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lucrativesoul · 8 months

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Espionage

summary: working in an underground crime syndicate, your job gets risky, but, the more risk, the more reward. you jumped the gun on your thievery through an art museum, and come across one certain guard who is adamant on stopping you in your path.

pairing: guard!leon kennedy x female reader

word count: 11.5k

warnings: smut, fingering, choking, slight degradation, dom leon

a/n: yall know i had to do one with tactical gear leon i mean come onnnn look at him!!! (patrick voice) i went a little wild with this one LOL i really thought it was gonna be my shortest work yet and here we are. the plot of this was inspired by Death Prefers Blondes by Caleb Roehrig! if you guys liked the idea of our mc's job here, i suggest you check out that book, its a really great young adult read! i had so much fun with this one, i really hope i didn't keep you guys waiting. i hope you enjoy, thank you endlessly for the support, and I will see you soon :)

Taking a deep sigh, you reclined yourself back as far as you could in the stiff chair, which wasn’t much. The light above you was flickering, to your annoyance, but you kept quiet about it, focusing instead on the rapid typing on the keyboard from the man in front of you. The room was cold, and you pulled your sweatshirt tighter around you. You knew to come prepared this time.

You hoped you would get out of here before the traffic rush. You hated having to come all the way out here, but, after all, it was your job.

To explain how you came into this would take too long, as you tell everyone, so simply put: Some connections in your life led to other connections, and those connections allowed you to quit your two part time jobs and become a full time criminal. Literally.

You met this man, Carlos, at the gym where you liked to spar with some of the trainers when they weren’t in sessions. Simulating a fight was not something you had expected to find a lot of entertainment in, but when you got up there in front of someone and were forced to defend yourself with blocks and punches and kicks, it introduced a whole new adrenaline into your world. Keeping up with your physical shape had definitely aided in your ability to be nimble, and your history of (attempted) gym consistency helped build muscle.

Carlos had pulled you aside after a sparring session with another trainer, impressed by your moves, and had told you he wants to see you put it to the real test. He offered you a spot in the gym he frequented (which was, to your horror at first, the sketchiest building you had ever seen in your life from the outside), paired you with a trainer who wasn’t afraid to throw real punches, and before you knew it, you could fight an array of builds and heights.

From there, you kept talking to people who knew people who knew Carlos, and he weaseled you into his line of work where he trusted you to go on the scene of whatever was the target, and sold all of your loot. He was your fence, you were his robber. Quite simply.

A real threat of danger hung over your head on every job, and you knew this well enough. There was always the chance of getting caught, considering every location had guards 24/7. There was always a chance you could get hurt; fall from a high location, the failure of equipment, get shot for fucks sake, but you loved the adrenaline it gave you. You felt on top of the world, and in the back of your mind, you knew this would surely be considered an addiction, but you didn’t care. Every new job upped the ante, and you needed more.

The second deep breath you took expanded your lungs, the stretch feeling good after not moving for several minutes now. You rolled your head side to side, hearing the crack, and turned your attention back to Carlos, who finally started talking again.

“I have buyers in Europe lined up for these.” He looked down at the desk, an array of shiny stones and metals bent in intricate shapes and chains laid out in front of him. Courtesy of yours truly. “A few are interested in the same piece, but they can argue with themselves, I’m only going to sell it to them, I’m not the mediator.” He sighed and pushed back in his rolling chair, pulling open a file cabinet and a manila folder.

“Where in Europe? Can we hand deliver?” You couldn’t help but grin slightly, and Carlos didn’t have to look up from his papers to know you were.

He shrugged. “If you want to risk receiving a chest cavity the size of a gold ball, knock yourself out.” He knew you were joking, and you knew the rules well enough. Knowing who your buyers were, and going within any sort of vicinity of them while knowing their identity was strictly off limits. He turned his head towards his computer again. “Venice. Nice.” He turned towards you. “Budapest. The usual.”

You nodded. You were expecting some sort of answer along the lines of that, so it wasn't too much of a surprise to you. Oh, how it would be nice to be in Europe, though.

“Here’s the deal.” Carlos put the folder of papers down in front of you, and you lazily scanned it, knowing that most of it was going to look like gibberish anyways. Carlos was the man in between here, you simply stole things. You didn’t deal with the numbers and the logistics. “The man who is in the battle for our largest emerald is willing to step aside and let our Venetian buyer take the cake, because he reached out with another job that he and only he wants to be in the running for.”

You scoffed. “Dude must be loaded then. A solo job?”

Carlos cocked an eyebrow. “He gave me parameters for the job, and I almost turned him down without even running it by you, to be honest.”

You sat up straight. “The fuck, Carlos? Give it to me, I can take it.”

He sighed and slouched back in his chair. You were honestly surprised that Carlos was not the one in your spot. He was insanely built and could easily take down four armed guards at once, but you never found out why he chose to be behind the scenes. At least you knew he trusted you enough not to put you in anything that would be instant death.

“There’s apparently an heirloom to this guy’s lineage sitting in a chamber room of the gallery downtown. He’s been trying to find a means to reach it and claim it back for years, but, according to him, the museum won’t budge on letting him anywhere near a buying price.”

You let his words sink in. “What’s so bad about that?”

Carlos sighed again. “It’s an art gallery.” He stared at you, waiting for you to get the point. “They have armed guards posted day in and day out. Alarms at every possible entrance and cameras watching every square inch of the place. It’s just not feasible.”

You shook your head. “Carlos, come on. I know you have access to the technical means that we need to do our surveillance. We can watch their route. We can track who does what nights and who might be the easiest to take down. I did that at the villa two weeks ago.”

“Yes, and you nearly lost your life. I was shooting myself in the foot for putting you out there.”

You shook your head again. Part of you was thankful that Carlos had the decency to regret his decision of accepting that job, and feeling remorse once you reported back that one of the bodyguards had you in a near death chokehold before you managed to, by luck, weasel free. Even you were still haunted by that. But you would never let it slow you down, and would never tell Carlos, as he would surely put you in safer locations. Which meant less fun.

“I’m just saying, now that it’s been done, I can do it again. And be careful about it this time. I want to do this Carlos, I believe I can.”

Carlos was silent for a moment, thinking over your words. He sighed.

“I want our people staking out on the perimeter the whole time. I don’t want to hear objections. There will be a team this time, this is not just somebody’s home. This is government and city property, if you don’t die, you and I are as good as dead in the prison system.”

You quirked a small smile. “Come on Carlos.” He lazily held eye contact. “You think I’d rat you out like that?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes, but you could tell he was fighting the urge to smile as well. “Be back here tomorrow at 12. We’ll start our prep.”

–

You, Carlos, and two other men were huddled around a plethora of screens deep in the trenches of Carlos’ office. One of the monitors had split screen CCTV surveillance, six cameras watching the main galleries and two hallways, one was a datamine of the encrypted content regarding the people employed to stand guard at the museum, and the others were floor plans of each floor and wing of the gallery.

The size of the place didn’t scare you, in fact, it only brought more excitement to your job. As soon as Carlos brought up the blueprints and started mapping escape routes and how to avoid camera sightings, you memorized it instantly. This would be a breeze.

“Here’s who we need to look out for.” He drew up a site that had profiles of each of the seven guards that do night duty. Their employee photos looked like mugshots. “These three guys guard the east wing, these two rotate between west wing and foyer since that is the smallest wing and closer to the entrance, and these two are usually staked out by the rear gallery.”

“You seem to already have this down, Carlos.” You mumbled.

He snickered from in front of you. “I’ve been watching already.”

You sighed through your nose. “Going to turn down this job my ass.”

“We’re expecting these two to be in the west wing the night of the heist. I’ve been watching, and they tend to rotate, but there’s a pattern. I’m sure it will be them.” You nodded, listening closely to his words. Carlos might be a pain in the ass sometimes, but you knew he didn’t mess around with ensuring the best possible route. “One stands in the wing while the other stands in the foyer. They rotate at the same time, so there is a small window when no one is watching the far end of the gallery.”

“How am I getting in there? Hanging out overnight?” It was a partial joke, but you never knew with this team.

Carlos shook his head, and diverted everyone’s attention to an isolated map, similar to the layout of the floor plan. “This is the duct system.” You stifled a laugh. You should have expected this. “Big enough for a person like you. The duct room is locked whenever no one is accessing them, and the only people that do are the janitorial team, and Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday are the only times they are sweeping the building.”

“Literally, sweeping.”

Carlos sighed heavily at your remark. “The system that is connected to the electronic lock is also connected to what controls the cameras and the lights. I can get you in there, but only in a very small window of time. It needs to be during the day.”

“The day.” You echoed. “So, I’ll be camped out in there for a while, then?”

Carlos nodded. You knew what you were about to get yourself into. It came with the job description, and before the job actually launched into action, you knew that familiar feeling of anxiety blossoming in your chest. You had been in the gym consistently, trying to find someone to mock a chokehold with you in the case that it happened all over again. If it did, you decided Carlos didn't need to find out.

You knew you were physically ready. The odds of going against a huge man didn't look great from the outside, but you were flexible, and fast, and if you could bounce around their sights, you could steer clear of any sort of altercations.

“Yes, you’ll be in there for a while. It’s the only way.” You nodded again. You knew there was no such thing as comfort in this line of work. If you get too comfortable, you might as well get ready to be comfortable in a jail cell, or in the afterlife. “We move in Thursday night. Just to be sure that the cleaning happens Wednesday and we won't get any surprises. You’ll enter at 4 PM. I’ll be watching all morning to decide what you should wear to make the least waves possible and so you can disappear when they close at 6. Regular day employees stay until 7:30, then the guards move in, but we can’t make our moves until well after sunset.” Carlos was looking mostly at you, as the other teammates he rounded up were just going to stake out the perimeter. “You know the prep. Make sure you last while you wait.”

–

You spent the next week in the office watching everyone’s moves. The guards followed a monotonous routine in which areas they patrolled. Odd, considering they might want to watch for corners where people could stay hidden.

They all stuck to their schedules, no employee stayed later than an hour and a half after closing, guards immediately did a sweep of the whole building for the lame thieves who attempted to hide in bathrooms, before they stuck to their positions, and that’s where they stayed for the night, until 5 AM. You were positive you had this down now, there was no way you could be wrong.

There was, of course, but you preferred to pretend otherwise.

The guards rotated as predicted, and with every step they took every passing day you grew more confident in this job. That person who was commissioning this should be well willing to tip generously considering the amount of prep taking place.

You swallowed the lump of anxious nerves, pushing yourself into your work mindset as you sat outside the museum, the breeze cooling down your heated skin. Carlos had been keeping watch of the patrons since opening, and he concluded the appropriate outfit for you to don would be a tan hoodie, light wash jeans, and you didn’t have many options in the way for shoes, a simple pair of white sneakers having to do the trick. You knew they would be watching at the door, a metal detector as well as bag checks were mandatory, so you couldn’t risk a bag, but you had all you needed strapped underneath your clothes to your second skin layer– a skintight bodysuit, equipped with maximum breathability and flexibility– and all of your weapons holstered as close as they could get.

With nothing else except your phone (which was off) and wallet (with a fake ID), you walked up the steps, blending in with the bustle, but knowing well enough to not look too suspicious. You knew the rest of your team was around the perimeter, out of your view, and you were going to hear from Carlos for the first time when it was necessary for you to hide. He was never on location, he was seated safely in his office, every screen lit up with hacked CCTV footage and an in-ear device to communicate directly to you.

You took yet another deep breath in. You got this. You had to.

You knew you had time to kill while you waited to hear from Carlos. It couldn’t be right away, that would look too unnatural if you made a beeline past too many priceless works of art. So, not begrudgingly, you strolled through the galleries, admiring the timeless art, feeling inspired, excited, the sun streaming in through the glass ceilings of some of the halls.

It was mostly quiet, the murmur of people surrounding you, discussing what they were looking at, the occasional kid running by. As much of an admirer you were, you could feel the adrenaline coursing through your arms and hands, dying to get started. But, as Carlos taught you well, patience was a virtue, and if you rushed things, it could get bad, and fast.

After a lap, which lasted close to an hour, you sat on a bench in the west wing. You knew this was close to where you needed to be, and it would be easier to stay close in case the window of opportunity arose when you weren’t expecting it, which was typical.

You toyed around with a pamphlet you had picked up near the entrance, still keeping an eye out for any employee, or any guard, which would be out of place at this time. It was nearing 5:30 now, and they were going to be closing in 30 minutes. Your heart rate quickened at that thought, knowing they were going to be sending employees to do loops and tell people their time was being cut short. You slowly straightened your posture, trying not to look too alert, trying to calm down–

“--in, come in. Connected to base, CCTV footage overrode, stations manned.” You heard Carlos’ crackly voice through your in-ear, and you slumped backward, relieved.

“Copy.” You kept your voice low and mouth movements to a minimum. “I assume you know where I’m at.”

“Bench in the back left of the west wing. The duct room is also being watched. It has been looking clear for the last ten minutes, give me another five to make sure, then I will give you instructions.”

You gave a slight nod, knowing he could see you. You kept up your previous charades, reading the same script for the fifth time on the pamphlet, people watching, and employee watching. The next five minutes took way too long.

“Get up slowly and walk along the wall to the left. Someone is coming down the hallway telling people there is 20 minutes to closing. Let him pass you, acknowledge what he said, and let him get about 20 feet ahead.” You shifted in your seat, pushing yourself up. Taking another look at the paintings hung on the walls, you realized as you approached– this was the one you were meant to take. You were so tempted to stand here and look at it, but you didn’t want to draw a suspicious coincidence in the mind of the employee who would see you standing in front of it. One glance later, and you moved on.

“Excuse me,” A soft voice spoke from behind you. You turned around, and acted surprised. A short man with dark hair had a friendly smile on. “The gallery will be closing in 20 minutes, just a heads up.” You nodded a thank you, and promised to move on swiftly.

“Ten seconds, then when you walk through the aisle in between the columns, there’s a hallway to the left. You’ll have a really small window to duck into the door on the left side and wait while I override the door code.”

“Code?!” You whisper-shouted, taking care to keep your voice low. “This should have been something you told me earlier.”

“Don’t worry, I have access to it and can let you in. It will only take one more second, but you have to be quick with this door, you know that.” You sighed, knowing he was right. Your steps were quiet, but firm, and you caught sight of the small hallway he was talking about. “There’s no one behind you, but we can’t guarantee that’s permanent.” Oh, yes, you knew that was the truth. You wanted to turn around, but fought against it, not wanting to catch anyone’s eye.

Step, breath, step… “Go, now, hurry.” You careened quickly to the left into the hallway, knowing anyone would notice you if they walked by. “Two seconds…” Carlos configured the software to the door’s electronic lock as you approached and stood there, heart hammering. You pulled your sleeve over your hand. You heard the click. “You’re in, move.” You pushed down on the door handle with your sleeved hand and creeped into the room, wasting no time in shutting the door. You waited for the command before you moved. “You made it blindly. No one noticed you.” You sighed gently. “To your left, there's a switch. Flip the one in the middle. It’s the nightlight.”

You did as told, relaxing slightly now that you could see. The room looked exactly as expected. It was more of a closet, really. There was an electric panel on the wall opposite the door, a rack of cleaning supplies to the right, and in the left corner across from you, a large duct sock extending from a fixture that was taller than you. You had no idea where it led to, as it disappeared up into the ceiling, but you had a feeling that’s where you were destined to spend the next handful of hours.

You took your time inspecting the room, knowing there was going to be nothing quick about this next step. Behind the large fixture that filtered the air and sent it through the duct, there was a small passageway blocked by a vent grate. Carlos had told you vis in-ear to unscrew the large grate and tuck yourself in there. At least it was right next to the cooling system, and you could shed some layers. It would get hot, and quickly, in there.

Time ticked by slower than ever as you were stretched out in the vent, now loose from your jeans and sweatshirt. Your bodysuit was keeping you cool, and you managed your breathing whenever you remembered so you would be able to keep your core temperature as stable as possible. You ran over the plan once, twice, a thousand times, and maybe even drifted off once or twice, by the time you heard Carlos’ voice again, sounding angelic after all this time.

“Hey, you awake in there?” His soft, crackled voice sounded through your brain.

“As ever. What’s the time?” You whispered back, shocked at how far the smallest vocal sound carried through the metal tube.

“Close to 11PM. We have to get moving soon.” You nodded, knowing he couldn’t see you.

“Can I push this thing open? Can someone hear me from here?”

“Give me two seconds, I need to make sure I can disable central control of the cameras so no one else watching security can see. We don’t need any unnecessary backup here.” You let Carlos do his thing from base, and tried your best to stretch your limbs getting ready to move. “Okay, this will take a few minutes, but in thirty seconds, the rotation from west wing to foyer is going to start. Countdown, then crawl out as carefully as possible.”

Breathing steadily, countdown rapidly ticking in your head, you started at thirty, gripping the grate as much as you could once you hit one, and pushed outwards. You had managed to click the metal back in place behind you once you crawled in, but it wasn’t the most subtle sound. Now, it counted even more that it was timed right.

With a solid shove and a louder than you expected click (and a wince), and shimmied your way out of the vent, placing the metal onto the ground with the slowness of a turtle. You had no idea if anyone was going to open the door to this right now, so you just had to trust that the silence from Carlos meant that nothing was about to go wrong.

You stood up, sighing deeply when you could finally stretch out before getting to move for the first time in nearly 6 hours. The spandex of your bodysuit contoured with your body, and you felt unrestrained as you stretched out, ready to be as light on your feet as possible. There was a small holster on your thigh, where a retractable baton was strapped in tight, and one around your waist, holding onto three tiny knives– stainless steel– the closest thing that would get you through the detectors without being flagged. Fingers crossed they wouldn't need to be used.

“The rotation just finished, so in about ten more minutes, our window will open for you to come out and stay hidden. Remember where all the sculptures are layed out?”

“Yeah, I do.” You continued to stretch through Carlos’ words. “I’m ducking out of here at your command, softly shutting the door. I come quietly to the opening of the hallway and duck out to the right, hide behind a column and stay low.” You recited again, and heard Carlos give a hum of approval.

“Just hang tight for now, I’ll let you know when you need to start moving. Security override is almost done. Remember, they’re gonna try and reboot the system immediately, which will take another minimum five minutes, max ten. Be light on your feet, move fast.”

You steadied your breathing once again, flexing everything in your body to make sure you were adequately stretched out and ready for action. You had never felt more so.

“Exit the room in twenty seconds. Start counting.”

You pounced on your feet at the sound of Carlos’ voice after a few minutes, gloves on your hands (which had also been hidden in a pocket of the bodysuit), and gripped the handle, counting just to the pace you had been trained to.

“Move.”

You and Carlos reached the countdown at the same time, and you pressed the metal handle down and inched the door open, swiftly, but not enough to cause the hinges to make noise. You slithered out, and once you had the door shut again without a sound, you dropped down onto your knees, walking in a crouch to the entrance of the gallery.

You were hidden immediately by a column. You peeked out, knowing there wouldn’t be a guard in the aisle but checking anyway, and waddled over to the next column, feeling your heart rate increase with every step. Peeking around, you spotted the guard, who was walking slowly towards the middle of the west wing. He had his hands by his sides, gun holstered on his hip. Not much more than an average cop’s bulletproof vest on his body.

You waited for him to reach the center and do a lazy turn, back towards you, to run to the next column. Time was ticking, but as long as he stayed right where he was, you would be able to secure this artwork and disappear.

You reached the next column, and the next, all the while the guard was still turned, and you ducked back whenever he did a mandatory sweep of the area behind him. You could see the painting you needed from your current position. If Carlos had it under control, he could stifle the alarm system at the very second you used one of the knives to cut the cords and rip it from his ceiling holsters. You could tell on your first walk by this afternoon that it was nothing more than a heavy fishing wire, and it could be done soundlessly.

One more column, and you could see the guard from your hunched over position. You were pretty well hidden behind the column itself and a sculpture sat in front, and slightly to the left of it. You heard him sniffle, and shift his weight again before turning around, and crouch-running to the column that sat just to the right of the painting. This was it.

You had your head parked solidly right behind the column, watching the guard. He was still facing you, looking up at the ceiling, down all the obvious passageways, and then he turned. It was now or never.

You creeped forward, hand over the knife on your holster, ready to slice through the cord on the wall. You were waiting for Carlos’ sign that the alarms had been disabled. Nothing, but you had no time to wait. You had to try it.

You pulled the knife from the holster and pushed the blade out, gloved hand gripping the frame, and in two swift movements, the wires giving a slight shing with the cut, it was loose, no alarms, and you dropped back to the ground and ran.

Taking the same caution on the way back as you did on the way over, you stopped at columns to watch the guards, and by the tell-tale sign of him stalking forward once, you knew the rotation was about to happen.

You grew closer and closer back to the duct room; through the vents as your only way out.

Taking the opportunity of no guard in the hall, you went as fast as you could in a crouch, seeing the opening for the hallway mere feet away. It was home free. Another job done.

Still in the clear, your heart hammering, you dove forward into the hallway, not wasting anymore time. You reached the hallway, turned the corner, and found yourself staring straight into the barrel of a gun.

Stopping short, nearly screaming out, you could only stare as you tried to identify the person behind it. You couldn’t move, your limbs were frozen in place. You could not hear Carlos, you didn’t even know if he saw you cut the line. He had the alarms disabled, clearly, but where was he? And who was this man?

You couldn’t see the bottom half of his face. Behind the large gun he had pointed at you, he had a black neck gaiter covering from his nose down. His eyes were hard, eyebrows deeply furrowed, they looked blue in the dim light. His blonde hair was pushed off his forehead, stiff with gel. He was covered neck to feet in gear, a large, bulletproof vest and cargo pants, not another inch of skin showing. He was crouching to your height. Clearly, he knew you would be coming back here. What the fuck was going on?

He tilted his head in a mocking gesture at you, making fun of your momentary stupidity. You wanted to fight, but you knew better. If you drew attention now, you would be vastly overpowered very quickly.

“Looking for an easy escape?” His voice was deep and husky, and for a moment you thought this was someone on your team. But no, they were told strictly to stay outside under all circumstances. This was not someone trying to help you. He was trying to capture you.

“Who are you?” You whispered, praying that Carlos was listening, feeling more panicked that you couldn’t hear him.

He shook his head. He was not in the mood to be courteous. “Go to the door behind me to my left. If you make noise, I’ll kill you. If you fight, I’ll kill you. Go,”

Your breath hitched, you could fight him with a knife, but with the barrel aimed straight for your brain, it was no use trying right now. You needed a plan, and quick. But for now, you had to obey.

Your legs felt like jelly as you stayed low and walked over to the door, the stranger backing up and keeping his gun trained on you the whole time. When you approached it, you stood up, looking back at him. He nudged his gun forward in a go in gesture, and with a deep breath, you quietly pushed the handle downwards and walked in.

This was not the duct room, which was the door on the other side of the hallway. Why had you not seen this door, why did Carlos also not seem to know about this door? When you walked in, you for real almost choked this time, it was the goddamn control room. The very one that Carlos had overridden to let you get into the museum after hours in the first place. Oh, you were fucked.

“You thought you had it all planned, huh? I’ve been sitting here this whole goddamn time watching you. I saw you walk in, I saw you sit down, I saw you go into the hallway, I was waiting for you.” Your stomach ran cold, not knowing what to do now. Carlos was MIA. He surely must be frantic. Was he going to send the team in?

You were staring straight ahead at the vast array of monitors, way more than Carlos had. Every inch of the museum was being watched. You saw the screen with the duct room hallway. It was in the rightmost corner. The control room door was hidden from this angle. This room had been scrubbed from blueprints. You would have seen it, you know it.

The chair in front of you was pushed out, most likely from this man standing up to meet you when you returned. A coat, issued with the museum’s logo, was draped over the chair. You could see a nametag pinned to the front. Leon S. Kennedy. That name did not sound familiar.

You squeaked out when the barrel of the gun hit you square in between the shoulder blades. “Your buddies can’t save you now, you know. Next time they try to do this, they’ll have to do more than just some book research.”

You took a steady breath, urging yourself to sound more collected than you felt. “Don’t act so high and mighty, Leon Kennedy.”

He scoffed. “Don’t act so fucking smart because you know how to read.” He used his gun once more to push your shoulder so you could spin around and face him. You could only stare as he maintained his composure. His eyes were not softening up. “Did you think you could be in and out with this one? Just like all the others?” You tried to fight it, but you felt your face scrunch in confusion. How does he know about the others? He made another sound, like a laugh, and you could almost see the outline of his cocky smile underneath his mask. “Don’t act like you stayed off of anyone’s radar. Your little fence isn’t exactly a low profile criminal in the underground market.” Your stomach sank. He knew about Carlos. He knew about the whole ring, he had been watching you!

“This was… Is this even a real job?” You spat out, feeling more and more of a struggle to breathe.

Finally, Leon put down his gun. He knew he had you under his fingers. He crossed one more step to get in your face, looking down at you. “Like I said… Your buddies need to be more careful with what they decide to take on.” He muttered at you.

Something clicked inside of you. It was a life or death situation, and there were no more good outcomes. With the swiftness of air, you shot your right hand up, connecting your fist with the side of Leon’s jaw. It caught him off guard, but it did no more than knock him back a couple of steps. That was a hard jaw.

You used those two seconds to your advantage as you sprung forward, using the chair behind you as leverage as you kicked into his chest with both feet, sending him flying backwards, knocking the gun loose from his grip. He almost fully lost his balance, and you rocketed forward, finishing him off and wanting to send him straight to the floor.

It seems, though, you underestimated how well trained this man might be. He never hit the floor, and from the second you sent him reeling backwards, he was already connecting the distance between you two again, and he ducked when you sent another leg flying at him. He hooked your other leg in his grip, turning you over and forcing you to fall to the floor on your back, effectively rendering your lungs useless.

You gasped for air, finding the strength to fight back, and before he could unlatch himself from the leg he had a grip on, you tightened your other around his throat, tucking his neck right under your knee, and you squeezed hard.

Finding air again, and still keeping Leon in a chokehold, you pushed yourself up, and rolled the both of you over, so you were now essentially sitting on top of him, pushing his body into the ground as you kept him senseless. The dominance didn’t last long, as he pushed himself up, slamming you, once again, into the ground, loosening your leg, and escaping.

Your attempts at punches were meek, and he gripped both of your wrists in his hands and pinned them down; it was useless. It was over. During the altercation, most likely while he was being choked out, his gaiter slipped down, now wrapped around his neck. The rest of his features match the top half, and god dammit why did you have to make enemies with a man who looks like he should be on display in this very place?

“You should stop trying to fight me.” He grumbled from over you. You knew he had the upper hand now, definitely physically, but you weren’t going to stop.

“And just accept defeat? Accept whatever is going to happen next?” Despite knowing it would be useless, you attempted to break free from Leon’s grip anyway. It resulted in a tighter grasp around your wrists, and you winced. “What do you want from me? You set this up just to catch me. But you’re on the inside, too. You can’t nail us without incriminating yourself.”

If it was even possible, his face hardened further. He lowered his body to bring his face inches from yours, and you found yourself not turning away from his gaze.

“Maybe that’s just not what I’m after.”

The sentence brought your mind to a complete blank. What else could he be after? If he was employed by the museum you were currently trying to steal a painting from and sell it for thousands, shouldn’t he want to take you down to protect the art? Wouldn’t he want to put you and your team in jail for the crimes you all have committed?

“So, what? You just wanted to take me down? Try and make me fail? To prove something to yourself?” You were desperate at this point to hear something from Carlos, and the more time went by, you were sure Leon must have done something to the connection. Since he already knows… “Why can’t I hear my team?” You barked at him.

He quirked a cocky grin once again. “I don’t need you calling for unnecessary help. I’ve got it taken care of.” With one harsh movement, he adjusted both of your wrists so they were being held by his left hand. He then used his right to rip the in-ear out, making you cry out when the tape was torn from behind your ear. He kept tugging the cord until the tiny transmitter, which was clipped to the inside of your bodysuit, just below your shoulder, was out in the open, and tossed it aside. He was putting increasing pressure on your wrists, and you couldn't help but writhe.

“Let me go, I don’t get why you’re doing this.” You started a struggle again, but he shut it down swiftly. “Why me, Leon, why us? Surely we can’t be the only underground heist group within the vicinity, surely someone else must have tried to break in here.”

Leon stared at you for a moment from his place above you. His expression gave nothing away about his thoughts, and it was aggravating you endlessly. He thought he was all that. You were pissed off, because you also felt like that was true. He did manage to fumble your route and tackle you and cut you off from comms. Asshole.

He lifted himself off of you slowly, and you felt the pressure around your wrists disappear. He was straddling you now, his large legs encapsulating you on both sides, his arms looked massive from this angle. His vest was littered with utility pouches, and you weren't sure you wanted to find out what was in them. The gaiter was slack around his neck, and you felt so tiny, submissive, and rapidly heating up under his half lidded gaze. You can’t believe you went over his employee profile. You would have remembered a face like his.

“You’re right. You are not alone in this ring of underground syndicates, frankly, not even the first to have been here. I took on a few of them. I’m not actively working to destroy the network that you work out of, I’m just doing my job. Why should I let thieves get away with it just because they’re good at what they do?” You stared at him as he spoke. You couldn't believe how much information he truly had, and how much more he would surely not reveal to you. “I didn’t care about the other bunch, they were all dirty criminals doing it for the money with no real talent and no morals, so, fuck them, I’ll bust them when they step into my territory.” He lowered himself again, and now he was holding himself above you, arms on either side of your head. He was staring straight down into your eyes. “But then you appeared on my radar. I was surprised to see a woman in this line of business. That’s not common. I had to watch you closely. Maybe my own ignorance made me think that you would be out of play quicker than you even started, but when I discovered you had taken down two men larger than me and turned around a chokehold that surely would have killed you, I couldn't help but be impressed.”

You couldn't stop the scoff that escaped your lips. “Fuck you. You don’t know what I’m capable of. I worked my way up to where I am now.” Your sentence was cut short when he placed a rough hand on your chin, holding it in his palm.

“Shut up.” You ground your jaw, holding back snarky comments that would put you in a worse position. His demeaning command twisted your stomach in an unfamiliar way. “When I noticed your skill, as you needed to throw in there before I finished, I saw a challenge. I couldn’t just let it go.”

No words came out of your mouth right away, still trying to process his. You shook your head in confusion. “Challenge?”

“I like a woman that can put up a fight.” Leon said nothing more, daring you to stay something in retaliation. You kept your mouth shut, unsure of what kind of response you should even give. You squinted your eyes at him, but he didn't falter.

“What kind of job even is this?” His grin grew. The anger and frustration mixed with something foreign in your stomach. You curled your toes instinctively at this feeling. “Setting me up for failure just to wrestle me so you can get a workout?”

He shook his head slightly, that glint in his eyes not fading. “It’s not all about me, you know. You’re my challenge right now, yes, but I see something in you. I want you on my side.”

“Your side? Are there sides to be had here?”

“Sure there is,” His voice dropped to a low whisper now. You realized in that moment how quiet the room was. After the altercation the two of you had, you concluded it must be soundproof. There would have been a guard here by now. “You can fight. You're a spy. You’re practically invisible. That would be so useful to me. With me. I can give you that, you won’t have to worry about the inevitable end of this.”

You finally brought your hands down by your sides, and he didn’t move to stop you. “Here? You want to offer me the occasional chance of action from the museum?”

“You said it yourself.” His gaze hardened once more, and you suddenly remembered how harsh he was towards you five minutes ago. “I’m on the inside. I’m just as dirty as you guys are.” You stared, fighting the urge to gape your mouth. Someone on the inside, working right under everyone’s nose? “With me, I can make sure you’ll never face the threat of being shut down. Thrown in jail for years, for life. Carlos can’t do that.” You felt a twist at the mention of Carlos’ name, hoping he was alright.

You hated yourself for even letting that thought flick across your mind momentarily. You and Carlos were a team, he taught you everything, yes, but he had no other ‘ins’ in the world to protect you from the law. You were on your own in the field. He just directed you.

Leon had the connections. Leon worked with them. There was a chance that he really could keep you safe.

“What’s…” You grit your teeth, and swallowed hard, hating this position. “What’s in it for me? I’d be losing what I worked for the last few years. Just to be under your belt now.”

He shook his head. “You’re not losing. You’re gaining.” He came dangerously close to your face, yet again, you didn't move away. “Trust me.”

With nothing left to say to him, your body only had one way to react. You quickly hooked your left arm around Leon's neck, holding him in close, and using all the weight you could muster to flip positions with him. You could see in his face he was almost expecting this from you, yet he let it happen, and didn’t fight it.

He let out a grunt as his back hit the ground, knowing his vest took most of the impact. You were now successfully above him, in between his spread legs, his arms splayed out on the sides. The arm that had been used as leverage around his neck was now holding you up, the other was poised threateningly at his collarbone, as if you were going to choke him at any second.

But now, over him, though you felt triumph, you were at a loss for words again, still so muddled about the situation. Leon let the arrogant smile take over his features.

“We’d make a great pair, don’t you think?”

A million emotions surged through your veins, making it even harder to focus, to find the right thing to say or do. The way he was looking up at you, those eyes, that face, you wanted to collapse and give it to what he was saying, but you would be damned if you gave in to any sort of manipulation from him. The job was already fucked. There was no money. It was a setup just to get you into his lair… for a lack of better word. He seemed to know the ins and outs of this building, yet, he was working underground for the same reasons, presumably, as you were.

Fuck it, it doesn’t matter. There’s no job. You wouldn’t leave Carlos behind, but couldn’t you pretend?

Your hand gripped the collar of his shirt. “What’s the negotiation?” You mumbled. You tried your best to keep the intimidating look in your eye, but you were afraid Leon never even saw it in the first place.

He breathed out a small laugh. It infuriated you, but sent a chill down your spine. “Can’t we worry about the price later?”

You sighed, and pushed yourself off of him using his body to boost you. He grunted. On your knees now, you said, “You did all of this to get me to work with you and you won’t even tell me what your prices are?”

He followed your lead, and pushed himself off the floor with ease. He was now sitting up, staring you directly in the eye. “I’ve got a different asking price right now.” His voice became low, and you stiffened. It wasn’t every day on the field that you were met with a master tempter. Leon knew what he was doing now, and it all started to make sense to you. Regardless of if he really wanted you on his team or not, he kept an eye on you for weeks, months potentially, he brought you in here for one reason, and maybe one reason only.

“What makes you so sure I’ll accept?” You whispered, not able to find the courage anymore to speak properly.

“I think I just know. Am I wrong?” He stared deep into your eyes, yet another challenge. The challenges never seemed to end with him.

And, despite everything, you knew he wasn’t. You could feel it inside of you, he was right. You were about to accept his not-so-professional asking price, and you wanted to hate yourself for even giving in, but you couldn’t. You just couldn’t feel anything except eagerness.

You breathed in shakily, frozen in your spot, wanting him to do something first, but he was just letting you fall apart slowly under his gaze, most likely enjoying watching your reaction to a simple stare. You ground your jaw together, resorting to only shaking your head. “Cocky bastard.”

He laughed out loud once. “You got that right.”

It seemed he had it now, not giving you time to start anything that you couldn’t move to do. With a solid palm, he pushed backwards onto your chest, sending you into the floor again. You caught yourself with your forearms and could only stare up at him as he towered over you on his knees, looking more intimidating than he did with a gun pointed at your face.

Leon brought one of his hands down to raid your holders strapped around your waist, pulling the knives free and flipping one open. Your breath caught for a second when he brought it to your neck, but then released even more unsteadily when he gripped your collar in the other hand and tore the blade through the spandex fabric of your bodysuit.

You gasped when the air hit your skin, shielded by the temperature regulating fabric, feeling more exposed than you ever had on a mission before. Of course, you figured, you decided a long time ago that the most comfortable way to don the bodysuit was with as little resistance as possible, so as soon as Leon tore the fabric apart from the middle, yourbare chest was on display for him. You felt heat run through your body, from embarrassment and the arousal that you couldn’t stop.

If it was even possible, his eyes grew darker with emotion previously undetected, and his grip on the bodysuit fragments that he was holding onto tightened endlessly, still tugging them off your body as far as they could go.

He let go, your sleeves still intact, nipples hardening, before continuing to tear it apart lower, until you felt the crotch seams rip right under you, and as shocked by his actions as you were, you were doing nothing to stop it. You tried to tell yourself you wanted to stop him, but you knew yourself better than that by now. He would have been on the ground before he could have even held the knife to your throat.

If he was a mind reader, it wouldn’t have shocked you to find that out anymore. “Just gonna lay there and let me do this to you? Maybe I overestimated your skill.”

It was one thing to be flayed out by someone you didn’t know, another to be held at gunpoint during a mission, but an entirely different field to be insulted by the person who performed all said acts.

“You don’t know anything about my skill. I guess saying you’ve been watching me was a lie.” You pushed yourself up onto your elbows, not even caring about your physical state anymore. Using your left arm, you sat further up, pushing Leon backwards with your right, and delivered him right onto his ass. “You think I can’t take charge of a situation?”

He looked up at you, not ready to physically retaliate. “I think you can, only when the person is letting you do so.”

You grabbed a hold of the gaiter still slung around his neck, and suddenly you were inches away from him. “I’m not letting you make me think that you’re allowing me to do anything. If watching me wasn’t a lie, you’d know I’m a lot more capable than what I’ve just let you do.”

He tilted his head sideways, clearly liking the new lack of distance between the two of you. “Then prove it.”

You decided to make a bold move. Repositioning your legs so you were now on top of him, you dropped yourself to sit right in his lap, feeling exactly what you were expecting. He groaned, finally not expecting something from you, and with a victorious smile, you fell lower, grinding into his erection with all your body weight. His hands instinctively went to claw at your thighs, the grip so tight it almost stopped you from moving, and his breathing became ragged.

“You give this treatment to every criminal that breaks into here?”

Leon laughed through the breaths. “I never get to them first to do this.” As you continued to gyrate on his lap, his eyes fell shut and his head rolled back, thumping on the wall behind him. His hands snaked up your legs, fingers toying the edges of the ripped fabric of his doing, and he pulled it further, trying to unsheath you as much as he could.

“Then allow me to make sure the rest of your criminals are forgettable.” You snaked your arms around his torso, letting him pull you loose from the sleeves of your bodysuit. Now free, you kept your grip firmly on his biceps, your own body weakening at the realization of how strong they felt.

As badly as you wanted to free them, as badly as you wanted to see him underneath his armor, you wanted to see it when he took you. You needed to look up at his gear and see his hardened face, the strong bodyguard who made you submit.

He continued with his deep groans the more you ground down on his hard cock, and you could feel it yourself through his pants. Leon’s efforts made it so you had barely anything protecting you, and all that stood in the way were his thick pants. You wanted to free him from his constraints, but you wanted to be a tease about it.

“I hope you had a plan for this, because I’m not obeying someone who wanted to kill me.” You had yourself steady by gripping his knees with your hands, leaning back, his eyes never peeled away from your breasts, out in the open.

He took a hand and placed it over your hip, large and warm, and it sent a wave of heat straight to your core, sure you were wet through your panties now.

“So now you want me to take charge, after going on about your own strengths, huh…” He squeezed his hand over your hip, and it made you squirm.

You basically hopped up and slammed yourself down on his lap, just wanting to make him suffer. “You’ll do what I say, and we’ll see who's listening to orders.” Your motion had made him whine as predicted, and you carefully studied his face as it was scrunched up, mostly in pleasure, probably some in pain.

“Then what?” He half whispered out at you. “Tell me what to do, then.” His hands made their way up to your chest, squeezing delicately, but enough to arch your back into his touch. His other was seated on your thigh, the pressure of his fingertips increasing by the second.

You leaned in close to him, inches away, enough to taste him if you so pleased, but you waited. “Why don’t you treat me like the criminal I am?”

A shudder visibly flowed through his body at your words, the back of his head hit the wall again. The hand on your thigh was now on your throat, not tightening just yet, but with enough sturdiness to keep you in your place. Your whole body was on the move now as Leon shifted his weight, and once again, you found yourself with your back on the floor, staring up at him towering over you. Though you had already been aware of it, your nakedness became prominent in this moment, realizing Leon’s neck and face were all you could see of his skin.

“Don’t think I’ll be gentle then,” He barked out at you, having shaken off the pleasure from you grinding down on him.

You smirked, watching him finally take his gloves off, having nothing to say, but only (oddly) excited about the new course of action. He stopped bothering with trying to get the rest of your clothes off, having opened up enough room for him to work in. You thought he was most definitely either going to push your panties aside for access or cut them off, and as turned on as you knew you would be if he did the latter, you still had to leave this place after this.

“Take my belt off.” He was rigid after flinging his gloves aside, giving you orders to obey. Keeping your back square on the ground, raising only your arms, your fingers worked swiftly to undo the belt buckle, pulling the leather through the metal and setting it free. You looked up into his eyes, which were boring holes into you, and when he made no other movement, you continued to his button and zipper.

When your hand made contact with the fabric you saw the jump his cock made at the friction, even barely there. He let out a soft, shaky breath at you working it open, never losing his composure. The rigid tent right in front of your face was long and thick, and you had to get your hands on it faster than yours could work themselves.

Finally undone, you pushed the opening aside and pulled down the elastic band of his underwear, his facial expression never changing, up until you wrapped your hand around the base of his dick, now out in the open, and he groaned. He wrapped one of his own hands around your wrist, a plea not to move it, but you ignored it, and brought yourself to a sitting position so his head was lined up with the tip of your tongue.

“You want to suck it too, like a whore?” Leon’s other hand found solace in the back of your head, fingers tangling up your hair to get a steady grip. The pull made you wince, but you silenced the feeling by running your flat tongue along the underside of his dick, swiping along the head and letting the precum sit in your mouth.

A deep sigh was the result of your actions, and everything he did only egged you on. You felt him adding force to your head to move, but again, moved at your own pace, letting your tongue trace the indents and veins, letting your hand massage the base while your other was on the floor, holding you upright.

The anticipation alone of this moment could have filled your mouth with saliva, and the throbbing cock in front of you only added to help it. You opened your wet mouth and seated your lips around the tip, feeling that push on the back of your head again. Your tongue swirled endlessly, dragging up and down the slit, pushing more of the precum to the back of your throat, and finally, when you decided you had had enough, you slid his length as far back as you could go, a heavy breath coming from above you when you bottomed out.

His grip on your hair became shaky, and his breathing never righted again the more you took him into your mouth, bringing him closer to orgasm. The friction lightened up with your saliva around the base, your hand becoming covered in it, the sickening sucking noises sending sparks straight down to your pussy, which was begging to be touched, but you had to push Leon to the edge first.

You could feel his legs starting to buckle, but you pushed on, knowing he would stop you before he could cum in your mouth. As much as you wanted to bring him to that, you wanted to be pleasured by him first.

With one more deepthroat, stifling a gag and feeling his hand lift from your hair, he pulled himself out of your mouth, strings of saliva connecting his head to your lips.

He took a deep breath in, looking down at you, almost spent but so much more to give.

With no warning, his hand was back on your throat, pushing you backwards into the floor once more. This time, the pressure was enough to constrict your breathing slightly, and you wrapped a hand around his thick forearm.

“You weren’t getting off the hook that easily,” Even with the breathiness he was speaking through, his face still showed all the authoritative attitude that he had in the first five minutes of your encounter. At this angle, the shadows on his face made him even scarier, but you felt nothing except turned on by him. Strands of gelled hair fell forward onto his forehead, a glisten of sweat decorated his skin.

“Maybe this was your plan the whole time,” He continued, the hand on your throat not allowing you to speak, but giving you enough air to be satisfied. Your breath hitched when you felt him pull your panties to the side, and deliver a rough sensation to your sensitive clit. “You knew the treatment you’d get by crossing me.”

One finger, then two, and surely your slick was in a pool on the floor by now. His appendages had no resistance as they slid in and out of you, hitting your soft walls, arching your hips to get more and more, but he had you at bay, and he knew it.

“You like this, huh?” Leon brought himself closer to your face, lips just a hair away from yours, but he wouldn’t kiss you. “You like being treated like a slut?” You took another restricted breath in when he returned to your clit, massaging it in circles, making your pussy ache even more. “Answer me.”

A choked out sob came out of you before, “Yes, I do…” and you felt your face heating up at the force of making you degrade yourself.

“Yeah, I can tell, you’re so wet I should’ve just fucked you the moment I caught you.” He was growling at you now, and it did nothing but send you into pure bliss at his treatment. “Maybe you’ll learn another lesson or two, one they could never teach you.”

Between the stimulation on your clit and the hand on your throat, a tear slipped out of your eye, but you were anything but dissatisfied. He raised himself, removed his hand (much to your displeasure), and readjusted himself, cock lined up square with your heat.

“Open your mouth.” You did as you were told, and he spit directly into your open mouth, and at the distraction of that, he slid into you.

Your jaw hung slack as he made his way in, you could feel the way his cock was stretching your walls wide, your pussy was so wet it made it easier than you were expecting it to be. Your eyes rolled back, not being able to help the way your eyelids fluttered closed, eyebrows furrowing, fingernails surely cutting Leon’s skin through his sleeves where you gripped him hard.

The stretch was immaculate, it burned and it felt like you were on fire, but none of it made you want to tell him to stop. Skin to skin contact was made on your clit when he was all the way in, you felt so full you could barely breathe, and your clit was sending rocket fire signals to your brain, it made you writhe with the sensations.

You gasped, the drag out feeling just as good as the shove in, and you cried out through the constriction around your throat, “Leon… fuck,”

Leon grunted at your appraisal, you felt the fingers over your neck twitch, knowing he was holding himself back from using all the strength he had in his one hand. You tried your hardest to pry your eyes open, you needed to see him.

“You’re such a slut, letting yourself get fucked to get out of trouble,” He spit out at you in between hard thrusts and heavy breathing. You practically felt the tip of his dick hit your stomach every time he thrust in, and from the sounds alone, you knew it had you soaked. You already knew he was a big man, but watching him in his bulletproof gear had you even weaker than you were before, this big heavy guard taking advantage of you, using you, and you loved it.

Your legs wrapped around his torso, hoisting your hips up to feel more, get him deeper, if it was even possible.

You could barely even breathe, every move that Leon made inside of you made your head spin, every noise he made turned you to jelly, every thrust had you whining so hard you were sure you were going to lose your voice.

The pressure on your throat lifted, and the sharp intake of cold air down your windpipes made you dizzy. Opening your eyes, Leon was now back to his position on his knees, still fully sheathed inside of you, and with a slick motion, and the wettest sounds you had ever heard from yourself, he slid out, leaving you empty.

You didn’t even have time to process the movement before Leon had his hand on your arms and was turning you over, bare chest to the cold floor, and you unintentionally shuddered. Using your arms to the best of your ability to hold yourself up, you felt them shake violently, and knew they would give out any time soon.

Looking up, you saw Leon reach forward and pull his discarded jacket down from the back of the chair, sliding it under your head, and pressing you back down by the nape of your neck. You couldn’t help but moan.

Strong hands settled on your hips, and you had to bite the material under you to muffle the scream as Leon pushed himself back into you, every nerve on fire as he hit the deepest spots you didn’t know existed. This time, he was relentless, like he promised.

You could barely hear him through your own screaming and whining.

“Take it like a whore, I know you can…” A slap to your ass, more tears from your eyes. “Fuck, so good, you’ll learn now…” Hands in your hair, pulling your head up. “I’m gonna fill you up, like a fucking slut,”

Barely processing anymore, your head a mess and eyes full of tears, you only registered the small change when you felt his arm around your waist, fingers teasing circles into your clit while still pounding into your pussy, still getting wetter by the second. The new feeling had your legs spreading wider for him, further weakening you, your thighs shaking with a strong timber you know no man had ever given you before.

“L-Leon…” It didn’t even sound like words anymore at this point, but Leon got the idea. He pressed harder into the soft nub, making you bite back into his jacket and moan loudly.

“Come on, I know you can cum for me,” Two more thrusts had him in, and you felt the shaft of his cock pulsing erratically inside of you as he released his seed in you, not waiting for you to say he could or not, but knowing he was going to anyway.

The feeling of being filled to the brink was what send you over the edge, his fingers still making work and his dick milking itself dry inside of your tight walls had you clenching around it, ragged breaths taking your body hostage as white flashed before your eyelids, and Leon knew he had made you finish, especially in the way your body crumpled underneath him.

Swallowing hard, your throat dry, you slowly came back to reality, and your vision cleared. You felt hands on your waist, slowly rolling you over to lay on your back.

Leon was positioned over you, edge in his eyes long gone, face shiny and slick from sweating, all his hair nearly limp over his face. He looked like a completely different person.

“Are you alright?” Still not knowing if you can speak, you nodded, letting your mouth re-salivate. He pinched your chin delicately between his forefinger and thumb, moving your head to the side to expose your neck. “If I bruised you, I didn’t mean to.”

You shook your head. “It will give me something to cover my disappearance with.” You had no idea how long it had been, but with no contact to Carlos back at base, you wouldn’t be surprised if your entire team flanked the building at this very second to rescue you. Now how to get out with an entirely ripped bodysuit…

“Consider my offer.” Leon mumbled, clear enough to hear, but low enough to hear his exertion. “I was serious.”

You blinked slowly at him, not seeing his expression change at his offer. “If I accept, I’m not a criminal you’ll have to put in place anymore.”

At this, he smiled, and dipped his head down to kiss you again, possibly one of the only times he had that night.

“Honey,” He pulled away. “You’ll always be a criminal.”

#leon kennedy #resident evil #resident evil fanfiction #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy fanfiction #fanfiction #leon s kennedy #resident evil 4 #resident evil 2 #leon kennedy smut

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adriennebarnes · 9 months

Text

How You Get The Girl

Pairing: Ajax Petropolus x Hispanic!Reader, Ajax x Enid (platonic)

Summary: Ajax has a crush on Y/N, a new student, and asks Enid for help

Warning: spelling errors as always

A/N: I AM SO SORRY!!! I was in Mexico for 2 weeks, very lovely, I’m taking driving lessons, absolutely terrible, and now I am crushing on Chris Evans so that fixation has taken over my tumblr feed. And now I’m watching Star vs. The Forces of Evil so now all of my Hispanic Y/Ns will have her personality

Most people believe that Nevermore Academy is the only school for supernatural children. However, there are schools around the world. Much like there’s Hogwarts and Ilvermorny, Nevermore is the American school, Wormwood is the UK school etc., and Belladonna is the Latin American school, the school where Y/N transferred from.

Y/N transferred from Belladonna 2 weeks ago and she was very good friends with Enid. Ajax has been crushing on her since she was introduced in botany class. Ever since that day, the little things Y/N did like talk to the animals that wander on campus made him like her more. He was now at a lunch table with Kent while he looks at Y/N who was sitting with Enid.

“Dude, you’re staring again.” Kent said as he ate his sandwich.

“Sorry.” Ajax said while eating his lunch.

“I’m telling you, it’s creepy. It’s been two weeks and all you do is stare at her. How about you ask her out? What’s the worst that can happen?” Kent asked.

“She rejects me, she laughs in my face, Enid records the rejection and posts it on her blog.” Ajax said.

“Nah, she’s too sweet to laugh in your face and let Enid film it.” Kent said.

“Either way, even if I did want to ask her out, I wouldn’t know how.” Ajax said. Kent was going to say something when Ajax saw Enid get up from her table with Y/N. “Enid, Enid, hold up!” Ajax said as he got up, following Enid.

“Hey Ajax, what did you want to talk about?” Enid asked.

“You’re good friends with Y/N, right?” Ajax asked.

“Yeah, I know her pretty well, why do you ask?” Enid asked.

“No reason. Does she have a boyfriend…or girlfriend back home?” Ajax asked.

“As far as I’m aware, she is very single. What’s with the questions? No way! You like Y/N, oh my gosh, this so perfect.” Enid said excitedly.

“Why is it perfect? Does she like me too?” Ajax asked.

“She thinks you’re cute.” Enid admitted.

“I Can work with that. So what does she like? I want to ask her out.” Ajax said.

“Ooh, we need to plan this, just let me talk to Y/N more, maybe I can get some…useful information, you know, help you out.” Enid said.

“Thanks, Enid! You’re the best” Ajax said, hugging her. He then went back to sit with Kent.

“Oh, i know.” Enid commented and she went to her dorm that she shares with Y/N. Enid was watching a movie on her laptop with Y/N came in. “Hey, where did you go?”

“Yoko needed help with some botany homework, you know, the one where you match the picture to the scientific names of the plants? Anyway, what you doing?” Y/N asked.

“Im watching 10 Things I Hate About You, such a great movie.” Enid said.

“I loved it when Patrick sang for Kat, so cute! I mean, it also helps that it was Heath Ledger.” Y/N said.

“Would you like someone to dedicate a song to you like that?” Enid asked.

“I don’t know, I think it depends on the person, you know.” Y/N commented.

“So that’s a definite maybe..” Enid mutters as she took note of it. “Since you grow and control plants, do you have a favorite flower?”

“I like peonies, I blame Gossip Girl though.” Y/N said and Enid made a note of it.

“I like peonies too. If someone were to ask you out, do you want it to be like this big thing or something small?” Enid asked.

“Something small is preferable.” Y/N said. They kept talking until Enid texted Ajax to meet her in the library, she had everything she needed.

“Im gonna go to the library to do some homework, I’ll be back in a few hours.” Enid said.

“What kind of homework are you doing? Maybe I can help.” Y/N said.

“It’s some dumb monster anatomy homework, you don’t take that class.” Enid said. She went to the library and found Ajax sitting at a table.

“Hey, so what dos you find out?” Ajax asked.

“She likes peonies, of you’re going to ask her out, make sure it’s like a small thing, maybe private, nothing too big. She’s a dessert person so maybe if you can like send her boxes of desserts everyday until the day you ask her out would be perfect! Like imagine, one day you send mini cupcakes, the next day a mini chocolate cheesecake, then brownies, then a small flan, and lastly you send a box of frosted cookies that spell out ‘will you go out with me?’ And you appear with a bouquet of peonies! That would be so cute!” Enid exclaimed as she grabbed Ajax by the shoulders and shook him with excitement.

“How many romance movies have you seen?” Ajax asked.

“I’ve seen a lot, not gonna lie. Now, how are you going to do this? Are you going to order from the bakery? Are you going to bake? Ooh, can I help you bake please?” Enid asked.

“Yeah sure, you can help me bake.” Ajax said and Enid squealed excitedly, hugging him.

“This is going to be ADORABLE, I’m so excited. I’m gonna start looking up recipes, I’ll send them to you so you can buy the ingredients.” Enid said.

“Why do I have to buy the ingredients?” Ajax asked and enid rolled her eyes.

“You have money, you’re asking her out, you’re paying. We’re baking Sunday night, I’m thinking chocolate cupcakes, we’re making our own frosting, everything has to be done from scratch, okay?” Enid said.

“Why scratch?” Ajax asked.

“It’s more romantic that Way, it says you put thought into it. Now I need to look up recipes on TikTok, I learn more visually.” Enid said as she left Ajax.

Ajax was in over his head. All of this for a girl who might say no. What if she thinks it’s too cheesy or if it doesn’t taste good?

Sunday night, Enid and Ajax were in the kitchen with flour on their faces and aprons.

“You set the timer, right?” Enid asked.

“Yeah i did, don’t worry.” Ajax said. When the timer went off, Ajax got the oven mitts that Enid brought and took the mini cupcakes out of the oven. He places it on the kitchen counter. “We gotta wait a little before tasting it but it looks pretty good, what do you think?” Ajax asked.

“It rose pretty well. Do you want to pipe on the frosting or do you want the cupcakes to have that flat look?” Enid asked as she showed Ajax the pictures as example.

“Piped, but not too high.” Ajax said, once the cupcakes cooled off, Ajax took one out of the pan and took a bite, “this is pretty good.” Ajax said and took another bite. Enid took another cupcake out of the pan and hit it.

“Ooh, the cupcake is kinda dense, it’s perfect for a chocolate cupcake! Now let’s see if the frosting we made is good too.” Enid grabbed a butter knife to smear the frosting on where she But it and finished off the cupcake. “It’s perfect!”

The two poured the frosting into a piping bag and began frosting the remainder cupcakes. Ajax puts the ones for Y/N in a box, in the fridge. The rest, Ajax and Enid split between them evenly, and they went to their rooms.

“What you got there?” Kent asked.

“You know, Enid and I were baking, don’t laugh, so I can ask out Y/N, now you can laugh.” Ajax said.

“I’m not gonna laugh, how douchey do you think I am? I think it’s kinda nice, how male wife of you,” Kent snickered.

“Ha ha, taste the cupcakes, I think they turned out pretty good.” Ajax gave Kent the container. Kent opened up the container and took a cupcake and tasted it.

“Very good, how are you planning to ask out Y/N anyway?” Kent asked, eating the cupcake.

“Enid came up with the plane, a week of dessert and the final one is frosted cookies with writing that spell out the sentence ‘will you go out with me’ and I appear with a bouquet of peonies.” Ajax stated.

“How many movies does Enid watch anyway?” Kent asked,

“Apparently a lot, but let’s see how it goes.” Ajax said.

Monday afternoon. Ajax made sure that Enid and Y/N were talking so he could have enough time to leave the cupcakes on her bed with a note. Enid texted Ajax that Y/N was coming so Ajax ran down the hall to hide. Y/N entered her room.

“Huh, what’s this?” Y/N asks herself as she opened the note. “‘You’re as sweet as the frosting i made, enjoy -A’ interesting.” Y/N said and she opened up the box and tasted the cupcake. “These are great, oh my gosh.” Ajax smiled when he heard that. He walked away and Enid entered the room.

“Ooh, where did you get the cupcakes?” Enid asked.

“Apparently they’re from a secret admirer. But I love these cupcakes.” Y/N said.

“That’s great.” Enid said.

So that’s how the week went, Ajax and Enid bake the night before and leave it in the fridge til it’s time to give Y/N the treat. Now that it’s Friday, enid had to keep Y/N in the room to give Ajax enough time to buy a bouquet of peonies despite them not being in season.

Ajax took the cookies out of his room and place them nicely in order with the bouquet in hand. He left the box on the floor and knocked on the door, running down the hall so Y/N doesn’t see him.

“Ooh, lets see what’s the dessert today.” Y/N said to herself as she opened the box. “‘Will you go out with me?’ Who sent this?” And Ajax appears in Y/N’s line of vision.

“I did” Ajax said and Y/N looked delightfully surprised.

“You bought all these postres?” Y/N asked.

“I actually made them. Enid helped.” Ajax admitted.

“That’s really sweet of you. Enid, you’re such a good friend.” Y/N said, looking behind her.

“Anytime, girl.” Enid said.

“So, will you go out with me?” Ajax asked.

“I will. This was too cute to say no to.” Y/N said.

The End

Hope y’all liked it. I was thinking about “match made in Hollywood” and I was thinking instead of writing their events in the story chapters, I should write separate drabbles of the events. So you know how Ajax has a puppy interview with buzzfeed? Instead of rushing the interview on the chapter, I write a separate drabble of just the puppy interview. Sí me entienden, verdad? Anyway, my writing is rusty, this one shot felt like 11 year old me wrote it but I tried, that’s what counts. So these are treats Ajax baked so you’ll have an idea

#hispanic reader #latina #hispanic #latinx #romance #ajax petropolus #ajax petropolus x reader #ajax wednesday

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disregardcanon · 3 months

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i'm thinking about a npmd the good place au and HOO BOY the ideas

it's a season 1 setup, with tinky as the architect of the neighborhood.

... good janets are petes and bad janets are teds. OUR pete is the neighborhood's pete and he's just kinda. trying to get by. shit's weird, guys. he doesn't remember how he got here and all his protocols have been messed up and the guy that took him isn't very nice. but this is- it's fine. it has to fine (there's no other choice.)

grace chastity is still adjusting to the idea that the christian god isn't real. she is not enjoying that very much, but she IS validated by the idea that her actions as a christian got her into The Place Where Good People Go. her actual exploits like mission trips and getting dances canceled and running abstinence camp are what are brought up during the Look How Cool We Are Welcome to the Neighborhood gala.

steph has been assigned to be her soulmate. she isn't supposed to be here. she's not like, an ABSURDLY bad person for anything, she just. was raised by solomon lauter. so she got the hell out of dodge after graduation and MAYBE she did some scams to get by after that. and like maybe she knows how to make a molotov cocktail and has used one once or twice. she certainly isn't The Best Person Who Did All These Things To Help the World and Support Great Liberal Causes that they keep saying she is. (she... wishes she was. though.) and these bible studies that her soulmate (soulmate???? THE FUCK) grace chastity keeps trying to force her to do so not to out her to the authorities as A Mistake Who Should Not Be Here. really aren't helping. (like come on. grace still insists that it's bad to be bisexual but look who her soulmate is? STEPH! so maybe steph knows more about how to adjust to this new world that little miss evangelist does)

ruth fleming is the first recorded case (according to tinky) of a Human Without a Soulmate in the history of humanity. just her fucking luck. she can't even get the robot guy to fuck her. ughgggghhh. you spend your life writing high quality erotic for lonely people and it gets you into heaven! but it doesn't even get you a partner. fuckin' rude

max jagerman doesn't think that he did anything wrong. he was the king of hatchetfield high, and then hatchetfield community college, and then he managed to fight his way to a backup quarterback spot on the jacksonville jaguars (this is the good place it will be the jaguars). and then! he's the REAL quarterback! if patrick ma-fucking-homes would just drop dead he'd be the most famous quarterback in the united states, thank you!

but when he dies... the guy doesn't tell him congrats on all the success. he doesn't even recognize that this is MAXWELL JAGERMAN! the quarterback who should be the most famous and well-respected in the united states. he makes some weird references to how... ambition... is... bad? and that those that hurt other people are... bad? says something about being a channel of peace or whatever? and that if this was a mix up then max is free to go to "drowsy town"? whatever the fuck that means.

so when he says "but you're not an ambitious bully that hurt others to get where you were! you're a super nice silent catholic monk who promoted peace on earth, right?" and max just.... stares.

"do you want to keep up your vow of silence? you can just nod." and max... does. because what the fuck do you say to that? shit shit shit shit shit shit FUCK

his "soulmate" is richie lipschitz, warrior for the sanctity of other people's art. why, if his youtube channel that makes fun of other people's bad art and takes and uses his fan base to come after much smaller creators isn't a net positive in the world, then what IS? some loser who doesn't understand anything complaining about the fascist implications of attack on titan on the internet? HA! (richie is disappointed that his soulmate isn't someone better, who likes him, but it was never going to live up to rei or asuka anyway. so he'll live)

he's the only one who knows max, and they went to high school together. max was the exact sort of bully that he was in canon. and it takes a LOT of sweet talk about how richie's the one who's actually supposed to be here to get him to stay quiet about the Max Actually Being an Awful Football Player and Not That Cool Silent Monk thing.

ruth and richie become friends through a series of sitcom tomfoolery. the sitcom tomfoolery is mainly Dragging The Poor Robot Into Playing Games and then Getting Mad That He's Better At The Games Than They Are. also ruth getting frustrated that the robot does not want to fuck her. (it's not because the robot does not want to fuck she's just not his type)

steph knows that she recognizes that silent monk guy from somewhere but can't quite put her finger on it, and she knows that something is VERY wrong here.

grace is developing a crush on her soulmate and does not know how to do that. (does being a soulmate count as marriage? is it actually bad to be gay when god doesn't even properly exist? did her actions matter since she wasn't serving a real god? what do you do with an EXISTENTIAL CRISIS IN THE AFTERLIFE?!?!?! ugh stomachache.)

max wants to figure out how to go back to being The Coolest Guy Ever, FUCK YEAH (he can't even shout go nighthawks or jacksonville jaguars, because he can't talk! it sucks!) but he knows that his soulmate Will Not Help. the guy, unreasonably, is still holding high school against him. and also everything else that max has legitimately messed up since then. (ha, it's almost like. consequences to your actions-) and then he meets grace chastity, biggest prude and most Sure of Herself in This Entire Place.

and he's in love <3 he prostrates himself in front of her and BEGS her to help him become "a good person" so that he can stay here. and grace is like i really don't have time for that i have to teach my own Secretly Shitty Soulmate the bible. and steph's like uh you can just. stop doing that. i'm really not interested-

and grace is like NO YOU ARE NOT LEAVING ME YOU BEAUTIFUL CHARMING SEDUCTRESS! and steph's like ugh. did i finally cure this girl's internalized homophobia in time for her to just. not leave me the fuck alone? fuck

so a max who, in theory, wants to learn grace chastity's version of Good Personhood so that he can earn his spot here and become Coolest Guy in the Good Place, King of Good Place High, and mainly just wants to spend time with her and get her to like him, grace who is having a bisexual panic attack and also fighting off existential dread, and steph, who knows that there is something very very wrong here and that grace can't help her with morality but also. has not figured out what's wrong or who can. is just stuck here while the other two flirt and grace occassionally remembers to make googly eyes HER way instead of max jagerman's. who IS the famous football player. what a fuckin' world

steph starts trying to research What the Fuck Is Wrong Here, and realizes that max's soulmate, richie, and tragically unattached ruth are befriending the Robot with Godlike Knowledge. and she's like oh wow i could probably utilize that in my Research.

more sitcom shenanigans occur. grace and max stop noticing that their third wheel isn't attending bible studies and they become more and more them just dancing towards sexual encounters.

steph uses her con artist raised by a politician (other type of con artist) skills to notice more and more strange fuckery, as things with the world start spiraling further and further out of control.

"you're pretty funny. you know, for a robot."

"not a robot."

"then what are you, exactly?"

"... a spankoffski?" and steph feels really bad for laughing.

she gets figured out as Not Who She Appears to Be and has to go through this big long contrived process to get to stay in the good place instead of getting shipped off, and it just seems... like so much. they bring up reps from the bad place and the stakes seem so contrived.

ruth and richie shenanigan together by Trying to Find The Swinger Soulmate Pairs while steph tries to figure out why, exactly, nothing feels real. and it feels less real when the walls start to enclose and she might be getting removed from the good place entirely.

the bad place representatives show up: another weird guy with another weird name and his own robot.

the bad place even has their own version of pete- a weird, horny bastard who won't answer anyone's questions and just complains the whole time. but why would that demon that they brought up be... willing? to let them cut a deal? why does their architect seem... weirdly chummy with them? they act almost the same, treating their robot right hands with the same amount of... callous contempt. perhaps the Ted "deserves" it, but-

... why isn't tinky kind to pete? pete might not be HUMAN, but he's still... sentient. he has thoughts and feelings and he's her favorite company in this godforsaken place- and tinky is supposed to be the creator of a place that's good and just.

what exactly are their numbers indicating? why is everything so confusing and bullshit and-

she runs out to the lake, just to clear her head. sit by the water and watch. she pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them.

"hey pete?" she asks. the well-dressed robot materializes beside her. sitting cross-legged.

"everyone has... points, right? that's how they figure out if you go to the good place or the bad place?"

"that's correct."

"who has the most points here?"

"you."

steph chuckles. "good one, spankoffski. i didn't know you could joke on purpose"

he tilts his head in confusion. "it wasn't a joke."

"i- what?"

"there are only 5 sets of numbers here. yours is the highest. it's been going up steadily ever since you got here."

steph just stares. "pete, there can't- there's hundreds of people here. why would only 5 of us have numbers?"

"only humans have numbers," he says simply. and oh god, oh fuck, oh shit-

"how did you get here?" she asks softly.

he looks thoughtful for a moment. "i... don't remember."

so steph gathers up the five other humans and they break their way into tinky's office, pete in tow.

and he's like "huh. what are you all doing here together?"

the other four humans are still confused, but steph is a forceful personality and convinced them this was the only way to fix things.

"go ahead and send me to the bad place," steph says, "i thought about it, and i don't want to keep making things so HARD on all of you. i was soooo selfish in life, but i don't want to keep that up."

tinky looks anxious. "oh steph, you aren't a burden."

she smiles. "but i thought i wasn't even supposed to be here?"

"we've made it work," tinky promises.

steph laughs. "i don't think so. this show reminds me what my dad would do, when he wanted to seem like he was fighting for something politically that he already had set up. it's all a show, right?"

tinky grins tightly. "i don't know what you mean."

"you're not sending me to the bad place, because i'm ALREADY THERE!" she declares. the other humans gasp. pete looks unfazed.

tinky blinks. "i don't know what you're talking about."

"there are only 5 sets of numbers here," steph says, "and guess whose is the highest? MINE! and i'm not even supposed to be here."

"two clerical errors? really?" steph demands.

"things happen," tinky says.

"and the three that got here fair and square?" steph asks, "we have a self-righteous church girl, a bullied youtuber who started bullying people himself, and an erotic writer. of teacher/student!" steph laughs, "come on, you're telling me that THOSE are the best humanity has to offer? and that max and i both just so happpenneeddd to end up here? in error?"

tinky grits his teeth. "no one else here is even human. if they were, they'd act like it. and they'd have numbers. but they don't."

"this is our own little nightmare realm that you cooked up to torture us."

then tinky laughs, maniacal and goat-like.

"wait," grace whispers, "i'm not... a good person?"

"NO!" tinky cackles, "that was the fun! but now... someone's ruined it for all of us. we're going to have to reset everything now. are you happy, stephanie?"

she frowns. "reset?" tinky snaps his fingers, and the humans pass out on his floor.

"i'm not supposed to be here," pete says, looking with wide eyes over to the passed out humans.

"ugh," tinky says, "RESET!" and not-a-robot not-a-boy spankoffski resets too.

he has another chance at this. and another. and another. and another. and another- however many it takes to get this right. and he WILL get this right, after all. he has all the time in the world.

#hatchetfield #npmd #npmd aus #grace chastity #richie lipschitz #ruth fleming #stephanie lauter #peter spankoffski #jagertity #lautski #lausity #lautity #tgp

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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 5 months

Text

Tumblr Fandom: A Year in Review 2023

Tagged by @mistmarauder and I'm pretty sure I'm contractually obligated to do as she says so...

Top Five Blorbos: Eddie Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley, Patrick Jane, Edgin Darvis, Xenk Yendar

Top Five Fandoms: 9-1-1, Fast & Furious, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, The Mentalist, The Witcher

Top Five OTPs: Buddie, Xedgin, whatever the hell Dom/Brian is called (there is so little fanfic for them I am weeping), Jisbon, House/Shenanigans uh I mean House/Wilson/Cuddy

Shoutout to Some New Friends: @princessfbi and @tulipfromtheinternet have been very kind to me, leaving treats out on their porches for me to sniff. I even let them pet me after a few months of slowly earning my trust!

Shoutout to Some Old Friends: @mistmarauder and @catdadeddie are two friends I grew closer with this year, and have done a lot to restore my trust in people. They've put up with an unfair amount of prickliness and distrust on my part with grace and love. @evcndiaz has also put up with me dropping into her inbox with fun (horrifying) facts about human anatomy, which earns her a gold medal. And of course @givemeunicorns @devilsbrokerank @captainofthefallen and @extasiswings continue to be my rocks and remind me that there are good people in this world, and that some of those good people might actually love me.

Favorite Creation You Posted This Year: Genuinely I feel like with my Halloween fics I have done the best work in my fanfiction career. I'm shocked at how proud I am of the fanfics I put out this year, including my Wednesday fic and my Xedgin fics. It's impossible for me to choose a favorite.

Favorite Creation Posted by Someone Else This Year: @kittykatthetacodemon had me reading fic for fandoms and ships I'm not even in or shipping? she's just that fucking good? holy shit go watch Mag7 and then read her fics just. just do it.

People Who Brightened Your Year: @lisbonsteresa always and forever brightens my days, and it was a delight this year to be in the same fandom again as she got me hooked on The Mentalist, @mistmarauder always makes me laugh even (especially) when she's roasting me, and @extasiswings helped me get away from the real world a couple times when I needed it.

Anyone Else You'd Like to Mention: I'm so grateful to all of my readers, always. Your enthusiasm and comments are what keep me going. Thank you thank you thank you.

Five of Your Favorite Authors This Year: I'll be honest I have barely read any fanfic this year since I simply haven't had time but a quick shout out again to @kittykatthetacodemon because Mist forced me to read her fanfics at gunpoint and I've never been so happy to be at gunpoint after reading them. I've reread her Hobbs & Shaw fics literally a dozen times, she nails the hysterical over-the-top banter from the F&F films and it has me giggling every time.

Oh and @henswilsons. Forever and always making me laugh with your delightful fics. Never stop, dear.

Five of Your Favorite Artists/Gifmakers/Podficcers/Etc. This Year: @captain-hen so many times I see a gifset that makes me insane and it's by you, you menace. @like-the-rest-of-la lovely art from a lovely person. @bucksketch you make art that has me screeching and twirling my hair and kicking my feet. @mistmarauder your podfics, babe, you know how much I adore them. Um I'm terrible at remembering urls (I'm even worse with names). Uh. Um. Uhhhh. Uhhhhhhh... *we're all still waiting days later*

Three Things You're Looking Forward to in 2024: 9-1-1 SEASON SEVEN BABEEEEEEY

#tagging thing #about mads

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denim-mixtapes · 1 year

Note

Congrats on 1k!!! I'd like to request traditions: maybe baking Christmas cookies with Eddie? I love your Eddie! He's always characterized so well!

tsym friend!!! I feel like there's not a lot of actual baking in this...just two cuties being in love...but it's baking adjacent!! And I didn't wanna get too carried away with the actual details of baking bc I literally spend 40+ hours a week making cookies and if I actually wrote about the baking/decorating process there would be no Eddie it would just be cookies oop. ANYWAY ENJOY <3

w/c: 640

Join the Christmas Party!

“Ah, ah, ah!”

Eddie thinks he’s smooth, distracting you with a kiss to sneak a cookie away from the cooling rack on the counter behind you, but you saw him coming from a mile away. Leaning away from his embrace, you smack at the offending hand with your wooden spoon, giggling all the while.

“Just one!” He insists, turning those awful puppy dog eyes on you with a pout. “They smell so good! I think we make a good team!”

You step back with a snort to take in his appearance. He’s disheveled to say the least. Hair a mess, twisted up into one of your claw clips without a care in the world and dusted with flour from where you had a mild food fight. His loose sweatpants are streaked with chocolate from where he’d wiped his hands carelessly, and his shirt spotted with more flour and even a little food dye, which you have no idea where that came from, because you haven’t even started decorating yet. Despite it all, he’s still a beautiful sight to behold.

Your eyes soften and you smile, “fine, one.”

To your delight, he breaks the cookie in half and hands one piece to you with a warm mumble of, “here, we’ll share it.”

Thanking him with a sweet kiss on the cheek, you have to remind yourself to not get too sappy. When you proposed the idea of a cookie bake leading up to Christmas, you’d half expected Eddie to laugh and offer to be a taste tester instead. It’s what all your other partners had done in the past, but you were met with the exact opposite energy. Sure, now that you’re almost done he wants to taste them all, but who are you kidding, so do you. But no, he’s been happily by your side the whole time, from planning out the recipes, to shopping for ingredients, to actually doing the baking (even if you did have to show him how the stand mixer works like Patrick Swayze in Ghost). Still, you didn’t want to press your luck and scare him away by getting too emotional over cookies.

“Okay!” You exclaim around a mouthful of sugar. Eddie’s smile broadens as he chews his own bite, eyes sparkling at your enthusiasm. “We have one more batch to make while the sugar cookies cool. It’s not Christmas without hot cocoa cookies, after all.”

“Oh, you’re gonna kill me, that sound’s fucking fantastic,” he groans, eyes rolling to the ceiling, hand clutching at his heart dramatically.

While Eddie balls up the hot cocoa cookie dough to bake, you mix all of the frosting and icings for the sugar cookies, and as soon as he puts them in the oven you’re practically bouncing on your toes to start decorating.

“Someone’s eager,” Eddie teases, pulling up a bar stool next to yours at the counter.

“This is the best part!” You exclaim, ready to dive into explaining the different frostings and their different purposes, but the way he’s staring at you stops you in your tracks. It’s soft, a little dopey, and he smiles at you like you hung the moon. It’s how you were looking at him earlier. It makes your heart skip a beat. “What?”

“There is no best part,” he says, disguising the sap in his voice with a little forced laugh, “‘cause it’s all the best, getting to make memories with you.”

“Aw,” you coo, reaching out to hold his cheek, “that was really cheesy.”

His skin burns under your thumb where you stroke his cheekbone, and he bursts out into a real, full, laugh. “Yeah, it kind of was. Now,” he dips his finger into the closest bowl of frosting and reaches across the space between you to smear it on the tip of your nose. “Where do we start?”

#eddie munson/reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson/you #eddie munson x you #eddie drabble #1k celebration blurb #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #stranger things reader insert #stranger things fic

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carolrain · 11 months

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Good Vibes Tuesday

Are we doing Good Vibes Tuesday again? Well, if not, I’m doing Good Vibes Tuesday a week late.

(Thank you for tagging me last week, @mostlyinthemorning, @jesuisici33, @trickiwooao3)

Here's how @mostlyinthemorning explained it: I'm in the mood for some positivity this morning, so let's share something that makes you happy about fandom*. It can be anything you like—a person or blog you appreciate, a post that made you laugh, a fic you liked, anything that puts good vibes into the world.

*fandom can be whatever you want it to be

I’ve been reading 5+1 Things fics (for Schitt’s Creek) and I think all of you who have written them are so creative and fun. I love the various ways the format and subjects are explained. Here are just a few of my favorite “thesis statements”:

Or One haunted bed and breakfast that wasn't and five perfectly normal places to stay that were.

Five times Ruth comes in to ask for a book from Stevie, and one time she brings Stevie one of her own.

Six of Patrick's first times - or, five times Patrick explores his identity, and one time he ends up exactly where he's meant to be.

Or 5 ways the robbery could have gone down differently and 1 way that it didn’t.

Or five times Johnny wasn't sure about Patrick and one time he was.

(or 5 things Patrick frames for David + 1 thing David frames for Patrick)

Five times Patrick could have come out to his parents and 1 time he did

Here are 5 sweet Christmas moments Marcy was so glad she got to witness plus 1 she really wishes she hadn't overheard.

Five times Patrick was cold (and David warmed him up), and one time he was nice and toasty (also because David warmed him up). Kind of.

OR 5 moments in his life where Patrick made a spreadsheet to help him decide and 1 time he didn’t.

5 times David calls 911 when he shouldn't (+1 time he calls when he should)

Five Dances Patrick Has At His Wedding That Aren’t With His Husband and One That Is (Plus a Bonus)

Five of Patrick's birthdays we don't see in the show, and one we do.

Five times Alexis and Twyla talk at Café Tropical. And one time they talk somewhere else.

Five times Rachel spends the night at the Brewers', and one time David does.

Five times Alexis ran from grief, and one time she didn’t.

Five (tender) moments in cars we didn't get to see between David and Patrick, and one we did.

A 5+1 in which Twyla wears Alexis' clothes and Alexis is steadily driven insane by it.

Five hikes Patrick took with Alexis, plus one he took with David.

OR 5 times Esthelle Janes runs into David and Patrick and 1 time one of them finds his way to her.

Five New Year's Eves that failed to live up to David's expectations and one that surpassed them.

Five times Patrick has a lot of thoughts about touching David. And one time he doesn't overthink it.

Ray’s adventures on Bumpkin: the aftermath of five bad dates and one good one.

AKA 5 times David overreacted and the 1 time it was Patrick.

literally just Patrick realizing he wants to marry david forced into a 5+1 things format

(I'll put titles, authors, and links under a cut.)

A Room With A Boo by @januarium

as close as pages in a book by @stereopticons

at the right time, in the right surroundings by spelling__bee (@emotional-synth-music)

Bein' a Villain, for a While by @weathereyehorizon

everybody knows the secret by @fishyspots

Frame of Reverence by @lilythesilly

got to let it show by heartwarestore (@phansterdam)

Have Yourself A Marcy Little Christmas by YouWereAlwaysGonnaBeTheOne

i don't wanna go a (cold) day without you by @thegrayness

If/Then by ishandahalf

In Case of Emergency by @rosedavid

It Feels Like A Dream When You Love Me Tenderly by wanderhomeagain

Just give me all your mind (I've got a surprise) by @yourbuttervoicedbeau

know that i'm yours (to keep) by singsongsung (@anniemurphys)

Let's All Start Living for the One That's Going to Last by @norskheks

like glass from sandy ground by @middyblue

nothing safe is worth the drive by wardo_wedidit

one single thread of gold (tied me to you) by doingthemost (@sarahlevys), @roguebebe, @sunlightsymphony

Rattlesnake Point by @streetlampsunset

Share Your Address by @colourcodedbinders

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot? by iola17 (@beaiola)

Sometimes When We Touch by @delilah-mcmuffin

Swiping Regret by @treepyful

Take a chill pill by The_Forgotten_Nobody (@scarlett-ice)

what’s left is forever by roseapothecarys (@plainest)

What's giving you good vibes today? @lizzie-bennetdarcy @ramonaflow @demora00 @mallpretzles plus any of you other 26 people I tagged should feel free to jump right in.

#good vibes tuesday #schitt's creek #schitts creek #sc fanfic #sc fic rec

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eddie-sweetheart · 2 years

Text

🏕 Camp Lovers Lake - Chapter Six 🏕

An Eddie Munson x Female Reader summer camp story. Set just before the beginning of season 3 of Stranger Things, with a few diversions from the original plot of the series.

🏕 Chapters List

Pairing and tropes • Eddie Munson x Henderson Female Reader - fluff, forced proximity, slightly slow burn, summer camp clichés ♥︎

Summary • June, 1985. Close to the city of Hawkins, Indiana, the placid waters of Lovers Lake stand as the perfect background for the homonymous summer camp, where you’re about to be a counselor for the last time before senior year and then, hopefully, college. Your brother Dustin Henderson won’t be with you this year, as he’s chosen to attend Camp Know Where until July - but with your best friend Robin Buckley at your side and the unexpected addition of Steve Harrington to your duo, the upcoming months seem to promise endless fun and exciting adventures nonetheless. However, as you get closer to Eddie Munson, resident metalhead and drug dealer who’s been forced by his uncle to work at Camp Lovers Lake after another missed graduation, your plans for the summer might have to go in an unexpected direction.

Warnings • Cursing, possible mentions and/or depictions of violence, sexually suggestive language. Having no idea where this is going myself, you’ll need to be 18+ to read this fic just in case! In this chapter you'll also find veeery slight mentions of fake rape allegations and animal cruelty (nothing major I absolutely swear - it's just gossip - but I'll put them here anyways).

Chapter notes • Sorry for the long wait, but here we are! This one is more interaction-focused and it's quite long (lots of thoughts in here), but I hope you like it! I can't wait for the next chapters to come! Hope it makes sense so far :)

Chapter word count: 7.7+ k

🌹 Masterlist 🌹

The quest does, in fact, continue.

The thunderstorm and heavy rain that forcefully took over the treasure hunt doesn’t stop - on the contrary, it keeps coming undeterred the following day, the incessant downpour causing all plans and activities to be canceled as everyone reunites in the Headquarters with a cleared schedule and the special concession from the directing staff to occupy the long hours of the rainy day as each one prefers.

Most of the campers and counselors decide to go back to the games they took out last night and are now moving tiny pawns with chipped paint on faded Monopoly boards or shuffling old card decks before starting yet another rummy game. Others prefer to read or listen to music, getting lost in fictional worlds or occasionally sharing their headphones with a friend. Some younger kids are drawing and filling out with bright crayons the last few untouched pages of some coloring books. Back in the corner of the large main room, Jason Carver and his friends, Patrick included, are fruitlessly killing time by throwing a basketball into the air and joking about random topics that, according to the loud, saccharine laughs coming from Jenna, Tammy and a few other girls in their group, must be peak comedy.

In other circumstances, you might let the temptation to eavesdrop win over your good sense, even if you know that their conversations must be as funny as casual, misogynistic jokes can be; however, right now their babble, mixed with the rest of the chatter and the pattering of the heavy rain on the windows and walls of the Headquarters is nothing but a background noise whose words and sentences you have no intention to decipher: all your attention, as well as that of your friends, is indeed all caught up in Eddie’s D&D campaign.

With the story unveiling and becoming more interesting by the minute, especially thanks to Eddie’s storytelling skills and immersive recounting of your characters’ deeds, anything else is pushed to the back of your mind, and it’s a feeling that’s shared by the rest of your group: everyone, even Steve and Robin, has fallen under the spell of the fantasy game, the role-playing becoming more and more natural as you go along your imaginary adventure. You cross dangerous rivers, spend the night in the forest, investigate mysterious footprints in the mud, the storm raging outside becoming part of the story at some point - all in the span of a single day at Camp Lovers Lake.

Most of the magic happens because of Eddie. As a Dungeon Master, he reveals a new side of him that you weren’t expecting: he lets his creativity and imagination run wild, following the plot he prepared in his cabin at night, in the dim glow of his flashlight - but he’s quick to adapt the story to the party’s decisions and choices, creating new scenarios and letting the adventure flow with his melodious tone and theatrical gestures, guiding you through the rules and dice throws without influencing your decisions and your interpretations of the characters. You are all wrapped around his finger, hanging to his every word and revelation, gasping when a treasure is found in the secret compartment of a marble column or cursing when a troll or goblin manages to hit you during a fight.

And that’s actually what is happening right now: an angry goblin has just hit you with his rusty sword, and you’re left with just a few hit points - and now it’s your turn to choose what to do next.

“Use the healing potion!” Gareth excitedly suggests, the pencil in his hand drumming rapidly on his character sheet. “You can get some points back and keep fighting for a while”.

You’re tempted to follow his hint, especially because he’s a seasoned player and this is just your first campaign; however, as you stare at the menacing d20 die lingering in the middle of the wooden table, another idea pops into your mind.

“If I hit him and kill him” you tentatively say, your eyes rising to meet Robin’s across the table, “only the hobgoblin is left. He might attack me as then I’ll be closer to him than any of you on the map, but as he moves to do that Robin can perform an opportunity attack and tear him apart”.

You don’t know if that makes any sense - you’re not even sure that the opportunity attack works this way, but it definitely seems more reasonable to you than gulping down a healing potion whose effect will completely wear out with the next hit you receive. If there’s a chance of winning this battle, this is it, you think.

“That might work” Jeff observes as he checks out the squared sheet of paper on which seven pebbles indicate the positions of your adventurers and the two NPCs on the map.

“Yes, but if the hobgoblin harms her, she’s as well as dead” Gareth insists, and you’re glad to understand that he’s choosing the safe option because he doesn’t want you to stop playing.

“We will all be, if we don’t finish him quickly” Steve chips in, “in my experience, the sooner you face the fucker, the better. No use in procrastinating the inevitable”.

Robin swiftly turns towards him. “In your experience?” she jokes, barely managing to hold in a laugh, “what are you, a professional monster hunter?”

As you grab the die and start weighing it in your hand, you notice a weird look appearing on Steve’s face - almost as if he’s realized he has just said something that should have stayed a secret. But it goes away so quickly that you come to the conclusion that you’ve probably just imagined it.

“Movies, duh” Steve replies, glaring at Robin, “you know what I’m talking about”.

Robin shrugs. “If you say so” she states, before turning back to you. “So, y/n, what are you going to do? Time is running out here”.

Your gaze spontaneously falls on Eddie, as you feel the need for his advice even if your choice is already almost completely clear in your head. However, he doesn’t take an explicit position: his upside-down smile lets you know that this is something that you need no help with.

“Your choice, princess” he declares, the rings on his fingers glittering in the light of the ceiling lamp as he spreads his hands in a bestowing gesture.

You look up at him, moving your eyes back and forth between his encouraging look and the d20 in your hand.

“You can do this” Eddie adds in a light whisper, meant only for you to hear. His voice unexpectedly sends shivers running down your spine, and as a low thunder rumbles outside in the distance, you make your final decision.

“I’m rolling to attack” you announce, shaking the die in your closed fist before letting it fall on the table.

“Shit” Gareth hisses, his hands nervously grabbing his own hair as he and everyone else lean closer to the table, their eyes fixed on the rolling die. Even Eddie is staring, his lower lip caught between his teeth as the tiny piece of plastic moves across the wooden surface in an endless spin, until…

“18” you sigh with relief, soon echoed by everyone else’s cheering. “Please, tell me that’s enough” You ask Eddie with pleading eyes, the shadow of a hopeful smile already appearing on your lips.

Eddie lifts his eyebrows and grins as he starts speaking.

“You all see princess Eowyn moving towards the goblin, raising her longsword above her head in a last effort of collected strength. She aims at the head of the creature and with one swift gesture…” he pauses for suspense, basking in the expectant looks of five pairs of eyes stuck on him. “She swings her weapon and hits the goblin, taking him out in one single motion” he concludes solemnly, moving one of the pebbles beyond the edge of the map and away from your fighting field.

Everyone exults, and you relax in your chair. Don’t even need to throw the damage dice this time, because your strategy was definitely worth it: as you suspected, the goblin was on his last hit point, so all you need to do now is see what comes next.

And, unsurprisingly, the final part of the fight happens exactly as you predicted: with your character losing consciousness at the hands of the hobgoblin, who attacks you only to be immediately slain by a critical hit rolled by Robin.

The atmosphere at the table is ecstatic as everyone cheers your best friend, Eddie included. With this final fight, the short campaign he planned has already come to an end, but he’s filled with proud happiness at the sight of your party’s enthusiasm during the game.

You catch his barely repressed smile as he collects all his notes into his black binder, everyone else’s chatter and comments about the adventure still echoing around the table, and something warms up inside you. It’s something that you can’t quite place a name on yet, but that it’s getting more and more frequent every day, and any time you meet Eddie’s chocolate eyes, or every time he casually brushes against you for trivial reasons - passing through a door at the same time, your legs accidentally bumping into each other when you sit down on the steps of your cabin’s front porch at sunset, or when he hands you something across the table and your fingers lightly touch by mistake.

It’s a different feeling from what you’ve felt with Patrick before. With him, it was all tingles mixed with nervousness and expectations and the thrill of the first time; with Eddie it’s a swarm of butterflies that fills you whole, fluttering inside you until you feel it drawing you towards him, almost physically at times. It’s as if the more time you spend with him and knowing him, the more you feel a thread connecting him to you, an invisible but altogether tangible line that ties you together whether it’s either across a table or across a room.

And you feel it now, too, right in the heart of the Headquarters on an incessantly rainy evening - but you’re prevented from exploring its possible meanings any further, as Eddie himself turns towards you and snaps his fingers in front of your face, the metal of his rings clanging as he brings you back to the present moment, away from your thoughts.

“Heart to y/n” he almost sings, his smile growing warmer as he addresses you, “are you still lost in our adventure?”

You chuckle embarrassedly. “Yeah, you could say so” you decide to reply, hiding your actual thoughts with a shrug, “that was an amazing one, really - I can’t wait to tell Dustin about it, he’ll be thrilled. Thank you for letting us try the game, sir Dungeon Master” you add, mimicking a royal bow as you get up to head towards the food counters, as dinner has just been announced.

Eddie’s cheeks turn slightly pinker and his smile shines brighter as he stands up as well and follows you, leaving the others at the table for now. No one seems to notice you leaving as they’re still caught up in their chatter - except Robin, who throws you a curious glance while she keeps talking to Gareth.

“My pleasure, princess” Eddie replies, his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans as he leans down towards you while you stand in the already long line that has formed at the side of the room. “You’ve played one hell of a game for a first-timer. Slayed all the monsters like pieces of cake, huh?”

You shrug again, with genuine modesty this time. “Robin did most of it” you reply, nodding towards your table, “killed that final boss with a natural 20 like she was born to play D&D”.

“Sure, she did” Eddie agrees approvingly, “but your strategy? Maaaan, that was a pro move” he exclaims, accompanying the dragging tone of his voice with a theatrical hand movement.

“N need to flatter me, Munson” you chuckle, slightly elbowing him in the side, “but I’m glad you approved of my choice”.

Eddie smiles wide, his fingers lingering on the spot on his body where you’ve just touched him. Then, dinner is served.

— 🏕 —

Finally, after a day and a half of pouring, unstopping rain and loud thunders, the following morning welcomes you with a bright blue sky and a crisp summer breeze, not a single cloud to be seen on the horizon.

Birds are singing again, flying out in the open from the safety of their nests among the tree branches, flowers glimmer in full color in the dewy green grass, and even if the ground is still wet and splashes of mud are scattered here and here all over camp, the warm sun rays and fresh air are the perfect excuse for spending the whole day outside.

All the camp activities are restored and, following a shared agreement from the whole staff, the vast majority of them will be held outside to make up for the previous day of lockdown.

A painting station is set up on the Headquarters’ porch, where Steve and some younger kids are spending the morning recreating the colors and shapes of leaves and flowers; Robin is stuck on the lake shores, overlooking a definitely unsuccessful fishing session; you, instead, have found yourself paired with Eddie as you are both in charge of directing a group of overexcited kids through some rounds of a capture-the-flag game.

With a lot of effort, mostly due to the need to navigate through established friendships and preferences, you’ve managed to let the kids split and line up in two more or less orderly rows, one in front of the other. Right at the end of the two rows, staring into each other’s eyes with a challenging smirk as the contagious competitive spirit of the campers is slowly and inexorably starting to affect you both, you stand as captain of Team Red, while Eddie is leading Team Blue.

Between the two of you, pinned loosely on a wooden stick, is the so-called flag: a white cotton square, flapping lazily in the soft breeze.

“Alright, Team Red and Blue” you begin, grabbing the attention of the giddy kids with a clap of your hands. “The rules are easy. Each one of you is a number; starting from Tim here, we are counting one to ten” you say, patting lightly on the head a grinning Tim, whose stay at camp has substantially improved after Jason’s brother has been moved away from his cabin. “Keep your number in mind - because, once we call it, you and the kid with the same number from the opposite team will have to compete for the flag. The first who brings it back to their place in the row scores one point for the team” you conclude, nodding towards the wooden stick and catching a glimpse of Eddie’s very smug smile.

“Is everything clear?” He asks the kids, crossing his tattooed arms across his camp t-shirt as he eyes with particular intention the slightly frightened kids of his team, “I want to see you fight for that flag, army-crawling your way to it if necess-“

“Without hurting yourselves, that is” you interrupt him, nudging him intently as you throw your brightest and most reassuring grin to the petrified row of kids with blue stripes painted on their cheeks. “It’s important that we all have a good time, alright?”.

While the still unconvinced campers start getting ready and focused, Eddie leans towards you with a look of complicity. “Party pooper” he whispers in your ear, but you can feel the smile in his joking tone as his breath tickles the side of your neck.

“Afraid you’ll lose without the violence, Munson?” You joke back, turning around to get in position at the head of your row, your cheeks slightly heating up at the closeness.

“Me?” Eddie exclaims, clutching his heart dramatically as the steps backward, taking his place next to Team Blue as well. “I’m a sworn pacifist. Let’s make love, not war” he declares, his eyes never leaving yours.

Thankfully, you remember that there are twenty kids right there with you, eager to start playing, so you manage to snap out of his magnetic gaze and clap your hands one last time.

“Alright, campers!” You state, the suspense palpable among the kids as you wait to announce the first number. “Let’s start with… number three!”

One at a time, you and Eddie alternate in calling numbers for the following half hour, watching excitedly as the kids run and clash into each other, stand still next to the flag waiting for the other’s next move, fall on the ground after slipping on a patch of mud just to get up again laughing and with dirty clothes. Thankfully, no one gets hurt and everyone’s having fun, even if the competition is getting more intense - and you and Eddie slowly start getting into it as well, moving past mere superintendence as you cheer the kids when they score points and encourage them when they lose the flag to the other team.

“Yes! Yes!” Eddie is exulting now, throwing his ringed fists in the air as a girl from Team Blue earns another point and makes the score tie to 15-15. “That was fucking amazing, Williams” he tells her with a huge grin, bending to her height with one hand raised in front of her.

You refrain from calling his swearing out as you notice that the girl is looking at him panting, the white flag held tight in her fist as rivulets of sweat roll down her forehead. She hesitates a second as she studies him, her eyes moving fast between his encouraging look and his hand - until, finally, she grins back at him enthusiastically and gives him a loud high-five.

You smile at the interaction, your heart warming up as you watch Eddie roughly ruffling the girl’s hair with pride - seeing him interact and play with the younger campers like this forced job isn’t that bad after all makes you feel glad that he’s here.

But above it all, you’re happy that the kids are able to see past his tattoos, his long hair and heavy rings, moving beyond the prejudices and preconceptions that they’ve been taught from the day they’re born. Just as Jason Carver is always picture-perfect but secretly hides mean remarks and the attitude of a real bully, Eddie is proving again and again how kind, funny and creative he can be - to you, to your friends and to the campers as well. Sure, he might be a weird metalhead who’s into fantasy games and who presents himself with a dark, moody façade that he wears like armor - but deep down he’s a good guy. Special, you’d dare say. And watching the kids getting to know him and discovering all the beautiful sides that shine through the cracks of prejudice and appearances just warms you, because you know that it must feel good for Eddie, as well.

“Miss y/n” a voice from your left suddenly grabs your attention, making you turn your head away from Eddie. “You should play the final round”

With your eyebrows furrowed, you curiously look at Tim, who is speaking to you with a wide smile on his lips. The other kids on Team Red are nodding enthusiastically behind him, some of them encouraging you to go ahead, and make them win - their growing cheers immediately echoed by the members of Team Blue as the girl who just high-fived Eddie is pulling at his t-shirt to convince him to join you.

“Guys, we can’t” you try to reason with them, “this is your match, you’ve played so well so far and it wouldn’t be fair-“

“Afraid of losing, Henderson?” Eddie chips in, mocking your own statement as he takes a step forward, his hands on his hips and the swarm of Team Blue kids giggling behind him.

You cross your arms on your chest, pretending to be offended as the kids in Team Red gasp in surprise.

“Come on, Miss y/n, please” Tim nudges you in your side, his expectant and pleading puppy eyes making a soft smile appear on your smile.

“Well, if you put it like this...” you reply, lifting your gaze up to meet Eddie’s with a sigh. “I guess I’ll have to defend my honor”.

The loud cheering of the campers rings in your ears as you and Eddie walk to the back of your respective rows, your heads high as you feel the invisible thread between the two of you vibrate with an exciting kind of tension. The playfulness and defiance in Eddie’s eyes make your heart beat faster and your smile gets harder to hide. He cocks an eyebrow up at you, his own smirk mirroring yours as he places his palms flat on his bending knees, ready to spring as soon as you get the go-ahead. Something in your stomach twists, but you push the feeling away as you firmly direct your eyes towards the billowing piece of white cotton in the near distance.

“Ready…” Tim exclaims as he begins the countdown, the kids beside him crossing their fingers and cheering you on. “Set.. go!”

It all happens in the whirlwind of a few seconds. Both you and Eddie sprint towards the flagpole, racing to be the first to get to it; you’re losing ground at first, Eddie’s long, jeans-clad legs allowing him to cover more distance with each step. But suddenly he almost slips, the sole of one of his white Reeboks sliding on a patch of mud - he wavers but doesn’t fall, but it’s too late: you get to the pole first and the flag is now in your hand, and you wave it victoriously as you turn around.

It doesn’t end here, though, and you know it - and so does Eddie. As he balances himself to stand up straight again, you realize that now you have to make it back to your spot in the row to score the point - but to do so, you’ll have to pass by him.

Eddie looks at you with glinting eyes and a knowing smirk, the lean muscles tense under the fabric of his clothes as he’s ready to sprint in whatever direction you’re going.

You look back at him, chest heavy with quick puffs.

“Take your time, sweetheart” Eddie coos, his eyes steady on yours, “I'm in no rush”.

The kids on both teams hold their breath in anticipation. You consider and weigh all options, then decide to go for a little trick - you don’t know if it’s going to work, but at this point it doesn’t really matter.

Slowly at first, you make your way towards the left one step at a time. Eddie matches your every movement, a chuckle threatening to escape his lips (and yours as well) while you tiptoe towards each other as if you’re walking on eggs.

Then, all of a sudden you sprint to the right, attempting a last-minute turn that seems to catch him by surprise. You feel Eddie’s rings and fingertips graze the skin of your arm as you move past and around him, your spot in the Team Red row now closer than ever, the cheers of victory from the kids already echoing in your ears… but just as you’re about to step in place, you feel a tug around your waist and you’re suddenly pulled backward.

In the blink of an eye, you hear Eddie scream a loud “Gotcha!”, but before you can realize that whatever’s grabbing you it’s actually one of his arms, your feet skid without any warning and you feel the ground escape from under your shoes, the sky turning upside down.

With an unexpected splash, you and Eddie tumble into each other and lose your balance, the kids’ surprised exclamations loud around you as you both fall in a muddy puddle, brown grime splattering all over you and staining the white of your t-shirts.

However, as you find yourself literally head over heels, you don’t feel the hardness of the ground beneath you: instead, you’ve landed on something soft, and… moving. As you turn your head to make sense of what’s happened, you realize that you’re lying on Eddie’s chest.

“Shit, you okay?” He asks you, half worried and half amused, one of his hands fluttering across your face and grazing your cheek uncertainly, before landing on your shoulder.

It takes a few seconds for you to respond, as surprise has taken you aback - and because all of your attention is now focused on him being so close. You can’t take your eyes away from his face, from the definite line of his lips, from the soft curve of his nose, from the light in his eyes that seems to be miles deep as you stare into them, the palm of your hand now extremely aware of the rising and falling of his chest as he breathes beneath you.

Batting your eyelids a few times to get back to the present moment, you cough to disguise your slight embarrassment.

“Uhm, yeah, I think so” you reply, getting up to your feet as quickly as you can to examine the damage.

In order to prevent you from going straight into the puddle, Eddie’s tried to shield you from the mud by falling backward and pulling you on top of him - as the thick layer of dirt on his back, his torso and part of his face clearly demonstrates. But it didn’t help much: your shirt is irreparably stained as well, and blobs of thick, brown water are sliding down your cheeks and matting your hair.

“God, we really need a shower now” you mutter as you pluck some wet grass from your ponytail, grimacing at the thought of how much scrubbing you’ll have to do to get rid of all the dirt.

Eddie, who’s been quick to follow you into standing up, nods in agreement, taking a step back with a mischievous smile. “‘Course” he says, as he places himself at the end of the now silent and expectant kids of Team Blue, “but first, we have a victory to celebrate”.

You lift your gaze to him and as soon as you see the previously white flag, now scattered with dark and blotchy stains, waving proudly in his hand, you let out a defeated sigh.

The Team Blue kids erupt in a loud cheer, unmirrored by the sad frowns of Team Red, and you mutter a resigned “congratulations, Munson” as Eddie happily joins the celebrations, bowing down solemnly to the campers that are exulting around him.

— 🏕 —

“And he won? Just like that?”

Robin’s excitement at your retelling of the unexpected turn taken by the capture-the-flag game makes you chuckle.

You're back in your cabin, crickets chirping outside in the dark as you’re getting changed into your pajamas. It’s not bedtime yet, however: after an early dinner that your sports-fuelled appetite welcomed quite eagerly, it’s now time for the annual movie night - which, thanks to the warmth of the early evening, will be held outside the Headquarters, under the starry sky.

“Yeah, he did! The audacity, right?” You reply as you wriggle into your PJ top - an oversized ABBA t-shirt that almost completely covers your light cotton shorts.

“And he did that after he hugged you into a fall?” Robin continues, leaning towards you as the playfulness in her tone reaches her lips, which curve into a knowing smirk.

“He didn’t hug me” you protest, grabbing your pillow from the top bunk before making your way towards the door. “He grabbed me to stop me from, you know, winning the game, and he accidentally slipped on the mud and I ended on top of him- God, Robin, don’t look at me like that!” you yell at your friend, trying to hide your embarrassed laugh as you throw your pillow at the increasingly sardonic expression on her face. “I know how that sounds, but I guarantee you it’s not like that!”

“Okay, dingus, calm down!” Robin exclaims, the smirk never leaving them as she catches the pillow just in time, “you don’t need to murder me to prove your point! It makes it seem even more less than a point, you know? But okay” she quickly adds at the sound of your groan, throwing the pillow back at you and lifting her palms in surrender. “I won’t mention it again if you don’t want to. I’m just saying it’s cute, like something straight out of a romantic movie where both protagonists are too busy hiding their real feelings to actually enjoy them and-“

“Robin” you interrupt her, leaning against the door with a soft smile, “I promise, we’re just friends. Now can we please go? I don’t want to miss the beginning of the only real movie we’re seeing at this camp”.

Robin sighs, jumping to her feet off of the small desk where she was sitting. “Alright, Miss Just Friends, as you wish” she murmurs, throwing an arm around your shoulders as you both head outside.

As you make your way in the dark, meeting a few other campers and counselors on the path to the Headquarters, you can already catch some glimpses of the cinema-like setup from a distance. Then, once you get closer and finally come in full view of the large wooden building, you realize that this year the directing staff have really outdone themselves.

The whole porch is decorated with fairy lights, twisting around the handrail and hanging from the roof in large glittering curves. Hung between the two wooden pillars on top of the short set of stairs, a white, king-size bedsheet is illuminated by the light of the projector, which is set in place behind lots of cushions and picnic blankets scattered on the ground. Most of the kids are there already, sitting in small groups and snacking on warm popcorn that Mrs. Janet is handing out by the kitchen.

“Woah” Robin exclaims, the sparkle of the fairy lights reflecting in her eyes as she amusedly stares at the ensemble, “it wasn’t this nice last year”.

“I know, right?” You nod in agreement while you scan the sparse crowd, looking for your friends until your attention is grabbed by Steve’s waving hand.

You gently tug Robin by her arm, bringing her attention back to Earth as you both climb over pillows and other people’s legs to reach Steve. He’s sitting with Jeff, Gareth and Eddie on a large blanket, whose checkered print almost exactly matches the ones on their pajama pants.

“Hello, strangers” Steve exclaims as he watches you approach, “about time you got here. Thankfully I was early enough to get the best seats in the house”.

“Thank you so much, Harrington” you ironically reply, waving your hand back as you make your way towards them, Robin following your every step to avoid crashing into anyone - since, as she always argues, she has terrible coordination.

As soon as you reach the group, Eddie shoots up to his feet to greet you.

“Hi, princess” he says with a complicit smirk, making you blush with the nickname he’s borrowed from your D&D session, “how’s the coping process with today’s defeat going?”.

You glare at Robin as she badly suppresses a snicker, watching her sit down with the others before turning your eyes back to Eddie’s.

“Not too bad, thanks” you reply, mocking indifference as casually as you can, “even if I could argue that foul play was involved”.

“Oh, was it, now?” Eddie jokes, but he suddenly grows silent as his eyebrows furrow and he leans closer to you.

You’re instantly petrified as he lifts up one hand to your cheek, your heart thumping hard and fast in your chest as a million thoughts run through your head trying to understand what he’s doing with his face only a few inches away from yours - then, taking you out of your anxious wondering, Eddie scrubs something away from your left cheek with a flick of his fingers, his skin grazing at yours for the second time today as he absentmindedly tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear.

“It was, uh, a bit of dry mud” Eddie mumbles as he straightens up away from you, hiding his hand behind his back quickly as if he’s caught himself doing something he shouldn’t have.

You swallow slowly, the sensation of his fingers still on you. “Uhm, thanks” you reply, shying away from him as you sit down on the blanket.

Steve throws a meaningful glare at Robin, who only shrugs in response - you catch the eloquent wiggling of her eyebrows nonetheless, but refrain from nudging her this time.

“Alright” Eddie exclaims, his tone just a pitch too high as he claps his ringed hands together. “I’ll go get some popcorn. Jeff, come with me?”

“Come on, man, I’ve just sat down” Jeff whines, but a burning glare from Eddie makes him stand up with a grunt. They come back with two full paper bags just when the movie starts, and the salty smell of popcorn immediately fills your nostrils as Eddie plops down next to you.

The movie is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which came out last year and was highly requested by campers and counselors alike. The excitement is palpable around you, and even your friends are enchanted by the adventures displayed on the makeshift screen: their eyes are glued to it, and they hold their breath when suspense gets intense.

Scene after scene, caught up in the plot even if it’s the third or fourth time he’s seen the movie, Gareth is relentlessly stuffing popcorn in his mouth, with Steve elbowing him every now and then as Jeff whispers a low “leave some for us, too, man”. Every time that happens, you, Robin and Eddie snicker behind them, thankful that you’re more democratic in sharing the bag of popcorn that you’re holding between them.

During the whole film, indeed, you’ve been alternating picking from the snack bag, in an unrehearsed but perfectly synchronized sequence: Eddie first, since he’s been so kind to go and get the popcorn himself, then you, as you’re sitting right in the middle, then Robin. During a particularly suspenseful scene, however, right when Indy is attacked by an assassin in his room at Pankot Palace, you’re so immersed in the movie that you forget that it’s not your turn yet, and your fingers meet Eddie’s inside the half-empty popcorn bag.

It lasts only a second, and with a low “oh, sorry” you retreat your hand to your lap; but it’s finally done, now, and the movie plot seems to lose any sense as you fail to follow it from this scene onwards. Suddenly, Eddie’s presence beside you becomes the only thing you can feel: the light touch of his knee against yours (has it always been there?), the glimpses of his wild, curly hair that you catch in the corner of your eye, his earthy and sweet scent brought to you by the soft summer breeze, the heat radiating from this body that seems to ignite you in your cheeks and belly without a touch. And it’s there, back again, the new, exciting and scary feeling that you’ve felt so many times by now, the unexpected hope of something great, the warmth of a kindred soul - it feels good, it feels terrifying, it feels like Eddie, and as you slowly, finally come to terms with what it means, right there in the nightly dark, surrounded by projected sacred temples and flickering fairy lights, you can’t help a smile of relief from blooming on your lips. Because you know, finally, what that feeling is - or better, you’ve always known, but now you feel confident enough to admit it. It feels a little like losing control, alright, but is it that bad? Losing control for something that feels this good?

You don’t realize it, and no one else notices, but you shake your head just slightly. No, it really wouldn’t be that bad to lose control. Not for Eddie - not with Eddie.

But. And as this tiny, powerful word appears in your mind, your smile freezes for a second. What if. A million possible doors open up in front of you, each leading to a different worst-case scenario. And you start to think straight again.

But, even if the feeling is something good and new, something you’ve never experienced before, what if the consequences it may bring are the same as those brought by other feelings you’ve felt already? What if it comes to light, this indescribable thing that moves everything inside you without you being able to keep it down, and it ruins everything? What if he doesn’t feel it as much as you do? Or worse, what if he doesn’t feel it at all? It might just be all in your head, for all that you know. A longing for something that’s not actually there, that you thought you had with someone else and that you’ve lost now. Something that was never there, but god, how you wished it was.

You bite your lip as you go back to the story on the screen, pushing everything to the back of your mind. It’s no use getting this worked up now - you can think about it later, or tomorrow. Well, you might even mention something about it to Robin, if you’ll feel like it. Your eyes focus and you wonder how the hell did the movie go from a beautiful Indian palace to a railroad in the mines - but it’s Indiana Jones, so you guess there must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for that.

It doesn’t take long for the movie to end. When the theme song starts playing and the credits roll on the bedsheet wavering in the breeze, everyone starts yawning and getting up.

“Shit, that was so cool” Gareth exclaims, stretching his arms in the air, popcorn crumbles falling on the blanket as he gets up, “I really wish they’ll make more movies”.

“Next time I won’t sit next to you, though” Jeff scoffs, “you’re a snack thief”.

Gareth groans. “Jesus, are you for real?” He talks back to Jeff, hands wavering as he throws himself and his friend into a whirlwind of back-and-forth bickering that doesn’t end until they reach their cabin. They barely even say goodnight to the rest of your group, but none of you actually minds - what’s more, as you watch them arguing while they fiddle with the door handle, you let out a small chuckle that you’re thankful they haven’t heard.

After leaving Jeff and Gareth, you, Robin, Steve and Eddie walk a bit more, talking about the movie and about tomorrow’s plans. When Steve and Eddie reach their cabin, they wave goodnight and go inside - Eddie’s upside-down smile following you until you and Robin are out of sight.

“God, I can’t wait to sleep” Robin groans, throwing herself on the bed as soon as you get into your room. “I’m so glad they went for a pajama party dress code. I’m so tired I couldn’t bear to get changed. You know, like, I could sleep for a whole fucking century and not even world war three would wake me up - ”.

You listen to Robin’s endless grumbling with a smile as you move towards the ladder that leads to the upper bunk, but you stop right in your tracks when you notice that the window in front of the small desk is still open.

“Shit” you mutter, taking a few steps to reach it, barefoot on the wooden floor. As you grab the frame to close it, however, you hear someone talking outside.

“… I swear, it’s true. If Harrington and those two silly friends of his actually heard about it, I bet they’d stop treating them like they’re worth something”

“Y/n, can you pleeeease turn off the light? I’m trying to sleep here” Robin complains, her voice muffled by the pillow. You ignore her, trying to recognize the voice outside - until it clicks. It’s Tammy Thompson.

“… Yeah, Carver told me. That’s why it must be-“

“Y/N” Robin groans louder, but you shush her immediately. She lifts her face up with an outraged look and you apologize silently, waving at her to reach you next to the window. She doesn’t move at first, but as you insist she finally gets up with an exasperated sigh. Once she’s next to you, you flick off the light as quietly as you can.

“What?” Robin whispers, and you touch one of your ears with a finger before pointing outside.

“Here it is” Tammy continues, taking a short pause to make a puffing sound - as an acrid smell reaches you, you realize she must be smoking with someone. “But promise not to tell anyone, okay? I mean, no one that doesn’t, you know, share our opinion on this”.

“Promise! Now go on, I’m dying to know over here” another feminine voice replies, but you have no idea who that might be.

“Alright” Tammy begins, and you swear you can hear the malicious smirk in her voice. “So, a few days ago Jason Carver was talking about Munson and those two freaks that follow him like dogs everywhere, right? He mentioned how he made fun of him once at lunch after y/n Henderson said something about Jason requesting his rightful portion of food or whatever, and how the two of them talked back at Patrick during their hike and stuff”

“Oh yeah, I noticed that” Tammy’s friend replies, “are they like, together now?” She then adds disgustedly.

“Jeez, I hope not for her” Tammy says, “she’s still in time to steer clear of him, even if I don’t think she’ll do that - or Harrington, or their other weird friend with short hair. Buckley, I think her name is. Too bad, I guess”. After a short break, during which she’s loudly puffing smoke, she goes on. “Anyways, Jason was saying how outrageous it is that Munson and his freaks talk back to him or even address him when he knows what they do in their free time. And no, it’s not about that awful music they play, but it’s kinda related. Jason swears that he’s seen them doing something terrible in the woods behind the school - something in the name of the same evil they sing and play about”.

Tammy pauses for some dramatic effect, and her friend urges her to go on.

“Well” Tammy continues in a lower voice, and you have to get closer to the window to hear better, “he said he was walking past the woods after practice one day, and saw them sitting at the picnic table - you know the one, yeah? He couldn’t see what they were doing, but it was looking very suspicious, so he waited until they went back to class. And guess what he found on the table? A dead squirrel. Gutted in a pool of blood. And with the blood they had drawn a freaking pentacle on a tree”.

You and Robin look at each other with wide eyes full of surprise and outrage at the blatant lie - Robin even slaps one hand on her open mouth.

“What’s a pentacle?” Tammy’s friend murmurs, her stupefied words echoed by the chirping of crickets in the woods around camp.

“Oh, I have no idea” Tammy casually replies, all the drama now gone from her tone, “but it has something to do with the devil. Yeah, I know right?” She adds, as her friend gasps loudly. “But Jason is keeping this to himself, and only told me and a few others. Says he wants to wait for the right time - when Munson and the freaks cross the line for good”.

A beat of silence occurs before Tammy’s friend speaks again. “Gosh, Tammy, you’ve been so brave to be alone with him in the woods the other day. I wonder what might have happened if you had followed him off the path”.

“I was lucky” Tammy replies gravely, “would you be surprised if he assaulted me or something? I wouldn’t, that’s for sure. I could make something like that up and everyone would believe me instantly - that would be quite the lesson for people like him. But even the thought of having to deal with-“

Something cracks in the distance - a branch, maybe, or some leaves, and Tammy and her friends almost shriek before rushing away and back to their cabin next to yours.

As silence fills the room and the sounds of the woods slowly creep back in the background, Robin closes the window.

“Shit” she hisses, now wide awake. “Shit. Did you hear that?”

You don’t reply immediately. You’re still by the window, frozen in place with your heart filled with rage and sadness and powerlessness at the thought of what you’ve just heard, at the injustice and at the bullying that Jason Carver, Tammy Thompson and their narrow-minded companions are perpetrating towards Eddie and his friends.

“Y/n” Robin speaks up softly, one hand tentatively placed on your arm as she notices your eyes growing glassy. “Are you okay?”

You shake your head. “You know that’s a bunch of stupid lies” you finally snap, worry irrationally taking over you, “right?”

Robin stares at you for a second, her mind putting all the pieces together once and for all. It’s only fair that you’re angry at Tammy Thompson for talking behind your friend’s back - hell, she’d be mad if she caught someone talking like that about you. But seeing you so distraught, so upset about someone you’ve known for less than a month, that’s new - or, it should be. However, since she’s come to recognize the hidden meanings of all the little interactions she’s witnessed between you and Eddie by now, it doesn’t seem that new after all.

“Of course” she exclaims, reassuringly placing her free hand on your other arm as well, “are you kidding? They would never. That’s all Jason Carver’s doing. The kid’s mental, I could swear on that”.

“What do we do?” You ask her, apprehension clouding your gaze.

Robin takes a breath. “Let’s go to sleep” she replies, quietly. “We’ll think about it tomorrow”.

— 🏕 —

Hope you enjoyed this chapter :) Feedback is always welcome!

Taglist • @meaganjm @emwhite1 @juggernort @final-girllll @mermemerald @sarcasm-is-my-form-of-attack @stardustworlds @eddiesbirdie @carolineesnell @djarintreble @earthtokace @copycatkillerfics @purpleorbvoid @shinydixon @kiribabyy @whoreforhowl @eddiesskittle @princesseddie

#eddie munson #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fluff #camp lovers lake #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #stranger things 4 #stranger things x reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munsons stranger things #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things x you #steve harrington #robin buckley

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demoisverysexy · 1 year

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For reals though, how would you improve the church in a more socialistic and queer friendly manner? (Answer cannot involve defenestration)

So, to get the church to a more progressive place would be a tall order. So I’m not gonna aim for “socialistic” quite yet, at least at first. Rather, I would first want to lay the groundwork for more radically progressive things in the future, while making some changes that should have taken place already. These include, in no particular order:

Allowing for gay marriage and full participation in the church for trans folks: perhaps the most radical change on the list, and the most needed.

De-emphasize the idea of eternal marriage, and expand the idea of what eternal family is: Essential for aro/ace people, and goes hand in hand with the first one

Apologize for past wrongs: This includes doctrines such as the priesthood/temple ban for black members, past and current colonialism, and the current practices of LGBTQ exclusion from church ordinances and participation.

Give every worthy member the opportunity to have the priesthood: Also needed to make the church less patriarchal. This would hopefully lead to more diverse leadership in time

Get rid of the idea of “unchanging truth”: This hurts us more often than not, and leads us to defend ideas that are harmful. Better to be committed to focusing on all the “many great and important things” God has “yet to reveal.”

Developing and spreading a unique mormon theology: We need some ideas and thinkers to be popularized that are more uniquely weird and Mormon. People like Patrick Q. Mason, Fiona and Terryl Givens, and Adam S. Miller come to mind, and I am sure there are many more. We cannot be content to crib notes from evangelical Christianity.

Get inspired by other faith traditions: Idk, Mormons could really stand to gain inspiration from Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. I mean, we do believe that most if not all religions have truth in them, and we should do more as a church (and as a culture of individuals) to seek to learn from other religions.

Keep encouraging reliance and interdependence, but stop defending capitalism: Mormons being thrifty and resourceful is good. Just not when they’re encouraged to treat capitalism like a nigh spiritual doctrine. Stop it.

Get rid of the American Exceptionalism: This speaks for itself.

Really embrace the Book of Mormon: A lot of the power of the BoM goes untapped, I think. The BoM is a document about how to be a Christian when the world crumbles around you, how to have faith in Christ in a faithless and hopeless world. It describes in detail the evils of xenophobia and fascism and class division, and tells us that while a better world is possible, we must never be complacent, lest division arises and plunges us into chaos. It is a book of religion unlike any other, and while our reliance on the D&C is important, I think we cannot be content in thinking that simply having the BoM makes us different from other Christian faiths. We have to look at what about the BoM is different compared to what came before in order to be truly Mormon.

Focus more on Christ and his love and forgiveness and grace and mercy: Please for the love of God we don’t have nearly enough of that, as much as Mormon weirdness is great, we often get lost in the esoteric weeds and miss the forest for the trees. Bring it all back to Christ please and thank you

More tolerance for those who leave: This speaks for itself. Mormons tend to get too defensive about their faith, and are scared and intimidated by people who decide it is not for them, in part or in full. We should do more to listen to them and be welcoming to them without trying to force them to return.

Change the focus of missionary work from proselyting to service: Some good strides have happened here with the introduction of service missions, but to me, I think all missions should be service first and proselyting second. And we need to be a lot less door to door salesy. It’s creepy and a bit manipulative a lot.

Let us say Mormon again: Nelson, buddy, the devil ain’t laughing at us. But a lot of people are laughing at you for this one, bucko.

So yeah. Not a conclusive list, but some helpful first steps to make progress down the line, hopefully. Thats how I would start I think.

#asks #demo answers #mormonism #religion #queerstake

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rithmeres · 1 year

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hadestown thots (as requested):

first of all here’s a pic of the cast after curtain call sorry its only six pixels wide

also im pretty sure i was standing right next to one of the ensemble members (alex puette, tall guy standing behind orpheus in the picture) on the subway earlier that day

ok what is there to say about patrick page that hasnt already been said. i love it when he enters with ‘i missed ya’ and the people in the audience who aren’t familiar with the show are like wtf [nervous laughter]. the role was literally written for him so it’s no surprise that he just owns it but after seeing him my memory was wiped of the hades i saw on tour i genuinely cannot remember the other guy because patrick page is Thee Guy

eva noblezada STOLE. THE MF. SHOW. seeing her perform live changed me and changed fundamentally how i see the show. when i saw the tour in los angeles it felt like orpheus was the main character. but with eva’s eurydice it’s her world and we are just living in it. her eurydice wants so badly and it comes through brutally despite her insistence that she doesnt need anyone or anything and her fear to have anything lest it slip away. every note was exactly where it needed to be, the quality of her voice and technique is stupendous, even when she’s sobbing on her hands and knees her voice is clarion and pitch perfect. i saw her at the stage door after and SHE said thank you to US and i was like no no no no thank YOU.

jewelle blackman as persephone slayyyyed she’s kinda crazy and i love that for her, though i wish some of the vocals could have been altered to let her go into her super low range like she did when she played one of the fates

sayo oni was orpheus and i loved himmm. famously i am not a fan of reeve carney’s orpheus (sorry) so me n emma were elated to have a fresh voice in the mix. his voice was clear and sure and gorgeous and i had been kind of afraid that even if orpheus was really good he would b overshadowed by eva because she’s such a powerhouse, but they matched & blended well in skill and vocals and i had nothing to worry about. orpheus 2 me only works as a character if he’s naive and childlike and ya boy pulled it off so well.

malcolm armwood was a fantastic understudy hermes (pictured below at the stagedoor with his BEAUTIFUL family and/or friends), although i really REALLY wanted to see lillias white in the role just to see what flavors she would inject to hermes as a woman, mainly in her relationships w persephone and orpheus. but it was fun to have a young hermes bc most of the hermes that i’ve seen/heard have been like 40+ but armwood brought a youthful buoyancy to the role that contrasted with the aged hades+persephone but still seemed older and wiser and ageless next to sayo oni’s childlike orpheus

the fates were much more vindictive and close to villainous in this version. on tour they were a more neutral force

the tour didnt have the elevator in the middle of the turntable, instead there was a door that opened up to the back of the set with red lights that looked like the front of a train. (this was very cool and in some ways i liked it better bc the bway version just had the drum kit there instead). obv the elevator as the route to hell is unmatched when orpheus turns around at the end but my ideal production has both the train lights door AND the elevator for maximum effect so hades et al can exit/enter via the train or the immediate descent underground as the situation requires

#hadestown #in conclusion: on the thai food scale of 1 to 5 chili peppers emma gave it a 6

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mrsmarchw · 1 year

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Queen of my pitiful soul - James Patrick March

you can see the next chapter here

I. Piercing gaze under penumbra

The week had been long. I knew it would be exhausting, a sudden change with no forewarning. But I did not expect such intensity. Well, I suppose I had it coming. May my stubbornness be cursed.

The company I had called home for several years closed its doors in the city. Yet, management saw value in me and offered two options: transfer to a branch or face unemployment. Oh, yes, I could have continue working there. Times have changed. In 2022, many companies have embraced the idea of working from home and even flexible schedules. However, technology has never been my strong suit and, to be honest, it holds little interest for me. Is there something about the internet that cannot be done in the flesh?

This is what I told my dearest loved ones as I bid them farewell. Little did they know that I was in great danger. As it drew closer, I knew that I could not turn back or remain standing idly by. Every fiber of my being screamed for me to run, to escape the impending threat that loomed before me. My heart pounded with fear, but I steeled myself for what was to come. I would not let this danger defeat me. I would not let it consume me.

I must also confess that this opportunity fell into my lap at the ideal moment and provided a convenient excuse to burry that place - and my past - as deep as possible. In any case, it was not in my nature to remain stationary. And so, I made my decision. But it was a radical move, and upon further contemplation, perhaps I was not ready for it.

It was mid-September, the temperatures were starting to drop and the smell of autumn was already present in the air. The cold wind hit me with force before I got into the taxi, causing me to shiver and eventually sneezes through my sensitive nose. It was already clear that I was impatient with the traffic and with the driver who almost got us under trucks a few good times, due to his lack of attention on the track and the excess of it in the rearview mirror.

The man could not take his eyes off me, like a predator eyeing its prey, stripping me with his gaze. I was used to stares, thanks to the alluring force that embraced the boundaries of my body and also due to my own beauty, it was routine. But an unusual wickness overpowered the taxi driver's face, I could see the face of a demon - ironic. The mere presence of him caused a fire to ignite within me. I couldn't shake the feeling that something about him was off. Was he even who he claimed to be? Or was there something more sinister lurking beneath the surface? A normal person would never see such inhumanity with such cleverness, however, I was far from ordinary.

At times, when we stopped at the stoplight, he would turn back to stare at my legs with such a hateful look that it seemed capable of lifting my skirt a few centimeters. As I came to understand that he was, in fact, just a deeply flawed human and not some supernatural entity, I felt no fear - it was he who should have been trembling in terror at the thought of facing me. Rather, I would later discover that his repulsive behavior had brought to the surface a desire I thought I had buried forever ages ago.

The sudden vibration of my phone pulled me from my thoughts. 'Estelle', the screen read. Mother. I counted 15 seconds in my head, hoping the call would drop before I had to answer. Of course, that was not to be.

"I am well [...] yes, Mother, it is excellent here [...] no, you may not come."

The call was mercifully short. After all these years, she remains concerned with the trivialities of the mortal world. In any case, it reminded me of a nostalgiciac time that brought a smile to my lips. A time when I was not Melinda - and I would've never dreamed of being.

As the summer sun began to set, its beauty was undeniable. However, in the city of Los Angeles, the heat can be unbearable and bring out the worst in people, causing tempers to rise and conflicts to erupt. My journey was filled with the sounds of honking and insults from other drivers in the congested traffic.

Finally arriving at my destination, I stepped out of the dirty taxi and was greeted by a dark purple sky and a hotel sign that was flickering and making a buzzing noise with its broken letters.

I stood before the very gates of hell.

HOTEL CORTEZ

As I made my way through the opulent lobby, my eyes were drawn to the stunning Art Deco aesthetic that adorned the space. The rich burgundy hues of the armchairs and small tables exuded luxury, and the gold and black edges added a touch of elegance. The grand chandeliers hanging from the ceiling only added to the splendor of the room, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of envy at the thought of calling such a lavish space home.

I knew in that moment that I had arrived in a place of exceptional sophistication. Though I was tired to the bone after a long and trying week, I was determined to treat myself to a bit of indulgence and pampering. As I stepped over the threshold, I felt the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders, if only for a little while.

The bar was empty except for one person - an unusual occurrence on a Friday evening after work. The dim light made it impossible for me to see their face. All I saw was a tall, slender figure with their back turned, dressed in a shadowy garment. I approached cautiously, taking a seat at the bar. It wasn't until the person turned around and came face to face with me that I was able to get a good look at them. In that instant, one hand went to their chest while their eyes widened and the other palm covered their open mouth in shock - revealing their dramatic nature. The sight made me silently laugh, not because I found it funny, but because of the fabulous diva before me.

"Don't scare me like that!" the lady shouted.

She was adorned in a long, navy blue evening gown adorned with shimmering sequins that made a delightful racket as she moved. A white turban was perched atop her head, the fabric arranged in such a way that it revealed glimpses of her silver-gray scalp, visible beneath the shaved strands that were just starting to grow back. Her eyes were smoky, matching the shade of her dress and lined with Egyptian kohl. Her lips were painted with a bold red lipstick that barely showed on her thin lips and her nails were painted an enormous silver. She was magnificent. The confidence radiating from her was seductive.

"I'll have whatever you have." I gave the perfectly dressed woman behind the counter a tired smile, both of us with curious eyes.

She served me in silence, watching me in the same way that I watched her. I was certain that our relationship would surprise me, and I eagerly awaited it.

"I'm Liz." She said after a long moment of silence, simply looking at me with interest. The woman turned her back, searching through the shelves for a glass like mine to pour herself a drink as well. "And you, Melinda, are a beauty for our guests."

The revelation came as a shock to me. I had foolishly believed that no one in this hotel had taken notice of my presence or even my name - not even her. That's how things were meant to be kept, that's how I had intended them to remain. However, I was naive to think that I could go unnoticed anywhere. I took a deep breath, gazing at the remaining amber liquid that she had poured for me and affected a look of surprise, before downing it all in one go. I forced my lips into a slight smile. While I valued discretion, I couldn't deny the pleasure of being flattered.

Eventually, the establishment filled with other patrons and Liz left to attend to them.

From the moment I stepped through the doors of this building, I felt a pair of eyes fixed upon me, following my every move. It was no different at that very moment. A week had been more than enough time for me to realize one of the reasons this hotel was so peculiar: it was home to more of the dead than the living. And I knew exactly who was accompanied by vital energy and who was not. Tragically, few souls were willing to reveal themselves to me, it was said due to my nature. But he was not afraid. In fact, he stayed dangerously close. A considerable part of me longed to see the face of the man who watched me day and night.

I undid my hairdo, unbuttoned a few buttons on my blouse, and slipped off my heels, leaving them beneath the bench. Several hours passed in silence as I took one dose after another that Liz brought to me.

As I was left to my own devices, my thoughts inevitably turned to the issue I had been avoiding for weeks, desperately trying to distract myself with petty tasks like work and moving. I even found myself picking at the nail polish on my fingers, a nervous habit I thought I had left behind. Desperate for some form of comfort, I frantically searched my bag for my pack of cigarettes and lit one, inhaling deeply as the cancerous smoke filled my lungs. Anxiety twisted in my chest like a vice, causing me to wonder if I would ever be able to escape this predicament I had found myself in.

Being immortal does not mean one is impervious to all harm.

"What's worrying you so much?" My thoughts were interrupted by the woman from earlier. She had moved so stealthily that I barely noticed her approach. Now, she had poured herself a glass and was leaning on the counter, eyeing me with an empathetic gaze.

"Work," I lied without hesitation, rolling my eyes and pretending that this was indeed the cause of my worries. There was no need to expose my true concerns to this woman, especially as I had only just met her a few minutes ago.

She raised her eyebrows and pulled a bench over to sit down, never taking her eyes off of me. My short, curt answer cut the mood, making it clear that I did not wish to discuss the matter further.

"What a beautiful and sweet voice you have..." She commented out of nowhere. "I can tell you're not from Los Angeles."

"I am most grateful for the compliment," I said, smiling softly at the young woman. I tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. "I, too, am a singer, though perhaps not a professional one. But I have a great love for it all the same."

As the hours passed and the crowd thinned, I found myself alone with Liz and the bottles once again. Though I was immune to the effects of alcohol, the hours of drinking had still taken their toll on my already exhausted body. All I desired was a hot bath, some jazz music, and a cigarette in the comfort of my own room.

As I made myself at home in this hotel, I found a new sense of comfort that I had never felt before. Perhaps it was because of the other troubled beings who lived here, just like me. I knew that no matter what I did, the outside world had no power to affect my home within these walls.

I slid my credit card across the counter to Liz. Despite my exhaustion, I was determined to make it to my room and escape the chaos of my thoughts. I could tell that Liz, too, was aware of the turmoil swirling inside of me. As I placed another cigarette between my lips, I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the task at hand.

"Keep this." She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow, my gaze piercing as I looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. The flame of the lighter illuminated my face, casting shadows across my features. "The master paid your bill."

With a flick of her wrist, she gestured towards the man at the other end of the bar, whom I had not noticed was present for but a fleeting moment.

In the very second that our gazes met, I knew without a doubt that he was the owner of the hungry eyes that had been following me constantly. The penumbra only served to enhance his mysterious and inviting appearance. A bolt of electricity shot through my body at an incomprehensible speed as I quickly and involuntarily took in his entire figure, from head to toe.

He was thin, but not too thin - I could see the defined muscles of his body even beneath his tailored suit. He was tall, with jet black hair perfectly styled back. A thin mustache above his lips and the eyes, oh my, the eyes... In an immense shadowy and intriguing intensity. They pierced me with their intensity.

They were half-closed while locked onto mine. I knew it was him who had been following me, and he knew that I knew. His lack of reaction betrayed a pain that I hadn't felt in many years, and as if he had read my thoughts, his lips curved upwards into a sly smile. He slightly raised his whiskey glass in my direction as a greeting.

I tilted my head slightly to the side and shaped my lips into a sweet smile, silently thanking him. It wasn't my usual approach to approach anyone, but the fascination that he had awoken simply by showing himself was captivating. I needed to know why he had been watching me.

I quickly slipped my shoes on, eager to satisfy my curiosity and find out more about the mysterious gentleman who had caught my attention. However, when I looked up to where he had been standing, he was gone, and so was Liz.

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