#>roads

[highdramas]

soft descent | dr. jack abbot

pairing: jack abbot x f!reader

warnings: language, age gap (reader is 30, abbot is 48), SMUT! (MDNI!), character death (off page prior to fic beginning), zombie apocalypse typical gore and violence

word count: 5588

summary: (zombie apocalypse au) the emergency team did everything you could to save PTMC when a new virus brought on the undead, but it simply wasn't enough. so, you set out for where you may be useful-- fort knox. you find something to live for as you do in the first month of the apocalypse.

notes: if you are under 18 do not interact with my work or this fic. you guysssss i am SO proud of this one! this is definitely the longest fic that i've ever written! it's romantic and sad and tender and sexyyyy! i'm heavily inspired by the first two seasons of the walking dead <3 this is really to give back story for some interconnected one shots in the soft descent series, so if you have requests, PLEASE i would love them <3

--

if there was anyone that you felt was capable of walking by your side through the end of the world, you think that dr. jack abbot is the one.

it’s not just that he’s capable– it’s more than that. you think that he’s built for this new life, in a way that you aren’t. he thinks with more practicality than you’ve ever been able to muster. you’d worked with him for years and barely knew him. you knew that he was intense. you knew that he could pin you down with a look that you would think about for weeks. you knew that his praise meant the world to you and that when you could feel the weight of his disappointment, you wanted to shuck it off instantly. you knew that he was a veteran and that it colored every part of his life and his work. you knew that he felt deeply for every person that he could not save. well, you didn’t know that. but you felt it.

and jack, as good as he is, could not save the pittsburgh trauma medical center.

it started with one or two sick patients. it ended three days later with the majority of the staff dead in the span of one shift.

and when it was becoming clear that there was no way out, no way to save everyone, no way to heal those who had been scratched or bitten… you all should’ve heeded the warning that had gone out days prior. leave the city. but he hadn’t. none of you had, because you felt the obligation to this city and this work and saving as many lives as possible.

it was a ragtag group of you that left PTMC that night. the roads were full of abandoned cars, so there was no choice but to go by foot. you. robby and abbot. dana. collins. langdon. samira. about six nurses. but there was so many you couldn’t save– their faces flash behind your eyes when you lay down to sleep at night. mel. whitaker. javadi. mckay. you’re still not over mckay. you don’t know if you ever will be.

you packed up all of the medical supplies that you could under the circumstances and began towards fort knox. having spent three days by foot, aiming for 25 miles each day, but at the same time stopping and gathering supplies wherever and whenever you can… you feel a level of exhaustion that beats out even a double in the pitt.

you’ve never known jack to be… sympathetic. he became your fearless leader in these first days, and you noted that being inspiring wasn’t exactly his strong suit. if he needed someone to give a speech, he oftentime left that to robby. but he said something that stuck with you, just as you left city limits, narrowly escaping with your lives. “we’re going to be needed now more than ever. most healthcare workers across this country have likely died. we have a purpose. that’s the only thing that’s keeping me going through this hell hole.”

you repeated that in your head, day over day– when you wanted to find a creek and lay in it and let the water wash over you. get to fort knox. save lives. make this all matter. but today was hard. it was your birthday.

it was so stupid. who cares about birthdays, anymore? you don’t know where your family is. you don’t know where your friends are. cell service went down before you even left PTMC. you don’t know if any of them are even alive anymore. you have no home, no place in this world– your apartment a forgotten relic to your past. your feet burn and your hands are dry. your stomach growls at you more often than not.

but you loved your birthday, back then. you even had tickets this year to see your favorite band. you remember thinking it as fate that they were going to be in town on your actual birthday.

the tears prick at your eyes. you set up camp for the night, the hot sun finally setting into the curve of the earth. you’re right by the water, allowing you to stick your feet in the river and feel peace, if only for a moment. you had been figuring out that the majority of walkers were still in cities. the disease had hardly touched the more rural areas, which made west virginia safer than most other places. “fuck,” you whisper to yourself, hanging your head, finally letting the tears fall.

you feel him beside you before you hear him. you start, your heart nearly jumping out of your mouth. his face doesn’t move a muscle. “sorry.” he groans as he sits beside you. he doesn’t say anything, but he looks at you. he notes the tears on your face, and for a moment, you think he might berate you for them. you feel like you should be berated. you’re so lucky to be alive– aren’t you? or are the dead the lucky ones? you’re not sure if you know anymore, but you feel like you should be fortunate for… something. “please. don’t let me stop you.”

face screwed up in disbelief, you look back out to the water. “i shouldn’t be crying.”

“and why not?”

“because i’m not even crying for that good of a reason.” you bring your legs up to your chest, resting your chin on your knees.

“let me be the judge of that.”

you look over at him with skeptical eyes. before and after everything that had happened, you hadn’t been precisely vulnerable with jack before. he must sense your hesitation, because he leans back. “you know, despite my reputation…” he stares at you with that same intensity. “i’m not as emotionless as everyone seems to believe.”

“i don’t think you’re emotionless,” you say instantly. “the opposite. you’re full of it.”

“oh yeah?”

“yeah,” you say, chuckling. “you’re… intense.”

jack hums at your examination of him, but doesn’t say anything else, leaving the floor open for you. looking back out at the water, you say, “i turned 30 today.” you press your lips into a thin line. “and i had all these plans– some friends and i got a hotel room for the night. we got a reservation at that nice new thai food place. my favorite band was going to be playing. it all was set up to be so… perfect. and then it wasn’t. and i just–” you blow a breath out, willing yourself to keep your emotions under control. “i’m fucking angry.”

your face goes slightly red, and something flashes behind jack’s eyes at that. “i’m so angry of what was taken from all of us. i’m angry that mckay died on my watch. i’m angry that we had to–” you wince. “that we had to kill patients. i know they weren’t there anymore, but–” you suck in a gasp of air. “i think i’ve been pushing it down, you know? focusing on what needed to be done. who we could save. getting somewhere that we can be useful. but what’s the point of being useful anymore? why save people when there’s hardly a world worth coming back to?”

“be angry,” jack says, resolutely. “i’m angry. and i don’t know if i’ve got anything encouraging to say to you other than that. that i know. and i feel it too.” a piece of hair has fallen into your face, and you flinch when jack moves to push it back behind your ear. this amuses him; the corner of his mouth turns up. “am i that bad?”

“no,” you say immediately, shaking your head. you use the back of your hand to brush away your tears, sending him an inquisitive look. “i just appreciate you checking on me.”

“don’t like seeing you upset,” he says. “you look like someone just stepped on a puppy in front of you.”

you gape at him and you again get that hint of a smile on his face. you don’t know if you’ll ever get him to grin, but you think you could live with what he gives you. you think a half smile from jack abbot is worth more than a belly laugh from anyone else. “wow.”

“i’m kiddin’,” he leans into you, brushing your shoulder with his. you settle into comfortable silence, staring out into the water. the sound of it comforts you, as does the chirping of crickets nestled in the brush. for as horrific as this all is– it’s beautiful here. as much as your back hurts from carrying your pack day over day, when you lay down and stare up at a sky full of stars… maybe there is something to hope for.

“does this remind you of being out on the field?” you ask. the question had been rattling around in your head for awhile– you’d heard some of the stories of jack’s days in the military. he was unstoppable. the intensity that he carries with him is well earned, if all the stories are true. you’d probably be intense and stoic, too.

sighing, he hangs his head. “yeah.” he swings his head over towards you. “it does. being stretched thin. never knowing what you’re going to see next. not knowing if you’re going to wake up and everyone you’ve gotten close to is dead.” he pauses. “or undead.”

you can’t help it. you laugh. “i’m sorry, i’m not laughing at you, i just–” he furrows his brows as you grab your stomach, falling back into the grass. “it’s crazy. this is all so fucking crazy. undead. fucking undead.” you wipe a tear from the corner of your eye. “oh my god, my stomach hurts.”

you continue to giggle, eyes shut, and jack hovers slightly over you. when you open your eyes, it’s not a half smile that you’re greeted with. he’s smiling at you full on, no holds barred. “you’re gonna be alright, kid.” he touches your chin. “you’re gonna be alright if you keep laughing.”

with nothing more, he pushes himself up, groaning as his knees creak, and walks back to camp.

rolling over onto your stomach, you watch as he walks off, resting your chin in the palm of your hand. and when he looks back over his shoulder at you, you watch him chuckle to himself.

–

there’s not a big shift that comes for you and dr. abbot. not yet, anyway– that doesn’t happen until he finds you with the walkers a week later.

you did run into other survivors on the road. since so many were fleeing pittsburgh, it was inevitable. you provided medical services as you went. there was this thought always in the back of your mind– what happens when you run across someone not so nice? that’s how these things always go isn’t it? you’d read enough books to know that typically, the biggest monster was humanity.

jack must’ve had the same thought when he diverted your group onto a path that he hoped would be less traveled, if slightly longer to get to the base. “no lives to save if we all die on the way there,” he smartly observed.

you loved to walk. the others often scolded you for going out by yourself, but it was not easy to deter you. the wind against your face and the sun on your arms was sometimes the only thing that reminded you that you were alive, that there were still simple pleasures in this world. you told robby, not asked for his permission, that you were going on an evening walk. he looked skeptically, but nodded. and you didn’t go too far– but it didn’t matter. there was a figure just off in the distance. at first, you think it’s a survivor. being this far out of the city, you didn’t run into walkers much. if you did, jack or collins typically took care of it with the guns they had looted days ago.

selfishly, you were thankful to not be tasked with defending anyone. you weren’t fighters. you’re healthcare workers. you were a resident doctor. your responsibility was to heal, not to harm. and you had witnessed enough of that harm in pittsburgh. you had your fill when you screwed your eyes up tight and screamed while you drove a knife into mckay’s chest while she, entirely gone, her eyes vacant and her mouth gaping, trying to gnash at your neck. that was still the thing that kept you up at night. you didn’t want to add to the list.

but when the head perked up, and you shielded your eyes from the burning sun, you realized how wrong you were. your heart sank and you took a stumbling step backwards. you piqued the intrigued of the walker, or it caught your scent, because it began a steady walk towards you. and then another one appeared behind it, cresting the hill. and a third. all ready to plummet down this hill towards you.

they’re fast. and with the downwards slope, they can only gain momentum. you begin to run back towards camp, but then you wonder if it’s better to lead them away from camp– what if there are others? but if you lead them away, they may not hear you… “help!” your cry is full of desperation as you begin to veer left from camp, trying to stay close enough.

the three walkers have gained on you. but for as fast as they are, jack is faster– he runs up and captures you in his arms, a pistol in his hand– three shots rings out, right next to your ear, and you lower yourself to try and escape the jarring noise. “they didn’t get you? no bites, no scratches?” you shake your head no, and the silence that follows is heavy. you continue to cover your ears with your hands. you can feel your blood pumping through you, the adrenaline of near death. every limb trembles and you sink even lower, until your hands are splayed on the still warm asphalt.

the others must have approached, because you hear jack say, “go on. we’re good.” he lowers himself to your level like a true doctor, his hand rubbing, up and down, on your back. “we’re good.”

the others heed his words and tentatively walk off, leaving you two alone. “you’re good,” he repeats. he gathers your hair off of your neck to relieve some of the heat, holding it up with one big hand. “what were you doing walking by yourself?”

“i told robby,” you say around a gasping breath. “i– i didn’t–” you look over at the bodies. one of them is a woman, certainly not much older or younger than you. “i saw her, but she was still far off. i didn’t know she was…”

from a career of working with people at their most vulnerable, jack must sense what is about to break within you. it was close at the river, but then you were mourning the loss of what your life could be. this felt bigger than that. this was coming to terms with what your life now was.

and you swiftly fall apart.

you don’t expect him to hold you, at first. you begin to sink into yourself, the tears and the cries coming like the flood. but jack swoops in, his hand to the back of your head and his other arm circling your waist. you sit on the dirty road and he holds you, despite the humidity and the heat and everything else. you should’ve known that this side of abbot existed. the side that could be steady as a rock, unyielding and ready to protect.

you’re there for so long the sun begins to sink. you look up from where you’d hidden your face in his chest. a technicolor sunset is in front of you. your red rimmed eyes take it in, and jack pulls away enough to watch your face, gauge your reaction. when he sees the wonder in your eyes, he cranes his neck to follow your line of vision. he says, softly, “think mother nature knew you needed some cheering up.”

with a wet laugh, you lean back, but jack doesn’t release you from his hold that easily. “i guess so.” you look at him through your lashes, feeling embarrassed and grateful and reckless and warmed. “thank you. i won’t– i won’t go out walking.”

he scoffs. “nah. you will. we just need to go in pairs.” he looks like he might leave it at that, but then he says, “and i’ll go wherever you want.”

–

two more weeks go by and now it’s august and the days burn orange and you’re in the heart of west virginia.

from that sunset on the road on, where you go, he’s often not too far behind. the others are not oblivious to his trained eye watching you. they’re not stupid– they notice when he is the first one to pair with you for scavenging.

seeing walkers doesn’t have the same jarring affect that it did, even days ago. it’s still not regular, but you certainly see them more than when you first got into west virginia. you still don’t carry a gun, but jack, collins, robby, and dana now do. wherever you all go, one of them goes with you. and for you… that’s jack. if not by choice, by default. everyone seems to have their pair, natural duos from your time in the emergency room. you didn’t have that then, and jack didn’t, either. he has robby, of course, and that hasn’t change– but you think something in his mindset changed when you fell apart before him.

you don’t call him dr. abbot anymore. none of you use such formalities now. what’s the use?

the group moves through west virginia terrain towards fort knox. over time, you’d gotten more and more in the way of supplies. you found an abandoned RV in good shape with the keys still in the ignition. you all held a thought for the owner before you took it. dana was driving a pick up that she spotted back near weston. it made all of you laugh when you saw her behind the wheel. most of the places out here weren’t so looted– sometimes, you hit a goldmine still. jack’s clever thinking to take the road less traveled was proving useful, indeed. that felt like good enough reason to take your time. but winter was going to be coming sooner rather than later. your slowness wasn’t going to last forever. a thought lingers in the back of your mind, and you’re sure everyone else’s, too– this world needs doctors. and maybe you’re all being selfish. maybe you’re all okay with that, for the time being. you don’t know. you’re only human.

you liked to walk to clear your head. sometimes you missed it being a solitary activity, but jack was often quiet enough that you really didn’t have much of a change. honestly, you never minded when it was jack. sometimes dana would offer to walk with you, and for as much as you love her, she has the ability to talk your ear off– but jack picked up on your cues. when he thought there might be something on your mind, he would nudge your arm. when you shook your head, he dropped it. when you would begin to talk through whatever it was that you were thinking about, he would listen, rapt.

and, you think you provide him support, too. there was so much that you’ve learned about him– you know how he takes his coffee. well, in this world, at least. he likes it black but with two of those sugar packets that you got from a starbucks. not the artificial stuff, either. he wakes before you, but you always make his second cup. you’ll approach him in his seat– he always sits in the RV in the morning, working on one of the crossword books you’d taken from the hospital. you come up to him and take his empty cup. most mornings, he says, “you don’t gotta do that.”

you reply each time with, “but i wanna.”

and, over time, you get more and more of those small smiles.

for what it’s worth, the two of you get by for awhile pretending that whatever is happening simply isn’t. you roll your eyes when langdon calls you mrs. abbot. you simply nod when robby mentions jack looking for you.

it was a long day, and a storm was brewing. you had been camped in the same spot for nearly a week, spending time scavenging the area, which was largely untouched by other survivors. you take what you need, leave what you don’t– making sure that there’s enough for anyone else who might need it in the future. your body is sore from so many night of sleeping on the ground, but that’s everyone. “alright– we need to reduce the amount of tents so that we can get everyone out of the rainfall and under the trees.” dana says, hands on her hips. she starts rattling off sleeping arrangements, pointing at you and finishing with, “you’ll be in jack’s tent.”

you look at each other from across the circle, and you have to make a true effort to keep your face neutral. jack doesn’t even flinch. “yes, ma’am.”

your stomach twists in knots as you begin tearing down your tent. jack comes up from behind you and helps, making quick work of it. you glance over at him and murmur, “sorry you’re stuck with me. i’ll keep to my side of the sleeping bag.”

there’s a glint in his eye. “i don’t know. princess has told me you hog the blankets.”

“i do not!”

he smirks to himself, satisfied with getting a small rise out of you. “guess i’ll just have to be the judge of that, kid.”

–

it’s been a long time since you laid beside a man and it meant something.

you’d been single for the better part of five years– your ex was the kind of piece of work that would make anyone swear off dating for half of a decade. you had meaningless hookups and endless first dates, but nothing that stuck. nothing that gave you butterflies.

now, there’s a swarm of them in your stomach, threatening to dislodge. you brush your teeth and your eyes trail over towards jack, smirking at something that robby said. you glance away and finish up, proceeding to change in the RV. you’re not sure how you’re supposed to dress– sweats is most appropriate, right? you run warm, but you don’t want to make him uncomfortable. big shirt? little shirt?

zombies could come up and kill you at any point, and your concern is how much or how little you should wear while lying next to jack. the ridiculousness is not lost on you. but, there’s a shred of you that’s thankful for a feeling that’s normal amidst everything else. feelings-induced trepidation is something that you can handle.

you opt for the little shirt– a gas station t shirt you had cropped haphazardly with a knife– and sweatpants. when you come back out from the RV, jack is no where to be seen, but there is a light on in his tent.

unzipping slowly, you’re greeted by his face looking at you. you watch his eyes zero in on the strip of exposed skin on your stomach. you watch his adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallows.

the tent is generous when it says that two people can fit. you can see that jack prepped your side of the bed– two pillows, and your water bottle. “you left it outside.”

“thank you.” you kick your shoes off and climb under the blanket. jack huffs a laugh. “what’s so funny?”

“you wear pants to bed?”

your face heats. “not typically.”

“don’t do it for my comfort.” he reaches at the back of his shirt, tugging it over his head. “i will be sleeping comfortably. and cool.” he halts before he says, “and a gentleman.”

you roll your eyes, but you lift your hips and shimmy the sweats off, tossing them towards your feet. settling back into the pillow, you watch jack as he does the same, eventually rolling over to face you. he has the fly trap off of the tent, so you stare up at the stars. he never looks away from you.

“dana did this on purpose,” you whisper, and it’s the closest you’ve gotten to pure admission. “you realize that, right?”

“yeah,” he puts one hand behind his head, following the line of your sight to the stars, too. “she’s been on my case since we set up camp here.”

curious, you peer over at him. “how so?”

jack shrugs one shoulder. “telling me not to fuck around with your feelings.” his neck turns towards you. “told her i’m doing my best.”

you screw your face up. “you’re not fucking around with my feelings.”

“good.” there’s such a practicality to his words. he’s not barred by fear or by unease;  he’s confident. “but, for the record…” he sinks his teeth into his lower lip. “yeah, i’m not trying to fuck around with your feelings. i’ve been trying to…”

“trying to what?”

“will you let me spit it out?” jack asks with a smirk. “patience is not always your strong suit.”

you turn your chin down, indignant. “you didn’t mind when we were in the emergency room.”

“i wouldn’t go that far,” jack counters. “i think i told you to slow down on multiple occasions.”

“now you’re just deflecting.”

a clap of lightning and thunder rings out in the open air. the rain begins just after.

“i think you just proved my point.”

disgruntled now, you move to simply roll over and go to bed and pretend the entire conversation never happened. but jack laughs again and he gently wraps his hand around your arm, pulling you back. not controlling. guiding. “don’t do that,” he says. “not when i’m trying to tell you i care about you. at least give me the opportunity to say it before you shoot me down and go to bed.”

brows furrowing, you roll over to face him. “i don’t understand.”

over the course of the month or so that you’ve gotten to learn jack intimately, know the corners of his mind and the stories that weren’t often shared, you’d resolutely pushed away the notion of you not being anything but in over your head. a woman with a crush on your authority figure. broken by circumstance and clinging to the one person who moves you feel unequivocally safe.

there wasn’t a part of you the stopped to think that maybe jack was doing the same. but that he was, perhaps, more brave than you.

“i’m not good at any of this,” he says quietly. “but if we’re going to die before the new year, i want to be selfish. and if i’ve– misread, tell me, and i’ll never bring this up again.”

silence fills the tent. your mouth forms a slight o, trying to wrap your head around the string of words that he just confessed to you. “you said before, that the only thing keeping you going was the fact that the world needs us. needs doctors.” your eyes flicker down then back up. “is that still true? is that the only reason?”

“if that was the only reason, i’d be in fort knox right now.” his hand flexes where it rests on his pillow. he’s holding back– you feel the tension pulled taut within him.

“tell me,” you say with absolution.

“tell you what?”

“tell me you want me. not just because of circumstance. but because of… me.” you are growing smaller before him. “i don’t want to just be a body to keep your bed warm until we die gruesomely.”

he laughs like it’s the craziest thing he’s ever heard. your name falls off his lips and he extends that hand to you. you take it. he tugs you closer. you push him, he pushes you. he makes you patient, you make him articulate. “i remember, once, walking by the family room. you were sitting with a little girl who had just lost her mom in a car accident. she… i couldn’t save her. and i was dreading sitting that little girl down, looking her in the eye, and telling her. but you stayed with me.” he swallows, thinking. “i’ve watched you work on the fly and save lives without thinking twice. you’re a horrible singer, but a great dancer. you love crosswords.” he pauses. “this didn’t start last week. not even last month.” last month, when you were still a resident and he was still your attending.

“wow.”

“yeah,” jack nods his head. “wow.”

you don’t know what to say. you feel shy under his gaze, and you think he knows it. he eyes you with that cocky smirk, like he knows that you want him, but that something still holds you back. “you don’t gotta say anything right now,” he shrugs. “we’ve got time. that is, long as i’m still alive.”

you gasp and hit his chest and he keeps your hand in his and then you’re looking at each other and slowly, surely, patiently– you begin to lean in. you don’t kiss him yet. you know that he’ll leave that ball in your court. but there’s something fun about your nose bumping his and feeling his breath on your cheek and feeling the way that his hand tightens around yours. “you’re not being very patient,” you murmur, and he all but growls, and you feel it all the way down to your belly. you laugh and your hand slides to the back of his head.

his hand lands on your waist. he begins pulling you closer. “say you want me,” he asks.

“i want you.”

a shuddering breath leaves him, and it settles into your brain how affected he is. he’s drunk on you, and you on him, and your leg drags up his. you finally decide to stop your cruelty, and you close the distance. your mouth rolls against his and his tongue opens you up, and you feel like something has just split your heart, and your fondness for him is spilling out of you.

you didn’t suspect jack to be a tender lover. you and mckay used to joke that he probably fucked like a jackhammer. but you should’ve known that his patience, his sheer determination, extends here, too.

he rolls you until he’s hovering above you, hand sliding to the back of your neck and squeezes the sides, just barely. you gasp into his mouth and his knee parts your legs and every part of you feels like warm honey, sliding between his fingers. there’s a restraint when he pulls back and looks at you. “you’re trouble.”

“i thought you knew that.”

“i did,” his hand runs from the valley of your breasts, down to your stomach. it travels further to the waistband of your underwear. “now, trouble,” you flush at the way that nickname makes you press your thighs together. “do you know how to be quiet?”

“yes, i know how to be quiet, you ass–” you’re cut off with a gasping sound leaving your throat as his fingers dip into your underwear. he leans in closer and chuckles in your ear and your hips roll to meet his hand.

“do you?” he asks as his hand begins to work its magic.

“yes.”

lowering until his mouth finds the juncture of your neck and shoulder, he kisses, sucks a mark into the skin. your hand finds a fistful of his hair and you want to let go, you want to moan so loud you bring every walker in a three mile radius to find you. it would be worth it to release, to feel freely and let the world know it. your hips keep moving on their own, chasing pleasure, and jack sits up to use his free hand to grip your hip and presses you down. “i’ll take care of you, doc. don’t worry.” he leans in and kisses beneath your ear. “and you can be as loud as you want when there’s thunder.”

your eyes roll back into your head and within moments, everything is shooting stars.

–

when the morning comes, you’re smug, and glowing. jack wakes you slowly. the mourning doves are just beginning to sing their song and he pulls you closer, hungry. “think the plan is to leave soon,” he says into the back of your neck, pressing a kiss there. “but not too soon.”

it takes another thirty minutes for you to leave the tent. jack helps you back into your clothes with pride, looking you up and down. you scoff and push his face away, but then come back for a kiss. it’s easy to settle into familiarity when you spend so much time wondering where your life is going, what the point is of any of it– this. maybe this is the point. maybe this has to be the point.

holding the flap of his tent open for you, you clamber out, and the two of you are faced with… well, everyone. everyone smirking.

and without a word from either of you, dana looks at collins and says. “i told you that’s all it would take.”

[inkpot909]

First Love Headcanons: Noriaki Kakyoin

↳ Fem!Reader with she/her pronouns. Reader is written as being on the shy, gentle side. Reader’s backstory, stand, and reason for joining the crusaders is left up in the air.

A/n: This was so self-indulgent. I hope it shows how much I’ve thought about this. I hope y’all enjoy! <3

Warning(s): Canon-typical swearing. Mentions of canon-typical violence.

Before being on the receiving end of a mind-altering flesh bud, Kakyoin would’ve raised an eyebrow at the prospect of falling for someone within the span of 50 days.

Experiencing romantic love? Him? Maybe in another lifetime.

Hell… simply making friends within that same span of time seemed absurd. Not because he deemed himself incapable of making connections, but due a lack of desire. No need to grow close with people he assumed wouldn’t ever fully understand him.

It’s a difficult concept to wrap his head around, without a doubt. Seventeen years of numbing isolation will do that to an individual.

That’s not to say he hasn’t daydreamed here and there.

Kakyoin’s certainly let his mind wander down a road paved with hopefulness. Looking to his parents and wondering what it’d be like to form such a strong connection. His thoughts growing indulgent and jumping on a particular train. Leading eventually to… whatever plane of existence lovers live on.

Okay, so Kakyoin didn’t even know how fully contextualize romance within his own mind.

It’s a difficult thing to grasp when you merely see it from a secondhand perspective… usually from one’s own parents, of all things.

At least his mother and father offered a positive idea of how relationships should function. Mutually supportive; partners through and through. It’s what he’s come to expect and wouldn’t dream of settling for less.

Experiencing the actual feeling involved? Not at all. He’s always been known as a ‘pretty’ guy, but that doesn’t mean much when he’s remained wholly uninterested.

At the very least, he harbored a general idea of what he wanted.

Beyond hoping for a mutually supportive dynamic, he’s confident over his preferred type. His likes and dislikes, whether it be shallow or far more personal.

Regardless of his own preconceived notions in regards to his own future, he does end up forming meaningful connections. While not under the most unconventional circumstances, he does form a tight nit group of friends.

And even more than that, he meets you:

Tower of Grey was the priority at hand… the first of DIO’s followers encountered after leaving Japan. The safety of sleeping passengers filling the seats being far more important than anything else in that very moment.

But just as Kakyoin laid stomach-first on the floor of the plane’s narrow walkway… blood trickling down his forehead and his expression stern… the bug-like stand boasted on. Believing in an assured victory, as if it had already won.

The gears in Kakyoin’s mind chug intently, his stand’s tendrils moving unseen beneath the seats. His eyes widening when he feels something in particular.

A stranger… who makes themselves known a second later. An observer watching silently from across the isles, jumping to action.

There was no time to wonder if you understood what was going on- no time to even warn -before you lunge forward. A stand fazing into sight behind you. Geared up and ready, almost taunting the bug with the shock of its own existence.

Your heart pounded against your chest when the bug directed its attention to you, the distraction proving to have worked.

Just being there was more than enough to catch the egotistical personality off guard for a moment, letting out a profanity. Merely a second or two of hesitation, but enough to offer Kakyoin a quick opening for a finishing blow. Finally getting the drop on the particularly fast-moving stand.

With the stand user fallen limp, his tongue split down the middle and eyes rolled back, Kakyoin turns his head to finally get a good look at you. His lips kept together, but his eyebrows raised.

Your own eyes have grown wide, fully turning towards the group of imposing men.

Just from quietly examining your raised eyebrows and agape mouth, you’re visibly just as startled as they all are. As far as they can tell, you’d merely witnessed the fight going down as an initial bystander. Assessing it quickly and not hesitating a moment further once you saw the shortest of them get hurt. To their credit, it was pretty much what had happened from your perspective.

The men size you up blankly, and without much to immediately say.

To tussle with a stand user so early into the trip, high above a body of water within a plane, is a heart-pounding situation. With hindsight, though, it’s to be expected. Taking such a public and compromising mode of transportation was mistake with absurdly dangerous consequences.

But to discover another… who’s seemingly detached from either side of the DIO conflict- now that is cause for surprise.

Your eyes gloss over the men. Flickering between each of them, until landing on the redhead you’d just assisted. Blood is still drying on his forehead. But his expression has shifted to a more thoughtful one… violet eyes looking at you in a way that makes you feel small.

Merely a moment passes before the oldest of the group takes initiative. Stepping forward, he lets out a huff of hesitation before saying, “Thank you… erm-…?”

“Y/n… L/n…” you responded, shifting your attention to him and taking a step back. You’re on gentle guard; hesitant. A contrast to your determined initiative moments ago.

Surely you’d seen a good chunk of what the group was capable of? That would be cause for cautiousness. None of them knew just how much you had seen before stepping in…

“Joestar, dear. Joseph Joestar,” Joseph smiles gently, a gleam present in his eyes. Hoping to defuse anxious thoughts creeping into your skull, if only a little. But your expression stays the same.

“I think… we could offer each other an explanation,” he suggests in a trying manner. His head tilts to the side, appreciative of the fire proved to be present behind eyes so apparently soft and hesitant on the regular.

Stand or not, the situation is overwhelming. Examining Joseph’s demeanor, and his two gloved hands held up in peace… you eventually nod in agreement. Answers… yes, you’d certainly like to know whatever the hell that was.

The old man opens his mouth again, preparing to make an attempt at a short explanation, only to be cut off by a stomach-dropping tilt of the plane.

You had your own reasons for being on the plane that day… the specifics of which were totally lost on Kakyoin and the others for a good while.

Discussions with Joseph after safely making it out of the plane wreck, Hong Kong’s hustle and bustle in the background, lead you to realizing you and the group held a common goal with the pursuit of DIO. Whether or not you’d even heard the name before the old man spoke it. In regards to your own pursuits, going after DIO was the answer.

That revelation prompted you into asking if you may accompany the group on their way to Egypt. A suggestion only disapproved by Jotaro.

And from the moment he saw you that day aboard the plane, you’d already earned respect from Kakyoin.

He holds himself to a high standard… something he holds others around him to as well. Sure, he’s a naturally polite individual, but he’s not exactly shy calling it how he sees it.

He harbors too much self-respect to think of settling for people he can’t trust or who hold no dignity.

The specific circumstances in which you joined the crusaders… helping a group of strangers with powers like your own in order to ensure the safety of both them and the passengers…

Safe to say he had no hangups about you accompanying them, to say the least.

Being a generally soft-spoken, pretty girl definitely helps too. Not that he’s inclined mention it out loud. He’s not that socially maladjusted. Mostly. He’d like to believe.

He is thinking it, though.

You were just so quiet that first day in Hong Kong. Every time he pointed something out to you and Jotaro, you nodded along gently with a soft smile. Even asking for elaboration once or twice.

It’s a lot better than the huffs and puffs coming from Jotaro.

Kakyoin eventually starts dropping facts from his bag of random trivia on you specifically. Immediately, you’re responsive to his informative brand of talking at you. Likely hoping to get past any initial awkwardness you feel throwing off the established dynamic.

All while you go along agreeably with the group’s decisions beyond his casual information dumping.

From deciding to tackle the journey any way other than by plane, to Mr. Joestar’s order of food in the restaurant the group ate at… you politely nodded along.

Your facial expressions are enough to pick up on how you’re feeling. Kakyoin can’t help but find it nice. Putting the pieces together inside his head on where you stand. Knowing when it’s best to let others take the helm in decisions you’re unfamiliar with.

So you’re situationally flexible too… that’s good.

As observant of a guy as Kakyoin is… he notices almost instantly that you gravitate towards sticking by him or Avdol. In both calm and stressful situations.

Mr. Joestar… his boisterousness makes you flinch. Even more so is the case with a guy like Polnareff, despite the Frenchman making a point to be gentle with a ‘nice little lady like yourself’.

And Jotaro… well… you’re expression sours, failing to hold back cringe each time the two of you interact. Acutely aware he doesn’t like you at all at the beginning.

Heh… so be it, Kakyoin thought.

If sticking close to him or Avdol is what you prefer, Kakyoin’s not about to complain. You’ve already proven yourself to be adaptable… and only more opportunities will arise from here on out. With each passing stand encounter, he grows more and more convinced you’re a really reliable individual.

Even more so, you begin involving yourself in conversations. Something that opens the door to less small talk and discussions holding more substance.

It’s freeing to feel less in the spotlight, despite it being as natural of a thing as talking. But with someone as unused to it as Kakyoin, the smaller things really get to him early on.

That’s what first floods his chest with warmth, genuinely enjoying a comfortable air developing through casual conversation. Not just that, there’s fondness in the tiniest input from you. Smiling at the others’ antics or laughing lightly when Kakyoin bickers with Polnareff.

Friendship is a necessary foundation to be established for an individual like Kakyoin to grow even remotely romantically interested.

And how long did it take for that to happen? For him to silently consider you a friend? Two weeks at most… it must’ve been. God, Kakyoin feels lightheaded just thinking about what that means to him.

You mean something to him already. How weird is that?

Kakyoin’s not necessarily avoidant of how he feels, merely perplexed. A rather new, but internally exciting position to be in.

His care for you making his heart race faster with each passing stand encounter.

There’s vigor in how he stands up for you if you’re hurt or are unable to fight for yourself. He keeps his temper, not the type to lose it, but his eyes speak to the emotions guiding his proaction.

And to his delight… you react the same whenever the role is reversed.

Now… yes, he knows you like sticking by him. And now that he’s thinking of it again, when was the last time you stick by Avdol too? You certainly don’t stand this close to anyone else. The physical distance having been growing smaller and smaller. You’re damn near hanging off his arm.

Kakyoin’s such an enabler, letting you do so without complaint. Head held up high.

Honestly… it takes weight off his shoulders. He appreciates the ease of recognizing mutual fondness. It furthers the comfortable air between you two.

All while Kakyoin’s kicking his past self for avoiding something that comes naturally to him when gazing into your eyes:

“And here I thought we’d finally be able to sleep in a bed.”

Kakyoin’s voice sounds gently, standing between you and Jotaro. The three students of the group… he often acted as a physical buffer you and the grump. There is reason for you to act cocky, considering Jotaro finally accepted the fact that you are even there just a few days ago.

You know better than to let it get to you, though. Especially since he still remains outwardly apathetic pretty much everything leaving your mouth. But he’ll listen when you speak and acknowledges your existence! Now, we’re talking.

Late into this particular night… none of the seethe radiating off him is directed at you.

The three of you are turned towards the lake before you, standing in a row. Conveniently looking away from both Polnareff and Joseph. Moonlight reflects against the water’s surface pleasantly. The smell of the cigarette Jotaro had smoked still lingering in the air, and invading your nostrils.

As sweet of a sight as the water may be, the scene doesn’t do much to ease any lingering wariness… only making eyelids feel heavier, if anything.

You glance downwards to your left, Polnareff still sulking by himself on the ground a few paces away. You felt a pang of pity looking at him. Just a moment of consideration later and you neglect to speak to him. Practically feeling the gentle annoyance of the two to your right. Not that… you don’t understand the sentiment.

Especially Kakyoin’s sighing mutter in particular.

“If the old man hadn’t screwed up,” Jotaro speaks up, his arms crossed as he responds. “We wouldn’t be out here hiding from the cops.”

Your gaze shifts away from Polnareff to nothing in particular a moment or two, your brows gently furrowed. Without contemplating it first, your head moves. Peering over at Kakyoin beside you.

“Least Mr. Joestar’s not in custody,” you comment lightly.

Just the idea of it is stressful… your heart hurting at the thought. Even more so, your brain stresses just from knowing how much precious time it would waste. Knowing full well by now you don’t even need to point that out to someone like Kakyoin. He just… gets it.

“Hmph…” Jotaro huffs, nearly a grunt.

Kakyoin’s eyes travel to meet yours, disregarding Jotaro’s dismissal of your trying optimism. The ghost of a smile appears on the redhead’s lips.

“Haven’t crossed the border yet,” he reminds you. His tone lacking the exhaustion it holds when pointing something out to the likes of Polnareff or Mr. Joestar. His pleasant smile… it lingers as well.

“Heh-…” you let out a lighthearted sigh and your trying expression fades a little. Not completely deterred by his words, your tone remains on the sweet side as you retort, “Way to spike my worry back up.”

To your relief, your lighthearted response only seems to amuse Kakyoin. The exact reaction you had hoped for.

“Mr. Joestar said he’s handling it… he owes us as much,” Kakyoin replies.

“Hmm… even after today?” you ask, tilting your head to the side. “Giving him that much credit now, Kakyoin?”

He hums softly, trying to momentarily suppress his smile while rubbing his chin with his index finger. Moving his hand away when he sarcastically figures, “Well… he managed to grab us a car.”

“Small victories…?” you giggle lightly, raising your eyebrows in a playful manner.

“Small victories,” he nods in agreement, allowing his grin to grow wider.

Kakyoin’s smile… I’ve been seeing it a lot more lately, you note. I really hope it’s-

“Don’t fret, you two,” Joseph speaks up from behind.

He cuts the moment short and your stomach drops, making space for a familiar disappointment to pool inside. Your brows subtly furrow, and you biting your lower lip less you pull a pout. Not spiteful towards Joseph… just wishing the short talk with Kakyoin had time to continue.

You turn, only to see the older man casually gesturing to the aforementioned car he’d gotten his hands on. “I took care of things.”

Kakyoin doesn’t point it out less you sheep away in embarrassment, but the disappointment you think you don’t show… he notices.

Quietly allowing you to sit a bit too close beside him at restaurant tables, for example. That same look on your face when the spotlight shifts anywhere else… it’s totally worth it.

Or when you rest your head on his shoulder while taking a bus or car. Polnareff or Joseph will often prompt conversation that demands and derails attention. Even Kakyoin feels a silent sigh escape his nostrils.

Luckily, even more than explicitly mentioning it out loud, he wouldn’t dream of teasing you over it either. Win’t even throw you a knowing glance. Anything to keep you from hiding that cute expression away.

Wait, cute?

So… okay, he can work with that. Mhm. No need for concern or anything of the sort. It’s not like the descriptor popped into his head so fast he couldn’t stop himself if he tried. It’s just one little word… that crawled into his brain and refused to go to the back of it the majority of the car ride.

Well, this is happening, he distinctly recalls thinking.

Really, that’s about as long as it takes for him to come to terms with how he feels about you. The span of an overnight car ride.

Kakyoin may have purposely isolated himself for most of his life, but he’s too self-assured to think of pushing the feeling down.

More than that… you’re just so lovely.

When was the last time being this close to someone felt so right? Never? Good god… it all feels so natural when it comes to you, in and out of combat.

For a stand user… your generally pretty gentle as well.

Not there isn’t any mental strength in spite of or because of that sort of demeanor… Kakyoin just hadn’t personally experienced that before meeting you. And he really admires that.

Then again, Kakyoin’s the type to find beauty in practically everything in regards to the subject of his affections.

… is it weird to be thinking about one person this much? For Pete’s sake, is this what it’s like? Had his father felt like a moron like this too? Did Mr. Joestar think himself going nuts as well?

Perceived weirdness be damned, as soon as he’s fallen, he’s loyal and all in.

It’s similar to the natural progression of learning to enjoy the others’ company. Similar, yes, but the same? Not at all, of course.

And Kakyoin’s not the only one who notices the difference in your dynamic together; he’s most definitely got mixed feelings on that.

Avdol seemed to be the first.

Before Kakyoin noticed he’d caught feelings, Avdol would peer at the two of you with a tiny smile on his face. Kakyoin had thought back then he’d been amused on a surface level… which ended up not being correct with hindsight.

Damn it all… how could I let him notice before me? Kakyoin thinks, feeling more than a little foolish.

Kakyoin was lamenting over a look… god bless him.

Once the others start noticing, all hell has broken loose. They make Avdol look like a damn saint.

Joseph and Polnareff are a duo conceived in hell purely to torture Kakyoin. He won’t lie, he can get rather short with either of them in the face of their teasing. He’s really good at flipping the script on them and offering a harsh dig, which hasn’t failed in changing the conversation thus far.

“We have some time to kill after breakfast… you and Y/n should go out on a little rendezvous!” Joseph will suggest, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Ha! I caught you staring again! You think you’re so slick, don’tcha?” Polnareff will laugh, nudging his arm a bit too harshly.

“You can pair with her while we separate and search… we know how much you like her!” they’ll both exclaim, no matter how inappropriate might be in the given situation.

… screw their feelings, Kakyoin’s going verbally nuclear.

Kakyoin would really prefer it they wouldn’t be so obvious with their teasing right in front of you. Unfortunately, getting on their case directly has proven to only encourage them further.

Worse of all… he can feel the judgement rolling off Jotaro’s body. Constantly. Uncomfortably.

He doesn’t say anything, and frankly, he doesn’t need to. As if Jotaro would need to do that to drive home a point.

Getting all close to you right beside or in front of Jotaro leaves Kakyoin dealing with the stink eye for a good ten minutes.

In all… it’s annoying, but not unbearably so. Nothing that warrants a conversation, anyway. You seem amused, at the very least.

What does make Kakyoin wary… is the situation you’re all in.

Never mind that in just the span of a month he’s got more people surrounding him than he previously thought possible. The circumstance in particular is what puts a strain on both his head and heart.

Definitely has an attitude of “Maybe after the journey…” for the majority of it.

You don’t seem to be the type to want to take much initiative, and he’s a touch too comfortable keeping things just the way they are. No need to rush when there are greater priorities.

Though, one could argue he’s procrastinating a little. Polnareff has certainly made the case.

The Frenchman couldn’t get him to budge… in fact, it’s a run in with a certain sleep-stalking stand that does.

The encounter solidified the update to his thinking the trip had been instigating, in more ways than one. It’s all to do with his returning confidence; growing fully reassured in himself once more.

Applicable both in and out of fights. As well as his approach to you, in particular.

The complete lack of control he had throughout most of the encounter… as well as how hard you tried understanding his position when no one else could… none of them are guaranteed to wake up the next morning, right?

And waiting…? Upon reflection, Kakyoin changes his perspective on it. How cowardly would that be?

He’s not about to face DIO again without letting you know how he feels first.

Too many possibilities could come from the inevitable confrontation, a good chunk of what he could think of not exactly being pleasant. He doesn’t want to plan for the worse… but he would prefer to step up and be there for you like he knows he wants to deep down.

Every day of the trip, as dangerous as it gets, were the better ones of his upbringing. That’s large in part because of you.

From assuming he’d never get close to wanting to speak about such a thing… to knowing he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t.

That being said, there weren’t many opportunities for a breather after crossing the desert. The boarder into Egypt moving closer and closer within the group’s reach with each passing hour.

And just as quickly as it was crossed… there was another attack- his very own sight put at risk.

In all honesty, he doesn’t remember much of the ordeal before waking up at the hospital with bandages over his eyes. He’d been going in and out of consciousness, enough to make his memory of the event rather hazy.

Kakyoin can recall the pain. That… and your presence at his side almost entirely throughout.

He didn’t know how to feel immediately about it.

Thankful for your presence, though not much could ground him in a situation like that one. Or guilt over you witnessing him in such a state.

He lands somewhere in the middle.

Fussing was pushed to the back of his mind the second his hospital room door was flung open not long after waking. Voices pooling into the clean yet bare space and footsteps making their way closer.

Booming and almost laughing, expressing relief to see him up and looking alive. Several hands patting him on the back or nudging his arm.

As well as a familiar hand gently touching his shoulder, a softer voice poking through the others.

He’s listened to it for hours collectively by now… but a part of him figures he could do it for days.

There’s a lingering warmth present, moral quite positive despite everyone understanding Kakyoin would be left behind for his recovery. Regardless… the fact that his eyesight wouldn’t be affected in the long run lifted a massive weight.

Kakyoin is too levelheaded to think otherwise, he knows you must move on without him.

But he finds himself hoping the moment will drag anyways:

“… I will catch up with you later,” Kakyoin assures with a smile. Bandages over his eyes… speaking to the group without the sight available to point his attention to anyone in particular.

Polnareff leaning forward, putting weight on his hands against the hospital bed mattress to his left. You sit facing him on his right, legs hanging off the side. The others circle around the bed as Kakyoin offers his words of encouragement in the face of his upcoming absence.

He’s too strong to sulk… you think, But it must sting to have to sit on the sidelines when we’re getting so close.

“It’s less than 800 kilometers to Cairo… and DIO,” he continues. “Everyone, you must be vigilant.”

Polnareff nods, giving Kakyoin a pat on the shoulder. The others give the redhead their well-wishes as the Frenchman offers you a glance before standing up straight, following Avdol and Jotaro out the door. The men shuffling towards the exit one by one.

You’re the last of the group to move, slowly sliding yourself off the hospital bed. Kakyoin’s head lowers, feeling the dip in the thin mattress vanish.

Joseph, taking up the rear of the group still diffusing out the room, pauses just before the doorway. Looking your way. “Y/n,” he mutters softly, halting you after taking only a single step.

“Hm?” you hum, biting your lower lip.

His lips curl into a smile, eyes glimmering with gentleness. “We’ll go and pay the bill. Could be quite the tedious process… we’ll meet you down in a few, alright?”

Thank you, Mr. Joestar, you think. Holding back a grin as you nod a handful of times hastily.

“Heh…” the old man huffs out a soft laugh, his expression shifting to a smirk before exiting the room. The door clicking shut behind him.

You turn back towards Kakyoin… noting how he’s lifted his head once more. The sunlight pools in through elongated windows, shining against his skin. Unharmed from what you can see… aside from pale bandages wrapped around his eyes. Anything to keep you from seeing his eyes a mutilated, bloodied mess like that ever again.

“Y/n,” he calls your name, lightly gesturing for you to sit down again and pulling you from your silent gawking.

With a smile, you accept the invitation. Plopping right back down where you’d been sitting… if not a little closer. Kakyoin turns his head a tad, close enough to your general direction.

“I have a favor to ask.”

“A favor?” you echo, humming in thought. Both your voices have quieted. Pleasant, but gentler in the comfort of one-on-one company. “Of course… what do you need, Kakyoin?”

He reaches to his right, fingertips searching for the surface of a tiny nightstand next to the hospital bed. When he finds it, his hand smartly slides down its top drawer. Opening it and shuffling around inside, taking a moment to find whatever he’s looking for.

He shuts the drawer with a clenched fist a moment later, fingers wrapped around the unseen object he had grabbed.

“May I have your hand?” he asks, his free hand lifting up with an open palm.

“Mhm,” you hum, gently placing your hand atop his.

Kakyoin lets out a soft chuckle when he feels your smaller hand rest in his hold. Having touched it enough by now to recognize it’s yours by the feel alone. Letting it sit that way a second before gingerly flipping your hand over. Guiding the movement via your wrist, so that he instead cradles your hand while it lies palm-up in patient expectation.

“Keep these safe for me while I recover, will you?”

Without a word of warning, his other hand reaches out and places what he’d retreated in the palm of your hand. Two little red marble-looking balls now sit there, attached to silver hooks that let them both dangle at a slight curve.

“Your… earrings?” you ask, voice dropping to a whisper. Peering down at the dainty set in your hand. “Kakyoin, I don’t under-“

“Keep them with you… and make sure they remind you to keep yourself safe, okay?”

You lift your gaze, taken aback by the gentleness of his tone. Aside from today, you’d hardly ever seen seen him without wearing the set. Only removed on the handful of occasions he’s traded with Jotaro or Polnareff.

“Are you sure…?” you ask, blinking dumbly.

“Yeah,” he confirms, nodding. “I’ll take them back when I see you again. How about that?”

Your fingers curl around the earrings, holding them secure. The backs lightly poke your skin, but your hand keeps its hold. Resolving to keep them safe and on your person. A piece of him that will continue journey on with you while he’s in recovery.

“Is that a promise, Kakyoin?” you ask him, knowing the answer as soon as the question leaves your lips.

“Heh…” he chuckles lightly, his head tilting to the side once again. “Certainly. I’ll be back before you know it… but really… I’d like you to promise me you’ll be safe.”

Kakyoin holds your hand tighter in his, and his free hand blindly reaches out. Bumping against your shoulder, before finding its intended destination on your face. As soon as his fingertips brush against your cheek, your heart skips a beat. Holding your jaw gingerly, as if he were handling porcelain.

“I promise, Kakyoin, I promise…” you assure gently. There’s really no certainty in safety from here on out, the fact that he’s in a hospital bed making it apparent.

Kakyoin, for once, doesn’t care if it’s silly. Just hearing you promise to look out for yourself helps him swallow the reality that he’ll be absent from your side.

“Thank you,” he sighs, shoulders dropping. “I couldn’t stand it if I heard of you getting seriously hurt-”

“Kakyoin…”

“-without me being there to have anything to do about it. Because I… really-“

“Kakyoin, should we even-“

“Noriaki,” he cuts you off gently, his hand squeezing yours. Not wanting to let you avoid the conversation. “Please, Y/n, call me Noriaki.”

“I-…” you hesitate, heart feeling heavy. Is this really happening? “It’s… not like you to… you know…”

“Be so forward?” he asks, a smirk creeping onto his face.

“No, no, you’re forward…” you admit, letting out a laugh. You feel pleasantly lightheaded; surprised by the turn the goodbye has taken. How right it feels. “It’s not like you to… be this forward. Understand what I mean?”

His thumb lightly brushes along the skin on your cheek, leaning himself forward. Careful as he invades your personal space, slowly ensuring his position is aligned the way he’s hoping it is.

“I do. Is it alright…?” he asks, listening intently for any hint he’s pushing you too much. Only receiving a beat of silence, his heart halts in place until he picks up on your bashful reply:

“It is… erm, Noriaki.”

He smiles again, nodding and keeping lips pressed together… and if you could see his eyes, you assume there’d be a gleam of amusement present within. You wait for his reply, but it doesn’t come.

Instead, he takes in a deep breath before leaning in further, taking you by surprise yet again. His lips pressing against yours.

They’re still chapped and dry from the desert heat, just like your own. But he moves slow and gentle, barely a sound in the room accept for hesitant lips interlocking in a bashful first kiss. He’s inexperienced with it, but the two of you follow each other and melt into the action with the angling of your faces.

His hand stays put on your cheek, and his other squeezes your fist, his heart swelling with the knowledge you’re still carrying his earrings. Letting out a sigh of relief into the kiss before hesitantly breaking it.

“Noriaki…” you whisper, following along and pulling away from the kiss when he does.

It made your heart do flips… leaving you with wanting more. But you know time is short. Your eyes flicker to the clock hanging on the wall, frowning at the realization you should’ve descended to the first level three minutes ago.

“You uhm…” you clear your throat. “You owe me another when you catch up with us.”

“Hmph,” he smiles, dropping his hand from your face. “You got a deal. I’d really like to see the look on your face after doing something like that. You get really red under casual circumstances, you know that?”

“… I wish I didn’t learn that just now, Noriaki.”

Kakyoin listens as your footsteps carry outside his hospital room, his smile lingering on his face long after you’re gone.

The coming days will be slow… but the idea there’s people eager for his return makes it all bearable. People who truly know him and harboring mutual loyalty… it’s still funny for him to ponder. Likely will be for a a good while.

The future looks brighter with someone like you a part of his life. Kakyoin cannot help but look forward to it without hesitation on his mind and merely flourishing hope in his heart.

He’s got someone at his side he truly loves, after all, and that means more to him than he’d ever know how to properly express.

[bwat5-blog]

Caitlyn Kiramman's Strength

**Spoiler warning for all of arcane**

“You will never rest knowing that she’s out there. Or maybe I underestimated you. Maybe you have the strength I do not. To forgive, and trust in tomorrow”- Ambessa

Caitlyn's commander arc has been a HEAVY topic of debate. I have written plenty as have many others. I am writing this after reading a wonderful exchange between some other users who added even more to my understanding of this story.

For my purposes today, I am thinking about Caitlyn's strength. The question of true strength is one pursued in many ways throughout this story. Vi learning she deserves to be loved for more than the strength of her arm, Huck explaining to Caitlyn that he became addicted to shimmer because he just wanted for someone else to be afraid for once. So what of Caitlyn? Her strength to achieve, is the strength to forgive.

There are many kinds of strength. Caitlyn is agile, and a great fighter. Her mind is sharp and creative. Even as a rookie enforcer she has the force of will to follow a mysterious tattooed Zaunite into the undercity, never knowing how her life would change. What she would lose, and what she would gain.

People have made many ham-handed attempts at demonizing Caitlyn's character arc in season 2. Their failure to grasp the ways in which grief can warp us is their cross to bear. In Caitlyn's story, we watch as a kind, clever, idealistic and brave young woman is terrorized and almost murdered by wanted terrorist, only to watch helplessly as her mother falls to the same killer. Because remember my friends it's easy for us to look at Jinx's actions and try for understanding. We were there when Powder was a scared little girl holding her sisters hand on that bridge. Caitlyn wasn't. And in a span of mere days, all for the crime of believing she could make a difference, her reality is violently transformed in front of her.

This show gives us many depictions of the illusion of strength. My mind goes to the breaking of Powder and creation of JInx, in which Silco lauds the strength she has achieved by "letting Powder die". When the truth is that no matter how strong her body has become, her mind has only grown more fractured.

Caitlyn's takes control of her house. She demands her seat at the council, and forms a strike team to go into Zaun all of her own accord where they actively engage in combat against the Chem Barons. Strength? On the surface yes. But the unfortunately reality is that she is not an agent of law and order, bringing peace and safety to troubled streets. She is on a crusade. And with every step she takes down that road, she destroys more and more of what really matters to her, until even the woman she loves lays heartbroken and alone. All culminating in her glorious rise to Commander. Strength..

It is during this bleak time in Caitlyn's story, that she and Ambessa have a conversation. Caitlyn is questioning the Noxian's brutal tactics, and if the ongoing occupation of Zaun is really worth it anymore. Ambessa says the quote at the top to remind her of her rage.. and of her fear.

“You will never rest knowing that she’s out there. Or maybe I underestimated you. Maybe you have the strength I do not. To forgive, and trust in tomorrow”

And it works! For the time being. Because what neither of them could have known is Caitlyn was soon to be reunited with the woman who reminded her of inner strength. The woman who believed in her, who supported her, who sacrificed for her. Who at the moment of their reuniting, even with that emotional chasm between them and all of Caitlyn's wrongs known, trusts Caitlyn to save her father.

Trust... that single word from someone so important to her and Caitlyn begins to find herself again. Ambessa taught her to kill, to trick, to oppress and debilitate. Caitlyn's physical body growing stronger and more dangerous while her soul was buried deeper and deeper beneath the waves. But it was not until Vi was still willing to believe in her, to give her a second chance, that she truly began to breathe again.

It is in this time, that Caitlyn's true strength emerges. When face to face with the woman she knows captured her heart, and who calls her to account, the question of who deserves who gets a second chance is left in the air. What Jinx took from Caitlyn cannot be undone. And Vi is not asking her to love Jinx, or to love what she did. She is asking her to let go of the hatred, and the fear, and the pain. To live not just for Jinx's benefit but for Caitlyn herself as well. To carry the same strength in her heart that Vi demonstrated by telling her about Vander. And in so doing, for the sake of herself, and the woman she loves, Caitlyn sets aside that rage, and opens the way for them all to start healing.

Our story ends with Vi, and Caitlyn enjoying a quiet moment together. Violet's journey was never about physical strength, but about the strength to admit she deserves to feel loved, and protected, and safe. To know that she is worth more to her partner than the strength of her arm. Caitlyn was almost swallowed by her darkness, never having been more alone than when she was one of the most powerful people in the city. Now here, at the end of things, it is because she found the strength to forgive the person who wronged her, and in aspiring to be the person Vi deserves has begun to forgive herself, that she finds peace.

[nsharks]

part twenty-four preview

"What do you call a cow with no legs?"

Blue's lips twitch at the broken silence. She slowly raises her head at you, brow knitted. "What?"

"Ground beef."

She snorts, shaking her head, and you think you catch Nereida smile beside her. "That's stupid."

"Do you have a better one?"

"I've got one," Nereida chimes. "What did the ocean say to the beach?"

Blue sighs. "I know this one. Ghost said it before. Nothing—it just waved."

She smiles apologetically. "Sorry, that's all I've got."

You wrack brain for another, but then the quiet fills in again. You lean your forehead against the window and watch the world pass. Moss-tucked cars, sprawling hills. Blue rests her chin back in her hands, then perks up a minute later. "Woah. What is that?"

You crane your neck. A dilapidated theme park erects from the grass on the other side of the road. A small rollercoaster track, dull red carousel, even what looks like a mini golf course. It looks creepy to you, but she seems intrigued.

"Ghost, I have to pee. Can we stop here?"

"None of that stuff works now, and you're not going through any of it."

"I just want to look, that's all."

"I do need to stretch my legs a little," Nereida adds.

Ghost slows down and pulls over. Your legs feel wobbly when you first step out—it's only been two hours but you haven't had to sit in a car for years. The sign spanning the theme park entrance reads Kettering Kastle. That means he will take the interchange towards Cambridge soon. If there are no more stops, you'll be at the coastline by sundown. 

"Ari, did you ever go to one of these?" Blue quips.

Ari fails to answer—he hops down from the truck bed and rushes to the nearest bush, sick to his stomach.

Kyle gets to his feet. "It gets pretty bumpy in the back. He'll be fine."

You wince, feeling guilty you've let a kid get the worst seat. "I'll switch with him."

"You don't have to."

"No, it's fine. He can probably entertain Blue better than I can."

Blue relieves herself behind some dogwood. Ghost and Price go over the map together again. Your attention isn't on the old rides, but rather, a large tree you spot by the road. Hickory. You're pretty sure. Paul once told you it's great for making arrows, a softer hardwood. Pliable but strong. This excites you. Your sheath is only half-filled. You unzip your bag and reach for a knife, the serrated one you found back at the base. 

Gingerly, you saw off a few mid-sized branches that should be easy to whittle into arrows with your smoother knife. 

"Having fun there?" Kyle crosses his arms behind you, brow ticked. "First I'm seeing you smile... and it's while you cut a tree."

"This is good wood," you defend, continuing your ministrations. 

"How are you doing?" he asks idly.

You snap off the fourth stick, feeling satisfied. 

You blow a piece of hair off your face.

How are you doing?

Questions like that annoy you.

"Great. Thrilled. Beautiful scenery," you wave a hand around, "So I can't complain."

A dimple pops. "That's the spirit." His eyes unthinkingly trail over you, landing on the knife in your hand. His stare lingers, narrowing. "That yours?"

"Hm?" You hold it up. "Oh, yeah, I found it."

"May I see it for a sec?"

[borathae]

↳ Index [Snippet #53 - Adorable]

"When Jungkook is so cute by merely exisiting."

Genre: married life!AU, Slice of Life Fluff

Warnings: she thinks that he is the cutest, which he is <3, a cute sushi date with a beach walk afterwards, she bites his nose <3, he is also a lil shit because let's be honest he is, and we all love him so much for it <3, one (1) mention of suggestive themes

Wordcount: 1.1k

a/n: this is inspired by this gifset 🧡 i just love his lil pout and pretty eyes so much :( also, please bear with me. you besties are gonna get longer stories again. christmas time at work is just very stressful and time consuming and i rarely have energy to write :(

Jungkook is minding his own business. He is living his own life, enjoying the moment, existing. And you can’t take your eyes off of him. He isn’t even doing anything. He is merely and simply existing and you still think that he is the most adorable and handsome person that ever existed and ever will exist. 

He is wearing a white, oversized long arm shirt today, combining a black bucket hat with it. His bangs cover his forehead and his face carries no makeup. He is entirely comfortable with his look. It is simple, but you think that he is a work of art.  

You and he are currently on a fun and relaxing date to a costal restaurant. The theme of the restaurant is local fish and the chef specializes in sushi. She explains each serving in great detail and Jungkook is really enjoying his time here. You have never witnessed him listen so intently and with such attention for such a long time before. Now, don’t misunderstand, this isn’t supposed to be mean. You love him and you also love how easily his attention span can wander. Something as small and simple as a pretty bug by the side of the road can already pull his attention away. Sometimes, even something as simple as a random thought can completely beam him away. You never saw it as a negative trait, but you also have to admit that seeing him so deeply engrossed in sushi knowledge is surprising and wonderful to witness. He pouts his lips without noticing and his eyes are so big in wonder. You just love him so much.  His reactions to the food are almost better. You haven’t laughed that much during lunch in a long time. He is so cute. 

He would definitely whine if he knew that you are calling him cute. He doesn’t like to be called that way (a lie, he likes to tell you. He definitely likes it, you are sure of it). And the thing is? You can’t blame him.  

Jungkook is a strong and muscular man. He is pierced, tattooed and drives a huge Harley. He also knows how to knock someone out with just one punch and the multiple times he had you in his arms and on his cock at the same time are definitely haunting your mind from time to time. Jungkook is just such a Man and he shouldn’t be this cute in your eyes, but he is. He is so tender and beautiful and full of childlike wonder. When he talks to you, he talks in a soft voice and when he holds your hand, he always draws hearts on your skin. He greets and thanks the staff of whatever places you visit and whenever it is possible, he makes their jobs easier by helping out as best as possible.

He is just so warm. Yes, this is how he is. He is warm like a safe hug, warm like hot cocoa, warm like a blanket after a person laid under it for a long time.

And right now, you think that he is unbearably cute in his little outfit with his pretty eyes and pouty lips.

The sushi chef turns her back to you and him again, preparing the next course. Jungkook glances at you from the corner of his eyes. He has been feeling your eyes on him the entire time the chef explained her process. He is starting to get nervous. 

When you don’t seem to want to stop any time soon, he finally speaks up. 

“Is something the matter, my sweetheart?” he asks, turning his head to you and rubbing your back. You and he are sitting next to each other so it is easy to do. 

“I just think that you’re so cute.”

He furrows his brows and pouts, “don’t call me that.”

“I can’t help it. You’re just so…can I bite your nose?”

“No? Why would you wanna bite my nose?” he says genuinely confused and touches his own nose. 

“Because if I don’t get to munch on something soon, I will riot.” 

He pulls a grimace of judgement. 

“You’re a weirdo”, he says and turns his head away. 

“Please?”

“No. Not here”, he whines and then the chef returns with the new course.

The sushi date continues. Jungkook is mesmerised while you are mesmerised by him. How can such a masculine, strong man be so cute? And how will you survive not munching on him?

You and he take a walk by the pier after lunch, holding hands and enjoying the ocean breeze. You snap some pictures by the beach, some together and some of each other. Afterwards it is time for ice cream, which you enjoy sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean. 

“You are looking at me again”, Jungkook says.

“I can’t help it. You’re so cute today.” 

“You know that I could easily bench press you, don’t you?”

“I am aware. I still think that you’re cute. Gosh Kookie, this shirt fits you so well. You’re looking so snuggly.”

You cuddle into him, hugging his waist and resting your cheek on his shoulder. Jungkook drapes his arm around you, smiling shyly. 

“Can I really not bite your nose?” you mumble.

“Why do you wanna bite my nose?”

“Because.” You poke his nose. “No nose has ever nosed as hard as your nose does.”

He scoffs, “okay? Whatever that may mean.”

“It means that I wanna bite your nose. Please?”

“But why? It’s my nose, I need it to breathe.”

“I’m not gonna do it hard. Just a little nibble. Once. Please?” 

“What’s in it for me?”

“A cute nose bite?”

“Yeah.” He laughs. “That’s not convincing.”

“You get to take two bites of my ice cream?”

He squints his eyes, letting out a long, “hmmmmmm.”

“Three bites?” 

“Okay fine, we have a deal.”

“Yes! Oh my god, I’m so happy”, you exclaim and cup his cheeks to turn his head to you. 

With a racing pulse, you lean closer so you could finally bite his nose. You have wanted to do this ever since this date started. He has such a pretty and biteable nose. You make sure to be as gentle as possible. All you need is for your teeth to feel his nose just once. You don’t want to hurt him. 

Jungkook grumbles in faux annoyance, giving you a pout afterwards.

“Happy?” 

“Very. This was the highlight of my day, seriously.”

He chuckles, “if you say so. Now give me ice cream.”

“There you go.” 

Jungkook practically sucks in your ice cream like a vacuum, leaving you with an empty ice cream cone and an agape mouth.

“Jungkook!” You exclaim, “what the hell?”

He chuckles with a full mouth, eyes sparkling mischievously.

“You’re so annoying”, you whine, nudging his chest.

“You said three bites. Never said how big they can- ow, ah, brain freeze.”

“Serves you right, you ice cream thieving egg.”

[rootspiral]

Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 9 part 4

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][+1] ep5 [1][2][3][4][5] ep6 [1][2][3] ep7 [1][2][3][4][5][6] ep8 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] ep9 [1][2][3][4][5][6])

it's still agatha and her river

mama, I'm sorry I got upset. mama I'm sorry we're both starving tonight. I promise I'll do better tomorrow.

a six year old taking responsibility and apologizing for his mother's shortcomings.

agatha looks down at her precious little boy's pleading face

and she smiles at him, and nicky gives her a big relieved grin.

evanora is not stealing this moment. she did her worst to fuck with agatha's brain chemistry, but in one fundamental thing she failed: agatha is capable of loving her kid. despite all her other shortcomings, she will never blame nicky for her own faults.

she does a cute little dance for him, and this is what they do, isn't it? he's too small to explain his big feelings and she is too scared, and so they sing to each other and hope the love is understood anyway.

see how he touches the brooch? if only she could have loved nicky in vacuum, without any of the emotional baggage. but he is only the last link in a long chain of witches, pain and and tears and blood that made him what he is. agatha cannot escape her identity and legacy no matter how much she tries, and she couldn't protect nicky from it either.

the last time she sees nicky alive he's smiling adoringly at her. this is the boy she can't face in the afterlife, because her own guilt is so strong she's convinced he will hate her.

nicky dies peacefully in his mother's arms. his soul wakes up and sees rio waiting for him.

that some good cinema dear lord

rio waves at nicky. he doesn't know her (when who will return?) but he still trusts her implicity - she's been around him his whole short life, in the woods, in the water, in his lungs.

and - the bit that destroyed us all - rio makes nicky go to agatha one last time. go kiss your mama goodbye.

light and dark, growth and decay, here and beyond.

remember when alice died and the camera turned upside down? it stops halfway here. agatha has been affected so profoundly by nicky's death that she can never let herself go back to the land of the living, but she's also too scared to follow rio to the other side. she's stuck in the middle, consumed by the impossible dream of bringing nicky back, never allowing herself to find peace and companionship again. in love with death, but running away from it.

(people never seem to make crack and humor vids for episode 9, isn't that curious? when it's soooo fun and lighthearted!)

well ain't that just brutal

I have always known

This Road is cruel and wild

I bury my own heart

Here with you, my child

(I think those are lavender flowers? I'm not 100% sure)

coolcoolcoolcoolcool. that's fine. I'm absolutely fine.

BARRIERS UP right away. even if she looks like a mess. especially because she looks like a mess. she's not showing weakness in front of anyone, she's protecting her grief like a jealous goblin, and since she cannot run, she straightens her dress and gets ready to fight. the option to ask for help and comfort doesn't even cross her mind.

her eyes still full of tears / agatha gets another wonderful, awful idea.

we've seen this so many times, haven't we? the real agatha disappears behind the character she plays. the agatha we've seen from the very start, since the moment she walked into wanda's living room, has been a lie. very few people have ever seen a hint of the poor bruised heart she hides inside, and only to rio and (to some extent) nicky she has ever opened up.

how can someone go from total heartbreak to planning murder in the span of two minutes? well, you can if you are agatha harkness and have never learned one healthy coping mechanism in your life. and I'm sure she's already rationalizing it as something like "if I get powerful enough I can bring nicky back." but the truth is, she just wants to get drunk on magic and murder and stop feeling so horrible. she's running away, like usual. she's planning to kill witches in front of the grave of the very kid who begged her not to, and she's using his song to do it. as if that's not gonna haunt her or anything.

(it really gets me how agatha's smiles are so different from kathryn's. agatha never smiles with her eyes, except when she's with nicky.)

agatha's diabolical scam is so stupid if you think about, definitely worthy of the clown she has become. just pretend the Road didn't open and then annoy people into attacking you! better than using a literal child as bait, I guess.

here she absorbs a yellow coven, and yep, it does look like covens are all supposed to be the same color?

the bodies from the agnes of westview opening.

orange coven in the late 1800s. I really like that dress and hat on her

blue coven in the 1920s, and another cunty outfit

I know you guys like the 90s look, but it makes me laugh how hard she was trying for that Craft vibe. and we don't see the beams color here.

and finally, our girls. (I miss you all so muchhhhh)

what do you know! looks like a door has appeared! (sharonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!)

from fuck has my karma caught up with me to well well well, looks like we have another little maximoff on our hands

and speaking of little maximoffs and giant assholes...

go to episode 9 part 5

[blouisparadise]

Upon request, here is the second part to our rec list of fics where Louis and Harry have unprotected sex. If you missed part one, you can find it here. If you enjoy our rec lists, please be sure to reblog this post to help spread the word. Happy reading!

1) Change In Pressure | Explicit | 4,600 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Louis and Harry argue. Louis and Harry also fuck on the stage. Somehow it manages to be kind of romantic.

2) In That Bright White Noise | Explicit | 5,060 words

Blind dates are usually destined to go terribly, so Louis doesn't exactly trust his friends when they say they've set him up with Gemma's younger brother, Harry, at an evening bonfire they're attending. Luckily, Harry's much hotter and kinder than Louis thought he'd be, which is a relief. He's also really fucking good at sex, which is just a wonderful bonus.

3) Want It All The Time, Need It Everyday | Explicit | 6,306 words

Louis visits LA a week before the boys head to Australia for On The Road Again. He and Harry have some catching up to do.

4) More, More, More | Explicit | 8,733 words

BLFF Prompt 216: 1980s AU. Harry is a singer and Louis is a groupie that Harry sleeps with. He becomes Harry’s inspiration for writing Rebel Yell by Billy Idol.

5) Put Your Faith In My Stomach | Not Rated | 10,333 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Harry and Louis want a baby. Louis is a carrier, but that doesn't mean he's going to get pregnant.

6) Moonlit Sky Over Gentle Waters | Explicit | 11,377 words

Harry left his hometown to sail the seven seas and returns seven years later, yearning for something — or rather, someone — that he isn’t sure he can have.

7) Touch Me (Like Nobody Else Does) | Mature | 11,459 words

The alpha’s grin returned tenfold, deep dimples popping into his cheeks. Holy shit, he has dimples. “No, I don’t mind at all. I know where to find you when I need it back,” he said with a chuckle before leaning back into his seat. Louis let out a small giggle before nodding. “I’ll be sure it gets returned to you…?” He trailed off, one eyebrow raised at the other man. “Harry,” he replied, amusement still shining in his eyes. “And you are?” “Louis,” the omega responded before leaning back into his seat averting his eyes once again. “Thank you, really, for the charger. You’re a lifesaver. I’m not sure how I would’ve made it through without my Netflix.”

8) A Flicker Of Hope That I Wanna Keep (Please Don’t Leave) | Mature | 12,230 words

Harry is in love with Louis, and he had thought Louis felt the same until he accidentally left his journal in Harry’s home. He knows he shouldn’t have read it, especially when it only proved to be a reality check he didn’t want. Once Harry finds the green-eyed, curly-haired, gangly fucker that’s stolen Louis’ heart, he’d like to have a strong word with him.

9) Won't See It Coming Til It's Already Gone | Explicit | 12,631 words

“Tell me that this is a fake,” Peter says, slapping a handful of papers against Louis’ chest. He says something else, something loud and demanding, barely even pausing for a breath, but Louis doesn’t hear it. All he hears is the sound of his own breathing, the sound of his own heartbeat. Because this - this looks like a marriage certificate. For a minute, everything stills, quiets. Louis drags his eyes up, meets Harry’s gaze, fixed on him. Then the noise is back, shouting voices clamoring to be heard over each other, and Harry is still staring at him. The ring that Louis hadn’t been able to stop noticing in the loo weighs heavily on his hand. His left hand.

10) Sweet Scary Creatures | Mature | 13,012 words

They stare into each other’s eyes for a while until Louis remembers this is too intimate and looks at Harry’s hands on his thigh. It spans a big portion of his thigh and Louis has always been insecure about how thick he is, so he loves that Harry has huge, dustbin hands that hold him and makes him feel smaller, safer.

11) Show You The Stars In The Daylight | Explicit | 13,227 words

The one where Louis has a type and at sixteen and scrawny, it’s definitely not his best friend’s little brother Harry…ten years later, he changes his mind.

12) You Know It Ain’t Fiction, Just A Natural Fact| Not Rated | 13,312 words

“Look, Lou” Harry whispers, “I can’t do it, and as much as I like having dinner with you, and hanging out, I think we should just do it without the tutoring part because I am not smart enough for school.” “That’s bullshit,” Louis answers quickly, “what do you like?” he asks, “I mean, other than football and asking me stuff about my family. There must be something else you’re good at.” “I play football and fuck, Louis. That’s it.” Louis definitely doesn’t flinch at that. He does not.

13) Your Heart Is Glowing And I'm Crashing Into You | Explicit | 13,915 words

Louis swallows slowly, blinking away images of himself lying spread on top of his duvet at home, and the rich chocolate curls falling over the boy’s face as he eagerly stretches Louis open, and God. Louis really has to stop falling in love with every beautiful boy he comes across.

14) With the Certainty Of Tides | Mature | 13,980 words

“Love you,” Louis whispered in the dark. He didn’t know what time it was or where the light had gone, he knew that he was in Harry’s arms, basking in the afterglow of all their love and he’d be a fool to not tell Harry that. As if Harry didn’t know. “Love you,” was whispered back, as if Louis didn’t know. They confessed to each other as if it was their first time saying it, raw and painful, and listened to it the very same way, but they knew those words to be the only ones true. With all the certainty of the tides, with all the light from the sun, with all the steady beats of their hearts, they were deftly in love, in secret and so loudly. They were brave and fearless and strong and hopelessly devoted in every sense of their breaths. “We made it, baby,” Harry mumbled, bringing their lips into a final kiss, sweet and soft and the color of pink. They already knew that, didn’t fight tooth and nail and argued through every petty year and bleed their hearts into the words they sang and on their skin for them to have not made it home. They were home.

15) The Seed Inside You, Baby, Do You Feel It Growin' | Explicit | 14,796 words

Louis really wants Harry to get him pregnant.

16) All This Delusion In Our Heads | Explicit | 15,088 words

After Harry and Louis break up, they cope with it in very different ways. What will happen when Harry keeps calling his ex over when things go wrong in his life, but Louis just can't take it anymore?

17) Let Me Inside | Explicit | 17,734 words

Louis is Harry’s boss, but Harry is the boss of Louis

18) Reach The Heavens Own Blue | Explicit | 21,070 words

Louis is a Boston Red Sox and Harry is a New York Yankee.

19) Cut the Sides, Don’t Touch the Back | Explicit | 21,596 words

Prompt 87: Harry’s been talking about getting a mullet for so long and Louis hates how good he pulls it off. Aka The Mullet Fic.

20) Beautiful, Dirty, Rich | Explicit | 23,534 words

Later that night, Louis arrived home and screamed into his pillow when he flopped onto his mattress. This prompted Niall to appear in the doorway with a concerned look on his face. A beer was being nursed carefully in his hand, blue eyes glassy from the booze. “Um… Are you okay?” It came out quietly like he was scared of spooking Louis. Louis dramatically flipped over to stare at his roommate, “I met the love of my life at work, but he’s a club member so it’s forbidden.” He whined loudly, jutting his bottom lip out in faux distress. “Shit Lou, you had me worried. Thought someone died or something,” The boy groaned, strolling over to plop himself onto the mattress, “So, tell me about this guy you wanna fuck.” “Ni he’s the sexiest person I’ve ever met. I want to be his trophy wife he shows off, and have all his babies, and be at his beck and call twenty-four seven,” All he received in return was an unimpressed stare, his friend rolling his eyes at the antics.

21) The Devil's In The Details | Explicit | 25,372 words

He squeals when Harry smacks his bum as he bends over to pick up his bag, swinging it over his shoulder. Harry smiles smugly at him, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “When are you going to start calling me professor?” He asks. “When you actually are one,” Louis says with his hand on the doorknob. He cocks his head to the side in curiosity. “Isn’t that how words work? You did study English, right?” Louis’ quick to slip out the door before Harry can smack him again, his laugh echoing through the hallways as he makes his way to his next class with flushed cheeks and a bright smile.

22) Let Me Carry Your Weight | Explicit | 28,633 words 

Louis is fresh out of a bad relationship with someone who made him feel awful about how he looked. on his journey to better himself, he meets harry - the ridiculously attractive and fit personal trainer.

23) Trapped | Explicit | 32,957 words

An AU in which Harry and Louis are under lockdown because of the global pandemic and they find themselves experiencing change in between them.

24) But I Won’t Feel Blue | Not Rated | 33,808 words

“Sam Claflin,” Then the second. “Bill Skarsgard.” And finally, the third. She hesitated, holding it for a moment longer, then let it go. “Harry Styles.” With the final letter sent, there was no turning back now. Whatever happened next, Lilah was ready to face it

25) Give Me Love | Explicit | 41,041 words

Louis doesn't feel like a good omega, Harry doesn't remember how to be an alpha, and they figure it out together.

26) Sedative Duty | Explicit | 46,588 words

Pop-star of the moment Louis Tomlinson is on his third-world tour. He decides to hire renowned professional dominant Harry Styles to unwind while on the road. In an effort not to raise suspicion by the crew, fans, and press, Harry pretends to be his bodyguard. He ends up being far more than that.

27) A Silent Whisper (That’s Left Unsaid) | Explicit | 50,842 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

A Fake Relationship & Exes to Lovers AU ft a failed proposal ten years ago, an oblivious Harry, an overworked Louis, Zayn as the protective best friend, a meddling aunt and a lot of talks about weddings and rings.

28) Of Lost Things | Explicit | 57,890 words

Louis comes with a familiarity Harry has never felt with anyone else before. After their fateful meeting, their chemistry became undeniable, and soon after, Harry had felt like he hit the jackpot when it came to finding the person he would spend the rest of his life with. But all relationships come with their own unique problems, and Harry soon realizes that their relationship is no different. When their problems go from unordinary to nearly bizarre in nature, he takes it upon himself to find an answer to their troubles. What he stumbles upon are terrifying coincidences between his and Louis’ story, and the ill-fated mythological couple, Orpheus and Eury. But it’s all they are; just coincidences, ones that feel as frighteningly familiar as Louis. Except… what if none of this is a coincidence? What if everything Harry has always seen as fiction is true, and myth—or rather, history, is about to repeat itself?

29) In The Still Of The Night | Explicit | 68,568 words

In a society where omegas are expected to follow a predetermined path, Louis strives for more; for his voice to be heard, for recognition, for true love. In a world where your past defines your future, Harry fights against the system; for equality, for a different life, for acceptance. When their two worlds collide, will they be beaten down by conformity or will they rise up and forge a new path together?

30) Siren Calls Me Home | Explicit | 133,762 words

Harry’s father had warned him. King Edward of Erendor had whispered his suspicions that Prince Louis of Blackmont was descended from the sirens, monsters from cautionary tales Harry was told as a child. A cruel, cold-hearted, and vicious nature wreathed in a breathtaking exterior, with coy smirks and slow blinks used to bend everyone to his will. His beauty was as well known as his cunning, his greed, and his ruthless grab for power. Time only proved the rumors to be true, and Harry made sure to keep his distance from the prince, never once speaking to him, and doing his best not to even meet his eye. Unfortunately, the ghosts of whispered warnings are powerless when one is up against the very tangible experience of being in Prince Louis’ presence.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

[carmen-art]

Dancing Spirits - Kiruna, 2025

One of the most spectacular Aurora displays I've ever witnessed and my last image for this year...I promise :)

As we were leaving our hotel in Kiruna, we noticed some faint lights in the sky. Since we had arrived late at the hotel and didn't have a specific place in mind, we decided to drive around and see what we could find.

As we were heading out of the city, the sky suddenly erupted in a burst of green. The arc spanned from one side to the other, and the movement was absolutely mesmerising. It was one of those nights where you didn’t know where to look because the lights were dancing all around you. We ended up watching the show from the side of the road, as we couldn’t find a nice spot to set up our cameras.

Later, we drove further in search for a good composition (eventually we settled for this tent), the Aurora started to fade and clouds began to cover the sky. Don’t get me wrong, it was still visible enough, but the explosive light show had passed.

I uploaded a video taken with the phone (poor quality) to showcase how strong and visible the Northern Lights were that evening, you could see green and red with the naked eye. It was one of those nights you don't want to end ....

[luobinghaj]

summarizing the binghe swap from either binghe's POV is so fucking funny

like, for bing-mei: you wake up next to some random lady, very pointedly not your shizun, and are immediately on edge because you do not swing that way and also you just recently got him back and would really appreciate if he would stop disappearing!!! you leave the rooms and this random lady in not-your bed only to find there are SIX FUCKING HUNDRED other random ladies in not-your house who seem to think they are married to you.

also, one of them is ning-shijie? which. ew? that's basically your sister. you decide that your brief foray into heterosexuality has been a very harrowing experience indeed and binghe would like to see his master please.

and for bing-ge: you get beat up and run into OH MY GOD THIS ASSHOLE AGAIN. you could have sworn you offed this dude. you are very sure, actually, that you offed this dude. but here he is, in possession of arms, and fussing over you like. like idk someone who cares or something. he aggressively gives you first aid, pills you like a fucking dog, reprimands you like a child and gives you a lil smooch all within the span of 15 minutes and you will need four to five business days to process this. wait, no you don't actually, you are a strong high value man and have six hundred wives who you are attracted to. shut the fuck up. you do not need or even want this new shen qingqiu a little. not at all. hes a beta male anyway. he probably has pronouns.

like we can all agree shen yuan's perspective was already pretty funny save the accidentally almost-fucking this guy who ripped your arm off last you saw him and hey! maybe that aggressive first aid also isn't something you would have done if you knew which binghe you were doing it to. but jesus thinking about the binghes' confused little racecar brains going 400mph on two very different roads never fails to make me cackle

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Elements of the 10 Story Genres

by Blake Snyder

The 3 elements of a BUDDY LOVE story

An incomplete hero who is missing something physical, ethical, or spiritual; (s)he needs another to be whole.

A counterpart who makes that completion come about or has qualities the hero needs.

A complication, be it a misunderstanding, personal or ethical viewpoint, epic historical event, or the prudish disapproval of society.

DUDE WITH A PROBLEM

An innocent hero who is dragged into a mess without asking for it—or even aware of how he got involved.

A sudden event that thrusts our innocent(s) into the world of hurt—and it comes without warning.

A life or death battle is at stake—and the continued existence of an individual, family, group, or society is in question.

FOOL TRIUMPHANT

A fool whose innocence is his strength and whose gentle manner makes him likely to be ignored—by all but a jealous “Insider” who knows too well.

An establishment, the people or group a fool comes up against, either within his midst, or after being sent to a new place in which he does not fit—at first.

A transmutation in which the fool becomes someone or something new, often including a “name change” that’s taken on either by accident or as a disguise.

GOLDEN FLEECE

A road spanning oceans, time—or across the street—so long as it demarcates growth. It often includes a “Road Apple” that stops the trip cold.

A team or a buddy the hero needs to be guided along the way. Usually, it’s those who represent the things the hero doesn’t have: skill, experience, or attitude.

A prize that’s sought and is something primal: going home, securing a treasure, or re-gaining a birthright.

INSTITUTIONALIZED

Every story in this category is about a group—a family, an organization, or a business that is unique.

The story is a choice, the ongoing conflict pitting a “Brando” or “Naif” vs. the system’s “Company Man.”

Finally, a sacrifice must be made and you get three endings: join, burn it down… or commit “suicide.”

MONSTER IN THE HOUSE

A monster that is supernatural in its powers—even if its strength derives from insanity—and “evil” at its core.

A house, meaning an enclosed space that can include a family unit, an entire town, or even “the world.”

A sin. Someone is guilty of bringing the monster in the house… a transgression that can include ignorance.

OUT OF THE BOTTLE

A wish asked for by the hero or another, and the clearly seen need to be delivered from the ordinary.

A spell, which we must make logical by upholding “The Rules.”

A lesson: Be careful what you wish for! It’s the running theme in all OOTB’s. Life is good as it is.

RITES OF PASSAGE

A life problem: from puberty to midlife to death—these are the universal passages we all understand.

A wrong way to attack the mysterious problem, usually a diversion from confronting the pain.

A solution that involves acceptance of a hard truth the hero has been fighting, and the knowledge it’s the hero that must change, not the world around him.

SUPERHERO

The hero of your tale must have a special power—even if it’s just a mission to be great or do good.

The hero must be opposed by a nemesis of equal or greater force, who is the “self-made” version of the hero.

There must be a curse for the hero that he either surmounts or succumbs to as the price for who he is.

WHYDUNIT

The detective does not change, we do; yet he can be any kind of gumshoe—from pro to amateur to imaginary.

The secret of the case is so strong it overwhelms the worldly lures of money, sex, power, or fame. We gots to know! And so does the Whydunit hero.

Finally, the dark turn shows that in pursuit of the secret, the detective will break the rules, even his own — often ones he has relied on for years to keep him safe. The pull of the secret is too great.

Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References

[flurry-of-beaus-pop-pop]

"What if Agatha and Rio aren't endgame?"

They already are.

The love these two have for each other has spanned centuries, has overcome distance and grief and anger and who knows what else, yet still rages on, strong as ever.

You can see it in all of their interactions... the way they both know exactly how to get through to the other, the way they are both the only one that can make the other truly laugh, the way Agatha can't help but be drawn to Rio at every step along the road or the way Rio is the only one who knows instantly that Agatha is scared when confronted with her past... the way they can both only be vulnerable with each other...

Their love for each other is never going to change.... it's not a temporary love, it's a forever and always, no matter what happens, kind of love.

Now this isn't to say that I think Agatha All Along is going to give up everything that makes her her or that Rio is going to give up being death, because that's who neither of them are... it wouldn't be them to end this show with them running off into the sunset, hand in hand, leaving everything behind and I don't think any of us would truly be happy with that.

Even in death, whether that comes at the end of this series or down the line at some point, Agatha and Rio are still endgame, because death for Agatha just means stepping into the embrace of the woman she loves.

Agatha and Rio's love story is truly beautifully written and should be studied for all future relationships, because they have truly written something so beautiful and interwoven that no matter what happens, these two are always going to find their way back to each other.

Because after all, as Rio says, "All roads lead to me"

[eddiernunson]

Really Drives Me Mad | Older!Eddie x Fem!Reader | 18 +

Previous Part | Master List | Next Part

Big big thank you to @forget-you-morelike-fuck-you for editing and spit balling ideas and giving feedback.

Another big thank you to @bebe07011 for spit balling ideas and fueling my ego &lt;3

I have no idea where this story or be without either of you girls. Or me, for that matter.

Word count: 16.6k

Warnings: Degradation/praise, light use of sir without any discussion, light hunter/prey play, crying while fucking (eddie), and a whole steddie story at the start. Lots of talk of their future in this part.

Author's note: When I say I am blown away by the reception of this fanfic, wholeheartedly mean it. Any word of kindness you have given just fueled the fire in me. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing it and exploring where the story will take us.

Due to some worry in the comments from last part I will clear this up: Neither Eddie nor Reader will be cheating, they're it for one another. Steve is here as a long time friend, someone with a wife and kids at home.

That being said, thank you so much, I really do appreciate it.

edit: somehow the first paragraph was missing? all fixed.

About 26/27 Years Ago:

At the failure of both their university careers, Steve and Eddie both dropped out within weeks of one another. This was unplanned, neither one of them knowing as they went back to Hawkins to a mini reunion. They agreed to meet one another for a drink, just the two of them, where Steve kindly asked how Eddie’s schooling was going, to which Eddie answered sheepishly that he had dropped out. Steve let out a bark of laughter, laughing through his response that he had also dropped out.

The mutual sigh of relief waved over them both, the two of them grateful they wouldn’t be receiving that same damn look of pity again. Their conversation then flowed into ease; the embarrassment was no longer there for either of them. Since they both dropped out, they each had found a dead-end job to make their ends meet while they figured out their next move.

Simply, they were at the exact same spot in life. This would be reoccurring for them over the next few years, finding their wives within the same six-month span, and both Arlo and Dylan being born within a year of one another. It’s no wonder why they became so close.

Steve had a crazy idea in their third hour in the bar booth, a little bit buzzed. “Dude. We should go to Vegas.”

Eddie wrinkled his eyebrows, completely thrown off by the suggestion. “What?”

“C’mon, Vegas! Our jobs both suck, and we’re the only ones who actually understand each-other’s shituations.”

Eddie sighed and took another sip of his beer. “Fuck it, let’s go.”

“Fuck yeah!”

“When?”

“Now!”

Eddie nearly spit out his beer, looking at Steve like he was crazy. “Now?”

“Dude. I still have my parents’ credit cards. They’re too lazy to actually cut me off.” Steve’s words were a bit slurred, holding up the many black cards.

Eddie downed his beer; the financials were his number one reason not to go. If this was gonna be on the Harrington’s dime, you best believe he would take full advantage of his friend’s shitty parents’ money.

Halfway through their first bus, Steve and Eddie started to sober up and wondered if it was a good idea. Too late, they were already four hours away. It took a total of 31 hours of driving on the road and about six different buses, but they finally made it to Nevada with nothing but the shirts on their backs and delirious glee.

The first two days they spent gambling and shooting the shit, both nights staring up at the bodies of women with numerous dollar bills in string thongs. (Eddie will omit this part when he tells it to you, for your own sanity’s sake.) On the third night, as Steve was a bit more drunk than the previous two, Eddie found a strong ass strain of weed on the strip and was a bit stoned. One of them managed to convince the other that finding girls to hook up with was the good idea.

They both went on with their night, keeping an eye out for any girl they could prospect. Even with a few conversations with some girls, they both came up short. Hooking up with women who were also running away from their problems was a bad idea.

Steve found a girl, but soon realized she was a dud when she made fun of Eddie’s bandana wrapped around his head. Eddie came up to Steve as she rolled her eyes and stomped off. Jesus. As he rested on the bar, he noticed something he wondered if he had imagined the whole three days they were there. Eddie’s eyes lingered on him, checking him out not-so-subtly. Steve leered on Eddie’s soft pink lips for too long for Steve to confidently tell himself he was not interested. His eyes raked down Eddie, taking in everything, subconsciously licking his lips. Having these thoughts, he realized Eddie was talking to him the entire time and he didn’t take in a single word.

“Well, that was a bust. C’mon. Let’s go get our sleep, we’re spending the next two days bussing home.” Steve yanked Eddie by the sleeve of the gift shop shirt he got up to the hotel elevator.

Eddie wandered into the bathroom when they got to their room and when he came out, he saw Steve sitting on the edge of his bed, legs out and leant back on straight arms. Eddie chuckled nervously. As dorky as it was, Steve looked fantastic in the makeshift gift shop outfit he had gotten himself.

“Steve?” He asked, hesitantly walking towards him.

An uncontrollable huff of laughter left Steve’s mouth, he stood up to face Eddie, accidentally meeting him only inches away from his face. It was a flicker. Only a flicker. A flicker of Eddie’s eyes looking directly to Steve’s lips, and Steve couldn’t help but smile. “You know, Eddie. If you want to kiss me, all you have to do is ask.”

Eddie’s eyes went wide, the panic in his face was clear. “I-I…” He stuttered, his breathing picked up exponentially in the last two minutes and the air in the hotel room was thick.

Steve gently placed one hand on Eddie’s cheek bone, slowly caressing it as to calm the nerves he could tell were radiating off Eddie. He smiled, glancing down very obviously to Eddie’s mouth to ask for permission. Eddie nodded the tiniest goddamn nod in the world and nearly blacked out when Steve’s lips came rushing for his own.

When their lips met, Eddie moaned into it, moving to someone’s bed, he couldn’t tell nor did he care which, and let Steve fall on top of him.

The kisses were messy, clothes were thrown all over the hotel room, and the sex was rough and giggly, but desperate.

And only one time, they decided as they woke up on opposite sides of the bed, laughing at the sheer absurdity that filled the air as they were both wrapped in white sheets.

-

“Uh, Eddie? It’s for you… his name is Steve Harrington?” Eddie pauses, in the middle of hanging a sweater in what seems to be the designated spot for knitwear. A quick assessment tells you that you now have more sweaters than you need, observing them all hung delicately by his hands.

“No way.” Eddie mutters, a smile slowly creeping up on his face. He jogs right past you to the hallway and down the stairs, the quick thumping of his feet loud in the silence of the house.

Your brain takes a moment to catch up to you, following Eddie’s lead back down the stairs. As the front entrance comes into view halfway down the stairs, you see the two men wrapped up in a genuine embrace, arms flexed as they hug one another. They separate, but not by much, maintaining only a few feet between them.

“You didn’t tell me when you were coming!” Eddie accuses playfully, patting Steve on his shoulder.

Steve’s hands are on his hips, shrugging his shoulders. “Well, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, I ended up coming 2 weeks early.”

“No shit, hey?” Eddie leans back, crossing his arms.

They fall into a conversation so easily that their comfort with one another radiates off them. You would be offended Eddie hasn’t introduced you to him yet if it weren’t for their entertaining back and forth with one another.

“How long have you two known each other?” You mistakenly interrupt them, cutting off the conversation.

“Uh, since high school.” Eddie answers, elbowing Steve.

Steve’s eyes widen deliriously, jerking back at the neck. “Uh, try Jr. High.” He laughs. “Eddie here was the new kid.” He seems to laugh at the memory of young Eddie. Man, you’ll need photographic proof. “The weird-o new kid.”

“Oh, sorry my mom abandoned me, Steve.” Eddie laughs, not a lick of remorse behind it. You gulp, your heartstrings pulled at his throwaway comment.

“Abandonment issues can forgive weirdness only for so long, Eddie.”

“Yeah, but I got it renewed fifteen years ago. Didn’t even have to ask, she just did it for me.”

There’s a moment of silence until they break into laughter, poking fun at one another.

“I’m so sorry, who’s this?” Steve gestures to you, walking over to where you’re standing by the stairs.

“Oh, I’m Y/N.” You hold your hand out to him, somewhat nervous to be meeting someone who’s known Eddie for so long. Decades long before you were even born.

Steve’s hand meets yours and shakes it gracefully, his kind chocolate brown eyes meeting yours. “He paying you well?”  You’re not sure how to answer this, your hand still holding Steve’s as you and Eddie give another a look of confusion. “Oh, sorry. You must be Dylan’s girlfriend! Where is he off to, anyway?” Steve lets go of your hand.

“Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“Remember I told you I was seeing someone?” You smile to yourself under the mere indication that Eddie talked to someone about you.

Steve nods, remembering the life in Eddie’s voice when he called. “Yep.”

Eddie points to you, gesturing multiple times until Steve finally gets the hint. “Oh…oh. Oh!” Steve’s hands move back to his hips, his eyes switching back and forth between you and Eddie quickly. “But she’s a child.” Steve deadpans, pointing to you and furrowing his brows at Eddie.

Eddie chuckles, placing his arm around you as Steve takes it in. You’re slightly offended on your own behalf at the prospect of being called a child. Eddie places a kiss on your temple to ease the tension, making you melt into it. “No, she’s not.”

You tilt your head back at Eddie, giving him a sleepy smile, eyes half closed. He kisses you as if to put the final nail in the coffin in any disbelief Steve might’ve had. You breathe deeply as he pulls away, and goddamn, did you have a long day today.

“Wait until Robin hears you’re dating someone half your age.” Steve muses, shaking his head. “She’s gonna have a field day.”

“Wait till she hears we’re already shacked up.” Eddie jokes, bringing you to the couch and therefore leading Steve as well.

As you sit down on the couch, you cuddle into him, head laying down on his chest. Steve asks how his shop is doing, to which Eddie gives the run down on the nicest cars he’s seen and a customer’s hunk of junk he couldn’t believe was still driving around. Steve explains the logistics of his job, and by the tone of Eddie’s voice, you could tell he had no idea any of what Steve was saying, but he was being supportive in tone, nonetheless.

“How are the kids?” Eddie asks, and you watch as Steve’s eyes light up in response.

“Oh, they’re great.”

“How old are they?” You ask, a tad curious.

“Uh, Arlo is 24, Nick is 17, Dustin is 15, and Eliza is 4.” Steve riles off, letting his head fall back on the couch. Damn, he sure didn’t look like a dad of four.

“Is Eliza 4 already?” Eddie asks, shaking his head.

“Sure is.” Steve answers, bringing out his phone. He unlocks it, and presumably goes into his photos until passing it over to you and Eddie. “Here. This was from yesterday.”

“Awww.” You let out, seeing the image of a little girl with Steve’s curls playing on a water mat.

“Oh, aww” Eddie lets out, laughing through it. Eliza is adorable, that much is clear. But as you look up at Eddie scrolling through a few of the photos of Eliza playing in the water, the hearts in his eyes are undeniable. He laughs softly at them, as if he can’t get enough of any of the photos. As Eddie passes the photos with his praises of Eliza, a stirring gut feeling sits there, a feeling you’ve been proud that you’ve been able to hold off with Eddie already having a grown child.

Goddamn, you wanted to have this man’s babies. Or at least, baby. The idea of him looking this sweetly at a child you made together invades your heart and makes you squirm on his chest a bit. You lean off his chest, afraid of these strong feelings of wanting this much of a future with him; it was a little scary. “I’m sleepy. Been a long day, I’m gonna go take a nap.”

“Alright, here.” He gets up with you, taking your hand and walking you around the couch. “Be right back, Steve.”

Eddie goes up the stairs to your room, escorting you to your now shared bed. Last week it had dark grey sheets. Now it has your favourite yellow daisy-themed sheets that Eddie insisted upon using. You lie down, still thinking of the way his eyes lit up and the smile that took over his face from the pictures. It made something stir in you. You were exhausted from your long day, that was no lie, but needed the excuse to leave before you did something crazy.

Like riding him on the couch. (And begging for his babies)

“Have a good sleep, sweetheart. I’ll wake you when dinner’s ready.” He kisses your forehead, soft and sweet. “Love you.”

“Love you.” You mutter through your breath, eyes already closing.

-

You’re already fast asleep by the time Eddie closes the door. As he reaches the bottom of the steps, Steve looks up at him expectantly, his brow slightly furrowed. He’s concerned, and to be fair, he has a reason to be. “So, we’re dating 20-year-olds, now?”

Eddie bites his tongue from correcting your age. “I guess you could say that.”

“What is this, some sort of midlife crisis? Get a red sports car, not someone who beats my oldest by months, hell your kid by months. I mean, come on, man. Use your brain.” Steve taps his shoulder on the last sentence, surely thinking he’s putting Eddie’s head back on right. However, Eddie just sits through the lecture without defending himself so he can say his piece when the time comes. “I-I mean where did you even find her, on her way to school?”

The front door slams. Dylan’s home. “Dad, am I tripping or is Uncle Steve’s car out front—Hey!” He cuts himself off, jogging toward them as soon as he sees Steve on the couch. Steve stands up to give him a tight hug, having known Dylan since the day he was born. “What’re you doing here?”

“Came by for a visit, turns out your dad’s having a midlife crisis.”

Dylan’s brows pinch together as he glances around Steve to Eddie for clarification. Eddie shrugs his shoulders, pretending not to know a single thing Steve was talking about. “What, did he get a sports car or something? He says they look pretty but they’re not made to last.”

“No, no. I was talking about his pretty new girlfriend.” The pang of possessiveness that hits Eddie in the chest is unprecedented for Steve just calling you pretty.

Dylan hardly holds in his laughter, walking into the kitchen before a full-on laugh escapes his throat. Steve stares off at him, glancing at Eddie and clearly asking, what the hell is wrong with that boy? Dylan makes himself calm down, coming back into the living room with a shit eating grin on his face. “So did he tell you how they met?”

“N-no.” Steve hesitates based on the grin on his face.

“He hasn’t let me get that far, yet.” Eddie chimes in, looking a little cozy as he settles into the couch. You were right, it has been a long ass day.

“I’m gonna tell him.” It wasn’t a threat per se, Dylan just wanted to watch the panic in his dad’s eyes.

Eddie lifts his head off the back pillow of the couch, having been looking up at the ceiling. “He’s gonna find out eventually. I was just gonna wait until she woke up.”

“Tell me…what?” Steve asks, tired of watching Eddie and Dylan’s back and forth.

Dylan gives one last chuckle, the laughter telling Eddie it’s not something he’s very bitter about anymore. They still haven’t talked about it; he’s been waiting for Dylan to come to him. “She was my girlfriend, first.” Dylan says through a smirk. “She cheated on me. With dad.”

Steve processes it, both Dylan and Eddie can see the hamster wheel turning in his head. He looks back and forth between Dylan and Eddie, his eyes staying on either one for a moment. His eyes don’t blink the entire time, switching back and forth for a solid minute.

“Dude!” Steve finally says, landing on Eddie. “What the fuck happened, Ed?”

Dylan continues laughing, walking over to his dad. “Yeah dad, what happened?”

Eddie lets his head fall back on the pillows again, closing his eyes for a brief second. “Well, I tried to keep my distance…she did not.” Shit, that’s putting all the blame on you. “I wasn’t strong enough to tell her to break up with Dylan, first. Felt like I was seventeen years old, hormones just raging to a point where I couldn’t think straight with her right there.” He gets up from the couch, walking up to his closest friend of 30+ years. “She’s not just some 25-year-old, Steve. This girl, Steve, she’s everything, and somehow, she’s convinced that she’s the lucky one.”

When his dad spews cheesy shit like this it certainly softens the blow. Feels funny that he ever dated you in the first place at times.

Steve seems to miss the fact that Dylan has gotten almost completely over it by now. “That’s all good and nice, but I think you’re missing the fact that you stole your son’s girlfriend?”

Dylan lets out another laugh, wishing Steve was here when everything went down. That would’ve been a show. “Listen, Uncle Steve. I appreciate you standing up for me, truly, I do. If you were here three weeks ago when they fucked in my truck, then that would’ve been…just great.”

“You fucked in his tru—”

Dylan cuts him off, “But honestly, I didn’t date her for very long. If anything, I had only begun to develop some deeper feelings for her, but these two had it right away. They’re good together. I wish they could’ve just told me their feelings and then slept together, but with Maya…if she was dating one of my boys I would’ve done the same thing.”

Steve’s hand lands on Dylan’s shoulder, seeing the truth in his statement. “Well, you’ll have to tell me about Maya, then.” He turns back to Eddie, a pinch appearing back between his brows. “But seriously, you fucked in his truck? What kind of sicko are you?”

“His was unlocked. He knows better.” Eddie shrugs, Steve rolls his eyes fondly.

“Good god, man.”

“I was actually just here to grab something, but I’ll see you for supper?” Dylan shoots, mid stride towards the stairs.

“We’re eating out, be back by 8:30.” Steve calls up, and Dylan waves his hand in acknowledgement.

“We are?” Eddie asks, sitting back on the couch.

“Oh yeah, Munson.” He sits on the cushion beside him, leaning onto his knees. “But tell me about her. Sorry I just assumed…but Robin will absolutely be calling you to rip your head off.”

“Or…she can find out in person one day.”

“Like at your wedding?” Steve teases, but lets out a burst of laughter when the blush appears on his cheeks. “Seriously, you hear wedding bells?”

“I’m not getting any younger, dude. But my hormones are, man, she has me doing multiple rounds, sometimes more than one a day!” Steve’s eyes widen, intrigued by this. “I haven’t fucked like this since my 20s.” Eddie pauses, thinking about his sex life back then. “I’m not even sure I fucked like this in my 20’s, to be honest.”

Steve lets out a laugh, shoving Eddie for good measure. Of course, being men, they both skip over the fact that yes, Eddie has had wedding bells in his head enough to start looking at rings…and go for the sex talk.

“Okay, sex aside. Tell me about her.”

It takes only five minutes of Steve listening to Eddie ramble on about you to realize it absolutely was the real deal. No mid-life crises here. Eddie seemed calm and laxed, whereas his ex always made him wired. For the record, Steve never quite liked her. She had Eddie looking like a wet chihuahua, yapping at every drop of a hat. Steve was a little relieved when she left, ‘cause no one could convince Eddie she was not good for him.

Turns out he just needed to wait a few years. 15, in fact.

-

You wake up to the feeling of Eddie’s hand on your cheek, carefully petting you as he places gentle kisses on your lips. “Baby.” He mumbles, causing you to stir. “Baby, wake up.”

As you start to wake up, you become increasingly aware that he was lying right behind you. “Mmm.”

“C’mon, we’re going out for supper with Steve, you have to get up.”  

Still reeling from the dream that you were just ripped out of, you arch your back slightly, grinding your ass against Eddie’s instantly-hardening cock. You hear a sharp inhale, Eddie’s grip on your hip intensifying. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but we literally don’t have time.” Eddie comments, his forehead falling onto the back of your head in an act of self discipline.

You frown, giving a good hip swivel. “We always have time.”

“Not today, you don’t! Get up!” You pop awake, aware of Steve’s presence in the hallway as he overshadows Eddie, waking you up more fully.

“He knows me enough to know I’d try to sneak something in.” Eddie murmurs, as not to be heard.

You turn around in your bed, now lying face to face with him, a devious smile creeping on your face. “So, sneak something in.”

Eddie’s brows lift at your suggestive tone. “Fuck.” He mutters, crawling out of bed before you could give his neck one of those licks that just melts him into a puddle. “C’mon baby. Get all dressed up, meet you downstairs by 8:30.”

Your teeth grit together, grabbing your phone that was tossed haphazardly aside when you fell asleep. The screen illuminates itself and your eyes widen when you realize you only have…fifteen minutes to get ready. Well, why didn’t he just say that?

You rush into your closet, and for the first time, the amount of clothes you now own settles in. How the fuck are you ever getting ready ever again? You go to the dresses, skimming through the more family friendly options. You trail  over each hanger one at a time until you reach the right one. Some light makeup is done, a five-minute routine.

You finally reach the bottom step at 8:29 pm, all the guys sitting on the couch watching the tv. “Ready!”

Eddie glances at you and breaks into a smirk. “You look great, sweetheart.”

Your face heats up as you find a pair of shoes that won’t make you hate yourself. You smile, recalling your afternoon in the crowded dressing room. “Thanks, Ed.”

Meanwhile, Steve takes only two seconds as he witnesses this interaction to realize. “No. Go change.”

“W-what?” You stutter, not used to Steve’s blunt stature.

“I-just-just go change. I don’t need to be watching this all night!”

“Fine.” You roll your eyes, kicking your shoe off to put on a dress that Eddie didn’t salivate over that very afternoon.

“Wait, what? What was wrong with the dress?” Dylan asks Steve, not having a clue as to what just transpired.

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know.”

“Hey, Dyl, you remember that green little dress that she had?” Eddie asks, recalling it on his carpeted floor earlier that day before he burned it.

Dylan smiles, then recalls what was so special about the dress. “Oh.” He mumbles, now feeling uncomfortable.

“I think she’s overwhelmed with choices, which is why she picked the dress in the first place. I’ll go help. Meet you there.”

-

Steve put up a fight on just meeting you there, but one on one time with his boy is something he wouldn’t pass up. Especially when he talks about a girl the way he did about Maya.

Eddie didn’t give Steve much of an option, still trying to get rid of the hard on that he had. He bursts through the bedroom and closet door, and as he does so, the front door slams shut. Eddie walks in to you staring aimlessly in your underwear at the dresses, not knowing which one to put on. Eddie comes from behind you, placing his stubbly chin onto your shoulder. “What’s up, baby?” He asks, casually drifting your underwear down your legs.  

You sigh, the trail of his fingertips sending shivers up your spine. “You got me too many dresses.”

“No, I didn’t.” Eddie says, you hear and feel behind you as he lets his own pants drop. “Bend a little bit.” He whispers as you feel his hard cock against your ass.

You do, lifting your ass up at an angle where he can slide right into your folds. He does, arms drifting below your torso and up to play with your tits as he fucks you from behind.

“I got the perfect amount for my sweet baby.” He mutters into your ear, both his hands doing things to your tits that make you whimper. “Love to spoil my beautiful girl.”

“Fuck, daddy.” You whine, your heat already so goddamn hot. “Help. Can’t decide on a dress.”

“Here.” Ed pauses, causing you to whine, but puts a dress in front of you. “Wear this one for daddy.”

“O-ok.” You stutter, barely paying attention to it. “Love you, daddy.”

“I love you,” he kisses your neck, wet and sweet, “so much, pretty baby.” You turn your head to face him, leaning in for a delicate kiss, your pussy clenching around him as you do.

You lean onto the white walls separating each compartment of the closet, closing your eyes as he fucks into you. “Daddy,” you whine, and he pulls your hair gently in response, bringing your head back to his.

“Yes, baby?”

“You’re so good to me, I’m so-so close.” You pant, giving him lustful eyes.

“Cum with me,” Eddie mutters, having been close himself a few times. He leans down, rubbing at your clit. You cum around him hard, yelling his name.

He catches your lips in a kiss when he cums, so you have no idea what he said.

He lets you catch your breath, wrapping his arms around you protectively until you let him know you’re okay. “Thank you, baby.”

“Oh that was just a spur of the moment, I just got lucky.” He jokes, bringing up the dress to you to get redressed.

“You think Steve—”

“Oh, I guarantee Steve already knows.” Eddie interrupts your worry, that Steve knew you were hooking up. “Just had to be sneaky.”

You put yourself in the dress, staring at it in the mirror. Okay, Eddie is seriously good at picking things that fit you well. Damn. “Let’s go baby.”

“Fuck, with you in that dress I’ll be gunning for round two all night.”

“Then we better go so we can come back and do it!” You assert playfully.

“Fuck, I love you.”

-

As you and Eddie sit down at the table where your ice cubes are already melted with the water droplets making a pool on the table, Steve doesn’t say a word, but the look he gives says enough. If he’s your boyfriend’s best friend, how come he already has the ability to make you feel like you had disappointed him?

The restaurant is a steakhouse, something worth dressing up for, but not like the one Eddie took you to. Steve managed to talk about all his kids, describing each one of the four and their distinct personalities to you.

Arlo is apparently a near carbon copy of his father, only differing on a few personality quirks here and there. He was in every sense of the word the eldest Harrington, making a reputation for the Harrington children to live up to at the daycare, elementary school and finally, but most importantly, high school.  Considering Steve raised his kids in Hawkins, Arlo knew the expectations for him and met them, tenfold. Steve never says it, but you can tell he’s so proud of how cool his kid turned out to be. Apparently, though they were closest in age, Dylan was closer to Nicky than to Arlo.

Nicky was the middle child for most of his life. He still considers himself to be, despite getting a younger sister four years ago. He had found himself gravitating towards the arts, and Steve found himself with a kid who spent his early mornings watching broadway bootlegs and collecting song books. This turned him into somewhat of a ladies’ man like Arlo, his baritone vibrato beautifully toned as he starred in most of his school musicals. Someday, Arlo wants to enroll in a drama school, and Steve still isn’t sure how he feels about it.

Dustin is the third child, and for a while, the baby. It’s explained to you that Dustin is named after a mutual friend, someone younger than both Eddie and Steve, someone they took under their wing and mutually adopted. When Dustin’s name was announced, Steve and his wife made sure he was in the room, so for the first hour of Dustin Harrington’s life, he was unnamed. Tears streamed down Dustin’s, (the original), face when he realized that Steve had named his child after him. Immediately, Dustin was his. Because of Dustin Henderson, Dustin Harrington is a complete dork. He’s completely invested in Star Wars, has built his own Magic the Gathering deck, used to spend weekends on Skype for DnD sessions with Uncle Eddie, and has even been to a convention or two.

Basically, none of his boys were the same.

You resented little Eliza coming up in conversation, only for the sake of her photos enticing some sick and cruel twist of fate.

Eliza, however, is the apple of everyone’s eye, and the darling of the Harrington family. She’s a handful, to say the least, a stubborn personality and even worse temperament. Steve swears he thought her toddler years were a handful; until she reached the independent thinking stage. Now, she wants everything, but she never wants help. Her three brothers are fiercely protective of her, each in their own ways, on top of having her dad, her uncle Eddie, and a few names that aren’t familiar to you (note: ask Eddie who ‘Hopper’ is), she’s got the world wrapped around her pinky.

Steve is at the end of a tale of chasing little Eliza around the mall, having slipped his grip in a quick getaway, creating havoc as she clutched a teddy bear that wasn’t paid for. He laughs fondly, describing how she evaded three security guards attempting to aid Steve in his mission, finally catching her when she was hungry enough to decide to end the chase.

You all sit with your food in front of you, chuckling at Steve’s well-told story. “Man,” Eddie starts, mouth still full. He waits until he swallows to continue, “I don’t know if I could have a toddler now. Especially if they’re as wild as Dylan was.”

“Hey!” Dylan calls, gesturing to himself. “I’m right here!”

“No offense, kid, but you were a menace. I looked away for two seconds once and found you on the roof with an umbrella to see if it would work as a parachute.”

“You remember what you told me?” Dylan challenges him, leaning onto his elbows on the table. “Hmm? You tell her what you told me.”

You perk up, leaning into Eddie. “Well, I came out and asked him what he was doing. He said he wanted to see if it worked.”

“And…you said?” Dylan asks, eager to get to the punchline.

“I told him to try it then and see how it works out for him!”

“So, I did!” Dylan exclaims, exasperated.

“What?” You exclaim, and the three men around you nod their heads solemnly, all having heard this story several times before.

“I didn’t know he was actually going to do it!” Eddie laughs, defending himself at your bug eyes aimed at him.

“You’re my dad, I trusted you had my best interests at heart!”

“How you didn’t know sarcasm before that is beyond me…” Eddie mutters, shaking his head fondly at his son. “That story was used against me several times in court, too.”

“They tried to make him out to be a terrible parent. I was pissed.” Dylan explains, and your heart melts over it. “I maintained that even though I had a cast for a few weeks, doesn’t mean I didn’t learn my lesson. Don’t jump off the roof. You will get hurt. That’s what my dad was telling me before he dared me.”

You intertwine your fingers with Eddie’s, smoothing his thumb with your own. There’s a nagging in the back of your mind as you recall his claims of being too old for a toddler, a slight disappointment. You shove it far, far back into your brain, not wanting to dissect that. “So, you staying the night, or?” You ask Steve.

“No thanks, Dylan has made it clear that you two are insatiable.” He says, toying with his food. “He has told me every story where he has caught you, even the ones you don’t know about.” He pauses, giving Eddie a resigned glance across the table. “Freaks. The both of you.”

Your phone buzzes on the table, and you reach for it momentarily to check out the text from Bethany. As your attention is stolen, Eddie mouths over you, Jealous? Steve spurts out a laugh, as if the idea is so absurd. Your head shoots up, Bethany’s text is fresh on your mind. “Baby, can…can I take a picture of your hand?”

“Uh, sure.” Eddie agrees, placing his hand out from your grip and onto the table. “What for?”

“For my Insta,” you answer, somewhat preoccupied by getting a good angle while making his hand intertwined with yours look natural.

“Oh, soft launch?” Dylan comments, and you snap your fingers in confirmation.

Eddie chuckles, all the words coming out of you and Dylan sounding like a different language. “What?”

“Okay, so it’s not just me!” Steve laughs, holding his chest dramatically. “Seriously, what are you two on about?”

Dylan answers before you can–  you’re still trying to get a good angle of his hand holding yours on the table. “It’s posting an update to your relationship status without giving a name to the person. It’s telling the world you’re taken, but not by who. Usually in case they break up, but I don’t think it’s why she’s doing it.”

“No, Eddie has no social media and I know…” you pause, leaning back to take one more, “that he wants to keep it that way, so, I’m showing him off in my own way.” You glare at your phone, swearing softly when it still doesn’t look right.

“For fucks’ sake, let me,” Dylan snatches your phone and gets up from the booth, squats and places the phone as if you were the one taking it yourself, snaps a photo, and tosses the phone back to you. “There.”

The phone falls past your hand and into your lap. You gently pick it up, assessing the photo in your recents. Damn. It was the exact vibe you were looking for. “Well, thanks.”

Dylan shoots an eye roll back, his heart not really in it.

“Let’s see?” Eddie asks, leaning into you, resting his chin against the strap of your dress on your shoulder. You’ve already captioned and posted the photo onto your Instagram, so you let him view the screen. He lets out a chuckle, a wide grin appearing on his face. “I like the photo, but what does the caption mean? Greater than what?”

Caption reads, ‘Him>’.

“Oh, it just means you’re ‘greater than’ everything else. There is no one thing to put because it would be useless.” You explain, turning your phone off and placing it face down on the table.

Eddie shifts the two of you so he can see your face, eyes switching between yours as he assesses you. You look up at him, curious to what could possibly be on that brain of his. “You think I’m greater than everything else?”

Of course you’ve seen it plastered on social media sites, somewhat of a common way to refer to your personal opinion of something. It’s so normalized, and you figured it was a simple way to announce that you were taken by the finest man you’ve ever seen in your entire life. You nod, “Of course!”

His hand frames your face and suddenly his lips are on yours. Your breath hitches in your throat as the kiss and the pure love you feel in his reaction makes you feel like you’d be knocked off your feet if you weren’t already sitting down. Your limbs catch up and one hand lands on his thigh, ignoring the subtle heat you feel pooling in your cunt.

Steve and Dylan are forgotten as you get caught up in a frenzy, lips locking with a level of need for one another that would give any other person envy over the display of passion. Dylan has gotten used to it, you two were in the habit of kissing one another like this often. Steve takes a large sip of his bourbon, leaning back in his booth and leaning right to him. “So, this—”

“Yeah, that’s normal.” Dylan tells him.

“Jesus, I thought you were exaggerating.” Steve pauses, moving his plate away from him, all done. “Thought he was exaggerating.”

“Exaggerating what?” Dylan asks, afraid of the answer.

Steve smirks, taking another sip of his drink. “Just drink your apple juice.” He nods to Dylan’s beer; Dylan shoves his shoulder fondly in response. Steve takes one last big swig of his drink, gesturing to the waitress across the room for her assistance. “Hey. You two. Take a breather.”

Your kisses haven’t gotten any more intense, though his hand placed gently on your thigh was a tease. You could make out with him for hours, knowing your limits in the restaurant booth. Eddie finally pulls back, kissing you delicately a few times on the lips as to not leave you hanging, leaving you reeling when the server stops by.

“Just the check, please.” Steve tells her, smug.

The waitress nods, grabbing plates when the four of you insist you’re all done with your food. Steve and Eddie end up telling a story from their early 20’s when they were both single, finishing each other’s sentences as they remind each other how unruly they were back then. Your eyes flick back and forth between them, something clicking.

“Hmm.” You muster, letting yourself think about it.

“Yes, baby?”

You zone back in, blinking as you realize the three of them are staring at you expectantly. You hadn’t even realized you hummed out loud. “Oh, nothing.” But he’s not budging. None of them are. “Seriously, it’s nothing.”

Still no dice.

You lean forward towards Dylan, who sits across from you, lowering your voice. “Do you want to be traumatized by your dad’s sex life?” He shakes his head, the smile leaving his face. You lean back, satisfied. “Then don’t worry about it.”

“For the record, I think you mean more traumatized.” Dylan mutters, just loud enough for you to hear. You kick his shin underneath the table, light enough to hurt but not do anything. You giggle at his reaction, leaning into Eddie’s arm as it snakes around your own.

Your phone buzzes, another text from Bethany. You smile as you check it, content in Eddie’s arms as the waitress comes around again with the bill. Steve hands her a card as he watches Eddie speak softly to you, nothing important, just something causing you to giggle. He feels confident in his own marriage, a love that gave him four kids with a stable home to drive back to. It just made him happy to see Eddie in a relationship where it’s clearly reciprocated.

As Eddie whispers to you, you can barely take in the words Bethany has texted you, but what she has to say to you is seemingly important, your phone buzzing repeatedly in your hands. You allow your eyes to focus back on them and the all-caps of her texts become clear.

CHECK YOUR INSTA

HELLO???

BABE

HELLO

GO CHECK IT YOUR POST ALREADY HAS OVER 500 LIKES

BITCH IT’S AT ONE THOUSAND

HELLLLOOOO

“Oh, shit.” You switch apps to make sure it’s true. In your notifications, there are over 300 comments and more likes than Bethany had claimed, 1.5 thousand. By no means is it viral, but most of your posts got no more than 100 due to your circle of friends in the app being so small. “Holy shit.” There are several comments praising Eddie’s hand, even some drool emojis. The only solace you can give yourself is that you now know you are never exposing his face. “Um, Ed. Your hand has gotten attention.”

He leans over, seeing the amount of engagement on your post. “Cool.” He comments, the numbers not meaning much to him.

“I could’ve told you that much.” Steve laughs.

You peer at him questioningly, silently asking what he meant by it.

“Listen, the ladies in Hawkins are…what is it…thirsty?” He checks with Dylan. Dylan chuckles and confirms it. “Yeah, okay, thirsty. They are mad thirsty over Eddie. If I accidentally mention that the Munsons are coming into town, it becomes town gossip. It’s like Billy Hargrove all over again, except this time it’s age appropriate.”

You turn back to Eddie, serious as you can be. “You’re never going back.”

 He laughs, wrapping his arms around you to bring you into a hug. “We’ll talk about it.”

-

As you walk towards the front door of the restaurant, the sun has set on another day. Eddie’s arm is wrapped around your shoulders, and Steve calls out to Eddie as he leads you to his truck, drawing your attentions. “Munson!”

Eddie turns around, the use of his last name certainly grabbing his attention. They quit using last names on one another years ago. The last time Eddie fully recalls being called Munson by Steve; Steve was pulling at his hair… “You rang, Harrington?”

“Can I steal your girlfriend for a drive?” He asks, sending a smile your way.

“Uh,” Eddie looks at you, making sure you’re comfortable with it. You nod your head, sharing a look with him. “Sure. Have her back within the hour, though.”

“Yes, sir.” Steve jokes, laughing to himself when Eddie subtly grits his teeth, and a pink blush reaches his cheeks. “C’mon, I don’t bite.”

You give your boyfriend a hug, embracing his kiss of safety and comfort. “Love you.” As you walk the steps toward Steve, Eddie tugs you back by your fingertips, one last kiss for good measure.

“Love you more.” He mutters, and for a second you believe him. Oh, to follow him into his truck and ride with him in a comfortable silence on the way back.

“Come on! One hour won’t kill you.” Steve grabs your hand before you can register, leading the way to his SUV.

Dylan passes you on the way to his dad, waving cheekily on the way and you flip him off.

You get into the dark blue SUV, a Range Rover, no less. It’s evident he has a four-year-old with the car seat and the mess in his back seat, but you know that if he didn’t have Eliza, the brown interior would’ve been spotless. Steve turns down the radio he had blasting, turning his iPhone connection on. “Ready for some oldies?”

“You and Eddie. Terrible, the both of you.” You mutter, shaking your head.

Steve laughs, pulling out of the parking lot and turning the opposite way of Eddie’s (yours too) house. “Don’t worry, just taking the long way.” He assures you after he sees you staring wistfully off at Eddie’s tail lights.

It’s about five minutes of silence until Steve talks again. “So, I just wanted to apologize about earlier, I was…I was shocked. When you opened the door, I didn’t know who you were, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the answer I got. Can you tell me your version of how you two got together? I didn’t want Eddie interjecting.”

“Oh.” You clear your throat. “Uh, Dylan forgot a parking pass on our way to the beach, so he stopped by the house to look for it. Eddie comes down, sweats low on his hips and hair still wet from his shower, and I could barely focus on anything else around me. I should’ve broken up with Dylan the moment I got to his truck.” You tell him, making sure Steve knows full well that you are still apologetic about the cheating.

“Oh sweetheart, that’s all fine and dandy. As far as Dylan is concerned, it hurt, but it’s long gone in his mind. Trust me. Any hesitation is aimed at Eddie, and for good reason.” Steve reassures you, feeling your defense build. “Don’t worry. Just tell the story.”

“Okay. I didn’t end it because I was afraid he’d lash out and it would’ve been forever before getting ahold of Eddie again. I couldn’t risk it, so I stayed. It lasted until that weekend, when I was doing horny things in the living room with Dylan just because Eddie was home. Maybe he’d hear something, maybe he’d look…maybe he’d watch…” You drift off, remembering the sheer urgency you had for him. “I wore skimpy outfits, I bent over around the house, I was fully prepared for Eddie, and to be honest, I was too hormonal to care or understand the repercussions.” You glance out the window, lights blinding you as you pass each neon sign. “So, we hooked up. After spending more time with him, I realized how much I had already cared about him. Now, Steve, now, I love that man so goddamn much.”

Steve smiles at you as he drives, his head waving with the bumps in the road. “Where do you see this going? For your future? In the long term, are you willing to accept that his body will give out a lot earlier than yours?”

 A knot forms in your stomach in the shape of a confession. You switch your glance to Steve, and you feel safe with him. Not like Eddie, no. It was like he would never tell your secrets, or like he’d protect you. “Uh, this evening, I had the terrifying displeasure of realizing one day I’d want kids with him. One day, after he marries me and tells the whole world who I belong to, I want to have his baby. I want to raise a baby into a handful of a toddler into a snarky teenager. I thought I was totally in the clear for kids with him, but you showed him the video of Eliza and now it’s…I can’t get rid of it. So, thanks for that, Steve.” Admitting to this, out loud even…it’s too much. “I want to spend my life with him.”

You wait for an answer, somewhat on edge as you fiddle with your fingers. “And you’re okay with the knowledge that you will bury him one day?” Steve pressures on, and you respect it.

“I’ve accepted the realities, yes, which is why I’m not telling him I want kids. He said he’s too tired. I can’t force that on him.”

A full belly laugh escapes Steve as he shakes his head. “If you told him that you want a baby, he would absolutely give you one without a moment’s hesitation. I have never seen him like this, not even with his ex.” He pauses, thinking on how to tell you. “Listen, I don’t know if you know much about her, but Eddie’s ex was not all that…kind to him.” He chooses his words carefully. “He was into her from the get-go, but it was obvious he was more into her. Eventually, when Eddie realized she was cheating, he called me, panicking about losing Dylan.

“I sent my best lawyer to him. Less than a week later they have court dates for custody hearings. Honestly, she was angry she was caught and angry she wasn’t the one to file. I think it took her being angry and belligerent in court for Eddie to finally see who she was. The judge was patient, more than she should’ve been. When she didn’t listen to the judge’s warnings, Eddie was granted everything he wanted. He thought it was a goddamn miracle, the only two things he wanted were the shop and Dylan. The shop had people’s livelihoods; it was their only income. Dylan just wanted to be with his dad, he made that very clear.

“Once the dust settled, it sank in. He called, finally, crying on the floor of the closet. He had spent all year on it just for her to only have it for a handful of months. It was a labour of love for him, and it turned out she was sleeping with someone else the entire time.”

Your teeth grit, fucking seething for Eddie. If either Eddie or Steve knew what was good for her, they’d never tell you her name.

“I came immediately, bringing Arlo and Nick to help cheer him up. Nick was only about 2, so he would’ve done more cheering in the way that toddlers do. But even Arlo knew something was up so it’s the one and only time he’s ever played DnD and fully embraced it. When Nick went to bed, the four of us all played together.” Steve observes your body language, your jaw locked and fists clenched. You’re so angry for him. He decides to omit the fact that after the kids went to bed, Eddie was inconsolable in his heartbreak. Steve knows it might come out one day, but that was not the point of this discussion.

“I promise, I didn’t tell you to make you mad, I just need you to know that Eddie will love you selflessly and wholly, because he doesn’t have it in himself to love any other way.” He slows to a stop at a red light, turning his head to face you. “I was very worried at first, but man, I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

The question still echoes in your mind, but the answer is starting to lean towards a yes. “How did you guys become friends?” You ask instead, leaning away from your boyfriend’s heartbreak and his bitchy ex.

“That… is a very long story.”

“Eddie gave you an hour, of which you’ve only used 15 minutes.” You point out, smirking.

“Alright, buckle up. It’s Hawkins, Indiana. 1996. Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson is missing.”

-

Steve was right, the story of their friendship was a long one. He didn’t necessarily dive into the nitty gritty, just implied he was falsely accused in a situation where he had no alibi and helped him out. One day, years later you would finally feel comfortable asking and Eddie would get into the full details of the Upside Down.

Steve brought you home with ten minutes to spare, you cling to Eddie as soon as you see him. The unresolved lust from earlier on top of the empathy for how hard it must’ve been for him drove your need for him, just you and him. “Can’t wait any longer.” You whisper, fingers digging into the now open button up shirt he wore to dinner and fisting the material into a ball with your hands.

You feel a huff of silent laughter come from him, a long sigh leaving his lips as he considers his options. It’s only 11 o’clock. Usually, when Steve is in town he stays for hours into the night to talk and laugh together. Dylan started a habit of joining their conversations as he got older. He knows it’s what they’re expecting, and he knows exactly what you need. He lifts your face with his hands. “Go get dressed into something more comfortable. Be right up.”

You nod, feeling sleepy, and for once, not conscious of the audience you held with him.

As you run upstairs, Eddie turns to Steve. “You and Dylan go to your hotel room. I’ll meet you there. Later.”

Steve’s eyebrows raise. “Didn’t you say you were exhausted?”

“I could just stay home all night. I have no problems with that.” Eddie bites back, a tone of endearment at the root of it.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay. God, I miss when you were single,”

Dylan and Steve leave for the hotel room, the two shooting teasing glances at Eddie.

You lay on your side of the bed, scrolling on your phone but only paying the littlest attention. Eddie opens the door, his long legs take him to the bed quickly as he lies right next to you. You immediately crawl into his arms, the phone forgotten. Your chest feels tight as you mentally go over what Steve told you, the way his ex treated him. There’s no way it was true, because Eddie ever feeling like he deserved any of it was too much for you to bear.

Eddie feels the shift in you, something’s different. It isn’t one of your normal hugs. Your arms are wrapped around his, as if you’re sheltering him. “You okay, baby?” He asks, brows furrowed as he notes your quickened breathing and heart rate. You’re lying down; you should be far more relaxed.

“Steve…Steve told me more about your ex, and it made me sick to my stomach.” You admit, not wanting many secrets between the two of you. You’re already harbouring one, you don’t need another. “I don’t know how anyone could possibly treat you like that.”

Eddie’s eyes well and he looks up, trying not to let a tear fall from the tone of your voice or how genuine you sound in your anger for him. “It’s ancient history, now, baby.”

“Doesn’t make it right.” You counter, hands squeezing him. “I love you more than I can even conceive. More than I can wrap my head around… I can’t stand the thought of you being heartbroken because that bitch decided someone building her a closet wasn’t good enough for her.”

Eddie can’t wrap his mind around how loved you just made him feel, and how in your own way, you just told him he would be just as protected as you are by him. You would stand up for him the same way he would for you. He doesn’t have the words or the strength to hold back the tears, so he leans in and kisses you, really kisses you.  

As his lips meet yours, you taste the salt of his tears and lightly use your thumbs to brush them away. He climbs on top of you, brushing his hand under your PJ shirt, testing the waters. You guide his hand to your tit, aching for him to touch you for what felt like hours. Your kisses are slow and purposeful, the stream of the salt still coming, and you ignore it for the sake of his hand feeling so goddamn good on your nipple as he teases you. He doesn’t seem to want to talk about them, anyway. Your mouth opens against him as he flicks it, whimpering.

You wrap your legs around his hips, unwinding them from between his legs and his bulge presses into your covered heat immediately. You kiss down his jaw, gently decorating his neck with wet kisses as you kiss away the salt that streamed down his face. Your hand moves down to palm him through his slacks, a whimper leaving him. “Do…do you want to?” You check, slightly stroking him through his jeans.

He sniffles, bunching up your shirt to help it off. “Yes. Sorry, I can’t handle strong emotions, they…overwhelm me.”

“I’ll handle them for the both of us.” You offer.

Eddie is a mess already, and he tugs on you to kiss you some more. “I didn’t know I could love someone this much.” He mutters, gulping through his kisses.

You don’t answer him, grabbing at his shirt to take it off. As the shirt flies off, his chest comes full contact with yours and you arch your hips up to meet his, the bulge hitting your heat almost too perfectly. You grind on it, needing him now, wanting to feel all of him.

Eddie reads your mind, tearful but still in tune with everything your body needs from him. His hands move your pants down your legs, placing kisses down your torso as he does. He crawls back up to you, taking his own pants off as he continues to wantonly kiss you. Before you know it, you feel his cock against your thigh as he presses your legs into your stomach.

Eddie leans into you, connecting your foreheads. You frame his face, staring at his wet brown eyes. “Please baby.” You kiss him, your hips barely able to stay still. “I love you, I fucking need you.”

“I know.” He mumbles, nodding his head. He guides his cock into you, pushing in gently but deeply into you within seconds. Your legs tighten around his torso, your pussy sucking him in. “Christ.”

His face finds itself in your neck, giving sweet kisses up and down as he starts to move his hips. You hold onto him, hands wrapped around his torso, spread-out palms down on his back. His hips rock so slowly, taking in every inch of your pussy he possibly can. His forehead finds yours again and his eyes open and stare into yours. His mouth is parted, his cheeks are flushed, and no longer wet. Somewhere in the midst he stopped crying, but the emotions he felt were still there. “Feels good?”

You nod, breath hitching by the sheer emotion you see in his eyes. “So good, baby.”

He smiles softly, staring at you half lidded. “Don’t want it harder?” He teases, bucking his hips hard once before moving back to his soft pace.

The buck releases a loud cry of pleasure from you, not expecting it. “Fuck, Ed. Can you do that again?”

Eddie smiles wider. “Mmhm.” He bucks into you harder again a few times, and your eyes close immediately, the heat from your pussy starting to pool. “Oh my god, Eddie.”

“More?” He asks, slowing his hips again. “My love, if you want me to fuck you harder, you need to tell me.”

“Fuck me harder, Ed. Please.”

Eddie chuckles softly, stopping his movements altogether to give you a kiss, taking your breath away by the love in it. “Sure thing, baby.”

Before you know it, his hips start at an unforgiving pace, the force takes you aback so badly, you moan loudly at every buck, every rut of his hips against yours. His thumb connects to your neglected clit, and the subtle heat explodes into a frenzy. Eddie feels your velvet walls pulse around him as you get closer. “I wanna feel that perfect pussy cum all over my cock.”

“Eddie, so close…love you so much…” you’re seeing stars, your legs tense around him. He leans down to you, giving your torso one long lick down your tummy and, oddly enough, it was the final thing to drive you over the edge.

Your pussy tightening around him does it for Eddie, watching your face as your orgasm rips through you, filling you up with his cum, white ropes shooting into you. He collapses on your chest, the physical exhaustion from the day mixed with the added exhaustion from emotionally breaking down finally piling on him. “Sweetheart, I love you. So fucking much. I just…can’t believe how much better you’ve made my life.”

“I love you.” Your entire body wraps around him, holding him close to you. “Do you have to go?”

“Would you like to come with me?”

You nod your head, knowing full well you’ll probably fall asleep on the couch in Steve’s hotel room.

“Alright, let’s go.”

-

Eddie scratches his head while working on some paperwork in his work office, glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose as he goes through some numbers. One of the things he hates about owning a business is the math part of it. Luckily, he’s good at math, it’s just when the numbers suddenly go negative, it creates an issue.

His phone sitting on the desk starts to ring and he picks it up, expecting it to be you, but instead he’s met with an unknown number. Eddie sighs and reluctantly answers. It could be a customer with a new number for all he knows.

Wrong. Dead wrong.

“Eddie Munson speaking.” He answers, scanning over another invoice.

“Why the fuck are you dating a 25-year-old?” It occurs to Eddie this phone number has an area code from Boston…which is where she moved to. Fuck.

“Hi, Brooke.” He sighs, tired.

“Yeah, yeah. When and why the fuck are you dating some little hot piece of ass? You know she’s probably a gold digger, right? This morning she posted a selfie from my closet and it looks like she’s already moved in?”

“We met through a friend” Eddie wraps his head in his hands, wondering what the hell he ever saw in her craziness. “Wait, why am I telling you this, what fucking nerve do you have to call me and accuse my girlfriend being a gold digger?! How the fuck did you even find out?”

“Her little Instagram post with you two holding hands, which by the way, was cheesy and not in a good way. It got a lot of attention and Laura recognized your hands immediately and sent me the post.”

Fucking Laura. “Good for you, you found her Instagram.” He sighs, leaning back in his office chair. “I owe you nothing, Brooke. Nothing. I’m not sure what you had expected from this conversation but I’m sure this wasn’t it. Oh, and Brooke? That’s not your closet, hasn’t been for 15 years. Don’t call me again or I'll get my lawyer.”

“Oh, calm down.” Brooke huffs, her voice agitated. As if her voice had any other tone. Eddie hears her muffle the speaker to her phone. “Boys, quiet down for five minutes? I’m on the phone!” There’s another shuffle of noise on the other end, then her voice is directed back at Eddie, “That won’t be necessary. I just need to make sure you know that she will ruin your life because she’s a little skank.”

“Talk about my wife that way again and you’ll be hearing from a lot more than just my lawyer, you absolute cunt.” Eddie hangs up on her, missing the satisfaction of slamming a phone on the receiver. He picks his work phone up and slams it down. There, much better.

Wait until Steve hears about this… Holy shit.

Wait until you hear about it. Oh, fuck.

-

Steve manages to stretch his visit for one more day, laying on the couch with you as you watch a movie he recommended to you. He lays down with his torso on the arm rest, legs resting on your lap. When his legs landed, you glared at him, asking if he had nowhere else to place them. Steve said in response, “Of course, I do! You’ll just hold them because you’re so nice.”

So, you do. The movie is called The Gentlemen, a fast-paced comedy about a drug lord attempting to sell his business and all the shenanigans that follow. You find yourself laughing with him, expecting some movie like The Godfather or Fight Club, though it came out only four years ago.

Eddie swings open the door, rubbing his eyes tiredly with a smirk on his face. “Oh my god, Steve. Oh my god.” Eddie came straight from work, the phone call not allowing his brain to go over another invoice, especially when the numbers didn’t make sense. He struts to the couch, lifts Steve’s legs and sits right next to you, placing Steve’s legs back on his lap. He places his arm around you, looking at Steve with a smirk plastered. “Steve. Oh, my god.”

“Ed?” You ask, taking in his flustered features. Not flustered in the way you’re used to, but flustered nonetheless. “Everything okay?”

He nods his head, an incredulous laugh escaping as he does. “Oh, yeah. Totally okay. Got a phone call today.” You and Steve share a look of concern over his shoulder. “From Brooke.”

Now, this name means nothing to you. But from Steve’s reaction, in a split second you realize it’s the name of the woman you have grown to viscerally hate. “No way. What…what did she say?”

“She found Y/N’s Instagram post from last night and recognized my hand.” Eddie says, squeezing your shoulder. “She uh, then proceeded to insult me, insult her, and remind me how grateful I am she left me before I realized what a terrible person she is.”

“Anything else?” Steve asks, eyes wide. Brooke has literally been radio silent for years.

“Yeah, but nothing worth getting into.” Eddie comments, leaning into the couch, raising his eyebrows at Steve. Not something he wants to get into with you around, but definitely will with his best friend. “She sounded…jealous.”

“Jealous how?”

Eddie looks at you, twisting his body to face you. “Jealous of you. Out of line, absolutely, but jealous.”

The satisfaction that ripples through your body is simply too much. A woman took advantage of his kindness and left him for dead and now she’s jealous? Good. “Wait, she stalks my Instagram?”

“Uh, I suppose, yes.” Eddie answers, not so sure he understands the use of stalk.

“I could have some fun with this.” You mutter, thinking to yourself.

“Baby?” Eddie asks, slightly scared of the wicked smirk he sees displayed on your face.

“Hmm.” You mumble, opening your phone to your Pinterest app. “Yes?”

“What do you mean?” Eddie asks, talking low as he watches over your shoulder.

“Nothing. Just be ready for a picture when I need you.”

Eddie laughs, ready to calm you down a bit, but finds himself a little fearful of the plan in your mind.

You scroll through your Pinterest for about ten minutes while Steve and Eddie converse about the boys again. If you have learned one thing about Steve, it’s that his kids are his pride and joy. The conversation leads to Eliza, and you feel that pang in your stomach again. It’s getting harder to ignore as you watch Eddie’s face light up at the endless stories of the kids’ mischief.

Steve gets up from the couch, needing to use the bathroom. While he’s gone, you take advantage, finally having a moment to ask the question that’s been on your mind. “Hey, Ed.” You start, his head turning to face you, almost impossibly close.

“Yes, baby?”

Shit, his lips are so tempting. You sigh, ignoring the pull to his lips. “I just have a question, and please don’t be offended if the answer is no.”

Eddie huffs out a laugh, pleasantly surprised by your reaction to his ex-wife calling, so he’s certainly intrigued by what you’re about to say. “I make no promises.”

That’s not comforting. “Okay. Have you and Steve…did you guys ever hook up?” You ask, avoiding his eyes, which is impossible because they’re right there.  

Eddie breaks into a smile followed by incredibly contagious laughter. You were certain you must’ve been dead wrong based on his laughter alone. You’re just reading into things that aren’t there. He finally stops, grabbing your face for a smiley, giggly kiss. You pull back, looking at him in confusion, as he laughs again. “I should’ve known you’d figure it out.” He says, eyes searching yours.

Oh, fuck. You were right! “Wait.” You say while giggling. “I…I was right?”

“Yeah.”

“When?!”

Eddie squints comically, looking up. “Uh, 27 or so years ago in Vegas.”

You squint back at the sheer cliché of it all. “Vegas? Really?”

“Well, we were both down on our luck, we thought, very drunkenly, might I add, a trip to Vegas would help. It certainly did the trick, I think.”

You laugh, the situation described much differently than what you had expected. “I bet it did.” You boop him on the nose as he scrunches it adorably.

Steve comes out from the bathroom and sees your silly display of love, jogging to the couch. “You guys are cavity inducing. Seriously.”

“Steve.” Eddie says, turning his head to face him. “She figured it out.”

Steve smirks, silently asking Eddie if he was talking about what Steve thought he was talking about. “Hmm?”

“Mmhmm.”

“No shit! What gave it away?” Steve asks, genuinely curious as he attempts to extend his legs onto Eddie’s lap again.

“No offense, you guys, but you both act like you have a secret with one another that you won’t share with the class. There’re only so many secrets that could be.” You offer an answer, and they seem to accept it…for the most part.

“What, we don’t give off two very straight dudes?” Eddie jokes, making you shove his shoulder.

“See, Dylan’s great, but I’ve been dying to ask since last night, and I wasn’t gonna ask with him around.”

Eddie chuckles, leaning in for one last gentle kiss. When he separates, he clutches onto Steve’s leg, startling him. “Sorry,” he laughs through his apology. “I have to take a shower then I have one more errand to run, and I need your help before you take off tonight.”

“Sure, dude. What do you need?”

You go back on your phone, checking your Pinterest and mostly tuning out the conversation, looking for subtle ways to show Eddie off on your Instagram that will piss Brooke off. Eddie nods his head to indicate it isn’t a conversation to be had around you, and you don’t even notice.

Steve nods in understanding, fist bumping Eddie as he runs around the couch and up the stairs. The silence that settles around you while he’s upstairs is comfortable, Steve paying attention to the movie as the plot thickens while you scroll through your phone and gather devious ideas. You barely notice the ten minutes pass by as Eddie comes back downstairs. You clock the scent of his freshly showered self, causing you to look up.

Eddie is wearing a pair of jeans and a button up loosely tucked in with a chain necklace. You pick your jaw off the floor, gulping as he walks up to you with a smirk on his face as he witnesses your very visible reaction. He lays a chaste kiss on your forehead and taps on Steve’s leg.

Steve gets up from the couch and Eddie grabs his keys. “Be back soon, baby!”

“Could you get some pop?” You ask him as he opens the front door.

“Baby, we have so much to drink that’s not gonna rot those pretty teeth. It won’t kill you to drink water.” He says, stopping in the doorway. You roll your eyes, tempted to order in from a convenience store if he was gonna be this stubborn. “If there’s pop here when I get home, you’re gonna see a consequence.”

“Yes, daddy.” You bite back. Well, if you order one drink and place it in the bottom of the recycling, he won’t see it, right?

“Hey. Drink some water. I mean it. Take care of yourself, for Christ’ sake.” He yells, hearing your eyes roll. “Love you!”

Eddie shuts the door, reminding himself to check the recycling when he gets home.

“Daddy, huh?” Steve asks, poking fun as they get into his truck.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up.” Eddie rolls his eyes, shoving the keys into the ignition. His hands move to put the vehicle in reverse when something occurs to him. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Uh, give me a sec.” Eddie brings out his phone, going through the 15 contacts, scrolls right to Maya. He rings it.

“…Hello?” Maya answers, sounding understandably perplexed.

“Hi, Maya, how would one know what kind of ring to get without asking the person it’s for?” Steve’s brows rais, the errand being ring shopping is news to him.

“Well… it depends. Do you want to buy her a ring just because…or are you shopping for,” she pauses, slowly saying it. If she was wrong, it could set off an alarm, “…an engagement ring?”

“Yeah, an engagement ring.” Eddie admits, saying it out loud feels crazy to him. “How would one figure that out?”

“Give me five minutes.” She says, and abruptly hangs up the phone.

As Eddie stares at his phone in bewilderment, Steve leans into him. “Engagement ring, huh?”

“Won’t be asking her until at least another few months, if I can even wait that long. I said something on the phone with Brooke today. It just came out.” Eddie offers, his voice soft as he explains to Steve what’s been invading his mind for the last hour. “Brooke went a bit far on the insults. She called her a skank.”

“How classy.” Steve offers dryly, his face suggesting it was anything but.

“I got so mad. I’ve never been as mad at her as I was when those words left her mouth. I said if she ever called my wife a name again, I would be calling more than just my lawyer.” He quotes himself, letting the word sink into Steve’s skin.

“Oh shit.” Steve mutters, the weight of the word kicking in.

“Yeah, it slipped out, but calling her my wife felt so damn good I couldn’t help myself. I’m not getting any younger.” Eddie pauses before saying anything else, the next confession might be too much to say out loud yet.

“C’mon. If you can’t tell me, who can you tell?” Steve says, giving him some comfort.

“Her eyes when she looks at pictures of Eliza, or listens to stories about your boys, fuck I thought I never wanted another kid, but Jesus Christ, I need to see her face when she looks at one of ours.” Eddie admits out loud for the first time, the words scaring the shit out of him. Dylan in his 20s was exhausting. Could he handle another newborn? Another toddler? Another teenager?

Steve felt like he held all the power in knowing you two both wanted a kid. Feels like neither of you are ready to tell the other, so it’s a secret he’ll have to keep to himself for now. (If he’s strong enough.)

Eddie’s phone buzzes, a link appearing in a message from Maya. He opens it up and it directs him to your Pinterest page. Eddie wonders how Maya even found it. Your name isn’t connected to it. The link is specific to a board labeled Engagement Rings with a bunch of sparkle emojis surrounding it. Eddie looks at a few of them, screenshotting a handful to get the basic idea of what you’d want. He texts back Maya to thank her and puts his truck in reverse before Steve even knows what’s happening.

-

Eddie and Steve go through at least three jewelry stores before Eddie angers Steve at his indecisiveness. It isn’t that Eddie is indecisive, it’s that he’s hoping for a jeweler to look at the general vibe of your board and have the perfect ring to offer. Instead, Eddie’s met with vague indications of where he could look. These interactions all leave Eddie feeling frustrated as just walks out of the store for the next one only about ten feet away.

It takes Eddie a few tries until he finds the fairy godmother he’s been looking for, but finally he shows an engagement ring specialist the general aura of the rings you had saved, and she brings out four or five options that fall into the same category for Eddie to look at. Maybe Eddie could’ve been clearer with other stores of what he needed, but it felt as if they didn’t think he was going to buy one, anyway. Here, in this store, he feels like a respected customer, which goes a long way with him. In his shop, he spends his extra time making sure his men don’t treat any ladies like they know less just because they’re women. He hoped that even though he had a few faded tattoos and dressed alternatively, he’d be extended that same courtesy.

The helpful sales lady holds up each ring and explains to Eddie why she picked it in relevance to the photos you saved. Eddie sighs, each one in the right field, but not quite there. As she puts rings away to keep on looking, Eddie clutches onto the glass in frustration, feeling completely unprepared. Brooke basically gave him her ring and told him to propose when he had the balls. He wants you to love this ring, he wants to see it and know that it was made for you.

Maybe that’s too much to place on a ring. But for Eddie, just the simple prospect of searching for this ring means he has the hope that you will be his for the rest of his life.

Just when he’s ready to leave for the next store, she brings another one, a look on her face that tells Eddie she might’ve found exactly what he’s been looking for. She lays it out on a cloth, as Eddie marvels at it. It’s a thin, silver ring with four blue stones lined up along the band as the metal crosses over itself like vines. Eddie knows all of the jewelry you wear is silver, dainty, and has a few hints of blue. From the moment he sees it, he knows it’s the One.

Eddie holds it up for a few moments, circling it around in his hand. It takes all the self control in the world not to just head home and propose that night. He hands over a ring he took from the center console in your closet to the sales lady for your size. Within ten minutes, the papers are signed, the ring paid for, and Eddie walks out with a small white bag.

They get into the truck, the white bag small, yet significant as it sits in the back seat. “Well, that’s a step you’re taking.” Steve observes, carefully assessing his best friend’s emotional state.

“Mmhmm.” Eddie hums, staring at the bag in the rearview mirror. “And now, I’m fighting the urge to propose tonight.”

“Tonight?” Steve asks him, the speed of your relationship knocking him in the gut. “Let’s not scare her off. Plan a nice meal, set out a pretty dress on the bed for her. I bet she’d appreciate that.” Eddie considers this, knowing Steve is probably right.

So, now the ring sits in its box in the bottom of Eddie’s underwear drawer.

-

When Eddie and Steve get home, they find you on the couch napping while a movie neither of them has heard of plays on the TV, a bottle of nearly empty coke on the table next to it. Eddie sneaks upstairs to hide the evidence, the bag shoved into the bottom of a trash can, and the ring tucked safely away. When he comes back down, Steve is in the kitchen making himself a snack for the road while Eddie crouches in front of the couch to wake you up.

“Morning, baby.” He says in a low voice, petting your left cheek with his thumb.

Your breath hitches as you wake up, the last thing you remember is being giddy as you picked up your order from the front step with chips, candy, and a single bottle of pop. As you finished most of your snack, the movie started to matter less and less, a phenomenon that only occurs when you know that you’re about to pass out on the couch.

“There she is.” He mumbles as your eyes take in your surroundings. Him, the end of the movie you picked out, and the setting sun through the curtains. “Hi. I see we didn’t take my concern for the amount of pop you consume to heart?” He musters, gesturing to the side table.

You stretch, every muscle in your extended limbs feeling it. “You made it pretty clear it was for my teeth.” You mumble, unable to prevent a smile at Eddie’s floored reaction.

“I see.” He mutters, and the smirk on his face is enough to send a thrill of fear through you. “C’mon, Steve is about to leave town. Let’s go say our goodbyes.”

He tugs on your hands, lifting you up off the couch, guiding you to where Steve’s packing a recyclable grocery store bag with snacks he found around the kitchen. He comes out of the kitchen clutching the bag, his brown eyes shooting a fond look to the both of you. “Sorry, guys. Gotta get to the actual purpose of my trip eventually.”

You squint at him, pretending to consider forgiving him. “I suppose we’ll forgive you. If… you bring Eliza next time.”

“Another one bites the dust.” Steve mutters under his breath, chuckling. Eliza Harrington really has the whole world wrapped around her little pinky. (And oh, boy, does she know it.) He grabs onto your shoulder, pulling you in close for a hug. “Take care of him, will ya?”

You nod into his bicep, the soft spot he had gained for you over the last two days taking you by surprise and vice versa for him. “You know I will.”

Steve can’t resist the joke. “Oh, I know you do.”

You hit him playfully, feeling the heat creep up on your cheeks.

Steve and Eddie share an even longer hug, something about saying goodbye to old friends is always hard, you know that. As they separate, still clutching each other, Steve says something under his breath that makes Eddie hit him harshly. “Steve.”

“What?”

“Dude. Subtlety?”

Steve chuckles as he picks up his bag of goodies. “If you two are one thing, it ain’t subtle.”

You’re left questioning what could’ve possibly warranted the reaction that Eddie let out as Steve and Eddie do a few more rounds of farewell. It never seems to end as they keep bringing up new topics with each step Steve makes toward the door. It reminds you of your mom at the grocery store when you were eight.

The door finally slams, Steve yelling an "I love you" while Eddie shouts “Yeah right!” He brings out his phone soon after, sending I love you, too to Steve as a text. Well, Eddie is realizing that a next time is never guaranteed.  

The moment Steve’s SUV takes off, the low hum of the engine riding off to the end of the street, you turn back to the couch for a night in with Eddie. Alas, he has other plans. You lead him to the couch, holding his hand. Eddie tugs you back sharply, your limbs flailing as a result. “Woah, there, sweetheart.”

You give him a questioning look, wondering if you were just picturing his eyes darkening. “Hmm?”

“I asked you, very nicely, not to order pop. For one thing I think you drink too much of it, and for another there is water, juice, alcohol, even. Baby, I would just appreciate you taking my wishes into account.” His voice is serious, to a point that startles you. “So. As mentioned, there will be a consequence.”

“Like…like what?” You ask him, gulping as he traces his fingers along your collarbone so lightly you barely feel it.

He leans down, leaning into whisper, “Run.”

Your heart rate stutters as you turn away from him and run straight towards the basement, a place you know was once Dylan’s hangout spot, but now is just a dusty living room. Your feet trip over themselves as they run down the steps, pure panic and adrenaline coursing through your veins as you run to a guest room, hiding in the corner.

Upstairs, there are footsteps leading directly to the steps you just ran down. He fucking walks. He takes his time, step by step, and you can tell with each step as your heart rate picks up that he’s taunting you. He knows you’re in some corner somewhere, but he just doesn’t know which one. “Downstairs, huh? Didn’t see that coming.” Eddie admits, peering around each corner with his hands behind his back.

Fuck, you’re just a sitting duck here. You crawl up by the door, waiting patiently as he walks into the room right across from the one you’re hiding in. You make a quick run for the stairs, your breathing tight in your chest as you run, but for some reason, can’t recall why you’re running, you’re so fucking turned on right now. Your first few steps are loud and you curse out loud when suddenly Eddie’s feet are right behind yours, giggling with glee as you do.

Somehow, you make it up the steps and run straight to the kitchen, stopping at the island. He lands on the other side, his face hungry with want, his shirt untucked. There’s a wild look in his eye you can’t quite understand. You giggle as you attempt to go either way, realizing you’re stuck where you are.

“Oh, how is she gonna get out?” He taunts, watching you assess the situation.

Your instincts take over. You miraculously hop onto the island, using some sort of kicking method against the counter straight across and crawl into a dive for him, attacking his lips with yours. He accepts you without fail, wrapping his arms around you and kissing you back hungrily. You place kisses down his neck, focusing on the one spot on his collarbone you knew he loved when you sucked on it.

“Like that.” You answer him, starting to run straight towards your bedroom.

Laughter like music to Eddie’s ears leaves your mouth as you reach the top of the stairs, and he books it straight after you, not waiting another second to chase you to where he suspects is either the hallway or your closet. You’re crouched down in the hallway, hoping he’ll go straight to the bedroom. He doesn’t, seeing you as soon as he rounds the corner.

He fists your hair at the crown and you help as he lifts you to your feet. “Looks like I caught ya.” He hums, his face watching you closely. His hands let go of you and he moves to kiss you again, his tongue feeling a sort of rough it hasn’t before. “Holy shit.” He mutters, guiding you so you’re up against the wall.

You kiss him back, and for what felt like the first time, you didn’t spend an ounce thinking about it, just giving in. “Ed.” You whimper, the heat between your legs now begging you to provide friction.

“Hmm?” Eddie asks, his hands moving roughly up and down your body. “What, baby?”

“Ed. Please.” You beg him, lifting your leg so you can at least feel his boner peeking at your clothed cunt.

“Nuh uh.” He tuts, lightly pushing on the knee. Your leg falls down, as well as your face. “You don’t get off until I tell you to. So, unless I move your leg, or remove your shirt, you just let me kiss you and respond. Got it?”

You gulp, nodding your head. “Yes.” Eddie licks his lips, his eyes faltering for a fraction of a second. “Eddie?” You ask, making sure he’s okay.

Eddie loves that you can pick up on this, even as he gives you new rules and a new playground to explore. “Do you mind just…doing one thing for me? It kind of stuck with me since you moved in.”

“What?” You ask, your heat still aching, but for the sake of his sanity and for his good graces, you attempt to stand still. (You’re terrible at it.)

“Call me sir?”

You reflect on moving day, the men calling him the name that so obviously gave him a bad taste in his mouth. Apparently, when you commented on it, you made an impact. “Yes, sir.”

“Holy shit.” Eddie hisses, marveling at you now, staring up at him through your eyelashes, waiting to be told what to do. “Now, be a good girl and bend over against the wall.”

“Yes, sir.” You tell him, turning around against the wall.

“No, actually.” He says, taking you by the hand and taking you downstairs. He guides your hips so you’re right in front of the kitchen sink and he bends you over. “Much better.”

He moves your sweats and panties down only to the middle of your thighs, bending on his knees as he admires the slick that has already gathered. “So wet.” He murmurs. You whimper as he barely dips a finger into your entrance, gathering some slick on his finger. He lifts it up to your mouth, “Open.” You do so without hesitation, licking your tongue all over the three knuckles he places in your mouth, tasting your own arousal. Without warning, he takes his finger out from your mouth and wipes it on your shirt. You waited for the praise that never came.

“Oh, now brats get praise for doing what they’re told?” Eddie asks, knowing exactly what you’re thinking as he pulls down his pants.

“No, sir.” You mutter, now craving that praise even more.

“That’s what I thought. Now be a good girl and take this for me.” It’s the only warning you get before he slides his cock in. Your feet are practically planted right next to one another so you start to open your stance to allow him to go in deeper. “Ah.” You freeze in place, realizing your mistake.

He places his hand around your neck and brings it back to him, your neck extended feeling both incredibly uncomfortable and hot. “What did you do wrong?”

“Move without your say so.”

“Hmm?”

“Oh, move without your say so, sir.”

“Here. If you ask, and I say yes, or, if I tell you to. That’s it. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Eddie smiles down at your blown pupils and half open mouth. He was afraid he jumped in too deep and threw you into the bathwater, but he could feel your pussy tighten around him. You’re so into this. He gently kisses your forehead and lets go of your neck. He slides his cock in even more, and keep in mind, he hasn’t even started to fuck you, yet. He’s barely halfway in your pussy and holds onto your hips as he sees you start to squirm. “You need something baby?”

“Could you move please, sir? Just a little bit? Need it so bad.”

“Should’ve thought of that sooner, then baby.” He musters, sounding bored, though he’s anything but. “Here.” Without warning, Eddie moves his fingers against your clit and has you teetering the edge in mere minutes. You’re so close, you can see the edge. It’s right there.

He stops. He slides in a bit more into you as his mouth gets close to your ear, his breath giving you goosebumps. “Consequence.” He grunts out, his grip on your hips bruising.

Your knuckles are white as you hold onto the edge of the sink like a vice. It’s like you can taste it. He doesn’t move another inch, his heartbeat against your back and the only audible sound coming from you is your panting in need. Eddie pushes in the rest of his length and a second beautiful sound is added to the mix, one he couldn’t get enough of, even if he tried. Why would he ever try? The sound of your pussy as you gush around him is perfect. “Taking me so well.” Eddie mumbles as he places both of his hands over yours on the sink.

The whimper that leaves your throat forces its way out, your body is tense from doing everything you can not to swivel your hips or back yourself into him. “Baby, you’re so tense.” His arms flex along yours, a shaky sigh leaving your mouth. “Why, hmm?”

“You…you said not to move unless you say so.” You tell him, frustrated because, of course, he knows.

“Or, unless you ask to.” Eddie adds, his chin resting on that spot on your shoulder. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

“Sir, can I please move my hips?” You ask him, hoping he isn’t teasing you again.

“Of course, baby.” Eddie’s tone is sweet and endearing. What a goddamn liar he is.

The words are like music to your ears as you start to move your hips, testing the waters. When your movement isn’t met with any punishment, you start moving more frantically, fucking yourself on his cock. Eddie lets out a sigh of content, hands raking down your back to your hips, the palms rough against your bare ass. “Sir, can I please move my feet?”

“See? My good girl is catching on. Of course you can, baby.” He answers, a smile lacing his voice.

Giddily, you move your feet further apart. “Sir, please…please take my clothes off?” You ask, waistband restricting your legs. “Wanna feel you.”

Eddie’s hands move down the apples of your ass to the sweats that started moving down your legs from the impact of your ass that had just started bouncing on him. He kisses your clothed back as you step out of them, kicking the garment aside. You feel the cotton of your shirt move up your back, your arms lifting over your head to assist Eddie as he takes it off. His lips touch the bare skin of your back, his tongue sending ripples down your spine as you shiver under his touch. Eddie grunts as you continue to swivel your hips against him.

“Fuck.” Eddie grunts, watching your naked form wither against him. He can no longer fight the incessant need that’s grown while waiting for you to ask him for movement. His hips start mercilessly pounding into you without a hint of a warning. The moans that fall from your throat are uninhibited and radically full of relief. “Is this what you’ve been waiting for, baby?”

“Mmhmm.” You nod your head, curling over the sink as your arms give out.

Eddie slows down and takes himself out, and your hand moves to push yourself off the sink the littlest bit when you realize your mistake. “You can move.” Eddie smirks, noting your obedience. He’s still standing with his pants down to his calves and his shirt disheveled. He steps out from his pants, tossing the pair toward your pile of clothes. Then he goes down each button on his shirt, slowly exposing his chest to you. As his fingers move over each one, you eye his chest hungrily, aware he’s watching your face while you watch him.

The shirt falls down his arms with a slight flop as the material hits the floor. “Sir…” you gulp, the two of you staring at one another. “Sir, can I kiss you?”

Eddie smirks, nodding his head. You take the two steps toward him and your legs wrap around his hips as you hungrily kiss each other. He turns toward the kitchen island, a small yelp leaving your mouth as the cold granite counter hits the warm flesh of your ass cheeks. He guides his cock into you, slowly pushing into your heat, watching your face as your eyes roll back. “Feel good?”

You nod, a laugh escaping your lips.

“What’s so funny, hmm?” Eddie asks, using his mouth and tongue against your neck.

“Good? Your cock is perfect, Ed.”

“What happened to sir, baby?” He asks, yet continues to rut into you. Your face falters, realizing your mistake. He lets out a laugh, pitying you.

He places his fingertips on your clit, circling slowly, making the heat that’s pooled in your stomach hotter and larger than you could even conceive. “That…that feels so good, Ed.” You tell him, letting your head fall back.

“God, I love when your tight pussy just-” he inhales through his teeth, “sucks me in… Feels like heaven.”

You giggle, the end of it cut off by a particularly rough thrust. “Heaven?” You gasp out, Eddie starts to move his fingers faster and matches the pace with his hips.

“If Heaven isn’t fucking this tight pussy all day, then I don’t fucking want it.” Eddie gasps back, a growl forming under his breath.

“Ed, I’m gonna—” the feeling overwhelms you, the edge muting your senses as your orgasm ripples through your body.

Eddie moans as you tighten more around him, a fix he figured impossible. He still rotates on your clit, you release two sharp exhales, the heat too hot, too much. “Too much, Ed.”

“You can do it, baby. I could just edge you more.” He mutters.

You giggle, frightened at the goddamn prospect of it. “No, no, no.”

“No? Well then show me. Let’s feel that pussy make a mess all over my cock.” You came from the words alone, giggles intertwined through your moans. “Oh fuck, good girl,”

“I’m so close, baby.” He moans.

“Gonna fill me up?” You ask him, your legs tight around his hips as you bite at his collar bone.

“Keep doing that.” Eddie begs you, and you happily oblige. Every nip, bite and suck at his collarbone had him gasping over you, the chain of his necklace hanging between you two. Your hands go into his hair, pulling at him and you could probably have a third one at the rate he was going at.

No probably about it, but Eddie’s panting and you’re exhausted.

Even then.

He pushes you down as he cums, your back screaming with cold as it hits the island counter. Eddie collapses on top of you, and you breathe heavily together, both catching your breath. His mouth latches on your neck, kissing a trail to your lips. “Oh, I love you.”

You smile into his kiss, your noodle legs falling from his hips. “I love you.” You find yourself wrapped in his arms, the smell of sweat and sex invades the kitchen. His chest is covered in sweat and there’s nothing better.

“Join me for a shower?” He asks after you two have a moment of silence, his fingers single handedly causing a brigade of goosebumps down your side as they move in a whisper over your skin. His other hand is wrapped on your left hand, and you don’t realize he’s unconsciously rubbing at your ring finger.

“If I can walk.” You giggle.

Eddie chuckles, pulling himself out of you and giving you a sleepy half smile. “I could always…” He begins, and then he scoops you up over his shoulder to take you up the stairs. You protest for the first minute of it, but when the view is his toned ass as he walks up the stairs, you really couldn’t complain.

-

Thank you so much for reading! I love to read your comments, replies, and reblogs. As always, reblogging is the best way to support your fic writers on tumblr.

Taglist: @pinkcowracing @yourthebrokengirl @skrzydlak @thirddeadlysin @sammararaven @bebe07011 @prettylovley @josephquinncore @forget-you-morelike-fuck-you @names-were-taken

Taglist for Really Drives Me Mad: @yunnie-f1 @hollster88 @corrodedcoffincumslut @daisyridleyyyy @daniellabrandt @lail1010 @alicentswife @bl4ckt00thgr1n @ali-r3n @tlclick73 @vintagehellfire @hellfirefiend @kittydeadbones @luumunson @uncxmfxrtablex @eddiesgfffffffffff @hkurbsjundebi @eddies-puppet @joantje @novelnovella @shady-the-simp

(Okay the very idea that this many people wanted on the taglist is INSANE to me. If you want on it, just reply and I'll add you.)

[lothlorienlover]

U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It spans 2,400 miles (3,940 km), crosses eight states and three time zones, and enlists you for at least three weeks. The epitome of American driving holidays, Route 66 takes you east to west, from Chicago to Santa Monica, Los Angeles, tracing the development of the pioneering country. The original road no longer exists unbroken, but as a road trip the route holds strong. It will take you through small-town America and past some of the most obscure attractions in the country.

[vosh-rakh]

The Hero of Kvatch and the bastard heir to the Empire winded their way down the hillside path from Kvatch’s refugee camp, to where the former had parked his horse on loan from Prior Maborel. The horrid blood-red cracked-and-crackling sky had now faded into the peaceful blue of late morning, and most of the fires of the city had been put out by the survivors. But Martin would not be there to help rebuild, to soothe the traumas of the few living, to give last rites to the countless dead. He had a purpose much more urgent, one he still did not understand.

Itching to break the silence populated only sparsely by their crunching footsteps on the gravelly road, Martin spoke. “Olof…that’s what you said, right?”

Olof spasmed momentarily, caught off guard. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, glancing back again — as he was anxiously doing every minute or so — “Olof Gabinna, at your service.”

“Olof doesn’t sound like a Dunmer name. I’ve never met a Dark Elf named anything like that.”

Olof chuckled, his goatee bristling with the movement of his lips. “I suppose you haven’t. That’s because I’m a Nord.”

“Right…you haven’t the knife-ears of an elf, have you?” Becoming aware of a faux pas, he added, “Sorry, that must come off as terribly rude, mustn’t it?”

“No, I understand,” Olof said, returning his eyes to the downhill slope to watch his footing. “I get it a lot. My da was a Dunmer, you see, but my ma was a Nord. So by Imperial law, a Nord I am.”

“Hm.” Martin looked up at the azure sky above. Secunda was still hanging blearily there, opposite Magnus. It had looked so dire, an evil portent, when the sky was blazing crimson. Now it was the same serene body it had always been, every night and day he’d seen it —

Martin tripped on his priestly robes, almost falling headlong onto his face. But OIof spun around and caught him by the shoulders and hoisted him back up. 

“Thank you,” muttered Martin, blushing. Olof was strong, and quick, too – Martin couldn’t believe how fast he’d turned, how rapid his reaction was.

“It’s alright,” said Olof with a smile. “Just be careful, alright? You’re our last hope for Tamriel, after all.”

“Is there really nothing more you can tell me about…all that?” Martin asked, dusting off his knees. 

“I’m afraid not,” said Olof, offering a pitying smile. “You’ll have to talk to Jauffre. All I know is, you’re Uriel Septim’s son. Jauffre said so, and the Emperor said so himself.”

“The Emperor…my father. I can’t believe it.”

“I suppose it’s rather fantastical. But I trust Jauffre, and Uriel.” Olof omitted saying that he had no choice but to — it was the only chance he had at freedom. He could just as easily be locked back up if he didn’t serve the Blades in this capacity. “I hope you can at least trust me until we arrive at Weynon Priory.” Olof turned and continued their descent.

“Weynon?” Martin asked as he followed after Olof, more careful of his footing now. “That’s by Chorrol, yes? Dedicated to Talos?”

“Aye. It’s evidently a safehouse for the Blades -– the Emperor’s sworn bodyguards. Jauffre himself is the Grandmaster of the Blades.”

“I see,” Martin said. There was so much new information to process in such a short span of time. He had just been a priest. Then Daedra poured over the walls of his city, killing so many so fast, nearly shattering his faith. But he had to be strong for his flock as they hid within the chapel. Then their salvation came, a grey-skinned, red-eyed Nord, claiming Martin was the son of the assassinated Emperor. It was so much. Too much. He feared he’d never take it all in properly.

They arrived at Olof’s borrowed horse, brown splotched with white. “We must ride to Weynon,” Olof said, “to reach Jauffre as quickly as possible. There’s room enough on the saddle for you to sit behind me. Is that alright, Your Majesty?”

“Yes, but OIof — I’m not Emperor yet, am I?”

“I…suppose not,” Olof said, scratching the back of his neck.

“Then call me Martin, please.”

“Alright, Martin.” Olof smiled, the faint-yellow of his teeth splitting his black goatee in an irresistibly charming way. 

Olof climbed into the saddle, and then extended a hand to Martin to help him up as well. Martin took it and allowed Olof’s Nord muscles to hoist him onto the horse. “Hold on tight,” said Olof. “We’ll need to travel swiftly.”

Martin wrapped his arms around Olof’s chest, the steel cuirass there. Olof hesitated to kick the horse into motion. Even through the steel he could feel the warmth and tightness of Martin’s embrace, and he felt something he’d never felt before, but couldn’t identify. He shook his head to clear it, leaving it for another day to ponder. He dug his heels into the horse’s sides, and they took off.

[creamyavocadosoup]

𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐞

a/n: lowercase intended! been in an anime binge lately and am currently watching horimiya. its great honestly, it makes me feel so mushy bc me when !! but also i can kinda relate. sorry this wasnt proofread! if there are any mistakes lmk ;-;

characters: rtte!hiccup x fem!reader

tags: kinda angsty, unrequited (?) pining, intimate touches and moment (nothing nsfw)

word count: 1.5k

if you missed it, here's part one: can i be her?

the road to recovery was slow, and the mending of hiccup and i's relationship even slower. although i had forgiven him, there was an undeniable shift in how i acted towards him, whether it was intentional or not.

i had felt guilty about it, of course, but i couldn't force myself to go back to the way things were and pretend nothing had happened. even more so when i could tell that hiccup and the other riders picked up on it too.

after that incident however, something else had also changed. as subtle as it was (or tried to be), hiccup had begun doing things out of his own volition. small things like the soil in my garden being damp when i wake up, my medicine cabinets tidied and arranged how i liked it after a nap, or even my hut being spick and span, a still-hot plate of food awaiting me on my bedside table when i wake up.

it was strange to be on the receiving end of such actions. i had gotten used to helping the riders more than i had received it in return. so having hiccup do so much for me just because, induced emotions in me that i'm still quite unsure in how to handle.

today was spent patching up the riders after a grueling training session and a few accidents (mostly snotlout) and we make conversation as they tell me the new things they've discovered when they went adventuring a few days ago.

my huge cut had - thankfully - been steadily healing, the riders taking turns in making sure i wasn't doing tasks i wasn't supposed to. a few weeks since the incident and i could finally start walking around my hut with much, much caution.

taking this opportune moment of reprieve, i'm currently sat at my front porch, admiring the view of the sea and horizon off in the distance. i sipped quietly on my drink while wrapped in a blanket, the birds chirping and soft swaying of the trees my only company.

...that is until strong gusts of wind caused by a familiar midnight black dragon landed on my front yard, along with his ever-familiar rider in tow.

"[name]! i come bearing new entries to my journal, along with snacks of course."

right. ever since my injury, hiccup had made it some sort of tradition to come and talk to me about things he discovered while out on adventures or simply reading up and researching on subjects he thinks would interest me.

he reasoned it as him hoping i wouldn't feel too lonely even though the other riders visiting routinely (which i soon figured out was coordinated by hiccup thanks to a slip of the tongue from tuffnut) had given me plenty of company since then.

hiccup took his seat beside me on the porch swing, making himself comfortable. offering the other half of my blanket and he takes it with a smile, scooting closer to me.

initially, i seemingly wasn't quite receptive of this tradition he had started; lack of responses, barely any indication that i was interested in whatever he was talking about. but the dragon rider hadn't exactly let it affect him whatsoever. he continued coming regularly, and talking enough for the both of us.

"hiccup." i spoke, softly and quite mellow, but it had stopped his rant completely as he turned to look at me.

i raised my head to look back at him, my eyes slowly dragging over his features. sweat beaded faintly across his brows as he also searched my face of any indication of emotion. he gulped, the action quite apparent, "yes?"

"are you doing all this because you feel guilty?" i questioned, my voice devoid of any accusatory tone, yet it made him flinch slightly in his seat. "if you are, then you shouldn't be, because i already forgive you."

he pursed his lips and brows furrowed as he continued to keep his eyes on me, clearly displeased despite my words. i felt a warmth slowly settle on my hand, looking down to find his hand grabbing onto mine.

my heart beat quickened, a soft yet steady heat creeping up onto my cheeks. for a moment, it had felt like we were suspended in time, the universe letting us have this moment that we've needed.

"even if you have forgiven me," he paused, his body turning to me and gripping my hand tighter, "i can't." he whispered, a soft tremble in his voice as i watched his eyes gloss over.

"i'm sorry. i'm so sorry." he almost weeps, his voice crackly and tears turning his eyes glossy. "i shouldn't have talked to you like that. been so - so caught up in my emotion that i just had zero regard for how you were feeling to how i was saying it." his voice shakes slightly, and my heart crumpled at the emotion.

gently setting aside my drink, i reached to hold his hands with both of mine, softly rubbing my thumb along the natural contours of the back of it. my throat felt tight, that same burning feeling in my eyes coming back, but i steeled myself and my voice to be able to say what i needed to.

"hiccup.. i understand, i really do." my voice had felt so fragile, like glass, about to break if more pressure is applied to it. "in the time i've spent by myself these past few weeks, i've come to a certain understanding and acceptance to the situation. and it's okay," i squeezed his hands, "i'm okay."

he subtly shakes his head no, one of his hands breaking free from mine and drifting to my wounded abdomen, past the hem and underneath my shirt. hiccup was quiet but his touch spoke more than his words tried to convey. my breath hitched at the action as he continued with his ministrations, yet his expression more spaced-out. i'm not sure what it was exactly, but i could tell he was heavily contemplating something in his head.

despite the gauze barrier, i could feel the heat of him emanating through it. it allowed that familiar warmth to bloom in my chest once again, the same warmth that only he seems to be the cause of. it had felt entirely too intimate to consider it as something friends do which only raised so many more questions and confusion in my head.

this wasn't normal for friends, right? is this something he normally does with the others?

i gulped down the lump in my throat, the thought of him doing the same thing to a certain blonde-haired viking setting an uncomfortable feeling in my gut.

before i could voice out any of my thoughts however, my eyes widened and cheeks warmed considerably once i felt his touch travel to my cheek. it was soft, almost feather-like, and comforting. his eyes glowed beautifully, the orange sunset reflecting onto his green eyes, effectively enchanting me with how beautiful it looked.

he kept his eyes on me, seemingly waiting on a sign on how i felt about the current predicament. seeing no protests from me, he continued on, now essentially cupping my face with both of his hands, his piercing eyes never leaving my face, flitting between my eyes and lips.

"hiccup..."

"hiccup!" a familiar voice cut through the silence and the trees, dispelling the intimate moment in an instant. i hurriedly moved away from his clutches, picking up my forgotten drink, as hiccup nervously fixes his hair and clothes.

astrid appears on the path in front of my hut, lax features and usual demeanor indicating that she didn't see whatever just happened between hiccup and i. "there you are. figured you would be here." she spoke, walking closer towards my porch.

hiccup laughed, notably a little more breathless than when he normally is, yet astrid doesn't bat an eye or pick up on it. admittedly, i spaced out as she rambled on, the scene before still playing over and over in my head.

hiccup's soft touches was still practically branded onto my skin, with how i could still feel the heat of his touch despite him being on the other side of the seat we were on. his actions had only made me more confused, swirling thoughts trying to reason why he did what he did yet none of them made sense.

what was that? was he...

i shook away the thoughts as i come back to consciousness back in time. "[name], i hope you don't mind that i'll be taking this guy with me for a little bit. i need his help on a few things regarding training." she spoke.

i nodded, plastering a small smile on my face but i turn to look at hiccup, silently torn on wanting him to stay or letting him leave. his gaze was on me, searching my face but perhaps my features weren't translating my desire well, because he turns to astrid and smiles, "we can go, we were just finishing up anyways."

my heart cracks just a tiny bit, that same feeling that i felt a few weeks ago leaking through the cracks of my resolve little by little. but i force the smile back on my face, standing up to bring my drink back inside, the atmosphere now leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

they gather their things and leave side-by-side, and i also turn and huddle back into my hut, missing the longing look hiccup held to my disappearing figure.

DO NOT REPOST MY CONTENT ANYWHERE! i would love to hear any and all thoughts. mwah! have a great day!

quick access to my library.

[bigfan-fanfic]

Brother Mine (Winchester!Reader x Sam and Dean Winchester PLATONIC)

@xweirdo101x Hello, hope you are having a good day/nightI was wondering if I could request a Sam and Dean having an older brother (maybe by one or 2 years)  maybe they haven't seen reader in a couple years. The brother's finally get to see reader when he pulls them out of trouble?

(okay, author's note in that Sam is 22 at the start of the show and Dean is 26. The show spans the same amount of time as in the real world, technically, so Sam ends the show at 37 while Dean ends it at 41. Meaning this elder brother is probably 28 at the start and ends it 43. Good lord, that show went on for a while lol)

"So, explain to me why the two of you chuckleheads are in jail in freaking Kentucky? Because last I heard, Sam was going to college in California and you were still hunting boogeymen with Dad."

The two young men in front of you share a glance as you bail them out of some podunk town's drunk tank.

"Dad's... in trouble." Sam sighs, finally, to a harsh glare from Dean.

"Good riddance to bad assholes." you growl, and Dean clenches his fist

You and your little brothers don't exactly have a great relationship.

With the better part of seventeen years of your lives dedicated to hunting what lies in the darkness, spurred on by your domineering and obsessive father, Dean always has blamed you for "abandoning the family" and "breaking Dad's heart" because you left the life at nineteen and left seventeen year old Dean and thirteen year old Sam behind.

You did the amateur boxing circuit for a while before you were hired on to an indie security company and ended up catching the eye of the owner who trained you until you took over, eventually buying the company and running it.

You know a lot of your money was sent to help pay off any expenses Sam had, but you don't know if it was used for that or blown for motel stays or alcohol or sawed-off-shotguns or salt slugs for Dean and John.

You tried to stay in touch with Sam, but it was awkward. And he wanted space away from "family."

So you know neither of them would ever contact you unless something real bad happened (and apparently Dean's grudge was so strong that he wouldn't even inform you that John went missing)

Though to be perfectly honest, it wouldn't really matter to you anyway, and that's a matter to discuss with your therapist.

"I can't believe you called him." Dean grumbles, like a child.

"Sam apparently knew you'd need a responsible adult." you snark, and he grimaces. "Now, care to tell me why you're road-tripping?"

Sam looks at you. "My girlfriend. Jess. Whatever got Mom... it got her too."

"And you think that Dad is close to tracking it down and that's why he vanished." you sigh.

"Lemme guess, you're gonna tell us that there's nothing that goes bump in the night?" Dean sneers, looking at Sam.

"No, I'm not. I'm gonna tell you that it's not your job to chase it. It's not your duty."

"We save people. We hunt things. It's the family business." Dean growls.

"Jesus, Dean, do you hear how you sound?" you groan. "It's this kind of obsession that I tried to get away from! A terrible thing happened to Mom, and there was nothing any of us could do to stop it. It's not our fault, and it's not our responsibility to chase whatever did it down!"

"It's just gonna keep hurting people. We've seen it happening. It's gathering other people like Sam."

"Fuck." you growl.

Dean senses an in. "You were even better than me, back in the day. Remember when you ganked that skinchanger?"

He says "you were only 14" with as much reverence and awe as you do disgust and shame.

"I can't convince either of you to... let the chips fall where they may?"

"Nope." Dean pops the "p" sound.

"Sorry, no." Sam adds.

"I don't wanna kill things anymore, Dean. Not even bad things. But I do care about you both. So here. I'm going to help you, on one condition. We're going to all come back to my place in California, and Sam is going to apply to fucking law school, and you're gonna think about what you really want with your life, Dean."

They think.

They look at each other.

They nod.

"Welcome back." Dean grins.

"You better not still drive that shitty Impala and listen to crappy 80s rock."

Sam winces.