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boldlyvoid · 2 years

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Dear Eddie

Eddie Munson x best friend reader

Summary: a summer fling between best friends ends in heartbreak

Warnings: angst with a happy ending, friends to lovers, implied sexual content, secret pregnancy, birth, post-partum depression, leaving a baby on someone's doorstep, work accidents (Wayne getting stitches)

Part one | part two

Word count: 6.8k

He hasn’t had a lot of visitors at his new place… not since the ground was patched up and the insurance sent him a new trailer but it wasn’t the same. His boy wasn’t with him anymore, the place was bigger, there was room for him too, but he wasn’t there.

Eddie’s been gone almost 4 months now… and it hurts just as bad every day. Especially today, he doesn’t want to get up, but there’s a knock at the door and he’d hate to ignore it if it was Dustin coming for a talk or a hug or just a place to escape to.

When Wayne opens the trailer door, however, he finds a baby wrapped up in blankets, placed in a cardboard box, perfectly content to be there.

He looks up, staring down the road for any glimpse of the person who left it there. He walks past the baby and runs towards the end of his driveway, noticing a girl walking as fast as she can out of the trailer park.

“Hey!!” He calls after her but she doesn’t respond, she starts to run instead but she can’t, not well.

He can tell she’s hurt, something’s wrong with her… she’s sobbing as she stumbles and hits the gravel, hard. Wayne is quickly at her side, “hey, are you alright?”

“I’m sorry,” she pushes him away, “I can’t keep him.” She tries to stand up again, limbs weak and face stained with tears, “I have to go.”

“No, please stay, talk to me?” He begs. “Who’s baby is that? Why did you leave him with me?”

“Ed— Eddie,” she chokes on her sobs and accepts Wayne's support. She buries her face in his shirt and holds him tight. “I can’t do it without him. I can’t raise his son alone…”

“Oh, god,” he holds her close, rubbing her back as he realizes who she is. “You’re Y/N, aren’t you?”

She nods, he feels it, but she doesn’t pull away. “I had to hear about it on the fucking news… I was so pregnant and then he was gone…”

“Come live with me,” Wayne offers. “I have another room with all his things in it, we can get a crib, I’ll help, but this baby needs his mom. Eddie would want his son to have a mother.”

“I know,” she pulls away and wipes her tears. “I’m sorry… I just didn’t know what to do?”

“No one ever knows,” he tries not to sob. “I’ve been so lost without him… but he’d want us to raise his boy, I know that.”

“He didn’t even know I was pregnant… he hadn’t been up to see me in forever and I couldn’t tell him over the phone cause I knew he’d just drop out and run to me but I— I was going to come and see him for spring break, I had a whole plan on how I was going to tell him and then it was too late.”

He rubs her back gently, “I know, it’s tough. I went to work one day and came home to a dead girl and no Eddie.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re going through, either. He loved you a lot,” she reminds him. Knowing all too well the relationship between Eddie and his uncle and just how pure and precious it was.

“Let's go back to the trailer, I wanna meet this little guy,” he turns back to the house, baby still in a box on his doorstep, not crying, just chilling there on the front step. “What’s his name?”

“James, like the lead singer of Metallica… I thought he’d like it if he was here,” she admits, so caught up on the fact he’s gone. She really thinks he’s dead and not just missing.

“He’s not dead,” Wayne whispers. “He’s just not here.”

“I know but the police technically consider him dead and they’re not even looking anymore—

“Because the government told ‘em to stop,” he keeps his voice low. “I’ll tell you more inside,” he doesn’t want to explain in the open, the fewer people that know his business the better.

“Wha—“ she just follows him quicker, up to the trailer where he picks up the box and brings both her and James into the main room. “Where is he?”

Wayne sighs as he sets the box down on the coffee table and takes the little guy out. He’s big, for a tiny baby he’s very long and chunky and healthy from what he can see. Under his little hat he has the cutest dusting of dark curly hair, he can’t be more than 4 months old… she must’ve had him whence found out.

“Um… can I ask you some more things before I tell you the truth?”

She nods, “of course… I wrote you a letter, it’s in the box,” she takes James from him and holds him close, kissing his little head as she snuggles him close. “I didn’t want to abandon him… I just heard about the settlement and I know how much Eddie loved you like a dad and I knew he’d be safe with you and I— I—

“You were struggling,” he gets it, taking the note from the box and skimming through everything she wanted to say to him. “I don’t blame you…”

“I don’t have any of my things here, I was just going to catch the bus back but if you were serious?”

“We’ll get your things later,” he agrees with a smile. “There’s a lot I can’t tell you, but I guess it starts during the earthquake… something big happened, something I don’t understand, all I know is he fell through the cracks in the earth and got hurt and he was exposed to something and they’ve got him quarantined somewhere I can’t go,” his voice gets louder the more he explains, angrier now than when the men in black first came to tell him about it all.

Her eyes grow impossibly large, and she has to sit so she doesn’t drop the baby as she stares off into space, “how?”

“I don’t know… they don’t tell me nothin’ but Eddie’s friends said he got hurt trying to save the world, so I know it’s not for nothing,” he simplifies it, it’s what he’s said to himself a million times to make it seem okay.

Her shoulders drop as she melts into the couch, it’s all too much to even fathom. “He didn’t die?”

“He didn’t die.”

—

When she found out she was pregnant, Eddie was just an old friend who visited her every few months. Last month he visited to play a show with his band, it was the first time he got a real standing ovation, the first time he looked at her like more than a friend from kindergarten… the first time he slipped into her bed and into her and then seemingly, out of her life.

She saw him twice after getting pregnant, both times she could hide it well, unable to tell him the truth in fear their friendship would end in burning flames. He stopped coming around after the first trimester when school started again and he was trying to graduate.

That’s when the first letter came.

Dear Y/N,

School sucks, I miss you, I wish I could come up and see you again soon but I promised Wayne this is the last year I’m freeloading on him.

I need to graduate, and honestly think if I came to visit you I wouldn’t be doing a lot of homework. Not since the last few times I’ve been to see you have all ended up the same way… It’s hard to stay away from you, but if I came back I don’t know if I’d be able to leave you again? I hope you truly know how much you mean to me and how much I wish I could say this in person without chickening out… But, I love you.

I love you a lot, I can’t wait to see you again soon. Maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas? Let me know what you can do, maybe you could even come here? I don’t know. I just know I miss you.

Love from Eddie <3

She called him that night, and they talked for hours about feelings and truths they never shared with each other… all except the pregnancy. She brought that up slowly but he never caught on.

He wanted kids one day, she knew that from the way he talked about Dustin, Lucas and Mike, he would be a good dad if he had kids… he knew she wanted to be a mom and she also knew his relationship with his own mother and how unfortunately short it was cut. They both wanted a family, and she listened to him talk about his childhood and how great Wayne was, how much he changed his mind on what a dad truly is… they both had shit dads and yet they turned out pretty okay.

He couldn’t see her for thanksgiving, her parents were mad that he got her pregnant and even more angry that she didn’t tell him yet while at the same time they were grateful. They wanted her to never tell him, put the baby up for adoption in the spring at the end of her semester of college and go back to school as if nothing happened in the fall. But she didn’t want to do that. She wanted this baby, she wanted a family with Eddie, she was going to tell him at Christmas and they gave her an ultimatum.

She was cut off the moment she left their house after that awful dinner.

Her current semester was already paid for which gave her until January to get her act together and find a new place when the school kicked her out for not paying the winter semester fees. So she got a job, she made friends, and she went to single mom support groups that introduced her to the good food banks and how to get good coupons for all the baby things she’d need. She was even gifted some hand-me-down items.

Eddie still called her every day and wrote her the occasional letter. He was super excited to come to visit for Christmas, she was going to be so pregnant she wouldn’t have to say much when he saw her, she just hoped it all went well.

When he didn’t show up for Christmas her heart broke a bit, she called the trailer 3 times and no one picked up, she called the hospital to make sure there wasn’t an accident that he was brought in for… nothing. She sat in her bed and worried with her hand on her stomach and a tiny roast chicken for two cooking in her oven, alone on Christmas.

He called a day later, apologizing profusely but there was an accident at the lab, he spent the night beside Wayne in the hospital, holding his hand as he slept. It was a head injury, they had to cut his hair and sew his head back up, he was going to be out of work for a few weeks, and Eddie couldn’t leave him to take care of himself.

She understood perfectly. It just sucked that another thing got in the way of her telling him the truth.

She got a new apartment at the start of January, it was a low-rent place meant for moms and their kids… the distant sounds of babies crying made a very unpleasant ambiance but at least it was preparing her for what was to come. Alone or not, she was going to raise this baby to the best of her ability. She took a lamas class, she practiced her breathing, she had checkups every few weeks at planned parenthood and they were going to help her with her birth plan and apply for social assistance to help while she’s recovering and watching the baby. They assigned her a social worker, and she had free therapy, it was all really helpful while she went through it alone.

On Valentines Day she came home to a bouquet of blue and yellow flowers sitting on her doorstep with a sweet note.

“I still love you so much, can we spend spring break together?”

Spring break… it seemed so far away at the time and then it showed up in the blink of an eye. She turned on the TV that morning, struggling to angle the antenna to pick up any new channels to pass the time while she packed up to see the love of her life, the father of her child, the only person she’s thought about for the last 8 months… and longer if she really admitted that to herself.

“Local girl's body was found in the Forest Hills Trailer park this morning, there’s no word on her identity or who the killer is. All we do know is foul play was involved and locals should be vigilant,” the reporter says, standing right in front of Eddie’s trailer. She’d know it anywhere.

She called him, she called every Gareth Emmerson from the phonebook to find him, she even called Wayne’s work to see if she could reach him at all… nothing.

The TV is her only way of getting any information. Another boy died the following morning, back to back 8 am news reports suggested that Eddie was the one who did it, and if she knew his town, they were probably all hunting him by now… every fibre of her being wished he ran to her? If he was okay... if he was able to run… she wanted to help him and keep him safe and she knew he didn’t do it. There was no fucking way he did it!

He was the sweet little boy who kissed her boo-boo’s better on the playground after Dean Barker pushed her down. He was the adorable teenager who bought her pads when they were hanging out and she randomly got her period. He was the gentile and considerate man who took in lost sheep without even thinking twice… he’s not a murderer.

The earthquake rocked Hawkins the same day she was supposed to take the bus to go and see him. The helicopter footage showed the whole town in absolute disarray, the whole trailer park was practically sucked underground, the town hall was on fire, over 25 people died and then the worst fucking sentence to ever be spoken on television was said.

“Edward Munson, the cult leader many accused of the horrific killings that happened here in Hawkins earlier this week is presumed dead, no one has seen him and with the growing death toll, local police don’t expect to. Back to you Janice.”

“What?!” She throws the remote at the TV, “FUCK JANICE?!” She breaks down, sobbing, knowing she’ll never see him again and not a single soul gave a fuck.

She spends almost a full 24 hours sobbing on the couch, holding her stomach for support, the baby inside her being the only piece of Eddie she had left.

When her water breaks early, the doctors tell her it’s the stress she’s under, knowing something is wrong with her by the way she wouldn’t stop crying. Most women cried, it was completely normal, however, she was hysteric. She couldn’t even explain why, she ended up writing it down for one of the nurses.

My boyfriend died.

Yesterday.

She walked into the hospital alone.

She wasn’t alone for long.

She thought a lot about names, she considered everything from family names, both hers and his, to the names of things that mean a lot to them, songs, people, friends, and colours, she thought over everything. And yet the one name she keeps coming back to is Eddie’s middle name.

James.

Also, the lead singer of Metallica’s name, something Eddie found so cool that he shared with his favourite person, his idol… and now his son shared it with them both.

She walked into the hospital alone. But she wasn’t alone for long, James Edward Munson, born March 29th, 1986, was a perfect little mirror of the boy she loved her whole life… and she was going to dedicate the rest of it loving their son.

There are a few bumps in the road. Making money and watching a baby and trying to stay sane while working through grief is all really hard. So hard that she hops on the bus with James when he’s a little under 4 months old and almost leaves him with Eddie’s uncle… she couldn’t do it anymore, it was a lapse f judgement, it was her best option at the time, a silent cry for help that was answered in the best way possible.

She moved in with Wayne full time in July ’86, she was able to stay home while he worked, she didn’t go many places except the grocery store, no one knew who she was or that Eddie was her baby’s father, she was a recluse in a town she never wanted to live. She saw him in everything, mostly in the kids wearing hellfire shirts walking home from school, and especially in their own son… she misses him so much it starts to kill her slowly and Wayne knows it.

“You should introduce him to the boys,” Wayne suggests one morning while preparing James’s bottle, both of them sleepy wandering around the kitchen as James lightly whines in the other room, waiting for his breakfast.

“Like Eddie’s friends?”

“Yeah,” he gives her a sweet smile, holding a bottle in a boiling pot of water to heat up the cold breastmilk she stores in his fridge. “Dustin, Gareth, Jeff… they’d want to meet Eddie’s little boy… James needs some uncles.”

“Okay,” she takes a deep breath and crosses her arms, leaning against the counter as she waits for the bottle. “Do you think they know about me?”

Wayne laughs, “yeah… how do you think I knew about what you two were?”

“What were we?” She’s confused by that. “‘Cause to me, I was his friend and we slept together after high emotional nights and—

“You took his virginity,” Wayne cuts her off.

“No, he took mine… he said he already—? What?”

“Oh, no,” Wayne keeps giggling, taking the bottle out of the water and testing the milk on his wrist. “He just didn’t wanna feel like a loser for not having sex until he was nearly 20, but yeah… you meant a lot to him and he loved you so much he knew if he went up to Indianapolis he’d never come

“So thats why he got so weird,” she mumbles, taking the bottle and heading off to James’s room with Wayne in tow. “He sent me love letters and flowers and things…”

“Sounds like him,” Wayne chuckles.

“Morning, cutie,” she changes her tone when she sees James, picking him up from his crib and taking him to the rocking chair. His 7-month-old body barely fits comfortably in her arms anymore, he’s getting so big. He takes his bottle, he holds it himself and looks up at her with his big chocolate brown wonders. She runs her fingers through his little curls, he’s so much like his dad it hurt sometimes. “I love how much of him is in James…”

“I know,” Wayne takes a knee beside her, looking at James just the same. “I hope he gets to meet his dad soon. I want him home.”

“Me too…”

—

With James held against her with one arm and his diaper bag slung over the other, she walks into the school after the bell rings and follows the instructions from the receptionist. Down the hall, past the washrooms and to the left there was a drama room, that’s normally where Dustin Henderson spent his time. She finds it easily, there’s a “game in session” notice on the door but she knows there hasn’t been enough time since the last bell for them to be too busy, so she walks in anyway.

“Hello…?” She calls out.

“Hey?” A young boy stands from the table to greet her. “Are you lost?”

“Um, no, this is hellfire, right?”

“It is…” another curly-headed boy comes up behind her, trying to get into the room. “What can we help you with?”

“I’m Y/N… Eddie’s girlfriend?” She keeps her voice low, “or I was trying to be before all the shit went down here…”

“The Y/N?” The kid behind her asks.

“Yeah, that one,” she manages to laugh, “this is James, if you couldn’t put it together, Eddie is his daddy,” she bounces the baby a bit, making him smile as he grips onto her shirt and leans into her shoulder with a drooly smile.

“I’m Lucas, that’s Dustin,” the first boy explains for them both, shocked but not speechless like Dustin.

“Wayne mentioned how James needs some uncles, so I thought I’d come to meet you guys?” She makes sure it’s okay, “do Gareth and Jeff still go here?”

“Yeah,” Dustin finally answers, leading her over to the table, right to Eddie’s old thrown. “Let’s get you a seat, he looks heavy… and he’s the rightful heir so…”

“Prince James,” she teases her little guy, setting her bag down on the floor as more boys start to pour in.

“Gareth, Jeff, this is Y/N and James… Eddie’s family,” Dustin explains, his voice low and sad, wishing more than anything he could tell them all the truth about where their friend was.

“no way!” The boys light up and rush to the table. “He said you two slept together but—

“He didn’t know,” she shakes her head, cutting them off. “I never had a chance to tell him, I wanted to, believe me,” she forewarns. “But uh, yeah, this is little James. James, say hi to daddy’s friends.”

The little boy waves slightly, shying away into his mom's side. “He’s slowly becoming more of a people person,” she laughs, holding him tightly and kissing his curly mop.

“How old is he?”

“8 months,” she presses her lips together awkwardly, they knew how to do the math, they would all know.

“You had him when he died?” Gareth is the first to pick it up. “You knew all that time and never told him?”

She shakes her head, “no, I couldn’t. It’s not something you say over the phone to someone trying to graduate high school, now is it? If I told him he would’ve dropped everything to run to me, the band, this club, all of you, I wanted you to have him as long as possible.”

“Yeah, none of us got enough time with him,” Jeff sympathizes, placing a hand on Gareth’s arm. “But you’re right, Eddie would’ve done everything for you. What do you need? We’ll be here for you both now instead.”

“Thank you,” she gives them a genuine, toothy, smile. “I’m living with Wayne, we’re still in the trailer park, I just wanted you in James’ life, I wanted him to have at least 1 cool uncle like how Eddie had Wayne… we’ve moved onto calling him gramps by the way.”

“And he doesn’t hate it?” Dustin asks, shocked. “I’ve tried calling him pops and he thought it was weird.”

“It is,” Lucas shoves him.

“he loves it, now at least,” she can’t help but laugh. “James is still trying to say grandpa… can you say, papa?” He shakes his head and buries it back into her shirt. “I guess that’s a no.”

“He’s adorable,” Gareth gets a little closer, squatting beside her so he can seem less tall and scary to the little baby. “Hi, James. My name is Gareth, your daddy used to call me Gare… I wouldn’t mind you calling me uncle Gare?”

“He called you Gare-bear,” Jeff corrects, “call him uncle Gare-bear, please?”

“he doesn’t really talk yet,” she laughs, feeling more at home than she has in a long time. Like Eddie was there with them, watching and smiling too… the room carried so much of his essence that it was hard not to feel him.

God, she missed him.

—

May 1988

“What do you mean she doesn’t live here?”

“I’m sorry, Sir, Miss Y/L/N moved out almost 2 years ago now… I might still have her forwarding address?”

“Please?” Eddie begged, following Y/N’s old landlord into the building and waiting for her at the threshold of her office, not wanting to intrude.

“Her last address I was given is Trailer 13, Forest Hills Trailer park, Hawkins Indiana,” she hands him a copy of her address on paper and a small smile. “Something about moving in with her son's grandpa… I don’t know.”

He tries to stay calm, feeling so fucking confused and out of the loop because who knocked her up and why was she living in his uncle's trailer park? He just takes it and thanks her, heading back out to the van the government supplied him with as an apology for keeping him locked up for 2 years to run tests on him… he was telling them the whole time that he’s healthy and fine and just wanted to go home, but they didn’t listen. The last thing they wanted was to send another monster back to Hawkins.

With a haircut and lighter clothes, he’s been cleared of all charges and it's been suggested that he not go back to Hawkins for his own safety, but now he had no choice.

He drives the 2-hour trip in under 1, speeding until he hits the town he spent most of his life in and abiding by the speed limits. He travels down newly paved roads, over patches in the ground he was once deep under and towards where his heart ran off to in the midst of the madness.

He pulls up to a brand new trailer, nowhere can he see that ugly blue trailer he watched fade over the years under the sun. Behind a new truck, he parks his van and gets out, there are kids' toys all over the yard, evidence that she did have a kid, the windows are blocked by shutters and the door doesn’t have a screen he can spy through either.

But he knocks anyway.

“Coming!!” He hears Wayne's voice and his heart stops.

The door swings open, and he’s holding a curly-headed little boy with a wide smile that drops the longer Wayne stares into his eyes, “Eddie?”

“Hi,” he whispers, eyes welling with tears. “Where is she?”

“Work, what are you doing here?” He changes the topic right away. “I thought you weren’t allowed to come home?”

“They declared me not a risk to the general public,” he explains. “I would’ve called but I went to Indianapolis first to talk to Y/N cause I missed our last meet-up… turns out I missed a lot?”

“Come in,” Wayne holds the door open for him, letting him into the trailer, it's big and clean and nice… “sorry for the mess.”

“What mess?” He manages to laugh. “It’s nicer than when I was a kid… speaking of?” He points to the toddler in Wayne's arms, snuggled into his shoulder with his thumb in his mouth, scared of visitors as it would seem.

“This is James,” he smiles, “James this is your daddy… ‘member the photos mommy shows you at bedtime? He just has short hair… he’s not scary, see?” Wayne walks over to him and sets his hand on his shoulder, shaking him as he presses his lips together and tries not to cry.

The last thing they needed was to scare James.

“Papa?” James whispers to Wayne, his grandpa. “Daddy?” He turns to Eddie that time, reaching out for him.

“Yeah,” Wayne helps his little brain understand. “I’m papa, he’s daddy,” explaining further as he hands him over.

Eddie takes him in his arms, looking into his brown eyes and noticing everything about him that he got from himself and Y/N. “Hi, buddy?” He tries not to cry and scare him at all. “yeah… I’m your daddy.”

James rests his head on eddies shoulder, cuddling into him, “you just caught his nap time,” Wayne explains. “You want to read him to sleep? Your old books are all still here.”

“yeah... I just want to sit with him?” He tears up a bit, holding James as close as possible while being extra delicate with the toddler. “I have so many questions?”

“Y/N gets home at 4,” he smiles. “She’ll tell you everything… I think she’s written you a letter every day since she move here since she found out you lived.”

“Oh god,” he whispers, “she thought I died?”

“for 4 months…”

He closes his eyes and tries to stop himself from crying, he cradles the back of his son's head and presses his cheek to the soft baby curls on the top of his head. He smells like a baby, he’s soft and sweet and his and hers… “I love you so much,” he whispers. “I wish I came home sooner.”

Wayne wraps his arms around the two of them, joining the hug because he just couldn’t take it anymore. He missed his boy so bad. “I love you.”

“I’m not supposed to stay in Hawkins…”

“So we move,” he replies in no time. “As long as we’re a family, we can be a family anywhere.”

“Daddy?” James asks again, squished between the two men. “Ba?”

“Oh,” Wayne pulls back, “he wants his bottle and to go to sleep… he’s big about schedules,” he teases with a laugh as he heads to the kitchenette.

Eddie trades arms, holding the toddler on the other side and taking a moment to look at him with a sweet smile, “what books do you like, buddy?”

“Trucks,” his eyes light right up, even with the sleepy sand gathering around his lashes.

“he’s obsessed with anything with wheels, isn’t that right, buddy?” Wayne explains as he comes back with a bottle. “Let's go to his room,” he nods down the hall, making Eddie follow him.

His room is cute, not too big, not too small, full of photos of him when he was even tinier than this with Wayne and his band and his friends, he has a hellfire poster, he has trucks everywhere and eddies old rocking chair in the corner. “You can sit there and read to him and then carefully put him in the bed when he’s asleep… I’ll give you your time with him—

“What?” Eddie panics. “I can’t be alone with a baby?”

“He’s your baby, you’ll do fine,” he waves it off, points at the chair and then heads out, closing the door behind himself.

The rooms dark, but the chair is in front of the window so some light still shines through the blinds and onto the pages he holds in his free hand. James snuggles into him, holding his bottle in his arms and listening contently to every word. He nods quickly, his eyelids flicker shut and flashback open as he fights it. Still suckling on his bottle, he fights it for at least 10 minutes before the bottle drops from his lips and barely stays in his grasp. Eddie stops reading then. He puts the book and the bottle on the table beside the chair and just looks at his son.

His son.

He had curly hair and a round button nose. He had chubby cheeks like Y/N did when they were little, he’s tall like Eddie’s side of the family, he’s smart like hers… he’s everything.

If he does the math right in his head she had him around the time he went missing, which meant one of those first and only 3 times they had sex got her pregnant and she never told him… she tried, he supposes that’s what all the family and baby talk came from. She asked about the future too much for someone simply curious.

He places James gently in his crib and watches for a moment to insure he doesn’t wake up, when the coast is clear, he tip-toes out of the room and quietly twists the door handle as he shuts the door for ultimate quiet… the deep breath he lets out when he’s successful is unlike any other.

Wayne’s in the living room watching tv with a plate that once held a sandwich, “want some lunch?”

“I’m good,” he passes and takes a seat beside him, snuggling into his uncle's shoulder he finally lets himself cry. “No, I’m not…”

“Oh, my boy, I’m so sorry,” he wraps him up and lets him cry. He can’t even imagine what they did to him for two years, 2 months and 6 days. It was far too long for him to be quarantined with no contact with the ones he loves. It was so unfair. “When you can, I want to know anything and everything… you can share it with me, you don’t have to carry this all alone.”

“She had my baby,” he whispers, unable to pull back, still broken inside and numb everywhere else. “All alone…”

“I’ve been here. She showed up 4 months after, we’ve been together ever since,” he explains. “Not like together, but she lives with me, I love her like family. She is family.”

“What about hers?”

“They cut her off,” he sighs. “Cunts, the whole lot. You should hear some of the shit they said, and how rude they were when she tried to invite them to Christmas 2 years ago… she tried to have them meet their grandson and they didn’t care.”

“They always sucked,” he finally pulls away and wipes his tears. “I’m glad she had you. You’re the best dad a kid could have.”

“Grandpa,” he corrects, “I love being a grandpa to that little boy, he’s such a gift.”

“I want to know everything, how old is he? What’s his full name? What does he like? All of it.”

“His full name is James Edward Munson, James for Metallica and Edward for you,” he explains as if he needs to.

“Seriously?” He lights up, “that’s amazing.”

“His birthday is March 29th, ’86,” he confirms Eddie’s suspicions. “She was going to tell you, at Christmas and then,” he points to his head scar.

“She was so sad when I finally called her back,” he remembers like it was yesterday.

“She’s not mad at you at all anymore, she wishes every day that you’ll come home, she’s going to pass out when she sees you,” he half kids. He doesn’t really know how she’ll react. “I think I should tell her first…”

—

Works long, she hates it the whole way, all she wants is to get home to her baby for some snuggles and a nice night in after Wayne leaves for work. She clocks out at 4 on the dot and all but runs to her car, she couldn’t wait any longer to get home.

Much to her surprise, Wayne is waiting outside. Which is weird seeing as he doesn’t smoke anymore… who was with James? She parks behind the strange van in her drive, thinking it’s Gareth’s, he was in the market for a new one… so she grabs her purse and gets out with a cautious look on her face.

“What’s going on?”

“Eddie’s home,” he breaks the ice with a fucking sledgehammer.

“What?” She drops everything and covers her mouth in shock.

“He’s inside, James met him, they’re in there together—

She breaks past him and runs inside, stopping dead in her tracks when she sees the 2 pairs of matching brown eyes turn to her with glee. “Mommy!” James stands from the carpet and runs to her.

She scoops him up, “hi baby,” she tries to stay normal and calm, she kisses his cheeks and breathes in his baby scent after a long day apart. “Can you go outside with grandpa so mommy can talk to daddy?”

“Why?” He asks one of his new favourite words.

“Cause mommy needs to tell him some grown-up things, but it’ll be 5 minutes, I promise,” she hands him off to Wayne. “Then we’ll all go out for dinner, okay?”

“Okay,” he trades off easily, heading outside and out of earshot.

She lunges for Eddie, diving to the floor and wrapping her entire body around him. He holds her back just as tight, sobbing uncontrollably without any words to be said. There wasn’t much that could be said. She pulls back only enough to press their foreheads together as she holds his face in her hands and he holds her right back. They stare into each other's eyes, sharing how much they miss and love each other with just one glance.

“I’m home,” he assures her.

“Good,” she brushes her nose against his. “It’s about time we were a full family.”

He kisses her for the first time in forever, something he’s thought about day in, and day out throughout his quarantine. He can’t stop kissing her either, he kisses her whole face, making her laugh instead of cry but his kisses still taste like salt from the tears already shed. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she takes some of the burdens off his shoulders. “But that little boy out there has no idea anything happened, he doesn’t know this is weird and not normal… so it’s okay.”

“you think?”

She nods, “he’s had the best life so far, he’s surrounded by love. I didn’t know you had so many friends until I moved here.”

“Who?”

“Well the guys, obviously, but also all your friends from the end of the world,” she knows more than he expected. Dustin must’ve spilled the beans. “Uncle Steve really likes to buy our son expensive shirts, Aunt Robin and Nancy are the best babysitters ever… Dustin loves him like a brother, Mike and Lucas and Erika are always coming over to see him too… our son is very loved.”

“Our son,” he repeats, still astounded by it. “I can’t believe I have a son and wasn’t there for it…”

“I made you something,” she struggles out of his grasp and to her feet, dragging him up as well and towards her room in the back.

Under her bed, she has a shoe box full of things. “This is our memory box… we’ll it was before I moved here. I started putting all of my memories with James in here too when I learned you could come home one day…”

He sits on the bed beside her, watching her sort everything into what she wanted to show him the most. “I have the letters you sent me, the dried flowers from valentines day, my pregnancy tests, his sonogram,” she hands them to him so he can look at their baby’s first photo.

And then his second, she hands him a polaroid. “The nurses took this of us.”

“You looked so cute pregnant,” he can’t believe it, she was swollen and happy and adorable with their son resting on her chest.

“And then this is his umbilical cord stump,” she holds up a plastic bag with a dried-up brown thing in it.

“Ew?”

“Not ew!” She can’t help but laugh at his disgust. “Lots of moms keep them, it’s the last part of us being together… and when I become the tooth fairy I’ll probably keep them too.”

He chuckles, shaking his head with love, “of course.”

“And…” she gets up from the bed and opens her bedside table to take out two notebooks. “I wrote you some letters.”

“Letters?”

She nods, opening it up to page one, “dear Eddie, today our son is 5 months old and I realized you’ll be back and wondering all about him and these milestones you missed. So here are some things to know, he was born in the middle of the night and now it’s his favourite time of the day…”

“It’s all like that?” His eyes light up.

She nods, “and there are some parts from me… about the days it was hard to not be with you.”

He takes the books from her and flips through the pages, seeing some had polaroids taped to them. Photos of their son on the carpet with numbers, each one he gets bigger. 6 months, 7 months, 8 months, he grew a personality with each one too. Smiling, rolling, kicking, he was never in the same position, he was such a cutie, his heart swelled in his chest.

“I thought you’d like them,” she notices his tears, sitting beside him and wiping his cheek for him so it didn’t get on the pages. “I knew you’d be home.”

“And I’m never leaving. Either of you.”

Taglist

@fightingdragonswithwho @mrs-dr-reid @kyomito @reidselle @venomsvl @nomajdetective @girl-with-an-orange-cat @stevesmunsons @blairscott @sweetyyhippyy @wroteclassicaly @reidsbookclub

#eddie munson #eddie munson stranger things #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem reader #eddie munson smut #stranger things #eddie munson imagines #eddie munson imagine #stranger things imagine #stranger things season 4

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juyomiao · 4 months

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FIREWORK - park sunghoon x reader

prev - masterlist - next

10 ★ illiteracy

warnings : leeseo being a man hater (as she should) , ignore timestamps

☆ note n i once again fell off the face of earth god bless .. im trying to make the most of my last month in korea im not even sorry abt it when i go back home i'll be depressed n unemployed again so i'll post more regularly

★ synopsis newly debuted 5th gen girl group CUP!D from starship entertainment is under everyone's eyes as their debut song 'love dive' goes viral both domestically and internationally ; all is going well until the group's main vocalist, y/n, gets exposed for her old stan… hate account?

☆ taglist (italics = couldn't tag) @rikitachiquita @roseidol @leep0ems @tocupid @skzeyeu @porcelain-moths @jiaant11 @philijack @ish4niii @mrchweeee @be0mluver @imsiriuslyreal @blackphoneboo @yulafilms @antivenus @poollabug @jiawji @wonyoungsvirus @artstaeh @heelovesmeknot @ineedaherosavemeenow @thisisnotjacinta @homohoons @i-hwa @laylasmother @elifseasonz

#☆ li writes #☆firework☆#enhypen x reader #enhypen scenarios #enhypen smau #enhypen fic #enhypen social media au #enhypen fluff #sunghoon smau #sunghoon fluff #sunghoon scenarios #sunghoon x reader #enhypen #park sunghoon

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ihavenoideamanokay · 9 months

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okay I've given up I'm gonna rant about the blue beetle movie because OH MY GOD

I wanna watch it again but I don't wanna go back to the theater I just wanna buy it already so I can watch it over and over and over

IT WAS SO GOOD

spoilers ofc so be prepared (also this is gonna be really long)

my one complaint. is khaji having a feminine robot voice. because I'm used to young justice where they were just a slightly more murderous sounding jaime which I think is perfect. idk it just feels too much like a marvel movie with the female robot suit. IT WAS BETTER THAN A MARVEL MOVIE THOUGH HAHAHAHA-

(for the record I usually say they/them for khaji bc they are a bug robot thing I don't think they understand or care about human gender but I'm stuck between that and that one venom post where they say venom uses he/him sometimes to match eddie's gender BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE KHAJI WOULD DO THAT 💀💀)

anyway I loved the movie soooooooo much and I love boostle being gay (and wasn't prepared for ted having a wife) so I was worried that ted had a daughter but she was AWESOME I LOVE HER SO MUCH

I especially love how nice she was???? her only surviving family member is a complete jerk and it never rubbed off on her, no matter how done with it she was and all that

I have a family member who, like vIcKy, is just mean to everyone for no reason (okay victoria kinda had a reason I'll get to all that later) and if I'm around her for too long I start wanting to match her energy. like yell back. I'M A HORRIBLE PERSON? LOOK WHO'S TALKING! that kinda stuff. but JENNY DOESN'T DO THAT I mean she still stands her ground and all that BUT she never sinks to victoria's level and that's amazing.

anyway on victoria's reasoning yeah I get it, it totally sucks that you helped create the company and it never got passed down to you, and I'm not trying to invalidate that in any way, I'm just saying, think about it from a different perspective. she could've been a psycho from the beginning. creating weapons will probably make you feel horrible and depressed because you're killing people! I just think we don't know if she cracked because of that and that's when she started seeing people as expendable, or if she was born like that, or if she became like that because of the sexism! I was just thinking about it and I feel like there's a possibility that their grandpa thought she was being a little too aggressive or something and that's why he gave the company to ted. of course, I'm not saying that's what happened, just that that's an interesting thought I had.

NEXT this is dumb but I'm too bi for that movie I saw the main couple and went IVHVAJBKSBEJV THEY'RE BOTH SO PRETTY WHAT 😭😭😭 (well it was more like I went yeah the guy who plays jaime (I'm sorry idk any actors) is pretty and then jenny came on and I just. oh no. then they flirted and I was like NO WHAT-

okay I love the family relationships in this movie because they're all so different. I mean you have jenny and her mom who she didn't really know (because she died), then her dad being distant, then her and her aunt constantly hating each other but being too scared to do anything about it. of course they didn't wanna kill each other because ✨lawsuits✨ but they wanted to get rid of each other because victoria was doing horrible things and jenny was getting in her way. then you have jaime's family which is a disaster in the best way possible. I love how we didn't see them that much but could still tell exactly what was going on there. you get that they're all super close (you even get that there's no privacy💀) and they're all like best friends. I feel like his mom should've gotten a bit more characterization, but whatever. I mean her husband died?? and we barely see her???? idk. I just like how drastically different it is from the kords like I think it's cool.

I realized after the movie that. his grandma never saw him transform the first time. and she probably saw the hole in the roof and, knowing her, did not care. then when he comes back they saw khaji attached to him and she was probably filled in, but. we never saw her reaction. I think it was a good decision not to show it, because she'd probably react in some way that mentioned her fighting people in the past and all that.

okay this is another cursed thought but what happened to jenny's motorcycle at the end? she drove it over but then jaime flew her away. did she leave it there and just make him pick her up later to get it? did he go back and fly it to her?? motorcycles are heavy man I don't think that would be fun. did he drive it to her???? did he just leave it there??????? did he fly her everywhere after that??????????? people will guess your secret identity man. also did milagro steal it because that is totally a milagro thing to do-

OH YEAH let's talk about how they all hated jenny when jaime transformed because as funny as that was. guys. she literally told him not to open it. (honestly I feel like it's an insult to khaji's intelligence that they thought they couldn't get out of a fast food box but that's just me.) and I totally get that they hated her because she was a kord and victoria was being horrible but like THEY JUSTIFIED IT AS "YOU DID THIS TO HIM" AND I FEEL LIKE OUT OF EVERY COMPLAINT THEY HAVE WITH HER THAT'S THE WORST ONE TO USE. SHE KINDA GOT JAIME AND MILAGRO FIRED AS WELL although that's also because milagro was breaking rules and jaime's just too good of a person to not yell at victoria. WAIT WHAT ABOUT THE FACT THAT SHE SAID "PROTECT IT WITH YOUR LIFE" KNOWING FULL WELL HE COULD ACTUALLY DIE THAT'S A GOOD COMPLAINT but like we can excuse that bc we love her here

okay so yes the scene where he talked to his dead dad was fine and all like I like it but. PLEASE. THE CGI WAS SO BAD IN THAT ONE PART. like the rest of the movie was fine BUT SERIOUSLY COME ON GUYS but in other news I love that scene because anything that has khaji just. vibing. is the best. and then having jaime accept them and stuff.

I just realized this movie could totally be a queer metaphor because of the whole acceptance theme?? I mean it's not like THE QUEER METAPHOR MOVIE EVER it's more like hey self acceptance. I mean you have to come out to yourself before you come out to others so idk that's just random

anything that has khaji da and jaime being best friends is automatically amazing. so my favorite arc in young justice is the reach arc (because I'm a sucker for possession and it was just totally well done) and my absolute favorite part of the arc + favorite blue beetle moment + possibly favorite part of the whole show??? is when khaji says the "then you haven't learned anything from our time together" line (that jaime says like an episode or so before I think) and every time I rewatch that I'm just like 😭😭😭😭😭 because they're besties your honor (or in love idk that ship isn't my first choice but I don't have a problem with it) and it's so so so good

I was so worried the movie was gonna be bad because I've only seen one recent dc movie (okay it was half of one) and I'm going to be honest I was not engaged at all I was kinda bored (I don't wanna say what movie it was because it's a very very hot take) and I was like oh no what if this movie does it too. nope. I also was really really hoping that they'd actually be like yeah the scarab's name is khaji da AND THEY DID I WAS SO HAPPY

oh my god I was looking at the cast and they listed victoria's assistant scientist guy as dr. sanchez. NOW I'M NOT THE SMARTEST BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THAT'S NOT HIS NAME- WASN'T THAT A WHOLE PLOT POINT 😭😭😭

that's all I have to say for now, there will probably be more later

#spoilers for the blue beetle movie #blue beetle #the movie this time not just the character(s)#blue beetle movie #blue beetle 2023 #jaime reyes #khaji da #jenny kord #ted kord #michael jon carter #booster gold #milagro reyes #rudy reyes #victoria kord #this post is so long watch out

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gimmethatagustd · 2 years

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repeat offense | ksj

The are only two constants in life: the promise of death and the infuriating existence of the man who ruined your life. Will your immortal punishments keep you in an infinite loop, or will you one day be able to rid the world of the evil that is Kim Seokjin?

» pairing: demon!seokjin x demon!reader (ft. angel!yoongi)

» wc/date: 3.6k | november 2022

» notes: PLS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD READ THE WARNINGS 💀 i hope y'all enjoy whatever the fuck this turned out to be lol. also rip to me posting this depressing ass fic on my fucking birthday. sorry to jin for my first fic of him being sad

» masterlist

» what was jai listening to? mind games - sickick

If it weren’t for your sixth sense, you would have never seen him coming.

It wasn’t some cliche tingling that set off the alarm bells ringing in your ear; it was more of an increasing hum of energy vibrating through your body, like a bullet ricocheting inside your bones. But sensing him was only half the battle. Now you had to figure out who he was. And it was always changing.

You brought your glass of bourbon to your lips and took a small sip, the ice clinking together.

“Another?” The bartender with smiling eyes dried off his hands with the small towel he kept tucked into his apron pocket. He jutted his chin at your now-finished drink.

“I’d like to close my tab, please.”

Initially, your suspicions made you hone in on the bartender, but you quickly ruled him out after he returned your credit card and receipt. In blue ink was his name and phone number scribbled on the back of the paper.

You pocketed it, just in case.

You had to admit, the body you were currently possessing was hot. It was a shame whoever originally owned it wasn’t able to take advantage of it now. Perhaps you would show the bartender everything this body was capable of later. But right now you were looking for someone else.

Departing the bar counter, you made your way toward the back of the dimly-lit bar, as though you were heading to the restroom. At a fork in the hallway, you turned left instead of right, slipping through a service door. You stepped out into the dark alley behind the building, rain-soaked gravel and cigarette butts crunching beneath your boots.

The heat from the bar continued to warm your back and you didn’t hear the door click shut behind you. Before you had the chance to turn around, a slender hand wrapped around your bicep and yanked you backward.

Even though the demon had a different body than the last time you’d seen him, you immediately recognized him for who he really was. That was the other power of your sixth sense; coming into contact with another demon would cause both of your eyes to momentarily bleed into all-black orbs before returning to normal once again.

“Kim Seokjin,” you sneered a greeting at the man and pressed against his throat the small dagger you kept hidden in your boot. “So this is the body you picked?”

In any other circumstances, you would have found him gorgeous. His dark hair was swept to the side to reveal a strong forehead and serious eyes. His lips naturally fell into a plump pout, though his mouth was now twisted into a smirk.

But you weren’t interested in entertaining a whistleblower, no matter how attractive.

“Are you not impressed?”

When you were forced to possess a body, you didn’t have a say in who you got. You were immediately bound to whichever unfortunate soul happened to cross paths with you first; it was pure luck. Still, you got too much pleasure mocking Seokjin to care about the logistics of it all.

“It’s better than last time. London, was it? It was a shame to see such an old woman’s soul go to waste because of you.” The tip of your dagger created a dent in Seokjin’s skin, but you weren’t applying enough pressure to draw blood.

Yet.

“Go to waste because of you,” Seokjin corrected.

“Oh fuck off. Your sad song has fallen on deaf ears for centuries, Kim. It’s time you give up the act.”

You felt a cool, blunt object press into your rib cage. Looking down, you were met with a handgun.

Once you noticed the firearm, Seokjin leaned into you and caused your dagger to prick a small mark on his skin. A few droplets of blood slid down his throat, but it didn’t deter him from flashing a toothy grin in your face.

“You’re fucking deranged,” you breathed. A gun was smart; why hadn’t you considered buying one the moment you’d spawned in this body? If you were lucky Seokjin would at least kill you quickly.

He wouldn’t, though. You wanted each other to suffer and you both knew it.

“You wish I was deranged.” Seokjin’s sing-songy voice dripped honey as he spoke. “It would mean the Prince of Darkness made a mistake in banishing you to the mortal world. He wouldn’t like to hear that you think he made a mistake, would he?”

The glint in his eye said more than his words did.

“You were the mistake,” you hissed, spitting at Seokjin’s feet. “I should have never trusted you.”

“I should have never loved you.”

He let out a growl and jabbed you in the ribs. The clash of metal against bone made you step backward and Seokjin was relieved from the point of your dagger. The tip was coated in a thin sheen of blood.

Once upon a time, neither of you could bleed - back when your bodies were your own and the two of you sat on either side of the throne of Satan, the Prince of Darkness as you once fondly called him, as his most trusted advisors. Some days, in the summer months or whenever you lived in warm climates, you could remember the lick of eternal flames at your ankles as you roamed the castle you’d once called your home.

The Prince was more so about aesthetics than about burning people alive, though you had just barely missed that fate yourself.

You often wondered if being consumed by those flames would’ve been better than the torture you were bound to for eternity, or until the Prince of Darkness decided to destroy Earth completely.

“If I remember correctly, you were the one begging me to help you find a way to Heaven,” Seokjin pushed forward. Now he had the gun pressed into your chest in full view of anyone who might step into the alleyway. It didn’t matter if anyone saw the two of you. Mortals couldn’t do anything worse to you than you could do to each other or yourselves.

“And you agreed to help, didn’t you?”

Right now you were out of options. A dagger would never win against a gun, and running would only get you so far.

“That would mean you were the mistake.” Seokjin must have seen the calculated look on your face because his sickeningly sweet smile grew as he backed you up against the building. “Trying to find a way out, love?”

Seokjin ran the gun along your chest and up your neck, eventually stopping at your face. You took a shaky breath as you felt the cold metal of the muzzle graze your cheek, not realizing Seokjin was using the barrel to brush the hair from your face.

“What’s the point in killing me, Seokjin? We waste our time chasing each other across the globe and for what reason? The result is always the same: we die, we respawn, we continue the cycle.”

At one point, you’d believed there could be an end. That one day, death would be permanent; that one day, one of you would win. Perhaps you pathetically underestimated the Prince of Darkness’s cruelty towards traitors. He’d made it impossible for you and Seokjin to do anything but live a thousand lives and die a thousand deaths.

What made it worse was knowing none of it would have ever happened if Seokjin hadn’t turned you in. The fact that he did so, knowing he too would be punished… It certainly spoke to the contempt he had for you.

Seokjin leaned into you so close your knees bumped into each other. Your eyes flickered black just as his did and you realized with a lump in your throat that you couldn’t remember what the two of you had looked like in your own bodies before the Prince banished you to a mortal existence for your crimes.

You wondered what the price of such a crime looked like in Heaven.

“We must die eventually,” Seokjin whispered. “And I intend to be the reason why you do.”

“Fuck you.”

You jammed your knee as hard as you could in between Seokjin’s legs. He immediately doubled over in pain and you didn’t stop to watch him sink to the ground.

Running away from Seokjin was running away from the inevitable, but you did it anyway. There was nowhere for you to go but away.

Your boots slapped against the wet concrete as you bolted down the alley. The cool autumn air felt damp and thick in your lungs, sitting heavily on your chest. It was a discomfort you never felt before being banished to Earth. Hell was brittle and dry. Earth reminded you more of Heaven.

The only time you’d gone to Heaven, you’d been shocked by the comfort of clouds. You remembered feeling the mist of condensation from the clouds melt the hardness of your skin and allow moisture to seep into the cracks lining your exposed skin.

The force of Seokjin’s body colliding with yours propelled you forward faster than your legs could keep up. You heard your knee crack and the skin busted open, leaking blood over the loose chunk of concrete you’d fallen onto. Your blood turned the muddy puddle swirling in the pothole under your limbs a dirty maroon. The wound in your knee was overpowered by the sting of gravel digging into the butt of your palms and your shoulder as your arms collapsed beneath you.

Almost immediately Seokjin was fisting the back of your shirt, hauling you onto your feet with a hard yank. The fabric pulled too tightly around your throat.

“Tell me, Y/N,” Seokjin hummed, his lips ghosting over your ear before you felt the cool metal of the gun against your temple. “Was your precious Yoongi worth it?”

You waited for the click of the trigger as the sky opened up. The rain came down in blurry sheets that wobbled your vision and made the gun heavy in Seokjin’s hand. You could tell because you felt it slip down your temple, eventually landing on the apple of your cheek.

Loving Yoongi had been worth enduring the most terrible of deaths, even at the hands of Seokjin - a man you’d once considered a dear friend.

Where you’d worn darkness like a silk cloak, Yoongi brought a light so blinding you swore his image was seared into your retinas.

God’s radiance couldn’t have compared.

“He still is.”

The rain washed the blood from the gash in your knee and Seokjin planted a bullet in your brain.

“That’s it, cum for me, angel.”

Real angels didn’t have halos like humans liked to say they did, but Yoongi emanated a glow so brilliant he bathed you in a soft yellow hue as you fell apart on top of him. Swift, gentle fingers massaged your clit and coaxed a third orgasm out of you. His hand was warm as he squeezed your hip, holding you in place while you nearly crumpled inward with the force of his final thrust into you.

Strands of white hair framed his head when he laid back down on the silky sheets. His forehead and cheeks practically glittered with perspiration in the warm glow from the intimacy you’d shared.

There was nothing more beautiful, in this life or any beyond.

Yoongi ran his fingers along your side profile. When they ticked your jawline, you ducked your head to escape the feeling.

“Talk to me, angel.”

Pain twisted in your stomach, but you swallowed it down. If only you were an angel.

“I love you.” You whispered the sweet confession into the crook of Yoongi’s neck. Even though you had defiled his innocence, you felt the purity of his soul radiate from his body. The feeling made you shiver when you curled into his side.

Something dark and thick sat heavy in your chest. You’d felt it the moment you stepped foot in Heaven. It made you want to recoil from the angel, even as you so desperately clung to him.

“I love you, too.” Yoongi intertwined his fingers with yours. He brought your hand to his lips and his touch pierced your skin like a hot iron. “I’d always thought angels weren’t capable of love.” His voice hummed in his throat against your cheek.

You shifted your face to press a kiss against his smooth skin. He made a happy noise and you squeezed your eyes shut when the glow of his skin became too bright to bear.

“Well, love outside of a love for God. Secular love,” he continued. “But I feel it with you. I know that it is love, even though it’s so different. It’s… it’s…” Yoongi cleared his throat when his voice cracked. “It feels special. It feels just for me.”

You felt his lips against your forehead, but you kept your eyes closed, content with watching colors dance along your eyelids.

“You’re changing me,” you whispered against his jaw with your head tilted up.

“Hmm?”

“Inside. It’s lighter.”

Yoongi tightened his grip around your waist.

This was when your memory became blurry. No matter how many restless hours you spent replaying the moment over and over in your head deep into the night, you couldn’t remember how you went from cuddling in your lover's arms to testifying in the High Court. Even the trial was less of a memory and more like slivers of moments that flashed across your mind’s eye.

The heaviness of the chains the Archangels draped over your body as you stood in front of a jury and audience of angel onlookers excited to see a demon in the flesh. A whore of a demon, nonetheless. A whore who had defiled the holiest of spaces and led one of their own into sin.

Seokjin with the same heavenly chains restraining his body, but carrying a look of triumph on his face.

Yoongi with his wings clipped.

An angel could never commit themselves to anything or anyone other than God, and especially not to a lowly, evil, disgusting demon.

You wished your brain would let you forget the broken look of dread on Yoongi’s face as the Archangels dragged you and Seokjin out of the courtroom.

You’d never seen him without his heavenly glow before.

And you'd never see him again, at all.

With a gasp, you flung your head and smacked the back of it into the headrest of the seat you were in. Your fingers squeezed around the car's steering wheel and you jerked on the wheel hard to avoid slamming into the car in front of you. The car you cut off in the next lane laid down on their horn, but you focused your attention on seeing through the watery image of the street you were on.

It was jarring every time you respawned into a new body, no matter how many times it happened before. Getting your bearings was difficult enough in itself. Add operating heavy machinery in a torrential downpour and it was downright dangerous.

A purse sat in the passenger seat. At a stoplight, you frantically sifted through the contents. Lipstick, a pocket mirror, a lone tampon - until your fingers brushed against something cool and glass.

Finding a phone was usually the best first step when respawning. Everyone kept everything on their phones, and with facial recognition, you didn’t even have to guess a passcode anymore. Scrolling through the phone’s contents, you located the maps app and put in the saved location, “Home” - wherever that would take you. All you knew was that you needed to get as far away from Seokjin as possible.

You were tired. Tired of searching, of fighting, even of running, though you knew running was now your only option. What were you supposed to do? Give up? Endure the pain of him killing you over and over again, in hopes that one day it would work?

No fucking way.

You pulled up to a modest suburban house with a white picket fence and evidence of children from the chalk drawings that covered the sidewalk and driveway. An unwelcomed thought tugged at you as you climbed the stairs to the front door, housekeys shaking in your hand.

In another life, this is what you and Yoongi could have had.

“Oh, honey. You’re home early?” A man’s voice called out from the living room. He poked his head into the hallway to see you standing in the entranceway. Your clothes clung to you with cold rainwater. “Honey, you’re soaked!”

Something about the way he called you honey made your skin crawl. Only one person was allowed to call you such names. And he certainly wasn’t this man, with messy hair and a too-pink face. Nothing about him glowed.

“I’m going to take a shower.” Speaking for the first time in a new body was odd, to say the least. You never knew what you would sound like and your voice always felt like it was coming from somewhere behind you like you were hearing someone else speak while you moved your lips along to their sounds. Your limbs were clumsy when you stomped up the stairs. You didn’t know where the bathroom was, obviously, but you assumed there would be one on each floor. You silently prayed that the man - who you assumed was your husband - wouldn’t follow you up.

Not that God would listen.

But your husband didn’t protest or follow and that was a small victory you would accept.

Free to roam, you checked every door until you found the bedroom. A small desk sat in the corner of the large room, a laptop sitting on top. You quickly sat down and pressed the spacebar. To your luck, the laptop was already logged into and unlocked. Having done this a million times by this point, you scrolled through the phone you’d found. People usually kept their passwords in the notes on their phones, particularly if they were middle-aged, which is what you assumed your body was. No one ever aged in Hell; it was weird to feel creaky and fatigued.

Finding what you needed was easy, just like it was easy to buy a plane ticket to a country on the other side of the world (under your husband’s airline membership because you might as well get him the mileage points while you kidnapped his wife). Luckily, your host was rich. The ticket didn’t put a dent in their bank account, leaving you with plenty of money to live off of until you died again or the credit card got canceled.

A tiny part of you felt terrible dragging a suitcase down the stairs and hauling it into the taxi out front while your husband frantically begged you not to leave. It was never worth it to come up with an excuse; making up fake reasons like divorce or imaginary business trips only caused more pain, in your opinion. No, it was better to stay silent, even though it pushed a sharp pain into your heart no matter how many times you had to break up families and friends. Silence prevented a fight.

So you kept your mouth shut from the moment you left the house until you were forced to interact with the airport employees. At least your host had a valid passport, you told yourself as you waited at the gate for your plane. It was important to acknowledge the small victories, you reminded yourself. Maybe one sliver of a silver lining was that living in host bodies allowed you to do things you’d never done before, to go places you’ve never been, and to have no real sense of responsibility aside from staying alive.

By the time the plane arrived, you were exhausted. Respawning took a toll on your body as your host’s soul often attempted to fight against you, to push through your oppressive presence inside their heads, inside their bodies. It was useless, but they didn’t know that.

You couldn’t blame them. It felt unnatural being in their bodies for you, too.

For now, a weight was lifted off your shoulders as you sank into your seat on the plane. The close quarters of the plane felt comforting; it was tight and uniform. No spontaneity. No surprises. It was the same every time: ticketing, security, waiting at the gate, waiting in line, finding your seat. You would fall asleep or listen to music or watch the clouds float in the atmosphere unrestrained like you longed to be.

As the remaining passengers slowly trickled in, you hoped the seat next to you would stay empty, though it always seemed like that never happened.

With a sigh, you leaned your elbow on the arm of your seat and gazed out at the airport employees loading everyone’s baggage. You didn’t look away until you felt that hum of energy that made your teeth clatter and fear to splinter your bones.

“Fancy seeing you here, Y/N.”

Seokjin buckled himself into the seat next to you and leaned against your shoulder. His lips just barely breathed warm air against the side of your face, but it was enough to make your skin shiver.

Just then the flight attendant announced an update regarding the plane’s estimated time of arrival. Ten hours. A ten-hour flight with Kim Seokjin at your elbow, a sickly sweet smile blooming across his face as you know yours twisted in dread.

“It’s cute you thought you could run, love.” He ran his fingers along your jawline. “Adorable.”

do not copy, repost, modify, or translate any of my work

@evanssgi @guks-lip-piercing @haliiimede @astronaut-jin-moon @jjkeverlast @klitklittredge @koobsessed @moonchild1 @moonleeai @parkdatjimin @reliablemitten @saweetspoiled @sugarwithtea @taegiblr @yoongukie-ff

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liquidstar · 9 months

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Ok so, I have only ever watched one episode of Adventure Time, and it was on a hotel room TV, in terrible hindi dub, and I barely remember it on account of being 10(?) but it horrified me.

I remember the MCs trying to get Ice King a girlfriend or something, but he keeps being a gross asshole so they take him to a lake and point at some swans to try and explain love to him. They point to two swans kissing like ':D' and he's like 'ewww' and then the male swan suCKS IN AND EATS THE FEMALE and IK's like ':)))' while the boys stare in horror.

IDR how the episode ended or how much I watched, but I remember thinking 'wow american cartoons are hardcore. I'm sticking to pirated pokemon from now on.'

And you are telling me that show had lesbians in it leter????

oh my god im so sorry but imagining you watching that swan scene as a 10 year old is so fucking funny, i can understand why you stuck with pirated pokemon LOL

adventure time is absolutely very fucked up in a lot of different ways. the early seasons leaned into that type of absurd shit you just described a lot more especially. while the later ones actually started getting more existential and building on the worlds lore.

there wasnt exactly a focused plot, per say. i mean, there was, but it wasnt something methodical and planned out, it was played by ear. and i think it really worked. the way they did it turned out a really cool magic system (based on the idea that reality is just collective perception, and magic users are aware of this and can manipulate perception ergo reality. but the more cosmic knowledge you have the more insane or depressed you become etc especially if youre mortal), and also cool world building (it takes place in a post apocalypse after a nuclear war, now far into the future the face of the earth has completely changed but the horrors unleashed still impact it today), and also a lot of really amazing themes (the world is always changing and nothing is ever permanent, but no matter how things change things also stay the same, in a different way. especially where bonds and love are concerned. everything stays.)

and YEAH there are lesbians (i mean i always hc marcy as bi but still). and they also come from the shows improvisational nature. theres a lot of genuinely really amazing relationships and plotpoints born out of that to me. like, as the show starts to get a lot more thematically dense later on it can seem like a weird shift. some ppl say it got pretentious over time bc its not as goofy (its still pretty goofy lol), but i think it worked... like... perfectly.

because its a coming of age story where the main character actually ages, it actually feels so right that the world around him begins to seem different too. it makes sense that when he was 12 we were doing stupid goofy adventures, when he was 15 we were watching him deal with a lot of really fucked up trauma, and when he was 17 we watched him learn to grow as a person who thinks beyond simple terms of good and evil.

i know im tottaaallly rambling at this point but theres really an insane amount to talk about with adventure time. the timeline alone is ridiculous. but mostly i think my passion comes down to the fact that i was also growing up with the story, always around the same age as the mc going through similar stuff... even now, the story is focusing on a depressed 20-something trying to find whimsy in her life again. and technically the last episode timeline-wise is about accepting death lol

so like idk how exactly id recommend it to a new viewer, its really possible that a lot of ppl wont be able to really tolerate the early seasons as adults (i mean, i think theyre charming, but i have nostalgia goggles lol). that being said i think that its a series totally worth a shot for everyone... eventually. if it sounds interesting you just gotta accept the goofiness at first and trust that youre in for something wild in a totally different way later on. and totally unique and cool and special in a way nothing else has really been able to capture for me since.

TL;DR: no yeah the show was incredibly fucked up and that swan did eat that other swan. but it does have themes and also lesbians.

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polarisbibliotheque · 10 months

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Writing Advice - Answering an Ask part 1

Hey everyone!! I recently got a super cute, beautiful and heartwarming ask requesting writing advices/how to beat writers block.

I wrote the answer on a doc and it has 3 pages, so I'm gonna be posting it in different parts - do forgive and AMAZING ANON WHO ASKED ME I HOPE YOU SEE THIS, IT'S PART OF YOUR ANSWER xD

Seriously, I've been sitting on this answer for a week now thinking how I'm gonna make it shorter >.<

So, without further ado, for the first part of the answer, I wanna tell a little bit about my writing journey - how I got from "not writing at all" to where I am now.

Because people think that you have a gift and words just flow like ambrosia in the cups of the gods - but I've actually started writing some pretty cringe stuff when I was 10 years old to get to a more poetic sort-of writing during my 29s currently.

THEREFORE, a little bit on how I got from cringy to still cringy but sometimes good writing ;)

I started by telling made-up stories to my sister when she couldn’t sleep and to my cousins during sleepovers because, I don’t know, they seemed to like my stupid little stories when I was 7 years old – or even younger. Sometimes I wrote some things, sometimes I didn't. But I was telling stories!

When I was 13, I discovered the magic world of fanfiction, and I wrote and published a HORRID thing on a fanfic website in my country, based on the band McFly that me and my sister adored back then (the gods have graced me with the power of deleting it and I thank immensely to that).

It was the first time I wrote AND published something to an audience outside of my friends/family.

After that, I kept on writing, and I moved to creating my own stories. When I was 14, I wrote a fanfic with the same band, but really the main theme was that I was an archeologist living in Egypt who researched on Atlantis and ended up finding the lost city. Somehow, I was allowed to climb the pyramids as well - because, you know, I ADORE Tomb Raider, and if Lara Croft could do it, so could I.

Told ya there would be some pretty cringy stuff in here, huh? xD

When I turned 15, I was bullied non-stop at school and so creating stories became my way to escape reality and have some fun with the people I wanted to meet in my life. I started carrying a notebook everywhere with me – it was my writing notebook. I had so many stories, and I never finished any of them (and good heavens, they are THE MOST cringy stuff, I’m glad they will NEVER see the light of day).

But I use the writing notebook thing to this day - whenever I'm travelling and internet isn't granted, I have somewhere to write.

I finished my FIRST novel when I was 16!! I was SO HAPPY about it!! It took me a year and a half writing it: a young adult book, kinda like Twilight (it was THE thing back then), with a secret society based on Arthurian Legend because I was a sucker for everything King Arthur (still am).

I can’t BEAR to read the first page of it nowadays, because c’mon. It was 15-year-old depressive me being bitter about everything and post-Twilight frenzy. The universe and worldbuilding has one HELL of a potential, but oh LORDS, it IS painful to read. I was a teen after all… But I finished a novel! If I haven’t done it, I wouldn’t be writing the way I’m writing today!

When I got into Law School, things got a little slow. I couldn't focus too much on writing and my social life improved a lot. I started tweaking my Arthurian story, but nothing too defined - I kept on writing lots of WIPs, though.

Around my 20’s, while I was close to graduating Law School, I started writing again… Supernatural fanfiction. With the SOLE PURPOSE of self-indulging, because I couldn’t find A SINGLE fanfiction that I could self-insert and love Dean Winchester while kicking some demon ass (sorry, I couldn’t resist the Nico inside me).

That led me to writing a 4-part Supernatural fanfiction that, honestly, for the next 6 years, it was the thing that made my heart soar while I was slaving away at a job I hated.

While I was overworking my ass off, I started writing (brace yourselves...) BTS fanfiction. I got into the band and some people from the website I wrote my Supernatural fanfic embraced me and kinda put me in the group and into the BTS world.

I was on the path of a burnout, so that became my escape - the girls from the website were so nice and we had many MANY writing projects of short stories. Throughout the years, I think I wrote around 25 or 30 stories, 40 pages max, to publish on this website and just have fun.

It started nice, but as time went by and I started moving out of the rom-com clichés (which are nice, don't get me wrong, we all love 'em) and became more existential and philosophic with a lot of metaphorical things while writing - and people stopped reading my work. I started to think I was bad, no one wanted to read because I lacked quality in my writing, or just my stories weren't so appealing as I thought. So I lost my will to write and slowly went back to my personal original stories.

When I hit 25 years old, I got fired and had a full burnout. I got really sick and my life literally stopped for the last 5 years - it has been hard, but that gave me time to sit back on my computer and recover ALL the books and stories I never finished writing.

I am NOT joking, I just counted all of them, and I have 65 DIFFERENT unfinished stories sitting on my Word folder right now on my computer. I also have a txt file I keep some “ideas that might be interesting to work on” and those have around 12 different full ideas of stories I might never write as well.

Upon hitting 27, I went back to writing niche fanfiction I didn't think anyone would want to read, so I published it here. I thought no one would want to read Devil May Cry fanfiction written by a woman who clearly worries more about the internal turmoil of characters rather than if what I'm writing is cute/rom-com like.

I opted for a more adult approach - given Dante and Vergil are adult men with lots of traumas, and I thought "hey, I don't have to write teenage things anymore, I can actually write how two adults would have difficult conversations and relationships in this fucked up world of ours" and that made a HUGE difference to my writing.

and once again thank the gods I found my people who like to read this sort of stuff :)

For quite a while, I was worried if what I was writing was consumable - you know, if the romance was that kind of tacky romantic thing to sweep you of your feet with perfect characters who don't exist, if people only have good times and are always laughing and having fun, if people enjoy touching each other 24/7 and being romantic and all that sugar coated stuff, if what I'm writing is politically correct, if it hasn't any subjects that are triggering or "wrong" in any sort of capacity... And that stiffed me. I lost my will to write and I stopped enjoying it, because I couldn't get my ideas out anymore.

Being quite honest, I'm not a person who had an easy, beautiful life. I had many things happen to me that made me understand Vergil on a soul level (and I think that's why I'm so comfortable writing him, as much as I hate that man), because I'm wary of people and my trust issues make me keep everyone at bay. I can only put my feelings safely out on my writing and my music, and I wasn't being able to.

So I tossed everything out of the window and started writing unhinged stuff. And oh, that made me feel SO good! I always smile a lot when re-reading my Cyberpunk-style story and a character called Abby tattoos on the ass of a corporate man that he is hers bitch, and when a "fallen angel" from my vampiric story smiles creepily and tells everyone she's got the most unhinged vampire on a leash and tells him to just kill everyone in the room for sheer revenge.

Not the best, politically correct stuff. Very wrong, by the way. But I had so much fun writing them, and it has so much character building behind these actions, it makes me feel nice :)

Out of all the 65 WIPs on my computer, I have around 5 that I think are really worth it for a full novel and so. They are:

My Arthurian Legend based novels. I outlined a series, I made character sheets, I planned and planned and planned... Since I'm 15, I've been thinking about it. Someday, who knows, this story will see the light of day.

My Cyberpunk-style novel. Halfway through it and every time I go "oh this is too heavy, I can't write this" I just toss the thought out of the window and go for it. Quite unhinged, very existential and grim, everyone is depressed and traumatized, but I love it :)

The Angel-Vampire stuff. Or, as I call it sometimes, the trip of an angel-like being going through the 7 deadly sins until finally falling for good, all aided by the most unhinged vampire in town. It's more like a villain origin story than anything else.

The Tea Shop thing. Oh, this one has been on my mind since 2018 and only now I've found some plot I like for it. Creation (yes, humanized form of creation) runs a tea shop and everything is fine until a woman enters and she has no Universe inside her eyes - and that is something to be afraid of. Doesn't make sense? Oh, yes, indeed. I'm going crazy with the concepts on this one, thanks to Neil Gaiman and The Sandman.

The rockstar guardian angel one. That's it. It's literally what the premise says: a woman has a dead rockstar as a guardian angel - and they couldn't be more opposite of each other. It doesn't help she's investigating his death and can talk to ghosts.

And my original vampire story, which I just call Nathan and Kathleen. I started this one when I was 16 or 17, so the writing is VERY cringy. I had just seen The Witcher 2 gameplay and, by then, I had never seen anything like it. As it's expected, I'm re-writing the 150 pages of unfinished work I already have.

Will this stop me from writing the other WIPs whenever I want to? Nah. I’ll keep on writing. Even if they are bad or horribly cringy.

Why am I blabbering about ALL this???

Because the most important stuff you can do is write.

You see, I didn't start out writing the way I do today - and I have so many stories, with so many pages, that I like so much, but I read it nowadays and I see I need to re-work them. And that's how you evolve! That's how you get better! By refining your abilities!

This is something I learned with the rockstars I love so much. None of them started out by playing perfectly - most of them had to sit down, listen and learn their instruments on their own. They got a LOT of things wrong to start getting something very simple right. And the more they play, the more they train, the more they refine, the better they become.

The same goes to writing - so, keep on writing! Everything you can, as much as you can, don’t feel bad about starting something new and never finishing another one, and don’t feel like you need to put out a masterpiece every time you sit to write.

Sometimes you just need to… Write.

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tillman · 1 year

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Embarrassed asking this bc I've been following for a hot minute now and still don't know anything haha--where would I start if I were to look into reading abt Lancelot and Galehaut?

NO ITS OK LOL medieval lit is fucking insane especially getting into it with no background here is my brief spiel: <- said before i ended up typing 800 words. sorry.

medieval lit is complex and extremely hard to approach. let alone that most translations work under the assumption the only people to ever read them would be academics with a background in medieval lit, getting into and reading it is a challenge. if u have an interest and dont want to have to brave one of the longest and most complex stories written in medieval french and translated by many many people into english, im happy to say the story of galehaut and lancelot has enough influence to have a pretty decent modern english retelling of the main beats in Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles. (my pdf here, tho copies are really easy to find in bookstores and stuff this is only from 2007). It takes the main story of the vulgate and condenses it down to focus on just the love story of galehaut and lancelot. its pretty fun. the liberties it takes are slight and work for telling a coherent story.

Now, if you have read it, or want the real Galehaut experience, heres whats up, medieval texts and modern poems undercut:

Galehaut is in 5. i think maybe 6 medieval stories total. youre in for a treat as this is maybe the shortest "i want to get into arthuriana and i like this character where do i start?!" list possible besides like. drian the gay. or some other fucking nobody.

The main one, again, is the Vulgate Cycle. This is the main old french tale that inspired a looot of other arthurian works all over Europe. Its huge. Im not done scanning it BUT, i am done scanning the section Galehaut appears in, the beginning, because i got depressed after that lol. (Heres my scan of part 1, part 2 is on my website im too lazy to get both links).

From there, you got the most detailed explanation of the story of Galehaut, and can read the more fun shit and whacky shit with him and Lancelot in it YAY. Heres what i got pdfed on me rn:

Biggest one to note is he has a side role in Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. Nothing huge, and they do mix him up with Galahad at one point? but hes there. No one should read the original text its such a slog so heres Keith Baines awesome rendition

In other bad middle english texts, Lancelot of the Laik Book 3 has Galehaut, but its unfinished and also. only in middle english. fun footnote, dont read it. one day ill post my translation of book 3 alone LOL.

Short and sweet Galehaut is in The Old Knight, the greek text we have. he tries to fight for palamides and lancelot and tristan then try to fight for him. its cute. the old knight is an odd little thing just had to bring it up LOL (had to download a pdf for this one the site i read the article on before doesnt seem to be up.... just scroll to the bottom!) <- thisll be up on my website soon i forgot it i guess

Now for the funniest reveal: Galehaut plays more of a role in Tristania than Arthuriana most of the time (well. the arthurian branch of tristania im not getting into this rn). Why is Galehaut and Lancelots relationship expanded upon only here? only god can answer that.

Here is the Tavola Ritonda. Its one of the oddest texts i know of. Medieval italian. Very Very brutal. BUT. has some really interesting Galehaut takes and moments hidden in the . whatever is happening in this fucking text. its long as hell but mentioning for fun. (pdfff)

aand more interestingly. Here is the Belarussian translation of that. Which is even fucking weirder. mostly different plot, still has lots of really cute galehaut moments including the bit he asks tristan to join his and lancelots marriage. oh well i love the povest. (and heres that pdf)

Now. this is the wild card round. Heres the weird shit and the Hovey.

If you can brave French. modern french not old dont worry, Pierre Sala has Tristan et Lancelot. an exceptionally fucking weird story. Galehaut does make a slight appearance but mostly, keyley, funnierly, his evil german cousin is a recurring villain for a few chapters. its weird. its fun. its french. (pdf)

and finally. this one is on its own level, here is my dedication to Richard Hovey. one of the greatest poets of 1885 or whenever he wrote his arthurian stuff. He was gay. he famously called himself the american oscar wilde (and maybe met him at a party? one time we found a source saying they made out at a party.). and he wrote one of the only poems featuring galehaut i know.

well ok its a collection of dramas. and galehaut is not the focus. but he is a main character and he is insane. I recommend reading literally all his works hes a fucking amazing poet, you can even find his other poetry online easily. but heres his list of works on the camelot project. oh my god read richard hovey. please . hes my favorite poet.

#i have autism of the brain.

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hakasims · 2 years

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The Ultimate And Entirely Correct Ranking Of Every Single Luca Marinelli Character

What? Another one of those? How many rankings can this bitch produce? A lot, trust me. This one is less shallow than the previous one which was about appearances, but unlike all my older posts where I tried to do something analytical, this list doesn’t even pretend to be intellectual or based on anything other than my own personal feelings about the characters Luca has played.

21. Fabrizio (Nina)

When we’re judging characters based on their own merit rather than any other factors, I think the exam rules apply: If you don’t show up, you get a zero. Fabrizio didn’t show up. He’s a nothing character and there’s nothing to say about him.

20. Andrea (La grande bellezza)

With a whole minute of total screen time, Andrea gets a zero, too. He’s not dead last only because I can actually describe him using adjectives.

19. Diabolik (Diabolik)

Congrats to this charisma-free robot on once again being shittier than Saint Joseph.

18. Saint Joseph (Maria di Nazaret)

He is shitty and useless but at least he’s sorta kind? Can’t even say this much about Diabolik.

17. Guido Caselli (Tutti i santi giorni)

Here’s my hottest take: Guido is creepy, pathetic, blindly dedicated to his shitty girlfriend because he likes her lyrics (literally, there’s no other reason) and he’s a doormat and a half. I know you all love him and please don’t stop on my account but you should probably know this movie is bad and its main characters are also bad.

16. Valerio (Slam - Tutto per una ragazza)

He’s a shitty human being and he’s completely useless and worthless. He annoys me less that Guido because he’s fun to watch.

15. Loris (Il mondo fino in fondo)

A homophobic dumb bitch who believes his god-given duty is to wipe his shitty little bro’s ass. Also he’s bland and his attempts at asserting his toxic masculinity are pathetic.

14. Lui (Ricordi?)

We get it, his dad was bad and his childhood was super fucking hard. He’s still whiny and depressing as hell, not to mention he’s a college professor who fucks his students.

13. Martin Eden (Martin Eden)

God, what a pompous ass with his shitty libertarian politics and the air of self-importance thicker than the drug-fueled haze in which he spends the last 15 minutes of that movie.

12. Mattia Balossino (La solitudine dei numeri primi)

He didn’t deserve the shit that befell him, and he basically did nothing wrong (he was a little kid seeking validation, ok?) but he’s also not as interesting as the rest of the guys.

11. Milton (Una questione privata)

My dumb bisexual son, feeling helpless at the cruelty and meaninglessness of war. I can’t help but love him, but I mostly sigh and feel sorry for him.

10. Ettore (Lasciati andare)

Yes, he’s a petty criminal, but he��s clearly a victim of an abusive parent and a flawed education system. If he had been given a chance, he’d have grown up into a good member of society, but even as he is, he’s sweet and harmless and way less homophobic than the supposedly educated Loris. Ettore deserved better.

9. Roberta (L’ultimo terrestre)

Speaking of the one who deserved better, I can’t even think about that movie and its treatment of this kind and sweet soul. Fuck literally everyone who isn’t her.

8. Gabriele (Waves)

The purest, sweetest boy. He deserves his little boat and a hot boat daddy.

7. Mickey Miranda (Die Pfeiler der Macht)

Skanky bitch who lives for drama. If this list was based on the morals and deeds of the characters, Mickey would definitely crack the bottom 3. However, I appreciate an entertaining son of a bitch who is solely responsible for bringing life to an otherwise dull, soul-sucking movie.

6. Nicky/Nicolo di Genova (The Old Guard)

Yep, not even in top 5. Still, I’m not saying he isn’t good or anything. It’s just that most of his character’s goodness is implied rather than explored on screen, and there are five boys who got more than that.

5. Paolo (Il padre d’Italia)

Here we have a soft, vulnerable boy who deserves happiness. Placing Paolo was a little difficult because even though he’s not a very challenging character, he makes up for his straightforward goodness with quite interesting, very internalized flaws while avoiding being a clichéd self-hating gay. Also he’s just a good sweet boy whomst I love. Is that a crime?

4. Fabrizio de André (Fabrizio de André - Principe libero)

He edges out Paolo because he’s a little more complicated and does more stuff in his much longer movie. He is talented, rebellious, vulnerable and flawed, and I just think he’s neat.

3. Fabio Cannizzaro (Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot)

Is he as complex or complicated as some of the guys he edged out? No, not at all. But is he endlessly entertaining and literally the best part of this terrible, terrible movie? Absolutely. Also, can I just say, king of style? Excellent mix of menace and patheticness. I love him and so do you.

2. Cesare (Non essere cattivo)

He manages to combine immense, almost paradoxical likeabilty with fun as well as sadness. It is wild to me that he and Vittorio are both equal protagonists (with Vittorio even taking up more space) when Cesare is so much more developed, with rich inner life and very real and human flaws. Cesare is infinitely watchable and manages to thread the needle of being tragic but not pitiful.

1. Primo Nizzuto (Trust)

Who is suprised? Literally nobody didn’t see this coming. Primo is the best: the most complex, the most interesting, the best-written, the best-dressed, the hottest, the smartest, the most cunning and ruthless. He is literally the superlative character. The day he doesn’t top a list of best characters is the day I’ve been kidnapped and replaced by an impostor.

#luca marinelli #and his movies #that's it that's the tags

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spongebob-connoisseur · 1 year

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can you rate some sbsp ships? idk i think it’s fun seeing peoples opinions on them haha

Oh sure! I feel like I did this before but I can't find the original post so I'll do it again 👌

I don't particularly ship any of the sb characters so its going to be mostly my thoughts.

Squidbob - 6.5/10 - I'm going to get hate but I never cared for the sunshine x grumpy ships. I don't hate it. In fact it's probably the only type of sunshine x grumpy ship that I'm not completely indifferent to. Spongebob is super affectionate towards squid and Squid doesn't want to admit he cares for him but he does. It already has a good set up. Its cute. I'm not a ride or die for it but its nice.

Tho for a long time I assumed Squid was way older than Spongebob (before the age changes from kamp koral) which is also why I never got around to shipping them. I think squid is still a little older but by 2-3 years.

Patbob - 6.5/10 - Same rating as squidbob. Tho I prefer silly x silly ships so I feel like I'll be a little biased towards this one. I feel like I previously would have given this a lower rating but recent episodes make me like it a little bit more. Particularly more recent episodes showing hoe much Patrick cares for spongebob and defends him and even gets a little jealous when someone else gets some of SB's affection. Its too cute and I want more of it <3 I'll just pretend the jerky Patrick episodes don't exist.

Patsquid - 6/10. - a recent one! Episodes like Squisery and Pat Hearts Squid is what prompted it. I never thought Squidward and Patrick would ever get along but they do! And very well. Patrick is very enthusiastic to learn and do whatever Squid is learning and Squidward has someone who's actually interested in him. Patrick is very malleable and Squidward can easily mold him into what he wants. But even without that, they can have fun together. Unexpected duo but one I really enjoy watching.

Spandy - 3/10 - I remember folks on DA were ride or die for this ship. I on the other hand just don't see it. She's like a big sister figure to him. This is the one ship I just can't get around to liking. Its just there. No beef to anyone who likes it.

Plabs - 7.5/10 - the angst fics and stuff are what makes it interesting. SB fans took the episode Friend or Foe and used it to fuel most of this ship. That episode sits on the shoulders of god. On a surface level they don't seem much interesting. Two enemies who fight every week or so. But the show ended up developing their relationship a lot in seasons 4-5 and folks just can't let it go. Two childhood best friends who ended up having a fight and falling out with each other. But they still fight as adults just so they can see each other. Both of them getting depressed when the other has "moved on". They can't be together because of pride but they also can't stand to be apart from each other. High quality fanfiction material.

They like each other but they also would never admit it. But one would sabotage the other so they'd never leave them. They have so much potential. I wish more recent episodes would go into this further. I really want more of it.

Idk they sorta remind me of the quote "You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men" Yeah that's these two specifically.

I really want to see these two break the cycle and actually face their feelings lol

Plankaren - 2/10 - if we're talking about the musical characters tho then it gets 7/10. But in the main show. Nah. Plankton is just horrible to Karen. I feel sorry for her a lot of the time. She desperately wants his affection but this man would rather smooch his enemy than her. I get why she's like that. She should poison her husband. As a lil treat <3

Tho their musical counterparts are super cute. Two evil geniuses who want to take over the world and their love is fueled by their lust for tyranny. A match made in heaven <3

Karendy - 8/10 - super cute! I didn't expect to care for it much but recent episodes proved otherwise. They get along so well. Karen really has a type for geniuses. Except Sandy is actually nice to her and compliments her and the recent Gal Pals only made me enjoy their duo even more. I want more of it.

Puffkrabs - 5.5/10. I find the episode Krusty Love so cute and I would've given them a higher rating if I was just talking about that episode but male characters in SB often have a track record of being shit boyfriends/husbands so yeah. I REALLY don't like the direction their relationship has been going as of recent. I guess its inevitable but I always thought it was sweet that Krabs liked Puff so much that he didn't care about money for a moment. Also the fact that their both likely widows/widowers makes it somewhat interesting to me. But of course bad habits die hard and Mr. Krabs's love of money is harming their relationship and they nearly broke up. That's not even the main problem, since she doesn't care about money much. It's just him being a problem. Idk its kinda sad. I wish it could've been better but at least she isn't in Karen's shoes.

Squilliam/Squidward - 6.5/10 - (can't remember the ship name for this one) who doesn't want to see former high school sweethearts constantly feeling the need to one up each other? Of course they were never confirmed to be high school sweethearts but that's what I like to imagine where their beef began.

We have that thing where Squidward trying to imagine Squilliam in his underwear then going "oh no he's hot!". That's kinda fruity.

We have so many episodes where Squidward feels the need to impress Squilliam. Why do you as a man feel the need to impress other men? 🤔 and the bikini bottom inquirer episodes has Squilliam regularly call the news channel just to rant about Squidward. Squilliam always wants to act like he's so much better but if he was then he probably wouldn't be so obsessed with Squidward that he feels the need to call strangers on the news just to rant about him. Also I think Squilliam is probably pretty isolated so he likely has no one else to talk to. I feel like Perch allows Squilliam to call up just to talk smack about his ex knowing this guy still isn't over his feelings for him.

I enjoy the drama between two bitter exes. Makes for excellent entertainment. 👌

Larry/Squidward - 5.5/10 - they could have had it aaaaaall. The episode Squid plus one is what prompted this. They make for good friends and even more. But neither have much respect for each other's interests so they fell out. But imagine if they did learn respect for each other's interests? What if they held hands? They looked so happy with each other💔😿

Gale/Perch - 5.5/10 there's not much to go off of. They're both work at the news station. One is a reporter and the other is a weather guy. I feel like SB has a crush on Gale tho. I think this ship is more for self indulgence than any interesting character development. Still no beef. I kinda do want to see them interact more.

Squill/Perch - 6/10 - Squilliam constantly calling in to vent about Squidward is hilarious. Perch I'd just over it but instead of blocking Squilliam, he allows him to talk. There's potential in this. Rn Perch is probably Squilliam's only ""friend"" and is the only one he can really talk to. They can support each other and be friends. Or even more. Its funny i would've never thought this ship would be a thing but the bikini bottom inquirer is fueling content for it.

Slapferatu 5.5/10? - A recent contender! It's literally goth Squidbob. Kinda on the fence for this one. I like it but I somewhat don't know what to feel about it. Same grumpy x sunshine dynamic except its made spooky 👻. I like spooky things so its a little bit more digestable. I kinda want to see them interact a little bit more so I can judge better but the episodes we have, has some interesting stuff. Slappy is down BAD for Nosferatu. I mean that comes with being the Renfield in their relationship. Somehow I always thought Nosferatu would be much more harsher to Slappy like in a slapstick kind of way. Like barely tolerating him and being this 👌 close to killing him but doesn't because no one else would work for him. But he actually does like Slappy quite a bit and shows a lil affection, he treats him a lot nicer than I expected. Its sweet.

Also Slappy is self admitted to liking abuse. So uhh if he does get smacked around by Nosferatu then you know its consensual.

Still, uhh I kinda don't like how Slippy is getting sidelined by all this. I didn't know what to make of her when she was first introduced but now I like her and I like how she has a silly x silly thing going on with Laszlo so it's a little sad. SB characters stop being shit to ur gf/wife challenge. Tho I think she'd probably is fine with Laszlo devoting his undead life and soul to a vampire. I feel like she knows and she's fine with it. Probably gives him tips on how to woo the vampire.

There's some kind of absurdity to this ship because we have a 1922 german horror movie character being shipped with a fish parody of a dead Hungarian actor. If you use human!Slappy in this ship you'll see what I mean. There's also the same absurdity with Slippy/Slappy because they're both fish parodies of Peter Lorre. How does that work.

Idk if Slippy/Slappy is with mentioning on this list because there's not much to go off. So uhh yeah.

Anyways shout out to that one person who began shipping Slapferatu the moment the synopsis for Slappy Daze dropped. You're too powerful to live.

There ya go! The ship list. Hope ya enjoy it. I hope you print this out and use the paper to roll it into a fat blunt and smoke it. I hope you snort the ashes too 👍

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callsign-bunnie · 3 months

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Just read your welcome back post about mental health. Fellow BPD-er here with OCD and C-PTSD and PCOS. If you wanna ask me about anything or share your day feel free too. I've struggled with finding medicine and therapists that work, and having to rewire my whole brain into thinking somewhat normally. I'm still attempting to do it, and I catch myself slipping up sometimes. I've been off meds for like, 6 weeks because of finance issues, but I'm working on getting back onto them to help my depression/motivation. I entirely know way too well what you described as psychosis, and it sucks. Delusions and hallucinations are not fun by any means, I'm sorry you've been going through that for the past year. To pivot off of that, what are the books you're writing? Do you care to share things about them? I'm always looking for new books to read and rant about to my coworkers and friends!!

I would not wish BPD/OCD combo on my worst enemy so godspeed to you.

Yeah, I'm really treatment-resistant as autism makes talk therapy hard because I find myself masking the entire time and telling my therapist what they want to hear. There's also the risk of becoming emotionally attached to my therapist (as I had become to my last) which is just not a good situation to set up, ever.

I can't afford to get medicated, as much as I would love to become medicated, but I already know that finding the right cocktail for me is going to be fairly difficult since I am, again, treatment resistant.

I do have CPTSD (though who fucking doesn't in this economy) but I also have regular PTSD so it sort of gets drowned out in most cases and is never the most important thing in my mind.

Most of my recovery has had to be entirely on my own, by taking therapy notes from my friends with similar issues who have gone, or by just researching it

I think one of the reasons my issues have caused me to deteriorate so rapidly these last two years is some kind of neurological issue (I am being actively begged to go to a neurologist) and god, having mental health issues and then physical issues that worsen them makes being ill into one of those rope puzzles where you have to carefully untangle them to solve it.

No, delusions are not fun. I've never had too many visual hallucinations but mine are usually auditory or ghost sensations, and they very much do suck. I do NOT enjoy having to constantly question if someone is actually flirting with me or I'm being delusional, again. (Asking for clarification is NEVER A GOOD IDEA)

As for my books, I'm not usually willing to talk about them publically (OCD means paranoid that they're going to be stolen. Yes I am aware this is irrational.) but I'll gladly talk about them in DMs all day.

As I've said, you guys are always welcome to DM me or you can message me on discord (playbunnie03), which is where I'm more likely to answer as I fucking hate tumblr DMs like you wouldn't believe

However, the main ones I'm working on this year is a fantasy series I've been working on for a while which is inspired by the Witcher while also being Queer Epic Fantasy. I'm also working on two thrillers, one following the plot of one of the fics I've written (the fic was ABO, obviously the book will not be) and the other is an entirely new plot. Both are sapphic, as I am sapphic (obvis lol) and all of these have been quite the labor of passion and love already, though I'm restarting writing

#bunnie speaks #i'm a thriller writer at heart #neither are supernatural in any capacity but i have some supernatural thrillers planned #i'm still in the plotting stage since I've restarted but you guys know me #the actual writing comes easier

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leonardoeatscarrots · 4 months

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I agree with you about all the issues of The Chosen, but i didn't understand the mislabeling mental ilnesses, were you referring to Mary Magdalene?

Ehhh kind of? Moreso the way they picture possessed characters in general.

While I understand that demons, and more specifically possession, are a part of biblical Canon, the way they are tackled in The Chosen is distasteful in my personal opinion.

The primary reason being that the symptoms used to indicate possession have a heavy overlap with symptoms of real life mental health issues and physical conditions.

Such as:

Seizure

Strokes

Tourretes/other involuntary movements

Meltdowns/outbursts/anger issues

Panick attacks

Hypermobilty

Schizophrenia or similar disorders

Drug use disorders

Self injury

Really anything that may cause unpredictable behavior, distorted sense of self, ""unnatural movements"", low/no empathy and bad understanding of social cues (actually happened to me once, weird story), and WAY more. This is in no way a conclusive list.

This actually has a sort of explanation. Because back in Ye Olde Times of Jesus Christ they didn't have these kinds of diagnoses. So, they would have come up with something to explain these undesirable behaviors. This is exactly why early civilizations have mythology and religion to begin with, in order to explain what they don't understand.

In Mary Magdaline's case specifically, she showed a lot of symptoms of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, etc. And for a moment, I was actually really excited to see where they would take this narrative. To me, it seemed very clear that they were intending to have serious discussions of mental health. Until later in the show, it was revealed that it was, in fact, SERIES CANON that a demon possession was the thing that cast her into the initial situation.

Added with every other demon possession in the show....

I think it's pretty self-explanatory why this is bad, but for those who need it: this only isolates disabled people from the church, dehumanizes them, teaches people they are scary, unnatural, undesirable, and in extreme cases corrupt. It makes the religion as a whole look... quite unsavory.

And while it might seem absurd or irrelevant now, I am very sorry to tell you that there is a crowd of people out there who still genuinely believe in demon possessions. I myself have been accused (once again, complicated), and I have a family member who was also accused. I know that's only two cases, but that's two too many in one lifetime if you ask me. And even if people don't believe that, there is still a very real stigma that follows it.

Now, I understand that with those sorts of events happening in the Bible, the show writers probably didn't want to cut them out. BUT with a semi-omnitient son-of-God character in their toolbelt, they could just say that while the main cast assumes it's a demon, Jesus knows its not really (maybe plays along just for the sake of not confusing anyone) and helps the individual and their problem.

This fix would not only help humanize people with these struggles, instead of LITERALLY demonizing them, but it would also add a little more intrigue to Jesus as a character, especially in a place where disabled folks previously felt unwelcome.

#tw religion #tw ableism #tw demons #tw possession #actually disabled #disabled #disabled rights #religion #the chosen #the chosen series #boycott the chosen #mary magdalene #anon ask #thanks anon

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farfromstrange · 1 year

Text

Foreigner's God | m.m

Matt Murdock x avenger!OFC

Chapter thirty-six: this is me trying

Read part XXXV here ° series masterlist ° main masterlist

Summary: Eliza and Matt are both trying to move on, but recovery is a lengthy process and they're both not quite there yet. Fortunately, they have each other and as he holds her hand, she's more than willing to hold his so they can both get out of the woods together.

Warnings: Slight angst with hurt/comfort, Fluff, domesticity, established relationship, SEMI-SMUT (male receiving oral) 18+ MINORS DNI, sub!Matt, degradation kink, use of pet names, praise kink, slight (?) cum play, Matt Murdock's never-ending masochism, religious imagery and symbolism, talks about child molestation, bullying, antidepressants, drug addiction, and depression — use of mutant powers to make Matthew see (momentarily)

Other Characters: Involuntary Therapist Paul Lantom™️

a/n: Here are the 10,000 words I removed from the last chapter and about 7,000 more. I just switched up the planned chapter titles.

POSTING THIS EARLIER THAN PLANNED BC I REACHED 200 FOLLOWERS!

And because my dear @mrs-areallygoodlawyer said I should add a certain joke into one of the chapters, I did. I’m sorry in advance, it’s cringe but I found it funny. No regrets on this one.

Eliza stirred. The faint sound of birds chirping in the distance and a cold yet gentle breeze on the already frozen tip of her nose paired with a cocoon of warmth wrapped around the rest of her body coaxed her out of the depths of unconsciousness. She wriggled some more to get her shoulder back under the blanket, thankfully succeeding, and she slowly blinked the sleep from her eyes.

She was disoriented when she woke up, though she soon recognized the stone walls of the bedroom and the silky green sheets she was tangled in. The room smelled of Matt’s deodorant and the salt of his skin. His shampoo filled her nose with the scent of happiness hiding behind sandalwood and bath water. Brown strands of hair tickled her face from where his head rested on her shoulder.

The air in the room grew colder with each gush of wind that brushed over their entangled bodies. The blanket barely covered Matt’s large frame - he wasn’t wearing a shirt - yet he didn’t even as much as shiver.

He grunted, tightening his arms around her torso. “Don’t you dare,” he said, voice laced thick with sleep, hoarse and scratching in the back of his throat. His vocal cords weren’t quite awake yet, and neither was his body. His fingers drew lazy circles over the skin underneath his Columbia shirt, pulling her closer against his chest from behind.

She smacked his forehead when his beard and hair started to tickle her skin from the constant movement and he frowned disapprovingly. He buried his face in the pillow underneath his head, repositioning the arm under her head so that her neck rested in the crook of his elbow and he could pin her head underneath his chin.

Finally comfortable, Eliza melted into him. She almost fell asleep again, but her body had slept enough, and the ache that settled into her muscles kept her on edge. Her eyes were burning from the shed tears, dry and redder than sunburn. Her throat ached and her nostrils were raw from all the tissues she wasted.

Matt only sleepily slurred behind her. “How’re you feelin’?” he asked.

“Everything’s in pain,” she grunted.

He stroked along her jaw, then over her cracked lips and her swollen eyelids, ending his journey on the bridge of her nose, smoothing out the wrinkle at the top and then continuing downward. “Anything I can do?”

Her heart fluttered. “Yeah,” Eliza said and shifted, still trapped by his arm but free enough to turn and look at him. “You can kiss me.”

Running a hand through his messy hair, he chuckled. Matt rolled them over so she rested on her back, his body hovering over hers, and the heat radiating off of him distracted her from the open window. She raked her nails over his arms before coming to rest around his neck. His eyes looked even darker after waking up, eyelashes full, and lids hooded. His cheeks were just as red as she suspected her own were.

“Good morning,” he whispered.

“Morning,” she whispered back.

He dipped his head lower to brush her lips with his own. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah, this is probably the first time in a while.”

He kissed her harder this time, letting her feel all of him, though his caressing touches remained sloppy. “No nightmares?” he asked.

She keened when he scratched just the right spot on her scalp, releasing a sound that resembled a purr. “No nightmares,” she said.

“Good,” he smiled his signature lopsided grin. His hand applied pressure to the back of her neck, loosening the muscles with his expert fingers.

Whatever course he took to get this good with his hands, she thanked God for that.

“You’re still tense.”

“Yeah, I’m in a lot of pain.” She hissed at a particularly tender spot he hit. “My body feels like it’s on fire.”

“I could break my fingers on your shoulder blades. Baby, this feels bad. I know you said you slept better than usual, but your muscles feel like you were fucking tense the whole night.”

“That’s ‘cause I was,” Eliza admitted. “I still am. God, I’m so tired, Matt. Like, I’m so exhausted. Not just physically tired but exhausted, and even though I slept better it felt like I didn’t sleep at all. I don’t think I can move at all today and that scares me,” she said, her breathing growing shallower with each passing word. “It’s not just because I cried the whole day… I can’t move because my mind is tired, and now my body hurts too. So fucking much.”

He gave her a sympathetic look. “I know what that’s like.”

“What do I do?”

“How about I get you an ice pack to cool your eyes first?” He pressed his lips to her swollen eyelids. “They must be sore,” he said.

“And itchy,” she stated.

“Ice helps, trust me. I’ll get you some.”

“Thanks.”

“And then I’m gonna help you get dressed so you can have some breakfast. Your appointment is at ten, which means we should leave at either nine or nine-thirty. Zero at the end, right?” He slapped the alarm clock.

Seven-thirteen am.

“Hm, there’s enough time. And if it makes you feel better, we’ll get ready at eight, so it’s a full hour and you won’t have to stress.”

If she hadn’t cried all of her tears, she would have teared up again. Instead, she choked up inside, her lungs constricted with the overwhelming consideration he put in. It was remarkable that after all of this, he was still standing strong for her sake, never faltering in his attempts to make her feel better. And it worked, at least enough to make her sit up against the headboard, ignoring the soreness and the protest of her head that she just couldn’t fucking get up.

Matt pecked her lips on his way out. He slid the door open, still half-naked in the cold bedroom and she watched him tap into the living room, hand tangled in his hair as he made his way into the kitchen.

In his still sleepy state, he almost hit his pinky toe on the living room table, missing just by an inch when he felt the couch under his fingers and took a step to the right. From then on, he guided himself on the wall until he finally reached the kitchen counter.

He brewed the coffee first so the ice pack wouldn’t go warm. Eventually, he slipped into a shirt, remaining in his boxers for the time being. Her eyes were still on him, as blurry and hurt as they were. He was beautiful, not just objectively. She loved how he moved, how he smiled, how he thought, and how he held her when the world became too much to bear.

She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until after someone shook her awake again. Matt’s hand was warm from the cup of coffee he held, the other that was on her thigh rested coldly with the ice pack he picked up for her.

He smiled and she took it, rubbing her sore eyes before pressing the ice to her lids. She sighed. Her temples pulsated with every pinch of the headache that consumed her whole, but the cold made it a little more bearable.

“How about I give you a massage now?” he suggested.

She exhaled, “That’s too much.”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“No, I mean, it’s too much for me. I can’t handle this much attention right now. I’m sorry.”

When she dared to peek at him, her cheeks flushed not from the open window but from embarrassment, she found him grinning back at her. “Finally,” he said.

“What?”

“You just told me what you want.”

“Oh, that. I’m sorry?” she said.

He instantly grabbed her head, eyes stern with the disapproval. “No, not sorry. It’s a good thing. I was waiting for you to learn how to say no, especially to me.”

“Viktor never let me say no.”

Eliza timed the exact moment his fist tightened around the soft flesh of her thigh. His jaw clenched and the anger in his eyes burned bright. He was about ready to grab his suit, return to SHIELD and kill the man himself.

“I mean, Mueller didn’t care, he just took what he wanted, but Viktor punished me every time I dared to say no to him, and whenever I would cry, he’d add to his punishment and make it so much worse. The scars,” she pointed over her shoulder, “They’re proof of that.”

“Sweetheart…” Matt sighed. He wasn’t sure if he could touch her face, so he stopped his hand mid-air and dropped it back in his lap.

“So I stopped crying. I stopped saying no because tears are a weakness, y’know? He told me that weapons don’t weep and that deserved his punishment. I let him touch me, partially because I was afraid of the consequences if I didn’t, and partly because I thought it was normal. I thought men did this to all the kids, that it was just a thing fathers did to their daughters to show their appreciation – the lingering touches, and the sleepovers,” she said.

He nodded. “And that’s why you thought you had to let me have my way with you the other night, so I wouldn’t be mad at you?” he questioned, even though he already knew the answer.

Pressing the ice pack back to her eyes when a sharp pain tore through her optic nerve, she agreed silently, without words. He stroked his palm over her thigh, no longer grabbing it.

“I’m sorry. God! I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault I’m damaged goods.”

“Stop calling yourself that.”

“But it’s true. The men I’ve been with usually didn’t care about what I had to say, but I still went along with it. I feel so filthy now, and stupid for letting it happen. I feel stupid that I was so self-centered and careless that I screwed everything up, even myself.”

“You’re not. You’re not filthy.” He rubbed his face. “I wish I could take this weight off your shoulders, believe me, but I don’t know how. I doubt I even can.”

“God, no! You don’t want that,” she said. “You asked me plenty if I’m okay with the things you wanted to do, and I was okay with them because, with you, I feel comfortable. I can surrender my body to you and not feel like I’m being used. It’s just hard to articulate what I need sometimes, what I want or do not want, because I’m afraid there might be consequences if I do.”

“Sweetheart, there is no one that has the right to punish you for having an opinion about your own body,” he said, his eyes softening to the point she wondered if he was even real. “You have a voice. You are allowed to use that to speak your mind. You won’t be punished here for saying what you want or don’t want, and if someone dares to even touch you, I will cut their hands off with a dull knife.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Weird flex, but okay.”

“Matthew 18:8,” he told her. “And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.”

“Do you have a bible verse for everything?” she asked, more for shits and giggles than anything else.

“Yeah,” he said. “I memorized the whole thing as a kid because I had already read all of the books they kept on the shelves at the orphanage.”

That took a dark turn. “Oh. Didn’t you have friends?”

He chuckled as if she had just told him the funniest joke the century had to offer. “Me? No,” Matt said. “No one wanted to play with me when I was a little kid. They shoved me and bullied me because I was different. No one wanted to play with the blind kid out of fear they would damage me, and when I turned into a book nerd, they started laughing at me for it.”

She nudged him. “Kids can be cruel, huh?” she said.

“Yeah, you have no idea.”

“You didn’t deserve any of that,” she gently brushed his hair back, “and I’m sorry no one was there for you when you needed help.”

“No, it’s fine, water under the bridge. I dealt with it. Besides, this isn’t about me,” he said. “It’s about you.”

“I was molested as a little girl and that scarred me for life. You were constantly bullied. We’re both a bit fucked up,” she said.

“I guess you’re right, but-“

“Don’t downplay your trauma, Matthew.” Her eyes laid firmly on him. “You suffered through a life-altering accident as a kid, then your father died and you lived in an orphanage for the rest of your adolescence. That is trauma, and I would know. I’m the definition of a walking trauma bundle.” Eliza took a deep breath. “There is a lot more where that comes from, believe me, and also a lot more baggage to hate about me.”

“Eliza, what the hell happened to you to make you think like this?” Matt sighed when she only fluttered her eyelashes at him, “Actually, don’t answer that,” he said. “If I learn one more thing about what that disgusting human being did to you and the other children in the White Room, I’m gonna grab my suit and make sure he suffocates in his cell. SHIELD wouldn’t be able to stop me.”

The coffee spilled over the brim of his mug when he slapped it down on the nightstand. She had to physically pry him away from cleaning up the mess. Eliza called his name softly. “Matt…”

“That man deserves to be treated like a fucking canine. He deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his miserable life, somewhere in the middle of the ocean with a straight jacket on to make sure his hands never touch another innocent child ever again. I should kill him for what he did to you, Eliza. Viktor Volkov deserves to die.”

She kissed him to shut him up. “Stop,” she said against his lips. “Stop torturing yourself.”

“But he hurt you,” he growled. “No one is allowed to hurt you. What he did wasn’t fair. You were helpless.”

“But people will continue hurting me, it’s human nature. If you killed everyone who ever hurt me or is about to hurt me, there would be only half of the population left,” she said, chuckling slightly. She wasn’t sure why she found this so tragically funny. “What I’m saying is, there will always be someone who holds a grudge against me. I chose the life of an Avenger and that got me a lot of enemies in the process, not to mention the things that I did in the past. You can’t always protect me, and that’s okay,” she said. “Because I can protect myself. If you break your moral code… you can’t come back from something like that. I know it because I used to kill people for a living.”

Matt shook his head, determined to prove his point, but there was not a single one she could find. “You didn’t do it on purpose. I want to kill him for the sake of killing him,” he stated. “Maybe that’s the kind of man I am…” he lowered his head enough to hide the sheen of tears that had laced his eyes. “Maybe I was just trying to steer off the inevitable by putting on that suit and the mask and trying to enforce justice with my fists instead of doing the one thing that would draw a line under all of that.”

Eliza’s hands found him again, quivering, desperate to make him listen to anything other than what the little demon inside of his head had to say.

“Maybe this is what God cursed me to be. I mean, I’m going to hell anyway. My grandma used to say, be careful of the Murdock boys,” he said, “they got the devil in ‘em. You know, maybe she was right. I’ve long been thinking about it and my father… he’d be turning in his grave if he saw the choices I’ve made ever since he died. I screwed up everything he left me and then I ran. I always do that. And I don’t know why I blamed you for pushing me away when I would’ve done the same in a heartbeat as a chance to protect you from getting hurt by me.” He gnawed at his bottom lip. “We are so alike and I’m so sorry. I should have never doubted you and I shouldn’t have listened to you when you told me to leave. I knew this would happen.”

“Matt, no,” she stopped him before he could make it worse on himself.

“It’s true.”

“No. Stop saying that,” she said, “I know your father would be so proud of you. If he were here right now… if Jack Murdock would be standing here right now, he’d hug you and he’d tell you how much he loves you. And he’d see the man you grew up to be and he’d love you all the more because you’re strong. You didn’t let the demons destroy you. Instead, you tamed them and used them to your advantage. Your father loved you, so he wouldn’t even think twice about being proud of you, he just would be.”

Her words made sense while at the same time, they didn’t. He didn’t want them to be. Matt sneered. “Right, of course, because I’m the kind of son a father would be proud of,” he spat. “Someone who beats up criminals and abandons his friends and faith for a chance to be right.”

“Listen to me! You’re a good man,” she told him. “You might be damaged, but who isn’t? I know what it feels like to hate yourself to the point all you want to do is turn into someone else. My father died before I could tell him I forgive him and you told me he loved me, so he forgives me. Take your own words to heart, Matthew, because they matter something to you too. And your father loves you, even in death. He died for you. That means something,” she said, “and he’d do it again if he were here. You’re his son. You’re his legacy. He wanted the best for you and you got it. You made something out of yourself. Don’t throw that away for a chance to kill a man who doesn’t deserve to live. Sure, he doesn’t, but he also can’t die.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Eliza!” Matt ruffled his hair. “Why do you have to be so… so fucking supportive even when you’re the one who's breaking apart?”

“Because I love you!” She desperately clung to his wrists. “You know I do, so you know I’m telling the truth. I love you,” she said, pulling down where their foreheads could meet, “and I’m not going anywhere.”

He heaved, leaning into her touch. “Goddamnit,” he growled.

“I know what it’s like to want someone dead, so believe me when I say that I understand. I tried to kill him. I tried to take Viktor’s life in return for everything he did to me, for everything he destroyed and took away from me. I thought I didn’t have a choice. To get rid of his hands on me, I had to get rid of him, but that’s not true. Even if I had killed him, I’d still feel this way and I still would if you killed him for me.”

“But it’d make the world a better place.”

“While that might be true, do you wanna know why I didn’t kill him?” He nodded. “I heard your voice in the back of my head telling me not to because death is too kind for him,” she said. “You’re not that type of person, Matt. God didn’t curse you to be a killer. If you want to believe he got you into a blinding accident for a reason, it is to help people, not hurt them. You’re saving this city every fucking day; a person with only darkness and hatred in their heart could never do that. You are better than Viktor, you’re better than Hydra or SHIELD and you’re much better than the person I used to be. So don’t. Don’t break your moral code because of me, because you think you have to fix this. Don’t betray your faith because you feel guilty for something that was entirely out of your control. You’re too kind at heart, you wouldn’t survive that.”

He nuzzled his nose against hers. “What if you’re wrong?” he asked. “What if there is even the smallest sliver of a chance that my grandma might be right? That I got the Devil in me and that I can’t exorcise him because it’s genetics. Even though I know my father was a good man,” he said, “I saw what happened to him in the ring. Sometimes, his eyes would just go blank, like he was being controlled by a higher power. And he’d continue to beat the absolute crap out of his opponent.”

“But that doesn’t happen when you fight,” she argued.

“How do you know? I wear a mask.”

“I know you, Matthew.”

“Do you, really? I think only God knows what I’m supposed to become, and I’m starting to believe his intentions aren’t all too kind, that he wants me to fail and become the villain because destroying good things that come my way is just who I am. Your life went downhill from the moment I tried to stop you on that roof three weeks ago. Foggy’s life got turned upside down and now he’s stuck with me in a law office that doesn’t make money, burned by me being Daredevil and Karen… Fisk almost got to them and it’s all my fault. I destroy everything and everyone in my path. If that is not something the devil would do, I don’t know what is.”

The frustration wrapped around her like plastic foil. Eliza grunted. Her palms pressed to his skull tighter, erasing all possibilities to exit, and she opened her heart to him. She opened the door she had kept on her soul, on the burning red gem waiting in the core of her being, sustaining her like the beating organ pumping blood inside of her chest did.

Her eyes glowed red. It felt so good, no longer draining but powerful, and she felt no regrets.

“Matthew, look at me!” she ordered.

He shook his head. “No. Don’t show me my father and make him tell me I’m gonna be okay,” he told her. “I couldn’t handle that.”

Reality had changed around him, he could feel the shift in the air and the tingling under his skin. She reached for him, tugging at all the strings to his soul, to his perception and she lured him into the spell of crimson need.

“It’d be a lie,” he said.

She huffed. “That’s not what I’m doing. Open your eyes and look at me!”

“Fucking hell, what-“ he stopped. The world stopped. His breathing stopped. His heart stopped.

His life stopped.

Matt swore he died. He passed away and went to heaven, regained his eyesight, and ended up in paradise, the garden of Eden, God’s castle. He was dreaming, his mind mixing up the imaginary pictures he kept stored away in case he needed to pretend he was okay, normal, just for a moment. This couldn’t be real. He stopped existing. He died and vanished into dust, disappearing to another terrestrial world existing at the same time as the one she resided in.

She played with the hairs at the nape of his neck, letting her hands wander over his back and pulling him even closer. “Hi,” she whispered.

Tears sprung into his eyes. He touched her face and traced the features that were now a clear picture before him. He ran his finger along her lips, her jawline, the soft hairs of her brows, and then lastly, her actual hair.

She told him once she wouldn’t do it, but she couldn’t help herself. He needed something good, and perhaps this would help him to believe again, just for a moment. It was the first time she actively used her powers again and while it felt good, the power that ran through her veins was almost terrifying. She saw what she could do. What if she hurt him? But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

She held him, loved him, and gently held him in her open arms. He was all she needed and all she would ever need.

“You’re real,” he breathed.

“I’m real,” she said.

“Oh… God.”

He couldn’t help but pray. Surely, this was all a dream.

“Am I anything like you imagined me to be?”

“Oh, no. Fuck, no! You’re so much better, sweetheart.” He swallowed the needy sob. “You’re so damn beautiful. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe you’re doing this for me. I can’t believe… Jesus. Hi,” he said and upon feeling her smile, he chuckled. “Hi, sweetheart.”

Eliza caught his tears, wiping them away, her fingers gentle as she did so. “I love you so much,” she whispered.

His eyes roamed her face, not daring to move away until he memorized every last crevice in her skin. If her face was already this beautiful, he could only fathom what she would look like underneath all of that.

“Don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it. You’re making me see,” Matt sniffled, “That’s so… I don’t know what to say. God, fuck! What is happening to me?”

“You don’t have to say anything,” she assured him. “Because I’m here. This is real.”

He wanted to speak regardless of his loss for words. “I can’t even… Ugh! You told me you didn’t want me to see your face, so why-”

“You needed it. You needed something to hold onto.”

“You… fuck, can I just… Can I kiss you?”

Eliza nodded. He dipped his head and captured her lips. She sighed contently at the gentle caress, his hand resting on her throat and she held his wrist right there.

She heard him murmur against the skin of her lips, “This feels so much more intense now.”

“In a good or bad way?” she questioned.

In response, he kissed her again. “Good,” he said. “So fucking good. I don’t want this to stop, ever.”

“It has to, eventually.”

“I know, but for now, just… Let us stay like this. Let me look at your face for a while.”

“Okay,” she nodded, “we can do that.”

Time was a construct anyway.

She laid down, resting on her side and he mirrored her exact position. His hand remained in her hair, stroking it. Her heartbeat rang in his ears. He couldn’t get over how her skin felt while he could look at her. The way her eyes fluttered whenever he brushed her sensitive lips or her throat and the desperate sigh that passed them when he cradled her reddened cheeks in his hand. While her features were set in stone from the tension, she relaxed visibly at his touch and it was visible in the fading crease between her eyebrows, the wrinkle of worry disappearing for only just a moment.

He felt her features before, but nothing could have prepared him for this, and he hadn’t been able to open his eyes and see for so long, he forgot how overwhelming the world could be. If he saw the city, he would surely die. She was the only view he needed and when she would let go later, he would keep her face in his mind so every time he touched her, he could imagine what she looked like. It was a huge gift with an even bigger meaning. A gift he wouldn’t have asked for, she just did it for him and he had never felt more loved.

Matt chuckled, a lonely tear sliding down his cheek. He was so goddamn grateful. His struggle with faith didn’t matter when he had the greatest source of hope right next to him, willing to hold on for both of us even when she was hurting. She gave back what he gave her. No one had ever done that before, not for him at least.

“I love you so much,” he whispered. “You have no idea how much. I don’t just love you, I’m in love with you. I’m so deep in it, I don’t think I could get out even if I tried.”

“Eh, I got a faint idea,” Eliza smiled her brightest smile, the one that could easily outmatch the sun and made every room light up with her presence.

He traced his fingers over her features again. “Will you stay?” he asked.

She kissed the tip of his nose and he scrunched, chuckling softly at the display of affection. His forehead moved to press against hers again. “Always,” she said.

“Cross your heart?”

“Hope to die,” she finished, drawing a cross right over the left side of her chest.

He snorted, pulling at her hair slightly. “Don’t say that,” he said.

“Isn’t that how the phrase goes though?”

“Yeah, but we don’t hope to die.”

“Right… too soon?”

“A bit, yeah.” He scrunched his nose again.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Matt answered by pulling her into his side and tangling their lips as he did their limbs. To breathe, moved away only enough so he could inhale and exhale, his minty breath hitting her face. She smiled, a genuine one and the sight of it was even better than he imagined, too. His hands trailed over her sides before coming to rest on her shoulder blades.

Her shirt had bunched up slightly, bare skin touching his. The connection was so strong, he could feel it in every muscle and nerve. They screamed her name repeatedly, chanting it, praying as if she was the mercy God granted him. She was an Angel sent from heaven above, and he was the devil of Hell’s Kitchen who had once been an Angel too, and to her, he still was. He was pure at heart, no matter how much he liked to deny it.

One of his fingers ghosted over her hip. She shoved him away gently. “I see what you’re doing,” she hummed.

“I do too now,” he retorted. The smirk resting on his lips seemed almost content.

“Wouldn’t you like to know what I look like naked?”

“Perhaps,” Matt shrugged, “or perhaps I just want to feel your skin like this.”

“You want me to take my shirt off?” she asked, the question intended as innocent. “To touch my skin, I mean.”

He shook his head, removing his hand to return to her face. “I’m not spoiling the surprise that is feeling you up with my senses only.”

“So we just lie here?”

“Yeah, we just lie here.”

“Okay.”

He loved her so much and he kept telling her that, even long after her eyes returned to their normal color and his vision faded into scolding fire and nothing to make out.

She was gone, but he didn’t care because the picture lingered and he could still feel her. She was a part of him and his fingers knew her body inside and out. He didn’t need to see her to know she was beautiful, and it made him love her no less.

“I don’t know how I deserve you,” he whispered into the cold morning air. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I know I don’t ever want this to stop. I want to be the right man for you, if I can. Maybe if I try hard enough…”

“Hey, you don’t have to sell me on reasons to want you,” Eliza interrupted him, gentle hands touching his skin as always.

Always. She would stay, always.

“You don’t have to be scared you’re not enough, Matthew. What we have is enough. It’s good. You’re good. I mean, what if it’s just you and me and that’s all we needed to be? The world could just fall away and then it’d be only the two of us. Can we try that?”

“While all of that is true,” he said, “I’m not going to stop giving you more reasons to not let me go.”

“What came before won’t count anymore.”

“We can try that.”

Asking for help isn’t the hardest part, it’s the help itself that makes you feel like you’re going through hell with no way out. Your past happens to you all over again and you’re forced to stand by, watch and deal with it. And dealing with the pain is something that scorns an already broken soul.

They made it to Mrs. Darcy’s office with five more minutes to spare. Eliza’s feet remained glued to the asphalt, a summer breeze brushing through her hair and causing the fluffy strands at the top of Matt’s forehead to bounce.

His hand landed on the small of her back, giving her a gentle push. “You want me to go in with you?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. The last thing she wanted was for him to hear how fucked up she truly was. “I mean,” she realized she had answered way too fast, so she tried again, “No, I have to do this alone.”

Matt drummed against her jacket. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” That was a lie, but he didn’t question her about it. “You can go, I got this.”

He huffed, obviously disapproving of her choice. Still, he leaned down to peck her lips. “I love you,” he said.

I’ve been struggling with questions of identity as of late.

I used to like who I was. It’s not every day you’re given a second chance. You gotta honor it, right?

Second chances are meant to help you do better than the first time. For Eliza, this was her third chance to turn her life around and make something out of herself. She graduated from questioning her identity to having a revelation about who she was and who she had once been. She understood everything so much clearer now and yet when she looked into the mirror, she still saw the same stranger she met seven years ago when Nick Fury handed her the new ID and her passport.

There’s this emptiness inside me, Mrs. Darcy. It’s like there’s a hole in my soul and no matter how hard I try, I can’t fill it. Whatever connection to reality I had is just… it’s gone. You know, I like knowledge. I like knowing a lot of things, it keeps me on top of my game, but this- I know nothing about myself and it’s scaring me shitless.

She was more scared of what the truth would make of her than she was of herself, although her mental state was terrifying in itself. Every time she thought about what she had done in the name of trauma, she was left horrified.

Eliza stared at the painting of the curly-haired, faceless woman hung up on the wall behind the leather couch Mrs. Darcy currently resided on, one leg crossed over the other, arm stretched out over the length of the backrest, and her notebook resting in her lap.

“I’m fine,” she stated into the silence.

The therapist shifted, not even bothering to make a secret out of her amusement. “Really?” she asked.

“Except that I’m not,” she added then. “I’m not fine.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t keep pretending that all of this is normal. Maybe you’re right, maybe I’m traumatized, but there has to be a way to get out of this, right? There has to be a way to make the pain stop.”

“Well, there are many ways this can go, obviously,” she began to say.

“I’m not going back to rehab,” Eliza interrupted.

“Relax. Not what I was thinking. That’s only option two,” she said. “Option one consists of two conditions.” Mrs. Darcy leaned forward to mirror her patient’s posture. “One, I’ll prescribe you a series of medications.”

“And two?”

“Therapy sessions with me four times a week and once you’re feeling better, I want you to start considering support group meetings. And I want to conduct regular drug testing, just in case.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

“It’s for your own good.”

“Why don’t you just admit me to the mental hospital?” she bit back.

“Do you want to get better?” Mrs. Darcy challenged.

“Yes, but-”

“Then you don’t have a choice.”

Eliza groaned. She was afraid this might happen. “But I don’t want to be viewed as weak,” she said. “I don’t want to be the burden everyone has to take care of. I can’t do this again. I’ve been through hell before, but this feels so much worse and it scares me. I can manipulate reality, literally. I can make a blind man see, I can create things out of nowhere and change the way the world works with just the palm of my hand. At least that’s what the story of the infinity stones dictates.”

She scoffed. “I can do all of that, but I can’t fix myself. I can’t do that and it sucks. It makes my powers useless because everything I do just feels wrong. So all of this…” she said, “It makes me feel weak and I hate feeling weak, especially when there is an indescribable power running through my veins, right under my skin, waiting to be used for good. I tried them and it felt good, but only until my mind screamed at me and then everything sucked again. I thought I understood now. Truth is, I don’t. I know nothing and that’s scary as shit. So I can’t be the weak one, not anymore. I need to learn how to be this new version of myself and I can’t be weak during that. I just can’t. That’s why I’m terrified – why I was so afraid of asking for help. I don’t want to be weak,” she stated.

Her voice sounded like a needle on the ground of an empty and silent room with high walls and linoleum floors. Drop, ping, echo.

Her leg bounced in the same rhythm. Nails dug into the fabric of her jeans, pulling at the fabric. Her fingers searched for anything she could touch or hold onto - Mrs. Darcy tilted her head.

“You remind me so much of the scared young woman that came to me less than three weeks ago, questioning her identity.” She caught onto the familiar aspects, the behavior she had more than anticipated, and Eliza huffed once again. “You know who you are now,” she continued, “but to achieve that, you went through hell. And there is still so much left unsaid that you will have to figure out on your own now. That sucks, I agree with you, but there is a way for everything. You came to me, not the other way around because you are ready to take the hand that is offered to you. You’re ready to take the road to recovery so you can, as you said, make sure you learn how to deal with this new version of yourself. That’s not weakness, it’s strength.”

“How do you differentiate?” Eliza questioned. “How do you go about differentiating between strength and weakness? Is there a psychological guide to that or are you just trying to make me feel better?”

Mrs. Darcy smiled. “I’ve been doing this job a very long time, Liz. I know a strong person when I see one. The concept of weakness being a bad thing is a common misconception that comes with a lot of guilt, especially for those suffering from mental illness. It’s okay to be weak,” she said, “but as soon as you decide to get help when you’re feeling down, you’re already stronger than those who belittle you for it. And if you decide to let a doctor treat your condition, that is a huge display of strength that should and will be acknowledged. The question is just, will you let me help you without putting hurdles in your way?”

Eliza switched her eyes between the painting of the beautiful woman on the wall, the name of an artist she had never heard before signed at the bottom, and the therapist’s expectant face.

“Okay,” she decided, finally.

As hard as that choice was to make, the woman made a very convincing argument. Matt loved her, she wasn’t alone, and wanting to get better was a display of strength so she could heal from a weakness that was nowhere near self-inflicted. There was nothing to feel guilty for.

Mrs. Darcy nodded. “Good.”

“And I’ll be better after that?” she asked. “With the medication and the therapy and the support group meetings, will I get better?”

“If you take your recovery seriously, sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember how long it took for that to heal?” Mrs. Darcy answered, pointing at her covered stomach and Eliza instantly wrapped her arms around herself, the scar screaming in protest at the reminder. “At first, you didn’t take it seriously and almost got yourself hurt again,” she said. “Then, you let someone help you get better and managed to regain full physical capacity in just a couple of days…”

Eliza frowned. “And it’s the same with my head?”

“It’s the same with your head, yes. Quid pro quo. I give you medication and a very clear treatment plan and in exchange, I get your trust and cooperation to ensure your recovery goes smoothly.”

“Like physical therapy and doctor’s appointments went hand in hand?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not so different,” she whispered to herself. “And you got better.” Convincing herself was harder without the voice in her head coming to the rescue with her snarky remarks.

She missed her.

Eliza sat in silence for a moment, contemplating, thinking, and bouncing her leg like a madwoman on the border of collapse before she told the woman before her, “Okay, let’s do this.”

Mrs. Darcy extended the prescription in her hand. “We start today,” she said.

Today.

I can’t tell you who you are or who you’re supposed to be. I can only show you who you are to everyone else. Your name is Eliza Bennett. You’re the girl who has devoted her life to saving and protecting people to seek penance for what she’s done in the past.

You have to find your inner self by working with yourself.

Who was Eliza Bennett, really? The question still rotated inside her head. She had an answer now though. She knew what to say.

Who was she?

She was Alina Isolde, named after her grandmother, and the daughter of Guinevere Hunt and Anton Sokovin-Petrova. Genetically mutated through the reality stone, born like any human being, delivered to Hydra, and turned into an assassin. Saved by Natasha Romanoff, adopted by SHIELD, trained to be a spy, and then taken under Tony Stark’s wing where she became an Avenger.

Eliza Bennett was a daughter to two dead parents, a found sister, a friend and confidant, a teacher and a student, an addict, a victim, and, most importantly, she was a survivor. And through all of that, she became a lover, finally able to add a girlfriend to the list.

Eliza Bennett was someone made out of flesh and blood. Someone with a beating heart. Thud, thud thud, thud. She was alive, she was breathing, and didn’t have to live her life in miserable loneliness anymore. She was back on her feet, right where she needed to be, and the rest of the puzzle pieces would fall in place soon enough to complete the picture.

Long story short, she survived, and she had to give herself all the credit for that.

“Father,” Matt’s voice echoed off the high walls of Clinton Church. He stood in the middle of the aisle, the red and blue tinted light of the colorful windows falling on his face and reflecting off his maroon glasses.

Father Lantom stood at the front, going through the lit candles at the altar. He relit those that had gone out and removed the ones that were paid little to no attention. At the sound of his voice, he looked up and over his shoulder.

“Matthew,” he replied with a certain element of shock in his voice. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said. “Are you doing alright?”

“Do you have a minute to talk?” Matt asked him. He had some time to waste and he felt the desperate need to get some things off his chest, things he couldn’t tell Eliza. He wasn’t sure how. She was going through problems of her and adding to that his crisis of faith would only make her feel guiltier. And with the pastor, he knew at least that he understood where he was coming from.

“Do you want me to take confession?” the father asked, “Or do you want to chat over a latte?”

“If you have the time to spare, I’d take you up on that latte, if you don’t mind.”

“There’s not much to do today. Typical Monday morning. I’m sure I have an hour or two before this place starts to get crowded. Is that enough?”

“More than,” he said.

“Okay, then. Let’s get the coffee maker running. The last time you came to me for a latte, you didn’t finish it. Perhaps you could try not to waste that expensive stuff today.”

Matt chuckled. “I wouldn’t dare.”

They sat together in the back room, the brewing hot lattes resting on the wooden table. He scratched at the cracked porcelain, scraping off some of the lacquer that decorated the brim of the mug.

“So,” Father Lantom prompted, “What brings you here today, Matthew?”

“The last time we sat together at this table I asked you if you believed in the existence of the Devil,” he said. “You gave me an answer that might as well have been straight from a theology book.”

“I only told you the truth about what I believe,” he countered.

The oxidized heat from the coffee blew over his face. “That’s not why I’m here, father. I don’t plan on asking you the same question again.”

“Then what is it?”

With a sigh that parted the milk on top of the latte and destroyed the perfectly crafted cocoa topping, Matt slid the glasses off his nose and ran a hand over his eyes. Father Lantom took note of the dark circles adorning his under eyes and the dull brown his usually bright eyes had faded into. He took a sip from his beverage, watching as the man he’s known ever since he was a kid fell apart in front of him.

He stammered, the sounds not quite coming out and his eyes missed the mark as well. “Why,” he began.

When he didn’t continue, he raised his eyebrows, leaning forward. “Why what?” the father asked.

“The Bible keeps stating that God is merciful. He’s portrayed as the savior of humanity,” he said and the confession opened a vent without the possibility of closing it again. The words came flowing out of him like a broken tap, bitter and poisoned, though at the same time desperate and pleading as if he wasn’t talking to the man he’s trusted since he came to the orphanage but to God himself. “He’s someone who only sees the good in people and forgives those who make mistakes for their sins,” Matt stated, “and if you seek penance for your actions, if you confess and make amends, make up for your mistakes and put your faith in him, he’ll guarantee you a spot on heaven if, and only if, you keep trying to be better for him.”

“Technically, yes,” father Lantom replied.

“Technically? Isaiah – Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. Or Lamentations – The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. They all portray him as mighty enough to forgive you even for the worst of sins, even if it breaks one of the Ten Commandments.”

“You forgot Deuteronomy,” he butted in.

“Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments,” Matt recited. “No,” he said, and his voice took an even more bitter tone as he chuckled, “I didn’t forget. You know what Exodus says about protecting the innocent?”

Of course, he did. He was the pastor, after all. He ran the church. He helped raise the children at the orphanage and teach them the ways of the Catholic Church, but more in his way than the ancient, prejudiced things that most Catholics still lived by. He memorized the Bible up and down and he was probably the smartest person Matt knew when it came to religion and faith. Father Lantom raised him. He trusted him to tell him the truth, but as his faith started to fade and he started to doubt his purpose in life, the man’s words mattered only a little.

“When Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.’ God protected them. God is supposed to protect good people and punish the bad. He’s supposed to punish the sinners who feel no regret for what they’ve done and make sure that the saints, the ones asking for forgiveness, are safe and sound. He’s supposed to bring peace,” he said. “So why is it, father, that even the best people find themselves amid disaster, alone and exposed, and God’s not even answering their prayers? Why does he let bad things happen to good people?”

The mood in the room had dropped drastically, turning the air thicker and colder than before. “Matthew,” Father Lantom said, “That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself, to answer a question like that. I mean, if you look at all of the wars happening around us, you can do an entire digression on the topic and it still won’t be enough,” he told him, “because there is no actual answer to that. I don’t know why. No one knows why.”

“What the hell are we supposed to do then?”

“Language!”

“Sorry, father.” Matt tilted his head back, crossed his fingers over his chest, over the golden necklace dangling from his neck still, right under his dress shirt, and apologized to the crucifix he knew was hanging on the wall behind him.

“Right now,” he said, “every last bible verse I remember sounds like they’re pretension, a lie concocted by the prophets, and it’s making me think God isn’t as merciful as they claimed. He isn’t there to have the backs of those asking him for help. And he certainly doesn’t care about stopping the sins he claims to despise from happening and destroying the lives of innocent people.”

The father sighed again. While his voice had changed in volume throughout his speech, he remained calm. “You want the answer of a priest or my personal opinion?” he asked.

“I want an explanation,” Matt retorted, “not just an answer to shut me down.”

“I told you, there is no real answer. I don’t know why God does or doesn’t do certain things. That’s up to him and him alone.”

“Great, so God does what he wants, consequences be damned?”

“He’s not a person, Matthew. He’s a deity. Viewing him as an almighty savior is a common misconception, but I told you that once, back when you were a teenager. I told you that God can’t just interact with us whenever he pleases. He’s there to look over us and offer us a hand every once in a while through signs and prayers, but he can’t magically appear and end wars that the greed of humans has started. He’s not a wizard, he’s God. When bad things happen to good people,” the father told him, “It’s because certain things are meant to happen a certain way, but not because God dictates our destinies. Bad things happen to us because that’s just what life is. Life is unfair, it’s cruel, it’s vile and so we often forget that God is essentially supposed to heal our emotional scars, not our physical ones. He doesn’t intercept because he can’t. We write our own history,” he said. “He can’t change that. He made us this way for a reason, we just have to accept that.”

His fist collided with the table. “Fuck!”

“Matthew.”

“No, I have to…” He rose to his feet, starting to pace, but not even that would stop the boiling anger in his chest. “There are people who twist religion to hurt others. They torture and kill in the name of God,” he said. “And then there are children who are at the receiving end of that torture. Innocent little children who don’t know any better pray to God asking him to help them out, but he doesn’t listen. He never does. He just left her there after she cried for him countless times, and so she gave up.”

Her - Father Lantom raised his eyebrows. The pronoun changed the situation behind his words drastically, and he finally started to realize why he came to him to ask such a complicated question. A question he should know better about.

He exchanged his empty mug for the full one on Matt’s side of the table. “Keep going,” he urged.

Matt sneered. “She gave up on God, on faith, because God failed her when she needed him the most. And now that everything is over, he doesn’t even inflict punishment on the person who’s behind all of this. He could get away with it because there is no real proof for what he did; all of his victims are dead, except for one, but she’s broken now because of him, and facing him is not… it’s not a choice she’d want to make. And since she’s a young woman, no male-dominated court would rule in her favor. And I’m standing here now like a fool because I dedicated my life to enforcing justice, but in this case, I am helpless. The law is helpless, it’s flawed, it won’t do anything other than possibly release a dangerous child molester into the world,” he said. “He holds a grudge now, father because she hurt him and she destroyed everything he built for himself, and if he gets out of that cell alive… I might lose her for good this time. So right now, I’m just torn while she’s still suffering from his hands, and it pains me that I can’t help her. She never did anything wrong before he took her childhood. That doesn’t seem fair.”

“And what exactly do you want me to do about it, Matthew?”

“I need you to tell me how to keep my faith in God when all he does is fail me and the people I care about.” He stood with his hands on his hips again, eyes red and drained, and the faintest sheen of tears framed his face. “There is seemingly nothing I can do to change the fact that this man, this disgrace, ruined her life. Except for this one thing… If his case ever goes to trial, we’re screwed. She’s screwed. I can’t let that happen, so he needs to be erased from the narrative. If God won’t do something about it, I have to. I’d do it for her, I’d do it for every single one of his victims just to make sure no other kid has to go through the same shit again,” he said.

Father Lantom looked him deep into his sightless eyes when he asked, “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Matt sighed. “I need you to teach me how to believe again before I break the highest of the Ten Commandments.”

“Ah,” he said. “I figured this day would come.”

“You don’t understand, father. That man deserves to die,” he stated, “and every passing second makes it harder not to think about it. With every passing second, my hatred grows stronger and I want nothing more than to storm his cell and squeeze the life out of that miserable throat.”

“But you don’t want to kill him, do you, Matthew? I think that’s the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen talking, not you, not Matthew Murdock. You’re not like that. You’re not cruel, not ruthless, you’re just a man trying to protect his city. Murder is not your agenda, ever. You have to understand that.”

“I am Daredevil. I can’t change who I am, but I can be there for her and if I have to break this one rule,” he ground his teeth, “This one tiny rule to make sure she’s gonna be okay... Well, that’s not a hard choice to make. I’d choose her over God any day and that terrified me.”

“Would she want that?” he emphasized in hopes he would give more than he had to offer. “You give up your faith like that? For her?”

“No,” said Matt, “But she’s only saying that to protect me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Whose side are you on, father?”

The man answered without missing a beat, “God’s and the laws.”

“Well, then you’re more foolish than I thought you were.”

He grabbed his cane from the table, opened it, and slid the red-tinted glasses back on his face. Matt patted the wooden surface. “Thanks for the latte,” he said.

“Matthew,” father Lantom called after him, “Wait!”

He didn’t wait. He took the familiar road down the corridor, down the aisle, and out of the heavy double doors into the humid New York summer air.

The first few days were hard. Just when Eliza thought it couldn’t get any worse, the claws clinging to her soul dragged her further down. She flapped around desperately, trying to stay afloat, but the current was too strong. The waves slapped her across the face, forcing her under the surface. At first, she managed to swim up for air. She managed to keep her nose over water, at least, so she wouldn’t drown. Though the more water she swallowed, the more of it landed in her lungs. Breathing got harder, draining her of strength, and her arms only flailed aimlessly around the ocean. They were no longer strong enough to keep her up and she was so tired, she eventually gave up. She passed out and sank, heading straight for the bottom.

Antidepressants take a while to take effect. The stronger ones might hit faster, but until the body is fully adjusted, you won’t feel the effects.

She was afraid of what the pills would do to her. The last time she tried them, she lost control of her powers. But Eliza had no choice. She was dying, or she felt like she was, but she honestly believed that if she kept breathing, she would die. The pain tore through her chest, right where she suspected the soul was and paralyzed her entire body.

Every day, Matt supervised the intake of her medication closely - he would have forced them down her throat if she had said no. They were working. She hated to admit it to herself but the pills were working. The first two nights, she slept straight through. No nightmares, no dreams. Following the new substance in her body, her appetite increased and on the third day, she managed to force herself out of bed and into the shower.

Matt stayed. He called in sick for the week, causing a dispute between him and Foggy, but when he told him that Eliza was alive and that she was his reason for not being able to go to work, his friend eased up. Although he wasn’t pleased to hear that the girl he now considered something close resembling family was back and he didn’t even get to see her. Matt wouldn’t elaborate further, he couldn’t, it wasn’t his place, so Foggy simply took the information and tried to store it away before curiosity could kill him.

Eliza insisted many times that he should return to work without her, but he wouldn’t leave. He wanted to wait and take her with him the next time he stepped foot into the office, but the more time she spent cooped up together with him, the less she felt in control of herself.

She had no power over him, not even when she told him to spend a few hours at night outside. She told him to resume his activities as Daredevil until she was out of the woods completely and they could start anew, but even with that, he refused.

The chances of Matt getting hurt were higher as Daredevil than at home in bed with her, but Eliza saw the way he tensed whenever he heard something outside, and that hurt her more than seeing him with a black eye or a few broken ribs.

Sometimes he would sit on the couch long after he put her to bed, fists clenched at his sides as he listened to the sirens signaling another crime that hadn’t been stopped, another hurt civilian, and another criminal set lose on the streets of his beloved Hell’s Kitchen.

He spent more time in the bathroom, holding his head underwater, and when that didn’t work, he started to rearrange the kitchen to distract himself. Soft jazz music often played in the background, or he put on noise-canceling headphones and he wouldn’t talk to her until he was finished with whatever project he put his mind to. All because he didn’t want to leave her while she was at her most vulnerable. The less she suffered, the more he retreated into his shell, but that shell was see-through and offered little to no protection, only prolonged pain.

Eliza had enough of watching him run himself into the ground for the sake of her mental well-being. She had to get back out there, as did Matt. They desperately needed to get a life.

And when she finally got the go-ahead after two very cruel weeks, no one was more excited than her to return to a life of normal. As normal as it could get, anyway. Matt wasn’t pleased, but she refused to let him talk her down.

“Foggy sends his love,” he told her after a particularly draining phone call with his colleague about a case offer they received. “And he said he can’t wait for us to work together. Most importantly, he can’t wait to see you again. But he also said that you should charge your phone,” he pressed a kiss to her head on his way past the couch, “Which is something I keep telling you, but you won’t listen.”

She looked at the dead cell phone on the living room table. It still existed and it had all the necessary numbers to call to make amends, but every time she considered plugging it in, she stopped herself. They would find her if she did – Happy, Pepper, possibly even Tony. She couldn’t face them. Not yet.

Addicts anonymous offers twelve steps to follow on the journey to full sobriety. One of them is admission. Eliza had to admit to herself that she had a problem, but not only to herself. Forgiveness is only the eleventh step, yet truly the most important. Making amends with the past makes it easier to look forward to what lies in the future. Put a lock on the chapter and place the book back on the shelf, perhaps start a new one.

She made amends with everyone involved, except Foggy and Happy. She cared about them too much to look them in the eyes. In the case of Matt’s business partner though, she didn’t have a choice. He automatically became her boss when she took her boyfriend up on his offer, and since he told Foggy to finalize it as soon as she was able to leave the house and no longer pose a danger to herself or others, there was no way out. She wanted this, but facing him and Karen – especially Karen – after such a long time and everything that happened, was stressful and had her shaking just at the thought of it.

But life has never been known to be particularly kind, and her third chance started to look pretty good. Saying no to starting over out of fear of being rejected and hated by the people she loved would’ve been a foolish thing to do, and she no longer wanted to be foolish. She wanted to make the right choice and she had – facing the music was the hard part.

Eliza woke Matt that day with a slight nudge. He grumbled and rolled over, pressing his face into the pillows. The sensory overload made it harder for him to sleep, so even without his vigilante duties, he fell asleep only after three in the morning and often got up before her so he could make coffee.

This time though, she made sure she woke up before him. Perhaps it was the excitement of getting back into the world or she was too anxious to sleep; either way, she woke up way before the set alarm to return the favor Matt had given her many times before.

She went into the kitchen, bare feet hitting the ground with small taps that she hoped he didn’t pick up on. His blue dress shirt hung loosely over her figure. Yawning, she took the orange capsule standing on the counter, opened it, and poured a pill into her hand. Two more followed. They tasted bitter on her tongue before she managed to swallow them with some much-needed coffee.

Why would Matt ever voluntarily get up this early in the morning? She thought back to working out with Steve, and his schedule often started at five. That had been far worse than standing in the soft morning sun breaking through tinted windows in the apartment of the man she loved, but seven was still far too early for her liking. Eliza considered going back to bed, sliding under his protective arm, and sleeping some more, but the coffee was already done and she had other plans.

She had to get back on her feet and learn how to walk without crutches. She had to learn how to help herself, and for that, she had to put a lot more personal effort into the process. She had to want this.

Mrs. Darcy never pressured her to charge her phone and face what was left of her family because they posed a very obvious trigger she wanted to avoid while the effects of the antidepressants were still underway, but her sobriety was a very important aspect too and what she learned from the many meetings she had been to years before, making amends and asking for forgiveness plays a vital part in recovery. It would help her get better, not slow her down, so she inserted the charger into her phone, leaving it out to charge on the dinner table.

She would check again once the device restored itself after such a long time of being empty and unused.

Matt stirred when she lightly shook his shoulder, grumbling something inaudible before he rolled over and went back to sleep. She sighed. Waking Matt was a dangerous game, one most people would lose at. But she wasn’t willing to let him get away with it.

She swung her leg over his hip, straddling his sleeping frame. His eyebrows twitched - he could feel her heat right over his crotch and the sudden pressure applied to his body coaxed him out of unconsciousness.

“Matt,” Eliza whispered into his ear. “Matthew,” she said. “Wake up.”

He didn’t, although his hands came to rest on her hips as if his body had gotten so used to the motion, he didn’t even have to be awake for it.

If this was what he thought would happen, she had to disappoint him. Instead of grinding herself on his clothed cock, she pulled the pillow from under his head roughly. His head hit the mattress with a thud. Slowly, he started to blink back to life, but not in time to stop the fluffy cotton wrapped in silk from coming down on his face.

His reflexes came in motion when she hit him a second time, and by then he was already wide awake.

“What the-” he forced the pillow away from her hand, grabbing her wrists and crossing them on his chest. “What did I ever do to you?” his voice sounded ten times more attractive when it was still laced with sleep, groggy and hoarse, a sound born straight from his chest.

She grinned. Her chest filled with a sudden warmth that, the past couple of days, had been little to non-existent. The numbness subsided, leaving behind a state of relief, still clouded by exhaustion and thoughts she couldn’t shut off, especially not when it came to the man underneath her, but the pain was barely there anymore. Or she couldn’t feel it, anyway.

“You need to get up,” she told him.

“Why?” he challenged.

Eliza attempted to steal the pillow from her side of the bed. “Because…” he caught onto her sheepish plan before she could follow through on it. “We have to go to work.”

She barely even flinched when the pillow bounced off her face. “Rude,” she said.

Matt shrugged. “You started it.”

“I just wanted to wake you.”

“There are a million different ways you could have done that.”

“Oh,” she cocked her head to the side, “Is that so, Murdock?”

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, sweetheart,” he said.

“You mean, like, suffocate you with this pillow?”

“That’s not… You know, some days, you terrify me a little.” He pinched his fingers together, not leaving space for air between the two. “Just a little,” he said.

She smirked. “I know,” she told him. Pecking his lips, she placed the pillow aside and brushed his bed hair back. “But you love me all the more for it.”

“Hmph,” Matt grunted in disapproval, but instantly melted into her touch when she kissed him again. His hands stroked up and down her back. “You’re lucky I love you, or else I would take your death threats very seriously.”

“Naw, don’t be afraid,” she cooed. “I would never hurt you, Matty.”

He squeezed the flesh of her hip. “I’m not afraid, especially not of you. I mean, those puppy dog eyes you give when you want something,” he stated, “they’re not very terrifying.”

“You sure?” Eliza squealed when he pinched her again, digging his fingers right into the most ticklish spot, and the sparkle in his eyes told her she screwed up. “Ow. Matt, stop it!”

“Why?”

“Because- HEY!” He dug his fingers into her waist, moving them back and forth and pressing further down until she was wheezing with laughter.

She rolled off and he followed, using his weight to pin her down and continued tickling her into the mattress. Tears ran down her face and the laughter got higher and more breathless with every move of his fingers. She couldn’t even fight back.

She gasped when he suddenly attacked her neck with kisses. Not gentle ones though. He found the spot behind her ear and used his stubble to scratch against the skin there. She squirmed.

“Stop it!” she laughed. “Matt, please. I mean it. Have mercy on me!”

He chuckled, answering plainly, “No.”

“Please, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean what I sa-ah-id.” Eliza clawed at his arm, giggling uncontrollably to the point her stomach hurt and she couldn’t move anymore. He had complete access now. “Would you stop?” she panted between squeaks, “This is unfa-ah- unfair! Matt, please. Oh, stop it! Time-out, time-out!”

He finally eased up.

“Jesus, I should sue you,” she took a deep breath, “for- for tickling assault.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Tickling assault?” Matt mused. “Seriously?”

“Yes, tickling assault! Look it up. It’s written in the Constitution.”

“Objection, speculation!”

“Overruled,” she said. “The plaintiff has evidence.”

“Oh, really? What does she have on me?”

“Evidence,” Eliza emphasized. “Evidence you won’t get to see without my very good lawyer present.”

“In that case, I take the fifth.”

“HA! I knew it!”

“That was not a confession,” he added. “I’m just choosing not to incriminate myself.”

She scoffed. “Weak! Hiding behind the fifth amendment to conceal the truth that you are, in fact, a serial tickler.”

He smiled even brighter at her playfully articulated words and the frustration of her bottom lip when she realized he was mocking her. “The fifth amendment is every US citizen’s right to take in a court of law. C’mon, sweetheart, if you want to work with me you have to know that,” he said, albeit teasingly.

“Oh, I do know that.”

“Yeah? Did you read the research material I gave you?”

A pause. “I watched Hamilton,” she said.

Matt didn’t protest when she slung her leg around his hip and rolled him onto the mattress, resuming her position in his lap. He chuckled at her previous words, the lyrics of the musical still stuck in his head from the many days before.

She had worn headphones while the soundtrack played on his laptop, keeping the volume down not to disturb him while he was sleeping. Little did she know that he had been awake the entire three hours, listening to her sing along under her breath, somehow memorizing every single word after the first listen. At first, it reminded him of the day the musical premiered and the album dropped on all streaming platforms, and he sat in his office across from Foggy’s and the former theater kid started to rap every last song loudly, including the sound effects, and it had caused Matt quite the headache when he did. But he loved him, so he never told him. He liked to compliment his singing to spare his feelings, but his rendition of the musical, the Foggy Nelson one-man show was not something he wanted to actively listen in on for a second time (and still he did because listening to him put his entire soul into every ballad was oddly refreshing, even to his sensitive ears).

With Eliza though, he knew that her voice already soothing enough to ease his nerves in dire situations. She had a nice voice, one he liked listening to. Every time she hummed Chasing Cars when she was nervous, he got a small glimpse into what her singing voice would sound like and while it was nowhere near trained, she sounded surprisingly good.

So he stayed awake while she sang along under her breath, too caught up in her head to remember that not even a whisper or the dampening of sound-canceling headphones could keep him from hearing part of what she heard.

Needless to say, he would listen to her do it all over again. He would take her to a karaoke bar right now and make her compete with Foggy if that was what it would take for her to sing for him. He knew that his friend would be down right away. Eliza, not so much. She hated public speaking - public singing would only be twice as horrible.

“I suppose Lin Manuel-Miranda’s songwriting is one way to learn about history,” he murmured, “but does it teach you anything about law?”

She hit him. Even playfully, her punches packed a certain force that had him flinch upon impact. “Shut up or I’ll rap the entirety of Guns And Ships in a very bad French accent right into your ear,” she said.

He snorted. “No, thank you.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Matt happily sat up against the headboard, stroking the hair from her face - hair which he now knew the color of. He remembered every last highlight, the way the sun fell on the strands, and showed her in an entirely different light. He imagined her lips curling up again, her beautiful smile reaching his heart in streaks of yellow, warm like the sun. Her eyes probably eyed him up and down, her pupils blown from the change of light in the bedroom, and the color around it competing with her smile for a spot in the sun. He could feel the heat under her skin, the blood rushing to her cheeks, and he could see her face before his inner eye, skin colonized by a soft, red flush from the cold of the open window and the heat of him underneath her.

Eliza pecked his forehead, “But I suppose you can be forgiven.”

Matt’s cheeks flushed when she pulled away, the blood rushing to his head only because he realized he had been fantasizing about her in the middle of their conversation and the tune of her heartbeat told him that she knew.

“Oh, so it’s a not guilty verdict then?” he asked.

“Yes, I believe so. Your innocence was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Well, give my thanks to the jury if you happen to see them.”

“You can thank them yourself. They’re right here.”

“Where?”

She pursed her lips. “Right here. You gotta bow down a bit.”

“Like this?” He leaned forward.

“A bit further.”

He lowered his head. “Here?”

“You’re still missing some distance there, counselor.”

“Oh, I see,” Matt pinched her chin between his thumb and index finger, “I think I found them,” he said, and then, finally, he kissed her.

Eliza wrapped her arms around his neck with the most content sigh. His hand came to rest around her neck, the perfect necklace, and he didn’t have to pay for expensive jewelry for her to be happy with it. Their lips moved lazily against each other. There was no fight for dominance, no rush, only the two of them molded together like marble, not quite the same contrasts blending - one was darker than the other; one was the sun, the other the moon, black and white - but they still came in one piece.

He licked over her bottom lip, sucking the flesh into his mouth. She gasped softly, allowing his tongue to enter, though not without testing the waters first, waiting for her to open up far enough so he could swallow every possible breath that came from her throat. With the way their noses brushed together, oxygen became a rarity for their lungs, fighting to be granted at least some air with the other pressing so tightly against them.

The fact that Matt navigated his world through touch was a well-known fact. It was the main source of being able to paint a mental picture of his surroundings. The enhancement of his other senses added to that, of course, but the touch was the sense he relied most upon. He liked to touch what was his, showed his affection through lingering touches, held onto his friends any chance he got to keep them from leaving his side, and reveled in the feel of soft fabrics against his sensitive skin, giving the constant overstimulation a break.

At the same time, he experienced the affection of others much deeper than the ordinary human being. When she touched him, his skin felt on fire, and goosebumps adorned everywhere she touched. Every last spot sparked with electricity, sending signals to his brain, and she tickled just the right centers to cause imminent pleasure. The pleasure wasn’t often sexual. A mere release of endorphins and oxytocin relaxed his muscles and calmed him, soothing the constant hammering that caused his head to spin.

Arousal was the strongest sensation of all he could feel because it wasn’t just his sex that craved attention, it was all of him. Her touch could bring him to the edge of orgasm just by rubbing over his arms, his legs, even his hair, and while it was exhaustion to get so easily riled up, she made it worth it. He didn’t have to hold back. She refused to let him.

Her body moved to the rhythm of his kisses. adjusting ever so slightly to sit more comfortably in his lap. By then he could only count the seconds before she would feel the effect of her wriggling. The drug-like high his lips caused had her mind floating somewhere else. She only realized what was happening when he broke the kiss, breathing heavily, and he stilled her hips with a firm grip.

“Don’t,” he warned.

Eliza licked her lip, brows furrowing at his request. “What?” she said.

“Don’t-” Matt swallowed, “Don’t move.” The please he added ran silent.

“What are you talking about- oh.” She shifted, directing her eyes downward, and then she stilled, feeling the hard outline of his cock pressing against her panties. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. “Oops?”

He must have gotten turned on pretty early, considering she could feel the wet patch of pre-cum soaking through both of their underwear and coating her folds. Except that she didn’t have any sex drive left in her. Even the sight of him naked didn’t have her clenching like it usually did. Though as she inspected his closed eyes, the blush on his cheeks, and the sight of his cock straining against the waistband of his underwear, she couldn’t help but feel a little proud of herself.

Matt’s fingers dug into her hips. He cleared his throat, daring to open his eyes again. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I wasn’t trying- I know you’re not- God, I’m sorry. That usually doesn’t happen. I’m not a fucking teenager anymore.”

She placed a finger on his lips. “Don’t talk,” she shushed him. “It’s okay.”

“I don’t- I mean, we don’t have to- I know you’re not feeling the same right now. I just need a moment to focus, to get the, uh, blood back into my head, but your wriggling isn’t helping. So please, Liz, stop moving.”

“I have a better idea.”

He did it for her all the time. The least she could do was return the favor - she wanted to put him first because he often came to short in life, always the savior, always the catholic, and always eager to serve and give pleasure rather than take it. He would never ask her to do it. He liked to swallow his needs to treat her own. More often than not they took down the road of his desires anyway but not because he asked but because it just happened. He got off, and he enjoyed it, but even Matt Murdock had needs that needed to be articulated more. He was clear about what he didn’t want, but when it came to asking for an act of service directed at him? He wasn’t going to do that without a little push.

Determined to make him cum first for once, Eliza took his hands and put them on the front of his dress shirt she wore. The buttons felt cold under his fingertips as he traced them, frowning, waiting for her to tell him what her mission was.

She didn’t want to have sex, but she would gladly go down on him. She would do everything it took to make him come undone for her. He could touch her however he wanted, as long as it brought him pleasure. He just didn’t seem to get the gist yet, too caught up in his head and embarrassment to make the connection.

She sighed wearily. Stubborn as ever, she thought. “Undress me,” she told him.

“Sweetheart, you’re not even…” he trailed off to play with the slightly oversize fabric again.

He wondered which one she wore. Was it a blue or a white one? He had a red one too, that much he knew because Foggy made him buy it after they graduated. He doubted she would choose the most expensive though, probably one he wore the past couple of days, one of the more casual shirts.

His cock twitched, painfully hard and rubbed against the silk of his boxers when she rolled her hips against his just enough to make him feel something.

“You’re right,” Eliza said, “I’m not at all horny right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be. I told you, it’s okay. I’d be glad to help you. Now,” she forced his hands away from her abdomen and onto her breasts, “Undress me.” Her voice lowered and she grew more demanding.

Matt gnawed on his bottom lip. Fuck. She was something else when she was determined to get what she wanted, more than willing to take control to let him lose it.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. However, he had already opened the first button by the time he finished talking. Her scent hit him stronger, his body wash and her perfume mixed with the freshly brewed coffee in the kitchen that had probably gone cold.

She shushed him. “I want to.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Matthew.”

The next button plopped open and he reached inside, brushing his hand over her soft nipples. Why that turned him on as if she did the same thing to him, he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was voodoo, but he knew better than to complain. The heavy feeling of her breasts in his hand, the soft flesh tender and perfectly squeezable, had him groan.

“You want to kiss them?” she asked. If it hadn’t been for the context, he would have called her adorable, almost, the way she slurred her words to make him feel more comfortable.

Eliza guided his head toward her cleavage when he gave a faint nod, too turned on to answer. Once close enough, he grabbed both boobs tightly and buried his head between them. What it would feel like to squeeze them to make a tighter entrance and thrust his cock between them, feeling them bounce as he brought himself to orgasm all over her beautiful chest, her nipples perky and coated in his cum?

Fuck. He made himself even harder just from the mental image, the faint idea of the feeling settling in. He wanted nothing more than to fuck her tits, but that was something he had reserved for another time.

She let him suck several hickeys into her skin up until the point he was satisfied and she could pry him away from her boobs, eyes wide with curiosity as she stared into his hooded ones. “Tell me what you want,” she told him.

“I- n’ugh!”

She licked a long strip over his neck.

“I don’t know…” he sighed.

“Do you want me to suck you off,” she offered, “Stroke your cock,” her hand slipped lower, over his straining abs and his boxers, avoiding his erection for now and instead brushing his upper thigh, “Or do you want me to grind on you until you cum?” she finished, eyeing him for any signs of distress.

Matt fisted the sheets, nostrils flared, while the other hand remained on her hip. She cradled his face, scratched his scalp, and found his most sensitive spot, before sucking a purple mark into the pale skin of his chest. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, leaving behind a ghastly white underneath the full blackness of his lashes.

Eliza peeked up at him and the sight was truly victorious. The usually so strong, put-together, and sturdy Matt Murdock looked absolutely wrecked with his hair disheveled, lips swollen and his mouth hung open, the prospect of her suggestions driving him insane.

“Talk to me, my love,” she purred, licking over the hickey she left and adding another right underneath it. “What do you want me to do?”

He whimpered, not wanting to say it, even though he knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted her to do all the things she suggested until he was shaking from the sheer pain of overstimulation, his cock red and swollen and exhausted from the orgasms she would pull from him. It was a dark fantasy, something he couldn’t ask of her. Inflicting pain on him until he came while she sat by and watched - it was a scene meant to be played under different circumstances.

“I suppose I could just keep kissing you. That could make you cum, right?” she said. “I wouldn’t even have to touch you for that to happen. I mean, you’re already so painfully hard, you even wet my underwear like a desperate little boy who can’t even tell me that he wants to have his dick sucked. And here I was, foolishly thinking you were such a strong, big boy when you are actually just as much of a whore as I am, but too much of a proud brat to admit just how submissive to my control your little pet brain is.”

She stopped kissing him, realizing what had just passed her lips, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, God,” she stammered, “I’m so sorry, that wasn’t… I have no idea where that came from.”

This was, for the lack of a better word, outright filthy. And the worst part was that Eliza liked being in this position, finally in control and able to make him feel all the things he made her feel. She wanted to give back, and she wanted him to follow her needs.

The more surprised she was at his reaction. Matt swallowed hard, his muscles flexing and then he moaned loudly. Louder than he ever had before. His head writhed against the pillow. He was embarrassed - embarrassed that this turned him on so much, his cock bumped her cunt with a desperate thrust. She held his hips down, still staring at him.

How did they go from a tickling fight to this?

He barely choked out, “Again.”

And she raised her eyebrows even further. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Do that again. Say it. Fuck!” He was completely at her mercy now. “Please, sweetheart. Keep talking to me like that.”

Finally.

“Wow,” she jumped back into the condescending tone as if it were her second nature. “Are you really that desperate to be fucked?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Is that what you want? My mouth around your cock?”

“Yeah, I want it. I need your mouth. Fuck, I just… I need to cum so bad, baby. So, so bad.”

“Wasn’t so hard now, was it? Asking for what you want like a good boy.”

“Oh.”

“Of course, that would get you twitching. Me calling you a good boy. Is that what you want? Does my little whore want to be called a good boy while I go down on him?”

His back arched off the bed and she wasn’t even far enough to touch him yet. “Huh, pet, tell me. Do you want to be my good boy and cum in my mouth?” she asked.

“I already told you,” he whined.

“Tell me again.”

“Sweetheart…”

“Matthew,” Eliza retorted his name like sweet poison on her tongue and acid on his skin.

He hissed when she finally pulled down his underwear enough to free his aching cock. Matt was done for the second the cold air hit the mushroom tip. His body twitched. Her hands felt like thousand tiny needles. She scratched at his thighs, her mouth hovering above his crotch, but she didn’t touch him where he needed her most.

He wanted to curse her, but his voice betrayed him. “Please,” he whimpered.

Fuck. Perhaps that was enough to turn her on, after all. It sure filled her being with a sense of superiority, and that was quite attractive.

“Sweetheart, please,” he tried again, “Let me fuck your mouth.”

She clicked her tongue. “Tsk, that is not how this is gonna go.”

“I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?”

“Yes, anything for you. I just need you to touch me. Tell me what I have to do.” His eyes trailed aimlessly over the ceiling. “Suck me off. Take my dick into your mouth. Do something, please. I just want to be inside of you. I want to feel you. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

“God, Matthew, I love it when you beg.”

“Please.”

“Yeah, keep those pleas coming until you cum,” she said. “That’s what you can do while I make sure you get the attention only good boys deserve.”

Licking up the base of him, she traced the protruding veins with her tongue. They pulsated with need. The tip of his cock was weeping, leaving traces of his impending release on his stomach. She licked the pre-cum off his sweaty skin, then returned to paying close attention to every outline of his cock. He was a whimpering mess, grabbing the sheets, the pillows, and the headboard, trying to keep his arms up. He wanted nothing more than to fuck into her mouth until he was coming and she was choking, but she had such a hold on him, he felt almost weak, restrained by her words and arms and that mouth of hers that knew just what to do.

“You are so good at that,” he breathed. “Please, just take it in your mouth. Suck me off, baby.”

She suckled at his tip, blinking up at him all innocently.

“Fuck! Move.”

Suddenly, her mouth was gone and he felt her eyes on him, disappointed and exasperated. “I don’t like that tone,” Eliza told him, almost like a teacher condescending to her misbehaving student, but not quite ready to inflict punishment just yet. “You can be nicer than that, can’t you? After all, I’m on my knees for you,” she said. “You can show me at least some gratitude, baby.”

Her hand replaced the touch of her mouth. She moved up and down his shaft, stroking her thumb over his slit, collecting even more pre-cum and using it as lube to move faster.

His hips bucked. She stopped, squeezing a little harder and he moaned, high-pitched and desperate. “Don’t fight against me, or you won’t get to cum at all.”

“I can’t,” Matt grunted, “it’s too much. I need more. I- I need you to move, now.”

“What do you say?”

“Please! Take my cock in your mouth, please.”

“Good boy,” she said. “You know what to say if it gets too much.” Her voice took a slightly softer tinge, though it didn’t last for long - only seconds after, she sank down on him in one go, ignoring her gag reflex as she took his full length into her mouth until he hit the back of her throat, thick, swollen, and salty on her tongue, pulsating with need and desperation, his orgasm only moments away. He was that sensitive.

Her throat kept him warm for several seconds. She didn’t move and the grasp she had on his hips and thighs prevented him from bucking up into her mouth. Eliza warned him with a simple look that if he broke free, she would stop. He felt her gaze burning through him. Matt had no choice but not to comply if he wanted to finish.

He licked his lip. “Please,” he exhaled. “Just like that, sweetie. I’m so close.”

She smiled smugly, having him right where she wanted him.

Fondling his balls, she could already feel him tense under her touch, and when she returned to suck at his tip, paired with the constant motion of her hand jerking him up and down, and the other squeezing his balls, his toes curled and he came with new intensity.

Eliza wasn’t prepared for the extent of his orgasm. She took him in fully, gagging at the size and the flush of liquid down her throat. Matt grabbed her hair, not to push her down but rather to pull her off. His cum spurted over her chest, running down her sternum and onto her breasts. The liquid was hot and sticky; she looked at the white now coating her skin and she sighed. His cum looked so good on her skin, she wished she could show him.

She swallowed the remains of his release in her mouth, then ran her finger through the thick, white cum on her chest and licked her fingers clean too, making sure to make as much obscene noise with her tongue and lips as possible, all just so he could hear what he had done.

Matt winced. His body laid slack against the mattress, chest heaving, and with his eyes closed – he looked so done, so messy. She smiled softly yet proudly at the picture he offered. The thought of taking a picture while he was still blissed out poked her. She pushed it down. He wouldn’t appreciate his nudes being taken, surely, especially since he couldn’t enjoy the same liberty. Although it sounded exciting to take his naked frame with her everywhere she went, ruined, covered in cum, and he was still begging for her, even with his mind rendered useless. He was submissive to her.

Wiping her mouth, she dared to crawl back up. She touched his face. Upon that, he flinched and she pulled back. “No touching?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Is there something you need?”

“Water,” he pleaded.

“Okay. Hold on.” Eliza reached beside herself for the bottle she always kept on the floor of her bedside. She opened the cap and handed it to him.

Matt finished most of the bottle greedily, then offered it to her. He nodded toward her lips and the cum on her chest. She totally forgot how messy she looked herself, and how much of him coated her taste buds. The taste was overwhelming, drying on her gums and lips.

She took the rest of the water and drank it, shooting him a thankful smile. With his dress shirt, she wiped at the cum around her nipples.

Only when his breathing had slowed, did Matt trust his voice again enough to form a logical sentence. “Thank you for doing this,” he said.

“You don’t have to thank me,” she resisted the urge to run a hand through his messy hair, “I told you, I wanted to do this. You deserve to be taken care of too, you know. You don’t have to worry about me all the time. I’m a grown woman,” Eliza said, “And you’d know if I was lying.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes. “I just feel bad that you didn’t… you know, cum. You probably didn’t even enjoy it.”

She propped her head up on her elbow, smiling at him, and he turned his head in her direction. “I don’t need to finish all the time, Matt. I enjoyed myself, believe me. It felt good to see you like this for a change. Made me forget about everything else.”

“You-” he swallowed, blushing once again. “The things you said…” She expected him to tell her he didn’t like it or that she did a bad job, perhaps, but he took her off guard with his actual answer. “When did you become so dirty?” Matt asked.

She broke into a rather flustered laughing fit. “Oh, my God!” She hid behind her hands. “I don’t know. The words just slipped out.”

“Listen, I’m not complaining, but that took me by surprise.”

“Trust me, I didn’t know I had it in myself either.”

He chuckled. “Let’s do it again,” he said.

Eliza stuttered. “Like, right now?”

“No! Not right now, but someday. Soon, maybe.”

“Okay, I’m down.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are. There are also some thing I want to try with you-“

“Yes!” Her eyes mit up. “God, yes!”

He chuckled. “You don’t even know what I was gonna say,” he teased.

“If you were gonna tell me that you want to try out some BDSM stuff with me, I know exactly what you wanted to say,” she said.

“Well…” it was what he planned to say.

The excitement in her voice told him all he needed to know, silent confirmation that she was more than down to try.

“My answer is yes.”

“If that’s so, we have an agreement.”

“Hm-hm. We do. Until then…”

Matt recognized the sound of her voice. She left the unsaid hanging in the room, waiting for him to pick up on it and piece together the hints she gave, which were barely there but somehow he knew. He always knew what she was talking about without having to say anything.

He let the thoughts pass through the many systems in his brain, contemplating, weighing pros and cons, and then he listened to her steady heartbeat some more.

“We have to go to work, don’t we?” he said. His voice was soft, a gentle caress in the sex-scented bedroom.

Eliza smiled at him. “Yeah,” she said, “We have to. We can’t stay in bed all day.”

“Okay. You’re right.” He sat up, removing the blanket from his body completely, and wrapping her up instead. Gently, he nuzzled his nose into her hair. “I love you,” he said between two kisses to her scalp.

She hummed in response, eyes fluttering close. “Love you too.”

“I’m just gonna take a shower real quick. Wanna join me?”

“Mh-hm.” She took the hand he offered her, wriggling her legs out of the tangled sheets.

He picked her up before she could make her way to the bathroom. Eliza had gotten used to his antics. He liked to carry her. It was something she wouldn’t complain about.

“Did you take your meds?” he asked her then.

She gave a small nod. “All three of them.” Her heartbeat told the truth.

Matt remained satisfied with the answer, “Good girl.”

“Hey,” upon seeing the worry on his face when he set her down in the comfort of the small shower stall, she told him, “We’re gonna be okay.”

He sighed, eyes closing as she roamed his bare chest for something to hold onto, imprinting the way he felt into her brain. As if she hadn’t done that enough already, there would always be something that she missed and she wanted to make sure she got all of him.

“I know,” he said. “But as long as I’m alive, I’m always going to worry about you.”

They shared a kiss. She smiled into it, thankful and overall, finally happy.

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she concluded.

Matt chuckled as he felt the stickiness of her chest slowly subside under the hot water. He used the sponge and some of his body wash to gently brush over her breasts. “C’mon, let’s get all this cum off your chest…”

“Whatever you say, baby girl.”

He stopped. “WHAT?” his voice echoed off the shower walls before he burst out laughing. “What the fuck did you just call me?”

“Baby girl,” she shrugged. “I mean, you’re baby girl material. I found it fitting.”

“Oh, my God. This is awful,” he wheezed. “Don’t ever call me that again!”

“Sure thing, counselor.”

Matt cocked an eyebrow. He purred at the honorific, “Now that is something I can get down with.”

“But baby girl isn’t?” Eliza challenged.

“Never in a million years.”

“Bummer.”

“Where’d you even get that?”

“I have absolutely no idea. The words were just put in my mouth…”

“Well, try to think before you speak next time.” He pinched her side. “I don’t want to hear you call me that ever again.”

She giggled. “Alright, counselor. Whatever you want, you get.”

Her happy ending was right there. There was seemingly nothing she had to worry about anymore. And if she tried hard enough, which she planned to do, she was going to be okay, and all the pain would have been worth it in the end.

Good things come to those who wait, right?

And Eliza tried hard to make it all worthwhile.

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