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namjoonswaifu · 1 year

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Chapter 7- The Move

Authors note- I am so sorry it has been taking me so long to write, every time I sat down to write, I just had writer's block and nothing was working. However, I am on holiday in France right now, and the sun is shining, the birds are chirping and I finally found inspiration. This isn't a long chapter but I hope you all enjoy it.

total word count: 2.4k

warnings:

warnings: mentions of weight, AFAB character, mentions of female body parts, references to the weight of M/C, loosely based on my own research of the ancient Korean royalty system, bullying, loneliness, anxiety, money problems, mentions of how other people view characters body

message me if you feel I need more warnings or if you would like to be a proofreader!

As soon as the words came out of your mother's mouth, the smile on Namjoons face changed from one of nervousness to one of genuine happiness. Taking a step back from your family, Namjoon moves to talk to the audience.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I apologise for what just happened. Let us move on to the next event! I sincerely hope that you enjoy the music and food! Please, enjoy yourselves!” he speaks, his hands moving to clasp together as he finishes his sentence. The crowd stays where they are, still reeling from the events that have already happened this evening.

You turn your head to make brief eye contact with Namjoon, to find that he was already looking at you. He takes a step towards you and offers his arm to you. Smiling brightly at the man, you try to place your arm in his as elegantly as possible, knowing that the court is watching you. Once your arms are connected, Namjoon smiles down at you. His smile passed on words that his mouth couldn’t say at present.

You look behind you to see where your mother was, to find Yoongi offering her arm to your mother. Your siblings had been a part of the crowd and they would not be joining you for the dinner, which weirdly made you feel a little less nervous, as they wouldn’t be able to tell embarrassing stories of you growing up to the man you were about to marry.

The walk to the separate room where the dinner would be held took about a minute. The large group of you meander down halls and through some doors before arriving at the final place. Inside the room was a table in a circular shape. There was one large throne-like chair similar to the one that was in the hall at the top of the table from where you were standing. To the left of that chair was another chair that almost looked like one of the throne room chairs. And to the right of that large throne-like chair were two more slightly decorated chairs. The other six chairs were decorated with the titles of the men who would be sitting there spread evenly around the circle. Namjoon led you to the chair to the right of the large chair. He pulled the chair out, making you blush, as it was very uncommon for a king to do this for anyone. Once you were sat, he did the same for your mother and then his own before sitting down. Looking around you, you noticed that everyone was smiling. You took this moment to look at what everyone was wearing, only having the chance to see what the King, the Queen Dowager, Yoongi and your mother had been wearing. The boys were all wearing various shades of red and white. The colour complements their skin brilliantly underneath the lamplight. It made their eyes shine even brighter than they already were. Taking in a deep breath you allow yourself to feel happy and content at this moment. You felt free and able to finally breathe.

Moments, after you were all sat down, the doors opened and two lines of servants filed into the room, some holding food, some holding drinks, some had cups and some had cutlery. Before your very eyes, the things in their hands were set out in their perfect positions, cups were filled as well as plates and hearts were opened, as the conversation began.

Namjoon manages to sneakily move his chair as close to you as he can without making the other boys jealous, which he knows will lead to the young ones play fighting, and who knows how that’ll end. Catching your eyes, he leans closer to you, and you lean closer to him. He speaks in a quiet tone, the smile showing in his eyes and on his lips. “Thank you for accepting my proposal, I promise I will make you the happiest woman alive, as you have made me and my boys- I mean men, the last few weeks” he speaks.

“My king, do not fear, I know of the relationship between you and the boys- I mean men” you copy, making him laugh before you continue “I have come to love each and every one of you and I would be honoured to join your family”. The smile on Namjoon’s face when you tell him this, makes his smile larger, and a blush fall from his ears to his cheeks. Namjoon takes your hand before speaking again “Well if that’s the case then I can’t wait to marry you, and 50 days can’t come soon enough, Nae salang/Sarang”. Seconds later, he lets go of your hand before standing up to address the people in the room.

Firstly, he turns to the servants “Thank you for your work, you may go and enjoy the party, this can all be cleared up tomorrow, tonight we celebrate.” Then he turns to the people at the table, clasping his cup, he brings it to the air “And to my family, let us celebrate a union of two families, let us celebrate love in all its forms and let us celebrate our blessings. To celebrating!” he says, lifting his glass every so slightly higher at the end of his statement.

“To celebrating!” everyone yells in unison, with their classes similarly raised in the air to the kings. Once everyone has yelled out, Namjoon sits down, and the conversations re-begin. Memories are shared between people, laughter is heard and love is shared. In that room, love and happiness were evident for even a blind man to see and feel.

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The next day you woke up to a knock at your door. It was Hwasa waking you up.

“Good morning your majesty,” she tells you “You have a busy day today, we must get you bathed and dressed”.

“Please do not call me ‘Your Majesty’” you giggle to Hwasa, “you’ll give me an ego,” you tell her with a wink. She laughs alongside you, before taking your hand and bringing you back into the bathing room. “Today's bath will be shorter as you have a very busy day, I will come back and collect you when it is time, do you need anything else ma’am?” she asks. You smile and shake your head, excited to enjoy your bath no matter how long you would be in it.

Stepping into the bath, you allow yourself to feel the warmth surrounding your body, the muscles that were tense from anxiety the past few days slowly releasing and making your body feel at ease. You dip your head into the bath, allowing your hair to enjoy the water as well. The bath is exactly what you needed this morning, and you were relieved that it was able to be added to your busy schedule.

Around 15 minutes later, Hwasa walks back into the room, holding a long cloth that would dry you and a silken red robe with dragons embroidered into it. “The king and his men had this made for you. They had them make it as soon as you agreed to be the royal bride” she tells you. This information brings a smile to your face, and once your cloth is tied around you, you reach out for the robe, wanting to feel it in your hands. You place the robe delicately around your shoulders as you follow Hwasa out of the room, and into where you dressed each day. On your way, however, you noticed that all of your stuff had been placed into boxes.

“Why is my stuff in boxes? I thought I was to stay…” your voice trembles, anxiety hitting you like a brick wall.

“Do not worry” Hwasa reassures, “you are staying, you are just being moved to a different courtyard closer to the king and his men, it is tradition. You will be transferred from the emerald apartment to the cherry blossom courtyard, which is on the other side of the cherry blossom garden. Oh, a letter has arrived for you today by the way!”

“A letter? Who from?” you ask as Hwasa hands you the letter. You pull the wax away from the envelope and open it up.

Her future royal highness, y/n,

This letter was written to you regarding the royal engagement. It is a formal proposal letter. Please enjoy you’re new homing in the Cherry Blossom Garden. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to contact any of us.

Sincerely,

King Kim Namjoon

And the boys

You giggled at the little addition at the bottom of the letter added by your boys, it made you even more sure that you were making the right decision. Folding the letter back up, you place it, along with the envelope on the dressing table near you.

“Well then, I guess we had better get ready so we can see this new venue.” you grinned at her.

Hwasa brings you over to the dressing table which still remained, sitting beautifully in front of two doors that would slide open. Realising this was your last day here, you decided to be bold and ask the woman, who had quickly become your friend, to open those doors whilst you had your hair and makeup done. She agreed but notified you that you must get dressed first, turning her hand towards the cotton figurine that stood in the doorway near your bedroom. Looking over at the hanbok you noticed the colour, it was a deep red colour, similar to the one you wore to the dinner the other day. And similar to the other, you noticed a gold band along the bottom of the skirt. Looking closer at it you noticed that it had been embroidered with both the seal of the dragon, one of royalty, and the seal of your house, tigers. Your heart lept with warmth and love at the thoughtfulness of your boys. A part of you felt weird calling them your boys when you haven’t had more than a crush before in your life. But in the same way, you have never felt more loved in your life. With a smile, you turned to Hwasa and stood to allow her to help you get ready.

Once you were dressed, minus your gomusin and beoseon, you sat down and looked at yourself in the mirror as Hwasa opened the doors allowing the light to flood into the room. Feeling the warmth on your face, you felt at peace for the first time in a very long time. Hwasa and Hyo-Seong quickly moved on to applying your makeup and hair. The makeup was applied with a sense of regality that hadn't quite been there in the past times your makeup was done. Next was your hair, pulled in different directions and braided before being placed into an updo. Two matching hair pins are slid into the final hair-do, making it perfect. It still felt unreal to look at yourself in the mirror as your hair was done by two of the king’s servants. A sudden anxiety hit you as you realised you were to become the royal bride in less than 2 months. Noticing the anxious look on your face, Hwasa places a gentle hand on your shoulder, offering you a kind but small smile.

“Your mother should be here soon, she was staying in the azurite apartment, but she will also be moving to the cherry blossom courtyard to stay with you until the wedding.”

As soon as the words fell from her lips, the anxiety that was building in your heart melted away till there was barely any left. Hwasa smiled at your now relaxed face, before picking up your makeup and opening the bits she needed.

“Now… let's do your makeup so we can go and see your new residence” Hyo-Seong smiled at the two of you.

After a few minutes, your makeup was done and you stood from your seat, you took one last look at the view from where you had been sat before turning towards the door and putting on your beoseon and gomusin. Hwasa and Hyo-Seong each took a door and opened it, allowing you to exit from the apartment you had spent the last two weeks in for the final time. To your surprise, Yoongi and Namjoon were waiting outside, surrounded by some of their guards, whose faces you had come to recognise but had yet been unable to put a name to. Noticing that the doors had opened up, Namjoon and Yoongi looked up, seeing you. The smiles on their faces brought a smile to your own.

Namjoon steps towards you, followed closely by the older but shorter man. The younger man reaches you within a few steps and greets you with a bow. The cat-like man followed his suit. Standing to full height once again, Namjoon grins at you.

“Good morning my queen, I take it you know where you are to move to today?” he asked, the grin just as wide at the end of his question as it was at the beginning. Pretending that you didn’t know, you let the grin that was on your face fall.

“Are you sending me home your Highness?” You asked with mock sadness on your face. Namjoon’s smile fell instantly, as did the man smile behind him.

“NO!” He yelled, moving towards you, before pausing. “I'm sorry, I mean… I mean no you are not being sent home” he spoke in a calmer tone. You took a step closer to the man before speaking again.

“Hmm,” you sighed, taking another step forward. “Well then…” you carried on, slipping your smaller hand into his much larger one. “I guess you’ll just have to guide me to wherever I am to be moved to today” you finished with a smile. Relief instantly flooded the men before you’s faces. Namjoons smile returned to his face, as he turned to Yoongi, “It looks like we have another prankster on our hands, don’t tell the maknaes, we need this one on our side.” Yoongi replied with a small nod of his head and a gorgeous smirk, agreeing with what the man before him had said, secretly planning pranks the two of you could do in his head. Namjoon grips your hand in his and turns towards the pathway that would take you to the cherry blossom courtyard.

“Let us go, my queen” he spoke quietly into your ear.

Series taglist:

@skyys-universe @angel-121 @queen-in-the-shadows @iwishididntexist @hair1997 @unqiuecutieprincess @agusfree @treetops68 @sbromp @explorewithd @zmbo97 @maetyun @sgnsgssy @feedthefandoms995 @hajimaoppaa @emu007 @silverrr-spooon @el-insomnio-no-es-divertido @scentisterror @hey-syia @insert-a-creative-url-right-here @uniquelyabnormallyoriginal @poesreddeath @thedarkwinterrose @yoongiigolden @zae007live @namjinieesope @iamhereforbts

permanent tag list: @ewok7attack @marc-ella

#the seal of the dragon #tsotd #bts x chubby reader #bts #jeon jeongkook #jung hoseok #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #kim taehyung #jung hoseok imagine #kim seokjin imagine #kim namjoon imagine #kim taehyung imagine #jeon jungkook imagine #park jimin #park jimin imagine #min yoogni #min yoongi imagine

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monstrouslyobsessed · 5 months

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at this rate ima beat this jack frost all black and blue with how much trouble it is to write something im happy with. sighs. anyway, i got some asks to answer! some of them got a tad too long so its all under the cut!

tw / tags: heavy heavy beastfolk lore/worldbuilding talk, momster talks too fucking much, breeding mentions, implied noncon, multiple pregnancy mentions, long post, beastfolk / beastfolks characters mentioned: revius, zedrik, cerelos (brief), sea witch, adoxi, and velarius

Beast folk idea I have! How about a male kangaroo that is of course some type of famous professional athlete (aside from boxing, he could be a martial artist, sprinter, etc.) that has been a play boy all his life (based off of how male kangaroos flex their muscles in real life to females). He never I guess had any “moment” in his life with any females, where he felt right actually wanting to be with them and love them whole heartedly (whether beastfolk of his own species or those not). So then one day someone he knows (close friend or maybe a work professional) takes him to an exclusive private party where the beastfolk have “rented” some humans to do it with. (I don’t know lore wise how legal this is, if at all, but it happened some how). I guess it’s so private because some of the guests there are secret human efers, those in denial, or just haven’t found the “right human” yet and would like some hands on sampling before purchasing them. And so, that’s how the kangaroo meets us his adorable darling. And I’d really like this to be very sweet and fluffy (before becoming mouth watering smutty of course), with kangaroo just having a “zing!” moment with us. We were the female he needed to feel complete in regards to love, and he plans to take GREAT care of us. (It’d also be funny to show how overprotective he is of reader from the start, by him unhesitatingly outbidding some of the other party guests who’ve also taken interest in reader). Of course it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, as reader has trust/abandonment/attachment issues. So finding out that her new kangaroo owner is (was) a MASSIVE play boy isn’t helping her fears. Now it’s up to kangaroo to do damage control, learn how to be a much better beast man, and show his sole love/devotion to reader. Making sure she’ll never question his love/loyalty to her ever again! He wants to make her the envy of his past flings, other beastmen, and just everybody really, since she’s the center of his universe. (Kangaroo also wants to really make her his permanently by getting her knocked up/wifey too). I don’t know if you’d like this idea/concept, but I thought it’d be very cute. I just love the trope of a Casanova finding their soul mate, and having to fix all the damage they’ve caused themselves by their own consequences. Cause it really is a self conflict, and great for character growth arcs. (I also just wanna be spoiled/doted on endlessly by a man who’s capable to throw hands literally and figuratively 24/7 to protect me). Thanks 🪭 —anonymous

hmmm, a bit -too- overdetailed for me to write this one since i like some breathing room to apply my own spins. tbf, it sounds like you already got it started! all you needed to do is to write it~if you write this one, link me! i wouldn't mind reading it and supporting fellow writers <3

while it is -my- au, i especially love seeing what it inspired in others and see their interpretations of it! while the worldbuilding remains mine (STILL chewing on starting a book/series on it someday, but the thought of publishing anything is scary af), it's literally just (semi-realistic) furries mingling with humans with extra history/political dramas included.

so, as long as you keep your worldbuilding somewhat different and source the inspiration to me, have at it. write your own beastfolk world!

anyway, on the finer details (for my AU anyway), as long as those humans are 'beastfolk-owned' and not green card/independent humans, they're essentially viewed as property to do whatever with albeit with responsibilities to ensure their well-being. as long as they're fed and have open access to water, have sufficient shelters, are clean, and their health is regularly checked, their owners can do whatever they want, really. the court won't interfere as long as the humans are safe and healthy—and mind you, the beastfolks are very slow on the uptake about the mental health, less so with their humans'.

that said, this can also depend greatly on what region they're in. some areas have far more human rights than others, being more liberal, while others may be more conservative and views humans as, well, livestock, essentially. humans in these places sometimes have the same rights as actual animals (if they're lucky). that said, the more rural it is, the fewer rights the human pets have.

of course, money DOES talk too.

so, you can just easily say that your characters are either in one of those conservative regions—or have shady connections and/or have an insane amount of money where the laws would just look the other way. just don't make it public and you're good to go, pretty much.

auctions would probably be a common sight in certain black markets, depending on where you are and when you are on the timeline. the zoo breakout to the early post zoo eras sees many of those events. on the most parts in the later era, those auctions are then transformed into whole new events entirely (aka, sports), which is the logical next step since they used to be the aftermath for when the bidding was ending in an outright war between several bidders and was used to solve the issue. instead of bidding, you'd complete for the human you wanted (i'm not clear at how the human would end up there yet since i don't feel any reputable shelter would align with those events for the 'adoption war' or that the adoption is the only way. still debating on this--in any case, the darling ends up there when there are more than two beastfolks fighting over them) and prove your worth while treating the unfortunate human like a rat bait (see: the maze headcanon i wrote a while ago—and am planning to write a whole piece of it to properly thank a very kind supporter when i'm able. some details had been changed since then, but it mostly still hold up).

in a lot of ways, the auctions were rather kinder to the humans as they wouldn't be put in outright danger right then. :/ the (new) spectator sports, such as the maze race, exploits multiple legal loopholes, since they involve no money (not outright anyway) as the auctions were (publicly) banned for "unregulated monetary transactions and the unpredictability of bid outcomes".

if anything, a good amount of these sports are...purely for "adult entertainment", if you get what i'm implying. ahem. the laws are actually pretty behind regarding the 'adult content/sports', especially with the open access of internet around then on that timeline. the large part of that had to do with encouraging the beastfolks to procreate with the humans though, so any form of sex between both races are simply not regulated outside the acceptable age range and limitations on physical violence/abuse and this includes the "entertainment" aspect.

it's fucked, but that's how they gets away with such things.. i'm rambling, but this can be a good alternative for you to think about too, to add on that extra drama flare and to further traumatize the human.

this is a super cute idea though and i sincerely hope you'll expand it yourself if you can! this is a very nice starting point too, if you're not used to writing. as for me, i'm not sure i can write all of this for you unfortunately, since i tend to go TOO long on just one scene and i have multiple ideas i wanna work on as well, aha. but you did give me room to talk the worldbuilding to help expand similar events like your idea so thank you for that. i can most definitely tell you that your poor fella is definitely not an isolated example.

Apparently penguins kidnap other penguins’ children to try and raise as their own. Was watching nature utube vids on this and it’s so sad! The desire to be a parent is so intense for some couples that they’ll take away another couple’s baby! How’d this play into your beast verse? What measures would government and organizations take to help combat this extreme phenomenon? And think about being a human parent and having your Penguin spouse come back with a random baby 💀💀💀 Even worse is if you’re in a Penguin community and have to fight off other penguins casually when you have your baby. On the streets, home break ins, etc. —anonymous

ngl featheredfolk (penguins are flightless but they're still birds and have feathers still so they count as one) is a bunch of odd birds with cultures other beastfolks often struggle to understand, especially with the dramas that often follow. children theft in general with the featheredfolks is complicated and tends to only involves the similar peers to sort it out, because outsiders (humans included, if not one of 'theirs' via being the spouse or the child/ren) would just get frustrated with their fucked logic to the point of being angry about it.

so, no, penguins wouldn't be the only birds that deal with this mannerism, but is the most common one to do so.

that said, they tend to have big enough noggins not to involve anyone who isn't a featheredfolk (and to an extent, wingedfolk), because they're still mostly prey in nature. skittishness towards the predator kind is basically ingrained in their dna.

but that's not to say such incidents never happened though! usually, it only happens when the community is actually quite small, that they have to 'outsource' to another beastfolk. it's a very dangerous thing to do though, since beastfolks are naturally very overprotective of their youngs. in cases where they do succeed with the kidnapping and escapes unscathed, it normally doesn't take long before the one they took the child from to track them down due to using their superior senses.

it's 50/50 on how it may end though and the laws would still side with the victims regardless of the outcome. hopefully, someone else would call the laws first to deal with such matters though and to calm the angry parent/guardian.

that said, i do imagine that the government would get around this annoying instinct by advertising adoptions as another option from the featheredfolk's early age in their school. they'd push it so much that the featheredfolk tends to feel like they were being singled out for it too.

...honestly, i'm not even sure how to answer this one fully. i should treat this as a serious question with a serious answer, but i can't.

the featheredfolks are legit viewed as the clowns of the beastfolk world already because of how...simpleminded most of them can be (not a bad thing!) 😭and now this. the birdbrains....still, i hope this somewhat answers your question(s)...?

Maybe I’m just blind and stupid, but did you touch up on beastfolk courtship rituals for some species? Ex- Birds may decorate, dance, or sing to court another. Hooved/fanged folk may literally fight each other to get rights to begin courtship with x. I’m just so curious to see what animal behaviors transfer to your universe! :) —anonymous

uhhhh, i don't think i really expand on those yet, no! the 'traditional' courtship rituals are more commonplace in the past than the 'modern' era, tbf, if between beastfolk and humans.

if it's just between two (or more) beastfolks, then yeah, 'traditional' courtship rituals are common.

in the present, it's a common understanding that the humans may not always understand their actions, so the beastfolk tends to adapt the best they could for 'the best of both worlds' kind of ritual—sometimes to the extreme mean though (lol).

for example, with the featheredfolks, for being a species with brittle bones, they're rather sturdy so they're often happy just living in a large treehouse and staying steady no matter the weather and season. it's more like an old cabin, with a lot of drafts. but, the thing is, neither (or more, i don't judge those in the poly relationships lol) would care, because the one doing the courting built it just for their love interest—and later built it better together for their upcoming new family members.

but for a featheredfolk genuinely interested in a human, would have to outright learn how to build a modern house—and that is far more complicated than just putting together a log cabin in the tree. they're very adaptive folks though and if they're sincere about the human, they'd go that far to at least attempt to build the foundation single-handedly. thankfully, the bird community is often tight-knit, so others would step in once the basic foundation is done and rally in.

(unlike our irl, everyone in that AU can at least afford some ways to build their own home and not be buried in the debts for the rest of their life. this is mainly because some specific beastfolks having an instinctive needs to build, that the common government would offer to offset some of the costs to abate those instincts from turning destructive.)

in their cases, even if the courting failed, the featheredfolk learned and can actually apply it to their lifeskill/career path/etc. for birdbrains, you'll see a lot of them in the engineering and architecture fields. (funny how that works!)

as you pointed out, yes, hoovedfolk and fangedfolk are more violent with their courting, but that's generally only in the cases where the love interest have more than one (alike) suitor vying for their affection. i'm not really sure how common that is in the more liberal areas tbf, but i do imagine it's a daily thing in the conservative/rural regions since those usually have a lot of, hm, predominant 'single-species' community? sorry, i'm not really sure how to word it.

since strength is what they consider their worth and humans rarely understand the point of physical violence, they'd probably show off what they're capable of instead—from lifting a car to carrying all the groceries at once for the human they're interested in. endurance too, so if the human is into, say, a sport or likes to run, they'd compete to show off just how good they are with either (though, i do like to think they'd carry their human on their back while running five more miles when the human gets tired--just to say, 'look at me! i'm not even tired yet and i'm carrying you!'). unlike the featheredfolks, fangedfolk and hoovedfolks are much milder about their courting.

whiskeredfolks are much more sly, but they like to show off how much they can provide (which is also something fangedfolk likes to do, but the former is often more subtle). usually involving money (and management) and ordering things their human hadn't realized they needed yet. things like that. they really likes to bring home food too, lol. since they can't exactly show off their hunting skills and bring home a bloodied deer carcass, providing is the next best thing with their human love interest.

there's more, but i'll stop here, but their courting rituals for their humans are basically 'modernized', with some species (obviously and hilariously so) trying harder than others.

tbf, parts of the birds' rituals were inspired by that tumblr meme on 'if men were like birds'. can't find that now though.

hope this answered you some?

Question:Revius and Zedrik- What’s family life with them now if you were to have 2 children (1 from each)? Just wondering how dynamics would change, what the children’s personalities would be like, etc. Sea Witch (octo man)- Can we have babies with him? And if we did would it be a multiple pregnancy since female octopuses (I know we are a modified human) technically lay hundreds of eggs. And how would family life be from there out? —anonymous

hm, i can't comment on the childrens personalities (and any other details, really) since that's kinda something i leave to the readers to decide.

honestly, both revius and zedrik would fall deeper in 'love' with their darling for enduring both of those difficult pregnancies, that they're rather clingy to them more so than to each other. though, granted, both knew how capable each other would be so it's more on how 'frail' their darling really is in comparison. zedrik is more openly emotional than revius is though, but revius is certainly more of the nagging type like a strict, doting mom might be. personally, i feel they'd butt heads more often after their children are born, (but never to the point of separating [imo anyway, they'd been together for some times before they decided to...'pursue' the darling]), because of how different their parenting styles were.

let's just say that cerelos' darling has an easier time wrangling with the emperor than their darling did with those two.

otherwise, they're both pretty devoted as fathers. i do imagine their kids would've been confused by their upbringings a bit though due to, again, differing parenting styles. the darling does their best though! but it's kinda hard to raise children double, triple your size lol

as for the sea witch, that's implied! i wanted to let the reader to decide on their own if they're going to have kids with him or not, rather than outright branding 'breeding kink' on the piece. but, yes, there'd be oviposition going on, had you wanted to imagine that storyline.

not sure if i understood you about the multiple pregnancies though, so i'll refrain from answering that one. instead, yes, the darling would probably carry multiple eggs and, well, egg laying. i do imagine the sea witch would've found a way to make that not at all a painful process (probably quite the opposite, tbf).

as for the family life, i'm...not at all sure. i'll leave that for you and other readers to decide. i honestly see the sea witch just enjoying the pregnancy, because to him, his darling is now ruined and marked with his seed (or, eggs). afterward? not sure if he'd enjoy the fatherhood too much, especially with multiple 8-legged kids running about.

he might be an excellent father

or he might genuinely be a shitty one.

his personality is kind of confusing in that regard, so i'll just let yall to make that call and we'll go from there.

I've really gotten into your beastfolk universe but I want to ask: Does adoxi exist within that universe or is he in a separate universe? —anonymous

nope! he's too human-looking to be a beastfolk--and is too healthy, pretty, and (mostly) sane to be a hybrid. thats why hes not in the beastfolk masterlist.

initially, he's from his own universe, where humans are living in ignorance of the existence of inhuman beings like adoxi, but i've been chewing on the possibly of him being a descendant of my other character, the cursed god. it'd explain why he's looking fairly human yet not (the 6 arms isn't genetically inheritable fyi, since the priest ripped them off from unfortunate souls to replace the ones he lost).

but that's only me chewing on it and isn't 'official' yet, since there are couple details that wouldn't make sense (but is workable). still thinking about it.

hope this answered!

God I love how you write snakemen like Adoxi and Valerius. They act like bastards but good lord I would get on my knees for them so fast! —anonymous

hee~snakes are so fun to write, ngl. imagining being wrapped around in his coil is a guilty pleasure. glad you're enjoying my depictions! <3

there's a few more, but they're requests i'm hoarding in my inbox for now lol but man who let me talk??? anyway, sorry that i took a minute to answer your asks hhhh life just keeps on happeningggg. sighs. anyway, hope yall are doing well and as always, my inbox is open for (mostly) anything. <3 love ya~and take care of yourself!

#ghosts are curious.👻#☠️not writing...#anonymous #asked #answered #☠️monster is whispering...#beastfolks #beastfolk #emperor cerelos #revius #zedrik #the witch #beastfolk au #worldbuilding #long post

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martyfromgiant · 2 years

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thinking about how pretty much every single show with lesbian representation has been cancelled or ended by the network in the last year. it hurts so fucking much to see shows being cancelled that have a huge fan base or killing off lesbian characters without a second thought. it’s not gay shows that are being canceled, no, it is wlw shows. mlm shows have continued to go on getting praise and renewals where shows like first kill, even though they’re cheesy and shitty, that have lesbian main characters one being a black woman and having a half black cast are cancelled. it had twice the viewing of shows like heartstopper, a show with two white gay men leads, that got renewed in the first few weeks of its release. even with netflix setting first kill up to fail by releasing it at the same time as huge shows like stranger things and umbrella academy, it still was a huge hit and had such a loving fan base.

the wilds with a lesbian main couple and diverse female cast literally centered around the concept of girl power. huge and dedicated fan base. cancelled. killing eve lesbian main characters one of them being sandra fucking oh that explores the dark side of ourselves while giving really good rep. one of the most dedicated fan bases i’ve seen. cancelled. and not just that, what could have so easily been a happy ending for the couple was ripped from us in the last five minutes right after the characters finally admitted feelings after four fucking seasons. one of them is murdered right in front of the other.

i can’t speak much to shows like everything sucks and the society because i haven’t bothered to watch them knowing they get cancelled. i don’t want to get attached to beautifully written and relatable characters for some big rich homophobic network to tell me no, no you can’t have this anymore. that’s happened too many times to me. right as the couple is happy and things are okay, one of them dies in front of the other like clexa, villaneve, dani and jamie from bly manor. some don’t even really get the opportunity to get to that point and others are just left with their relationship unfinished, with things left unsaid. and don’t even get me started on queer baiting.

yeah gay shows in general with good representation are fucking hard to come by but i’m sorry. mlm don’t face the same kind of hardships that wlw do. there’s a reason burying your lesbians became such a well known trope. because lesbians in shows die all of the fucking time for no good reason. i wish companies like netflix, hbo, and prime would stop fucking being cowards and admit the real reason they’re cancelling these shows. it’s not because they’re not being viewed enough or don’t have a strong fan base. it’s because they’re fucking lesbophobic i don’t want to hear anything else about it or any bullshit that it wasn’t a big enough hit. it may be the 21st century but lesbians aren’t magically equal even within the lgbtq community. the only place to get good representation these days is from fan made sources like fan fiction and fan art. made by people who understand how hard it is.

it’s where we get to see what we’ve always wanted to see, the characters we love, loving each other and being happy. we don’t have big writers scratching ideas because it “wouldn’t look good or be good for ratings”. we get a world where villanelle and eve lived happily ever after instead of villanelle dying in front of eves eyes and and floating into the abyss. not some bullshit from laura fucking neal who knows absolutely nothing about the characters we know telling us it’s what they felt was right. glad burying your lesbians feels right to people. but in our fan spaces we get to see villanelle make it out alive, we get to see them have a normal life and watch movies together. we also get to see and express what we feel is right with the fuck ton of queer coding in media. we get to see nancy and robin fall in love, emma and regina confess their feelings for one another, and any of the endless amount of amazing ships that we desire. there is a reason we flock to those spaces, it’s where we feel safe, seen, and where we feel like maybe one day we can have a relationship like that, to be loved like that. but it sometimes doesn’t make up for seeing it all play out endorsed by a company and written by people that actually care about representation and their viewers instead of just money. we all want to be loved and feel accepted and seen but sadly, because of the events of the last year, i’m not gonna hold my fucking breath.

sorry this is a lot, i’m just so fucking pissed

#killing eve #first kill #the wilds #once upon a time #netflix #wlw #fuck netflix #the haunting of bly manor

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lucy-moderatz · 9 days

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aceness and re-learning to read romance

this is long. just warning you.

For a good portion of this year, I thought I’d started to hate romance novels. They’ve never exactly been the focus of my reading, but since I’ve started reading regularly again, they’ve always been a feature. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed them. There are always duds, of course, but more and more over the last few months I just…haven’t been able to take them.

Tropes I used to like suddenly annoyed me. Writers I once really enjoyed flopped time and time again. Was it them? Was it me? I severely downsized my romance collection. There were some hits, for sure. But they were fewer and farther between. I started to have much better luck when I focused primarily on queer romances, where I saw far more success. But that left me with another question. Why?

We should all be reading queer stories. Sci-fi, fantasy, non-fiction, horror, every genre, every month, every year. That goes without saying. My sudden fixation of queer romances could have just been a desire to see stories told in a different way, from a different point of view, old tropes reimagined. But what about my queerness: my aceness. Did that have something to do with it?

My aceness goes like this: I do not want to have sex. I probably never have. I probably never will. That’s the base from which I operate. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to read about sex. That doesn’t mean I don’t love reading about sex. I do. I love a well-constructed, hot, dirty love scene between any two consenting adults who want to be there. That’s fun. Sex is fun, as long as it’s not happening to me.

However, a thought recently occurred to me that I haven’t been able to let go of: have I begun to gravitate away from, full disclosure, mostly heterosexual romances because they make me feel like sex is happening to me?

I know a common criticism that gets lobbed at the romance genre and romance readers by joyless morons is that it’s all wish-fulfillment and self-insert. That women imagine themselves in the place of the heroine and get off vicariously through that. That’s certainly not always true. And if it is true, so what? I read sci-fi novels to live vicariously through people who get to fly around in space. I read cozy fantasy to feel like I’m in a magical world where everything is safe and comfortable. Self-insert is a valid way to read, but since we apparently need to be policing women’s desires all the time, it’s something women have to defend themselves against all the time.

But this isn’t about how capital “W” women read. This is about how this lower case “w” woman reads, and how I come to a piece of work as an asexual/aromantic. I realize I may have been coming to the piece as if I am the woman in the piece. I’m now forced to be her. Which is difficult because more often than not, she wants to be there and I don’t. I don’t relate to her because I can’t relate to her. I wouldn’t give the male love interest a second chance because I don’t feel her feelings and I don’t know how. Therefore I get frustrated when she does because what’s the point? Living happily ever after? I’m happy now.

You see where this is a problem.

I am not the person in the book. But somehow, I have been reading romances, and I feel it is particular to romance, as if I am. With queer romances, particularly ones where there are no female love interests (and those are, for the most part, the ones I inevitably picked) there’s a built-in defense against that. Against the uncomfortable feeling of being unable to separate myself from the female protagonist, from her choices feeling like mine, and her desires being completely antithetical to mine. I find myself liking those books a much higher rate more because I feel inherently set apart in a way I suppose I no longer feel in most heterosexual romances. It's just a book again.

I don’t think we’re taught to read this way. Maybe subliminally, I don’t know. I know not everyone reads this way. I know that “this has nothing to do with me, these people are not real, let’s see all of the fun things they do” is the way, probably, most people come to a book. I just never realized, when it came to romance, maybe I wasn’t one of them. Maybe I didn’t know to have that barrier up. Maybe I didn’t know it would end up bothering me so much.

I told my Dad I was asexual because I was reading a book and two characters were having a conversation and suddenly, or at least suddenly it seemed to me, one character began thinking they were sexually attracted to the person they were talking to. In the middle of the conversation. I was just…annoyed. Baffled and annoyed. Because here we were again. This was not a romance book. This was a mermaid and a human talking about some heavy stuff and then there it was. I felt slammed into. By this feeling I don’t get, this thought I’ve never had, that every single person seemed to have but me. I’d been thinking about asexuality, reading about it, talking with friends, asking myself, “Is this me? Is that why I don’t feel these things? Should I tell him? What will he think? I can’t not tell him. I can’t not tell someone. He loves me. He’ll understand.”

He did, by the way. They all did. I was lucky.

So. I haven’t had long to test this theory. I just finished my first heterosexual romance in a long time, and though there were very few sex scenes, I went into it with the thought, “This has nothing to do with me. Let’s have some fun.” And I did. I can’t promise they’ll all be like that. I don’t know if it matters if they are. They’re just books. But I wanted to reflect on this part of myself, this journey into what being ace means for me, how being more aware of it and accepting it as part of my identity, part of how I intrinsically think and approach the world, may change, may expand, how I approach everything.

I’ll never stop reading queer romance. It’s not a shield, I’d never treat it that way. I just hope that I’ll now be able to approach all romance the way I have always approached queer romance, as it’s own piece of art to be judged and evaluated on its own merits, as a story about people completely separate from me who happen to want relationships and like sex and will live happily ever after.

After all, I’m already happy now.

#okay #i just had to get that out #you don't have to read really #i just needed it out of my head #ace ace baby

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pxrxcxa · 2 years

Text

Opposite Ends

Chapter Ten - Doomed love

C1 | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | C6 | C7 | C8 | C9 | C11 | C12 | C13 pt1 | C13 pt 2 |

Chapter Eleven is out now, enjoy Sunflowers x 🌻

Pairing | Eddie x Female reader 18+. Steve x Robin x Female reader platonic friendship

Series summary | Dustins older sister got brought into the group during the events of Starcourt mall, 3 months on she's in her senior year and the kids are starting high school. After everything that went down she feels that she has to keep them safe at all costs, that includes keeping them way from the charismatic 'freak' Eddie Munson that runs a club based on their favourite game. They've both hated each other since freshman year -with good reason-, but when keeping distance between the kids and Eddie means putting herself in the firing line, boundaries get blurred, intentions get lost & the heart speaks louder than the brain.

The story is told from both Y/N & Eddies point of view.

What to expect | Slow burn enemies to lovers, Angst - with a happy ending (fix-it-fic if you will), fluff & smut (in the later chapters). 18+ to read this story.

Series Warnings | Mentions of abuse, drug use, 18+ smut content

Chapter word count | 9 K Word Count

Chapter warnings | Nothing too out there in this chapter

As always, any & all comments/reblogs are most appreciated - Thankyou, P. x 🌿

Authors Note | Again thank you for your patience, and as always thank you for reading! I did have to split this chapter up because we had a 20 k + word count but that's great news because 11 will be out in a couple of days! On top of everything else I had some pretty serious writers block but Im back & better than ever - at least I think so, let me know what you all think!

Eddie | March 1986

I didn’t walk around Hawkins with the intention of having my guard up all the time against almost everyone, it had just happened. When the entitled, judgemental residents of the town had taken one look at my ripped jeans, listened to the metal music blasting from my van and watched the fantasy game that my DnD club played that they deemed as ‘satanic’, and decided that I wasn’t worth more than the dirt beneath their shoes, it hadn’t exactly shaped me into a model citizen.

But the feeling of being an outcast my entire life had sat fine with me; I had no interest in anyone in the small town I’d grown up in. They were all carbon copies of their parents, and their parents before them, there wasn’t anyone worth being interested in.

Until she came along.

Henderson had strutted into my life like I didn’t have a choice, knocking down every single solid wall I’d spent years building up like they were made of feathers, even before she turned them into dust with each glance of her bright eyes and a hint of her sweet smile that she threw in my direction, she had been unconsciously destroying them with every death stare and exasperated sigh, breaking me down with every addictive movement of her.

She was meant for me, every hate filled eyeroll and love filled smile was ingrained on my soul in marks that would last a lifetime.

I’d never stood a chance.

I never thought I would find myself completely and utterly consumed by another until I found her, or perhaps it was the other way around and she’d found – no saved - me.

She’d taken my hand and led me out of the darkness of my own corruption and showed me that, whatever our souls are made of, however they were shaped from the loud, hurtful world around us…

…hers and mine were the same, broken halves of the same blooming whole.

I’d loved her from the moment I’d met her, I just hadn’t known it yet.

And now I was never going to be able to tell her.

In the three months since running into her at the Hideout, when we had both been trying to drown our sorrows over each other, we’d spent almost every day inseparable from each other. There had been a regular post-school afternoon once at my trailer when I had almost told her I loved her, and then I had been dying to tell her every day since.

“You’re an idiot Eddie Munson.” She laughed, smacking her hands against my bare chest as I nestled into the crook of her neck, tickling her through the thin sheets twisted between us.

“Unfortunately for you, I’m your idiot.” She wriggled under my arms as I found her sweet spot, making her beg for mercy as I rolled over and pulled her on top of me. The setting sun that shone through my bedroom window sparkled magnificently in her hair, bringing out vibrant colours that weren’t usually there. The glittering sunlight brightened around her silhouette as a light breeze ruffled the stray whispers of hair falling into her face, furthering my suspicion that she was an angle.

As she laid naked, pressed against me, she certainly had the angelic look to pull it off.

“And I am entirely okay with that.” Resting her chin forward on my chest so that I had to tuck mine to still stare into her eyes, she pouted attractively.

“How did we get here?” I breathed into the warm air, my thoughts falling back to us in our first Calculus class at the beginning of my third and her first senior year. “I used to hate you; you know.” I couldn’t ever remember or even fathom myself feeling any type of way that wasn’t absolute reverence towards the perfect creature in my hands.

“If I remember correctly Munson, the feeling was extremely mutual.” Her smile was wide and carefree, her body pressed into me in criminal ways as her frame shook with laughter. Everything about y/n healed my soul, and although my only vice was weed, I was no stranger to the occasional dangerous party drug, but even their temptations cowered in the hulking shadows of Y/n's etherealness.

“College will still be there y’know?” I blurted out suddenly, tightening my arms around her as the thought of losing her punctured my chest painfully.

“What do you mean?” Her brows furrowed in confusion cutely, I smoothed the creases with my thumb as I traced light patterns along her spine.

“Come with me.” I stated, a sense of peace flowing over me as I realised it to be the only thing I would truly ever want, I’d been a fool to think I could walk away from her now, only three months in and she already had me willing to stalk the ends of the earth for her, God knows what kind of state she’d have me in by the end of the school year.

“Be serious.” She scoffed; her eyes searched my face for a glimmer of falseness.

“I am. Everywhere. Travel. We’ll travel everywhere, and we’ll fuck in every state and take a photo of it! I don’t want to forget a single moment with you.” I pressed my lips against hers ferociously, pulling away when her moans became too distracting, refusing to let our conversation be derailed.

“Come with me… please. A year or two, it won’t make a difference.” I begged, letting my excitement flare on my face, not even contemplating the very real possibility of her saying no.

“Okay.” She didn’t miss a beat, determination and excitement reflecting in her own features now as I pulled back, shocked.

“Really?” I laughed disbelievingly, doubting that I had earned the right kind of karma to have y/n in my life.

“Don’t give me a chance to change my mind Edward.” She warned, rolling to the side as she slipped from my arms, pulling my Hellfire t-shirt over her loose hair. I bit my cheek as I watched her strut over to my desk, my shirt barely covering her perfect ass as she bent down to retrieve the bud stashed away in the top draw.

“How are you real?” I asked, watching carefully as she sat back into my desk chair, rolling a fat joint for the both of us between her deft fingers, waiting for her perfect form to burst into a cloud of air.

“Don’t I feel real?” She laughed.

“Incredibly.” I shot back, wiggling my brows suggestively.

“You are damn near perfection” I promised and laughed as she broke off into a giggle.

“Near?” She gasped; feigning being hurt over my careless words.

“Well until you’re in my arms again how can I ever be sure you’re real?” I held them back out for her expectantly, but she dropped the rolling paper as she gasped out in pain this time. I flew from the bed instantly, tearing the sheets out of my way as I stumbled in my haste to get to her.

“Another one?” I murmured concerningly, watching her face contort as she pressed her fists into her temples. She’d been getting relentless headaches, their appearances increasing over the last few weeks. The only thing that seemed to help was when I played my guitar for her, I already had my hand outstretched towards my acoustic one when her nails traced the skin on my arm.

“I’m okay, this one wasn’t too bad” She smiled, placing her warm, soft palm against my cheek before turning away to re roll the joint. Even though she’d touched me a thousand times, the feeling of her still shot hot, fiery needs of desire and nerves through me.

I needed her, and not in a sexual or even romantic way, I needed y/n like I need air to breathe, she was the only one who had walked into my life where I hadn’t spent a second worrying that she was about to walk right back out of it. Even my uncle Wayne, I still had nights where I woke up in a panic that I would find he had abandoned me like the rest of my family, but the suffocating thought never crossed my mind with y/n.

She was my rock in a raging storm, the safe embrace of warm sheets after a hard day, the only arms that brought me comfort when the hate from our peers bit down through my metal exterior just a little too deep.

Y/n saw me for who I truly was, scars and all, and still thought I was worth something.

The most powerful, knee buckling feeling of affection rushed through me, and without thinking I opened my mouth.

“I lo-“ I coughed as her eyes swung up to me, her cheeks reddening as instantly as mine.

“Stay?” I amended, hoping she could hear the weight and meaning behind the single word.

She laughed, like she knew what I had started to say, but chickened out at the last second, not wanting to ruin the most perfect moment of my life.

“Always.” Her smile dropped as she stared back intently at me, walking over to place my head between her hands so I couldn’t turn away from her, she pressed her delectable lips against mine softly, pulling back slowly to wipe the unlawful tear away that brimmed at the corner of my eye.

“Always Edward.”

But as y/n had put it, I’d been stupid enough to believe her.

Those words, the entire night, every single moment shared between us had been ripped away from my rose-tinted glasses as my ring tumbled from her fingers onto the field, holding me rooted to the cold grass as she sloshed away from me and jumped into Jason Carvers truck. The painful sight had sent me spiralling after her once I figured out how to get my legs to work again, anger shot through me as I patted my jacket pockets for my keys as I sprinted across the field, finding them flat and empty.

By the time I tore through the empty school corridors back into the drama room and found my discarded keys sitting on the tabletop, the parking lot was dark and empty, no trail of y/n or any of the basketball team.

Even for my standard, I drove like a mad man to the nearest pay phone, smoothing out a crumpled piece of paper with y/n's loopy writing on it, Steve Harringtons number scribbled across the aged piece from her notebook.

“For emergency’s.” She’d smiled, slipping it into my glove box, at the time I had suspected her of just wanting Eddie the freak and Steve the hair Harrington to become friends, but whatever her reasoning, I was grateful for it now.

Even when I’d fallen from the roof of my uncles trailer at the tender age of ten playing air guitar, snapping my arm in the process, that didn’t even come close on the emergency scale compared to y/n disappearing with Carver.

The phone rang three times before someone picked it up.

“Harrington.” I breathed.

“Uh yeah…? Who’s this.”

“It’s Eddie.”

There was a loaded pause.

“Eddie Munson.” I gritted through my teeth, as I lightly banged my fist against the glass backing of the payphone box.

“Yeah. I got that, there’s only one Eddie Munson in Hawkins after all.”

I sighed heavily into the phone as unwanted thoughts of what Jason could be doing right that second consumed me.

“What’s up?” Steve’s voice was cautious as he waited for my answer.

“Y/n.” My voice dropped off as I stuttered over her name, cowering over the phone box as her words echoed in my mind.

“Y/n? Is she okay? What’s wrong? Where is she?” His voice raised an annoying octave with each question.

“She’s with Carver, she’s not safe, find her.” I slammed the receiver as I stumbled from the payphone, ripping my cigarettes from my pocket as I jogged towards my van. A long shadow crossed across my vision and the dimly lit carpark; I pulled my lighter away from my face as I squinted into the darkness.

Chrissy Cunningham had skipped out of the shadows next to the closed convenience store, she had her hands clutched together in front of her cheer skirt and her face gleamed from panicked sweat as she asked me in a hushed whisper despite that we were alone, the nearest soul probably a mile away, for something no ‘Good suburban girl” should even know about.

I wasn’t proud of it and given the situation I’d landed myself right after I’d invited her to my trailer, it had been the worst decision of my life.

But seeing her in her cheer uniform with her pom poms dangling by her side, an image of her holding hands with Jason in their matching Hawkins teams uniforms after the school pep rally this morning had flashed in my mind, and the urge to hurt Jason the same way he’d got to me, surged through me in a blinding, white, hot stab.

Feeding hardcore drugs to his innocent, preppy girlfriend had seemed like the perfect start, and after Chrissy admitted that she followed me from the school to find some reprieve from 'loosing her mind', she had smiled cautiously, but still trustingly as I pulled open my passenger side door for her and slipped inside.

Y/N | March 1986

“If only we could just, like, combine.” Robin intertwined her fingers as she leant against the poster across from me, I was seated on the three-legged stool behind the counter, my knees pressed to my chest as I rested my chin on them, holding a wet bag of ice to my head.

“Combine?” Steve raised his eyebrows at her questioningly, sliding the last of the returned tapes back into their place on the shelves as he joined Robin. I had been put on checkout duty, though I’d mostly spent our shift at Family Video quietly withering away in the corner. There hadn’t been too many customers this morning considering it was a Saturday, and Robin saved me from most of them anyway, leaving me to revel in my pounding hangover and the sickening memories from yesterday that plagued me.

Robin and Steve had both offered to cover for me at work, saying that it was okay if I needed to take some time for myself. They’d both shut their mouths when I’d glared at them, ripped Robins front door open and stormed past them towards Steve’s car, yelling out behind me that I would be in the back seat waiting to go to work.

After what I’d seen last night, when I had torn myself from Max’s couch, tearing across the living room as I tried to escape, drunkenly beating on Steve’s chest when he tried to hold me back. I had begged him to take me away, with hot tears streaming down my frozen cheeks as I collapsed on the gritty carpet. Steve held me as I fell to pieces, the weight of everything baring down on me relentlessly. A nearby lamp post flickered unnervingly as Steve had draped his jacket over my slumped shoulders as he helped me walk back to his car, while I pointedly avoided looking across from Max's trailer, afraid of what I'd see.

I couldn’t stand to face any of the consequences of what happened yesterday, the excruciating headaches and tormenting visions that came with them, my choice to drink the pain away with the basketball team and what Jason attempted or seeing Eddie with Chrissy at his trailer.

So when I woke up blearily in Robins bed this morning, with her and Steve watching me worriedly from the doorway, I had pretended that I couldn’t remember anything apart from ending things with Eddie on the field, quickly slipping between them towards the overtly pink bathroom as they tried to bombard me with inane questions, the steaming hot water that burned my skin hadn’t been enough to drown out their half-whispered fight behind the door as they argued over what they thought happened.

Eddie owed me no loyalty after what I’d done; but I had never felt more gutted than when I realised he had meant a whole lot more to me than I to him, how easy it had been for him to move on with another warm body, how easily interchangeable I was for him when he had been irreplaceable to me.

A whirlwind of emotions wrecked me. I felt devastated one moment and angry the next. My broken heart was coursing feelings of shame, doubt, confusion, and anxiety through me.

But no words were grand enough to describe what I was really feeling when thoughts of him trickled into my mind, sending great whips of agony to lap at my raw skin as I buckled over on the tiled shower floor.

I had ended things with Eddie and smashed both our hearts with my cruel words. They’d burned fiercer than the whiskey as they fell from my lips, each false word sending a new lash of pain across his face as we stood on the school field. I had almost gone back on my choice when he’d begged me to stay, the double subtext behind the word held it's on meaning between us. The true rawness of his pain crippled me, but the quick flash of the blazing headache that flickered behind my eyes had reminded me of what I’d seen in the school bathroom, and that my broken heart wasn’t anywhere near as important as Eddie, I needed him safe. It was better if he was heartbroken and alive, rather than the alternative he was guaranteed to succumb to if he continued to be a part of my cursed life.

That knowledge hadn’t kept my heart from ripping itself apart inside of me though.

I had to keep myself distracted, because if I stopped then I started to think about things; things like Chrissy walking up those steps, him inviting her into his trailer, opening the door for her like he’d done for me a hundred times. His hands tracing across her skin in the same patterns -

I was going to scream.

I slipped from my chair and started fiddling with a stack of receipts on the counter. I looked up as Robins heavy footsteps slapped against the floor as she ran past the register, her dark green work blazer flapping wildly as she spun around with a wide smile and snatched up a new tape.

“Doctor Zhivago.” My gaze flickered over to Steve’s as he rolled his eyes and stood up straight from where he leaned against the wall.

“Ugh, you know I don’t do double VHS.” Despite my black mood, I grinned as he waved his hands in dismay at her choice for our morning movie.

“But it’s about doomed love.” She held it up to her chest as her eyes puckered up in a puppy like state, I dropped mine to the tapes in my hands as my knees crumbled, her words sending an agonizing stab of invisible pain through me.

“Oh well that’s relatable.” Steve mumbled as he grabbed the tape trolley.

“Precisely.” Robin smiled, clasping it tighter to her chest.

I flattened myself against the counter as they both walked around it to join me, anger at their obliviousness surged through me as Robin continued to chatter aimlessly. I loved my only two, age-appropriate friends dearly, but their similar tactless ignorance was too much even for me at times.

“Also, Julie Christie is b-b-bonkers hot in this. Like seriously, the most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my life.” Steve rolled the trolly into the corner by our gumball machine as Robin snatched up the TV remote, I busied myself by drumming my fingers along the outdated computers keyboard as I waited for the monitor to roar to life.

“We’re in the Forest Hills trailer park in east Roane County.” A deadly shiver shot down my spine and something evil enough to scare the devil churned in my mind as the words from the reporter crackled from the speakers. A strange mixture of knowing panic and relief settled in my chest as I turned to look at fuzzy screen with the others, like I’d been waiting for something terrible to happen and it had finally arrived.

“We don’t have a lot of details now, but we can confirm that the body of a Hawkins High student was discovered early this morning. Police have not released the name..."

I didn’t need the name. I knew, I’d always known.

I had been too late, I’d been too selfish and given in to my basic human desires, it didn’t matter that it had been virtually impossible to stay away from Eddie, like there was something stronger than fate weaving our paths together, because now whatever brutal and fatal incident had happened at the trailer park, had pulled him into the cursed series of events that my friends and I were branded to never escape from.

All because I wasn’t strong enough to stop loving a boy I wasn’t supposed to so that I could keep him safe.

I gripped the side of the counter as blood rushed to my head, my body swayed dangerously as an ocean of blackness lapped at my consciousness, offering sanctuary as the glaring images from yesterday came to life before my eyes, the vision of Eddie’s lifeless body threatened to choke me as bile rose in my throat.

“Holy shit.” Steve moved closer into Robin as her eyes darted across the screen in shock, watching the older, dark-haired report deliver the news that was about to smash my world apart.

“Max…” She whispered, shame pulsed through me that her name had not been the first one I’d panicked and worried over, a double shot of frenzied terror shot through our group as I pictured sweet, passionate, fiery Max taking Eddie’s place in my mind, her luminous pale skin turning a sickly white in death.

The TV distorted in my vision as the blackness fought my last remaining feeble strings of hope, winning out as my knees collapsed onto the bristly carpet beneath us.

Eddie | March 1986

A trucks horn blared out as I dashed across the cracked road into the thick bush on the other side. My hair tangled with leaves and broken branches stung my eyes as my legs hammered into the uneven ground faster than they ever had before as I tore deeper and deeper into the woods. I hadn’t stopped running for hours, no straight thought in my mind except to run away from that.

I crouched down and curled over my knees against a flaky tree trunk to catch my breath as the heady silence of the trees pounded down on my eardrums, sweat dripping down my brow mixed with my tears and stung my eyes. I buried my head into my balled up fists until I was pressing hard enough on my eyes that I saw distorted shapes behind my darkened lids as I tried to shove away the images flashing though my mind like a horror movie.

It wasn’t enough.

The shapes soon turned into thin, pale snapped limbs; a sickening cracking echoed around the empty woods as hysterical sobs wracked my chest. I pulled at my hair frantically, trying to drown out the mental pain with physical. I flinched as a flock of birds soared over the canopy of green leaves above me, I turned to side as I fell forward on my hands, sharp rocks and stick scratching into my palms as I heaved, my loose hair fell around my face in curls as I breathed through my mouth. The rich smell of the damp earth invaded my mind as I bunched up my hands, watching the dirt squeeze through my fingers as I tried to ground myself, shivering as a light wet mist started to fall, unable to escape the past twenty-four hours that had been torturous and downright unbelievable.

I was in hell.

I had to be, there wasn’t any sane reason for what I had seen.

Unless I was crazy, maybe everyone that had ever call me freak was right, maybe I’d imagined it.

As the image of Chrissy’s shaking body slowly rising into the air, snapping into gruesome angles under an invisible force played over in my mind, I leant forward to press my face into the coolness of the ground beneath me. I’d been pretty great at creating fake scenarios for my clubs DnD campaigns, but the sounds of her bones cracking and the bloodied empty sockets where her eyes should have been, was beyond anything I was capable of conjuring up.

Comically – given my current situation and what happened with her yesterday –my thoughts flashed to y/n, my panic and worry for her was stronger than for myself right now, pathetically ironic since she had made it clear that I was nothing, that I meant nothing to her. I clenched my eyes shut and pressed my dirty palms to my forehead as tried to keep the images of her at bay, I’d rather face what happened in my trailer last night again then think about what she said, and how she’d looked at me on the field.

It would have been easier to.

I still couldn’t help but wonder if Steve had taken me seriously, he wasn’t my biggest fan but the previously douche jock did seem to be a genuine friend to y/n and I hoped he’d heard the panic in my voice and had enough sense after my phone call to track her down and make sure she was okay.

Even if what she had said to me, as her words tore me apart, was true, and there was no real feelings behind her actions the last couple of months towards me – my heart and eyes squeezed together as a wave of pain washed over me – that didn’t mean that there was anything but genuineness in my own behaviour, I had opened and bared my soul to y/n in a way no one else alive had ever seen.

I still cared about her.

I probably always would.

No matter what reasons lingered behind her cruel words to me, I wasn’t going to let her go off drinking with the guy that she had told me tried to attack her months earlier.

Or maybe I just didn’t know her as well as she knew me, I wondered what she would think when she saw the news this morning, would she instantly believe and know that I wasn’t the one who hurt Chrissy?

Would she even care?

And it was that thought that kept me running, because if I couldn’t even believe it why the hell would anyone else? As far as the narrow minded, straight path Hawkins residents were concerned, I was a satanic, devil worshipping, trailer trash, no good teenager and our High schools ‘It Girl’ was dead, crumpled gruesomely on my trailers living room floor.

Something clattered to my left, I sprung up and slammed into the tree as I shuffled back on my hands, my chest heaving as I stared at the rodent sniffing around for food in the grass a few paces from me. The terrified scream locked in my throat as its' confused, beady eyes met my scared ones, died as I realised it was just a wild animal and not a vigilante group hell bent on finding me.

I leapt up and took off again as distant horns hooted angrily in rapid succession from the main road, sending myself flying further into the disorientating clutches of the forest as my jacket flew out behind me in the whipping wind.

My feet that shuffled uncertainly first in one direction, sped up with purpose as the reflective surface of Lovers Lake glinted in the far-off distance.

Y/N | March 1986

Déjà vu hit me like a tonne of rocks as I sat against the back wall behind the counter on the grainy floor, the red-tinged luminous Family Video sign flickered above me. I sat with my legs pressing into the rough carpet beneath me as Robin rubbed my back and asked me if I was going to hurl, her voice sounded thick and far away as she turned to where Steve leaned against the counter still watching the news as her palm rubbed warm circles into my skin. As I breathed through my mouth to ease the nausea, I wondered if monstrous events were going to become an annual occurrence for me, but I guess it didn’t matter.

Because I didn’t think I’d survive this one.

Not if it involved Eddie.

Robin’s head snapped up, but I hung mine further into my hands as the store’s bell rung out loudly, the new arrivals slammed both doors open against the walls with a surrounding bang.

“Hey Steve!” I looked up at Dustin’s voice from the front of the store, dread coursing through me at the expressions on his and Max’s face. She had an open flannel over the navy sweater I’d seen her in last night and her wild red hair thrown up in a loose ponytail, Dustin was dressed similarly but just on the opposite colour spectrum, sporting his ironic blue and white ‘thinking cap’. I hurried to my feet as Max’s eyes landed on me, guilt plastering her face as she tried to avoid my stare.

“You guys seen this?” Steve shuffled uncomfortably as Robin moved to sit on the stool behind the counter as they both looked at Max in relief, neither of them voicing their solace in seeing that she wasn’t the unnamed dead student.

Self-reproach wracked me as the same comfort did not fill me, my eyes only on my brother and my thoughts on the man we both cared for too much about as Dustin spied me behind the counter.

“Y/n.” He gulped, his eyes flashing over my dark under eyes from crying all night; sleep had been well missed stranger to me for a while now.

“Do you know where Eddie is?” I dug my nails into my palms hard enough to draw blood, my worst fears coming to light. I couldn’t speak as I opened and closed my mouth several more times, no sound except a gutted gasp escaping from it as my eyes flew to Max’s.

I shook my head as I began to shake, waiting for the crushing blow I was sure he was about to deliver to me.

“Come on y/n, you have to have some idea of where he is.” My voice failed me as my lips mouthed around the word no, Dustin snapped his head away in annoyance and turned back to Steve.

“How many phones do you have?” He pleaded, laying his hands flat against the counter as he hunched over it, I looked between the two freshmen as an air of urgency and fear filled the air around us.

“Someone was murdered.” Steve ignored him, pointing at the tv that had the images of a crime scene flashing across it, I squeezed my eyes shut as I recognised the background.

“How many phones do you have.” He drawled out, his voice raising louder with each word as Max fiddled impatiently beside him. Steve’s head swung around to lock eyes with me over his strange request, confusion reflected in my gaze as well.

What did this have to do with Eddie?

“Uh two. Why?” His brow furrowed as he turned back to them, with slow movements I walked to stand behind Steve, watching erratic thoughts spin in Dustin’s eyes.

“Technically three if you count Keith’s in the back.” Robin piqued up, jamming her thumb over her shoulder as she pointed to our managers office behind us.

The others shared a confirming glance between them. “Yeah three works.” Max turned to Dustin, nodding ferociously as he slid his bulky backpack from his shoulders.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked apprehensively as I tensed, Dustin slammed the bag down on the counter.

“What are you-“ Steve yelled as he slid his bag across the tabletop and onto the ground below it.

“My pile!” Robin jumped up from her chair and slammed into me as my brother launched himself onto the counter.

“No no no! My tapes! Dude.” Steve grabbed his hair as Dustin’s feet swept the pile of movies into a loud clattering mess as he scrambled towards the computer.

“What are you doing man?” Steve whined, throwing his hands up angrily in the air. Max snuck around the corner of the square counter to join him as he plopped down in front of the computer, rapidly firing away as his fingers stroked the keys at lightning speed.

“Setting up base of operations here.” Robin peeked up at the screen as he typed madly away, absentmindedly handing me one of the scattered tapes as we both bent down to pick them up.

“Base of operations?” Robin repeated, shooting Dustin a quizzical look.

“Stop. Get off of that.” Steve tried to usher Dustin from the seat as Max stared over his shoulder intently at the names scrawling across the screen.

“No I need it.” He shot back, flexing his fingers in irritation.

“Need it for what?” Steve grumbled, sounding awfully like a tired parent.

“Looking up Eddie’s friends phone numbers.” He explained, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. My neck snapped up from the pile of tapes I had stacked in my hands, slamming them down on the counter at Eddie’s name.

“Oh Eddie your new best friend because he’s so much cooler than me.” Steve replied immaturely.

“Ehhh yes.” Dustin swung his head around on his shoulders in frustration at Steve’s childish antics. “I never said that.” He exclaimed.

“Dustin.” I whispered, but my voice got lost as the store phone rung in a loud shrill.

“Seriously you guys maybe on a Monday you can play around in here like toddlers, but it’s Saturday. It’s our busiest day.” Robin slammed her own pile down next to mine as she bent up to pick up a sign that Dustin had kicked off the counter.

“Dustin.” I tried again, turmoil boiling within me as my mind ran rampant, Eddie’s face contorted in different types of pain burned behind my eyelids.

“Look Robin, I totally empathise but this cannot wait until Monday.” He spun back in the chair as he ripped a notebook from his pocket, frantically scribbling down something as he stared as the computer screen.

“Oh my God.” Steve mumbled, rubbing his face as he bent down to pick up more stuff scattered on the floor.

“What, because calling all of Eddie’s friends is an emergency?” Robin shot back.

“Correct.” Dustin yelled. Max turned to look at me as she felt me move behind her.

“You want me to strangle him? Or do you wanna do it?” Steve offered to Robin as he helped her return things to their rightful place.

“We could take turns.” She smirked.

“Dustin!” I yelled, slamming my hand down next to Max and making her jump.

I knew something was seriously wrong when my brother refused to meet my eyes, his brows puckered as he dropped the notebook in front of him and pointed his pencil over his shoulders at us.

“Can you just fill them in while I do this?” He aimed his words at Max, so I turned to her expectantly, so did Robin and Steve. A rage filed scream filed my throat as her stare met mine, pity and sorrow reflected in her blue eyes as her lips quivered, hesitating on the edge of words that were about cut through me like a rusty, serrated knife.

“Fill us in on what?” Robin questioned, her gaze flicking between our faces as dread filled mine and guilt clouded Max’s.

Eddie | March 1986

I sped past the front door of the house nestled by the glistening blue water, the darkened windows and dusty front porch giving off an air of neglect and headed straight for the boat house hidden down the back of Reefer Ricks property, I swung my head to the sides as I sprinted down the uneven slope.

Even out here, miles away from the nearest suburban household, I felt like there were eyes on me. I slammed my hands against the white sheet metal of the unlocked door, barrelling through it and spinning back to slam it shut.

My breathing was heavy as I rushed to the grimy window, gripping the sides as my bulky rings strained against my skin painfully, I peeked through the smears of dirt and dust into the empty surrounding woods, the blaring sunlight filtered down through new spring trees, shining far too much exposure onto my scarcely hidden position for my liking. I slumped over the windowsill as my breathing slowed, clutching at the stich in my side. The small boat suspended in air over the hole in the middle of the floor that dropped off into the lake, held by four chains attached to each corner, creaked eerily as a cool breeze flowed in from the still water outside, the reflection of its' depths danced across the walls in a dizzying pattern.

A pungent off smell surround the boat house from the life jackets and fishing gear hung up around the walls, I swept my hands across the rough wooden benches that lined the far wall across from me as my stomach rumbled, pushing piles of crap and junk onto the floor carelessly as I searched for some kind of weapon.

Something.

Anything.

I scoffed to myself as I pulled a warm pack of beer from beside the turned off old fridge in the corner, out of date snack bars layered in dust, packed behind it.

Yeah, it’ll have to do.

The glass bottle slipped through my fingers and split into a thousand shards as something screed behind me, I flung around and fell back against the grainy wood bench, swinging my head wildly towards to source until I spotted the Bald Eagle soaring over the reflective blue water as it dived, it’s wings spread wide as it dipped and flew in spectacular patterns. I walked over slowly to the edge of the open window, my thoughts moving to my Uncle Wayne.

They were his favourite birds; he’d always come home with a new random fact about them, his face bright with excitement as he shoved his favourite nature book under my nose as we sat at our dingy dinner table eating a five-star microwaved meal.

“You know kid, they mostly eat fish?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, follow a Bald Eagle and you’ll never go hungry.”

I coughed as a desperate sob racked my body, bending over to grab my knees as my heart clenched for my Uncle, wishing he was here with me now, torn between not wanting to be alone in this mess but praying to a God I definitely didn’t believe in or at least, - didn’t have a good relationship with – that divine fate had intervened, and my uncle didn’t return home this morning from his shift to find what drove me out last night. My hands trembled as panic consumed me, imagining what he must have thought when he found the bloody, crumpled mess that used to be Chrissy.

Would he think it was me? No, he knew me better than almost everyone. He must have called the cops by now; he had to be worried about me. Once my name was dragged into this there would be hell to pay, a fury of uniform clad search parties out for my head.

I wondered if there’d be anyone on the opposite side of that, out looking to help me. My uncle definitely, My Hellfire club maybe. Though I couldn’t imagine anyone or anything able to stop whatever did that to Chrissy.

My thoughts flashed to Henderson as I watched the Eagle soar low over water’s edge, disappearing into the orange horizon as the sun quickly set. Jealously floored me as I wished for my own pair of strong wings to fly me away from this mess.

Like a rabid animal, I shot up and dived under the damp blue tarp covering the rusty boat, rapidly spreading it over me to cover my sneakers as the far-off sound of tires spinning over gravel made its way towards the boathouse.

Y/N | March 1986

“Have you seen or heard from Eddie recently?” Dustin paced back and forth in front of me as he pressed the phone harder into his ear. The world around me passed in a blur as my thoughts consumed me.

Chrissy Cunningham dead in Eddie’s trailer.

Eddie missing or worse.

I had nearly torn poor Max’s arms off as I gripped her shoulders, leveling my face with hers as I made her repeat what she said, she had to tell me three times that she had seen him leave – alive – before I collapsed back against the stool behind the counter in relief.

Steve, Robin and I had all stood wordless as a cold tremor ran though the three of us as Max spoke about the electrical problems at the trailer park and what her and Dustin thought that meant.

I didn’t think that I would ever feel relieved to hear that the upside down and the monsters within it were wracking havoc on Hawkins in again, but relief flowed through me that they thought and agreed that it had to be something supernatural because there was no way Eddie had hurt Chrissy.

Alive but on the run. Thing could be a lot worse. I bit at my raw nails beds, my ringers tracing the ghost of Eddie’s ring that no longer sat on my finger as I impatiently sat and listened to the three phone calls happening around me, I had been dismissed from my list of names to ring, Robin gently tugging the phone from my hand with a small, pitiful smile as I shook like a leaf in the wind.

“Eddie Munson.” Max sped past me in the other direction to Dustin.

“When was the last time you talked to him?” Dustin sighed and crossed another long shot name off the short list.

“Yeah have you seen him?” Max quipped.

“Okay, sorry to bother you” Dustin slammed his receiver down and reached for another number.

“Know anyone who’d know where he is?” Max groaned, her eyes snapping up to meet mine as I fiddled and leaned in closer to hear the irritated voice on the other line.

“I reallyyy don’t think he’s at the arcade.” Robin grabbed the phone dial and held it to her chest, walking over to the other side of the counter. “Yep, I’m pretty sure.” I sighed and pressed my lips together as she looked up at me in disappointment.

“Reefer Rick? No. Does this Reefer Rick have a last name? I mean, it’s kind of…” Max jogged over to the blank notebook in front of the register, waving her hand around as she tried to drag the information out from the person on the other end of the call.

“Doctor Zhivago.” Steve strutted past me on the other side of the counter as he weaved his way through the isles of stacked movie, the double VHS tape held up in his hand as he smirked as the customer – she was what both he and Robin would have described as a ‘babe’. I huffed and slipped from the chair, ignoring his antics as I watched Max scribble something down madly, peeking over her shoulder to make out her messy handwriting.

She slammed the phone down and turned to the me watching her with a hopeful expression. “Hey guys, I might have a lead.”

“Seriously?” Dustin spun around with a keen grin as Robin hung up mid conversation.

“Yeah. Apparently Eddie gets his drugs from some guy named Reefer Rick. And sometimes Eddie crashes there.” Max’s face scrunched up over the name as she shook her head.

Uh oh.

Ricks place out by Lovers Lake, sat in the middle of nowhere surround by thick tufts of trees.

Perfect place to hide.

Panic and frustration shot through me that I hadn’t thought of Eddie’s supplier myself, while I listened to the group try and figure out where to find him.

“That sounds promising. Where does this Reefer Rick guy live?” Robin

“See that’s the thing, no one knows. He’s more of a legend than someone that people actually know.” Max shrugged her shoulders as she acknowledged how ridiculous it sounded. Guilt pulsed through me as I considered letting them figure it out the hard way, saving me the grace of not admitting my habit to Dustin, not that I’d been keeping life together well recently, but I still wanted to be a good older sibling example to him.

No, Eddie’s safety was more important than my bruised ego taking a hit to my questionable-to-begin-with reputation, and with the man hunt that was already brewing from the news that there was a high school student murdered, every second was crucial.

“What about a last name?” Dustin suggested.

“I don’t know that either.” Our heads flung to the front of the store as Steve cut Max off.

“Bet the cops know the last name.” He was loading more tapes into the trolley, mumbling away from us as he pointedly tried to ignore my outraged face, his vest swayed like a red flag as his back made for a nice, large target for the tape I’d subconsciously picked up.

“The cops? Really Steve that’s your suggestion?” Dustin spat, a similar expression of disgust and anger reflected on his face.

I needed to speak up now.

“We don’t need the cops. I know where Reefer Rick lives.” The older friends of the group shot me knowing and disappointed looks as Dustin scrunched up his face at me. Steve slammed the last of the tapes down and spun around towards the counter.

“How the hell do you-“ I cut Dustin off before he started on his tangent.

“That doesn’t matter right now.” I waved him off, turning my attention to Steve as I slid closer next to him to join him at the counter, placing my own arms on the tabletop, forcing him to look at me. My body was like an electrified live wire, burning at the touch as each wasted second that ticked away put my teeth on edge.

“We need to find Eddie before the cops do, and every moment counts right now.” I forced myself to hold back the anger in my voice, we couldn’t afford to fight between ourselves right now, Steve didn’t know Eddie like I did – not that he’d given him much of a chance – but if what happened at his trailer had anything to do with the upside down, then we needed to stick together, I needed his help, my friends help, to save Eddie.

And myself, if I was honest.

Because if Eddie didn’t escape from the evil supernatural forces of the upside down or the inevitable witch hunt by Hawkins residents, then I had no intention to either.

The only way we were going to be able to fight this was together, like we always had.

“I just think that they should be filled in on what we know, what’s going in.” He shrugged, turning to face me as my expression pleaded with him, his own conveying his urgency for me to understand his point.

“You think Eddie’s guilty, don’t you?” Dustin snapped, my younger brother grew fiercer than even myself for a moment as Steve tore his stare away from mine and leaned on the counter towards him, an apologetic look on his sharp features as he shrugged again. Dustin crossed his arms and raised his brows at him as I placed my hand over his, clenching down harshly on his fingers.

“Steve, you and I have been through things that we can’t even bare to speak about. Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t trust me. I know Eddie, better than anyone else ever will. He didn’t do this. We need to go find him and save him from whatever did.” Dustin swiped his bag back onto his shoulders as he shoved Max and Robin towards the exit, mumbling for them to move faster.

I turned away to catch the door as it swung back closed after them, pausing as I noticed Steve still hadn’t moved, his eyes glued to his hands as he clenched them together.

My thin patience snapped as I watched a police patrol car speed past with its siren blaring as its lights reflected off the store front’s windows.

“You’re coming, or so help me I will put hair removal in your shampoo until you go bald.”

Chapter Eleven

➢ Eddie Tag List } @dotslabyrinth @chanaaaannel @lem0nb0iii @xcarabear @projectcampbell @munchabunch @grungegrrrl @sammararaven @ches-86 @alinepichi @halbhohehalluzination @kalalikalas @thetrashqueen23 @bruh-tato-chap @sagittariughs @c0rroded-coffin @averagemisfit03 @eddiesgffff @churchmuffins

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suitte23 · 2 months

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♥️ 🗨️ 🔗 　 ︙

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suitte23 🪭 : please read before you interact. T___T

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mashimallows: before you follow or interact.

i will be writing sfw and nsfw (angst/fluff/smut/dark content), so if you're a minor, please do not interact with the works that say +18, otherwise i'll block you.

not spoiler free for everything i write.

all nsfw writing will have a warning, so keep in mind when you click on keep reading and keep scrolling you're consenting to read and you're responsible for your own media consumption.

i don't have a post schedule, i just update when i feel like it, because i'm a very slow writer and procrastinator, so that means i'm not consistent, sometimes will be because lack or zero motivations and sometimes will be because i'm a student.

i really don't take requests, for the same thing mentioned above and i don't want to disappoint anybody, although i do accept suggestions.

like i said, english is not my first language, so feel free to (kindly) let me know if you see a grammatical mistake, because I often use a translator.

matetsu: who do i write for?

lowercase on purpose.

scream: amber freeman, billy loomis, chad meeks-martin, ethan landry/kirsch, stu macher.

supernatural: castiel novak, dean winchester, john winchester, sam winchester.

marvel: eddie brock, peter parker (tom h. & andrew g.), stephen strange, tony stark.

dc: barry allen (ezra miller), billy batson, bruce wayne (robert p. & patrick), harley quinn, jaime reyes. freddy freeman.

the maze runner: minho, newt, thomas.

avatar: jake sully, lo'ak sully, neteyam sully.

it: patrick hockstetter, bill denbrough, richie tozier.

the wizarding world:

golden era: cedric diggory, draco malfoy, fred weasley, george weasley, harry potter, lorenzo berkshire, mattheo riddle, neville longbottom, oliver wood, ron weasley, theodore nott.

marauders: james potter, regulus black, remus lupin, severus snape, sirius black.

fantastic beasts and where to find them: newt scamander.

stranger things: billy hargrove, eddie munson, mike wheeler, robin buckley, steve harrington.

the walking dead: carl grimes, daryl dixon, glenn rhee, negan, rick grimes, shane walsh.

the umbrella academy: diego hargreeves, klaus hargreeves, five hargreeves.

netieyam: what i will write?

miscellaneous: carlisle cullen, carlos de vil, edward cullen, emmett cullen, enoch o'connor, harry hook, jacob black, jacob portman, jasper hale, jay, lee eun-hyuk, rodrick heffley, zed necrodopolis.

fem! reader inserts only.

fluff & angst (mostly based on songs.)

smut (age gap, breeding, public sex, fingering, breath play, cum eating, corruption, dacryphilia, thigh riding and fucking, handjobs, p in v, anal, scissoring, cockwarming, size kink, daddy kink, degrading, gun and knife play, spitting, pet play, praising, somnophilia, male and female oral, dub-con and more...)

polyamory.

bupivacaina: what i won't write?

tropes: enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, roomies, fake dating, omegaverse, etc.

gn! + male! + nb! & dom! reader (i just don't know how to write it.)

sensitive content (dysphoria, dysmorphia, suicide, vomit, abortion, eating disorders, self harm.)

smut (age play, zoophilia, everything that contain minors in suggestive situations, child abuse, pegging, incest, bondage, non-con, fisting, monsterfucking, raceplay.)

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salarta · 6 months

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Because people on the CBR thread decided to bog the past month down in their millionth iteration of the "what could Lorna wear and who could she fuck" conversation, I never did really get a chance to say much about my thoughts and hopes with Fall of the House of X and Lorna's upcoming moment in it. I'll go into it under the cut, but here's the cover image and synopsis again for those who never saw it or want a refresher.

"In FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #2, the X-Men may be at their lowest spot, and they may be on the brink of complete eradication… but they are not going down without a fight! Polaris returns to guide the X-Men home, bringing a wicked surprise for Orchis! This epic tale split in two continues as the Krakoan Age nears its conclusion!"

So you're looking at more of the post! Greetings, nerds.

While we don't know yet how things will play out, I have a generally good impression of where things will go despite Marvel burning me over the past decade.

Duggan's the best writer 616 Lorna's had in that same period. That doesn't mean that he's tapped into her true potential yet (something I hope this story will do). But he's thus far written her as a smart woman with a royal flair and sass, while restoring her relationship with Jean, letting her use her powers in meaningful ways, and NOT bringing up Havok. His work with her on Devil's Reign was also excellent, in my opinion. He allowed Lorna to have a point of view in the discourse that differentiated from Jean and Emma while letting her play a meaningful role in the actual story.

Based on that, I'm willing to give this a chance in spite of Marvel burning me so many times before.

Now, I didn't even know about Knowhere (the giant floating head there) until this cover came out. That's honestly the sort of thing I love - when something good happening with Lorna introduces me to a new element of the Marvel universe. But it also means I don't have much knowledge about it to work from.

So before I try to talk about that, I wanna talk about the scenario.

What I love the most of everything about this is how delightfully unexpected it was. I can tell you nobody expected that Lorna would have a huge spotlight moment like this. I mean this within the fictional universe too, not just with us real people.

See, what has to be understood is that Lorna has a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG history of being misused and underappreciated. The Claremont era wrecked her, and the damage didn't truly start to get fixed in an impactful way until Genosha. Both in and out of universe, perception of Lorna had devolved into "weak pathetic girlfriend of Havok who gets used as a punching bag when she's not supporting her man."

The negative depictions have held her back for a long time. Nostalgia is insidious. It makes bad stuff seem good just because it ties to old good feelings. Someone who likes a certain status quo for the whole will justify treating one character poorly under the guise of being true to their nostalgia.

As a result, what we get down to is a lot of people underestimating Lorna. In the fictional universe and in the real world, Lorna is often perceived as a nobody who can't do something big and important, who can't be a serious threat, that other characters are "better" and "more worthy" than her.

And that's what makes this such a great use for her.

In the synopsis above, wicked surprise is the operative two words. Orchis has surely prepared contingencies for dealing with the well known heavy hitter mutants, as well as the well known collective teams. What they likely did not account for is what Lorna could do to them.

This is where I have to point out something very important: a lot of people who don't really respect Polaris denigrate her as being "Magneto with boobs." They think she's just a female knockoff of her father, that her capabilities are entirely limited to the same ones as Magneto. If Orchis in the fictional universe thinks the same way, they would have a contingency for Magneto and think that applies just as well to dealing with Lorna.

Except Lorna's not her dad. She's also not a goody two shoes version of him, which could make someone think she's even more limited in her capabilities than her father. If real thought and care is put into who Lorna is, she can have a much different perspective and approach to power use and overall strategy.

Orchis accounting for Magneto doesn't mean Lorna would be ineffective. If anything, it means Lorna could be an even bigger threat if she uses their assumptions against them.

Now back to Knowhere.

The picture implies Lorna's pulling Knowhere to Earth to take on Orchis. This is very reminiscent of when she flung Krakoa into space way back in Giant-Size X-Men, which is an awesome parallel to make while actually moving Lorna forward.

Throughout the current Krakoa "era," it frustrated me how Lorna's own connection to the history of Krakoa was treated like it had no worth. She had this huge moment in what a lot of fans consider the most important single issue of the X-Men comics, and yet she was getting ignored because decades of poor treatment caused people at Marvel to have a low opinion of her.

The parallel seen here is an excellent way to pull her in for the finale as they wrap up the Krakoa "era." From flinging a planet off of Earth, to bringing this giant Celestial head TO Earth.

As for Knowhere itself, after doing some rudimentary online searching, I think my understanding here is that the head can act as a sort of waypoint for characters from various dimensions and time periods to come through. From there, if I'm still thinking right, Lorna bringing Knowhere to Earth could result in mutants from all over arriving to help. Not just bringing back the various X-Men lost all over space, but bringing in mutants from other fictions (cartoons, movies, video games, etc) and across time periods. The latter probably pairs with the other book coinciding with this one.

I'm gonna stop here cause I've typed a lot. But I do want to say that it's important to avoid hype for a good thing leading to overinflated expectations. Getting your expectations too high can make a good thing seem too lacking when hindsight and looking at it without the hype in mind would show it to be better than first thought.

And that's all for now. Thanks for reading my TED talk!

#polaris #lorna dane #x-men #marvel

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ciaossu-imagines · 5 months

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So happy be see this blog active again! If you’re still doing the request memes can I ask for K, N, and W for Yamamoto Takeshi for the nsfw one?

And I'm so happy to be active again! Thank you so much for the sweet compliment and for sending in the request. I am still doing this meme and I hope you'll enjoy; as always, smut under the cut!

K(ink): one or more of their kinks

Okay, I feel horrible because this is probably going to come off as incredibly shamey and rude towards this lovely anon, but I've answered this question for Yamamoto so many times over the years, in so many ways, that getting asked about his kinks is something I could happily live without for the rest of my days as a writer…and again, anon dear, it's nothing wrong with what you asked and I'm not upset at you for asking it, I've just answered it so much that I can't come up with much new for it and feel horrible and guilty because a lot of this is going to be repetitive or samey, I worry, for anyone whose been following my writing for any length of time and has read prior nsfw headcanons for Yamamoto.

Anyway, let me start by reiterating that Yamamoto is very open sexually speaking, to exploring and trying new things. He likes to experiment and takes the view of, in everything, you won't know if you like something unless you give it a try. So he's more than willing to indulge his lover's kinks and explore both his and their sexuality and boundaries and likes and dislikes. At the best, it will end up resulting in fun and pleasure for either him or his partner and at worst, one or both of them has learned that something just isn't for them.

Yamamoto also grew up in the age of easily available porn and I think he was really exposed to a wide variety of kinks and fetishes because of that, which did form some of his curiosity about trying out multiple things sexually.

However, I will say that Yamamoto's kinks are all almost entirely porn-based. He has few kinks and fetishes that he needs a partner to be willing to do or must have in his own sexual life. A lot of his fantasies he does keep to porn, especially as some of his kinks are not things he would actually want his lovers to experience, such as gangbangs, glory holes, orgies, and creampies.

He's open to anal play, both on himself and a partner. He's open to BDSM and is a switch. He's open to semi-public sex, though he does draw the line at actually being watched or there being more than a 50% chance of him and his partner actually getting caught. He likes the thrill of the risk, but doesn't want the consequences, if that makes sense. Really, there is very little that Yamamoto will not be open to.

N(o): something they wouldn't do, turn-offs, etc.

Which leads us perfectly into this next question. There are a few things that are hard no's for Yamamoto.

Yamamoto does not like sharing his partner. It feels too close to cheating, and I see him very much as someone who is not willing to cheat on his partner, no matter how tempted he might be. It's the ultimate sign of disrespect to him. He might be open to trying a threesome, either with another male or another female, but it would likely be something he experiments with with someone he isn't really all that serious with, or he might be willing to experiment with it if he and his partner were in an agreed-upon and happy polyamorous relationship, but it would be a very, very rare thing, more something to experience once. He's not into watching his partner be with anyone else, so cuckolding and swinging are also very much no's for Yamamoto.

Also very much a hard no is violent or outright degrading sex. He doesn't even need to try it because it instinctively raises a lot of very strong nope type feelings in him. Sex and violence are two opposite ends of the spectrum to him. Even if his partner makes it clear that they are okay with it, he cannot bring himself to engage in something he feels is him actively disrespecting or abusing his partner. It doesn't sit well in his mind and if his mind is unhappy, it is going to be impossible for him to not only enjoy the sex, but physically perform.

Now, the others aren't so much hard no's for Yamamoto as much as they are things he's really not turned on by and that can, in fact, turn him off. Shower sex is actually surprisingly on this list. It's awkward, dangerous, freezing cold for at least one of the partner's and just not as much fun as it looks. He will have tried it but it really goes beyond just not being something for him into an active dislike on his part.

I will say, despite liking some dirty talk and enjoying the sounds and such of a partner, someone who is super vocal, really loud, or an outright screamer in the bedroom? Huge turn-off for Yamamoto as it always pulls him right out of the moment and feels really fake.

W(ildcard): get a random headcanon

Now for the wildcard…Yamamoto is someone who actually gets hornier the more stressed out he gets. When he doesn't have a release for that horniness and sexual frustration, he just gets more energy than usual, almost gets the zoomies and burns it off through physical activity. It's just a weird quirk with him though, that the more stressed he gets, the higher his libido gets.

#replies #katekyo hitman reborn #khr #yamamoto takeshi #headcanons #spicy headcanons

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himboskywalker · 1 year

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SPEAKING of omegaverse Tag I’ve been wanting to ask you what it is about a/b/o that you like so much and are especially drawn to?im very picky for my a/b/o and you somehow always get it exactly right so I’m curious what you look for in your omegaverse content?

Oof this is a complicated question for me actually lol Keep in mind I’ve literally been reading a/b/o since it’s origin in the Supernatural fandom on LIVEJOURNAL. I read the first a/b/o fic,I was in the fandom space and on the forums when it emerged,so I have quite literally followed along with it since it’s inception,and have kept tabs on its various evolutions through the years and through the different fandoms I’ve been in.

Originally it was much more about the animal characteristics and what I was seeing was very coded into werewolf verses or other creature societies very similar. What drew me in originally was a lot of those animal instincts of dominance and submission,especially with the alpha biting to enforce submission. As everyone on here knows I really really like biting,it’s kind of intrinsically tied in with my views of eroticism,so anything that heavily features biting kink will have my full attention. It’s why I love vampire content so much,or a lot of creature content.

I also have a really strong sense of smell,and in the more creature focused a/b/o fics,and then in Teen Wolf when a/b/o was interwoven with werewolves,scent played a big part in their characteristics. I really really like scent based stuff,in real life the way a partner smells is a large part of my attraction to them,it’s usually one of the first things I notice. For a lot of people,even if they don’t realize it,scent and pheromones play an important role in attraction. I love universes where this is played up,and scents become,not just a more blatant form of attraction,but also a vehicle for characterization and even communication. In a lot of next generation a/b/o the scent component has veered away from the wolf stuff in the OG omegaverse,but it’s something I hold onto and love. Like the force in Star Wars,it offers an opportunity to me as a writer to explore an alternative form of communication and recognition between characters.

At its core a/b/o is a really fun way for me to explore dom/sub dynamics too and in fact the dom/sub universes you see in fanfic now stemmed from omegaverse. There’s something about these sexual preferences being instinctual in these verses that made my own exploration for these wants and preferences somehow safer for me to accept when I was younger. And being able to read stories where a submissive male partner isn’t mocked for wanting these things while also being able to be a strong and independent person helped me realize a lot of things about myself that I always found confusing.

And on that note when done right I thing a/b/o is a wonderfully subversive and unique way to explore gender and gender roles. When I wrote conceal me what I am it was intrinsically interwoven with trans and nonbinary themes and was a very safe way for me parse through my own emotions of how I perceive myself and how the world perceives me. In all,exploring a submissive male character with certain cis female sexual characteristics has been a decade long process of coming to terms with my own gender-fluid ness,and being very comfortable with it,when I think without certain fictional avenues,I would have had a much harder time wrapping my head around it and how I perceive myself.

I think maybe what you see in my a/b/o writing,and what others have seen in it,is my dislike for feminizing male characters that I use as a vehicle for gender and sexual exploitation. This is no hate in any way to writers who do,there’s nothing wrong with it,but it’s something I always found personally distressing without being able to articulate why. More recently I’ve been able to identify that I find being feminized distressing,even though I identify as a woman some of the time.And so I find reading a male character being feminized as distressing because of my own life and raising. I like a/b/o as a means to look into the other,into the liminal inbetween and the hard to identify and parse outside of the rigid gender structures society has given us. So when I go into an a/b/o story with a wanting for that exploration and then it’s a projection of typical heteronormative gender ideals onto a not typical heteronormative dynamic,I find it upsetting. So in my own writing I avoid that at all cost. Again this is not a judgement of anyone who creates or engages with content that does embrace that,I don’t view it as a moral failing in any way,it’s simply something I don’t like and so something I specifically try to circumnavigate in my own art. Or when I do explore the intervening of male and female and other,it’s in a way I understand and perceive the world,and so is a comforting navigation of things I myself am unsure about or don’t quite understand.

It doesn’t have to be this deep. All a/b/o doesn’t have to be a societal deconstruction of gender and sexuality and queer coding. Sometimes it’s as simple as mmmm inherent attraction because of instincts sexy. It can also be mmmm character smells good BITE BITE BITE. It’s what you make it and what you find meaning and/or pleasure from. There’s thousands of interpretations of a/b/o because it’s a wonderful vehicle for exploration of many things. This is just my own relationship with it.

#anons #fanfic stuff #a/b/o verse #a/b/o dynamics #a/b/o mention #blacklist for squick #tag times #long post #gender #gender issues

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foundtherightwords · 1 year

Text

The Road Forgotten - Chapter 11

Pairing: Arthur Havisham (Dickensian) x OFC

A/N: I made Arthur bisexual and paired him with a female character in this. I know some writers have gotten flack for pairing Arthur with a female character (or reader), so if it's not your cup of tea, please walk away.

This is mostly based on the events of "Dickensian", but I've also incorporated some elements and characters from "Great Expectations". Most notably, Satis House is in Kent (as in the book) instead of in London.

Summary: A few years after his plan to swindle his sister ended in tragedy, Arthur Havisham is a shadow of a man, living in guilt and fear. When Elsie Bradford, a young woman also wronged by Compeyson, enlists Arthur's help to hunt down his former partner-in-crime, Arthur must face his demons and other strange, new feelings, to redeem himself.

Warnings: slow burn, angst, guilt, revenge, psychological trauma, mention of prostitution, mention of suicide/suicide ideations, some violence, a bit of smut

Chapter word count: 2.6k

Chapter 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10

Chapter 11

The next morning, they took a stagecoach to Arthur's hometown in Kent. There was no sign of Cyclops and the Chimney on the streets, and Elsie hoped against all hope that they had been arrested the night they attacked Arthur. They would not stay in jail for long—Mrs. Hill would see to that—but they would be off her back for a while.

Elsie held Arthur's hand the whole way. She could tell he was nervous, even more nervous than she had been the day she took him to see Marianne. Now she understood his horrified reaction to Marianne's condition. He had seen the same thing with his own sister, Amelia. From what Arthur told her, Elsie understood that Amelia wasn't in as bad a state as Marianne—she had suffered greatly and had become reclusive, but she hadn't lost her mind. However, Arthur couldn't say what the exact nature of Amelia's condition was, not having seen her since Compeyson left her at the altar five years ago, and Elsie didn't want to press him. He was already crushed by the guilt of having introduced Compeyson to his sister.

"It wasn't your fault," she kept telling him. "You couldn't have known what kind of man he is." He said nothing to that.

What he did say was that he believed Compeyson might have some genuine feelings for Amelia. "More than once he spoke highly of her to me, when he had no reason to do so," he said. "She was—is—very strong-willed, my sister, and he might have admired that. So perhaps he told her something in confidence, something that will give us a clue as to where he is."

They arrived in a market town set amongst the coastal marshes of Kent, only twenty miles from the sea, as Arthur told her. Elsie fancied she could almost smell the salt air even from here. She had never seen the sea.

It took them about a quarter of an hour to walk from the High Street to Arthur's childhood home, Satis House. "The name means enough," Arthur said with a hollow laugh. "What a cruel joke. None of it was enough. Not for me. I didn't even know what enough was. And I'm punished for it." In the past few weeks, he had started to carry himself with more confidence, to walk straighter, and his eyes no longer darted around wildly. Now, as they drew closer and closer to the house, he seemed to revert to his old self, his shoulders hunched, his feet dragging, his eyes fixating on something only he could see. What horrors did this place hold for him? How much did it cost him to bring her back here?

As the house came into view, Elsie's heart sank. It was a large mansion of old brick, with such a dismal prospect that she felt weighed down with an incredible melancholy just to look at it. Rusty iron bars surrounded both house and courtyard. Two great chains draped across the front entrance, some windows had been walled up, and those that remained were barred as well. The whole place looked abandoned and condemned. She couldn't imagine anyone living there.

"This is where you grew up?" she asked.

Arthur nodded, his brow darkening. "She only had it boarded up after Compeyson—but it has never been a happy home, even before that."

Her heart brimming with sympathy, Elsie reached for his hand and pulled him to her, but he didn't melt into her arms as he usually did. He stood stiffly at the gate, looking up at the house with a mix of fear and loathing.

Elsie rang the bell. A window was raised, and a small voice came out, "Who is it?"

"My name is Elsie Bradford," Elsie said. "I wish to see Miss Havisham about a man named Compeyson." Arthur had asked her to make no mention of his name.

"A moment, please." The window was shut again, and stayed shut for a long time, certainly much longer than just a moment. At last, a young, terrified-looking girl, no older than thirteen or fourteen, dressed as a maid, came across the courtyard with keys in her hand. She paused upon seeing Arthur with Elsie, confusion and suspicion chasing each other across her plain features.

Arthur shook his head at the girl. "Miss Bradford will see Miss Havisham alone," he said.

"You're not going in?" Elsie asked.

A sad smile flickered on his face. "She won't see me. And she won't see you if she knows you're with me. I'll wait for you at the inn."

As Elsie slipped through the gate, Arthur held on to her hand. "Elsie?" He had never called out to her so tenderly. She turned back. He looked at her, his brown eyes huge and imploring, sending that familiar stab of ache through her heart, while his hand squeezed hers with such a force she'd never felt from him. "I love you," he said quietly.

Those words knocked the breath out of her. She couldn't think of what to say, and the maid was urging her inside, saying, "My mistress is waiting, miss." Arthur dropped her hand. When she looked back, he was gone, hurrying back the way they came as if all the ghosts of this place were chasing after him.

***

The maid led Elsie through a side door and into a dark hallway, lit by a single candle that only seemed to exacerbate the darkness rather than relieve it. After being outside under the brilliant midday sun, Elsie felt like she was going blind. Once her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she glimpsed, through a door left ajar in the hallway, a large dining room containing a long table, spread with plates and bowls as if for a feast, but everything was so rotten and hung with cobwebs that it was impossible to distinguish one dish from another. A grandfather clock stood against the wall, its hands stopped at twenty minutes to nine.

The maid held the candle to guide the way up a dark staircase and down another dark passage, before stopping in front of a door, which she knocked lightly. "Come," a voice said from the inside, sounding as rusty and cobwebby as the house itself. The maid nodded to Elsie and beat a quick retreat, taking the candle with her. Elsie opened the door with a palpitating heart, wondering what she would find behind it. Would it be another madwoman, driven out of her mind by the evils of Compeyson?

She found herself in what appeared to be a dressing room. It wasn't a small room, but the tightly shut windows, the heavy furniture, and the half-packed trunks full of dresses scattered about made it look oppressive. There were a few more candles here, though they did little to lift the stale airlessness of the place. Most of them were placed on a dressing table around a gilded mirror, their flickering flames reflected in its dusty surface and shining down on the other items heaped haphazardly on the table—jewels, some trinkets, gloves, a handkerchief, a prayer book, a bouquet, all dead and brittle, and, most baffling of all, a single shoe, its white satin yellowed with age. It was because of the glare of the candles and the confusion of these items that Elsie didn't notice right away the person sitting at the table, and probably wouldn't have for a long time, had the person not moved. She only saw a pile of white satin and lace and silk in an armchair in front of the mirror, and almost jumped out of her skin when a hand emerged from it to lift up a long white veil, and the face behind the veil turned to look at her.

The woman couldn't be much older than Arthur—in her early thirties at the most, and her face was unlined still, but her hair, studded with flowers, was white, and her skin was white, almost as white as her splendid gown—a wedding gown, Elsie realized with a sinking heart—so she looked almost like an old woman. Her figure, too, was shrunken, and she moved with the jerkiness of an automaton, her joints and muscles had seemingly forgotten how to work from lack of use. Only her dark eyes retained some sign of life as they stared at Elsie, unblinking.

Since the woman showed no inclination of speaking up, Elsie had to speak first, but she found her voice had stuck in her dry throat, as if this house had infected her with its curse. Finally, she managed, "Miss Havisham, my name is—"

"The maid told me," the woman interrupted. "I don't often permit strangers to see me, but since you mentioned—" Her face twisted like one being forced to take a bitter pill, and her voice caught. It was a while before she continued. "So you have fallen victim to him as well, haven't you? Tell me, is your heart broken?" she said, peering eagerly at Elsie.

It was such a strange question to start that at first, Elsie didn't quite know how to answer, but then she remembered that Arthur had asked her the same thing in the Three Cripples, the day they first met. What could she say? Her heart was broken, but not in the way Miss Havisham meant. Her heart was broken because Arthur had just said he loved her, but she couldn't say it back to him. It was broken because she wanted to love him but couldn't, not when the black abyss that was Compeyson still threatened to swallow them up. She couldn't say any of that, so she opted for a simple, "No."

"It is a pity," Miss Havisham said. "Have you loved?"

Elsie decided to tell the truth this time. "...Yes."

"I don't think so," the old-yet-not-old woman scoffed. "If you have loved, then your heart is broken. Because that's what love does to you. Because to truly love, you have to give up your heart, give it up blindly, devotedly, give it up despite the whole world telling you otherwise, give it up until there was nothing left—as I did!"

Elsie thought of Arthur, of the way they held on to each other, making each other feel safe and wanted and comforted, asking for nothing in return, and she felt sorry for Miss Havisham, who would probably never understand it.

"You're wrong," she said. The words came out sharper than she'd planned. "If a person just gives and the other takes, then that's not love, that's a robbery."

Amelia Havisham laughed, a dry, brittle sound, like the dead bridal bouquet on her table. "Well, I can't deny that. I was certainly robbed." She looked at Elsie. "If your heart is not broken, then why do you wish to speak to me about him?"

Elsie had been preparing a speech in her mind, hoping to appeal to Miss Havisham's sense of compassion and sisterhood, but now, faced with this specter of misery and malevolence, she wasn't sure if the woman had any compassion left. So she spoke plainly. "Compeyson murdered my father and drove my sister mad," she said. "I wish to seek revenge."

"Revenge?" Amelia repeated. "Yes, I want revenge as well. But why stop at seeking revenge on him alone? Why not seek revenge on the whole world, on those despicable men and the pitiful women who allow themselves to fall in love with them?"

Elsie felt exasperation building up inside her. A penchant for wallowing in their own misery and talking in rhetoric seemed to be a Havisham specialty. She had managed to get through to Arthur by being direct, so she would have to do the same with Amelia.

"Miss Havisham," she said firmly, taking a step closer. "I'm sorry for what Compeyson did to you, but I'm not here to discuss it. I'm looking for him. If you know anything about where he might be, please tell me."

Amelia turned away. "I know nothing."

There was no chair for Elsie to sit on, so she knelt in front of Amelia to look into her eyes. "Miss Havisham, please. Your brother told me—"

"Brother?" Those dark eyes, looking disconcertingly like Arthur's, at least in their shape and color, were vacant. "I don't have a brother."

Elsie was momentarily confused, but she told herself this must be why Arthur felt so guilty, why he hadn't been back here in five years. His sister couldn't forgive him, so in turn, he couldn't forgive himself. "I've been to see Mr. Jaggers and Compeyson's wife, to no avail," she said. "Did Compeyson ever tell you anything about his home or mention any place he often stayed at?"

Amelia recoiled slightly at the mention of Sally. "I remember his wife," she murmured, lost in memories. "I met her once. She told me she was his sister." She lifted her eyes to Elsie's face. "Do you see? She lied for him. She is one of those pitiful women too. Like me."

It dawned on Elsie then, that this was another lost cause. Amelia Havisham had nothing for her, except to serve as a grim warning of what could happen if she let grief and hatred take over. She might not have locked herself away in a rotting old house with a frozen clock, but didn't she put her life on hold as well? Didn't she allow Compeyson to continue tarnishing everything in her life, long after he had gone out of it? Didn't she deny herself a chance to love and to hope?

She thought of Arthur, with his sad eyes and sweet smile, his soft lips and strong hands, and it was like the sun had suddenly come out. A glow of love and affection surged up within her, spreading from her heart throughout her body, sending warmth to even the tips of her finger. She loved him. She could admit that now. She loved him, for all his faults and his weaknesses, because he saw her and knew her and stayed by her. She remembered his suggestion that they built their own castle, and realized she wanted nothing more than to build it with him. The past was the past. She was done with it. She would not let Compeyson pull them into the abyss like all the others.

Filled with a new sense of determination, Elsie got to her feet.

"Well, thank you for your time, Miss Havisham," she said, backing out of the room. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you." She turned on her heel, eager to be away from this house and back into daylight, back to where people still lived and loved, instead of existing in a self-imposed limbo. She could already imagine how Arthur's face would light up when she told him...

"You mentioned my brother," Amelia said, causing her to turn around. "So you know him?"

"Yes." And I love him, Elsie thought, and I'm going to tell him so, and we'll go away together and put this whole miserable business behind us. "He has been helping me."

"Has he now?" There was a dark fire burning in Amelia Havisham's eyes. "I would be careful if I were you, Miss Bradford."

"Why?" Elsie didn't like the way Amelia was looking at her, full of a keen hunger for something she couldn't quite understand.

"Did he tell you he helped Compeyson as well?"

Elsie froze.

"That's right," Miss Havisham said, obviously taking a malignant enjoyment in the shock on Elsie's face. "My brother conspired with Compeyson to swindle me. My brother broke my heart. They both did." Miss Havisham gathered her shroud of a dress about her, and Elsie realized, with a rising sense of horror, that the phantom in Arthur's nightmares was none other than his own sister.

Chapter 12

#arthur havisham #dickensian #arthur havisham fic #arthur havisham x ofc #joseph quinn fic #joseph quinn

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