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krirebr · 3 months

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Caught Up in Your Trap

Pairing: dark!Andy Barber x f!reader

Word Count: 5.4k

Summary: You spend your first day in your new home. Part of the Trapped AU.

Warnings: Dark elements, kidnapping, human trafficking, drugging, training, punishment, isolation, injury, forced intimacy - Just trust me when I say that this is dark. All of my work is 18+ - Minors DNI

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Masterlist

A/N: Oh my god, you guys. Uh, happy sin day, I guess?? 🤣 Because I am apparently incapable of just leaving a one-shot alone, this is a prequel to I Don't Want a Lot for Christmas spurred by some unhinged 4 AM thots. It is definitely the darkest thing I've written so far. Whoops.

Big thanks as always to @paperweight91 who was not only the fantastic sounding board she always is, and let me ramble on about all my research into furnaces of all things but also helped me figure out the title for both this fic and the greater AU it's now a part of (🤦🏻‍♀️ Seriously, Kris, just stop!). Hat tip to Bruce Springsteen for both, as well. I'm sure he'd be thrilled. 😂

Any comment, reblog, or ask to let me know what you think will be greatly appreciated. Even if it's just screeching at me. As always, thank you so much for reading! 💜

Andy pulled up at the address he’d been given, more surprised than he should have been that it was an abandoned warehouse. Of course, this sort of deal would be completed there. He should have known from the sorts of channels he’d had to go through to set it up. Connections left over from his days in the DA’s office. Well, that wasn’t the side of the law he was on anymore.

He walked into the large open space that made up most of the building to find a man standing in the middle of a few folding chairs. He had a neatly trimmed mustache and was wearing sharp but tight clothing. He wasn’t who caught Andy’s attention, though. No, that was you, slumped over in one of the chairs, wearing the clothes you must have been taken in. Even like this, he could tell your pictures hadn’t done you justice. You were absolutely perfect. Or you would be, once he was done.

“Barber!” the man called out, a satisfied smirk raising his mustache. “How nice of you to join us!”

“Hansen,” Andy answered evenly. He nodded at you, “She ok?”

“Oh, she’s fine. Just on enough horse tranqs to move her across the country without her realizing it. She’ll only be out for another day or so.”

Andy walked over to you. “I’m sure you don’t mind if I check for myself. With the amount of money I’m paying you.” Hansen gestured for him to go ahead, so he placed a gentle hand on the pulse in your neck, pleased to feel that it was strong and steady. He took a step back and opened the untraceable banking app on his phone. He clicked the transfer button, moving an ungodly amount of money from his numbered account in the Caymans to the account Lloyd had given him. “Alright,” he said, “the money’s in your account.”

The other man snapped his fingers and someone appeared out of the shadows, holding a tablet. “And I’m sure you don’t mind,” Hansen said as the new man tapped his screen, “if I check for myself. With the amount of work I’ve done for you.”

They all waited in tense silence for the confirmation of the transfer to come through. Andy couldn’t take his eyes off you, eager to finally get you home. After everything he’d been through, this was what he deserved. The perfect wife, the perfect family, the perfect life. And he was going to do it right this time, taking full control until he had exactly what he wanted. Nothing left to chance. It was costing him a pretty penny, but it was worth it.

The man with the tablet nodded at Hansen, who clapped his hands together. “Alright!” he said. “Let’s get this done. My men will get her settled in your car while we finish up.” Two more men came out from the edge of the room and started to put their hands on you. Andy couldn’t help the growl that came out of him. Hansen laughed. “Don’t worry, Mr. ADA, they won’t hurt your precious new wife. You have my word.”

Andy gave a hesitant nod, as they carried you out of the warehouse, clicking the unlock button on his car fob so that they could get you settled. He didn’t take his eyes off you until you were gone.

Hansen reached down and picked up a thick folder. “Everything you’ll need is in here. Everything for her new identity, all in order, all immaculate. Marriage license. Anything from her old life you might need. Although I’d get what you need from those quickly and then burn them.”

Andy took the folder and briefly paged through it. New birth certificate, social security card, IDs, passport. Everything he’d need to start your new life. He put the folder in his briefcase. “Thank you. Anything else?”

Hansen smirked again. “Eager to get started?” He leered in the direction you’d disappeared. “Can’t say I blame you.”

Andy cleared his throat, not appreciating the way Hansen was talking about what was his. “Yes, I would like to get us both home. Are we done here?”

“Sure sure. You have a good time now,” he smirked.

Andy gave him a curt nod and then exited in the direction Hansen’s men had taken you. There was no sign of them by his car, but you were laid out across the backseat. He opened the door and leaned in to brush a gentle finger across your cheek. He wouldn’t be able to relax until you were secured inside his home. It was so close now.

This wasn’t your room. You’d woken up some time ago (you couldn’t say how long ago exactly. There were no clocks, no windows) in the most comfortable bed you’d ever felt. You thought it might swallow you up, it was so soft. Luxurious. The whole room was that way. Beautiful. Rich. You were dressed in a satin nightgown that wasn’t at all like anything you owned. You tried very hard not to think about the fact that someone must have changed you. The door was locked from the outside, a small keypad right under the doorknob. You tried banging on the door. Yelling for someone. Nothing. A quick exploration of the room hadn’t yielded anything either – the two other doors were also locked, a dresser held only men’s clothing. So you’d spent the last who knows how long just laying in the bed, trying not to panic or cry. You weren’t very successful at either.

The most disturbing thing you’d discovered since you’d woken up here was the set of rings on your left hand. One featured a large diamond, the other was a simpler band filled with comparatively tiny diamonds. The bands were fused together like you remembered your mom’s engagement and wedding rings being. It took a long time to normalize your breathing after that discovery.

Just as you were about to drift asleep again, for want of anything else to do, you heard a few soft beeps, the lock click, and the doorknob move. You leaped up and huddled in the far corner of the room between the wall and the bed, holding a pillow in front of you. There was nothing else in the room to use to defend yourself. Even the lamps were bolted down – you’d checked.

The door slowly opened and a man walked in. He was tall, over 6 feet, and broad. He had dark, soft-looking hair, and a well-kept beard. He wore a gray cotton tee and jeans. If your adrenaline hadn’t been spiking, you would have found him so handsome. But as it was, you pushed yourself further into the corner.

He was carrying a tray, which he set down on one of the nightstands. From your vantage point, you could see a glass of water and a bowl. You weren’t feeling inclined to take anything from this man.

Your eyes cautiously tracked him as he came around to the foot of the bed. “How are you feeling?” he asked, his voice deep but gentle.

You didn’t say anything, just kept watching him. He leveled you with a stern look that sent a chill down your spine. His voice was much more rigid when he said, “I expect an answer when I ask a question, sweetheart.”

You ignored him again, instead asking, “Who are you?”

He took a deep breath, flexing both hands. Extreme irritation passed over his face before it was replaced with a practiced calm. He sat at the foot of the bed and patted the space next to him. “Come sit,” he said. You didn’t move. “Now,” he growled. Something in his tone made it clear, not only that he would move you himself if he had to, but even more so, that you didn’t want it to come to that. You got up and sat on the far edge of the bed. He reached over and grabbed your arm hard, dragging you into his side. You cried out but he shushed you. “Alright,” he said, “I will answer your question once you answer mine. How are you feeling?”

This was the most scared you’d ever been. You had to take a few deep breaths before you were able to say. “I have a headache and I’m a little nauseous. And I’m very scared.”

He gently took your hand in his and cooed at you. “That’d be the drugs they used to knock you out. You’ll feel better when they’re completely out of your system. Eating will help. You can have some soup once we’re done talking.” He paused, for what you didn’t know. You didn’t say anything. He smiled. “You can ask your question now. Good girl waiting for permission.”

Your head swung to look at him. That hadn’t been what you were doing. Had it? You were woozy and scared and just trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. That was most important, so you let his comment go and repeated your question. “Who are you?”

He squeezed your hand. “I’m your husband, sweetheart. My name is Andy.”

That was the answer you’d been terrified of since you’d seen the rings on your finger. He was fucking crazy. He had to be. The best you could do right now was to get as much information out of him as you could. “And where are we? Is this your house?” You were trying to keep your voice steady, but you could hear the tremor in it.

“This is our house, sweetheart. Just outside Boston.”

Your eyes widened and your heart rate picked up in panic. “Boston?? No– That’s– How did I get here?!” This was even worse than you thought. You were nowhere near home, nowhere near anything familiar.

He just looked at you for a moment with narrowed eyes. Then he nodded and said, “Ok, I’m going to be honest and explain it to you, because I think it will help you understand your place here. But in the future, you need to know that I don’t appreciate having to explain myself. Good wives don’t question their husband's actions. Now, since I’m going out of my way to make this clear for you, I expect you to sit quietly and listen. Can you do that for me?”

You clenched your hands into fists, wanting to rage at him for how he was speaking to you like a child, but you knew you needed this information. You needed everything you could get if you were going to get out of here, so you tried to control your breathing and nodded.

He looked at you like he wanted to scold you for something, but then visibly changed his mind and began. “I’ve had a hard life, the last few years especially, I’ve been through a lot. Things haven’t turned out the way they were supposed to. I wanted a family. I thought I had one, but– It wasn’t how it was supposed to be, and then I lost even that. I wanted to try again, but I couldn’t put in all that effort without a guarantee that I wouldn’t wind up with nothing again.

“I’m a lawyer. I used to work as an ADA and now I’m in defense. In both jobs, I’ve made a lot of connections with people from different walks of life. Through that, I found a man who provides a service – if you let him know what you’re looking for, he’ll find you a person who fills those needs. So I told him that I was looking for someone to build a family with, a good wife. He presented me with a few options, and I chose you. For a hefty price, his men picked you up and brought you here. They also put together all new paperwork for you, a whole new identity. The old you doesn’t exist anymore, do you understand? You’re Mrs. Barber now, property of your husband. I bought and paid for you. I own you, every part of you.”

You saw his hand start to move toward your thigh and you jumped up, quickly pressing yourself against the wall. You just stared at him for a moment and then the panic truly hit you, but this time, it was accompanied by blinding anger. “That’s human trafficking, you complete fucking psycho! The fuck is wrong with you?!” Once you’d started screaming, you couldn’t stop. “You can’t just buy a wife, you fucking cuck! I’m a person! People are going to look for me!” He stood up and came at you and you swung out with your fists, your nails, your knees, whatever you fucking could. You connected a few times, drew a grunt from him before he somehow pinned your wrists behind your back. You screamed as loud as you could, but it did nothing.

He frog-marched you out of the room as he said, “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to do this so soon, but you need a timeout, honey. Some time to calm down in the quiet room, and then we can try again and go over the rules. You just need some time to think by yourself.”

You tried to pay attention as he pushed you through what looked like a little apartment: a living room, a kitchenette. He stopped at an innocuous-looking door with a keypad on it, just like the one in the bedroom. He turned you away so you couldn’t see as he entered the code, one hand still keeping your wrists in a bruising grip. Before you’d even realized he’d opened the door, he was shoving you into the room so hard you briefly left the ground. The door slammed shut behind you. You hit the floor hard and groaned. You stumbled up onto your hands and knees. You heard another beep, then the grinding of a lock. Then nothing.

The room was pitch black. You weren’t even sure where the door was now, as there wasn’t any light coming through the cracks. You crawled around, trying to get an idea of the space. It was small and empty as far as you could tell. But there was a low rumbling noise that seemed to fill the room. You couldn’t pinpoint the source just from listening, it felt like it was coming from everywhere. The floor under your hands was bare, concrete. Your hands brushed through cobwebs and other detritus you couldn’t see. You cautiously held a hand out as you continued to try to map out the room, terrified you’d smack your face right into the wall. It made contact with something hot and sharp. You pulled it back with a hiss, pain radiating through your palm. You felt the first few wet drops. Shit. You were bleeding. You’d cut yourself. Fuck. “Hey!” you called out as loud as you could. There was no answer. “Hey!” you tried again, “I’m hurt! I’m bleeding!” No response. “WHAT THE FUCK?” You were screaming now. “YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! LET ME OUT!” Nothing. God, this room was already lightproof, maybe it was soundproof, too. He wouldn’t be able to hear you, wouldn’t know you were hurt. You couldn’t tell how badly you’d cut your hand so you raised it above your head, hoping that might at least slow down the bleeding. It was dirty you were sure. God, how long did it take for cuts to get infected? You hoped you wouldn’t find out. You didn’t even know what you’d cut it on. What if it was rusty? Shit, when was your last tetanus booster? You couldn’t remember exactly. Fuck. You really didn’t want to die from tetanus in some random basement in Massachusetts. A tear rolled down your cheek. He couldn’t leave you in here too long, could he? No. He would come get you soon.

You had no idea how long you’d been sitting in the dark, your knees pulled up to your chest, one arm wrapped around them, the other still held in the air. Your shoulder was so sore, but you were too worried to lower your hand. You wished you could see the cut, know exactly how bad it was. You wished you knew how much time had passed. With no frame of reference, no external indicators, you were afraid you’d lost the ability to tell the difference between hours and minutes. It’d been hours. It had to have been hours. How long was he going to leave you here? He had to come back soon. He had to. You took some perverse comfort in the fact that he’d spent a lot of money on you. That had to mean that he wouldn’t just leave you here. He’d want a return on his investment. You tried to ignore the chills that thought gave you.

You’d been crying on and off. It made you feel pathetic but what else were you supposed to do? The panic, too, ebbed and flowed. You’d been trying to keep your breathing even, trying to ignore how small the space was, how dirty, how dark. Deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. It wasn’t doing much to calm you, but at least it gave you something to focus on.

Just as a fresh wave of tears overtook you, a blinding light came in, directly opposite you. You squinted and raised your uninjured hand in front of your eyes, but that didn’t do much to help.

“Oh sweetheart,” Andy’s voice cooed, before gently lifting you by your arms and herding you out. He half-carried you through the finished part of the basement while your eyes continued to adjust. Before you knew it, you were back in the bedroom you’d started in. He gently sat you down on the edge of the bed and crouched in front of you. You felt dazed. The room was too bright. You didn’t know how you could keep breaking the record for the most scared you’d ever been. There had to be a ceiling, a limit. You’d hit it soon, wouldn’t you?

You still had your hand raised and cradled to your chest. Andy touched your wrist and you flinched. He raised an eyebrow in question and you whispered, “I got hurt.” He sighed and gently tugged at your wrist again. This time you let him guide your arm down, moving your hand so you both could see it. It was a little grimy and definitely red, slightly swollen maybe. There was a little dried blood, but not much. The cut was so much more shallow than you’d imagined when you were trapped in that room alone. You felt incredibly foolish. You’d thought you were going to lose your hand over a glorified paper cut.

Andy carefully moved his thumb over a raised patch under the cut that you now realized was a minor burn. “Did you touch the furnace?” The furnace – that’s what’d been making that noise. That’s what you’d cut yourself on. That’s where he’d thrown you. What the fuck? You were lucky you hadn’t hurt yourself even worse. You looked up from your hand to see him frowning at you. “Why would you do that? Sweetheart, you have to be more careful. That was a very stupid thing to do.” He got up and walked into the ensuite, opening a cabinet under the sink.

Was he seriously scolding you for getting hurt in a dangerous room he’d locked you in?? The rage from earlier was starting to return, but it was still tempered by your fear. You did your best to keep your voice even when you replied, “It was completely dark in there. I couldn’t see anything.” A little growl came through your words, but it wasn’t anything compared to what you were actually feeling.

He came back holding a small first-aid kit. “Well then that’s a good reason to keep your hands to yourself, isn’t it?” He sat down and opened the kit, pulling out a few wipes and beginning to somewhat roughly clean your hand. “Sweetheart, I’m here to take care of you. That’s my job as your husband. But I need you to be a good girl and not put yourself in harm’s way.”

“You threw me in there!” you said, your voice starting to get louder, despite your best efforts to keep calm.

“Because you were bad and needed a time-out!” he yelled back at you. He threw the dirty wipes into the trashcan beside the bed and took a deep breath, visibly calming himself. He grabbed an ointment from the kit and began applying it to your hand. “That’s why we’re going to talk about rules now. They’re there to keep you safe and both of us happy. When you don’t follow them, something like this can happen.”

You didn’t say anything. You had to be smart if you were ever going to get out of here and antagonizing him wasn’t smart. He didn’t seem to expect a response anyway as he just silently placed a bandage on your hand and then got up and put the kit away. He came back and sat right next to you, turning so he could look into your eyes. You tried to turn your head away, but he grabbed your chin and forced eye contact.

“Alright,” he said, his tone already so fucking patronizing. “A good thing that came out of your little tantrum is that now we know the areas we need to focus on most for improvement – manners, respect, and attitude. I did some thinking during your quiet time too, and I’ve adjusted your training schedule to focus on these things. It’ll be good for both of us.”

What the actual fucking fuck? “Training schedule?” was all you managed to get out.

Andy nodded. “I’m sure you’ve figured out that we’re in the basement right now. I have a beautiful big house upstairs that I can’t wait to show you. But you’re going to have to earn it first, prove to me that you know how to be good, that I can trust you before we can go upstairs. That’s what the training will do. I’m going to teach you exactly how to be perfect for me, everything I want, and in return I’m going to give you a perfect life, so much better than what you had before. We’re going to be so happy together, sweetheart. I promise.

“Now, it’s going to take time. I understand that. And I’m going to be patient with you. I know what your life was like before. I know that you probably never expected that you’d ever get to have this. Change can be scary. Dreams coming true, it’s scary. But I’ll be here to guide you through it all. I’m going to give you everything and all I ask of you in return is that you be good for me. That’s all.”

You wanted to scream. You wanted to sob. What the hell was this? How could this man, this stranger, be so completely deranged? Be smart, you chanted to yourself. Be smart be smart be smart. And if you opened your mouth now, you knew exactly what would come out. So you kept it shut and let him continue.

“So first, let’s talk about your tantrum. I don’t appreciate being spoken to that way. The language and the names, it’s unacceptable. So, no swearing going forward. And I think a good rule for you while we’re downstairs will be for you to address me as Sir. Once we’ve moved upstairs, you’ll be allowed to call me Andy, but whenever we’re down here, it’s Sir. Do you understand?” He looked at you expectantly. You clenched your jaw and nodded. “I expect a verbal response when I speak to you, sweetheart.”

“Yes,” you gritted out. He raised an eyebrow at you and his gaze hardened. It took you a moment to realize your mistake. “Yes, sir,” you corrected yourself.

“Very good. As your husband, I expect you to give me the respect I deserve. That’s something we’ll work on. It’s very important that you don’t question me. I know what’s best for you and you need to trust that I will give you whatever information you need to have. If I haven’t told you something, it’s because you don’t need to know, ok?”

He paused again. What kind of Stepford hell was this? What had you done to deserve this? You took a deep breath. Then another. And another. Then, finally, you were able to force out a “Yes, sir.”

He smiled. “You’re so smart, sweetheart. You’ll be upstairs in no time. Now, you’ll start learning your routine tomorrow. I’ve taken some time off work for our honeymoon, so I’ll have plenty of time to get you settled and acclimated. We’ll go over wardrobe and makeup requirements in the morning too. Now,” he slapped his thighs and stood up, “your soup from earlier went cold, so how about I go get you a fresh bowl while you take a quick shower and get all that dust and grime from the Quiet Room off you?”

You held back a grimace at him calling that room that, as he walked over to one of the other doors and unlocked it. He talked to you like you were a child. All of this was so fucked up. But a shower sounded incredible. You had no idea how long it’d been since you’d had one. So you just nodded and let out a quiet, “Yes, sir.”

He beamed at you. “Everything you’ll need is in the bathroom. I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

You stood and waited til he was out the door, listening to the beeps and grinding locks once he was gone. Shit. You were really fucked. You went into the bathroom and closed the door behind you. There was no lock on the inside. Of course, there wasn’t.

You didn’t waste much time in the bathroom, desperate for a hot shower. You vaguely registered that the counter was stocked with all sorts of beauty aids – expensive lotions and serums like he’d bought out a department store beauty counter. The shower too, was equally well stocked. So much fancier than the Target sale items you usually stocked your bathroom with. But the shower felt incredible and that’s what you chose to focus on.

When you were finished, you came out of the shower to see that the bathroom door was open. You could hear Andy moving around in the bedroom. You shuddered and quickly wrapped a plush towel around yourself. There was a fresh nightgown waiting for you, soft pink, all silk and lace. You grimaced and wondered what you’d need to do to get a pair of sleep shorts and an old T-shirt to sleep in. Probably more than you were willing to do, if it was even possible. You dried off quickly and slipped the nightgown on.

When you exited the bathroom, he was sitting on the bed, the tray of food sitting next to him. There was a bowl of soup and a cup of water, along with a small plate with a few crackers. The dishes and utensils were all plastic. Nothing you could hurt him with. You sat down and watched him carefully as you lifted the tray onto your lap. He didn’t say anything so it must have been allowed. Your hand shook as you brought the first spoonful up to your lips. The soup was warm, not hot, certainly not scalding. Another hope dashed. Throwing it at him would only result in him getting wet. And angry. Not worth it.

As you ate, you realized just how hungry you actually were. The nausea from whatever drugs you’d had had covered it up, but you were starving. You barely even tasted the soup, you just needed to eat. God, how long had it been since you’d had food? You wouldn’t bother asking Andy. You knew he wouldn’t give you an answer.

After he watched you eat for a few minutes, he said, “What do you say, sweetheart?”

God, he used that word like it was your name. It made you want to scream. You swallowed down all your anger and a spoonful of soup before you said, “Thank you, sir.”

He gave you a satisfied smile. “See,” he said, “I knew you had good manners.”

You shoved the spoon into your mouth to prevent any sort of comeback. This fucking asshole. Luckily he let you eat the rest of your meal in peace. But he never took his eyes off you.

Once you were done, Andy put the tray on the dresser and then declared it bedtime. You watched him cautiously, as he went to the dresser and took out a pair of boxers and a cotton tee. He changed right in the middle of the room and you turned your head away. You caught flashes of skin, that if he’d been anyone else, in any other circumstances, would have had you drooling. It was becoming hard to breathe again. What else would he demand from you tonight?

You chanced a glance back up at him to find him changed and staring at you. You swallowed nervously. “Come here,” he said firmly, holding his hand out to you. You slowly, so slowly, made your way to him. As soon as you were in reach, he grabbed your elbow and pulled you the rest of the way in so that you were nestled into his chest. “I know,” he said, stroking one hand down your back, “that we’re both thinking about our first time together, but I’d like to wait.” He ran the fingers of his other hand down the strap of your nightgown, slipping onto your bare skin. “Give you a chance to get fully adjusted. Give us both a chance to get to know each other.” His voice slipped down an octave as his fingers traveled across your chest. Your body bowed to get away from him, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. “Give us a chance to enjoy each other.” His breath hitched as his hand traveled down to your breast, the other hand on your back had stilled, holding you close, stopping you from getting away. He moved his head as close as he could to yours and whispered, “I want it to be special.” Then, before you could try to back away, he was kissing you. It was firm and demanding, giving you no option but to let it happen. He angled his growing erection into your thigh, and with the way he was holding you, you couldn’t lean away from it. His tongue forced its way into your mouth and you couldn’t help the way you whimpered. It felt like it might go on forever, when he finally pulled back, resting his forehead against yours. “I’m so happy you’re mine,” he whispered.

And then he was out of your space, leaving you trying to breathe again, alone in the middle of the room, as he climbed into the bed. You just stood there, unsure of what to do, your lips still tingling. Once he was settled on the side of the bed closest to the door, he called your name. “Come to bed now,” he said, and there was no mistaking it for anything other than an order. You ducked your head and climbed onto the bed, terrified of what might come next, but also desperate for sleep. This day had left you exhausted and confused and scared and so angry. It was all too much.

You tried to lie down as close to the edge as you could, but he pulled you in close so that your back was flush to his front, his arm thrown over your waist. “I'm so proud of you,” he whispered into your hair, “getting through your first day without having to go to the punishment room.”

Your mouth went completely dry. A room you hadn’t been to. Somewhere worse than the quiet room. “What's–” your tongue struggled to form the words. You took a breath and tried again. “What's the punishment room?” You caught yourself at the last minute and added a quiet “Sir.”

His hand caressed your side. “You keep being my good girl and you won't have to find out.”

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@stargazingfangirl18 @yenzys-lucky-charm @thezombieprostitute @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory @bval-1 @km-ffluv @texmexdarling @ladyvenera @foulpersonahandsvoid

#dark andy barber #andy barber x reader #andy barber x you #andy barber x female reader #defending jacob #dark fic #dark!andy barber #dark!fic #reader insert #chris evans fanfiction #ce characters #fanfic #trapped au #kris wrote something

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hoshigray · 10 months

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˗ˏˋ Summertime ⛱ Madness ˎˊ˗

Dear Diary...summer is finally here, and you're ready to spend it all with your best buds — Itadori, Megumi, and Nobara! Because the season is meant to be eventful, no? Though, how eventful? You already have plans with your friends to make every day count...Yet, so much has happened this summer that you NEED to write it all down! Especially since five men, in particular, have put you through a complete whirlwind of a summer...

Collector's Note: Hi, hello!! This is my first time doing something like this, but to commemorate getting 1k followers (tysm!!), I felt this would be a fun way to celebrate!! These entries will be posted throughout the summer (with dates provided), so keep your eyes open for when a diary entry opens! They can be read as standalone fics, but some (2-3) may be linked with one another. And no, they are not gonna be in first-person, only for this post as a sort of introduction to the pieces, lol. And FYI: these adorable sea-themed dividers are made by the wonderful remi (@cafekitsune), whose dividers I use non-stop!! Thank you sm for the dividers as always, remi, love what you do sm!!

Diary Status: ongoing!!

Word of caution: fem!reader - modern AU - age differences (the reader is at least in their 20s; the guys' ages will be specified in their respective fics for convenience's sake) - explicit content/nsfw so minors DNI - mentions of alcohol/drug use - unprotected sex (PSA: wrap it up, or get the fuck up) - taboo (consensual sex b/w professor/undergrad; a friend's relative) - size differences - one night stands - be sure to read the content warnings (cw) to fully grasp what each fic will contain before reading!

Intrigued readers: wanna be tagged when an entry is posted? Lmk in the replies plz!

✎﹏﹏﹏ 📖 Y/n's Diary Entries 📖 ﹏﹏﹏✎

Dear Nanami Kento... ༄ My Professor's Final Spring Praise

Entry Narrative: Before my summer break officially started, I had to finish my last in-person exam with Professor Nanami. It was so tough, but I made it through! I was the last to leave, so I thanked the professor and shared some final words before heading to my dorm to finish packing up. However, how do a few gratitude and praise exchanges end up with me on his desk and him between my legs? Contents: professor! Nanami x fem! reader - explicit content so minors DNI - taboo (consensual sex b/w a professor & undergrad) - age difference (the reader is at least in their 20s; Nanami approaching early 30s) - fingering (fem! receiving) - cunnilingus - semi-missionary position (reader lies on their back on a table while Nanami stands) - public sex/sex in a university classroom - unprotected sex (PSA: wrap it up, or get the fuck up) - pining if you squint - praise - pet names (baby, darling, love, sweet pea) - clitoral play (licking and sucking) - kissing/makeout sessions. Completion: July 3rd (Nanami + my bday :DD so I better see y'all wish me and my hubby a hbd or this shit isn't getting released >:T)

Dear Satoru Gojo... ༄ Sweet Blind Summer Fling

Entry Narrative: Due to a bet made by Nobara, I made an online dating account to set myself up with a blind date. Although a bit witty and annoyingly childish, Gojo's remarkably handsome and sweet...So, how the hell did I end up sleeping with him on the first date!? Contents: switch! Gojo x fem! reader - explicit content so minors DNI - blind date/online match-up - age difference (the reader is at least in their 20s; Gojo is around early 30s) - texting back and forth - sex at a hotel - one night stands - consensual sex under the influence - protected sex (PSA: wrap it up, or get the fuck up) - cowgirl + lotus positions - pet names (angel, baby, dollface, pretty, princess, sweet thing) - clitoral play (swiping and pinching) - mentions of drug/alcohol use (reader and Gojo don't get blackout drunk, but y'all get tipsy) - a bunch of silliness bc it's a Gojo fic (duh). Completion: July 24th

Dear Suguru Geto... ༄ Swim in Waves, Chill in Caves

Entry Narrative: I went to the beach with my friends!! Only for me to...run into Gojo again!!? And to make things crazier, I met his attractive best friend who heard "so much" about me??!! Thanks to Gojo's nonstop blabber-mouth, Geto was interested in me in ways I would rather not be known for! Contents: Geto x fem! reader - explicit content, so minors DNI - age difference (the reader is at least in their 20s; Geto is around early 30s) - oral (m! + f! receiving) - heavy depictions of a blowjob - semi-handjob - sex at an open area; cave by the beach - 69+ doggy style/backshots + missionary position - unprotected sex but Geto doesn't shoot inside (PSA: wrap it up, or get the fuck up) - fucking while the sun sets, lmaooo - pet names (baby, cutie, sweetheart, sweetie, princess) - clitoral play (swiping and pinching) - Gojo is here so expect some silliness. Completion: August 4th

Dear Choso Kamo... ༄ In[put]s & Out[put]s

Entry Narrative: My friends and I are getting ready to go out, but I'm feeling a little nervous about my outfit since it looks a little risqué... So, I took a pic of it and sent it to Itadori to hear his thoughts. Come to find out...I instead sent it to his half older brother, who was coming to pick me up......and he liked the outfit so much that he gave me his personal opinion?? Contents: still deciphering... Completion: TBA

Dear Toji Fushiguro... ༄ Secrets, Sweat, and Summer Fever

Entry Narrative: The gang and I hung out at Megumi's place for the last week of summer. But when I'm left at the house alone with Megumi's hot father, how am I supposed to act normal after "accidentally" eavesdropping on him jerking off to me!? Also, why and how the fuck does he know about my personal endeavors!? Contents: still deciphering... Completion: TBA

© hoshigray 2023 ~𓆉~ Diary entries above are collected by, written by, and belong to me, so please do not steal, edit, or post my works. Or I'll find all the people in your family who don't know how to swim and throw 'em in the ocean (and yes, that includes you). :/

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haechvn · 9 days

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Dating Shuri Udaku Headcanons

Pairing: Shuri x F!Reader

Warning: Fluff, Toxic!Shuri, Angst and Smut since yall nasty asf

Summary/Request: I got so many requests for an update so here it is!

Word Count: 1k words

Author’s Note: I decided to make her mean since you hoes wanna be treated like shit or whatever. I'm getting back into my groove with this one for sure. 18+ MDNI fr or imma beat yall ass. NEED MORE SHURI GIFS WTH

Taglist: @inmyheadimobsessed @theblacksuccubus @melodykisses @blackhottie25 @tonakings @coalmistyy @szalipcombo @prettyluhlaiiii @yelenabelovasgf @callmeoncette @clqrosmgc @theblacksuccubus @cherios @shuris-whore @nut4shuri @gaspyghosttt @elliesdinosauar @idkhersposts @ziayamikaelson @trinthebean @sleepingnova @yunhofingers

Credits: @anitalenia for the super cute dividers get into itttt

Fluff

Cooks breakfast for you every morning after the two of you have sweet and reckless nights together

Loves getting the two of you matching sets of grillz. Gold, silver, diamond studded. It doesn't matter

Brings you alongside her for all of her council meetings as she truly values your opinion and wants you to be involved and know your role in leading the nation with her

Has a throne for you next to hers

Trains you with the Dora because she doesn’t want what happened last time with Namor to ever repeat itself

Buys you whatever you want right off each and every runway during all the major Fashion Week shows

Always get the biggest section when y’all got out and you betta be shaking that ass cause she gon be throwing them bills babyyyy

The amount of decorated hotel rooms you get from her is ridiculoussss. She’ll decorate a whole hotel for you just because she loved seeing your smile in the morning.

Always has her hand in yours no matter what the two of you are doing. Even hold your hand while you two brush your teeth

Never breaks eye contact with you while the two of you are speaking

Has more that 100 nicknames for you

Toxic/Angsty

Purposely starts arguments with you because it turns her on to see you riled up and she can’t stop thinking about you putting her back in her place

Used a bit too much of her strength on you during training and you had to stay in the hospital for a few nights. She locked herself in her room and couldn’t even stand to look at you when you were released.

Sometimes she lacks empathy because she believes she’s gone through the worse shit. She definitely gaslights you sometimes and walks away if you complain to her about having family issues

“Wow. It’s so sad you argue with your mom everyday. Where’s mine? Oh yea right. I’m done listening”

Tries to deny that she felt anything for RiRi but will constantly talk about how beautiful she is just to get you jealous. You end up beating her ass bc wtf

One of those lesbians that doesn't like when you talk to other women bc why the fuck would you?

Will look you dead in the eyes and tell you that you aren’t more important than her work and you should just leave her alone and spend the money she gives you. She sent 2 mil to your account while you stormed out of the lab

She’ll deny you sex because she didn’t like the way you spoke to the Dora earlier that morning. You said hi

She sometimes embarrassed by the lack of strength you have. Like tighten up tf

“Can you stop touching me? Even the Dora don’t smother me this much.”

Hates when you constantly run your hands through her hair like she didn’t just get it done

Kisses her teeth when you try to shake your ass and it doesn’t move the way she want it too

“Try harder maybe? Ugh just stop actually. You look cringe doing that” LIKE WHERE'S YOUR ASS MA'AM????

Smut

Shuri likes when you eat her pussy with her panther suit on. Yes. That part is cut out

She has different grillz for eating your pussy and then ones for eating you ass— SHE A BOTTOMFEEDAAAA

Shuri loves pressing her kimoyo beads against your clit and sending intense vibrations there. Rose toy who???

She eats your pussy at night sometimes because if you look hard enough while she’s making your head spin, her inner bottom lip glows softly with her vibranium tattoo, being the only source of light in the room

LOVES WHEN YOU DRILL HER SHIT TO THE POINT THAT SHE CANT BREATHE AND TRIES TO GRASP AROUND BUT SHE CANT BC THE VIBRANIUM CUFFS TOO STRONG EVEN FOR HER SO SHE HAS TO BEG YOU TO RELEASE HER EVEN THOUGH SHE KNOWS YOU WON’T AHHH

Can literally eat you out for hours and against your (consented) will, she definitely does

RIDES YOU IN THE NASTIEST SLOPPIEST WAY LIKE SHE LOVES SEEING YALL CREAM MIX AND IS OBSESSED WITH HOW STICKY SHE IS AND HOW MUCH STICKIER YOU ARE UGH SHE PRESSES HER LIPS AGAINST YOUR AS IF SHE CAN GO INSIDE YOU BYEEEEEEE

SHE AINT NO FAKE GAY NO MA’AM

Wakes you up most mornings with her lips sucking and teasing your breast bc babe she can’t get enough

BOTTOM!SHURI LOVES WHEN YOU SIT ON THE THRONE AND SHE TRIES TO MAKE HERSELF CUM OVER AND OVER RIDING YOUR THIGH WHILE YOU SIT ON HER THRONE OH WOW

SHE WHINES SO MUCH AND IS NOT QUIET AT ALL. Constantly getting complaints from everyone in the palace

Likes getting her ass devoured. SORRY NOT SORRY

Kissing you alone get her wetter than river Niger omgggg (I’m African and this how we say it PLS)

Constantly talking you through EVERYTHING she does to you

“You take my fingers so well”

“Hmm, you know I love when you squeeze around me like that. Fuck, do that again.” (THE WAY SHE ROLLS HER R’S UGHHH)

“Please, I can’t take it. I-I… Fuck you feel so good. Don’t stop fucking me, put me in my place”

Never breaks eye contact with you when she’s drilling the shit out of you

LOVES WHEN YOU FUCK HER FACE WITH ALL THE STRAPS SHES MADE IN THE LAB

Literally she’ll be in the lab with her goggles on with all her tools scattered all of the table and gets wet picturing you standing over her and using her mouth like a toy OMG

Loves when you tie her up with pink and purple ribbons and stuff her mouth with your panties BYE

LIKES BEING BLINDFOLDED AND WEARING FLUFFY EARMUFFS SO YOU CAN DO ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING TO HER AND GIVING YOU FULL CONTROL

WHITE FLUFFY EARMUFFS WITH PINK RIBBONS AND HER CURLY HAIR SHAKING AROUND EVERY TIME SHE MOVES

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ladywuvly · 1 month

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♱ love bites pt.1 (vampireslave!simonriley x princess!f!reader)

summary|| The world stands divided, witnessing the dawn of a fierce civil war between mankind and vampires. Since the day you were born, your father, the king, has dedicated his life to mastering the art of manipulating the masses. However, his relentless pursuit of power has overshadowed everything else. Nevertheless, when a pale-faced servant is introduced into the castle, an inexplicable connection draws you towards him. wc: 6.8K

warnings|| MDNI; 18+ content, violence + mentions of, blood, swearing, abuse, slavery, child neglect, human trafficking.

masterlist. socials. recs.

It was the day of your birthday, a day that should've brought you joy and excitement. Yet, it wasn't as if turning a year older, granted you any additional control or responsibility over your own life.

Instead, you found yourself trapped in this house castle you called home. Surrounded by a series of unfamiliar faces, royal servants, and a new tutor every few months.

Isolated from the other children your age, a burning desire for freedom consumed you, as you watched them get the life you wanted; the life you yearned for.

While they were allowed to live freely, you were imprisoned inside this mansion. Locked away in your bedroom, walls covered in lavish decor. Shelves and dressers filled with things you rarely used - makeup and perfumes rarely touched, dresses and linens you dreaded to even wear.

You were merely a marionette, dressed up and down, manipulated at your parent's whim, while others turned a blind eye at your misery.

Although, what did you expect, you were a princess after all.

Marianne suddenly entered your bedroom. Crossing the threshold gracefully with her eerie ambiance of mystery and allure.

Marianne had been your mother's handmaid for as long as you could remember. She had been a gift to your mother, from your father, long before you were born.

Flawless porcelain skin and deep captivating red eyes that set her apart from the rest of the other servants around the castle.

Time seemed to have no effect on her. She had not aged a single day in all of your years. Frozen in time at the age of 26, and was, considerably, the only consistent part in your life.

Marianne laid out a dress for you. Placing it down carefully on your bed as she continued to busy herself around your bedroom.

Your head turned at the sound of her voice and you looked up at her sympathetically. "Do I have to go?"

Leaning back as her hands playfully combed through your hair, fingers gliding smoothly through your freshly brushed strands.

"It's best to get it done and over with." She said calmly.

As you made your way down the stairs, you took a moment to calm yourself before entering the dining room sheepishly.

Your father was seated at the head of the table, your mother beside him.

Catching sight of you, he swiftly fished his pocket watch from his coat. "You're late. I don't have the time to wait for you."

You followed your father outside to the waiting carriage. Accepting the kind hand offered by Louis, your chauffeur, and settled into the comfortable seats.

The ride dragged on, perhaps it was on account of what awaited you, upon your arrival. It baffled you at how things had reached this point.

Once the existence of vampires was revealed to the world, they were immediately labeled as a threat. Dangerous creatures of the night that lurked amongst the shadows. Monsters hiding among men.

On contrary to popular belief, they didn't burst into flames when exposed to sunlight. They weren't threatened by garlic, or crosses, or holy water. They didn't die from a stake to the heart and they were certainly not undead.

Although, they appeared pale in complexion, possessed immense strength and heightened senses, and required a dietary supplement of blood to survive.

It would be unfair to label them as monstrous, and you refused to believe this was the only way to live alongside them. They had once been people, just like you were. They experienced emotions and suffered pain.

Sure, it was different from the typical ways of the 'living' world. Still, that didn't justify enslaving their entire race.

It was argued that it was the only method to ensure humanities safety. Claiming that without it you’d be vulnerable, unprotected. Nevertheless, you wouldn't embrace the idea that this was the sole approach to a harmonious existence.

Soon the carriage came to a halt and your father got out. You peered out from behind him, surveying your surroundings before stepping onto the muddy road.

You trailed behind him into the building, entering a large auditorial room where the auction would be taking place. That familiar nauseous feeling swirled in your stomach as he led you to your seats near the back of the audience.

You anxiously looked around the room, taking in every detail. Within a matter of moments another man strode across the stage, approaching the podium.

The room became silent in anticipation as he began to speak. His words fell deaf to your ears, drowned out by the unsettling start of the auction.

Your eyes remained fixed on the stage. Witnessing as one after another, was forcefully brought out.

Both men and women, hands bound and feet shackled, appeared before the crowd. Some looked more heavily mistreated than others.

What disgusted you even more was the lack of empathy displayed by those around you, not even flinching as each individual was auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The sight was repulsive, and you couldn't bear to raise your bidding paddle held tightly in your hands.

As the auction began to come to an end, your father seethed at you through his barred teeth. "If you do not bid, I will do it for you."

Reluctantly, you shifted your gaze back to the stage, as another man was being dragged out.

He stood with an imposing height. Towering over the both men who held him captive at either side. His shoulders wide, and the shirt he wore did a poor job at concealing the dried blood and dirt that clung to his pale skin.

Your eyes couldn't help but linger on him, captivated by his presence. Despite his greasy blonde hair that fell over his eyes impedingly, it didn’t mask the strong features of his face.

He pulled away from the man on his right, earning a painful kick to the back of his legs that sent him collapsing onto his knees.

With his hair serving as a makeshift restraint, his head was raised. Lifting his chin defiantly, revealing his face in all its glory to the many interested onlookers among the audience.

His appearance was striking and as strange as it seemed, you couldn't help but feel drawn to him. His rugged face, marked by dirt and blood, still possessed an undeniable beauty.

Soon bids were being placed, and although the thought of purchasing this man in front of you seemed unfathomable, you couldn't resist impulsively raising the paddle high into the air.

"13,000! 13,000 for..oh, and well if it isn’t the Princess herself, ladies and gentleman!" The entire room turned their attention from the auctioneer to you, causing you to squirm uncomfortably in your seat.

As you looked back at the stage, the man's gaze locked with yours. His eyebrows furrowed harshly and he shot you a piercing glare causing your heart to ache.

"He's going to be difficult to break in." Your father disgruntled.

"You told me to bid."

"13,000, going once! Going twice! Sold to our Majesty and the Princess!" Your father rose from his seat, you instinctively followed. Waving and smiling as the men and women in the crowd erupted in applause.

As you glanced back at the stage, a wave of dread washed over you as you watched them forcefully drag the man away and out of your sight. Sorrow-filled, you tore your gaze away and hurriedly followed in his footsteps.

As he stood by the reception desk, meticulously filling out paperwork and a bill of sale. Your attention was drawn to the two familiar men who had been escorting individuals on an off stage.

They seemed to be engaged in a conversation with your father, he discreetly offered them a few coin each, before he turned and handed you a pen.

"What’s this for?" You ask, your voice filled with uncertainty. "Ownership papers." His reply caused you to freeze.

It was hard to believe that this was actually happening. You would be this man's owner. He would become your possession.

"Father… I-I'm not sure if I can-" You stammered, your voice trembling.

"That's enough." He said, silencing you.

It was astonishing, how effortlessly your father made you remember just how easy it was to hate him. He had managed to portray this as nothing more than a point of sale, stripping away all humility.

Swallowing down your tears, you leaned over to hastily scribble your signature at the paper’s edge. Every letter and each stroke of the pen, another stab wound to your heart.

You dropped the pen as if it had burned you, walking out of the building and leaving your father inside.

As you caught your breath out on the sidewalk, a laughing bunch of children dashed by you. Joyfully passing a vibrant red rubber ball amongst each other.

Their contagious laughter brought a fleeting smile to your face, but it soon faded as rearing envy flooded your chest. You longed to once be part of their innocent joy.

Your father appeared from behind you and as the carriage arrived he promptly took his seat without bothering to spare you a glance.

You took a moment to look for where they might have placed the man of such impending size. It would be difficult to hide a man of his stature, even on something as grand as the royal carriage.

As you glanced at Louis. He met your gaze before casting his eyes behind him towards the rear.

You cautiously approached the back of the carriage, stealing a glance around the corner to catch a small glimpse of him.

There he was, shackled securely to the luggage rack sitting upright on the short, compact shelf.

You swiftly glanced over your shoulder, ensuring that your father hadn't caught you gazing inquisitively at the cryptic man.

"Princess?" A gravely, somber voice broke the silence.

Startled, you jumped in surprise caught off guard by the sudden sound. Turning back to face the man who remained bound in place.

You approached him cautiously, his appearance became even more unsettling. Although his face remained somewhat concealed, the deep scars that were etched into his skin were too distracting to ignore.

The long jagged scars that scattered across his face. Remnants of a past wound ran across his nose. His face, a roadmap of strength and survival.

Cutting deeply over his lips like a badge of honor. Saw-toothed and jagged, narrowly missing his eye, dividing his eyebrow and cheek with a single stroke, which only added to his allure.

Each scar, a testament to a life lived, resiliently.

Your eyes welled up with tears, brimming and threatening to overflow. The feeling of self-disgust washed over you, utterly ashamed at what you had done. The depths you had sunk, purchasing him as if he were mere property.

"Everythin’ a’right there, Princess?" His voice was hoarse and deep, sending a shiver down your spine. Never before had the sound of someone's voice evoked such a whirlwind of emotions within you.

"Don’t call me that." You snapped, feeling far from deserving of such a title. At the moment you felt nothing like a princess. A princess was strong, courageous, and compassionate, someone who helped others, not oppressed them.

He seemed familiar with the tone of your voice and with a stern expression turned to look away. "No! I-I’m sorry. I just… I just hate being called that." You stammered.

"Then wha' is it I call you?"

Your ears hummed in pleasure, as he played with your name a few times under his breath.

"And you? What shall I call you?" You asked him nervously.

"Anythin' you please." He gazed at you intensely, causing you to shyly glance down at your hands.

"No, I want to know your name." You insisted, shaking your head.

"Simon." He stated sharply.

"Simon…" You repeated, before anxiously biting your bottom lip. Mesmerized, you couldn't tare your eyes away from his intense crimson gaze as it slowly drifted down to your mouth.

The sudden sound of your father's voice calling your name caused you to gasp, releasing your flushed lip. Shattering the moment, you turned your attention towards the front of the carriage.

Glancing back at the mysterious man. "I’m sorry, I’m truly so sorry." You panicked, stepping away, rushing to take your seat.

As you made your way back to the castle, the ride was filled with an eerie silence.

Once you’d arrived home and stepped out of the carriage, the sound of jingling chains caught your attention.

Your father disappeared into the castle, leaving you alone with Simon. Watching as Louis released him from his restraints.

You couldn't help but feel the stir of curiosity and anger emanating from his gaze, freezing you in place.

Perhaps it was the countless years of torment he endured, that over time had hardened his natural state.

He stood tall, towering over your own figure. He was incredibly intimidating, and with each passing minute, the thought of fleeing became increasingly tempting.

Simon possessed an imposing build, with muscles that commanded attention. His blonde hair was too long and unruly, but that only added to his overall delphic demeanor.

However, his facial hair proved to be quite distracting, diverting the attention from his striking features.

His tattered clothing barely held together, falling apart at the seams, while his feet remained bare.

Your boots protected your feet from the sharp gravel stones, and although you were aware that he didn't experience pain in the same manner as you did, it still must’ve been somewhat uncomfortable. His overall appearance upset you.

"I’m sorry." You mumbled softly, casting your gaze downwards in shame.

"You keep apologizing."

He sounded annoyed, angry, his tone filled with irritation.

"I don't know what else to say." Closing your eyes to keep the tears at bay. With a shake of your head and a sniffle, you took a deep breath to compose yourself.

The sound of hurried footsteps on the splintered rock caught your attention. You turned to see Marianne as she made her way towards you.

It only took a call of your name for you to run to her. Enveloping you into her warm embrace, cradling your head into her chest.

Overwhelmed by the intensity of emotions you broke down, no longer strong enough to hold back your tears. Sobs racked through your throat, causing your shoulders to tremble with each wail of grief.

In that moment, Simon's presence faded into the background. With tender gestures and the gentle stroking of your hair, Marianne comforted you. Her soothing words reassured you, easing your tears.

"Louis?! Louis?!" Marianne's voice rang out, beckoning the man who had disappeared for only a moment.

"What has happened?!" He exclaimed angrily, his accusatory gaze fixated on Simon.

"He’s done nothing." Marianne interjected, her voice calm yet firm. "You're well aware of the princess's nature."

Simon remained stuck in place, utterly surprised at your sudden outpour of emotion.

Throughout his years, he had encountered countless young women, but witnessing, a princess of all people, weeping uncontrollably in the embrace of someone who, by all appearances, shared his vampiric nature, seemed unfathomable.

Marianne regarded Simon with an inscrutable expression, her gaze impossible to decipher. "Louis, escort him to the bathing chambers. See to it that he is cleaned and attired appropriately before bringing him to the princess's quarters. We shall await his arrival there."

She instructed, gently tugging at your weeping form as she led you towards the grand castle.

"Goodness Marianne, it was absolutely awful." You said once you had distanced yourself from the men, finding the courage to explain yourself.

"They were all beaten and chained, some of them so weak they couldn't even stand on their own. It's sickening that I participated in such a thing. Heavens, I bought a man."

Tears continued to stream down your face as she guided you indoors. "It's alright now, my dear, don’t worry. All is well. Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?"

Simon squeezed into the porcelain tub, sinking comfortably against its back with his arms draped over the sides. He’d cut his hair, shaved his beard, and meticulously scrubbed all the dirt off his scarred skin, leaving it free from any traces.

As he indulged in the soothing warmth of the water, his mind wandered back to you.

Your wide tear-filled eyes that glistened as you looked up at him. Lashes that appeared fuller as they clung together from the tears cascading down your flushed cheeks.

The remembrance of your disheveled state, stirred a sense of melancholy deep within him.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he submerged himself beneath the water's surface.

Despite the fact that Louis had provided Simon with the largest clothes he could find. With his impressive height and broad build, they still seemed to be slightly too snug for his frame.

The shirt appeared to be undersized. It fell short, just below his hips, and was a bit snug around his shoulders. On the other hand, the old pair of boots that were given to him fit perfectly.

Louis guided him through the castle and when they finally reached your door, Louis left him standing in the hallway. Simon stood there for a moment unsure about what might lay beyond the door.

Sitting in your usual spot by the window, your lace-up heeled boots lay untied on the floor beside you. Sensing a change in the room, you turned around, anticipating Marianne. However, you were surprised when you saw Simon approaching.

Finally, with his hair cut short and his face clean-shaven, you could catch a glimpse of his true self. Though, his presence seemed so estranged in your feminine room.

You stood up, suddenly anxious. Yet, his height startled you and you took a clumsy step back, accidentally hitting the wooden bench with your heel, causing you to awkwardly plop down onto your rear end.

As soon as Marianne stepped in, you quickly stood back on your feet. Gently smoothing down the fabric of your skirt, attempting to alleviate the shakiness of your hands.

Simon obediently sat down into a chair not too far from him upon Marianne's request, and you gracefully resumed your own seat as well. Simon found it peculiar how willingly you followed Marianne's instructions.

"Simon, you are not t- Marianne..." You interjected, cutting her off.

From the moment you entered your bedroom, you had made it clear that she was not to address him in the same manner as the other servants.

Marianne let out a sigh before starting again. "Hello, Simon. My name is Marianne, the queen's lady-in-waiting. However, for all practical purposes, I have been taking care of the princess since she was a young girl."

Simon glanced back and forth between the two of you, catching your gaze as you observed him from your perch by the window.

"To ensure a seamless transition, there are just a handful of guidelines you need to adhere to." She informed him.

"Firstly, you will be residing in the servant chambers. Louis will assign you daily tasks to keep you occupied. Once you complete your duties, you are free to engage in any activities of your choice. Feel free to explore the castle grounds, take care of the animals and crops, or anything else that keeps you busy." She continued.

"However, you must always be attentive to the Princess herself. For you are to be devoted to her." Simon glanced in your direction, immediately catching sight of your somber expression, despite your attempts to hide it from him.

"It is strictly prohibited to enter the west wing of the castle. The library and ballroom, on the other hand, can be accessed with prior permission from the king, queen, or the princess." She finished.

After she’d gone over a few more things she’d eventually excused herself.

Once Marianne left your bedroom, you followed her to the door, closing it behind her. A heavy sigh escaped your lips as you turned back to face Simon.

Marianne had encouraged you to make an attempt at talking with him. It wasn’t everyday a pale fresh face was introduced to the castle.

You found him standing in the middle of the room, his expression filled with uncertainty. "You have questions."

There was a brief moment of silence, before he suddenly spoke, taking a chance on your unusual demeanor. "Do I 'ave permission t'speak freely?"

"You don't need my permission to do anything." You replied honestly, yet, intrigued by his request.

"Neve' met someone like you." Simon paused, his voice filled with genuine curiosity.

Yet, his words caught you off guard, causing a blush to creep up your cheeks. "What do you mean?" You asked, genuinely surprised by his confession.

"All m’years, I've met thousands of people..." Simon explained, his tone filled with a mix of vulnerability and obligation.

"Ya’ see, I have been tortured, beaten, punished, abused..."

A lump formed in your throat, and tears welled up in your eyes as he confessed. "Stop that..." You whimpered softly, your voice barely audible.

"...but the first day I meet you, you apologized for nothin’." His voice remained steady. "You call me by my name, and allow me to call you by yours..." He stated in confusion.

"Simon.."

"I am at your command, your highness. I will not deny it... Simon, don't..."

You couldn't help but stare at the floor. Your throat constricted, a heavy lump settling in it, making it difficult for you to speak.

Simon's words struck a chord within you.

"I never wanted things to be like this." You confess, taking a step closer to him, unable to keep your distance.

"I never wanted to be trapped within these walls, raised by guards and maids instead of my own parents. Told how to dress, how to behave, how to speak, even how to feel. Forever alone, mocked, ridiculed..." Closing the gap between you, you continued.

"I may not know what it is like to be one of you, and I can never truly understand the pain of what you've been through, but I do know what it's like to have no control over your own life. To have every decision made for you. So, when I apologize, it's not for nothing. It's for everything. Everything that has ever happened to you because of me..."

As you stood just a step away from him. His face, a mixture of confusion and bewilderment.

"...so I find myself apologizing, repeatedly. Even though I know you may not believe me. I can no longer continue living this facade. Pretending that everything is okay, when it's far from." You let a breathless laugh escape your lips.

"I refuse to treat you in the same manner as my father would, and I was only at that stupid auction today because he insisted I had to be. So, please understand that I cannot treat you with anything less than kindness... and nothing you do or say can ever change that."

As you looked up at him, your hand softly touched his forearm, which dangled lazily by his side. Looking up at him, his captivating eyes met yours, an unbreakable connection.

They portrayed a deep sense of astonishment as you confessed, causing you to avert your gaze shamefully. However, you couldn't help but look back at him, wanting to appear courageous in the presence of such an overwhelmingly, intimidating man.

Simon was bewitched, an enchanted feeling he had never experienced before consumed him completely, leaving no doubt in his mind at your sincerity.

Initially, he had pictured you as a spoiled, immature, arrogant princess, who'd come from a privileged, lavish life. Someone who had everything handed to them on a silver platter, attended private classes and never missed a lesson.

Although, as he gazed at you, he saw the complete opposite.

The rosy blush on your cheeks, a beautiful indication that your heart pumped with life, and the sparkle in your eyes revealed a shimmer of hope for the future.

At your chest tightening confession, Simon realized that despite where he came from, an environment filled with poverty and hardship, where tainted hands met violence and hurt, you'd still welcome him with kindness and warmth. Something he hadn't felt since he was human.

"Please, do not make this difficult for me." You pleaded with him.

"I'm certain that the years you remain here will fade in comparison to the rest of your life, but it will be my entire existence."

Little did you realize just how wrong you were. Simon was already well aware that his time here would trump all the years he'd existed.

He knew that you, would surpass all the people he'd spent his everlasting eternity with.

The past few months remained somewhat peaceful. You had yet to ask much from Simon, other than helping hand here and there.

To be truthful, you were slightly embarrassed at your initial introduction of yourself, and your thoughts on the whole situation made you reluctant to ask things of him. However, that didn't mean you weren't observant.

Despite both of your seemingly busy schedules, it didn't deter you from watching him closely as he worked.

Tending to the horses and other animals in the stables. The times you witness him and Louis engaged in deep conversation.

He was truly a captivating sight to behold. You'd study him, working away, out in the fields, watching as he effortlessly hoisted those hefty bales of hay.

A task which would typically require the strength of two mortal men, he made, seem like child's play.

On hotter days, there were moments when you would catch him clad, in nothing but a pair of trousers and boots. His tunic-shirt, casually tossed over the fence as he tirelessly carried on with his work.

It was during these days, you'd take your time when admiring his naked upper body. With strong, powerful muscles rippling beneath scarred, sweat glistening skin. He was undeniably breathtaking.

He'd once asked you for permission to use the library and you had assured him that he no longer needed to ask your approval.

In fact, you'd even told him to let anyone causing him trouble know that it was you who had granted him access.

You'd ran into him a few times there, when gathering books your instructors told you to bring along to class.

Conversations were always short, neither of you talked very much. Simply a few brief, fleeting words regarding what each of you were reading or how you had been passing the time.

Once you began to feel anxious or perhaps even a bit flustered, you'd politely excuse yourself. Scurrying off to find solace in some deep, hidden corner of the castle.

Simon always found you incredibly strange. He was well aware of the fact that he had captured your attention, as he could feel your eyes fixed on him during numerous occasions.

In fact, he would often find himself going the extra mile just to amuse you. Whether it was casually removing his sweat soaked shirt or deliberately taking a bit more time to complete his tasks, knowing that you would be watching his every move.

It wasn't until your father had confronted you about your tutors' complaints, regarding your lack of focus during lessons. How they'd caught your attention slipping, or how easily you got distracted, often gazing out the window lost in your own thoughts, 'daydreaming' was what they'd called it.

As a result, he summoned you to his study, where he proceeded to ridicule you about how childish you were being. To waste their time and his precious coin on classes that you so stupidly couldn't comprehend, or didn't have the mental capacity to follow along.

His words cut like a knife, devoid of any kindness or compassion. His only purpose, to shatter the illusions you had created in your head, and to demand your undivided attention.

You quickly left his study, tears streaming down your face. Hurriedly, rushing through the grand halls of the castle. Your sole mission was to reach your bedroom, where you could finally surrender to the comfort of your bed and release all the pent-up emotions through a torrent of tears.

Yet, you were interrupted at the top of the stairs where you'd collided with someone with such force, you thought it would surely bring you both sprawling to the ground.

Instinctively, you threw your hands out to catch yourself, only to find them resting against a solid chest covered in well-defined muscles. A strong arm encircled tightly around your waist, keeping you from collapsing onto the ground in a puddle of tears.

Simon had spent quite some time in the library, secretly hoping he'd encounter you. Unfortunately, luck was never on his side. He'd abandoned his pursuit, making his way back to his quarters when he suddenly caught the sound of your hurried footsteps. The rampant rhythm of your heartbeat, and the unmistakable, sickly scent of your sorrow.

There were only a few things Simon found enjoyable about being what he was. Among them, was his heightened senses. With his newfound sense of smell and enhanced hearing, he had the luxury of knowing exactly how a person was feeling.

On occasion, he was able to catch the skipped beat of your heart, when he paid you a subtle compliment and the, oh so, delightful scent of your arousal that filled the air when he'd 'accidentally' brush up against you.

However, in this moment he didn't find it quite as appealing. The sight of freshly fallen tears, cascading down your flushed cheeks, and the sound of each wet breath you took in an effort to compose yourself, which had no effect, had Simon's chest constricting.

"Your highness? What has happened?" The sight of your distress caused a surge of anger coursing through him at the thought of someone causing you pain.

The unexpected appearance of Simon caused you to feel a sudden sense of relief. As his rough, calloused fingertips gently brushed away the tears streaming down your cheeks, and as his words registered in your mind, you shook your head.

Taking a large step away from him, distanced yourself from his comforting embrace. You swiftly wiped away any remanence of your tears, before crossing your arms tightly over yourself, in an attempt, determined to comfort yourself.

"Nothing. I am just being childish, that's all." You reassured him. Putting emphasis on childish, in reference to your father's patronizing words.

Simon tried to cheer you up teasingly. "Ain't a princess not suppose' t'lie?" Unfortunately he hadn't had much practice in the matter and his attempt only seemed to make things worse.

"You're right. I'm sorry-I just..." Your voice fractured, like delicate glass as you started to apologize, but he interrupted you.

"No. No, 's not what I meant." He said gently. Confused, you looked up at him. "You don't need to lie, not to me."

Reaching out, his fingers delicately brushed away a wayward piece of hair from your face, tucking the stray strand behind your ear, his touch sending shivers down your spine.

You inhaled deeply, preparing to speak, the words escaped your lips softly. "I'm falling behind in my studies." Simon would've asked why, but deep down, he feared he already knew the answer. Him.

"'s trivial." He said, attempting once again to displace your worries.

"To you." You sighed, while he simply hummed in response.

"Suppose."

Simon was never one for words, so he thought of something else that might cheer you up. "Come with me." He uttered unexpectedly, catching you off guard.

"What?... Where?" You asked him puzzled.

This time, he reached his hand out slowly, gently brushing against your wrist and palm, before finally catching the tips of your fingers with his.

Without saying a word, he led you carefully by his side, guiding you out of the castle entrance and towards the stables. You couldn't help but giggle uncontrollably as Simon tightened his grip on your hand, intertwining your fingers.

With your free hand, you lifted the skirt of your dress, in order to keep up with Simon's quickening pace. "Where are you taking me?" You asked him playfully. He didn't respond, instead pulling you closer to him as you approached the fence of the pasture.

"Simon I'm not allowed this far." You warned looking up at him. Once again, he paid no mind to your words, smiling down at you as he grabbed you by the waist to hoist you over the fencing.

"Simon!" You shrieked his name. Grasping his sturdy upper arms, at the feeling of him effortlessly lifting you off the ground and into the air. Once he set you back down on your feet, he placed one hand onto the railing, leaping to your side.

"Would you just come on." He said, grabbing your hand once more pulling you with him into the open fields of grass.

Suddenly, he came to a stop, positioning you in front of him. You could feel the firmness of his chest against your back, while his large hands firmly grasped onto your hips protectively.

"Si-Shh, shh, shh. Look." He interrupted you softly, gently nodding his head for you to look forward.

Straight ahead, in front of you both, was a harras of horses. Gracefully trotting over the lush grassy knoll. A handful of playful foals keeping pace beside their nurturing mothers.

As the sun began its descent behind the towering trees, it painted the flowery hills with radiant beams of golden light.

The view before you was absolutely breathtaking, and despite all your years living in the castle, you never imagined you'd see something quite this beautiful.

You gently rested your hands on Simon's, which were now wrapped loosely around your waist and leaned back into the comfort of his strong embrace. In that moment, all your previous worries and doubts seemed to fade away.

Simon felt you relax into him, drawing you tighter against his body, keeping you close.

He gently lowered his head, his nose grazing against the full of your hair and he took a deep breath, inhaling in your delicious scent, savoring the intoxicating aroma of vanilla that enveloped you both.

As his words escaped his lips, a gentle touch of his breath caressed the shell of your ear sending a delightful shiver down your spine. "Beautiful, isn't it?" His tone, a confident statement, rather than a question.

You gave a subtle nod, your voice currently untrustworthy as Simon's head remained nestled in your hair.

His hands began to wander. His brain, no longer thinking clearly as his senses grew hazy. His mind, a clouded mess, suddenly consumed by you.

With one hand he gently traced the curve of your hip, gripping at the softness of your plush thighs through the fabric of your skirt.

His other hand ventured upwards, long fingers spreading wide as they glided over your rib cage, brushing against your sternum just below your breast.

As his lips drug against the delicate skin of your neck and a surge of warmth enveloped you, your eyes widened in recognition.

You quickly spun around to distance yourself from him, but his arm remained securely around your waist holding you firmly in place.

Your hands reached out to push at his chest, but the intense look of hunger in his eyes, caused you to freeze.

How foolish of you, allowing him to lure you out here all alone. As much as you were reluctant to accept it, he was still a predator and his thirst for blood, veracious.

As his hand gently cradled your cheek, his fingers tangled in your wild hair. His eyes burned with an insatiable lust as he tilted your head.

You watched him salivate, his tongue darting out, licking his lips at your desirable taste.

A wavering sigh escaped your lips, leaving you utterly breathless. Fear gripped your trembling hands as he leaned closer, drawing you towards his awaiting mouth.

You knew there was no calling for help, no one would arrive fast enough to save you from him.

With a heavy heart, you closed your eyes as a single tear fell down your cheek. Bracing yourself for the inevitable pain, accepting of his bitter-sweet bite of death.

His cold breath fanned against your lips, before a burning warmth enveloped them. Pleasurable tingles coursed through your jaw, gradually ascending to your face, caressing your cheekbones and even reaching your hair, which was held captive in his strong hand.

The rough texture of his scarred lips was nothing compared to the pillowiness of them.

Simon deepened the kiss, stealing the breath from your lungs.

You had never experienced such a sweet sensation before. You were still young and hadn't been trusting enough to share such an intimate moment like this with somebody.

A kiss filled with such an overwhelming sense of passion, surpassing any tenderness you had ever experienced. Your body relaxed, your hands, once tightly clutching his shirt out of fear, now clung to it with longing, yearning to pull him closer to you.

His mouth parted, gently drawing your lower lip inside. His tongue caressing the tender flesh as he kissed you furiously. He tasted like tea, earthy with a hint of something sweet, perhaps cherries or marzipan.

Simon couldn't get enough of you. The soft curve of your waist, perfectly fitting his hand, as if it were meant to keep you by his side.

Since his arrival, he'd been yearning for more. Longing for your taste, and to let you consume every part of him completely. The sickly-sweet flavor of your lips, the taste of your mouth that he savored like the most cherished elixir.

The sudden nip of his teeth against your plump skin stung, jolting you back to reality. The instant your eyes widened in astonishment, you pulled away from him.

Simon's brows were knitted together, as though the absence of your lip brought him some kind of unbearable pain. He breathed deeply, his chest, rising and falling, as if it carried the weight of his yearning.

He caught sight of the solitary tear that had escaped your eye, his thumb brushing it away along with your fears. You thought about how you'd gotten yourself here. How you had been so blind, up until this moment.

"Simon..." His name had never before sounded so beautiful coming from trembling lips.

Was it perhaps because he had kissed you silly, until you became lightheaded and breathless, or simply his ears playing tricks on him, he didn't know. Whatever it was he didn't care, his only priority was to somehow kiss you again.

"...why would you do that?" You said feverishly.

"Didn't think y’d mind." His voice was slurred as he spoke somberly. A hint of something playful in his tone that sent an unfamiliar sensation through your body.

Simon could smell the sweetness of your desire, yet your face, a mix of confusion and uncertainty. "You didn't ask..."

Of course that's what you wanted, he thought. A proper kiss for a proper girl. He smiled down at you, your eyes, filled with emotions, glistened innocently as they met his gaze.

"’ought ya might'a liked it." His gaze was soft as he shifted back and forth between your wide eyes and swollen lips.

"I might have if you'd asked."

In all honesty you did love like it. In fact it was better than you could've ever imagined. Although, it wasn't like you had anything to compare it to.

"Simon..." The purr that hummed in his chest sent tingles through you. He leaned down again dragging his nose along the exposed skin of your clavicle.

You flinched, the feeling of mouth so close to the bare skin of your neck. You shivered and couldn't help but whimper at the feeling.

Simon could smell your fading aroma of pleasure, replaced by the reeking scent of fear. He pulled away to look at you but you diverted your gaze. Looking anywhere but his captivating eyes.

"What's got ya so frightened, Dovie?" Amazed at how easy he could tell how you were feeling, you stuttered out a reply.

"I-We can't... If my father- Wait... how could you tell?"

"It reeks." He said blatantly.

"Y-you can smell fear?"

"Mhm..." He leaned back in, kissing up the side of your throat, mumbling against your skin between each one. "and sorrow... happiness... arousal..." You blushed deeply, bringing a hand up to hide your flushed cheeks.

"None of that, Dovie. 'm a proud man, like to see what I do to you."

The sun had set leaving the sky a dark blue-gray. The wind had picked up, the breeze whipping against your warm skin and tangling your hair into a mess.

Simon's hands began to move up and down against your arms before brushing back your wild strands. You leaned closer to him, his body bracing against the wind protecting you from the nipping cold.

"S'time to getcha inside, little one."

⇠ call of duty masterlist. part.2⇢

so this was originally just going to be one fic but it got way too long. so I figured I'd break it into two, maybe a third if y'all have some ideas/requests on how I could continue it <3 next part will be smutty!

#ladywuvly. m.list #18+ content #simon riley smut #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #ghost call of duty #ghost x female reader #ghost x reader #simon riley #fanfic #navi.#18+ blog #fandom #vampireslave!simonriley x princess!reader #vampire!simon ghost riley

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punkshort · 5 months

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18+ account - minors do not interact warnings/tags included on each individual work.

No use of Y/N in anything.

Thank you for reading ❤️

Series

The Way We Were - series [complete] : You worked for Joel and Tommy a few months before the outbreak. When the outbreak happens, you and Joel get stuck traveling the country and keeping each other safe. Neither of you spoke about the feelings you had for one another pre-outbreak, and in a post-apocalyptic world, it seems like survival should be your only focus. But feelings can't be ignored forever.

Look What We've Become - series [sequel to TWWW - complete] : You are tasked with taking a young girl back to her family while trying to salvage your relationship with Joel after certain events cause the biggest strain either of you have ever had to face.

I'll Be Home For Christmas [complete, but sporadic updates] Having just caught your fiancé cheating on you, you decide to come back home from the big city to Austin for the month of December to try to figure out your next step. You had no idea you would be getting more than you bargained for with the handsome single dad who built your parents' house.

Somewhere to Run - series [complete] : You move to a small town in the middle of Texas to escape your past and start over. You don't expect to fall for the town's handsome sheriff.

I Know Who You Are - series [in progress]: A fall on patrol causes you to lose your long term memory, forgetting the identities of your friends and loved ones. You have to learn all over again how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, and you learn things about yourself along the way.

Roommates - series [in progress]: Your roommate, Maria, introduces you to her boyfriend's brother. You hit it off immediately, but when you find out the true nature of his profession, you both decide to remain just friends. But once the four of you eventually move in together, lines get blurred.

One-Shots/Requests

I hate when you're right : After a heated argument with Joel, you finally convince him to leave Jackson so you could explore a store for new clothes, and what happens could change your life forever.

Have A Good Night [coming soon]: Every week like clockwork, the same devastatingly handsome man comes into the grocery store where you work to buy flowers. It's not until he asks you out when you realize the flowers aren't for his wife or girlfriend.

One-Shots/Requests/Collections

The Stranger: An unexpected visitor barges into your new apartment, turning your whole life upside down, then disappears just as quickly. Or does he?

-> Unveiled - pt. 2 of The Stranger

credit to @saradika-graphics for the dividers

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mybrainsautocorrect · 5 days

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Okay I’ve been thinking about Hannibal as a whole show rather than its parts, and I really love how it was divided up.

Season one is getting to know Will. Us as the viewers are obviously learning about him because we are meeting him for the first time going right into it. Hannibal is also in the same position as we are, but he gets to interact, he gets to experiment with Will to learn who he is on a much deeper level, and there is definitely even more that he learns beyond what we the audience are shown. Season one is particularly great, though, because Will is also learning who he is. He’s doing real FBI work and hunting down the baddest of bads, and he’s also going to therapy (consistently) for the first time ever. While what he’s learning may not be the most reliable account of himself, it all set him up so well for his utter conviction in season two

Because season two is all about learning who Hannibal is. It starts with Will but on a more surface level, if you count knowing Hannibal as a canniballistic serial killer surface level. He learns that much and is then slowly able to get those around him to come to the same conclusion. But then Will goes further, and he “joins” Hannibal. He steps into a role as Hannibal’s equal, and Hannibal allows that. He allows Will to know him. (That’s what hurts him so much in the end.) Through Will and the eyes of both those who know what Hannibal is, and those who don’t, the audience also gets a much clearer sense of who Hannibal is, although there are definitely still quite a few questions

That leads into season three, which is at its deepest level, about the two of them. It’s where the show explores who they are apart from each other, but still in relation to the other. And it shows who they are together. It’s really just about the two of them- even though it also introduces the second biggest bad of the show (second only to Hannibal himself). They pine after each other in the space between themselves. Then they close that space. They are far but seeking each other, then they are close but opposing, then they are a pair. They work together finally and it ends the only way it could. Their two minds become one, just for a moment, and that was all that was left for them to experience, for the audience to need, in order to have all of the information

#spoilers #Hannibal #will graham #hannibal nbc #hannigram #thoughts #analysis #murder husbands

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harvatat · 2 months

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bake you a cake || jing yuan, dan heng, blade

jing yuan understands the very concept of a cake (because cakes are not common culture in the xianzhou alliance). it is a liquid batch of flour and flavours that must be baked in the oven at a certain temperature for a certain amount of time. he understands. but how does someone even begin? he attempts to bake in the astral express kitchen (with prior approval from pom pom, of course), and march, dan heng, and occasionally welt interject with helpful tips. the cake turns out relatively well, although he did use too much sugar and vinegar. 7/10, but the flavour is mildly nasty.

dan heng is well-aware of what a cake looks like and how to bake it, having baked many with march and then stelle for various events like a successful trailblaze and birthdays, so he quickly enters the kitchen to bake you a cake. however, he overestimated the amount of batter he required, and ended up using the remaining batter to make muffins. he gave the muffins to welt and himeko, who don't entirely prefer sweet things, and divided the cake between you, march, and himself, leaving a piece for pom pom. his go-to flavour is chocolate, but also experiments with banana-walnut, strawberry, and vanilla. 10/10 because he's experienced.

blade, like a mix of jing yuan and dan heng, understands the concept of a cake and has both seen and eaten a few pieces over his years with the stellaron hunters. kafka and silver wolf both enjoy cakes on his birthday and bake him a small batch of muffins on his to eat, so he's seen the process and is vaguely aware of how to replicate it. kafka is his only helper- silver wolf is in her room pulling for a character that "looks just like bladie" with the silver-haired trailblazer, and sam is away on an espionage mission given to them by elio. while kafka makes light fun of him, she does give him the exact quantities he needs, and the picture of the first cake he's ever baked hangs proudly in the living room, sloppy decorations and all. 10/10 because it's adorable as hell.

i wrote the most for blade bc unfortunately i am very biased (he charmed me with his backstory and playstyle during his release banner) reposted from @.ameleii (my old account)

#honkai star rail #hsr #honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #jing yuan x reader #honkai jing yuan #hsr jing yuan #jing yuan fluff #dan heng #hsr dan heng #dan heng x reader #dan heng x you #blade hsr #hsr blade #hsr blade x reader #blade x reader

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loveroftoomanyfandoms · 3 months

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Sweet on You, Chapter 1

Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Rating: M (Rating Subject to Change)

Story Summary: You had joined 'Sugar and Spice' in a desperate attempt to help your mother with her medical bills, so when an opportunity comes along to make a lot of money simply by spending time with a lonely attorney, you jump at the chance -- not expecting to fall for him in the process.

Tired of one-night-stands, Matt Murdock decides to sign up for a sugar daddy/sugar baby website, where he stumbles across your profile. However, despite making it clear that he only wants a platonic arrangement, Matt eventually finds himself falling for you.

Will the two of you be able to come to a permanent arrangement or will more than a contract be broken?

Warnings/Tags: Sugar Daddy!Matt Murdock, No Age Gap, Alternating PoV, No Use of Y/N

Word Count: ~1100

A/N: Thank you to everyone who liked and reblogged the teaser! A few notes before we dive in:

-- While Reader's age is not actually specified in this, it's stated several times that she's closer to Matt's age than most women on the 'Sugar and Spice' website.

-- Matt & Reader do not actually refer to each other as their sugar baby/sugar daddy (although for all intents and purposes, that's what they are).

-- Divider is by the insanely talented (and just as awesome IRL as she is on Tumblr) @theradioactivespidergwen!

-- This is rated M for now, however rating may possibly go up in later chapters. 😈

-- If you'd like to be added to the taglist or if I've tagged you by mistake, please let me know!

Tag List: @danzer8705 @capylore @shouldbestudying41 @atemydadforbreakfast

No, it's fine, Mom, I promise,” you said as you spoke to your mother over the phone. “It's not your fault you got laid off and lost your medical insurance right before you got sick.”

“It's not your responsibility to pay my medical bills, sweetheart,” your mother protested. “I'll come up with the money somehow.”

You shook your head even though you knew your mother couldn't see you. “You’ve sacrificed so much for me, Mom. Let me do this for you.”

Your mother sighed. “Okay, fine. But only because you just got that big raise at work.”

You cleared your throat awkwardly. “Uh, yeah. Lucky me. Listen, Mom, I have to go, but I'll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay. Love you, sweetie.”

“Love you too. Bye.”

You hung up and blew out a breath. You knew your mother wouldn't approve if you told her the real way you had been affording to make payments towards her medical debt for the past several months.

The truth was that your job as an administrative assistant barely even covered your own bills, so you had been supplementing your income through alternative means.

You had joined Sugar and Spice after one of the junior admin assistants had confided in you that she had managed to put herself through college by dating rich older men for money. “It's actually not a bad gig,” she had told you. “Most of them really just want arm candy to show off to their friends.”

You had gone home that night and checked out the website, and after discovering that you could select your comfort level/how far you were willing to go (by indicating that you were into either ‘sugar’ or ‘spice’) you had signed up.

It had been working out okay -- you had only been making a few hundred dollars extra a month so far because most of the men on Sugar and Spice wanted someone much younger than you were, but you had at least been able to scrape together enough to make the monthly payments on your mother's medical bills.

And speaking of…

You grabbed your laptop and pulled it over to you, then navigated to your Sugar and Spice account, pleased when you saw that you had gotten a new inquiry.

You clicked on it.

Hi, the message read, I ran across your profile and I think you might be what I'm looking for. If you're interested and available please message me back at your earliest convenience. Thank you.

You huffed out a laugh. Usually the messages you received weren't quite so… polite, so to speak.

You clicked on the sender's profile.

Matthew, 35

Occupation: Attorney

Interested in: Sugar

Huh. Matthew was a lot younger than most of the men who frequented the site. Maybe that'll be a good thing.

You clicked the reply button. Hi, Matthew, you typed. I am available if you'd like to discuss things further.

You got up to fix yourself some tea, and by the time you came back you had another message from Matthew. Great! Is it okay if we meet in person to discuss possible terms of an agreement? Over coffee, maybe?

Okay, you replied once again. When and where would you like to meet?

The Brew Towers on Saturday, say, 9 AM?

That works for me.

Your eyebrows raised as a notification popped up stating that you had received $100 from Matthew.

As a sign of good faith , Matthew explained. See you Saturday.

See you Saturday.

You logged out and closed your laptop, butterflies fluttering in your stomach. This was the first time you'd be meeting a potential client in person and needless to say, you were nervous.

Matt sat back and took another sip of the glass of whiskey he had poured himself before he had signed up on Sugar and Spice. He had been in court earlier that day and had overheard a conversation during recess between opposing counsel about Nesbit’s much-younger girlfriend.

“How'd an old dog like you manage to score a hot piece of ass like that?” Peterson had asked jokingly.

Nesbit had chuckled. “You'd be amazed at what you can find on the internet these days. Let's just say Candy and I have a… business arrangement.”

Peterson had dropped his voice down to a whisper. “She's not an escort, is she? You know the partners don't want wind of any kind of impropriety possibly getting out to the public--”

Nesbit had made a dismissive sound. “No, nothing like that. You ever heard of Sugar and Spice, that website that connects men of a certain wealth and caliber with women who are looking for someone to take care of them? Well, Candy and I met there. She takes care of my needs, and I take care of hers.”

“So, what, you pay her to date you?”

“In a way. I keep her happy by giving her money and buying her things, and she lets me do whatever else I want when I'm not with her.”

Matt's eyebrows had furrowed. Maybe Nesbit had a point -- maybe it was easier to have a business arrangement with someone in order to fill the romantic void in his life rather than having to pick up a different woman every couple of weeks because they got too attached. Better to have someone who knows exactly what they're getting into.

As soon as he had gotten home he had looked up Sugar and Spice, and not finding anything in their terms and conditions that raised red flags, had signed up and began to browse through profiles.

After scrolling through profiles for over an hour and not finding anyone that piqued his interest he had almost gone ahead and given up when his voiceover function read out another profile header to him, this time for a woman who was at least closer to Matt's own age than all of the other women he had checked out.

He had listened to your profile then clicked the “Send Message” button, typing out a quick message and hitting send.

He had gone to answer the door for a delivery, and by the time he had gotten back to his laptop he’d had a reply.

Before he could second-guess himself Matt had asked you out for coffee, then sent $100 to your Sugar and Spice account to show you he was sincere.

He shut his laptop and stood, then headed to go shower and get ready to go out as Daredevil. He'd gotten a tip about a major drug shipment coming in through the docks that evening and needed to go stop it.

He'd worry about his love life later.

#lotmf writes #Sweet On You Masterlist #matt murdock x fem!reader #matt murdock x you #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x f!reader

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imyourbratzdoll · 1 year

Note

ok ok this might be fluff and light smut where chris evans got invited by BuzzFeed for thirst tweet and one of them tweet is written by his girlfriend, reader

hello, sorry this took so long. I hope you enjoy it!

thanks to @royalsweetteaa for helping me with some of these!

gif I use isn't mine, divider by @newlips

“Hello, everyone! I am Chris Evans, and I will be reading your thirst tweets!” He smiles nervously, just wanting to go home and hold you. Chris holds the blue bucket tightly as he puts a hand in, shuffling the small pieces of paper around. “Okay! Here’s the first one!”

Once he grasps one of the papers, he pulls it out and breaks into a chuckle. “I want to bury my face in Chris’s tits.” He shakes his head, “I’ll have to deny hellahornyforevans as I don’t think my girl would be too happy.” Chris gives the camera a dazzling smile, feeling some of his anxiousness disappearing as he puts his hand back into the bucket and pulls out another.

“Chris Evans can, like, stick his tongue down my throat, I guess.” Chris’s eyes widen, staring at the paper for a few seconds before his eyes slowly move to the camera. “Lovely offer, royalsweetsecret69. But again, I’ll have to pass!”

“Okay, I’ll be doing one more before my girl manages to choke me through this thing.” Chris lets out a light laugh, winking at the camera. Knowing Y/n is on the other side, chuckling and shaking her head at him, sticking his hand back into the bucket for the last lucky thirst tweet. He pulls the paper out and looks at the username, eyes widening when he reads it.

Chris clears his throat, leaning back in his chair before reading what’s on the paper. “I want Chris Evans to clone himself, and I want Chris Evans and his clone to Eiffel Tower me.” Chris’s face goes red before he looks directly into the camera. “I mean… We could give it a go.” He laughs, leaning forward and onto the table in front of him. “Thank you, icallchrisdaddy, aka my girlfriend, Y/n L/n. Like I wouldn’t know your second Twitter account.” He lets out another laugh, this one louder than the first.

Chris looks at the camera with a big grin, “That’s all for tonight, thank you for your tweets, and I hope you all have a great day.” Once the camera is turned off and he says goodbye to the crew, he walks off with his phone in his hand and gives you a call.

“Hi, baby! How was it?!” Chris smiles when your face pops into view, and your voice comes through the speakers. He gives you a playful glare.

“Did you have to give me a boner while I was doing that interview?” All he receives back is a cheeky smile, “you better be ready when I get home, baby girl. Because you won’t be walking for a week.”

thank you for reading!

feedback and reblogs are greatly appreciated.

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ghost-proofbaby · 9 months

Text

you showed me colors (eddie munson x fem!reader)

"YOU SHOWED ME COLORS YOU KNOW I CAN'T SEE WITH ANYONE ELSE."

summary: the soulmate au based on "illicit affairs" by taylor swift that almost no one asked for.

warnings: ANGST, HURT/NO COMFORT, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, strategic use of pet names, allusions to sex but none described, reader is referred to as a girl a few times, no use of Y/N, canon compliant. not really edited (cause i'm not putting myself through this shit again).

wc: 15.1k+

a/n: im genuinely sorry for once. blame @abibliophobiaa and @breddiemunson for this. also, thank you @hellfire--cult for helping me with the header!!! please take all those warnings very seriously. please. (also shout out to ash who got her own divider sort of so she'd know when to stop reading because my baby doesn't like angst 😅)

The first thirteen years of your life, you only had second hand accounts to trust when it came to colors.

The sky is blue, soft and dreamy, nearly translucent until grey wisps of clouds would overrun it on stormy days (although, the clouds, you could make out). Most grass is green, verdant and rich as it sprouts from the hard dirt. Even the yellowing strands are most likely gorgeous, a sign of life and death, a sign that someone once stood atop the green and held their ground. Roses come in a rainbow of shades, but everyone seems to adore the staunch red ones the best. The plush pink of a lover’s kiss-bitten lips, the warm brown fur of the dogs you passed by on the street, the deep violet of the plums your mother proclaimed as her favorite fruit. A range of colors you had only ever heard of, never experienced yourself.

For thirteen years, all you had was stories. Nothing tangible, nothing solid in your palms. Mere crumbs of a promise of what you would have one day, when you met your soulmate.

When you met him.

It wasn’t the most pleasant of circumstances in which you two met. You’d spent a lot of your childhood fascinated with the concept and lost in daydreams about it – maybe they’d be a stranger you caught the eye of on the train, or maybe they’d be the one making your coffee at a quaint cafe in a big city someday. Whoever they would be, you wanted them to be made of all the fairytales. You wanted a meeting to challenge every romantic story you’d been fed through your youth, you wanted a love that would shake the very Earth you wandered from the first time your eyes met theirs.

Your reality seemed as far from earth-quake inducing as they could get, at the time. Looking back, though, you wish you could plead and change your youthful mind. Because the day wasn’t perfect, the situation was terrible shades of melancholy, but none of that really matters; what matters is that on that sunny Wednesday afternoon, you met him.

Scraped knees. You had scraped knees, sitting embarrassed and frazzled beneath a tree as you tried to sink into the shade surrounding its base and erase the memory of what had just transpired. You could still hear all the other kids’ taunts echoing through your mind, cruel and unnecessary words that were suited to follow you the rest of your days. Comments on your looks and teases of things you couldn’t change. Seeds of insecurity that were hard to swallow at the beginning of your teen youth.

You were still picking at the edges of your open wounds with slow drying tears still coating your cheeks when his shadow joined the tree’s.

“Are you alright?”

You looked up immediately to find a boy standing there. Your eyes had traveled slowly, taking in his baggy jeans with patchwork knees and his oversized faded t-shirt first. Even with the hand-me-down clothes, you could recognize his gangly limbs beneath it all. A frail frame and hunger-panged face. An overgrown buzz cut, no doubt prickly as the hairs stood to attention. Sunken in eyes brimming with concern for you. Whatever shade they were, they had to be dark; they were nearly black in the shades of grey your eyes could currently pick up on.

The thing about soulmates, is the colors don’t happen until you touch your soulmate.

“I’m fine,” you stubbornly replied, wrapping your arms around your shins and tucking your knees beneath your chin despite the sting.

“You don’t look fine.”

“Then stop looking.”

He threw his hands up defensively, shrugging a bony shoulder, “Sorry.”

He wasn’t sorry. Even with the wince that graced his face, he wasn’t sorry for checking in on you. You knew it the moment you caught the broken skin on his knuckles, nearly matching the cuts on your knees. You had fallen on the pavement as you’d tried to run away from the bullies, determined to not let them see you cry. The entire ordeal had been mortifying. You wished you would have just stood there and cried, let them hear your sobs and let them crown you the school’s newest crybaby.

“What happened to your hands?” you sniffled, moving to wipe at your nose. Your cheeks were drier now, the skin nearly stiff where the tears marks remained.

When you mentioned it, he suddenly shot his hands out before him, flexing each hand for emphasis as he looked down with boredom, “What? The cuts? Carver has sharp teeth, ‘s all.”

“Carver?” One of the kids who had just partaken in tormenting you.

“Yeah,” the boy nodded, suddenly plopping himself onto the ground beside you. You flinched and he grimaced in a silent apology once more, “I think he was in the middle of saying something when I punched him, but that’s not surprising. He always has his big mouth open-”

He was cut off mid-insult by a soft snort of laughter. Looking up, all of the previous annoyance at his injured knuckles melted away as he caught you fighting back your laughter.

“What? I say somethin’ funny?” he was biting back his own grin, raising an eyebrow.

You only laughed more, shoulders shaking now with entertainment rather than sobs. “I- Yeah, sorry, I just- God, you’re right. Carver does have a big mouth.”

“The absolute biggest.”

“Bigger than the Atlantic ocean.”

His chuckling joined yours, along with a face splitting grin and eyes that you swore shone between the monotonous tones. “God, bigger than the fucking Pacific ocean. Every ocean, as a matter of fact.”

You both leaned back against the rough bark of the tree, just close enough you could feel his heat through the summer air but not quite touching. Not yet. You let the back of your head thump against the trunk and tried to not think about any of the debris sure to end up in your hair.

“So…” you sighed once the two of you composed yourself from your laughing fits, “I’m assuming you punched Carver?”

He only nodded in answer.

“Can I ask why?”

Part of you wanted to assume that the two events were connected; Carver bullying you, and this boy punching him. But you didn’t want to make such a bold assumption about some stranger. Fellow peer or not.

“Because he made fun of you.”

The assumption wasn’t so bold. Your chest constricted, you remembered the sting of your knees, heard the echoes of the other students’ laughter at your fall once more.

“You punched him just because he made fun of me?” you tried to force out a joking tone, as if it wasn’t a big deal, as if it wasn’t making your heart swell, “You don’t even know me.”

“Doesn’t matter. He made fun of you,” the boy said with concrete decisiveness. There wasn’t a quiver of doubt to be seen, as if the logic made perfect sense to him. Your heart swelled more, painfully so. He looked down at one of his hands for a moment, before suddenly shrugging and rolling his head to look at you, sticking it out towards you, “I’m Eddie, by the way.”

A certain security blanketed the moment. This kid, Eddie, had punched a guy for making fun of you. You’d never even spoken to him before that day, much less would you have considered bruising your own knuckles for him. But he had for you. Without hesitation, apparently. Just some boy with a sliver of a gap still between his front teeth, a promise of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and blood on his hands as a reminder of your honor.

Teachers were certainly going to be coming to find the two of you soon. There would be consequences, most likely more on Eddie’s part than yours, but that didn’t matter. There, in the shade of an oak tree of a middle school you’d soon be departing only to join the ranks of some awful high school with bigger and badder bullies, with larger and crueler problems than skinned knees, you had a friend.

“I’m-” you started, reaching out your hand to meet his halfways. But you stopped, because the moment your palm met his, it happened. Suddenly, quickly, unexpectedly. It nearly gave you an instantaneous migraine; the flood of color was so overwhelming.

The first color you saw was the soft, whiskey brown of his eyes. Two warm and comforting orbs, blown out to be as wide as your own, as his face echoed back the same shell-shock on your own. His eyes were brown. Not grey, not black, but something more, something russet. Brown.

Colors. You were seeing colors for the first time. You both knew what it meant.

“You,” he breathed out with a boyish grin, letting you catch the pink of the tip of his tongue as he finished your introduction for you, both of your excitement buzzing in the breeze, “are my soulmate.”

—

Fifteen was the age of awkwardness. Thirteen had been awful, sure, full of changes and growth and such, but fifteen made it seem like a cake walk.

You wouldn’t have survived it without Eddie.

Two years into the friendship, the two of you were inseparable. You had always spent your entire childhood assuming that when you found your soulmate, it would all fall into place, romantically speaking. But then Eddie happened. Eddie, your soulmate, fell right into your lap and you realized all of your childish dreams were pale in comparison.

He was your best friend first and foremost. Even if he hadn’t been revealed as your soulmate on that day, you have no doubt that the trajectory of your friendship would have stayed on this path. From the beginning, both of you decided to Hell with society’s expectations of soulmates. Sure, most people didn’t find their soulmates until later in life, when it made sense for the sparks of romance to fly instantly, but the adults still seemed to expect that when the news broke. Your parents had been concerned, Eddie’s Uncle Wayne had been weary, your teachers had been blatantly confused.

It was fun for the two of you, though. The thrill of introducing each other as, “This is my best friend. Oh, also my soulmate, but, hey. Technicalities, am I right?”

Most of the kids in your grade hadn’t met their soulmates quite yet, especially those first few years. A sense of superiority sprouted in both of you to be able to know, to experience, to lavish in a world of color. To have the weight of finding your better part lifted off your shoulders so soon in life.

You and Eddie had an entire lifetime to figure out the romantic aspect of it all. For now, he was your best friend, and you were his, and that was enough.

Once you two had entered high school, one thing did become very clear: the parading of being soulmates had to cease.

Jason Carver had been enough of a menace in middle school, but grew into a fully formed monster once he joined your ranks in high school. People were not kind to Eddie – they hadn’t been in middle school, when he first moved to Hawkins, and they weren’t going to change their tune suddenly in high school. The bullying you had endured had begun to fade, but his age of torment had just begun.

You never once left his side. It didn’t matter to you if the entire school knew you were soulmates or not. It didn’t even matter that you two were soulmates; he was your best friend, and you would be damned before you left him to battle the tides alone.

“I hate this,” he mumbled as he sat on the toilet of his shared bathroom with Wayne in their trailer, you kneeling between his legs as you blotted at his split lip with an alcohol wipe, “I should have punched the asshole back.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” you scowled, furrowing your brows even deeper in concentration, “And stop talking – you’re making it worse.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but you quieted him with a glare.

Just as you wouldn’t have survived the Age of Awkwardness without Eddie, he wouldn’t have survived it without you.

You finished cleaning off the dried blood before tossing the wipe into the overfilled trash can, sighing heavily as you fell back onto the ground and supported yourself against the wall opposite of him.

You leveled each other into a staring contest, eyes blankly boring into each other with emotionless expressions.

“You’re lucky Wayne isn’t home, y’know,” you finally broke the silence, shooting a hand out to grab his ankle and give it a squeeze, “He’d probably be driving down to the school right now and-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie waved you off, shaking his head, “I know. Trust me, I know. I think Principal Higgins is starting to hate him more than he hates me.”

“Principal Higgins doesn’t hate you.”

“You’re right – he loathes me.”

The hand that was squeezing his ankle quickly traveled up to his knee to slap it, “Eddie.”

He raised his hands up in the air, lifting his brows for emphasis as he exclaimed, “What? You know I’m right, kid.”

Kid. The loving nickname Eddie had adorned you with the moment he found out he was a mere six months older than you. You hated it, and he loved that you hated it.

“The day you’re right is the day pigs fly, old man.”

Old man. The nickname that served as your attempt at a rebuttal. It didn’t work, not as intended.

He chuckled softly at that, as he usually does when you call him that, and only smacked his palms onto his thighs, “Well, doc, I must say – you’ve done an exquisite job. Am I free to go?”

You tried to fight your smile, tried to linger in the anger sparked from seeing Eddie hurt. Your disdain wasn’t directed at him; it was always a loaded gun pointed at whoever dared to lay a hand on your boy. You probably could have had a spotless reputation without Eddie Munson in your life, but you’d found your fists quick to fly in his defense.

Your parents hated it. Wayne secretly adored it, even when he’d still join in scolding you and Eddie alike on avoiding violence.

“Sure,” you shrugged, before grabbing his calves through denim to stop him. Dark blue denim, a deep shade of navy that you still hadn’t grown used to seeing. You hadn’t even realized jeans came in so many different shades until you met Eddie, and you’d always chastised him when he’d opt for a boring black pair, “But first, a payment is required.”

“A payment?” Eddie tilted his head, looking down at you curiously.

“A payment.”

“And what would this payment be?”

“A movie night,” you grinned wildly, finally letting your grip on him go, taking in the chestnut highlights of his curls and the red font of his t-shirt, a band shirt you’d never heard of but that he had recently gotten into, “Snacks provided by my loving host, you, of course.”

He exaggerated his pondering, bringing a hand to his chin, stroking dramatically. As if he was ever capable of saying no to you.

“Hm,” he hummed, his voice echoing through the tiny space and encasing you in warmth. As serene as that first summer day when he’d taken the leap of sitting down next to you in the grass, back to a tree, palm in your palm as colors had swarmed your vision, “I suppose that can be arranged.”

—

Movie nights were a frequent occurrence. A sanctuary from the shit show of your small town. Sometimes, they had been the illusion of a bargain like that night, and others, they were an unspoken agreement. You’d show up to Eddie’s trailer or he would end up on your doorstep, your favorite candies in hand, and the two of you would just know. No words needed as you’d situate yourself on whoever’s couch, legs intertwining and blankets shared across laps. A bowl of popcorn that usually ended up being spilled inevitably.

Movies were more fun in color. Some of your friends didn’t get it, still living in a world of black and white, but Eddie loved to listen to your rambles about how the vivid shades appeared across the screen. He loved the way your eyes would light up passionately, he loved how you still smiled so widely at special effects that were made more poignant by this gift the two of you had been given.

Time. You two had been given the time most soulmates weren’t allotted. A gift you always thanked the Universe for.

The latest Slasher film that had been released was currently displayed on the small television in Eddie’s living room, the two of you practically molded to the worn cushions of his sofa. Wayne had left within the first ten minutes for his shift, bidding the two of you a farewell with the warning of behaving. Vibrant reds splashed across the screen as one of the protagonists takes a stabbing, and while you should be shying away from the gruesome scene, you can’t help but stare in awe.

Even after years of experiencing colors, they took away your breath.

“Jesus,” you sighed wistfully, “How do they even make the fake blood? It’s so… so…”

“Red?” Eddie laughed from the other side of the couch, prodding at your thigh with his sock clad foot, “Probably food dye. Maybe some corn syrup.”

“It’s just so bright,” you eagerly leaned in closer to the TV, squinting with a wide smile, unaware of his stare.

He was quiet for a moment, simply enjoying your joy. Your awe and wonder at the world, the way it seemed as if you two had just met that day rather than years before. As if colors were still a fascinating color to you. Eddie had grown used to them, let them become a part of his daily routine, but you always seemed to shine a new light on them for him.

Around you, all the colors seemed a little bit brighter.

“How do you do that?” he whispered so softly, it nearly got lost in the noise of the movie’s climax.

You hummed in response, eyes never leaving the screen. You were watching the movie in fascination, and he was watching you in serenity.

His miracle. His gift. His soulmate.

“You just…” he trailed off, no longer caring about the movie, “You always treat them like they’re brand new.”

It caught your attention. The way his tone was so… velvety, so caring, so affectionate. You looked at him, “I treat what like they’re brand new?”

“The colors.”

“Because they are.”

The same assuredness as he used that very first day. As if it were obvious, as if it were simply a matter of fact and not such an endearing trait. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion and it only made his heart clench tighter.

You were his soulmate.

“We lived without them for thirteen years, old man-”

“Thirteen years and six months, in my case,” he piped up in interruption, wearing a Cheshire grin.

You nodded and rolled your eyes, “Yes, in your case. Thirteen years, give or take. I just… I don’t know. They still… they still get to me. I don’t think I can ever get used to them. Are you?”

“What? Used to them?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t know how to explain it to you, not at that moment. How could he articulate to you that after so many years, the colors had dulled ever so slightly? The novelty had worn off, had run its course. The only time they’d ever become as vivacious as the first time was when he looked at you.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t explain it to you, so he only shrugged, “I guess.”

I guess, except when I see the color of your eyes, and I realize they’re my favorite color. Except when I notice the varied shades of your hair, and realize how lucky I am to see them in their full glory rather than shades of grey. Except when you wear that favorite mauve lipstick of yours, and I can’t get over the shape of your lips. Except when you wear that pretty red dress, and your confidence has my head spinning.

I guess, except when it’s you.

“Well, that’s just sad,” you huffed, focusing back on the movie after kicking gently at his shin. You lapsed into a comforting silence for a few more minutes, letting the movie fill the air. The same cycle; you watched the screen, he watched you, and the Universe watched both of you with a smile as it knew that the right choice had been made. The two of you were meant for each other. In this life. In the past lives. In the next lives. The two of you were the epitome of soulmates, even if the concept had never existed before.

Thank the Universe it existed. Thank the Universe that he found you that day, below an oak tree, scraped knees and all.

His voice shook as he quietly confessed, “I love you, you know that, right?”

The movie faded in a blur for you instantly. Your neck could have snapped from how quickly you turned your attention to him. “What?”

“I love you,” his voice continued its waver, not from being unsure but from pure emotion. The flood of love that pulsed through his veins currently.

You smiled, the apples of your cheeks punctuated and the chip in your tooth from your youth he hadn’t had the privilege of being apart of on showcase, “Well, yeah. Duh. I’m your soulmate. You kind of have to love me.”

“Even if we weren’t soulmates,” he rushed to clarify, suddenly leaning forward and grabbing your knee beneath blankets that smelled of home, “Even if you weren’t my soulmate, I would love you.”

Your face softened. He wished he would have kissed you in that moment.

But the vulnerability was terrifying, and all that could echo through your mind is the fact that you two had time. So instead of matching his serious tone, you joked, “Well, it’s a good thing I am your soulmate, then. It might have been awkward for your hypothetically soulmate you would have had instead in that scenario, trying to explain why you love your best friend more than them.”

“Shut up,” he laughed, squeezing your knee tighter, “I’m being serious, kid. I love you. I really, really fuckin’ love you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You’re only saying that because I’m the reason you see colors.”

“Fuck the colors,” he was quick to reply, “The Universe can take back the colors, as long as I still have you.”

There it is. The earthquake you dreamt of as a little girl. The trailer’s across the park never felt it, the kids surely getting into trouble in the forest behind Eddie’s home didn’t notice it, but you felt it. A rumble through your chest, a groundbreaking discovery, a world-ending confession. Your world began, and your world ended, and your world restarted with Eddie Munson.

“You don’t believe me,” he noted, suddenly shimmying out from beneath the blanket.

“Wait, hold on-”

“Stay here.”

You stayed frozen in your seat, wide eyes following his broad back and the army green of his t-shirt. No longer a frail frame, face filling out with puberty. He was becoming a man. No longer the young boy who took punches and threw them back twice as hard.

He was becoming a man, he was your soulmate, and he loved you. He loved you enough he would give up what everyone else considered the greatest gift, just for you.

Eddie Munson didn’t need colors to love you so ardently. And you knew, at that moment, that the same could be said for you. You would have loved him no matter what. The moment his shadow had spread over you beneath wide leaves and simmering heat, he was destined to hole up in your heart, never to leave again.

By the time he had returned to the living room, you had paused the movie, eyes locked on where he emerged from the hallway with a polaroid camera in hand and a mischievous grin gracing his features. The camera had been a joint gift from your parents and his uncle the previous Christmas.

Your eyes weren’t on the camera. They were on him. His hair had grown over the years, wild auburn curls finally surpassing his ears. The awkward style made for ridiculous bed head, something you’d been witness to many mornings after impromptu sleepovers.

You were fascinated with the way the sunlight caught each strand as they bounced with his eager steps. The trace of gold you could outline. Shades of autumn you loved to run your fingers through when he’d offer the opportunity.

He shook the camera into the air for emphasis, finally catching your eyes’ attention, before he propelled himself back down onto the couch across from you, both of you sitting up instead of being reclined now. “Let me show you something.”

“O-Okay,” you stuttered out, unsure.

He fiddled with the camera for a few moments before he brought it up to his face, resting against his cheek as his eye peered into the small peephole. You were so busy memorizing him like that, that the flash of the camera took you off guard and effectively blinded you for a few seconds.

“What the-” you started with a scowl, hands flying up to rub your knuckles into your eyes in a sorry attempt to rush away the stars blocking your vision.

“Just wait,” he insisted, snatching up the polaroid the moment it printed from the camera. When you flashed him an unconvinced look, he continued on, “Trust me.”

He didn’t have to ask twice. You always trusted him with your entire being, whether for better or for worse.

The polaroid was slow in developing. Eddie hummed to fill the silence, occasionally fanning around the small capture of you that was slowly filling out in color rather than blinding white. You spent your energy on trying to decipher what song was stuck in his head and not focus on how slow those damned photos always seemed to be in coming to fruition.

It had only been a few minutes, but it had felt like an eternity when you finally gave up on figuring out the song and succumbing to your impatience with a sigh, “This is the world’s slowest magic trick ever.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, but tossed you the camera. You thanked the Heavens for fast reflexes as you were able to catch it rather than let it fall to the ground. The two of you would have never heard the end of it if you managed to break such an expensive gift.

“Hey!” you shouted as you clutched the camera tightly to your chest, “Be careful with this thing, Eddie. It’s fragile.”

His eyebrows raised from behind where he held up the polaroid he took of you to his face, “Is it? Can we really be sure that it’s that fragile if we don’t knock it around for good measure?”

“We can,” you snappily replied, glaring down at the camera and fighting amusement, “If you want to throw it around, be my guest. But you’ll explain to Wayne why you broke it – not me.”

“Of course, kid,” he grinned so wide that it spread to his cheeks peeking out either side of the photo still obnoxiously close to his face, “What else is a best friend good for? Basically signed up to be your permanent scapegoat until the end of time the moment I gave you the gift of colors.”

“And yet, I’m the one usually talking us out of trouble,” you dramatically called back, finally looking up at him and holding up the camera, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“I dunno. Break it, take a picture of me. The choice is yours, sweetheart.”

He still hadn’t put the photo of you down, so you finally reached across the sea of blankets to yank on his forearms. Once you were faced once more with those warm doe eyes rather than the blank back of a photo, you narrowed your eyes at him in indecision.

He was still smirking. Wide enough that his teeth just barely peeked out between his barely parted lips. You recalled the tales of kiss-bitten lips, the way you’d heard adults describe that deeper shade of pink, and for a second, you considered that it would look good on Eddie. Something about imagining him flushed and bruised by love and lust rather than malice made your gut twist stormily.

“Picture it is,” you muttered, “Put that stupid polaroid down and smile for the camera, pretty boy.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

The camera went off mid-teasing, his dimples on full display and eyes shining wonderfully with the flash of the camera.

“Nope,” you mumbled, “Just said it so you’d keep smiling.”

It was a lie. A horrible, pathetic, and badly-veiled lie.

The photos developed faster. Yours is finally in full color and detail by the time the two of you can make out the shape of Eddie in his, and he was quick to toss it to the side before he shoved yours into your lap.

“There, look.”

It wasn’t anything magnificent to look at. Just another photo. The same old color of your hair, baby hairs frizzing at the edges. Same old eyes fighting from crinkling in adornment at the boy before you. You weren’t anything special, not in your eyes. But Eddie’s expectant stare told you that there had to be something more there, something he was waiting for you to pick up on. You scoured the background of the photo for pops of color only to come up empty-handed. All you could find were the tired dark tones of the Munson’s furniture and living room behind yourself in the picture.

“Eddie, what am I supposed to be looking at?” you squinted, bringing the photo closer and trying to figure out the useless puzzle he had presented you with, “It’s just a picture of me-”

“Exactly,” he interrupted, “A picture of you. My soulmate. That right there,” he leaned over and plucked the photo from your hands, holding it up tauntingly just out of reach, “Is a picture of the girl I love. A picture of the one person who makes colors worth seeing, and makes colors worth losing.”

The sentiment had you choked up.

“You’re my favorite person,” his voice dropped to a whisper, and he held up his hand with his knuckles facing you as he put down the polaroid in his lap, “Have been since that very first day.”

There was still a faint scar, right there, clear as day. It casted over the knuckles of his ring and middle finger as a permanent reminder of that fateful day. As if the colors weren’t enough, as if the swell of your heart inside your chest wasn’t enough reminder of the love and care you’d always felt pulsing from Eddie.

You reached out to the coffee table suddenly, picking up the photo of him, glad to see it finally developed. You didn’t even glance at it before you held it up to him, “And this is a photo of my favorite person.”

“You didn’t even look at the picture.”

“I don’t need to,” you breathed out, moving the picture out of your vision to look at him dead in the eyes, “He’s right here in front of me. In full color, treating me far kinder than I deserve.”

His touch was ginger as he pinched the corner of the photo and took it from your grasp, placing it down atop the polaroid of you, “Don’t do that. You always deserve my kindness – you deserve the entire world’s kindness. I’ll kick the ass of anyone who argues otherwise.”

A soft and shy smile ripped at your lips, made the corners and your cheeks ache as you shrugged, “Whatever you say, old man.”

He only looked at you, only wore the lovesick look of a man face-to-face with his soulmate.

The movie was long forgotten. All snacks carefully put on the table before Eddie threw the blanket off of the two of you and scooted backwards while leaving a space large enough for you between his legs.

“C’mere,” he beckoned, motioning for you to crawl forward and fit your head to his chest as he wrapped his arms around you. He pressed you impossibly close to him, until your cheek was tight to his t-shirt and your ear was thundering with his racing heartbeat.

You melted into him easily, letting your own arms encase him to the best of their abilities in this position. You took a few selfish moments to just be there with him, to just let his words sink in beneath your skin and the reality of them weigh heavy on you. The heavier it weighed, the further into his embrace you pressed.

The warmth of serenity and peacefulness of the picture perfect moment nearly lulled you to sleep. But even in the drowsiness, you felt the kiss he pressed to the crown of your head.

“I love you, too,” you admitted, muffled by his chest. You hoped he felt the words and wouldn’t teasingly make you look him in his eyes as you confessed, “I love you so fucking much. I couldn’t do this without you.”

“Sure you could-” he began, but was cut off but the abrupt lifting of your head, just as he fingertips had started on a path down your spine.

“I couldn’t,” you insisted, “I really, really couldn’t. I need you to stick around for a long time, Munson. I’m not in the business of losing my soulmate until we’re old and grey and gross. I want to keep you around until I lose count of all your wrinkles and weird moles.”

He chuckled, and the force vibrated against your shoulder digging into his torso.

You retrieved those two polaroids before you resettled against him, your back now pressed to his chest as you held the two snapshots side by side for both of you to look out.

He was right. You think you get it.

When you look at the photo of yourself, you see nothing extraordinary. But when you look at the photo of Eddie, everything just… the world seemingly stops, all moving parts suddenly snapping into place. A boy vibrant with color and glee, a boy who tugged on every heartstring you’d hung in your chest throughout your lifetime. It sent warmth to every crevice of you, from the top of your head where the ghost of his lips still lingered to the tips of your toes wiggling beside his within thick socks.

It’s more than an earthquake or the world stopping. Eddie doesn’t just stop or begin your world – he is your world.

A world of wild hair, charming smiles, unfiltered laughter and fierce adoration. Even the brightest shades out there that you had yet to discover were dim compared to the boy photographed in time for you.

His arms slide around your shoulders, tugging you in even closer,“Just out of curiosity, what is your cap on wrinkles you can count? Because I’ve seen Wayne, and some photos of my old man, and let me tell you – time is not kind to us Munson men.”

You rolled your head and pressed a kiss to one of his forearms before smashing your cheek into it, breathing deeply as his fingertips drew random shapes over the spot on your chest that your heart rests beneath.

“As many as it takes, old man.”

“Whatever you say, kid.”

You brought a hand up to curl around the arm, right beside when you kept your cheek nuzzled. He finally laid his palm flat against your chest, and you wonder if he can feel the way each beat of your heart called out his name. It was okay if he didn’t – he had all the time in the world to figure it out.

—

“I just don’t understand why you’re so mad!”

“I’m not mad, Eddie – I’m fucking pissed!”

“Okay, then I don’t understand why you’re so pissed!”

Seventeen is the age of being reckless and redundant. Of big feelings and reckless decisions. It is the time in your life for being an absolute idiot.

Eddie Munson was proof of it as the two of you stood outside of his van, the whistle of the winds around you two from the impending storm lost on your current screaming match.

“Figure it out,” you seethed, stomping your feet almost childishly as you began to turn away from him, “And while you do that, leave me the fuck alone.”

“I- Hey!” he reached out for you, but you’re already quickening your pace and hopping up onto the sidewalk, “Hey! Don’t fucking walk away from me!”

You didn’t reply, only widening your strides.

He called out your name, and you heard his frustrated groan before he easily caught up with you.

Damn him and his newfound height.

“Would you just listen to me?” he shouted, latching onto your bicep and spinning you around harshly to face him.

You yanked yourself out of his touch quickly, eyes blazing, “Why should I? I’ve seen what I needed to see, Eddie. Just go back inside to your preppy girlfriend. Forget about me. Pretend like she’s never stood to the side while her boyfriend bullied you like- like- like some asshole.”

His hair was longer now. Ringlets that cascaded to brush over the top of his shoulders – shoulders that had broadened impressively as he neared the end of his youth. His newest clothing staple covered them; a denim vest you’d helped him distress and sew multitudes of patches onto, a display of his favorite bands that had only painted a new target onto his back.

Satan worshiper. That’s what they called your soulmate in terrified whispers amongst the halls at school. That’s what all the PTO mothers’ eyes silently cursed when they’d see him with you at the grocery store.

He’d made quite the image for himself. And you’d stayed by his side, defending his honor at every chance. Your best friend, your soulmate.

Only to find him eating the face off of some cheerleader at that goddamned party.

Yeah, you didn’t need to listen to him. You really had seen enough.

“She’s not my girlfriend!” he waved his arms wildly, the storm roaring loader with his increased volume.

“What is she then?” you insisted with venom, crossing your arms and effectively closing yourself off from him as you took another step back, “Just some one night stand? Some fun to have before you have to accept that you’re shackled to me for the rest of your life?”

You hated the way your eyes burned. You cursed the tears gathering as you glared at him viciously, masking all the pain with as much rage as you could muster.

He wouldn’t even kiss you, his soulmate. But he would kiss her.

“Stop putting words in my mouth,” he warned lowly, tone no longer making a spectacle of the two of you, “You know that’s not how I see it.”

“You won’t even kiss me.”

He was stunned into silence. As you spat out the words, the first few tears slipped.

It was about more than the pretty blonde girl you’d found him with. It was about more than the fact he was kissing someone else.

“I… What?” he whispered, his entire body going slack with defeat.

The tears fell more rapidly now as you replayed the moment in your head. The two of you were only at the stupid party for Eddie to deal weed from some weird guy he’d met in the arcade, a way to make extra cash. Cash he claimed he was putting towards your future together. You had no idea how you’d gone from sitting on the couch together to tipsy, joining a circle of fellow peers who momentarily forgot their cruelness between shots of whiskey and pours of vodka.

You were going to hate the game of Spin the Bottle for the rest of your life. You were sure of it.

When Eddie’s turn had arrived, when the neck of that dingy beer bottle casted shades of ambers in your direction, you had been so excited. Your heart had been in your throat, your head dizzy with the excitement of him finally kissing you. Your soulmate by Nature, your best friend by choice, finally would be kissing you. You had been so sure it was an affirmation from the Universe that the right choice had been made when it came to the two of you. That it was all real, and the colors weren’t a product of your delusion.

And then he said no.

“You wouldn’t kiss me,” you choked out, pulling your arms around your torso tighter to fight back any shivers or shaking, “The bottle landed on me, on your soulmate, and you wouldn’t even fucking kiss me. The one person you should have kissed. And you didn’t.”

Eddie’s eyes widened in shock, a deer caught in your headlights, as he started to stutter out a sorry excuse.

You didn’t want to hear it. You only threw your head back in bitter laughter, spinning on your heel and preparing to leave him behind once more.

“Wait,” he begged, grabbing your shoulder this time.

You shrugged it off harshly, “For what? For you to make up some bullshit excuse for it? I don’t want to hear it, Eddie. I get it. I’m so sorry that I’m your soulmate. I’m so sorry you’re stuck with me. I’m so-”

He cut you off by rounding in front of you, blocking your escape route and cradling each of your cheeks with determination as he forced you to meet his fiery gaze, “Stop putting words in my mouth! That’s not why I did it, okay? It’s not!”

Your tears fell more rapidly, so quickly that his thumbs couldn’t have kept up with swiping them away if he tried. Instead, he let them puddle against his palms, focus solely on your eyes as he bore into them and whispered, “That’s not why I said no. And it’s not why I kissed that girl, okay? You’ve got to believe me, kid.”

“Don’t-” you started, but he shook his head, determined.

“No, no. Hear me out. Please. You know I don’t see it that way. You- You’re- I’m not shackled to you. You aren’t some sort of damnation for me. Do you get that? You aren’t some life sentence or burden – you’re….” he trailed off, and you could see the tears gathering in his eyes. Constellations in his lashes to match your own. “I said no because I’m terrified. O-Okay? I said no to kissing you because… because… what if you’re the one shackled to me?”

The crack in his voice reverberated through you. Aftershocks rattled your bones at his confession.

“I- We haven’t crossed that line. And I just… if I crossed that line, and if you decided I wasn’t what you wanted…” his eyes searched yours for answers you couldn’t provide to him, not as your brows creased and your chest tightened, “If I kissed you and you decided that the Universe made a mistake, that I’m not actually your soulmate… I- Fuck, I couldn’t take that, kid. I couldn’t.”

You’re no longer poised to run, to escape him and all the emotions drowning your lungs. You felt your shoulders drop, your defenses burned to ash as you stood with two solid feet on the quivering ground below you.

There were a million reassurances on the tip of your tongue, but instead you only said, “Why did you kiss her?”

The question that had pinned you as a flight risk. Because if what he told you was true, and you did believe him, then it didn’t make sense. Nothing that had happened that night made sense if what he said was true.

“I don’t know,” he seemed even more confused than you, “And- God, I’m fucking sorry for such a shitty cop-out of an answer. But I just… I don’t know. I just did. She was there, and she kissed me, and I kissed back. I pretended she was you, like a fucking idiot.”

The honesty threatened to shatter you, but you decided it was better to hear his truth than risk being lied to. You could move past the anguish in both your eyes, the confusion and the hurt having brewed – you wouldn’t have been able to move past some half-assed lie in an attempt to save your feelings.

“I regret it,” he whispered, “The moment I kissed her back, I regretted it.”

“Why?”

An opportunity to seal a bandage over the bleeding wound. A chance for him to make it all better.

“Because she isn’t you. She isn’t my soulmate - she never could be. It’s you, and it was always going to be you, even if the Universe didn’t agree with me.”

You took a moment to try and picture a world in which the man stood before you wasn’t your soulmate. A world where your palms touched, and your world hadn’t exploded in technicolor. Another Universe where the first color you had seen hadn’t been warm, brown, honey coated eyes. A twisted timeline where you hadn’t been awarded the gift of memorizing the red of his guitar, his sweetheart, or the calm blue tint his room bathed in every early morning. A world where you don’t know the shade his skin turns in during golden hour, or can’t see the way his few tattoos he’d gathered in the past year on his skin are actually a fading shade of blue-green rather than stark black. A world where you couldn’t pick up the Fruity Pebbles stuck between his teeth as he rushed to class late and you teased him mercilessly for it. A world without color - a world without the guarantee of Eddie Munson.

A breeze roared by, and you could hear the Universe you were in whispering to stop it, to not do this. Because you weren’t living in a world without color. Your world had burst to life when your palm met his. You knew all the colors of his lifeline like the back of your hand.

“It wasn’t worth it?” You knew the answer. You still needed to hear him say it.

And say it he did, nodding in confirmation, “It wasn’t worth it. She wasn’t worth it.”

He could have left it at that and you would have offered him your forgiveness anyways. Even if the bond formed between you two didn’t feel like a shackle of chains binding you two together, you knew that there would always be an invisible string wound around your soul and connected to his. You could have spent longer being mad, you could have still walked yourself home and left him broken in the middle of that neighborhood street. But even if you did, you would have eventually found your way back to him. Whether you left in anger, whether you left in sadness, whether you left in mourning – your final destination remained the same. Him.

You may have all the time in the world with Eddie, but even a second spent upset with him felt like a second wasted.

Not even forever felt like long enough. You knew that now, glaringly obvious by the chain of events the night had followed.

And so he could have left it at that. And all would be well. Wounds would heal and time would soothe the ache that echoed. But he didn’t.

He took a step closer. Took a shaky, deep breath. And then another step. One foot after the other until he was toe-to-toe with you as he breathed out, “You’re my future. You’re everything to me. Soulmate or not, you’re all I want. I want to grow old with you until I lose count of your wrinkles, and then some.”

His chin tilted down, lips daring closer and closer to yours as your stare into his eyes refused to waver.

Deep, deep brown. Endless, molten, a kind of comforting that says you’re home, you can rest now. How fortunate you were to see the twisting of lively carob and umber rather than lifeless greys.

Your eyes tried to flutter close, but you couldn’t let them, not yet. Not until he was close enough to feel his breath on your chin before he let out a raspy, “Baby.”

You folded immediately, took the plunge as your eyes finally shut and you pressed forward with fervent.

It wasn’t like the movies. It wasn’t fluid and instantaneous. There was hesitancy and there was awkwardness, and your noses bumped one anothers hard enough to make both of you chuckle into the rarity of space left between your mouths as you both gasped in waves of air before returning to one another. His hand took its time before it grabbed your waist, and it trembled the entire time. Your arms shook the entire way they lifted until they wrapped around his neck and shoulders, unsure of where exactly to lay comfortably.

But none of that mattered. Because he was kissing you – your soulmate was finally kissing you. And you had never kissed another soul before that night, but you knew immediately you’d never want to kiss another soul.

It wasn’t like the movies or fairy tales, but it was enough.

And you knew he felt the same way when the kiss was broken by the grin that split his lips just as the sky began to spit out the beginning of its inevitable downpour.

—

You hadn’t heard from Eddie in three days. Which, fair enough. Finals season was nearly upon you two and you knew he had been stressed. Since the night of that party nearly a year before, you two had become even more inseparable if possible. You two had finally crossed a line, had finally accepted your status of soulmates, and no one would dare to demand the two of you detach from each other’s sides once you made the announcement that you were officially together.

Wayne had worn a knowing smile. Your parents had simply warned Eddie to not hurt you (as if that was even an option for him at this point). Even Principal Higgins had offered a polite smile when he caught you two holding hands in the hallway, surprisingly not commenting on the public display of affection. You two were officially dating, officially succumbing to the status quo of what soulmates should be.

Everyone had already sort of known there was something there between you two, but making it official removed any sliver of doubt any of them may have harbored.

And so it was fine if Eddie needed space. It had been that way before your first kiss, occasionally learning how to stand as your own entities rather than solely a joint force, and it could continue to be that way after your first kiss.

But after three days, you had started to worry.

Pacing your room, you told yourself you were being ridiculous. This was fine. Space was good – space was needed.

Space didn’t help with all your what-ifs, though.

What if he was hurt? What if he was sick? What if he was mad at you? What if the longer you gave him that space, the starcher of a revelation he would have that he didn’t need you? What if the two of you had flown into all of this too fast, too quickly, too soon? It may have taken years to get there, but what if Eddie suddenly decided the last year had been too much?

You were in your car, driving recklessly down the streets that would lead to his house, before you could even think of another what if.

If it was that last thought that crossed your mind, if everything between the two of you had become simply overwhelming for him, you convinced yourself it would be okay. It would be just fine, you could handle it as long as he told you as much to your face rather than hiding behind distance put between you. It remained a mantra spinning through your storming mind the entire drive; it will be fine. It will be okay. As long as he says it, I can handle it. Anything for him.

You never considered that one of the other possibilities was more likely. Not until you had your car haphazardly parked in front of the Munson’s trailer, fist banging on their front door before Wayne threw it open with tired eyes and wrinkles bunched in concern.

“Is he here?” you breathed out in lieu of a proper greeting, breathless from your jog up to the damn porch from your car that you hadn’t even bothered with locking up.

It will be fine. It will be okay. As long as he says it, I can handle it.

Wayne understood immediately, stepping to the side as he nodded and motioned for you to come in, “He’s in his room. But listen, he got some news, and he’s not do-”

You didn’t hear the rest of Wayne’s warning, too busy storming past him and flying to Eddie’s bedroom door. You didn’t even knock, bursting through the door and already fighting tears as you geared up to hear Eddie say that he needed time and space, that he had gotten sick of you, that he wanted to experience more life before you guys really gave any of this a fighting chance.

“Eddie, can you please tell me why you’ve just up and disappeared-” you cut off your plead the moment you laid eyes on him.

He wasn’t facing the door. He was curled up in bed, back to you, clad in nothing but a t-shirt and boxers. You could see the stubborn knots that had built up in his hair, immediately keyed in on the way he was trying to collapse into himself. His knees were nearly buried in his chest, and if you squinted into the dark room, you’d see the outline of his spine beneath the flash of skin peaking out from where the back of his shirt had raised.

It wasn’t just the state of him; the state of the room also immediately silenced you.

Almost as if a war path had been torn through it days before, the bedroom was messier than normal. Eddie was never the most organized or pristine person, but he kept his living space well enough to… well, live. Kept the floor always within sight, tried to never let any collection of trash overflow on the tops of his dressers or desk. He even found himself emptying his ashtrays without your reminding most of the time. Usually, most of the clutter simply came from mountains of papers detailing campaigns or writing new songs, or different sets of dice being left out from planning said campaigns. A t-shirt here, a pair of ripped jeans there – sure. He was a teenage boy. It was expected.

It looked as though a level five hurricane had hit Eddie Munson’s room.

Clothes strewn everywhere, dresser drawers thrown open and never closed. Beer cans collected across each surface and both ashtrays were overfilling with cigarette butts. You even spotted two half smoked joints on his bedside table. His sweetheart had been taken off of its wall mount and laid to rest on the floor. He would never have let his prized possession be discarded like that. Ever.

Your voice came out weak as you took a step closer to the bed, “Eddie?”

You’re surprised he heard your whisper. He stirred, and your eyes followed the dust particles dancing in the single stream of sunlight that was bursting through a hole forgotten in his makeshift curtains. Navy blue sheets the two of you once used to make a pillow fort in the Munson living room, thinned to the illusion of a sky blue in some patches.

You’d always warned him they make shit curtains; he’d always shrugged and said it added to his feng shui.

“Eddie,” you whispered again, knees knocking against the edge of the mattress as you looked down at his broken form, “I… What happened? Are you… are you okay?”

You hadn’t known how to approach it. Whatever happened was even worse than the first time he’d received a phone call from his dad in prison.

He mumbled something against the pillow he has one arm curled under.

“What?” you questioned, nearly ready to climb into that damn bed and force him onto his back, force him to look at you if only so you could guarantee there were no tear tracks on his cheeks.

You don’t have to, though. Eddie finally loosened his grip on that pillow and rolls ever so slightly, just enough for you to see half his face and feel your heart break at the confirmation of tears. Translucent pink eyes, glossy wet cheeks, the tip of his nose glowing as his gaze met yours. He looked tired.

“I’m getting held back,” he croaked, “I fucking- I flunked. I’m not graduating.”

You nearly sighed in relief. For his sake, you don’t, but the weight on your shoulders lifted immediately.

“Oh, sweet boy,” you murmured, giving into the need to crawl into the bed. You folded your knees as you situated yourself on the bed behind him, and the moment you’re situated, he wasted no time twisting himself to face you and bury his face into your side, “Why didn’t you call? You had me losing my goddamn mind-“

A strangled sob rattled against your side. One of his hands gripped your thigh, fingertips holding on for dear life, “Because your soulmate is a fucking loser.”

Your chest cracked further, a valley beginning to form as a hand buried into the back of his head, holding him to you as the other hand moved to rub his back in soothing motions.

“My soulmate is not a fucking loser,” you tried to keep a gentle tone rather than scold him at the moment. He didn’t need scolding — he needed patience, he needed care, he just needed you to be there, “Keep talking about him that way, and I’ll have to get the fighting gloves.”

He wetly laughed into your t-shirt, and you were sure that there would be tear stains when he finally lifted his head, “I’m the one who taught you how to throw a punch, baby.”

“Exactly. Which means I’ll have you on your ass in ten seconds flat.”

It was a few minutes of silence that followed; just you holding him, just him clinging onto you. His life line — his single ship of hope in what had been a terribly rocky sea the last few days. An irreplaceable peace settled across all the wounds and damage that had been done in private. You had been right. He should have called you immediately. He should have known that if anyone could make the situation feel less like his world was ending, it was you.

His soulmate.

“Do you want to talk about it?” you questioned in a soft, lulling tone. The endless patterns you’d drawn on his back had nearly put him to sleep, “Maybe be a bit kinder to yourself this time?”

“I just…” he started, finally removing his face from being buried against you, “I sort of had a hunch. O’Donnel wouldn’t round my grade, you know? And I’ve skipped a lot of classes, I know. But hearing Higgins say it just… just…”

“Made it real?” you offered a weary ending to his sentence.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “Real. It made it really fucking real.”

He didn’t feel judged at that moment. He felt seen as you continued on, “It is real, and it sucks. But it’ll be okay, Eds. I mean, I was already planning on the community college for my first year, maybe even taking a year off. If you need any help with classes, you just gotta ask me. Don’t forget I was one of O'Donnell's pets, as unfortunate as it was. I know how to work that woman into rounding up some grade.”

You rambled on a little more, all the while still stroking his hair and back, offering even more solutions. The longer you spoke, the better Eddie felt. You made it all sound so easy — like this was nothing, like it was the smallest of blips in plans that had been years in the making. You weren’t upset, you weren’t disappointed. He deserved your negativity, and instead only received your optimism.

You were with him for the long haul, he realized. Truly. It wasn’t just some one off promise or chain of the Universe holding you to him. He wasn’t dragging you down.

When you finally trailed off, his lids finally heavier than his heart, he sighed, “I love you. You know that?”

“I love you,” you smiled, “That’s kind of part of the soulmate package, isn’t it?”

“Fuck the soulmate part,” he lifted out of your hold despite everything in him screaming to stay put, to let you to continue to coddle him, “I’ve seen plenty of people be shitty to their soulmates. I watched my dad-“ he cut himself off, throat tightening with memories of his parents. You don’t make him finish that sentence, only nodding in understanding, “The Universe doesn’t force you to be a good person. You choose to be that. Every single day, you choose to stand by my side. You always have. You could have made me feel shitty about this, could have let me see how bummed you really are about sticking out another year here, but…”

But you didn’t.

Your eyes softened, a stormy shade of his favorite color, “Do you remember the way you punched Carver that day, before you even knew me?”

That very first day. The day two souls destined to intertwine had come in contact. The day the Universe had sighed in relief as your palm met his.

He nodded.

“You didn’t have to do that,” you whispered, “You didn’t even know me. And yeah, whatever, maybe the Universe nudged you to do it, whatever. But there’s tons of people who know their soulmates for years and never realize it. Tons of people go to school and never interact with their soulmates. But that very first day… the first day you were at that school, the first day you saw me — we met. You defended me. And that counts for something. And I like to think it speaks more about us than it does about the grand scheme of things,” you brought a hand up, wiped away whatever tears were left on his cheeks with enough tenderness he almost started to sob again, “You didn’t know I was your soulmate. I was just some random classmate, and you defended me without even thinking about it. And I will always do the same for you. Always.”

You always had, you always will. The two of you had proven, time and time again, that you will always choose one another. It was never about that inevitable bond.

“I don’t deserve you,” he confessed, quickly moving to keep your palm there, resting on his stubbled cheek, “You deserve a soulmate who isn’t a fuck up. Someone good, someone who can give you the world and someone who… who isn’t repeating another year of fucking high school.”

“You still don’t get it,” you grinned sadly. Your fingertips press into that soft spanse right before his ear, cradling him more urgently on their own accord, “I don’t want or need someone else. You do give me the world- you are my world, you idiot.”

Idiot sounded perfectly aligned with lover as he leaned forward, burying his face in your neck. Home — he was home as you wrapped your arms back around him, pulled him a little closer in your embrace, clung to him as tightly as he clung to you.

All the colors in the world, and the only ones the two of you cared about were the ones confined to that small space for the time being, shades of you and shades of him, all overlapping perfectly in sync.

—

You stay true to your word. The first time Eddie repeats his senior year, and the second time.

Endless nights are spent studying, you forcing him to focus when he couldn’t, trying to invent new ways to learn that work for him rather than against him. He’s brilliant; you never let your boy forget that.

It’s nice for a while. Sickly sweet kisses and teasing exchanges. Enough lovesickness to make even those around you two nauseous. Nights spent out by Lover’s Lake, exchanges of promises of a future to come and discussions of whether your kids will have his eyes or your eyes. Kids. You two were discussing fucking kids. And it had scared Eddie half to death to even bring it up, but you hadn’t been phased. You’d answered terrifying question after question with ease, had even joked about what color flowers the two of you would have at your wedding and listened to Eddie describe the house he’d want to grow old in with you in excruciating detail. Sometimes the two of you even brought up what kind of dog you’d have, fantasized about the big yard which would not have a white picket fence (because, according to Eddie, that shit was too cheesy even for him in all his adoration for you). It made Eddie realize that after all these years, maybe you had become the brave one.

You’d both succumbed to the stereotypical soulmate trope. Become exactly what society had expected from the two of you since the beginning. And honestly, you couldn’t even be mad about it. You get it – you got the allure as you had laid with a head pressed to Eddie’s chest, observing all the stars again, a night sky the vision of black and white as your vision went blurry with fatigue.

“You know, that house sounds awfully expensive,” you yawned, curling a bit tighter into his side. You’re in nothing but his t-shirt, his chest still bare from the night’s activities.

Another new development. Even after all your time together, you two continued to find novelty to explore. New ways to learn each other, new ways to love each other, new ways to further tie your two souls together. An unbreakable knot. If anyone, the Universe included, tried to loosen it, you would spill blood without second thought.

“Oh, it absolutely will be,” he chuckled, vibrations echoing in your eardrum, “But that’s fine. We’re going to tap into that rockstar money, baby.”

In between talks of the future, more honest versions had arisen. Eddie and his band. You and your aspirations. Things that neither of you laughed at quite as much as the talk of children or houses with wraparound porches because they were in reach.

“Do you think you’ll have groupies?” your voice was a murmur, mouth half pressed into his skin as you lazily traced circles on his pec you aren’t using as your own personal pillow.

It made him chuckle once more, “Groupies? Sure. Don’t think any of them will be very successful, though.”

“Bold of you to assume I meant just you,” you’re able to snark back even half asleep, “Gareth deserves to be fawned over, too. Jeff is definitely a ladies killer.”

Your hand moved just fast enough out of the way for Eddie to lazily mimic stabbing himself in the exact muscle you were painting invisible imagery across, “You wound me, sweetheart.”

From this angle, you could catch the exact shade of brown that his faded freckles shone. You could see the differences in tan skin, see where he’d left a pair of sunglasses on his chest during a lake day over the summer and the tanline had remained stubborn. That had been a good day – Eddie had thrown you off the dark, wrapping his arms around you and turning the world to a blur of passing greens and blues before you’d been dunked beneath the lake’s surface. The cold water had stunned you, but him joining you seconds later hadn’t. Always by your side, even when he was being a little shit.

You’ve gone quiet on him, mind overcome with fond memories as the silence came naturally only for a few seconds before Eddie felt the need to fill it again.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, the hand that had mock-stabbed himself now curling around your forearm.

Your hand against his chest turned to a fist, pressing deeper into the skin, just to feel him closer, before you teased him, “How do you even know I’m thinking? What if my mind is just blank right now?”

“Psychic-soulmate-telepathy powers,” he answered without hesitation. When you only huffed, clearly unimpressed, he pressed a kiss to your temple before whispering in honesty, “You were smiling.”

You took a deep breath, closing your eyes. Usually, you loved memorizing all the colors of him. You loved taking in his doe brown eyes and the harsh blush of his swollen lips. You’d memorize the twinkling of pink staining his skin across his chest and up his neck. You’d pick at the vibrant cherry shade of his painted nails, a sharp contrast from the usual black or sharpie scribbles he’d wear on them instead.

That silver glint of his rings. The forest green of his plaid boxers. All shades in the palette of Eddie Munson, your soulmate.

You love him so much, your chest is ready to burst from it. And you told him as much, too.

“I’m just really glad I have you,” you said for only him and only the trees to hear, “I’m really happy you came after me that day.”

There’s no rush to memorize all his colors and all his shades. You had all the time in the entire world, and then some. The only reason anyone had ever reported losing their colors was due to the death of their soulmate, and he wasn’t in any danger at the moment. He was there, sturdy beneath you, deep breaths syncing with your own.

If you didn’t learn them in this life, you wouldn’t rest until you found him in the next to finish what you had started.

“Yeah?” you could hear his grin as he held you a bit tighter. Another deep breath, another expansion of his ribs, and you feel all that time laid out at your feet. A lifetime of learning and memorizing Eddie Munson. A life well spent, “I’m glad, too.”

“Did you have even a single moment where you…. I don’t know, hesitated coming after me?” your speech began to slur, and you knew you were one foot in unconsciousness at that point.

“Never,” that same certainty he has always held since day one laced his tone, “Never. I just- I went for it. I made Jason Carver eat his words, and I ran after you. The only thing I’ll ever regret is not throwing a second punch at the asshole.”

Your smile widened, and you knew he felt it. Imagined the comfort he felt at the feeling. Imagined the peace that was washing over him just as it encased you, “But not about coming after me?”

“I don’t regret coming after you,” he told you, not growing the slightest bit annoyed at your need for constant reassurance. His fingers and palm slowly spread across your lower back, the warmth of their weight carrying you into sleep, “I’ll always come back to you, baby.”

—

It wasn’t supposed to go this way.

Spring break was supposed to be nice. Time spent with friends, lazy mornings that you and Eddie slept through, night drives spent screaming out in relief to empty highways because he made it – you both made it. The college transfer was already put into motion, making it so you’d start the fall semester at a University in upstate Indiana. Eddie had taken a few roadtrips with you at his side, already having gotten on the good side of a boss at one of the car shops within range of where you’d be attending. You two had littered his floor with ads for apartments, the ones in your price range circled in brilliant and glaring red. Everything had been perfectly in line. Everything was set in place. Spring break was supposed to be a break to just be kids one last time – it was supposed to be nice.

But then Chrissy Cunningham happened. And Jason Carver, and an entire town of people who had always hated your soulmate. Suddenly, your own plan for the future had been scrapped, and in its spot a line of new dominos had been placed. One falling down after the other, too quick for you to keep up with.

A group of strangers had banged down on your front door. Had demanded to know where Eddie was, claimed they were friends trying to help him. You hadn’t even seen the news yet. They’d tried to fill you in, but only confused you more in the process, because the words Eddie and murderer should have never been used together in a sentence in the way they claimed the entire town was currently spewing.

You were his soulmate. They were sure you’d know where he was, but you didn’t.

That didn’t matter, though. The young boy, Dustin, had been determined. You’d heard all about him from Eddie – about the brilliant mind hidden beneath baseball caps and unruly curls, about the smart mouth you witnessed mouthing off to Steve Harrington first hand as you’d been searching for your boy.

It reminded you of Eddie. It made you ache. It made you only more voracious in your search.

And you’d found him – terrified, alone, trembling and crying. A version of him you’d never been privy to had pinned Steve fucking Harrington to the wall of Reefer Rick’s boathouse with a broken bottle to his throat. Wild, scared eyes and hands that shook harder than the day his father had called him and he’d put a goddamn hole through his kitchen wall. More desperation on his face than the day he’d informed you he’d be repeating his senior year for the first time. Shoulders more tense than the night you’d nearly walked away from him over some silly kiss with a cheerleader.

When he saw you, he’d shattered completely.

The sight of you had him collapsing into your arms, unable to explain himself in full sentences as he gasped and panicked and clung to you. And you had held him, had forced the others to give him time. You were like a feral animal, standing between him and them, friends or not. Your claws and teeth alike had been out, ready to mar anyone who would dare to lay a hand on your soulmate.

He’d calmed down. He’d explained. And then they had explained and reassured Eddie that he wasn’t crazy. His eyes had found yours over and over, and not a single time did they hold a single doubt for him in them. You believed him; you would always believe him. The cries of the town had been nothing more than static noise. You knew the man before you, you loved the man before you. Your soul knew his intricately, intimately. It would always know him, no matter the circumstance and no matter the troubles to come. In this life and the next.

The colors were never the gift. The gift the Universe had offered you had always been him.

You stayed with him those short few days. Ran from Carver and his posse, swam in the lake and had kept a level head as you formulated a plan. Find a walkie-talkie. Call for Dustin, call for help.

When the rest of them had jumped into the lake after Steve, you’d put a selfish hand on his bicep. For a moment, the only thing you were thinking of was him. You couldn’t lose him.

When he jumped in after Robin and Nancy anyways, you’d followed, no hesitation.

A dreary, nightmarish world. You’d followed him into Hell – quite literally, it seemed. Except they didn’t call it Hell, they called it the Upside Down. A place made up of all the things children fear, of awful creatures that only served to attack, to kill, and terrible storms of flashing red lightning. A blue tint to the town you’d come to know. Shades of flesh and shades of grey – shades of death – flooded the place. And only you, Eddie, and Nancy could see them.

Nancy’s soulmate was somewhere far away. Somewhere safe. But she understood that protective stance and the way you’d stuck staunchly at Eddie’s side. She got it.

A stolen RV, shields made of trash can lids and nails rather than make believe, goddamn spears made at the hand of people all far too young to be handling these things. They were handling the end of the world, and you suddenly hadn’t felt as brave as Eddie always claimed you were. The plan was formulated, and the entire time, you had a sinking feeling in your stomach. You watched Eddie play fight with Dustin, real weapons discarded to the ground, and you listened to Robin whisper the same sentiment to Steve.

“I just have this terrible, gnawing feeling that… it might not work out for us this time.”

You agreed with Robin. You hated that you agreed with Robin.

And so you stood like a watch dog at Eddie’s side, nearly lashed out when it was suggested you might be more helpful joining everyone else going after this Vecna rather than staying with Eddie.

It was his turn to put a hesitant hand on your bicep. Brown, russet, umber eyes that flashed with the unspoken question of are you sure you want to do this?

But he was sure. And just as quickly as you’d followed him into that lake, just as quickly as you had dismissed those awful claims against him, you’d nodded. Because if he was sure, if he was going through it, you would follow him.

You should have insisted on staying with him and Dustin.

Because your group of rag tags re-entered that Hellish landscape, and you flinched with each flash of red, not even soothed by Eddie’s hand in yours. And the people around you were now friends; you’d realized in a few short days that you would do almost anything to protect all of them as well, but you knew there was nothing that you wouldn’t do to keep Eddie alive.

“Hey,” he insists once the two of you stand outside this alternate version of his trailer, somewhere that you should know all too well but that has morphed into something unfamiliar in this world.

His hand holding yours spins you to face him, a few steps off to the side from the rest of everyone.

“Hi,” you whisper back, trying to only focus on him. Not the bleak colors of the landscape around you two, but the vibrancy of his shades. You hate the weakness written all across your features, unable to offer him any reassurance in return for all that he had given you over the years. You were terrified. As Robin had said, a terrible gut feeling was gnawing at you from the inside out. You couldn’t help the tears gathering, couldn’t unravel the restriction of your throat.

“It’s going to be okay, alright?” he does the talking, nodding and lowering his chin to stare right into your eyes. His favorite color now wet with emotion, shining even in the dullest of environments, “Can’t be worse than punching Jason Carver, right?”

It could be. It could be much, much worse. Everything you two had endured together was children’s play compared to this. But you don’t say that; you nod in dishonesty, biting your lip to stop from letting a whimper escape.

“I’ll always come back to you, I promise,” he swears so vehemently, voice spitting with determination. Those brows half hidden by the bandana atop his head furrow, his forehead nearly brushing yours.

That, you at the very least, believe. Just as you would find him every time, in this life and the next, he would find you.

“You better,” you choke out, hands reaching up just to latch onto him one more time. To feel him, sturdy beneath your palms. Alive. Your gift from the Universe, the boy who let you see colors. You almost regret spending so long fascinated with the shades you’d discovered when you should have allotted more time to imprint the features of his face to memory. You should have cared more about that freckle beneath his right eye, the slight crook to his nose, the way each of his calluses feel against your bare shoulders. Shades of blue, red, green, violet, yellow – none of them matter as much as the boy before you. They only matter because they paint the picture of him for you fully. They only matter because he matters, “I still need your rockstar money to pay for that wraparound porch.”

He laughs at that. And God, he’s gorgeous – his head thrown back, eyes crinkling with genuine joy for the first time in days. No one else catches the tear that slips from one of those pinched eyes, the hidden sadness for only you to catch onto.

That gnawing feeling – the one you and Robin felt. He felt it, too.

“Of course,” he finally sighs, opening his eyes back to yours and now holding so many words that neither of you have the time to exchange. It kills you – you don’t have time. You thought you’d always have more time. “Think of this as a test run for that rockstar money. See how a crowd of bats feel about my rockstar skills.”

“Careful,” your voice cracks, a few tears slipping that he’s quick to swipe away, “I hear they’re a tough crowd.”

He smiles at your joke, but doesn’t waste his breath on laughing. His lips find yours instead, pouring out every single thought and emotion possible. You feel a tug on that knot you’d tied between you two, everything in your being protesting from pulling back from the kiss. You try to move your lips in a response, to tell him it’ll be fine, to tell him you’ll both return to each other. To tell him you’ll have more time.

When he pulls back, realizing you can’t, his hand falls from you only to reach into the pocket of his jeans. You don’t understand until suddenly, he’s thrusting a laminated square into your hand.

You know what it is before you even turn it over. Your entire body strangles down the broken sob as you look down at a polaroid of a younger Eddie. Somewhere safe and somewhere that time is still yours.

“Keep that safe for me, yeah?” his voice wavers as he produces his own polaroid – the picture of you, “I mean, I’ll have yours, obviously. But… but just… it’s gonna be worth a lot of money once I’m the next big thing in the Upside Down.”

He’s trying so hard to make you laugh just one more time. It only surges more tears to burn your vision.

“All I’ll have to show Vecna is this,” you start to joke back, letting more tears stain your cheeks, “And- and-”

You can’t finish the joke. He gets it, putting a hand over yours, forcing you both to put away those polaroids.

“I know,” he assures you, “I know. Show him my ugly mug, and he’ll go down without a fight. That’s exactly why I’m giving it to you, baby.”

Another tear, only for you, slips. You trace it all the way down his cheek, memorize the way his skin looks in the horrid blue tint and try to remember the shade it glows during golden hour instead.

“I love you,” you say. But once isn’t enough, “I love you.”

“I love you,” he takes your hands in his palms, finally presses his forehead to yours, shares his breath for a moment as he focuses on your sad eyes, “So fucking much. You always were prettier than all the colors combined. Better stay that way till I come back to you.”

He releases you. Wipes away his tears, has to give you an encouraging shove on your shoulders to force you to join Nancy and Robin’s sides.

Steve catches your eye, a look on his face telling you he’d been watching the entire interaction. Something yearning crosses his features, and then something clicks. As if this is the first time he’d ever witnessed soulmates. As if he’s the one seeing colors for the first time.

Maybe that’s why he gives his little speech. Maybe that’s why he tries to plead your case and make sure that Eddie and Dustin don’t do anything stupid.

After Eddie has made his final request to Steve, to make him pay, he looks at you one last time. A ghost of a grin, wearing his bravest mask to date as he mouths I love you.

You echo the silent sentiment. A silent prayer. For the Universe to bring him back to you. To bring you back to him.

—*ash, stop reading here*—

The only way to lose your colors is if your soulmate has died. It’s one of the first things you learn when school first broached the sensitive topic. Your soulmate dies, they take the colors with them. They never told you how the soulmate takes the colors with them – never discussed whether it would fast and sudden like the moment you first touched your soulmate, if the colors would drain from you in real time and leave a path of chromatic grey behind, or if you’d watch them flicker from sight, just as one might watch the life flicker from the eyes of the one they loved.

You’d always wondered how it happened.

You’d been morbidly curious that day in class despite finding it all a bit dramatic. Had looked around a black and white classroom and processed your classmates' different greyscale reactions. Some were forlorn, some were snickering beneath their breath. Some just looked plain bored. It made sense; you were all kids, none of you had ever seen the blue sky or the verdant grass. Only heard about it. Only listened to adults drone on and on about it wistfully. It was never something tangible, something to have and to hold and to lose.

You wonder how younger you would have looked upon you now. As you faced down an alternate dimension’s fiercest villain, hand paused midair, prepared to launch a lit molotov cocktail with aim to kill, when you suddenly paused.

The shades of the fire burning brightly in front of you have dulled. Microscopically. The smallest of flickers in vibrancy.

“What are you doing?” Steve screams when he notices your hesitation, “Throw it! Jesus Christ, throw it before-”

Robin cut him off, being the closest to you and reaching over to snatch the ticking time bomb of a bottle, tossing it for you.

As it explodes against the mangled being before you, another flicker occurs. You swear you feel a stabbing pain in your side, as if that gnawing has taken to ripping you apart.

You swear the bright flashes of yellow amongst the flames have turned to white. The orange has gone so faded, the dullest bits have shadowed over in grey.

Nancy takes another shot, but you can’t move. You watch it all in slow motion: she doesn’t miss, her shot ricochets dead center, Vecna stumbles before crashing through the wall behind him.

The world flickers a final time, and all the air leaves your lungs.

It’s black and white.

The floorboards, all of your sudden friends beside you, the walls of the old house, the lightning flashing amongst storm clouds in the sky outside.

It’s black and white. Shades of grey monotone.

As everyone rushes to look out the hole, your knees collide with splintered wood.

The colors are gone. It’s black and white.

“Where’d he-” Steve starts to question before he turns and sees you. You’re folding into yourself, no longer breathing as you look down at your palms. Grey. Not a single sliver of flesh tone to be seen. “Are you okay?”

The colors are gone.

A cold washes over you like never before, and even if you wanted to take another breath, you couldn’t. It’s not ash burning your eyes – it’s tears, hot and vicious as your face begins to crumple in panic.

Eddie.

You don’t even hear them cross the room back to you. Can’t hone in on what’s happened, if the evil has been defeated and if you’d all won. It doesn’t matter; your colors are gone.

Your hands finally fumble without thought, patting down your person until you catch the corner of the polaroid. You yank it free, breaths finally strangling into your throat without purchase, your shoulders shaking.

It’ll be in color. It has to be in color. He has to be in color.

That familiar and well loved photo stares back at you. Your boy, curly hair wild and unruly, grin soft and fond. A twinkle captured in his eye and all that adoration that had been rolling off of him in waves somehow frozen in time.

Frozen in time, frozen in black and white.

Steve shakes your shoulders, Robin begins to pace and match your panic. They don’t understand.

Gritted sobs leave your mouth, tears blinding you as you look at the shadow of what must be Nancy.

She understands.

Even through the strangled breaths, earth-shattering sobs that make you nearly incoherent, she knows.

“Eddie,” you manage to gasp, fist curling around the photograph.

The only way to lose your colors is if your soulmate has died.

“Eddie,” you manage a mangled sob as Steve pulls back, horror-stricken as he looks down at the polaroid, slowly piecing together what was happening.

Fast and sudden like the moment you first touched your soulmate. Draining from you in real time and leaving a path of chromatic grey behind. Flickering from sight, just as one might watch the life flicker from the eyes of the one they loved.

“Eddie!”

You’d always wondered how it happened.

You finally had your answer. You wish you didn’t.

#my writing #eddie munson #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson one shot #eddie munson fanfic #gonna run and hide now sorry bye #Spotify

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