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ham1lton · 1 day

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summer came like cinnamon (so sweet)

pairing(s): logan sargeant x reader. oscar piastri x reader.

warnings: mentions of mental health, dieting, fractured friendships and constant mention of jim’s ice cream parlour. also different povs, it goes through the minds of all three of the main characters.

summary: after their rookie season, in a bid to repair their friendship, the two drivers decide to take their new paycheques and go explore the sun, sea and sands of greece. what they didn’t anticipate was to bump into you.

wordcount: 5.6k

author’s note: this is my first semi-interactive fic, please give it some love <3 any major issues in travelling and stuff like in terms of logistics? please ignore. also let me know who you’re planning on choosing. team oscar or team logan?

— wanna be updated on the next parts? join my taglist! —

— part one of the summer lovin’ series. —

[ i ain’t a kid no more / we’ll never be those kids again ]

logan didn’t know why he was so overwhelmed with anxiety, when he knocked on oscar’s door on that rainy thursday night.

this was his oscar, the oscar that had practically grown up with him. the one who knew how he liked his toast and that he was fond of a burger with all the extras. that he had a scar on his left ankle from when he was a kid and wrestled with his brother after watching too much wwe.

ever since he had signed to williams and oscar had been a mclaren driver, they had hardly talked in comparison to their pre-formula one days. when he had crashed out during a race, he half expected oscar to text him or come knocking on his hotel door.

he didn’t. logan pretended he wasn’t surprised.

fuck it. bite the bullet. he lifted his hand high and knocked on the door. three quick taps in succession.

“one moment!” oscar called from inside. logan would wait, even if that old lady from room 135 kept looking at him like he was an intruder. maybe he was. he hadn’t been in oscar’s room for a while.

oscar opened the door with messy hair and a shirt that had been clearly shoved on before he opened the door.

“logan? hi.” oscar swallowed. the awkwardness in the space between the two of them felt heavy. “you okay mate?”

“yeah! yeah.” logan fake laughed, rubbing his sweaty palms against his jeans. “just wanted to come see you.”

“i’m here.” oscar grinned, with no teeth, at his own joke. “wanna come in?”

“sure. kinda awkward talking in the hallway anyways. that old lady is about five minutes from calling the cops on me.”

“oh that’s just brenda.” oscar said after leaning out and getting a glance at the woman, who waved at him. he waved back. “she’s harmless.”

logan followed oscar into his room. it was bigger than his and he didn’t know if feeling jealous was appropriate. he had felt many emotions when it came to oscar; happy, sad, angry, and others. he didn’t want jealousy to join the list.

“sorry, my room is a mess. i wasn’t expecting company.” oscar laughed with no heart behind it as he sat down on his unmade bed. “take a seat logan, you’re giving me anxiety just standing around.”

logan immediately sits down on the desk chair.

“so, what are your plans for the summer?”

“mine?” oscar thinks to himself. “probably just to go see my family and my friends back home.”

“i was thinking maybe we could, i don’t know.” logan bites his lip anxiously. “do something together?”

“like what?” oscar is curious now, his eyes focused.

“maybe go on that european holiday we always talked about? we have the money now and no parents to tell us no like last time.” logan speaks in a rush. “but obviously if you say no, dude that’s totally fine.”

logan looks at oscar, who’s actually considering it? he thinks to himself for a moment before turning to logan.

“how many days?”

“as long as you’d like.”

“where would we go?”

“anywhere you’d want.”

“make a decision, logan. i’ll say yes or no.”

“we always wanted to go to greece? how about there? maybe for three weeks?”

“we should go for a month. we can travel.”

wait. so that means? oscar’s face is still impassive. he doesn’t say yes or no, but he is still considering it. that’s a positive.

“that’s fine. i’m flexible.”

“i’ll plan it.” oscar nods.

“so is that a yes?”

“obviously.” oscar finally smiles, open and dazzling. logan grins too, allowing himself to bask in the approval. he was almost 67% sure that oscar would say no. he’d already done the maths, but it wasn’t his strongest subject anyways.

“i’ll text you the details.” oscar nods and logan gets up, running a hand through his hair. giddy with happiness that he’ll finally win his best friend back. this’ll be the trip that heals them. that heals him.

-❀-

oscar gets stressed when he’s not in charge. everything has to go through him. the plans, the schedule and especially the driving. he’s never liked being in the passenger seat. his hands get fidgety and he doesn’t know how to calm them down.

he’s lucky that logan is all too happy to sit in it, his eyes focused on making the perfect road trip playlist. for some reason, they’d decided to drive from london all the way down to munich.

they’d already driven down from london and through the eurotunnel and took a break sightseeing in france - which oscar had already scheduled for. they ate their weight in croissants. they ate steak and frites. logan had bought them matching ‘i ♥︎ paris’ t-shirts and oscar rolled his eyes but packed it neatly in his suitcase anyways.

they hadn’t talked about anything other than surface level topics. logan talking about his favourite sports teams, them both discussing the grid and plans for the upcoming season and the usual small talk about their family’s wellbeings.

they didn’t talk about how they ignored each other unless a camera necessitated a conversation. they didn’t talk about logan’s bad season. they stayed up till stupid hours watching badly dubbed french movies and ordering takeout.

they drove to germany, dropped off their rental car and then got a plane from munich to athens. it wasn’t very long at all but logan still curled up against the window and tried to sleep. they were both connected to the spotify account on logan’s phone - logan using his headphones and oscar with his airpods. their road trip playlist still playing.

oscar didn’t know why he didn’t take them out, even when the playlist inevitably repeated itself.

-❀-

they’d been in athens all of two days when they met you. logan had gone an insanely bright red when he’d forgotten his sunscreen had ran out. oscar laughed at first but then ran to the nearest pharmacy to grab emergency sunscreen and aloe vera for the both of them.

after slathering themselves, they’d decided to seek refuge in a small ice cream store. despite the hot weather, the store was almost completely empty besides the two of them and you. you were fiddling with your phone in the corner as you attempted to hook it up to the speakers.

“fuck’s sake!” you shout quietly, frustratingly trying to make it work. “i can’t do this shift without any music. my thoughts’ll drive me insane.”

“um?” oscar breaks the awkward silence. you jump and turn around. the first thing that they both notice is that you’re pretty. really pretty. even in the unflattering oversized neon green work t-shirt.

“sorry! sorry! i apologise. i didn’t think anyone was in the shop. please forgive me.” you look flustered as you move to quickly wash your hands and dry them. “what would you both like today?”

to be honest, logan hadn’t been thinking about the ice cream. oscar didn’t need to think, he was going to get his usual order.

“can i get two scoops of mint chocolate chip?”

“oh that’s disgusting. i forgot that you eat that.” logan shakes his head in shock.

“it’s good. you’re just a hater.” oscar rolls his eyes. “stick to your boring vanilla.”

“it’s a classic!” logan turns to you and asks for two scoops of vanilla and one scoop of mango. you smile and begin to start their orders.

“you guys aren’t from around here, are you?” you ask.

“nah. the accents give it away?” logan laughs as he slings an arm around oscar’s shoulder. oscar rolls his eyes again but makes no move to push him away.

“yeah. a little bit.” you pinch your fingers together as you say it. “i’m not really from here either.”

“no?” oscar replies this time, curious.

“international student. this was one of the few places that’d hire me with my insane schedule. i’m lucky i have the next month off, thankfully.”

“aren’t you going back home?”

“i could if i wasn’t scheduled to work here practically every day for the next month.” you finish logan’s order and move on to oscar’s. you shrug. “and i need the money. the job could be worse really, i just wish the speaker fucking worked and the air conditioning. luckily i stand close to the ice cream.”

“what do you study?”

“archaeology.”

“best place for that is probably here.”

“yes. i don’t know why but ever since i was a little girl i knew i wanted to come to greece and study here. this is the less glamorous side of it but i’m here doing what i love.”

“that’s all that matters right?” logan chimes in. you nod as you scan their orders into your till.

“that’ll be €7.62.” you say. “cash or card?”

“cash.” oscar says as he pulls out his wallet. he’s infinitely glad he’d prepared and went to the cash exchange in london before he’d left. logan doesn’t even bother to offer, he picks up his ice cream and starts to eat it.

oscar hands you the cash as logan moves to a booth right by the open door to take advantage of the breeze. you count back the change and place it right in his hand. his heart doubles a beat as your hands touch for a moment but the moment is broken as your phone suddenly decides that now is the time to work.

the speakers start blaring natasha bedingfield’s ‘pocketful of sunshine’. you curse, close the till with your hip and turn to fiddle with the playlist.

oscar thinks he’s a little in love.

-❀-

logan knows that oscar likes you, which is a problem because he likes you too.

this road trip was supposed to be about finding themselves, not finding you. yet, when they find themselves back in your ice cream store the next few days, it’s no coincidence.

“you’re back again! the american and australian.” on day four, you’re not alone this time. you have a colleague, a girl who’s slightly older than you. she smirks at the two of them like she knows a secret they don’t know. “i’m not the only international one here!”

the speakers seem to work normally today, playing elton john as you hum along with it. your colleague decides that it’s time to take her lunch break, slipping off her apron and leaving the three of you to it.

“same thing as every day? or are we changing it up?”

“what do you recommend?” logan asks earnestly. he’s not losing oscar to you, maybe if he charms you enough, you’ll pick him. he doubts you will.

“everything is good here but if you really want my opinion? the chocolate fudge is a real crowd pleaser.”

“i’ll take two scoops of that and oscar’ll just have mint chocolate.” logan pulls out his wallet, opens it to find a mix of euros in there. he takes a moment to pick at the right change when you shake your head at him.

“no, it’s fine. it’s on the house today. i’m in a good mood.”

“why?”

“a lot of reasons. you know what? i forgot that i didn’t even introduce myself. i’m y/n.”

“we know.” oscar is amused.

“how? are you psychic? i used to know a psychic once and i also watched that’s so raven. great show.”

“your name badge.” logan nods at your shirt as he eats a spoonful of ice cream. you were right, it’s amazing. not too sickly but just the right amount of chocolate.

“oh.” you bite your lip in embarrassment as oscar takes his ice cream.

“i’m oscar and the american is logan.” logan smiles and waves his free hand at you. “is the shop always this empty?”

“no. it’s really busy after school and at peak times. you just always come quite early. lucky. it’s hell in here when it’s busy.” you seem relieved for the topic change. “you both here on holiday?”

“yeah. a break from our jobs.”

“lucky. my best friend is back home and i wish she was with me. she’s planning on coming up at some point thankfully. i hate being here without all my friends.”

“i can be your friend.” logan says. then he immediately regrets it. what if you think that he’s a weirdo? but when your face lights up, he realises that regret was a fleeting feeling.

“i’d love that. let me take your number. one of the guys from my class is hosting a beach party tonight if you both wanna come.”

logan looks at oscar who shrugs as if to say ‘i don’t mind if you don’t’. logan turns back to you, who is the middle of unlocking your phone and grins.

“we’ll be there.”

he types his number in your phone and sends a message to himself to save yours.

“i’ll text you the details.”

the speaker interrupts the moment that you have as it starts to malfunction. you curse again and throw your hands up in annoyance.

“stupid fucking speaker! so stupid!”

-❀-

the party is already well underway, when oscar and logan arrive. logan didn’t bother with buttoning up his shirt. he wasn’t necessarily the most confident man in the world but he was comfortable with his nakedness in a way that oscar didn’t think he’d ever be. oscar was in a undershirt with a loose overshirt.

you finally make your way over to them, panting slightly. you’re wearing a plain white bikini with an open oversized orange and yellow patterned hawaiian shirt. your hair is free from the bun they’ve seen you in work with. you smile, easy and happy.

“my two favourite customers!” you sling an arm around the two of them, hugging them so close that they can smell your perfume. “come on, let me introduce you to the five other people i know.”

you lead them down to the bonfire, where three girls and two other guys are crowded around. they cheer when you arrive with the two of them.

“guys, this is oscar and logan.” they wave politely. “oscar and logan, this is anya, jerome, alex, sienna and jaya.”

the group all cheer and welcome the two guys. it’s clear that everyone is already buzzed. oscar has never really been a big drinker so he declines a beer when offered. logan shotguns it, the residue dripping down his face. you laugh and attempt to wipe it off his face. logan goes lax in your touch and oscar can’t watch anymore.

the speaker that someone played is playing shakira as the two of you giggle in your own little world. oscar turns to jerome? or was it alex? and starts a conversation. talking about some footy game that they were watching earlier. oscar is about as into football as the next guy, but he really needs to focus on something else besides the two of you.

oscar knew that logan had always harboured some sort of inferiority complex when it came to the two of them, but logan had something that oscar doesn’t think he’d ever have - being genuinely likeable.

oscar knew he’d have to win because no one would support him as a loser. logan is just likeable regardless of what position he’s in - an underdog if he loses and a force of nature when he wins.

likeable gets the girl.

-❀-

you decide to walk the two of them to the end of the beach. the night is inky black and the only light is the remnants of the bonfire you’d lit earlier. logan is buzzed, oscar is distant and you’re still vibrating from the fact that logan made the two of you run into the cold water with him in the middle of the night.

“tonight was fun! i’m glad you were both able to make it!” you lean in and hug them both goodbye. logan swears you’d lingered a little longer while hugging him. “i’ll see you both at jim’s ice cream?”

“what is that?” logan asks bluntly. oscar elbows him lightly, not hard enough to cause damage but just enough to wind him slightly.

“the ice cream parlour she works at dumbass.” he turns to you. “we’ll see you there”

“well, i do work there. so yeah.” you laugh. all twinkly and bright. then you’re waving and jogging back to your friends. oscar watches logan look at you and sighs.

“come on man, let’s get you back.”

-❀-

logan wakes up with a hangover the next morning. oscar is a good friend and runs to the continental free breakfast and sneaks him out some waffles, croissants and eggs. he walks to the pharmacy again, paying for some ibuprofen (at least he hopes that’s what it is) with his cash and runs to the corner store to grab some extra snacks.

logan’s eyes are wide with both joy and disbelief. joy that something is there for his splitting headache and disbelief that oscar would do that for him. oscar feels a little ball of guilt unravelling inside. how bad had he let their friendship become?

they spend the day inside for the most part. watching television together. then they go outside to the pool, logan immediately jumps in but oscar sits on the side. he pulls out his phone and scrolls through the texts that he’s been ignoring. the ones from some friends, his mum, and you?

it’s not a coincidence right? that you spent the whole evening with logan and text him the next day?

he holds the phone close to his chest. he doesn’t want logan seeing this. he doesn’t know why that is. he quickly texts you back. then logan shouts.

“hey oscar! come in! the water is gorgeous.”

oscar grins and slips into the water, keeping his shirt on.

-❀-

the two of them end up at the steak restaurant together that night. they’re both dressed as nicely as possible. oscar in a nice sweater and logan in a dress shirt. the maître d’ smiled knowingly at the two of them and led them to their table.

“he thinks we’re together.” oscar whispers to logan.

“are we not?”

“we are in the literal sense. i meant in the romantic, relationship sort of sense.” logan laughs and bats his eyelashes all coy.

“oh no! oscar are you breaking up with me?”

“obviously. i’m leaving you for my secretary.” oscar’s deadpan voice just makes logan laugh harder.

“i knew it, that skank! i’ll get him fired.” oscar laughs too, breaking out into an easy smile that comes easily when logan’s around.

the sounds of the restaurant move around the two of them as they peruse the menu for a long time. it’s been a while with no conversation when oscar bites the bullet and brings it up.

“hey.” logan looks up. “i’m sorry.”

“for the secretary? don’t be. i’m running away with the pool boy.” oscar shakes his head, smiling.

“no.” oscar says. “for what happened. letting our friendship fall to the sidelines. i didn’t mean it but it didn’t excuse it. i really do like being your friend logan. i wouldn’t jeopardise that.”

logan is silent. oscar wonders if he’s crossed some unspoken line. he bites the inside of his cheek and looks at the wall of the restaurant’s decor. it’s all dark in here. would it kill them to buy some light bulbs? he understands its for ‘ambiance’ and that shit but he’s worried that he won’t be able to find his steak in the darkness.

“i was gonna say i was sorry. i thought it was my fault. that you didn’t want to be friends with,” he cuts himself off, laughing awkwardly. “a loser.”

“no. that wasn’t it. you’re not a loser, not to me.”

“i am. that’s a fact. it’s okay. you’re very nice for that but, it’s just not true.” logan swallows thickly. “now, should i get potatoes or fries as my sides?”

oscar doesn’t comment on logan’s facial expression, that he looks like he’s holding it together by a thread. he knew emotional vulnerability took a lot out of him but it was harder on the person who admitted failure.

“potatoes.” logan grins and nods before calling over the waiter.

-❀-

the next time you saw the two guys was two days after the bonfire party. they came in laughing at a joke that had happened way before they had even walked in. you find yourself standing up as soon as they enter.

“hi! y/n!” logan’s smile is always wide and happy to see you. oscar’s smile is muted but it’s still sweet. “what would you recommend for me? i liked the chocolate fudge.”

“hmm,” you think, running your hand along the counter. “we have a new flavour, chocolate covered raspberry? it’s quite popular. i think you’d like it.”

“i trust your judgement, ice cream girl.”

you crack a smile at the nickname, the smile so big that it momentarily hurts your face for a moment. you turn to oscar.

“and what about you?”

“same as usual, two scoops of vanilla.”

you nod, getting to work on the ice creams. you even offer to pay for them but they argue, threatening to shove it all in the tip jar anyway. oscar pays and when your back is turned, logan shoves twice the amount into the tip jar.

“wanna sit with us in the booth today y/n?” logan asks, taking a spoonful of his ice cream. “it’s not like anyones here.”

oscar looks up at you with his wide eyes, not really eating his ice cream. he just swirls it, until it turns into a sort of thick soup. you shrug and slide into the booth across from the two of them. you don’t have anything else to do and if a customer does decide to walk in? well, you’ll just slide back behind the counter.

“so, what’s your plan for the future?” logan grins. “and i know it’s the worst possible question to ask any young person but i’m curious. what’s the goal? is there one? it’s okay if there isn’t.”

“dream is to become an archeologist and backup plan? i don’t know. work in an office or something? maybe teaching. i haven’t thought that far ahead just yet.” you bite your lip and look out the window for a second. the day is hot, and you’re stuck inside. “what about you two? what do you do?”

“we uh, we drive.” logan looks at oscar.

“oh like uber? cool.”

“yeah, isn’t it?” oscar smiles at you.

“i still haven’t gotten my licence just yet. taxis aren’t too expensive and public transport is decent. also everywhere i need to be is pretty much walkable.” you smile at them. “have you visited all the touristy places yet?”

“not everywhere but we’re here for a while. we’re going to travel to santorini, mykonos and corfu. i’ve already planned them out.” oscar swallows his bite of ice cream. “scheduled to the exact moment we get there and get back.”

“an exotic european vacation.” you grin, waggling your eyebrows. logan laughs despite the joke not being very funny. “i’m jealous.”

“you could come with us.” oscar blurts out, his cheeks pinkening. “you’re probably busy though right? don’t worry about it. it’s weird.”

“no, no. it’s not. it’s very sweet and tempting.” you look outside the window again. “i’m not free for the whole time, but, definitely i could join you for a week? jim won’t care.”

“jim’s a real person?” logan asks, eyes wide. you laugh.

“yeah! he’s british actually. came over here when he retired and bought this place. he was one of the few people that’d hire me. my mum’s british.” you nod. “it’s a pretty decent job. if you ignore these hideous uniforms.”

you pull on the neon jim’s ice cream parlour shirt, face crumpling in disgust.

“you look good.” logan says, shyly, as he tongues the last of his ice cream. “this is good too. the ice cream. i knew i trusted you for a reason.”

-❀-

santorini is exactly like the instagram photos. well, despite being slightly too hot, a little less vibrant and he’s here with you and logan. logan has kept his shirt on this time, a loose linen blue one with a pair of shorts and flip flops. you’re dressed in a white skirt, a cropped tank top with a massive handbag.

oscar wants to do something crazy, like reach out and hold your hand or put his arm around your shoulders. he doesn’t because he’s not insane but he thinks about it for a solid moment. thinks about the way you’d curl into him or the way your shampoo would smell. he shakes his head.

“you don’t like it?” the two of you turn to look at him. fantastic. now he looks weird. his eyes widen.

“no, no! i love it. it’s lovely.” he reaches into his pocket, shaking hands grabbing his phone as he takes a picture. “i was thinking about the best angle to take this picture for my mum.”

“i’ll take a photo of you against the backdrop? maybe the both of you. your mum might like that. logan said you two were childhood best friends right?”

oscar nods. at least you bought his story. he stands against the barrier and smiles, awkwardly. he’s sure that all the other tourists are looking at him and thinking ‘what a weirdo, his crush on her is so obvious. she wants his best friend clearly, why even try?’

after a moment, logan stands next to him. logan dissipates the awkwardness with a wave of his hand and the two of them fall into an easy grin. when logan leans in and tells a joke, oscar finds himself laughing loudly with the click of your camera as background noise.

he sends it to his mother later on, when he’s in his hotel room with logan snoring in the room across from him. she texts him back quickly.

-❀-

— from mum.

well, it looks like you’re having fun honey!

— to mum.

yeah, i am.

-❀-

it doesn’t even feel like a lie when he messages her back in the cooling heat.

-❀-

it’s three days into the trip and two weeks into knowing the guys that you realise that you have a crush. it’s only a small inkling but you know it’s serious because no matter how much you try to dissuade it, it keeps popping up.

when you’re eating, when you’re brushing your teeth and even when you’re picking your outfit with him in mind. does he like blue? is he more of a yellow guy? or is it pink that’ll catch his eye?

the three of you head to a restaurant that night. it’s a seafood place, the three of you laughing and joking about something you’d seen earlier. they look good. smell good too. they even argue over who’s going to pay for the meal and look at you like you’ve got three heads when you offer to pay.

“it’s fine y/n, you’re a student.” oscar says, smiling as logan gives up. he pays quickly, all cash with no fuss. “we can get it.”

“ubering must make you a lot of money.”

“yeah. something like that.” he smiles again. this time with no teeth as he gets the receipt.

-❀-

logan goes to bed early that night, citing something about his family being desperate to check up on him. it leaves just the two of you outside in the corfu evening air.

“want to go for a walk?” you ask, looking at him earnestly.

“yeah. sure.” he’s trying not to be too eager. not to scare you off. the two of you start walking down the street.

“i always like to go for a slow walk after a big dinner. i feel like it probably helps with digestion.” you speak quietly, as if not to disturb the silence of the street. he likes your voice and is willing to listen at any volume you decide.

“i think it does. i try not to eat too much.” oscar responds, shoving a jittery hand in his pocket. “i can’t gain any weight for my job.”

“yeah, logan said. that’s weird. what kind of uber driver has a weight limit?” he shrugs and smiles. “do you miss australia?”

“sometimes. i’m used to travelling though. i’ve done it for so long.” he looks at you. “what about you? do you miss your home?”

“eh, i wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. i wanted to remake myself. i was gonna do it all y’know? a name change and everything.” you look up at the stars for a moment. “i didn’t go through with it. even if i changed my name, i’d still be y/n really. inside.”

“i get that. i think.” oscar looks at the gorgeous landscape in front of him. he ignores all the people milling around the two of you. to him it’s just you, him and the view. “so, y/n-“

your phone interrupts him. a loud, obnoxious ringing noise. you mouth an apology at him when you look at the caller id.

“sorry, it’s my best friend. she wouldn’t call me if it wasn’t important. she’s more of a texter anyways. do you mind?” you point at your phone. he shakes his head with a smile. you disappear to take your call and he finds a bench to sit on. he leans back, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

what was he thinking? asking you out? thank god the world or fate or god or whoever is in charge, stopped him before he made the biggest mistake of his life. you liked logan and he didn’t blame you. he really, truly didn’t.

when you come back, you ask him what he was going to ask. he shrugs. it wasn’t important anyways, he says. he asks what happened with your friend and listens you chatter all the way back about your friend’s current work drama.

-❀-

the next morning, logan and you head down to breakfast together. it’s a continental breakfast that the hotel offer. it’s good, with a wide spread of toast, pancakes, omelettes, cereal, fruit and sausages. you load up your plate, happy to get food for free even though technically you paid for it.

logan’s plate is smaller. you think about what they said earlier about weight limits and feel a pang of sympathy. i mean, your job was not very well paid but at least it gave you freedom in your spare time to do and eat whatever you want.

“is oscar not coming?” you ask, forking a fluffy piece of omelette and hash browns in your mouth. it’s gorgeous and you’re hungry.

“nah. he’s not feeling too good. i’ll bring him some breakfast in a bit.” logan methodically goes through his breakfast. slow, small bites and chews it for as long as possible. “wanna go for a swim later? it’s hot as hell outside. i feel my skin melting off.”

“you are going a little red.” you tease. he smiles again, shyly. his face does go red when you lean forward and press your cold cup against his cheek. “a little better?”

“it’d be better if you’d go swimming with me.” he smiles.

“of course i will. can’t leave you by yourself. who knows what’ll happen.” he laughs this time. “now wanna try some of this omelette?”

he sits politely as you lean over and feed him a forkful of the spinach and cheese omelette. for a moment, the two of you look into each other's eyes as you feed him. he turns away as soon as it’s okay and chews the bite.

“good?”

“yeah. yeah. it’s good.” he smiles at you. “let me just get some more water for us, be back in a moment.”

“is it getting too hot for you?” you tease.

“a little.” he sheepishly grins again. “let me cool down.”

-❀-

it’s your last day with the two of the guys before they drop you back off at the bus stop to go back to athens. your heart is still pinching at the thought of leaving, but you decide your last day can’t be in vain. they’ll be going home soon so it’ll be the best time to admit what you already knew. what you had known for the whole time.

you’d been on the phone with your best friend who had helped you to write a pros and cons list.

— pros - you could be a girlfriend to a great guy. you would be happy. you would have a rich boyfriend (your bff added that). you could touch them in any way they’d let you. you could sleep together. you could also sleep together (bff again). you would have a great time. you would have fun. would it improve your life? potentially.

— cons - they could say no and you’d have to jump off a cliff. they could be dating each other and you’d be embarrassed that you didn’t figure it out. they could laugh at you. they could be disgusted. they could be nice about it and gently let you down. they’re not even from anywhere close to greece. it’d be a long distance relationship. could you even deal with that?

you shake your head and lift your hand up to his bedroom door. the wood is cold under your knuckles. the world still moves around you, tourists laughing in their rooms and people walking around. their voices murmuring.

as your hand hovered there, you thought for a moment. about how this could change everything. was it too soon? too risky? then you remembered, it’s now or never.

take the plunge and with that, you knock.

liked by anyaaaa, alexjohnson and 183 others.

yourusername: this summer is going well. made two new friends, spent half of my savings and made some new memories and isn’t that what life is all about?

anyaaaa: when are you coming back? miss u girl!!

-> yourusername: soon! i just need to figure something out first.

-> anyaaaa: you’ll figure it out. you always do. can’t wait till you come back <33

taglist: @decafmickey @nichmeddar @casperlikej @purplephantomwolf @cuteskz @booksandflowrs @mxdi0 @alexmarie29 @luckyladycreator2 @23victoria @molten-m122 @evie-119 (want to be removed? or wondering why you weren’t tagged? check your tag settings or send me an ask!)

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sorapricots · 1 day

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Peachy

Summary: How everyone was shocked for an individual that hate PDA like Bakugou start to kiss your head more than he used to.

Pair: Bakugou x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: Nothing? Bakugou is very tame in here

A/N: Hello it’s been 999+ years since I last post something. To be frankly honest… college is a no joke not to mention I’m close to my last year right now… I can feel my sanity and braincells are decreasing with the amount of papers and journals I have to write… but oh well now I am kinda back? maybe not but who knows :) hope y’all enjoy my post and have a great day!

Wc: 1,4k

Weekend is finally come, and you cannot help but decided to wake up a little bit later than usual. Of course your wish is only a wish because a certain someone decided to knocked on your door and wake you up from your deep slumber.

You groggily walk to the door to find out who dare to disturb you from your very needed sleep. And there they are. A pink girl with black eyes and A girl with violet hair staring at you.

“What do you want?” you asked her. Mina just shrugged off your grumpiness as she walked inside your room and start to rummage through your wardrobes. Meanwhile Jirou gave you a quiet morning as she took a seat on your study desk.

“Girl, it’s 10 in the morning, and today is weekend so why don’t we spent some times together at the mall?” you groaned as you flop down to your bed face first.

“Also you told us to remind you that you run out some of your bath necessities and you want to restock them on weekend. So pull your ass up and start to get ready.” You let out inaudible grumble as you roll your body to flop on the floor.

“Fine.” You let out a huff as you grab your towel and the outfit Mina already picked for you.

“God… I really did run out of shampoo…” you sighed as you toss the empty bottle of shampoo to the trash bin.

You walk to the living room with Mina and Jirou after you finish taking a bath. And see a bunch of your friends lazing around. Your eyes quickly find the pair of red vermilion eyes that you love so much.

“Good morning.” You chirp as you stand in front of Bakugou. Bakugou grunt as his eyes move from Kirishima and Kaminari to you. He took a second to observe your outfit before answering.

“Mornin’ do you have somewhere to go?” he finally stand up from his seat. You nod your head as you hum.

“Yep. Mina, Jirou and I gonna go to the mall, you know… girl’s time. And at the same time I’m gonna buy some groceries because I ran out a bunch of stuff. so… do you want me to pick up something for you?” You lean your head deeper as Bakugou cup your cheeks with his callouses hands.

“Some spices. And just want you to be safe. That’s all.” You smile as you nod your head. Believing that Bakugou will send his groceries list later.

“Okay lovebirds come on we need to catch the train.” Mina decided to rip you apart from Bakugou. Receiving an annoyed grunt from the blonde. You only let out a small chuckle and wave at your boyfriend before left the dorm.

After you, Mina, and Jirou catch the train, the three of you manage to get a seat on a somehow not so crowded train despite it is a weekend. The three of you decided to discuss what to do at the mall other than shopping some groceries.

“What shampoo you plan to try? Didn’t you said you want to try a new scent for your shampoo?” Mina asked as she peeked your phone where you are busy looking for some shampoo testimony on the internet.

“Hmm… I don’t really know yet, but I do want to try peach scented shampoo… apparently according to the internet, peaches scented stuff are a bit popular these days.” You answer the alien girl while your eyes still planted on the LED screen on you hand.

“Oh but isn’t Bakugou did not fond for sweet scented stuff?” Jirou suddenly popped a question that make you think for a while. Shortly after you just shrug your shoulders.

“Well I don’t think peaches scented shampoo will have a dominant sweet scent. But even if it did, it’s gonna be ‘Suki’s problem, not mine.” Your answer made Mina laugh.

After a couple hours of walking and looking around the mall, Jirou, Mina, and you decided to go back home. While sit in the train you cannot help but keep looking at the new shampoo scent you just bought.

Anxieties and questions of what ifs start flooding your brain that makes you spiral down. Drowned enough you didn’t hear Mina practically scream at your ears. Your body jolted up when you feel Jirou’s ear jacks poke your cheek.

“Girl, are you really start regretting to buy that shampoo now? After we are one hour away from the mall?” Mina asked as she put her hand on one of her hips. You stare at her for a couple of seconds before let out a sigh of defeat and nodded your head.

“Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure he will like it.” Jirou pats your shoulder softly in attempt to comfort you.

“We are back!” Mina screamed as she kicked the door open with hands full of groceries just like you and Jirou. Izuku and Ochako quickly help the three of you to put down the groceries in the kitchen.

“Did you get my groceries list?” Bakugou asked as he walk in with towel hang on his neck. You spin your body to see him before nodded your head.

“Yep I got all of them just alright!” you smile as you circle your arms around his slim waist. Bakugou give you an approval nod before he started to take out the groceries from its bag with you still latching to him like a koala.

“Peach scented shampoo?” Bakugou look at you confusedly since usually you pick the floral scented shampoo. You just shrugged a bit before lean on his broad shoulder.

“Just want to try something new that’s all.” You said. Bakugou stared at it for another seconds before put it away for you to take back to your room.

“Hmm it does smell nice…” you mutter to yourself as you dry your hair with a hairdryer after you finish taking a bath. You hum to yourself while putting some casual clothes you usually wear in dorm. Suddenly you hear a knock on your door. You quickly run to the door to welcome the person who knock on your door.

Surprised but not surprised it’s your boyfriend who knocked on your door. Waiting for you to open the door. You throw each other a confused stare before he let a short huff.

“Dinner is ready.” You let out an understanding hum before you step out from your room and walk to the elevator with him. You both wait in silence as the elevator went up. Bakugou suddenly smell something unfamiliar coming from you but he decided to ignore it. Not until both of you step inside the elevator.

“Did you put on parfume?” Bakugou suddenly asked. You look at him confusedly before you decided to sniff around.

“Oh, you mean my new shampoo? Does it smell good?” you asked a bit hopefully. He stared at you for a second before leaning closer to you. His warm palm carefully grabbed some strands of your hair before softly kiss it. It would be a lie if you didn’t feel your heart skipped a beat when he did it.

Suddenly the elevator door opened. You immediately pull Bakugou out while he still busy inhaling your new scent. You even have to purposely pull yourself apart from him to be able to walk to the dining room.

“Suki, people are staring.” You said under your breath. It only cause Bakugou to pull you closer and plant his face to the crook of your neck as you both sit down.

“You smell so good.” He said.

“Damn girl, what spell did you cast on him?” Kaminari teased while wiggling his eyebrows. You rolled your eyes jokingly while still try to pull your lover from you.

“Okay explosion man, you need to eat.” Your stern words make Bakugou finally pull himself away and huffed like a child.

“Fine. But I want a cuddle.” He said with a bold tone. Your cheeks immediately flushed brightly as you can see from your peripheral vision your friends giggling and wiggling their eyebrows to you.

“Fine. Just eat will you?” you shoved a spoonful of food to his mouth before you start to eat your own food. The said man just smirk before he started to put insane amount of spice to his food and eat it. Of course he did not forget to secretly putting his warm palm on your thigh.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #bakugou x reader #bakugou katuski x reader #katsuki bakugou #katsuki x reader #bakugou fluff #katsuki bakugo my hero academia

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ladykailitha · 1 day

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Sweet Home Indiana Part 1

Hello! And welcome to this fun little fusion that I came up with here. If anyone can find the post about gay legal troubles after gay marriage was legalized (I think was originally about polyamory divorces) let me know so I can link here, too.

Summary: Eddie is a successful tattoo artist in Seattle and is engaged to be married to Chrissy. Only there is one problem. Well, technically three. You see, back before the Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was a right and not a privilege Eddie had gotten married in a couple of different states to different people. But now that's it's legal, he's a bigamist and he has to get his exes to divorce him. Which is easy enough for two of the three, not so much for the third. You see the third just isn't just any ex, it's the ex. Steve Harrington. So now he has to go down to Hawkins and try to convince the person he thought he was going to spend his life with to divorce him. Something much easier said then done, especially when Eddie finds himself falling back in love.

EDDIE IS GAY IN THIS BUT THERE ARE REASONS OKAY!

Eddie’s life was good. Let it be said that it was really good. He knew that. But he had regrets. Didn’t everyone?

He regretted how his band broke up. It wasn’t his fault, but he hadn’t seen the cracks when they had started to show. He hadn’t seen how tired Jeff was getting or how fucked Gareth was. He hadn’t seen that Brian was only phoning it in every night.

So when it all fell apart after a concert in Seattle, he was left holding the pieces of his band and his broken heart. He had gotten a job as a tattoo apprentice and had worked really hard to get his own chair.

He had friends. Good ones. Jeff had stayed in Seattle, too. Gareth had gone into rehab and had moved to a small village in the south of France. Brian had gotten married and moved back to Indiana where he became a teacher and lived a quiet life. The life he had always wanted.

Then there was Chrissy. He loved her so much. They had met when she came into the tattoo parlor to get a tattoo covered. She wanted to cover the name of her ex-boyfriend with a purple violet. Eddie had smiled at her when she asked.

It was some of his best work, if he was honest.

She was a legal assistant that had just gotten her paralegal degree and was trying to get a work visa.

She had come over to the USA from Barbados. A little island country in the Caribbean.

He didn’t know how she could stand living in damp Seattle after being born on sun-soaked shores under glistening palm trees. But Chrissy was adamant that she loved being in Washington where it rained almost all the time.

Eddie was on a mission. One that he had sworn to Chrissy that he would do today.

He walked into the county clerk’s office and applied for a marriage license for him and Chrissy.

“I’m sorry Mr. Munson,” the clerk told him, “but our records show that you have not one, not two but three marriages in three different states.”

Eddie’s eyes went wide.

“What?” He would remember that, surely.

“To a William Hargrove in Hawaii, a Thomas M. Hagan in New York, and Steven J. Harrington in Massachusetts,” the woman said, holding up her reading glasses in front of her face to read off the list.

“But those were only legal in the state they were preformed in, right?” he asked, furrowing his brow in confusion.

The woman shook her head. “Not since the Supreme Court ruled that it was legal for gays to get married. It’s cause a lot of trouble for a lot you people, let me tell you.”

Eddie knocked his knuckle on the counter and licked his lips. “Shit.”

She grimaced sympathetically. “I’m sorry, but before you can get a marriage license in the state of Washington, you’ll have to provide divorce decrees from all three of your exes.”

Eddie pounded on the counter this time with his open palm. “Thanks.”

He walked away and he heard her call out, “Next!”

Shit, shit, shit.

This was going to be hell, he could feel it.

Chrissy had fast food waiting for him when he got home from work.

“Did you get the license?” she asked, handing him his food and drink.

Eddie buried his head in his hands. “No, because stupid gay marriage legalization made all gay marriages legal, no matter what state you preformed them in.”

“Oh.”

She sat down hard. “So your three marriages suddenly count?”

“Yeah,” Eddie murmured. “I don’t even know where any of them are. Like I assume Steve’s still in Hawkins, because he’d never leave, but the other two? I have no fucking idea.”

She patted him on the shoulder and said, “We’ll find a way. The law firm has investigators on staff for this very reason. It might take a while, but we’ll find them.

Eddie nodded. “I’m sorry.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and sat down on his lap. “I’m not. You didn’t know. Otherwise you would have taken care of it when Obergefell v. Hodges went through the Supreme Court.”

Eddie nodded, but he pursed his lips, his hands up around her waist to hold her steady.

“Let’s just eat and I’ll start work on it tomorrow,” she murmured. “Okay?”

“Mmk,” he muttered.

Three weeks later, Eddie had in hand two of the three annulments. Billy had sent his back with a little note that said, “With pleasure.” Tommy had merely sent his back without comment.

That was a relief. He was no longer bound to either of those two assholes. He wasn’t even sure what possessed him to marry them in the first place.

Well, okay. He did. He was far away from home, lonely and willing to connect with anyone who would fuck him.

He was getting ready to call Chrissy to her the good news when the phone rang under his hand.

Eddie frowned at it for a moment, before he picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Eddie? Eddie Munson?” the familiar voice sounded through the cell phone.

“This is he,” he replied, still confused.

“If you want to divorce me, you asshole,” Steve spat, “then have the fucking courage to tell me to my face.”

“Steve?” Eddie asked, his confusion still there, but for a different reason now. How did he get his number?

“Yeah,” Steve hissed. “Remember me? The man you left for fame and fortune? How is that going, by the way?”

Eddie gritted his teeth. “You know full well we broke up, I know Dustin still talks to you.”

He could hear Steve snap his fingers. “That’s right. You broke up. And until you tell me to my face you want to do the same, you take your annulment and shove it up your ass.”

“Stevie...” Eddie pleaded.

“Don’t ‘Stevie’ me,” Steve growled. “Fuck you.”

And the phone went dead then Eddie turned his phone around to see that yes, Steve had disconnected the call.

“Fuck.”

Eddie called Chrissy with the news. Two yeses and a ‘fuck you’.

“All right, Ed,” she said. “There is more to this than you’ve been telling me, so you are coming over to my apartment with the annulments you got and you are going to spill. Capeesh?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good,” she huffed and then hung up.

Looked like today was hang up on Eddie day. He sat down at the table both annulments spread out in front of him and buried his head in his hands.

After a few minutes of allowing himself to break down, he picked up the papers and grabbed his keys, wallet, and cell phone.

Time to face the music.

Chrissy opened the door with a scowl, but softened when she saw how miserable Eddie looked.

He handed her the annulments and she put them her bag to take to work so that they could be filed with county clerk.

“Tell me about Steve Harrington.”

So Eddie did.

He told her about how they had bonded over a bunch of kids. Kids Steve had used to babysit, but once they got into high school came under Eddie’s wing as leader and DM of the D&D club called The Hellfire Club. How they had gotten together and when Massachusetts made it legal, him, Steve, Jeff, and Steve’s best friend Robin all drove out to Boston and Steve and he got married in a little court house.

“My Uncle Wayne was pissed he wasn’t there,” Eddie said. “But it was spur of the moment thing. We drove all night and got there that afternoon. We put on little suits and let the judge say his words.”

“That sounds sweet, so what happened?”

He let out a shuddering sigh. “Gareth graduated from high school and we got an offer to record an album in New York.”

“Why didn’t he go with you?” she asked gently.

Eddie rubbed his nose. “Because the kids still had two years left of school. He wanted to be there for them. A couple of them didn’t have good home lives and he wanted to make sure they had someone they could count on. We fought about it. Hard.”

“I’m sorry, cher,” she whispered giving his arm a squeeze.

“God,” Eddie said, his voice cracking. “The things we said to each other. It was bad, Chris.”

“And now he won’t sign the papers?” she asked.

He shook his head. “He told me the only way he’d sign anything is I came back to Hawkins and handed it to him myself.”

Chrissy nodded. “All right,” she said, “here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to get a proper divorce degree written up, making sure it’s worded so he knows you won’t be going after any assets he has and then you are taking a week off of work and going down there and facing him. Because holy fucking hell, Ed, he deserves some kind of closure as do you.”

Eddie let out a heartbreaking sigh. “I don’t know if I can face him, Chris. God, I put everything else before him and broke his heart. He always wanted this big wedding. A beautiful reception where all our friends and loved ones were there. A beautiful grey morning jacket with a proper boutonniere and saying his vows across from the one he loved. And instead he got an empty court house and broken promises from a screw up like me.”

She wrapped her arms around him and let him sob into her shoulder.

“Which is why you need to go down there and give him that closure,” she murmured, “so that he can have all that with someone else. Someone who isn’t afraid.”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, just let me know when it’s ready and I’ll take one of my vacation weeks to go to Hawkins, Indiana.”

Chrissy winced. “Maybe don’t sound like you’re going to your funeral, yeah?”

Eddie scoffed and rolled his eyes. As far as he was concerned he was going to a funeral. Maybe not his own, but the death of the first real relationship he ever had and if somehow he made it out alive, he was never going to be the same again.

Tag List:

@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @emly03

@spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @gregre369 @a-little-unsteddie

@chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @danili666

@goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @i-must-potato @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog

@justforthedead89 @vecnuthy @irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690

@anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon

@cinnamon-mushroomabomination @dragonmama76 @scheodingers-muppet @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt

@useless-nb-bisexual @disrespectedgoatman @counting-dollars-counting-stars @tinyplanet95

#my writing #stranger things #steddie #ladykailtiha writes #rom com au #minor hellcheer

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scoonsalicious · 2 days

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Unwanted: Chapter 22, Untold - Pt. 3

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, Pocket committing humourous and harmless crime, me not knowing how police stations work.

Word Count: 972

Previously On...: You and Tony tried to sheer some sheep. Now it looks like the cops are headed your way.

A/N: Listen, I am too proud of the headline that Tony makes up. Too proud. Also, at the very end, they say the things for the first time! XD

NOTE! The tag list is a fickle bitch, so I'm not really going to be dealing with it anymore. If you want to be notified when new story parts drop, please follow @scoonsaliciousupdates

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!

Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!

Taglist: (Sadly, tag list is closed; Tumblr will not let me add anyone new. If you want to be notified when I update, please Follow me for Notifications!) @jmeelee @cazellen @mrsbuckybarnes1917 @blackhawkfanatic @buckybarnessimpp @hayjat @capswife @itsteambarnes @marygoddessofmischief @sebastians-love @learisa @lethallyprotected @rabbitrabbit12321 @buckybarnesandmarvel @fanfictiongirl77 @calwitch @fantasyfootballchampion @selella @jackiehollanderr @wintercrows @sashaisready @missvelvetsstuff @angelbabyyy99 @keylimebeag @maybefoxysouls @vicmc624 @j23r23 @wintercrows @crist1216 @cjand10 @pattiemac1@les-sel @dottirose @winterslove1917 @harperkenobi @ivet4 @casey1-2007 @mrsevans90 @steeph-aniie @bean-bean2000 @beanbagbitch @peachiestevie @wintrsoldrluvr @shadowzena43

Tumblr will not let me directly tag the following: @marcswife21 @erelierraceala @jupiter-107 @doublejeon @hiqhkey @unaxv @brookeleclerc

“How many times do I have to tell you,” you told the officer who was questioning you, “we weren’t trying to steal the sheep, we were just trying to shear them.” You and Tony had been brought to the local police station and informed you were both going to be charged with trespassing, attempted theft, and criminal mischief. They’d separated the two of you, and you were doing your damned best to make sure that they at least dropped the attempted theft charge. “I demand to see the criminal statute that makes that illegal,” you said.

The officer rubbed his face with his hand. You’d been at this for awhile now, and it was obvious he regretted getting stuck with you.

The door to the interrogation room swung open, and another cop stuck his head in. “Jones,” he said, addressing the officer, “her lawyer’s here. We gotta cut her loose.” Lawyer? You didn’t have a lawyer. You couldn’t fucking afford a lawyer.

The other cop motioned for you to exit the interrogation room, which you did happily, and quickly, not wanting to spend another minute more in there than you had to. In the lobby, you saw Tony quietly speaking to a gray-haired gentleman.

“Ah, (Y/N),” he said when he saw you approach. “This is my attorney, Mr. Mitchell. He’s going to be representing the both of us over this little misunderstanding.”

You shook hands with the lawyer, but said “I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to utilize your services, Mr. Mitchell. I’m pretty sure they have to provide me with an attorney, as I most certainly cannot afford one.”

Tony scoffed at that. “Please. I got you into this, the least I can do is make sure you’ve got legal counsel.”

His words took you aback. You were so unaccustomed to having someone do something kind for you (even if, technically, the entire endeavor had been his idea) without expecting something in return.

“I’m not going to sleep with you in exchange for a lawyer, Tony,” you said.

Tony looked offended. “No offense, but you’re way too young for me. Besides, I don’t need to get girls a lawyer to get them to sleep with me, thank you very much.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Mr. Mitchell said with an awkward cough, “I need to speak to the desk sergeant about finalizing your bail. The older man walked off, leaving you and Tony alone.

“Sorry about that,” you murmured. “I guess I’m just not used to people doing nice things for me without wanting something in exchange.”

Tony studied you. “You strike me as a girl who’s had to grow up pretty quickly,” he said. His voice wasn’t pitying, but it was sad. You just shrugged.

“Well,” he said after a moment, “the press will have a field day with this. I can see the headline now: ‘From Billionaire to Baaaaad Boy: Playful Playboy Arrested in Woolly Misadventure’.”

You snorted at that. “I can make sure they never hear about it,” you said.

Tony cocked his head at you. “Oh, you can, can you?” he asked.

You glanced over to where the precinct’s receptionist sat at her computer. “Can you cause a distraction? Get her away from that terminal for about five minutes?”

Tony brought a hand to his chin. “Like taking candy from a baby,” he said. He sauntered up to the receptionist and slammed his hand down on the counter, causing her to jump.

“Excuse me!” he shouted at her. “I demand to speak to your superior officer! I have never been treated so disrespectfully in my life!”

The receptionist blanched. “I’m sorry sir, but if you have a complaint, you can fill out–”

“DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” Tony shouted. “I demand you take me to your superior officer this instant, or I will have your job!”

The poor woman was frazzled as she led Tony back into the bowels of the precinct. As soon as they were out of sight, you ran around the counter to the terminal. It was only a matter of moments before you were able to locate the files for you and Tony, and with a few quick keystrokes, you had deleted them as though they never existed.

You quickly checked the pile of paper files waiting to be sorted, locating the case files for both you and Tony. Checking to make sure the receptionist and Tony weren’t yet on their way back, you stuffed them down into the very bottom of the public trash can before running back to stand exactly where Tony had left you.

In a few more moments, Tony and Mr. Mitchell came out from the back of the station together.

“Well, that was quite fortuitous,” Mr. Mitchell said. “It appears that there was some sort of computer error and your charges were erased from the system.” You avoided Tony’s glance at you as Mr. Mitchell continued. “The desk sergeant has agreed to contact me once they’ve re-entered the information from the paper files. For now, you’re both free to go. Tony,” he shook Stark’s hand, “always a pleasure. And Ms. (Y/L/N),” you shook his offered hand. “It was lovely to meet you.”

“You, too, Mr. Mitchell,” you said. “And thank you so much.”

You and Tony followed the lawyer out, and as Tony started the Audi to begin your drive back to Boston, he turned to look at you.

“So, Kiddo,” he said, having learned you were just nineteen from your police intake, “how would you like a job?”

You stared at him, eyes wide. “Are you serious?” you asked. There was no way he was serious. An offer like this could change the trajectory of your entire life.

“Like a heart attack,” he said.

You grinned at him. “When do I start, Boss?”

<- Previous Part / Next Part ->

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky buchanan barnes #james buchanan barnes #mcu bucky barnes #james barnes

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sheisjoeschateau · 3 days

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"Oh, so we DO love Steve..." | Part X

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ SERIES MASTERLIST ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Steve Harrington x Bauman!fem!reader enemies to lovers, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, upside down mayhem, S2-S4, post S4 universe hot-take, end-of-the-world / dystopian setting, ugly fights turned smut (...but with hella plot). 18+

CHAPTER X WARNINGS/NOTES: t.w.'s - strong language, more angst, mention of dr*g abuse during childhood trauma, mentions of death and injuries, Max in a coma, fearful tears, shared sadness, major end-of-the-world terror talk. 18+

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As we dive deeper into just how in love Steve and Bauman continue to fall...we also dive deeper into darkness.

We get a glimpse into the childhood past of Bauman Squared.

Steve finally gets to laugh again with his kids -- and with the girl he wants to have his own kids with one day.

Dr. Owens comes back, but it's not why they expected. Erica is given the hardest burden of all. Robin & Eddie are the whacky aunt and uncle that everyone needed and basically get shit back on track while being thrown hard news. Argyle is actually just a kind dude. Nancy is pulling away, while Jonathan finally feels the gut-punching gravity of what he is losing. Jopper is still carrying the weight of both worlds.

And surprise, b*tches: DIMITRI IS BACK AND BOY IS HE SOOO BACK.

Lastly: chicken nuggets. That is all.

WHILE THIS IS A FANFICTION STORY: IT IS STILL MY WRITING. PLEASE RIGHTFULLY CREDIT ME WHEN REPOSTING OR SHARING. I DO NOT GRANT YOU PERMISSION TO POST MY WRITING AS YOUR OWN. - MISHA @sheisjoeschateau PROOFREAD UNTIL MY EYES BLED. IF THERE ARE STILL TYPOS, SORRY BOUT IT. 18+

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OH SO WE DO LOVE STEVE | Chapter X

“Why do I feel like this is some sort of twisted intervention?”

Erica Sinclair stood in the kitchen next to Murray as he cooked up something to share with a table of adults and teens — plus her.

“In a way, it is,” Murray responded to her as he stirred his ingredients.

“...okayyyy,” Erica sassed, suspiciously. “...then why do you want me here but not my brother or my other friends?”

Murray rolled his eyes. Erica’s attitude was truly the one thing that could bring Murray’s entire mental empire crumbling down like a tower of cards being blown over by a gust of wind. He pointed his spatula in her direction.

“Think of it this way, kiddo,” he said through a wry, condescending smirk. “It’s like getting invited to sit at the adults’ table instead of the kids’ table for thanksgiving. And you’re the only one we’re inviting before you get to go up there and hang out with your little friends. Alright?”

Erica narrowed her eyes. “What do I need to know that they don’t?”

Sauce dripped from the spatula as he stared at her. Christ, she was relentless. Then again…at least she seemed somewhat perturbed by the idea of knowing things before her brother and their friends. That was pretty damn selfless for Erica Sinclair. She cocked an eyebrow at Murray — who squinted back at her.

“Okay, why are you not as willing about this as I thought you’d be…”

“Look,” Erica said, crossing her arms. “If I’m going to be made to keep a secret? I need to know all the facts first. Especially if I have to keep it from my brother. And Steve. And Bauman.”

Murray sighed through his nose. She was right. Mature, and right.

“I don’t want you to keep it a secret for good,” Murray clarified, speaking slowly. “I just — we just need you to be made aware of some things before we bring it to everyone else’s attention. And truth be told? Harrington needs a break. So does my niece. And your friends? They need some time with mom and dad. You do, too. But right now? You’re the party member in charge of taking on some big information before we spread it to the rest of them. And quite frankly? I’m counting on you to help me — and the rest of us — help break it to them. Got it?”

Erica let all of that land, her guarded expression softening into one of civil understanding. She pursed her lips, considering this. Finally, she nodded.

“Alright. Deal.”

Murray shot her a thumbs up, resuming his cooking.

“That’s really lumpy,” Erica pointed to his saucepan with a soured expression.

“Ohforheaven'ssake —”

__________________________

Robin had taken on laundry duty on Steve’s behalf, knowing that Jonathan intended to talk with him. Which is why she’d asked Nancy to help her with it, and it has turned out to be a good thing.

Nancy was clearly fraying at the seams. There was a lot going through her mind, and it was all spiraling fast. She needed someone to talk to, but none of her options seemed safe.

She had no idea how or when to break everything she had been feeling to Steve.

Her relationship with Jonathan was so tense and strained, any conversation shared with him had just blown up.

And her mom would need to know everything about the upside down, in order to give her proper advice…and at this rate, that option seemed to have no place in this world.

She couldn’t go to Joyce, because that’s Jonathan’s mom.

Hopper and Murray were out of the question.

She wasn’t close enough with Eddie to even consider it.

And Argyle? Well, he’d said about as much as he could say. Far more than what she’d expected, if she was being honest.

Nancy’s only other option was Robin Buckley.

“God, I swear — the air’s a disease at this point.”

Robin had sat next to Nancy on the porch, carrying the laundry basket. Nancy quickly wiped a few stray tears, which Robin pretended not to notice – even when Nancy shot her a very forced, tight-lipped grin.

“Yeah,” Nancy chuckled wetly. “It’s uhh, yeah. Plagued at this point. Thanks, Vecna.”

Robin nodded with a smirk. “Yeah. Thanks a lot, Vecna. Fuck you, man.”

That made Nancy giggle, which Robin was grateful to see. She decided to start off slow, not wanting to force anything. After all, clearly Nancy was clearly going through it. And the way she and Robin had started off? Not great. Buckley was definitely not trying to push her luck. Sure, the two of them had gotten along super well as time passed, truly becoming friends while living in Steve’s house. But they weren’t exactly best friends. Friends for sure. But not like Nancy and Barb had been. Not even close.

“You know,” Robin mused. “Sometimes, I think back to high school and how…I never really had a best friend while I was there. Not like you did.”

That made Nancy turn to look at her, curiosity radiating for her bright blue eyes.

“You and Barb,” Robin explained. “You two were thick as thieves. She always made sure to take extra notes in Click’s class for you.”

Nancy’s eyes shone with melancholy fondness. “She did…?”

“Yeah,” Robin smiled. “Always. Saved them on little flashcards and everything. She was always like, ‘I gotta make sure I get this for Nance.’ Or whenever something crazy went down in the classroom, I could tell she was just itching to tell you about during lunch or after school.”

Nancy beamed at that. She shook her head, grinning widely. “God, I swear… Barb was like — like that little old lady who couldn’t help but wanna gossip. Even though she hated drama, she loved it at the same time. As long as it wasn’t hers or ours.”

“That totally tracks,” Robin snorted. “What an icon, really.”

“Schyeah,” Nancy giggled wholeheartedly. “Yeah, she…she was the best.”

Robin watched as Nancy gnawed at her lip, feeling the wave of sadness wash over her.

“I just wish…” Nancy murmured, voice shaky. “Just wish that I could…talk to her sometimes, you know? Not just to tell her how sorry I am. For everything that happened before she…”

Nancy’s voice trailed off. Robin dared to reach over and touch her shoulder, relieved when Nancy didn’t push her away or tense underneath her touch.

“I just wanna ask her questions,” Nancy’s voice shook. “So many questions, like…like the way we used to. As best friends. About — everything. Life, family, love…friends…the end of the fucking world…”

Robin nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Because Robin did know. Whenever she had become best friends with Steve, it had made her world significantly brighter. Her heart was full, and her soul had been lifted out of its constant anxiety-ridden state. Robin had been so closed off to bonding with anyone, especially the likes of Steve Harrington. Little did she know, that guy would end up being her truest best friend and confidant. The one she could lean on, tell anything to and count on for the rest of her life. However short that might be, given the end of the world… But she had Steve by her side, trusting him with every secret she had and her literal life in his hands.

Barb had been that for Nancy. But she was gone.

“I don’t know what to do,” Nancy’s voice cracked. She looked over at Robin with tear rimmed eyes, fighting them from falling as she bit down on her trembling lip. “About…anything.”

Robin kept listening, wanting so badly to go on a rant but willing herself not to. Because right now, it’s Nancy who needs to rant. She needed to ramble until she couldn’t anymore.

“I’ve been so…God, I’ve been so in love with Jonathan since we met and…got through all of this together. It just…just...worked. Clicked, made sense. Way more sense than Steve, but — but Steve and I, we…what we had was…it was real. Really real. Even Barb saw it, she just — just didn’t want me getting hurt, or…losing myself for a guy. But I didn’t really. Steve never pushed me to do anything that I didn’t wanna do, or…wasn’t ready for. Ever. Not once. He was kind to me, and…and I feel like…like I just… I think I’m the one who did wrong by him. Not the other way around. All because I just felt so…lost, and conflicted, and scared, and unsure, and…and…”

Nancy curled in on herself, tears falling down her cheeks as she ducked her face out of sight. But Robin scooched closer to her, enveloping her into a comforting embrace as she wept. And Nancy let her, allowing herself to lean against her.

“I told him what we had was bullshit and it wasn’t,” Nancy cried bitterly. “It wasn’t, he's not -- I was just…so fucking mad that Barb was gone. And it was easier to blame Steve, all because he wasn’t hurting the way that I was. The way that I still am. But that’s — that’s n-not — b-because he d-doesn’t…c-care…”

Nancy’s shoulders convulsed, and Robin’s heart broke for her as she held her tighter.

“B-but Jonathan had lost Will, so h-he…he got it. H-he knew wh-what I was…going through… And I-I j-just felt...so r-right with him. Because l-looking at him didn’t remind me of…of…”

Nancy choked on a sob.

Robin knew she meant Barb. She didn’t have to say it.

“I’m angry. For me, for Barb, for Steve, for Jonathan…my mom, dad, Mike…everyone. All the time. And I just d-don’t know what to do, because…Jonathan shut me o-out, and w-wanted to b-break up with m-me all because he felt like…he was…holding me back, and wouldn’t just t-talk…to me…and then S-Steve… Steve, h-he wanted me back b-but now…h-he…he loves…he loves…”

Nancy ugly cried into her palms, muffling the noise so that it wouldn’t be heard from anyone inside. Robin clung to her, rocking them back and forth with some gentle, soothing shushes.

“He loves her, Robin,” Nancy cried, heartbreak and anguish lacing her voice. “He loves her, and s-she loves him back. S-so much…b-better than I d-did…and I…I should be…so h-happy for him. And h-her, but I just…I just…wonder if I…did I…did I m-mess up…? Did I lose the p-person I was s-supposed to b-be with? I just didn’t…think he’d…move on…and that’s so…fucking SELFISH of me…”

Robin squeezed her. “It’s not selfish. It’s human. Steve is amazing. But Nancy…it’s okay that you didn’t go back to him.”

“But you thought I should,” Nancy leaned back now. She looked at Robin dead in the eye with bloodshot, red rimmed eyes. They swam in regrets, sorrows and bitterness.

“You and Eddie both thought that we should,” she said, voice croaked and upset. “Y-you both…thought that we…shouldn’t have…broken up, or…”

“You’re right,” Robin admitted, feeling bad but deciding it was best to just own up to it. “You’re right, I did. We did. Me and Eddie. But Nancy…sometimes we’re just so distracted by what seems right…that we can’t see what’s actually right in front of us.”

Nancy looked at her quizzically. Robin sighed.

“Look, when you left Steve,” Robin explained, taking her hand into both of hers. “Back in senior year, and you got with Jonathan…you two had your own journey. You had each other. Steve? Steve had no one during his — except for the kids…and Bauman. Because back then, he didn’t know yet. He didn’t know about her and Murray intervening —”

“Yeah, I know,” Nancy said bitterly. “We all know that now.”

“Just hear me out,” Robin pleaded with her softly. “I promise, I’m with you, alright?”

Nancy stared at her for a moment, finally softening her tense jaw and nodding once. Robin picked back up, on cue.

“Steve still had a lot of growing up to do. On his own. Dustin was the first to reach out to him. Well, he basically forced himself on Steve. And Steve needed that. He’s an only child. He needed a little brother to give him grief, and boss him around and pick on him. You have Mike. Steve didn’t have that until Dustin wormed his way into his life." Robin added with a smile, " ...and his heart.”

Nany thought about that, expression pensive with realization.

“Then Bauman came along,” Robin continued. “She was Steve’s age… You and Jonathan were off with the adults. He got left behind to watch the kids with her. They went through…a lot of shit that night. You did, too. But so did they. They fought off Billy Hargrove. They protected the kids, fought off the demodogs in the tunnels. They survived the night together. You know what that feels like. You and Jonathan bonded that way. Right?”

Nancy hesitates but looks back at her, sniffing. Eventually, she nods again.

“Right," Robin exhales deeply, proceeding. "So Steve… Steve had someone his age to be around, along with the kids. And that was great. Because she’s independent and badass, but also really chill and down to earth. Like, some sort of femme tomboy. Which Steve lowkey kind of needed, she really was exactly what --"

“Robin, I get it,” Nancy snapped, not wanting to hear about you in a complimentary way. At least not at this moment.

“No, hear me out,” Robin insisted, giving her hands another squeeze. “You need to hear this, Nancy, alright? You know you’re beautiful. You know Steve has been helplessly in love with you for years. That’s not even a question.”

Robin paused, shifting gears again as she refused to let Nancy look away from her.

“...but Steve had to move on. Or…find ways to convince himself that he could. And Bauman? She was there for that. She was around, during all his growth. And trust me – it was ugly. You have nothing to envy there. God, the way that they argued? The way Steve talked to her, honestly? Honestly. You would’ve slapped him. I sure as hell did a few times. Mostly verbal slapping. But I hit him a few times, not gonna lie. You’ve seen the highlights of Steve’s growth. You have seen the best parts of him, but…but Bauman was there for all of it. She got to see it all happen in real time, from the second you and Jonathan met back up with them to right now. And she owned up to her shit, too. It wasn’t her fault, by no means was it her fault. But hey, she took the hits. Many times. And she still ended up falling in love with Steve, who she swore was the last person who would ever win her over. Those two knuckleheads were relentless whenever I came into the picture. Fighting like lovers in a quarrel with absolutely zero history of affection to show for it. But still, they got through shit together. They put their differences aside for the kids, and when it came to fighting off the Russians? She and Steve honestly kept me so sane. And they kept us safe, too. Me, Dustin and Erica. They didn’t get along in the real world, but in the upside down world? They did. They didn’t even think twice. Steve grew into a way better person because of her. And she opened up a lot more because of him, and the kids. She didn’t grow up with siblings either. That’s another thing they have in common.”

Nancy took all of that in with a solemn expression. Robin let that sink in before continuing.

“I know this is…a lot. But really, Nancy…so much happened while you were gone. Those two fell in love over time without even knowing it. Shit, we didn’t know it either. That was a plot twist for all of us — including Murray. Despite what he says, that guy does not know everything.”

Nancy scoffed. “I know that.”

“Of course you do. We all do. He does, too. Especially now. Now that his niece and Steve are clearly so head over heels in love with one another.”

Nancy’s heart sank at that. She knew that it was true.

“I’m not…” Nancy mumbled, eyes downcast. “I’m not mad at her for falling in love with him. Or him. I just…can’t help but wonder if I messed up. Missed out on someone that I loved more than I allowed myself to when we were together.”

“You couldn’t have loved him more back then, Nancy,” Robin corrected her. “Because who he was then, is not who he is now. And who he is now is someone that Bauman has played a huge role in him becoming.”

Nancy sniffed a few times, bringing her knees to her chest and lost in thought.

“Do you still love Jonathan?”

Nancy looked at her, surprised. “What?”

“Tell me what you’re feeling there,” Robin pressed gently. “Why is that going wrong again?”

Nancy got defensive. “Um, what’s wrong is that he clearly planned on leaving me while I was back here being loyal to him.”

“Right,” Robin mused. “But…what about after he got back? What happened then?”

Nancy opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t. She thought about that for a while.

“We just…” she started. “...we just…moved past it. We let it go.”

Robin nodded slowly. “After all you two have been through…knowing damn well that things need to be talked about…you both really thought that was best?”

“He doesn’t ever tell me how he actually feels,” Nancy snapped. “I’m so sick of it. I always have to push him to tell me things. He just — shuts me out. Clams up, retreats. He won’t even tell me when he’s upset about something unless I make him.”

“Well then,” Robin nods. “That’s definitely on him. But what about you?”

Nancy scrunches her face in confusion.

“Why didn’t you tell him how you felt either?” Robin asks, unblinking.

Nancy stares at her, not knowing how to answer that.

“I told him that I love him,” Nancy whispers. “And that I…that we’re fine.”

Robin’s expression softens. “Do you wanna be?”

Nancy’s face crumbles. “I…I want…”

Robin waits, not knowing what to expect but knowing that it’s getting somewhere.

“I want him to love me again,” Nancy cries in despair. “I want him to fight for me, and — and love me the way that I thought that he did. That he would. That he always would —”

Robin holds Nancy again as she convulses with sobs in her arms. They stay that way for a little while, allowing the dust to settle. Nancy has said enough for now. It would all unravel itself more over time.

Meanwhile, Eddie had told Jonathan to make his way upstairs and talk with Steve.

“You’re on, buddy boy,” Eddie told him with a hard pat on the back.

So while Jonathan made peace with Steve, Nancy had finally released some of her emotions and confided in Robin.

And now, all the adults were in the kitchen as Murray made some food for the older teens and Erica. They’d asked Robin and Eddie to make sure that Argyle, Jonathan and Nancy were all going to be present for it, along with Erica before she could go upstairs and join the kids.

So here they all were now: sitting at the dinner table while Murray and Erica served them up plates and bowls of random foods.

Jonathan had watched Nancy make her way into the kitchen with Robin, newly fresh faced and eyes puffy from crying. She wore her pajamas now, having taken a quick shower and washing off the anguish from her meltdown earlier. Jonathan’s heart cracked in two, and it did even more as Nancy went to sit next to Robin. He stood up, unable to help himself.

“I got you a seat here,” he said, voice shaky.

Nancy had looked over at him, eyes cold and expression blank.

“That’s alright,” she said, voice level and cool. “We share a room.”

Nancy sat next to Robin, demeanor cool and calm and collected. She was stiff, but there was a chilling resilience to her that Jonathan had not seen in a while. It terrified him, making his anxiety spike. Had he lost her? Was he too late?

He swallowed hard, accepting it — given everyone else at the table. Hopper had awkwardly reached for some pepper as this was happening, working in slow motion as he felt really uncomfortable. So Jonathan just nodded, and Joyce gave him a sympathetic look as she placed glasses of water and tea in front of everyone.

Eddie made concerned eye contact with Robin as he poured himself some water. Yikes.

“I’ll sit next to you, my dude,” Argyle said warmly, knowing he needed to step in. Jonathan was grateful for that, but still dying inside as he kept stealing glances at Nancy — who looked anywhere except his way.

Murray clicked his tongue loudly. “Alrighty then. Shall we?”

With a thud, he set down his plate. Joyce clenched her jaw but took a deep breath.

“Lay it on us,” Eddie said with a deep exhale, sitting down on the other side of Argyle.

“Yeah, what’s this pow-wow and why is it just this group who's on it?” Erica questioned as she stationed herself on the other side of Robin.

“Right,” Hopper sighed before shoveling a mouthful of mashed potatoes into his mouth and leaning back to chew, readying himself. Everyone waited patiently.

“Here’s the deal,” he began, leaning forward and eyeing everyone individually as he spoke. “No one here is being made to keep a secret. That’s not what’s going on.”

“So then why is it private?” Robin asked curiously.

“Because right now…we need to set some things straight. Set in stone. Before we dive into our group meeting tomorrow. Consider this…a board meeting of sorts.”

Jonathan furrowed his brow. “Don’t we want Bauman and Steve for that?”

Hopper sighed deeply, rubbing at his beard. “This affects them. And the kids.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows at that, feeling nervous. He looked over at Robin, who looked just as worried.

Erica scrunched her face up. “Then why am I here?…”

“Because I need one of you kids to be level headed and vouch for me,” Hopper explained. “And for Joyce and Murray. We’ve spent a lot of time figuring this out. Weighed out our options, talked to El about it.”

“Does she know?” Nancy asked.

“Some,” Hopper nodded. “Most… Not all.”

Erica leaned forward, truly listening and accepting that she was clearly going to need to stick with some sort of plan that her friends were not going to be keen on…

Hopper contemplated his next words carefully.

“Look. Tonight, I need those kids to rest. To laugh, play some card games. Eat too much candy, and just have a good night. Soak up all the fun they can get before this mandate goes into effect soon. And before we have to go forward with a plan.”

Hopper made sure that everyone was with him on that. Off their nods, he continued.

“There’s two groups. One that’ll stay here, in hiding. Down in the basement, where we’ve already started making up basecamp. They’ll have to stay hidden. Out of sight. Quiet. On high alert. It’s a gamble. Just because they’ll be home…it doesn’t guarantee them any safety.”

Hopper took a deep breath, eyes filled with dread. He rubbed at the gap between his pinched brows.

“…the other group will have to risk getting back out there. And we won’t be anywhere that’s not swarmed and completely surrounded by the government and — god-knows-who-else, before we can get ourselves back near the largest gate that’s torn itself open and is ready to swallow Hawkins.”

Everyone’s blood ran cold.

No one was safe. They weren’t before, but now? Nothing was off the table. Everything was high risk, no matter where anyone was stationed.

“If you’re sitting here,” Hopper continued slowly, voice grave, “at this table, listening to this conversation…minus Erica and Murray...you’re in Group 2. ”

Nancy and Jonathan both felt their chests constrict, but they understood. It didn’t surprise them per se. And at this point, nothing should scare them. But it did.

Joyce looked at her eldest son, torn but knowing it had to be done.

Erica looked over at Murray, who gave her a soft nod.

Robin and Eddie looked at each other, along with Argyle, shuddering.

“Dimitri is going with us,” Hopper added.

“Who’s he?” Jonathan asked.

“Russian soldier,” Joyce told him, holding up a hand to clarify. “He’s on our side.”

Jonathan hesitated but eventually gave her a small nod. He looked over at Nancy, who was staring down at the table with her teeth sunk into her bottom lip.

“He’s got insight,” Hopper continued. “Knows what we’re dealing with, and how to handle what we’re all up against. We’ll need as many of us as we can get out there. Those of us who know the risks, and know how to navigate this world.”

Robin processed that, thinking. “So that…where does that leave Steve and Bauman?”

Hopper was quiet. The way he gnawed his cheek made it clear that this was where it got messy.

“Steve is on the frontlines with us,” Hopper explained carefully. “…and Bauman is stationed back here with Murray and the kids, along with Dr. Owens.”

Robin’s heart sank, and so did Eddie’s. They both shared a sad, all-knowing look. They knew this wasn’t going to go well. At all. They knew that Steve was going to flip his shit at just the idea of leaving you out of his sight.

“Won’t Dr. Owens have a target on his back?” Eddie asked, concerned. “Won’t that — won’t that draw more danger here…?”

That made Robin look at Hopper, wide-eyed. The retired cop looked pale, eyes full of dread.

“He has to be here in case anything happens to Bauman or Max,” he explains solemnly. “Because if shit goes south here…they’ll need to run.”

Jonathan felt sick. This also meant leaving Will behind. “But…how? How can they run?”

“That’s where I come in,” Murray chimes in. “Between me and Erica and Dustin, we’ll be able to keep a close eye out for a signal — which Will can help us navigate.”

“Because he’s still connected to it all,” Joyce explains sadly. “He still…feels it. He senses when it’s near.”

“Which is why he’ll be able to give us a warning,” Murray nods, adding to Joyce’s input. “Since El has to be out there with you guys, we’ll still have a connected source that's here with us.”

“The kids can’t do this,” Hopper adds, tone firm. “Not this time. El doesn’t count, as much as I want her to stay back. She can’t. I know that.” He looks at Erica with parental eyes. “But as far as the rest of you kids go? No more. It’s already bad enough having to risk you all staying here. But if this is how it’s gotta go down? You’re staying where there’s a controlled space, with 2-3 solid abort mission plans — which Murray knows from top to bottom.”

Erica hangs her head, but she nods. She knows this makes sense.

“As for Bauman,” Hopper continues, eyes sad. “She’s not able to get back out there. Between her heart issues and her bad shoulder and ribs…she has to stay put.”

“No, I agree with that,” Robin says, voice full of gravel before she clears it. “But, umm…I’m just…really worried that…well it’s just — Steve, he’s um, he’s —”

“He’s going to have to do this,” Hopper interjects, but not unkindly. In fact, it’s full of empathy and remorse. “He knows the ways. You’ll all need him. His stamina, his strength. He’s strong, good with a bat and can outrun shit. He also knows what to keep an eye out for, whatever comes our way.”

Eddie gulps, partially because he’s terrified about facing the underworld again…but also because he knows that Steve will be a wreck the entire time he’s gone with them and not with you. And if Eddie’s being honest, the idea of leaving you and the kids behind is killing him too. He’s especially grown to love you and Dustin over the last year.

“This isn’t open for discussion,” Hopper says, voice firmer and tone low. “Tomorrow, when we have our living room meeting, I’ll be conveying this to everyone…along with Murray and Joyce. And I need to know I have each and every one of you on our side. Those kids are going to raise hell. All of them are. And this plan is not changing. It’s either this…or we all stay hunkered down until we rot. Am I making myself clear?”

Nancy and Jonathan nodded first, quickly followed by Robin and Eddie.

“Yes sir,” Argyle spoke first, and for the first time he genuinely looked aware of just how heavy all of this stuff really is. Jonathan gave his shoulder a quick squeeze.

“Erica,” Hopper was looking directly at the youngest person sitting across the table. “I’m counting on you. I know that’s not fair, but I am. You’re tough as nails. You’re gonna have to be that way with your brother, and his friends. Your friends. You'll have to be hard...but gentle enough to get it through to him. I don’t care what you gotta do, you do it. Whatever you have to say? Say it. And if anybody gives you shit for knowing this before they did…send them to me. Understood?”

Erica looked back at Hopper with the most somber expression. But she nodded.

“Understood,” she said, voice low.

Hopper gave her a curt nod before looking over at the older teens.

“As for you guys,” he said. “We all know the shit that just went down yesterday at the fence. Bauman’s always been at the frontlines with us. She can’t be now. And Steve cannot hang back. He’s got too much strength that we can’t afford to not have on our side of this battle. And I don’t care if Bauman insists she can do it. She can’t, and she won’t.”

“And if she gets stubborn,” Murray interjects, voice fierce. “Tell me. If she tries pulling a fast one? You tell me. Capiche?”

Eddie and Robin quickly nod up and down.

“I’ll talk to him if it gets bad,” Jonathan says in a weak voice.

Nancy narrows her eyes at him. Since when do he and Steve talk?

“Good,” Joyce says with a sad, tight-lipped grin and nod at her son. “He’ll need it.”

"I'll be there for him, too," Robin nodded at Jonathan.

“Will we be able to stay in contact with them at least?” Eddie asks pathetically. “Via the walkies?”

“When necessary...yes,” Hopper confirms. “We’ll have to be scarce about it. Selective. Nowhere is safe. It’ll have to be reserved for vital communication only.”

Eddie frowned, but nodded in understanding. Robin was currently biting her palm, consumed with dread and sickening anxiety. Leaving you behind? The kids? Even Murray, who everyone had come to appreciate in their own weird sort of way — mostly because of how much they all loved you. He was an extension of you. The whole situation just felt…fucked.

But wasn’t everything fucked? Wasn’t this entire world so catostrophically fucked in every single which way, seemingly irreparable?

Was there actually an end to this nightmare? A world in which the upside down would cease to exist…monsters would go back to their storybooks and dark, twisted fairy tales…the moon would only ever symbolize light within forgotten darkness...and the sun would never hide behind the ashy debris that currently clung to the air, just outside their windows?

Despite how everything looked grim, with seemingly no end in sight…you all persisted in choosing to believe. Yes. Yes, this was going to end.

The end of the world was nearing. It was inevitable.

But it wouldn’t be your world.

***

You never really put much thought into what having a family would feel like one day.

You’d wondered. Every little girl does. In young girlhood, there’s the beauty of innocence that protectively surrounds all grown-up dreams that fuel your wildest imagination. The dreams of never having to go to school, and being in charge of everything you want. The dreams of being able to eat whatever you want, whenever you want. The dreams of meeting your future husband, and getting to wear a big white, sparkly ballgown as you walk down the aisle to your happily ever after. The dreams of being a princess in a big castle, ruling the land and having cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and tea parties everyday with your friends.

Sure, you’d had those dreams as a little girl. How could you not? It was inevitable.

But as you grew older, you didn’t really have a chance to fantasize about much. You’d been made to grow up from a very young age. Your grandmother had been there for you enough. She kept a roof over your head. Food on the table. A very generous allowance, even though you never asked for one and you’d gotten yourself a job by the age of 13 painting peoples’ houses and doing yard work. You’d even gotten hired by your uncle to do data entry for him, along with a couple of his contacts who did intense investigative research and needed someone to work remotely. You earned your own living, and you did upkeep on your grandmother’s house — despite her never asking you to do so. She was gone a lot. She wasn’t very old. Just a smoker who liked casinos and taking trips with her “friend” from time to time. A woman, who she only ever referred to as her "assistant." You knew better than to believe that, but you never said anything about it. She was a closeted lesbian — which is why Robin coming out of the closet for you had been the easiest news to take, let alone support. Your grandmother was a tough, long-acrylic-nails-donning boss bitch who did whatever the hell she wanted. You’d gone with her many times to some casino resorts, mostly staying in the hotel room or just walking around the city. It felt like living with a Mafia Mobwife. It was cool, for the most part. But it definitely meant being able to hold your own. She’d raised herself when she was a kid — and in most ways, you did too.

It’s why you’d spent so much time with your uncle, who didn’t live very far. He was home a lot. Given his line of work, he didn’t go out much. He became even more of a hermit as the years went on, and you liked that. It meant consistency. His spare room basically became your room. It couldn’t exactly be considered a “guest room” when he never had guests over. You’re the only person he invited over for company, and he loved it. The two of you got along effortlessly. His dark humor rubbed off on you early on, which your grandmother shared in but she wasn’t nearly as quick-witted as Murray. That’s where you got it from. But your dry, snarky wit was much more selectively timed than his. He was all over the place. You had solid social cues, given that you went to school and were around people often. Your uncle was definitely an oddball. But you loved him to death, and you got him better than anyone else did.

You weren’t babied. You weren’t coddled, or sheltered, or given false hope about the world. It’s why you held your own, and it’s also why you never victimized yourself. It was to a fault, but you believed it was for the best.

So when Clark broke your heart into a million pieces, you told yourself it had been a risk from the start. A gamble, just like the poker tables at those casinos that your grandmother frequented all the time. Love was a dangerous game, and it spared no one. There were winners and losers — and you’d lost this one.

But right now, in this moment, you felt as though you had just won every single jackpot that there was to win.

Because right now, you were sitting in Steve’s lap on the floor of Max’s room in his big house, holding cards closely to your chest as Lucas screeched GO FISH at Dustin. Steve’s hand was in plain sight, and if you were a cheater you’d have him beat in seconds. But you didn’t need to win a stupid card game…because you had won the greatest game of all: life.

El and Mike were cuddled up close to each other, giggling and being young teens in love. In a normal world, you would assume it to be puppy love between them. But this world wasn’t normal, and the shit that they’d been through together wasn’t any different than what you and Steve had been through together. It was real love, and you let them be that way.

Lucas was seated next to Max in her bed, holding her hand and laughing like a kid again. Dustin was hoarding all of the candy from his backpack (so much for sharing) and laughing like a buffoon. He bickered with Steve and the kids as usual, but something about it was just so…bright. Hearty laughter bounced off the walls, and there were so many times that Steve had belly laughed — along with you and the other kids — that you’d all lost count.

Sometimes, you swore that you saw Max’s lips twitch. As if she could hear you all in her coma, wanting to laugh along with everybody. Lucas would talk to her as if she could hear you all just fine, squeezing her hand and kissing her forehead while showing her his hand in cards. Dustin even gave her a sleeve of her favorite candy — just for her. He might not have basic manners with the rest of you, but Max? Always.

Will was keeping score, seated next to you and Steve with the biggest smile you had ever seen him wear. He laughed hysterically the entire night, even going as far as verbally expressing adoration for you and Steve. Dustin would pretend to gag, but Will would just tell him he knew better than to think that the curly-haired smart alec wasn’t completely in love with the two of you being together. Dustin had grinned all dopey and wide, rolling his eyes but not arguing with him any further.

At some point, Mike suggested all swapping ghost stories.

Lucas had barked the loudest laugh. “How about the one we’re currently living??”

“Hey, hey,” Steve interjected. “I got a better idea. Tell your most embarrassing story. One you’re scared shitless to tell.”

You'd grinned in his arms, snickering. “Oh I got plenty of those.”

“I mean hey,” Dustin shrugged with a mouthful of candy. “If we’re gonna die, we might as well get real.”

“Okay chill, we’re not going to die,” Steve scoffed, hiding his internal worry.

“It’s possible,” Mike shrugged, grabbing another bag of M&M’s.

Steve huffed. “Dammit, Wheeler —”

Mike’s devilish grin was infuriating yet endearing at the same time.

“I wish Max could hear all of this,” El said with a tinkering laugh.

You gave her the warmest of smiles and a wink. “Trust me. She does.”

“Hell yeah,” Lucas smiled wide, squeezing Max’s hand. “I’ll even tell one of her stories, for her.”

“...dude, she’s gonna kill you,” Dustin warned him, but there was a smirk lifting at the corner of his lips.

“I’ll go first,” Will announced, laying on his stomach as he ate some popcorn. “One time? I was asleep in bed but I woke up because I heard Jonathan moaning so loudly — like, disturbingly loud —”

“Okay, maybe I needed to lay down some ground rules here —” Steve starts with a very tight voice as you snorted into your palm.

“Just hear me out,” Will laughs, holding a hand. “I thought it was with a girl —”

“William,” Steve scolded.

“But he was in the bathroom,” Will talked over him. “Shitting his brains out.”

Dustin cackled while Mike audibly expressed disgust while laughing at the same time. El looked shocked, giggling hysterically into her hand.

“Damn, that bad?!” Lucas roared.

“He lit every candle in the house,” Will cackled. “Mom went to use it shortly after him and came barreling into our rooms to ask us in a panic what had died up one of our butts!”

Steve collapsed into you laughing, and you couldn’t even breathe from laughing so hard. It was that sort of deep laughter that’s so painful because it’s quiet before you’re able to finally erupt with loud laughs that help you come down from a high. All the kids were a fit of cackles and giggles, too. Erica made her way into the room finally, jumping right into things and bringing cookies with milk. All of you exchanged stories, allowing yourselves to only cry tears of joy. It was exactly what you all needed, long overdue.

And for the first time in ages — none of you thought about the upside down, or the impending doom that awaited you just outside of the Harrington house throughout all of Hawkins.

That night, you and Steve tucked every single of your kids into their assigned sleeping bags and cots. Lucas stayed with Max in her bed, asking you sheepishly if that was alright. You’d nodded, along with Steve — more than approving. And given you both would be chaperoning that night in the same shared room, you also let Mike and El cuddle up together in a sleeping bag.

“Hands outside of the covers, Wheeler,” Steve warned him, but he gave him a wink — adding please at the end. Even Mike gave him a smile and nod, like a little kid who felt called out but also didn’t have any intention of disobeying.

Dustin and Will joked in high pitched voices about being bunkmates with their sleeping bags next to each other, given they were the two singles of the group. Technically, Erica was too. But even if she wasn’t, she would still demand her own space. She had situated herself on the floor beside Lucas’s side of the bed, not planning to give him a hard time for a good while given what was in store for everyone tomorrow.

As for you and Steve — the two of you had stationed yourselves in the center of the room, closest to the door. That way, you could see all your kids at any point during the night and also be the first to fight off any harm coming your way, should danger lurk on the other side of the locked bedroom door.

Steve ruffled Dustin’s hair as he dozed off, earning a sleepy little “hmph” from him. After he made sure all of them were comfortably settled in for the night, he crawled over to you. His nail bat was propped somewhere nearby — ready to be swung into action if need be. But the need for it that night never came.

You curled into Steve’s chest, breathing in his clean, masculine scent and allowing it to fill all of your senses. Sighing contentedly, you felt a rush of warmth wash over you as his lips pressed into the top of your head.

“I love you so much,” he whispered.

“I love you more,” you murmured in the softest of whispers.

You felt him chuckle against you. “Impossible,” he breathed into your hair, pulling you so close to him you might as well be the same body.

And had you not been so completely relaxed in his arms, you might have fought him on it. The whole "I love you more" thing. In fact you definitely would have. But you just hummed, dozing off in his strong arms and allowing sleep to find you.

***

Waking up had been beautiful. The sun was even more hidden than usual, plagued by the new world coming into fruition. But despite the lack of sunshine outdoors, you felt as though it shone through the entire room as all the kids woke up and whispered to each other. You pretended not to hear them when they talked about you and Steve. Because if you were being honest? You’d been dying to hear their uncensored thoughts. If they thought that you weren’t listening, they wouldn’t hold back from saying what was actually on their mind.

Turns out? All of them wanted this. The two of you together. They laughed about how some of them thought that Steve was going to end up with Robin at first.

“No way,” Lucas shook his head in a confident whisper. “Those two? They’re like brother and sister.”

“Yeah, but Bauman’s so out of his league,” Mike whispered back.

“She is not,” Will added in a defensive whisper.

“She so is,” Mike whispered indignantly.

“No way, Steve’s awesome,” Dustin defended in a whisper.

“Yeah but like,” Mike whispered, pondering with a sigh. “I mean yeah. He is. I like him. He’s cool. Way cooler than I thought he was at first. But Bauman’s literally a badass. She doesn't care what people think.”

“Steve doesn’t care anymore,” Erica chimes in, speaking softly. She’s actually pleading Steve’s case and it’s adorable. “He used to. But when we were down there with the Russians? And he had to wear that stupid sailor outfit for work?…”

“Oh my god,” Dustin snickered. “That shit was so funny.”

“He looked like Shirley Temple from the Good Ship Lollipop,” Lucas snickered back, and Will had to shush them so that they wouldn’t wake you up.

“My point is,” Erica continued with sass. “Steve doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks of him now. I mean…he gave her hell the whole time I was around ‘em.”

“I still don’t get that,” Mike whispered.

“Me either,” El added quietly.

“What do you mean?” Dustin whispered in confusion. “I told you guys the whole story. That once upon a time ramble I had to sit through when Murray basically went on to give us an entire rundown on the two of them?”

“Well duh,” Mike whispered in annoyance. “I know that. But dude…she’s…like, she's...”

“Hot.”

Everyone went quiet, and you stiffened as you held back laughter. Because the person who had called you hot? It was El.

“Bauman is hot,” El repeated.

Eventually someone snorted. Then, they all did. You bit back laughter, blushing into Steve’s chest with your face kept hidden.

“You’re hot,” Mike added to her in a coy whisper.

“No, you are,” she whispered back sweetly.

“Enough,” Erica whispered definitively.

“Max thinks that Steve is hot,” Lucas scoffed.

“He is,” Erica and El said at the same time.

“Hey,” Mike whined, and they all shushed him.

“Face it, dude,” Dustin whispered flatly. “He is. I wish I looked like him.”

“You look great, man,” Will assured him. “You got a girl like Suzy. You gotta be a stud to catch someone like her.”

Dustin had blushed at that with a wide, dopey grin. “Think so?”

After listening to them chat some more, eventually Steve started to stir. He’d told them good morning, to which Dustin all too happily responded with a very loud good morning back —- making Steve audibly groan and bite back curse words. The kids all snickered.

Will started handing out drawings out to everyone. You all had been sketching and drawing together in your assigned room earlier the day before, while Steve had been getting Max’s room ready. Will had told you all to draw a picture of someone else in the party. He’d even chosen who was drawing who.

Will and Lucas drew each other.

Mike and Erica drew each other.

El and Dustin drew each other.

And you drew Steve, before he joined you all and eventually drew his original art piece of you while you all played a round of the Game of Life.

Here you were now: holding your drawing close to your chest, and wiggling your eyebrows at Steve. He gave you the most adorable smirk, his cocoa brown eyes still a bit sleepy and his perfect hair the sexiest case of bed head. He stretched, toned arms flexing and his white t-shirt clinging to his muscles in all the right places while being loose enough to wanna rip it off of him…

Not the time, Bauman, you mentally scolded yourself.

Steve had reached underneath his pillow to fetch his drawing of you, holding it to his chest and sitting across from you — crossed-legged and shooting you a wink. All the kids mirrored you both, sitting opposite their assigned art piece subject with throaty giggles and snorts.

Will looked at everyone excitedly, like a proud art professor, ready for his classroom to partake in show-and-tell.

“Alright,” he smiled. “Everyone ready?”

“Yeah, you go first, Byers,” Steve nodded at him with an encouraging grin.

Will blushed. “Oh…well…I mean…I should go last. You guys first. On the count of 3, everyone turn your photos around to your partner.”

Mike snorted as he stared down Erica. “Howdy, partner,” he drawled in a fake accent. El giggled, and so did Lucas.

Erica shot Mike a wry smirk. “Easy now, cowboy.”

“Bet you made me look like a total loser,” Mike snickered.

“I don’t have to draw you to make you look like that,” Eric’s said in the most sugary sweet, sarcastic voice.

“Okay snarkbutts, settle down,” Steve scolded lightly in a groggy voice, no heat behind it. “Will has the floor. William: proceed.”

Will saluted him. “Alright. Count of 3.”

“Please tell me you gave me teeth,” Dustin mumbled lowly to El.

“One…”

El shrugged. “I dunno.”

Dustin narrowed his eyes.

“Two…”

Steve gave you a coy look, asking in the lowest of mumbles, “How big’s my hair?”

You grinned like a devil, your voice lower. “Not as big as your other best trait.”

Steve lifted a very cocky eyebrow with a deepening grin.

“Three!”

Everyone turned their papers around, and a soft silence fell over you all minus a few little reactive intakes of breath.

Dustin had drawn El with a million eggo waffles in the sky around her. She looked like the most adorable cartoon character, with anime eyes and full cheeks. Her hair was shorter, the way she’d looked back in ‘83 whenever she’d returned. But it wasn’t slicked back. It was free, curly and a little wild. Her smile was innocent and childlike, and there was a policeman in the back waving. Hopper.

El had drawn Dustin with his signature cap and his big toothy grin — which made him beam, because she did give him teeth in the drawing after all. And in this drawing, there were bubble boxes above him that read all the quotes she associated with him, like Steve! and She’s our friend and she’s crazy! and Shit shit shit shit shit!

Mike had drawn Erica into a comic strip. He showed her as just a wee tike, then at Scoops Ahoy with an ice cream cone, then playing DND. The last image of the strip showed her with her arms crossed and a triumphant smile, with a banner behind her that read Welcome to the Party. (…as Erica looked at it, she felt the most unfamiliar warmth seep into her bones and the joyful sting behind her eyes sent her into pure shock.)

Erica had drawn Mike on his bike, riding through the neighbor with his backpack and a flashlight. His dark hair blew in the wind, and there was a thought bubble above him with little heads that resembled all of his best friends. Above him and the thought was a quote: “Mike Wheeler: nerd, snark machine and superhero to all.” (…Mike felt so emo, he didn’t know what to do with it.)

You had drawn Steve in a very chic sort of hot anime-like way. It honestly looked like an actual character that existed in an anime universe. In the drawing, Steve held his nail bat in one hand and a McDonald’s happy meal in the other. He didn’t quite understand that part at first — until he spotted behind him, there was a Winnebago. Six familiar faces, very stick-figure-esque, stood there waving. You also stood there, with a quote above your head: “six-piece nuggets, coming right up.” Steve breathed the fondest of chuckles as he took it all in, wanting to laugh and smile and cry and tackle you with his kids all at the same time.

Steve’s drawing of you was more adorable than you ever thought him capable of drawing. You were the cutest little cartoon, backpack over your shoulder with combat boots — but you were wearing the most beautiful dress. It was yellow, which complimented the happy blue sky behind you. Yours and Steve's favorite colors combined. There was a big house behind you, with seven other stick figures that looked an awful lot like Steve and your six nuggets. And right next to you, there was a dictionary-esque definition of you:

BAUMAN (Pronounced bow•men)

A professional love-life ruiner; cute but psycho; hardcore but soft; too smart for her own good; humor darker than the dark espresso she drinks straight, because she’s a sociopath; also hotter than said cup of coffee; terrifyingly beautiful from the inside out; my mortal enemy turned favorite person; the girl who makes everything make sense; someone I can’t fathom living without, and can’t believe I ever thought I could; the love of my life, in this one and the next and so on, so long as she’ll have me.

You had never felt so full in your entire life, and neither had Steve. The two of you just stared at each other’s drawings. Grinning, glassy-eyed, chuckling, aching, filled with every ounce of joy and every ounce dread — all at once. Neither of you could speak, but neither of you had to. Your eyes, along with his, spoke volumes. They said everything there was to say, just as much as your sketches did.

Lucas had drawn Will in a wizard’s outfit. He held a tall, majestic scepter — with a large hat on top of his head. Surrounding him was a large swirl of colors, whimsical and light, painting a galaxy of sorts. And in this galaxy, there were little floating stick figures with all his friends’ names above them. Will was smiling in the drawing, with his hands in the air and on top of the world. Literally, because in the picture he was standing on top of a globe.

As for Will...he had drawn Lucas at a basketball game. He was scoring the winning basket, and an entire crowd cheered behind him. All of you were there. Will was there, next to all his friends. You and Steve were next to each other, along with his mom, Jonathan, Nancy, Argyle, Eddie, Robin and Hopper. Even your Uncle Murray.

And Max…that’s where Will’s drawing got unique.

She was piggybacking Lucas, as he jumped and shot the winning score of the game, her laugh radiating through all the pens and crayons and markers that Will had used to sketch her. She was alive, as were the rest of you. Very much alive.

Just as you all were right now, inside one of Steve Harrington’s many bedrooms in his big house with no parents.

No matter what doom was swiftly approaching — no matter what monsters were looming underneath the surface, and already roaming the real world — you all were together. You had each other.

You always will.

***

Late morning upstairs has been kind to you. It's been light. Hopeful.

There’s something about walking downstairs that makes the energy shift. It sends an odd sort of chill up your spine, despite Steve’s arm draped securely over your shoulders as you wear one of his large gray hoodies with your bad arm in a sling. You feel a certain pang in your chest as the kids follow you all down into the kitchen…but this time, it’s not because of your heart arrhythmia.

As Hopper and Joyce smile at you all in the kitchen, greeting you warmly and having prepared a table full of pancakes that had smiley faces decorated with whipped cream and chocolate chips and strawberries on top — something about the scene frowns at you. A deep frown that you’ve seen on everyone’s faces whenever there is bad news waiting to be shared.

Your uncle is coming over to hand you a hot cup of decaf coffee, winking at you and Steve as he gives him a tight shoulder squeeze. He’s moving past you both towards the man named Dimitri, who is walking in from the living room. Murray brings him over to introduce you.

“Dimitri, this is my niece,” Murray grins.

You shake his hand firmly with your good arm, smiling gratefully. “Heard a lot about you.”

“You as well,” the man says with a genuine smile, kind vibrant eyes and a thick Russian accent. He’s definitely seen some shit.

“And this is Steve,” Murray gestures, a bit of a coy glint in his eye. “Her boyfriend.”

Steve blushes, a soft smile gracing his features and shining through his eyes. He wholeheartedly adores being called that out loud for the very first time: your boyfriend.

Your uneven heart skips several more beats, which typically would raise a lot of concern — but at the moment, you’re too fucking happy to care or pay it any mind. You watch Steve flash his signature charming smile and reach out to firmly shake hands with Dimitri, who is looking back at your handsome boy with the widest grin. The masculine exchange of lighthearted friendly words between the two men makes your stomach dance for some reason, especially as your uncle chuckles along with them.

This is completely uncharted territory for you. Nothing about this moment is familiar. But you could really get used to it. It’s new. And you adore it.

Dimitri meets the kids, who all take to him very well. Especially El, who seems to already be familiar with him. Likely because of Hopper. Jonathan and Argyle are being introduced to him by Joyce, while Eddie is rounding the corner with a big stretch and yawn. Steve shoots him a smirk as the metalhead makes his way over for a big ole bro hug, whispering something to him that makes Steve snort while Eddie grins like a devil. Steve swats at him playfully, successfully smacking him as Robin walks in with Nancy close behind. Steve’s quirky platonic soulmate makes her way over to you with a warm smile, swinging an arm over your shoulders so that she’s nearly headlocking you in a hug. She’s a bit taller than you, by just a couple inches, so it gives her some upper hand. You’re chuckling lightly, nose scrunched and tightly winding your good arm around Robin’s waist as you smile back at Nancy. Her eyes are still sad, a bit lost. But there’s no animosity there, at least not that you see. She looks at you shyly, timidly…but with utter kindness.

Unbeknownst to you — Robin had suggested to Nancy that she stay with her last night in Steve’s room. For Nancy, that had been…hard. Necessary, but hard. For multiple reasons. For one thing — the last time she’d slept in Steve’s room, she had been his girlfriend. Being asleep in there 2 years later without him, now as his ex, brought back a flood of memories — bittersweet and haunting. Being in his bed, twisted up in his sheets, felt wrong. But she just couldn’t bring herself to sleep next to Jonathan that night. Not yet. Not after everything that had unfolded. So Robin had stayed up talking with her, having a heavy heart to heart. But it turned out to be exactly what Nancy needed. Just what the doctor ordered. Robin Buckley had unintentionally become a nurse of sorts over the last several months, and maybe even somewhat of a therapist. Although — Argyle sort of had her beat in that department earlier that afternoon. But he was the much simpler kind. Whereas Robin got deep, given her innate gift at rambling until you were given no choice but to cut her off because your most honest thoughts were yanked out of you as you were made to listen to her ranting. Nancy had cried some more, but she’d also laughed. A comforting mixture of both smiles and frowns were shared between the two unlikely friends. Robin wasn’t Barb, nor would any other girl be that kind of friend to Nancy. Robin was very different from Barb. However, her heart was just as loving. She loved hard, and it showed. She let Nancy pour her heart out, pouring some of her own out in return. And somehow…somehow…it brought Nancy some newfound peace and understanding.

So as she looked at you now, having seen you come downstairs with Steve and the kids — now introducing yourselves to the new Russian house guest, and sharing a special connection with Eddie and Robin in a way that only settled couples so effortlessly did — Nancy could see something in the two of you that she’d not known Steve capable of being while she in a relationship with him. And while she selfishly ached for her younger self who’d missed out on having that with him (and sometimes still found herself pining after), she selflessly began to feel happy for Steve. And she even began to feel some happiness for you. Not completely. Not yet. She couldn’t quite commit to making full peace with it all, given that healing takes time. A very long time. But as time continued to pass, which Nancy hoped you all would still be granted given the circumstances of the crumbling world, she knew that she would eventually get there.

Murray and Dimitri were saying something funny, making Hopper and Joyce share a hearty laugh with the two of them while the kids were asking the new gentleman a million questions. Steve made his way over to you and Robin, hugging you both — and Eddie threw his arms around all of you, resulting in fond groans and grunts from you all along with big smiles.

Nancy and Jonathan made unintentional eye contact as this happened, but Dustin shouting GROUP HUG! snapped their focus away again. The boys all bear hugged you guys while El and Erica were already pouring syrup onto their pancakes.

Eventually, you all sat down to enjoy a feast. And while it tasted so deliciously sweet…the bitter aftertaste stemmed from looming doom that creeped just beneath the surface of your feet. The energy shift was still felt, and despite the warmth of homemade pancakes and Steve’s hand on your thigh…your blood ran cold.

***

It was the early afternoon that finally unveiled the darker energy shift you had all been sensing since that morning, after you left the comforting quarters of your little family sleepover.

Everyone was now seated in the living room now — the way you always were, when it was time for you all to have a group meeting and listen to Hopper go over a plan of sorts or give a rundown to the household. Except this time, Dimitri was here along with Dr. Owens. It wasn’t like all the other times. This was different. Very different.

This one scared you.

Maybe they all should’ve. All these talks that centered around the end of the world. All these household meetings about the impending doom that came with said end-of-the-world. But somehow, you’d grown accustomed to them. Comfortable. It meant you were all still alive and that you all had something worth fighting for. And it had always meant there would be another meeting.

But there was an unsettling sort of feeling of finality to this meeting that set it apart from all the others. And as Hopper stood with both Joyce and your uncle Murray…you felt goosebumps scatter up and down your arms and legs, regardless of Steve’s warm oversized hoodie and your leggings and socks. Their faces were somber, a bit grim. Murray kept his arms tightly crossed while Joyce fiddled nervously with her hands. Even Hopper, ever the strong and firm type, looked nervous. Maybe even afraid.

They spoke all slowly, taking their time with why everyone was there — why Dimitri was now in the picture along with Dr. Owens — and what all needed to be discussed. And the longer they spoke, the thicker the air got. Tension spread around the room. It was especially evident as none of the kids were making a sound. They hadn’t uttered a single word. Not one of them. The adults had the floor, and when they asked Dimitri to stand with them, you all knew this was going to go in a bad direction.

So when they all told you the plan, looping Dr. Owens into the picture and why he not only was here for this talk — but here to stay — the gravity of the current situation landed.

You all felt your souls plummet to the deepest depths of your stomachs with a hard thud, as Hopper revealed two large whiteboards. They both had entirely different detailed layouts…and beside each one, there were two separate lists of names.

One list of names would be at the frontlines. The people who would be diving head first into the upside down and all of its perils.

One list of names would be hiding out here. The people who would maintain home base, helping operate things from the other side in the real world, while risking the chance of being found, caught and killed.

Both sides were at risk. Both teams could die. Both groups might not ever live to see another day, or each other, ever again.

As Steve stares at your name, along with the names of all of his kids aside from El, on the opposite whiteboard from his own name…he feels bile rising in his throat. His stomach twists into knots, deeply tangled with unbearable anxiety and anguish. His mind races, but his lips don’t move. Fear paralyzes him, rendering him speechless as the adults keep talking and gesturing to the boards. The castle on a cloud that his dreams have just began to build for the two of you, walls high and protecting you both along with his kids — his family — was drifting away from him. And all he could do was watch it drifting further and further away, into the void, as he stared into space.

You felt his grasp on you instinctively tighten as his muscles stiffened. Steve was rigid against your back, and you were grateful that he couldn’t see your face right now. You were sitting between his legs on the longest part of his couch, facing the same direction as you took in the whiteboards while absorbing all the information that was being relayed to the group. With a harsh swallow, you risked peeking at everyone else’s reactions — quickly scanning the room with your eyes.

Mike’s usually sour expression looked far more sad than it usually did. He only ever looked like that when El was in danger, or things were spiraling out of control. He sat on top of the coffee table with his elbows in his lap, crouched forward and staring a hole into one of the whiteboards. Dustin’s mouth was agape, and his unusual silence was loud. He hadn’t said a word from where he sat on the couch next to Erica. Will sat on the other side of Jonathan, brow furrowed and heart blue. He knew the risks being taken, and it hurt his soul seeing that he would be apart from his mom and brother. He felt as though he always had been, ever since this all began, and it seemed to be a never ending circumstance. Lucas was taking it all in from his seat on the leg of the couch, hands wrung and expression reserved — but defeated. He’d really grown into a young man this past year, and he’d been taking so much in stride. But even so, he looked conflicted. Really conflicted.

After taking in the kids’ reactions, your eyes swept over to Robin and Eddie. She was seated in the giant loveseat, per usual, with Eddie perched on the arm of it. You narrowed your eyes as you caught sight of Robin fiddling her thumbs, eyes darting up and down from her fingers to the adults with the whiteboards. Eddie was bouncing his knee anxiously, nibbling at his fingernails — which were already bitten to stubs. While the two of them looked to be taking this hard, the way that the rest of you were…they also seemed to be absorbing it a bit differently. As if maybe they had a hunch about it already…

It wasn’t until Erica stood up to sit by Lucas with zero prompt that you felt slightly suspicious. Because as she did, Robin shot a very quick tight-lipped smile in Erica’s direction with eyes that radiated sympathy. Did they know this was coming? Is that why Erica had come upstairs with the cookies and milk later than the rest of the kids?

You sighed through your nose, focusing back on Hopper as he gestured for Dr. Owens to stand up with them. The older man made his way to the center of the tense room, hands dug deeply into his pockets and wearing a very sympathetic smile.

“I’m really grateful you all have put a lot of faith in me, despite everything,” he said humbly. “Truthfully, it’s not owed. I know that. Still…I promise you’re in good hands with me. Not those guys out there. Hence why I’m here. And I know you’d have already figured out by now if I was still working for that side of things. Between El and Will, and all of you crazy smart folks, I’m outnumbered.”

He added a light chuckle at the end that nobody returned. Dr. Owens sighed, taking no offense. He knew this was not going to be taken well.

“I’m in this fight with you,” he said, stronger than how he spoke before. There was conviction in his tone that he never really used, and it only heightened just how severe things currently were. “If it were up to me? None of you would be out there. I’d be out there on the frontlines. But…given Max’s comatose state, and Bauman’s heart condition, I know I’m needed here. Which is just as big a risk that’s being taken out on the battlefield, because we’re staying in Hawkins as the evacuation notice and mandate goes into effect. The city will be swarmed with government officials who are all behind this. We’ll be surrounded from all angles. No one is safe.”

You’re pretty sure that Steve had stopped breathing at this point, and the veins that prominently stuck out from his arms tightly wound around you made your throat close up.

“I’ll be here to monitor Max, along with Bauman. I’ve got plenty of medication to help steady the heart arrhythmia, and anything vital needed for a medical emergency — on anyone’s behalf, not just Bauman’s and Mayfield’s.”

“But…what happens if…”

A tight voice made everyone’s heads whip in its direction. It was Dustin speaking, eyes wide with fear. He wasn't being his usual cocky, overly confident self. He looked and sounded genuinely fearful.

“…what happens if we’re caught? What do we do? Where do we go?”

Murray sighs, stepping forward. “We’ve thought about that. Right now, there’s only 2 options. But they’re solid. The best we’ve got right now. One more than the other. See, look —”

Murray went into detail about an abort-mission plan, but it sounded distorted in your ears as the gravity of the situation weighed down on top of your shoulders: you were all splitting up. And this time might be the last time.

At some point, Mike had started to finally come to life. His snark was returning, but even he wavered and the fear in his voice wasn’t concealed. Hopper and El had to level with him, which only flustered Mike and caused him to stutter. They had him beat, and he knew it. He wanted to storm off, but Erica had told him to sit his ass down and listen. It was so unexpected that he did as she said. But your own brain was playing it all in slow motion. As Will began asking questions with Dustin, you could see how Lucas had looked like he wanted to ask Erica if she might have already known something — but he didn’t. Dr. Owens was saying something about Will being tied to the other side of things and being the assigned “El” of their group opposite of her, which fired up Mike as he demanded to know why the hell that required him to be out of the group heading to the frontlines alongside his girlfriend. Before Hopper could even respond, Eddie was jumping into action along with Jonathan — coming to the retired cop’s defense. That only bewildered Mike more, which fueled Dustin’s confusion into high gear as he made arguments alongside Mike. Lucas had thrown his voice into the mix, but when Erica’s was louder — telling them all to listen, for the love of god listen, and Lucas stared at her in silent bemusement. Will was weakly pleading with them all to please calm down, along with Joyce, who shot Argyle (of all people) a desperate look, and he made his way over to sit down next to Will and tell him it was going to be alright.

“NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS ALRIGHT,” Mike cried, angry and sad and scared in the way a child made to grow up too soon has every right to be.

“Mike, please,” Nancy’s voice trembled, her blue eyes glassy.

“Nancy, this isn’t okay!!!” Mike wailed.

“M-Mike,” Nancy stammered, her own emotions giving her a shake she couldn’t stop. “Just l-listen to me…”

“No, you never listen to me!!!” Mike bawled. “Never!!!”

“Hey hey, Wheeler, hey.”

Steve finally found his voice as he reluctantly made his way to stand up away from you and approach his kid that was having an absolute breakdown. Mike was still wailing, but as Steve approached with an unwavering look in his eye — baby Wheeler allowed for the group's assigned babysitter to actually place his hands on his shoulders and try to level with him. Mike’s face crumbled, his words not making any sense the more he stumbled over them. All that could be made out was something he was trying to say towards El — something about why and how could you and tell them I’m coming — which made Steve get a firm grip on his shoulders as he told him not to blame her for this. After all, Steve had all the experience in the world as far as wrongfully placing blame on someone else was concerned…and it made your entire body ache as you watched him soothe Mike, who just bawled and mumbled nonsense in his hold.

El began to cry, too, leaning into Hopper — whose bottom lip trembled. He bit down on it hard and willed it to stop, his eyes overwhelmed with everything that was unraveling before his eyes.

Dustin was going back and forth with Erica, but he sounded so pitiful it made your uneven heart crack. He kept looking over at Steve, begging him to understand. Please Steve, please, let me go with you. Eddie moved to immediately hold him, crushing him in more of a death grip than a hug. The metalhead mumbled into his curly hair — not this time, kiddo, not this time. Robin had a hand clamped over her mouth, emotions taking over as she barely managed to bite them back.

You stood up instantly, moving to hold Buckley. She didn’t hesitate to make room for you on the seat, letting you take her in your arms as she shook like a leaf. You gently swayed her side to side with you, murmuring quiet little words that were meant to be comforting — knowing they weren’t, but offering them anyway.

Your eyes met Jonathan’s across the room as he swayed with Will as well. His pupils were blown, consumed with dread and drowning in pure misery, and you knew that yours weren’t much different.

Mike had buried his face into Steve’s chest at this point, and it made Nancy cry into her own palms as she curled in on herself.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered, voice cracking at the end. She looked at Hopper and your uncle, eyes guilty and full of shame. “I - I’m sorry.”

Before you could even process what just happened, Nancy was barreling up the stairs. Jonathan watched her go, panicking. He looked at Will, then at you — eyes pleading. You didn’t even let a second pass before you’d squeezed Robin to signal her, standing up to bring her over to where Will was seated. You took Jonathan’s place as he went after Nancy, holding him tight as Robin leaned against you on your opposite side. Argyle kept a kind hand on Will’s shoulder, still sitting to the other of him.

“Steve, please, you die I die, remember?”

Dustin’s whimpered words had to have been the saddest plea you’d ever heard in your life. Steve almost broke but before he could he flung an arm to sweep Dustin into his hold, as baby Wheeler kept bawling into his chest. He held them both steady, letting them fall apart in his protective arms and doing everything in his power not to break down with them. He couldn’t. If he did, he’d failed them. But to Steve’s dismay…he did anyway. He ducked his head down, shaking against the two of his kids, letting himself silently weep with them. For them.

Lucas looked utterly heartbroken, which Erica noticed. The youngest Sinclair cast aside all her pride, looking at her older brother with the most sympathy and love she could have towards anyone in this world, and she threw her arms around him. He only let it shock him for a second before he held her back, a grateful silence falling over them both.

You felt tears of your own begin to brim your eyes, but before letting them fall you looked up towards the adults…seeing your uncle first. Murray looked back at you with every ounce of empathy and solace that could be found inside his dark soul.

You gave him a soft nod, silently communicating with him. I understand. I’m sorry you had to deliver this news, but I’m here and I understand.

And he returned the soft nod, lips pressed into a thin line but communicating back through eye contact and body language. I love you and I hate this. But I’ve got you.

Dimitri stood next to him, eyes somber and downcast. He was new to the picture, but having seen the other side of things and just how bad a toll this has clearly taken on you all — he mourned for everyone’s pain.

Dr. Owens had to sit down, unable to speak and wringing his hands.

Hopper and Joyce held each other, along with El. They looked at each other, devastated but steadfast.

This plan was not open for discussion.

This plan was not open for debate.

This plan was final.

And so you let the tears crawl over the edges of your eyes, feeling them skate down your cheeks as you clung to Will and Robin and felt the world sit on top of your shoulders.

***

-- so as you can see, shit's getting intense. the gut-wrenching angst approaching has me overwhelmed but I'm so sickeningly happy about it. suffice it to say, Steve & Bauman are my Roman Empire and they are endgame. so if that gives you any sort of hope, given the inevitable doom that is in store for them and everyone else involved...then yay.

<3 this story forever lives on. forever and ever amen. - misha

TAGLIST (ILYSM) If I forgot you or you wanna be added, lmk :)

@aloneinthehellfire @xprloki @erastourvip @get0ut0fmyr00m @Eddiemuns0nl0ver @marrowfrog00 @poppet05 @wiltedflowersundertowers Originalthingparadise Pleuviors pumpkinonice Ihaveproblemsihaveproblems Brinleighsstuff Definitelynotherr sucker-4-angst bookkeeperlove notlilyyyy @goosy-goose nevillescomslut

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington angst #mishas masterlists #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington stranger things #steve harrington smut #joe keery #oh so we do love steve #steve and bauman #murray bauman #jopper #jim hopper #jonathan byers #stancy #sorry stancy

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harrywavycurly · 3 days

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Does Steven get the inside scoop on all the gossip about Sugar Daddy!Eddie? He’s such a good friend to us 🥰

Hiii babes!! Oh he 1000% gets the scoop on what’s going on between you and Eddie, I’ll give you a little conversation between the two of you! I hope you enjoy, also yes Steve is literally the best I love him🥹💖

-Find all things What You Deserve here✨

“So…how’s it going with your new daddy?” “Steven!” “Ouch no need to hit me…does he know you have a violent streak? Have you hit him yet?” “I do not have a violent streak you’re just annoying.” “Whatever….but really how’s it going? I’ve watched him drop you off and pick you up from this shit hole all week…so that must mean things are good?” “Yeah he’s giving me rides to and from work until he’s finished fixing Dave.” “He’s fixing Dave? Why? I thought he was like way past the point of saving?” “He’s fixing him because…well…I asked him to as part of our agreement…I said he had to fix Dave for me.” “You told him to fix Dave?…why wouldn’t you just let him buy you a new car?” “I can’t ask him for a new car Steven that’s rude.” “Rude? He’s your sugar daddy he is literally there to buy you shit…and you’re just asking for him to fix up your old car and buy you iced coffee? He could be doing so much more for you.” “It’s been like ten days I can’t just ask for things that quickly…it’ll make me look-” “Make you look what?” “Needy or…like greedy? I don’t know I’m just not…ready to ask him to buy me something yet…especially a new car when you know how I feel about Dave.” “At least tell me you let him pay for your dinner last Friday? Because if you tell me you spilt the bill I’m going to fire you as his sugar baby and take over the job myself so he can feel like a real sugar daddy.” “Do you want to be his sugar baby?” “Don’t ignore the question…” “well yeah he paid…it was a date so of course I let him pay.” “It was a date? So you two are dating?” “Uh well…I think so? He asked if he could call me…uhm…his.” “His what?” “Just…his.” “Oh like…he asked if he could call you mine? That’s how it was worded?” “Exactly…and I said sure and he also might’ve said I could call him my uhm…boyfriend if…I wanted to.” “Wait wait wait…you can call him your boyfriend?” “If I want….yeah.” “Do you want to call him your boyfriend?” “Maybe…in the future?” “Have you two…done…anything…ya know…uhm scandalous?” “We’ve held hands.” “And?” “And it was nice?” “You haven’t kissed?” “No and that’s the thing…I’m not sure how to bring that up to him? Because I know how uhm…most…of these situations work and so far…he hasn’t made any moves on me.” “That’s because he’s a gentleman…and you’re used to assholes.” “That’s…true but still isn’t it odd?” “Just talk to him about it? I’m sure if you want him to start uh…making moves on you he will.” “I don’t want to make him feel weird or anything.” “Listen…Eddie isn’t like most guys…he’s respectful and I’m sure if you just ask him about how he wants you to return the favor when he…spends money on you…he will explain it and from there you can tell him what you’re comparable with and what’s totally off the table.” “Yeah…I guess it’s just a conversation that’s no matter what is going to be awkward so might as well get it over with.” “Exactly…but can you do me a favor?” “I’m not asking him to buy you anything.” “Oh come on…I’m the one who set you two up I deserve something…preferably something that tells the time and comes in a box that says Rolex but…I’m not picky.” “You know Rolex doesn’t make a digital watch right?” “I know how to read a clock…I got the time wrong one time and you’ll never let me forget it will you?” “Nope.”

#sugar convos #eddie munson fanfiction #what you deserve series #eddie munson fluff #sugar daddy!eddie #eddie munson au #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #Eddie Munson x fem!reader fluff #Eddie Munson #Steve Harrington #bff!steve #my little dungeon master baby #my little fluffy haired baby #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things au

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ao3-shenanigans · 2 days

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Hey there. Not sure if this is the right place to ask but I couldn't really think of where else to ask it as I'm new to AO3 so here goes.

I published two works to AO3 over the past few days, both original works, and i was really proud of myself for it especially as I'm dyslexic and was really stressed about the formating because of all the posts I've seen of people complaining about poor layout in fanfictions. But one work is at 6 hits and the other just reached 5 hits and neither has any comments, bookmarks or even kudos despite me asking for comments with feedback in the notes section at the top of the work. I'm kinda starting to doubt my own writing quality and it sucks more because everyone i showed it to before publishing it, friends and family, said it was really good and even pointed out parts they liked best. The whole thing has actually kinda discouraged me from publishing anything else on AO3.

Is it normal for works in the original work and no fandom category to just kinda fall into the abyss of AO3? And is it normal for people to just not comment or even kudos works? Or am I just over thinking it? If so how do I stop convincing myself my writting sucks? Sorry for the long ask I've just been over thinking it a lot.

I’m not someone who publishes to ao3 often, but the few times I have it’s been for very very small fandoms (such as Of Mice and Men) and as such they don’t get as much love and attention compared to say My Hero Academia fanfics or Dr.Who

I don’t know what’s the appetite for original works on ao3 but I assume it’s likely less than fanfiction by a considerable amount and as such it might be taking a while for readers to find it

It sounds like you got someone to help beta read which is awesome! Your friends and family sound like great folks!

What was your story about?

#thanks for asking!#I’m sorry this likley wasnt the most helpful; hopefully we can figure out what’s going on #ao3 #fanfiction #archive of our own #ao3 shenanigans ask #writing #original work

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feelbokkie · 3 days

Text

Sorry, I Love You | Chapter 11

pairing: Jeongin x fem reader

genre/warnings: smau, crack, angst, fluff, non!idol au, friends to lovers, unrequited love, will they, won’t they dynamic, abusive relationship, alcohol abuse/alcoholism, emotional/psychological abuse

pov: 1st/2nd person (depending on how you view it)

warnings: Swearing, Soobin mention, mention of food, drinking/alcohol (drink responsibly)

summary: Jeongin is in love with his best friend and he has been ever since he met her back in high school. He’s not sure how Y/n feels about him and in order to persevere their friendship, it’s a secret he keeps to himself. But when Y/n starts showing interest in one of their new neighbors, Jeongin starts to worry about the future of their relationship.

taglist: CLOSED

word count: 4,836

screenshot count: 19

previous | masterlist | next

"Uh-huh...Seung--Seungmin-" You wedge your phone between your face and shoulder as you run around your apartment getting your things ready.

"--I just think editing-wise, we can do a whole thing with color filters for mood--" Seungmin continues on the other end of the call.

"Seungmin, that's a good idea but--"

Knock knock

"Should we do that artificially with a filter in post or should we try to mess with the lighting? Lighting might look more natural but harder to produce since a lot of the film is outdoors--"

You drop your bag on your couch and roll your eyes before heading over to your front door, praying that Seungmin isn't on the other side. You love him, you really do, but he's been pestering you nonstop since the start of winter break about the film. You didn't even mean to answer his call. You were so busy getting ready to leave that you instinctively answered the phone without checking.

"That's a really good point and question, but Seungmin I have to--"

You pull open the door to find Jeongin standing on the other side. You raise an eyebrow at him, confused as to why he's even there. You thought he went home to Busan after his last final for the semester. But here he is, standing in front of you with his hands shoved into the pockets of his thick, black puffer jacket. A dark blue beanie sits on his head, pressing his bangs to his forehead. The bottoms of his blue jeans are soaked from walking through the snow. Or rather the slush on the floor that gives the false illusion of snow. You made the mistake of jumping into what you thought was a snow pile the other day and instead slipped into an unsuspecting ice puddle.

"Y/n? Are you listening to me? I'm trying to bounce ideas off of you and you're not throwing anything back." You can almost picture the pout sitting on Seungmin's face right now.

"Am I allowed to talk now?" You ask as you wave for Jeongin to come in.

"Who is that?" Jeongin asks, closing the door behind him and kicking off his shoes.

"Seungmin," You whisper back, holding the phone away from your face so he couldn't hear you. You can only imagine the rant Seungmin will go on if he thought you were ignoring him to talk to someone else.

Jeongin wastes no time yanking your phone out of your hand and putting it to his ear. "Hey, Seungmin, it's winter break. Go drink some hot chocolate and chill the hell out."

"But--" Jeongin ends the call before Seungmin can continue and hands you back your phone.

You stare at your phone for a second, waiting for Seungmin to call back before tossing it on the couch with your stuff. You take Jeongin by the hand and drag him over to the heater.

“Here, before you get hypothermia.” You mutter as you pull him to sit down.

“I’m not going to get hypothermia from the ends of my pants being wet, Y/n.” He laughs. Still, he sits on the ground to humor you.

You pull a blanket from your couch, the one that Lia made you for Christmas last year after complaining about how cold the winter is, and toss it around his shoulders. “Oh? Are you an expert on hypothermia?”

“It’s called common sense, idiot.” He smirks, lightly flicking your forehead.

“If you had any common sense, you would have rolled up your pant legs a bit to avoid this.” You crawl over to your couch and grab your phone to check the time, “I thought you went home like everyone else.”

“I decided to hang back and enjoy the quiet at the apartment. My parents don’t care as long as I’m back in time for midnight mass. Plus my brothers are annoying so staying here is a bonus.”

You swear under your breath when you realize how little time you have to get to the airport You toss your phone into your bag and triple-check that you have everything you need. "Not to be rude or anything, but you couldn't have come at a worse time, Innie."

"You have to go pick up your family from the airport, right?" You glance over at Jeongin as you slip your bag over your head. He's staring at you upside down, his head thrown backward. His round-rimmed black, lensless glasses slowly fall off his face.

"Yeah, and their flight is somehow early so I need to leave like, yesterday."

“Let’s go,” Jeongin slowly stands up and starts walking towards the front door.

“What?”

“Did you think I came here to spend time with you?” He says flatly.

The twitch in the corner of his mouth threatening to break into a smile gives him away. It's barely noticeable, but you know it's there. You've been friends with him long enough to be able to read him like a book. If you wait a little longer, he'll start to smile and then turn his head quickly so you don't see. His ears will turn red and he'll cover his mouth like he was trying to wipe it.

"You have nothing better to do than to drive me to pick up my family from the airport during break?" You question as you grab your apartment keys and meet him by the door.

"Didn't you know?" Jeongin leans down, placing his head on your shoulder, "I was placed on this earth to be your chauffeur. I'm fulfilling my one true purpose."

You slightly move to meet his eyes, careful to still keep your distance. You can feel the heat from his breath on your cheek. He looks at you with puppy dog eyes so soft and kind, they put a begging Kim Seungmin to shame.

"You're so fucking weird." You laugh, gently pushing him off your shoulder. His face feels warm against the palm of your hand. "This is why we need to get you a girlfriend. Someone to make you normal."

Jeongin opens the door and softly pushes you outside. You tighten the scarf around your neck as the cool air nips at your nose. "I'm normal enough around you."

"That is such a lie," You laugh again as he walks out of your apartment. You double-check that the door is locked and follow Jeongin to his car.

***

**Bold = English; Regular font = Korean**

You push in the door to your apartment and walk in first, holding the door open for your parents, brother, and Jeongin. It feels weird having your family in your apartment for the first time. In the four years you've lived in Korea, they've never been over once. Neither of your parents could take off time when you first moved and your brother was too busy moving back to his campus to help. They've seen your apartment in video calls and pictures, but having them standing in your tiny apartment is strange. For the longest time, it felt like you had two lives, one in South Korea and one back home. And now, both of those worlds are colliding. Even if it's only for a couple of weeks.

"Y/n, where do you want me to put these?" Jeongin asks, holding some of your mother's luggage.

"Just put it in my room, In. Thank you," You neatly organize everyone's shoes by the door, watching your family from the corner of your eyes. They took off their shoes when they came in, but their courtesy ends there as they now wander around the small apartment, opening doors and cabinets.

"You'd think with how much I'm paying for the place, it would be a bit bigger." Your father comments from the kitchen.

"It felt small at first, but it's just me so it's fine." You reassure him as you set your brother's things next to the couch. "You and mom are going to be in my room, by the way."

"Oh honey, you didn't have to give up your bed for us." Your mother coos, coming up behind you.

You know in the deepest crevice in your heart that, that's a lie. That if you didn't give your parents your room and instead gave them the pull-out couch that your brother is going to sleep on, she would fuss about it the entire time. Maybe even the rest of your life. Not in an obvious way, no that would be too kind. She'd make little comments about how her back hurts or how she could hardly get any sleep because she could hear the neighbors walking in the hallway. Or that the kitchen faucet kept her up all night. You love your mother, but sometimes she knows how to push all your buttons in the worst way possible.

"Y/n," Jeongin walks out of your room and makes his way over to you. "I'm going to head home now. Call me if you need anything."

"By home, you better mean Busan." You warn as you walk him to the door.

"What fun would that be? Plus, I've never experienced Seoul during Christmas." He grins at you as he pulls his shoes back on.

"And you're not going to this year. You said you're going back for midnight mass." You remind him.

"I can come back on Christmas day. I told you that we do everything on Christmas Eve since Christmas Day is Jesus' birthday. Something about greed and keeping it holy. I'm not going to miss out on anything," He stands up and readjusts his clothes.

"Yang Jeongin--"

"Oh, Y/n, is your friend leaving? Tell...what's his name again?" Your mother asks, coming up next to you.

"My name is Bob, ma'am." Jeongin stands up, extending his hand out to your mother.

"Be so fucking serious--" You glare at Jeongin before turning to your mother. "His name is Jeongin, mom."

"Jeongin, right. Tell Jeongin to stay for lunch at least. As a thank you for picking us up." Your mother places her hand on your shoulder, a large smile plastered on her face.

"Oh, it is okay. Enjoy family time." Jeongin reassures her.

"We insist. It's the least we can do. Think of it as a thank you for also taking care of my daughter."

"What are you doing?" You whisper.

"If it is okay with Y/n?"

"I'm being polite," Your mother whispers through a smile.

"You know how to do that--ow!" You rub your arm where your arm pinched you and pout at her.

"I didn't get to meet your other boyfriend, I'm going to meet this one." She finally admits.

"He's not my boyfriend. He's just my friend." You nearly shout.

"He knows his way around your apartment." She hums, not breaking eye contact with Jeongin.

"That's because he's my best friend, he spends a lot of time here. Hell, he practically lives here."

"He does what?" Your father asks, coming back into the living room.

"Kill me," You mutter under your breath, tossing your head back.

"If you insist, I'll stay for lunch. If that's okay with Y/n." Jeongin smiles at your mom, not even looking at you. He's good with moms, you'll give him that. You've witnessed him win over every single one of your friends' moms that you've met. It's impossible not to like him, but in this instance, you wish it was.

"What are you doing?" Your head snaps back up, raising an accusing eyebrow at Jeongin.

"She invited me for lunch." Jeongin tilted his head innocently.

"She's clearly jetlagged, don't listen to her." You groan.

"You're overreacting, it's just lunch." He laughs politely.

"And the twelve disciples thought the last supper was just dinner."

"That's blasphemous,"

"You're so right. Why don't you go home before I drag you to hell with me? Better yet, go all the way to Busan."

"Lover's quarrel?" Your brother pops up out of who knows where and drops down on the couch behind you.

Five minutes. It takes your family five minutes in your apartment, a grand total of twenty-five minutes in South Korea in general, for your family to completely drive you up the wall. It all floods back, why you left in the first place. You could have attended film school back home, but you decided to move as far as you could and somewhere they wouldn't have any interest in visiting. You wouldn't have to deal with them much outside of weekly phone calls. Your family could be worse, but the constant meddling in your life is enough to drive you insane.

Annoyed, you grab Jeongin's hand and drag him off to the kitchen. His fingers are stiff in your hand, almost like he's unsure if he should wrap his fingers around your hand. "C'mon, Bob, let's go make lunch."

"I'm...I'm not allowed in the kitchen," He stammers.

"Don't worry, I'm not an idiot. You're not going to cook anything." You let go of his hand as soon as you are far enough in the kitchen. You finally turn around to face him. His ears are as red as the shirt poking out from under his jacket. "I'm just saving you from my family interrogating you."

"I wouldn't mind," He coughs, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You say that now," You roll your eyes as you grab the apron next to him. You grab one of your spare aprons and hand it to him. "But trust me, after like 2 minutes along with them, you'd be begging me to save you."

"It can't be that bad."

"Speaking of bad," You toss the apron on and tie the string in the back, looking him in the eyes again, "When did you get so good at English?"

"I've been practicing," He follows suit and puts his apron on.

"For?" You walk past him and begin getting ingredients from your fridge.

"...My...resume." He mutters.

"What kind of reasoning is that? You aren't even that prepared for class."

"His name is Bob?" You hear your brother asking your parents.

You let out a deep sigh as you set everything on the counter, "Idiots, both of you."

***

"Mom and dad are asleep, let's go out." Your brother says, walking back into the kitchen where you and Jeongin are talking.

Somehow, lunch turned into dinner which turned into the five you you playing card games until your parents decided to call it for the night. You're exhausted too, although, you're not sure if it's from all the translating you've been doing or just the overall energy you've been exerting for the day.

"And do what, exactly?" You question, dealing out the cards that Jeongin just shuffled.

"Isn't there a place around here that's popular for clubs and stuff?" Your brother sits down in the seat next to you. He rests his head in the palm of his hand and stares at the both of you.

"Are you talking about Hongdae?" Jeongin asks, picking up his deck.

"Yeah, yeah, Häagen-Dazs!" Your brother says happily.

"There is no way in hell you heard him and thought he said Häagen-Dazs--How are we related?" You fold your arms on the table and drop your head into them, resisting the urge to just slam your head into the table at your brother's stupidity. "Anyways, you're too old for Hongdae."

"I'm 25?" Your brother furrows your eyebrows at you.

"Exactly, you're basically geriatric here. They're not letting you in." You explain, lifting your head.

"Plus you're a foreigner. A male one at that." Jeongin adds.

"But...but you guys are young enough right? You can get me in. Plus if Y/n dresses how she did in high school, the bouncers will be too distracted and let us in."

"You're just going to pimp out your baby sister like that?"

"What else are you good for?"

"Literally anything else," You slap his arm and roll your eyes. "Besides, I'm not sneaking you into a club so you can whore around and cheat on your girlfriend. You know, the one you've been dating for 10 years and still haven't proposed to."

Your brother hangs his head low and picks up his cards. "She left me,"

"You should have proposed," You joke, still looking at your cards.

"Don't kick me when I'm down," He groans, dropping his head to the table.

"Down bad, maybe,"

"I'm down bad? What about the time you--"

"Finish that sentence and mom and dad are going to spend Christmas fishing your body out of the Han River." You threaten.

"'Whoring around?' 'Down bad?'" Jeongin whispers to you.

"Channie after two bottles of soju and beer," You explain simply.

"Ah, a slut. Got it." He gives a firm, understanding nod and goes back to looking at his cards. "You know, we could sneak him in. He looks a little sad about his girlfriend leaving him."

"He's just being dramatic. He'll be fine," You wave him off.

You know Jeongin is right. You could just sneak him in. It might be harder with just the three of you, but you've done it before with your friend group. Back before most of you were old enough to get into clubs, you figured out how to sneak your entire friend group in. Did it set the feminist movement back a few decades? Sure, but it was worth it to spend a few hours partying with your friends.

Your eyes can't help but wander over to your brother. You chew on the corner of your bottom lip as you think about it. Sure, he's a pain in the ass, but he's still your older brother. He's taken you to places he normally wouldn't be caught dead to cheer you up growing up. Watch movies that he claims he hates and let you paint his nails and practice makeup on him more times than you can count. He did it while huffing and puffing about how much he disliked it, but he still did it.

"Shit," You mutter under your breath, "Okay, give me twenty minutes."

~~~

The hard beat of whatever music is being played too loudly over the speakers booms through your body. You can barely see two feet in front of you, with how poorly lit the club is. It's hot, which was a nice contrast from the cold outside when you first walked in, but it's become increasingly uncomfortable, nearly unbearable, in a short amount of time. The Irish coffee he had ordered for you when you first came in was a good idea in theory, something that would keep you awake and still let you share a drink with your brother. But now it's too hot to drink coffee with whisky in it. You had to steal a few ice cubes from Jeongin's water to cool it down enough so you drink it without feeling hot yourself.

"He's having fun," Jeongin points to your brother in the mass of sweaty bodies dancing in front of you. He has his tongue down the throat of some girl whose name you're certain he can't pronounce.

"I'm going to be sick," You groan, leaning further into the seat of the booth you're in. The red plastic leather peels off your skin, nearly glued to you from how long you've sat there. You're glad he's having fun, you just wish he wouldn't do it in your line of sight.

Jeongin laughs and pats your hand, trying to reassure you. His head softly bounces in tune to the music being played. You take a sip of your drink before leaning back again, the bitterness from both the coffee and the whisky hit your tongue in a way that makes you pull a slight face. The whisky burns your throat as it goes down. You feel all warm and fuzzy like you're being hugged from the inside. Except, it's one of those uncomfortable hugs that go on too long and make you feel too hot. There's not much you could do, you already took off your jacket after a few minutes of being in the club.

"Hey," A guy who looks to be around your age, maybe a little older, says, sliding into the booth next to you. "you look bored, do you want to come home with me to eat ramen?"

You close your eyes and take a deep breath before turning your head in his direction. You're entirely too tired, hot, and tipsy to deal with any of his bullshit. "Fuck off,"

"What did you say?" His tone is sharp. You're not sure if he's taken aback by the fact that you can speak Korean or how disrespectful you're being towards him, but you can feel the change of energy radiating off of him.

You feel an unexpected weight on your shoulders. Your eyes flick down and see Jeongin's hand hanging off your shoulder, carefully making sure not to touch you inappropriately. He leans in close, pulling you away from the guy and staring at him in the eyes. "She said 'fuck off.' Now go,"

The man looks between the two of you before letting out an exaggerated scoff and getting up from the table. The two of you watch as he walks over to another table, this one filled with a few girls who are definitely a little too drunk.

"Thanks," You say simply, resting your head back. Jeongin doesn't remove his arm, allowing you to use him as a cushion. You think for a moment, something about this situation is familiar. Not an exact match, but a similar one. You can't help but let out a low chuckle when you realize why.

"What's so funny," Jeongin's other hand brushes against your cheek, moving a stray piece of hair that you weren't aware of that was stuck to your cheek.

"Nothing," You slightly shake your head.

"You're laughing, how is that nothing?"

"It's sad, not funny" You sit up slightly, taking another sip of your drink. "The last time I was in Hongdae, that was pretty much happening a lot. Soobin and I were already bickering the entire night so we got into a fight about it. He was so mad that he made me walk home. Alone. It was pouring rain too,"

“Is that where that cold you had around my birthday came from?”

You let out a low hum and slightly nod your head. Your eyes flutter shut, the warmth in your body leaving slowly. Or maybe you're finally getting used to the heat. Your body feels like it's floating above the table you and Jeongin are sitting at. You know you have a higher alcohol tolerance, but maybe the exhaustion is making you more susceptible to the whiskey in your drink.

“Why didn’t you call me?” He whispers, his voice is soft and warm like honey against your ear.

“It was around 3 am. Didn’t wanna bother you,”

For a second, you're no longer floating but falling. No, not falling, you're being dragged down. Only for a second. You open your eyes slowly. The crowd in front of you is now slightly tilted like you're suddenly in the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It takes you a second to realize that your head is resting on Jeongin's chest.

Badum

You're not sure if your heart is beating in tune with the music or trying to keep up with the thumping coming from Jeongin's chest. The thumping in his chest doesn't match up with the music. It's louder and faster than the song that's currently playing. Your left-hand snakes up and presses on his chest, trying to settle his heartbeat, the fabric of his red cotton shirt soft and nearly silky underneath your fingertips.

“Idiot,” He murmurs. He pulls you in a little closer, making the beating of his heart louder in your ear. “You don’t bother me. Stop thinking you're a burden on others when you're not. I'll pick up anytime you call so don't do that again. Okay?”

“Hmm,” You hum in agreement, your eyes fluttering shut again. The beating in his chest slowly settles into a calm, soothing rhythm. You can't even hear the music anymore, only his heartbeat. The smell of his cologne, which somehow managed to last the entire day, finds its way into your nose giving you some sense of security and familiarity. Somehow, it smells more like home than your parents did when you hugged them. Your hand lightly grips the fabric of his shirt as you just lay there.

“C’mon, let’s go dance,” He says, tapping your forehead with his free hand.

“Dance?” You mumble, cracking one eye open.

“You’re falling asleep or passing out from being tipsy. Either way, it’s not going to look good for either one of us if I have to carry you out of here. So let’s dance,” He pulls you upright just as smoothly as he pulled you onto his chest.

You turn to look at him, both of your eyes open now. His face is red, almost like he's been drinking something other than water alongside you this entire time. You reach out and place your hand against his face, gently stroking his cheek with your thumb, his skin hot against it yet again. “Careful, Yang Jeongin, someone might think you're in love with me.”

He slowly sucks in his lower lip, his eyes dance across your face. Like you're a book and he's trying to decipher your words. Or maybe he's trying to find his own and the answer lies in your eyes. He grabs your wrist and pulls your hand off his face before sliding his hand up, taking your hand in his. He gently leans forward, next to your ear. His breath makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. "Would that be so bad?"

You pull away from him, leaving your hand in his, and narrow your eyes at him, trying to read him. You're not sure if he's serious or if the alcohol that's quickly leaving your system is making you misunderstand what's happening. Your eyes scan his face for answers and, unlike him, you're unsuccessful. His face is redder than it was before. It's almost like he's absorbing all the alcohol in your system through your hand.

“In—”

Thump

Someone bumps into your table, causing your drink to topple over and spill onto both of your laps.

"Shit," Jeongin mutters as he drops your hand and scrambles to grab whatever napkins are on the table. He gives some to you and helps you clean up the now ice-cold drink that's dripping down to your feet, his own pants being neglected.

"I'll be right back," He says quickly before leaving you at the table and disappearing in the direction of the bathrooms.

Before you can even process what happened, your brother slides into the booth next to you. "People here are weird. I was making out with that girl and all of a sudden she's talking to me about ramen."

You quickly shake your head and focus your attention on your brother. You pick up the now empty cup that used to hold your cocktail and go back to trying to clean your jeans. "You're going to be so upset you said 'no' later."

"Was ramen code for something?" He turns his full body to face you. You glance at him before going back to clean up your mess. There's a small red mark at the base of his neck and dark pink lipstick smeared across his mouth. You can only imagine how much trouble he was about to get himself into.

"I'll tell you later," You wad up the dirty napkins and put them in your cup.

Your brother looks around, realizing that something is missing, "Where's your boyfriend?"

You freeze at the word boyfriend. You're used to people assuming that you're dating Jeongin, but somehow, this time feels different. Before, it always sounded accusatory. Like the two of you couldn't be just friends. That you were using the term "friends" as a veil to hide illicit-esque behavior. But now...

"Would that be so bad?"

Your brain replays that phrase in your head over. Surely, he was taking advantage of your intoxicated state to tease you like he usually does. That, had you not been interrupted by cold whiskey and coffee pouring into your lap, he would have let out a loud laugh and left his mouth hang so widely open that you wouldn't be able to see past the dark-lined half-moons where his eyes should be as you stammered out a response. Something that he would tease you about for the rest of your lives.

"He's not my boyfriend, dumbass. We're just friends." You sigh, thumping your brother on the back of his head.

Your brother rolls his eyes as he rubs the back of his head, a smile that would make the Cheshire cat envious spreads across his face. "Look, I'm saying this as both your older brother and as a guy, you may be 'just friends' with him, but he’s definitely not 'just friends' with you,”

—

Buy me a coffee?

—

Taglist

Red means that it wouldn't let me tag you (either at all or properly)

@amyyscorner @jiisungllvr @marked-unknown @veedoesntknaur @nuronhe

*the rest of the taglist is in the comments*

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lunaroserites · 3 days

Text

Art and Ice - Ground Rules

Pairing: Eventual Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Characters: Natasha, Wanda, Pietro, Loki, Bucky, Sam Wilson, Clint Barton, a lot of the avengers cast is mentioned.

Summery: Bucky and Doodle spend some quality time together.

This might a 2 or 3 parter (it's gonna be more because cannot help myself). College AU, our boy Bucky is on the hockey team, and reader is an art major (because I love that trope and couldn't help myself)

Warnings: Not beta'd! All mistakes are my own. Friends fluff, swearing, mentions of college students being college students. Bit of friendly harmless flirting between friends. Bucky is a playboy. Flirting. Mentions of not eating or drinking for a hours (ADHD Brain)

Word Court: 2859

Likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated! ❤️

Please do not repost, translate or otherwise copy my work elsewhere, without my express permission, thank you! Lunaroserites on tumblr and ao3

Catch up here: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 ❤️

You didn’t see Barnes the next day, which wasn’t surprising, it was Friday night after a win so celebration extended into the start of the weekend. Saturday was much the same, you toiled away in the art room in front of a large sketch pad trying to get something together while your canvas dried.

You also had a small piece you were working on for a gallery wall you were doing for a local gallery that was happening once the semester ended. So your plate was full and adding the insistent nagging from your brain to find Barnes, your patience was wearing thin.

You threw the paint brush at the sink, it sailed in a smooth arche before clattering in the paint covered sink. You ran your hands over your face and groaned as you leaned forward, elbows planted in the table. Your mind is running amuck and making you lose patience.

“Doodle,” the new brush you were holding snapped in your tense grip as you looked up, startled. Barnes was standing at the door holding a bag that smelled delicious and your stomach growled. You may have forgotten to take a break and eat.

“Barnes,” you said, your tone tense. His eyebrow quirked up as he walked in and placed the bag down a few feet away.

“Are you okay,” your hand kinda hurt from snapping the brush a moment ago, and your head was killing you with a raging headache. Which might be because you haven’t eaten in a while or because you were thirsty. You took a deep breath and nodded.

“Yeah, just a little stressed,” you answered. The smell of the food in the bag makes your mouth water and your stomach twist in an uncomfortable way. “What can I do for you?”

“You weren’t at practice all weekend. Nat said you were hauled up in the art room,” he said nonchalantly, you just stared at him. “And I figured I would stop by and check on my favourite girl,” he said confidently, and you rolled your eyes in response. Your stomach decided that moment was the best time to make its presence known and grumbled loudly. Your cheeks immediately darkened in embarrassment.

“And she said you most likely didn’t eat,” the look on his face caught you off guard, he had a look of genuine concern etched on his features. “She knows you well,” he mused, his tongue poked between his teeth as he winked at you. You leaned back against your chair and extended your hand and gestured to the chair across from you, prompting him to sit. He took a seat across from you and smiled. “I hope you like burgers,” he said as he pulled the bag over.

“I don’t mind them, are they from Gus’s?” You asked, he nodded.

“I wasn’t sure what you drank so I got water,” he added, pulling a couple water bottles out of his gym bag. You smiled and chuckled a little at how thoughtful he was being.

“Waters fine,” you accepted the bottle and cracked it open and drank half it one go. He eyed you suspiciously and you gulped down hard. “I get lost in what I’m doing and sometimes forget to eat or drink,” you mumbled under his intense gaze.

“That’s not healthy,” he muttered, pulling out a burger and handing it to you. You accepted and opened it up, taking a bite and biting back the moan you almost let out.

“I know, but when I’m in the zone. I just don’t realise how much time passes,” you said softly, he nodded and you two ate the food in a comfortable silence.

“Thank you,” you said as you threw out the garbage and sat back down.

“No problem, can’t let ya starve,” he chuckled and rubbed his chin in his hand. “What’s ya working on?” He asked and looked at the few pieces shattered behind you and a shadow box a few feet away from you.

“Uh, a project for an art exhibit once schools out,” you answered.

“Mind if I work on some homework? It’s quieter here than my house,” you raised an eyebrow at him, that was unexpected. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing, don’t mind me,” you said as you looked down to work on the piece for the shadow box. Your eyes drifted up every now and then as you observed him working on what looked to be some kind of science homework.

His eyes wandered over your frame every now and then as he took in your look of complete concentration as you worked with a small piece of clay. He couldn’t help but appreciate the dedication you had toward your craft.

“What are you working on?” You asked after some time.

“Science homework,” he gave you a cheeky smile. You gave him a deadpan expression. “It’s space stuff,” he answered.

“What about space stuff?” You asked, genuine curiosity laced your tone.

“I’m learning about stars,” he tilted the book he was reading, it was open to a diagram of a star.

“Oh neat!” You took a closer look at the diagrams and then looked back at him. He was rubbing his neck with a sheepish look on his face. “I did a project a couple years ago on Saturn,” you pulled your phone out and showed him a picture.

“Wow, you did a fantastic job,” he took your phone for a moment to get a closer look at it. “Wait, that looks familiar,” he looked up at you again. “That looks like the one in the observatory.”

“That’s because it is,” you chuckled. His eyes widened a little and his smile broadened.

“I made out with a girl right next to it,” he chuckled and your smile dropped and you busied yourself with another piece of clay.

“That’s great,” you forced out through the firm line your mouth was now set in.

“Why do you do that?” He asked suddenly, noticing your immediate change in demeanour. You looked up and your eyes narrowed at him.

“Do what?”

“That? Get all closed off when I say something you don’t like,” he asked.

“Because I really didn’t need to know you made out with a girl next to my art piece,” you stated. “I was told if I have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

“I’m not a child, I can handle criticism,” he defended.

“That’s not the point. Have you ever once sat down and just chatted with a girl without the expectation of sex afterwards?” You asked, your tone very genuine. He sat back in his chair and looked anywhere but your face.

“No. Not in a long time,” his answer caught you guard. You were expecting some snide comment or a lie. When you looked at his face, he looked completely sincere. You took a deep breath knowing the answer to the question you were about to ask.

“Is that why you’re here now?” You didn’t recognize the voice that asked the question. It was soft and meek, nothing like your usual cadence. He didn’t answer right away, and based on the look on his face he didn’t really know what to say or how to answer.

“Honestly,” he took a deep breath and looked at his hands. “Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. At first definitely. The first time I spoke to you it was. But I don’t know,” his rambling gave away how honest he was being. “I still want to,” he paused, “to still sleep with you. I also want to hang out with you. And get to know you.”

You couldn’t help the slight upturn of your lip as you released a long inhale, “thank you for being honest.”

“I might be a prick. But at least I’m an honest one,” he tried to joke. His smile dropped when you didn’t laugh. “So where does that leave us now?”

“I don’t know Barnes. I don’t want to sleep with you. But I don’t want you to take that as a challenge to get me to sleep with you. If you truly want to be friends, and we get to know one another with no ulterior motives, then we can do that,” you didn’t want to sugar coat it. You also didn’t have the balls to admit you had a tiny crush on him because that would go straight to his dick and this conversation would be pointless.

“Well to start you could start calling me Bucky, Barnes is so detached,” he gave you a small smile.

“Well that was the point,” you chuckled. “But okay, Bucky.” His smile grew larger and he pumped his fist in the air.

“I’m still calling you Doodle though,” he said, his tone serious as he stared at you.

“That’s fine, I guess,” you chuckled while rolling your eyes at him.

“So how much of my piece is finished?” He asked, you couldn’t help but laugh and pointed over your shoulder to the large canvas behind you. “That’s empty.”

“I know. I have to get some practice sketches done first before I paint on the big canvas,” you decided to not mention the two you ruined.

“Can I see the practice sketches?” He asked hopefully.

“Sure,” you relented and passed the sketch pad over and watched him look at it.

“How do you do that?” He asked, passing it back a moment later.

“Draw?” You raised an eyebrow at him. He nodded. “I just do, it takes a lot of practice and effort. I could ask the same of you, how do you skate so effortlessly?”

He smiled for a moment before answering, “I guess it’s the same. I just get on the ice and go. The moment I lace my skates up and I hit the ice everything else just fades away, it’s just me, my stick and the puck.”

“For me, I pick up the pen, or brush and just start somewhere and get lost in it. It’s me, the brush and the canvas,” you finished.

“Hey,” he was serious now, that caught your attention fully as you looked at him, “I wanted to apologise for what I said the other day…”

“Bucky,” you reached out and placed your smaller hand on his gently as you cut him off, “stop, it’s okay. We both said things that weren’t very nice. For what it’s worth.” You looked into his eyes sincerely, “I’m sorry too. It’s behind us now.”

He smiled and nodded, “okay Doodle.”

That conversation was the catalyst to your developing and lively friendship with Bucky, when the team wasn’t travelling for the away games over the next week he would sit in the art room and do his homework while you worked on the art projects you had due.

It was Thursday night, Bucky was just getting to the art studio after practice when he saw you hunched over your sketch pad, your hands in your hair and you were sniffling. He entered and quickly threw his gym bag down and came around the table and crouched down next to you. He placed his hand on your forearm, trying not to startle you too much. You jumped anyway since you didn’t hear him come in, you were too wrapped up in your own thoughts to notice anything else.

“Doodle,” he said softly. “Everything okay?” You shook your head and slumped into his chest, that caught him off guard, he quickly wrapped his arms around you and hugged you back as you cried into his chest. As quickly as you collapsed into him you pulled back and shook your head.

“I’m sorry,” you blurted out and placed your head in your hands. Bucky was a little stunned at how quickly your demeanour changed.

“It's okay,” he stood and took his usual seat across from you. “Wanna talk about it?” You let out an exaggerated sigh and sniffled loudly.

“My art professor is a bitch,” you groaned. “And I have a bunch more projects due and she’s just awful. If I didn’t need this course to graduate I would have dropped it.” You pressed your cheek against the table and closed your eyes.

“What did she do?” Bucky asked.

“After class she decided to tell me she doesn’t know why I bother trying, and that the school was foolish to offer, a no talent, wannabe one of the only full ride scholarships offered for the arts,” you were crying again. You had spent years honing your craft, and fought tooth and nail for the scholarship that allowed you to attend school here.

“She’s probably just jealous,” you laughed at that, Nat had said the same thing when you texted her earlier about what happened.

“I have an appointment with the head of the department tomorrow afternoon. This isn’t the first time she’s been awful to me,” you didn’t see his fist clench and the momentary anger flash across his face as you said that.

“I wouldn’t listen to her Doodle,” Bucky reached across the table and patted your arm gently. “Your art is awesome, and you’re incredibly talented,” he finished. You smiled against the table and lifted your head up to send him a thankful look.

“Thanks Bucky, that means a lot,” you sighed and whipped your eyes with the back of your hand and rolled your shoulders. “I got some stuff done on your portrait,” you said, your voice still a little coarse, but you felt a lot better. His face lit and his full attention was on the covered canvas behind you. You stood and pulled the cover off and showed him, you had some of the out lining done, the positioning and scale perfect. You felt very proud of it so far.

“Holy shit Doodle,” Bucky stood and got closer to admire the outlining. “You know, once this is done, you should get them to let you display it in the sports annex,” he had a smug tone as he said this. You chuckled and rolled your eyes.

“Maybe if you bat your eyelashes at the department head, and ask him really nicely, he’ll let me,” you bumped your hip into his and smirked up at him. He smiled down at you and the softness in his eye made your heart skip a beat, you quickly cleared your throat and moved from him to grab a pencil.

“I’m going to work my homework, and stay out of your way,” Bucky said softly as he moved from your side to sit down again. You smiled looking down at your feet before you started to do some more outlining.

His eyes would shift from his homework every so often and they would rove over your body. He knew he didn’t have a shot in hell at getting you to agree to sleeping with him, you made that clear and he was really trying to make sure he kept that at the forefront of his mind when he was around you because he really did want to be friends with you.

But those leggings you wore hugged the curve of your ass so perfectly it was making it difficult. He felt his mouth dry out a little as he watched you rock from side to side as you drew on the canvas, and he involuntarily let a low whistle when you stretched up and exposed some of the soft skin of your back.

You immediately turned and looked at him with a raised brow and squinted at him, full judgement. “Barnes,” you were warning him, he raised his hands up in surrender.

“Not my fault you look amazing, it's a crime,” he defended himself with a cocky tone. You couldn’t stop the blush that crawled up your neck and on to your cheeks.

“You’re insufferable,” you groaned, turning your back to him again, the blush still strong on your cheeks. He laughed loudly, before going back to his homework. You couldn’t keep the little smile off your face, you knew he used that line on countless girls, and it was probably a line he used often to get in their pants, but damn he was such a smooth talker, and he said all the right things in the right tones. You hated that you longed for his compliments.

It was quiet for a while longer, just the sounds of pencils on paper and canvas filling the air.

“Hey Doodle,” you hummed in response, not wanting to look away. “There is a final game just before playoffs, it's here, do you think you’ll come?”

“I thought Nat said you guys were done with the home games now,” you still didn’t look at him, trying to make sure your scale was correct.

“This one isn’t a regular season game, but I think you’ll really enjoy it,” he was being incredibly cryptic about whatever it is. You turned now, and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Then what is it?” You asked as you eyed him.

“Surprise, but I promise you’ll love it,” he sounded so earnest that you couldn’t help but believe him.

“Okay,” I chuckled. “I’ll go,” you relented, trying to hide your genuine excitement.

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: A Honorable Mention For War of Y, and Another Look at How Thai BL Talks About BL (With a Bonus Watch of BL: Broken Fantasy)

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I take a look at the more recent attempts by the Thai BL industry to critique itself with War of Y and the mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.]

2022's War of Y. Let me start this piece off by saying that this show is not good. My friend and BL elder educator, @bengiyo, once said about the OGMMTVC project, that some people (LIKE ME :'( ) just have to look into the abyss to satiate their curiosity about how this genre has developed, and that's definitely a point of the OGMMTVC. Not all past Thai BL shows are good, not by a long shot, and I don't recommend War of Y if you're watching dramas for pleasurable experiences only. (If you want to watch a GREAT drama that critiques the Thai BL industry, start with 2021's Lovely Writer, and I'll get more into this later.)

War of Y, directed by the chaotic Cheewin Thanamin and the I-am-assuming-to-be-misanthropic-and-indulgently-self-righteous-and-preening Den Panuwat, gave us 20 episodes of what I believe they thought to be groundbreaking critical art about the currently Thai BL industry. Let me set up an outline so that I don't spend too long on the bad stuff, and explain why War of Y does at least get an important mention (but not an official inclusion) on the OGMMTVC list.

1) What was War of Y about, how it was structured, and some quick high points, 2) Comparing War of Y to other pieces of Thai BL fiction that did a better job of critiquing Thai BL culture, and 3) A close-out reflection of Aam Anusorn's 2020 mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.

War of Y, as presented by Cheewin and Den, is designed to be a meta-drama of four chapters, all examining a specific aspect of the Thai BL industry. The first chapter, led by Billy Patchanon and Seng Wichai, focuses on two ship partnerships competing with each other, to the mental detriment of one of the older ship's celebrities; the second chapter focuses on two HORRIBLE warring managers; the third chapter showcases, in excruciating detail, god help us, a Y idol reality show, replete with singing; and the final chapter depicts the creation of a BL series and the rise of another super celebrity, whose career potentially gets derailed by his relationship with a female acting colleague.

Before I get into the few high points, I just want to say that this bloated structure (four chapters of five episodes each) did not do this drama well. It could have been edited down GREATLY for more succinct messaging. The other major issue I had is that the Thai BL genre -- as a romance genre itself, that demands romantic and coupled endings -- is just not the right genre to meta-critique the industry from which the piece of art comes from, not unless you're the screenwriter of Lovely Writer, who deftly managed some very complicated storylines into true art. There was no deft to War of Y. Couples got together in pandering and condescending ways, because that's how a Thai BL should end, right (?!); HORRENDOUS warring enemies suddenly made up with barely any context except to make money, and so on. I kept saying to friends during my watch that in a Den Panuwat show -- the worse you are as a character, the more likely you are to be redeemed for seemingly no good reason.

[Exhibits B and C in Den Panuwat's screenwriting record of questionable human characteristics? Fucking Only Friends and Playboyy. THE WORSE THOSE CHARACTERS WERE, THE BETTER THEIR OUTCOMES. Yeah, we really wanted those assholes to end well. ANYWAY. (I am committing to never watching a Den Panuwat show again. ANYWAY.)]

But there were a few high points. Actually seeing a Y idol reality show, something that international fans may not be able to appreciate with a lack of subtitles, was at least eye-opening for the inter-related nature of these kinds of shows, with some performers subsequently getting series gigs. (I understand that Santa Pongsapak, of My Own 12%, is an example of this kind of performer, who started out first as a music idol trainee.)

And the acting. Some of the acting was EASILY the best part of War of Y, as it very often happens in questionable Thai dramas: Billy (BILLYYYYYYYY), First Piyangkul, Dome Waruwat (who we most recently saw in Cooking Crush, and who absolutely SLAYED as one of the SLIMIEST, GROSSEST characters EVER, ohmygod), and

SENG MOTHERFUCKING WICHAI

(who will win one of the crowns as one of THE BEST FUCKING ACTORS IN THAI BL at the conclusion of the OGMMTVC project)

were easily the best reasons to watch War of Y. The range of Seng Wichai. It's ironic that he left Idol Factory last year, ending the BillySeng ship, and was then disgracefully treated like utter crap by the media and BL fans for the reveal of his relationship with Freen Sarocha. That, in itself, could make for a heartbreaking drama about the BL industry, but alas. We have War of Y instead. Seng is a motherfucking hero, and is also the KING of cringe, playing a horribly behaved actor who learns to overcome his insecurities to stand up against the advantages taken unto him by greedy managers.

We also had MANY wild and crazy cameos from real BL professionals in the show. @twig-tea and I agree that director New Siwaj's cameo was BAFFLING. He played a BL director (which he actually is) who maybe hated making BLs? (Maybe he actually hates it?) But still does it? And was mostly checked out of making the BL-show-within-the-BL-show, until he was called out about it, and then behaved like a good boy. Like. That cameo, along with a literally-evil NetJames and an even more inexplicable and weird literally-evil MaxNat cameo (wtf, that wasn't filled out AT ALL), were the really weird ones. The sad ones were ones like sweet NuNew Chawarin telling young BL guys that they have to sing (NO THEY DON'T). There was actual!Tee Bundit telling off Seng Wichai's character, that was rad. Director Lit Phadung of SOTUS and Dangerous Romance (😬) was there. Even the original novelist for Thailand's first television BL, Love Sick, was there, playing herself as Kwang Latika, who complained to a producer within War of Y that the show-within-the-show (yeah, I know) was taking her novel out of context. That shit sounds familiar! I could have used more accurate commentary on that.

The last high point that I can muster is that the show began to toe the line of the issue of actors needing to explore their sexualities for art's sake. As fans, we truly do not have much insight into this process, and I think it's for good reason, so as to protect actors (wherever they land on the sexuality spectrum) from very real, emotional, and sensitive processes and workshops that prepare them for taking on queer material. We know that actors like Nanon Korapat from Bad Buddy use Method techniques in their performances, and that can be mentally draining. Do I believe that some actor pairings experiment with dating, and may actually be in relationships? Yes, I must believe it, considering the psychological work these young men have to do to build attraction to each other for art's sake. The CEO of Korea's Strongberry studio confirmed as much earlier this year.

Unfortunately, I think War of Y leveraged these very sensitive realities to blatantly and flippantly indicate that ships can be ASSUMED to either explore sex with each other, and/or to even assume that they SHOULD be in relationships, à la the television BL romance formula that I mentioned above. I think this show could have transcended the romance genre formula, frankly, and I think the show came kinda close to doing that in the last chapter with First Piyangkul -- but not before setting up First's character, Achi, as a cheating monster-machine who was willing to go to great lengths to protect his fame, including outing his trans-female ex-girlfriend and co-star (YEAH, THAT HAPPENED), as well as separating himself from his ship and sexual same-sex partner while still indicating that they were dating. The whole storyline was just -- BLEH.

As I chatted with another fabulous BL elder, @twig-tea, about after I finished War of Y, clearly, Cheewin and Den thought they were intellectual geniuses upon the creation of this show, thinking that a BL itself would be a sufficient mechanism to offer meta commentary about problematic aspects of the BL industry (IT'S NOT). Twig wisely said to me that a writer or directly simply CHOOSING a topic to explore vis à vis a BL -- like a criticism of the industry itself -- is not, in of itself, worthy of laudation. And Cheewin and Den were CLEARLY expecting flowers by the end of this drama. If you've ever lived in smelling distance of southern California, you'll know that entertainment industries love nothing more than to talk about the entertainment industry, and that they think that fictional drama art is the best way to obsess over the vagaries of these industries (IT'S NOT). Instead, Cheewin and Den basically outed themselves as economic shippers and idiot faux-savants who are clearly in the game for fame, and maybe the dudes themselves, which -- BLEH REDUX.

On the OGMMTVC list, Lovely Writer does such a better job at covering the latent homophobia and judgments against actors within and external to the industries that take on BL. War of Y actually teed up a LOT of interesting topics, such as the BL-to-het-drama-and-studio pipeline that I talked about in my past OGMMTVC KinnPorsche pieces -- but these topics in War of Y just instead drowned in misanthropic meditations about fame, sex, and money that seemed far more suited to reaaaaalllly-bad Cinemax than, say, a proto-documentary.

The OGMMTVC syllabus also has YYY, from 2020, as a first entrée to BL-commentary-within-BL (and funnily enough, YYY also stars Lay Talay, who was the main anchor of War of Y, and was actually fantastic in both shows). YYY is a lot more succinct, CONCISE, zany, weird as HELL, incomplete, INSANE, not the greatest show, but HILARIOUS, simply in part because of its different and wonderful writers in Fluke Teerapat (a former BL actor himself) and Tanachot Prapasri. If you're looking for commentary about BL within wild-ass fiction (and if you're willing to watch it with shrooms or a fifth of vodka), watch YYY. (And remember that you're really watching YYY to watch Poppy Ratchapong eat his role of Porpla totally alive. Utter brilliance.)

Otherwise, as a means of complementing this review, I also watched 2020's non-fiction mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy, by Aam Anusorn, another Series Y director who made the documentary, perhaps in part, to atone for past BL shows that he made, like 2Moons2 and Call It What You Want.

BL: Broken Fantasy featured interviews from directors, actors, and actual fans, about the nature of shipping, what the industry demands of actors, what fans themselves demand, and offered even a little bit of insight from two HUGE actors, Bright Vachiwarit and Win Metawin of 2gether and Still 2gether, about the process itself of young men acting in a queer coupleship.

The documentary is perhaps too short for its own good. And it sets up Aam as an unwilling participant within the BL industry, seemingly not knowing about what he was getting into when he first started making BLs (2gether's director, Champ Weerachit, also presents this way, which I found a touch disingenuous, as they were literally filming 2gether in the documentary).

But BL: Broken Fantasy hammered on a couple of important and real points. The economic benefits of shipping are HUGE. The sponsorship deals, the fame, the money -- they literally make young actors very rich and very well attended to. The fans EXPECT shipping performances, so that they themselves can situate themselves as caretakers or "mommies" to their young flock of boba-eyed actors that they worship. And for directors who want to earn money by making filmed art: the budding industry offers them that opportunity in growing spades. ( @lurkingshan will be happy to know that of all people, Aof Noppharnach, confirms to the documentary's audience that BL is a romance genre of love stories. As if there was any doubt, playa!)

At this point in time, in 2024, if I want a meta-critical understanding of the BL industry, and its many impacts on queer populations, fan bases, and Asian and global society, I'll go to Dr. Thomas Baudinette's Boys Love Media in Thailand and choose the academic route. We are SO LUCKY now to actually have tremendous academic discourse on the genre and its impact on media, fandoms, queer society, and global and regional acceptances of queer equity.

As opposed to the roads that academics are paving, War of Y allowed itself to bloat and gloat, on behalf of its creators, about their desires for shipping, for lavishing attention on beautiful young men, without offering us objective insight into the mindsets of these gentlemen who are important artists and creators in many of the shows we love. There needs to be a space for fair and objective criticism about an industry that may, at many times, take advantage of these young men. While there were many industry cameos in the show, the most frequent cameo was Den Panuwat himself. That enough should tell us what this show was ultimately really about.

[Well, as you can tell, I am fucking DONE with War of Y, laughing my azz off, and -- I'm off to greener pastures. I'm taking a cute and quick break from the OGMMTVC to devour Japan's anime version of Cherry Magic for an upcoming comparative (and totally self-indulgent) Big Meta on Thailand's and Japan's versions of that franchise. (And I have also been watching Fully Booked, AMA.) But I've got a long-awaited rewatch of The Eclipse coming up, to explore how GMMTV handled homophobia as a centered topic head-on, and from there, I go back to Idol Factory to watch Thailand's first GL, featuring the lovely FreenBecky, in GAP.

AND THEN: HOLY SHIT! FINALLY! My School President. I can't wait.

Here's the latest of the OGMMTVC list. If you've got any questions or comments about the syllabus, just mosey on over to this link and drop a comment my way!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here)

21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here)

31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 37) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) 38) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 39) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows (watching) 40) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL)

41) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 42) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 43) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 44 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 45) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 46) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 47) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 48) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 49) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 50) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake)

51) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 52) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here)]

#war of y #war of y the series #billyseng #billy patchanon #seng wichai #cheewin thanamin #den panuwat #first piyangkul #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #turtles catches up with thai BLs #war of y meta

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