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autisticlancemcclain · 1 year

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In all the love songs Keith has heard (and he’s heard many, both his Pa and Shiro were big ballad fans), he’s always heard laughter described as angelic.

That’s how it is. Over and over again. When you fall in love with someone, when cupid’s arrow strikes, their laughter will be like musical bells, like windchimes, melodic and beautiful and entrancing, and you will never want to hear anything else.

Lance sounds like a hyena on crack when he laughs.

Keith is obsessed with it.

The love ballads got one half of it right, he supposes. He does shut the fuck up and listen when Lance laughs. It is like the only sound he can hear.

It’s just not…musical.

“Your sighs get any dreamier and he’s going to hear you,” Shiro says idly, colouring his nails with Sharpie.

Keith drops his chin from his hands, turning away from where he was watching Lance laugh with Hunk and Allura and scowling at his asshole brother. “He is not.”

Shiro snickers, not even bothering to look up. Keith wonders if it’s morally acceptable to smack the shit out of someone with only one arm, or if Shiro will call foul and convince everyone that Keith is somehow the asshole here.

“Is so. You’re so besotted that even I’m embarrassed for you, and I usually just laugh when you’re being humiliating.”

Keith decides that the potential reputation tarnishing is worth it.

“Ow!” Shiro cries, clutching his flesh arm with way more drama than necessary. “My arm!” He glances over at the scattered stares he receives, from various uniformed officers, and pitches his voice louder to get more attention. “My only remaining human arm!”

“Keith, stop trying to kill your brother,” Coran admonishes. “He’s sensitive.”

Shiro shoots him the tiniest smirk before returning to his fake pout. Keith’s jaw drops in indignation. “Wh — he antagonized me — it’s not my — Coran!”

Coran only raises his eyebrows. “Is there a problem, Number Three, or shall I get your mother involved?”

Pidge makes an obnoxious oooooooooh sound, wiggling her eyebrows at him, because she and Shiro are the worst, actually, and for good measure Coran is too.

“I hate this family,” Keith mutters, sinking into his seat. “All of you suck.”

“Okay, emo boy,” Shiro says patronizingly.

Unfortunately, Iverson walks in and starts the Atlas briefing before Keith can smack him again. He settles for glaring at his dumbass brother, who sticks his tongue out at him like the toddler he is, and then vows to pay attention to the meeting. He is the black paladin, after all.

He lasts four whole minutes.

It’s not his fault. If anything it’s Iverson’s fault. The meeting is boring as hell, and a quick glance around the meeting table shows that the only person paying attention is the note-taking robot Pidge made, and that doesn’t even count ‘cause it’s a robot. Several senior officers are outright sleeping. The MFE pilots are quietly passing around a game of dots. Hunk has blatantly pulled out an engineering project of his and is working on it in full and total view of Iverson (he still hates the man for what he did to Lance when they were cadets, claiming that since Lance has forgiven him, someone needs to hold a grudge). Pidge and Matt seem to be communicating in Morse code. Allura is directing her mice in some kind of acrobatic performance, and Coran is helping her. Shiro is trying to see how many spitballs he can land on Iverson’s blind side before he notices (he’s riding the line with 34). Lance is staring at Keith.

Lance is staring at Keith?

He startles when he meets Lance’s brown eyes, but Lance only smiles, wiggling his fingers in a little wave. Keith tilts his head in confusion, trying to wordlessly ask Lance why he’s staring, and also manage to keep his rapidly creeping blush under control.

(He likes it when Lance stares at him).

Lance squeezes his eyes shut instead of answering, and a moment later Keith feels a prodding in the back of his mind; a familiar presence, hot and fiery and all-encompassing.

Red.

He lets her in, lets her familiar feeling envelop his mind. She struts primly in his mindscape, nosing at Black as if to say I was here first, so just remember who’s boss.

Black lets her prance around with fond amusement.

Before Keith can ask her why she’s pushed her way through — not that he minds, he’s happy to have her, but she hasn’t felt the need to visit him in a while so he’s curious — he feels another presence almost knock on his subconscious, request access to his mindscape.

Red has…brought someone else?

Can she do that?

Red looks at him flatly, like his doubt is a personal offence. Before she can start admonishing him, the presence pushes again; not urgent, but insistent, almost as if someone is knocking on the door of Keith’s mind and doesn’t want to be ignored.

Beyond curious, Keith lets them in.

The second Keith opens his mental door, it’s like they rush in, flowing in like the white rapids of a river, strong and fast and excited, cool and bubbly. There’s so much of them that it takes Keith a good couple of minutes to conceptualise just who exactly has followed Red into Keith’s mind. The rushing water takes shape into a person; tall, gangly, broad-shoulders with a mop of curly brown hair and bright brown eyes, freckles spotted over their nose and grin wide and sparking.

Keith gapes.

“Lance?!”

“Is everything alright, Kogane?”

Keith blinks open his eyes to find the entire meeting table staring at him, expressions ranging from confused to knowing to outright teasing. He realises all of a sudden that he’s spoken aloud, and not only spoken but called Lance’s name out, loudly, for seemingly no reason, in the middle of a crowded meeting.

His face flames.

“All is well,” he chokes out. “Please carry on.”

Iverson narrows his eyes at him for a moment, but eventually shakes himself and continues. Keith stays bright red for several minutes, staring pointedly down at the table, ignoring the various sniggers he can hear with every ounce of his effort. Unfortunately, some of the teasing laughter is inside his actual literal brain, what the fresh fuck, so it’s a fruitless endeavour.

Are you still freaking out? the Lance inside his head (???) asks.

What in the gall brained fuck is going on, Keith thinks back at it, looking at Real Lance in a decent mix of panic, confusion, and the actual phonetic sound that an exclamation point mixed with a question mark makes in your brain. Real Lance has his eyes closed, brows creased in concentration, and the tiniest of smirks pulling up at his lips.

Close your eyes and meditate, doofus, Mind Lance tells him. I’m using a lot of energy right now so I don’t have the space to try and reign you up here.

Despite the fact that Keith is so confused that a thousand professors could not explain his current situation to him in any way that makes sense, he listens, closing his eyes tightly and visualizing his physical bond with Black, like he does when he flies. It helps him sink into the semi-astral plane of existence, usually so he can meld with his lion and the rest of the team when they’re forming Voltron, but whenever he’s trying to reach his own mindscape, too. He’s still aware of his physical body, he’s not quite projected out of it, but he’s not wholly in it, either. Most of his essence is focused on seeing as his mind sees, without the constraints of the physical plane.

“Took you long enough,” Lance huffs.

“What the fuck,” Keith responds.

He packs quite a lot of questions into that what the fuck, he thinks. Like ‘what the fuck are you doing here’, for starters. Or ‘what the fuck just happened with the water and Red and everything else’, if he wants to be specific. Or, if he really just wants to cover everything, ‘what the fuck is happening’ might just do it.

“Your internal monologue fascinates me,” Lance informs him.

Keith flushes. (Does he flush in his mindscape? Does he have the blood and physical body necessary in order to flush? Or is he just embarrassed, so his perception of himself is blushing because that’s the only way he knows how to conception use the feeling? God, Voltron magic shit is so weird. Keith lowkey misses mapping energies alone in the desert and wondering if he was delusional.)

“Stop hearing my internal monologue,” he orders.

Lance pouts. “You’re no fun. I want to hear all the juicy gossip you think about me because you’re too emotionally stunted to say it.”

Lance is only joking, Keith knows he is. He’s leaned forward slightly, like he always does when he’s teasing, and his smile is close-mouthed, unserious.

But Keith of course panics anyway.

A million snapshots of Lance flash through his mind — Lance laughing, head thrown back, barely holding himself up; Lance dancing around the briefing room at two in the morning as he plans a mission; Lance with his tongue stuck out of his mouth, concentrating hard on tiny knitting needles and tiny little mouse-sweaters; Lance with tears shining in his eyes, glancing at a projection of Earth, long before they finally made it home; Lance dirty and hurt, cradled to his chest as Keith runs him too a pod after Sendak. A thousand moments of Lance when Keith was fondest of him, when just looking at him made the ballads Keith grew up with play in his head.

He hurries to shove the memories in an obscure corner of his head and prays that Lance doesn’t see them.

“Can you actually hear my thoughts,” Keith asks, a little desperately.

Lance waves a dismissive hand. “Nah. I get emotional impressions, but that’s about it. I can’t even see anything in here expect you and Red, basically. And Black. Hi, Black!” He waves excitedly to the lion, who sits regally in the dead centre of Keith’s mindscape. She turns to the red paladin in amusement, nodding her head once. Lance beams.

Keith feels a rush of fondness for him so potent it makes his heart hurt, a little.

“Woah,” Lance says, looking at him a little wide-eyed. “I felt that, Willie Nelson. Holy softie.”

“How and why are you here,” Keith says, blatantly changing the subject and not giving even one single shit about being subtle about it. Lance is looking at him too closely.

Luckily, Lance indulges him, or is too excited about being here in general to resist talking about it.

“Isn’t it so cool?” he gushes. “I’ve been working on it with Red for ages! I figured since we all have that emotional bond with each other and the lions during Voltron, and we keep our lion bonds outside of Voltron, we should be able to communicate with each other outside of Voltron, too. Red wasn’t sure if it was possible but she helped me try, and I figured I’d try with you first because it would be the easiest, since we’re so close and all. And you’re more likely to let me in your head.”

He says it so matter-of-factly. Like it’s obvious that they are so close, and that Keith loves him so much that he wouldn’t mind Lance in his head, not really.

The worst part is that he’s right.

With anyone else, this would feel like an invasion of space. Keith would be defensive immediately, angry even, throwing them right the hell out of his head and yelling at them as he does it.

But with Lance?

He’s a little shocked, sure. And worried, that Lance is going to see all the parts of him that Keith isn’t ready yet to show him; the parts that he doesn’t yet know how to say, how to show. The parts of Keith that soften every time Lance smiles at him, the parts that light up with gleeful competition whenever Lance eggs him on, the parts that chafe and ache but smooth over when Lance sits with him quietly when he’s hurting.

Keith knows that Lance knows that he loves him. He doesn’t exactly hide it. He’s not sure he would, even if he could.

But he’s not ready to tell him. Not yet.

He takes a deep breath. (Or whatever the mindscape equivalent is).

He knows Lance won’t go looking.

“And you decided to pull this telepathy shit in the middle of a random meeting?” Keith teases, allowing some of the worry to slip away.

This is, after all, cool as shit, even if it’s weird.

“It’s not an important meeting!” Lance defends. “It’s boring, and I needed entertainment! Besides, Pidge’s bot will give us all the notes anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah. Slacker. Some right hand man you are.”

Keith spends the rest of the dead-boring meeting teasing and chatting with Lance in his mindscape, which is great because he both gets to mess with Lance, which is always a net positive, because he has the upper hand in his own head, and because he gets to look like he’s paying attention in the meeting and actually be completely checked out.

“Oh, hey, I think the meeting’s ending,” Lance says. “I can hear Iverson winding down a bit.”

“Time to get out of my head then, you squatter?”

Lance rolls his eyes, waving to Red to get her attention. She stalks over, nosing him in the head like a mother cat to her kitten. Lance bats her away. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll head out. But only because I’m not practiced enough at this thing, so if I stay in your head it’ll look like I’m frozen or something. Once I figure out how to look normal and still beam my thoughts into your head, you’re never going to be without me even once in your life.”

Lance is teasing again. Keith can tell. But still, he’s totally helpless to stop what comes out next.

“I’d be okay with that.”

He sounds so besotted he wants to smack himself. But before he can even have the space to be embarrassed, he feels a wave of emotions that aren’t his — Lance’s, from the other end of their connection, a mix of embarrassment and selfish pleasure so thick that Keith can feel it even though they’re in Keith’s mindscape.

His jaw drops.

Lance wants Keith’s undivided attention. He’s preening over it.

“I gotta go,” Lance says hastily. “Uh, meeting ending and everything.”

Before Keith can so much as stop him, he feels the same strange feeling as before, the cool, rushing water of a river, only this time it’s flowing out of of his head rather than into it. Lance has retreated hastily from his mindscape, and Red follows, much slower and much more smug, visibly laughing at her paladin.

When Keith opens his eyes again, Lance is bright red, and won’t meet his eyes.

Keith smiles. Maybe he’s not the only one who’s not quite ready to spill his guts.

———

part two

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baiwu-jinji · 2 months

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i apologize in advance if this ask sounds kinda weird, but i'm kinda curious to hear your thoughts on how the narrative treats qi rong, mostly because i think interacting only with the eng version/fandom might take some context from his character. i've seen people complaining that some fans woobify him too much, others complaining that some people treat him as a pure hate-sink when he's more than that. while i do think he's a multi-layered character, i do sometimes get the feeling that mxtx did not go easy on him, with the revised version being even crazier than before (some even say he was given a bit of onesided incestuous subtext with xl, but i wonder if that interpretation isn't just the result of weirdly translated lines in eng). i think this might be because he strikes me as a meta personification of sorts for toxic fans who place their identity and self-worth on just one person they completely idolize, and when that person is shown to be imperfect they immediately turn against them, and we know mxtx has had experience with those kinds of people.

i do think he's largely meant to be seen as unsympathetic overall, though i think there's strong nuances with his character as well. since his childhood he always lacked something and never really had a well formed identity, his prince name being symbolic of his life. he projected himself onto xl in life, and he kept on absorving the worst traits of the people around his life without really understanding them in order to feel powerful and important, from the xianle nobles to the signature traits of the other calamities. he also strikes me as very... "little brother"-coded, in the sense that he keeps looking for any sort of recognition and seems unable to mature. even when he hates xl i think he still somewhat craves his attention, and qr only developed a bit when he was forced to let go of this role by accidentally becoming a father instead. i think it's also interesting that he started out a lot like his father, but ended up sharing the fate of his mother.

i do wonder how the cn fandom views him and if he's nearly as divisive as he is here. i'd also be pretty interested in seeing some meta about him from cn fans. again, it feels like some context is missing by not speaking the language the book was originally written in...

Hi! I think the narrative basically takes the same stance as Xie Lian in its attitude towards Qi Rong, which is the sort of "I can't love you but I don't want to hate you, the best I could give you is indifference". I agree that Qi Rong isn't meant to be lovable, but MXTX isn't dismissive of him as a character either - she devoted almost an entire chapter to Qi Rong's death, let him speak his mind, and gave him some form of closure.

Qi Rong having onesided incestuous subtext with XL (!!) in the revised version is...very interesting haha, I haven't read the revised version so I can't know (someone please tell me where to get the revised version ><). Although I want to speculate that even if there is some incestuous vibes, it's not truly sexual - it's probably libido directed the wrong way when you're lusting over someone else's identity, but not over that person per se. Qi Rong lusts over XL's identity in the sense that he wants to be XL - or rather he wants to be perfect, worshipped, all-powerful etc. (bit of digression, there's an underrated psychological thriller called Cracks starring Eva Green, if you watch it you'll know what I mean)

I don't have the impression that he's truly divisive in the Chinese fandom, but then I don't engage with the Chinese fandom that much so I could totally be wrong. And I don't think any context is missing for English readers either (except maybe the humour of QR's obscene language might be lost in translation?) because human nature is the same everywhere, and Qi Rong's distorted psyche is more a matter of human nature than cultural context.

As for Chinese fandom's view of QR, there's this great meta I translated and posted a few days ago, and I found some other opinion pieces about Qi Rong on Zhihu (Chinese equivalent of Reddit), as you'll see they're quite diverse.

A lot of Chinese readers say that what stands out most about Qi Rong is his comedic role in the story because his cursing and name-calling are really funny; a lot of people also mention being really touched by his self-sacrifice to save Guzi. I found this one post that has a similar view to yours, which is QR represents MXTX's toxic fans:

"I always felt it's the author admonishing her fans in an implicit way not to be as crazy as Qi Rong [...] My guess is that the author can't ask her fans outright not to act in this way because that would hurt people who support her but are immature, however she can't turn a blind eye to these people going around provoking more resentment, so she creates QR to remind her fans not to be like QR, or they'd appear as unlikable as QR to the public. But the author still feels symathy for thse fans, so she didn't depict their representation in the novel as totally incorrigible - QR retains some humanity and is a little adorable when he starts to care about people."

I also saw opinions about the narrative (or rather Xie Lian) not going easy on Qi Rong, like this one:

"Xie Lian is clearly a very good person but why is he so heartless to QR? He eventually treated QR as a joke and a burden, but QR was once a true follower of his. At first I thought XL was perfect and cares about everyone, but he never really cared for his cousin. When I read that XL felt neither joy nor sorrow when QR died saving Guzi, my heart chilled. If XL could forgive the masses who betrayed and reviled him, why can't he forgive his cousin who once followed him whole-heartedly?"

There're also people saying that Qi Rong's potential divisiveness is what makes him a great villain, like this post:

"What MXTX's well-received villains have in common is a tragic childhood and not being loved growing up, and they only have a soft spot for one person. Although these villains did horrible deeds and are unrepentant, they all reserve some kindness in their heart for the only person who's good to them. This contrast is striking and touching, yet most likely to cause controversy. Therefore, MXTX knows very clearly how to create a memorable villain, and I admire that."

Someone else says when they read about Qi Rong they "don't know whether to laugh or cry" (XL's signature emotion hehe). They add that "this is where MXTX is successful in writing a villain - you both hate and pity him; he's infuriating, but you don't really want to see him die either."

Another view is that since Qi Rong has no filter, he sometimes serves as the truth-telling voice. For example, when XL wanted to keep Lang Qianqiu in the dark about the truth of the Gilded Banquet Massacre, Qi Rong blurted out the truth.

There's also a question posted on Zhihu that asks why people like Qi Rong, and there're some interesting answers. There's one post that says "I find him attractive because he's depicted as alluringly ghostly in a lot of fan art like vampires in Twilight" haha

Another post says they like Qi Rong "because he's guilelessly wicked, while XL and Hua Cheng are hypocrites" emmmmm

Another one says they like Qi Rong because "being Xie Lian is exhausting, he's so wronged but he just endures it all, while Qi Rong just launches verbal assults whenever someone rubs him the wrong way, it's so cathartic. The most difficult thing in the world is to be a good person, because as soon as you do one thing wrong, everyone criticises you; but if you're a bad person, even if you did just one good thing, everyone praises you for it and shows you pity".

#qi rong #xie lian #tgcf

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angelpuns · 6 months

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Spinoff, Spinoff!!! 😃 totally no official, and totally not cannon. Just a fan in loved with this Au♡.

It's been a couple of days since Leo found himself in the past. Was he really back in time or was this all a weird dream? Yeah. Yeah! That must be. Leo remembered being rescued by his brothers from the prison dimension, and crossing through a bright orange portal then everything went black from there. Of course! He is probably resting in the medbay, and being taken care of by his brothers. All of this has to be a wacky dream. Besides, if that was the case, being trapped in time wouldn't meant terrible consequences? Like changing the future, creating different timelines, some paradox or whatever. Like, how affected would be his present? Totally Impossible because dreams can't cause problems.

All of this time continuum made Leo's head hurt, good thing he had Donnie for this nerd things. Probably he'll ask him later... when he wakes up... eventually. This makes him question like for how long? It's just been a couple of days he's been here, makes him wonder how long has been out there in his present?

Leo needed to stop think too much about that or otherwise he'll the worst migraine he ever had. He just had to focus on the kids; watch over them while their father is out scavenging for food. Just to think about it made him feel hungry, but also with wanting to go out too. Maybe walk a little, get some fresh air, maybe a pizza from Run of the Mill, and stretch those legs. But he can't, not by the fact that he had a broken arm and leg, but because he had to watch over the tots.

No matter how many times Leo counted: one, two, three. Or repeats: Red, purple, orange. Raph, Donnie, Mikey. There was one that was missing, and that was his younger self. Was he replacing him? Would that be how dreams work? He hoped so, because it won't be nothing cool if a toddler version of him was replacing him in his own present time.

"Should we invite him to play with us?" Suggested the purple coded turtle. "He's been like that for hours. It's kinda worrying." He recieved a couple of nods in response from the other two turtles. The three toddlers had what it appears to be dolls, a little burn, but still good to play with.

"But didn' daddy said he needs westing?" Asked the youngest turtle. He thought that the older turtle might be to tired to play with them.

"He's not even in bed. He might agree to join us. Besides, this could be good opportunity to make him some more questions about our future... and make him stop look so creepy observing the nothing." The three of them turn to see the blue turtle staring the wall, did he even blinked?

"Yes!" Making sound more the s. "Daddy would be ploud of us for helping. We can be scititifics."

"It's SCIENtifics. And what you meant is Doctors. Which is very different because those are who are responsible to take care of the health of patients and... if you guys didn't want to know you should've said so." Little Donnie was left behind. Didn't take him long to follow them.

"Hello, Mister Leo" Mikey called; made a little pause to make sure if he caught the older's attention. He was startled a little by the jump Leo made. Mikey scared him unintentionally, but a least he take him out of trance. "Sowwy. Would you like to play?" He showed his little doll to Leo. You can tell which doll belongs to who; all four dolls hair (or what is left of it) were also color coded.

The kid was waiting patiently for his answer. When suddenly they heard a voice coming from the entrance. "kids, I'm home." The little ones didn't wait a minute to rush to their father. "Dad. Daddy. Papá." Was heard from the three.

"How are my little ones?" Asked while he gave all of them a hug. Splinter had brought a bag full of old stuff that he distributed to each one. Donnie had recieved a microscope for kids, the lents were cracked but that didn't bothered him at all. He was super happy. Raph recieved a "new" old bear plush, it looks like they sewed it's arms back together, and that was missing an eye and an ear, but that didn't bothered Raph at all. For Mikey, he recieved a book of stickers, the majority were gone but there were still some left. That didn't bothered him, he was also happy like his brothers.

Leo was watching the wholesome scene in front of him. He could remember how happy they were even with the smallest things like this. It didn't had to be brand new nor expensive for the kids to enjoy it. They were really happy with what they got. And even if it wasn't to their liking, they will still showed a smile because their father gave it to them thinking of them, and that was more then enough. Leo almost let some tears.

"And of course, I wouldn't forget about you, Blue." He was brought back from his thoughts. Splinter handed to him what it seems to be a Jupiter Jim comic. Leo observed the comic in his hands in desbeliefe. Not because he had really great comic of JJ, but because he wasn't expecting a nice surprise like this. Not for him. "Oh, I'm sorry. You don't read this things no more, do you? I should've known..."

"I love it." Leo interrupt his father he saw that he was so nervous. He didn't want him to think he didn't like it. On the contrary. It might be simple little comic book, but it was being given with love, that makes it special. "Thanks dad." He gave his dad a small hug. Even if Leo thought it wasn't enough gratitude.

Splinter was a little confused, but he still correspond the hug. "Uhm, sure. Anytime." They stood there for a couple minutes more. "Umm, blue. You could let go now. I need to cook us a meal for lunch time."

"Oh right. I'm sorry." Leo immediately let go. And saw how his father vanished into the kitchen.

"So this means our father doesn't give us anymore presents in the future, huh?" Observant. Leo turn to see that one who was asking. Donnie was who approached Leo to ask. It was only him, the other two stood behind playing with their "new" toys. Donnie seemed sad, but with a little bit of hope to think that he might have a different response from what his thinking. "What are you saying, Don-tron? Of course he still gives us presents. Why wouldn't he?" He lied. They're just six years old, and meaning that they'll stop receiving gifts in two years more. Until their dad enters the phase of depression. Leo didn't want them to know that... not yet.

Side note: I did this in honor to Angel and his amaizing blog/Au. If you liked it, I could continue with the small side, side, non-official, fan story. If not, is also fine, (it's my first time writing a story) I would love to hear some feedback and your opinion.

Thank you for reading 💙

-🌸

OK I READ THIS LIKE 3-4 TIMES AAAAAAAAA OMG??? WAAAAAAAA

Thinking bout Spinoff Leo and shaking NY fist at the sky cause man is going THROUGH it. Also him crying over the comic ;-; wAAAAAAAAAAAAA

EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS CAUSE IT'S REAL GOOD!!!! WAAA

#cryin my eyes out #bawlin #asks #kid leo au #kid leo asks

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kaciidubs · 4 months

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my cat is definitely bangchan coded. bangchan is my cat’s bias 😂

y’know that lion king meme, where simba is being obnoxious at the crack of dawn and mufasa turns to his wife and says “before the sun rises he’s your son” (https://youtu.be/gJ0QftpKt8Y?si=1LWc3jEVO67bCUeJ)

i imagine that’s Chan with your pet(s).

barely awake as your pet begs for attention, and he says it with that sleepy raspy voice whispering right into your ear…and you’re just so proud of him for actually sleeping and staying in bed instead of being a workaholic that you get up and take care of it so he can stay cuddled under the blankets. SO CUTE

Lion King is one of my favorite movies, of COURSE I know that scene!!! Little kitty being Chan biased is so amazing of her, I hope she wins a fan call one day 😭

Ohhh I can see it so well, your pet hops onto the bed, a cute little thing you both decided on adopting as a step toward the little family you've always talked about late at night, before starting the little sounds and actions of needing attention.

At first, you're ready to pass it off as a momentary thing but the little baby is NOT giving up and that's when you feel the arm around your waist tighten.

"...before the sun's up, that's your child."

You can't even fault Chris for both wanting to get up, especially given the fact this was the RARE time he went to bed early with you - so, you huff out a tired laugh and wiggle your way out of his arms.

"Alright, alright, I'm up." Scooping your fur baby into your arms, you spare the sleeping man a glance, "We're both coming for you when the sun's up."

And as if to make a point, he snuggles himself deeper under the warmth of the blanket.

I'm nothing but a melted puddle of softness from this, Elle 🥺😭

#✧. ┊ kacii answers #✧. ┊ lovely skz-elle #bang chan x reader #bang chan fluff #skz fluff #stray kids fluff

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 5 months

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Did someone say Helnik coded songs by indie artists who deserve more attention? Probably not but I’m gonna give you some anyway

See the Kanej version here :)

Witchcraft by Vian Izak - “Those fingers in my hair, that slight come hither stare, that strips my conscience bare it’s witchcraft” “it’s witchcraft, wicked witchcraft, and although I know it’s strictly taboo when you arouse the need in me my heart says “yes indeed” in me, proceed with what you’re leading me to”

Fair by The Amazing Devil aka THE helnik song argue with the wall- “she promises to fight them all, when it all becomes too much, and he, he curses at the world for leaving him behind he’s falling out of touch and she is stronger, than he’s ever been he knows” “she’ll turn to him and say “it’s not fair, it’s not fair how much I love you. It’s not fair, ‘cause you make me laugh when I’m actually really fucking cross at you for something” and he’ll say “oh how, oh how unreasonable. How unreasonably in love I am, with everything you do I’ll spend my days so close to you”” “he says “I know exactly what I want and it’s this life that we’ve created inundated with the fated thought of you and if you asked me to, if you asked me I would lose it all like petals in a storm, ‘cause darling I was born to press my head between your shoulder blades at night when light was fading””

Allies of Enemies by The Crane Wives - “Remember when I could tell you not to smile when you were mad? And you would always crack and we’d both be laughing in the end. Now you’re not so quick to forget. Are we allies or enemies? This will be the death of me” “all is fair in love and war but I can’t fight with you anymore, this will be the death of me”

Immortal by Reinaeiry - “Sometimes when I look in the mirror I still see your face resting on my shoulder, and my heart beats so fast that I start to feel alive again” “and I’ll always find you again and again and I’ll love every version of you and you’re never truly gone as long as a part of you in me lives on”

Till Forever Falls Apart by Ashe, FINNEAS - “Out on our own, dreaming in a world that we both know is out of our control, but if shit hits the fan we’re not alone” “and if the sky falls from Heaven above just know I had the best time falling into love, we’ve been living on a fault line and for a while you were all mine, I’ve spent a lifetime giving you my heart I swear that I’ll be yours forever til forever fall apart”

I might add more if I think of them, but for now this is the list and please feel free to add more!

#grishaverse #six of crows #crooked kingdom #leigh bardugo #nina zenik #matthias helvar #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #helnik supremacy #helnik #helnik my darling #helnik owns my heart #helnik songs #indie music #indie artist #helnik my beloved

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muzzleroars · 1 year

Note

Do you think Gabe ever has to "cheer up" V1? Like Idk if they can get upset or depressed in your world, but do you think then ever get stuck in a negative rut one way or another and require attention to get out of it?

YEA YEA YEA!!! v1, despite all appearances, actually has a rather complex inner life, it just never really paid much attention to itself in that regard until it became closer with gabriel. it's highly intelligent and it has a breadth of emotion, but its own self-awareness and personal growth are actually considered to be instabilities by its programming - after all, nothing it feels or any opinions it forms can serve its objective to create and maintain an eternal war. these things are distractions and as such, they can technically disrupt its core functioning as its code is built on a foundation of violence and warfare. if this were to degrade enough with increasingly unrelated additions, it may see dangerous collapses and fatal errors...so as it made its way through hell, it continuously walled off its developing personality and curiosity so it could never interfere with its objective. however, because of v1's constant replication errors, increasingly esoteric coding, and its corrupting software, this suppression soon begins to fail and it grows entirely out of control when it emotionally connects with gabriel.

v1 has difficulty parsing negative emotions - it has felt anxiety when a battle is going poorly, but any sadness, loneliness, or dread it has attempted to feel in the past had quickly been smothered by protective programming as they would interfere most with its objective. with gabriel, however, it has increasing space to understand itself fully and it can no longer keep those floodgates closed, the massive depth of a mind so intricate it could never have been understood by the very humans that made it. and v1 does have a troubled mind plagued largely by the existential. it is killing everything, it is locking itself and everyone around it in perpetual war but they are losing. they can't fight it, they can't hold a line against it, and it will devour everything based only on code running wild from a humanity long since past. its mind is corroding, its programming corrupting and it's degrading with it - the things v2 said to it actually haunt it, about how something is wrong with it, how its core functioning is in decay because of errors it can no longer stop. it knows it's getting more and more these errors popping up on its hud, sometimes faced with stop errors that cause millisecond reboots. existential fears well up inside and outside of itself. and it has smaller issues besides, like being so singular in the world, the broken memories of a life before it had a body, and a life spent in white rooms with its brain cracked up and new body limp as wires were cut and pulled. and it has gabriel. and it worries about him.

all of this circulates in a quantum computer able to generate trillions of thoughts in a millisecond, iterate on every possible future to a nauseating degree in the blink of an eye. and while v1 generally doesn't allow this to get to it (it still definitely 100% lives by "fuck it we ball" goblin-mode), it can get caught in bad loops that it can't seem to develop a stop condition for. they can strike randomly, but it's more likely to happen after particularly bad (or sometimes, particularly good) battles, when it gets a stop error, or after a simulated nightmare. ALSO....when gabriel is badly injured (WHOLE scenario in my mind, but it has an incredibly bad loop after gabriel loses enough blood that v1 has to transfer some to him...both bc he almost DIED and because v1 should NEVER give its blood, it has hard code to block this behavior at every turn and yet....BUT ANYWAYS) it's quite clear when this occurs, as v1 seems dull and distant with noticeably low energy levels and increasingly loud fan output, all resources taken up more and more by the loop it's in. this struck gabriel quite a bit initially, and he immediately felt selfish in his surprise - he had implicitly thought of v1 as impervious to such things, like it had only one side to its emotions despite its obvious depth. but it has a life too...a soul in some way. if it can be kind to him, be affectionate and loving and playful despite being made for violence and cruelty, why then wouldn't it follow that it can hurt and it can fear as well?

so gabriel learns what these loops look like and he knows it can be difficult to get v1's attention to refocus with how much its computer is distracted...and when he finally can engage it, it usually defaults to violence, so he quickly figured out trying to hold or touch it is a bad opening move. so he instead redirects the two of them to somewhere at least safe (familiar is preferred, but mostly he just finds a place husks or demons won't jumpscare them lol) and he sings for it, always picking a song it's enthusiastic about because it's nearly guaranteed to get its notice. he can usually see how its dimmed optical lights up and then soon its head swivels toward the sound, continuing to sing until he sees recognition in v1 by the way its body tightens up. v1 isn't the type to communicate many of these thoughts, so it takes time for gabriel to piece together its troubles and start broaching the topic, but what it needs differs from time to time. sometimes it just wants to be rerouted, to play a game that stimulates its mind, to listen to gabriel read a book it's been wanting to get to, to have a good sparring session that gets it to reset. but sometimes. it wants gabriel to keep singing or to tell it stories (he's had a LONG life, he's never runs out of things to say lol) and soon he can hold it then - it's probably the calmest he ever sees it. he knows it's thinking, sitting with its own thoughts for once, and eventually he can start talking to it about it, find out just what goes on in a brain so infinite. he soon realizes he's not the only one worried about the future.

#again v1 doesn't typically get caught up like this #and it can also have lesser ruts where it's just frustrated or out of sorts #but it's definitely learning to live with and deal with emotions #and it can find them to be a nuisance sometimes!!!#(it just hopes they're not eating away at its code too much)#cake answers #v1 #gabriel

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obxone · 1 year

Text

Marmoris (Chapter Six)

Editedish. ~1.5k words.

Master Page

The idea is crazy, you know it is, but you are determined enough to see it through after sitting up talking to Sarah all night until you both fell asleep in your bed. She needed the push, and you are determined to give it to her before it is too late.

All night long, it was John B this and John B that. Even when she was eating her grilled cheese and a buzzed mess, she only wanted to talk about John B. Even when you mentioned Topper and tried to remind her that she was in a relationship, it was John B. Granted, you were not Top’s biggest fan. You had witnessed his treatment of others that he thought was beneath him, and it has always left you feeling icky. But he is kind to your family and cares about Sarah, so you let her do what makes her happy without a word.

“Hey, workers only back here!” A girl with dark hair calls as you step into the kitchen area. “No members allowed.”

You stop in your trek and search for him, but no response comes from your lips.

She rolls her eyes, tucking her serving tray against her side. “I know you hear me!”

“I hear you. I’m just looking for someone.”

She sighs, moving forward to block you from going a step further. “Who?”

You study her, trying to read her, and it makes her smile a little.

“I’ll help you find them. Who is it?”

“JJ Maybank,” you lean up on your toes to look for him over her shoulder. “It’s important.”

“He’s in the back,” she says, a teasing smirk on her face. You know that look and want to elaborate on why she is not right, but it is none of her business, so you stay quiet. “Straight down there and hang a left at the last door.”

“Thanks-”

“Hannah. And don’t forget it. You owe me now, Kook,” she winks before turning on her heel and going back to her task.

“Thanks, Hannah!” You smile at her before hustling in the direction she pointed. You do not linger long enough to hear her response. Rafe is here today, along with his goon squad, and the quicker this is taken care of, the better for all of you.

“I’m coming, Raz,” he says when you push the cracked door open. “Computer is running slow.”

“Not Raz.”

His head whips to this side, those ocean blue eyes locking on you. “What are you doing back here, Princess?”

“Good morning to you, JJ.” You roll your eyes, arms crossing over your waist as you lean back against the door jam.

He smirks, shaking his head. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Make time,” you say sharply. “It’ll only take a few minutes anyways. I need a favor.”

He laughs in a head tossed back chest vibrating true laugh, and it almost makes you smile.

“Asshole,” you mutter.

His laughter dies, and his eyes turn stormy. “What do you want?”

“My sister and your best friend like each other.”

The pause is audible, and his mouth gapes open before snapping shut again. He clears his throat, hand running through his already messy locks. You knew he would be surprised, boys never picked up on this type of thing. They were oblivious until it is practically slapping them in the face.

“Isn’t she dating Topper?” He asks, turning in the desk chair to fully face you now.

You shrug. “So?”

“Wow. Here I thought there was a kook code of allegiance,” he mumbles, pushing the sleeves of his white button up shirt up his forearms. The tanned expanse of skin draws your attention. The muscles are faintly visible even without him flexing. “Eyes up here, Baby.”

Your gaze snaps back up to his, and you glare at him. “Cute. But we are not the United Kingdom of Kooks, Maybank.”

He grins, his dimple flashing at you. “But aren’t you their princess? Third in line for the throne?”

You roll your eyes. “No. Despite whatever rumors you pogues like to cook up. We are just people living our lives. Not my fault you have to cut grass for a living.”

He scoffs, and you grin at him.

“Don’t start what you can’t finish.”

“Real cute,” he mocks. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you checking me out. All the grass cutting builds muscles. Maybe your lame kook boyfriend could try it.”

“Ugh,” you groan with a shake of your head. Ignoring the sting in your chest at the reference to your dating status. “Don’t flirt with me.”

“Why not?”

“Because you suck at it.”

“Do not.”

“Really?” You ask, eyes narrowing on the blond. “You must have all the girls knocking on your door then.”

He shrugs. “I’m not doing too bad.”

You laugh. “Plenty of tourists to go around, I guess. Careful, you might be a teenage dad before you are ready.”

“Whatever, Kook.” He rolls his eyes. “What do you need me for?”

You clear your throat, trying to figure out the best way to word it. “I know John B likes Sarah; I know that look. And I know for sure Sarah has a thing for him. She would not shut up about him last night.”

“And?”

“Poor JJ. You have no idea what a real connection is do you?”

“Screw you!”

You laugh now. “Not interested, but thanks.”

“Wasn’t offering.”

“Yet again, proving my point. You don’t know what a real connection is.”

He smirks. “If I wanted you, Princess, you’d know it. I don’t want to waste my flirting material on the kook princess.”

“Right,” you scoff. “It must be hard with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line.”

He scoffs, standing up and shoving the chair back in. “I have work.”

“I’m not done, and you are not leaving until you agree to help me.”

“What could I possibly help with? Remember, my sense of direction sucks.”

You shrug. “They won’t do anything about it, so we have to. He is your best friend, and she is my sister. We can make it happen.”

He starts to pass you, his face tips down, eyes locking with yours. His breath fans over your face as he mutters the words you knew he would say, but hoped he would not. “Not interested.”

You groan and move to block him. Your arm planting across the frame of the door. “I knew I shouldn’t have posed it as a question.”

His eyebrows raise as he looks at your arm. “I can move your arm.”

“I’ll scream.”

“What is with you kook girls and being told no?” He glares. “There is no way in hell I’m helping you.”

“Careful. You are on my side of the island.”

He snorts. “Like I’m scared of you.”

You shrug, glancing over your shoulder when you hear footsteps coming towards the office you are preventing JJ from exiting. “I’m resourceful. I know where to hide the bodies. Plenty of poorly monitored construction sites under Cameron Development.”

His eyes widen, and you smirk at him.

“I also have money which means even if they do eventually find your body, I don’t do jail time.”

“Jesus, Princess.”

“Might want to hear me out.”

“What if you are wrong?” He asks, staring down at you. The smell of him makes you dizzy, it is intoxicating.

“I’m not. I know what loving someone looks like,” you whisper. “And she deserves to have it at least once in her life. She does not love Topper, and she never will.”

“Is this a ploy to take the throne for yourself one day?” He asks. “We both know Rafe isn’t daddy’s favorite. And if Sarah abandons the kook life for a pogue, it leaves you on the throne.”

You smirk at him, humor dancing in his eyes at this own joke. “Maybe.”

He sighs, head dropping so his chin rests against his chest. “What do you need from me?”

“Meet me tomorrow, noon at the docks by Heyward’s, and we’ll make a plan.”

“Fine. But it has to be after two. I have work.”

“Fine. 2:15 pm.”

He nods, and you lower your arm just as Raz steps into view.

“JJ!” He calls but hesitates once he sees you. “Ms. Cameron?”

“Raz,” you smile at him before turning back to JJ. “Sorry, he was helping me sort through an issue Rose has about a catering order for the Cameron Development party next week.”

“No worries, Ms. Cameron.”

You pat JJ on the shoulder. “Don’t be late.” You leave the office and head for Raz. “You’ve got an A+ employee on your hands Raz.”

“Thank you,” he responds, a grin on his face before you disappear out of sight. You wink at JJ just before turning the corner, leaving the blond fumbling for words at your conversation and departure. His hand presses to his chest to ease the stirred up anxiety, eyes closing briefly before he hurries after Raz, who is already walking away.

(Chapter Seven)

#outer banks #obx #jj maybank #outer banks jj maybank #obx jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x y/n #jj maybank x kook!reader #jj maybank x you

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cambria-writes · 11 months

Text

i did it. it's finally done. it's over, and i finished it.

thank you so much to everyone who's followed me and this story, who's commented, liked and reblogged. you've all helped give me back something i had lost a long time ago: the ability to write.

i'm so thankful to have found this fandom and the people in it, and i wouldn't change a single thing about the journey that was writing Ravenloft.

some things to know about this chapter:

i only discovered literally two days ago that july 1st is not, in fact, universal moving day. that's apparently something very unique to my part of canada lol, so that's why i had the moving take place that day. might not have even registered for anyone else but me but i felt like i should explain that just in case.

additionally, i don't know fuckall about indiana, never been. the market place arena is no longer there, either, so it took a bit of guesswork to figure out what to do. thank you to @bramblequill for answering my very strange questions. ♥

lastly, i have no idea how school works in the states. i just went with september 2nd as back to school since it was the tuesday right after labour day, and the internet told me that 8:30am as a starting time for classes was reasonable so there we go.

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader rating: E, 18+ warnings: SMUT, female anatomy used but otherwise no real physical description, fingering, masturbation (m and f), cum swallowing, so much swearing, Wayne calls Eddie son and reader calls Wayne his father, smoking (cigarettes and weed), alcohol consumption, vague reference to choking, mention of flagging/the hanky code, Eddie doesn't whip out the sadism though, mention of using handcuffs, i guess this is semi-public sex actually, Eddie's a gentleman though, mention of an alternate timeline where Eddie does die, mention of death broadly, reader has anxious responses to shit sometimes, Good Girl is said a few times, god I'm running out of brain RAM please let me know if I should tag anything else! word count: 7,512

thank you again!!

Previous Masterlist

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕹𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓: 𝔓𝔩𝔞𝔶𝔢𝔯𝔰 ℌ𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔟𝔬𝔬𝔨

July 2nd, 19863:27AM

You don’t know where you are when you first wake up. There are no lights on, there’s a familiar but distant sound, and it’s too fucking warm. After a few seconds of tensely paying attention, you realize that the familiar sound is the compressor in the fridge.

Right. You moved yesterday.

When you bother to open your eyes and look around, you realize why it’s so dark. You never bothered to plug in your alarm clock and you can’t see the time on the stove from here, but it’s definitely still night. Quiet enough that it’s probably not even 4am yet.

You roll to turn around, but promptly end up yelping and falling right on your ass. The vague but bitter thought crosses your mind that you’ve somehow developed a habit of falling and injuring yourself in whatever bedroom you occupy.

Said bedroom door cracks open slowly. From your spot on the floor, you get to see a very tired Eddie—is he even actually awake?—slowly emerge from the opening door.

“Fuck was that,” he mutters, right before unhinging his jaw to yawn. You sigh and let yourself fall back on the floor, limp, staring up at a ceiling fan that refuses to work.

“Forgot where I was,” you say quietly, throwing an arm over your eyes. “Go back to bed dude.”

Eddie grunts, but you don’t hear the tell-tale squeaking and creaking of floorboards. Instead, when you move your arm out of the way just enough to see, you catch Eddie scratching the back of his head and looking back to the hallway. He clears his throat, and you cover your eyes again before he catches you staring.

He probably caught you staring way too much yesterday, so you’re not sure why it matters. It’s not like he’d make a big deal out of it anyways—not the way Steve and Robin did when they were helping you carry the sectional couch Mrs Henderson insisted you take from her basement.

(It’s fine, she had said, I can’t really look at that old thing anymore, she said. You didn’t ask, but you’d assumed that it was the same as everyone in Hawkins; just trying to get rid of all the leftovers from The Earthquake and what had preceded it.)

You’re jostled out of your thoughts when you feel Eddie’s shoulder—bare, from the cut-out Black Sabbath shirt he’s warning—against yours. He feels cool and clammy, like he’d been tossing and turning around in the heat, too.

“Ahh,” he sighs, folding his hands over his chest. “You had the right idea. Floor’s cold. Fuck this heat.”

You hum in agreement, and turn your head to properly look at Eddie.

“You could go back home,” you say quietly. When you don’t get an answer after a few seconds, you scoff lightly and turn to stare back at the ceiling. “At least he wouldn’t be boiling alive.”

You nearly squawk when you feel a hand taping on your hip. When you turn to look at Eddie again, his eyes are closed, still, but he’s very clearly frowning.

“Y’r being stupid,” he mutters, taking a deep breath before forcing himself to sit up, leaning back on his hands. He rotates his shoulders and—and he’s saying something else, you know he is. But there’s... there’s something about his shoulders.

Have they always been that wide?

You know your mouth is hanging open when Eddie turns to look back at you, and you only snap it shut with a click when you see him grinning.

“Didn’t catch a word I just said, huh.”

You try to speak a first time, but your voice cracks on the first syllable. Clear your throat and cough once or twice before trying again. This time you get yourself up on your feet and head for the door.

“Not a word. Too tired. Want a beer?”

Eddie blinks at you owlishly for a second before letting himself fall back to the floor. You’re about to take that as a silent refusal when he grumbles.

“Do you even know what time it is? Beer?”

You scoff again and cross your arms from your place at the door.

“What, like you do?”

Eddie simply raises an arm in response. You frown, open your mouth to ask why the fuck he’s raising his hand in your damn house, when you notice the watch still on his wrist.

(You try not to remember a very different, broken watch keeping time for the dead.)

“Right, well,” you dither, clearing your throat again. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Do you want a beer or not?”

Eddie sighs, putting on a show about being put out and disappointed and too tired, but the hand he rests low on your back to herd you out of the room is gentle. The quiet ‘sure’ he whispers also sounds far too caring and indulgent.

You practically inhale half of the first beer you pull from the fridge. If Eddie’s got any thoughts about that, he keeps them to himself. You sit down at the table—square, angular, nothing like the one that was in your hideout—and lean back in a chair that still smells like sawdust and campfire.

Leaning back in his own chair across from you, Eddie takes a slow look around. You see him pause to look at what you’ve already put up on the fridge. There’s a character sheet, a small pebble that’s been glued to a magnet, a note from your parents and a small magnetic photo frame. You can already feel your face heat up when Eddie points at it.

“That wasn’t there when we had pizza,” he says, slowly and a bit incredulously. You can only hold his gaze for a second or two when he turns to you for answers.

“I, uh,” you stutter, biting your lip and picking at the label of the bottle in your hands. “That’s—my mom, uh.”

It’s a polaroid.

By any other metric, completely unremarkable. Unnoticeable, probably, to anyone whose face isn’t actually on the damn thing. And if your mother hadn’t taken you aside yesterday morning to hand you a small, old and beaten-up looking shoebox, you probably wouldn’t ever have remembered that photo exists.

It’s Eddie, surrounded by trees, and wearing a cloak that had definitely been about twelve sizes too big. The hood swallows most of his head; the only thing that’s really visible is his smile. Honestly, most people probably wouldn’t even be able to tell that that’s Eddie Munson, in that photo.

But you remember taking that. Remember flapping the polaroid around madly while running away.

You shake your head against the memory. Those times are long gone, now. So why...

“Yeah,” you end up whispering, before taking a deep breath and letting out a deeper sigh. “I’unno. When my mom gave me an old box of pictures from middle school, I kind of...” You look over at the fridge and take another, albeit significantly more moderate, drag of your beer. “Dunno. Felt like it.”

Eddie slowly stands and walks over to the fridge. Takes a sip of his beer while he looks at the photo. Takes a quick look at you before taking a step back from the fridge to look at what all else you’ve put up there so far.

“You still got that box?” And bless him, you know he’s trying to be nonchalant about it, but there’s an anxious tone undercutting his voice clear as day. You chuckle and make your way back to your room and to your closet.

It’s only when you pull the small shoebox out and you’ve got it cradled in your arms do you realize the significance of this.

Almost everything that was in the trailer was lost; it’s honestly a miracle anything survived at all. But among the losses, you remember Wayne bemoaning the loss of the few pictures that he’d been able to take of Eddie over the years.

You look down at the box a bit more misty-eyed. You hope that there’s something helpful in here. Something nicer.

When you make it back to the living room, Eddie’s still standing in front of the fridge. His brows are pulled together and the sip he takes of his beer nearly dribbles down his chin. You hold the box a bit closer to your stomach when you move to stand next to him.

“What are we looking at?” you ask, and Eddie nearly jumps out of his skin. You put a hand on his arm and laugh. “Hey there, have a nice time up in the clouds?”

Eddie laughs a bit thinly, points up at the fridge. “I was just. You kept the—the lyrics. From middle school?”

You stare up at the piece of turns, crumpled up ruled paper. You remember carrying that everywhere with you, in middle school and high school. Carried it in your wallet for a while, too, though...

You turn back to the table to gently put the shoebox down. “I didn’t think you’d remember writing that,” you say quietly, pulling up one small stack of photos neatly held together with a rubber band.

Eddie scoffs. “Are you kidding me? You basically whined at me for weeks to come up with a love song for... what was—”

“Shanon,” you add quickly, blindly reaching for your beer bottle while sorting through photos. “Blonde, grey eyes. You were infatuated.”

You don’t see the sad, self-deprecating grin on Eddie’s face.

“Shanon... yeah, no, didn’t write that for her.”

You take a second to bring the bottle down from your mouth. Turn around to look at Eddie, but he’s still resolutely looking at the paper haphazardly stuck to the fridge. It’s at an angle. It’s starting to drive you crazy. Eddie chugs the rest of his beer, puts the empty bottle on the counter by the fridge, and turns around.

“Woah there pal,” you start, chugging your own beer with a wince. You put the bottle back on the table behind you. “What’s that look for?”

You feel like your heart’s beating a frenzy in your throat. You’re pretty sure you just felt a heart palpitation. The look on Eddie’s face is intense in a way you don’t recognize. Not like when he's DMing and he’s about to throw a real wrench in everyone’s plans, and not like in the Upside Down.

No, it feels a lot like how he looks at you out in the fields by the junkyard.

You would take a step back when Eddie starts walking toward you, but you’re already leaning against the table behind you. You try to straighten up to maybe attempt to look less frazzled than you feel.

The beer’s already making your head feel fuzzy and your lips feel numb.

Eddie stops about a foot away from you, and you’re not sure how to feel about the fact that you have to crane your neck up to actually look at him. He opens his mouth, looking down at your with a frown. He tries a few times like this, before sighing and just.

Letting himself slump over to rest his head on your right shoulder.

You stay like that for a bit. You can hear the hitch in Eddie’s breath when he tries, again, to say something. After the third or fourth time, it feels like something’s squeezing your chest. He’s clearly got something on his chest he wants to get off—something heavy—and you know how that feels. How that goes.

Your left hand comes up to brace the back of his head before you can think of the implications.

Whatever. Fuck the implications.

“You can take your time, y’know,” you whisper, slowly slumping back to lean against the table behind you, forcing Eddie to take a step forward if he wants to stay in his spot.

“I can’t, I really can’t.” His voice sounds strained, and you flounder. You’ve never really had to struggle to get people to talk to you—not the people who actually give a fuck about you, anyways. And you can’t think of a single time, barring the obvious fuckery of the Upside Down, when Eddie was hesitant to talk to you.

He gently grabs the hand in his hair and pulls it away to straight himself out again. His eyes are closed when you can see his face again. He takes a deep breath and squeezes your hand.

“Listen—“

The phone rings.

You haven’t even put it up on the wall by the doorway yet. It’s still on the counter, where you’ve left it, right by the fridge.

The shock of it in the quiet of the dining room makes you trip over yourself. Eddie catches you and, practically in the same motion, spins to direct you to the phone. Out of breath, you pick up.

“Ye—hello?”

“Hey, hon,” comes Wayne’s tired greeting. “Sorry if I woke you up, but is Eddie still with you?”

You blink a few times, staring out into nothing. You only wonder for a second why he’d call so late when you’d likely be out cold, but when you turn to face Eddie—now leaning back against the table—the realization comes all at once.

“Ed—yes, oh my god, Wayne, I’m so sorry,” you rush to say, turning back to the counter and cradling the receiver. “Yeah, he helped me unpack and we kind of crashed, I should have had him call—”

“Hey, hey,” Wayne chuckles, and the lightness of the tone helps you breathe a bit easier. “It’s fine. Sorry I woke ya up.”

“Please don’t worry about it,” you reply quickly. “We’ve been up for a bit going through some stuff.”

“I won’t keep you then. Just tell that idiot son of mine to call next time.”

You let out a quiet bark of laughter and promise you will. You don’t think you’ve ever referred to Eddie as his son before. Guess the whole town going to shit changed a few things. Said idiot son has the decency to look a bit ashamed when you turn around and lean back against the counter.

“Probably shoulda called before we called it a night, huh,” Eddie says with a wince.

There’s a beat of silence that’s almost awkward before you clear your throat to speak.

“You uh, you were going to tell me something?”

Eddie stands there, expression not unlike shock on his face. He opens his mouth two or three times but eventually settles on a shrug.

“Don’t worry about it, I can’t even remember what I was going to say.” The end of his sentence almost trails off its so quiet. It’s clearly a lie, but you’re too fuzzy from the beer and fatigue from moving to push the issue any further.

You push yourself off the kitchen counter and brush your hands off on your thighs.

“Well,” you start, feeling a bit awkward while you amble toward the hallway. “I need to go back to bed. Let me know if...” It’s your turn to trail off, because you’re not sure how to end that sentence. Let you know if what, a demodog comes bursting in through the window?

You look anxiously over your shoulder at the window over the sink. It’s fine. It’s nothing, nothing’s there, you’re good. You clear your throat.

“Right, so. I’ll just.”

Eddie nods but doesn’t look at you. Your room is bright with birdsong and the rising sun by the time you fall asleep.

17 July 19861:37AM

You’re not entirely sure what motivated you to get out of bed, climb into your car, and make it to the Munsons’. It’s not like you couldn’t have just grabbed the phone and dialed Eddie’s shiny separate number. (You’re beginning to think the hush money bit was real.) You’ve called each other at the worst times of night and day for dumber shit.

This time, though, the nightmare felt a little too real to ignore and sleep off. Like you usually would have done.

It was like you had never existed; like everyone had gone into the Upside Down without you, without an extraction team, without a backup plan. And you had to watch while Eddie sliced the blanket rope. Horrified, you watched Dustin sprain his ankle in his rush to get back.

Eddie, gasping and choking on his own blood, saying he hadn’t run away this time. Eddie, glassy-eyed and gone, torn to shreds by bats left motionless by what you now know to have been Chief Hopper’s own attack all the way in Russia.

You take a second to control your breathing once you’re at the squat triplex. Eventually you uncurl your stiff and sore fingers from the steering wheel and force yourself out of the car. Your legs feel like jello and your head like lead.

You consider trying to climb up to the third floor, somehow, if only for a second. You know Wayne’s likely to be up so you shouldn’t worry too much about either ringing or knocking but... Shake your head and hit the button for the third floor before you can think more about it and chicken out.

You’re let in surprisingly quickly. When you make it up to door number 3, Wayne’s leaning against the doorway.

“Bit early,” he says, uncrossing his arms once you’re near. Puts a hand on your shoulder and squeezes. “Everything okay?”

“Nightmares,” you answer quietly. You curl and uncurl your fists at your sides.

“Come on,” Wayne says after a beat of silence. “He’s in his room. Coffee?”

You shake your head. With one last squeeze of your shoulder. Wayne wanders back inside, and you aim straight for Eddie’s bedroom door. Your fist is up to knock when Eddie opens the door, looking disheveled but extremely awake.

“Hey,” he says airily, out of breath as he pulls his hair back into a low ponytail. “I was about to head out—you weren’t answering your phone so.”

He doesn’t wait for you to say anything or explain before pulling you in and shutting the door behind you. He throws his jacket—leather only, sans denim, as it has been for a few months now—over the back of the chair as his desk.

Nothing much else is said, which is how these nights usually go. Neither of you need to be rehashing what happened in the Upside Down, the earthquake, your constant passing out. Tonight, though, there is one thing that eats at you. Eddie has to nudge you, sitting next to him on his bed beneath the window, to pass the joint over. When you take it, he makes a point to lean forward to try and get a good look at your face.

“Did... did something happen? Before you got here?” he asks, and the concern in his voice twists your gut unpleasantly.

“It’s just—it’s nightmares. You know how it is.” You make a point not to take too deep of a toke of the joint before passing it back over, turning your head to blow the smoke out through the open window.

You can just barely see Eddie narrowing his eyes at you in your periphery. For a second, when he straightens up and leans back against the wall next to you, you think he’s dropped it.

“If it was just nightmares, you would’ve called.”

You snort and look the other way. Again, though, Eddie nudges you to turn around and take the joint. Carefully and, thankfully, not too quickly, he grabs your wrist as you grab the joint.

“Hey. Come on. Talk to me, please.”

Your eyes burn and you can already feel your nose getting red and itchy. Your whole face feels warm. Either to spare you the embarrassment of it or a second, secret reason, Eddie pulls you into his chest and you just start crying.

You’ve dreamt of people dying before. Tons of times. Even before El tore a massive hole through reality in Hawkins. But that—feeling powerless in a situation you know could’ve happened if you hadn’t just been around and stuck your nose where it arguably shouldn’t have been—and seeing Eddie die in a way you just couldn’t help?

That was brutal.

17 July 19869:12AM

You have no idea when you fell asleep. Your eyes feel sore and dry, your throat feels strange and your neck hurts. You’re cursorily aware that you’re in Eddie’s room—the smell of weed, incense and whatever cologne he wears usually gives it away.

Very quickly, you realize that you’ve fallen asleep on Eddie’s chest at an awkward angle. You’re both barely sitting up, still leaning back against the wall underneath the window. God, you drool on him. Fuck.

Okay, this is fine. You’ve literally had worse.

You take a deep breath and, as smoothly and quickly as you can, roll off the bed and onto your knees. It’s not graceful, but when you look back, Eddie still seems to be sound asleep. You pray to whatever’s out there that he stays that way until his shirt’s dry.

You tiptoe out of the room and turn the knob before shutting the door behind you. The rest of the apartment is empty, and with how late you heard Wayne ambling about, you’re sure he’s not ready to get up any time soon, either.

By the time you leave, there’s breakfast ready to be reheated in the oven and you’ve left a note on the coffee maker saying to just turn it on.

When you walk outside to your car, though the sun’s been up for a while, the fog still clings to the ground. You sit in your car for a few minutes, staring at the water droplets slowly evaporating on the windshield. When your heart rate has gone back down to something human and manageable, you start the car and head home.

13 August 198612:07AM

If you were bubbling with excitement before the concert, now you feel like soda that’s been left out for a few hours. Flat, maybe, but still just as sweet as it was before, if not moreso. You still feel all the enthrallment that you did before and during the concert, but now you feel...

Well, post-concert blues. That satisfied feeling of having witnessed something amazing, but the accompanying sadness and mourning knowing that you’ll never be able to relive this same experience again. It’s come and gone and now all you can do is remember it.

You slap your thighs to bring you out of your own head. This is going to be a good fucking night. Eddie literally bought you tickets to see Judas Priest and drove you both all the way out here. Refused to let you drive for a singular second, too.

“You still that hyped?” Eddie asks, laughing, holding his lighter out to you. You light up your own smoke and laugh.

“Nah, just trying to get my head back in the game. Too much shit rattling around in here.” You tap your head with the lighter before handing it back. Eddie takes a second before grabbing it, though, and you have to wave your other hand in front of him to snap him out of it.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who’s out of it,” you laugh, bumping his shoulder with yours when he finally takes the damn lighter back.

Quietly, from inside the van, you can hear the opening bars for Wild Nights.

“Yeah, well,” Eddie grunts, crouching down to tie the messy laces of his right shoe. “I’m the one who drove three hours to get here, and had to convince your parents that I wouldn’t murder you and dump your body in the river.”

You can’t help but cackle. You know for a fact that neither of your parents called the Munson household, but you also know that it’s something that they very easily could have done. Looking out at the White river from your little spot at the state park, you open your mouth to say something about how overprotective Wayne can be, but then something catches your eye.

“They literally,” you start, reaching over to pluck the scarf from Eddie’s back pocket. “Did not do that.” You twist the scarf around in your hands a bit before trying to whip it at his ass. You miss horribly and end up snapping the tip of the scarf on his thigh.

You burst out in laughter, full bellied and unrestrained, when Eddie yelps and topples over to the right. You try to apologize and ask if he’s okay, but you doubt that anything intelligible makes it past you wheezing, squeaking laughter.

“Alright, that’s it,” Eddie grumbles, tossing his half-smoke cigarette into the gravel before stalking towards you. He’s clearly not upset, but you make a mad dash for the riverbank anyways.

The toes of your shoes have just barely touched water before Eddie’s arms wrap around your torso and pull you back. You shriek and kick once or twice before letting yourself go limp.

Half an hour later finds you in some park along the 36, hair and clothes still damp and cheeks sore. You’re both sitting in the back of the van, doors open, passing a joint between you and looking out onto the park.

“I like what you’ve done with this old bitch,” you comment, tapping the plush—carpeting? blanket?—that Eddie’s laid down in the back. “Is there a camping mat under this or something?”

Eddie laughs. “Yeah, been going out in the woods after work sometimes just to like... relax, y’know?” You nod; you ran to the woods a lot as a kid, too. “Right, so I kinda made it more comfy to get high in. That’s it.”

When he passes you the joint, you look back at the front where you’d left the scarf. Handkerchief? You’ve had the question in mind ever since March: is he the S or is he the M?

“Seriously?” Eddie balks. “That’s what’s been on your mind this whole time?”

You turn to look at him and blink owlishly.

“Oh. Oh god, please tell me I didn’t say that out loud.”

Eddie laughs, and it almost sounds a little mean. You can feel the heat creeping up your neck and making its way to your face. Your cheeks itch with it.

“Right, you’re too baked and tired for this,” Eddie declares, and even to your ears he sounds way too composed and, frankly, sober. Though you guess he’s maybe had a bit more time to get used to smoking weed than you have.

“What, no!” You whine, trying to reach across him to snag the joint out of his left hand. Unfortunately, the best that’s done for you is get you splayed across Eddie’s lap once you inevitably lose your balance. “Fuck you.”

Eddie’s almost unnaturally still beneath you. And you’d look up at him, if you could, but even fucking cooked, you’re very aware that you’re laid across a man’s lap.

Your throat feels too tight when you swallow. You move to brace an arm on Eddie’s thigh to prop yourself up, but his hand on the back of your head has you freezing in place. When the hand starts petting down your head, your neck and your spine, only to start again at the top, you start to go limp. This isn’t so bad.

“Yeah,” Eddie scoffs, and you get the feeling you’ve spoken out loud again. “You would think that.” The embarrassment is enough to make your eyes sting. There’s a beat of silence, and then Eddie leans over to whisper in your ear, “Good girl.”

You swallow thickly. You had intended to follow-up by asking whether or not Eddie was even interested in the opposite gender. But you suppose that answers that.

There’s a tension in your gut and shoulders that makes you second guess yourself. You get the words out before you can think too much about it.

“What do I have to do for you to say that again?”

The hand petting you takes its time reaching the bottom of your spine, and then stays there. Warm against your lower back, and just high enough to say he’s not actually touching your ass. Awfully cordial.

“Depends,” Eddie hums, and you hear him take another toke of the joint before crushing the tip of it between his fingers and chucking the extinguished butt somewhere you can’t see. “Why?”

This time, you do prop yourself up, both hands on Eddie’s thigh. If it had been anyone else, the distance between your faces would have been the epitome of discomfort.

“I want you to say it again,” you answer quietly. It’s getting harder to keep your eyes on his and not let them drift down.

“Say what again?” Eddie asks, and you don’t know if you love or hate the shit eating grin on his face. You should have expected this, though; putting you on the spot was part of the whole point, wasn’t it?

“I-I want you to...” you start, but your throat feels too small for the words that are trying to come out. Eddie’s hand at your lower back comes up to rub comforting circles between your shoulder blades. Your face and neck are on fire and everything feels itchy.

“Come on,” Eddie whispers. You realize that you’ve been staring at his mouth, and when you look, he is very much looking down at your mouth. “Won’t laugh. Promise.”

The sigh that leaves you almost surprises you.

“I-I want you to—I want you to call me a good girl. Again. Please.”

The hand between your shoulders makes its way forward to cup your jaw.

“Good girl,” Eddie breathes, and it’s like your whole body vibrates, shudders with the satisfaction of it. “Fuck,” he chuckles, swiping his thumb across your cheekbone. “You’re really into that.”

You want to say that you shrugged, but the reality is that the sound that comes out of your mouth couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a whimper.

“Can I—” Eddie starts asking, but you cut him off nearly right away.

“Yes.”

You would think kissing your childhood best friend, whom you’d lost touch with for several years and had recently gone through several traumatic events with, would be somewhat awkward and clumsy. But, unlike when you were teenagers, you and Eddie both, clearly, had the advantage of some gained experience in the meanwhile.

There’s no chastity in the kiss; from the moment his mouth locks with yours, it’s open-mouthed and breathless. Eddie pulls you closer, helps you sit across his lap properly, and you fist your hands in his shirt. In his brand new Judas Priest shirt. You know he doesn’t even particularly like Turbo, as an album. Almost none of it is his preferred style.

You whine into the kiss, and you chase Eddie’s lips when he pulls away. He helps shift you off his lap and quickly instructs you to move back and lie down. The van is plunged into near pitch-black. You move back until you feel what you think is the back of the driver’s seat. You don’t lie back yet, instead reaching out for Eddie.

Your hand knocks into what’s apparently his arm. His mouth finds your again in the dark as your fingers find their way into his hair. You gasp when Eddie roughly pulls you down, firmly gripping your hips one second and cradling your head to make sure you don’t hit it the next.

“You sure this is fine?” Eddie asks, though his lips are moving down to your neck, teeth nipping at the skin.

“It’s fine, this is fine,” you rush to say, letting your hands wander up under Eddie’s shirt. You’re sure to keep your touch light when you come across the scars. “This is so fucking fine,” you breathe.

Eddie’s shirt rises with your wandering hands, and he gives you a second to pull it over his head. You have no idea where you toss it and you honestly couldn’t care less. His hands, in return, take the opportunity to make their way under your shirt, and you want to scream. Your entire body feels like a coil being wound tighter.

It’s unfamiliar, how intense it is. You don’t think you mind.

Eddie knocks your knees open to settle between your legs rather than straddling you, though you’re more preoccupied by your shirt—identical to Eddie’s, because you couldn’t help yourself—being peeled off and thrown into an equally unknowable direction. His hands on your ribs feel like irons smoothing out the trembling wrinkles of them, and the shuddering sigh that you let out makes Eddie chuckle.

“Poor thing,” he laments, one hand at your waist prompting you to arch your back, the other sliding up your back to somehow expertly undo the clasp of your bra. “Been holding out for a while, huh.”

It’s not a question. You twitch, about to bring your hands up to hide your face, but—there’s no real point, is there? In this kind of darkness, it’s not like he’d be able to see how red your face is. You have a feeling he’d reprimand you for trying to hide, anyways.

“Didn’t think you’d wanna look at me,” you breathe into his mouth. Saying it out loud makes it feel silly, especially here and now. You don’t hold it against him when Eddie laughs. You can hear the shock in it.

“We’re both idiots,” he mutters, trailing kisses from the corner of your mouth, down your neck, nipping at the collarbone on the way. He presses his lips to your sternum, hands gliding up your sides to palm at your breasts. Nothing like the fumbling messes of your first adult years; Eddie’s hands are slow and deliberate. He’s not feeling you up for his own sake—though you don’t doubt that it in no small way contributes to the hardening length you feel growing at the junction of your thigh—but for yours. This feels entirely like a massage for your benefit.

To his credit, it’s working. Whatever tension you were holding in your shoulders is slowly melting away under his hands.

His mouth continues its trail down, licking a stripe up your navel before he stops at the button of your shorts. You don’t let him ask, you just unbutton them for him. He doesn’t move until he hears you start to pull at the zipper. He doesn’t leave you time to pull it down all the way before he’s tugging your shorts off like they’ve personally offended him.

The cold air makes you realize he’s taken your underwear with them. He lightly rests his forehead on your stomach and breathes in. It almost makes you choke.

“God you smell good,” he growls against your skin. While his mouth trails kisses back up your torso, you feel one hand sliding gently up your chest to rest at the base of your throat. The other slides two fingers through your slit.

Eddie groans like he’s in pain.

“I won’t—not here, fuck,” Eddie mutters, nuzzling between your breasts, and you buck your hips into his hands when one of his slicked fingers finds your clit. “First time we gotta do it right but this, we can—I can give you this,” he whispers, so low you figure he must be talking to himself more than he is to you.

One finger prods at your entrance, and then he’s got two fingers inside of you. The first few pumps, though heaven, don’t do much. But then Eddie curls his fingers, and it’s like he’s a puppeteer who’s pulled on all of your strings all at once. He exhales sharply and sounds entirely too pleased with himself when he speaks.

“There she is,” he whispers, mouthing at the spot on your neck just below your ear. The warmth makes you shiver and clamp down on his finger. “Fuck, that’s it.”

Eddie’s hand practically turns into a machine. You don’t think you’ve ever been able to get yourself so close to cumming in less than a minute. The hand at the base of your neck creeps just a little bit higher. When you gasp at the pressure his fingers apply, you have to grab at Eddie’s wrist to keep his hand there.

“You’re perfect,” Eddie sighs, and you can feel more than see him toss his head back. “Fuck, wish I could see your face right now.”

“Next time,” you reply quickly. “Please, fuck, I’m so close, please please please,” you whine, reaching your other hand down to rub at your clit.

“Holy shit that’s so fucking hot,” Eddie groans, and bites down on your neck, just above where his hand collars it nicely.

The sting is what sends you careening over the edge, cumming with a drawn-out moan. Your hips jerk erratically in spite of yourself, chasing Eddie’s fingers as he fucks you through your orgasm. When your arms go limp, you distantly register the sound of his belt coming undone and the distinct sound of him spitting. There’s a slick sound and it doesn’t take long for you to realize that.

That Eddie Munson is jerking off over your naked body.

“Fucking christ,” you whisper, out of breath, and force yourself to sit up.

“Fuck,” Eddie moans, and you blindly reach out for him. He grabs one of your hands on his chest, laces his fingers tightly through yours. Your other hand, however, makes it down to his, wrapped around and pump his cock.

You shimmy back just enough to be able to lean down to lick the tip.

“Jesus f—I’m gonna,” Eddie chokes out. He doesn’t finish his sentence when you bat his hand away and wrap your lips around the tip of his cock and suck.

You swallow more of him down as he cums, swallowing around him once or twice before he brushes a hand up your forehead and lightly pushes you back and away. You kiss his navel, instead, then his sternum, until he pulls you up with two hands cupping your face, and makes you kiss him, instead.

You didn’t think you’d be turned on by a guy kissing you after you’ve just swallowed his load, but there are apparently a lot of things you’ve yet to discover about yourself.

Carefully, mouths still touching but not quite kissing, Eddie maneuvers you both so that he can lie down on his back, and you can lay your head on his chest.

You throw a leg over his for good measure.

“I’m not moving anymore,” you groan, burrowing your face into his chest.

“Can’t blame ya,” Eddie says, breathless, and you can’t help but laugh.

There’s a moment of silence, and then both of you start laughing. The bouncing of his chest makes it hard to stop laughing. Your gut hurts, your cheeks hurt, and you are entirely too sweaty. You could not care less.

“So,” Eddie starts, once you’ve both been able to calm down and breathe like normal people again. “You mentioned a next time?”

You hum and close your eyes against the darkness in the back of the van.

“Mm, it did not escape my notice that the handcuffs were something you managed to rescue from the trailer,” you mumble, throwing an arm over Eddie’s chest and squeezing.

“...I don’t think I hate the idea of you in chains, actually.”

September 2nd, 19867:58AM

You’re woken up entirely too early by your phone ringing. You don’t need to look at the time to know it’s too early; if you can’t hear cars driving around yet, it’s too fucking early.

“Mmn, gmorning, what,” you slur, wedging the phone between your chin and shoulder and rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

“Morning to you too, sunshine,” Eddie greets you brightly, and the warmth that bubbles up in your chest at the sound of his voice feels almost euphoric.

“You’re a weapon,” you say fondly, moving from where you’ve finally wall-mounted the phone to the wall by the fridge and making your way to the kitchen counter, which you promptly hop up on. “Wait,” you whisper, leaning forward to look at the calendar you’ve stuck to the fridge. “It’s September 2nd.”

“Mhm, congratulations, you can correctly identify the date.”

You ignore the snark.

You have entirely forgotten to ask Eddie whether or not he’d been made to repeat his senior year—again—despite everything that had happened over spring break. It felt awkward to ask now, though.

“You, uh,” you stutter instead, trying to find the least offensive way to go about finding out. “You’re calling, uh, early. Special occasion?”

“Of course,” Eddie says haughtily, and you can almost imagine the expression on his face. The kind that says ‘I know something you don’t and I know you’re too much of a coward to ask about it’.

“Come on just say it man,” you plead, letting your head fall back and reaching up to keep the receiver in place.

“My lady, I’m sure I don’t know what you speak of.”

“Fucking dick,” you say under your breath. Take a deep breath, bring your head back up and square your shoulder. “Edward Munson, did they or did they not let you graduate?”

Eddie lets out a bark of laughter so loud you have to pull the receiver away from your ear for a second. His tone and demeanor make you want to believe that he’s finally been cut some slack, but...

You manage to get a single sound out before there’s a knock at your door. You hold the phone away from yourself again, narrow your eyes at it like it’s Eddie in your hands instead of the receiver, and put it back to your ear. You cut off whatever he was saying when you speak again.

“You wouldn’t happen to know why there’s someone knocking on my door at,” you pause, turning to look at the time on the stove. “One past eight in the fucking morning?”

“Dunno, sounds important if it’s this early though,” Eddie replies, a bit too easily, and you sigh.

“Whatever, I’m putting the phone down. Don’t hang up.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You huff and put the phone down on the counter, making sure it won’t fall off. By the time you make it to your front door, whoever’s there has decided that knocking nonstop is clearly the best way to get your attention.

You honestly should have expected Dustin Henderson at your doorstep at eight in the morning on back to school day. He’s suspiciously got an arm behind his back. You sigh, again, and unlock the deadbolt and undo the latch before opening the door.

“Alright,” you say, one hand on your hip and the other hand held out. “Fork it over.”

“I have no idea—” Dustin starts to say, but the deadpan stare you level at him makes him clear his throat instead. “Right! Here you go.”

“Thank you kindly, now hold up,” you say, holding a finger up and quickly walking over to your fridge to pull a bottle of water out. When you’re halfway back to the door, you call out, “Heads up!” and toss the bottle over.

Dustin barely manages to catch the thing, but doesn’t do so without a comical amount of fumbling.

“Awesome, now that you’ve done your Dungeon Master’s bidding, go the fuck to school, nerd,” you chastise, flicking the bill of Dustin’s cap.

“Man, you’re mean, you know that?”

“Sure, that’s why I’m making sure you’re staying hydrated on that damn bike,” you retort, crossing your arms and leaning against the doorframe. “Go on now, shoo. Go get an education.”

You wait until you can’t see Dustin down the road anymore before closing and locking the door, and wandering back over to the phone.

“Alright,” you say, wedging the receiver under your chin again and tearing open the envelope you’d been handed. “This better be worth it. I was up until 3am and I’m fucking beat.”

Eddie stays quiet, but you can practically feel the frantic energy of him through the phone. You pull the paper—papers, it’s a whole damn stack of them—and then promptly drop them all on the kitchen floor when you catch the title on the first page.

“Edward,” you start, tone harsh.

“Hey, woah, okay,” Eddie rushes to start. “Okay, I graduated, right? Like, everyone was let through because of all the bullshit. That’s not really important right now though?”

“Ed,” you start again, lower and calmer. “That thing said ‘Thrasher Records’. I don’t fucking know who they are but there’s fucking record in the name, babe.”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes. You can hear the face-splitting smile. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it.”

“What the fuck,” you whisper, and you know he can hear the smile splitting your face, too.

You don’t change out of your sleep shorts and Judas Priest shirt. You’re at the Munsons’ in just under five minutes—which, yes, is probably a little bit criminally fast, but it’s not like Hopper’s gonna care—only to find out that Edward fucking Munson hadn’t even told his own damn father.

You give your boyfriend just enough shit for him to want to make up for it.

𝓣𝓪𝓰𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽

@bramblequill @storiesbyrhi @averagestudent03 @alovesongtheywrote @doratheignora @fnlyroe

#ravenloft #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson fanfiction #slow burn #smut #THIS ONE HAS SMUT #NINETEEN CHAPTER SLOW BURN BABY LETS FUCKING GO #nineteen fucking chapters man #anyways #mild d/s if you squint #this is my baby man #my magnum opus #until i make another one anyways

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cooloddball · 2 years

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JIB10 CLOSING CEREMONY ANALYSIS

for daisy anon

let me start by saying that I will forever analyse jib10 until the day i crack the code because this panel was the messiest these two have ever been (and we all know they are messy af). let it also be known that everytime i watch it, i cringe so hard i have to stop and then a few months later i go back and repeat the entire process. it’s like some sort of madness but that’s what cockles has done to us all.

PS. I'll be using two videos to analyze it since some angles are not visible in one video.

on to the closing ceremony ↓

the panel is over and what in the gay hell (as one of my followers would ask) is this moment? guys stop, no please don’t.

the entire cast present walks out with briana buckmaster beelining for jensen as usual. okay this is not a snide comment, they are actually besties and she’s often hanging around jensen during jib (re: jib8,jib9, jib10, sns) and that photo they took ladies in red giving off bi4bi energy. anyway I digress. now, as briana is hugging jensen misha seems like he’s lost and doesn’t know what to do with his hands until rob comes along and they hug (rob is so adorable i just want to squish is cheeks) the funniest thing about this situation is that no one goes to hug jared or anything. It’s rather odd don’t you think?

anyway, back to cockles. jensen looks over at robisha? giving each other some love and i think he just wants his man's attention again because he goes over to the fireworks thingy or whatever it’s called is throwing sparks and jensen with his whole chest and his cute little bowlegs stands in front of it to show off? I love this man but half the time i don’t know what he’s doing but he looks adorable doing it so i enjoy it. after his shennanigans, jensen turns to see if his husband is looking at him being goofy and all but at this point misha is busy talking with rob, rob’s hand is on misha’s shoulder and man is jensen not amused. this was so funny like dude chill, he’s just having a wee chat with rob, you know rob your straight (?)friend rob. dude is looking at them for a whole three seconds (yes i counted) like it’s getting creepy and both misha and rob are oblivious just chatting away. I was afraid he might go there and ask rob to back off but thank jack he didn’t because that stare was intense. I wish i could get a video taken from the other angle because i'd like to see what his face was doing. it’s heartbreaking and funny and adorable all at the same time because jensen you are a grown ass man and a father of three and yes we understand you were extremely needy that particular day but let misha catch up with his friend for just a sec, jfc.

so jensen decides nope, nope that’s enough i can’t not have my man look at me so i’ll show him who he needs to be looking at. let me do something crazy so he starts walking off the stage and misha looks back at jared and says something. so as misha and jared chat away and try to figure out what is going on with the green eyed grasshopper, jensen goes ahead and sits on someone’s lap, yes, he sits on a fan in the audience. okay if that happened to me i’d probably d word because it’s jensen ross ackles sitting on my lap. I know he smells amazing and is sexy af i’d probably be stuck there like a koala and i wouldn’t let him go but i digress.

while jared is uncomfortably smiling wondering wtf is going on, misha is hiding his face in shame like nope sweetheart what are you doing? that’s not cool you know you can’t just be out there sitting on fan girls’ laps please stop. even jared is rubbing his forehead probably wondering wtf is wrong with his friend.

jensen starts to scream into the mic while looking at his colleagues on the stage and as he does that. misha moves from where he was standing right in front of jensen and goes down the stage to talk to daniela.

meanwhile jared is still rubbing his head like what is happening? everyone else is laughing but jared is surprised that misha has left he seems confused??? And so am i because wtf jensen? misha? can you two just be normal like for once? you are 40+ year oldmen acting like teenagers with a crush like tf? okay i love to see it but also it’s so cringey i can’t keep up. jensen looks over at misha and daniela and when he sees that misha is going back on stage, he gets off the fan too but misha goes to stand at the very end of the line next to jason manns. it looks like jensen is beelining for misha but i think he decides against it since he's the mc and he has to stand in the middle of the room. at this moment i would like us to take a moment of silence for jensen for having to keep it together while working very closely with misha for all those years. i mean if he’s behaving like this in public in front of thousands of fans what was he like on set? i know i’m needy when it comes to relationships but i feel like he’s needier. let’s take another moment of silence for misha for having to deal with a needy/bratty jensen ross ackles for over a decade.

idk what jared is telling rob but rob is laughing while looking at jensen who is walking towards them on stage. it’s all good between rob and jensen. of course no one can stay mad at rob for over a minute he’s too damn adorable. NB: I don’t think jensen was mad at rob for talking to misha i just think he was feeling abandoned by his man so he got a little desperate and did what he did as described above.

there’s a flying unicorn (steve is that you?) and surprse jensen kicks it as usual *eye roll* what did unicorns ever do to him?

he is finally done with his shenanigans and starts the closing ceremony. now what stands out here is the way he introduces people. so he starts with rich who is the second person to his right, then after he goes ahead to introduce jason manns who is at the far end of the line next to misha. i mean he leaves out rob who is closest to him and adam fergus who is standing between rich and jason. now what's more interesting is his pitch of voice when he introduces them that makes it sus. anyway…the way misha is looking at jensen here is just so...heart eyes. he has an ear to ear grin and he’s just looking at jensen so adorably like c’mon jensen just said jason manns and that was enough to make misha happy. like am i missing something or? so when jason is called, he playfully hides behind misha and misha just looks at jensen and jensen looks at him and it’ so funny because this is so funny to me.

the way jensen and misha look at each other here…it’s just s funny because like guys you just had a whole hour of shennanigans together tf? and it goes on for 3 seconds as well like ??? in retrospect, jensen could’ve been looking at jason but since he was so close to misha i’ll just assume it’s misha because misha was also looking at him.

the way he announces misha’s name like sir are you okay? do you need to be that loud? dlso did he just moan? i heard a mmh...ahh somewhere in there but maybe it’s just me. the way he’s looking at misha guys i want to hide this is so…i can’t look. jensen hasn’t taken his eyes off him for 5 seconds now like can someone help him? they are looking at each other i’m crying because i am feeling so many things all at once.

it’s funny how even though he announces adam fergus the same way he announced misha, he barely looks at him. like i know they are friends but it’s just the difference between how he looks at misha and the way he looks at adam. i gagged.

so he goes ahead and introduces everyone else and he barely looks at them which is a glaring omission considering how he was behaving earlier when it came to misha. he doesn’t even look at jared. i don’t think i have enough expletives for the feelings i have rn because i’m reeling. jensen is intentionally looking away from jared while misha and jason are busy talking about jensen and whatever is happening at that moment probably something like “he looks done” and jason agrees because they laugh.

jensen also doesn’t look at briana once. also what’s even funnier he looks so done like he’s rolling his eyes? Idk what’s up with that but… he goes on to introduce everyone else without even a glance.

now it’s finally his turn to be introduced and what happens next is so surreal i had to watch it in slow motion. so jared who is right behind jensen reaches out as if reach for jensen’s hand? which is awkward because jensen is standing like a statue his hands holding the mic in a defensive way like he doesn’t want to be touched. even when jared introduces him he has to push him like he’s a boulder stone being rolled down a hill. i thought i'm dramatic but jensen is on another level because wtf is he doing? is he that done with the whole situation or jared for his bs earlier in the panel that he doesn’t want to even be near him? i could be wrong but it’s just a glaring difference between how he was with jason, rob, rich, and misha and how he’s acting with jared. nothing to see here just the jivorce simmering like a volcano under the jibcon floorboards. idk what i’m saying so i’ll just walk away now.

look at that grin on misha’s face. aww :) you can ‘t hide love can you? he’s so happy to see jensen like that’s his man and even if he was bratting the whole panel he just loves him so much. what’s even more adorable is that after jensen blows a kiss to the fans he turns to look at misha and they look at each other. in a room of people all i see is you. i’m not crying you are. literally i’m crying because they are so adorkable i can’t cope bobo do you have any other advise to deal with beautiful gay situations please?

but i’m about to spoil that sweet moment because as he's looking at his blue-eyed cutie patootie jared is in the back spanking his ass like can you not sir? jensen doesn’t even react to that because he’s still looking at misha and walking in reverse back to his position. i think he didn’t want to have to see jared’s face. jk but no seriously that’s what happened. jared still can’t read the room because he’s now tapping jensen’s shoulder. jensen still isn’t paying him any mind. This is get too painful and embarrassing to watch, like jared stop, you are embarrassing yourself. oh god now he’s touching both jensen and briana. jensen has to bend so jared lets go of him like how embarrassing is that? jared's whole body is turned towards jensen but jensen is facing towards daniela paying him no mind like why is he still doing this to himself? It’s too cringe to watch.

so finally jensen puts his arm around jared’s neck since they are both hugging daniela but he still hasn’t looked at him once.

so daniela says that there will be another jib and you know what jensen does?he fucking looks over at misha . he even raises his eyebrows like ‘do you hear that babe? we will always have rome.’ but misha’s not looking at him so the momentpasses. adam fergus is laughing in the background and jensen is just waiting for his babe to acknowledge him but misha is minding his own business. he looks at misha for 6 seconds . from here to here. wow.

intermission -> i have seen posts about this moment that mentioned that jensen was glaring at adam for talking to misha and that’s why he was looking that way but that’s not the case because when adam and misha were chatting away, jensen didn’t see it because he was busy hugging daniela so that’s not what happened. he was looked over at misha after daniela mentioned that they should have another jib. but i could be wrong so… moving on.

finally jensen spares jared a glance but it only lasts a second. adam makes a joke, jared and jensen thank daniela. It’s over.

after the closing ceremony jensen takes misha to the loading dock, pins him to the wall, kisses the hell out of him and takes that gay ass selfie before he leaves for dubai/australia.

okay okay i have an idea as to why jensen said he would’ve loved to have slept in while staring longingly at misha, why he was bratty during the panel and why they took that selfie it’s nothing big it’s just that maybe the previous night they didn’t get to spend enough time together for obvious reasons and they had to wake up early and spend the entire day at the con centre and hence he was being so bratty because he wanted all of misha’s attention because he knew he wouldn’t see him again in like a month or so. but again, i'm just speculating.

#cockles #jib10 closing ceremony #jib10 #jensen was being brat and i sure do hope misha gave him whatever it is that he needed after the panel

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stop-pressing-e · 1 year

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The Lost Swan - Chapter 4

Prev chapter | Next chapter Prologue

/Now shit is hitting the fan for both of them. What could happen next for them? Stay tune~

Enjoy reading!/

Mentions of: Blood and injuries

“Status update, Dullahan.” Her handler’s voice crackled due to the interference and because part of her visor was cracked, also affecting the call. Dullahan’s laboured breathing was their only answer before they heard her grunt an answer. “Target down but I was attacked.”

“Guards?” The fingers flew over the keyboard to find the hitman on their cameras or trying to refresh the camera connection from her helmet. “Ping me your location.”

“No.” She said, trying to maintain her French accent. “They’ll find me.” She pressed her hand against her side harder, hissing sharply in pain. “They hit me from behind. Nothing vital but it hurts and I’m bleeding a lot here.” The door she leaned against said ‘Laundry room’ and it was unlocked. No one was in and the lights were off. Dullahan locked the door and hid herself in the furthest corner of the room, pulling one of the baskets over to conceal her hiding spot better. “Going quiet. Will update you when I can.” She can hear the urgency from her handler to not do that but Dullahan turned off her visor and turned off her comms, severing her connection.

She still has her phone and knowing they will try to call her from there, her thumb scrolled to favourites to call one particular person.

Krauser answered after the first ring.

“Mission completed?” He was panting when he answered. It sounded like he was either in the middle of working out or had completed it right as she called him. She let out a soft shudder to herself, thinking it was quiet enough, but he heard it.

“Natasha?” It was very rare to hear him say her real name, sensing something was wrong and needing her full attention on him. “What happened?”

“I need you to go to my safe house.” She said, the French accent gone, keeping her voice soft but firm to get her message clear and straight. “I told you which one it was before I left.” She could hear the doorknob being shaken, forcing herself to hold her breath, and pressed her phone to her chest to muffle Krauser's possible questions if someone outside had super hearing. Her free hand went for her gun holster and pulled out her gun. She has a few bullets left in her magazine and she has a couple of clips left if she doesn’t empty it quickly. The doorknob finally stopped shaking and she waited for the darkened footsteps to walk away. She brought the phone back to her ear.

“Krauser-”

“What is going on, Natasha?” There was urgency in his voice, almost as if he wanted to raise his voice at her. She can already imagine him changing and putting on his boots to rush out of the door. It almost made her smile to herself to know how much he truly cares for her well being that he was going to drop everything he’s doing to get to her even if she has to wait for his arrival.

“I don’t know, Jack.” Her confession froze him in his tracks from packing his bag. “I’m sorry for hiding this from you but I hope when I get out of here I’ll tell you everything I have. Find my laptop, my password is…” She winced from her pain. “Contact Nikki and send her this code: ‘Black Swan meets Rat’. Tell me you got everything I said there.”

“I got it.”

“Repeat it.” She hissed

He did. “Natasha, this is unlike you and I do not like this one bit at all.” Krauser pressed his phone closer to his ear to hear her slow heavy breathing, trying to figure out where she had been hit and if her wounds could heal fast quickly in her situation. Then, he heard a soft sob from her. It was unlike her to cry in public and on the job.

“You are the best man to put up with all of my shit, Jack.” Dullahan said, slowly getting up from her hiding spot, both hands shaking, and her thumb so close to ending the call while at the same time she doesn’t want to end it. She wanted to hear his voice longer. No, she wanted to go back to him. “I love you.”

“Natas-” The call ended, her phone shut off, and Dullahan made her way to the door and unlocked it.

Krauser tried calling her again but the voice over the line told him that the person he’s trying to reach is unavailable. He tried it again and it was the same message. He practically wants to throw his phone across the loft. It started to buzz. He answered without checking the caller ID.

“Natasha?”

“What did she say to you?” He knew that voice. This was her handler. A snarl practically escaped from the bottom of his throat. “Where is the fuck is she? Is she still alive?” “I-I don’t know.” “Fucking bullshit.” Now he was yelling at the handler while he threw a few of his shirts into the bag. “She can’t just up and ghost you too.”

“She did, I'm afraid.” They told him. “Dullahan severed her comms on my end and I couldn’t reach her phone either. When she was calling you and after calling you. I know she’ll call you so tell me why she did that?”

“Like I give a shit about you or the people she works for.” He might as well have ended the call now and headed straight for the door to start his journey. “She didn’t give me a full explanation so you and I are in the dark.” There was no way he was going to tell them about his own mission she gave him. “Unless you have bigger reasons to call me regarding her, then good luck.”

“I’ll give you her last known location.” They quickly said. “Find anything that could lead to her or if there’s signs of her being alive at least.” “She’ll be alive. She’s a persistent one. You can’t kill what you consider a myth in the underground world.” The call ended and he went to the storage room to pack his gear and his weapons. Dullahan’s naked mannequin that once held her outfit somehow brought a shiver down his spine. As if a strange omen was starting to creep on his shoulders. Her words replayed in his head. Her apology, her message, her last words.

What the hell did she get herself into?

— — —

Krauser finally arrived at the safe house Dullahan is currently based at. He has stayed there a few times in the past. The code was keyed in, unlocking the door and deactivating the traps inside.

“Dullahan.” He called out her codename first, switching on the lights to the house. No response. ��Trish.” The door closed, his bags dropped on the floor and he started to search around the place. “I really hope you’re asleep and recovering right now.” He looked down to make sure he’s not stepping on any of her limbs that could have come undone during her state. The image of following a trail of her dismembered body parts gave him goosebumps. He can handle what she can do but he doesn’t like the idea of her body used as bread crumbs. He reached the bedroom and slowly pushed the door open. “Natasha?”

The bed was empty and there were no signs of her or blood. Everything in the room was neat and clean. The sight of her laptop caught his attention, remembering what she asked him to do over the phone. Speaking of which.

“This is Major Krauser. She’s not at her safe house.” He told her handler. “The place is still clean and I searched the surrounding area too. No signs of her body or blood.” As he opened the laptop and booted it up he heard a sigh made over the line. “You better check the last location she was at. Both of our calls were made there so find anything or check the cameras.”

“Fine.” The call was disconnected right as the screen asked for the password. He keyed it in and the laptop welcomed him in. A clean desktop with minimal files on screen. Figures. A browser was opened from the menu bar, curious he used the touchpad to click on the icon and the window opened to reveal a website she was checking out, making him raise an eyebrow in surprise.

The website was basically on houses for sale. Not just any houses. Old houses that are in need of serious renovations and a full restoration. The house she was checking out was a single story house located in the outskirts of San Francisco.

“Why the hell are you looking at these, dollface?” He muttered to himself as he scrolled through the rest of the options. He wondered why indeed. The loft was good enough for him. They don’t need a lot but with what they have, their neighbours are not nosy, and it was peaceful. Unless…

A chat board popped up at the corner of her screen, alerting him of a new message with a high pitch cackling from an icon of a pumpkin head on fire. A message for her? From who?

[Nikki] : We have a serious problem here Dull.

Nikki.

This was the person Trish was talking about to contact. He scrolled up to see the past conversation and saw how much they’ve talked. There was no time to read through them right now, he had to focus on the main reason he’s here. He typed out the message she told him to do.

[Horseman] : Black Swan meets Rat.

Silence for minutes after he sent it. He waited with his knee bouncing and two of his fingers drumming against the laptop.

[Nikki] : Who is this?

[Horseman] : Unimportant right now. She told me to send you this message.

[Nikki] : Shit. Do you know where she is?

[Horseman] : Negative.

[Nikki] : Double shit. This is bad news.

Blue eyes narrowed at the sentence. Bad news? Don’t tell him that she was kidnapped by this Rat?

[Horseman] : Who is this Rat?

[Nikki] : Not here. It’ll leave a paper trail on my end.

[Nikki] : We’ll need to meet up.

[Horseman] : Where?

[Nikki] : I can’t say it here either.

A headache was starting to happen at the temples. He was getting annoyed by this Nikki person online. How did Trish deal with this woman? Then again, he’s not her. God he was starting to miss her and he hasn’t begun his search for her yet.

[Horseman] : If you continue to prove no help for me, then I’ll find my own answers.

Krauser was ready to log out when Nikki quickly typed her next reply.

[Nikki] : I’ll help you!

[Horseman] : How? 5 seconds on the clock now.

[Nikki] : Dull is supposed to meet me at this old movie theatre. Meet me there instead in three days.

The address and image of the theatre was included.

[Nikki] : If you have anything useful from her sudden disappearance, bring them too.

[Nikki OFFLINE]

“Great.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I have her organisation on my ass, an informant to deal with now, and I have to find evidence if she was taken.” He muttered to himself, dragging his hand over his face, and let out a heavy sigh. “You’re putting me in quite a spot.”

#Jack Krauser #Dullahan #Krauser/Dullahan #Jack Krauser X OC #Krauser X OC #The Lost Swan #Hatter's writing #Resident Evil Krauser

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19thsentry-blog · 2 years

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In The Shadows

Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction (Lukanette Endgame)

Chapters

Prelude | Chp 1 | Chp 2 | Chp 3 | Chp 4 | Chp 5 | Chp 6 | Chp 7 | Chp 8 | Chp 9 | Chp 10 | Chp 11 | Chp 12 | Chp 13 | Chp 14 | Chp 15 | Chp 16 | Chp 17 | Chp 18 | Chp 19 | Epilogue | Worlds Not Our Own | Timeline

Chapter Twelve: Encino Man (AO3 Link)

Chapter Snapshot

So long had he played the part of the wandering bard, the calcitrant protector of Sass and Mullo, that putting himself in the limelight as a hero like Ladybug was an odd role in comparison. Especially when the two of them were still toeing around to figure out what a partnership would look like. He was so much more used to living in the in-between, a shadow that slipped through people's fingers, the center of attention didn't seem to suit him. At this point, Ladybug was as much a part of Paris as the Eiffel Tower or The Louvre was—it seemed like she knew everyone, and it was almost intimidating. Even Juleka had appeared to be at least loosely acquainted with Ladybug.

Luka hummed, tapping his fingertips on the spine of the Miraculous Spellbook. He wasn't sure how to approach Ladybug, but if Juleka did know her, maybe she might have a better idea of how to talk to her, and he wouldn't mind seeing her again. He stood and stretched. "I think I'm going to have to get a second opinion, but I'll need to be transformed. You don't mind, do you, Sass?"

Sass flicked his tongue out amicably. "Of courssse not."

"Where are we going?" Mullo asked, zipping up from her spot on the couch.

He smiled. "To see a friend."

"Oh, bloody hell," Wes ground out, slamming the apartment door behind him, trapping the heavy scent of Chinese takeout in their apartment. "Have you gone completely barmy?"

Luka snapped out of his melody-induced revere, looking around the apartment for indicators that he'd gone crazy. Nothing looked out of sorts; the walls were still covered top to bottom in band posters or mystery stains, and the crack in the top left corner of the living room looked as concerning as ever. Sass was blinking awake from his place on the arm of the couch while Mullo was whizzing around Wes's head like a fly. The thrifted coffee table still had its distinctive left-wards tilt, Luka's life work come from decades of travel spread across it haphazardly, pages of codes and notes fanning the length of it and along the floor, in his lap, on the couch…

Wes let out an impatient, frustrated whine and stomped over to the cassette player pumping out The Smiths, "Hatful of Hollow" through the apartment. He slapped it quiet like a petulant child and then turned, arms outspread, the bag of Chinese takeout swinging fretfully from his right hand. "I can put up with the brooding and the magic flying rats, but The Smiths?" He pointed an accusatory finger in Luka's direction. "I draw the line, mate, if you're turnin' poofy on me, I swear--"

Luka interrupted him with a laugh, shuffling his papers of composition off the other side of the couch, then began to collect them with the ones on the table. "I'm trying to keep up with the times," he said. He set his work down on the ground next to his feet, followed by the guitar.

"Bugger the times! Keep me in '77--nothin' good came out after that anyway." Wes sullenly sat next to him on the couch, kicking off his boots.

"Oh sure, except for Damaged, Entertainment, Zen Arcade--"

"Come off it, you know what I meant. Keep that up an' I won't let you have any." Wes shook a container stuffed full of food in the air between them and then sniffed it before setting it back down in front of Luka. "Send you to bed without any bloody supper and all that rot."

Luka grabbed the takeout container and a pair of chopsticks, shoving whatever was inside into his mouth. His mind was already back to Delphine's song, brain working on aborted lyrics and notes that didn't sound right, ones he couldn't make fit. Delphine's story had been one of Sangpo's favorite to tell. The Dolphin Miraculous holder had been known for her kindness, her ingenuity, but she had an edge to her beneath it all. He wanted soft sounds for her song, something magical that drew you in like ocean waves, something that you knew could still drown you if you went too deep, even if you never reached the bottom.

It was his job to do her justice; after all, with the Miraculous Spellbook and The Order both gone, he was the only one alive who could record her story. Not even the Grecian Island she used to protect knew who she was. He'd found no trace of her legacy 15 years ago when he visited, hoping to nail down her song once and for all. Luka couldn't help but feel pangs in his heart at that. He understood the need to keep secrets, but for her legacy being wiped clean by The Order to protect the powers of the Miraculouses seemed foolhardy in the wake of their destruction. His songs were shaping up to be the precious scrolls and knowledge carried out of the Great Library of Alexandria before it fell for good.

Wes had escaped his notice, but as Luka shoved another mouthful of lo mein in his mouth, he realized his friend had snatched up his papers and was flipping through the pages of the song. "Why've you got to write all these moon runes everywhere, anyway? 'Fraid I'll read your diary or summat?" he groused, one chopstick wavering between his teeth, the other guiding his eyes along the page like a conductor's baton.

"It's just a precaution, not really against you or anything. That's just how it's done." He really didn't have any other explanation. If The Order had thought the stories of past heroes were so dangerous that they all needed to be kept in code, he wouldn't deny them that. Besides, it kept him in practice. He had too many languages rattling around in his brain, and things were starting to get jumbled and forgotten. The Order's code couldn't be one of the things that began to slip.

Wes grunted, amber eyes working over the notes beneath his drawn-down eyebrows. "Right. Well, let's hear it then. Play on, mysterious bard." Wes flicked his makeshift baton in Luka's direction, a piece of fried rice flying off the tip and onto the wall to join one of the mystery stains.

Luka did as he was told, picking back up his guitar and letting Delphine's notes drip off his fingertips for the 40th time that day. He waited for Wes to pick out the part he was having trouble with. Luka was sure he would because his fingers always moved sluggishly about 45 seconds in, frustrated with the directions he was taking them. It was hard to choreograph the soul of someone he hadn't met--his only guide was the silhouette Sangpo had drawn of her, light veils and draping fabric over a willowy frame…

Wes's cheeks sucked in as he listened, the chopstick hanging out of his mouth still slightly wobbling. Finally, when Luka got to that part, Wes shook his head and took the chopstick out, shifting them in his hands to use them for their intended purpose. "Change the chord to diminished," he said through a mouthful of beef.

Luka started over, changing the chord he'd been battling with to diminished D instead, his fingers liking that much better. The rest of it came together after that, the Delphine in his mind working through him, her story coming out in crashing waves. "I walked from the sidelines," she whispered echoes in his head, "the broken bones, and grew strong--learned to shout back at the world and rid myself of the demons in my blood, till my lover and I no longer fit, because I could no longer just whisper when the ocean roared."

Luka finally looked up, sunshine on his face, because he'd found her clarity in the notes that had only held murky depths for him before. Wes picked around the vegetables in his carton to pull out another piece of beef. "I'd rather listen to that than The sodding Smiths any day."

Luka sat on the brown loveseat in his apartment, his hand resting on Delphine's page in the Miraculous Spellbook, her legacy written in plain text, not song. The book was a record of each past hero, their innovations and careers, likenesses, and discoveries, all recorded for posterity. These were the crude drawings Sangpo had drawn for him in the dirt of their backyard or in the ashes of their extinguished fire; the heroes whose stories he would recall for him during their idle times. Delphine stared out at him from the page, eyes blank. The Dolphin Miraculous had given her the ability to find anyone, anywhere. She was the one who concocted the potion that would allow her Kwami the ability to let her dive deep beneath the water to save those lost at sea with ease. The book didn't tell the story of her and her lover, not as he did. The blank eyes looking back at him beneath a gauzy veil didn't exude the depths of her heart, the quiet way she had touched the lives of those around her--until quiet wasn't enough to get the job done.

Luka flipped to the back, looking at the portraits of Sangpo again. He was called Mucalinda. Luka hadn't known that before. His costume had a large hood, mimicking that of the great serpent king, and beneath that drawing was another picture of him in a different outfit. That had been Sangpo's innovation; How to change skin. Sgyur ba.

"There will be many that mussst be added," Sass said, staring over his shoulder. Luka hummed in ascent, turning his attention to the old TV he had turned on to the news. Ladybug was fighting an Akuma several arrondissements away, Chat Noir and a few other heroes by her side. She had several other allies, it seemed. The Fox, Turtle, and Tiger appeared quick on their feet; they must be used to fighting alongside her.

Someday, they would all be added, too. Luka stared despondently at the blank page next to Sangpo. This would be Wes's page. He'd looked through the whole book--not a single recorded hero had died quite like he had. A macabre addition.

Luka sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing the book. He'd stared at it enough the last day and a half; the scent of the well-worn pages was practically burned into his nose. The newscaster's voice rang through the small apartment, her face pinched with urgency as she hid behind the news van.

"The Akuma has several people trapped at the top of the building--wait, there! Ladybug has called her Lucky Charm!"

He studied the news coverage, watching the red and black polka-dotted hero fly across the screen. While he questioned some of the decisions of her Master, there was no doubt Fu had made the right decision of who to entrust the Ladybug Miraculous. She was incredible--quick-footed, a good tactician in battle, and an easy leader under pressure. The others followed her without question; they all seemed to know just what she wanted them to do. Part of that, he expected, was that all of them had communicators embedded in their weapons. An innovation that would need to be recorded. Someday he may need to try to incorporate that into his own arsenal when he transformed--he'd never had a need to, so it had never occurred to him before.

"When are you going to tell her about what Félix said?" Mullo asked. She was sitting next to him in a rare moment of stillness on a blanket that was bundled on the couch, nibbling on a piece of cheese she'd pulled from the fridge.

Luka traced the book's cover idly with one fingertip, still watching the battle come to a close on the fuzzy TV set. "When I figure out how to do it without making her mad." She wouldn't like finding out he'd gone behind her back to steal the book. He couldn't blame her for that, but he felt his actions were justified given how it had turned out.

Félix put his hands in his pockets, casually crossing one ankle over the other. He leveled him with a defiant glare, green eyes bright in his pale face. "I'm not Mother Theresa. I take care of the people I care about, and that's all."

What a lonely world Félix must live in. And that, coming from someone who'd lived most of his years alone. He doubted Félix would like him pitying him--but in some ways, he felt like he was the same. Ladybug did incredible things--she protected an entire city. What had he done all this time with his powers? He helped those whom he cared for, helped strangers when it was convenient. He didn't go out and look for trouble like she did. That was part of why when Juleka asked him if he was a hero in training, he hadn't disagreed.

Sass flicked his tongue out amicably. "Of courssse not."

"Where are we going?" Mullo asked, zipping up from her spot on the couch.

He smiled. "To see a friend." Luka wrapped the book in a paper bag and shoved it in the back of the freezer behind the frozen pizzas before locking up and making his way to the little apartment building Juleka lived in. He transformed a few blocks away but kept walking on the sidewalk rather than up on the rooftops. Standing across the street from Juleka and Rose's apartment building, he realized he had no idea which apartment was hers or if she was home. Juleka had told him at her birthday party she was a model; did they keep regular hours? He had no idea. Why hadn't he asked?

A few minutes of frustrated pacing later, he spotted a fairy with short, gold hair and a long pink overcoat gliding down the sidewalk towards the building. The girl saw him from across the street, and at first, her eyebrows drew down in thought before her face erupted in a wide smile. Viperion waved at her, wondering if Juleka had told her about him. She waved back with both arms, purse swinging erratically from her side. Guess that was a yes.

He made his way toward her. "You're Rose, right?" He asked, crossing the road. 'Viperion' didn't know her.

Rose nodded as he closed the remaining distance. "Yes, I'm Juleka's Rose! She mentioned you--please, come inside!" Her tiny hand grabbed his jacket sleeve, not giving him a choice in the matter.

"Is she home? I was hoping I'd be able to talk to her-- and to meet you," he added, letting her drag him inside the apartment complex foyer.

Rose giggled delightedly, pressing the button to call the elevator. "She'll be home soon; she's busy right now! But I'm very excited to meet you. We have a lot of wonderful friends, but it's so rare that Juleka makes a new friend all on her own! I'm so happy about it."

Viperion smiled at her as they stepped inside the elevator. "Is she the type to keep to herself?"

"Oh yes! She's come out of her shell so much since middle school, but she's still such an introvert." Rose was practically buzzing with excitement, hands swinging and moving wildly with emotion. "We haven't seen you around on the news or the Ladyblog or anything; we thought you might have left town."

It was an odd thing for him to get used to hearing. He wondered how The Order would have dealt with trying to erase the legacy of a hero that was constantly shown on TV. "I'm not used to public appearances," was all he said in the end. "Sorry if I worried you."

The elevator dinged, and its steel doors opened on a well-lit, cream-colored hallway. The carpet was a deep red color, and Viperion's feet sunk into it slightly when he stepped out of the elevator. Rose led them down the hall, chatting the whole way. "Well, don't disappear on us again! I'd be upset at you if you just up and left us, especially when Juleka's made a new friend of you. But all's forgiven and forgotten--oh, this is us, one second." She struggled to find her house key on her key ring, the fluffy plush unicorn that dangled on the chain hindering her movements as she unlocked the door. "There we are. Home sweet home! Hello, my little babies," Rose cooed affectionately at the two cats that came to twist around her ankles.

One was a very fat, very fluffy black cat, and the other was a tiny Siamese cat with a bit of goop on the inner corner of its left eye. "Say hello to our guest!" Rose grunted as she lifted the purring, furry monster of a cat, holding it close to Viperion's face. "Luci, this is Viperion. Oh, but his real name is Lucifer."

She plopped him down and skipped a few steps around the apartment to wrangle the other cat. Viperion stepped inside and closed the apartment door before either cat could dart into the hallway. Finally, Rose managed to grab the Siamese and hold it up to wave its little paw at him. "Viperion, this is Sin. Say nice to meet you, Cinnamon, there's a good girl! Agh!" The Siamese flipped out of her grasp and ran under the couch.

"Nice to meet you both," Viperion said politely, humor edging into his tone as he knelt to pet the fat one. It rolled over on its back like a beached whale.

"We also have Terry the turtle, but Terry is in time out for eating one of his fish friends." Rose shrugged off her pink overcoat and hung it in the coat closet by the front door, revealing a white knit sweater paired with her skinny yellow slacks and pink flats.

Viperion could spot the turtle in its exhibit in the living room. It yawned at him. "What an eclectic bunch." He didn't mean just the animals, either. Rose and Juleka's apartment was an experience, each of their personalities and tastes balanced in harmony. Where there were short pink curtains over the kitchen window, there was skull embroidery on the ends, and where there was a foreboding four-poster bed in the bedroom with black covers and pillowcases, there were about 12 brightly colored stuffed animals sitting on top.

"Come have a seat in the kitchen! I'll make us some hot cocoa."

Viperion followed her into the kitchen and sat on one of the brass and black painted stools that were pushed under the kitchen island's bar; it was a small kitchen but functional. They had herbs growing on a rack hanging in front of the window and pots and pans hanging neatly beneath the upper cabinets, so they were within reach but not taking up counter or cupboard space. The island in the center functioned as both extra countertops to prepare food and room to eat. On the inner side was the dishwasher, directly across from the sink. Rose fluttered to and from, slipping on a black apron with ruffles and pink lace and filling a pale blue saucepan with milk and chocolate to melt. She had other spices and various things out, but Viperion wasn't sure what they might be.

He rarely cooked for himself, and he'd never had anyone make him cocoa before--not even from those powder packets he'd seen at the store. If he ever felt like having that kind of drink, he'd usually just buy it from a coffee shop or a bakery. Watching the process unfold before him was mystifying.

"So, Juleka said you just got to Paris, is that right? Have you settled in okay?" She flashed him a smile from her place at the stove, stirring the contents of the saucepan.

"I think so," he said, resting his chin on his palm.

"Oh, that's wonderful! Paris is so lovely, isn't it? I think it's better in the Spring and Summer, but Juleka loves this time of year." Rose applied a splash of heavy cream to the pot, wrinkling her nose when a few drops splattered onto the stove surface with a sizzle. "Are you staying with family while you're here?"

Viperion looked around the little apartment with a bemused smile on his face. "Not exactly, but I've been able to see them."

Rose sniffed the pot and then added a dash of brown spice to it, frowning as she prodded the mixture with her plastic spatula. She left it for a moment to turn back to him, hands clasped to her chest with sudden inspiration. "You know, my friend Marinette has a boyfriend who just moved here--I don't think he has many people to talk to in Paris; I ought to get you two together! I bet you'd get along swimmingly."

Where he should have said something, he stared at her instead, brain shorting out temporarily over the casual use of the word 'boyfriend'. Was that what Marinette was calling him? He hadn't done anything to earn that coveted title—just a day ago, he'd been introduced as a friend. Viperion rubbed his neck, trying to get his brain back on track. "Have they been in a relationship long? Big step, moving from…wherever," Viperion replied, feigning casual interest.

Rose leaned on the kitchen island across from him, her heart-shaped face supported by her two palms. "They only met recently--it's all so romantic, don't you think? He moved all the way from New York for her! I get giddy just thinking about it. She deserves it, you know. She's spent so long in knots because the boy she loved never liked her back. Now she has a fairy tale romance all her own and gets to be head over heels in love. And the boy--oh, he's so handsome! Very mature, very sexy, and self-sufficient, and he's good with his fingers, too, which is always a plus, you know."

Mercifully, he was saved from having to respond when the front door opened and slammed shut, Juleka's husky voice shouting out, "Rose, I'm home--" There was a pause and then a quick dashing of feet, and Juleka appeared from behind the living room wall, dark hair streaming behind her as she slid into the kitchen towards the stove. Now that Viperion's mind was free from Rose's gushing, he realized that the cocoa had been left wholly unattended and was filling the house with a voraciously bitter smell. Juleka scrambled to turn the burner off and remove the pot from the oven to chuck the concoction in the sink. "What did I tell you about trying to cook? We've been over this!" Juleka huffed, running water over the pot. A volcano's worth of steam erupted from it.

Rose pouted, a finger to her lips. "It's just--I really thought I could do it this time!" Evidently, Rose was just as bad at cooking as he was. "I wanted to make some for our guest!"

Juleka's spine stiffened from her spot at the sink. "What guest?" she asked, turning slowly towards her girlfriend. Finally, her eyes found him, where before they'd only been focused on stopping the smoke alarm from going off. "Jesus, fuck!" One of Juleka's wet hands flew up to her chest, an arc of water droplets flinging across the kitchen. Her tone turned accusatory, "How long have you been here?"

Viperion grinned at her sheepishly. "About as long as that cocoa was on the stove."

Juleka huffed and slammed the long faucet handle down, stopping the water so she could empty the pot and dry it with one of their tie-died kitchen towels. "It wasn't cocoa. It was burning goo."

Rose shouted in pouty offense.

"Oh, hush--go sit down and I'll make you some."

Rose floated over to sit next to him, a content smile on her face as she smoothed her apron over her lap. Juleka grumbled to herself as she pinned her long bangs back with a clip. She measured out milk, cream, and chocolate to pour back into the pot, flipping the burner back on. "So. Of all the apartments in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine. Why?" Juleka leveled him with a lofty eyebrow and skeptical glance. She didn't let him answer. "You know, there was an Akuma this afternoon. Ladybug probably could have used your help, Mr. Zero to Hero."

Viperion couldn't help the sigh that escaped his lips. "I know. I was looking for some direction."

"Directions to the Akuma? Easy. You just follow the screams, dumb ass."

"Juleka," Rose loudly stage whispered, holding her hand over her mouth as if Viperion couldn't tell it was her speaking, "this isn't how we make new friends!"

Juleka rolled her eyes. "I'm serious, wasn't that the whole point of you coming here or whatever? Or were you blowing smoke up my ass?"

If anything, he appreciated Juleka being stern. "I wasn't--but my relationship with Ladybug isn't the best right now. I mean, it started rocky, and then it got better, but I have a feeling things are going to get worse again the next time we see each other. I don't want to make it worse. I'm trying to figure out how to talk to her about it."

Juleka snorted. She added dashes of the spices on the counter, stirring them gently into the pot until a sweet smell started to chase out the noxious fumes of the failed batch. "Have you ever been around Ladybug before? She's not a words person. She's all action--you can't talk your way into getting her to trust you. Prove it with actions."

He frowned, thinking about it. Ladybug did seem fairly action-oriented. She had tried to punch him in the face the first time they'd met instead of talking it out, and Chat Noir appeared to indicate that was a fairly regular occurrence. Maybe Juleka was right.

"You should bring her daisies. That always works on me," Rose said, a dreamy smile on her fey face as Juleka began to ladle out hot chocolate into mugs. Rose jumped up from her chair to dig in the cupboards, topping each cup with a generous serving of mini marshmallows. Juleka handed him a black mug with Chuckie on it.

"I don't think flowers are the right direction here, remember?" Juleka pointed her question at Rose but pulled Viperion up from his chair by the back of his jacket to shove him into the living room.

Rose settled into the corner of their couch, patting her palm on the spot next to her. Viperion took it that she wanted him to sit next to her. "Oh, gosh, I forgot about that--well, it really wasn't the best timing, bless his poor heart."

The pink and tan rose printed couch looked like they'd got it from an old cat lady's estate sale, but it was much more comfortable than the couch in his own apartment. He had come here for advice, and it hadn't seemed odd at the time to think Juleka might know more than he did, given that Ladybug seemed to be acquainted with a lot of people. Still, they were both talking about her like they hung out regularly. "Er, what are we talking about here?" he asked, completely lost in more ways than one.

Juleka grunted and pulled her phone out from her pants pocket, thumb tapping on the smooth screen until she found what she wanted. She handed it over to him. Viperion set his mug down on the coffee table and held the smartphone horizontally, hoping he looked natural when he clicked the play button on the screen. He'd never owned a smartphone before, and he doubted he'd have the money for it any time soon.

A video looped on the screen of Ladybug in a large manicured botanical garden, engaged in a fight--her yo-yo reflected projectiles that were launched her way. The second the onslaught had stopped, he could see Chat Noir pop into frame with a rose, handing it out to her with a bow and a flourish. Ladybug stared at it for a moment before slapping it out of his hand, spinning him around, and then shoving him by the shoulders off the screen. "Yikes," was all he could think to say.

"He's well-intentioned, just--" Rose paused delicately, but Juleka finished for her.

"Stupid."

"Were you the one who took the video?" he asked, handing the phone back.

"Nah, I'm not the one with a Ladybug obsession. This is all Alya's project."

Viperion took another sip of hot cocoa--it tasted a lot better than the ones he'd had before, he had to admit. "So, she takes a bunch of pictures of Ladybug? Why?"

"She's a journalist," Rose cut in. "And she uses it for her Ladyblog."

"You mentioned that earlier--that you didn't see me on the…uh, Ladyblog? What is it?" He'd forgotten about that somewhere between Terry the Terror and the burned hot chocolate.

"Man, no wonder you came to us for help. Look." Juleka tapped the screen again and handed the phone back, this time vertically.

The top of the page was written in looping cursive in a deep red color, and the rest of the page was pale pink. "A fan blog dedicated to the heroes of Paris, their powers, and origins," he read. A line appeared between his brows as he finished reading the introduction paragraph. Something began to gnaw at his gut the further he went. "This is…I mean, isn't this dangerous? There are people out there who are looking to have these powers; isn't this just giving them a bunch of information?"

Juleka shrugged, setting her mug on the black steel-rimmed side table next to her side of the couch. "Maybe, but trying to keep shit off the internet is a losing battle. I mean, look at you, you're on that American blog, aren't you?"

The animal gnawing on his gut began to run roughshod through it. "I'm on what?"

"The Americans or whatever, I think that's the name." Juleka paused, staring at him. She grabbed the phone back with a huff, and he realized she had probably expected him to find it himself. She typed something onto the screen and then held it up for him. His mouth gaped open, staring at the little post with a blurred picture of himself above it.

New Super Spotted!

A new snake-themed Super was seen around New York earlier this week. Mysterious and a little bit dangerous looking, my sources are still trying to determine which side of the law they're on and what their powers are. I'll post more details as they come in. Stay tuned!

"How old is this? And that--I thought I smashed that phone, wouldn't that have deleted the picture?" Viperion held his head in his hands, palms pressing into his forehead. That had been during his first week in New York--he'd felt someone behind him that night, and when he turned around, two people were running after him, and the flash had gone off. He'd assumed that a well-placed throw of his lyre had taken care of that problem.

Rose rested a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, that's been up for ages! When we went to New York for Marinette's birthday--you remember me telling you about Marinette?" --boy, do I, he thought-- "Alya and Marinette spent all week trying to figure out who you were from this post. They were obsessed."

Memories of finding Marinette wandering around in that alleyway, berating him when he'd plucked her out of it and up to safety, slammed into his brain at 90 miles an hour. Part of him was pleased, knowing that precious person had been wandering around New York looking just for him (even if he was fuzzy on the why), but his brain reminded him of the eyes that had been on him in New York. Was this how they found him? Was this what had put Sass and Mullo in jeopardy?

"I'm sorry," Juleka said slowly, "can we go backward just a minute? Did you just ask if smashing the phone would delete the picture?"

Viperion looked up at her slightly, her incredulous face peeking out from beneath his bangs. "I mean… wouldn't it?"

He saw her eyes move from him to over his back at Rose and then back down. "Dude…how old are you? You haven't ever heard of the cloud before?"

Viperion doubted the clouds he was thinking of were what she was talking about, so he kept that to himself. The internet, smartphones, video games--all those things were what he considered luxuries, so he hadn't considered it essential to invest in them. Now they were commonplace items, something people just understood without needing to think about it. He'd never felt so out of depth before--when had the world gotten so complicated? "I don't know anymore," he said with a mumble, massaging his forehead with his palms, trying to think of the last time he'd counted his age. "Probably somewhere on the sunny side of 140."

Carmen shut the back door, closing out the light of the rec room and leaving them with nothing but the back porch light, flickering dolefully in the hot Austin, Texas air. She sat next to him silently, dark hair tumbling over her shoulders in waves. Half-lidded eyes studied him, her full mouth fixed into a contemplative frown.

"So," she finally said, turning her attention to the stars. "Where're you runnin' from?"

Luka didn't answer for a while, running the very specifically phrased question around in his mind. Where was he running from? He wasn't sure he knew anymore. "You think I'm running?" he asked instead.

"We're all runners here." Carmen sighed, taking his question in stride. She leant back on the stairs, elbows coming to rest behind her. "Runnin' from somethin', someone, somewhere. We're lost boys, but we're already grown."

Luka thought of all the kids inside, varying ages and personalities, ethnicities, and backgrounds. He'd sensed it, of course, the first time he'd stepped inside the building, that despite all their differences they all had the same look in their eyes. Eyes that knew you could never run far enough, not when the hell was still in your head and in your heart. "London," he finally answered. "Then Tibet."

He'd just kept going after Wes (but hadn't it really started that first night he left Scotland? Or the first night his mother drew her last breath, and he'd watched the fever take her? Funny, then, that his brain and his body kept him running circles around the globe, London, Tibet, France, United States, Australia--he kept moving around and around like a spider in a jar, never able to find traction on the slippery surface).

"Long way to go," Carmen said.

"Yeah." He could never go fast enough to escape, never fast enough to move forward, only just enough to stay stuck in place. He'd find something just to lose it again. The silence had sunk in deep when he found the courage to speak again. "You ever feel like you aren't… real?"

Her lips twisted into a sardonic smile, brown eyes flecked with green reflecting her own hell in front of her, the one she couldn't escape from. "Every day. Ain't easy, is it? Got the government tellin' you that you ain't real, got the people in the street tellin' you the same thing, and your brain don't disagree. That's why this matters. The talkin', the connection. Places like this.”

Carmen paused, lips wavering as she watched the moths bouncing against the porchlight. “We all die alone, but for a minute--one fuckin' golden minute--you're real, cuz you wouldn't be dyin' if you weren't. I could be a figment of your imagination, but damn, when you're dyin', you know you have somethin' you're losin'." Carmen pointed between them with one finger, "Losin' things like this. The things that matter."

Luka sat back with a hum, watching the moon peek out beneath one sad, thin cloud. The Texas heat shimmered, making everything seem fuzzy but still distinct, somehow. Wes mattered; he'd been real, and then he'd been lost. It was like Luka was still stuck in time, each second chance point lodging him more distinctly in a place he shouldn't be. Each reversal twisted time back, changed it to match his resolve, but some things couldn't be reversed. He was a bone stuck in Time's great maw, never able to escape (even though he could; he could let go, but he made it a point to stay exactly as he was, as if he were waiting for something, someone).

Carmen sat up slightly, digging in her back pocket for a squashed pack of cigarettes. Long fingers shucked open the box and plucked the last one out. Cigarette perched between her lips, she lit it and left her lighter on the porch step. After an inhale of smoke, she held it out to him. He hadn't smoked in decades, but he still took it. They passed it between them, skin slowly growing sticky with sweat as the cicadas hummed in the dark night. Carmen took one last inhale before killing it on the porch step. "Promise me somethin'?"

He turned to her, meeting the full force of her soft but still steely brown eyes. "What?"

"Don't stay lost for long. Guy like you, you still got somethin' out there for you. Spend too long runnin' and you won't recognize the world when you finally look up."

Juleka's mouth hung open as she stared at him. "Hey--you're like, really serious right now, aren't you? You're not fucking with us?"

He sighed, collapsing back into the couch between them. Rose's eyes were saucer-sized in her face, and even though he could deny it, Luka felt with a great level of certainty that he just didn't want to anymore. He felt Roger Murtaugh down to his bones: he was getting too old for this shit. "No, sorry."

Juleka shot up from the couch to stare at him. "Oh my God, I have fucking Encino Man on my couch!" she groaned, pulling her long dark locks with purple painted fingers. "Does anyone else know?"

"Who else is there to know?" he asked. That stumped her for a moment, long enough for him to ask, "And seriously, can someone tell me what this 'cloud' is?"

#in the shadows mlb #alternate universe #lukanette #luka couffaine #rose lavillant #juleka couffaine #juleka x rose #luka and juleka being besties #Nat's Monster In The Box

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