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#which IS in fact something very bad that has happened to them
velvet-vexations · 2 days
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The thing about comparing Kipperlilly's grudge to hating DEI and affirmative action is that those things are exactly what she's advocating for. The Bad Kids are not receiving accommodation for anything - and in fact Aguefort seems like the type to despise things like accommodations and would tell disabled people to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, but I digress -rather, they have direct connections to massive save-the-world plots three years in a row now that puts them way ahead of everyone else. Though they put in hard work, that doesn't change the fact that no one else working as hard as they can will ever equal being told to go stop a god from coming back and coincidentally your dad (a) worked directly with that dead god's primary agent in the past and (b) is now a super cool angel secret agent who will directly assist you in the task. Oh, and also, your teammate's parents are the dead god's primary mortal agents. And also they kidnapped your other teammate's dad because he's a powerful demon lord so now she's involved too. And you all happen to end up on Leviathan, where Fabian is an instant celebrity who immediately gets a cult worshiping the planks he walks on because they all work for his rich undead infernal dad.
The issue is that people keep mapping it to the real world and seeing "tragic backstory" like it would be IRL, which is a mistake. It's not a disability. They don't go to normal school to become accountants or NASA engineers, they are there to be doing exactly that shit that their backstories rope them into. Like, this isn't Buffy, they aren't saving the world incidentally, this is school for saving the world to pursue a career in saving the world. Spyre functions so differently from IRL that everyone is dramatically failing to comprehend the actual situation everyone is in.
And the thing about hating affirmative action is that it presumes someone only got into whatever not because they have skill, but because of their race or something like that. That's manifestly different from what's going on here. Kipperlilly has no doubt the Bad Kids are incredibly powerful and skilled - but their backstories gave them opportunities to use that power and skill that no one else will ever have regardless of effort or even luck. The Bad Kids can't go five seconds without tripping over the revelation that the BBEG for the year is one of their second cousins. That just doesn't happen to other people, period. The world revolves around the BK's in ways it will never revolve around anyone else so the Bad Kids will always get the massive adventures to save the world and be the top of their class because they're personally connected to the narrative.
Remember, Brennan has confirmed that other AA students do not do shit like that. They do exactly the sort of missions you'd expect them to - go in dungeon, fight monsters, come back. It's not "uh, the Rat Grinders should have just gone out and saved the world too", that's not how it works. AA students are not usually expected to, their rat grinding is just a more tedious and efficient version of what they would be doing otherwise. The BK's don't get involved with these plots simply because they're the most heroic heroes ever who seek wrongs to right, they do it because every single time everyone but Gorgug (who is for the most part absent major narrative stakes) was born someone that would get those in's, feats reproducible by no one else.
"Ah, but the Seven-"
The Seven prove the tragedy of it. Because Kipperlilly is right, but she's also wrong. The brilliance of BLeeM this season is that he's crafted a narrative inseparable from the meta of how the game works. In a very real way this is like the Dungeons & Dragons versions of Tron. The fact that it's a series of fictional TTRPG sessions is essential to the universe and it's story, in a Twin Peaks-ian way.
Because, see, it's not actually, technically magical trauma that gives out those narrative advantages. Magical trauma is just the most obviously visible side-effect. What the issue actually is is that, as everyone has noted over and over again, the Rat Grinders are NPCs, and it is therefore impossible for the world to ever bend itself around them the way it does for the PCs. Except, most are just saying that as a funny haha joke.
No, like, literally, that's the issue. They will always be in the shadow of the handful of people that the people constructing their world, their timeline, their very existence, has decided matter. They are doomed by narrative causality to be "boring". And I'm going to take a moment to say here, isn't it crazy no one is talking about this when we just got done with Neverafter which was all about this exact thing????? Like, literally the BBEG was the Authors. That is the situation here, more or less.
Anyway, there will never be a demon attacking that due to a curse is only vulnerable to hot licks from Ruben's guitar passed down from the first gnomish rocker. Mary Ann will never be the prophesized liberator of kobolds enslaved in dragon dens. Ivy will never find out her father was secretly a super-soldier for the Council of Chosen who before he was assassinated left her notes detailing a sinister plot within the government of Solace.
People keep having a hard time with this because it intuitively doesn't feel right to ever classify something like losing a father in any context to have some kind of bright side. But if you take nothing else away from this post, let it be this: Adventuring as it's done in Spyre is not something done in the real world. Adventuring is something everyone chose to go to AA to learn and put into practice as their long-term career. And in that, absolutely these things give the PCs a completely one hundred percent insurmountable leg-up on the thing they're all in competition for.
And it being completely insurmountable in that way further goes to show the difference between hating that situation and hating affirmative action. Even AA is not a guarantee that a specific member of the majority will lose out on something and a specific member of the minority will get it instead. As soon as the character sheets were rolled everyone else at Aguefort may as well have just gone home and started studying to be accountants because the main characters had been chosen. Or they could keep going and hope they get a spin-off, I guess.
But Kipperlilly does keep trying, for she doesn't really comprehend the true eldritch horror beyond her existence shackled to the bits of a bunch of comedians, and her solution is to adjust for those unfair advantages.
Which is affirmative action.
How is that not obvious.
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tarot-archives · 2 days
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Can I get a uhhhhhh laios with a guy/gn reader who has an equally autistic special interest in general biology and ecosystems that would 100% encompass monsters as well? Asking for a friend that just happens to be me (stg idk if I wanna smooch laios or be him tbh lmao)
an: though i haven’t written for an autistic yn, i’ll try to make it realistic. if i’d done something wrong, please tell me. i focused more on general dungeon ecology for y/n.
if marcille is studying about dungeon ecosystems while laios is more interested in monsters you would be the best of both worlds.
there’s just something thrilling about dungeon ecology, how it all interacts, every thing that fall under it and so on and so forth.
you’re a tall-man researcher, using every bit of your time to find out more about dungeons, and not just the ones in melini. it would have been good to join the magic academy, but since you don’t posses any talent for magic, you can’t enter.
it made you sad since they had a dungeon making class.
nevertheless, it won’t stomp your dreams of researching! you’ve read and copied countless of books you can get your hands on. eventually you settled in meleni where a newly discovered dungeon was found.
your room was filled with countless of journals, trinkets from dungeons and volumes of books you read many time before.
and on your first dungeon party, you were very ecstatic. too bad you had to leave because they’d only go to the easier upper floors. you wanted to head to the lowest level after all!
and that’s where you meet up with the touden party!
you will love marcille’s vast dungeon knowledge. she would love to teach you new things. much to chilchuck’s dismay, you have boosted her ego. endless praises for marcille and simply doting around her because she’s filled with knowledge.
“ah, long lifespans are so great. i’d spend all my life dedicating to dungeon ecology if i could” -y/n after every lecture apparently.
then monster facts with laios will be endless. he lent you his dungeon food guide and you surprisingly have a copy too! you took notes from the things he had written in the margin. much to chilchuck’s demise (again) both you and laios keep on talking and he can’t sleep :((
“eating monsters? can’t say i have thought about it, but do you ever think about their nutritional values? the high level of mana concentration must vary from non-dungeon born same species! This needed to be compared and studied!” -y/n when laios introduced his monster eating thoughts.
toshiro will have another person to ask about his life in the east. but he likes how you keep more time to yourself writing in the journals. he finds your drawing to be artistic. after seeing your difficulties with papers, toshiro will teach you about yotsume toji—a book binding process from his country. he’s happy to see you using it after he taught you.
though you won’t talk with namari much, you admire he strength as a dwarf. she keeps her past to herself, which you at least respect. but you’d talk about the different weapons used and other things she did as a blacksmith. her knowledge on materials is very handy. you write about the different dungeon materials on your journal along with the best weapons against monsters.
chilchuck, our lock expert, and the most unknown member of your party… you admire his knowledge on traps and have written about his experiences with various dungeon traps and ways of disarming them.
falin, she joins you as you ask questions to marcille or laios. she listens to you talk about your dungeon experiences and she tells you about her’s. you let her read the journals you made along the way.
On the day falin was eaten by the dragon, your journal wasn’t transported with you. So now, you join laios to rescue his sister and to save you journals!!
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Request? Open!
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mysadblacksoul · 2 days
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Backslide - 3/13 of the Clancy album
Grab a coffee and let's start this madness
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MV
Tyler is wearing the same clothes that he wore in Overcompensate MV to I would assume that this MV takes place right after
Let's break down the signs first
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We see the return of Ned Bayou as well as FPA, now standing for Food Petrol Etc.
You can buy 9 buns for $21, love the symbolism
There is a Jim sign omg. Baby is having his own bubblegum business
Of course the Bishops sign with 9 lines marked on it
I could've sworn that the black sign says "Dema Vapes", but looking closely I believe it's "Velma Vapes" lol
What is more, the cones (?) are yellow and I'm pretty sure that the fact that there are 5 of them is not an accident
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They sold him bread that went bad lol. Nah for sure it's not the case since he gives the same bread to a child
But I believe that the scene and the lyrics are closely tied with Stressed Out
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Now the next scene is interesting
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I think that the bad weather is a simple metaphor for feelings of anxiety or fear
We can see that Tyler was contemplating then he was suddenly pulled from his thoughts
This is when the scene changes to normal, right? Exactly on the line It's over my head
Then we move to the scene with the kid
And I really believe that this little lad is personification of Ned
Like he has the same boba eyes lol
No but for real, this is parallel to Chlorine - kid is giving Tyler a cup just like Tyler gave to Ned. Yet he accepts it and drinks whatever is inside and Ned just shudders
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Another interesting thing, that could make my point more valid is that the kid literally asks Is that a stain? You should change / Are you doin' good? / Did you solve all of your problems? like he knows Tyler very well and is in a way looking out for him
It's like he's keeping Ned by him - okat I'll stop
It might be a stretch, but the N kinda looks like a mirrored band symbol, do you also see it?
If 0.75c is equivalent to the cost of one bun than Tyler is being ripped off since he paid $21 for the pack instead of $6.75 lmao
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Something is really wrong with those buns lmao
Then the mood changes again, but this time is even worse. Like his mental health is declining even more and even faster
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The bread is wet, the day is ruined, thanks Mr. Joseph
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You killed it Josh, love your creative mind
*funny music stops*
Now let's talk about the way how the MV is looping itself
I would say that it is a demonstration of the twisted circle that is life
Maybe it's a very basic analysis but I think of all the complicated lore-oriented MVs this one is uncomplicated
What is shown here is how our psyche can play tricks on us and how we can complicate a rather simple situation ourselves
If Tyler hadn't had dark thoughts then nothing would have happened to the bread, so he would have just gone and given it to Josh
This shows how our psyche itself can abolish the situation in which we find ourselves
Looping, on the other hand, shows that as long as we don't do anything about it ourselves, we will be stuck in this fishbowl (see what I did there?)
Maybe it's one big AD to check your mental health and a sign to try to get better
Lyrics!
Rat race, place to place, adding weight / Tendencies on repeat, innit? - rat race for sure happened in Dema, and repeat is literaly the loop, innit meand that Clancy is canonicaly British
Benefit from a shoe with no lace - shoe with no lace would make you fall back on the behaviour that you are running from
Take the seat with the crease in it - seat of someone who already tried to change their life, or even who had the same dreams and hopes for better future like Clancy
This could be parallel to When I leave, don’t save my seat/ I’ll be back when it’s all complete from Chlorine
I don't care, you control me / Leading me anywhere - well, all I should say is Dema don't control me and we all know the rest of the story
I don't wanna backslide to where I've started from - he doesn't wanna go back to his back habits as well as doesn't wanna go back to his life before he tried to escape
There's no chance I will shake this again - if he falls back one more time that will be the end of him. His psyche won't take it anymore and his plans will be buried
'Cause I feel the pull, water's over my head - this is parallel to Fall Away And I, I can feel the pull begin. But it also gives me the parallel to Holding On To You MV, the scene with the rope
Strength enough for one more time - like I said, this would be the last attempt to change everything
Reach my hand above the tide - it could indicate that his physical strength is also wearing out
I'll take anything you have / If you could throw me a line - again with the line. But it also can mean that he can endure anything now, he just needs a little helping hand
I should've loved you better - this line can be directed both to himself but also to the person who extends his hand to help. He might not have appreciated both parts before and now regrets it
Do you think that now's the time / You should let go? - This line is like both a request and an apology. As if he wants to say “I'm sorry I treated you badly before but please don't leave me when I need help”
Bad place, on a hundred-dollar bass - this line is also giving me Stressed Out. You can imagine the cheap bass being transported on the bicycle right?
Kinda wishin' that I never did "Saturday" - I think that he doesn't mean the MV irl lol, but the regret of taking part in Bishops' manipulation altogether
Is that a stain? You should change - a play with mentioning Saturday and the lirycs She said that I should change my clothes
Are you doin' good? / Did you solve all of your problems? - like I said before I believe that this is Ned looking out for Clancy, wishing him well
Thanks for asking, in a way, but / Accidentally uncovered a new one yesterday - safe to say that he is not doing better lol
What happened to what I brushed under the rug? - what happened to how well he used to be able to hide his problems and true feelings
I used to be the champion of a world you can't see / Now I'm drowning in logistics - if viewed as a fact that he created this world it now looks like he wants to regain all control over it. Logistics is to take care of the management of planning. And once again we see the mention of drowning
The bridge is acting as an externalization of his myhs and fears that even if he is outside the Dema, the Bishops will still have control over him
The entire song is about both regaining conrol over the world of Dema but also regaining control over himself, his psyche.
The main theme is about not going back to old habits.
The most important thing here is progress and pushing forward.
Because one wrong move can make all the work in vain and we will sink to the very bottom.
Safe to say that I liked it haha
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quillpokebiology · 2 days
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Do you happen to know facts about Porygon-Z…
Porygon Z Facts
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(Art by inyo 24 on Danbooru)
-The scientific name for Porygon Z is "Fractis Polygonus" which roughly translates to "Broken polygon"
-As of now, the Porygon line is one of the only Pokemon the public is aware of that was made in a lab. They also have a copyright, so other companies can't make them
-Porygon Z is also the newest Pokemon evolutionary wise due to the fact that they have no ancestors or relation to other pokemon whatsoever. They were just made in the early 200s
-While Porygon Z are very strong, they are very weak and have sacrificed their stability for strength, which is why they are so glitchy and have erratic movements
-There is a theory that Porygon Z were made to travel to different dimensions, however, this theory has not been confirmed. The Pokedex talks like it has been, but when asked about it, Silph Co. denied anything
-But, Porygon Z do very well in space because they don't need to eat or breathe. Many Space Organizations will send Porygon Z into space due to their unique abilities as well
-Porygon Z also don't feel any pain, but they can feel when something is wrong. To them, it just feels like an unscathed itch
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-Porygon Z can't die of old age or illness. BUT, they can die from computer viruses. If your Porygon, any member of the line, gets a virus, take them to a computer specialist, not the vet
-The entire Porygon line is able to breed asexually. I'm going to be honest, I don't fully know how they sexually breed with other Pokemon because their genes are entirely code. Researchers at first thought it'd be a ditto situation, where crossbreeds are impossible, but they are able to crossbreed. Now, they think it's something about the code potentially editing their sperm to fit their mate if it's a different species, but I'm still confused about it myself
-Porygon Z and the rest of it's kine can go in phones, but they prefer computers (this is why I plan to get a rotomphone soon bcuz I feel bad using a poryphone). Porygon Z are known for doing terrible in phones however, because their glitchiness constantly makes the phone break
-Despite first being made in the 1990s, there are some old Hisuian texts depicting members of the Porygon line. Researchers believe that this is due to the Space-Time distortions that plagued ancient Hisui
-The entire line don't have hearts. Or internal organs. I genuinely don't even know how this thing is alive
-Porygon Z do have a brain, but it's code and is scattered across their body and moves around constantly, making their behavior and psychology difficult to study
-Their antenna can pick up on radio waves which help them find technology
-Porygon Z can injure themselves if they glitch out too much, so be prepared to put them into their pokeball if this happens. Their glitchy nature can also damage code, so be weary of that too
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robyn-i-guess · 2 days
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gerrymichael enjoyers and writers i want your opinion 🎤
ok so i have this au fic for gerrymichael where it's college au, and it's a like the whole bad boy/good girl (minus the fact they're both boys, and even that's questionable)
basically, gerry is stereotyped due to his more alternative looks and everyone assumes he's probably doing illegal things or just sleeps around a lot
meanwhile michael is the head of student council "goody two shoes" type, who most are sort of aware of but don't know anything about
gerry thinks about michael. a lot. he sees them in the halls for only a few seconds a day but thinks about him for a lot longer. hallway crush vibes. and when they get put into a painting class together, suddenly they have an opportunity to meet, and gerry is freaking out a usual amount. (there's more to the whole plot but that's just the beginning bit)
putting a short lil concept thing under the cut
Gerard Keay does not know Michael Shelley.
The only reason he knows their name is because they're in the student council, meaning it's not uncommon for their name to be said during school events.
He has only seen them in hallways, passing by in a rush while holding papers or books that always seem like they're going to fall out of their hands. Even in those moments, most of what Gerard is able to catch is a blur of golden curls and eyes that are ridden with exhaustion.
So, it is safe to say that he does not know Michael.
That fact only caused confusion to him whenever Gerard realized his strange excitement once learning that Michael would be in one of his classes for the semester.
It was an art class, one that he had picked due to him already being practiced is painting and drawing. He assumed it would be a fun class, or at least one that wouldn't be too stressful. However, when he had first walked into that classroom and saw Michael Shelley sitting at an area in the back, Gerard had assumed the emotion he was feeling was stress. He couldn't pinpoint why, it wasn't like he was intimidated by their status, but he couldn't shake the feeling of nervousness he felt when he accidentally locked eyes with them. He turned his head quickly in that moment, deciding to sit in the front of the room despite that not being where he'd usually prefer to be. Something about Michael sitting there made Gerard think twice about sitting in the back as he normally would.
The lecture went smoothly, it mostly being an introduction to the professor and what would be happening throughout the classes. So did the next, and then the next one after that. That didn't get rid of the feeling he felt, however, every time that Gerard walked into that room and attempted to avoid looking at the one with golden curls in the back. He knew he'd have to talk to them at some point, it was inevitable, but there was something about them that meant he was more nervous to talk to them than he usually would be. And he very much denied the idea that it could be caused by any... feelings he may have. Gerard ruled it as impossible, as he had never spoken to them, and he wasn't that much of an idiot to fall for someone he'd only mostly seen in hallways.
Michael wasn't one to speak up in class, and instead they'd work silently on any research on the history of art they may have been doing, only giving simple responses or nods when the professor would come around and ask how their work was coming along. When Gerard thought about it, he didn't really know what their voice sounded like because it was always quiet or unintelligible from their distance. That only made him more interested in talking to them.
That day never came, though, much to Gerard's disappointment.
They both went through that class without talking to each other once, and when Gerard left that room for the last time he couldn't help but feel like he had failed at some kind of goal. A failure that had meant he would be left with only seeing the elusive Michael Shelley in hallway rushes again, which annoyed him in a way he didn't understand.
He did talk to them one day, though.
(note this is old as heck lmao i've gotten better at writing since i wrote this)
anyways yeah. should i continue it or is it too basic idk, i want to write it for me but it would also be multiple chapters long and my "1k-words-is-rare-for-me" self probably won't bother to write it unless someone else is interested
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the-somwthing · 3 days
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I gotta talk to people so bad so I’m just gonna spout something that’s been on my mind for a while
I see a lot of people always describing Joel and Scott’s rivalry as one sided. Like, Joel just hates Scott and Scott doesn’t care? And while I feel like that statement is technically true, it doesn’t really describe the situation very well.
It sort of implies that Scott’s never out to get Joel, and Joel is just coming after Scott for no reason. I won’t deny that Joel does like to come after Scott without provocation sometimes, but like… we are ignoring the fact that 3/5 Joel final deaths have been at Scott’s hand?
In two seasons, those kills were a result of a deliberate hunt to get rid of Joel specifically. In Last Life, I’ll give him a bit of a pass, since Joel did kind of start the fight with a big explosion and had been the “villain” for the entire season, it makes enough sense to try to end him like that.
But in LIMITED LIFE?? As a Joel viewer I am NEVER getting over the feeling of watching his final episode (not negative, just baffling in a way I find pretty fun lol). Scott randomly says “Joel needs to die” and everyone just agrees I guess? And then Joel is being witch hunted. “Oh but it’s because he was getting so many kills! Duh!” Grian had more. Grian LITERALLY got a quad kill (ON SCOTT FOR THAT MATTER) and Scott’s like “JOEL is the problem, the murderous evil of the server”. LIKE HELLO?? They’re literally allies, Scott could’ve said “we need to get rid of the bad boys” but he was COOL with Grian. He was letting Grian LIVE. Like HELLO??? WHAT DID JOEL DO FR 😭 Joel was literally just trying to survive btw, his fighting back was very defensive rather than offensive, and would back off when not being actively attacked. With the exception of trying to get kills cuz he was on less than ten minutes, of course. But Scott had been hunting him before then.
And then I guess I have to mention Secret Life’s Scott-Killing-Joel. I don’t think that final kill was especially targeted on either of their sides, the battle just turned out that way. I could rewatch to see if there’s more to it but for now this is how I see it.
Okay, I’m turning this into a full analysis of their rivalry, idc, I’m literally obsessed with their dynamic. I’m adding a cut here.
ALRIGHT WHERE WAS I. RIGHT. Finished explaining the final deaths, but there’s stuff before that! Let’s take a look at their rivalry 🥰
Let’s go in order, shall we? 3rd Life!! I am obsessed with them in this season ahahahhaga anyways. Joel comes after Scott unprovoked. Simple, this is how everyone sees their rivalry. HOWEVER. Joel is FULLY WILLING to work with him anyways. Maybe you could excuse the dark oak thing as it was early on and they were just trying to take down a monopoly. But in the finale they reconcile and spend much of the session together. They established early on that Joel had been trying to kill Scott, but they’re both perfectly happy to team up instead (which btw they did because they both happened to be allied with Scar).
Then Last Life. Joel does hate Scott in it, but I’m not sure I would say it’s without reason. Joel being boogey in ep2 was majorly important, and he killed Scott. But that wasn’t targeted. He had attempted multiple times to kill other people. Scott was one of the only (and closest) people who didn’t already know he was boogeyman. Then of course Scott tells Pearl they can fight back and has her kill Joel, sending him to red. Perfectly reasonable for all parties imo, and a good enough reason for Joel to target Scott seeing as being red early on had a huge impact on him.
Of course LL is also where Joel says Scott just looked at him funny one day and that’s why he hates him, which is a great line. I do believe he would bother Scott just for the rivalry, but unlike in 3rd Life, Scott had done things to make Joel never consider stopping.
Then Double Life. Erm. Literally nothing, except that I believe the only reason Scott and Pearl were the last pair is because Joel wasn’t there to kill them, since apparently he’s the only one who can make them lose lives. Wild. They were guaranteed to win ever since the lava portal trap. (obviously I’m joking but like how is he the only outside force to kill that pair). I will clarify for analysis sake that Joel’s first kill on them had nothing to do with Scott, and the second kill was to Scott but it was because of the life colors, not really anything about their rivalry. It was technically targeted at Scott specifically but not cuz he hated him, instead because Pearl had a weird “alliance” with the reds.
Then Limited Life!!! What the heeelll was happening lmao. I already talked about the final moment so before that. Erm. I’m blanking out I’m listening to bad romance it’s distracting me. You know what let’s move on I can’t remember what they did, the final death I explained previously is enough data for now.
Secret Life. Oh boy. I’ll say it again, I was secretly hoping for more Scott/Joel dynamic when it started but I doubted it would happen but we got FED!!! I was so excited when I saw the assassin task (as was Joel). Anyways. Throughout the season Joel was doing the whole hating Scott thing, Scott caught onto the bit and played into it somewhat by talking more about how Joel always hates him for no reason. We SHOULD be able to disregard Joel targeting Scott for the assassin task as it was a task, but to be fair after reading it Joel said “oh my gosh is this my dream?” He was super happy to be assigned to assassinate Scott LMAO. That has to count for something.
I feel like the rivalry was fairly obvious, so I need to point out the outlier moments in SL. While Joel goes on about how Scott should die, he happily trades with him and swapped gifted hearts with zero hesitation. In the final session, he and Scott ended up on the same side. I believe Joel may have been slightly annoyed at being on a team with him but accepts it nonetheless. The only reason Scott ends up killing Joel is because their team won, so they had to turn on each other. As previously stated it wasn’t especially targeted, it was a 2v2.
And then if you noticed from me saying 3/5 games, I’m not counting Real Life, but I’ll bring it up here. Scott literally says “since it’s real life we can be friends now since we’re friends in real life” (one of the many reasons I consider RL noncanon tbh, Scott literally mentions in-universe that this season is different so they can act differently, also what is the in-universe explanation for “friends in real life”). Aside from a reminder that Joel doesn’t actually hate Scott irl and this is just fun game rp stuff, this shows that Scott really did catch onto the rivalry bit, and really does just bring it up more. Joel had just arrived when Scott brought it up. Joel agrees to being friends in Real Life. This holds little relevance to my analysis since I don’t view RL as canon but you can keep it in mind.
Now that I’ve laid out their rivalry in a simplified summary, let me ACTUALLY analyze it! What did I mean all the way back at the start of the post when I said “Scott and Joel’s rivalry being one sided is somewhat accurate but I feel it misrepresents their relationship”?
Well, I believe it’s true that (at least up until Secret Life), Scott didn’t care about the rivalry while Joel did. But that doesn’t mean Scott never targeted Joel, as I said he’s witch-hunted him twice. It’s just it was never personal to Scott. I once saw a post(s) I really enjoyed, an analysis on Scott. Saying that he doesn’t actually value being loyal, he values being fair. Then there was the addition that it’s based on what he thinks is fair. I feel like this is 100% true for his thing with Joel. Scott views Joel as a force that has to be stopped, he’s gone too far, he needs to be stopped, it’s only fair for all the suffering he’s caused. He doesn’t stop to think about how killing is the whole point of this game, how other people are doing the same things, how many times he has killed Joel. Joel hasn’t killed Scott permanently before, he has killed him though, but not as much as Scott has killed Joel. To Scott, that doesn’t matter, Scott kills Joel for a reason, for justice, while Joel kills just for the sake of it. Whether or not that idea is true is up to you to interpret for yourself, but to Scott it’s true. Joel is more of a wildfire that needs to be put out than a rival.
Let’s look at Joel’s side of things. He does hate Scott and target him for no reason. The rivalry is one sided, where Joel sees a rival Scott sees some random danger that needs to be dealt with. I can’t tell you why Joel hates Scott. It’s not really the point of my analysis. I’ve seen ppl say it’s because of previous series they’ve had together (they’ve been rivals for ages!) but for my headcanons they don’t remember those, tho very few feelings from their past lives may linger, so perhaps that does explain it. For the sake of my analysis though we won’t be looking deep into why Joel likes to poke at Scott. It’s cuz he looked at him funny one day remember?
So we establish that Joel needlessly attacks Scott. But if you’ll notice from my summaries, he is fully willing to put aside that hatred. It’s conditional (yes it is the default, but still). If Scott treats Joel kindly, Joel will attempt to reciprocate it. Let’s look at this again:
3L: Joel targets Scott, Scott kind of just gives him a disapproving look every time and doesn’t fight back. Joel ends up feeling somewhat guilty, and in the end has no problems teaming up with Scott.
LL: Scott was the main cause of Joel turning red, Joel targets him constantly. Scott ends up permanently killing Joel to put an end to his madness.
DL: erm. Well it’s worth mentioning Joel never specifically targeted Scott for no reason. ALSO WORTH MENTIONING SCOTT BURNED THE RELATION??? This season was a bit of a switch-up. I need to rewatch to see if Scott had any good reason to do that lmao I don’t really remember, I hardly remembered he was responsible.
LimL: Scott deems Joel to be a server menace who needs to die, Joel (who doesn’t really understand why he needs to die) tries negotiating many times but Scott insists. He kills Joel.
SL: Joel gets task to target Scott, is thrilled. He fails miserably, losing people he cares about in the process. Vows to kill Scott, it’s like his main goal now. Still accepts every peace offering from Scott with little to no hesitation, to the point of eventually teaming with him until they’re forced to go against each other and Scott kills Joel again.
So basically you can see, every time Scott does something to wrong Joel, Joel goes hard on the rivalry, while if he doesn’t and offers peace, Joel will lay off. Secret Life was a weird middle ground, where Scott had done things to wrong Joel, however those things weren’t entirely his fault so when he offered peace to Joel, Joel would still accept. A confusing time for Joel I’m sure.
I will say a disclaimer here, I’m not saying Scott shouldn’t ever fight back against Joel. If he’s targeting you for no reason, it’s your decision if you’ll try to befriend him to make him stop or fight back. I support fighting back. I’m just saying that befriending him is a proven method to work, but I don’t think Scott has exactly noticed that and instead just assumes that Joel will stop at nothing to end him.
Another thing I wanted to talk about but forgot what the natural and intuitive transition into it was gonna be. Scott has permakilled Joel 3 times. Joel has permakilled Scott 0 times.
Joel had started the series off picking on Scott for no reason, and has never succeeded. Scott has won this battle three times. At this point, it’s honestly finally somewhat justified for Joel to come after Scott. That guy has specifically targeted and hunted him out of 2 seasons, and took him out of a 3rd as well. Joel has taken Scott out of 0. At this point, I feel like Joel needs that closure, to finally kill Scott, and who knows if he’ll ever get it. If you look at the fandom, even fans are hoping Joel will kill Scott because of this. So imagine how Joel feels! But obviously Scott wouldn’t just let him (okay. Well. Actually. It’s Scott. He kind of lets people do that all the time. But only allies…). Scott will be waiting for Joel to target him once more, and deal with it the way he always does. But who knows if it’ll turn out different?
Which reminds me that I pinpoint SL as the season Scott finally notices this “one sided rivalry”. We all know Scott loves drama, so when he finally noticed Joel had been hating him the whole time, he kept bringing it up. And it wasn’t just for SL only, he brought it up the moment he saw Joel in RL. I don’t count RL as canon but it does prove that Scott hasn’t let go of the rivalry now that he’s finally realized it. I don’t know if there will be a 6th season, but if so I wouldn’t be surprised if Scott brings up the rivalry. Idk if he would make it a big deal, but he would surely at least mention it.
Anyways, if you think I’m done with my little analysis, you’re wrong!!! I’m done with the things I see as pretty factual, but now we’re gonna get into more fanon headcanony type of territory!!!
…but, maybe I’ll make that its own post. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!
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lucskata · 4 months
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nothing bad has happened to us yet
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lucalicatteart · 1 year
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Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 13: read the small story tidbit below the poll for more details, OR just vote based on initial impression
(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)
Yesterday's poll decided that The Adventurer should just start crying whilst being robbed in the abandoned barn ...
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(----- tw for mild violence (he gets into sort of a fight) until after the next orange text section in parentheses -----)
Not sure what else to even do, The Adventurer simply collapses into a ball on the floor and starts sobbing, screaming, and rolling about. The hooded figure pauses in confusion at first, but.. apparently is not very sympathetic to his plight.
They rush over, grappling with him as he cries, fighting to pry the backpack out of his hands. The Adventurer continues screeching frantically, and during some of his flailing accidentally swings his arm up, elbowing the hooded figure in the face. They let out an exasperated sigh, knocking him against the wall then firmly yanking him up by the hair, securing their arm around his throat to restrain him as they grab for the backpack. He kicks a few times, struggling, clawing at the hooded figure's arms, but just isn't strong enough to free himself.. There's a thwack and a sudden sharpness in the side of his head, the backpack pulling away from his shoulders, cold ground, and then… nothing at all..…
(------------------- mild violence tw over -----------------) ...............
The Adventurer slowly opens his eyes to a quiet foggy morning.. Tiny particles in the dusty barn air gently flutter to and fro, dancing around in the streams of early sunlight trickling through the slight crack of the front doors. With a groan, he rolls over, suddenly feeling every ache in his body. His head, his wrist, his leg injury from crashing the raft.. He spends a while just laying on his back, watching the dust and gazing hopelessly at the moldy boards of the roof, mustering the strength to sit upright… What can he even do next? He's failed.. His first EVER actual quest of his adventuring career, and he can't even keep a stupid egg safe for more than a few days! What type of adventurer is that?? Maybe he should just give up.. Go back home and do nothing with his life, just as he was meant to... He sighs, turning back onto his side and curling into a ball to sulk even more dramatically. The cat trots over to him to interrupt his swirling thoughts, pawing at his face, then directing him towards a small stack of hay in the corner where... there it is! His backpack!! He scrambles over, immediately digging through to check for his belongings.. To his surprise, everything it still in it's place. His food, his money, all of the cool shiny rocks he's collected so far.. And tucked away in the very bottom, the Mysterious Egg box remains, completely undamaged.. somehow with the egg still inside! And... a note? He shakily unfolds a crisp sheet of pale yellow paper dotted with a few scribbly letters: "I took care of her for you. Be more careful next time. Just get where you have to go."
Well...... He supposes that if there's apparently going to be weirdos following him around anyway, maybe he's lucky at least one of them seems nice. Better than trying to ROB him, at least.. Even if it is a bit creepy. He realizes now that his injuries have been bandaged as well, and that when he woke up, he was wrapped in a blanket, and.. where is the hooded figure? What does the stranger mean that they "took care" of her?? He turns to the cat for answers, as if they'd be able to clear up his confusions, but they simply make a "mrrp!" noise and stare blankly in response. Figuring that it's all far too much to think about first thing in the morning (especially with the headache that he has), he just decides to be thankful he at least still has the egg, and thus can continue on his grand adventure!! He will NOT let himself fail again! Sore and limping but full of renewed motivation, he leaps up (at least as best he can) and continues back onto the road. After walking only a few hours, he comes to a clearing at the top of a large hill, overlooking the next stop on his journey (then double checks the map just to make sure it actually IS the next stop). This is a much bigger area than the previous villages he's been to, possibly large enough to even count as a small city. With a wider variation of shops and attractions available to him than usual, he wonders if he should just take a break and relax the rest of the day.
He's too tired to walk much today anyway, soo.. maybe it'd be good for him to spend some time in a safe public space, doing something to help take his mind off of this morning's drama… But, what should he do?
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Additional Information
the adventurer's current main quest: follow his map to reach the abandoned castle ruins and see the rare animal specialist about the mysterious egg he has
#paventure posting#poll#polls#choose your own adventure#ERM.. okay I didn't mean to take a 2 week break from doing these. I just got really really busy with Life Things#had various appointments in a row and stuff to sort out. I kept thinking like 'oh I need to get back to that!' and then would be doing#other stuff all day and then at the end of the day just realize that I.. hadn't.. BUT i AM DOING IT NOW!!#I think it's more effective if it's at least once every 1-3 days so that people don't forget the entire story before the next one is out lo#*lol.. but.. alas#Sorry I had to have something bad happen to him. I know I could have made it silly instead like the hooded figure was just like#secretly very sensitive and thinking 'AWW sowwy ur crying#do you want a donut? :(' or something but.. I had to be realistic lol#If some obviously threatening person is coming after you because they want to steal and extremely valuable item from you#for their boss or to sell themselves or whatever. you being vulnerable is just going to give them a chance to take it from you#there are very few instances where realistically that WOULDN'T happen. gbhjb..#Also note: I did not make up the mysterious person who ''saves'' him as a cop out from giving him actual consequences t#o his actions or something. I know it's convenient - but it does make sense. There have always been multiple people following him ever#since he was at the Inn. Even though the Inkeeper tried to hide it very fast and keep hush hush about it. there were people there#who were alerted to the fact that he has the egg. Mostly two specifically. One of them has always been more benevolent because#they have a different end goal. Which is like.. not extremely benevolent actually ghhjbhbj.. but it makes sense for them to act#benevolent at the moment because they have an interest in seeing that the egg is taken to it's ''proper place''.#The two people following him were not directly connected or working for the same people or anything. But the one who just helped him#obviously was very aware of the other. and the other didn't know about the helpful one. ANYWAY#A stumbling block in the beginning of his grand adventuring journey. hopefully things go better for him from here lol#His injuries are pretty minor but he still feels bad since he's not used to fighting. I think he deserves a relax day#he was already 5 seconds away from crying at any given time. now on top of that he's got bruises and a sprained wrist and a headache#and he's not used to having ever been injured or ''fought'' anyone before so he WILL be being very dramatic about it in his head and#finding every possible chance to mention to anyone who will listen about how he was so so brave and got in such a wild fight#and also feels so so bad and please tell him everything will be okay and oh he is so so so injured *big wet seal eyes*#he IS going to feel sorry for himself for weeks gghbjhb..
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infizero · 6 months
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grian: "i'm not gifting you the heart, i'm giving it to someone SPECIAL."
(silence)
scar: (hangs his head) "wow..."
grian: "aw ok i'm sorry- no no i'm not even gonna fall for this, i got guilted into helping you out last time, and you got a ton of stuff! i'm not being fooled"
#jaw kind of dropped when grian said that bro. UNCALLED FOR#anyways theres something so interesting to me about. grian being mean to scar and then as soon as scar acts hurt#grian's instinct IS to apologize. but then he changes his mind and is like no no im not gonna be guilted im not gonna be fooled#<- WHICH TO BE FAIR. this is scar we're talking about here. but also#its very interesting to me. with my little ''grian does care about scar he just has Emotional Issues from 3rd life that never really#went away'' mindset. this feels like progress. from just being mean to scar and not caring about it#its a little thing but the fact that he goes to apologize at first. makes me think things are looking up#i feel like they're already on much better terms this season which um. considering how last season ended is a little surprising#but not really considering. scar never seems to blame grian or get mad at him for anything he does#and idk if grian feels bad about his ''betrayal'' at all so to both of them its like not an issue and therefore doesnt affect#their current interactions#NOW. this could age very poorly. im still not over the bait-and-switch that was last season w barely any interactions and then That#they could act all niceys to each other this season and then later down the line when everythings crazy something terrible could happen#and i'll go insane over it. but for right now im uncharacteristically an optimist when it comes to these two. maybe they can finally just#be niceys to each other the whole time. i doubt it but maybe!#serena.txt#serena.live#slsmp spoilers
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hella1975 · 2 years
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my friend watched banana fish and im actually.... kinda annoyed about it
#this is SO DUMB#but basically i did all the 'guys omg NEVER watch this show' with my mates when i finished bf#while secretly hoping one of them would watch it so we could talk about it#but like genuinely the longer it goes since i finished that godforsaken anime the more it matters to me?#like 'matters to me' is a bad way of wording it bc it makes it sound like a GOOD THING#and i mean it matters to me because it is so incredibly harmful to me individually#like i really fucking projected some serious trauma in my life into that show partially bc of the time i watched banana fish#and also just bc i see a lot of myself in ash which was something i realised in episode 1#which meant i watched the ENTIRE thing aware of this just to have THAT ending happen. it was really devastating#but at the same time im aware that 80% of the reason banana fish was so sad for me#is bc of my own personal lens i watched it through#the other 20% is just the fact it's an actual sad anime#so now my friend has watched it and she's doing all the 'oh that was so sad! let's talk about it!'#and im like idk how to tell you this but i CANNOT talk about it with you like i literally cant#and for the past few months my whole 'omg NEVER watch this show' has actually been 100% serious#like i do not want my friends touching this show it's MY thing it's very personal#which is why this is such a dumb post like im literally trying to claim this anime#but it's just actually kinda invalidating to have my close irls watch it in a very casual way#it's one of those things where it's fine on tumblr bc tumblrinas GET IT bc NONE OF US are normal about our shows#but people irl are so determined to consume media in a very normal way lmao#and basically my friend is going to start making out i overreacted i just know she is#and i cannot STAND even an insinuation that im being a baby about something but i also will prove her point#if i go off on one about WHY bf is such a big deal bc i'll just look defensive#does any of this make sense#tldr: sharing media that's important to you is nice but also it's Bad and i want to Gatekeep#banana fish#probably#delete later#bc this is pathetic LMAO
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sanchoyo · 1 year
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u know what. The sleep thing is legit bothering me (I woke up at 3 AM after Not Enough Sleep so my nerves are Shot) I think I’m gonna keep a sleep tracker to see how much I sleep and when to try and confirm if there’s actually a Problem or What 🥲
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firebirdsdaughter · 2 years
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But no…
… Seriously, that person is right and they should say it.
Even if it’s for a moment, that could’ve been a great character moment and made, for ex, Elena a less unlikable character for me (I get where she’s coming from, but goddamn she doesn’t exactly make it easy to take her side) bc it would’ve given an opportunity to have her see other people being effected/there being consequences of the way she tried to do things. Could’ve been some good reasonable tension between Ben and Elena where she’s unsympathetic/tries to make it about her and he’s upset w/ that, and she realises how single minded/obstinate she’s being.
Also good bonding for the trio, bc you know Kevin would get such a kick out of finding out Ben was emotional about thinking they were dead or something and never let him hear the end of it; or worse, bc imagine them getting there after Kevin and Gwen were forced to retreat or hide and seeing the car empty and being afraid that the chips took over them. Bc I do love the idea of Ben frantically running to the car he’d just called ‘the most obnoxious muscle car in the world’ looking for his family.
I mean, c’mon, the film’s not even seventy minutes, we coulda had some more!
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kiwi-bitchez · 2 months
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The Girlfriend Experience
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Eddie Munson x Reader
Summary: Eddie doesn’t think he’s cut out for dating. Self-resigned to a life of one and done hookups, you’re determined to make him see that he has the capacity to be a worthy companion… for when the right girl comes around. Fake Dating AU, classic corny fic for a fav corny troupe, Stranger Things canon divergent ofc, 18+ smut (see warnings below), big dick energy but also slightly emotionally unavailable!Eddie, yada yada yada, you know the drill. 
Content warnings: AFAB reader with she/her pronouns, use of y/n, alcohol, smoking the devil’s lettuce, mention of panty stealing, food consumption, semi-public sex, fingering, PIV, Dom-ish!Eddie, oral (m and f receiving), pierced dick Eddie because I said so!, unprotected PIV sex, hair pulling, mild angst but nothing too angsty just like one heated conversation and Eddie feeling a little worthless but happy ending I promise
Word Count: 20k ahhhhhh!!!
A/N: Thanks to all those who comment and reblog! Your feedback and engagement makes my heart soar and keeps me motivated to write this filth! Sorry for the gargantuan length, in very-me fashion I always ending up writing one behemoth fic every so often rather than just separating it out into chapters. Also, realizing after the fact that I use the brand name ‘Goodwill’ a lot in this fic, which maybe not everyone might know is a thrift store, not sure if that’s just an American thing or not but figured it was worth noting. 
“I guess I’m just not boyfriend material, ya know?” Eddie shrugs.
“Don’t say that, Eds,” your eyebrows pinched together, “different qualities are important to different people. Not everyone is looking to date a Steve, or a Brian, or a whoever. I’m sure someone is out there looking for an Eddie.”
“It’s not that,” he shot a look towards Steve, who, despite your analogy, was unfortunately everyone’s type and the textbook definition of boyfriend material.
“I just don’t think I’d be very good at gooey romance stuff, or even like, passable boyfriend behavior. I mean, look at me, I hardly take care of myself, I’m loud, I have no money, I’m basically every dad’s worst nightmare, do I need to keep going?”
“The nightmare thing can actually be a bonus,” Steve chimes in, “the whole bad boy persona can be a huge draw for most girls.”
“Sure Steve,” Eddie’s voice grows exasperated, “I’m the mysterious bad boy until they realize I’m a huge loser who runs not one but two dungeons and dragons groups. Real fuckin’ attractive I’m sure that is.”
“Shows you’re committed to something…” you trail off when his eyes tell you to stop coming up with a positive spin for every excuse he gives. 
This whole discussion had started because of something that happened at the bar last night. A small group of you decided to meet up for drinks, your usual group of pals. It was a Thursday, so the bar wasn’t too busy. Your friends all squished into a booth in the corner, chatting and catching up over a plate of shared nachos, when Robin started making frantic gesture at you and Steve.
“Please just say what you’re trying to say instead of this elaborate charade,” Steve makes a few mocking hand signals back at her.
“Okay, one at a time, and keep it subtle,” her voice lowered to a whisper, for some reason, “over at the bar, some girl is totally flirting with Eddie.”
You and Steve both turn around. “I said not at the same time!” She whisper yells. 
There was, in fact, a pretty girl with shiny hair and glossy lips doing a half fake laugh and pressing her manicured hand to Eddie’s bicep. You whip back around to find Robin with her mouth hanging open in a “can you believe this is happening” way. 
“Good for him,” Steve swivels back around too, “She’s pretty hot.”
You return to your nachos, pretending there wasn’t a ping of jealousy in you. Eddie was your friend, that had been made abundantly clear.
When Robin introduced you to all her friends from high school, you had easily gotten along with all of them. You especially got along with Eddie. He was funny, authentic, abrasive at times, but a truly good person at his core, creative, protective, you could go on.
After getting to know him a bit, and developing a budding crush, you had made a few passes at him. Nothing too forward, just small compliments here and there, open ended offers to hang out that never lead anywhere.
It’s not like he flat out rejected you, but any feelers you were putting out to see if there was potential there were met with him looking past your flirtatious intent and just being his goofy, friendly self. He treated you exactly the same way he treated everyone else, which was awesome, except for when it wasn’t. 
“Oh no,” Robin’s gaze was not subtly fixed on the unfolding scene at the bar, you and Steve watched her face drastically shift from confused, to a cringe, to an eye roll.
Still half whispering, as if Eddie could even hear your corner of the bar, “He’s totally blowing it. DON’T both turn around at the same time again.” 
“Okay, so,” she starts before either of you can even confirm that you want to know, “she was totally laying it on thick, like you could see it from all the way back here. And he must have said something off putting, cuz all of a sudden she like went cold on him and pranced away. Shhhhh, okay okay, he’s coming back.”
She was acting as if she wasn’t the only one gossiping. You and Steve were innocent bystanders in all this. 
“WHAT was that?” She immediately blurts out when Eddie returns to his seat, fresh drink in hand. 
You and Steve share a side glance to sigh at Robin’s inability to be subtle, god bless her. Eddie shifts around awkwardly and lets out a forced dry laugh, taking a long sip from his drink before facing the wrath of a curious Robin. 
“Oh, that,” he gestures to the bar as if she could be asking about anything else, “some girl. Not sure.”
“Not sure? Eddie she was FLIRTING with you,” Robin all but yelled, causing Steve to scan the bar to see if the girl in question had landed somewhere within earshot. 
“I know that,” he hisses, “She just… wasn’t my type…”
“Okay sure, hot girl in a tube top and no bra isn’t your type, riiiiight,” Steve rolls his eyes.
“It’s just,” Eddie was so over this inquisition, “she asked if I wanted to get coffee.”
You, Steve, and Robin all give him a blank stare, trying to decipher what he could possibly have against getting coffee with a hot girl. 
“That’s like,” he gets defensive, detecting the wall of confusion facing him, “something people do on a date. Coffee is serious, and I’m not a very serious guy.”
“What do you mean ‘coffee is serious,’ coffee is like, as casual as you can possibly be?” Steve’s tone now emulated Robin’s from earlier, half whispering, half yelling, all scolding towards his friend. 
“That’s just not really my speed. Coffee dates and flowers and hand holding and all that,” he was avoiding eye contact with all three of you, “Yeah, she was hot, sure, and maybe if she had been like ‘hey lets go fool around in the bathroom’ then I wouldn’t be here having this lame ass conversation with you three. But I don’t do coffee dates, so I’m not gonna waste her time and pretend like I’m that sort of guy when I’m just not.” 
“Well good on you for not leading her on, cuz I’m sure you could have agreed to the coffee date and still gotten lucky in the bathroom,” Steve mumbles, and you smack the back of his head lightly to scold him. 
“So you only date girls who’ll fuck you in a bar bathroom the first time you meet?” You redirect your now equally scolding energy to Eddie.
“No!” He runs his hands through his hair, “I don’t date. Anyone, really. At all. Ever.”
“Oh,” you think for a minute, realizing in your few years of friendship you never had seen him with anyone, or heard him mention a romantic interest of any sort. 
Leading you to your present conversation, you and Steve continuing to question Eddie on his decision to reject the hot tube-top girl at the bar and why he felt like coffee was such a scary commitment. 
“You guys know me,” he continued to defend his stance, “If I took that girl out for coffee she probably would have picked some fancy hoity toity place and I wouldn’t know what anything on the menu meant, I’d probably spill something or like, get crumbs everywhere, and the bill would be way more than two coffees should be. It would have been a waste of both our time.”
He was staunchly refusing eye contact with the two of you, knowing he’d be met with something along the lines of pity. 
“Fine, we’ll drop the subject,” you shoot a look to Steve, “but I just need to make sure you understand that not every girl likes expensive coffee, or flowers and handholding, or whatever your expectation of girls and dating is. There’s plenty of girls who have similar interests to you, who feel the same way about PDA and mushy romance stuff that you do. You do know that, right?”
“Of course I do, y/n,” you could practically feel his eyes rolling at you, “but girls like that sure as fuck aren’t here in Nowhere, Indiana. Even if she was, I’m sure I’d still find a way to fuck it up given that I’ve had exactly zero serious girlfriends and the closest thing to a date I’ve ever been on is when you me and Steve pooled our ski ball tickets to win that ugly stuffed turtle.”
The memory of what you had all agreed to be the world’s ugliest stuffed animal caused all of you to crack a smile. Steve had silently agreed to change the subject, not wanting to dig Eddie any deeper into his pit of self despair. 
Steve’s mouth was half open, about to suggest that the three of you have a smoke and watch one of the rental movies he brought over, the words just about to escape him when you harshly cut off any chance at ending the pity-party.
“Date me!” You exclaim, without much thought. The shocked look from both boys caused you to rapidly back pedal , “You can date me, as practice!” You said it as if it was the simplest concept in the world. 
When met with gaping mouths and confused stares you continue on, “You and I can be fake boyfriend-girlfriend for like, a month, and I’ll tell you everything you do wrong, and like generic do’s and don’t’s, so that way the next time some hot girl hits on you, you can be all like ‘Coffee isn’t really my thing pretty lady, but I’d be down to get drinks sometime’,” you did a silly impression of Eddie’s voice, and then switched to a high pitched one to impersonate what you assumed the girl at the bar sounded like, “and then she’d be all like, ‘Oh yeah that sounds greaaaaat, getting coffee is just like, a generic catch-all thing that most people say when they want to get to know someone better, but you can buy me a drink’ and then the two of you will ride off into the sunset and it’ll be great.”
Still no reply.
“It won’t be all romantic and gooey, I promise I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. It’d be a way for you to get some honest feedback and catch up with the stuff most people have to learn the hard way.” 
“I suppose you are the most brutally honest person I know,” Eddie doesn’t sound convinced. 
Steve just looked between the two of you with eyebrows raised, not knowing if giving his opinion on the matter would be appreciated or not. “I guess I would’ve appreciated someone telling me that most girls don’t want to be asked out with a pickup line from a John Hughes movie, would have saved me a few dozen rejections.”
“I’m pretty sure Robin did tell you that…”
“I don’t know y/n,” Eddie scratches his head. 
“It’ll be easy. Ask me out.”
“Huh?”
“Ask me out, for practice, ask me out on a date like I’m a pretty girl you met at some metal show or a DnD convention or something like that,” you stand in front of him with your hands out as if to prompt him to say something. 
“Will you go out with me?” He sounds more like he’s asking himself if he even wants to be asking the question.
“No.”
“What the hell!” He throws his hands up.
“I said no because that wasn’t a very good effort. Go out where? To do what? You’re asking me, a pretend stranger, out on a date Eddie, not if I want to go have a smoke with you.”
“Ughhhh,” he spun around and tried to get some sympathy for Steve, who unfortunately was on your side with this one. 
“A compliment or two doesn’t hurt as well,” Steve added, deepening Eddie’s groan. 
“Hey pretty stranger lady,” his voice was laced with sarcasm, but at least it wasn’t disdain, “you seem really…” he hesitated to find his words, “cool? Would you like to come see my band play this weekend at The Hideout? We-“
“No,” you cut him off.
“WHA-“
“Eddie, you can’t ask a girl to watch Corroded Coffin play for your first date with her, that’s like date four or five material, no girl wants to go sit by herself at a bar to watch some guy she just met play an hour of heavy metal. She would have to know you a little bit more for that to feel organic. Pick something more generic, like coffee.”
“I think you seem cool, would you like to get coffee with me?” it all came out as one monotone mumble from him. 
“Sure,” you wait for him to lift his head up to make eye contact with you, “But coffee isn’t really my thing, maybe we can go out for drinks?”
“Oh fuck off,” he flopped back onto the couch next to Steve. 
“See, now we have our first fake date, and then you can ask me to be your fake girlfriend, and then you’ll be so comfortable with emotional vulnerability that you can find a real girlfriend to take on real dates.”
“Yeah, I suppose it could be beneficial,” Eddie was slowly coming around to the idea. He knew that he was oddly charismatic at times, but he was just always too self conscious to follow through with the whole romance thing.
This maybe wasn’t a bad idea, because he knew you weren’t the kind of person who would make fun of his hobbies, or put him down if he slipped up, the sorts of things he was always afraid of girls doing. Sure, he’ll agree to the girlfriend experience. 
After a night of movies and pizza with Steve fake-third-wheeling, you made sure Eddie knew that the fake-date was actually happening, that the two of you would go out for drinks this weekend as your first official practice date. 
After giving it a bit of thought, you realized that you and Eddie had never hung out alone. In your feeble attempts at flirting with him all those months ago you had invited him to have movie nights or grab a bite to eat, but he always showed up with Steve and or Robin in tow.
As the night of the fake-date rolled around, you’d be embarrassed to admit it to him, or Steve, who didn’t care to hide how skeptical he was about this whole idea, that you went through your normal pre-date routine. You took some extra time on your hair and makeup, exfoliated in the shower, chose an outfit you felt confident in, added a few spritz of perfume for good measure too. 
Eddie rolled up in his van, only a few minutes late, but a few minutes was very impressive compared to his typical chronic tardiness. The two of you agreed to just grab some food and drinks at your usual spot, considering you and Steve openly agreed that it would be a good first date spot in theory. 
“Hey,” he reaches across the center console to pop the door open for you, “you look nice.”
It took you a second to register as you settled into the passenger seat, and then whip around with your arm outstretched to give him a high five. He scrunches his face at you.
“High five me Eddie, that was really good! I know you usually open the door for me anyways, but the compliment right away, A+,” you flop your hand down to gently slap his, still gripping the steering wheel. 
“Don’t patronize me, y/n,” deep down he knew you weren’t trying to talk down to him, and deep down he hadn’t even given complimenting you a second thought, he really did think you looked great in your date get-up. 
On the ride over to the bar, the two of you discuss some logistics. Considering all of this is just practice dating, you don’t expect Eddie to pay for you, but you explain that in theory if he had been the one to ask you out then he should be the one to pay for the first date. 
“To me it’s less of a gender thing and more of a who asked out who thing, but I know some people would abide to the stereotypical ‘the man always pays’ standard, which is why you’d just have to be honest on date like two or three about what you enjoy doing and what sorts of things are in your budget. You can still have fun and be thoughtful without spending a lot of money.”
He asked a few questions, like if he should have gotten you flowers for a first date, or what he should do if someone asks to go to a fancy restaurant that he surely couldn’t afford. You tried your best to give solid advice, but always reminded him that every person is different and every relationship is different, so all he can do is be honest. 
You take up a spot at the bar and both order for yourselves, splitting some fries and slipping into some easy conversation. 
“Am I supposed to, like, beat someone up if a guy tries hitting on you in front of me or something like that?” you nearly choke on your drink at his question. 
“Eddie, no,” you answer, also questioning, “why the hell would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “My buddy Jeff was with his girlfriend at this punk show before they were even together, and some guy made a creepy comment to Amanda and Jeff just decked the guy in the face. He say’s that’s what made her want to date him, cuz he defended her honor or whatever.”
“I guess that’s sort of circumstantial, but I prefer my dates to not engage in any sort of violence,” you sip your drink, “even if it’s for my honor. I’d like your face a lot less if you were all bruised up.”
“Well I never said I would get hit,” the two of you were laughing a bit now.
Over a few cocktails you went over some first date etiquette with him. PDA and being touchy, how to follow her lead and gauge if she’s the type who wants everyone at the bar to know you’re together, or keep it strictly platonic to start. How far of a grip on the leg is too far up, that sort of thing.  
“So if she does something like this,” you fake laugh a bit too loud and, lean into his personal space, and then run your hand from his slender down his arm, “that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to fuck you, but it’s pretty close. You’ve at least got a green flag to get a little closer to her, tell her she looks nice, maybe offer to buy her a drink.”
“I know how to tell if someone finds me attractive, y/n, I’m not stupid,” he said casually, “obviously that girl the other night was hitting on me, I’m not blind. I wasn’t going to ask to buy her a drink or try and get lucky in the bathroom because I was out with my friends. I can find a quick fuck in a bar on my own time. I was having fun with you guys, I wasn’t going to abandon all of you to talk to some stranger, even if she was hot.”  
“Oh,” you processed his comment, “Steve would be happy to know he ranks above tube-top girl.”
“Steve would be happy to be above tube-top girl in any context,” he jokes. 
“You really just find random girls in bars to fuck?” You question, not in any sort of judgmental way, just curious. 
“Not specifically, I guess I did make myself sound like some serial bar-bathroom type of guy. I never really had girls interested in me when I was in high school, at least the first four years of it. Then when we started playing regular gigs at The Hideout it was a little easier to find girls who were interested, but it was always that they were more into fucking some guy who could play guitar and was in a band, so it usually just always happened on-site, probably cuz they had an actual boyfriend or husband to go home to. Girls think I’m fun. Which isn’t untrue, I do enjoy a romp in the Hideout bathroom, or the back of my van, or wherever we end up.”
“So that’s what all those blankets are back there for,” you say with a fake scowl, referring to his van set-up. 
“Not exclusively! They make a cozy nest for smoking blunts and listening to tapes too!” 
You return to your drink, trying not to think too hard about the girls that Eddie brings to bar bathrooms or his van or wherever. 
“I just find the energy of those situations very different from like, talking and getting to know someone. Fucking is easy. I’m not interested in ruining that by adding emotions and the looming feeling like sex is contingent on me acting a certain way or checking a certain number of boxes for someone.” 
He shrugged, and you could understand where he was coming from, sometimes a quick fuck or hookup could be cathartic and easy. But it also saddened you to think that Eddie believed he had to get in and out before the person on the other end got the chance to know him. 
Moving away from the subject of his inability to be emotionally vulnerable, the two of you practice some cheesy ‘first date’ questions as you had called them. As your drinks started to settle into your system you were having more fun being silly with him, pretending to be a stranger on a first date. 
“When’s your birthday?” You ask, twirling your drink straw with your finger and making some fake flirty eyes at him to accentuate the facade of asking him a bunch of questions you mostly knew the answers to. 
“August 9th,” he flips his hair over his shoulder, joining in on your fake ostentatious flirting. 
“Oh my gosh, a Leo! This will never work out, cuz I’m an asparagus…”
The two of you nearly fall out of your bar stools laughing, realizing you meant to say Sagittarius. 
“Okay, let’s get you home Asparagus,” he helped you up, having kept his drinking to a minimum so he could drive you home. 
“Wait, wait,” you grabbed his arm as the two of you exited the bar, “can we go back to your trailer?”
He raised an eyebrow at you, “that’s a little presumptuous for a first date missy.”
“No, no, this isn’t girlfriend y/n asking, just regular friend y/n, who thinks it would be a lot of fun to smoke and watch a movie without Steve there spewing all his annoying fun facts, like, we get it, you read the little insert inside the tape while you were bored at work!”
Eddie did agree that the idea of packing a bowl and watching a few movies with you didn’t sound too different from what his plans would have been otherwise, so he agreed, as long as you promised not to give him any dating advice while hanging out as friend y/n and not girlfriend y/n. 
Although you promised to try your best, you immediately started lecturing him on t-shirt borrowing and the potential weight that could hold in a relationship when he offered to give you some more comfy clothes to change into. 
“It’s important to know!” You emerged from the bathroom in one of his oversized shirts and a pair of boxers, “Some girls are very touchy about it. Any shirt you lend her to sleep in, you have to be willing to sacrifice for life.”
“For life?!” Eddie finishes making a bowl of popcorn for the two of you, swallowing his words when he sees you in his clothes, an unidentifiable emotion rising in him at the sight of you so cozy and integrated into his space. 
“Well maybe not life,” you plop down onto the couch, “but do NOT ask for it back. Most girls will give it back once it stops smelling like you.”
“If she gets my shirt, can I have her underwear?” He asked without thinking, the weed he had just smoked with you hitting him a bit too hard in that moment. 
“Oh my god,” you squeal and bury your face into a pillow, “la la la la, pretending like I didn’t hear that!”
“I’m just saying!” He laughs at you, now curled up into a ball, “fair is fair, right?”
“I guess it depends on the girl,” you mumble. 
“So I’m guessing not you, by your reaction.”
“Eddie!” You smack him with a pillow, “I don’t know, no one’s ever asked!”
“If my girlfriend isn’t going to ask before stealing my shirt for an indefinite amount of time, I think that gives me panty privilege.”
“Wow Eddie, if I had known you were such a perv I would’ve reconsidered being your fake girlfriend,” you say sarcastically, with no real judgement behind it. The idea of him wanting to steal your underwear dampens them ever so slightly. 
“Don’t worry babe, I won’t do anything pervy to you unless you ask nicely,” he shoots a wink at you, which you meet with an eye roll and a turn away to hopefully hide the heat rising in your cheeks. 
The two of you carry out your platonic movie night as planned. You suppressed any urge to note on his actions from a romantic lens, and he ignored the itching desire to sling his arm around your shoulder or pull your legs into his lap to get more comfy on the couch. 
“Can I sleep here Eddie,” you ask after movie two, “too sleepy to move.”
“Sure, I can take the couch and you can have my bed. It’s been a minute since I washed the sheets but it shouldn’t be too bad…”
“Nonono,” you mumble, “Your legs will totally hang right off the end of this thing. I’m conked out anyways, I can crash right here I promise.”
“Ignoring that you’re my fake girlfriend, I’m not letting you sleep out here on this lumpy thing. You’re taking the bed, no arguments.”
He helps you up from the couch, letting you keep the blanket that’s wrapped around you, snaking his arm underneath it and pulling you from the couch by your lower back. You were slightly taken aback by his assistance, body still limp from your relaxed state, your torso easily arching into his. Your arms fly up to grab his shoulders, steadying yourself with an awkward giggle. 
“In the real world, a time like this would be good for a first kiss,” you make note of your closeness, the way he swept you up off the couch and held you steadily as you made your way to your feet. 
“I know that, y/n,” his face was closer to yours than it had ever been, making your words hitch in your throat. 
“Well, I’m just saying,” you turn your head to avoid the tension, “I’m sure the way you kiss your bar-hookups isn’t the way most girls who’re looking to date you long term want to be kissed for the first time.”
‘Oh yeah? And how do you presume that goes?” He kept his hand planted on your lower back.
You pretend to act wildly drunk, throwing yourself at him and letting your limbs go a bit heavier than they already were. “Ohmygod guitar man, I’ve had like, six dirty Shirleys, please finger bang me in the bathroom,” you slur your words and let your tongue loll out the side of your mouth as if to lean in for the world’s sloppiest and most uncoordinated kiss.
“First of all,” his voice was very serious, “I don’t hook up with girls who are too inebriated to stand, let’s get that straight. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even have our first fake kiss like this on account of the drinking and smoking, gotta make sure you’re in the right headspace. Secondly,” 
He spins you around and quickly backs you up against the wall that stood a few feet behind the couch. His hand sliding up in between your shoulder blades, blanket now slumped around your waist, his other hand suavely cupping the side of your cheek, His hips angled into yours, pinning you back against the vinyl, almost collapsing back into it. 
He pressed against you, not aggressively, but enough to let you know that if you were to try and squirm away he had the capacity to keep you right where he wanted you. He accomplished this all in one elegant motion, leaving you a bit dazed.
As you started to snap into reality, he moves his hand from your cheek down to grab your chin in between his thumb and the knuckle of his pointer, angling your face directly up at him. 
“If you were some girl in a bar, it would be like this.”
The moment before your brain turned to absolute mush, you silently cringed at the thought of what you must look like, mouth hanging open, eyes glassed over, body instinctively sinking into his touch. Pathetic, you were sure of it. 
Sure, Eddie did think you looked a little helpless, but he also thought you looked perfect. Exactly as he had imagined you to in this situation. Of course he had thought about you before, like that.
Of course he had felt an immediate spark with you when you had first met. But he never flirted back, or lead you on, because as much as he was attracted to you and enjoyed your company, he knew that it wouldn’t work out. He wasn’t relationship material, and you were the picture perfect girlfriend that he didn’t deserve. 
He spoke directly into your parted lips, mouth hovering just far enough away to toe the line of ‘holy shit, is he going to?’ But no, as he made very clear, he wouldn’t kiss you under these conditions. He had made his point, and slowly backed off and let you find your footing. 
As soon as he was sure that you were steady, he backed away and started down the hallway. 
“I might have an extra toothbrush stashed away somewhere, let me look…” he ducked into the bathroom, leaving you stunned in the kitchen, head swimming and your stomach traveled up into your throat. 
He was teasing you, he must be. That was his little way of getting back at you for thinking you could give him dating advice. If he was unsure about his capacity for romance, he was going to make sure you knew he was more than capable in other ways. Understood. 
You shook your head, weeding through your inner monologue of how he could possibly look at you like that and then just walk away. Your shock gave him just long enough for you to to not notice him splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom while he “looked for a toothbrush.” 
The two of you decided to ignore the lingering tension from the events in the kitchen, not a peep of fake-girlfriend talk from you for the rest of the night. He did find you that toothbrush, and the two of you moved through a too-easy domestic routine of getting ready for bed. 
You told him that you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you knew he was cramped on that couch, and that you were fine with sharing a bed. You mumbled something about  getting around to bed sharing etiquette at some point anyways, and sleepily pulled him into being your little spoon. 
Eddie lay there, trying not to twitch or fidget, relaxed as best he could into your cuddled form thinking about how horrible of an idea all of this was. He was convinced all it would take is roughly ten more minutes of you burying your face into his hair and making cute little sleepy noises for him to fall irreversibly in love with you. 
But what was he supposed to do? Move and wake you up? Never. 
You rolled around enough in the night to wake up in a less intimate position than when you had fallen asleep. You knew Eddie was a deep sleeper, and took it upon yourself to creep out of bed and back into your day clothes, make a pot of coffee, and watc a bit of TV before he roused and joined you in the living room. 
“Why didn’t you wake me?” He rubbed the crust from his eyes and was pleasantly surprised to see you had brewed a whole pot of coffee to share. 
“You looked so peaceful and cozy,” he shook his head at you, as if that was no excuse for letting him sleep an extra forty minutes.  
After a slow morning, he agrees to drive you home. 
“So this is the part where I say ‘Eddie, I had such a wonderful time on our date. I’d love to do it again sometime.’ And then you agree and tell me when you’re free. It’s best to be super direct and make plans to get together again soon, cuz then it’s not an awkward who’s-gonna-call-who-first sort of thing.”
“Uh-huh…” he stares at you blankly. 
“But for our sake, let’s just agree that I’m in charge of planning our next date. Okay? I’ll do it from the perspective of what I think most girls would enjoy, so you can steal it for the future. I’ll call you later.” 
You hop out of his van before he can agree, and leave him with a “Thanks for letting me stay over!” As you bound away from his view. 
He squeezed his eyes shut the moment he caught himself checking your ass out as you walked away, and let his head rest down on the steering wheel. He was fucked. How the hell was he supposed to tell you that you needed to stop being his fake girlfriend without disrupting the homeostasis of your friendship?
On one hand he could lie and say he doesn’t want your advice, making you think he didn’t enjoy your company, which was entirely untrue. On the other hand he could tell you the truth, and you would never be friends the same way again. 
He drove home with the music too loud, and patiently awaited your call later that evening to iron out the details of your second fake-date. 
Per your instructions, he let you pick him up this time with the argument that you were the one taking him out this time. He didn’t know what you had planned, but let himself fall to the mercy of whatever you had decided was an exemplary date fore him to ‘steal in the future’. 
You picked up two coffees and rolled up to the trailer park, popping a mix-tape he had made you ages ago. 
“Hey, I thought we said no paying for each other with fake-dating,” he objects to the coffee sat in the passenger cupholder, some abomination of mostly cream and sugar, the way you know he likes it. 
“Yes, that’s true, but you smoked me up the other night, and this coffee was like a dollar fifty, so don’t worry about it,” you give him a look that tells him to drink the damn coffee and not sass back, to which he complies, even though he smokes you up expecting nothing in return about every other weekend. 
The two of you sip away and listen to Eddies ‘must-know-to-be-my-friend’ mixtape and arrive shortly at the strip mall across town. This was a regular weekly stop for both of you, the strip of connected stores containing the Goodwill, a pet store, the pharmacy, and grocery. A pretty mundane collection. 
“Okay, what are we doing at Greg’s?” Eddie gestures to the grocery store, the back of his mind running through the grocery list he’s been making for this week anyways.
“What’s the perfect date?” You ask, and answer for him, “a romantic picnic. But gathering supplies is half the fun. Picnic food supplies at Greg’s, some pills to get fucked up at the pharm, some turtles or something to let loose into the wild from the pet store, and then hats, cups, blanket, etcetera from the Goodwill.”
He turns to you with the most bewildered stare, which sends you into a fit of giggles.
“Okay, I’m joking about the pills and the turtles,” you nudge his arm, “but won’t it be sweet to get together some picnic supplies and then drive out to lookout point? We can still swing by the pet store to check out the ferrets though.”
To Eddie, the idea of a date involved him doing something he didn’t want to do, some awkward small talk, and spending money on shit he truly thought was useless. This didn’t sound half bad. You would “work backwards so the food purchases come last” according  to your reasoning, and he followed you in tow without any arguments into the Goodwill.
“So I’m thinking…” you start to wander into the aisles of used clothes and knick knacks, “maybe a blanket? A basket would be sort of corny, but if we find one for cheap I don’t see why not. Surely two glasses for drinking, and maybe some sun hats?”
Swiveling back around to see a half stunned Eddie, who was still processing how in the hell this was your idea of a romantic date, you grab his hand and pull him to the bric-a-brac section. 
After it got through his thick skull that the same place he had uncomfortably tried on new pants throughout his growth spurt, and picked up his daily-worn leather jacket, had the same potential to provide some silly, cheap, used items to add some flair to this picnic. 
Silly and cheap was right up Eddie’s alley. The two of you picked out mismatched champagne glasses, one with the engraved name of a couple who got married in 1943 and the other a flashy rose color with baby angel carvings dancing around the sides. 
You luckily find an on sale beach blanket, and the two of you pick out some very goofy sun hats. A floppy farmers hat for you, and a bedazzled trucker hat spelling ‘hot mama’ for Eddie.
Through the midst of your giggles and debate on whether you should buy a wooden bench to bring out to your picnic destination, Eddie found himself having a really good time with you. 
As promised, you visited the pet store and checked out the ferrets and fish and geckos. 
“If you could have any pet, what would you want?” You asked him, noses pressed against the chinchilla enclosure. 
“Jaguar,” he said, a little too quickly.
“For real, dummy,” you knock your hip into his.
“I don’t know, we never had enough space or extra money for pets growing up, so maybe someday if I had enough room for it to run around I’d like a dog or something,” he tells. Eyes still transfixed on the chinchilla behind the glass. 
“I can see that,” you imagine Eddie with some mutt from the shelter, wrestling around and giving it lots of scratches behind the ears. 
Skipping the pharmacy, you pop into the grocery store and assemble what may be the world’s most eclectic picnic. 
“That’s the definition of a picnic, I’m pretty sure,” you explain after Eddie insinuated that the gingersnap cookies you grabbed, along with grapes and a block of cheese, wasn’t exactly a meal, “you know, just a smorgasbord of whatever we want!”
Admittedly, Eddie had considered a handful of pretzels and a beer to be dinner on more than one occasion, so he couldn’t argue with you. Quickly catching your drift, the two of you picked out an assortment of snacks and some ingredients for pb&j sandwiches. 
“I thought picnics were supposed to be classy?” Eddie holds up the Wonder bread and bag of potato chips with a look that suggested his question was rhetorical.
Your response was simply to raise the, admittedly cheap, bottle of champagne you grabbed to accompany with your meal, more for the irony of drinking the bubbly liquid out of your new used glasses with your sticky sandwiches than anything else. 
You pack your supplies into a tote bag, not having found a suitable basket at the thrift store, and drive across town to a dirt paved road that leads to a nice lookout point with a view of the lake. 
“Let’s walk down the path a little bit, but not too far,” you grab the blanket and tote bag from your trunk, motioning for Eddie to put on his ‘hot mama’ hat and carry your other auxiliary supplies, “I do not fuck with bugs.”
“I’ll protect you,” Eddie puffs out his chest, making you both giggle.
“From bugs?”
“Yeah, I’ll punch a mosquito right in the face, to defend your honor and all that.”
“I know I told you not to do that, but a mosquito might be the exception to the rule.”
You found a nice little clearing not far from the car, a spot that still had a nice view but was a bit more secluded. Eddie sat pressed right up next to you, making your sandwich ‘to be a proper gentleman’ but simultaneously spilling a glob of jelly onto your leg.
“Shit,” he doesn’t think twice before leaning down and slurping the grape flavored blob off of your bare knee, tongue poking out and licking the spilt jelly from your skin.
“Eddie!” You squirm away, barking out a surprised laugh. 
“What! Your knee is clean, wouldn’t want to waste perfectly good preserves, or a napkin.”
You feel your skin tingle where his lips had touched you, for only a moment, but you still felt it. He was so confident and casual in his movements, not having any hesitation to grab your hand or brush your hair out of your face. It wasn’t under the guise of fake romance, he had always been like that. Not touchy, per se, just sure of himself. You’d never seen Eddie do anything half assed, that’s for certain.
After the conversation you shared the other night, you were unable to stop your mind from wandering to thoughts of what Eddie does with those girls in bars, if he touched him with the same confidence and sureness he put into everything else he did. 
It was wrong to let your mind go to such dirty places about someone you considered a friend, but you couldn’t manage to feel any guilt. He had offered that information freely, so who were you to punish yourself for staring a little longer at his fingers, conjuring up the context in which he’d bury them inside you against some grimy bar bathroom. 
The date was all peanut butter smiles and bubbly laughter that floated up into the trees. Silly, yes, but neither of you could deny there was something sweet, maybe even romantic about it. A cheap meal in the woods shared between two friends in ill-fitting fifty cent hats, but an undeniable touch of romance lingered nonetheless. 
Eddie started to realize that maybe the whole dating thing wasn’t as uptight and scary as he had initially thought. It could be easy and fun, with the right person. And fuck, if he could even imagine doing this with anyone but you. 
Like most things Eddie did, he did not consider any potential consequences before acting. You looked so pretty sitting there in the sunshine, sipping from your cheap ‘Martha & Dave ’43’ glass, a few sandwich crumbs dotting the corner of your mouth.
What else was he supposed to do other than lean over and wipe them away with his thumb, stroking your soft cheek and feel the warmth of your skin beneath his palm. 
“You had some,” he uses his other hand to motion at his own mouth, “and I suppose this is the sort of moment where I’d ask if I can kiss you.” 
You find yourself a bit dumbfounded, his big stupid hand on your cheek and those big stupid puppy dog eyes unrelenting in making everything he says seem so genuine.
“Are you?” You find your voice, only half embarrassed at how shy it comes out.
“Am I what?”
“Are you asking me?”
“Yeah,” his answer comes out in a way that insinuates that he never meant anything other than that, that he was always asking to kiss you, he wasn’t asking in theory, in another universe, in the context of advice. 
“Okay,” you found yourself behaving like Eddie, not really thinking of consequences before your words and actions spoke on behalf of your instincts.
Everything so far had been so easy. Your fake first date at the bar, curling up next to him in a haze, making up stories about what sort of people donated the fake palm tree or the Garfield mug at the Goodwill, imagining Eddie running around a yard with a puppy, lounging in the grass and eating your assorted picnic snacks. It was all effortless.
Suddenly, being kissed by Eddie sucked the ease from your lungs and sent your mind spiraling into a cacophony of bells and whistles and giant swirling red flags. If this is how he kissed you, casually across some half eaten peanut butter sandwiches, you’d spend the rest of your days yearning to know how he kissed someone with true intention. 
Of course, his intentions were all there, but the lingering knowledge that all of this was happening under the umbrella of “you giving him advice” or “helping practice for the next girl” poisoned any true feeling he poured into it. He cupped your cheek, soft, let his lips press into yours delicately for a moment before he felt your breath hitch, opening his mouth just enough to deepen the kiss and capture your lower lip fully. 
He was more careful, gentle, methodic with his movements and so receptive to every little signal your body gave him, it was unlike any first-kiss, heat-of-the-moment-kiss, in-the-throws-of-passion-kiss, any of it. Like hell you’d ever tell him that, inflate that big ego that fuels his snippy comebacks at you, but Jesus, was it remarkable. 
While at war with yourself internally, your heart was on the precipice of exploding in your chest from the way he snaked his hand into your hair and pressed his forehead against yours to catch a breath. You suck in a sharp breath and feel that stupid cocky smirk creep up onto that pretty mouth of his.
“’S that sufficient for a first kiss?”
“Fuck offfff,” you were still a little out of breath, smacking his chest and flopping back down onto the picnic blanket, throwing your arms up and rolling your eyes at him, “if you’re so damn confident, maybe we just should fake break up, cuz you don’t seem like you need my advice.”
“Nooooo,”he slumps down next to you, burrowing his head under your arm so he can pop up right next to your face, “I’m learning a lot, I promise! This date was so fun, and cheap! I would have never thought any of this could be remotely romantic. I’m hopeless, y/n, look at me.”
He wriggles around and gives you a big fake pout, “If left to my own devices I would probably do something horribly embarrassing or off-putting, like…” he digs his head into the crook of your neck and blew a fat, wet raspberry right into your skin, making you yelp and squeal, but his position half on top of you pins you down. 
“See!” He pulls up for air, you were in a fit of screaming giggles, “I’d go right in for a kiss and just,” and he does it again, leaving you gasping for air, trying your best to tickle his ribs to get him off of you, but not minding the close contact by any means. 
“Now I’m not so sure,” he pulls back to give you a minute to catch your breath, “it seems like you enjoyed that, so maybe survey says I should pull that move on the ladies.”
Your airy laughter subsided, but he stays half pinning you down to the blanket and the lumpy grass underneath.
“I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I’m not grateful for your help,” he says earnestly, catching your gaze, “it’s just… this isn’t what I need help with.”
As his statement is processing, you find his lips back on yours, his torso pressed flushed with yours and his wild mane of hair coming down to curtain around your head. He doesn’t take it too far, but kisses you as earnestly as he had before, giving your lip a slight drag with his teeth and running his hand up from your hip up the side of your ribcage, leaving you arching slightly into him by pure instinct.
Before your head got too dizzy again, before you could really throw yourself into it and say fuck it and kiss him back the way you secretly wanted to, he pulled back.
“That.” his voice was even, you hated how needy you felt and how even keeled he could be milliseconds after stealing the air from your lungs, “It’s the rest of it,” he threw his hands up and gestured to all the food and knock knacks around you, “it’s this stuff that you make seem so easy, so forgive me if I lay it on a little thick when we get to the parts I’m actually good at.”
“Just,” you sat up a bit, grounding yourself and formulating a response despite your brain looping the past twenty seconds back infinitely, “don’t do that again.”
“Okay,” he sat back and popped a grape into his mouth, “sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” you knocked his knee with yours, struggling to articulate how you felt without showing too much of your hand, deciding to just be candid, “I just- I liked that a little too much if you know what I mean. And this is strictly business, or education, maybe?”
“You liked it when I pinned you against the wall the other night,” he said matter of factly, “I think you liked that a little too much too, and you still took me on this fake educational business date.”
“Yeah, well, you caught me,” you threw your hands up in defense.
“Which one is it though?” He asks and you don’t quite understand, “are you a sweet kiss on the picnic kind of girl, or an up against the wall kind of girl?”
“That’s none of your business, as far as fake-dating is concerned,” you say a little too quickly, “and no you can’t have my panties.”
You say it with a smirk, but he doesn’t press any further. He turns and does that Eddie-thing he’s so good at, just changing the subject and shifting the vibe completely away from what might have been a stale moment or awkward pause. He starts asking if you like green or purple grapes better, going off about how he used to put them in the freezer as a kid. 
The remainder of your date went without a hitch, of course. You picked away at your picnic until the sun started to set, and once the sky started turning purple you made your way back to the car. The drive home consisted only of easy conversation and no further mention of the kiss, well, kisses that had transpired. He hopped out of the passenger seat with a ‘thank you’ and a ‘see ya later alligator.’ 
A scalding hot shower, a restless night of sleep, and too many cups of herbal tea the next morning did nothing to quell the noise in your head that blasted those moments over and over. You couldn’t stop picking apart whether he had thought about it for even a millisecond, and felt embarrassed that you could think of nothing else. 
It was simply an amplified version of what your whole friendship had been up until this point. You silently admiring him and wishing he would look at you the way you looked at him, and settling for friendship over heartbreak. 
Pushing it aside to the best of your ability allowed you to get through your week, but you had the lingering feeling that the next time you saw him would strike you with warm cheeks and a scrambled mental state.
Guilt had started to seep in at the corners of your mind, but you reminded yourself that you shouldn’t punish yourself for having romantic or sexual thoughts about someone you simply found attractive and compelling, it was your actions that would determine the validity of your guilt. 
“Long time no see, loser,” Robin hollered from the pool table across the bar, where she was likely kicking Steve’s ass. 
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” you shrug off your coat and plop down at their regular booth, knowing her jabs were entirely empty. You notice Eddie’s leather jacket hung up by the wall, and scan the bar to find him ordering a drink. 
There was a silent mutual understanding that you’d keep the fake dating thing to a bare minimum when out with your friends like this. Even though Steve was well aware, and therefore Robin was too, you figured tainting your social time with the performance of romance is the exact reason Eddie turned down the girl at the bar in the first place. 
“For the lady,” Eddie waltzes over and hands you a drink.
“Oh, thanks,” you take it with a confused smile, “you didn’t have to do that.”
“You bought me coffee last weekend,” he sat across the booth from you, “plus I’m trying to get better at buying drinks for pretty girls, right?”
You remind him that he doesn’t have to keep tabs on things like coffee, but you appreciate the gesture regardless. As per the past few times you’d been out with your friends, you expected him to put a pause on the flirting, but it seems to be bubbling over tonight. You weren’t complaining, but admittedly the arm around your shoulder or the noticeable way he checked you out when you got up to refill your drink took you by slight surprise. 
Sneaking in to claim the always occupied dart board for a challenge against Eddie while he uses the restroom, you keep your eyes on the corner of the bar to signal him over once he returns.
“You need a partner?” A man suddenly appears behind you, a little closer than you’d like but the bar was crowded, so you’ll let it slide. 
“Oh, I was just waiting for-“
“Let me fill in until your friend gets here, we can get you warmed up, yeah?” His tone wasn’t too pushy, but you didn’t love the look he gave you when making that comment.
Awkwardly staggering for a second, unsure weather to just agree or tell him to fuck off, “He really should be just a minute-“
“Or maybe less,” Eddie comes up right behind you and pulls you possessively into his side.
Your head whips up to see him with a devilish smile, his hand on your waist and the fire behind his eyes telling his guy to get lost.
“Oh, sorry man,” the guy starts backing away with an apologetic look.
“Yeah, better luck next time, pal,” Eddie snakes around to take the guy’s spot in front of the dart board.
He had his darts in hand and took his stance to start the match, gesturing for you to do the same. 
“What was that,” you ask with a slight joking tone, but seriously curious.
“What?” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead throws the first dart, “I’m not allowed to get fake jealous?”
“You’re allowed to feel any fake emotion you want, I guess,” your tone is somewhere in between a joke and a question. 
“You’d feel fake jealous if I was getting blown in the bathroom by some chick rather than playing darts with you, I bet.”
“Okay,” your tone shifts to defensive, “getting blown is very different than some guy asking to play darts with me.”
“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you,” Eddie turns to face you, having thrown all his darts, “for real.”
A moment lapsed where you didn’t register that your mouth was hanging open in disbelief, the look in your eyes Eddie immediately clocked as lust and bottled up to store away for a later time. 
“I knew the scary dog thing would work,” his ‘i-told-you-so’ tone rubbed you the wrong way, but he wasn’t wrong, “you said girls weren’t into that, but you totally looooove that I defended your honor.”
“Don’t give yourself too much credit, I said girls wouldn’t be into it if you punched him,” you rolled your eyes.
“I don’t know, babe, I think you liked the whole ‘back off of my woman’ act.”
You mumble out a ‘whatever’ and let him have this win, which he was clearly reveling in, trying to focus instead at beating him at darts. 
“Just don’t pull shit like that on a first date, acting too possessive off the bat is a huge red flag for a lot of women.”
“I thought we weren’t doing dating advice tonight?” You don’t even have to look at him to know he’s got that stupid sarcastic smile.
“Yeah I thought so too,” you fail at your attempt to beat him in darts, as well as your attempt to not flirt back with him. 
He insists on collecting all the darts, picking up the ones haphazardly strews across the floor from failed attempts to hit the board. 
“I’m no pro or anything, but I think you’d hit the board a lot more if you fixed your stance.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you flip him the bird and take back your red tipped darts. 
As you steady your arm to aim your first shot he comes up behind you and grabs your hips, causing you to let out an unexpected squeak. He adjusts your stance, not aggressively, but with some force, twisting your hips and using his big combat boot to sweep your foot around so you stood more sideways. 
“You’re standing straight on,” he backs up, allowing you to secretly catch your breath, “and all your shots are veering to the right. If you plant your feet more angled you’ll hit the board.”
You wanted to roll your eyes at him, miss on purpose to show him he’s full of shit. You flippantly toss the dart, not trying particularly hard, and it hits. Not a bulls-eye or anything like that, but a lot closer than your previous attempts had been. 
“Good girl,” he comments, leaning in to breech your personal space just enough to make your blood boil.
You drop the remainder of the darts in your opposite hand onto the floor and whip around to face him, half jokingly smacking him on the shoulder. 
“Oh my god, fuck off!”
You’re met with his trademark shit-eating grin.
Truthfully, Eddie hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off you all night. He’d spent the night after your picnic date with his hand in bis boxers, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering the little gasp you had made when he grabbed your waist, the hum in your throat that bubbled up when he kissed you pinned against the blanket, that night and every night since. 
“Oh, you don’t like that?” that joking tone he uses to cover up what he actually wants to say. 
“Shut up, you know I do,” you didn’t even try to stifle your reaction, knowing it was his intent to get under your skin.
“How would I possibly know that,” he playfully looks up at the ceiling and around the bar, hands clasped behind his back now, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“You better cut that shit out, unless you plan on doing something about it,” you manage the most assertive tone your wobbly insides could muster, a little shocked at yourself for actually saying what you were thinking. 
“I’m not much of a planner,” he gracefully takes a stance next to you and rips all three darts, not great shots, but all hitting the board, “I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, you know that.”
“Well your pants better make up their mind if you’re playing boyfriend tonight or not,” your insinuation was heavy but you had fumbled your hand, and he had already seen all your cards at this point, so there was no reason to bluff.
“The real question is,” he leans in, his imposing figure crowding your space in a way that made your head spin, “do you want me to play boyfriend? Or do you want me to play guy who fucks your brains out in the bar bathroom?”
Your eyebrows pinched together for a millisecond, and before he could decipher your expression you grabbed his hand and started storming through the crowds hoarded by the bar. Why the hell a seedy downtown bar has a single stall family bathroom with a changing table is beyond you, but you drag him inside and slam the lock down behind you. 
“You’re not allowed to treat me any differently after this,” you start to fall into the sinkhole of oh my god what the hell is about to happen, but are cut off by him pressing you against the closed door the exact way he had handled you against his kitchen wall that night weeks ago. 
“Not unless you want me to,” he doesn’t hesitate to get his mouth on yours, immediately pulling your mind from wondering what the vague sticky substance on the door pressing into your back could be. 
“I mean, you’re not allowed to fuck me and then never talk to me again,” you say in between moving lips and tongues, giving him a moment to bury his face in your neck, "Promise me."
“Oh don’t worry about that,” he pulls back, “we can go get coffee tomorrow and you can give me a full performance review. Promise.”
Your annoyed eye roll quickly turns into them fluttering shut as he licks a stripe up to the junction behind your ear that has you melted into a boneless puddle between his pressing hips and the door. He drags his teeth across your lobe while leaning into you with a black denim clad thigh.
“Why don’t we make a deal,” you let out, voice breathy and unfocused. Before he can even pull back to reply you continue, “if you’re half as good at this as you claim to be, and can make me cum in this dingy bathroom, I’ll let you take me back to your trailer and you can do whatever the fuck you want to me.”
He was leaning in to seal the deal with a kiss before he could even process your request, because yes of course, a million times yes he’s taking this deal. Despite the rouse of you playing bar hookup for the night, and despite the idea of bringing you back to his place and finally doing what he’s wanted since the day he met you absolutely terrifying him, he nods and kisses you. 
It’s electrifying. His confidence only spurs you on to kiss him harder, grip his hair a little tighter, say the things you would only imagine in the deepest parts of your mind. The feeling of his grin against your lower lip and his fingers quickly unbuttoning your jeans fuels your fire. 
“You sure you know what you’re getting into,” he mumbles playfully, pulling you away from the wall with a gasp and leading you over to the tiny built in counter against a mirror by the sink. 
“Well I’m certainly not letting you fuck me against any of these sticky surfaces,” you note as you’re lifted onto the counter covered in mystery substance, “and I think you need to earn it.”
Of course it was no surprise to you that Eddie was good with his fingers. You probably could have told anyone that long before this impromptu bathroom hookup. Egging him on and challenging him in a way you were sure he wasn’t used to was well worth abandoning your assumptions. 
“Oh yeah? I think, if you’re lucky, I’ll earn it more times than you can count before the night’s over,” he positioned himself in between your legs, pressing your torso into the mirror behind you as he leaned in for another heated kiss. 
He pulled your ass to the edge of the counter, and looped his thumbs into the waistband of your unbuttoned pants. You were quick to assume that he’d yank the fabric right off your legs, preparing to lift your ass from the counter to assist.
Eddie paused, pulled back and gave you a look that asked ‘you’re sure about this?’ and when a dreamy smile spread across your cheeks he melted into you with a kiss that turned your stomach inside out and made your pussy flutter.
He snakes a hand from its grip on your torso down into your unbuttoned pants. You arched up into his touch, wanting to urge him to get on with it and get your pants and underwear out of the way, but appreciating how much he seemed to be reveling in feeling you for the first time. 
“So fuckin wet,” he mumbled against your lips, his fingers only feeling up your cunt from outside your underwear. He pressed the fabric into your slick center, following the path up to your clit and then teasingly back down to where your panties were soaked through.
“You weren’t lying when you said you liked this a little too much,” he’s rolling his hips ever so slightly against your spread thigh as he rubs your clothed pussy, his teeth sinking into your lower lip as he moves the material aside and sinks two fingers right into your wet cunt with ease.
You were sure that you’d retrospectively have a million quippy compacks that come to mind, but in this moment it was impossible to come up with words when his fingers were buried inside you, still, just letting you squeeze around them, and his hard cock straining against his jeans nestled against the inside of your thigh.
He slowly drags his finger’s up from your hole to your clit, and you let out a whine of desperation as he fully removes his hand from your damp underwear. 
Before you can manage the breath to tell him to please, for the love of god, get on with it, he brings his fingers up to his lips and gives them a long suck, never breaking eye contact with you. 
“Yeah,” he sighs out and presses his forehead against yours, “I might like that a little too much too.”
Protests and urging words catch in your throat as he yanks down your pants and underwear with one quick pull, not even needing you to lift your ass off the counter more than it already was. He was methodical and moved with intention, folding up your pants neatly and shoving your soaked panties into his back pocket, shooting you a wink. 
“Eddie, please,” your overdue complaints are finally bubbling over. You hardly finish your plea before his face is buried in your neck, and his fingers are sliding right back into your needy hole. 
The top of your head rests against the mirror behind you, exposing your neck and arching your back into his touch. He sucks and nips at the soft skin between your collar bone and ear, all while letting his two middle fingers pump slowly into you.
“Mmmm,” he mumbles into the crook of your jaw, “such a good girl for me, perfect pussy squeezing my fingers so tight, can’t fuckin wait to feel you soak my cock.”
Nearly orgasming at his words alone, your eyes flutter shut and you let out a moan of his name as he lets his thumb drag circles across your clit. “Eddie, please, just like that, I-”
“Oh, suddenly she’s not questioning my abilities?” he says with a biting smirk, “What was that about me not being half as good as I think I am?”
“Fuck,” you want to raise an eyebrow and shoot something back, hold out and make him work for it, but after hardly two minutes of his fingers rolling inside you, hooked up to drag along that perfect fucking spot, you had no choice but to feed his ego and let him win. 
“You wanted to make your little deal,” he pumps a little faster, making your head loll to the side and mouth hang half open, “I’ll sweeten it for you, babe. I say we can get this pretty pussy to come twice all over my fingers before anyone even knocks on this door.”
“Yes,” is all you can squeak out, “yes, please.”
If Eddie was being honest, he was a few half-thrusts into your thigh short of coming in his own pants from how hot you looked. Your eyes glassed over, pretty lips parted and gasping his name, perfect cunt sucking his fingers in. 
The hand not occupied by your gushing cunt slid up to cup the side of your cheek, forcing you to look into his fiery eyes. “Feel’s good?” he questions, knowing the answer and not expecting a verbal response.
He drags the pad of his thumb up to your parted lips, running it along your plush bottom lip and dragging it down a bit, relishing in how under his spell you were. His thumb slips into your mouth and you immediately wrap your lips around it and suck. 
“Good girl,” his thumb on your clit is rubbing more focused circles, “suck on that and keep your voice down, don’t want the whole bar knowing what a good little slut you are for me.”
Jackpot. 
A muffled moan around his thumb and the spasming of your inner walls signaled that you were hitting your peak. He drags the spit slicked digit from your lips and quickly replaces it with his lips and tongue, kissing you with fervor as he feels you ride out your orgasm on his hand. 
“Mmmmmmm” you moan, somewhere between a pleading whine and a sigh of satisfaction into his lips as his fingers don’t let up. 
Under different circumstances you would tell him to slow down, give you a minute to catch your breath. Eddie was stubborn, this you knew, and he had already made it abundantly clear that one orgasm wasn’t going to be enough. 
He pulls back from your lips, loving the sharp intake of breath you swallow as your cheeks continue to flush and eyelids keep fluttering. 
“So fucking good, came all over my fingers,” his gaze locks in on where his hand was buried into your cunt. “Gonna give me one more?”
Of course you would, whether it was up to you or not. He did slow up for a second, just enough for you to regain your grip on reality before he started curling them up again. 
“Eddie,” you whine out, eyes nearly crossed and unable to focus your attention on his face, hands, anything other than his boner poking into your inner thigh, “wanna feel you.”
The hand formerly gripped tight onto the edge of the counter snakes forward and pulls his hip into you, a permanent indentation of his stiff cock molding against your skin. 
“Not yet baby,” he rolls his hips forward, giving you a delicious feel of how it would be if he was inside you, but instead pushing his fingers a touch deeper and then pulling his hips away, “one more and then I’ll take you home. You’re gonna let me ruin that perfect little cunt, right? That was the deal?”
“Yes,” you gasp out, his other hand moving from your hair down to rub fast tight circles on your clit, the other hand still pumping steadily inside you.
“That’s right, I know this pussy is gonna take me so well. You’re already drooling for my cock, so fucking perfect.”
You feel it building up again, that sacred double orgasm that only ever came during your alone time in the shower or when you were so desperate for release that your hand didn’t stop after the first, but never with another person, never like this. 
His smile nearly touched his ears at this point, pulling back to take in all of you as your eyes screwed shut and thighs threatened to break his wrist at how fast they snapped together. 
Hitting you like a punch to the gut, your abdomen tightened and released rapidly, air sucked from your lungs and his hand working you through it between your clenched thighs. 
Yeah, maybe this was a bad idea. 
If you were in a cartoon, stars and chirping birds would be swirling around your head as you slowly came back to reality. He gave you some space, and begrudgingly gave you pack your panties after you hand out your hand and gave him a stern look.
“I’m gonna go tell the others that you aren’t feeling great and I’m taking you home,” he makes sure you’ve pulled your pants back up before unlocking the door, “Take your time, and I’ll meet you at the van, okay? I’ll grab your stuff.”
“Yeah,” you still feel a little flustered, looking back into the mirror and smoothing down your hair, “thanks.”
He shoots you a wink before slipping out, giving you a moment to collect yourself and splash some cold water on your face. Okay, so you’re doing this. 
Any nagging feelings that this might ruin things or that he’s only teasing you because of your arrangement are quickly squished down into a deeper compartment of your brain, overtaken by the post orgasm bliss and wandering thoughts of what might happen next. 
You peek your head out of the bathroom door, and slink your way to the back door without passing your group table or a stray Steve or Robin. The fresh air equalizes your buzzing thoughts, and you spot Eddie, already in the driver’s seat of his van. 
“You good?” He asks as you hop into the passenger seat. You won’t let him have the upper hand, just because he made you come twice in under ten minutes. 
“Yeah,” you gather as much assertion as your voice will project, “You good?”
“F’course,” he starts backing up, you internally roll your eyes at the way his outstretched arm muscles and curved neck make your stomach flutter, “Just wanted to make sure I passed the test.”
You sit in silence, not wanting to give into the cocky game he clearly wants to play, yet know that he’s entirely correct in his assumption that he’s driven you completely crazy. Once he’s on the main stretch of road, finally rolling to a stop at a red light you let your hand migrate across the center console, dancing its way into his lap. 
As you hoped, his cock was still half hard and apparent underneath his jeans. You let your hand draw circles next to it, loving the little twitch you get when you run your nails against his thigh. 
“Easy there, tiger,” he lets out a huffed laugh, with just an edge to his tone that suggested you were getting yourself into something you’d soon regret. 
“C’mon Eds,” you let your head fall on the corner of the headrest, gaze angled over at his tight grip on the steering wheel while your hand dancing around the bulge in his pants, “you’ve been pushing this thing against my thigh for the past twenty minutes, forgive me for wanting a better feel.”
You put on a pretend pouty face and flash him your best puppy dog eyes to ward off any incoming snippy comments from him. He rolls his pretty eyes at you and silently bites the inside of his cheek as you feel up and down his lap, grazing his growing cock with each pass. 
“Forgiven,” through gritted teeth, he squeezes his eyes shut as your fingers circle around his head, now taking visible form beneath his black jeans. He internally reprimands himself for losing focus on the road, and zeroes his concentration on getting back to his trailer as fast as this van can take him. 
You have your fun watching him wiggle in his seat, feeling his thigh muscles clench under your palm every so often. You weren’t full on jerking him off over his pants, but you were certainly relishing in the feeling of his dick getting harder and harder with each occasional pass of your hand.
He parks diagonally across the lawn in front of his trailer, not giving a shit where the van ends up as long as it’s stopped. He wanted to dash around the vehicle and scoop you out of your seat, throw you over his shoulder and take you inside to continue with whatever this evening had in store for you.
The second his hand stalled on the clutch, shifting the van into park and taking a moment to let his mind wander to what would happen once he got you inside, you were already halfway out the van and skipping up the steps to his front door. 
Entering his trailer, you start taking off your coat and shoes, trying to act as normal as possible. Your facade of keeping it cool entirely shatters when he enters behind you, calmly clicking the door shut and patiently waiting for you to finish unlacing your boots.
You remain crouched down, darting your eyes up at him, deciding against being a brat and undoing your laces as slowly as possible to keep him waiting. Any caution you had was long swept away by the wind, and he’d taken control in your little bathroom tryst, so it was your turn to say fuck it and just do what felt right. 
And in this moment, there was only a few quick movements and about six inches of space between you and Eddie’s semi-hard dick. One shoe was only half off, haphazardly kicked behind you as you pivoted onto your knees and had your hands moving eagerly up his tensing thighs.
“Can I?” Your question was half formed and he was already nodding. 
You’d teased him enough on the ride over, you wanted him, now. Pants quickly unbuttoned and blue checkered boxers pushed down to his knees, and you were about to go feral and just go for it when a silver glimmer adorning his thick cock caught your eye.
Your mouth was already half open, but your jaw nearly unhinged and hit the floor when the pierced head of his dick falls out of his boxers and lands at your eye level. 
Unmoving, mouth agape, you look up to make eye contact, ripping your eyes away from the shock of two silver balls on his cockhead. He knew it was nice, he wouldn’t have bedazzled it if it wasn’t, but the look you were giving him sucked all the unwavering confidence from his body for a split second, suddenly feeling weak in the knees at the sight of you slowly sicking your tongue out, not making any contact but waiting. 
He took the base of his dick in his hand and gave it a few precautionary strokes before angling it down and slapping your wet tongue with the tip a few times. 
You were two and a half seconds away from being entirely fucked out. If he pulled away and asked you to crawl on all fours to him, you’d do it without a second thought.
You let him slide his cock gently against your outstretched tongue a few times before coming to your senses and wrapping your lips around him, moving your hand to replace his and move against the length that your mouth couldn’t yet reach. 
All it took was a few steady bobs of your head, hand twisting and eyes still focused upwards on his face, to have him biting his knuckle and looking up at the ceiling to ground himself to try and not bust on the spot. You love this, of course, seeing him visibly spiral paired with the salty taste of precum already leaking from him. 
The hand not jerking him off comes up to the back of his hip, gently pushing against him in tandem with the movements of your head, encouraging him to shallowly thrust into your mouth.
“Jesus fu-“ he grunts out, not wanting to overestimate your encouragement, but unable to keep his hips from rolling forward slightly with the push of your hands and the bob of your lips. 
After an unexpected snap of his hips that sent his cock sliding into the back of your throat, making you gag slightly, a pang of guilt struck through him for pushing too hard. That was, until you let your head pull back a touch to catch your breath, but a long string of spit connected your lips to his cock, and a wild smile broke across your face that nearly sent him to the moon. 
You dove back in and pushed his cock all the way into the back of your throat, going so far that your nose pressed into the patch of dark curls that sat above his perfect dick. Focusing your breathing through your nose, you make a point to constrict your throat a few times until you feel him twitch inside you.
Pulling off with a gasp for air, you notice his eyebrows pinched together and gaze locked on you. 
“I like how these feel,” you comment, letting your pointed tongue dance around the metal balls on his tip.
He shudders and you clench your thighs at the sight of his stomach muscles tensing up when your tongue makes contact with the underside of his head, right where it meets the shaft. 
“If I let you fuck my mouth until you come, are you still going to be able to give it to me in a bit, or are you a one and done kind of guy?” You ask with a playfully teasing tone, but genuinely want to know if you suck him off to completion if the night will be over or not. 
“Fuck,” he spits out, more blood rushing to his cock at the idea of coming down your throat, “I’d fuck you all night if you’d let me babe.”
Half a second doesn’t pass before his cock is back in your mouth, hips shakily moving forward with your movements, gaining confidence as you flicker your eyes up at him through your lashes, the glimmer in them telling him he can take what he wants. 
“Fuckin’ look at you,” he comments to himself, “takin’ it all.” 
“Mhmmm,” you hum around him letting your tongue roll around his tip each time before he pushes his cock back down your throat. 
“You think you can get away with teasing me like that? That shit you pulled in the van back there, you think it’s cute to try and get me all riled up?”
You nod, tongue out and saliva coating your lips and chin. You could tell he was close by the way his words came out staggered, and his hips started snapping towards you in a new tempo, like his body was chasing it. 
Grunts and moans pulled from his chest fill the space mixed with the hums of satisfaction you let out while you take him deeper and faster. Moving in for the kill, you carefully slip your hand up in between his legs, cupping his balls, trying your best not to startle him. 
“Oh fuck,” it was a pitch of his voice you’d never heard before, a new tone especially reserved for the moments before orgasm, “you’re gonna make me fuckin come, y/n, y/n, I’m…”
The feeling of his balls constricting in your hands cues the warm wash of come sputtering down into your throat.
Getting the feeling he’d appreciate a bit of a show, you continue to jerk him off and pull off his cock slightly, letting the tip balance onto the tip of your tongue and the rest of his load spills out into your open mouth, some landing around the corners and onto your lips. 
“Christ, y/n,” his chest is heaving, his eyes finally pulling from you to squeeze shut for a moment. 
Once you’re sure he’s looking at you again you swallow down the salty white substance and lick the excess off your lips. You take his head back into your mouth, sucking just enough to clean off the tip and lap up any stray drops. He’s sensitive, you can tell, so you stop torturing him and place a final kiss right in between the two metal balls. 
You thought of asking him if the piercing hurt, or maybe make a comment about the two matching tattoos on his hipbones, ink of his you’d never seen until now. Before your brain can jump from swallowing his come to making post-nut chit chat, he’s yanking you up off your feet and wrapping you in a searingly passionate kiss. 
In your past experience most guys wanted you to drink some water or brush your teeth after they came in your mouth, at least before kissing you. Not Eddie. The way his tongue immediately slipped into your mouth, you almost believed he was trying to get a taste for himself. 
“C’mon,” he whispers in between slotting his lips with your, “Bedroom. Now.” 
He takes your hips in his hands and spins you around, causing a surprised yelp to bubble up from you, making him chuckle behind you as he walks you down the hall, keeping his hands on your sides. 
You knew where you were going, there were only so many doors in his tiny trailer, and you’d been here plenty of times before, but you liked the feeling of his hands pushing you forward, guiding your movements and steering you down the hallway into his room. 
Before your knees can hit the bed he spins you back around and captures your lips in another heated kiss. His hands trail up your sides, letting his fingertips slide beneath the hem of your shirt and push it upwards until your ribs were exposed. He pulls away from your face, leaving you leaning back into him, not wanting the kiss to end. 
“Up,” he pinches the sides of your shirt in his hands, and signals with his chin that he wants you to lift your arms, which you comply. 
It slides up and off of you, his hands quickly darting back to unclasp your bra, seemingly without even trying. This makes you roll your eyes, but the realization that you’re bare before him eclipses the thought of making a snippy remark about what a man whore he is. 
Flat palms caress your sides and move up to cup your breasts, his tongue pressing into the side of your neck. 
“These too,” his thumbs dip into your pants, managing to wiggle under the waistband of your panties as well. You’re going to do it yourself, but he gently pushes you back onto the bed, letting you flip back into the unmade blankets. 
“I wanna see you,” he pops your pants button and waits for a nod before sliding your pants and underwear down your legs. 
In between the blowjob and now, he’d tucked himself back into his pants, pulling his boxers and jeans back up, still unbuttoned, but covering him back up as his cock returned to a half hard state, unlikely to stay that way for very long considering how things were going. 
The scene of you now sprawled out onto his bed, naked and needy for him, and him standing above you, basically fully clothed, had a flood of lust traveling south between your thighs.
“So fuckin’ gorgeous,” you burned under his intense gaze, raking down your body and soaking in the image of your skin laid out against his flannel plaid sheets. 
He crawls over you, letting his body melt into yours, the center seam of his jeans pressing against your soaking core, just as it had when he had you pressed up against the door of the bar bathroom.
Rocking gently against you, you feel his cock already starting to harden again. His tongue moves against your neck, hands roaming freely against your skin, arching into his touch. 
His breath was heavy against your lips, he was already starting to lose himself, and he knew he wanted to make you come with his tongue at least once before his dick came back out, but it was already pulsing between his legs, growing rock solid with every little whimper that came past your lips. 
Your fingers intertwined themselves into the tresses of his long, messy hair. You use your new grip to pull his face as close into yours as your bodies will allow, smushing his nose up against your cheek and foreheads plastered together. The weight of his body on yours, and the lovely rocking motion of his hips against yours stopped as he pulled away and hooked his arms under your knees. 
He slides off the side of the bed, feet returning to the carpeted ground and yanking your body to the edge of the mattress. You let out an unexpected giggle, body limp like a rag doll, moving wherever he wanted you. 
He leans back over to give you another deep kiss, teeth dragging against your lower lip and tongue sliding gracefully against yours, before he slides his mouth down, stopping to lap up at your nipples for a moment, not letting any part of your skin go untouched as he takes his time moving down to where you want him most. 
Wiggling around on his mattress, your body is begging him to get on with it, but he loves to make you squirm. He takes his time licking up your hip bones, kissing from the innermost part of your thigh all the way down to your knee, and then back up the other side. He even takes a long moment to suck a dark purple bruise into the meat of your thigh, biting down on the flesh and licking over the skin to soothe it, noticing how your back arched a little when he bit down harder. 
“Please Eddie,” your voice is hardly above a whisper, whimpering and whiny.
“All you had to do was ask nicely,” he has that too-cocky tone again, but it’s long forgotten once his tongue is buried in between your thighs, lapping up the excess of wetness already pooled there.
“Ohhh,” you let out a moan, sucking in a sharp breath and allowing your body to relax under his focused touch. 
His hands push up from your ass to the crooks of your knees, moving your legs back to either side of you, strong palms finding their resting place on the backs of your thighs, keeping your legs spread wide open for him while he buries his face deep in your cunt. 
“You-“ the start of a compliment, or maybe a request, escapes your lips but the sudden harsh suck of your clit into his mouth has you speechless and moaning, “Mhmmmmm, uhhhhhhh.”
The sloppy wet sounds of him making out with your pussy are enough to drive you wild, your hands originally balling his sheets in your fists quickly move to the top of his head, resting atop his mop of messy curls. 
“Y’can give it a tug,” the first half of his statement spoken directly into your pussy, “I don’t mind a little pain.” He shoots you a wink and keeps his eyes locked on you as he lets his tongue lap a fat long lick up your slit, and then leaning back down to encourage you to tangle your hands into his hair. 
Coming to either side of his head you grab two points of purchase, locking your fingers in at the roots and feeling him hum into your cunt when you grabbed it a little tighter. 
Your hips start to quiver, so he brings one hand from your thigh up to your lower stomach, pinning you against the bed, and still keeping you spread open with the other. 
Working a steady rhythm against your slick center with his lips and tongue, he can tell he’s found the spot you like most by your open mouth and tight eyebrows.
“Ohmygod,” your chest starts moving with heavy breaths, you can’t bear to keep yourself up any longer and flop back down flat onto the mattress, eyes screwing shut in pleasure. He lets go of his anchor on your tummy and returns his hands to your thighs, allowing your hips to wiggle and wriggle against his face to chase after your own pleasure. 
“Pleasepleaseplease,” one glimpse of his big brown eyes looking up at you and his nose pressing deliciously into the spot above your clit has your head reeling, “please don’t stop, fuck.”
Rather than reply, he just continues to devour you at that steady pace, your thighs almost snapping shut around his head . 
“Uh huh, right there, oh fuck Eddie I’m gonna-“ 
A strangled moan rips from your throat and your back arches off the mattress, his hands quickly come to wrap around your thighs and keep your center held closely against his face. He’s pulling your hips flush with his face, despite your spasming torso and gushing core. 
As your orgasm peaks, your hips angle themselves to push up deeper into his face, and he uses his leverage against the backs of your thighs to lift your ass, the entire lower half of your body now off the mattress and sliding backwards as he keeps his moving tongue glued to your clit. 
He climbs up onto the mattress as you slide back, the grip he had on your legs was sure to leave a sore memory of him unwilling to let your coming pussy away from his face. 
When he finally pulls away, your hand pushing at his forehead to prevent overstimulation, both of you gasping for air, his knees are propped under your thighs, and your hips are propped up right at perfect level with the bulge in his pants. 
“Fuck me,” you say through catching your breath, not as an expletive but rather a demand, “Eddie, I need you to fuck me,” your voice was whiny and desperate. 
“This okay?” he starts pulling his dick from its constraints in his unbuttoned jeans, not even shoving them halfway down his thighs before he had that pretty pierced dip dragging through your open and ready folds. 
“Yes, inside, please,” you were chasing after his length, while he tossed his shirt off. He teasingly ran it up and down your slit before sinking into you, collapsing down to press your lips into a kiss to swallow your moans as he slid the whole thing in slowly, making sure to take his time and fuck you right. 
He grabbed the back of your neck and pressed his forehead to yours, finally sheathed all the way inside you and stilling for a moment to relish in the feeling. Pulling back so he can watch your face as he pumps his first few thrusts, he knows he’s beyond fucked. 
“So fucking good,” you slur out, eyes almost crossing from how deep his cock was hitting your insides.
“Yeah? This pussy’s god damn perfect, fucking made for me,” he articulates each thought with a snap of his hips, “suckin’ me right in.” 
“Wait, can we,” your voice had a little more weight behind it unlike the airy moans he’d grown obsessed with in the past forty minutes.
He pulls back, and rather than finish your thought you slip him out of you and roll over, shuffling up the bed and positioning yourself face down ass up, knees spread and back arched. 
“You think you can handle it?” he asks jokingly, swatting your ass playfully and then landing a second, harder smack on the flesh when he notices you pussy clench around nothing at the sensation of him spanking you. 
“Want you to fuck me hard,” you mumble into his pillow, wiggling your hips a little bit to jiggle the fat of your ass, “I know your cock is gonna feel so fucking good in me this way, wanna feel that fucking piercing back in my throat from the other direction.”
“Jesus Christ, y/n,” he was genuinely a little shocked at your words, slowly learning that your freak side might match his. 
You expected to feel his cock slam into you once his hands came to spread your ass apart, but instead the mattress dipped and he was licking another fat stripe from your clit all the way up past your second hole, running this back a few times until you were moaning into the pillow and thighs were tensed up from the attention he was giving you.
“Sorry babe, just needed another taste,” he pushed the head of his dick into you, and moved the first few inches agonizingly slow into your soaked hole. 
“Eddie please, need it, need you,” he loved that his sheets were balled up in your fists, using the tension of the material to bounce yourself back onto him. You only manage to slide back down about three quarters before he’s tightly gripping your hip and pulling out half way again. 
“Tsk tsk tsk, you need to learn to be patient, pretty girl,” he’d thrust it an inch of so, and then slowly pull back, making you whine and start to feel tears bubble up in the corners of your eyes. 
“Want it so bad,” your cheek laid flat against his pillow, and you could catch a glimpse of him behind you out of the corner of your eye if you craned your neck a bit. You sounded so desperate, but you knew he liked it, liked hearing how badly you craved him. 
He starts moving in and out of you, firm grip on your ass never wavering. Restrained grunts left his mouth as he fucked into you, causing your eyes to practically roll into the back of your head. He leans down to place a soft kiss on your shoulder blade, despite how viciously he's pounding into you. His head cranes down to your shoulder, his hand coming up to brush your hair out of your face. 
As his long fingers move your hair away from your eyes, you push your head back into his hand, not wanting to lose contact. He tentatively runs his hands up into your hair, taking a soft grip on your roots.
“Is this what you want?” he whispers, “you like it rough?”
“Yes,” you manage to squeak out, “fuck, pull my hair, spank me, do whatever the fuck you want to me, please.”
His vision practically goes black with this new unrestricted passion, allowing himself to thrust into you as hard and as deep as his hips would propel him, twisting your hair in his grip and pulling you up from your laid position, quickly letting your hands jump to his headboard to support you as your head was pulled back. 
You tried to bounce back onto his cock, wanting to feel him as deeply and wholly as your bodies would allow, but you could hardly keep up with the pace he had set. 
Your ass bouncing against him and the occasional glance he caught at your fucked out expression spurred him on to fuck you even harder. He had your hair pulled back so tight that your back was pressing flush up with his chest every so often, and he took the opportunity to snake an arm around you and hold your chest up flat, his other hand moving down to rub frantic circles on your clit.
“You’re gonna make me come like this,” you manage to croak out, voice hoarse from the harsh bend in your neck. 
“Nuh uhh, no,” his voice was gruff and commanding, right into your ear and sent a shiver down your spine. 
He pulled out of you fully, and had you flipped around flat on your back again before you could even open your mouth to complain. 
“Need to see that pretty face when you come on my cock,” he lines himself up with you again, pushing into you and making a mental note of how the bulge of his cock looked pressing up from the inner part of your lower stomach. 
And of course, your face screwed up in pleasure, puffy lips and sweaty brow, slack jawed and panting his name would be something Eddie wouldn’t be able to forget even if he tried.
His thumb found its way to your clit to pick up where he had last left you, steadily building to an earth shattering orgasm. Talking you through it, knowing you were close by the vice grip your walls had on his dick, in between grunts he spilled out some “good girl”’s and “right fuckin there, that’s it.” 
When he felt your thighs tense up, and the muscles in your neck strain against the soft skin he’d previously had his lips all over, he knew you were nearing the finish line. 
“So fucking perfect, feel so good wrapped around me,” he managed to sweet talk you without altering the pace of his hips, “That’s it, come on my cock, give it to me.”
With that, your body can’t help but throw itself over the edge of pleasure. A deep grunt rattles in your chest, and you lose all sensation other than the wild pulsing in between your legs. You can’t be bothered to worry about what your face looks like, or if your thighs are squeezing him too hard, you only feel the riptide of an orgasm shattering through you. 
The animalistic noise that Eddie grunts out, his wild gaze locked on your face only makes your body shake with pleasure even harder. He had that instinct that most men lacked, to keep the exact pace and motion when your orgasm hit rather than speed up or slow down, it was a gift, a talent. 
Of course he wasn’t going to change a thing about what he was doing, look at you. You were so fucking perfect, shaking and coming all over him, those sweet noises and the beautiful squelching between your thighs. He’d rather die than change a single thing about this moment. 
He stilled only when you paused to catch your breath, and within seconds was flipped over by the power of your thighs onto his back.
Unexpectedly, you began to ride him, trying to match the pace he had earlier set. The aftershocks of your orgasm still washed through you, but you seized the moment to get him right where you wanted him. This angle was different, deeper and more connected. You roll your hips and bring your hands up to his hair, foreheads pressing together once again. 
“You’re making me feel so fucking good,” you manage to breathe out into his lips, he quickly comes to the realization of what’s happened and shifts the angle of his hips to hit you even deeper. 
“I’d give you everything, if you’d let me,” he doesn’t let a single thought pass in his mind before the words slip out, “always.”
Your lips capture his in a kiss that has far more emotion behind it than two friends play-dating and fucking for fun. His hands come up to grasp your cheeks, your hips continue to roll down into his with purpose. 
“I’m- Where-“ his words are hardly intelligible in between breathless kisses, but you know what he means. 
“Inside, please, need all of you inside me,” you try to keep your voice steady so he hears you loud and clear, wanting to give him the exact attention he had paid to you, “Please Eddie, come inside me.”
His hands travel down and guide your hips to fuck down onto him one, two, three times before he’s groaning in your ear and letting out the prettiest and most vulnerable sounds you’ve ever heard form him. 
The swell of his cock inside you makes you drape your head into his neck, focusing on riding out his orgasm and making sure he was twitching in the aftershocks of his orgasm before you let up. 
When you felt his grip on your hips tighten, signaling that he’d had too much, you sink all the way down one final time and let your body lay limp on his, pulsing cock still filling you up. 
His chest rose and fell harshly with his recovering breaths. You could feel his heartbeat pulsing up through the spot on his neck where your ear laid on his sweaty skin.
Silently awaiting the inevitable tap on the shoulder, the slow pull out and post-sex cleanup process, you try to savor every passing moment. But it doesn’t come. Eddie wraps his arms around your midsection and holds your limp body close to his, letting his cock start to soften inside you. 
You nearly fall asleep like that, all wrapped up in him, until you recognize that you should pee and clean up to avoid a UTI. You slip off of him, and hear a disappointed groan from him. He makes cute grabby hands at you as you cross the room, making you roll your eyes, but something deep inside you flip flops with how sweet he’s being, so caring, so unlike the picture of himself that he had painted for you. 
You give him a wet hand towel to clean up the remnants of your activities, and slip back into bed with him per his insistence. You doze off for a while, until the rising sun peeking through his blinds catches your eye, striking you with the sudden decision to stay and face the music or leave and let it settle. 
You’d already regretted it, but weren’t ready to have the “hey, so I know we had fake boyfriend-girlfriend sex, but I actually really like you so what should we do about that?” conversion with him, so instead you take the cowardly path and tiptoe out of his room in the early morning hours, leaving behind your underwear on his nightside table with a scribbled note saying to call you. Hopefully that was enough of a signal. 
Apparently not,
Days pass, and no call. 
It was all starting to get to your head. While you had gone through the stages of being nervous that you had done something wrong, that he was avoiding you to spare you the rejection, thinking he regretted what had happened and didn’t want to face you, who was so obviously into him it was painful, you’d just now turned a new leaf. Fuck that. If he was too much of a coward to call you, you'd hope he'd at least give you the decency as a friend to tell you the truth, you deserved to be angry, and you deserved a response. 
After stewing in your feelings for longer than felt healthy, you just get in your car and start driving to his trailer. If this all blew up in your face at least you wouldn’t have to keep biting your nails and waiting for the phone to ring. 
Three deep breaths, and a quick moment to gather your thoughts, and suddenly your body acted on instinct, putting the car in park and walking up to pound three concise knocks on his trailer door. 
“Just a second,” he hollered from inside, giving you a few seconds to be stricken with regret for showing up unannounced without a plan on what exactly to say. 
“What do you- oh, y/n,” he was in a pair of plaid pajama pants that hung low on his hips, shirtless and hair still damp from a recent shower, “uh, hey?”
“Oh, hey,” your tone was laced with annoyance, “I left something here last week and I’m here to get it back. If you don’t mind.”
“What- oh,” he’s a second too slow to realize you mean the underwear you had purposefully left behind with that note. The note telling him to call you. Which he never did. 
You were left standing on his porch steps, arms crossed and shooting daggers out of your eyes while he stood there in the doorway, an apparent guilty expression plastered on his face while he rocked back on his heels to buy some time to figure out what to say. 
“You don’t have to invite me inside, if you can just grab them and give them to me, and I’ll be out of your hair,” you say flatly, recognizing if he does as asked then this might be the last time you speak to Eddie Munson. 
“No, no, uh, you should come in,” he steps aside to let you in, “we probably shouldn’t have this conversation on my front steps.”
Avoiding eye contact, feeling an overwhelming mix of anger, confusion, and betrayal, you step inside and don’t make any effort to move into the space. You just stand by the door and give him an expectant look. Either he could go get the underwear, or he could grow a pair and say something to you. 
“I, uh-“ he looked so defeated you started to feel bad for using such a pointed tone, but then you remembered the days and days that passed without hearing from him, “I’m sorry, that I, y’know…”
“Yeah, well I don’t really care if you’re not looking for any post sex recap conversations, because you’re obviously pretty sure of yourself in that department,” the words flew out before your mind could even conjure them up, “but you fucking promised me that you wouldn’t do this, so can I please just have my underwear back and I won’t bother you again.”
He runs a hand through his hair letting out a deep exhale and searching the ceiling for words, “I know, I-“
You cut him off, your thoughts were ripping through you now and you were going to say your piece whether he asked for it or not, “You said you wouldn’t pull this shit with me, but I guess our friendship isn’t substantial enough for you to see me any differently than you do every other girl you throw away after you’ve gotten what you want. You clearly don’t want any more advice and you clearly don’t want to be my friend, so please, just give me my shit so I can go.”
“That’s the fucking thing y/n, of course I don’t want to be your friend,” his gaze still fixed on the ceiling.
At this point you were seconds away from just storming out, letting him keep your underwear as some twisted little trophy for breaking your heart. 
“Yeah, crystal clear Eddie.”
“Being your friend is already hard enough, and I knew this shit was a bad idea, the whole trial-girlfriend thing. But how the fuck was I supposed to say no to that? The girl of my dreams offers to do all this no-strings-attached romantic shit, I’d be the dumbest man alive to turn that down.”
You just give him a blank stare, your scalding anger twisting into a more confused frenzy of bees swarming in the pit of your stomach. Eyebrows pinched together, you just stare at him until he finally makes eye contact with you. 
“And yeah,” he goes on, letting all his words out like a big exhale in the same cadence that you had just hurled all your angry words at his, but his tone was filled with guilt as opposed to rage, “maybe we let it go a little too far, but I would never say no to you, I couldn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t know what the fuck to say to you after, but that’s exactly the reason I’m not good enough for you. The more we kept that fake dating shit up the worse it was gonna get, so I’m sorry, but I can’t keep spending time with you like that, because it’s starting to fucking hurt.”
“Hurt,” you say with a dry laugh, which almost scares him, “YOU’RE hurt? Give me a fucking break Eddie. I know you don’t see me that way. So what, you’re too scared to hurt my feelings? You’re doing a wonderful job, keep it up.”
“What the fuck do you mean, not see you like what?”
“Don’t pretend to be dumb Eddie. When we first met I tried so hard to get your attention, asking you to hang out, and you always blew me off. It’s fine that you don’t want to date me or whatever, but at least just tell me that, don’t fuck me like I’m special or something and then toss me aside. I deserve better than that.”
“Yeah, y/n, you do,” his voice was no longer guilt stricken, and was on the same straightforward plane as your last responses, “you deserve so much fucking better than me, that’s why I could never let anything between us happen. I don’t call girls back. I’m rude. I don’t take care of myself, let alone others. I like to smoke, and drink, and get head from girls in bar bathrooms and never learn their names, and that’s not the kind of person that a girl like you dates. I’m a fun quick fuck. You’re the kind of girl that after three dates he’ll already have a ring picked out. You’re everything, and I’m nothing, so forgive me for sparing you of that.”
Your bones are frozen and the beat of silence gives him the opportunity to spin on his heel and start down the hallway, presumably to get your panties. 
Snapping back into it, you let out a louder than expected, “Hey,” and you start following him, not taking long to catch up to him in his bedroom. 
“You,” you point a finger at him, and start to feel the rage bubble up again, “don’t get to decide that you’re unloveable. And you don’t get to tell me what kind of girl I am. Have you ever considered that maybe the reason you’re so lonely and miserable is because you choose to be? You don’t get to decide what I deserve, I do. And I really fucking like you Eddie, so forgive me for acting like it.” 
You snatch your underwear off his bedside table, and give him a look, not fueled by anger or resentment, but empathy. 
“I’m going to leave. And if you don’t want to see me again, that’s fine, but if you do, you can call me. Goodbye Eddie.”
You feel out of your own body, floating above it all and rewinding the conversation over and over, body on autopilot taking you home while your soul stayed behind and relived his words over and over, unsure if you feel better or worse than when you showed up. 
Days pass by again, and you take his silence as more of a response than anything he had said to you during that conversation. You try not to wallow, but you feel scattered and distraught, at both the prospect of losing Eddie and having to deal with your shared friends, would they allow you to dance around each other, or would they flat out choose him and shut you out? Would group nights out bowling suddenly just turn into the occasional one-on-one coffee with Robin? 
Until suddenly, on a random Tuesday afternoon when you've gotten home from work and are relaxing on the couch in your pajamas, three knocks are at your door.
At this point you figured it was over. He hadn't called and he'd made no effort to continue the dialogue. So a thought of Eddie doesn't even cross your mind in between the couch and opening the door.
And there he is.
In a suit, slightly descheveld in Eddie fashion, and holding a slightly wilting bouquet of flowers. Posture straight and brave face, but expecting your brutal edge upon answering the door nonetheless.
"Hey?" you're somewhat at a loss for words answering.
"Hi," he seems like he's running lines of a play in his mind, "I was hoping we could talk."
You reluctantly let him in, and he hands the flowers to you, as if it was a normal occurrence for him to bring you such a gift.
"First off," he starts, hardly breaching your living room entrance before starting his apology, "I regret the way we last left things, and I'm sorry for leaving you waiting for a response."
He flicks those big brown eyes at you and you can't help but give him the benefit of the doubt, he always was so sincere with his words.
"You're amazing. And although I'll remain adamant that I don't deserve someone like you in my life, I've been thinking a lot about what you said, and I'm sorry that tried to tell you how to feel."
You remain stoic at your seat on the couch, watching him shift his weight and bare his soul to you.
"You're perfect. Nice, funny, sexy, brave, all of it. And if you're willing to give me a chance, I don't know why the fuck you would, but if you are, I want to put aside all my bullshit and try this out, if you'll have me."
He stood there for a moment, letting you take in his request, bouquet in hand and suit adorned.
"And I owe you a few dates, for real."
As hard as you want your exterior to be, a smile cracks through.
"Okay, but know I don't fuck until the third date, at best," you jab, breaking his nervous exterior and visibly relieving the tension from his shoulders.
"I'm somewhat of a refined gentleman myself, so that won't be an issue," he bows and extends a hand to you.
You pull him down by the hand onto the couch with you, wrapping him up in a deep kiss. He was worth it, and you both knew it was worth the shot to try.
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inhonoredglory · 9 months
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Aziraphale’s Choice, the Job Connection, and Michael Sheen’s Morality
Update: Michael Sheen liked this post on Twitter, so I'm fairly certain there is a lot of validity to it.
I’ve had time to process Aziraphale’s choice at the end of Season 2. And I think only blaming the religious trauma misses something important in Aziraphale’s character. I think what happened was also Aziraphale’s own conscious choice––as a growth from his trauma, in fact. Hear me out.
Since November 2022 I’ve been haunted by something Michael Sheen said at the MCM London Comic Con. At the Q&A, someone asked him about which fantasy creature he enjoyed playing most and Michael (bless him, truly) veered on a tangent about angels and goodness and how, specifically,
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We as a society tend to sort of undervalue goodness. It’s sort of seen as sort of somehow weak and a bit nimby and “oh it’s nice.” And I think to be good takes enormous reserves of courage and stamina. I mean, you have to look the dark in the face to be truly good and to be truly of the light…. The idea that goodness is somehow lesser and less interesting and not as kind of muscular and as passionate and as fierce as evil somehow and darkness, I think is nonsense. The idea of being able to portray an angel, a being of love. I love seeing the things people have put online about angels being ferocious creatures, and I love that. I think that’s a really good representation of what goodness can be, what it should be, I suppose.
I was looking forward to BAMF!Aziraphale all season long, and I think that’s what we got in the end. Remember Neil said that the Job minisode was important for Aziraphale’s story. Remember how Aziraphale sat on that rock and reconciled to himself that he MUST go to Hell, because he lied and thwarted the will of God. He believed that––truly, honestly, with the faith of a child, but the bravery of a soldier.
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Aziraphale, a being of love with more goodness than all of Heaven combined, believed he needed to walk through the Gates of Hell because it was the Right Thing to do. (Like Job, he didn’t understand his sin but believed he needed to sacrifice his happiness to do the Right Thing.)
That’s why we saw Aziraphale as a soldier this season: the bookshop battle, the halo. But yes, the ending as well.
Because Aziraphale never wanted to go to Heaven, and he never wanted to go there without Crowley.
But it was Crowley who taught him that he could, even SHOULD, act when his moral heart told him something was wrong. While Crowley was willing to run away and let the world burn, it was Aziraphale (in that bandstand at the end of the world) who stood his ground and said No. We can make a difference. We can save everyone.
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And Aziraphale knew he could not give up the ace up his sleeve (his position as an angel) to talk to God and make them see the truth in his heart.
I was messed up by Ineffable Bureaucracy (Boxfly) getting their happy ending when our Ineffable Husbands didn’t, but I see now that them running away served to prove something to Aziraphale. (And I am fully convinced that Gabriel and Beelzebub saw the example of the Ineffables at the Not-pocalypse and took inspiration from them for choosing to ditch their respective sides)
But my point is that Aziraphale saw them, and in some ways, they looked like him and Crowley. And he saw how Gabriel, the biggest bully in Heaven, was also like him in a way (a being capable of love) and also just a child when he wasn’t influenced by the poison of Heaven. Muriel, too, wasn’t a bad person. The Metatron also seemed to have grown more flexible with his morality (from Aziraphale's perspective). Like Earth, Heaven was shades of (light?) gray.
Aziraphale is too good an angel not to believe in hope. Or forgiveness (something he’s very good at it).
Aziraphale has been scarred by Heaven all his life. But with the cracks in Heaven’s armor (cracks he and Crowley helped create), Aziraphale is seeing something else. A chance to change them. They did terrible things to him, but he is better than them, and because of Crowley, he feels ready to face them.
(Will it work? Can Heaven change, institutionally? Probably not, but I can't blame Aziraphale for trying.)
At the cafe, the Metatron said something big was coming in the Great Plan. Aziraphale knows how trapped he had felt when he didn’t have God’s ear the first time something huge happened in the Big Plan. He can’t take a chance again to risk the world by not having a foot in the door of Heaven. That’s why we saw individual human deaths (or the threat of death) so much more this season: Elspeth, Wee Morag, Job’s children, the 1940s magician. Aziraphale almost killed a child when he couldn’t get through to God, and he’s not going through that again.
“We could make a difference.” We could save everyone.
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Remember what Michael Sheen said about courage and doing good––and having to “look the dark in the face to be truly good.” That’s what happened when Aziraphale was willing to go to Hell for his actions. That’s what happened when he decided he had to go to Heaven, where he had been abused and belittled and made to feel small. He decided to willingly go into the Lion’s Den, to face his abusers and his anxiety, to make them better so that they would not try to destroy the world again.
Him, just one angel. He needed Crowley to be there with him, to help him be brave, to ask the questions that Heaven needed to hear, to tell them God was wrong. Crowley is the inspiration that drives Aziraphale’s change, Crowley is the engine that fuels Aziraphale’s courage.
But then Crowley tells him that going to Heaven is stupid. That they don’t need Heaven. And he’s right. Aziraphale knows he’s right.
Aziraphale doesn’t need Heaven; Heaven needs him. They just don’t know how much they need him, or how much humanity needs him there, too. (If everyone who ran for office was corrupt, how can the system change?)
Terry Pratchett (in the Discworld book, Small Gods) is scathing of God, organized religion, and the corrupt people religion empowers, but he is sympathetic to the individual who has real, pure faith and a good heart. In fact, the everyman protagonist of Small Gods is a better person than the god he serves, and in the end, he ends up changing the church to be better, more open-minded, and more humanist than god could ever do alone.
Aziraphale is willing to go to the darkest places to do the Right Thing, and Heaven is no exception. When Crowley says that Heaven is toxic, that’s exactly why Aziraphale knows he needs to go there. “You’re exactly is different from my exactly.”
____
In the aftermath of Trump's election in the US, Brexit happened in 2018. Michael Sheen felt compelled to figure out what was going on in his country after this shock. But he was living in Los Angeles with Sarah Silverman at the time, and she also wanted to become more politically active in the US.
Sheen: “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it [meant] coming back [to Britain] – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.” In the end, they split up and Michael moved back to the UK.
Sometimes doing the Right Thing means sacrificing your own happiness. Sometimes it means going to Hell. Sometimes it means going to Heaven. Sometimes it means losing a relationship.
And that’s why what happened in the end was so difficult for Aziraphale. Because he loves Crowley desperately. He wants to be together. He wanted that kiss for thousands of years. He knows that taking command of Heaven means they would never again have to bow to the demands of a God they couldn’t understand, or run from a Hell who still came after them. They could change the rules of the game.
And he’s still going to do that. But it hurts him that he has to do that alone.
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doobea · 4 months
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YOU'RE A MEAN ONE, MISTER GOJO ─ SATORU G.
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synopsis: satoru gojo is spoiled and arrogant. he's also the next in line to inherit his family's fortune. his father sends him far away in a small town for a week in hopes that he'll 'change' for the better. instead of the usual five-starred hilton hotels, he stays at a local inn and starts to befriend the owner's daughter.
tropes: small town romance, christmas au, golden retriever x black cat
MILESTONE EVENT || MILESTONE MASTERLIST
contents: fem!reader, spoiled rich boy!gojo, acts like an ass to everyone but hopelessly falls in love with you at first sight, feels like a really bad hallmark movie, mentions of wealth class differences, reader isn't a tsundere - she's just indifferent for the most part and introverted word count: 7.5K (idk i will uh make the fics shorter in the future) a/n: thank you anon for requesting this!! idk if this is what you wanted but hopefully you like it!! :3 everyone also give a round of applause to @popponn for beta reading this big mess LMAO
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Satoru Gojo has a lot of expectations, but this certainly isn’t one of them.
He isn’t particularly excited about spending a week away from his big city penthouse to be rotting in a small town motel in the middle of nowhere but, his father, CEO of Gojo Corporations, heavily insisted that he ‘needs this’ and that ‘it’ll be good for the company’ — whatever that means. Satoru is confident that his father thinks he’s incapable of running the family business after last month’s run with the paparazzi and his third fling of the month. It wasn’t his fault that they got caught doing drugs at one of Zenin's parties, everyone else was doing the same thing, it just so happened that the cameras were only focusing on him. 
Well, that’s what he gets for signing up to be the son of one of the richest men on Earth.
“You need to start taking this seriously,” he recalls his father slamming his fist down at the desk before throwing a bottle of Henessy at the wall. “I don’t want this company to go bankrupt just because I have a son who only thinks with his dick.”
Ouch… but he’s not wrong about that.
So now Satoru finds himself driving up a winding road somewhere very deep in the mountains. Exactly five hours away from the city. And, for the past three hours, all he’s been seeing are miles and miles of pine trees, sheets of snow, and — he had recently learned this from Suguru — sugar shacks. Apparently when you’re out over a hundred miles into wilderness territory these sap houses are littered everywhere.  The fact that Satoru is beginning to count more shacks than designer cars on the road is really starting to get to him. 
“This whole thing is so fucking stupid,” Satoru has also been talking to himself throughout the journey in order to not lose his mind. “He could’ve just sent me door to door caroling instead of whatever this is.” Satoru doesn’t know how to sing well, but he does know all the lyrics to ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ and that usually gets him all the tips. He wonders if he can manage to make a small side hustle when he starts wasting his week here.
He takes a sharp turn up around the hill before finally recognizing a big red sign with the name ‘Mistle Town’ as seen on the postcard his dad left him before leaving. It takes him another five minutes of driving through said small town, which is quite literally something out of one of those really bad holiday movies that his mom would force him to watch when he was little, before arriving at the inn. Upon arriving, Satoru is noticeably disappointed at the lack of valet assistance and, the size and design of the inn, is rather lackluster. 
First, it just looks like a regular white farmhouse. Maybe having a max of ten rooms, none of them being penthouse sized, Satoru assumes. There are a couple of flowerbeds out front, all covered in a couple of inches of snow, and there’s subtle signs of holiday decor slowly bleeding its way outside. He sees someone dressed in an oversized puffer by the entrance, arms occupied with red tinsel and large white ornaments, and figures that the first nice thing he’ll do is to help out a random stranger — just to prove something to his dad.
Satoru parks his Rolls Royce in a spot furthest away from everyone else in the parking lot and sends a ‘im alive and well’ text to Suguru, because he’s very much so going to be in frequent contact with him for the remainder of the trip, before heading up.
“Need a hand?” He points out the obvious but still manages to throw a smile as if he’s already fixed the situation unfolding in front of him.
Satoru’s presence seems to pull you from your busy trance. You wiped your body around, nearly smacking the damn tinsel in his face, and made a small surprised noise.
“I’ve got it,” you muffle out and he looks entirely unconvinced but, whatever, he tried anyway.
Satoru gives you a few encouraging pats on the back before heading inside, failing to realize his strength and causing you to lose your balance, making a few ornaments tumble to the ground. Thank god they’re all plastic though.
He pretends to not hear you yelling after him as he enters the double doors, immediately greeted by the scent of roasted coffee beans and leather. It’s the precious hour in the morning where nobody comes by, right after the cleaning staff had just finished vacuuming, when he struts in. He immediately spots someone vaguely familiar by the front desk. Long black hair, a red poofy bow tie in the back, and a distinctive scar across her face. The woman isn’t working alone, a man with another facial marking is next to her, brewing two cups of coffee by the espresso machine. 
Satoru looks at the woman again and outwardly smiles. “What are you doing here?”
“Ugh,” Utahime’s composure immediately falters at the sound of his voice, not that it’s a big shock. “Helping the family business, what else?” she throws back with a certain sharpness to her tone, and waves off the casual talk. “Have you even mentally prepared yourself for what you’re getting into?”
Satoru simply shrugs and saunters over to a nearby seat by the counter. “Nah, honestly just planning to fuck around till I get back.”
Utahime flushes a little, though it’s mainly from frustration. “Satoru Gojo, you really are—”
“Utahime,” the man next to her speaks, handing her a cup of coffee, and slides Satoru a freshly brewed one, too. “I can explain the details to him, if you would like?”
The older female rubs the bridge of her nose and exhales a long, overdue sigh. “Please do, Choso.”
“Yeah,” Satoru leans into the counter, lips pointed down at this new face. “Please, do tell.”
“You’re basically our little Santa helper.” A new voice rings out from behind him. It spooks Satoru from his seat and he whips his head around to be met with your narrow eyes.
“Huh?”
“Also think of this as an unpaid internship.” You start laughing when he gags on his own saliva at your statement. “Okay, you don’t have to be so dramatic about it.”
Satoru swallows. “U-Unpaid…?”
Now it’s Utahime’s turn to speak, she huffs and tosses a couple of stockings into his arms. “Your father sent us a lengthy email a few days prior regarding your bratty behavior. So, of course, we came prepared.” 
“Prepared…?” He feels the fabric in his hands and whines at the grainy texture. This is so not 100% real wool.
If Satoru thought he had any chance of actually taking over his father’s company, because he knows the difference between supply and demand, he’s wrong.
Customer service is not his forte. He’s always thrown emails and sponsorship paperwork at his many assistants, and Satoru doesn’t even know his own email log-in password. So, when you walked up to him first thing the next morning with a brown apron, the inn’s logo large and embroidered in the center, telling him how to function all these coffee machines that he’s seen behind hundreds of counters, it invoked some fear into his already wrecked nerves. Plus, no one dared to warn him about the clientele during a holiday rush.
“I want a venti peppermint frappe with two pumps of chocolate, three pumps of hazelnut, replace it with almond milk, one shot of espresso, and top it off with a drizzle of caramel on top.”
He slumps against the counter. “You sure you want all of that?”
“Can I please get a half dozen sfogliatella and a cannoli?
He starts picking at his cuticles and sneers. “Sorry, I don’t speak Italian.” 
“My change is supposed to be five dollars, you only gave me three back?”
Satoru groans. “You’re trying to scam me, aren’t you?”
By the end of his four hour shift, Satoru feels like he’s just done more charity work than he’s ever done in his life — actually, maybe this could also be comparable to the time where he did the ribbon cutting ceremony at Chanel; gotta support small businesses, right?
“Gojo.” You’re seated across from him behind the counter, arms crossed and pursed lips.
He barely spares you a glance as he idly plays whatever shitty mobile game that’s number one on the app store. “Mhm? What is it?” He clearly knows you’re upset, your voice practically screams ‘I will end you’ in the most monotonous way possible. But can you blame him? Of all places, Satoru does not want to spend his winter break here.
You jerk your head to the side, fingers rhythmically tapping away on the counter, clearly unimpressed. “It hasn’t even been a full day and you’ve managed to piss off every single customer.”
Satoru expression shifts, brow creasing, and sighs, grabbing a handful of mint chocolate from the freebie candy jar by the register. “Don’t be dramatic,” he rolls his eyes and shoves three pieces in his mouth before jabbing a finger at a young man. “I didn’t piss him off!”
You glower, cheeks slightly puffed out. “That’s Yuuji and he’s practically a family friend and Choso’s little brother, so he doesn’t count,” you explain before adding, “Plus, he’s literally nice to everyone. You’re not special.”
And for a second, Satoru considered arguing that fact. Having been born into wealth, granted whatever wish he wanted, his butlers and maids are always on speed dial, that’s the lifestyle he’s used to. Placed on this tiny rock called Earth just to take over it one day, is what his father used to always say to him. But how can he, Satoru Gojo, take over when he’s stuck working a minimum — scratch that, unpaid — wage job as punishment? 
Instead of fighting, Satoru slumps against the counter and pouts, like a little kid who just got their toy taken away. You and your sister Utahime have a clear advantage over him, by somehow being close, yet distant, friends to his family. Maybe karma is real. 
“I’m putting you on ski lessons later.”
Satoru’s ears perk at this. “Oh, so I get some employee benefits, right?”
You roll your eyes, digging deep in your pockets to pull out a sheet with his name next to a list of others. “Wrong. You’re in charge of teaching five year olds how to ski.” 
“Huh?”
Somehow that sounds even worse than being a barista. Kinda. 
By the end of his first day of unemployment, Satoru tries to convince himself that a full change of scenery is nice. Well, he has to convince himself, otherwise he’s stuck dreading each coming day for the rest of the week. 
“Tired yet, Gojo?”
You flop down on a spare armchair in his room, squishing his Canada Goose jacket underneath. He’s too tired to yell at you to get off and tumbles onto his bed, feet dangling off the edge, letting out a loud groan when his face immediately makes contact with the rough wooly blanket. Surprisingly to him, everything just feels so comfortable that the quality of the products doesn’t even cross his mind.
Sure, the air in the room is a bit musty, and he can feel his cheeks flaring up from the sudden change in temperature and the dull aching nag in his legs from demonstrating ski tricks to toddlers, but there’s an odd sense of fulfillment swelling in his chest just about now. He almost suggests taking over Choso’s lesson but, according to the hotel pamphlet, there’s going to be an ice fishing tournament tomorrow and he kinda wants to check that out, too.
“Exhausted,” he mumbles into the sheets, eyes squeezed shut. Satoru wiggles his body around for a few moments before slipping out of his snow boots and stares out the window, noticing flickering green and purple lights in the night sky. “Woah, are those…?”
He hears you laugh beside him. “Yeah, northern lights. We see them all the time during the winter.”
“Only seen them bitches in ‘Polar Express’.” Satoru finds himself saying whatever’s on his mind right now, his brain too whipped out to control his mouth. “You guys are lucky to see this every night.”
“I know you’re all pooped out from today but,” he feels the mattress dip by the edge and your fingers poking at his thighs. “Did you wanna head up to the balcony and watch them for a bit?” you say this experimentally, waiting for his reaction. 
Satoru might be a stranger to most natural phenomenons, having to zone out all the time whenever he did go on family vacations to a fancy national park when he was younger. Though, during the short time of spending his time here, it makes him think about packing up and leaving behind the fast paced city life for a bit of natural beauty and brightness.
“Carry me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re like a giant.” 
He manages to gather some energy to sit up on his elbows. “You should at least have some form of hospitality to a family friend, you know?”
You eye him for a long moment, and then finally huff, breaking the contact to kick your feet into the festive carpeted floor. “Alright, just don’t lean your whole body weight on me.”
“Wouldn’t count on that.”
Both of you end up tumbling onto the balcony rails around one in the morning. As expected, Satoru couldn’t keep to his promise, throwing his ridiculously long arms around your shoulders, and whining the whole way up the stairs. It’s not his fault that the inn didn’t have an elevator installed. In all, it’s not a bad day — a bad night, even. 
You straighten him against the railing before throwing a blanket over him. The fabric is thick and heavy, and Satoru forgets the ache in his limbs as he watches the way your eyes focus, eyebrows knitted, when you’re making sure he stays bundled up against the winter air. Once upon a time, Satoru never would’ve thought he would actually enjoy being in the company of someone who’s actively trying to teach him a lesson.
“Okay,” you say suddenly, almost like a reminder that you need to breathe, and pull away from him once he’s wrapped tightly like a swaddled baby. 
You both sit in silence for a moment, and Satoru feels the urge to fill all that silence. He supposes maybe that’s why most people find him so annoying. He never really shuts up, always wants to add the last comment to everything. Though, with the help of Suguru by his side, it’s gotten slightly easier and bearable for others but, when his head is big and full of loud thoughts, it’s so hard trying to calm the buzzing noise in his head and —
“Gojo, look,” your pointer finger darts at the illuminated skyline in the distance and he snaps his head, following the trail, before gasping.
He feels your other hand tugging at the blanket when he finally makes out two faint bright lights in the distance. You squirm slightly next to him, to the point where your shoulders touch, and Satoru finally breathes, because suddenly, there’s heat rushing in. The loud, rough winds around him seem to die down and he’s aware of the slightly gazed expression on your face as you look into the far distance.
“Did you make a wish?” he finds himself whispering.
You grin. “Yeah, gonna make you work here for eternity,” you reply back in good natured spirit.
Something stirs inside Satoru. Something important. Well, Satoru-level important, so in the grand scheme of things, not very — but still. He unravels parts of his blanket and throws it over your head, making sure that it messes up your hair, and laughs when you throw him another pout. 
“Did you make a wish?” you adjust the blanket so it covers your shoulders, moving a little closer to him, avoiding the cool breeze.
Satoru nods but presses a finger to his lips. “Not telling, though. Might not come true if I do.”
“Oh, shoot. Maybe I should’ve kept mine a secret then.”
He rolls his eyes and nudges your waist with an elbow. “You will definitely not see me here again.”
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Satoru realizes, very fast, that his life has become very different, very quickly. And it might not be the bad kind of different. 
Over the course of the next few days, he’s practically glued to your side as you’re showing him all things related to hospitality that his father tried to drill into him when he was a pre-teen. Obviously, it didn’t work at the time. Satoru’s known for being defiant just because he wanted to, and eventually his father stopped with the after school etiquette lessons. You, on the other hand, unfortunately have him tied around your fingers.
“You need to tidy up the edges more, Gojo.”
“There’s barely a wrinkle in these sheets!” He points at the bed sheet on the mattress, the one that he’d been working on for the last ten minutes in vain while you stood next to him with slightly concerned eyes. It’s a room service type of lesson today and, even though Satoru has never made his own bed before, he’s positive that he didn’t leave behind any smudges that might catch anyone’s eye.
“Did you check tuck in the sides? Or are you trying to get off easy for today?” You say, there’s a mild accusation in your tone when you speak, smiling as you step aside. 
And, despite the warm smile, Satoru frowns a little, because guess who forgot to tuck in the sides? 
When Satoru ducks his head around the mattress and sees a good loose chunk of the sheets hanging off and groans when you’re right. “It’s not my fault that they’ve made them so big for no reason,” he replies, somewhat embarrassed, rubbing the back of his head and messing up his already ruffled hair.
You roll your eyes and stick a tongue out. “You’re getting the hang of it though, maybe even faster than Yuuji when he first offered to help.”
He flushes at the unexpected praise and quickly fixes the sheets, turning his whole entire body away from your sight. “Better than Yuuji, right?”
“Oh? So, you only work better with compliments, Gojo?” You sound amused, as if a lightbulb just popped on top of your head.  
Satoru flattens out the bed once more, strangely now feeling satisfied with the final outcome before turning around, sticking out a tongue of his own. “Only if it’s from you,” he answers, honestly. 
You laugh, and hopefully it’s not at him. “I thought you would be more annoying to deal with.”
“So, I’m just regular amounts of annoying?” He points out, with a fake frown, his fingers fiddling with the edges of the sheet.
You turn your gaze, seemingly in deep thought, before responding with a small shrug and grin. “Possibly a perfect amount of annoying.”
Satoru feels the blood rushing to his cheeks, again. “Well, of course, it’s the perfect amount because I’m perfect,” he replies, instantly, but suddenly he’s shy and feels the need to go to the next room to fix their stupid sheets before he combusts in front of you.
“Gojo,” you say, almost hesitantly. 
He swallows and rubs the back of his neck, wiping off evidence of his sweaty palms. “Yeah?”
“You missed a spot,” and your pointer fingers direct at the far right corner of the bed frame. He must’ve pulled the sides too hard and it caused the other side to flip over. Ugh, he’s not cut out for this at all.
“I’m… uh, still better than Yuuji, right?”
“Mhm, getting there, Gojo.”
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By day four, Satoru has surprisingly adjusted to the rules and responsibilities. He’s not entirely sure what’s gotten him mildly well behaved, Suguru is a bit surprised by the daily updates being less… aggressive and whiny. What started as long vent paragraphs about the lack of heated flooring and needy customers, soon turned into photo albums of kids face planting into the snow and unconsented selfies with you in the background. Satoru absolutely makes sure you end up looking the worst out of the two because he’s gotta let his best friend know who’s the prettiest and he’s definitely racking up a blackmail album of all of your worst moments in case anything happens in the future. 
It’s closing time and he just got back from the reindeer shed out in the back, covered head to toe in all things hay and snow. First things first, and no one bothered to tell him, but reindeers smell bad. Like, really bad. Especially at the end of the day, where their pens are covered in shit and countless carrots and apple bits from the little kids overfeeding them. Satoru is vaguely aware of the fact that he smells, just like he’s vaguely aware that the hotel lobby is oddly quiet from the usual banter between you and the usual workers.
Utahime and Choso are sitting by the cafe bar, seemingly deep in conversation about ordering more supplies for next week. Satoru thinks about interrupting their session with probably an unrelated dumb question, but the idea dies when Utahime notices his presence and motions him to come over. 
“You stink,” Satoru casts a half-glare at Utahime and begins picking out some of the scattered hay pieces stuck to his sweater. 
“For the record, I became good friends with Rudolph and Vixen today,” he grumbles back and Choso throws him a pat on the back.
“Hey, I don’t mind your stink, by the way. Smells kinda nice,” Choso offers up, but Satoru only shoots him a very unhappy look.
“If you think I smell nice then I’m really worried about what you think smells bad,” then he turns over to Utahime again, who’s engrossed in whatever is on her clipboard right now. “So, what did you need from me?”
“My sister,” she starts and taps away at the clipboard before handing it over to him. It’s pages upon pages of invoices from the past month. “Could you hand this to her? She should be in the back.”
“You treating me like an errand boy?”
Utahime scoffs. “What? Don’t wanna see her?”
“No, I do,” he responds, a bit too fast for his own liking, and straightens out. “Uh, is that all?” Satoru hopes his face doesn’t betray how much he’s a bit excited to interact with you, given that today was a full day out in the trenches, and he absolutely needs to hear you say his name at least twice a day in order to have a good night’s sleep.
Choso is trying really hard not to laugh, and Satoru takes it as a sign that he currently has a cheesy smile on his face — go figure. “One of the corner rooms upstairs requested a weighted blanket, mind also doing that too?”
There’s a certain relief that floods through Satoru and he thinks maybe he can take on a few more tasks for the night if that means spending a little more time with you, even if his body is screaming that he needs to take a two hour long shower. 
“Hey,” he starts to say when he rounds the corner, “Where’d you put those weighted blankets again?”
Satoru expected to walk in on you neck-deep in paperwork. You’ve mentioned earlier in the week that this year would be the busiest and there’s a bunch of stuff due. Something about end of the year tax returns and inventory counts, it all goes out his ear but he remembers something similar that his father told him in a prior conversation. He thinks he could probably help you figure out some of it, but that might be a bit much.
What he walks in on, thought, is you sitting in your little makeshift office. You’re on your laptop, the screen’s tilted just right enough that he gets a glimpse of what you’re looking at. You’re looking at flights and hotels, even got a whole spreadsheet on the second monitor. From what he’s seen of you so far, you didn’t come off as the type to talk about your future that much.
His voice catches you by surprise and your expression flickers from something vaguely focused to embarrassment real quick. You hastily close out the tabs and go back to the hotel’s homepage.
“What is it, Gojo?” And there’s this awkward, oddly frantic moment of you fumbling around with the keyboard and mouse, like a teenage boy who’s just got caught looking at porn.
“Ah,” Satoru thinks seeing your flustered side is rather adorable, to say the least. “You tryin’ to plan a vacation or something?” He struts over to your desk, placing a firm hand onto the back of the chair, and there’s this smile on his face that just screams ‘gotcha’.
Your face scrunches up but it’s not out of annoyance. “Kinda?”
Even with a grumpy look, it’s a good look on you. Makes you kinda dark, brooding, and beautiful, and it turns your eyes into dark storm clouds, or some other weird, waxy poetic shit that Satoru can’t figure out the words to. Either way, Satoru thinks you look cute and can’t stop noticing your little facial movements. You’re more expressive than you would probably imagine.
“Ooh, where to?”
You sigh and start playing with your thumbs. “Malaysia. My friend told me great things about it and I’ve been meaning to go for a while now but time and money are always iffy.”
“Makes sense, I can imagine that being an inn assistant doesn’t pay all the bills.”
That was probably the wrong thing to say. You huff and glare, an icy-death glare, at him. If looks could kill, Satoru is sure that he’ll be six feet underground by now. 
“Weighted blankets are on the second floor closet by the laundry room,” you answer his initial question curtly before shutting the laptop. “Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“It was just a question,” he mumbles slowly, and maybe even a little dangerously. “If money’s an issue—”
“Gojo.” Your voice is fixed and rigid, one that leaves absolutely no room for debate. “Your dad was right about you; you always just fall back to your fame and wealth.”
As you’re busy staring, Satoru realizes that you’re kinda being a total ass to him right now.
“That’s not fair,” his voice is rising and can’t seem to put a stop to the words spilling out. “Don’t bring my dad into this conversation.”
“Or what? You can go back to your privileged life anytime you want. This is just a field trip for you while others actually have to try hard and make a living.” You spit out. 
“No one forced you to become an inn worker, you know? If you’re so worried about money then you could’ve just found another high paying job.” Satoru wrinkles his nose and his volume continues to rise. 
You immediately offer him a dark glare and it comes off in a cut-throat way that shuts Satoru up mid thought. The rest of his counters die in his throat when you start making hand gestures at the office exit and he gets the hint: ‘leave before I lose my shit’ is the calling he sees.
And it works, because he finds his tone shifting a little, awkwardly kicking the floor and backing off. “Whatever…”
That was last night and, by now, Satoru is realizing that he’s kind of a giant asshole and the guilt is slowly eating away at him. Was he always like this? It couldn’t have been — he’s only met you a few days ago, and this is only meant to be a quick, ‘vacational’, getaway. Sure he might be a bit selfish and a dick, but he had been able to function perfectly fine before all of this, hadn’t he? 
Satoru’s not really sure.
It’s noon, and he’s lying in bed. Choso had asked him to cover his shift at the cafe, and he’d agreed, readily, even though it’s supposed to be his day off, because you’re working. Choso had texted him, though, saying that you had simply said you’d work the entire shift by yourself.
Of course. It’s absolutely not funny anymore.
Satoru sighs. He’s going to apologize, that’s for sure. It wounds some of his pride, yeah, but whatever, this tension between you guys, though, isn’t worth it. He finds himself wasting his entire morning away rotting in bed. There are things that he could be doing, that he looks forward to, like feeding the reindeers or demonstrating basic ski moves to little kids. Choso and Yuuji totally got him addicted to yelling out ‘pizza’ and ‘french fry’ at every chance he gets. They also got him addicted to a shitty relationship forum they both browse, but somehow the idea of reading other people’s relationship drama, when he’s facing drama of his own, is kinda mentally exhausting.
On second thought, maybe he should post on that forum, actually.
It might not be such a bad idea.
Or maybe he could reach out to Suguru and ask how to apologize? 
His best friend is a bit more grounded and attuned with other people’s feelings compared to him, afterall. Satoru’s not good at this stuff and he’s always just cut others off whenever they do argue, but this feels different. And, well, for the first time in forever, Satoru is desperate. 
“I fucked up big time and I need to apologize, help me out here?”
Suguru scoffs over the line. “Wow, what happened to saying ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’?”
Satoru rolls his eyes. “Hi, hello. How are you? How do I make a sincere apology?”
“I’m good, thank you. Now, for your request, depends on how big the fuck up is.”
He bites his tongue, finding the right words to essentially not sound like a huge dick but, no matter how he wants to rephrase it, the outcome is the same. “I might’ve implied that she’s poor and needs someone to take care of her?” It sounds so stupid, so mean, and so degrading now that he’s saying it out loud. 
He hears Suguru sucking in his teeth and sighs. After a couple of pauses, his best friend finally speaks. “That’s pretty fucked up.”
Satoru frowns. “Okay, yeah, it is,” and he sits up in his bed when a snowball makes an impact against the window. It’s Utahime. And, currently, she’s throwing him the nastiest glare that a woman has ever given him in his life. “Um, I’ll call you back, buddy…”
“What? I haven’t given you—”
“Don’t have time for unwarranted advice right now.”
“You called me!”
“Bye!” Satoru ends the call before shuffling towards the window, swallowing a hard lump, and inches the glass panel just small enough for him to hear coherently and not big enough for her to punt him across the face. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”
But Utahime is in an obvious shitty mood and Satoru’s lack of charming antics aren’t going to work this time. “I’m going to apologize, I promise,” he tries to insist.
“This is all your fault,” she immediately gets to the point and it makes him shrink back just a tiny bit. He’s starting to see that the bluntness runs in the family. “Just get your ass to work.”
“But my shift doesn’t start till—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Utahime starts to form an even bigger snowball and raises it to the window panel. “Ass out of bed, now.”
Okay, so as much as Satoru had tried to tell himself that this week wouldn’t be bad, it’s really starting to get fucking awful.
Everyone’s in a shit mood. Yuuji tries to crack some jokes but the usual crowd isn’t having it. You’ve been throwing Satoru dirty looks while working behind the cafe counter together and he’s been put on drink duty — which is his worst nightmare — while you’re attending to the customers because you’re young and cute enough for them to be nice to you. Satoru has spilled hot coffee and chocolate on himself like four times so far, and the shift just started. He’s terrified that the rest of this week is going to be like this.
“Can we talk?” Satoru whisper shouts over the espresso machine.
He sees your shoulders tensing up but immediately relaxes them afterwards. “Did you hear something, Yuuji?”
The boy looks up from the bar counter, it’s his day off and he’s catching up on some homework, but the seemingly growing tension that’s unfolding in front of him is making it painfully hard for him to focus on anything engineering related. Yuuji scratches the back of his neck before darting his eyes back and forth between the two of you. Normally, he would be the voice of reason, but Satoru doesn’t blame him when he shakes his head.
“N-Nah, must’ve been the wind or something...” 
Great, he’s been reduced to an air draft.
“Mhm, that’s what I thought,” you agree without missing a beat. As the next customer in line spends an eternity holding everyone up, debating whether to get the seasonal muffin or french toast to go with their drink, you continue, “Thought I heard a rotten brat for a second.”
He absolutely doesn’t expect the harsh insult. Satoru widens his eyes at the outburst and there’s a small pause, the silence ticking in between everyone, and he’s sure that you’re glaring him down somewhere in a small reflection on the counter. 
Satoru debates whether to call out your name and shake some sense into you, but Yuuji quickly swallows and makes a motion with his hands to his throat, a universal signal saying — ‘I wouldn’t test the waters, if I were you’.
And, after the customer finally decides that they didn’t want any pastries with their coffee order, you finish the transaction before announcing that you’re going on a small fifteen minute break to “stretch”. Though, anyone could see that you’re planning to cool off before you manage to actually blow up in Satoru’s face.
“How the hell am I going to talk to her?” he groans to Yuuji once you’re finally away. He’s managing the cash register and, surprisingly, finishes taking the remaining orders quite smoothly compared to his first day. At least he can pat himself on the back for this. 
“You’ve really pissed her off, dude,” Yuuji replies and Satoru just rolls his eyes because that’s all he’s been hearing from everyone else all day today. “You should talk to her when she’s not… charged up.”
“Way to point out the obvious.” Sometimes he forgets that Yuuji is a bit oblivious. How is he doing so well as a mechanical engineering major? 
Yuuji makes an audible ‘pop’ and whistles. “What did you even say to her?”
Satoru groans into his hands. “Did she not tell you?”
“Well, she wasn’t exactly in a chippy mood to talk about anything this morning — outside of work, that is.”
“Here’s a little TLDR version: might’ve said something classist.”
“Might’ve?”
“Okay, definitely said something classist.”
“Then…” Yuuji drums his fingers against the counter, deep in thought. “Y’know, whenever me and Megumi fight, I always invite him out to the movies to try and cheer him up. Might not be applicable to you but…”
Satoru blinks. “Are you suggesting a date would help?”
“Maybe not a date—”
“No, I’m sorry for calling you dumb, you’re so right—a nice date might work!”
“You never called me dumb, though?”
“Yeah, okay, whatever you say, kiddo.”
Satoru unravels the ribbon on his apron and throws it in Yuuji’s general direction, not caring if he tossed the stained uniform directly in his face. He hops the counter and pats the younger male on the shoulder, flashing him a genuine smile because, hey, maybe Yuuji actually is smarter than he looks.
“Gonna totally invite you to the wedding.”
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It’s no secret that Satoru Gojo hasn’t been on a proper date in a pathetically long time.
He has swiped right on a number of highly influential celebrities and figures on dating apps before. Matched with nearly all of them. Gone on…maybe a lot of first dates with not a lot of second dates coming right after. Who cares though, everyone’s just there for the photos and followers anyway. Satoru knows that he’s attractive and that he personally loves big, lavish dates but, at this point, he knows you enough to understand you absolutely hate big gestures. 
After a short winded conversation with Suguru and Utahime, separately, Satoru has concluded on not buying you first class tickets to Malaysia. 
“Are you trying to get her to hate your guts?” Was the general consensus of the conversation with said people. 
So, what’s the next best option if he can’t fly you out to Malaysia? The answer is pretty simple — bring Malaysia to Mistle Town. And no, he’s not going to be relying on his black card for anything, even though the back of his mind is telling him otherwise. 
Choso blinks several times at Satoru’s printed out proposal. The colorful letters and Google image photos of beaches and coconuts slapped poorly onto the document screams back at Choso and Yuuji, bright and early on Christmas Eve. 
It’s unusual for Satoru to be bouncing excitedly in place for someone other than himself. So this catches everyone off guard. 
Yuuji whispers something intangible to Choso, but Satoru is able to make it out as, “Do we even have coconuts here?”
To which Choso replies, “It’s winter, so I don’t think so.”
And Yuuji moves onto the next question in queue, “What should we do about the lack of palm trees?”
A patient sigh from Choso, “We could always trim the pine trees outside?” He lamely suggests. 
“It’s a good idea, no?” Satoru jumps right back in, completely missing the flat vibe from the brothers. He frowns. “Why are you guys giving me that look?” 
And, like his best friend and your sister, the brothers throw him a confused head tilt. 
“Well,” Yuuji weakly starts, “Your plan ‘Project: Bring Malaysia here in hopes of Y/N falling in love with me’ doesn’t really sound that great… even on paper.”
Satoru grins, fully expecting that to be the response. “I’ll order the things, don’t worry about it. I just need to borrow your lungs for this project.”
Yuuji scratches his cheek in confusion, laughing nervously again. “Our lungs…?” he echos. 
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“How long do I have to keep this dumb blindfold on, Choso?”
“U-Um,” Choso shoots Satoru a brow as he carefully guides you through the hotel lobby. 
It’s currently decked out from head to toe in all things yellow, green, and pink beach themed inflatables. Choso and Yuuji reminded Satoru last night that maybe two flamingos would’ve been enough to get the message across, but seeing that he ordered a whole colony? Yeah, he’s sending the rich boy prayers as he reels you in further, avoiding collision with the colorful balloons and seven-foot tall palm trees, too.
“Choso?”
He squeezes your shoulders when Satoru shoots him a thumbs up. “Ten seconds.”
Satoru quietly walks over to both of you, tip toeing so the sounds of his loafers are minimized against the flooring. Once he’s inches away, Choso retreats off into a different room, mouthing to him words of final encouragement, which Satoru gladly took. 
You appear restless under the blindfold. “I swear to god, if I take it off and there’s a giant pile of reindeer shit in the middle of the lobby I will actually kill somebody—”
And Satoru quietly debates whether or not he wants to keep you like this for a little while before revealing the big surprise. Seeing you flustered and confused is a very cute look on you, after all. But, he’s gotten you this far and it would absolutely kill him to leave you on such a bad notice. It’s now early evening, and the sun’s just starting to set enough that the golden rays illuminate your features from this angle. It takes Satoru back to his first private meeting with you on the balcony and he remembers why he’s even doing this in the first place.
Carefully and slowly, he slips down the blindfold and softly calls out your name. “Hey, take a look around you.”
Your eyes are blown wide when you see his face. Anger and frustration dissipate from your face when you soon realize that Satoru carries a soft expression. He watches as the emotions wash off as quickly as they came. Then, you finally take a look around your surroundings and gasp. “You—You did all of this for me?”
Satoru tenses a little, a bit on the edge. “You want the short or long answer?”
You don’t notice because you’re too preoccupied with the numerous fake flamingos around you. “On second thought, maybe no answer would also work.”
He laughs at this, slightly, before turning shy again. He feels silly, ashamed, and it makes his cheeks flush. “I wanted to say sorry again for what I said earlier.”
“You finally want to talk about it?”
He looks at your idle hands and then back to your face. When he sees that you don't move them away as he inches closer, he takes both of them into his palms, giving them a tight squeeze. “Yeah, I was a big idiot and I thought I was trying to help in the beginning but I just sounded—no, I am—a giant ass.” Satoru concludes. 
The atmosphere grows quiet and heavy again. The air humid and thick despite the opened windows and you’re looking at him. Then, there are tiny little smiles that break out on your face, like freckles and stars in the sky. 
“You’re such a pillow princess,” and he outright blushes ten shades darker at the nickname, “you’re lucky you’re cute.” Coming from you, that’s as good as a love confession.
I like you, he thinks, but doesn’t say it. He really likes you and doesn’t want to fuck this up.
But, everyone knows that Satoru Gojo is a child at heart. 
Satoru doesn’t know who gives in first; realistically, it might’ve been one of those stupid, rare, impossible moments where it’s completely shared. Suddenly the gaudy blow up palm trees and inflatable pool blur from his vision and he feels the world roaring around him when your palms rest on his cheeks. He ducks his head down but you’re the one who closes the distance between. 
You taste like strawberries and lavender, smell like warm cocoa, and feel softer than any sherpa blanket he’s had. Satoru closes his eyes and his vision goes white, his hands shakily snake around your waist, pressing you hard against his chest as if you might disappear at any moment. Satoru sighs into the kiss, it feels pleasantly warm, that throb in his chest, it’s a slow, steady thrum of simmering desire and comfort. He’s pretty sure he’s adding way too much tongue, the drool and saliva that comes dripping between you two will be uncomfortable soon, but for now, it adds to the blissed out, satisfaction you’re both basking in.
Finally, you pull away, shortening yourself a good several inches from planting the rest of your feet on the ground. Your eyes are glossed over, watery and looking at him without vexation. “You’re something else.” You say, but there’s no bite.
Satoru doesn’t speak for a moment. He’s too focused on the feeling of your warm fingers sprawled all over his heating face. Too focused on the dull pulse of both nervousness and infatuation slowly spreading through his body because you’re giving him that look. This all feels romantic and stupid, he thinks.
“I’m sorry, again.” The words are quiet, hesitant, and Satoru almost regrets them the moment he speaks.
You shift around a little, now dancing on the balls of your feet, but the grasp you have on his cheeks is still relatively firm, even applying a bit of more pressure as if it’s your way of showing reassurance. You tip your head; your eyes are so vivid and bright, it sends a shiver down Satoru’s spine. In this moment, he remembers every single thing between them in shocking detail — the awkwardness, the tension, the frustration, the dumb banters, and suddenly he’s overwhelmed.
“I’ll forgive you if you give me a private city tour,” you laugh. “And come back to work with us again next year.”
Satoru offers a small smile. “Unpaid?”
“Will you say no if it is?”
He hugs you tighter, a chuckle bubbles in his throat. “I don’t think I can say no because it’s you.”
Though, while some might think that Satoru is the real loser here for being whipped so hard over a small town girl, you know that deep down the real loser is you. Because you managed to have the son of a CEO wrapped around your fingers and now you will never know peace again. But you’re not really complaining; instead, you’re working even harder to save just enough to eventually see your dream destination while Satoru whines and sends an ungodly amount of selfies everyday when he’s back home. And you won’t allow yourself to get snappy because, well, you’re very much head over heels for him, too.
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© 2023 DOOBEA. do not copy any of my writing and translate/repost.
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joelscurls · 6 months
Text
I wanna show you off
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pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader
words: 4.1k
summary: The women who live in your building aren't subtle in their hatred for you — or their affection for your boyfriend, Joel. You decide to set them straight.
warnings: 18+ minors dni, porn with plot, no outbreak, established relationship, implied age gap, horrible neighbors, general cattiness, all the ladies want Joel, alcohol consumption, fluff, explicit smut, possessive!reader, exhibitionism, dirty talk, oral (m receiving), facefucking, unprotected piv, creampie, one (1) spank, use of pet names (baby, angel, darlin', etc.), I think that's all? lmk if I missed anything!
a/n: idk what happened. I saw one too many tiktok edits set to the song agora hills by doja cat and blacked out. anyway, enjoy!
If it weren’t for your rent-controlled apartment with a perfect view of the downtown skyline, you would’ve moved out of your building by now.
Your neighbors don’t like you. You’re certain of it. You can tell by the way the ladies stick their noses up at you in the elevator and whisper to each other the second they think you’re out of earshot.
It had started, you suspect, because of your age. You’re a lot younger than all of the other residents here, your apartment left to you by your grandmother after she passed away.
The building is prime real estate, situated in the heart of one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods. Most of the people who live here have done so for ten, twenty, even thirty years. And it seems that time has festered a sort of social hierarchy: one which places you at the very bottom.
You shouldn’t care. And you hadn’t, for a while. But their eyes have started to feel like daggers, pointed directly at you at all times, and you feel as if you can’t even enter the building without judgment.
You’re not a bad neighbor. You’re not. You’d learned through living in a dormitory in college how thin shared walls can be, and, as a result, the proper volume at which to keep your music; how you should always be cautious to not let your door slam closed on the way in; that you should never vacuum after eight pm or before eight am.
You never leave trash in the hallway, and you park your car only in your allotted spot, despite the fact that it’s the farthest away from the building.
Even so, the lack of weathering in your face makes them look at you like you’re less, like you’re a greedy little thing who has taken something she isn’t worthy of.
It’s the same way they look at you when they see you with your boyfriend, Joel, for the first time.
They leer when you walk into the foyer, hand-in-hand with an older man. He’s handsome, rugged, something out of Nicholas Sparks novel. And you’re you.
Joel thinks you’re being paranoid at first, says they couldn’t possibly hate such a sweet, friendly girl. The girl he loves so damn much. But it doesn’t take long for him to notice it too: the glares, the scoffs, the misplaced judgment — never set in his direction, only ever yours.
One Sunday afternoon, as he sits on your couch watching the Cowboys game with a sweating bottle of beer in his hand, you step out to grab your mail. You’re close to tears when you return, flinging the door open, envelopes slipping from your trembling fingers. 
He leaps up as soon as he catches sight of your face. Your expression is stuck somewhere between sadness and rage, bottom lip tucked between your teeth so firmly he worries you’ll draw blood.
“I hate them,” you sob as he wraps his arms around you, pulling you against his broad chest. You’re wetting his shirt, the one he just bought the other day. But he won’t let you lift your head. If anything, he holds you tighter.
“Wanna tell me what happened, darlin?” he asks, leading you toward the couch. You sit down together, your body still wrapped in his, and you groan.
“It’s stupid.” Your voice is muffled by cotton. He loosens his grip on you only enough to let you turn your face. “I was getting my mail, and they were down in the lobby,” you sniff. “The woman who lives right next door – the one with the outdated perm, and the one across the hall with the yippy little dog.”
“Mhm,” Joel soothes, running his thumb gently along the tense line of your jaw. “Did they say somethin’ to you?”
You huff. “No, not to me. They didn’t see me there.”
Their hushed voices still ring in your head like a fire alarm in need of new batteries: relentless, infuriating.
Don’t know what in the world a handsome gentleman like that is doing with a little girl like her. You’re tellin’ me. What a shame. Such a young thing – she can’t possibly know how to handle a man like that. He needs a woman his own age!
“They said I’m not good for you,” you weep. “That I’m too young. That I — I c-can’t be what you need.”
“Darlin,” Joel drawls. He fishes the tv remote off of the coffee table and flicks the screen off. Drops it somewhere next to him on the cushion. The apartment is noticeably quiet now, apart from your shaky breaths and the dull drone of an idling truck engine from the street below.
“You know I love you, right?” 
You sniff again. Nod. 
“I don’t give a shit if people think you’re too young for me,” he huffs. “You’re a grown woman. You give me everything I could possibly need and then some.”
“Yeah?” you squeak. You know deep down that Joel wouldn’t stay with you if he had any reservations about any aspect of your relationship. But after months of no reprieve from stinging glares and brash insults, you feel as if you’ve been broken down, reduced to an anxious, overwrought version of yourself. 
Joel repositions himself, sprawling back on the couch and pulling you with him so that you’re laying against him. “Yeah,” he repeats, stroking your hair. He tucks a loose strand behind your ear, away from your glassy eyes. “Those ladies can get their asses in line.” 
You laugh, then — a real, genuine laugh — the kind that Joel can somehow always pull out of you, even in the most inopportune of times.
You’re so grateful for him, for his innate ability to calm you down when it feels like the world is crumbling below your feet. Grateful that he’s yours.
You lift your head. Prop yourself up by the elbow on Joel’s thigh. Wipe away the lingering wet on your cheeks with a deep, settling breath. 
“Does it stroke your ego, having a fan club of women who wanna fuck you?”
He smirks. Pulls you closer to him with a hand cradling your face. 
“Maybe a little,” he whispers, his lips ghosting yours. “Does it stroke your ego, bein’ the only one who gets to fuck me?” 
And in truth, it does. You’re the only one who knows where he likes to be kissed, how he likes his cock stroked, how to make him cum embarrassingly quick with just your mouth.
You’ve learned him intimately, every inch of him.  Ruined him for any other woman.
So in a fucked up kind of way — it does.
“Yeah,” you admit. You suck his bottom lip into your mouth, silently reveling in the way he immediately moans, the way he bends to you.
“These all mine?” You bring a finger to his lips, sputter on a shaky exhale when he unexpectedly parts them and sucks the digit into his mouth.
“Mhm,” he hums around you, takes your free hand in his and guides it down his body, across the expanse of his torso, the plush of his belly, pausing when you reach his crotch. 
Your pulse quickens, then, a dull throb forming at the base of your neck. You extricate your finger from his mouth with a gentle pop.
“This too,” he whispers, canting his hips up toward the flat of your palm.
He’s half-hard, his clothed bulge pleading for attention. But he pulls your hand away quickly, not letting himself get carried away at the feeling of your fingers grazing him through denim. 
Instead, he re-situates it against his chest so that you can feel his heartbeat where it hammers under skin, against flesh and bone. “This is all yours too,” he says, voice so low it reverberates in your skull. 
“All of it — all of me. Don’t gotta worry your pretty little head with anythin’ anyone else has to say about the matter. Got it?”
His words are spoken with so much conviction that you have no choice but to believe them, to let them stick in your brain like anchors in sand: deep and immovable.
Yours, yours, yours. 
And nobody else’s.
“Yeah,” you smile into the column of his neck, inhaling his scent: mostly him, but with notes of you. 
“Got it.”
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It’s two weeks later when she makes a move on him: the woman with the perm. Joel is taken aback by her boldness, with you just a few feet away, digging your key into the lock of your mailbox. 
“You must work with your hands,” she purrs, grabbing one of his wrists and examining his calloused fingers with such little integrity, his mouth actually slips open at the unabashedness of it all. 
“Uh-”
“I’m Sheila,” she hums, raking her fingers through tight, blonde curls. “And you are?”
“Joel,” he grunts noncommittally. Wrenches his arm back. He doesn’t miss the way her eyebrows twitch in offense. 
But she’s insatiable, this woman. She bounces back like a rubber band, not-so-subtly pushing her breasts together, the zip of her sweatshirt slipping down an inch and her mouth curving into a salacious grin.
You just about stop dead in your tracks when you round the corner to the lobby, junk mail in hand, and see her, her body turned towards Joel’s, chest pushed out and hip popped. She has a bedazzled tote bag full of groceries slung over her shoulder, a head of leafy greens poking out the top.
“Hi neighbor!” she smiles mockingly at you, all lipstick-stained teeth, when you sidle up to Joel. “I was just telling your friend here what nice, strong arms he has.” She’s not looking at you, eyes locked firmly on Joel’s biceps, nearly drooling at the sight of him. 
Heat spools behind your ears, red-hot.
“Not her friend,” Joel corrects before you can. “‘M her boyfriend.”
“Oh,” she says. “Boyfriend.” Her lips wrap loosely around the word, like it’s some fanciful thing. “You’re too old to be someone’s boyfriend.” 
Joel takes a step away from her, closer to you, and splays a steadying hand across your back. “Man-friend, then.” 
You laugh, not because it’s funny, but because this entire conversation is fucking awkward. 
Sheila pays you no attention.
“Well,” she sighs, overtly staring at the exposed skin of Joel’s chest, where the top two buttons of his flannel are undone, “Joel, if you’re ever lookin’ for a good meal, I’m just next door.” She flits her eyes up to his and smirks. “Know a big man like you has gotta eat.”
Your vision blurs scarlet. 
Joel is equally as infuriated. The disrespect of this woman, to so openly flirt with him in front of you. His fists ball tightly at his sides. 
“Thanks, but no thanks,” he gruffs. “Anyway, nice to meet ya ma’am-“
“Sheila,” she reminds him. 
“Sheila,” he repeats, only to appease her. He turns to you, squeezing your waist affectionately. “We should probably get goin’, right sweetheart?”
You’re still fuming, barely able to register Joel’s voice next to you through the thick haze of pure fury clouding your mind, but you manage to nod, spit out a hurried yeah.
And with that, Joel is turning on his heels, pulling you with him toward the elevators. You don’t dare look back at her, but you can feel her eyes boring a hole in the back of your head. 
Her footfall fades into the mailroom and you breathe a minuscule sigh of relief. At least she’s out of your sight.
“Please just move in with me,” Joel begs when you’re finally behind closed metal doors, the inspection plaque situated above the buttons suddenly extremely interesting as you try to focus on not thinking about setting this woman’s apartment on fire.
You’ve talked about living together a few times. It’s just — you’ve never considered it so seriously until right now. 
“I can’t let them win,” you mutter, agitated. 
You hate how they’ve made you feel, like you’re some helpless animal tucked in the corner, hiding from them. Just waiting for the next ambush. 
With the passing of each floor, your anger simmers, bubbles into a silent rage in your stomach, one which threatens to boil over at the next underestimation of Joel’s devotion to you. You need to make it known, once and for all, that he’s yours. 
Words from your grandmother play on a loop in your head, ones she repeated to you often when you were a child: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. 
And then you have a thought — a devious thought — maybe you don’t have to say anything to get your point across. Not to them, anyway.
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Your mouth is on Joel the second you’re back inside the four walls of your own apartment, slotting against his pulse point and sucking a desperate bruise there.
He’s not expecting it — why would he be? You’ve just been seething the entire elevator ride up to your floor, the entire walk down the long, winding hallway to your unit. He’d practically been able to see the steam billowing from your ears. 
So the switch-up is more than a bit dizzying, to say the least.
“Whoa, darlin’,” he pants, his large hands draping over your shoulders. “What are you-”
“Joel.” Your voice is stern; it demands his attention. “Do you trust me?” 
Your hand trails down his body languidly, in a straight line to the waistband of his jeans. And fuck, of course he trusts you — more than anyone. But this is wrong, fucked up, for you to make him feel good when you’ve been made to feel so small these past few minutes. 
Still, his cock doesn’t get the memo, twitching in his jeans as you place another open-mouthed kiss on the underside of his jaw, your fingers beginning to fiddle with his belt buckle. 
You give him no choice with the way you’re touching him, the way you’re looking at him when you pull back, all pleading eyes and parted mouth, but to resign all protest. He’ll give you the world, and if right now you want to use his body to blow off some steam, who is he to complain about it?
“Yeah baby, of course,” he breathes. “What do you need?”
You smirk at him audaciously, tongue smoothing over your teeth. “Need you to be loud,” you purr. Your voice is so innocent in juxtaposition to the words you spew. It sends a chill down the column of his spine. “Let them know who makes you feel good.” 
He nearly cums in his pants untouched, grasps at the fabric of your shirt with clumsy hands and nods. “Fuck, okay.”
His belt falls to the floor with a clang.
He lets you take control, then. Lets you mark him with your tongue and your teeth, lets you back him to the door with deft fingers working his shirt buttons open before sinking to your knees in front of him, freeing his hardening cock from the confines of his jeans and boxers.
It’s already weeping for you when you pull it out, precum beading at the tip. He’s so big, growing heavier in your hand with each passing second, and you lose yourself for a moment, hypnotized by him.
“Always so eager to please me, aren’t you, pretty girl?” Joel’s voice pulls you back to earth, soft and adoring.
“Louder,” you remind him. Plant a kiss right over top of his leaking slit.
“Fuck,” he hisses through his teeth. One of his hands flies to the crown of your head, anchoring himself with fingers in your hair. “Dirty fucking girl.” 
His voice fills the entranceway, confident and filthy. 
“Mmm,” you hum approvingly.
“Yeah? You want me to tell ‘em? Tell ‘em you’re making my cock drool for you? That nobody — shit-” You enclose your lips around his tip, suckling on it as your fingers wrap around the base of his length and you begin to stroke him lazily. “-that nobody has ever made me feel this good?” 
Footsteps echo down the hallway and the sound makes you reflexively pause, your hand stiling on Joel’s cock. It’s followed by the jingling of metal, the click of a key in a lock, the opening and closing of a door — all close enough that you can pinpoint the source, can tell where exactly it’s coming from. 
Sheila is home. 
Perfect.
It’s probably worrying how excited it makes you, the prospect of her hearing, of her sitting alone in her apartment, at her empty dining table, and listening to Joel fall apart at your hands. Maybe they’ve driven you to and over the edge of sanity with their words, her most of all. Regardless, you can’t help the way it makes your cunt flutter around nothing. 
You lick a slow stripe up the underside of Joel’s cock, starting just above his balls and dragging the flat of your tongue up, up, up to his tip. His breath shudders, his grip on your hair tightening, and the subtle sting at the center of your scalp gives you another idea. 
“Do you wanna fuck my face, Joel?” 
“Do I wanna — fuck — you’re gonna kill me, angel.” 
“Go ahead,” you encourage, unhinging your jaw as wide as it can go, letting your tongue droop over your bottom lip. 
Saliva pools in your waiting mouth and Joel groans at the sight of you, so malleable for him, begging to be used. 
“You sure?” 
It’s not that he doesn’t think you can handle it. He knows you can. You’ve taken him down your throat more times than he can count. Always so fucking eager to please him, you are — just one of the many reasons he feels so goddamn lucky, so infuriated that anyone would think otherwise. 
But still, he can’t help but worry that he’ll hurt you. 
You nod, eyes locked on him, confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that you want this. He nods back, beginning to feed his cock into your mouth, easing it in slowly and halting when his head hits the back of your throat, causing you to gag.
You don’t pull away, don’t show any indication of displeasure. In fact, you dig your fingers into the meat of his thighs, bearing down on him as you push forward. Mascara tears stain your cheeks as you choke on him, laser-focused on relaxing your throat so that you can accommodate more of his length. 
Joel pulls back, retreating entirely before pushing in again. He slowly increases his pace, your eyes hooded, so doelike and innocent, as his cockhead bruises your larynx. 
The sounds he’s pulling from your mouth are absurdly lewd: muffled gags and frantic inhales of breath. And then there’s him, moaning wildly, not sure if he’d be able to shut up even if he needed to be quiet. Your mouth is good, too fucking good and he’s going to — fuck, he’s going to cum if you don’t stop. 
He pulls out abruptly, a string of drool and precum tethering the tip of his cock to your swollen bottom lip. You’re panting, coughing, still bracing yourself against his legs when you fucking smile up at him. 
“Christ,” he says. “Fuckin’ angel, you are. Mouth feels like goddamn heaven.” 
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But I need to cum in that perfect little cunt,” he breathes, pulling a strangled moan from the back of your rawed throat. 
He helps you up, spins you around to face the door. You brace both hands on the wood, humming as he pulls your pants down to your knees. His breath is on the back of your neck, trailing up to the shell of your ear with one whisper just for you, because he can’t help it. 
“So fuckin’ beautiful, you know that?” 
You shiver, responding with a tilt of your head, inviting him in with a needy little mewl. He cradles your face in one of his large hands, the other rubbing over the curve of your ass as he kisses you passionately, tasting himself on your tongue.
The hand on your ass trails lower as he deepens the kiss, two fingers pressing against your clothed seam. You’ve all but soaked through the fabric, wet cotton molding to his knuckles as he caresses them along your pussy before pulling your panties down in one swift motion.
You whine into the kiss, desperate and dripping for him. “Please,” you breathe against his lips. “I’ll make you feel so good, I promise.”
“Know you will,” he coos, mouth parting from yours as he straightens out and lines himself up with your entrance. You arch your back, rocking onto the balls of your feet as he teases you with the tip.
His cock is so thick when it finally notches into you. It’s always so devastatingly thick, no matter how wet you are for him. The stretch stings, a jolt of warm pain coursing through your walls as he stills halfway in. 
“You okay?” he asks, one hand resting at the small of your back, the other on your hip, fingers gripping to you only tight enough to hold you in place.
“Yes, fuck — yes,” you whine. “Need you to fuck me, Joel.”
“I’m goin’ to baby, don’t worry,” 'he promises, pushing in another splitting inch. “Pussy’s so goddamn tight, ‘ts suckin’ me right in.”
It feels like hours pass with Joel’s cock motionless inside your aching cunt, his warm breath fanning across your back as he focuses on not cumming. You’re whimpering, begging under the weight of his body, to please just fucking move.
When he finally obliges you, pulling all the way out and then bottoming out in one deep thrust, it nearly punches the air out of your chest. You scrabble for purchase on the door, fingernails scraping against chipped paint. “F-uucckk,” you moan, eyes rolling back in your head as he sets a dizzying pace.
The sound of his balls slapping against the back of your thighs is enough to attract attention on its own, the loud smacksmacksmack going straight to your cunt. Joel growls behind you, driving into you even harder, the tip of his cock brushing against your g-spot. 
“Oh, shit,” you cry. Your pussy inadvertently squeezes him and he curses at your back, low and deep. 
“Not going to last if you keep doin’ that,” he warns. “Cunt is too fuckin’ good. Best I’ve ever — uuuhh — had.”
He’s not just saying it for show. It’s true. You know it is, too. He’s told you before, both under the influence of your pussy and not. Waited too many goddamn years to feel like this, he’d said once.
“It’s — fuck, it’s fine Joel,” you mutter. “I’m close too, just keep going, right there.”
A door across the hall creaks open. A pair of footsteps patter across tile. 
Do you hear that?  Yeah; what is that noise?
Joel laughs darkly behind you, snaps his hips up, forcing a guttural moan out of you. 
“Think they caught us, darlin’,” he says. “Caught you takin’ my cock like you’re fuckin’ made to.”
Oh my word!
Joel is unrelenting, pounding into you despite the voices right outside your apartment, and you fear for a moment that you’ve created a monster. One of his hands leaves its place on your waist, cracks down on the center of your asscheek with a slap, the flesh recoiling under his palm and you gasp. 
The feeling travels between your legs, straight to your neglected clit. It pulsates under the hood with every pass of Joel’s cock over your g-spot, and you feel yourself hurtling toward the edge dangerously fast. 
If these people don’t leave, they’re going to hear you cum. Do you want them to hear you cum? Yeah, you think, clit jumping again at the thought, I think I fucking do.
“Joel, fuck-”
“You gonna cum?” he goads. “Yeah, can feel you squeezin’ me — you’re gonna cum, aren’t ya?”
This is vulgar!  We should file a noise complaint. C’mon.
His hand snakes around your front then, finds your throbbing bud, and with a few passes of his calloused fingertips, you’re gone, vision whiting out and all noise around you muted. 
Joel keeps you upright between him and the door, his grip on you tightening as your muscles slacken. He follows closely behind, cumming inside you with a carnal noise from the back of his throat, rope after rope of his spend filling your cunt. 
He pulls out with a grunt, immediately collapsing on the floor. Without his support, you topple over too, falling onto his lap with a satiated giggle. 
A banging comes from the other side of the wall then, shaking your kitchen cabinets a few feet away, the clanging of glassware jolting you.
Keep it down next time! I don’t need to hear that!
And then you’re laughing like teenagers, Joel pulling you in for a sloppy kiss, all tongues and teeth. 
“Think they’re really gonna make a noise complaint?” Joel asks when you finally come up for air. 
“I dunno,” you smile. “Does your offer still stand — for me to move in with you?” 
“Always,” he vows, forehead resting against yours.
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end notes: ty for reading! pls consider commenting or reblogging if you enjoyed <3
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