"Really, Xie Lian, you don't even jerk it??" Shi Qingxuan insists. "I mean it's none of my business and you can tell me to fuck off, but holy shit, lady." Xie Lian laughs, feeling her cheeks color, and shrugs again. "I don't know, something about the mechanics of it just never made sense to me," she admits. "And anyway that's time I should be spending studying." -- It comes out that Xie Lian's never had an orgasm. She goes to Hua Cheng for help. • theyre lesbians

Five years after the death of the Yiling Patriarch, Jin Guangyao calls Jiang Cheng to Carp Tower, to involve him in a plot. It doesn't go the way Jin Guangyao thinks it's going to go.

“You were watching me,” the kid says, in a soft colorless voice. It could be a threat if it wanted to be, easily, but in that tone it’s just a statement of fact. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s the first time anyone’s ever looked at you,” Baiyi says. He sips his drink. “You must not get any attention in that outfit.” The corner of the kid’s red mouth quirks up. “I’m sure you get attention in those,” he says.

Wen Kexing stumbles upon the fact that Han Ying apparently ruins every one of his orgasms - because it would be *disrespectful* otherwise. He's not about to ignore *that*, now is he.

“Did you break the ward to come in?” Lan Wangji asks, point-blank. He has his sword out and pointed at Wei Wuxian, no bothering with niceties like hello I’m Lan Wangji, and you are? Wei Wuxian eyes the sword, but doesn’t react. He keeps lazing back on the roof, casually drinking his wine, as if this is the usual way he meets new people. (And maybe it is! I don’t know your life, Wei Wuxian!) Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian meet on Season 8 of The Cultivation World. Ouyang Zizhen writes the recaps.

One of the most closely guarded secrets of Wen Kexing's life, more so than his hoarded memories, almost more so than his old name, is the fact that the Ghost Valley Master is an omega. When his heat suppressants run out on the way to Longyuan Cabinet, Wen Kexing is plunged into the worst heat of his life. He's desperate for some kind of relief, but Zhou Zishu's encroaching illness means he's no longer able to perform in that regard — and anyway, he's not an alpha. But Ye Baiyi is.

If Wen Qing had realized sooner that she wasn’t in the afterlife or hallucinating, but had actually traveled back in time, she’d have done things differently. There’d have been less murder, for one thing.

Wei Ying might be an alpha but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to get fucked and knotted sometimes, okay? So, after buying herself a knotting dildo, she sets out to make her dreams come true. Unfortunately, the dildo gets a little... stuck... Luckily, her roommate, Lan Zhan, is home to lend a helping hand!

“I dunno, I just—” Tony wrung his hands and dropped his head as tears began to well up, overwhelmed. “I don’t—” “Oh, baby boy,” Steve said. “Why didn’tcha come ‘ta me earlier?” Tony whimpered, frustrated. Steve sighed and began to unbuckle his pants. "Don't ya worry now," he promised, rucking up Tony's dress. "I give it ta you, promise."

Ed doesn't know how he got himself into this situation. And by situation, he means dancing the lead role in a ballet he barely knows.

Five minutes later, he sits back on his bed, pillow clutched triumphantly in his hands. Patrick is splayed out across his own bed, breathing hard with his hair curling out in five different directions. Jonny smugly clicks the television off with the remote, and then tosses the pillow next to him so he can climb under the sheets. Patrick sits up after a minute, tucks his hand under his chin and abruptly swipes his hand out into a point, straight at Jonny, with a glare. Jonny blinks, and then Patrick translates. It figures the first thing Jonny’d learn in sign language is 'fuck you'.

Jonny doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to be doing this, but there’s a contract, there are rules, and he’s got as little of a choice as Patrick does.

Jonny’s prostate is a gift from the gods. Patrick’s patience, also.

Esdras Al-Ridha is born in 1899, in his mother’s family home. His birth certificate, when it’s written a month later by Dr. Yuriy Rockbell, will declare his name Edward Elric. It will name his mother Trisha, and it will say nothing of her white hair. It will say nothing of the blue desert sky he first opens his eyes under, the way he is passed to relative after relative and is held and blessed by each. (Even before the war, tensions are high, and hatred is brewing. Tirzah holds her newborn son, with eyes as gold as his father’s, and pale-sun hair halfway there, and she decides that if Ishvala wants him hidden, then Tirzah will not brand him where his genes have not.)

In which Evgeni Malkin comes to America as one of the few omegas in pro hockey, lights up the NHL, and spends a lot of time wondering why Sidney Crosby is so damn weird.

At the 2014 Olympics, Russia injected Zhenya with a bond blocker, same as the last two times he'd been to the games. Only this time, it brought him to his knees and left him gasping, feeling like his soul was ripped from his body. As an unbonded omega, the shot should have no effect. It should have only targeted an active bond. Unbeknownst to Zhenya, Sid collapsed on the ice at the same time.

"I think I have to get bonded," Sid said in a hollow voice, cutting off Geno's building outrage. "Wait, what?" Geno asked, mind jumping like a car on a blown tire. "To who?" "Anybody." Sid's eyes were unfocused, staring through the wall in front of him. "I don't know. I just need to bond." "That's a story," Geno scoffed. He had always thought they had good sex education in Canada, but apparently, the rumors persisted there, too. "You don't stop heat if you bond." "Heat?" Sid asked, eyes squinched up curiously. "G—I'm not. You know I'm an alpha, right?" *** Or five times Sid couldn't bond with an omega and one time he did.

“Sid, I’m so—I’m sorry,” Geno said. “My stupid—I’m ruin everything, I—” “Shut up, Geno,” Sidney said, already intensely weary of listening to Geno’s self-recrimination. “You’ve barely even done anything.” Geno’s voice dropped what sounded like an entire octave. “But I want to.”

Turning to a witch to save a loved one's life is one of the riskier gambles a person can take, but it's one that's arguably noble and brave. Falling in love with the witch, though—now that's just foolish.

The first Zhenya heard about it was an email from Sidney in the middle of August.

After one scandal too many, Patrick Kane gets traded. Eventually it stops being the worst thing that's ever happened to him.

The first time Sid meets Geno, he isn’t Geno, he’s Evgeni Malkin, and he’s the enemy. Sid is so pumped up for the game he barely notices him. He doesn’t notice anything except hockey, and Malkin’s good, but that’s all he is. He feels a tinge of sadness when Canada wins, but he guesses he just feels bad. Ovechkin’s not the only one crying, and Sid isn’t so unfeeling he doesn’t have some sympathy for how it must suck to lose. He also gets a headache when he flies back home, but he’s just really overtired is all. He doesn’t think anything of it.

Instead of coming back from his concussion right away, Sidney takes some time to have a baby by accident.

Sid and Tyler come together at Worlds to win gold, commiserate about falling for unattainable teammates, and comfort each other with their dicks. However, when they come home those teammates might not be as unattainable as they thought and are getting the wrong idea.

Connor won't be able to go back from knowing the way this sounds. He'll remember all the whines and groans that Dylan made, how desperate he felt. Connor wonders what tomorrow is going to be like, for all of them. For Dylan, maybe, especially.

There was a kid in Geno's yard.

“Sidney, what did you do?” Gonch sounded a little upset himself. Sidney goes to pick Geno up for breakfast before they go to watch practice and finds a tiny, curly-headed Geno who can't speak any English and doesn't know who Sidney is instead. Luckily everyone Sid knows is completely helpful and supportive of his attempts to keep Geno happy until he gets back to normal. Right. (Sid needs better friends).

Crosby’s Biggest Secret! For years, Crosby has been famously quiet about his personal life. But now sources close to Crosby have confirmed that the secretive star has been keeping an even bigger secret than we thought! Meet the heir to his hockey throne—a son! Geno almost drops his phone.

In retrospect, Flower can totally understand why Geno didn't tell Sid who he actually was. Sid is incredibly persuasive when he wants to get laid.

Zhenya’s just leaving the practice rink when he notices him for the first time. The guy’s standing outside the front entrance, staring at the sign and biting his full bottom lip. There’s something familiar about him, but Zhenya can’t place him. He must be mistaken—surely he would have remembered that ass if not the face. The summer before Zhenya starts in the NHL, he meets an adorable tourist who's too irresistible not to take home.

The Penguins call him in early when it turns out that Evgeni Malkin is coming over from Russia - or maybe ‘fleeing’ is a better word for it. “Metallurg had his passport,” Therrien says over the phone. “And when they had to give it back so he could travel with the team, it’s likely that they took - ah, other precautions.” Magical precautions, he means. They’re practically sanctioned in the Superleague these days, though it’s not like North American hockey has any room to point fingers. Sid grew up a Habs fan; he knows from curses.

Sitting at the table was Sid: Sid as Zhenya had first known him, almost a decade before: dorky, long-haired Sid, his cheeks round with baby fat. He couldn’t have been older than twenty, and even that was generous. “Wow,” baby Sid said. “Are you Evgeni Malkin?"

Sid strips to finance his hockey habit. Geno attempts to tip with hockey gear. Somehow, they make it work.

Jonny's standard canned press response is that he loves Kaner like a sister...which is perfectly true, if you’re talking like on Game of Thrones.

Sidney would really like to be able to draw the line at being sexually attracted to his breath mints. Or, when Sidney was forced to do a whole lot of growing up

Nicky’s an omega with a heat problem. Ovi volunteers as tribute.

When the Pittsburgh Penguins’ captain Evgeni Malkin complains about his lack of date for Valentine’s Day on social media, Sid can’t help but think that he could fix that problem easily. Well, if he was someone other than a grad student. He just didn’t expect his friends to actually make it happen.

When Sid goes down during the game against Capitals he knows the verdict long before the doctors tell him. With the rest of his career at stake, as well as the potential of a healthy life after retirement, he’s running out of options. When Sergei Gonchar reaches out with a questionable offer, Sid has a difficult time refusing.

Malkin’s table stays until closing time, still lingering over that bottle of Beluga when Sid comes out of the kitchen to start his nightly closing routine. He goes through the same checklist of jobs he does every night after the kitchen closes but before the bar does, tries to keep his mind on the tasks at hand, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice Malkin’s gaze tracking his movements, if he pretended that he can’t feel the heat of Malkin’s eyes on him as he moves around behind the bar. Sid tells himself to keep his head down, but when he does look up, just to test his theory, Malkin doesn’t even bother to look away, just holds Sid’s gaze, direct and unblinking with just the tiniest hint of a smile. The thing is, Sid’s notoriously bad at this stuff. He’s never had any working gaydar that he’s aware of, and he’s been wrong – very wrong – about this kind of thing probably more often, in his life, than he’s been right. So he assures himself this is just another one of those occasions where he’s definitely reading something incorrectly, imagining things, because there’s no way the captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins is, whatever – checking him out. That would be ridiculous.

Sidney is not living out a Hellish version of The Little Mermaid, except for the parts where he kind of is.

They met by accident, fate, Geno always says, three years ago.

Geno keeps the mental door closed to his teammates in the summer, at least when he can help it; he doesn’t always check in like Sid does. They have other ways of doing that, text and email and social media, and now is the time when they’re supposed to have a break from each other. Geno likes having his head to himself. It’s good for him to get it in order for the next season.

AU: Sidney Crosby is a foster kid growing up in Nova Scotia. Geno Malkin is a Russian transplant. They play hockey. And also have sex. I claim to know very little about the junior hockey league and even less about Canadian Childrens Aid Services.

“But yeah, Matthew’s definitely the best at oral,” Mitch says, straight faced, and Leon-- laughs out loud? “Oh come on, yeah right,” she says, grinning at Matthew over Mitch’s shoulder. She seems genuinely amused. Mitch puffs up, offended. “They made me come so hard I passed out once! Maybe twice. Haven’t you seen them chewing on their mouthguard during games?” Leon laughs again. “Having a huge fucking oral fixation doesn’t automatically mean you’re good at eating pussy, come on,” she says, disbelieving.

There are a lot of things Sydney doesn't say. Sasha hears them all anyway.

Sidney Crosby comes away from Worlds with a gold medal and a soul bond. He had to fight to win one and he's ready to fight to keep the other.

"What are you saying?" Johnny says slowly, because this sounds like she's trying to pick him up, which is impossible, because if Kaner has one concrete rule, it's ‘anyone but teammates.’ "We can help each other out here," Kaner suggests, crossing her legs in her too-short skirt. "That's all. Two friends helping each other out in a dry spell. You're free to do whatever. It wouldn't be a big deal."

“Are you?” Taylor asks unexpectedly. “Am I what?” Looking up from the stove, Sid finds her watching him with an odd look on her face. “Happy.” It should be an easy question to answer.

The locker room chatter started up almost at once, providing a screen of background noise. Zhenya sat down beside the ghost. “I’m captain. Evgeni Malkin.” “Sidney Crosby,” the ghost said. He didn’t offer his hand, which made Zhenya think he had been dead for a while, long enough to shed the ingrained habits of the living. “I’m, uh. Is it really 2018?”

Sidney wants to lose his virginity. Geno helps.