#shelter: a love letter to trees

[mournfulroses]

Ada Limón, from "Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees," published in June 2022

#lit #ada limón #november #writings #selections #shelter: a love letter to trees #p

[girlwithlandscape]

“To talk about trees is to talk about our attachment to them. Our longing for them to be okay. To talk about trees then is also to talk about each other, the ways we are attached to what is living and how much we want it to go on doing just that for as long as possible. It is never only trees, but what binds us together, the trees, the roots, the eternal part of us that is both the seed and the tree.”

— Ada Limón, Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees

#ada limón #ada limon #shelter a love letter to trees #trees #beauty #only connect #kindness #nature #quote

[indecisivegloom]

#Ada Limón #Shelter #A Love Letter to Trees #november #bright #sitting down #sobbing

[sweetsweetjellybean]

Your crush on Eddie was better off a secret and a kiss that should never have happened leads you into a storm.

I wasn't happy with my first version of chapter 4. So I polished it up and added a little more dialog. Feel free to wait for the next chapter but if you'd like to read it, either as a refresher or for the very first time, please let me know what you think. XOXO-Jelly

Masterlist Listen to Fake Plastic Trees Here

What to expect: Second Chance Romance set in 2012 Chicago.  Eddie and Steve are in their 30s. Fem!Reader is given a pet name from each of the guys. No other name mentioned. No use of Y/N. No physical description. Reader does have a bit of personality, as I find it nearly impossible to keep her blank for such a long fic. You may find yourself at times making choices that you wouldn't normally make, but I hope you can put that aside and enjoy the ride. Sensitive Content. 18+ Mentions of DV. Smut Guaranteed happy ending. This is my love letter to Eddie Munson.

WC: 11646 beta'd by @superblysubpar

A sharp chill nips at your cheeks as gusts of autumn wind blow through the amber-leafed trees surrounding Hawkins High's parking lot. You pick at the splintered wood of the picnic table beneath you, etched with initials and scribbles. The anguished croon of Placebo plays through your headphones, drowning out the sounds of the start of another school day. Shifting the pile of books on your lap, you steal a glance at where Eddie stands with his back to you a few yards away.

Lately, it’s like your best friend has purchased real estate in your brain. Daydreams resulting in hearts doodled in the margins of your notebooks a little too close to where you printed his name. His dark curls spill over the collar of his worn denim vest, shadowing the frayed edges of the Dio patch he had sown on last week. He's deep in conversation with Dan Shelter, a senior in the same class that Eddie would have been in if he hadn’t missed so much time after his mother passed. They both turn and look at you at the same time.

Eddie’s eyes narrow as his brows pull tighter into a frown. You push one of your headphones back, and the noise of everyday chatter and car engines bursts into your reality. 

"You know your girlfriend is deeply weird, Munson," the spiky-haired jock says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his letterman jacket, not even trying to hide his distaste.

Girlfriend. You’ve both tried to stamp out that rumor—yet no matter who else you go out with, those sparks never last and pale in comparison to the steady flame you feel around Eddie. Would it really be so bad if it were true? The answer scares you more than you expect. 

"She’s not my girl," Eddie retorts with a swift shake of his head, his voice edged with that familiar bite of annoyance. His foot scuffs against the asphalt, the white Reebok stark against the black jeans clinging to his narrow hips. An impatient sigh pulls the fabric of his Hellfire Club t-shirt tighter across his chest, outlining his lean frame. "You in or out?" His fingers snap near Dan's face, the sunlight catching on his silver rings, "I've got other places to be, and you're not my only customer."

"Sure, whatever," Dan grumbles, extending a hand with a few crumpled bills.

Eddie accepts the cash with an easy smirk, teasing the dime bag between thumb and forefinger, letting it sway like a pendulum. Dan’s hand hovers while he glances around for prying eyes, but Eddie lets the bag drop to the ground before he can take it. 

"Oops," Eddie’s voice drips with feigned innocence before he pivots on his heel and walks away without a backward glance.

Dan’s face ignites with anger as he stoops for the bag, muttering a curse.

"Always a pleasure," Eddie calls over his shoulder, flashing a dismissive two-fingered salute. A gaggle of pink-cheeked girls from the sophomore class crosses his path, eyes trailing over him like he's their favorite song come to life.  

"Ladies." He extends an arm, waving them on, his voice as smooth as a melody. They flutter past with giggles and heated glances. Despite their whispers of 'freak' in the corridors, they all vie for a chance to climb into the back of his van when no one is looking – to be the subject of the rumors they'd later deny.

He never hides his interest when he likes a girl — everybody knows when Eddie Munson is into someone. But he’s never looked at you that way, never given you that smile meant for those he desires. And that’s something that has never bothered you. Now, it stirs something else — a green thorny vine wrapping around your insides. He’s just Eddie – your friend. The same old Eddie, you reaffirm, even as your heart whispers lies of a different tune.

Without missing a beat, he saunters over, the rhythmic clink of his chain wallet punctuating each step. He leaps onto the picnic table, landing beside you with a thud, sending vibrations through the timeworn wood. His eyes linger on the girl's retreating forms.

"You need to be careful, Eddie," you warn, tipping your chin toward where Dan is stalking off in a dark cloud of annoyance.

"Careful is my middle name, doll." He smiles a big, sly grin, dimples deepening, causing a flutter in your chest, an unexplained sensation that's become strangely frequent these days.

He nods at your leg, eyes dropping to your thigh. "What’s this?" His dark lashes make half-moon shadows on his cheek as his thumb brushes over the square field of bright white crosses covering the denim patch on your jeans.  A trail of tingles follows, unbidden and unwelcome. You disguise the shiver as a chill from the wind, even as you crave more of his touch.

"It’s called sashiko," you explain, hyper-aware of the warmth of his skin as the ghost of his touch lingers. "The art of visible mending." 

"Looks cool." His gaze meets yours, a little too intense and a little too long. Your fingers clutch your notebooks tighter, a shield against whatever this feeling is.

"Are you coming over after school?" Your voice is steadier than you feel.

"I’ll drop you off, but I’ve got to go back to the trailer after," Eddie replies, his eyes still holding yours in a silent conversation you can't quite interpret. "I’ve got stuff to do." Something in his tone suggests layers you're not ready to peel back. "Not your kind of stuff."

The house where Eddie grew up doesn't look the same anymore. Someone else has moved in – keeping the lawn perfect and fixing up all the broken things, erasing any traces of tragedy. The neighborhood has moved on, absolving themselves like they hadn’t just turned their back and let it happen. As if it wasn't their problem. Eddie's staying on the other side of town now with his Uncle Wayne in a tiny one-bedroom trailer. Wayne's heart is in the right place, even if he drinks too much, just like Eddie's dad did. But he's not bad, just... lost when it comes to dealing with an angry teen, and with him working nights, Eddie's on his own to figure out how to deal with it all. 

"I can keep you company?” You try to keep the offer casual despite the hump in your pulse.

He shakes his head, a shadow crossing his features. "Nah, I’ve got to stop at Rick's, then a run." There's a hardness in his eyes that wasn't there before.

You frown and look away, hiding your disappointment. "I don’t see what the big deal is," you argue, keeping your voice low, "We smoke together all the time."

"The big deal," he says, reaching out to lift your chin and forcing you to look at him. "Is that this is business, and I don’t want you involved. Alright?" His voice is firm, letting you know he won’t budge. "I’ll pick you up later," he promises. "Movie night. Just us."

The shrill ring of the bell is your cue to retreat, to put distance between you and these feelings threatening to upend everything. You nod at him, shoving your books into your bag. His gaze holds you for a heavy beat before breaking away. There's a shift in the air, a prelude to something you can't name, like the static before a storm. Eddie's last glance sears itself into your thoughts when you part ways at the door. 

As you make your way to class, those feelings nag at you like a forgotten lyric. You hug your arms, trying to squeeze out the persistent ache that spreads through your limbs. It's a tangible pain, this longing, like a hand squeezing around your heart, making it hard to breathe.

But you push it all down, guarding it like a secret. To lock it away in the confines of your ribcage, where it can't taint the one thing you value most. The friendship you've built is too important, too rare to risk on a silly crush that might only live in your head and fade with time. It’s a gamble you won’t take. You can't lose him. You won’t watch that light in his eyes dim for you, awkward silences replacing the laughter. Without him, you’d be alone.

Cold gray days give way to dark, inky nights. The stars and moon are veiled behind thick cotton clouds, stealing the light earlier as fall edges closer to winter. Winds gust, sending wet leaves sticking to the glass of your office windows as the bare fingers of the boxwoods planted around the brownstone scratch against the house in protest.

Lowering the lid of your laptop, the light in the room dims as the brightness is trapped between the two halves. Your arms stretch over your head, loosening the tension in your neck as you push away from your desk, drifting towards the sounds of life from the living room. Steve’s long legs are stretched out on the chaise end of the couch, a Bulls game on the TV, but his attention is stuck on the laptop resting on his thighs. 

“My eyes are going to fall out my head if I stare at that screen for any longer,” you declare, rounding the corner of the couch.

“Well, then, come stare at this screen instead.” He nods at the TV, extending his arm to make space for you to crawl onto the couch next to him and fit yourself into his side. 

“You’re so warm.” You nuzzle into his chest, and his lips touch the top of your head. “Don’t let me fall asleep.”

“I’ll wake you up when it’s time for bed. I still have a few hours of work left,” he sighs, his finger sliding down the trackpad as he scrolls through a document that never seems to end. 

“Is that for the launch?” Your eyes squint at the brightness of the screen. 

He groans at the ping of another incoming email while toggling between the many windows he has open. “Yeah, we're in the final stretch. The event team is trying to finalize the details. Maroon 5 and Fallout Boy are locked in to perform, but we’re still waiting to hear back from a few other acts and about a million other details that need ironing out.”

“It’s going to be a great night, baby. Everyone will be so impressed,” you assure, the arm you have draped across his stomach tightening, trying to impress your words into him. “Everything is going to go smoothly, you’ll see.”

He scoffs, doubt clouding his voice. “I wish I had your confidence. The server's capacity is still a question mark, and we're racing to fix streaming delays. Fuck!” The heels of his hands press into his eyes. “All I need is this thing to fail at the last minute, especially with Richard and my dad watching.” He imitates his father's stern tone, “Typical. He’s always been a fuck up. Chokes right before the buzzer.” Letting his hands drop, his eyes turn to you. “I should have listened to you and not invited my parents. I actually never thought they would agree to come. Now I’m running around trying to get things ready for them too.”

“Hey,” you take one of his hands between yours, “That’s not going to happen, Steve. If the servers have issues or if there's a lag, it's just a hiccup. You've got a team to handle that. You've put in the work, and you're brilliant at what you do. Your parents will see that. Everyone will.” 

He manages a smile, but it’s just a placation.

“What can I do to help?” You ask, “I’ll make sure we have some Pellegrino stocked and that cheese your parents like.”

There's a pause as he weighs his next words. “I’ve already called the housekeeper and told them to put fresh sheets in the guest room in case they decide to stay here, but I still need to make a reservation at the Four Seasons as a backup.”

Your jaw tightens, but you curb your annoyance at how John Harrington has everyone trained to cater to his high-maintenance whims, but this is for Steve’s peace of mind. “I’ll call first thing tomorrow. Consider it done. Anything else?”

He hesitates, a little apologetic. "My suit... the dry cleaner closes early tomorrow. I hate to ask, but I might not make it in time–"

“No problem. I’ll make time.”

His lips lift at the corners, and this time, his smile reaches his eyes. “I love you.” He leans forward, slotting his lip softly between yours. “I’ll put the ticket in your bag. Thanks for helping out, Ace.”

“I just have Eddie's interview tomorrow afternoon. I should have plenty of time." Standing, you tug at his hand. "Now, can we go to bed? Everything will look better after a good night's sleep.”

His mouth sets in a determined line as he shuts down his laptop, yielding to your pull as he rises. His hand finds a place on the small of your back, grounding you both as you climb the stairs together. 

Hitching the strap of your messenger bag higher on your shoulder, you kick at a loose stone on the sidewalk in front of the brick building. Car horns blare in the distance as traffic rolls by in the busy neighborhood.  The sun casts a glint off the steel CursedSound sign, its metal already weathering with a faint tinge of color. The heavy door is yanked open, its clank and whine making you jump. 

"Hi," Eddie greets you with a soft tone from the other side of the threshold.

"Hi," you return, shyness adding a tremble to your voice that shouldn’t be there. His fingers grip the edge of the door, and light flashes off the Rolex peeking out from under the cuff of the plaid flannel he wears over a fitted v-neck and jeans, the fabric snug against his defined shoulders. It’s still a novelty to see how his slim build has filled in over the years. Part of you still expects the boy you knew instead of this man in front of you. He looks you over in the same way, like he’s trying to decide if you’re really there. Maybe it’s the differences he sees in you, too, or does he still see the lonely girl he once knew? You shift your gaze down the street, your toes curling inside your Converse as warmth climbs up your neck. "Are you going to let me in?"

"I don't know." He pretends to ponder, a smile forming, crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Where's your hard hat?"

Tilting your head to the side, you purse your lips until he breaks into a chuckle. He swings the door open wider, welcoming you in. You pass him with a shake of your head and continue down the hall. 

The lobby is in chaos.

"Sorry for the mess. The maid took the week off," he quips, watching you take in the space. 

The brown paper has been removed from the windows, allowing bright light to stream through the streaked and dirty glass. All the furniture has been pushed toward the center of the room, and ladders and paint cans litter the floor space. A large mural wrapping around the windows and front entrance has been outlined but not completed. In the same graffiti style as the one upstairs, this one displays more cityscapes with waves of the lake breaking at the forefront. Winged skulls and guitars blend with colorful swirls of clouds rising toward the ceiling. 

"It’s perfect," you tell him as your eyes follow the sweeping, colorful lines around the room. “Really beautiful.”

"Was that a compliment?" He asks, coming up behind you, his breath a warm whisper against your ear. "I thought it was a dump."

"Well, what can I say?” You spin around. “It’s growing on me." Your fingers move to your lips, concealing your smile as his deepens with your praise. 

"You look really good." His low voice bounces off the empty walls, "I mean…your, uh, outfit is nice." He waves his hand toward you before wiping it on the front of his jeans. 

Your brows raise as you glance down at the jeans and plain Lolla tee you put on this morning. None of the trendy outfits you usually wear for interviews seemed to fit right today. 

"Wow, that was smooth," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I don’t know why I’m so nervous."

The fluttering in your stomach matches his energy.  “Maybe it’s because I’m going to get you to spill all your secrets and print them so the whole world can sit in judgment."

 A choked sound comes from his throat as his eyes widen into saucers.

Unable to keep a straight face, you giggle. "Relax, Eddie. I already told you I’m not writing some hit piece. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Besides," you shrug, "It’s only me." 

A sharp breath escapes as his shoulders lower. "Yeah, you’re right." He says, taking a step forward, his gaze locking with yours. "After all these years, it's still you.

"Eddie." His name comes out on a breathless sigh as you look away.  The shield of anger between you is heavy and battered, and you aren’t sure how much longer you can hold it up. He takes another step forward, and you clear your throat. "Why don’t you show me what else you’ve done?"

He rakes a hand through his curls, "Of course." His lips tighten into a flat line as he gestures toward the stairs. "After you." 

You lead the way to the second floor, where the smell of fresh paint permeates the air. A ladder leans against a half-painted wall, and orange extension cords crisscross the carpet in the hall, winding into the studios like work has been suddenly halted.

"Where is everyone?" You look around the abandoned space before stepping inside Studio A. It's come a long way since your last visit. The deck that holds the mixing board is ready, and the wiring is underway.

"I didn’t know how long you’d be here, so I told them to take the rest of the day off." His eyes follow the movements of your hand, brushing over knobs and sliders of the soundboard that's still sheathed in a protective layer of plastic. 

"You didn’t have to do that," you say, walking back out into the hall. 

"I didn’t think we needed the audience," he shrugs, walking along with you to the next room.

"I hope you don’t fall behind schedule." The walls of the small Studio B are covered with walnut slats to create an acoustic barrier while still keeping the room open, while the mixing room kept the original exposed brick.

"I’ve got time."

"Even so," you move to the window. The sun glints off the mirrored surface of the tall building across the street. "I’m sure you're eager to open. Put out that first album with the CursedSound logo in the liner notes."

"Of course I am." He comes to stand beside you, taking in the bustle of the city at midday. "It’s gonna be good to have nothin’ between me and the music. Let the artists be as creative as they want. Their management can deal with the corporate A&R people and leave me out of it."

"You never did like playing by the rules," you smile, catching his eyes in the reflection of the glass.

He turns his head, studying your profile. "Why should I?" he continues, his tone more determined, "The rules sure as hell never helped me. I'm gonna take my chances as I find them, even if I have to play a little dirty. I deserve happiness the same as the next guy."

"Of course you do." The world has done nothing but take from him. 

"What about you?" He asks as you return to the hall. "The rules seemed to be treating you well."

You raise your shoulders with a warm smile gracing your lips, one you have no intention of concealing. "I love my job. I like the city, and…I have Steve."

"You ending up with Steve Harrington," his voice curls around the name, a sneer you can almost see, "I gotta admit, I didn't see that one coming."

Stopping, you pivot to face him, crossing your arms over your chest. "He's a good guy, Eddie."

He sighs in a short, almost defeated breath. "I know he is, doll."

The unmarked door at the end of the hall provides a convenient distraction. "Where does this go?" You wonder with your hand closing over the knob.

"My apartment."

"You're living here?" You let it go like it burned you, swallowing the lump that has made a sudden appearance in your throat. 

"Sure. Can't beat the commute." He reaches around you, turning the doorknob to reveal another flight of stairs. "Do you want to go up?"

Flashes of that day are more vivid than they should be for memories two years old. The closet carpet is soft under your fingers as wet tears rain down on the glossy pages. Steve's voice gets closer as he calls out your name. A tightness grips your chest as you attempt to step back, momentarily forgetting that Eddie's right behind you. He supports you with a steadying hand on your hip as he faces you, seeking your reaction.

"No, that's okay. I think we're fine down here. I  wouldn't want to disturb anyone," you say, attempting to sound confident as you wipe your palms along the sides of your jeans.

Eddie scratches the side of his head as his brow wrinkles. "Who do you think it up there?" 

A hot breath passes your lips as you turn away, walking back down the hall toward Studio C. "I don’t know," you call over your shoulder, too chicken to face him. "Skyler Simmons. Rock royalty. Media darling. According to the magazines, your long-time girlfriend. The one you own a house with. Ring any bells? Isn’t she here with you?"

"My what? Skyler Simmons?" The deep belly laugh that follows has you spinning on your heels to face him.

"Wait. You’re serious?" His dimples make an appearance as his smile deepens. "Me and Skyler?" He can barely get her name out without chuckling. 

"The one you’re photographed with constantly."

His brows shoot up. "Keeping tabs on me?"

"Oh, don’t flatter yourself," you huff. "It came up in my research. Do you have a relationship with her or not?"

"I know her," he offers, shaking his head, "She’s a friend. We go to the same group." 

"What group? The one for annoying assholes." 

He pauses, his arms crossing over his chest. "The one for people with addiction in their families. That okay with you?" His voice escalates. The simmering anger in his eyes mirrors the intensity of his tone. "Skyler is gay. Her girlfriend's usually hanging around, too. Does that mean I’m fucking her too? Jesus."

Frigid water clashes with your hot blood as the fight drains away. Glancing at your feet, your voice diminishes to barely more than a whisper. "Why hasn't she come out in the media?"

"Maybe because it’s none of anybody's fucking business." His piercing gaze bores into you as the sharp words land like heavy stones in the sour pit in your stomach. "Hold on," he waves a hand in front of you, "Why do you even care?"

"I don’t," your voice falters as the dishonest answer leaves you without hesitation. Your eyes trace the patterns on the floor. "It just makes for a better story, is all." 

His hands run through his hair, fingers tugging on the ends as his tone softens. "Doll," he pauses, taking a deliberate step closer. His warm fingers cup your jaw, forcing your eyes to meet his. Those amber swirls, always seeing beyond your surface. "No one else is in my apartment, and no one else is gonna be."

His touch sends a searing heat spreading through your skin as the weight of your engagement ring pulls on your finger. "You’re a grown man, Eddie. Do whatever you want." Stepping back, his hand falls from your face as you turn and enter the studio.

"Fucking stubborn," the low murmur carries under his breath as he follows you inside.

"It looks like this one’s almost finished." You spin around the room, taking in the progress, before letting your bag slide down your shoulder and sinking onto the couch. 

Gray triangles of acoustic foam now adorn the live room walls in contrasting patterns, and layers of soft carpeting line the floor. The mixing room's mural stands completed, and the furniture has all been placed. 

His eyes move around the room, the pride evident on his face. "Just some wiring and the vocal booth, and I’ll be ready to start setting the levels."

"This one’s your favorite, I can tell," you shift, tucking a leg under you as he joins you on the couch. 

"Shhh," he hushes you, raising a finger to his lips. "The others will get jealous."

Rolling your eyes, you pull your phone from your bag, open the recording app, and set it between you both.

"How does this work?" Eddie's eyes are fixed on your phone while he rubs the back of his neck.

"Well, typically," your hand slips back into your bag to retrieve the neatly stapled pages of your notes, "I ask a question, and you provide the answer." You set the pages in your lap, drawing in a steadying breath. He’s sitting in front of you with a key to a locked door  – one that might be best left closed and forgotten, but it’s time to hear him out. 

"Eddie Munson interview, part one."

"Mr. Munson." You slip into your most professional tone. "Thank you for granting us an interview during this busy time. All of us at Stax are very excited to welcome CursedSound to Chicago."

He leans forward, his voice dropping slightly in timber as a much smoother, older Eddie begins to answer, "Thank you. I always have time for my favorite magazine." He winks.

Your lips press into a line as you tilt your head to the side, taking a quick glance at your packet. "In April 2003, Fever to Tell was released by a relatively new band and a completely unknown sound engineer. It went on to sell over a million copies, putting The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the name Eddie Munson on industry minds. Fever to Tell is still, to date, one of my favorite albums. Were you aware of the significant impact this record would have when you were working on it?"

"At the time, we were really just hopeful, you know? We believed in the music we were creating. Karen and Nick, and Brian flew out from New York with their last dime, and we just got to work. Karen had this kind of raw, untamed energy, and I wanted to capture that, to add an edge to the album. It was this post-punk dance-floor-friendly racket that injected a much-needed dose of authenticity into a musical era that was getting stagnant."

"It's not an exaggeration to say that record helped shape the direction of indie and alternative rock for years to come. But what I want to ask is you before all that. What was the road like moving from Hawkins to having your dreams come true in LA? Was this the path you first set out on, or were there curves in the road?"

"I think 'curves' is a generous term for the absolute shit choices I was making for myself back then," he chuckles. "As you know, I left Hawkins about a year after I graduated. That town had already decided I would never be anything more than a freak– a loser with no future. If I had stayed, that's exactly what would have happened. I was trying to outrun my past without a clue what I wanted for my future. I had my own band back then, and sometimes, we’d open for slightly bigger bands that rolled through town. One of them was about to tour and invited me to go as their one and only roadie, and it felt like a free ticket out."

"Bananafish," you interject, swallowing and glancing down at your notes.

"Yeah, Bananafish. God, they sucked. Did you know they started as a Spin Doctors tribute band?"

"No," you laugh, "And that wasn’t a red flag for you?"

"It should have been. I wasn’t with them for long anyway. I think I lasted for three weeks before they cut me loose for getting in a fight with the drummer." He pauses, shaking his head. "I never knew when to shut my mouth. At that point, they had hooked up with another band called Everly. Slightly better, but not by much. I managed to hold it together for a few months. I was high or drunk most of the time, the only reason they kept me around was because they liked the way I babied their instruments."

"I remember,” you nod. “You’d spend half an hour polishing that Warlock every day after school." 

"Got to treat a lady right if you want her to sing for you," he says with a sly rise and fall of his brows, draping an arm over the back of the couch, shrinking the space between you.

"I was surprised that you left it behind." 

Eddie's expression turns more solemn. "There were a lot of things I wished I could’ve taken with me. But back then, I couldn’t even take care of myself."

"I don’t believe that," you swallow, the words sticking in your throat, "You could have tried."

"If I had tried, they would’ve ended up broken, and I’d‘ve lost them anyway." His fingers brush your shoulder, and you flinch. The leather creaks as you sit back against the arm of the couch, just out of reach. 

"Back to Everly. Why did you part ways?" 

"Oh, well, I fucked it up, of course. They had landed a spot at Bonnaroo, and I got so fucked up the night before I missed sound check. When I managed to pick myself up off the floor of the van, they handed me my duffel and a twenty and told me to pound sand." His eyes drift away, fixating on a point across the room. "I had barely been outside of Indiana, and there I was, stuck on some farm in Manchester, Tennessee, with no ride, no money, and no one to call. I was angry at the world and never felt more alone. People always talk about hitting rock bottom, I thought that was it, but now that I look back, it was more of a crossroads. If I had followed that darker path, there would have been no coming back. I was wandering around backstage where they park buses, hungover, maybe still half in the bag, and that’s when I met Max."

"Max Navarro?" You shuffle through the pages of your notes.

"Yeah. You know him?" Eddie’s eyes brighten as his gaze drops to the pages in your lap.

Your head turns from side to side. "You referred to him as a mentor in the Stones interview, but I couldn’t find much on him besides his name being listed as an audio engineer for several tours."

"That’s Max." Eddie breaks into a smile. "He’d tell you he likes flying under the radar. He was hanging out in front of the bus playing guitar with a couple of guys when I walked over like a cocky shit, picked one up, and started playing. He gave me something to smoke, and it wasn’t weed. All I know is that I woke up face-down in the dirt the next morning. I don’t know if he liked me or just felt bad for me, but he dragged me on the bus and had me start assisting him with the sound for Faith No More."

"Faith No More? Are you kidding me?" Your hands fall to your lap, slapping against your thighs, jostling the cushion enough for your phone to slide toward the back of the couch. "You had their poster in your room. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you had a charmed life."

"Well, even the sun shines on a dog's ass some days," he laughs.

"So Max is who taught you about engineering?" 

"Max is who taught me about everything." His voice holds a reverence when he says his name.  "He kept an eye on me. Showed me how to work the boards.  He said he could see shadows following me around, so when we got to LA, he took me out to the desert, fed me some tea, and exercised my demons."

"Did it work?" Max wasn't the only one to see shadows looming. Consequences of decisions made by others. Expectations of a community that turned its back. They clung to him like an impenetrable fog. 

"I’m not sure. I felt lighter after, but it could have been the gallon of water I sweat out," he chuckles.  "After that, he cashed in a favor and got me an internship with a small studio in Laurel Canyon. I parked cars at night and lived in a room the size of a closet at Max’s house. I worked my ass off. I went to therapy–" 

"How very L.A. of you," you chime in.

"Don’t knock it until you try it." He looks at you from under raised brows. "It’s, uh, good to talk about things. Be open, you know?" 

"No thanks. I tried that once," you tell him pointedly, the tightness in your chest returning, "It didn’t work out for me."

Your arrow hit the target. Regret flashes in his eyes. "Doll–" 

"You decided to stay in L.A. and work at a studio instead of going back out on the road?"

"I like studio sessions. Makes me feel like I’m working towards something. I like completing an album and putting it out in the world. Some people thrive being out on tour, like Max. Not me," he scratches at his chin. "Too many ghosts on those old roads." 

Like the ones back in Hawkins that jolt you awake in the dead of night, murmuring past shames of a lovesick and foolish girl. Robin had seen it, and so had the entire town, but you aren’t her any longer. She lies resting beneath the frigid earth, her memory an unmarked grave. You've moved forward, and you’ll never go back, the city drowns out the remains of her cries.

"So you stayed and built your life there," you conclude, flipping through the pages of your notes, ticking off the points from your outline.

Eddie leans back, a contemplative look on his face. "I guess you could say that. I got my own place, made some great friends. Sundays are for Max's family and Chile relleno. The weather is always beautiful. But I really stayed for the music,” he shrugs. “Have you been? I could take you some time. Show you around. Max would love to meet you, the girl I won’t shut up about. I think you’d like it there."

The girl he hasn’t bothered to call in a decade. "To Los Angeles?" Your gaze rises from your notes to meet his nodding response. "I've been a few times. With Steve. Mostly for work."

"Oh yeah. Makes sense." His jaw tightens, and he averts his gaze. "Well, I guess the rest is history. Is that enough for your story?"

"Yeah." You reach for your phone, tapping the red square to stop the recording. "It will be a great opening piece for the series." You pick up your messenger, hauling its weight into your lap, tucking your notes inside. The afternoon is ending on a flat note. A stone sits on your tongue, holding back questions that you lack the courage to ask, but maybe it’s better this way.

Eddie sits up suddenly, snapping his fingers. "Speaking of history, I want to show you something." He stands up, looking towards the door and back at you, "Um.. wait here, okay? I’ll just be a minute." 

"Okay-"

He holds up flat palms. "Don’t go anywhere." His eyes close as he winces, " I mean, you can wander around if you want. Just don’t leave."

"Eddie-" 

"I’ll be back." He holds up one finger as he exits the room. 

With a sigh, you push up from your thighs, rising to your feet, walking through to the live room where a drum kit stands at the ready. The snare looks a little worn, and the symbols have lost their shine. Your nails tap the high hat, and you smile at the shimmering sound.

"What am I doing?" You whisper, spinning the gold band on your finger.

The sound of the floor creaking echoes through the hall.  Eddie enters the room with the large box he's carrying obscuring his upper half.  His name written in Wayne's shaky handwriting, peeking out from underneath his fingers.

"What's all this?" You ask as he sets down the box with a heave in the center of the room and sinks to his knees, hovering over the taped flaps.

"I have no idea," he grins mischievously. "Wayne gave it to me when I stopped by last week and told him I would see you. But you know him, he never throws stuff out. It could be anything." His hand smoothes over the top as he raises a brow. "Wanna find out?"

Your hands slide over your jean-covered thighs before your feet carry you forward. "Mrs. Click better not be in there." 

His head tips back with laughter. "I make no promises," he jokes while you take a seat on the floor on the side of the box.  

His mouth quirks up, watching you get comfortable. With a fluid motion, he leans and grabs a box cutter beside the soundboard. His shirt lifts slightly, offering a glimpse of hair trailing down his belly and the sculpted muscle beside his hips. His tongue lightly grazes his upper lip as he expertly flicks the knife open, his jeans snug on the contours of his strong thighs. Exhaling slowly, you avert your eyes, scanning the room instead as you wait for him to slice the tape. 

"Score!" He pulls out the ragged-edged sheet that was folded and tucked into the top of the box. "Corroded Coffin," he reads aloud the words scrawled across it with something resembling shoe polish.

"Oh no," you laugh, your head turning side to side as you rock in your seat. 

"Hey. This is rare band memorabilia. It’s probably worth money," he defends, holding it up proudly. 

"Yeah, to the guy you have to pay to haul it away," you giggle.

"Alright, Alright," he folds it up, the smile never leaving his face as he reaches into the box. "These are yours." He pulls out a stack of comic books and hands them to you.

"Still in good shape." You thumb through the copies of Tank Girl and Witchblade.

"My campaigns." He pulls out a pile of notebooks and sets them aside before reaching back in. "Some CDs." He comes out with a hand wrapped around a stack of jewel cases, the one on top catching your eye. 

"Hey, that’s my Cranberries Cd!" Your fingers dig into the carpet as you tip forward, yanking it from his hand. "I looked for this everywhere. I knew you took it, you thief."

"I don’t know how that got there," he scratches his head, "You must have left in the van."

"Nice try, Munson." your eyes narrow, "I checked there." You lean over the box, poking a finger into his chest, "I knew you had a crush on Dolores."

"You got me. It was the accent," he admits with a grin full of dimples, his hand closing around your finger. 

"I’m keeping it." You drop back into your seat and pick up the case to examine the disc.

"Holy shit."

You raise your head to meet his wide chocolate eyes, a look of sheer delight written across his face. "Close your eyes," he instructs, pulling back the flaps of the box, hiding whatever he's found.

"Mrs. Click?" You set the CD on top of the comics.

"Better," he says excitedly, waving a hand toward your face. “Come on. Close your eyes."

"Fine." You leave one eye open, folding your hands in your lap.

"No peeking." He wags a finger.

Your lips purse as you close your other lid, waiting for the big reveal. Plastic clanks against something heavy, followed by the rustle of cardboard.

"Okay. Open."

"Daisy!" Your hands fly to your mouth before you reach out with wiggling fingers.

He winces as he hands over the two-foot garden gnome. "How can you call something so ugly a pretty name like that?"

Taking the heavy lawn ornament in both hands, you gaze down at her droopy hat and too-large ears, which stick straight out beside her bulging eyes and porcine nose. Her rubbery lips are pulled back in a smile, showing off her buck teeth and flowery dress that barely conceals her body. 

"She's beautiful." You cradle her in your arms. "Besides, you're the one who stole her."

"You’re the one who dared me to," he scoffs. 

Your cheeks already ache with an unrestrained smile as the memories from that night surface. "I didn’t think you were going to wake up the whole neighborhood crashing into the bushes in Mr. Lawson’s yard." 

"I was drunk," he defends, his face turning red.

"You tripped over your feet and ripped your pants," you gasp for air, trying to get the words out with your laughter, "You had on those Garfield boxers with the hearts."

"Of course, you remember that." His laughter joins yours, easy and familiar. "You're the one that woke up the neighbors, making the van backfire."

"It was the first time I drove, and I didn’t have a license." You clutch Daisy tightly to your chest as you try to catch your breath. "Mr. Larson came out in his bathrobe, screaming about shooting you in the ass."

Eddie shakes his head as you laugh at his expense. "He almost caught us when you stalled out. All for that hideous thing."

"Shh," you cover her ears with your hands. "You can’t get rid of her."

"Never," he agrees, reaching out for her. "I’ll find her place of honor around here somewhere."

"Put her on your nightstand," you suggest, handing her over. 

"Ugh," he says, setting her aside, "I’ll have nightmares."

You burst into laughter once more, and his eyes ignite. He smiles like he’s savoring every sound, like your happiness is a hard-earned treasure he's been longing for. 

The shards of the past press against the scar tissue encasing your heart as if struggling to free themselves and reassemble in the present. Your hand finds its way to your chest, pressing gently on the tender center, trying to quell the ache and remain in this moment—with him.

"What else? What else?" You clap your hands, bouncing in your spot. 

"Okay, okay," he gives in, happy to indulge you. "Um, a pack of crayons, a monopoly piece." He places them aside. "Thanks, Wayne. Could have done without that. Looks like some clothes. Oh, this is yours." He tosses a ball of red fabric at you, and you catch it with both hands before he continues to search through the box.

"Is this what I think it is?" His voice brims with excitement as he pulls a rectangular tin from the box. He shakes it, and a sharp sound follows. "Yes." His tongue sticks out from the corner of his mouth as he pries off the lid. 

His voice fades into the background as your focus turns to what you're holding. The fabric of your Musicland vest unfurls as you hold it out in front of you, the gold name tag still pinned to the front catching the light. A heavy sensation settles in your stomach, tightening and cramping as a sick, painful feeling creeps in and spreads — nausea churns as each inhale becomes battle. 

There’s a scrape of metal as the lid pops off. "Polaroids," Eddie declares, his attention lost to the thrill of his find as he flips through the stack of photographs.

Your heart races as the room seems to shrink. "Stop it," you whisper, your voice quivering, your trembling hands twisting the vest as if folding it small enough can make the pain disappear.

"They’re pretty faded, though," he goes on, unaware. 

"I said, that's enough!" The balled-up vest flies from your hands, landing back in the box. Adrenaline surges through your veins as you push yourself up on unsteady legs. "I need to leave."

Eddie's laughter dies in his throat as he looks up, the joy in his eyes replaced by confusion. "Wait a minute." He gets to his feet and follows you. The small pile you made topples over, forgotten as you pick up your bag from the couch. "What just happened?" He moves in front of you, blocking your path. "I thought we were having fun."

"Fun?" The word is a shard of ice. Without hesitation, you sling your bag over your shoulder and maneuver past him towards the door.

“Just hold on a minute.” He blocks your path again, hands up, eyes searching yours for answers. “Tell me what's going on.”

"What do you want?" The words slice the air, eyes locked, a bare blade of anger.

"I wanted to-" His eyes flick toward the abandoned box in the center of the room.

"No." Your head shakes, "Why are you here? Now?  After all this time? What do you want from me?"

"I just wanted to see you." His arms cross over his chest as his voice turns softer. "I missed my friend."

"Your friend," sarcasm drips from your words as you quirk a brow, "So you show up here with a box of crap and a ‘hey doll’,” your voice lowers to mock him, "And I’m supposed to what? Forget about everything that happened and hand you a clean slate. Drop everything in my life to follow you around like a puppy because you feel like paying me some attention?"

"That’s not…I’m not asking for that." His hand runs through his curls, frustration building in his tone. 

"I'm not going to sit here with you wandering down memory lane and watch you pretend like you cared." Your eyes sting, but tears won't fall. You've shed your last one for him long ago. "Like any of it mattered."

"No one's pretending here, doll." He steps closer, his hands falling to his side, fingers rubbing at the seam of his jeans. "Of course, it mattered—all of it."

Your bag falls from your shoulder with a resounding thud, its weight matching your resolve as you push your hand against his chest. "I don't believe that for a second. If it mattered, you never could have done what you did."

"Done what?"

"Left me!" Your hand lands flat across your heart. "Without a goodbye, just some shitty mixtape full of songs that I can't listen to without my heart breaking over and over."

"You're right, okay." His voice rises to match your volume, his fingers closing around your biceps. "I was a fucking coward, and I ran. I couldn't see that look on your face again, the one you had when I told you I was leaving. I should’ve said goodbye, but I knew you'd try to convince me to stay, and that was never going to happen. I'm sorry I hurt you, but I can't be sorry I left."

"Hurt me?" You push his hands away, taking a step back to control the cracking in your voice. "You didn't just hurt me, Eddie. You destroyed me."

He swallows, looking away. "You were better off."

Fresh anger surges, along with the strong desire to escape – to leave this dead and buried, maybe for another decade until the hurt isn’t so strong. 

"See, that right there is why I'll never believe you," you snap, pointing an accusatory finger his way as you step around him, your hand closing around the doorknob. But at the last moment,  you turn, wanting him to hear it. At least once.

"I didn't quit Musicland. I got fired. I was a mess after you left. I cried for days, but I clung to this pathetic hope that you’d call to explain everything. To say it wasn't the end for us. You wouldn’t just throw me away, right? Not after everything we had been through together. I wouldn't leave my room, not even to eat. I was so afraid that the second I left, the phone would ring."

There's regret in his eyes as he steps forward, getting closer until he can touch you again, one hand gently gliding up your arm.

"But that call never came, did it, Eddie? Not one. And every day that passed, I died a little. But then I wasn't sad anymore. All those tears, they turned to hate," you say coldly, locking your gaze with his. "I hated you. I hated every song that came on the radio, reminding me of you. I hated Hawkins and everyone in it. But most of all, I hated myself for trusting you. For believing that you ever cared about me. That I wasn’t alone. That's what you did to me, Eddie.”

“You made me hate myself."

"I’m so sorry, doll," his words barely crest the silence as his gentle hand cradles your jaw. “There’s so much I want to explain to you.”

His touch is hot, but inside you, a coldness lingers–inside your stone. "You kissed me. And then you left me the next day. You knew how I felt." 

"I know. I know. I’m sorry." He steps closer, trying to pull your rigid form into his arms, lips brushing your temple. "You don’t even know how much. I’ll spend the rest of my life apologizing. Trying to make it up to you. But you’re wrong. It all mattered. I did care. That kiss..it’s the reason…" He pulls back and looks into your eyes, "You knew me, you always did, but there were things I couldn’t tell you. Things I couldn’t admit even to myself. I was scared and angry all the time."

Your head shakes as you swallow hard. "You're not even real!" You shout in his face, your fingers clutching the doorknob behind you. Spinning, you tug hard, but his hand slams against the door above your head, keeping it shut. 

"Stop, doll," he pleads. “Let me explain,” but the push-pull intensifies. You're no match for his strength. "Stop it!" he yells. His hand pushes on your shoulder, turning you to face him. Anger flashes in his eyes, and his cheeks flush.

"I made you up.”

“No.”

“The boy I knew could never have done that. He could never have hurt me like that." Your shoulder jerks, breaking his hold as you attempt to turn away again.

His fingers wrap around the side of your neck, keeping you in place. "That boy could never have given you what you wanted. He wouldn’t have had the first clue how to handle you."

"Is that why you’re back?" You ask, still defiant even as his thumb presses into your throat, tipping your head to meet his gaze. "Dragging this all up again, ruining my life? Because you do?" 

"Damn right, I do." 

His words are a gravelly assertion, barely escaping before his mouth descends toward yours. For a heartbeat, the world pauses until your mouths finally meet — urgent and fierce. You part your lips eagerly, tongues finding their way together in a hungry and unapologetic dance. The firm pressure of his mouth moving in sync with yours is a spark, igniting a fire that seems to spread with each touch. The scent of clove and cedar leaves you lightheaded as the flames lick through your body. The scruff on his cheek is a rasp against your skin, a roughness contrasting with the smoothness of his kiss. He tastes like cinnamon and a hint of coffee. This kiss is filled with years of longing, swelling and crashing like an orchestra's finale.

Minutes slip away, yet your greedy mouths remain desperate. The room falls into a hushed stillness, save for the sharp intakes of breath and the sensuous wet slide of lips. The kisses seem endless, broken only by fleeting gasps for air, compelling you to pull each other closer, savoring every taste. Your fingers tangle in the soft waves at the nape of his neck, evoking a low, guttural groan that mingles with your shared breaths when you tug. His hands trace the curves of your body, touching every inch as they follow a path beyond your hips and ass, seizing the back of your thighs. With a firm grasp, he lifts you, pressing you against the unyielding door. You gasp as he positions you just how he wants — aligning himself hot and hard against your center. 

"Fuck," he growls against your lips as his hips roll, igniting fireworks through your body. Your eyes flutter shut, and a kaleidoscope of colors burst in the darkness.

He nips at the plush of your bottom lip, teeth grazing in a tender claim, a muted buzz begins in your bag—a sharp, insistent sting—that yanks you from the haze back into the real world. His eyes remain closed when you pull away. He leans closer, chasing your mouth, but the moment is already shattered. 

Your stomach plummets as the harsh reality sets in. His kiss now tastes like the ash of betrayal. The distressed whimper escaping your throat finally has him looking at you, shock written clearly across his features. Slowly, he releases you, your body sliding against his until your feet meet the floor. He takes a step back, hesitating, swallowing, "Doll —"

"No." You shake your head, your hands covering your mouth. The gold band on your fourth finger is a cool scorch against your swollen lips. "I have to go." You spring into motion, rushing to gather your bag.

"Stay, and we can talk about this," he implores, moving one hand to his hip while the other rakes through his hair. 

"Please don’t," you plead. "Don’t ask me for anything else." You swing the strap over your shoulder. "I just ch—" But the word stays stuck in your throat, as your eyes swim with tears.

His face falls, "It's not your fault, okay? I kissed you."

"Eddie—"

"You didn't do anything wrong. It was me," he insists, frustration in his voice as you scrub your face with your hands. "I don't want you driving when you're upset."

"I'm sorry," you say with an aching heart, pushing past him and closing the door behind you.

The sidewalk blurs under your feet as you race to your car. Fat raindrops splatter against the concrete like a spray of gunfire, each one a cold, wet slap against your skin. The sky chooses this moment to crack open, unleashing a torrent that feels personal. Your car comes into view, a bright orange ticket flapping under the wiper. Perfect. Just perfect.

With hands slick from the rain, you fumble with your keys before throwing yourself into the driver’s seat. Snatching the ticket from under the wiper as you go and crumpling it into your fist, stuffing it into the glovebox to be dealt with later. The downpour drums on the roof, enclosing you in a watery cocoon as you search through your bag for your phone. A missed call from Steve and a text reminding you about the dry cleaning. You spill the contents of your messenger onto the passenger seat, pens and lip gloss tumbling into the footwell. "Shit!" The word is a half-sob as you clutch the receipt marked with today's hours in unforgiving black ink.

Glancing at the clock on your dash, it hits you with the subtlety of a wrecking ball– six minutes until closing. It might as well be in another time zone, given the snarled rush hour traffic and the river that the streets have become.  Your car roars to life, and you pull out onto the roadway, tires hissing on wet asphalt, windshield wipers barely keeping up with the deluge. Your skin still sings with Eddie’s touch, but it's the burgeoning storm of words—cheater, adulterer, betrayer—mixed with the soft hazel of Steve’s disappointed eyes that tattoo themselves across your conscience. This is the unforgivable sin, and you can't undo it, but you'll be damned if you don't at least try.

You're double-parked now, hazards blinking a frantic rhythm. The 'CLOSED' sign on the dry cleaner's door mocks you as you rattle the unrelenting metal handle. "Please, please, please," you whisper, pounding on the uncaring glass, your unheard pleas bouncing off the empty shadows within. A car horn cuts through the rain —"What the fuck, lady?" The other driver yells, uncaring of your predicament.

"I'm moving, I'm moving!" The words are a rain-soaked shout as you slosh back to your car, drenched and defeated.

Another angry horn sounds off as you pull into traffic, carelessly cutting off a Yellow Cab in your haste. Rainwater drips from your hair, soaking your shirt. Even with the heater set to blast, it does little against the chill that has settled deep in your bones. Down the road, a bright blue sign glows like a beacon, and you jerk the steering wheel, the car fishtailing as you skid into the lot. 

The pharmacy's fluorescent lights are too bright and too sterile as you grab a small bottle of mouthwash off the shelf in the travel section and wait in line to pay, the store's generic electronic music grating against your already frayed nerves. Outside, you stand on the corner, swishing and spitting the minty liquid onto the sidewalk, repeating the process, trying to cleanse more than just your mouth. A passerby wrinkles their nose at you from under their umbrella. "This is Chicago! You've seen worse!" You snap, arms thrown up in exasperation while the rain and your regrets mingle on the cold pavement.

With pruney fingers, you pull the cardigan you had left at Stax off the back of your office chair. Shrugging it on, the material dampens from your wet t-shirt but offers a little warmth. Your phone buzzes as you settle at your desk — five missed calls from Eddie and four texts. The roar of the heavy rain and being buried deep in your bag had muffled its sound, not that you would have picked up. 

Eddie: Answer the phone, doll!

Eddie: Look, I need to know that you’re okay.

Eddie: I swear to Christ if you don’t pick up.

Eddie: Okay, have it your way. I’m driving to your place.

What? No! Your thumb presses the call button, and it rings twice before it connects. There’s no hello, just the slight hum of an engine and the rain pelting glass. 

“I’m okay,” you breathe into your phone, “I didn’t go home. I’m at my office.”

Your heart drums in your ears with each second of silence. Your eyes flutter shut, relief flooding you when he finally responds. An exhale loosens the tension in your chest.  His voice resonates in a dark rumble through the phone, "We need to talk."

“I….I know,” your voice wavers as you wipe your nose on the back of your hand. “I just need a minute here, Ed. Can you give me some time?” 

The rhythmic blink of the turn signal punctuates his heavy sigh. “Yeah. Alright. But doll,” he pauses as the sound of water splashing against his vehicle mingles with the whoosh of passing traffic, “You’re not running away from this. And trust me, the irony of that statement isn’t lost on me. Think about what I said, okay? I meant it all.”

With a tight throat, you whisper, "I have to go," and disconnect the call. 

Placing your phone on the desk, you dab the raindrops off your face with a tissue. The quiet of the office wraps around you, its half-dark corners and the soft glow from the monitors creates a place for you to breathe and be still. The raging storm and the ticking wall clock echoing in the solitude do little to distract you from thoughts you’re not ready to face. With a deep breath, you lift the lid of your laptop, seeking refuge in the normalcy of work as you coax the screen back to life.

The song erupts from the speaker on the edge of your desk, a jolt of sound shattering the silence like an accusation. You grab it with fumbling fingers, scrambling to press the off button. Covering your face with your hands, you let out a sound that is equal parts sob and hysterical laughter, wondering how you ended up in this situation. With your elbows pressed against the wooden top, you bury your face in your hands.

“What are you doing here, kid?” The gruff voice cuts through your misery.

"Jesus Christ, Hopper," you gasp, clutching at your chest, "You scared the hell out of me."

"Guess we're even since Mr. Brightside nearly sent me into cardiac arrest." Hopper towers over you, standing beside your desk with his hands buried in his pockets. 

“You listen to The Killers?” You ask, surprised while he drags a chair from the next desk, its wheels screeching faintly against the concrete floor.

“You kids really think Jim Croce is the only thing on my playlist?” A chuckle escapes him as he eases into the chair beside you, “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

You muster a puzzled look, shaking your head in feigned denial.

“Don’t bullshit me, kid. I don’t have much time. I’m meeting Joyce for dinner at that Italian place on Taylor Street. Have I told you about it? I’ve been dreaming about the breadsticks. Enzo puts some spice on ‘em, I don’t know what it is, but it’s good. You dip it in olive oil,” he groans, “Forget about it. Those things knock your socks off, and I’m wavering on the main course between—”

“I need you to take me off the studio opening,” you interrupt, folding your arms across your chest.

“We’ve been over this. Unless you have some good reason–”

“Eddie kissed me,” the confession slips out, eyes widening in shock at your admission, hands flying to cover your mouth.

His brows rocket upwards, then draw together, his gaze sharpening, voice dipping into a low, protective timbre, “What do you mean he kissed you?” 

“No,” you clarify, squeezing your eyes shut and pressing an elbow against the desk, massaging your temple to soothe the forming headache. “I kissed him. We kissed. It was mutual.”

Hopper reclines, the chair creaking under his weight, his gaze level and unreadable. “I’m disappointed in you, kid. I never thought I’d be having a conversation like this with you.”

“I know. I know. Steve…” you trail off, eyes drifting to the photo of Steve on your desk. 

Hopper leans in, his hand cutting through the air. “I don’t give a fuck about Harrington,” each word gains in volume, “This is about you and everything you’ve worked for. It’s 2012. That kind of nonsense ends careers. Do you know what can happen if he complains?”

Your eyes roll. “He’s not going to complain, Hop.”

“You don’t know that,” he counters, his head shaking off your naivety. “These things like this have a way of coming out. That was an amateur move. Where is your professionalism? What were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry,” you mutter, lowering your eyes. “We have more of a history than I let on.”

“Well, stop the presses. I couldn’t have figured that one out.” His voice lowers in resignment, “Maybe this is my fault–”

“No–” 

Your protest is swift, but he plows right over you, “I’ve babied you. Maybe it’s because you’re my favorite or because you were just a kid when you started. I let you get away with too much over the years because you’re a damn good writer. But that stops now, I’m going to treat you like all the rest of the idiots in this place.” His hand waves around the room before pointing right at you. “You’re going back to that studio, and you’re going to keep your dick in your pants and get those interviews done. If you want to play kissy face, you do it on your own time. You got me?”

Your mouth drops open, disbelief palpable. “You're still going to make me finish?”

“Damm, right I am,” Hopper affirms, not missing a beat. "If I hand your work off, it raises questions. Big, messy questions. What do I tell downtown when they ask why the piece was reassigned? Unless you’re ready to come clean to Harrington?” 

Your lip goes between your teeth as your head shakes.

“I thought so.” Hopper leans back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. "This could be both our necks," he mutters, concern filling his voice.

Your head shakes, but your determination is clear. "It won't."

“It better not. I don’t want to hear another word about it until that last story is on my desk. Are we clear?”

Your jaw clenches, the reality of the situation hitting hard. "Crystal."

Hopper's gaze remains fixed on you, ensuring his point has been made. "Good," he says, his voice softening, "Now go on, get out of here. Deal with whatever mess you've got going on. Just make sure it's sorted by Monday."

Your key slides into the lock and you turn it slowly, the tumblers falling into place with a series of soft clicks. You pause, leaning your forehead against the chill of the metal door, grappling with a rising queasiness that sours your stomach. 

A wave of home's warmth engulfs you, mingled with the earthy aroma of herbs and roasting potatoes. The vibrant strains of Queen accompany Steve's honeyed tones floating down the hall from the kitchen.

"Welcome home, ace. I was beginning to wonder where you were," his voice, laced with a touch of concern, greets you, “Busy day? Did you write me a Pulitzer?”

Your messenger bag slides from your shoulder, giving into gravity with a loud smack against the hardwood.

His voice grows nearer, warmer as he moves down the hall, the floor lightly creaking with each footfall. “I swung by the Athenian Room, grabbed us Chicken Kalamata, and I have a bottle of Chardonnay breathing.”

Your favorite. Your heart sinks further, receding behind your ribcage, unworthy of his care or devotion.

He stops short when he rounds the corner into the foyer, taking you in, his eyes reflecting your disheveled state. 

"I didn’t get the dry cleaning," you admit, struggling to keep your voice steady. "I was... too late."

For a heartbeat, he's silent, but his eyes remain tender. “Hey, that's alright, ace. I'll just skip the gym in the morning and swing by the cleaners before work. Are you okay?”

Traces of the day find a path down your cheeks as you sniffle and draw the cardigan tighter around yourself. "I got caught in the storm." 

“Did you forget your coat?” He draws closer as you give a small nod. His hands slide up your biceps, continuing on to wrap around you. “You're frozen.” He uses his thumb to lift your chin. “How about a hot shower, yeah? I'll keep dinner warm. You'll feel better after you eat.” His mouth begins to near yours, but you turn your face away. 

"I think I'm coming down with something," you manage, your lies teetering atop your mounting guilt. "My throat is sore."

Concern etches his features, his brows knitting together as he adjusts, pressing his lips to your forehead. “You don't feel hot.”

Pulling away, you bury your face into his shoulder. "I think I'll just shower and go to bed." 

“If that's what you want,” he presses a kiss to the crown of your head, though his tone is threaded with disappointment. “Go on up. I'll bring you some water and a couple of Tylenol.”

“Thanks, Steve,” you step away with a weight in your chest. “I'm really sorry.” 

“Don't worry about it.” He waves off your apology, his smile faint but sincere. His arms fold over his chest as he turns back toward the kitchen. 

As you climb the stairs, the music snaps off, replaced with the distant roar of a sports game, the announcers' voices carrying up the stairwell. 

The embrace of the hot shower strips away the cold clinging to your skin, but it cannot wash away the regret. Sliding down the tiles, you draw your knees close while your tears fall, mixing with the stream of water spiraling towards the drain. 

Your life is a song made up of the choices you've made, each one a different note that sounded so sure at the time, but now the harmony seems slightly off-key. The steam rises around you like a specter. It's the quiet between the chords. And you're there, just listening, trying to figure out if there's a note you'd change or if every single one was necessary. As you nestle into bed, sleep tugging like an insistent tide amidst the drift into dreams, one truth resonates clear– the music plays on.

Song 5 coming this week! Follow @tornupdates for notifications

Thanks for indulging me with this new version. I wanted to get it right. This next chapter is going to be Steve's launch party and will explore the fallout from that kiss. I love each and every one of you and I hope Torn!Eddie makes an appearance in your sweetest of dreams. -Jelly

#steve harrington #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #stranger things #eddie munson smut #steve harrington x reader #eddie munson fanfic #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington smut #stranger things fanfic #torn series

[zindagi-se-darte-ho]

franz kafka, diaries of franz kafka // taylor swift, evermore // emily bronte, wuthering heights // ada limon, shelter: a love letter to trees // yusef komunyakaa, pleasure dome: new and collected poems // anne sexton, a self-portrait in letters // franz kafka, the blue octavo notebooks // robert frost, my november guest // albert camus, the plague // gbenga adeoba, a short essay on drowning // virginia woolf, the complete works // talin tahajian // e. m. forster, howards end // louise erdrich, the sentence // cynthia rylant, in november // virginia woolf, diaries // may sarton, recovering: a journal // franz kafka, diaries of franz kafka

#dead poets society #english poetry #sylvia plath #sad poetry #grief #november #franz kafka #anne sexton #virginia woolf #depressing poem #gray november #taylor swift #academia aesthetic #academic #dark academia #desi academia #poetry tumblr #nerd stuff #dealing with grief #letters #mental health relapse

[violet-moonstone]

highlights from "searching for oswald...and chicken"

wow I loved this episode...I feel like I say that every time but I REALLY REALLY enjoyed this one

first of all its a Dagur episode, which automatically makes it great...most of the screenshots I took are of him. Honestly all of his dialogue is very quotable, especially since so many of the jokes they give him are thinly veiled adult humour

also the B plot with chicken was certainly something (and makes me think the writers were thinking about the end of the hidden world while writing it?)

ok so the beginning of the episode was already tugging at my heartstrings. I love seeing Dagur and Heather's sibling relationship, whether hey're arguing or getting along.

Well that's deeply upsetting! and the fact that he said "most of his life" makes me wonder how much of the confidence Dagur displayed as a teenager was a cover for whatever he was dealing with internally.

The part where Dagur hugs Heather and she looks happy but almost surprised was very bittersweet. It seems like she's still getting used to having a family, and affection catches her off guard.

Excuse me while I go cry

Call me deranged but I think Dagur slamming Snotlout against a cage was hot

As always, Hiccup is adorable. Literally looks like a cat

This is funny but also very upsetting! Snotlout and Dagur really make a habit of using humourous line delivery to cope with being deeply unwell:

*clears throat* uh yeah Dagur, I'm sure you do love a good "fruit bath," from time to time if you know what I mean...

Come on, the writers, animators and voice actor HAVE to have known that line came across as suggestive. Like the way he sounds? His facial expression? They may not have intended it to specifically imply he was talking about getting in a sauna with some twinks, but it certainly sounded like something sensual was going on.

Also I didn't get a shot of this but when Dagur starts listing adjectives to describe Heather's reckless behaviour, Hiccup says "Sentinel" while looking at Oswald's journal. Dagur says something like "that's not quite the word I'd use," which makes me think Dagur was going to call her a not so PG word...

Snotlout staring directly at the camera while narrating Tuffnut's emotional breakdown in the style of a pun-loving mystery novelist:

What an asshole (I love him). there's something really funny about Tuff leaning against the tree with a hand on his hip. Poor guy. Astrid and Stormfly were clearly less amused than I was.

Ok let's talk about Hiccup motivating Dagur to open the door to Oswald's shelter. My little Dagcup heart was really soaring here. And look at the lighting!

LOOK AT HIM! LOOK AT HIS FACE!

Oooohh man, Dagur expressing guilt about his past and Hiccup trying to help him through it also really got to me.

Dagur: I was a villain!

Hiccup: No, you were a kid

Me: *crying*

Because yeah, Dagur in Riders of Berk/Defenders of Berk did horrible things, but he was also enabled by all the adults in his life who could have stepped up after Oswald left. I've already written (both in posts and in one of my Dagcup fics) about how being thrown into a dungeon as a kid only made Dagur a worse person (no one in the show talks about the scars on his face that weren't there before...). And There is clearly an opportunity for restorative justice when it comes to characters like Alvin and Eret that wasn't extended to Dagur despite the fact that they had already overpowered him and could have at least given him a choice between punishment and trying to make up for his actions. Anyway...let me not rant about that anymore.

Ok what's next...oh yeah! Astrid doing this:

Hilarious.

Um...ok so...I needed to screenshot this for uh...reasons. It's the um...the composition and the...the lighting and...yeah. All that stuff.

THE DRAWING OSWALD DID OF DAGUR AND HEATHER AS KIDS

oooooohhh my heart!

Look. At. My. Boy. He looks so happy and at peace after reading his father's letter.

Ok so again...the writers making very interesting decisions for Dagur's lines.

Dagur being funny and a little concerning again

I liked the colour scheme for this Gronckle

More Dagur appreciation.

Before the episode where Fishlegs helps Dagur fly Shattermaster, I would have assumed Dagur would make fun of Fishlegs for being a nerd -- but instead he appreciates it. I think their friendship is super adorable, and I wish we got to see more of it.

Fishie! He calls him Fishie! (I ship them a little sometimes tbh) I can see Dagur having a thing for nerds.

hehehe

and uh, let's close off with hiccup being hot and windswept

#rtte #race to the edge #rtte screenshots #httyd #how to train your dragon #dagcup #dagur the deranged #dagur #hiccup #hiccup haddock #fishlegs #fishlegs ingerman #astrid #astrid hofferson #tuffnut #tuffnut thorston #snotlout #snotlout jorgenson #heather #heather the unhinged #oswald the agreeable

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

ROUND 4 MATCH 6

Grace propaganda:

“Grace is an indie game developer who also enjoys playing the same competitive game as you and all of your friends. She is kind, if a bit too meek. However, when push comes to shove she is ready to help you and all of your friends rise to victory.”

"Grace absolutely deserves your vote, she is so cool and adorkable. She writes hundred chapter wish fulfillment fanfics! She's rich and sheltered but would rather be with you and your other friends! She's neurodivergent af and a literal genius! You get to reconnect her with her rogue AI daughters in her route and it's one of the more poignant moments in the game. She's also canon wlw so like really the only reason not to date her is if you would rather she kiss the goth girl instead because they get together in a couple routes. Support gamers"

Elliott propaganda:

“Just look at him. Pure hunk energy.”

“I will punch anyone who dislikes him. He’s like a fire emblem character in the modern day. He’s so flamboyant and handsome, he can play the piano and he’s best friends with the old fishing man!”

“dramatic writer man with sexy hair”

"Since I like elliott. I will state some reasons why I like him

Imagine if Mr. Darcy didn’t insult your family first time you met him, that’s Elliott. The man who’s basically the hallmark romance love interest. He’s a writer who moves to the small town in the country side to find inspiration for his writing. Then he finds the farmer.

He has a crab living in his pocket

He can play the piano (hopefully it isn’t the river flows in you however)

His fans sometimes hc him as a merman and that’s just a major plus IMO

He genre of the book he writes is dependent on what genre you say you like.

He also sends letters to you if you marry him

Okay and also some things I dislike

His liked gifts, the easiest one is pomegranates, which cost like 6000g to grow a tree if you don’t pick the fruit cave. I AM NOT GETTING SQUID INK IN YEAR ONE FOR YOU.

he might be British /j

The fact he has no kitchen but still likes food like lobster, like he is just a mystery. Lives in a cabin, with no kitchen, no washroom (okay no character has a washroom), but still likes the most fancy food out there and has luscious hair worthy of a L’Oréal ad.

Gifting him on rainy days when you don’t have two hearts"

#grace arcade spirits #grace cooper #arcade spirits #arcade spirits: the new challengers #sdv elliott #elliott stardew valley #stardew valley #Round 4 #MDDC 2

[firstfullmoon]

So to talk about trees is to talk about our attachment to them. Our longing for them to be okay. To talk about trees then is also to talk about each other, the ways we are attached to what is living and how much we want it to go on doing just that for as long as possible. It is never only trees, but what binds us together, the trees, the roots, the eternal part of us that is both the seed and the tree.

Ada Limón, from Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees

#w #lit #ada limón

[secrets-i-whisper-to-the-moon]

Ada Limón, from "Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees,"

#dark academia #quotes #spilled words #spilled thoughts #dark aesthetic #text #book quotes #words #words words words #dark acadamia aesthetic #poet #poetry #dark academia aesthetic #academia aesthetic #chaotic academia #classic academia #light academia aesthetic #soft academia #romantic academia #excerpts #writings #literature #prose #fragments #selections #typography #prose collection #secrets i whisper to the moon quotes

[mournfulroses]

Ada Limón, from "Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees," published in June 2022

#lit #ada limón #writings #love #words #selections #fragments #quotes #shelter: a love letter to trees #p

[gwendalyn]

Kiss me

George Weasley X Reader

Start of a series of George Weasley fics inspired by a playlist I made.

Fluff fic, realising feelings.

Warnings: None

The first week back at Hogwarts was always calm in comparison to the rest of the year with work. This year the sun made a return and it was only the second day of classes and you found yourself sitting in the grassy fields as the sun shone down and the wildflowers around you tickled at your arm as a gentle breeze brushed against your arm. You started dissecting the first autumn leaf that had fallen off into your lap, looking up to the trees that were starting to shift to a more yellow-ish tone as autumn had established itself.

You couldn’t help but think about your summer, how boring it was. And why it was boring. And why you were longing for September. Probably just because you missed your friends a lot, and you didn’t live exactly close to them. Sure the letters came through and you sent them back. Something made you giddy when you read Georges letters over and over again. You didn’t know why you did that. Of course you admired everyone elses letters. But when George wrote “I miss you” in that letter you couldn’t stop thinking about him differently. When you met at Kings Cross a few days ago, an incredible wave of joy just hit you like a ton of bricks and you had to stop yourself from tearing up.

He and Fred had been your best friends since first year. And you loved them both as friends. Most people didnt really see any difference between the two, but you could see clear differences in how they looked, and their personalities. And Georges personality has been making you blush recently and you can’t help it.

You look back at the wildflowers around you as the sun finally reaches your face. You close your eyes and soak in the sun that would dissapear for a few months soon. Then when you open them, you see a tall figure walking up the hill. Oddly just the solo figure which is usually met with another.

George smiles when he sees you and sits besides you.

“I thought I could see you from my room. What are you doing here by yourself?” He asks, looking into your eyes. There was something about the way he did that. He didn’t just look at your eyes, he managed to look into your soul.

“I don’t know really, just thinking I guess. Plus it’s a nice day today.” You tell him. He joins you to look up at the clear blue sky with no clouds. Not something you saw a lot in the UK. You then look at him and notice how the sun glistens off his face, admiring the shine.

“Just you today?” You ask. “Yeah Freds off with Angelina again.” George replies.

Then he looks at you. Into your soul again. Saying nothing but he didn’t need to. At first he had a thoughtful expression, as if he was thinking deeply, then he suddenly shifted into a soft smile.

He repositioned himself to a more relaxed state, legs facing forwards and leaning back on his arms to take in the sun, when he accidentally brushed against your hand.

He apologised and instead just placed his hand besides yours, with his pinkie crossing over yours though. You decide to lock your pinkie with his. He looks back at you and lays down besides you whilst locking his fingers between yours. You felt a rush of heat hit your face, but not that embarrassment you felt before. It felt natural this time, not awkward.

You both lay there, looking up at the tree which sheltered you a little with rays of sunlight shining through the gaps.

“I’m really glad I can see you everyday again.” George says.

“I am too. I missed you. A lot.” You let him know.

“I know. Your letters let me know.” George says with a smile as you both chuckle.

“But everything you feel, I feel too. That’s how we have always been. I missed you so much.” George says. Everything?

You look over to him and into his eyes again. Your mind just thought of two words. Kiss me. You wished he would just lean over and kiss you. You noticed him look down from your eyes onto your lips, then back up to your eyes. You managed to cutoff everything else from the world and just saw his eyes.

Then his lips.

You then notice his hand brushing your hair out of your face, then lingering with his thumb on your cheek and his fingers over your jaw and neck, praying he couldn’t feel your pulse through your neck as your heart was beating rapidly.

Then he placed his lips softly on yours. It’s as if he can read your mind. Or maybe he was right. Everything you feel he feels too.

His kiss was soft, but warm and passionate. He then lightly pulls away to see your reaction, and upon seeing your smile he leans over you more and deepens the kiss. Managing to contain that soft and warm feeling, but increasing the passion.

The kiss lasted until you both needed to take a breath. When he gently pulled away, looking into your eyes again.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all summer. I only just noticed it now.” He says.

“I feel exactly the same way.” You tell him.

“Because of that, I guess you’re my girlfriend now?” He asks. As if he even had to ask.

You gently but shortly kiss him.

“You already know the answer to that.” You tell him.

#george weasley #george weasley x reader #harry potter #george weasley fic #song fic #Spotify

[spgothkidsheadcanons]

More Facts About the Goths!

Henrietta:

- Her favorite season is actually Spring!

- She’s in tune with nature, and seeing all the leaves on the trees grow back and the animals that become more plentiful just makes her so incredibly happy

- She doesn’t like animals of her own, but if her S/O says something about wanting a pet, she’s got a bad habit of giving in and getting a pet to make S/O happy

- Speaking of her S/O, Henrietta is a very devoted and loyal person

- When she loves, she loves hard, and she hates to be taken advantage of or have her heart broken

- When she’s sketching up designs for clothes and gets bored, she begs her S/O to let her draw on them

- It’s soothing to Henri and opens up bonding time with her lover

- She hates to be called anything other than Henrietta, but her S/O has all permission to call her Henri, Etta, Baby Girl, Darling

- She’s a big fan of her S/O

- Probably that girlfriend who gets a t-shirt with S/O’s face in it

- And gets S/O one with her face on it

- She enjoys walks. Down the road, up and down the beach (only at night), hell, even the walk to her car

- Owns a 2 bedroom apartment

- Drives a purple Lexus 450h she named Bettie

- Likes to write and will spend all day writing in her journal, writing in a notepad, on sticky notes

- Her penmanship is very beautiful. Small, cursive letters that lean a little to the right

- Her birthday is November 13th, and she’s a Scorpio

- She’s 5’5, and 5’10 when she’s wearing her signature heels

- Henrietta is very in tune with her S/O, she’d bend herself over backwards to please them

- Cuddly

- So fucking cuddly

- She’ll share a bottle of wine with her S/O and then tuck herself right into their side

- Has to be touching S/O every chance that she has

- Has days where she goes silent, but she always bounces back

- Is in college for fashion design, models as a side gig to help pay through college

- Very good girl and I love her so much I would fight the sun to make her happy

- (26)

Pete:

- Pete had heterochromia, but it’s just a patch of green on one of his brown irises

- He had braces late in highschool, and now just has the permanent retainer on the backside of his teeth

- He’s more often than not hunched over, but he just doesn’t realize it, so he has a few back problems

- Likes to lay on the floor in his room because it helps with his back pain but also because he just wants to

- Stargazes almost every night

- Is really into space, reads facts about space, horror stories about astronauts hearing knocking on the rocket’s exterior, knows every single constellation and planet and their moons

- Incredibly smart, made all 100’s in school and almost got a perfect SAT score (1560 out of 1600)

- Pete has ADHD, and he can barely keep still if he’s just hanging around and not doing anything

- His birthday is 4/20 (HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETE BABY ILYSM) and he’s a Taurus

- He’s 5’10, and kind of self concious he didn’t hit at least 6’

- He lives with his uncle, but his uncle is almost always gone on business trips

- His uncle is his best friend, they do almost everything together when Unc’s in town

- He likes to cook and bake, and he’s always whipping something up in the kitchen for his S/O

- Always painting, anything and everything he can think of

- Prefers to paint his S/O, he’s obsessed with them and wants to memorize every dimple, freckle and curve of their form

- Likes when his S/O does his hair, does his skin care, or when his S/O just does anything with him

- He’s not the type to be all up in his S/O’s business, but he does like hearing from them once a day at least

- Owns a PT Cruiser he’s had since we was in highschool

- He calls it “Miranda”, after a long inside joke from when all the goths hung out together

- Likes decorating with stickers, and you can normallly find stickers on his car, on his laptop, one his phone and on his Emotional Support Water Bottle ™️

- Likes to cook and help run the food shelter

- BLEEDING HEART. EMOTIONAL BABY BOY. IF S/O CRIES, HE CRIES, IF S/O MAD, HE MAD

- In tune with his emotions, and believes it’s very healthy to share how you’re feeling

- Unironically listens to 2000’s club music. His favorite is Wobble by V.I.C

- Writes poetry, and does so extremely beautifully

- He’s a nerd I love him so much he’s my little baby doll

Michael:

- Kind of an asshole, but more in the endearing way and not in the jerk way

- Michael has moments where he forgets what he’s doing and he ends up just sitting down and not doing the original task

- Has definitely ruined dinner quite a few times because of his forgetfulness

- He likes knitting, something that he picked up in highschool and perfected a few years later

- He’s always singing, making a beat, or writing down things he thinks would be good lyrics

- When he’s busy with a recording session, he will stay at the studio for hours on end until everything he and his bandmates do is just right

- Back to being an endearing jerk, his S/O is always bullied by him just so Michael can make them feel better by kissing them and giving them everything they want tenfold

- Sends flowers to his S/O’s job, or really, wherever S/O is

- Kind of possessive, not in the “Oh no” way, but in the “Okay, that’s hot” way

- He’s 6’7, and loves leaning on his S/O because he’s a shithead who thinks it’s funny to just prop up on people shorter than him

- His birthday is April 21st, which he is so excited about because that’s Robert Smith’s birthday, and that makes him a Taurus

- Speaking of, he really is as stubborn as a damn bull sometimes

- If S/O wants to do something, they have to practically beg on their knees for Michael to go and do that thing with them

- Sometimes, S/O debates whether Michael really is stubborn or he just takes pleasure in seeing them beg

- DATE NIGHTS DATE NIGHTS DATE NIGHTS DATE NIGHTS Michael’s guilty pleasure is spoiling his S/O and he never takes no for an answer when he asks if you’d like to go out with him

- Owns a black 1990 Cadillac Brougham

- He’s a really big fan of vintage cars, he just thinks they’re so unique and they looked better before the 2000’s

- Big sweet tooth, and is constantly eating something sweet

- Owns a hairless cat named Boo that he likes to dress up

- Has a secret want to own all kinds of hairless mammals, he just thinks they’re so cute

- Has scary dog vibes, but he’s honestly more like an edgy golden retriever

- Likes to pick on his S/O, just so he has an excuse to hold them in his arms and smother them with love and affection

- He’s never actually mean to his lover, but if he’s mad, he does prefer to stay away from them until he calms down

- Michael’s got some issues he needs to work on, but all he needs is a healthy support system and he’ll be good

- Would never forgive himself if he did something that actually upset you

- He’s a butthead but a sweet butthead and he deserves everything in the world I love this man

#sp goth kids #south park goth kids #sp michael #sp henrietta #sp pete #south park michael #south park henrietta #south park henrietta biggle #sp henrietta biggle #south park pete #south park pete thelman #sp pete thelman #sp pete x reader #south park pete x reader #sp henrietta x reader #south park henrietta x reader

[whositmcwhatsit]

PART TWO

A/N: So, this has kind of unravelled... or unfolded... or collapsed like a... collapsing thing.

It's a silly, spooky, smutty love letter to Elvis, motels, small towns, ghosts, mysteries, and, erm, pine trees, with a ton of Elvis references and easter eggs that I think only I'm sad and nerdy enough to get.

Putting this out into the tumblr void in the hope that someone else might find some enjoyment from it too.

Catch up on Part 1

Everyone had congregated to eat in one of the other guys’ rooms. Elvis was reclined on the bed with his shoes on but wearing an entirely different outfit to the gray slacks and dark blue shirt he had been clad in while driving. Now he was all in black, but the captain’s hat was still in place. 

Cheryl had heard girls outside, she was sure of it. She had even turned up the radio to drown out one particularly shiver-inducing shriek that could have only been made by someone overcome with emotion. From all the racket, she had been sure that she would see at least a hundred girls in a crowd outside. She surveyed the road and the trees beyond, trying to fashion a scenario that made sense. 

After watching them devour their food like a pride of lions over a carcass, Cheryl understood why Elvis chose someone else’s room to eat in if he wanted all his guys around him. She picked at the overcooked meat and nibbled on some fries, but her stomach was too tense to allow much food inside. She had a strange feeling, like she had forgotten something or left it behind, but she couldn’t think what that would be, outside of her poor crumpled car by the side of the road.

Spreading out the paper napkin to cover her largely untouched meal, Cheryl brushed off her lap and fixed the group with a pleasant smile. 

“Well, thank you so much for your hospitality. I should probably be heading back to my room, I’m going to have a long day tomorrow.” 

“You can’t be going to bed yet!” Elvis teased. “It’s early! It’s not even little Billy’s bedtime yet!” The slight man he nodded towards pulled a face and made as if to swipe at Elvis, but was never in danger of making contact, especially after Elvis dodged with a raucous laugh. 

“Goodnight,” Cheryl said quietly to a background of banter and manly tussling. She turned as she stepped out onto the sheltered walkway and gasped as someone brushed by her in a canvas raincoat. 

“Oh, excuse m-” The walkway was empty in both directions. 

Cheryl’s arm still tingled from where the stiff material of the coat had brushed against her skin, but her brain was struggling with the contradiction given by her eyes. She briefly considered turning and knocking on the room door again, but then she caught sight of neon behind the squat little motel office and made a new plan. 

Forty minutes later, she was sitting at a table in the bar/restaurant nursing a martini and some barbecue wings. A couple of the patrons, men in rumpled shirts sitting at the bar, had given her a long look when she had walked in, but they had since gone back to their beers. 

The waitress made conversation with her, saying that she was a nice change from her usual clientele and she got excited when Cheryl explained what she was doing in the area. 

“Oh my grandma had the sight!” she whispered, glancing towards the bar before dipping onto the seat beside Cheryl. “And, you know, my folks said that when I was a little girl, I wouldn’t walk past one of the houses on our block? Just flat out refused to do it. I always said a strange man was staring at me, but there was never anyone there.” 

Cheryl nodded and smiled, eager to keep her companion for a little longer so that she could stay in the warmth and light without worrying about the heavy-set gentlemen at the bar deciding that she needed company. 

“How about here?” she asked, trying to look nonchalant as she blotted barbecue sauce from her lips with her napkin. “Did you ever see anything here? Or at the motel?” 

The waitress scoffed as she lit a cigarette and waved it airily at the barman to let him know she was taking a break. 

“Here? Nothing happens at the Cozy Pines. Just truckers and the odd tourists who didn’t stop in time in Portland but can’t quite make it to Seattle. The same family has even had the place as long as I’ve been alive. Old Bob Rochelle was manager for years until he had a hunting accident by the river. Still lives there though in the old honeymoon suite. His son Steve runs it all now.” 

Cheryl thought about taking a walk over to the office and having a chat with Steve. She weighed up her curiosity about the figure in the raincoat and the screaming girls against the potential awkwardness of the conversation. She could try the reporter angle and pretend she was writing about local history for her college newspaper, that one usually worked without making people stare strangely at her. However, Steve was a businessman, a man whose trade relied on people looking at his establishment and seeing comfort and respite. He probably wasn’t going to be forthcoming about events traumatic enough to leave an echo. 

“Say, did you hear that Elvis Presley is staying at the motel right now?” the waitress asked her. “I don’t know how true that is, but I heard it from Betty, whose husband is the manager. Didn’t sign in under his name, of course, but Steve thought he caught sight of him in the group. I’m going to head over after my shift and see if it’s true.” 

“Elvis? Really?” Cheryl grimaced doubtfully. “Wouldn’t he stay in a fancy hotel in the city? I didn’t realize that times were so tough for him.”

The waitress ground out her cigarette and took out a compact and her lipstick from the little pocket in the front of her apron, reapplying her lipstick. 

“Well, it’s probably bullhockey,” she agreed. “Still, I’m not taking the risk. My high school steady wouldn’t let me go back when Elvis did a show up this way. He was jealous, like all the boys.” She rolled her eyes and twisted the cap back on her lipstick. “I should have gone, the memories would’ve lasted longer than Teddy Davis, I’ll tell you that.” 

Another couple of guys walked into the smoky, noisy interior of the bar as the waitress returned to work. It took Cheryl a little while to recognise them out of their coveralls. A lot of her work involved reading people, taking in the lines and details; she wasn’t much of a ‘big picture’ or whole face person. 

Still, she was a woman alone in a bar and she sensed their interest, their attention on her as they strolled past her table. One of them took a table in the corner, while the other headed towards the phone, hung into a visored cubby beneath a stark bare light bulb. 

A few minutes later, he was standing at her table. 

“Hey, uh, Miss, the Boss has been looking for you. He wanted a word before you turned in.” 

Cheryl smiled into the rim of her martini glass at the play pretend and the subterfuge. ‘The Boss’, ‘wanting a word’. She had half a mind to stay and order another drink, but she hadn’t been lying earlier: it was going to be a long day tomorrow if she intended to get her car at least roadworthy and travel the last few hours to Seattle. 

“Of course,” she replied demurely, rising and leaving some rumpled bills on the table. She waved to the waitress on the way out, followed uncomfortably closely by Elvis’ guy.

Walking through the scrubby boundary between the restaurant parking lot and the motel, Cheryl paused as she took in the sheer number of automobiles now parked outside. There was a large mob of teenagers and even some older adults standing at the foot of the stairs to the second floor and a couple of cops looking bemused beside a tall, lean man in a striped shirt that Cheryl supposed was Steve the manager. They stopped her and Elvis’ friend/employee as they approached the steps. 

“We’re staying here,” her escort informed the officers, shaking his key with the room number etched into it. Cheryl took her cue from him and fished her key from her purse. After examining the fob carefully as if he suspected her of sitting in the woods painstakingly whittling a forgery, the uniformed officer stood aside and waved her on. 

The crowd started to chant as she climbed the steps and she wondered how she was ever going to get any sleep. 

“You go to your room,” her charming companion instructed. “I’ll let him know you’re back.” She unlocked her door and gave his retreating back a sarcastic salute before stepping inside. 

As she turned on the lamp, Cheryl had the strongest feeling that someone was waiting for her. If she had illuminated a figure sitting in the chair beside the dresser, she would not have been surprised, her sense of a presence was so strong, but the light thrown against the walls by the lamp just showed the spartan furniture and its shadows. 

The interconnecting door opened again. Elvis tapped on it once he had opened it and caught sight of her. She had never known anyone to knock as a greeting instead of a request to enter. 

“Come on in,” she said dryly, placing her purse on the nightstand and kicking off her shoes. He did, his vast aura engulfing the room and smothering the sense of that other presence she had felt. She raised her eyebrows as she registered the forcefully bland expression on his face and the way that he seemed to be grasping for words. He was annoyed. 

“Goddamn weasel in the office ratted us out,” he snapped finally. He paused in the center of the room and encircled his wrist with his other hand, flexing his fingers. “Hate that underhanded shit. We’re customers just like everyone else, we deserve some damn privacy.” He shook his head and sighed. “Guess it don’t matter, they always find out anyway.”

“That must get annoying.” She perched on the edge of her bed. “A policeman down there tried to stop me from coming back to my room and I found that irritating enough.”

Elvis thought about it, his thick black lashes fluttering as he blinked. Cheryl felt a little fondness for the way that he seemed to consider her comment so carefully. 

“No, uh, not annoying. Being sold out by that sonovabitch down there gets me heated, but people coming out… I mean they care enough to get in their cars and drive on over here in the cold and dark and everything… I appreciate that. It means something.”

“You’re grateful,” she put in, thinking back to their conversation in the motor home. 

“Sure…” He knocked the side of his fist against his thigh, looking around her room. “Sure. Uh, you know, a couple of my guys saw you at the bar across the way. I tell ya, you gotta be more careful, honey. A good girl like you shouldn’t be going to places like that all alone. People might get the wrong idea.” 

Cheryl’s eyebrows shot up and she had to rein in her laughter when she saw that he was serious. Deadly, earnestly serious. 

“The wrong idea,” she parroted instead, glad that her voice didn’t quaver. 

“Uh huh,” he shifted uncomfortably, looking somewhere near her right knee. “They might think you’re- That is-” He cleared his throat. “You just gotta be careful. You’re lucky you ran into little ole us, really.”

Cheryl’s mind was whirling with responses, most of them sarcastic and some of them resentful, but she discarded them all as he bit his lip and came to sit down next to her on the edge of her bed.

“Now don’t go getting yourself all worked up,” he murmured, fingers grazing her kneecap. “I ain’t saying nothing bad about you, baby. I know you’re a good girl-”

“I’m not that much of a good girl,” Cheryl interjected, putting her hand on one of his thighs. She felt the muscle tense and twitch against her palm. 

Her hand flexed on his thigh as the other ran up his chest and grasped his collar. He wasn’t even touching her and yet her skin was tingling all over; all over. When his hand finally settled on her waist, his thumb kneading into the curve as the heat radiated through her cotton blouse, she let out a helpless moan. Then the lights started to flicker. 

“W-w-well, there’s such a thing as too good,” he murmured, and they both laughed a little under their breath as they drew closer. His lips were soft, full and he used them skilfully like a tool he had mastered.

Most men, at least the ones that Cheryl had kissed, thought of kissing as a trailer for the upcoming feature: tight lips, plunging tongue, unrelenting pressure that she had to yield to.

Elvis’ kiss was gentle, not timid but playful and tender. His lips brushed against hers, nuzzling and massaging. Then he pulled back slightly, tilted his head and she caught the slightest hint of a smile as he parted his lips and his tongue teased its way into her mouth.

With her eyes squeezed shut and her mind otherwise engaged, Cheryl barely noticed, lost in a maelstrom of soft breath and tickling, warm pressure, but, as the bulbs grew brighter, they let out a loud buzzing like a swarm of angry bees. They pulled apart, looking around, and suddenly the lamp beside the bed gave off a loud pop as the bulb exploded and left them with an image seared on their retinas and a cluster of broken glass over the nightstand. 

Cheryl couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened, but she sensed Elvis’ head turn from the lamp to her face and he nuzzled into the line of her throat, his nose cold against the skin behind her ear. 

“Did I blow your bulb too, baby?” he rumbled in a deep bass, and they both broke into giggles. She enjoyed the way he laughed with his whole body, dragging her into it, his arms tight around her shoulders. 

“What happened, do you think?” she asked, staring at the glass fragments as she finally calmed down. 

“Power surge maybe?” He sounded like he was used to objects exploding and the rules of science and technology bending around him. He probably was. “The hell if I know.”

He let out a little boyish moan as he once again buried his face in her neck. The nerve that twitched at the feel of his hot breath went right down her spine and between her legs, which she was already clenching together. 

“I should go out there,” he said, words almost entirely muffled against her throat. 

“You know, the waitress told me that Elvis was staying at this motel,” she told him, angling her head as he nipped at her skin and then soothed it with a kiss. “I said that I didn’t realize he was that hard up.” 

Another huff of a laugh right into the crook of her neck and she had to cross her legs, feeling far from being a good girl. 

“Hard up,” he murmured under his breath as he rose, the emphasis he put on the words made her cheeks rapidly heat like that lightbulb. She tried to busy herself clearing up the mess on the table to hide her embarrassment. 

“Hey Cheryl?” It was the softness of his voice, almost breathless, that made her look up as he turned into the doorway between their rooms. 

“Yes?”

“Can you.. uh, see a spirit around me?” 

Cheryl had seen that same look he was wearing countless times before on many other people, a cocktail of hope and fear, and, just like always, she tried not to disappoint. 

“Well, um, let me see.” She squinted and focused on the empty space around him, letting his handsome face blur and fade with some regret.

“I can’t be sure,” she hedged, “but I’m picking up something, a strong feeling… love. You’ve lost someone you loved very much… No, someone who loved you very much…” She quickly let her eyes zoom in on his face, checking for the tiny tells, tension around the eyes, tightening of the mouth, and movement of the pupils.  

This should have been easy, he was one of the most famous men in the world and every aspect of his life was publicized, but Cheryl had never been much of a fan of popular music. She had never even seen one of his movies.

“You don’t see nothing, do you.” His jaw muscle flexed as he turned away and she thought she glimpsed a sheen in his eyes, but he was blinking very rapidly. “I-I guess I knew you wouldn’t. I don’t feel-” He shot her a fast, rueful smile and crinkled his eyes. It was the smile of someone who was always careful not to make people uncomfortable with their emotions. More than the promise of money, this made her want to tell him comforting lies. 

“I don’t always see what’s there, not straight away,” she said. “Especially if the spirit was very close to the person in life. They tend to cleave closer and blend with the aura of the person I’m reading, because they’re cut from the same cloth, so to speak.”

He nodded, that socially appeasing smile still faint on his lips, and she knew he didn’t believe her.

As Cheryl was scooping the last of the glass into the wastepaper basket, a communal shriek went up that signaled Elvis’ emergence from his room. Now that she had heard it, she realized that the screams she had heard earlier were not excited, not hysterical with joy and desire, they had been terrified. 

“I heard you,” she said quietly into the stillness of the room. You have terrible timing, she thought very loudly in her head. 

With a sigh, she jammed her aching feet back into her pumps and yanked on her jacket, peering through the net curtains at the window. It was an information gathering opportunity too good to pass up. Half the town was down there milling beneath the window, including cops who might be distracted enough by having to wrangle wailing women that they might answer her strange questions without getting too interested in her. 

It sounded like a carnival as she stepped outside her door. There were car radios blaring the same Elvis songs, presumably the local radio station showing deference to their prestigious visitor. People were laughing and talking and rushing backwards and forwards like they were lining up for rides.

It took a moment for Cheryl to locate Elvis in the center of it. He seemed to have changed into his third outfit of the day before venturing out and was now accessorizing his captain’s hat with a light blue neckerchief. She found herself imagining untying it with her teeth and she flushed even though no one could have possibly known what she was thinking about. 

Nearly all of Elvis’ guys were clustered around him in a knot, a tense and frowning wall of boys that could not have been more in contrast to the man they were encircling, who was grinning and laughing and glowing in the center of them. She supposed they were employed to do the worrying for him. 

Hopping from the last step, Cheryl took a wide arc around the main action and scanned the faces. Finally, she sidled up to a little group of girls who were leaning against a car and giggling over a folded magazine. 

“Hi,” she smiled and tried to look innocent. For some reason, she always had to make that effort, something about her natural resting face always made people suspicious. “Do you know what’s going on over there?” 

“Elvis Presley!” one of the girls cried. “He’s stopped here, of all places, on his way up to Seattle for a movie!” 

“Oh wow!” Cheryl marveled. She was putting on a voice, why was she putting on a voice?! “That’s wild! I love Elvis!” 

“He’s really the most!” one of the girls agreed. 

“I’m just so glad I was listening to the radio when they announced it,” said another. “Can you imagine if we had missed it?!”

“I’m just glad it’s happened now and not when old Mr Rochelle was in charge. My folks would’ve never let me come!” 

Recognition pinged in Cheryl’s mind and she zoomed in on this girl, who was blithely kissing the scrawled autograph on her forearm. 

“Why wouldn’t they have let you come?” She kicked herself for the intensity she heard in her voice, but luckily the other girls were too distracted to notice it. 

“What? I’m not saying they’re true, just that people talked. They said that old Mr Rochelle was…” Even this girl seemed to demure suddenly, glancing around as if someone might overhear. “He was just creepy.” 

“Because of the stories,” the girl replied absently. One of the others hissed:

“Jane!” 

“Was?” Cheryl prompted, wondering how far she could push without drawing suspicion. “He’s still alive, right?”

“Yeah, but he can’t walk. Not after… what happened.”

“Jane, that was just an accident. You are such a storyteller! You should be careful that people don’t start telling stories about you!” 

Seeing them descending into squabbling, Cheryl moved on in case they reconciled by uniting against the outsider who instigated everything. She tried a few more girls, but they were far too distracted by the object of their desire standing in the parking lot to put words together into sentences. 

Finally, Cheryl caught sight of the waitress- She wished she had asked her name- and she wandered over, having to focus on making her steps seem casual and not rushed. 

“Hi there!” she smiled. “Seems like the rumors were true!” Cheryl watched recognition flash in the woman’s eyes. 

“Had to happen eventually!” she agreed. 

“So, have you spoken to the great man himself?” she asked, feeling a little bad at the deception since the waitress had been so nice to her. 

“Not yet. I’m biding my time, it’ll be curfew soon and the cops will chase the teenyboppers out of here. I don’t want to risk having my eyes clawed out before then!” 

“Ha, yes, probably wise.” She shook her head as the waitress offered her a cigarette. “Are you from here originally?” 

“Born and raised. Why? Can you see the hope draining out of my eyes?” Cheryl really liked the waitress. 

“I was just wondering how much you know about the Rochelle family. You mentioned they’d run this place for a long time, and the girls over there were saying there were some stories about them?”

The waitress squinted across the parking lot. “Oh yeah, well, their mothers listen in to the party lines instead of watching television. You know how small towns are.”

“And no girls ever… disappeared or anything?” Cheryl wanted to reel the words back in as soon as they flopped out of her mouth and floundered in the dark, cold, damp air. The warmth rapidly cooled in the waitress’s eyes and Cheryl gave her an awkward, grimacing smile and edged away. 

“Of course,” Cheryl murmured, though all she knew of small towns was what she glimpsed as she passed through them with her family when they were on the circuit.

“I know what the gossip says,” the waitress said shortly. “But Bob was always nothing but polite and kind to me. He gave me my first job as a maid at the motel back when I was in high school.” 

That left only the police, but they all seemed very busy now that curfew had fallen and some kids were trying to defy it, lingering in the parking lot, trying to talk themselves out of having to leave. Cheryl slowly rotated, looking for a younger officer, maybe someone who looked like they had something to prove and would open up to someone willing to be impressed. 

Cheryl’s eyes instead snagged on Elvis, who had glanced up from the crowd of people surrounding him, eyebrows raised inquiringly, almost as if she had called him. He flashed her a smile, not the irrepressible grin she had bathed in back in her room, but the crooked ‘Elvis’ smile that was almost his trademark. She realized she might well have never seen him in a movie or attended one of his shows, but she had certainly seen a performance now. His attention was drawn back to the older ladies who were taking their turn now that the teens had been forced back home, and she finally managed to blink. 

“You should go on and head upstairs now. He’ll be done in a minute.” She flinched at the low voice to her left. 

“Joe, right?” she asked of the man who had appeared at her side.

“He’ll be done in a minute,” he repeated in a flat tone. 

“That’s nice,” she returned, turning away. 

Cheryl’s mother always said that Cheryl’s biggest weakness was her stubbornness. And she was right, but Cheryl was obviously never going to admit that. 

Likewise, she had just been about to head back upstairs to puzzle over this little mystery she had found herself wrapped up in, but now that Joe had told her that she had to, she had to force herself to stand in the cold, dark parking lot until Elvis and his gang went back upstairs. Those were the rules. 

Cheryl made one last attempt to talk to one of the police officers, but after all the excitement of the evening they seemed to have got their fill of young women and coolly told her to be moving along. She risked a glance back and Elvis was still talking, flanked by adoring middle aged fans he had his arms around. 

She rubbed her own goose-pimpled arms and swore under her breath. She was going back to her room because she was cold, she told herself, not because some lackey ordered her to. It didn’t make her feel any better as she stomped up the concrete steps and she kept her head high in case she looked down and saw them smirking at her. Ugh. 

“Who are they to be telling me what to do,” she muttered, unlocking her door and switching on the overhead light. “I’m a grown woman, do they think-” 

Tossing her jacket onto the chair, she looked up just as a girl with a swollen, tearstained face started to run at her, her face contorted by a soundless scream. Letting out a shriek, Cheryl collapsed back against the door and braced for impact, but it never came. She opened her eyes and took in the empty room. 

“Stop doing that!” she snapped, trying to sound like her heart wasn’t positioned somewhere in her windpipe, racing a hundred miles an hour. “I’m trying, okay?!” 

It wasn’t like people imagined, Cheryl didn’t even think it was much of a ‘gift’ as such. There were no silvery silhouettes standing in a line waiting patiently to pass on reassuring words to their loved ones on the earthly plane. And Cheryl wasn’t some mystical disk jockey taking messages and playing them out over the airwaves. 

“This one goes out to Barbara from Rod: sorry for the fifty years of marital neglect, and my will is hidden under the floorboard beneath my easy chair in the den. Next up, ‘Earth Angel’ by The Penguins.”

If only! No, instead it was silent, sepia, mimed mirages and flashy, nausea-inducing replays of trauma and horror. Other times, it was voices that sounded like they were being played at half-speed while underwater in the next room. Her ‘gifts’ had never been intended for use as a career and the more she tried to pretend that she was a worker on a production line, cranking out the latest in comforting and reassuring products, the more they acted up, twisted and turned on her. 

“God gave you this talent,” her great grandmother would tell her in the old tongue, refusing to speak the language of the cursed invaders. “Not PT Barnum, God.” 

Unfortunately, God hadn’t given her any other talents or inclinations she could profit from, so she had been forced to disappoint Granny O’Donahoe, but then poor Granny had been disappointed from the moment she first breathed air in that little stone peat-roofed cottage back in the old country, that was nothing new. 

Cheryl was still trying to shake the icy fear that she had walked into like a fog, or like a fog that had walked into her, and she didn’t hear the knock or register Elvis standing in the doorway at first. She tuned in halfway through his sentence, which was something about an autograph. 

“Sorry?” 

“I said, you went all the way down for an autograph, but you never came over, honey. You scared of me?” 

She forced a weak smile. “No, I just didn’t have any paper… or a pen.” 

“That’s never stopped me before, darlin’. Come on in here and I’ll show you.” He dipped his head, looking at her through his brows with sparkly eyes; his radiant smile half a second away from breaking out across his immaculately made up face. He was a goddamn movie star, standing in her motel room in the middle of a podunk town in Nowheresville. The screaming spirits were the least weird part of this whole situation. 

She crossed the floor and stopped in front of him, still a little shaky. He seemed to see it, rubbing his hands slowly up and down her arms, soothing her even as he was leaning in to shake her up all over again with his soft lips. 

The flat of his hands left the relatively platonic zone of her arms, sliding against her rib cage as he bent her backwards like they were in some romantic Hollywood epic. She gripped his shoulders for balance, feeling his palms travel the outline of her waist and hips before moving back to join in cupping her ass, tugging her against him. 

When he drew back, leaving her gasping for air, all the blood rushed to her face and… other places. She could only stare at his lips, the curves and creases, as he said:

“I’d like you to come into my room. Will you do that, sweetheart?” 

Cheryl’s heart gave a squeeze at the ‘sweetheart’, and the soft, gentle way he said it. That didn’t mean that she was going to make it easy for him though. 

“Why can’t we stay in my room?” she asked. She noticed that he hadn’t ventured any further than the threshold. She wondered if he felt it too, that lingering miasma of terror and pain. 

“I’m doing you a favor, honey, there’s faulty wiring in here or somethin’. You’re liable to get yourself fried if you stay in here.” He backed into his room. “No way, that ain’t how I’m going out, zapped by a thousand volts with my one-eyed peter hanging out.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to see that quote printed up on a nice poster in the office,” she returned. 

The laughter burst out of him like his body couldn’t quite contain it and he dropped backwards onto his bed, laying spread eagle.

“You are too much, honey, get over here!” He propped himself up on his elbows and wiggled his legs invitingly.

Even as she was ambivalently drifting closer, he snorted again, thinking back on her words. She paused with her knee on the bed and struck what she hoped was a seductive pose, pulling the pins and combs from her hair. It gradually unlooped and fanned out across her shoulders.

A smile, absent and unforced, tugged at the corner of his mouth, even as it was falling open, his bottom lip glistening invitingly. 

With her hair now loose and unencumbered, Cheryl’s fingers trembled a little as she lifted her hand to the lapels of her blouse and began to unfasten the tiny buttons. Yet again, Elvis seemed to sense her trepidation and shook his head slightly, giving her a little closed-mouth smile. 

“Come sit down, honey,” he coaxed, patting the bed beside him. “Let’s get comfy and cozy.”

“As cozy as a pine tree,” they finished together. He winked and nodded. 

“Exactly.” 

She clambered onto the bed as gracefully as she could in her tight knee length skirt and sat beside him, tucking her feet beneath her. 

“See,” he murmured, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. “Ain’t that better?” She was in no position to reply as he rained down warm, wet kisses on her face, snagging her mouth and tangling her tongue with his own. 

With almost painful slowness, he cradled her across the shoulders and gradually let her descend against the pillows, even while his other hand was unbuttoning her blouse.

Cheryl shivered and tried to ground herself, exploring the shape of him with her hands, marveling at the heat that radiated through his clothes, the firm softness of his sides and the sharpness of his shoulders. 

Awkwardly moving his arms around hers, he slipped her blouse off her shoulders and expertly unfastened her bra with a flick of his fingers, his twitching eyebrow and twinkling eyes almost requesting her awe. Instead, she rose slightly, bending at the waist, and entwined her arm around his neck, pulling him down onto her and hearing him moan softly, boyishly into her mouth. 

It took almost all the restraint she had not to rub up against him like a bear with an itch, her core almost aching for the feeling of pressure, a satisfying answer to the throbbing between her legs. She knew, however, that her skirt was too tight to allow her to spread her legs, to entwine them around him as they longed to. 

When he tugged her slightly onto her side so that he could get to the padded button at the back of her waistband, she started to unfasten his shirt, smiling slightly at the sight of the sparse hair curling against his chest. Unable to help herself, she leant forward and licked a strip from the middle of his sternum to the hollow of his throat, moaning as her tongue tingled from the salty taste. She finally got the chance to tug at one end of his neckerchief with her teeth, but all that served to do was tighten the knot and almost strangle him. 

“Sorry! Sorry!” she whispered, as he paused in his task of tugging down her skirt to loosen the bind around his neck. He shook his head, his apple cheeks brimming as he fixed her with a boyish smile, and deftly tied the scarf around her bare throat, using the ends to pull her forward, crushing her mouth against his own. She reached over and grabbed the captain's hat by the brim, placing it on top of her head, letting it sit jauntily over one eye.

Elvis smoothed down his hair with his hands, grinning at her as she struck a pose and saluted. Finally, he grabbed the hat and frisbeed it onto the dresser with impressive accuracy.

“You want your autograph now?” he murmured, voice almost slurred. She gazed without comprehension into his heavy lidded eyes. In response, he drew back and she whined a little, making him huff a laugh as he tugged her up too, the both of them facing each other bare chested and flushed. 

With tantalizing slowness, he traced his nail along the inside of her thigh, swirling and skating across the skin as he signed his name.

“There ya go, now you’re mine,” he murmured, smiling lazily with sleepy eyes. 

“Uh uh.” She shook her head; he mirrored her and pouted

“No?”

“Just that leg,” she informed him, her lips somehow both tingling and numb. “Just that leg belongs to you.”

“Aw man, well, I can’t have that.” His long fingers flicked the top of her panties and she squeaked, but then he scrawled his ‘autograph’ in large letters across her stomach, before doing the same with her other leg. 

“Now, see,” he hummed meditatively, “normally I give out a kiss with my autograph.”

“Oh, you do? Well, then you gotta be fair.”

“Yeah, gotta be,” he murmured, leaning in and missing her mouth altogether. Instead, his lips and the delicious scrape of his stubble grazed the velvety skin of her breast, dragging with delicious sharpness across to her aching, pebbling nipple. 

When he looked up at her cheekily through his brows, his dark blue eyes murky against the shadow of his black eyebrows and his smudged mascara, she started seeing double; it was too much for her mind to comprehend. She wasn’t sure whether she was going to succumb to pleasure or unconsciousness.

He stuck out the tip of his tongue, painstakingly slowly extending it towards her pink nipple as she held her breath and started to see stars. 

“Elvis, please,” she mouthed, her voice almost gone. When he still didn’t take that final step, she tugged on his hair at the nape of his neck. 

“Ow, watch it!” His eyes flashed with genuine anger for a second and she panicked. Her sex-drunk brain was able only to think of simple solutions, so she petted his hair where she had pulled it, gradually increasing the territory of her hands to include his back and his shoulders and his chest. Yet even in her simplified state, she was surprised to see how he basked in the affection, the loving, tender light back glowing in his gaze. 

Finally, he closed his lips around her areola, sucking her breast into the warm, wet cavern of his mouth. She continued to stroke and rub her fingers into his scalp and along the lines of his neck and shoulders as he turned his attention to her other aching breast. 

At the same time, one of his hands began to trail down from where they had both been pinning her hips hard to the mattress, like he had been afraid she would float away otherwise. He might have been right. She felt him slide a finger under the leg of her panty and pause, tracing along the line of her lower lips. 

“Okay?” he murmured, his words damp and hot against her ear as his mouth had moved back towards her head, nipping at the flickering pulse in her throat and the soft line of her jaw. She nodded, exhaling loudly through her nose. 

She felt his finger slide in deeper and her face throbbed as she felt how little resistance he was encountering. What must he think of her, dripping and clenching around his fingers so eagerly, so hungrily?! She tried to look away, craning her neck to try and bury her face in the pillow, but he grabbed her chin with his other hand and pressed his forehead against hers, his eyes still twinkling, but his expression otherwise as serious and real as she had seen all day. 

His jaw was clenched and she could make out the sound of him almost grinding his teeth as he pressed his pout against hers like he was trying to control himself and manage the flow against the flood of affection he wanted to give.

He grunted softly and she heard the clink of his belt being unfastened and then felt the material of his pants rustling and brushing against her bare legs. She was impressed by how quickly and gracefully he had managed to whip them off and was about to tease him about it, when she discovered that Elvis did not wear any underwear. 

Because she was human, Cheryl tilted her head, trying to get visual confirmation of what she could feel, the heavy, velvety length of him poking and prodding against her slick entrance as he adjusted his position over her. Instead, he lifted her leg behind the knee and pulled it tighter against him, like he wanted to feel the pressure of her around him. It meant that her bent legs were encasing him and blocking her own field of vision. 

“So pretty,” he murmured, wiping her hair back from her face with a splayed hand and tickling her cheek and ear with his prickly stubble and lips. “And you feel so good.”

She smiled, wondering if he knew he was talking; there was kind of a mindless automaticity to it, like he was soothing a fretful, wild animal. Her laughter caught in her throat as the pressure increased and a rod of heat slid inside her. 

Elvis froze between her legs, obviously feeling her discomfort in the tension of her muscles as they resisted him. 

“Shhh, shhh,” he murmured, “It’s okay. Kiss me, baby, just kiss me.” He caught her mouth with his and for a moment, he was everywhere and it was too much. It was just too much.

Cheryl wanted to fight him off, to separate them to reassure herself that she could, that there would still be a her left after they were done. Then, her body relaxed and she found herself again, wrapping her legs around his hips, feeling the round curves of his ass against the backs of her calves as she crossed her legs at the ankles. 

Again, she lapped at the line of his throat as he moved over her, nuzzling her nose into the curve of his shoulder, her mouth watering at the musk and the salt and the faint tang of a long-since applied cologne. She explored his body with her hands, enjoying the fact that he was solid and yet soft at the same time, it seemed to fit him somehow. He flinched and let out a muffled squeak as she traced her own autograph down the length of his side. It threw him off his rhythm, but when she whispered into his neck, ‘Now that part is mine.’, his only response was to nod and mumble:

“Okay.” 

Regaining his pace, Elvis adjusted his hips, tilting them somehow and the heavy, warm feeling tingling below Cheryl’s belly began to unfurl, to radiate and to send out sparks. Her toes curled, the insoles of her feet tingled and at the deepest, warmest, fullest part of her, waves of pleasure began to ripple outwards with a rush that was almost painful, it felt so good. She couldn’t stop the moan from tearing from her throat, even though she was also trying to heave in a breath. Her thighs spasmed and clenched; She arched her back, pushing her breasts, already flushed and sensitive from his close attention, against the coarse hair of his chest. She could feel his chest shuddering against as he tried to suck in air. 

Abruptly, roughly, he wrenched himself free from the grip of her arms and legs. More importantly, she gasped as he pulled out, taking with him the warm, heavy feeling of fullness from within her. She watched in bemusement as he stroked himself a handful of times, before wet warmth splatter onto the surface of her belly. 

“Oh God,” he mumbled, his voice soft and high, utterly free from pretense. 

For a minute or two, there was only the sound of their breathing as they struggled to fill their aching lungs. Then Elvis leant down and snatched up something from the floor, handing it to her for her to wipe her stomach. It was only afterwards that she realized it was her own blouse. 

He pressed a hard kiss into her forehead, practically ramming her head into the pillow, and then he climbed off her and grabbed his robe from the chair by the dresser. Wrapping himself in the dark silk, he padded into the adjoining bathroom and she glimpsed his silhouette in the bright light and shiny tile, before he closed the door behind him. 

Cheryl wondered if she was supposed to leave. Was that what all his other conquests did, the Hollywood starlets and the glamorous models? She could well imagine them wrapping themselves back up in their Parisian dresses and fur coats and sweeping out the door. Those types of women probably always knew the correct thing to do. 

Cheryl, for whom this had been her first time in a bed and only her third time with a man, had not quite mastered the classy departure. In fact, she was still wallowing in her inferiority when the bathroom door opened again and Elvis clicked off the light. She wondered if he was disappointed to find her still there, clutching her ruined blouse to her chest and staring balefully at the tiled ceiling. 

Elvis gave nothing away as he climbed back into bed, Cheryl felt the mattress shifting beneath her as he shuffled across to her. He plucked the blouse from her hands and tossed it onto the floor, then maneuvered her onto her side, pulling her back against his robe-clad front. She felt the weight of the blankets being tossed over her and he snuffled endearingly into the crook of her neck as he got comfortable. 

“Mmm, the coziest pine tree in the forest,” he yawned, his minty breath telling her that he had even brushed his teeth in the bathroom, while she was laying naked, sticky and decidedly unfresh in his bed. “Goodnight, darlin’.” 

Cheryl felt him peck the outside rim of her ear and had a frightening rush of tenderness for this stranger that felt more like danger than anything else she had felt, seen or heard that day. Spirits she could handle, ghostly apparitions in her bedroom were hardly uncommon; lightbulbs exploding right next to her was a little rarer, but caring about a boy was a worry. Caring about Elvis Presley was downright terrifying. 

Once she was sure he was asleep and after she had stared in wonder at his profile and taken in the details of his straight nose and pillowy lips, the curve of his chin and the slope of his forehead. After all that, Cheryl slipped from his bed, gathering her discarded clothing to her chest and hurried back to her room. She didn’t bother turning on the light, not wanting to see if a distressed ghost was about to rush her. Instead, she made sure that the adjoining door was locked. 

As she showered, under a trickling, tepid spray, she let her hands follow the pathways that his had taken, scratching at the warm beard rash across her chest, pressing against the slight ache above her pubic bone, her palms flat against her still blushing cheeks. She grinned secretly to herself, thinking about the cresting of that achey, pleasurable wave, her toes scrunching against the slick wet tiles at the memory. 

Taglist: @deniseinmn, @vintageshanny, @be-my-ally, @missmaywemeetagain, @ellie-24, @peskybedtime, @thatbanditqueen , @lookingforrainbows

All of which shattered like a sheet of ice when she heard a shout- Elvis’ shout- loud and panicked- and something began pummeling furiously against the locked door. 

TO BE CONTINUED (AGAIN) (SORRY!)

#elvis presley #hollywood elvis #60s elvis #elvis fanfic #elvis x oc #elvis fanfiction #elvis presley fanfic #whositmcwhatsit #spooky #smutty #silly

[tofics]

The Pact - Part 1

Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x fem!Reader

A The Walking Dead - The Originals Crossover This story is set in the TWD universe but mainly features TO characters. While characters from TWD do appear in upcoming chapters, the focus will mainly be on Elijah and the reader, as well as the reader's missing father, none of which are OC TWD characters.

Summary: It's always been you and your dad. A tough duo, tackling life's challenges together. Not even an outbreak can change that. It's you and your dad against the world, doing whatever it takes to survive. But one day, tragedy strikes. You get separated from your father on a supplies run. By now it's been months, and you're losing hope. That is, until a strange man appears, looking weirdly put together for someone who's years into an apocalypse. There's something off about him. The weirdest part though? He seems to know your father...

Word count: 2168 words

Warnings: swearing, hints of violence, losing a loved one

A/N: This is a rewrite of my unfinished series, 'The Pact'. The contents of the rewritten chapters will differ to the original ones, however, the main plot of the story will remain the same. I hope you enjoy! :) Feedback is greatly appreciated!

It was hot. Which wasn't news, it had been incredibly warm for weeks, but on this particular day, the temperatures seemed to reach a new, even more torturous high. To make matters worse, there was no wind to provide any temporary relief, not even so much as a soft breeze. Dust was settling on everything and was turning the world into a beige version of its once colorful self.

You sat on the small porch of the hut you had taken shelter in for the past couple of weeks, slowly rocking back and forth in the creaky rocking chair that you'd positioned outside, just slightly off to the right of the hut's door. From this spot, you had a perfect view of the sandy road that led up to the cabin. This way, anyone - or anything - making their way to you could be spotted easily, and most importantly, early enough to take precautions.

One of those precautions was your rifle, positioned right next to you for easy access. It leaned against the crumbling railing, ready to be grabbed at the sign of any visitors, dead or alive. It was more of a warning gesture rather than an actual instrument of defense. Sure, you'd use your rifle if it came down to it, but you preferred your hunting knife or axe, depending on the situation. For one, ammo was hard to come by these days, and if you were dealing with a walker, a gunshot would only draw more of them in. You were smart enough not to risk that unless absolutely necessary.

Between the three weapons, your hunting knife was the one that never left your side. It stayed tucked in its shaft on your belt at all times, day and night. It was there when you woke up and when you went to sleep. It had been given to you by your father way before the world had gone to shit. Despite being sold as a weapon, it had never been meant to be used as one. All you'd used it for was to carve letters into a tree or to hack some smaller branches apart for a bonfire on one of your many camping trips together. That had changed quickly when the dead didn't stay dead anymore.

For as long as you could remember, it had always been just you and your dad. It had never bothered you, though. It had never felt like anything was missing from your life. Even when the world got turned upside down and you had to flee from your home, it had been okay, because he was there. Your father was your steady source of comfort and strength. The new world came with an entirely new set of challenges, but you never worried, because you knew he'd find a solution. He always did. He was your rock, the one you could always count on, the one who was always there. Until he wasn't.

You leaned back in your rocking chair as the memories of that fateful day came back to you. You could almost see it play out like a movie in front of your eyes, the pictures dancing in the blurry fields of hot air over the street.

It had been roughly two years since everything had gone to hell. You and your dad were doing considerably well for yourselves: You'd found an abandoned house, about half an hour outside of a small town that, due to some small miracle, had relatively little walkers and plenty of canned goods to loot. But, even though you were careful with your new resources, eventually, your supplies eventually began to run low and you and your father were forced to go out scavenging again.

These supply runs were always carefully planned in advance. The places you'd already ransacked were crossed off on the map you kept in the kitchen and new places were picked based on their approximate distance, the resources it would take you to get there and the likelihood of the place having anything left to loot at all. More often than not now, the towns you visited had already been ransacked and picked clean to its bones. Once you guys had picked a destination, you'd prepare for the upcoming trip by boarding up the house as best as you could, getting your food and water ready and making sure your camping gear and weapons were in good shape. It was a tough balance of what to bring and how much space to leave empty in your packs. What you ended up bringing was usually something between a calculated amount of resources to get you where you wanted to go (which would be used up by the time you got there, providing you with new space for your future finds) and a guess about how much you would end up finding. Basically, it was a mix of precise planning and a risky gamble. Up until that day, you had always managed to make it work. Your father had repaired an old trolley you'd once come across for extra space, but you never brought it into the cities you visited. It stayed tucked away at your campsite outside of town, mostly for safety reasons. If you ran into trouble, it was more likely to make a quick exit with just a backpack weighing you down, rather than having to pull an entire trolley out of a risky situation. On the rare occasion that you found more than you could carry, you'd take multiple trips to get everything back to your temporary camp. Better safe than sorry.

You'd done well with this strategy. Of course you occasionally ran into trouble, but it had never had lasting consequences. Despite a dry stretch of roughly three months, where every single town you hit had close to nothing to offer, your little duo had been able to survive. Sometimes it even remotely felt like a life.

But that 'life' ended when you lost your dad.

Figuratively speaking, that is. You never saw him die. But you were sure he was dead. After all, what besides death could be keeping him from you? What other reason could he have had for not having met back up with you at your campsite after you two got separated? The father you knew would have done everything in his power to get back to you. But he hadn't, not in the time you'd waited. And you had waited a long time, for as long as you could.

Something snapped you out of your thoughts. It took you a second to register, but then you realized it had been the sound of a branch breaking. Nothing unusual per se, considering that the grounds of the cabin were largely surrounded by a dry forest, save for the clearing and the street in front of you. It had sounded deliberate, though. Like a foot snapping a branch in half. You'd learned the difference over the years when hunting became an essential life skill. No, it definitely hadn't been a falling branch. Which meant that someone - or something - was out there.

Crack.

There it was again. You rose to your feet and picked up the rifle. It was more for show, really, just so whoever was treading through the trees wouldn't get any ideas. You weren't gonna be mistaken for an easy target. But even so, you didn't love the rifle in your hands. You were not the best shooter and you'd had more walkers in your area lately than you liked. No reason to draw more of them in.

Crack.

Another branch snapped, this time a lot closer to you than before. That made it clear, then. Human. And definitely headed your way too, judging from where the first few cracks had come from. You were sure it was a human. Walkers made more sounds. Their lack of coordination and less-than-fit bodies made a lot of dragging and shuffling sounds. There was none of that to be heard now.

You hoisted the rifle up as if getting ready to shoot and used the scope to check the line of trees to either side of you. "Come on out and show yourself," you yelled out. You made a point of sounding more relaxed than you were. Show no fear, and you appear stronger. That's how it was now. Put on a show. If you were this chill about strangers approaching, it had to happen to you all the time, right? Which meant that you had experience. That you could hold your ground.

And you could, but you were anything but relaxed about it. Your blood was rushing through your body, your pulse thumping in your ears. It made it hard to hear for you and you strained to listen for more evidence of strangers in the silence. Your eyes flicked around, repeatedly drawing half-circles from left to right over the line of trees, watching for signs of anyone approaching you.

Then, just as if he had appeared out of thin air, a figure appeared between the trees.

At some point, if you train enough, your motions become muscle memory. So you didn't have to think about releasing the safety or placing your finger on the trigger while you zeroed in on the person approaching you. Still, a breath of surprise left you when he came into focus.

"What the fuck," you whispered to yourself. The man who had stepped out of the woods held his hands high and walked carefully towards you, obviously intending not to be shot. But you almost shot him anyway. What you were seeing was so bizarre that for a second, you considered if you were having a heat-stroke and just imagining the whole thing.

Coming towards you was a guy dressed in a dark suit and tie, complete with a handkerchief, the whole deal. It was as if he'd been in an office building when the world ended and hadn't changed since. And as if that wasn't bizarre enough, not only did he not appear to have any kind of gear on him, he looked incredibly clean. Fresh out of the store kind of clean. There wasn't a speck of dirt on his suit anywhere. What's more, the entire thing looked brand-new. It was absolutely fascinating and extremely alarming at once. What kind of a psycho would dress this way when survival was at the top of everyone's list? Suit-and-tie wasn't exactly survival-friendly. If anything, it was the opposite. And for the ensemble to be this clean...

"You might wanna stop right where you are," you called out when he got too close for your liking. Nothing about this guy's appearance made any sense and it gave you a bad feeling. To your surprise, the man obliged and stopped in his tracks. It gave you time to check him out once more, and a chill ran down your spine when you saw that he had a smile on his face. It seemed cautious, but what made the hair in the back of your neck stand up was that it had a sense of smugness to it. Definitely a psycho.

"Good. Now do a 180 and go right back to where you came from. You're not welcome here."

He looked at you as if he was seizing you up for a moment. You put the slightest amount of pressure on the trigger in response. Any more weirdness from this guy, and you'd pull the trigger.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, ma'am." His voice was both soft and strong at the same time. It was irritating, but not more than his refusal to leave.

"Listen, buddy, I'm not in the mood for this. Get the fuck outta here, alright? Don't make me shoot you." You made a 'shoo" movement with your gun. Annoyingly, he didn't budge.

"I understand your incentive for defense, but I can assure you, there is no need for that. I do not mean to harm you."

You snorted in response. "You? Harm me? Who's got a rifle pointed at who right now, buddy? Last warning. Get." Your voice had grown ice-cold.

"Please, there is no need for such hostility. I can assure you, I can explain myself, if you'd only let me."

You considered this for a moment. He still had his arms raised and hadn't moved any closer, but his refusal to leave was truly irking you. Something was up with this guy. Still, firing off your gun would have its consequences...

"Fine. You got thirty seconds. Talk."

There was a brief look of triumph on his face that passed so quickly, you weren't sure it had been there to begin with.

"If I may introduce myself, my name is Elijah Mikaelson. Am I correct in assuming that you are Y/N L/N?"

If anything, you should have shot him right then and there. It would have been the smart thing to do. But instincts and smart-things-to-do don't always go hand in hand. Instead of shooting him, you lowered your rifle as you stared at him in bewilderment.

"Now how the fuck do you know my name?"

#elijah mikaelson #elijah mikaelson imagine #the originals fic #the originals imagine #elijah mikaelson x reader #the originals #elijah mikaelson fic #the walking dead #the walking dead fic #the walking dead imagine #elijah mikaelson x you #the pact

[omertasmoon]

The night has a thousand eyes

(Al Haitham x Rtawahist reader)

Those eyes...

Those which you were familiar with: small specks of dust sprinkled onto the canvas of the night, clustering together to form constellations which unravel your fate. The stars shine ever so effulgently as if the truth of this world was right in front of your nose- but is it really? Or was it just a facade to blind the prying eyes of the mortals gazing from below to cover up the forbidden secret it holds?

An amalgam of thoughts brew in your head. The chilly night breeze waltzed around the Razan garden- with each sway making your front bangs sweep back as if it were beckoning the strands of your hair to dance along. It was as if someone was running their fingers through your hair. But that night, you felt as if those same fingers carry a heavy weight- a feeling of premonition that ran chills down your spine. Suddenly, you felt exposed, vulnerable and even watched.

You looked over your shoulder, trying to find any signs of a person nearby. But you were met with no answers: in front of you only lies the beautiful lush scenery of the garden.

Loathing the feeling of paranoia, you shrugged it off with an exhale of a breath you didn't realize you were holding. Afterall, it was nearly midnight so that meant little to no presence of people. Even if there were a scholar, it would be a Rtawahist like you and would hang around places which spreads out the view of the night sky clearly. You let out a shaky breath and continued flipping the pages of your book, trying to scrape off the vestigial feeling of suspicion.

Perhaps you should have looked around carefully...

Blending in the shadows behind a tree, there lay a pair of turquoise color eyes staring at you from the distance.

Those eyes...

Those which were akin to stars: Intense dark feelings brewing beneath the captivating surface. Those eyes belong to none other than Alhaitham- the Akademiya's Scribe. He knows how to shape eccentricity and enigma into a crown and oh, he does wear it well.

Unlike the stoic countenance he puts up front, he had no ill intentions to harm you. Come to think about it, what kind of man would hurt his beloved? Even if he were to start manslaughter (which may/may not be out of his comfort zone), he would burn everything down to ashes but you would be left unstained from the blood in his hands. He wanted to strip down everything you loved and could ever love from you so that he would be your only shelter.

But atlas, Alhaitham could hope that Celestia helps the fool who falls in love. He had tried forcing a transient smile on his face to get you two closer which seemed to slowly break down the fortress you had built. Every time Alhaitham sees a soft smile gracing your features, butterflies in his stomach flutter uncontrollably. Soon, the only reason his lips kept tugging into a small smile was in hopes for you to warm up to him and reciprocate his feelings. But inside, he wanted you to love him the way he is. He knew he could love you more than a normal person could without having the need to smile. But first, he needed to have you notice this side of him. ______________________________________________________________

Your neck was strained from having to look up at the sky constantly. It was tiring yet not futile. It was past midnight and the call of sleep was getting louder. Finally, you gave into your desires and stood up to go to your dorm. Coincidentally, the moment you stood up, you heard a rustle of paper. Having heard the dry crumple of a paper, you looked around only to find a letter at your feet. It was a white envelope with brown edges and a neat plain wax stamp with the color red stamped on the opening of the envelope. You slowly opened it, eyes twinkling with curiosity in the letter's contents:

"My dear beloved,

The night has a thousand eyes, doesn't it? But next time, do look carefully dear. The stars aren't the only one which have been watching you. Who knows, you might find a pair of turquoise eyes staring at you too?

-A"

#alhaitham x reader #alhaitham #alhaitham x you #Never in my life have I ever used my brain on a writing piece this much #IreneCallista

[bandaged-writer]

𝗔𝗞𝗥𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗔 [𝟬𝟭] — 𝗗𝗔𝗭𝗔𝗜 𝗢𝗦𝗔𝗠𝗨

akrasia. lack of self-control

pairing. mafia! dazai x executive! reader

genre. romance, mystery + smut

warnings. mori, dazai's musings of dying

words. 663

summary. among the graves, you reminded him of the faceless angel statues.

note. this story came to be, because i'm horribly obsessed with makima

masterlist || ao3 || next

Above the graveyard, scarlet bled into the lilac sky and blackened branches of naked trees spread across the heaven’s canvas like capillaries. A gentle breeze passed by, rousing leaves and a group of birds that flew away to seek shelter from an incoming storm.

“As you know, I want to see you in the executive ranks, Dazai,” Mori spoke in calm tones, yet something cunning was woven underneath the surface. Something that Dazai couldn’t quite place; or maybe this was merely Mori’s usual persona. “You will need a letter of recommendation from either myself or an executive,” he explained. “As much as I would love to write such a letter, I can’t. Or else, I’d be accused of favoritism. That’s why I’ll have you join a special someone’s side.”

Dazai followed Mori through the empty graveyard. Faceless statues of angels acted as protectors of the dead, as guide to the afterlife. A path which the brunette desired to go down rather sooner than later, in hopes of finding something that exceeded his abyssal expectations. If life couldn’t manage to leave him thunderstruck, then death certainly could, right?

“A special someone?,” Dazai echoed, brows raised in mild interest. Rarely did the boss of the Port Mafia ever call anyone special. Only a handful of times did this certain word fall from his lips and usually, it wasn’t a positive association.

Mori pushed his dark hair out of his face, let his hand disappear into the depths of his coat’s pocket and suppressed something like a worried sigh. “She is one of my top 5 executives, however..” His gaze wandered over to Dazai, standing a mere handful of meters behind him. “You will also act as a safety measure.”

Caught in a brief moment of stasis, a raven landed on a groaning branch. Curiously, the animal regarded Dazai with its ruby eyes, scanning him from head to toe as if it was assessing his worth as a human being. Tough luck, Dazai thought.

He had failed to be a proper, functioning human being from the moment he was born. Never did he find his match, his equal, someone or at least something that genuinely fascinated him. Perhaps, an ill-fated star had cursed the bloody threads of his fate.

“I get the feeling you’re scared of her,” Dazai commented then cupped his chin in thought.

Was it possible for the head of a crime organization to be scared of his own underlings rather than a likely assassination? The gears within Dazai’s head were turning, going round and round, trying to find a plausible reason for Mori to feel something akin to fear towards his own kin.

Loyalty was a fickle thing, it could be swayed like a chime in the wind. Money, family, the opposite sex and so many more factors could be the root of potential betrayal. It was as easy as turning your back towards the mirror; out of sight, out of mind, or so they said.

“There she is,” Mori announced. “The embodiment of control and domination. [Name].”

Dazai raised his gaze and was greeted by a calm smile upon your lips and a voice that was oh-so-lovely. The kind of voice that could sing him the lullaby of eternity and safely guide him into the afterlife. But your eyes were so pitiless.

Among the graves, you reminded him of the faceless angel statues.

They looked like his own, Dazai concluded.

“I suppose you’re the one they call the Demon Prodigy,” you greeted him kindly.

“And you’re the one they call the Control Devil.” He smirked. “Sounds like we’re on even ground.”

Was it reasonable for a monster to strip another off their humanity? Oh, the irony.

A smile graced Mori’s face, a wave of his hand promptly followed. “It’s good to see you again, [Name]. As you already know, someone is hunting down our executives. Take Dazai with you and solve the conflict as you see fit. You know what to do.”

#fic: akrasia #bungou stray dogs #bungou stray dogs x reader #dazai osamu #dazai x reader #dazai osamu x reader