Favorite fics #6: Tell me to stop
Jul. 26th, 2020 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goseawardFavorite fics rec #6. Tell me to stop, by AirgiodSLV, Bandom, Brendon/Spencer, 29k.
As always, I expect these to be more reminders than suggestions of fic you've never read, so there may be some mild plot spoilers below.
I was never in bandom so I'm like only vaguely sure what these guys even look like and I sort of know which bands they're in. But my God, THIS FIC.
The basic premise is that Spencer is a toppy guy who keeps trying to date people and then introduce kink and also keeps getting dumped. One of his friends hooks him up with Brendon, who is a sub, mainly just so he has someone to talk to, but Brendon offers more practical lessons. The sex in this fic is hot, like, really hot, even when it's a little failboaty and not going the way they wanted--Brendon suggests they have vanilla sex to start out with but Spencer gets toppy with him even then (Brendon doesn't complain). And it's not just sex that's a little failboaty. There's a scene where Spencer makes dinner--pasta puttanesca--not knowing that this means "whore's pasta." (I had dinner with a fandom friend earlier this year and we were talking fic, and she mentioned this fic by title, and like--I never remember the title but I said "is that the one with pasta puttanesca" and she said "YES". So like, it's MEMORABLE.)
It's interesting that here the toppy one is is the inexperienced one. Much more common to read it the other way around, but there's no question that Brendon is fully capable of teaching even while he's subbing, which is pretty interesting. It must have been hard to figure out how to convey from Spencer's POV that Brendon knows what he's doing but is also simultaneously trusting Spencer not to fuck it up, but it does come across beautifully. Brendon pushes back when he wants to. One particular scene I remember involves Spencer asking Brendon not to come until they see each other again, and Brendon won't agree until Spencer gives him more of a reason why--and it's important too that neither Spencer nor the narrative treats that as Brendon being a bad sub. And, indeed, nobody ever treats the vanilla sex as lesser than the kink.
Later in the fic, there's also a bunch of cool stuff about how these desires play into nonsexual aspects of the relationship. The kink is shown to be something that can affect their mental states outside of the bedroom, in both positive and negative ways. I don't want to spoil too much of that, but it's a really interesting way to build up the emotional stakes in a fic that's mostly sex scenes. (I am not COMPLAINING about the sex scenes. Far from it. Just pointing out that this fic manages to cover a bunch of stuff about relationships and emotional entanglement, even more than a lot of plotty fic I've read, while what's happening on the page is almost entirely sex scenes between fuckbuddies. They're not even dating! Though--being fic--you basically know where it's going.)
Basically: I love that this manages to be almost wall-to-wall kinky porn, while still developing the emotional relationship between the characters both with regards to and separate from the kink. And I can confirm that you totally don't need to know who these people are to enjoy the fic--although a lot of my bandom friends also really love it, so I'm confident in saying the characterization is great if you know who they are, too.
As always, I expect these to be more reminders than suggestions of fic you've never read, so there may be some mild plot spoilers below.
I was never in bandom so I'm like only vaguely sure what these guys even look like and I sort of know which bands they're in. But my God, THIS FIC.
The basic premise is that Spencer is a toppy guy who keeps trying to date people and then introduce kink and also keeps getting dumped. One of his friends hooks him up with Brendon, who is a sub, mainly just so he has someone to talk to, but Brendon offers more practical lessons. The sex in this fic is hot, like, really hot, even when it's a little failboaty and not going the way they wanted--Brendon suggests they have vanilla sex to start out with but Spencer gets toppy with him even then (Brendon doesn't complain). And it's not just sex that's a little failboaty. There's a scene where Spencer makes dinner--pasta puttanesca--not knowing that this means "whore's pasta." (I had dinner with a fandom friend earlier this year and we were talking fic, and she mentioned this fic by title, and like--I never remember the title but I said "is that the one with pasta puttanesca" and she said "YES". So like, it's MEMORABLE.)
It's interesting that here the toppy one is is the inexperienced one. Much more common to read it the other way around, but there's no question that Brendon is fully capable of teaching even while he's subbing, which is pretty interesting. It must have been hard to figure out how to convey from Spencer's POV that Brendon knows what he's doing but is also simultaneously trusting Spencer not to fuck it up, but it does come across beautifully. Brendon pushes back when he wants to. One particular scene I remember involves Spencer asking Brendon not to come until they see each other again, and Brendon won't agree until Spencer gives him more of a reason why--and it's important too that neither Spencer nor the narrative treats that as Brendon being a bad sub. And, indeed, nobody ever treats the vanilla sex as lesser than the kink.
Later in the fic, there's also a bunch of cool stuff about how these desires play into nonsexual aspects of the relationship. The kink is shown to be something that can affect their mental states outside of the bedroom, in both positive and negative ways. I don't want to spoil too much of that, but it's a really interesting way to build up the emotional stakes in a fic that's mostly sex scenes. (I am not COMPLAINING about the sex scenes. Far from it. Just pointing out that this fic manages to cover a bunch of stuff about relationships and emotional entanglement, even more than a lot of plotty fic I've read, while what's happening on the page is almost entirely sex scenes between fuckbuddies. They're not even dating! Though--being fic--you basically know where it's going.)
Basically: I love that this manages to be almost wall-to-wall kinky porn, while still developing the emotional relationship between the characters both with regards to and separate from the kink. And I can confirm that you totally don't need to know who these people are to enjoy the fic--although a lot of my bandom friends also really love it, so I'm confident in saying the characterization is great if you know who they are, too.