#asian!Reader

[thisismeracing]

Brand new style | CL16

― Pairing: Charles Leclerc x fem!reader ― Warnings: mentions of food; typos. ― Summary: The one where Charles' has been dressing better and better each week. Fans can't help but tie that drastic change to a girlfriend, especially when he shows up wearing clothes from a small but very stylish brand, what they don't expect is that the girlfriend in question is the owner of the brand.

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yourusername

liked by yourbestie, istagramuser1, and others

yourusername finishing the last few touches for this season's collection ⭐️✨

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sunshinewest can’t wait to get it!! 😍

user2 I am so readyyy

switfiedirectioner I wanna be her when I grow up

⤷ 1distraction but u already grown, bestie 😭 lmao

⤷ swiftiedirectioner shut up let me dream 🤚

charles_leclerc

liked by pierregasly, sebastianvettel, and others

charles_leclerc race week's about to start 😎

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charleslerain things that aren’t my business but I wish were: how charles takes his coffee

sainzinho the lil pink mug 🥹🤏

fastandf1s where’s that lil sweater from????

⤷ bonohammertime Its from @ yourusername s brand?

⤷ userforty it def is! Most likely from last collection if I recall perfecly, I have a similar one

trackfour Im gonna prepare myself mentally to watch ferrari shit show 😭

iguser_ the pullover collors omggg and the fabric looks so soft

yourusername

liked by gigihadid, charles_leclerc, and others

yourusername I would bet on red for this season 😜❤️

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yourbestie 😍😍 I would bet on YOU this season

user01 omg yesss! I love red!

randomuser this looks fantastic, can’t wait to see the other options

charles_leclerc

liked by arthur_leclerc, lewishamilton, and others

charles leclerc 😉😉

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tifosinha I refuse to believe this was Ferrari's doing, he's been on this team for years now and they NEVER got him this stylish. there's a woman's hand on this, istg

ferrarista01 the veins 🫣🤤

leclowncircus y’all worried about charles’ style and rumored relationship meanwhile I’m just no thoughts head empty appreciating those yummy pics he’s been posting

charles_leclerc

liked by pierregasly, carlossainz55, and others

charles_leclerc Solid climbing session today.

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notyourbus HE’S SOFT LAUNCHING

sainzfan who’s that person wearing black?

⤷ lemonegasque million dollars question

lewforty LOL he’s so bad at other sports

arthur_leclerc as a climber you’re a great driver 👍

schumiwoff I love the fact that apprently him and the girl -both- fell hahah partnes in being horrible at Snow Sports

yourusername

liked by iguser_, yourbestie, and others

yourusername nobody needs to know I fell a hundred times while climbing

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user47 it’s fine bestie, I’m terrible at anything snow related as well lol

user90 where’s that sunglass from?

⤷ yourusername its from yyy.com :)

popyn she’s soft launching, I lost her 😭

yourusername

liked by yourbestie, francisca.cgomes, and others

yourusername had an amazing dinner tonight 🥰

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randomuser33 that “private but not a secret” type of relationship I WANT IT

user9 she’s so pretty 😍😍

charles_leclerc

liked by lewishamilton, landonorris, and others

charles_leclerc ma cherrie ❤️ I wouldnt have the patient to soft launch anyways

view all comments

scuderiaferrari thank goodness he's not that clumsy with car info 😅😂

yourusername you're lucky I love you 💞

pierregasly it was about time!!!!

fan44 I KNEW IT

formulaonewag welcome to the club, Yn! 🥳

────── ⋆🪩 VOICEMAIL: Hi! I hope you guys liked this piece! This is part of that convo about posting my drafts hihi so yeah, here goes another one :D let me know your thoughts!

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taglist: @sachaa-ff @mickslover @mishaandthebrits @fdl305 @iloveyou3000morgan @crimeshowjunkie @saintslewis @carojasmin2204 @chaoticevilbakugo @wondergirl101ks @smiithys @shhhchriss @f1kota @lunnnix @karmabyfernando @crashingwavesofeuphoria @schumacheer @callsign-scully @dearxcherry @elliegrey2803 @peachiicherries @he6rtshaker @therealcap @mehrmonga @the-depressed-fellow @cixrosie @darleneslane @buckybarnessweetheart @nichmeddar @fastcarsandshit @balekanemohafe @jamie2305 @nzygftoji @leclercsluv @graciewrote @alessioayla @littlesatanicassholebitch @barcelonaloverf1life @noncannonships @fanboyluvr @is-just-a @love4lando @woozarts @namgification @formulaal @v1naco @skepvids @khaylin27 @bernelflo @fakehappy27

©thisismeracing ― do not copy, steal, or translate my work; do not repost on a different media platform.

#cl16 #op: smau #f1 x reader #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc social media au #charles leclerc instragram au #f1 smau #charles leclerc smau #f1 social media au #f1 fanfiction #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc instagram au #f1 instragam au #f1 x asian!reader #asian!reader #charles leclerc

[ang3lik]

𝐬𝐟𝐰 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

#pairing:: ethan landry x fem!bimbo!reader

no one expects ethan to be with you. since ethan is all nerdy, smart and shit they don’t expect you coming.

ethan likes the way you are. exactly the way you are. you’re just enough for him.

he likes that you’re so different to him. that you need him. you make him feel loved and appreciated.

definitely calls you a spoiled little brat all the time.

has to keep an extra close eye on you especially around times as it gets closer to when ghostface shows up.

actually likes seeing splashes of pink around his room, your heels thrown by his door or next to his bed, (which he definitely trips over sometimes), has a pink fluffy pen in his pencil case that he accidentally picked and put in his own because you were taking too long to pack up your stuff leaving class, has a hello kitty plushie on his bed

when you ask him for help with turn work or studying, you just sit in his lap and talk his ear of and he just ends up finishing it for you because your getting too distracted.

is way too soft. you want or need something ethan is straight on it.

chad just looks at him like ‘😑’ but he’s then like ‘you gotta do what you gotta do’

mindy just snickers as he does what you ask him too whilst anika (fellow!mini!bimbo!bestie in this hc) just looks at you both so proud 🥹

#★ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐒 ★ #ethan landry #ethan landry fluff #ethan landry imagine #ethan landry x reader #ethan landry x bimbo!reader #bimbo!reader #jack champion #jack champion fluff #jack champion imagine #jack champion x reader #black!reader #latina!reader #asian!reader

[edsforehead]

A resource to help promote inclusivity, for moodboards, headers, etc.

Given the topic of diversity in visual fanworks that’s come up, I started a Pinterest with various themes to help making finding diverse images easier. You can find it here. Please check source links and credit the creators of you decide to use. If you recognize a creator that isn’t linked, please send me their user so I can credit them below.

A few themes below:

HYPER-FEMININE/GIRLY/ETC

COTTAGECORE

ROCK/GRUNGE/ALT/ETC

COUPLES/WEDDING/ETC

PLUS SIZE

2

6

2 @iridessence 6 @iridessence

There’s also a NERD/PREP/CHEERLEADER board and I may start a few others. There isn’t a ton up since I did this pretty quickly, but it’s a good starting point. It would be nice to find images with different types of poc as well. Let me know if you have any suggestions for what other tropes/themes to explore. I don’t have a ton of free time outside of my full-time job, so if you want to become a collaborator on any of these boards let me know!

#moodboards #inclusivity #poc moodboards #black!reader #Asian!reader #poc!reader

[fushic0re]

─ 𝐆𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄 𝐈𝐂𝐄, 𝐈❜𝐌 𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆

𝗟𝗟𝗢𝗬𝗗 𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗦𝗘𝗡 𝗫 𝗙𝗘𝗠𝗠𝗘 𝗙𝗔𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗘!𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗔𝗡!𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗𝗘𝗥

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 – “BEING A BITCH IS MY KINK, WHAT THE FUCK ELSE DID YOU THINK?”. In which you are the only thing Lloyd Hansen is scared of.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 – 18+ ONLY; MINORS DNI. sociopathic and psychopathic behavior. murder. sexual themes. lloyd refers to himself as “daddy” once.

if you enjoyed this piece, please, please, please reblog it! the writing community is slowly dying out due to tumblr’s algorithm being ineffective and reblogging our fics is our bread and butter. support fic writers! ♡

“ARE YOU READY to order yet, ma’am?”

Your jaw twitched as your lips forced themselves into a dazzling smile.

“Just a couple of more minutes. My guest will be here shortly.” You purred. “I’d love another glass of Merlot though. Thank you, honey.”

The poor boy was a stutter riddled mess as he scampered back into the kitchen, tripping over his own feet like a newborn foal. You laughed softly to yourself before your expression fell. You didn’t need to check the time to know that Lloyd was extremely late. The notification center of your phone was barren; no text, call, nothing. Nothing to notify you of a possible delay. No, you sat in the middle of one of the finest French restaurants clad in one hundred percent silk all by your lonesome. Rummaging through your purse, you fished out your tube of lipstick and compact mirror for a touch up. Your boyish waiter was right back at your side, topping off your glass with a shy grin and flush cheeks at the sight of your plump puckered lips.

Just as your body picked up the minuscule shift in energy, you shut your compact. There in front of you sat Lloyd fucking Hansen with that stupid grin on his face.

“Hi, baby doll.” He spoke charmingly. “You look absolutely stunning, is that the dress I bought you?”

Narrowing your eyes with contempt, you crossed your arms across your chest.

“You’re late.”

Chuckling, he rose from his place in front of you and dragged the chair he once sat in with him and positioned it right next to you before seating himself once again. His muscled frame shuffled closer to yours until his chest was pressed against your side. Refusing to acknowledge him and still filled with simmering rage, you kept your gaze forward. Endeared at your behavior, your fiancé took your hand in his and began to dote on you.

“Oh baby, daddy’s sorry.” Lloyd cooed. “Some of these fuck knuckles really don’t wanna go down. I made them pay extra for keeping me from my woman.”

Excuses and buttery comments continued to spill from the man’s mouth. Rolling your eyes, you reached for your glass of wine and took a generous gulp.

“But on the bright side, we have this private dining area all to ourselves. How about I make it up to you before the main course gets here, pretty girl?” He whispered, that damn mustache tickling your skin as he began to press feverish kisses to your neck.

Lloyd stopped his ministrations when he glanced down at your hand in his, his lips turning down into a frown.

“Who made my woman chip her nails—”

Growing tired of hearing his voice, you snatched your hand back. Before Lloyd could protest, your hand darted in between his legs.

A low growl rumbled in his chest. The frown that grazed his face was replaced with a mischievous smirk.

“Princess,” He hummed. “If you missed me that much, all you had to do was say s— Jesus, fuck!”

With his balls literally in a vice grip, you finally turned to face him. Your deathly stare rivaled Medusa’s. It was only when he was caught in it that Lloyd Hansen felt fear. Pure, unfiltered fear.

“I hope you at least have progress for me to make up for your inability to follow through with simple tasks such as showing up on time.”

Lloyd hissed sharply; his eyes squeezed shut as your grip tightened.

“We got him to talk,” He panted. “We know where the drive is.”

“And where is it exactly, Lloyd?” You interrogated lowly, looming over him dangerously.

Sputters of nonsense fell from his lips, prompting you to constrict around him more.

“Did I hire an incompetent man, Lloyd?” You taunted, slithering a bare leg around one of his sensually. “Hmm?”

“N-No, ma’am,”

“Then answer my question or so help me God, Lloyd Hansen. Where is that drive?”

“London! It’s in a warehouse in London! The boys are extracting it as we speak!”

You exhaled deeply, shooting your man your best smile.

“Good boy.” You praised. “Get me that drive, Lloyd.”

“It’ll be on your desk by tomorrow morning.” He swore, his heart rate slowing down.

It was his turn to sigh with relief when his balls were released from your death trap. Your palm traveled from in between his legs to his broad chest. Nuzzling your nose against his cheek, you hummed with content at his answer.

“This shirt makes you look so sexy,” You whispered, pressing a kiss to his face, leaving a lipstick mark behind.

Lloyd, still too stunned to reciprocate your affection, released a satisfied grunt. Boy were you insane, but that’s exactly why he loved you so dearly. Upon first meeting you, Lloyd Hansen was equally as aroused as he was intimidated. You had heard everything about your subordinate. Afterall, word travels fast when you’re a sociopathic government weapon. There was nothing you loved more than a man who could get things done. Lloyd Hansen was all about getting things done. He was your prized possession, your secret weapon. He too knew this and lived for it.

Never in his life had he ever liked following orders. The man knew from the second he left his mother’s womb that he was destined to devour every weak, measly being in his way and dominate. It was natural instinct for Lloyd. He was an alpha. The monster in your closet that kept you in line. No one had ever challenged his primality without ending up in pieces buried six feet underground. That was, until you. You knew how to get him where you wanted him, how to grab his reigns and take over. Serving you came as naturally as killing.

And that was dangerous. You were dangerous.

He had found someone more demented, deranged, and crazed than him, of course he was bound to worship you with no limits. To prove his fealty in bloodshed. You were his Goddess.

“You’re paying for my manicure.” You murmured, scarlet lips traveling from his cheek to his neck.

 “Who else was going to?” He teased.

“You did leave me waiting here,” You challenged. “Step it up, Lloyd, or someone else will.”

His thick brows furrowed, darkening his hard gaze at the threat.

“Like who, huh princess?”

You shrugged nonchalantly.

“The waiter is cute.”

Over the date night shenanigans, you unhitched your leg from around his and stood up. Finally getting a chance to look you over, Lloyd felt his groin stir in his designer slacks. The silk dress he had purchased looked just as heavenly wrapped around your body as he imagined it to look. The slope of your exposed back tempted him. He wanted to maul you, to leave his mark. You were his. No one else’s.

Before you could turn around to beckon him, the waiter entered your private room once more. And before he could take another step, two gun shots were fired to his chest. Spinning around on your Jimmy Choos, you met your lover’s intense gaze with pure adoration in yours.

“And they say chivalry is dead.”

© all rights reserved to honeystevie

#lloyd hansen x reader #lloyd hansen x you #lloyd hansen x y/n #lloyd hansen x asian!reader #lloyd hansen #the grey man #asian!reader #chris evans x reader #chris evans x you #chris evans x y/n

[solitaryearthperson]

Matt to the Rescue

Summary: The reader, Matt, Foggy, and Karen go to Josie’s to celebrate winning a case and the reader runs into a creep.

(The reader is 18+ and uses they/them pronouns. The ethnicity/race is any.)

The bar is incredibly packed tonight, more so than usual, but that didn’t stop us from finding a table to sit at. After another successful win for Nelson & Murdock, Karen pitched the idea to go out for drinks. We sat at a table close to the pool table in case Foggy or Karen wanted to get up and play.

“You okay,” Matt asked me, pulling my chair out for me, before sitting down himself, the gentleman. He knew that sometimes being around a lot of people could make me feel shy and a bit anxious. I guess he could hear when my heartbeat would rise. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I told him, picking up his hand and giving it a light squeeze. He’s so protective of me. “Are you okay with the music?” Because of the extra people in the bar tonight, the music seemed to be lot louder than usual.

“I’m good,” he said, lifting our intwined hands, and placing a kiss on the back of mine.

“Oh God, here we go with these two,” I heard Foggy groan, and I rolled my eyes playfully at him.

“Shut up,” I said, before placing a kiss on Matt’s cheek, smiling when I saw him beginning to blush. 

The night was going great. The time went by so fast that none of us noticed that we stayed for almost two hours drinking and having fun. At one point, Foggy suggested moving our little party to the pool table and soon I found myself standing next to Karen and both of us were laughing at Matt and Foggy as they began arguing about who was in the lead with the game.

“How long you think they’ll argue for,” Karen asked me, chuckling as Foggy continued to claim that he was in the lead.

“Probably for a while,” I answered, taking the last sip of my drink, the effects only slightly affecting me. “Do you want another?” I asked, pointing to her glass which was almost empty.

“Sure, thanks,” She handed me the glass, still waiting for Matt and Foggy to quit their arguing.

Holding both of the glasses in my hand, I was about to ask the boys if they wanted more drinks but changed my mind. I think they’ve drunk enough. 

I quickly maneuvered my way through the bodies in the bar and made it to the counter, looking for Josie, hoping that she would recognize me instantly since me, Matt, Karen, and Foggy come here so often.

I was listening to the music, humming along to the song playing when I suddenly felt the presence of someone close to me. I turned and let out a sigh, hoping that it was one of them, but it ended being some random guy that was standing too close to me.

“Waiting for a drink,” He asked.

I nodded my head, still humming, hoping he would get the message that I wasn’t interested in a conversation.

“Are you new to Hell’s Kitchen,” He asked, leaning his side against the bar to completely face me,

Keeping my gaze forward, I shook my head and continued to be silent.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a hopeful smile appear on his face and instantly wanted to face palm myself, suspecting that he won’t be leaving me alone any time soon.

“You with anyone,” I suddenly felt his hand touch my arm and I jerked away from him.

“Everything alright,” He reached his hand out to touch my arm again and I finally turned to him. I opened my mouth to tell him off, when I heard the familiar sound of a cane tapping on the floor.

“Ow,” the man yelped as Matt’s cane suddenly hit him hard in his knee.

“So sorry, sir,” I looked to Matt and saw that he was really putting on the ‘Blind and clueless’ act and I tried my best not laugh.

“It’s fine,” the man said, looking angry, but keeping his cool because of Matt.

“Excuse me,” Matt began rudely nudging the man away from me, his shoulder sharply pushing the man away from the counter. He placed his hand on the counter and turned his head my way, and I could see the hint of a smile on his face. “You’re waiting to order a drink,” he asked, ignoring the man’s presence.

“Yeah,” I nodded, smiling at him.

The man let out a huff and walked away from the counter to somewhere else, and I could feel the laugh that I had pushed down earlier at him come bubbling up out of me.

“What was that, Murdock?”

“I heard your heartbeat rising quickly, and followed the sound of it,” he told me, smirking. “You okay?”

“Yep,” I looked around and noticed that Karen and Foggy were still talking to each other at the pool table

“What do you want,” I turned to see Josie walking over to us, frowning as usual.

Before I could answer her, Matt had already told her what we wanted, and she began fixing them. 

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet, he’s still in the bar, and he’s a little pissed.”

“Really? I wonder why,” I giggled. “Could it be because some blind guy hit him in the leg with a cane?”

“Maybe, but he deserved it,” he told me, still smirking.

“Here you go,” Josie placed the glasses on the counter in front of us and walked away, already knowing that Matt and Foggy have a long running tab. 

“Come on, my hero,” I said, grabbing the glasses. He folded up his cane and gently took hold of my upper arm and we walked back to the pool table where we heard Foggy and Karen laughing together.

“What took you so long,” Karen asked, taking one of the glasses.

“A creep at the bar,” I told her and took a sip of my own drink. “Matt made him leave.”

“Oh, Matt to the rescue,” Foggy said, lining up his stick with the ball.

“Yep,” I kissed Matt on the cheek and smiled as he began to blush under his glasses.

#MCU #marvel #mcu imagine #marvel imagine #mcu x reader #marvel x reader #Matt Murdock #Matt Murdock imagine #Matt Murdock x reader #matt murdock x black!reader #matt murdock x poc!reader #latina!reader #asian!reader #latino!reader #indigenous!reader #poc!reader

[stargirlstudio]

Citrine and Sapphire [Part 1]

☆ Aemond Targaryen x Princess of Leng!Reader

☆ Physical attributes canon to Lengii people (golden eyes, black hair, skin tone is implied to be darker than pale - but non specified)

☆ 1st/3rd POV, she/her pronoun usage, no y/n

☆ WC: 3k

☆ Summary: A princess from the Isle of Leng sets off on a journey to Westeros in search of adventure and knowledge, but other players are out for their own agenda. Aemond Targaryen, the shy boy who eventually becomes her friend and greatest ally, is more similar to her than she thinks.

☆ Guide:

[ ] - Lengii language

{ } - YiTish language

Part 2 ⇨

If the princess had known the journey to Westeros would be this long and arduous, she would have planted myself in the sands of the docks and never left. Traversing through the rich provinces of YiTi was fun, familiar even.

The sea journey provided a temporary solace from the bustle of the people on land but soon gave me the worst temperament. She woke up and went to sleep with a pit in her stomach — She was not a mariner. There can only be so much gruel and dried shrimp she can eat. A servant in the back of the ship expelled what seemed to be this morning’s meal — rice porridge and salted egg. Rice porridge, while a commoner’s dish, used to be her favorite meal to wake up to. Leng’s thousand suns, as they say, sweltering outside while they get to eat the soft meal with leaves fanning their back. Roasted and dried YiTish salmon and fermented vegetables on the side. She despised the smell bile produces, mixed with the saltiness of the dark sea. The water would mist into her mouth, and sometimes if she closed my eyes, she could taste the salty radish.

Many times she prayed to the Old Ones when large waves drowned the deck. The YiTish sailor screamed what she assumed to be a word a princess should not repeat at his fellow sea folk. Leng servants rushed underground, wet with their fabrics clinging to their skin. Today is the day of her birth, but no one knew that except her handmaidens. If she were home, she would eat all the sweets she wanted. Roast pig and quail would be on the table. Though, not too fond of quail, but she would do anything to take a bite.

Her fathers would be playing with her, and her mother would be dancing. The princess’s brothers would be chasing her sister around. [“I want to go home!”] She cried. The older handmaidens wiped her tears and told her to sleep. A man with dark hair and a prominent brow ridge ran past the window. [“The window is going to break!”] She panicked and cried. Snot ran down her nose and chin. Her chest hurt from the wailing. She should be brave, but the young girl not stop herself. The screaming from below and above only made it worse. The maidens, wide-eyed and frightened, take a step back. The only one who does not is the oldest maiden - with her graying, straight hair. Deep wrinkles in the fat of her face and eye bags protruding further than her own eyes.

[“Whoever let the princess course on waters should be fed to the hogs,”] One of the newer handmaidens spoke.

The older handmaiden spoke softly, {“Would you like the sleep milk?”} The princess continued to sob, not paying attention to her question. She sighed and walked over to the chest. A blood-curdling scream came from outside, and she battled to drown out the others. The older handmaiden sat next to her and tapped on her lips. She opened her mouth before the cool white liquid droplets melted on her tongue.

Sleep milk was the only thing that could calm her down. After her fall…She used it to temper her dreams. The medicinal women have told her that when she fell off the cliff years ago, it must have caused terrible dreams. The milk helps her fall into a deep sleep when she panics. She doesn’t know how long she can be like this, but her mind sullies those thoughts as she falls asleep.

Three weeks later, flies buzzed beneath the deck - a rotten stench coming in waves as the latch opened and closed. I stare at the open latch, nothing to be seen but darkness. Two men carried a servant, her skin was gray, and her body was stiff. The whites of her eyes yellowed, and a green liquid fell from them, staining her face. A trail of the same color liquid trailed from her ears, sticking her hair to her face.

“Do not look at them, Princess,” Xhoha said as he turned my seat around. “You do not need to see that,” Xhoha was my advisor. My mother insisted I needed someone fluent in Westerosi and familiar with their culture. Xhoha was from the Free Cities but traveled around. He will not tell me what he did before he came to Leng.

[“Will we have Westerosi lessons again?”] I asked.

Xhoha sighed, “Remember, it is called Common Tongue. We will have more lessons than usual to prepare. Food poisoning swept through the ship. We are docking at Qarth. We were lucky to even make it this far from Leng,”

[“Did you say you were from Qarth?”] I asked. He chuckled, plastering a grin.

“If this is another attempt at you trying to get details of my life, I guess I’ll give you some satisfaction. No, I’m from Pentos. The closest Free City to Westeros,” He mused. [“Let us start speaking in Common Tongue,”]

I nodded. Common Tongue has made no sense to me. I struggle with every word; Xhoha remarked that I sound Dornish when I speak Common Tongue. He is highly insistent that I should try my best to adopt the dialect spoken in King’s Landing. He pulled out a Westeros map and tried his hardest to teach me about each city and its notable people, but every detail mixed with another. I have only held onto the reliance of Westerosi people from the texts given to me by monks.

The most extensive text is on Corlys Velaryon, who is still alive. I traced the indented lettering on the book, The Snake of the Seas, by Monk Hattenu. A young man with hair of alabaster set his feet upon the Leng sands. With a YiTish translator by his side, he negotiated agreements. For resources, he would offer a favor — of any kind so long as it was reasonable. In the personal texts saved by the monks, in my aunt’s diary, it seemed that she was…smitten with him.

The priestess aboard the boat had come to interrupt my lessons, “Pardon me, your majesty, it is time for you to pray,” She said. I nodded and hopped off my chair.

“We will continue after you are done,” He said. I followed her to the back of the boat, weaving my way around the men carrying bodies. The stench was foul. The priestess and I sat on our knees, facing eastward to home. I followed her movements as I picked up the reserved sand creating an arch around me.

“Princess, who shall we pray to today?” The Priestess asked. “I suggest Ah’Vannika for the health of those on board. Or Ah’Jan for safe travels,” She suggested. The Old Ones are the gods I pray to in Leng. It is believed they live beneath us. There is no gender assignment to the gods we revere, as they come in many forms. Ah’Vannika - the god of health, may come to someone as a hummingbird. A woman cloaked in white or an old man with a gray eye. In a coastal Lengii city, the people wear white and silver to honor Ah’Vannika. I have my doubts about the Old Ones. Some have claimed to see the form of a god, but who’s to say their form isn’t just some regular person? Or maybe someone is lying?

“I think Ah’Jan has heard enough prayers for our safe travels,” I said meekly. “Let us pray to Ah’Kasaya, for good weather?” The Priestess nodded. “And Ah’Vannika for good health,”

That night, I tossed and turned in my bed. I was watching the sea mist rain against the window. I closed my eyes, covering my ears to drown out the crashing waves. My mind blanks, and suddenly, I’m falling to my death, the cold and dark waters engulfing me. A hand grabs my ankle and pulls me deeper until I wake up screaming again.

Aemond’s POV

Aemond stood with his family on the day of the Princess’s arrival. The young prince felt nervous, he knew of the delays but now that the guest us finally here he did not know what to do.

“More than half of her servants, unfortunately, passed away from this illness,” Viserys continued. “The Maesters suspect that perhaps they are not used to the known world, succumbing easily to such illnesses,” The room had fallen silent. Aemond’s mother, Alicent, silently moved the food around. “Horrible really, the letter spoke of yellowed eyes and fluids coming out of every orifice. Awful…,”

“The princess may not come at all if she also falls ill,” Aegon jokes.

“The God-Empress of the Isle of Leng has been kind enough to extend her hand. The isolationist Leng has made a pact with House Velaryon for Corlys Velaryon’s kindness during his Nine Voyages,” The stout man says. A cheer erupts amongst the crowd - much to the man’s annoyance. He continues, “God-Empress Citra welcomes you to a ceremonial performance and for you all to welcome her daughter, second to the throne, the princess,”

Performers with white face paint and bold makeup came fluttering in. Their flowing gowns and tilting hands excited the guests. The music, a solemn fanfare, transitioned to string-dominated and hopeful melodies. Gasps came from all sides of the room. Aemond glanced at his older brother, his smile curving upwards. One of the performers supplanted themselves before the family. A cloth held up by their fingers blocked their faces. The performer, with their red dipped fingertips, danced the fabric in front of them before dropping and making a funny face. They watched as the performers circled the other people, interacting with them and causing them to laugh until they disappeared into the entrance.

Numerous performers, YiTish and Lengii, came back into the hall and out. Some animals that had survived the journey were also shown off to King Viserys. A striped stallion and a baby spotted back ape, like the ones in the books the Maester had him read, were also shown. The ape had started causing some trouble, but it was quickly forgotten amongst the existing performances. Halaena, who usually had her head turned away, was entranced by the spider performer, which seemed to be two women holding a rattan-crafted spider body. She giggled at their slow movements and their jolts.

The dancers all began to leave in two lines which tall guards quickly replaced. They formed into two lines blocking the guests - creating a direct pathway to the family. The music slowed, and the musicians bowed their heads slightly. Aemond squinted to see four girls walk in. He focused on the one in the front, who could not be older than him. The three other girls mimicked the same head bow as the musicians and the guards, while the youngest girl held her head high—her crown, with peaks no longer than her face, accompanied by weaved flowers in her dark hair. Her golden eyes match the crown on her head. Deep red fabric draped around her.

“I’m surprised. I think we all thought she would be old,” He paused, lowering his head closer to Aemond’s ear. “The seafarers get younger and younger,” Aemond ignored his brother, watching the princess and the rest of her subjects follow suit with gifts in hand. He heard his mother gasp. Some performers held silks; others held more jewels and what seemed to be spices. Items to be most prized.

Lord Corlys had acquired his great wealth during his Nine Voyages. One of the places he had sailed was to the Isle of Leng. At a meeting with the small council, he announced the letter from the Empress of Leng.

“To Lord Corlys Velaryon, The Revered Mariner, Friend of the Crown,” He repeated once at a dinner. “When you came to visit our lands, you made a promise to my mother, the late God-Empress Kanitara of Leng, that you would extend a favor and your support in exchange for our resources,” He paused. “My daughter, a fourth born, second in line, wishes to explore beyond Leng. She heard many stories of your adventures and wished to visit Driftmark and the rest of Westeros. There is no crown for her here, as she is not my eldest daughter. I fear that she may find more success beyond these gates. I wish to send her to you, where she will be in your care and teaching. If you accept, I will be sure to give you our treasured valuables,”

The princess bowed, taking two hands to touch her forehead and bringing them toward the family—a greeting reserved for other royals. A translator came right beside her. “Princess of the Isle of Leng, second daughter to God-Empress Citra and Lengii Emperor Consort Kiet, commander of the armies,” Aemond noticed some guests wincing at the idea of an emperor consort. “Offers her extended gratitude for inviting her to your kingdom. She offers great gifts and valuables to House Targaryen and House Velaryon,”

The translator droned on, but Aemond looked at the young princess. Her hands scratched at her thighs with her head bowed.

The celebration of the Princess’ arrival at King’s Landing was filled with more festivities. It was a week-long celebration. Performers, both Lengii and YiTish, put on their theatrical shows. Dancers in face paint and shadow theater performers entertained the nobility of Westeros. Aemond stood by, watching the Ladies secretly ogle at the Leng men. Their arms were bare and muscular, their hands hovering over their eyes to shield themselves from the sun. Aemond and his siblings sat next to their mother, while the princess and her advisor sat next to his father.

“The Princess wanted to apologize for her delay. It was a dangerous journey to Westeros,” The advisor said. He was not from Leng, at least by appearance. The man had pale skin, with freckles marking almost every inch of his skin, with shoulder-length brown hair. His long mustache wiggled with every movement of his mouth. He sounded like the traders from Pentos.

King Viserys laughed, “You need not worry. You have brought our family gifts, and most importantly you are intact,” He gestured to his family. “We welcome you,” The Princess smiled.

“Thank you, your grace,” She spoke in Common Tongue. “You have such beautiful children,” She said, lingering her gaze on Aemond, who looked away abruptly, shying his eyepatch.

“Thank you, dear Princess,” Alicent said. She gestured for the princess to come over, reaching out to hold her hand. “I did not get to see your face earlier. Such a beautiful girl,” His mother admired, the jingling of her bracelets filling the silence from the children. Aemond finally turned his head, having avoided eye contact with the princess. She stood still, a smile plastered on her face. Soft pink fabrics draped around her body, creating a loose fitting silhouette. The extra fabric draped over her shoulders, lined with small beaded floral embroidery. Local flowers had been weft into her hair along with gold pins. The princess had a strong, pleasant scent. All of the people of Leng do. The perfumes and oils saturated their skin, adding a glow.

“And you are a beautiful Queen,” She said back; Alicent had squeezed her hand. The King had announced the tourney would be taking place soon, with the family being dismissed first. Alicent held Helaena and the Princess's hand as Aegon and Aemond trailed behind. The Princess turned her head to look at Aemond, who looked away again. She turned her head forward and moved her fingers anxiously.

For the next few days, Aemond sat near the Princess. First, watching her wince at the tourney, sitting next to her at feasts, walking near her around the grounds with Helaena. The Princess does not have a name.

“The Princess has a name, but in her culture, it is forbidden to use the name with strangers,” Her advisor explained. “A shortened name is often used with their people,”

“Then how shall we address her?” A Lady asked Xhoha.

Another Lady interjected, “Lady Leng seems proper!”

There had been times when the princess had tried to speak with Aemond.

“What are you holding?” “How are you?” What are you doing?” but she was met with a hmm or a few words. Eventually, she didn’t talk to him at all. Aemond didn’t mean to ignore her, but he felt…anxious around her. Perhaps it was because she was a stranger. Everyone was focused on her; the Princess’s arrival was important enough to garner a week-long celebration. He dug his fingers into his palm, watching her from a distance as she was invited to dance with a young lord.

“Lady Leng,” The cropped haired boy asked. “May I show you how to dance?” The Princess accepted his offer. She giggled, accidentally stepping on his toes. Aemond walked away, only hearing fragments of apologies.

—

☆ A/N: A long overdue part 1 for my Leng princess fic! If you want to see more and would liked to be tagged, please comment! Also I would love comments about what you enjoyed or any potential plot ideas!

#fanfic #fanfiction #fic: citrine and sapphire #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #Aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond targaryen x leng!reader #se asian!reader #asian!reader #hotd fanfic #hotd fanfiction #fem reader #house of the dragon fanfiction #aemond targaryen reader insert #leng #isle of leng #island of leng #fics

[abbygraceasd]

hey beautiful fem presenting readers in the doctor who fanfic space!

I try to make all my reader inserts as racially ambiguous as possible! i don't do descriptions of skin tone or hair because I want to be inclusive to everyone. when I make my visual outfits for the stories I write, I include three makeup looks for white, asian and black people(and if asked, i will include other ethnicities, though it makes take me a minute to find some images), I put an afro-textured hairstyle option because I understand it can be frustrating when there's not a lot of representation for you in the reader insert space. i also try to be inclusive of personal styles when making the outfits themselves, so I ask that people describe some things they want reader to wear

#doctor who x reader #tenth doctor x reader #ninth doctor x reader #doctor who smut #doctor who #twelfth doctor x reader #eleventh doctor x reader #thirteenth doctor x reader #black!reader #asian!reader #autistic writer

[hawthorneonarainyday]

Who We Are - Steve Harrington (1)

Prologue | Steve 2 | Eddie | Billy | Ian

The two of them had been friends for twenty-two years now. They'd grown up right next to each other, casually holding hands for all their lives. What neither of them had ever considered, though, was that their relationship could ever be anything else. They were just them, Steve and her. Right? Attention! - This is the second part of 'Grey Overalls and Rainy Days'. Please read that one first if you haven't yet! Information you might need ♥ ~ Word Count: 15.648 3rd Person (She/Her) Flashbacks will be presented in completely cursive to better distinguish between now and then, since tumblr doesn't really have the best typesetting options.

In this chapter you will find: Rain, cursing, a down in the dumps Steve, slow-burn childhood bestfriends to lovers, a lot of physical contact, canon tinkering, flashbacks and a fuck ton of spoilers for the 80s movie 'Beaches'. There will be mentions of food and eating, blood, canon level violence, loss, grief, shock, death, sex, trauma, bad parenting, sexual harrassment (specifically at dates) alcohol and reader having her period so please remain careful, my children! At one point reader will be loosely compared to Molly Ringwald, but to not alienate anyone I'll explicitly say that it is not because reader looks like her. It can be, if you want it to, but it's definitely not required. I point that out loud and clear and Steve will do so too, so please don't feel put out by that.

Enjoy ♥

The days rain still lay in the air, although the drops themselves had stopped – for now. Petrichor was still wafting all around them, now with tiny hints of cool night air. Hawkins population was slowly but surely getting home for the night. Mothers ushered their kids ahead of them, teenage girls locked their bedroom doors but unlocked their windows and most of Hawkins general stores were flipping their signs from ‘OPEN’ to ‘CLOSED’.

That was something she did as well.

Eddie held the door open and she skipped out into the night, glad she decided to not deal with the taxes for now. The metalhead himself was talking about a campaign he would love to throw for the party, but didn’t really have the time to and she was reminded of how good a story teller he was. No wonder the boys still loved to invite him around as a dungeon master whenever they got the chance.

“So, I was thinking I’d add in this really messed up dragon hybrid and he’s g- hey isn’t that Harringtons car?” Blinking at the rather rapid change of subject, she followed his pointing and damn straight. That was the red BMW she’d spent all day cleaning.

“Uh…yeah, actually. It is.” Her brows furrowed as she squinted into the night, trying to make out the familiar lines of Steve’s nose and hair.

And sure enough, there he was. Slumped behind the driver’s seat with his head down, one hand grabbing the steering wheel. “What the…Uhm, Eddie, gimme a minute.”

“Sure, go ahead. I’ll wait in the van?”

“Yeah, thanks.” With one shimmy, she shouldered her bag properly and jogged on over to Steve. He didn’t look up as she came closer, not giving her much choice but to knock at the window. Inside, Steve flinched, his hand letting go of the wheel and grabbing his chest. The shock didn’t last long though, because just a moment later he was rolling the window down.

“Jesus, don’t do that to me. You’ll give me a heart attack.”

“Your fault for not noticing me.” Chuckling, she leaned down to peer into the car, trying to see the mysterious flower shop girl. Why would she be there? Well, it wasn’t the first time Steve made a pit stop on one of his dates just to drive her home real quick. The red BMW, however, was completely empty aside from Steve. “Steve, what are you doing here? I thought you had a date.” The man in question just sighed and let his head fall back against the headrest. There was a slight pout to his face. “Steve?”

“Listen. Wanna cash in those burgers now? We could grab some and then go…I dunno, somewhere.”

“Uhm…I mean, yeah. Sure. Why not. Let me just tell Eddie, okay?”

“Eddie?”

“Yeah, he came by earlier and offered to drive me home.”

“Oh. Okay, yeah, go ahead. I’ll wait.”

“But Steve, what about…?”

“Just…forget about that, okay?” The way he said it was more than pleading. Even if she didn’t like it, she nodded and jogged on over to Eddie’s car. He was already inside, the van running and waiting. Unlike Steve, he immediately noticed her getting closer and rolled down the window.

“You’re going with him, I take?”

“Yeah, sorry Eddie. I think…I don’t know, I think he needs some company.”

“It’s fine, Princess, you go check on him. But I demand full intel tomorrow!” She chuckled.

“I’ll see what I can do ‘bout that. Thanks Eddie.”

“See ya, princess!” The van roared to life with a deep growl and she stepped away from the window. It didn’t take long for Eddie to leave the car park behind. She reached Steve’s car just as quickly. A simple pull on the door handle and she plopped into the seat with a content sigh.

Steve’s car just felt… right.

Over the years, she’d spent so much time in that passenger seat that it felt more like home than the single wide she actually called home. Steve next to her watched her buckle herself in before wordlessly putting the car into gear. She didn’t ask where they were going, he didn’t offer any intel on the matter.

They didn’t have to.

Neither of them spoke. Steve veered the car through what Hawkins called ‘evening rush’ with practiced ease while she gazed out of the window next to her. She could see Joyce Byers locking up the door to Melvald’s General Store, still in her uniform. Next door in Radio Shack, there was still light burning. Maybe some last-minute repairs or something. Or maybe the guy working there had forgotten to turn them off. Who knew?

New, fresh rain was starting to dribble down the window, obscuring her view. Within moments, the world outside was turned into a blurry mess of colours and shapes. She could still vaguely tell where they were simply because it was the town she’d lived in for all of her life, but it got harder and harder. Soon, she had to turn her eyes to the windshield, it being the only place that still offered a semi-clear view. The windshield wipers were going left and right in their own rhythm, as if something invisible spurred them on. Well, she knew how they worked. But where was the mystery in that?

Watching the wipers do their job was…hypnotic. Without actively choosing to do so, her eyes were following their path left and right and left and right and she could feel herself get drowsy. Though that was probably less the wipers and more the fact that she’d gotten up early and worked a lot more than expected. Her day was supposed to be mainly office stuff plus the cunninghams car, and yet…

“Tired?” Steve asked, his finger rhythmically tapping against the steering wheel, led by the indicators soft ‘click click click click’. She sighed and sank back further into the seat.

“Yeah.”

“You could’ve said something. I can take you home.”

“It’s fine. It’s just the drive.” Steve hummed lightly.

“Of course it is.”

The boy pulled into the car park of Rosemary’s Diner with ease. If it weren’t so dangerous and irresponsible, she would’ve challenged him to do it with his eyes closed. Honestly, he might actually pull it off. They’d been here often enough. While most people preferred Benny’s Diner, both Steve and her had always chosen Rosemary’s whenever they got a chance. Mostly when it was just the two of them.

Sure, she’d pestered Ian sometimes to go with her. And, far as she was aware, Steve had brought some dates here over the years. Both of them had dragged their little group of misfits with them more than once and while they rarely complained, they both knew that this place never clicked quite as well with the rest of them. Maybe it was the food, maybe it was the atmosphere and maybe it was just the fact that she and Steve had been coming here ever since they were old enough to go to a diner on their own.

Inside, the lights were bright and welcoming, just like always.

Steve held the door for her and she stepped inside, both manoeuvring the etablissement with well-practised ease. Down the checkered tiles to the second to last booth – second to last, never the one before or after that – where both of them dropped down into their favoured seats at the same time. Her back was facing the door, while Steve liked to be able to survey the entire room. Menus were pushed aside; they would order the usual thing anyway. Doreen, their favourite waitress, saw them from afar and nodded towards them. Not to indicate anything, just recognition.

The seats hissed familiarly with every move she made as she drew her legs under her in a position that should be uncomfortable but really wasn’t. Steve was already slouched back into the burgundy leather of his booth, his face…complicated.

That was probably the best thing to call it.

It wasn’t an expression she knew from Steve, which should be impossible after over twenty years together. But then again, one was never done learning. That probably applied to people as well.  

“Hey you guys, nice to have you back!” She raised her head to meet the dark brown eyes of Doreen with a smile. The older waitress was grinning down at them, her braided hair pulled back into a ponytail that made her seem a lot younger than she was. There were some stains on her pale-yellow uniform, likely coffee, but other than that she looked at dewy as ever.

“Hiya Doreen. How’s it going?” She offered while Steve just nodded semi-friendly. Normally, she would have kicked his shins for that, but she accepted it for today. At least he’d greeted her at all. Doreen had noticed too, apparently, because she threw him a knowing glance but kept quiet.

“Ah, you know. Same as always in this old thing. Enough guests to keep it running but never many.” She shrugged. “You’re getting the usual?”

“Sure, we are.”

“Neat-o! So that’d be two cheeseburgers – one without onions – a large basket of fries with mayonnaise and ketchup and two shakes – strawberry and vanilla. Did I miss anything?” She couldn’t help but grin at that.

“Perfect like always, Doreen. Thanks.” Doreen nodded and turned on her heels, and she remembered another thing. “Oh hey, Doreen?”

“Yeah?”

“Add a coffee to that. As strong as you can legally brew it, yeah?”

“Oooh, the order changed. Exciting!” Steve rolled his eyes and she grinned. “Consider it done, sweet thing. Won’t be long.”

“Thanks!” Doreen strolled back over to the kitchen, leaving both her and Steve to themselves. The latter was still quietly staring into the void, his mind clearly somewhere else. Worry dipped her brows as she watched him. She’d seen Steve after bad dates often enough. Sometimes he was annoyed, sometimes he was angry. Sometimes he was sad but tried to act like he wasn’t, fully knowing that she knew, and sometimes he was just plain sad. Those were the things she expected. A ranty, maybe whiny, Steve. A mopey, pouty Steve. Maybe even a sad one.

But he wasn’t any of those things.

On the contrary, behind the complicatedness of it all, he looked…defeated? Reserved? Maybe both. Like a man that had failed. Or better: A man that had given up. She’d seen that face on someone else before, and it hadn’t been a good thing. She didn’t really like seeing it on Steve.

“I’m fine.” He said and she blinked in surprise.

“What?”

“I’m fine.” Steve sighed, kicking her dangling leg softly. “Stop staring holes in my face. And unfurrow your brows, you’ll get wrinkly, old girl.” She scoffed.

“I wouldn’t need to furrow my brows if your soul stopped taking a smoke break, you know?” But her fingers rubbed over the space between her brows anyway. “’Old girl’, really? Tsk.” Steve rolled his eyes and she turned towards the large window to her left. She couldn’t see much with the outside being nearly pitch black and the inside brightly lit. So instead of seeing the car park, she saw her own sorry expression staring back at her.

“Shit.” Edging closer to the window, she surveyed her own appearance with disdain.

She looked horrendous.

Since she came here directly from work, she was still clad in her stupid overalls. She should really start packing a change of clothes…She didn’t have too many nice clothes anyway but the grey work overalls must have been amongst the worst she owned. They were built for practicality and comfort, with a whole bunch of pockets and the loose fit. But they didn’t look great. This one, the one she was wearing today, was especially bad since she hadn’t gotten around to altering it. It was an ill fit in most places and it was stained. Fine for work, not so much for anything else.

And, of course, her hair was a mess as well. It stuck up in weird places and It was extremely greasy after a days’ worth of work. She had a sweaty job, alright? And in front of her boys – and Steve – she didn’t mind. They’d seen her look worse and she’d seen them look worse. But she felt iffy sitting in a diner like that. God, she hadn’t even wiped her face, had she? It was probably greasy as well.

“You could have told me I look like crap.” She muttered, wiping her face with her sleeve before getting to work on her hair. She couldn’t salvage much but she could damn well try.

“You look like you always do.”

…Ouch.

She send the boy a glare and let go of her hair. Not better, but at least differently messy. Oh well, it was what it was. Nothing she could do about it now, was there?

Steve was back to being zoned out. So much so, that he didn’t even notice that Doreen brought their food until she kicked his shins. He flinched, blinked, and looked around confusedly. She rolled her eyes and grappled for his plate. Using just two fingers, she’d picked out the pickles Steve so seemed to detest and replaced them with one of her tomatoes. Sure, he could just have ordered the burger without pickles and with extra tomatoes, but why bother?

Happy with her fixing job, she got to the fries, each one loaded up with mayonnaise, before tackling her burger. The smell alone caused her to feel extremely ravenous, to be perfectly honest, and she nearly melted when her teeth sunk into the goodness that was this burger.

With each bite, she felt the crispy softness of the bun, the crunch of fresh salad and tomatoes as well as the greasy cheese-patty combo. And in combination with the slight tang of Rosemary’s mystery sauce? To die for. Really, in an apocalypse she would likely murder for this burger alone.

Steve didn’t seem to agree, though. At least not today. Usually, the boy inhaled his food much faster than she ever could and she always had to battle him for the fries. Otherwise, he’d eat all of them and leave her high and dry for some oily potato sticks. Likely the reason why she’d started to eat the fries first and her burger last, since Steve did it exactly the other way around.

But today, the Harrington boy picked apart his burger slowly and thoughtfully. Sauce and grease quickly covered his fingers, which he didn’t seem to notice. Only a few bites made it into his mouth each time he looked conscious before he was right back to mindlessly playing with his food. He didn’t say a thing while they ate - and sure, she was more than fine with just existing around him. The two of them were long over the need to always do something together. She couldn’t count the days they had wasted away without talking, lounging around in the same bubble but each doing their own thing. They were masters at just existing in the same space.

In combination with his current mood, however, she felt her patience start to wear thin. It wasn’t even really because of him or his mood, it was because she didn’t know what was going on and thus didn’t know what to do about it. She couldn’t really help Steve if he didn’t open his big gob.

After nearly fourty five minutes of complete silence, spent exclusively watching him pick apart the burger into goddamn atoms, she pulled out her wallet and threw some cash on the table. Enough to pay for the both of them. That, finally, got Steve out of his reverie.

“Hey, we said it’s my treat.”

“Yeah, fuck that, Harrington. You can pay me back later.” Sighing, she fished out some wet wipes from her handbag and wiped his hands. He just let it happen, watching her closely as she wiped remnants of grease and sauce of his phalanges. “Come on. Let’s go somewhere, I need to stretch my legs before I fall asleep sitting up.” He winced.

“Sorry. I can take you home now.”

“Why, trying to get rid of me now, are we?”

“You know that’s never it.”

“Yeah, I know. Come on, up with you.” Not letting go of his hand, she rose from her seat and pulled him up with her. “Bye Doreen!”

“Bye guys!” The older woman waved them goodbye from behind the counter, not even checking if they’d left money. Even if they did forget, they’d be back before it could actually be missed. Not that that ever happened before.

Outside, Steve naturally tried to head towards the car, but her hand in his stopped him. Confused, he turned towards her, keys already in hand and pointing towards his car.

“The car is over there.”

“Sure is. But we’re not going to your car just yet.”

“Huh?” She rolled her eyes.

“I told you. I need to stretch my legs. The ten steps from our booth to your car don’t really do the trick.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Groaning, she let go of his hand only to get behind him and push him along.

“I mean: Move your arse, Harrington, we’re taking a god damn walk.”

“Ugh, but it’s raining.”

“Cry me a river!” She scoffed and pushed on. “You know, you’re no basketballer anymore. Some exercise might actually be good for you, dumbass.”

“I hate walks!”

“Move your god damn legs!” He did, reluctantly so.

At first, he was going annoyingly slow, obviously trying to not get too far away from the car in case she suddenly decided it was enough walking for a day. The more steps they took however, the more he picked up on speed. It took only a few minutes for them to reach a comfortable pace, easily falling into a rhythmic step beside each other.

The sky was still leaking above them, rain coating them in a fine spray of water that would feel incredibly wet the longer they left it there. But, in a way, it was a nice walk anyway. And what did her mum always say?

‘Light exercise is the best way to sort out a muddled mind, pumpkin. And nothing helps more than walking. Back home, I’d often walk the length of a town, just trying to get my brain in order!’

The memory had her throat tighten up for a moment.

One should really thing that four years would take care of grief, but in the end they didn’t do shit. It still felt the same, whenever she thought about her family. That couldn’t be normal, could it? Or maybe it was. Who knew.

Steve’s shoulder bumped against hers, pulling her attention back to him. Once again, he looked lost in thought. Less zoned out, but still not completely here. His brown eyes, nearly black with the absence of light, were pointedly focused on the ground below them and his hands were shoved into the pockets of his jean-jacket.

With another sigh, she looped her arm through his and looked up at him. He barely turned his face towards her, brows raised – a silent half-question. Which, she decided, wasn’t enough right now. She slightly shook his arm, pushing him to give her his full attention. Thankfully, he did.

“Okay, pretty boy. This is where I stop asking and you start talking. Because I’m slowly losing my mind here.”

“Boredom or worry?”

“Half half.” A deep sigh and he looked around for nothing in particular.

“Me saying something like ‘shitty date, is all’ is probably not going to cut it, is it?”

“Yeah, no. Try again.”

“…Shitty date is probably still true.”

“Okay? Why was the date shitty, then?” Steve scoffed.

“Probably because I have shitty taste in girls. Women.” Immediately, she felt herself bristle.

“What did that bitch do?” He rolled his eyes.

“Don’t call her that.”

“What did she do, Steven?” He sighed, using his free hand to ruffle his hair.

“Okay, so… When she asked me out, she was weirdly specific, right?” She nodded, not caring too much about the long story. But if that’s how he wanted to tell it - fine. “She was all like ‘Do you want to go to the cinema with me on Tuesday at seven fourty five?’ and I thought it was kinda weird to ask like that, but hey maybe she’s just one of those…those OCD-types, right? What do I know? Maybe she just feels the need to specify everything or her dad was a vet or whatever. Don’t know, don’t care.” She didn’t point out that seven fourty five wasn’t military time. “So, I agree, knowing I’d likely have to pester Robin into switching with me, which wasn’t easy because it was a Keith shift and who wants to do those? But who cares, it was flower shop girl, right?”

“Right.”

“Yeah. So today, after I left, I got home, got ready and picked her up exactly on time. When she got in I noticed that she was, like, really nervous for some reason.”

“What, because of you?”

“That’s what I wondered. I mean, I bought a gazillion flowers from her and she rents videos regularly, so it’s not like we’re total strangers. And I’m not weird, right? Like, creepy weird. Rapey weird.” She nodded as he threw her a glance and he carried on. “Right, otherwise she probably wouldn’t have asked me. So, I’m, like, extremely confused as to why she’s so skittish.”

“How skittish are we talking?”

“Her voice was an octave or so higher the whole time.”

“Jesus.”

“Exactly.” Steve shook his head. “Anyway, I drive up to the theatre and try to get a conversation going, you know? Drop some funny lines, talk about work, anything. But she barely answers and is all evasive and weird and I’m already like ‘Oh great, this date is going to be fun.’.” Angrily, he kicked something out of the way. A pebble? “But that isn’t even the worst thing. I mean, sure, I really…I was really amped for that date. But bad dates happen, you know? You get annoyed and then you move on or something. I don’t know.”

“I know what you mean, Steve. Carry on.”

“Dude, I’m on it.” He sighed shaking his head. “Anyway. Theatre. We get out of the car and I go to buy the tickets-“

“Why the fuck did you-“

“I don’t know, I just did.”

“She asked you out, Steve! She can pay!”

“But she didn’t okay? Let me finish talking.” She grumbled something under her breath, but let him go on. “So, I go to buy the tickets, she’s waiting by the door. And then we go in and whoosh.” He mimed an explosion with his hands. “She sticks to me like glue. It’s like someone flipped a switch and she went from ‘why am I here?’ to full on date mode. And she’s, like, pulling all the stops. She’s flirting like a mad woman, batting her eyelids super often and talking about how nice I look and how nice it was that I agreed to this date and stuff. And she’s super loud too, right?” Slowly, something dawned in her mind and she didn’t like it one bit. “So, I am like ‘Uhm…what exactly is going on here?’ but she just keeps talking. And then we get to the front of the popcorn line and some dude greets us and he keeps staring at her all wistfully and shit while she finds 87 ways to say the word ‘date’ in a non-committal context.” He stopped, kicking at nothing at she watched him with furrowed brows.

“She wanted to make that guy jealous. And she used you to do it.” He scoffed, his eyes focusing on nothing in particular.

“Yeah. And I was stupid enough to say yes.”

“Steve.”

“She probably noticed that I was literally buying her out of flowers and came to the conclusion that sure, Harrington is hare brained and will never realise what is going on. Why not use him like some sort of accessory, it’s not like he’s got much more going on!”

“Steve, stop that.” She pulled him to a stop, turning him towards her in the process. Steve’s brows were deeply furrowed, nearly touching in the middle, and there was a definite pout to his lips. “Stop trash talking yourself. None of this is because of you.” He tsked.

“Right. Sure, who if not me, then?” She stared at him, incredulously.

“Her. It is because of her, Steve. She asked you out to make another guy jealous because she noticed that you liked her. She used your feelings against you, not the other way around.”

“And why did I have feelings? That her fault too or what?”

“What are you even talking about, Steve?”

“I mean, how often have I actually talked to her? I barely knew her, right? We’re loose acquaintances at best. So why? Why like her so much that I buy a bunch of ugly fucking bouquets every other day? Those fucking things looked like shit because she’s horrible at making them, but I still spend a fortune on them simply so I could watch her talk about flowers for ten minutes. Shit, I’m not even a flower guy to begin with! Do I look like someone who cares that gardenias are considered deer resistant shrubs?” He really seemed to believe that he had any choice in the matter, which had her brows dip further.

“Steve, you can’t actually believe the bullshit you’re spewing right now.” He shrugged, pushing the moist hair from his face.

“Well, I don’t know anymore. I must be doing’ something wrong, seeing as every god damn girl I come close to liking just ends up treating me like shit.” Pinching his nose, he took a step back. “I mean, I’m not exactly a catch. Right. I know that.” He gestured around, more angry than necessary. “I know what they see, okay? Har har Harrington, high school hasbeen that couldn’t get into college and is still working a shitty job at fucking family video. Right, sure, I get it. Oh yeah, add the ugly ass scars I can’t explain – not that anyone even gets close to seeing them lately. But why can’t they just tell me? I mean, they could just tell me to fuck off and I’d be gone.” Swallowing heavily, he quieted for a moment. “I’m so…I’m so sick of growing to like people who don’t like me back. Who don’t even want to get to know me, like actually me. Not ‘Steve Harrington, the family video looser’, but me.”

Her throat felt tight as she watched him rant, rain slipping down his hair and face. Hearing what he thought about himself was always difficult, because, for some reason, Steve literally thought he was the worst person alive. No matter what she said, no matter what she did, his opinion never seemed to change.

Steve Harrington viewed himself as little more than trash.

“How is that your fault, Steve? Any of that?” Hot anger rose in her chest, not at him but for him. “You couldn’t get into college – so what! Who gives a shit? And sure, you work at family video. But at least you work!” She shrugged. “That’s miles better than anything any of them likely ever did. And liking someone is…We can’t choose who we like. You just…you just like who you like.”

“That’s a bullshit answer and you know it.”

“Yeah? Well. It’s yours.”

“What?”

“It’s what you told me. While I was crying over Ian and cursing myself over ever falling for him you said exactly that.” He scoffed, his head falling back.

“I give shit advise.”

“Yeah, but you mean well.” Sighing, she grabbed his hand. “Steve, listen to me. Properly, okay?”

“Fine.”

“That stupid cunt used you. And that is not your fault.”

“But-”

“No, it’s not. You didn’t do anything, Steve! I mean, what would you tell me? If the situation was reversed? Let’s say I…I don’t know, let’s say I’m on a date with, uh, with…Jonathan.”

“Byers?”

“Yeah.”

“Yikes.”

“Stay focused.” She rolled her eyes. “So, I’m on a date with Byers and turns out he just wanted Nancy to get angry or jealous or whatever. And obviously I’m heartbroken because wow, I’m so in love with Byers-“ Steve winced.

“I’m not in love.”

“- that I can barely contain myself. What would you tell me?” Steve looked down at her, his dark eyes raking her face as he thought.

“…Probably the same thing.”

“Which is what?”

“…It’s not your fault. He used you, not the other way around.”

“Right. And?”

“I’d probably try to hit him with my car. That’s long overdue anyway.”

“Yeah, I get it. Flower shop girl just got first place on my shit list. But that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what?”

“Is it my fault that I fell in love with Jonathan Byers?” Steve turned his face towards her, looking just as wet and sorry as he did, and sighed.

“…No.”

“But I could have known better. He’s obsessed with Nancy, so this was totally unavoidable, wasn’t it?” Steve’s brows dipped.

“Yeah, so? It’s not like you wanted to fall in love with Byers, you just did. Maybe that’s dumb, but you can’t choose who-“ he stopped short.

“Yeah?”

“…You can’t choose who you like.”

“Right. You can’t.” She sighed. “You don’t always need to hold yourself up to higher standards than everyone else, you know? You’re…you’re just human, like the rest of us.”

“I know.”

“Do you now? Because sometimes I’m not so sure you do, Steve.” She vividly remembered many times where his perfectionism hat nearly driven him insane. “You always blame yourself for things that aren’t you fault. Always did, ever since we were kids.” It wasn’t hard to guess where he’d got it from. His parents weren’t ever shy about blaming their child for everything wrong with their life. His mum did it passively, with neglect and pejorative remarks while his dad just straight up told him why he was the shittest thing in their collective lives. Steve, apparently, had internalised that knowledge far too deep.  And now it always came back to haunt him.

Like that one time.

It was a day she barely remembered. The memory was fuzzy, either with age or because her mind simply didn’t want her to remember. What was it, a day after Starcourt? Two days? She didn’t even really know. It could have been years or minutes; everything felt the same.

Hopeless.

Hopelessness was winding around her like thin wires, squeezing and pulling at the same time. Wherever the wires touched her, they would dig into her skin, painfully tearing the tender flesh of her body apart. Maybe she should just have done it, set her jaw and bear with it, just like she’d been doing every time she’d gotten hurt that day. Pain was nothing new to her, in the past three years she’d learned how to deal with it but, for some reason she just…she just couldn’t.

When she looked down at her arms, she expected to see blood. And sure, there was blood. But that was old, already drying. She didn’t see any new blood. Nothing was actually ripping her skin apart, and yet she could feel it. She could feel the lines on her skin, the places she was barely keeping together.

Every movement, every breath was painful. So, so painful that she wanted to scream. To her, moving meant pain. And a lot of pain meant that she was dying.

So, she just didn’t move.

She sat there, on the floor in Steve’s bedroom, unmoving, with her legs pulled against her chest. Why Steve’s room or how she’d even gotten there in the first place was something she couldn’t answer. She just knew that she couldn’t move away from that spot, not without falling apart completely. And in that moment, there was no one who could’ve stacked her back together again.

It was uncomfortable.

Her limbs were falling asleep in random moments and the heeled boots she’d been wearing were likely ruining her feet for good. She herself was still bloody, sweaty and disgusting and she could feel the layers of grime on her skin. But she didn’t…couldn’t care.

It was uncomfortable, but it was safe.

As long as she didn’t move, she could pretend it wasn’t real. She could pretend that her dad and brother were at the shop, like always, bickering over the right way to tune up the Hillson’s sedan. She could pretend that she hadn’t seen the giant monster that her family had somehow become part of. Because every time she thought of it, she remembered what Nancy told them. She could hear Steve saying: “But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon with melted people…?”

Melted people.

Her father, the kindest man she’d ever known. The man who’d tried his hardest to raise her, to give her anything a daughter could need. The man who’d taught her how to ride a bike and how to replace a rotary arm. The man who’d cooked her favourite food whenever she felt down.

And her brother.

The big brother, who’d gone and beaten-up Tommy Hagan after he cheated on her. The brother who’d read her stories as a kid, who’d carry her around whenever she was too lazy to walk. The very brother who’d told her, just the night before, that all he wanted was for her to be happy. Wherever that might be.

Those two were part of the people Steve and Nancy were talking about. And she’d known, she’d known something was weird with her dad ever since he’d been so moody and snappy. He was never like that, never that aggressive, and both her and her brother had been extremely confused and worried. And yet, with little to no argument, she’d just packed her bag and left the minute her brother told her to.

She’d gone to stay with Steve, lounging around at Scoops Ahoy all day instead of just…just going home. Home, where she actually could’ve done something. Where she could’ve helped them.

But she didn’t. And now they were dead.

Those were the thoughts going through her mind on a loop. Every time she arrived at the conclusion it would go back to the start, like a record that spun endlessly. Nothing seemed to be able to turn it off. It just spun and spun and spun. Not even the blood that covered her shirt and skirt turning sticky and disgusting could change that. Nor could the knowledge that at least half the blood was not hers but Steve’s.

Steve…

Steve, who’d spent the past hours talking to her with endless patience. He’d tried to get her to eat, to move. To just do…something. Anything. He never pushed her too hard, but he didn’t ease up. He sat beside her, talked about anything. He turned on music whenever his voice turned weak and the silence became heavy.

He was always there, like a shadow glued to her side. Drifting along the lines of her periphery in hopes to get a rise out of her.

Looking back, she was surprised he’d kept it together that well. She didn’t know if she could’ve done it. If she could’ve acted like she was okay for his sake.

Because Steve wasn’t okay. Of course, he wasn’t. And one day, she finally noticed it.

As always, he’d left his room. Claiming to go and order some dinner. He left, went downstairs and was gone for a good long while. Too long for a phone call. Maybe she was on her way out of her trance, maybe she was already on the threshold to being fully conscious. Or maybe it was the fact that Steve had forgotten to turn on the music. She didn’t know.

But as she sat, still huddled against the dresser in Steve’s room, she heard something…weird. An odd noise she couldn’t quite place. Like…like a sob. Or something. The Harringtons weren’t home, of course, so it couldn’t have been them. But that only left Steve. Steve who was gleefully making conversation up until a moment ago, seemingly completely unaware of how one sided it actually was.

That uncertainty was what finally caused her to get up and move.

Stiff as a board and with great difficulty she peeled herself off the floor, using the wall to prop herself up. Every step she took hurt like hell, her poor, battered feet burning like embers. But she hobbled on, slow but determined. Thank god everything was carpeted, because otherwise Steve might have heard her come down the steps. And knowing him, he would’ve gone right back to acting.

But he didn’t.

And as she entered the Harringtons kitchen, she didn’t find the Steve she’d seen upstairs. Instead, she found a barely eighteen-year-old boy, who’d been tortured and drugged. A boy, who’d spent too long high on adrenaline and was now watching his best friend wither away right there, in his room. A boy who didn’t know what to do, how to help.

He was sitting below the phone, the receiver dangling carelessly somewhere next to him, and he was sobbing. Desperate, scared little noises that had her stop for a moment.

“Steve?” She’d said, her voice raw and broken by prolonged disuse. But the boy had heard her, flinching as his head snapped towards her. The moment his dark eyes landed on her, standing in the door way, he’d started to cry even harder. Violent sobs started to shake him, a sight that had her feel dizzy.

“It’s you.” Was all he managed to say between all the sobbing, his face buried in his hands. The sobs got louder too, his relieve mixing into the whole mess of emotions he was already facing. Watching that, watching as he broke down with fear, pain and relieve spurred something in her. With just two little steps she made it to his side, where she sank down to her knees. She didn’t know what to do. This Steve was not one she knew, and right then she barely knew herself. Her hands fluttered about unsurely, touching his hair and his shoulders, trying to find a place to start.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He’d muttered, repeating nothing but that again and again while sobs rattled through his body.

“Sorry…?” She didn’t understand. Sorry for what? What had he done that he needed to be sorry for? Nothing came to mind.

“I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault.” Her eyes were shaking as she watched the boy sob on. Her brain was so incredibly slow already, exhausted from little sleep and heightened adrenaline, so she still didn’t understand. She didn’t understand. “Everything is always my fault.”

Everything.

She felt her eyes tear up, sobs clawing their way up her throat as she realised what he was on about.

Steve was blaming himself for this. He was blaming himself for what had happened down in the Russian base as well as what had happened up in the mall. He was blaming himself for her pain as well as his own. The way she knew him, he’d probably been blaming himself for ever becoming her friend, for ever being born.

Because that was Steve Harrington.

Everything was always his fault, even when it wasn’t. He automatically deemed it so and no one, not a single person, ever thought to tell him he was wrong. They all called him ‘ass’ and ‘moron’, called him out for his time as stupid ‘King Steve’, but no one ever took the time to remind him how great he really was.

If her heart hadn’t already been broken, it would have been the moment she truly realised how lonely that boy was. And how scared he must’ve been of losing her, the last person to always be on his side.

“Steve…” She’d sobbed, winding her arms around him to cry into his hair while she held him. She’d just been holding onto him until both their tears ran dry for the time being.

And she did the same thing now.

With one simple movement, she’d wrapped her arms around his midriff and pressed her face into his shoulder. Steve didn’t hesitate to hug her back. He never did. His arms wound around her waist, holding her close. Somewhere above her ear, she could feel his breath fan against her skin.

“You need to stop blaming yourself so much, Steve.” Her voice was muffled by the fabric of his jacket, but she was sure he understood. She knew by the way his breath hitched, by the way is body started to shake. “It isn’t your fault, none of this.” She patted the back of his head comfortingly, carefully. “And I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything.” His voice was weak and croaky, poorly repressed feelings seeping out of it with every word.

“No, I didn’t. But I’m still sorry.” She sighed, patting on. “I’m sorry because she isn’t. And I’m sorry because she couldn’t see you the way you did her. I’m sorry that everyone always blames you, even you yourself…” His arms tightened around her waist and she heard him exhale a shaky breath. “I’m sorry for all of that, Steve.”

And just like that night four years ago, she’d held the boy while he shed tears no one else knew about.

Because that was who Steve Harrington actually was.

***

“There! There, do you see that?” Robin hissed, pressed close to her side. “Now that isn’t normal. And at first I was all like ‘oh maybe he’s just confused’ but it’s been week and he’s just been doing that all the time. That’s weird, right? Agh, of course it’s weird!” She blinked, ignoring Robin’s rambling as she watched Steve ring up a customer upfront. The rest of the store lay deserted, the day still too early for most people to think about renting anything.

It was Sunday, a couple of long, exhausting days after Steve’s date with the horticulture-cunt.

The week had been quite the mess so far, so she was thanking every available god that it was finally Sunday and she had the day off. And sure, lounging about Family Video with Steve and Robin was an excellent pastime. ‘Spying’ on Steve from behind a shelf, though? Ugh.

“Look, he’s not flirting, nothing! He’s just-just look!” The girl hissed, her hands clasping her shoulders. She could feel Robins nails scratch her skin, causing her to shiver slightly.

Robin had been calling the repair shop nearly every day, more than once, ranting about how Steve was behaving ‘weirdly’ and how this couldn’t be ‘normal’ and ‘please please come over, okay? I’m losing my mind here!’, so here she was. Badly hidden behind the self-proclaimed chick flick shelf – ooh, was that ‘Beaches’? – staring through a small window Robin had created by removing a couple of tapes.

It was not all too interesting.

Steve just did his job like anyone else would. The whole spiel - ‘Hi there’ ‘beep beep’ ‘your total is…’. That was how this worked, right? Because, sure, she’d never worked anywhere other than the shop, but this looked pretty standard to her. Next to her, Robin was still rambling – something about possession and brainwashing – and Steve was bagging up the tapes. The girl he’d just rung up thanked him overly sweetly – gag – and turned to leave the store. The wind chime above the door announced her exit.

Steve stayed where he was, leaning forward onto the counter, before looking in their direction.

“You idiots do know that I can see you, right? You’re not, like, invisible.” Robin stiffened and cursed under her breath and she patted her back comfortingly.

“You tried, Robs.” Was all she said as she grabbed ‘Beaches’ from the shelf. Why not use this oh-so-golden opportunity to organise some Sunday night entertainment? And she’d been waiting to see this one for forever. She even told Steve, the traitor, to let her know as soon as it was available. Of course, he ‘forgot’ to do that again.

“Yeah, maybe leave some tapes next time so it’s less obvious.” Steve nodded towards the shelf and sure enough. Tapes were missing on both sides, making it pretty obvious that someone wanted to spy on him through the three- or four-inch gap the shelf offered.

“You leave me no choice! And you!” Robin pointed at her, her black-nailed finger wafting accusingly in front of her face. “I called you so you’d side with me!” She chuckled, strolling over to where Steve was still lounging about. Steve’s eyes were on her as she hopped onto the counter next to him, offering up the tape, which he took in turn for a clean picked bag of gummy bears.

“Oh, come on, ‘Beaches’? Really? Ugh.” He shook his head as he started to check it out – under his name, obviously.

“It’s Bette Midler, Steve.” The boy just winced and she started to chow down on the gummy bears. Robin was still rambling.

“Hello?! Are you listening to me!?”

“No.” The two of them said and the girl grumbled, yet still accepting the peace offering of gummy bears. The younger girl glanced at her hand, spotting the exclusively white, orange and yellow variants of the sugary sweets.

“Why do I never get any red or green ones? Those are the best.” Steve nodded while she just winced at the other girl’s statement.

“Steve is in charge of the red and green ones, so pester him about that.”

“Wait, what? ‘In charge’?”

“Yeah. Haven’t you noticed?” She cocked her head, shaking the bag. “He eats all the red and green ones. I get the yellow, orange and white ones.”

“Why would you do that?”

“She doesn’t like red and green. I don’t like white.” Steve handed her the cassette in a small bag before turning and leaning his back against the counter. “So, we eat the ones we like and then trade.”

“But there’s always more red and green, so you’re basically being ripped off!” Robin leaned against the counter next to her as she spoke, holding her hand out for more. She got them, of course.

“Hey, she gets three colours and I only get two!” She could feel Steve’s fingers at the hem of her shirt as he spoke, the boy using the proximity to cover up a sliver of skin that had been exposed since earlier. Paying him no mind, she let him pull down her shirt properly and continued to stuff her face with gummy candy. Robin, however, was watching their interaction with raised eyebrows.

“Your relationship is disgusting, has anyone ever told you that?” Both she and Steve rolled their eyes at that. Because they had, in fact, heard that before. That and anything else people would offer about their relationship. For some reason, people just loved to make unsolicited comments about other people’s business. She couldn’t even count the times, that people had asked her if she and Steve had ever had a ‘thing’ for or done ‘stuff’ with each other – big yikes.

Then there was the usual ‘oh your guys are disgusting’, ‘get a room!’ or ‘you’re like an old married couple’. When they were younger, they used to argue back every time because it wasn’t like that and they were just friends. At some point, though, both of them had gotten tired of the same reaction – eye rolls, amused chuckling and a meaningful ‘For now!’ – so they just rolled their eyes and ignored all the comments to the best of their abilities.

Well, except the ‘stuff’ one because that was a disgusting and invasive thing to ask. Steve took that one just as wordlessly, but she couldn’t. The last guy who’d dared to offer that question had earned himself a broken nose and she would happily pummel anyone who wished to follow in his footsteps.

“Only every person in this goddamn town, Robin.”

“I think I heard a Demodog say it at one point.” Steve said, closing his eyes.

“Yeah? Seems like them. They were a rather chatty bunch, weren’t they?”

“Totally. Especially- uh…wait, what was his name?” His brows furrowed in thought. “Henderson named him after that chocolate bar.”

“Ah, you mean Dart?”

“Dart! Yes, right. Especially Dart.” The two of them grinned at that. It should be all unfortunate and uncomfortable, but honestly? One can only shed so many tears about something. At some point, joking will become easier than sobbing.

“Do I even want to know what you’re talking about?” Robin asked, snagging more gummy bears.

“Just the Demodog Dart and his little herd of friends that nearly mauled us to death.”

“Come on, Dart didn’t. He let us pass, remember?”

“Not really. I was losing a ton of blood, Steve. I don’t even really remember how we got out.”

“Oh, right. You got blood all over my jacket. ”

“Sorry not sorry.” They had bled onto each other often enough, even before the whole upside down bullshit. Although there’s a significant difference between ‘shit, I cut my finger while chopping onions’ and ‘oh my god, that Demodog just rammed it’s claws into my torso’. The scars were really different, too.

“You could’ve just said no, you know?” The girl flicked her forehead before going to do…something. Work. Slack off somewhere else. That left her and Steve behind at the counter. For a moment, they did nothing else. She was fiddling around with the bag in her hands and Steve was slowly flicking through a pamphlet or something. Leaning over, she noticed that it was a pamphlet about…

“Wait, is that for college?” Steve nodded, flicking to the next page. “I thought you gave up on college?” She grabbed the pamphlet from him, ignoring his protests as she read through as quickly as she could. That was made a lot harder by Steve trying to get the thing back. Her eyes were better than his though, so she held it barely out of his reach and read on “No way, nursing? You want to become a nurse?” He scoffed and ripped the thing from her hands.

“Jesus, ever heard of privacy? You’re so nosy, do you know that?” He snapped, stuffing the pamphlet somewhere beneath the counter, effectively out of reach. Not that she cared, she knew all she needed to.

“We don’t do privacy, Steven.” Drawing her leg onto the counter, she turned towards him properly, grinning brightly. “Nurse Steve?” The boy groaned, his shoulders slumping forwards.

“I don’t know, okay? It’s just, like, an idea. Nothing more. I just thought, you know…I’m quite good with blood and all that and I’ve seen worse things than whatever the human body can produce. So why not try to make use of that?” He shrugged. “I researched a bit and heard about this nursing program and I’m…I probably won’t get in anyway, so it’s really not that big a deal, right? It’s just- it’s…Robin will eventually get her degree and then she’ll leave and teach little shit’s their ABC’s or whatever the fuck she does and I can’t…It’s…Anything is better than being stuck here for the rest of my life, rewinding sticky copies of ‘Kinky Business’ and ‘Too good to be true’ while Keith is breathing down my neck.” He finished, his formerly gesticulating arms falling down to his sides as he breathed heavily. She allowed a moment of silence to pass, giving him a second to catch his breath as she just stared at him. But eventually, she felt the corners of her mouth curl upwards.

“You know, you’re saying all that but for some reason I just hear-“ Steve raised his finger threateningly.

“I swear to god, your ass is grass if you say…”

“-Nurse Steve!” The boy groaned and let his head fall against her shoulder as she giggled and patted the back of his head.

“I hate you; you know that?”

“Sure, I do. I love you too, Harrington.” She wiggled her shoulder to get him off. When she did, she leaned forwards to stare into his face. “Nurse Steve, man. Honestly, I see it. You’ve got a nurse face.”

“What, in that hot nurse kinda way?”

“Yikes. No.” She pretend-shivered. “But you look kind and caring.” Steve rolled his eyes.

“As I said: It’s just an idea and I likely won’t get in anyway, so…”

“No, no you will.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do, Steven! I can feel it in my bones. So let me predict your future now, young padawan.” With her thumb and index she squeezed his cheeks, effectively holding him in place – and making him look like stuff-cheeked hamster. “You will apply for this course and you will get in. And within the next couple years, you’re out of this shit hole and can spend your days saving lives as ‘Nurse Steve – Hero in scrubs’.” He opened his mouth to stop her, but she talked onwards. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll meet a pretty patient and you’ll wrap her around those pretty fingers of yours in a heartbeat while helping her stay calm during a shot or whatever.” Steve’s brows drew together, enough to nearly touch in the middle.

“Did you just write fanfiction about me?” Thanks to her still squeezing his face, the words came out all squishy and muddled. He seemed to notice that too, pulling himself from her grasp to rub his cheeks. “Dude, were you trying to bruise my cheek? Jeez, your grip is like iron.”

“Those are a handyman’s fingers, Steven.” Sad but true. She always wanted to have pretty, dainty hands like Nancy or Robin or Max. Colourful long-ish nails, pretty nailbeds, soft pink skin…but that was not something she’d ever have. Thanks to her line of work, her hands and fingers were often dry and rough, even stained by oil and grease. Her nails had to be short, otherwise they’d break – they tended to do that anyway – and although she tried nail polish sometimes, it never lasted long enough to actually bother.

And sure, she took care of them. She used hand cream like a mad woman, lathering up every chance she got, and she tried to do hand masks regularly. In the end, however, her hands were a mirror of her craft. They were formed by work. And while they could get a car up and running, change a leaking pipe and a handful of other things, they would never look pretty.

It shouldn’t bother her much, but it did, sadly. Generally, she liked how she looked. She was satisfied with what the mirror showed her and she knew she looked good. Great even! But every time she saw how pretty other girls’ hands looked, she felt like a…like a grizzly. Like a giant, weathered witch in front of dainty, little fairy princesses – however untrue that comparison may be.

Everyone had their little insecurities.

Suddenly, Steve grabbed her hands, pulling her fingers away from a patch of dry skin and her out of her own thoughts.

“Stop picking your skin, idiot. You always say it hurts after you do that.” Shifting his hold a bit, both hands now clasped in one of his, he started to root around behind the counter, producing a small tube of hand cream. Without hesitation, he squeezed a good dollop of cream onto her hands and used his thumbs to spread it around. It was almost like a massage and she felt herself relax more and more with each stroke.

In lieu of anything else to do, she looked at him while he worked away all tension she’d build over the last week.

Mouth slightly pursed and brows furrowed, he looked extremely focused right then. If she hadn’t quite literally felt his hands on hers, she would’ve wondered what he was thinking about. His hair did its usual thing, flopping into his face that was, and it gave him some sort of…roguish allure.

Here’s to hoping that he’d never find out that she thought something like that. Yikes.

But it was true nonetheless. She cocked her head as she watched him, raking her eyes over the lines of his face. They all looked the same as always, absolutely not different to the Steve she’d seen yesterday and the day before that. And yet…

Steve was handsome.

Sure, right, objectively she’d known that. She’d seen the boy as a tween and damn, that couldn’t be compared, like, at all. But she’d never really thought about it much. Steve was always about as interesting as her right arm. There and definitely appreciated – in fact, she wouldn’t want to live without it – but not something one thought about much. But right then, brows furrowed in concentration as he rubbed her hands, she really noticed how good looking he actually was.

“You’re really pretty, did you know that?” Steve raised his brows and looked up at her, clearly surprised by her statement. But he caught himself rather quickly, the typical Steve reaction already kicking in.

“Twenty-two years and you only notice that now? Damn.” She rolled her eyes, pulling her hands from his grasp.

“You must’ve been ugly for twenty-one of them, then.”

“That’s still a year, which is a lot coming from you.”

“Right, whatever gets you through the night, pretty boy.” He grinned at that.

“You know what? You can just tell me that my awesome hand rub won you over, sweetheart. There’s no shame in that.”

“Oh, riiiight.” She nodded, a smile curling her lips as she leaned back onto the counter. “Totally. You just stole my heart, Harrington.”

“Don’t I know it.” He leaned against the counter next to her. She hummed under her breath, using two fingers to gently guide his hair out of his face. His eyes fluttered shut at her touch, a habit Steve had always had. In one feather light touch, she let her knuckles ghost over the lines of his cheek, causing his honeyed eyes to open up once more.

“I bet you do that to all the girls, don’t you?” He tipped his head back, eyes focused on her face, and hummed softly.

“Hmmh. Works every time.”

“Am I…interrupting something?” A voice intervened, causing both her and Steve to turn. Robin was standing next to the shelf she and the other girl had just been hiding behind. “Because I can, like, totally take my break right now. You know, if you guys want to finish whatever that was.” She popped a cheese puff into her mouth, the bag in her hands crinkling uncomfortably loud.

“Robin…” Steve sounded all annoyed, clearly ready to ‘bicker with Buckley’, so she intervened.

“Not necessary. Join us, Steve was just telling me all about how he uses roofied hand cream to drug poor, unsuspecting girls into liking him.”

“Aaah. That must be why you were gazing up at him like he was made of light, hm? Because of the hand cream. Totally, I believe you.” Robin shrugged as she hopped closer and she felt her brows dip.

“What am I, a moth?”

“I don’t know, you tell me?” She hopped behind Steve, using her hands to turn his face towards her, to which he protested loudly.

“Come on, your fingers are all cheesy!”

“Take it like a man, dingus.” Robin just said, holding on and nodding at her. “And? Do you think sparkly boy is the hottest thing in town?” She rolled her eyes and Steve ducked out of Robins hold.

“Man, you got cheese dust all over me. Disgusting, go clean your hands.” He shoved her off towards the break room while rubbing his cheeks against his uniform. “And the question is rigged, because I totally am the hottest thing in town and we all know it.”

“Right, Dingus, whatever you want to believe. You know, that scene felt oddly familiar. Did I see it in a movie before? God, what was it called again? Maybe-“

“Buckley! Sink! Now!” At his famed babysitter tone, Robin instinctively hopped on off without another word. The two who stayed behind, sighed in unison. “I hate her sometimes.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.”

Another shared sigh and Steve was back to fiddling with the tube of hand cream and she watched him for a minute, before choosing to plunge forwards with their conversation. A normal one, duh, not the one Robin had interrupted.

“Wanna watch ‘Beaches’ with me?”

“No.” He said, tossing the hand cream aside and leaning against the counter, further away from her this time. “I’ll come ‘round after work. Chinese or Pizza?” She smiled.

“Pizza for sure.”

***

Early evening had befallen Hawkins by the time Steve made it to her house. The sky outside was quickly darkening, regretfully announcing the end of her day off. She wished she had something to turn back time. Not even a lot, just a day or so. Tiny day. Go plink plink on that little, uh, time turner, and have another Sunday right after her first one. And that one she would spend right here, on the couch, in a pad so huge it could count as diapers and simply not move. Didn’t that sound glorious? Damn. Next time, Buckley could beg all she wanted. She would spend her Sunday hermited and wrapped up like a burrito.

When his knock finally came, she was already lounging on her sofa, braless and clad in only her finest pair of sweats and a giant t-shirt that came from god knows where. The void, probably. Maybe even the upside down. Didn’t know, didn’t care.

It was comfy anyway.

 “Come it, the door is open!” She called, too lazy to move to open the door for him. Honestly, she didn’t really need to and he didn’t need to knock, he had a key anyway. The door opened and she raised her head, just enough to make sure it was actually Steve that entered and not a crazy serial killer. Well, those probably wouldn’t knock but it didn’t hurt to make sure, right?

But nope, it was Steve in all his hang-night glory.

Her head plopped back down after she analysed his choice of clothes – very similar to hers, in fact – and he tsked at the sight.

“I told you not to leave your door unlocked, idiot.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“Not whatever. Dude, you already live in a paper fucking house. At least try to make it hard for someone to murder you, okay?” Not that again. She rolled her eyes at his usual nagging as he kicked off his shoes and hug up his jacket.

“Steve, it’s not that bad, you know? I mean, it’s a house and it’s actually quite spacious since it’s just Tut and me.” Tut was her, very bad tempered, sphinx cat. Well, bad tempered was a stretch. He wasn’t that bad. Tut, actually named Tutanchmeow, just didn’t like strangers all too much. He liked her, he tolerated Steve and that was far more than enough. Right now, for example, he was hogging her one arm chair, snoring loudly and cutely.

“Spacious. Sure. I’m kinda scared I’ll bonk my head if I flinch too hard, but you’re absolutely right.” As if to demonstrate, he stretched out his arms, not leaving too much space on either side. “It’s extremely spacious in this thing.” Steve sighed, dropping a pizza carton on the couch table. “I got us the usual stuff.”

“Perfect.” She sighed, drawing her legs up slowly and carefully. “What do you want to drink?”

“Stay, I’ll get it.” Steve sauntered over into the kitchen and she heard him open up the fridge. He came back with two beers which was fine by her. He’d already opened them and just dropped them onto the table right next to the Pizza before plunking down onto the sofa into the place she’d previously freed for him. Her legs fell right back into place on his lap, which Steve accepted wordlessly. Sighing, she covered her stomach with both hands and looked at him.

“How was the rest of your shift?” Steve just grumbled. “That bad, huh.”

“Yeah.”

“Robin?”

“Obviously.”

“Do I wanna know?”

“Definitely not.” She hummed slightly, taking her time to properly look at him. He looked tired, his eyes drooping already despite him barely sitting down. She poked his side with her foot and he grumbled again.

“People are tiring.” She sighed.

“Damn straight.” He shot back. “And you know I love Robin, I really do. But god, sometimes I wish she would just…stop talking. Just for a minute. I swear, you left the store and her mouth started flapping. I think she was still talking when I went home and it’s just…does she even breathe?” Steve deflated with a sigh, his head falling back to rest against the wall. “I’m a dick for saying, I know, but I wish Robin came with an off-button.”

“You’re not a dick for saying that.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then I am too. Because every day I wish that my boys would just keep their damn traps shut. And I love the lot of them, but god, they’re dicks sometimes.” She shrugged. “That doesn’t make me a dick, though. That makes me…Normal. I’m just a normal person who gets annoyed by other people.” Steve just sighed, saying nothing for a moment.

“Speaking of.” He said instead, obviously trying to change the subject. “How’s Eddie first week been going?” She groaned and closed her eyes.

“God, don’t make me think about that.” It had been a whole mess. A complete and utter mess, and terrifyingly large scale. “How can one guy be so clumsy? I mean, at this point I’m surprised he can walk in a straight line without falling over. Please, remind me to never ever get in his car, no matter what. I’m telling you. On Thursday, he literally tripped over his own feet, tumbled through half the shop, bonked against one of the tire stacks and unleashed this, like, chain reaction that nearly send Riley flying into the popped hood of Hagans car. In under a minute, the whole shop was a mess and he just stood there, clenching his hands like a first grader that did something stupid and knows he’ll get in trouble. And you know my boys are really good natured – well, except Billy – but even they had really reached the end of their tether by Saturday. Riley even started to dub him Eddie ‘Stumblebum’ Munson.” She was wringing her hands, trying to calm herself down. “I hired him to replace Marvin, but at this point I’ll have to hire someone else to replace Marvin and someone tokeep Eddie in check. I feel instead of lessen he just tripled my workload, because not only do I have to do my job, no I’m doing his as well as clean up after him.” Steve sighed and patted her leg comfortingly.

And then the two of them sat up properly, she started the movie and he propped open the pizza carton. It was a thing the two of them always did. Steve couldn’t really eat when he was annoyed or upset, while she tended to overeat when she was. So, every time they got together to eat, they vented first and dined right after.

Well, unless someone asked for a delay just like Steve had done after his ‘date’. Then they just went about the meal as proficiently as they could.

“Like, what is that movie even about?” Steve asked, chowing down on the pizza and she snorted.

“Obviously you would try to keep this movie from me without even knowing what it was about. That’s just so you, Steven.”

“What the fuck is up with all that ‘Steven’ lately?” The words came out all wonky, pushed past a giant bite of pizza. “You sound like my mum, jeez.”

“Well, duh. I am your mum.” Straightening up in her seat, she did a mock-hair flip, and eyed Steve. “Oh Stevie, how wonderful to have you back home tonight, baby. But then again, you’re always here, aren’t you? Hohohoho.” She didn’t even have to concentrate to copy his mum, her strangely sing-songy intonation branded into her brain after too many sleepovers at the Harrington House. “I see you came from-“ here she scrunched her nose in distaste “-work. Or, whatever it is you call…that. Oh, Steven isn’t that your friend Raven?” Steve was even mouthing that part with her, his mum seemingly not able to remember that Robin was, in fact, called Robin. But hey, they were both birds at least. “My my, it’s a pleasure to have you back. I hope you’re staying for dinner, darling, because we just love helping the less fortunate members of our quaint town, don’t we? Richard, darling! I’m getting a headache, let’s go to the Maldives!” Steve flicked her forehead the moment she finished, shaking his head.

“I hated that. And it was scarily accurate, so don’t do that again.”

“I’m your mum, I told you.” He rolled his eyes once more, getting started on his third slice of pizza while she was only just done with her first. That, ladies and gentlemen, was how Steve usually ate - for all those that have been wondering. He was a total boy when it came to food, finishing copious amounts of it in little to no time. “Oh, and the movie is about these two friends. I’m not sure either, because - thanks to someone - I haven’t seen it yet but apparently it’s like an overview over their lives and their friendship throughout.”

“Ugh, who wants to see something like that?” He gestured towards the TV. “I mean, come on. There’s these middle-aged ladies thinking about their friendship and people go crazy over it? Because that movie has been in and out so often, I’m surprised you even managed to get your hands on it.” He shook his head. “Who cares about other people’s friendships, really?”

“Sooo, if someone wanted to make a movie about you and me and our friendship – you wouldn’t watch it?” Steve spluttered, nearly choking on his beer.

“What? About you and me?” She giggled, leaning forward to wipe some beer off his cheek with the back of her hands.

“I mean, sure. We have a lot to tell, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, but…Why would I want to watch that? I was there for all of that.”

“Hmmh, that’s true.”

“And honestly, Hollywood would fuck it up and turn it into one of those fucking rom-com bullshit movies.” He scoffed, taking another sip of his beer. “You’d be played by Molly Ringwald – don’t hit me!” He caught her hand before she could. “It’s not even because you look alike or whatever, it’s because she gets all the chicks into the theatre!” She grumbled under her breath. Molly Ringwald, fuck that. “Anyway, I would totally be played by Tom Cruise. Obviously.”

“Why do you get Tom Cruise but I have to be Molly Ringwald!”

“I don’t make the rules, dude. Molly Ringwald is in every chick flick on this god damn planet.” She scoffed and stuffed her face with more Pizza. “I mean, damn, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her play an African desert princess at this point, simply because it’s her. She would obviously go up in flames because ginger plus sun equals yikes, but you know. Let SPF50 handle that, as long as the entire female teenage population of the united states runs into the cinema because Molly Ringwald!” He rolled his eyes and she scoffed.

“Do not throw all of us into the same pot, Harrington.”

“Ah, so you didn’t drag me into ‘Sixteen Candles’ like a mad woman, huh?” She scoffed.

“Yeah, but that was- it was- Michael Schoeffling, Steve!” The boy just snorted in that annoying ‘yeah right’ kind of way. “Tsk. You know what, Steve? You keep your Tom Cruise, because you know who they would cast as Billy and Ian?”

“Why would they be in that movie?”

“Well, Ian is my ex and Billy beat the shit out of you. That seems kinda important.”

“Once again: It’s been six years. Let it rest.”

“Never.” She shrugged, sipping on her beer. “Anyway. Billy would be Rob Lowe, definitely. And Ian would one hundred percent be John Stamos.”

“Rob Lowe and John Stamos? Didn’t you have, like, posters of them in your old room?”

“Yeah, so?”

“You were obsessed with them.” How could she not? Like, General Hospital was a good show but damn. John Stamos made it so much better and he wasn’t even the main event. And Rob Lowe? Man. Those eyes? The thought alone made her want to purr happily. Truth be told, she wasn’t mad that Billy and Ian were both working for her. Not that she was superficial, but a lady was allowed to enjoy someone’s appearance just a little, right? A tiny, selfish glance every now and again should be alright, yes?

“Your point?”

“Are you trying to tell me that Billy and Ian, of all people, are better looking than me?” At that, she could only shrug.

“You said it, not me.” Not that Steve wasn’t handsome – she’d just told him he was earlier today, hadn’t she? But nothing could beat John Stamos or Rob Lowe. Oooh, wait. Maybe that guy from ’21-Jumpstreet’. What was his name again? The guy that played Tom Hanson. That guy was great too.

“Wow. You are a horrible person.”

“Am not.”

“Yes, you are…oh my god.”

“What now?”

“You didn’t date Ian because he looks like John Stamos, did you?” She grinned.

“I did not. But, let’s just say…it definitely didn’t deter me.”

“Tsk. You know, maybe I should…” On screen, Bette Midler was suddenly in quite the hurry. “Woah, what’s she going on about?”

“I think it’s because of that note she just found. See?”

“Well, what does it say?”

“I don’t know, dumbass. Someone kept distracting me by talking all over the movie.”

“Huh…” He leaned back, long done with his Pizza, and eyed the television with furrowed brows. She couldn’t help but smile.

Who would have thought. ‘Beaches’ – the chick flick Steve really didn’t want to see – actually managed to snag his attention – oh wait. She would’ve thought. That was pretty much always the case, by the way. He was all pissing and moaning until the movie actually played. Within the first ten minutes, Steve would always be absolutely invested. He’d be yelling at the screen when the guys fucked up, and get annoyed at every bout of miscommunication.

Because that was who Steve actually was.

A big softie that knew how to enjoy chick flicks.

And very vocally so, too.

“No way. No way are they fucking on the opening night of her musical thing. Like, dude, who does that!? That’s such a bullshit move.” Steve threw a balled-up handkerchief at the TV. “Like, she saw that C.C. liked him. A blind guy could see that. Isn’t there something like a… girl code or whatever? Who needs friends like that! Shit.”

Realistically, couldn’t disagree with that one. It was a shitty move, truly. Who slept with the guy his best friend was into? That was just shitty. Like, technically speaking that would be like her sleeping with Nancy back when Steve was head over heels for the Wheeler princess. God, she would’ve felt horrible. No, no she absolutely agreed with Steve here.

“Yeah, such a dick move, Hillary.” Steve nodded; eyes still trained at the TV.

A better one came later somewhere in the movie. And god, this one would totally make it into her ‘Things to tease Steve with’ treasure chest – because that one? Pure gold.

“Oh my god, why do all the guys in this movie suck?!” He’d suddenly yelled, making her flinch. “Like, one fucks the one friend and then marries the other, only to divorce her couple years later - because boohoo selfish - and the other cheats on his wife! What is the moral of the story here, guys? All men suck? Is that what they’re trying to tell me here?” He finished another beer with a noisy sip before falling back into a more comfortable position. “Shit, I hate men, really, I absolutely fucking hate men.”

That one did it. She burst out laughing, a croaky, choked up laugh that started to hurt her sides really quickly. And Steve, slapping her thigh and glaring at her, really didn’t help much. But oh my god, what the hell – Steve Harrington, recently turned advocate for the ‘anti men’ fraction because someone fake-cheated on Barbara Hershey. Fuck, she needed to tell Robin about that.

The end of the movie, however, quickly beat the laughter out of both of them.

As the credits started to roll, neither of them really said anything. Both of them hanging low in their seats, shoulder to shoulder, trying to stomach the heartbreak the movie threw at them.

“…Well that ending was shit.”

“Yupp.” She nodded, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“I mean, why did she have to die? Bullshit.” Steve pushed back his hair, clearly not agreeing with what he just saw. “Who makes a movie about friendship just to kill one of them off?”

“Right? I mean, was that necessary? God, they could just have hinted at it, but why show it?” At the thought, new tears blurred her sight. “And, I mean, the whole thing with the ‘Hi’ at the end, why make it so casual? Fuck.”

“Yeah, man. I mean, who walks into the hospital, sees their dying friend, and just says ‘Hi’!? What the fuck.” Silence settled once again, both of them staring at the names flying by on the screen.

Honestly, maybe they were just the wrong people for that movie.

Maybe someone else could have seen beauty or love in it. And sure, there certainly was love between those two, maybe even in its purest of forms. C.C. had driven her car through the night, leaving everything behind because of a simple note and spent the entire time reminiscing about her best friend. She’d raced to another town, because her friend was dying and she wanted to be there for her. So yes, there was love, there was beauty in everything.

But it didn’t register with her.

Not with her, not with Steve.

The problem with her and Steve was likely the fact that they’d both feared for each other’s lives before - more than once. It wasn’t a feeling she ever wanted to have to face again, and it wasn’t something she liked to talk or even think about. Because to her it was neither love nor beauty – it was just pain. She could imagine how Steve had felt when that Demodog jumped her in ‘84. That fucking beast had tackled her down, burrowing it’s claws into her sides, and tried to bite her head off or whatever those shit’s do. A well-placed hit with Steve’s bat had saved her, but damn. It’d been dangerously close. And then, back in ’86, when Steve was dragged into lovers’ lake...god. She felt his hand slip out of hers, she saw the panic in his eyes as he was dragged out of sight and for a moment her mind when silent, nothing but one thought prevailing.

Steve was dying.

Needless to say, she’d short circuited and dove into the water – which she absolutely hated – to save him. A tiny part of her wished she wouldn’t have, because hearing his screams and seeing those monsters maul him was…yeah, let’s just say it was the main setting of many of her nightmares. He knew, of course, because she’d told him. Just as he told her about his dreams. How he often dreamed about running towards the trailer she, Dustin and Eddie were supposed to be hiding in only to find the scene changed. Instead of her, hurt and screaming for help while dragging a bleeding, half conscious Eddie Munson towards the trailer he came back to silence. He came to find her lying right next to Eddie, bloody and disfigured. Or maybe he came back to screams all the same, but instead of hers it was Dustin or Eddie screaming while dragging her unmoving body.

“Hey.” Steve used his elbow to snap her out of her mind. As always, he just waited for her eyes to focus on him and for her mind to come back to the here and now. He didn’t ask questions, because he knew what the answers would be.

Once she was fully present again, he nodded towards her midriff. “You keep massaging your stomach. You okay?” Confused, she looked down at her hands. And sure enough, there she was, massaging away.

“Ah, no. I mean, yeah, I’m fine. Just one of those hissy tummy days.” Steve looked less than amused.

“Period or stomach bug?” Stifling a sigh, she let herself fall sideways on the sofa.

“Oh, the woes of womanhood.” Steve winced.

“Period, alright.” Sighing he patted her thigh. “Poor girl. How about, like, a heating pad or something? That helps, right?” He didn’t even wait for her to nod, he just got up and wandered on. “Where do you keep those?”

“I’m out, but I’ve got a hot water bottle in the wardrobe.”

“Shouldn’t you, you know, stock up on that sorta stuff?” Steve wandered into her bedroom like he owned the place, rooting through her drawers without an inkling of hesitation.

“I usually do, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. This whole week’s been a mess and a half.” The boy just hummed his answer, wandering back into the kitchen to heat up some water.

“Do you need pain meds or something?” She watched him bustle around the kitchen from where she lay, frowning. “Hello?”

“What?”

“Do you need pain meds? Tylenol? Wait, do you take Tylenol for that?” She chuckled softly.

“I usually take Midol, but Tylenol works. But I don’t need any right now, it’s not that bad.” He did that cute thing he sometimes did, where he silently repeated things to himself in order to commit them to memory. She could clearly read his lips, read the word ‘Midol’ and just had to grin.

The kettle was done boiling and Steve went back into the kitchen for a few moments. It didn’t take him long to fill the hot water bottle, let some steam out, squeeze it and carry it over to her. Carefully, he dropped it onto her achy stomach, sending her an analytic glance.

“I’m fine, Steve. I do this every month, remember?” He winced again.

“Yeah, all the more reason someone should spoil you a bit.” He wandered over to the TV, rooting through her meagre collection of tapes. Picking one up, he removed ‘Beaches’ from the player with a disgusted face and changed it for something else. Then he got up, dropped himself back onto the sofa and nodded at the remote. “On with it, sweet girl. Molly Ringwald is waiting for us.”

***

‘The Breakfast Club’ kept running, both of them not really paying attention. Sometimes they’d talk but mostly, they just both got lost in their own thoughts. It was nice, though. Sitting quietly with Steve, not talking and not really doing anything was strangely comforting. The TV filled the quiet with useless chatter and provided them with light in her now entirely dark living room. Tut had at some point left the chair behind to curl himself up on Steve’s lap, where he was now purring away while the boy tiredly ran his fingers over the cat’s skin.

But not only that.

No, his other hand kept rubbing circles into her calf and she felt like purring herself. The gentle stroking was so rhythmical and comforting that she could feel herself drift in and out of sleep, barely able to focus on any coherent thought.

Until Steve started talking, that is.

“Hey, are you awake?” He suddenly asked, quietly and yet way too loudly. A non-committal hum was all she could offer. “Can I ask you something?” Steve’s voice sounded thick with exhaustion, indicating he was likely just as tired as she felt.

“…Shoot.” She mumbled back, the warm, sleepy atmosphere weighing on her heavily. Seriously, she’d probably stopped him from saying anything, had she had half a mind to. Sleepy Steve was a dangerous version of him. He was often too honest and too curious for his own good.

“So, uhm…we were talking about Ian earlier and it got me thinking.”

“…Ian?”

“Yeah.” Steve looked at her, his head tipped back against the couch. “You never really told me why you guys broke up. I mean, one day you guys were all in love and the next you’re crying in front of my door talking about how you needed a place to stay until Ian was gone.”

“Hmmh…” She sighed at the memory. She’d cried so much that night. Poor Steve was likely absolutely overwhelmed, but he’d taken it like a champ. He didn’t ask any questions, he didn’t cuss Ian out, he didn’t do anything but pat her back and let her cry. “Ian…” she started, her voice barely more than a whisper “…you know, he’s a good guy.” He really was. Ian looked like a douchebag with that pretty face of his and those broad shoulders, but he was actually one of the kindest souls she knew. He was caring, warm and soft. Loving. “And because of that, I had to tell him to leave.” Steve frowned.

“Okay, you lost me already. I’m tired, please go easy on me.” She grumbled, getting up only to plop down the other way around, her head against his shoulder. He put his arm around her, accepting her tired form into a loose embrace, while using the other to secure the hot water bottle back against her torso.

“I have nightmares. As you know.” He’d been there for many of them. “I mean, they’re not as bad now but...” Steve nodded, saving her the need of more explanation. “The worst, most frequent ones started back in ’85. And…well, Ian could deal with those. He kinda understood why they were happening, with Starcourt and my dad and brother and everything…or he thought he understood, at least.” She hugged the lukewarm water bottle closer against herself. “They got better the more time passed… which he noticed. And that would’ve been fine, I guess, had it not been for all that ’86 crap.” She focused on the TV in front where Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson were bickering on. Blegh. “When they got worse again, he started to ask questions.” So many damn questions. “I didn’t want to lie to him… but I could obviously not tell him the truth.” If she closed her eyes, she could clearly remember the hurt on his face, the way his blue eyes turned hard whenever she shot him down. Ian…was an extremely kind man. But he was also someone who hated being shut out. She sighed. “A relationship filled with secrets and lies can’t work. I saw how he stopped trusting me every time I told him that it would be fine. That he didn’t need to know.” She bit her lips at the memory. “And every time he would ask more and more questions. He’d ask about my scars, about my dreams, my fear of dogs and tight spaces and why I wouldn’t just talk to him…And every time I could just look at him and say ‘It’s fine, Ian. It’s okay now’.” Tiredly, she wiped some stray tears from her cheeks. It was so dumb to keep crying about that – it had been a year now and both she and Ian had moved on. That didn’t make it any easier, though. “It hurt him; I know it did. And hurting him hurt me, so I just…”

“Let him go.” She nodded, closing her eyes against the new tears threatening to form. Steve sighed, stroking her arm with gentle fingers. “I know, what’s done is done. But couldn’t you just have… told him the truth?”

“Would you? If it was…I don’t know, anyone really.” Steve sighed again, placing his chin on her hair.

“…Probably not, no.”

“See?” She sighed. “He’s better off without all this. Without me.”

“Don’t say that. That’s not true. Nobody is better off without you, you’re great.” She snorted.

“Yeah…thanks, Steve.”

“You know I really mean that.”

“I do…” But believing it was another thing. Honestly, could she even rant about Steve never listening to her when she told him to stop blaming himself? She wasn’t any better. She hid away from everyone and everything, shut out anyone that wasn’t already involved simply because she feared she would make their lives worse by just existing next to them.

“Is that the reason you stopped dating too? The whole ‘questions you can’t answer’ thing?” She sighed against his neck, shrugging slightly.

“I don’t know…Maybe. Or maybe it was just…”

“Hm?” He looked down at her and she shrugged again.

“I really… really loved Ian. A lot.” If it weren’t so cheesy, she’d go as far as call him her first love. “I did try to move on. I went on dates and I tried really hard to get to know people. And sure, sometimes it was about getting laid, but others were genuine attempts at meeting someone I want to be with. But it just…it wasn’t the same.” He nodded, because that he knew. She’d told him every time, ranting about how the people she’d met were weird or rude. How they commented on her ‘workers hands’ or her body, how they tried to kiss her when she clearly said no. And even if she said yes, they somehow found a way to make her uncomfortable by getting all grabby and forward. Those were the worst kind of dates, the kind that made her feel dirty and used. The ones, where all she wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and forget about it.

Of course, not every date was like that.

There were many decent people around Hawkins if one cared to look for them. But even if it wasn’t that…they just never seemed right. Some dates were objectively nice, especially those that her friends had helped her set up. Steve and the others knew her, they knew who she might click with. Those were the dates where people would hold doors, ask questions and be friendly and polite. They wore nice clothes and the conversations flowed easily and continuously. And yet, even after those dates, the best part was the drive home.

“It just never…” she took a deep breath “…never felt right with anyone else.”

“…Yeah, I get it.” Steve said, shifting his arm to hold her a tiny bit closer. “I keep looking for something special, but it’s…it’s just never there. Maybe I should just, you know, wait and see. Give up the active hunt. Relax more…” Steve ran his fingers over her hair absentmindedly. “I don’t even know what exactly I want, what exactly I’m expecting to find. I just always know that this, whatever this may be, isn’t it.” They sighed in unison at that. “We’re a mess.”

“Fuck yeah we are.”

The two of them chuckled tiredly, huddled together on her small couch in the tiny single wide she called home, while ‘Breakfast Club’ slowly but surely reached its conclusion. Tut was happily snoring away on Steve’s lap, the sound mixing with the chatter of the TV, blending into a calming sea of noise. With every chuckle she felt Steve’s body vibrate softly against hers, a warm pressure, soft but firm at the same time. She could feel his breath against her hairline, he felt her against his neck – soft puffs of warm air that left way to soon.

The whole situation should have been uncomfortable or emotional. It would have been with anyone else. It would’ve been too much skinship, a blatant invasion of personal space. Every word would have been a dance along the lines of too honest and not honest enough, trying to toe around the dreaded overshare but keeping the whole talk genuine and open. Lies would have been told, truths would’ve been omitted in favour of not seeming too weak or too pathetic.

This conversation should’ve been so difficult, admitting their feelings and hopes should’ve been… and yet it wasn’t.

Instead, it was warm and soft, honest and quiet. A mere whisper in the dark. An ear that listened to the soft words of another, not questioning what was shared. It was the two of them, sharing everything while leaving each other room to breathe, to just be. Accepting the things that were said without judgement, without forcing the other person to act like something they weren’t.

It was comfort and ease, the routine of a long, close friendship. A friendship that had been through highs and lows, that had seen the worst parts of each person. A friendship, that persevered when one abandoned the other, when the wrong words were yelled at the wrong time, when promises were broken and forgotten. Time had tested it with girlfriends, mistakes and the supernatural.

Through that, it became a friendship that survived all the hurt thrown at it. It survived, because the two of them knew that, in the end, they would always choose each other again.

It was a friendship, that was like breathing.

Easy and thoughtless.

Because that was what the two of them truly were.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington one shot #steve harrington imagine #stranger things fic #stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #Steve Harrington x mechanic!reader #slow burn #childhood best friends to lovers #mechanic!reader #afab!reader #curvy!reader #black!reader #asian!reader #fem!reader

[douceurrrr]

INSTA AU

modern day

A little bit of mike wheeler x black!sinclair!charater

Liked by: weed_argyle, willbyers, joycebyers and 58 others

y/ninsta: dinner with Johnny boy

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byersjonathan: ❤️

joycebyers: hope you kids are having fun 😊

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willbyers: bring me next time y/n

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Liked by: mya.sinclair, mikewheeler, and 30 others

Y/ninsta: bestieee

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mikewheeler: can I have my gf back?

^ y/ninsta: neverrrrrr

mya.sinclair: 😍

madmax: my parents?

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Liked by: byersjonathan, dustyhender, and 20 others

Y/ninsta: bored 😐

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byersjonathan: come over?

^ y/ninsta: I’ll be there❤️

dustyhender: D&D?

^ y/ninsta: sorry dusty I’m hanging out with Jonathan but next time I promise

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Y/ninsta: not bored anymore 😊😁

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dustyhender: you could’ve been playing D&D with me, Lucas and Mike but nooo

^ byersjonathan: yeah but she’s not 😗

^ y/ninsta: lmao 😂

byersjonathan added to their story!

#stranger things #woc #jonathan byers #asian!reader #asianwomen #mike wheeler x black!reader #jonathan byers x asian!reader

[thosewickedlovelies]

All Was Golden in the Sky  |  Pero Tovar x OFC!Reader

Rating: somewhere between Explicit and Mature

Summary: A call for mercenaries leads Pero Tovar to China. His company is escorted by a battalion of the Crane Corp, and he forms a connection with one bird in particular.

Tags: sort of Great Wall AU i guess. No William or aliens. basically only the barest connection to the plot of this movie I have not seen canon-typical violence/war and blood. Smut.

Word count: 17,602 (bro holy shit)

Note: Did I write 17,000 words of fic to provide context for a single drawing of @patternedlantern’s? Yes absolutely. This story is a love letter to Pat, who I treasure, and without whom this fic literally wouldn’t exist. I am SO excited to finally share this ❤ This is an Asian/Chinese!Reader! She is described as depicted in Pat’s art: short, slender, pale, dark-eyed.

There’s a bibliography some more notes at the end, including one about Pero’s nickname for her. It is deliberate, but if ur a Spanish-speaker and it’s gonna bother you, you can scroll down for the explanation lol.

Masterlist

---

Pero Tovar has been traveling for a long time before you meet. He’s had to- the company he’s traveling with wasn’t scheduled to connect with your troop until reaching the hinterlands of this country. 

China. One of the many places he’s seeing thanks to his life as a mercenary.

Yours is a battalion of the emperor’s own, working in the outer provinces but recalled in anticipation of war ahead- the same war in which he himself has been hired to fight. Pero observes their ways, their crescent moon eyes and night-dark hair, and wonders if all the emperor’s troops are outfitted in such fine armor, or if the richness of their blue uniforms is unique to the female battalions. Then he witnesses their sparring one day, fluid and decisive and deadly- and decides not to ask.

You and yours are not the only female warriors Pero has ever encountered. There are women in his current company, in fact. All of them with varied approaches to presenting and protecting themselves while traveling with a majority of men. As one of a clearly skilled and royally sponsored group, you don’t need to take such precautions, but initially you adopt an aloof countenance when interacting with some of the men. You’re respectful, but reserved. Cool as the elusive moon.

You warm up to some- Pero glimpses a quicksilver smile, the occasional touch by your gloved hands, a discussion of weapons during which you emphatically express your opinions on knife grips- but given his own gruff nature, Pero doesn’t expect to be one of them. And then there’s the question of your social spheres- normally he treats female mercenaries no differently than males, but he’s never encountered a female soldier. Are there different rules? Are the rankings and social norms on your side of the world even comparable to the ones he knows? Should he treat you more like a lady than a peer?

Finally, watching the other men engage with your sisters-in-arms, he resolves to treat you with the same respect he would any skilled warrior, as you would likely respond best to (indeed, the first (and only) man to struggle with this concept was now a finger less for his troubles).

So it happens that one day Pero comes across you listening to the instruction of a fellow mercenary for a particular shortsword move. He gathers that you requested this lesson, as it appears you’re genuinely unfamiliar with the technique. But Pero recognizes the man- an overly friendly youth whose enthusiasm far outweighs his swordsmanship. He knows how to hold a sword, at least. But that’s as far as his expertise goes, at least concerning this exercise. Pero revises his earlier description of the man as a ‘fellow’.

Under the guise of cleaning his mail, Pero seats himself on a nearby tree stump to watch. The boy is far too jovial to make an effective teacher, even had he truly grasped the move. By the fifth time he’s vaguely instructed you to watch his execution again instead of offering any specific corrections, it’s clear you’ve realized your mistake, but your unfailing, polite patience leaves Pero grudgingly impressed.

Finally the boy leaves, citing another lesson scheduled with someone else. Be they teacher or student, Pero pities the fool.

“Keep practicing!” The boy wags a playfully stern finger at you as he departs.

When Pero returns his gaze to you, you’re glaring straight at him. 

“Did you enjoy the lesson, too?” An expectant brow arches high on your forehead.

Pero doesn’t bother to temper his scowl. “No.”

Wet grass squelches beneath his boots as he crosses the ground toward you. Rain had passed through this area ahead of them, and the damp clearing the boy had chosen for his lesson wasn’t helpful for executing the required stances, either.

Pero has never been this close to you, so it’s only now that he realizes how small you are, a full head shorter than him. You draw your spine straight and lift your chin in the face of his fierce countenance, your eyes narrowed slightly.

Pero considers what he would say. You regard him openly, uncowed by his glower or the scar which amplifies it.

“The other man explained it poorly. The power should come from here.” Pero touches his hip and demonstrates, fisting his hand around an imaginary hilt.

Your head tilts, dark eyes studying him. Despite that you’re the lesser experienced in this scenario, your intelligent appraisal makes his palms sweat.

“Would you like me to show you?”

Pero doesn’t know why he’s offering to help you. He wouldn’t normally offer such assistance to another fighter- if a person went out without the skills to keep themself alive, it was their own idiotic fault. More coin for him, with fewer mercenaries to take the jobs.

But you are not a man, nor simply a fellow fighter (and even if you had been, Pero is not so stone-hearted as to deny that women deserve some advantage against the cruelties of the world). Your status as an honored soldier keeps you from being a threat to him. Indeed, despite that you are one of many soldiers in the emperor’s army, still he is here, answering your regents’ call for swords from all the way in the West.

You nod.

Pero asks you to demonstrate how the boy taught you, so he would know what to correct. Your skill is immediately obvious, as you had intrinsically corrected some of the boy’s flawed technique to give the move some functionality. Unfortunately, he had drilled you long enough that some of his mistakes had become your habits.

Together you begin the process of reforging your movements. The watery sunlight bounces off the fine links of your mail, silver-blue flashes like fish beneath the surface of a pond. Initially Pero thought that the skirts of your armor were meant to resemble fish scales. But this close up, he can see they look more like feathers, especially when paired with the overlapping curved lines patterning your vambraces and chest plate. Your bright blue uniform combines practicality and aesthetic appeal in a way Pero has never appreciated could be done.

He wants to stare, study the designs and craftsmanship more closely, but he refrains. Pero focuses instead on the muscles beneath the armor, strong and certain as they plant your legs; on the shape of your arms beneath the decoration and the ease with which they direct your blade.

Pero occasionally grumbles to himself as you work. The boy must have to be so friendly, to distract from how shit of a fighter he is. 

He doesn’t notice he’s spoken his acerbic thoughts aloud until he sees your mouth twitch.

“I have had the same thought, but nevertheless, I did not know this move.” Your smirk is as subtle and knowing as the glitter in your dark eyes.

Taken aback, Pero’s frown deepens, and he only grunts in response.

Your businesslike expression returns, nonplussed. “Show me again,” you say.

This he can do. Pero complies, moving slowly enough that you can mimic him.

The next day, you meet again, and the next, until Pero has broken you of the other man’s habits and instilled several of his own, obliging your requests for other tutorials. And you teach him in turn: tricks with a knife he would never have anticipated, how to throw anything and never miss his target.

This, he learns over the six weeks it takes them to reach their destination, is your specialty. Some of your compatriots wear swords on their hips, or spears or quivers on their backs; but your blue cloak and ornate armor conceal an endless number of blades. Curved and straight and in shapes he’s never seen, but you assure him are lethal nonetheless. The longest extends from his elbow to his wrist; the smallest ones fit in the palm of his hand. He studies them, fascinated by how something so seemingly insubstantial can be wielded to such deadly ends.

“They’re a devil to retrieve, though,” you grumble about your throwing blades, after a morning spent doing just that, trudging back and forth from various trees while teaching him how to throw the ones shaped like flattened stars, or wheels with curved, sharpened spokes. 'Wheeling stars', you call them.

Pero knows better to think you regret your choice of weapon, however. Especially after seeing you use them in earnest, during spars with your battalion and the occasional brave mercenary. Moving at full speed you resemble a wraith, long black hair blurring around you, knives flying faster than the eye can follow. You strike with equal accuracy with your shortsword at close range, every drive of your body as graceful and deadly as an arrow.

Pero could never reach such speeds, big and lumbering as he is. He’s never taken his abilities for granted either, however. The blunt strength with which he wields his axe and his skill with a sword have served him well. Thick enough armor can keep out your tiny blades, after all, and then how would you defeat him?

One day one of you suggest they test which is the more valuable quality. He’s not sure who- but Pero strongly suspects it was you, for he would never have dared risk disrespecting you by offering such a challenge.

“We are evenly matched in all other respects.” You shrug like your words are nothing, waiting, bright-eyed and expectant, for his response.

But Pero knows that from you this is effusive praise, and in his surprise he goes still. He prays his tunic extends high enough to cover the heat crawling up his neck.

Before you can retract either statement, he agrees. 

It’s both an advantage and a disadvantage that you’ve been training so closely for weeks. You know Pero’s fighting style, where his feet place when he swings and the rhythm of his movements. You stay close, close enough to slash with your short blades and crowd a normal fighter’s sense of maneuverability. But Pero is not a normal fighter- he has no fear of you, and he’s seen where you keep your knives. As a result your blows are equally frustrated, because Pero blocks them before you can free your blades, and then strikes so you’re forced to go on the defensive. 

The fight is fast and fierce. The close combat renders Pero’s longsword useless, so he drops it in favor of his dagger and his reflexes, instinctively parrying the hand-to-hand moves of yours he’s become familiar with. It takes more strength than he expects to counter your blows, and his breath comes in grunts, his muscles burning with effort the likes of which he hasn’t expended in weeks. The only focus he spares on his surroundings is to make sure there are no tree roots creeping into his path.

Metal and leather collide with shinks and thwacks. When the fight began you were grinning, jittery anticipation shining through as you faced off against each other, rather than training side by side. Now your teeth are bared, every ounce of energy channeled into the dance of your feet around Pero, trying to dart around the surprising flexibility of his long reach. Has there always been so much of him? He’s everywhere, as annoyingly close to you as you are to him. You can’t reach-

You run, and Pero chases. You weave and dodge the plant life, pretending to be slowed by the trees. There, up ahead, that’s a good wide one.

Your stumble isn’t feigned when Pero grabs the blue cloak streaming behind you, and you yelp as he yanks you backward. You spin to face him as if in a dance, his momentum carrying him closer and closer to you-

And to the tree he suddenly finds himself pinned against, as you grab the wrist above the fist in your cloak and swing him, slamming him into the trunk so hard he drops his dagger. Your body slams into Pero’s, but with more notice than him you keep your footing, digging your toes into the earth to leverage the knife you have at his throat. And the blade in your other hand- the one holding Pero’s wrist above his head. It’s a tiny, thin bit of steel you keep tucked in your vambrace, perfect for scratching a man’s major artery if he tries to grab you, or if, for example, you’re sparring for practice and need every advantage you can get. With the sting of sharp metal digging into his wrist, Pero doesn’t risk moving the arm, and the cloak he still clutches hangs down on one side of your faces, narrowing your vision to just the two of you, eyes and bodies locked.

Neither of you speak, but Pero has unquestionably yielded. His eyes are so wide you can see the whites all around the center, which you’ve never noticed are a rich, pleasing shade of brown. His jaw is clenched, nostrils flaring, his every feature communicating fury- except for those eyes, within which incredulity and respect battle in equal measure. 

Pero is viciously aware of your body in a way he’s never been. One of your legs is lodged between his, your muscled thigh pressed against his groin as if you didn’t already have knives at his throat and wrist. Where had you even hidden that one? 

The plates and mail over both your chests catch with a metallic rasping sound as both of you heave for breath; it’s the only motion Pero dares to make. He can't seem to tear his eyes from your ferocious focus. The snarl of concentration that has not yet faded. The blue fabric suspended beside your face brushes his cheek, and he unconsciously leans away from it, holding your gaze as if leveling with a predator- assuring you he’s no threat.

He knows you have returned from the battle haze when the pressure of your knives relents. The pulse hammering in your throat slows. You blink at him, and one side of your mouth curves up the slightest bit.

The pink of your lips matches the flush of exertion in your cheeks. Pero swallows, his gaze drawn to this tiny display of pride. Without quite realizing it, his own mouth turns up in response, his head tilting downward in grudging admiration (and, though he would be hard-pressed to say it aloud, submission).

Your muscles uncoil a fraction. The slight relaxing of your body language is just enough to affect the level of your face with Pero’s; your chin tips up to compensate. His deepening breath fans over your mouth.

Someone is clapping. 

Neither of you have moved, but the sound of two hands slowly applauding is very clearly making its way nearer.

“What a fight! Truly, a prodigious display of skill, the likes of which we could all learn from. Speaking of learning, I saw you use my move there, soldier! I wonder if we worked on your transition if you could have put Pero here flat on his back…” The boy mercenary whose teachings Pero had salvaged upon your first meeting yammers on.

The pair of you stiffen. A growl rises in Pero’s throat before he recognizes the youthful, exuberant voice. Your eyes close and you exhale slowly, clearly annoyed.

“...oh and Pero, I’ve just come from chore distribution. You’re to chop firewood for tonight.” 

Face still inches from your own, Pero frowns, less at the duty assignation than the idea of leaving you so abruptly. Is he to go about his day as if nothing had just happened? Something had just happened, no? Now is when you discuss the fight and tell him what he did wrong. And from where you pulled that damnable blade at his wrist.

You smirk at Pero as if guessing his thoughts, and, for reasons he isn’t entirely certain of, his confusion deepens.

Your voice is sickeningly sweet when you respond to the boy, finally releasing Pero’s body. He stumbles, regaining the solid footing he’d been lacking while you held him in place. Phantom warmth clings to him where your body had rested against his, making the lingering bite of icy steel at his neck and wrist even more prominent.

It is a long day. The afternoon’s warmth is lapsing into evening before Pero is free to do as he wishes. His shoulders ache from several hours of axe-swinging, but still he does not rest. He intends to track you down again, but his best chance of that will be around the fires at dinner- where he will not be welcomed without bathing first. This morning’s spar had been a true effort, and combined with the exertion of chopping wood had left his shirt sweat-stained and his body pungent. There is some resistance in his armor, as well. Tree sap as sticky as treacle had ground its way between the scales from the force with which you had held him to that tree.

Pero hunts down a shallow, isolated section of the nearby river and wades in, clothes and all. It’s not the warmest water he’s ever experienced, but neither is it the most frigid, so he grits his teeth through the acclimation and hurries through the process of beating his clothes against a rock and slinging them over a bush to dry. Finally he submerges himself, enjoying the gentle tug of the current lightening him of days worth of dirt and sweat. It takes several dunkings and a twig acting as a comb to scrub free the additional tree sap he'd discovered in his hair.

When Pero surfaces for the last time, you’re sitting on the bank. Not six feet from him, neck bent toward a task in your lap. He almost chokes sucking in the water still streaming over his face, staggering backward to ensure his hips are submerged.

“What are you- I am- is this not…frowned upon in your society?” If Pero had not been reeling, he would have remembered that they were not exactly in society at the moment, but as it was, his mind had gone blank as a blade wiped clean.

You glance up from polishing your knives, seemingly amused by his sputtering. “We are all soldiers, Pero,” you point out innocently. “But I can leave if you prefer your privacy…”

Your eyes dance over his wide shoulders, follow the paths of droplets trickling down his torso to where his waist tapers into the river. The current bumps around and against him, licking up the muscles of his abdomen, only to drop back down into the hollows of his hips- to gather on the trail of curling hair descending between them. 

His skin prickles at your attention- at your implication. Pero snorts. He has nothing to be shy about, he’ll thank you to know. Saying nothing more, he strides out of the water, clinging bits of riverweed and naught else covering his modesty. He stalks past, within touching distance of you, to the bush where his clothes hang.

Drops of water spatter with audible pings against your pauldron and skirt as he passes. You keep your head tilted down, but your hands still, your gaze straying. The stain in your cheeks stokes a secret pride in Pero; the image will keep him warm the next time some disillusioned maid shrinks from the sight of him.

His spare, dry shirt settles over him, but his trousers are still damp from their washing. Pero hesitates. The shirt brushes the tops of his thighs, but surely it would be overstepping to sit beside you half-naked, despite your unconcern about being near while he bathed.

Your call makes the decision for him. “I know for a fact your dagger needs polishing after this morning, Tovar. Cover your scarred ass or don’t, but I won’t be the cause of your weapons rusting.”

Pero huffs. His plated armor thuds to the ground beside you, and he behind it. “My ass is the only thing that isn't scarred,” Pero retorts. 

“...so far,” he adds darkly.

“It does appear so,” you agree. “If I had not fought you personally, I’m not sure I would believe you are as great a fighter as you claim.”

Were it anyone else, Pero might have challenged them to another duel right there. But at your familiar frankness he merely scoffs, an ever-softening iteration of his regular scowl on his face. 

A comfortable silence settles. The grass of the bank is soft under Pero’s bare legs- softer than many a bed he’s had. The air is fragrant with river plants and filled with the tranquil sound of murmuring water. Determined to best the stubborn sap in his armor, Pero almost forgets you’re there, until you lift up a blade to inspect and the remaining sun sends the glare into his face.

Pero blinks up at it, and then his attention is diverted by the hand holding it aloft. Your hands, which by now have taught him a hundred different ways to throw a blade, normally encased in gloves but for the tips of your fingers…they are scarred. The low angle of the sun casts them into relief, dozens of pale purple lines, short and long alike, criss-crossing the slopes of your knuckles like terrain markings on a map.

Before he is even aware of what he’s doing, Pero’s fingers are following the path of his gaze. “Your hands…”

Oh. You allow Pero to manipulate your arm, drawing it toward him and rotating your wrist to examine the dappled skin. He handles you with breathtaking gentleness, the brush of his fingertips careful to the point of reverence. It does strange things inside you, seeing his normally harsh frown altered by concern, by the stunned furrow in his brow. As he examines the the hand which still holds the blade.

The scars are all old, the ridges hardly registering beneath his fingers. “From my arrogant youth, before I accepted the benefit of gloves.” You smile wryly. “Playing with knives takes some practice, as it turns out.”

Pero never philosophized much on the appeal of scars. They were neither beautiful nor ugly; they simply were. They told a story to those who saw you. It might not always be a true story- people see what they want to see, as Pero has experienced firsthand- but for the most part this has worked in his favor. 

He had only ever been self-conscious of his looks after his eye was marred. Started scowling more to fit the image of a man with such a mark. He never believed the wanton barmaids who said they liked the dangerous look of it- of him. But looking at you-

What a fool he was, to think that he was immune to the marks’ effects. Pero had braced himself when you beheld him above the water.

The scars on your hands no more detract from their beauty and capability than do the pocks on the surface of the moon. 

You cannot read the deep frown puckering Pero’s forehead. This one is more complex than usual, you think- there is grammar at work you have not yet studied. You spare a glance at the skin to which you rarely pay much attention, wondering what he sees. Pero overturns your hand, exposing your palm and its roadmap of creases, also interrupted by faint marks, as if the same frustrated cartographer had slashed out so many paths. Unthinkingly, you slip the paper-thin blade between your first and second fingers so he can unfold your hand fully.

Your skin is softer than Pero expected. The tips of your fingers are rough with calluses, but where the gloves normally protect is smoother. As if in a trance, he traces the three most prominent creases on your palm, crossing from one to the other as they’re connected by the erratic nicks. If he were a cunning woman, a fortune-teller, he could claim to read these lines. Tell you the story of your future. He wonders if you believe in such tales, or if the marks you bear indicate that you intend to write your own story.

The caress of Pero’s hands on yours remains as delicate as a breath; a gossamer warmth like the warmth of the last rays of the setting sun. The sensation trickles along your arm, tributaries connecting to a deeper vein of heat which winds through you, unfathomable as the churn of magma beneath the earth. 

You dare not move for fear of startling him. Or yourself.

Pero traces a long, thin line carving around the fleshy base of your thumb. “Was this from a wheeling star?” It’s the most purposeful touch he’s made so far. As if the sound of his voice or his own audacity gave him a shock, he releases your hand.

Your next breath sounds alarmingly like a sigh as it looses. Feigning unaffectedness, you bend your wrist almost all the way back so the remaining light in the sky can reach the mark. “Almost certainly.” You smile at the thought that he can read such an old injury just based on what you’ve taught him of its maker’s throwing technique. 

The sky dims further in the short time it takes for Pero to reclothe himself, only a faint ember of orange holding out against the tide of darkening blue, but it’s enough that you can make out the way back to camp.

As you walk, Pero asks, “How did you best me today? I have been waiting for you to tell me what I did wrong.” You were not a harsh teacher, but a frank one. Bluntly telling him what he does wrong and how to improve. For the most part, Pero appreciates it.

In the hazy gray dusk under the trees, you can’t be sure if the corner of his mouth is truly lifted; normally he is not so eager for your criticism.

“I controlled the situation.” You smile slightly at the memory, your eyes going distant. “You kept too close to strike, so I ran to better position myself, and used the environment. Grabbing my cloak was a smart move, however- no one has ever done that. You could have used it to greater advantage if you’d wanted.”

“Hmm.” Pinpricks of light from the camp bonfires ahead grow steadily brighter. “Tomorrow you will show me how you secure the blades in your vambraces, yes?” Pero pauses before your inevitable separation. His eyes are narrowed quizzically, as if he’s figured something out and is anticipating your confirmation.

You incline your head, fighting a proud little grin when his eyes sparkle.

–

As it turns out, Pero’s lesson is delayed when your commander announces they’re moving on tomorrow. For three days Pero slogs alongside his fellows, your conversations limited to when you meet on patrol or hunting duty. The vegetation has been steadily changing the further east they travel, and when you can, you point out the plants which most concern Pero- the edible ones. Other plants have less practical value, but as they cross your path you cannot help but name them too, fondly, like they’re old friends, and Pero cannot stop himself from asking what they mean to you. 

Mercifully, before the third day’s swollen gray sky can break open, your commander orders everyone to make camp. Amidst a grove of conifers that Pero vaguely recognizes as familiar, he arranges his things to the periphery of the main body of the men, near a few others he’s found whose company he can tolerate. The air stirs with the promise of rain, so he sets up his rough excuse for a tent.

As Pero pushes through the fragrant boughs, attending to his assigned duties, his thoughts repeatedly turn toward your spar. The unexpected strength in your graceful body, the reverberation in his bones every time you blocked his blows. Your vise grip on his wrist and the sudden feeling of flight- the breath snatched from his lungs as he wheeled through space, green and bright blue streaking around him. 

Everything snapping into razor-sharp focus at the feeling of your body flush against his.

This is what his mind fixates on most of all. Every time he plucks a rough-barked branch from the ground, the same scraping sensation echoes against the back of his skull. Pero feels more than hears the grind of it against his armor’s scales as he conformed to the tree, his chest opening, ribs parting as if to welcome you in. With your heaving breaths, his racing blood, every curve and plane of your body etched itself in burning light into his mind, bright and evident despite the grooves of both your armor interrupting.

The traces of sap bleeding from the fallen branches escape Pero’s notice. Dry as it is, the stickiness has faded and only the scent remains, blooming into the humid air and clinging to his clothes as he gathers.

He glimpses you by the light of a fire that night, and even from across the camp your dark eyes shine. 

Pero looks away.

It has clearly been too long since I’ve had a woman, Pero thinks, aggravated. There’s no other explanation for why he cannot banish thoughts of you and the end of your match- the moment your bodies interlocked for a too-brief time.

He retires early, hoping to regain some clarity and sleep off the restlessness stalking beneath his skin. The doze he falls into is fitful, shallow, and at some point Pero wakes up to the sound of rain pattering against his tent. His heartbeat thrums like racing feet. 

Had he been dreaming? He strains his senses, but hears nothing beyond the din of rainfall outside.

When he turns his attention to his own body, he realizes he’s hard. Pero sighs. Perhaps that is why I cannot sleep. Foolish to think neglecting it would make it go away, really.

Pero wraps a hand around himself, intent on carrying out his usual brusque ablutions, but as his hand encircles his cock, the warmth that washes over him feels different. Sparkling, alive, like the mischievous swells of a sea compared to static lakewater. He drags his hand in long, slow strokes, experimentally, his breath stuttering at the sensation dancing up his spine.

Guided by the sound of running water, the darkness behind his eyelids shimmers- and resolves into a vision of you, four days ago by the river. Your neck bent in concentration, your profile rendered starkly against the sheet of black hair hanging over your shoulder. Pero’s gaze snags on your slender fingers, the hypnotic back and forth of your hand around a sword becoming the rhythm of his fist around his cock. His lips part, unable to pull enough air from the confined space.

Pero’s hands have always been rough, but he remembers yours, what they felt like- their speckled-moon appearance belying the smoothness of the skin. He wonders how different they would feel on the rest of him. He imagines unveiling the rest of you, exploring the whole of your body like he had your hands- carefully, meticulously, filling the searing outline in his mind with the ethereal white glow of your skin.

Sweat pricks the base of Pero’s spine. The sparkling pleasure has risen to a relentless heat, buoying his limbs and tangling his thoughts in the clashing currents, preparing to burst from where his fist clenches tight.

When it does, his ears ring. His vision is obliterated by the blinding rush; there is a high, thin sound that Pero distantly hopes is not his making. His breath is an audible saw in his throat as his hips slump back to the ground, tension releasing from places he hadn’t even realized it was carried.

Pero spares half a thought to wiping himself down, then rolls over into a deep, dreamless sleep.

–

He spends exactly half the next morning jumping whenever blue armor flits in the corner of his eye. At that point you appear before him to deliver a scathing admonishment for something blessedly unrelated, showing no sign of sensing anything strange, and Pero’s infatuation seems to dissolve, as temporary as the weather.

Beyond the isolated incident of that night, Pero forgets to worry about your woman-ness more often than not. He’s reminded of it occasionally- when he makes you laugh unexpectedly, the sound silvering the air, tinkling like a long-forgotten tune in his memory. When he glimpses your sisters slipping furtively out of camp at night, leading a mercenary by the hand, for them to return alone a while later looking slightly punch-drunk but very pleased. It prompts him to wonder if your sisters creep about for the sake of privacy, or lack of your commander’s blessing.

When the Wall appears in the distance, Pero’s legs slow to a stop. He doesn’t know what he was imagining, despite the recruiters’ promises and the campfire tales your fellows have told- but it wasn’t this. A leviathan structure snaking away into the hills. A sheet of of stone risen above the earth as if hung by a giant. From this distance, an imposing, unimaginable thing, like they’re about to cross into an unknown world. 

Hic sunt leones.

Pero shakes the thought free. There are no beasts here; their guides know exactly what lies ahead. Empires stuck in their endless cycles of greed and violence. More people like the kind they had already met and assisted on their way here: citizens who were only hoping to survive the whims of their regents. 

Most of the company had halted when the Wall came into view. Nervous eyes and scuffling feet shift around Pero- he is not the only one to have been unnerved. At a bellow from your commander, they lurch into motion again.

That night, he notices that the soldiers disperse among the mercenaries’ campfires more than usual. You’ve only sat at his fire once or twice before, and this time you’ve brought a friend. The silence of the other men is more pointed than usual, heavy and bulging with questions like a stormcloud full of rain.

Pero’s expression is thunder. Yet it’s so wary and uncertain that were it to sound it would hardly scare a child, and you hold back a giggle at the way his gaze darts between you and his companions. Like he thinks you’re going to scold him.

You seat yourself across the fire from him, your own companion beside you. “We thought the sight of the wall might make some of you nervous.” Grumbles and scowls from the gruff men Pero has befriended. “So we saved some of our best stories for last.”

You smile. You’ve grown comfortable enough with this company that it happens more often, now. This one is small, but what it reveals makes the men lean in. They know the beginning of a closely-held tale when they hear one. When you’re sure their attention is sufficiently captured, you rest your excitement on Pero, just for a moment.

You extend your arm so the firelight glows on the blue metal of your vambrace. “Haven’t you wondered about the designs on our uniforms?”

The story you tell boggles Pero. It's difficult enough to imagine being as high up as the great height of the Wall, let alone then jumping off it. His is not the only face reflecting incredulity. But Pero has never known you to be a liar, and the details in your tale ring true. Your blue uniforms all feature belts with small clips hanging from them, to connect to the hoop attachments you described. All of you are skilled with longspears, the better to skewer enemies with as you descend from on high like wrathful angels. 

Slowly, the disbelief around the fire turns to grins as you entertain questions, laughter as the mercenaries accept your claims and let them bolster their confidence for the coming battles.

It is fair to say that the warmth kindling in Pero is not solely due to your words. It is the way you say them, with bold, sweeping gestures, your pride and confidence glowing brighter than the fire. He can see that you’re avoiding looking at him, trying to give everyone equal attention. But Pero is under no such obligation. He drinks in your exuberance with an odd lightness in his chest, and your lips twitch whenever you do meet his gaze.

He stands to bid you goodnight. “I look forward to witnessing this feat on the Wall.”

Your hand encloses his in a comradely shake. “I look forward to demonstrating, Pero.”

Your eyes shine like the stars overhead. You remain standing with your hands clasped, and the smile that had been threatening all night finally breaks free, your mouth stretching wide- but this one is just for him. Pero recognizes it from the way it simmers back down into something sly, a secret hiding in the curve of your cheek.

The corner of his mouth lifts, a flash of teeth there and gone in the firelight. The men still seated around the flames exchange glances.

–

By late the next morning, only circles of char remain where they had been. The company marches on, and beams of sunlight measure a respectable distance between you.

“Those were very impressive feats you described last night, Garzita. I have never heard such claims even from the most acrobatic of troupers.” Little crane.

You preen slightly, true to your avian namesake. A breeze assists in twisting your hair back over one shoulder. In the bright sun the strands shine, pulling hues of warm, ochre brown to the surface. Like the iridescence which shimmers in the feathers of particular birds, revealed only to those lucky few who get close enough.

The same breeze summons a smear of cloud to obscure the sun, as it had been doing on and off all morning, and the light fades to gray. Pero’s almost-smile is knocked off his lips by someone stumbling into him. The man shakes himself off without even looking at Pero, heading back toward, presumably, the few people who are jeering in his direction. Pero, scowling, mutters something foul-sounding.

You turn your head to him, curious. “Is that your native tongue?”

Pero mumbled in another language occasionally, but you never asked for translation, assuming he would offer it if his words were relevant (which he did). It was strange to your ears, full of sounds that yours did not have; a cadence that could equally rattle like dice in a cup or purr like a satisfied lapcat.

“Yes.” His curt tone does not invite questions.

You frown warily. Perhaps the subject of home was painful for him to dwell on? You watch him glare at anyone who dares drift too near. Or perhaps he is simply acting a churl.

“Did you say something else in it, just before? I thought it was a word I did not know, but upon reflection, it sounded more like this unfamiliar tongue of yours.” 

Pero cuts you a sideways glance, grudgingly impressed (and perhaps secretly pleased) that you recognized it. “Sí. I called you ‘crane’. Well..‘little crane’, but it does not mean little in this way. It means…” Pero hesitates.

He wrestles with his words, and your head tips to the side. You have never seen him like this. Like he knows the answer but is reluctant to share it, though you couldn’t possibly fathom why. Flitting glances strike your face like butterfly wings, wavering as rapidly as his thoughts. His mouth pinches, and your gaze is drawn to the uncharacteristically nervous shape of it, compressed from its normal fullness…

Shouts ring out ahead. The thunder of hoofbeats fill the air as mounted figures appear from the forest, storming up on either side of your procession. Order is scattered as your joint company scrambles to defend itself from sudden attack. 

You and Pero leap forth to help. In the blooming fury of violence around you, being able to hear his grunts and snarls nearby is oddly reassuring. Flashes of silver fill the air as the sun bursts from behind the clouds again. The man before you staggers, dazzled, and your blade opens his throat. 

A twinkle of blue in the corner of your eye. You’re turning before your opponent hits the ground, feet carving a path toward what your mind had just registered…there! A break in ranks, a stream of familiar armor chasing a group in alien uniforms.

“Pero!” You shout without conscious thought, and know he’s following without looking back. The heavy pound of feet after you is a stride you’d know in any arena. The particular jangle of mail. The tenor of his muted curses.

The battle has spread into the trees. Splatters of blood like a perverse trail of rose petals lead you to a clearing where a last, masculine cry is being strangled by an arrow in the hands of one of your sisters-in-arms. 

She wipes it clean on her cloak before standing, lip curled, but before she can place it back in her quiver, more strangers pour into the clearing. Their shouts clog the air.

None of you waste the breath to respond with anything other than steel.

Pero spares half a thought to the mildly hysterical worry that in the fury of battle, your fellow soldiers might not recognize him as their ally. His body has never felt as unwieldy as it has when fighting beside them, their movements lithe and merciless as water.

Abruptly he notices that he’s no longer surrounded by blue, but there don’t seem to be many fewer enemies. Pero locates you, eyes wide but face rigid as you duel, and knows you’re aware of this as well. He starts to hack his way toward you, but before he can, a second enemy careens into you, and sends you colliding headfirst with a tree. You slump to the ground beside it. The offenders turns, and bares his teeth in a cruel smile at what he finds. The two men reach for you.

Pero sees red. A guttural roar tears from his chest, scraping his throat and ringing in his ears. The boy he’s fighting stumbles, and Pero’s sword punches through his ribs. His eyes never leave you as he removes it. Gore sprays from his path as he slices through the clearing with mindless ferocity.

The two men die. Blood is still pulsing from their death-blows when Pero kneels by your side. His hands shake as they touch your face, gently turning your head toward him.

“Pero,” you mumble- but it’s slurred, your hand sluggish where it tries to grip his arm. A blow to the head.

Cold sweat dampens his collar. Fury and adrenaline scream through his body, a heady combination of stimulants that have his heart pounding. But for the first time, Pero is slowed by an additional ingredient: fear. Fear for another, for you, what these fighters might do if he abandons you. He must draw them away, but fear grinds his limbs to a halt like sand in the gears of a clock. 

Inhale, exhale. Piensa. Think.

Rising from the murk of his paralysis comes your voice. Control the situation.

Yes. Pero breathes. This he can do.

“Stay here,” he orders, hoping you’ll forgive him for his next action: snatching several of the most accessible knives from your body- the lining of your boots, the folds of your skirt, compartments on your belt- and whirling to his feet.

With another wordless roar, he throws two at figures on the fringe of the encroaching group, striking them glancing blows. Then, cursing roundly, Pero charges at a man on the far side- the one farthest from you, inciting the rest to follow. His bloodied sword scatters ruby droplets in his wake. The next two knives he throws lodge in throats, neatly lessening him two opponents.

Pero has just locked swords with his initial target when a swarm of blue-armored soldiers return, overwhelming the attackers in a fight that’s over before it even begins. He hardly spares the time it takes to be grateful, immediately starting back toward you.

A woman steps calmly into his path. 

Pero looks up, hackles raising- only to flatten upon being pinned by your commander’s cool stare. 

If her bearing alone wasn’t enough, her uniform offered clear indication of her rank. Her armor is slightly more ornate than yours. Gold trims her skirt, accents her belt and the clasp of her cloak. It contrasts oddly with her eyes- an unusual color, deep gray like an approaching storm. Pero’s gaze flickers to the sword she still holds aloft. Or steel.

“You have my soldier’s knives.” Her tone betrays little emotion, only the barest hint of puzzlement in the tilt of her head, but it clearly prompts an explanation. 

Panic ignites low in Pero’s belly. The single knife he still holds grows slippery with sweat.

“I only borrowed them, Commander. To defend her, as she was unable to defend herself. Her head struck the tree as she fell, confusing her mind.” 

It’s the most he’s ever said to this woman. Surely the commander has noticed all the time her soldier spends with him, someone not of their own? Has Pero been inflating it in his head? “I intend to return them to her. Retrieve them, as she does.”

He isn’t sure he’s ever sounded so respectful in his life. His gruff tones have never been suited for it; but now he’s acutely aware of his position relative to this woman. And the skill with which he’s witnessed her wield that blade.

The commander considers him for a long moment. Then she nods, and steps aside. Relief wrings the breath from his lungs, and Pero all but stumbles to where you lie.

You’re only hazily aware of what’s happened since you fell. Your head is throbbing and feels disconnected from your body, any movements you try to make heavy and clumsy. But you know Pero has been present. You see him rise above you like a great guardian lion, armor bloodied and rage shining through his bared teeth. Sunbeams cleave to him as he leads enemy warriors away from you and it’s like he’s ablaze, skin burnished, crimson fire spraying from where his blade swings.

Then sapphire cloaks streak your field of vision, and your world is watery gray again as the sun fades. Familiar voices murmur in your own language, rising and falling like a wind through tall grass.

Then a different voice, a different tongue. “Garzita.” Your eyes open at Pero’s rasp.

You have the odd impression that he wipes his hands before touching you. When he cradles your face, they’re dry and warm. Should it be strange that it’s so comforting? Like returning home to the blaze of a hearthfire. The pleasant sensation doesn’t make it easier to focus, a dreamy smile pulling at your lips. 

His face comes into clearer view as the air brightens once more. He shields your face from the sky’s glare, and tongues of fire radiate from behind his head like a halo. A nimbus of light and security and all the things you feel when Pero is by your side- as if he embodies the sun itself.

“Pero,” you sigh. Your eyes drift shut.

More voices, speaking with increased urgency. Gentle pats to your cheek from Pero’s same roughened hand. “You must stay awake, Garzita. It is dangerous to sleep when you have hit your head.”

Pero carries you to where the regrouped company has hastily pitched a camp. Sentries patrol, fires are being built, and a tent has been erected for the wounded. With immense care, he deposits you under the watch of your sisters, and then busies himself with duties alongside the others. 

Your lieutenant allows one day of recovery. Once she’s ascertained that everyone can walk, it’s marching again, as brisk as pace as can be managed. “She’s furious,” one of your sisters confides, when Pero relieves her for a shift of keeping you company. “Nobody thought that enemy deserters would dare attack the emperor’s soldiers, especially so close to the Wall.”

For indeed, the great Wall grew closer every day. And, impossibly, larger- Pero has seen many impressive things on his travels, but he could not even imagine the manpower it would take to erect such a colossal structure. The resources, the time, the expense.

Quiet descends over the company as they pass through the Wall. Pero is all too aware of the tons of earth and brick yawning above their heads. The change in pressure creating an unpleasant muffled sensation in his ears. The darkness that gnaws at the torches and the smell of damp stone, as if the wall had already collapsed and them entombed.

Mail and weapons clank with strange echoes and Pero shifts his gait, unnerved and wearing a sullen scowl as a result. You elbow him.

“The worldly warrior Pero Tovar, afraid of the dark?” The torchlight glints off your grin, but you have the decency to whisper. 

Pero snorts. “Even the most experienced man would be unsettled by this cave,” he hisses back. “I am not sure the crossing is worth the protection.”

You look at him in shock. Is he..? He is!

He’s joking. Pero’s expression is somewhere between a smirk and a grimace, but there is grudging amusement in his sidelong glance. 

You tuck your hair behind your ear to disguise your blush. “You will feel differently once you walk atop it,” you tell him.

Pero spots the upward curve of your cheek despite your efforts, and it warms him better than any flame. He forgets to worry about the oppressive stone surroundings, and soon enough, just as was promised, light welcomes them again.

–

The scale of the emperor’s armies is beyond anything Pero has ever experienced. It is not just the female battalions who are outfitted so ornately, he learns- in addition to blue, he spots vermillion, pewter, a host of other decorative elements in the yards and armories. In the expansive garrisons along the Wall, orderly ranks march in time to the terse bellows of commanding officers. He tries to identify the defensive equipment stationed far above where the stone meets sky, but it makes his eyes water and his neck crick.

When access is finally granted to the top, not everyone is eager to ascend the Wall.

“That’s God’s territory, that is,” one man mutters darkly, eyeing the reach of the Wall as if its very construction was heresy. He spits and crosses himself as several others nod vigorously.

Several Cranes roll their eyes. Your jaw tightens, but your gaze strays to one of Pero’s acquaintances, whom Pero had told you was afraid of heights. “No offense will be taken at anyone who does not wish to go up,” you say calmly. A gesture, and they proceed to the lift.

The first thing Pero becomes aware of is light. The bleached-pale blue of the sky above, unbroken, a dome of brightness arcing overhead as far as the eye can see. His next thought is that the Wall feels a lot narrower when one is standing atop it. When this stone-brick lane is all the space they have to stand on, high above the earth.

The wind is more playful at this height, ruffling his hair and carrying green scents from the treetops. War preparations bustle even here- heavy scrapes and thuds from the level below as catapults are set up, steady deliveries of material for signal fires winding past them. And miles and miles of rope, seemingly, being wound into a complex-looking contraption which Pero knows is the real reason they are here. 

Other Cranes await their arrival beside it, testing their hoop attachments- the first time Pero has seen the clips on their belts put to use. Your commander is there, and barks a flurry of orders first at the heavily muscled men positioned around the machine, and then at you and the other Cranes who had escorted up the foreigners.

You scatter, taking up various positions among your fellows. Pero feels acutely more vulnerable without you by his side. His face morphs instinctively toward a defensive scowl, but it’s a half-hearted effort- most of his attention is still on you, fascinated by your swift, practiced handling of gear, including a helm he’s never seen. The black tail of your hair extends from beneath it when you turn your back to him.

The commander shoos them into a better place for viewing, close to the edge of the Wall. Much closer than Pero imagined himself wishing to go. He places his hands on the square-teethed stone threshold, willing it to steady him while the ground seems to churn far, far below. His gut swoops when you are among the first Cranes to traverse the arms of the machine, extending twice a man’s height out from the edge of the Wall.

They are attached to the machine only by lengths of thin rope bound to the hoops at their waist. Five figures in shimmering blue, standing perfectly poised on the leaf-shaped platforms radiating away from solid ground, from sanity. Your commander bellows, and the men at the machine shift in time, shouting in coordinated response. The ropes tremble as they change position. Pero’s heart is in his throat.

At the next command, you leap. 

To a man, the visitors gasp. Pero jerks forward, stretching to see past the edge of the Wall, suddenly no longer vertiginous as he strains to keep you in his sights. The wind stings his wide-open eyes. He keeps them trained on you, desperately, unreasonably afraid that something will go wrong, that your rope will snap and send you smashing into the earth below.

But that doesn’t happen. All that does is that Pero’s awe and respect for you grows that much deeper.

You remain calm and controlled. Your body flexes into a graceful line, toes pointed, arms spread. With your blue cloak rippling behind you and the spine on your helmet, you look like…well, a bird. A crane. Great and beautiful and deadly, streaming downward in pursuit of your prey. The spear balanced on your arms spins into action suddenly at the bottom of your jump, plunging into an imaginary foe. Then the ropes are pulling you up again, and your body retracts, legs curling inward to propel you in a backwards somersault. 

Pero breathes again when your feet land surely on the platform. His heart is pounding as hard as if he had made the leap himself, although he’s certain he would never- there is not enough coin in all the world to tempt him into such lunacy.

The second time you jump, he peers past you to what’s below, and notices how close you come to the men who stayed on the ground. Pero imagines their astonishment upon the sight of women diving from the heavens, their faces hovering close enough to kiss, before appearing to fling themselves back up the way they came. 

They will either seek out a confessional or their bedroll, Pero thinks, and is overcome with a sudden, wild urge to laugh.

He pushes himself away from the edge, allowing others to take his viewing place, and waits as you disconnect yourself and approach him. Your helm is tucked under one arm, and your long hair is a windblown skein. You brush a few dark strands impatiently back from your forehead. A grin stretches across your face, and for a moment Pero sees a reflection of himself in the fierce joy sparkling in your eyes. 

Standing there facing you, energy still vibrating to the tips of your fingers, Pero is suddenly much more sympathetic to those who would seek out their bed.

--

In the early days of the war, the palace is tense. The enemy prods at the borders, and patrols are forced to engage in increasingly bloody skirmishes, small battles that everyone knows are only precedents to a larger one. It is only luck that has kept Pero from being caught in any fighting yet. 

In between patrolling and training and weapons-sharpening, Pero doesn’t see you as often. When you do have time to meet, it’s a balm for both of you. Sometimes neither of you even speak, just sit and breathe in the silence, legs or shoulders touching. Pero wonders how you found all these hidden nooks that you bring him to. Do all the Cranes know the palace this well, or is this one more unique thing about you?

Some nights- with star-cooled air in his lungs and your breath a plume of cloud against the velvet sky- Pero could almost pretend things are as they were when you met. That you are two travelers carving a tentative place for yourselves, with little other responsibility than this. But then he’ll see the violet hollows under your eyes brought on by fitful sleep; then his rear will go numb from sitting on the rigid construction of the palace, instead of a cushioning of earth.

Dust filling his nose from the marching of a thousand soldiers, Pero thinks, fleetingly, of your shadowed expression when you last met this morning, before the enemy army charges.

As soon as the battle engages, Pero understands why the soldiers who attacked them on the road had deserted. Those men had fought nothing like these ones. That fight was over before it began- it was only a fight because they had the element of surprise. 

This is a war. Carnage and brutality beyond imagination, and although Pero has been stationed nearer the base of the Wall, he can still smell burning flesh from the explosions of fiery projectiles catapulted far ahead. The iron tang of blood wets the air. For a measureless time, all Pero knows is the swing of his sword and if the uniform at the end of it is friend or foe. As the battle lines blur together, familiar battalion colors glint around him. His breathing grows labored sooner than he would like.

Feminine screams ring out behind him, and Pero knows the Cranes have been deployed. Recognizing their cries are of fury, not pain, his lips curl into a savage grin, and fresh energy infuses him like he’s been dipped in cool water. 

The enemy’s ranks are thinning. Something flies past Pero’s head, and with a start he recognizes a Crane hoop. He risks a glance over his shoulder to discover he’s much closer to Wall than he thought. A number of blue shapes dart amongst the fighting at the base of it. Pero is about to face forward again when a streak of silver flashes through the air for a fraction of a second.

He freezes. 

Another, like slungshot mercury; exactly like the blade-edged wheeling stars with which he’s become so intimately familiar.

It’s a split second decision. Bowing out of his rank, Pero allows the tides of battle to carry him backward, unflinchingly striking down any soldier who blocks his path toward you. He gets close enough to make out the gore streaking your armor, lurid splatters of red against your black hair and blue mail- but he doesn’t call out. It would only distract you, and it’s not as if you need his help. On the contrary- 

Pero knows you’re aware of him when a knife sprouts from the ribs of his current opponent. 

The soldier gurgles, but Pero ignores it, wrapping his hand around the hilt and planting his boot in the man’s chest to fell him. He spins in the direction from which the blade flew. Several feet away, another body collapses at the strike of a familiar gloved hand. 

You raise your eyes to Pero’s blazing look. When it slides past you, you remain still; you maintain your position as Pero returns your knife to you via the neck of a soldier approaching at your back.

Incredibly, he takes the time to smirk.

All you have time for is one grudgingly admiring glance at him, dirty and bloodied and snarling again as he dismantles an oncoming soldier with a ferocious upward swing of his axe.

This is all the interaction you have. But not a single hour you’ve spent together goes to waste. 

The pair of you fight like a single unit as the battle heaves you to and fro. Pero does not worry or attempt to keep you in his sights; when he is in need, you appear. Though your skill is no less apparent, all your characteristic grace is abandoned- every move you make is calculated toward survival, not form. Brutal efficiency and nothing more.  

Pero slices at the leg of a passing enemy so their shout will warn you they’re coming. Pero’s breath is ragged, his throat raw, his arms leaden; as he whirls to face the next foe, his foot slips in a patch of blood.

He stumbles.

Pero barely dodges the soldier’s sword, and pain sears a line down his back. If I fall, I die, is Pero’s only thought. But everywhere the ground is suddenly slick; he can’t regain his footing, and his vision blurs with exhaustion.

He can see only the silhouette of his opponent looming dark before him-

And then they aren’t.

They’re falling, legs giving way, one hand clawing for the knife buried in their spine. You’re revealed to him then, and Pero’s world snaps back into crystal clarity. 

In your throwing stance you point straight at him. Your eyes burn, and in that single instant of stillness Pero feels a shiver of trepidation. He is not a superstitious man, but in that pointed finger is a vow: you will not die while I live.

And he doesn’t. 

Pero loses track of you in the surge of post-battle activity. He guesses you’ll have to rejoin the Cranes anyway, so he returns to the ranks of mercenaries trudging to where they’re needed. The air stinks of blood and sweat. Pero’s every other step pains him, and he remembers the cut to his back he took before you saved him. Although he’s unspeakably weary, his mind numb, the memory will not let him rest. Pero searches for you, scanning for blue armor in the flows of people.

Your eyes lock across the sea of activity. The blaze he saw in you earlier has guttered to barely a flicker of your usual flame; nonetheless, you seem to walk without difficulty, and relief sweeps through Pero at your acknowledgement. He directs his search toward healing attention, now that his only other care has been addressed. 

–

Some time later- Pero thinks it might be a full week, although he has learned not to count the days when he’s kept in bed and broth- there is a celebration. The war is over!, it’s been announced. The enemy fought ferociously, but in the end that singular army was all they had- they gambled it all on one battle, and they failed. Valiantly and respectably, but a loss was a loss. 

Pero doesn’t pay attention to the political implications discussed. Once the bodies have been removed and all the linens wrung free of blood, the regents declare a holiday. A banquet, for the brave fighters who joined them from the West, without whom the battle surely would have had a less favorable outcome. 

Pero scowls at the meaningless extollments, his stomach growling. The scent of food wafts from wherever the servants are waiting to bring it in, filling the great hall in which they’re seated. His gaze passes restlessly over the banners and decoration, doubtless intended to convey the greatness of the empire and its regents, but meaningless to Pero as he searches for one thing only.

He scans the pockets of blue scattered throughout the long tables. The Cranes’ cobalt armor glows brightly among clumps of darker colors, crimson and steely gray, although all of it winks in the light from the candles lining the tables. As if polishing their armor would scour away the memories of those who would no longer wear it.

There. Finally Pero spots you, three rows away, seated facing him. He waits, ignoring the emperor’s speech, until your roving gaze alights on him. Your lips part. The drawn cast to your face fades like the sun emerging from behind a cloud.

Something inside him releases. As if a clawed grip had kept hold of his lungs and heart ever since the battle, the whole time Pero had been healing and sleeping and fretting that something more terrible than mere duty was keeping you from him. His lungs expand more easily than they have in days.

It must have been even worse for you- you had seen him injured, but might not have known how severely, or even if he’d lived. Pero’s expression gentles, his impassive facade softening like candle wax.

The man beside Pero nudges him, and Pero flinches.

He rips his gaze from you. “What,” he snaps, his jaw clenched.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you smile, Tovar. Haven’t seen your girl since the fight?” The man- Daniel, Pero recalls- keeps his voice low, mild, despite the twinkle in his eye. He’s the youngest and most genial of the gruff circle Pero had kept acquaintance with on the journey here- the only one who would dare attempt such…teasing.

Pero all but recoils from Daniel’s question. “No! She is not- we- keep to your own affairs, boy,” he finally snarls, skin prickling.

Flaxen hair falls to Daniel’s shoulders, glinting when he gives an easy shrug. “There is no shame in forming such bonds. I would find it hard to believe, myself, if one of them had chosen me- for what is a man to a crane, ey lads?” He scoops up his empty cup and raises it just slightly off the table, in as much a toast as he can manage while the emperor is droning on.

“Hear, hear.” The men nearest to them nod gravely, chuckling- although they are quick to smother it at the thunderous look on Pero’s face.

The room bursts into applause, breaking through the roaring in Pero’s ears. Mercifully, the emperor’s speech has ended, terminating their conversation as well when he gestures for food to finally be served.

Through the renewed commotion, Pero finds himself struck by the piercing gaze of the man across from him. This man is older than him, normally subdued- but tonight there is something in his gaze steely enough to strike sparks.

His brogue is quiet and gravelly through his graying beard. “Even boys speak true on occasion, lad.” Pero stares at him. “Pride is never your ally where concerns the heart.”

A servant bustles past, pouring wine into cups. The man lifts his in toast, concluding his statement with a nod of his head to Pero.

Pero pushes aside the confusion inspired by their words. Both boy and man mistake him. Pero could be prideful, but he wasn’t with you- this was a matter of respect. You were not his- were not anyone’s- and he would not tolerate any of these fools spreading falsehoods about you.

Between his own appetite and the hungry soldiers eating almost as fast as the servants can whisk out food, Pero loses sight of you for a while. His focus is entirely on eating for a short time, habitually consuming as much as he can as quickly as possible, tasting only enough to think sardonically that such fine fare was wasted on coarse mercenaries. When his belly is stretched near to the point of discomfort, he accepts a last, short pour of wine and sits back. Pero nurses his cup as the evening drags on, occasionally catching your eye- two singular trees in a carousing, increasingly drunken grove.

Some of your sisters have forgone their armor for what Pero assumes is traditional Chinese garb, a style more like belted and layered robes than the gowns he would expect to see back home. Others maintain their uniforms, as have many of the mercenaries. You are one of the latter, and the candlelight gilds the curved lines on your vambraces as you eat.

It amuses Pero to see you handle an unwieldy carving knife, instead of your usual slender blades (although he had no doubt that sharp things of all sizes were equally deadly in your hands). He spends most of the time surreptitiously observing your technique for the strange stick-like utensils all Chinese are apparently adept with.

When you rise, Pero is instantly on alert. Very deliberately, you turn your head and snare his gaze.

As if he hadn’t been waiting for it since the moment he saw you. The first signal from you, and Pero would have left before the food was even served.

…maybe.

His companions and their earlier words may as well have never existed; it doesn’t even occur to Pero to offer a farewell. It’s late enough now that nobody cares to question a stray mercenary as he leaves the hall a few heartbeats after you. There are guards outside the doors, three different paths Pero could take. He hesitates.

But there, straight ahead- a billow of blue cloak disappearing around a corner. Pero follows without a second’s hesitation. Cool night air filters through the windows, warding off the dulling effects of his rich meal. Pero barely notices the route he takes, every sense alert and searching for the flickers of blue guiding him like fool’s fire.

He turns another corner and there you are, finally still. You smile at him- and disappear? 

Pero blinks. The wide tapestry hanging beside where you’d been ripples slightly. Remembering all the castles he’d been in with concealed features, he lifts it cautiously. Sure enough, there’s a narrow gap in the wall behind it. Where have you led him? 

His pauldrons brush the sides of the passage as Pero enters, his eyes adjusting to the barest trickle of illumination. One corner, two- and Pero emerges beneath a banner of stars. 

The sudden shower of light overheard dazzles him. Pero blinks in the glow of the full moon, brighter than the torchlit halls inside. You’ve brought him to a narrow balcony, one corner of which is sheltered by a trellis supporting a clamor of flowering vines. Their scent wafts over him, sweet and heady- or perhaps it is something else entirely lifting his spirit so.

You stand, whole and well, half in the shadows beneath the vines.

Pero takes a step toward you. 

“Garzita.” His voice is rougher than usual.

Your dark eyes shimmer. “Pero,” you say. 

His hands flex. Pero’s every muscle yearns to carry him to you, to truly ensure your health, but he keeps himself locked in place, unsure if such affection would be welcome.

Your mouth tightens, and Pero is suddenly certain he has done something wrong-

Until you throw yourself forward and into his arms.

A noise of immense relief escapes him. Pero gathers you up, crushing you against his chest. Your long hair is silken and tangles in his fingers; its perfume fills his nose when he bends his head to breathe you in.

You cannot help the tears that well in your eyes. The plates of your armor interrupt your embrace, and for the first time you feel its presence a hindrance. 

You clear your throat brusquely, praying Pero will overlook your emotional state. There is a gentle tug on your scalp as his fingers retain a grasp on your hair even while you pull back to look up at him.

“I saw your wound during the battle- I didn’t know if you even survived-” The words clog in your throat. You shake your head furiously to dispel them.

“Garzita,” Pero rumbles. The vibration of it shakes you to your bones, echoing like a drumbeat, a joyful tattoo proclaiming his well-being.

“It was a scratch,” he says firmly. “You will not be rid of me that easily.” His eyes sparkle- that pleasing shade of brown which you associate with such vitality.

You frown. “I want to see it.”

The almost-scar now stretching below his hip twinges, and Pero’s fingers twitch involuntarily. “Later,” he promises. “Are you well?”

It is with something like regret that you allow him to extract his hand from your hair, enabling him to return to that damnable distance he’s so insistent on.

Your voices twine and tumble over each other like a meeting of two streams, as you recount the day of the battle and the days since. Although you have nothing meaningful to tell from this time- everyone uninjured assisted those who were, or those who were healing them. There was the enemy’s official surrender to negotiate, a feast to plan, bloodied things to clean- like their uniforms.

You lean back to survey Pero. “Your new armor suits you,” you tell him.

Wartime preparations had been too harrying for you to have the chance to appreciate the new armor with which your empire had outfitted all the mercenaries. Now you inspect it thoroughly, casting a leisurely eye over Pero’s expansive frame. A chestplate and pauldrons, a belt and vambraces which offered more protection than his previous set. All in a pale, neutral gray. He cuts an imposing figure, from his wide shoulders down to his booted feet, planted as surely as always. 

You have the sudden, absurd urge to challenge him to another spar.

Pero’s neck warms. “Thank you,” he says gruffly. He forces himself to remain still throughout your scrutiny, but your attention isn’t like anyone else’s. Instead of sizing him up- measuring what you might extract from him- your attention is like a gentle rain. Calming and rejuvenating in a way he was unaware he needed.

When you turn away, it’s to rest your elbows on the balcony ledge, tipping your head up to the moon’s caress. It doesn’t miss an inch of you, silvering your skin and hair, turning your blue armor to gray. As if you’re a wisp of the night itself, your shadow-black hair twisting in the faintest breeze.

The sky is so clear, so full of stars, that the constellations Pero knows are almost lost among them all. The palace grounds are cloaked in the velvety darkness of midnight, and beyond, the city and its distant hills. Mist seeps in among the base of them, smoky swirls from a painter’s palette. 

At level with their balcony are the tops of trees, growing from the courtyard several stories below. They bear comely pink blossoms- the exact shade, Pero thinks, his thoughts bending toward a memory that would make him smirk at any other moment, could only be called blush.

Pero searches for a reply, longing for the words to return your compliment. But everything he might say sounds inane. Small. Unworthy of everything you are.

He settles for, “Your uniform has always suited you, but I suspect you know this.”

He mimics your stance, facing the world outside. But Pero dares to settle the smallest bit closer, so your elbows nearly touch.

“Yes.” There is a smile in your voice. “You have to improve your flattery, Pero.” Your hand lifts to brush a few stray hairs behind your ear, revealing the curve of your cheek.

But when you lower your arm, it rests snugly beside his own, a collision of metal and leather as gentle and heart-stopping as there ever was.

He can feel the delicate bones in your wrist shift when you move your hand. His own arm has never been so singularly important to him as it feels in this moment.

Pero scoffs. “I cannot flatter you with the truth. The truth is not flattery, it…it simply is.

“Your skill with knives is unmatched. You are faster than any creature I have ever met. And braver- to leap off the Wall attached to nothing but a bit of rope. When I saw this….” Pero shakes his head, certain his own ineloquence will be his downfall. “You are fiercer than any bird.”

His palms are terribly damp. There is a long moment of silence, during which a pit slowly gnaws at Pero’s belly, a swirl of anxiety and dread and fear-

“Have I told you the story of our crane constellation?”

Stars are a topic you have discussed before, and you pick up the thread of a previous conversation as if nothing had changed. As if a week and a deadly battle had not passed since you last spoke; as if his vambrace did not suddenly itch like a cuff of thorns.

It soothes Pero to tread such a familiar path with you again. To follow the contours of your accent as you expand upon subjects with stories he would never have heard otherwise. Occasionally you gesture as you speak, but you limit the motion of your right arm to below the wrist- keeping your forearm settled firmly alongside his.

You’re pointing in this way now, telling him something about a particular group of stars; but Pero’s attention is lost in the way their light touches your skin, setting you aglow like you’re one of their own. A guiding star come to earth- his own personal Polaris.

The stone ledge is cool under his arms, soaking through his layers, but Pero barely notices. His heartbeat seems to grow louder, faster, like a burst of latent post-battle energy sweeping through him in force, demanding to be used. The strength of it makes him dizzy. 

You’re still speaking, but Pero is no longer trying to listen. He watches the shapes your lips make, wishing for better lighting so he could see their color- pink as the blossoms on the trees. His shoulders turn him toward you by incremental degrees, unconsciously, until you finally notice.

Your head swivels to him suddenly, a question in your eyes. Being the sole object of your attention makes his mouth go dry.

Instead of using words, Pero places his hand over yours.

Your eyes dart down, startled, your lips parting.

“Garzita,” Pero says again. Something in him, in the rough-hewn sound, quivers like a rope pulled taut.

Your hand clasps his.

Pero didn’t know emotions could feel like this- not distant or fleeting, but buoyant, bursting in his chest and racing through every crevice of him like galloping horses. His heart seems to lift as if borne on wings. 

Crane wings, Pero thinks, as your face nears. It is the last thing he thinks- because his thoughts scatter to the winds the moment your lips touch his own. 

All sense of time and place vanishes. There is only the smoothness of your skin as he cradles your face in his hands. The lasso of your arms thrown around his neck. Your hair tickling his face. And all the while your mouth, moving, opening to his, and Pero’s relief is drowned out only by his euphoria.

Your breath trembles against his face when you part. (How close you almost were to this, once before- but for that clapping bastard, you might have had this.)

Pero leans his forehead against yours, his eyes still closed. Your arms remain around his neck, your fingers curling beneath his tunic, seeking more- the skin beneath.

“At our first encounter,” Pero begins. “I did not know if I should treat you as a warrior or as a woman. I did not wish to offend- even more so now.”

His deep rasp unfurls inside you, carrying with it a profound sense of contentment. As if you’ve finally reached a place you’ve been longing for your entire life, but never had the language to describe.

“Pero.” You bring one hand to cup his face, catching and holding his gaze. His eyes are huge in the dark, shimmering pools you could drown in. “Tonight, I wish you to treat me as a woman.”

–

Beneath the flowered trellis, it turned out, was a doorway. And through that, a room, with a bricked-over door, the remnants of furnishings, and a cot on the floor- with two pillows.

The torch you lit crackles on the far wall. You are no less striking in the wash of orange light- it warms your hair and skin, returning to you the rosy flush that Pero so enjoyed. The pink tinge darkens not only your face, but your neck and chest and hands, which twist in Pero’s hair as he skims his lips over the flesh revealed by your undergarments. 

It was a journey to even get here, layered in armor as both of them were. You had helped him first, plucking at the straps of his pauldrons and chestplate while he fumbled with the ties of his vambraces. His armor yielded to you more easily than Pero, seeing as it was a gift from your empire- despite that Pero was the one wearing it, its structure was more familiar to you.

Pero cursed. His shaking hands were too clumsy to free the laces, his breath coming short and shallow.

A weight lifted from his chest, and reflexively Pero took a great inhale, his chest measurably expanding. Darkness passed in front of his eyes. When the light returned, he blinked at the sight of you, holding his chestplate in your hands.

You cast it aside, and turned your attention to his still-bound wrist. His vambrace all but unraveled itself beneath your touch, as if at one with Pero’s desires. The same with his belt, the buckles sliding free as smoothly as if he had finally gotten around to oiling them.

The silence was full to bursting. But no words would have told him more than the tremor in your fingers as they brushed his skin again, or the way you unconsciously licked your lips as each piece of him was revealed. You were as affected as he was.

When he stood before you in only his shirt and pants, Pero waited. His body felt lighter without all its protective trappings. The right gesture from you and he was likely float away, drift into the night like one of the red paper lanterns your people set free to celebrate the end of the war.

Your hand lifted as if to touch his chest. They were still gloved; the sight seemed to give you pause. Decisively, you retracted your arm and set about freeing them.

Pero stopped you.

You looked up, startled, as his fingers took the place of your own.

His brows lowered with determination. These buttons, at least, he could handle. He would not leave you to do all the work- just as he helped you clean your knives after giving him lessons, Pero would make an even contribution here as well. Make some attempt, however trifle, at expressing his gratitude.

And so your gloves fell to the floor with a leather-soft pat, one by one, revealing your hands with their gridwork of scars which Pero had once held so carefully. Your hands fluttered like pale moths over the rest of your armor, and Pero helped as best he could; mostly he caught the pieces after you loosened the straps, arranging them to the side with far more respect than he generally did his own.

He knelt to divest you of your thigh plates, your fingers brushing as you shared the task, and when Pero lifted his head, your breath caught. His eyes gleamed liquid black as calligraphy ink. The corner of his full mouth curved up.

It was with heated cheeks you shook yourself free of your coat of mail. It didn’t help that Pero remained kneeling, basking in the sight of you with naked admiration adorning every line of his face.

You knelt beside him to remove your boots, and he only took his eyes off you to do the same.

When you were both finished, you grinned. “Finally.”

You fisted your hands in Pero’s shirt and hauled his mouth to yours.

And now his mouth is everywhere, as are his hands. It was a grapple at first, almost as if you were sparring again, your bodies fighting to get close, closer, as you fell to the cot. You had vague ideas of where you wanted to go, but Pero didn’t seem inclined to let you act on them. He rolled you flat on your back with his greater weight, damn him, and proceeded to empty your head of all plans but to keep him there-

Pero groans at the taste of your skin. There are too many things he want to do to you, with you- they jumble and crowd in his head, until it’s all he can do moderate the pressure with which he hooks his teeth into you. You gasp, and your reactions help ground Pero. 

His guiding star, indeed.

Pero props himself above you on one elbow. Your legs entwined, your fingers dig into his muscled back, feeling every flex. You blink up at him, clearing some of the haze.

“Pero?” You cannot stop saying his name, it seems. In encouraging murmurs, in moans when he does something you like, in admonishing yelps when his hands tickle. 

His eyes sparkle just the same every time. “Yes, Garzita?”

Has that smug little quirk of his lips always made you blush? You’ve never felt less in control of yourself- or enjoyed it more.

That doesn’t mean you can let him have all the power, however.

Pero’s eyes widen, and then it’s your turn to smirk, when you claw at his shirt until it comes untucked from his pants. Your hands dive beneath it, trembling at the prospect of reaching the expanse of Pero’s skin at last.

“Ahhh.” Pero sighs, his head bowing, shuddering as he allows himself to absorb your touch. He’s so warm, feverish skin stretched over bone and muscle, taut as a bowstring and just as powerful.

You pull his shirt up toward his head, guiding it off him, and he sits up to comply. He towers above you, and for a moment the torchlight becomes the orange jaws of the sun, its blinding teeth exposed in a roar behind its champion- Pero. Pero, as he rose over you when you were injured, placing himself before your enemies, an aura of strength roiling around him, preceding him, like the hounds of the Wild Hunt.

The memory of that skirmish in the woods pales in comparison to the view you have now. You can see every minute ripple of the muscles in Pero’s arms and torso, and your mouth opens at the sight of all that strength-

Bowing.

Pero bows over you as if prostrating himself, despite that you’re lying beneath him. His forehead lowers to your belly, every kiss a laud. His lips meet his hands at the band of fabric beneath your breasts.

“Please tell me I can remove this, Garzita.” His beseeching brown eyes magnify the effect of that please- a word you’re not sure you’ve ever heard him say.

Your lips curving upward, you sit up to help him.

When your bare chests meet, you both moan- at long last, an embrace without any barriers between you. 

Pero will swear to his dying day that he has never seen a more perfect pair of tits. Never held a more perfect pair, either- less plump than some, but that just makes it easier for him to occupy one with his entire hand while his mouth is busy on the other. He makes straight for the enticingly dusky tip, relishing your cry as much as the way the nipple stiffens even further under his attention. Pero’s own pleasure has never been so far from his mind, even as every absent brush of his cock against your leg sends a jolt up his spine. 

He switches nipples, and your cries renew. Gods, it is almost unbearable to hear such sounds and not be able to taste them. Pero cannot stand it, and finally lifts his mouth to your collar, up your neck, with the intent of kissing you senseless again.

Only for his route to swerve at your shoulder, when he spots a curl of shadow darkening the muscle there.

Pero rubs his thumb over the mark. “What is this?” he murmurs.

Your chest fills with an apprehensive breath.

“It is…a painting. Done with a woad ink, it creates a stain on the skin. It is a tradition among the Cranes, particularly during times of war- done for strength, or luck, or favor of the gods.” With a bit of shuffling as you’re between his legs, you roll over.

Pero is speechless as he beholds the decorated expanse of your back. A crescent moon is stamped between your shoulder blades, light blazing from it in thick lines, which twine with other sweeping shapes representing the sky and clouds and whorling stars. They radiate over the expanse of your back and shoulders, extending to the backs of your upper arms. The moon wears a serene, secretive smile, while cross-hatched stars twinkle in the bare patches around her.

The design is faded in spots- likely where your armor fastenings chafe, he notes absently- but still appreciably whole. Pero touches the marks, deep blue as the night sky they depict, and feels your skin shiver beneath his fingertips. 

“Do they hurt?” His voice is hushed, slightly deeper than a moment before.

“Now? No.”

Pero feels himself pulled, as if by whomever this picture might represent. He bends down and presses his lips to the lines next, sweeping his tongue along a curl of light. 

You arch beneath him, jarring Pero from his path. “Do you make it your goal to do things to me which no one has ever done?”

Pero is pleased to hear the breathless lilt to your voice. “No one has ever appreciated your painted skin in the way I have?”

You shake your head. “It is not so unusual here. Generally, by the time it is revealed there are more…pressing concerns.” So saying, you arch your back more deliberately, to rub your rear against Pero’s groin- the hard length there for which you impatiently long. You send him a sly, expectant look over your shoulder.

Pero hisses. One hand comes down on your ass with a cloth-dulled crack- a thoughtless action he’s seen and occasionally himself used in brothels. You squawk indignantly.

Pero has the grace to look sheepish, massaging the flesh in apology. He stares down, abruptly entranced, as if remembering where he is and what he was in the middle of doing.

He shakes his head, his expression turning unusually serious. “You have made me want to appreciate beauty in a way I have not before, from the moment of our first encounter.”

His fingers flick featherlight over the marks, tracing the shapes and swirls. “I ask only that you allow me to do so this night.”

And how can you refuse a request such as this? 

You remain as still as you can as Pero continues his ‘appreciation’. No line goes untraced by his hands or mouth. Determined, he works up to your neck and back down again, and by the time he returns to the base of your spine you’re panting, whimpers building behind bitten lips. Slickness glides between your thighs.

Pero fingers the waist of your pants. His voice rolls over you, thick and rich as syrup. “Can we take these off, Garzita?”

You bite your lip, looking over your shoulder again. It feels beyond your power to say no, yet even with the hunger in Pero’s face…

“You first.”

The thin blanket on the cot tries to entangle you as you roll back over. Pero snorts, one corner of his mouth crooking. “Very well.”

He stands to oblige you. And seeing all of him, bare and bronze in the torchlight…

Your mouth waters.

Pero has always been bigger than you- at some point you forced yourself to stop dwelling on it. But it is impossible not to be affected by it now, with the uninterrupted height of him extended above you, not a hint of shame in sight. His arms twice as thick as yours, his wide shoulders braced, his hips squared. And between his hips…

Stars above, his manhood is as long as it felt against your leg. 

Pero must see your eyes go wide or your tongue touch your lips or one of the myriad other actions of your body betraying you, because he chuckles, a husky, throaty sound.

“It is nothing you have not seen before, Garzita,” he reminds you.

You tear your eyes back to his face. You expect to see Pero’s habitual smugness, but to your surprise a hint of color darkens his cheeks, as he drops back down to your side and kisses you, a grateful hand stroking your cheek.

His fingers inch toward your bottom half again. “It is your turn now, yes?”

An affectionate giggle bubbles up through your desire.

And there you both are, naked as babes, yet vulnerable in an entirely different sense. Pero senses your desire to linger- explore him as he insisted upon doing to you- but he knows he would not be able to endure it. The meager time it took to remove your last layer was too long to not be touching you- how could he be expected to last through your examination of his innumerable marks and scars, when all he wanted was to be as close to you as two beings could be?

When he finally slides into you- slides home- your cry is the song to which his soul has always sung the accompany.

Your knees fit around his hips as if by celestial design. His nose tucks against the edge of the paint at your shoulder. Pero growls approval as you cling to him, unable to get close enough. His body quivers with tension, with the effort of maintaining a measured, deliberate pace when some primal aspect inside both of you screams for more.

Mindless, you grope and claw at him, splaying your fingers over his ass. But there’s something strange- an encrusted seam digging into the base of your palm. Pero hisses, a spasm of pain interrupting his movements.

Understanding, and then outrage, floods you. “Your wound-” 

You gasp, because Pero is still fucking you, your senses crowded with the unceasing drive and fill of his cock. “-you said- a scratch-”

Pero shoves his hips forward and drapes himself over you, forcing your thighs wider, working his cock into you as deeply as it can go. Your mouth drops open in a soundless cry, your head tipping back. You automatically tilt your hips to chase more of that divine pressure.

“It is a scratch,” Pero mutters in your ear. “Would you like for us to go find a healer and confirm it?” 

He starts to withdraw, emptying you of all but the very tip of him, and garbled, unintelligible protest streams from you. You dig your fingers into his backside with a scowl ferocious enough to rival his own. Pero grunts as your grip causes the scab to twinge.

His amusement is little more than a flash of teeth. “That is what I thought.”

He eases back into you, gentle despite the trace of mocking in his tone, and you sigh in tandem. 

“Now even your ass will be scarred,” you murmur, torn between jest and mourning. You hate the thought of how much pain Pero must have known to gain all his scars.

Pero smiles in spite of the fact, his face buried in the silken spray of your hair. This scar is already his favorite. A reminder of the battle, of the journey that led to it- that led to you. And yet…

Perhaps it should be his last.

“Perhaps I should stay close by, then, so you can ensure the rest of me remains unmarred.” Pero speaks lowly, offering you the words on a brush of lips. 

Your surprised inhale sucks them in. But Pero kisses you, his heart full, his mouth full of it, and begins to move in earnest, preventing you from answering.

You have never experienced a joining like this. One during which you laugh and snipe in turn, that feels like it’s molding your heart into a new shape even as some animal part of you snaps at such foolishness. It is hard to listen to any one voice in your head when your body is crying loudest of all. When it’s doing so at Pero’s direction- following the stroke of his tongue or the brush of his hands.

It warbles involuntarily when his thumb finds the bead of pleasure at the crux of your thighs. The long muscles spasm in response, clamping around Pero’s hips, climax lurching to the fore at his summons.

Pero drinks down your groan. He continues to murmur encouragement, his raspy tones chiseling away at the bonds maintaining your sanity. “Let us find your pleasure, mi estrella, and then you will have mine, lo prometo…”

Despite his promises of patience, Pero’s hips move faster, his thumb bearing down on the place he has learned brings women to their end. This surprised you, he could tell- but it was also when you gave yourself to him completely. Your head is thrown back into the pillows, eyes squeezed shut, your neck a pale, corded bridge. Pero hooks his other hand behind your shoulder to keep you close, his hips snapping urgently. He is lost in you, mesmerized by the sight of your many muscles drawing tight, your body a pearlescent, shivering sea. The musk of your sex fills his nose and hazes his mind.

When you peak, he feels your cunt pulse around him- and Pero is very abruptly shoved to the precipice. A choked sound tears from him as, vowing to keep his eyes open for the whole of your climax next time, he thrusts hard and fast in obedience to the heat expanding at the base of his spine. 

Release barrels through him. With a loud, helpless moan, Pero grinds his whole body into yours as if trying to merge your flesh. Sparks seem to fly from everywhere you touch, burning the fuel of your stuttering whimpers in his ear, drawing out his peak like he’s never experienced.

Your awareness dwindles to the blanket of Pero’s body, finally still, and to his cock, still inside you, softening but no less intriguing to your arousal. 

Later. You had no doubts that this would not be the only pleasure the two of you would find this night.

The entirety of you is wrapped around Pero. You idly scratch your fingers through his short, unexpectedly soft curls, content to simply lay while your heartbeat evens out. 

With a grunt, Pero peels his sweaty cheek from yours, propping himself up on his elbows. His face is flushed beautifully, an almost drunken relaxation in the way he looks down at you, and yet…there is something anxious about his eyes. An uncertainty hidden in the depths of their lovely brown. 

You don’t intend to let the night pass with him harboring any concerns, whatever they may be. You slide a hand to his cheek, stroking your thumb over the suggestion of stubble. Just skimming the bottom edge of the scar crossing his eye.

“You’re very handsome, you know.” You smile sweetly up at Pero.

Pero immediately scowls. You’d guess it to be a reflex, however, from the glimmer of confusion that follows, and the way he ducks his head as if to hide another reaction.

You laugh. “Come now, you were looking so relaxed, Pero. Do I not always give you the truth?”

His frown remains, but it’s exaggerated now, an expression of mock pain. “Perhaps. But I am nowhere near as beautiful as you,” Pero decrees. 

He drops his head to litter kisses on your neck and jaw. You hum in delight, turning your head to encourage him.

“Every part of you, Garzita,” Pero continues. “From your looks...” He trails his fingers over you as he speaks. “...to your capabilities…”

From your cheek to the curve of your bicep, over the peak of your breast to your abdomen, where he seems fascinated by the firm muscles resisting the press of his palms.

“...to this.” His voice drops to a playful growl. Pero cups his hand over your mound, and thrills leap in your belly. 

His cock slips from you as he shifts, but before you can protest, he presses his fingers in to replace it. Your hips buck, and you keen at the sudden onslaught of pleasure as Pero strokes your innermost places, his thick fingers filling you in an entirely different way.

Time slips by while you each draw bliss from the other again. The torch burns lower, changing the angle of the light, and as Pero lays in a breathless sprawl on his back, glowing with a light sheen of sweat, you think that this is a view you could get used to.

Your lover’s face, slack with pleasure and disbelief. His golden skin, yours to taste. His whole body pliant and unresistant to your desires. At rest.

As Pero recovers his breath, he rolls over, tugging you into him. You go gladly, enjoying his warmth against the occasional cool breeze curling in from the outer door.

A thought occurs to you. “You never told me what that means.”

“...What?”

“What you call me. Garzita.” It doesn’t sound as nice in your accent.

A moment passes before Pero answers. “It is the word garza. Crane. By making it garzita, I am calling you ‘little crane’. But…we do not always mean ‘little’ when we use this. It is also used to mean…familiarity. Affection.”

His voice is soft, but steady. Certain of what he means to say. He doesn’t look at you, allowing you time to gather a response.

You can hardly dare to hope for what this might mean. “And did you mean what you said before? About staying close, so I can ensure you are not marred by any more scars.” 

Another small collection of silences. Then Pero exhales, turning his head to press his lips to your temple. “Yes.” 

The word rumbles against your chest- resounds in your heart. You twist to see his face, though Pero keeps his gaze lowered, not ready to meet your eye. “Life as a mercenary is nearly all I have known. I have traveled my entire life, and never felt an urge to settle in any one place. To build a permanent home. But since meeting you…I think perhaps that a home could be more than a building of wood and stone.”

His words hit you with the shock of a thunderclap. They shake you to your very core- racing through you like rapidly growing vines over the sturdy structure that had been your life, turning a once-simple thing into something new. Something more. Foundation, walls, roof- nothing is left untouched by the potential of this vibrant, intricate weave.

Tears prick your eyes again. Overcome, you bury your face in Pero’s neck, squeezing him with your whole body and hoping that it’s enough to convey your meaning until you can find words.

The echoes of this revelation within you take a long time to fall quiet. Pero is likely going out of his mind with anxiety at your silence, but how on earth could anything you say equal such a confession?

But lying there, Pero’s warmth soaking into you with reassuring steadfastness, you are reminded of another thought that was once inspired by his touch.

You sniff brusquely, summoning a less watery voice. “I would like a hearth, though.” 

You speak clearly, matter-of-factly, as if you’d been in the middle of a discussion and not skipped several steps ahead of a nervous Pero in the conversation.

“...What.”

“In our home. A hearth is an important thing to have.” 

You can practically hear his mind turning. “In our…?”

Pero pulls back to look at you, scouring your face with a frantic hope. His grip on you tightens to a desperate clutch.

You rest your hand on his cheek again. “In our home, Pero.”

Your eyes gleam with affection. “Foolish, oblivious man. Did you truly believe that I did not feel the same? That I wished to live any longer without you by my side?"

Pero’s mouth hangs open. His brows drawn together, he seems stunned, as if he hadn’t dared consider the possibility that you would return his sentiment. 

He captures your lips in a kiss full of feeling- full of all the words he is unable to say. 

When he releases your mouth, it is only to rest his brow against yours. (You suspect that it will not be often in the future when you are not close enough to kiss at a moment's notice.) Your breath mingles, the new conviction between you deep and charged as a river’s flow.

“I am both woman and warrior, Pero,” you say. “And wholly yours.”

“You honor me, mi garzita.” His voice is rougher than you’ve ever heard it. There are many more things he wishes to say- and he would say them, someday. In time. But since they have time, now…

Pero reaches for you once more, choosing, for now, to speak with his body- his heart- as he’s never been able to do.

You converse until long after the torch has guttered out, but the full moon ushers in just enough of her light to provide the barest visibility. To kiss the outline of Pero’s silhouette with silver. And this is enough; you can take care of the rest of him.

As he will do for you when the sky turns to gold.

---

Post note: Thank you for reading!! But also go give love to Pat’s art or else 🔪💚

Anyway! The word garza actually means ‘heron’ in Spanish. The word for crane is grulla, but I didn’t like the sound of that as a nickname, so I decided that Pero is from a place in Spain that doesn’t have cranes, therefore, since this is ye olden days, he wouldn’t have ever heard the word grulla. So he hears the explanation of ‘big swoopy waterbird’ and thinks Ah yes, a garza.

Crane’s tattoos are inspired by this art

If you’re thinking to yourself “If the Crane Corp is Chinese, and Reader is a crane, why is this fic marked as Asian slash Chinese!Reader??”, there’s a reason! And it’s because empires. I took a bit of historical liberty with this fic (ie having the cranes tattoo themselves and having Crane throw knives), but even so, empires, as they expand and conquer territories, absorb new people and cultures. Crane might not consider herself Chinese 🤷🏻‍♀️ Knife throwing is predominantly a traditionally Japanese practice (I think), and China was never historically all that fond of tattoos. Because Crane does consent to the (temporary) tattoo practice, she could also be from a minority of peoples who did practice tattooing, which I only found mentioned once, so this concept is mostly just me taking the idea and running with it haha).

The title of this fic is from the song "When the Day Met the Night" by Panic! At the Disco :)

Taglist: @thirstworldproblemss. Also perhaps @leslie-lyman for this one 👀

#pero tovar x reader #pero tovar x you #the great wall #the great wall fic #asian!reader #chinese!reader #ofc!reader #pero tovar x ofc

[thisismeracing]

More than friends | LH44

―Pairing: Lewis Hamilton x fem!reader ―Warnings: curse words, mentions of food, and typos; ―Summary: You're friends with Lewis, but fans don't buy the "just friends" discourse - for them, you and Lewis make the most powerful couple, even if you're not famous. And maybe they're right, maybe you're supposed to be more than friends. (based on this request).

▸ my masterlist | my taglist | patreon guide ▸ support my writing by reblogging, leaving a comment (don’t forget to follow me if you like the piece), or buying me a coffee

yourusername

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yourusername went for coffee/reading with the bestie, but of course, we ended up yapping about everything and only reading two sentences 😁

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angryschumacher they just like me and my bestie except they’re more cute and would make a great couple 👀

grandpierre can you imagine being bestie with lewis freaking hamilton?! 😭

leclerccrown what are you reading, yn?

⤷ yourusername crooked plows by itamar vieira junior! :)

yourbestie can I borrow those shoes for a date this weekend?? 🙏

lewishamilton worst matcha I’ve ever had 🤢

⤷ yourusername youre just not used to the flavors! It was deliciou

⤷ lewishamilton it probably was, but right before you added tons of sugar and what else 🥴

⤷ yourusername shut up 😡

⤷ lewishamilton I just don’t need extra sugar when you’re around, sweetie

⤷ tifosikimi am I sensing some flirting? 👁️🫦👁️

⤷ tiredtyres tifosikimi I don’t think so, me and my bestie banter like this but we consider each other siblings

harrietdirection her hair is so shiny, her skin is so glowy, she’s so humble and simple and sweet and pretty can lewis share her with the fandom pls

lewishamilton

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lewishamilton recharging for next weekend 💛

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likedbypierregasly this looks like such a romantic dump, the kind of dump one would post with…I dunno…their girlfriend 👀

biebertsunoda I wanna be her so bad

yourusername 💛

⤷ keepingupwf1 yeah bestie Im at a loss of words too

mickschumacher Angie is questioning me about play dates with roscoe!!

⤷ roscoelovescoco 😍 Is miss Angies too

⤷ yourusername how about tomorrow before media duty??

⤷ mickschumacher sounds great! 🤝

⤷ zhoulovers she’s roscoe’s mom, change my mind

elitebarzal oh to spend a weekend recharging beside lewis and roscoe 😭

zendaya 😍😍😍

yourusername

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yourusername productive Friday at work 🤓

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redsainz who choose these boots? I bet it was lewis

oconnected they're so powerful together, you can see bits and bits of the other in them 🩷

mickschumacher glad you enjoyed the haribo! 😌

⤷ yourusername my new fav candy!!! 😌

lewishamilton nice fit 😏

⤷ yourusername you like it? a friend set it up for me 😎

⤷ redsainz told you guys he was to one to piece it together!!!!

bonosmicrophone its the way mick, lily, alex, george, and so on constantly interact with her 🥹🥹

dollarsainz lewishamilton can I date her?

⤷ lewishamilton nah, she’s already taken

⤷ leclerccar WHAT?,mKVNWNCJSJJCJSD

lewishamilton & yourusername

liked by charles_leclerc, landonorris, and others

lewishamilton guess we were always meant to be more ❤️

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yourusername fitting together like the perfect pair of legos 💘 you're forever my best friend, I love you

⤷ lewishamilton I love you forever

⤷ schumickey 😭forever😭my😭best😭friend😭

rizzhou most powerful paddock couple!

yukiyukiyuki everything about these pics gives wholesome heartdly in love vibe 🥹

charles_leclerc finally, guys!!!!! ❤️

georgerussell63 it was about time!

alex_albon lily is asking for another double date (please Yn don’t steal my girl 😭)

⤷ lilymhe too late, babes 😁

mercedesamgf1 😍😍 we’be been rooting for this since the beginning!

⤷ formulainchident even admin!!!!

scuderiaferrari Yn, we already have your special headphones and shirt ready! 🫵❤️

norrisrizz I want what they have, I wanna be her, I wanna be him, I wanna be their dog, I-

────── ⋆🪩 VOICEMAIL: Hi! I hope you guys liked this piece! :D as usual, reblogs and comments are extremely appreciated. don't forget to let me know your thoughts!

If you liked this piece and want early access to new ones and exclusive access to others, subscribe to my patreon!💘

▸ check my main masterlist | patreon guide and my taglist.

taglist: @sachaa-ff @mickslover @mishaandthebrits @fdl305 @iloveyou3000morgan @crimeshowjunkie @saintslewis @carojasmin2204 @chaoticevilbakugo @wondergirl101ks @smiithys @shhhchriss @f1kota @lunnnix @karmabyfernando @crashingwavesofeuphoria @schumacheer @callsign-scully @dearxcherry @elliegrey2803 @peachiicherries @he6rtshaker @therealcap @mehrmonga @the-depressed-fellow @cixrosie @darleneslane @buckybarnessweetheart @nichmeddar @fastcarsandshit @balekanemohafe @jamie2305 @nzygftoji @leclercsluv @graciewrote @alessioayla @littlesatanicassholebitch @barcelonaloverf1life @noncannonships @fanboyluvr @is-just-a @love4lando @woozarts @namgification @formulaal @v1naco @skepvids @khaylin27 @bernelflo @fakehappy27

©thisismeracing ― do not copy, steal, or translate my work; do not repost on a different media platform.

― Reminder: None of the pictures used are mine, they are all from Pinterest and other apps, but the work is, and I do not allow it to be published on a different platform. I would appreciate it if those things could be taken into consideration 💛

#lh44 #op: smau #f1 x reader #lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton media au #lewis hamilton instragram au #f1 smau #lewis hamilton smau #f1 social media au #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #lewis hamilton imagine #lewis hamilton fluff #lewis hamilton x you #lewis hamilton instagram au #f1 instragam au #f1 x you #asian!reader

[ang3lik]

!Scream IV Spoilers!

Smut with Ethan Landry after he gets back from a kill🙈

𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: ethan landry x fem!reader 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: vaginal sex, slight nipple play, biting, oral ( m x f ), spanking, begging, slight degradation and mentions of murder and violence. 𝐰/𝐜: 1.1k 𝐚/𝐧: i wrote this in like two hours, so sorry if it sounds rushed. if there’s any warnings i’ve missed or any errors, let me know, hope you enjoy !

as ethan walked back to his dorm, he couldn’t help the stir inside of him. the stir of revenge being fulfilled. he had succeeded in killing anika. he knew that would torture mindy most, but it’d scare the group as one by one he’d kill them. he still felt a little on edge however, all the adrenaline pumping inside him after his second kill.

it put his mind at ease that he knew you were waiting for him in his dorm, thinking he was just returning home from econ. as he got to his dorm door he double checked his hands, checking his clothes and pulling out his phone to check his face to make sure he was clear of blood.

he made sure his phone was on so not disturb to so no one would interrupt you both with the need of anika’s murder. he unlocked the door, walking in and closing it behind him, looking around the living room as he called your name out. you called back from his bedroom, laying on his bed as he walked in, dropping his bag to the floor, the ghostface costume and knife still stained with blood inside, making it think from the weight of it.

he flopped straight on top of you, face immediately in your neck, kissing your soft skin as you squirmed and giggled beneath him. your right hand ran through his curls your other wrapping around his large shoulders, holding him closer to you.

“what’s gotten into you?” you laughed out, his curls tickling under your jaw as he nibbled at your skin a little, the sharp pinch of his teeth, making your body heat up.

“stupid, fucking econ.” he breathed out, his cold hands, pushing up your tank top from your hips as he gripped them. “oh, you forgot your notes.” he paused. looking over to his desk, where his notes lay over the table, forgetting to hide them away before he left, as if he’d taken them with him.

he gulped, feigning annoyance before turning to you again.

“yeah, i know.” he answered. you took note of his heavy breathing, the fast inhales of air, audibly breathing out of his nose as his eyes darkened. he seemed angry, and there was only one thing that could calm him down. you. you took initiative, leaning upwards, capturing his lips between yours as he moaned loudly in content.

the kiss grew hot fast as he rushed to get you both naked as fast as possible. your tank top was tugged up, your tits bouncing before his eyes as he looked at you, hungry. his lips attached to your nipple, sucking on it gently as you sighed out in pleasure.

his thumb twisted the other, flicking it between his fingers. your cunt grew wetter as a jolt of excitement ran down your spine, squealing lightly as ethan let his teeth graze your nipple, sucking it lightly to ease the pain. he looked up at you through his curls, pulling away from the peak, smirking, a thin trail of spit connecting from the bud to his lower lip, breaking as moved down your stomach.

he stood up at the end of his bed, pulling of his shirt, his eyes watching you as he unclasped his belt, undid his jeans and pushed them off. you watched his thick cock, throb in his boxers before he pushed them off too, wasting no time to pounce on top of you.

he pushed your thighs apart, kneeling between as he pulled of your shorts by the waistband. he watched as your hole clenched around nothing, waiting for his thick, wet tongue as he leaned down sucking your clit into his mouth. you sobbed out in delight as his tongue flicked your nub, the sounds of his tongue licking up and down your slit, shaking his head slightly, as he ate you out messily, reaching your ears.

your thighs clamped around his head, as you leaked out into his tongue. squirming upwards on the bed, his hands pushed your thighs over his shoulders, his arms wrapping around them as he pulled you down, closer onto his younger as he pushed his tongue deep inside you.

curling it inside you, he let his teeth graze your clit, that warm feeling of your orgasm creeping up on you setting inside your stomach. the noises of him slurping your juices into his mouth, sent you over the edge, cumming all over his tongue and clenching around the muscle as your back arched up off the bed.

you yelled as he pushed your thighs of his shoulders, twisting your body to lay you on your stomach as he pulled you hips up, level with his. overstimulated, from your orgasm only seconds ago, your body shook as he pushed the top of his cock, slapping it on your clit as he teased your hole, pushing in and stretching you out before leaving again.

you squeezed your eyes closed as he pushed in, ethan letting out a loud groan as he looked down, watching his cock disappear inside of you as he pulled back, repeating his movements. you made whiny, meek noises at his slow movements, pushing your hips back, urging him to drive deeper.

a harsh slap to your left ass cheek has you crying out in ecstasy as he finally started to thrust faster. the erotic sounds of his hips slamming into yours, loud. you moaned loudly, your body buzzing with thrill as you felt the need to cum again. begs and whines of ‘please’ and ‘ethan’ left your mouth in desperation, as his hand came down on the opposite cheek, spanking you again.

he dropped down, leaning over your shoulder, as he rutted into you, his tip prodding your g-spot as he grunted into your ears.

“beg for me baby, like the little slut you are, tell me what you want?” he uttered. tears lined your eyes, as you tried to hold your orgasm off. “i want to cum!” you called out as you squeezed around his length. he could feel his sack tighten, as it slapped against your sticky clit, feeling the need to cum himself.

“cum.” he demanded. “cum for me.” you screamed in pleasure, deep, intense, thrusts carrying you through your orgasm as his cock twitched inside of you. warm, white cum, spewed from his tip as he whimpered. his body dropped down, the small bed leaving his arm laying across your back, your body tired but feeling heavenly.

neither of you said a thing, laying in a peaceful silence, until your phone rang, both your heads shooting up as ethan picked it up from his bedside table, chad was calling.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @astarborntowrite @liyahsocorro @anonoussy @gr4veyardg1rl

#triggering content #tw: mentions of murder #★ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐒 ★ #— dirty daydreams ⋆ ˚｡⋆ #scream #scream vi #scream 2023 #ethan landry #ethan landry smut #ethan landry angst #ethan landry imagine #ethan landry x reader #jack champion #jack champion smut #jack champion angst #jack champion imagine #jack champion x reader #black!reader #asian!reader #latina!reader

[byebyelullabye]

"𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐼 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑓𝑓 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝐼 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑." - 𝑚𝑒, 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ 𝑎 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑡

✨𝙽𝙰𝚅𝙸𝙶𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽✨

🥀 = 𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔰𝔱𝔶(𝔦𝔰𝔥)

🌟 = 𝔣𝔢𝔪!𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔯

🇵🇭 = 𝔣𝔦𝔩𝔦𝔭𝔦𝔫𝔬 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔯

🦋= 𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔫𝔢𝔲𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔩 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔯

~ 𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 🦋 🇵🇭

you don’t like valentine’s day. peter parker changes that. (friends to lovers)

~ 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 🦋🥀

you burn out but peter is always there to catch you. (established relationship)

~ 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 🌟 (part I)

benedict bridgerton had been the age of seven the day he met y/n l/n. seven hours later, he declared her his bride. (kid fic)

~ 𝐟𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 🌟 (part II)

During the summer of her fifteenth year, Y/n L/n realizes the nature of her affections for her best friend Benedict Bridgerton. All the while, the Bridgerton family continually grows exasperated with the pair’s stolen glances and longing stares. 

~ 22 🌟🥀 (part III)

#masterlist #queue me up scotty #yeng speaks #yeng's folklore #yeng's alcove #peter parker my beloved <3 #peter parker x reader #peter parker #andrew garfield #spiderman #peter parker x fem!reader #asian!reader #peter parker fluff #peter parker imagine #peter parker x you #peter parker angst #andrew garfield x reader #peter parker x y/n #tasm!peter fluff #tasm!peter parker x reader #tasm!peter x reader #tasm!peter imagine #benedict bridgerton imagine #benedict bridgerton x reader #benedict bridgerton x you #benedict bridgerton fanfiction #benedict bridgerton

[makiwife]

F the big 3 CL16!

Driver’s Soft Launch Series

Charles Leclerc x Redbull Driver! Verstappen!Reader

Author’s notes: hihi!! back from my year long slump😭 all pics are from Pinterest. It’s a long one so hope you enjoy!! it gets vv messy😈.

Warnings: cursing, sexual themes.

next part

Y/nverstappen

Liked by maxverstappen1, Lilymhe, charles_leclerc, and 2.5 million others

Y/nverstappen with love xoxo

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maxverstappen1: Where is your shirt in the first pic🤨🤨

charles_leclerc liked this comment

↳ Y/nverstappen: fym… it’s right there😅

francisca.cgomes: YOURE SO BEAUTIFUL BABY🥰

Y/nverstappen liked this comment

Lilymhe: bae is looking so FINEE

↳ Y/nverstappen: my wife I love you🥹

F1xY/n: HOW IS SHE SO PRETTY IM JEALOUS

Ferraricharles4: SHE REALLY CAME SHIRTLESS IN THE FIRST PIC

Landonorris: bro is posing before a GP😭

↳ Y/nverstappen: bro hasn’t given anyone vip paddock passes since he got broken up with😭

↳ danielriccardo: LMAOO🤣🤣

redbullY/nfan: SHE GAGGED HIM

——————————————————————————

Y/nverstappen

Liked by alexandrasaintmleux, gerihalliwellhorner, carlossainz55, and 3 million others

Y/nverstappen date before race ❤️‍🔥

View comments…

Redbullluv: DATE NIGHT W WHOM?!???

McLarengirl11: UM HELLO WHO IS THAT MAN?

Lilymhe: STUNNING☺️☺️

↳ Y/nverstappen: I love you lil🥰

danielriccardo: the people want to know who you’re soft launching

↳ maxverstappen1: what the fuck is soft launching🤨

↳ Y/nverstappen: 🤫🤫

Y/nloveerr: SHES TEASING US OH MY GOF

gerihalliwellhorner: very beautiful Y/n💕

Y/nverstappen liked this comment

pierregasly: I wonder who it is😁😁

↳ carlossainz55: hmm I also wonder😏

↳ Carlosleclerc6: bro knows who it is😭🧌

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During qualifying day interviews:

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Y/nverstappen

Liked by charles_lerclerc, maxverstappen1, lewishamilton, and 4.3 million others

Y/nverstappen fuck the big 3, it's just big ME.

View comments...

maxverstappen1: congrats baby sis!! P1 looks good on you

↳ Y/nverstappen: thank you maxie🙏 i love you.

y/nf1fan: THE CAPTION??? WHY DID SHE GAG OCON SO HARD

Redbullgirly3: THE VERSTAPPEN SIBLINGS HAVING BEEF WITH OCON IS SO FUNNY TO ME

lewishamilton: congratulations Y/n!! very proud of you.

↳ Y/nverstappen: THANK YOU LEW🥹 you're so sweet

charles_leclerc: P1 BABYY

↳ Y/nvestappen: my haters got me to where I am☺️

redbullracing: simply simply lovey!! amazing results y/n🙌 keep up the wonderful work. (nice caption)

landonorris: that caption is so messy, i love it

↳ alexalbon: SO VEERY MESSI

↳ Y/nvestappen: “I don’t really have a lot to comment on that, except that he was being a pussy”

↳ maxverstappen1 liked this comment

↳danielriccardo: bro wanted all the smoke

Lilymhe: PERFECT WAY TO END A GP FOR SOMEONE AS PERFECT AS YOU ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

↳ Y/nverstappen: lily do you want head or sum 😛

↳ alexalbon: google, how to dislike a comment??🤨better yet, how to report someone??😃

georgerussell: CONGRATS!! AMAZING RACE FROM YOU!!

josief1: THE WAY SHE QUOTED MAX WHEN HE DISSED OCON IN AN INTERVIEW 🤣 MOTHER IS MOTHERING FR

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Y/nverstappen posted on their story

alexandrasaintmleux, Lilymhe, charles_leclerc, and others liked your story

alexandrasaintmleux replied to your story: princess treatment only for the best 💕

Y/nverstappen: I literally love you alex baby🥹🥹

landonorris replied to your story: this is so booktok of charles

Y/nverstappen: LMAOO SO TRUEE

charles_leclerc replied to your story: you deserve everything and more. I'm so very proud mon amour ❤️.

Y/nverstappen: cha baby I’m actually so in love with you❤️❤️

A/n: Guys i literally had so much fun writing this!! I def want to make a pt2 because there wasn't really any soft launching/ flirting happening. I lowk wanted to show you guys a little bit of her personality, but I also wanted to ease into the romance yk. sorry for the yap sesh but I hope you enjoyed!!

#instagram au #f1 one shot #cl16 x reader #formula 1 x you #formula 1 fanfic #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc fic #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc smau #charles leclerc x reader #f1 imagine #f1 instagram au #f1 imagines #f1 smau #f1 fanfic #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc x you #smau #social media au #f1 x female reader #asian fem reader #lando norris #f1 social media au #f1 x y/n #f1 x you #f1 x reader #f1 fic #carlos sainz #charles leclerc #max verstappen

[solitaryearthperson]

Shopping for Jess

Summary: The reader takes Jessica shopping for more stuff for the apartment.

(The reader is female and the age is 18+. The ethnicity/race is any.)

“Jess,” I said her name, shaking her shoulder a little to get her to wake up. 

The only response I received was another tired grunt and her digging her face further into her pillow.

“Jeeess,” I whined, shaking her shoulder harder, finally seeing her open her eyes and lift her head from the pillow. She turned and looked up at me with annoyance and her dark hair tangled and messy on her head, 

“What,” She asked, yawning.

“We need to go to the store.”

“Why?”

“Because you have no food.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.” Maybe it was because of her being drunk damn-near 24/7 or being a super person, but Jess tended to forget that she needed to eat and eat regularly.

“I can order pizza or something, later.” She grabbed her cover and was about to turn to lay back down, but I quickly pulled it from her hands and pulled the rest of it off her. 

“We’re going to the store and picking up things to eat. Healthy food. Food you can eat everyday to be healthy.” I didn’t give her time to respond as I quickly turned and left the room, deciding to sit on her ugly couch and wait for her to get dressed and ready.

~

“I can literally just order something,” I heard her whine again as we entered another aisle. “Pizza, Chinese, Thai, Mexican-”

“But yet, you're picking up a box of cereal,” I interrupted her, looking over my shoulder to see her putting a large box of Frosted Flakes into the shopping cart.

“You said to get food I’ll eat,” she said, defensively.

Taking a couple cans of soup from the shelf and dumping them in the cart, I turned to her. “I said healthy food, as well.”

I looked down into the cart and counted all the things we had. Most of the things I picked up were cans of soup and fruit in case of emergencies, whole fruits and vegetables, frozen dinners, and various other things, while most of the things Jessica dropped in, were absolute junk food and booze.

“I’m super. I can’t get sick, remember,” she reminded me for the hundredth time.

“You’re not invincible. You need to stay strong and healthy.”

“I am healthy. And strong.”

“Drinking bourbon day and night, and only eating takeout is not what most doctors consider healthy, but okay.” I grabbed the cart and began pushing it into the next aisle. “You have any tampons?”

“Um,...” Jessica stayed silent, looking at me, unsurely.

“So you don’t know,” I continued into the aisle and picked up a box and dropped it into the cart. “Does being super mean no more periods or keeping track of them?”

“Excuse me if I don’t know the exact number of shit in my place,” she replied. 

“You need any toilet paper, paper towels...”

“Ummm,” Again, Jessica didn’t know the answer and once again, I wondered how this woman survived for so long.

"Okay, let's go get some more," I sighed turning the shopping cart around and making my way to the next aisle, Jess following closely behind me.

After we got all the things we needed for her place, me and Jess both paid for the groceries and, using her super strength, she carried all of them to the car, telling me to not worry about it and to just get in the car and relax. I had a feeling that she was just going to dump all of it in the trunk and not even try to organize or arrange it safely, but I ignored it, already tired from all of the searching and walking around the store.

I was trying to find the right radio station for us, when she opened the car door and got in.

"You put everything in the trunk," I asked, giving up on the radio.

"Yep," she replied, but she had a strange look on her face.

"What's wrong?"

She didn't say anything for a minute, her face looked as if she was contemplating telling me something.

"Jess?"

"Thank you," she finally said, her voice stiff.

"For what?"

"For this," she pointed to the store. "For taking care of me. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Jessica," I could feel heat coming to my cheeks and decided it was best to begin the drive home now.

Putting my hand on the gear shift, I was about to place it in drive when I suddenly felt Jessica's hands grab my face and turn my head towards her to meet her lips with mine. Her actions took me off guard so at first I didn't do anything, but after a second I quickly reciprocated the kiss to her with enthusiasm. When I felt like I needed to breathe I slowly pulled away from her, keeping my face still close to hers.

"What was that for?"

"Cuz I love you and I don't say it enough," she told me, her pale cheeks turning light pink after she spoke.

Clearing her throat, she settled back into the passenger seat, trying to hide a grin that I could see was beginning to grow on her face. "So...let's go home and put all this shit up."

Like Jess, I tried to control the grin that was growing on my face and quickly put the car into drive. Jess wasn't good with expressing her emotions and she wasn't really a fan of PDA, so I knew it took a lot for her to do that, even if we're in the privacy of the v car. Pulling out of the spot and out of the parking lot, I began the drive back home, while my mind was coming up with different ideas to show Jess how much I loved her back.

#mcu #marvel #mcu imagine #marvel imagine #marvel x reader #mcu x reader #marvel x black!reader #mcu x black!reader #marvel x woc!reader #mcu x woc!reader #jessica jones #jessica jones imagine #jessica jones x reader #jessica jones x black!reader #jessica jones x woc!reader #jessica jones x female!reader #jessica jones fluff #asian!reader #latina!reader #indigenous!reader #muslim!reader #woc!reader #black!reader #jessica jones x y/n #jessica jones x you

[stargirlstudio]

No Matter The Tradition [Snippet]

☆ Aemond Targaryen x Princess of Leng!Reader

☆ In my fics, Leng is inspired by SE Asian culture.

☆ This is a snippet from an upcoming fic. Enjoy! I’ve always wanted to write for an Asian reader specifically SE Asian, I know growing up in fandom spaces - I have always felt like I was not represented, so to all my SE Asian girls I hope I am making you proud.

Even if you are not of the culture, I hope you feel joy in reading in my fics - I would still love the support! Here’s to making fandom spaces more inclusive.

Part 1 to this fic is here

“You are the most beautiful bride, no matter the tradition,” Aemond says. “I will never tire of seeing you in a wedding gown,”

“Speaking above the Old Ones? She seethed. “During our ceremony?” Aemond held his breath. “It’s like you want this marriage to fail,”

Aemond had not realized he was supposed to be silent. Panic struck him from his heart to the rest of his body. Already showing signs of disrespect how could he-

“Just kidding my prince,” She joked. Aemond nudged her, both of them chuckling as the guests filed in. She brushed her hands against his momentarily as they watched the lords and the ladies bow their heads.

Tag List: @moonmaiden1996

#aemond targaryen x reader #asian!reader #se asian!reader #hotd fanfic #house of the dragon #fanfiction #house of the dragon fanfiction #Aemond targaryen fanfic #fics #fic: no matter the tradition