bakerstreet | Romantic Intimacy

Romantic Intimacy

The Nonsexual but Still Romantic Intimacy Meme

Intimacy is NOT necessarily about full sexual contact. Intimacy is all about two people forming a connection and bond between them. That involves becoming best friends, trusting each other, knowing each other, understanding each other. Intimacy is grown and developed, it can't be rushed.

Nonsexual forms of intimacy can add a great deal of depth and variety to fiction. On one end of the spectrum, they provide extra steps to support the journey from meeting a potential mate through romance, sex, and marriage. Sex is valuable, but it's not everything.

RULES

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PROMPTS

Hair care. Brushing, braiding, washing, cutting -- all of these involve a lot of careful touching in ways that many people enjoy. Hair braiding is a bonding experience in some cultures. In fact, grooming is a bonding technique for social primates in general. People without close ties to others often treat themselves to regular salon visits as a socially acceptable way to meet the need for touch and interaction.
Shaving. This involves an unusually high level of trust, especially if the person is using a straight-edge razor or something else with an exposed blade rather than just a buzzer. Although it can apply to women, shaving is one of the few forms of physical intimacy that is most closely associated with men due to their facial hair. Initiaton into shaving is a major milestone for becoming a man, not just for boys during puberty but also for transsexuals during transition.
Bathing. This varies by culture; in America most people bathe alone but some other cultures practice communal bathing. A bath is usually more intimate than a shower, although a public bath can be non-intimate and small shower stall can be intimate. It's also different when two people wash each other (an exchange of intimacy and affection) than when one person washes someone else (more of a caretaking or protective gesture).
Feeding. A classic romantic motif involves lovers feeding each other, but it works as a way of providing and caring for someone in any context. Like bathing, it can also clue whether both parties are participating equally or one is taking care of the other (temporarily or regularly). This one has an existential flavor since survival depends on food supply.
Seeing someone without their adaptive equipment on. This includes glasses, dentalware, prosthetic limbs, a wheelchair, etc. Adaptive equipment is part of one's presentation to the everyday world, and taking it off can be as intimate as removing clothing, for many people in many contexts.
Holding Hands: There can be many reasons for this gesture. Physical closeness, offering comfort, or staying together in a crowd, all may have you reaching for someone.
Undressing someone. This can be kind of a one-way experience if the recipient isn't awake, and is often awkward for both people if they are awake. Sometimes it happens because hands are out of commission, but a more common example is someone passing out drunk. Overheating is another good reason. Different circumstances can imply different levels of intimacy.
Sharing secrets. This especially applies to talking about personal issues that aren't widely known. An exchange of secrets is a common ritual between "best friends" among girls and women, but appears elsewhere as well. Some things are only discussed among people with a common reference; veterans may be more comfortable discussing war memories with each other than civilians.
Ordering for someone in a restaurant. Acquiring food, without asking the other person what to get, shows a knowledge of their needs and desires. Providing food is also a gesture of support and sustenance.
Providing moral support at a major event. Helping someone get through a funeral, a trial, or other intense but not crisis situation is usually performed by a very dear friend. This is a situation where lovers or family members may be too close to the matter to be much use.
Crying on someone. When you cry, you tend to let your guard down. Most of the people close to you will see you cry at some point, so that can be a milestone in a relationship. Actually crying on someone, letting them hold you, is even more intimate.
Serving in a primary role for someone during a wedding. This includes the best man or maid of honor at a wedding, or stand-in for absent parents, etc. as well as the traditional family roles. One aspect of intimacy is sharing each other's lives, including ceremonies and transitions.
Comforting someone after a bad breakup. Moments of great vulnerability can bring people closer. While this role sometimes falls to family, breakup repair more often goes to a woman's female friends or a man's male friends.
Listening to someone's heartbeat or breathing. Close body contact, enough to carry soft personal sounds, tends to be comforting as well as connecting, as it touches on positive childhood memories for most people. It is shared between parent and child, sometimes between siblings, and later between lovers. Tight nonsexual partners may also do this.
Putting someone to bed. Interestingly, this activity can happen among people who are just getting to know each other -- most often if someone passes out drunk, but exhaustion can have a similar effect. It's a gesture of caring to put someone to bed rather than leave them where they drop. A milder version involves draping a blanket or coat over a person asleep on a couch or the like.
Sleeping in the same bed. This is an act of shared vulnerability and intimacy. Lovers customarily do this; so do some siblings or friends, especially as children. People may also be driven to share a bed, sleeping bag, etc. for warmth or lack of other accommodations in challenging circumstances.
Watching someone sleep. There is more vulnerability on the part of the sleeper, and more intimacy from the watcher, when only one person is asleep. Parents often watch their children sleep. Lovers sometimes do this with each other, which can be cute or creepy. It's also a guard position, useful for showing that one character seeks to protect another.
Waking someone up from a nightmare. A subtler form of rescue than more physical actions, this is still a gesture of protection and caring. It often leads to comfort afterwards. A typical courtesy between parent and child, or lovers, this can also be an early threshold for characters thrust together unexpectedly if one of them has sturdy daytime walls and a lot of issues. It is common, but often unspoken, among war buddies or veterans, many of whom have nightmares.
Sharing clothes, jewelry, other personal items. This is common between siblings or close female friends. Sometimes roommates do it too. Wearing someone else's shirt or bathrobe is typical in romantic relationships, so can suggest a similar level of intimacy even in the absence of sex.
Cleaning someone else's living space. This shows care and knowledge on the part of the cleaner, and trust on the part of the recipient. You have to know what NOT to throw away or move. It's typical of family members and roommates. Coworkers may clean each other's desk, office space, etc.
Living together. This is a big step, even if it's just for a little while. Housemates are in each other's pockets; it's hard to keep secrets. Family members and lovers often live together, but housemates who are family-of-choice form a category of their own. If you don't want a romantic partner, a permanent housemate is a good choice for someone to share your life with.
Childbirth. Attending the blessed event entails providing a lot of moral support for hours under high stress. It can create a bond with the baby as well as with the mother. When planned, this opportunity is only offered to the closest family members or friends, barring professionals. But it can happen by surprise in very awkward circumstances, a popular motif in fiction.
Saving someone's life. Quick action in a life-threatening situation demonstrates how much one person values another. This can create a strong sense of connection, and sometimes obligation. It often, though not always, entails personal risk for the rescuer. This is fairly typical for military buddies or police partners, etc.
Risking your life for someone. Placing someone else ahead of your own life shows their importance to you unequivocally. This often, though not always, involves trying to save or protect another person. While it can create a sense of gratitude, it frequently causes anger as well -- someone who loves you will generally object to you endangering yourself, even to protect them. Military and police buddies protect each other regularly.
Making emergency decisions for someone. This reveals both how well you know the person, and how much you care about them -- whether you know what they would want, and act on it even if it differs from your personal preference. Unlike some of the other options, in this one the initial action is often outweighed by the aftermath. Both characters have to deal with the results of the decisions, good or bad.
Deathwatch. Dying can be as intimate as giving birth. Staying with someone while they pass is an act of love; so is providing moral support to someone sitting deathwatch for a family member or other person. Many soldiers and police have done this for someone.

(taken from here)

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[Canonmates/previous CR preferred. No on 13, 22, 26.]

(Canon through "My Name Is Oliver Queen" so no bloodlust, passing on options 26, 22 and M/F for ships, OTA for gen. cast and cross fandom welcome)

[No childbirth.]

(Nothing says nonsexual romance like collecting parts to make your lost love a new body, right?)

( No 22 or 26. )

[ no 22 or 26, please ]

( Info. )

[ m/m, mcu cast preferred, no #22 or #26 please! ]

[Canonmates preferred, crosscanon welcome. All prompts ok.

[no 22 or 26]

[Someone's being noisy in their sleep, and for once it isn't Lalli. He'd been annoyed at first, scrunching up his nose but refusing to open his eyes because he just got home and he'd been so quiet and considerate to make sure he didn't wake Emil up and now this? Did he hate him?

Then it sunk in. This...wasn't normal. Or maybe it was? Maybe he wasn't as vigilant as Emil, when it came to these things. Emil would always take care of him, when this happened. Suppressing a sigh, Lalli crawls back out from under the bed and peers at the other for a long moment. Yep. Sure did seem like a bad dream.

He's still trying to keep silent out of habit as he settles onto the bed with a frown, and his touch is light when he brushes his hair -- frazzled, just a bit. So weird -- away from his face. What was he dreaming about? What did he normally dream about? Maybe he should have asked before now. Lalli smoothes gentle fingertips over Emil's bangs again, then flatly lays his hand against Emil's face and pushes.]

Wake up.

[this is how you do it, right]

[The thing about dreams, for a non-mage, is that they can't be acted on. Emil has managed to avoid any unpleasant dreams of this level for a while now by sheer luck - sometimes he's too tired from work, or worried about other things in the here and now that aren't enough to have nightmares about (a mess, haunting him in his sleep? Even he'd roll his eyes). But sooner or later the things he won't think about catch up with him, and so it's during this perfectly normal night after a perfectly normal day that he's fallen into a fitful sleep, dreaming about all manner of other things catching up with him as well.

Trolls, mostly. In true normal-people-dream fashion, it's every troll he's ever seen all at once, and he's stuck in a gross, rotting hallway that's too long for the building it's in, and no one is coming to save him. And none of his equipment works, or it does but the flames do nothing which is just offensive, and if he has to die he'd have liked it to be with more dignity than this-- tripping, falling face first into--

A hand? Troll hands-- Or not, as he's suddenly awake again with a yelp of surprise and residual terror. He blinks rapidly, taking a few seconds to actually recognize that that's Lalli, Lalli's hand, he is awake. Ah.]

--What happened to the troll hands!

[give him a minute jesus]

[He flinches away a little, though in trying to push himself away from the outburst, his fingers just press in more.]

What troll hands? [Lalli, try not to sound so frustrated. He grumbles to himself, but his expression shifts back to concern and he cups Emil's cheek instead, thumb rubbing along his cheekbone.] We're not there.

[Obviously. They could understand each other.]

Wake up. There are no trolls. Just me.

[Ow, that's his face? He grimaces, trying to extract his arms from the blankets and nudge that offending hand away. He's not quick enough before the touch goes gentle, though he still squirms his hands free only to drop them to the mattress again.

No troll hands. Oh.] Okay.

[mmm...] Never mind.

[Well, he's too embarrassed now to do anything but pull the blanket up over his face, around Lalli's hand if he has to. Yes, thank you, bury him here. Let him get eaten by trolls instead.]

What are you doing?

[That's his hand you're trying to suffocate there, thank you. He removes it, but he's not ready to leave Emil alone just yet. You sit with him when he has sleeping troubles, mister, he's going to do the same. Lalli crawls over Emil to the other side, stretching out alongside him and yanking the blanket. Problem is, even with Emil just waking up, he has the advantage over Lalli, who has yet to really get any sleep on top of his noodle arms.

So. Time to go with plan B and wiggle his way under that blanket, too, poking his nose into the other's neck.]

Stop. You can't sleep like that.

[Going to bed bothered is no good. Or, well, it's less good.]

I'm going back to sleep-- [He's doing it, you can't stop him! He's so set on going back to sleep that he figures if he stays perfectly still and ignores whatever Lalli is doing up there, he'll give up and go do something else. So he's holding very still with his eyes shut when something touches his neck, which makes him make another stupid noise and scrunch up his shoulders a little. Aaaa... don't do that so suddenly after Troll Hands.

With a huff he shifts onto his side to give Lalli a look.]

What are you doing?

[Wow, don't squish his face! Lalli pulls back with a wrinkle in his nose, then huffs and reburies himself.]

Not leaving you alone.

[So NYEH. Try to sleep now. Except don't.]

When Tuuri was little and she had a bad dream, she would just have another if Onni didn't take care of her.

[Lalli had no desire to be part of any of that. Emil was different, somehow, and not just because he was all Lalli had in Verens.]

I don't want you to dream about...troll hands.

[NO he is going to sleep like HELL-- just kidding, he can't sleep like this at all. Thanks, but also you suck.]

I didn't ask you to take... care of me. [Oh. That changes a few things. Small ones.] Is that what you're doing?

[Hmmmn. Okay, but he's plucking at Lalli's shirt now to get him to lean back a little. Look at him, don't just do this mysterious thing without context...]

Mrrrrh...

[but Emil is so warm... Fine, fine. Lalli does draw back again with a huff and a pout.]

Yes. I don't want you to have bad dreams, [he insists again, but quieter this time.] I don't know how. But I want to take care of you. You always take care of me.

[you have to earn this warmth, dude.]

Oh. That's true. [hah, isn't he great?? but mmm, what do to here... he'll definitely slide back into thinking about troll hands if he's not distracted, so.]

Well, I'm afraid you'll have to endure talking to me.

[Oh, how terrible a fate. Lalli rolls his eyes, like duh he sorta expected that, and brings a hand up to pat Emil's cheek.]

I like talking to you.

["endure", really...]

You make me talk about it. [Not that there was ever much to report other than "I yelled a lot, no non-crystal talking today" or "I think maybe there was a thing but it was really blurry and I couldn't reach so I don't know".] Do you want to?

[Shut up, he's trying to be light-hearted about his troll hands horror... He sighs, sinking miserably into the pillow. It's different when it's Lalli, clearly.]

No, not at all. [Too bad he's already in too deep to pretend he wasn't having a bad dream at all. That would have been so productive!] I had hoped you were going to talk about something else.

[mmmmnh]

Well, there were trolls.

I know. I didn't think it was just their hands.

[...maybe Lalli-ing this isn't a good idea. He sighs and focuses more on what his hand is doing, switching to longer, lighter strokes that move into Emil's hair.]

We don't have to. I can still talk about something else. I'll do whatever you want.

[THANKS... It's fortunate Emil has made the executive decision to lie here lamely instead of get ruffled about those comments. He still rolls his eyes, but his heart isn't in it. Sigh.]

Thank you. [He shuts his eyes, thinks about trolls, and opens them again. ugh!!] Why don't you tell me what you did tonight? I know there weren't any trolls involved with that.

[He's a good soul, putting up with Lalli after waking up from a bad dream. Keeping up with the petting, Lalli nods and hums, thinking about where to start.]

I went around the city's perimeter to make sure things were still normal. When I got to the docks -- the boat one, not the flying ship one -- there was a weird man walking around. I think he'd been drinking. I stayed until another man came and got him in case he fell in, but he was just loud. I didn't like him.

[He shivers and pauses his administrations to inch closer. Blanket hideout or not, he wanted more heat, dangit.]

His friend was nice. I think. He seemed nice. [Like heck Lalli was going to talk to them.] They hugged and talked and then they walked away. Then I was tired and wanted to come home, so I did.

[Mm, a Lalli story with no real point or even a plot as far as Emil can tell. It's nice just to listen, anyway - some drunk and his friend are leagues above trolls and their hands. He relaxes just enough, so that when Lalli inches closer it's good this time, and Emil slides an arm loosely around his middle to accommodate him.

Just one though. Not a hug. Can he get away wih this.]

That's the most you've ever told me about actual people. I'm kind of impressed.

[He can! Lalli won't make a big deal about it. He won't even make a small deal about it, though it's hard to say if this allowance is because of Warmth Quest, because he's tired, or because tonight is supposed to be about Emil. Probably a mix.

Whatever it is, Emil's actions are fine, but not the words so much. Lalli makes a dissatisfied grunt and when he's finished petting Emil he moves his hand down to pinch his shoulder.]

You asked what I did. I know you didn't want to hear about the rest of the patrol. I can do it, it's not impressive, just ask more if that's what you want.

[and as opposed to what, fake people, he's bad at talking about those, too]

[Nooo don't pinch. Emil fidgets, trying to shrug that pinching hand off.]

I'm just saying. You usually talk about weird trees and squirrels. It's not a complaint!

[Like, not wrong that he doesn't care about the patrol stuff. But still, he's trying... something.]

Tell me more about the weird people, I'm listening.

[It's not a complaint but it is insulting! Still, Lalli stops pinching and slides his hand to rest on Emil's chest instead. The weird people... Okay... Gosh, what more is there to say...]

The yelly one threw a bottle into the lake? That's when he almost fell in. Then he sat down for a while but he was still loud. Something about confessing, or something. I guess he did something wrong. I don't know.

[Yes, that's better. Emil hums and fidgets again to prop himself on his elbow.]

Confessing, is it? Then he's either a criminal or just an idiot, if it didn't go well. Too bad!

[what is sympathy]

[can you eat it]

Oh. Maybe he messed up because of the drinking. So it's...good that he was drunk even if it made him annoying. He couldn't steal anything.

[We've decided he's a shitty thief that started in on the booze before the job, apparently. This poor normal dude.]

[if only]

Well, he could have also not decided to be a criminal in the first place. That's not hard. His friend must have been trying to set him straight.

[What a good friend!!]

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Romantic Intimacy

mikleo | tales of zestiria | m/m

loki laufeyson | mcu | OTA

mikaela hyakuya | owari no seraph

Benten | Zone-00 | OTA

Sion Astal | Denyuuden | OTA

Danae Lavellan | Dragon Age: Inquisition

Thea Queen l Arrow

Peggy Carter - Agent Carter

Felicity Smoak - Arrow

Carol Danvers | Marvel | F/M

Asriel Dreemurr || Undertale || OTA

En Yufuin | Cute High Earth Defence Club Love! | OTA!

Edda | Final Fantasy XIV

Hiiragi Shinya | Owari no Seraph

Saotome Yoichi | Owari no Seraph

adam parrish | trc

wylan van eck | six of crows

Davy Jones ♆ OC ♆ OTA

bucky barnes; mcu

Kylo Ren | Star Wars

emil västerström | stand still stay silent

starting with 18, probably like six others

rest knowing that this bad dream could have been way dumber

I don't doubt your imagination

the cat-stuck-in-bowl nightmare that might have been

imagine Lalli trying to comprehend that

"gross /leaves"

yeah I mean it is practically grounds for divorce

so many things are grounds for divorce..... is this a marriage or a minefield

por que no los dos

danger???

is his name not emil danger västerström

well now i hope so

middle/other given names (if any) when, minna

same time as birthdays

at least she said somewhere that emil is the youngest but please birthdays

ah yes, baby confirmed

well that was a confusing sentence to wake up to

that's what I'm here for

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