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#but then its like do i even REALLY know what i want because i go trhough this motion like every six months
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Not How We Are - LN
Request from @dannorris - Can you make something like fight/arguing with lando yk something like " flinch during the fight" but let's make it fluff what do you think?
Ok i said no angst but this is the last angst request im taking and it’s only bc its going to be the briefest angst and then fluffy.
No part 2 requests please
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Y/n really didn’t know how to tell Lando. If there was a way to blame it one someone else then she would. God she would absolutely blame a different person and feign innocence.
But smashing into a bollard with his McLaren is hardly an excusable offence. He might even just throw her in front of the car and run her over with it as a way to inform her that the relationship is in fact over.
The car is drivable, but scratched and dinted. Which isn't good since that McLaren is his baby, it's a not a cheap fix and even if he gets it fixed for free. He isn't going to be happy because he'll probably have to send it off to be fixed properly.
She’s actually broke out in a sweat just going upstairs and her clammy palms are even stressing her out more.
He’d told her to take the McLaren out when she said she needed to go out because it’s been a while since he had gone out in it. Really y/n has been trusted in all his cars and never had an issue. But something tells her that won’t be a trust she has again for a long time and he may just never trust her in most of his cars again.
Y/n swallows back thickly as she walks into the apartment.
"Baby?!" Lando calls out immediately making her almost cry. "Baby?"
Y/n silently walks into the sim/gaming room where he's set up on the sim, practicing ahead of Australia.
"Hey, come sit." Lando smiles but he suddenly notices her body language and practically scrambles up. "Baby, what's wrong?"
"I'm sorry." Y/n murmurs then rubbing her hands on her jeans again.
"Sorry? Sorry for what? Baby, what's happened?"
"I hit a bollard...with the McLaren." Y/n chokes out making Lando go frigid. "I'm sorry, it was an accident. I-I was just trying to get out the parking space and the bollard appeared out of nowhere."
"No, you just weren't paying attention." Lando mutters then sighing looking like he's trying to keep himself calm while she feels her body begin to tremble. "Jesus Christ. Show me the damage then."
The last thing she wanted to do even before he knew was to show him the damage but now she's got to.
"O-Ok." She nods and they head down to the garage.
They get down and Lando looks like he's in a rage. Understandably.
Someone might say it's just a car and he's rich enough to fix it, but that doesn't change the fact she broke it in the first place and he trusted her with it.
Y/n tries to at least remain sympathetic and comfort him over her stupidity because she knows she's at fault and she's taking responsibility for it.
"I'm really sorry, Lan-"
"Sorry isn't going to fix the fucking car, y/n!" Lando exclaims making her almost flinch back so much she trips and just manages to stumble to save herself.
In an instant Lando feels his heart drop realising what just happened. He actually just scared y/n. He scared his own girlfriend and she very obviously had already felt bad about the matter. He achieved nothing by shouting, she felt guilty already. Scaring her just made him an asshole about something that could be fixed.
"I-I know. I'm sorry, I-"
"No. Fuck. No. Baby, I'm sorry. I-...It can be fixed. It's going to be fine." Lando states rushing forward and feeling a relief that she doesn't flinch back at him again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it's fine. It's just a car. I could buy a while new one if I wanted and I told you to drive it it. So this is on me."
"You didn't expect me to hit a bollard though."
"No...but you didn't do it on purpose." Lando smiles lightly trying to emphasise that it really is ok. "I'm sorry for shouting. It wasn't ok."
"You were mad...I knew you would me. I would be too." Y/n mumbles then looking down at the car. "I'd offer to pay for it but I think we'd have to set up an instalment plan for the next 30 years...and that might not even be enough."
"Don't even think about it." Lando dismisses quickly, not even following her gaze to look at the car, just remaining focused on her. "Do you know what we need?"
"A ban on my license?"
"Baby..." Lando frowns lightly then rubbing her sides gently. "McDonald's?"
Y/n brightens just at the mention of fast food since she tries to keep away from it so as to not tempt Lando. Plus the amount she'd happily eat food was great.
"I am driving though." Lando smiles earning a nod from the young woman. "You get as much off the menu as you'd like."
-
Lando manages to feed y/n so full of McDonald's that she was practically comatose as she lies on top of him. Her face pressed into his chest while he tries to figure out what he needs to do to get the car fixed.
He ends up getting directed to the right people after talking to Zak for help to get the car schedule for a pick up and then flown back to England for a repair.
While he's on the phone he can feel y/n beginning to fidget and nuzzle her head heard against him. He rubs her back gently while talking and explaining the issue before she rubs her face into his chest. But eventually the plans are made and he sighs hanging up and wrapping his arms around her.
"Baby..." Lando whispers moving down to kiss the top of her head. "I love you."
"I love you too." Y/n mumbles then moving to look up at him. "I'm still sorry."
"I owe you more of an apology than you owe to me." Lando sighs earning a frown. "I love you...and you can slap me if I ever talk to you like I did again. In fact you should slap me if I do it again."
"I'm not going to slap you...I already smashed your car." Y/n smiles before sighing. "I am banning myself from driving anymore."
"Well I'm not going to enforce that but...I'm not going to force you to drive either." Lando smiles making her sigh and nod. "Would you not want to drive the Land Rover?"
Y/n has been talking about how she loves his new Land Rover than he paid a lot of money to get all done up.
"No...I might hit a pedestrian and run them over." Y/n mumbles then sighing softly. "I'll just wait a bit before I drive again."
"Ok, if that's what you'd prefer." Lando smiles then rubbing his hands up and down her back. "Do you want to nap and then...we can have a spa night?"
Lando usually has to be talked into spa nights, but there's no denying he loves seeing y/n so happy. She spends the whole night with a smile just painted on her face.
"Face masks and bubble bath?" Y/n gasps looking at him in excitement.
"Whatever you want." Lando nods earning a grin before she leans forward kissing him only for him to dodge it and immediately earn a pout. "I have one condition."
"Which is..."
"You have to be in the next Quadrant merch shoot...You always model stuff so well."
"Mmm...fine." Y/n agrees since she actually likes being involved in Quadrant and Lando wanting her to be involved with it is definitely a green flag that her actions today haven't actually created a secret hatred from Lando to her.
Taglist: @namgification @hiireadstuff @jsjcue @geniusalpaca @itsjustkhaos @llando4norris @partyinpitlane @lpab @xoscar03 @harrysdimple05 @mellowarcadefun @cixrosie @scopeiguess @racingheartsposts @c-losur3
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moondirti · 2 days
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so.. simon and johnny stopping by a seedy 24/7 roadhouse on their way back home post-op
featuring: established ghostsoap. pregnant fem!reader. alluded kidnapping, extremely toxic attitudes. they’re literally delusional. mentioned death. this verges on dark so please beware!
They’ve driven past it about a hundred times, never having given it more than a passing glance. Who would, really? Nothing about it seemed appealing – in all its sun-bleached paint job and flickering neon signage glory – but circumstances lent themselves to its consideration. What was supposed to be a half-day mission ended up taking two, meaning they haven’t had time to sleep let alone eat. On top of that, a delayed exfil made it so they touched down on base at an ungodly hour. By the time Price waived their paperwork and they got into their car, they were famished.
“Could eat the scabby heid aff a dog,” Johnny eventually groans. He’d tried his best to hang in there, mindful not to be a pest during the hours it takes his partner to decompress after a rough operation, but his stomach kills and he knows Simon’s does too. He only receives a grunt for a response, though the man abruptly steers into the leftmost lane, catching the nearest exit towards the place in his periphery. Cleary meant to model an American diner with it’s fading blue exterior and obnoxious banner: The Dahlia
But they’ve been in worse. They hardly take note of the coffee rings staining their table, or the homeless man who’s taken residence in a corner booth (besides the brief once-over in their threat assessment upon entering). No; they just slot themselves by the nearest exit, scan over the menu and decide to order the quickest meal possible.
Only for things to take a sudden turn when their waitress stops by.
Christ alive, Johnny wonders how you manage to glow under the harshest of fluorescents. Dewy skin. Bright eyes, if not a little sunken at the late hour. Still, you smile and do so genuinely as you waddle to their station, clicking a pen before asking: “And what can I do you for, gentlemen?”
Simon doesn’t look at you immediately, not even when you speak up. He’s too fixed on Johnny, replaying the past days’ events in his head. Revisits the hour where their comms malfunctioned, when he lost touch with his boy and had to fight not knowing whether he was holding up okay. He has trust in him, of course, more bleedin’ trust than he has in earth to keep rotating. Still–
You clear your throat.
His pupils shift to pin you under their scrutiny, only he can’t bring it in him to be as severe as he wants to be. Because, while the first thing Johnny notices about you is your beauty, the first thing Simon sees is your bump.
Obscured by your apron, but still there. Round. Full. 6 months along, by the looks of it.
He’s forced to recall Beth, Tommy by extension. An old working knowledge that comes back to haunt him. At 23 weeks, his sister in law’s pregnancy began to weigh on her. Heartburn. Backaches. Hot flashes that resulted in bouts of dizziness. She couldn’t be up for more than 2 hours at a time, and yet here you are.
What the fuck were you doing in a place like this?
“Need more time to decide?” You ask. Patient. Lovely. If Johnny weren’t so sleep-deprived, so in over his head, he would perhaps realise the subtle hints you were dropping. They’ve been staring too long now, unsettling no doubt. Grimy, each with a tell-tale bump on their waistbands that point to their armament. Simon sans hard-shell mask, but still in a balaclava and eyeblack. Both larger than life and practically alone with you in this isolated place.
It’s Simon who speaks up first. “Fish and chips for the both of us. To-go. Cheers.”
You scribble the order down, pausing to consider. “Coffee? Gotta inform you, it’s drip, bottom of the carafe so it might taste burnt too. Hotplate’s all out of sorts.”
“Aye, just the one. Gae head an’ dip yer finger in it too. Might benefit from a little sweetener.” It takes you a second to process Johnny’s flirt. When you do, though, you visibly blanch, ducking your head to hide your face as you pretend to jot what he said down.
“I’ll have that right out for you.”
And then you scurry off, glancing over your shoulder once you think you’re out of sight. Curious. Flustered.
Simon’s attention refocuses on the scotsman once you’re gone, an eyebrow raised under his mask. His partner is able to read the expressed question well enough: what do you think you’re doing? Strict, but not so much angry as it a press for him to think before he speaks, to balance the scales before he asks something of Ghost that he can’t refuse.
“Dinnae look at me like tha’.” Johnny whispers. “Bonnie lass, isn’t she?”
Simon blinks. “Expecting, too.”
“We cannae leave her here.”
Memories occur in rapid succession. Tommy. Beth. The cherubic face they had brought into the world – little Joseph, who was the first he found dead upon returning home.
He considers Johnny, Soap, this force of nature that wormed his way into his life and sunk his teeth into the rot of his heart, fastened before Simon could even think of brushing him off.
“And here’s that coffee! Your meals should be coming out soon, thank you for being patient.”
It’s a bad idea. Horrible. You could have a partner, a cozy home waiting for you. Nursery already painted. Names already chosen.
What good partner would let you work this shitty job?
It’s a bad, horrible idea. No good for anyone. They’re on constant deployment. They risk their lives on every run. You’d be put in harm’s way yourself.
Not if they hide you well enough. Their house is secluded for a reason.
It’s a bad, horrible, no good idea – but Johnny accepts the mug with a gracious smile and you bloom all pretty, hand inadvertently cradling your belly. Little flower, persisting against all odds. Growing from the fissures of broken concrete. Dignified still. Kind. Strong.
So what if they pluck you from your place? They’ve got somewhere much better for you to thrive.
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"Defying the Default"- Skin Tones and the Presence of Black Characters
Okay, this one is going to be half lesson and half a thought experiment- it may get a bit frustrating, as conversations like this often do- but remember, discomfort is not always a bad thing! So I ask that you walk with me for this one.
It’s also interesting, because I’m going to direct this towards everyone (readers included!), but specifically towards my fanfic writers of media with no visual medium, as I’ve noticed this pattern there, and it makes up a good amount of creators on this site. Okay? Okay.
Behold! Many shades of brown!
I had to wade through a lot of colorism for this, and even this link is subtly racist in its introduction- the idea that brown is ‘unexciting’ 🙄.
Anyway, you know where I’m going with this:
"Chocolate and Coffee"
Even the link above pulled this! Writers who use this... they’re not ‘wrong’ per se but… often uninspired. It feels... Lazy. When you can tell an author has put no thought into the brown of choice, it makes Black readers feel like you believe these are the only shades of brown- that that’s all we look like. Even chocolate is more diverse (white, milk, dark, marbled, cookies and cream?) Coffee can come in numerous shades as well (light, medium, dark roast? Type of bean?)
My first direction to help with this: make it a point to know what shade that character is (whether canonically, or if you're the original creator, look at a reference and write it down) and find a name! Be consistent! Find similar browns to one another. If the canon Black character's skin color is done poorly, find something similar and use that! (I'll get more into this in the next lesson!)
Our skin colors may modify as we age, it changes over the seasons/presence in the sun, and some people even have vitiligo! But we're not gonna be “dark roast coffee” one morning and “light milk chocolate” suddenly. We're not chameleons lmao.
And you know what? That shade you choose might very well be 'coffee'! But it's not going to be because you didn't look and assumed we're all some random brown! That’s the intent showing! If we can find endless ways to describe the beauty of white/pale skin, we absolutely can for brown! Be willing to unpack why you may not believe brown to be capable of beauty, and work through unlearning that- it will show in your writing! One way is by pausing with yourself, and recognizing when you had a biased thought. Even by this, you’re learning!
Here’s where I want us to get into the thought experiment:
I want you to think about the description of characters in stories (as a whole). Challenge yourself- in the fics and stories you read, how often is anyone blatantly labeled 'White'? Read a story or fic; how long can you imagine them as not-White before it's ever clarified? Because not even 'pale' automatically implies a White person!
You know how I’ve mentioned before that 'Black people are not a monolith'? I can find you at least some examples of Black people fitting some of the common descriptions of white characters.
"Brunette with brown eyes"
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(Fun fact: I actually learned back in my Masters program that genetically no one has ‘black’ hair- our eyes are processing it as black, but it’s really just dark brown due to eumelanin. Regardless, if you stand us in the direct sunlight, you will see that our hair is usually just dark brown!)
"Red hair with pale skin"
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“‘tanned’ skin with hazel/green eyes”
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“blond hair" (period!)
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Now, I’m not saying that blond haired Black people or Black folk with albinism are overly representative of my people. What I AM saying is that it needs to not be taken for granted that a reader is automatically assuming a character is White in your piece of fiction- I can assume your character looks like anything if it's not stated! Especially if the OG source is a book or a podcast! We’re just used to assigning these features- and characters- as white until ‘proven not’! The default!
I am guilty of this too! Even still, I reread many of my works and go ‘ah, I didn’t clarify.’ And I have to work on doing better at it. This is having intent for your Black characters, but really, it’s having intent for all of them!
(This doesn't mean going “the Black man said,” the way sometimes people say “the Chinese said” (which…. Tbh we should all stop doing that anyway, it's weird and racist))
My Next Challenge:
Some people may disagree, but- Ahem:
Say BLACK!
Breathe lmao! Take the time to recognize that it's OKAY to introduce a character as Black, to say Black, it's fine! Obviously be sensitive about it, don't shove it in there to “win your diversity points”, but like… People are Black. It's not a bad word. What matters is the context in which you used it!
You don't even have to say it every single time. Really just the first, introductory sentence will do. For example:
“[Character A], a bright, young, Black girl with knotless braids to her mid back, glittering hair clips matching her bright green t-shirt, and a brilliant smile that shined against her bistre skin.”
I recognize that some might argue that by saying “bistre”, you don't need to say Black. But 1) you don't have to be Black to be brown or dark skinned, and 2) There's a social stigma behind even saying Black- of discussing race in general, because it leads to discomfort. Race (as a sociological construct) exists. When we say nothing about it, allowing Whiteness to be the default, we're still emphasizing race, however silently! If you're already doing it... Why not mention it? 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️
(here's a good clip of Ijeoma Oluo discussing the difficulty of discussing race; while I highly recommend the whole thing, the relevant clip is 4:25-5:39)
Maybe they're in the Black student organization in a lead position, maybe they're in a Black main cast of a play- it's okay to have those things in the story to help develop the idea that your Black character is actively Black! Just do your research to make sure you’re not leaning into stereotypes!
“There’s no races in my fantasy/future world!”
That’s fair! But I want to give you an example of how people will still project these identities onto your characters anyway:
No one has an explicitly stated 'race' in Avatar: The Last Airbender (afaik); they’re all divided by element culture. YET, many people were offended that a mixed-Korean actress was cast in her role in the live action- they ‘just didn’t see it’, because subconsciously they'd imagined her ‘face claims’ as WHITE, despite it never once being mentioned in the canon! (there’s also a firm sexualization and east Asian fetishization argument to be made about it, but that’s not within the scope of this particular conversation.)
Point is, if you are including humanoid characters in your fantasy stories, fine. You don't need to say ‘Black’ outright. But, that just means that you’re going to have to be even more detailed in your description. Because if I were watching a TV show and a Black actor shows up as an elf… I know what features I’m seeing! Entire protests have occurred over the casting of Black actors in a role ‘meant for a white person’; so... everyone sees it!
Conclusion
This is another reason why intention in character design and writing is important! Context clues and socialization help me understand who your character is. If it works like this for white characters, it can work like that for everyone else! You just have to know enough about me to write it in (and that's where the social and societal bias lie, because how much do you really know about me?)
A way to better understand this is reading books by Black authors (for fantasy, I would highly recommend Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko and Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi) as well as Black literary classics! Finding and reading Black fic authors in fandoms with Black characters! By learning how we describe ourselves and our skin colors, you’ll learn and practice how to appropriately describe us!
Now I can't make you do any of this! But I do want you all- writers especially- to start noticing our bias, how we may default to the experience of whiteness- and how that affects the way we write. When we have Black characters, and really any character of color, we need to start paying attention to how often their features, culture, and activities are emphasized, even for what we may consider to be 'background' details. That’s how we normalize creation and understanding, and become better at writing!
It’s just something to practice; remember, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!
In addition, if you are interested in a simple read into why approaching race is so uncomfortable as a whole, I've attached Robin DiAngelo's book here! Thank you to the PDF guru @toiletpotato for the link!
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purple-babygirl · 2 days
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don't call me daddy V
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x little!f!reader Word count: 4,660 Summary : In a world where littles are openly themselves, they volunteer to help and be helped by willing caregivers. In spite of himself, Bucky finds himself stuck with one and to keep the nagging away, he has to learn how to be around her with everything that that entails. Warnings: crying, age regression, fluff, a little angst A/N: i would like to give credits for this part and its idea to🦊nonnie because without her ask there might've not been a fifth part to this story. Having said that, i'm thinking this should be the last part of the story because i am out of scenario your girl is empty. but anyway, please enjoy this one and have a tight hug xx💜💜
~
When they arrived back at her house, she was asleep in the passenger seat.
Bucky didn’t want to wake her up. He knew she barely got any sleep last night because of the mean cough she was suffering from and so he carefully carried her inside without a word.
His heart kept speeding up every time he would remember what she called him after taking her shot as he slipped her feet out of her shoes and socks and tucked her in her bed.
He frankly had no idea what he would do if she was to wake up little and if he was ready to be a good daddy to her. What if he messed up again? He seemed to be a pro at that.
Luckily, when she woke up later that night, she was her big self again and didn’t seem to have any recollection of calling Bucky daddy, or if she did, she didn’t mention it.
Bucky gave her her cough syrup and the rest of the meds, helping her go back to sleep as he presumed his place on the floor by her bed.
In a way he couldn’t explain, even her coughs were more comfort than the silence at his house, and definitely more comfort than his nightmares.
It was 12 days of little sleep, a lot of crying, meds, movies and sleepovers until she was fully cured again, and even though Bucky hated that she was sick, those seemed to have been some of the best days he’s ever gotten to live since he’s come back to himself.
He got to laugh with someone, care for someone, comfort someone and enjoy the company of someone. And not just anyone; it was her.
But something was missing still.
Bucky wanted her to call him daddy. More than anything and from the bottom of his heart, he wanted to deserve that name, that role.
What Bucky had noticed in the days he’d stayed at her place was that she had no family pictures at all.
She had framed pictures of friends, of herself, of Corgi, but none of family members.
It didn’t come as a surprise because she’d mentioned it to him before, and he just knew that if he wanted to be her caregiver, her daddy, Bucky had to prove to her that he was nothing like those who’d hurt her. He had to prove himself worthy of taking care of her; set himself apart from them.
And to do that, he had to know more.
“I see no family pictures anywhere,” Bucky spoke as he helped her plant the new tulips she had in place.
“Yeah, we’re not close.” She shrugged, hand stuttering just the tiniest bit in their movements.
“Can I ask why?”
She sighed, “why?”
“I’m trying to learn from the mistakes of others.”
She laughed, “really?”
“Really.”
Oh, this wasn’t a joke?
“You know you don’t have to do that anymore, right?” She couldn’t understand why he would want to try again when the report was handed and he was let off the hook.
“I want to. I really want to.” Bucky wished his gloved hands weren’t muddy as they were so he could touch her face.
He found himself craving physical contact around her more often than not.
“You finally believe in the power of the program?” She teased, keeping her focus on the flowers she was rooting.
“No, I couldn’t care less about the institution and its programs.”
“Not even Mrs. Morrison?” She joked again.
“I’m serious, doll.”
“Why then?” She dropped the bulbs, deciding to face Bucky.
“I want it because it’s you I’ll be daddy to.”
“They never loved me for who I was.” She answered his previous question and Bucky felt a pang at his chest.
He’s made her feel the same way.
He remained silent, not wanting to interrupt her in fear that she might stop.
“I always had to be a certain way, say certain things, act a certain way. Do what we say and then we’ll see if we can love you.”
Bucky might’ve been speechless, but his eyes spoke a million words, begging hers for forgiveness for his ignorant mistakes.
“That’s why it hurt so much when you showed me you didn’t accept the little version of me.”
“I’m so sorry-”
She shook her head, stopping him.
“I’ve been rejected for too long, Bucky, too many times. It took me a good while to finally believe that I was worth loving despite my quirks, ugly parts and possible mistakes. Took too long to teach myself that it didn’t matter if I cried all the time, was too clingy or too talkative; I was still lovable.” She pointed to her chest as she finished her words.
Bucky took his gloves off, pulling her in for a hug, unable to stop himself anymore. He had no words, only anger and remorse raging inside his chest.
“It takes you a while to unlearn stuff you’ve been taught your whole life by the people who were supposed to love you the most.” She whispered into his shirt.
“Doll, I’m so sorry,” Bucky whispered back.
“It’s okay.” She looked up at him, “I appreciate you, Bucky, I really do, but I don’t think I’m ready to lose everything I’ve built inside me if you decide in the middle of it that you weren’t fully ready to take on such a responsibility. I forgive you. I promise. But I don’t trust you enough to give up full control of myself and my life to you again. I’m sorry.” She pulled away from the hug, giving Bucky the option to walk away.
“Don’t be. I understand.” He remained in place.
“Are you gonna disappear now?” She wondered with a sad smile.
“No, you’re not getting rid of me so easily.” Bucky returned the smile, putting his gloves back on.
She smiled gratefully, “I don’t wanna lose you either. You’re such a great friend. And I owe you forever for taking care of me those past few days.”
“What if I prove myself to you though?” Bucky asked, dipping a tulip bulb in the soil.
“What?” She tilted her head in confusion.
“What if I show you how serious I am about this and prove myself worthy of you?”
“Bucky, you don’t have to do that. I know you have a life, responsibilities-”
“I want to do it. There’s nothing more important to me right now than this. And you.”
“If you’re doing this just because you can’t accept that you failed the program-”
“I swear on my ma’s soul, I want to do this. Because of you, doll. For you and with you.”
The words died on her tongue as she watched his sincere eyes implore hers.
“Would you give me a chance to prove myself to you? Please?”
“Okay, Bucky.” She swallowed, “one chance.”
“That’s all I need.” Bucky smiled.
~ After their conversation in the garden, Bucky had to go home.
She was not sick anymore and he didn’t have a reason to stick around. He also didn’t want to push her on the matter of regressing, so, respectful of her boundaries, he left.
His heart was heavy when he entered his empty apartment to nothing and no one. Being alone in here wasn’t something he enjoyed anymore.
It has been 2 days of intense research that Bucky has conducted on age regression and partners in little space when she texted him that night.
“Mr. Barnes, can you please come over?”
He wasn’t particularly happy about the fact that he was Mr. Barnes again, but he certainly was happy that she thought to text him when little. This was an improvement and it counted to Bucky.
“Will be right there, doll.” He texted back, running to his motorcycle.
~
Bucky took in a deep breath before knocking at her door, ready to prove himself a suitable daddy.
She opened with teary eyes, making Bucky’s heart sink.
“What’s wrong, doll?” Bucky asked as he stepped inside.
“I can’t open the pickle jar and now my hands hurt,” she cried, showing him the insides of her palms and how red they were from trying so hard to twist the cap on the glass jar.
She was indeed a little worried that Bucky might find this stupid, that he might yell at her or get upset because she was crying over something minimal in his eyes.
But that wasn’t the case at all. The man was just thankful that she was alright.
“Oh, doll,” Bucky sighed in relief, glad that she wasn’t actually hurt.
Until he remembered that this was a big deal to her. Her hands hurt and she was frustrated because the cap wouldn’t budge.
Moments like these definitely required a daddy.
“I thought Mr. Barnes could help,” she sniffled, her hand wiping under her nose, “metal arm.” She touched his gloved hand.
Bucky chuckled, taking the pickle jar out of her hand, “what if I can do it without the metal arm? What would you give me in return?”
“The biggest pickle?” She offered, wiping her tears away from her eyes, her crying stopping at once.
Bucky laughed at her innocence, “no, I want something else, doll.”
She tilted her head expectantly.
What could Mr. Barnes possibly want? Did he want the whole jar? Would he at least leave her one pickle? She was craving pickles-
“I want you to start calling me Bucky again. No more Mr. Barnes. Can you do that for me, doll?”
Oh, that was something she could do.
“Only if you can open the jar with your not metal hand,” she challenged, her little mind amazed by the idea because look at her hand! It had red marks all over when she tried opening that jar.
“You got it,” Bucky said, easily twisting the cap on the jar open, making her mouth open with it.
“Woah,” she whispered as Bucky handed her the jar with a laugh.
“You’re welcome, doll.” He smiled, watching her chew on a crunchy pickle.
“Thank you, Bucky.” She smiled back, offering him a big pickle.
Bucky’s nerves tingled, knowing he was one step closer to her and his desired title.
~
Moving forward, Bucky learned to distinguish between her big self and little self through texts.
Her little self would always talk about him and herself in third person.
Plus, her big self always needed help with bigger things like needing Bucky to fix her sink or look at her car, knowing he might burn down the city if she went back to asking Adam for help with those things.
Her little self, on the other hand, would need help with the lighter things, the sweeter things. She would call asking for help with Corgi, something too high on a shelf or even just wanting Bucky’s company.
Tonight was one of those nights.
It was thundering more than usual and Bucky had wanted to go and be with her, but he didn’t want to invade her privacy.
But then she called and her scared voice saying his name had Bucky moving even before she uttered the words.
He was proud that she now knew that he was just only one call away; that he would come running whenever she needed. She could finally count on him to be there for her and he couldn’t be more contented.
He knew that consistency was important in relationships, especially one where she was little.
“Hey, doll, it’s okay. It’s just a little thunder,” Bucky cooed, rubbing her back as she let him inside.
“I’m not scared anymore now that Bucky is here.” She smiled, her breathing visibly slowing down.
“Well, I’m staying the night so you have nothing to worry about,” he chuckled, following her to the bedroom.
“Bucky covered his motorcycle?” she asked, worried his vehicle would get ruined.
“Leave that for now, we’ll hose it down together tomorrow when it’s sunny.”
“Corgi loves the hose,” she spoke out the first thought that came to her mind and Bucky loved it, laughing heartily at her comment.
The dog’s ears perked at the sound of his name, jumping at Bucky’s feet as soon as he entered the bedroom, waiting for his share of pets.
He bent down to give the dog some love when he heard her sigh.
“Corgi loves Bucky too.” She smiled shyly, internally wishing her name was Corgi.
“Bucky loves Corgi right back,” Bucky whispered, leaning in to kiss her forehead.
She only smiled bigger, running to her bed and getting under the covers.
When Bucky got down to sleep on the floor that night, however, she slipped off her bed and right next to him.
“Doll, the floor is too cold for you. Sleep on your bed, come on.” Bucky sat up, wanting to help her up on the bed again but she wouldn’t move.
“Wanna be next to Bucky,” she said with a pout.
“But-”
“I know Bucky can’t sleep on beds. It’s okay. Doll will sleep here,” she told him, squeezing Wolfie in her arms.
Bucky’s heart fluttered and it made his mind light up with an idea only a true daddy would have.
“Do you wanna build a fort?” He suggested and her face instantly beamed with a smile as she nodded.
Of course she did!
That night as Bucky gathered all of her soft blankets to make her a floor mattress inside a fort full of fluffy pillows, he knew he was smitten.
This girl had him head over heels for her and there was nothing in the world that he wouldn’t do just to see her smile.
“Can Bucky please tell me a story?”
“Sure, doll. Do you have any books I can read to you from?”
“I have books that big me likes but I don’t want those.”
“What would you like then?”
“I want a story that is Bucky’s. Tell me a story you didn’t tell anyone at the institution.”
Oh, she was jealous. The thought made Bucky smile as he pulled the covers up to her neck to make sure she was warm down on the floor.
“Okay, you ready?” Bucky asked, dimming the lights in her room.
She made herself comfortable under the covers, big eyes watching Bucky’s handsome grin as the cozy atmosphere he’s created comforted her through the storm, “ready.”
“Once upon a time, there was a small idiot who picked up fights with boys much bigger than himself. His name was Steve…”
Bucky fell asleep with his hand stroking her hair, watching her soft breaths leave her chest that night without abruptly waking up in the middle of it for the first time in forever.
~
Bucky didn’t know what it was like to be her, but he was going to do his best to put himself in her shoes like she’d previously tried.
She deserved to be fully and entirely understood.
He witnessed a glimpse of her feelings towards the concept of family a couple of times when they would watch movies like The Lion King or Lilo and Stitch.
She didn’t seem to be affected by the death of Mufasa even though he knew her to be a very sensitive little. She was sad for Simba, of course, but not for Mufasa’s demise. Similarly with Lilo and Stitch, she didn’t care much about the concept of the family.
There was an actual barrier separating her from experiencing any positive feelings that came with the idea of family. Because she had none to associate with hers.
With some more research, Bucky managed to find a few animated movies that didn’t seem to revolve around the idea of family love and how family was everything and whatnot.
One of those movies was The Willoughbys. The movie depicted how neglecting some parents can be and that 2 people loving each other and getting married didn’t necessarily mean they would love their children too.
It was a very unique movie and Bucky was actually happy they could make such movies nowadays.
When the song I Choose You started playing in the movie, Bucky felt her small hand squeezing into a fist.
He silently wrapped his hand around hers, offering quiet comfort and support.
He looked down to see tears in her innocent eyes as she showed her feelings for the first time during one of their movie nights.
 “Bucky chooses me?” she croaked, lip trembling as she cried.
“Bucky chooses you, doll. Wholeheartedly.” Bucky reassured, bringing her knuckles to his lips.
“I choose Bucky, too.” She pulled him down by one cheek to leave a kiss on the other.
Bucky froze.
It was the first time she’s kissed him since he applied that cream on her burnt hand back at his house. She did it on her own, too.
“And I choose Corgi,” she said, running her fingers through the hair of the puppy sleeping soundly on her lap.
“That’s right, and Corgi chooses you. Family doesn’t have to be the ones you were born with, doll,” Bucky told her as he wiped her tears away, “you can choose the family you want for yourself”.
“Thank you, Bucky.” She hugged him tight, afraid he might not be real and that this moment is all made up.
“You’re welcome, doll.” Bucky kissed the side of her head as they pulled away.
“Can I choose Adam, too?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper as she gauged Bucky’s reaction.
She could actually hear his chest rumble with a low “argh” before he nodded despite himself, making her giggle.
“Don’t worry. I only have one Bucky.” She reassured, slinging her arm around Bucky’s metal one.
One daddy, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. She was still scared.
~
Bucky knew that she needed her own independent time alone sometimes even when little, and he would allow her just that, texting throughout the day just to make sure she was okay, reminding her to drink water and take care of herself.
But there was one particularly hard weekend when she felt real down about some of her plants dying as the storm took them out of the ground.
When she opened the door she was clearly disheveled, hair all messy and looking like it hadn’t been brushed all week.
“Hey, doll,” Bucky spoke gently as he closed the door behind him.
She quickly ran into his arms, needing the comfort more than anything, “my plants are dead and Corgi peed on my new carpet and my hair doesn’t smell like shampoo anymore and I’m-”
Damn. She was spiraling. She just slipped out of his hug and on the floor. Oh no.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here now and I got you, okay?” Bucky tried his best to reassure her, getting on his knees before her to look into her eyes.
“Okay,” she hiccupped, nodding even though she wasn’t fully convinced.
“What happened to the plants?” Bucky wanted to handle her concerns one at a time.
“My apple trees were pulled out of place because of the storm,” she started sobbing again as she remembered what had happened to her hard word.
“Okay, okay, tell you what, I’ll put them back in place, okay?”
“Really?” She sniffed.
“Really.” Bucky smiled kindly.
“Okay.” She nodded, trying to control her breathing.
“And we’ll throw the new carpet in the washing machine, and keep Corgi in his playpen with pee pads,” Bucky gave her the steps of how the day was going to go, leading her by the hand to where Corgi was.
“Okay.” She nodded again, her tears ceasing.
“And while the carpet is being washed, I’ll help you wash your hair. Does that sound okay?” Bucky asked her permission, wanting to make sure she was completely comfortable.
“Yes.” She was finally smiling again as well.
“Okay, let’s get you in here,” Bucky told the puppy before placing him inside his playpen.
He spread a few sheets on which the dog could pee if needed before collecting the affected mat.
“Let’s take this to the washing machine,” Bucky voiced his movements, wanting to put her at ease as he kept her hand in his and walked with her to the bathroom.
“In you go.” Bucky threw the rug inside the washing machine along with some detergent.
“Now what do we do?” He asked her, wanting to keep her out of her head.
“Wash doll’s hair?” She asked with half a smile.
“That’s right, get in there.” Bucky tilted his head towards the bathtub with a smile.
And for some reason, it was different this time. He didn’t feel all weird seeing her naked. Maybe it was because he knew her better this time and was familiar with her in more ways than one that such intimacy didn’t startle him. He wasn’t sure, but Bucky wasn’t complaining, only grateful as she closed her sweet eyes and trusted him to wash her hair for her.
~
“Alright, show me how it’s done,” Bucky encouraged, instructing her to whip her hair to the front so he could wrap the towel around it.
She did as told with a giggle, dangling her hair before her and letting Bucky wrap it up the best he could.
“Off to the couch.” Bucky chuckled as he watched her skip in her cashmere bathrobe to her couch.
Later after Bucky has brushed her hair for her, he helped her get dressed and they went outside together to replant the fallen apple saplings the wind had knocked down just like he promised.
The smile on her face was new and unmatched as she watched Bucky handle her plants with care.
“Thank you, Bucky.” She hugged him close, hardly wanting to let go as they stood in the middle of her garden.
Bucky was now rooted in her heart just like the plants in her gardens were in their soil.
She didn’t think she could be away from him anymore. She didn’t want to be away from him anymore.
“Daddy, I’m hungry,” she whispered timidly as they started walking back to the house.
“What do you want on your piz- what did you say?” Bucky stopped in his tracks.
“I’m hungry.” She bit her lip and looked away quickly, hesitant now that his eyes were on her.
“Before that, doll.” Bucky brought her eyes back to his by her chin.
“D-daddy?”
Bucky smiled a smile that reached his eyes as they lit up with gratitude. He couldn’t believe he was finally hearing that word.
“Daddy’s thinking pizza, doll. Sound okay?”
Her face glowed up with her own smile as she witnessed Bucky, with full commitment, refer to himself as daddy.
She nodded, knowing this was going to be the most delicious pizza she was ever going to eat.
~
“What is daddy thinking?” she asked when she noticed his eyes on her, slipping a loose strand of hair behind Bucky’s ear.
“Just thinking about all the things you make me feel, doll.” He smiled, turning his face to kiss her hand before it left his face.
Her face started heating up as she retracted her hand, tingles spreading all over her, “things like what?”
“You make me feel like there’s still good in this world. Like I’m worth patience and kindness and maybe even… love,” Bucky voiced his feelings, eyes dreamy as they watched her pretend to be focused on organizing her stuffies’ seats on the floor.
“You are, daddy,” she replied sincerely, hurting inside that Bucky might doubt this even a little.
“I can’t believe I was so horrible to you, doll.” Bucky’s sigh came out hot from his chest, holding so much regret.
“That’s in the past, daddy. Doll doesn’t think about it no more.” She smiled, her littler hand covering his own lovingly before giving a soothing squeeze.
“You’re just perfect, aren’t you?” Bucky held her hand up and gave the back of it a noisy kiss.
She laughed, face heating up more at the sweet attention, “no body’s perfect, remember?”
Bucky tried to continue laughing with her but he was still kicking himself for what he did to her during her visit to his house.
“How did you even tolerate me back then, doll? I was the worst.” Bucky covered his face with his hands as he threw his head back, laying on his back on the floor full of shame.
“That’s not true. You just misunderstood me and that happens!” She was quick to defend him, refusing the idea that he would even criticize himself, “daddy is the best.”
“I know, but it still gave me no right to treat you the way I did.” Bucky’s eyes teared up at the memories of his very mean words and actions, “I made you cry a lot.” He struggled to forgive himself for that one.
“Daddy, I forgave you, I swear,” she promised, her hands cradling his full cheeks.
She felt like her heart might stop from sadness if Bucky was to cry right now.
“I’m really sorry. I’m really really sorry, doll.” Bucky’s eyes were sincere, holding so much emotion in them that she felt her own begin to fill up with tears.
“Daddy, you don’t need to apologize no more,” she whispered, doing her best to hold back tears.
“You have made me the luckiest man on earth by accepting me as your caregiver, your daddy, and you’ve taught me so much, doll.” Bucky actually started crying, a lot of held-inside feelings coming out at once.
“Daddy.” Her thumb wiped under his eyes gently as she felt her own tears roll down, “don’t say stuff like that”.
“But I need to. Because you did. You taught me unconditional love and acceptance. You taught me what it means to live again. Doll, your patience with my terribleness has taught me that maybe I’m not a hopeless case after all, and that this shell of a man with a metal arm might be capable of things he thought have been wiped from his memory long ago.”
“Daddy, please stop crying,” she sobbed, pressing her forehead to his chin as her attempts at wiping his tears away have proven to be futile.
“I love you so much, doll. I love you with every old bit of me and if you’ll have me…”
“Daddy?” she raised her head, eyes on Bucky’s face, trying to read his expression.
Could Bucky really be asking what she thought he was asking?
“Doll, I want you to be my baby for more than just a few days. Would you give me that honor? Would you let me be your daddy for real?”
“Daddy, are you sure?” she nervously bit her lip.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything more.” Bucky promised.
She nodded frantically, afraid the offer might disappear if she took too long to respond, “yes.”
“Thank you, doll.” Bucky breathed as he pulled her to him, strong arms engulfing her in a protective hug.
“Daddy will not regret it later?” her eyes watched him, a small hint of doubt still tainting her trust.
“Do you like the moon, doll?”
“Yes.” She tilted her head, not understanding the relation between her question and Bucky’s answer.
“You know how our sky only has one moon?”
She nodded.
“My heart is just like that. It can only have one doll no matter how much time passes.”
“Oh.” She sniffled, trying to hold the tears in.
“I love you, doll.” Bucky gave her hair a long kiss.
“I love you, daddy.” She kissed his chest, her arms tightening their hold around him as best as she could, never wanting to be away from him again.
And she wasn’t going to be. Bucky was an idiot who let her go once; never again was he going to make that mistake.
He was blessed with her now and he was going to spend every day of his life proving he was worthy of this blessing.
~
Tag list:
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stariikis · 2 days
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what's your ETA?
synopsis ; in a crowded train headed towards your friend's art showcase, you and your boyfriend are caught in an awkward position.
pairing ; non-idol!nishimura riki x fem!reader genre ; fluff, established rs, literal forced proximity wc ; 1180 warnings ; kissing (a lil bit in public), lots of teasing, and mentions of height difference..
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“I swear, if you make one more cup of coffee and insist you have to drink it before we go, I'll personally push you onto the train tracks.”
Nearly spitting out his beverage, Riki swallows abruptly and coughs. “Now, I would say I’m used to your violent tendencies, but that’s just gory. But I’d honestly like to see it.” His eyes shine with an unsettling excitement that has you blinking rapidly. 
“You won’t be alive to see it…” You tilt your head and feign confusion. In reality, this is both your way of flirty banter. Since Riki just loves to tease you, you believe it’s only fair that you should be allowed to tease back. However, your version of teasing is questionably rude at times, way worse than any fireball of quips Riki showers you with. 
“You wanna go or not?” Riki sighs, his mug making a clunking sound on the table when he puts it down. “I’m ready to just sit here and argue with you until night — I’m not the one desperate to see Sunoo’s art exhibition.” 
“No, I swear it’s not because I’m desperate to go. You’re the one who’s closer to him though?” You shake your head and frown in bewilderment. “Fake friend.” 
Riki whips around in his seat. “Pick me!”
”Bad boyfriend!” You erupt into laughter and lunge forward to ruffle his hair. 
Playing along, Riki gets up and pushes you gently away from him. But at the same time his fingers grab ahold of your wrist, holding you close, like he doesn’t really mean it. He’s casting the bait, eyes that look deeply and adoringly into yours glimmering with enthusiasm. 
“You’re taking it to heart. Don’t take it to heart,” he murmurs, and leans in to kiss you, voice dropping down to a low. “Pathological liar.” Before you have time to protest, he giggles, hugging you close as if daring you to spit out another one of your alleged, ‘lies’. 
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When you both reach the station, its difficult to see through the sardine-packed crowd of people in front of you. “It… is so crowded,” you tiptoe to be able to whisper in Riki’s ear – and even that’s not enough, he has to lean down with a huff of amusement for you to reach. “Why is it so crowded today?” 
Shrugging his shoulders loosely, Riki slips his hand into yours, squeezing it tight. “You’re the one who wanted to go to this art show.” He mutters quietly. “Kim Sunoo’s, no less. You know we can just ask him to conduct a private show for us?” 
“Is supporting your friends a concept nonexistent to you?” You snap, feigning irritation but responding by rubbing your thumb over his. Your boyfriend pretends to be hurt by this, staggering backwards as much as he can in the crowd. His free hand clutching his chest, the playful atmosphere set by your banter fades when he looks at you. Wearing a gentle smile, he leads you into the train when the doors and gates slide open. 
He manages to secure you both a spot along the wall near the right-hand-side doors. You can tell by the guilt in his eyes that he wants to find you a seat too, but you’re probably going to get dirty looks from the elderlies if you do so. Luckily, he saves you the social torture and doesn’t force you to take a seat. 
The first few stops the train makes are still bearable. Riki is squashed a little too close for comfort at times, caging you in against the wall while you just stare ahead as if nothing’s happening. You ignore the tingles the situations send, all the way from your neurons down to your toes. However, when the crowd dissolves as they alight at their respective stations, you can breathe a sigh of relief. 
Like usual, Riki makes a snide remark about your morning breath (even though you’re quite certain your dental routine is competent), and returns to scroll on his phone. What disheartens you, though, is how genuinely uninterested he seems in Sunoo’s exhibit. And how bored he seems to be, despite being here with you. 
There’s a nonchalant faze across his face as he scrolls social media, leaning in close with a hand adjusting its grip on the grab bar next to you. You tilt your head, chest starting to ache. Does he really not care as much as you’d like to think he does? To not even feel an ounce of excitement in this moment? 
The train screeches to a halt as if agreeing with your intrusive thoughts. There’s still a long way to travel downtown to where the exhibit is held, and unfortunately for you, this is the most crowded station the train has stopped at by far. So many people pour into the carriage that it’s not even five seconds before Riki’s whole body is pressed up against yours. 
He drops the arm holding his phone down to his side. 
People are pushing you on both sides, and suddenly there’s a wave of gratefulness that you’re not stuck in the middle of the carriage. As if your current situation isn’t painful enough. Your boyfriend can’t meet your eyes, and it’s not surprising. With your noses mere inches apart (only because of the height difference), even you, usually assertive and confident, have to look into the distance. 
“Sorry…” Riki says in a hushed tone, moving his lips closer to your ear. His head has practically dropped down onto your shoulder, and you can feel yourself filled with vigorous tremors. He slips his phone into his back pocket, and the hand previously holding it snakes protectively around your waist. You blink up at him, expecting a warm look down, but all you’re met with is narrowed eyes carefully scanning the surroundings. 
His neck still dipped downwards, he hugs you close when the final few people slip into the train. Clearly feeling you shaking, he hums soothingly into your ear, “you’re safe”. “You have me.” “Don’t be too scared.” Anything else he says goes in one ear and goes out the other. 
Because. In such a situation, what would you expect your boyfriend to proceed to do? a), Accept fate and stay in position, b), shyly turn away from the deathly awkwardness, or c), giggle and tilt his head to pepper kisses along your neck? 
Riki chose C. 
He’s so gross, you think, but only when you’re stumbling out the train and running all the way to Sunoo’s exhibit to save yourself from remembering the situation more. Why did he ever do that? I should have shoved him away and called him a pervert and acted as if I didn’t know him. 
What a lie — when he was pressing a final kiss against your cheek your first thought wasn’t even remotely close to wanting to shove him away. Rather, you had pouted, arms wrapped around his neck, because he’s going to have to make up for being both indifferent towards you and making you so late. 
(It is never really his fault.)
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thank you for reading! i'm so sorry for the lack of uploads recently, life has just gotten a little bit busier and i finally got a lil break so i decided to write this prompt i thought of a while back!
more of my works >
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hrhmimieucliffe · 2 days
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NSFW Alphabet with Doctor Zayne - ❄️
Minors DNI (Obviously)
Wanted to do this because I've never done an NSFW Alphabet before. Hope my fellow Zayne stans see my vision and agree with me though.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A = Aftercare (what they’re like after the act) - Very affectionate and attentive. He would clean you up, help you relax, maybe even give you a massage if he went too hard. 🤫
B = Body part (favourite body part their own or their lovers) - He couldn't just choose one spot. He loves to kiss the palms of your hands when you touch and grab at his face whilst he's thrusting into you slowly and deeply. He loves to place gentle and loving kisses on your neck. He loves to run his hands all over your body, specifically your torso, grabbing fistfuls of your breast gently.
C = Cum (anything that has to do with it) - He doesn't really like the mess, so he'll be sure to clean it up as soon as possible. He'll also advise you to use the toilet, as that's what you're supposed to do after sex, then maybe you can have a shower... maybe he'd join you.
D = Dirty secret (Pretty self-explanatory) - He may act indifferent, but he secretly loves watching you walk and strut around in lingerie when you're in the bedroom. He slowly strips it off you with care, as he doesn't want to ruin it of course. He loves to see you in it, and treats it with care. His favourite part is definitely slowly taking it off you and revealing every inch of your perfect body. He definitely also loves it when you tease him in different ways.
E = Experience (do they know what they’re doing) - Come on now...🧍🏾‍♀️Though it isn't his area of expertise, I'd say as a Doctor in general, he might know a thing or two about stimulation. Even if he isn't experienced. 🤫
F = Favorite position - (Idk many positions so I'll just go by something I do know though I don't know the name of it 😭) I think Zayne would like an intimate position, such as a spooning position. I think him having you safe and secure in his arms, in a position where he can watch your facial expressions change, as seeing your different pleasured expressions gets him off. He likes to be close to you.
G = Getting Off (What gets them off?) - I think Zayne is the kind of man that could sit down and watch you intently as you give him a little show. A lapdance, a strip tease, anything like that. But even moreso, I think he would love it when you possibly take charge every once in a while. He secretly likes it when you make him ask nicely for you to let him finish🤫
H = Hair (grooming habits) - He is definitely well-groomed, no doubt about it.
I = Intimacy (in the moment romantic or rough/dirty) - Definitely romantic. He likes to make love. Slow, sensual, passionate, intimate, and gentle. He is a gentle dom in my opinion, but he doesn't mind you being on top every once in a while. He could indulge in something rougher if you ask, but I don't really think he'd put his all into it - afraid of hurting you of course.
J = Jack off (do they masturbate and how often) - I think he wouldn't do it often, as he's way too busy with work. But perhaps on a day off he'll get pent up and decide to rub one out. I'm sure he'd be thinking of you when he does 🤫
K = Kink (kinks what they like possibly unusual) - I don't think he has many kinks to be honest. Perhaps brat tamer, or primal (hunter). No daddy or master kink over here 🤫 Maybe he secretly likes to see you all tied up for him, though as long as its not hurting too much. I think perhaps he could have a size difference kink. After all, he'd love watching and witnessing how well you take him every time. Definitely a gentle dom.
L = Location (where they like to get it on) - He definitely would prefer if its not in public. He likes to be somewhere private where its just the two of you. Where no one can disturb you. Your body is his temple and he wants to be the only one to see it. It goes both ways, though.
M = Motivation (things that makes them tick/turn ons) - When you push him onto the bed and straddle him, 100%. When you visit him whilst he's working just to tease him and he has to resist the urge to give in. When you "accidentally" drop something and bend over. When you grind into him as you sit on top of him. When you slowly slide and drag your hands under his clothes, caressing that sculpted body of his, circling his nipple with your finger. It drives him insane. When you wear his favourite outfit just to rile him up.
N = No (turnoffs or absolutely won’t do) - Hair pulling (at least too hard), Spanking (Again, not too hard if he DOES do it), anything too kinky in general or like proper BDSM.
O = Oral (receiving or giving and how skillful they are) - He definitely loves to receive. He loves to sit back and watch you as you take him into your throat. He'll let out small soft grunts and groans every now and then, but he'd obviously be holding back. Maybe he'll whisper a few praises and stroke your hair. But, he also thinks it's better to give than recieve. Watching your face contort in pleasure, gripping at the sheets, arching your back, your body trembling, those adorable moans, the way you whisper his name. He'd be making sure your needs come before his. You're his favourite patient, and a good Doctor takes GOOD care of his patients needs before his own. 🤫
P = Pace (how fast they are and how long they last in bed) - Definitely nice and slow, but he'd pick up the pace the faster he gets to bursting and maybe be a little rough if you asked him to be.
Q = Quickie - I think quickies would be beneficial depending on when. Like you could tease him in the morning before he has to go work and he'd have no choice but to give in and take care of you when you beg him to and give him those big doe eyes. Maybe if it's late and you're in the office, he'd relieve some quick stress with you. Maybe he'd even let you suck him off under his desk whilst he's working (after you got him riled up on purpose, of course)
R = Risk (do they like to try new things) - I think he'd be open to new things, but mostly depending on how you feel about them.
S = Stamina (how many times they can go and how long each round lasts) - Maximum 3 rounds, just because he's a workaholic, and so he couldn't go for too long as he'd need to get his rest in for work the next day. But he always makes it up to you. When he has a day off, he'd go as much as you want him to.
T = Toys (are they game for using sex toys on themselves or lovers) - I think he wouldn't mind using one on you. His favourite would definitely be a remote controlled vibrator that he can activate at any time. You'd better hope you're not out hunting wanderers or with another person when he gets bored in his office and decides to activate it for fun.
U = Unfair (how do they tease or do they enjoy suspense themselves) - Oh, I think he wouldn't definitely be the type to make you whine and beg, edging you and watching you come apart as you plead for him to let you cum when he's two or three fingers deep inside you. Maybe he won't give in and you'll have to keep begging. Maybe he'll hold you still so that you don't seek any other stimulation to finish yourself off.
V = Volume (are they loud, what sounds, and do they talk) - Always low. Quiet. Hushed. Whispered. He won't moan too loudly, he'd probably hold it back or release it in an almost agonised growl and grunt. He likes to praise you, whether you're receiving or giving the pleasure. He would probably check on you whilst he was doing it to you to make sure he's not too rough or anything.
W = Wild card (random sincannon of any sort) - I think he'd definitely use his evol during sex at least one time 🤫 When it gets too hot, I'm sure a little ice would definitely help👩🏾‍🦯
X = X-ray (what’s down below in dem pants) - Girl...😏😩 he is packing of course. A good 5-6 inches.
Y = Yearning (sexdrive level) - It's not always high, but it certainly is when you tease him. Sometimes it'll go up just looking at you, or thinking about you.
Z = Zzzz (do they sleep after if so how quickly after) - He'll only sleep once he knows you're okay and all your needs have been taken care of. He'll watch you fall asleep in his arms.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
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Am I right or no, girlies?
(If you saw any spelling mistakes, no you didn't)
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vorthosjay · 16 hours
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Hi Jay. Not wanting to sound mean, but I really think it must be commented and that there's no softer way of doing that: the company's statement of Thunder Junction being an inhabitated plane prior to MoM is not a honest way of capitalizing on a sellable trope without touching its uncomfortable issues. It's even disrespectful. They have done it in a less flagrant way with Kaladesh and both Ixalan iterations, but now they've gotten too far with Thunder Junction. Colonialism is too big an issue to simply being put under the carpet as it never existed and we could just enjoy the sunny part of the history. I really hope Hasbro as a company acknowledges this and changes its way of dealing with the theme. Thanks for letting me pointing this.
Look, you caught me on a bad day, so I'm going to be as polite as possible but let's start with the foundation that this is not a complaint to direct at me. I have no control over any of this. Mark Rosewater exists and takes feedback on Tumblr.
But, let's talk about it, because I've seen some folks take this to extremes.
First off, I've seen a lot of well meaning folks speaking up on behalf of hypothetical indigenous americans, but I'd love to get takes from folks this actually impacts. I'd love for Wizards to post something about their work with cultural consultants, for sure. But the only actual thing I've seen so far is a great story from Magic's first indigenous american author. And when you're speaking on someone else's behalf, you tend to miss things. Like, Kaladesh is not the great representation of south asian culture that you might think when you jumped to it, and it's okay if you didn't know that, but it sort of proves the point that it's very difficult to actually protest on someone else's behalf. And I just haven't heard from anyone who has also mentioned they speak from authority or are impacted by this. That doesn't mean you're wrong, necessarily.
But here's the thing. Thunder Junction isn't history. It takes cues from the American West, sure, but it's a fake world. And sometimes it's okay for a fake world to ignore the bad things that happens in real life and create something more aspirational. Magic does this all the time. Magic doesn't have homophobia, but that isn't really realistic or representative of the real world, is it?
No one, and I mean literally no one, came to me and said that people of color needed to be ostracized and not allowed to work alongside the white people in the demon mob families of New Capenna. That racism was real, it was systemic, and it was violent. But did it need to be tackled in a fantasy crime drama based on america in the 20s? Should it have been? I don't think anyone would have enjoyed it as much. Sometimes it's just fun to play gangster.
Similarly, the colonization and manifest destiny that was the reality of the American West was tragic, but does that need to be our only depiction of indigenous peoples - being colonized? If they were erased completely from the narrative, that would be awful, but can't they just have fun being cool thunder slingers? The Atiin were developed with a consultant, and if you want answers ask Wizards to talk about it.
There's a reason the Oltec were depicted as being sealed off from the Immortal Sun drama that had happened on the surface. To have an aspirational mesoamerican culture that wasn't affected by the Dusk Legion and Azor and all that.
To put it in another perspective, does every period piece featuring black americans need to feature systemic racism to be respectful? Is Bridgerton disrespectful (I mean probably but not for that reason)?
The reason I've framed a lot of this as questions is because I don't necessarily think I know the right answer, especially not for a fantasy card game. I've worked with tribal governments in my emergency management career and spent a week on the Navajo Nation, and talked a lot about perspective on things, and I would not presume to know what the right answer to all of this is.
Edit: to be clear, Could it have been handled better? Probably. I will never deny that. But also it’s a complicated and fraught topic and I’d love to hear from the people wizards contracted who actually know what they’re talking about.
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jl-micasea-fics · 2 days
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Freak Show Talk | 3racha, lmh
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𝙭𝙡𝙞𝙭. 𝙞'𝙢 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙙
! fwb, free use ft. all, fujoshi fem reader, poly, enm, angst, smut, dead dove do not eat. <1k wc. 18+ readers only !
「Contents List」 「Act 1」  「© March 2024 by jl-micasea-fics」
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She finished work two hours ago. He can’t put it off any longer.
His loitering in the bookstore—a place he would argue is much designed for loitering—loses its novelty when his already blistered feet begin to ache. He scopes the city streets to find further employment, but three coffees from three different cafes soon inspire altogether different urges—ones he’d rather see to in the comfort of his own bathroom.
As he enters the apartment, he hears—to coin her term—culinary chaos. Pots and pans clang, a tempting sizzle leads him to the kitchen, where the girl he’s been thinking about all day despite his very best efforts appears to be cooking.
Thoughtlessly, he approaches, peering around her. A frying pan of steak, butter and garlic simmers on the induction hob. She startles on his presence, almost tips the pan until he steadies her elbow.
“Hi.” She blinks up at him.
He swallows. Lets her go immediately. His fingertips burn. “You’re cooking?”
“You’re always telling me I should try.”
“You couldn’t have started smaller?”
“When have you ever known me to do that?”
“Fair.”
In a summery, loose dress befitting the sweltering weather, he wants to point out she's not dressed for cooking, especially where hot oil is concerned. So much skin is on display; her smooth chest, her arms, her lovely neck. His face flames; he busies himself with a glass of water.
“How was your day?” she asks.
Hell. Yours?
“Fine. Yours?”
“Same. Supervisor Jin wasn’t in though, which was nice. We got to choose the playlist.” She grins— Minho can’t bear fucking it. How is she so okay? Did she not cry? Did her heart not tear down the middle like his? Does she really not care?
He slams the empty glass to the counter. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Want me to bring you a towel?”
Fuck this.
“Do you not remember what happened last night?” Minho snaps.
Her face falls. “Of course I do.”
“Really? Because you’re just acting like—” He gestures vaguely. “Like nothing’s changed. Like we’re still best friends, and we’re still—”
“Are we not best friends? You called it off to save our friendship, didn’t you? Or did I misunderstand?”
“N— No. I did. I mean; that was one of the reasons. I just didn’t expect you to be so... fine.”
She blinks. Her face is bathed in a stream of afternoon light, and like a diminishing veil, he sees her eyes glistening, her chin quivering, her cheeks aching with the force of smiling.
“I’m not fine.”
Her voice breaks. Tar oozes in Minho’s gut and squidges through his intestines, cramping everything. He wants to die.
“I’m so far from fine I don’t know if I'll ever be again, but I'm trying. I’m trying to just... get through the next hour. I’m trying.”
She cries, and he feels like his world might end. It’s always been this way. He can’t fucking stand it. Can’t stand her pain, her secrets, her issues—
“Would you rather this instead?” She swipes her damp cheeks. “For me to be miserable?”
“No. You know I hate it when you cry.”
“I don’t want to cry. Fuck, Minho— I just... I want to be better. I don’t want to be like this anymore.”
“Like what?”
She shakes her head. “I want to be the girl you could actually stand to be around.”
“Don’t say that. Please, don’t. It’s all wrong. This is all fucking wrong. I just wanted to understand you. To make sense of this disconnect. But you won’t talk to me. I feel like I’ve lost you and I don’t even know why.”
She boldly steps towards him, takes his hands and holds them to her chest.
“I know you don’t understand, and I’m sorry. One day you will. I hope. But I’ve got to get better, Min. I’ve got to learn how to manage all this. I’ve got to be kind to myself. I want to be able to tell you everything without worrying that the truth will force you away from me. I want to share my thoughts with you without all the shame. To open the box and show you what’s inside without being fucking terrified of it.”
Minho stares. Her hands are cold, her chest warm. He feels the pulse of her heart beneath her skin.
“I’ll get you back, bestie,” she whispers. “Count on it.”
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𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 >
𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙? 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚 ♡ >
< 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨 | 𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩 >
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thepixelelf · 2 days
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and the universe said,
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07 - "bro, chill"
genres/tags: soulmate au, idol au, comedy, romance, dumbassery relationship(s): ot13 x reader chapter warnings: coarse language. kithing. a liiitle svt on svt violence note: ik it's been a long time please be nice to me <3 (this isn't edited... I'll take a look at it when I have the time)
When soulmates are suddenly thrust upon the world, you are one in a million who wishes they weren’t – and that’s before you meet the person (people?!) making your life much harder than it needs to be. And before someone asks you to sign an NDA.
series masterlist
prev ⭒ chapter seven (4.0k) ⭒ next
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“Where are they?” Myungjun asks as soon as Jihoon and Junhui enter the room they agreed upon.
Junhui braces both of his arms on the back of a chair. “What do you mean?”
“Your soulmate—” Cutting himself off with a sigh, Myungjun pinches the bridge of his nose and answers his own question. “You didn’t bring them.”
Yejung, who was sitting at a table with her laptop, shuts it with a frown. “Why not?”
Junhui shrugs. “I’m just here because Jihoon dragged me out.” He shifts between looking at the three other people in the room. “You guys know I just met my soulmate, right? I don’t like not having them here with me, either.”
“Well then why didn’t you—”
“They don’t know.” Jihoon cuts off Myungjun’s words, then pulls out a chair and drops himself in it. He stares at a random spot on the table. When he doesn’t elaborate any further, Yejung sends a furtive glance Myungjun’s way.
“Don’t know…” She leans her forearms on the table and scoots her chair closer. “...what? That you’re their soulmate? That there’s more than one of you? That you’re famous?”
Junhui snorts. “All of the above?”
At Junhui's quip and Jihoon's continued silence, Myungjun raises a cynical brow.
"You didn't tell them?" Yejung asks, softly shocked. "Why?"
Junhui's eyes skirt to Jihoon; he's unwilling to share his own reasons, though he doesn't quite understand this about himself, either.
Jihoon sighs. "I don't know. It's complicated. Things happened too fast the first time we—"
"The first time?" Myungjun echoes. "So you've been with them multiple times."
“Don’t say it like that.” Jihoon almost pouts, but the facial expression just makes him look angry. “Look. I ran into them when the vocal team was on the way to that radio show. We’d stopped by a cafe and there wasn’t much time and I was so out of my mind that I—” He cuts himself off. “It doesn’t matter. I got their number, and then they left. I asked to meet today and we did. Jun was already there for…” With his arms crossed, Jihoon looks over at Junhui, remembering that he still doesn’t really know what Junhui was doing at the same cafe you apparently frequent. Is this the same cat cafe Junhui is always talking about? “…some reason. Then someone started singing, and they told us their soulmate is stupid and annoying because their mark…”
“It’s not like ours,” Junhui finishes for Jihoon, though this only deepens the confusion written on Yejung and Myungjun’s faces.
“If it's not like yours, then how do you know they're your—”
“It's them, Hyung.” Jihoon can't help noticing the hopelessness in his own voice. It's you. He knows it's you.
But you don't know it's them— him.
And he's not sure you want to know.
“Their mark, like, grows,” Junhui explains. “Ours just stay on our hands, but when one of us sings, the notes go all over their arms and neck. Maybe other places — I don’t know — but they obviously don’t think it’s either of us since we weren’t singing when their mark did its thing.”
“So…” Myungjun crosses his arms and taps his finger on his bicep. “They don't like their mark.”
Junhui doesn't nod right away, but he does eventually.
Myungjun turns to Jihoon. “And you think that means they don't like you.”
Groaning and rubbing his hands over his face, Jihoon doesn't dignify that with a response. “Even if they did like their mark, it’s an insane situation. Thirteen soulmates? They’re gonna run for the hills when they find out.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Yejung says, to which Jihoon gives her a dry look and Junhui’s eyes light up. She clears her throat. “We just need to find a way to calmly inform them of the situation — preferably in a safe, comfortable environment.”
Myungjun recognizes a Yejung Game Plan brewing when he sees it. “Basically, what she’s saying is…”
“Let me talk to them.” Yejung opens her laptop again and begins typing away. “We just need to go about this in a calm, logical manner.” She gives a little nonchalant wave of her hand. “This’ll be easier than a design meeting.”
You’re sitting on the floor of your apartment, arms crossed, legs too, as you stare down at the shiny black credit card lying there between you and Heejun. His position mirrors yours, head tilted while he studies the card.
“It could be fake,” you say. Your knee bounces up and down, up and down.
Heejun lifts his head to give you a look. “Why would it be fake?”
“He said he doesn’t believe in banks.”
“It doesn’t look fake.” Heejun reaches out and takes the card, flipping it over in his fingers to read the back. “Looks like any other credit card. We should test it.”
You frown. “How?”
“Uh,” Heejun speaks like the answer is obvious. “Buy something?”
Okay, it is obvious, but the idea doesn’t sit too well with you. “Isn’t that stealing?”
“He gave you the card.”
“Yeah, but the police don’t know that,” you argue. “If I got charged for fraud, it would be his word against mine— no one would believe coffee guy just handed me his black card.”
Without moving his head, Heejun glances up from the card to look at you. "Why would he lie?"
"Um, because he already has? Who knows— maybe this card is connected to illicit activities and he planted it on me to implicate me."
“Which he would do because…?”
You throw your hands up in the air, then let them drop emphatically at your side. “I don’t know! Why did he do any of what he did?”
He raises a brow. “Because he’s a weirdo who likes you?”
“Okay but have you ever given your credit card to a person you’ve only met twice?”
Heejun’s shoulders rise in a shrug. “I’ve wanted to.”
“Seriously?” You can’t imagine your friend going that gaga over a crush, but then again, there was that girl in fourth grade whom he gave all his choco pies to. Heejun loves choco pies.
“Mine would decline though. It wouldn’t exactly impress.”
You lightly shove his shoulder. “Oh come on, it wouldn’t decline.”
“It would if they went over the limit. People only give people their credit cards for expensive stuff. You know that, right?”
The black card gleams up at you, almost tauntingly.
“Expensive stuff like what?”
He shrugs again. “Like a car?”
“You’ve been watching too many CEO dramas.” You exhale and place both hands on the floor with a pointed slam. Standing, you pick the credit card up and brush imaginary dirt off your pants.
“You won’t be so sarcastic when Park Seojoon tells you to keep that thing.”
You roll your eyes as you toss the card into the same trinket dish you keep your keys and other miscellaneous things in. “Isn’t that guy like six foot?”
“So was Huijun,” he counters.
“So are you. Is that all it takes to be a CEO nowadays?” you joke, pulling out your phone. “Height?”
Heejun scoffs, then frames his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “That and my devilish good looks.”
“Please.” You tap on a notification from an unknown number. “If that were true, you’d be the one handing out black…cards…”
At the way you trail off, Heejun furrows his brow and walks over to you. “What’s up? Did you fall for another online scam?”
Not this again. “Okay, first of all, that was not a scam, and I did not fall for it—”
“You didn’t fall for a not scam?”
“Shut up. What do you think this means?” You turn your phone towards him, and he takes it from your unsteady hand.
He reads aloud. “‘Hello, this is Shin Yejung of Pledis Entertainment.’ Did you apply there?”
“No,” you say, then shake your head and wave your hand. “I mean. I don’t know. Maybe. I applied to like five hundred places. But this isn’t that. Keep reading.”
Heejun takes a breath and starts reading like he’s holding a new edict. “‘It has come to my attention that you are in possession of one of my coworker’s bank cards.’ Oooooh, you’re in trouble.” He drags out the last syllable. “‘Please meet me at…’ whatever building, numbers numbers numbers… ‘so I can retrieve it. Please reply to this number for more information, and thank you for your time.’ Hm.”
“What do you think… am I getting arrested?”
Lowering your phone, Heejun gives you a seriously? look over it. “The cops are texting criminals now?”
“So you agree I’m a criminal.”
“You get annoying when you’re nervous, you know that?” When you roll your eyes, Heejun mirrors the expression and pokes your forehead long enough that he pushes you backward. “Look bub, you wanted to give the stupid thing back without using it, and now the opportunity has been handed right to you.” He waves your phone in the air like evidence. “The only question is why coffee guy didn’t just text you himself.”
You cross your arms. “Maybe he doesn’t like me as much as you thought.”
“One more self-deprecating comment out of you and I’m posting those pictures from your twentieth birthday.”
A gasp wrenches from your throat. “You wouldn’t!”
Joshua Hong doesn’t think he has that many unread messages on his phone.
He looks down.
Oof. 682.
Well, it’s not his worst.
Notifications fly by at the top of his screen.
[vernon] where is this guy
[chan] hyung this is important!!
[wonwoo] when have we known that guy to answer anything
[soonyoung] someone text yejung!!
It’s probably not that important, whoever they’re talking about. His members are likely just freaking out over this whole soulmate thing again.
Joshua lifts his hand and stares at his weird, natural — supernatural — tattoo. He still can’t bring himself to believe it.
Soulmates? Really? In this economy? This isn’t Tumblr.
At least… Joshua looks around the dance practice room… He’s pretty sure this isn’t Tumblr.
His phone rings, which is weird since he always has it on silent. Sliding the answer button, he brings the phone up to his ear. “Yejung?”
“Where are you?”
“The practice room,” Joshua answers plainly. “Isn’t this where we’re supposed to be today?”
Yejung sighs on the other end of the line. “I said in the group chat that we were dealing with soulmate stuff. Upstairs.”
Ah, so that’s what has everyone in a tizzy. “Alright, okay. Where am I going?”
“Room eight-thirteen—” He hangs up and starts to pack his things before Yejung can say, “Wait, no, nine-thirteen. We'll start when you arrive. Joshua? Hello?”
You check your phone for what must be upwards of the fifth time.
Yup, Shin Yejung of Pledis Entertainment definitely told you to meet her in room 813, and yet here you are. In room 813. Alone.
You shift on the leather couch. It’s a lounge-like room you’re in. You don’t really understand the purpose of such a room in an entertainment company, but whatever. You’re only here to return something you never should’ve had in the first place.
Although…
You turn the card over in your hand, watching the way the fancy lighting bounces off of it.
Why would Jihoon give it to you if he was just going to get it back like this?
Also, now that you really think about it, Jihoon did say something weird when he left yesterday with Huijun. Something about not letting “the rest” scare you off. Whatever that means.
The rest of what?
Or… whom?
You know Jihoon must work for the company in some capacity. The fact that both he and Huijun were wearing masks makes you think they could be artists…
Oh. Duh. Why didn’t you think of this earlier?
Switching apps, you tap the search bar and start typing. Just as you’re done with the last character of Jihoon HYBE, the door you entered through opens. You hastily slip your phone into your back pocket as you stand to greet the person coming in.
“Hello, you must be…” Your eyes scan over his face. He’s… delicate looking, until you move your gaze downwards a little, and his broad shoulders and thick arms are decidedly not delicate looking. “…Shin Yejung?”
You tilt your head. With no mask on the lower half of his face, he seems familiar. Now this guy must be an idol — you probably saw him on the walls when you were making your way through this maze of a building. 
He just raises a brow. “Who are you?”
“Oh, uh…” You stay standing in front of the couch as he approaches you, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’m just here to return this.” Lifting the black card up, you hold it out between you and the man. “It’s Jihoon’s.”
“Jihoon’s?” he echoes, then moves to take the card from you, pinched between his thumb and forefinger. 
You both see it at the same time.
His mark, five black lines, clear as day.
Yours, peeking out from where your sleeve is pulled halfway up your hand.
You look up from your not-really-joined hands, then look down again.
No fucking way. 
“Twinkle twinkle, little—” The notes, whatever they are, dance across his mark.
No fucking way. 
You meet his eyes. “...Songbird?”
He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. A few too many seconds.
Then, “So it’s you.”
“Holy—!”
At the same time as you try to jerk away, he attempts to turn your hand over and get a better look. Neither plan really works out. You stumble backwards, and with your hand in his, he gets pulled down with you onto the couch. His free hand shoots out to keep himself from slamming into you, but, persistent as the universe is, your faces end up very freaking close to each other anyway. Warmth from his knee on the couch cushion next to your thigh seeps through your clothing.
He doesn’t move. You don’t either.
For some reason, you feel stuck in place. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but… you just feel like you should be exactly where you are.
You’re almost too close to make real eye contact, so you just watch the way his eyes study yours.
“Songbird?” you whisper, though you have no idea what you’re trying to ask.
He stops analyzing you and finally looks at you. “Yeah?”
“…Are you leaning towards me on purpose?”
His lips (since when were you looking at those?) curl down at the corners. “Are you?”
Slowly, like your mind is trying to catch up to your body, you shake your head. “No…”
He drifts closer. Or you do. Or you both do.
Or something.
Your lips brush over his, and your feel just as much as you hear him whisper. “Then neither am I.”
In the span of a second, his free hand moves from the back of the couch to cradle your jaw, his thumb grazing gently just under your ear. He kisses you, lips moving over yours in a way you’ve felt before, but also in a way you’ve never felt before.
It’s strange.
Not bad strange, but strange in the way that it feels like you’ve just put the last of the groceries in the fridge. It’s like folding that final piece of laundry. Like coming home to the bed you made when you left in the morning.
It’s… satisfactory?
But that’s not the word people normally use when they think of putting their tongue in someone else’s mouth, right?
You’re running out of breath, but Songbird is insistent, and so are his lips, which you find yourself unable to get enough of. He pulls back for half a breath, registers your kiss me again or so help me facial expression, and dives right back in. He’s kissing you and you’re kissing him and you’re soulmates and…
Wait.
Soulmates?
“Wait,” you say, though it comes out more like, “Mmaem” Climbing both your hands up his — whoa — strong arms, you cup his cheeks in preparation to push him away, but he seems to like your touch. He covers the back of one of your hands with his warm palm, and he hums in a way that is not PG-13.
The sound has you melting, unfortunately.
Not for long though.
He’s ripped from you just as quickly as he fell onto you, pulled back by some guy with fluffy black hair, cozy attire head to toe, and… shit, a you’re in trouble glare the likes of which you’ve never seen before. He’s not even looking at you, yet you feel scolded.
“Yah!” he yells at your soulmate, who’s now on the floor. Then, after glancing at you for half a second and apparently finding zero more words to say, he shouts at him again. “Yah!”
Your soulmate opens his mouth, but then he turns to look at the now-open door, which leads you to do the same. A mob of prettyboys stands just outside, some with their jaws dropped and some looking like murder just got legalized and they’re on the prowl.
Someone’s despondent voice shouts, “Hyung!”
You feel like hiding under a blanket. Before your flight instinct kicks in, though, you recognize two familiar faces. “Jihoon?” His eyes meet yours when you say his name. “Huijun?”
One of the many boys among those you don't recognize echoes, “Huijun?” while sending him a weird look.
Someone pushes through the crowd — more like slinks through, occasionally nudging one of the other guys out of the way. His eyes stay firmly on you as he approaches, but you find no fear rising despite that. For some unknown reason, even as this completely unfamiliar man strides over to you with a frankly alarming amount of eye contact, you feel… safe.
Or at least, something close to it.
He kneels in front of where you're still seated on the leather couch, hand resting mere centimetres from leg. “Are you okay?” he asks, voice slightly nasal, but so, so gentle. 
“Uhh…” Self conscious, you wipe at the corner of your mouth with your sleeve. You spot your soulmate catch you doing so, and a look of hurt crosses his face. His own reaction, though, seems to startle him, and his hand rises to gently prod his shiny bottom lip with one of his fingers. He looks confused.
Well, that makes two of you.
Taking in the man right in front of you — pretty, lithe, concerned for you despite his unfamiliarity — you fail to answer his question. “Are… you Shin Yejung?”
He lets out a laugh, relieved, maybe, that you're not not okay. “Jeonghan,” he says simply.
You nod. “Jeonghan.”
At your voice echoing his name, the man’s eyes light up. “Yes?”
“Oh, uh…” You weren’t trying to call on him for anything, but as you study his gaze, you find yourself lost in his confident ease. Something in his eyes says that he knew this would happen.
Maybe not this, exactly — your soulmate has found a spot on the floor and has not stopped staring at it, while the rest of the strangers are still watching you — but taking up the same space as you, facing you, smiling at you with a soft quirk at the corners of his lips.
“Ugh!” A woman’s exasperated voice makes you look up at the crowd by the door. “Get— out of the way, you… ugh—” She breaks through, pushing aside a tall guy who looks like he’s about to cry. “—you men!”
Stumbling to her feet, she rights herself and brushes her bangs out of her face with a huff. “Now, what is—” She spots your soulmate still on his ass and mutters something you’re pretty sure can’t be aired on any broadcasting network. “...my life.”
Your eyes meet hers as she takes another breath. “Please tell me you’re Shin Yejung.”
“Yes, we spoke over the phone.”
“Thank god.” Shaking off all the weird feelings you’d accumulated in the last — what? Two minutes? — you stand from the couch and sidestep Jeonghan. The black card fell at some point during that lapse of judgement (aka kiss), so you swipe it up off the floor and hold it out to her with no preamble. “I swear I’m not a stalker fan or anything. And I didn’t use it, so…”
You glance over at Jihoon, whose expression gives off an oncoming panic. Is he scared to see you? Why? Huijun looks just fine, happy even, with you here. You can practically hear the ‘hello’ he wants to say out loud.
You clear your throat. “Anyway, um. I didn’t mean to, uh…” As you nervously cross your arms, you nod towards your soulmate. “I’m his— I mean, we are… sorry. This is… I wasn’t exactly expecting to find the person who’s…”
Maybe you shouldn’t say you’ve been annoyed by your soulmate since you got your stupid mark. At least not while he’s in the room.
“That’s actually what I brought you here to talk about,” Shin Yejung tells you, a bit like a doctor who’s about to deliver the bad news first. She doesn’t even take the card from you. “Would you like to take a seat?”
You scrunch your eyes shut for a second with a little shake of your head, trying to manual reset your brain because clearly it’s still muddled. “Sorry, what? You want to talk about…?”
The mob of men in the room get hidden from your vision as Yejung strategically places herself between them and you. “Soulmates,” she says.
You look down at the black card, then back up at her again. “Soulmates.”
“Yes. Your soulmates. I was hoping to talk to you alone first.” She sends a pointed look at the men behind her. “But it’s not exactly easy to get these guys to lis—”
“Sorry.” You wave a hand in the air to get her to stop, unable to comprehend any of her words after— “Did you say my soulmates? As in… mates, multiple? Mates with an S at the end? I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
Remaining calm while your mind spins, Yejung nods. “I know this is a lot to take in.”
“Know what is a lot to take in?”
Yejung opens her mouth to answer, but a voice blurts out behind her, “We’re your soulmates!”
Maybe you haven’t known him long enough or talked to him that many times, but you recognize Jihoon’s voice, and something in your gut suddenly grows sharp. Not painful, but begging for you to feel it. Yejung shifts so your field of view is once again filled by men too pretty to be all in the same room. Jihoon’s standing there, fists clenched at his sides, out of breath for no discernable reason other than…
We’re your soulmates.
Seeing your hesitation, Jihoon huffs and tears a bandaid you never really noticed off the back of his right hand. Even before he completes the motion, you know what must be under the bandage. He holds his hand up, though, and the evidence is very near damning.
Next to him, Huijun smiles and lifts his arm, pointing to his own five lines with his opposite hand. 
Most of the guys behind them show you the same thing. Five lines on the smooth backs of their hands, near the base of the thumb. Dear lord, you don’t even know how many of them there are.
The angry one who pulled the man off of you earlier, at least, just looks lost, like he once had control and now has none. Relatable.
You stumble back a bit. Instinctively, you say, “Songbird?”
Though quite a few of the men seem to perk up at the nickname, only the one you already gave the moniker to truly reacts. Your soulmate — god, one of your soulmates? — looks up at you from the floor and answers, “Yeah?” before realizing he’s even doing it.
“Never mind,” you dismiss with a wave of your hand. “Ms Shin?”
“Yes?” She steps closer, a worried look on her face.
Jeonghan, too, moves toward you with a similar look on his face.
You try to take a steady breath and fail. “I think I’ll take that seat now.”
Swaying backward, your body falls onto the leather couch. 
You hear approximately ten panicked shouts as you go down.
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prev ⭒ chapter seven (4.0k) ⭒ next
new chapters for atus are not on a schedule nor guaranteed. there is no taglist. thank you for reading!
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hobbyistauthor · 3 days
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9 ▰▱▰▱ Take Me Home (Please Stay With Me) ▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱
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"came back wrong" post-s4 fanfiction, featuring monster kas!eddie. pre-steddie -> steddie
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minors DNI please, Steve has some S P I C Y thoughts, although nothing too explicit yet.
TW: References to period-typical homophobia, brief discussion of HIV/AIDS crisis.
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Part I ┊ Part II ┊ Part III ┊ Part IV ┊ Part V ┊ Part VI ┊ Part VII ┊ Part VIII ┊ Part IX (📍)
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Arlene grins at him, although her smile is painfully awkward and more like a grimace to Steve’s eyes.
“Guess I wasn't as clear as I thought I was.”
She steps towards him, holding her arms out in invitation. “Baby Bear, I'm so sorry, I completely misunderstood the subtext.” She apologizes and Steve's heart immediately starts to mend itself from the damage his knee-jerk fear at being outed caused, healing by the grace of the heartfelt nature of her words. The cracks that widened along the well-worn fault lines that spiderweb across the shattered patchwork remnants of his heart begin to fill in slowly, rebuilding yet again. He should have known, he should have never doubted his mom because she always has his back. He chokes down a relieved sob as all of the stress from the last few minutes comes crashing down on him with all of its immense weight, sending him stumbling into his mom’s open arms. He feels safe and warm, cradled in an embrace he’s missed terribly for the past three years. He immediately starts crying, the tears coming hot and fast down his cheeks and leaving salty streaks in their wake.
“Ohh, baby…” Arlene shushes him softly, rocking Steve gently side to side while she cards her fingers through his hair. He feels like a child again, comforted after falling and skinning his knee playing outside. He clutches to her harder, the catharsis too great to hold back as he gasps huge wet breaths in between his long bouts of sobbing, choking cries. He has no idea what she's doing here, back home in Hawkins when it looks less like a small town and more like a war zone, but he’s certainly not complaining about her presence. He’s missed her, and right now he's going to relish being close to his mom again for as long as she sticks around. He knows how busy she is, how important her new position at Ellsco is and he refuses to be the reason that gets jeopardized. Arlene smells like good wine and expensive cologne–not perfume, she’d never liked perfume–and Steve buries his face in the crook of her neck, sniffles at where she's warm and her pulse is strong. His fingers are fisted tightly in the fabric of her button-front, wrinkling the expensive fabric, but she doesn't even flinch. She’s always had her priorities in line, and laundry ranks far below her only son.
“I'm so sorry, honey,” she murmurs again, cradling the back of his head in her palm. “I know how dangerous the world is for people like me, and I should have known better than just making assumptions about who you’d told or hadn’t told about your presumed sexuality. What I said and the implications could have put you in danger were we around prying ears, even if you aren’t queer, because rumors are powerful things. Granted, I don’t think Eddie is the kind of person to think less of you if you were queer, if it's any consolation? I told him I was a lesbian and he didn’t really bat an eyelash, very respectful… I don't think Eddie will remember what I said, either? He's fairly blitzed...”
Steve laughs, the sound weak and wet from all his weeping. “N-no. It's okay,” he wants to reassure her, because honestly the fact that she’d wanted to goof around with him about it, wanted to normalize his queerness just like she would have done if he were feeling this way about a girl means more to him than words can say. She hadn’t done that out of malice, she knows how dangerous it is out there for people like them, knows she made a mistake by outing him–even if he technically hasn’t confirmed or denied it, yet–and apologized for it, too. Knowing that his mom is like him, like Robin, warms him from the inside out, igniting a bonfire in his chest and comforting him like the way it would dispel the chill of an autumn night. He thinks he might be ready to finally give voice to the words he’s never let himself say.
“I'm… I mean…”
“... Baby Bear?”
Steve takes a stuttering breath, trembling as his grip tightens on his mom’s shirt, “I… I'm not straight, mom.”
Arlene cards a hand gently through his hair, her other arm pulling tight across his shoulders with a comforting weight. He leans into her embrace, his eyes squeezing shut as his heartbeat races in his chest. He’s never said it out loud before; never actually voiced the truth to anyone besides himself in the safety of his own mind, well and truly alone with his thoughts. Hell, he's not even told Robin yet, although he's pretty sure she suspects, as if squinty eyed knowing looks she's been shooting him lately weren't telling enough. It’s not that he’s in any way ashamed to admit his bisexuality, but. It’s always felt like something he’s just not allowed to talk about? He’s not greedy, it’s not like being bisexual makes him more likely to cheat or anything–that’s horrible, and he refuses to ever cheat on anyone–but he likes both. He has a luxury in being able to choose to take the safe option; the path of least resistance. It’s not like he’s truly sacrificing because it’s not a lie, is it? He very well can fall in love with and have a perfectly fulfilling relationship with a woman–it doesn’t mean he doesn’t also find men attractive or that the potential to have the same type of relationship with a man is miraculously no longer there, but. He has the luxury of appearing straight-passing. Robin and people like her can never have that, the illusion of safety, without cutting away a part of themselves and pretending to be something they’re not. Forcing themselves into boxes that don’t fit for the sake of keeping themselves alive in a world that wishes them dead.
“Thank you for telling me,” mom’s voice is soft and gentle, soothing as she continues to hold him, “it’s very brave of you.”
He laughs, the sound wet and full of self-hatred, “Is it?” he scoffs.
Arlene pulls back from him, tenderly cupping his cheeks in her hands and looking Steve in the eyes, an intensity behind her long lashes. Her brows are furrowed and her lips are pursed, deep sorrow intermingling with the upset painted across her face.
“Stevie, of course it is. Coming out is terrifying, every time. It’s sometimes the hardest thing you may ever do in your life, because it’s voicing something so deeply personal to someone you hope you can trust. And sometimes,” her lips twitch into a bittersweet smile, “sometimes that trust is broken.”
Steve smiles back, wobbly and wet as he sniffles some tears away. He chuckles, relief washing over him as it actually starts to sink in that his mom is okay with him, that she’s not going to abandon him, that she believes him. It’s freeing and the tears stream down his cheeks anew, a sob wrenching its way out of his throat. Arlene shushes him, a broken worried sound, as her thumbs wipe away the salty streams as they tumble down his face. His sobs are half laughter, relief tangling up with the remnants of his anxiety, the internalized self-hatred he’s been working on sweeping away. Robin has talked about internalized homophobia before, and he’s more than aware he’s been working on his own since that day on the floor of the nasty Starcourt movie theater bathroom. Having his mother here, supporting him, loving him so earnestly, helps to rip it from where it stubbornly clings to the walls of Steve’s thoughts, and with every tear track she wipes away, he feels himself grow lighter.
“Mo- Momma Bear,” he warbles out, unable to stop his crying even as he smiles, “Momma, I’m bisexual.”
Arlene pauses in her earnest wiping of his tears, blinking at him. Slowly, and with the warmth of the sun rising above the horizon in the breaking of dawn, she smiles at him. Her eyes crinkle with how wide her lips pull, glistening with unshed tears of her own, sniffling as she just looks at him. He can see the pride in her eyes, the happiness in her smile. 
“Baby Bear,” she says, “I love you so, so much.”
“Love you too, Momma,” he murmurs, throwing himself back into her arms, squeezing tightly. She’s smaller than him now, and it catches him off guard a little. Arlene has always felt larger than life to Steve, the biggest person in the room every time, but now he stands slightly taller than her and broader than her in the shoulders and arms. She fits against him differently than she used to–it’s still a shelter, but the comfort shared feels equal in exchange.
“So,” Arlene asks, her face pressed against his shoulder, her arms tucked under his to rest against his shoulder blades, “when did you know, Stevie-bear? Last I’d heard from you it was all ladies all the time. What changed?”
He chuckles, pressing his nose into her hair where it’s started to come loose from its’ styling. “I’ve always known, I think. I started noticing boys the same time I noticed girls, but context cues from people around me made it obvious that boys didn’t talk about other boys like boys talked about girls.” He shrugs, inhaling the familiar simple scent of her expensive shampoo. “I actually thought everyone had the same thoughts as me, finding everyone pretty and just choosing not to acknowledge the other side of things until later on. I um. I met someone who’s gay, actually, and they kind of made me realize that my way of thinking wasn’t exactly straight.”
“Oh?”
“Mmhm,” Steve nods, carefully considering his next words to keep Robin’s identity to himself. His mom might also be a lesbian, but he would never out Robin, even to another queer person. He couldn’t betray her trust like that. “We were talking and I asked them to choose between two celebrities, which one they thought was hotter. They said neither, and I was so confused. I said, ‘not even like, objectively?’ and they were just so meh about the whole thing I really had to reevaluate my entire life, really.”
Arlene laughs along with Steve, and he presses his forehead against the curve of her shoulder. Sighing.
“We took a few trips up to Indy, and there’s a couple of bookshops up there that sell, um. Zines? And other queer literature? So I kind of, immersed myself in that, and I realized I was probably bisexual all along and just hadn’t understood that liking both was an option.”
“Mm, sexuality is a fascinating thing, isn’t it?”
Steve chuckles, pulling back from Arlene for a moment to look at his mom. She seems softer in the waning light of the kitchen, hair falling from its styling, her shirt rumpled–blazer long lost–and standing in her socks on the tile. He can feel the fondness in his own bearing, no doubt mirroring the expression she has on her face as she looks back at him. His dad used to complain about how similar he looks to his mom–how closely he took to the Ellsworth family genetics rather than the Harrington genes. Steve’s never been more grateful for that.
“I mean, learning about the Kinsey scale was pretty interesting,” he says, “I’m not a perfect 3 I don’t think,” he admits, shrugging. He’s definitely pickier about what men he’s attracted to than he is about what draws him to women. The basics are there–brown hair, doe eyes, intelligent, a little mean–but otherwise, it’s just easier with women. He doesn’t have preferences or anything beyond his four main attraction points, but men? Men have to be pretty in some way… something about them has to strike Steve in a way that makes him pause, consider, and think wow, he’s pretty, huh? If that thought doesn’t happen, there’s no attraction, it’s just another dude. 
“I think the number was um, a 2?” he taps his lips with a finger as he thinks, “Like, women are just easier for me to notice, because women, right?” He makes a curvy gesture with his hands while wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, making his mom snort a laugh, but she’s smiling and nodding so he continues. “But, like, objectively, I notice when dudes are hot. I mean, it doesn’t really do anything for me, I just notice.”
He licks his lips as his thoughts drift to one particular man. He feels hot where the blood flushes the skin of his neck, his mouth suddenly becoming dry as a desert. “But… sometimes a man just floors me with how pretty he is, you know?” He kind of hates how dreamy his voice gets by the end of his little monologue, how telling he’s being in the way he talks about a not-so-hypothetical man. 
“Well,” Arlene says, raising an eyebrow at Steve that makes him feel so seen, “I do not know, because I am a big ol’ Kinsey 6,” she smirks and Steve groans. “But! I understand what you mean,” she laughs at his disgruntled expression, and the sound is so fond and teasing that Steve can’t help his blush and shoves gently at his mom.
“Shut up, mom! Oh my god, why am I talking about this with you!?”
“Because I’m your mother and you missed me and I’m also gay as fuck, Stevie-bear! You know you’re safe talking about your boy-crushes with me, now,” she croons softly at him, clearly conscious of her volume as she leans into his space, grinning mischievously.
Steve rolls his eyes, but his smile gives away his happiness with the continued ease of their relationship. His mom relents, leaning back against the kitchen island and smoothly exiting Steve’s personal space.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you, Mom, but why are you here? Back in Hawkins?”
Arlene sighs, the sound heavy as though she’s carrying the weight of the world as she tilts her head backwards.
“I wanted to see you, Bear,” she admits, “and after the truly horrendous call I had with the financial advisor over the phone about how I wanted to adjust the terms of access for the trust,” she makes a face, sticking out her tongue and rolling her eyes, “I knew it would be simpler to come here myself and handle it in person. That it gave me an excuse to see you? A bonus that Charlene was all too willing to exploit to bully the rest of the board into getting me some well deserved R&R time.” 
Arlene preens a little, clearly delighted with the ingenuity of herself and Charlene–he’s glad that he knows how well his mom pays her, because honestly that woman has to be a saint to put up with the ridiculous energy and demands of his mother on a daily basis–she’s a tough business woman, and for good reason.
“You do work a lot, Mom,” Steve says, his smile going crooked with fondness at his mother’s dramatic flair, “I’m glad Charlene’s in your corner.”
“Mm, I’m going to make sure I can wrangle her up a good bonus again this year… or maybe a raise? The taxes they throw on bonuses are bullshit, anyway.”
“Definitely a raise, Mom.”
“I’ll do that, then, Stevie-bear. Thanks for your input,” she waves him closer and he goes easily, bending forward when she beckons, receiving a smacking forehead kiss for his obedience. It fills his heart with warmth and he realizes his smile has yet to fade. They stand together in comfortable silence in their kitchen for a long moment, just existing in each other’s space. It’s both strange and welcoming, a reminder of something he’s not thought he’d have again. Just being with his mom makes Steve feel safe, but it’s been such a long time, it’s foreign even through the oddly nostalgic tingle that dances across his skin.
“So,” Arlene finally breaks the silence, “can you explain to me what exactly is going on with Eddie?”
“I–”
“Look, Stevie,” she sighs, “you know I’m not judging you in the slightest, right? I just feel like I need a better grasp on the situation. I mean, I walked into my own home to the guy perched on my countertops eating fucking Spaghetti-Os over the sink and looking like some sort of fantasy monster out of one of Le Guin’s novels. I need a little more context than the vague garbage excuses Owens and Stinson spouted at me.”
Steve raises an eyebrow, surprised she even knows anything, “Um, yeah, about that–how–?”
“Ellsco works with government contracts, and that requires me to have certain levels of clearance regarding confidential matters,” Arlene replies, a smug eyebrow raise punctuating her statement, “So needless to say, they learned quickly that they couldn’t shut me out. Not when Ellsco is as intertwined and as important to their work as we are.”
“Mom,” Steve breathes, “you didn’t!”
“You bet your ass I did!” she scoffs, “What, you think I wouldn’t threaten to pull funding for their weird little projects entirely once I found out my son was involved in something they fucked up?! And they thought they could just not tell me?”
“Oh my g–” Steve cackles, “Jesus Christ, you’re such a fucking badass, holy shit!”
“Praise me all you want, Bear, but that’s not getting you out of explaining what the hell is up with the claws and the ears and fangs and the tail.”
“He’s got wings too, actually.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.” He nods, “They’re small enough he can hide ‘em under his shirts now, if they’re baggy enough, but yeah.”
“Huh.” Arlene blinks slowly before she tosses her head slightly, as though she’s forcibly shaking herself out of her thoughts, “No distracting me, Bear. How did he get like that? Is it because of the, eh, what did they call it… Upside Down? The thing that caused the earthquakes and the weird cracks in the ground?”
“Kind of. It’s… it’s a really long story,” Steve sighs, raking his hand through his hair, “can… can we go sit down for this?”
“Jesus,” Arlene mutters, a concerned expression crossing her face, “how long is long, baby? You need to sit down to tell it?”
“Um.” 
“Baby Bear…”
“It’s been going on since ‘83.”
“Are you fucking–goddamn ‘83?!”
Steve cringes and shrugs, “I–I mean, y-yeah?”
Arlene pinches the bridge of her nose, “Shit. I might pull funding out of spite anyway, Jesus fucking Christ. And let me guess,” she spits, “you’ve been involved the whole goddamn time?”
“Uh–”
“Nope, no, Stevie-bear, that was rhetorical, you’re my kid, of course you were fucking involved. You’re too kind to not want to help, even if it was terrifying…”
“Um–”
“Did the fucking government just leave it all in the hands of fucking children?!”
“I mean, Ms. Byers and Hop were there the whole time–”
“Ms. Byers? Hop?” Arlene squints at Steve briefly, before she shakes her head, “Joyce and Jim? You’re telling me they were the only adults who knew about this?”
“I mean, yeah?” he shrugs, “It was mostly me, Nance, Jon, and later on, Rob? Oh, and the kids I told you about? The ones I babysit? And Ms. Byers and Hop were the adults in the know. We’ve kinda’ been like, the first line of defense, you know?”
Arlene looks distraught the more he talks, and Steve feels guilty for making his mom upset. He’d hoped he would have made her feel better, knowing he’s had adults on their side at least, but somehow he thinks he’s made it worse.
“Good God, baby…” she sounds winded, “how–how have you not called me for help sooner?”
“You’ve been busy, Mom,” he shrugs, “I’m okay, and you’ve got your own life. I don’t want to bother you with the trivial stuff.”
“None of that is trivial!”
He flinches.
“Baby!” He blinks in shock as warm palms fit smoothly around his cheeks, staring into his mom’s desperate teary eyes, “baby, nothing I do is more important than you, especially not if you need help.”
“I–”
“There’s nothing I can do about it now, it’s too little too late, but, please, Baby Bear,” she pleads with him, a frantic tone in her voice, “tell me next time, never assume it’s trivial, because I promise you, it isn’t.”
Unbidden, Steve feels tears well up again. He hasn’t cried this much since he was a kid, but he supposes it’s fitting now that his mom is back, bringing with her that feeling of safety he’d thought had vanished along with the warmth of his childhood summers in Italy.
“Okay,” he warbles, “O- Okay, momma, I promise.”
“Good,” she nods her head once, a jerky, emotional motion before gingerly focusing her attention on wiping the stray tears from Steve’s cheeks.
“C- Can we go sit now? If you still want to know about everything?”
“Yeah, Stevie-bear.” Arlene steps back away from him, her hands slipping from his face to his shoulders, sliding down his arms slowly, soothingly. Her delicate, manicured fingers gently encircle his wrists, holding him so softly with just the slightest pressure against the beat of his pulse. He smiles at her, feeling the way it wobbles on his lips in time with the tumultuous emotions roiling in his gut. She returns it in kind and together they head back into the living room, hand in hand. 
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Steve is half expecting Eds to be waiting for them like an eager puppy, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, but they aren’t greeted by his enthusiasm at all. Steve’s anxiety rises immediately and he darts away from his mom, bee-lining to the couch since that was the last place he saw Eddie. His heart calms when his eyes settle on the form of his sweetheart, curled around the blanket he snuggles under with Steve most nights, his nose buried in the folds and making soft huffing breaths in his sleep. Steve deflates, leaning heavily against the couch as the relief washes over him. He’s helpless to resist the urge that rises, reaching out and running his fingers through the beautiful boy’s hair, pushing it out of his face and tracing the shell of his long, tapered ear as he tucks the dark curls behind it. He knows how soft his expression must be, glad that his back is to his mom, because he doesn’t think he can stand her teasing right now. Eddie purrs quietly in his sleep, pressing into Steve’s touch and it pulls him back to reality. He straightens, turning back to Arlene. 
“Um, I’m going to sit here,” he tells her, aware his face is completely giving him away, but determined to not let it bother him. He squares his shoulders.
Arlene simply smiles warmly at him, pushing the armchair closer to the couch and settling into it, tucking her legs underneath her as she waits for him to get himself situated.
Steve exhales, looking down at the sweet, half-monster curled so cutely on the couch. He makes a quick decision and prays his mom won’t razz him too much for it.
He sits on the middle cushion, pulling one of the decorative pillows up against his side as a bolster before reaching over towards Eddie. Gently, he hauls the larger beastie towards him, eliciting some quiet grumbles but once Eds seems to understand that Steve’s thighs are to become his new pillow, Eds quiets quickly, purring loudly in pleasure and snuggling in, rolling over and pressing his face against Steve’s stomach. Steve sinks one hand into Eds’ hair, the other falling between his shoulder blades, skirting around the edges of where he knows Eddie’s wings lay flat against his back. He runs his fingers through dark curls, scraping blunt nails across his sweetheart’s scalp while Steve’s other hand rubs tender circles of delicate pressure against the knobs of Eddie’s spine through the yellow sweater he’s stolen from Steve’s closet. The purring sound increases in volume, the weight of his sweetheart doubling across his lap as the beastie goes boneless from Steve’s attention. 
“He’s very telling, isn’t he?”
“No,” Steve sighs, “he’s just affectionate, I think.”
Arlene scrunches her brow, “Really? Stevie–”
“Eddie died, mom.”
The sharp inhale he hears makes him squeeze his eyes shut as old pain rises to the surface. He hates thinking about it, but it’s the reality. Eddie is like this because he’d died in the Upside Down, and they’d–he’d–left Eddie there to rot.
“We… Spring Break,” Steve chokes out, “was the most recent incident. A- A girl was killed in front of him, mom. He- He had no idea about any of it before then, you know? He’d just run this dorky little nerd game club that the boys I babysit for are nutso about, and he was- he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think he was trying to help her, really. Wrong way to help her, with drugs, but I mean, his heart was in the right place.”
Steve chuckles, tugging a little on Eds’ curls and pulling a soft whine from his throat, the sound smothered in the fabric of Steve’s shirt. He barely catches it, but the vibration against his stomach makes him shiver with want. He stuffs it down, because now isn’t the time for those kinds of thoughts, but he logs it in his memory for later.
“Anyway, she- she died really awfully, mom. Like, body-horror awful. He ran, and I don’t blame him. It made it look like he’d killed her, though, which fucking blows. Hop and the government spooks are working on clearing his name, but we don’t know how long that’s going to take. Anyway… turns out what killed this girl in his home in front of him is tied to the shit that’s been happening since ‘83. We all got roped in, and well… in the end, we had to uh, split the party. He went with Dustin–” he looks up at his mom, brow furrowed, “I’ve told you about Dustin, right?”
Arlene smiles at him, eyes soft and incredibly sad through all the fondness scrawled across every inch of her face.
“Yeah, Stevie-bear,” she says, kindly, “you have. You said he’s like the little brother you always wish you’d had, even if he has… Oh, what did you say? Ah, right,” she chuckles, “the biggest ego you’ve ever seen.”
Steve snorts, “Y- Yeah, that’s Dusty, alright. Um, yeah. So… Eddie went with Dust, they were the distraction, cause there were these other things that uhhh–basically they were trying to block us from stopping the evil guy who we’d been calling Vecna or One… and they did, but something went wrong. So to protect Dustin, he–”
Steve chokes on his emotions, fear and nausea rising in his throat as memories of finding Dustin wailing over Eddie’s corpse bombard his mind, filling him with grief all over again. He has to focus on not hyperventilating because fuck, Eddie’s right here, in his lap, breathing and alive–changed but alive–and while he’d left Eddie behind, Steve had gone back, he’d gotten Eds out of there, he’d gotten Eddie out of Hell. He exhales, shaking.
“To protect Dustin, he made the sacrifice play… and he’d not made it.”
“Oh, Stevie…”
He feels the tears spilling, can hear the agony in his mom’s voice, the empathy in her tone, sympathy oozing on every word. He sniffles, roughly wiping his face with the back of his hand, laughing humorlessly as the tears continue to burble down his cheeks, fat and unrelenting.
“I- I’d had to drag Dust off of him… off his corpse, mom. He- He was kicking and screaming, his ankle was broken, and he didn’t care, he just–” Steve chokes on another sob, “–he just wanted Eddie to be alive, and there I was, dragging him away from- from one of the only other older male figures in his life. And- And I had to leave his body there to rot.”
Arlene is on her feet between one heartbeat and the next, falling onto the cushion beside Steve and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, holding him tightly and rocking them gently back and forth. He sobs.
“I- I had to leave him behind, mom!”
“Shh, Stevie, shhhh…” she soothes, her voice broken and threaded with sadness, “it sounds like you didn’t have a choice, baby, you’re just one man.”
“I- I should have tried harder, mom! I should never have left him there!”
“Oh, baby… oh my Baby Bear, no…” Arlene chokes out, her arms trembling where they clutch tight around him, “It’s not your fault, and I guarantee Eddie would tell you the exact same thing if he was awake right now.”
Steve breaks.
He falls apart, crumbling into his mom’s embrace as she holds him, quietly murmuring wordless comfort. The weight of Eddie’s body across his lap is grounding, and it keeps him from completely disconnecting from reality as he weeps, clutching Arlene’s button front so hard he’s almost afraid he might tear holes into the fabric. His mom’s fingers thread into the hair at the nape of Steve’s neck, stroking with firm passes that make him go boneless with a pained whine, his face sticky with salt from all the tears he’s cried as he buries it in his mom’s shoulder. He feels a tight pressure around his waist, and he lifts his head from where he’s had it smashed against Arlene’s body, looking down to see that Eddie has wound one of his arms around Steve, snuggling in close and deepening his sub-vocal purring noises to the point that Steve can feel the vibrations strongly through his skin.
“I had a lot of time to get to know Eddie today, Stevie.”
Steve lifts his gaze, turning swollen, teary eyes to his mother’s face. She looks determined, a stubborn set to her jaw that makes Steve sit up and listen, because for all that his mother is playful and kind, she’s also fierce and refuses to not be taken seriously when the situation calls for it. 
“Not a single thing that he told me has led me to believe that he would for a single second allow you to go on thinking that his death was in any way your fault.”
“But–”
“Nor would he allow you to beat yourself up for leaving him behind. I’m certain that he understands that you had to decide between a corpse and a living person–between his dead body and Dustin, who if I’m not mistaken, you both adore–which he would agree is a no-brainer decision, Stevie.”
“I–”
“Steve.”
He swallows, blinking away the remnants of tears at the fierce tone in his mom’s voice.
“Eddie is a kind boy. He would hate that you’re beating yourself up like this. And he’s back now, isn’t he? If I know you,” she says, raising an eyebrow, “and I like to think that I do, you probably went back for him, didn’t you?”
Speechless, all Steve can do is nod. Arlene sighs, hanging her head.
“Steve,” she says on an exhale, “that decision alone is… it’s amazing, incredibly kind and thoughtful. You went back to collect a body, I’m assuming, to bring closure to a mourning family and to a boy you love like a little brother. How am I doing so far?”
“P- Pretty good, actually,” he chuckles humorlessly.
Arlene hums, “Figured. So when you went back, what did you find?”
Steve takes a deep breath, collecting himself. She’s amazing at this, refocusing the conversations when they deviate off the ideal pathways. It’s something that makes her an excellent businesswoman–distracting anecdotes don’t work on her.
“Um. He wasn’t human anymore. Eds was… he was basically a feral monster. But- But I took a risk, and it… it worked. He recognized me, and um. I think he imprinted on me or something?”
“Oh?”
“Y- Yeah, he got, uhh. Really affectionate? Um, didn’t want to part from me, liked to be touching all the time, very protective.”
“Animalistic, would you say?”
“Y-Yeah, that’s a good way to put it, I guess.” Steve agrees, nodding, “He seemed to run almost exclusively off of like, instinct or something, and it wasn’t human instinct. Whatever happened to him down there, it mutated him into whatever he is now.”
His mom’s face twists slightly in a disagreeing expression, “He’s not that mutated, Stevie. A little different maybe, with the ears and tail and claws, but it’s not completely inexplicable or unable to be concealed.”
“It was… it was worse, before.”
“What do you mean, worse?”
Steve exhales, dropping his gaze back down to the sleeping sweetheart sprawled across his lap. His fingers tighten in their hold within dark curls, pulling a thick, needy sound from Eds’ throat that’s thankfully muffled into Steve’s shirt. 
“I mean… it was more obvious that he wasn’t–isn’t–human anymore, mom. He didn’t look even remotely human when we found him. He walked on four legs, his face was more bat-like than human… hell, you’ve seen how big he is. I thought he was going to kill me at first, but…”
“But he didn’t.”
Steve shakes his head, a melancholic smile tugging the corner of his lips upwards, “Like I said, he recognized me, or something, and bonded with me somehow. The affectionate nature just… never left, and he’s been really tactile ever since.”
“So, if he was more–” Arlene’s words are cut off by the dinging of a timer. He looks in tandem with her to glance through the doorway into the kitchen, before returning his gaze back to her face.
“... are you cooking something, mom?”
“Ah, shit,” she says, clapping her hands on her thighs and standing with a quiet grunt, “Yeah, I was. I was actually teaching your boy there the patented Chiara family bolognese before we started drinking.” 
Steve’s heart flutters wildly in his chest, because that’s…
“Mom…”
She smiles at him, a knowing look in her blue-green eyes as she raises an eyebrow at him, “Stevie, the poor thing was eating Spaghetti-Os. What kind of Italian-American would I be if I didn’t offer to feed him?”
“Fair point,” he laughs quietly, resuming his petting through Eddie’s soft curls, looking down at the boy in his lap, “but you… you were teaching him..?”
Arlene shrugs, “I just get the feeling that this one wants to stick around, Baby Bear,” she says as she turns and walks away to the kitchen, no doubt to check on the bolognese. 
Steve chews on his lower lip after she leaves the living room, wishing horribly that he knew what the two of them had talked about while he was at work, or what his mom had seen in Eddie that makes her so sure of him. The Chiara family recipes are a closely guarded secret, and he knows how tightly she holds them, how fiercely she protects them. That she was so willing to share the family recipes with Eddie, it seems impossible. She’s said before that she would share them with his future wife, but he’s definitely not made a marriage announcement. (Although it’s not like his overly-romantic hard-and-fast heart hasn’t imagined it already… Maybe she’s considering it good-as, because technically actual marriage is illegal for people like them–like mom and himself?) Steve shakes his head and waits for his mom to come back, focusing on the happy rumbles coming from the sleeping beast in his lap.
Arlene saunters back into the living room five minutes later, smelling of delicious meat sauce and humming with satisfaction. She settles back into her armchair and smiles at Steve.
“So. Where were we?”
“Uhhh,” he blinks, “we were talking about how I found Eds in the Upside Down.”
“Right,” she nods, “you said he bonded with you, or something of that nature and became affectionate and tactile, and that hasn’t faded.”
“Yeah.”
“You mentioned that he was… hmm.” Arlene trails off, her brows furrowed as she clearly searches for the right word, “Monstrous when you found him, correct?”
“Mmhm, yeah. He didn’t even really look human, his hair was more of a mane and his face wasn’t even remotely human-shaped, he kinda had a bat-like smushed nose. And like, two sets of ears? Giant talons and huge wings, his tail was even way longer and stronger too.”
Arlene squints, “So then, how exactly did he start to look more… human?”
Steve smiles, “That was all Dustin.”
“Oh? You let Dustin see him?”
“Of course I did. I knew he would be safe, Eds loves Dust just as much as I do. Plus, he did really well with Wayne so it seemed perfectly alright to let the little shithead come over… besides, I didn’t really want to let him go on hurting and mourning Eddie’s death if he didn’t have to, you know? It really messed him up, mom. I hated seeing him like that… it was like he’d lost a huge part of himself, and here I had a way to help him heal from that wound.”
His mom’s eyes are soft, her lips pulled into a gentle smile that’s dripping with love and Steve squirms under the weight of her gaze, heat rising up his neck and making his cheeks blotchy with embarrassment.
“A- Anyway,” he stutters, “Dust figured out he’s some strange variation on a vampire, and so we tried feeding him blood to test the theory. It worked, and so since then I’ve been feeding him my blood, which has been helping him regain a more human appearance.”
“Your blood?”
“It’s not very much! I don’t even get, like, dizzy after he feeds!” Steve raises the hand that’s not buried in Eds’ hair, waving it frantically, “It’s barely even like donating blood–I don’t think he takes anywhere near a pint every time he feeds.”
“Okay… and you’re being safe, right?”
“Mom, this… this isn’t like The Crisis, okay?” he whispers, “And even if it was, I’m not stupid enough to take any chances with my own health or his, I promise.”
“Ellsco headquarters might be in Boston, but I’ve already watched a few of my friends just… disappear, and I’d…” Arlene squares her shoulders, “I would hate to watch my son fade away like that. I just want you to be safe, okay? Do you know… do you know how to go and get tested, Bear?”
He nods, “I- I read about it in a zine I got from Indy.”
Arlene nods once, decisive, “I’ll go with you, if you want to get it done while I’m here.”
Steve smiles at her, wobbly and grateful, “Okay, mom. That’s weird, getting tested with your mom, but… I’m grateful.”
“We can make a day of it,” she says, waving a hand and settling back in her armchair, “get some breakfast somewhere, get the testing–I should get my testing updated, too, honestly–and then just shop around and enjoy ourselves!”
“Ah–but, what about Eds?” Steve bites his lip and looks down at the sleeping boy, “I don’t think I’d be able to just… leave him behind all day to go have fun without him.”
“Hm,” Arlene hums, “well, we can wait a bit, of course. Oh!” her eyes brighten as a devious smirk spreads across her face. Steve’s heart races in his chest as his nerves blare alarm bells in his head.
“Mom… what are you…”
“I bet I could just con Owens into doing it for us.”
“MOM!”
“What? The asshole owes me.” She scoffs and tosses her head, a childish pout on her lips, “He tried to keep me from my own son, what absolute gall.”
Steve snorts, “Okay, okay. Alright, mom.”
“Plus, wouldn’t it be better for Eddie’s blood to remain with someone we have leverage with, rather than some random lab people who might report any abnormalities?”
“Wait–you’re including Eds in our weird little mother-son testing day? Mom!”
She shrugs, “Well, isn’t it better for you to know now? I mean, if you two are gonna be–”
“SHHH! MOM!!” he whisper shrieks at her, his face flaming.
“What?” she blinks, false innocence across her face as her lips threaten to break into a cheesing grin, “He’s asleep, he’s not listening.”
“Jesus H. Christ, you can’t just say that!! Besides,” he grumbles, “just because I like him doesn’t necessarily mean that he likes me, even if he has been really tactile and affectionate, okay?”
Steve hears the sound of skin slapping against skin and he looks up at his mom, brows furrowing at the sight of her with her hand pressed over her face. She groans, the sound pained and he wonders if she just smacked herself in the forehead or something, which is pretty unlike her.
“Uhh, mom? …You okay?”
“Peachy,” she grouses out. “Stevie-bear, light of my life; I adore you, but sometimes I want to shake you until your head flies off.”
“Um.”
Arlene peels her hand away from her face, leveling Steve with the flattest look he’s ever seen her shoot him before. She heaves a great sigh, shaking her head.
“You’re pretty convinced he’s not interested in you like that then, Stevie?”
“I mean…” he swallows, his blotchy blush filling in further as more heat floods his face, “I would be really happy if he were interested, but… I don’t, um. I don’t think he is? He’s been physically affectionate, but from what I’ve heard from Wayne, I don’t think he’s like us.”
She arches an eyebrow, “You know sexuality is fluid, so why are you being so rigid with him? Who’s to say that he couldn’t be interested in you?”
Steve chews on his lower lip, fidgeting with his handful of Eddie’s curls, “You’re… you’re not wrong, I guess. But, it sort of feels like I’m forcing my feelings on him when I think about it like that, you know?”
“Not really, Stevie.”
He huffs, a puff of air blowing stray bangs back off his forehead. “It’s like I’m taking what I want to see in him and forcing it to be the truth, even if it’s really not, confusing my own desires with what’s actually there.”
“Mixing fantasy and reality?”
He snaps, pointing at his mom as she puts words to his thoughts. “Yes! That!”
Arlene sighs, “I suppose I can understand falling for the straight person. It’s definitely happened before, and I’ve only seen you two interact very briefly, but…” she trails off, lips pursed and brow furrowed. Steve watches his mom carefully. It’s telling how selective she’s being in choosing her words, it’s obvious she thinks she knows something, and again he wonders just what she and Eds talked about while he was at work. 
“I mean, you saw us interact while Eds was drunk, mom.”
She waves him off, “In vino veritas, Stevie.”
He rolls his eyes at her and waits for her to finally come up with what she wants to say.
“I don’t think it’s as far from reality as you think it may be.” She says quietly, fixing him with a serious look, “He clearly adores you, and the way he spoke about you when we were talking felt like it went beyond just friendship to me.”
Steve’s heart stutters in his chest, that tiny flame of hope sputtering and sparking where he’s kept it safe behind his ribs.
“I don’t think it would be completely far-fetched to maybe consider testing those waters a bit more, Stevie. If you really like him the way I think you do,” she raises an eyebrow as his blush darkens, “then you should maybe show him more. Turn up the charm, give him more of a taste of what you have to offer.”
“I–”
“Steve, Eddie is a sweet boy.” She says this as a statement, like she knows it’s a fact, and it soothes something deep in his brain–some anxious doubt lurking around at the edges and making him feel off kilter. With the easing of it, the ground beneath his feet is no longer lurching, suddenly stabilized and solid once again. 
“I spoke to him a lot today and I can confidently say that you wouldn’t lose him if you were to admit any feelings. Or if that’s too much too fast for you, just being more obvious about how you feel about him wouldn’t end with him outright rejecting those advances. Hell, you might be surprised.”
“But…”
“Stevie,” Arlene interrupts him, leaning forward in her seat, “you should just do what you want, okay? Just, treat him like you would if he was just one of the girls you dated before.”
“He’s so much more than them, though…”
“Then show him that, Stevie.”
He swallows, nerves alight with possibilities as that tiny flame grows just a little stronger where it remains safe in his heart. Hope bubbles in his chest, feeding it steadily as he contemplates what his mom has just told him. She’s more experienced in this sort of thing than him, he has to admit–queer romance is out of his wheelhouse, as this is his first actual attempt. And he’s terrified still, but there’s a thrill that runs through his veins now that wasn’t there before, beating in tandem with the pulse of the flickering flame behind its ivory cage. 
“You- You really think I should? That I- That I have a chance?”
“I do, Baby Bear. I really, really do.” She says, a smile spreading across her face, “I just want to see you happy, and it’s so obvious how happy he makes you, even now.”
“Thanks, mom.”
“Any time, baby. I love you.”
“I love you too, momma.”
Arlene flops back in the armchair, gusting out a breath, “Lord almighty, I am emotionally drained right now, you take years off my gay little life, Stevie, I swear.”
“H- Hey!”
She cackles, an ugly braying donkey laugh that makes Steve warm with nostalgia. He joins in after a moment, his own burbling chuckles spilling out of his lungs. It’s nice, sitting with his mom and his sweetheart in the living room, just spending time together. The two of them chat quietly, Steve stroking Eds’ hair as he finally fills her in on what has happened in Hawkins since ‘83. A lot of what he tells Arlene upsets her, but she takes it all in and handles the shock well. She migrates over to the couch from the armchair somewhere in the middle of his retelling of the events at Starcourt, and holds his hand tightly as he talks, his voice shaking. By the end of the events of Spring Break and what he knows about the whole Russian rescue mission and the California crew’s cross country adventure, she’s holding him tightly. She solemnly promises to be more involved in his life from now on and he pretends not to notice the way her tears soak the shoulder of his shirt or the way she has to forcibly collect herself afterwards. 
Arlene transitions their discussion fluidly into an easy chat after she’s finished asking questions about the Upside Down and all the crazy shit tied to it, keeping the discussion mundane as she fills him in on some of the upcoming projects Ellsco has taken on. A lot of her work is confidential, but not all of it is as the Fortune 500 company has its fingers in lots of pies–she relishes in telling him about a few passion projects that haven’t required her to sign a thousand and one NDAs. She tells him how Gramma and Grampy are doing, how Grampy is enjoying his partial retirement now that she’s taken over. She also mentions reconnecting with his uncle Ben–Steve would swear his mom had a sister, not a brother, but he’s probably just remembering wrong–and how they’d met up on one of her business trips to Miami a few years ago by chance. It’s wonderful. Steve finds himself relaxing as they converse easily back and forth, sharing the parts of their lives they’ve missed over the past few years.
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Steve is alone in the living room again, Arlene having just gone into the kitchen to check on the bolognese a final time, enjoying the quiet as he cards his fingers through dark curls, lightly dragging his nails against the skin of Eddie’s scalp in the tranquil atmosphere. He feels the body laid across his lap begin to stir after a time and he casts his gaze down to the boy he’s been playing pillow for, a smile tugging at his lips.
“Mmn–” Eds grumbles, his voice heavy with sleep as his strong arms squeeze around Steve’s middle, “–S’vie?”
“Good morning, lazybones,” Steve murmurs in reply, chuckling. “You awake now?”
Eddie blinks open bleary hickory eyes, drowsy and clouded as he turns his gaze up at Steve; twisting from the prone position he’s adopted, splayed across Steve’s thighs. His jaw cracks in a wide yawn that exposes his sharp fangs and long tongue before he buries his face against Steve’s stomach again, humming happily.
“M’wake,” Eddie mumbles, “y’r warm…”
“I’m warm?” Steve snickers, tugging gently on a small handful of curls in his amusement. The action pulls a thick sound from Eds’ throat, yanking at a burning thread of desire deep in Steve’s core that he steadfastly ignores in favor of releasing his hold on Eddie’s hair. “I’m flattered, but you’ve been sleeping for a few hours now and dinner is going to be ready soon. Aren’t you hungry yet?”
The face Eddie makes in response is cute; all pouty and crinkled in his disapproval. He’s clearly not in favor of moving off of Steve. “I’m–”
The sudden rumbling of Eds’ stomach cuts him off, the sound well timed and harmonizing with the gurgling of Steve’s own stomach when it makes itself known moments later. Eddie jolts away from Steve’s body, the dramatic reaction pulling a laugh from Steve. The embarrassment that scrawls its way across Eds’ face is plain to see in the pink flush that colors his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, reaching even the tips of his pointed ears. It’s unbearably cute–he wants to nip at them.
“I… I guess I’m kinda hungry,” he admits, shyly looking away from Steve.
“Hm,” Steve drawls, smiling fondly at his sweetheart, “I mean, I’m pretty hungry too. Mom told me you helped her make the sauce, so I guess I’m pretty excited to see how it turned out. Especially since you had a hand in it.”
That pretty pink flush goes darker to Steve’s delight, and he eagerly watches as Eddie fidgets in place, absurdly pleased that he doesn’t try to move out of Steve’s space. He loves how close they are, all pressed together like this. He’s starved for touch, and Eds’ is his favorite of all. It always feels like a dream and sometimes he has to remind himself that no, it’s reality. He’s just this lucky. 
“Arlene did most of the wo- work,” Eddie mumbles, “I just th- threw stuff in the pot and st- stirred it sometimes.”
“That’s still helping, silly.” Steve chastises kindly, “It counts.”
Eds looks up at him with huge hickory eyes, sparkling and wide, gleaming with hope. “It… does?”
“Mmhm,” Steve nods, unable to contain his fondness–all the love he has for this boy. He can feel the way it colors his smile, the way it pulls at the edges of his eyes, the way his shoulders slope in Eds’ direction like he can’t bear to turn away from him. He thinks about what his mom said about him, how she doesn’t think he would lose Eddie if he confessed… how she thinks he could easily get away with upping the ante, so to speak. He chews the inside of his cheek, excited anxiety brewing in his gut at the thought of turning up the charm–of wooing the man he wants, the way he wants to.
There’s a lot that could go wrong if he did decide to really start turning on the charm with Eds. So far, he’s just tried to- to be nice… to be kind to him; to be a safe harbor when Eds feels anxious, and a place he knows he can come to rest his head when the world feels too big, too mean, or just too much. Nothing he’s done so far falls within the typical big displays of romance, but that’s okay because it’s the tiny acts of devotion that Steve loves best. He loves being able to do things for his partners, to show them how much he adores them, how often they cross his mind. He does things for them without a second thought because he wants to make their life easier, he wants to ease whatever burdens them if only for a short while–he wants to integrate himself into their life in any way he can, even if that means he’s only there in the capacity as a meat shield or a workhorse. If he can make himself useful, helpful, to them… that’s enough for him. 
He always wants to do more, of course. He wants to pamper, to take care of them, but he’s been accused more than once of being overbearing; of being needy–of being clingy. He smothers those urges as best he can, because he’s learned that it’s not what most people want from him. Does he hope that one day he’ll find someone who will indulge him in those urges? Yes, of course. But he’s aware it’s far fetched and selfish. But with Eddie it’s so hard… with Eddie, he’s greedy. He wants all of it–he wants to wash his hair, wants to cook his lunches, his dinners. He wants to hold him in his arms on the couch and watch bad TV until he falls asleep, and wants to make him feel safe when he wakes from nightmares of monochrome skies and unfriendly landscapes. He wants to take care of him, to help him regain his human appearance so he has a chance to return to society, a chance to be himself amongst other people again. He wants to see Eddie spread his metaphorical wings again, prance on the cafeteria tables of the world and take them all by storm–he’s a force of nature and to see such a beautiful creature caged and forced behind closed doors is a tragedy he refuses to see play out any longer than it has to. He will not clip those metaphorical wings, no matter how badly he wants Eddie to stay with him.
What’s the saying? If you love it, let it go?
He’ll just have to hope Eddie will want to return to him when his shackles are finally shattered.
Take a chance, hope that his mom is right. The risk is worth the reward, after all.
Steve smiles down at Eddie, finally releases the tenuous hold on his control. He feels it when his smile easily slides into a far more flirtatious territory than he’s previously allowed it to venture with Eds; a smile he’s only ever used on women he’s wanted to date before now. He gently grasps Eddie’s chin, the firm grip pulling a stuttering breath around fangs and from between plush, parted lips as Steve lifts his half-monster’s jaw to force their eyes to meet. He watches with a hungry gaze as hickory eyes widen, as he leans in closer until his nose just barely brushes against his sweetheart’s. He can feel the way Eds’ breath quickens; hot against his cheek, ghosting against his own mouth. It’s tantalizing, but he can be patient… it will be worth the wait. Steve knows how to play this back-and-forth game of seduction and desire, and he’s going to play it right with Eddie. He’s a clumsy flirt in front of other people and cheesy beyond belief, but sometimes he hits the correct notes and he thinks he’s got Eddie’s number right.
“It does count, sweetheart,” he rumbles out, his voice heavy and deep with desire. “Did you know,” he adds, conversationally, like their proximity isn’t boiling the blood in his veins with want, “that no one aside from my mom or my Gramma has ever cooked for me, before?”
“N- No- No one?” Eddie breathes out, his voice no louder than a whisper as he stumbles over his words. Steve relishes in the way his inhuman pupils have dilated, the way his breathing has gone ragged, heavy in the meager space between them. Steve licks his lips, immediately clocking the way Eddie’s gaze locks onto and tracks the path his tongue takes with something like wildness behind those dark, hickory eyes.
“No one,” he replies, his lips just barely brushing against Eddie’s cheek as he speaks. He can feel the way the skin of his neck tightens while Eddie swallows; hears the clicking sound his throat makes at the action. Steve feels alive in a way he hasn’t in a long time. He’s forgotten how fun it is to flirt when he really wants someone–when there isn’t an audience to make him embarrassed about the corny lines he tends to spew.
“You’re my first, Eds.”
He pulls away from Eddie after his statement, doing his best to hide how affected he is by the starstruck look on his half-monster’s face. Steve feels like he could fly because holy shit, mom was right? The way Eddie sits there, eyes wide and dark, breathing raggedly with the prettiest of blushes coloring his skin from the tips of his pointed ears all the way down his throat to where his collar bones disappear into the collar of that stolen sweater. The delicate color highlighting the planes of his skin is… it’s gorgeous, and Steve wants to sink his teeth into the curve of his neck, wants to bite and leave marks along the angles of his jaw. Eddie looks dazed, one clawed hand clutching at his chest, rising and falling rapidly beneath it as he stares at Steve with glossy, wet eyes like he’s seeing him anew; a deity made flesh, something to worship in reality. His lips are still parted, plush and glistening–begging to be kissed, and it takes all of his willpower to resist, but somehow, miraculously, he manages. Eddie looks like a dream, a temptation demanding to be ravished, and ohhh, how Steve wants.
Instead, he gets up off the couch.
He relishes in the keening whine that tears out of Eds’ throat as he steps away, putting more distance between them, allows himself to delight in the surge of pride that swirls in his gut as Eddie sways unbidden in his direction, instinctively trying to close the distance without realizing he’s even doing it. He can’t help the smug way his flirtatious smirk pulls up on one side at the way Eds’ hand flexes on nothing, desperate to touch that which Steve has taken away. Seeing all of it painted in technicolor before him is the greatest gift he could receive and he feels settled–assured that he’s making the right calls. Because, yeah. Yes, he’s absolutely going to take this leap of faith. 
Eddie is worth the fear, the unknown, the potential loss. He’s worth everything.
And so far, it’s looking like his mom was right in that he’s playing a winning game.
He’s got nothing to lose, but everything to gain.
“Well?” he says, raising an eyebrow at Eddie and making a “come hither” gesture with his index finger, “Are you gonna come with me, eat the dinner that you made? Or are you going to languish alone on the couch all night?”
Eddie shakes his head frantically, a squeaking sound tumbling from his mouth as he all but throws himself off the couch and stumbles to his feet. He’s all baby-deer legs and Bambi-eyes as he scrambles to get to Steve’s side; all flailing limbs and pinwheeling tail, desperately trying to counter balance his lurching weight. Steve starts walking backwards towards the door to the kitchen, never taking his eyes off his awkward sweetheart. He lets Eddie get close, lets him think he’s won, lets him think he’s caught Steve–but it’s a ruse and Steve swiftly slips out of reach. It’s a fun little game, and he enjoys the tiny noises of frustration that slip from Eds’ throat when Steve manages to just evade a grasping claw, keeping barely out of Eddie’s range as they slowly make their way towards the kitchen.
When his ankle catches on something on the ground Steve’s eyes widen, his heart lurching in his chest with momentary panic. He pauses, looking down to spot the stray blanket that somehow managed to make its way into the pathway to the kitchen. He jerks his gaze back to Eddie when he feels a strong, talon-tipped hand grip his shirt. The sudden impact throws him off balance, and with the way the blanket hooks around his ankle, he flings his arms out in an attempt to steady himself. He ends up digging his fingers into the meat of Eddie’s arms, but his body’s momentum seems to have caught them both off guard because the next thing he knows, he’s hitting the ground–although the ground feels softer than he remembers?
He blinks open eyes he doesn’t remember closing, staring down at the dazed, flushed face of his half-monster. Those huge eyes are hooded and dark, as his breath comes hot and panting. His talon-tipped hands clench where they rest against Steve’s sides, just above his hips, and one talon has slipped beneath Steve’s shirt, grazing the skin of his flank. 
Oh.
Steve flushes, because fuck Eddie looks delicious like this and how they got there is… he must have spun them mid fall to take the impact, since he’s so much larger than Steve is. Bigger and yet so… so submissive, so docile, so sweet.
Shit, that’s really hot… and also stupidly precious.
Eddie stares up at him, blinking hazy hickory eyes, and Steve finally realizes how close their faces are. His breath shudders in his lungs, because oh god, he wants to take Eddie apart, to hear him whine and cry and fall to pieces beneath him–
“Wow. Either you’re the fastest moving guy on the planet, or you’re just some sort of klutzy flirting savant, Bear.”
The sudden, amused comment delivered with such dry humor yanks a surprised yelp from Steve. He jolts upright as his most-hated blotchy blush spreads across his face and down his chest, and he glares at his mom where she leans with her arms crossed against the door frame to the kitchen. She looks smug, tapping the wooden spoon she holds in one hand absently against one arm, a “told-you-so” expression smeared across her face.
“Mom!” he barks, embarrassment oozing from every pore. He’s about to yell at her to go away, but he snaps his mouth shut when he clocks the quiet, pathetic mewling that’s coming from Eddie. The sound sends a rush of molten heat down his spine and Steve jerks his head downward, his gaze locking onto the boy he has pinned under him. His eyes widen at the absolute vision beneath him, greedily taking in the way Eddie’s chest is heaving, a furious flush coloring his cheeks and throat, his head tossed to the side. His hands have dropped from Steve’s hips to the carpet–one is clenched between his fangs in a meager attempt to muffle his noises. Only then does he finally notice the way his thigh is pressed hard against the zipper of Eddie’s jeans, and–
Ohhhh. He’s–
Fuck.
Steve swallows and slowly pulls his leg away, a muffled, gasping whine tumbling from around the finger in Eds’ teeth, between his parted lips, soft but not silent. Steve can see the way those denim-clad thighs tremble, the way the claws of his other hand sink into the carpet pile, skin across his knuckles taut and locked with tension. And… And Steve did that to him… just by—
—Jesus H. Christ, that’s so fucking hot I’m going to die and my mother is right there goddamnit—
“Mom… we’ll be there in a few, okay?”
“Okay,” she drawls, amusement in her tone, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Oh my– fucking, shoo, woman!”
Cackling, Arlene retreats into the kitchen. “Spaghetti’s almost done, better hurry up!”
“Okay, mom! Jesus!”
Steve sits back on his heels, giving Eddie some space to calm down as he drops his head into his hands, completely embarrassed at being caught in such a compromising position by his mother. He groans to himself, because goddamnit, everything had been going so well up until then, too! He hadn’t made a fool of himself yet, his flirting was going great! He’s a cheesy, corny dork, but it’d been working! Playful, fun… and then he’d had to go and trip over a fucking blanket like a dumbass–
“Steve..?”
He jolts upright, staring at Eddie with wide eyes. “You okay?” he immediately asks, chewing his lower lip. He’s honestly more concerned about whether or not he crossed a line with the whole… knee-to-dick-accidental-frottage than anything else.
Eddie blinks at him, clearly stunned, before a shy smile spreads across his face along with the darkening of his delicately-pink blush. He tugs a chunk of his curls in front of his mouth, averting his gaze as he pulls his shoulders up. “I- I’m okay. A- Are you hurt?”
“No, no, Eds! Not at all, thanks to you catching me like that…”
Eddie preens a little, shifting in place as his flush darkens further, “Couldn’t let you get hurt…”
“Well, I don’t want you to get hurt, either. Okay?”
Eddie nods, “M’okay. Promise.”
“Good.” Steve nods back decisively before chuckling. “Well, now that we’ve both embarrassed ourselves in front of my mother, ready to go get bullied by her while we eat delicious food?”
Eddie’s grin is wide, exposing all his fangs in all their glory as he nods. “Yes!”
Steve stands up and extends a hand down to Eds with a smile. “Well, then what are we waiting for?”
Eddie takes his hand, his grin softening as he looks up at Steve with a tender affection that makes the little flame behind Steve’s ribs grow just a little bit more.
Yeah…
Steve thinks to himself later, his heart full to bursting as he watches his mom and the man he hopes to build something with interact like they’re already family.
…the risk will definitely be worth the reward.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. 
I’d be a fool not to try.
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GO STEVIE!!! YOU GO GET YO MANS!!!!
hello everyone i am deceased, my ghost is writing this.
fucking hELL these past checks calendar NINE days have been actual literal nightmare fuel jesus h christ on a fucking unicycle i would like to sleep for a thousand years now please and thank you.
anyway! this ended up being uhhhhh. longer than i predicted. but hopefully that makes up for the wait. we're gonna get into some more meat of this bad boy in the next installment i think, but we'll see if it doesn't run away from me hahaha
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the support banners (and the content warning banners) are from here! they're beautiful, aren’t they? So in love with them. cafekitsune has made some gorgeous stuff. please check them out if you're a creator!
----------------------------------- THE PERMA-TAG LIST ----------------------------------- @almondflavoredbookworm @anne-bennett-cosplayer @awkwardgravity1 @brainsteddielyrotted @cashewnutofdoom @child-of-cthulhu @croatoan-like-its-hot @dame-zoom-a-lot @dauntlessdiva @ellietheasexylibrarian @estrellami-1 @eyesofshinigami @goodolefashionedloverboi @gregre369 @grimmfitzz @gutterflower77 @himbosandhardwear @hippieg1rl420 @hornybunnybaby @insteviewetrust @kacatshi @kingelyx @lawrencebshoggoth @lunabyrd @matchingbatbites @me-and-my-sloth @moltenchocolatelavacake @monsterloverforhire @mugloversonly @numinosmoon @obliosworld @ohmeg @panicatthediaz @pansexuality-activated @prazinos @queenie-ofthe-void @rainyefflorescence @sani-86 @sergeisilence @simplebtromance @snarkfamily @steddieinthesun @steddielations @steddieonbigboy @steddiewithachance @vacantwatchers @waelkyring @warlordess @y4r3luv The perma-list on the main post is full! But don’t worry, you can still ask to be tagged!  Your name will just end up in the replies, rather than the main post. I won’t forget you, I had to make a spreadsheet to keep track of all of you, which is fucking wild to me but i’m so goddamn flustered and blushy and skfnalsghaso about it so it’s whatever i guess.
I also have a list of folks who didn’t ask specifically to be tagged for future installments, but have been extremely enthusiastic about the story from the beginning based on their reblogs and/or replies to the posts. So if you’re on that list, unless you tell me otherwise, I'll continue putting your name in the replies. You can also follow the story tag, which is #Take Me Home steddie fic where you might find my posted sneak peeks or wip updates in between the actual parts, or you can even just follow me, @hobbyistauthor for all my nonsense!
If you don’t want to be tagged or want to be taken off the tag list for any reason, just let me know either in the replies or via DM. I don't bite much.
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cerastes · 3 days
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as far as my circle of mutuals goes, i think you're the only cishet guy around these days
We held a tournament, Highlander style, where we beheaded each other after climatic sword duels and absorbed the fallen's power. I am the Last Cishet who absorbed all of their power, known only by my title: Son Boy Allowed.
No but jest aside, that post did make me think of the times it's been brought up that I Am This in spaces where that's not the norm, and, well, each friend group or community has its own story, and in my case, it happened to be that the majority of people in my friend group & adjacent community, over the years, came out as trans mainly plus a few other identities, and while I did not understand it at all initially (even considered it could be catfishing, because I am from ye olde internet where catfishing was rampant and an olympic sport), my logic was "ok I love this person, they are asking me if I can refer to them as the other gender now, and that that's what they really are. There's not anything wrong at all with that, nor do I think this person I consider my friend could have nefarious intents with this, like catfishing, because I know them, so sure thing, let's go with that" and with time, I learned more and more about these topics, either by my own initiative (because I wanted to understand more) and when committing faux passes, because my friends would correct me or pull me to the side (send an IM) going "hey uh Drimo, you reblogged something pretty bad just now, are you aware?" "oh fuck no why" and I'd always get a helpful explanation.
Which brings me to the point: As a cishet dude, it REALLY helped me a LOT to understand these topics to have not only loving friends that live those lives, but to have said loving friends that live those lives and are willing to assume that my fuck ups and oopsies were born from ignorance and good faith, not from a hateful and discriminatory hill, and who then kindly informed me of X and Y.
So I have to agree with that post! At the risk of sounding self-aggrandizing, I do think being able to tolerate the misteps of a well-intentioned cishet guy who might not know all the 1s and 2s of the dance does in fact directly correlate to healthy, cool friend groups and communities. Over the years, the majority of my net friends have come out as trans, and a few others as non-binary and genderfluid, and I've never really had a situation where someone blasted me for my misteps, instead explaining What Happened instead. I've learned a lot over the years, and in fact, as a therapist, I've helped trans kids come out and have explained the whole shebang to their parents, but as a cishet guy, again, initially this was all very arcane to me, so I am always thankful for the people that took time and care so we could remain friends and so that I could grow to be a more worldly and open minded person.
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shigayokagayama · 20 hours
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The Beach Omake And Authorial Intent
initially i was going to save this for a big teru analysis i had cooking however i eventually ended up deciding that it would feel like a really long tangent in its original context and probably deserves a separate post.
when it comes to the whole "teru's parents" thing i generally see two competing ideas on it
a. terus absent parents are the real villains of mob psycho and are the direct cause of everything wrong with his life and any and all teru analysis must center around this fact
b. terus parents being absent in the first place is only revealed in an omake and only exists for plot convenience and is not something that should be focused on at all when writing him
and whenever i see either of these my mind always drifts to the question of authorial intent. i know how people are reading this information, but how are we supposed to? i know death of the author is becoming more of a common thing in fandom spaces (albeit usually misused) but i feel like a better understanding of why this omake exists and how we're supposed to read it might help to better synthesize two takes that seems to be completely at odds with each other.
okay first i want to go over the actual placement of the beach omake in the update schedule of the manga because, unlike most other omakes, i feel like this ones placement in the schedule of page releases is actually super relevant
the vast majority of omakes come at the end of weekly updates. you finish reading the usually 15-20 pages ONE put out and then you get a little bonus comic at the end, usually something funny or a slice of life but but occasionally more serious. multi part omakes are usually spread out over multiple updates, making you wait a couple weeks for a punchline.
beach omake is not that. between chapters 99 (mob gets hit by a car) and 100 (the whole rest of the omake) there was a 6 week hiatus from normal pages and in this hiatus is where we get beach omake. reading it all together immediately cuts away the sort of "slice of life sunday paper comic" tone other multi part omakes have and make you read it as a part of the actual main story, since that's how you're used to reading these weekly updates.
now the actual tone. generally the multi part omakes exist to be long punchlines and the rare emotional ones are a single page for maximum impact. beach omake has a very different structure compared to, say, the haunted doll omake or the pot of happiness.
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off the bat from the first two pages there's not really a joke. the tone mostly seems kind of melancholic. mobs expression for the middle section of the second page (maybe purposely) is obscured by the panel breaking off, it's hard to tell his reaction, all our attention is directed at teru. with all of the panels taken up by dialogue (primarily his own), we're being asked to focus on what he's saying:
-teru lives alone
-he lives alone because his parents live overseas
-he hasnt seen them in a while
-he doesnt like having nothing to do
-he doesnt like being alone
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all of this information is delivered with an extremely casual expression from him, implying that it's not something that seems ll the out of the ordinary for him. mob, on the other hand...
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the hesitation before he says anything and the way his expression is obscured seems to imply something is... off... about this information to him. this isn't a handwaved "oh mob is walking home from school after passing out because he needs to for plot reasons", we're reacting to this information like it's weird.
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the next two pages are, mostly, a lot more of what we expect out of a mob psycho omake. the first one works as a standalone joke page, teru is bad at identifying animals which leads to him showing reigen a roach, something reigen is terrified of, instead of a beetle.
the second page starts similarly, we get a dumbass joke about reigen trying to pick up women at the beach (note: i think this is the singular time we get an indication reigen is even into women) but then the next two panels take on a more melancholic tone again. we get a small panel of mob and ritsu playing on the beach and a much, much larger panel of teru sitting on the beach, watching them. the dialogue bubble forces us to pay attention to the fact that he is silent.
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the ending of this omake is where we bring it home. generally the last panel centers the punchline of the page, or of the whole omake, but the final panel of this isn't really what was being built to in this case.
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we start our second page on teru. his expression is obscured, reigens speech bubble is shoved to the side so we can see that teru's hat is being held in his hands.
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when we see his face in full view he looks... confused. he looks like he doesn't know how to react to someone going through all this trouble for him. teru is a character who, up to this moment, we have seen as extremely independent. he always rushes into things alone, he always has to be the hero, he always has to be the one to save the day. hell, this omake is immediately followed by the confession arc. where... you know.
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so what are we supposed to get out of this omake?
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teru's been doing everything on his own up to this point
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but he doesn't have to anymore
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tyrantisterror · 1 day
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I think one of the things that gets lost in the big, endless internet conversation about whether or not heroes should kill their villains is the fact that killing villains off robs you of a lot of story-telling potential. The Joker died at the end of his debut story in Batman - imagine what Batman would be if he stayed dead. No Joker in Batman 66, no The Killing Joke which means no Barbara Gordon as Oracle and no The Dark Knight, no Mark Hamill Joker episodes of BTAS (so many of them were based on his comic appearances, after all - the laughing fish is a direct adaptation of a comic), which means no Harley Quinn and no Return of the Joker, on and on it goes.
Like, you can argue the morality of heroes sparing their villains till you turn blue - god knows this site does it at least a thousand times a day - but on a purely pragmatic story-telling level, the minute you kill ANY character, you kill all the story potential they had. And yeah, it's fiction, you can bring them back from the dead if you really need them, but that's a pretty hard story beat to pull off without hurting your story. You don't want to fill your tale with "Somehow, Palpatine has returned" moments.
And you can just make new villains, sure, but again you have a problem with that - a new villain has to establish themselves and has to stand out from who came before, which means you can't go directly to the storylines you could have had with a villain who stuck around AFTER their introduction. A recurring villain is capable of doing things that one-off villains can't.
youtube
I'm going to illustrate this with a character from a fandom I'm not even a part of - I never played the Ratchet and Clank series and am only vaguely aware of it, but one day I saw a supercut of scenes starring one of its recurring villains, Dr. Nefarious, on twitter, and I was like "Oh shit, that's the guy who plays Quark on Deep Space Nine, isn't? This guys a hoot, let's see if we can find more clips on youtube." Which brought me to this hefty video here from one of the more recent games in the series.
And, like, as a person who "doesn't even go here," it's obvious this goofy little fucker has a history. His opening scenes have him ranting about how much it sucks to lose repeatedly - a lampshade on the "flaw" of a recurring villain, i.e. that their threat diminishes the more they come back because, by the nature of their role in the story, it means they've suffered a lot of losses. So how cool is it that as this supercut chugs along you can clearly see this is a theme of the game - that this is a story about the virtue of losing, a story that is enriched by having an antagonist who fans of the series know has lost a LOT?
The true antagonist is an alternate version of Dr. Nefarious who's won every fight in his life so far, apparently with little effort, and I love how they differ on a design aspect. They're both technically mad scientists, but notably, Emperor Nefarious, the winner, has a more imposing and "heroic" build, but a smaller brain-dome for his robot brains. Because winning may make him look strong, but if a mad scientist's real power is their mind, well, which Nefarious is really the strong one here then?
Dr. Nefarious gets this juicy arc about realizing the virtue in his repeated failures that corresponds with the heroic characters struggling to find a way to win against a seemingly invincible opponent, as well as contrasts the true villain, Dr. Nefarious's explicit counterpart and foil Emperor Nefarious, who has never once lost and is a total piece of shit for it. Again, not my fandom, I don't go here, not an expert on Ratchet and Clank, but even as a relative stranger to it who's just watching a big supercut, I fucking love this. This is an excellent story.
And it's one you can only tell with a recurring villain. Without Dr. Nefarious, this story works significantly less. You need a villain with a history the audience has seen to really sell this.
Anyway, I made this post because, ironically enough, I saw another tweet talking about how some fans think Dr. Nefarious should have been killed off in his first appearance, and, like... that's just fucking baffling to me, as a person outside this fandom looking in. Recurring villains deserve more love, man, they give us so much.
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glittersstuff · 22 hours
Text
broken heart - Nico Hischier
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Warnings; casanova always breaks your heart, maybe Nico proves you the opposite.
Rie's note; ////
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When you started working as medical staff for the devils, you felt like home. You're more shy than a party animal, but the boys make it look so easy to get along with you. You just love talking in your native language with some players. Its hard as swiss german to travel to another country just to work here. Without family or friends. Without knowing anybody.
"Hey y/n! Do I have my medical check with you today?", Nico comes in the training room, looking at you. You nod, cheeks getting red and you do a weird gesture with your hands. He looks so damn good, he could wear a garbage bag and would look hot.
Hopefully Nico looks at you one time in his life like you look at him.
How embarrassing, what your thoughts are as professional worker.
After every session you fall more and more for Nico. It seems so natural talking about everything with him. Honestly you forget the time until someone knocks on the door. Every single time with Nico. The boys mock you about it, too ask him out but you're afraid. He's known as a free minded man and doesn't want a relationship at this moment. You're not a puck bunny.
But you catch yourself enjoying having him around, even if you hide it because you have to stay professional. You can tell him everything. Just pretend how it feels you would dating him. Until today.
Nico cancelled the check up and asked to have a medical staff change. When the head coach told you, it was like a punch in the face. Did you anything wrong? Did you accidentally hurt him?
Nico avoids you, he comes later just not to see you. Your heart feels heavy, breaking down in thousand parts. You just want to cry and its getting worse from day to day.
You have to walk through the training room where the whole team trains but you stopped in front of the door before to get in. Nico does sit ups, talking to his teammates, "you know she's nice, but it annoys me she talks too much about her private life", you start to sniffle. You go through the room, shocked faces look at you. They know you heard that. You just nod and walk on, trying to keep the head high. Its just acting, in your dreams you want to run into the bathroom and crying until you feel better.
The next days you don't speak much while working with the guys. Just some "mh, yes, ok, alright", comes from you. You don't want to bother another one, you really need your job to pay all the bills. You don't want to be the excluded one.
The boys are sceptical, they love your sunshine soul and funny stories, cheering them up with their injuries and being a really comfortable person. The last days you walked under power, like a robot and rarely smiling. You don't talk about private things anymore, just doing the job until time is over. You feel so disgusted on yourself to bother a hockey player about your life. You can't believe you're this selfish.
"Can we speak?", on a practice morning Nico comes earlier that usual just to have a conversation with you. He knows you're always over-punctual.
"I don't think so. I have work to do, sorry", you smile politely.
His big brown eyes looking at you to beg talking.
"What can I do that you talk to me?", Nico asks.
"If you have health issues, yes. I can do my job", you reply little too emotional. Tears coming up but you gulp it down.
"Ok. My back hurts after the last hit yesterday. Can you check it?", he speaks out. Secretly he doesn't have problems with his back but if its the only way to talk with you, he'll pretend.
"Ok, come with me", you quit the conversation.
"Where on your back is the pain?", Nico gets undressed his T-shirt, sitting down on the massage table. He just points at his heart. "My heart hurts really bad". "Do you need a doctor?", you get in panic.
Nico turns around his good looking head, show you with a hand gesture to calm down,"no! My heart hurts because I hurt you".
"How cheesy, Hischier".
"Well your coworker told me you have a crush on me and I really broke your heart. I was talking not about you, it was about an annoying family member! I want to date you but you always stayed professional-", Nico runs his fingers on his hair. He always does this when he gets nervous.
"You didn't want me work for you anymore. I mean i have to be fine with your decision", you say and checking on his back if rips and muscles are okay.
"It was because John asked me to change. He was really enthusiastic about how you helped him well", Nico explains.
He turns around, youre standing between his legs. That's not the position you wanted but it feels alright. It feels safe.
Your skin begins to sparkle.
"I'd like to go out with you?", he takes your arms, looking up with a cute, chill smile.
"Like a date? a date date? with candles and a suit?", your eyes brightening up. "But I'm not just a girl for one night!".
"I thought about mini golf but if you want to, I'll call a restaurant", Nico's brown eyes finding yours. His smile is so precious. "And I only have good intentions for a relationship".
"Yes but I'm sorry I have to work on your back -", you stumble over your own words. You feel overwhelmed by his honest words.
Nico pulls you closer, you can feel his breath on your face. "I don't have problems with my back. If i have it one day, i hope my future genius girlfriend is waiting for me at home to help me with that", he softly kisses your cheek, stands up and pulls his shirt on. Your cheeks burn in a cherry red because of this kiss. Damn he's a really good kisser and you cant wait to get more.
"I hope you mean it in the medical way, casanova!"
"I know you already had a wild dream about me. You talk in your sleep and I understand swiss german", he winks, kisses your cheek again and walks out of the door.
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raayllum · 2 days
Text
Key to His Heart Theory: Shot Through the Heart, and You're (S5) to Blame
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Intro
So a little over a year ago (since usually I think about things meta wise for at least a good month before writing them down), I wrote a meta about why I thought the Key of Aaravos might hold a quasar diamond, specifically Aaravos' missing chest piece. His heart, if you will.
At the time, I thought it was a very strong contender for what the cube might be, even if it didn't necessarily give us a clear depiction on what it might be used for, and was again operating under the assumption the cube itself is something Aaravos even wants back or needs (which is assumption still, at this point).
It made sense loosely with some of the new information we'd gleaned about the cube from S4 (mostly the Callum pawn intro with its bright flashing light, the emphasis on hearts in the narrative with Ezran's speech, the 4x04 flashbacks) and was likewise built upon a previous meta regarding the series' use of Egyptian mythology (Thoth and Ibis being present somewhat in Callum's arc, the main trio's parallels to another Egyptian myth trio, Aaravos' mirror and mirrors as objects of divination, and potential matching symbolism with the ankh).
The Key to His Heart theory was also built on previous seasons — largely the Magma Titan plot line, and Avizandum being stabbed in the heart — in addition to Aaravos' chest piece, seemingly, being notably absent, which seemed indicative of certain lines from the short stories, particularly Rayla (S4's Dear Callum), but we'll talk more about these later:
Please don’t let this hurt too much. But, if it does—if you feel that soft aching—know that that piece of your heart isn’t missing. It’s not missing at all, Callum: I’m carrying it with me! Always.
If you're interested in this theory and want to know about it, I recommend reading the two metas I've linked above, as the rest of this won't really be delving too much into what I've already written about, and talking about how season five has given more potential evidence.
With that out of the way, let's get into it in rough order of "most to least" likely:
Season Five
TDP Reflections
Whereas hearts weren't mentioned too much in the short stories leading up to S4, they became a reoccurring motif every TDP reflection story going into S5.
Fools. They might as well have held their own hearts, beating and bloody, in the palms of their hands. Kim’dael knew that if she showed them her heart—or something convincingly like it—the Sunfire elves would do exactly what she wanted them to do.
“Rayla,” she said, meeting Redfeather’s gaze. “My name is Rayla. And I’m going home.” Redfeather sighed. “Oh, you bleeding heart.”
“They balk at shadows, then.” Aditi pulled a slip of white-hot metal from the forge and turned to place it upon a gilded anvil. “I see your heart—and I am not afraid.”
It stared up at him. Ezran felt a coldness twist its way around his heart. It took his lungs, too, and for a long moment he could not breathe, could not feel anything but an unfamiliar anger so potent it seized the whole of him, inside and out.
Viren staggers backwards, his last breath shuddering through the blade. His white robes turn red at his heart. Something in Soren’s own chest shatters along old cracks, but he cannot look away. 
“You are stronger than this. All storms end!” Rex rumbled a snort through flared nostrils. “What lies at its heart?” 
 He wept for his city, his people, and the darkness struck deep into their hearts.
While one may say it ends with a sunrise, another will insist it ends at nightfall. Yet at the heart of the story is a single, simple truth…A star fell from the sky.
From where Kim’dael stood, she could only see the brilliant aura of its magic. For a moment, it was as though the queen’s heart overflowed with light.
Now, some of this is undeniably because a heart is a short hand for emotion and one of our most useful metaphors for communicating a variety of emotion. However, I did think it was particularly interesting / eye catching that these lines tended to overlap with the series' growing light and darkness motif and emphasis on wounds/scars (to the point we have a 5x02 episode titled "Old Wounds" that refers to both Viren's past and Callum and Rayla's healing relationship).
But by far the one that struck me the most, and seemed the most reminiscent of how Aaravos's (literal?) wound manifests is this paragraph from Claudia's short story:
Lissa had left her years ago, but the space she had owned in Claudia’s heart remained. It was a dark place now, hard and hateful, its edges raw as a wound that had forgotten to heal.
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Mountains had crumbled and left in their wake a vast new sea. It was as though the land had been dealt a great wound and bled a hundred years. Terror washed across the remnants of humanity like a wave: What power could fell mountains? Turn all the world dark, and bleed a sea from stones?
—Ripples (pre-S5)
As well as Aaravos' clear desire to have revenge over the Startouch elves for something that seems to go beyond the resentment over just being banished:
I have not seen the stars in centuries. But when I see them again—when the stars are forced to look upon me, their dark brother—they will know how I have waited. And when everything they have built lies shattered, I will savor their fall from the sky. For I have been patient.
—Patience (pre-S4)
We don't know yet if we are going to get more TDP reflections going into S6 or S7, but given the way the previous stories emphasize the heart as both a symbolic idea (a darkened, hollowed out heart) and a literal entity you can hold in your hands... It's clear there's something going on symbolism else, otherwise why be so consistent? But enough of the reflections, for now.
Time to talk about S5 itself.
Laurelion
Previously, I thought the cube in the intro (a literal glow toy, as Rayla identified back in 1x05) already had similar properties to the star-glow effect in the title intro back at S4.
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At the time, this was more of a guess. Most of the Star magic we'd seen at that point we weren't able to fully identify as such, it seemed a bit more magenta in colour, and while there was a parallel in the bright flash of light upon releasing Sir Sparklepuff, there's also a bright flash when the prison is actually made. It's just a good short hand for a crescendo of magical power, you know? We didn't know if quasar diamonds were even going to be white, besides the one presumably in Aaravos' chest concept art wise.
And yet — it still felt like something to me. Then S5 with Laurelion came along.
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The Death of the Immortal
K: "And though undying, took last breath, immortal Laurelion was no more." C: That's good, right? I mean when someone "was no more," that's — that's dead, yeah? K: It's a bit confusing, but that is the clearest implication. Though it is somewhat odd they call them undying and immortal. C: Well, that doesn't sound so immortal? Laurelion "was no more". K: Right. C: But how? How did they...? K: Right here. "White as the star's heart it pierced, ivory draconic brought death's bite known ever forth as Novablade." C: It's a sword.
There's a few noteworthy things about this whole exchange:
The poem has to be relevant eventually, otherwise why include it at all when you easily could've just had Kazi and Callum stumble across the sword period?
It confirms that the heart of a star is something that can be pierced, presumably removed, and white, which I think is the biggest "hell yeah" to the 4x04 intro
There is no reason to point out the contradictions in the poem itself unless A) the sword doesn't work the way we think it does and/or B) we are going to find out why the "undying and immortal" thing matters — and they make sure to emphasize the contradictions quite a bit as well, so they definitely want us to notice
If Laurelion died, and Aaravos took his place, that would explain how Laurelion — identity wise — could die while the same person under a new name could also remain alive / immortal
We learn in Rayla's pre-S5 short story that Ghosts don't often keep their real names, and take a new one as the final severance of their bond with their old community. For all extents and purposes, Aaravos was Ghosted (banished) from his community as well. Taking a new name would make sense
"That must've been when [Harrow] fell." "Fell? Fell! He didn't fall, Rayla, he didn't trip and fall on the ground — he got killed!" (2x08)
There's more speculation here regarding the actual sword and draconic ivory, but that is another post for another day that other smart people have made if you are interested. For now let's just focus on the heart.
We know Laurelion had a heart; we know it got stabbed with the Novablade, leaving Laurelion both no more (i.e. dead) and yet immortal / undying. We know that Arc 2 in particular has had an emphasis on losing your sense of self and identity ("I was his puppet" / "We can't save everyone, Soren" / "But I'm not evil. It's me" / all of Viren's dream visions). We know that a Star's heart is white. We know that Aaravos seemingly used to have one, and now it's either missing or impermanent, only visible sometimes.
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(Putting a pin in the second image cause we'll roll back around to it in the counter evidence section.)
We know his chest centrepiece glowed when he was imprisoned, and we know it was seemingly gone when he got banished. We know something about the Key of Aaravos was able to reveal his treachery.
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I'm not saying any of this is for sure connected, but it does make you think, at least a little?
That, and it'd play into another bit of potential interesting foreshadowing / symbolism we got in s5 with
Viren Heart Theory
This is another theory I've discussed in more detail elsewhere, so I'm going to link to it here, but it wouldn't feel right to not talk about it at least a little here. Basically the theory is that Viren used his own blood / a piece of his heart, or possibly the whole thing, and the relic staff in order to save Soren when he was a young child.
This is largely due to Viren's spotlight turning red after he begs to be able to save Soren, and cinched by Kpp'Ar pointing specifically at Viren's heart only for Viren to deflect and start talking about Soren's case specifically. Whatever he did seemed to make him more 'powerful,' but at a great personal cost ("In the name of love you may perform acts that are so unforgivable, you will never forgive yourself") and something he finds the need to justify ("I had to do something! I had to save him! I had no choice!").
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If Viren did this, it also adds another layer to Viren's sentiment of "Harrow's death breaks my heart" being well, half-hearted, in addition to Soren literally stabbing illusion Viren in the heart in 3x09. Viren mutilated his heart for his son's life, stopped being able to properly express love to said son, and then Soren stabbed his father right in the place that presumably saved him as a child. Ouch.
It seems likely that one of the reasons Aaravos was able to prey so aptly on Viren's desire for importance and attention — to Matter — was because Aaravos might've tried and failed earlier on to get the Startouch elves to listen to him pre-banishment. Being ignored, exiled, and disempowered is something he can relate to, and something he doesn't mind taking advantage of when it suits him.
However, if this combination could save someone Viren loved, it makes me wonder if Aaravos did something similar to likewise try (and fail?) to save someone he loved, too. It's either that or the Startouch elves just completely ripped it out, so... I guess we'll have to see?
But yeah — if Viren did it, then I'm expecting it's more likely that Aaravos did it, too. That is all.
The Pawn Intros
But Dragons, you say, didn't we already talk about the Callum pawn intro?
And to that I say yes, but — thanks to a promo S6 picture of Aaravos crying, we know something else very important about said intros that we didn't know before: they take place at the Sea of the Cast Out.
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The sky, the mountains... the fact we know, thanks to the statues in 5x09, that this is likely where Aaravos' grief — his wound, if you will — began to bleed and take root, leading to his thousands of years of seeking vengeance and using just about anything or anyone he could. This is, presumably, where his chess game started... and where it is, symbolically at least, going to end.
Okay, so it's the Sea of the Cast Out — why does that matter?
Well, we know the Sea of the Cast Out is a site of literal trauma for Aaravos. We know, thanks to the statues of Aaravos and the Merciful One, that it plays into the same reaching motif we see Viren participate in quite a few times, both in his intro and in other places/relationships (most notably Sarai, Harrow, and Terry).
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The Sea of the Cast Out is also, perhaps more importantly for this theory's purposes, near Elarion. What little we do know about the city beyond it being an important place for humans and dark magic ties it repeatedly to nature through The Midnight Star poem:
Elarion, trembling seed, lay down to earth in icy night, and in the cold her roots took hold defying winter’s deathly bite. Elarion, fading bloom, afraid to wilt and dim and die, [...] Elarion, dying husk, did wilt and whimper in the dark [...] Elarion, black-eyed child, her twisted roots spread deep and far,
as well as a tale about the Flowers of Elarion, precious blooms that could soothe the senses and turned to dust come morning—flowers that were left as "a fair exchange of beloved for beloved" (Tales of Xadia). Put a pin that Exchange idea because I swear we're gonna come back to it but not in the usual way you might be expecting, or at least not entirely.
And we have good reason to believe this nature motif is tied to Aaravos' current imprisonment as well, given how present flower imagery is for his mirror.
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So the Sea of the Cast Out and Elarion seem to be the two places we know of thus far that are not only the most important to Aaravos, but the most instrumental to his banishment. It would not surprise me if either Aaravos got involved in what would become Elarion either because he was banished, or it was what he was banished over, or if discovering the truth of what happened there is likewise why the Archdragons were partially like "Yeah, we gotta lock this guy up" (now that they knew he posed a serious threat). The fact that Elarion is referred to as a child (everything with "blood of a child,"), black-eyed (which denotes dark magic), and winter's "deathly bite" ("White as the star's heart it pierced, / ivory draconic brought death's bite") just all ties together nicely in being related even if we're not totally sure how.
But Aaravos having his chest piece removed by force / as punishment in addition to being cast out by the Startouch elves, or him taking it out himself and giving it to someone who was lost... There's a lot of roads to get here as to why this stuff all seems connected if the Key is indeed his chest piece, which offers up both a power up, a sad tragic backstory, some baller symbolism, and some nice double meanings as to what it is key wise.
As the Key works in the moment, it doesn't seem like it's something that would be very useful to a primal mage, as other than pretty easily identifiable gemstones they wouldn't be using much the key identifies. However, the function of the Key being able to categorize and sort magical creatures and plants from each other is something that is very useful if you're a dark mage and need to shore up your ingredients list.
If the Key has Aaravos' chest piece in it, there are two main prongs this offers:
It may have been instrumental in helping humans discover dark magic, hence the "Elarion, searing white" and could also be the Gift the poem speaks of. Aaravos removed it himself (love makes you weak?), gave it to his chosen human, chosen human died, and he was locked out of Startouch realm as a combined result. This offers the clearest connection between why Aaravos' mirror has the nature motif and why Aaravos is crying in the beginning of 6x01.
It was removed by the Startouch elves and lost/hidden, forcing Aaravos to be away from his old home until he could find it again. This is the clearest explanation as to why the Key might be relevant on a plot level. It could give him the power up he needs to get out of his prison and barring that, it's what he needs to wreck havoc and gain access to the Startouch elves to get revenge on them
It also allows what we learn of the cube in 2x06 to have multiple meanings:
The Key is revealed in an episode called The Heart of a Titan. We're led to assume that this is just the Magma Titan, and you could perhaps make an argument the dual meaning (just like how Breaking the Seal refers to the letter and the titan's chest) refers to Harrow or Callum's capacity to love. But, given that one of Aaravos' most prominent mythic comparisons is to Prometheus, a literal Titan, well...
"It unlocks something of great power in Xadia" would work equally well if it's a Key literally made from Aaravos, not just to Aaravos. And the past 2 seasons in particular have emphasized over and over again just how powerful and dangerous he is
The salvation and destruction motif that is inherent in the key, ("I just have a feeling this key thing can help me" / "It's the key of Aaravos, no good will come of it") as keys are linked to chains and freedom with the ability to lock and unlock, is rampant in 2x06, as Viren states that Xadia and the Magma Titan "held both the promise of our salvation and threat of our destruction." This goes double for Sarai sacrificing her life to save Viren
And to round back to Viren and his intro, I don't think it's a coincidence that
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is one of the first things Aaravos ever says to Viren, particularly when trying to earn Viren's trust. (Nor that Aaravos considers that Zubeia and co. "betrayed" him when "he would lower his guard," just before the imprisonment.) And while Aaravos gains Viren's trust as a political ally here first, it's also clear that he's actually primarily preying upon Viren's deepest emotional desires here as well: to be listened to. To matter.
Viren wasn't listened to by the monarchs around him (Harrow). He wanted to be important (to them). He wanted to matter.
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"It is everything to me, to know that I matter. It's all I ever wanted."
Aaravos: Search your heart. There is something you want very badly. (2x09) Zubeia: He was able to give them something they wanted very badly. (4x04)
And that's what Aaravos offered him, with power and knowledge just being the bait. (If you're interested in more detailed thoughts on this aspect of Viren / their dynamic, check out this meta here.)
More to the point, I do lean towards the Key's plot purposes being 1) a power-up that may be needed for him to get out of his mirror and 2) something that likewise allows him to see the other Startouch elves again. After all, the Silvergrove gave each elf a similar kind of key:
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But y'know what, let's talk about Rayla now, because
The Missing Piece of Your Heart
As stated earlier, Rayla's letter has a consistent metaphor when it comes to family and loss:
I remember how I felt when my parents left me to join the Dragonguard, like PART OF MY HEART WAS MISSING and I would never feel right again. I thought I hated them when they did that to me. In the beginning, it felt so big and terrible—like raging despair—but, overtime, it became a soft, sweet ache—a reminder of that missing part of my heart. [...] Please don’t let this hurt too much. But, if it does—if you feel that soft aching—know that that piece of your heart isn’t missing. It’s not missing at all, Callum: I’m carrying it with me! Always.
This struck me as interesting when the letter first came out, as it was a departure from most of Rayla's previous heart motif ("My heart for Xadia") and even the one attributed to her one half of her parents ("My heart goes out with this one"). Why have the motif suddenly switch up when it would've worked just as well, or been doubly romantic + a Ruthari parallel, to just have it be the whole heart?
Then season four came out, and I understood, because, well...
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Upon her return, Rayla brings back that "missing piece" of "Callum's heart". It's a painful restoration and doesn't run entirely smooth, but in season five in particular we see him be much more like his older, happier self once he's let himself love her again, and how steadfast he is in said love ("To love is simply know this...").
But, in a moment that could've been exclusively about Rayla, nor did it need for Stella's connection to the Star arcanum to be this prominent in the same moment, they choose to likewise highlight Rayla 'bringing home' the missing piece of Aaravos' heart, too.
This symbolism is also consistent with how the key is introduced in the first place, i.e. first thought of because Rayla's drawing in Callum's sketchbook (another gift from Harrow) reminds Callum of it, and her ultimately being the one to retrieve it even once things at the Banther Lodge take a turn towards the south.
Furthermore, we do have reason to believe that Rayla is indeed the 'Key to Callum' in a sense, particularly after 5x08. Just like how a key can both lock and unlock — give freedom or entrapment — Rayla symbolizes a great deal of duality in Callum's life, including but not limited to:
Leading him to primal magic (1x03, 5x08) and dark magic (2x07, 5x08)
Light ("No one can control you or make your choices for you" / Ray of light) and dark ("But the second you see that elf girl in pain, you completely lost yourself" / "Stay safe, and stay in the light. Don't look for me")
Being routinely emphasized in Callum's arc with Aaravos, especially in S4
"Now you're back. That's kind of good, and it's kind of bad" / "You have to hold pain and love in your heart at the same time" / "And when she came back, I was so happy, and so mad at the same time"
Salvation ("Rayla saves people [...] that's what makes her a hero") and destruction (being willing to die / do dark magic for her)
The Ocean arcanum realization being both positive and negative, just as the poem itself takes on a different shape across the season in regards to how Callum views her and how he views himself while being motivated by his love for her / Ezran
“Wow. So [the berries] look identical, but they might kill you or they might save you,” Callum said. “Exactly. Just like me…” Rayla smiled.
—Book One: Sky novelization
If you're interested in a more specific meta on this dichotomy, I recommend this meta written pre-s4 and this more recent one about 5x08 specifically.
I've written before about Rayla have a weird consistency with the cube as well, particularly in her being the primary carrier of its foreshadowing for most of arc 1, with Callum only really doing so in 1x04 and having Rayla pick up the slack the rest of the time:
"It's a toy, a piece from a children's game" (1x04) as well as "It's a glow toy" (1x05) are now literally true as the cube is 1) involved in Aaravos' game and 2) literally glows a bright flashing light circa the 4x04 intro.
"Are you practicing magic or are you losing to Bait at a game of rolly-cubes?" (2x07 right after Callum calls it a key) came to pass, somewhat if not outright, it seems, in 5x08. Callum practices two different magics, Rayla is literal bait in exchange for the glow-toad, and the episode ends with Callum being worried he's potentially losing Aaravos' 'game' so to speak — that he's made himself more vulnerable to the Startouch elf's control.
Two lines of hers regarding the cube that have not yet come to pass are "This doesn't end well for you" (1x05) and "I hope it was worth it to you, putting everyone's lives in danger" (1x04) but I expect that we'll get them soon enough.
Rayla's 'tether' to a the cube does, of course, loop back into the Flowers of Elarion tale, in which there was a fair exchange of beloved for beloved. If the Key does indeed hold Aaravos' heart (and that is still a very big If), whether it would include an actual exchange is still debatable, but it seems inevitable that she would at least play a part. (If you're interested in more thoughts on Rayla + the cube, check out this meta pre-s4.)
Where the game motif gets the most interesting, I think, is where it intersects with the idea Aaravos mentions in 2x09 regarding, "Those who fail tests of love are simple animals," and one of the TDP short stories in particular having one very interesting tidbit:
“My behavior is—?” “—unusual,” Corvus repeated, nodding. “Very unusual. Ever since you started challenging me to all these little games.” Soren squirmed. His pauldrons clanked as his shoulders slumped. “They aren’t games. They’re tests. Ugh…I’m really messing this up.”
Since Rayla is going to have her "My heart for Xadia" undeniably tested, it would make sense if Callum and Aaravos' hearts came into play too, don't you think?
Other Misc Symbolism / Oddities
Last but not least, we have our odds and ends that didn't fit in the other sections, but I thought may be worthwhile to mention anyway.
For starters, we have screencaps (most notably in 3x06) where you can see a visible dip in Aaravos' tiddies chest that indicates something was removed, and it's not just an artificial darkness.
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We have Aaravos touching a fist to his heart twice before he bows and indicates that Callum is going to "play" into his hands (remember that game motif?).
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We have this shot, which is the exact kind of thing that "crew makes sure the Ocean and Moon runes are most prominently on display in Callum's dark magic dreams to foreshadow him doing dark magic in S5 Ocean for his Moonshadow gf 3 seasons later" would absolutely do and think they're So Funny about. "No gem for star magic" except the one you're unknowingly holding in your hand, am I right?
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Finally, we have precedent that dark magic can 'darken' your heart both in show when Amaya passes the light trial ("A human that is pure of heart") and in the graphic novels with Claudia ("Your heart is not yet darkened") which allows her to see the map to a unicorn (The Puzzle House).
@self-spaghettification also noted that the bright white flash of the star in the 'o' of Aaravos' name in the Arc 2 intro momentarily looks like and makes the shape of the Nova Blade, which is also very cool.
Honourable mention to Rayla going "it's a piece from a children's game" and Ezran going "you said each of the archdragons had a piece of the puzzle" and the Orphan Queen and Jailer presumably working together to trap Aaravos. I think about that shit every day.
Evidence to the Contrary / Alternatives
But like I said at the start, there are plenty of alternatives or feasible pitfalls to consider. This theory resides on a few assumptions after all, that may not be true, such as Aaravos not actually needing the key for anything other than as a lure for Callum, it could purely have something to do with the Nova Blade and nothing to do with the prison, or even have something to do with the nature of magic itself, capable of great good as well as great evil.
His chest piece could've always been more immaterial and dark magic has just darkened it rather than it being removed. Aaravos may have stabbed Laurelion in order to use that heart diamond to partially make the Relic Staff he passed onto Ziard, or Aaravos' chest piece could be in the staff itself, and the cube is something else entirely.
Conclusion
In the end, as we go forward into S6 all the above is more less my personal bet as to where I think we really could go in terms of answering a lot of these questions we've had for a few seasons now. I hope you enjoyed reading the theory and considering (and possibly subscribing to) it, as well as getting your own thoughts stimulated. If any of the above happens I will cry for days and no matter what, I am deeply intrigued to see where S6 takes Aaravos' backstory and, of course, his cube. Luckily:
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gabessquishytum · 3 days
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A different take on 🌘 anon's idea!
Yes, Hob recorvers after 1689, researches the occult, gets the love potion, but surprise-not really, Dream isn't of the material, he's of the metaphysical and therefore the physical love potion doesn't work, but damn if Dream doesn't take it as a courting offer! His only friend acted on his own and he couldn't have given him something that says "please love me" more if he tried - so Dream being Dream, he clings to Hob with both hands. Hob is overjoyed! He has never been happier. But the years pass and as Hob starts trying to be a better man, he also starts feeling guilty over what he did, and worried that this fake/forced relationship is doomed to fail at some point.
Here's the original ask about love potions!
Dream: so you are admitting that you spiked my drink with a love potion?
Hob: yes and I'm so so sorry and i understand if you don't want to see me again, it was wrong-
Dream, tucking his hair back like Debby Ryan: no you don't understand. I'm into it.
Seriously though, I love the idea of Hob having an existential crisis because he thinks that his whole relationship with Dream is fake and fabricated and he regrets it so much because he'll never truly know if Dream loves him or not. He makes a decision to finally give Dream the antidote - its the right thing to do, and even if he loses everything, Hob will at least know that he has been honest.
So he slips the antidote into Dream’s tea as they spend the morning together. Dream drinks his tea all cuddled up against Hob, and Hob holds him extra close just in case it's the last time. But nothing happens. Dream doesn't freak out or suddenly push Hob away. The whole day passes as usual. Hob begins to wonder if he got the antidote wrong.
But as they go to bed together that night, Dream is smirking slightly like he's amused. He slides into Hob’s lap and kisses him, teasingly. All he says is something like, "do not think that you can be rid of me so easily" - but all of a sudden Hob knows that he knows. Knows - and apparently doesn't care.
Hob is no less ashamed of himself, but he clings onto Dream even tighter. Thanking his lucky stars that he has found someone to love who is just as absolutely batshit insane as he is <3
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