tide. noun. the alternate rising and falling of the sea, usually twice in each lunar day at a particular place, due to the attraction of the moon and sun. [Post-Wano] Sanji would kiss him if that were not a terrible, terrible idea.

Alistair has spent his whole life hating himself for the things he wants. Zevran is just looking for a fun way to pass the time. What could possibly go wrong when someone who has no experience with sex gets into a D/s relationship with someone who has no experience with healthy relationships? Or: Alistair and Zevran serve as a case study on how to do (almost) everything wrong but still end up in the right place (eventually).

The war is over, the sensates are safe, and Wolfgang finally got everything he ever wanted. Now, the morning after his entanglement with both Kala and Rajan, there is only a single question left to answer: What now?

“I haven’t…” she starts, watches his blue eyes narrowed in concern and it’s distracting, everything’s distracting. “I haven’t had a body in a hundred years,” Zelda manages, and shrugs one shoulder, as if to say what can you do? “I was Hylia, mostly, and a little bit me, but I wasn’t a person. I was the sun and the wind and the water and the dirt and I was in a prison and I was the prison. I feel like I’m blindfolded, now, without that sense of the world, but also everything is so bright and loud and close and I hardly know how I’m managing to speak to you when my skin is feeling wind for the first time in a century. It’s…” she trails off, her words failing her, which is infuriating because she’s a scholar, she’s good at words. “It’s a lot,” she finishes awkwardly, for lack of anything better to say. Or: Learning to be a person again, after the end.

[“I just—“ Zuko begins, cuts himself off, opens his mouth to try again. Nothing comes out, and Sokka gives him a full-body squeeze to encourage him. “Maybe next time, you could, uh…” “Yes?” Rushing him does nothing but make him shut down, Sokka’s learned the hard way. Patience isn’t something that comes naturally, but it’s something that he’s learning, just like Zuko’s slowly learning to communicate. “Maybe next time, I want you to, uh, hold me down.”] Or, Zuko learns to use his words.

“They asked me, today, in an interview with Sid right next to me, about that thing I said last year. About leaving the Penguins, being a big star somewhere else.” “And you’re, what? Afraid he’s going to be angry with you?” Zhenya squirms. He feels hot and prickly, his emotions a soupy mess he can’t grasp in order to make sense of. “I think… I think I’m afraid he won’t be.”

Soft hockey boys just trying to make it work.

“Bakugou?” Bakugou shuffled on his feet, hovering over Kirishima and looking at the ground with stormy eyes. He glanced up to glare at Kirishima, a silent dare to call him out on his odd behavior no doubt. Kirishima forced himself not to tense. Whatever Bakugou wanted, he was about to show him and Kirishima had to get this right. Bakugou was all about showing and not telling. Kirishima nearly bit his tongue to keep in a squawk of surprise when Bakugou suddenly dropped to his knees next to him, shuffling forward until he could press his forehead to his thigh and hide his face against Kirishima's leg. Kirishima opened his mouth, questions on the tip of his tongue, and he barely managed to catch them before they could be given voice. Bakugou was trembling minutely, his entire frame so tense his muscles were twitching under Kirishima's gaze. “Just. Don't say anything,” Bakugou muttered, hands clenching in his lap tightly. “Please,” he whispered, a short choked sound.

They leave the office, Mai pretending that all her senses aren’t full of Zuko’s warm, spicy scent, and he keeps looking worried. She wonders if it’s this he’s worried about, now that she’s thinking about it. They agreed they’d share their next cycles together, but again, they haven’t really talked about it. They can talk about it now, Mai thinks. Unfortunately, that means now they actually have to talk about it.