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daryldixonfanfiction · 3 months

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What you fight for pt.5 - chery🍒 (*18+)

masterlist

Summary: Daryl is hurt after ending the clamers. As Julia begins to tend to his wounds he can't stop himself from giving into his deepest desire...

Warnings: *18+, SMUT! los of virginity, unprotected p in v, fingering, touched starved Daryl, age gape, fluff, angst, mentions of blood and death, brief mentions of atemt of SA, protective Daryl,

possesive!Daryl.

Wc: 5k

Their silence spoke volumes of what had happened.

Daryl steered her through the abandoned neighborhood as sundowns' last light glowed against their backs, casting shadows on the asphalt. Julia looked downwards, their hands joined between them. The terrifying nightmare she had been woken to hung around her throat -literally. Everything hurt, her body was still recovering from a sprained ankle, head trauma, the hit she had suffered from the crash and her bruised throat throbbed terebully.

Her gaze returned to their shadows.

Julia tried to find it within herself to accept what had happened. Because for Julia -to find acceptance was to find peace. Though it was easier said than done. Reminding herself that other women had endured far worse, but it felt like one of the worst things that had ever happened to her, making it difficult coming to terms with, especially when it happened just moments ago.

The house was left further and further behind, they continued to walk silently until she could feel Daryl letting go of her hand. His loss of touch missed instantly.

“Stay close.”

Daryl moved in front, leading the way through a white picket fence. It was swinging wide open, welcoming them to white house with a few limp walkers, dead on the overgrown yard. Standing behind him on the porch as he bangs on the front door, alerting anny walkers that could be inside Then they enter and Julia closes the door behind them looking at Daryl, but he wasn't looking at her when he spoke and ordered.

“Stay here.”

Julia did just that, waiting in the hall, patiently for him to sweep the house. The house seemed to be recently lived in and it wasn't in bad shape nor ransacked, if she guessed it looked like a prepper had been living here, probably sins the start, before the turn. There were poles of wax surrounding spent candles on the small table in front of her and if she glanced into the kitchen she could see a dining table, set with a plait of dinner that had been left to root by the resident, indicating the person did not make it.

Daryl emerged from his sweeping, bow hanging in his left hand which was strange, he always favors his right. Julia moved towards him, and asked,

“Is it safe?”

Julia tried to meet his eyes as Daryl let out a sigh before answering.

"Yeah. It's safe.”

Julia tried to search his face once more, he seemed avoidant as she did so, opting to simply look to the floor. And when he stayed silent in a way that was unlike him, Julia tried and began.“Daryl- but he cut her off before she could say more.

“The place is nailed up tight. The only way in is through the front door. There's food, running water and electricity. The light should be kept to a minimum though.”

Julia nodes. It made sense when the house looked the way that it did. But she worried greatly about his well-being when he seemed so…not himself, and he hasn't really been himself ever since he had shown up…covered in blood.

The unfavoring of his right hand gave it away. Dried blood stains marks his knuckles, and Julia swore she could see his hand shaking in what looked to be pain, though he seemed to be hiding it well.

Her face changed, and she inhaled - a distraction from her own pain and stated worldly,

"You're hurt.”

Daryl seemed to notice the moment she pointed it out. Perhaps he hadn't felt the pain he was in - she didn't know - all she knew was to care for him, then hurriedly she made him move to the living room, “sit…I’ll get something…”

She gestured for the family sized sofa. For a moment she thought he wouldn't, but then he sat down. With that she began and looked for anything to treat his wound.

Reentering the living room Julia hurried towards him, placing down a med pack and some rags with water to wet, then turned on the lantern that was placed on the coffee table beside his crossbow and the red machete. Even though it didn't light up the whole rome itself, she pulled the curtains down behind them, just to be safe. Returning to him she grabbed a blanket off the sofa, draping it over his shoulders.

He had sunken down into the sofa, elbows resting on his knees and the way his head hung he looked exhausted -as if the weight of the world had finally caught up to him. Julia stood in front of him. Dropping down to kneel between his knees. Carefully, Julia reached for his wounded hand with both of hers, asking softly,

“Let me see.” Daryl began to pull back, making Julia repeat herself, “Let me see.”

With that Daryl relented and Julia's soft hands remained, her eyes attentively examining the damage.

“It’s fractured.” Julia frowned in concern.

“Maybe a hairline,” Daryl said, down playing the obvious injury he had suffered, “It'll heal fast.”

Julia didn't believe that for a second when she could clearly feel his hand trembling under her touche. Her hair fell a bit making her pull it behind her ear and Julia felt him watching her hands work as she went on and disinfected the broken skin on the swelling knuckles, before wrapping it up with an elastic compression bandage, much as he had done for her ankle.

The soft glow of the lantern revealed the lower part of hice face, and she said ever so gently,

“Looks like you’ll live,” she placed the med pack on the tabelle behind her, closing it shut, “I would say it will feel better within 3 or 5 days or so, and it will be held within a month.” Then grabbed the water bottle and the rags she had found, “But only if you let it rest that is...”

He hummed in agnolishment, and she could feel him looking down, watching her intently where she was and she went on to push herself to a stand with a hand on his thigh for leverage. She felt him tense as she pushed herself up, the rags and bottle of water in the other. His head tilted and he let her seat herself beside him on the sofa. Placing the things in her lap, turning to properly take a look at him, making her frown with worry of his bloody state. Swallowing anxiously she began to soak the rags, asking even though the answer could be something she didn't want to be true.

“All this blood….Is it….?”

As if he knew what she was trying to say, he answered simply, “ 's not mine.”

She sighed in relief. Reaching for his face to clean the dried blood off of him, knowing he would never do it himself. Suddenly Daryl stopped her with his good hand, holding her wrist inches from his face, the blanket fell off his shoulders at the motion and began to say, “I’m fine-”

“No. You're not,” Julia frowned. “Daryl…Let me take care of you.”

A moment passed between them as he held her there. Then. She could feel him giving in, the hold on her wrist gone and so was the warmth off his skin.

Taking his face with one hand she began and cleaned the blood from his chin with the other down to his neck. She worked scrubbing the crimson from his stubble gently, notesting a deep scratch on his trout. A blooming bruce covered his under eye, on his left eyebrow there was a thin cut already scabbing and then there was the noticeable split lip. Being this close his eyes were visebulle, though they never met her gaze.

It was left unsaid, but she knew he had been part of the men he had saved her from. Julia inhaled and asked, breaking their silence.

“How did you end up with them?”

And maybe for the first time he looked at her, even though it was just for a second she saw regret and the gilt in his eyes. Daryl let out a breath before answering.

“I was chasing the car, as long as I could. There was now way of telling which way it went. I guess I must have dozed off and that's when they found me. I knew they were bad, but they had a code. It was simple. stupid, but it was something. It was enough.

“And you were alone.” Julia said in understanding, watching how his eyes looked far away as he continued.

“Said they were headed for sum neighborhood, to gather supplies. I was hanging back. I was gonna leave. That's when I saw the car, and I thought…. “

She knew what he was trying to say....Seeing the care, thinking she was dead. And she had thought the same about him, making her squeeze his arm in reassurance.

A pause…then

“So I stayed,” Daryl confessed. “Right there when I saw you… like that…”

He couldn't say more and Julia's heart sank, because she knows why. She kept her eyes closed, squeezing him tighter, shaking her head at the thought of him blaming himself over what had happened. It wasn't his fault, he couldn't have done more than he already had. Julia set the used rags aside, then returned her hand where she had squeezed him and did it once again.

“Look at me." Her command was soft -yeat grounding.

Slowly he did his eyes sparkling with unshed tears, brows pulled down into an expression of sorrow -sorrow for her it seemed. He had such pure eyes his firm exterior could almost had fold her, but all she saw was a man desperate for something to hold onto.

Looking into his eyes Julia smiled through the sadness, comforting him with the words she wished she had been given. “Don’t blame yourself over things you can’t control, it will not change the things you blame yourself for,” Then she took his hand to place it over her beating heart, holding it there and he let her, “Instead. Focus on the things that will move you forward.”

It was the only way she knew how to show him the meaning of what she was telling him. That she wasn't gone and he wasn't alone. Rubbing the back of his hand soothingly with her thumb still pressing him there as her heart thumped beneath she could see him begin to relax and the sadness of his features turned into something -something she found hard to read. His eyes traveled where she pressed him to her chest and he watched how her thumb moves on his skin -how the rise and fall of her breting moves her ribcage. Her soothing motions stills and she questions him, eyebrows coming together,

“Do you understand?”

There was no answer.

His hand began to move upwards, slowly, and he looked to be in a sort of trance watching his own movement from her chest, collarbone, along her throat, stopping at her face. His larger hand holds her there and Julia could only stare in return, confused as just moments ago he had been on the verge of tears. She wondered if what she had told him was the source of such a thing?

His face was worn by the seasons and by the life he had lived. His under eyes were dark, unrested. But there was also a softness there and she could feel it too. She had seen it in his eyes but now his pupils were blown wide, but if he had just...done what she thought he

had done...he was probably coming down from it. But something told her otherwise. It was famileure, the way he was looking at her and it reminded her of their dinner at the memorial home.

It was that same way he was looking at her, onely more intense as if deep wanting, a need of something.

Placing her smaller hand on top of his Julia surged his eyes, maybe she thought she would find the answer there? His thumb began to brush the skin on her cheek then it traveled just as slowly like before, bruising over her button lip. Searching his gaze once more just to be chore it's what she thought she noticed how the black has almost swallowed the blue of his irises. It was almost unnoticeable but being this close to one another she saw how he glanced down to her lips then back up again.

oh…

Julia blinked at him, it surprised her that he wanted to. She had never thought of him in that way before. Not until now and without much thought she spoke to him,

“It’s ok. You can kiss me.”

His adam's apple bobs, his only focus is her lips. His breathing is more laborde and she can feel how his other hand runs through her hair with his fingers until they still - cradling the back of her head. Then tilts her head as he tilts his own and leans in; she closes her eyes, feeling her heart pick up with nerves of anticipation of what is to cume.

And then...

His lips pressed against hers. They felt rough, not like hers. A stark contrast as stubble rubbed against her face. It was slow and soft at first, him holding her there and she holding on to his jacket. The kisses turned hungrier, slopier and needier. The way he was pressing his lips onto hers, forcing his tongue into her mouth made it seem like he hadn’t felt human contact in years.

It was…intense…As if deeply needing. Needing something.

When the need for oxygen became too much he broke the kiss to remove his jacket, tossing it aside along with the layer underneath, leaving him in a black t-shirt and jeans. His lips returned to hers and he dipped down, kissing her even needier than before. Without her releasing he unbuttons her cardigan, button after button and when he was done his arms took hold of her to gently being laid against the softness of the sofa, never breaking the kiss. Moving on top of her, settling between her knees she had naturally spread open, welcoming him there with her arms wrapped around his neck to keep him close. She could feel how his hip brushed against her inner thigh before he rested against her completely.

It was due to his protective nature knowing he could protect her from what’s out there, including those men. It made her feel safe as she laid beneath him, caged between his forearms, elbows on either side of her head, keeping that little space so as not to crush her. She tried to meet his more forceful kisses but she had only made out a couple of times before and therefore followed his lead. Carding her fingers through his hair -It was clear that Daryl was nothing like the boys she had been with, and she liked it.

She continued to run her hand through his hair, smoothing away from his face and then, gripping the nape of his neck as he pulled her tighter to himself, calloused hands slipping under her long skirt sliding along her bare thighs exposing her underwear beneath, dampened by the arousal.

He let out a low groan when he pressed into her, he moved his mouth from hers to slide along her jawline. He sounded different than any time she had heard him before. He moved upward again and kissed her and began to rock back and forth against her, and she didn't miss the squeak the sofa made.

She was trembling beneath him. His hands were all over and his touch felt desperate. Almost animalistic in a sense that made her feel vulnerable, but not afraid -she knew he would never hurt her. She had felt nothing like it, being touched and kissed the way he did -not ever. It felt as if her heart was going to explode at every giving moment and her body only wanted more, more and more.

He continued to rock against her -her underwear and his ruff jeans preventing the friction from going any further. It was embarrassing how wet she had gotten at this point -she worried she was leaving the evidence on his pants -and she heard him breath lowly-

“Julia.”

It sounded like a plea, she didn't know. Her mind was all over -spinning…not knowing how it had all come to this. His temple almost met hers and she noticed how he had closed his eyes as if controlling something with himself. Her hands moved soothingly along his face, smoothening hair away to better see the handsome man above her and she answered reassuringly, sensing his search for something.

“I’m here.”

It was all the response he needed, bringing the soaked underwear with his hands -sliding them past her ankles…He was quick to return between her knees, still spread open for him and only him. He kissed her. He seemd to like kissing her and even though he was a bit ruff in his way she still liked it though she tried to slow him down soothing his face once more. She ran her thumb over his cheek to comfort that deep need he seemed to have.

And then she felt his ruff, broad fingers traveling down and down until finding the ace she had tried to satisfy herself but it never had felt enuff. But as he touched that sensitive place between her legs she could hardly breathe. The anticipation made her mind spin more than it did before. She felt her toes curl, and she reached to embrace him to ground herself to something when she felt so much she almost didn't know what to do with herself. As he continued to move a sound escaped her and she welded herself from allowing more to pass her lips. Heat on her face bloomed of embarrassment; she had never made that noise before as she had always just breathed the noises out soundles into the night when she had dun it to herself. And that habit had become ingrained.

To her surprise Daryl didn't seem to mind, not at all -prompting him to kiss her temple then after the first finger entered her son another one joined and it was becoming difficult to stay silent, making her hold onto his shirt tightly she worried she was gonna tear it apart. As his fingers moved in and out in a rhythmic motion -the wet sound between her legs was sinful. That also made her embarrassed even though she knew it to be natural. Julia tried to breathe it out but when it didn't work she tried soothing herself planting a kiss on his less stubbled cheek, leaving her lips there feeling how the blooming sounds in her throat had become dangerously close to pass her lips.

When his fingers removed themselves she missed it instantly, she could never touch herself the way he had touched her…As he shifted -her mind flared with what they had just done, not notesting him positioning himself until he ordered breathlessly…

“Tell me no. Tell me to stop.”

It caught her off guard -making her wonder if that was truly what he wanted when he was breathing the way he did. She embraced him comfortingly. He was grabbing the edge of the sofa holding himself above her with his forehead against the croak of her neck. Then his mouth pressed to the underside of her exposed jaw, speaking against her skin, "Just say the word and I’ll stop.”

Her Fingers gently prodded the nape of his neck -somewhat confused she hesitated for just a moment before whispering, “But, I want you to do it.” Then tugged the back of his shirt urgingly.

As he had been struck by her words -his inhale was charp. Lips returned to hers, starving and ruff, not gentle like her fingers running through his hair. Then suddenly, he was pressed against her entrance -making her tense in knowing of the pain that followed. The intrusion was slow and it felt larger than his fingers this time. A sound escaped her and it must have startled him, making him pause in his movements. The feeling was overwhelming, not painful, more like a stretch in a way. Breathing heavily against her she could feel how his chest expands and shrinks against her own. He spoke, voice sounding like gravel, “You alright?”

“Yes,” she breathed against his ear.

He pushed further -until he was all the way inside of her. In knowing what was to come Julia wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him closer to herself. He began to rock his hips, moving slowly inside of her. It was overwhelming at first but she could feel herself readjusting to him and the stretch forgotten as she became engulfed by the pleasure bilding inside of herself. She couldn't control the wimpers that escaped her though she tried to keep them to a minimum because of the embarrassment.

All she knew was kissing, the step after was new -making her bury her face in his shoulder, biting back sounds and gasps. Daryl's sounds were low and deep, it was beautiful in a way herring him vulnerable like that. Knowing a man like him would allow himself to be soft as he was with her now. It felt special. It was special. For her it was.

His hands were moving all over her body, it felt as if he was everywhere at once -still needing and needing and she couldn't give any more than she already did. She wrapped her legs around him, sending him deeper inside of her. A small cry escaped her, her head tilting back, and his body followed, pushing her deeper into the sofas bedding.

He then slowed his movements going as deep as he possibly could -as if he was trying to get her to make that sound again. Reaching for his face to slide her fingers over his dashing features. She couldn't help but wonder if he would ever touch her this way again…

Daryl continued his agonizing slow pace -rocking deeply with every stroke. His hand wanted to press into her neck, but he must have noticed the blooming bruises on her throat when he breathed the lowest she had ever heard him do before,

“They will never touch you again,” his thumb on her face pressed to her chin tilting her head towards him, “No one will, because I won't let them.”

“I know. I know” Julia breathed breathlessly.

Staring into his beautiful pools of blue, swallowed by their shared pleasure between them -she could feel his gaze never leaving her face when she closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling of him inside of her. She knew he was watching her reactions intently and she thought about how this was nothing she thought sex would be like -there was no speaking that she thought would leave her dirty afterwards. Instead it was Daryl’s protectiveness and how he touched her so desperately, yet softly with his hands traveling along her skin searching for something within her as their bodies moved in unison and deeper and deeper, until Julia couldn't help the small sounds leaving her lips, one after the other. It was obvious he liked them, each and every single one, because he kept his head close -as if to make sure he didn't miss the whimpers she’d make.

His movements quickend suddenly, making Julia hold on for dear life feeling how she was about to come undone. He grabbed hold of her hip with one hand as he trusted until he stilld completely with a grunt so low she could only describe as animalistic. He fell forward caging her once more with his forearms and hands to either side of her head to keep him from falling on her completely. Sweat was sticking between them where he had bunched up her skirt exposing her to him and she could feel the wetness flowing out of her and the smell of sex in the room.

Their chest heaving, both out of breath from what they had just done. And Julia knew that this was tame compared to what he was capable of. Because, after all, he is a very capable man.

His broad frame loomed over her, and he questioned -breathless, “You alright?”

Julia could onely hum in return as she was still coming down from her high, overwhelmed but in all the good ways possible. She could barely keep her eyes open as she felt him nudge her face with his nose seeking her attention and she gave it to him thru half lidded eyes.

“Hey,” concern was leased in his tone as stroke her cheek with a thumb. “You alright?”

She swallowed thickly -before nodding, mind still swirling with so many feelings she didn't know where to put them, the pleasure of it all preventing her from thinking straight…

“Yes…Just tired”

He let out a breath of relief. Maybe he was worried he had hurt her somehow? But how could he have done that when he had been so gentle, asking for her to stop him if she didn't want to.

He leaned down -lips pressing to her lips before he moved to lay behind her and pulled the blanket around them she had put on his shoulders. She turned in his hold, snuggling into his warm chest, his arm naturally wrapped around her as his injured arm was draped over her waist.

Julia couldn't help but look in awe upon the man she had just shared the most cherist part of herself, her body. Never before had she felt as safe and close to someone as she did with him and this only made that feeling grow deeper within herself.

Minutes passed with him holding her flush against him and her admiring him beneath his chin, listening to his breathing and feeling the calming pace of his heart against her palm. It almost lulled her into sleep but before she could drift away Daryl confessed,

“I killed them -I killed them all.”

Julia's eyes widened, but she knew, deep down she knew that that was what had happened, the reason he had hidden the bodies, the reason he made her hide, not wanting her to come down. Her gaze left his face where she could see him staring at the selling with a faraway look in his eyes. Julia swallowed before answering,

“I know.” A few moments of silence passed and then, “Every second I was trapped in that car, I was only thinking of you….And when he told me you were–

“He?” Daryl cut her off mid sentence, his hold on her tightening and she could feel his heart racing through his shirt.

“The man who found me,” Julia clarified, “Apparently I was fighting walkers and he saved me. Or that's what he told me.” then clutched his shirt before continuing, “But the more I think about it… It wasn't walkers I was fighting.”

Julia waited for him to say something, anything but he never did so she continued, “You should have seen his eyes. I will never forget that look he had…

He held his breath and he questiond her, “Did he?”

Immediately Julia shook her head against him. The mere thought of it made her sick, “No. I stopped him before he could.”

“Good,” Daryl breathed in return, still looking at the ceiling.

But the growing guilt inside of herself had grown tremendously sinnes it happened, eating at her in every waking moment even haunting her in her sleep. Leaning her cheek against his chest, making her speak against the the fabric there,

“Daryl, I did something terrible.”

“What you mean?”

Julia could hear the confusion in his voice but she had to close her eyes as she told him what she did that night, and she told him,

“He got mad when I asked him to turn back, to let me go and he just got so…angry. And then I noticed he had locked me up with one of them handcuffs... So I panicked. I don’t exactly remember how but the car hit something and the next thing I saw was walkers…everywhere.” A shaky breath, then, “He was being eaten alive and the only thing I could think of was saving myself as he screamed for me to help him…But I didn't. I Just left him to die… like that.” Julia completely buried her face into him, softly crying as she held onto his shirt but then she felt his hand stroking the back of her head soothing her to the best of his capabilities.

When Julia had calmed down a bit Daryl spoke with a voice devoid of emotion, “Some people deserve to die like that.”

“But, that's cruel.” Julia's voice broke, sniffling through the reaments of her tears.

“That’s the truth.”

But It was hard to accept such an ugly reality. At least inside of herself even if she was good at accepting reality, but this time she couldn't. Not yet at least. Drying her tears as she unmoved her face from his chest now dampened by her tears she said,

“I don’t want it to be.”

“I know.” Daryl said softly, continuing to stroke her head.

There were no more words spoken after that, engulfed by what they had said and what they had done, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence, it was a silence that made one sleepy. Julia very much so. Her eyes continued to get heavier -and Daryl’s body was relaxed against her, welcoming it. Once more she spoke but it was quiet and laced with slip but she said it anyways before she drifted in the solace of sleep in his arms.

“I missed you,” and she fell asleep.

Pulling her closer to himself he left a kiss in her hair and then he whispered,

“I missed you too.”

Series masterlist

Pt.6

#daryl dixon #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon smut #daryl dixon x reader #daryl x reader #daryl x y/n #fanfics #daryl dixion imagine #apocalypse #smut #twd fanfiction #twd daryl

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bl4ckorch1d · 8 months

Text

SHACKLE // Buckthorne Woods

Male Naga OC / GN! Reader

1.5k Words || AO3

Slight horror themes.

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The forest was almost deadly silent, an oddity for such a usually lively place. One place once visited by many turned abandoned acres. Though it wasn’t a mystery, the nation needed a specific place for the things they deemed ‘unsightly’ for their aesthetic modernized cities. It seemed not even the birds wanted to stick around, not wanting to become prey to either fangs or claws.

Buckthorne Woods, a name known by many and feared just the same. It only seemed like a few years ago until the humans decided ‘monsters’ can’t roam free on their own free will anymore. Almost seems like they got bored of fighting themselves and moved on to a different area of the food tree. While the woods were certainly one of the largest in the nation, it still was nowhere near big enough to hold every ‘monstrosity’ that roamed the land; their population almost became cut in half due to this. Not much of a chance for a bloom either, while the forest dwellers stay among their own types and don’t fight with each other over land, most refuse to bring a child into such a hate-filled world. Some kinds are becoming almost extinct; mostly the less humanoid they look, the lesser their number is.

A waterfall was all that truly broke the silence in this specific part of the forest, a beautiful sight almost no one will ever know exists. All that accompanied other than the lush forest greens was a small opening to a cavern, only lit by the sun shining into it.

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The water rippled against the paddles that ran through it, a canoe accompanied by a lone fisher. Setting your canoe under light shading, between the endless green that surrounded your figure. With the paddle set aside, you are in high hopes for fish above the average. With your dominant hand gripping your fishing pole, in a single swoop, you swing the line into the water. A small splash accompanied the bobber as it broke the surface tension of the water. The rays of the sun crack through the open spaces of shade, your skin embracing the slight heat. Eyes steady for any slight pull, you sit there tense. A slight tug on the pole, “Finally, a bite.” you hum to yourself. As you go to start reeling in, your body suddenly drags forward, slamming at the edge of the canoe almost tipping over. You try balancing yourself all while whatever was hooked squirmed around violently in the water, splashing and sending slight waves in all directions. Stubbornly, you began pulling back in panic and hurry, but all this action resulted in was a loud snap. Your back harshly hits the bottom of the canoe, as it sways from side to side. “Damn it”, you thought to yourself, “Should have brought spares.”, as you looked down at the snapped pole.

At this point, your only goal was to find your way home after that experience. The river only went in one direction, and you swore you remembered which way you came from. So why did it feel so ominously wrong? Paddling through the water, you had expected to find the subtle tracks you left behind to get back out of the forest. The endless overgrown verdure shielded most of your view, but you could hear the heavy sound of water crashing against itself. You knew at that moment that you were completely lost. Your phone was rendered useless without an ounce of service, and the map you brought was drenched from the fishing disaster. The idea of making it back seemed like a pipe dream. It was late evening, and by the time you could even make it back to your fishing spot, the forest would be enveloped by complete darkness. Heading on towards the sound of the water, your eyes were met with an enchanting sight. A waterfall with almost crystal clear water in the pool below it, the scene looked straight out of a magazine. Looking past the constant pouring, there was a cavern hidden slightly beside the falls. Seemed to be your last resort for a place to reside. Paddling on, you dock your canoe as close to the cavern as you can without it getting completely flooded. Grabbing any salvageable supplies, you adventure forward to the mouth of the cavern.

Nothing seems odd at first glance, a few spiders with their webs seem to be the only company you’ll have tonight. You drop your bag only a few feet into the cavern, far enough to be protected from the elements but close enough to still see outside. The cavern seemed to split into many tunnels further along and that just seemed like a horrible idea to adventure in your current state. Luckily your small blanket had survived the onslaught of water, a small comfort in your hellish predicament. If it wasn’t for the bed of rocks you laid on, you could almost trick yourself into thinking the waterfall was a sound machine when you shut your eyes.

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Pains shot up your left leg, and you could feel the bile burning in the back of your throat as you lurched awake. Your eyes water as you lose the fight against your nausea. Choking as the last bit of bile makes it out of your mouth. Reaching for your backpack so you can fish out your thermostat to rid the aftertaste of vomit. Instead of the bag, your hand meets straw. You aren’t where you fell asleep. Panic rises in your system as you notice your left leg has swollen like a balloon and the leg beside it has a glistening silver shackle around it.

You try to make sense of the rest of your surroundings. You seem to be at a dead end of one of the tunnels you spotted earlier. A small fire lights the area with the smoke billowing out into a tiny hole within the wall. If that hole led outside, it seems it is still night. You can’t spot your bag anywhere in the room, there wasn’t much of anything other than the small straw bed you laid upon and the small fire. Oh, and of course the shackle around your ankle that seemed to glisten as it taunted you. Yanking on it seemed to only deliver more pain to the opposite leg as you slightly moved. The chain connected to it was rooted deep into the cave wall, you’d need a jackhammer to even hope to remove it.

Seems like you really should have listened to all the warning signs you saw at the entrance of the forest, instead of delusionally hoping no harm would have come to you. Now you lay prisoner to some mystery creature. Yelling seemed pointless as no other humans would be anywhere near the entrance of the cavern, and you couldn’t tell how deep you were into it. The noise would also likely attract whatever trapped you, but that almost seemed better than willowing alone in pain. So, you did as any white girl would do in a cheesy horror film and yelled out, “Is anybody there?” . . . A weird mix of relief and disappointment washed over you as silence was your only response. Not even the slightest rustle, only the crackling of embers.

A sigh escaped your lips, almost masking the slight foreign noise just outside from where you could see. Nausea hits like a typhoon once you lay eyes on who you guessed to be your captor. A naga male, he could almost be mistaken for a model if it wasn’t for the tail that replaced where legs would be. “The rabbit finally awakens I see.” A silky deeper voice, one that overenunciated its s’ by quite a bit. His tan upper half shifted as he went to throw the sticks into the dying fire. Once he moved closer you could finally get a good look at him, his snake side resembling a ‘tiger snake’ with the black and yellow banding. A sharp jawline matched, with sharp golden brown eyes. Black hair tied messily into a bun. Could be worse, much better than some smelly goblin at least. Your internal monologue was disrupted as he moved to you, getting closer to your swollen leg. “Suprised it hasn’t turned purple yet.” He let out a snide hiss as he poked it, his smile widening as you whimpered out in pain. “But don’t worry, it’s only been mere hours. It’ll swell much more by morning.” A prideful huff as those sharp eyes glanced down at you. He was obviously mocking you, and you could only grit your teeth in response. His hand swatting at you, “No need for that, I’m not going to let it get that bad dear.” The tone made him seem so condescending that you wouldn’t be surprised if he bit you again, right in the same puncture wounds. “Now, give me a second, don’t go anywhere!” . . . Maybe a goblin would have been better. His form quickly slithers out of the area leaving nothing but the sounds of embers once again.

═══════ .✾. ═

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oftenwantedafton · 5 months

Text

Marked - Steve Raglan/William Afton x College Student Female Reader

Chapters 2 + 3

Rating: Explicit

CW - sexual content

Also available on AO3

The last two hours of your shift at the coffee shop seem to drag for an eternity.

You do your best to ignore the stares and comments of fellow employees, to forget the ripped tights and bent headband discarded in the small steel wastebin in the employee restroom, to pretend not to notice how saturated your panties are, because you’d let some man more than twice your age finger you until you came in the parking lot.

You walk to the bus stop after the evening has finally ended, the backpack with a textbook you’d intended to study from during your break untouched, the weight dragging at your shoulder. You wonder if William’s promise of “later” actually meant tonight.

It does.

You’ve no idea where he’s taking you but there’s no way you'd deny him. Your fingers twitch, longing to touch him but you’re still unsure of the boundaries, what the proper etiquette is. He’s in control, and you prefer it that way, at least for now.

The building he finally parks in front of looks abandoned.

The lot is overgrown, the structure itself beginning to succumb to vines and brush. There’s a sign lying nearby, the pole long since surrendering to the elements, the collection of letters spaced oddly, jumbled with time and weather but still indicating precisely what you already know: this place is closed.

Remarkably the sign on the establishment itself remains intact, a colorful depiction of a friendly looking bear waving in greeting. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The name sounds vaguely familiar. A franchise of children’s party themed restaurants. The kind of place you’d play skee ball and eat greasy food and submit tickets in exchange for a cheap plastic toy.

William exits the car wordlessly, already working on the padlock chaining the front gate closed. You depart the vehicle much more slowly, shivering, wondering why he’s brought you here, of all places.

“Come on in,” he invites, holding the glass door open.

You move forward uncertainly, stepping cautiously over broken concrete and litter, looking a question at the older man and he nods reassuringly. “It’s ok. I’ll get the lights up and running when we get inside.”

You enter the building but venture no more than a couple of feet inside. “Why are we here?”

“You wanted to see what I’ve been working on. Well, this is it.”

“You…bought this place? You’re renovating it?” you inquire, puzzled.

“Ah, well, I own it, yes. And I guess you could call it renovating.” He smirks, dimples creasing the corners of his mouth. “Wait here while I go flip the switch for the generator.”

You nod, peering at your dark surroundings. There’s a tall archway lined with planks of wood bracketed by a welcome sign, a crank machine half full of gum balls, and a faded menu lying on the floor nearby.

And then the lights flicker on, little sparks of electricity crackling around the room as it comes to life before your eyes. There are dozens of padded yellow booths, long rows of tables and chairs, and two raised platform areas obscured by crimson curtains. Shelves with long forgotten prizes sit above glass cases filled with abandoned treasures. You can hear the arcade machines humming nearby.

William reappears from the still shadowed recesses of the room beyond, beckoning you forward.

You take a deep breath and step into the archway.

This is your first night at Freddy’s.

***

“This place was really popular back in the 80’s,” William says, gesturing towards a door marked Manager.

“What happened?” You step inside the room, noting a large steel desk and swivel office chair. The surface is littered with papers, and the trash can in the corner is overflowing with crumpled up pages.

“Oh, you know. There were some issues,” he says vaguely.

“What issues?” You reach the desk and recognize the patterns scrawled on every page, if not in purpose then at least in form: the ones he’d been working on so raptly at the cafe each morning.

“Parents complained. No one ever found anything. Anyway, that’s all in the past.” He presses along your back, arms bracing on either side of you, trapping you against the metal structure. “So, what do you think?” he breathes against your ear.

“I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

“Spring locks. For inside the animatronics. Something was needed so a person could be inside the suits without getting injured. There’s so much delicate wiring, circuitry…”

“You got injured, though. Those scars on your arm…” Suddenly, it all clicks into place.

“Mmm. And other places…” You feel his feral smile. “Well, practice makes perfect. Wouldn’t know if it worked or not until I tried it out.” His lips brush your lobe, tease your neck while he hikes up your dress in one fluid movement, already working on dragging your panties out of the way. “So now you know what I’ve been working on. What do you think?” he rasps, squeezing one buttocks cheek, nails digging into your flesh. “You like it?”

You’re not entirely sure if he’s referring to the design or his touch or perhaps both but you nod anyway, allowing the splayed digits spread across your spine to push you until you’re bent over the desk.

“Good girl. I knew you’d understand.” You hear a rapid series of clicks as the teeth of a zipper release, hear the weight of belted pants striking the floor.

And then he’s inside you.

You know how large he is, for your hands, anyway, but stretching you, filling you is something else entirely. He thrusts forward and it hits deep. You grind back against him, wanting him inside as far as he can reach.

All your pent up arousal lubricates so well, makes a wet sound as flesh collides in a steady rhythm. He grabs a fistful of your hair and jerks your head back roughly, fucking you more rapidly. You know he’s close, hear it in the way his breathing grows more ragged, and then he’s filling you up, relaxing his grip at last.

You turn to face him, legs wobbly, your own breathing harsh as you wind his tie around your hand, pulling his mouth to yours. You feel his seed running down your thighs, taste sweat on the skin of his neck.

You don’t know what it is, this thing between you, but you like it, and you want more.

***

A late afternoon class finishes and he’s there, waiting just as he’d promised. The winter daylight fades early now, already shrouding you in darkness. He’s taken you to a wooded area, an old picnic spot on a hiking trail.

“Let’s get in the back.”

You follow him to the rear seats of the vehicle, straddling his thighs as you climb into his lap, tugging on the knot of his tie and he grins, assisting you in its removal. He shoves your wrists together as if you’re about to be handcuffed, winding the tie in a circular pattern.

The purple satin material binds you, tight and just on the verge of being painful. He pushes against your shackled limbs until they’re secured on the front headrest, then slides his hands beneath your chenille sweater, a cool caress against your warm skin. He murmurs appreciatively over the crimson lace bra you’re wearing, a match for the thong tucked beneath black leggings.

He removes the clothing covering your lower body slowly, smirks when he sees you squirm helplessly, eager for his next touch.

The fistful of panties is brought to his mouth. You see him inhale deeply, tongue lapping at the damp crotch of the material and he growls, teasing abandoned rapidly. He opens his pants and pistons his hips up inside you in one swift movement.

It still suprises you, that wide stretch, that feeling of being torn apart from the inside out. You can see the faint outline of his cock through your abdomen every time he thrusts and it makes you even wetter.

He drags a thumb across your clit and you grind down onto him, cursing with need. The leather seating creaks in protest with every frantic movement accompanied by staccato pants of pleasure and desire.

Your head whips back, colliding with the padding of the headrest. He cups your jaw, slides a thumb across your lips and you suck the offering, tracing the patterns of creases, dragging over smooth nailbed, stroking over the rounded edge.

He slams harder against your body, impaling you as deep as he can and then you feel the hand against your shudder, feel his cum spilling inside of you and your own release follows, sliding sloppily against his fingers, throbbing around him.

***

He brings you to the park often, occasionally takes you in the car outside of work because he cannot wait any longer to have you. You take the bus to his office at the career development center one day to visit him on his lunch break and he kneels in front of you while you lean against the wooden door, then thrusts his tongue against your pussy until you climax all over his face. Next you’re the one kneeling, sucking him off behind the desk, swallowing his thick creamy load, shuddering when he praises you, tingling when he kisses you afterwards and tastes himself, licking at any stray fluids you might have missed. It’s filthy and depraved and you love every minute of it.

He comes to your apartment as well, under the pretense of helping you study, reading flash cards or reciting notes but it always dissolves into intimacy. You cook together standing half dressed at the stove, you order take out and watch bad sitcoms on TV and it almost feels normal, except you know it isn’t. He’ll look at his watch, another relic from decades past, and you know what it means.

He’s going home, to a world you will never be part of.

***

He takes you back to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza after the first snow falls, the moisture melting into your hair as he presses tokens into your hand, watching you with a bemused expression as you accept the challenge and thumb one in the slot. You’re rubbish at these old arcade games, but you’re determined to try your best, finding the joystick stiff and awkward as the pixelated characters move across the angled screen. You mash the buttons, cursing when you lose and immediately slide another coin into the slot.

“Practice,” he instructs behind you, and you do, demolishing the stack of metal imprinted with the friendly bear’s face faster than you would’ve thought possible. You’re improving, at least. Not dying as quickly anyway. Scoring higher. Not good enough to place among the elite, though.

“WAF must have sunk a lot of time into this,” you mutter, seeing the same three initials repeated ten times.

“I did. Sometimes you need a break.”

You turn, surprised. “Wait, you’re WAF?”

He nods, scooping more tokens from his pocket. “First initial and part of last name. Don’t have a middle one.”

It reminds you that you’ve never learned his last name. You think to ask him now, but he’s already sauntered up to the machine.

“Alright. Let’s see what you’ve got then, hotshot.” You push his arm playfully, watching the reflection of the screen in his lenses, admiring the way his long fingers deftly manipulate buttons and maneuver the joystick with ease.

Of course he not only puts your efforts to shame, he manages to beat one of his previous high scores.

“Show off.”

He smirks, rolling a token between his thumb and index finger. “You ever use a jukebox?”

“No.”

“It’s over there.” He drops the coin into your open palm and then grasps your arms, turning you to face the right direction. “Pick anything you want.”

You nod, making your way across the confetti printed carpet to a glowing machine with rows of buttons. You don’t recognize all of the songs, finally deciding to just choose one at random.

It’s a slow rock song from the 80’s, something with saxophone and a sultry feminine voice.

“Good choice.” William’s behind you, sliding his hands down your arms, lacing your fingers together. “Dance with me.”

You’re suddenly shy, the soft protest dying on your lips when he starts to sway, still holding your body tightly against his.

You surrender and follow the movement, hear him hum the accompanying melody against your ear. It seems you’ve chosen something he enjoys just through sheer luck.

Or maybe he just likes you.

He turns you with ease and your hands entwine around his neck while his settle on your waist. The neon lights shine on his glasses in bands of green and yellow and pink, a kaleidoscope of color. His head dips lower and his mouth finds yours. The song ends but your exploration doesn’t, nails dragging down his chest while he knots a hand in your hair, kissing more fiercely. You tease along the seam of the crotch of his pants and he groans into your mouth. You trace the outline of his cock before sliding past one hip and squeezing his buttocks.

“Come on.” You would’ve let him have you right there, bent over the prize counter or flung across a dining table but he always seem reluctant to be intimate in this section of the restaurant, as if there’s some sacred unspoken rule against it. Your gaze flickers to the curtained stage as he tugs you along and you wonder if it’s something to do with the animatronics, but you can’t fathom exactly what that might mean.

The manager’s office is familiar to you now, but you don’t recognize the yellow costume slumped in the corner. It’s massive, big enough to house a human certainly, the mascot’s headpiece sitting atop the desk. It’s clearly seen better days, the fur of the suit so frayed and worn in places that the metal frame and wires are exposed. The rabbit’s head is missing part of one ear.

“Oh, yes. I left this in here didn’t I?” He’s nuzzling your throat but he’s only got half your attention now.

“This is yours? Like, you wear this?” You slide a hand over the worn gold felt and try to imagine his long body encased in this creature. The oversized purple bowtie droops forlornly above a pair of black buttons, the only decorations on the costume.

“Sometimes.” He cups your breasts, tugs at the button of your jeans, seemingly oblivious to your lack of responsiveness to his ministrations.

“And do what?”

His groping digits finally still in the middle of tugging your zipper down. “Practice.”

“Practice? For what? Are you going to be a performer?” You can’t envision the older man at a child’s birthday party, posing for photos and waving to guests.

He clucks his tongue and sighs, clearly frustrated. “No. I need it for my other work.”

“I don’t understand.” When his hands attempt to resume their previous task you halt them, pushing him away.

He steps back, glowering. “Maybe I should just take you home now. You have an exam to study for.” His words are short, clipped and cold, a sharp contrast from his affections moments before.

It infuriates you. “Bullshit!” You slam your hand down on the desk. “You always have secrets and I’m tired of it. Why can’t you just explain it to me. I’m not a child.”

William’s pale eyes flash. “What is it exactly that you think having an affair with a married man is? That’s all it comprises. Secrets. Deception. Sneaking around. I give you whatever time I can—”

“I never said you didn’t—”

“—And I’ve told you, shown you more than anyone else. Anyone else,” he repeats, emphasizing the first word.

You swallow thickly, unable to reply. How did he manage to turn all this around, to make you feel guilty for doubting him when everything is so shrouded in mystery?

“I’m sorry,” you murmur softly.

“I don’t think you’re ready for this. You should just focus on school. Forget all of this.”

“So what, that’s it then? You’re just ditching me?” You feel the tears welling up in your eyes threatening to spill. “You don’t care about me at all, do you? I mean nothing to you.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth.” He reaches out to brush at the tears spilling over your cheeks, then his hand drops and forms a fist, knuckles blanching. “I’m trying to keep you safe,” he murmurs, but his gaze is no longer on you. He looks as if he’s waging some internal battle.

“Safe from what, William?”

His eyes find yours. “You need to trust me, or this is never going to work.”

You nod, still unsure, but unwilling to abandon this, as crazy as it might seem.

You can’t imagine existing without him.

Chapter 3

The ride home is silent.

Your hands are balled into fists resting on denim clad thighs. You stare sightlessly through the passenger window until you reach your destination.

The vehicle slows, slipping around a bit on the snow covered streets. It’s not deep but it’s starting to freeze as the evening wears on and the temperature drops. The engine quiets and you hear the slight jingle of keys being pulled from the ignition and a creak as the driver’s side door swings open.

You take a deep breath, stepping out onto the slush covered curb after William pulls your door open. He remains silent, his gaze heavy on you as you shove at the passenger door. It fails to close properly and you rip it back open with more force than necessary before slamming it closed again. The tears are back and you hate that you nearly made it without letting him see how hurt you are again.

You begin the trek up the stairs on the side of the building, clutching tightly to the railing. He’s right behind you, an extra shadow.

You’ve nearly made it to the top when you slip on a patch of ice concealed by snow and he catches you in his arms, wrapping around you and holding you steady.

You protest then, tell him he should just go home, the storm is making the roads unsafe, it’s getting late, you think it’s just easier if you make the excuses for him. You can’t stomach another lie right now.

“I’m not leaving,” he vows, helping you fumble the keys into the lock.

The warm air indoors blankets you as you stumble inside, kicking off sneakers and shrugging off your jacket. You wait for William to do the same, watching as he fills the electric kettle with water, removes a pair of mugs from the cabinet near the sink and rummages for tea bags, moving around the kitchen confidently. You scrub at your tear stained cheeks and mutter that you can help but he waves you away.

You sniffle but allow him to continue, grateful for the warm cup that’s pressed into your hands moments later. You’re focused on the amber liquid within when he speaks again, startling you.

“There are things in my life that you can’t be part of-”

“Yeah I know you have a family,” you interrupt bitterly.

“I’m not talking about that,” he snaps, setting his own cup back on the counter. He inhales deeply, his voice calmer. “There are things that I’m working on that are dangerous.” Your eyes flicker to his forearm, where you know he’s been branded by the spring locks from the mascot costume. He nods, rubbing over the sleeve of his dress shirt. “Yes, this, among other things.”

You want to ask about the other things, but you’re afraid he’s going to be upset with you again; perhaps even more afraid of what sinister things they might actually be. “I could help. I would try to, anyway,” you mumble.

William shakes his head dismissively. “I just hired someone earlier today for security at night. There’s been some problems with break-ins. Which brings me to my next point: it isn’t safe to be there without me. Understand?”

“Why would I go there without you? And you never told me about any vandalism,” you add. “And what if someone breaks in while you’re there by yourself? What if they have a weapon or something?”

“I’ll manage. I know how to protect myself.” He takes the mug from your hands and sets it next to his, then turns and grasps your arms firmly. “I need you to promise me you won’t go there without me. And you let me handle all of this. Don’t get involved. The less you know, the better. Promise me,” he repeats, his grip tightening slightly, and you nod hurriedly.

“Ok. I promise I won’t go to Freddy’s without you.” Your eyes dart to the clock on the microwave. “You’re really going to stay tonight?”

His grip relaxes, fingers sliding along your body in a caress. “I’ve got spare clothes in the car. I’ll need to leave first thing in the morning…” his voice trails off and you find yourself whispering an acceptance of his offer.

***

William’s always been very cautious about exposing certain parts of his body.

You’ve felt the springlock scars at various times, but you’ve never actually seen all of them.

Now he’s standing naked in your shower, hot water cascading down, and the true damage is revealed.

You trace the patterns, following the strange markings over his chest and arms and back, palpate the muscle underlying pale marred skin, especially in his upper arms and shoulders, his stomach much softer beneath your touch. You’ve ignited him again, allow him to press you against the fiberglass wall, face forward, one hand tucked under a thigh to support your weight and allow better access as he slides inside of you. He suckles at your neck, teeth grazing at times, thrusts harder and lets his hands wander over your body, squeezing dampened curves.

It continues in your bed with his body above yours.

The lights are off and his breath is warm and harsh against your cheek. His fingers close around your throat, applying a faint amount of pressure and you arch against him, encouraging him. You whisper his name and pledge your love, threading a hand through damp hair, feel him shudder and melt against you, inside of you.

You’re tucked neatly against his naked body an hour later, listening to him snore softly. Your eyes will not shut and sleep evades you.

In the early morning hours he departs and you remain near the door, staring at the violet tinged sky.

***

You’re in a daze at work, zombie paced, there without actually being present. Lectures at the university are muffled blurs. You feel as if everything in life is muted, colorless, without purpose until those moments when William is there, crashing in, warm and vibrant.

You visit him at the career counseling office, sitting across from his desk, waiting for him to finish a phone call, gaze wandering until you realize the name placard on his desk isn’t William. His eyes find yours and you swallow the question, watching as he flicks the plastic stand so the name Steve Raglan is no longer visible. After the handset slides back into its cradle the older man stands and walks around the desk. Tucking fingers under your chin he lifts your face, regarding you over lenses that have slipped down.

“We’re not going to have a problem, are we?”

You try to shake your head but his grip on your jaw is too tight so you whisper a response, let him fill your mouth with his cock and his seed and praise you for being a good girl.

He calls you late at night, moans and edges while you touch yourself, stroking your clit and whimpering, dipping fingers inside, sucking them wetly so he can hear. He tells you he’s cumming for you and you chase your own orgasm, biting your bottom lip hard to stifle the sound so your neighbors won’t hear.

Back at the pizzeria there’s a suspicious red stain on one of the sinks but you look away hurriedly and pretend not to notice. The rabbit suit vanishes from the manager’s office and you’re just as glad it’s gone. You don’t like what the costume brings out in William; the way he almost enjoys enduring the painful risk being encased in its steel skeleton entails. You’re frightened when he handles a knife during dinner, the touch almost a caress, the glint of metal matching the light in his eyes. The dark romance you’ve let yourself become swept up in suddenly seems foolish. Dangerous.

But you just can’t bring yourself to walk away.

William seems to know it too; becoming more gentle and attentive just when you’re at your most startled, ready to run. He buries his face in your hair, wraps his arms around you, whispers that he loves you and you’ll be together forever.

You want so much to believe him.

You return home briefly during Christmas break to visit family and the strange spell lifts. You talk and laugh as if everything is normal and you can almost pretend that it is.

Almost.

#william afton x reader #william afton x you #steve raglan x reader #steve raglan x you

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 6 months

Text

Have you never heard of such a thing, darling?

There is an abrupt cut to a classic YouTube channel intro. It’s the name ‘The Gotham Files, with Tim Drake’ in a metallic font, bouncing around to royalty-free, terrible dubstep music while fake strobe lights dance in the background. It is impossible to tell whether this is ironic or not. Assumedly yes, though, because then it cuts to a blank title card that seemed to have been ripped right off of a PowerPoint presentation that reads ‘Also Marinette is here’.

(The Timari Buzzfeed Unsolved Au)

Chapter 1: The Mysterious Case of Wayne Manor

A boy sits in a nondescript white room, on a white sofa, in a white shirt and black slacks. This could have all been controlled, of course, however, even the boy himself is not the most colorful – his skin is pale, his hair jet black, and even his eyes are a seemingly lifeless grey. He smiles at the camera, but there’s something unsettling about it. He shows off way too many teeth.

He waves jerkily. “Hello, everyone! I’ve gotten a lot of new subscribers since my last video hunting down the demon known as Poison Ivy –.”

There is an abrupt cut to a new bit of footage, in black and white to signify that it was from the past:

“If you’re a demon then you have to curse me,” the boy is saying from behind a camera.

A seemingly normal woman, though admittedly she is covered in enough dirt to make you wonder if she had just come back from digging up a grave, gives him a blank look. “Why would I do that?”

“You gotta.”

“I’m not going to.”

“Lame.”

The woman’s face drops into the annoyance that had clearly been threatening to appear for a while, and she starts to stand. The boy makes a squeaking noise and immediately runs in the opposite direction.

“– who was not a demon, she was just a regular lady who was really obsessed with poisoning rich people. Which is perfectly understandable and could happen to anyone.”

He nods sagely. There is no reason for this. He simply does. And does it for too long. It gets uncomfortable very quickly.

“But, this does not necessarily mean that ghosts and demons do not exist!”

He smiles.

“Now, in this episode, I am going to solve the mystery of whether Wayne Manor is truly hauhahaha–!”

He breaks character abruptly, bursting into laughter, covering his mouth with his fist in an attempt to smother it. A flush spreads across his cheeks, finally adding much-needed color to the room. “Sorry, I can’t – I can’t do my usual intro with you there.”

A person behind the camera giggles. “Aw, am I distracting you?”

“You were looking at me like you thought I was possessed, of course it was distracting.”

“You looked possessed, I don’t know what to tell you –!”

He laughs at her and makes a spinning motion with his pointer finger. “Oh my god, Editor!Me, just roll the intro here.”

On cue, there is an abrupt cut to a classic YouTube channel intro. It’s the words ‘The Gotham Files, with Tim Drake’ in a metallic font, bouncing around to royalty-free, terrible dubstep music while fake strobe lights dance in the background. It is impossible to tell whether this is ironic or not.

Assumedly yes, though, because then it cuts to a blank title card that seemed to have been ripped right off of a PowerPoint presentation that reads ‘Also Marinette is here’.

When the white screen disappears, the viewers find Tim standing alone in front of a wrought iron fence. The plants at the fence’s feet are overgrown, weaving intricately around the poles and climbing up the sides.

Tim had also climbed up the fence, evidently, seeing as he was still breathing a little heavily. The boy looks more normal now, wearing an old hoodie and jeans and smiling in a way that shows off his dimples. His cheeks have far more color in them now, but that just might be due to overexertion.

“Hey, so, GCPD – I know you watch my videos because Poison Ivy got arrested like a week after I posted – I would like you to know that I’m not actually trespassing. In order to trespass, there have to be people living in the place you’re supposedly trespassing in. Probably. I don’t know the law. But you guys don’t, either, so!”

He flashes a finger gun with the hand not holding the camera and attempts a wink. Unfortunately, Tim is unable to wink, so he just ends up blinking aggressively at a camera lens.

But that’s beside the point! He turns the camera around to point it at what one would, politely, call an abandoned mansion.

Less politely, it would be called a safety hazard. Half of the building looked like it had caved in on itself, graffiti covered the previously pristine white walls, and plants climbed in and out of every window. The back door hangs half off its hinge, and Tim doesn’t even want to imagine what has taken residence in the place since the Wayne family’s unfortunate passing.

“Everyone ready for another day of probably getting tetanus?”

There is no answer. He is talking to a camera.

Said camera speeds through the next few minutes of Tim exploring. Stagnant water and mold, dust bunny families and spiderwebs, a raccoon that Tim runs from immediately, rusting cookware still left out on the counter for a family that would never get to eat it, a moment to linger on Tim when he stubs his toe on a loose floorboard and heaves a deep sigh, a portrait that was peeling out of its frame, a broken grandfather clock, Tim posing in front every graffitied penis he could find, ransacked closets and cabinets…

He stops in the middle of the mansion, smiling widely when the camera is spun back to look at him. “Well, no ghosts yet, but we can’t rule them out. I guess.”

He takes off his backpack and begins rifling through it until he finds his Spirit Box.

“Now, I’m sure that most of you know what this is, but just in case you don’t: a Spirit Box will cycle through local radio frequencies at a rapid speed. The theory is that ghosts can string together these snippets of words to speak or answer questions.”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Or, at least, that’s what people say. I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then, I’m going with a healthy mix of the ‘lucky coincidences’ and ‘confirmation bias’ theories.”

He flicks the nob to turn it on, and the radio immediately begins to cycle through vague sounds, the box crackling.

Tim shuffles a little, letting the box run as he shrugs off his jacket and sets it down so he can have a clean spot to sit for a while. He props up the camera on his knee and angles it up to show his face as he lifts the Spirit Box to his lips.

“Is anyone there?”

“Ye –!”

Tim looks unperturbed. “You said there’s someone there?”

The box sputters out an indecipherable string of sounds. A fluke, then.

He gives a small hum. “I see, I see.”

There is another moment as the box continues to make sounds. They’re deeper in tone now, but no closer to human language.

“Well,” he says. “If there is anyone in the room with me, I’d like to ask you to show yourself in some way. Possess something nearby, move something, make a sound –.”

The door slams open, and Tim instantly jumps to his feet, the camera catching a terrible view of the underside of his chin for a moment when he hugs it to his chest. Don’t worry, though, dear viewer, for he soon remembers that he is a YouTuber and quickly readjusts, pointing the camera at the door.

There is no one there, but a brilliant light illuminates the door opposite the room they are in.

“Wha…?” Tim says, his voice a whisper, only barely caught by his mic.

There is a person talking just outside the room. They are speaking in tongues.

Or perhaps in French, it is often hard to tell.

Regardless, the captions at the bottom of the video say that it is French and that she is apparently saying a vast quantity of demonetizable words that Editor!Tim could not write out.

The gist, though, is that she is apparently there because of a bet and not happy about it. Hence the many demonetizable words.

After a few seconds, Editor!Tim apparently gives up on censoring individual words, and instead chooses to bleep out the entirety of what she was saying. For the sake of monetization, not because he’s a stickler for rules or anything.

You might think that demonetizable words should be allowed when you are hunting ghosts and demons and the like, and Tim might agree, but he actually likes money, so...

What was the point here?

Oh, right.

Slowly, a girl makes her way into the room, her phone out in front of her like a pitifully tiny shield, the flashlight nearly blinding Tim.

She stares at him for a long few moments. She mumbles something to herself, but even in editing Tim had been unable to decipher it. So, yellow question marks litter the screen.

“Uh… hi,” Tim says, lifting his hand in an awkward wave.

[Ew, an American.]

Tim’s eyebrows shoot up into his hair. [You realize that you’re in America, right? Most people here are going to be Americans.]

Her eyes widen. “You… you speak French?!” she asks in heavily accented English, seeming mortified. Not because she felt bad about insulting him, but instead that she had been caught doing it.

[Obviously.]

Her face reddens, and she tries, unsuccessfully, to hide it with her free hand. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Are you really?”

She seems to consider this for a few moments, before shrugging. “I guess not.”

Tim should probably be offended. He isn’t, though. At least she was honest. Eventually.

She sticks a hand out. “I’m Marinette.”

He shakes it, smiling. “Tim.”

There were a few moments as they looked at each other, unsure what to do.

“I think your radio is broken,” she says finally, pointing at the Spirit Box. It lay on the floor, abandoned, just barely vibrating from the force of its own sounds. “Or, at least, it’s not getting any reception way out here. Keeps saying ‘Hi’.”

Tim frowns. “What time is it?”

“Like…” she looks at her phone. “About seventeen…”

She catches on to his blank stare. She glances behind herself, further into the house, as if considering braving the ghosts.

She is not brave.

She closes the door behind herself, smiling. “Right. American. Five in the afternoon.”

“Oh, that’s because everyone is getting off work and they’re greeting the sudden influx of viewers.”

“I have literally no clue how that correlates.”

“It’s ghosts,” he says, rolling his eyes.

She either does not understand sarcasm or simply does not want to risk it, because her shoulders hike up to her ears and she looks around quickly. “I’m going to kill Alya,” she hisses.

“If you hate ghosts that much, I don’t think that’s in your best interest. Because killing someone would lead to more ghosts, you know,” Tim points out.

Despite the fact that he keeps his tone as gentle as he can while breaking this news to her, she looks absolutely devastated.

Slowly, Tim picks himself up off of the floor, turning off the Spirit Box as he goes. The Spirit Box gives a high whine before sputtering out, but he pays it no mind, so this must not be important. He stuffs it in his bag and heads over to Marinette, slinging an arm over her shoulders and starting to lead her away, out of the room and through the many, winding hallways.

“Know what will calm you down? I’m going to tell you all about the family that once owned this place, and their unfortunate demises.”

“Are you streaming?” she asks, eyeing his camera warily.

“... does the way that I answer this affect whether I’ll die here or not?”

She giggles and does not answer. He does not seem assured by this.

Still, he points the camera at themselves and begins to explain: “The Waynes were a lovely family of philanthropists, and the town lost quite a lot when they were tragically shot after their family outing to the theater. To this day, twenty years after that tragic night, Gotham has yet to recover.”

A few moments of silence swallow them.

Text at the bottom of the screen says that this is not an editing mistake, and instead a choice made to respect the dead. There is also a timestamp where a person can skip to the next bit of ‘content’ if they so wish, and they would go on with their day none the wiser of the fact that Editor!Tim had called them a ‘limp noodle of a person who would not know morality if it walked up, introduced itself, and then punched them in the face’.

But, again, those people would be none the wiser, so…

Tim smiles charmingly at the camera, as if he had not just insulted a large portion of them without their knowledge. “Now their house is a prime hangout spot for dumb teens, such as Marinette and me.”

“I’m not dumb,” she huffs halfheartedly.

“You believe in ghosts.”

“Well, yeah, duh, I’d be stupid not to, seeing as my house is haunted.”

“You’ve seen ghosts?” Tim says, skeptical.

“You don’t see ghosts,” she sniffs, in that tone people use when they are offended by the stupidity they are being presented with. Tim gets this a lot, but never has he ever felt it was so unwarranted. “You just know they’re there. Like when they knock over your cups for no reason.”

Briefly, the image of a cat flickers on the screen. Because that is what she is describing. A cat.

“Okay. Unrelated question, is belief in ghosts common in your culture? Because they won’t treat you if it is.”

She shoots him an annoyed scowl, but there is something amused tugging at the corners of her lips regardless. “You’re the absolute worst.”

He grins. “Glad you think so. I put lots of effort into making people hate me, you know. It’s nice to have my efforts appreciated for once.”

“I wouldn’t say appreciated…”

“No no. I’m appreciated.”

“Okay,” she says easily.

They reach the front doors, and Marinette raises an eyebrow.

“You know, if you wanted me to leave, you could have just told me. I would have left.”

“I couldn’t just leave a woman in need alone,” he says, pressing a hand to his chest.

She looks unimpressed.

“... and, besides, I was pretty much done here, so…” he shrugs. “Figured I’d escort you out.”

She looks at her phone for a moment before shaking her head. “I appreciate it, but I can’t leave for another… twenty-three minutes.”

He thinks this over for a few moments, frowning. He glances back the way they came, as if considering hanging around for longer. And then he decides against it with a tiny shake of his head.

“You know, it’s illegal to be here,” he says.

“You’re here. And filming yourself doing the illegal thing. I think that makes what you’re doing way worse.”

Tim’s eyebrows knit together. “I mean, touche and all, but I was just saying that you could tell your friend that to get out of this.”

“... oh.”

He snorts into his hand. “Oh my god, did you really not realize?”

“Shut up! I hate you!” she whined. “I’ve had a lot on my mind, you know!”

“Yeah. Like cups falling off of tables, apparently.”

She punches him in the shoulder lightly, and he only laughs more openly.

Still, ever the gentleman (even while laughing at her misfortune), he opens the door for her. Still, despite her supposed hatred of him, she rushes through all too eagerly with a murmured thank you.

He only gets a second to follow after her before the door slams shut behind them, so close to hitting Tim in the back that the force of it makes his hair blow in his face.

Marinette throws him behind herself immediately, her hands up in a fighting position as if she intends to fight the ghost for him. Not that it would help, probably, but the thought was still there.

Tim looks a little touched as he rests a hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

“Don’t worry about it, the place is old, and the loss of weight is probably just throwing everything off balance.”

“... is that supposed to make me feel better? Because all I’m hearing is that this building is super unstable.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re outside now, isn’t it?” he says, grinning cheekily.

And, despite herself, she smiles back.

His expression drops immediately as something hits him to make up for the door’s near miss. He groans and falls to his knees in utter devastation. “I left my jacket inside…”

“It’s the ghosts’ jacket now,” she says, patting him on the back in a way that really isn’t as consoling as she seems to think it is.

Tim starts to fake cry.

There is a hard cut. Tim is back on the couch he had been on at the beginning, but his posture is more relaxed this time and his smile is actually normal.

“Well, as usual, there was no ghost to be found. Because they don’t exist.”

A pillow sails across the screen, very intent on hitting him, but he bats it away easily. Because it’s a pillow.

“But maybe the real ghosts are the friends we made along the way!”

Marinette groans off-screen. “Don’t do this to me. You’re going to make me have an existential crisis.”

He hums a little, his eyes gleaming as he leans back, letting himself sink into the plush couch. “So, as usual, there isn’t much to go over…” He smiles. “I guess I can talk about meeting Mari, though. My first thought when meeting Mari was…” He trails off, visibly mulling it over in his mind with pursed lips. “Well, my first thought was that she looked scared and it would probably help her if she had someone to do this with.”

Someone behind the camera coos, not noticing the way his lips begin to tug upwards into a smirk.

“My second thought was ‘The people like it when I have guests on. I can capitalize on this’.”

Marinette makes a sound incomprehensible to human ears and rushes into frame, a new pillow raised. Tim screams.

The scene cuts. Marinette and Tim are sitting on the couch together, now. Their hair is a little messy from the unshown pillow fight. Marinette is lazing across the sofa, her legs thrown over Tim’s lap, so it was safe to assume she had won.

“You want to know what I thought when I first met you?” Marinette wears a slightly sheepish grin. “I thought ‘Oh my god, why is the ghost so tiny? He needs soup.’”

Tim snorts. “No way.”

She nods, trying and failing to keep her expression neutral. She turns to look at the camera dead on. “And, if you guys at home don’t want to be mistaken for skinny little ghosts, then you should hop on over to the website of our sponsor, Hello Fresh!”

Tim rests his arm over the top of the couch, smiling openly. “We’re actually sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends.”

Marinette snaps her fingers in her best overdramatic ‘awwwww man’ gesture, shaking her head. “God dang it. It was worth a shot.”

“Eh, I’ll still use it as an excuse to do my ad read now.” He turns to grin at the camera, opening his mouth –.

As one, everyone watching leaves the video.

~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 2

#maribat #timari #timinettte #timmari #this was supposed to come out on Halloween but shut up #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #red robin #tim drake

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puzzleemerald · 3 months

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Because Amaterasu and Sesshōmaru don't have much further art at the moment, I decided to share another couple who are most dear to my heart. YCH by the lovely Antodonatella on Instagram & DeviantArt.

Please don't reblog!

Keep in mind I will be talking about the FanFiction version of Ayumu in this post! The version of Ayumu I roleplay is her own separate deal! When her bio is done and put up on my Master Post, I won't only RP Ayumu interacting with exclusively Neji writers, lol.

Neji Hyūga is already a very recognizable character, being one of my very first crushes when I started really getting into anime as a thirteen to fourteen-year-old. In fact, he's the reason I later bought and read the manga... all hundred-heccin'-something volumes of it. Much like Sesshōmaru, it was his long hair, elegance, intellect, and stoic demeanor that won me over at first. It also amused me to watch him just be cool; he always felt like the definitive head of his team. Even if Lee wasn't to be sneezed at as a fighter, I saw more leadership qualities in Neji that Lee lacked. I also felt that he had the most interesting plight among the Konoha thirteen as someone from a branch in his clan where he was basically expected to serve and protect the head family deemed "above" him on the social-political totem pole the Hyūga were built on. Despite his innate talent rivaling the daughters of the clan's head at the time, he'd always be considered lesser because of his birth. In ways, he felt like more of an underdog to me than Naruto did—though that also has a lot to do with Naruto's characterization as the "optimistic headstrong protagonist" Kishimoto had going. (I kinda wish Kishi had leaned more into Naruto having some resentment towards the Leaf, but that's a post for another day)

So what'd teenage me do? Tailor an OC to be another half for him because GDI this man deserves happiness, not getting skewered like a redshirt on an overgrown splinter. If they had to have someone, ANYONE, sacrifice themself for Hinata... tbh, I wish it'd been someone on her team like Kiba or Shino, so we didn't have to basically do the thing he was "born to do" according to Clan tradition asfdhjrhyud—

Deep breaths. I'm calm. Suppress the fangirl rage.

So, as a result, I created Ayumu! Who was, by every definition, a Mary Sue at first!! (It was bad... oh god, was it bad...) But after I ditched her for a few years when I lost interest in Naruto, I returned to her when I turned seventeen and completely rehauled her. Leading to the designs she has now.

This is Ayumu's Part 1/Naruto Design. The Settei was done by a friend of mine on IG called Sento.OC, whom I commissioned.

Then, we have Ayumu's Part 2/Shippuden Design, also by Sento.

When designing an OC for Neji, I wanted to go more complimentary than contrary. It just didn't feel like it'd make sense for Neji to ever be romantically interested in someone with bombastic energy like Naruto or Lee—mans doesn't have the patience to live with that on a daily basis, LOL! So I thought, "Hey, Neji's a pretty traditional guy; why not give him a traditional woman?" and Ayumu ended up as a very grounded, calm, and analytical person. A bit more on the conservative side, similar to Neji. All the while having occasional bursts of warm, thoughtful moments where she lights up but doesn't explode. She's very, for lack of a better term off the top of my head, "normal" compared to Naruto's big personality, Sasuke's broodiness, Shikamaru's laziness, or Temari's ferocity. It's why I imagine her getting along very well with people like Tenten or Kakashi, too, who tend to be the metaphorical straight man to the more comedic characters around them. Characters like Gai and Lee and Naruto can only be funny, after all, if they're offset by some typically.

Ayumu is also a close-range fire-style specialist with a Kekkei Genkai related to it, so her style compliments Neji's pretty well imo. They can be in a shoulder-to-shoulder or back-to-back situation and cover one another while knowing the other is nearby and safely under their wing. Both characters have some insecurity and neglect issues but for very different reasons. However, this means they relate to one another over their feelings and traumas, and neither really feels a need to "fix" the other. It's what makes them last, in my opinion. They just quietly comfort each other (also slap whoever tries to put the other down, lol), and that's it. ...They did kinda try to scratch each other's eyes out at first, but that'll be its own post! Once they get over their big hurdle and understand each other, they end up just being a pair of supportive friends to lovers 90% of the time. The other 10% is them getting fucked with by the plot around them because Neji barely gets any screen time in Shippudennnnnnn! ;-;

#Please don't reblog #Commission art #Art commission #Naruto #Naruto Shippuden #Anime #Manga #Naruto OC #Neji #Neji Hyuga #Neji Hyuuga #OC #OC x canon #Neji x OC #Fanfic #Fanfiction

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makethiscanon · 1 year

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SnowFall: Krel x Fem!Reader [Part 2]

Word Count: 820

Rating: G

Tags: First Meetings, Winter, Skiing, Adventure, Third-Person

Read Part 1: [HERE]

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At the base of the mountain, once everyone had their skiing equipment, they huddled together with a map to decide which course to try first.

“Ooo, we should do this one.” Aja said, pointing at a course that started at the top of the mountain, marked by two black diamonds. Steve quickly wrestled the map away from her, pitching her a loving but ‘are you nuts’ expression.

“You can’t start on a double black diamond piste.”

“Why not?” She scowled at him, then smiled after a second thought. “Aw. Are you worried about me?”

“A-doy. Double-blacks are expert level. Aja, people die on double-blacks. How about we start on a green course?”

“Imminent death?” Varvatos chortled with glee. “Glorious! Only the most dangerous courses are worthy of Varvatos’s footfall. If today is to be our day, may we crash and burn in snow-blazon glory!”

Passers-by picked up their speed, hoping to get away from the seemingly senile old geezer.

“No, no,” said Steve, his voice noticeably higher at the thought of what horrors could face him should he go along with Aja and Varvatos’s plan. “I think I’m gonna stick to the green course.”

“Fair enough, my Palchuk. Safe travels, and may we meet again in one piece.”

Everyone noticed, but no one commented on Steve’s sigh of relief.

Noticing his lack of input, Aja cocked a curious eyebrow at Krel.

“What about you, little brother? Are you coming?”

Krel was rather aware of his mortality after the attack on his parents. Without Mother functioning at full capacity, it would be hard for her to repair the damages to anyone other than the king and queen. And given that Krel was stuck in his squishy human body whilst on the slopes, he didn’t think risking his fragile neck for a thrill ride was a smart choice.

That being said, he refused to be as cowardly as the lumbering oaf.

“I will do that one,” he said, pointing to a blue course that mostly swerved through the woodlands. Aja shrugged, already plucking her ski poles from the snow.

“Suit yourself.” She pointed to where they were standing. “Meet here in an hour. And be careful on the slopes.”

“I should say the same to you.” Krel huffed, but smiled when he saw Aja’s face light up at the thought of the day ahead.

They each went their separate ways, using different ski-lifts to ascend the mountains.

Krel wondered, now that he was alone, whether it was too late to sneak back to his room for a while. But by the time he thought it, the ski-lift had pulled him off the ground. The drop was too steep for his feeble, human legs to manage.

“What did I agree to?” He lamented, feeling the cold breeze on the one part of his face not covered by thermals. Humans were an evolutionary nightmare, he decided. They should have whittled out their thermoreceptors long ago.

But as he ascended the mountain, he could at least appreciate the great view. The mountain-range stretched on for miles, and the sky was so blue it left him with a reminiscent feeling of Akiridion-5. He had to wonder how the resistance was doing, feeling guilty for taking a break while they were still fighting.

There was a muddled congregation of people as Krel left the ski-lift. A sort of ‘I need to go that way but you’re coming this way’ as skiers shuffled towards their preferred pistes. Thankfully, the courses were sign-posted so once Krel knew where he was headed, he did his best to push through the crowds.

Once he was through, he stood to one side to watch the other skiers moving on the slopes. It seemed… easy. Surprisingly easy. Physics seemed to do most of the work.

He watched until he understood the general footwork, then got himself into position.

Admittedly, he wobbled as he set off. Until he learned where to put his weight, it was a lot of heaving and pushing. But soon he was off down the mountainside.

The firs lining the course were tall. With overgrown branches, they gave the course a sense of seclusion. Krel enjoyed the privacy. He picked up speed, using his precise knowledge of aerodynamics and kinetic energy to gleefully bypass the other skiers.

By the time he reached the bottom of the course, daresay it, he was actually enjoying himself. Skiing came with a thrill. It had a sense of victory. One that was much greater, given that he had not fallen over during the many twists and turns of his descent.

Figuring he still had some time before the meet-up, Krel decided to try another course. He headed back up the mountain, but chose a single black diamond piste instead of blue. Aja might have been on to something with choosing a tougher track, but he still wasn’t willing to risk 100% of his neck.

A single black diamond would be plenty.

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Part 3: [COMING SOON]

[WRITING MASTERLIST]

#tales of arcadia #toa #krel #tarron #prince krel #x reader #friendship #imagines #x you #winter #Aja #steve palchuk #Varvatos #skiing #SnowFall #arcadia #3below #trollhunters #MTCfics

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say-al0e · 2 years

Text

Roll Along

Rating: PG -13 (Some angst, some language)

Summary: After the battle with Vecna, the future looks bleak. Steve Harrington is there to remind you that it doesn't have to look that way. He knows what it's like to be afraid but, sometimes, looking toward something that seems unrealistic is the only way to keep moving forward. | ft. “I didn’t know where to go,” requested by anon.

Pairing: Steve x fem!Reader (romantic)

Warnings: Vol2 spoilers, canon compliant :(, hurt/comfort, brief Steve’s family fantasy talk, angst and sadness, a mention or two of drugs.

Word Count: 6k

Stranger Things Masterlist

The little tennis court, nestled in the corner of the old park on the edge of town, had seen better days. Vines crept up the fences, wound around the chainlink so tight it would be next to impossible to tear them down, and the gate had rusted shut some time ago. Cracks marred the dingy green surface around the edges and weeds poked through but the center was smooth enough, devoid of nets and poles and sprigs of green.

A newer park had been built closer to the town’s center, dropped into a location central to the manicured lawns of the nicer neighborhoods, so few people ventured this far out of Hawkins just to use a rusted set of swings and an overgrown pavilion.

A handful of teenagers, kids a few years younger than you but older than the party, smoked on the jungle gym and fooled around by the picnic tables, but they were few and far between. You’d come to an understanding with them, anyway; the park was yours in the morning, when the sun rose high in the sky and cast the overgrown greenery in a warm glow, and theirs when dusk began to fall.

For as long as you could remember, the park was a place for you to disappear. It was the place you went to clear your head - a space you’d claimed as your sanctuary, off limits unless invited by you - and everyone in your life respected that.

The kids, though desperate to see you, always radioed ahead if they couldn’t find you with one of the others your age. Eddie, who rarely left your side, only appeared if you left a note specifically requesting his presence, and usually appeared with a joint and a book, just in case. Robin rarely ventured that far out of Hawkins and, for the most part, only really tagged along if you were expecting the whole group. And Steve, kind, golden hearted Steve, made it a point to avoid the park - and keep the others away - unless it was an absolutely necessity.

Just as he’d been roped into babysitting, playing chauffeur and devoting your every waking moment to a gaggle of young teenagers, so had you. If anyone understood what it was like to need a break, to desperately need a sanctuary, it was him.

However, that was before Vecna; before the world as you all knew it went straight to hell. These days, alone time was unheard of, rarely granted and certainly not going uninterrupted. Therefore, you were wholly unsurprised to see the deep burgundy BMW roll to a stop near one of the parking spots. The lines had faded so badly that no hint of them remained, though it wasn’t as if that really mattered when the only other car in the vicinity was yours.

Steve was the only one who could drive and had likely drawn the short straw, sent to the park to check on you after you left your walkie stuffed beneath a pillow on your bed. Check-in calls were regular and, if left unanswered, understandably called for more desperate measures these days.

From the corner of your eye, you could see the car door open and a familiar figure clad in light wash jeans and a grey jacket step out into the cool spring air. Even over the mixtape playing, tinny and soft through your headphones, you could hear the door click shut with a faint thud and gravel crunch under his feet as he rounded the car to take a seat on the hood.

Instead of moving closer, walking up to the fence and attempting to catch your eye or taking a seat in one of the rusty benches near the gate, Steve remained where he was. He made no effort to interrupt you and seemed content to simply sit and watch.

The roller skates you purchased secondhand from the rink a few towns over had, like the tennis court, seen better days. The leather was scuffed and faded, wrinkled from years of wear and tear; the toe stop had been worn to nearly nothing, rubber giving way to metal; and the wheels grew looser every time you wore them, but they made you happy. Or, at least, they used to.

Before Vecna, skating was freeing. It was a way for you to lose yourself in the wind blowing through your hair and the rush of wheels flying across pavement. Skating was where you felt safest, where you felt happiest, and you were desperate to feel something good.

Two weeks had passed in a blur, March giving way to April, but the weight on your chest had yet to ease. Every breath you took still hurt, sawed its way free of your lungs and barely inflated them upon its return. The tips of your fingers tingled, body in a suspended state of fight or flight, and you wondered if your limbs would ever stop trembling.

Every drag of your eyelids was sluggish, slow and hesitant, as the dark saw a return of all the things you so desperately wanted to forget. The deep red of Vecna’s lair, the inky black sky above the trailer park, the sticky rust of blood as it pooled beneath your fingertips and stained the brilliant white of Eddie’s Hellfire shirt, the angry mark around Steve’s throat, the tears in Dustin’s eyes.

Each image haunted you, pressed on your chest until you felt as if your heart and lungs might burst, and with each labored breath, you sometimes hoped they would.

Though two weeks had passed, everything still hurt. The bruises and gashes that littered your skin were still noticeable, still ached in a way that told you your body may never feel the same. This battle, like the ones before, had left you scarred - physically, emotionally - and every shift of your body served as a reminder of the hell you’d so recently endured.

Still, you pretended.

Desperately, you pretended that Steve wasn’t there, sitting and watching with those warm brown eyes searching for any hint as to how you felt. You pretended that your lungs didn’t burn with every inhale and that you side didn’t ache where you’d been bitten. You pretended that your neck and chest and sides and legs weren’t littered with wounds that felt as if they might never heal. You pretended that you were alone, skating for the fun of it.

You pretended that your life hadn’t been completely and utterly destroyed in only a matter of days.

For a few long moments - what could’ve been a handful of minutes, possibly even an hour - you rolled around the court. Any other time, you would’ve relished in having Steve’s attention completely to yourself. You would’ve shown off, practiced a few spins and dips and pretty moves that made you feel like a goddess, just to see him smile. You would’ve twirled a little, grinned at him as he laughed, but being the center of his attention didn’t feel quite as important as it had only a few weeks ago.

After everything you’d been through, being at the center of Steve Harrington’s attention now felt hollow.

A pang of regret twisted your stomach, already tied in knots, and you struggled to swallow tears. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that you felt this way, wasn’t his fault you lived in Hawkins - the current center of hell - and it wasn’t fair that you’d read too much into something that, to him, likely meant nothing. It didn’t even matter anymore, not when there were more pressing matters at hand, and you refused to allow yourself to focus on it.

Instead, you focused on keeping your breathing even. The mixtape, a combination of your favorites and a handful of Corroded Coffin originals, drowned out the thoughts and made it easier to keep yourself distracted. It drowned out the anguished cries that played on a loop any time you allowed silence to fall, drowned out the little voice in the back of your head that told you you should be in their place, instead - gone, instead of Eddie; lying in a hospital bed, instead of Max - and made it easier to blink back tears.

The whip of the wind against your skin calmed the fire that had been brewing just beneath the surface. It mellowed the burning anger at how unfair this all seemed, the bitter sorrow at the young lives forever changed, the despair at the friends you lost, the hollow resignation that the future you’d just started to imagine would never come to fruition. The wind carried some of the burden away, eased the weight on your chest only slightly, and you took your first deep breath in two weeks, only slightly surprised that you could smell spring flowers.

Peace was never yours to bask in, however, and all too soon, exhaustion - brought about by your lack of sleep, lack of appetite, lack of desire to do anything other than the bare minimum - caught up to you. As graceful as you’d become on your skates, the distraction of the real world crashing into you sent you stumbling.

On instinct, you caught yourself. As your hands slapped against cracked concrete, the rough surface adding to the scrapes already marring your skin, you could hear the rattle of the fence and the thump of sneakers hitting concrete, even over the tinny sounds pouring from your headphones.

Before you could so much as blink, Steve was at your side. He knelt down, set himself at eye level, and helped you shuffle into a seated position. His hands were warm, careful, as they reached for yours. Soft brown eyes, honeyed in the sunlight, studied your skin in search of any damage - anything he hadn’t already seen, hadn’t already bandaged a handful of times by now - and you couldn’t help shrinking away from the intensity in his gaze.

Steve sighed, the sound more common than nearly any other he seemed to make these days, but remained quiet as his fingers ghosted along your palm. Any other time, he would’ve chastised you for not wearing your protective gear. You could practically recite the speech you and Max got every time you even mentioned skating, the plea for you both to at least wear your wrist guards and a helmet, but he knew this wasn’t the time or place. Instead, he tipped his head to glance at your skates.

“Think your toe stop’s loose,” he observed, one hand leaving yours to tap the worn orange rubber. “I might have a wrench at home. Could take a look, if you’ll let me.”

“S’okay.” The acknowledgement was quiet, a whisper into the still of the afternoon as you tugged your headphones down with your free hand and looped them around your neck. Steve still heard you, however, and lifted his eyes to yours. Sunlight reflected in them, gold flecks glittering with each pass they made across your face, and you struggled to keep yours open as you shook your head. “Think it’s time for new ones, anyway.”

The warmth of Steve’s palm bled into yours, heated your body from within as his fingers tangled with yours. He was careful not to apply pressure, cognizant of the fresh scrapes and the sting you were likely to feel, but the gesture still brought tears to your eyes as you ducked your head.

This was far from the first time Steve had touched you, far from the first time you’d found yourself in this position, but it was the first you’d ever felt this way.

With your chin pressed to your chest, lip quivering and eyes stinging with unshed tears, you wondered how long things would remain this way. Part of it was, undoubtedly, due to the fact that this was the first time you’d been alone since that. For the first time in nearly two weeks, there was no Robin or Dustin or Lucas or Nancy or Mike or Will or Eleven to fill the silence; there was no other body to shuffle into the newly reopened chasm that made the few inches of space separating your bodies feel like an endless expanse.

For the first time in nearly two years, you weren’t really sure what to say to Steve and neither, it seemed, was he.

In the beginning, back when you were just the babysitter and he was the cooler replacement, awkward silences were commonplace. They lingered, long and uncomfortable, and you swore that you had nothing in common with Steve Harrington until he began to break them with a less than smooth babble that made you grin despite yourself.

When things changed, when you ventured into the Upside Down together that first time - Steve’s second encounter with the supernaturally shitty but your first - silences grew less and less frequent.

The more you grew to like Steve - and you really, truly, totally liked him - the more talkative Steve seemed to become. He always filled the silence with fondly exasperated complaints about Dustin, stories about customers, quips Robin made that he figured you’d like; little pieces of his day, moments in his life that you weren’t there for but he felt the need to share with you, anyway.

Sometimes, months after he and Nancy ended their relationship and he decided to start trying again, he gave you an update on his love life. For nearly a year and half, Steve sat with you in the comfort of his car and lamented this date with Linda or that one with Stacey. But that was before he’d asked you to take a chance on him.

In February, not long after Valentine’s Day, Steve asked you to take a chance on him. It wasn’t exactly a surprise - you’d come to terms with your crush nearly a year into your friendship and Steve had, in his own words, followed soon after - but you were taking things slow. You weren’t dating, not officially, not yet, but you’d gone on a handful of dates and, since then, silences had become even less likely.

Now, however, the silence felt crushing.

Some small part of you, the part that had been drowning in misery since stepping back into Hawkins, wanted to allow it to linger. You were tempted to allow it to fester, to grow deeper and heavier until Steve couldn’t stand it and left you alone once more, but you’d been brushing him off for nearly two weeks.

Though you hadn’t been left alone since that night, it wasn’t for Steve’s lack of trying. Soft hands found your skin at least once a day, warm fingers ghosting over the scrapes littering your arms and sides and legs, and honeyed eyes met yours nearly every time you lifted your head. But someone else always needed his attention, just before he could beg you for yours.

Steve had been patient, understanding in the way that only he seemed to be, but you knew that this conversation was necessary. There were a million things you both had to say - a million feelings you were both attempting to process - and you knew that there wouldn’t be another moment like this any time soon.

“I’m sorry.” When your whispered apology escaped into the air, soft in the cool spring breeze, you chanced a glance at Steve’s face and watched him frown. His brows furrowed in confusion, not quite certain what you were apologizing for, and you shook your head, eyes dropping back to your lap. “For disappearing, I guess. I just… I didn’t know where else to go.”

The look on his face softened then, shifted into a warm understanding, and you could feel the tears lining your lashes as he moved to sit beside you. Steve shifted closer, his knee knocking against yours, and rested his free hand on your thigh - just beneath a gash that was starting to scar - as he tipped his head to meet your eyes.

“You could’ve come to me.” Though the reminder was soft, warm and gentle and lacking any of the disappointment you’d been expecting, it still made you sniffle as his fingers squeezed yours. Those eyes, capable of seeing right through you, searched your face - for what, you couldn’t even begin to imagine. It seemed as if he found it, however, when he shot you a soft smile. “I know I’ve taken a few hits to the head but my hearing’s still pretty good. I’m a good listener.”

Steve’s gentle reminder should’ve eased the ache in your chest. His presence, so typically charming and bright, should’ve cooled the burn in your lungs and quieted the cacophony of thoughts drowning out rationality, but it only served to make your heart beat just a touch faster.

Regardless of how many times he’d been there for you in the past - when you dove into the Upside Down after a gaggle of children, horrified to learn what lived beneath your feet; when you followed him on a reconnaissance mission and ended up captured, tortured by Russian soldiers beneath StarCourt; when your best friend disappeared, nowhere to be found and suddenly public enemy number one, after the body of a cheerleader appeared in his living room - that was then.

In only a handful of days, everything had changed and this time, you couldn’t fathom letting him in.

The sudden storm of emotions was understandable - something Steve would get, if only you could adequately convey the feeling to him - and no fault of his. He had no control over the town you both lived in, no control over the events leading up to this moment, and no ability to predict anything that happened in the span of two utterly soul crushing weeks.

Still, shutting down seemed easier than letting him when that storm included feelings that, in the grand scheme of things, didn’t seem to matter all that much, anyway.

“There’s a lot of shit going on,” you reminded him, as if he needed it. Regardless, Steve squeezed your fingers lightly instead of scoffing because if anyone was keenly aware of the situation at hand, it was Steve. “Dustin, Lucas, Robin; they’re all coming to you. I just… I didn’t want to pile on, didn’t want to bother you.”

Immediately, Steve shook his head, just as you expected. For all of his confidence, for his wit and the moments of levity he provided, for his past reputation and all the things that entailed, Steve Harrington had a heart of gold. He put others above himself at any given turn and, though he had his own trauma to process, he would do whatever he could to be a shoulder for Lucas or Dustin or Robin or you.

“There’s no way you could ever bother me,” he promised, eyes searching yours as he leaned in closer. “Especially after…” His gaze fell to the silver chain around your neck, suddenly impossibly heavy and blistering the skin it touched, and you lifted your hand to cradle the warm metal of Eddie’s ring. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. We haven’t really talked."

Though Eddie and Steve hadn’t known one another well - they’d shared a handful of classes in school, met in passing occasionally, but their only shared interests were you and Dustin, and Steve had been mildly jealous that not only did you spend your free time with Eddie, he’d managed to capture Dustin’s attention, too - he knew how it felt to have your world upended.

Steve hadn’t lost anyone in the way that you had - not yet, though Max was too close for comfort - but he understood.

That understanding was clear in the way he looked at you, the way his hand caressed your thigh and his fingers wrapped tight around yours, but you still shook your head. Talking about it would make it real, make the ache in your chest burn that much hotter, and you couldn’t stand it. “I should be the one asking you how you’re doing.” You gestured to his side, eyeing the bulk in his shirt where bandages still remained wrapped tight and frowned. “How’s your side?”

“Babe.” Steve’s reprimand was mild, lacking any heat at all, but it still pulled a quiet sigh from you as he knocked his knee into yours.

“Steve.”

With a roll of his eyes, Steve shook his head and gently untangled your fingers to trace the scrapes lining your palm. “It’s starting to scar. I’ll be fine,” he assured you, fingers a featherlight touch dragging across your heated skin. “Talk to me, please.”

There was an underlying desperation in Steve’s tone, a pleading that hadn’t been there the last time he spoke to you, but you weren’t ready to talk about it yet. Nothing felt real - Eddie being gone, Max physically there but hanging on by a thread, Dustin walking around as a shell of himself - and you were afraid that breathing it aloud would make it so.

It took every ounce of your strength to hold yourself together, to cling to the fraying threads of your sanity, and letting Steve know how shattered you were - how empty you felt, knowing that your best friend was gone; how lost you felt, not knowing if the girl you’d come to view as a sister would make it; how devastated you felt, seeing Dustin walk around openly displaying the emotions you swallowed bitterly - would only make it harder to pick up the pieces.

Steve would do whatever he could to help, you knew that, but you didn’t want his help. So, instead of answering him, you shifted the conversation. “Where’s Nancy?”

Though that wasn’t the answer he wanted, it was one Steve had seen coming.

For nearly as long as you’d known him, you trusted Steve with your feelings. If anyone knew how you felt, it was him. However, those conversations were always had on your time. Until you were ready to speak, you would deflect and brush off his questions; until you’d catalogued the emotions for yourself and made sense of them, you moved on to topics you deemed safer.

Everyone gave him plenty of shit but Steve Harrington wasn’t an idiot. He’d seen the whispered conversations you held with Eddie, how both sets of eyes wandered to him and Nancy before everything went straight to hell. Looking back, he knew what it must’ve looked like to you, to Eddie - who was only looking out for his best friend.

Still, he swallowed a sigh as he squeezed your fingers gently. “With Jonathan,” he answered easily, “where she should be.”

“Oh. I just thought…”

The implication was obvious, clear without a need for you to spell it out. Steve knew what you thought. Robin knew. Eddie knew. The kids knew. Nancy knew.

Before the world imploded around everyone, they’d all seen it. Steve hadn’t realized it at the time - a little too caught up in the moment - but he’d been preoccupied with Nancy and you’d felt left out. He’d brushed it off at first, decided that you were busy with Eddie and he was helping out elsewhere, but after talking with Robin, he realized how the situation could’ve been viewed.

Though you’d only been on a handful of dates, it was clear that the events of the previous weeks had you wondering if venturing further would be a good idea.

It wasn’t entirely about Nancy and he knew that. There was insecurity there, a little bit of nervous energy - Steve wore his heart on his sleeve and Nancy still held a piece of it, without question - but you weren’t really that upset. This was just the safest card to pluck from the stack, the one that would hurt the least if it sent you tumbling.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve been with you. I just,” Steve began, voice soft in the cool spring breeze. “I don’t… I don’t have feelings for Nancy anymore, really. I just think I’ll always be a little… Not in love, just, you know when you see the past better than it was?”

His explanation was a little clumsy, a little rushed as he tried to find his footing, but you understood, anyway. “Nostalgic?”

Steve nodded, grateful for the assistance, and continued. “Mm, yeah. Nostalgic. I’m not in love with her anymore but she’s always going to be nostalgic and when all this shit happens, it just brings it back. I got caught up in the past, how easy it was to run from the future, but maybe that’s because I realized she’s not my future, though, not anymore. My future is… different, now,” Steve explained, brows furrowing as he tilted his head.

Warm brown eyes met yours, honeyed in the sunlight, and searched for any hint of understanding. There was a desperation lingering in his eyes, a frenzied panic you’d only seen in the heavy aftermath of one Upside Down adventure or another, and this time, you knew your own held the same.

The weight of his hand in yours, the warmth of his skin, calmed the racing of your heart, if only slightly. His presence made it easy for you to admit, “I kinda stopped thinking about my future a while ago. It’s stupid but I think I’ve only thought of it once or twice in the past few years.”

A denim clad knee knocked into your own, careful to avoid the scrapes and bruises still marring your skin, as Steve nodded encouragingly. “Why?”

“I don’t know. After that first time, following you and the kids into the Upside Down, I just… I guess I figured I’d never get one. It always felt like living on borrowed time after that.”

Though you’d been close for years, friends - with the potential for more now, on the verge of a love that could leave you both shattered - you’d never admitted your fear to Steve. You’d talked about the Upside Down a bit, held him through a handful of nightmares and fearful admissions related to the kids safety and their futures, but you’d never shared your own feelings.

There was never a question that he knew - Steve could read you well, could see through you in ways others couldn’t - and when you spared him a quick glance, you were surprised by the sadness reflected in his eyes. There was an understanding there, a depth you hadn’t expected, and you quickly returned your gaze to your battered skates.

“Before the Upside Down shit, Eddie and I were supposed to move to Indianapolis,” you admitted, voice a whisper in the wind as you squeezed Steve’s fingers. “We were supposed to graduate. Eighty-five was going to be our year. We saved up for ages. I worked at the diner, Eddie worked at Thatcher’s, and we both pulled doubles as often as we could. We had enough to start out, to find a shitty apartment and just get out of Hawkins. Then…”

Steve’s fingers tightened in your own, still careful to avoid anything that might hurt - anything that might cause you pain - but a reassuring weight as you drew in a shaking breath. He knew parts of this, had been privy to a handful of conversations between you and Eddie, but you’d never admitted anything quite so serious and his attention was solely on you.

“Then, we were dealing with all the Upside Down shit and Eddie didn’t graduate and my future fell apart in the span of six months. I could’ve left Hawkins but I couldn’t leave Eddie here to deal with that shit alone. I couldn’t leave Dustin and Mike and Lucas and Will and El and Max. I couldn’t leave you. My future was ripped away and I didn’t want to replace that vision because having it taken from me would hurt even worse the second time. So, I just… stopped.”

As you spoke, Steve’s hand remained steady in yours. You could feel the weight of his gaze on your face, warming your skin, but the blood rushing in your ears drowned out anything other than the need to speak. You’d kept your fears to yourself for nearly two years, locked away, and now, there was nothing you could do but share them.

“If I made it to the next week after all that shit, that was more than I expected. When my parents asked me about school, I didn’t know what to tell them because going to school in Indianapolis felt impossible. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for another gate to open or for something to happen to someone I loved. And then you asked me out and I started thinking about a future, just… It was just a little but I saw a light, you know?” A quiet laugh, devoid of any humor, escaped as you brought your free hand to your face to wipe at tears.

“Nearly a year without any supernatural bullshit, a guy I really like wanting to go out with me, my best friend on the verge of graduating, the kids being happy, Robin being happy. It felt like a future was possible. But… you and Nancy, and then Max, and Eddie, and I just… Honestly, being upset about you and Nancy feels like the dumbest thing in the world right now but everything just feels hopeless. That was just another thing the universe could take from me and now I just see darkness. I don’t see a future. The people I love don’t get one, might not get one, why should I?”

There was little that Steve could say and you knew that. However, that did nothing to stop him from sighing quietly and untangling his fingers from yours. He lifted his newly freed hand to your jaw and splayed his fingers across your wind-cooled skin. His thumb brushed at your skin idly as he tilted your head to meet your eyes. There was a sorrow in them you’d never seen before, a bitter sadness that Steve Harrington had never seemed capable of, and it made the ache in your chest that much heavier as you blinked away tears.

“I wish I knew what to say to fix everything, but I don’t.” Steve’s voice cracked, if only slightly, with his soft admission. It was little more than a whisper in the wind but it lingered heavy in the air as he searched your eyes. “I do know what it’s like to be afraid. I’ve been looking over my shoulder for years,” he confessed, eyes glittering in the sunlight. “There’s always something out there, waiting, especially here in Hawkins. I know that. I’ve seen it. And I know it’s hard to see past that at what could be but that’s what keeps me going. Thinking that one day, all this shit will have been worth it, gets me through the day.”

As warm fingers traced your rapidly heating skin, brushing at the few stray tears that managed to fall despite your best efforts, you couldn’t help but wonder what kept Steve going. What vision of the future could be so motivating as to keep him moving when everything felt so fucking hopeless? So, you asked, “What does this future look like?”

Steve smiled then, a little sad and a little embarrassed, but real enough to make your heart flutter as he tipped his chin toward his chest.

“I always thought I’d stay in Hawkins, but maybe not now. Now, I imagine a suburb outside of the city, maybe, so I could work there and come home to a quiet little neighborhood full of families. The Harrington house would never be quiet, though, because I always see myself with a big family.”

“How big is big?” The answer didn’t matter, not really - not when that big family likely didn’t include you, not when you couldn’t see that family yourself - but hearing Steve speak managed to soothe the shaking of your fingers, if only for a moment. It kept you from dwelling, from throwing yourself into a spiral that would be nearly impossible to come back from, so you tilted your head to glance at him and smiled when his cheeks tinged pink.

“Oh, massive. Like, six little nuggets. Just a whole brood of Harringtons,” he admitted, smiling when you raised an eyebrow. His laughter was a touch more real, genuine and soft, when he shook his head. “I know it sounds insane but that’s always been a dream of mine.”

Despite Steve’s soft, self-deprecating laughter, you were quick to shake your head. “It doesn’t sound insane,” you assured him, a little too quick. It sounded like Steve - desperate to fill a hole left in his heart by his own absent parents, eager to have the family he was never given - and, though the future was dark, you hoped he got it. “It sounds miserable for your future wife because that’s a lot of babies but it doesn’t sound insane. It makes sense for you, honestly. The way you love the kids… You’ll be a good dad someday, Steve.”

Steve hesitated, only for a moment, before lifting his gaze back to yours. “I know we’re not, you know, official,” he began, fingers stroking your jaw as he searched your eyes, “but I’ve had feelings for you for a while. And when I think about the future, I don’t see Nancy beside me. I see you. I know now’s probably not the best time to tell you that. I just hope that maybe someday, you’ll be able to see a future and I’ll be there, too.” A beat of silence passed, in which Steve’s brows furrowed and his mouth curved into a soft frown, before he added, “Max is going to have a future. She’s going to be okay. And Eddie… Eddie would want you to keep going, to make it out of Hawkins and live your life. You deserve a future.”

Realistically, you knew that.

If there was anyone who would’ve wanted you to carry on, to continue living even as you faced down literal demons and the agony of losing the only constant you’d ever had, it was Eddie. He would’ve wanted you to keep going, to live, even if it was under the guise of living for the both of you. However he had to push you, he would have, and that knowledge - along with the realization that Eddie wouldn’t get to tell you that himself - was the final straw.

If Steve was surprised by your tears, he didn’t show it. Instead, he released his grip on your jaw and gathered you in his arms. His hands, warm and soft, stroked your back gently as your hands gathered the fabric of his shirt and held tight. His arms were a comfort, strong and capable of protecting you from the world, and though your world was crumbling around you, you felt safe in his grasp.

“I know, babe,” he whispered, voice soft as he stroked your skin. “I know.”

Though you and Dustin had broken down just outside the ruins of Wayne’s trailer, fell apart even faster when you shoveled dirt into an unmarked plot of land that was nowhere even close to what Eddie deserved, this was the first time you’d cried in two weeks and as the tears fell, it felt as if they may never stop.

After a few long moments, you found it in yourself to speak. “Steve?” He hummed, acknowledging, and waited patiently for you to speak. “I don’t see a future right now but… could you keep me in yours? Just… just for a little while?”

It was potentially unfair, not quite the question that you should be asking in a moment of such vulnerability, but Steve didn’t hesitate.

The arms around your middle wrapped a little tighter, pressed to your skin just a touch firmer, and despite the awkward position, you were in no hurry to move. Neither, it seemed, was Steve. He hummed in your ear readily, the sound reverberating in his chest, as you felt him nod. “Of course, babe. I’ll keep you as long as you’ll let me.”

The future looked dark, bleak and miserable, because the person you’d always pictured sharing it with was no longer with you. However, there was a pinprick of light, way off in the distance, that told you there might be something out there for you, anyway.

________________________________________________________

Author’s Note: This got away from me. Anyway, posting early ‘cause I’m going to a bar. I’m not sure if I’m hoping the guy will be there or not. Anyway. Back to your regularly scheduled Eddie next.

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rebelangelwings · 10 months

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I would looove to read some steamy buck x eddie. Could you maybe write something about them that starts with accidental touches, kisses, domestic moments... they don't even realize but the other 118s notice? And then it develops from there? 🥰

Hi! Thanks so much for the request. I had a lot of fun with this one! I wouldn't necessarily describe it as steamy as I haven't written smut before but I hope you like it still.

It was no secret that both Buck and Eddie were tactile creatures.

After a particularly rough shift, Eddie wanted nothing more than to hold his son close, tucked under his chin. He grew up surrounded by tactile women placing maternal kisses to his forehead or pinching his cheeks. Eddie found comfort and connection in the physical.

Buck didn't have the same relationships as Eddie growing up. Maddie's gentle embraces and ruffles to his messy, boyish curls stopped once she left home. Comforting physical contact was rare for Buck, usually only coming in the form of a sympathetic nurse cleaning him up after one of his many stunts.

Buck's 118 family had quickly picked up on how touch-starved he was. How he would light up from a clap on the shoulder by Bobby, how he would duck his head in mock annoyance to hide his pink cheeks and rye smile when Chimney ruffled his overgrown hair, how he would unknowingly lean in to Hen's motherly touch as she cleaned his wounds.

So, when Eddie had joined the team and became Buck's partner, Bobby, Hen and Chim had been pleased to see that the new member would also provide the much needed physical contact to their youngest teammate and not shun him.

What they had not quite expected, however, was the sheer level of contact the two men would maintain. As if Buck had found his opposing magnet pole. They couldn't go far without crashing back into each other. Hen and Chimney had conducted an observation over a series of weeks to see if the boys could go one shift without physically touching one another. The results were conclusive with no anomalies

Greetings were always performed in a wide armed hug. Nods were always accompanied by a bump of one wrist to another. Reassurances were always made with a hand resting on a shoulder.

Yet, things had started to seemingly…progress.

The touches were becoming more frequent. More meaningful. Often accompanied by intense eye contact.

The 118 were familiar with the sight of Buck and Eddie's sides being plastered together and they sat side by side in the truck, but now they were finding ways to sit so that their legs were a tangled pretzel.

Maybe it was because they had experienced so many close calls. Seen the other so nearly be snatched away from them. Touch had become grounding for them both. A reminder that the other was still with them. A reminder that they themselves were still alive after everything.

Eddie had quickly learned that in order to truly get through to Buck in times of anxiety or distress, he required physical contact. Eddie's preferred method of contact was a heavy hand placed on Buck's shoulder, just over his clavicle where he could stroke his thumb over the bare skin of Buck's neck if he needed to, much like after the tsunami.

Buck in turn, knew that he could bring Eddie out of his thoughts with a warm hand on his thigh just above the knee. Sometimes it would be a quick tap, other times his hand would linger. On the night that Eddie had tearfully destroyed his bedroom, Buck had put his hand on Eddie's thigh, who then placed his own shaking and battered hand over the top as he wept.

The development had been so natural, so gradual, that neither man had noticed. Or cared to.

Not until one evening where Buck had been over at the Diaz house baking cookies for Chris' class. He'd finished baking, packaged the treats away, watched a movie with his Diaz boys, and went to make his way home just as Eddie announced bedtime for Christopher. Buck stood to say goodnight to Chris as he always did, still privileged enough to get a hug from the teen, and placed a quick kiss to the top of the boy's hair. Swiftly, Buck pulled an arm around Eddie too, placed a quick peck to the man's cheek, and bid farewell as he walked out the door.

Buck drove home.

Eddie tucked Christopher into bed.

Buck locked his front door.

Eddie changed into an old shirt for bed.

Buck adjusted his pillows.

Eddie closed his eyes.

Buck closed his eyes.

"Oh, shit." Both whispered.

The following day, with Chris at school packed up with cookies, Buck knocked on the Diaz residents. He was shifting from foot to foot and couldn't seem to shake the jittery feeling in his chest that vibrated all the way to his fingertips.

Eddie answered, smiling brightly at Buck and opening the door wider to invite Jim inside.

"You could have used your key." Eddie called over his shoulder.

"You always say that."

"You always forget to use your key."

They sassed each other as normal. Buck felt far from normal, hand still clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Eddie offered Buck a drink. Buck accepted. They sat side by side on the couch.

"So…" Buck started.

"What's up?" Eddie responded, seemingly oblivious.

"Um…when I- I left last night… you know when I said goodnight to ch-Chris it was just, you know automatic. Sorry. I just wanted to say sorry if I was w-weird or anything. I was just tired and on autopilot when I…you know when I kissed your cheek." Buck rambled and distracted his hands by taking a sip of his drink.

Eddie laughed and made an effort to put on a blasé facade, "Buck, don't even worry about it. Do you know how many times I have hung up the phone to the cable guy and said 'I love you', or sent kisses in a text to Chim?"

Buck laughed, relaxing slightly. Maybe he hadn't messed everything up, "Okay, cool. Thanks. Sorry, again."

They resumed their scheduled plan of watching TV together. Just as normal, their legs were pressed together from ankle to hip. Buck held his drink in his right hand, leaving his left relaxed on his left thigh. Eddie had placed his drink on the coffee table, meaning his hands were also resting in his lap.

Eddie lifted his right hand to move a piece of hair out of his face, and when he replaced it to his side, the backs of their hands were touching.

Neither looked away from the television but both were painfully aware.

Buck twitched his index finger.

Eddie stroked his thumb over it.

Purposeful.

"It was nice."

Buck finally looked away from the TV but Eddie was still facing forward. "Pardon?"

"It was nice." Eddie repeated.

"What was nice, Eds?" He needed to hear him say it.

Eddie finally turned to face Buck, "I liked your kissing me. Granted…wasn't how I imagined it. But it was nice."

Buck smirked and leaned forward, dropping his voice lower, emboldened by what Eddie had said, "and how did you imagine it?"

"Well…" Eddie matched the gravel in Buck's voice, "you wouldn't have planned one on my cheek, that's for damn sure."

"Where would you have me plant it instead?" Buck looked between Eddie's full lips and to the warm chocolate of his eyes. From this close, Buck was able to see every one of Eddie’s eyelashes fanning onto his cheeks and eyelids.

"Buck…" Eddie all but growled, one hand gripping the back of Buck's neck and applying a gentle squeeze.

"Eds," Buck whispered teasingly.

"Kiss me. Now, Buckley."

And with that, Buck placed his lips to Eddie's, and it was like finally giving in to the magnetic pull that had been set in motion all those years ago.

They moved easily and with coordination the same way they did when working together. They were always so aware of the other's presence.

Greedy hands ran over each other, squeezing, pulling, grasping.

Breaking away for air, Eddie held Buck in place with his signature hand on the shoulder, thumb unashamedly stroking across his thrumming pulse point.

"I am so in love with you Evan Buckley. Jesus, how long have I been in love with you?"

"Probably about as long as I have been in love with you, Eddie Diaz."

"Did you know?"

"I don't know. I didn't think so but…it all seems so obvious now. How did we miss this?" Buck asked with a breathless laugh.

"We're idiots?" Eddie offered.

"Well then, I'm your idiot. And you are mine."

"Deal."

Eddie and Buck spent plenty of time over the next few weeks discovering just how tactile they could be with each other.

#eddie diaz #buddie 911 #911 #911 fox #evan buckley #911 fanfic #buckley diaz family #buddie fanfic #buddie #eddie diaz x evan buckley

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synthy-sizer · 6 months

Text

Finally, after a long journey, you reach the radio tower. As you walk your foot happens to press against a strange texture, far too solid compared to the grass and dirt you've been walking in. You look down and notice a metal fence practically buried in the dirt. The grass has grown through the grid of woven metal and practically hidden it. Only a few metal poles that would've supported them still stand, like ominous spires. You walk further in and approach the building itself. It's truly what it looked like from a distance, just a big gray concrete box. The concrete, from neglect and age, has worn down and become overgrown and covered in mildew. Very little of it is even gray anymore, mostly different shades and hues of brown and green.

You trudge around the building trying to find an entrance. Based on the crunching under your shoes there was some kind of gravel path here once, but it's become lost in the weeds and overgrowth. As you turn the corner you finally spot a doorway. It's a large, rusty metal door. It looks heavy, and pushing and pulling confirms as much. You try to turn the simple knob with a built-in lock, but it seems like it's locked. You pace around a bit, racking your brain. You didn't see any windows, which gives you no alternative entrance. All that's in front of you is a heavy door that you couldn't possibly force open and a lock. Wait, a lock…? You pause for a moment and pull the pocket knife from your bag. Your dad told you once that you could pick a lock using tools like a knife and a hairpin. Maybe you could do the same…? You look back at the door, and then the knife. You suppose there's not much choice.

You unfold the pocket knife and pull out one of your metal hair pins and jam the knife into the lock. Experimentally, you start jiggling it around, and then get the hairpin involved, shaking them around randomly in conjunction. You have absolutely no idea what you're doing or if you're making any degree of progress. But after a considerable amount of fiddling, something magical happens.

Click!

You stop fiddling with the lock. Did you just hear what you think you heard? You grab the handle and try to turn it, and to your surprise it works. You did it, you're a lock picker now! You laugh a bit in disbelief and nervousness. It's unbelievable you actually pulled this off. Elated but anxious, you pull the door, putting in more strength as it proves difficult to open, and eventually it slowly swings outward with a loud metal creak. You peak inside. Surprisingly, there are working lights. But the discovery is almost instantly overshadowed by a much more foreboding observation; all the lights are red.

"The cage lamps in your station will turn red when a code red scenario takes place."

The words of the manual make your heart pound. You feel as though you're about to step into the belly of the beast. All of your claims had been nothing more than educated guesses up till now. But it seems like a code red situation is indeed in place, and you're at the heart of the broadcast. You suddenly come to regret feeling so certain about an emergency taking place in such a serious-looking building. But you also won't get any answers if you don't explore. So you step inside.

…

You're standing inside the RADIO STATION. You're standing in a central HALLWAY, with two doors, one on the SIDE and one in FRONT of you. You're bathed in a dim red light.

Look around>

It's hard to see the finer details of the hallway with the poor lighting. It seems as though it's faired better than the hatch, but it's still not in great shape. The paint is peeling, drop ceiling has fallen, and there's scattered furniture and debris strewn about. No one has been here for quite a long time.

Look at right door>

You walk over to the door on the side of the hallway. To your surprise, the door is actually unlocked. You could see what's on the other side if you wanted to.

Open door>

You open the door and step inside of a small office. There's a few tables, some overturned, and some monitors distributed randomly throughout the space. There's LOCKERS on the side.

Look at lockers>

There's a considerable number of lockers on the wall. You wonder how many people worked here. There's a number of locked ones, but a few are hanging open. Maybe you can find something useful in them?

Open lockers>

You go one by one, investigating the open lockers. There's a few strange common threads. Every locker has jumpsuits with the same logo from the terminal in the hatch. Was this their standard uniform? There's a lot of photos of people you don't recognize. They were probably meaningful to the workers. There's also a CALENDAR on one of the interiors. And in one of them, near the end of the room, is a ring of KEYS hanging from a hook.

Look at calendar>

The calendar is dated to midway through 2000. How strange. You were always taught that was the year that Luna became the safe haven for humanity. This building has been here for a very long time.

Look at keys>

The keyring has a dozen or so keys on it. There's labels on them. There's a lot of names you don't recognize, but one stands out; "RADIO ROOM". You get the distinct feeling this might be helpful.

[KEYS added to inventory]

You turn back to the doorway.

Leave office>

You step back out into the hallway.

Go to front door>

You walk to the end of the hallway and jiggle the door handle. It seems like unlike the office, this door is locked.

Check inventory>

[Inventory]

Pocket knife

Bolt cutters

Keys

Equip keys>

You look at the keys in your hand. You suppose there's a possibility they could do the job.

Use keys on door>

You pick out the radio room key and stare at it for a moment before slotting it into the lock and turning. It turns and clicks seamlessly. The door is unlocked.

Use front door>

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silverslipstream · 10 months

Text

Six Sentence Sunday!

Thanks to @zonnemaagd and @writernopal for the tags!

Here's a snippet of dialogue from a piece of flash fiction I wrote for university workshop last semester, called Struck Out:

“So, these things – light used to come out of them? What did you light them with?” Anita says, wrapping her thin arm around the floodlight’s metal stem and twirling aimlessly. “People didn’t light them,” I reply from my perch on a piece of concrete sticking out of the grass. “Electricity did it for you.” “Uh-huh. Were they bright?” “Oh, yeah. When they came on, you used to be able to see them for miles. Everyone in town knew when a ballgame was on…” “Which one?” Anita replies, stepping away from the pole and sweeping her arm across the overgrown field. “Was it football? Basketball?” “Nah, basketball was usually played indoors.”

I'll tag @rbbess110, @darkfalcon233, @magicmoon65, @talesofsorrowandofruin, @tea-and-mercury and @inflarescent!

#writeblr #writers community #six sentence sunday #tag game #tag game answers #silverslipstream

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chiangyorange · 1 year

Note

I really need to reread all the peepaw fics because my brain has trouble keeping them separate, but I'm pretty sure WMAS has the wonderful marigolds scene that is very memorable to me. (I'd double check, but you know, jail!)

MARIGOLDS!!!!!!!!!!!!

(v excerpt taken ch3 v)

Mikey opens his eyes and he sees a city around him. This… is new. The sky is a pale red like the sunrise and as he looks around him, the city is destroyed. It doesn’t scare him somehow. He takes his time turning around in place, seeing the tall battered buildings covered in bright colors of paint. Greenery of plants overtake the sides of buildings, framing the bright formless graffiti, the dull grey of concrete to something colorful. It clings to the bricks in a relentless enduring grasp of life. From the windows of the buildings shine lights through them. Multicolored, like they are the LCD screens from Times Square. It’s bright. There are no people, the city is in shambles, but it’s still alive.

i wanted mikey to be somewhere that is so familiar but not at the same time. in this one, i was thinking "if you were to make a place, a physical plane that defines yourself by you dreams, your hopes, your desires, what would that look like?" and for this dreamscape, the obvious answer was new york.

(and i think that everyone knows it by now that this is future!mikey's dreamscape) i thought, how different would this be from our mikey in the present?

so i added the broken city, the apocalypse feel, but unlike the city we saw in the movie, this is clean. its not overrun by kraang bio-whatever the fuck, and instead with plants, flowers. i took most inspiration from tlou in this because even though THAT setting is an apocalypse, well, fuckin LOOK

and then the graffiti and glowing windows, those are colorful, the proof what was alive, the people of new york, the community, the art.

(v excerpt taken from ch1 v)

Uncle Michelangelo said that the old New York could be really pretty. There were so many lights that made the fog glow a brilliant color that makes everything magical. Quieter, he told Casey that there was always a person behind those lights. Someone was always adding to the beauty.

and then we come to mikey's exploring

(v excerpt taken ch3 v)

Mikey looks through the streets as he walks. He sees something move in the periphery and his eyes catch onto an overgrown patch of marigolds from a window’s flower pot bobbing from a breeze. His eyes follow as the flowers seemingly grow in pathways, falling out from the pot, down the walls, and to the streets. He follows the trail. The path of marigolds becomes denser and denser, but the petals slowly recede from the flower heads until the floors are simply just the leaves and plucked stems. Mikey finds himself at an intersection, the metal poles of lightstops fallen over at angles around the area like fencing. In the middle of the intersection is a massive patch of marigolds with bursting orange petals. The rendering petals from before cover the concrete of the street like a carpet. The patch of marigolds in the middle looks like a bed, how the orange flowers pop out of the ground into a perfect circle like a mattress.

i chose marigolds specifically because 1) theyre orange and 2) to continue that life, everything that's sprawling but in a good way. (and maybe in a smaller, but no less important way, tie back to donnie's passion to botany)

mikey is fire, that much is true, but more than that, its a wish to go back. back to the time where people COULD have planters on their balcony rails of bursting flowers, back to when spray paint breathe life to dull concrete walls.

its a dream, its a hope.

its planting marigold seeds in a pot and nurturing it to brighten your home.

#wmas asks #we'll meet again soon #wmas creator commentary

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starsarefire824 · 1 year

Text

The Swings

They walk and walk, for a long while, passing the flask back and forth in silence, and before they know it, Mike’s cheeks are hot with exertion and they’re left heaving in their exercise. They’re further and further from the light of town, on their way past the farm fields, on their way towards the school. And before they know it, the road opens to a clearing, a large parking lot, dead and fucking creepy in the weird white-blue light the half broken lamps give off.

It’s Maple Grove Elementary, aptly named for the masses of Maple trees that they had to cut down to build the fucking thing. Jesus, he hasn’t been here since he was about twelve. It’s smaller than he remembers, so much smaller. And as if their feet are led down a path by some phantom thing, they’re at the gate. Will breathes out heavily in the cold, and Mike can feel the heat of it on his face, as it cascades around him in a cloud.

The metal gate is old and rusted and covered in brown, dead vines that were never cleared from last summer. It squeaks when Will lifts it up, and he smiles at him in the dark. He’s smiling, and it’s a funny one, one Mike hasn’t seen in a very long time; it's a rare thing, when Will’s feeling mischievous and bold and forgetting the fear that had taken hold of his entire life.

Mike’s hands shoot out to help him, and they push it forward, shoving it against the settled earth and overgrown grass. There’s a new elementary school now, affixed with all the modern technology and large windows and enough room for the growing population of future Hawkins kids. And so, this building is left to the weeds and the passage of time, left to fade back into the earth, only to be remembered by the people who’s memories were tied up in its concrete and metal, children long forgotten, such as Mike and Will.

They walk through the long grass, in the darkness, where it’s wet and cold and the earth hasn’t quite woken up from its Winter sleep yet. The grass sways beneath their feet, and Mike shoves his hands in his pockets. They move quickly, with purpose, and he doesn’t know what to say. So they stay quiet. But the grass turns into old mulch and the rusted playground is suddenly right before them.

Mike stops dead in his tracks when he sees it. Its red paint is chipped and the poles have turned brown with rust, jagged edges forming at the holes that have been torn in its metal skin from forty plus years in the sun.

Will skips a little when he notices it, his own hands shoved into the oversized pockets of his jacket, his hair curling slightly at the ends with the damp in the air. Mike can barely see the details of his face, but he likes the way his eyes are shadowed by his strong brow beneath the cloud covered moon.

Mike hums under his breath. “It’s still here,” he says, announcing something they’ve both already observed.

“It’s still here,” Will repeats happily. He’s seemed to have let go of whatever heaviness had fallen over them just a few moments ago, and his voice comes out light and carefree.

The swingset is so much smaller than he remembers. Flimsy even, but there’s still two of the three seats that work, and so they both innately move towards them, and Mike doesn’t know what comes over him, but he doesn’t even think before his feet cross the mulch. He sits down, one hand clasping around the chain of his swing, and the other pulling out the flask from his pocket.

Will sits down, his thin thighs turning into an inverted “v” as he pushes off the ground and swings gently back. He’s looking towards where the shadows have swallowed up the side entrance to the old school, and Mike doesn’t know what to do other than hand him the liquor.

Will takes what Mike offers with a gentle smile on his lips, his eyes flashing towards him, lit with something Mike can't acknowledge at the moment. Mike watches as Will sips, then says, “You’re different.”

Will pauses, his foot skidding in the mulch as he stops himself from swinging. He looks taken aback, as if what Mike's said couldn’t possibly be.

He shakes his head, his brows coming together determinedly and a sardonic smile on his lips. “I don’t know if that’s true,” he says, handing him back the flask. “I don’t feel it anyway. Changed.”

Mike pushes off with one foot, lazily rocking in the swing, his long limbs awkwardly making due with the tiny seat. “I don’t know,” he says. “It seems like you’ve let a little bit of it go.”

Will hums, seemingly deep in thought as he stares out into the darkness. “Maybe a little bit. Probably not as much as I would have hoped though.”

“What do you mean?” Mike asks, stilling his efforts at swinging and glancing over at Will. Will turns his face, one half softly illuminated by the distant streetlamps in the parking lot. His face opens up, surprised by Mike’s question, but his eyes are serious.

He shrugs, and looks away again, deciding to keep his gaze on his hands clasped around the flask in his lap, nervous again. “I don’t know—-It’s just hard for me—-to connect with people. It’s hard to open up.”

Mike didn’t mean to, not really, but he’s aware in that moment that he has asked Will a far more loaded question than just dealing with the Upside Down and the demons of the past.

“Yeah,” is all he can think to say. He’s surprised when Will continues unprompted.

Maybe it’s the bourbon.

“Hawkins is small,” he starts and gingerly peeks over at Mike. His hand is wrapped around the chain of the swing and he’s resting his head against his fist like he’s sleepy. His eyebrows raise and a doleful smile crosses his lips. Mike watches his mouth as he speaks. “I’ve been back from California for a few years, geez it must be seven years now, and everyone, you know, everyone still knows who I am, everyone still looks at me the same way they always did. I make people…uncomfortable. You know? Like they look at me like I’m going to burst into flames or something at any moment. And—- I mean, that’s just part of it. I’m pretty sure everyone knows. I mean I don’t hide who I am really, but it’s just so different here than in California. I like the quiet, I love the kids I teach, I like being near my Mom, but sometimes it feels like I’m just floating in space or something, like there’s nothing —-or no one to hold onto—- I don’t know.”

Will huffs a little chuckle, and Mike squeezes his thighs together, trapping his hand, forbidding himself from reaching out to him.

“That sounds stupid,” Will says as he shakes his head. “it’s just like—-I thought as I got older I’d feel a little less like a freak, but that's just not something that's happened for me. And opening up is hard enough as it is considering who I am, but like—-no one will understand, you know? Not like El or Lucas or Dustin—-not—-“

Will cuts himself then, sitting up straight and eyes going wide like he’s startled himself. Mike can’t see for sure, but he’s pretty sure Will is blushing.

“Mmm, sorry,” he says, an indecipherable look on his face as he takes another sip from the flask. “I should probably stop drinking this,” he jokes, but takes a second sip anyway before handing it back to Mike.

“No—“ he tells Will as he takes his flask back. “Don’t be—-“

Mike has so much to say, so many things he wants Will to know, but like always recently, his voice is lost

#byler #writing snippet #im really proud of this story so i feel like sharing #the swings and byler #kill me #will byers #mike wheeler

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