AO3 Gothic.

bookshop:

You have already left kudos here.

You have already reached into the well of ideas and thoughts, of yearning and romance, of sweat and angst and laughter, and pulled out this particular variant. You have already allowed these words to dip inside, to touch you in that insatiable place where your id resides. The OTP has already murmured their words of love and devotion, their commitment and passion like a comforting, calming wave of clarity washing over you. They are sure, so you can be sure. They have found love, so love exists. They are the sun and the moon and stars to one another, so the universe is not infinite, after all; it is a known entity, soft and reassuring as the look on your fave’s face when he hands his soulmate that first cup of espresso during their first coffeeshop meetcute.

Except.

You have already left kudos here, haven’t you.

Haven’t you.

Haven’t you returned to this place, desperate for confirmation, eager to feel what you felt the first time, eager to feel something, anything, to feast on the belief that love is real and you are safe? Anything to reassure yourself that there is only one pairing, and it is true, it is truthful, and you can trust it, it would never lie to you, never make you cry and laugh and wring you out of emotion only to build you back up and promise you happy endings, endings that never come because *you have already left kudos here,* you have already tasted the pain and exuberance of this story, already let it settle over you like a blanket, and yet now look at you, back for more, you starving, insatiable, useless creature, clicking the kudos button like Pavlov’s dog, click, click, click, as if the click can save you, can fill the emptiness that descends the moment you stop reading.

How many times have you read the fic? How many times have you come to it begging for validation, only to go away unsatisfied, always craving more? Do you remember it? When was the last time you read it—was it a day, a year, an hour ago?

Or have you always been reading the fic?

Have you always been returning and returning, grasping at tropes, wearing your carefully cultivated “reading slashfic in public” mask, drawn over you, so that no one will see?—

So that no one will realize that you have never been reading the fic.

The fic has been reading you.

You have already left kudos here.
You have already left kudos here.
You have already left kudos here.