#'and now i'm looking forward to a break' ... me too buddy. me too

[mgu-h]

post race | saudi arabian gp 2025

[andvys]

The edges of your soul (I haven't seen yet) ⭐︎ chapter thirteen

⭐︎ Then this heart would break and fall as twice as far

Warnings: hurt/no comfort? not here, sorry y'all. angst. injuries, mentions of death, blood, gore, not gonna spoil anymore

Pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Summary: Hope has always been a downfall hasn't it? This time it tears you apart completely.

Word count: 15k

Author's note: I'm cackling as I'm typing this, you guys have no idea what is about to hit you. The next few chapters are gonna be filled with so much evil shit. Someone go and pray for Dingus. @hellfire--cult we're at our favorite part now hehe

series masterlist ⭐︎ previous chapter

☀︎

A miserable expression is lingering on Eddie’s face. He barely keeps his eyes open as he gets hit by waves of nausea every thirty seconds or so. He keeps an arm around his waist as his left elbow rests on the table. He is blinking, staring at you in confusion and awe. You drank more than him, even continued after he passed out, and yet you seem fine, more cheerful than ever. 

Your mouth is moving quickly, and you are waving around with your hands as you ramble about one thing after another. Eddie’s mind can’t even catch up, he is too hungover for this, which is surprising considering he never dealt with those, but the lack of alcohol in the past year, especially in that capacity, turned him into a wuss – at least that’s how he feels about himself watching you. 

You were the first one up, even, filling the generator with gas, just enough for everyone to have a warm shower. You cooked coffee and oatmeal with the supplies from the RV, and now you are sitting here, hair still wet from the shower, a new sweater, and a look of happiness and excitement on your face. 

Eddie thinks that it’s refreshing to see you this way, especially after the difficult days that you had, but his mind just can’t comprehend how you can feel so fine while he is suffering from the amount of whiskey he had last night. 

“How…?” He mumbles, cutting you off mid sentence. 

“Hmm?” You tilt your head to the side. 

“How can you feel so fine… You hadn’t had any alcohol in months, and you drank more than I did… How are you not hungover?” 

You shrug and bring your cup of coffee up to your lips, taking a sip. 

“I’m not a lightweight like you.” 

Eddie snorts at your words, shaking his head. “Nah. I’m not a lightweight usually, besides I had some a few weeks back and I felt fine…”

“Maybe that stuff was too hard for you.” 

Eddie frowns at your words and he shakes his head, “nope.”

“Take another shot and you will feel fine.” 

Eddie’s lips curl up in disgust, and he stares at you, bewildered. 

“I swear!” You exclaim, leaning forward. “My dad used to do barbecues a lot and he invited all his old buddies from High School and one time when they came over I was dealing with a major hangover cause I got drunk the night before for the first time ever… my dad got really mad at me – not the point of the story but his friend, this russian guy told me to take a shot of hard liquor, he said that it’s an instant cure… the thought made me wanna throw up but I tried it and guess what…? It helped!” 

Eddie looks at you like you have gone crazy. He slowly reaches for the coffee you have made him and takes a sip. 

“Yeah, uh… that’s crazy.” 

“But it helps!” 

Eddie chuckles, shaking his head, “I believe you, but god, that thought makes me want to throw up.” 

“I know, I know, but you should try it.” 

Silence fills the room for a moment. You lean back in your chair and look out the window, watching the snow fall just as it did the night before. The wind is still heavy and you know that you might have to stay here for another day or two. 

Eddie sips on his coffee, he keeps watching you, taking in the excitement that keeps flashing in your eyes, the way your lips twitch, wanting to curl into a smile. 

“What’s got you so hyper this morning?” Eddie finally asks. 

You look back at him and you press your lips together, looking around the empty room and out into the hallway to make sure that nobody is coming but Steve must still be in the shower, and Nancy is getting the RV ready. 

Only as you lean forward again and you wrap both hands around your mug, does he notice the slight nervousness. You are tapping against the porcelain, taking a deep breath as you lean closer. 

“I’m gonna kiss Steve.” 

Eddie forgets the nausea he was dealing with just now. He furrows his eyebrows as confusion hits him. 

“Hang on… wait…. you two didn’t kiss last night?” He murmurs, tilting his chin down as he stares at you with wide eyes. 

“Um no…” You shake your head, blushing under his gaze. 

“...But you two flirted all night…”

Your confidence slips away a little as you think about the previous night and how he hadn’t kissed you. You wanted him to, but he didn’t. There have been a few moments when you thought he would. 

“Do you think that maybe I shouldn’t…?” 

Eddie shakes his head wildly, his curls bouncing at the movement. 

“No! You should! Holy fuck, you should!” He almost yells.

You start shushing him, waving your hand at him as your cheeks heat up, “keep it down!” 

“Sorry, sorry!” He winces as he sinks back into his chair. “But I… I think you absolutely should kiss him. I just thought that he’d finally make the move, you know? I saw the way he acted around you last night.” 

The excitement returns in your eyes, he sees it in the way they light up, and the color in them lights up. You straighten up in your seat, your cheeks flushing as you smile. 

“Nothing happened at all?” Eddie whispers, tilting his head to the side. 

You shake your head. Your hair falls in front of your face as you look down. Your heart flutters in your chest as you think of the way he lifted you up to get the cowboy hat or the way he placed it on your head later, how he took your pictures, and how he held you when you lied in bed. You woke up on top of him this morning, his arms wrapped around your waist strongly, snuggling you. 

“No, nothing happened…” 

A smirk appears on Eddie’s lips when he notices just how flustered you are. Something did happen, he knows it, but you won’t tell him, not now at least, because he walks in. His hair is wet, his beard shaved off now, a spitcurl hanging in front of his eye. He is wearing a flannel, a pair of new jeans, and boots he got from the closet. 

Your lips part as you look him up and down, eyes glued to him. His cheeks are a little flushed when his eyes meet yours. He offers you a smile and even a wink, “Sunshine.” He greets you, tipping his head down even though he isn’t wearing the hat. 

“M-Morning.” You smile, huffing under your breath when Eddie kicks you under the table. 

“Morning, Eddie.” Steve greets him next before he walks over to the kitchen counter, reaching for a mug, he pours himself some coffee. 

“Good morning, Cowboy.” Eddie grins, completely forgetting about his hangover as he looks between you and him. “So uh… Nancy is getting the RV ready, but I don’t think that the storm will pass anytime soon.” 

Steve nods as he turns around to face you both. He leans against the counter and takes a sip of his coffee. He takes a moment to look at you, and his stomach flutters when all the pictures from the previous night start flashing in his mind. 

“Hmm.” He hums as he turns to look out the window. “It’s safer to stay here for another day or two.” 

“I think so too.” You nod, trying not to stare at him, but it’s hard not to when he looks this good. His skin looks smoother, although you did like the beard and the subtle mustache he was sporting, but he looks so handsome like this too, clean shaven. He left the buttons at the top of his new flannel unbuttoned. You swallow as you take him in. You wish you could just say ‘fuck it’ and kiss him but this is not the moment, not here, not now. 

“We can get some wood later to make some fire, there’s a shed in the backyard, I’m pretty sure we will find some there.” Steve says, looking at you, his eyes connecting with yours. “You and I, Sunshine.” 

Oh, so he wants to be alone with you too. 

Hope awakens inside of you when he walks towards you and picks out the seat beside you. He flashes you a smile and for a split second, his eyes flicker down to your lips. 

Your breath hitches in your throat, and your heart flutters yet again. 

What if he has the same plans? 

Your eyelashes flutter, and your lips curl into a smile. 

Eddie snorts at your silent interaction, eyes moving back and forth between you two. The moment you both turn to look at him, he covers it up with a cough. 

"Oh, damn." He coughs, patting his chest. “That sip was too big,” he fakes a laugh and looks away, trying to hold back his smirk but failing miserably. 

“Why don’t you go take a shower, Munson?” 

Eddie looks back at Steve, holding his hand to his chest, offended. “Are you saying I smell bad?” 

Steve shakes his head, “No, but the shower is pure luxury, who knows when you’ll get that chance again.” He shrugs. 

Eddie raises his eyebrows, smirking as he looks into his eyes teasingly. 

Steve only shakes his head in response and looks down into his mug. 

“Alright, hot shower here I come.” Eddie chuckles as he gets up. He grabs his coffee and winks at you before he walks away, humming. 

“He was just complaining about his hangover, and now he is humming.” You mumble, confused. 

Steve chuckles as he turns towards you. He ignores the fluttering in his body, that electrifying pull he feels towards you, but it’s hard, even harder when you look into his eyes, when you are this close, when he smells your sweet scent, when he remembers how it felt to touch your bare skin. 

“That’s how he is.” Steve chuckles, his eyes lingering on your lips for a tad too long. 

“Yeah…” You whisper, noticing the way he looks at you. 

Your hope continues to rise, to build up, to spread inside of you.

Friends don’t look at each other like that, right? 

Friends don’t stare at each other’s lips. 

“Are you feeling okay?” He asks, reaching for your hand. “You’re not hungover, are you?”

You shake your head, looking at him dumbly. You curl your fingers around his hand, holding his. “No… no I’m not, I feel fine… good. And you?”

Steve squeezes your hand back as he lifts his mug to his lips with the other. He gives you a soft smile, “Yeah, I feel good too.”

“Yeah?” You tilt your head at him, your lip curling into a smile.

His breath hitches in his throat. The way you are smiling at him, the way your eyes move across his face, like you are memorizing his features. No one’s ever looked at him like that, and it makes him nervous. 

“Yeah,” he whispers, letting go of your hand, he lifts it up to your face and tucks the loose strand of hair behind your ear before he brushes his knuckles against your cheek, his thumb lingering over the developing scar on your cheekbone. “I had fun last night.”

You lean into his touch. The happiness is trembling inside of you, his touch and his words only fueling your hope. 

“I did too,” you whisper, smiling. 

The tension between you both is just as strong as it was the night before. He looks at you just as he did the night before, nothing changed, except your heart beats even stronger now. 

You look at his lips, wondering if now would be the right time to try, wondering if you can just lean in and do it, but before you can dwell on it any longer, the door opens and Nancy walks in. 

“Hey.” She mumbles, shutting the door, and she rubs her hands together. “I was in the garage, not even outside, but it’s cold as hell out there!” She exclaims and tears her jacket off before she turns to look at you. Her eyes widen when she notices Steve beside you, close beside you. She looks between you both, eying his hand on your cheek, the flustered look on your face, the flustered look on his face. She bites the insides of her cheeks, trying not to smirk. She saw how you both acted around each other last night, how often Steve’s hand landed on your lap, how you kept biting your lip looking at him like you were ready to risk it all, how he kept looking at you like he was about to rip your clothes off and show you what you have missed. 

Nancy doesn’t know how far you have gone last night after her and Eddie passed out in the living room, but by the tension between you, she knows that something must have happened.

Steve pulls his hand away slowly, and you reach for your mug, bringing it up to your lips. You take a sip as you look outside. 

Her blue eyes flash with mischief. She clears her throat and looks at Steve, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware you were about to have your breakfast, Steve.” 

Steve’s eyes widen, and his jaw falls slack at her comment. In all those years he has known her, she has never ever made any jokes or comments like these. If anything, she was always way too serious to even laugh at dirty jokes made by others. 

You start choking beside him, blushing furiously at her words. 

“Nancy!” Steve glares at her before he turns to you, patting your back softly. 

“I’m sorry,” Nancy chuckles, flashing you an apologetic smile when you calm down again. “Didn’t think you would choke so soon.”

Steve sees the way your eyes widen, the way you flip around, staring at her in disbelief, but the girl only hums to herself as she pours herself a coffee. 

Steve closes his eyes and clenches his jaw, shaking his head. 

“Can’t believe Munson is rubbing off on you, Wheeler.” 

Her shoulders shake as she laughs. She turns to face you both, smirking again when she sees how Steve is still rubbing your back. 

“Do you two want me to leave or…?” She points between you two, her eyes glinting as they lock with yours. 

A sigh falls from your lips, and you shake your head at her.

“Nope.” 

Steve stops rubbing your back but he doesn’t remove his hand, his palm slips down to your lower back and you aren’t even sure if he realizes that he did it because he starts talking to Nancy about the weather and about the change of your plans while keeping his hand on you like it’s the most normal thing. He did it last night as well, when you were all sitting in a circle and he was chatting to Eddie, keeping his hand on your knee or your thigh. 

You try to focus on the conversation, but it’s difficult when his touch sends jolts through your body, overwhelming your poor heart and heating up your skin under the layer of clothes. He keeps fueling your hope, pushing you towards the decision you made last night. 

You don’t know how much time passes while you sit there with his hand on your lower back. You don’t even know how much information you have missed on the change of plans they have decided on. 

But when he calls your name two times or so, he pulls you out of your little stupor, making you look at him. 

“Huh?” You ask dumbly, staring at him with burning cheeks. 

“I asked if you wanna go get the wood now?” Steve repeats his question that went over your head. He finds it endearing the way you look at him, eyes big and filled with confusion. “Think it’s best if we do it as soon as we can. The storm might get worse later.” 

“Oh.” You nod, licking your lips as you place your mug down. You avoid Nancy’s eyes, who is staring at you with a smug look on her face. “Yeah. I’m just gonna grab my jacket–”

“I got it.” Steve says, squeezing your shoulder when he gets up from his seat. “Finish your coffee.” 

“O-Okay.” You murmur, giving him a soft smile. 

Steve nods at you, smiling back at you. He leaves the room, leaving you alone with Nancy who is tapping against her mug impatiently. 

“So–”

“Nothing happened!” You whisper before she can even finish her sentence. You lean closer to her, finally looking at her. “Nothing happened last night, we drank more, took pictures with the polaroid camera we found, and then we talked and went to sleep.”

You see the disappointment flashing in her features. Her shoulders slump, and a pout appears on her lips. She leans back in her chair and sighs, “And here I thought he grew some balls, but hey, maybe he was just being a gentleman and didn’t want to make a move because you were drunk!” She shrugs with one shoulder, offering a supportive smile. “I kinda thought something happened though… with the way he acted around you just now…”

Your stomach flutters. He did act differently, more touchy than usual. You liked it, a lot. 

You breathe in and open your mouth to speak, but you quickly close it again when he walks back in, holding both your and his jacket in his hands. 

“Here.” 

You grab your jacket and get up, pushing the chair back into place. You put your jacket on and pull the hood over your head to protect your wet hair. 

“Be careful out there.” Nancy mumbles, looking out the window. 

“We’re just heading down to the shed, it’s like ten steps away.” You chuckle. 

“Still.” She shrugs. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll come back in one piece.” You smile at her, giving a small wave as she gives a thumbs up for good luck.

Once you and Steve are ready to go, you grab your gear and step out into the cold. He shuts the door behind you both. Shivers run down his spine instantly as the cold bites his skin. 

“Holy shit.” He murmurs as he turns around to face the backyard. He squints his eyes when the harsh wind hits him. 

“It’s so cold.” You murmur as you look around. You can barely see anything through the fog and the falling snow. All the trees are white, layer and layers of snow cover the ground you are about to step in. “I think we should have waited with the shower.”

Steve chuckles as he glances down at you. 

“Come on, let’s get this over with.” He reaches for your hand, taking hold of it with a squeeze. 

“Yes, please.” You whisper as you welcome his warm touch in this freezing cold. 

The snow crunches beneath your boots as you both start making your way down to the shed. You look around, making sure that nothing will sneak up on you while you are busy struggling with the cold, but the gated property seems as safe as it did the night before. The gate looks untouched, the wooded area around it looking empty as well, no sign of any unwanted visitors, no footsteps in the snow. 

“Goddamn,” Steve curses under his breath as the icy snow hits his cheeks. “I hate winter.” 

“Yeah, me too.” You nod, sniffling as your nose starts running from the cold. You sigh in relief when you make it to the door of the shed.

Steve pulls out the bundle of keys from his pocket, he found it in one of the drawers in the kitchen. “Alright, let’s figure out which one it is.” He murmurs as he flips through the keys. 

You cover his back, keeping your hand on your gun holster while he tries to unlock the door. 

A little ‘yes’ falls from his lips when it clicks open. 

“Come on, let’s get inside.” He reaches for your hand again, leading you into the shed, he steps in after you. 

It’s not much warmer in here, but at least the walls keep the wind away. You breathe heavily and rub your arms, looking around the darkened shed. Light seeps through the gaps on the ceiling, allowing you to see. 

“Bingo!” Steve snaps his fingers, smiling in triumph as he gestures to the wood in the corner. “See, I knew they kept their wood here.” 

You follow him, pushing the hood of your jacket off slowly. You bite your trembling lip as you keep your eyes on him, watching the way he brushes his hand through his hair before he reaches for the plastic cover on top of the firewood stack.

“Come on,” he looks over his shoulder, flashing you a smile that makes your insides tingle and your knees weak. 

Your heart skips a beat when you realize that this could be the moment. You’re alone with him and you don’t know when you will get that chance again, especially now that you are stuck in this house for another day or two. 

“Maybe we can make a fire for us in the bedroom; that fireplace should be used as well.” 

Your breath hitches in your throat, and heat rushes through you when he indicates that he wants to spend another night in that bed with you. His words from last night echo in your mind, ‘our bed’. 

The bile rises in your throat, and suddenly you feel your heart beating harshly. Your cheeks heat up despite the coldness in the air. You don’t even need any more encouragement, you have made your decision already. 

You never thought that you would even consider that, to try, to make a first move. You were never one to risk anything, let alone anything like this. But you are sure, you are so sure of it, so filled with hope. 

He has to feel the same, right? 

All these signals, all these signs, it can’t be just platonic. 

Even Eddie and Nancy see it, their teasing has to mean something. 

You take a deep breath, and before you can ponder and contemplate, you take a step forward and then another until you are standing next to him. 

His words pushing you to what you’ve wanted to do since last night, you decide to not waste anymore time and just do it now, knowing you might not get him alone again after this. 

“I… I really had fun last night… It’s been a while since I got to feel carefree like that.” You kill the silence between you, bringing back the conversation from the kitchen. 

A smile appears on his face, he takes the plastic cover off and throws it on the ground before he turns to face you, looking down at you. 

“Yeah, me too… and with great company at that.” He murmurs, his voice still raspy so early in the morning.

You bite your lip when his hazel eyes stare into yours. Your heart starts racing, the anticipation mixed with nervousness and vulnerability all crashing over you at once when you take a step closer to him. 

“I had fun spending time like that with you, Steve…” You say, trying not to expose the shakiness in your voice. 

You forget about the cold, not even feeling it on your skin anymore. You don’t hear the howling of the wind anymore either, only the pounding of your heart echoing in your ears. 

Steve notices the different emotions flickering in your eyes, the way your chest starts rising up and down faster, heavier. He senses the change of air, the tension moving into a different direction now. 

“Drunk?” He chuckles nervously when you move closer to him. His lips part, breath getting caught in his throat when you shake your head and reach your hand out to grab his bicep. 

“No… alone.” You whisper, gazing into his eyes now. 

Steve stops breathing, and his heart stops beating too. 

He looks into your eyes, into the eyes he had found so much warmth, so much comfort in. They are shining just for him. Your breathing is heavy, meaning that your heart is racing… just for him. 

He had wondered… He had thought about this so many times, dreamed about it even. His heart beats strongly every time he allows his mind to explore those thoughts. He dreams about how different things would be if you had met in a different world, in one where you would both be safe, in one where he wouldn’t have to fear losing you every second of every goddamn day. 

Things could be different. Things would be different if you weren’t here. 

“What…” He whispers, unable to keep his body from leaning down towards you. 

“I want to spend more time like that with you, Steve…” You whisper, blinking up at him in a way that nearly brings him to his knees when you confess. 

You take in his rosy cheeks, the moles on his skin you want to kiss, that strand of hair that keeps falling in front of his eye that you want to brush back for him so badly. 

With every inch you move towards him, closing the gap between you both, you feel your heart beating stronger, making it feel like it will rip through your bones and your flesh. You close your eyes and you take the leap. 

Steve’s eyes threaten to close when he feels your breath on his lips and your body pressed against his own. Everything he had longed for is in reach. Everything he wanted, you want too. It wasn’t just him. You want it too. You want it. You want him. He feels the brush of your lips against his own, and everything he had already suspected aligns inside of him. Everything inside of him yearned for you, not just his mind, not just his body but his heart and his soul. 

And he wants it so badly. He wants it. But even with the feelings inside of him, with the longing that will burn him alive in the long run, he can’t because this will only make the world a worse place for you both. If you both take this step, if you both give each other your hearts it will only kill you both if something happens to the other. 

So he closes his eyes, going against his own heart, and he softly pushes you away by your shoulders. 

“No, Sunshine.” 

It pains him physically to the point where he can’t even open his eyes to look at you. 

Everything inside of you stops. Your heart. Your lungs. Your mind. Everything. 

“I–I didn’t mean drunk… I meant–” Your voice is shaky, desperate, and yet still hopeful.  

“No, I know what you meant. But it’s not a good idea.” Steve clenches his jaw, hating how much his heart is screaming at him, even more so when he opens his eyes again and looks down at you. 

Your lips are parted, eyes wide and filled with confusion. Not yet registering the pain he had caused. You tilt your head at him. 

“I-I thought…I thought we…” Your voice breaks when he shakes his head at you. The back of your feet touch the ground again, and you take a step back from him, hand falling off his bicep. The back of your eyes start burning as it begins to sink in. The knife in your chest was twisted. 

You misunderstood. You misunderstood again, except this feels worse than anything ever has before because you were so sure. You were so sure. And you misread the lines, you misread everything. 

Steve’s eyes are filled with desperation, and he can’t mask that. He can’t hide that, and if you weren’t so shocked, so hurt, you would see it. 

His heart is aching inside his chest, his stomach is twisting as the fear grips at him, knowing that this just changed everything. 

But it’s for the better. 

It’s for the better for the both of you. 

“No…” He whispers, twisting the knife deeper. “I’m sorry if my actions showed something that wasn’t there.” 

You feel sick. You feel like throwing up. You feel like screaming at yourself for believing, for being so naive again. 

“Oh…” You whisper, unable to look at him, you lower your head and stare at the ground beneath you. “I… okay, I-I understand…” Except that you don’t. You don’t understand because you thought that he gave you all the signs, all the right signals and you thought that you were reading them correctly. It turns out that you didn’t because he never saw you as anything more than a friend while you were slowly falling. 

Steve just stands there, staring at you, watching the way you slowly crumble before him, and it hits him harshly. Guilt, regret, sadness, and anger rush through him, knowing the damage he caused to your heart, knowing that he is responsible for the pain flashing across your face as you wilt before him. 

The urge to grab you, to pull you into his arms, to fix this is so strong, but he can’t, he can’t, and it makes you both ache. 

“I’m sorry…” You whisper. 

You look so small before him, your voice weak and trembling. He broke you. He feels like he broke you, and it tears his heart apart.

He opens his mouth, but no words come out. Nothing will fix this now, nothing. He knows he should tell you the truth but if he does, it will only keep your hopes up so he says nothing and watches with saddened eyes and a pained heart how you turn away from him, your eyes blinking quickly as you reach for the wood, gathering as much as you can carry before you turn around without glancing at him. You walk away from him, and you walk out the door. 

And Steve, he stands there staring at the door you have walked through. He is now left alone with his thoughts, left alone with his aching heart, and it all overwhelms him. He crouches down, clenching his eyes shut as he holds his head tightly. 

“Fuck…” He whispers, pained. 

You don’t feel the snow on your skin, you don’t feel the coldness clinging to your body, you don’t even hear the howling wind as you make your way back towards the house. You don’t even know what you are feeling because you wish this moment wasn’t real, that it didn’t happen, that it was all just a dream. 

But it’s not. 

The door slams shut behind you after you make your way back inside. Your body moves on its own accord, walking into the living room, and you throw the wood down next to the fireplace. 

Your frown deepens as you look down, confused as to where you went off the path, where you had misunderstood. 

Footsteps echo in the hallway, but you don’t register them. 

Eddie comes rushing in, hair wet from the shower he took, a livelier look on his face before. A smile appears on his face when he sees the wood on the ground. He claps his hands together, rubbing his palms, “oh yeah, let’s get some warm stew started with this–” His smile slips when he notices the dissociated look on your face, “Sunshine?” He whispers. 

You snap out of your thoughts and turn to look at him. 

Eddie frowns when he notices the lost look in your eyes. He takes a step closer, worriedly placing a hand on your shoulder. 

“I-I uh… what?”

“Are you alright?” 

You open your mouth but flinch when the door opens and Steve’s footsteps fill the silent hallway. 

Eddie notices the way you duck your head, nodding at his question. 

“Yeah… Yeah.” You mumble softly before you walk away, practically rushing out of the room and up the stairs, leaving him standing in the middle of the room. 

Eddie stares at the doorway for a moment. His eyebrows are furrowed, and the confusion is evident on his face. 

“Huh…?” 

You are not okay. It isn’t hard to figure that out when you were cheerful and excited this morning. He follows you out, walking through the doorway, and he doesn’t even notice Steve standing by the door with a hollow look on his face and glassy eyes when Eddie follows you up the stairs. 

Steve doesn’t even know what to do with himself now, knowing that this just changed everything. He looks down at the wood he carried inside. Blinking away the tears, he doesn’t allow himself to cry. He carries the wood into the living room, dropping it next to where you had placed it. 

It overcomes him suddenly, the anger – the anger towards himself, the anger towards this world, the anger towards you. You did something he wanted to do for so long, but he kept holding back, he kept pulling back because this just can’t happen for so many reasons. He pulled back by making himself believe that you aren’t on the same page as he is, but you are, clearly you are, and now there is no denying left to do anymore, and it angers him. 

Steve clenches his fists as he stares into the fireplace, not yet lit. Irritation sparks in him as the boy inside of him, who once begged for love, is yelling at him; ‘why why why!’ 

He feels it so deeply inside his chest, as though someone is pounding against his ribcage from inside, letting him know that he just made the biggest mistake of his life, that he is gonna feel regret and guilt. 

And he will, it’s close by, all those emotions are waiting right around to corner, waiting for the perfect moment to land the strongest blow to his heart. 

And you, you shut and lock the door in the first room you could find privacy in. You press your back against it and slide down until you are sitting on the floor. You prop your elbows on your knees and close your eyes, taking deep breaths. 

You ignore the pounding on the door and Eddie’s concerned calls; you are too focused on your breathing, on calming down. 

Unwanted tears well up in your eyes. The rejection stings deeply in your chest, spreading like a virus inside of you, infecting your heart and all your organs with a sickening sadness. 

For once in your life, you thought that you could try, that you had a chance, that the hope you felt wasn’t born from silly delusions. You thought there was something. You really thought he wanted you. 

You were so sure that he wanted you. 

But he didn’t, of course he didn’t, how could he? No one ever did; he was no exception. 

A soft sob falls from your lips as the first tear cascades down your cheek. You bring your hand up to your lips, cupping it to muffle your cries as you can no longer hold it in. 

The realization begins to sink in that you have ruined something special, that you didn’t only lose this delusion you had of him, but that you also lost a friend because you couldn’t control your feelings. 

He won’t ever look at you the same again. 

And you won’t either. 

-

The wood crackles in the fireplace, the flames paint the room golden, the wind is still howling outside, no sign of it stopping any time soon. 

There is an awkward silence hanging over the room. Nobody is speaking, Eddie isn’t rambling, Nancy isn’t asking questions, Steve is staring into his bowl, not feeling the appetite to eat at all. And you aren’t there, you haven’t come out of your room since you locked yourself in there after coming back. 

Nancy’s blue eyes move across Steve’s face curiously. His expression is stoic, his jaw is clenched, and if she didn’t look into his pain filled eyes, she would have believed that the old Steve made a comeback. The angry, hateful one he was before you came along. 

It isn’t hard to figure out that something happened between you two because this morning you both looked like you came back from your honeymoon and now you are hauled up in your room while he is glaring at his soup like he is trying to make it explode with his mind. 

Nancy glances at Eddie, who is already looking at her. He knows as much as she does; nothing. He tried to make you talk, he tried knocking on your door a few times, but you kept lying to him, telling him that you had a headache and that you wanted to be alone. 

Nancy tried as well, but she had no luck either. 

And neither of them want to push him, not when he looks like this. 

When the time is right, he will speak up for himself. 

And he does, when he and Eddie are the only ones left awake. The two couches in the living room are occupied by them. Eddie is staring into the small flame in the fireplace, hand behind his head, and the other tapping against his chest. 

Steve is lying on the opposite couch, staring up at the ceiling. He is wide awake, exhaustion somewhere far away. He feels empty and cold without you in his arms. He doesn’t remember the last time he had slept without you. He had become so used to it, it turned into something normal. 

Is this his new normal again?

His eyes burn, and the coil grows in his throat as the sadness spreads inside of him. 

“She wanted to kiss me.”

Eddie freezes at Steve’s words. 

His hand freezes too as he stops tapping. His dark eyes move away from the fire, and he turns to his side to look at the brunette. He doesn’t speak, waiting for him to continue. 

“I pushed her away.” 

Steve’s voice is pained, Eddie can tell that much but it’s confusion that ripples through him. His eyebrows crease together as he pushes himself up on his elbow, staring at him intently. 

“What?” Eddie whispers, shaking his head. “W-Why?” 

Eddie knows how he feels about you, without having talked much about it, he knows. It’s in the way he looks at you, it’s in the way he smiles around you the most, it’s in the way he only allows you to get so close, it’s in all his actions that have to do with you. 

Steve is silent for the longest time, just staring up at the ceiling, blinking. He can’t hide his tears, not when he keeps sniffling as he thinks about you. 

“I don’t understand, Steve–”

“It just can’t happen.” He says bluntly. 

Eddie stares at him, eyebrows still pulled together, lips parted in confusion. His chest aches a little as he thinks about you and how you must have felt when he pushed you away. Guilt sparks inside of him as well because he had encouraged you. 

His eyes saddened, knowing the heartbreak you are feeling now. 

“But you…” Eddie murmurs, not understanding him. 

Steve turns to his side, turning his back on him. 

“It’s better if we stay friends and if we keep our distance.” Steve mumbles, like his own words don’t break his heart more. 

Like that’s possible after everything you have been through. 

Eddie feels a sliver of anger for him, but also pity because something is clearly holding him back. 

“But you can’t… you can’t sleep without each other.” Eddie whispers, knowing that this is the least of the problems, but it is a fact that Steve cannot deny. 

“Well, I have to get used to it, don’t I?” Steve snaps and pulls his blanket closer to his chin, sinking deeper into the couch as the first tear rolls down his cheek and soaks the pillow beneath his head. 

Eddie stares at him for a while, not knowing what else to do or say. All he feels is confusion and sadness for both of you, but especially you. 

A sigh falls from his lips, and he falls back on the couch, staring into the fire again. 

He knows that things are about to get messy. 

At that point, he just didn’t know how messy. 

-

By the time you walk into the kitchen the next morning, Nancy and Eddie have already eaten their breakfast. The latter is flipping through a magazine he found somewhere in the house while she is cleaning her gun. Steve is standing by the window, looking out with one hand on his hip and the other holding a freshly brewed cup of coffee. 

He is standing with his back to you, not yet noticing you. 

Your heart freezes still at the sight of him. You knew he would be here, of course you did, where else would he be? Yet you can’t stop yourself from feeling this way. 

Almost as though his body can sense your presence, his heart starts aching more painfully than before. He knows you are there before he even turns around to look. 

“Morning!” Nancy smiles at you, though it quickly fades when she notices how red your eyes are and how tired you look. 

“Morning, Sunshine.” Eddie says softly, eyes filled with pity as he looks you up and down. 

You braided your hair and showered, you made sure you looked fine, but you can’t hide the hours of tears you have shed, because your eyes are still puffy and red. 

“Morning,” you force a smile, which comes out looking like a grimace. You keep your eyes away from him and make your way over to the pot of coffee; at least the smell of it is welcoming. 

You can feel their eyes on you, Nancy’s confusing stares, and Eddie’s pitiful, sad ones. 

He feels guilty, you know he does. You don’t blame him for anything, though. He was just being a good friend, trying to encourage you to go after something your mind was already set on. 

The steam rises from your mug as you pour the coffee in. 

The silence is almost deafening, and you tense up a little when you feel him watching you too. 

The sadness is still deep inside of you, your chest still aching in pain, but there is also something else now that it all settled in. You feel humiliated and embarrassed and that feels worse somehow because you can’t avoid him. You can’t keep your distance the way you would be able to if the world weren’t like this, but then again, if the world hadn’t changed, you would have never met him, and maybe for the better, even if the thought breaks your heart. 

Nancy opens her mouth as her concerned eyes stay stuck on you, but before she can even ask if you are okay, Eddie kicks her under the table, shaking his head at her with big eyes. 

She presses her lips together, shutting her mouth. Her eyebrows furrow as she reads his eyes. It isn’t difficult to figure it out, especially when she takes a look at Steve who is standing there with tense shoulders and a look of guilt and desperation on his face as he watches you. 

Oh.

“I’m gonna check out the basement, see if they’ve got a secret armory somewhere.” Eddie murmurs, pushing back his chair as he gets up. His eyes are still on Nancy, motioning for her to come with him. 

“Yeah…” Nancy mumbles, eyes flickering back to you. Without even having to see your face, she can sense your sadness. “I’ll go with you.” 

Eddie looks over at Steve before he leaves, trying to make the man come to his senses, to fix this mess. He knows it’s probably too late but he won’t stop, not until Steve pushes his worries aside and goes for what he wants. 

You look down into your mug after pouring some sugar in. You are alone with him now, their footsteps echo down the hallway. You want nothing more than to turn heel and run, you don’t want to have to look at him, you don’t want to talk to him either; you need time. 

Time he won’t give you. 

He starts moving towards you, and you tense with each step that he comes closer. You are frozen in place by the time he is next to you. 

“Sunshine…” 

Steve is looking down at you. The guilt inside of him is eating him alive, seeing the pain etched into your features, the puffy red eyes that indicate the hours you have spent crying last night. His fingers curl into his palms, nails digging into his skin as he fights the urge to pull you into his arms the way he normally would, but he can’t, not now. 

He sees the tears that well up in your eyes because of him.

If only you looked at him, you would see the pain in his hazel eyes. The sadness, the aching, the yearning. 

“I’m–”

“It’s okay, Steve.” You whisper and turn away from him, not wanting him to see the tears in your eyes. “Please just… I need time, okay?”

Time. You need time to move on from him. 

Steve swallows the painful lump in his throat. The thought sickens him even though he knows that this is what’s best for you. 

He should shake his head. He should apologize for being such an idiot. He should tell you what worries him, what is holding him back. He should pull you into his arms. He should hug you. He should hold you. He should…

“Okay.” 

He should’ve. 

The silence becomes too loud when he leaves you standing there alone. 

Everything becomes too loud again. 

-

The days that follow after this are filled with a heavy tension that Eddie nor Nancy can explain. You avoid Steve, you avoid him as much as you can in the cramped up place once you are back inside the RV after four long days in the mansion. 

You steal Eddie’s spot in the passenger seat. He doesn’t mind it, but it is a little obvious, considering you never cared for it before. You want to avoid him at all cost, and everyone notices it, even the man ignored. 

Your cold shoulder begins to frustrate Steve after another two days pass. Almost a week of your silence now and it begins to drive him crazy. All you do is spare him glances, answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to any of his questions. 

You asked for time, and he understands it; he gives it to you, but he starts getting irritated. He feels tired, he feels angry, and the guilt lingers in him when he begins to snap at Eddie and Nancy, sparing you because you don’t even pay attention to him, and that begins to sting. Your cold shoulder hurts, the stoic tone in your voice hurts too, when all he’s used to is your warmth and the smile you greeted him with every morning. 

He is tired, so tired now that you don’t sleep in his arms anymore. Every time he closes his eyes now horrifying pictures flash in his mind, and every time he falls asleep, he wakes up minutes later, plagued by nightmares he hasn’t dealt with in so long. It’s just like before you, except now the nightmares are even worse because it’s not Robin getting ripped away from him anymore, it’s you now. All he can do is watch how you get torn apart while screaming his name,. He is frozen in place every time, watching the life drain from your eyes, but never looking away from him. He wakes up in cold sweat every time, heart pounding and chest heaving, and even though he knows it’s only a nightmare, he still has to get up to check on you.

He wonders if you are on the same page, if you struggle just as much as he does now that you don’t share a bed with him anymore. The tired look in your pretty features tells him that you do. 

The more days pass, the more distance grows between you. You are right there, and yet it feels like you are far away. You refuse to get paired up with him, asking for Nancy or Eddie instead whenever a run into a town is planned. 

He is being punished, he tells himself. 

It’s not you needing time anymore, it’s you punishing him, he is sure of it. That’s what the anger is telling him, at least. 

“I think you should talk to her.” 

Nancy’s voice sounds irritated, her face looks like it too. 

Eddie narrows his eyes at him, getting fed up with the both of you too but especially with Steve, knowing that things could have been different if he hadn’t been such an idiot. 

“Not like she’s gonna talk to me,” Steve murmurs as he runs a hand through his messy hair. “She’s just gonna stare and scoff as always.” 

Nancy rolls her eyes at him. You filled her in on everything, told him how he rejected you, how he told you that he doesn’t feel that way for you. And she would have understood it, if he told the truth, but he lied to you and now he is acting like a dick after tripping over his own mistake. 

“Can’t blame her, you’re an idiot.” She mumbles under her breath as she turns around to check on you. You are sitting on a bench, enjoying the lake view. 

Eddie asked for a break from driving, in need of fresh air and a cigarette. 

“What did you just say?” Steve glares at her, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You heard me.” Nancy challenges him, crossing her arms over her chest as well. Her protectiveness over you fueling her anger towards him. 

“Okay, okay.” Eddie takes one last drag of his cigarette before he throws it into the snow. He takes a step towards Steve, holding both hands out. “Not you two as well now. I’ve got enough of you and her,” he points his fingers to where you are sitting. “I don’t need any more drama, that RV is too small for that.” 

Steve takes a deep breath, opening his mouth to speak, but Eddie shakes his head at him and holds his palm up higher. 

“Nah, I’m speaking. You go and figure this shit out. You go and talk to her even if she doesn’t talk back, just go and fucking talk to her, it’s been a week and I can’t take this shit anymore.” Eddie exclaims, his eyes burning with despair. “I am not leaving until this tension is cut, alright!?”

Steve draws his eyes down, staring at the ground instead. He clenches his jaw and nods. 

“Alright.” He murmurs softly. 

“And you,” Eddie turns around to face Nancy, “you sit your ass down on this camping chair and eat your goddamn oatmeal.” 

Nancy raises her eyebrows at him, huffing as she uncrosses her arms. She takes another moment before she sits down, not without giving him another eye roll. 

Steve takes a deep breath, not even needing any encouragement from Eddie. His frustration is strong and the need to talk to you too. He glances at the metalhead, sighing before he starts walking away from him and towards you. 

He walks down the little hill, careful not to slip on the snow. He glances over his shoulder to see Eddie watching him, and this time he can’t help but roll his eyes. 

You hear the footsteps, the crunching snow beneath boots. You don’t turn around to look who it is but your heart senses him and you instantly tense up, unable to continue enjoying the sun shining down on you. 

Steve stops before you, looking down at you with hints of despair and anger in his hazel eyes. 

“Sunshine.” 

The tone in his voice makes your eyes snap open. You furrow your eyebrows, irritation building up in you already. 

You look up at him, raising your eyebrows in question when you find him glaring at you. 

“What?”

His throat bobs and his eyebrows crease together, lips curling into a frown. It feels so foreign to hear you snapping at him, to see you glaring at him. It makes him feel small and vulnerable, yet also angry. 

“I gave you time, it’s been a week… and we… we still don’t talk.” He starts, voice sounding tense. 

You push yourself up from the bench, standing before him now. 

“I don’t want to talk, Steve.” You mumble, ready to step around him and walk away, but he steps before you, blocking your way. 

The exhaustion in him, the irritation and the anger is only fueled by your words. He is desperate to go back to normal – as if that could ever be. 

“You don’t want to talk to me, is that it?” Steve asks, tilting his head down as he glares into your eyes. “Because I see you talking to them.” He throws his arm up in the direction of the RV. “And you seem fine when you talk to them.” 

You open your mouth but close it again when you can’t find the right words to say. Your throat tightens the longer you look at him. 

Humiliation runs deep inside you; that is the reason why you can’t talk to him, why you can’t even look at him. Because, how embarrassing and pitiful is the thought of him knowing how you feel about him yet not feeling the same? 

You shake your head, taking a deep breath. 

“Steve… That’s different–” 

“Different?” He scoffs and takes another step back, bringing his hand up to his hair, running his fingers through it. “I didn’t think that a stupid mistake like this would ruin our friendship.”

Stupid mistake. 

Another blow. Another slap in your face. 

A stupid mistake? 

By now, you know that you got all these signals from him wrong, that you saw something that wasn’t there, that you mistook his affection for something more, something you would never share with just a friend. 

Your shoulders slump as you blink, staring up at him, only now really taking a close look at him, enough to see the tiredness in his eyes, the exhaustion in his features. 

“That’s not fair.” You mumble, frowning at him. 

Steve nods, clenching his jaw as his eyes flash with anger. 

“You’re right, it’s not fair, Sunshine. We’re adults, and you can’t just act like a pouty brat because things didn’t go like you planned! I gave you time, I did as you asked. I want to keep being friends, I want to go back to how things were before because you mean something to me, but you are completely ignoring my feelings, acting childish!” His words are guided by all those negative emotions that boiled up inside of him, caused by the frustrations, the lack of sleep, and the anger that grew within himself. 

You drew back, like you had actually been slapped in the face. Your eyes flash with disbelief. The sadness that spread inside your whole body already was now burning but especially in your eyes. 

Your lips curl downwards, and tears well up in your eyes. You wish you felt anger instead; it would make things easier. 

Steve blinks, seeing clearer now after the anger wore off with the words he just threw at you. He takes a deep, shaky breath. The guilt punches him in his gut when he notices how hurt you look, and he wants nothing more than to slap himself. 

“I– Sunshine, fuck… I-I didn’t…” He pauses when you draw back further after he takes a step forward. 

You nod, blinking rapidly as you try to get rid of the tears in your eyes. 

“I see how you feel about me now…” You whisper, understanding now why he didn’t want you. 

Just like you had once suspected, he would never want someone like you. He made sure you knew beforehand, and yet you still fell. He called you immature before, more than once. And he was right, because maybe if you weren’t such a naive, childish woman, you would have taken a step back a long time ago and seen things for what they were, but instead you relied on your hopes and dreams, the way a child would. 

Steve shakes his head, his hazel eyes flashing with the need to explain, but you aren’t even looking at him anymore. 

“No, Sunshine… Please–”

A bone chilling scream cuts him off, echoing through the trees around you both, followed by a gunshot that you know is loud enough to lure anything close by in. 

“Eddie!” Nancy’s scream leaves shivers running down your spine. 

Your head snaps up, eyes locking with Steve’s in horror. Both of you push the fight aside, forgetting everything for a moment as you both turn around and start running up the hill, back to your friends. You reach for the gun in your holster, clicking the safety off. 

Your heart begins to pound in your chest, ringing in your ear, and tightening your throat as the shots keep going off. This moment reminds you too much of the attack not too long ago, and you aren’t ready, you aren’t ready to kill again. 

But it’s not people being a threat this time, no, it’s monsters, too many at that. The dog-like creatures that Eddie calls demodogs. Nancy keeps reloading her rifle, shooting the ones charging at her as her panicked eyes keep flashing back to Eddie who is swinging the axe around. 

There is so much blood, red blood in the white snow, both from the demodogs and from Eddie. You don’t have the time to look at where his blood is actually coming from because a demodog charges right at Steve, not even giving him the time to react as he reaches for his bat, which he left leaning against the RV. 

You raise your arms up, aiming at the demodogs’ head, taking the shot before it gets the chance to jump at him.

Steve flinches, turning around with wide eyes as he looks down at the twitching demodog at his feet. His eyes meet yours for a brief second, nodding at you. 

“Eddie, watch out!” Nancy screams. 

It all goes too fast, before you can even move, before you can even blink, you watch Eddie getting tackled to the ground, his head crashing against a tree root. 

Steve’s eyes are wide with horror, just like your own. He charges forward, swinging his bat against the demodog, who was ready to turn Eddie into its lunch. 

You start shooting at every demodog charging at you and your friends. The adrenaline kicks off inside of you. 

“Where are they fucking coming from!?” Nancy yells as her rifle clicks empty. You cover her back, aiming at the creatures coming from behind the trees. For the first time, you regret stopping by the forest. You don’t know where to look, where to aim at, too many for your liking, emerging from the woods. 

“Eddie! Eddie, don’t do this, man!” Steve’s desperate voice echoes as he crouches before his friend, who is fighting his consciousness. His eyes were opening and closing. Blood is oozing from his head and his leg. Dead creatures lie around him. 

Your heart drops when you see Steve shaking him, slapping his cheek as he tries to keep him awake.

Your breath gets caught in your throat first, Eddie’s name falling from your lips as you stare in horror. And then… the wind suddenly gets knocked out of you, the gun drops from your hand and into the snow, claws digging through your thick jacket as your body hits the cold ground. 

Your hand falls into the icy snow, your head hitting the harsh ground beneath it. You blink in pain as the world becomes blurry before you for a split second. You breathe in deeply, hand patting the ground in search of the gun that slipped from your hands. 

You hear your name being called. His voice calling out to you. 

And as you come to your senses again, your eyes widen in fear when you see the opening head, charging down at you, ready to feast on your flesh. 

For a split second, you see death welcoming you. The darkness ready to claim you, ready to take you into its cold embrace, to take your soul sooner than it was meant to. 

Everything flashes before your eyes. He flashes before your eyes. 

And then… it’s gone again, just like that. 

You scrunch your eyes shut as the body flies off you, slammed away with the nailed bat. You hear the flesh being teared open, the squelching as the bat repeatedly slams into the body. You open your eyes again, turning to your side as you try to catch your breath, watching Steve kill the creature that attacked you. 

Blood drips from his bat, and he only steps away once the body stops moving. His chest is moving up and down heavily, his dark eyes flashing with concern as he looks back down at you. He steps towards you, eyes moving up and down your body, fear flashing across his face. 

He almost forgets your surroundings, ready to drop to his knees before you and pull you into his arms but Nancy’s scream pulls him back onto the field and you both turn towards her, her rifle aimed at the demodog charging at her as she covers Eddie’s body with her own, but before she can even pull the trigger, a loud shot goes off, taken from a different direction, its head blown off and blood splattered across her jacket now. 

You look around, eyes wide and heart jumping to your throat when you see the men, four of them on horses, heavily armed. 

Nancy looks down at herself, watching wide eyed as the blood runs down her jacket. She glances only briefly at the men, before she drops her rifle on the ground beside her and crawls towards Eddie. 

“Eddie…Eddie!” Her panicked voice echoes. 

You push yourself up, searching for your gun in the snow as your hands begin to shake. The moment oh too familiar, the panic rises inside of you, stinging in your throat as breathing becomes a struggle. 

You find your gun and pick it up, holding it tightly as you step in front of Steve. 

“Sunshine…” He murmurs from behind you, taking a step closer, and he curls his hand around your wrist. His eyes flicker back and forth between his unconscious friend and the men moving closer to all of you, noticing how the demodogs start retreating, running back into the woods. 

“Steve! He is losing blood!” Nancy’s panicked voice finally gets to you. 

You blink, forcing your eyes away from the group moving towards you. You keep your finger on the trigger, ready to shoot if anything goes sideways again. You step over the dead bodies, stepping over the blood as you and Steve rush over to Eddie. 

Concern rushes through you when you take in the sight of him. He is out, unconscious, and barely breathing. Blood is coating his cheek and his ear, oozing from the wound on his head. You forget about the panic inside of you, about the group of strangers coming closer, about everything. Your heart is pounding strongly, and the despair inside of you is growing. 

“Oh my god,” you whisper as the paralyzing fear takes hold of your body. “Eddie…”

Nancy already tended to the wound on his leg, but she looks a little helpless as she stares at the wound on his head – it’s not that she doesn’t know what to do, it’s the fact that the panic inside of her makes her unable to work. The logical part of her brain is shut off, the emotional part stronger now as she cries for her best friend. Her hands shake terribly as she stares at him, her blue eyes filled with tears as she keeps repeating his name. 

Steve stares down in horror, frozen and paralyzed. The sight before him reminding him too much of the day he lost her. He doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know how to move. 

He wishes it were only one of his nightmares. 

“Hey.” The stranger's voice makes your head snap up, hand holding onto the gun tightly. The man holds his hands up after he gets down from his horse. He takes no step forward yet, trying to show you that he means no harm. His blue eyes move across your little group before they settle on Eddie. “Mind if I take a look? I can help.” 

Nancy looks up before you can say anything. She nods, without even taking a look around first, without making sure that they aren’t bad people, and it only shows you just how desperate she is to save her friend, not caring about the potential danger. 

And you know that you can’t care about it either right now, not when Eddie is bleeding out in the snow. 

The man crouches down before Eddie, eyebrows furrowing as he leans down and carefully picks his head up. 

He eyes the wound, touching around it before he checks for a pulse. “Weak pulse, but it’s there.” He looks up, eyes moving back and forth between Nancy’s panicked ones and Steve’s frozen ones, finally they lock with yours. “He needs medical attention… immediately. He’s got a concussion and an open wound,” he pauses, glancing at Eddie’s leg, at the makeshift bandage around it, blood oozing through it too. “He definitely needs stitches, maybe even surgery.” 

You look back and forth between him and his men who are still on the horses, watching out for any incoming threat.

“We got a little community down the road, we got doctors and all medical supplies necessary–”

“Okay, okay!” Nancy nods, wiping away her tears. “Take us there!” 

Under any other circumstance, she would have never reacted this way, neither would Steve or even you, but you have no choice at this moment. All you can do is get up and take a step back, watching the strangers carry Eddie into the RV after wrapping up his head. 

Nancy follows inside right away, taking a seat beside Eddie. 

Steve is staring at the blood in the snow, Eddie’s blood. He is barely blinking, barely breathing. His body is frozen. 

“Steve!!!” Her voice echoed in his head as if she were there on the floor again, getting dragged, her hand reaching out for him desperately.

Your chest aches, eyes softening as you see the state he is in. The fear of losing another friend set so deeply inside of him. You take a step towards him after putting your gun back into your holster, reaching out to take his hand, “Steve?”

The touch of your hand, the softness in your voice calling out his name, instantly grounds him, pulling him back to here. He blinks as he stares into your eyes. 

“Come on…” You whisper, squeezing his hand. 

He curls his hand around your own, holding on tightly, like he is scared you were gonna let go again. His heart warms at your touch, at the caring look in your eyes. 

“Eddie’s gonna be okay.” You mumble softly. “But we need to go now…”

You try to let go of his hand as you guide him towards the RV, but his grip on your hand only tightens, not letting you let go. 

“Okay.” You whisper, taking one last look around before you step inside the RV, pulling him in with you. 

The man tending to Eddie’s wound, steps away when you walk in. The guy beside him, looking no older than seventeen, gives you a nod before he walks past you and out of the RV. 

“I’ll stay with you, guys. Either of you wanna drive, or do you want me to?” The man who took care of Eddie asks, looking between you both. 

You glance at Steve, who drops the bloody bat on the ground. He fishes out the keys from his pocket, handing them to the man, “you can drive, doesn’t matter anymore.” 

The man gives him a curt nod, understanding what he means by that. He grabs the keys, wasting no time to get into the driver's seat. 

You close the door behind you and lead Steve towards the bench, sitting down with him, you glance at Nancy, who is sitting beside Eddie, holding his hand. 

“I know it ain’t mean much in this world, but I promise we’re good people.” The stranger you have yet to learn the name of speaks. 

Steve nods, not saying anything but squeezing your hand – a silent promise to protect you if it comes down to it. 

For a moment, whatever happened between you two before all this, vanished. You keep holding his hand, and he keeps caressing your knuckles the way he did before, when things were still okay between you. 

Steve’s eyes move back and forth between his friend and you, while you look out the window, preparing for whatever is about to come. 

You shift in your seat, eyes flicking back and forth between the window and the man driving the RV. He has a gun in his holster, a belt around his waist, knives, and an axe secured in it. His clothes are clean, cleaner than those of the people who attacked you on the street. 

You don’t know how long it took you to get there, but it felt like hours, the more you looked at Eddie, just laying there without any movement. Steve’s hand tightens around you, and his back straightens when he sees the gates that keep the community safe from the outer world. 

The man opens the window, waving at the guard on one of the towers who is holding a rifle, looking down at the RV with a skeptical look on his face. 

The sudden crackling noise of a walkie startles you a bit. 

“Open the gate, it’s me.” The man grumbles into his walkie. “Tell Charlie to be ready, we've got a code one.” 

“Copy.” The man on the tower nods, signaling with his arm towards someone standing on the other side of the gate. 

You lean forward as you watch the gate open, you keep holding onto Steve’s hand as the RV starts driving again slowly. Your body is restless, heart pounding in your chest, nerves running high as your eyes take in the sight before you. 

There are guards, four of them, two on each tower, two by the gate. They nod at the driver once the RV passed the gates, all of them are armed with rifles. They all look like military minus the attire. 

As you drive further into the community that looks like a small town, you notice people walking down the street, others standing by a building that looks like an old bakery, chatting and laughing with each other. You see a playground and children playing there, throwing snowballs at each other. 

This place looks like it has been untouched by the outer world – it looks odd compared to what you have seen all these months. 

You and Steve turn to look at each other, your eyes sharing the same emotions. 

Once the RV stops in front of what you assume is the infirmary, you and Steve get up. You let go of his hand, placing it over your gun instead, just in case. 

The man driving the RV, kills the ignition and removes the keys, handing them back to Steve with a nod. 

“I’ll get some help, y’all stay here.” He mumbles before he brushes past Steve and opens the door, leaving it open as he makes his way into the building. 

Your heart is still pounding both in fear for Eddie and in anxiety of being stuck in a place you know nothing about. You just hope that you didn’t walk right into a trap. 

Eddie’s unmoving body makes you feel sick, the thought of losing him crossing your mind when you see just how much blood he has lost. You aren’t sure if and how you would keep going if it happened – let alone how they would keep going. 

Steve can’t even find it in himself to care about the potential danger you are all in. He is staring at Eddie, still frozen in place, hand searching for yours again. You won’t deny or reject him now, you slip your fingers through his and give his hand a squeeze that says ‘I’m here, no matter what, I’m here.’ 

“Howdy.” A man wearing a white coat greets you, clearly the doctor. He offers you a kind smile as he brushes past you and Steve, already having noticed Eddie on the bed. “Let me take a look.”

You and Steve step aside when two other men walk in, carrying a stretcher. 

“Alright, let’s get him inside.” The doctor orders. 

Everything moves quickly after, a blur thanks to the adrenaline and worry. The men carry Eddie outside of the RV and into the infirmary. Nancy follows first, her panicked look never fading. You and Steve follow, his hand still clinging to yours as you step into the unfamiliar place. 

The smell of disinfection hangs heavy in the air. The place looks clean, spotless. You pass by a few rooms, noticing the medical equipment in all of them. 

“You guys can wait here, Aaron will be right with y’all.” The doctor explains, looking mostly at Nancy, who doesn’t want to step away from Eddie. 

She nods, blinking away tears that still linger in her eyes. 

“Here.” The doctor gestures to the chair behind her, “take a seat, I’ll update you in a minute, alright?”

“Alright… Alright.” Nancy murmurs and sits down, breathing shakily. 

The doctor looks up from her, glancing between you both, “you too.”

“Yeah, okay.” You nod at him, assuming that Aaron must be the guy who drove the RV. 

The doctor walks into the room where Eddie was carried into. He closes the door behind him, leaving you all in the quiet hallway. You take a deep breath, noticing how much your heart is still pounding, how much your hands are shaking, even with the touch of his hand. 

You turn to look at him, his eyes are so hollow, and he looks so lost. It hurts to see him like this. 

“Come on,” you whisper as your eyes trace his features. “Let’s sit.” 

Steve nods, agreeing almost robotically. He sits down, and you follow, taking the seat between him and Nancy. You glance at her, your heart clenches in your chest. You reach your hand out and squeeze her forearm. 

She nods at you, trying to smile, but you can see how much she is struggling to, how scared she is. 

You want to assure her, to tell her that he will be alright, but your words are caught in your throat. You don’t know how much time passes as you sit there, but it feels like forever. The clock on the wall across from you is ticking. Nancy is bouncing her knee beside you, unable to find rest. You are on the same page, and Steve is too, but his eyes are frozen, stuck on the ground. 

It seemed as if the people here knew not to offer anything until you all had a bit more trust in them. Maybe waiting for the leader or the head of the community to have a word with you all first, which made sense. 

The door at the end of the hallway opens, making you all straighten your backs. The man who brought you here, Aaron, you assume, steps in. He closes the door and makes his way over to you. 

“Hey guys.” He nods at you all, rubs his hands together, and leans against the wall across from you, crossing his feet. “Charlie’s a good doctor, your friend will be alright.” He starts, assuring you. 

Nobody speaks. No one even knows what to say. 

“Are y’all looking for a place to stay or just passing through?” He asks, looking between all of you. 

“Passing through.” Steve mumbles from beside you, eyes hard as he looks at the man. 

“Where’s your destination?” 

Steve falls silent again, clearly not trusting the man despite the help he’s provided so far. 

And you might not be the best judge, but you can tell that he is harmless, at least if he wants to be. His stance and his body tells you that he is trained, years of military experience probably. Even with the thick jacket on, you can tell that he is muscular. He surely doesn’t need the weapons on him to do some damage. Besides, this place wouldn’t be filled with people and children if they had ill intentions. 

“California.” Nancy says, surprising both you and Steve, earning a glare from the latter. 

“Oh?” He pushes himself off the wall, eyes sparking with interest. “The beach?” 

“Yeah.” She nods. 

He hums, nodding as he looks between you all, eyes lingering on you for a moment. 

“You guys from Hawkins?” 

Steve tenses up beside you, eyebrows creasing together as his lips part. 

“We had a little group passin’ through a while back, probably a year back by now,” he explains. “They were from Hawkins, heading to California as well.”

Nancy and Steve share a look before they look back at him, eyes sparkling with interest now. He straightens up beside you, still holding your hand. 

“One of the teens got sick, so they had to stay here for a week. We gave them medicine and recipes in case of any sicknesses in the future–”

“Teens?” Steve asks, leaning forward. “Which one?” He asks, hope rising up inside of him. 

The man before you furrows his eyebrows, “curly hair, lisp, he uh had cleidocranial dysplasia–”

“Dustin.” Steve sighs, worriedly to find out that he dealt with a sickness, but relieved to know that he is alright. 

Nancy sighs beside you, her eyes widening in relief. 

“Yeah, that was his name. We’re still in contact with them, if you want to, I’ll take y’all to the radio station tomorrow morning. I’m assuming your friend will need to stay in the infirmary tonight, maybe tomorrow too. You guys will get a place to stay–”

“I don’t wanna leave Eddie.” Nancy shakes her head. 

“I understand. You can move into one of our cabins tomorrow morning, after you talk to your friends.” 

You and Nancy nod, feeling more comfortable with that. 

Steve doesn’t seem fond of the idea, but he doesn’t argue against it, knowing that Dustin and the others were here shows him that he can put aside his distrust. 

The door opens before any of you can speak up again. The doctor walks out, causing all of you to tense up, Nancy especially. 

“He’s got a mild concussion, head injury looked worse than it actually was, but he lost a lot of blood on his leg. The cut was pretty deep. We stitched it up, but needs a blood transfusion.” He explains, looking down at Nancy. “You know his blood type?” 

“He’s a type B.” She says, voice filled with anxiety because she can’t help.

Steve huffs beside you, worriedly. 

“I’m type B too.” You speak up, letting go of Steve’s hand, you waste no time getting up and take off your jacket. “You can take my blood.” 

Steve leans forward, looking up at you with wide eyes. 

The doctor nods, he opens the door to the operating room, and gestures for you to step inside. You do, stepping forward and towards the room, you look back at him one more time. He is staring at you, eyes filled with emotions that could have fooled you. Soft and filled with something that you swore wasn’t just platonic. 

Were you really so far off? 

Or was he just giving the wrong signs? 

A soft touch on your hand pulls you back, and you look down, meeting Nancy’s eyes and her sad smile, “thank you,” she whispers, squeezing your hand. 

“Of course.” You squeeze her hand back before you let go and walk into the room. Eyes falling on Eddie’s body on the bed right away. Your heart clenches in your chest at the sight of him, face falling. The machines are beeping loudly beside him, his body still unmoving. 

“Aaron.” The doctor calls for the blue eyed man, motioning for him to follow inside. “Set the IV will ya?”

Steve tenses up, not wanting to be without you, not wanting you to be left alone with a stranger. He refuses to move away from his spot, refusing to walk into any other room and further away from you. 

The door closes behind you, and the man, Aaron, takes his jacket off, hanging it on the hook on the door. He walks over to the sink and washes his hands, glancing at you. 

“Take a seat, ma’am.” He gestures to the chair beside Eddie’s bed. 

You nod, making your way towards Eddie. You eye him, your eyes filling with sadness as you take his state in. 

You sit down without tearing your eyes away from him. The thought that you couldn’t protect him, that this happened again, sickens you. Guilt sparks up inside of you. If you hadn’t been so busy arguing with Steve, this wouldn’t have happened. 

Oh, Eddie. 

“You okay?” The man asks as he steps up before you, two needles and an IV line in his hand. 

“Yeah.”

“You’re not afraid of needles, are you?”

“No,” you shake your head. 

“Alright,” he nods, smiling softly at you. “Take your sweater off, please.”

You reach for the hem of your sweater, feeling glad for the tank top you have on underneath. You throw the sweater over the chair and lean back. 

“I’m Aaron, by the way.” 

You raise your eyebrows and look up to find him looking at you already, getting the IV line ready after injecting the needle into Eddie’s arm. He leans down before you, moving closer, and he sprays some disinfectant on your arm before he checks for a vein. 

You give him your name, offering a kind smile when his eyes meet yours.

“Nice to meet you,” he smiles, tilting his chin down. “You’re from Hawkins too?” He asks, distracting you from the needle he injects into your skin. 

“No,” you shake your head, ignoring the sting. “I’m from Nevada.”

“Oh, you’re a long way from home then.” 

You nod, eyes following the tattoos on his skin that disappear under the sleeve of his shirt. 

“Yeah, I was in New York for college when all this started…” 

He raises his eyebrow, not looking away from the IV until it starts drawing blood and flooding through the line. 

“You found your way to Indiana?” Aaron asks, eyes meeting yours again. 

“Yeah, stumbled right into Hawkins,” you say, smiling at the memory. 

“You were on your own before?” 

You nod, avoiding his eyes as he stares at you, his blue eyes moving across your face. It isn’t difficult to see how handsome he is, even in this state you are in, troubled by worry and anxiety, you still see it, you would have to be blind not to.

“Brave girl.”

You cast your eyes on the ground, blushing. 

He smiles to himself when he notices your reaction, and he takes a step back, checking on Eddie. 

“Alright, I’m gonna get you something to eat, you’ll need it after.”

“Okay,” you nod, giving him a small smile before you look over at Eddie. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome, ma’am.” 

You are left alone with silence and your own thoughts after he leaves the room. You sink into the chair, keeping your eyes locked on your friend. The exhaustion of this day is catching up to you slowly, tiredness taking over you, and sleep envelopes you quickly, welcoming you with open arms. 

-

“Psst.” 

You feel something poking your arm, shaking you. 

“Sunshine.” 

Your eyebrows crease, your mind still hazy, feeling far away somewhere.

“Don’t die, you’re still a virgin.”

You open your eyes, frowning in confusion, needing a moment to take in your surroundings. Eddie’s kind eyes meet yours, a loopy smile on his face. 

You look down at his arm, the needle and the IV gone, a bandaid covering the spot the needle poked through. 

“There she is,” he grins. 

A groan falls from your lips, your back hurting from falling asleep on the uncomfortable chair. You don’t even register the comment he made. You blink, needing a moment to fully wake.

“I was kinda hoping the pain meds would get me high but I don’t feel shit.” Eddie frowns, pouting as he looks at you. 

You eye him up and down, moving closer, something falls off your shoulders and you look down, frowning when you notice a blanket that wasn’t there before. You glance at the bedside table, a chocolate bar and a glass of orange juice standing there for you. 

“Can’t believe you gave me your blood, we’re blood sisters now.” Eddie grins, trying to make you smile. 

You look up, shaking your head at him. Is he really not high?

“Come on, I’m trying to make you smile.”

“I appreciate that,” you mumble, tilting your head to the side. “I’m happy you’re back. Are you okay?” 

Eddie’s smile curls into a softer one, his brown eyes flashing with sympathy, knowing you feel guilt for not getting to him sooner. “I’m okay. Can’t believe they got me twice.” He murmurs. “Also, can’t believe I got Nancy Wheeler crying over me, she was full on sobbing when she and Steve came in before.” He chuckles, like they aren’t best friends. 

Was Steve the one who put the blanket around you? 

“I’m sorry, Eddie…” You whisper, reaching for his hand as you eye the bandage around his head, the bruise forming on the side of his head. 

The anxiety, the anger from the day before has passed and left your body. All that is left now is the sadness and heartbreak, mixed with guilt from not being able to protect him. 

His painful screams echo in your mind just like Steve’s hurtful words dawn on you again, repeating themselves in your brain over and over again. 

You rarely cried before, you never cried when you were on your own, you found it hard to. But now tears well up in your eyes, and you can’t push them away. 

“Hey…” Eddie whispers, his smile falling when he notices your face crumbling. “Sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper weakly as the first tears begin to fall, rolling down your cheek before you can even stop it. “If I hadn’t done anything, or tried anything at all with him, I wouldn’t have asked to stop for some air because the RV suffocated me with him in there and–”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Eddie shakes his head, grabbing your hand and pulling you closer, trying to hug you. You welcome it, lying your head on his chest carefully. 

He knew it was bound to happen, he knew you were gonna break down sooner or later after Steve’s rejection. 

“I got you.” He whispers, running his fingers through your hair as cry softly. “Please tell me that idiot apologized.” He mumbles, remembering how he sent him to talk to you. He didn’t have the chance to ask him before, one of the male nurses came in and asked them to follow him for a general checkup. 

You shake your head, keeping your eyes closed. 

He looks down at you, and the pain is written across your face. 

“What happened…?” He whispers, frowning. 

You shrug, not wanting to tell him. 

“Sweetheart–”

The door opens, and someone steps in, making you pull away from Eddie. You quickly wipe your tears and turn around. 

“You alright, Honey?” Aaron asks, looking at you. 

Eddie raises his eyebrows as he eyes the man, head tilting to the side in curiosity when he notices the way he looks at you. 

“Yeah,” you nod, sniffling as you glance at Eddie. “I’m just happy this moron is awake.” 

“Hey, I have feelings!” Eddie gasps, acting offended. 

Aaron chuckles as he walks over to him, checking the vital signs on the monitor. 

“You’ll be fine in a week or so. Gotta keep the injury in check, Doc had to give you some stitches.” He explains. 

“Oh man, a scar no one can see?” Eddie whines.

You giggle at him, shaking your head. 

Aaron looks at you, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Eddie. The man clears his throat and steps back, “alright, whenever you are feeling like you are ready to walk again, I’ll show you to your cabin.” He explains, nodding at you. “And you should eat something, you gave a lot of blood.” 

You nod, casting your eyes down shyly. 

“I’ll come check on you in a few hours again, but for now, you should rest some more, Eddie.” Aaron says as he makes his way to the door. “Your friends are outside, I’ll send them in.” 

Eddie nods at him, waiting until he is gone. He clears his throat, a smirk tugging at his lips as he looks down at you. 

“Sweetheart.”

“Yeah?” You mumble as you take a sip of the orange juice. 

“Found you a Cowboy.” 

You almost spit out your juice, coughing loudly as you punch your chest in order to push the rest down. Eddie chuckled but winced as the action made the stitches move slightly. 

“I’m– Not interested.” You say, and Eddie sighs, shaking his head at you.

“Have you seen that man? I’ll be forever pissed at you if he makes a move and you don’t take it.” You blink a few times, surprised by Eddie’s words and– You have seen him.

You took notice before of his features, his eyes, his beard, his clothes, and the roughness of his voice. It was hard not to, even in the situation you were all in. Yet–

“Eddie?” Nancy rushed in, a smile on her face as Steve breathed heavily, right behind her. They both rushed to Eddie’s side, and you could only see the brown haired guy that was smiling with relief, as he hugged his friend after Nancy had her share.

Your heartstrings tugged at you, painfully so. Your fingers wrapped around the blanket again as you felt a shiver run down your spine. Yeah, Aaron was handsome, as Eddie put it. 

But those blue eyes had nothing against hazel ones.

Not even close.

☀︎

welp I am sorry. here is Aaron for y'all (face claim. not the actual actor, they just happen to have the same name lmao)

taglist: @prettyboyeddiemunson @pretentious-blonde @thecreelhouse @tvserie-s-world @thesickestqrmydcll @crispystarfishhottub @sophal22 @definitionwanderlust @talkativecarnation @mysticalwoolenfroglegs @ariesandwolves @mortqlprojections @sattlersquarry @sherrylyn0628 @purpleeyeswithgoldensparkles @micheledawn1975 @keepingitlokiii @littleromanoff2005 @sunshine-mrk @xxladymjxx @bananasplits-world @myharrington

[thewayitalknj]

I've been listening to a lot of Mötley Crüe lately to hopefully manifest me seeing them in Las Vegas next year. Came up with this while driving, which is how a lot of my ideas come to be recently. Word Count - 1.6k

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Full Mini-Series Masterlist Here

"Come on please, I have no idea what they have planned and it's killing me." He was practically begging you at this point. You roll your eyes as you walk down the next aisle, stacking the next set of 'romantic comedies' that just came in.

"Eddie, it's your birthday, it's supposed to be a surprise. And can you please stop bugging me while I'm working?"

"Yeah yeah sure I'll stop bugging you" he grits his teeth, "if you tell me what they have planned."

You turn around fully facing him, pushing your glasses back up your nose, taking your voice down to a whisper. "Look I truly have no idea what the fuck they have planned so please stop asking. Just be grateful they're doing something with you and you're not spending your birthday alone." You turn back around, making your way to the 'horror' section.

"At least come with me-"

"I can't, I have my bookclub tonight. But come to my place and tell me all about your guys night tomorrow if you're not too hungover."

He huff's his breath up, his bangs moving in the process. "Thanks a lot."

"I'm sure you'll have a blast."

A strip club. A fucking strip club. As much as Eddie appreciated what his friends were doing this is not what he expected. All he wanted was a guy's night in playing D&D and watching movies but no, his friends had to go all out.

The worst part is it was 'dress up night', so the strippers would be in various costumes. His friends thought the better, dress up plus dancing ladies ; what more could anyone ask for?

After a few hours sitting in a booth a few drinks in, an announcement sounded over the DJ speakers ; "alright everyone we have a birthday in the house! We want to welcome our birthday boy in Booth 21 to come on up for a special dance!" As everyone roared with excitement Eddie blushed under the neon lights.

"Why are y'all doing this to me?"

Garth pushes him forward, "Because we love you, NOW GO!" Eddie reluctantly makes his way up and sits on the chair provided for him. He drums nervously on his knees waiting for the song to start.

The next dancer comes to take the stage, dressed in all red, devil horns, and a red laced mask. Her hair is curled, not one piece left undone. She steps into the spotlight, and Eddie swears time halts and he has to take breath in order to steady himself. He is mesmerized. She slowly makes her way over, putting her hands on both sides of the chair. She eyes him up and down smirking to herself and as her song begins to play ; taking control of the room.

Eddie feels like he's fallen under some sort of spell, like something he wrote out for a campaign. He's so enthralled he completely forgot he was in a room with other people. He watches every move she makes ; the way her hips sway, how she doesn't come too close but just enough to tease him, and the way she makes eye contact with him? Forget about it ; Eddie swears he's falling in love with her right then and there, even though this was his first interaction with the mystery woman.

And in the three minutes the song plays, Eddie is so thankful his friends took him out. He tries to memorize every detail of the devil, just in case he decides to come back another time. Maybe on his own? Maybe with buddies again? Who knows, but he just had to remember her. Particular details ran through his head ; the hair style, the color of her eyes, and while she moved her body up against his, he noticed a small birthmark on the left side of her body, ironically shaped like a heart right above her heart ; and be still his own heart. Right when the music fades and the crowd begins to cheer breaking him out of his headspace, she leans in to his ear and with a sultry voice whispers "happy birthday sweetheart" and it's right then and there Eddie could have been shot through the chest by an arrow and he would feel no pain.

His posse of course never let him see the end of it, with constant teasing as the night went on. One thing was for sure, he could not wait to tell you about his night in the morning.

Eddie couldn't wait, he was practically banging at your door at 9:00am. You reach for your glasses on the nightstand, pull your hair in a messy bun and make your way towards the front door. You look through the peephole and Eddie is waving.

"Ed, what the hell-"

"I gotta tell you about last night." He races in, high on adrenaline pacing your living room.

"Good morning to you too-" You shut the front door, "can I please make some coffee first? I'm exhausted."

"Bookclub ran late?"

"Something like that. Want a cup?"

"Sure, thanks." You sulk to the kitchen and make your coffee, wondering what the hell has Eddie all wound up. You make your way back, handing him his cup as he takes a seat on your couch. "Damn, what book are you ladies reading that has you staying up so late?"

"It's nothing. So tell me, how was your birthday?"

"Amazing, they took me to a strip club."

You swallow your coffee, hard. "Oh wow, what an event."

"You're telling me, it was incredible. Well at least, she was incredible."

"Oh god Eddie don't tell me you fell in love with a dancer-"

"You don't understand. There was just something about her, I-I know it sounds corny but it was like magic. I've never felt like that before." He looks around your living room, then reaching over and grabs your shoulders playfully, shaking you. "Am I going crazy?!"

You laugh, "I don't think so. I just find it hilarious that it's a fucking stripper you're talking about."

"Yeah, well-" Just as Eddie begins to move his arms something catches his eye.

A birthmark. On the left side of your body. In the shape of a heart. He looks into your eyes, the same color and sparkle that were under the mask. He looks at your hair, it's normally straight, why does it look curly and wavy?

All these small details come together in his head. He moves his hands off you and runs them through his own hair, piecing everything together.

"So yeah, uh-enough about me...how was...bookclub?"

"Oh god you don't wanna hear about my bookclub. Why-"

"No no, I do..want to hear....about the bookclub. Please tell me." He takes another sip of his coffee, staring at the birth mark.

You follow his eyes, "is there something on me?"

"Hm, no. Just....so, bookclub?"

"Oh you know, just another night of girl talk about a steamy romance novel and too much wine, just the norm." Eddie can't even think straight, all the events from last night come rushing to his head.

You ponder at him wondering if he's okay, "sweetheart are you alright? You're starting to worry me."

Sweetheart, a nickname normally used frequently but now it's different. He jolts up from your couch. "I gotta go. Dustin and I have...stuff-to do."

You're dismayed, just nodding your head. "Um okay, but if you need anything just let me know-"

"Yeah uh thanks. And thanks for uh the coffee and...talk."

He speedily exits your home, and you're left wondering if maybe just maybe...

Just a Few Hours Ago

You stand off stage looking out to the man sitting on the chair. Only to realize it was Eddie.

"Oh shit-"

"What's up girl? Everything okay?" Your co-worker, Jade, comes up behind you.

"I-I can't go out. You take my slot instead."

"What, why? I'm not on for another 20, why do you want to switch?" She signals to Cassie, the DJ, to hold off on the music. Cassie gives a thumbs up and waits.

"I know the guy sitting in the chair, he's one of my friends. I can't...dance for him."

"Why? He won't know it's you, we're all dressed up tonight."

"Yeah but it's just...awkward that I know and he...doesn't."

"Look, I understand where you're coming from but I think you should just do it. He won't know it's you, does he know you work here?"

"No no, he's here with his friends for his birthday," You watch him drum on his legs, probably nerves. "I wouldn't picture him as someone who would want to come out and do this but, there he is."

"So, give him the dance of his life. Something he'll never forget. Remember, you're not going out as yourself." You nodded your head, Jade was right. You signal back to Cassie to start your song when ready. You quietly thank Jade, take a deep breath and take the stage.

24 Hours Later

As you apply your lipstick looking in the mirror, your other coworker Bianca comes in. "Hey B! How was your daughter's band recital?"

She takes a seat next to you giving you a half hug. "It was great! She crushed her solo, I'm so proud of her."

"That's incredible. I can't wait to see the tape!"

"Oh before I forget, Pam wanted me to tell you you got a private dance at 10:30."

"Wait, really?" You ponder, turning around in the chair. "I haven't done a private dance in weeks."

"Guess someone really likes you because they asked for you specifically."

"Oh wow. Really? Okay then, thanks for the heads up."

"No problem, be safe!"

Once 10:30 rolls around you make your way to Room #2, opening the door and stopping dead in your tracks the moment you see who it is, casually lounging on the couch.

"Sup sweetheart?"

Quick Notes - Hope you enjoyed! :) Thank you for reading! Reblogs are much appreciated! Maybe Part 2? idk.

[pampushky]

Mon Petit Doudou

Pornstar! Charles Leclerc/Pornstar! Reader - 7.4k

here it is!! enjoy! please reblog and share and all that lovely stuff! getting your comments makes my day and seeing how excited everyone was for this made me super happy :)

uhhh anyway. Might be a bit inaccurate, I'm not all that well versed in BDSM stuff so if anything is like... a super negative connotation within the community that's inaccurate (besides one character who has bad etiquette for plot reasons sorry)

anyway lmk what ya think lmao

masterlist |

He was too beautiful to be doing something like this for a living. With those bewitching hazel eyes. The effortlessly styled hair. His athletic build. The sweet slur of his accent as he lowered his voice to a sultry level when he talked to you.

But weren’t you as well? Wasn’t that why you fought so hard for your anonymity? That was why you had only ever allowed your mouth or lower to be seen in any stream or video, combined with the concealer that hid away any tattoos or marks from the prying eyes of those who watched you pleasure yourself on camera. Why you never wore your glasses to any professional shoot. It became a necessity to dress so differently on and off screen.

So why did it feel so weird now? Two of you, the same profession between you as you discuss plans for your… collaboration. Charles smiles at you. Stubbly beard and white teeth, a bit of the foam from his coffee clinging to his mustache. Perfectly styled hair as though he’d just stepped out of a convertible. You know you look similar. The soft cardigan slipping off your shoulders. Exposing the delicate tattoos of rue on your upper arms that circled your biceps and danced up to your shoulders.

Herb-of-grace. Purity. Innocence. How ironic for you, considering what your profession had turned into. From a part-time job to a serious career that often ended up having better benefits and more money. 

Charles leans forward, whispering something in French you don’t quite catch, making you frown as he cackles, leaning back. Other tables at the cafe look at the two of you, and you can see the adoration in their eyes. You look like the perfect couple. In a way, you are, just not a romantic one. A spoiled rotten sub and the protective, sweet dom.

“I think you should let them see the tattoos, no? I think they would like it,” Charles says, shit eating grin on his lips. “What does the rue flower represent again?” Because he damn well knows what it means, he just likes to tease you.

“You’re impossible,” you take a steady sip from your cup, looking down at the journal that you’d brought to jot any ideas or notes down in. “You are aware of that, right?”

“But the people like it.” Charles leans back with a shrug. “So. To continue…”

If only the other tables were close enough to hear any of your discussion. To hear the things he was suggesting. But you couldn’t even protest against most of his ideas— they were appealing. Sponsorship deals that both of you had been offered. Not only would your audience like it, but… well, you would enjoy it as well. You can’t help but the little smile that makes its way onto your lips when he nudges you under the table with his foot. 

“Don’t play footsie with me,” you kick him back gently, making sure to just brush his shin.

“Who said it was my foot?”

“Har har.” You roll your eyes, but Charles kicks you again, and you can’t help but laugh with your head tilted back. “And was that your foot, this time?

“Wouldn’t you like to see, hm?” 

The rest of the video series is figured out pretty easily. The safewords, plot, who’s going to edit the videos (Max will. He’s one of Charles’s buddies who you’ve seen edit together the most filthy things from previous collaborations and blending everything together with a straight face while sucking on a fancy bendy straw leading to a tall can of Red Bull). You’re comfortable with it all, even asking if Max would be willing to let you use the straw for your water bottle during filming breaks when shooting more traditional videos. 

“Probably not. He’s very protective of it,” Charles says sagely, watching as you just doodle loops and loops of ink into your journal. “Do you still use the same brand of concealer? Just so I can have it on hand. The other bottle you gave me expired.”

“Ah, no, ended up having a bad reaction with it the last time I used it,” you scratch your neck and shrug the cardigan back on. Covering up the twin rue tattoos. “I’ll text you the new brand. I can bring it, too, because it’s a bit pricy…” 

“Don’t worry about it, I can get it.”

“Yeah?” 

“Of course,” Charles looks down at his phone when you text him the link, frowning more so about how you had thought you’d even need to think about buying it. A bottle of your matching shade is ordered by the end of his sentence. “You know that.”

“Tattoo seals are also a good thing to use,” You turn to reach into your bag, missing the way that he traces over the leafy, flowering tattoos on your shoulders. You push a few of the little stickers across to him, and he raises an eyebrow. “Don’t have to worry about replacing or cleaning the sheets, then.” 

“Hm. My smart girl,” His praise falls easily from his lips, and he doesn’t miss the way your gaze seems to soften for just a second after it. “I’ll let you know,” Charles snaps a picture of a few and pushes them back towards you. “Stream in a few days then? Don’t forget the collar, mon chou,”

You just laugh, leaning back in your seat while finishing your tea. Like you haven’t been discussing an upcoming scene that will take place in your next shoot with your dom over coffee. How you’ll split the costs and whatever monetization comes from the videos, while also letting him spoil you with the tea and pastries you love. It’s almost like a date. Perhaps in another life, it would be such an innocent thing, and not the planning of a semi-niche porn live stream.

Charles trails kisses down your neck, letting his stubble brush against you, chuckling as your skin flushes, leaving a wake of goosebumps and heated skin under his lips. The camera is on, but you don’t exactly see it, most of your face is pushed out of frame with how you’re lying across his lap.

“Are you going to be good, mon chou?” 

One of his hands rubs softly on your back, while you’re laid across his lap. You’re face down, and you know you’re positioned in a way so that the viewers will be able to see all of your body. You squirm gently, and nod, trying to tilt your head back so that you’ll be a bit closer to his face. You lay so that you’re facing away from the camera. Your tattoos have been carefully covered with a mix of concealer and tattoo patches. It’s warm, and you feel safe, your mind fuzzy as you slip into subspace. Your hair falls in small waves around the duvet, like a halo. 

Sitting comfortably against your neck is your newest collar. A lovely burgundy leather with brass d-rings and pressed eyes that have been carefully polished to shine. A few pendants hang off the D-ring, little gifts from Charles to you. The inside of the collar itself is lined with soft velvet, made to stop the skin from chaffing. Admittedly, Charles had splurged on it for you, wanting you to have only the best as he worshiped you.

“Uh uh uh,” His hand moves to cup the small of your back to stop your squirming. “Doudou, they want to see you. Don’t move so much,” He looks over at the screen, where a few messages are beginning to pop in. A few donations pop onto the stream’s overlay, displayed for all to see, along with the chat on the side, displayed by one of his other monitors.

ugh she’s so cute (€5) Is that a new collar? Looks so cute on her!! (€10) awww!! she’s getting so excited!! happy to see you both <3 (€20) Such a good girl, listening so well already (€5) Make her answer the question. Give a sub an inch and they’ll take a mile. (€50)

Charles frowns at one of the more recent messages in the chat. Very rarely did he ever need to punish you for being a brat or acting out of turn. Whenever he did do this, it was always scripted for the viewers. Played up, and a rare event that usually came after a request was put in for it, along with a substantial amount of money. But fifty euros is nothing close to what would substantiate any punishment, so he brushes over it and smiles at the chat as more tips and excited messages drop in.

“Oh, mon chou, they’re so happy to see you again,” Charles whispers, watching as the viewer count starts to grow as people tap on the notification that you’ve both gone live. More comments in the chat pour in. “Yes, she’s been so good lately, haven’t you, ma moitié?”

He runs a hand up and down your back, and then gently squeezes the swell of your ass. You squirm a little bit again and make a needy noise rather than answering.

Make her answer. She seems like a bit of a spoilt sub, needs a reminder of who’s in control. (€50)

The message donation floats on the stream overlay for a few seconds, before being replaced by more donations. The chat is a mix of more praise and excitement along with a handful of confused ‘???’ about the last donation message. It’s the same username as the other donation that had confused him a bit. His mouth quirks down into a frown before he quickly masks it with a little smirk as he looks down at you.  

“Doudou, have you been good?” Charles whispers softly in your ear, leaning down to ask you. His stubble brushes over your skin, and he gently rubs your lower back, encouraging you to speak. “They want to hear your sweet voice, bébé.”

“Uh–huh,” you mumble out, starting to squirm again. “Been good, sir.”

“Yes or no, bébé,” Charles gently reminds you, his touch still reverent around your skin as you lay across his lap, stomach facing down. “I know you have, but our lovely friends watching you don’t.”

“Y-yes, been so good,” your voice is soft, and his heart melts. Charles is already a very soft dom towards you. Never pushing. Never raised his voice. He doesn’t like using any crops or toys that can verge on pain. That’s just what the relationship between the two of you had become. 

she’s so cute!! Aaksfhasl so so good for us!! I just wanna see her cute little face (T^T) She’s so eager to please!! 

The chat is a blur at this point. Mostly compliments for your good behavior and how eager you appear to be to start the steam. Lovingly, Charles rubs your back again. Kisses the top of your head, and then gently starts to finger you open, prepping you for what you’d both discussed for today’s streams.

“There’s a bunch of toys we’ve gotten today,” Charles leans back to grab the little basket of toys, reading out their names and the slightly dry sponsor segments he knows he has to read. He lifts each one to show the camera, and you press your legs together with a whine as he reads out the descriptions the sponsors had given him for each toy.

He tilts his head back to laugh a little bit at your desperation and softly kisses the small of your back. 

“You should have seen her the other day,” Charles looks at the camera, while you let out little squeaks. You’re still on his lap and trying your best to keep still as he gently pumps in and out of you with his ring and middle fingers. “She was so good. Even when she had a plug in.” 

Hot hot hot omg

You squirm slightly at his words. Whining softly. Staying as still as possible just like he’d told you, lost in the sweetness of subspace. The tip of his middle finger brushes against a very special, spongy spot inside of you that has you keening into the duvet on Charles’s bed. 

“Oh? Did I find something?” Charles feigns disinterest while curling his fingers to press just a bit harder into your G-spot. He reaches with his other hand to grab the camera, wanting the chat to have a good view of your folds clenching around his fingers tightly. When he pulls his fingers out, they glisten with your wetness, and your sweet hole tightens around nothing. “Look at you, so responsive for me,”

He brings himself to a slower pace, no longer thrusting his fingers in and out of you with the same rigor as he had minutes before. You wiggle your rear at him again, craning your neck to look over your shoulder at him with a little sigh, your pleading look invisible to the camera. Just as his lips quirked into a small smile over your sass, another donation popped up just as he pressed the camera back onto its little stand. 

What an indignant little thing. Put her in her place, hopefully this helps you grow a pair. (€100)

Charles holds back every childish instance to flash his balls to the camera just to specifically show this donor that he does indeed have a pair, and a rather substantial set at that. You whine again, and without really thinking, he brings his palm down onto your left cheek, the one closest to the camera. It’s not too hard, and it sounded worse than it actually was. You let out a little yelp, and still, your hands fist in the duvet covers even tighter, looking over your shoulder at him with wide, shocked eyes. 

“You know better than to whine, you’ll get what you want,” Charles' gaze softens, and he already feels a bit of regret for spanking you without warning. The collar around your neck shifts a bit, some of the pendants hanging off the D-ring jingle together from how you’d jerked your head back to look at him. The little bell on the collar chimes sweetly, and soothingly, Charles continues to rub your left cheek, leaning down to softly kiss you out of frame. You whine, and he swallows all your noises, before leaning back in, looking at the camera while lovingly soothing the skin where he’d smacked down. 

To some satisfaction, he can’t see any new donations from that particular donor. He’ll make sure you feel nothing but loved, with the two hundred euros the person had dropped on it. Charles just smiles again, letting his hand still on your lower back, continuing with the stream as planned. 

An hour in and he’s had you nearly cumming on one of the rabbit toys sent to you. It’s smooth, and the actual toy part is a lovely mint green color. A very nice one, with several different speeds used to keep you squirming and whining softly under his touch. Small sighs of “—Sir— please—” and “Ch—Charles—” fall from your lips ever so often, and he even manages to coax a loud moan from your lips, which the chat goes insane about. When you do climax, you don’t even have the where-with-all to try and warn Charles. And he doesn’t even mind, he’s always been happy to just let you chase your own pleasure and highs. 

You whine, slumping against him, feeling him pull the still-vibrating toy from your folds. Your clit is puffy and engorged, and the chat loves to see how you whimper as Charles brushes his fingers through your folds, holding the camera close to give everyone a good view of your still-twitching cunt. 

so pretty now give her another!! Her whines omg Good Girl <3 (€25)  Such a cute little sub Wish i had a dom to take care of me like she does waaaa

Despite himself, Charles smirks, knowing his face is out of view while he gives everyone a good view of your slick heat. The donor who’d been provoking him hadn’t said anything in a while. He grins at every little noise you make, especially with how you whimper at his touches, still sensitive. But you don’t move away— you know you’re safe, and that he’d never do anything to harm you. You have safewords for that exact reason, and you’d never had to use them outside of practice scenarios Charles would make you do just in case. 

He settles the camera back onto its stand, tilting it down so that the stream can also see a bit of himself. He’s shirtless, wearing a pair of gray sweatpants that hang low around his hips. The waistband of his boxers is visible, showing off the V-line of his lower body, and the happy trail of dark brown fuzz that crawls up his torso. 

“Did you like that one, mon chou?” Charles croons, moving so that he blocks the view of the camera, purposefully hiding your pretty face so that you have a bit of time to reposition yourself. “Hmm?”

“Mhm,” your voice is dreamy, and your head lolls uselessly to the side as he strokes your cheek. “S’good…” 

There’s no need for you to call him ‘sir’ at this moment. He doesn’t even really enforce the title, it’s just something that slips out occasionally while he takes care of you. It’s adorable, in all honesty, the way that you talk when he’s truly gotten you into the hazy, carefree state that is your subspace, never so much as raising his voice when talking to you. That’s his brand. That’s your brand. Just a needy sub and soft dom pairing that verged on Charles having an obsession with you cumming and feeling safe while he’s there. 

The rest of the stream goes about as planned. Charles tries a variety of new toys on you, ranging from a dual-purpose clitoral suction toy that doubles as a dildo to vibrating anal beads that you are not much a fan of, but let him try them on you for the sake of experimentation. It all comes to the grand finale of Charles then having you bounce on his lap as you ride his thick cock, your walls clenching around him as you whine and wail out pleas for him. 

“That’s it, mon chou, you’re being so good for me, always so wonderful,” Charles squeezes your waist, guiding you up and down on his lap as you whine out a sound that might be his name. The camera has a wonderful view of your back, zoomed in to specifically see the way he slides in and out of you. Your cream covers his cock. 

You lean against him, your forehead on his shoulder as you gasp and pant. He can feel the way you’re loosely gripping onto his shoulders, not strong enough to scratch his skin, but certainly hard enough to remind him that you were here, if the warm wetness of your cunt somehow didn’t. 

“Where do you want me? Where, mon chaton?” Charles whispers against your head, and he is rewarded by you looking at him with a hazy glance, just for him.

“I-inside,” you whimper, trying to lean against him further, trying to get him to press his face against yours, stopped only by the fact that he needs to keep your face out of frame.

So he gently moves so that both of your faces are out of frame, his stubbled cheek against yours. Thrusts growing more rapid until you clench around him, trying to milk his cock for anything he may give you. He finishes a minute after, twitching inside of you, and breathing hard as he comes down from his high. In the back of his mind, Charles imagines his cum settling in your womb. Making a baby. Seeing you grow round as the months passed, needing help with simple things. Perhaps it would have if it weren’t for your implant and his vasectomy. Just precautions of the trade. 

Gently, he pulls himself from you, still panting. He brings the camera closer, giving the viewers a good look at how his seed trickles from your folds, mixing with your release. 

hot!! Eeeek!! breeding kink breeding kink She’d look so fucking cute all round with a baby Give her a baby!! (€20)

Charles pauses the camera feed for a few minutes, gently wiping at your core with a warm cloth and praising you endlessly as you mewl helplessly. The chat feeds into his little fantasy. He thinks about you as his housewife. Coming home from a normal office job rather than a studio shoot with other people. Kissing the rue flower tattoos on your shoulders lovingly, while his hands come to hold the little bump of your pregnant belly. 

But with a shake of his head, it’s gone. Because that isn’t your relationship with him. So he turns the camera back on with you settled in his lap, wearing a pair of his boxers and one of his hoodies. You’re curled up happily, face nuzzled into his shoulder, hiding everything away from the camera’s view. He can feel you placing almost sleepy kisses on his neck, along with the contented sighs you’re making. 

As is the normal routine, Charles thanks everyone for their donations, while also allowing viewers to make requests in the chat. Answering questions about the little break from any streaming and videos the two of you would normally do. This is usually when more of the donations sweep in, much bigger ones. The notifications are delayed, and his eyes nearly bulge out of his head when he sees one rather large donation come through. 

I’d like to commission something of the two of you. I’ll be reaching out to your business email after the stream, just to ensure that this tip doesn’t bounce. (€800)

It’s the same username as the donor who had dropped €200 earlier in the stream. Part of Charles feels incredibly uneasy over whatever this commission could entail, simply based on the comments they had made in their previous donations. 

But if they had been able to give over €1000 in a single stream…. Which was nearly a third, if not more, of the total donations…

You shift slightly in Charles’ lap, bringing him back to the present. You’re still lost, he can see that by the distant, glazed-over look in your eyes. What you need right now is a good bath, a bottle of water, and something to snack on while he massages the knots from your back. You can talk about the possibility of something like a commissioned video later.

“That’s…. Hm, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we, bébé?” Charles grins, pressing a chaste kiss against your forehead, before bidding farewell to the stream, and turning off the camera. The donations still pour in for another thirty minutes, and that’s when Charles gets the light ping that everything’s done downloading, right as he’s gotten you to finish a bottle of water. He sends it to Max immediately, who’s already gotten the rough outline of how the video should look. Charles will go over to his apartment tomorrow to work on the specifics of what everything should look like, and then send the link to you for final approval to post. Knowing Max, the Dutchman is likely just starting to wake up as the world is going to sleep. He’ll probably have a mockup done just as the sun starts to rise. 

For now, Charles turns his focus to you, watching as you slowly munch on goldfish crackers, as if deep in thought. It’s funny, really, you’re so lost in your thoughts and somewhat spaced out still. But when you look at him, he can see the little grin on your face as he walks over to you. Letting you curl into his embrace.

“You’re all sweaty.”

“Mm. I was fucking you rather hard near the end.”

That makes you giggle, and you look up at him with a mischievous little grin. “You also spanked me.”

“I did.” Charles swallows a bit of his guilt down. “Are you sore?”

“No. It was… just unexpected.” You fiddle with the strings of his sweatpants, and he plays with the hair at the back of your head. It’s domestic and sweet. It could be a scene from the everyday life of any young couple. Charles feels like he’s in the wrong for wishing it was. “It startled me a bit. Nothing bad.”

“Sorry.” 

You just shrug, and let him help you out of the hoodie. With the utmost care, he peels off the tattoo seals. Wipes away the concealer. And helps you into the shower, washing away any of the stubborn bits of makeup that insisted on staying behind. The rue flowers bloom under his touch, and without really thinking, Charles kisses them, his lips trailing around your shoulders and upper arms as if he’s worshiping some idol. 

It’s the most intimate thing someone’s ever done for you. And Charles realizes he may have just crossed a serious line, looking back at you like a deer in the headlights as you stare at him over your shoulder, with a mildly sleepy gaze. His hands start to shake.

“Why’d you stop?” 

The way you tilt your head is sinful. That someone so innocent and willing to give and submit your body to him also looks at him in such a way. Asking such obvious questions when you already know the answer. Entering a relationship because of your shared profession with him could be catastrophic. You both work in such a niche of your industry when it comes to the kinks and roleplays you’re willing to work through that both of you would be screwed if feelings got in the way of your work. 

“Because we shouldn’t take it any further,” 

“What if I want you to?”

Charles nearly chokes on his surprise. The water is still warm around him. Your hair still has the conditioner in it, just soaking on your scalp as you wait for him to help you wash it out. 

“That’s a bad idea. We shouldn’t.”

“But you were just kissing my tattoos.” Your brow furrows. “That’s hardly the porn we normally shoot.”

“It’s—  it’s not about the porn—”

“Then ask me out.” You say it so plainly. As if it’s that easy… and maybe it is. “I like you.”

“What?”

“I like you. You seem to like me.”

“I do like you!” Charles blurts out. And then blushes violently, his pale skin turning a vibrant pink-red as he starts to rinse the conditioner out of your hair, making you turn away from him so he doesn’t get any of it in your eyes. He still feels guilty for spanking you without much warning. “But don’t you think this could be weird—”

“I think it could be nice.” You sigh, leaning into his touch. Entrusting him to put you back together after breaking you apart. “Don’t you?”

He can’t bring himself to speak after that. Drives you home. You watch him from the window of your apartment as the rear lights of his car fade away. 

The moment Charles is out of sight, he goes to Max’s flat. Pounding on the door hard until the disgruntled Dutchman opens up. He can hear Daniel moving around somewhere in the apartment, talking to one of the cats as Charles stands dumbly at the threshold of the happy couple’s home.

“What?”

“I think I’m in love with her,” Charles blurts out, and Max just scowls further.

“Mate, I could have told you that!” Daniel calls from deeper in the house, as Max pulls the panicked man inside, making him sit down in the cozy living room. Max’s computer set up is pushed into the corner, with a cat tower beside the desk. Sassy currently sleeps happily on the highest little bed, while Jimmy weaves through Daniel’s legs as the Australian offers a slice of pizza to Charles. “What finally made you realize?”

“She— she told me to ask her out. Wait— does that count as her asking me out—?” 

Charles’ voice grows more frantic, and his hands go to his hair as he starts to pace in the living room. Both cats watch him go back and forth, while Max settles at his desk, opening the file to start editing. 

“Who cares? Do it. You’ve been making moony eyes at her for the past year of working with her.” Max grumbles, clearly unamused by the drama of it all. 

“We make porn together!”

“So? That’s how I met Max.” Daniel tilts his head, at which point Jimmy does the same. The Monegasque frowns at him. “Didn’t stop us.”

“You’re both gay.”

“Ouch.” Max’s stoic tone is somehow cutting, even when he’s focused on the screen, pulling up the video Charles had sent to him, and then the outline on the other monitor. “I don’t see how that changes anything. The only difference is that I was Daniel’s editor rather than costar.”

Charles flops onto the couch. Daniel just looks down at the man, before looking over his shoulder at his boyfriend. “And how’d you respond?”

“What?”

“How did you respond to her asking you out?”

His face goes blank, and a look of realization dawns on his face. 

“I panicked?”

“How badly?”

“I kept— okay I responded pretty badly,” Charles admits, and then groans right into his hands, rubbing his face in frustration. He keeps thinking about how he’d kissed your tattoos. Had he inadvertently made you feel like you could ask that? Furthermore, were you really, truly asking that, or were you still somewhat caught up trying to be a good sub?

Images of you sleeping in his bed as the morning sun rises conjure up in his mind, followed by cooking together in the kitchen of his flat, and he can’t help but groan angrily at himself for letting such a fantasy with someone who he could call his coworker appear in his mind at this moment. You, smiling up at him with that coy grin on your face as you sit across from him at the cafe, brushing your foot against his shins while sipping at your cup of tea. Your feet up on his lap while reading a book on his couch, pure domestic bliss. 

“Fuuuuck,” Charles just keeps his hands on his face. “She’s gonna hate me.” 

“She’s not going to hate you,” Daniel tries to comfort him. “Just tell her you need time to think about it.”

“No but— I was also sending mixed messages,” he mumbles, and he hears a long, drawn-out sigh from both Max and Daniel. “I was kissing her shoulders. I— I couldn’t help it, I felt bad, I kinda spanked her without warning earlier in the stream—”

“Gross.”

“I know! But this one donor was getting so pissy about how she was responding—”

“I’m sorry, you let someone who was watching and imagining touching her dictate how you were actually touching her?” Daniel raises an eyebrow, and he folds his arms across his chest. “Dude. You’re her dom, not to mention how many times you’ve been with her. Why would you get so possessive then?”

Maybe he is a bit possessive. Last year, during a studio-based shoot when another dom had been too rough with you, using your blindfold to practically drag you around the set, and spanking you much harder than he had originally implied he would, Charles had immediately cut the camera and kicked the man out of the room, not even letting him get dressed. He’d gone straight to your side after that, checking you were okay for nearly an hour before even considering letting the filming start again. 

That had earned him a bit of a reputation as possessive over his subs, you in particular. The lack of collaborations with any other actors certainly hadn’t helped much either, with your last one being with Daniel almost half a year ago, and that one had been a cuckolding video, where he had posed as the husband watching his wife getting fucked and bred by another man, not even touching you throughout the process besides a scripted kiss at the end. 

Now, Charles feels like he is 1.) the stupidest man on planet Earth and 2.) just passed up on an opportunity that you had presented him on a silver platter. He stares up at the ceiling as Daniel looks down at him. Maxis typing away in the corner, and makes a little ‘hm’ noise, likely getting to the part of the stream where he’d spanked you. 

“Wow. That sounded bad. Didn’t leave a mark though,” Max hums, and then starts to type again, before making a much more distressed noise. “No fucking way— Dani! It’s the fucking guy again!”

“Wha— really?” Daniel dashes over to look at the screen while Charles stays on the couch. “Ugh. What a fucking creep.”

That piques some interest.

“What?”

“Yeah— the guy with the weird dono? Total creep. Tried to commission me into some weird, non-con roleplay. Wanted to do a solo stream for just him, totally ignored all of my rules for that stuff, and outright told me to ‘Just suck it up’ when I used the safeword for some of the shit he was saying about me.” Daniel shivers, and for a moment, Max looks like he wants to strangle the man until his boyfriend squeezes his shoulder. Charles's blood runs cold. 

“What?!” Charles looks over the username again. MattiaBinn. “Jesus fucking—Je le tuerai moi-même pour avoir voulu que je fasse une telle chose avec elle—”

“English, Charles.”

“I’ll kill him myself,” Charles growls, and starts to march right towards the door, “I need to talk to her right now—”

“Or maybe we need to give her time to cool down,” Daniel reaches towards him, holding onto his shoulder and pulling him backward. “She probably still needs some space and to take care of herself after the stream, regardless of how much aftercare you did with her.”

Part of Charles hates that Daniel’s right. Another part of him says that no, you should be letting him take care of you. That’s what his job was as your dom, he was supposed to take care of you and make sure you didn’t experience sub-drop. You deserve only the best, and right now he’s not acting like that. Quite frankly, he’s being a bit of a self-righteous prick about his own feelings for you. 

His phone pings with a notification, and out of pure irritation, he considers silencing it, until he sees it’s an email from a frankly disturbing email address. From: Mattia Binotto. Subject: Commissioned Private Stream.

“Oh, putain de merde,” Charles groans, and quickly scans through the email. It’s exactly as Daniel described. Non-con, harsher treatment, and quite honestly, the opposite of nearly everything Charles did as a dom and that you would agree to. Infuriatingly, your business email has also been sent this. You text him not a second after he’s done scanning it.

Did you also get this?

It seems… uhm, interesting. 

Attached is a screenshot of the email. You’re awake, at the very least. Alert enough to be checking your business email. He texts back quickly. 

I’m not doing any of that.

That’s not the shit I do. Fuck.

…okay. 

Sorry, you seem to be in a bad mood. 

It’s not your fault

Please don’t blame yourself for any of this, mon doudou

I kinda feel like it is…

I didn’t mean to push any boundaries or make you upset about this

I am sorry, Charles.

Charles wants to bash his head against the wall because now he feels like utter shit for making you feel guilty about his own stupidity. Just as he’s about to text you back you send him a goodnight text. When Daniel glances at the screen he visibly winces. 

“Yeah. I’d give her some space.”

Space turns into a week. Instead of the normal collab stream, you do a solo one. Charles ends up watching it. You’ve got an array of toys behind you, most pretty pastel colors or swirling abstract designs that make an odd pit settle in his stomach at the idea of them bringing you pleasure rather than him.

You’re currently fucking yourself on a dildo he’d gifted you, shaped like… certain sweet treat. It was meant to be a bit of a gag gift— the name of it was called the banana split, for Christ’s sake— but seeing you fuck yourself on it made him groan, palming the hardness in his pants as you gasped and whined. You were wearing one of his hoodies too, muffling your little noises into the sleeves. And the chat was loving it, encouraging you to keep going. 

And then the fucking donation showed up from that fucking prick Mattia.

Needy little thing. Do you think you deserve to cum? (€50)

The robot voice that read out the message had you whining, and you momentarily pause, before slowly lifting your hoodie to give the cam a better view, showing the slight bulge in your tummy from the toy resting inside of you before you started to bounce up and down on it again, rutting your hips forward as if that could provide some respite for the high you were chasing. 

“Y-Yes—wanna cum—” Your face is hidden, as per usual, just off-screen, but at the very top, he can see how your chin wobbles a bit as if you’re currently panting with an open mouth, “Please please please please—”

Hold it. Not yet. Needy little sluts only get what they need when they’re good. (€50)

Rage bubbles in Charles’ stomach. Who the fuck did this asshole think he was, first of all, calling you a needy slut, and then acting like you were his to take care of. Charles makes a note to ban him from both of your chats as soon as this is over. 

He can tell by your posture that you look startled, and the chat mixed. Some are telling Mattia to fuck off, while others are encouraging you to listen because Charles isn’t there. You whimper, confused, and Charles nearly screams, sprinting to get to his keys while the stream continues on his phone. He knows how insane he must look, having porn very audibly playing on his phone, but he doesn’t care, not as he starts his car and calls you. He can hear the phone in the background of your stream, and you whine even louder, the wet sounds of you fucking yourself on the toy pausing.

“Fuck, doudou, pick up,” Charles groans, his driving becomes more and more reckless as he gets closer to your apartment. “Pick up!”

The sounds of your stream seem to pause, and there’s a rustle as you move, hopefully reaching for the phone and—

Did I say you could do that, slut? Or are you too stupid to listen to directions? (€50)

Charles roars as he hears you let out a pathetic whine, followed by sniffles. How dare Mattia insult you like that, how dare he make you feel unsafe when you should be feeling nothing but safe and loved. He was going to find him. He was going to find whoever this Mattia Binotto was and beat the tar out of him.

“M’sorry— wanna be good—”

“You are good,” Charles’ mouth is dry,  right as he pulls outside the front of your flat, with a half-assed park job that’s likely going to get him a ticket if he stays there until morning. “You’re so good, mon petit doudou, just hold on,”

You’re not being good now. Apologize, you useless little slut. No wonder your dom isn’t here. What a spoiled little sub. (€50)

Charles fiddles with the lock, searching for the spare you’d told him about, hidden under a fake rock right off of your stoop. He opens the door, nearly forgets to close it behind him, and screams out your name as he tears through the kitchen.

Find your biggest toy for me. And show us how badly it hurts. Do it if you want to be good for me (€50)

When he manages to get to your room, you’re startled by his sudden appearance, and so is the chat. There’s a new, much larger toy positioned under you, the tip just brushing against your folds. The first thing that Charles does is cut the camera. The next thing he does is end the stream. A final donation, clearly placed before the stream ended appears on the screen, all the notifications from the tip jar making a discordant melody with your hiccuping sobs and Charles’ panting.

The donation makes him see red.

Fuck yourself. Slow. Let me hear you cry. (€50)

You let out a whimper, shaking, as you sink onto the toy, only to be scooped up by Charles. He doesn’t give a shit that he’s knocking around the toys and is probably making his possessive reputation worse. He’s not going to let you hurt yourself because some fucking pervert got in your head, and he’s furious that you’ve fallen for the same manipulation he did. 

“M’sorry— m’sorry, I wanna be good—”

“You’re so good, tu es si bon pour moi,” Charles croons, rocking you back and forth, holding you close as you cry into his chest. “I’m here. I’m here. You don’t have to do any of that. Let me take care of you.”

It takes nearly thirty minutes to get you to stop crying. You keep your face pressed into his shoulder, shaking as Charles soothes you, humming softly to you. He speaks in French, knowing that you enjoy the way his voice sounds when he speaks it. 

“Can you tell me where you are, Doudou?”

“In my bed,” 

“Wonderful job, so smart for me,” Charles praises, kissing your forehead softly. Your grip tightens on his shirt, and he can feel a small huff of air against his skin when you breathe out. “And what’s my name?”

“Charles. You’re Charles.” You murmur. “How did you get in here…?”

“Spare key.” He shifts so that you can look at him, one of his hands coming to cup your cheek. His thumb brushes under one of your eyes, the skin sticky from tears. “I was… I was watching the stream.”

“Oh.” You lean against his chest, letting him stroke up and down your back. You nuzzle into the collar of the hoodie. Charles presses his nose into your hairline, inhaling your scent, while keeping his lips against your forehead. “So you….saw…”

“He’s banned. It’s the same guy from the commission email.” There’s a hint of rage in his voice, which fades the moment your nose nudges under his chin, dislodging him from your hairline. 

“Thanks.” He can feel the curve of your lips turning into a smile as you nuzzle into him further. “My hero. Taking care of me, even when you’re upset.”

“I’ll always take care of you,” Charles’ voice catches in his throat at the admission, pulling away enough to look down at you. You, smiling up at him with that coy grin on your face, and a sleepy look in your eyes. 

“It could be nice,” You murmur again, shyer than before. “You and me, couldn’t it?”

“I think it could be more than nice,” His lips are so close to yours, enough so that he can feel your breath against them. Charles has been balls-deep in you. Has fucked into you until you cream around his cock and sobbed out his name. But this is quite possibly the most intimate thing he’s ever done with you. “Really, really nice.”

The taste of your lips on his is divine as he holds onto your waist with one hand, and cups your face with the other. You giggle when he pulls away to catch his breath, and before he can even stop himself, he’s grinning and pressing you into the bed, blowing a raspberry against your cheek just to hear your shrill laughter and feel the butterflies in his stomach that appear every time you laugh around him. 

“Mon petit Doudou,” He can’t stop the grin on his face as he kisses all over your face, looking down at you with nothing but adoration in his eyes. Your hair is fanning around your head like a halo. Your smile is infectious. And he can see a few blooms from your tattoos under the neckline of your hoodie. His hoodie. “Mine, mine, mine.”

“Yours, yours, yours.” You respond, curling into him happily as the two of you lay in your bed.

[ice-cream-writes-stuff]

Spider and Bat Snippets!

[Part 1] [Part 3]

Spider!(Y/N): Oh! Yeah, Batman is the second funiest guy I know.

Batmam: (Slowly blinking.)

Spider!(Y/N): See! A comedic genius!

Flash: Who's the first?

Spider!(Y/N): My nieghbor, Frank!

-

"I'm just so worried how to ask them.." "

Frowning in thought, you glance at the crowd of prestige and wealth. Frank sighs gloomily, adjusting his bow-tie, the fun color matching your outfit.

"Well, I'll show so you don't have to worry! I'll ask someone out right now!" You huff courageously.

"(Y/N)-!" Frank whines at you. Tugging at your arm quickly so you wouldn't do something so idiotic. But you resisted! Skipping around the vast ballroom with your buddy trailing behind.

The Wayne heir, overhearing the discussion, straightens his back slightly. Scaning over his suit in case of any stains from the wine glass he held. Finding none, he smirks, readying himself for your pursuit.

Hearing your excited footsteps, he sips his wine casually. Acting non-chalant as he was, "Brucie Wayne" tonight.

"Excuse me, hello!" You chirp.

Slowly turning around, lips kissing the rim of his glass. He grined-

You pass him by easily, walking over to a grumpy older gentleman. "Would you wanna' go out some time?" You questioned.

The man sneers, looking you up and down. Scoffing at your display of obliviousness. "I'd rather not, young lady." He snipped distastefully, as his friends chuckled snootily. "I have better.. Investments, who are more poised and respectable than your imbecile nature." He huffed, storming off as his lackys followed.

Frank walks to your side, worriedly checking your expression.

Blinking, you frown, glancing at your friend. "Hm. Well, that's not a good example... Sorry Frank." You state with a good-natured shrug.

"Augh... That was more embarrssing than-Than.. Oh! I don't even know!" Franks drags you along to the food table. Chiding you for your antics while you nod along, grabbing a few tiny cakes from the dessert table.

"Excuse me? Miss." A composed and charming voice breaks through your friends rant.

Turning around, you stare at the newcommer.

"I couldn't help but overhear-"

"Cupcake?"

You offer a plate, holding the tasty pastry out to him politely.

Taking it in stride, his fingers linger around your wrist as he acepts the item. "Thank you."

You beam, a gummy smile on your lips as you nod. Turning away from him, attention back on your friend.

"Don't worry Frank, I, may not as good at flirting..." You pause, grabbing another cupcake, offering one to the unknown man beside you. He smiles sweetly, wordlessly thanking you.

You grab a tasty cream puff for yourself.

"...But?"

"Hm? Oh... Right! You'll be better at it than I am! For sure." Stuffing the treat down your throat, you take Franks arm and walk away.

"...." Eye slighty twitching at the encounter, Bruce sips his wine. Glancing at the two little treats that sat on his plate.

-

"B? What's wrong?" Fretting over him was a common thing for you at this point. While you trusted him more than anyone should. You still were a nosy spider.

"B..?" You tag at his cape, before crawling on his shoulders.

"B!" You lean your head over him. Watching him lower his head back to his bat-communicator. Biting your lip, you huff at him.

"Batsy?" That earned you a pinch on your calves.

"OW-ch! Hey!?" You grumble, barely keeping yourself afloat on his back. Leaning back and forth unsteadily until you grabbed his cowls ears.

"Phew~..." You let out a sigh of relief as you hear your partner grunt. "You're the one giving me the silent treatment on patrol." You grumble quietly, pulling at his cowl with a harsh tug as he smacked your hand away.

"Hey, B?"

"..."

"... I like you too B." You smile, as you hear him scoff. Giggling, you adjust yourself, taking out your web shooter. "You're amazing! Spectacular, even!" You hop off him and walk forward. Shooting out a web, you watch him stalk forward. Gazing farway as you notice the Bat-Burger ad.

"Huh!? No way.. Your serious?" You squeak out, jittering in place as he silently nods.

"Okay-! Yes! Oh, we should probably get Robin some food too!" You ramble as your partner takes out his bat-grapling hook. You shoot out a web and dash forward, jumping high as your web rockets yourself forward.

-

[Just a silly thing I wanted to post since I haven't wrote in a bit! I made this a while back, if you guys like the series let me know! Comments, Reblogs, fan art whatever is always Appreciated.]

[letstalkaboutfandomsbaby]

╔══•.·.☆.·.♥︎.·.☆.·.•══╗

buff guy

╚══•.·.☆.·.♥︎.·.☆.·.•══╝

ʚ Part 3 ɞ

❥ CW: chubby fem reader x buff guy, reader has insecurities

❥ A/N: hello my lovelies! Here is part 3, i hope you enjoy 💕

"Your boyfriend is coming this way."

"Shit!" You duck behind the counter, rushing through the coffee bar and into the back room. You take a deep breath once you're back there, freezing when you hear the bell at the door ring. You glance out the back room and curse when you see him standing at the register, glancing around the coffee bar. You decide to hide in the back until he leaves.

You hear the door ring several more times, but choose to ignore it. You busy yourself with reading ingredients on bottles when your coworker suddenly rushes into the back room.

"Girl! Get your ass out here! Your boyfriend is holding up the line!"

She grabs you before you can protest, dragging you out to the work area. At the front of the line is Guy, hands in his pockets, eyes flicking to you. Your friend practically shoves you to the register, crossing her arms as she waits for you to take his order.

"Th-The usual?" you ask, fiddling with your hands.

"You haven't responded to my texts." You swallow, curling into yourself.

"I-I've been busy."

"That's a bad excuse."

"Hey buddy, hurry up!" a man behind him scolds. "I've got places to be!"

Guy turns around to stare at the shorter man. His eyes widen and he steps back, looking frightened. Guy turns back to you.

"I came here to ask you if you're free this Saturday."

"I'm busy."

"I think you're lying."

"Hey," your coworker interjects. "I'm all for you pursuing my friend here, but we gotta keep this line going." She types his order into the register. "She can take a break once this line is down and then yall can talk, okay?"

"That works for me." He pulls out his card, pays, and then walks to the pick-up area. You slump, taking the next customer's order as your coworker starts making drinks.

"Now go talk to him already. His staring is creeping me out."

You glance at Guy who's been watching you during the rush you just had. Your coworker shoves your shoulder and you sigh, taking off your apron and hanging it on the swinging door into the work station. You walk to Guy's table, sitting down across from him, defeated.

"So why haven't you texted me?" he asks, getting straight to the point. You shrug helplessly.

"I don't know..."

He leans forward, arms against the table.

"If you're not interested, I'd rather you tell me now. I don't want to keep bothering you if you hate me."

"I don't hate you..."

"Then what is it? Is it the gifts? Do you not like them? Did I come on too strong?"

"No, no... I promise it's not you."

"Then what's going on?"

You feel tears well in your eyes, and you look down to hide it.

"I'm worried you won't like me once you get to know me... I'm worried about disappointing you..."

You glance back up at him, and his expression is emotionless. You quickly wipe your eyes, sniffing.

"Do you know why I took you to dinner on the first date?" You shook your head, and he looks down at the table. "I took you to dinner because I wanted to see how you would eat in front of me."

"...Do you have some kind of fetish of something?" He scoffs, smiling.

"No. But I have been on dates with other women, and it always went the same." He draws invisible circles on the table. "They'd always order a salad, or something small, avoiding an appetizer or dessert. They would rarely finish their plate. One woman's stomach actually growled when I walked her to her car."

You snicker at that, sniffing again. He smiles at your laugh, folding his hands in front of you.

"But you didn't do that. You had an appetizer, a main course, and dessert. I loved it. I loved seeing you comfortable enough to be yourself and eat without shame. And it really solidified my feelings for you."

"Would... would you have not liked me if I didn't eat like I normally do?" He shrugs.

"A part of me would've been disappointed. I can't be with someone who can't be true to themselves, so to see the person I'm fond of limit themselves like that would have hurt." He makes eye contact with you again, sincere. "I like you, Y/N. I like your smile, your laugh, your ability to be true to yourself. You're a wonderful person, and I just want to make you happy." He straightens out, smoothing over his shirt. "But if you don't want me to pursue you anymore, I understand. I won't text you anymore, and I'll stop coming here."

You pause, chewing your bottom lip. He stares at your mouth as you do so.

"I..." You inhale deep, twisting your mouth. "I just feel like you're out of my league. Like, what if you wake up and want to date a model or some kind of influencer? I'm worried you'll get bored of me..."

He laughs at that, covering his mouth. He scratches his jaw, glancing at some artwork on the wall.

"I've dated girls like that before. Trust me: you're far more interesting than they could ever be."

You gulp, cheeks burning hot. You glance at your coworker who is glaring at you, tapping her watch.

"Oh!" You push your chair out, standing up. "I-I gotta go back to work."

"I figured." He stands up with you, grabbing your hand before you can walk away. "Do you like movies?" You hesitate, then nod. He pulls you closer; you're almost nose to nose. "Let me take you to a movie this weekend. We'll go to whatever you want to see. I'll buy a large popcorn and whatever candy you want."

You scoff, smiling softly. You feel like you could blush.

"Sure. I guess we can do that." He smiles down at you.

"Thank you."

You try to leave again, but he doesn't let go of your hand. Instead, he brings it to his lips, closing his eyes and kissing the back of your hand gently. Your heart flutters as he lets you go, grabbing his drink and turning away, walking out of the coffee shop.

You return to your post, retying your apron around your waist as your coworker walks towards you.

"Look, I'm all for yall having whatever romance shit you got going on, but could you at least not let it interrupt our work again? I got bills to pay."

You laugh, feeling lighter.

"Sure, I'll try."

[ggukvnly]

Silent Walls║ JJK

• synopsis; two clashing neighbors start off with tension, end up with a kiss and an agreement they both swear won’t mean anything but feelings have a way of showing up uninvited especially when the past isn’t quite done yet. • genre; angst, slow burn, neighbours to lovers, fuck buddies, mutual solace, emotional tension, healing

• pairing; jungkook x reader

• warnings; spicy scenes, unfiltered dialogues

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Prologue

The first time it happened, it didn't feel like a mistake.

Not exactly.

It felt like survival. Like two people trying to make sense of their own wreckage by colliding into someone else's.

Jeon Jungkook had rules. Unspoken, but solid as concrete. No attachments. No confessions. No asking what the other was doing outside of this apartment when the lights were off and the nights were long.

He never kissed my forehead. I never touched his hair. He never stayed the night. And I never asked him to.

When I moved to Seoul, all I’d wanted was a quiet place—a little apartment where I could work, sleep, and maybe figure myself out along the way. Somewhere to be alone, but not lonely. Somewhere to start over without questions, without pressure. A blank slate in a city full of strangers.

I hadn't expected the walls to be so thin.

And I definitely hadn't expected the man next door.

Now, months into whatever this was, he stood in front of me, eyes unreadable and voice low, like he was holding something back with every muscle in his body.

"You shouldn't look at me like that."

My heart gave a small, traitorous stutter, but I kept my expression even. Calm. As if he hadn't just fractured something in my chest.

"I'm not looking at you any way," I said, which was a lie, and we both knew it.

He didn't move, just kept staring. And in the silence that followed, I could hear the soft hum of the refrigerator, the rain against the window, the weight of everything we weren't saying.

He looked tired. Not the kind of tired that came from lack of sleep, but the kind that settled deep into the bones. The kind you carried for years. The kind I recognized all too well.

"Like I mean something more than I'm supposed to," he said finally.

"Like you want something we never promised."

"I don't-" I started, then stopped, because every excuse felt like a lie. And I didn't want to lie to him. Not when he was finally looking at me like that.

Not when he finally saw me. Not just my body. Not just someone who understood his silence. He saw the parts I tried to keep quiet. And I think I saw his, too.

"Don't," he said, softly . "Don't start thinking this is something else."

His words stung, but not in the way I thought they would. Not like rejection. More like fear. Fear wrapped in warning, laced with restraint.

"I'm not," I lied, because part of me still needed to believe we could keep pretending. That we could keep this safe. That it hadn't already changed.

It was so quiet that I could hear the rain picking up outside, drumming harder against the glass.

I wanted to ask him why he let me in, then. Why he kept showing up, letting me kiss the ache out of his silence, hold the edges of his loneliness like it meant nothing. But I didn't.

Because I already knew the answer.

He never asked for comfort. He just accepted it.

I stepped forward, just one careful move, as if even the floor between them could break. My voice dropped, almost tender now.

"You say I shouldn't look at you like you matter. But what do you expect, Jungkook?"

He turned, his jaw tight.

"I expect you to remember what this is."

"I do. But I also remember how you look at me after. Like you're trying not to."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"Doesn't it?"

He didn't answer.

Because we both knew it did.

We weren't just strangers anymore. We weren't even just neighbors, or casual, or whatever word people used to feel less broken about needing someone they couldn't have.

We were two people who'd stopped being alone together. And somehow, that had become more dangerous than anything else.

This was never supposed to get complicated.

Just a deal.

But somewhere in the nights we didn't talk, in the moments we didn't mean to share...

I forgot the rules.

And he forgot to remind me.

[heeliopheelia]

BAD IDEA RIGHT? (p. sunghoon)

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

includes: toxic relationship, implied cheating, dry humping, degrading, spanking, swearing, spitting in mouth, pet names, choking, manhandling, unprotected sex, hair pulling, bratty reader, dumbification, fingers sucking, oral (m receiving)

word count: 2.6k

synopsis: 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘱 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘹𝘪𝘤 𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘶𝘥𝘥𝘺

guts event masterlist ⋆♱✮♱⋆ main masterlist

u up?

from: why isn't he blocked yet?

- read 2:31 am

Sighing for the fourth time this past minute, you click your phone screen off and toss the device to the other side of your bed. The contemplating is pointless – the both of you know that you'll be at his door within the next twenty minutes.

Was breaking up with Sunghoon a smart decision? Yes. Just one look back at your relationship makes you feel sick right now. The constant partying, the never subsiding jealousy, the permanent uncertainty whether you're gonna find a girl in his bed sheets each time he didn't answer his phone for more than two hours. If Park Sunghoon's toxicity could be graded – it would be 3. Severe significant but not immediately life-threatening.

So, including all of these facts, was becoming his fuck buddy a logical step? Well, sex is never about logicality anyways, right? It's his personality and cockiness that you dropped without any hesitation – his bedroom skills on the other hand... Yeah, it was not so easy to give up. There isn't a bone in your body that's able to resist this temptation.

see u in 10

As your fingers quickly type the reply to his text, you blindly snatch your car keys from the cupboard and head out the front door, exposing your half-naked skin to the cool autumn air. You didn't bother dressing in anything else besides this ridiculously oversized t-shirt you always sleep in, knowing well that the second your foot meets the threshold of his messy dorm, all of your clothes will be gone before you even get the chance to say hi.

And that's exactly what happens. You text him a quick i'm here. He opens the door and with a lopsided smile pulls you into a rough kiss. You shut the door behind you two with your foot. He pushes you against them and tugs the hem of your shirt up, only to toss it somewhere on the floor.

"Wow, you came here quick. Must be a new record or somethin'," he teases breathily into your lips, working his teeth down your jawline to your neck. "Someone must've missed me a lot, huh?"

"Shut up and just get to it," you mutter with a roll of your eyes as your hands greedily roam over his bare chest. "You always talk too much."

Sunghoon only chuckles, the sound vibrates through his chest as he closes the gap between you two and kisses you hard on the lips again. It's almost automatic, how he taps the back of your thighs, the way you jump, the way he catches you before smacking a stinging slap on your ass, he carries you and sits the both of you on his well worn couch.

"Well, you know what to do now, don't you, baby girl?" He grins widely, legs fixing into a man spread as he looks at you pointedly.

With a roll of your eyes, you place your hands on his toned shoulders and push your body forward until your chest is pressed to his.

"Stop. Talking."

Before his big mouth gets the chance to yap again, you roll your hips against his growing bulge, effectively shutting him up. He leans his head backwards, resting it on the headrest as he watches you with a cocky smile. He crosses his arms behind his head, making his muscles flex prominently. You scoff at his obnoxiousness although the throbbing between your thighs increases annoyingly.

You move your hips steadily, quickly finding the right rhythm. Sunghoon groans and lowers one of his hands to your hip, spreading his big palm on your hot skin. The rough feeling of your lacy panties rubbing onto your clit makes you bite your lip to stifle a moan.

You lean forward and pull his face to yours with a firm grip on the hair at the back of his head. The kiss is all spit and teeth – just as messy as your relationship, but you wouldn't have it any other way.

Lips swollen and flushed faced, you circle your hips faster, rubbing yourself against him. It doesn't take much longer until his gray sweatpants are messed up with the dark stain of precum and you smirk at the sight of the prominent tent in his pants.

"Are you gonna cum? So soon? Looks like you must've missed me even more," you tease while nibbling on his bottom lip.

You watch him raise his eyebrow at your cheeky behavior and then he clicks his tongue. "Nah, that's enough. Don't know where'd you get this idea that you can speak to me like that. Thought you'd know better by now."

With one firm movement, he grabs your face in between his fingers and squishes your cheeks together, not even a bit of tenderness in his touch. You fail to keep your moan inside this time.

"Open up," he orders and taps at your puckered lips with his thumb. You obey without a second thought in your mind and part your smushed mouth as wide as you can. Sunghoon pulls your chin down roughly and spits right on your tongue. The act is so lewd, so fucking hot, it makes you subconsciously roll your hips over his clothed bulge and whimper at the commotion. Sunghoon scoffs at your drastically changed demeanor. "Filthy fucking whore. Couldn't ever dominate me properly for the life of you."

And then he flips you around. His strong hand pushes your chest flush to the couch, pressing on the arch of your back as your face gets shoved in the same cushions that you bought him once you had first started dating. To make this rusty place look actually inhabited, you told him then. Now, you drown in their scent as they nearly cut off your breathing supplies.

You can hear some ruffles coming from behind you which you can only assume is the sound of Sunghoon's sweats hitting the floor before his tall frame hovers over your back. A yelp leaves your lips as his hand suddenly comes forward and slaps your ass with a loud smack. His fingers skid over the black lace of your panties before pushing them to the side and dipping two of his digits between your weeping folds.

"Would you look at that? You're fucking dripping for me, baby. Some things never change, huh?" He teases ruthlessly but before you can bite back, your breath gets stolen away as you feel his hot, hard tip brushing past your entrance. You moan loudly, fingers clenching on the cushion tightly as he wraps an arm under your stomach and props your ass higher, only to bully his cock into you until he bottoms out. "Now, let the show begin."

A shiver runs down your spine when he pulls out of you completely before plummeting his length back into you again. It burns slightly and Sunghoon knows that, but with the lewd moans you're letting out he thinks that, surely, you must be a little bit masochistic.

He pushes you even deeper into the couch and relishes in the wheezed gasps of breath you're huffing out as he fucks into you. His hips work quick and sharp, snapping into you from behind and making your clammy skin clap with each contact. He fits just so damn perfectly in between your folds as they clamp around him so deliciously, making him let out grunt after grunt.

"H-harder, Sunghoon."

Your whine comes out muffled and even though your ex could hear you loud and clear, he purposefully slows his movements down and leans over to you closer, making his dick bury itself even deeper inside you and causing your eyes to roll back momentarily.

"What was that, princess? Didn't quite catch that."

You can practically hear the smirk that's surely plastered on his lips but you're too swallowed up in the pleasure to let it rub on your dignity anyhow. You only throw your hips backwards and whine louder for him, fueling up his already too big ego. "Fuck me harder. Please."

"Ah," Sunghoon lets out a short chuckle, then pulls away from you again. "Well, because you asked so nicely..."

Your eyes roll back again from how well he's fucking you, your words now meddled all together as he pounds you into the mattress. Without the slightest effort, he hits that gushy spot inside of you over and over again, just like he's done dozens times before, and still making you writhe in his grip like a prude. One that you, most definitely, are not.

Your teeth sink into the cushion as you try and muffle your borderline pornographic moans, in attempt to spare his neighbours the same shit show that have to endure every week. With the feeling of his large frame hovering above you, bare bodies hitting each other with every of his thrusts, you find yourself coming even sooner than you expected.

You moan and whine and jolt in his arms from where he still has you pressed down.

"That's it, baby. Fuck, just like that," he pants, hands sprawled on your ass and caressing the soft flesh before he spreads your cheeks a little further apart, watching his cock disappear in between your throbbing walls. Sunghoon groans. "Fuuuuck, look at you. Such perfect pussy. My perfect girl. No one will ever fuck you as well as I do."

Clenching your fists on the cushions, you pant as well. "Shut the fuck up. I'm not yours. We broke up for a reason, asshole," you scoff. "Thought you'd remember such unforgettable afternoon."

Sunghoon barks a laugh from above you before twisting your hair around his palm and tugging your head up until your back is pressed flat to his chest.

"Still so snarky even after I just blew your brains out. Guess I'll just have to fuck this attitude outta you once again. Gonna make sure you can't walk tomorrow, yeah?"

You don't even have it in you to bite back as he instantly starts pistoning into you, deep and rough, without waiting for your first high to cool off even slightly.

"A-ah, Hoon, w-wait," you mewl, growing on your pitch, clawing at his arm that's wrapped around your waist and prevents you from moving away. You clench your eyes tightly. "Too fast! Slow down."

He huffs, tugging your hair even harder to bite at your jawline as you arch your neck. "Nah, I don't think so. You're gonna stay still and take what I give you."

His hips are unforgiving. Your brain turns off as he plummets into you, only thing you're capable of doing is letting out a small ah, yes or please every couple seconds.

Nothing but white noise is surrounding you now. His heavy and so fucking full cock splits you in half and makes you, quite literally, see stars. You let him manhandle you like some rag doll, taking every inch of his dripping length.

"Cat's got your tongue now, little girl?" Sunghoon teases, leaving a slap on your ass again. He chuckles. "You're squeezing me like some fucking virgin."

Your thighs are a mess of his precum and your slick release. You know you're about to cum again, it's inevitable with the way he's fucking into you. Absentmindedly, one of your hands loosen its grip on his arm and slides down to your aching pussy to try and relieve the pent up tension a little quicker. But before your fingers ever make contact with your swollen clit, you feel a sharp sting on your palm as Sunghoon slaps it away.

"We ain't playing like that, sweets," he scowls as he untangles his hand from your hair and lets you drop limp on the couch again.

It's insane how his body still reacts to you, even after seeing you in the exact same position so many times before. He can barely keep himself from cumming inside you here and there as he watches you squirm beneath him, fingers curling and gripping on first better object as you moan and cry out his name like a mantra.

He doesn't let you rest for much longer though. He leans forward, strong, veiny arms gripping your wrists before pulling them back towards him and lifting you up again. That position only enables you to feel him even better, closer and deeper, and with one, two, three more thrusts of his hips you're coming again with a moan that sounds very much like a sob on your lips.

Sunghoon grunts in your ear and bites his lip harshly. He's always been weak for you. Never was able to keep his hands away from you. So as all of his senses are overwhelmed, overstimulated with you and you only, he grabs you by your waist and flips you on your back quickly.

He finally gets to look at your fucked out face. Your teary eyes and flushed cheeks make him curse under his breath as his dick throbs even harder. With a strangled groan he pulls on your chin and opens your mouth widely. He watches with amazement as you eagerly capture his long fingers with your lips and suck them without giving it much thought.

"Fuck, wait–," he lets out a long moan, quickly pulling his digits out of your swollen mouth. "Open up a little wider, baby."

And you do so, mind hazy as he hovers above you and slowly pushes his thick cock between your parted lips. Your eyes roll into your skull as he throat fucks you without giving you as much as a warning, hand pressing on the front of your neck and making you gag around him instantly.

"Shh, just a little more," he coos breathlessly and bottoms out in your mouth, pelvis touching your wet lips. "You can take it for me, can't you?"

You choke and moan at the same time. Tears stream down your cheeks and mix with your saliva as they drip down your chin. It's so messy, so filthy, yet you genuinely don't recall when was the last time you felt this heavenly. His cock suffocates you as he fucks into your mouth roughly, moaning and grunting in the process.

Both of your heads are spinning, Sunghoon finally cums, hips stuttering, and releases thick ropes of cum down your throat. You swallow and slurp around him, trying to gather as much of it as you can without letting it go to waste. The familiar salty, slightly bitter taste hits your palate just right and you suck him clean from every single drop.

With a heavy sigh, Sunghoon slumps down on the couch right next to you, hand traveling to your bare thigh and caressing it with his fingertips. You lay in your place for a while, catching your breath and collecting your thoughts as you subconsciously lean into his touch.

This scene is nothing new – the both of you being way too touchy, way too soft after fucking each other's minds away. It's not new, the way you stand up and push him back on the couch as he tries to follow you to the bathroom to shower with you. You wash yourself quickly, then steal another one of his shirts per usual.

You walk back to the living room where Sunghoon stayed and the question he asks is as old as time.

"Stay the night?"

And, like you always do, you send him a mocking smile and grab the keys from the cupboard where you left them an hour ago.

"Bye, Hoon," you say and twist the door handle.

And he calls after you, not a week where he's been wrong, "See you next Friday, baby."

𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘪𝘯' 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢, 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵?

𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘪𝘯' 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘵, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦

𝘺𝘦𝘴, 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘹, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵?

taglist: @luvkpopp @yannew @hoonxclsvly @jongseongslvr @beomgyusonlywife @starggukies @koizekomi @ineedsomezzz @starl1ghtsinthedark @enhastolemyheart

permanent taglist: @bambisgirl @arizejkt19 @luvmura @milisabunny @cathy-1997 @satoruskitchenrag @ramenoil @jenjnk @jaylaxies @yoongspi @nichoswag @s00buwu @dazzlingligth @seungiesluv

note: let's goooooo 🫶 first chapter posted 🥳 i have no idea when will i publish the other ones but i'll try my best to do it as soon as possible!! this was actually so fun to write, so i hope you guys liked it as well 🤸 all the feedback is greatly appreciated babes!! 🩷

[hikariyaps]

synopsis ☆ satoru gojo, most popular boy on campus, has had loads of flings i mean, it's not his fault girls are all over him right? he has everything he wants, everything he needs. so when he meets you, shoko's best friend plain and unassuming he brushes it off, however one random thursday something happens. something that changes the way he thinks of you entirely. and then he just has to have you, but you won't let up that easily.

☆series masterlist

Chapter Four

you spent the rest of the day with shoko, after she kicked gojo and geto out of her house. you hadn't had a girls night in god knows how long and she was right, you guys hung out every day but you didn't talk to each other. so you and her did your skincare and smoked cigarettes while telling each other what exactly was going on in each others lives.

you told her about sukuna, she already knew most of it but you told her anyway. she told you about the cute guy she'd been eyeing in class. before you knew it you guys were laughing your asses of to funny beaver videos and and planning the weekend. like how it was before sukuna.

you were so much better without sukuna and when you voice the thought out loud, shoko wholeheartedly agrees and cusses out sukuna in such a way that you were crying because of how hard you were laughing.

‘you were livelier before sukuna’ she says ‘you were you, now you're a muted version of you, it kinda hurts to see you this way.’

you sigh.‘i know, that bastard really ruined my life didn't he?’

‘yup’ she says popping the p.

‘anyway, i'm fine now, i'm over him and even if i do see him, i'm probably just going to choke him’ you declare.

your phone buzzes.

‘holy shit!’ you exclaim

‘what the hell?’ shoko says, shooting you a look but stopping when she sees the excitement on your face.

‘what happened?’

‘vivienne westwood just asked me to model for them!’

‘are you fucking joking’ shoko says, snatching the phone out of your hands and reading the email yuki had forwarded to you.

‘oh my fucking god! congrats gorgeous!’ she yelled, clearly overjoyed for you.

you guys chatted late into the night and fell asleep on the couch.

shoko literally kicks you off the couch in the morning.

‘ouch, what the hell?!’

‘wakey wakey, my little ray of sunshine’ a voice says.

whose voice is that you think to yourself, eyes still glued shut with sleep. wait, that's-you open your eyes to see satoru gojo staring down at you. shoko chuckles.

‘what the fuck are you doing here?’ you question scrambling to get up, when he bends down and swoops you up as if you were no heavier than a pencil.

‘put me down!’ you squeak as you squiggle against him. and he does. drops you straight onto the couch.

‘hey!’

he flashes you a smug smile as though he'd just done you a favour by breaking your ass.

‘shoko why are all your friends so annoying’ you grumble.

she just shrugs and says ‘you're my friend too you know’ and gojo laughs, you scream into a pillow.

‘you were late so i decided to check up on your ass’ he says to you. you stop screaming into the pillow and look at him ‘late for what?’

‘breakfast.’

‘i didn't realise it was a daily thing.’

‘it is. you're my breakfast buddy’ he says matter of factly.

'breakfast buddy?'

‘mm hmm’

so as to not disappoint your self proclaimed ‘breakfast buddy’ you get ready and drag shoko along with you to breakfast, thankfully you still had time before classes started so you enjoyed a nice breakfast of waffles with butter and maple syrup while listening to shoko and gojo talk. this routine continued for around a month with geto joining you a few times.

you weren't very open to talk about yourself, all you talked about were the books you read and how boring your classes were. gojo and shoko took up most of the yapping. but as time went by, gojo stopped addressing you directly, he would talk to the group more and only walked you till wherever shoko walked you till.

you didn't notice, completely wrapped up in your own head. you had done two shoots over the past week and you had a bunch of assignments piled up.

plus you'd been hanging out with shoko and yuki way more this week because your birthday was coming along and they were planning the most obscure things for your twentieth birthday.

gojo eventually stopped coming around for breakfast, making excuses like he was busy or he had a date or something. geto came from time to tome and shoko was always with you but you’d gotten real close with him over the past month. and you were surprised to find that you,

you kinda missed him.

a/n: ajshdsddkfhsdfh i love this chapter but its going to get a little angsty

©hikariyaps2025

[mysteryshoptls]

Ruggie Bucchi Shared Lines

Tutorial: You'll miss out if you just stick around here. Hurry, let's go.

Level Up 1 / Buddy Level Up: Sheeheehee, ain't this nice!

Level Up 2: What a weirdo, tryin' to take care of me like this...

Level Up 3: Guess I'll try ta get even stronger.

Level Max: Right now, I feel like I can do anythin'. Guess it ain't a bad thing to put in a little effort once in a while. Hehehe.

Vignette Level Up: Ain't you a good-natured sucker～ It ain't my problem if it all backfires on ya. Well, maybe I can help ya depending on what it is.

Spell Level Up: I always thought my magic'd never amount to nothin' good... Looks like I can get by.

Friendship Level Up: You wanna know if I’ll come back again? Hey, ’s long as it’s free, I’ll come anytime! And hey, if I get some snacks out of coming here too, that’d be even better. Shishishi.

Friendship Level Max: I gotta make sure to thank ya for always invitin’ me. Oh right, let me know if any of your furniture breaks. Not sayin’ I’ll do it for free, but I can give you a friend’s discount to fix it.

Uncapped: Looks like I'm still maturin'. Guess I gotta keep ya around a little longer, huh.

Groovification: See, only crafty folk can survive in this world. It'll be good for you to stick around me, too.

Lesson Select 1: There ain't a class on hagglin'? Guess I shouldn't've expected that from some hoity-toity mage school.

Lesson Select 2: You don't gotta put too much thought into it. Ain'tcha super diligent.

Lesson Select 3: Which one're you pickin'? I'm def gonna pick out somethin' that'll be useful for survival.

Lesson Start: Let's go, time to study!

Lesson Finish: Whew, gotta make sure I don't get left behind.

Battle Start: This is my territory!

Battle Won: Seems like I’ll be having some delicious dinner!

Trouble 1: C'mon, I totally was gonna end it at just the right moment～

Trouble 2: I woulda been fine if we kept goin’ for a little longer, though?

GIFT CALENDAR 2023: “How will you be spending the day?” Obviously, I’m gonna be workin’! Today, I’m at a cake shop, and tomorrow I’m waitin’ tables at a restaurant… The holidays are coming up, so 'tis the season for a ton of high-payin’ temp jobs to fill my pockets, too! Shishishi!

Birthday Login Message 1: Today's the day I've been waiting for: my birthday! You got me a present, riiight? ...Wait, huh? You really got one for me? ...Uhhh, I really can't with how straight-forward that was. Well hey, thanks. Hehehe.

Birthday Login Message 2: Thanks for celebratin’ my birthday with me! Since it’s my big day, we should go grab some grub and… Ah! Oh noooooo, this is sooooo terrible, I forgot my wallet… I guess I can’t buy… Eh, you’ll treat me? Really? Maan, it’s really great having such a generous junior like you! C'mon, let’s go, let’s go. Shishishi～

Birthday Login Message 3: Whew, you really helped me out there, carryin’ the gifts I went n’ collected from the other students ‘round campus. Eh? You helpin’ me was your gift…? Wait, wait, wait, those are two totally different things! …Oh, you were kidding. Hey, you really hurt me just now, so you gotta give me another gift to make up for it, 'kay.

Birthday Login Message 4: Thanks for the birthday wishes! Sooo, I wonder whatcha got for mee~ Handmade donuts? Uh-huuuh. Y'know, I’m pretty particular about how my donuts taste… [chomps] Huhー this’s so good…! How’d youー!? It’s almost like it came from a… Ohhh, so these are handmade donuts from a pastry shop. That makes more sense.

Requested by Anonymous.

[billthedrake]

LINEAGE (PART FIFTEEN)

Spring finally hit, and it was a perfect Sunday afternoon for a ball game. I'd taken Evan and Keith to see the city's major league team. It was some overdue bonding time with my sons, and I felt the need to put in some Dad time with Evan particularly, who had entered his moody phase. Ever since I'd announced my relationship with Junior, my third son had seemed more distant.

He was in a better mood that day. "So, Dad..." he said between the third and fourth inning. "I want to start working out. For real."

This didn't totally surprise me. Both Ev and Keith were into sports, just about any sport, but particularly football. Both played in the 13U Pop Warner league, and Evan looked forward to joining the middle school team in the Fall.

I was about to give a more cautious response, but I was in a good mood. "I guess your Daddy and I can show you around the weight room," I said. "You could join me after school," I offered. Then adding my Dad talk, I said, "As long as you keep up with your homework."

Evan smiled, probably the first real smile I'd seen from him in a month. "Yes, Dad. That'd be awesome."

"I wanna do it too," Keith piped in. He definitely had little brother syndrome and always had to be doing what Evan was doing.

Now was time for the cautious approach. "I can show you some form, Keith, but you're not using weights till you're older, OK?"

Jesus, my other kid was gonna get sulky. "I bet Daddy would let me work out with him."

"Your Daddy is with me on this, Bruiser," I said. I had a different nickname for each son, and I was worried I was going to run out of fresh ones once the triplets came. I tried to be conciliatory. "You can join me and Ev, but I don't want either one of you injuring yourself while you're still growing."

An inning later, my phone buzzed. It was Braden. "How's the game?"

"We're losing, 3-1," I typed back. "But the boys are having a good time."

"Junior and I are having a real good time, too," came the text.

Goddamnit, don't get hard here, Bill, I told myself. Braden and Junior had gone to the Fiedlers for the first cross-family foursome. I'd been dying to go, but there was no way to make that happen without Evan and Keith feeling left out of something they didn't understand.

So here I was putting in Dad time while Brade and Junior were having sex with the Fiedlers. While Todd's dad, Adam, was now up in Ithaca living with his son-boyfriend, Jon, both were back in town for Jon's spring break, joining the eldest son Andrew who was also back home from college.

"I want a full report, Son," I wrote back.

"Of course, Dad." Then I got a follow up message. "Junior is quite the stud."

I slipped my phone back into my shorts.

***

Braden filled me in that night in bed. He felt very drained sexually, and I think a little sore. Every Fiedler man had apparently been inside my son.

Even as he told me, lying back naked in bed, his big muscle body seeming bigger with the hint of a baby bump now showing, he seemed excited.

"Thanks for letting me go, Dad. I guess I've been feeling that need to play."

I ran my hand over his stomach. If Brade was getting bigger there already, the triplets pregnancy was going make him get big, fast. "I'm glad you could have your fun, buddy. I'm not there for you enough."

He knew what I meant. "Cmon, Dad. We're figuring this out. Even if you weren't with Junior, I'd still get horny sometimes."

"Well I've started taking those pills," I grinned.

That made Brade laugh. "Yeah? They working?"

I nodded. "Some days more than others. Hard to predict. But I'll feel this total rush and get rock hard." I nodded down at my boner as if to illustrate.

"Nice," Braden said reaching over to caress my boner with his fingers. He was definitely more in a soft exploration mood rather than a let's have sex mood. It was great, but also driving me crazy a little. "Both the Fiedler dads are taking them. It was really hot."

We kissed. Softer than I wanted, but that day was all about Braden, not me. I had felt a moment of jealousy but ultimately I was glad he'd enjoyed himself.

My son-husband pulled back and rested his head on my chest. I stroke the soft bristle of his hair and wondered how I ended up to be so lucky to have a son like Braden, my life partner.

"How you feeling about Junior, Dad?" he asked softly.

"He's 18," I replied. "He needs to sow his oats."

"Bill's a natural, Dad," Braden said. His hand was still on my prick, not outright stroking it but moving up and down in a very sensual way. I was getting surprisingly worked up from his touch.

"Yeah?" I asked.

He nodded. "I mean, I knew he can top, but watching him in action... he fucked every single guy there."

My dick jerked at that. "Even Todd?" I knew my buddy had bottomed a couple of times for Andrew, but generally preferred top bunk.

"Especially Todd," Braden said. "I'm not trying to make you jealous, Dad, but there was clearly a lot of pent up sexual tension there."

I knew what he meant. The flirtatious talk between me and Todd Fiedler, the way the doctor eyed up Junior on our golf outings, just like I'd eyed up his boys.

"Did I say the wrong thing?" Braden asked, finally looking up at me.

I shook my head. "I have to have a relationship talk with Junior, that's all. But I'm lucky to have two very sexual sons."

Braden smiled. "I'm too tired for fucking, Dad. OK if I suck you off?"

I spread my legs. "More than OK, buddy."

Braden scooted his head down and began licking my cock. Taking a more exploratory approach. Up and down from my balls to my tip. I was so hard from the sex talk and from imagining Brade and Junior hooking up with the Fiedler men.

Finally my son started swallowing my dick, slowly sucking me. Lovingly, even. I let him control the pace and enjoyed the slow build up.

"Brade!" I finally gasped. "I'm close, son." My cock felt completely alive and super sensitive, responding to every movement of his mouth on me.

I curled my fingers in his buzzcut and fired off. Brade gladly gulped me down.

****

The workweek hit hard. We had a new routine. I'd head off to work early while Brade and Junior had their workout. Junior would drive Keith and Evan to school, and I'd pick them up.

When we got home, I gave Brade a welcome home kiss, but he was occupied with watching the twins and making dinner. That Monday, I asked Evan and Keith to get changed and join me in the basement home gym. Braden would probably be a better personal trainer, but the boys would have to make do with me. It was fun, though, and reinvigorating to get a work out in with them, showing them different exercises along the way.

Both the boys were in a great mood over dinner. And Evan even went and did his homework after, like I'd asked. Junior excused himself to do the same.

"I can't wait to grow up," Keith said as the rest of my sons sat around the dinner while I started cleaning up.

"That just means more chores and more homework, Bruiser."

Keith seemed to think it over. "Yeah, I guess."

Braden laughed. "You wanna help me put your little brothers to bed?" he asked Keith.

"Sure."

The twins were barely walking but with some help, they did a good job. Keith held on to one hand each and slowly walked them back down the hall.

"You good here, Dad?" Braden asked.

"I got this," I said. "Though I'm dreading the number of dishes to clean once the triplets are here."

"Who's fault is that?" Braden teased.

"I'll gladly take responsibility," I said.

Brade gave me a quick peck. "You still sleeping with Junior tonight?" he asked.

I looked into my son's brown eyes. "If that's still OK with you, buddy. And if Junior's up for it." This would be a big step. Me sleeping in Junior's room for the first time.

"He'll be up for it, Dad. I guarantee."

"He seemed quiet tonight," I observed.

Braden patted my arm. "Let him sleep in tomorrow. It's OK if he misses a workout." My son-husband definitely brought the optimism in our relationship, whereas I was the worrier.

With that, he walked off to go read to the twins.

I felt a hardon coming on. A chub at first, then a full on boner in my slacks. I'd chalk it up to those pills, but I think it was actually the excitement of overnighting with Junior.

I cleaned up and set aside the dish towel. I walked down the hall and knocked on Junior's door, which was ajar.

"Hey kiddo," I said, stepping in.

Junior was in his books. He looked so handsome in his golf attire, barefoot and wearing his ball cap at his desk. "Hey Dad," he said. He had a nervous look on his face.

I shut the door behind me. "What's wrong, kiddo? You didn't knock up another guy, did you?" I asked in a teasing voice.

"No, sir," he laughed. "I wish."

I nodded down at his books. "Still got a lot more work to do?"

Junior shook his head. "I'm pretty much done. Just trying to get a head start on the week, you know?"

I stepped up and placed my hand on his shoulder. "I wanted to see if I could sleep here tonight?"

"God yeah, Dad," came the immediate reply. "You're not in the dog house are you?"

I chuckled. "No. Things are all good with me and your Daddy. Just want some time with my boyfriend." I reached down and removed his ball cap, placing it on his desk.

Junior was very eager the kiss as I leaned down. We tapped tongues and explored each other's mouths gently. Bill Jr. was getting some real kissing technique down.

"I can give you some time and come back later," I offered.

"Whatever, Dad," Junior replied. He leaned back in his chair and I could see he was boned up. He stood up and we kissed some more.

"I should probably shower up," he said.

"Maybe I can join you, kiddo," I growled into his lips.

"Fuck yeah."

We slowly stripped each other off. Enjoying our nakedness. I followed Junior into the adjoining bathroom, both our dicks rock hard.

This was another first for us. Junior starting the shower and me stepping in next to him.

"Your Daddy isn't into shower sex," I said.

"Really?" he said. "This has been a dream of mine forever, Dad," Junior said, openly sudsing my chest and arms before I took the soap and did the same for him.

We kissed under the shower spray and I could feel my son's cock press against mine, battling it like clashing swords.

"Turn around," I said softly. I took my time soaping Junior's strong back. His body was responding really well to the workouts and a naughty idea wondered if Evan and Keith would respond to their workouts as well. I put that thought aside, though and set down the soap.

Junior wasn't expecting it, but once I crouched down and parted his cheeks, he grew excited. "Fuck yes, Dad. Taste my hole."

I licked my son's pucker and then ate him out more fervently. Junior braced himself on the tile wall and let me munch away.

"I could cum like this, Dad," he moaned.

"You should, Son," I said. pulling back and kneading his cheeks before I dove back in.

We both had a mission now. Me to rim Junior to an intense orgasm, and Junior to get off. It took thirty seconds for that to happen. I loved feeling his buns clench around my face and his tasting his hole spasm as he fired several ropes onto the shower wall.

"Attaboy," I grunted, leaning back to take a final look of his ass.

I stood up and claimed a hot kiss from my boyfriend-son. We finally turned off the water. It took Junior a second to realize I was still rock hard. "You didn't get off, Dad?"

"Un unh. Cut cocks can use a little lubrication."

Junior nodded and then crouched down in front of me. I felt him start to suck me. He was getting better at this, and I wondered if Brade had been giving him tips. Teaching him how to service his own father. The idea had me cumming.

My son got some nonverbal grunts for warning and then was being fed a healthy load.

We were almost laughing as we dried off.

"That was fun as hell, Dad," Junior said. We got into Junior's bed. A queen sized mattress, it wasn't as cumfy as the marital bed I shared with Braden, but I enjoyed snuggling next to him. Kissing, making out. Feeling naked with Junior.

"Thanks for this, Dad," he said.

"You don't gotta thank me, Junior," I said. "I enjoy this as much."

He took that in. Like he almost couldn't believe it. "I take it Daddy told you about yesterday." That nervousness was coming back.

"He did," I said. "You had fun?" The way Brade had described the Fiedler orgy, he made it sound like Junior was on cloud nine, and now I worried he hadn't been into it.

"A little too much," he said. "I thought you might be mad."

I patted his back. "I would have been doing the same thing as you if I'd been there," I assured him.

His smile came back. "I told those guys you're the only man who fucks me."

"Yeah, bud?" I asked. We hadn't talked much about that. I guess I'd assumed Junior would go on to enjoy it with other men.

My son nodded. "You're the only man who ever will, Dad. Honest."

My dick grew hard against him. OK, those pills could work their magic.

"You like that," he observed.

I used my free hand to stroke his cheek. "I'm definitely flattered. And, yeah, turned on."

"It only feels right if it's my own father," he said. I could feel his own prick plumping against mine.

We kissed now. Classic French Kiss. Just the right speed as we caressed each other's bodies and rolled around his bed some. Finally, I'd claimed the position on top of him. And when I pulled back I saw that look in Junior's eyes. Ready.

I reached over to his nightstand and fumbled for the lube.

"I love you, kiddo," I said as I fingered his hole with the lube, slowly at first.

"Love you, Dad. Fuck, it's wild I'm dating my father."

I grinned and added a finger. "You can tell me if it ever doesn't feel right," I said.

"I'm learning to relax down there, Dad," Junior replied.

I shook my head. "I meant the dating part. If you ever want to go out on your own, date other men."

"God, Dad. Fuck. I mean, even if I ever did, you're my main guy."

I worked in a third. "Yeah?" I asked with a horny edge. Junior's words were getting to me, emotionally and sexually.

"Fuck yeah, Dad. You got dibs."

I laughed at that. "In that case..." I said. I pulled my fingers out just as my prick lined up. The trick worked surprisingly well. Junior was getting smoothly fed his father's dick.

"Hell fucking yes. My dad's cock inside me."

"Where it belongs, son."

He nodded. I hit a deeper spot about five inches in. Junior was tighter there and he ran his hands over my upper body to get in the headspace to take me.

"You got this kiddo," I assured him.

"Yeah, Dad," he replied, almost to convince himself. But indeed after working my prick in very short thrusts against the tightness I felt my son's insides open up for me.

"YES!" we cried simultaneously.

"Fuck me, Dad," Junior urged, now holding on to my hips, to pull me into him.

I pumped him. Eyes locking on my hunky son's, my loving son's, as we mated. "Take your father, Junior. Take Dad's cock."

"Every damn day if you want, Sir."

"Fuck," I hissed. The idea was very hot.

"I know you got Daddy too. But I love having sex with you, Dad. So much."

"Me too, kiddo."

I leaned in and kissed. And fucked. Deeper and faster. Junior was horny beneath me, his hard cock against my abs. "Shit!" he gasped in horniness.

I stopped for a second, though it took a lot of willpower to do so. Junior watched wide-eyed as I pumped out some lube on his rock hard erection. I'd barely started pumping him again, when he started jerking off in sync with my thrusts.

"You're gonna fuck me off, Dad. Gonna me cum... so fucking hard... YES!"

Though he was feeling the sexual urgency now, it actually took a solid minute for that orgasm to build up. It was glorious to watch. I was feeling real fucking good, too, but right then I was focused on fucking the cum out of junior. Putting extra power in my thrusts. He was ready for it.

"Harder, Dad!" he said aloud.

I pounded with a new intensity. And Junior's face scrunched and cum flew out of his cock, all over his toned, athletic body. I huffed and enjoyed the sensation of his guts clenching, bringing me over the line into pure pleasure.

My body finally slowed and we pressed heads together, catching our breaths.

"I wish the Fiedlers could watch you fuck me like that, Dad," Junior finally said in sincerity. "That was incredible."

"I'll say." I gave him a kiss then finally slid out of him. After two cums, I was still hard, but I was definitely spent for the moment. I lay next to him and ran my fingers through the cum on his chest. "I didn't go too hard on ya, did I, kiddo?"

Junior shook his head. "I loved it, Dad." Then softly, "I want to get better at it."

"I don't think your father can handle 'better'," I replied.

Junior smiled. "Daddy says you like fucking hard."

I wanted to head this off at the pass. "I like fucking in a way my son enjoys," I said.

"I know," he grinned. "But maybe with poppers..." He was definitely feeling me out.

"You done poppers?" I asked in that Dad tone.

"No," he replied. "But I guess I see guys in porn do em."

"Real life isn't porn," I reminded him.

"I don't know, Dad..." Junior nodded down to our sweaty, cum-coated bodies. "That was a pretty fucking porn worthy fuck." He saw my hesitation. "Just think it over, OK?"

We showered off again and got back into bed. Holding each other naked and talking. Eventually we set the alarm and turned off the light.

As Braden suggested, I let Junior sleep in the next morning, though I rimmed him while he sucked me off. I came hard in his mouth then he leaned up and rode my mouth while he jerked off a matching load.

Once we'd orgasmed, we got out of bed and got ready.

"You good for taking your brothers to school?" I asked. We weren't running late, but we were cutting it close.

"For sure, Dad," Junior replied, slipping on his T-shirt. "And I don't have practice today so can pick them up too."

"That'd be great," I said. "I need to take Brade to his doctor's appointment."

"Everything healthy with Daddy?" he asked. Junior had always been fixated on Braden's pregnancies and now took on a protective attitude toward his daddy-brother.

"So far," I said. "But with triplets we gotta do regular check ups."

"Daddy's built tough, Dad," Junior said with a smile. "It's gonna go great."

I looked at my watch. "I gotta get dressed," I said. I wore my underwear, and had yesterdays' shirt and trousers in one arm. "But I had an amazing night last night, Son," I said.

"Me, too, Dad."

We gave each other a goodbye kiss.

****

The ice had definitely been broken between us and the Fiedlers. At the next golf outing, Todd said point blank over that first hole, "Your son's quite the cocksman, Bill."

I was caught off guard but this was our crude flirtatious thing just taken to a new level. "You're gonna inflate the boy's ego, Todd," I replied, looking over at Junior with a wink.

Junior puffed out his chest as he strode up to the tee. "What can I say, Dr. Fiedler? You guys inspired me." He focused on his line of sight then pulled the club back for a hard swing. The loud metal connected with a thwap sound and we watched the ball travel FAR, straight down the fairway. Junior was really a great player these days.

Sam patted my arm in a flirty way. "Was just sad you coudn't join, Mr. Drake. Maybe next time."

"I'd like that, Sam," I said. I was starting to chub up right then and there. There goes my score, I thought. No way was I going to be able to focus on my game.

Somehow, I got my mind back into golf, enjoying the talk with the Fiedlers and Junior. Talking sex, but also other family stuff. We actually got into a discussion about real estate and if there was any chance to grow Incest Acres. We decided it would have to be incest men only, or guys very open to incest.

Often Junior and I have sex after a golf outing, and sometimes a date. But when Todd suggested a group scene back at their pace, I was definitely intrigued.

"I know you want Braden there, Bill," he said. "But we can do just a suck scene. It's very hot."

I texted Braden to see if it would be OK and got a thumbs up. I knew he'd enjoy me recounting it later, and I could suck him for a change as payback.

I was hornier than I realized when we made it to the Fiedler house. I didn't know how this would go down, but Todd led us into the living room, where Sam sat next to his father. Junior sat next to me. I think my son knew what to do from last time, since he started kissing along my neck and feeling up my chest through my knit polo.

"Your boy's horny for his Dad," Todd hissed.

I wasn't surprised that Dr. Fiedler was a verbal man, but I was very glad.

"How about your, Son?" I asked. "You horny for your Dad, Sam?"

"God, yeah, Mr. Drake," Sam Fiedler answered. He was just shy of Junior's age and while he didn't have my son's build quite, he was trim and cute as fuck. "I can't get enough dad dick." Already he was pawing at Todd's crotch.

"How often you suck Bill Jr off?" Todd asked me, locking eyed on the incestuous couple in front of him.

"Once a week," I replied. "Probably should do it more."

Junior pulled back and kissed me.

"FUCK!" Todd Fiedler hissed. "Fucking incest."

I was now the one pushing things forward. I undid my shorts and pushed them down, then my underwear, so my hard cock was standing straight up.

"You're hung as fuck, Mr. Drake," came Sam's excited voice.

Junior laughed when he pulled back. He was pretty much my size and was used to guys being surprised at the Drake cock.

"That's my boyfriend you're talking about," Junior said.

"Damn," I heard Todd say. He was following my lead in removing his shorts. It was my first time seeing the Fiedler cock. He lacked my length but had some girth that made it seemed imposing.

Already Sam was on it. Leaning over his dad's lap and lapping away. Holding the base and going down on his father.

"Not gonna take me long, today," Todd said. "Hanging out with you guys." He looked down and softly muttered, "Suck me, son. Suck your dad."

Junior was getting turned on. He pulled my head into a kiss then went to kneel down on the floor between my legs.

This was extremely hot. Me watching Sam Fiedler suck his father while Junior sucked me. Watching Todd watch us and both fathers getting off on exhibitionism.

"I'm gonna cum, kiddo," I finally announced. I wanted to make this last, but Junior was good at sucking cock and I was all too worked up.

I probably would have enjoyed Todd have his orgasm, but Junior was standing up, flogging his uncut prick. Stepping up slightly to get closer. Before I could react, that piss slit opened up in a flutter and hot son cum fired out in a thick jet. Then another. Junior was painting my face in semen, and was turned on to watch that act.

It surprised me, but it was hot and fun, too. Something new. It wasn't like sex between me and Brade was stale, but Junior loved experimenting in a way Braden usually didn't. They both had their place in my life.

I leaned in and latched my mouth over the tip of Junior's prick, tasting the dribbles.

Only after I came down did I feel embarrassed. My shirt was wet with Junior's seed and even after I rinsed off my face in the bathroom, I felt like maybe things had gone too far.

But the Fiedler men were on cloud nine. Todd and Sam had made themselves presentable and were all smiles. Todd's hand was on Sam's shoulder as he walked us to the door. "Thanks for that, guys. And Sam here definitely wants to take both you guys on."

"Oh yeah," Sam said. I got the sense his teen sex drive was pushing Todd to open things up even more than his other sons.

"That's be way hot," Junior said.

Todd paused. "Would a good bye kiss be too much to ask for?"

I shook my head. I stepped up to Todd. Talk about sexual tension. We kissed with a little tongue. Then more. "Nice," he whispered.

Junior was doing the same with Sam. Then we switched. Me kissing Sam Fiedler for the first time and feeling him practically suck my tongue into his mouth. Meanwhile, Junior was going heavier into the kiss with the DILF doctor.

"All right, Junior... we should get back."

We walked back to the house, Junior with a knowing smile on his face. "Come on, Dad, that was hot as fuck. Right?"

"Yeah," I admitted.

****

Braden found a side project. He had started a social media feed about men bearing kids. He'd done some posting with the twins, but that had been more of a hobby. Now that he was pregnant with twins, Brade went all in with the content. Daily posts: fitness and exercise while pregnant, nutrition, shirtless updates of his baby bump, reports from his doctor's visit. It became a viral sensation. And ad money was coming in. Real money.

Evan was helping him out. "He's really good with computers and video and stuff," Brade said. "I told him he'd get a small percentage of the cut for his allowance." I was glad Ev was into the little brothers coming along the way.

I spend more looking after Keith, hanging out with him. I loved being that Dad for him, throwing the football in the backyard, watching his little league games, or taking him out for ice cream afterward.

We were driving home from one of his games, when he got quiet. "Dad.... when is my body going to change?" I'd given him a couple of guy talks, about sex and puberty.

"It happens when it happens, Bruiser," I said. "You're getting impatient?" I asked. I wasn't sure where this question was coming from. But Keith wanted to copy everything Evan did.

"Maybe," he said.

"I won't lie, son," I said. "It can be a wonderful experience. But it can also be scary, trying to figure out the changes when they come."

Keith seemed to hang on my every word. "Was it scary for you, Dad?"

"Totally scary," I said. "My body wanted one thing and my mind wanted something else."

"Wow," Keith said. I could tell he wanted to know more but wasn't going to pry into details.

"Just feel free to come to me or your Daddy if we can help, OK?"

"Yeah, Dad."

This was the fourth son I'd had to talk about sex with, and I wondered if it would get easier.

****

I was in my office one evening before dinner, trying to get some work done, when Junior came, knocking on the door.

"Dad?" he asked.

"Yeah, kiddo?" I said, pushing my chair back and gesturing for him to come in.

Junior had a folded paper in his hand. "I got this in the mail."

I had seen the envelope when I got home. An official looking mailing from Auburn. I'd been anxious waiting for my son to get home and open it.

"I got it," he said, with a shy, proud smile. "Full ride to Auburn."

I beamed. "Oh bud... that's amazing!" I stood up and walked over to hug my son. I clasped his back and then gave him a quick kiss. "So proud of you."

"Thanks, Dad." He wasn't as thrilled as I expected. "I'm gonna call em up and see if I can defer a year."

That caught me off guard. "Yeah? You sure?"

He nodded, and I could tell he'd been rehearsing what to tell me. "I've been thinking it over, Dad. With the triplets coming, you and Daddy could use all the help around the house you can get."

I gave him a look that said I was listening but not buying it. "I'm gonna miss you like hell when you go to college, Junior. You know that. But I don't want you to put college or any of your plans on hold because of us. We'll figure it out."

Junior reached up and ran his fingers along my chest. We were matched for height and it felt nice to have this soft initimacy with my son-boyfriend.

"I know, Dad," he said. "It's just that... I figure this is my last chance in a long while."

"Last chance for what?" I asked. Braden called me oblivious a lot, and this was a prime example.

"To have your kid, Dad. If you want that."

"Junior... you have no idea how happy that would make me." I pulled him closer to me. I don't think I realized until that moment how much I wanted to procreate with Junior. "But you'd have to want that, too."

"I want it, Dad," my son objected. "If you give me permission, I'd go off the birth control right away."

I had a million reasons to talk Junior out of it. A million practical considerations to talk through. But instead I kissed Junior, deeply.

I had to be inside him, so I finally relinquished the kiss. "Go tell your Daddy dinner will be a few minutes later, OK? Then come meet me in the master bedroom."

The huge smile on Junior's face told me we were gonna do this. Gonna have a son together. Whenever Bill Jr began ovulating again. Whenever my seed got the job done. Eventually, but maybe soon.

"Yeah, Dad."

[miizuzu]

Too little, too late

“Alright! I'm gonna say it to him!”

Your two closest friends, Shoko and Utahime, were hanging out in the park with you. You decided you've wanted long enough, you were finally going to confess your feelings towards Satoru Gojo, whom you think also feels the same way. He would always scare away any guy that approached you, always asking you to hang out with him and just hang out, you even slept in the same bed a few times, not that anything sexual ever happened.

“I'm going to tell him I love him.” You announced it to your best friends. You were a year younger than all of them, everyone working together in the same company and same department. Everyone became close really quickly, always going to eat or parties after work. Shoko was dating Satoru's best friend Suguru Geto, everyone was envious towards them.

“Argh!! Gross!! But… if that's what you really want then I would support you.” Utahime CANNOT stand Satoru, the two of them would always be bickering, pretty sure a fight would break out if you weren't always there to hold them back.

“Aww, thanks Hime, that means a lot to me!” you wrapped your arms around her neck and pulled her into your embrace.

“Yea! You got this!” Shoko encourages you. Everyone of them could see Satoru treats you differently, but he would never take another step forward, you were getting tired of waiting and decided to take the initiative. “They are actually hanging out at the other side of the park, are you planning to do it now?”

“Yeah, I might as well get it over with.” the three of you headed towards the guys. You could see Satoru waving his arms around while he tells Suguru about things that happened today. He saw you walking towards him now, and he waves energetically at you.

“Hey sweets! Wanna come hang out for a bit?” He was giving you a big toothy smile, making your heart race.

“Hey Toru, I got something I want to tell you… I-I love you!!” You were squeezing your eyes shut, you could hear him chuckling.

“Hehe, I love you too!” He said, beaming at you, “I've always wanted a sister like you!”

Ouch.

The others were watching, widened eyes but stayed silent. They were all staring at you, they were all shocked from Satoru's reply. You looked at Satoru's face, he's smiling playfully, not clueing in how he just shut you down mercilessly.

“Oh. Haha. Yeah.” You were holding back tears, you quickly turned away. Biting on your own lips to not cry out in front of him.

“We should all go eat dinner together.” Satoru cluelessly suggested. Utahime was fuming, he was walking towards Satoru when Shoko came and saved the day.

“Actually, we were gonna have a girl's night out. No boys allowed.” She shoves at both you and Utahime. Gesturing at Suguru to help calm the situation, he quickly nodded at her and grabbed Satoru by the shoulders, “Guess it's just me and you buddy.”

Satoru pouts a bit before shouting at you, who has already put quite a bit of distance between him. “Call me later when you get home okay?” You heard him but pretended like you didn't. Why is he still giving you mixed signals? He had just clearly rejected you a minute ago, you don't understand and neither do your two best friends.

“Let me go back and beat him to a pulp.” Utahime turned back and was about to head towards Satoru. “No, please. I just want to get out of here.” You couldn't hold your tears any longer.

The three of you went to Utahime’s place, ordered take out and the two of them did their best to cheer you up. “I thought he liked me… I guess I've been overthinking this whole time…” you cried into a pillow.

“You weren't the only one.” Shoko was surprised, she was usually very good at figuring out people, and Satoru showed all the signs of being interested in you.

“Omg just forget about that fucker already!! You can do so much better! Anyone, and I mean ANYONE would be better than him.” Utahime pats your head softly. “We will go meet new people, we can go to the club or anywhere you want. Maybe take a vacation, we can go somewhere just the 3 of us!”

“I just need to let it out of my system. You're right, we can go meet new people.” You were trying to convince yourself, but who are you kidding? You've never had a relationship, wanting to save yourself for your mister right. What is the point? You should just have fun, live a little. You promised Utahime you will forget about your feelings towards Satoru, but it's easier said than done. You've liked him for a while and now your heart feels empty. Felt like he had ripped your heart out of your chest and stomped on it.

The three of you hung out till it was late into the night, Utahime insisted you should stay with her but you didn't want to bother her. You also wanted to spend some time alone and just bawl your eyes out. Suguru was picking up Shoko and offered you a ride home but you refused, not wanting to be the 3rd wheel. You took public transport home, walking back to your apartment when you received a text from Satoru.

Toru🩵: are you home yet? I'm so bored… call me when you get home ok?

You stared at your phone for a second before throwing it against the wall. The screen goes dark and you calm yourself down before going to pick it back up. You turned your phone off and kept walking home.

You stayed home for a few days after everything that had happened. You emailed your work with your computer and requested a leave of absence. Satoru was worried about you, he hasn't heard back from you since after his text which he clearly knows you've read. Satoru was telling Suguru he would go to your place to check on you after work was over. Suguru quickly told Shoko, she then made up an excuse, saying you are too much and got sick. Satoru was skeptical, wanting to buy you indigestion medicine to help you get better.

Shoko insisted you were fine and that she and Utahime will go check on you after work. Utahime wants to skin Satoru alive, glared at him the whole time. Satoru was clueless, but since they insisted, he just listened.

Utahime and Shoko arrived at your place, everything was a mess, you were a mess. They asked you why you didn't answer your phone and you told them you smashed it. “Well you need a phone so we can check up on you.” You fought for a bit but ultimately agreed you needed a phone. “I'll get a new number too. I don't want to see his name show up.”

You cleaned up your place and changed into something else and the three of you headed out to shop for a new phone. You were wearing just a hoodie and sweatpants but you noticed guys who stare at you which you've never noticed before. Satoru would constantly glare at the guys who checked you out, now you finally notice the attention you would get without him being around.

You arrived at the cellphone shop and the salesperson quickly helped you with your needs. After picking the new phone and getting a new phone number, he asked if you could save your number and call you sometimes. You were shocked by how popular you seemed to be, you never noticed any of this before. You agreed and he keyed his phone number into your new phone.

Your two friends helped you get all of your contacts back, except the one. You did not want him to have your number. You do not want to have anything to do with him anymore.

Satoru, not knowing you got a new number, is still texting and calling your old one. He wasn't sure why you were ignoring him, he was getting worried and a bit annoyed. He wanted to make sure you were okay, even though Suguru told him you were fine from Shoko’s updates.

A few more days pass and somehow you've managed to avoid Satoru, despite working at the same department. He was in full panic mode, he hadn't heard or seen you for days now. He wanted to go to your place and check on you, but once again Suguru had to talk him out of it. It's getting harder and harder to stop Satoru from looking for you.

You couldn't avoid him any longer, finally seeing him in the break room and he quickly walked towards you, making you unintentionally step back.

“Sweets!” The nickname made you flinch. “You've been ignoring my texts! Well I'm glad to see you feeling better.” he reached his arm up, about to pat your head and you avoided his touch, making him pout.

“I dropped my phone and had to get a new one.” you shrugged him off, trying to squeeze by him to get back to work. He plants his arm against the wall to block your way. “Well, did you get a new number? Give me your new number.” Why can't he just take the hint? You thought to yourself.

“I can't remember it yet, I'll message you later ok? Have to get back to work.” You flashed him a quick smile which looked forced. “Wait, are you avoiding me?” Satoru was confused. “Did I do something wrong?”

God… why can't he just leave you alone?

“No, it's nothing Gojo. I need to get back to work.” You ducked under his arm and headed towards your desk.

“Gojo? Why are you calling me that? I'm Toru for you.” His brows were furrowed as he tried to rip an explanation from you.

“Sorry, just feeling really tired, I really need to get back to work now.” you smile at him again, trying to look more sincere this time.

He finally lets you walk away, he couldn't understand why you were treating him this way. The two of you were always close, he was starting to miss your presence, you were constantly on his mind.

Rushing back to your desk, Utahime asked you what's wrong when she saw your panting face rushing back. “Is everything ok?” She quietly asked.

“I need to get laid. I don't want to think of him anymore.” You don't care anymore, you just want him out of your mind. Utahime didn't like the idea but thought it was for the best. She remembered being invited to a house party someone in another department was hosting. She decided you could go with her and maybe find someone there. You jumped on the idea and Shoko disagreed, she thinks you shouldn't do that just to forget Satoru. But didn't really try to stop you since she knows once you decide on something, nothing will change your mind.

Fast forward to the night of the party, Satoru was sitting with Suguru at the party. They were of course invited because of their good looks. Satoru never liked places like this, if it wasn't Suguru telling him you would show up, he would never come to places like this. Satoru's eyes scanned every corner of every room, he thought he saw someone who resembles you, wearing clothes you would never wear. To his surprise, it was you. Wearing a tight, short little dress which hardly covers anything. Guys were just flocking to your side, offering you drinks and telling you boring jokes which you just laughed along.

It seems like you haven't noticed Satoru yet, he watches random guys get your phone number while he still hasn't gotten it. He hates how close they were towards you, he wanted to go and pull you to his side to protect you from their filthy gaze. He could already see what they wanted to do to you and Satoru was fuming. Shoko and Suguru had to physically pull him back, while he watches other men hit on you.

“Why are you guys stopping me? Can't you see how those guys looked at her? They want to eat her alive!” Satoru panics, he wants to keep you out of harm's way. “Why are you acting like you love her more than a sister?” Utahime finally asks Satoru.

He froze on the spot, he was wondering why as well. When did this feeling start? How come he was constantly looking for you no matter what he does? When did his feelings for you get so strong?

You disappeared while he was wrecking his brain, when he finally came to, he saw you walking upstairs with Sakuna wrapping their arm around your waist, he quickly followed behind, pushing through the crowd as he made his way upstairs. He could hear you giggling with him, he could feel his stomach turn.

He was furiously banging at the door when he couldn't hear your giggles anymore. Knowing the two of you had started to get intimate. He continues banging until the door opens with a small crack.

“What the hell my guy, can't you see his room is occupied? Go find another.” Sakuna was clearly annoyed. Satoru sees you on the bed, your dress wrinkled around your waist. He could see your beautiful breasts hanging out and your panties were fully exposed. He could see your lipstick stains on Sakuna's lips and he tried his hardest to not punch him in the face.

“Sweets, let's go. You shouldn't be here, you're drunk. Let's go home. This isn't something you should do.” Satoru was trying to push his way into the room, which he managed a few steps.

You got up from the bed and walked towards him, Satoru could feel the smirk on his face. “You should go.” You said. “Yea, you should go.” Satoru echoed your response.

“No, Gojo. YOU, should go.” you stared into his eyes now. Satoru looked so confused. What do you mean HE should go? “Look, I'm not drunk, ok? I clearly know what I am doing right now.” Satoru looks at you super confused. “Why are you giving me that look? I'm just your ‘sister’, so please stop trying to cock block me, I'm trying to get my cherry popped.” With that you placed a hand on his chest and shoved him out of the door before closing and locking it again.

Satoru was frozen, he couldn't compute what had just happened. He could hear you talking to Sakuna, he was asking if you were sure you wanted to do this, and that Satoru was still outside and he could hear the two of you. “It's fine. This is what I want.” Satoru's heart sank to his stomach when he started hearing you moan, he felt sick, but his cock was hard and he could step away. He listened through the whole thing, busting in his pants when he heard you cumming on Sakuna's cock. Tears were flowing out of his eyes. As he just stood there listening to every sound you made.

[stitch-away]

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 day 4 - welcome to the qz ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

pairing: joel miller x reader (gender unspecified)

summary: you bring joel to the qz for a much needed shower. but everything goes south

tags: MDNI no smut but there's nude joel + slight grinding, feral joel miller, fluff, angst, hurt comfort, canon typical violence, descriptions of violence, animal death, blood, ptsd, amnesia, grunty joel bc he can't speak

word count: 5.7k

series: feral joel miller

a/n: i wanted to finish this chapter ages ago but midsem break ended so i'm back on the study grind <//3 the reader's gender is not mentioned. it's kind of implied to be male reader but like barely. i plan on it getting more explicit etc so then it will probably become male reader. but for now it's gn

your chest feels tight, your laboured breathing bringing your mind out of its slumber. as soon as you wheeze you feel the pressure immediately lifted. large hands grab your waist and you’re flipped onto your back. your head smacks against the ground, throwing your eyes open. you’re met with panicked brown eyes, a mere inch from your face. joel. 

last night hits you, as does the stench that lingers on joel. he let you stay with him. or, more accurately, he was not letting you leave him. 

he nudges his head forwards, eyes still wild with fear. he tightens his grip on your waist, letting out a soft grunt. 

“joel,” you smile, bringing a hand up to ruffle his hair, “you were crushing me, weren’t you? that’s okay. i’m alright.” with that reassurance, joel pulls you up into his arms, holding you suffocatingly tight as he lets you pet his hair. he lets out a low purr, nuzzling his nose into your neck and inhaling your scent.

“good morning to you too,” you giggle, running both your hands through his hair. as you feel the grime and dirt in his hair, you remember what you wanted to do for him next. “your hair’s a little grimey, buddy. how about i take you back to my place? we’ll get you a shower and clean some of your clothes, yeah?” 

joel stiffens, his purring halting as mind processes the idea of heading into the qz. all those people. all those sounds, loud and painful. it’s the last thing he wants. he growls, pulling back to let you see the discomfort in his eyes. 

“i know it’s scary for you,” you sigh, softly scratching his scalp, “but i promise it’ll be okay. my apartment is quiet. you just gotta trust me to get you there.” despite his reservations, the way you're scratching his scalp and the soft tone of your voice soothes joel. as reluctant as he is, he trusts you now. it's been so long since he's been around another human, let alone trust them the way he does you. it's a scary feeling but he's letting himself feel it. 

he nods, relaxing his grip on you. lord help him if you give him a reason to regret this. 

“thank you,” you whisper, throwing your arms around his neck hugging him tight, “let's go. i wanna show you place– not that it's very exciting.” you chuckle, standing up and offering joel a hand. “i can introduce you to the delicacies of the qz– canned beans.” joel scrunches his nose. “yeah, that’s about right.” 

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔

getting joel leave the forest is tough. he sits at the edge, on his hands and feet, with a pout on his lips and his eyes narrowed. you stand only a few feet away, a little dishevelled from last night, frowning with your hands on your hips. 

“c’mon, joel,” you whine, “it’s not a big deal. you probably need the sun, hiding in that dingy forest all the time.” joel scowls and grunts, turning his head away from you. 

“dude, what are you? 5 years old?” joel snaps his head back, eyes wide as brow furrows deeper. “yeah, well, then don’t act like it.” 

he scowls again but finally moves. he crawls out slowly, feeling at the different texture of the ground outside the forest. it’s drier but the grass is soft. it’s not unkind to joel’s calloused hands, almost welcoming. as he crawls forwards, he looks up at you. there’s a nervousness in his eyes he’s looking to you to quell. 

“you wanna stand?” you ask, “you’ll need to once we get inside the qz.” he nods and rises to his feet. as he stretches out, uncurling his muscles, he towers over you. you’re still not used to the shear size of the man but it’s no longer intimidating, almost comforting now. maybe it’s because you know he trusts you, the only person in 20 years, or because of how he cared for you overnight. regardless, it’s a sense of comradery and belonging you haven’t felt in a long time.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔

the walk along the trail is undisturbed. joel seems content to walk alongside you. but as you get closer to the qz, the noise of the bustling city reaches joel’s ear. he shakes his head, letting out a snarl as he slows down. you turn to face him, wincing slightly. you feel a little bad for whining at him before. 

“hey,” you place a hand on his shoulder and he flinches, “hey, hey, it’s alright.” you soften your voice, rubbing soft circles on joel’s shoulder. “i promise this is gonna be okay. just stay close to me and cover your ears if you need to. c’mon.” you slip your hand down to hold his. it’s harsh and rough against your soft palm and much bigger, his fingers engulfing your hand. you see his jaw clench and him nod.

as the guards come into view, joel’s grip tightens on your hand. you give his hand a soft squeeze before he finally let’s go, covering his ears. the guards give joel some foul looks but they let him in without much of a hassle. 

you grab hold of joel’s shirt, tugging him into the busy streets of the qz. the city assaults joel’s senses, causing him to whimper, not loud enough for others, but enough for you to hear. his eyes meet yours, saying all the words he can’t speak. without a second thought, you run, pulling joel with you down the street. he’s more than capable of keeping up as you curl round corners and clamber up the stairs to your apartment. you look back at joel every now and then, giving him a smile. your running became more like a game of cat and mouse than a desperate measure to help joel adjust to his environment. you even get a flash of a smile from him. 

unlocking the door in less than a second, the pair of you burst inside, you jumping straight onto the couch. joel follows you, leaping out the couch to smother you. he nuzzles his head into your neck, letting out a grumble that sounds like a cross between a chuckle and an appreciation. you laugh, feeling the way joel’s beard tickles your neck.

“alright, buddy,” you chuckle, pushing at his shoulders, “you need to hop off. we gotta get you in the shower before you stink out my whole apartment. joel whines, pulling back to rest on your hips. he has a soft pout on his lips as he straddles you, pressing his weight down on your crotch. a moan slips from your lips before you can stop it. joel immediately lifts his hips, hovering over you on his hands and knees. he grunts softly, his eyes wide with concern, he’s terrified he’s hurt you. ignoring the heat in your crotch, you cup joel’s cheeks, softly brushing his beard.

“it’s okay, joel,” you whisper, shaking your head, “you didn’t do anything wrong, buddy. uh– just hop up. i’ll run the shower for you– or would a bath be easier? doesn’t matter.” joel crawls off the couch, a confused look on his face. you really don’t wanna have “the talk” with a grown-ass man. maybe he doesn’t need the talk, maybe he knows but genuinely thought he hurt you. you push those thoughts aside– along with the image of him undressing the other day that has decided to intrude at this moment– and head into the bathroom.

it’s small, a tight squeeze for the two of you, but joel manages to fit in the bath. he squats down, staring at you, sitting awkwardly in this foreign object. 

“so, i’m gonna turn on the water,” you say, pointing at the tap, “it’ll come out at the end. it’s gonna be cold, okay? and i need ya to take your clothes off now.” joel frowns, pulling at his clothes in question. 

“it’s okay now,” you clarify, “we’re in a bathroom and you’re getting ready for a bath. you take your clothes off when you bathe.” joel still looks unsure but starts to pull his shirt off, chucking it on the bathroom floor. seeing his broad, hairy chest and sculptured muscles, fully on display in the soft light of the bathroom, is something you’ll never forget. he looks like heaven.

he stands, hitting his back on the cold tile walls, arms huddled tight to himself as he tries to unbuckle his jeans without hitting his elbows too. he lets his jean drop, his buckle clipping the edge of the bath. to your surprise, joel doesn't wear underwear– why would he need to out there in the forest? you slap a hand over your eyes out of instinct, only hearing a soft rustle as joel pulls his jeans and the new boots you got him all the way off. he grunts at you, chucking the clothes at your feet. when you don’t uncover your eyes, joel barks at you. 

“did you just bark at me?” you ask, dropping your hand. you’re greeted by the sight of joel’s nude body crouched in the tub. his thighs are thick with muscle and peppered with the same dark brown hair on chest. between those thighs is a dense patch of hair, left to grow wild for 20 years. despite the lack of maintenance, it does little to hide the size of his cock, hanging between his legs, taunting you. he’s thick, even flaccid, with a good four inches and he’s uncut. 

you pull your eyes from his junk, back up to his face as he barks at you again. he has a wide smile on his lips, clearly enjoying your reaction to his body. he hasn’t had anyone look at him softly in years, let alone look at him with the kind of hunger you are now. it’s intimidating being truly looked at after all this time, but the warmth of your gaze dulls any anxiety. 

“you’re right,” you chuckle, “i should actually wash you instead of just staring.” you pick up joel’s clothes and dump them in the laundry basket. you head back over to joel, grabbing the soap, shampoo and conditioner, and a flannel, kneeling down beside the tub. 

“remember, it’ll be cold,” you say, placing your hand on the tap, “it’ll take a little while for it to heat up, so bark when it’s warm enough for you, okay?” joel nods, tensing a little as you turn on the tap but he doesn’t snap or snarl at you. “good boy.” 

joel’s ears twitch and he turns his head to look up at you. you see a flash of affection in his eyes before he shakes his head and frowns, turning away so you can’t see his flushing cheeks. 

“come on, cutie,” you smirk, unable to stop yourself from teasing him. he groans at you and then barks, nodding at the tap. you switch it off and start to wash his body with the soapy flannel. he flinches but lets you wash his back.

you’re gentle at first, getting him used to your touch. as he eases, you scrub a little harder. the grime on joel’s body is practically baked on there. 

the water turns brown as the dirt washes off of joel. with the dirt dissipating, you can see the scars the marr his body. he’s been out on his own for so long, it only makes sense that he’d have scars. but seeing them, confirming the pain you know joel’s mind is hiding, it makes your heart ache. you trace a finger along the scars softly, watching the muscles in joel’s back ripple as he flinches under your touch. 

“is this okay?” you ask, stilling your movements. joel looks at you over his shoulder and nods. with his approval, you continue tracing the painful lines on his body, wondering which one hurt the most. 

you turn joel around, washing his soft sculpted chest and arms gently. as you move down his body, you try your best to not to stare at his more intimate areas but it’s difficult– especially when joel doesn’t seem to mind.

“would you like to do your…private parts?” you cringe just asking the question, “i don’t know if you’re comfortable with me cleaning around there.” joel tilts his head and you point to his cock and ass. he frowns at you, gesturing with his head to his crotch as to say you can do it.

“are you sure?” you ask, slowly bringing the flannel to his crotch. he nods, a lot more unphased by his nudity than you. you gently wash around his crotch before taking his cock in your hand. it’s heavy, even though he’s soft, and you can feel it twitch under your ministrations. you know to wash your penis correctly you have to clean under the foreskin, and he probably hasn’t done that for decades, but you think this time round that’ll be too far. so you elect to ignore it, moving his balls and then to his ass. 

“i’ll be right back, joel,” you mutter, dropping the flannel in the tub, “rinse yourself and drain the bath.” after being that close to him, touching his entire body even if it was through the boundary of a flannel, you have to step out for a minute.

you head to the kitchen and pull out a cold beer. the coolness of it helps to calm the heat of the stuffy bathroom and the tension that joel seemed all but oblivious to. 

once you’ve composed yourself, and finished the beer, you return to joel. he’s sitting there naked in the empty bath. 

“it’s time to wash your hair,” you smile, grabbing the shower head off its hook, “i’m gonna have to use the shower for this, so try not to freak out. it’ll only be to wet your hair and then rinse it, okay?” joel nods but you can see his body curl in on itself as he waits for you to turn it on. as the water flows out, joel flinches back with a wary eye on the fast running water. it’s noisier than the bath tap but it’s equally as harmless, joel decides. he shuffles closer, bowing his head to let you wet it. you make quick work of wetting it and turning the shower off again.

“you’re doing great, buddy,” you smile, squirting shampoo into your palm, “i’m gonna put shampoo in now. it’ll get all that dirt out.” you smear some of it on your other hand and start to move them through joel’s hair. as you feel the dirt and grime coming away from his scalp, you can also hear a soft hum from joel’s throat. his eyes are squeezed shut and he has a small smile on his lips as you massage and clean hair and beard. you wash the shampoo out and repeat the process with conditioner.

“look at you,” you smile, standing up to admire a now clean joel, “you look like a wet cat but a very clean one at that.” joel frowns, sticking his lip out in a pout. 

“hey, i wasn’t the one purring like a little kitten getting belly rubs just before. you act rough but you’re just a little kitten, aren’t ya?” joel snarls at you and you put your hands up, backing away. “i’m sorry,” you chuckle, “i’ll stop. you get dressed and i’ll make you some of those canned beans.” he rolls his eyes at your grinning face, but he can’t help but smile a little too. it’s been so long since he’s had a sense of domesticity. his mind has been craving it, even if he never knew it.

you leave joel to get changed and head into the kitchen. you crack open a can of beans and dump them in a pot, chucking it on the stove. grabbing another beer from the fridge, you lean against the kitchen counter. as you take swigs of it, you hear the soft pad of footsteps and the rustle of clothes. a clink of a belt is heard and then joel pops out of the bathroom. he looks frankly adorable in the clean new clothes you got him and with his hair all damp and slicked back. 

he sits down on the couch to pull his sock and boots on. as he does he grunts at the beer in your hand. 

“this?” you ask, shaking the beer slightly, “it’s beer.” finishing fixing his boots to his feet, joel crawls over to you. he sits at your feet and reaches up for the bottle.

“no way,” you tut, pulling it away from him, “i’m not having you getting drunk. no offence, buddy, but a drunk six foot tall wild cat is not what i need running around my apartment, let alone the qz.” joel snarls at you again, baring his teeth.

“is it the cat thing again?” you ask. he shakes his head. “oh, so, you’re just being a little brat are you?” he scowls and lunges for the beer again. 

“joel! jesus christ,” you mutter, pulling back and placing the beer back in the fridge. joel is sitting in front of you still, a frowning pout on his face. you crouch down to his level, placing a hand on his knee. “what’s wrong, buddy? you don’t have to lash out. talk to me. i’ll get a pen and paper if you need it.” 

he hangs his head, shaking it before lunging forwards. he falls on top of you, squishing you as he presses all his weight down, just like he did back in the forest. you wheeze a little, feeling the weight of joel bearing down on you, but you let him stay there, moving your hands to his back. 

the pair of you lay there for a moment in the soft silence of this strange but heartfelt embrace. you run your hands along his back and then up into his hair, gently scratching his scalp and behind his ears. 

“you wanna talk about it?” you whisper, holding him closer. he shrugs. “do you know what’s wrong?” he shakes his head. “i see. it’s okay, i got you.” 

the forgotten beans on the stove start to boil, bringing them to your attention once again. 

“shit,” you mutter, “joel, i gotta check on the beans. let me up, buddy.” joel groans but rolls off you. you flick the stove off and give the beans a stir. “they seem alright. want some?” 

joel nods and you serve you both up a bowl. you place them on the table and sit down. joel doesn’t move from his spot on the ground. 

“you gonna sit up here with me?” you ask, patting the chair next to you. he tilts his head and crawls over to the chair. he sniffs it and feels it out before crawling up onto it. he keeps his legs up to his chest, leaning forwards to sniff the beans. you chuckle as he scrunches his nose. 

“yeah, they aren’t as good as those nice cuts of meat you get out in the forest,” you smile, digging into the beans, “but it’s some of the best shit out here.” joel lets out a small laugh before bringing his hand up to scoop up the beans. you realise you’re gonna have to tell him to use a spoon eventually but you let him simply enjoy his meal.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔

“alright, buddy,” you clap your hands together softly, turning away from the kitchen sink, now full of your dishes, “there’s a doctor’s office not too far from here. you wanna go get a check up? make sure everything’s alright?” joel grumbles, shaking his head. “you worried about the noise?” he nods. 

“it’s not too far from here so you won’t have to put up with it for long, okay?” joel frowns. “i can find you some headphones when we go out.” he scrunches his nose up but stands up, giving you a nod. you smile, walking up to joel and cupping his cheeks. 

“i know this is hard for you,” you say, gently rubbing his bearded cheeks, “but you can trust me. i won’t let anything happen to you.” joel purrs, leaning into your hands. you smile, giving him a scratch under his chin. you grab your bag and nod at the door. “let’s go.”

joel follows you out the apartment, hanging close behind you. as you descend the stairs, getting closer to the noise of the street, you can feel joel’s anxious twitches against your back. you turn around to take joel’s hand, catching the eye of one of your neighbours leaving his apartment for his shift. before you have time to recognise which neighbour it is, you see his face twist into a scowl.

“hey!” he yells, storming down the stairs, causing joel to jump, “is that my fucking shirt? you little shit!” you don’t have to tell joel to run, he’s already pulling you down the stairs at a speed you can barely keep up with. you stumble over your feet as joel pulls you into the street, your furious neighbour close behind. 

the chase is a blur, all you can see and hear clearly is the back of joel’s head and the screams of your neighbour. any attempt at civility is gone from joel’s mind with him bowling people out of the way with zero regard as he navigates the busy streets. 

you snap yourself out of the shock of the moment and realise joel is taking you both to the checkpoint of the qz. if you two burst through there, you’ll certainly be shot. with all your strength, you tug joel in the direction of the hole in the wall you use. he looks at you, eyes wide with concern. you haven’t seen someone look at you with such a concern for your welfare, honestly, ever. and it’d be sweet if you weren’t running from your neighbour right now.

“through here,” you yell, pulling joel to through the crack. you slip through easily but joel’s broad frame has more trouble. you watch through the crack as your neighbour catches up. joel looks at you for a second before turning his back to you and blocking out the crack and your view of what's happening behind the wall. 

for a moment, you stand there, chest heaving and mind terrified as you hear your neighbour yell at joel. you hear joel’s snarl, a sickening crunch, and then silence. when joel’s back doesn’t move from the crack you feel your stomach leap into your throat.

“joel!” you scream, running to the wall, grabbing at joel’s shirt, “joel!” your voice is hoarse and tears are welling in your eyes. you can’t be the reason he dies. after all this time surviving on his own, you can’t be the cause of his death. 

your hand is pulled forwards as joel finally turns around. he whimpers seeing the terror in your eyes. he brings his hands up to wipe your tears and you notice the blood splattered on his knuckles. 

“joel…” you whisper, taking his bloodied hand in yours. before you can ask him what happened he shakes his head, pushing you back so he can squeeze through the gap. once he slips through the crack, you get a glimpse of the scene on the other side. your neighbour is lying, motionless on the street, his nose bleeding and face marred with blood.

“joel! wh-” joel slaps a hand over your mouth and shakes his head again. his expression is firm but his eyes are screaming for your forgiveness. he doesn’t give you the chance to before he’s pulling you in the direction of the forest. 

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔

the trek through the forest is deafeningly silent. you stare at the ground, following joel’s heels. the image of your neighbour bleeding out on the street is seared into your mind. you didn’t mean for him to get hurt, you were just trying to help joel. 

once you reach joel’s home, you slump down on one of the logs, too out of it to do anything but sit in silence. joel trails off to wash his hand in a nearby stream. when he returns he crouches down in front of you. he lifts your head, holding it gently in his broad calloused hands, to meet his eyes. he doesn’t need to say anything, even if he could, his eyes telling you how sorry he is. 

“it’s… it’s okay,” you sigh, your voice weak, “what you did… that was wrong. but i get why you did it. i don’t blame you.” joel presses his forehead to yours, closing his eyes, simply appreciating your forgiveness. 

“and i’m sorry,” you whisper, placing your hands on joel’s shoulders, “i should’ve taken you to the qz, especially in stolen clothes. it was my fault you had to do that.” joel whines, shaking his head and pulling you into his arms. 

he holds the back of your head with one hand, the other snaking round to hold your waist. he starts to rock you in his arms. he’s not sure why. feelings of love and warmth come back to him, memories in feelings alone, before the grief his mind has been running from hits him like a truck. he holds you impossibly tight, his mind resorting back to the trauma that put him in this state. as much as he wishes he knew what happened, he can’t conjure more than the gut wrenching feeling of loss. maybe it’s better he doesn’t remember.

the embrace is short lived as joel’s head snaps around. his ears perk up and he immediately carries you inside his hut. he shakes his head at you and then disappears, unsheathing his knife from his hip as he does. it’s obvious joel wants you to stay put and silent, but there’s no way you’re leaving him alone. 

you pop your head out of the hut to see joel crouched behind a bush and a group of four men carrying guns, raiders, enclosing in on him. guilt hits you again when you realise they must have followed you two from the qz. as one of the raiders gets closer to joel, you panic.

“joel! look out!” you yell, the raider’s attention turning to you. joel snaps his head round to you, scowl on his face. his look says it all; you fucking idiot. 

before the raider can take his shot at you, joel growls, distracting the man and lunging at him, slitting the man’s throat cleanly with one slice. as the man drops, joel throws his gun to you and turns to a raider sneaking up behind him. 

you scramble to grab the gun, clutching it to your chest as you back up against the hut. as you tremble, too terrified to move, you see joel disarm and snap the neck of another raider as he fights off one from behind. a bullet nicks his arms and he roars in pain. but it only seems to emboldened him, with him charging at the man behind him, stabbing him square in the throat, wrenching the knife to the side. 

too transfixed on the spurt of blood pouring from the raider’s neck, you fail to notice a dog run at you from the side. the dog growls and lunges at you, sinking its teeth into your arm. you scream out in pain as the dog’s teeth sink deeper into your arm, slicing through all your layers of skin and puncturing muscle. 

joel’s attention is immediately gone from the remaining raider, bounding over to you. without a second thought, joel plunges his knife into the neck of the dog, the animal’s jaw going slack around your arm. joel rips the gun out of your hand and stands, aiming it at the raider’s head. he lets out a guttural roar, giving the man a second to speak. as the the man pulls his gun on him, joel finger twitches and he shoots the man clean through the stomach. he throws the gun away and jumps on top of the man pinning him to the ground, spitting in his face as he growls again.

despite the pain in your arm and the horrific sight of the limp dog beside you, you stand on shaky legs and stumble over to joel and the raider.

“he wants you to explain yourself,” you wince, cradling your bleeding arm, “why are you here? how did you get a dog?” joel scowls at you but doesn’t stop you. 

“oh, so you speak feral fucking man?” the raider laughs, his voice humourless and gargled from the blood filling his lungs. 

“answer the fucking questions,” you snap. the raider groans and joel shakes him, smacking his head against the ground.

“fine!” the man yells, wincing, “we saw you leaving the qz.” joel snarls at you this time, a look of betrayal in his eyes. “and we got a dog from jackson. happy?”

“where the fuck is jackson?” the raider rolls his eyes but answers when joel growls at him.

“it’s in wyoming! okay?” he groans, “now can you just fucking kill me?”

“how do they have dogs?” 

“i don’t fucking know– ah!” joel shoves a finger into the man’s bullet wound. “they’re a massive settlement in wyoming. i think an ex-firefly set it up.” you nod.

“thanks.” the raider goes to make another snide comment but joel beats him to it, snapping the man’s neck. 

you squeeze your eyes shut, focusing on the sound of joel’s and your own breathing. this can’t be real. you’ve only been venturing out of the qz for 4 days and you’ve already seen more violence than you have in your entire life. at the hands of joel. you knew this man wasn’t a gentle giant or anything, he’s survived in the wild by being ruthless, not kind. but seeing it first hand is sickening. 

after a few silent moments, you feel joel’s hands hold your shoulders, guiding you back into the hut. only once you’re back in there do you open your eyes. your arm is soaked in blood and there’s more covering joel’s upper body. you had washed him clean not an hour or more ago, only to have that effort ruined in a quick few minutes. 

joel rummages around in the bag you brought, finding spare medical supplies and a water bottle you had packed. he pours water over your arm and wraps it up tight in a gauze bandage. he ties it off and then does the same to the wound on his arm. 

you sit, even more dissociated than before, on the blanket in the hut. you can’t go back to the qz. you’ve stolen from your neighbours and one of them is severely injured, if not dead because of that. and you led raiders to joel’s sanctuary in the forest that ended in their deaths and the death of an innocent animal. 

you look up from your daze of self loathing and shock to see joel clumsily writing on the notepad from your bag. 

“betrayed me,” it says when he holds it up for you. 

“i know, joel,” you croak, tears filling your eyes once again, “i fucked up. i should’ve never come out here. i should’ve left you the fuck alone, like you wanted. i know, okay? you don’t have to rub it in. i can leave, for good, if that’s what you want.” joel waits a beat, his heart aching as your tears fall. he considers telling you to leave. 

“no,” he writes, “you need me.”

“i need you?” you ask, frowning, “the hell does that mean?”

“alone,” he points at you, “injured.” 

“but i betrayed you,” you cry, “i’m the reason your home was attacked and you had to kill those men– and that dog.” the image of the dog’s dead body flashes in your mind and a horrible sob is ripped from your throat. joel immediately takes you in his arms pulling you close to his chest. he shakes his head, rubbing your back. 

when you calm you down, your sobs easing out to small sniffles, joel pulls back and writes again.

“you forgive me. i forgive you.” his eyes are soft, begging you to understand him. with a shaky breath, you nod. 

“we should go to jackson,” you say. joel frowns, tilting his head in confusion. “it sounds like they have a lot of resources. i need a new home, you deserve a new home, and you deserve help. maybe they could help us.”

“help me?” joel writes.

“yeah,” you smile weakly, “maybe someone could help you get your memories and your speech back. would you like that?” joel shrugs. he’s spent so long living like this, the idea of change is terrifying. especially the prospect of uncovering his memories. he fears that they’re locked away for good reason. he doesn’t want to know what made him this why. but when he looks at the hope in your eyes, the care you still have for him after everything you’ve seen him do, it gives him a reason, for the first time in decades, to try and get better. 

joel sighs before nodding. he crawls over to the blanket, trying not to put too much pressure on his sore arm. he takes you gently in his arms, holding you close as he covers you with his body again. 

you wrap your arms around joel’s neck, pulling his head into your neck as you run your fingers up his scalp. joel presses a kiss to your neck, nuzzling his nose under your chin. 

“joel,” you whimper, feeling his crotch press against your own, “joel– stop.” he freezes, pulling back with a hurt look in his eyes. “let’s just lay here, okay? i can’t… not now.” joel nods, snuggling back down on top of you, being careful of your arm. 

his mind is all over the place, as is yours. both of you are in over your heads in uncharted territory in the attempt to try and stay together. maybe jackson will be the bastion that reconciles the distance between you. or the place that shows you that loneliness is the only thing binding you two together.

[themissinghand]

Mind if I could have a SAGAU request? So the player is burnt out from the game. Like completely. Some characters find a way to your desktop and ask "Why haven't you entered Teyvat lately?" After explaining that you still like/love them, they are disappointed but understandable. Problem is, they can't go back until you launch the game. So the characters sort of become desktop buddies (Showing my age aren't I?) and perhaps helping you out in the various other games the player would play or just vibing as you surf the web, make arr, write stories, etc. As for the characters... Aether and Paimon at least, though adding Kazuha, Yanfei, Freminet, Bennett, Fischl, Childe, and Collei would be cute too.

Genshin Impact Desktop Buddies

Summary: In which your favourite Genshin characters miss you. 

Or now you have them as your desktop buddies until Genshin Impact is fixed.

Pairings: Aether & Paimon, Kazuha, Yanfei, Childe and Fischl x Neutral! Reader! 

Note: Desktop buddies are ancient now lol, but honestly such a cool thing to have back then. Hope you enjoy! 

Warning: None, just fluffy goodness. 

★・・・・・・★

You’re tired. Like really tired. 

Grinding for artifacts, ascension and weapon materials has worn you out. That includes your wallet too.

They were worth it, no doubt about that, but staring at a screen all day every day could tire anyone out. 

And yea, you need sleep. 

For the first time in a long time, you decided to shut down the game, and take at least a few day break. 

It’s not like it would make a big difference right? 

Little did you know, it most definitely would. 

Just a few days later, not only did your laptop started acting weird to the point where you thought of buying a new one, Genshin also disappeared from your desktop. 

Before you knew it, you see little figures that look oddly familiar on your screen…

“Why haven’t you entered Teyvat lately?”

Aether & Paimon

The player spun around, eyes widening at the sight of Aether and Paimon now out of the game, and...hopping around on your screen.

"Aether? Paimon? How... how are you here?".

Aether stepped forward. 

"Our Creator, we've missed you. The others are worried. Why haven't you been to Teyvat?"

You sighed, has it already been a couple of days? Also, since when were you their creator? 

"I'm just a little tired-” There was a dramatic gasp from Paimon.

“Tired of us? Aether! Our Creator is tired of us!” 

“No! I mean, I still love Teyvat and all of you, but I needed a break and I will go back soon." You quickly responded with reassurance, which luckily appeased the floating companion. 

Paimon floated closer, which was like a weird zoom on her face, her eyes softening with understanding. 

"We get it, but... we can't go back to Teyvat until you' launch' the game." She says robotically, but appeared confused right after.

“Ah, okay. Give me a minute.” 

When you tried to download the game via the Genshin website, it stated that there was a website maintenance. 

“Creator! What is happening? The world is changing!” While you were frustrated, Aether and Paimon were jumping and flying everywhere around your screen, exploring how tabs open and following your mouse as you click and hover.

Their curiosity made you smile, and you slowly explain how everything works slowly as with each passing second, they marvel at how advanced your world is. 

“No wonder you’re our Creator!” 

“What’s this!?” Before you knew it, you pulled up multiple websites, and the one you landed on was Disney+.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” 

“What’s that?” Aether asked, curious, followed by Paimon’s cute little head tilt.

(You wished you could just squeeze those cute little cheeks-)

“It’s like telling a story, but you get to see it unfold right before you. Here.” You pull up ‘My Little Mermaid’ and they jump seeing the video move, with everyone inside move. 

“Woah…it’s like another world!” 

Aether seemed to marvel over it, and for a moment, he wondered, maybe, you could traverse worlds too. 

Seeing the stars in their eyes made you feel guilty, as if another misunderstanding arose, but you let them be, as their cute little figures sat down and watched the movie. 

You too, watched it with them, and for the first time in a while, you didn’t feel lonely. 

Throughout the movie, you patted them on the head with your mouse, which the two seemed to like very much. 

(And yes, you did pinch those cute little cheeks)

Kazuha 

“I’m glad that you didn’t abandon us, Your Highness.” 

Never in your wildest dreams did you expect to see THE Canadian Aether, Kazuha, on your screen, bowing respectfully to you.

“Let me know if I can help you in any way. Although my form is…not in the most helpful form, I will do my best.” 

You held back a giggle when you saw a shy little Kazuha looking at himself and then at you shyly, and you really wanted to tease him, but you chose not to. 

Instead, you pull up your incomplete art project. 

Might as well since you can’t download Genshin now and might have to wait for a few days.

“Actually Kazuha, I was hoping you could help me finish my art.” He immediately perked up, a serious expression overtook his shy one.

“Of course, Your Highness, let me know what you want to draw and I can help you!”

“Great! I’m trying to draw a handsome and cute man, he has platinum blond hair…” Slowly, you list one by one, the characteristics of the person you want to draw. 

Kazuha learns fast. Soon, he was able to figure out how your art platform worked. 

At first, he hesitated, and didn’t want to interrupt your drawing, but slowly, he learned to add in his thoughts and feedback, and guided your mouse to smooth out the lines, and perfect the colouring.

“He has red eyes…” 

Calming and soothing, his voice made you feel at peace, just like how you would hang out with him at the top of a mountain somewhere and listening to the game music. 

But this time, he was a little closer, where he felt more real albeit still in your screen. 

“Your Highness…isn’t this…me?” His little cheeks was dusted with pink as he quickly covered it with his hands. 

“It is you.” 

“But why…”

“Because you’re one of my favourites, Kazuha.” 

It was all it took for him to become shy again, and he began to cough awkwardly as if to mask his embarrassment. 

“Thank you…Your Highness.”

Yanfei

“Phew! We were so scared that you left us Your Eminence! But…I suppose we can’t do anything until you open up Teyvat again, until then, let me know if I can help you!” 

Yanfei's cheerful voice made you smile as you leaned against your palm. 

Then she turned around, as if taking in her surroundings before looking back at you. 

“Your Eminence, if I may, may I help you organize your…space?”  You blink, and that was when you notice the amount of files littered across the desktop screen, and you realized that from Yanfei’s view, it must’ve been very unorganized.

“Sure.” 

Yanfei brightens at your acceptance, and hopped a little to show her excitement. 

“Okay! I’m good at this, so leave it to me! Just follow my lead.” 

You were gonna clean up your PC eventually, though you did not expect it would be today. 

Either way, Yanfei was like a referee and a police, asking questions but also making sure everything was organized correctly. 

In a way, Yanfei felt like a Mom asking her child to clean her room.

Even so, it was so cute to see her marching everywhere like a soldier and asking you to organize it in a neat manner.

“Okay, next, let’s organize this folder!” 

“Okay-” Before you knew it, you immediately hit backspace. 

“Your Eminence…who was that-”

“Let’s move on.” But Yanfei stared at that folder with an intense stare. Did she see it? 

With a little nudge and push with your mouse, Yanfei eventually moved on, but she constantly had a smile on her lips. 

It was you cosplaying as her for an event. 

Yanfei would be sure to tell her friends back home. 

Childe

“Well, I’m happy to hear that, Your Highness! But…what were you doing? Away from Teyvat?”

Childe’s smile was a little bit menacing to look at, so you pull up what you were doing before to distract him.

And it did, surprisingly. 

“What is this?”

“It’s a game called Valorant.” 

You start the game, and once you get prepared, he too was locked in. 

With each attack and maneuver, Childe slowly became hyped up by your skill and admired it. 

“Your Highness! Why didn’t you tell me before?!” He became to gush, albeit trying to remain civil as he looked between you and your character in game. 

“Again.” In the end, he asked (begged) for another show. 

This time, you changed your agent to someone else, and once again, showed how skilled you are even in melee, which Childe initially advised against. 

But you blew his expectations away. 

“Your Highness, can I duel you?” 

You blink, before you laugh jokingly, but you knew in real life, Childe would absolutely crush you.

But you leave him be, and instead start another game. 

Honestly, Childe would be a great hype man. 

Fischl

“Ah, of course! How the stars seem to be against us this time…regardless! With me, Fischl von Luftschloss Narfidort here, there is nothing you need to worry about!” 

As expected, Fischl is quite the actor and storyteller as she spews on about how she faced something similar before, something just as interstellar as this. 

You don’t mind it, after all, if you did, you wouldn’t have Fischl on your team the entire time would you? 

Fischl deserves more love is what you find in the fandom, and while she may be annoying at times, you found her passion admirable, and even a little sad when you think this is her way of happiness. 

So you respected that, and listened as she rambled on, and moved as if she was on the stage. 

Perhaps…she would do good on stage with Furina in Fontaine. 

“Fischl, I do need your help on something.” You asked when she finally finished, and she straightened herself with grace as expected from the Prinzessin der Verurteilung. 

“I need your help with my stories. I want you to create elaborate and dramatic narratives for everyone to love.” She froze for a moment, but her grin immediately hid her surprise. 

“Why of course, I would be delighted. Allow me!” With just a few seconds to think, she immediately began her storytelling. 

With her little graceful steps and hops, she almost dances away, but she doesn’t stop sharing her fantasy story full of magic, fate, and stars. 

It was hard to keep up, but you didn’t want to disappoint her, so you did your best to type her word by word. 

Luckily, she seemed to slow down to match your pace, as if the two of you were a duet with the piano and violin. 

When she stops, you end off the story with a dramatic click, and you match her prideful smile. 

Truly, Fischl is a character not everyone can handle, but that’s alright.

After all, you love her for who she is, and maybe, Fischl appreciated that more than anything else.

[lemotmo]

The Internet will absolutely break that day. I cannot believe how real it's starting to feel. 🎉🎉🎉

Q. I cannot believe they waited for rain. They filmed the rest of the episode weeks ago but waited for the rain to film the goodbye scene. They waited for the rain!! My only niggle of complaint is that Eddie is already back by episode 13 which means it's going to feel rushed. I was hoping to have several episodes of focus. I don't want Buddie to feel rushed in any way.

A. No seriously the fact that they purposely waited for the rain makes me light headed. They intentionally want that scene to be in the rain. Rain is such a powerful Buddie aesthetic. It's been used in every one of their 'goodbye' scenes: the well collapse, the lightning strike, and now the Texas move. Rain is often used in scenes to convey sadness, sorrow, anguish or dread. Setting that scene in the rain adds to the emotions that both characters are experiencing in that scene. The fact that it is just the two of them and not the entire 118 family is also a really loud choice. They have done that with Buck and Eddie from the beginning. Yes they are part of the 118 family as a whole, but they, along with Christopher, are a separate family unit of their own, and I love that they make a point of emphasizing that. Putting them in the exact same colors as the day they met is a god tier brain choice. That is genius work. I'm obsessed with everything about it. I also completely believe that the goodbye scene is in rain so the reunion scene can be sunlit. I think one of the big reasons why they wanted the goodbye scene to be in the rain was so they could contrast that scene with a sunlit reunion scene (separate scene of course but the first kiss needs to be at sunset. I need a sunset kiss for the payoff of the 'there was construction on sunset' scene that both Oliver and Ryan have referenced. I need a sunset first kiss). They have felt inevitable for some time now but that BTS video just reinforced that belief so strongly. Everything about that scene was romantic coded, not best friend coded. That kind of feels like a legitimate 'it begins' moment.

Giving a storyline multiple episode focus doesn't guarantee a satisfactory story at all. They can absolutely accomplish everything they need from Eddie being in Texas in one episode if they make it a bottle episode. It needs the complete episode focus. They can open the episode at the 118 with something like Buck staring down at his phone and Chimney or Hen can make some wisecrack about a watched phone never ringing and Buck can then say he and Eddie talked last night and today is the day Eddie and his parents are supposed to talk and Eddie told him he would call him when it was done. Then cut to Eddie standing in front of his parents house and the rest of the episode takes place in Texas in Eddie's old house. They don't have to do more than a single episode of focus that way because you have Eddie and his parents, we one hundred percent have to see a conversation between Eddie and his parents, and then Christopher joining in at some point. That's everyone you need to accomplish the Texas stuff in one central location. It would not be hard to do and it would not be something 911 isn't capable of doing. It doesn't need multiple episode focus as long as it gets the appropriate focus. If Buddie is the ultimate goal this season, something that looks more and more likely by the day, they have to fix the Christopher situation first. He is too big a part of their unit. They cannot move forward on the Buddie front until the Christopher situation has been addressed and dealt with in some capacity. They cannot move forward on the Christopher front without Eddie acknowledging and addressing the issue of his parents wanting to be the ones who raise Christopher. Those have to be addressed prior to any major Buddie movement. I do think episode 118 is the episode where they want some kind of major Buddie movement to occur, or gay/queer canon Eddie to occur. So that doesn't allow a ton of episodes to play with. They have to be focused and disciplined in the storytelling. A bottle Texas episode gives them the best chance to advance everything forward in the most satisfying way possible given the time they have to work with.

We are seven seasons into the Buck and Eddie thing, anon. It is not possible to consider them rushed in any way at this point. Do you know the relationship that was rushed? Bobby and Athena. That relationship had no build up whatsoever. She sat with him on a curb in one episode and he asked her to go to church with him then BAM making out between fire trucks. Zero build up at all. They did all of the build up after they got together and it worked. Neither character was really ready for a relationship. Bobby was downright suicidal but no one cared. No one cared how quickly it happened. No one cared that when held to real life standards they had absolutely no business embarking on a relationship with one another at that point. No one cared. No one complained. No one said it was too fast to be believable or to be good. Their relationship is beautiful and messy because they're beautiful and messy. The fact that it happened when the timing wasn't perfect is irrelevant in every way. So I'm not going to play the 'I want Buddie but A B C D needs to happen first or else it's wrong' game with people. Not that that's what you're saying, I'm just tired of seeing the I want it but takes. We have seven seasons of build up. Why do people not get that? We have countless scenes that are just waiting to be used in a montage signposting their inevitably. Who else has 7 seasons of build up? They are hitting every rom com trope imaginable: found family, Christopher has two dads, enemies to besties (yes the enemy part lasted half an episode but it still counts), forced proximity (Bobby forced them to be partners when Eddie first arrived and the bomb removal in the ambulance), opposites attract ( hello golden retriever and black cat energy), idiots in love who aren't aware of the fact that they're in love, sad pitiful parting in the rain, and finally building towards friends to lovers. They are truly the entire package. There is nothing fast or out of the blue about what's coming. It has quite literally been building towards this for years. I am going to soak up every single drop they feed us. If that video taught me anything it is that I honestly might faint when they kiss for the first time because the energy from the goodbye video alone was enough to give me palpations. And look at the social media activity it generated. They're going to break the Internet when it happens and I cannot wait. It's time. It's clearly where it looks to be heading. And it's the right way to go. If someone doesn't want it for whatever reason that's their prerogative, but I am not entertaining the arguments about why the timing doesn't feel right because that's nonsense. It is absolutely time. Let's go 🩷🩷

Thank you Nonny!

YES YES AND YES to everything that Ali wrote here!

I just want to add something. I'm not sure we'll get actual canon Buddie that soon. I think we'll get both of their realisations very early on in 8b and we'll see them struggle with the reality of that, which will come with different difficulties for both of them.

But actual Buddie canon? I'm betting that Tim will show us the talks with Maddie and Hen, the pining and the longing throughout 8b and then in the two last episodes something major will happen and everything will come to light. And then their first kiss will happen, in the final episode of 8b, in the light of the sunset in Eddie's kitchen and it'll be perfect. ❤️❤️❤️

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[kissesforscars]

toji as a friend (for now), male!user

to be honest i don't know what to feel about this, i just really enjoy imagining toji as a friend, like a normal young person without being have to deal with any zenin bullshit. i enjoy the idea of him being normal young guy. i may write a second part of it so i'm sorry if this is short. I'M ALSO SORRY FOR THE YAPPING. please enjoy <3

“You know what? I fucking hate being friends with you,” Toji said with a tone that wasn't very sweet as you walked through the yard of the collage. The sounds of your footsteps were fading against the sounds of other students made. A scoff left your mouth as a reaction to his words and you felt a strong urge to slap him at the back of his useless head. “Yeah, me too,” you said back, like a dog showing their teeth to scare the threat. “I'm a very good option for you,” he said as he adjusted the strap of his bag, his nose was freezing because of the cold weather and Toji would rather be in his small apartment, eating a large pizza and watching stupid youtube videos that told the most unnecessary things about the history. But hey, he needed to study so he could find a better job. And when that happened, Toji would have enough money to be lazy as he pleased.

“Oh yeah?” You said and your mocking tone caused him to flash a stare at you with his furrowed eyebrows. “You're too damn big, you look at everyone like you want to murder them with an axe, you're not kind, you have a dirty mouth and you're cursing way too much, you don't know how to talk like a decent human being. Do you want me to continue my list? Or were these enough to hurt your ego that is bigger than Everest?” Your eyes met his green ones, you could observe the increasing frustration in them. He could snap your neck in two, he really could. But Toji chose not to. At least you get to be alive for one more day. “Put those words on a paper, Y/N,” Toji started speaking and you knew that his words wouldn't end nicely. “So I can fold that paper and stick it up to your ass.”

You wanted to laugh but a part of you felt nervous since how serious his threat seemed. You had never seen Toji sticking things to other people's ass but everything had a first when it's about Toji. “And do you think that you're any better? You're a stupid little nerd that can't have normal friends. If I wasn't here, you'd be a quiet kid in college and everyone would talk shit about you. You're damn lucky that I'm too honest, buddy,” Toji sniffed before turning his head forward, his nose was starting to turn red as if he was allergic to the cold and the cells on his skin were trying to warn him about that. “I'm not a nerd,” you said with a defensive tone. Come on, you weren't a nerd. You weren't even that smart. Toji would think everyone was a nerd compared to him because he was too damn stupid about lectures. Actually you didn't know if he was even smart about something, about anything.

Your eyes found his profile again as you continued your little walk that would end up in your own classes. Toji's green irises were staring ahead as if they were small emerald pieces ready to turn into bullets. And it seemed like he was still freezing. Toji hated winter even if his name was related to winter. The cold was nice until he started his fingers were getting numb and his nose was becoming wet like a dog's nose. The thoughts swirled inside your head and one of them was louder than the others. You realized if you really knew Toji. Yeah, you've been friends since highschool but was this all he had? Then you mentally slapped yourself for wondering about the other sides he had, like besides being your friend. What would he look like as a boyfriend, as a spouse or maybe as a father? Would he actually show some care and affection or would he stay the same?

“What did you bring for the lunch break?” Toji's question cleared away the clouds of thoughts inside your head and you almost wanted to thank him. But instead of doing that, you thought about his question. “I made a sandwich this morning and had some fruit with it,” you said after you remembered the bag you prepared for the lunch break. Both of you didn't enjoy eating in the cafeteria since the place was full of people and it was too loud to have fun with what you ate. Toji let out a grunt as if he said something as he inhaled and he gave a nod without looking at you. “Good, I'm planning to steal your fruits to put them in between the peanut butter breads I prepared,” Toji said and his hand reached to pat your shoulder when he finally turned his attention to you. “You may be a nerd but you bring good food.”