#Rental Return Season 4

[trnsocial]

Rental Return: Tales From The Video Store, Ep . 6: Lee

Lee joins us to recount his experience working at multiple Movie Gallery stores throughout the state of Iowa. Hear tales of getting peed on while dressed up as The Grinch for in-store events, destroying video store shelves with Spider-Man style shenanigans and so much more! Follow @TRNsocial on X, Instagram, and Facebook for more Rental Return visuals provided by our Video Heroes and other…

View On WordPress

#90s #Adam Pope #Geekster Media #Movie Gallery Video Store #Rental Return Podcast #Rental Return Season 4 #Rental Return Tales From The Video Store #The Grinch #The Retro Network #Video Rental Store Employees #Video Rental Store Memories #Video Rental Stores #Video Stores

[sattlersquarry]

the end is here (steve harrington x gn!reader)

Summary: (Season 4 adjacent) Your boyfriend Steve Harrington is keeping secrets from you, and you aren't sure how much longer you can take it. (Title comes from "I Know The End" by Phoebe Bridgers.)

This is a direct continuation of the video store frame-up of '86. You don't have to read that one to get it but I recommend it!

Word Count: ~5.3k

Warnings: angst up the wazoo w/ a happy ending, language, mentions of sex, some violence and mentions of medical emergencies/broken legs/painkillers.

A/N: Tonally, this is quite different from the video store frame up of '86 but I wanted to explore what it'd be like to be an outsider in Hawkins during Season 4 when all the shit is going down.

gif is from the Netflix giphy account

March, 1986

Working with Steve is fun, and your relationship blossoms the more time you spend together. However, there’s still a nagging thought in the back of your mind—the thought that he’s keeping something from you. Something big. You ignore it as best you can, but you have a feeling that your curiosity is going to catch up to you. 

And it does the day you clock into your shift and see Steve, Robin, and two of their friends searching the Family Video database for an unfamiliar name.

“Uh, who’s Rick Lipton,” you say, “and why are you four stalking his rental history?” 

The group whirls around, startled by your sudden appearance. 

“Y/N! Hey!” Steve says. He angles his body so you can’t read the computer. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for my shift, same as you,” you say. You crane your neck to get a better look at the screen. “So, does he have mega late fees or something?”

“Who?” Robin asks innocently.

“Who else? Rick Lipton, the guy you’re looking up.” 

“It’s nothing like that,” the curly-haired boy with them says. He’s Dustin, one of Steve’s closest friends. 

The name of the girl, with plaited red hair and sharp blue eyes, escapes you. Margie…Melanie…Meg…it starts with an M. You’re certain of that much. 

“Max and Dustin were just leaving,” Steve says, giving them a look.

Max! That was it. 

“But we need you to drive us,” Max says to Steve. 

“Drive to Rick’s?” you guess. “Why?”

Steve looks different than you’ve ever seen him. He’s agitated. Not the kind of agitated you’re used to: frustrated with Keith’s many demands or annoyed with his role as resident carpool king. No, he seems…scared. 

“Rick and Dustin have a mutual friend,” Steve says coolly, attempting to assuage your curiosity (and failing). “We just need to check up on him, that’s all.” 

“And it’s a time-sensitive matter,” Dustin says. “So we need to go now.”

He starts dragging Steve and Robin toward the front doors, Max on their heels. 

“Can’t it wait?” you say. “I can’t run the store myself!”

“Sorry!” Robin says with an apologetic grin. “We’ll make it up to you! I’ll cover any shift, promise!”

Steve wrenches free from Dustin’s grasp. He returns to the counter, and you think he’s going to say he won’t leave you alone. 

Instead, he reaches under the counter to grab his jacket and car keys. 

“I’m so sorry to ditch,” he says quietly. “Seriously, I know this is a dick move.”

“Mm-hm,” you say, eyes narrowed.

“But it’s important. Dustin’s friend might be in danger.”

“What kind of danger?” 

“I can’t tell you.”

You scowl.

“Please don’t be pissed,” Steve begs. “It’s a slow day, and Keith will be around later. You’ve got this!”

You’re mad. But you’re also a bit worried. Steve’s very responsible and wouldn’t leave unless it was important. And he still looks so scared…

“Steve…what’s really going on?” You step closer and lower your voice. “Is everything okay with you? I mean, I know you’re worried about Dustin’s friend, but—“

“I’m fine,” Steve says. He kisses your temple. “I’ll call you tonight. Okay?”

You nod and force a smile, watching him race out of the store and unlock his car for his friends. They pile into the BMW and zip away. 

Someone clears their throat. You snap your head to the right, where a punk kid with spiky hair stands by the cassettes. 

“Do you have the newest Madonna tape?” he asks, shocking you with his music taste, considering his whole vibe. 

“Uh, yeah,” you say, thankful for the distraction. “I’ll help you find it.”

***

Steve doesn’t call you that night. Or the next morning. 

And when you arrive for your next shift, you’re greeted by Keith at the counter, not Steve or Robin. 

“Where’s Steve?” you ask. 

“Your loverboy called in sick,” Keith says, before taking a huge bite of a breakfast burrito. You wince as he continues talking with his mouth full: “Buckley is sick too, so it’s just you and me today.”

“Great,” you say flatly. Both Steve and Robin being sick the same day isn’t inherently suspicious—they are best friends and hang out all the time. But after what transpired yesterday, their absence is fishy. 

That, plus the fact that Steve had the time to call Keith and not you, sours your mood. 

“And since they’re out, I’ll need you to work a double.”

“Fantastic,” you snap. “That's exactly how I wanted to spend my Sunday.” 

“Hey!” Keith says. “No sass. Family Video employees must remain upbeat and positive at all times. We want our establishment to be a welcoming place. Not a dark hole of pessimism…like Blockbuster.”

You plaster on a big, fake grin.

“Much better,” Keith says smugly, before disappearing to the back room to file some paperwork. 

The day drags on. There isn’t much traffic to the store, due to the announcement that not one but two Hawkins High students were killed. People seem too scared to go anywhere or do much of anything. 

On your lunch break, you call the Harrington house. No answer. Either Steve is too sick to reach for the phone on his nightstand, which frightens you, or he’s off with his friends.

You wonder if Dustin’s friend, the one they went to find, is one of the victims. The thought makes your stomach twist. Maybe that’s why you hadn’t heard from Steve or why he wasn’t home—he needed to comfort the younger boy through his grief. 

When it’s finally closing time, you decide to drive by the Harrington house to check in. No BMW in the driveway confirms that he’s definitely not home sick. 

You feel a bit sick yourself wondering where he is and what’s going on. 

***

The next day is your day off. You call Steve first thing when you wake up. You also drive by his house again after breakfast. It’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth…

…until you take a shortcut down Maple Street and see his BMW parked at the Wheeler’s house.

You haven’t heard from him in two days, and his car is at his ex-girlfriend Nancy’s house. You feel numb. 

Steve didn’t seem like the type of person to stoop to infidelity, but you haven’t known him for that long. And he (and his friends) are definitely keeping something from you. Maybe all that “Rick Lipton” stuff was a cover-up so Steve could hang out with his friends and cozy up with his ex. 

You hate how jealous you feel. You hate how it makes you want to cry, scream, and throw a brick through the BMW’s windshield.

Against your better judgment, you park by the curb and stomp toward the front door. You aren’t usually a confrontational person, but you feel a spark of anger that won’t be tamped down unless you get some answers. 

You ring the doorbell and knock, for good measure. A tired-looking, middle-aged man opens the door.

“Can I help you?” Mr. Wheeler drawls.

“Is Steve here?” you ask, trying to keep your voice from shaking.

“The troublemakers are in the basement,” he says. He sarcastically adds, “We already have enough guests to legally be considered a hotel. What’s one more?” 

Mr. Wheeler opens the door a bit wider and allows you in, pointing you in the direction of the basement door. You thank him before charging down the steps. 

Dustin and Max are down there, along with their other friend Lucas. Max scribbles furiously at the desk while the boys sit on the sofa, heads bent low while they discuss something with hushed voices.

“Where’s Steve?” you demand, scanning the room as if you expect him to pop out from behind a corner. 

“Whoa!” Lucas says. “How’d you get in here Y/N?” 

“Mr. Wheeler let me in. He’s a real peach. So. Steve?” 

“He’s upstairs in Nancy’s room,” Dustin says. 

Your eyes widen.

“Not like that!” Dustin says quickly, sensing the miscommunication. “They’re just talking!” 

“Talking alone in her room?” 

“To be fair,” Lucas says, “Robin’s there too, so it’s not like it’s romantic.”

“And it wouldn’t be!” Dustin says. “Steve only has eyes for you. He told me so.”

“You, and Phoebe Cates,” Lucas corrects.

“Right. You, Phoebe Cates, and maybe Cindy Crawford.”

“Definitely Cindy Crawford,” Lucas says. “Have you seen her?”

Max turns in her seat and glares at Lucas. He gulps.

“I mean, Cindy’s not my type. But Steve loves her.”

Your turn to glare.

“Not as much as he loves you!” Lucas says. He turns to Dustin. “We’re making things worse, aren’t we?” 

“Yes,” you say. “I’m gonna go talk to him.” 

“You can’t,” Dustin says. “They’re a bit preoccupied. And I know that sounds suspicious, but I promise. Steve isn’t cheating on you.” 

“Then what is he doing?” you say. “And why hasn’t he called me?” 

“All good questions,” Dustin says. “But I can’t answer them.” He gestures to an armchair nearby. “You can wait for Steve if you want. I’m sure he’d love to see you.” 

You consider it, but this whole situation is weirding you out. What are Steve, Robin, and Nancy so preoccupied with anyway? Does it have to do with the murders? And why won’t anyone just tell you what’s going on?!

“I have to go,” you say, voice clipped. “Just tell him to call me.” 

You storm up the stairs and out of the house. A sense of dread overwhelms you—dread that threatens to swallow you whole. 

***

At around 11 o’clock that night, someone knocks at your apartment door. 

In a half-asleep stupor, you stumble to it, gripping your baseball bat. No one should be visiting this late, unless—

“Y/N? It’s Steve! Can we talk?”

You huff and put the bat down, opening the door for your (sheepish-looking) boyfriend.

Your facial expression remains stony as you study him. 

“Hey,” he says. He clears his throat. “Can I come in?”

In lieu of a response, you turn on your heel and stomp to your couch. Steve locks the door behind him and follows.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, sitting next to you. He reaches to put an arm around you, and you pull away. He deflates. “Babe—”

“Is this the part where you say you can’t tell me what’s going on?” you snap. “And you promise to call me tomorrow, but then you don’t, and the only reason I’ll know you aren’t dead is because I’ll see your car at your fucking ex-girlfriend’s house?” 

Steve closes his eyes and sighs.

“I deserve that. But it’s not what you think. Whatever you think is going on, I promise, it’s not that.”

“So, what is going on?” you say. 

He turns away and rubs his face.

“I—”

“You’re sorry,” you deadpan. “Why don’t you throw in one more? Best things come in threes, you know.” 

You’re being unfair. You know this. Steve’s obviously very upset about something, and you’re being too harsh. But the way he’s acting, and the way he’s not giving you a real answer why, is driving you insane. 

He hesitates and reaches for your hand. You allow him to take it.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. His eyes are wide and mournful and desperate. “But I just can’t talk about it. Not right now. I’ll make it up to you. Anything you want me to do, I’ll do it.” 

You take a deep breath and feel your anger evaporate at his sincereness. 

“You could start by kissing me?” you say.

Steve’s face splits into a grin and he leans in, kissing you softly.

Well, it starts soft. The heat picks up a bit too fast for your liking, and you push him away. 

“Whoa buddy,” you say. “I’m so not in the mood for make-up sex right now.” 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, blushing. “I didn’t mean to push.”  

“I actually need to get some sleep,” you say. “Care to join me?” 

“I really should be getting back,” Steve says, glancing at his watch. “Max is going through a really hard time right now. She needs as much support as she can get.”

You want to know more details, so you try not to be too specific and ask, “Do you think she’ll be okay?” 

Steve nods.

“She’s strong,” he says. “She’ll be fine. She has to be.” 

He kisses you goodnight and leaves. 

This time, he doesn’t promise to call. You aren’t sure if that makes you feel better or worse.

***

The next night, Steve shows up again much too late, looking as if he’s seen a ghost.

He’s wearing the same navy polo and jeans from yesterday. You don’t know how you feel about that, as the reminder that Max and the group are staying at Nancy Wheeler’s house rattles around in your head.

“How’s Max?” you ask, pouring Steve a cup of tea.

“She’s a bit better,” he says. He rubs his eyes. “It’s sort of…touch and go.”

You sit across from him at the table with your own mug and ask, “I hope I’m not being insanely nosy, but is she…sick?”

“Not really sick, exactly. At least, not physically.” Steve hesitates before adding, “She’s grieving. She lost her brother Billy at Starcourt. She hasn’t been the same since then.”

The Starcourt Fire of 1985. It was a big stain on Hawkins history, along with the myriad of disappearances, deaths, and government conspiracies that marred the town’s legacy. 

You aren’t sure how to respond. You settle for drinking your tea in a slightly uncomfortable silence. 

“You know,” you say after a beat, “I have a bunch of old board games and movies. I could bring them over to the Wheeler’s place tomorrow if Max wants to check them out. It might lift her spirits.”

“No,” Steve says quickly. Off your hurt look, he says, “No, sorry. I mean, we won’t be at the Wheeler’s tomorrow. We’re going for a drive.” 

“A drive?” 

“Yeah, a drive in the…in the countryside. So Max can clear her head.”

He’s lying to you. He’s lying to you and he’s bad at it and it makes you sad and mad all at once. 

“Please, for the love of god, cut the bullshit,” you say. You slam your tea down harder than intended and it sloshes across the tabletop. “What are you guys actually doing?”

Frustration flashes across his features.

“I told you, I really can’t tell you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Don’t say that! It’s not!” Steve says, voice raising. He stands from the table. “I can’t tell you! Why can’t you just accept that?”

You stand as well, crossing your arms.

“You’ve got to at least get your story straight if you’re going to lie, deceive, and leave me out!” you yell. “What is this really about? Because first it was all about Dustin’s friend, and now it’s Max. Or does it have something to do with the murders?” 

Steve goes ghostly pale at the mention of the recent killings.

“I won’t tell you,” Steve says firmly, a fraction more calm than he was moments before. “It’s too dangerous.”

“So it does have to do with the—”

“I have to go,” Steve says, storming toward the front door.

“Steve Harrington, you get back here!” you call, following him. 

Too late. He’s out the door, slamming it behind him. 

As soon as he’s gone, your resolve just crumbles. You cry. You cry, because your sweet, sensitive boyfriend is acting like a different person. You cry because he’s obviously hurting and in some kind of trouble but won’t talk about it, making it impossible to help him. You cry because you don’t want to lose him, because you’ve only been dating for a short time but you might love him. Because you aren’t sure how much longer you can do this.

***

You’re back at the Family Video the next day, working alongside Keith and Randy, a former employee home from college on spring break. Randy’s a pretentious film student who won’t shut up about movies you’ve never seen. It makes you wish you were working with Steve today, despite last night’s argument. You aren’t even sure if Steve wants to be your boyfriend anymore, and that thought tortures you all day. 

“The Godfather is a perfect film,” Randy drones as the two of you log returns in the computer. “Have you seen it?” 

“No, I prefer comedies.” 

Randy scoffs. 

“Oh, that drivel?”

“Comedy is not drivel!” you protest. “People need to laugh sometimes.” 

You spend the rest of your shift defending your favorite movies, and you seriously consider whacking Randy upside the head when he insults The Muppets Take Manhattan. 

Again, you drive past Steve’s house, and are surprised to see his car parked in its usual spot. 

“Steve?” you call, banging on the door. “It’s Y/N. Are you home? Can we talk?” 

You continue knocking and shouting for him to answer, to no avail. Eventually, his next-door neighbor yells for you to shut it, so you leave. 

At 2:30 in the morning, your phone rings. You mumble a “Hello?” into the receiver, wondering if you’re dreaming.

“Hey, Y/N.” 

It’s Steve. You figured as much. Who else would call so late? 

“Hey,” you say, feeling more awake than you did before. 

Part of you wonders if this is evidence of some kind of shift in your relationship. Maybe Steve doesn’t want to actually date you anymore. Maybe he just wants to sleep with you, and that’s why he’s only been visiting and calling late at night, and not talking about what’s going on. You don’t like that thought. 

“I’m so glad to hear your voice,” Steve says with a deep sigh.  

He sounds weary, and almost hoarse. This panics you. Under normal circumstances, you’d think he was just sick. But now, you aren’t sure what to think. 

“Steve, where are you?” 

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does! Are you okay? You sound weak.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I don’t mean it as an insult! Seriously. Do you need me to come get you? Or call an ambulance, or something?”

“I’m fine, Y/N. Just tired. Tired, and missing you.” 

“Well, then, why don’t you come over?” you say. You tamp down your worry and try a different tactic: “Maybe we can finally give that make-up sex a try.” 

You hear a chorus of “Ew, gross!” and “Gag me with a spoon.” 

“Sorry, I should’ve told you,” Steve mumbles, “I’m not alone.”

“Yeah, I got that now. Is Max doing okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. We're at her place now. I just wanted to…no, I needed to call you and say sorry. These past few days, I’ve been really shitty to you.”

“You kind of have been,” you say. “But I haven’t been very supportive. I’m sorry too. Whatever’s going on, I hope it, um…gets better.”

“Thanks,” Steve says. “Oh, and about the make-up sex—can we get a rain check?”

“I’ll see if I can pencil you in my busy social schedule,” you tease. “Call me tomorrow night?” 

“I will,” Steve says. His voice wavers and he adds, “I promise.” 

***

The next night, he does call. Still wearing his gear from the Vecna battle, he calls your house from the hospital payphone minutes after Max is wheeled into surgery. 

“Pick up, pick up!” he grumbles. “Why aren’t they answering?!” 

“Have you tried calling Family Video?” Robin says. “It’s inventory night. Keith always makes us stay late for inventory.”

“Oh, fuck,” Steve says. He looks at Robin with panicked eyes. “We were supposed to be there for inventory. Did you remember to call out for us?”

“I thought you did!”

“Here’s some more quarters,” Nancy says, appearing from around the corner with a handful of coins. “After you call Y/N, I need to call Max’s mom and the Sinclairs. Robin, have you called your family yet?” 

Steve dials the Family Video number and waits with bated breath. He groans when the call doesn’t connect. He needs to hear your voice, to know you’re okay after the earthquake. 

Unfortunately, you are far from okay. 

You’re at the store doing inventory with Randy, listening to more of his dry takes, when the earthquake hits.

Randy immediately begins to panic.

“There’s no tub!” he screams over the sound of the rattling earth.

“Huh?!” you yell back, holding onto the counter for dear life.

“In an earthquake, you’re supposed to hide in a tub!” He scans the room and gasps. “Or a doorframe!”

He darts toward the doorframe that leads to the back room. 

“Randy, stop running!” you scream. “You’ll hurt yourself!”

You notice a tall shelf of tapes tip forward and you surge ahead, pushing Randy out of the way as the shelf hits the ground. In the scuffle, one of your legs gets pinned underneath it. 

A bloodcurdling scream echoes through the store. It takes you a minute to realize the sound is coming from you and not from some banshee.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Randy yells. “Y/N, are you okay?” 

The earthquake slows, the violent shaking making way for a quiet rumble. He runs back to you and tries to lift the shelf off of you, with no luck. 

“It’s too heavy,” he says, face pinched with fear and a bit of guilt. “Can you move your leg at all?” 

You wince and shake your head, tears running down your face.

“I can’t move it,” you say. You sniffle. “It hurts really really bad.”

“I’ll call for help!” Randy says. He grabs the phone off the counter and curses. He tries the second phone, and then races to Keith’s office to try the third. “No signal. I guess the quake took out the telephone lines. I’ll go get someone!” 

“Don’t leave me!” you cry out. “Please!” 

“I’ll be right back,” Randy says. “I promise! And I’ll reevaluate my stance on comedies, just for you.” 

“I appreciate that,” you say through sobs. 

Randy rushes out into the night, and you hear him shouting, “Hey, hey! We need an ambulance!” 

As you lay alone in the video store in unimaginable pain, you worry. You worry about Steve and his friends, hoping they fared better than you in the natural disaster. You worry about your leg, wondering if you’ll ever be able to use it the same again. You worry that you wasted your time being upset with Steve, and—in a particularly dark moment—you worry that you may never see him again. 

After what feels like an eternity, Randy returns with a group of paramedics.

“Hey there,” one of them says. “Are you Y/N?” 

“The one and only,” you say through gritted teeth. “I can’t feel my leg anymore. Are you going to have to amputate it? Please say no.” 

“Amputations are rare,” another paramedic reassures you. You breathe a sigh of relief. “Let’s get this thing off you and get you to the hospital, yeah?” 

***

The rest of the night is a blur for you. The paramedics free your leg and pump you full of so many painkillers, it’s hard to focus on much of anything. 

You don’t feel fully like yourself again until the next morning, when you wake up in a hospital bed with a bright blue cast on your leg. 

A soft snore to your left indicates company. You are so relieved to see it’s—

“Steve!” you shout, startling him awake. “What happened to your neck?!” 

“Y/N, oh my god,” Steve says, jumping from the armchair he was uncomfortably squished into. “How are you feeling? Do you need anything?”

“Did someone choke you?” you say, sitting up against your pillows. “Who do I need to fight?”

“You aren’t fighting anyone until that’s gone,” Steve says, pointing to your cast. He gingerly sits on the edge of the bed, careful of your leg. “Geez, I was so worried about you. I called and called, both the store and your house, and then I saw some paramedics bring you in on a stretcher, and I just panicked. I was so afraid I was going to lose you.”

You reach over and hold both of his hands with yours. He smiles at you, but his eyes are sad. 

“I’m here,” you say. You wince. “My leg hurts like hell, and I’ll probably never walk, run, or swim as fast as I used to, but I’m here.” 

“I’m so glad you are,” he says quietly. He sucks in a breath. “Max got really badly hurt in…in the quake. She’s unconscious and they don’t know when…if…she’ll wake up.” 

“Oh, Steve, I’m so sorry.”

You pull him into a hug, and he holds you tightly. 

You know you should keep your mouth shut and just be in this moment with him, but a nagging thought in your mind won’t leave you alone.

“Steve,” you say quietly, pulling away. “I don’t usually believe in ultimatums, because things aren’t usually so black-and-white. But I’m about to give you one. Please don’t hate me.” 

Worry flashes in his eyes. He shakes his head. 

“I could never hate you,” he says, voice cracking. 

You squeeze his hands and say: “If you can’t be honest with me about what’s going on, I think we have to break up.” 

Steve’s eyes widen. 

“I’m sorry,” you blurt out, before he can say anything. “I know that’s so unfair. But what’s a relationship without honesty and communication, and we just…don’t have that at the moment. I have the sneaking suspicion that this earthquake and the killings are connected, and I think you know more than you’re letting on. The earthquake did this—” You gesture to your leg. “And I feel like I have a right to know the truth. To know what’s hurting you. Please, Steve. Just tell me.” 

You watch his facial expression. Unreadable emotions flick across his features, and you can tell he’s brainstorming. Thinking hard, trying to determine the right thing to say next. 

“Y/N,” he says, voice low. “It’s dangerous. Really dangerous. I don’t want to involve you if I can help it.” 

“Steve—”

“I don’t want you to get hurt—”

“I already got hurt!”

“I won’t put you in any more danger,” Steve says. He looks about two seconds from sobbing, but he says, “Ignorance is bliss, right?” 

It guts you to do so, but you gingerly drop his hands. 

“Okay.” 

“Y/N, can we just—”

“I think you should leave.” You can’t even look at him as you say it, instead staring at some wilting daisies on the windowsill. 

Steve opens his mouth as if he’s going to protest, but closes it and nods.

“If that’s what you really want, I’ll go,” he whispers.

You nod, despite the part of you deep down screaming for him to stay. 

He hesitates before walking out. 

***

A day and a half later, you’ve been discharged from the hospital. From your perch on your couch, you watch ash swirling outside your window. The sight is terrifying, and the news is full of weathermen trying to make sense of the strange weather pattern. 

Knock, knock, knock, knock!

You hobble to your feet, clumsy as a baby deer due to your crutches, and open the door.

“Steve!” you say, a bit shocked (yet relieved). He’s got flakes of ash on his head and shoulders, looking like a dusting of snow. “Hey, I was going to call you. I think I made a big mistake—”

“I want to tell you everything,” he blurts out. 

You stumble a bit and he grabs your shoulders to steady you.

“Really?” you say. “Because I thought about it, and you don’t have to.” 

“I want to,” Steve says. “You’re right. I need to be fully honest. And, frankly, I can’t do this without you.”

So you let him in, and you sit on the couch with your injured leg propped on pillows while he tells you everything. About Will Byers going missing, and how he wasn’t just lost in the woods like everyone thought. About how he came back from another dimension but he brought something dark and twisted with him, an evil sort of presence. How that evil presence latched onto Max’s brother Billy last summer and used him as a general of sorts, collecting more soldiers to create a terrifying monster. How the mastermind behind the plan, Vecna/Henry Creel/One, is the real murderer.

“Everyone thinks it was Eddie,” Steve says, looking down at his feet. “But Eddie sacrificed himself so the bats wouldn’t swarm our version of Hawkins. If he hadn’t done that, the casualties would’ve been a lot worse.” 

“And Vecna tried to kill Max too?” you say. The first thing you’ve said since he started his tale. 

“He did kill Max. But she came back, somehow. It’s a miracle.”

You aren’t sure what to say. Monsters and alternate dimensions and evil doctors. It’s all the stuff of science fiction…right? 

Steve huffs out a laugh at the twisted frown on your face. 

“You don’t believe me,” he says.

“No! I do. I’m just…processing.”

“It’s all true,” Steve says. “Every word. And as much as it sucks, I have to help my friends stop Vecna and destroy the Upside Down once and for all. Once we do that, maybe things can get back to normal.” 

“Sounds like a plan. When do we start?”

Steve’s brows pull together. 

“Uh, did you just say ‘we’?”

“I did. I want to help.”

“No way!” Steve scoffs. “I told you because I didn’t want to keep it from you anymore. Not because I want you to get involved in this fight.”

“Steve—”

“Y/N! Seriously!” Steve says. He laces your hands together. “You’re, like, the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m not going to let the person I love throw themselves into this mess. I need you to be safe.” 

He looks up and is a bit surprised to see goofy grin on your face. 

“You said you love me,” you whisper.

Steve blushes.

“Oh, right. I hope that’s okay?”

“You hope it’s okay that you love me?” 

“Uh, yeah. And I hope you’ll take me back, but if you feel like you can’t after everything I told you I understand and—”

You grab him by the collar and pull him in for a kiss. He melts into it, wrapping his arms around you. 

“I love you too,” you say, once you finally pull away. “And I am taking you back, and I’ll respect your wishes not to get involved in your monster hunting mission, but you have to promise me that you won’t get killed or something, because that would massively suck.” 

“You got it,” he says. He checks his watch.

“You heading out?” you ask, a bit disappointed.

Steve shakes his head.

“Nope. I have three hours until I’m meeting the others to discuss our next move.”

“Three hours,” you say, eyes sparkling a bit hungrily. “Huh. There’s so much we could do to fill that time…one activity I can’t get out of my head rhymes with ‘take-up schmex.’”

“Y/N. Your leg is broken.”

“The medical term is actually ‘smushed,’ so I’m cleared for sexual activity.” 

“Is that so?” Steve says. “Well, if your doctor says it’s okay…”

In one fluid motion, he scoops you up in his arms. You squeal in surprise as he carries you to your bedroom.

Hawkins had changed overnight. Everything Steve told you makes it seem like a much scarier, darker place. 

But you have Steve, and he has you, and you know that no matter what happens next, nothing is going to change that.

***

tagging some people who asked about it and/or expressed interest in this fic! Y'ALL ROCK @crappymixtape @starry-eyed-steve @mrskeery-mclaughlin @sailor-steve

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x gn! reader #steve harrington #stranger things fanfic #stranger things 4 #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x you #steve harrington angst #st fic: r&j

[circle-with-me]

'tis the damn season - part 4

Pairing: Will Ramos x OFC (Gen/Viv/Vivvy)

Content Warning/tags: 18+ MDNI!, vaginal fingering, oral sex (female receiving), unprotected vaginal sex, body worship, hurt w/ comfort, fluff

Word Count: 4.6k

Tag list: @concretenoah @deathblacksmoke @midnight-eternals @bngurngheart @malice-ov-mercy @witchyweeb34 @lyschko666 @cookiesupplier @lilrubles @meekahy @lacktoesandtoddlerants, @sammyjoeee

If you would like to be added to my tag list for this series or my other works, please sign up here.

Author’s Note: This part took longer than I had anticipated due to some personal issues, but hopefully this was worth the wait! I'm certainly proud of this part. Thank you to @deathblacksmoke for editing this and helping me rewrite parts that I was unsure about. Thank you to @concretenoah for helping me brainstorm and letting me bounce ideas off of you. Love you both sm 🤍.

A loud knock at the front door scares Gen awake. She sits up abruptly, holding onto her head as the pounding begins. She looks over at the coffee table and eyes the empty whiskey bottle, remembering the night before. Once Will left she downed the rest of the bottle to numb the pain and anger. Soon after, she passed out on the couch, whispering his name over and over. 

She groans when she hears another loud knock, scooting off the couch and heading towards the door. The knocks become louder and more frequent the closer she gets. 

“I’m coming. I’m coming!” she grumbles, flinging the door open. She immediately holds her hand up over her eyes as the sun blinds her, her head now pounding even harder. A tall figure steps in the ray of light currently burning her retinas, blocking it from her view. She silently thanks them.

Once Gen’s vision returns to normal, she recognizes the tall figure as Mr. Shaw. He was dressed much more casually from their initial encounter — a thick black sweater, jeans, and sneakers. He surveys Gen’s appearance and she’s suddenly very self conscious as she realizes she probably looks like a complete mess.

“Good Morning, Ms. Taylor.” He flashes his thousand watt smile at her. She smiles back.

“Good Morning, Mr. Shaw. Would you like to come in?” 

He shakes his head. “I’m afraid I can’t. I just came to make sure the rental company dropped this dumpster off.” He turns and points to a gigantic blue dumpster sitting at the curb. “I figured it would make cleanup easier.” 

“That’s very kind. You didn’t have to do that though.” 

Mr. Shaw waves her off. “Don’t get too excited. I used money from your inheritance to pay for it.” 

Gen raises her eyebrows in amusement, and he laughs at her. “You steal my money and you don’t even stick around to help me out.” Gen teases. “You really are a great lawyer!”

He laughs louder this time. “What can I say? I’m good at what I do.”

She laughs with him and leans against the doorway. “Jokes aside, thank you for all your help.” 

“It’s not a problem. If you need anything else, give me a call.” He walks to his car and leaves. 

Gen falls back on the couch and huffs. After a half gallon of water, some greasy food from the gas station and a few tylenol she decided to take on the house. Six hours later she has barely made a dent in all of the clutter. The entire kitchen is clean at least so she accepts the small victory. 

She has spent all day staying busy to keep him out of her head but as soon as she sits down and is alone with her thoughts, he is there. The way his face contorted at her words, his lips on hers, the final words he spoke to her as he slammed the door. All of it comes back in a flash and suddenly her head is pounding again. She pushes her palms into her eyes and curses loudly.

Gen eyes her phone. You can’t call him. You don’t know his number. She thinks to herself. Is she really going to be that much of a coward and apologize over the phone? She wanted to avoid this situation all together but her heart was beating her brain into submission. What did everyone always call her? Bullheaded? Obstinate? 

Stubborn.

She snatches her phone and dials the only number she remembers. It rings a few times and a woman speaking a language she doesn't understand answers. Gen hangs up quickly and drops her phone in her lap. Well that idea didn’t work. 

With no idea how to get in touch with him and no way of knowing where he lives now, Gen was out of options. Her phone pings in her lap and she looks down. An Instagram notification from Natalie sits on her home screen and Gen mentally chides herself. The solution is obvious. Stalk him on social media like a normal person.

Will’s Instagram is easy enough to find. He was verified now and had amassed a lot of followers. As she scrolls through his account, It doesn’t take long for her to find a photo of him with a woman hanging off of him. She scrolls past quickly, ignoring the way her heart sinks. The rest of his account is full of photos with his band, his car, and his cats. And a few more women. 

“You can’t expect him to be alone for the rest of his life just because you plan to be.” She whispers to herself tauntingly. She immediately groans at her own words. Could she be more insufferable? 

A video he posted two days ago catches her eye and she clicks on it. Will is standing outside in the snow. She’s so focused on his face she doesn’t even pay attention to what he’s saying. He flips the camera around to show his cats standing behind a familiar glass patio door and her mouth drops open. 

No fucking way.

The apartment building looks mostly the same as it did when Gen left, save for a fresh coat of paint and a few repairs to the outside. She stares at the door. Will’s car was right next to hers so she knows he’s home. That knowledge makes her nerves even worse.

She lays her head on the steering wheel and howls in frustration. Her head makes light repeated contact with the steering wheel as she hopes for some form of higher power to smite her now so she didn’t have to do this. 

Bullheaded.

Obstinate.

Stubborn.

Once again, her heart beats her brain into submission. She sighs and gets out of the car. As she approaches the front door, Gen reaches for the knob but pulls her hand back quickly because the door is already opening. She hears laughter, Will’s and someone she doesn’t recognize. A female appears and almost runs into her. 

“Oh!” The woman exclaims. “I’m so sorry I didn’t see you.” She laughs nervously and adjusts the bag on her shoulder. She’s pretty. Blonde, slender, and slightly shorter than Gen. Her bright blue eyes are accentuated by her long eyelashes. She has plugs and multiple facial piercings. There were no visible tattoos from Gen’s quick once over but winter isn’t exactly the best time to show them off. 

Gen holds her hands up. “No need to be sorry. I was the one just standing here.” 

“Viv? What are you doing here?” Will steps into view behind the blonde. His voice is honeyed for the sake of company, but his expression gives away his annoyance. 

As they both stare at Gen her mind goes blank. What is she doing here? She isn’t going to say it in front of this woman. It isn’t any of her business. Besides, Gen doesn’t even know who she is. She could be his girlfriend for all she knew. Gen ignores the queasy feeling in her stomach at the thought. 

“I- um…” She starts. Will cocks an eyebrow in anticipation and his friend gives her an awkward smile. Gen flounders for a few more seconds but luckily the woman has mercy on her. 

“Ya know, I was just leaving! I will leave you both to it. See you later, Will?”

Will stares at Gen for a moment longer then clears his throat. “Yeah, see you.” He gives her a soft smile and waves goodbye. 

He returns his gaze back to Gen, this time it’s a little softer. He steps out of the doorway and silently invites her in. She holds her breath as she walks past him but it’s forced out of her quickly once she’s inside. Everything was almost exactly the same as it was when she left. 

Gen feels something rub against her leg and a soft meow follows. She looks down to see a tan and black cat with white socks staring up at her, circling between her legs. She squats downs to pet it, cooing as it meows back at her. 

“This is Bobbi.” Will says crouching down next to her. 

“Hi Bobbi.” Gen says, planting a kiss on the top of the cat’s head. She looks back at Will and he smiles softly. He looks around for a moment before his eyes land on something and he rolls them. “And that loaf,” he points to her left, “would be Dusti.” 

Lying in a basket attached to the window sill is a black cat completely unfazed by the new guest in the home. Gen walks over and scratches Dusti’s head, chuckling as he rolls over and bats at her hand playfully. 

“What are you doing here, Vivvy?” Will asks. He’s leaning against the back of the couch now, fidgeting with his hands. His curls were out of his face for once, secured in a bun with a spiral hair tie. The look he gives her, likely without even meaning to, gives her goosebumps and causes her cheeks to heat. 

“I need to apologize about last night.”

He takes a deep breath and considers her for a moment. Gen can see he’s chewing on the inside of his lip. He looks down at his hands and adjusts the bracelet on his wrist. 

“No, you don’t.” He looks up, eyes boring into hers. “It’s me who needs to apologize.” Gen stares at him in disbelief. She had said such horrible things to him and he’s apologizing instead?

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” She questions.

“I’ve been a dick since you got here, Viv. All I’ve done is complain about you leaving and throw it in your face when I’m the reason you left in the first place. You’ve made this wonderful life for yourself. You made your dreams come true. I’m so fucking proud of you, Vivvy. You were right. If you had stayed you would have fucking suffocated here with me.” 

“Will, I-“ Gen starts but he puts a hand up to stop her.

“If I had been a better boyfriend… If I had just been honest with you in the first place then none of this would have happened. Maybe we would still be together and… L.A. would be our home.”

“What are you talking about?” Gen says as she walks closer to him. Will sighs and runs his hands over his face. 

“When you first told me that you wanted to go to New York, I was really excited for you,” Will starts, fidgeting with the skin of his fingers. “I knew how badly you wanted to get out of here, and how much you loved your job. I would have gone anywhere for you,” he admits. Surprised by the confession, Gen watches as tears begin to well up in his eyes. “I told my friends because I thought they would be excited too, but they all said how it was a terrible idea,” Will continues, face twisting uneasily at the memories. “They said you would be working with these big artists and producers, and you’d get so caught up in the music industry that you’d forget about me,” Gen’s heart sinks, she wouldn’t have, but she can’t exactly blame him, either. “I couldn’t let that happen, so I freaked out and refused to let you go. I should have talked to you,” The shame is clear, gnawing at him. He’s been sitting with this, alone, for so long. “I was selfish and thought I could keep you here with me, but I lost you anyway.”

Gen is left speechless at his confession. The more it sunk in, the more it made sense. He would never give her a straight answer even when she begged him to tell her why he wouldn’t go. This whole time he was scared she would leave him for someone else?

“If you were so afraid of me leaving you then why did you just let me go? Why didn’t you tell me the truth then?”

Gen watches as he shifts uncomfortably. A tear rolls down his cheek and he’s quick to wipe it away. 

“You made it clear you were going with or without me. I was heartbroken and angry.” Will closes his eyes, the memory becoming too much to bear. “When you left and never came back it just confirmed my fear. You forgot about me.”

His words punch her in the stomach, forcing all of the air out of her lungs. They’ve known each other since they were kids. They started dating at thirteen. He was her first boyfriend, her first kiss, her first everything. They made plans to spend the rest of their lives together. How could he possibly think that she could forget him?

It dawns on her that for him, the situation was reversed. All of this time she had spent thinking he didn’t care, that he had forgotten about her. When in reality, he thought the exact same thing. She was his first for everything too. How could she think he could forget about her? 

Suddenly, the photos of all of the women on his instagram and the woman at the door crosses her mind. Her heart starts to race and jealousy crashes into her. She knew it was irrational. He had every right to pursue other relationships but did he really have the audacity to be upset with her and accuse her of forgetting about him when he so clearly had no problem replacing her?

“I forgot about you?” Gen challenges, scoffing. “From the looks of things you had no problem forgetting about me. It seems I was easily replaceable.”

Will’s brows furrowed in confusion. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I’ve seen your instagram. You haven’t been shy about posting your girlfriends.” Gen watches as he leans forward, like he’s making sure he’s hearing her correctly. “You haven’t posted the pretty blonde that just left yet, though. Is she brand new or just not special enough?” 

Will remains silent for a moment. He watches her, his jaw clenched, lips pressed into a straight line. “The blonde you are referring to is Austin’s girlfriend. He’s the drummer for Lorna.” Gen’s stomach drops as she realizes her mistake. “She came by to pick up some stuff he left here on her way home from work. So, no, I’m not fucking her.”

He takes a deep breath and stands up, walking towards her. Peering down at her, he speaks calmly. 

“Even if I was, I don’t owe you an explanation for how I choose to cope with losing you. It took me over a year to even look at someone else.” Gen begins to feel sick, overwhelmed. She backs up, but he follows her. “When I finally touched another woman it damn near killed me but I wasn’t going to put my life on hold knowing you had moved on with your life.” 

“Will, You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.” Gen snarls, shoving her finger into his chest. “When we broke up every shred of belief I had in true love dissolved into thin air. I’ve spent the last eight years alone or having meaningless sex because what was the fucking point if it wasn’t you?” 

Will’s face falls, the shame evident. He reaches for her but she recoils and turns away. She sits in the chair by the window and wraps her arms around her legs. Will wrings his hands and sits down. He fucked up again. How does he keep doing this? 

They sit on opposite sides of the room in silence for what seems like hours. Gen focuses on the snow falling outside, crying silently. Will sits on the edge of the couch with his head in his hands. The guilt and grief in the room is so palpable they can’t even look at each other. Will decides he can’t take the silence anymore. He sits up straight and looks at her.

“Viv?”

Gen folds in on herself as soon as she hears her name. He sees the sobs wracking her body and his heart aches. He was sick of the fights, the hurt. All he wants now is to fix things for good this time.

“Viv.” He repeats softly. “Will you come here to me, please?” 

Her sobs continue and his instinct is to walk over and take her in his arms, but he doesn’t. From her body language alone she was on the verge of a meltdown and he knew better than to touch her without her permission. Despite this, he couldn’t let her sit there all alone. Besides, he would be lying if he said he couldn’t use some comfort of his own.

“Vivvy…please?” Will begs, his voice cracking. “I need you.” Gen stiffens, her sobs turn to quiet sniffles. She shifts and for a moment he thinks she’s going to get up but instead she just repositions herself. Will sighs dejectedly and places his head back in his hands. 

A few moments later, he hears soft footsteps followed by the feeling of a warm hand resting in the juncture between his neck and shoulders. Will looks up to see her standing in front of him, her face flush from crying. 

She studies him, her other hand coming to rest on his opposite shoulder. Her fingers absentmindedly dip underneath the collar of his shirt. She rubs circles into the muscles of his back, a calming tactic she picked up years ago. Will exhales and drops his head forward. He begins to reach for her but stops.

“Can I touch you?” He requests. He tries his best to keep it from sounding like he’s begging. Gen nods but he isn’t satisfied. “You know I need your words, honey.” Tears brim in her eyes and as soon as the soft “yes” passes her lips he wraps his arms around her waist, burying his head in her stomach. 

Gen wraps her arms around his neck, and Will opens his legs to allow her to step in between them pulling her even closer. She feels his body shake as he weeps and she gently shushes him and scratches his scalp.

“I’m so sorry, Will.” She utters. “For everything.”

Will shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry. This is all my fault and I’ve been treating you like it’s yours. If it wasn’t for me, none of this would have happened.” He places a single kiss on her clothed stomach right above her belly button and looks up at her. She runs her hand along the side of his face. “I guess we both made some mistakes, huh?” 

Will agrees and swallows harshly. He plays with the hem of her shirt, his fingers lightly caress her bare skin. “Let me make it up to you?” Gen’s heart pounds in her chest at his words, her own proving to be difficult. An “okay” is all she can manage but that’s good enough for him.

Will takes both hands and places them under her shirt, pushing it up slightly. He peppers the soft flesh of her stomach with soft kisses, his thumb lightly rubbing against her hip bone. He dips his thumb in the waistband of her jeans and looks up. She nods and he pops the button open, sliding them down her legs and helping her out of them. 

Will places his hands on either side of her thighs and squeezes. He takes in the sight of her, the plush hips and thighs that he loved worshiping. The dark spot that forms on the red lace panties she wears makes him lick his lips. Will pulls her closer to him and kisses her hips, the top of her thighs, her clothed pussy, anywhere he could reach. He inhales her scent and his cock twitches in his jeans.

He grabs her leg and hikes it up over his shoulder, making sure she holds onto his other shoulder for purchase. He pushes her panties to the side and runs a finger through her folds. They both gasp at the same time, Gen from the feeling and Will from how wet she was already. He gently presses a finger inside her and watches as her head falls back, moaning quietly. 

Will continues to watch her savoring the moment until she squeezes his shoulder and whines. “What do you need, baby?” He coos. “M-more.” She stutters, rolling her hips into his finger. Will smiles and kisses her thigh. He slides another finger in and she keens. 

He continues to kiss up and down her thigh, leaving soft nibbles as he goes. This was all about her but the way her slick was running down his hands made his eyes darken. It had been so long since he tasted her. He stares at her pussy as he fingers her, attaching his mouth to her thigh and sucking on the flesh as he’d suck on her clit.

Gen looks down at Will, his eyes rolling back into his head, and she nearly cums just from watching him. She grabs him by the hair and gently pulls him away from her thigh. “If you want to taste me, just ask.” 

“Can I?” Will pants. “Please?” Gen nods and he lunges forward, licking through her folds. He closes his lips around her clit and sucks. She shudders and grips his hair tighter, grinding against his face. Will moans into her, bucking his hips. He desperately wants to free himself from his jeans but his hands currently have a more important purpose.

Will is ravenous as he devours her, his fingers digging into flesh of her thigh. He feels her clench around his fingers and the arm he was using to hold her steady wraps around her waist, pulling her tight against his face. Legs shaking as she cums, Gen cries out Will’s name. Her release gushes over his face and down his arms. 

He doesn’t waste a single drop. 

Will barely gives Gen a moment to breathe before he’s picking her up and toting her to his bedroom. He lays her on the bed and makes quick work of removing his clothes. When he turns his attention back to her, the way she looks makes him stop in his tracks. 

She’s fully naked now, propped against his pillows. One hand is playing with her hair while the other draws lazy patterns on her stomach. He follows the curve of her breasts and he swears there has never been a woman more perfect than her. Their eyes meet and something akin to embarrassment settles in them as she attempts to cover her body. 

Will frowns and crawls next to her. “Hey.” He says, placing his hand over hers. Gen peers at him from the corner of her eyes, then down at their hands. “Please don’t hide from me.”

“I don’t look the same as I did before.” She laments. Will removes his hand from hers and cups her cheek. “No, baby.” He kisses her temple gently. When she leans into his touch he continues, leaving a trail down her face and along her jaw. “You’re even more beautiful now. Let me show you.” 

Gen lets him move her hands away. Will hovers over her and leaves soft kisses on her neck. He palms her breasts, drawing her nipple into his mouth. When his tongue swirls around and he bites down, she gasps and arches into his touch. 

“You’re perfect.” Will whispers as he leaves open mouthed kisses between her breasts. “You’re soft. And warm.” He punctuates each compliment with a kiss to her belly. He kisses and nibbles his way back to her lips.  “And you’re even more beautiful than the day I met you.” 

Their mouths meet in a deep, heated kiss. Will swipes his tongue on her bottom lip and her lips part inviting him in. Gen feels his hard cock press against her core and she squirms beneath him, desperate for friction. Will moans into her mouth and hooks his arm under her leg, using the other to push himself up on his knees. 

Will strokes his cock and places the tip against her slit, rubbing it against her and collecting her slick. He lines himself up with her entrance but looks up first. “Is this okay?” He breathes. She nods. “Mhmm.” He pushes in slowly. His head falls back, eyes squeezing shut at how good she feels.

The feeling of him stretching her out makes Gen dizzy. She grabs ahold of his shoulder and he turns his head to kiss her hand, continuing to slowly pump inside her. As he bottoms out she takes a deep breath and rolls her hips into his, a silent plea for more. Will groans as he begins to thrust into her harder. 

Every single inch of him consumes her. Will grips her hips tight, biting his lip. His eyes focus on where they’re connected and he slams into her even harder. She cries out, clinging to him and scratching his arms. He dips his head down to kiss her and she wraps her arms around his neck to pull him closer. The kiss is messy and desperate. 

“Fuck, I’ve missed you.” Will moans against her lips. Tears form in her eyes. She isn’t sure if it’s from Will’s admission or because he feels so god damn good. All she knows is that she hasn’t allowed herself to feel like this, to feel satisfied, in ages. She has punished herself for years and she decided she was done. It was time to surrender and take everything this man was willing to give.

“I’ve missed you, too.” Will doesn’t miss the crack in her voice as she says it. He kisses her fervently and sneaks his hands between them, massaging her clit with the pads of his fingers. “Want you— fuck,” He pants. “..need you to cum for me, Vivvy.”

The moans and cries that flow from Gen’s mouth as she climaxes are music to Will’s ears. He watches her face twist in pleasure and rubs his hands up and down her thighs as they shake. Her pussy clenches around him and he knows he’s not far behind. 

Will takes both of her hands and places them above her head. Instinctively, Gen wraps her legs around him and pushes him in deeper. He grinds into her and pulls all the way out, then slams back in. He repeats this a few more times and picks up his pace. Both of their moans fill the room. Will buries his face in Gen’s neck, sucking on the flesh as his orgasm approaches quickly. 

Gen can feel his thrusts get sloppy and by his whining pants in her ear, she knows he’s about to cum. The barrier breaks as she raises her hips to meet his. He cries out and sinks his teeth into the flesh of her neck, grunting and groaning as he stills inside her. She can feel the muscles of his stomach tense as he collapses on top of her. 

Will releases her hands and she scratches her nails up and down his back. He brings his hand to the top of her head and plays with her hair, the other caressing her cheek. She smiles and strains her neck to look at him, kissing the vein on the side of his head. 

“Are you just going to stay there forever?” She questions, poking him in the side. 

“Hmm.. don’t tempt me.” He mumbles into her neck and she laughs. She pokes him again and he squirms but doesn’t budge. “Willllll!” Gen whines playfully. “You’re suffocating me and I have to pee.” 

Will pops up suddenly. “Fine! I will let you up. On one condition.” 

Gen narrows her eyes at him and smiles. “And what is that?” 

“Will you stay here with me tonight?” 

part five

#will ramos #will ramos x ofc #will ramos fanfiction #will ramos fanfic #willramos #william ramos #lorna shore #lorna shore fanfiction #lorna shore fanfic #will ramos smut #william ramos smut #williamramos #lornashore

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

I remember when this aired in 2019. I submitted an ASK @skippyv20 "I'll Take 1 for the Team." The lies made me so angry! I walked on the treadmill while watching just to keep myself from screaming "LIAR!" Today I can let the clips roll off my back because everyone sees what frauds they are as individuals and as a couple. Truly they sit on a BENCH of LIES. Unfortunately there are 3-4 additional parts floating around streaming platforms like Tubi. People who dont follow the BRF might initially accept her fictional accounts until they realize her "facts" like to evolve and change w/time. Nice try MEgain but we see you.

Rewriting History

Also RMM: Having a man doesn't define me

Also RMM: I just want to fulfill my potential

MM was still living with Chef Cory and they recently returned from Mexico before the launch of her Reitman's promotion. She blindsided him with the request to move out of her Suits rental (to make room for Sparry).

Meghan didn't need to get out of town, she was on hiatus from Suits, traveling to a Hen party in Greece and multiple meetings with Gina in London.

Meghan & Sperry knew one another through Markus Anderson, but she was desperate to arrange a reputable matchmaker.

Meghan contacted Violet to request a free tic to Wimbledon and work to merch for RL during the match.

Face to face she asked Violet to introduce her to Sparry. Hence the puppy dog photo. Guess that would ring a bell from their time together in Istanbul Turkey.

Meghan never wanted to be seen with Cory in public.

Violet was never MEgain's stylist in Toronto or in London! MEgain telephoned Violet to request a FREE ticket to Wimbledon in exchange for merching a black suede WINTER season RL/brand ambassador dress for the event.

#Robert Lacey Lied #Scarlett Lacey Lied #she loves freebies #frauds #megaliar #wimbledon #jealous of prince william #friar tuck #megxit #spare us #chef cory #blind date #soho house #Violet Westenholz

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 11/03/2024

ULTRA S+G

Season 2 Featured on: The SiIvaGunner YTPMV Collab (Eek!).veg

Ripped by Kirbio, SAF

God, man. Season 2 of SiIvaGunner was so cool.

And like, I know that that's what I *always* say when I'm writing about a Season 2 rip, in everything from Patched Plains Fusion Collab to Rippin'! Mashin'! High Quality Grand Prix and the SilvaGunner: Rebooted 1st Anniversary event...but I can't help it! There was just such an energy of excitement, of pure joy permeating throughout the entire season - excitement not just for the Christmas Comeback Crisis, but for how SiIvaGunner was *actually* back, firing on all cylinders. The rips were referencing events we were already nostalgic over, althewhile introducing new jokes in clever, memorable ways - the Inspector Gadget takeover and Become as Gadget will forever stick with me as one of the most engrossing events the channel has ever done.

To put it one way...in my (nostalgia-blinded) eyes, Season 2 was the most "unified" the channel ever felt. We were all invested in every little corner of the channel's ongoings, we were all aware of the origins of and meaning of all the active jokes...that kind of investment and attachment to all the featured jokes felt sort of like if Season 4 Episode 2's Summer Fes had lasted for an entire Season! And while we've certainly got a far wider, far more ambitious output of rips in Season 5 onward in particular, it was that feeling of unification that made rips like ULTRA S+G hit like fucking crazy.

The thing you'll immediately notice when clicking on ULTRA S+G is, of course, the visuals, a full-length parody of the visuals featured in the original ULTRA B+K music video, completely reimagined to feature several of SiIva's own memes from Season 2. The visuals are, of course, in sync with the main joke of the rip, in being a huge meme medley of various sources, most replacing the original song's "bass" and "kick" vocal samples. The resulting sound hits you like several trains throughout the rip, be it the opening of "DEE-DEE-DEE-DEE-DEE ; KAY-KAY-KAY-KAY-KAY!!", the beat-dropping "Miney Crafta"s and "GRAND DAD"s, the midsection covered by the good ol' PSY samples a la One Winged PSYcho - V​.​S. Sepsyrop...and while all that is happening, you're met with visuals that go absolutely above and beyond just parodying the original. It has little references to the events of Season 1, such as the infamous Bean or the Mr. Rental storyline of Mr. Rental [B Side] ~ Out of Options...and, hey - an animation of The Voice Inside Your Head!! What ULTRA S+G conveys above all else is the extent of the journey we had all been on over the course of almost two years, a hype-beyond-belief shot directly into the arm of everything SiIvaGunner embodies.

Kirbio's output on the channel is impressive in its sheer scope, and recently of note arranged one of Season 1's greatest in the form of Return to Collision Clouds. Its likely coincidental, but I enjoy how both that arrangement as late in as Season 7, as well as ULTRA S+G, manage to convey that feeling of the long journey the channel's been on in entirely different ways: Return to Collision Clouds has a sentimental feel to it, wheras ULTRA S+G may as well be hype incarnate. An explosive beginning to the end of Season 2, its the kind of rip that I cannot stop returning to for the memories alone - helped, of course, by the rip itself being an incredible watch and listen.

#todays siivagunner #season 2 #siivagunner #siiva #Kirbio #rip visuals #SAF #ultra b+k #jubeat #jubeat plus #rhythm games #nora2r #bms #iidx #beatmania iidx #hardcore music #Youtube #Bandcamp

[hopewritcs]

idk if you're writing for him but if you're writing for eddie munson could you do that prompt "small back seat" with him x reader? ty!

“IF WE GET OUT OF THIS.”

pairing: eddie munson x reader

notes: season 4 spoilers, obviously. everything background wise that you need to know is explained in the drabble. i went a bit loose on the term “back seat” and went with the boat. also...this drabble turned into a bit more than a drabble?

word count: 1.2

part 1 | part 2

How you got stuck with all this shit, you didn’t know. You got dragged into it when you worked at Scoops Ahoy with Steve and Robin, and you thought that was the end of it. 

You had all moved on, now working together as a trio at the video rental, you were going to classes at a local community college too. But after everything that happened, you hadn’t wanted to go away to college--not that you could really afford that anyway, but you’d been thinking of trying to move away. After everything that happened, you just couldn’t see yourself leaving town when all of your friends were still here. 

Looking around the video store you shrugged your shoulders, “Can we switch the video in here yet?” 

Robin turned around to you, “Why, not a fan?”

“It’s not my fault you two out voted me, again!” You rolled your eyes, moving videos in the return pile to check if they needed to be rewound. 

Then everything got cut off when Dustin and Max rushed into the video store and over took the desk, claiming to be looking for Eddie and needing to use the space for everything. You were barely listening, having hardly slept the night before and then you looked up at everyone when they were still talking, realizing Max had asked you something. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah, the cops barely let me out of the place to get to work today.” you mentioned, pulling one of the tapes out of the machine and putting it back in its case. “Why are you looking for Eddie?” 

Which is how you wound up on this whole roller coaster, yet again. Once wasn’t enough, for one lifetime. And this time, well, shit just seemed to get worse and worse. 

So, that’s how you were in the middle of the woods trying to find Eddie with everyone. You stayed mainly with Max, walking with her and Lucas and not really talking about anything specific. 

“So that’s your favorite song?” You asked, gesturing to the tape Max had in the walkman still with the flashlight in your hands. “Good choice.”

“I just hope it keeps working.” Max said softly, like she didn’t really mean for you and Lucas to hear it. 

“What’s your favorite song, Y/N?” 

You turned to look at Lucas and shrugged your shoulders, “I dunno. I guess if I had to pick I’ve been really into this one song by The March Violets lately.” you explained, shuffling for the cassette in your bag and handing it to Max. “I found it when I was looking for new music at the shop a while back and haven’t been able to get it out of my head. I think it came out recently.” You watched the redhead play with the cassette in her hands she held it back out to you. “Nah, keep it. You might need a break from Kate Bush, for just one song only though.” 

Max managed to crack a smile at the comment, but Lucas was not happy with the way both of you seemed to want to make light of the situation. However you two just laughed and walked off a bit ahead, which was when you realized that everyone else had found Eddie. 

Suddenly, you were wrapped in a new adventure and instead of just getting Eddie safely out of the woods, the group of you were following you the path to wherever the compass was leading you. 

“Are you sure this is right?”

No one answered, except for Eddie who just looked at you and shrugged. Dustin was in front of everyone, heading for what he was certain was the gate that had been opened and now you suddenly lagged behind the group once again. 

“So you...really have dealt with this before?” Eddie asked, looking over at you with a slight shrug of his shoulders. Almost like, even after all this time, he still didn’t believe you all when you talked about all of this. Not that anyone had shared details. 

“Yeah, it’s...a long fucking story.” You said, flashes in your mind ran through your memories. Having had a normal summer last year and then suddenly, you were deciphering coded messages. Flashes of the Russian bunker under the mall, of being in the bathroom with Robin and Steve, of dealing with the mind flayer. 

Of going back home to your trailer and being alone, not for the first time in your life, but realizing that you were really alone. 

“You can tell me all about it,” Eddie offered, shrugging his shoulders. “Apparently we’ve got time.”

“Maybe some other time. If we all make it through this.” You added the last part under your breath, knowing he would still hear it and hoping he would ignore it. 

“Oh, fuck no, you did not just say that. If?” 

“I mean, I’m not gonna jinx it or something, so yeah, if.” 

Eddie looked like he was about to say something else when everyone ahead abruptly stopped walking and you realized where you were. A hesitant look in Eddie’s direction confirmed it all, that you were in the place where Patrick died. 

You could practically hear Dustin’s annoyed glare as you set off in the boat with Steve, Robin, Nancy, and Eddie. Eddie was sitting next to you on the smaller side of the boat, with Robin on your other side with Steve and Nancy on the other side of the boat as you rowed out. Robin held onto the walkie with her hands, rolling her eyes as Dustin spoke into it already and you turned to look at Eddie who was guiding you all to where you needed to be. 

Watching as Steve jumped into the water, Robin shifted to sit beside Nancy and the four of you waited, all ready for the worst and none of you talking. 

The next happened so quickly, Steve resurfacing and then going back under. Nancy jumping back in after him. Robin leaving the two of you to go in after the both of them. 

You turned to look at Eddie and he was already looking at you. 

“I want to make some snarky comment about how they’re pushing us together, but I think we should go in after them.” You said, grabbing the last oar from the boat and looking at Eddie to see if he was with you. “You don’t have to, but...”

“Well I’m not staying in this alone, so if you go I go.” Eddie said with a nod. 

You stood up and looked at him, holding the boat’s oar and readying yourself to jump. “Oh, I’m gonna kill Steve.” you muttered, shaking your head as you turned back to Eddie. “On three?” 

“On three.” he agreed, standing up with you and looking down at the water. 

You didn’t even really count to three, instead you just grabbed Eddie’s hand and went to jump in after everyone else. 

When the two of you resurfaced in the upside down, or Vecna’s upside down, or maybe it was the same thing ( regretfully, you made a note to ask Dustin when you saw him again ), Eddie looked at you. “Oh, you owe me for that.”

“If we get out of here alive, bet on it.” You said, moving toward where you heard noise, and ignoring the way you heard Eddie following behind you because you distinctly heard him say, 

“It’s a date, Y/N.”

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #stranger things drabble #stranger things x reader #stranger things s4 spoilers #hope's drabbles

[thepastisalreadywritten]

When John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy moved in together for the first time as newlyweds, they rented a four-bedroom townhouse in Georgetown, with oak floors, huge windows, and an English-style back garden with a brick walkway and bright flower beds.

Now, for the first time, that house is about to hit the real estate market, having been kept in the owner’s family since it was built in 1942.

The list price is $2 million.

John and Jackie married on 12 September 1953, in Newport, Rhode Island.

It was the high-society event of the season, with more than 700 guests.

After they honeymooned in Mexico, Jackie, 24, stayed with her in-laws in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, while John, a 36-year-old freshman senator, visited on the weekends.

Jackie wasn’t a huge fan of the arrangement and was “anxious” to get a place of their own, according to Anne Garside in her book “Camelot at Dawn: Jacqueline and John Kennedy in Georgetown, May 1954.”

John’s secretary found the furnished rental at 3321 Dent Pl. NW in December 1953; the couple moved in just after the holidays, in January 1954.

Jackie was no newcomer to the Washington area. She had spent part of her childhood in the tony suburb of McLean, Virginia, and had been working as a photographer for the Washington Times-Herald when she met Kennedy in 1952.

According to Garside, John already had ambitions for the White House and welcomed any press attention, so when a photo agency suggested a spread on Jackie’s homemaking skills in the spring of 1954, he and Jackie readily agreed.

From May 4 to 9, photographer Orlando Suero took more than a thousand photos of the couple in their rented home, many of which ended up in the women’s magazine McCall’s.

In the photos, the house holds the couple like a warm embrace. Here, they lean side by side against a balcony railing; there, John relaxes with a book in the sunny backyard while Jackie tends the garden.

There are photos of Jackie coming down the stairs in a ballgown for a candlelit dinner party.

There are others showing her dressed “casually” in a plaid pencil skirt while talking on the phone in a second-floor bedroom and on the patio petting the dog.

Suero even captured the couple looking through their wedding photos together.

“The sessions reflected the image that the Kennedys themselves wished to project,” Garside wrote: glamorous, rich, young and powerful.

Even so, she wrote, a present-day reflection on all that would befall them makes them appear “strangely vulnerable” in the photos.

The Kennedys damaged a number of items in the home in only six months, leading to a large bill upon moving out — $385.49, or about $4,300 in today’s money.

The listing includes a photo of a letter from Jackie to her landlord Virginia Childs, reading:

After Dent Place, the Kennedys spent a few months at Jackie’s family home in McLean, where they experienced their first great trial as a couple.

John’s chronic back problems became so severe, he required a spinal-fusion operation and nearly died of a resulting infection. They spent time in Florida while he recovered.

When they returned to Washington, the couple moved to Hickory Hill in McLean.

It was there the Kennedys experienced another tragedy: In August 1956, their first child, Arabella, was stillborn.

The couple would later lose another child, Patrick, who died at 2 days old in 1963; months later, Kennedy was assassinated.

“Their stay in the house at Dent Place has received only passing mentions in books about the Kennedys,” Garside wrote. “Yet these few months in their first home were perhaps the only relatively normal time in J[ohn] and Jackie’s married life.”

After Kennedy’s assassination, Jackie moved temporarily to Georgetown again, this time to a sprawling mansion on N Street NW.

Incredibly, that property is also on the market.

At $2 million, the Dent Place home is by far the cheaper of the two. The one on N Street, which has been combined with two adjacent properties, is listed at $26.5 million.

#John F. Kennedy #John Fitzgerald Kennedy #JFK #Jacqueline Lee Bouvier #Jackie Kennedy #Georgetown #Orlando Suero #McCall’s #N Street NW #Dent Place #Hickory Hill #Washington

[windowsandfeelings]

I was going through my email drafts and found a little snippet of Veronica Mars fic that I forgot I wrote back in August 2019 and never finished. (It’s set post season 4, but canon-divergent.) Now I’m kind of tempted to write more of it.

Sedona

It feels like rain.

She twists the ring once around, twice, three times.

"Tell me what you see."

His voice is low, gravel and sleep. Where her phone rests she can feel the ghost of his morning breath, the way the hairs rise there. 

The feeling slips down her spine.

"Who goes on a honeymoon alone?"

"My wife's a rule breaker."

The cut under her eye itches. She thinks about her mother telling her not to pick scabs. "It itches because it's healing." She reaches up and picks the scab anyway. Her finger tip comes away wet with blood.

"Come on, what do you see?"

"Red."

He laughs. It's not full-throated, not a body laugh. He sounds frail.

"Tell me more."

"It pretty much looks like the pictures, Logan." She can taste her own anger, like dust caught at the back of her throat. She bites it back. "Big red rocks. Wide open sky. What am I doing here?"

She can hear the room behind him. It beeps and pulses. His roommate coughs. Fifteen years ago it would have been a private room, upscale, the kind of place millionaire's kids recover. Luxuries the Navy doesn't believe in.

"You're getting a head start on our life together."

"The key words there are 'our' and 'together.'"

It's bad. Broken ribs, his right arm completely crushed. A punctured lung. But it could be worse. All things considered, it's a miracle of physics. He's alive. 

(They haven't talked about what this means for his career. She tries not to think about the end of active duty. She doesn't want to get her hopes up. But if it's the big trauma now, the fear and panic and threat of losing him forever in this one moment, instead of a million little traumas, of watching him leave her again and again and again, of not knowing if or when he'll return, then yes, she'll take this. She'll take this and be grateful.)

"We'll go again when I'm out."

"And when will that be?"

She can hear the shrug in his voice. "Doc says I'm breathing better. Got the little ball halfway up the tube this morning."

"Is Wallace there?"

"He just left."

The first drops of rain start to fall, fat and fast. They hit the ground and kick up bursts of red dust.

Her shoes will be ruined.

"I don't see why he gets to visit and I have to leave the state."

He sighs. They've spun this conversation back and forth as many times as she's worried the ring around her finger. The way each of their anxiety feeds the others. "Wallace is a calming presence. You know I kicked your dad out, too."

"Yeah, yeah."

She heads back for the car, a dusty little rental that was all her shitty insurance would cover.

#veronica mars #abandoned? fic #veronica x logan

[askwhatsforlunch]

Herb Blue Moki with Spicy Balsamic Tomatoes

I returned from a meeting at the University of Auckland - Waipapa Taumata Rau under what started like a drizzle and ended in a downpour, and was, as I walked into our rental, properly soaked. This made Ava laugh heartily! Once I was in dry clothes, my girl offered to be my sous-chef and we cooked this delicious and warming Herb Blue Moki with Spicy Balsamic Tomatoes!

Ingredients (serves 2):

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon

1/4 teaspoon dried sage

1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram

200 grams/7.05 ounces Blue Moki fillet

a pinch of salt and freshly cracked black pepper

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 small red onion

a dozen Baby Roma tomatoes, rinsed

a pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon Red Chili Flakes 

1 1/2 tablespoon Modena Balsamic Vinegar

Heat olive oil in a large, deep skillet over high heat.

Add dried tarragon, dried sage and dried marjoram, and fry, 1 minute.

Add Blue Moki fillet in the hot herb-y oil, and cook on one side, about 4 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper, to taste, and turn on the other side. Cook, 3 minutes more. Transfer to a plate, and cover, to keep warm. Set aside.

Return the skillet over high heat, and add olive oil.

Thinly slice red onion, and stir into the skillet. Cook, a couple of minutes until softened.

Halve Baby Roma tomatoes, and add to the skillet, stirring to coat in herbs and oil. Season with salt and Red Chili Flakes, and cook, about 3 minutes.

Deglaze with Balsamic Vinegar. Reduce heat to medium-high, return reserved Blue Moki fillet to the skillet and cover with a lid. Cook, about 3 minutes more.

Serve Herb Blue Moki with Spicy Balsamic Tomatoes hot, with a glass of chilled Waiheke Island Pinot Gris.

#Recipe #Food #Herb Blue Moki with Spicy Balsamic Tomatoes #Herb Blue Moki with Spicy Balsamic Tomato recipe #Herb Blue Moki #Herb Blue Moki recipe #Blue Moki #Blue Moki Fish #Fish and Seafood #Olive Oil #Tarragon #Dried Tarragon #Marjoram #Dried Marjoram #Sage #Dried Sage #Salt #Black Pepper #Black Peppercorns #Red Onion #Tomatoes #Baby Roma Tomatoes #Red Chili Flakes #Balsamic Vinegar #Modena Balsamic Vinegar

[hexonthepeach]

dark & stormy 1: landfall

summary: you’re a housekeeper in a seedy hotel working through the worst hurricane of the season when you’re invited to spend the evening with your two sexy but enigmatic co-workers. when you accidentally uncover their secret identities you're dragged into a darker world—one you may already know too well

pairing: jaehyun (nct) x johnny (nct) x fem!reader (code name: jenny)

genre: the late-70s/early-80s miami vice/nice guys/secret agent johnjae/reader au no one asked for or: a work of madness inspired by the infamous w korea shoot

word count: 12.8k of 63k+

warnings: explicit sexual content (m/f, m/m, mmf threesome) [see chapters for detailed tags], dark themes, implied murder, drug-use (alcohol, quaaludes), drugging w/o consent, stalking, kidnapping (non-sexual), bondage, minor knifeplay/gunplay, slight age gap [y/n early 20s, jj late 20s/early 30s], y/n implied dark origins/criminal history (OC vibes but history left open for interpretation), sleep paralysis/nightmares, walk-on guest appearances from other nct members inc. sungtaro in later chapters

fic masterlist

[current] | part 2: disturbance formation | part 3: eye of the storm | part 4: dissipation | part 5: blue skies | part 6&7: aftermath & epilogue

chapter warnings: implied sexual content, alcohol consumption, stalker Jaehyun, PTSD related OCD, detailed descriptions of dead bodies, animal death, animal euthanization, non-consensual drugging, inappropriate use of bible verses and old tv show references

recommended listening: romanticist by yves tumor

The hurricane had been downgraded to a tropical storm but the damage was done, long before it hit the coast on a holiday weekend. You could curse all the weathermen predicting its trajectory. They'd all been wrong, and the consequences were being felt most by you and the rest of the staff of the Magic Carpet. 

The smarter locals had evacuated while the tourists who’d made no changes to their plans were trapped here without return flights, holed up in their vacation rentals and hotel rooms, requiring all the convenience of services that you, unfortunately, were there to serve. 

If only you could have had a job at one of the luxury resorts, where there were multiple staff for each of the floors and a full kitchen for fine dining. But no, you work at the Magic Carpet Ride Hotel—a name cursed by having neither magic nor a decent carpet. The place isn’t even fully Arabian Nights; after a fire in the ‘50s management had remodeled the combination bar and restaurant to be vaguely Tiki-themed. 

There’s only a few saving graces to being a housekeeper here (god you hate when people called you a maid) and that’s the inspired decision to put a pool inside. It's a warm and comfortable grotto where you can pretend for a moment that the world isn’t being wrecked by 70 mph winds and your 14-hour shift can melt away into the heated water. 

Unfortunately even off-the-clock you’re on call. Your manager shoves one of the few rickety room service carts in front of you the moment you enter the lobby to head downstairs.

“Doll, I need you to make a run up to room 217,” he says, cigarette hanging from his mouth. The front desk phone rings behind him and he exhales a puff of smoke through his nostrils, the dull lights shining on his bald head.

“Isn’t Ruby on night shift?'' You sigh, staring at the sad plate of leftover bar fruit and  bottles of RC Cola and Schweppe’s ginger beer. There’s also a bucket of ice and a ridiculous pile of chips and plastic-wrapped snack cakes: Mickey’s Banana Flips and Jim Jams. The order is probably for one of the several families with kids trapped in this hellhole with you. 

“Ruby’s got her hands full with towels and turndowns,” he says. “Just do me a solid this time. They said they’d tip good.”

The moment you hear tips your ears perk a little. You weren’t working this job out of love after all, your survival was dependent on leftover pizza and the occasional change left in vacated rooms. You shrug and take the cart, heading towards the elevator to your last call.

The air in the hotel is noticeably more humid and laced with ozone and the same sweat on the chilled glass of the order is dripping down your spine, under the crocheted knit of your swimsuit cover-up. You head towards the gloomy end of the hotel wing, hearing the occasional cough from one of the few occupied rooms. From inside 217 you can hear the faint sounds of Peaches & Herb’s “Reunited'' playing on the radio.

A quick rap on the door gives you no response so you consider leaving the tray but decide to announce yourself instead. 

“Room service,” you say. 

Come and get your stupid fruit, you think.

The door opens with a rush of cool air and Paco Rabanne aftershave and a sight that turns your mouth dry, the blood rushing to your face. 

The bronze-haired man leaning against the doorway is clothed but you feel like you’re glimpsing him nude. His yellow shirt with dyed palm trees is unbuttoned, white shorts slung low enough you can see the trajectory of those perfectly carved abdominal muscles. There’s even a little hair peeking above the brown-leather belt.

You must have been staring because he laughs, and that’s when you realize he’s not a tourist—indeed, you’ve glimpsed this face a thousand times on shift, working behind the bar or passing you in the hallway. 

“Hi, Johnny,” you say, looking up (up, up) to meet his warm gaze. 

You’d always avoided eye contact before, feeling embarrassingly small and frumpy in your orange uniform. Now your own skin is peeking through the loose knit of your coverup and you feel naked under his gaze. The older man has a cat-in-the-cream expression but there’s a kindness in his brown eyes that makes you feel more at ease. 

“What are you doing here?” you try not to stutter, looking past him into the dark of the room. 

“It’s my room,” he slings back.

The lights are low and there’s the distinct sound of someone inside. Oddly you feel a twinge of dismay, reminded of the second reason you’d avoided him: the other housekeepers had warned you that he tore through lonely hearts like paper. 

You’d seen him talking to guests and front desk girls alike, making them laugh with jokes delivered in that wry, deep tone, and maybe you'd been a little jealous of the attention. It’s not like you wanted to be a notch on anyone’s belt but this man was different. You think you’d give your left pinky finger just to know what his deal was.

“Off shift for the night. Looks like you are too.”  He sizes you with a short nod. Suddenly the hallway is much too big.

“Wanna come in?” Johnny asks. 

That surprises you. 

“I . . . I was gonna go for a swim.” The sensible part of your brain is blaring an emergency siren at the idea of going into a strange man’s hotel room. Especially with someone else in it. But you consider the offer.

“Just for a minute. I left my wallet inside,” he gestures behind him, bringing your attention back to the miles of tanned skin in front of you.

“You don’t have to, really.” Your voice is a murmur. 

Johnny grabs the cart across from you, tugging gently to snap you out of it.

“There’s someone else who’d be happy to see your pretty face.” He winks at you, pulling the cart from your limp grasp and leaving the door open. 

Your heart is pounding in your chest but you swallow your anxiety and follow him in, closing the door behind you on instinct alone. 

You may be shy but you’re not a coward. Even if you’re only just twenty-something you’ve lived on your own long enough to handle yourself. Johnny isn't a challenge . . . you think.

The room is blessedly clean. This is especially nice considering you’re the one who will probably have to clear it once they’ve vacated. There’s a few travel bags on the floor and a number of bottles and empty glasses strewn about, but no crumbs on the carpet or lingering smell in the room.

Except, perhaps, the odor of spearmint and grease you know so well. 

217’s other occupant is hitting the side of the TV with his hand, the signal fritzing as the antenna jumps around with the force. You’d recognize that back a mile away, set against the world and you, where you’re frozen in the entry to the room.

“Percussive maintenance,” Johnny jokes quietly, nudging your side as he passes. 

“Signal is out.”  Jaehyun turns around, catching sight of you.

Any relief you had about finding another man instead of a woman in the room is quashed as you meet those dark-as-night eyes. 

It isn’t that you are afraid of him—no it’s much more complicated than that. 

Like Johnny, Jaehyun’s also dressed in the hotel regulation tropical shirt and white shorts, meaning he was probably working after his shift as the Magic’s go-to handyman. Sometimes he helped out bar-backing, other times he played the aging grand piano in the lobby. 

Whenever you'd heard music drifting from the first floor you’d steal down to your perfect hiding place, tucked behind potted palms, pretending to mop the cracked arabesque tile. You liked the way he played, lost in the moment, his dark hair flopping across his forehead, mouth set in a grim line. 

That’s how you feel you know him best, pulling arrangements from thin air on woefully out-of-tune keys. Discordant notes were just color for his songs, 

“Hey, Jenny,” he says, face unreadable. 

It takes you a few seconds to realize Jaehyun knows who you are, before remembering the nametag you wear every day. It isn’t your real name, of course–but it was one you’d grown used to responding to.

Of course he’d seen it. If it hadn't been in the hallways it might have been when he came into your rooms to do repairs, or when you’d sat beside eachother in silence at the bus stop. The former was already special to you but the latter, the latter was what has you trapped in front of him and feeling so small.

“Baby girl brought us the goods,” Johnny says, popping one of the bottles from the cart. “What would you like to drink: a Cuba Libre or a Dark ‘n’ Stormy? Sorry we just have the rum and a few beers.”

You eye the Havana Club on the nightstand—not a liquor you’re familiar with. You don’t have much experience with drinking beyond the occasional glass of Riunite (on ice!) with the other girls in your co-ed housing. 

One drink should be fine, you think. One drink to pretend like you’re cool with these two.

“I don’t know. What’s good?” You look up at him, and he seems to like the uncertainty in your voice.

“I got you,” he says, smirking. “Let me borrow your knife, Jae.” 

You watch the other man toss a sheath with a very large looking handle over to his co-worker, and you freeze. 

You’d seen him wear it a few times, hooked into his utility belt with his other tools, doing nothing to dispel the allegations he was ex-military. 

“They say he did two tours in ‘Nam,” Ruby hisses into your ear as Maeve pulls up the blinds for a better view of the outdoor pool where Jaehyun checks the pump, sweat sticking to his white shirt, his jumpsuit tied at his waist

“He’d have to be over thirty, Rue. He can’t be older than twenty-five, twenty-six?”

 “You know they were still terrorizing those poor people over there five years ago. Maybe he was young.” Ruby scoffs. “My brother-in-law came home but he’s got that look, like he’s not all there.” 

“It’s a shame what those boys went through,” Maeve sighs, wiping the glass door to the patio with a rag soaked in vinegar. “Such a waste of a good-looking young man.”

Something in your chest had twisted at the older women’s words. Your daddy had been in Korea before you were born, and while he’d been distant and prone to bouts of violence it wasn’t like he was missing something. He certainly hadn't been a waste, whatever people said about him. 

You knew all about the mean things people had to say, you’d experienced it yourself, so you didn’t give much thought to why their words had made you so angry at the time. Thinking about it now it’s absurd, but the effect Jaehyun has on you has always been out of the ordinary.

“Late night swim, huh?” Johnny says. “You could just go outside for second.”

A dark laugh follows, but nothing else. You look over your shoulder to find Jaehyun turning the TV off.

“It’s better at night.” You explain. You watch as Johnny cuts limes with the six-inch, black blade. There’s an oddly familiar prickling on the back of your neck, and you fidget waiting for the conversation to continue. 

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Johnny says.

“I’m used to it,” you respond, quietly. Johnny looks over your shoulder, meeting the eyes of the man behind you in a way you don’t think you could ever do.

As much as you’ve watched Jaehyun, you think, there'd been more times you’d caught him watching you. You'd felt him staring at you from across the laundry where you folded towels, or in the smoky break-room where you made your approximation of cafe con leche with microwaved milk and staff coffee so strong it could strip paint. 

The Y-100 late night radio DJ is giving an update on the storm and location of emergency shelters. Without the music you can hear the dull roar of the wind outside the closed blinds. The hotel is far enough from the beach there’s no surf to crash over the walls but the occasional crack of lightning through the shuttered window makes your heart race. 

“You wanna find another station?” Johnny asks. 

You nod, going to the clock radio, planning to switch to the classical music station you sometimes listened to while working, the one you leave on for night check-ins and turndowns. You're surprised by the hand on the dial that's there before you.

Jaehyun looks up at you from where he’s crouching next to the bed. 

“What do you like to listen to?” He asks.

Your throat clenches up, sure that’s the most he’s said to you in the three months you’ve known him.

“What . . . Whatever you like,” the words slip out unplanned. 

A cloud passes over Jaehyun’s face—gone in an instant, replaced by a tired, closed-mouth smile.

“Whatever you like,” he repeats, taking your hand and placing it on the knob.

Your mind is blank; you don’t even know what station you turn to, just finding the first with music without words. Johnny starts laughing immediately, shaking you out of your stupor. 

“Didn’t know you liked Beautiful music,” he says.

“What?” You hold the hand that Jaehyun had touched as if you’d been burnt—but not by heat, you think. Like touching a wall in the restaurant walk-in.

“Easy listening,” Johnny explains. He passes you a Collins glass filled halfway with pale ginger beer, the rest a dark rum float. “Let’s find something with less ads.”

Indeed, the next song is a too-loud announcer selling an event that’s either used cars or a dance night. Johnny reaches beside you to flick the dial to a much-more tolerable soul music station.

“This alright?” he asks, suddenly so close his breath is fanning the hair on your forehead. 

“Sure.” You agree immediately, backing away. “Thank you.”

You sit on the edge of the bed. You're unsure of what to do next. It feels like you’ll drop your glass to flee at the first sign of trouble. Johnny sits beside you, sprawled on the white sheets. He’s stripped the comforter and it makes you relax a little—management wouldn’t let you wash them unless they had what they described as a “visible stain”.

“Do you like it?”

You’re confused until you realize his eyes are flicking to the glass in your hands, yet untouched.

“Oh,” you say. You take a deep swallow, almost choking when the rum burns down your throat. After the initial numbness and sweetness from the alcohol dies the ginger and lime come through. You find yourself enjoying the bite of it. “It’s really good. What is it?”

Johnny shrugs. “Rum and ginger beer. Come over after your shift tomorrow, I’ll make you something even better.”

“Sure,” you say, knowing already you won’t go.

‘I’m surprised you’ve never come in before.”

“I have to work, usually,” you explain, your tongue looser after your second sip. 

"Oh, I know," he says. "You don't hang out much."

"No," you admit. 

You've never been to the hotel bar off-hours. When school is in session you work doubles on the weekends, sometimes missing the last bus and having to walk with your fist wrapped in-between your keys for comfort in the late hours. Thankfully no one’s ever bothered you.

“Well, I know I’d love to see more of you. Ruby comes in all the time.”

Of course Ruby does, you think. She’d described her multiple attempts to get Johnny into bed to you as you'd helped her finish cleaning her rooms, including graphic details about fellating him in one of the linen closets. The words “soup can” had haunted you every time you saw him after that, the Campbell’s jingle playing in your head.

The grimace on your face must be noticeable because Johnny is smiling in that cat-like way again, eyes narrowed. He takes a drink from his rum and coke, throwing his neck back. Sweat glistens on his tanned skin.

You’ve managed to distract yourself from the gloom sitting in the wicker chair across from you, but it’s taking a lot more willpower to not let your eyes wander down Johnny’s bare chest.

“Are you both staying in here?” you ask, turning to where Jaehyun is stripping the label off a beer bottle. 

“Jae’s up in 310," Johnny says. "But there’s a leak. Hasn't had the time to fix it in off-hours, you know."

He sits up straighter, dipping the bed beside you. "Which room did Old Chromedome give you?”

You know exactly who he's talking about: the day manager. Lavinsky had always had it out for you, mostly because he liked it when female staff mouthed off at him, and you never have. Your overnight room was just a consequence.

“114. The pool view,” you sigh. “It’s wet, too.” 

Water is seeping in through the sliding-glass door of your room and there aren’t enough towels in the hotel to keep it contained. Worse, the not-so-magic carpet is beginning to smell of mildew. Even a bath of industrial strength deodorizer isn’t enough to drown it.

“I’ll fix it when you’re working tomorrow,” Jaehyun says quietly. It would be inaudible if you weren't hyperfocused on what he had to say from the moment you'd entered the room.

“Oh you don’t have to,” you rush to answer, shaking your head. The ice clinks in your glass as you swirl it. “I don’t want to bother you.”

He looks up, smiling in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“It’s my job," he says.

The words are hardly a comfort–the opposite, actually.

Jaehyun takes another drink from his beer before standing up to pace around the room. That’s another thing you’ve noticed—for someone capable of such stillness he has a tendency to fidget when left to his own devices. 

You clear your throat, tapping your glass.

“Let’s play a game,” Johnny says brightly, breaking the tension. “Poker?”

Neither of you answer affirmatively.

“Strip poker?” He offers. 

“No,” you and Jaehyun say the word at the same time, and you smile a little at Johnny's offended expression. 

“Rummy? Crazy Eights?” 

“No cards,” Jaehyun says. He collapses on the opposite side of the bed, his skull colliding with the wood paneling in a way that makes you want to check if he’s alright before you watch him readjust.

“A drinking game, then,” Johnny says. 

“Don’t know any.” You decline.

“Oh but I bet you know this one. Truth or Dare. If you don’t want to do something or say something you just take a drink.” 

Before you can protest Johnny gets up to fetch the rum bottle, pouring a few fingers each into styrofoam cups usually reserved for the hotel coffee service.  He hands them out with the gravitas of serving the finest vintage.

“This is stupid.” Jaehyun says from where he’s sitting, eyes on the popcorn ceiling.

“How about . . . Never Have I Ever?” you ask softly. You're remembering a preteen slumber party where you’d ended up winning while the others put all ten fingers down. They’d called you a square, but then you’d never shared your secrets with them, knowing they'd probably call you worse. 

“See I knew Jenny knew how to have fun,” Johnny says, plucking the empty glass from your hand only to fill it more and hand it back to you.

You don’t remember finishing the first drink but you look down at the warm rum and feel a glimmer of satisfaction in knowing you’ll be able to sate your curiosity about the two men. There’s not much they’ll be able to throw your way–how much could they know? This is your first real conversation with either of them.

“I’ll get us started,” Johnny says, sitting on the bed again in the best place to triangulate with you and Jaehyun. 

You ease your way onto the mattress, taking off your wedge sandals so the straps don’t dig in, letting them fall to the green rug below. When you look up Jaehyun’s eyes are resting on your ankles and you instinctively pull your legs under you.

“Never have I ever . . .” Johnny begins, looking around the room for inspiration, gaze falling on the rotary phone. “Listened in on a conversation on a party line.”

“Liar,” Jaehyun says, drinking. 

You tilt your head in a nod and toast him, drinking as well.

Johnny guffaws at you in a way you recognize, his mouth half-open as his head dips down in return. “You’re not as innocent as I thought.”

“I’m from a town of about 500 people,” you say once the burn of the rum is gone. “You hear a lot of things.”

Perhaps they think you mean listening in on a negotiation of a refund on a pig who turned out to be a boar instead of a sow but no, you’re thinking about the time you and your roommates voyeured on phone sex between a 3rd floor girl and her boyfriend in the early hours of the morning. You’d wrapped the receiver in a hair towel so they couldn’t hear the giggling, entranced by the description of things you hadn’t even read in books. 

“I see, I see. Jae, you go.” 

“Never have I ever . . . hitch-hiked.”

Both Johnny and you raise your cups at the same time, and you have to blink away the tears as the swallow affects you just as much as the first. Jaehyun stares at you curiously.

“Cross-country buses are expensive.” You shrug. It isn’t like you're Sissy Hankshaw. Everyone did their turn on the highway, you were lucky yours was short.

You look at the man beside you for reassurance.

“Oh, I just did it for fun,” Johnny laughs. “Your turn.”

“Never have I ever . . .” 

You don’t want to spook them into not playing so you figure you’ll start with a softball. “Never have I been overseas.”

You’re rewarded when they both drink.

“You’re lucky we have another bottle with us,” Johnny says, reaching over with a long arm to fill your glass. The bottle of rum is still mostly full, you think, but the buzz makes you feel a little bold, the question tumbling off your lips.

“Where’ve you been? Overseas?”

“We don’t have enough liquor for that conversation,” Johnny jokes. Jaehyun swirls his cup, running his other hand through dark hair touched gold by the sun.

“Born overseas.” Jaehyun says, looking up at you. He recognizes the question in your eyes. “Dual citizenship.”

You want to ask him where but you save it, knowing it annoyed you to no end when you'd heard the same question countless times before. 

“Never have I ever milked a cow,” Johnny interrupts. You’re the only one who drinks, and the men slap hands across the head of the bed, as if they'd won a sports match.

“You don’t have much of an accent,” Johnny says. “Where’s that tiny town at? The Midwest?”

“The South,” you quip, making them both laugh. You’re surprised by the sound of Jaehyun’s laughter, like it originated deep inside of him.

“Well, you got us there,” Johnny says, tipping his blonde head.

“Never have I ever . . .” Jaehyun pauses, a bit of pink creeping into his cheeks and ears. “Worn women’s underwear.”

“That’s cheating,” Johnny exclaims before drinking. You sputter rum out of your mouth, wiping it away as you laugh at his sour expression.

“I looked good in them, too,” he continues and soon you are curled over on the bed, laughing more than you think you have in years. It isn’t just the drinks, this is the first time you’ve had actual fun in as long as you can remember.

“Never have I ever kissed a boy,” you say, intending it as a joke to move the game along. The silence that settles over the room is so dense it seems to absorb even the soft music from the radio, the swish of rain against the side of the hotel growing unbearable.

“I meant girl . . .” you lie, poorly, words dying on your tongue as they both drink. Jaehyun sips but Johnny clears his whole coffee cup, placing it on the nightstand as a finale. 

“Oh.” You hiccup. 

Suddenly things are becoming a little more clear in the light of intoxication: the shared room with the one king-sized bed, the articles of clothing draped across the unused desk. 

"'S cool," you offer, feeling stupid upon saying it.

You consider yourself an open-minded person—your peers in college and on the way to it are more diverse than you could have possibly imagined. It had changed your outlook on a lot of things that growing up in nowhere never dared touch. But you can’t help but feel a small twinge of disappointment, like something just within reach has slipped out of your grasp. 

“Don’t,” Jaehyun says suddenly, looking at Johnny with a dangerous look on his face. Your head snaps up to find the other man leaning towards you on the bed, hands raising to cup your cheeks. 

“Baby girl.” You can smell the cane sugar on Johnny’s breath, his face inches away from you. Your eyes focus and unfocus on his perfect Cupid’s Bow lips. “Are you telling me you’ve never been kissed?”

You feel like a deer poised to flee on a nighttime highway. 

“I . . . I’ve . . . Been kissed." You move to pull away but his large hands are now on your shoulders—not gripping, just holding you still as your body tremors beneath the touch. 

“Really?” He asks, gently.

“Ye . . .Yes.” Your voice is so quiet you can barely hear yourself, your eyes fixed on the olive green crochet of your dress. “I’ve just. Never kissed.”

“Never kissed someone?" The room in the air seems to go even more still. "Do you want to try kissing someone you like?”

Your skin is aflame, hands crushing the cup you’re still holding onto. You can’t look up, you can only focus on your own knee dipping into the white topsheet.

“Leave her alone,” Jaehyun’s voice is barely audible over the rapid breaths coming out of your mouth.

Johnny releases you to lean back and sit down on the bed beside you, legs folded.

“She’s fine. Aren't you, Jenny?" The question isn’t demanding as much as offering reassurance. 

And that's when you realize that you are fine, that even with the tension that sings like a taut wire around you, you have control. Your eyes flick up to where Jaehyun is sitting, afraid to look at his face lest your own body betray you. You watch him pull his bottom lip between his teeth, jaw shifting as he worries at it. 

“It’s your turn,” you say, straining a smile as you look back at Johnny. His whiskey-colored eyes are dancing, the concern brushed away. 

“Never have I ever—“

“Game’s over,” Jaehyun says. You don't see as much as feel him get up and blow past you both to the bathroom, watching his back as the door slams shut behind him. The noise makes you jump.

“He’s like that,” Johnny says, reaching for the rum bottle and pouring himself another dram. You shake your head when he offers you more, drinking what’s left and enjoying the warmth that spreads through you.

“Are you two . . .” You begin to ask, stopping when you see Johnny look bemused, and then actually amused. “S’okay! I don’t mind, it’s none of my—“

“Do you think he’s jealous of you?” Johnny laughs. “Oh no. No, it’s not like that.”

Your thoughts were already going a mile-a-minute, the sound of the shower starting in the next room putting everything on pause. It takes a moment to process what Johnny just said, and your body unwinds a bit as you realize the implication. 

“You’re cute, do you know that?” Johnny ruffles your hair above your ear, fingers just as warm as when he held you a minute ago. Suddenly you're alone with him, and much more close.

He’s as friendly as if he were an older brother, or the kind of male friend you’d always wanted, but there’s something in his look that sets your heart racing. If he asked you again if you wanted to be kissed—instead of kiss someone you liked—you think you’d say yes just to see how it felt.

“Thank you for the drinks,” you say, biting the inside of your cheek. “I’m sor—sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, doll.” He moves back, propped up against the low headboard, perfectly-muscled legs so long they’re practically in your lap. “You leaving?”

“I think I should go,” you say, hearing the slur of tiredness and alcohol twisting your tongue. “Could you . . . Could you tell him I’m sorry?”

Johnny opens one of the eyes he had closed, face shaded in the wall light.

“Don’t tempt him to give you something you might actually be sorry for.”

You don’t know what he means but his delivery is dry. Just another joke at your expense, you think. You nod and retrieve your shoes and the vinyl tote bag you brought with you, flashing Johnny a smile. 

Your eyes never stray from the light shining through the gap under the bathroom door, not until the hotel door clicks shut behind you. 

You're thinking about the movie your roommate dragged you to recently, the one where William Hurt turned into a caveman after spending too much time in an isolation tank, as you float in the liminal blue of the pool you'd been dreaming of all day.

You can’t even remember the name of the film—Altered something—exhaustion setting in the moment your body touched the water. You work your way to the surface in the relative darkness and float face-up, tracking the glimmers of the underwater lighting on the faux stone ceiling. 

The water feature at the end of the pool provides a soothing white noise and the emptiness surrounding you makes you feel like you’re in your own vacuum chamber. 

You’d thought about going back to your swampy room but the lure of that late night swim was too powerful. Instead you had snuck past the unmanned front desk to the dark glass doors at the end of the hallway, your housekeeper’s keys clutched to keep from alerting whomever was on duty. 

You’re bobbing on the surface, chlorine burning your nose and ears immersed, when you feel it again—needles scraping over your exposed skin, chilling everywhere not touched by the water. 

You resist the urge to panic, or even to respond visibly. Something tells you to go gently, the way you used to lure abandoned feral cats out of the woods with a plate of food and patience. 

You swim to the far edge of the pool and then back again, body weightless as you go under. You’d caught the shadow that didn’t match after the first few breaths but any fear you have is locked away where you’d stored other, worser things. Only a few people have the key to this space, even fewer know you’re here.

When you feel the time is right you swim to the edge and place your elbows on the concrete, reaching out in the dark. You take a moment to remove your swimming cap, unsurprised when there's no movement from your peripheral vision.

“Hand me my towel?” you ask. 

It’s like asking the night for comfort. An eternity seems to pass before that smudge of darkness breaks away from the farthest corner to pick up the towel and drop it just out of reach. He sits down on one of the deck chairs, the weight as palpable as if he’d sat down on the ground next to you. 

Jaehyun is as unreadable as the day you met him, something you'd grown to appreciate in the short time since. 

You want to ask if he’s here to swim but you know he isn’t, and he might even take it personally if you alluded to him joining you. So you dry your face while clinging to the edge of the pool and rest your head on the folded towel when you're done.

You feel like a siren born without a song as you wait for him to speak. The quiet returns, that comfortable weight you’ve found in his presence returning with it. 

“I’m sorry.” he says. The words are low, just carrying over the rush of water. 

You toss your head a little in answer, fingers trailing circles in the water that dripped from your arm over the gritty floor. 

“Don’t be.”

“I went to your room,” he says, after a beat. “It stinks. You can have mine tonight.”

“Thank you. You. You don’t . . .”

“I moved your stuff already.”

Oh. 

Another automatic "thank you" dies on your lips. Heat suffuses your face, the air feeling even more thick than it already did with the humidity. 

Of course he has access to your room, he has the same skeleton key you do. If you’re surprised you don’t show it, grateful you always keep things neat. You’ve seen the mess of other people’s lives during mid-stay linen changes and it’s made you even more tidy. 

You must have paused a little too long because he speaks again. 

“Are you afraid of me?” Jaehyun asks.

You let the question hang, considering. Are you afraid of him? The more appropriate thing to ask yourself, you think, is whether or not you mind it. 

There was a time not long ago that whenever you entered a room he'd been working in earlier you found a tip on the nightstand. Not just the checkouts but rooms that had been empty for days, always in the same book left on the nightstand.

At some point you’d understood that the crisp, yellow-green bills hanging out of the Bible were laid flat to highlight a passage, stuck in the book of Proverbs. 

Proverbs 17:28. Proverbs 18:13. Proverbs 19:20. Proverbs 21:23. Words you knew all too well. 

You’d caught him out by leaving a message in return. You’d snuck into an unused room stripped for repair work on a morning you knew he was on shift, the $20 you’d collected over that month placed around Proverbs 16:19. It was possible someone else had taken the money but the tips had stopped appearing in your rooms after that. 

Even if the cash wasn’t easy to part with, you had your pride. And you’d never known exactly what he wanted in return. 

Any other man might have broken the act then, but whatever space existed between you remained as airtight as ever. He’d still just been around, drifting through your periphery as impenetrable as a safe you didn’t have the combination for.

So no, you think. You aren’t afraid of him. 

No, you don't mind.

You pull yourself up out of the water with the last strength you think you have left, your arms strained by a day’s work punching pillows and pushing carts. Sitting on the edge of the pool you wrap the towel tight around you, hiding the sunflower yellow bikini you’re wearing. 

There’s a steel in your spine as you move, the kind of posture you know you’ve taken on when you’ve felt his eyes. Instead of ignoring it, you stand up to move right in front of him. 

Reaching out, you lift his right hand from where it rests on the striped deck chair. He lets you hold it, arm limp and heavy. 

There’s calluses on his fingers like yours, bone-white knuckles and veins showing through his skin. His hand is much too big to hold firmly in both of yours but you squeeze it and feel the sweat on his palms.

“Do you want me to be?” Afraid of you?  The unasked question is answered.

You don’t know where these words come from, out of your mouth like water running over smooth stone, but you relish the way his eyes go glassy and his full bottom lip thins. He looks down, hand pulling from yours to rub on top of his knees.

“Maybe.” His voice cracks. 

Your heart is in your throat, the chill of condensation drying on your bare skin making you shiver. You sit down across from him, plastic slats buckling beneath you. 

“I don’t know why . . . I just . . . feel safe.” When you’re around, you think. 

Maybe it's the way he reminds you of your father, silentium est aurum wrought in flesh, the kind of man who could tell you a story without saying a word. Now that you've seen Jaehyun with Johnny you can see that it's not that he doesn't talk. No, you think, he's always just been that way for you.

He looks up, a flash of white teeth and dimples appearing under his otherwise hollow cheekbones before both disappear again. 

“You don’t even know me,” he says. 

“What if . . . I wanted to?” 

He laughs softly, arms crossing as if to say he’s sizing you up. 

“I have questions.” You’re back to having to deliberately form the words in your mouth before you speak again, and your breath shudders in your chest. Surely his patience will run out, he’ll leave before you can get out what you need to say.

“Shoot.” Jaehyun says.

“You. You don’t have to answer.” If you don’t want to. 

You fix your eyes on his clothed shoulder. He’s in work coveralls again, the navy blue appearing black in the lowlight. You laugh silently when you see the name embroidered in red on white on his chest: Jeffrey. He doesn’t look like one, much less a Jeff.

“I . . . I want to know . . .”  You ball your fists in the rough towel wrapped around your knees. “Do you . . . Are you . . . ?"

You shake your head, eyes stinging. Each breath you're unable to speak feels like an agony.

“Would it be easier if we just went back to how we were last week? Pretend like we’re sitting on a bench?” He offers, surprising you. The anxiety attack that had been building in your chest dissolves. You nod, swallowing. 

You hear a creak as he lies down in the dark, hands reaching behind his head resting on the angled third of the chair. You follow suit, negotiating the sagging plastic slats and keeping your towel on, arms tight across your chest.

“Thank you,” you say, once the quiet returns.

“Hmm.” He assents.

You give it a little time, listening to his breathing deepen. 

“Why were you upset?” you ask. 

He doesn’t answer, and it takes awhile for you to realize he doesn’t intend to. 

“Was it something I did?”

“No.”

“Why are you here?”

Again, silence. Your mouth opens to ask another question but he speaks again, suddenly. “I was worried about you.” 

Warmth blooms in your chest. No one has ever been worried about you, or at least they hadn’t said so aloud since you were a child. 

“I know how to swim,” you chase away the feeling of vulnerability by scolding him, tone playful.

“We got you drunk.”

”Not that drunk,” you scoff.

“You were crying.”

That stops you in your tracks. 

“It . . . I was . . .”

“You were embarrassed.” Jaehyun says, flatly.

“Yes.” A sigh escapes you as you burrow into the chair.

“I know you better than you think I do.”

“I know,” you whisper. “I know. More.”

You can hear him roll onto his side, facing you. Your heart skips beats but you turn over, too, fists curled under your chin as you search for the side of his face, illuminated by the radiant blue light of the pool.

“Do you now?” He sounds humored, and it reminds you of the way Johnny had spoken to you before—as if privy to a secret you weren’t capable of understanding.

You feel your weak interrogation slipping away from you, so you circle back. “You have a car . . . Right?”

“Yes.” 

“Why . . . Why do you ride the bus?” 

You already know the answer but you need to hear it. 

He’d never boarded the same bus, and you’d never seen him get on one that arrived before yours. You’d even memorized his handwritten shift where it hung on the board above yours, knowing he should have been off hours ago. And still he’d been there, no matter the sudden change in Florida summer weather.

“To make sure you get home safely.”

He says it like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

You suck your breath in through your teeth, knees curling up to your chest. It feels like if you were to say the wrong thing right now you’d be breaking a magic spell. That this whole strange dream would collapse into a nightmare. But you have to ask.

“Do you . . .  Have you ever followed me home?” 

Jaehyun shifts further into the chair.

“Only when you walk.” There’s no shame in his tone, just what you think might be a little sadness. The pool's water feature sputters as you find your response.

“Does that frighten you?” he asks.

You shake your head, slowly.

It had been worse wondering if you were going crazy the first few times your instincts had screamed at you that you were being followed. 

A little paranoia didn’t hurt in the neighborhood you lived in, Lord knows the city had experienced a decline in the last decade that had made people harder. But for all your experiences avoiding intoxicated teens or even the one time you’d been mugged for the precious few quarters you carried, you’d never felt like this. 

You’d been on the other side of a bow and a gun before when your daddy taught you how to hunt, but you’d never felt like you could understand the creature in the crosshairs. 

Not until this.

Not until him.

The adrenaline high had persisted for hours after you’d made it home, like honeybees buzzing in your head. You’d stood in front of the window in your shared room, lights off so as not to disturb your roommate, staring down at the filthy alleyway below for signs of movement in the sodium orange streetlights. 

“No,” you say. You can’t tell him the rest, one of the things you’d locked away. You’d liked it. 

“Maybe . . . next time . . . drive me?”

You get up to leave before the echo of your question can fade. You don’t want to hear him say no. But he grabs your arm, still seated on the chair, touch warmer than before.

“I’m not going to be here much longer,” he says. “The job’s ending.”

“Oh.” Your heart sinks. Summer’s already over and the main school year starting again meant you wouldn't be working as much anyhow, maybe it was the same for him. But you'd grown used to the little match spark of excitement you'd get whenever he was around. It's only natural you'd miss it.

All good things come to an end, after all. You swallow the knot in your throat.

There’s one thing at least—if he’s gone you won’t feel bad asking him for another favor. Something not yourself makes you ask, hand floating in his grasp.

“Can I kiss you?” 

How you wished you could have asked that confidently, but at least there’s a power that you’re standing over him.

He nods, swallowing, gaze distant but soft. You lean in and his eyes close automatically, lashes brushing your nose. You tilt his chin up gently with both hands to kiss the smoothness of his cheek, smelling the shaving cream he must have used earlier—you know the kind, a green-and-white striped can. And then he tilts his face towards you, like a question. Your lips brush against his and it’s like clinging to a live power line. 

There’s the softness and warmth of his lips, but you can feel him fighting to stay still, mouth closed. You don’t know if he thought he’d get what he wanted coming down to the pool to watch you but you know he wasn’t expecting this, his toothpaste-mentholated breath stuttering against your chin when you pull away. 

“Did you like it?” Jaehyun asks, brows lowered in much-too-serious of an expression for not even kissing you in return. His pupils are dilated so wide in the dark you’re reminded of a nocturnal animal. 

You nod, gripping the towel around you and shivering despite the heat. 

“I need you to do something for me,” he says, voice low. 

“What?”

“Do you trust me?” 

Again, you're lost with regard to any double-meaning. His voice is so gentle and pleading you feel like there’s no artifice there. 

“Yes,” you say. 

“Go back to the room. Wait a few minutes after I leave to go up. If I see the night manager first I’ll take care of him.”

The way he says take care of him sends a chill up your spine, but then you remember you’re not starring in Mission: Impossible or another dumb television show, you’re just sneaking through the hotel after midnight with a coworker. 

“Okay. 310?”

“No, go back to 217,” he says, standing up. He’s not as tall as Johnny but he towers over you in a different way, posture naturally intimidating.

“See you there,” you say as he leaves. 

He doesn’t respond, disappearing out the glass doors to leave you dripping water down your legs and questioning everything that just happened. 

Curiosity gets to you and you go back to your room, finding it even worse than you’d left it. The world beyond the scratchy curtains paints a picture straight out of Genesis Chapter 6.

Though this side of the hotel is opposite of the ocean and the wind, water sluices down from the top of the building in waterfalls. The drained pool is already full again, violently overflowing in the outdoor lighting. The smell of mildew is everywhere, like a used sock stamping out a decaying joint.

The patio door’s weather stripping was no match for the elements outside and you shudder at the thought of all the first floor rooms that are experiencing the same. 

You take a few minutes to rinse the pool chemicals off your skin in the shower, liberally applying the cheap hotel soap while leaving the shampoo and conditioner untouched for the next guests. You’d brought your own but that, too, had been packed away. The room is as empty as if you’d never been there at all. 

You slip the Do Not Disturb sign on the door with the "Maid Welcome'' facing outward as you leave. No one will come to clean the room until you're off shift but you feel like it’s a secret signal, a code just in case you don’t come back.

The thought that you are playing a dangerous game doesn’t escape you. Your buzz had worn down from the swim and while you should be tired the thrill of being hunted down in the night just so you could plant a kiss on the predator's lips has your head electric. 

You’re nervous, but you’re not scared. The fact that Jaehyun likes you even after seeing you at your worst, hauling trash down hallways with sweat pouring down your face, gives you a fledgling feeling of hope. Like maybe in the gravitational shift that occurred tonight there’s a brighter path ahead.

He isn’t in 217, although your single suitcase is on the bed, along with Johnny. The older man's arm is flung over his face but the flatness of his belly is exposed in the yellow light, tattoos on his arms peeking out from under his short shirt sleeves. It's a strange sight to behold, him looking this vulnerable.

The more you watch him sleep the more you think how silly it was of Ruby to throw herself at him like a dog in heat. He’s a gentle giant, yes, and he’s got a childishness to him that makes him seem easy.  But all you see is another fortress, as tightly guarded as the one whose walls you ran up against in the basement grotto. 

Unlike Jaehyun, you think, Johnny doesn’t chase. He’s probably never needed to. 

You can’t pull a sheet up over him as he’s lying on it but the air is on the lowest setting and the power is still going to keep it kicking. You grab a blanket from the nearby closet, giving it a careful sniff before tucking him in. Johnny remains pacific, only moving to turn into the pillow once you've shut the light off next to the bed. 

After changing out of your wet swimsuit and into your junior college sweatshirt and athletic shorts you sit in one of the cushioned rattan chairs, tired but unable to sleep. 

The TV is back on with no volume, just the familiar black-and-white circular geometrics of a test pattern broadcast. The faint buzzing of the television is eventually surpassed by the hurricane outside, shrieking as the wind moves through small crevices. You’re not afraid of the dark, or the weather, but the oppressive smallness of the hotel room has you feeling like you’ll never leave. 

Within a half-an-hour, unable to stop your mind, you quietly set to work clearing empty bottles and stray pieces of paper. You make a game of picking up the room without waking the sleeping bear inside it. You even use one of the washcloths in the room to wipe down the surfaces, preparing it for the eventual exit of its inhabitants.

Why are you cleaning a hotel room in the middle of the night? The answer seems to lie in memories better left unseen, like the wriggling things under a rock turned over. Each bottle dumped out is a reminder of broken glass on mud-caked linoleum, the hum of the television just like flies buzzing in black blood. All of these horrors wiped away by your efforts.

One of the small luxuries afforded to you in this shit-labor job is combing through the personal belongings of people with more money than you. You know better than to move anything a millimeter but you've learned to observe an object's rightful place and where to return it to once you've cleaned, and your memory is a steel trap. 

It’s gotten to the point where you can feel a room: the occupants' hair, their skin, where they slept and what they ate, drank, and expelled out—none of it sacred. You’d stopped working in the smoking wing a few months ago not because you minded the smell but because you were tired of cleaning the remnants of cocaine and hash out of surfaces you didn’t even know could be used for the intake of either. The Gideon bibles were getting more use over there. 

You were happy to be stuck in the kiddie section vacuuming sand out of the low pile carpet, but sometimes you missed the allure of figuring out the people by their belongings. You used to look up their fashion in the magazines your roommates collected. Although you have only dreamt of wearing Chloe or Chanel you know how to recognize someone who can afford their clothing vs. someone gifted a knock-off. 

It’s why the more you observe the more you get a feel that something is off.

You’ve never seen Johnny or Jaehyun in street clothes but there aren’t any in this room besides replacement slacks and shirts for work, underwear and socks hanging off the back of the chairs. There’s a few well-tailored suits in the closet, big enough a fit you think they must be Johnny’s but some of them are in a color and the right fit for Jaehyun, the sizing of the shoulders on the hangers and the arm-length confirmation enough.

The bags when you lift them up are heavy, and not in the way clothes feel. But the thing that nags at you the most is the watch: an Omega Speedmaster on the desk, hidden beneath a pile of empty junk wrappers and scribbled notes. 

If you'd been back in your old life that would have been a tell not because it meant the person wearing it was rich but that they'd left it as a gamble to see if you stole and pawned it overnight. 

You don’t pick it up. As cheap as it might be to a higher clientele, the kind of money that could afford it would stay in a far better place than this. The idea that it was purchased by someone working for a hotel is a laughing-stock. 

It’s this nagging in the back of your mind that finds you carefully unzipping one of the bags, the most expensive one made of leather and weather-proofed canvas, movements timed to Johnny's deepest snores. You peer inside in the soft light of the bathroom overhead. What you find makes your mouth go dry and your pulse pick up. You close the bag as quietly as possible, unable to unsee what you’ve seen. 

You're in deeper than you thought. Puzzle pieces click into place as you watch the palm trees bend through the slats in the shutters, as lightning illuminates the room and its secrets.

And still, Jaehyun doesn't come back.

It’s like sleep-walking how you find yourself out of the room to head up the stairs to the third floor, remembering you’re only wearing socks when you feel the dampness in the carpet under the leaking stairwell window. If you stand there in the flickering fluorescent lights to gather your courage, no one has to know.

Room 310 is in Ruby’s section. You don’t spend much time up here anymore, unless you’re helping her finish her checkouts when she’s slammed. The air is heavy with cigarette smoke, the occasional cough of a guest beyond the dark wood doors speaking to whatever crimes you'd left them to.

Did you forget to knock? Or did you unlatch the lock on muscle memory, quietly slipping in and closing the door behind you?

There’s no lights on at all in the room, just darkness palpated by the exterior red lighting of the hotel sign flickering through the blinds. The only thing you can see as you walk in is a slim wedge of illumination from where the door of the adjoining room is ajar. You smell marijuana smoke and perfume, something floral.

He's not here. In fact the silence under the roar outside is overwhelming. Your gut tells you to turn and go but you’re unable to shy away from that open door, your curiosity getting the better of you.

The first thing you see when you peer into the suite is the utter disarray of the common area and dining room: multiple plates of the hotel’s subpar burgers and breakfasts only partially touched, cigarette butts floating in a half-empty carafe of what looks like lemonade but is probably separated orange juice.

A woman’s wardrobe has imploded far from the bedroom, shoes and lingerie on the floor. You note the leather-bound luggage on the couch and also the relative silence as you step around it, sure the occupants of the room either heard you and are in hiding or are down at the bar below, running up as much of a tab there as you are sure they have here.

And so you go deeper.

Not unexpectedly the glass dining room table is being used for coke, a rolled $20 bill next to where the drawn lines have disappeared. There’s jewelry and high-limit credit cards on every surface. A bouquet of burgundy roses wilts on the bar top, the water in the vase gone green. 

And then there are the bottles: all red wine, empty except for one that’s been knocked over, turning the green carpet black. There hadn’t been much left of the contents but the violence of the spill tells you it either fell or was thrown. The stain on one of the walls and a shattered wine glass confirm an altercation. 

The wrongness that you feel intensifies as you head towards the lit bedroom—not sure what you’ll find. 

The possibility of catching Jaehyun in a passionate tryst feels like it would be a thrill if purely on the basis of knowing he had it in him, but you're prepared for anything, and nothing. Quietly you steal to the doorway, hearing little over the rain. 

The first thing you notice in the bedroom is a man on the bed, his hairy legs akimbo, robe half-off. You're hit with a sudden rush of shame that you hadn’t even considered the suite was still occupied, that this might be off-limits. That's when you catch a glimpse of the bathroom beyond the bed, door wide open.

The woman’s leg hanging over the edge of the tub is unnaturally still.

You don’t need to move any closer to know. You know what a corpse looks like–the blood pooling in the feet until they're dark, the skin unnaturally mottled.

And still, you're pulled into the room, half-hypnotized with shock. The man on the bed is just as frozen in time, you realize, lips blue and parted beneath his mustache, a needle stuck in the meat of his arm like a flagpole. His chest doesn’t move. He isn’t ever waking up again. 

You should turn around and leave, right now. 

You should run.

Call an ambulance. Call the police. 

Instead you feel compelled to witness the horror before you, to see it face-to-face. You move to stand beside the large jacuzzi tub inset into the floor, eyes never leaving the manicured toenails and their perfect shade of flamingo pink.

Out from under the still water the woman’s eyes are half-lidded, mouth half-open, hair floating around her face. She’s fully nude. She looks like she might have been beautiful if not for the distortion of the water. The hand thrown over the edge (matching nails) drips, drips, drips onto the faux granite tile—reminding you of something. 

That’s when the corner of your vision goes black, wet leather slamming down over your mouth. 

Your first instinct is to scream, but that's killed by the gloved hand tight over your mouth. Instead you struggle, nails digging into the canvas-like cloth of the arm pinning your chest to the stranger behind you. 

“Shhh.” 

Your feet kick in the air as you're pulled up, heels fumbling against steel-toed work boots. 

"Quiet, quiet now," he says. You know that voice.

There’s a familiarity so inherent in the smell of mint and WD-40 that you stop struggling. You look beside you, muscles twitching under the wet grip. In your peripheral vision in the mirror you catch a glimpse of a dark blue jumpsuit, a pale profile tucked next to your ear. 

You freeze, panicked breaths escaping from your uncovered nose, mind unable to grasp on any plan of escape or comfort. 

“You weren’t supposed to see this,” Jaehyun says hoarsely. You don't need to see his expression to sense the excitement in his tone as he pins you in place to witness the body before you. “Don’t fight. Just listen.”

You relax, limp as a ragdoll.

“You remember the pelican?”

It takes what feels like an eternity for your brain to catch up with the reference, vision flashing red. 

The pelican, yes. 

Three months ago.

No one had known what to do when the large brown bird had flopped onto the pool deck, choking on a fish still attached to a length of fishing line, hook lodged in its throat. You'd watched the wretched thing as it managed to tangle itself further, upsetting chairs and smearing blood and feathers across the concrete. 

Maeve had ushered the screaming and crying kids playing unsupervised in the pool away on your order, and when you'd felt you were finally alone you'd used the net to knock it in the water and hold it down until it stopped fighting. Maeve had returned with Jaehyun, finding you as you pretended to fish the bird out, feigning disgust. 

As always, as before, as now, you’d felt nothing except maybe that it had been the right thing to do.

“They were already dead,“ Jaehyun says softly. His arm loosens slightly, letting you get air in your lungs, but he still holds you tight, body tense beneath the layers of clothes between you. “Think of this as the same. A mercy.”

When you don’t respond he runs his free hand soothingly up your side. You shudder, eyes closing, the dull black of the corpse’s gaze still burnt into your eyelids.

“They were bad people. Someone else would have gotten them eventually. Tortured them, made them suffer. You don’t like watching things suffer, do you?”

Tears leak from the corner of your eyes but you shake your head under his grip.

“It was painless for them.” He explains, more to himself than you, you think. His lips brush the back of your ear. “Do you understand me?”

You nod.

“I’m going to let you go if you can promise me that you won’t scream.”

You nod again.

His hand releases your face, dropping down to your throat, leather sliding across over-sensitive skin. You suck in a deep breath, expecting the worse. Within seconds you're back on the floor, unable to pull away from the loose hold he has on you.

“Are you . . . going to kill me?” You find it easier to ask the question when you aren’t facing him, as dampness trails over your throat. You jump as his other hand runs under your shirt, cool on your belly.

“Why would I do that?” 

“Keep me quiet,” you whisper. 

“I don’t need to,” he says.

His fingers drag across your ribs, coming to rest over your breastbone. You don’t have a bra on but it doesn’t feel sexual as much as comforting, leather warming with your skin. He holds it there, keeping you still, until your heartbeat slows. 

Drip. Drip.

Drip.

“Are you afraid of me now?”

“I . . . I don’t . . .” You clench your eyes shut tighter. “No.”

He pauses before pulling you closer, a second before you realize your knees are giving out.

“When I saw you with that bird I knew you were special,” he says into your neck. “You’re a smart girl. You know how to survive.”

You think there’s a little bit of a threat there but it’s hard to pay attention to as his lips press against your jaw, down to graze your pulse, brushing through beads of cold sweat drying on your skin. A whimper stays trapped in your throat, electricity arcing in your core. You feel soaked, well above where the heels of your socks rest against his boot tops. 

“Were they really bad?” you ask, as if you don't already know.

There’s no reason you should believe his answer, no reason at all. You have a moral sense even if you know it wouldn’t survive scrutiny, tarnished black as it is. You're just looking for empty reassurance, the guilt of not being able to do anything gnawing at you. 

“Yes.” There’s no hesitation in his answer. “You’ll see.”

“I won’t say anything,” you promise, eyes still closed. 

You wouldn’t even know who to tell, after all. Who would believe you?

“No, you won’t,” he assures. “They’ll find them. After the storm.”

Nausea creeps up the back of your throat at the thought of the bodies lying there for days, already decaying. The tremor in your body starts and grows more intense, uncontrollable shaking. It prompts him to pick you up, carrying you out and past the threshold in a damned reversal of a wedding night, placing you on one of the untouched beds in the adjacent room.

You're left to stare at the water-stained ceiling of 310 as he closes the doors between you and death, veiling you both in darkness. 

“I can’t sleep here,” you say, the words airy with adrenaline. It’s so much easier to speak not seeing his face, but you feel him watching in the faint light. 

He has the audacity to laugh. “You don't have to sleep here.”

The drip, drip, drip persists in your mind, lifeless faces floating in front of you. You won’t be able to stop thinking about them for the rest of your life. You’ll just have to store them in that hidden place you’d built when you were six and found your mother. She hadn’t had much of a face to remember her by then.

“Do you trust me?” 

It’s the second time he’s asked you tonight and the sea change that occurred in between has your head spinning, tears sliding down as you weep unconsciously. The tightness in your throat keeps you silent, so you nod instead. 

Jaehyun pulls you into a sitting position, making you look up at him. Even in the red, slatted light he looks no different than before. The kind of man you’d see in an advertisement or in a professional business photo, if it wasn’t for the eyes. Any gleam there has disappeared so that they’re shark-like, absorbing rather than reflecting.

"Go back to Johnny’s room,” he instructs. “Don't say anything about this to him.” 

You nod into his hand as it holds your face, relishing the way his fingers tighten on your chin as you feign control. 

“You’ll wait for me,” he says. 

An eternity passes as you search his expression and find no comfort there, but also no immediate threat.

"Wait for me." This time it's a plea.

“Yes,” you say, finally. Jaehyun pulls you up. Your body shakes but you manage to keep your footing. You're only off-balance when he drags you into another hold that has your face pressed into the zippered front of his coveralls, a leatherbound hand slipping over your hair to rest against your shoulder blades. 

“Good girl,” he soothes, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. You hate the way your body responds to the gesture, stoking the fire in your belly. You’d felt his response too, when he was holding you in the bathroom, and it both sickened and intrigued you. He wanted you, you think, possibly more in that moment than before.

If there was a God he’d be the only one to witness the smile that’s crimping your mouth. You smooth your face and pull away before the Devil can see it too. 

“What’s wrong, babydoll?” Johnny asks, voice thick with sleep.

You don’t know how you found your way back, to the room or from your fugue state. The clock on the radio has the hour well past three in the morning, your shift starts again in a scant four hours, and the tears won’t stop streaming down your face. 

You sit on the edge of the bed and finally inhale, but it’s like there's not enough oxygen in the room. You wish you could open a window. The panic attack hits.

Waves of repressed emotion come one by one—you imagine the Atlantic Ocean looks more peaceful torn into white surf by the storm. You can’t speak–you wouldn’t want to even if you could–but the breath in your lungs isn’t coming in deep enough. 

“There, there,” he says, sitting up to touch you. The contact of his hand on your shoulder startles you, making you wheeze even more. 

Johnny grabs a glass from the nightstand and rushes to the bathroom to rinse it out. You can hear the rattle of items on the counter as he knocks them around clumsily. You cover your eyes shut to focus on the whistle of the wind outside. 

One. Two. Three. Breathe in, breathe out. 

It’s not fear; it’s never been fear. Just an autonomic response outside of your control, exacerbated when anyone’s observed you. And so you’d made do with hiding, with learning how to disappear. Back in this shared hotel room there is no such shelter. 

“Drink,” Johnny says. 

You open your eyes to the smoky yellow-brown glass, seeing he’s dropped ice in it from what’s left in the bucket. Tap water here tastes like the subterranean swamp it’s piped up through and this is no different, bitter on your tongue once you’ve finished the glass. 

Johnny paces the room, turning the TV off, turning the radio on. You don’t know the song but it’s a welcome distraction, soft piano and strings floating over a full band.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” he says, kneeling in front of you. “But you can if you want to.”

You hiccup, face hot as you wipe the tears away. His strong but slender fingers take over yours, soothing you and you focus on that touch to ground you. A few minutes pass as your breathing slows, still shaky.

Would it be easier if you told him? If you tried to find the words? Would that put him in danger, too? All the adrenaline coursing through you has left you hollow, wiped clean. 

“Nothing. Bad. Not too bad,” you say, rolling the glass in hands that begin tingling as the shock wears off. Johnny takes it from you, wrapping you in the thin fleece of the blanket you’d tucked around him earlier in the night.

“Jae,” you say. That’s all that comes out. You've never called him that outside of what you’ve whispered in your mind, and your stomach rolls at the thought of what it means to know him better now.

"Listen to me," Johnny says, holding your arms. "You're gonna be alright."

You think you believe him, looking up into his warm brown eyes. They crinkle at the corner when he smiles genuinely, but there’s just the ghost of that now. It’s almost soothing to see him look worried but the cringing little voice in the back of your head tells you that he can’t really care–why would he care about little old you. 

"Tell me what happened," he says.

You shake your head, sniffling. 

“It’s alright,” he says. “You’re safe here.”

What's happening to you, you wonder? The more you look into his searching gaze, the more you want to wrap your arms around his neck. 

Maybe he'll wrap his arms around you, too? Wouldn't that feel nice? 

His hands drift down to your wrists, grasping the bones where your pulse beats through. You hope he doesn't feel the fear in you. The tremble there finally stops, but the urge to be held continues. You want him to swallow you up and never let you go.

"Hold me," you say. Johnny looks at you quizzically, mouth parted.

You try lifting your arms, but they feel heavy. You look down at the brace of his hands on yours where they rest in your lap, where your thin red shorts with their white lining meets your thighs, and you laugh.

You remind yourself that laughing isn’t appropriate right now, but you can feel the grin twist your mouth.

"It's gold. Cold." You reach to take off your socks, aware that they're wet and clinging to your feet. A giggle escapes you when you realize that you can't even do that, then at remembering how they got that way. It feels like a distant dream, something you saw in a movie that you couldn't remember right.

“Shh,” Johnny says, and that makes you laugh harder, holding your sides as he unrolls the tube socks from below your knees to reveal your unpainted toenails. You collapse on the bed, the room spinning.

“Just go to sleep, baby girl.”

“Good girl,” you correct, words slurring. “‘Mm a good girl.”

“Yes you are,” Johnny says, not without some exasperation, moving your body with an ease that makes you even more dizzy. He’s so big and strong, you think, watching his forearms flex as he brings you to the head of the bed and lays you down. 

He's held you, you think. Not him but him. You're falling fast away from that memory, just not fast enough.

The pillows beneath your head, the ones you know are yellow with nicotine-stained slobber beneath the thin cotton, have never felt so good. You feign sleep with eyes half open, the nightmare cocktail of anxiety keeping you from going fully unconscious. 

When the door of the room opens,  you imagine that Death himself has stepped in to help you go down.

The bed sinks beside you. You smell bleach and that pretty green Barbisol shaving cream from the skin you’d kissed earlier. Your right eyelid is opened by a calloused thumb lifting it to your eyebrow. 

"Y/N," he says. Oh, you think. That's your name. Not the one on a tag but the one written on your birth certificate.

You fight against the unwelcome rays of the wall light, weak as a milk-starved kitten. The hand on your face brushes across your cheek, cracking the salt stains from your previous tears.

“What did you do to her?”

Jaehyun’s voice sends a distant rush of terror through you, the feeling laced with a different kind of thrill you can’t place. 

“She was hysterical,” Johnny says, calmly. “I gave her a Quaalude.”

That’s it, you think. You’d heard about luding out, about disco biscuits. You weren't that much of a square. Like everything else you’d never tried it until today. 

Cuban rum, kissing a stalker, finding a stash of guns, drugs and money. Stumbling into a murder scene. Now roofies. You were certainly racking up an impressive list of Never Have I Ever failures. Very unsquarelike.

“You drugged her?!”

“I didn’t have—“

You feel the weight leaving the bed, hear the dull thud of skin against skin and the thump of a body against a wall. The scuffle is brief by the sounds of it. You know who won when Johnny speaks.

"Knock it off. You’re the one who got us into this mess, asshole.” You’ve never heard Johnny sound like that, the order carrying a credible threat.

“You’re the one who told her that room number like a fucking moron," Jaehyun says, voice level.

“If we’re talking unplanned variables your little obsession here is now threatening this entire op—"

“It’s done.”

"Done done? You got the bugs? Stashed the goods?"

"I know how to do my job."

"I don't know man. From over here it looks like you keep forgetting. What are we doing with her?"

"She won't talk."

"You don't know that. She wakes up, has a change of conscience. It's too risky."

"She trusts me." 

"You think that's reassuring?"

There's more shuffling of bodies and fabric, more quiet response from the shadow that keeps falling over you, adjusting the pillows and blankets, hot hand under your cheek as he makes sure you're on your side.

"Is that why you like her? Found yourself another headcase?" Johnny says, cracking a bottletop.

"Fuck off."

A bark of a laugh filters through the euphoria dissolving your consciousness. You can’t keep following the conversation, the quiet bickering drifting in and out, but you hear more words. Keep. Alibi. Timetable. Extraction. DEA. Useful. Honeypot. 

Maybe it's the Quaaludes but everything feels natural, like you'd fallen through that Twilight Zone door into a primetime television show. One where your storyline was written by more compelling and generous authors than the one who'd written your real life. No, your real life was a lot more gritty and a lot less glossy. A little Southern gothic, a little nightly news.

If you could choose you'd be in LA where they shoot all the pictures, with title cards to say they're set somewhere else. Of course there's a car chase intro complete with brassy music, a yellow font title card, and voice-over narration.

"Fresh co-ed Y/N is plunged into the seedy underbelly of Miami's South Beach, recruited by a federal vice squad to fight against drug kingpins and corrupt developers alike. Join us next week for an explosive pilot episode featuring special guest stars . . ."

You picture yourself like Angie Dickinson's character in Police Woman, respected by your peers, always ready to go into the lion's den undercover and trick the unsuspecting criminals into revealing their secrets. Every episode ending with you in a shootout, surviving by the skin of your teeth. The viewers are hooked weekly by the subtle flirtation with your partner, or maybe even your superior, a will-they-won't-they over the course of endless seasons. 

You're the biggest hit since color TV. That's not Farrah on the wall, that's you in your yellow swimsuit, smiling brightly. You never stop smiling, making sure to shine it into the cameras as Johnny Carson interviews you about your newest movie deal, which you ace without one stumble in your speech. The audience applauds. You're featured in all the magazines: the new face of Virginia Slims. You've come a long way, baby. 

No shark-jumping for you, you’re eternal.

You've come a long way.

next

#nct smut #nct 127 smut #jaehyun smut #johnny suh smut #nct scenarios #nct 127 scenarios #johnny scenarios #jaehyun scenarios #nct x reader #nct fanfic #nct 127 fanfic #nct 127 fic #ncta au

[homestationrealestateindubai]

Discover Your Dream Property: Dubai Real Estate Market Unveiled

Welcome to Home Station Real Estate, your one-stop destination for all things related to the flourishing Dubai real estate market. Dubai is a city of innovation, opulence, and countless opportunities, making it a prime location for property investments. Whether you're looking for houses, properties, flats, offices, or apartments for sale in dubai, Dubai offers a diverse range of options to cater to every taste and budget. In this blog, we will take you on a journey through the dynamic real estate landscape of Dubai, providing essential insights and tips to help you make the most informed decisions.

1. Exploring Houses for Sale in Dubai:

Dubai boasts an array of luxurious and modern houses that cater to various preferences. From stunning villas in exclusive gated communities to contemporary townhouses in vibrant neighbourhoods, the city offers ideal homes for sale in dubai for everyone. We'll guide you through some of the most sought-after residential areas and help you find the perfect house that suits your lifestyle and needs.

2. Unveiling Properties for Sale in Dubai:

Investing in properties is a lucrative endeavour in Dubai, considering the city's robust economic growth and attractive rental yields. Whether you're a seasoned investor or a first-time buyer, we'll dive into the thriving property market, including off-plan projects and ready-to-move options, and assist you in understanding the current trends and potential returns.

3. Flats for Sale in Dubai: The Urban Living Experience:

For those seeking a more urban lifestyle, Dubai's apartment offerings are second to none. From high-rise luxury apartments with panoramic city views to chic studio flats in bustling districts, we'll explore the diverse range of flats for sale in dubai. Discover the advantages of living in the heart of the city and explore the amenities and conveniences that come with urban living.

4. Unlocking the Potential: Offices for Sale in Dubai:

Dubai is not only a residential haven but also a thriving business hub. For entrepreneurs and businesses looking to establish a presence in this global city, the commercial real estate market offers a plethora of opportunities. We'll guide you through the process of finding the ideal office space in dubai that aligns with your business requirements and goals.

5. Apartments for Sale in Dubai: The Epitome of Luxury:

Dubai's skyline is adorned with some of the most luxurious apartments in the world. These iconic residential towers redefine extravagance and offer a lifestyle beyond compare. In this section, we'll showcase some of the most Luxury apartments for sale in dubai, providing a glimpse into the exclusive world of high-end living in Dubai.

Conclusion:

The Dubai real estate market is a captivating landscape that caters to diverse needs and aspirations. Whether you're looking to settle down, invest in property, or expand your business horizons, Dubai offers an abundance of options. At Home Station Real Estate, we are dedicated to helping you find your dream property in this remarkable city. Stay tuned for regular updates and expert advice to make your real estate journey in Dubai a seamless and rewarding experience. Happy property hunting!

#property in dubai #studio for rent in dubai #apartments for rent in abu dhabi #dubizzle #dubai mall #prayer time dubai #mall of emirates #Buy property in dubai #Buy Appartments in dubai #property for sale and purchase in dubai #Real Estate Company in Dubai #property finder #property for rent in dubai #property for sale in dubai #property finder dubai #property management companies in dubai

[callmebrycelee]

9-1-1: LONE STAR REACTION

This reaction is for the season 4, ninth episode "Road Kill" which originally aired March 21, 2023. The episode was written by Carly Soteras and Wolfe Coleman and directed by Brenna Malloy. Spoilers ahead!

***LAST TIME ON 9-1-1: LONE STAR***

TK and Carlos enlist Mrs. Reyes to help rein in wedding planning-obsessed Owen, but their plan backfires when Andrea's inner-bridezilla is revealed. Meanwhile, Marjan aids a young couple she encounters in New Mexico, but becomes suspicious when the girlfriend slips her a message asking for help. TK and Carlos end up removing both their parents from their wedding planning duties and Marjan helps the young woman get away from her abusive boyfriend. 

Now that we're all caught up, let's talk about episode nine - ROAD KILL. In our opening scene, a young girl named Mouse (Samsara Leela Yett) is involved in an accident with her best friend Joey Dawson (Ivan Sinitsin) and his parents, Jim and Susan (Greg Cohan and Jessie Cohen) when the dad becomes distracted and drives into the oncoming lane.

Title card!

Over at the 126, Captain Strand gets a Facetime call from Marjan. She lets him know she's sold the bike he gave her and got $200 more than what she paid for it. Marjan tells Owen and the others she's ready to come and of course they're all excited to hear this. She asks them not to make a big deal of her coming back to the 126 and Owen promises her they won't. She tells them she's currently in Tucumcari, New Mexico and she will leave for Austin first thing the following morning after she gets some rest at a hotel. Owen asks her to come straight to his house once she's arrived back in Austin because he says he wants to get a headstart on paperwork. Marjan sees through this and realizes her 126 family is planning a party for her return. Marjan is fine with the idea but asks that there not be any yacht rock. Marjan ends the call and we see her with Kylie (Brooke Sorenson), the young woman she rescued from her abusive boyfriend in the last episode. We learn that Kylie has purchased a bus ticket to Fort Lauderdale and Marjan gives her an envelope full of money so she can get a fresh start. Marjan says, "I blew up your old life. The least I can do is help you start a new one."

Kylie is overwhelmed by the gesture, especially when she learns that Marjan sold her bike. Marjan assures her she will rent a car to get home. The two of them arrive at the bus and Kylie begins to have second thoughts. She begins to reflect on the good times she and her boyfriend had but thankfully Marjan is there to remind her that those fond memories she has of their relationship aren't real. She then tells her that by now Grant has posted bail and there's no better time than the present for her to get away. Kylie tells her she's scared of doing this alone and Marjan tells her she's really brave for doing so. Marjan reminds her that her sister Sahar will be nearby in Miami should she ever need help. Marjan is such a good person! Kylie thanks her and hugs her before getting on the bus. Marjan tells her to enjoy her life because she deserves it. As the bus pulls away from the station, the camera pans out to show that Grant (Cameron Cowperthwaite) is watching.

Over at the captain's house, the 126 and Carlos are busy preparing for Marjan's return. Owen is fussing over canapes and LED balloons. It seems like he's channeling all of the energy he would be spending planning TK and Carlos' wedding into Marjan's welcome back party. 

Somewhere in New Mexico, we see Marjan in a rental car en route to Austin, Texas. She notices an RV following really close and she realizes it's Grant. She attempts to have Siri dial 9-1-1 but the call keeps getting disconnected due to low reception in the area she's in. The RV rams into the rental which causes Marjan to drift into the oncoming lane. We see a glimpse of a red car before she drives off the road. The car flips and winds up in a ditch. Thankfully Marjan is still alive. When she comes to, her face is bleeding and Mouse is in the passenger seat. Marjan asks her what's happened and Mouse tells her there was an accident and she drove off the road. Marjan tells the girl she does that sometimes and this is when I remembered something very similar happening in last season's snowpocalypse episodes. Poor Marjan! Perhaps she should just stay off of highways. Marjan assesses her injuries and believes she has a couple of broken ribs and a concussion. She asks where Mouse came from and the girl tells her she was in the accident, too. Marjan remembers the red car she saw before she drove off the road and Mouse tells her that her friend and his parents are still stuck in the car. She asks Marjan to help them and Marjan says she will call for help. Unfortunately her phone is all busted up so she gets out of the rental car and asks Mouse to show her where the car she was in is located.

Meanwhile, Grant regains consciousness in the RV and he is pretty banged up as well. He finds a gun and some bullets and gets out of the RV. While leading Marjan to the car, Mouse introduces herself. Marjan does the same and the two discover they have something in common which is playing the same position in soccer. The two arrive at the car and find it flipped over. Marjan tells Mouse to sit down while she goes to check on Joey and his parents. Unfortunately there are no survivors except for Mouse. Mouse asks if they're dead and Marjan tells her she's sorry. Mouse blames herself for distracting Mr. Dawson but Marjan assumes responsibility. Knowing the outcome of this episode, I find it interesting that both Mouse and Marjan blame themselves. Marjan tells Mouse they need to go to the top of the road and find help but Mouse wants to say goodbye to her friend first. Marjan doesn't think this is a good idea and suggests she say goodbye to him in her head. Mouse asks how to do this.

Marjan says, "Close your eyes. Think of a time when you were truly happy together. Do you have a memory like that?"

Mouse recalls the time when Joey made a goal and he was so happy and he hugged her. Marjan tells her that if she holds onto that memory then Joey will always be that happy. The two then start off towards the main road.

Back in Texas, Owen's canapes are going bad and he wonders where Marjan is since she hasn't arrived yet. Mateo calls her phone but it goes straight to voicemail. Nancy suggests that maybe Marjan doesn't have service but Mateo says that if she's on the interstate she should have service. Marjan not answering her phone and being late to her welcome back party is a red flag because according to Mateo, Marjan never turns off her phone and she's never late to anything. TK asks if they should start calling hospitals. Judd tells him he has a better idea. He calls Grace who is on duty at the dispatch center. Judd tells Grace that Marjan should've arrived two hours ago and her phone is going straight to voicemail. Owen asks if Grace can try to get a location on her phone. Grace attempts to track her GPS but doesn't see her. Carlos asks her if she can tell them when the last time Marjan used her phone. Grace tells him that an hour and a half ago two calls, both under three seconds, were made to 9-1-1. Owen asks Grace to check for accidents in the area where the calls came from and Grace tells him she doesn't see anything. Paul figures out that Marjan can't be too far out from Austin based on when she left and when the calls to 9-1-1 were made. Owen enlists Judd and Paul to come with him to look for Marjan and Carlos says he's going to get in touch with the police to send someone to that area. 

Marjan and Mouse make it back to the top of the road. A pickup approaches them and Marjan flags it down. An older man named Rick (Matt Gottlieb) gets out of the truck and let me just say, this guy was acting sketchy as hell, especially when he started talking about duct tape. One thing I noticed in this scene, especially during my second viewing of the episode, is that the man only acknowledges Marjan. He does not acknowledge Mouse. The old man tells them the nearest hospital is over 40 miles away. He goes into the bed of his pickup truck and hands Marjan a bottle of water. He then tells her he will dial 9-1-1. Unfortunately he doesn't get a chance to make the call because Grant shoots him. Grant starts shooting at Marjan but she and Mouse run away. The two of them retreat to what looks like a large sewage pipe and Marjan announces she is shot.

Back at Owen's house, TK and Carlos are busy making phone calls while Mateo combs Marjan's social media accounts. Carlos tells them that the rangers haven't found anything and TK reports that no Jane Does matching Marjan's description have been admitted to any hospitals in the area, Nancy suggests they start calling tow truck companies in case Marjan is stranded on the road. Mateo tells everyone he has a bad feeling. He says they never should've let her leave in the first place. TK and Carlos being great big brothers ask him to hold it together. Grace calls Carlos' phone and tells him that she ran a search on her name in the system and it came up on a recently filed paperwork. She tells them the report was made by a woman named Kylie claiming aggravated. Marjan was a material witness to the assault which is why her name is listed on the report. Grace tells him that Kylie's boyfriend was released from custody the same day and he failed to show up for his arraignment. Not to get all soap-boxy but this is yet another reminder of how flawed our legal system is. Grant should've never left police custody in the first place but I digress. Mateo finds Kyle's instagram account.

While Grant moves Rick's body, he yells out to Marjan who can hear her from where she and Mouse are hiding. Marjan tells Mouse she needs to get away but the little girl refuses to leave her. Mouse commands her to get up otherwise they're both dead. At the top of the road, a cop car pulls up behind the pickup and an officer (Dan Southworth) gets out to talk to Grant. This scene bothers me so much because there are a few instances where the officer seems suspicious of Grant's behavior and let me just say, Grant is not doing a good job of pretending everything is good. The officer is both clueless and useless and drives away. Makes me wonder if things would've turned out differently if Grant was a person of color. Just saying. 

Marjan and Mouse find the RV and head inside. Mouse helps Marjan pack her gunshot wound in hopes of slowing down the bleeding. Marjan then finds Chekov's flare gun and grabs it. Marjan starts to drift in and out of consciousness while Grant goes looking for her. Marjan and Mouse manage to get out of the RV before Grant arrives but not before Marjan draws a sign in blood to alert anyone who comes looking for her. This game of cat and mouse definitely had me on the edge of my seat. 

Back at Owen's house, Carlos relays the information he got from Grace to Owen, Judd, and Paul. Mateo gets a DM from Kylie saying she is on a bus to Fort Lauderdale so the others know that she is not with Marjan. Owen tells Mateo to get her on the phone. Kylie receives a call from Carlos and he tells her he's a friend of Marjan Marwani. Owen tells her that Marjan is missing and he and the others have not heard from her since yesterday. Kylie says she hopes Grant hasn't done something to her. She tells Owen that Marjan put her on a bus to get her away from him. Kylie lets Owen know that the RV she and Grant were driving belongs to Grant's father and that it has lojack. Owen tells Carlos to fill Grace in so she can locate the RV. Kylie says that Marjan is a hero. Owen agrees with her.

Marjan comes to after passing out and once again she begs Mouse to leave her. She tells her that she's lost too much blood and she's not going to make it. Mouse, once again, refuses to leave her. She tells her to take her hand and get up. Marjan summons all of her strength and the two head into another sewage pipe but this one is blocked off by a gate on one side preventing them from exiting through it. 

Grace directs Owen to the location of where Grant's RV should be but he doesn't see anything. Grace tells him he should be right on top of it. Owen sees the pickup truck that Rick was driving and he, Paul, and Judd get out to look for signs of Marjan. Judd finds Rick's body on the ground. Owen says he will call it in and they need to split up to look for Marjan.

Grant finds Marjan and Mouse and prepares to shoot them. He stops when they hear Owen, Paul, and Judd calling for her. Grant figures that since Marjan is in rough shape, he doesn't have to waste a bullet on her. Instead, he goes to finish her off with his bare hands. As he advances towards her, Marjan takes out the flare gun she found in the RV and shoots him in the neck. I honestly didn't know flare guns could be used as weapons but it looks like it did quite a bit of damage to Grant. His neck is on fire. Yikes! He starts to choke on his own blood and it looks like Grant is dead. Marjan passes out right as the fire the flare gun started really starts to burn. Thankfully, Owen finds her in the nick of time. Marjan tells him to take Mouse first and Owen looks confused. Yet another sign of the twist that is about to be revealed. Mouse tells Marjan she will be okay and Owen picks Marjan and takes her back to his truck.

Tommy makes her appearance in this episode when she delivers some cronuts to the hospital waiting room where everyone's gathered. I've never had a cronut before but they sound delicious. One thing I love about this show is that when one of our first responders is down, the rest of them rally to show support. I love that. Of course TK and Carlos are the ones who go for the cronuts. Tommy asks how Marjan is doing and Grace tells her she is good and stable. Aside from sustaining a bullet to her abdomen, she also has two broken ribs, a concussion and some smoke inhalation. Goodness! There's a funny moment where Tommy talks about Izzy's three and a half-hour dance recital and Judd jokes that he hopes that Charley stays away from extracurricular activities.

Owen and Paul arrive with coffee right as Marjan's doctor, Dr. Cortes (Armand Vasquez) comes out to let them all know that Marjan's surgery was a success. Mateo asks if they are allowed to see her and Dr. Cortes says yes but only two at a time. Owen and Paul volunteer to see her first and when they arrive in her room she is happy to see them. Marjan is pretty groggy and she's on a LOT of painkillers. Marjan thanks Owen for saving her but he tells her she saved herself. Owen asks about Grant and Paul tells her he got what he deserved so I guess that means he's dead? Or in jail? I wish we got a more concrete answer. Owen does confirm the fate of Rick, the guy who tried to help Marjan. Poor guy didn't deserve that at all. Marjan then asks about the other car - the station wagon with the family inside. Owen tells her there wasn't another vehicle. Marjan is confused by this information. Owen asks if "Mouse" means anything to her and she says yes right as a nurse brings her flowers. When Paul asks her who the flowers are from, we get a flashback. 

Waleed and Nasreen (Nicky Boulos and Vera Hairabedian) arrive at the hospital and rush to their daughter's room. Mouse is distraught about Joey and his parents. Marjan tells them she felt so alone but her mother reminds her that with Allah she is never alone. Her father tells her that he and her mother love her very much and her mother refers to her as their "sweet, little mouse". Plot twist!!! Mouse is actually Marjan! More on that later! 

Back in the present, Marjan reads the card that came with the flowers and see that they're from her parents. End of episode.

What a great episode and what a great payoff to the Marjan leaves the 126 plot. I'm so happy we have Marjan back and I'm equally ecstatic we got a bit of her backstory. A few seasons ago we learned she was arranged to be married to her childhood friend but that's about all we knew about her other than her Firefox persona and her roller derby playing. I'm also glad we got to see Natacha Karam show off her acting chops. Not only is she one of the most stunning people I have ever seen on-screen, she can do action, comedy, and drama. I hope we continue to learn more about her because even though this can feel like the Owen Strand and Tarlos show at times, Marjan Marwani is particularly beloved by the fandom.

Let's talk about the episode's twist. I figured it out in the first scene but there were moments where I thought Mouse was really there. Upon second viewing of the episode, I noticed the car that the Mr. Dawson nearly collides with is not the rental car that Marjan was driving. However, in the scene where Marjan is hit by Grant's RV, she is already starting to lose consciousness when she sees a red vehicle approaching her. Another thing I noticed watching the episode again is that none of the characters Marjan encounters after the accident acknowledge Mouse's existence. When I knew for sure that Mouse was a figment of Marjan's imagination is when Owen finds her and she asks him to take Mouse first. Owen gives her the look Hen Wilson gave him when he was hallucinating Tim Rosewater back in season two. 

What I found particularly interesting is that when Mouse blames herself for Mr. Dawson crashing the station wagon, Marjan interjects and says it's her fault. I think this is a sign that even years later, Marjan still blames herself for the accident that killed her best friend and his parents. I also thought that Marjan's ability to survive and take care of herself after the accident until help came speaks to that old adage that you can't help others until you first learn to help yourself. Marjan's origin story isn't one of triumph. It's actually one of loss. However, Marjan was able to keep her wits about her and her inability to save her best friend became the thing that motivated her to want to save others and Marjan has saved a LOT of people. 

Well, we've gotten a lot of screen time with Marjan Marwani these last few episodes, so I wonder which of our characters will get focused on next. We still have quite a few episodes left in season 4. Give me some Judd and Grace, please, because they've really taken a backseat this season. Also, give me some more Paul and Asha and also give me some Mateo and some Nancy. Then I'll officially be happy. Oh, and one more thing - please bring Billy Tyson back because I miss that ornery asshole so much! Maybe I'll end up getting what I want. Until next time ...

#911 lone star reaction #tv reaction #tv reaction 2023 #911 lone star reaction 2023 #911 lone star #fox 911 lone star #911 ls 4x09 #911 ls s4 #natacha karam #rob lowe #brian michael smith #ronen rubinstein #brianna baker #jim parrack #sierra mcclain #julian works #rafael l silva #gina torres #blw reactions #blw reactions 2023

[eddiesasspbrak]

Not What I Expected Ch5

It’s Autumn in 1985 and Eddie is being harassed because he sold weed to the wrong girl.  Steve is still trying to get over Nancy and might have found the one person that can help him achieve that goal. Meanwhile, Robin has some secret romantic intentions of her own.

Pre Season 4 and not canon compliant with season 4

3K+ words

AO3

 When Steve pulled up to the school later that day, Dustin and Robin were waiting for him. He was running a bit late as he’d stared at himself in the mirror for too long trying to psych himself up to talk to Eddie. He definitely wasn’t going to tell these two that, they’d tease him endlessly. They climbed into the car and buckled up.

“Max?” Steve asked, not seeing her.

“Hanging out with Lucas.” Dustin responded.

“And Eddie?”

“I haven’t seen him. He wasn’t at lunch.”

“He wasn’t in sixth hour either.” Robin said.

“Maybe he went home sick?” Dustin guessed.

“Yea, maybe.” Steve pulled away from the school with a nagging thought in his head. Maybe Dustin was right, and he had just left school early. Or maybe he was hurt somewhere because he’d been attacked again. Steve should have tried to talk to him that morning. He’d just seemed so…angry. He wouldn’t even look at him for more than a second. Surely he knew that he had come by and tried to talk to him. Maybe that was his way of saying he didn’t want to talk. He’d still accepted the ride so that had to be a good sign, right?

He dropped Dustin off at home and then he and Robin went to work the closing shift at Family Video. He could feel from the second they pulled up that it was going to be a long night. Mondays were notoriously slow. Mostly checking in a ton of rentals that were returned from the weekend. They likely wouldn’t see many customers, which was fine. Steve was having a hard time doing things properly. He was distracted, making mistakes and zoning out. “What is going on with you today?” Robin asked when they had a moment of respite.

“What do you mean?” He wasn’t looking at her as he put movies back out on the shelves.

“I mean, you just put Fast Times behind the box for The Goonies. You know some middle-class mom is going to have heart failure if their kids grab The Goonies and end up seeing boobs.””

“Oh.” He fixed his mistake, putting the correct movie in its place.

“So, what is it?”

“Nothing. I’m just distracted.”

“By what?”

Steve sighed. There was no reason for him not to talk to Robin. It’s not like anyone was in the store anyway. “I still haven’t been able to talk to Eddie.”

“Really? I figured you’d talked it out and everything was ok since you’d given him a ride this morning.”

“I went to his place yesterday to see him, and he wasn’t home. I was hoping to talk to him today but then he didn’t show up. And I can’t stop thinking about where he might have gone and if he’s ok.”

“Awww, Steve, you’re in love.”

“Shut up. It’s not love. I just…care about him.”

“Who would have thought you’d find someone besides Nancy to obsess over.”

“Shut up.” He repeated.

They were quiet for a minute, both restocking returned tapes. Robin seemed stiffer than usual. Like she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how. She kept glancing at Steve like she might say something and chickening out. Finally, she seemed to find the right words.

“So, are you over Nancy then?” She asked.

Steve thought for a second, a surprised look crossing over his face. “I think I might be. She told me she broke up with Jonathon and it was like…I cared because she’s my friend but not because I was happy, or I wanted her back. I just immediately told her about Eddie. So, yea, I guess I am.”

“Cool.” Robin noticeably relaxed. “So, like, you wouldn’t care if she started dating someone else?”

“No. As long as they were good to her.”

“What if they were your friend?”

“All my friends are 14.”

“Not all of them.”

Steve paused and thought about it. The only ones who weren’t 14 were Nancy, Eddie (who he wasn’t sure was even his friend), and Robin. It clicked and he turned a shocked look to her. “Do you like Nancy?”

“What? Nancy? No!” Robin waved her hands frantically in front of her, her eyes big as saucers. The tape she’d been holding flew from her grip and she watched it clatter to the ground five feet away.

“You’re my only friend that would date Nancy. If not you, then who were you talking about?”

“It was just a hypothetical.” She said as she rushed to grab the thrown tape. “I’m just trying to gage how over her you are.”

“Hm.” Steve said, not fully believing her. He knew she liked Vickie, but she hadn’t brought her up recently. “I wouldn’t care.”

“What?” Robin turned back to Steve.

“If she dated one of my friends I wouldn’t care. I like my friends and I want their happiness so if they’re happy together that’s what matters. Right?”

She crossed back over to him and put the tape on the shelf behind the corresponding box. “Right.” Her voice was flat, her eyebrows knit together. She definitely was hiding something, but Steve would wait until she was ready to come to him. Then, it occurred to him that they didn’t really know what Eddie’s sexuality was and there was the distinct possibility that she knew something he didn’t. Like maybe she’d talked to Eddie, and he confessed he liked Nancy. That would be terrible if the guy he just realized he liked wanted to be with his ex-girlfriend he had just gotten over. That would just be too cruel.

The evening carried on, slow and boring as the sun set lower in the sky. Steve agonized over all the made-up scenarios in his head. It was later, about 40 minutes till close, when Robin noticed a familiar face loitering outside the store.

“Your boyfriend is here.” She teased Steve.

He immediately looked outside to where she pointed and there was Eddie. He was pretty far from the door, seemingly trying to hide behind the poster in the window so they wouldn’t see him. He clearly failed.

“Wonder what he’s doing here.” Robin was blatantly staring at him while Steve was trying not to look.

“He’s been meeting his customers here for a while. He’s probably waiting for one of them.”

“Or he’s here to see you.”

“I doubt it. He seems like he’s avoiding me.”

Robin continued to watch him for a few minutes before saying, “Oh, he’s coming in.”

Steve looked up in time to see Eddie entering the store, looking over his shoulder. He came to the counter, ignoring Steve and speaking to Robin. “Hide me.” He said.

“What?”

“Those assholes just pulled into the parking lot looking like they’re out for blood. I need you to hide me.”

“Behind the counter.” She lifted the swinging divider and Eddie rushed behind the counter. He sat near the front, his back against the shelves and his knees pulled to his chest, trying to look small.

A second later, Jason and some of his cronies walked into the store. He was scanning the store while the others split in different directions. Steve came out from behind the counter, plastered a smile on his face, and approached Jason.

“Welcome to Family Video. What can I help you find today?” He asked.

“I’m not looking for a movie.” Jason spat.

“Really? Well, that’s all we have here. So, why are you here?” Steve looked around the store, spreading his arms out to the side and trying to look like an overly helpful employee. All the while he was making sure the others stayed away from the counter. Robin was surprisingly chill, leaning against the countertop and looking bored.

“I’m looking for someone.” Jason admitted.

“Ah, meeting a hot date here?” Steve joked.

“Munson. I saw him come in here. Where did he go?” He was becoming more agitated.

“Wow, I didn’t know you swing that way. I haven’t seen him though.”

Jason’s jaw was set tight, a death glare turned toward Steve.

“Chrissy dumped him because of that freak.” One of the others said as they approached. “I didn’t see him anywhere. He probably went out the back.”

Jason turned his glare briefly to his friend before turning back to Steve. “If you do see him, tell him I’m looking for him and I will find him. I know where he lives.”

“Will do.” Steve said as all three walked back out the door. He watched them get into their car and drive away before turning back to the counter. “They’re gone.”

Eddie stood, sighing as he pushed a hand through his hair. Steve was overcome with the need to protect him. He’d hide him away until Jason forgot about him or found a new target. 

“Hang out here and I’ll give you a ride home after we close.” Steve offered, approaching the counter.

Eddie looked at him, his expression unreadable. After hesitating for too long, he nodded. Robin grabbed the stool from near the wall and set it beside him.

“Here. The throne of honor for our guest.” She patted the seat, indicating that he should sit.

He sat but kept his eyes on the door and the parking lot beyond. Maybe he was expecting someone still or maybe he was afraid they wouldn’t give up so easily. It wasn’t long till close now, the store empty. Steve and Robin were finishing up cleaning. Eddie assisted by wiping down the counter, needing something to ease his nerves. No one ever came in to buy anything from Eddie, making Steve wonder if they’d set him up.

“Alright,” Steve said, placing his hands on his hips and surveying the store. “Time to go. I’ll drop Robin off first then take you home.” He approached the counter where Eddie and Robin waited, peeling off his vest.

“Actually…I have a ride.” Robin said, looking somewhat guilty.

“What? From who?”

“Um, my mom. She wanted to pick me up. She’s actually here already. Mind locking up on your own?” As she spoke, she made her way to the front door. Steve followed her, confusion all over his face. She never got a ride from anyone but him. In the distance, parked as far from the front of the store as possible was a waiting car. The headlights made it hard to see what it actually looked like.

“Talk to him.” She whispered before running out the door to the waiting car.

Steve watched her for a minute before turning back to Eddie, suddenly nervous. This was the first time they’d been alone since the incident. He wiped his suddenly sweaty hands on his jeans and cleared his throat.

“I, uh, guess we should go.” He said.

“Right.” Eddie came out from behind the counter and met Steve at the door. They walked out in silence, Steve locking up behind them. He’d barely pulled the key from the lock when the revving of an engine startled them both followed by the squeal of tires as a car pulled into the lot.

“Shit.” Eddie cursed, realizing exactly who was in the car.

Steve’s car was parked on the side of the building, and they had the exit blocked by their car. So, without thinking, he grabbed Eddie’s hand and ran around the building the opposite way. Sure, Eddie wouldn’t be alone this time if they attacked, but he was still banged up from last time. It had only been a few days and Steve didn’t want him to get hurt any worse that he already was. As it was, Steve did alright fighting monsters, but fighting people never ended well for him.

So, they ran. Around the building, between the businesses where cars couldn’t go, and into the alley. They ran until they rounded a corner and Steve spotted a small spot between two buildings that ended in a dead end. It was dark, no lights around and the sun long set. He knew they would catch up eventually, so he slid to a stop and pulled Eddie into the small opening with him. They walked until they hit the dead end, a brick wall taller than the both of them blocking them in.

“What now?” Eddie asked, breathless.

“We wait.”

They were crammed in tight, practically chest to chest, but they were completely hidden in the darkness. Steve tried not to think about how close he was to Eddie and how badly he wanted to kiss him again. Eddie let out a sigh followed by a quiet laugh.

“How long do you think we’ll have to hide here?” He asked.

Steve looked to the entrance of their hiding place. “We wait until we haven’t heard them for five minutes and then we wait ten more.” Eddie nodded and he finally turned to look at him

They were so close they could feel one another’s breath on their skin. Steve couldn’t help glancing down at his lips, but now was not the time to kiss him. Not without talking to him first.

“Since we’re going to be waiting a while…can I ask you something?” Steve asked.

“I guess.” Eddie turned his eyes back to the entrance of the tiny alley, not wanting to look at Steve.

“Where did you go today?”

That wasn’t really what he wanted to ask, but it was somewhere to start.

“Huh?” Was Eddie’s response.

“When I picked everyone up from school you weren’t there, and no one had seen you all day. What happened?”

“I went home. I didn’t realize I had to report to you if I leave school early.”

“You don’t, but I was worried.”

Eddie said nothing, which was probably for the best because a second later, their pursuers finally caught up. They both held their breath and tried to stay still as statues.

“Where the fuck did they go?” Jason yelled from the alley.

“They couldn’t have gotten that far.” Another responded.

“Keep looking.” Their running footsteps faded away and then they waited another minute before finally relaxing.

They stayed silent for another heartbeat before Eddie softly asked. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why were you worried?”

“Oh. I thought maybe something had happened to you. Like they jumped you again and you were, like, left bleeding somewhere or unconscious. I didn’t relax until I saw you at Family Video.” He confessed. “So, why did you leave?”

“Didn’t feel good.”

“That’s all?”

Eddie sighed. “Chrissy was waiting to talk to me. I didn’t want to talk to her, so I left.”

That made Steve’s gut twist. From jealousy because Chrissy wanted to see him, or from guilt because it reminded him of what he’d done, he wasn’t sure.

“I’m sorry.” He said, finally finding the words he’d wanted to say Sunday. “After I kissed you, I shouldn’t have run away. I just panicked.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not. I’d never kissed a guy before. Never wanted to before. It’s not like I haven’t noticed attractive guys in the past, though I didn’t realize why until recently. Anyway, it was a stupid thing to do and I’m sorry.”

“Why did you?” Eddie asked, finally looking at him. “If you were just going to regret it, then why did you do it?”

“I just…I wanted to. And I don’t regret it. If anything, I regret not talking to you after and letting you leave.”

“I don’t know how you found out that I’m gay, but I’m not going to be your gay practice partner. I have feelings too and I’m not here for you to test your sexuality out on.”

“That’s not what I was doing! I didn’t even know you were gay until literally right this moment when you told me. I kissed you because I like you and I wanted to. That’s all.”

“You like me?” He laughed. “Does your girlfriend know?”

“Girlfriend? What girlfriend?”

“Nancy Wheeler.”

“Where have you been? We broke up like a year ago.”

“I saw you at your house.”

“My house?” Steve thought for a minute and realized he had to mean Sunday. “You were there? That was nothing. I went to her for advice about you. We’re just friends now. Nothing else.”

Eddie took a minute to process everything, having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Steve “the Hair” Harrington liked him. “So, you like me?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“Like, you want to date me kind of like?”

“Yes.”

“If you’re bullshitting me I swear I will kick your ass.”

“I’m not bullshitting. Look, this has been hard for me to admit to myself that I like guys, but I do. I like you.”

“Shit. Why is this happening in a dirty tiny alley?” Eddie laughed.

“It’s probably safe to go now.” Steve said, looking down the alley to the opening and seeing and hearing nothing. “We’ll go over the wall, so we don’t risk running into them. Here.” Steve crouched down the best that he could and laced his fingers together. Eddie understood what he meant and placed one foot in his hands and let him hoist him up on top of the wall. Eddie straddled the brick and then reached down to help Steve climb up before they both jumped down to the other side.

They stuck close to the front of the businesses and the shadows as they half ran back toward Family Video. When they got to Steve’s car, they realized that they’d left one behind to wait by the car and watch for them. Eddie recognized him from one of his classes. Patrick. He saw them, looked back and forth and then whisper yelled, “go!”.

“They’ll know you saw us.” Steve said.

“I’ll say I was taking a piss or something. Just go.”

“Why?” Eddie asked.

Patrick looked around again, visibly nervous. “Because this is all bullshit. Chrissy dumped him because of the way he’s acting, not because of you. So go.”

They didn’t argue anymore as they climbed into Steve’s car. Steve peeled out of that parking lot like the Minder Flayer was after them again and sped in the direction of his house. Eddie noticed this was not the way to the trailer park.

“Aren’t you taking me home?” He asked.

“Too risky. We’re going to mine.” He said as he slowed to the speed limit and turned onto his street. “Besides, I’m not done talking.”

“Really? What else is left to say?”

“Well, for one, you haven’t told me how you feel.”

“Oh.” Eddie said and then hesitated too long. Steve’s stomach twisted with nerves as he pulled up to his house. He’d had to face his sexuality because of this man, had been mixed up and sick for months over him and now he bared his soul to Eddie and all he got was an “oh”.

Steve turned off the car and waited for a heartbeat, but nothing was said. Running a hand through his hair, he sighed and opened the car door. “Just forget it.” He mumbled, stepping out into the cold night.

Eddie fumbled with his door, rushing to get out before Steve got too far. The motion light above the garage lit up casting them in yellow light. “Wait!” Eddie called out, making Steve stop in his tracks. “I didn’t say that I don’t like you.”

“No, you didn’t say anything, making me feel like an idiot.” When Steve fully turned to face Eddie, he could see that his face was tinted red. Maybe it was the cold but combined with the look he had turned to Steve, he was pretty sure it was embarrassment.

“Look, I’m not exactly used to this like you are.”

“Did you not hear me say that you’re the first guy I’ve really liked? I’m not used to this at all.”

“Maybe not with guys, but you’ve done the whole dating thing. I haven’t really. Hawkins isn’t exactly some big gay hub, it’s a tiny hick town that would likely hunt me down if it became widely known I was gay. Can you imagine what those douchebags would do if they knew?”

“They wouldn’t think you were after Chrissy.”

“No, but just my sexuality alone would be enough for them to go after me. I’m sure of it. I’d have to leave town.”

Steve honestly hadn’t put much thought into that. No one could know about either of them besides their close friends. Did Eddie’s uncle know? Steve’s parents definitely couldn’t know, they would kick him out without a second thought.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing. Kisses and touches shared with others in the past have been written off as curiosity and experimentation. I’ve been hurt so many times and never had the real thing.” Eddie confessed.

“And that means you can’t like me? This isn’t curiosity or an experiment. I like you. If I could show you the inside of my head for the last four months you’d see how I’ve been agonizing over you and my feelings. I don’t know how to make you believe me.”

They stood in silence, the motion light clicking off as they stood still, the only movement from the wind ruffling their hair and clothes. Steve felt raw and exposed and felt like his heart might break with one word from Eddie’s mouth.

“Show me.”

“What?”

“You said you don’t know how to make me believe. Show me that you really like me, and this isn’t a game.”

“I…how?”

“Figure it out.” Eddie had a teasing smile on his face as he approached Steve. “Let’s go in, I’m freezing.”

Steve hesitated a second longer before turning and following him to the door.

#steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #stranger things #Ro writes

[reacty]

OK everyone Yvette season 5 final make me really cry but don't worry! I will resume writing about the misadventures of my favorite anti-heroic / Byronic heroines couple: Yvette + MC = 4ever in 7 June with Yvette Season 6.

So I want try to an experiment with a character spotlight and I'll start with my favourite MC

Sin With Me(MC).

1)Who she is?

The only daughter of Joyce and Kevin. Her father was an archeologist and her mother ran a bicycle rental shop. Her love for bikes made her want to ride competitively. One day during her competition, her father never showed up which upset her. She lost focus and crashed. She developed stage fright from this incident. Her father was becoming more and more absent and as MC was entering middle school, her father left them leaving her mom to take care of her alone. She helped run the bicycle shop alongside her mom. One day when she was down, her mother gave her a bike hacksaw to protect herself from the crazy people of Vegas which cheered her up. It's one of her favorite possessions. Her mother also kept her away from gambling. She didn't have many friends growing up but her favorite place to hangout was the skatepark where she did tricks. She was pushed by her mother to become a doctor as it's stable,she's good at it and she always wish a way to help people in need and becoming a med felt the best way to do so), though MC did not enjoy it or feel it was for her or grown disillusioned and disenchanted🥲 by the medical university and the environment(people tear each throat for piece of paper instead to help each other and anyone in need)and many other reasons that if I list them I'll finish next year 😂 and dropped out of med school. She recently returned home though she feels very insecure about dropping out since she is now directionless,frustrated,bored and unsure about her future...what happen to her well depend by the Love Interest you choice .

What i love about this MC:

1)Her ability to take decision and in general being an Active Protagonist Instead of being a passive spectator or a powerless one.

So no matter how crazy/scary things will get ready to see her be a badass for this and the below reasons!

2)Her bravery is incredible why?

End world demons?

Multiuniversal destroyer seer?

Ancient evils ?

and anything insane in her way? It doesn't matter she will be the knight in shining armor for her Love interest and while she can be reckless sometime in the end she is a true heroine(or anti-heroine on Yvette Holte route).

(By the way the answer is yes!)

3)Her Kindness and unconditional accepetance of her LI once MC gets the whole picture of what's going on she will never forsaken or leave behind their Love Interest be it.

A Byronic heroine/Anti-heroine broken by betrayal,deception of her former friends,having your ideal jaded out by difficult life(Yvette) easy for you Wrath and co.😡!(don't misunderstand here everyone are right and wrong on equal misure but Yvette and the deadly sin .. They got the worst part of the whole deal of being a sin assassin...they never ask to be one for that matter and yet she never forsaken her duty!)

A Woman forced to everything she love fall apart for a small lapse of judgement(being a woman in love and former LI was Vuzgamad possesed woman which harmed Yvette since she felt she was unwittingly dating her abuser and Wrath was unable to date until MC for this😱) and see some of her family burn! MC don't see her murder but someone depressed crushed and annihilated by her errors and unable to move on.

4)She's true to herself!

Be it a huge dork,sweet,adorkable badass (and on Yvette route unafraid to face and embrace her dark side to be Yvette while never forsake her goodness and light)like us and ONE THIRSTY WOMAN🤤!

Can you blame her 🤣?

5)She's not a static MC and grows alongside them be a good badass woman on the night of circus route(Wrath,Darius,etc...) Or a Dark good badass woman on Yvette route!

What are you through of this MC? Free to share on your opinion on ASK.

#swm mc #SWM

[girls-are-weird]

vaguetweeting stranger things 4 ep 3: "the monster and the superhero"

(originally at my twitter @girls_are_weird)

...he has a WIFE? 😅

oh sHIT THAT'S RIGHT, IT'S JUST LIKE THAT NIGHT 😱😱😱

i love that he didn't tell them. ❤️️

joyce. c'mon, mama. you know.

cerebro lives! niceeeeeee

i don't mind so much that they keep saying the town is cursed, because at least now it REALLY looks like it's cursed.

omg I TOTALLY CALLED POLICE ACADEMY. (though it was PA2, because it was a rental. BUT I'LL TAKE THE W REGARDLESS).

i love this argument between them. it's so important omg. I LOVE IT. SO MUCH. #MyBABIES #Mileven

uuuuhhhhhh, can they do that? isn't she like fifteen or something?

i knew there was something about the trailer park!

"i can drive" "NO. NO! never again!" omg i just laughed so loud. 🤣🤣🤣

okay, so... this dude is like cerebro. and by that i mean ACTUAL cerebro, not the stranger things cerebro. huh.

lucas, c'mon.

same response as when i watch any digimon adventure interrogation scene: CAN THEY DO THIS? she's a CHILD.

i feel you, joyce.

godDAMN, hopper. 😨

HI, MARISSA, NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN 👋

LUCAS, COME ON

LOLing at the "just say no" poster in the back 🤣

he is LITERALLY a less-awesome, assholish knock-off of freddy jones, omg.

"this evil, it's like a virus. each time it returns, it comes back stronger, smarter, deadlier." TOO SOON, MAN. TOO SOON.

bless you, lucas. i knew you'd do the right thing.

he's going to use... a computer program? 🤨 i mean, i know it's the '80s but... come on, now...

oh FUCK NO, GET AWAY FROM HER GO AWAY LEAVE HER THE FUCK ALONE

...is the score for this season already out? because it's amazing and i never notice the score on the first go so that's saying something

NO FUCK MAX DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE OHMYGOD

i just screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" at my tv guys omg please don't

#stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things season 4 #netflix #the monster and the superhero

[mytripselfdrive]

4 Tips for Renting a Car in Bhopal: Make Your Trip a Breeze

Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, is a beautiful blend of history, culture, and modernization. With its stunning lakes, ancient monuments, and vibrant markets, it is a must-visit destination for any traveler. And what better way to explore this city than by renting a car? Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, renting a car in Bhopal can make your trip a breeze. However, with so many options and factors to consider, it can also be a daunting task. To help you out, here are 4 tips for renting a car in Bhopal.

1) Plan Ahead and Book in Advance

One of the most important tips for renting a car in Bhopal is to plan ahead and book your car in advance. This will not only save you from the last-minute hassle but also ensure that you get the best deals and availability. Bhopal is a popular tourist destination, and during peak seasons, car rental services can be in high demand. So, make sure to book your car at least a week in advance to avoid any disappointments.

2) Choose the Right Car Rental Company

With numerous car rental companies in Bhopal, it can be overwhelming to choose the right one. To make your decision easier, do some research and read reviews from previous customers. Look for a company that has a good reputation, offers a wide range of vehicles to choose from, and provides excellent customer service. You can also compare prices from different companies to get the best deal.

3) Consider Your Needs and Budget

Before renting a car in Bhopal, it is essential to consider your needs and budget. If you are traveling with family or a large group, opt for a spacious SUV or a minivan. If you are traveling solo or as a couple, a small hatchback or sedan would suffice. Also, think about the duration of your trip and your budget. Some car rental companies offer discounts for longer rental periods, so make sure to inquire about it.

4) Understand the Rental Agreement

It is crucial to read and understand the rental agreement before signing it. This will give you a clear idea of the terms and conditions, insurance coverage, and any additional charges. Make sure to check for hidden fees, such as fuel charges, late return fees, and cleaning charges. If you have any doubts, do not hesitate to ask the car rental company for clarification.

#renting a car in Bhopal