aerodynamic physics than most college physics students and makes your own wine because you’re too picky about the flavours you like. I’m the professional assistant with an administration degree who believes in superstitions enough to have a planchette tattooed on her and truly believes Taylor Swift could be God. We never should have looked twice at each other.”

And she’s right.

But what she also told me one night after too many glasses of wine was that she knew we were made from the same stars. And like always, Emma is right. Call it cheesy but whatever we’re made of, I know we’re made of the same. From the night we met and especially from the first night we kissed I just knew we were the same person. Call us soulmates, twin flames, whatever you want to call it. She always tells me to keep an open mind about reincarnation and things like that and whenever I see her smiling at our kids I just know our love is bigger than just this lifetime.

And listen. I might not have an open mind and I might not believe in a whole lot. But I believe in her, and that’s enough for me. She’s my lucky charm.

But how do you explain something like this to the rest of the world in a ten second clip for social media? How do you find the right words to say that you love someone so deeply you feel an ache in your chest when they’re not nearby? How do you put into words that when she says our love comes from other lives and universe you think it has to be true because from day one it’s felt like you’ve known each other longer than we have? Because that’s the only option. Whenever you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. We’ve worked so well together in every single aspect of our lies that it feels like we’ve done it for centuries. And maybe we have. But I won’t complain because if I get to choose I’ll choose to do it all over again with her for another thousand centuries.

#call it what you want fic #ciwyw media

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under-lore · 2 years

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Where do you think Mt. Ebott is on Earth? Most seem to consider somewhere in the United States or Canada as the most probable answer, though that makes sense considering the majority of the fan base is from their and Toby himself is an american (also Hometown in Deltarune is pretty obviously supposed to invoke the image of Everytown, America).

That said, I'm pretty sure the medieval weapons used by the humans in the intro don't line up with what indigenous Americans had access to.

So maybe somewhere in Europe? Would fit with the vaguely medieval esthetic of thr Underground, and Asgore's theme being a reference to the german King in the Mountain motif.

A very tricky question !

Indeed, Undertale seems to be throwing hints into every direction at once. The name "Frisk" comes from Scandinavia whilst "Chara" exists in Irish and Greek. The narrator references the USDA (US department of agriculture), the underground references medieval Europe and german myths. Etc... the list goes on and there seems to be no easy answer.

Mount Ebbot lookalikes have also been found in most of these countries...

To start off, the kind of sword that we see in the introduction of the game indeed doesn't really fit with what native americans were using before europeans discovered the continent. They mainly used weapons such as bows and arrows, spears or tomahawks... Not this :

It is difficult to judge such a generic sword design, but this type of sword seems to ressemble a lot more those used in Europe from ancient Greece to the end of the medieval age than those used in Asia in this time period.

Its uncertain how long ago monsters were sealed. Bratty and Catty mention it as having been millennia, however, those two are often exaggerating things. That being said, as it is the only proper source we have on the matter, i believe we can assume that the order of magnitude they give must at least be somewhat accurate.

Another thing that may be relevant is the fact that the sound of the bells that play in the final corridor is called "mus_churchbell".

With that on top of the obvious ressemblence with christian church designs in this area, it would seem likely that christianity was already present in the area Undertale takes place in back when monsters were sealed.

In that case, most of Africa and Asia as well as all of the Americas and Oceania would be eliminated, making Europe the biggest candidate by far.

It could also be possible that monsters learned of christianity at a later date via things the humans would have left in the garbage dump. But as monsters only moved out of Home shortly before Chara fell, it would be quite odd for it to have gained much significance underground.

Besides, monsters do not even seem to know about the modern Christmas traditions. Which they would have likely learned about if they only knew of christianity from the dump.

Christmas as a holiday didn't really take off before Charlemagne in the year 800. And it didn't reach its modern form before the 19th century.

As you've pointed out, there is an odd use of the german language in the Undertale OST. One that references german folklore : "Bergentrückung".

This may be a point in favor of Undertale taking place somwhere where german culture has at least a strong influence if not an area where German is spoken.

The narrator knowing what the USDA is and making anime references also seems to imply it being somewhere in the western-aligned world.

Of course, it is likelier to be somewhere that has a lot of mountains as well.

While this one is a bit more of a stretch, a place where a lot of trash per habitant is produced could also be quite fitting due to how much the garbage dump seems to receive.

There is no definitive answer to this question. However, certain areas seem much more likely than others. It would seem to me that somewhere in the Alps would combine the most fitting factors out of any other place on Earth.

Switzerland in particular seems like a very good candidate as it fits every single one of these criteria. Besides, it is also famous for its chocolate ! Which could explain Chara's taste for it if they were swiss.

#undertale #undertale theory #asgore #chara #frisk #toby fox

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ladypeonies · 1 year

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MileApo’s Man Suang.

They have finally given it a name, Man Suang, which means the city of gods and angels. Hey I wasn’t that far with my assumptions.

Well, I would avoid living in any city with that name, history taught me that. They say it’s a place of entertainment for upper-class people. Hmmmm….. entertainment for the upper classes can go from listening to music, dance, reading to…. Prostitution, so let’s see.

Man Suang is inspired/from the Lilit Phra Lo. Lilit Phra Lo is a masterpiece of the Siamese literature. A Lilit is a type of long poem, which talks about love, tragedies and has a particular structure in terms of verses, rhymes, etc. They say it’s from the 17th century. However it may be older than that because many scrolls and books were burned when the Burmese took Ayutthaya (old capital of Siam) and burned the city to melt the golden statues of Buddha in the various temples … (Yes, I know).

What is Lilit Phra Lo about? A love story, of course, and one of a kind, it’s about magic, hermit’s, enemies and a….. Threesome. Yep, you read it right. Two rival cities fight, the kings die and their heir take the throne. Now Phra Lo new king of Muang Swang falls in love with two princesses from Muang Song (the rival city) Phra Phuan and Phra Phaeng. They have never met, but they love each other, how? Through the poems, songs written about them, their beauty, etc., they have heard. How does it end? I don’t want to spoil if you want to read it…. It’s a Greek tragedy with a Romeo and Juliet(s) vibe and twits.

Now back to MileApo’s Man Suang (that’s my official name for the movie, sue me). I wonder what they will take from Lilit Phra Lo, the impossible love story, the hermits, the magic? Will it be about power? Upper class and lower class?

They changed the plot and the released date? They are brave. August is in 7 months, it may seem long, but it isn’t, time flies and MileApo have various engagements coming. I hope they rest but those two works like they are running out of time.

Mile is a hard worker so no doubt he will nail Chat’s role. I’m so glad for Apo because, Khem is his dream role and he will put his blood, sweat and tears in this work.

Portraying a man from this period must be exhilarating, in a time where above all among the upper class, one couldn’t be themselves, showing the wrong emotion could get one in trouble. There was less freedom. It’s interesting what we take for granted now couldn’t even be fathomed then. Everyone was wearing a mask, playing a role, in a stage they perhaps didn’t set.

And it was only when they left the stage that they could be themselves. However not for long, soon it was time to put the make-up and the costume back to play roles they hadn’t chosen.

I’m looking forward to this movie, it has many thing I like and enjoy, history, costumes, traditions, patrimony, exploration of human nature and, of course, MileApo.

PS: We shouldn’t trust the trailer, lol. I don’t trust anything BOC says or show until I have the final product. For all we know, it could be about time travel or talking frogs.

#man suang #mileapo #apo nattawin #mile phakphum

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ofstormsandsaints · 2 years

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witches in the demon world - part 1

A preface. A brief story of everything.

I'll add more details regarding their powers, their society's functioning, their customs and their relations with other clans in the future

tw: mentions of violence and sa

There are female witches and male witches, let's start with that.

The term "witch" is gender-neutral but when they refer to each other they prefer to be a little bit more specific and actually use the names and titles corresponding to their roles in the coven/community.

Men and women don't live together - most of the time. It is under some specific conditions and on rare occasions that they must choose living together.

And regarding the non-binary/genderfluid witches, they have a total personal right to decide with whom they prefer to live (as every witchling is born and raised among female witches because it is part of their traditions). But generally, they stay with the women.

However, let's also mention that community life isn't mandatory or anything. Many witches can choose to go solo, to seclude themselves from their coven.

But we'll come back on these later.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

What we need to remember is:

They spend their existence hiding to survive.

In the human world, they've always been the target of hatred. the GOAT of the scapegoats-

Obviously, we think about the witch hunts but let's be formal on this: it did not start in the Middle Ages. It has always existed somehow. (moreover, the frenzy around witch hunts occurred during the Renaissance, not the Middle Ages. Yes, when Humanism was the philosophical stance and was supposed to 'focus and emphasise on the human beings and their rights over the physical and metaphysical and blablabla' hypocrites as always).

Anyway.

Humanity built its survival on this evident, strong, natural fear of what is unknown

you're wary of what you have never seen before

you're in awe in front of what cannot be explained by the rule of God

you reject what doesn't find an answer, a result in the laws of nature or physics. you detest what you can't name.

So how can someone explain the very existence of magic? When they're alone to wield it, to understand it. They can't explain why.

But they know how.

And this simple ability makes them the most dangerous and beautiful living thing.

Therefore, you understand that at all times, the only solution witches had found was to hide. Then leave.

That's what they had to do in order to stay alive. Free.

No one can clearly tell when the first exodus happened. Every tale has its own story: the place they fled and the haven they found, those who helped and those who didn't.

Some manuscripts and other apocryphal texts mention a big exodus in ancient Mesopotamia as it is also the civilisation that recorded the earliest examples of magical performances.

However we also have this strange parchment dating from the Greek Dark Ages - difficult to decipher, it recounts a fateful night: priestesses and sibyls were slaughtered by god knows who and for god knows the reason but what we know is that, fortunately, some were able to escape the bloodbath and find refuge in the mountains.

There is also this short bedtime story from the Baltics about those mysterious people who had to flee their land and hide somewhere under the ground. They took the Moon with them because the sun was too hot and too high to reach and they needed light beneath the earth. However, they felt bad for stealing. So after one long lunar eclipse, they decided to give the Moon back to the sky. But without the Moon near them - without the light, they were weak. Thus, just a few times in the month, they would steal it again. But just a piece. Just a quarter at a time so they could gradually cultivate its light. Cultivate its power and revive their energy then give it all back to Mother Night.

Sweet huh?

But let's be honest, in the human world, they actually made quite a good job in concealing their powers and abilities. Most of the poor people who went to the stake were not even witches. Like, come on, they spent centuries perfecting their codes, their language, and their symbols in order to not be suspected of being the Devil's concubines or some other shit

Naturally, they wouldn't get caught so easily by some frustrated clergymen who were more interested in knowing how big Satan's cock was than trying to understand that women could use plants to create a poultice.

ugh.

But what about life in the demon world? well.

The pros: There they are free to perform their rituals, worship their deities and practice their magic all they want. After all, the demon world's soils are imbued with magic and enchantments. Many living creatures *cough* Kino *cough* were born from mud, plants and magical residue. Every demon has a basic magical knowledge so witches could work with the weirdest spells, it would be technically ok.

Now what about the cons?

Racism, heavy discrimination and sexism, sometimes kidnapping, torture, and sexual assaults

Violence hit them hard.

Because if there is something demons are good at it's perpetrating stupid-ass traditions of male dominance, vile and undiluted violence over any community they'd consider weaker

Surprising coming from them huh?

Thereby what did they do when they tried to establish in the demon world and they got beaten up and used as pricey slaves because demons were just looking for some entertainment?

Bingo - they hid again.

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fluffy-does-essays · 7 months

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Essay: "Demonology"

Request by: @edalynmavri

Essay Questions:

When did the study of demonology first began?

Who created the study of demons?

Most known in demonology?

Purpose of demonology?

Is it dangerous to learn demonology?

In demonology what demons are most studied?

Demons, ghosts, ghouls, and beasts—we are all fascinated by the unknown and deep. Although we're digging deep into terror territories we should not enter, especially those that can kill us, it is fun to wonder what lies beneath history's cracks of these terrifying yet interesting creatures of myth, legend, and beyond. A study of these creatures, although there are many names for it, is called Demonology, and for this Halloween, we shall dig deep into that!

When did the study of demonology first began? The study of demonology has a long and complex history that can be traced back to ancient civilizations. However, its formalization as a field of study can be dated to the medieval and early modern periods, roughly from the 12th to the 17th centuries. During this time, religious beliefs and superstitions were intertwined with intellectual pursuits, and scholars and theologians began to systematically examine the nature of demons, their origins, and their role in the world. Theologians like Thomas Aquinas and authors like Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger contributed to the development of demonology as a structured discipline. These early demonologists sought to understand the spiritual realm, categorize various types of demons, and develop methods to identify and combat them. The witch trials and inquisitions of the early modern period were fueled, in part, by the beliefs and doctrines established within the field of demonology. Over time, the study of demonology evolved and waned in influence, but it continues to be a subject of interest for historians and those intrigued by the intersection of religion, folklore, and the supernatural.

Who created the study of demons? The formal study of demons cannot be attributed to a single individual, as it emerged over centuries and across various cultures. The concept of malevolent supernatural beings has existed in the mythologies and religions of many ancient civilizations, from the Mesopotamians to the Egyptians and Greeks. However, the systematic examination of demons, their attributes, and their role in the world began to take shape during the medieval and early modern periods in Europe. Scholars, theologians, and authors such as Thomas Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo, Heinrich Kramer, and Jacob Sprenger played significant roles in developing demonology as a structured field of study. They contributed to defining different types of demons, understanding their origins, and creating theological frameworks for dealing with the demonic. So, while no single person can be credited with creating the study of demons, these early figures were instrumental in shaping the intellectual discourse around this subject.

Most known in demonology? When it comes to notable figures in the field of demonology, one name that stands out is Heinrich Kramer. He was a German churchman and inquisitor in the late 15th century, known for co-authoring the infamous witch-hunting manual "Malleus Maleficarum" (The Hammer of Witches) with Jacob Sprenger. This book became one of the most influential and widely read texts on the subject of witchcraft and demonology during the early modern period. While not a scholar in the traditional sense, Kramer's work had a profound impact on shaping beliefs about witches, demons, and the supernatural. His writings, characterized by their misogynistic and fear-inducing content, played a pivotal role in fueling witch trials and persecutions in Europe. While he is known for his contribution to the field, it's important to note that demonology involves a wide range of scholars, theologians, and writers from different time periods who have explored the subject from various angles and perspectives.

Purpose of demonology? The purpose of demonology is to study and understand the nature, characteristics, and influence of demons and malevolent supernatural entities, typically from a religious or theological perspective. Demonology aims to explore the origins, behaviors, and roles of these beings in the spiritual and earthly realms. Historically, it was often used to identify and combat what were believed to be demonic possessions, witchcraft, and other supernatural phenomena that were considered harmful or heretical by religious authorities. Demonology was closely linked to the Christian Church, particularly during the medieval and early modern periods, and it played a significant role in the witch trials and inquisitions. While its prominence in religious contexts has diminished over time, demonology remains an area of interest for scholars, historians, and those intrigued by the intersection of religion, folklore, and the supernatural. Today, it is often studied as a part of cultural and historical analysis rather than as a practical tool for identifying and combating demons.

Is it dangerous to learn demonology? The study of demonology, like any field that delves into the supernatural or the occult, can be potentially dangerous, but not in a literal sense of summoning or interacting with demons. It is essential to clarify that demonology is primarily an academic or historical field of study, focusing on the examination of beliefs, folklore, and cultural narratives surrounding demons. However, when people engage with demonology in a more mystical or occult manner, such as attempting to summon or communicate with entities they believe to be demons, it can pose psychological and emotional risks. Such pursuits might lead to feelings of fear, anxiety, or paranoia, and in some cases, they could become obsessions that impact one's mental health. It's important for individuals to approach demonology with a critical and responsible mindset, understanding the potential psychological and emotional consequences of their involvement in the subject matter and to always prioritize their well-being.

In demonology what demons are most studied? In demonology, the demons that are most studied often vary depending on cultural and historical contexts. However, certain demons have consistently garnered significant attention throughout the history of demonological research. For example, in Christian demonology, figures such as Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Asmodeus have been extensively examined due to their roles in Christian theology and their prominence in religious texts. In medieval and early modern Europe, demonologists frequently focused on demons associated with witchcraft, such as the succubus and incubus. Additionally, various grimoires and occult texts have provided descriptions and rituals related to specific demons, such as those found in "The Lesser Key of Solomon" or the "Ars Goetia," which are influential in the realm of ceremonial magic and demonology. Consequently, the demons most studied in demonology often depend on the specific religious, cultural, and historical traditions from which the study originates.

Fun facts:

The Devil's Number: The number 666 is commonly associated with the Devil due to its mention in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. This has led to the superstition that seeing this number is an omen of evil.

The Dictionnaire Infernal: A famous demonological work, the "Dictionnaire Infernal" by Jacques Collin de Plancy, is known for its detailed illustrations of demons. The book was first published in 1818 and is still referenced in occult and demonological studies today.

Salem Witch Trials: The Salem witch trials in 1692 were a dark chapter in history, with numerous people accused of witchcraft and consorting with demons. The fear of witches and demons played a significant role in these events.

The Djinn: In Islamic demonology, the djinn (also spelled as jinn) are supernatural beings often associated with mischief. They are not necessarily evil but can be mischievous or malevolent depending on their intentions.

Demonology in Pop Culture: Demons and demonology have been popular subjects in literature, film, and television. Works like "The Exorcist" and "Supernatural" have brought demonological themes to mainstream entertainment.

Belphegor's Smell: In some demonological traditions, Belphegor is associated with obscene acts and is believed to emit a foul odor. This notion is found in literature and art, linking the demon to impurity and decadence.

The Church of Satan: Founded by Anton LaVey in 1966, the Church of Satan is a religious organization that views Satan as a symbol of personal freedom and individualism. It doesn't actually worship demons but rather uses Satanic imagery for philosophical and theatrical purposes.

Exorcism Rituals: Exorcism is a practice in some religious traditions to remove demons or evil spirits from a person. The Roman Catholic Church has an official rite of exorcism, and there are professional exorcists who perform this ritual.

Demon Names in Literature: Many demon names found in demonology texts have been used in literature and pop culture. For example, the demon Azazel is a recurring character in various works, including the TV show "Supernatural."

Psychological Perspectives: Some psychologists have analyzed demonology from a psychological perspective, suggesting that beliefs in demons may be related to mental health and cultural factors.

#History #FluffyEssay #FunFacts

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vegi1 · 7 months

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When Did Veganism Become So Popular?

Some people even say that our ancestors were carnivores, so why would we choose this for ourselves and our kids?

I used to be one of those people who thought that humans were naturally carnivores. But then I started learning more about the history of human nutrition, our body anatomy, and the evolution of vegetarianism. I also wanted to learn more about the factors that have contributed to veganism’s popularity. And the more I learned, the more I realized that there are actually a lot of good reasons to go vegan.

In this article, I’ll explore the history of vegetarianism, highlight some famous vegetarians from history, and I’m going to share what I’ve learned about some of the challenges and benefits of a vegan diet.

The human body is naturally adapted to consume plant matter. Our teeth are flat and designed for grinding plant matter, not tearing flesh. Our canine teeth are small and not as pointed as those of carnivores. Our jaws also move in a side-to-side motion, which is ideal for chewing plant foods.

Our digestive system is also long and winding, which is ideal for digesting plant fiber. Our appendix is also thought to be a vestigial organ from our omnivorous ancestors. However, recent studies have shown that the appendix is actually quite useful for breaking down plant matter.

Archaeological evidence suggests that our ancestors primarily subsisted on a plant-based diet, occasionally consuming small insects. They ate what was safe and accessible, which usually consisted of plants, fruits, and nuts.

Scientists believe that our ancestors were vegetarians for most of their history. Only in the last few thousand years, as humans began to domesticate animals, did meat become a regular part of our diet. And even then, meat was only eaten on special occasions.

So if you’re thinking about going vegetarian, know that you’re not going against your natural instincts. Your body is perfectly designed to thrive on a plant-based diet.

Did you know that the concept of vegetarianism has been around for centuries?

If you, like me, are curious about the evolution of vegetarianism, you should know the term “vegan” is relatively modern, but the idea of refraining from consuming animal products has ancient origins.

One of the earliest known instances of vegetarianism can be traced in back to ancient Egypt. Pharaoh Akhenaten, who lived around 1300 BC, banned animal sacrifice due to his belief in the sanctity of all lifes. The Roman poet Ovid also condemned the consumption of animal flesh, highlighting the moral implications of eating meat In his poems.

The first recorded vegetarians in ancient Greece were the Pythagorean and his followers, a Greek philosophical school founded by Pythagoras in the 6th century BC. Pythagoras believed that all living things were sacred and should be respected, and he prohibited his followers from eating meat. They also believed that eating meat was harmful to the body and mind.

Also, there is evidence of vegetarian practices in ancient China. Tofu, a popular vegetarian food in China, originated in the Zhou dynasty.

Vegetarianism has a long history, dating back to ancient India. The Hindu religion teaches that all living things are interconnected and that we should avoid harming other creatures. Jainism, another major religion in India, also teaches ahimsa or non-violence.

So, India has a long-standing tradition of vegetarianism deeply rooted in its religious and cultural beliefs.

Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism all promote the concept of ahimsa or non-violence towards all living beings. They believe that our souls may be reincarnated in different bodies of humans and animals, and any pain we inflict on animals will enter our bodies and trap us in bad karmic cycles.

The 24th Tirthankara, Vardhamana Mahavira, who lived around 500 BC, played a significant role in promoting vegetarianism and ahimsa. His teachings continue to influence many people in India, making it a country with a large population of vegetarians.

Around the same time, Siddhartha Gautama was also discussing vegetarian diets with his followers.

Vegetarianism spread to Europe in the 17th century. The first vegetarian society was founded in England in 1847.

It is clear that avoiding animal products and being kind to animals has been around for a long time. I think it’s interesting that many historical figures and scientists have come to the conclusion that eating animal meat and their products can have a negative impact on our spirit, morals, and thoughts.

Which countries currently have the most vegetarians?

Today, India has the highest percentage of vegetarians in the world, with an estimated 38% of the population following a vegetarian diet.

Veganism as a distinct concept gained prominence in the 20th century. Donald Watson, a British woodwork teacher, coined the term “vegan” in 1944. He sought to create a movement that not only avoided animal consumption but also rejected the use of animals for any purpose, including clothing and entertainment.

One of the biggest reasons for the popularity of vegetarianism is that people are becoming more aware of what happens in animal farms and slaughterhouses, and the ethical implications of eating animals. The spread of media and people’s access to the internet has made it possible for us to learn more about the way animals are raised and killed in factory farms. Videos, documentaries, and horrible images of torture, suffering, and killing animals have been published that anyone can watch. People realize that they should not be involved in this cruelty.

The scenes that were once hidden from us by the meat and dairy industries are now out in the open, and people are starting to see the truth about this industry. They’re realizing that the meat and dairy industries are built on violence and exploitation. This is leading more and more people to stop eating meat and dairy products and they’re choosing to eat plant-based foods instead.

More and more people are realizing that animal testing is terrible, and they’re trying to buy products that are cruelty-free and don’t involve animal testing.

I think it’s great that people are becoming more conscious of their impact on the environment. Nowadays, More and more people are becoming aware of the environmental impact of meat production. The meat industry is a major contributor to climate change, water pollution, and deforestation. Lots of people go vegetarian as a way to reduce their carbon footprint and protect the planet.

In recent years, we’ve seen a lot of devastating environmental events, like fires, floods, and global warming. These events have made people more aware of the importance of protecting our planet. Governments are enacting new laws to protect the environment.

People are slowly realizing that the main cause of world hunger and the death of hungry children in third-world countries is the meat industry and slaughterhouses. People are slowly learning how important their choices are to the environment, and they are choosing veganism as a great way to protect the earth.

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voodoolovemagic · 10 months

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Love Spells: Unveiling the Ancient Art and Modern Perspectives

Love spells have been a subject of fascination and intrigue for centuries, deeply rooted in the annals of history and folklore. From ancient civilisations to modern-day practices, the concept of casting a spell to attract or enhance love has persisted. In this article, we will explore the origins of love spells, their cultural significance, ethical considerations, and the modern perspectives surrounding this ancient art. Delving into the realm of love magic, we seek to understand its impact on individuals and relationships while unravelling the fine line between fascination and caution.

Love Spells Throughout History: A Timeless Tradition

The concept of love spells dates back to ancient civilizations, where individuals sought supernatural assistance in matters of the heart. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all practised various forms of love magic, often invoking deities associated with love and fertility. These spells were believed to influence emotions, attract romantic partners, and foster stronger connections. While modern science dismisses the efficacy of love spells, the enduring presence of such rituals in historical records speaks to their significance in human culture.

The Mechanics of Love Spells: Beliefs and Rituals

Love spells operate on the premise that energy, intention, and belief can influence human emotions and behaviour. Different cultures and traditions have their unique methods of casting love spells, often involving incantations, charms, and symbolic objects. The process typically requires a focus on the desired outcome, channelling emotions, and projecting intentions into the universe. While sceptics may see love spells as mere superstition, those who believe in their power argue that they tap into a deeper understanding of the human psyche and the interconnectedness of all things.

Ethical Considerations: The Boundaries of Love Magic

The practice of love spells raises ethical concerns, as it involves influencing another person's feelings and choices. Some argue that casting love spells without consent infringes upon an individual's free will and autonomy, potentially leading to harmful consequences. This ethical dilemma has led many practitioners to adopt a more cautious and responsible approach. Ethical love magic often focuses on self-love, personal growth, and attracting positive energy into one's life, rather than attempting to manipulate others.

Modern Love Magic: A Blend of Tradition and Innovation

As society evolves, so does the practice of love spells. While some individuals adhere to traditional methods passed down through generations, others embrace a more modern approach. Online communities and social media platforms have provided a platform for sharing and discussing love spells, fostering a global network of practitioners. Modern love magic often emphasises self-empowerment, mindfulness, and spiritual growth, using spells as a tool for self-discovery and positive transformation.

The Psychology of Love Spells: Placebo or Potent?

Scientifically, love spells fall into the realm of the placebo effect. When individuals believe in the power of a spell, their mindset and behaviour may change, making them more receptive to romantic opportunities. Moreover, the placebo effect can lead to increased confidence and reduced anxiety, positively impacting one's approach to relationships. However, it is essential to recognize that love spells cannot replace genuine communication, respect, and mutual understanding in a healthy relationship.

Wrapping Up

Love spells have long captivated human imagination, offering a glimpse into our eternal quest for love and connection. As we journey through history and explore different cultural perspectives, we encounter a world where ancient beliefs merge with modern sensibilities. Love magic, with its blend of tradition and innovation, continues to intrigue and inspire individuals seeking love and companionship.

While the efficacy of love spells remains a matter of personal belief, it is crucial to approach this ancient art with respect and ethical consideration. Whether we choose to embrace love spells as a form of self-discovery or dismiss them as mere superstition, their enduring presence in human culture reminds us of the enduring power of love in shaping our lives and relationships. As we navigate the complexities of love, let us remember that the true magic lies in the genuine connections we forge with one another.

#love magick

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solshop · 1 year

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Herbal Teas OR Herbal Tisane Difference– Solshop

Herbal Teas OR Herbal Tisane

Are you looking to add a bit of zing and variety to your daily routine? Then herbal tea or tisane is just the thing for you! Not only are herbal teas full of flavor, they can also carry a wide range of health benefits depending on their ingredients. Whether it’s aiding in digestion, improving sleep quality or calming stress levels, herbal tea has something for everyone. So let’s delve into some more details about this soothing beverage and discover what makes herbal tea so special.

What is herbal tea or tisane ?

Nowadays, many of the herbal and fruit blends we enjoy are consumed via what is popularly known as a tea bag. Thus these drinks commonly referred to as "fruit teas" or "herbal teas."

Rather than calling it an herbal tea, a more precise and historically accurate name is 'tisane'. This term essentially means to produce a warm beverage by steeping herbs, spices or other plants in hot water. The root of the word tisane dates all the way back to 14th century Anglo-French; additionally its Latin form ‘ptisana’ and Greek origins “ptisane” indicate ancient processes involving crushing barley with mortar and pestle before mixing said crushed grains into water as an infusion.

Nowadays, tisane is the universal designation for medicinal and herbal infusions across many nations. However, hearkening back to centuries ago when Ayurvedic medicine practices were prominent in India and traditional Chinese remedies flourished, people have long partaken of tisanes for both healing purposes as well as bolstering overall health.

Are Herbal Teas Caffeine Free?

Herbal teas, like chamomile, peppermint, rooibos and hibiscus are naturally without caffeine so they tend to be favored by those wanting or needing to reduce their intake. Also for coffee-lovers who desire the taste of tea but not necessarily its stimulating effects - herbal varieties make a great option late in the day so as to avoid any sleepless nights caused by overly buzzed energy levels!

For those who want the energy boost of caffeine, some herbal infusions made by combining Herbs with Green Tea, Oolong Tea or White Tea provides just that. An 8-ounce cup of green tea contains between 30 and 50 mg while oolong tea offers 37 to 55 milligrams per serving. White tea contains the lowest caffeine. So if you're looking for late afternoon vigor without throwing off your sleep schedule, these infused blends are perfect! And best yet? You can get both convenience and healthful ingredients in one cup - truly liquid gold!

What are Health Benefits of Herbal Teas?

The advantages of herbal teas are vast and diverse, just like the herbs themselves. Have difficulty sleeping? Feeling joint pain or sluggishness? Having digestive issues? Looking to manage weight naturally? Want to cleanse or detox your body and organs? Identifying which benefit you’d most appreciate can help to whittle down your choices and find the ideal blend for YOU!

Herbal tea is so sought-after because it is an easy and convenient way to reap the health benefits of various herbs, spices and plants. Consuming raw ingredients like cinnamon or chamomile would be difficult (and not exactly pleasant!) but through transforming them into a warm beverage, you can effortlessly enjoy these flavors on a daily basis in both a tasty and sustainable format.

So, exactly which health benefits do SOL herbal teas deliver?

Reduce stress and anxiety: The renowned Chamomile has been known for its soothing properties since time immemorial. By combining two potent herbs - namely, chamomile and lemongrass - one can easily experience relief from anger, stress and any kind of body pain. Get ready to bask in ultimate relaxation and rejuvenation with this herbal blend! There are countless benefits to consuming this tea: promoting sound sleep, reducing stress & anxiety, aiding in digestion, lowering blood pressure and even boosting mental strength! All this thanks to the polyphenol apigenin found in chamomile, which has been linked to feelings of relaxation and ease. Unwind after a long day by enjoying a warm cup of caffeine-free Calming Chamomile from SOL – it’s sure to get you ready for the sweet dreams ahead.

Boost Immunity with Tangerine Turmeric, an immune-boosting blend made with a unique mix of ingredients including turmeric, lemon peel, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom and lemongrass! This spicy blend concoction is naturally packed with high levels of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties — all to help give your body the boost it needs! So if you’re feeling under the weather or need that extra immunity boost, then look no further as our Tangerine Turmeric spiced blend will have you feeling like new in no time. Our caffeine-free specialty mixture is designed to fight against cough and cold symptoms while relieving a sore throat. Plus there are many other benefits such as promoting healthier hair and skin and better gut health. So no matter what goal you have in mind for health improvement — Tangerine Turmeric has got your back!

Detox Liver: Looking for a detox that's effective, but still gentle on your body? Look no further: Jolly Jecur has you covered! With herbs like Nettle, Echinacea, Sarsa Parilla, Milk Thistle, and Dandelion your liver, gut, and blood will feel better than ever before. All these natural cleansers come together in one tea that’s sure to produce some jolly feelings! So if you are looking to reverse the effects of habits such as drinking alcohol, soft drinks, sugary and processed foods on your liver, this is the herbal tea for you. Enjoy the ultimate cleansing and detox properties of this caffeine-free blend.

Detox Lungs: Combining green tea with nine powerful herbs specially formulated for maximum health benefits, Cuppa Cure, the lung cleaning tea works hard so you don't have to. With ingredients such as cardamom, cinnamon, turmeric, fennel, ginger, senna leaves, triphla, tulsi, rose and black pepper – each sip packs in the full flavour. Together they form an effective blend which can clear toxins and nourishes your cells with essential vitamins & minerals. What’s even greater? Cuppa Cure will leave your senses refreshed while decreasing cravings and cleaning up those lungs! Want to break free from addiction and cleanse your lungs? Then this is the tea for you.

Weight loss: Our weight loss superhero, Willowy Wulong, is packed with immune-boosting ingredients, like Oolong tea, Green tea, Mint, Cinnamon, Licorice, Rooibos, Tulsi, Ginger, Jasmine, Moringa and Gymnema Sylvester. Plus the added benefits of Turmeric, Ashwagandha, Fennel and Lemongrass work to give you a lasting edge in your fight against unwanted pounds. Not only will Willowy Wulong help you achieve your weight loss goals effectively and safely through these powerful herbs - boosting your metabolism while aiding digestion and gut health - but it’s also an enabler of better overall health. Lasting improvements include stronger bones and joints; youthful skin complexion; improved cognitive responses for focused energy combined with turmeric and ashwagandha; plus Pipli, Cardamom and others combine to knock down inflammation from within. Try Willowy Wulong today and feel revitalized from the inside out!

Promote Skin and Hair quality: A lot of our herbal teas help support improvements in skin and hair. But nothing like the ultimate tea: Blissful Berries. An all-natural, skin-loving drink mix packed with antioxidants and Vitamin C to give you a total health and beauty upgrade! Enjoy the sweet tropical fruit flavours of strawberry, pineapple, cranberry and orange peel while rejuvenating your skin from within. Not only that, but this caffeine-free herbal tea mix also helps boost collagen production, eliminate dead skin cells and even strengthen your immunity.

Anti-viral, Anti-Bacterial, Promotes Respiratory health: In the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, people across the globe are turning to preventive measures to boost their immunity. Kwath Kadha is a powerful caffeine-free herbal blend that packs a punch of natural herbs proven to increase immunity, fight viruses and bacteria, help with respiratory problems and much more. Turbocharge your system by taking in its organic blends; Tulsi which provide a strong barrier against free radicals; Cinnamon that is known as 'healer' to countless ailments; Ginger that brings serenity to your body with its calming effects; Black Pepper for decongesting activities; Amla for energizing properties; Giloy for detoxification purpose plus Turmeric serving as a great source of antioxidants in every sip. To give you every recipe a hint of something extra delicious -- we have thrown in Licorice root for good taste. This unique combination of herbs creates an aromatic and delicious brew that’s packed with antioxidants that protect your body’s cells from free radicals and toxins.

Herbal tea is the perfect concoction for whatever ails you - no worrying about negative side effects! So, seize the day and find your favorite mix. Cheers to good health!

How Often Should I Drink Herbal Tea?

The frequency at which you should drink herbal tea depends on the purpose for which you are drinking it. If you are drinking it for medicinal purposes such as to treat digestive issues or inflammation, then it is best to drink it every day until your symptoms subside. However, if you’re simply looking to enjoy its relaxing effects or reap its antioxidant benefits, then once or twice a week is sufficient. It is important to note that too much of any one type of tea may result in an uncomfortable reaction due to its high concentrations of active compounds. Therefore, it is best to stick with lower doses when possible and listen to your body if you experience any adverse reactions from drinking herbal tea.

Conclusion:

Herbal teas offer a wide array of health benefits including reducing inflammation and helping digestion. They also provide antioxidants that can fight off harmful free radicals found in our bodies and help us relax after a long day. The frequency with which you should drink these beneficial teas depends on why you’re drinking them; however, moderation is key when it comes to consuming anything - including herbal tea! So next time you’re looking for some relief or just want something soothing at the end of a long day - reach for an herbal tea instead!

#herbal teas or tisanes #tisane and tea difference #Solshop #Herbal Teas #tisane

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coyleqnjmiranda · 2 years

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A history of Pest Control

The phrase pest is subjective as one mans pest may turn out to be another male's gadget. For instance, pest A may be a threat to crop A, in addition to pest B the threat in order to crop B. Yet , if pest B is definitely a natural ttacker to pest A new, then the farmer that wishes in order to protect crop The may cultivate and even release pest W amongst his vegetation. There is a new theory that without man's intervention inside the food string through agriculture, searching and long-distance journey there would always be no pests. The particular theory continues that man's intervention (for instance, in creating and releasing insect B, or inside carrying creatures extended distances) has raise red flags to the balance of typically the food chain, creating instability in pest and other animal numbers and damaging their evolution. This kind of instability has directed to over-population associated with a given types with the outcome they own become infestations. Pest Control Saskatoon Explained this, in case we assume that the very first soar swat was the first instance involving pest control -- and we realize that large animals swat flies - it may be argued that infestations control dates back way before humans came on typically the scene.

The first documented instance of infestations control takes us back to 2500BC when the Sumerians used sulphur to be able to control insects. Next around 1200BC the particular Chinese, inside their perfect age of breakthrough towards the end in the Shang Empire, were using chemical compounds to be able to control bugs. The Chinese carried on to build up ever a lot more sophisticated chemicals and methods of taking care of insects for seeds and for people's comfort. No hesitation the spread involving pest control know-how was helped by the advanced point out of Chinese writing ability. Although progress in pest handle methods undoubtedly extended, the next significant scrap of data does not come until around 750BC any time Homer described typically the Greek use associated with wood ash get spread around on land since a form involving pest control.

Around 500BC the China were using mercury and arsenic substances as a method to control body lice, the common problem during history. In 440BC the Ancient Egyptian's used fishing nets to cover their beds or their own homes at night as a defense against mosquitoes

From 300BC there is evidence of the use of make use of of predatory insects to control infestations, although this method was most likely produced before this particular date. The Romans created pest control procedures and these concepts were spread throughout the empire. In 200BC, Roman censor Cato encouraged the make use of of oils like a means associated with pest control and in 70AD Pliny the Elder had written that galbanum plant (from the fennel plant) ought to be extra to sulphur in order to discourage mosquitoes. On 13BC the 1st recorded rat-proof grain store was constructed by Romans.

The particular first known example where predatory bugs were transported through one area to another comes from Arabia around 1000AD wherever date growers shifted cultures of ants from neighboring mountains for their oasis farms so as to prey on phytophagous ants which attacked particular date palm.

Inspite of the enlightenment provided by the ancient Chinese, Middle easterns and Romans, many of their teachings failed to pass down although time. Certainly throughout Europe during the dark ages, approaches of pest command were in the same way most likely to be structured on superstition plus local spiritual traditions as any tested method. Pests have been frequently seen while workers of bad - in particular those that will ruined food, seeds or livestock. Despite the fact that there were undoubtedly studies of infestations during the dark ages, we do not have any recorded evidence of this.

It is definitely not until the particular European renaissance when more evidence of pest control emerges. In 1758 typically the great Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus catalogued plus named many pests. His writings had been (and remain) the root and source regarding future study into pests (as okay as plants and even animals generally). At the same time frame, the gardening revolution began in Europe and heralded a much more widespread program of pest manage. With the function of Linnaeus and other scholars and the commercial needs in order to ensure crops plus livestock were safeguarded, pest control became more systemized plus spread around the world. As global trade increased, new pesticides had been discovered.

#Pest Control Saskatoon

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titan-fodder · 3 years

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Prima Vista Part VIII

[ previous ]

Rating: E (explicit; mdni) Pairing: Mike Zacharias x fem!reader wc: ~13.2k

Warnings: this one fucking hurts, pining, stupid decisions, miscommunications, explicit sexual content (it’s time for something we’ve been waiting for), yet another party, angst A/N: Read this, but before you murder me remember there’s one more after this. Also, this isn’t the big thing you’ve been waiting for, but I know it’s something a lot of people have wanted to see. Enjoy this ouchie.

Mike doesn’t feel human when he wakes up. He’s nearly positive he no longer is—body taken over by some creature of the bog with toxic breath. Jesus, what the fuck happened last night?

Blinking hurts. Shifting his leg hurts. His chest is fucking killing him, feels like he bruised his god damn sternum, and when he moves to sit up in a bed that is not his, overwhelming nausea has Mike groaning and covering his mouth with one hand.

“He has risen,” a vaguely familiar baritone voice rings through the air, loud enough to make Mike wave his other hand in an attempt to mute it. Erwin chuckles, paying him no attention apparently as he speaks again, “Good timing, too. I just came to drop this off.”

Mike tries to focus his bleary eyes on the nightstand where his friend sets down a bottle of water, a bigger bottle of Gatorade, and several liquid gel pills.

“Chill here for as long as you need. I’m just watching the pledges clean downstairs. Want me to bring the trash can over?” Erwin’s concern can’t entirely hide the amusement in his voice. It’s irritating, but also… Mike needs that trash can.

“Yeah,” he croaks through his palm. “Thanks.”

Erwin nods and grabs the little plastic bin, setting it down next to the bed. Mike considers just picking it up and sitting with it in his lap, but he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stay upright for long enough.

“I’ll be downstairs. If you need anything, you’ll just have to yell because your phone is definitely sitting in a bag of rice in the kitchen right now.”

“What?” Mike frowns. How even…

“It got wet,” Erwin states, like that clarifies anything. “Probably in the shower.”

“Why was I—”

“We can talk about it when you’re less…” Erwin gestures to Mike’s face with one finger and grimaces as he finishes, “Green. You didn’t do anything too terrible, though, so you can rest easy.”

He leaves, and Mike chokes down the pills and a few gulps of water before gently laying back down. He has to retrace metaphorical footsteps to get to the last thing he remembers from the night before, and it’s body shots off some blonde clone. His order of events goes: hanging out with Rhi, talking with you and Erwin, Zeke showing up, catching Eren mid-roofie attempt and throwing him out, getting mad at Nile, and then just a lot of drinking. Too much. Of different kinds. That had been dumb.

He thinks he spent a little while in the bathroom. Erwin was there. And, Nile came and went. He thinks he may have heard your voice a few times but can’t be sure, and honestly, trying to recall anything from the period of time his brain was literally incapable of processing new memories is a pretty big waste of time.

Mike spends most of the day in Erwin’s room. He drifts in and out of restless sleep, waking up to drink his water and Gatorade. At some point, one of the kids, Jean, knocks on the door and drops a bowl of soup off, mumbles, “Erwin told me to bring this up here.” Mike hasn’t spent a ton of time around the current pledge class, but Erwin must like Jean if he trusted the kid enough to give him his room code.

The soup settles his stomach enough to move around a little more. His headache ebbs into a dull throb, and the sharp ache in his chest fades into that of a bruise. By around five o'clock, Mike is finally able to amble downstairs, give everyone a tired wave, mumble his thanks to Erwin, then drive himself to his apartment.

He's still trying to piece together what happened the night before, but he just ends up more confused than before, so he decides to put it behind him and move on. Everyone deserves a wild night every once in a while.

Thanksgiving nears. Mike has already made plans to go home to his parents which means he has to turn down the Pike house Friendsgiving offer that Erwin extends to him.

He tells Mike that Nile and Hitch will be there, but Marie might show her face, "So, that will be interesting."

Some of the brothers who can't make it home will attend. Erwin is bringing Maddie who Mike hasn't heard about in several months, but he's pretty sure that's just to throw him off the scent of whatever Erwin has going on with you. You, who will also be in attendance because apparently your mom opted to go on a girls trip instead of face the family. Mike can't blame her.

He thinks maybe he should reach out to you, to ask about the night he blacked out because he has a feeling you can give him some details that others can't, but Erwin assures Mike that you were only in the bathroom with him for a short time. "Just long enough to see you rip your shirt which she seemed a little too happy about."

Mike doesn't know what he'd say to you anyway. Even after learning that Zeke had blocked his number in your phone. He's still mad that you let the fucker get close enough to do that in the first place, that you had chosen him. It's a wound that just won't heal. Any time he sees you or hears your name, all Mike can think about is why he wasn't good enough.

So, he keeps distancing himself. It seems like the most appropriate thing he can do until he decides he'll be able to have a conversation with you without blowing up.

Mike's parents are happy to see him when he walks in the door. Scout jumps on him until he picks her up and holds her like the puppy she is not. He isn't surprised when his mom asks about you, if you and Mike sorted things out. The question hurts even if he was expecting it, seems like yesterday you were walking around the house like you'd always been a part of it.

Lying is the easiest path to take. He tells his parents that you had to go home for the break, that you couldn't split up your time between two families in just four days, and, of course, they buy it.

Thanksgiving day is nice enough. The family travels a couple cities over to Mike's aunt and uncle's house. It's much bigger, has room for the relatives that are able to make it. There are traditional Greek dishes as well as the usual turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. A few pictures here and there, entertaining his younger cousins—it's a good time.

Until Mike checks his various social media apps and sees the pictures from Friendsgiving.

They're tame, nothing wildly inappropriate, but they still make Mike scowl as he thumbs through them.

One of Nile cutting into the turkey, of Reiner ripping into a drumstick, Connie hoarding all of the cranberry sauce while his best friend, a girl named Sasha, does the same with the deviled eggs. Gelgar looks to be crying with a dot of potato salad in his hair. Marie is indeed there, glaring in the background of a photo where Nile and Hitch are tapping beer bottles together with silly smiles. She looks much happier in the shot of her and Maddie sitting together, laughing over glasses of wine.

Mike's heart stutters when he gets to a photo of you aiming to toss food into Reiner's mouth, then of you and Erwin both holding beers in one hand and pointing matching finger guns with the other.

Thick as fucking thieves. Two peas in a god damn pod. Mike wants to throw his phone out the window of his dad's suburban.

There are several more pictures that Mike doesn't bother to look at. He'd like to have a good time with his parents for the remainder of his break, and there's no way he'll be able to do that if he's pissed off.

So, he distracts himself. He goes on walks with Scout and plays with her for hours, watches old movies with his mom and dad, calls a couple relatives from overseas to catch up. But, those pictures are seared into the back of his mind, surfacing whenever he has down time.

He doesn't have any desire to go back to campus, not if he's gonna see you and Erwin together. His friend can deny it all he wants, but Mike knows something is going on between the two of you, and as he drives back to the college, he finally has the realization that… you might just be a shitty person.

Yeah, you have issues, but so does everyone. It doesn't excuse you from—from fucking toying with people, from using them as puppets whenever you need to. Mike wishes he'd never even tempted you to sleep with him that last time. It had felt too good and too right, but apparently you don't feel the same way. You went right back to Zeke once you'd gotten what you wanted, and Mike should have seen that coming. He should have been prepared for it. On some level he knew that's what you'd do, but that never stopped him from hoping that maybe… maybe it would have opened your eyes.

Plus, it ruined the entire Jurassic Park franchise for him, so that sucks.

He picks up where he left off both in his classes and in his social life. He stays away from PKA as much as he can but still attends meetings when necessary. The lacrosse season is coming to an end, so he tries to make the most of it. Rhi ends up in his bed again, both of them taking what they can from each other. Erwin jokes that he's gonna fall in love with her— "You know what happened the last time you tried to keep it casual," —and Mike nearly decks him in the face.

You don't try to talk to him, no texts or calls. When you see each other on campus, you don't spare him more than a sad glance as you pass him.

Mike is fine with it. He isn't about to be the one to make the move to talk things out. Honestly, he doesn't know if there's anything to talk out. You dated Zeke, and now you're dating Mike's best friend and trying to hide it.

He's mad at both of you, but it's easier to channel that blistering anger toward you rather than Erwin who he has to see on a regular basis. Besides, Erwin has always gotten around. Mike isn't especially surprised that he'd try his hand with you especially after what happened at the ranch house, but fuck, couldn't he have waited until after he and Mike graduated or something? Just disrespectful. That's what it is.

"Bro, I do not wanna go to another party," Mike's voice rises in frustration. "Consider me partied the fuck out, okay? I'm tired of 'em."

"It's not even a party," Erwin tells him. "It's more like a gathering of… like-minded individuals."

Mike snorts. "Yeah, okay."

"I'm not kidding! Like, twelve people at the most. All we're doing is hanging out at the ranch house."

"Will there be drinking?" Mike questions, moving his head back and forth in a mocking way.

Erwin shrugs his shoulders where he sits. "Of course there'll be drinking, but you don't have to partake. I just want you there to chill. Come on, man."

"Who's going?"

The blond lists off some of the Friendsgiving group, but he doesn't get to finish because once Erwin utters your name, Mike cuts him off with a loud, "Nope!"

"Duuuude," Erwin sounds like the frustrated one now, not that he has any right to be.

"Don't dude me! Why the fuck would you think I'd have any interest in watching you two giggle and cuddle n' shit."

"Mike," Erwin groans, rubbing his forehead. "How many times do I have to tell you…"

"You don't have to tell me anything. I already know what I need to know."

Standing up, Erwin seems like he's at his wit's end when he barks, "You don't know shit! You're seeing what you want to see without asking either of us! She misses you, dude. I'm just the next best thing."

"Nice to know your dick game isn't better than mine at least," Mike grumbles.

"Jesus Christ, you know what? I don't care. Come to the house, or don't come. Whatever."

Erwin takes long strides to get to Mike's front door, obviously ready to get away from him. He slams it hard enough to make Mike flinch.

He doesn't care how annoyed Erwin is with him. It's partially his fault that Mike doesn't want to go to the gathering, and he should know that. He'll come to understand eventually, and that thought makes it easier for Mike to make his decision. He's not gonna go. He refuses. There's no way. He won't—

Mike ends up going.

After powering through finals and visiting his parents for another few days. He has a mental debate the entire way to the ranch house, swearing to himself, going over the pros and cons. He comes close to turning around more than a few times, but after a couple hours, Mike finally pulls into the large circle drive right behind Levi's black Prius.

Erwin is extremely surprised to see him but keeps his mouth closed about it, just tells him, "Room upstairs on the far right is still open."

Mike drops his stuff off then greets the others—Nile, Gelgar, Reiner, Jean, Marco, and Levi.

"Wasn't expecting to see you here," the last states, focused on burning the loose string of his hoodie with a lighter. "Erwin told me you guys had some bullshit argument."

"Happens sometimes," Mike dismisses as he takes a place on the couch.

"I guess. This is why I don't have a lot of friends. Can't put up with stupid shit like that."

"Oh, is that why?" Mike rolls his eyes.

Levi snickers, shaking his head. "Aw man, he was right. You are in a bad mood, aren't ya'?

"Man, fuck off."

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Mike is bouncing his foot where it's thrown over his opposite leg—anxious or angry or some other negative emotion he needs to get rid of.

"Party's gonna be a fucking sausage fest," Levi mumbles.

Nile passes behind the couch just in time to hear and informs the smaller man, "Not entirely. Maddie, Marie, Hitch, and Mike's little heartbreaker should be getting here soon."

Mike groans internally but speaks out loud, "This was a mistake. I can't fucking be here if you guys keep talking about her."

"If you can't handle us talking about her, how're you gonna handle seeing her?" Levi scoffs.

Erwin has stocked the bar with craft beer and various wines. Mike considers going ahead and breaking a few bottles open, but he resists—doesn't want a repeat of the forgotten party.

They set up a horror video game upstairs and an animated adult series downstairs. Erwin wasn't lying about it being a more relaxed environment than usual, but that doesn't stop Mike's neck from prickling when you arrive with Hitch at around five. Maddie and Marie show up a couple hours later, and Mike can feel the tension that surrounds all four of you. Amusing as it can be, he really doesn't have the patience for cattiness tonight.

High quality Chinese food is provided courtesy of Erwin's father's credit card as well as dipped strawberries that Nile keeps feeding Hitch. It gets Marie very heated very quickly, and Maddie has to talk her down in another room.

It makes Mike wonder if you would ever let him feed you like that or if you would snort and bat his hand away. What the fuck do you think you're doing, Zacharias? That's couples shit.

It makes him sigh and slouch on the couch, thankful you're upstairs watching Connie play the most recent Resident Evil.

He knows you're not a fan of horror, so the only reason you'd be up there is to avoid Mike.

Good.

Erwin is the first to open the wine. Maddie won't leave his side, stuck to him like a magnet. The fact that he has to get a drink only furthers Mike's theory that Erwin didn't invite her as a real date.

He spends a fair amount of time shooting the shit with Levi. It isn't necessarily the most enjoyable conversation considering Levi's constant smartass comments, but it's better than trudging up to the second floor.

Nile fucks Hitch in the bathroom for everyone to hear. Marie starts crying and runs to the porch. This gathering is about as insufferable as Mike assumed it would be.

Eventually, you journey downstairs. It was inevitable. You spare Mike a glance and sigh as you make your way to the kitchen to grab a beer—you don't even like beer, so why—

"Hey, can you grab me one too?" Erwin calls out, and when you hand it to him, he gives you that hundred watt grin Mike knows brings girls to their knees, but while Maddie stares at him with that dreamy look in her eyes, you just snort and gently shove him.

"Don't fuckin' look at me like that, Smith."

Ah, the last name card, the one that you pull to act like you're all aloof when really you're just reeling them in.

"Like what?" Erwin asks before taking a sip, still smiling around the rim of the bottle.

"You know what."

Mike chooses then to go upstairs, knowing he steals your attention as he stomps like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Why did he even come here? Was it just to give himself more reason to brood? Solidify that he's valid in being angry?

Connie is trembling as his character makes his way through a decrepit house. Jean laughs every few minutes, but he also startles at every jump scare, leaving Reiner to call both of them pussies as he bites into strawberry after strawberry, throwing the stems into a little bowl in his lap. Mike supposes the first years are entertaining enough. He can see why Erwin invited them here.

It's close to nine o'clock. Mike is bored out of his mind, can't help venturing back downstairs mostly because he's tired of watching the pledges swear and shout at the video game (including Reiner now) but also out of morbid curiosity.

Marie has returned and is sitting in the kitchen with Maddie, both of whom are glaring into the den where you, Erwin, Nile, and Hitch share the couch. Hitch may as well be in Nile's lap, but you're sitting on the back ridge, feet planted on the cushions as you hunch forward and nurse a beer. Your knee is against Erwin's arm, but that's the only point of contact. Still, whenever something funny is said on the TV show, he looks up at you, as if to check that you're laughing, taking it in. Mike can't blame him. You have one of the cutest laughs he's ever heard.

Levi and Gelgar are both on plush loveseats on opposite sides of the room, either scrolling or typing on their phones.

Again, Mike has to think about how laid back the party is—even if he's a mess. It's so different from the raucous scenes he's used to—blasting music and keg stands and dancing on tables. This would be infinitely preferable if it weren't for the open pit in Mike's stomach.

If he could just chill the fuck out, pay absolutely no attention to you and Erwin and the way his fingers slowly wrap around your ankle when you won't stop bouncing your leg.

Not together his ass.

When Mike gets a text from Rhi, he basically sighs in relief—the perfect opportunity to forget about you for a while.

He doesn't bother asking to make sure it's okay with the host, just messages back, what are you doing rn? and immediately asks her to come over, knowing she only lives about an hour away.

Naturally, she agrees. One of the only great things about Rhi is that she’s always, always down to fuck. Mike doesn’t know if it has something to do with his size or if she just has a high sex drive. Either way, he’s glad for it..

He meets her on the porch after waiting for what feels like an eternity, just having to sit and watch you kick Erwin’s thigh whenever he says something dumb. He always retaliates by pulling on your little toes which makes you squeak and almost fall off the couch. It’s fucking maddening, makes Mike want to pull his hair out or throw something, just trash the fucking house because Erwin deserves it.

But, then Rhi arrives in all her Ugg boot glory, wearing the old, green hoodie that you had given back to Mike a few months ago.

They walk in, Mike’s hands on her shoulders like he’s pushing her over the threshold. You look up, take the other girl in, then very quickly step off the couch and prance into the kitchen without saying a word.

Erwin, however, makes up for your silence, wide eyed as he stares at Rhi and utters, “Fuck.”

* You didn’t want to be like Maddie and Marie, jogging to a private place to cry over a fucking boy, but god, you are definitely locked in the bathroom, hunched over the sink sobbing as quietly as you can. Your nose is running, and your eyes are burning, leaking god damn rivers

It wouldn’t have been so bad if she was just in her normal winter sorority get-up. But the hoodie? The one you wore for months on end, the one Mike would sniff whenever he would lay his head on your stomach, mumbling something about, “Smells good. Might have to take it back.” He didn’t have to say it out loud, but you knew he always felt a little jolt of pride when you’d wear it, like you were advertising how close you were to him.

So, to see another girl wearing it—to see Rhi wearing it—it fucking hurts. Your throat is sore from holding back those loud, pained cries. Your stomach is rolling like you ate something spoiled. Your fingers ache from digging into the fancy, granite sink. Everything hurts.

It makes you wonder if Mike felt like this when you first told him about Zeke, if he feels like this now that he thinks you’re with Erwin—stupid, stupid, stupid. You shouldn’t have waited so long to talk to him. You should have cleared things up right after the party. Now, it’s too late.

There’s a knock on the door that makes you sniff and wipe your nose, but you still tell whoever is on the other side (most likely Hitch or Erwin), “Go away.”

“It’s me.” Erwin. "Let me in."

"Literally what did I just say?"

"If you don't unlock the door, I'll kick it in. It's my house, so I won't get in trouble for it."

"Oh my god," you grumble before turning the lock on the knob. "Spoiled fucking brat."

Erwin steps in and closes the door then takes a good look at your puffy face and red eyes. Sighing, he leans against the wall. "For the record, I didn't invite her. Mike must have—"

"That doesn't make me feel any better," you say, grabbing some toilet paper to blow your nose. "Actually, it makes me feel even worse."

"I just wanted to make sure you knew."

"What, d'you want brownie points or something?" You ask sarcastically, making sure the toilet lid is down before sitting on it, bracing your arms on your knees and looking up at Erwin to find him frowning. "Sorry. I'm being a bitch, I know."

He waves it off. "It's understandable. I'm not very happy with him either. The perpetual shitty mood is driving me crazy."

You don't know much about that other than it being entirely your fault, so you apologize, "Yeah, sorry about that."

"If you guys would have just talked it out like adults—"

"Well, we didn't, Erwin. And, it seems like it's not even an option any more, so…" you hold your hands out in a clueless fashion, like you're at a loss. "I don't know what you want me to do."

Your voice is thick, straining against the lump in your throat. Vision going blurry again, you shove your palms against your eyes, repeating, no more crying, no more crying, no more crying.

"I'm sorry he's doing this to you," Erwin says quietly.

You sniffle, almost laugh when you reply, "Not really different from what I did to him. Like," you have to blow your nose again so it doesn't start running, toss the toilet paper into the waste basket next to you. "I don't know if he's trying to get back at me or legitimately moving on, but I can't exactly hold it against him."

"Still," Erwin takes a couple steps toward you. "Pulling this kind of shit is fucked up. He had to have known it would hurt you on some level."

"You don't have to, like, take my side or whatever," you state. "I know we're friends and all, but you don't have to coddle me like this."

"I'm not trying to coddle you. I'm sympathizing. There's a difference."

"Whatever it is, it's unnecessary," you mumble.

"Yeah?" Another step closer so that he's right in front of you. "So, you weren't planning on crying in here for the rest of the night?"

"No," you're quick to deny, but your lips quirk upward when you correct, "I was gonna go up to my room and cry in there for the rest of the night."

Erwin shakes his head then pulls you into a strange embrace, pressing your face to his stomach with one hand while the other settles between your shoulder blades.

Your first instinct is to shove him away, but his shirt is soft and smells like detergent, and his stomach is firm and grounding against your cheek, and the knuckles rubbing up and down the top of your spine are warm and soothing.

So, you stay in the slightly awkward position, shutting your eyes and trying to relax, but all you can think about is Mike walking in with his hands on Rhi and the way she looked in his hoodie. Is she cuter than you? Does she smell better than you? Does she treat him better than you did?

Tears well up in your eyes once again, dampening Erwin's shirt as they slip over your waterline, and before you know it, you're clutching the material covering the small of his back and crying against him.

And, he lets you—just keeps stroking between your shoulders and shushing you with a quiet, "I know, I know. It'll be okay."

Erwin is cocky and bold, takes things a little too far sometimes, but, just as you thought last year after he stole that kiss, he is good. Even if he's broken too many hearts to count and completely disregarded people's feelings, he's a good guy. At the very least, he's good to you, and that's what you need at the moment.

"What time is it?" You speak into his shirt.

"About eleven thirty."

You hum and turn so that your forehead is resting just above his hips. It could be a suggestive position, but—

But nothing.

You blink a few times, weighing the situation, everything that unfolded tonight—everything that's unfolded over the past semester and… it would make sense. It's not like you've never thought about it before. You're worked up and need to unwind, need to clear your head, and besides, Mike already believes there's something between you and Erwin, so why not take advantage of that?

Sucking on your bottom lip, you go through a list of pros and cons. The biggest downside is that Mike will be upset with you. He already is, though, so there’s isn’t much to lose on that front. The upside is that you'll be able to forget about him for a while and possibly get an orgasm out of it.

"Hey, Erwin…" You're not entirely sure how to bring it up, but it turns out you don't have to.

"Don't fucking ask," he huffs. Perceptive bastard.

You push away from his stomach and look up at him. "Okay, why, though?"

His head is hanging back, gaze trained on the ceiling as he admits, "Because if you ask, I won't say no, and it'll only make things worse."

Something about that gives you butterflies. That's a good sign, means you might be invested enough to finally let your mind wander from Mike.

"Mike already thinks we're fucking, though, so unless you don't actually want to fuck me, I don't see why we shouldn't."

Erwin walks backward until he hits the cabinets. His full lips are pressed into a tight line, and his blue eyes look like a warning. Don't push me.

"Do you honestly think you won't walk away from that feeling guilty?" He questions. "We know we aren't sleeping together, that we aren't actually doing anything wrong even if Mike doesn't believe it. But, to actually go through with it?" Erwin lets out a little chuckle and crosses his arms over his chest. "I probably won't feel bad 'cause I'm kind of an asshole, but you? You will feel awful."

"I already feel awful," you remind him as you stand. "I already feel guilty. If you think I could feel any fucking worse than I already do, you might be overestimating my—my—I don't know—emotional capacity?"

Moving forward, you nudge Erwin out of the way to get to the sink, splashing cold water on your face to clean it of dried tears. You cup a hand under the faucet, then toss some water into your mouth, swishing, and spitting, and turning back around.

Erwin's gaze is dark and not at all subtle when he eyes you up and down.

"I might hurt you, you know," he states in a voice that's considerably deeper than before.

You raise your eyebrows, unconvinced. "You don't have to worry about me catching feelings, Smith. Relax."

Mouth tugging up on one side, Erwin smirks in a way that makes you squirm where you stand.

"That's not what I meant."

It takes you a moment to decipher what he's trying to say, but you breathe an, "Oh," when you realize, then another as it truly sinks in. "Oh."

That's okay, you want to tell him. I want to be hurt tonight. You only want it if it will hurt. If you confess to that desire, though, Erwin might back out—a disappointment considering the way you're starting to get a little excited.

"If I can handle Mike, I can handle you," you say, fully aware that he'll take it as a challenge. If there's one thing you know about men, it's that they thrive off competition.

Erwin is no different as he slides in front of you, hands finding your hips and pulling them to his. He's already half hard in his khakis, and you stand on your tip-toes, brushing against him as you do, to tilt your head back and hover just under his mouth as you tease, "Don't tell me you haven't thought about it before."

"You have no idea how often I've thought about it—how often I think about it."

You nip at his bottom lip, enjoying the way he licks it afterward. "Have you been holding back since we started hanging out—just the two of us?"

His fingers dig into your back, just above the curve of your ass, and you already know there will be small bruises left behind.

"Do you want me to paint a picture?" He rumbles, and you nod, pressing a kiss to his throat. "Any time I have you in my room I think about fucking you. On the bed. Over my desk. Up against a wall…" A little gasp makes its way out of him as you bite down on the skin you've been sucking on, and Erwin ruts against you a couple times before continuing, voice a little more strangled than before.

"Thought about fucking you downstairs on the couch for the whole frat to see, all spread out, moaning like a porn star. I know what you sound like," he whispers, catching you off guard when he suddenly lifts you to set you on the counter. "I've heard the way you scream for Mike."

There's a pang in your chest at the mention of him, but it's gone just as quickly.

"And, you'd like it, wouldn't you? Being watched." Erwin trails his lips from your temple to your ear, making you shiver when he speaks into it, "You can pretend all you want, but I know you liked it when I walked in on you and him. You liked being on display."

He isn't wrong. You replay that instance in your head a little more than you probably should.

Hearing the fact stated now, though, right to your face has your body heating, arousal flooding you and making warmth pool between your legs.

"You can admit it, it's okay. I've known for a while now."

One of his hands moves to the inside of your thigh then further up, fingers dancing over your covered pussy. It's your turn to gasp. You clutch his shoulders and spread your legs despite knowing there's no way you'll be satisfied with this, not when thick denim is separating you from his touch.

"Don't get too cocky, Smith." You try to sound confident, but it's hard to when your breath keeps hitching.

"Why?" He grazes his teeth over the sensitive space below your ear, and it makes you twitch in his grasp. "I have every reason to be."

He goes on to list every other place he's thought about fucking you—apparently just about every setting you've ever been in with him. Each and every Pike party, the locker room before or after a lacrosse game, his Mustang, Mike's Wrangler.

"That's fucked up," you somehow manage.

Erwin shrugs his shoulders, mumbles, "Can't help it," then slots his lips against yours for the first time (or, the first consensual time).

You're reminded of Zeke, the way all you did was compare him, only now with Erwin, you have two men who flash through your mind. He's softer than Zeke but just as bold as he cradles your head and slips his tongue into your mouth—tastes sweeter than Mike (probably from the strawberries), but it's not necessarily a good thing. It isn't bad either. It's just Erwin… Different.

His hair doesn't brush your cheeks like Mike's does. He doesn't have glasses to dig into your skin. Clean shaven, no coarse hairs to tickle against you, and he's smack in the middle in terms of height. You have to crane your neck more than you did with Zeke but less than you had to with Mike.

It's all a little jarring, but you feel this was always sort of an inevitability, at least once you started spending time with Erwin one on one. You never would have let this happen if you had stayed with Mike—if you had actually taken the next step with him—but that's why you started hanging out with Erwin in the first place.

You never noticed the way your back and forth was flirty, mostly just you giving him shit about one thing or another, but apparently others read further into it. And, you've had as good a time as you can. The heartache has put a damper on things, kept Erwin mostly off your radar save for the days you woke up frustrated and desperate, but that's what your vibrator is for.

Apparently, while you were busy making sure things stayed friendly between the two of you, Erwin's mind was getting away from him. Every god damn time you hung out, he told you, whether it was at the house or out to lunch, walking with you to classes or out to your car.

He did make it a habit of touching you, you can admit, but none of it was inappropriate—a nudge to knock you off balance that would result in you hitting him, a prod in the ribs that would result in you squeaking and hitting him. Sticking a foot out to trip you that would result in you…

Dude obviously likes to be slapped around.

There's also the hugs. Up in his room when you feel extra gloomy, he'd wrap his arms around you and sway back and forth. Sometimes he'd sit and pull you with him, turn on a movie and keep a tight hold around your shoulders. There were afternoons you'd walk into his room while he was studying and just pass out in his bed, up too late the night before from worrying and obsessing, in need of a nap before your evening lecture. He'd set an alarm for you, stay up for a while longer before allowing himself to take a break and crawl under the blankets beside to—

Oh, god, you've been dating Erwin Smith.

You have to break away from him to laugh, lightly hitting your head against his chest so that he chuckles and asks, "What?"

"I—" You look back up at him, shaking your head to yourself. "I can't believe I didn't fucking see it."

"See what?"

"You and me—"

"You and I," he corrects, and you shove him.

"You and I have just been doing what Mike and I were doing."

"Uh, excuse me," he holds a finger up. "We have not been having endless sex, thank you."

"That's not—" You roll your eyes. "I'm saying we've been dating without actually dating. Like, I get why everyone thinks we're a thing."

"Oh," Erwin nods, sucking his teeth for a second then adding, "Yeah, I was wondering when you would figure that out."

"Fucker. Did you do it on purpose? Like, just to prove you could?"

He frowns, looking genuinely offended. "Christ, what kind of person do you think I am?"

"Not twenty minutes ago you confessed to being an asshole."

His face softens when he snickers. "Okay, true. But, no. I'm not trying to manipulate Mike or you for that matter. You've been upset, and you've put up with a lot of shit over the last few months, and I just figured you could use a friend."

Staring up at him, you notice the way his face is turning a little red, and you hold your tongue between your teeth as you smile knowingly.

"You caaare about meee."

He scoffs and looks away

"Heartbreaker Smith cares about a girl," you tease. "How embarrassing."

"Laugh it up. You would've been miserable without me."

"I mean, yeah, but still. What's it like having a platonic girlfriend?"

He tilts his head to the side then reaches forward to squeeze your thighs. "Is it really platonic if we're about to have sex?"

"Absolutely. Hundred percent."

"You're not even a little worried that it'll become a regular thing and you'll fall in love?" The arrogance is both astounding and amusing.

Cocking your head, you take a deep breath, expression one of false sympathy as you pat his stomach. "I'm positive. Unfortunately, my heart belongs to another."

Erwin clicks his tongue before moving forward and sliding his hands between the counter and your ass. "I'm a little hurt, honestly. I'm used to fucking a girl and having to hide out for a while afterward—always so clingy."

You squint, can't tell if he's being serious or overdramatizing to annoy you.

"You know what? Nevermind. I don't even want your little playboy ass anymore—"

Naturally, he turns the charm back on right then, getting too close to your face, blue eyes flicking to your lips before he breathes, "Don't lie," and presses a tiny peck to them. "The tough girl act is only believable for so long."

"Wow, fuck you."

"That's the idea," he smirks.

"Har fucking har. You're so funny."

Erwin pulls you closer to the edge of the counter and grinds his hips against yours then prompts, "Your room or mine?"

"Mine," you reply. "I'd rather you have to do the walk of shame later."

"Probably a good idea since you won't be able to once I'm finished with you."

You actually laugh out loud. It would have worked on you a few minutes ago, but all the joking has you a little giggly at this point.

Fuck, he is going to make a great distraction.

"Okay, calm down. Don't make promises you can't keep."

"Sounds like a challenge to me."

"Men," you sigh. "So predictable."

After minutes more of unnecessary banter, Erwin finally coaxes you out of the bathroom you've both spent far too much time in. Your face has cleared up, the urge to cry subsiding, though your heart still drops in your chest when you pass behind Mike and Rhi on the couch, green eyes tracking you as you walk up the stairs in front of Erwin.

This is not the right way to solve a problem, but it'll probably be fun for a while. It's already fun as Erwin kicks the door closed and walks you back to the bed. He isn't even touching you, just watching you with a hazy blue gaze. He isn't smiling, looks like a predator, and honestly, it's ridiculously attractive.

"Stop making that face."

"What face?"

"That—that—"

You run into the bed, wave your arms to keep your balance, but Erwin presses his fingertips to your chest and just barely pushes to knock you back.

"What face, hm?"

The hair on your arms and neck is standing on end, anticipation bubbling in your gut as you try to crawl higher on the mattress only for Erwin to grab you by the ankle and tug you back down.

Damn. He's good at this.

"Stay," he commands, straightening up to take his shirt off.

He's tan and toned, light blonde hair sprinkled over his chest and above the waistband of his pants.

You're reminded of the very first Pike party you went to, the first time you slept with Mike (and can't remember), walking downstairs the following morning to find Erwin in the kitchen wearing sweats and drinking his coffee and smirking at you like he could tell the future.

Maddening. He's maddening.

You rid yourself of your own top then shimmy out of your jeans. Erwin eyes you hungrily, causing your whole body to tingle. It simultaneously makes you want to cover yourself and spread yourself open for him.

"I have been waiting way too fucking long for this," Erwin mumbles, raking fingernails down your torso so that you take in a shuddering breath.

"It's been, like, a y-year and a half." Your back arches on its own volition, hips bucking as Erwin scratches over the bones before catching your thong and pulling it down. He kneels at the end of the bed, a familiar scene save for the head of shiny, golden hair.

"A year and a half of having to look but not touch."

"Poor little—" you gasp when he parts your folds with his thumbs, staring at your pussy then blowing a stream of air over it.

"Do you know how many times I've jacked off to the thought of you? How many times I've slept with other girls while imagining it was you?"

You want to make another smartass comment, tease him about being a pervert or in his feelings or something, but you can't find your voice as he licks a long, slow stripe up your slit. You stare at the ceiling, not even blinking as too many signals fire in your brain all at once.

Erwin is good with his mouth. Like, stupid good. He has a teasing rhythm, flicks your clit with the tip of his tongue until your muscles are coiled then moves to trace the ring of your entrance, taking his time as you turn from human to puddle.

He’s better at this than Zeke who would purposely graze his teeth over your sensitive little bud a little too hard on purpose, would suck on it until it hurt. He liked when you whimpered for him, liked leaving raised welts on your ribs and back from where he’d scratched. The intermixed pain and pleasure never failed to make you come, but the climb up to that precipice was usually precarious for lack of a better term.

Then, there’s Mike (because of course there is). His mood usually determined how he would take you, hard and fast before a game or slow and lazy as you both relaxed in his room. One thing always stayed the same no matter his disposition, and it’s that he fucking worshiped your pussy—even said it on multiple occasions. He would eat you out like a starving man, lapping at your juices like it would quench his thirst. Some days he would overstimulate you to the point of tears, neverending licks lavished over your clit as he pumped thick fingers in and out of your cunt. Other days he would go down on you like it was a fucking hobby—turn on a movie, spread you out on the foot of his bed, and eat you out while only halfway paying attention to the TV. He could pull multiple orgasms from you that way, letting you come around a finger or two before returning to your pulsing clit. Fuck, you used to make such a mess. He’d spend minutes trying to lick you clean, but you always ended up in the shower afterward.

You shouldn’t be thinking of that right now, though. You should be thinking about Erwin’s clever tongue and the fingertips just barely brushing over sensitive skin. You want them inside of you, want something to clamp down on, but no matter how much you pull his hair or utter a breathy, “Please,” he keeps the same pace, only moving on when he feels like it.

He’s doing it on purpose, trying to break you before even getting to the point of fucking you, and if you’re being honest, it just might work. He’s gonna make you lose your god damn mind tonight. Exactly like you want to.

“Fuck, how much p-practice have you had with th-this?”

Erwin laughs, stilling your wriggling by curling his arms around your thighs. “Too much, probably.”

You whine when he continues, but when he starts softly sucking on your clit, you’re surprised at how close you suddenly feel, your legs naturally trying to spread further but remaining immobilized in Erwin’s grip. The threat of not being able to move only intensifies the building sensation in your gut, and soon you’re gasping his name, eyes rolling as you try in vain to buck further into his face.

You feel more than hear Erwin groan, a deep vibration that pours over your clit and makes you twitch. He gives you a few more long licks, then pulls back and stands, exposing the way his mouth and chin are covered in a glossy sheen.

“Feel better yet?” He smirks.

You wave a lazy hand, don’t want to fluff his ego too much, so you allow him to witness your borderline stoned state while still jeering, “I’ll feel better when I have your cock inside me.”

Erwin laughs to himself, mutters, “Eager,” then takes his pants off.

Pushing yourself up on your elbows, you give his cock a cursory glance and stop. “Hold on,” then slide off the bed and to your knees.

If you’re gonna fuck Erwin Smith, you’re at least gonna appreciate it.

He inhales sharply as you place your hands on his thighs, eyes traveling over his length. It’s pretty, above average in size, smooth, with a flared tip that’s currently flushing a dark pink.

“I really hate to admit this, but you could be, like, a dick model.”

He chokes on some kind of snort, and you swear his entire chest turns red. “I—thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” you tell him, promptly taking hold of his cock and guiding it into your mouth.

“Oh, fuck, fuck—”

His skin is soft against your tongue, warm as you take him deeper. His girth stretches your jaw, but you’re still pretty used to the feeling, had to get used to it with Mike because he’s a little bigger than—

That’s not important.

Erwin breathes through his teeth as he places a hand on the top of your head, and when you look up at him through your eyelashes, he lets out a disbelieving little laugh. That confident fucking tease is nowhere to be found as you swipe your tongue over the tiny hole leaking pre then surge forward, almost pressing your nose to his pelvis as you run the muscle back and forth under the base of his cock.

“Shit, let me—let me lean against the bed,” he says, pulling you off him and chuckling, “Gonna make my fucking knees buckle.”

You turn where you’re kneeling, waiting for him to get better stabilized before resuming your efforts to ruin this annoying, charming frat boy who is always put together. You suck and slurp and trigger your gag reflex a couple times. Erwin’s fingers scratch against your scalp like he’s looking for purchase. He’s careful not to be too brutal as he pushes you down on his cock, raising his hips to meet your rhythm. His head is thrown back, thighs tensing under your hands as his chest rises and falls with short breaths.

You have to work up to it, but once you feel loose enough, you press forward and let Erwin slip further into your throat. His voice sounds like honey when he groans a low, “Hoooly fuck,” letting his head hang down as he attempts to stare at you with unfocused eyes.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he huffs. “Keep going and we won’t get to the main event.”

You pull off of him with a lewd pop then raise to your feet. Your knees are a little sore, but it’s nothing some exercise won’t work out.

“Want me to wear a condom?”

“I don’t care. I’m clean and on birth control,” you tell him. “What about you?”

“Well, I’m clean, but I haven’t gotten my birth control prescription refilled in a wh—”

You flick his chest, and Erwin laughs as he bats you away.

“Alright. Up on the bed with you then,” he motions to the mattress. “Lay on the edge.”

You do as you're told, spreading your legs for Erwin to stand between, and you bite your lip when you feel him rub the head of his cock between your folds. You’re still wet with slick—probably dripped onto the carpet when you were giving him head—which makes the glide easier as he teases you.

“Ready?” He asks, wriggling thick eyebrows until you smile. He doesn’t wait for an actual answer before he starts pushing in, pressing your legs to your chest as he slowly seats himself in your cunt.

You’re making that face—eyebrows moving toward your hairline as if you’re worried, jaw dropping open as air is pushed from your lungs. Erwin looks focused, licking his lips as he gazes down at the way your pussy stretches around him.

He thrusts in and out at a tortuous pace, apparently waiting for you to start trembling around him before he deems you ready to take more. Every one of his movements is measured, slowly pulling out only to push in all at once. The ridge of his cock drags over your g-spot, pressing firmly against it and making you claw at his shoulders.

He feels good, satisfying, but he’s not quite as good as Mike who used to hit all your spots without even thinking about it—somehow making you beg like a whore and sing like a little girl in Sunday school all at the same time.

Still, you don’t have to lie when Erwin quickens his pace and pants, “Feel good?”

“Fuck—yes, yes, Jesus Christ—”

He’s pulling all manner of crude sounds from your pussy, wet and greedy as it sucks him back in with every rut of his hips. The angle is perfect—his height paired with the bed on stilts has him hitting your spot every time, and you feel the need to warn him, “If you keep—keep fucking me like this—god—m’gonna squirt.”

“Fuck yes,” he praises, wetting a thumb in his mouth before bringing it down to massage your clit. He only speeds up as your voice rises, body confused like your muscles don’t know if they should be flexed or relaxed.

You feel that tell-tale burning, that urge that only gets stronger the more Erwin abuses your g-spot and presses against your clit.

“Shit, shit, shit—”

Erwin groans when fluid starts to trickle from you, pushes more and more out of you while quickly swiping two fingers over your clit. The sense of relief is mind-numbing. You can’t even be upset that your sheets are gonna be damp whenever you decide to sleep.

He doesn’t slow down, doesn’t lose his rhythm, just sticks his two wet fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

You see it now—the skill, the appeal, why the girls always come back to him. It makes sense. He’s devastatingly handsome, especially like this, all fucked out and flushed, hair out of place, lips red and swollen from biting them.

Yeah, Erwin is fucking hot.

But, that doesn’t mean he’s your type.

Pulling out, he flips you onto your stomach, and you have to stand on your tip-toes as you lean over the bed. The burn in your calves disappears almost entirely when he slides into you from behind, pelvis pressing against your ass as he curls over you, cupping your tits and tweaking your hardened nipples as he gifts you with a series of shallow thrusts. It makes you whimper and teeter forward, unable to balance and squirm at the same time. Face suddenly buried in the mattress, your cries are muffled by the blankets. Erwin’s hands travel back to your hips, rocking you back and forth on his slick cock. He’s getting a little rougher, pressing into you as deeply as he can, and the fact that you’ll be sore from this tomorrow gives you a strange sense of satisfaction.

Only way to get over someone is to get on top of someone else, right? Or, underneath in your case. Being a little more in control wouldn’t be the worst thing, though, so…

“Erwin, Erwin, fuck—Lemme ride you.”

There is no hesitation. Erwin slips out of you and throws himself onto the bed, grinning crookedly as he watches you climb over him on unsteady limbs. His patience must have worn out some time ago, because he holds his cock with one hand, using the other to line you up with it, then guides you down his length.

You have to sit still for a second, or you would like to, but Erwin is still holding your hips, and he rocks you back and forth in his lap like he knows. He probably does. He’s probably fucked enough girls to notice exactly when their eyes pop open, when they shudder and break out in goosebumps because that pressure is hitting exactly where it needs to, and yeah, he knows.

Finding it in yourself to move again, you lean over Erwin, planting your hands on the pillows by his head, then start bouncing on his cock. He hisses in a dark, appreciative way, eyes and hands immediately drawn to your chest. He sits up enough to suck one of your nipples into his mouth, licking and pinching then doing the same to the other.

He’s so good—feels so good, knows just where to touch, the exact place to bite on your neck that makes you melt, but how—how does he know that? It’s like he has a sixth sense or—

Or, he just paid attention to the bruises that Mike used to leave on the sides of your throat. That checks out.

Fuck, he used to mark you like he wanted everyone to see, especially that last night. It was almost animalistic, like he had been—marking his territory, Zeke’s voice plays in your head. It makes you frown, and you rid yourself of the thought only to replace it with the memory of Mike’s mouth on your skin, his calloused fingertips trailing down your torso, huge hands wrapping around your legs to pull you against him—

You whine, glad it sounds like a sound of desperation rather than frustration. You just want to stop thinking about him. Just an hour—if you could go a single fucking hour—

“Hey, look at me,” Erwin commands in a soft voice.

You open your eyes, still hovering over him, and expect him to say something, but instead he just reaches up to the back of your head and pulls you into a kiss.

He’s helping move you on top of him, forcing you to take his cock over and over, and like this, so close and breathing him in, you don’t even have the room to think about Mike.

Both of your bodies are damp with sweat, and Erwin’s hair is a mess, pushed from his flushed face. He bites down on your bottom lip and tugs, only letting go to ask, “Where do you want me?”

“I don’t care,” you groan, legs and arms and pussy growing sore. You’re not surprised; you’ve been going at it for a while now.

Erwin licks your lower lip as if to soothe it after biting it, tells you, “Oh, don’t give me that option. You know where I’ll pick.”

Smiling, you straighten up then move to fit your feet underneath you so you can bounce more freely. “You can come inside, dude. It feels good to me, too.”

“I really don’t know how to respond to being called ‘dude’ when I’m balls deep in a girl.”

You shrug, “Sorry not sorry,” then raise and drop yourself, feeling in charge for the first time tonight.

“Fuck—shit—”

That feeling is short lived as Erwin goes right back to using you the way he wants. You think for about half a second that he’s finally, really losing himself, but the accuracy of his finger on your clit proves that is not the case. He’s clearly having a good time, but he isn’t at that feral stage that Mike falls into sometimes.

Before you can dwell on it for too long, you hit your peak, moaning Erwin’s name, hips moving uncontrollably as you ride out your orgasm.

He’s speaking, mumbling praise or pleas or curses, you aren’t so sure, but after about another minute of fucking into you relentlessly, Erwin comes, shooting line after line inside of you until he’s spent and twitching.

With your two previous partners, this is usually when you’d fall forward and cuddle, catch your breath and enjoy the feeling of being all plugged up.

But, it’s Erwin, huffing and blinking up at the ceiling then finally stating, “That was a dumb idea.”

It makes you laugh for some reason, probably because you agree.

The sex was great. There is a reason girls talk about him on campus, about his sexual prowess or whatever, and if you weren’t too busy suffocating in your little pit of heartbreak, thinking about your best friend nonstop, you wouldn’t mind fucking Erwin again. And, again and again.

That’s not gonna happen, though. The heat of the moment is fading, every mental faculty returning to you, and despite the fact that you’re still seated on his cock, as you look down at him, you feel absolutely no spark.

He’s ridiculously attractive, pretty fucking brilliant but with a dumb sense of humor, and you love him. You really do. He’s done a lot for you over the last semester, made it at least somewhat bearable, but… This shouldn’t have happened.

Hopefully, it quelled his curiosity, though.

“I told you it would just make you feel shitty,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t look sad. Sympathetic more than anything, resigned that he’s probably going to have to pick up the pieces of another mess.

“Yeah,” you drawl. “You were right.” Your joints pop as you stand, towering over Erwin for once and leaking his fucking cum as you hop off the bed.

“It’s been known to happen from time to time,” he jokes absentmindedly, wiping a few drops of white off his stomach then reaching for the tissues on the nightstand.

You don’t feel awkward or out of place, but you have no idea what else to say. The only thing that comes to mind is, “I’m gonna take a shower,” as you walk toward the bathroom.

Erwin moves on the bed, stretching a little before grabbing his pants and leaving you to your devices, but you pause before stepping onto the tile, turn back and pace over to him.

“Hey,” you start, and Erwin glances up from the button of his khakis. “Thanks.”

He rolls his eyes, a small smile playing at his lips, and once he’s all zipped and buttoned up, he pulls you into a hug.

“I would say any time, but we probably shouldn’t do this again.”

“Yeah, probably not.”

You breathe into the space under his collarbone, humming as he gently scratches you back, then break away. “Alright, actually gonna shower now.”

Erwin nods, “You do that,” then slaps your ass as soon as you turn around.

You look at him over your shoulder with raised eyebrows, but he just winks and tells you, “I had to. Just once,” which is fair.

You run a hot shower, scrub the shit out of your skin, lather your hair with some fancy shampoo then rinse it off. Once you go through your full routine, you’re happy to change into pajamas and slip into the comfortable bed. You don’t even mind that the comforter is a little damp in various places.

* You don’t stir when the door opens and closes, but you do when the mattress dips. Shifting slightly, you assume it’s just Erwin, falling back into your usual routine by slipping under the covers with you.

As soon as he lays behind you, though, you know it isn’t Erwin. You recognize that weight, that warmth, that smell, and you are very awake very quickly.

“M-Mike?”

All he offers is a little, “Mm,” to confirm.

You chew on the inside of your cheek, confused and clueless as to what you’re supposed to do.

“Are you drunk again?”

“No. Little buzzed.”

Why is he here, then? You want to ask—What is he doing? Why isn’t he with Rhi?

You start to turn to face him but you're stopped when Mike sets a hand on your back. It's oddly firm, keeping you in place as he grunts, "No, don't."

"What?"

"Don't turn around." His voice is hushed and choppy, like he's gritting out every syllable.

"Mike?"

"I have shit I wanna say to you, and I won't be able to if you're lookin' at me."

You have no idea how to respond to that, don't know if this is going to be a positive one-sided conversation where Mike confesses deep feelings while actually sober, or if he'll just unload all the baggage you've given him. Either way, you wish you could see his face. Something about having him laying behind you, close enough to feel his body heat, has you feeling very uneasy.

But, you nod, "Okay," trying to put on a brave face that he refuses to look at.

For a while, he just breathes. You assume it’s because he’s gathering his thoughts or maybe working up the courage to say something, but the suspense is making you shiver under your blankets. You have that terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach, the mix of anticipation and regret you get on the way up to the first drop of a rollercoaster.

“Why have you been lying to me?”

And, there’s that drop.

You swallow. “I haven’t been.”

“Bullshit.”

“Mike, I haven’t been!” You try to turn again, but his large hand is still right in the middle of your back.

“Do you think I’m fucking stupid?” His fingers close around the material of your shirt. You feel it tighten at your chest, making it hard to breathe—harder to breathe. “How are you gonna tell me that right after sleeping with him?”

You open your mouth to argue, realize you can’t make a case for yourself, and when you snap your jaw shut again, the sound of your teeth clacking seems to echo in your head.

Yesterday, you would have been able to talk to him about this and be honest when telling him you weren’t fucking his best friend. Now, though…

God, that had been such a bad decision. Why hadn’t you just listened to Erwin? Why can’t you fucking listen to anyone?

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Mike mutters. His grip loosens, but you can still feel a light tug at your shirt, the movement of fingers, and you think he might be rubbing over the material he’s still holding. “Pretty sure all of us could hear you guys goin’ at it, so… Thanks for that.”

You take a deep breath in, squeezing your eyes shut because it sinks in that this is not going to be nice conversation. This isn’t going to result in the two of you apologizing and making love confessions to each other.

“I… I’m sorry.”

Now, you’re grateful for not being able to see his face. You wouldn’t be able to stand looking at him right now, not when you know his expression will be grim—probably angry.

“I can’t really do anything with sorry,” Mike sighs. His hand drops from your back, but you make no move to turn over.

Your heart is like a hummingbird’s, beating frantically in your chest as that ache rises inside of you again, making your throat constrict and your eyes burn.

“Why’d you invite Rhi tonight?” You ask, hoping your sniffle isn’t too noticeable.

“Why does it matter?”

You suppose it doesn’t, but you still want to know, “Is it to get back at me, or is it because you’re actually into her?”

Mike scoffs. “Not that it’s any of your business, but do you think I’d be in your room at three in the fucking morning if I was into her?”

It’s probably the closest he’ll get to admitting it, but it’s all you need to hear. He’s been going out of his way to hurt you. At least any pain you’ve caused him wasn’t intentional. Until tonight, that is, and even then, you didn’t fuck Erwin to hurt him; you did it to help yourself.

Pressing your tongue to the roof of your mouth, you hold back tears and mumble a thick, “Just wanted to know.”

“Want to make sure I’m still interested? That I’ll keep waiting for you to fucking realize—”

“I have—” You turn over roughly, pinning Mike’s hand under your ribs as you glare at him, but he manages to put more distance between the two of you when he yanks his arm back and sits up.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he tells you, and you think you hear his voice waver for a second.

The orange light pouring in from the bathroom is the only way you can tell his eyes are wide—worried—and it chills all the blood in your body.

“Wh-what d’you mean?”

“I mean, I can’t fucking do this anymore,” he repeats a little louder, drawing it out like it’ll help you understand. “I cannot deal with you anymore. I can’t keep feeling this way, okay?”

“Mike…”

“No,” he stops you, acts like he has something else lined up but bites his tongue and sighs. He sits cross-legged on the bed now, hangs his head as he speaks calmly, “This semester has fucking sucked. I am angry all the time. I can’t focus in class, and I can’t play lacrosse without getting in trouble, and I can’t fuck anyone else without feeling bad—I can’t fucking do anything without thinking of you, and I’m—” he looks at the wall and shakes his head. “I’m exhausted.”

“I am too,” you tell him, voice cracking as that lump in your throat grows and bubbles, pushing hot tears from your eyes that you quickly wipe away. “Mike, I am too, so can we just—”

“No,” he cuts you off again. “Whatever it is you’re about to say—move on, pretend it didn’t happen, pick up where we left off, whatever… the answer is no.”

He seems like he already has his mind made up, came into the room with a plan, and he isn’t gonna let you talk him out of it.

So, you stay as silent as you can, sniffing and swallowing and letting the comforter catch every teardrop.

“I have been… Right in front of you this whole time. I made myself completely available for a year—was at your beck and fucking call. I was—I mean—I was good to you, right?” He sounds incredulous, like he can barely believe he’s asking.

“Yeah,” you manage. “Yeah, you were.”

“Then, why…? Zeke? And, now Erwin?”

“Do you want me to try to explain, or do you just wanna rant for a while?”

Mike glances at you, looks surprised that you’d give him the option.

“Honestly, I don’t really wanna hear it. You’ve more than proved your point.”

Indignation swirls in your stomach alongside your nausea, and you press, “My point being?”

“That I’m not good enough.”

Oh, god. No, no, no. You could understand him being angry. You’re okay with him being angry, it’s fine. But, this—this feeling of inferiority? That is so much worse. It makes you sick. This is the last thing you’d ever want Mike to feel. It’s the last thing he should feel because it’s false. He has no reason—he’s too good and too kind and too warm. He’s like… He’s fucking sunshine. He can light up a room, and he doesn’t even know it.

“Mike, n-no,” your voice breaks, making you sound like a wounded animal. “You are so, so good. You are more than enough, I promise.”

He snorts in a self-deprecating manner. “Then, why—”

“Because I’m not good enough. I fucked this up. This is my fault, and I can own that as long as you know that there is absolutely no—nothing wrong with you,” the last part comes out as a squeak as you try not to hyperventilate and cry the way your body is urging you to. Not yet.

Mike nods a few times. You can see his mouth moving from the side like he’s biting his lip or sucking his teeth until he agrees, “Yeah,” then adds a quiet, “Whatever you say, babe,” that makes you want to throw up.

Mike scoots to the edge of the bed and stands. You assume he’s about to leave, let you be alone with your thoughts, so when he rounds the corner to get to your side, you sit up a little straighter.

Half of his face is illuminated, casting shadows under his eyes, highlighting the bruise on his neck that Rhi probably left, but your gaze is trained on his as he leans down to you. A finger hooks under your chin, and Mike tilts your face at an angle, kissing you so softly that it’s painful.

His lips are warm and familiar, everything you’ve been craving as they cover yours. There’s no tongue, no force, just light pressure as he inhales through his nose.

You know what this is, what he’s doing, but you can’t prepare yourself because there’s still that tiny string of hope you’re grappling for. He just needs a break. You just need to give him space. That’s all—

“I love you,” Mike murmurs. His voice is low and honest and slices you open. “I love you so fucking much it hurts, and I just—” He brushes a thumb over your lower lip as he pulls away, and it takes everything in you not to grab his hand and beg him to stay. “It’s like I hate you too.”

You pull away to wipe your face with the blanket. There’s so much you want to say but have no idea how to articulate it, so all you can do is stare at Mike with wide, watery eyes. He… hates you. He hates you.

Straightening, Mike’s expression is suddenly nonchalant, like he just flipped a switch in his brain. “I’m not exactly the social butterfly I used to be, but I wanna have fun my last semester of undergrad—make up for the time I lost fucking brooding over you, so—”

“I’ll stop going to the Pike house,” you tell him quietly. It’s easier to make the decision yourself rather than have to hear it from his mouth: Don’t come around anymore. I don’t want to see you.

“Cool. And, if you, like, see me on campus or anything—”

You cough, maybe gag, you can’t really tell at this point because wow, this just keeps getting worse.

“I won’t bother you.”

“Cool.” He bends to press another much more patronizing kiss to the crown of your head, then starts walking toward the door. “I’m just gonna try to move on, you know? Start fresh. And, you should do the same. Shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

You don’t watch him leave, just listen for the door to click shut behind him before you crawl out of bed, turn the lights on, and start packing your things.

You and Hitch drove together, but you have no doubt that she'll be able to get a ride with Nile, and with that thought, you’re out of the ranch house and on the road just as the first rays of the morning sun start shining over the horizon.

It’s surprisingly easy for Mike to slip back into his old, obnoxious persona, and the remainder of the school year is spent partying, fucking, and cramming for tests he should have studied for weeks in advance.

But, life is short, and he’s done beating himself up over stupid shit.

Most of his PKA brothers are happy to have him “back”, and the pledges get the chance to see this of him, but there are times when Mike catches Erwin or Nile shaking their heads at him. He doesn’t mind much. They can both go fuck themselves for all he cares.

True to your word, you don’t show your face around the house. There were a few weeks after the holiday get-together where Erwin would disappear for a few hours at a time and come back either tired or angry, sometimes a combination of the two.

He attempted to bring you up in a conversation a total of one time, right in the middle of a party where Mike had been eyeing up a sorority girl. He brushed his friend off, easily telling Erwin, “Don’t fuckin’ talk to me about her,” through the crooked grin he was flashing at the little blond across the room.

Erwin didn’t bother after that, obviously deeming Mike a lost cause.

Mike knows better, though. He isn’t lost anymore. In fact, he’s found himself all over again.

Every once in a while, he’ll catch a glimpse of you on campus, but whenever that happens, he just turns around and takes a different route to wherever he’s going. He doesn’t want to give you any reason to think you can talk to him—doesn’t want to give you the chance.

He’s spent too much of his time hung up on you, too much time pining and hurting, and that hasn’t disappeared entirely. Mike can still clearly remember the way you looked at him the last night the two of you spoke, the way your tears twinkled in the dim light. He remembers how strangled you sounded while speaking, remembers the way your shoulders shook as you fought your emotions, remembers the way your lips trembled against his.

It wasn’t very satisfying. Mike left the ranch house the following morning sporting a few bruises on the outside thanks to Rhi as well as a few bruises on the inside thanks to you.

That entire night had been a clusterfuck—between Maddie and Marie storming off to cry then the little stunt he pulled by inviting Rhi, it had been much too dramatic for a gathering of that size. Mike experienced a wide variety of emotions that night, but the one that stands out the most is the searing rage that threatened to burn him from the inside, the red the clouded his vision as soon as he heard you moan Erwin’s name through the wall.

Mike had already been toying with the idea of severing all ties with you, but that’s what pushed him over the edge, watching you put on your little show when Rhi walked in only to turn around and have a grand fucking time with his best friend.

It needed to happen. Mike needed to free himself of you. It feels good. Mostly. There are still some days he comes close to giving in, just picking up his phone and calling you, but he resists, and he’s better for it.

He gets through his classes, does well on his finals after actually putting in the time to prepare for them, and by the time Mike graduates, he’s already been accepted to the graduate program of his choice and has an internship lined up. The tension between him and Erwin has faded for the most part, which is great since he’s going to grad school in the same area up north. Things look… promising—something he didn’t think possible without you by his side, something he didn’t want to be possible without you by his side.

But, now, here he is, unpacking his new apartment with the help of Scout who insists on sniffing absolutely everything. He’s halfway across the country from his parents, away from all he’s ever known, and Mike couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

He can go full days without sparing you a thought now, and he hopes—he prays—that one day he’ll think of you for the last time in his life.

[ next ]

#mike zacharias x reader #miche zacharias x reader #aot x reader #aot fanfic

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sluttyten · 3 years

Text

Coming Home

Poly Orgy Series: Part 8

Poly Series Chapter Index

summary: when you found out you were pregnant, you worried you’d have to go it alone, but instead you find that you have quite a lot of support, several boyfriends that love you wholeheartedly, and a place to call home.

length: 21,227

tags: pregnancy!!, smut, polyamory, multiple partners, unprotected sex, the usual poly orgy series type of tags

“Baby, I don’t want to have to worry about anything in the future. I don’t want you to have to worry either. I love you so much, and the other night I was thinking about the future, about you, about the baby, and really it seemed to me that there’s only one true next step for me to take.” Mark takes a deep breath.

Your world freezes.

“Baby, will you marry me?” Mark asks even as he’s sinking down on one knee.

“Mark!” You cry out, slapping him on the arm hard enough that the sound echoes around your living room.

“Fuck!” Mark straightens up with a whine, his hand immediately flying up to cover the burning imprint of your hand on his arm. “What the fuck?”

Tears burst to your eyes, though you're not sure exactly why. “Mark, why would you ask me... ask me to marry you?” Your voice pitches up at the end, a surprised and somewhat almost frightened squeal.

Mark looks at you then, all wide-eyed seriousness. “I just thought it’s the right thing to do. If you’re pregnant, then shouldn’t you have something stable? A husband? Someone who can help you out and take care of you and the baby? And with the way our lives are, it’s a miracle that no rumor has gotten out to the fans about you at all yet, but now if it does, if they find out about you being pregnant, well, then everyone’s going to want to know which of us you’re with and the answer can only be one, and it’ll just make sense for us to get married, right?”

“And you think that should be you?”

“Well, why not?” His tone is slightly angry, defensive and hurt.

You sigh and turn your back to him so you can wipe at these tears without him watching you.

“Baby?”

“Mark.” Your voice breaks and you clear your throat before turning around and addressing him again. “Mark, I appreciate it and I get where you’re coming from, but I’m going to say no. I love you, and I love that you want to do the right thing by marrying me, but it’s simply not fair to all the others. It’s not fair to you if you’re not the--”

“I don’t care about who the dad is.” Mark straightens up, determination burning in his gaze. “I know the odds of it being mine are slim. I would love if it is mine, like, the idea of being a dad is scary, but no matter what happens, who turns out to be the father, I figure I’m still going to be involved, right?”

You open your mouth, but you can’t find any words to comfort him, to give him a satisfying answer. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Of course, you’ve always known that this whole polyamorous relationship couldn’t be sustainable, though you’ve all tried your best. This news, the little life growing inside of you, might just be that last little chip to shatter the relationship to bits. How can you hope to stay in a relationship with them all when you’ve got a baby? How could you raise a child with fourteen possible fathers?

“Maybe I’ll just Mamma Mia the whole situation,” you mumble.

Mark snorts. “You gonna run away to a Greek island and raise this baby on your own? And in twenty something years when we’re all doing our own things, we’ll get an invite to a wedding, and only then will we unravel the mystery?” He smiles and steps up, wrapping his arms around you, one hand gently cradling the back of your neck. “Baby, you don’t have to do any of that. We’ll all figure this out. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done this tonight. I just.... I’m a traditional kind of guy, I guess. Baby, marriage, moving in together. Those are all things I’ve wanted for a long time, and we’ve already got two of those things in the works. But it’s okay, I understand.”

You sink into his hug. Mark’s so warm and soft and with his arms wrapped around you, you feel even more sleepy than you had before. You breathe in, just taking in the smell of his soap and laundry detergent, and you breathe out.

“This feels nice,” you mumble, your words muffled against his shoulder.

Mark’s hum of agreement vibrates through his chest, and a moment later it turns into a laugh.

Without breaking the hug, you ask him, “Why are you laughing?”

“I don’t even have a ring or anything.” Mark’s voice bounces happily, and he hides his face in your shoulder. “Probably a good thing you shot me down, honestly.”

A while later when you’re in bed, Mark yawning now too as he settles into your bed, you sit up and reach over to rummage through the drawer of your bedside table.

When you turn back around, Mark’s watching you curiously, and he wordlessly gives you his hand when you gesture for him to give it to you. He watches as you uncap a Sharpie marker, and then you separate his ring finger from the others, as you draw a fine black line around the base of his finger. When you’ve completed the ink band you hold his fingers in yours.

“This is a promise,” you tell him, “that we do have a future together, no matter what. That we’ll always be in each other’s lives as lovers or friends or whatever it may be, you’ll always be special to me, Mark Lee.”

You turn his hand over, and bringing his palm to your lips, you kiss right beneath the black band that you just drew on him.

Mark lunges up, wrapping his arms around you, dragging you down against his chest, and he kisses you, kisses your cheeks and nose and chin, and you’re laughing with your hands braced against his chest, kissing him when you can too.

And the next morning when you wake up, you find that some time in the night, Mark had picked up your abandoned Sharpie, and drawn a matching black ink band on your ring finger.

Things are a bit weird for a while after that while everyone adjusts to the awareness that you’re pregnant. And after your first prenatal appointment, some of the boys start acting even more differently.

For one thing, the appointment confirms that you are indeed pregnant, and about eight to nine weeks along by the looks of things. Which, as you listen to your doctor, makes a lot of sense given the symptoms you’ve been experiencing. And that news of you being approximately eight weeks along, and therefore bringing a baby into the world in about 32 weeks, definitely changes how some of your boyfriends start behaving.

Especially after you show them the ultrasound picture.

It’s just a little gray, blurry blob, but there’s a heat in your chest that’s not caused by the heartburn you’ve begun to feel

For a few of the boys, this means that they get protective over you. Taeil and WinWin, for example, both offer to do pretty much everything for you, from opening doors to running upstairs to grab something. Anything that actually might be in any possible way considered “overexerting yourself” they argue with you to let them do.

Johnny, Jaehyun, and to your surprise, Jungwoo, all get much more touchy, wanting to be around you as much as possible. And Jungwoo is just a horny boy all the time, to the point that one evening after you get home from a date with him, as you’re sitting on his lap on the sofa in the otherwise empty house, Jungwoo just starts touching you, and you can tell that he’s already half-hard.

“What is with you lately?” You ask with a laugh, letting Jungwoo pull your shirt over your head. “You’ve been so horny. Is it something I’m doing different?” You perch yourself on his knees, bat your eyelashes at him, and push your chest forward, smiling as his eyes slide down to the curves of your breasts.

“Oh my god... Yeah, angel. Just thinking about you pregnant is actually really sexy.” Jungwoo’s hands settle on your hips. “You’re gonna look even sexier, and your boobs are going to get bigger and, uh, it’s not something I’ve really talked about before, because I was afraid the others would make fun of me or you’d think it’s really weird, but the idea of, like, nursing?” Jungwoo averts his eyes from you, his face going a pale shade of embarrassed. “I think it’s pretty hot.”

You smile and pat his head. “You’ve always had a thing for my boobs, you know, so honestly, I’m not too surprised.” Jungwoo leans into your touch, smiling all sweetly even as his hands knead at your ass roughly. “But you really think me being pregnant is sexy?”

Jungwoo nods. “Definitely. Plus,” he shrugs and says, “I don’t know, there’s just something about you right now that is very, very attractive. Jaehyun says so too.”

“I’m sure he does. Especially since he’s been hot for the idea of knocking me up since the first time we all had sex.” You drape your arms around Jungwoo’s neck. “You, him, Johnny, all three of you are acting so clingy and affectionate lately, meanwhile most of the others wouldn’t dare to try to have sex.”

Just the day before you’d tried to initiate something with Hendery. He went along with it while you were just making out, but as soon as you slid your hand into his pants to rub his erection to full hardness, he’d backed away, making excuses. Taeyong had done the same a few days before that.

“I’ll dare to do it.” Jungwoo leans his head down, mouths at your breasts, as he murmurs, “I want you to ride me, right here. But turn around.”

Reluctantly you climb off his lap, and as you’re facing away from him, Jungwoo pulls your pants and panties down. You step out of them, look back over your shoulder at him, and see Jungwoo watching you with a look of pure awe on his face.

“You’re always so beautiful.” Jungwoo slides a hand down your side, over your hip, curving around to your butt. He leans in and drops just a tiny kiss right at the small of your back. “What did we do to deserve you and everything you’ve blessed us with.”

Your face heats up with a blush.

When he pulls you back onto his lap, his hands settle on your hips, guiding you all the way back until your back is pressed to his chest, his cheek touches yours, and your ass is right over his bulging erection. His fingers flutter for a moment, and then he brushes his hands up to your belly, gentle and light, and then he touches one warm palm flat against your skin, the soothing heat of skin on skin sinks down into you.

Jungwoo’s lips rest against your cheek as you sigh, relaxing back against him.

His other hand wanders lower, fingertips dipping into the crack between your thighs, and obediently you part them for him, letting your legs fall off to either side of his, giving him access to your wet heat.

“Look at you, already soaking wet, spreading your legs so easily for me.” Jungwoo murmurs. “You really do want it badly, don’t you? How long has it been since one of us touched you?”

Truly not that long. That evening with Taeil, Johnny, Taeyong, Kun, Doyoung, and Ten was the last time, and that was just a little over two weeks ago. But compared to just a couple months ago, a week could be considered a dreadfully long time to go untouched by any of them.

You whine when Jungwoo only strokes his finger teasingly over your entrance, avoiding your clit, hardly giving you anything.

“Too long, Jungwoo. I want you.”

“Me? But I’m sure you went to others first. Lucas? I know you love how big and broad he is, making you feel all small. Or Kun hyung? Remember when he and Ten were hogging you all to themselves; you couldn’t get enough of them then.” Jungwoo teases. “You want me? Why do you want me so badly?”

You squirm, wiggling down against his erection. “Because I love you, Jungwoo. I want you.”

He tuts, his lips trailing down now from your cheek to your neck, brushing over sensitive skin, his nose bumps against your jaw. “But why though? What exactly do you want about me?”

His teeth meet the skin of your shoulder just barely, and you whine. “I want you to have me all to yourself, Jungwoo. You can make me feel small too. You’re so big and broad and long.” You rub your ass down against his erection, your head dropping back against his shoulder. “I want you to make me feel small, like your little angel doll.”

Jungwoo smiles where his lips are against the top of your shoulder.

You can feel yourself dripping wet, the slick arousal gathered on his finger that just keeps up its petting of your pussy lips.

His mouth moves, teeth pricking your skin occasionally, and then you feel the moment that he catches your bra strap between his teeth, dragging it along to the curve of your shoulder. When he releases it, the band tickles down your upper arm, and Jungwoo shifts, focusing his nipping kisses on your other shoulder until he against takes that bra strap between he teeth and drags it over the curve of your shoulder.

“Sit up, angel.” Jungwoo murmurs, and you do just that, feeling excited but also disappointed when his hands disappear from your skin, only to return a moment later. His slick finger touches against your back along with several non-slicked fingers, and a second later the clasp of your bra comes apart. You let it drop from your arms, leaving you fully exposed in the room, sitting in a fully-clothed Jungwoo’s lap.

He spreads his legs apart, and you lean back against him once more as his spreading legs push yours farther apart as well.

“Sexy.” Jungwoo kisses your cheek again.

He scoots your forward just a little, just enough that he can fit his hand between you both, and unfasten his zipper to get his cock out. You feel him hot and hard against your tailbone, and your core throbs. It’s been too long since you last had one of them inside you, and now....

You moan from the satisfaction of lifting yourself up and sitting down on Jungwoo’s cock.

“Perfect.” Jungwoo murmurs, his lips against your bare shoulder once more. “Love the feel of you when it’s been a while. The way you react.” His hands circle around to the front of your body, one hand lifted to gentle cup your breast. You groan, leaning back against his chest, sinking down the last inch around him, and Jungwoo’s other hand strokes lightly at your clit. “You’re so beautiful.”

With his arms wrapped around you, his hands caressing your body, his cock filling you up, you feel so perfectly small and safe in his arms, even with you being so exposed out in the room.

Jungwoo smiles as you start to squirm, needing to move to get more than just feeling full and having his teasing touches on your clit. But as you move away, pushing up onto your feet, pulling off his cock, you turn to see Jungwoo frowning slightly. Until you sit back down on his lap facing him.

“I want to see you.” You push his cock back inside you, nice and snug, and then plant your hands on either side of his face, lower your mouth toward his, and start riding him.

Jungwoo’s hands fall to your hips, keeping your rhythm steady as you bounce in his lap. The sound of your gasping breaths and breathy moans echoes all around the space, and you’re grateful that tonight it’s only the two of you here. You feel the sparks of pleasure buzzing and zipping around under your skin; Jungwoo’s hands grope at your ass, his lips burn along your jaw, and you needed this, you really did.

The orgasm comes over you before you expected it, suddenly crashing through you--walls clenching around Jungwoo’s dick, thighs twitching, unable to hold you up any longer, but that’s when Jungwoo just holds you up by your hips and keeps fucking you through it, his thrusts rocking through your body, elongating your orgasm.

Jungwoo grunts as he approaches his orgasm, low moans under his breath and swearing, and you just twist your fingers in his hair, dragging his lips to yours as he cums.

He pulls out of you as he does, cumming half inside you and half against your thigh, but you don’t mind. You sink down, feeling the mess as you sit against the front of his jeans, the denim rough against your sensitive clit, but at the moment you’re a glutton for that kind of oversensitivity.

With Jungwoo’s softening erection still wet and the rough denim of his jeans, you start humping against him, desperate for another orgasm to keep this warm buzzy glow inside of you going.

“Fuck,” Jungwoo groans. “Gonna cum again, princess? You’re making quite the mess of my jeans, look at you.” You do duck your head, looking down at the front of Jungwoo’s jeans where his own cum is smeared along with your wetness and more of his cum as it leaks out of you while you wantonly rub yourself against the denim, making a larger and larger wet patch, grinding forward against his cock, back along the denim.

His hands circle around your back, broad hands covering the expanse of your back, and you arch backwards a bit, leaning into his touch, keeping the movement of your hips against his pants. Jungwoo dips his head forward, his tongue swipes a circle around one of your nipples, his lips then skirt around kissing your breasts. They hurt but right now it doesn’t feel so bad, not with everything else you have going on.

“Cum again for me. I’ve got you.” Jungwoo murmurs, and he sucks gently on your nipple. Your mind falls straight to what you’d been talking about with him earlier, and you picture Jungwoo sucking on your breasts like this, breastmilk on his tongue, and somehow you find that to be a stimulating thought.

This orgasm writhes through you, and your hips twitch erratically over his jeans, your body falling into the overwhelming pleasure of it, and you can feel the heat squirting out of you, and Jungwoo’s moans of surprise mix with yours. And all through it, the heat of his hands holding you safely remains, and then he pull your forward against his chest, those same hands rubbing soothingly up and down your back.

“I’m sorry about your jeans,” you whisper to him after a little while when you’ve come back to yourself. “We should probably throw them in the wash before they’re permanently ruined.”

“No,” Jungwoo hums. “It’s fine. We can just stay like this for a bit longer.”

But you feel like your pussy is drying to the leg of Jungwoo’s pants, and that idea is certainly not pleasant, so when you peel yourself away from him, you wrinkle your nose a bit in disgust and Jungwoo groans at the loss of contact. “Let’s go shower and throw the clothes in the laundry. Plus, we shouldn’t stay here like this much longer. Who knows who will come home and find us like this?”

“I guess you’re right.” Jungwoo stands up suddenly, and it’s then that you really get a look at his pants. The whole crotch of them is dark from you squirting and from his cum. He quickly stuffs his cock away again, wipes his fingers along the front of his pants, and then you watch, bemused, as he lifts his fingers to his face and sniffs.

“You’re gross.” You laugh, taking his hand, and grabbing up your clothes before heading for the stairs.

“What? You smell good.” Jungwoo reaches up to touch your butt as you climb the stairs, and you stop so that you can spin around and look at him, and Jungwoo just grins. “Come on, thought we were going to shower?”

Moving day comes quickly, and the move is easy when you’ve got a whole moving crew at your disposal, every one of them more than happy to move things for you so you don’t strain yourself at all. Especially since they’ve all had multiple chances to look at that little blur that was the beginning of a baby in your ultrasound picture. You first showed off that picture two weeks ago, and now ten weeks along, you’re really starting to feel the pregnancy.

You’re exhausted, wanting to just nap all the time. And then, on top of the morning sickness, you’re dealing with heartburn too, plus just the day before the move, you stood up too quickly and felt dizzy, so now the boys are being very protective over you.

“Don’t lift that!” WinWin cried out in frustration as you bent over to lift a box from the floor. His hand rested on your back as you straightened up. “I’ve got it. Don’t worry about it, what do you think we’re all here for?”

He quickly stooped to lift the box for you. As soon as he was out the door, you looked for anything else that you could do. You hated being unable to help yourself move out. Ten had refused to even let you try to wrangle your cat Miso into the carrier since he seemed to be uneager to leave the apartment and move into his new home. So far most of your stuff had already been taken out before you could lift a finger to help, but now you saw a few boxes left, and just as you moved toward them, Xiaojun came through the door and caught your eye.

Xiaojun shook his head. “Don’t. We’ve got this.”

When you fold your arms across your chest and pout at him, Xiaojun smiles and walks over to you.

“Don’t be like this.” He laughs. “We’re just looking out for you and the baby.” Xiaojun lifts a hand to your cheek, his thumb touching the corner of your lips tenderly. “Just think, all it takes is one day to move out, and then you’re living with us, baby. No worries about getting home late at night to your empty place.”

You glance around at your startlingly empty apartment. This little place you’d made into a home, but it had grown less homelike over the last few months as you spent more time with your boyfriends.

Home was them, the comfort of their kitchen filled with spices and warmth of whatever was cooking up, the sleepiness of sinking into the sofa with a few of them after a long day at work.

Home was Taeil cuddling up behind you, his nose chilly on the side of your neck, but the rest of him so warm. It was Johnny kissing you hello every time either of you walked into the house after not having seen each other all day. It was quiet chats with Taeyong with your limbs tangled together, Yuta’s little moments of caring for you through words and touches and gifts. Home was Kun and Ten bickering with each other and turning to you to point out that they’re both fools, hearing them murmur ‘I love yous’ with Ten’s chilly fingers intertwining with yours, Kun’s contrastingly warm lips on your skin. Home was the smell of Doyoung and the sound of his voice singing so smooth and beautiful, his laugh, his gentle touches and bright smile when he saw you. It was Jaehyun sleepily slipping into the shower with you, just wanting to be close to you, WinWin silently taking care of you and quietly showing affection through light touches and surprise moments of intimacy.

You could find home in Jungwoo’s playful, needy rambunctiousness and in his quieter heartfelt moments. Home was in Lucas confiding to you worries and secrets that he feared would make him look weak; it was in Lucas gathering you into his arms and bracing you against his chest, easily making you forget that the rest of the world was out there. Home was Xiaojun holding your face in his hands like the most precious treasure in the world; it was him laughing with his whole chest and spending hours curled together without sleeping, just having the quiet time together on your phones or listening to music or whispering to each other or gazing up at the stars. It was Hendery always being able to make you laugh, knowing the right things to say, caring and worrying and loving you.

Home was Mark playing his guitar and singing under his breath, smiling out at you from beneath a hoodie, holding your hand as if he worried you might fly away, and most importantly home with Mark was found in him always being the first to invite you into their company, into their hearts and homes.

“Let’s go home,” Xiaojun tells you.

You nod, take his hand, and walk with him out of your apartment for the last time.

Miso doesn’t like living in the house, not right away. He hisses at the boys, always bolting from room to room, trying to hide from anyone that’s not you. It’s only after Ten accidentally shuts Miso in his room with him and you that Miso finally mellows out just a little bit. After that he likes Ten. Only you and Ten. But that doesn’t keep Taeyong, Taeil, Jeno, YangYang, Renjun, and Jaehyun from trying to befriend him.

Even when you’re napping on the sofa and Miso curls up on your chest, as soon as Jaehyun and Ten come downstairs, Miso stands up, flicking his tail angrily, and jumping off your chest, which wakes you up. You just catch sight of Miso’s tail disappearing from your line of sight, and then you look around.

It’s dusk outside, the sky a pretty pale blue with hints of pink and periwinkle clouds, and through the door in the kitchen you can hear laughter from outside. Johnny and a few of the others are out there grilling dinner, some others are in the kitchen. Jaehyun sits down across the room from you, but Ten slides onto the sofa with you.

“I’m sorry Miso doesn’t like you, Jaehyun.” You stretch your arms over your head, savoring the feel of your sleepy muscles stretching. You shiver at the feel of your shirt skimming up your stomach, a slight tickle.

“Yeah,” Ten laughs. “He only likes me. Let’s hope that the baby’s the same way.”

Ten’s chilly hands slip under your shirt and you whine, smacking his hands away. “God, Ten! Stop that!”

But he laughs and pulls his hands out, only to bring them to his face, puffing some warm breath into them before he does it again. It’s slightly better, though not by much. You pout at him.

“I just want to feel.”

“Feel what? The baby’s not big enough to kick yet. I don’t think it even has proper legs. It might still have a tail.” You roll your eyes, looking across the room to where Jaehyun is watching all of this with a light smile on his lips. “And I’m not even showing yet, so you’re literally just feeling up my belly. I have much less to show under here than you do.”

And you dive for his shirt, trying to pull it up to expose his toned abs, even higher so that you see the black tip of his chest tattoo. Ten laughs and wrestles his shirt out of your grip carefully. He drops a kiss on your lips, and dances away before you can protest. He vanishes out the back door of the house, into the cooling afternoon where Johnny and Hendery are grilling dinner.

You sigh and sink lower into the cushions. Jaehyun’s looking back down at his phone now, but you watch him anyway.

Ever since all of this with you announcing your pregnancy, showing off the first ultrasound of Little Blobby (as you and a few of the others, including Jisung and Haechan, have begun calling it), and since moving in, you haven’t really had many opportunities to speak one-on-one with Jaehyun. He’s been busy MCing, taking on an acting role, fulfilling other idol duties.

“Jaehyun?” You call. He looks up at you, and when you hold out your hand to him even though there’s still quite a few feet of empty space between you and him, he raises his eyebrows. “Come here?”

Jaehyun slides smoothly onto his feet, and you scoot into more of an upright position, making room for him to join you in the oversized armchair that you’ve been reclining in. He plops right into the spot with you, and you shift around, getting comfortable, which ends up meaning that you’re tucked against his side, one leg thrown over his. Jaehyun takes your hand, lifts it to his lips, and then brings your intertwined hands back down to rest atop the leg you have thrown over his.

“Yes, my love?” His voice is low, soft, and a bit scratchy as you know he’s at the tail end of a cold.

“I just wanted to be close to you,” you tell him. “And I feel like we haven’t really talked much recently. I miss you. Have you been sleeping enough? Eating enough?”

Jaehyun’s nose crinkles as he laughs. “Mom instincts already kicking in? Yes, I’m getting plenty of those things. I’ve been busy, but I’m managing. What about you? I heard you’ve been having trouble sleeping the past few nights. Taeil hyung said that you toss and turn. Mark said that you were sleep talking about some weird shit last night.”

You snort. “Yeah, last night I had a dream that we were all out eating at a restaurant, like one of those weird ones you’ll find sometimes in America with the fresh seafood tanks? With lobsters and stuff in them? And we were waiting for our food to be served, and it was taking forever, so Doyoung asked the waiter how much longer it would be, and the waiter pointed at me then at the fish tank and said, looks like you’re almost done. And there, in the giant tank, was me, looking like one of the people from Avatar in that big tank, my belly all big. It was fucking weird, that’s for sure.”

Jaehyun gives you a weird look, but laughs. “Your imagination is something else. But other than that weird dream, you’re doing well? Morning sickness still bad?”

You nod. “I walked past Jisung and Chenle earlier after they got home from practice, and they were eating like spicy teokbokki and all those smells combined, I couldn’t take it. Also, I guess my weird food cravings are starting too, because I really wanted crunchy peanut butter and watermelon earlier? I have no idea where that craving came from.” You shrug, and look at Jaehyun’s face again. “But I think morning sickness might be going away soon, that’s what the blogs I’ve looked at say. That the sickness starts to wane at the end of the first trimester and goes away for most women. Hopefully I’m not one of the ones that it continues for, I don’t think I’ll be able to handle that.”

He’s looking down at your belly, and you bite your lip. Was he even listening while were talking? He looks miles away.

You bump him with your shoulder. “Jae? What are you thinking about?”

Jaehyun blows out a heavy breath. “You’re really pregnant, huh?”

You sit up a bit more, lean away from him so you can look at him more straight on. “Yeah? Duh. Thought we went over this like four weeks ago? Confirmed by an ultrasound and everything. And even before that you were totally on board when all I had was one positive cheap pregnancy test from a convenience store. Why the tone of, like, surprise?”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “No, it’s not-- I’m just still thinking about it a lot. Like, it’s amazing, honestly. Thinking that one of us is a dad, and we don’t really know it. I know,” he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face as he says, “That I’ve been a bit of a jealous asshole in the past. And I’ve tried working on that, right? I love you and of course I want this baby to be mine, like, fuck, how many times have I talked about that. But I want you to know that, uh, even if it’s not mine, I’m just excited and amazed that in a few months you’re going to have a baby. When do you get to find out the sex?”

“I think about at 20-ish weeks.”

“And have you started thinking about names yet?” Jaehyun strokes his thumb over your knuckles.

Before you can answer him, Yuta appears, perching himself on the arm of the chair beside Jaehyun. “What are we talking about?”

“The baby,” Jaehyun answers, “and if she has any names that she’s thinking about.”

“You should definitely give the baby a Japanese name,” Yuta teases. “Since I’m probably the father.”

Jaehyun’s head turns so fast that you’re surprised you don’t hear his neck crack. “Why do you think that?” The look he gives Yuta is so sharp, the glare so powerful, you just hide your face against Jaehyun’s neck, trying to soothe him with some physical attention. So much for working on his jealousy. It looks could kill, Yuta would be six feet under.

“I’m just joking, Jaehyunnie.” Yuta pats the younger man’s hair. “But one of the fourteen of us is the father, and considering how often you sit out and just watch the rest of us fuck her, I’d say your odds are pretty low.” Yuta says that with a smile on his face, but Jaehyun frowns and slaps Yuta’s hand away.

“Oh, knock it off, both of you.” You place a kiss lightly on Jaehyun’s neck, and put your hand on his head, comb your fingers soothingly through his hair. “I literally slept with every single one of you right around the time that this Little Blob was made, so therefore, it really could be any of you. And, about names, I don’t think I’m really going to choose until after the baby is born. It’ll be my choice.”

“How are you going to choose which of us goes with you to have the baby?” Yuta asks.

“Maybe I won’t take any of you along.” You tease. “Maybe it’ll just be me and my mother. Speaking of which, I still haven’t told them.”

Jaehyun freezes then turns to look at you slowly. “What do you mean you haven’t told them yet? Aren’t you, like, twelve weeks along? Babe, you need to tell your parents.”

You know that, you completely agree that you need to tell them. But you know they’re going to ask who the father is, that they’ll definitely judge you harshly when you tell them that you don’t know who the father is, and they won’t understand if you attempt to reassure them that it’s okay that you don’t know who the father is because you know that it’s for sure one of your fourteen boyfriends, because your parents likely will disapprove of that too.

“You can tell them I’m the father, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Jaehyun says softly, tipping his head gently against yours.

You bite your lip. “Thank you. That would help, for sure, but also, like you said, I’m twelve weeks along. My mother will be pissed that I waited so long to tell her.”

Yuta shrugs. “Tell her that you just found out. It’s not like you’re showing. So you say that you’ve been feeling weird, and you finally went to the doctor to get checked out, and found out you’re pregnant.”

“Just text her, tell her you’re pregnant, and that you don’t want to answer a lot of questions.” WinWin appears behind the chair, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hands. “At least you can tell your parents that you’re adding a grandchild to the family now. One of us is going to have to wait to tell our family about the baby until after it’s born when we find out who the father is.”

You hadn’t thought about that either.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, resting your head again on Jaehyun’s shoulder.

“Don’t apologize for that.” Yuta stands up. “It’s not like it’s your fault.”

“Time to eat!” Johnny shouts as he comes through the door, carrying a platter piled with grilled meat. You catch a whiff of it.

Covering your nose, you shake your head. “I can’t deal with that.” Johnny catches sight of your face and whisks the plate back outside, not that it takes the smell with it, and your stomach rolls. “I’m going upstairs. I’m not hungry.” You pull yourself out of the chair and hurry up the stairs, gladly breathing the air up on the top floor that’s untainted by the smell of meat.

You shut yourself in the room you share with Taeil, and as you sit in the bed, your back to the headboard, you stare nervously down at the phone in your hand.

It takes a few moments to build up your courage to finally press the contact for your mother, and you hold your phone up to your ear.

When she answers, you take a deep breath. “Hi, what are you up to?”

“Oh, nothing. Just watching your father try not to burn our meal.” She laughs, and you can hear your dad laughing in the background too. “What are you up to? Dinner plans tonight?”

Your heart pounds in your chest. “Um, no. Actually there’s something I want to talk to you and dad about.”

“Are you okay?” Your mother’s voice suddenly grows sharp, concerned.

“I’m fine. Definitely. Can you put me on speaker?” You wait a moment until your mother gives you a confirmation that she’s done just that. Your dad’s speaking over your mother, both of them with concerned tones that you finally silence by speaking over them even louder. “Do you remember me saying I’m seeing someone?”

You had, several months ago, told your parents that you were seeing someone after your mother had repeatedly tried setting you up with a young man that owned her favorite bakery. Up to that point you didn’t want to even tell them that you were seeing someone so they wouldn’t ask too many questions. You’d not given them many details, and they didn’t push.

“Yes, we remember.” Your mother says.

“So, things have gotten pretty serious with him. Especially recently.” You can hear your voice shaking with nerves. This is not how you ever imagined telling your parents you were pregnant. You’d always thought that cute reveals to new grandparents were very entertaining videos to watch online, but now that you’re in this situation, you don’t think you could do it, not given the circumstances.

“Serious?” You father repeats. “How serious?”

You’re quiet for a few moments as you try to think of the best way to phrase it, but you wait so long that you mom says your name, checking to make sure that you’re still on the line.

“Um, so, I’m pregnant. About twelve weeks along, according to the doctor.”

“Twelve weeks?!” Your mother gasps. “Oh my! You’re pregnant! Honey, she’s having a baby! And your boyfriend... he knows? Is he excited also?”

“Do we finally get to meet the boy?” Your dad asks. “Now that he’s got a baby in you?”

Your mother hisses your dad’s name, and you hear her slap his arm. “But really, do we get to meet our future son-in-law?”

“Well, that’s another thing. Don’t.... I don’t want you to think that he and I are getting married now because of this.” You cradle the phone in your hands. “Nothing like that is set in stone. Right now, we’re just focusing on having the baby. And I suppose you should meet him.” But you’re not sure about that. It doesn’t seem fair for you to choose one of your boyfriends, one who may not be the father, and have him be the only man in this relationship that gets to meet your parents.

“Oh, well, I suppose you’ve never been so much of a traditionalist, have you? So, it’s not terribly much of a surprise that you’re not necessarily going to marry him. But a baby! Our baby’s having a baby!” Your mother cries out in excitement.

You spend the next half an hour to forty-five minutes talking with your parents, catching them up on moments in your life, talking about your pregnancy, dipping into details of how your mother’s pregnancy with you had gone. By the time you end the call, you feel much better, much lighter.

You feel as if the transformation happens suddenly. One day you look just as you have usually done, and then the next.... you’ve popped, the bump evident when you look in the half-fogged mirror of the bathroom.

You can’t help touching your belly, feeling the mound that certainly wasn’t there just weeks before.

“What are you doing?” Johnny asks, coming up behind you. He wraps his arms around you, hands covering yours on your belly. His skin is still wet and warm from the shower that’s still running in the background for you to step into. His hand is such a welcome presence, the heat of him against your bare skin. “You’re starting to show.”

You’re about fifteen weeks at this point, right in the timeline your doctor had told you that you might start showing. After that moment in the bathroom, you start wearing looser clothing, and just find it increasingly difficult to hide your pregnancy from anyone that you’d still been trying to keep it from, and your body is changing in a way that other people certainly take notice of.

“Shit, look at you, baby.” Mark whistles when he walks into the kitchen late one night, and he finds you standing beside the refrigerator with a midnight snack. You’re just wearing a pair of shorts and a low-cut camisole. Your belly standing out in evidence of the life inside of you, but you’re quickly made aware that that’s not exactly what Mark is pointing out.

He steps closer to you, and instead of touching your belly (as all the others have done as soon as they realized you were starting to show), Mark cups your tits.

“They’re bigger now.” His eyes are wide glued to your chest.

“Of course they’re bigger. Once this little blob comes out I’m going to have to feed it with these.” You nudge his hands away. “They’re not just toys for you all to play with, you know. They serve a purpose.”

Mark smiles at you and kisses your cheek. “I know, baby.” He tucks his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, and he stands there watching you eat, apparently entirely forgetting the reason that he entered the room himself. It’s quiet for a moment before Mark finally asks, “When’s your next appointment? Don’t you get to learn the sex of the baby soon?”

You nod. “Soon. I’m not sure if I actually want to know what we’re having though.” You drop a hand down to touch your little barely-there bump. “I might want it to be a surprise.”

Mark steps closer again, and this time he touches your belly too. “This little angel’s going to be full of surprises for us, isn’t it?”

You push your fingers into Mark’s hair, enjoying having him so close to you and the way he melts into your touch. Mark’s eyes flutter shut as you comb your fingers through his hair, he leans his forehead down against yours.

“Mark?” Your voice is very quiet even in the silence of the kitchen. “Mark, what do you want from this?”

“What do you mean?” He murmurs, not pulling back from you at all, but staying right there with his eyes closed and his forehead against yours.

“I mean, do you want to be the dad? Or are you secretly hoping it’s one of the others? Do you want it to be a boy or a girl? Do you think this is going to really fuck up this relationship?”

“I think if it was going to mess this up, it would’ve already done so, right?” He stands up straight again, putting a few inches of space between you. “We’re all still here, excited about the baby. Hell, even the others are excited and they’ve not got any DNA in the game.”

You know he’s talking about the younger members, the ones not in this relationship. They’ve all been excited and supportive too. You’d taken several exhaustion naps on the sofa between Renjun and Jeno; just the other morning as you’d been looking at a pregnancy book at the kitchen table, YangYang had sat down beside you and started asking you questions about it. Haechan swore that he’d be glad to help babysit in the future. You’d heard Chenle and Jaemin offering to take bets on the paternity of the baby.

“And I don’t know about being the dad,” Mark says, “I don’t think it matters too much to me one way of the other. I don’t mean that in a bad way! I feel like that sounded kinda bad, but like, if I am the dad then that’s awesome and I’m going to try my hardest to be the best dad I can be, but even if I’m not, I’ll still try my best to be here. But I guess it also depends how you want to raise the kid, like, fourteen dads? Or are those who aren’t the dad just going to be Uncles who occasionally share mommy’s bed?”

You wrinkle your nose at that. “That’s exactly what I mean, Mark. This relationship is going to change, and that’s scary. I don’t want this to change, I love how we all are together, but after this, then what?”

“Hey.” Mark cups your face between his hands. He tilts your face up toward his, and when he kisses you softly, almost chastely, for just that moment in time you forget your worries. “That’s a problem for when we get to it, but it’s miles and miles away in the future. You don’t need to worry about that now, okay?” He kisses you again, and this time the kiss isn’t so sweet or tender.

Your midnight snack is entirely forgotten on the counter beside you. Mark envelops you--his smell and his taste, the heat of his skin against yours-- and you lift your hands to his arms, first touching his wrists up near your face, and then your fingertips dance down his forearms, resting for a moment against his elbows as Mark twists his fingers into your hair, tilting your head to a better angle as your mouth opens to his, and you gasp quietly.

His tongue touches yours, springing another moan from you, and Mark smiles, his fingers tightening in your hair.

It doesn’t take much more kissing than that to have you craving a midnight snack of a different sort. The hunger grows inside you, the heat building, and soon you can feel your shorts are damp with arousal and your fingertips itch to undress Mark, your body aching with the need to have him inside you.

“Mark,” you mumble, planning to ask him to fuck you, but your hands are already moving. Your hands drop from where you’ve been holding onto his arms, instead gripping the bottom hem of his shirt which you tug at until your fingertips find skin instead.

Mark groans, feeling your cool skin against his. And when your fingertips move across his abdomen, quickly dipping inside the waistband of his sweatpants, Mark inhales sharply, breaking the kiss for a moment, just to ask, “Here?”

You nod. “Yeah, why not?”

That’s good enough for him.

Mark dives back into the kiss, making little noises of contentment as you push his sweatpants lower, as you dip your hand inside his boxers, wrapping your hand around his cock. It doesn’t take long for him to start chubbing up in your hand.

“Mm, baby,” Mark pulls out of the kiss, his hands shaking to detangle his fingers from your hair, and his hands fall to your hips instead. Mark lifts you carefully up to sit on the edge of the countertop you’ve been leaning against, and now you’re at the perfect height to spread your legs and pull his cock free of his boxers to rub at the already damp fabric over your pussy.

You remember the time you almost did this with Kun in here. Things got hot and heavy with him, but the younger boys were just in the other room, so you moved things upstairs instead. But tonight there’s no one around. Everyone’s either out or upstairs in their rooms. There’s nothing to stop you from having sex with Mark right here in the kitchen with the lights on and everything.

Mark thumbs the middle of your shorts out of the way as you keep jerking him off, rubbing the tip against the material, which he’s tired of, craving the direct wet heat of you on him.

“Fuck, baby, why aren’t you wearing any panties?” He almost whines. His thumb glides along your slit, and you shift forward, wanting to have him just slip his thumb inside you, but he pulls it away, putting his hand back to the safe distance of your thigh. “That’s dirty. Looking so sexy already with your belly growing and your tits too, then no panties either. Shit, it’s like you knew this was going to happen.”

“Maybe I’ve just been hoping.” You lean in, capture his lips in a brief kiss, and then say, “You’ve all been so careful with me. I don’t get fucked nearly as much as before, and while this pregnancy has messed with my sex drive a bit, I do still want to have sex, I just think you all should know that.”

“So no panties because you’re horny, hoping to entice one of us into fucking you?” Mark grins crookedly, looking down at your pussy, which you finally bring his cock closer to, and you dip his tip against your clit, moving it in circles.

You smile and try to stifle a moan.

“Do you want it?” Mark asks you.

“Yes, Mark,” you sigh, and you guide his cock to where you need him most, and Mark lifts a hand to tilt your mouth up to meet his once more.

Mark enters you smoothly, slowly, in one thrust. Your toes curl at the slow feeling, the stretch and glide, the way that you’ve barely had anyone touch you in weeks, since Jungwoo, probably. You don’t think you’ve been with another one of them since him, not having one of them inside you like this--just you helping them out with a blowjob maybe and then possibly a bit of fingering, but most of them were still treating you like some fragile porcelain doll--and that was probably a month and a half ago when you were with Jungwoo, the last time you’d had one of their dicks inside your vagina.

“Oh, fuck,” Mark groans. “I swear you’re tighter than normal.”

“Shh,” you shush him, laughing as you try to kiss him quiet. “It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve had more than a finger or two inside me.”

Mark moans, deepening the kiss, silencing you as he thrusts slowly, each push of his cock deeper inside you feels incredible.

You both take it slow, in no rush to get off right now, it’s just good enough to have him inside you, to kiss him, and Mark seems to feel the same. Kissing and hands slipping under clothes, just touching, hips rolling, everything slow and warm and you feel so wet, growing wetter with each glide of Mark’s cock inside your pussy, pants and moans rising in frequency.

Your goal isn’t to cum, just to have Mark so close to you, but soon there’s no denying that you’re both getting close. It’s been too long since either of you had this kind of sexual release. Mark’s thrusts start to grow faster, sloppier, and he pants against your lips, “Can I cum inside you? What about---?”

“It’s fine, Mark.” You gasp, dropping your head back. “Please, I want to feel it.”

Happy to oblige you, Mark ducks his head to kiss at your neck. His hand sinks to the apex of your thighs, his thumb tracing quick, careful circles on your clit as he thrusts into you, chasing his quickly rising high. The sound of your breathy sighs and moans, soft whimpers of his name, all seem to drive him on, and you cum just moments before him.

“Mark, fuck!” You gasp. You clutch at his shoulders, holding yourself close to him as the sensation pulses through your body, dragging Mark into his orgasm as well. He bites down on the juncture of your neck and shoulder, muffling his moans as he spills inside you, his cum making you feel warm and full, and you don’t want to move from right here like this, just want to stay here with Mark inside you, close as he can be to you, his body pressed fully against yours, your baby bump against his belly.

You don’t want to move, and you probably wouldn’t have for quite some time, but suddenly there’s the tapping sound of someone jogging down the stairs.

Mark pulls away from you, stuffing his cock back inside his sweatpants, and he reaches out to tug your shorts back into place. He even rearranges your hair so it falls over your shoulders, hiding the mark he’d just sucked on your throat. And then he steps away, leaning against the stove and pretending to study a box of cereal someone had left out.

WinWin walks into the room, his eyes puffy from sleep. He yawns as he looks between the two of you, walking across the room toward you to reach the sink.

“Were you just messing around in here?” He asks, opening a cabinet door to pick out a glass. “Because that’s gross. We all eat in here.”

He looks away as he fills the glass with water. Mark’s eyes go faux-innocently wide, and he opens his mouth, prepared to give some excuse.

You cut him off. “You’re one to talk, Dong Sicheng. Are you forgetting the time I rode you right over there at the kitchen table? You weren’t so concerned about this being a place where we eat then. I’m pretty sure I remember you specifically pulling me into your lap and telling you that this is where we eat, so you wanted to eat me.”

WinWin coughs, almost choking on the water. Mark laughs loudly.

You smile at them both, and then push off the counter, landing on your feet, and you wrinkle your nose at the feeling as a bit of Mark’s cum begins to trickle down your thigh. WinWin reaches out to you, as if worried that the look on your face is due to some discomfort of the baby.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.” You walk the few feet over to Mark, kiss him, and then you turn to WinWin, kiss him as well, and turn to walk away, calling back over your shoulder, “Good night!”

Their returned well-wishes of sweet dreams follow you upstairs as you crawl into Hendery’s bed.

He stirs a bit when you slide in beside him. He fell asleep watching videos on his phone, and the phone’s laying facedown on his chest, the edge of it still outlined from the light of the screen, so you move it off, rolling back to the side of the small bed to plug his phone in before you re-situate yourself on your side, and Hendery moves up to spoon you from behind.

He murmurs your name sleepily and drapes his arm over you, nuzzling his nose against your neck before he falls immediately back to sleep. And you soak in the warmth of his bed, his body curled against yours, wishing you could fall asleep, but somehow you just can’t.

You stay awake, staring at the shadows in the room, praying for sleep to claim you as it’s claimed Hendery behind you, Xiaojun across the room.

Nothing.

You hear footsteps climbing the stairs up to the floor above, hear the creak of movement, and then the closing of a door. A few moments later, the door to this room opens as well. The dim glow of a nightlight in the bathroom down the hall casts a streak across the room, right over you in Hendery’s bed.

“Sorry,” WinWin whispers as he comes inside, tiptoeing. “Did I wake you up?”

“I wasn’t sleeping. I can’t sleep.”

WinWin sits on his bed, and in the darkness, you can just barely make out the shape of his shadow patting his bed. “You can come over here. I can help you fall asleep.”

You don’t see what he’s going to do to help with that, but you carefully extract yourself from Hendery, tiptoe across to WinWin’s bed, and slide in with him.

He props himself up against the headboard with a few pillows, and then you feel him draw you in, resting your head on his chest, leaned back against him. His cheek rests against your head, an arm casually curled around your waist, his hand touching your belly, and he whispers, “I think we just need to tire out that busy mind of yours. What is it that you’re thinking about? Tell me?”

So you start talking, telling WinWin in whispers all of these worries and wonders in your head. Concerns for the future, for the state of this relationship, how they’ll all react when the day comes that you do find out which of them is the father because you’ve long since accepted that you have to find that out, though you had briefly entertained the idea of just not doing any paternity test at all. You talk to WinWin until you’re certainly tired out, or at least your voice is.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize then. “You’re probably tired, aren’t you? But I just keep talking.”

WinWin mumbles something that never quite makes its way to words. Then, “It’s fine. You need to sleep too, though. Aren’t you tired yet?”

Not quite.

“Alright then.” WinWin sighs and shifts his head, his lips right beside your ear, and he starts singing to you quietly in Chinese. The song is familiar, but you can’t place it; it’s a relaxing tune, and WinWin’s deep voice works wonders, lulling you into such a state that you don’t even notice when exactly you fall asleep.

One moment you’re awake in his arms, and then you’re dreaming.

You’re walking down the hallway, passing by the door to Lucas, Ten, and Kun’s room, climbing the stairs, you walk along until you reach a door just beyond Taeil’s room. A faint golden light outlines the door which looks shiny and new, recently installed, and from behind the door you hear the cries of a baby.

Your heart leaps in your chest.

Just a touch of your fingertips, and the door opens on a nicely decorated nursery -- creamy white walls and gauzy curtains decorated in stars and moons, a crib is tucked in the corner under a gently spinning mobile, and that’s the source of the crying.

The baby’s crying. Your baby. You walk closer, and making shushing noises as you approach, you look down into the crib and see your baby.

But it’s not only one baby. There are multiple babies, a whole row of them side-by-side, waving angry fists up at you. A baby wrapped in blue with Johnny’s face. Another that looks like Yuta. A little girl who has Hendery’s big brown eyes, one that looks exactly like Taeyong.

You blink.

There’s only one baby, cooing up at you happily with an undeniable resemblance to ---

You wake with a jolt. WinWin, still curled there together with you, strokes his fingers over the back of your hand, mumbling something in his sleep to comfort you. In the dark, you stare at his face in front of you, but all you can see are the faces of the little babies in your dream.

You shift closer, pressing your face against WinWin’s chest.

At work, you try to avoid talking about your pregnancy. Not an easy thing to do when many of your coworkers are women, including older women who just want to offer up advice based on their own pregnancies. And they’ve all got so many questions: how far along you are, who’s the father, are you still dating that guy who came to briefly visit you once so many months ago, are you learning the gender, and many more questions.

You can’t help thinking about that dream again and again.

Previously, you didn’t think you really wanted to know the sex of the baby until the birth. But after that dream, you can’t stop thinking about it.

Sometimes you’ll find your mind wandering back to that dream or mulling over what you think you’re going to have. And after your coworkers repeatedly asking you who the father is, you keep thinking about that too, trying to run through your mind the encounters you’d had with your boyfriends around that exact time that this Little Blob was conceived. The younger boys are actually taking bets on which of your boyfriends is the father, whether it’s going to be a boy or girl, and all sorts of silly bets.

And it’s not only them; the last time you spoke to your mother she was making guesses on gender based on family history and invasive questions into your sex life, which she’d followed up with an inquiry about meeting the father-to-be that you’d edged out of by feigning an incoming call from your doctor.

But you know you can’t put it off forever. At some point your parents are going to want to meet the man who impregnated their daughter. You just have to choose one of the possible men to introduce to them.

“I wouldn’t mind, I don’t think.” Xiaojun tells you late one morning.

The house is quiet. When you left Taeil’s room this morning as he woke to go to Inkigayo, you sat downstairs in the kitchen, drinking a morning glass of water and taking a handful of recommended prenatal vitamins, watching as half of the house cleared out, your boys going off to work.

You were excited, getting to see them work in different combinations than normal.

After they’d all left, piling into multiple vans, it’d just been you, Xiaojun, Jisung, Haechan, YangYang, and Taeyong left in the house. Haechan and Jisung were firmly shut inside their room, probably not likely to wake until at least the afternoon, and YangYang was similarly probably sleeping. Not that any of them would give you the company you wanted.

Sure, you enjoyed hanging out with the younger members, playing games and watching movies, and teasing them endlessly. But you didn’t want to just be entertained, you didn’t want to just go back to sleep now that you were awake.

You were horny.

You’d been dreaming nicely up until the moment that Taeil jerked awake at the sound of their manager’s voice calling from the doorway. It was a rude awakening, considering how just a second before you’d been in the midst of sucking off Doyoung while sitting on Jaehyun’s face, having the absolute time of your life. But the dream had faded in moments, leaving you with only the ache between your thighs, the heat that needed to be quenched.

So now, with all of the others gone, you were left with three choices. One, you could just take care of it yourself, which is the least fun option. Your second option was Taeyong, but you knew he had only dragged himself home from the studio a couple hours ago because he’d climbed into bed with you and Taeil, snuffling and clingy, just wanting a cuddle. A third option was Xiaojun, an eager, always good option.

So you went to Xiaojun’s room.

He was awake on his phone, and the sight of you in his doorway brought a smile to his face. You stepping inside and closing the door behind you made him smile brighter and start to sit up in bed. And when you reached down and pulled the long shirt of Lucas’s you’d stolen to sleep in over your head, Xiaojun’s smile melted into liquid desire pooling in his eyes.

“I’m horny, Dejun. Please help me.” You drop the shirt on the floor, and in seconds you’re on your back in Xiaojun’s bed, his mouth hot on your skin, lips on your breasts then your stomach, taking his time trailing slow kisses over your increasingly noticeable bump. And then he’s on your thighs, kissing, nipping, and when he licks at your pussy, your body glows with lust and pleasure.

Xiaojun performs oral sex right then like he’s going to be graded on it. Soon you’re shaking in his bed, thighs closing around his head, hips rocking against his face, and Xiaojun just keeps licking until you whine and whimper his name, knotting your fingers in his hair. He moves quickly up to kiss you.

You stay like that, kissing as the morning passes by outside, soft kisses that turn hot and passionate with your hand down the back of Xiaojun’s sweatpants as he grinds against your thigh, kisses getting softer as you spread your legs for him to fit between them and push his sweatpants down just enough that he can thrust into you. And it’s slow, soft and lazy sex in the haze of the golden rays of sunlight shifting across his sheets from the window above his bed.

Xiaojun cums and uses his fingers to get you off, and then keeps kissing you even as he rolls off to the side, holding you there in his bed even though you both feel gross and sticky sweaty.

The kissing tapers off eventually. He holds one of your hands, and your other hand absentmindedly goes down to your belly, and you start talking about the appointment you have in next week where you can finally find out the sex of the baby, and how your mother wants to come, and she wants you to bring your boyfriend.

“I’m serious,” Xiaojun says. “I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to introduce me as the representative for all of us. Your singular boyfriend, father of your baby.”

You look at him out of the corner of your eye.

Xiaojun smiles and hides half of his face in his pillow. “I think I’m probably not the dad, like, it’s just a feeling I have, but who’d be better to meet your parents than me? I’m nice, polite, handsome, funny, smart. Not to mention modest.”

You laugh and push at his shoulder, and Xiaojun dramatically rolls away and then stands up off the bed.

He looks down at you, still smiling. “And also, I think one of us should be there with you at that appointment. I think one of us should always go with you, because you need the support, it’ll be nice, right?”

“I don’t know. I cried when I first heard the heartbeat.” You sit up and look down at your belly. “Pretty sure several of you would have teased me about that.”

“Pretty sure several of us would have cried right along side you. You played us that recording of the heartbeat.” Xiaojun shakes his head. “Maybe you weren’t paying attention, but there was quite a bit of excitement and emotion that day among all of us.” He reaches down and strokes his thumb along your cheek. “Just think about it. I’m gonna go eat, do you want some?”

You don’t, so you stay there wrapped only in Xiaojun’s sheets and mentally draft up a conversation to have with your boys.

You put it up to the boys to decide which of them would accompany you to your next appointment at eighteen weeks, and who will also be the one to meet your parents.

“Whether you vote or play rock paper scissors or draw straws or something, I don’t care, as long as you’re all aware that it’s perfectly fair no matter who wins. I don’t want any of you feeling jealous, like I’m playing favorites or anything ridiculous like that.” You gave them this task right before you walked out the door to go grab dinner with some friends, hoping that by the time you arrived home later, they would have the answer.

Dinner was great. Since starting the relationship with the guys, you’d seen less and less of your friends just because it was a full-time kind of thing being with multiple boyfriends, plus it was difficult having this love life and not being able to openly talk about it with friends for various reasons such as being in a fifteen-person relationship was not at all common and also because your fourteen boyfriends were idols who could have their careers damaged if word of your relationship with any one of them got out.

Your friends were excited to see you and your not-so-little-anymore baby bump. They’d seen what you’d posted on social media -- the sonogram photo when you decided to finally post about the pregnancy, Snapchats and Instagram stories complaining about the woes of morning sickness and other symptoms -- and it was really great to catch up with your friends, and by the end of the night they were already telling you that they couldn’t wait for the baby shower.

“And we can’t wait to meet your baby daddy!” One of them cries, flinging her arm around your shoulder in a one-armed hug. “Like, you’re dating him right? You’re always so secretive with your love life; I can’t remember if you were dating someone, or was this just like a fling kind of thing?”

“Yeah, who is he? When can we meet him?” Another says.

You look around at your friends. “He’s just really private. But, yes, we’ve been dating for several months. But it’s also kind of complicated.”

“Complicated? Does he not want the baby?”

“Complicated and he’s private? What, is he an idol or something?” One laughs, and everyone bursts into laughter. You try to laugh along, but then you catch the eye of one of the girls and quickly look away. She’s been with you the time that you ran into Taeyong in public while you were broken up; you wonder if she’s thinking of him.

Another friend gasps, “Oh my god. Bitch, he better not be married!”

You try not to look like you’re caught in the spotlight, but you definitely are. “He’s not married!” Is the first answer you can think to give them. “And, no, it’s not that he doesn’t want the baby. He’s very excited, I mean, like, they’re excited.”

That raises several eyebrows. One of your friends nearly chokes on her drink.

“They? Like personal pronoun they or they, as in like, multiple people they?” One friends seeks clarification, and you take a deep breath and stare down into your water glass at the ice cubes clinking together before you give her the quiet confirmation of “multiple people.”

There’s giggles and teasing catcalls from around the table. You feel on fire, like you’re being roasted alive, and even gulping down the cold water doesn’t really help. There’s a fluttery feeling in your belly, so you lay a hand over it and just swallow down another mouthful of water, hoping to quell the nerves of having all of their attention on you after admitting this.

The friend beside you who’d been hugging you, squeezes your shoulders in what is probably meant to be a comforting motion. “So do you know which one of them is the dad?”

You shake your head. “No, but it doesn’t really matter. Like, they’re all excited and this relationship has been going on for a while. It’s serious, and I do love them, and it’s very unconventional, like super unconventional, but I’m happy.”

“That’s all that matters, isn’t it?” One of them says. “You’re happy and in love and having a baby! Damn, I wish I could be so blessed.”

After that the topic turns away from you and your love life for a bit, and you’re glad for that, but you’re also glad to have opened up just a tiny bit about the relationship. To have finally told someone that you’re in an unconventional relationship that includes more than two people, though you’re sure your friends think that it’s probably just you and two boyfriends, and you truly don’t feel like enlightening them any more. But it’s nice to have put it out there.

And when you do get home later, with a box of dessert that Ten had texted you begging you to bring home about halfway through your dinner, you find that half of the boys are still sitting around the table in the kitchen debating, but a handful of them are sitting in the living room.

Mark is sitting on the sofa with his laptop, Chenle leaning his head on Mark’s shoulder. Ten is in the armchair with Miso tucked in the nest of his legs. Hendery laying on the floor, his chin propped up on his hands, and Yuta’s sitting right beside him, watching a soccer match on the TV. Haechan, Jisung, and Jeno are also sitting on the second sofa, slouching down on the cushions, either on their phones or also watching the game.

You look around at them, before you glance toward the doorway into the kitchen.

“We lost,” Ten explains to you. “They’re still deciding.” He strokes Miso’s head, and then looks up at you, squinting in faux-anger, “You know, it was pretty rude of you to put us at odds with each other like that, and then you dip out to a fancy fun dinner with your friends. And did you even bring us anything tasty to eat?”

You stick out your tongue at him and pull the box out from behind your back.

“Do you think I don’t love you or something?”

When you hold it out to him, Ten eagerly reaches for it, but you pull it back quickly.

“You have to share it, you know.”

Ten whines, but nods, and as you start to hand it over again, Kun sweeps in out of nowhere, and takes the cake, then brushes a kiss on your cheek. Chenle laughs loudly, watching all of this, especially when Ten snatches the back of Kun’s shirt and jerks him back, nearly tumbling him into Ten’s lap on top of your poor cat.

Miso bristles and flees Ten’s lap to the comparative safety of the stairs where he begins grooming himself and glaring at the ruckus below.

You end up with Kun and Ten squeezed together in the chair, you perched on Kun’s lap with the box of dessert open in your lap, the three of you taking turns with a single fork. Your feet rest in Yuta’s lap on the floor, and after a bit, he leans over and rests his head against your knee, his actions sleepy but his eyes are wide awake following the moves of the players on the screen.

You can’t seem to relax, nervously glancing toward the kitchen doorway every few minutes. And thinking about who it’s going to be, which of them is going to be the one to meet your parents, to come to your appointments with you, it makes you nervous. While you sit there you feel flutters in your belly multiple times, and that just makes you feel even more nervous.

When the other boys finally come out of the kitchen, Taeyong whines, seeing the nearly finished dessert in your lap, and he comes over to beg a bite.

“What did you decide?” You ask him as Taeyong takes the box from you and settles on the arm of the chair. “Which of you is it? Whose egos do I need to soothe?”

“Probably Jaehyun,” Taeyong mumbles around the cake. “He’s pouting.” He jerks his head toward the other side of the room, and you follow the move just to see Jaehyun standing behind the sofa where Mark and Chenle are sitting. Jaehyun’s got his arms folded across his chest, his jaw tense, his eyes deadset on the TV, though you can tell he’s not actually watching the game.

Taeyong clears his throat and whispers, “Johnny won; we figured he’d be the best in these situations. He’ll charm your parents for sure, and he’ll be good at the appointment too.”

You catch Johnny’s eye as he comes around the sofa to sit down beside Chenle. He immediately starts tickling Chenle’s sides until he’s squirming and making loud squawking laughs while Johnny just laughs at him and calls him cute.

Eventually Yuta lifts his head from your knee to shush them, his eyes still glued to the screen as one of the teams makes a goal. You look over at Johnny again as he’s petting Chenle’s hair while the younger settles back down. And then you look up at Jaehyun. WinWin’s now standing beside him, his arm slung around Jaehyun’s shoulders, and they whisper to each other, but after a moment Jaehyun seems to feel you watching them, and he catches your eye with a sweet smile.

“How do I look?” Johnny asks, nervously tugging at the collar of his shirt. You’re about to leave for the appointment, and as you sit on Johnny’s bed watching him get ready, you fight down your own nerves.

“Handsome. As usual.” You sigh, fluttering your hands over your belly. “What about me?”

You push up to your feet, standing right before Johnny. He smiles warmly, a hand sneaking around to the small of your back, and you step just a bit closer to him.

“Sexy as always,” Johnny says with a grin. “Pretty and cute and beautiful too. If your mother looks anything like you, I can’t wait to meet her.”

Yes, the source of all your nerves. Johnny meeting your mother. Your mother coming to your appointment with you both. And then there’s the late lunch you’re having afterwards with Johnny, your mother, and your father.

“Hey, don’t be so nervous, sweetheart.” Johnny cups your face in his hands. “I’m great with parents. By the time we come home later, they’re going to absolutely love me, we’re going to know if you’re having a girl or a boy, plus we have a little surprise the others should have ready for you by the time we’re home.”

Now, that makes you more suspicious than nervous.

Typically you don’t have a good history of your boyfriends trying to surprise you with things. Seven times out of ten the surprise ends up being an orgy, and the other three times out of ten are just a failure on their part. So as you and Johnny walk out of the house, you watch the others suspiciously, such as when Taeil kisses you on the cheek as you pass him on the stairs, when Renjun pipes up from the sofa to tell you that they’ll all be anxiously waiting to see who has won the first of their series of bets, and when Doyoung hurries up from behind you to give you a few words of luck and calming for the appointment and for introducing Johnny to your parents.

“Thank you, Doyoung.” You press up on your toes to meet him for a brief kiss. “See you later!”

As you turn to follow Johnny, Doyoung’s hand falls reluctantly from your arm, and you look back at him to offer him a reassuring smile because he’s pouting.

“Doyoung also really wanted to come with you today,” Johnny tells you a few minutes later. “Him and Jaehyun were really duking it out there toward the end of our debate. Both of them were pretty pissed when I was the one who was decided on.”

You don’t know what to say to that. If it were possible, you would happily bring every single one of your boyfriends, but that is neither practical nor realistically something that your parents would ever possibly approve of. Your parents are not like your friends; your friends think it’s different and sexy that you’re in a relationship with more than one man, but your parents would think that something like that is disgusting and wrong and would certainly try to influence you to choose just one of them.

So you fall into this rabbit hole of thinking, and it’s not until Johnny puts his hand on your thigh, squeezing slightly as he says, “We’re here,” that you snap out of your thoughts.

You’re at the doctor’s office, and when you look up through the windshield of the car, you can see your mother standing beside the door into the office, somewhat awkwardly smiling at passersby, looking nervous as well.

“This will be wonderful, okay?” Johnny reassures you. “Are you ready?”

You nod, and then push the car door open.

The moment that your mother sees you, her face lights up, and then her eyes fall down to your belly, the definite mound of your belly, and she breaks into a smile so wide that you think she also might start crying.

“Oh, my baby!” She pulls you into a hug. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m good, Mom. Taking good care of myself and the baby, with some help of course.” You pull out of the hug and turn to Johnny. He’s standing a few feet back, not wanting to intrude on the moment with your mother, but when you hold out a hand to him, he steps forward.

The second his fingers interlace with yours, you feel confident and happy, and you turn back to your mother. “Mom, this is Johnny. My boyfriend.”

She looks at him. Looks him up. Looks him down. You can tell she’s analyzing everything about him, filing away little details that you’re sure she’ll want to discuss with you later.

And then Johnny holds his hand out to her. “Johnny Suh, ma’am. It’s great to finally meet you. I was just telling her this morning that --” You elbow him sharply in the side and glare at him, not wanting him to finish that sentence calling your mother hot. He laughs, and holds his hand out to your mother again. She shakes his hand, still watching him appraisingly.

“It’s nice to meet you too, finally. She’s always been secretive about relationships, but I think this is the longest we’ve ever had to wait to meet someone she’s dating.” Your mother glances at you. “Why’ve you kept this one a secret?”

“He’s too charming for his own good sometimes. Come on, let’s get inside.”

As you sit in the waiting room, nervously tapping your foot as you wait, you look around at the other women in the room. There are some whose bellies are huge, looking ready to pop at any moment. Some who aren’t showing at all. There’s one woman wrangling two toddlers along with her big pregnant belly, looking increasingly frustrated at the two children climbing over her and over and under the chairs.

You don’t even notice that you’re shaking your leg so much until Johnny’s hand comes to rest on your knee. His voice is low, soft so no one else can hear it when he asks, “You okay?”

“Fine. Just ready to find out.” You place your hand on his, and that’s when you notice your mother watching you very observantly.

The three of you chat a little bit, and she tells you that your father is all ready to interrogate your boyfriend, especially since you’d given them no information about him. “She wouldn’t even tell us your name.”

“I can’t talk too much about us, you know. We’ve got to keep it a little bit of a secret.” You whisper to her. “Maybe you don’t recognize him, but he is an idol. Other people might recognize him, and we can’t let word get out.”

Johnny’s wearing a mask and a hat now that you’re in the doctor’s office together, keeping his head down somewhat just on the off-chance that someone could recognize him. But now, with the way your mother is staring at him in surprise, you think it might draw some attention.

When you go to the restroom a few minutes later, leaving the two of them alone, you worry that you’ll come back to find things in a disastrous state, but to your surprise, after an extended bathroom break due to the number of others trying to use the single restroom available off the waiting room, you return to see them laughing and talking more comfortably with each other, and just a few minutes after that you’re called back to meet with your doctor.

Now, it’s not like the appointment jumps straight into finding out the gender of the baby, but that’s all the matters, all that you can focus on while you and your doctor talk, while she examines you, while your mother and Johnny sit nearby, but then it’s time and you’re on your back with your shirt pulled up over your belly and a technician spreading the cool gel over your belly.

You don’t remember reaching for Johnny’s hand, but suddenly you’re holding onto it while you look at the screen. Your mother’s leaning forward eagerly too, all three of you plus the doctor staring at the screen at the inside of your body, searching for your Little Blobby.

“Ah, here we are.” The technician pauses for a moment, and you can hear the heartbeat inside you--not the one that belongs to you, but the second smaller one, the faster tiny one--and you can see it on the screen.

“That’s the baby?” Johnny squeezes your hand and leans closer to see the screen more clearly. “That’s our baby?”

“It sure is.” The technician moves the device a bit more, trying to get a better view. “Is this daddy and grandma’s first time seeing the baby?”

“It is!” Your mother says excitedly. Her hand briefly touches your leg as she shifts closer to see as well. “It’s just too exciting to learn the baby’s gender, don’t you think? How could we miss the appointment for this?”

She’s right, you realize. It’s very important for the father of the baby to be there when you find out the baby’s sex. And as much as you love Johnny, you look back up at him right then, and you realize that he very well may not be the father of this baby. There are thirteen other men who it could be, and it’s not fair to rob them of this experience.

“Wait,” you say. The technician stops, and when she looks at you, you clear your throat. “I don’t think I want to know today. If you can just, like, write it down and put it in an envelope?

“Honey, what?” Your mother picks up your hand from where Johnny’s just dropped it. “You don’t want to know today?”

You shake your head. One look at Johnny shows you that he’s a little bit hurt, but that he understands the thought process behind this decision. He wanted to be the special one here with you for this momentous step in your pregnancy. But worse than Johnny is your mother. She wants to be here for this.

“We can have a reveal party, Mom. I thought I wanted to know today, but I just think it’ll be more exciting to be surrounded by family and friends, you know?” Well, by that you mostly mean with all of the potential fathers there as well. “So, can you do that?”

The technician happily agrees. “Of course, once I verify the sex of the baby, I’ll be glad to do that for you! Your little one isn’t exactly in the right position for this, but let me try to move around, see if I can get a better angle.”

Your mother sits back in her seat, folding her arms across her chest, seeming very disappointed, but Johnny stands right at your side and puts his hand on your shoulder. You meet his gaze, and Johnny smiles.

“What are you hoping for?” You whisper. “When you’ve thought before about having kids, what were you deep down hoping to have?”

“Honestly?” Johnny turns his attention back to the screen, though at the moment there’s truly not much to see. “Growing up, I was an only child, you know. I always wanted a little brother, and then when I moved here I found my little brothers. Mark and Haechan, Chenle, Jisung, the other kids. And I realized that boys are such a mess, such a chaotic hassle, but that’s easy for me to understand and handle.” Johnny’s voice dips lower as he says, “A boy. I hope you’re having a boy.”

Later that day as you and Johnny return home with a sealed envelope tucked safely in your purse, still filled with happiness from the success of the long lunch with your mother and father (who in the end both loved Johnny entirely and were very charmed by him), you just want to tear open the envelope and share the news with all of the boys inside. It’s been hours since the appointment, Johnny had kept up conversation with your parents, and then he’d insisted on stopping to grab some stuff from the store on the way home.

By the time you walk through the door of the house, you’re buzzing with nervous excitement. You want to tear open that envelope to find out the sex of the baby, dive into the bags of candy you’d begged Johnny to buy for you, and be with the men you love. But as soon as you’ve stepped out of your shoes and tucked them away in the entryway of the house, Johnny reminds you that the boys all have a surprise for you.

“We’re back!” He calls, taking you by the hand and leading you into the living room.

You leave the grocery bags sitting beside the sofa. The house is suspiciously quiet and still. You frown.

A voice calls down from somewhere high above. “Just a moment!”

“Johnny... What is the surprise? You know usually, it’s...”

“It’s not a sex thing, don’t worry.” Johnny places a soothing hand on your head. “A good surprise.”

“You can come up!” Another voice calls down, and Johnny leads you by the hand up the stairs. By the time you reach the top floor, you can hear that all of the boys are up here, not just your boyfriends but the younger boys too. And once you’ve climbed the last step, you can see them all gathered around in the hallway.

“Okay, seriously, what’s going on?”

“We have a surprise for you.” Taeil says, stepping out of his room and joining the others right in front of him. “Come here.”

Johnny lets go of your hand, and you walk forward slowly. You know that there’s no need to be suspicious of your boyfriends or the others, yet you can’t help it with them all being so mysterious.

“We all worked really hard today,” Jaehyun explains to you. “We honestly weren’t sure that we’d have it ready by the time you got home, so we had Johnny distract you a bit longer.” You frown back over your shoulder at Johnny, but he’s smiling down at Ten who’s whispering something to him. Jaehyun continues, “But we did finish. And it’s for you.”

He steps forward and lays his hand on the door to Taeil’s room.

“What did you do?” You look around at all of them assembled around you.

Tired of waiting, Yuta steps forward and pushes the door open. It’s not what you expected.

In place of the usual massive bed that occupied the space just earlier that morning is a more normal-sized bed. And, on top of that, it’s pretty, prettier than any boys room.

You take a step inside and look around a bit more. The walls have been repainted--three of the walls in cream, one in a dark shade of green. The room’s been redecorated entirely, and then as you turn and take a look in the corner of the room you see a crib and an armchair, a dresser with a stuffed polar bear toy that you recognize from Doyoung’s bed sitting on top of it.

“What is this?” You ask, then to Taeil, “Where will you sleep?”

“I moved down the hall.” Taeil grins. “We just thought that you need a space. For just you, for the baby.”

“You guys...”

You don’t know the exact moment when you start crying, but then you’re just suddenly in tears, bawling into the shoulder of whichever boy sweeps you first into a hug. They wrap around you, trying to comfort you, but you don’t exactly need comfort, you just need to outpour all of these emotions.

“It’s lovely, thank you all.” You eventually manage to get the waterworks under control, and as you wipe at your tears, you lift your head, catch sight of the crib again, and you remember. “Oh, I forgot! Johnny and I, at the appointment, I decided I didn’t want to find out right away, not then. I felt like you should all be there when I find out. My mother wasn’t too thrilled with that, but we can have, like, a gender reveal party, with my parents, some friends.”

“A party? Here?” Doyoung asks, ruffling his hand through his hair. “When? It’s almost Christmas.”

“Next weekend? Do you think that’s too soon?” You look around at all of them. Ten and Taeyong glance at each other, looking doubtful. “It is too soon, isn’t it. What about the following weekend? The, what would that be, the thirteenth?”

There’s murmurs around the room, the boys talking over their schedules, and after a few moments the general agreement is that they do have that day, for the most part, free for a party.

“I’m hungry.” You groan, sinking down onto the edge of Kun’s bed.

He looks up from his phone, frowning in confusion. “Why did you come in here instead of just going to the kitchen?”

“Because I don’t want to go all the way downstairs.” You shift, trying to get more comfortable, but that’s easier said than done.

“Oh, I get it.” Kun laughs. “You want me to go down there, make you something, and bring it back up here for you to enjoy?”

“I wouldn’t say no to that.” You finally lay down on your back, pillowing your head on Kun’s arm. “But, mostly I came in here because I know you have snacks. And snacks, plus cuddling in your bed is always going to be much, much better than walking downstairs to the kitchen.”

Kun rolls his eyes playfully and sits up, moving around you and bending over the edge of his bed to get at his snacks. You shift around, getting comfy, and tell him “I’ve been craving something salty. This baby just wants salty food.”

“Well, this baby convinced you to come to the right place.” Kun sits up again, dropping a bag of perfectly salty snacks into your lap. He settles back into place beside you, and after a few moments filled only with the sound of you crunching on your snacks, Kun asks, “Do you really not know what the baby is? Boy or girl?”

You shrug. “We really didn’t find out at the appointment, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I believe you. But what do you think it is? Or what are you hoping for?” Kun steals his hand into the bag in your lap.

You shrug, stuff your mouth full so you can buy yourself some time to think.

“I don’t think I really know. I had a dream a while ago, though, with a baby boy. But I think a girl would be good too. Little girls always have such cute clothes, and I know more about girls than boys. ”

“That’s what we’re here for, though. Me and the guys.” Kun puts a hand on your belly. “I want the baby to be a girl. I think raising a daughter, getting to spoil her, treat her like a little princess, that would be great.”

You snort. “No matter if this baby’s a boy or a girl, I’m sure it’ll be spoiled rotten by all of you. Chenle’s already bought a few things, he told me, and then I’ll never want for babysitters, with all of you around. But I don’t think I’ll be disappointed either way, boy or girl.”

“And what about names? Have you seriously thought about that yet?” Kun asks, once again dipping his hand into the bag, stealing away a handful of the snack. And because he’s Kun and avidly listening to you as you both relax and snack in his bed, you tell him all of the names you’ve been considering, he makes suggestions, you both fall off in a tangent about naming your child after characters from movies or dramas or books.

You’re still talking about it when Jaehyun peeks his head through the door. “There you are.”

“Here I am.” You sit up a little in Kun’s arms. “Were you looking for me?”

Jaehyun glances around the room before his narrowing eyes fall to Kun’s hand on your belly. “Yeah. I mean, no, not really. I was just... missing you. I didn’t need anything.” His hand flexes around the edge of the door.

“We were just talking about baby names,” Kun says. “And talking about what she wants the baby to be. Boy or girl.”

Jaehyun steps inside the room then, closing the door back behind him as he comes over to sit on the floor beside the bed. “Definitely a boy. An athlete.”

“You just want a mini-you.” You reach into the bag (which has drastically lost most of its contents since Kun first gave it to you) and toss a few pieces in Jaehyun’s direction.

“No, I just want a sweet baby with you.” Jaehyun tosses it right back at you, then lunges up to kiss you briefly. You twist your fingers in the front of his shirt, holding on even as he backs away. “Yeah, I hope you’re having a boy, but I bet you’re hoping for a girl, aren’t you? Taeyong told me he’s hoping for a girl because he’s already watched a boy be raised with his nephew, and he just thinks a girl will be easier.”

He’s probably not wrong. You often hear about the hijinks and mischief of little boys, and you imagine any son of yours, raised in a house like this, would definitely be chaotic, an uncontrollable whirlwind. Though, you’re sure that due to the influence of all of these men, a daughter might turn out equally as mischievous.

Kun and Jaehyun begin playfully bickering back and forth about names, and you zone out a bit, only snapping back to reality when Jaehyun puts a gentle hand on your knee.

“Sorry, I’m feeling tired.” You shake your head, and move, trying to push yourself to sit up. “I should get to bed. Growing a baby is tiring, and I have to work tomorrow.”

Kun reluctantly watches you leave his bed, but you kiss him before you go. Jaehyun walks with you upstairs to your door, and he leans against the doorway as you go inside, his hand quickly snatching yours to keep you there a moment longer.

“Goodnight.” He smiles, a loose, easy, happy expression. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You drape your arms over his shoulders, your hands tangle behind his neck, and you lean up to kiss him. Jaehyun smiles into the kiss, pushing it to be more than just a goodnight kiss, which you entertain for a moment longer. But you truly just want to sleep tonight, so you slide your arms from his shoulders, pressing your palm against his chest as you pull away.

“No,” Jaehyun moans greedily, giving you one, two, three more little kisses.

You bite your bottom lip and hold his gaze. Jaehyun’s warm eyes soak through you, heating you with a gentle radiant glow. Your stomach flutters, like the giddy butterflies you’d felt early on in this relationship.

“Goodnight, Jaehyun.” You pat his chest over his heart. “Love you, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jaehyun’s hand clings to yours, only slowly letting up his hold so your hand can slip out of his.

“Go to bed,” you whisper at last, stepping inside and beginning to draw the door shut. “Go to sleep and dream about the baby. About me.”

Jaehyun laughs, steps close just one last time to kiss you, and then, as he pulls away, he murmurs, “You know I always dream about you.”

It doesn’t feel practical to be having a threesome when you’re twenty weeks pregnant, with a big round belly, yet that’s exactly what you find yourself doing.

Jungwoo and Hendery are goofing around together while the three of you are shopping together. Laughing, pushing each other, being loud enough that they draw attention to the three of you, but the weather’s recently turned very cold as the winter season truly takes hold in these days leading up to Christmas, so they’re covered up with hats and scarves, and Hendery’s wearing a mask as well as glasses. You find it unlikely that anyone could recognize them, but you continuously try to calm them down just in case.

You’re shopping for a few things to decorate your nursery, for some last minute Christmas presents, and originally you’d intended to come alone or to ask your mother or some of your friends if they wanted to come along, but at the last minute, Jungwoo volunteered and Hendery said he also had a need to go shopping.

You’d done Hendery’s shopping first, which had perhaps been a mistake as he was now weighed down with his own bags of new clothes. The emptying of his wallet had been encouraged by Jungwoo who was in a very bright mood, and suggest that Hendery buy everything he tried on, from a large fuzzy Nike jacket to a beanie that had cat ears, and even an umbrella that Hendery commented was pretty as the three of you passed by the store selling it. And now that he had all of these things, Hendery was distracted, and neither of them were helping you find the store you were looking for while you walked.

“Jungwoo!” You whine, clutching his arm and clinging to him when you have to turn around because the two of them stopped to play-fight right in the middle of this shopping mall.

An older man sitting on a bench a few feet away watches them somewhat fearfully, but a small group of young girls who are clustered together in front of a makeup store are hiding their giggles behind their hands.

“Sorry,” Jungwoo laughs. “Hendery’s just so cute, I can’t help but play with him today.” He reaches over as if to pinch Hendery’s cheek, and that just starts them off again.

“Ya!” You cry out, slapping at whichever of them is nearest you. “Focus!”

This time it’s Hendery’s turn to apologize. “Sorry, sorry.” He dramatically moves about six feet away from Jungwoo, well out of arm’s reach. “I promise to be good for the rest of this shopping trip.”

“Please. I just want to finish up and then go home.” You curl a hand over your belly as you feel something like bubbles, almost like you’re feeling gassy. And you know the sooner you get home the better if that’s the case. You refuse to use a public restroom just because you truly can’t be sure of how clean it is, and the risk of infections freaks you out, especially now that you’re pregnant and have another being's health to worry about.

“Are you okay?” Jungwoo asks, stepping closer, the light mood gone in an instant, replaced with concern as he notices you touching your belly.

“I’m fine, let’s just go so we can head home.”

After that, they’re both still somewhat goofy, but they stop messing around so much. Even as you’re in the baby store so you can find some cute decorations, Hendery sticks close to you, smiling awkwardly when another pregnant customer starts chatting with you about some things he’d rather not hear about.

But at some point in the chat she asks you, “How far along are you?”

“Twenty weeks.” You place your hand on your bump. “It’s crazy when I think about it, like, it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since I found out.”

She smiles. “Yes, but you should definitely enjoy it while you can. I remember my first one. Experiencing everything for the first time. Feeling my son kick for the first time was the strangest but most wonderful experience. Have you felt your little one yet?”

“Oh, I’m not really sure.” You look down at your belly while Hendery and Jungwoo whisper to each other a few feet away, looking at a selection of baby shoes. “I definitely haven’t felt like a kick.”

The woman laughs. “I don’t expect you would at only twenty weeks. The baby’s probably still too small for you to feel a big kick yet. For me it felt like butterflies in my tummy at first. Just little movements, kind of like gas sometimes, honestly.”

“Really?” You rub your hand over your round belly, thinking back to that feeling just earlier, thinking back further a few weeks, feeling random bouts of what you’d thought were nervous flutters. But maybe they were more. “Then I think I have.”

Almost as if it knows you’re talking about it, you feel it again. That little ripple of movement inside you that could almost be mistaken as something else. You look up at the woman in front of you, probably wide-eyed with surprise, and a smile breaks across your lips.

“Did you feel it?” She asks, her own smile rising to her lips.

“Yeah.” Quickly, you turn to your boyfriends. “Guys, I felt the baby move!”

They both reach for you at the same time, hands on your belly. The woman laughs, “They probably won’t be able to feel it yet. But soon. My husband first felt our son kicking through my belly when I was about twenty-five, twenty-six weeks.”

You hurry to finish up in the store, but you can’t stop touching your belly, can’t stop trying to feel the baby moving. By the time you’re back at the house, you can think of nothing else.

You take your purchases up to your room, and Jungwoo follows you.

“What does it feel like?” He asks, trying to put his hands on your belly again as soon as you’ve laid the bags down in the corner by the crib.

“Just a little flutter.” You tell him, moving to lay down on your bed. You pull your shirt up, exposing your belly to the room. Jungwoo comes closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. There’s a soft knock on the door, and then it cracks open, Hendery comes inside, his eyes eagerly falling on your belly. “I agree with that woman earlier. You probably won’t be able to feel it yet. When I feel it, it’s not that strong yet.” You move your hand over your belly, thinking, this is so weird.

You knew that there was a baby inside you. Obviously. You’ve dealt with the morning sickness and the sore tits and everything else. You’ve watched and felt your body changing to accommodate this new life. You’ve heard the heartbeat and seen the sonogram.

But now you’d felt that life moving within you. And that was the realist thing yet.

“That’s amazing.” Jungwoo caresses your belly, leaning in to drop a kiss right below your belly button. “Do you remember what I told you that night, when we were in the living room after our date?”

“Hmm?” You sink back fully into the pillows and glance over at Hendery as he comes closer.

“About finding you pregnant very, very sexy.” Jungwoo kisses your belly again. “Your belly, your boobs. This glow.” His hands slide along your thighs and you shiver. He turns his head to the side, looking up at Hendery then back at you as he says, “I just want to make you feel good, princess. You’re doing so much, you deserve to feel good.”

“I do, don’t I?” You smile, lifting your hips a bit to encourage him.

Another kiss to your belly. His fingers at the waistband of your pants.

“What about me?” Hendery asks. “I want in, but I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t hurt her.” Jungwoo tugs your pants down from your hips, bringing your panties down too. “She’s not made of glass, and it’s not like she’s been abstinent since the baby was made. The baby’s going to be fine, she’ll be fine. Want me to show you how, Hendery?”

Hendery makes a face. “I know how to--”

“Then kiss her or something.” Jungwoo watches hungrily as you sit up just enough to pull your top over your head, then you reach back and unfasten your bra, and once that’s fallen away, you’re bare in front of the two of them.

“Your boobs.” Hendery groans lustfully.

You feel Jungwoo’s lips hot on your belly, moving higher to the top of your bump. His hips drop against your leg, and you feel his erection, and when you reach for Hendery, wanting to drag him into a kiss, your fingers brush against the front of his pants, and he makes such a desperate sound, pushing his hips forward into your touch.

Jungwoo nuzzles against your breasts, breath tickling along your skin.

Hendery pulls his shirt over his head, sinking down to the bed with you, and his lips connect with yours in a messy, uncoordinated kiss as you plunge your hand down the front of his pants to touch him.

Hendery’s always easy like this, so easy to work up, to touch him and get him going quickly.

You moan when Jungwoo touches you, slicking a finger between your folds, teasing. Hendery hurries to wiggle out of his pants, and his hand takes over from yours as he kneels up on the edge of the bed as soon as he’s free of the pants. Jungwoo flicks his tongue over one of your nipples and then sits up, kneeling back between your legs and looking at Hendery, then at you, then back at Hendery.

“Wanna suck you, Hendery,” you mumble, stroking down his thigh. His hand squeezes around his cock. “Please, you know I’ve missed your dick, the taste of you.”

“Fuck, princess, you’re wet.” Jungwoo enters you with two fingers, the glide easy because you truly are so wet right now. “Give it to her, Hendery. She’s clearly drooling for it.”

Hendery shifts forward on the bed, and you open your mouth for him. His eyes all but roll back in his head with pleasure as he sinks his dick between your lips. And while you’re distracted in getting Hendery’s dick wet, Jungwoo’s fat tip presses against your pussy, and with just a push, you stretch open around him, taking him in just as well as Hendery.

It feels so good to have them both inside you. It’s been months since you last got double-teamed; the boys are scared enough when having sex with you one-on-one, but doing it like this, the closest you’ve had to this was when rolling around with Xiaojun he’d given you his fingertips to suck on while he was inside you.

“Oh, god.” Hendery moans.

You wrap your hand around him, and bobbing your head on him, focusing on just the tip, it’s easy to get him close. Hendery’s been without any action except for himself for so long, since at least a couple weeks before you realized you were pregnant.

You drag his cock between your lips, push down once on him, taking him deep. You hungrily lick and suck, working your very best to get Hendery off while Jungwoo thrusts into you.

Hendery’s cock falls from your lips, and his breath comes out raggedly as his hand jerks over his length, carrying him to his orgasm. You feel it splash warm across your chest and your chin, striped across your breasts. You moan, stretching up to wrap your lips around his tip again, licking, lightly sucking, and you snake a hand down your body to touch yourself, fingers on your clit as Jungwoo pulls out, running his hand over himself.

And when you feel his cock rub against your belly, you get what he’s doing. His kink for your pregnant body doesn’t end with just fucking you, he wants to cum on you, mark up your pregnant belly with his semen.

“Jungwoo, Jungwoo, please!” You pant, sliding your own fingers inside yourself, trying to reach your orgasm. “Wanna cum!”

“Ah, baby.” Hendery pets your hair. “Want me to help you?”

You nod, already grabbing his hand, bringing it down your body, but his hand slows as it passes your belly, and before he can even touch you, Jungwoo swats his hand away.

Jungwoo fucks back into you, his hands touching your belly, driving into you again and again.

The orgasm shudders through you, powerful and good, and Jungwoo pulls out a second later, and his cum stripes across your swollen belly. Carefully, so as to avoid landing on you, Jungwoo drops off to your side and pushes his face into your pillow with a satisfied sigh.

Hendery disappears into the ensuite bathroom, emerging a few moments later with a damp cloth which he uses to wipe the drying cum from your chest, chin, and belly. He gently wipes between your legs, and then runs it once more over your belly.

“That was the first time I’ve had sex in this bed.” You sigh, wiping your hand across your forehead, brushing away some hair. “Thanks.”

Hendery laughs. “Oh, anytime.”

It feels very strange having your parents there in the house along with all of your boyfriends and the younger boys. If your parents think this is an odd location for your sex reveal party, they don’t comment on it. They don’t ask you why Johnny’s parents aren’t there. They certainly don’t ask why all of the older boys are eagerly introducing themselves to your parents, or question why your mother walks in on you holding Kun’s hand in the kitchen.

If your parents find any or all of this strange, they don’t say a word, and for that you’re very grateful.

Because the day has finally come to learn the sex of your baby.

It’s been two weeks since the appointment, and Johnny has sworn up and down that he hasn’t looked at the envelope. He hid it away where no one would find it, so no one else would be tempted to open it until the party.

As you’d begun setting things up for the party the day before, cleaning the house, organizing, you’d entrusted one of the boys’ managers with picking up a gender reveal cake for you. She’d been supportive of your pregnancy since the boys had told their managers about it, so you trusted her to do it well.

And then there’s your friends. Your close group of friends who already had suspected your baby daddy to be an idol after that last dinner. It had started out as a joke, obviously, but as you wanted to invite them to the party, and after talking with the boys, you’d texted your group chat with your friends and told them that the father actually is an idol, you can’t say who, just that he is.

So naturally, after telling them and inviting them to the party, they were all asking you all over again who the father was, and you refused to tell them, just made them promise that if they came to the party, they wouldn’t talk about it. You didn’t want to ruin any careers over this pregnancy. And you trusted them a lot.

Having all of them here--you parents, your friends, your hoard of boyfriends, and the other members--was very odd.

Especially when you overheard Mark and Ten and YangYang giggling together about you inviting your parents to a sex party. “Sex reveal party! A reveal! Not a sex party.” You’d cried out in exasperation.

As everyone showed up to the party, they were dressed in either pink or blue, depending on whether they thought you were having a boy or a girl. It was interesting to finally see what each of your boyfriends thought as they emerged from their rooms wearing either color.

“I just don’t own anything pink,” Taeyong tells you, tugging at the strings of his blue hoodie. “But I think it’s a girl.”

Your friends arrive in their various shades, the majority of them wearing blue. As soon as their eyes land on Mark, you hear gasps.

“What the fuck, I knew it!” The friend that had been with you when you ran into Taeyong during your break wraps her arm through yours.

“NCT?” Another of your friends cries, pulling you even closer into the midst of them. “The father of your baby is a member of NCT? How the fuck did you manage that? Why have you kept this a secret for so long?”

The hungry eyes and titters among a few of the girls is reason enough, you think. There’s a jealous flare in your belly as one of them tries to catch Lucas’s eye as he passes by wearing a gaudy pink sweater.

“It wasn’t easy, I promise you. Just, don’t flirt with them, okay?” You try to slip away, wanting to go hide in the balloon bouquet of blue, purple, and pink that someone had placed in the corner by the stairs.

“What? You want to keep them all for yourself? Babe, that’s just not practical.” One of your friends laughs, and the others laugh too. You feel warm now because that’s exactly what you want; all of them for yourself. It might not be practical, but it is reality. “So which one of them is it? Which one are you dating?”

You praise the universe in the next moment when your mother comes over, all smiles and her second mimosa in her hand. “That Doyoung is so polite. Girls! You’ve made it! Goodness, when was the last time I saw you?” She pulls your friends into hugs, and in that time, you escape.

You sit down beside Jisung (in blue) and Ten (in pink) at the kitchen table where they’re picking through the snacks, nibbling and now watching your friends warily.

“How much do they know again?” Ten asks you.

You reach for his glass of water, gulping it down to calm yourself. “They know that one of you is the father, I haven’t given them any name or anything. I did, however, make them promise not to talk about being here today. God, I’m nervous.”

Ten covers your hand with his, squeezing gently, and says, “Don’t be” at the same time as Jisung asks, “About what you’re having or your friends finding out that you don’t even know who the dad is?”

You just groan and drop your face into your arms. Ten laughs but puts a soothing hand on your back. “It’s okay. You know it’ll be fine.”

Your nerves just continue to increase as you notice your father trying to chat with Johnny (in blue) even as Mark (also in blue) keeps trying to get your father to talk with him, and your mother is simply being charmed by Kun (wearing both pink and blue, unable to decide) and Jaemin (wearing an unhelpful shade of pale purple that could almost be pink) and Taeyong. And then there’s your friends, dispersing among the boys, sometimes huddling together in pairs to whisper, sometimes they’re all over the place-- one talking to Lucas, while another blushes as she asks Taeil to hand her a napkin to wipe up the drink she spilled, while another stands beside Ten and Yuta to admire Ten’s tattoos.

“Relax.” Jaehyun comes up behind you, startling you. His hands settle on your shoulders. “You’re so tense, I feel like you need some cake. Then for this party to end, then maybe a nap or at least a footrub, right? Nice bubblebath?” His hands massage your shoulders, thumbs digging in wonderfully to the tense muscles.

You drop your head back with a groan. “That sounds great.”

“I’ll go get the cake,” he whispers. His lips just barely brush against your cheek in a kiss, and then he’s gone, disappearing into the kitchen to fetch the cake from where their manager left it chilling in the fridge.

“Everyone!” You call, but your voice shakes and gets lost in the din of other voices. Doyoung notices you though, so he shouts instead, “Everyone!”

The attention in the room shifts to Doyoung beside you until he waves at you, passing all of the attention right onto you. Nervously you rest your hands on your belly.

“We’re going to cut the cake now.” You move over toward a small table that had been moved into the living room, in front of a wall of blue and pink streamers and balloons and golden string lights that Ten and WinWin had hung up earlier that morning.

Jaehyun emerges from the kitchen, carrying the cake in front of him. Renjun’s right behind him with a knife and a stack of plates.

As soon as Jaehyun sets the cake down and Renjun’s handed you the knife, you stand alone up there.

You’d decided it was best if you stood up there alone. Yes, as far as your parents are aware Johnny’s the father, but you don’t really want your friends to think that because it’s simply not a certainty. So all of the boys stand back, and you clear your throat.

If your parents and friends can feel the pure excitement and anticipation radiating off of most of the young men in the room, they don’t seem to think twice about it. But every eye is on you as you lift up the knife Renjun handed you, as you make your first slice into the cake. An excited ripple moves through the room as you make the second cut. And then you slip the knife under the slice and carefully bring the slice out of the cake, revealing the color inside.

Cheers around the room.

Pink! Pink! The cake is pink!

You throw yourself into the arms of the first boy who approaches you. Jungwoo, Johnny, Lucas, Jaehyun, Kun, they all pile in.

“Careful! Careful!” You hear your mother crying. “Be careful with her!”

The boys all back away, giving you just enough space, and Johnny’s hands fall to your round belly. Doyoung touches the back of your head, his fingers wandering down through your hair, settling on the back of your neck. WinWin stands right beside you, nearly bouncing in his excitement.

Your mother rushes forward and your friends, all gathering around you to touch your belly. Already your mother’s suggesting names to you. One of your friends, who’s already had a daughter, is offering you hand-me-downs. With everyone around you like this, the heat of everybody surrounding you, your head begins to buzz, and you look around, searching for anything to steady you.

“Cake? Who wants cake?” Mark asks, and you turn to see him right beside you, a slice of cake on a plate in his hand. He starts slicing and handing them out, getting people to move away from you, offering you more space to breathe.

You sit down at an empty spot on the sofa. Johnny sits down beside you, grinning, handing a delightfully pink slice of cake to you. He bumps his shoulder against yours.

“A girl. A baby girl. What do you think about that?” He asks.

You put a gentle hand on your belly, feeling the baby--your baby girl--stir inside you. Lately you’re more in-tune to those movements. You can tell the difference between butterflies and gassiness and her moving inside you.

“Eat up, baby. Let this little girl taste her celebratory cake.” Johnny taps the plate, and then stands up, clearing the space beside you for your closest friend to slip into. Johnny goes over to Jaehyun and Hendery, throwing his arms over their shoulders, all three of them cheering.

“Congratulations!” She folds one leg over the other. “A sweet baby girl. And with a daddy like this, she’ll have life made.” She grins and looks around the room, scanning over all of the boys, your other friends, your parents. “But really, which one of them is it? I’ve been watching you, trying to figure it out, but I can’t tell. You seem really close with all of them.”

You push a forkful of cake between your lips. “I am close with all of them.”

“Right, but which of them got you pregnant?” And then her voice drops lower. “And at dinner you said they, so like, is that they two of them that you’re with, or one of them with someone else?”

“I can’t tell you that.” You reply, keeping your voice low so no one else hears. “I can’t risk it getting out.”

She smiles again, amused and victorious even though you didn’t really tell her anything. “I’ll take that as you’re having sex with two of them. You don’t have to tell me, but I just hope that you’re happy with them.”

“I really am. Happy.” You lean back, stroking your bump. “They make me so happy, how could they not when because of them I have this to look forward to.” You feel like you’re probably smiling like a fool, looking down at your belly, unable to block out the daydreams that pour through your mind. A life with your daughter. You feel that little now-familiar flutter. “I’m having a girl. A daughter.”

You look up from your belly, catching Yuta’s eye from across the room. He winks at you, and you can’t help the giddy feeling that rises up in you, so you just laugh, sinking back in your seat, feeling more relaxed, lighter, happier.

Good Thing <- Previous || Next -> gimme that: a drabble

a/n: oof this was a long one, now I hope y’all see why I split the last one and this one into two parts instead of keeping it as one long one. I’m not really sure when the next part is going to be posted, but I do have a drabble to post probably a week from now. I hope you enjoyed this part, like that resolution to Mark proposing, I really enjoyed seeing everyone’s reactions to that ending of Good Things. Please let me know what you thought, as usual, reblogs, comments, likes are super appreciated!

#nct smut #wayv smut #nct #wayv #nct2020 #poly smut

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blueiskewl · 2 years

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Masterpiece of Greek Art Found in the Griffin Warrior Tomb

The engraving on the Pylos Combat Agate is so tiny and intricate that it changes our understanding of what the ancient Greeks could produce

In 2015, archaeologists discovered an intact tomb of a Mycenean warrior or priest later dubbed the “Griffin Warrior” in an olive grove near Pylos, Greece, dating to around 1450 B.C. It was an incredible find, with the researchers recovering gold and silver cups, weapons and armor, and 50 gold and gemstone seals engraved with intricate images. Now, reports Nicholas Wade at The New York Times, researchers have fully analyzed one of those agate seals and have found that it is on par with the greatest artworks of the ancient world.

But unlike ancient Greek sculpture or Roman mosaics, the seal might be hard to see without a magnifying glass. The engraved image is less than an inch and a half long, but includes an incredibly detailed scene of a warrior slaying two enemies. The seal has been named the Pylos Combat Agate.

“The stunning combat scene on the seal stone, one of the greatest masterpieces of Aegean art, bears comparison with some of the drawings in the Michelangelo show now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Malcolm H. Wiener, an expert on Aegean prehistory and a trustee emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum, tells Wade.

According to a press release, when archaeologists from the University of Cincinnati first found the agate, which was encrusted with dirt and grime, they did not recognizes its significance. It wasn’t until they began removing the layer of limestone on the agate that they saw the intricate image. “Looking at the image for the first time was a very moving experience, and it still is,” says Shari Stocker, one of the dig leaders and a research associate in University of Cincinnati's department of classics. "It's brought some people to tears."

How the stone was carved is something of a mystery. Some details are only half-a-millimeter in size and would have required the use of some sort of magnifying device to get the elements right. However, no such equipment has been found in the ancient Greek world, Wade of the Times reports.

The sealstone was likely designed to be mounted on a band and worn on the wrist. In fact, the victorious warrior on the stone is depicted wearing his own seal stone. For those wondering if the warrior image is from some early version of Greek epics like the Iliad or the Odyssey, the researchers say there is no real way to connect the two, especially since Homer’s works were written down around 700 B.C. It’s possible that the oral tradition behind the works stretches back to the time of the Griffin Warrior, but there is no evidence.

What the intricate seal does do, however, is build on what scholars know about the relationship between the ancient Mycenaeans, who lived mostly on the Peloponnese Peninsula on mainland Greece, and the Minoans, a culture that lived on Crete and likely created the Pylos Combat Agate. The Minoans were like the ancient Greeks of the ancient Greek world—they were miles ahead of other cultures in the region and developed sophisticated concepts of art, architecture, religion and thought that would heavily influence the rest of the Greek world. While archaeologists believed the Mycenaeans plundered the Minoans, absorbing many of their cultural ideas, the Griffin Warrior has challenged some of those assumptions, showing that there was an exchange of ideas between the Mycenaeans and Minoans, and that the mainlanders respected Minoan culture and used their iconography and art—like the Pylos Combat Agate—as symbols of political power.

The agate also shows just how advanced the Minoans were. “It seems that the Minoans were producing art of the sort that no one ever imagined they were capable of producing,” Jack Davis, head of the University of Cincinnati’s archaeology department, says in the press release. “It shows that their ability and interest in representational art, particularly movement and human anatomy, is beyond what it was imagined to be. Combined with the stylized features, that itself is just extraordinary.”

The Pylos agate may not be the only treasure from the tomb to rewrite early Greek history, either. The archaeologists have catalogued 3,000 objects from the tomb, many of which have not yet been cleaned or restored.

By Jason Daley.

#Masterpiece of Greek Art Found in the Griffin Warrior Tomb #archeology #tomb #ancient tomb #ancient grave #ancient greece #ancient civilizations #ancient history #ancient culture #history #history news #greek history #silver #gold #treasure

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morganaspendragonss · 3 years

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dancing on the edge of something new

huge thanks to alice ( @reyeslonestar ) for letting me talk this through with her at midnight when it was causing me huge trouble 🥰

five dances in tk and carlos’s life

ao3 | 2.3k | @911fluffweek day 3: getting together // dancing

TK looks over when Carlos slides off the hood of the Camaro, his hand trailing after him until he’s forced to let go. Carlos is smiling almost shyly, shifting from one foot to the other, and TK can’t help but smile back, propping himself up on his elbows.

“Carlos?” he prompts, confusion growing as no explanation is forthcoming. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, of course. I just, uh…” He bites his lip, then takes a decisive step forward and holds out a hand, cocking a brow suggestively. “Wanna dance?”

TK laughs. “Seriously?” he asks, but he’s already sitting up and placing his hand in Carlos’s, allowing him to pull him off the car and to his feet.

“Well”—Carlos shrugs, yanking TK close and smiling at the oof he makes when their chests collide—“it’s how we began, isn’t it? I figured, if we’re starting again, then it feels only right, no?”

TK stares, stuck dumb, unable to do anything but follow Carlos’s lead as his arms slip around his waist, guiding them into a gentle sway. He rests his own hands on Carlos’s chest, the realisation that he gets to do this now—gets to touch Carlos and be with him like this—hitting him all over again. To think he almost threw it all away… Well, none of that matters anymore. What matters is that they’re here, dancing in a field with no music save for the shuffle of their feet in the grass and the occasional bird or cricket, like a pair of lovesick idiots in a romcom.

And he’s never been happier.

He slides his hands up until his arms are resting loosely around Carlos’s shoulders, fingers playing with the stray curls at the nape of his neck. He stares into those familiar brown eyes, so full of warmth and light, Carlos cast in the beautiful glow of the Northern Lights above them, and TK feels an intense feeling take root in his chest. It’s not love—not yet—but it will be.

He can’t imagine not falling in love with Carlos Reyes.

ii.

The club lights strobe around them, bathing the room alternately in lurid colours and strange shadows. The place is packed, the doors practically straining on their hinges, but the only thing TK is aware of is Carlos’s body moving against his own, their movements perfectly in sync with each other.

It’s been a while since they were last about to do this, to come out and just let loose for the night. In fact, TK thinks the last time might have been when they were out with Paul what seems like a lifetime ago; so much has changed since, and TK feels like a completely different person to who he was back then.

He and Carlos have officially been together for a few months now, but it’s like the universe has been working to stop them from actually being able to enjoy it. They’ve managed to squeeze in some dates here and there, but between the shooting, the solar storm, TK’s medical leave, and weeks of opposing shifts, getting a moment to themselves has been difficult.

But now, finally, they have one. And TK is going to milk it for all it’s worth.

He turns slightly in Carlos’s grasp, his head tilting up to catch his lips in a searing kiss. Carlos grips TK’s hips tighter, pulling them flush against his own as he deepens the kiss, and TK gasps, a sharp thrill shooting down his spine.

The night stretches out blissfully in front of them, the knowledge that this isn’t just a fling that will end with the cold light of dawn making it all the sweeter. It’s still a little surreal, even now, but it also feels so damn right.

TK’s heart hammers in time with the music and he sinks into Carlos’s hold, losing himself in his heat.

iii.

It’s not that TK never felt at home at the condo. The opposite in fact; Carlos’s place had been home even before he could officially call it his, and he feels the loss of it keenly. The thing is, though, even after he’d fully moved in, it had been a struggle to think of it as theirs.

It had been home, sure, but it had also been Carlos’s place.

Carlos had found it a little funny, and it had taken several slip-ups on TK’s part and just as many gentle corrections on his for TK to get used to our dining room, and our bedroom, and our house.

And then—well. Just as he’d started to get used to it, it was all gone. Ashes. It hurt, deeply, but TK knew that it was his turn to be the one to lean on, to let Carlos be the one to set the pace. Carlos had lived there for years, after all, and what was TK’s month compared to that?

Really, anywhere that Carlos is would be home, but this—holding the keys to a house they’d picked out together, a house they’d signed the lease for together, a house they’d picked the furnishings for together—feels like coming home.

He hates that it was the condo burning down that got them to this stage, but TK can’t stop a grin from emerging on his face as he slips his key into the lock.

He finds Carlos in the kitchen, humming and shimmying to a song playing from the speakers. To his credit, TK really does try to bite back his laughter, but he can’t quite manage it, letting out a loud snort which has Carlos stopping in his tracks, flushing a deep red.

“I see the unpacking’s going well,” he says, walking over to the kitchen counter and leaning a hip against it.

“It was, actually,” Carlos defends, still blushing. “I didn’t realise you’d be back this soon.”

TK shakes his head; as adorable as Carlos’s embarrassment is, he needs to let him know he’s not making fun. “You can relax, babe. You know I always love seeing you move those hips.”

“Mmm, don’t I know it.” Carlos leans in and kisses him, lingering a moment before pulling back, a wide smirk on his face. “How about you help me finish unpacking here and we’ll see about showing you more of that hip action later?”

TK grumbles, but does as he’s told, the two of them falling into a comfortable rhythm as they work to getting their house in order. It’s ended up being the perfect blend of their different styles, which probably shouldn’t work together, but somehow do, and TK loves it here. They both do, he knows—nothing will ever replace what they lost in the fire, but being able to build a home together is beyond special.

He keeps sneaking glances at Carlos as the afternoon goes on—sue him, his boyfriend is built like a Greek god—and TK smiles when he realises Carlos has started dancing again. He probably doesn’t even realise he’s doing it, which makes the whole thing so much better.

TK watches for a while, then walks up to Carlos and taps him on the shoulder. “Mind if I cut in?” he asks, gesturing to the wooden spoons he was twirling around.

There’s a brief moment of confusion, before Carlos’s eyes light up with realisation. He barely wastes a second in tossing the spoons aside (though, it’s more like a careful placement in the correct drawer) and grabs TK by the hand, sending him into a literal spin.

TK laughs, taking a moment to right himself after the sudden movement caused him to stumble inelegantly. Neither of them are in time with the music as they dance around the kitchen, carefully avoiding the boxes still scattered around, but it’s not important.

For the first time in his life, TK feels fully, completely at home. It’s not a feeling he wants to let go of.

iv.

“I think they were expecting something slower,” TK murmurs, burying a laugh in Carlos’s neck. Their guests are all wearing expressions with varying degrees of shock, and he can’t really blame them—he’s pretty sure the last thing anyone expects to hear during a first dance at a wedding is a country song. “I still can’t believe you even remember it.”

Carlos shrugs. “I still can’t believe you don’t. It is our song, after all.”

TK rolls his eyes, remembering their first conversation on this topic months ago, back when they were still sorting out all the wedding minutiae.

“‘Our’ song, babe?” he’d said, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Why, because we danced to it for five minutes before leaving to get off in the bathroom?”

“Exactly,” Carlos had replied, his tone so serious that TK wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not. He’d rolled his eyes and lightly shoved at TK’s shoulder. “No, babe. Because it was the first time we danced together on the night that we met. That’s special, right, even if it did only last five minutes?”

TK hadn’t exactly been able to argue that one, and he has to admit now that it was a pretty good choice. If only to see the way Judd almost choked on his champagne in surprise when the song started.

It’s a little untraditional and, if he’s being honest, TK had never thought that one day he would be getting married in Texas on his new husband’s family ranch, with their first dance being to a ‘cowboy song’, as he’d once called it, much to Carlos’s horror. But he and Carlos have never been ones for tradition, and TK wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s perfect,” he admits, his eyes never leaving Carlos’s. He stops the dance, not caring that the song is still playing, and steps closer, pressing their bodies together. Everything else fades into the background as he leans up and kisses Carlos, barely moving when they break apart. “I love you, Husband.”

Carlos’s face lights up in a grin that could rival the sun in its brightness. “I love you too, Husband.”

Music is floating through the door when TK gets home, and it’s enough to alleviate the weight he’s been carrying all day. It’s not that it had been a bad shift per se (though, when your standards for a good day are ‘nobody dies’, your view tends to get a bit skewed) but it had been long and tiring, and he’d missed his family desperately.

Sometimes, he still can’t believe this is really his life. But Ana, now three, has been living with them for a year already, and TK can’t imagine their home without her anymore. She’d been a blessing, coming into their lives after years of fighting to get on adoption registers, right when they were beginning to despair of ever managing it.

They did, though, and now TK gets to come home to scenes like this.

Scenes like Ana standing on Carlos’s toes as he guides her slowly around the room in a basic dance. TK watches for a moment before getting his phone out and hitting record; he’ll be damned if he misses the opportunity to get this on film.

Carlos, having heard him enter, rolls his eyes when he sees what TK’s doing, but flashes him a quick smile before returning his focus to Ana. She hasn’t noticed TK’s entrance, her face scrunched up in deep concentration as she grips onto Carlos’s hands as tight as she possibly can.

When the music ends, Ana claps her hands and giggles. TK takes the moment to make his presence known, dropping to his knees and holding his arms out. She barrels into him, almost knocking him over, and presses her face into his chest, her tiny hands creating creases in his uniform shirt.

“Hi, sweetheart,” TK murmurs, dropping a kiss in her hair. He gently detaches her from him and manoeuvers them until she’s sitting in his lap. “Looks like you guys were having fun while I was at work.”

She nods enthusiastically. “Papa was teaching me to dance! Abuela showed me photos when I was with her and Abuelo and I wanted to be just like her!”

“Abuela got out the photo albums again, huh?”

Ana nods again. “Of her… Her…” She frowns and looks up at Carlos.

“Her china poblana dresses,” Carlos says softly, smiling as Ana grins and points at him.

TK laughs and draws his daughter into a hug, rocking them gently, his gaze going up to Carlos. “Well, from what I saw, you were dancing even better than Papa,” he says, smirking as Carlos gasps in mock offence. He looks back down at Ana, tapping on the back of her hand. “You know,” he starts, smiling, “I think I might need some dancing lessons too. Think you can teach me?”

Ana lights up and immediately gets to her feet, as if she’d been waiting for him to ask. She grabs TK’s hand and pulls him up, leading him to where Carlos must have cleared a space for them earlier. The music begins to play again and TK lets his daughter take charge, playfully sticking his tongue out at Carlos when he laughs at TK getting firmly told off for putting his foot in the wrong place.

At some point, Carlos joins the dance, the three of them stepping and bouncing around the front room. Ana’s laughter fills the house, shrieking with delight when Carlos sweeps her from the floor and wraps both her and TK in his arms. TK leans his head on his husband’s shoulder, a hand placed on their daughter’s back, and breathes out slowly, all the exhaustion from earlier forgotten.

At last, he’s home.

#911fluffweek #911 lone star #911 lone star fic #tarlos #tarlos fic #tk strand #carlos reyes #lone star #911ls #fanfiction #my fanfiction #writing #my writing #userjillian #tuserjamie #userkimmy #tuserpaige #reyeslonestartag #tuserjenny

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