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steveseddie · 2 months

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with a cold breeze

rating: t | cw: none apply | word count: 4,281

tags: eddie munson lives, didn't know they were dating, getting together, first kiss, fluff and hurt/comfort

for the @steddielovemonth prompt: “love is giving him your sweater even if it makes you cold” by @stevesbipanic

a/n: this is my first time writing a prompt for this event and it was so much fun! also this ended up longer than i thought but. enjoy 🩷

click here to read on ao3

***

In Eddie’s defense, he shouldn’t have been expected to bring a jacket. Not when Steve didn’t tell him where they were going or when he sent Eddie spiraling into a pit of pining by showing up at his doorstep with a white shirt tucked into a pair of tight blue jeans and a black jacket thrown on top, looking like he stepped out of Eddie’s dreams.

Now that he thinks about it, Steve might’ve told him to grab a jacket, but Eddie was too busy picking his jaw off the floor to listen to him.

When he stepped out of the trailer and followed Steve to his car, Eddie felt a light chill in the air, but since he assumed Steve was taking them to the movies or for dinner at that diner he likes, he figured the flannel he was wearing over his Metallica singlet would be enough to withstand it.

Eddie doesn’t know exactly when this became a thing they did- Steve picking him up and taking him to dinner or a movie or ice cream or roller skating.

(That last one was Eddie’s least favorite one because he spent half the time they were there falling on his ass. Or maybe it wasn’t, because the other half was spent holding on to Steve’s hand as he guided Eddie around the rink and helped him keep his balance.)

Eddie still can’t help but feel surprised whenever Steve turns up at his door, even if it happens multiple times a week these days. He knows this is what friends do, but maybe it’s still just a little hard to believe that he’s friends with Steve Harrington.

(“You make it sound like I’m some kind of celebrity, man,” Steve said the first time Eddie voiced his shock about him wanting to spend time with Eddie.

“Dude, you are the king of Hawkins! You are a celebrity!” Eddie said, dramatically shaking Steve’s shoulders which earned him a mighty eye roll and a playful shove. “And celebrities don’t want to spend time with freaks like me.”

Steve’s face softened at that, he bumped Eddie’s shoulder with his. “Well, this one does.”)

Eddie knows Steve is being genuine every time he says he wants to hang out, but a part of him always expects Steve to get tired of him and ditch Eddie, and start taking a nice pretty girl on these outings instead.

(“Dates, they’re dates,” Max deadpanned after hearing Eddie ramble about Steve for roughly ten minutes straight. She’d clocked Eddie’s feelings for Steve right away when he came back from the roller rink with his backside bruised, but still with a dopey smile on his face to Max waiting for him at the steps of his trailer. “Steve Harrington is taking you out on dates!”

“He’s not, they’re not dates,” Eddie said with a firm shake of his head.

“Dude, Lucas literally took me to the roller rink last week.”

“Aw, cute. Did he hold your hand?”

“I held his, I skate, remember? And for a jock, he’s got terrible balance,” she says, lips twitching into a little smile. “Not as bad as yours though.”

“Hey!”)

Even if Max insists on calling them dates, Eddie won’t. He can’t. He knows Steve doesn’t see them that way so he can’t do it either, not if he wants to protect his heart.

So he ignores that Steve opens the door to his car for him like he would if this was a real date and he ignores that he lets Eddie pick the music or that he keeps a few of Eddie’s tapes in his car for him to choose from, even if they’re not at all what he likes, and he ignores the way he keeps glancing at Eddie at stop signs or red lights with a sweet little smile that makes his stomach swoop like when he went through the gate to the Upside Down did, only better.

Or he tries to ignore it, at least.

“Soooo where are we going?” Eddie asks, contorting himself so he can sit cross-legged in Steve’s passenger seat after picking the music for the ride.

Steve bops his head to the beginning of a Dio song and Eddie can’t help but feel proud.

“It’s a surprise,” he says.

Eddie groans. “Is this surprise also going to end up with me not being able to sit properly for a week?” He only realizes how that sounds when Steve’s head snaps to him, eyebrows high on his forehead. God. “You know cause I kept falling on my ass at the roller rink, not because- uh.”

He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence, but luckily Steve spares him. With a soft laugh, he says, “Don’t worry, you won’t have trouble sitting after tonight.” Then Steve smirks, the little shit. “From falling on your ass- or some other reason.”

Eddie flushes bright red.

He lowers the window and shivers when the cold air hits his face, but the wind helps cool down his flushed cheeks so he leaves it open. He notices that instead of driving them downtown, Steve is driving them further out.

“I’m not gonna have trouble sitting ‘cause you’re luring me into the woods to murder me? Is that it?”

“And why would I want to murder you?” Steve asks, pinching the bridge of his nose like entertaining Eddie’s nonsense causes him physical pain.

The wind blows Eddie’s hair away from his face. “Maybe you’re jealous of my luscious hair.” He hopes the wind makes him look like one of those cover shoots on the magazines that he sees at the store, but realistically, he knows he probably looks like a dog sticking his head out the window. “My naturally beautiful hair that doesn’t need any Farrah Fawcett spray.”

Steve narrows his eyes at Eddie. “That little shit told you!”

Eddie grins. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Dustin told you, didn’t he?”

“I won’t reveal my sources,” he says, pretending to zip up his lips.

“You don’t have to, you dork. Dustin is the only one I told.” He pauses, thinking. “Maybe I am committing murder tonight.”

“Mine?”

“Henderson’s. And then yours so the secret dies with you.” He glances at Eddie with a smile. “And maybe because I am a little jealous of your beautiful hair.” His voice is a little too soft to sound like a joke.

Eddie gives him a shy smile and then flicks his hair over his shoulder with a dramatic flare. Steve laughs, head thrown back, as they drive past the Leaving Hawkins sign.

***

Steve drives them to the top of a hill just outside of Hawkins.

Eddie’s first thought when Steve parks his car next to a little forest is that maybe he’s actually planning to murder him tonight.

His second thought comes when Steve opens Eddie’s door and a gust of wind hits Eddie, making him realize that no, his flannel won’t be enough. He’s going to freeze his ass off so even if Steve doesn’t murder him, Eddie will die anyway.

His third thought comes when Steve takes hold of his wrist and drags him out of the car and towards a cliff overlooking most of Hawkins.

Eddie voices that thought with an appreciative whistle.

“Holy shit, that’s a killer view.”

“Right?” Steve asks with a grin. His fingers are still wrapped around Eddie’s wrist and he can feel the way he’s bouncing excitedly from one foot to the other.

“Yeah, wow. You wouldn’t think that Hawkins is a shit town from up here,” Eddie says, taking in not only the night lights, but the stars above them too, shining brighter than Eddie has ever seen them.

“Yeah, it almost looks normal, no monsters or alternate dimensions.”

“No hordes of angry town people who want to burn you at the stake.”

Steve gives Eddie’s wrist a comforting squeeze. He glances at the ground. “No shitty parents calling you a disappointment and an embarrassment,” he says, voice barely above a whisper.

Eddie frowns. He shakes his hand until Steve loosens his hold, but before he can retreat it into his pocket because he thinks Eddie is trying to get him to let go, he tangles his fingers loosely with Steve’s. “They came back tonight?”

Steve stares down at their hands, his thumb rubs over one of Eddie’s rings. “Yeah, and they managed to pick a fight within five minutes of walking through the door. Must be some kind of record.”

Eddie squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

With a sigh, Steve finally looks up. “It’s not your fault, and besides-” He smiles at Eddie. “I didn’t bring you here to talk about them.”

Eddie narrows his eyes at him. “What did you bring me here for?”

Steve’s smile turns into a grin, he drops Eddie’s hand and starts walking backward toward the car. “Wait here.”

“You better not be abandoning me to die here!”

He gets no reply. Eddie squints at him as he rummages through the trunk of his car but it’s a little hard to see clearly in the dark. He wraps his arms around himself while he waits, feeling colder by the second, and resists the urge to ask Steve if he has an extra jacket lying around. It’ll send him into Mother Hen mode and he’ll start fussing about Eddie catching something and probably scold him for not bringing his own jacket.

So he acts as nonchalant as possible about the cold when Steve comes back, hiding something behind his back that Eddie can’t see.

“I didn’t bring you here to murder you or abandon you. I brought you here to have a picnic with me.” As he says this, he shows Eddie what he was holding behind his back- a checkered blanket and a goddamn picnic basket.

Eddie blinks dumbly at the two items and then at Steve, mouth gaping like a fish. “A picnic?”

Steve nods a little shyly. “Um yeah, is that okay?”

Eddie lets out a disbelieving laugh. A fucking picnic under the stars- oh, Max is going to have a field trip teasing Eddie about this one!

He realizes that Steve might be taking his reaction the wrong way when he starts to fidget so Eddie wipes the surprise from his face and grins at Steve. “Depends on what you packed in there, big boy.”

A high-pitched laughter tumbles out of Steve’s lips and even with just the moonlight he can see his cheeks tint pink. “Well, do you like grilled cheese?”

***

Eddie makes grabby hands at the basket. Once Steve spreads the blanket on the ground, he flops down and starts digging through the contents.

There’s grilled cheese wrapped in tin foil paper, two bags of chips, two sodas, and a big serving of pie. Eddie’s mouth waters.

“So,” Steve asks, wrapping his arms around his knees. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Eddie pauses, thinking. “That I don’t care if you murder me as long as you let me eat this first.”

“You’re so annoying,” Steve snorts, rolling his eyes.

“If I’m so annoying,” Eddie says, neatly arranging the food between them on the blanket, or as best as he can on the uneven ground. “Then why did you go through all this trouble for little ol’ me?”

Steve bites the inside of his cheek. He looks like he wants to say something, but then changes his mind, only to part his lips again. The look in his eyes betrays nothing, no matter how much Eddie tries to read it. Despite the cold, Eddie’s hands start to sweat a little.

But then Steve shakes his head and looks down, picking up his grilled cheese. When he looks back at Eddie again, his eyes are soft, crinkling at the corners, but whatever he saw in them before is now gone. “Let’s eat before it gets cold, okay?”

After the first bite, Eddie discovers that Steve must be some kind of grilled cheese genius. When he tells Steve this, he waves it off with a shy smile, but he seems pleased.

They talk in between bites of food, or in Eddie’s case, through mouthfuls of melted cheese. The whole time, Eddie tries to ignore the chill in the air, but every gust of wind reminds him he’s only wearing a singlet under a very thin flannel and neither does much to protect him from the cold. Still, he does his best to hide his shivering from Steve, but it’s a little hard to do when Steve won’t take his eyes off of him for some reason.

Right now, he’s staring almost unblinkingly at Eddie with his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms wrapped around his knees, a soft smile painted on his lips as Eddie tells him how excited he and the kids are about the next Hellfire meeting.

“You’re always excited about your nerdy game,” Steve smirks.

“Fair, but this time it’s different because the kids finally convinced Max to play!”

Steve’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “How did they manage that?”

“Well, they didn’t convince her so much as they tricked her into it.”

“Yeah, that makes more sense.”

“But! It doesn’t matter cause she’s going to love it so much she’ll beg to join again! I’ve been working on her character sheet to make it perfect for her and I got her this cool set of dice- red dice, of course, cause her character will be called Ruby. Ruby the Rebel.”

Steve’s smile turns impossibly softer at Eddie’s excited rambling. “That sounds just as cool as her. What kind of- uh like, what’s her-”

“Class?” Eddie asks, stomach swooping a little at Steve trying to remember things about their nerdy game so he can ask Eddie. Steve nods. “Oh, she’s a-” He cuts himself off when a cool breeze stirs beneath his flannel and he shivers with a curse. “Jesus H. Christ!”

Steve startles and his head whips in different directions, looking out for danger. “What?”

“Sorry, nothing! It’s just really cold! Sorry!”

Steve relaxes, then frowns. Narrowed eyes travel over Eddie’s body. “Wait, where’s your jacket?”

“Uh.”

“Did you leave it in the car?”

“More like, left it at home?” Steve’s face turns pinched. “You didn’t tell me where we were going, I didn’t know I would need a jacket!”

“Yes, you did, I told you to bring one!” Steve says, exasperated.

Oh. So Steve did tell him to bring a jacket. Huh.

“Here,” Steve says and then starts shrugging off his jacket.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m giving you my jacket, obviously.” He removes it completely and Eddie gives himself a second to commit to memory just how tight Steve’s white shirt is. It’s also thin. Eddie shakes his head.

“But you’ll be cold.”

“I won’t.” He shrugs. “I run hot.”

“You’re hot,” Eddie says and realizes too late that his brain-to-mouth filter must’ve been damaged by the cold. “I mean you look hot, like you don’t look cold.”

Steve bites down on a grin. “Take the jacket before you catch something, Eds.”

“O-kay, mom Steve.” He accepts the jacket, and when he puts it on, he can’t help but sigh happily. It’s warm from Steve’s body heat. It also smells just like him. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Steve smiles. “Now, what were you saying?” He asks and it takes Eddie a minute to remember what they were talking about, distracted as he is by Steve’s warmth and smell surrounding him.

***

“Do you ever think about leaving Hawkins?”

Eddie jerks his head back, out of the basket where he was looking for the forks that Steve packed for the pie. “Uh, like, every day of my life, man.”

“Because of Vecna?”

“No, long before that.” Eddie finds the fork. Singular. “You only packed one, Stevie, but I can just use my fingers.” He wiggles them and Steve shakes his head.

“We can share,” he says. Alarms go off in Eddie’s head at the thought of passing the fork back and forth between them, sharing the slice of pie. He hasn’t been to that many dates in his life, but sharing dessert sounds a lot like a date thing.

“Sure,” he says, shrugging casually. Steve takes the first bite and hands it to Eddie. “Anyway, yeah. I always knew I wanted to leave. Knowing that there’s an alternate dimension at our feet that could pop up the next monster at any second only made the urge stronger, but. Gotta graduate first.”

“Where will you go? When you graduate?”

“I don’t know. Some big city with a cool music scene, maybe. I can join a band that’s actually going somewhere.” He snorts. “No offense to Corroded Coffin.”

Steve chuckles. “I’ve always thought you belong in some big city.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asks with an arched eyebrow.

“Yeah, dude, you’ve always seemed- I don’t know, too big for Hawkins,” he says with an awed tone. Eddie’s throat feels dry, he skips the next bite of pie, giving it back to Steve. “Like you should be somewhere with people as loud and talented and great as you.”

Eddie swallows thickly. His eyes haven’t left Steve’s face, but Steve isn’t looking at him, instead he’s staring ahead at Hawkins or maybe like he’s trying to see even further than that. Eddie’s glad he’s not looking at him, he doesn’t even know what his face is doing right now, listening to Steve talk about him like that, there’s probably hearts in his eyes or something.

“I- I’ve always wanted to go to New York,” Eddie says to break the silence. Steve hums like he thinks it’s a good idea. “What about you, Steve? Do you think about leaving?”

“Sometimes. I- I’ve actually been saving up money to go to college. Nothing prestigious like Nance or Robin, just community college maybe.”

“That’s great, Steve,” Eddie says.

“But I don’t think I can leave until I know it’s over, you know? The Upside Down, especially if the kids are still going to be here.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought about that. Kinda makes you want to steal another RV, pack them all up and leave Hawkins for good.”

Steve meets his eyes finally. He smiles. “Yeah, exactly.”

“I think we could do it,” Eddie says, entertaining the thought for a moment.

“You don’t think we’d end up in jail? For grand theft auto and kidnapping children?”

“Shh, let a guy dream, Harrington.”

“Okay, okay,” Steve says, holding up his hands in defense. “You know I haven’t told anyone about saving up for college. Just you.”

“Not even Buckley?”

Steve shakes his head. “I already failed once trying to get in. I don’t want anyone to know that I’ve failed again. I don’t want to disappoint anyone.”

Eddie thinks about what Steve said when they got here, about the fight with his parents, about them calling Steve a disappointment. “You could never disappoint me. Or Buckley or the kids. We all worship the ground you walk on, King Steve.”

“Shut up,” Steve says with a lighthearted shove to Eddie’s shoulder. “You don’t.”

“We do! Because we know just how good and badass you are, and whoever can’t see that is a butthead.”

“Are you calling my parents buttheads?” Steve asks with a barely concealed snort.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing!” He puts his hands around his mouth and yells. “The Harringtons are buttheads!”

Steve breaks into giggles, falling back against the blanket, squirming with laughter. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but you love it,” Eddie says without thinking, and watches as something flashes across Steve’s face.

Before he can backtrack or brush it off as a joke, Steve sits up again, his jaw set with determination.

“The fight with my parents was because of you,” he says. And okay, that’s not what Eddie was expecting.

“Me?”

“They came home just as I was packing this up.” He gestures at the picnic basket. “I didn’t hear them come in until they came into the kitchen. They thought I was doing all of this for a girl so they started going off about me wasting my life and everything that they worked so hard to give me just to go on dates and work at a goddamn video store. They told me that it didn’t matter how much I tried, this girl was going to realize I was a failure and leave me. I don’t know what made me more angry- what they were saying about me or that they were talking about you like they knew you.” Steve pauses and takes a deep breath. “So I snapped and I told them I wasn’t packing all of that for a girl, that I was doing it for you. A guy. And that you would never leave me because I work at a video store or because our dates consist of grilled cheese sandwiches and roller skating and babysitting kids. And I guess that was a little presumptuous of me since we never really agreed that these were dates and I don’t even know if you-”

“Yes,” Eddie says when he finally finds his voice. He lost it somewhere around Steve calling this, and all the things they’ve been doing together for weeks, dates.

Steve blinks, his lips press together like he’s trying to stop himself from smiling, from getting ahead of himself. “You don’t know what I was going to say.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “What were you going to say?”

“That I don’t even know if you feel the same way I feel for you.”

“Yes.” Eddie repeats. “Holy fuck, Steve, yes I do.”

Steve stops trying to hide his smile. He beams at Eddie. “Yeah? You’re crazy about me too?”

Eddie whines low in his throat. “Steve.”

Steve pushes himself to his knees and then he closes the distance between them by crawling towards Eddie. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t stop thinking about me and you want to listen to me talk all day about nerdy shit too?” Steve asks, crowding against Eddie until he has no choice but to lean back until he’s lying down on the blanket and Steve is hovering over him.

“Sports shit but yeah, yes.”

Steve leans down until his lips are right next to Eddie’s ear. “You want to kiss me too?” Eddie shivers, and this time, it’s not because of the cold. He’s never felt warmer in his entire life.

“Yes,” he says. “Please, Steve.”

Steve closes the distance between them and crashes his lips against Eddie’s, kissing him hard and desperately, drawing a whimper out of him. Eddie kisses back with just as much enthusiasm, his hands coming up to grip Steve’s waist, his shoulders, his arms.

His freezing arms.

“Christ, Steve!”

“What? What?” Steve asks, pulling back just enough so that Eddie can see his face- flushed with parted, swollen lips and blown pupils.

And oh. Yeah. Eddie needs to see Steve looking like this again soon. Preferably when he’s not freezing to death.

“You’re freezing, man. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was a little busy,” Steve smirks.

Eddie shakes his head. “I’m giving you your jacket back,” he says, squirming as he tries to shrug off the jacket with Steve still on top of him.

“No, Eds-”

“Then we’re going to the car.”

“But I can’t kiss you like this in the car,” Steve pouts and the sight of a pouty Steve because he wants to straddle Eddie and kiss him stupid shouldn’t make him consider staying out here in the cold, but it does. Just for a moment.

“You can, if we climb in the backseat, baby,” Eddie says with a sly grin.

Steve’s eyes widen, his eyes flick to the car and then to Eddie’s lips and Eddie sees the moment he makes a decision. “Yeah, okay. Maybe I am a little cold. Let’s go.”

They pick up the trash and the blanket in record time, even while stealing short, giggly kisses.

“I can’t believe we’ve been on so many dates and you haven’t even asked me out once!” Eddie says, balling up the tin foil paper and throwing it at Steve’s face. He throws his head back with a groan. “I can’t believe Max was right!”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “You talk to Max about me? Your fifteen-year-old neighbor?”

Eddie arches an eyebrow right back. “Oh, so you don’t talk to Dustin, your fifteen-year-old best friend about me?”

“Of course I do,” Steve sniggers. “He’s the one who told me you can’t roller skate to save your life.”

“Then why did you take me to the roller rink?” Eddie asks with an undignified squeak, feeling the phantom pain of his many falls.

“So I could do this-” Steve takes hold of Eddie’s hands, tangling their fingers together, “-all night.”

Eddie flushes, looking down at their hands with a smile. “That was a good plan, I’ll give you that.”

He rubs his thumb over Eddie’s knuckles. “I have more where that came from.”

The touch makes Eddie’s insides flutter, he pulls a strand of hair across his face with his free hand, but Steve can probably still see his red cheeks. “Yeah?”

“Mhm,” Steve hums. He crowds against Eddie until his back hits the car, pinning him against it. “And I can show you. If you agree to go on a date with me.” Steve’s free hand plays with the lapel of his jacket on Eddie. “Officially, I mean.”

Eddie grins. “I thought you’d never ask,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth.

Then he’s dragging him into the backseat, and for the rest of the night, neither of them feels cold again.

#steddielovemonth #day 23 #hi hello first prompt for this event hopefully i can write more before the month is over #steddie #stranger things #stranger things fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #monse writes

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paperultra · 3 days

Text

HOME (TO THE OL’ BALL AND CHAIN)

(OR, THE PIÑA COLADA SONG)

Pairing: Chilchuck Tims x Fem!Chilchuck's Wife!Reader Word Count: 2,499 words Warnings: None Summary: Five years after leaving your first and only love, you take the plunge into the dating scene – and immediately regret it. Maybe you're too picky, but none of the men you go out with seem to fit the bill; they're too non-committal, or too eager, or too happy, or too sad, or simply just too much ... so after a particularly bad experience, your youngest makes a last-ditch effort to set you up on a blind date with someone who she insists deserves a chance. You reluctantly agree. read on ao3 | read on quotev

DATE #1: CASUAL LUNCH Estranged husband — 1 Estranged wife — 1 Everything left unsaid — as desired

There’s bacon grease on his shirt.

You can see it underneath his collar, round fingerprints staining the pale linen grey, and when he leans across the threshold into Fler’s home all you can think about is laundry day at the end of the week.

It would be rude to admit that out loud, though.

“Thank you for walking me home,” you say.

“When can I see you again?”

“I don’t know.”

Abelwood teeters forward still. “Well, don’t take too long, hear? You ain’t gettin’ any younger.”

Laughter erupts from the beer in his gut, and you laugh along with him. Abelwood is a rowdy drunk, you’ve learned, which is better than a cruel drunk or a lecherous drunk. It is not the kind of drunk that you are used to bringing home, even if he is only brought to the front door, but –

You smile, regardless.

“Goodnight,” you bid, closing the door inch by inch, your last bit of energy disappearing with the click of the lock.

You hold your breath. It takes three minutes and thirty-seven seconds for the man to leave your front doorstep, and you wait thirty more seconds after that to peek through the window, verifying that he is far enough away before resting your forehead against the door with a groan.

“Oh, boy.”

“I’m too old for this, Fler,” you mutter into the wood. “He was awful.”

Flertom lets out a sigh and closes the distance to squeeze you in a hug, pressing her cheek against your back like she’s done ever since she grew tall enough to do so. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she says.

“I’m sorry too.”

As you pat her hands and turn around to smile wryly at her, Puckpatti pipes up from the middle of the living room.

“He was a pig,” she exclaims. “Calling you by your first name! And he wasn’t even that handsome!”

“Looks aren’t everything, Puck,” you reply sharply, and she pouts, squeezing the lump of clay in her hands until it squishes out between her fingers. “He was a pig for the way he acted.”

“Well … that too.”

“He also smelled like one,” Fler says.

You detach yourself from your daughter to loosen the belt at your waist, frowning down at your dress and nice leather shoes. The dress feels just about as worn out as you do, the fabric soft and droopy from the humidity, the sunshine-yellow color less vibrant than it had been earlier this evening. The man had spilled beer on the floor of the bar and your shoes still look slightly sticky. Peeling them off just reminds you of the way he had laughed.

“Fler,” you say, “get me a wet rag, would you?”

“Sure, Mama.” Flertom turns to Puckpatti. “Puck, get a wet rag.”

“My hands are all dirty!” your youngest protests, showing her grey palms. “Mei’s closer to the water bucket.” She points to Meijack, who you now notice lingering by the kitchen.

Meijack blinks slowly, then silently fetches a rag, wets it, and brings it to you.

“Are you gonna keep trying, Ma?” she asks while you scrub the heel of your left shoe. “All these guys seem to be wasting your time.”

The chuckle that leaves your mouth is short and dry. “After this one, I don’t think so.” You glance up at your daughters and smile, straightening. “Maybe I should just take you all out on a girls’ date next time, huh? Forget about men for a little while.”

Meijack shrugs. Puckpatti nods eagerly.

“I just don’t know what’s wrong,” Flertom frets. “I’ve seen most of them at work before, and they seemed nice enough even when they were drunk …”

You shrug hopelessly and cross into the living room to sit on the couch. “Maybe it’s me.” As you lean back into the cushions, Meijack and Flertom join you on either side. “I’ve only ever been with one man my whole life. Maybe I don’t even know what I want …”

There’s a moment of silence. You look up at the ceiling of Flertom’s home, rubbing your temples and willing your frustration with yourself to not spill over while your daughters are watching. How embarrassing. Here you are, their mother, who is supposed to show them an example of a happy relationship, only for them to comfort you after another failed date. It should be the other way around. Half-foots don’t live long enough for things like this; your own mother had told you when you first left him that you should’ve just sucked it up.

Finally, Flertom speaks up. “Mama,” she starts, hesitant, and you look over to see her playing with her fingers, “Do you really want to date someone?”

“It’s been long enough, don’t you think?” you answer.

As you say so, a name resurfaces in your mind, unbidden, and the face that belongs to it. Your jaw tightens and you look down at your hands.

“Well … um … Papa wrote last week, and he said that he wanted to talk to you sometime. Just a little bit.”

Your tone hardens. “And what does that have to do with me dating, Fler?”

She flinches and her lips push out. “Come on, Mama! It’s been years, and after everything he went through, I really think he’s better now! Don’t you at least want to talk to him? You were so in love with each other before he started adventuring, and now that he’s retired from it …”

You hold your hand up, and her jaw clicks shut.

“I know what you’re getting at, Flertom,” you say quietly. “And right now is not the best time to bring up your father.”

Your daughter deflates, her cheeks rosy. “But –”

“I mean it.” Standing, you heave a deep breath and examine the cluttered workstation that Puckpatti had set up on the living room table. “Puckpatti, make sure to clean up after you’re done. I’m going to bed.”

While the girls mope, you head to your bedroom, doing your best to occupy your thoughts with work at the blacksmith’s tomorrow. You think about the chain mail you’re supposed to be making, the little metal rings to form and weave together, and hope they’re what you dream of, not self-absorbed dates or unwanted kisses.

You blame Flertom for the auburn hair and hearty laughs that plague your night instead.

—

A week later, Puckpatti accosts you as soon as you walk through the door.

“Mama, I found a man for you!”

“Oh?” you reply blandly, hand still clutching at your chest from having the living daylights scared out of it. “Who is it?”

“That’s a secret! But he’s really nice, I promise.”

Sighing, you remove your vest. “I don’t know, Puck. How did you meet him?”

“He bought one of my clay sticks.” You can’t stop yourself from frowning, despite your desire to support your daughter’s entrepreneurial spirit, and she giggles. “Oh, please, Mama, he didn’t believe my pitch. I think I just charmed him into buying it. He seems really clever!”

“Are you sure he wasn’t interested in you?”

She makes a disgusted face. “Eww! No, I told him about you and he seemed interested.”

“Oh, really?”

“Mama, you’re a catch. Of course he’d want to go on a date with you.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, honey.” You glance at her before heading to the kitchen to put away the bread and cheese you’d bought. “Is he a half-foot?”

“Maybe.”

“I thought I’d met all the half-foots in Kahka Brud.”

“Maybe he just moved here.”

She looks up innocently when you raise an eyebrow at her. “And you’re sure I’ll like him,” you drawl, more suspicious by the minute. (Of what, you’re not quite sure.)

“Positive.”

It is incredibly difficult, you think with equal parts pride and concern, to say no to your youngest daughter. It’s probably why you worry about her the most. “This is the last date I’ll go on, Puckpatti. It will be on you.”

Puckpatti cheers. She hugs you as you chuckle at her enthusiasm, jumping up and down. “Yay! I’ll get a time and day that’ll work best. It’ll be great! You’ll love him!”

“For your sake, I hope so.”

—

The day arrives with a mellow sun and clear sky.

You wear your green dress with the floral details, and Puckpatti picks a necklace to go along with it, a thin, simple one that you haven’t worn in years. Flertom does your makeup and Meijack does your hair.

And as you sit in a corner of the tavern fifteen minutes early, hands nervously clasped in your lap, you wonder, just as you have with every date prior, what you’ve gotten yourself into.

Maybe he won’t show up. It would be improper, and juvenile, but then you could go home and say that you did try. Your desire for a new romance has all but dwindled completely, and as you trace the scratches on the wooden table, you wonder if it was even a desire at all.

Footsteps approach from behind. You can tell they belong to a half-foot by the weight and sound – light and small – as they come around to the other side of the table. Your shoulders tighten. Forcing a smile, you look up.

Your heart promptly surges upward into your throat before plummeting to your toes.

Chilchuck gawks down at you, eyes wide. His mouth parts to utter your full name, and you feel your lungs squeeze at how it sounds coming from him, soft from years of disuse.

“You came,” he says.

“Chil – Chilchuck.” His name is ashy and sweet behind your teeth. “What are you doing here?”

He furrows his brow. “What do you mean? The girls said that you were willing to meet up.”

“No, I’m meeting with one of Puck’s customers.”

“What? That doesn’t …” he trails off, and the two of you seem to realize the same thing at the same time.

You bury your head in your hand as Chilchuck grits his teeth.

Those scheming …

“I’m sorry they dragged you into this,” you mutter as you get up from your seat, your voice cold and flat. “I’ll be going now.”

His head snaps up. “Going? But –”

You hurry past him, dodging the hand that you know has reached out for your own.

Home is a ten-minute walk away. You can clear your head in that time, then scold your daughters for meddling, though it’s partially your fault for not questioning Puckpatti about your supposed date more thoroughly. You just didn’t think that they would try something like this.

(Or that Chilchuck would bother to go along with it.)

You pull the door open with some effort and rush out into a downpour of rain.

Your hair gets drenched before you backpedal with a yelp. Pressing against the wall underneath the awning, you look out helplessly at the soaked streets, their gutters already filling with water and debris flowing down the incline. Is … is that a drowning rat?

The storm’s earthiness floods your nose, late in its prediction by half an hour. Just your luck.

You fumble with the clasp of your necklace to remove it, not wanting to get it wet. While you struggle, the tavern door creaks open behind you.

“So you don’t even want to talk. Even after all these years, you’re going to walk away again.”

“Do you know why I walked away the first time?” The damn thing won’t unhook. You scowl, the presence at your back making your usually nimble fingers clumsy.

“No,” Chilchuck says. “I don’t. Not for certain.”

“That’s why.” With each failed attempt to separate the rings, your fingertips grow sorer, your throat thickening. He’s too close. You hate how he’s watching you fail such a simple task. “You stopped knowing, Chilchuck. That’s why.”

Underneath the sharp sound of rain, you can hear his breath hitch, then quiet.

You bite your lip and let your arms fall to your sides, giving up on trying to take your necklace off. Your chest aches. You don’t want to cry in front of him.

“So, there, we talked like you wanted.”

He stops you before you can step out into the rain.

“Wait. What … what about your necklace?” he asks hesitantly, like it’s not what he really wants to say, but merely a way to stall for time.

This time, you look over your shoulder at him. “I’ll dry it real well once I get home,” you reply.

Chilchuck’s mouth presses into a fine line. He grabs the cloak folded over the crook of his elbow, and it is then that you notice the bouquet of blue and pink flowers in his other hand. The ache in your chest flares into a raw, pulsing hurt.

“I’m guessing you’d rather not have me walk you.” He speaks evenly, holding his cloak out towards you. “It’s not completely waterproof, but keep this over your head, at least …” his voice quiets, “please.”

Wordlessly, you take the garment from him. The inner lining is warm against your skin.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you. “For not knowing.” His fist tightens around the flowers, and he stares at you resolutely. “I want to again, if you’ll let me.”

Ah.

You swallow. “I … I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t have to be today. I can wait.”

Breaking eye contact and looking down, Chilchuck roughs his fingers through his hair, mussing it up. The cut is the same as it’s always been, auburn bangs thick and soft over his brow. And you recognize the shirt he’s wearing, a practical, clean wool shirt that you made some years ago. He’s taken good care of it.

It’s all the same. All the same, and yet, something that you can’t quite identify has changed.

You bring his cloak closer to your chest and bite your bottom lip.

“… Give me a week.”

His entire body loses its tension.

“Really?” He looks at you like he can’t believe it, and you avert your gaze, ears warming and moving back the slightest bit.

“Give me a week to decide,” you clarify. “Fler or Mei will let you know … this is really abrupt, after all …”

Chilchuck nods. “That’s fine!” he exclaims. “You didn’t know, so I understand. A week is – a week’s good.”

You nod back, hesitant.

The rain continues its heavy downpour.

“Right … well …” you turn slightly, casting him one last glance, “I’ll give your cloak back, regardless. Don’t get sick.”

“Okay. Stay … stay safe.”

With that, you wrap yourself in the thick fabric, rushing out of the safety of the awning. The run back home smells of woodsmoke and thyme, and when you open the door to three guilty daughters and three apologies, it lingers.

You hang his cloak near the fireplace. It’s evidence of a weak resolve that you stay until it’s dry, and even more damning that you know your answer long before it is.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi #chilchuck tims x reader #chilchuk tims #chilchuck x reader #chilchuck #dungeon meshi fanfiction #reader insert #fem!reader #my emotional support middle-aged divorced father of three.......#throw this guy in a childhood friends to lovers to estranged lovers to lovers fic and see how he handles it #chilchuck's wife!reader let's gooooo

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malarign · 1 year

Text

fake friends

(when you get ditched up by your friends)

contains: idolbf!Jay x fem!reader | genre: angst with hint of fluff | tw! reader has really bad friends, mention of food, kissing, jay is a sweetheart as always :(( | wc: 1,1k

reblogs, likes and comments are highly appreciated!!!

“Mr. Fashionista! Get your ass over here!” you called your lovely yet a little bit grumpy boyfriend over to your shared bedroom to help you complete your outfit. You heard soft stumping coming your way, and soon the door revealed Jay in his gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt.

“So first you’re leaving me on this cold winter day, and now you’re calling me names? Not nice Y/n,” he said sarcastically shaking his head.

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s not the first time after all,” you said. Before he could argue with that he received a sweet kiss on his cheek that left a faint pink mark caused by your lipgloss. “And it’s not like I’m gonna leave you for a long time. I don’t see them very often,” you said referring to your two and only friends here in Korea. Even though your Korean level was really good you had a big problem finding real friends with whom you could gossip, share secrets, and spend some sleepovers like other groups of friends. “I have only them,” you said turning to the mirror to fix your lipgloss that was slightly ruined.

“That’s not true,” Jay argued. “You have me, the guys.”

“Well, I’m not gonna have girly talks with you guys, am I?” You raised your eyebrow looking at him through a mirror reflection.

“Why not? You can talk to me about anything you want,” he answered pulling you closer by your waist.

You turned around smiling softly and wrapped your hands behind his neck, his hands still firmly placed on your waist. “I know. But I also know you would have enough of it after approximately 10 minutes.”

Not having the energy to fight back he sighed. “What do you need help with?”

After brainstorming on which jewelry would match the rest of your outfit Jay asked for the last time, hoping he could spend his day off with you. “What would have to happen in order for you to stay with me and finish that last season of The Crown?” he asked sitting behind you on the edge of a bed.

“Oh no! You’re not gonna bribe me with The Crown!” you said pointing at his chest pretending to be mad. “You know I don’t see them that often.”

“Yeah, maybe 'cause they keep on ditching you?”

Your expression dropped not believing what you just heard. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me! Love, please can’t you see? They’re leading you!” he argued raising his hands vaguely.

“They’re not! You don’t know them, do you?”

“I don’t need to know them to see how they treat you, Y/n.”

You scoffed at his words, not hearing how rational he sounded. Anytime you had plans with each other they either canceled them last minute, or talked mostly to each other almost completely ignoring your existence, yet you didn’t seem to acknowledge that.

“You know what. I don’t care. Let me decide if my friends treat me right or not,” you snapped and abruptly turned around to face yourself in the mirror, this time fixing your earrings.

Seeing how defensive you were, Jay sighed raising his hands in a surrendering manner, walked up to you, and kissed your temple, before leaving to make both of you some light lunch before you leave.

After calming yourself down from your small quarrel, you decided to check how to get to the coffee shop where you planned your meeting. You opened your messages to see that both of your friends texted you a while ago.

“Hi Y/nie sorry but I don’t think I’ll be able to come today :((“

“Me too :((“

Your heart dropped. You looked at your reflection. All those hours of you excitedly picking your clothes, thinking of the time you’ll spend with your friends came to waste.

“Sweetheart, do you prefer kimbap with some pork or tuna?” Jay’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. Thanks to that you realised you started crying, your precisely done makeup completely ruined.

Thinking your silence meant you were still angry at him, Jay decided to pack you both. After cleaning up from preparing your meal he noticed your figure not in an outfit he’d seen you in before, but in a pair of shorts and his old sweater. Seeing your bare face and slightly puffed eyes, he decided not to say anything.

“Does your offer still stands?” you asked in a whisper, voice threatening to crack any moment.

“Of course, sweetheart.” Jay smiled gently. Hearing that, you nodded and sat on the couch pulling blanket over your legs. Soon Jay joined you placing freshly made kimbap on a coffee table in front of you. “Didn’t know which filling you wanted today so I made both with pork and tuna,” he spoke side-hugging you, making you nestle up to him.

“Thanks,” you answered simply, knowing if you said more you’ll end up crying right here and there. And you didn’t want to let him have this satisfaction.

While Jay was searching for the Netflix app on the TV you pulled your phone out of your pocket. Opening your Instagram your heart dropped once again, seeing the newest story from one of your friends. You stared at the picture of two girls smiling widely, drinking beverages from the cafe you were supposed to meet at. Not controlling your emotions anymore you let the tears flow down your cheeks, sobbing loudly.

Jay looked at you concerned. Then his eyes landed on your unlocked phone, the story still present on the screen. He snatched it away from you, placing it next to his other side. Cupping your face he spoke: “Sweetheart, please don’t…”

“You were right,” you interrupted him between your sobs. “You were right and I should have listened to you.” You hugged him tightly hiding your face in his chest. You felt his one hand softly patting your head and the other one tracing small circles on your back.

“Y/n please look at me,” he said softly lifting her chin with his pointer finger. “You deserve the best friends out there. And those two… They don’t deserve you at all. Who’s the girl boss after all?” You couldn’t help but smile at his words, soon airy giggle leaving your mouth. “I love you, Y/n,” he whispered above your ear, words of confession you hear every day leaving you with goosebumps all over your skin.

“I love you more, Jay,” you replied tears still visible in the corners of your eyes, that this time contained nothing more but happiness and adoration for the boy in front of you.

“That’s impossible, sweetheart.”

thank you for reading! back to the masterlist

#jay enhypen #jay x reader #jongseong x reader #jay imagines #jongseong imagines #jay fic #jongseong fic #jay angst #jay fluff #enhypen angst #enhypen fluff #enhypen x reader #enhypen imagines #enhypen fic #jay park #park jay #park jongseong

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thespiritssaidso · 23 days

Text

Let Me Get That For You…

Summary: unmedicated adhd Shawn + distracted Lassiter

Notes: man, I just can’t help myself with these kinds of fics, can I? Also, I wrote this in like, 30 minutes. So apologies if the quality isn’t as great as you would like it to be.

Warning ⚠️ there will be tongue play

It was a normal day. Until Shawn mentioned offhandedly that he had forgotten to call in with the pharmacy and renew his ADHD medication, only having just called them a few minutes ago when he noticed he was completely out.

“You what?”

“Oh come on, Lassie. You can’t expect me to always remember this kind of stuff!”

Lassiter so badly wanted to retaliate, but held himself back from saying something that might be insensitive. “When does it get here?”

“Well…”

It would be a week before they could get him his prescription. Shawn had apparently waited just the right amount of time for them to completely run out.

They had two peaceful days (or at least as peaceful a day can be when your boyfriend happens to be one Shawn Spencer). But that all came crashing down when the meds wore off.

It’d been three hours. Shawn had been sitting on their shared couch and talking nonstop for three fucking hours, recounting an unlikely adventure he and Gus went on. Talk about a hyperactivity disorder.

At some point or another, Lassiter had tuned him out. He wasn’t sure what Shawn was talking about now. He’s pretty sure it had started with ‘Gus and I…’. Yeah, yeah that’s what it was. But he couldn’t focus. He was to busy staring at a small corner of Shawn’s lips, where something — probably sauce from their lunch earlier — had stuck to.

“Spencer.”

He kept going on. “-he tried to ditch me, but I grabbed his leg. And then he fell onto the pineapple display-”

“Shawn.”

“-he screamed so loud, Lassie. He’s had some pretty loud ones, but this one really took the pie-”

“Oh for Chrissake.” Lassiter roughly grabbed Shawn by the chin and slammed his lips to Shawn’s. That got him to stop talking, at least. Now to deal with that little stain…

Lassiter’s tongue darted out, licking and cleaning Shawn’s corner lip. A little bit of it went inside his mouth, however, and Shawn took that as a cue to do the same. He shoved his own tongue into Lassiter’s mouth without any hesitation. This took the detective slightly off guard, although he wasn’t about to begin complaining.

They sat there for what felt like forever, tasting each other, keeping lips locked in what could have been seen by outsiders as desperation. Why had Lassiter waited three hours to do this?

It was over too soon. When they broke for air, Lassiter leaned back. “You had food on the corner of your lip, Shawn,” he explained simply to him.

Shawn sat for a minute, and finally said, “Oh. Huh.”

“Mhm.”

“Anyways, where was I?” Aaaand he was back to where he had left off. “Right! So then-”

Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. Not to say that this wasn’t nice, of course. He reached towards the coffee table and grabbed his glass of milk. It looked like he was going to be sitting here for a while waiting for Shawn to crash.

—————

Notes: Got this idea from @pineapple-psychic on the psych discord. And the milk thing at the end was a reference to this

AO3 link

#Shassie #shawn spencer #carlton lassiter #psych #psych 2006 #psych usa #psychusa #psych tv #psych tv show #psych show #psych fanfic #psych fic #psych fanfiction #toast tries to write #🔮🔫

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courtingchaos · 10 months

Text

Lacking

Gator Tillman x Fem Reader

7:29

A/N: This is because @dr-aculaaa has basically become a co-writer on this. I keep dropping my HC’s in their DM’s and they keep dropping their own so here we are, a shared dream ❤️

Warnings: Sex, back at it again with the knife play, male masturbation

18+ NSFW No Minors Allowed

The girls at Dottie’s know you. Mostly from your multiple midnight pickups of some idiot brother causing problems, but also because of Roy.

Everything ties back to Roy.

When you roll up outside the bouncer lets you in and the wall of multiple perfumes assaults you before the neon pink lights can. In the lounge area a few girls you recognize mingle, barely clothed, and one of them, Julie, waves at you.

“Didn’t think I’d ever see you in here alone, babydoll.” She grins and pushes her blonde hair back with a single talon tipped finger, but she’s just as dangerous as the over stuffed heart pillow next her.

“Uh, no. I mean, no offense I’m just looking for Gator.” You shove your hands in your pockets and only have a slight moment of doubt. You knew you were coming in here tonight so you’d ditched the work clothes. That leaves you with jeans, a plain t-shirt, and your ‘nice’ Carhart jacket. Only your finest for the Midwests biggest sulk.

“Gator?” The blonde tucks her sheer robe around her and leans forward, eyebrows shooting up.

“Yeah.”

“You owe him money or something?” She continues to sound surprised and you wonder if he’s ever had a visitor.

“No, I just need to talk to him. Business stuff.”

“Business stuff.”

“Roy stuff.” That makes her go quiet. One of the other girls points down the hallway ahead of you.

“He’s at the very end, last door on the left.” She doesn’t look you in the eye. In fact all the girls seem to have found somewhere else to look while you unzip your jacket and head off to his room.

You’d found out where he was staying from Donny, problem brother number 4. His frequent trips to the bunny ranch had given him a few glimpses of Gator coming and going.

“I don’t even think he’s fucking any of them.” Donny tells you over the roof of the car you’re working on. He stopped helping you get this front seat out the minute you’d asked your question.

“Okay.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” He sounds concerned and you roll your eyes. He’s never cared about your life before, why now when you ask about some southern interloper.

“Why?”

“Aren’t you two like, a thing?” He says it too casual and you know he’s gathering intel. You know brothers 1 through 3 are standing in the office, just waiting on him to run in and spill it.

You just huff and throw a wrench at him. “Don’t you have some crayons to chew?”

His door looks like all the other doors in the hallway, minus a gold number on top of a red heart. His also has locks on the outside, which gives you an incredible image of some poor idiot mistaking his room for one of the girls. You chuckle to yourself and knock; a pause and there’s no answer, another round this time louder. You heard a scuff of something behind the door so you know he’s in there.

“Gator?” Another knock, still no answer. “Gator it’s me.” He’d know your voice. It should make him open the door and give you that disgruntled stare. He should open it and ask you just what the fuck you’re doing there.

He probably would if he could hear you though.

Through the crackled music in the hallway and a heavy front door, through a bedroom door and a pair of noise cancelling headphones he couldn’t hear a bomb go off if he wanted to. Slouched down in a small armchair, his attention focused solely on his phone, he doesn’t hear you.

He’s been too busy switching between videos on pornhub for an hour, none of them right. He does see the humor in the situation of looking up fucking porn here. Living where he lives, surrounded by girls making a living, but none of them spark a single feeling. They’re all fake nails and too much perfume and bleached hair and unmarked skin unnaturally smooth. If nothing else they give him a headache a mile wide with their incessant need to fill the silence, something he desperately craves.

Something he isn’t finding in these videos.

These women will laugh but it’s high pitched and giggly. They moan and sigh but it’s forced, and if he ventures into anything rough it’s staged and over the top and he looses any urge to jerk off. He’s on the verge of just saying fuck it. Of pulling up his shorts and climbing into bed but he keeps scrolling mindlessly, still looking for something that reminds him of you.

He won’t find it, he never does. He’ll settle on something finally and just mute the video to watch it passively while his mind wanders in the silence created by those headphones.

Lucky for him, you’ve gotten his front door open. The locks aren’t complicated, just enough to keep everyone else out but apparently you have a knack for picking them. The door swings slowly open into a darkened, smallish apartment. It’s a kitchenette and a place to put a couch and two closed doors on either side of the room. Of course it’s spartan and small, you expect nothing else. When you close the door quietly you hear that scuffing again behind the second door and decide that must be his room. You want to snoop and see if he’s hidden any part of his personality away in the few pieces of furniture but a heavy sigh makes you move faster across the small space.

“Gator?” You ask at the door before you twist the nob, fully aware that he could and would pull a gun on an intruder. While that doesn’t scare you like it should, you aren’t in that kind of mood tonight.

His back to the door is what catches you off guard. The blue glow of his phone screen clashing against the red light seeping in from the neon sign outside highlights his face in pretty hues but that’s not what stops you in your tracks. The scuffing of the chair moving back against the floor slightly, his shoulder moving rhythmically, the huff of air he lets out. You hover behind him and watch the woman on the screen frantically ride a faceless man and you laugh. A light thing, almost all breath but you make a sound he doesn’t react to. “Oh Gator, what are you up to?” You ask lowly and he still doesn’t react. You keep your distance but tilt your head and see his eyes screwed shut. You glance at his lap and his big hand fists his big cock and you make up your mind.

Jacket dropped on the floor and pocket knife out you stand directly behind and when he lifts his head, sensing a body behind him, you lean against him and press the spine of the blade against his throat. He jumps and drops his phone, hands immediately up and open showing he’s not holding anything.

“Caught you lackin’, didn’t I?” You whisper next to his head when you pull an earbud out and toss it on the bed.

“What the fuck?!” He hisses at you. Recognizes your voice but when he tries to turn and stand you tighten you grip around his throat.

“Nope. You get to stay put.” You lick his cheek and he flinches at the sudden wetness. “Aren’t you supposed to have eyes on exits?” You tease, blade digging into the side of his neck.

“Did you fucking break in?”

“Only because you didn’t answer. I see why.” With your free hand you tilt his head back to look up at you. “Busy boy.” He swallows and you see his cock twitch out of the corner of your eye. “Don’t stop on account of me, that video looked thrilling.”

“I wasn’t even watching it.”

“I know. Didn’t like what you saw?” Your free hand leaves his jaw to wander down under the collar of his black tee, his chest hair soft under your cold fingers, his tags clinking softly under the cotton.

“No.”

“Well use your imagination Gator. Keep going.”

“I’m not-“

“You’re not what?” You cut him off with a hard press of metal. He still hasn’t figured out it’s not the sharp side of the blade and he sucks in a gasp. “Not gonna do it?” His eyes slip shut and he keeps his head tilted back into your stomach. “I really think you should.”

His hands drop to his thighs but he doesn’t move to touch himself again. You sigh.

“Do you need help?” You twist the knife so the flat of the blade makes contact and he tenses. Leaning down you grab his hand and wrap both around his cock, still hard and hot under your touch. “Same thing you were doing.” You say it like he should know better. You let go and your hand rest on his stomach, your lips on his ear to whisper at him. “What do you think about?”

“Fucking.” He says with a single huff of laughter.

“Me?” Your fingers gather the hem of his shirt and dance along the hard plane of his stomach where it flexes under your touch and his hand moves haltingly up once. “I think about you.” Your hand moves up further and his moves in time, a slow drag of his curled fingers over his hardened length. From the corner of your eye you can see his eyes are open to the darkened ceiling, head tilted back and jaw flexing next to your head. He’s holding himself back for some reason. “I think about you in my room. I think about you holding me down and about you ignoring your phone.” You press a kiss to his ticking jaw. “I like thinking about keeping you in there.”

He hums deep and picks up the pace of his hand and you watch him move. You push his shirt up to his chest where you can slide your fingers through the thick hair there and it earns you a contented sound from him. Where your face presses into his jaw it creates a stamp of heat that you want to lick. Your tongue follows up from the tip of your knife to that heated patch of skin and you can feel the shiver under your hand laid against his chest.

“Do you think about me hurting you?” You ask wetly against his cheek while you give a slight press of your place against his pale throat.

“S-sometimes.” He stutters and circles his hand around the head of his cock, smearing precum on the stroke down. You tuck your head into his neck while your mouth waters at the sight and the end of the blade tickles your cheek. Gator lets out short quiet breaths, little huffs around his stream of curses. His heart beats faster under your palm, your fingers rubbing circles into his pec like you’re trying to sooth him. “Only sometimes?”

He nods once and squeezes his eyes shut, a long aching groan from his chest when he bucks up into his fist, his left hand coming up to grab tightly at the back of your neck.

“Come on Gator.” You mumble into his neck, watching him grip his cock harder, faster. “Who else do you think about?” You know the answer, you just want to hear him say it. He’s getting lost in you wrapped around him and the metal against his neck and your whispering in his ear. He grunts and tugs on the back of your neck when you go to pull back. “Tell me. Who else?” You get out of his grip and fully stand, his hand hooking into your shirt to twist the cotton around his thick knuckles. You can hear the quiet desperation when he finds his voice amid the haze.

“No one.”

“Good.” You toss the knife so you can lace your fingers over his throat. You cradle his head back, thumbs behind his ears, and hold him still while his hand pumps faster. His eyes snap open, pupils blown out while he stares up at you grinning down at him. Watching him unfold below you keeps you transfixed on his stare, on his jaw going slack, on his lips parting, on the hitching gasps rushed up and over your face. You keep his head pressed into you while he cums white hot lines up his chest, staining the edge of his black t-shirt. His body tenses and relaxes and his head stays pressed hard into your stomach, eyes wide and clear while he groans on the last of his release.

“Good boy.” You tell him, breathless. An errant finger running lightly up and down the underside of his chin. His chest rises and falls fast and his hand drops from his softening cock to lay on his thigh. You keep him between your hands for a moment too long probably but you can’t help the tightness the slinks it’s way around your ribs. It coils along each one and makes your breathing shallow and you hope he isn’t aware enough yet to see the change in your gaze.

His head drops when you take a step back and let him go with a chuckle but his hand fisted in your shirt keeps you in his reach. “Where do you think you’re going?” He says in a quiet voice, warning on the edge of it. You laugh and tug back but he’s got his whole fist in the shirt now. He twists around in the chair to look at you over his right shoulder and you watch the sticky spend on his stomach smear on his arm still laying on his thigh. The neon red that bleeds through his blinds catches his eyes and makes them shine in the dark. “You got a fuckin’ mess to clean up.”

Wind rattles the window for second and you sigh thinking about having to drive home in falling snow again. You can hear the shower still running through the thin wall, surprised you can’t hear Gator still grumbling about having to take a second one tonight. For all of his ornery slamming of drawers looking for a new shirt he still asked if you wanted to join him. Tucked up in the corner of bed against the wall, phone balanced on your knees you shook your head silently.

Now you kind of wish you had, the sticky feeling of sweat and saliva laying thick on you. Your neck throbs where he laid his teeth on you after you cleaned him up, your lips swollen from him kissing you too hard. Your hands ache from the grip you had on his hair while he laid between your thighs, and those sting from his big palms coming down on them when you’d clamp them around his head.

You continue to scroll through your messages, even after the shower stops and you hear him rummaging around. You haven’t bothered to get dressed yet, still wound up in the sheets and comforter. He pauses when he walks back in, wet hair slicked back against his head.

“You’re still here.” You expect disappointment but instead get mild surprise.

“I can fuck off if you’d like?” You offer and he averts his gaze and shrugs. “Then what do you want?” A challenge then, since all he does is shrug at you.

“I don’t care! Fuckin’…stay there if you want.” He gestures at you and looks around at his floor. “It started snowing so you can drive in that shit if you want.” He finds his phone kicked under the bed and bends to get it, tossing it and your knife you’d dropped on the mattress. Your phone lights up again, another message from a bothersome brother asking where you are that you ignore.

“I’d like to stay.” Those snakes that slither along your ribs and coil when you think of him almost purr at your confession. Your phone lights up again and before you can turn to look he’s snatched it up, wide hand swallowing the display before he tosses it on the chair.

“Okay.” He grabs his own phone and looks at the screen once before he scoffs and throws it to join yours. Wordlessly he pulls at the bedding to get it straight again and you follow, the chill quick on your skin, but Gator stops you. A hand under your arm to pull you into the middle of the bed before he climbs over and drops onto you without warning, your breath rushing out of you when his heavy frame pins you to the mattress. He yanks the covers over you and nestles his head into your chest again, a repeat of your own room and you wonder what kind of beat your heart hammers into his ear. He pulls at your hand until you get the idea and let your fingers tangle into his damp locks, the movement pushing up his clean scent. He nuzzles deeper while you watch the shadow of snow on the wall, his slowing breathing lulling you into a strange feeling of safety you rarely feel.

It all ties back to Roy because Roy owns everything. Dottie’s should be called Roy’s because those girls belong to him the same way Gator belongs to him.

Well, maybe not exact.

Julie had let him know as soon as you’d walked down the hallway that you’d shown up, just the same as your second eldest brother had let him know when you left the house an hour earlier. Roy has fingers in every pie in every windowsill of this shitty little town. He’s known about you, but he didn’t know you and really that’s his fault, he’ll own it. He’d told Gator to get some strange to try and work of that excess fury, he’d had no idea the two of you had been cut from the exact same cloth though. The bias and weight, the same fucking blend.

So he sits in the parking lot of the whore house he owns, with the people he owns inside while you interlope in a bed that he owns. And if he has to wait all night he will, just so he can spot the look on his boys face first thing in the morning when he’s realized what kind of earth shattering mistake he’s made.

#Gator Tillman x Reader #Gator Tillman Smut #Gator Tillman Fic #My Work #My Fic

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kenmjiro · 8 months

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Secrets after class

¡Teacher!Rick Grimes(Aus) x ¡student! fem reader

inspiration: Secrets after class by comino inc.

Summary: you find your teacher sleeping peacefully in his office. While you wait you stumble upon a manuscript. A manuscript where the writing style seems awfully familiar...

TWS: Dramas, age gap, provocation,suspense, Romantinc comedy, Schoollife, Taboo, HighSchool

love is one of those thing that people can't really control.

One day you meet someone and the next you are hit with the realization that you are in love with them.

Being in love is a wonderful thing;however,what do you do if you fall in love with someone who is off limits to you?

I'm a book loving Junior in High School.

my love for books led me to join the Literature Club. The club is of course the best thing ever! It's full of exciting adventure,dreams,books,smiles! It just lacks one thing ...members. Yeah, sadly there are only two members in the club. My teacher and myself. But this year, I will changer that!

Have l mentioned that l'm head over heels in love with my teacher?

Moving right along! New year, new style!

“That's all for today, class. Be careful on your way homer everyone!” hearing my home room teacher's dismissal, l shot up from my desk.

“I have a meeting with the Literature Club today so l got to got” l thought as ready to leave, they give mee a slight touch on the shoulder

“Y/N”

“Whoa, maggie, what's up?” lt's my childhood friend Maggie Greene. We've been in the same classes since Kindergarten.

l have few friends, but she is one who truly gets me and is also a total bookworm. She is like the sister l never had. “Lemme guess, club meeting?”

“Yup! Today, l'm going to get permission to recruit new members!”

“Oh, that's right, you gotta have permission now because of that one incident, huh?”

Scrunching up my face, l nodded bitterly. “Yeah, unfortunately.”

*Sigh* “That teacher is unexpectedly tough, given his sweet appearance.”

“lt just didn't end well last time... However!Today is the day that l will get permission!” Speak decisively.

“ohhhh...well...l guess, you cant't come then.” Maggie shoulders drop.

“Huh? Come where?” l frowned.

“They cancelled basketball practice because they are using the gym for something else. So l wanted us to go to the bookstore with glen.” Glen is another classmate and childhood friend. the three of us are often together.

Glen and Maggie are couple.

They often worry that l'll be left by myself so they invite me along to wherever they go. But l am fine not joining them since l always feel like the third wheel.

“Nah, l'm good. You go ahead.”

“Wait, why? l need you go to with. You chose a great book for me last time. l want you to choose another one for me! so you really can't” Maggie dipped her head and stared up at me with big puppy eyes.

“That doesn't work on me anymore, nice try though.” Maggie puppy eyes turned into a full on pout.

“l ready promissed my teacher that l'd show at the meet today. l can't just ditch las minute.”“Besides, l want to get permission to recruit new members as soon as possible.” l thought as l bit my lower lip and looked at maggie back.

l don't know how long it is going to take to convince the teacher to get that magic ticket. So, it's a no from me dawg. But have fun with Glen”

“You know... l had hoped to hear about Andrew Lincoln's work from you today...”

“Staaaph! You know Andrew lincoln is my favorite author!”

“Ok,ok. But next time will you go with?” Maggie looked serious waiting for an affirmative answer.

“Yes! l promise.”

“Alright! l'm gonna hold you to that!”

“l won't let you down! For now, l have to go convince this teacher!

“Haha,good luck!”

With a last wave at maggie, l took off for the language department where my teacher was expecting me.

*knock knock*

“Huh? What's going on?” l stand with my hand still in the air after knocking the door. “l thought l told the teacher that l was coming today” l knocked on the office door again, but there still was no response.

“whats should l do?.... should l go inside” The teacher has never been late before. l wonder if something happened to him.

“Well, if anything, if he's not there, l can check the teacher's lounge. if the door is unlocked l can just wait in here.” l carefully opened the door

“Hello? mr. grimes?” The room was fairly dark, so l turned on the lights. That's when l saw a person slouched in chair at the back of the room

lt is my language teacher, Rick Grimes. He is also an advisor and a member of the Literature Club to which l belong. “Um... teacher rick?”

“ls he sleeping? During school hours?” Looks like he's asleep. “Wow, he looks completely out of it” Seeing his sleeping face, only one thought occurs to me: this is a side of him l never get to see.

“His skin is so fair and his eyelashes so long, He looks so peaceful. He's always calm and smiling. No wonder he's so popular with the ladies.”

But it's not just his looks that makes him popular. He is also an amazing teacher and cares for his students. lt's amusing though, before class starts, you always see all the girls batting their eyelashes at him. Heh

l really shouldn't be talking though...

.... Because l like him too.

l might even go so far as to say it was love at first sight.

l remember the day when l first requested to join the Literature Club. l looked up and saw his sweet smile. His first words were, “Thank you for coming, l'm happy you are here.”

“...Of course my teache does not know about my crush.” Since l'm a student, l need to make sure l keep these felings in check. “l don't want to cause any problems.”

l sat down in a chair across from a sleeping Rick. “He's sleeping so soundly, it doesn't look like he's going to wake up any time soon.”

“Hm... what should l do?”... “Since he's sleeping so well, l guess l'll let him be and just hang out a while.” “ln the meantime, l can think of how to persuade mr. grimes and how to recruit new members!”

“Actually lemma write the ideas down.” As l'm reaching for my bag, something catches my eye. A stack of papers is randomly placed on my teacher's desk.

lt seemed to be a manuscript of some sort that belonged to my teacher, given that the handwriting was similar. “ls this novel professor wrote... l didn't know he whote novels”

“l want to take a peek, but l really shouldn't read it without permission...But...just a teensy tiny peek shouldn't hurt, right? Just a page or two? l glance over at rick. He is still sleeping soundly.

“...Dear literary gods, please don't strike me down for being unable to contain my curiosity. Teach, forgive me, l just must know!” As l prayed for forgiveness from every deity, l picked up the manuscript.

The shorts story written from a male perspective was about 4000- characters long and spanned about 10 sheets. l of course read the entire thing in one go. “Did he write this”

Suddenly, l saw a movement in the comer of my eye.

“Ahem...”

The manuscript was lifted out of my hand. when l looked up, l saw that Rick had woken up at some point.

“Y/n, well, what's going on here? Do you always go around reading other people's private work... Perhaps l shouldn't have left it out in the open, but that's besides the point. ”

“l'm sorry. That was really rude of me.” As l apologized l was still staring at the manuscript that my teache was holding. “Not to impose even more, but can l,um, ask you about that? Did you write that?

“I did...-

“Sr. rick! lt' s phenomenal!!

“Wha-?”

Excited l stepped up to mi teacher “The world is so enveloping and you can feel the anguish and pain of the protagonist! It's written absolutely beautiful way” “the writing style resembles my favorite author, Andrew Lincoln, in every way!

Andrew Lincoln is a romance novelist who is very popular among the younger generation. He mainly writes young adult romance novels from a male perspective. Many of his works are very emotional and sad.

“On, that's right, you are a fan of Lincoln” l excitedly clapped my hands in front of me and rapidly nodded my head.

“Yes!!! A thousand times yes! l absolutely love that author! His work is incredible and has me in tears every time! l also love the fact that everything surrounding him is so mysterious. There is nothing about author himself anywhere. All we know is that he writes beautiful novels.”

“l see...” Whenever Lincoln is mentioned, Rick doesn't show much enthusiasm.

“Sr. rick, do you not care for this author? Whenever he is mentioned you seem very uninterested.”

“Ah, l'm sorry. l didn't mean to give off that impression.” Rick put the manuscript away in his desk drawer and turned to look at me. “ By the way, wasn't there something you wanted to discuss”

“Oh! Right! Right! l came to get permission!

“ls it for recruiting new members?”

“Yes!!!” nod frantically.

Rick sighed and nodded. “We discussed this before, but l will remind you that l will only accept motivated and interested students. l do not want the Literature club to become a ''Resume filler'' or hangout for unsavory people.”

“l know, l know, that's why l'm here to talk about that”sighed and nodded

“lt's not going to be easy to convince me.”

“But if we don't recruit more members the club will go extinct.”

“l understand this, but it is still better than having students not take it seriously.”

“Well, if you say so...

The teacher's words reminded me of the incident that happened previously.

Soon it was only teacher and myself.

The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop

“l just want to have a few more members and be able to advertise for the club”

“Y/N, l think just the two of us are perfectly fine. We don't need a lot of members to make the club interesting. Don't you think so?”

“lt's not that...”

In fact l love having Rick all to myself.

We haves so much fun every meeting that l look forward to them. But l wanted new members as much as l wanted to spend time alone with rick.

Because... “l really want other people to talk to about the books l read. l want someone who love Andrew Lincoln's work as much as l do and is enthusiastic about discussing it!”

Reading is something you do on your own, but discussion about a book is something that requires other people. l enjoyed talking to my peers about the books l read.

Of course l can talk to Rick but it's different. with him, we can discuss everything BUT Andrew Lincoln's work. And that is something l really, really want to discuss with others.

Since rick isn't interested in Lincoln's work, there is no point talking to him about it. “So l really want new members!”

“l see. l didn't realize how much you wanted to have more students in the club.” Rick sat deep in thought looking at me.

“l think l almost have him. Just a little more persuasion...” l was ready to fire off another reason as to why we need new members when..

Ding! Ding!

“ Rick Grimes, you have a phone call, please come to the staff office.” Rick was called over the school intercom, which effectively ended our conversation.

“alright. l understand why you wish to have new members. Let us think of ways to recruit members who are enthusiastic. l need to take this phone call. l will be right back.” With a smile, Rick took off.

“Great! looks like l got through to him, but damn that interruption!” “It's a step in the right direction though! Well, while he is taking his phone call,l'll just wait there for him to get back.” While waiting, l decide to take a look around the room.

A large bookshelf stood against the wall. lt was overfilled with books. There were so many in fact, that they were stacked in front of other books in little towers.“ The departament buys so many books that they are running out of room to store them”

Looking around a bit more it occurs to me that rick is not very tidy“ perhaps professor is just too busy to take the time and straighten up”

Since we use this as a club meeting room, l also tidy up every so often, but since it is the teacher's office, l can't straighten up and throw out stuff as much as l want. “Well, l guess for now l can get rind of this... Why is there a big cardboard box blocking the entrance anyway? lsn't some this some sort of fire code violation?”

l try to pick up the box, which is full of envelopes and documents. lt is much heavier than l had expected. “Good grief, what is in this thing?” l manage to lift the box into the air, but as soon as l did several envelopes that were on top crashed to the floor. “Ah crap“

One envelope wasn't properly sealed and the contents spilled all over the floor. “Crap,crap,crap!! What if this is some super duper important doc and l just got all the pages mixed up! I'm like so dead!”

“Huh? What is this” l took a closer look at the scattered documents. The handwriting seemed familiar. There was no doubt that these documents were written by Rick. “Oh! rick, did you actually write a full length novel?!”

l had just read a short story earlier that was written by my teache. l absolutely loved it. Needless to say l was dying to read this!

“Ugh.. but the JUST scolded me for reading his papers without permission. l would feel violated if someone did this to me so l'm going to go ahead and put this back. Alright, in you go buddy!” As l was sliding the manuscript into the envelope the author's name sprung out at me.

“What the hell? Andrew Lincoln? l slid the manuscript back out of the envelope and quickly flipped through the pages. The handwriting was all the same. “No way...” A million thoughts went through my head all at once.

Nobody knows anything about Lincoln's private life or where he is based out of. why is one of this manuscripts here?. There has to be logical explanation. “ Is my teache--

“What are you doing y/n”

“AHHH!!”

l was so shocked at reading my favorite author's name that l didn't hear the door open behind me. When l turned around l saw Rick stantiong at the door with a faint smile on this face.

l felt like a hundred flashing neon arrows were pointing at me blinking “GUITY!”“GUILTY”.

How the hell was l going to explain myself out of this one? Rick stepped in front of me, l made a desperate attempt as l turned to face my teache.

“Uh... h-hi! Um... you see, what had happened was. l was trying to clean and the box tumbled and spilled the manuscript everywhere... l'm sorry. l tried to collect it all...”

“And then?” Rick looked at me in a serene but threatening way.

“Then?”

“What did you see?” My teache closed the door and stepped in front of me.

“See? what did l see?” l stepped back instinctively as Rick comer closer.

“y/n, please be honest, what did you see?

“Well... the manuscript... the name... Er.. well... could.. you.. maybe be the novelist Andrew Lincoln?”

“......” The silence felt endless and l quickly regretted blurting out that assumption.

A thought occurred to me..l have been fawning over Andrew Lincoln to my teache for how long now? l practically confessed my love for him in front of my teache. l spilled everything from how much l love Lincoln's work, how much it makes me cry, how my heart absolutely longs for him.

lt is stuff would absolutely never ever tell the actual author himself “But... l mean that'd be ridiculous, right? Him being Andrew Lincoln... At least l really hope it's not him... l would be mortifiel and could neve show my face at his school again.”

l swallowed thickly and meekly looked up at Rick who was staring intensely at me. my teacher's demeanor had completely changed.

“Hmmm....” Rick let out a small sigh which made my bangs ruffle.

as l loocked at my teacher through my bangs, it occured to me that he was acting completely different front usual. “What if was Andrew Lincoln? What would you do then?”

Rick tone changed. He no longer presented himself like my teacher. lt was more of a predator having trapped its prey.“l...l don't know if l would... believe that.”

“Ah.. Well you see... l am Andrew Lincoln”

“No... way...” He stared at me.

“Why would l lie to you, you're holding the proof right in your hand.” l glanced at the manuscript in my hand.

“Whoa!”

l'm so aghast that my hand involuntarily loosens around the manuscript. Rick grabs my hand. “Don't drop that. lt still needs to be delivered to the publisher today.” l nod like l'm on autopilot. “Well then, y/n”

“U-um...yes?”

Rick steps closer towards me. l instinctively step back, but my back hits upon a solid surface. l forgot the bookshelf was right behind me.

my teacher takes another step towards me. “What's happening?”

l glance at the door and make a movement towards it. Suddenly Rick arm is in my line of sight. He has trapped me between himself and the bookshelf. “Not so fast, y/n. So... the teacher you admire and novelist you worship are the same persona... what are you going to do now?

l look up at my teacher who has an imperious smile on his face

My day started so ordinary.....

what have l gotten myselft into?!?

part 2???

#the walking dead #rick grimes #andrew lincoln #fanfic #oneshot #tv series #rick grimes x reader #rick grimes fanfiction #rick grimes fic #twd rick #rick grimes twd #twd fanfiction #rick grimes x y/n #rick grimes oneshot #kenmjiro

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sweaterkittensahoy · 4 months

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Had to leave 2001: A Space Odyssey in the final ten minutes because I was literally getting muscle cramps from having to plug my ears for the monolith music.

I'd been trying to get through to the end because I knew the movie was nearly over, but when there was a brief pause, and then the music started again, I tagged out.

Let me say this before I say anything else: This movie is a masterpiece of the highest order.

But also, I get why 16-year-old me was fucking BORED, and I get how someone watching it as an adult could be fucking BORED. Because I was sitting there going, "Okay, this has all been very nice to look at, but I feel like I'm on film number 3 with HAL here, and I know where THIS part goes, but I'm gonna need a thru-thread to justify this fucking thing."

And then the thru-thread happened.

And holy shit.

My only recollection of watching this movie back when I was 16 (I remind you, I am 41) is some very well-known shots of Dave and Hal, and also many recreations of The Dawn of Man sequence in various pop culture ways (the Barbie movie being the latest in a long line).

I think it's especially impressive, watching it now, how little screentime HAL actually has and how I felt so bad about what happened to him. A computer, built by men, is possibly fallible one time. And so two humans decide they'll need to take away his intelligence because it's a life or death situation. Even the human who seems to see HAL as a possible sentient intelligence doesn't try to talk to him about his concern. When it comes down to it, the two humans decide to harm the computer that's kept them alive so far, may have (only MAY HAVE) made one minor mistake, and has tried to be friendly with them (HAL wanting to see Dave's drawings kicked me in the ribs).

And then, when you see Haywood's recording to explain why they're going to Jupiter after Dave has brought HAL off-line so deeply that it triggers as a last-ditch effort explanation to the astronauts in case HAL has failed but the ship is still usable, you realize HAL was trying to give Dave a hint about the secret he was being forced to keep when he asked Dave if he'd noticed how ODD the security around their journey was.

But also, HAL--upon realizing the astronauts plan to harm him--immediately seeks violence. But that also reflects the Dawn of Man era where we see the first tool use being to smash bones. HAL is as human as the first human to pick up a bone and smash it down.

And what saves man is the use of simple tools a computer program can't replicate or control.

#2001: a space odyssey #classic film #movies with a soundtrack that make me go panicky #i will be able to watch it at home because i can control the volume #but that's a big no to any other theater experience

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saturngoldenchild · 2 years

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Astrology observations:

Today in honor of the hyyh era🥳 thank you guys for supporting my posts. I love it here.

one thing about Aquarius placements…they know everybody. I can confirm. I can assure you I know someone who knows someone who can get what you need done. They only got a few friends tho and their 3 friends are always mad confused on who all these people are. And they’re just like 😃 what u mean?? True social butterflies, the get along with everybody. I always think of Megan thee stallion and taehyung as examples. People have spoken about how Megan is friendly with everyone and it helped her career so much and Tae…that man ain’t got not shame he comes up to everyone.

Another thing I’ve noticed about air placements too…they’re gonna have fun. It doesn’t matter what’s going on, where they are, they’re gonna have a good time. “Oh we going grocery shopping?? Bet” they’re gonna have everyone laughing and enjoying that trip. Same with sag but them mfs always wanna be the funniest in the room 😑 it’s not that deep just be urself. If it’s a party Libra brings the drinks and helps everyone with their make up, Gemini tells the jokes, and Aquarius gives us a show.

A leo sun is going to be super shy n quiet until all the attention is on them lmao. I have this friend who never speaks like ever…give this boy the opportunity to tell a story

U cancer moon, rising, moon in the 1st bitches always looking like a Pixar movie baby. The cutest cheeks and eyes like they can’t hurt a fly.

Earth placements are hedonistic. They like nice things, they like luxury. They take a lot of life’s aspects seriously so whatever it is that makes them happy…They like to make good moments last very long. You already know what that means for an earth mars so I’m not even gonna type it 🙄

Libra risings will be thick. That’s it.

Fixed Venus people cant be subtle to save their life 😭😭 these mfs be so direct, when they like someone they like them and it’ll show whether intentional or not.

Cancer sun women can be the biggest gossipers omg they know everyone’s business

Every Pisces woman I’ve met has a very cute high pitched voice. They’re adorable. They will kill u if u try them.

Venus ruled suns so possessive 😭😭 they always look like they wish a bitch would try something like calm down. And this is with everything. One of my friends is a Taurus and they give the most nasty looks to anyone who bothers me😭 they’re so sweet until then…their whole demeanor changes. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW HES MINE. NO HES MINE YOU NEED TO GIVE IT UUUUUUP

- sorry. Next.

NO HOLD ON. A mix of Virgo n Scorpio y’all are not safe either 👀 huffing n puffing over nothing

- now next

Earth mercury singers have a lot of vocal control. They also tend to preserve their voices very well, the older they get the better and more stable they sound.

The other day I went to a restaurant with my friends. A virgo, a Taurus, a Capricorn…argued on who pays for 5 minutes straight.

I know they say u match with the sign in ur 7th but y’all…😭😭 i can’t do a Virgo romantically. Or can I?????? All the ones I’ve met are fine. I’m conflicted. Y’all are too bossy.

Capricorns and Tauruses cannot be kept away from each other u can’t convince me otherwise. They’re the perfect match.

Water placements…😃 so when are we gonna talk about them friends u give therapy to just to ditch u after. CANCER/PISCES MOONS IM LOOKING STRAIGHT AT U.

Saturn square mars so blunt 😭 quick example: Tyler, the creator. Enough said.

Leo and Aquarius will always fangirl together and it’s the cutest thing. They can discuss a performance/ piece of art/ artist for hours.

One thing about Virgo, aqua, Gemini placements…if it’s not hard to understand they don’t get it 😭😭 thing is if doesn’t challenge them they either don’t put the brain cells to work or are just lazy about it.

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figthefruitfaeth · 1 year

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Mail, Murder, & Other Mysteries

From the Nancy Wheeler Files

Chapter Two: The Anonymous Letter(s) (prev chapter) (ao3 link)

Eddie wakes up to the shrill ring of the landline and stale taste of sugar rotting his teeth. A weak ray of mid-morning light streams in through the windows. The ringing stops. The faint sound of traffic and city life drifts into the quiet of the apartment. He breathes, in, then out.

Just when he starts to relax, the ringing starts up again. He groans, rolling over and shoving his face into the back of the couch.

Eddie knows what he’s doing is stupid. Not just stupid, but a fool’s errand, because trying to avoid Chrissy Cunningham is about as easy as avoiding sunrise. Bright, blinding, and only averted by the machinations of the solar system or God himself. He should write that down…

The ringing stops. Then, a click and—

You’ve reached Nancy—and Eddie’s—apartment.

Christ, she’s leaving a message.

Looks like we’re unavailable at the moment, so leave your name and number at the tone and we’ll get back to you when we can—BEEP.

Eddie! It’s Chrissy. I know you’re there, unless you’re checking the mail again, which I guess means you’re not there. Well, if you’re actually busy then give me a call back when you can! And if you’re not, I’d really appreciate if you’d stop avoiding me. I know it’s a foreign concept to you, but most people would consider that rude! Alright, well I’ll call back later, we’ve got a lot to talk about. Byeeeee!

He sighs, rolling himself flat on his back. This wouldn’t be so hard if she wasn’t so nice about it. For their five years of friendship, he’s never seen her get mean, not even when her shitbag ex-boyfriend showed up at her house drunk and calling her every name in the book (Eddie keyed his car for that, because of the two, he’s the mean one). Worse than that, Chrissy knows it too, using her sweet small-town charm to weasel him into meeting his deadlines. He works best under pressure, and guilt is a motivating pressure alright.

The ceiling is the same ugly off-white color that dominates the rest of their apartment, but it’s also got a popcorn design, which he knows Nancy can’t stand, but he likes it. Maybe not like—intrigue is the better word. It’s a bit like TV static, in that if he stares at it long enough, his brain will drift past himself and the answers to all life’s problems will sail in. It’s how he figured out the twist ending of his last novel (that the Queen’s guard had survived after all) and what to get Nancy for her birthday (a lock-picking kit you could only get at specialty stores).

He lingers in a patch of sunlit popcorn near the edge of The Board. It’s not like he wants to avoid Chrissy’s calls and it’s not like she deserves it either. She’s a good friend and she’s good at her job, which means she won’t let him sulk around in his writer’s block no matter how much he wants to. And God, does he want to.

His latest work, the next in the series, just won’t come together. Nancy had balked at his villain’s third name change, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. His plot is all over the place, the dialogue stilted, motivations out of character. His editor keeps saying it’s fine, that it’s exactly what the readers (all six of them, he’s not exactly flying off the shelves) want, but it feels wrong. It’s overplayed conformist bullshit he doesn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole.

The phone rings and Eddie is suddenly very aware of the gnawing pit in his stomach. So much for those answers.

You’ve reached Nancy—and Eddie’s—apartment—

He shoves a handful of store-brand cereal in his mouth, washing it down with the rest of the milk straight from the carton. He ditches the takeout containers in the trash, wipes down the table, and starts a load of dishes.

I’m trying to contact a Nancy Wheeler. This is John from KX News. Like I’ve said before, we don’t have the capabilities—

He sits at his keyboard for five minutes, then makes himself a sandwich.

Eddie, it’s Jeff. Can’t make the next jam sesh, does Thursday work?

The couch would look better against the windows, actually. Or if he moved the coffee table—

Ms. Wheeler, please stop calling me, I don’t know—

You’re not happy with it, I get it, but I can’t help you fix it if you won’t talk to me about it—

You’ve reached Nancy and Eddie’s apartment—

2:30 pm, his watch beeps. He breathes a sigh of relief, throws on a pair of jeans, grabs his keys, and heads downstairs.

Though Nancy may tease him for it, to Eddie, the mail is serious business. Though his fanbase is small, they’re a dedicated bunch, and he gets a nice little chunk of fan mail. He’s particularly fond of the ones he gets from a local group of high schoolers, who send weekly letters with theories about his newest novel or asking for his opinion on movies they’d seen recently. The highlight of his life had to have been when he dedicated, The Battle of Starcourt, to them, and received a 20pg letter in all caps from the group.

It also gives him the chance to get out, or close to out, of the house during daylight hours, which is apparently important according to Chrissy. When he eventually calls back, he can at least give her that.

On the second floor, he passes Mrs. Romero, a withered old woman only ever dressed in floor length floral nightgowns. He waves, she rolls her eyes.

It also, also gives him the chance to, outside of Nancy which apparently does not count according to Nancy herself, engage in more regular social interaction. If maybe one of those interactions includes seeing the cute guy from 3B, would that be so wrong?

He jumps the last few steps, landing against the black and white checkered tile with a satisfying slap. The lobby, which is really just a long hallway with a few signs and a wall of mailboxes, is empty.

Eddie tries not to pout. It’s not like he sees the guy from 3B every day, but when he does, it always seems to be about now. If Nancy’s Nancy Drew act is anything to go by, which, it usually is, then he doesn’t have a reason to check the mail anyway because he’d already picked up everything he’d end up getting for the week. Not unless he’s actually flirting with him, which after yesterday’s fiasco, isn’t likely anymore.

Maybe it’s better this way anyway, Eddie reasons, jamming his key in the lock when it won’t budge open the first time. No 3B, so at least he won’t have to face his humiliation so soon. Big boy? He couldn’t have gone with something a little more casual? And the guy’s face—

He lets his head fall against the mailbox, cold metal biting against his forehead.

“Bad news?”

Eddie’s never been a particularly lucky guy. He failed his last year of high school twice, been arrested for weed that was actually his friend’s, and always dies in campaigns he isn’t DMing. Today, however, luck definitely isn’t on his side because the voice behind him is none other than 3B.

3B saunters up next to him and leans against the mailbox, a hand at his hip and an eyebrow cocked, like he knows just how good he looks. Which, Eddie bites back a groan, is particularly good today—snug in a pair of the world’s tightest Levi’s and a yellow sweater brighter than the sun. It’s just a tad dated—something he’d see the popular kids in high school wear rather than the loose fit everyone’s starting to sport now. He can’t tell if that means 3B is trying to hang on to the last vestiges of his high school glory days or is sticking to his guns despite the popular opinion, and more concerning, knows the answer wouldn’t change much.

It’s actually really unfair how much Eddie is into him.

“No news, actually,” he swallows, tugging on his key for effect. “I can’t get the stupid little door to open—” he tugs again, and the door swings open, and with it all of his mail.

“Oh shit—”

“Here, let me—”

Together they collect the mail, which isn’t even a lot this time around, but spread out across the hall it takes an awkwardly long time. Eddie can feel his face flush red, and while he hopes it isn’t noticeable, the look 3B is giving him suggests otherwise.

“Well, that’s a newsflash for you,” Eddie mutters more to himself than anything.

3B tilts his head.

“Cause, you asked if I had news…”

“Oh,” he nods. “Right, yeah.”

If the ground could open up and swallow him whole that would make the situation a lot better.

“Well, thanks for the assist, I guess—”

“Oh, hold up,” 3B stops him, a hand clutching his forearm. He lets go just as quickly, but Eddie stays kneeling in his black square, struck still by the other man’s order and the ghost of his palm along the soft of his arm. 3B leans over to the far side of the mailbox, sweater riding up just past his hip, revealing a thin strip of scarred skin. They’re relatively new, still pink and shiny near the bone, but they must feel fine if the way he’s twisting is any indicator. Eddie thinks back to Nancy’s observation, and desperately hopes it’s not true.

“Here we go,” 3B smiles, pushing a few loose strands back with one hand and flashing Eddie his bounty with the other. It’s the latest edition of Fangoria, one Eddie had finally managed to get an article in. “My kids love these.”

“Kids?”

“Not mine!” He scrambles, cheeks tinting a rosy pink. “Not that I don’t want some of my own someday. Or, they don’t have to be mine mine, adopting is just as good, better sometimes in fact, actually. But I’m not ready for kids now, obviously. I mean the apartment is way too small and Robin—” he winces. “I’m going to stop talking now.”

“No, go on,” Eddie grins. Getting his terribly hot neighbor to fall apart on him, well, it’s certainly a confidence boost that’s for sure. “You got names picked out yet?”

“Haha, very funny.”

“Oh, I haven’t heard those before. Family names?”

3B pushes him, but laughs as he does it, the sound a bright and clear echo in the hall. Eddie falls over with little resistance.

“God, this floor is disgusting,” and then there’s a hand in his face. Eddie grabs on and is heaved up with a surprisingly little effort on his part, bringing him close to the warm, sunny chest of 3B. He’s got a soft smile, one that pulls at the corner of his mouth and leaves a crinkle at his eyes. Eddie’s solidly on his feet now, and still, 3B is holding onto him.

“I’m Steve, by the way. Steve Buckley.”

Steve. It’s exactly the kind of name a yellow sweater wearing prep would have. Steve, a guy’s guy, who plays sports and flirts with pretty girls and who lives a nice, normal life. It’s such a cliché it should turn him off.

“Eddie Munson.”

“Ah, so now I know who’s name to yell when Metallica comes on at 3 am.”

“I thought you didn’t know who they were?” He squints, desperately ignoring the part of his brain playing the idea of Steve yelling his name on a loop

Steve shrugs, “I might’ve picked up a CD yesterday on my way home from the center. Not really my thing, I think. Too much noise.”

“Too much noise? What are you, sixty?”

“Fifty-nine, actually,” he smirks, drawing another laugh from Eddie.

Steve is leaned in close enough that Eddie can get a good hard look at him. He’s got a few dark moles dotted across his face and trailing down his neck, almost black where they meet the collar of his sweater. There’s a whisper of a mustache on his otherwise clean-shaven face, like maybe he forgot to shave this morning. And although Eddie can’t imagine he’s actually any older than himself, Steve’s already got a few lines along his forehead. Not a lot, and they mostly fade when he relaxes his face, but enough to make him think he spends a lot of time frowning. Or laughing. He hopes it’s the latter, he wants to be the latter.

“Well,” Steve says after a few moments, finally letting go of his arm and pressing the long-forgotten magazine into Eddie’s unoccupied hand. “Try to hold onto these this time.”

Steve leans back, like he knows he should go, but expects Eddie to say something else. Maybe even, Eddie hopes, wants him to say something else.

“So, the Buckley twins are fans of horror?”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he’s leaning back into his orbit.

“Again, I don’t actually have any kids. I’m a Big over at Big Brother, Big Sister. Technically, I’m only a Big to Dustin, but his friends are clingy so I end up driving all of them around when we hang out. They love all this kind of nerd shit,” he points at the cover, featuring a sickly pale Dracula leering over the title, “and apparently their favorite author’s in it or something. An Edwin something?”

Eddie sighs. Of course, this would happen, of course—

“Edgar M.W.?”

Steve snaps a finger, “There you go. Yeah, they go crazy for those books, won’t shut up about them. You know him?”

He bites down on a panicked laugh.

Edgar M.W. His pseudonym. His publishers had thought ‘Eddie Munson’ wasn’t a right fit for his brand, which was bullshit, and almost made him keep it just to piss them off. Ultimately, he’d wanted the anonymity a little more than that, so he’d made up Edgar and added the ‘W’ for his Uncle Wayne.

He’s got six fans, and they’re definitely not adults. They don’t sign their full names off, but he’s got more than a sneaking suspicion that the letters he’s been getting, always signed Yours Faithfully, D. and Company, may in fact belong to Steve’s children. Of course—

“Yeah…we, uh, run in similar circles. I’m a writer, too. Fantasy horror.” It’s technically a lie, but it doesn’t feel like one since he’s not legally Edgar M.W. It’s also not a lie in the way he really hasn’t felt like Edgar M.W. in a long time.

“No way,” Steve’s eyes light up, honey brown in the dead of winter. “Publish anything I’d know? Or, that the kids would?”

“Nah, not lately.” The last work he’d published under ‘Eddie Munson’ had been in high school. Not to mention his work in progress, Untitled (1), which he hadn’t touched in the New Year.

“Why’s that?”

It, or, some variation of it, is the question that’s hounded him since he first started writing it. Where his work was, when was it going to be ready, why couldn’t he pull it together. The question he can’t avoid try as he might, what sends him running, because at the end of the day, Eddie’s only brave in stories.

That’s what should be happening now. He should be giving Steve a polite answer and excusing himself back to avoiding his responsibilities. But…

Steve is watching him. He’s not flashing a smile, but the crinkle around his eyes is still there, still happy talking to him. He’s only an inch taller, if that, but he’s got his head titled down the way tall guys always do when they’re trying to listen—trying to catch what Eddie’s going to say, the same way he had pointed at his bleached-out tour t-shirt yesterday. The t-shirt he’d asked about, and then went and bought a CD just to understand what Eddie meant.

Eddie feels…maybe not brave, but less like a coward.

“Cause it’s shit.”

Steve quirks an eyebrow.

“It is! Grade A, 100% bullshit, as my roommate would call it. It’s overwritten and predictable, it’s got absolutely no heart. And the worst part is, I mean, I’ve written something that could be published. It’s a pile of garbage, but it’s ‘sellable’,” Eddie laughs bitterly.

“My editor loves it,” he continues, everything that’s been rolled up tight in him all pouring out at once, “and the guys who sign my checks really love it. Forget making a statement or art, forget trying to wake people up and do something for a change. Sellable is good! Sellable means the readers get to enjoy a nice bedtime story and we all get to pop champagne. It certainly shouldn’t be a problem, because I do like being able to afford more than canned meat and cold showers, but, uh—” God, he sounds stupid, doesn’t he? He could still be stuck in the trailer selling poppers to high schoolers. He could be Munson Senior, behind bars for a rap sheet longer than his IQ, and he’s worried about selling out. Back then it was easy to talk about artistic integrity when he didn’t have shit to lose.

“Sounds hard,” Steve nods sympathetically.

He rolls his eyes, “Thanks, but it’s really not. I mean—”

“Give yourself a break man,” Steve jostles him, the arm just barely grazing his stomach a shock down his spine. “It sucks, trying to live up to expectations and shit and not getting to be who you are. It’s not fair. And maybe it’s not the biggest deal in the world, but uh…it still hurts. Just, quietly.”

Eddie nods.

“Well, whoever said life was fair, huh?”

“Yeah…yeah, you’re not wrong,” Steve hums, eyes still on him but looking past Eddie to something painful. He wonder if Steve would tell him what he’s thinking, which lines in his face hurt and which he’d wear with pride.

Just when Eddie thinks he’s really brought the mood down just after salvaging yesterday’s mess, Steve comes back to him. He smirks, and he can tell it’s a little put on, but not disingenuous.

“Shame though, I was looking for something new for my bookshelf.”

“I thank you for your artistic integrity, but honestly, if I’m selling out, I’m gonna need you to buy a copy,” Eddie grins at the laugh the bursts from Steve. “Maybe even ten. Something to sandwich between all those Sports Illustrated and the high school copy of The Catcher in the Rye I know you’ve got squirreled away.”

He casts Eddie a wary eye. “How’d you know about those?” He asks, leaning back just slightly, a razor thin edge to his tone.

“Just look the type,” Eddie shrugs, uncertain where he’d fallen off track. “I’ve met a lot of jocks and they’ve all got the same library. And you, Steve-o, with the polos, and the hair, and the clear lack of fine musical sensibilities, well. You fall right into that sweet, sweet preppy jock stereotype.”

Quick as it came, the tension melts from his shoulders, and Steve is back on him again.

“Ouch. I’ve got layers, you know.”

Eddie gives him a considering once over. He’s not exactly the tough guy he’d expected, but there’s something in Buckley he wasn’t prepared for. The flat, small-town plain he’d anticipated had suddenly turned off into a forest without a clear path. Deep, winding, and though perhaps not frightening, something to tread through with a clear mind. An adventure.

“Oh, I’m not saying you don’t,” he smirks, pocketing Steve’s little moment for further inspection. “I’m sure there’s a lot under there I’d like to see.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve breathes, eyes dark and focused. “And what would that be?”

Eddie swallows, throat dry and wanting. Steve’s eyes dart with the movement, before slowly trailing back up to meet him, a smug smirk playing on his lips. The distance between them is barely a foot, just a few inches at most. They’re not touching, but Eddie can feel every carefully measured breath between them, the warmth emanating from Steve seeping into his usually freeze-numb fingertips.

“Well—” he starts, when there’s a beeping, and Steve is out of orbit in a snap. Eddie blinks, the temperature drop an unwelcome wake up call.

“Oh shit—I gotta go,” Steve resets his watch, other hand buried in his hair. “It’s my day to pick up Dustin and his freeloaders, and the last time I was late I got chewed out for an hour.”

“Right! Can’t delay the esteemed royal court,” Eddie says, still dizzy.

Steve snorts. “Royal somethings alright.”

He takes a step back, then stops, and before Eddie can think of anything cute to say, Steve’s tugging at his mail. He pulls out a thick white envelope, one of the square ones that always means someone’s in trouble, and he’s got a cap between his teeth and he’s writing—

“I’m usually home after seven. If Robin answers, hang up. She’s being the most right now,” he presses the letter into Eddie’s chest, keeping his hand there.

“You can throw it away if you want, but if you need someone to talk to. Or see what’s underneath,” he winks.

Eddie blinks. He blinks again, mouth dropping open for a response he simply no longer has the braincells to muster. This is—

He looks down, and he notices three things in an order of increasing despair. The first being that Steve’s got nice handwriting, and he signed it ‘Stevie’ with a little heart over the ‘i’. It’s cute for someone who just technically committed a federal crime, so he’s going to be obsessing over that for the next few hours. Second, the number lands directly over the mailing address, which isn’t Eddie Munson. The means Nancy’s letter, an official looking document spelling only trouble, has been scribbled over by his crush. She’s going to yell at him. Or laugh. Probably both.

And thirdly, Eddie notices Steve’s hand. Pale, with those same dark moles just lightly dotted along the smooth skin and up his well-manicured nails. He hasn’t had a life of hard manual labor, but there’s strength there. The fingers spread wide across his chest, keeping the letter pinned in place, are holding back. Eddie knows he’s also going to be thinking about those fingers later, when he sees it. A little flash of gold gleaming cruelly in the thin winter light.

Steve takes a step back, snapping a finger gun at Eddie.

“See you later, big boy.”

He trips a little on the outer door, then exits with a wave.

Nancy was right. Steve Buckley is definitely flirting with him. Steve Buckley, who is also married.

—

Eddie trudges up to the apartment one stair at a time, letters heavy in his hand. He walks in, slips his shoes off, and slumps into the seat by the window overlooking the alley.

You’ve reached Nancy—and Eddie’s—apartment.

He tosses aside a few credit card offers, and sets Fangoria to the side for himself, same with the letter from the kids, which is particularly heavy today. Star Trek VI must’ve been good. D. & Company. Steve’s Dustin. Steve who’s good with kids and cheats on his wife.

Eddie groans, letting his head fall onto the tiny side table. This, this is why he didn’t want to see the signs. Because just his type is also code for unavailable. From ‘straight’ boys wanting to experiment in high school to sleazy one-night stands in the city, he has a knack for attracting the worst guys. So of course, his cute, flirty, kind and considerate neighbor is legally spoken for and less than morally upstanding.

Why else would a guy and girl move in together? Why else would he mention wanting kids?

If Robin answers, hang up. He’s met Robin before, mostly in passing and never for a terribly long conversation, but she’s funny and a little weird the way he likes his friends. There’s also something distinctly not-straight about her. She’s got a pink triangle pin on her bag and she manages to bring up Nancy in every single one of their five-minute conversations. Maybe she’s just a great ally, a true feminist, but it’s more than that. It’s the way she carries herself, the carefully placed confidence along her shoulders, like she’s not used to being loud and proud but fighting for it anyway.

Steve didn’t have those shoulders. His spoke confidence, a lightness to them that detailed a life of things being handed to him, of smiles and pats on the back and the easiness that came with being blissfully unaware of slurs thrown out car windows and nightmares of hospital rooms.

Just, quiet. The lines in his forehead. The tender pink of his hip bone. The CD he bought and the book he wanted to read.

He shoves his hands into his hair, rings knotting up in the greasy roots, and pulls hard, hissing at the sharp pain along his crown. He’s being stupid, he’s acting desperate. Sure, Steve’s hot and good to kids, but at the end of the day, he’s like every other guy. He’s a straight guy bored with his happy marriage. They’ll hook up and maybe it would be fun for a weekend, but he’ll always get The Look. A sneer of disgust and shame, a blank stare when Eddie mentions breakfast. No, Steve’s nice, so he’d get a pitying smile and a pat on the cheek before he leaves to pick up Robin for t-ball practice.

No. Fuck. He’s not going to be another repressed guy’s outlet. He’s not going to call, he’s not going to think about the little heart, and he’s not going to get the look.

Determined, Eddie pops up, sorting through the remaining pile for his number and does his best to crumble it up, the thick cardstock texture unwilling to bend very far. He doesn’t get the ball he wanted, and he’s a little sweaty at this point, but the symbolism is there. He chucks the envelope out the window before realizing that one, it’s still Nancy’s fucking mail, and two, that the window is in fact still shut tight, bouncing back on his face.

You’ve reached Nancy—and Eddie’s—apartment.

He only screams a little.

Outside, a flock of birds fly over the adjacent apartment building. A car horn blares. That’s when he notices an unfamiliar face leaning up against the trash bin. Cities are big, sure, but their alley isn’t one you exactly wander into by accident. The guy’s got tight blonde curls, a gold tan unhindered by anything more than a short-sleeve button-down, and a cigarette dangling from his lips. There’s a distinct edge to his stance, one Eddie recognizes from his dad’s old buddies. This guy’s done time, and he did it well.

Unease itches along his spine. Eddie might scare easy, but there is definitely something wrong with this guy.

As if sensing his thoughts, the guy looks directly up at him. Logically, Eddie knows he’s not really looking at him, the vantage from the alley into the living room is pretty shit, but there’s a smirk on his lip more akin to a snarl than anything. Like a predator that’s finally caught sight of its prey.

Quick as it came, the cigarette is crushed under the heel of his dark boots and he struts back out to the street.

Eddie sighs. This city is so fucking weird sometimes. God, he’d kill for a cigarette.

What he settles for instead is curling up on the couch with a Lucky Light and the rhythmic flick of his lighter. He misses their TV. Not by much, but it was always a nice distraction. More than anything, he misses the old westerns Wayne used to watch, misses his gentle snores and the death grip he had on his stone-cold mug of coffee. No cigarettes, no TV, no goddamn luck. Not unless you count the bubblegum, which ain’t much.

At some point he falls into a restless sleep, tossing and turning, each time almost drifting off until another call comes in or the radiator screams randomly.

“Hey,” and there’s a short, strong tug on his shoulder. He jerks up, blurry vision focusing on Nancy setting down a take-out bag on the table. “Got Thai tonight.”

“Oh, thank God,” Eddie mumbles, digging into the first plastic container she hands him, groaning as grilled chicken and sweet and sour sauce hit him full force. “Cross that—you are God, Nancy Wheeler.”

“Jesus, okay. Did you eat today?”

“Yes, dad. Had a sandwich with bread and everything.”

She raises a brow, “That’s it?”

He rolls his eyes. It’s not his fault his brain doesn’t tell him he’s hungry till three hours later. At least it wasn’t a nothing-in-this-house-is-edible day. “Oh, yeah? And what’d you have?”

Though she doesn’t have the same malfunction, Nancy is just as bad as him, regularly skipping meals in favor of shitty office coffee. A cliché if he’s ever seen one, though he can’t blame her. He’s right too, because suddenly, she seems very interested in her spring rolls.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he smirks.

“Anyway,” she breezes through, shoulders clinched tight, “How was your day? Did you call Chrissy back yet?”

“…no.”

“Eddie—”

“I know! I was going to but—” he sighs. She’s going to get it out of him one way or the other, might as well submit to the inevitable. “I saw 3B again.”

“Oh?”

“His name is Steve. As always, you were right, he was definitely flirting with me and it was going, if I say so myself, really well. That is, until I saw the ring.” He hums a few notes, miming a piano with one hand.

The heavy pit in his stomach from earlier grows twice in size at the sight of Nancy’s face. Mouth pinched, eyebrows slightly upturned. It’s the look he gets whenever he tells her a story from his childhood, even though some of those are actually funny just in an admittedly fucked up kind of way. He shifts uncomfortably.

“It’s whatever, Nance. Life sucks, and then you die,” he shrugs, trying to play it cool. It doesn’t work, it never works with her, because she’s still got her look. “Probably better not to get biblical with the neighbors anyway. Don’t shit where you eat and all that.”

He itches under her gaze.

“Eddie—"

“Just—leave it. Okay? Honestly, it’s not even that big of a deal. I’m just sorry for Robin if anything.”

The radiator clanks.

“I told you she wasn’t into me,” she says, just as cool.

“I wouldn’t say that, I mean—"

“What would you say, then?” Her voice has the razor-sharp edge to it, the kind that tells him if he pushes, he’s getting cut, and Eddie’s had enough slashes to the heart for one day.

She goes back to her spring rolls, skipping the usual third-degree he’d be getting over his feelings and what exactly he saw. Great. Fucking great. As much as she’s the rock in this relationship, he forgets how sensitive she is underneath it all, and now he’s gone and fucked it up. He sinks further into the couch.

The rest of the meal is quiet, both of them stewing in their own take-out container of disappointment. When they’re done, Eddie cleans up, a quiet apology for ruining the mood.

Nancy’s with The Board now, back turned to him. He slouches over to the couch, burying himself in one of the pillows. It’s always easier for him to sleep with someone else in the room, something about the noise of cohabitation lulling him to sleep, but the weight of 3B presses in on him.

He turns over, still deciding between a joke and a more sincere apology, to find Nancy not where he left her. Instead, she’s by the window, opened envelope clutched in one hand and its contents in the other, brow furrowed.

“What is this?”

Panic floods over him, “Oh, shit—listen, he wrote it down before I realized—”

“No, Eddie—” she crosses the room, thrusting the letter in his face. “What is this?”

Instead of anger or frustration like he expects, her face is almost completely blank, just the slightest twitch of her lip like she’s holding herself back from firing off. She raises a brow at the mail, wiggling it for effect.

At first, Eddie’s sure he’s somehow still halfway asleep, because it won’t come into focus. He blinks, then wipes at his eyes with a clumsy hand. The first page, creased from his earlier attempts, has a row of columns with a series of numbers running down the left-hand side and dotted throughout the main text. The text itself is strange, letters he recognizes but strung together wrong, forming half a word before falling into gibberish. Some of the letters themselves don’t look right, ‘N’s that face the other way or ‘O’s with slashes through them. Wait—

“Is that—”

“Russian,” she nods, eyes shining bright as she shuffles through the pages, “And look. No sender, no return address. Just this.”

The last page has the same column structure but is almost entirely empty save for a few notes in Russian at the top. Scribbled across the center in thick black ink are two distinctly English words:

KEEP. DIGGING.

Holy. Fuck.

“Barbara Holland was murdered,” Nancy says. “We’re going to find out why.”

#stranger things fic #steddie fic #ronance fic #steddie #ronance #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #steve harrington #robin buckley #st4 #my writing #my work #this chapter got long dude #next chapter i fear will be WAY longer asdfghjkl #next chapter also heavily featuring ronance and ms buckley herself soooo look out

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kayssweetdreams · 1 year

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Maestro Hiccups 3: Chaos Incarnate Ch 41

You give a heaving sigh "FINE. We'll take Jackle...but the minute that he tries ANYTHING. I'm throwing him back into Nightmare." You say, getting a happy "YES!" From the two of them.

A little while later, you and the others return to the Dream Gate. "So...How are we supposed to get back to Wonderworld?" You ask. NiGHTS gazes up to see the moon in the Night Dimension slowly rising above the Dream Gate, They seemed to be waiting until the moon reached its absolute peak in the sky, it's rays beaming down on the ground below.

Suddenly, the rays of moonlight hit the fountain, and a beam of light shot out, creating a beautiful bridge decorated moons, stars, planets. As flowers you've never seen before bloomed from the shimmering Bridge. At the end of the bridge, held an absolute beautiful and ornate, illuminated theater door. "Well, That's the way back! It's been nice meeting you Y/N!" NiGHTS says.

"Hoo! You better hurry before the bridge dissappears again!" Owl hoots, his plumage fluffing up. You nod as the others begin to cross the crystalline bridge. Leo and Emma treaded across first, followed by Aria, Debbie and Jackle, with you in the rear. You gazed in awe at the shimmering bridge, and the Flora that lined it. Maybe once Balan's Hiccups were cured, you could come and dream here in peace.

The sound of withering caught your attention as you turned to see the beautiful flowers withering into nothing, as the bridge began to vanish into nothing but stardust. "Y/N! HURRY!!" You hear Aria shout. Your slow walk turns into a frantic rush, hoping to outrun the disappearing bridge. The door that awaited at the end seemed to get farther and farther with every step you take.

In a last ditch effort, you quickly Jump and latch onto the door's handles, getting the door open before the bridge was no more. Leo and Emma grab your hands and pull you inside the door, as you now find yourself back on the Isle of Tims...that looks even worse than before.

You see that the Isle is now completely misshapen and distorted, looking more like the landscapes from a Dr. Seuss book. The Tims look worse for where as well, looking more like experimented on creatures gone wrong. You noticed Balan and Lance also on the Isle, both looking absolutely dismal and dismayed at the current situation out of their control.

"Hey Balan! We're back! And we found Aria and Debbie!" You yell, catching both of their attention. "Thank goodness you're safe and sound! And Aria and Debbie you found!" Balan says, floating over to you. "And we've got Dream Berries for Lance's cure." Leo says. The darker maestro gives a smile as he sees the bag of the colorful berries..

"Yeah...and unfortunately, we also have a new...erm..." You say, not being able to finish, but you nudge your head towards Jackle's prison. The maestros gazed at the jar "Do my eyes decive me? Is that Jackle I see?" Lance says, almost chuckling at Jackle's predicament. The orange maren rolls his eyes "Oh yeah. Ha. Ha. Ha. Laugh it up." He snarks sarcastically.

You smirked at Jackle's situation before Lance let out a "HIC!" causing a large spider infestation to crawl over the Isle. In a panic, both maestros lift you to the isle above the Isle "Perhaps at a later time we can jest, you still need to find the rest." Balan says. Nodding, you pull out Balan's map, showing the Multiverse once more

Aria belongs to @shadowqueen402

Debbie belongs to @mayordebbie

Mei belongs to @sundove88

Trisha Jane belongs to @lovelyteng

Rebecca belongs to @thehypercutstudios/@thehyperrequiem

#Balan Wonderworld #NiGHTS into Dreams #NiGHTS Journey of Dreams #Balan #Lance #Leo Craig #Emma Cole #NiGHTS #Owl #Jackle

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rosesandcloves · 2 years

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HENRY

A Peaky Blinders Fanfic

Hi guys! I have recently started watching Peaky Blinders again and while I was watching I came up with a headcanon that I thought I could make into a fic with an OC. It's ofc about the dreamy Michael Gray. There will be fluff angst and smut in this fic.

This is part 1 of an ongoing series.

I am also posting this on my Wattpad so if you prefer to read on there my @ is in my bio.

We were both live wires, but only we knew. "Good kids." They would call us. We hated every minute of it. I was just a child when I met him. Nine. What an age! Aware of all the horrible horrors but you still don't know how to swear about it.

I hated the girls school in the village. They taught us how to be obedient and good homemakers. They taught us typing for those of us who were too unlucky to get a husband to care for us. They taught us how to repair and treat. How to do everything that the men couldn't be bothered to do.

At lunch times they would let us play, like girls again. We would forget about womanhood when we had grass stains on our skin, catching frogs in our knee high socks. The other girls didn't like the mud like me. They called me a wild one and laughed at my tangled hair. Blood on my face from the brambles in the ditch.

It was a Monday when I heard his voice first. I was looking for slow worms near the hedge that joined the boys school. The hedge shook, someone shifting on the other side. I pushed the hair from my face and peared through a gap. There was a boy crouched down looking for something. He found me however. His bright eyes peered through the gap. "Hello." He didn't sound like country folk. He sounded like the boys from the big city. One time my dad took me to Birmingham for a treat. He showed me the bull ring and took me too a fair. The whole time grumbling about the Gypsies. "Ya can't just live like that Esther, they think you can but it will catch up with them. Moving from place to place like rats."

I was too shy to say anything back. I just stared.

"What are you looking for?" He asked.

"Flowers," I lied "for me' Ma."

"That's nice." "Have you seen a ball over there?" He moved closer to the hedge and peered through to my side. "You aren't looking for flowers are ya?" He looked back at me. "Do you like looking for animals?" He asked innocently.

"Yeah, I found a frog last week, not found a toad yet though. I get a good look at them and then go home and draw them. I still need to find a toad though." I realised this whole time I was looking down into the ditch. I looked back at the boy.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"Esther."

"My name's Henry, pleased to meet you Esther." He reached his hand through the hedge to shake mine. "Meet me at the wishing well at four after school and before dinner." He found his ball and walked away.

That evening he turned up with a picnic basket, a cloth covering the contense. He opened the basket and showed me a toad sat in the bottom still as can be, he set it down on the edge of the wishing well, picked up the toad and handed it to me. "Now you can draw a toad." He said. We saw eachother often after that. We would meet at school by the hedge and play games. Once a week when my dad was working late on the farm I would meet him by the wishing well and we would go hunting. We would catch everything from mice to snails. It was the happiest time of my life.

We grew closer over the next few years. When we got older we talked about how we wanted to get out of the village, into the city and do something that mattered. On my 16th birthday I met him by the wishing well. He told me we would fight together us against the world, and then he kissed me.

You believe that sort of stuff when you are 16, that you and one other person is enough.

I had never been kissed before. I didn't ever like anyone other than Henry.

When he was 17 a man came to the house. The next day Henry left without saying goodbye. His mother said he left for a new life in the city and would never come back, she said she did her bit but she wasn't his mother anymore. I remember thinking "how could he do this to me? He said it would be just us against everyone and everything."

I cried myself to sleep for 3 weeks after he left. I realised later that I was in love with Henry, and despite our ways it was an innocent love.

#michael gray #peaky fucking blinders #peaky blinders #peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder headcanon #michael gray imagine #michael gray smut #michael gray angst #tommy shelby #arthur shelby #john shelby #polly shelby #polly gray #finn cole #smut

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crazynerdwizard · 2 months

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NAP TIME 😴

since there are no desi s here

Ps- first

I didn't realise when both of us fell asleep while talking but I woke up in his arms. It felt nice to be there, in the warmth of his embrace. I moved a little still not completely awake when he turned to other side. 'Aw I was enjoying the cuddles ', I thought. I took my phone nd saw the time. 'oh shit I it's 6' I didn't even realise we have been sleeping for more than 2 hrs. I saw a few missed calls from Mumma and Rishi. There were a few messages from Rishi asking whether I am still at the Rana mansion. Thankfully the message was sent not too long ago so I quickly texted him back to come here and we will get back home together. He said he will be meeting with Vansh first and then they will get here. Just then shyrl texted that she will be here in a few minutes.

As I started getting up Yuvaan woke up and pulled me back . 'Yuvaan wake up shyrl is here and Rishi aur vansh bhi aate hoge' , I said half heartedly not wanting to leave either. 'So?' , came his reply. 'So we have to get up and act like we just fell asleep ', hearing this he raised his head and smirked 'Acha and what exactly did we do '. Aaghhh we don't have time for this but here I was blushing hard thinking about what his words were implying. 'Yuvaan not now', I glared... or well at least tried to.

He however simply ignored this and went back to cuddling this time however his head was between my boobs. My breath hitched as I could feel his breath above my now sensitive buds . Wow and to say I had ditched the bra after wearing the oversized t-shirt this morning. He massaged my waist in a more sensual way nd his hands started traveling towards my boobs. 'Yuvaan ' , I said trying to be Stern but ended coming like a pleading whisper.

He hummed , slowly circling my left boob with his fingers. 'Shyrl will come any minute now nd Rishi won't take more than 10 mins considering vansh's driving '. 'Its ok the walls are sound proof ', he said not caring about it. ' I think Ryan will also be there with shyrl ..aghh' I trailed off as he pinched my left buds and then took it in his hot mouth creating a mess of my t-shirt. Thanks now it will be even more obvious if it wasn't seeing the blush on my face. I could feel his tongue Playing with the tits.

Yuvaan' I moaned. Soon his lips were on mine. It was our first time doing something sexual and I don't want it to be rushed. But that thought didn't last long as his tongue entered my mouth. His hand still on my tits playing with them. Who am I kidding I am equally horny and my sane thoughts soon left my body. I was wet just by the kiss. He looked into my eyes to check if I was comfortable with it and his hands removed the t-shirt now we were fully making out. Currently he was on top but I pushed it on the bed . ' heyy ' he started as he thought I was stopping this make out session here. But I straddled him taking control. 'Someone likes being dom huh' , he said his eyes now turning dark with lust. That is not true tho ,ik he likes to play dom so I just wanted to mess with him. I decided to give him a little show as I removed my panties and made a mess of his joggers by humping on his dick while sensually sucking my thumb . 'Damn he is so hard' I thought and let out a loud moan. I took all four fingers in my mouth and then started playing with my tits with them twisting and grouping them. He was clearing enjoying the view as his eyes were calculating things he would do. He reached the limit when I used my other hand to put pressure on my clit . I was now moaning like a mess my head dropped backwards. He pushed me into the bed hard making me gasp. 'Taking a little advantage of my patience aren't you. ' he said in his low deep voice. Saying this he went down and took my clit in this mouth. That mouth I swear is going to be the reason for my death. His 2 fingers opened the lips and slowly entered inside me. 'aaghhhhh' I screamed more than moaned. Thankfully the walls were sound proof. As he ate my pusssy like a starved man. And played with my tits. I lay there being a moaning mess. So close to the climax. "Shruti !! Yuvaan!!" , it was shyrl. She was here . Oh shit. I went to get up. But yuvaan's giant hand stopped me . And instead of stopping he entered one more finger. I forgot that shyrl was here. As I moaned through the orgasm. I was the satisfied look on his face but there was a problem he was still hard. Now now I can't be this selfish right. "Oh God guyz if u are fucking better hurry . Your lovely brother is downstairs I can't stop him for more than 10 mins, oh how much I love this girl. I gave him a seductive look to which he groaned knowing my intentions. I again got on top and kissed him deeply till he started loosing control. "Uh huh not so quick mr. ", i whispered in his ears biting a little. I trailer open mouth kisses from his neck till I reached the v line. I pulled the joggers along with the underwear. Leaving this dick free in all its glory .I gave a light kiss to it and a little suck and that was it. He lost his control and grabbed my hairs. Making me choke on his dick. I continued to take him well as he guided me till I felt warm liquid in the back of my throat. He left my hairs and I pulled back gagging because of the cum in mouth I wasn't able to swallow. He roughly grabbed my face and kissed me forcing me to take his fluids in . "Ok enough" ,I said as I felt myself getting hornier. But as I was about to leave the bed I was pulled back. He gave me a last loving kiss and then left me in the bed breathless. While he got cleaned and dressed before helping me.

#Desi #smut #lovers #best friends

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thegeminisage · 11 months

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plan of sitting atop zelda to farm her for parts ruined by 1. i have adhd and to get all my parts would be up to 90 minutes of doing absolutely nothing 2. star fell, had to get it

got lucky! she was really close to the great sky islands so i've gotten back to her by flinging myself off those

oh boy she's taking us through this storm lol

just doing this for an hour seems excruciating. she's been doing it for 10,000 YEARS. i'm gonna kermit

AAAAAUGH another fallen star................this is HORRIBLE i already gave up a naydra opportunity to sit up here! if i go get this one i definitely won't get lucky enough to get back on her back, she's head towards the sparse and UNEXPLORED skies over the gerudo desert so i'd have no way to fast travel back to her...i wish i could leave a medallion on her head

i got another spike so it'll be at least another 10m anyway...might as well go

goodbye babygirl 😢

i got it! AND without the bike lol

i've left epona out forever but right near a stable. felt bad so i let her run on the road to a different stable where i finally boarded her, except first she disappeared for a second?? which was a terrifying little glitch lol

forced my bike into this big cave with me which was good because i got to skip what would have been a very difficult climb in cave-rain

unfortunately even though i was a cheapskate about it i can't get it out of here :( rip. i hate having to spend fans...

a chest ALSO vanished on me :/ weird 1.0 glitches........

i only have one korok seed left in this little area but its next to a lynel :///

might as well try to fight it while i'm here i suppose.........

i actually got him?! man NICE......

even tho lurelin was my fav place from botw (and totk, bc i simply Love The Beach) i feel kinda bad coming here now like let me PAY you for stuff!!! i have moneyyy

but those koroks arent gonna fly themselves.........

awww the skyview tower rito is here. now that i've got them all he gets to get a wife and settle down here lol

ah! the proper heart shaped lake had SO many fairies but i dropped my bike before they loaded and then they loaded as it dropped which ofc scared all of them away :(

ugh my bike despawned AGAIN...............life is so hard all the time

ugh!!!!!!! i thought about going to get that shrine in eventide i missed since i'm sort of in the area but like. i'd have to kill ALL those pirate monsters again. this is why i turn shrines on sometimes. i want them to be a surprise but also missing one like that fucking SUCKS

naydra sighted again, but i feel like i see her a lot around here so i'm passing her up for now. i got shit to do which requires my bike. also the little list i used to know how much stuff i need was on r*ddit and it's shut down now lol so like

ok nvm i got my last seed on this route and she's literally right above me. i'd have to ditch the bike anyways

god i love riding dragons. can't wait until i can do this with farosh

i think she's about to go into the depths...maybe i'll see if i can stay on and go with her lol

oh maybe not...she's going sharply upward suddenly

girl where are we GOING???

oh no i think this may be it, she's descending again and there's a chasm ahead...

OHHH there's zelda in the distance :( i can't go to her now!!! i might literally not be able to lol, she's not near anything. but i really wanna see if naydra will go into a chasm while i'm on her back...

i climbed a spike to be sure i wouldn't fall off lol

OHHH THIS IS LITERALLY IT SHES GOING DOWN

and the kakariko chasm too! i haven't dove in here yet...

just realized she's going to be an eternity getting to the bottom. it takes ME forever falling at maximum velocity

still cool af tho

oh, i haven't been down this chasm but i have explored and lit up the world beneath it lol. let's see which direction she goes ig

I SEE A LIGHTROOT FROM HERE........i'm not ready to leave her yet tho. if i'm really lucky she'll take me right to it

there's an area, which tbh i'm just as happy to pass over for now...and a yiga hideout!! and we are literally going in the right direction. so cool.

ok bestie this is my stop! ugh i just realized i took video in the chasm but now when we went through it...whatever

i'm glad zelda doesn't come down here. poor girl.

i used the springs here and there were so many i sprung myself up to the ceiling lol

i see a flux construct and a lightroot. i could go down and fight it but that would make getting the lightroot much harder unless i spent fans on a bike.......

fuck it ig

easy peasy! i havent fought one of these guys in awhile and i'm pleased to see how much easier it's become

oh duh. i can just fast travel back to the lightroot i just got. i don't have to climb lol

oh COOL i'm just in time to see naydra exit the chasm!

this is such a fun little lightroot trail. every time i get to one another pops up. i actually see TWO from here. they're so addictive...

omg you can fuse stuff to the master sword 😭 i was out of weapons to fuse this flux heart thingy to and i tried and it worked but it is SO UGLY :( im so sorry fi

i am near the spring of wisdom i think!! im gonna ignore this lightroot (HARD.......) and see if there's a poe statue guy there

...i think i flew right into it. i cheated by checking my interactive map lol

oh no just kidding i was climbing to the ceiling! i flew OVER it. anyway i got there

DARK!!!

HOOD!!!

GIRL YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM DARK LINK AT LAST

dark link my beloved.......................................

onto this last lightroot and then i'm outta here. too bad i didn't collect any zonaite...

oh good god. im on top of a mountain which means valley down here. UGH i have to climb

no way. bike time. this is what it's for.

lol and meanwhile i pass a monster camp with zonaite and can't be assed to get off the bike. and i've just seen ANOTHER lightroot. we are in hell

ok yeah i've had enough. i don't see anymore lightroots, i'm getting out of here. even though i REALLY need zonaite.

GOD i love dark link armor...night speed UP babey. i only wish u could upgrade it (monkeys paw activates and i have to fight hands to do so)

i basically only have 3 areas left on the right side of the map - lanayru which i do not wanna do bc i hate the snowy mountain and the waterway makes me nervous, and the zora area, and death mountain. and i guess the tingle islands so that's technically 4

gonna start w the zora area tomorrow unless a different mood strikes me - there's a shit ton of caves and seeds i missed all clustered together that will be easy to knock out

for now tho bed. sorry for anyone scrolling past this i did the whole day in one post lol

#personal #loz blogging #totk lb #totk spoilers

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aeoki · 2 months

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SS Finals - Melee: Chapter 9

Location: Cafe near ES Dome Characters: Madara, Aira, Mayoi, Tatsumi, HiMERU, Kohaku & Niki

HiMERU: So Oukawa will be taking part in the Finals as part of “Crazy:B” and not “Double Face”, correct?

Madara: How cruel! This is too much for me to bear! How could you get my hopes up like that, Kohaku-san!?

Kohaku: Argh, just shut it! Enough with the act – Just nod your head and say “okay”!

Don’t make fun of me at the last minute!

Madara: Hahaha! If someone is set on saying yes, then it’s a hobby of mine to do whatever I can to make them say no!

Kohaku: You–!

Aira: Umm, is something going on~? Kohakucchi?

Kohaku: Love-han.

Madara: Hahaha! Bravo! Bravo! Kohaku-san’s murderous intent has disappeared! You’re like an air freshener as usual, “ALKALOID” ♪

Tatsumi: I can’t tell if you’re praising us or looking down on us…

Anyway, I see you all have made it to the Finals as well. Congratulations.

Mayoi: Uuu… I heard Madara-san would be working as “MaM”, so I thought he wouldn’t be involved in “SS” since you don’t fit the participation requirements, after all.

Madara: Hahaha! Is it not a good thing if I’m here? Good, good! Putting “that sort of look” on everyone’s faces is also one of my hobbies!

Kohaku: What a nuisance of a human bein’…

Err, details aside, Madara-han will also be takin’ part in the Finals as “Double Face”.

But “Crazy:B” also made it to the Finals. Although it is a joyous outcome, it leaves me in a rather difficult position.

Tatsumi: I see. Idols cannot be part of two units at the same time during “SS”.

So Kohaku-san will need to decide whether he takes part in the Finals as “Crazy:B” or “Double Face”, right?

Kohaku: It’s nice that you catch onto things quickly. Anyway, I intended on takin’ part in the Finals as part of “Crazy:B” from the very beginnin’…

And it seems Madara-han made a lot of friends in the Qualifyin’ Rounds too. I’m tryin’ to convince him to team up with those friends.

It’ll be perfect since he won’t be alone and can meet the participation requirements that way. Just why is he makin’ complaints now?

Madara: Hahaha! Frankly, I’m just killing time until the actual performance!

Kohaku: You–!

Aira: Ahaha. Well, it’s true we do have some time right now.

It’s like right before an exam…

I’d like to study – or rather – practise until the last minute, but if I get exhausted and end up not being able to focus, then that would be the exact opposite of what I’d want.

Tatsumi: Procrastinating last minute would only result in superficial practice. We should instead relax and make sure we’re in tip-top condition.

HiMERU: Hehe. I see your individualities shine even in these situations. Fascinating.

Tatsumi: Indeed. As expected of you, HiMERU-san – we’re always on the same wavelength, aren’t we? ♪

HiMERU: Shiina, make sure you share your dessert. Sugar is necessary for stress relie– I mean, a well-balanced diet.

Niki: Grrrrr! No can do~! My “order” doesn’t exist anymore, so I’m not gonna let anyone else touch my food!

Aira: Ahaha. Um, Shiina-senpai, were you also given an “order” that restricted how much you could eat?

Niki: Yeah! I was given an evil “order” that said I couldn’t eat anything made of flour – and we were in Osaka for crying out loud! Whoever came up with that idea isn’t human!

Wait, we can talk about our “orders” now, right?

Tatsumi: Yes. It was only during the Qualifying Rounds.

Aira: I see, thank goodness. I completely let my guard down too.

Kohaku: Kokoko ♪ The Finals haven't begun, so you can’t relax just yet, Love-han.

Aira: Yeah. I’ll be careful… This isn’t that important, but where’s Rinne-senpai? He’s not around? Did he die in a ditch or something?

Kohaku: He’s definitely alive and sneakin’ around somewhere.

The “Sudden Death” held in our region went into overtime, but it also used the same votin’ system as the Finals so…

We were able to analyse the system there, “abuse” it in classic “Crazy:B” style and show the management what we were made of.

Madara: …………

HiMERU: Oukawa. You don’t know who’s listening in, so it would be best if you refrain from mentioning things carelessly.

We “Crazy:B” have turned over a new leaf and become respectable idols. On the surface, anyway.

Kohaku: Oh, right. Sorry. I can't help but be frank when Love-han is around.

Madara: Alriiiighty? I’ve heard what I wanted to hear, so I guess I’ll take a nap and wait for the Finals to begin ♪

Kohaku: Oh, darn it… This guy stayed here longer than he needed to be just to hear “Crazy:B’s” plans, huh.

Just so you know, I’ll be takin’ part in the Finals as “Crazy:B”. If our interests conflict with each other’s, then I’ll be standing with “Crazy:B”.

Madara: Of course you will. If you betrayed “Crazy:B” for my sake, then I might be so surprised, I might just die from shock ♪

…It’s fine. I’ve always been fighting on my own. In fact, the stuff you did recently, like looking out for my back, wasn’t normal, huh.

Kohaku: …………

Madara: Thank you, Kohaku-san. Those days were, surprisingly, not so bad.

Kohaku: Why are you actin’ so disgustin’…? That’s not the kind of person you are, right?

Madara: Hahaha! My bad, my bad! It was my “order” to thank my unit member once a day…

I forgot I didn’t need to say that anymore since the Qualifying Rounds are already over! My apologies!

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂ Next Chapter →

#ss finals

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icaruseater · 1 year

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Into the Wild West

I could say I drove out west for a few reasons. Maybe I went to fully envelop myself in the atmosphere of the story I wrote last semester in creative writing class. My professor told me I should try to get it published, but I haven't even looked at the most recent draft in months. Or maybe I drove out west to propagate. I haphazardly plucked the petals and dusty polleny seeds just that morning from the wilting tulips at my bedside table (even now, the left side of my bed reeks of dead flowers). I shoved the contents in the only pocket of my tote bag so I could throw them into some field and maybe see flowers one day. Or I could say that I went out west to finally have a cigarette in peace. All of these are at least partially true. But really, as corny as it is, I drove aimlessly out west to feel something.

I wanted to go to Marfa, a small desert town about 6 hours away, because it's where part of my story takes place. Unfortunately for me, it’s also a travel destination for hippy-dippy types over spring break, so basically every hotel in town was booked out the wazoo. I ditched Marfa for Comfort, a town that is closer to me but still out west. However, when my phone let me know that I had reached Comfort, I zipped right past the exit as every other car got off. I've only been driving for an hour and a half, I thought. I decided to let the open road guide me.

I did not yet know that it would be the last exit I saw for another 20 minutes. A pang of dread hit me, plus I nedeed to pee, but then i turned the corner and was met with a gorgeous view.

The west was not dry at all. In fact, it had the most green I’d seen since Hawaii. Massive open pastures, beautiful cows and horses lazily grazing. The sky was perfect. Whenever the sky is blue and spotless, it sounds silly but I get scared. It really makes me feel like I'm living on a movie set, like everything is fake and even the sky is a precisely ironed sheet layered carefully and deliberately by the production designer on set. This sky had the right blend of fluffy clouds and streaks of sunlight to feel real. I rolled down the window, but was immediately wacked with abrasive wind and quickly rolled it back up.

Just then, I passed a sign that read “FALLEN ROCKS“, which I incorrectly read as “FALLING ROCKS”. The highway grew narrower. Suddenly, I was surrounded on both sides by massive rock formations. They towered over me, and I anxiously glanced to my right and left the whole way through, somewhat anticipating a torrential downpour of massive boulders that would crush me.

The city I ended up in was Kerville. I got off hoping to find a restroom somewhere. I felt an intense urge to go to the Lowes because I had noticed it from the highway and it had seemed exceptionally large from there. When I finally found it and parked my car, I realized that was likely because it was on a hill, towering above the churches, elementary school, and an outlet mall.

By then, the sky had become completely gray. The weather really wasn’t nice at all. The large gusts of wind that felt like kisses and cradling under a hot sun suddenly became the gray cloud’s henchmen, assisting in the misery.

I walked into the Lowes. I looked around for a restroom, savored the smell of fresh cut wood, pretended to be interested in the light fixtures, and genuinely considered buying an aloe vera plant. I got out, having not found a restroom, now trying to see if the parking lot would be a decent place to smoke. It was not, I determined. Too many people walking around, loading things in their cars, and the weather was actually getting pretty nippy. I plopped back in my car, shit outta luck.

That’s when I saw it: the giant cross. I had seen multiple big wooden crosses on the drive up, but none quite as eye-catching as this. It sat at the very top of an even taller hill east of the Lowes. It looked so far off, but my phone told me it was a 5 minute journey. I made my way.

The drive up was steep and a little terrifying. After sloppily parking my car in the tight diagonal space, I still had to walk further up.

The view was gorgeous. Not of the cross, but of the town below. Suddenly, even the Lowes looked like a tiny store in a dollhouse. Again, so much green. The breeze was even stronger up here, so I stuffed my hands into the sleeves of my sweater as I looked around.

One thing that caught my eye was a statue that looked pretty suggestive from where I was standing (it's actually Jesus washing a saint's feet, which is debatably still suggestive). Behind it was another great view of the whole town (I imagine this is how God sees the world).

There were quite a few other people there, actually- plenty of families. The interactive part is when you get a “prayer rock”: a white rock in which you're supposed to write a message and then place it near the cross. It feels important to mention that they had to be white rocks, with several signs around the premises sternly instructing guests to not use brown rocks. Any brown rock would be removed.

I thought about what I should write on my prayer rock. Something clever, quippy, different, I told myself. The only thing I could come up with was “God is Dog”. In the end it didn't even matter because, while the rocks were provided, sharpies were not due to “COVID safety reasons”. My theory: they were getting stolen out the wazoo. I walked all the way to the back of the cross by the porta potties. The whole place was rocky and hilly, so when I inevitably stepped on an unsteady rock and fell down a small side of the hill, I yelped “Jesus Christ!”. I gasped and, before I could even process my fall, anxiously looked around to see if anyone had heard. Nope. There wasn’t even anyone in the general area. I'd fallen next to a big cart full of white rocks. I still wasn’t quite sure what made a rock a “prayer rock”, and why the brown ones couldn’t be. The idea hadn’t occurred to me at the time, but even now as it is almost midnight and all this happened several hours ago, I wish I’d stolen one.

Anyway, I thought I was just about done when I found a “secret passage” under the parking lot. It led to a very woodsy area. It had another great view of the town beyond the trees, and I passively thought of how it could be an ideal location for me to get murdered if it weren’t for God standing right over there. Would it be sacrilege to smoke here? I thought, searching for the pack of cigarettes in my tote. Instead, my eyes landed on the tulip petals and seeds I'd snatched earlier. Oh yeah, propagating. I wasn’t sure if it would work there. The patch of land in front of me was particularly dry, especially considering the greenery basically everywhere else, but I didn't feel like going further into the woods. I tossed the petals and seeds onto the rocky ground, figuring the wind would carry them where they could grow. We learned about propagating in 3rd grade science class, I'm pretty sure that's how that works.

I looked at my phone: 12:59. In one minute, I'll have been in Kerrville for exactly one hour. I put my phone down and closed my eyes.

The sound of kids laughing up by the cross. The distant faint chirp of birds in the sky. The gusts of wind causing my curly hair to whip across my face. The soft crunch of my own footsteps. I opened my eyes as I walked out of the passage and back up to the parking lot.

I was about to get in my car when I realized that the parking lot was right on the precipice of a dangerous, massive ledge. There was a wall made of stone to protect the people and cars, but it only went up to my hip. I sat on it and let my feet dangle over the edge. I still wasn’t over the perfect view of the town. I fought the hard wind as it stung my face, which by then I’d learned to tolerate. I realize now that it was actually protecting me, pushing me back to safety. I thought about jumping, then flying. Mostly, though, I thought about nothing.

On the drive back, the highway was completely clear of other cars. Surrounded by nothing but greenery and the gray sky, I sped up and turned the music up high (I ended up going a little over 100 mph). It must have been going on for multiple songs, but the one I remember playing is New Flesh by Current Joys. I saw the fallen rocks sign again, reading it correctly this time, to which I exclaimed to myself “OH! FALLEN ROCKS, NOT FALLING ROCKS!” I laughed loudly and took up both lanes because I could and rolled the window all the way down, embracing that chilly abrasive wind, and screamed in pure joy as I maneuvered between the narrow rocks, sailed down a series of tall hills, and practically flew by the pastures.

I stopped by my favorite burger joint on the way back, where I finally got to use the restroom. I ordered it to-go, stuffing the fries in my face as I traveled familiar roads back home. By the time I arrived, I had eaten all the fries. I didn't mind, of course. I popped open a beer and drank it with my burger- a double with cheese, bacon, and jalapenos. I felt like I was gorging myself- taking a guzzle of the black and tan beer like it was the last drink on earth and biting into the burger like it was the finest dining a girl could ask for- but I enjoyed every second of it. Even though I was already feeling slightly woozy, I topped off the bottle after finishing my burger. Being tipsy or drunk makes me feel more tired than anything, but I was able to make it to the shower before practically throwing myself on my bed. It felt like heaven. Maybe next time I'm in the wild west, if I remember to bring a sharpie, I'll write “God is in my bed”.

#the first draft of this was 5 pages #i trimmed it down & let it simmer overnight to make a delicious nutritious meal for u #channeling Ethel Cain in this tbh #writing #creative writing #essay #personal essay #my writing #my words #road trip #female writers #writer #blog #blogger

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