#cigarette butt floating between them…

[wormswurld]

picturing randy and benson in their dingy motel bathroom sharing a bath.. the water is a little less than lukewarm, the tub is small so their bare knees are touching, water nearly falling over the edge of the tub, but it’s comfortable.. benson set his ashtray on the toilet seat so he can keep smoking his cigarette,, randy sits across from him, chin on his knees as he stares at the swirly smoke fill the air, dissolving into the yellow flickering light above..

[sunshinehaze1]

About Last Night…

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x f!reader

Summary: You met The Dieter Bravo last night, but does he remember meeting you?

Warnings: 18+, MDNI. smut, handjob, f!oral, unprotected PiV, mentions of drug use, reader has hair long enough to tug, smoking

a/n: This was written for @jolapeno Dear-uary Challenge and I received this prompt. Thank you to @peepawispunk & @80ssong for their beta reads! 😘 I hope you enjoy!

word count: 1,744

ao3 | ml

Dieter groans, turns onto his side, and opens his eyelids to find two ibuprofen tablets and a glass of water on his bedside table. He's unsure how he even managed to get to his bed. He can't remember much of last night; as usual, he drank too much, smoked too much, and snorted too much. He knows he needs to get his partying under control; he's not keen on another stint in rehab or being the subject of more tabloid fodder. His team would be grateful, too. But he enjoys it too much. He loves hosting parties at his house and having access to beautiful men and women who want to shower him with adoration and attention. Aspiring actors, writers, and producers all want a piece of him. It's not easy to give those perks up—one of the benefits of being an actor in high demand.

The tablets are sitting atop a slip of paper. He picks them up and throws them back, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows, emptying the glass of water in a couple of gulps. He picks up the slip of paper, his thick thumb and index finger grip the note, and he admires the neat handwriting as he reads:

image text: D- you may not remember much, so let me refresh your memory. This may be where I left you, but we’ll start where we first met. Even with the stroke of a hand and gripping conversation, this place is the pits.

Dieter, confused, rereads the note. Who did he meet last night that would have left this note? As usual, his house was overflowing with people. Most were friends or people he'd worked with in the industry; surely, it wasn't one of them. His friends tend to bring along their friends, and those friends bring their friends, and soon, his Hollywood Hills home is overrun with strangers.

He pulls on his green robe and exits the bedroom, traipsing over the remnants of the night before. Dodging obstacles of empty glasses, discarded clothing, ashtrays filled with cigarette butts and roaches, coffee tables dusted in white powder, and rolled up hundred dollar bills. A record spins around the player, scratching and skipping with each rotation. People in various states of undress are scattered across the floor and couches.

He finally reaches the conversation pit—avocado green cushions accented with cream and mustard yellow pillows. He descends the carpeted stairs, still unsure what kind of wild goose chase he's being led on. As he straightens the pillows, a slip of paper dances through the air when he moves them around. Dieter bends down to pick it up after it floats to the ground. Suddenly, a flash of recollection races across his mind.

A vision of you and him, bodies close together, barely any space between you two. Your arm draped over his shoulders, and your hand in his lap gripped tightly around his cock. Your hands make languid strokes along his length as you purr into his ear, teasing him. He's impossibly hard, and his eyes scan the party to see if anyone has noticed his precarious situation. A rush of heat skates up his chest to his neck as the risk of getting caught arouses him. You coo, "Baby, you're so hard, I can barely wrap my hand around you."

A moan falls out of Dieter's mouth, his gaze occupied by your grasp on his length. He watches as you continue your lazy strokes, the waistband of his pants resting just below his balls. Your movements are hidden by his fluffy teddy bear coat that he has positioned over his lap but not shielded from his view. He's mesmerized by the lacquer on your nails and the reflection of light that bounces off them with each pass along his cock. He feels arousal roil in his belly, and his balls begin to tighten.

Breathily, he spits out, "I'm going to cum."

Squeezing him tighter before you quickly release him, "Not yet, you aren't." You lean in and kiss him on the cheek, "I need a smoke." you giggle as you tuck his still painfully hard dick back into his pants and pull away.

He hears that sweet sound in his mind, and his cock twitches at the memory. Eager to find out what's next on this salacious tour, he reads the note:

image text: orange and bright, this is the perfect place to get a light.

Dieter was drawn to this home because of the mid-century modern architecture, and he leaned into the aesthetic. Much of the decor is original to the house, including the burnt orange malm fireplace on his back patio.

He heads outside. The sun is now high in the sky, having slept the morning away. Dieter squints to avoid the torture of the sun's rays on his brutal hangover. As he approaches the seating area around the fireplace, he spots a slip of notebook paper under an ashtray littered with discarded butts and blunts on the table.

It prompts his memory. After you left him with blue balls in the conversation pit, you dragged him outside for a smoke. He walked closely behind you with his hands on your hips to conceal his erection as you navigated through the party crowd. His dick was aching, desperate for release. But his curiosity to know more about you was enough of a distraction for now.

He observes you taking a drag from the cigarette between your soft lips. "How long have you lived here?" you inquire as you purse your lips to exhale the smoke up and to the side, away from his face.

"Um, a few years now. I bought it after Cliffs Beasts 6." His eyes rake up and down your body, taking in your curves and the disarming smile that spreads across your face.

"I liked that movie."

Dieter scoffs, unbelieving someone like you would enjoy the movie, let alone see it. It was a flop, an example of a studio trying to milk everything out of a franchise at any expense. There is no way you actually liked the movie.

"No, really, I did." There's that smile again; he knew then that he was done for, his body warmed by the sincerity in your eyes.

Chuckling to himself at the memory, he looks down at the slip of paper, which reads:

image text: I cried out, with your tongue inside, while the Kid sang about Nikki.

Dieter enters his music room, eyeing the wall of his record collection. His fingers dance along the spines of the album covers until he finds Purple Rain. Carefully, he pulls the record out of its sleeve and watches as another slip of paper falls to the ground. He replaces the spinning record and gently places the needle onto the vinyl, A-side up.

The castle started spinning

Or maybe it was my brain

I can't tell you what she did to me

But my body will never be the same

The images of last night in this room flood his mind. You, on your back, laid across the faux fur rug. It was as vivid as if you were there with him right now. Your shapely legs stretched out in front of you, with your perfect pussy glistening in the dim lamplight. His body prone with his face between your thighs, inhaling your scent. He laps into your sweet heat, his tongue teasing through your folds and flicking over your clit. His forearms wrapped around your thighs to hold you in place when you begin to writhe, pushing your core into his face, chasing your orgasm.

Oh, her lovin' will kick your behind

Oh, she'll show you no mercy

But she'll sure enough, sure enough

Show you how to grind

He laps at your release while you cry out his name, unable to control the rutting of his hips against the rug, searching for relief from his aching, throbbing cock. He's been on edge for the last couple of hours, patiently waiting for his release.

At the memory, he realizes he can still taste you on his lips. It's faint, but it's enough to make his cock move. Having sobered up a bit more, he's intrigued to find out where he'll be led next and picks up the piece of paper:

image text: you’ll find this journey come to a close in the place where you like to powder your nose…

Dieter walks down the hall to his bathroom. Vintage aqua blue tiles cover the floor, shower, and halfway up the wall, trimmed in navy blue tiles. The mirror above the matching pedestal sink is covered in writing—a phone number in red lipstick with handwriting that matches the notes—your phone number. Thanks to you and this little scavenger hunt you sent him on, he's slowly pieced together his night with you. He may not remember it all, but his senses help, recalling the feel of your soft, silken skin, your floral perfume, and the way you taste. And he's transported back.

He pictures you bent over the sink as he slides down your panties. Tugging your hair as he slides his cock inside you from behind. Remembering the gasps and moans, you couldn't help but release as he thrust into your warm, wet heat. Rubbing your swollen clit as you approach your second climax, nibbling on your ear, which finally sends you over the edge. Your walls fluttered around him, squeezing his cock so tight he had to pull out quickly to paint his spend across your bare ass. His sweaty brow meets yours, the both of you gasping to catch your breath as he leaves a chaste kiss on the tip of your nose.

His dick was now half hard at the memory.

He pulls his phone out of his robe pocket and opens the camera app. He points it toward the mirror as he takes in his disheveled state: hair tousled and astray, light brown curls pointing in every direction. He notices a stain down the front of his grey tunic and his striped pants slung low on his hips. He does little to improve his appearance before he snaps a picture, tongue wagging, eyes wide, making sure his semi-hard cock is captured in the frame.

He types the number you left on the mirror and attaches the photo.

"I found you."

A couple of minutes later, his phone pings, "It's about damn time; I've been waiting all morning for you. 😉"

Thank you so much for reading! I’d love to know what you think. Reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated. 🫶🏼

tagging a few folks who may be interested in reading: @baronessvonglitter @almostempty @ak-vintage @kilamonster (lemme know if you prefer I not clog your notifs)

[drjackrabbit]

take a snippet of my developing mohan x abbot fic featuring samira's vice that is social smoking (+ sharing cigarettes)

"You’ve got a drag or two left," Jack says, handing her back the cigarette. When their fingers brush, that same buzzy feeling begins to spread under her skin again. Charged, tense. An electrical field of latent desire.

"I want to try something."

She surprises herself when she says it—she knows that she's well in the danger zone, on the precipice of blowing it if she’s read his energy all wrong. But she lets that tension move her until she’s standing in front of Jack, facing him head on. 

"Go ahead," says Jack, sounding amused.

Samira takes the final drag, maintaining eye contact as she inhales, and flicks the butt away. She lets the smoke float in her lungs, indulging in the burn as she watches his expression shift (trying not to stare at his mouth). Something flickers across his face, equal parts hunger and caution. She can feel it like a thick pulse in her core. 

Then she tilts forward and presses her lips to Jack's. His lips immediately part as she exhales the smoke into his mouth. She can feel him breathe her in, the tension as he holds the smoke, their noses brushing, the gentle release against her mouth. 

There's another breath. Shared between them like a whisper. An affirmation of what they just did, what they're doing. An agreement.

When he kisses her, Samira's body lights up. It should be embarrassing how quickly, how deeply desire burns through her, but she's so focused on the way their mouths press together so perfectly that she can't bring herself to care. She chases the taste of tobacco and those mints Dana is always handing out and coffee, and wants to spend a significant amount of time memorizing the sensation of his tongue slipping against hers.

[wynnyfryd]

Trailer park Steve AU part 52

part 1 | part 51 | ao3

cw: period-typical homophobia, canon-typical violence, blood

"I'm just saying!" Eddie laughs as he swings himself around the slender base of a young tree, cigarette dangling from his lips. "I could absolutely rock the blue eyeshadow look the main chick was wearing."

Steve doesn't disagree. They're in a dark alcove on the side of the movie theater, Eddie's hair all lit up from behind, a frizzy halo of pinks and blues from the neon radiating off the front of the building, and he looks fucking gorgeous, and he smells like menthol and strawberry shake, and he's been tapping Steve's wrist so much tonight that he might as well be drumming up a new song just for them.

"Can't argue with that," Steve murmurs as he steps up onto the concrete planter. Gets up in Eddie's space; borrows his cigarette, his words floating out on a thin wisp of smoke. "You look beautiful."

"Beautiful," Eddie mimics, tasting the word, looking unbelievably pleased with the flavor that he finds. His eyes go hooded, and there's a sly tilt to his mouth as his tongue slips out to tease the edge. "You tryin' to start somethin', Harrington?"

Steve's answering hum rumbles deep in his chest. His cock aches in his jeans. God, he wants him; wants to back him up a good ten feet until his body scrapes the bricks. Wants to rough him up a little, like Eddie did to him the first time they kissed — make his breath hitch and his skin buzz and his back arch under his touch.

"Oh, you are," Eddie purrs. He takes the cigarette back, their fingers brushing on the exchange, and they're standing so close now, nothing but this skinny tree between them, just a twig of a thing, really, the toes of their shoes touching on either side of the base.

Steve looks down at the snowy soil. Taps Eddie's wrist. Desperately. Frantically. Take me home right now, so help me—

A low whoop echoes off the pavement.

A predatory jeer, and Steve looks up to see three men approaching — three boys, about their age, and drunk, by the looks of it. He grits his teeth.

Their ringleader looks like a caricature; classic bad boy who thinks too highly of himself, some cheap knock-off mash up of Billy Hargrove and Rob Lowe. Steve eyes the shaggy mullet, the dangly earring skimming the lapel of his black jacket, the silver flask and the stupid swagger, and his blood runs hot. Thrums with the promise of a fight.

“Well shit, boys,” the guy grins to his sidekicks, taking a long swig and wiping his mouth. Gleeful malice in green eyes. Little asshole gets close enough for Steve to make out the color; gets right up in Steve’s face and sneers, “Looks like we got ourselves a couple of queers to smear.”

Really? Steve thinks. We’re doing playground games right now? He folds his arms over his chest, flattens his voice; disinterested. “Do you have somewhere else to be?”

Eddie smokes his cigarette, and the smoke curls around them in short, unsteady puffs.

The guy snarls, “Do you?”

Beside him, his friend’s hands ball up in fists. A vicious voice in Steve’s head whispers: plant your fucking feet.

“Nah,” Steve answers. He takes a step in front of Eddie; widens his stance, digs his heels into the mulch. Slight crouch; deep breath. “Think I’m right where I need to be.”

“Fuckin’ freak,” the guy spits at the ground. He sways and pivots just a little, like maybe he’s about to slither back off to wherever he came from. Or maybe he’s about to throw his full weight into a swing.

Eddie’s breath whistles. His nose still healing from the break. “Seriously, man,” he tries as he drops the cigarette, crushing the butt under his boot. His voice is thin; hands up; don’t shoot. “Just- just fuck off, alright? We don’t want any—”

The first punch is slow. Sloppy. Steve sees it coming and dips low to dodge, and the jab cracks against the tree, spraying ice and splintered bark, the sound sharp in his good ear. It’s a plate over his head; it’s Billy cackling while the world dims, and Steve sees fucking red. Tastes metal and acid and rot, and all his ghosts are with him; all of Eddie’s, too. Hargrove, and Andy, and Jason fucking Carver; all the faceless specters of whoever pummeled him that night at the bar, whoever dared to lay a finger on him when Steve wasn’t there to be a shield.

But he’s here now, and his answering punch lands hard — sickening crunch as his uppercut connects with the kid’s ribs, knocks the wind out of him. The guy grunts and doubles over, but he gets in a good swing on the way down.

Steve tastes blood at the edge of his lip.

Someone grabs him by the collar.

One of the guy’s friends, freezing fingers pawing at his shoulder, at his throat, and he pulls back hard until his shirt rips at the neckline and frees him from the hold. Ducks again to dodge a blow, swivels and pops discount Rob Lowe right under the chin.

The kid’s teeth clack together as he bites his own tongue. Steve watches his head fly back like it’s about to fall off — like a ragdoll, like a bobblehead, like it’s happening in slow motion. He collapses on the sidewalk and cracks his head against the bricks, and he's down, he's out, but there’s two more still coming, one in front and one on Steve's right, and that one looks tall and broad enough to do some real damage.

Steve squares his shoulders; braces himself for another concussion, because this is— fuck, is the guy on the ground bleeding?

This is bad.

This is really bad.

And then he hears it.

A familiar thwick, a metallic slice through the sudden stillness in the air as Eddie pulls his knife out of his boot and flicks it open.

"Back the fuck off!" he growls; lunges forward with the blade and stabs at empty air, the metal gleaming like an oath. His expression is wild, sweat on his lip and at his temples, bangs sticking to his brow.

Steve spits blood onto the concrete.

Everyone backs the fuck off.

—

"Holy shit," Eddie pants as they haul ass out of the lot. Fingers trembling on the steering wheel, knee jiggling so badly it jangles all his pins and chains. His whole body is shaking. The radio is off.

In the rearview, Steve gets a glimpse of their attackers dragging their limp friend by the armpits through a snowy flowerbed. He thinks he sees a streak of blood.

“Did you know them?” he asks, his eyes glued to the reflection.

Eddie rolls the next three stop signs.

“No,” he finally says. Swallows hard in the simmering quiet. “They were just some guys.”

—

part 53

tag list in separate reblogs under '#trailer park steve au taglist' if you'd like to filter that content. if you want to be added please comment and let me know (must be over 21; please either verify in the comment or have your age visible on your blog)

[satorkive]

PLAYING DANGEROUS 𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒ SATORU

“satoru.”

you call his name as he continuously stares at the blank space. the atmosphere around him is gloomy and eerie. as if one snap of a finger, a howling beast will be free and wreck havoc around him.

he doesn’t attempt to lift his head so you blow an air on your falling hair strand before standing in front of him.

“you worried about suguru?”

his usually floating hair droops heavily around his head, making it look like he’s wearing a halo.

he is really the divine entity’s favorite demigod.

“no.”

you raise an eyebrow. “oh?”

you grab a cigarette from your back pocket before placing them between your lips. you lit the butt with a lighter before taking a hit and exhaling the nicotine.

you observe as satoru doesn’t give you the reaction you wanted. you frown. that bad? your ivory-haired friend normally plucked the cancerous stick between your mouth and throwing it away with a glare on his face.

“fancy a cigarette, satoru?” you ask with a raspy voice.

his eyes, that creeps you out everytime both of you have eye contact, watch how you inhale and exhale the horrendous but stress-reliever vice and offer you a hand.

you eye the softest hands you’ve ever seen before shrugging. you pick up another cigarette and placing it on his hands.

he put the stick between his long fingers and settle them in the middle of his glossy lips.

you don’t know where you get the confidence from, but you know you have to do it.

you set your hands on his neck and tilt your head to your left. satoru lays down his hands sensually on your hips before tugging you closer. he angles his head opposite to you. you bend and arch your back before the butts of your cigarettes kiss; giving satoru the flame he needs to consume as both of you lock each other in a web of spider.

you release yourself from him, a little hesitant. you puff a smoke on his face and he closes his eyes. the cigarette is hanging at the end of his lips.

you discard the stick and stomp them with your feet before turning around. you stop by the door and look behind your shoulder. the strongest boy is now staring at you as if you’re the only one he can see.

“see you later, satoru.”

[uzumaki-rebellion]

"Up early that morning, Spy Boy ready

I got my machete, Ooh na nae

What they say? We on our way

Downtown Indian, Uptown Indian

West Bank Indian, Back o'town Indian

Lord I'm pretty, my Big Chief Pretty

My whole gang pretty, we the best in the city"

Shotgun Slim – "Injunz Comin'"

The soft patter of rain woke Celeste up.

She hadn't been asleep for long. The darkness outside hadn't lightened up enough to herald the coming of dawn and she guessed it was only a little after two a.m., maybe close to three. Terry slept beside her quietly, his right arm thrown over her waist. She untangled herself and tiptoed into the kitchen to drink water. Dehydration caught up to her after the third vigorous sexual union of the day with Terry. The aches and pains of lovemaking wore out her back, neck, and inner thighs with a dull soreness. She did much better this time around, better than their first time together the night before.

The man had kinks. Spanking. Biting. Rope binding using the red satin Shibari rope she'd bought for her fetish content. She rubbed her wrists from the indentation marks the rope made. They spent all day Monday making love, smoking weed, talking, munching cookies, and napping in between. She had eaten no real food for over twenty hours, and now she was hungry and thirsty.

She feasted on the leftover food Terry didn't eat from Durand's and then stretched her legs to get them used to walking again since they lived in her bed for nearly two days. Nicotine cravings called to her, and she straggled into the living room to find a pack of smokes. She lit up and inhaled, blowing a smoke ring out toward her French doors.

The fuck?

She froze, staring at her curtains.

The shadow of someone standing in her backyard shocked her, even more so when it looked like the profile of Terry…naked. She gasped, and the figure turned to face her…started floating toward the double doors. The lingering effects of the weed in her system had her doubting reality.

"Why are you up?"

"Jesus!"

Celeste jumped out of her skin when she heard Terry's voice. He slid his hand around her waist.

"Don't scare me like that!"

"I wasn't tryna scare you, just wondered where you went. I woke up, and you were gone," he said.

"Do you see…"

The shadowy figure disappeared.

"What?" Terry asked.

"There was someone standing out there."

Terry moved her behind him and strode toward the double doors naked. He pulled one curtain aside.

"I don't see anyone, Celeste."

He unlocked one door and stepped out. Her motion sensor light came on bright, illuminating the yard. She walked behind him and avoided stepping outside. A light drizzle of rain fell on him.

"We're naked…get back in here!" she said, pulling on his arm.

"Give me a minute," he said.

Terry inspected the area thoroughly and walked back inside, locking the door behind him. His damp body trickled in water on the hardwood floor.

"It was probably a cat or a possum," he said.

"Shaped like a man?"

"There's nothing and no one out there."

She peeked out of the glass. Perhaps it had been an elongated shadow from a tree. The floodlights would've come on if someone was there and they didn't for the first time. Not until Terry went out and activated the motion sensors.

She let it go and snuffed out the cigarette.

"Come back to bed," he said.

A devilish twinkle in his eye signaled he was feeling horny again.

"No more sex. We need to rest and save our energy for tomorrow."

Terry pouted, pushing out his lips that she loved to ride on and kiss. She hugged him around the neck, enjoying his warm, wet body touching her.

"You can pout all you want mister, but we're done for the night."

He spanked her right butt cheek and lifted her off of her feet, carrying her back to the bedroom. She rested her head on his chest once they settled in for the night.

How long would this last?

After Tuesday, he'd probably head back to see Miss Irma before going back to where he came from, which was about a five-hour drive away. A long distance relationship wasn't something she envisioned for herself.

She watched him sleep.

He reminded her of a handsome prince in a deep slumber waiting to be kissed and awakened from a spell like some fairy tale. She loved the wideness of his nose and how it matched the proportion of his soft lips. She loved how his ears stuck out, giving him a jovial, big kid look when he smiled.

His body took up most of her double bed and she thought about ordering a king-sized bed to accommodate him better. Would a king-size mattress even fit in her bedroom? That thought jolted her. Was she seriously contemplating new furniture for a man she just met?

"My God tuh-day," she mumbled.

The absurdity ruffled her feathers. In the sobering reality, after all the mind-blowing sex, Celeste wanted to put a lid on any thoughts of a future. Every time she felt a way about a man and started making plans and setting boundaries, nothing came to fruition, and she always ended up with heartbreak or bitterness. She resolved to keep it cool with Terry. This was fuck buddy fun. Plain and simple.

But look at that face!

The thick eyebrows and heavy lashes softened the sculptured forehead and chin. His goatee gave him a dashing look of a rogue, and it matched his energy in bed. She ain't never had a man talk her through so many orgasms. When she rode him like the pony express, bouncing so hard that her cheeks clapped against his thighs with the power of cymbals crashing, she was already planning long luxurious vacations with him to exotic resorts on the other side of the world. All because his voice sounded like it came from the top of a mountain heralding the coming of the Lord.

His dick was a magic stick that had her talking in tongues in the key of brreb-bababy-ah-ashantay by the time they finished their last entanglement. Was it crack? Did this negro have crack in his penis? Cuz babygirl was definitely hooked.  Even with a condom on, that dick still had her spellbound, satisfied, and doing full splits on it like she was Simone Biles.

Sleep finally overtook her disjointed thoughts, and she slumbered through eight restful hours. She woke up on a sunny Fat Tuesday morning grinning, smelling the odor of cooking that she wasn't doing coming from her kitchen. Wearing the afterglow of heavenly lovemaking, she threw on a robe and sauntered into where Terry stood at her stove sprinkling grated cheddar cheese inside an omelet. He'd already taken a shower before she got up. With only a dark blue towel draped around his waist, he looked like a tawny Greek Adonis.

"Morning. Did you sleep well, beautiful?"

Butterfly wings fluttered in her belly every time he called her beautiful. He always showered her with pet names and compliments. If he was bread crumbing her for more sex, she was falling for it. She was a sucker for love bombing and all the fortitude she built up before she fell asleep yesterday went out the window. She hugged him from behind.

"I slept like a lazy cat."

"Listen, I have to run back to my B&B to get fresh fits. What time do we have to roll to see your grandfather?"

"Big Chief will be outside before nine."

"I'll go get dressed and we can ride over in my truck."

"Okay."

"Sit, I'll fix you a plate and then I'll bounce."

Celeste propped herself in her kitchen chair and ogled Terry's backside wrapped in the towel. So taut. Round the way she liked it. The muscles in his back flexed and her gaze followed down his spine to where the towel hung on his tapered waist. The gods of body blessings built him to perfection. She rested her cheek on her hand and studied everything on that man. He folded the omelet over and slid it onto a plate of fried alligator sausages.

"There you go," he said, serving her the plate.

She puckered her lips, and he kissed her.

"Thank you, sir…wait, you're not joining me?"

He placed a mug of fresh coffee on the table next to her fork.

"I ate while you were still snoozing, so I could get outta here on time. Be back before you know it. Enjoy breakfast."

He left her in the kitchen and she didn't like watching his wide back move away from her. Digging into the omelet, she was delighted to find he cooked onions and diced tomatoes in it, too. The hot and spicy sausage woke her up completely, and she took a moment to sip the coffee and glance out of the kitchen window, grateful no rain would hamper the day.

She enjoyed a long shower and rubbed her body down with jasmine and honey blossom lotion. Slipping on comfortable underwear, she worked on her make-up and face-painting first, choosing an avant-garde style that mimicked Mardi Gras colors with a West African geometric flair, turning half her face into living art. The other half she glued a partial green carnival mask that had three slender purple feathers sticking out from it like a hand fan. She pulled her carnival outfit from the closet in her sewing room and checked for any last-minute re-stitching she needed to do. Celeste had painstakingly decorated the purple and yellow keyhole halter top with sewn-in cowrie shells she hand-painted a shiny, metallic gold. A pair of sequined gold shorts she bought online rounded off the ensemble and had her booty sitting up. She'd added Mardi Gras beads on the sides of the shorts to make her shimmies and shuffles on the streets extra dramatic. Reaching behind her neck, she untied her black satin hair wrap and released her locs. The last task was to pick footwear to run the streets in. She had a nice pair of neon yellow sprinting shoes she used for track in highschool, but there was also a cool pair of green Chucks. Choosing the sprinting shoes that were less bulky, she laced up and threw a crossbody sling bag across her shoulders, stuffing her cell phone, keys and cigarettes inside. Digging in her nightstand, she tossed a couple of joints in the bag, too. It was Fat Tuesday, after all. She could repent on Ash Wednesday at St. Augustine Church.

Street food would be in abundance, and every corner would have someone selling quarter waters. She waited in her living room for Terry and checked on text messages from friends wanting to gossip about the pretty man she unabashedly kept locked in her bed. All of her girlfriends were happy that she was safe. Nae Nae sent eggplant emojis, and Joyce sent water splashes and yellow smiley faces with tongues out looking like they were sweating.

A knock at the door sprung her into action. She grabbed her tambourine, swung the door open and twirled.

"How do I look?"

The man at the door wasn't Terry.

"You look like you're ready to show out. How ya doin', Duchess?"

Freddie grinned like a cat with the canary caught between his gums. His silky mahogany skin gleamed in the sunlight and so did his tangerine carnival suit with the Money Wasters Social & Pleasure Club sash slung across his chest. From the tangerine gators on his feet to the matching fedora on his head, Celeste's ex looked elegant and much better-looking since the last time she ran into him. Of course, she was cursing him out of his name at the time after receiving a break-up text in the middle of Sunday Mass.

"Why are you here? Who gave you my address?"

"Calm down now, gal. Your Mama said you were still doing poorly, and I just wanted to check on you. Us not being together doesn't mean I don't still care about you. I figure carnival morning is a good day to see ya."

"You seen me, now bye."

"Don't be like that, Celeste. Let the past be the past...today is Mardi Gras, a little buck jumping and celebrating is good for everybody's soul."

Celeste's stomach churned at the sight of him. She didn't need any turmoil today. Music blasted from various corners of her street, kicking off the bright festive mood she wanted to indulge in. Freddie leaned toward her.

"Listen, Duchess, men make mistakes. They do! Don't roll your eyes at me. They fuck up and grow from it. Six months ago, we weren't in a good place, and instead of acting like a grown man, I acted like a boy and hurt you. I wasn't ready to commit to anything or take on the responsibility of marriage."

"But you were willing to play house with me, enjoying all the benefits of a marriage without the strings? Is that how that works? See, that was partially my fault for letting it go on so long because I actually thought there was a chance you would step up and show me we were a team."

"C'mon now, you were pressuring me all the time."

"Asking where you saw us in the next five years was pressure?"

"Duchess—"

"No. We aren't doing this. If this is your way of spinning the block, you can keep on driving partna. I gave you so many chances to prove your worth, but you chose to move on without me in the bed of another woman. Go fuck that bitch…better yet, fuck all the bitches you want, because I'm done with your lame excuses. You were mad that I asked you to put up or shut up, so now deal with the consequences of your actions."

She wagged a finger in his face.

"You had a good one, Freddie, and you blew it."

"Baby, I hurt you bad…I know. I want to make amends. That's why I came here today. However long it takes to wait out the hate you have for me right now, I will do it."

A deep rumble shook the streets as a late-model gray Chevy Silverado truck pulled up behind her car. The heavy bass made her windows rattle, and she grinned so hard that Freddie jerked his head around to see what caused all the showing of teeth.

Terry stepped out of the truck sporting a Mardi Gras-themed graphic T-shirt and custom oyster-gray joggers. She noticed his walking shoes were Kuru athletic slip-ons that looked comfortable as hell.

She exhaled so loud looking at Terry that Freddie sucked his teeth.

"You good, baby?" Terry asked, his gaze locked on Freddie as he spoke.

"Ready to go. Give me a second to lock up," she said, pulling out her keys.

Terry leaned against the passenger door of his truck and waited for her. Freddie followed her down the four steps of her stoop.

"Hey…how you doing, man?" Freddie said.

Freddie held out his hand and Terry shook it, his face neutral, but not mean-mugging. However, his eyes were icy daggers. Celeste took pleasure in the height difference of the two men. Freddie had to look up at Terry's face like she did.

"Nice suit," Terry said, looking over Freddie's sartorial finery.

"Well ya know, gotta show out tuhday," Freddie said.

"I hear you. Best day of the year," Terry said.

"Better than Christmas!"

Freddie laughed, and it irked her nerves.

Terry stared at Freddie and the cool silence he gave unnerved her ex. Celeste found it delicious and didn't jump in to make introductions or anything, just let Freddie stand there with an awkward grin stewing on his face.

"Well, guess I betta head out. Y'all have fun now," Freddie said.

"Lose my address," Celeste called to him.

Freddie walked around his white Audi and grumbled something under his breath. He drove off and Celeste groaned her annoyance.

"I swear, when I see my mama, she's going to get a piece of my mind."

"She told him to come here?"

"She gave him my address. I've been living here six months in peace, and now he knows where I live."

"Is that a problem?"

Terry's voice hinted at concern. She threaded her fingers with his.

"He's not a stalker. I think he planned to use this day for a chance at reconciliation, and it backfired with you here."

"Tail between the legs, huh?"

"Yep."

She glanced at his truck.

"Are you open to walking over to my grandparent's house? It's about a thirty-minute stroll. It'll warm up our legs for partying," she said.

"Lead the way."

Celeste tapped her tambourine and pranced in front of him like the Pied Piper, shaking her ass to the music bubbling up from the streets. Tons of people were already walking about, celebrating and greeting strangers and friends with smiles and excited shouts. Being with Terry enabled Celeste to see the carnival life through his eyes. It awakened a new appreciation for her culture and her people. There was always a second line every week because of funerals, social club events, or convention parties and she tended to overlook how unique it was as a local. But with Terry...it became brand new and magical.

They arrived in front of her grandparents' old white double shotgun house amongst a growing audience of paraders. The right side was where her grandparents stayed, and the left side belonged to her aunt and uncle. The narrow street teemed with family and spectators waiting for the Big Chief to come outside. Celeste introduced Terry to her cousins, and gave a proper introduction to all of her girlfriends who patiently waited to see what type of suit Big Chief had sewn all year.

Joyce and Avis welcomed Terry into their fold, unlike Nae Nae and Mercy, who remained reserved a lot longer knowing Celeste stayed in a tender place emotionally after Freddie left her. Hoots and shrieks from the left side of the street roused the throng of bodies packed around them. The ninth ward Headhunter Tribe resplendent in gold and navy blue feathers, stomped and called out for Big Chief to show himself. Other spirited shouts on the right brought forth the Uptown Indians, those from the West Bank and Back o' Town. Celeste counted five tribes in their colorful regalia waiting for her grandfather to show himself on a fine Mardi Gras morning. Terry's eyes looked thrilled to be in the middle of all the pageantry and people. She linked her arm in his, happy to have him by her side.

The front door opened on the right side.

"Here come my Big Chief!" Celeste shouted.

She ululated, and other Treme women joined her in the galvanizing sound. It ricocheted among the squawks and whoops of Black men dressed in enormous headpieces and extravagant works of folk art. With her girlfriends, who waved handkerchiefs, Celeste led the singing of a stirring rendition of "Indian Red" as her Big Chief slowly walked outside in the majestic colors of magenta and royal purple. Celeste let out a long breath of anxious air. Big Chief didn't wear all white. He was going to stay in the game for one more year.

She couldn't hold back the tears and thanked God she spent money on water-proof face paint and kept a handkerchief ready. She dabbed at her eyes, even through the partial mask on her face. Her Uncle Claude, the Second Chief, and Man-Man their Flag Boy helped Big Chief place his crown on his head. A sea of smartphones went up, everyone wanting a picture of one of the oldest Indians alive still masking. Celeste had her phone out too, snapping away from every angle. The low raspy pitch of a tuba sounded off, and soon a full on brass band Treme anthem kicked off the march around the neighborhood.

Celeste squeezed through bodies with her hand clasped around Terry's wrist. She kissed Big Chief's cheek and took a selfie with him. Big Chief squinted at Terry with curious brown eyes.

"Who your people is, young man?" Big Chief asked in his scratchy tone.

"They not from around here, sir. I'm from up north, not too far from Shelby Springs," Terry said.

"A big country boy, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

Big Chief tilted his head, but Terry stepped back to make room for Grand-mère and other tribal members wanting more pictures before her grandfather took off down the street. Bursting with pride, Celeste danced and rattled the jingles on her tambourine.

The streets crackled with high-spirited life and they merged onto other streets, taking careful consideration of Big Chief's energy level throughout the day. They arrived at the I-10 underpass and joined up with a mass of people marching and dancing.

"I like this type of carrying on better than the big parade on canal street," Terry said.

He maintained a bounce in his step, impressing Celeste with his skillful dancing despite his size. Terry shook his hips and tried to move his feet like her. He kept a smile on her face all day and eventually Nae Nae and Mercy warmed up to him after seeing how happy she acted with him.

She pointed out the parasols, baskets, and ostentatious fans she made, snapping photos with her phone and stopping to buy water along the back street route. So many white people mingled among them. Even they knew where the genuine party was at.

"She cutting up now!" a reveler called out.

Mercy started staggering her steps and shuffling to the music as second-line horns blared and coaxed everyone to shake their moneymaker. Celeste jumped right next to her, strutting in the middle of the street. Mercy held her parasol high above her head as she hyped Celeste up.

"Get it Duchess! Work it!"

Avis and Joyce kept yelling, "Aye! Aye! Aye!" every time she dropped low to the ground. Her cousin Micah recorded her on his phone, and hot stepped with the rest.

The onlookers snapped photos and taped Celeste cutting loose like it was the last day of her life on earth. It helped that her shorts let her backside bounce in time to the music and she jumped around shaking her tambourine, moving her feet like they were on fire. Mercy worked the street with her, showing off uptown footwork, but Celeste showed the crowd how the downtown really got down. She bounced and kept her knees bucking up high, spinning and dipping, matching Mercy's high energy and showmanship, keeping her steps syncopated with the tuba, drum, and other horns. Onlookers moved closer to videotape them. Avis took Celeste's tambourine to help keep a hot percussive beat going with her steps.

From the corner of her eye, she caught the Moneywasters Social and Pleasure Club prancing in step, rounding the corner. Freddie was front and center, and he noticed her right away and she really started turning up.

Celeste put her hands on the ground and alternated lifting each foot up with the beat of a cowbell and the whistles being blown. She jumped back up knowing Freddie locked in on her and started wiggling her backside and moving backward by the power of her ass, gyrating until she broke it down further by doing her well-known sexy model catwalk. She strutted and bounced at the same time, moving to the left of the street, and then back to the right. She hopped and twisted her hips around until she surrendered to the moment, her body simply a conduit for whatever African spirit wanted to experience a little bons temps rouler. Her friends were right there with her, dancing and moving their feet fast.

"Yeah, you right!" Nae Nae yelled at her.

"You wild, Duchess!" Joyce shouted.

Celeste dipped around Freddie, and her ex shook a feathered fan at her, dancing his way closer. She dropped her hands on her knees, tooted her backside, and let her hips wind, enticing plenty of people to catcall and whistle at her. The soft crush of Terry's crotch rubbed up against her ass, pleasing the cheering crowd. He blatantly cock blocked Freddie from grinding on her. Celeste marveled at how sensually Terry moved on her. That big dick print of his felt nice between her cheeks. He laced his fingers with hers, and they kept their arms up in the air together, dancing to the raucous beat in total sync, moving along with the sea of exuberant faces flowing toward another street intersection.

At a crossroads, two other tribes faced off on a street corner, singing chants and challenges about who sewed the prettiest suits. Big Chief's singing voice carried over the hundreds of heads near Celeste. It soared across the hundreds more behind them. The Wild Treme's Spyboy stopped and hollered a boastful rhyme about the prettiest chief around. She kept a smug look on her face as no other tribal suit could rival the skills of her grandfather. Her cousin Angie preened in a gorgeous tribal suit, representing the queen of their tribe with grace standing next to Big Chief.

By late afternoon, Avis passed around a flask filled with spiced dark rum and they shared oyster po'boy sandwiches from a middle-aged Korean man who set up shop on the corner of Treme and Governor Nicholls street. She finally witnessed Terry eating something when he took a few bites from her sandwich. All around them, people walked, danced, and shuffled along, following whatever tribes they could catch sight of.

"That's my church," she said to him.

Across the street was St. Augustine church. Since Hurricane Ida, the main sanctuary had closed for roof repairs. Celeste and other parishioners held Mass in the Parish Hall for the time being. She pulled Terry over to see a special part of her church, pointing out a giant rusting iron cross made of giant chain locks sitting on the ground and tilted on its side, marking the hallowed ground of the unknown slave. Several medieval-looking metal shackles hung from the body of the cross.

Terry stood a respectful distance from it. His once joyous emerald eyes dulled in solemn reverence.

"Avis, may I see your flask for a minute?" he asked.

They all thought he wanted a sip, but he stooped down to one knee, unscrewed the cap and poured out some rum. Celeste crossed her arms in front of her midsection. Her friends watched him from the side.

"Awhile back, they started finding so many unmarked slave graves that our church wanted to remind everyone about it. I was a little girl when Father LeDoux, our old priest, and the parishioners placed it here. It honors all the enslaved lost to us."

"It's a holy place," Terry said.

His voice was so soft and trembled with emotion. Celeste ran a gentle hand across his scalp and plucked a cowrie shell from her costume and placed it on top of the spot where Terry soaked the ground with rum.

"Father LeDoux passed on five years ago. But he left us this memorial to cherish."

"Sister Celeste, I thought that was you."

Father Mbenga, the new priest recently assigned to St. Augustine, pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave her a warm smile.

"Father Mbenga," Celeste said.

Her friends slipped away across the street, avoiding any church talk while they were tipsy, leaving her alone with Terry.

"I will see you tomorrow in the Parish Hall no doubt?"

"I'll be here."

Terry rose to his feet and wiped his hands. He held Avis's flask behind his back.

"Father, this is my friend Terry. He's visiting from out of town."

Father Mbenga held out his hand. Terry was hesitant at first, but he offered his free hand.

"Young man, you are very welcome to attend Mass. We have a wonderful Ash Wednesday service and newcomers always have a church home here."

Terry nodded and gave a weak smile, humoring the man.

"Don't let me hold up all your fun. I wanted to say hello since I heard your voice."

Celeste tugged on Terry's arm and pulled him away.

"You don't have to go with me tomorrow."

"He invited me. I'll go with you."

She grinned, happy that he wanted to stay longer with her.

"Don't you have to see Miss Irma tomorrow, too?"

"I'll see her. Thinking about staying a little longer."

"Yeah?"

Celeste's cheeks nearly touched the sky with happiness.

"You not tired of me yet?" he asked.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed her nose against his.

"Not yet," she whispered.

He lowered his lips and kissed her out in the open. After the sweet moment, she pointed out parts of the church building, especially the refurbished bell on top of the belfry, and proudly bragged that it was the first Black Catholic Church in the country.

"You love this church, don't you?" he said.

"I sure do. We're hoping the main sanctuary will open back up in the fall. I can't wait. So many memories here. Weddings. Christenings. My confirmation. It's been standing here since 1841. Hurricanes still can't knock it down. In a couple of decades, it'll be 200 years old. Imagine being around for that long, huh?"

Terry glanced at her, and a weird expression washed over his face. It passed quickly, and he held her hand tight.

They rejoined her friends to mingle and drink until the sun lowered. The Quarter jumped and so did they, bar hopping all night. Celeste knew it was time to pack it in when Terry kept rubbing on her booty and nibbling her ear, whispering nasty things that warmed her face up. He exuded so much charisma that people stepped out of their way wherever they went just to watch him pass by. Even she fawned over him, feeling like she had won the lottery with such an attentive man.

Doubt crept into her mind as they interacted with people and the liquor in her system marinated on her brain. Other women flirted with him when they thought she wasn't looking, and an uncomfortable and familiar sensation pestered her. Insecurity. He was a complete stranger blowing through the city. There might be an entire complicated life hidden away somewhere, with women and kids involved. Once, while they were in bed listening to music and sharing random thoughts about life, she asked Terry if he had any social media. He said he didn't like being online. She let it go. Watching him move confidently through the party atmosphere and drunken revelry, she didn't want to trust anything shining like gold that fell into her lap easily. There might be a lump of coal in the middle of it. Freddie had been charming and attentive, too. He'd said all the right things. Gave her good sex. Women had flirted with Freddie when they were out, but this thing she witnessed with Terry was different. He caught the attention of everyone. Men and women. Queer, straight, and everything else there was to be in the world. Every color, creed, and nationality folded when he was near.

Celeste's insecurities got the better of her and she reasoned that their union couldn't last. Men that fine knew it and used it to their advantage. The sooner she conceded to that fact, the easier it would be when he left New Orleans. Whatever fantasy she made up in her head lying in bed with him had to go. Her first step would be to stop sleeping with Terry. She would let him return to his B&B and give her pussy a rest.

Eventually, the time came to say goodnight to her friends. Terry insisted on walking Joyce back to her car to make sure they all got there safely. She had parked in a gated and fenced hotel lot for a fee. They exchanged hugs and kisses with sloppy drunk goodbyes. Joyce had stopped drinking once they hit the Quarter, and she was good to drive back uptown. Celeste and Terry stumbled on a circuitous route back to his B&B . She was determined to drop the magic stick off at his spot and walk home alone to sober up. The further away they moved from the major action of the Quarter, the fewer people they ran into. Even the sound of music dwindled until they arrived at an eclectic little neighborhood B&B with two courtyards and lots of cool roof statues on top of the three little bedroom cottages, two bungalows, and a carriage house. A large Batman figure overlooked the street, along with funny-looking owls with googly eyes, and a couple of squat yellow minions from the animated movie "Despicable Me". Celeste pulled out her phone to snap some pictures of the roofs.

"We should've walked to your place first to get my truck," he said.

"We can still walk over there for you to get it and come back here. I'm just three blocks down, remember?" she said.

"Or you can spend the night here with me and enjoy these silly roof statues?"

She smirked. Nope. She wasn't going to fall for it. Her buzz still had her floating, but she wouldn't be a sucker for some dick.

"What statue do you have on your roof?"

He thought about it for a second.

"I have a courtyard room, and I think it's some anime character. I don't know. They all have a movie theme. Let me run in here and grab a jacket for you and I'll walk you home."

"I'm close by. I can live without a jacket."

"You're shivering…been shivering the last fifteen minutes we were walking. I'm getting you a jacket. C'mon."

He clasped her hand. She pulled away.

"I'll wait here. I have to go to church at eight-thirty and I'm not falling for any tricks to keep me in bed all day."

Terry slapped her butt and walked onto the property. Celeste took another photo of an inflatable green dragon with cartoon eyes and Mardi Gras beads strung around its neck. She ended up taking another picture of it since the first one came out blurry. The flash revealed a statue hidden behind the twisting tail of the dragon. An ornate, yet grotesque looking gargoyle appeared stuck on the slope of the roof. Its three-foot wide stone body showed ornate wings curled into a ball, shielding it from the glare of decorative white string lights hung around the eaves. It blended in perfectly with the roof's russet coloring. She might've missed it if the dragon picture hadn't been so bad. Slanted stone eyes looked down toward the street in a menacing way.

"Ugly little thing," Mercy said under her breath. "Don't even match the aesthetic."

Terry returned and draped a heavy jacket around her shoulders. Celeste bounced as she walked to the strained sounds of music coming from a house several blocks away.

"Today was so much fun," she said.

"I had a good time."

"I promised you would."

"You made it ten times better."

Celeste sang some fun chants for him and once she stood back on her stoop, she pulled the jacket off her shoulders. Handing it to him, she kept her back toward the front door.

"Call me and I'll pick you up in the morning," he said.

"Just come by at eight. I'll be ready."

He climbed the first step and kissed her forehead.

"Rest well," he said.

She watched him climb into his truck and drive away, feeling proud that she had willpower. Regardless, her limbs were exhausted. There was no way to enjoy him bending her like a pretzel again with sore joints.

"Oh, thank you Jesus," she said out loud to the stars and the moon in the sky.

Grateful for a joy-filled day, she entered her home and took a long, hot shower.

Toweling her hair in the living room, she reached for a joint inside the crossbody bag and turned on the TV. Tucking her locs under her satin hair scarf, she caught up on the news segments showing the celebrations all throughout the city and smoked. She flipped through channels and paused on a late night news broadcast because of two faces highlighted on the screen. The two white guys from the Quarter that tried to lure her away from her friends.

Carl and Jacob.

She turned the volume up and learned that they were missing since the night she met them. Despite authorities finding their rental car abandoned near Lake Pontchartrain with no signs of foul play, their family insisted that harm had come to them.

Celeste sat on her sectional recliner, reeling from the story. Had those men convinced her to party with them, she might've ended up missing too. It creeped her out that she may have been one of the last few people to see them before they vanished. Terry, as well.

She turned off the TV and finished smoking her joint, letting it relax the anxiety fighting to control her thinking about Carl and Jacob. In the dark, she rested on her recliner, too lazy to walk to her bedroom. Shifting onto her side, she glanced at her French doors and bolted upright.

That shadowy figure was back. She could see its curved shape behind the curtains. Grabbing a long rain stick she had lying against the wall, she unlocked the doors and ran out to knock whoever it was upside the head. Her motion sensor lights came on and she swung the rain stick wildly about, hoping to strike down the intruder.

A breeze rustled the leaves of her neighbors tree and the flood lights cut out since she wasn't moving anymore. Celeste noticed the shadow of the tree branches moving across her nightgown and doors. That's all it was. The damn tree.

Nothing was out there. Just like the previous night when Terry checked her yard.

She walked back into her cottage, locked the doors and kept the rain stick next to the bed. The weed allowed her to drift on a magic carpet ride of untroubled sleep.

"No more weed," she whispered to herself.

Chapter 8 HERE.

Masterlist

Taglist:

@nahimjustfeeling-writes

@planetblaque

@kindofaintrovert

@thedondada05

@blackburnbook

@avoidthings

@slutsareteacherstoo

@nayaesworld

@notapradagurl17

@4pfsukuna

@yamst3rdamctrl

@sweettea-and-honeybutter

@comfortzonequeen

@theereina

@brattyfics

@prettyisasprettydoes1306

@megane96

@honeytoffee

@taurusqueen83

@mightbeher

@melaninpov

@carlakeks

@woahthatshitfat

@hrlzy

@theglamclosetsl

[bofbfanatics]

Winner Of The June Bofb

Fanatics Writer Comp

@ihearteugeneroe ❤︎❤︎❤︎

Poll Prompt ➣ What Was Never Said.

Required Pairing ➣ Any.

Required Quote ➣ “How was I supposed to know I’d never see you again.”

Word Count ➣ 1k-5k

Possibility • Webgott

by blood and by me, i’ll fall when you leave

There is a thick and heavy silence that follows David Webster like a dog, incessant in its whining for attention. He never minded the quiet all that much until Joseph Liebgott had made it his mission to abolish it at any chance possible. And now, stuck in Europe with too few credits to return home, he has no choice but to stand at a wooden dock and prepare himself for the goodbye he knew was coming for weeks. That doesn’t make it any easier.

“Fucking finally, can’t wait to get out of here,” the gravelly voice beside him mutters. He ignores the undertone of sadness; if he lingers on it for too long, Web will convince himself to write weekly letters when he was told to do all but that.

“I’m jealous, truly.” His reply is hollow, adjacent to the gnawing tug in his chest.

“Oh, I bet. You’d love to get out of anything.” Liebgott gives him a sidelong glare that challenges him to keep going with that thought, a silent dare. David is too exhausted to feed into it, a rare occurrence.

He hums in a simple, muted agreement. Joe stands with his army duffel slung heavily over his shoulder, posture suffering as a result, and staring out into the ocean. Web isn’t sure whether he should absorb the man for as long as time allows or chastise himself to make it hurt less in the long run. He settles on glancing up from his own feet in small bursts of courage yet refuses to meet eyes. The sunrise creeps above the horizon and casts a golden and beautiful light on the two of them. Joe looks breathtaking, angelic with his clean-pressed uniform and steel-cut eyes. David’s heart pounds in his ribcage while his throat itches, fingers instantly digging into his pocket for cigarettes.

Offering one to Liebgott, he grabs one for himself and sparks it with his metal Zippo before starting up the other man's. A harsh inhale of smoke relaxes his nerves as he mulls over what to say. The atypical lack of conversation became rapidly unnerving; Joe must not be able to find anything to say either. That is especially concerning since he is always the one physically unable to let the peace persist too long.

“So… The Pacific, huh?” He predictably comments around the smoke dangling between his lips. Liebgott doesn’t look at him when he speaks.

“Yup, seems like it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it’ll end before I’m supposed to ship out.” Web doesn’t bother masking the gloom between his words. Joe winces.

“Hopefully,” he mumbles. David peeks at him, and there’s that line between thin eyebrows, always appearing when something displeases him to the right degree. He wishes that he could read his mind for the millionth time.

Conversation dies again while they inhale tobacco side-by-side in joint bitterness, admiring the slow rise of the burning sun. Or rather, cursing it, in David’s case. The war should be finished by this point. The Nazi’s were defeated, why couldn’t the Japanese give it up? Such a suicidal enemy deeply disturbed him, all for an immensely worthless cause. A sigh rattles out from him before it can be suppressed, while Joe turns to examine him with a frown. Something akin to pity glimmers behind the dark oak of his irises and he loathes it, rolling his bright cerulean in reply. Liebgott huffs under his breath before he flicks the butt end of his cigarette into the swirling ocean water. David grimaces before punching him in his thin arm with only half-strength.

“Asshole. Some fish could eat that and die, you know.” He can’t help hissing out, hardly restraining himself from jumping in to grab the clump of ash and paper. All he’s met with is a smug grin and a shrug of nonchalance.

“Okay? Easy dinner for a bird when it floats to the top. Survival of the fittest.” Joe replies and studies Web openly in that uncaring way he adopted since they began this strange relationship. If only he could convince himself to hate it.

“God, I can’t wait to be free from your idiotic ways of thinking,” David scoffs out before thinking better of it. The consequence hits him in the face when Liebgott visibly sours and shifts a step away.

“Yeah, tell me about it. I feel the same way.” Webster rocks forward and backward on his feet while Joe’s reply soaks in. This is going all wrong; he begins to hate himself over that fact. The right words always came at the wrong time and the wrong words at the right time. It must be some sort of eternal punishment for a wrongdoing he is unfamiliar with. Actually, this very wrongdoing could be kicking dirt around right next to him.

“Glad it’s mutual.” He curses himself with a lack of readable expression. Liebgott must see some shift though, because his frown deepens significantly, but Web ignores any sort of implication it may have. There is no choice besides survival, and he must accomplish this without Joe. He cannot forget the importance of that very fact.

Joe will return to San Francisco, marry a beautiful Jewish woman, have children, and forget about the odd fling he had with some nobody in the Army during his years at war when he got desperate. David may rot away on an island in the Pacific or perhaps return to Harvard, pursue some pre-war dreams he hardly has for himself, and pretend that he didn’t fall in love at the worst time with the wrong person. No matter what happens to him, Liebgott will follow him for eternity. Try as he might to claw his way to an escape, he may never know true peace of mind again.

When he peers over at the brunette, all he sees is a war-hardened and stunning individual, perfect with his dirty hands and soft lips. He needs to touch him, to remind them this isn’t quite over yet, even when it certainly is. Webster’s chest aches when his fingers fall short and run back to his pockets in fear, where Joe stares at him as if he had just twisted his arm in the opposite direction.

Don’t go, he nearly whispers, I can’t live without you. Blood fills his dry mouth when teeth gnaw open his inner cheek. Joe, I need you. Please don’t leave me. David’s eyes begin to water and he takes a sharp, quick breath to stabilize. I’m scared. Just stay with me. I love you more than anything.

Liebgott holds out his empty hand with a sorrowful avoidance of eye contact. Like he understood perfectly well what Web had been thinking, when their palms slide against each other, his handshake is firm and warm. They stay holding each other’s clammy hands for too long, dropping when a chattering group of men approaches to board the ship.

“I’ll catch you later, Web.” His voice thickens with an emotion that can’t be placed. Web’s heart attempts to crawl out of his chest to its true owner, unsuccessful in the endeavor.

“Yeah. Goodbye, Lieb.” Full of sorrow, the three words are weightless as they leave his mouth. He’d do anything for one more kiss, one more minute, one more anything. A loud honk of the boat horn nearly startles him, but signals they’ve begun boarding, so Joe finally turns away. It’ll be the last time he sees his face in a long, indiscernible amount of time. Months, years, decades. Perhaps ever, if he gets sent back into war to face enemies that sacrifice themselves willingly.

The thin outline of his back under their uniform shrinks while David doesn’t tear his eyes away. Fear, desperation, and grief bubble up in his gut and grow into a pounding headache. He tears in half with wobbly knees and refrains from calling out the remaining weights in his mind.

I miss you already, mein liebling. Maybe in another life, the world will not be so cruel to us.

If Joe had known this would be his last chance to ever look David in those begging eyes, maybe it could’ve gone differently. Maybe they would share a hug, even a selfish kiss if they got lucky. But he didn’t. The last shreds of intimacy were shared in a dank hotel room in the German countryside. Joe didn’t know that he went missing out in the sea until those unanswered letters stopped flooding his mailbox. And David would never know how intensely he haunted Liebgott, a ghost from his past that never extinguished. It wasn’t his fault that he got too scared to answer those letters, afraid of what feelings mutual contact would conjure. Now, he had nothing. No Webster to send him countless sentences littered with dying hope of meeting again, nothing to pathetically hold onto. Just thinly scribbled words with half-hidden meanings. Poems he didn’t quite fully understand. All from a lover who no longer exists and hardly had in the past couple years.

So tell me

When you hear my heart stop

You’re the only one who knows

Tell me when you hear my silence

There’s a possibility

I wouldn’t know

Forever thinking of you, David Kenyon Webster

[soakedstar]

⋆｡°✩ 𓂃𓈒 𝑴𝑶𝑶𝑵 𝑾𝑰𝑵𝑫𝑶𝑾 𓈒𓂃 ✩°｡⋆ (1/2)

✦ now playing: Pale Blue Eyes – The Velvet Underground

﹕✧ synopsis:

a kiss at a party turns into something slower.

something warmer.

something that stays long after the drugs wear off

﹕✧ pairing:

jake x f!reader (1970s au)

﹕✧ warnings:

explicit content (18+), drug use (weed + acid), oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, tears during sex, mention of pregnancy

don’t do drugs kids

The party was already thick with smoke by the time Jake and Y/N stepped inside. Everything smelled like something burnt—weed, incense, cheap cologne—and the carpet felt sticky under her boots. Someone was playing The Velvet Underground on a turntable in the corner, but the sound was muffled, as if the music were happening inside someone else’s chest.

The room was dim. Amber light bulbs and string lights sagged between bookshelves and exposed beams, flickering like lazy stars. There were half-empty bottles of wine on every surface, cigarette butts floating in beer cans, and a boy with a mustache talking to a lava lamp like it had asked him something personal.

They weren’t even drunk yet, but everything already felt absurd.

Jake leaned close to Y/N’s ear, his breath warm.

“Ten bucks says this whole room smells like regret in the morning.”

She laughed—quiet, sharp—and shook her head.

“You’re the one who said it’d be fun.”

“I lied. But we’re here now.”

Someone called his name from the living room—a tall guy in bell-bottoms and an open shirt, holding a joint between his fingers like it was a cigarette in a movie.

“Jake, man, you gotta join us. Come on—circle time.”

Jake turned to Y/N and raised his eyebrows, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“We doing this?”

She narrowed her eyes at the guy, then at Jake.

“I don’t know. I’ve never—”

“Just sit with me,” he said, soft. “We don’t have to do anything. I just wanna laugh at people.”

She hesitated. But when Jake offered his hand, she took it.

They stepped into the living room. Seven or eight people already sat in a loose circle on the floor, laughing too loudly, cheeks flushed, eyelids half-lowered like velvet curtains. Someone had drawn flowers on the wood paneling with a black marker, and one of them looked like it was melting.

They sat down together, cross-legged on the shag rug, knees touching.

Jake still held her hand.

The joint made its way around the circle. When it got to Jake, he took a long drag and closed his eyes.

Y/N watched him.

When he opened them again, he turned to her, grinning.

“Just one hit,” he whispered. “I’ll hold your hand the whole time.”

She looked down at their joined fingers, at the way his thumb had started to stroke hers without thinking.

He passed it to her.

“Don’t overthink it,” he added. “That’s my job.”

She took it, brought it to her lips like it was a dare, and inhaled—too fast. She coughed immediately, face scrunching, and Jake burst out laughing.

“Oh my God,” he said, laughing so hard he fell back against the couch behind him.

His laugh was real. Unfiltered. The kind that made her start laughing too, even though her throat burned and her eyes watered.

Someone else laughed with them, but they didn’t notice. Not really.

Everything started to blur at the edges. The light turned warmer, the music slower, as if each note took its time to reach her. She looked around and noticed the crack on the ceiling above them looked exactly like Italy. Or maybe a seahorse. Or maybe it was nothing, and that was the funny part.

Jake touched her shoulder and whispered, “I swear the guy across from us has been blinking in Morse code for five minutes.”

She choked on a laugh.

“I can’t feel my teeth,” she said.

“That’s how you know it’s working.”

They started to giggle at nothing and everything. The way someone’s curls bounced when they nodded. The ridiculous angle of the lava lamp in the corner. The man on the couch who had fallen asleep mid-sentence with a potato chip stuck to his neck.

Jake leaned over and whispered something else, but she couldn’t hear it because her own laughter had swallowed the room whole.

Their faces were close.

He was still holding her hand.

Someone suggested ordering pizza and it was like they had announced the second coming of Christ. Everyone groaned in agreement.

Jake looked at her.

“You want?”

She nodded like a kid. “Yes. God, yes.”

He squeezed her hand.

Ten minutes later, when the pizza arrived and they ate it on the floor like it was a religious experience, everything tasted like heaven and salt and sin.

Greasy, cheesy sin.

Y/N was licking sauce from her finger when Jake looked at her again. Not the way he usually looked. Something slower. Deeper.

She blinked.

“What?”

Jake didn’t answer.

He leaned in.

It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t loud. It was the kind of kiss that hummed through her skin before it even happened.

Their mouths brushed—tentative. Then again, firmer. Then fully.

Warm, deep, tasting of weed and cheese and everything they weren’t supposed to be.

The kind of kiss that made the carpet disappear. The party dissolve. The crack on the ceiling turn into nothing but white.

Her fingers curled into his shirt.

His hand rested against her jaw.

They didn’t stop.

But in the back of her mind—high and hazy and floating—Y/N still knew.

They weren’t supposed to be kissing.

They were just friends.

Just Jake.

Just a night.

Just a kiss that felt like falling off the edge of something they hadn’t even climbed yet.

Their lips parted slowly, like neither of them really wanted it to end.

Y/N’s eyes were still closed when the kiss stopped, and when she opened them, Jake was already looking at her. He didn’t smile—not fully—but his eyes had that dazed softness people only got when they’d just done something irreversible.

“That was…” he started, voice quiet, like the air around them might crack if he said it too loud.

“…crazy?” she offered, not even sure what word belonged there.

He shook his head slowly. “No. That was—” he took a breath, then chuckled. “That was amazing.”

Her cheeks flushed again, this time not from the weed or the laughter. “Yeah,” she said, breathless. “It really was.”

For a few seconds, they just stared at each other, forgetting about the rest of the circle, the half-eaten slices, the soft vinyl still humming in the background.

Then, without saying anything else, they turned back to their pizza. Still on the floor, still cross-legged, still leaning into each other like the world outside the shag rug had ceased to exist.

Jake took a greasy bite and moaned, overdramatic. “Okay. This pizza is also amazing.”

Y/N smiled, chewing on her crust. “Greasy. Salty. Perfect.”

But as the minutes passed and the high mellowed, a new sensation crept in—an urgent, dry thirst. Like their mouths had been replaced with desert sand.

Jake blinked hard and wiped his lips. “Is your mouth—”

“Dry as fuck,” she finished.

They looked at each other and laughed.

“Kitchen?” he said.

“God, yes.”

They got up, a little clumsy on their feet, legs stiff from sitting too long, and made their way to the kitchen. The lights in there were fluorescent and too honest. It was a shock to their eyes after the golden haze of the living room.

The counter was cluttered with mismatched mugs and someone’s half-eaten cereal from that morning. A bottle of cheap tequila sat uncapped next to a nearly empty Brita filter.

Jake opened the fridge. “You think this milk’s real?”

“Don’t even try it,” Y/N said, reaching for the sink.

They drank from glasses they hoped were clean, gulping tap water like it was liquid gold. Y/N leaned against the counter when she finished hers, exhaling loud.

And then Jake looked at her again.

Same look. Same slowness. Same quiet tension crawling back under his skin.

He set his glass down carefully. Walked toward her.

Y/N didn’t move.

When he kissed her this time, it was less hesitant. Still soft—but not unsure.

Their mouths found each other like a language they both remembered from a past life. Like they had done this before, even if they hadn’t. Like this was a secret that had just been waiting to be told.

Jake’s hands slid to her waist.

Y/N’s arms looped around his neck.

There was no couch behind them now, no circle of half-strangers to giggle with. Just the cold counter at her back and the hum of the refrigerator and their breathing, uneven and real.

They kissed like the party didn’t exist anymore. Like their names didn’t matter. Like everything they had ever been to each other was being rewritten in that moment.

And when they finally broke apart, neither said anything.

They didn’t have to.

They just looked at each other—flushed, quiet, trembling with something they didn’t know how to name—and went back to the living room. The circle had dispersed, most people either passed out on the couch or tangled on the floor like abstract art.

Jake and Y/N found a corner of the room where a bean bag and a blanket had been abandoned. They collapsed together, limbs still a little tangled, a little unsure.

Eventually, they slept.

The high wore off in the night.

The room cooled.

And when morning came, soft and gray through the cracked blinds, the world smelled like stale smoke, cold pizza, and a headache waiting to happen.

Y/N stirred first. Her mouth tasted awful. Her head ached in a distant, dull way.

She blinked and realized Jake was still there, lying on his back beside her, one arm slung over his eyes.

When he felt her move, he shifted. Opened one eye.

Then both.

They stared at each other, not saying anything for a beat too long.

Then Jake grinned—soft, tired, a little sheepish.

“Told you,” he mumbled.

She raised an eyebrow. “Told me what?”

He stretched, groaning. “The room,” he said, waving a hand vaguely in the air. “Smells like regret.”

Y/N laughed despite herself. It wasn’t bitter. It wasn’t sad. Just the laugh of someone who knew a line had been crossed but didn’t know yet what it meant.

Jake rubbed his eyes and looked at her again, more serious now.

“I don’t regret it,” he said quietly.

Y/N didn’t either. But she didn’t say it. Not yet.

She just nodded and looked up at the ceiling. The crack still looked like a seahorse.

But maybe, now, it looked a little like something else too.

The walk back to their dorms was mostly silent. Not in a bad way—just the kind of silence that hangs when everything has already been said, even if no one said it out loud. Y/N clutched her coat tighter around her body, the morning wind biting through the last traces of sleep in her bones.

Jake walked beside her, hands in his pockets, shirt unbuttoned at the top like he hadn’t really tried that hard to dress, like he didn’t need to.

“You look like you fought the night and lost,” Y/N teased, glancing at the dark curls falling over his forehead.

“I did lose,” he replied, voice gravelly. “To your lips. Tragic ending.”

She rolled her eyes, but smiled.

When they parted to shower and change, there was a strange pause at her dorm room door.

“See you in class?” he asked, lingering.

“Unless you flake.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

⸻

By the time they made it into their Visual Composition and Design lecture, the room was already half-full. Wooden chairs creaked beneath bell-bottoms and corduroy. Sunlight filtered in through dusty windows, catching in someone’s afro like a halo. The professor, an aging man with a voice like gravel and a turtleneck the color of mustard, stood beside a slide projector and a giant canvas smudged with charcoal thumbnails.

Y/N slid into a seat by the window. Jake plopped down beside her, smelling faintly of peppermint soap and clove cigarettes. His damp curls stuck to his forehead, and he looked freshly awake but entirely disinterested in academia.

She leaned in. “You smell like a forest fire at a candy store.”

He grinned. “You trying to kiss me again, or insult me?”

“Can’t I do both?”

Before he could answer, the professor smacked the projector to life.

“All right, all right—shut your beautiful mouths. Today we’re talking about framing desire,” he said, clicking to the next slide, which showed a grainy photo of a woman with bare shoulders leaning out a window. “And if that doesn’t interest you, you’re probably dead.”

Jake scribbled nothing on his notebook. Y/N actually tried to take notes, underlining “desire” and “composition of longing” twice before her eyes started to drift again. The room was dim, and dust floated like ghosts in the shafts of light.

She was just getting lost in a study of the professor’s horrible sideburns when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye.

A guy behind them—Freddie, maybe?—tapped Jake’s shoulder. Jake turned, and Freddie slid something into his hand with practiced ease. A small, flat packet wrapped in brown waxed paper. Discreet. Quick. Like something they’d practiced a dozen times.

Jake didn’t flinch.

He just tucked it under his sketchpad and turned back toward Y/N, a slow grin blooming across his lips.

She raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”

He didn’t answer. Just leaned over so close she could smell ink on his skin.

“Meet me after dinner,” he whispered.

She frowned, suspicious. “Why?”

Jake’s grin widened. “Because we’re gonna try something tonight.”

“Oh no. That tone means drugs or danger.”

He shrugged. “Why not both?”

Y/N tilted her head, studying him. “What is it?”

Jake looked down at the packet briefly, then up at her, eyes glinting. “A surprise. For your soul. Or your brain. I don’t really know which it hits harder.”

The professor clicked to another slide. A photo of a woman’s hands around a candle, light spilling through her fingers.

“Desire,” the professor drawled, “is about what you almost touch.”

Jake’s hand brushed against Y/N’s under the desk.

She looked at him.

“Almost,” he repeated softly.

She turned her face away, hiding a smile, pretending to care about the lecture.

But her mind was already racing. What had Jake just been given? What was he planning? And why did the idea of trying anything—anything at all—with him sound better than staying safe?

Outside, someone honked a horn. A record shop across the street flipped its sign to Open. A girl in the front row started sketching a nude figure with a charcoal pencil that left fingerprints on everything she touched.

And Y/N just sat there, her pen forgotten in her hand, heart ticking too loud in her ears, knowing that tonight wasn’t going to be ordinary.

It never was with Jake.

The sky outside was already bruising into purple when Jake knocked on Y/N’s dorm window instead of the door.

She opened it with a frown and a smile. “What is this? Romeo and Juliet?”

Jake was crouched on the fire escape, grinning like a criminal. “You said no more knocking like a normal person. You said, and I quote, ‘Live with flair or don’t live at all.’”

“I said that about eyeliner.”

“Same logic applies.”

She rolled her eyes and let him in. He climbed through the window, clumsy and amused, nearly knocking over a record player in the process.

Y/N closed the window behind him and crossed her arms. “So. You gonna tell me what this is, or are we just playing hide and seek with death?”

Jake reached into his pocket and pulled out the small waxed paper package. It looked innocent. Almost stupidly so.

“It’s called Moon Window,” he said.

“That sounds fake.”

“It probably is. Freddie got it from some girl at an art show in Brooklyn. She was painting with her eyes closed and said it ‘opened time sideways.’”

Y/N snorted. “So we’re trusting the blind prophetess of Bushwick now?”

Jake just smiled and unwrapped the packet. Inside were two translucent tabs, pale blue with tiny gold flecks.

“They say it’s like acid, but softer. Slower. Less chaos, more…questions.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You ever done this before?”

“Nope. You?”

“Nope.”

They stared at the tabs for a second. Then Jake held one out to her.

“Wanna fall sideways with me?”

Y/N stared at it. Then at him.

And then she took it.

The room was quiet when they took the tab—quiet in that dense, humming way that hinted at change. Jake placed the small square of waxy blue paper on his tongue like a communion wafer. Y/N followed, skeptical but curious, letting it dissolve slowly, tasting metal and mint and something like static.

“Do we… just wait now?” she asked.

Jake flopped back onto the floor and laced his fingers behind his head. “We wait and let the universe undress.”

Y/N gave him a look. “You sound like a stoned poet.”

“Give me ten minutes. I’ll sound like God.”

They both laughed, soft and nervous.

And then they waited.

⸻

The first thing that changed was the silence. It thickened. Deepened. Y/N became acutely aware of the edges of things—the border where her skin met the air, where her sweater touched her wrist, where Jake’s arm brushed hers.

The ceiling moved, not with motion, but with intention. It felt aware. The lightbulb above them began to shimmer, bending into soft prisms like it had learned how to sigh.

“Do you hear that?” she whispered.

Jake turned his head slowly toward her. “The silence? Yeah. It’s very loud.”

Her fingers tingled. The carpet beneath her started to feel like a living thing. Every thread hummed against her back. She blinked, and the room pulsed with color. Not new colors. Just…more.

“I can taste green,” she muttered.

Jake looked delighted. “That’s so specific. What does it taste like?”

“Like pine and metal. And the inside of my mouth is a cathedral.”

Jake burst out laughing, and it echoed—actually echoed, bouncing off the walls like they were in a canyon.

Y/N grinned wide. “Oh my God. This is not weed.”

“Definitely not.”

A beat passed. And then:

“Do you think aliens exist?” Jake asked, eyes wide and shining.

Y/N looked at him like he’d just whispered a secret code.

“Yes. Obviously. There’s no way we’re the only idiots in the galaxy.”

Jake nodded, serious. “What do you think they look like?”

“Not like us,” she said. “That’s narcissism. I think they look like feelings. Like smoke or colors or… I don’t know. Ideas.”

He blinked slowly. “Like if heartbreak had a face?”

“Exactly.”

Jake was quiet for a long moment, then said, “Sometimes I think we’re the aliens.”

“How?”

“I mean… We make art. We dream. We ruin everything. That doesn’t feel very native to Earth.”

Y/N sat up, eyes shining. “Maybe we were something else once. And then we forgot. Maybe that’s why we’re all sad.”

Jake looked at her, and for a moment, the drug quieted in his veins.

“You say the most beautiful things when you’re high,” he said.

She looked down at her hands. “Maybe it’s just the drug.”

He leaned closer. “Or maybe it’s just you, finally quiet enough to hear yourself.”

The air between them crackled. Not just metaphorically. There was a feeling to it—like the particles around them had started to vibrate with whatever they weren’t saying.

Y/N exhaled. “When did you first notice me?”

Jake smiled. “The grass. First day. Combat boots. Notebook. Angriest poetry I’ve ever seen.”

She grinned. “You still remember that?”

“Yup. I thought, ‘If she stabs me with that pen, I’ll die happy.’”

They both laughed. Y/N tilted her head back, hair spilling onto the rug.

“What about you?” he asked. “When’d I start haunting you?”

She hesitated. “The day I saw your photo board in the studio. All portraits. Strangers. Lovers. Freaks. It felt like… you were chasing ghosts, but gently.”

Jake swallowed hard. “I was chasing you.”

She looked at him then. Really looked. His eyes were galaxies. Not as a metaphor. That was exactly what they were—galaxies.

He touched her hand.

“I’m scared of how much I want you,” he said softly.

“I’m scared of what happens if we stop pretending we don’t.”

Another silence. Heavy, but full.

They kissed. Not once. Not out of curiosity.

They kissed like the world was about to collapse and they’d made peace with it. Lips open, breath shared. Her hand slid to the back of his neck, his fingers gripping her waist like he might float away.

It was warm and electric. Dizzying. Not hungry—urgent. Like their bodies knew something their minds weren’t ready to admit.

She pulled away first.

“Wait,” she whispered, breath catching. “If we go too far, we can’t come back.”

Jake pressed his forehead to hers. “I know.”

But his hands didn’t leave her body. They just held her there. Anchored.

⸻

Later, they lay tangled in the middle of her room, hearts still wild, but clothes still on. No regrets—just restraint.

Jake stared up at the ceiling. “Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think people are born knowing they’ll die?”

She turned to face him. “I think we’re born knowing we’ll leave. But not knowing when. Or what it’ll mean.”

“That’s worse.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But maybe that’s why we kiss each other like it matters.”

He turned his head. “You make everything sound like poetry.”

“Maybe everything is poetry.”

Outside, the city yawned. A car honked distantly. Someone dropped a bottle somewhere down the hall.

Inside, the floor glowed faintly. The rug still felt alive. The walls pulsed like breath.

Jake traced lazy circles on her arm with his fingers.

“What if we wake up tomorrow and regret everything?”

Y/N yawned. “Then we write it down. And pretend it was a story we made up.”

He laughed sleepily. “That’s my girl.”

She smiled, eyes closing.

⸻

When Y/N woke up, it took her brain a full minute to register where she was. Her limbs felt too long, her mouth too dry, and her skin too aware of itself. The sunlight slanted through the blinds in soft gold stripes, warm against the side of her face.

She turned her head.

Jake was lying half-off the beanbag, arms sprawled, hair wild, mouth slightly open. There was a sticker of a duck stuck to his cheek, probably from her notebook. His shirt had risen halfway up his stomach, exposing a pale sliver of skin.

Y/N blinked.

And then—

She started laughing.

Not just a chuckle—a full, uncontrollable, belly-deep laugh that folded her in half and made her clutch her ribs.

Jake stirred, groaned, and opened one eye. “What—what’s so funny?”

“You,” she gasped, pointing. “You look like you just lost a fight with a tornado and a kindergarten art project.”

He rubbed his face and found the duck sticker. “Oh no. Not again.”

“What do you mean, again?”

Jake sat up slowly, groaning like a grandpa, holding the duck sticker up like evidence. “This has happened before. I don’t know why stickers always find me when I’m vulnerable.”

Y/N collapsed into another fit of giggles.

Jake watched her laugh, dazed, a grin spreading over his face like light catching fire.

“You’re beautiful when you’re delirious,” he murmured.

She rolled her eyes but blushed.

Then he stood, stretching dramatically. “Okay. We have to rejoin society before someone assumes we died and buried ourselves in shag carpet.”

Y/N yawned and pulled a blanket around her shoulders. “Do we have to?”

“Yes,” he said, leaning against the wall. “Because today—” he paused for dramatic effect, “—is Jay’s party.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s tonight?”

Jake smirked. “Oh, it’s happening. And we, my dear hallucinating poet, must attend.”

“I have class at four—”

“Jay doesn’t care about your education. He only cares that we show up and pretend to be interesting while he plays his demo tape on repeat.”

Y/N groaned. “Ugh. Do I have to dress up?”

Jake crossed the room and crouched in front of her. “No. You just have to exist near me and look like you might kiss me again.”

She smiled, pulling the blanket tighter. “Fine. I’ll kiss you if you promise not to leave me alone with that philosophy major who smells like moldy oranges.”

“Deal,” he said, offering his pinky.

She took it.

They stood there, grinning, pinkies locked, and for a second it was like the whole morning had been dipped in something golden and unspoken.

Then Jake grabbed his coat. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Try not to look like a couch again.”

“Try not to be perfect,” he shot back.

She threw a sock at him as he climbed back out the window.

Jake leaned against the hood of someone else’s car, lighting a cigarette and humming to himself. His leather jacket was wrinkled in the best way, and he smelled like soap, cologne, and faint rebellion.

When Y/N stepped outside, he straightened instinctively.

She wore a wine-red blouse tucked into dark flared jeans, and her hair was pinned half-up with something sparkly. She didn’t try too hard—she never did—but the sight of her still knocked the air out of his chest.

“You look…” he paused. “Expensive.”

She raised a brow. “Like jewelry?”

“Like a sin.”

Y/N smirked. “Are you flirting with me or recruiting me to a cult?”

Jake opened the car door for her. “Bit of both.”

They drove with the windows cracked. The late spring air was soft and smelled like lilac and street food. Someone was playing Bowie on the radio. They passed kids sitting on stoops, girls in platforms, boys with glitter on their cheekbones.

The world felt possible.

Y/N leaned her head out the window for a moment, breathing it in.

Jake glanced at her. “So… do you have any surprises for me tonight?”

She turned her head slowly, grinning. “Me? Never.”

He narrowed his eyes playfully. “Liar.”

“I’m the picture of innocence.”

“You kissed me like a hurricane last night.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I was possessed.”

Jake laughed. “Then I hope the demon comes back tonight.”

There was a pause.

Then, softer:

“Will you stay close tonight?” she asked.

He looked at her. “Always.”

Their eyes locked for a second too long, and the inside of the car suddenly felt smaller. Quieter.

He reached over and gently took her hand.

“You’re different lately,” she said.

Jake smiled without looking away. “So are you.”

And in the mirror of the windshield, just before they pulled up to Jay’s house—glowing with fairy lights and the sound of bad disco—they saw it.

The way they looked at each other now.

Like they were walking into something they weren’t ready for, but wanted anyway.

Like maybe the night wasn’t about the party.

Maybe it was about them.

The house was pulsing like a living creature.

Jay had transformed his old Victorian rental into something that felt halfway between a disco inferno and a religious hallucination. Tinfoil covered half the walls. Disco balls hung from ceiling fans and spun like time machines. There were mannequins in every corner—one of them wearing sunglasses and a feather boa, another painted entirely gold and posed mid-scream.

Jake and Y/N walked in holding hands, immediately hit with the scent of burnt cinnamon, vodka, and oil paints. The bass from the speakers was so deep it rattled in their chests like an extra heartbeat.

Someone in the hallway was giving tarot readings with playing cards. Someone else was dancing alone in a kiddie pool full of marbles. A girl with glitter dripping down her face whispered, “You’re glowing,” as Y/N passed by.

“I think she meant you,” Jake murmured.

Y/N looked down at herself. “Nope. I’m pretty sure my molecules are all over the place. I don’t think I have a face right now.”

“You have at least three.”

They dissolved into giggles just as Jay found them near the kitchen. He was shirtless, covered in body paint, and holding a rubber chicken.

“My prophets!” he declared. “You came!”

“Are we prophets or sacrifices?” Jake asked.

Jay kissed him on the forehead. “Both.”

Then he pulled out two tiny vials from his pocket, glass swirling like there were tiny galaxies trapped inside.

“Berlin acid,” he whispered. “Liquid heaven. You’ll taste sound and marry a doorknob. You in?”

Jake turned to Y/N, raising an eyebrow.

She held his gaze. “Let’s see god.”

Jay grinned and dropped the acid on their tongues. It tasted like citrus and ozone. Like licking a thunderstorm.

⸻

It hit in stages. First, the music started to feel three-dimensional. Not just sound—but pressure. Like it was crawling across their skin, sliding behind their eyes, vibrating in their teeth.

Y/N grabbed Jake’s arm. “The bass is inside me.”

“I know,” he gasped. “I think I’m made of bass now.”

They stood in the living room, where a group of strangers danced in slow motion. Everything was saturated—colors melting into each other, walls dripping in pinks and blues. A lava lamp on a pedestal seemed to be breathing.

A man with a sequined turban leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t trust the chairs. They know.”

Jake turned to Y/N. “The chairs know.”

“I never trusted them anyway.”

They moved through the crowd like explorers in a foreign galaxy. A guy in a clown mask tried to sell them a poem for a cigarette. A girl with angel wings tried to convince Y/N that she could see time folding in on itself “like laundry.”

In the bathroom line, a coat rack introduced itself as “The Fourth Son of Saturn” and asked Jake to marry him.

“Sorry, I’m emotionally unavailable,” Jake replied.

The coat rack wept silently.

Everything was alive. Every object whispered. Every color bled into a thought. Y/N looked at her hand and gasped.

“There are universes in my palm.”

Jake took it in his and kissed her knuckles. “I want to live in your palm.”

She blinked up at him. “You already do.”

⸻

Eventually, they stumbled into a small side room—the music muffled, the lighting low. Lava lamps glowed orange and green, casting shadows that moved like spirits. A string of blue fairy lights flickered along the ceiling. The carpet was shaggy and deep purple, soft like moss beneath their feet.

Y/N touched the wall. “It’s breathing.”

Jake pressed his forehead to hers. “So are we.”

Then he kissed her.

Not like before.

This kiss wasn’t about teasing or waiting—it was a crash. A collapse. Like every molecule in their bodies remembered something they hadn’t admitted sober.

She laughed against his mouth. “Are we kissing or becoming new organisms?”

“Both.”

They sank into each other, limbs tangled, hands sliding under clothes, skin buzzing. Her blouse came off. His jacket hit the floor. Their bodies moved like water, like smoke, like galaxies colliding.

Someone opened the door behind them—an older woman in a wedding dress holding a plunger. She stared at them, completely unfazed, then simply said, “Carry on,” and closed it again.

Jake pulled back, breathless. “We should leave.”

Y/N’s cheeks were flushed, eyes glassy. “Take me somewhere real.”

He kissed her one more time, wild and sweet. “I know just the place.”

The night outside hit them like a wave of fresh velvet.

The air was cool and thick with spring—jasmine, exhaust, street food. Everything shimmered. Even the sidewalk looked like it had something to say.

Jake held Y/N’s hand tight as they walked, half-sprinting, half-floating down the quiet street.

“Why does the moon look like it’s following us?” she asked, breathless.

“Because it’s obsessed with you.”

She laughed, tilting her head back. “I would be too.”

Their shadows stretched long and playful beneath the streetlights. Trees waved at them. A traffic cone told Jake he was brave. Y/N gave a high-five to a mailbox.

They passed a man playing saxophone on a stoop and stopped in their tracks.

The music wasn’t just sound—it was shape. It curled through the air like smoke and wrapped around them like silk. Y/N gasped.

“It’s purple,” she whispered. “The music is purple.”

Jake nodded, eyes wide. “And slow. Like it’s trying to seduce us.”

They stood there, holding each other like they’d been dropped into a movie with no script. The saxophonist winked at them and never missed a note.

When the music faded behind them, Jake led her through side streets and alleys until they reached the crooked brick building he called home. It looked taller than usual. Like a tower in a fairy tale.

They climbed the stairs laughing and breathless. Every step echoed like a drum. Every creak was part of a symphony.

“Are we in your building,” Y/N asked, “or climbing to another dimension?”

“Same thing,” Jake muttered, fumbling with the key.

It was warm. Safe. Dim.

A single floor lamp cast golden light across the room. His photos lined the walls—portraits of strangers, lovers, ghostly faces caught in time. A stack of vinyls sat in the corner. There was a faint smell of coffee and cedar.

Y/N stepped in, barefoot now, toes sinking into a woven rug. She turned in place, arms open, spinning slowly.

“It’s beautiful in here,” she whispered.

Jake watched her from the door, smiling like she was the last miracle left on earth.

“I tried to make it feel like a dream,” he said.

Y/N turned to face him.

Her eyes glowed.

“You did.”

Jake’s room felt like a shelter from the noise they hadn’t realized was crushing them. The light was warm and low, and there was something sacred in the quiet. You could hear the creak of the floor when they moved. The soft hum of the heater. Their breathing.

Y/N stood by the window, tracing her fingers along the edge of a photo print tacked to the wall—two anonymous lovers caught in a kiss, blurred and raw.

Jake stepped behind her. Close, but not touching.

“I took that one before I met you,” he said softly.

She turned. “Would you still take it now?”

Jake tilted his head. “No. I’d keep it for myself.”

She smiled, and it was slow—like the tide pulling back before it crashes forward.

He stepped closer. She didn’t move.

His fingers brushed hers.

Then her wrist.

Then her jaw.

It was so quiet, the sound of his fingertips against her skin was loud.

Y/N leaned in first.

The kiss was different now. Deeper. Not high and reckless like before. This one was aware. Gentle, but full of need. Their hands moved slowly—like they were trying to memorize each other, piece by piece.

He kissed her neck. She exhaled against his collarbone.

He whispered her name.

She nodded.

Jake took her hand and guided her gently toward the bed, like it was something holy.

They sat down together.

He looked at her for a long time.

“Are you sure?” he asked, voice low.

Y/N nodded, pulling him closer. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

The bed was soft beneath them, like it had turned into moss, or clouds, or maybe the inside of a thought. Everything felt like it was breathing—Jake’s room, the light, her skin under his hands.

Y/N laid back slowly, watching how the ceiling spun in slow spirals above her. The shadows on the wall pulsed like a heartbeat. Her own body didn’t feel entirely hers—it felt borrowed, stretched out, made of stars and heat.

Jake hovered over her, his eyes darker than usual, but softer too. Like he was afraid if he blinked, she might disappear into light.

“I can’t tell where I end and you start,” he whispered, his voice trembling with the trip, with emotion, with hunger.

She reached up, tracing his jaw with her thumb.

“That’s the point,” she said.

He kissed her again—deeper this time. Slow. Like sinking. Like drowning in color.

Every touch left a trail. Not metaphorically—visibly. When he ran his hand along her ribs, she saw pink streaks blooming across her skin like light trails on film. Her breath caught.

“Do you see that?” she whispered.

Jake nodded, dazed. “You’re glowing.”

“So are you.”

They both laughed—high, breathless, a little overwhelmed. But it wasn’t scary. It felt sacred.

He pressed his forehead to hers. Their bodies were warm and close, tangled in sheets and kisses and half-finished sentences.

The more clothes disappeared, the more they weren’t just touching—they were colliding.

Every sound was louder. Every sigh felt like thunder. Her skin buzzed where his hands moved, like he was waking up pieces of her that had been asleep for years.

And somewhere between his mouth on her neck and her fingers gripping his shoulder, the rest of the world—Jay’s party, the streetlights, the saxophone, the rubber chicken—slipped away.

There was only this.

Only now.

Only them.

High as stars.

And falling into each other like gravity had chosen them on purpose.

The air was heavy with heat and music neither of them remembered turning on. It throbbed low in the background—just bass and static—but it filled the space between them like a heartbeat.

Jake looked at her like she was glowing. And maybe she was. Maybe it was the acid, or the way her skin flushed under the dim light, or the way she smiled—slow, open, like she trusted him completely.

His hand moved to her hip, warm and firm, grounding her in a body that suddenly felt too sensitive, too electric. Every inch of skin was awake. Her breath hitched as he leaned in, not to rush, just to feel. His lips brushed her collarbone, and she felt it everywhere—like it sank into her chest, her stomach, down between her legs.

He kissed her mouth, then her neck, then lower—slowly, almost reverently. Her breasts. Her belly. His mouth lingered, not just to tease, but because every inch of her mattered to him in that moment. He was taking her in like a landscape, like a place he’d waited years to finally touch.

She reached for him without thinking, fingers curling in his hair, her chest rising and falling too fast. It felt like falling and flying at the same time.

Then he hooked his fingers into the sides of her panties and looked up at her, asking without speaking. She nodded, breathless.

When he slid them down, she shivered—not from cold, but from the way the air felt different against her bare skin. Everything was so heightened it was almost overwhelming. Her thighs trembled as he moved between them.

And then his mouth was on her.

She gasped, loud, the sound surprising even herself. His tongue moved with slow confidence, as if he wanted to learn her by taste. It wasn’t rushed or rough—it was attentive. Focused. His hands gripped her thighs gently, keeping her open, present.

Every flick, every suck, every breath against her skin built pressure until it was unbearable. Her moans came out raw, unfiltered. His name slipped from her lips again and again, like she was clinging to it for sanity.

When she was just about to break, he stopped.

She opened her eyes, dazed, confused—but before she could speak, he was kissing her. Deep. Hungry. She tasted herself on him, and somehow that turned her on even more. She pulled him closer, needing him everywhere.

And then, he was inside her.

She gasped again, this time softer. The stretch, the fullness—it felt too good. Her body adjusted around him slowly, and he didn’t rush. His forehead pressed to hers, both of them breathing hard, skin slick, muscles trembling.

He moved like he didn’t want to hurt her. Like she was delicate, and he needed to memorize how she felt.

Every thrust was deep, slow, meaningful. Her nails dug into his back. His hand cupped her cheek. They kissed between breaths. The tension rose again, but this time it built slowly, like a storm behind glass.

Tears slipped down her cheeks not from sadness, not even just from pleasure, but from everything. The intensity. The way he held her. The way her body felt like it wasn’t just hers anymore, but theirs.

He noticed. He kissed them away.

“You okay?” he whispered against her jaw.

She nodded. “Don’t stop.”

He didn’t. And when she came, it wasn’t quiet, it was messy, gasping, everything inside her clenching hard around him as she broke apart beneath him.

He followed not long after, with a low, shaking groan as he pushed in deep and stayed there, still, lost in the way she felt. His body trembled against hers.

They stayed like that, skin pressed together, breath syncing slowly, eyes half-closed.

There was no rush. No pressure.

Only warmth.

Only them.

The silence after felt holy.

Jake was still inside her, forehead resting against hers, both of them trembling, breath slowly finding rhythm again. Her skin was flushed and damp, her lashes clumped with tears, and his fingers still held her like he might vanish if he let go.

Outside, the city continued—cars in the distance, wind in the trees—but it all sounded muffled. Like underwater. Like they were sealed in amber.

Here part 2

[sionisjaune]

In light of this, please enjoy some scraps of a charles/damiano pwp that is languishing in my gdocs. Dedicated of course to kay @onadarklingplain, vice president of charles/damiano nation:

It’s Damiano’s apartment, and Vic and Ethan are sharing the spare room, and Thomas flops on the couch, leaving Charles with—

“Come on,” Damiano says, beckoning. Charles follows him to his bedroom. He can hear Victoria snickering down the hallway. 

Charles doesn’t know what he was imagining, but the bedroom doesn’t look like the kind of room that would belong to Damiano. All traces of leather and lace are conspicuously absent. Charles must have been picturing a—a sex dungeon, or a coffin that Damiano rises from at dawn like a vampire, but there’s a bed in the center of a blandly carpeted room and grey sheets on the bed. It looks like Charles’s apartment. 

Damiano strips to his briefs, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor, and digs inside the nightstand until he produces a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Charles watches him crack open the window and light one, sticking his head out into the night each time he takes a drag. 

“You know those are bad for you,” Charles says. “You can do a test where they measure your lungs, to see how good they are working.”

Damiano shrugs. “I’m a rockstar. I’m supposed to be bad for me.” He lifts his wrist from the window ledge and offers the burning cigarette to Charles. Ash floats from the end and lands on the carpet. “Want one?” 

Charles shakes his head. He doesn’t understand how Damiano isn’t shivering with the draught coming in from the window. “I’m not allowed in my contract,” he says. 

Damiano pulls his head out of the window and fixes Charles with a weighty look. The black lining his eyes is either smudged eyeliner or abject exhaustion. Both are equally likely this time of year. The band are finished touring for the year, and Charles is done with his disappointing season, and both Charles and Damiano have their respective breakups, too. It’s only three days before Christmas, and the kind of evening Charles could entertain loosening his grip, just for a few hours.

“I’d walk out if that was in any contract of mine,” says Damiano. “And anyway, one puff won’t kill you.” He extends the cigarette for Charles, wedged between two tattooed fingers. The cherry burns bright orange, a jolly invitation.

“No thank you,” says Charles, swallowing. Damiano just shrugs again and sucks down the rest of the smoke, flicking the butt out the window. 

Damiano shuts the window and tosses a bundle of clothes at Charles. “Bathroom’s there,” he says, cocking his head to the right of the doorway. “You can ignore Ethan if he’s in there—doing whatever the fuck to his hair.” 

“Okay,” says Charles. He swallows again. His throat is inexplicably dry. Instead of clutching his borrowed pyjamas and trudging to the bathroom, he drops the bundle on the floor, strips out of his shirt and pushes his jeans to the floor. 

Damiano lifts an eyebrow, leaning his hip against the window frame. Charles stands there, in his boxer-briefs, breathing in the acrid after-smell of Damiano’s cigarette.

“I thought you were never going to get it,” says Damiano. “It’s been a while since my routine took this long.” 

“Your routine,” Charles repeats, sliding his fingers into his own waistband. The hair beneath his navel prickles, just beginning to grow back after waxing. 

“Yeah,” says Damiano. “You know. The one where I let my groupies follow me back to my apartment three days before Christmas.”

“That can’t be a routine,” says Charles, thinking about the girlfriend-shaped mess he got himself into the last time he invited a fan back to his apartment after a consolatory yacht party. 

Damiano gives him a terribly obvious look. “Come over here,” he says. 

Charles closes the distance between them with steps that feel clumsy but are by all accounts quite normal. He and Damiano are exactly of a height, standing close together, but Damiano’s wild hair, curling at his cheekbones, and the makeup around his eyes, make him feel larger, realer. Charles can see the errant speckles of glitter in Damiano’s eyebrows and the red rims of his eyelids. The script tattooed on his collarbones reads IL BALLO DELLA VITA, and one of his nipples is pierced and inked with a heart. 

“You can touch me,” says Damiano, raspy. 

Charles licks his lip and traces his fingers over the naked woman on Damiano’s bicep. 

“You like women?” says Damiano. Charles nods. “And men?” says Damiano. 

Charles retracts his hand from Damiano’s arm and replaces it at his side. He looks Damiano in the eye, sharply. “What do you think,” he says. 

Damiano laughs—a small, throaty noise—but he places his hands on Charles’s waist, thumbing at the muscles of Charles’s abdomen—all of his blank, tanned skin. 

“I think you’ve been denying yourself,” says Damiano. His thumb strokes over the skin above Charles’s waistband, and Charles shudders. “You keep telling yourself that you’re not allowed to have what you want.” 

“I can have it,” says Charles. He leans in. 

The kiss tastes like ash and smells like Damiano’s leather and cherry cologne, and Damiano has enough hair that Charles can get his hands in it and cling. Damiano’s torso is wiry and thin against Charles’s, but he has the muscle to jerk Charles around, to spin him and back him up against the bed, so that Charles’s calves are smacking the bed frame, until he has no choice but to tip over and fall into the sheets. 

Damiano stays on him, kneeling over Charles’s torso and mouthing at his neck. He scratches his varnished fingernails all the way down Charles’s chest on his way to Charles’s groin, pausing to leave a sucking bite on his hip. 

“What do you want, Charles?” Damiano asks, his cheek pressed to the shiny material of Charles’s boxers. Charles can feel the vibrations of Damiano’s throat in his dick. He wants—he wants to resolve the tense awareness that’s been vibrating between himself and Damiano since the first meeting—when the show ended, and Damiano stumbled offstage, nearly naked and drenched with sweat and turned his dark eyes on Charles—sharp and sober although Damiano was obviously exhausted—and Charles had the sense that Damiano was everywhere around him, like Damiano was leeching out of his own skin, unable to be contained by one human body. 

“I want,” says Charles, squirming. How can he even say it? He wants the crushing force of Damiano directed at him in a concentrated beam. He wants to open Damiano up and pour him out and soak in him. He wants to invite Damiano inside his body and take him to the track so he can feel what Charles feels.

Damiano crawls back up Charles’s body so that his face is hovering above Charles, his hair falling in a dark, tousled curtain. He brushes a knuckle underneath Charles’s eye, and it comes away wet. 

“I’m going to choose,” says Damiano. “I want to do a lot of things to you.” His thumb finds the hinge of Charles’s jaw and presses until Charles’s mouth opens. His throat clicks when he tries to swallow. “Can I fuck this?” Damiano asks. 

Charles nods mutely.

-

Charles wakes under the covers—Damiano's foot is touching his calf, and his face is mashed into the pillow, contorted weirdly.

Charles leaves him there and wanders out. A smell wafts from the kitchen. Victoria and Ethan are cooking pancakes over the stove, in their underwear. Thomas is wrapped in a fluffy robe, reading an honest to God newspaper on the couch. Victoria is gesticulating with her slim vape and speaking rapid Italian while Ethan flips the pancakes expertly.

When Charles walks in, Thomas gives a low whistle and a slow clap. 

Victoria pauses and spins around. Her eyebrows climb towards her hairline. "Shit," she says, turning Thomas. "We owe E twenty euros. He had December 20th." 

"Fuck," says Thomas. 

"Good morning!" says Ethan, dumping the pancakes on a plate.

[wordsonamission]

hi! can I request Icemav 7 of 14 for the kiss prompts please?

Thanks so much! Sorry for the delay, these ran away with me and got a lot longer than I had originally planned. I hope you like what I ended up writing!

7 – Forehead against forehead

Ice usually found these sorts of places vaguely claustrophobic. A bit rich, coming from someone who made a career out of living with thousands in a floating sardine can, but there was a difference between carrier living and the way that a club’s atmosphere affected every one of his senses. The throb of the music’s bass reverberated in his stomach, the strobing lights gave him a headache, and the endless crush of bodies touching and sweating and writhing together was sensory overload hell.

He retreated out to the patio. His fingers itched to reach for the pack of cigarettes that he no longer carried. A promise was a promise, and he couldn’t go back on a pinkie promise to someone as doe eyed as seven-year-old Bradley Bradshaw. The boy was right, it was a dangerous and disgusting habit, but Ice had always needed something to fiddle between his fingers and the nicotine took a nice edge off of situations like this. Thankfully there were only a couple of smokers on the patio to tempt him with the scent.

“Wolf said I’d find you out here.”

Ice rolled his eyes but didn’t turn. He hoped the night sky would hide the flush on his cheeks that bloomed every time Maverick tucked himself into Ice’s personal space so confidently.

“There’s a bit too much going on in there,” Ice admitted finally. “And it’s not like I want to watch Wolf and Wood go at it in public like that. They have no decency.”

Maverick snorted. “That’s fair. But they’re really happy.” Ice pretended not to hear the wistfulness in his tone.

 “Of all of us, I’m surprised that they’re the first to get out,” Ice said as Maverick stayed silent.

“Wood said he didn’t think he’d pass the sight test anymore.” Mav’s voice was down to nearly a whisper. “But while I guess that could be true, it’s gonna be a lot easier for both of them if they aren’t living with threat of dishonorable discharge dangling over their head every day.”

Ice wet his suddenly dry lips. Now he was the one scanning to make sure they weren’t being overheard. The four other people on the patio weren’t paying any attention, three were chatting with each other and the fourth was heading back inside. Still, his jaw ticked. “There’s always risk.”

“They can actually live together,” Maverick breathed, watching Ice’s face closely.

Ice squirmed under the attention, twisting his lips downward bitterly. “Just because they’re out of the military, that doesn’t mean they’re safe. You know that as well as I do.”

“Still,” Maverick shrugged, “it’s a chance.” He wet his lips, looking up at Ice through his lashes. “D’you think we’ll ever get a chance?”

Ice’s heart lurched. The words were right on the tip of his tongue – no, they wouldn’t ever get to live the way they wanted. Unless a lot of things changed about society, their love would always have to be a dirty little secret, the ticking time bomb that threatened their security and happiness. But Maverick was a dreamer and lived so fearlessly. He was more uncomfortable living a lie than he was afraid of the consequences of being caught. Ice envied his courage and didn’t have the strength to deny his hopes.

“I don’t know, Mav. Maybe someday.”

Pain flashed across Maverick’s face but he hid it well. He nodded to himself as much as to Ice, dropping his gaze to the concrete. He kicked at a couple of cigarette butts with the toe of his boot and hunched his shoulders as if he was suddenly cold.

Grumbling a curse, Ice stepped forward and grabbed Maverick’s elbow. Mav startled, off-balance, and looked up in shock. Ice knocked their foreheads together gently, lingering a bit too long as warmth seeped between their skin. The contact was as sweet as any kiss and carried just as much heady promise. Maverick inhaled on a shuddering breath and clutched at Ice’s sleeve to hold him close.

“I hope so,” Ice confessed, his voice raw and ragged. “God, I hope so.”

Ice bunted his jaw against Maverick’s temple before he stepped away. One last point of searing contact. If anyone had been watching them closely, they might have seen how Ice’s lips briefly connected with Maverick’s hairline. Or they might have seen how Maverick squeezed Ice’s arm before releasing his white-knuckle grip. But no one was paying attention, so they were safe for another day.

14 – Kissing under the stars

 The waves rushed in and out over the sand, their ebb and flow as predictable and soothing as a cat’s purr. Maverick lost himself to the sound and let himself float. Everything hurt, despite the painkillers he had been forced to take, lest he be forced to endure the wrath of Ice’s infamous Disappointed Eyebrow. The meds gave him a floaty head and slowed his reflexes in exchange for turning down the brightness of the agony along his spine.

The canvas beach lounger next to him creaked. Ice made as few concessions to his age as possible, but conceding that it was easier to stand up from an actual chair than directly from the sand was one of them. He retaliated by keeping one foot off of the lounger, his toes buried in the sand, as he turned the pages of his book.

“Light's going,” Maverick said into the comfortable quiet between them. The sunset was faded to its final orange and pink blush. He watched as the color danced across the water’s surface. Maybe the pills were stronger than he thought.

Ice hummed thoughtfully but didn’t look up. Maverick knew from experience that he could read with very little light. And no, that was not the reason for his glasses, though they’d had that argument before. Maverick didn’t want to hear about how white pages reflected light and knew that Ice wouldn’t bear any repeating of the electronic reader discussion, so he just laughed and watched the water glitter while listening to Ice’s steady breathing.

There had been a while when it didn’t seem like they’d get to have these quiet moments ever again. Cancer was a bitch, treatment for it was somehow worse, and Maverick couldn’t help but throw himself into dangerous situations just to feel some sort of control. But now Ice was firmly into remission and Maverick was home. He tried not to think about the fact that they would both be retired within the year. Ice had earned the rest and the proper send-off. It was Maverick who didn’t feel ready.

Time slipped away like the grains is sand that he carded between his fingers. The temperature dropped precipitously without the sun, reminding him that it was November. Even sunny San Diego conceded that it was best to spend a few months of the year with cooler weather. Maverick found the edge of coolness exhilarating, but the night air would make Ice cough.

Ice, in tune to Maverick’s moods as usual, sighed and put down his book. His face tipped up to the sky, watching as a few stars poked through the purply dark of the urban night sky.

 “Light pollution ruins the view,” Ice grumbled.

“We should spend some time at the hangar,” Maverick agreed. “You’d love the sky out there.”

Ice hummed again. Maverick laughed softly. Dragging a beach creature like Ice that far away from water always took some extra special coaxing.

Maverick pushed up off the sand and straddled Ice’s lap, pressing his sandy palms against Ice’s cheeks. Ice raised an eyebrow and smirked but didn’t complain. His hands rose automatically to Maverick’s hips, absently sneaking up under his shirt to press on bare skin.

 “Wanna head in?”

 Ice shook his head. “The view’s too pretty to leave yet,” he purred, smirk deepening as Maverick blushed. More than thirty years together and his flattery still went straight to Maverick’s heart.

“Surely you don’t mean this,” Maverick said, gesturing to his face. “I’ve been called out for being an old man more in the last couple of weeks than I’ve heard in the last couple of years. It’s starting to get to my head.”

“You’re not old, you’re experienced. Those hotshot children haven’t lived long enough to know the difference.”

Maverick grinned. “Look at you. Mr. Iceman, gone all soft and sweet.” He rubbed his sandy thumbs into Ice’s stubble, just to make him complain about the itch.

“Still incorrigible, I see,” Ice snorted. He seized the back of Maverick’s neck and drew him down to kiss. Maverick leaned into the embrace, relishing their easy give and take. Ice kissed confidently and touched Maverick in exactly the right way to have them both panting in no time.

“We’d better go in,” Maverick said regretfully, “or someone’s gonna complain.”

 “Who?” asked Ice, gesturing to the empty beach. “It’s just us.”

“It’s getting cold. And we have much more comfortable furniture in the house.”

 “That’s true.” Ice pretended to consider the options with all the gravity of his four-star status. “I suppose the suggestion has merit.”

The only warning Maverick got was a playful glimmer in Ice’s eyes before he pinched Maverick’s waist, making him squawk and fall off of Ice’s lap back into the sand.

“I can’t believe you actually did that!” Maverick complained, feigning displeasure. Ice just laughed, heaving himself out of the chair.

“The fastest way to get you moving is to give you the right motivation,” Ice deadpanned gravely. “Now come on, let’s take this discussion inside.”

Maverick leered and made a great show of snapping his beach towel against Ice’s butt in retaliation, even though he knew that the heavy put-upon sigh was going to be the only response he got. Sobering fast, his step faltered as he followed Ice up the beach with their stuff to the house.

Their house, where they shared the same bed every night. Friends visited them there openly and the address was listed on their Navy paperwork. It was no secret that they were in love and that they were married.  There were some benefits to the passage of time, and Maverick would take some aches and pains if it meant that he no longer had to hide how much he loved Ice.

[g0dspeeed]

WIP MOOD BOARD: R E S P I T E

Rules: show a moodboard and an important phrase or dialogue from the current fic you are writing!

His dark eyes floated to the burning cigarette between her fingers, lingering with a thoughtfulness that piqued her own. She expected him to admonish her for it, for smoking-- "Those things are bad for your health" and the like. Thin lines adorned his eyes and some strands of silver colored the scruff of his beard. Maybe he was a killjoy, she guessed. Maybe he was uptight. But despite her empty presumptions, he didn't say anything.

"You like to stare," reflected Cappie with a smirk before taking another drag.

The man tracked the motion from the other side of the bar top. She could feel his stare on her lips, but unlike with other men, Cappie wasn't disgusted by his attention. There was an unspoken confidence in his shoulders and in the glint of amusement in his eyes. She could dig it.

When he returned her challenge, the man leaned closer. He gifted her with a honeyed hint of his cologne.

"I'm waiting," said the man with a smile that matched her own. His accented voice was heavy and rich like the gold chain around his neck.

"For what? An invitation?"

"Yes."

A quiet war was waged between them, both strangers smiling and dangling bait. She was a flirt through and through. Always was, always would be. Cappie gave in, for how could she not?

"An invitation for what?"

A bit smug from his victory, he reached into the breast pocket of his brown, leather jacket. From it, he retrieved a metal Zippo, the side of which was engraved in a language Cappie didn't understand.

"An invitation to light your next cigarette. That one is almost out, so I was waiting for you to smoke again so I could offer to light it, and then if you agreed, I'd ask for a smoke. And if you said yes and gave me a cigarette, then I'd ask you later--"

"Oh there's a later--"

"Of course. I'm not leaving unless I have to. Because later I would ask if I could smoke with you, alone, and I would go with you somewhere private. Maybe dinner. Maybe just the front of this bar. I don't know. I don't care. It doesn't matter, because then I would learn your actual name, and I would bask in the opportunity to know you more--Do you speak Russian?"

Cappie, whose cheeks burned from his forwardness, blinked at the question before finding the words.

"No. No, can't say I ever had a reason to," she chuckled.

That quirked the corners of the man's lips and alit his eyes with something warm.

"Good."

"That's rude--"

"For awhile it will be," agreed the man, watching as Cappie extinguished the butt of her cigarette in the ashtray. Just as he said, he flicked open the lighter when Cappie slid a new cigarette to her full lips. "But, fear not and know that I will only tell you deep, intimate things I think about you in Russian, things that I would be embarrassed for you to know--"

"Bullshit."

"Never. I won't bullshit you. Not much, because ya uznaiu lyubov kogda vizhu yeiu."

Their eyes locked, glittering from the small flame of his lighter between them. Cappie released the smoke, the white wisps fanning over her agitated expression. She knew what his answer would be should she ask, that he wouldn't tell her what the hell he said, but she'd rather try than not. After all, it wasn't every day that she gave a shit what the men at her bar told her.

"And what does that even fucking mean?"

The man beamed, delighted in her response, and offered the bartender his hand. After a miniscule of hesitation, Cappie went to shake it, humored when the stranger turned her hand. A kiss, gentle and warm, was then delivered to her knuckles.

"Learn Russian, beautiful, and you will know. You can call me Nikolai. Or whatever you want, so long as I hear you calling for me."

Still fleshing out how they meet, but I like this so far ❤️

Tagged by @icecutioner , @inafieldofdaisies , @socially-awkward-skeleton , @cloudofbutterflies92 💕

Tagging @noodlecupcakes , @la-grosse-patate , @carlosoliveiraa

@scorpiosleeps , @josephseedismyfather , @voidbuggg

@voidika , @strangefable , @cassietrn ,

@simonxriley , @imogenkol , @aceghosts

[distortedblurs]

──   (  thomas  weatherall.  22.  nonbinary,  they  /  he.  ) thank  god  you’re  here,  man  -  have  you  seen  BLUE  HADDAWAY  anywhere?  i  totally  lost  them  after  their  rendition  of  lover,  you  should’ve  come  over  by  jeff  buckley  last  night.  no?  they’re  like,  aye  -  high  and  go  to  LANGSTON  -  i  think  they’re  a  sophomore  studying  PHILOSOPHY  /  FILM  &  CINEMATIC  STUDIES?  but  who  knows,  these  days.  all  i  know  is  that  they’re  SCATTERBRAINED,  CLOYING,  and  a  CANCER.  last  night  they  kept  going  on  and  on  about  how  they  won  LEAST  LIKELY  TO  HAVE  A  CORPOREAL  BODY   last  year,  which  is  cool  and  whatever,  but  i  just  wouldn’t  expect  it  out  of  them,  considering  they’re  so,  like,  EARNEST  AND  ATTACHED,  you  know?  anyways  -  i’m  going  to  check  down  by  the  maze  garden,  i  think  that’s  where  they  like  to  hang.  text  me  if  you  see  them,  okay?  bye!  /  as  penned  by  james,  twenty6,  est,  n/a.

...content  warnings  for...  implied child neglect, drug use, mental health ( particularly depersonalization ) & hospitalization.

student  file.

full  name  —  blue haddaway.

nickname(s)  — just blue!

place  of  birth  —  brisbane, queensland, australia.

date  of  birth  &  age  — july 4th, 2002. twenty2.

gender  /  pronouns  —  nonbinary, they / he.

sexuality  —  natural born lover bisexual.

major  —  philosophy and film & cinematic studies.

astrology  —  cancer sun, aries moon, gemini rising.

dormitory  —  cerulean;  his  side  of  the  dormitory  is  somehow  a  mix  between  disarray  and  minimalism.  navy  blue  plaid  sheets,  always  disheveled.  cigarette  butts  lining  the  windowsill,  marking  ash  into  stone.  a  single  pair  of  shoes  and  various  cameras  strewn  across  a  desk  with  already  little  surface  space.

interests  —  laying  out  in  the  middle  of  a  big  wide  field,  wild  grass  laid  flat  beneath  them  and  tickling  at  the  exposed  skin  of  their  wrists  and  ankles  as  they  stare  up  at  the  sky,  at  the  clouds  -  at  all  the  stars.  dreaming;  sleeping  for  hours  on  end.  the  color  blue,  and  any  associations  with  it.  the  feeling  of  floating.  taking  too  big  of  a  hit,  too  much  of  a  dose.  the  brush  of  clammy  skin  against  one  another  in  a  dark,  crowded  room.  feeling  the  weight  of  another  press  against  their  chest.  experimental  film;  double  exposure.  the  sound  of  static.  following  and  chasing.  yearning.  the  possibility  of  love,  in  whatever  form  it  wants  to  take.

aversions  —  silent  discos;  psychoanalyzing  himself.  being  alone  for  too  long,  even  if  the  silence  is  sweet  on  the  ears.  falling  from  any  height.  wool  sweaters,  always  too  uncomfortable  against  his  skin.  discomfort  in  general.  summertime,  when  the  sweat  drips  down  their  neck  and  wets  their  collar  -  but  not  the  sun.  feeling  like  a  full  person,  like  a  real  being.  getting  back  up  again.  having  a  backbone.  finding  a  sense  of  individuality.  existing  as  a  whole.

quirks  —  personality  shifts  slightly  depending  on  who  they're  talking  to.  often  bites  their  bottom  lip and licks their canines.  practices  facial  expressions  in  the  mirror  to  determine  what  feels  real,  and  human,  and  normal.  always  looks  disheveled  and  rumpled,  no  matter  the  effort  put  into  their  appearance.  rarely  say  no  to  an  idea,  or  to  a  good  time.  sleeps  past  their  alarm  more  often  than  not  -  is  chronically  late.  believes  there's  an  angel  stuck  beneath  his  skin,  that's  constantly  itching  to  rip  out  from  its  cocoon.  hasn't  happened  yet.

most  played  —  how to disappear completely by radiohead.

notable  features  —  short  hair  that  always  seems  like  someone's  ruffled  a  hand  through  it;  likely  not  their  own.  stubble  that  just  won't  grow.  bushy,  expressive  brows  even  when  their  own  expression  is  lackluster.

general  disposition  —  on  a  constant  sway;  like  the  wind  is  about  to  carry  him  off  somewhere  far,  far  away.  spaced  out  -  generally  not  there.

character  study  —  charlie kelmeckis  (  perks of being a wallflower  )  &  donnie darko  (  donnie darko  ).

public  record.

implied child neglect; there  are  few  things  blue  remembers  of  his  childhood.  he  knows  the  facts  -  that  they  moved  to  queens,  new  york  before  blue  had  turned  four,  that  it'd  just  been  them,  him  and  his  mother.  that  it  was  supposed  to  be  them  against  the  world;  just  them  -  only  them.  blue  knows  that  that  wasn't  the  case.  he  remembers  a  revolving  door  of  faces  in  and  out  of  their  lives;  boyfriends  with  expensive  cars  and  cheap  cigarettes,  landlords  banging  against  wooden  frame  -  coworkers  who'd  gotten  a  little  too  familiar.  they  remember  being  alone  often;  him  and  the  four  walls  of  their  studio  apartment,  face  alight  with  the  glow  of  the  tv  screen.  blue  remembers  loneliness.  how  it  stings  like  smoke  held  in  too  long.

he's  always  tried  to  combat  it  -  combat  the  loneliness,  the  empty  bed  and  the  lack  of  dirty  dishes.  years  of  waiting,  of  clinging  to  his  mother's  legs  before  daycare,  of  crying  and  screaming.  he  should've  learned  independence,  how  to  exist  on  his  own  -  but  instead,  the  concept  of  love  enveloped  him.  of  affection  -  of  attention.  he's  always  been  a  trailer;  lingering  behind  others  like  a  ghost  that  can't  move  on.  a  mimicker  -  doing  what  everyone  else  does,  if  only  to  be  less  alone.  people  like  that  about  them  -  that  they're  easy  to  mold,  easy  to  fold.  that  they'll  do  anything  for  the  taste  of  something.

mentions of drug use; the  end  of  his  teen  years  feels  like  the  hot  stretch  of  summer;  his  skin  is  clammy,  warm  to  the  touch  -  an  ache  swells  in  his  chest  and  he  knows  for  what;  but  it's  an  impossible  thing,  an  impossible  want.  it's  something  to  forget.  and  they  try,  they  do  -  to  forget.  more  days  spent  swinging  off  a  fire  escape  with  a  joint  in  hand;  more  trips  that  are  bad  more  often  than  good.  he's  surrounded  by  people,  but  that  feeling  persists;  settled  deep  in  his  bones,  mixing  into  marrow.

when  blue  meets  their  father  for  the  first  time,  it's  like  staring  back  at  a  rippled  reflection.  the  same,  but  different.  older,  more  tired;  wrinkles  creasing  the  corners  of  the  same  eyes,  smile  lines  lifting  with  each  smile.  the  reasons  for  his  reappearance  are  unimportant,  or  secret,  or  both;  blue  doesn't  care.  they're  barely  an  adult  -  there's  a  lifetime  of  reconciliation  ahead  of  them.  the  summer  -  the  real,  alive  summer  -  is  full  of  cliché  lifetime  movie  montages.  a  childhood  condensed  into  three  small  months.  their  father  mentions  australia  -  of  coming  home,  to  his  real  home.  and  blue  wants  to  go.  for  once,  blue  wants  to  leave  the  comfort  of  the  city,  of  everything  they  know.

dissociation / hospitalization; australia  doesn't  happen.  one  minute  their  father  is  there,  the  next  the  plane  is  arching  over  the  sky,  and  he  is  gone.  blue's  mom  is  there,  briefly,  to  hold  them;  to  console  -  to  say,  i  told  you  so.  then  she's  gone,  too.  everyone  blue  loves,  or  tries  to  love,  leaves,  like  water  that  seeps  between  their  cupped  fingers.  things  get  bad  in  the  following  months;  blue  loses  track  of  time,  of  himself.  they  aren't  there,  they  aren't  themselves;  who  are  they  -  really?  sometimes  blue  thinks  he's  never  been  a  person  to  begin  with.  the  hospital  stay  is  sudden,  and  quick,  and  good  for  them  -  ultimately.  that's  what  everyone  says  -  that  it's  good.  that  they're  getting  help.  blue's  there  for  three  months  before  being  released.

langston  is  an  impulse  decision.  langston  is  chasing  ghosts.  langston  is  an  act  of  desperation.  langston  is  playing  pretend.  higher  education  has  never  been  in  his  plans,  but  he  didn't  have  any  to  begin  with.  it's  not  so  much  of  a  designation  than  it  is  an  obsession.  it's  somewhere  to  go  -  someplace  to  get  away  to.  blue  doesn't  remember  the  application  process;  just  knows  that  one  day  they  weren't  there,  and  the  next  they  were.  and  there  they've  been  since  -  until  the  cotswolds.

personal  details.

a  natural  yearner  at  heart;  everything  about  blue  is  soft.  from  their  mannerisms  to  the  tone  of  their  voice  that  never  lifts  beyond  a  loud  whisper.  they  hold  themselves  languid;  at  ease  despite  a  rabbit's  heart  thumping  away  in  his  chest.  they're  quick  to  fall  -  but  holds  infatuations  like  grudges.  it's  them  -  or  nobody;  that  is,  until  the  next  obsession  finds  them.

depersonalization; struggles  heavily  with  dissociative  episodes where they have frequent out of body experiences;  they  started  young  and  only  worsened  with  age.  he's  medicated  somewhat  heavily  -  or  at  least  he's  supposed  to  be.  they  make  him  feel  -  off.  they  don't  do  what  they're  supposed  to  do;  all  they  do  is  cloud  an  already  clouded  mind.

the  films  he  creates  are  surreal  at  best,  pure  experimental  at  worse.  a  fan  of  double  exposure,  of  bright  clouds  and  chemical  leaks.  the  audio  is  often  garbled,  conversations  muffled.  they  always  feel  oddly  reminiscent  of  a  bad  trip  during  a  house  party,  which  is  where  blue's  mind  tends  to  be.

a  big  yes  man;  rarely  says  no,  and  rarely  dissuades  anyone  from  doing  anything.  an  enabler  without  lifting  a  finger;  if  there's  one  thing  they  know  how  to  do  -  it's  how  to  have  a  good  time.  they're  found  at  nearly  every  party,  wafting  between  rooms  like  a  ghost,  eyes  shot  -  red  and  smile  slow  to  rise.

his  comfort  is  other  people;  he  needs  to  be  surrounded  by  others  to  feel  some  semblance  of  normalcy.  when  alone  -  he's  afraid  of  drifting  away,  of  literally  lifting  off  the  ground  and  floating  back  into  the  sky.  often  latches  onto  others,  both  figuratively  and  literally.  he's  kind,  somewhat  clingy,  and  his  words  are  always  slow,  though  not  always  deliberate.

obviously  a  big  fan  of  the  color  blue;  as  if  not  evident  by  everything  he  owns,  like,  ever.  clothes,  backpack,  phone  case  (  when  they're  in  possession  of  their  phone  -  always  lost,  always  forgotten  behind  );  everything  in  their  life  is  washed  in  shades  of  blue.

in  tune  with  their  emotions  in  the  sense  that  they're  a  casual  crier.  sad  films,  sad  moments;  sad  news.  it's  never  loud  -  but  his  eyes  redden  and  water,  adam's  apple  bobbing  with  each  swallow  as  his  gaze  averts  to  the  ceiling.  whenever  he's  lying,  or  avoiding  a  harsh  truth  -  or  reality,  his  eyes  drift  up  and  away.

drug use; despite  being  quiet  in  tone,  blue's  a  bit  of  a  rambler  if  given  the  chance.  will  go  on  about  anything  and  nothing,  even  if  everyone  else  tunes  out.  fidgets  with  the  hem  of  his  shirt,  or  the  loose  thread  of  his  sleeve,  or  picks  at  the  dry  skin  of  his  knees. it worsens when he's high - which is ... frequent.

more  of  a  serial  monogamist  than  a  hookups  person.  situationships  count,  man  -  they  do  to  them,  at  least.  finds  himself  drifting  in  and  our  of  people's  lives  frequently,  like  there's  no  sure  place  for  him  to  be.

desired  plots.

childhood friends!  while there's one particular person blue was close to in youth, this is open to anyone raised in new yawk, particularly queens. or just visiting ! we'll make it work.  (  infinite  ).

ex relationships! as mentioned above, blue is a serial monogamist, which means they've had several relationships during their time in langston alone. they can be any length, on any terms, but it has to be OVER!! DONE !!. ( 0 / 5 ).

trip partner! not only for psychedelic trips, but generally anyone that blue has spent hours staring at a wall with and having pseudo - intellectual conversations with. ( 0 / 3 ).

current situationship! i think it'd be fun for blue to be in something they're like seventy percent invested in, if only because of their current muse and obsession - which isn't them! sick. this one will be messy, either one of them wants to commit, and the other doesn't, or there's jealousy - it's not going to end well<3 ( 0 / 1 ).

film bros! idk man they talk movies and find out that blue's taste is extremely questionable and not at all pretentious. ( infinite ).

confidant! otherwise known as the closest thing blue'll get to a best friend. they tell each other all the knitty gritty of their lives, and are generally each other's go - to when things go wrong. almost like a pick - me - up, or a cleaner when one of them gets figuratively messy. ( 0 / 1 ).

literally  anything  else  we  can  think  of.  i'm  open  to  anything!

[steviewashere]

3, 7, 14, 20, 29 Numbers for the Drabble! Can I get really angsty here with like Eddie being depressed and almost dying and Steve saving him?!

Okay, I don't know if I went the route you were thinking, but I tried. Also, I definitely think I went a different way with the 'saving' thing, but here we go. This also got way longer than a drabble.

3: "Please, don’t leave.”, 7: "I almost lost you.", 14: "Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”, 20: "You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”, and 29: "I thought you were dead.”

CW: Implied/Referenced Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Eddie's Sacrifice Being Referred to as a Suicide Attempt

Established Steddie, Pre-Season Four Relationship

——— A voice low and raspy floats through his head. “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you,” it says. There’s a pressure to Eddie’s hand. The firm squeeze of somebody else. Somebody who doesn’t remind him of his uncle. He can’t pinpoint who it is exactly, but it’s somebody familiar. A person who knows him, most likely. A person who’s willing to talk to him in the in-between of somewhere and nowhere.

Though, it’s not the first time he comes to hear this phrase. Uttered to him day in and day out. A constant reminder that he’s not gone, but he’s not there. Not with this person. This somebody that seems to care about him. And he should know, because their voice is familiar. Strong and urgent and pleading and soft, all at once. It’s the burn of a mid-winter fire in his backyard, tossing butt-ends of cigarettes into its mix, drinking spiked eggnog until he can’t sense the numbness of his cheeks and is lost in the glorious laughter between him and his uncle. It’s the push come to shove.

The shove that he needs to wake up. And wake up he does. Startled and groggy, too. Choking in the back of his throat. Jump the wire with hands out in front of him, clawing at his mouth, at the contraption stuffed down his throat. Then, in a blur of motion and noise and light, it’s gone.

He can breathe. He can blink. He can smack his dry lips and suck down on the plastic straw offered out to him. Offered to him by a shaky hand that doesn’t have the same rugged, aged quality to them that his uncle’s do. He can see, so he looks. Up the person’s arm and to this stranger’s face.

Yet, he’s not a stranger. No, not at all. It’s Steve.

Steve Harrington, the guy he’d been kissing back at his trailer nearly every night before the bullshit came to bulldoze him. The guy he’d held on the couch when he had concussions number one and two. The guy that makes him cry.

The cup and straw is set aside hastily. Outstretched hand to his uninjured cheek. And a thumb, steady and warm wiping at his tears. “I gotcha, baby,” Steve murmurs. Leans tight and close, pressed warm against Eddie’s side. And kisses at his overheating skin, at the tear tracks, and his hiccuping chest. “I gotcha,” he coos again. “I almost lost you, but I have you. I have you.”

Days move like that. Nearly like that. Eddie wakes up sobbing and choking, too warm and agitated. And Steve holds his face, kisses his cheeks, and brushes back his hair.

It works until it doesn’t.

When he’s discharged, he moves into a drab apartment. Too far from his childhood home. Away from a room that was brimming with him and his love for all the people and all the things he’s ever known. He’s lost everything. Lost tattoos, patches of smooth skin, books with margin notes, tapes and records, poster and banners, clothes and old stuffed animals. It’s all gone from him. Anything he’s saved from his and Steve’s time together, that’s all away from him, too.

Even as he unpacks the boxes of things that replace that of which he’s lost, it doesn’t soothe him. Nothing does. He had expected to never see the daylight again. To have left everything behind, with Wayne and Steve and the other people he’s come to know. That he wouldn’t have to see it again, but even if he had to, it would still be there. But nothing is. Then, he doesn’t graduate. Doesn’t even want to try again; just tells everybody, “Oh, it’s fine. I’ll get my GED or something, y’know? Maybe just go to trade school.”

Though, he knows that’s a lie, too.

Because he’s ten times worse off than he was before. Nothing to stick to his name. A distance that stretches between him and everything he’s ever had. It’s noticeable in the way he’s prone to lash out more. Prone to laying in bed, tight under his blanket, not doing anything. How quiet and how unnerving he’s become. Staring off at nothing, caught in flashbacks and blinking lights, holding to himself tightly as if he can will the normal to creep back into his body. He figured if he had died, sure there would be a bad taste to his name, but at least he wouldn’t have to keep making up for things he didn’t do. He wouldn’t have to justify who he is. Or find a way to hide in broad sunlight.

Everything he’s ever known is twisted backwards and shoved up where the sun doesn’t shine. He tries to do the things he loved, but all that it reminds him of is playing a demented concert, creatures come to life, bites and scars and blood and screaming. And death. Sometimes, he wonders why he didn’t just die down there. How he survived.

So, he asks. He asks because it’s his story, too. He deserves to know, right?

It’s during a stay-in date night at his new apartment that he asks. “Hey, Steve?” And part of him grimaces at the last time he used those words, in that exact progression, in the moment that should’ve been his last.

Steve startles on the couch. Untucks himself from under Eddie’s arm. And full body faces him. Wide eyes, tight mouth, and wrinkled brow.

“Nobody’s told me how I…how I managed to survive. Will you tell me?” He asks quietly. Even his voice is as tired as his brain is. He used to be good at masking this. The waves of discontent that flood from his body every once in a while. It was manageable because it was just about his parents, or his living situation, or the bullies at school. But now it’s just him. It’s him as a whole, as a person who shouldn’t have lived. How nobody’s written Zombie Boy on the side of his van, he isn’t sure. He isn’t sure about a damn thing anymore.

But instead of answering, Steve just shakes his head. Tries to tuck back in close.

Eddie won’t have it. He scoots farther away. More distance. Why is there more distance? His emotions are haywire, he knows that. Something sparking red inside his chest, ready to light up in bright shades of orange through his mouth. “Why not?” He questions, though it falls flat and bitter. “Tell me,” he demands. Has practically skipped over the pleading stages, he’s done begging.

“I—“ And something in Steve’s eyes harden. Jaw setting with an unsubtle twitch. “I can’t tell you, Eddie,” he bites.

“You won’t tell me,” he accuses. “Which, I don’t get why you won’t. It’s something I want to know, don’t make me go to Dustin. Or Robin. They’ll fucking tell me.” The words fall from his mouth dark and slow. Dripping from him like the hot churn of tar. And he should regret how sour his tone has already gone, based on the hurt creeping into Steve’s face.

“Eddie,” Steve sighs. “Please don’t make me fight you on this right now. I—I literally can’t bring myself to say it. It’s…I shouldn’t even have to explain this to you, but it was one of the worst moments of my life. Is that not enough of a reason for you?” He could take this all back, really should, but Eddie just shakes his head stubbornly. Furrows his eyebrows and wags his hand as if to gesture for Steve to keep going. Instead, Steve stands from the couch and makes way to the door, hand stretched out for his sneakers. “I’m not fighting with you,” he states calmly. “I know that you’ve been curious or…or that you’ve been trying to come back to yourself or whatever, but it’s not something I’m willing to share. And it’s certainly not something I want to argue with you about.”

“Whatever,” Eddie scoffs. “It’s probably bullshit anyway.” The fight leaves him all at once. As he leans into the couch, head at his lap, picking at his sweatpants. He sniffs, an attempt to rescind the tears that want to fall down his face.

But instead of leaving, Steve stays by the door and sighs. “Why do you want to know so bad?” He asks. Before Eddie can give him the same response, Steve quickly adds, “Don’t tell me that it’s ‘part of your story’ or whatever. I know it is. It’s just…Something’s different about this.”

He used to be unreadable. Unfathomable. Jumping between all kinds of things, unable to pinpoint him in a single way. But he shrugs. Goes quiet again. And mutters, “Just go, Steve. It doesn’t matter.” Even if he wants to say something about how he was supposed to die, or how he should’ve. Even if he wants to show all his cards: I’m lost, I’m different and everybody can tell, I’m falling apart, I’m close to death anyway. 

Steve still doesn’t move.

“Go, Steve. I said that it doesn’t matter,” Eddie snaps. He raises his head. And for some reason, Steve is still there. Concerned and confused and sad all at once. He hates it. “I’m not gonna make you talk about it! Why are you still standing there?! You can go! I’ll find out one of these days, so stop looking at me like that!” He shouts. And he hates that, too. But he lets himself loud and angry, red faced and harsh lines. Because why won’t Steve just—

“You’re being a real dickhead, you know that?” Steve asks rhetorically. “I’m trying to save myself the fucking heartache I went through, and you—What, you think bullying words out of me is going to get you an answer?! I just don’t get why you’re so curious about what I saw! You’ve never pushed before, y’know, back during Starcourt or after Billy or whatever, but now it’s—“

Eddie groans and stands. Interrupting with his own words, “I’m not forcing you anymore, so let’s just drop it!”

“—Why does it matter in the first place?! You know what you did! It’s nothing different from—“

“Nothing different?! God, do you hear yourself?!”

“—Seriously, why does this matter so bad?! I don’t get it—“

“Because…Because I—“

“I thought you were dead!” Steve screams, just as Eddie shouts back:

“I wanted to die down there!”

And then the room fills with suffocating silence. As they stand merely four feet apart from each other. Wide eyed, red in the face, shaking. Immediately, Eddie looks down to the floor as Steve stops closer. Stepping back when he thinks they get too close to touching.

He doesn’t say anything about wanting to die, even now. Doesn’t say how even when Steve is doting on him, massaging his scars with lotion, taking care of him all sweet like—Eddie still wants to crawl outside of his skin and bury himself under the ground. Won’t say something about how he thought about all the ways in which he should’ve died, or could’ve died, or could still die now. Won’t.

Now, he understands why Steve can’t talk. Because he’s realizing he can’t talk either.

Steve’s voice is wet and heartbreaking when he asks, “What? Baby, why would you…”

Eddie just shakes his head. Heaves his own little wet thing. A sigh or a sob, it’s hard to tell. “I shouldn’t have pushed, I’m sorry,” he says first. “Please…Please go, Steve. I think I should lay down.”

“Hey, wait—No, Eds,” Steve calls out, his hand brushing briefly with Eddie’s wrist. But he can’t grasp. Not with how Eddie turns away, down the hallway, and slams his bedroom door behind him.

They don’t see each other for a week after that.

Eddie stays closed up and silent in his bedroom. Under his comforter. Unmoving. Briefly gets up to go to the bathroom. In which he tries to avoid how his uncle stares at him. Doesn’t want to eat, can’t bring himself to eat. Not with the guilt that fills his stomach anyway. Steve shouldn’t have heard that. Shouldn’t know that that part exists inside of Eddie, but it does. And it festers. 

Festers uncaring that Eddie doesn’t want to feel this way. Just lingers heavy on his shoulders, tight in his belly, grumbling in his chest. It, that desire, tingles in his fingertips. As he takes his medications, holding onto the plastic bottles longer than he needs to. When he carries a cigarette between his two fingers, eyeing the embers sparking over his bare skin. It’s in the haunting images in his nightmares, where he lays bloody and exhausted and finally in solitude. But he wakes up sobbing anyway. Grasping to his elbows, rocking back and forth in his bed, biting down on his comforter or his blanket as to not wake up Wayne.

It’s still there when he sees Steve next.

A knock to his bedroom door, hesitant and small. Then, the bustle of movement clambering through. His shadow standing over the end of Eddie’s bed. “Eds?” Steve’s voice is low and cautious, standing on eggshells. “Baby? I—uh—I got a call from Wayne saying you were…That you weren’t feeling good. Just wanted to check on you.” Eddie pulls his head out from under his blanket and just blinks at Steve. He takes that as some sort of cue, though, and comes closer. Hesitantly sitting on the edge of the bed. He lays his right hand over Eddie’s forehead and frowns. “You don’t feel warm or anything. How aren’t you feeling good?” He asks. And his face is all too soft. A little smile. The creases at the corners of his eyes. How his body language is still so sweet and caring and…It just doesn’t make sense with how Eddie treated him last.

So, without a response to give, Eddie allows himself to weep. A quiet thing at first, but that bubbles and pops and explodes from out of him in the next moment. Tumbling from him admits blubbering, apologies and terrible explanations and how he didn’t mean to push. Steve startles lightly, pulls his hand away, but doesn’t get very far. Eddie plunges his hand out from under the blanket, grabs to Steve’s retreating hand, and holds on firmly. “Please, don’t go,” he pleads, “Don’t go, Steve. I don’t—I can’t—“

Carefully, Steve burrows himself into Eddie’s blanket. Flush against Eddie’s torso. Arms wrapping around his shaking shoulders. Lips to his forehead, murmuring, “Hey, hey, Eds. You’re okay. I’ve got you, baby. I’m here.” And when Eddie’s crying only gets louder, Steve squeezes impossibly tighter. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always, Eds. I’m right here with you,” he attempts to placate.

When the crying gets hoarse and Steve’s words are just sticky kisses to Eddie’s forehead, does he calm down. Sniffing loud, burrowing in close to Steve’s warmth, scratching his chin with his wild and unwashed hair. “I didn’t mean to say it that way,” he mumbles, “It’s true, but I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

Steve lets out a carefully measured breath. “I just hope that you don’t think like that now,” he murmurs. A tinge of sadness at the edges of his voice.

He swallows past the lump in his throat and the scream in his chest. The quiver in his palms and the thoughts in his head, he tries to steady. Of course this isn’t easy. “I do, sometimes. I don’t like it, though. And I’d never…But I thought my life was over at that point, you have to understand that, Steve,” he begins to explain. “And like—My life now, I may have some things. I may have you still and Uncle Wayne. I have Dustin and Mike and Lucas, our game and whatnot. But I can’t…Things that used to matter to me, they don’t mean anything at all. They just make me think of that place. It’s just…My life feels drastically different now and like there’s nothing to fix it.”

Above him, where Steve’s chin rests on the top of his head, he hears and feels the hum Steve emanates. He swipes one hand down the center of Eddie’s back. The other holding tight to the back of his head. “I think fix is the wrong word. Maybe just…You just need to be guided. But I don’t think I’m the right person to do that.”

“I know,” Eddie mutters. “I’ll have to find something because I’m not putting the people around me through—I’m not going to let you lose me,” he states determinedly. “Just please don’t go. And know that I really am sorry, that I am grateful for what you’ve done for me, but I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

“It sucked,” Steve admits. “But I’m right here with you. By your side through the thick of it. And I forgive you, as long as you stick by me.”

All Eddie can do is burrow in closer, nod, and let himself succumb to Steve’s warmth. To be saved from near death is one thing, but to be held away from it is another. And Steve has done that for him. He kisses Steve’s chest, where his heart is, and makes a silent promise that he will find a better tomorrow for himself.

[theluckyonerp]

Hugh Dancy / He/Him  ———  no way is that Victor Campbell.. they’re a 45-year-old HUMAN notoriously known for being GRUMPY  &  PESSIMISTIC but there are some people who have seen them being PERSISTENT  &  SUPPORTIVE.  if you ask me, they remind me a lot of  mismatched socks, disappearing into your room, crying in the McDonald's parking lot, crooked mirrors, cigarette butts, writing obscene messages in the bathroom stalls, disheveled clothing, cynicism, and black coffee, but that could just be because they’re considered The Burnout around town. just keep an eye on them  &  see if their true colors shine through..    /  Pixie

name: Victor Campbell meaning of name: "conqueror" or "winner" nicknames/titles: Vic, Mr. Campbell age: 45 Birthday: June 19 gender: Cis-Male He/Him Sexuality: Bisexual Relationship Status: Single (Open/Hard mode) Location: Upper District Occupation: the owner of Immortal Productions

Bio:

Tw: Death, Alchol abuse, Drug Abuse

Victor Campbell had it all, He was given everything he wanted at the drop of a hat since the day he was born. And while it was a rarity you never would have known that, he was for the most part pretty humble about it. He had his "Do you know who I am?" and "My father will hear about this" moments growing up but they were far and few between that they were mostly forgoten about. His parents were happily married and there wern't any issues. It was known from an early age that Victor was next in line to take over his fathers place as the owner of Immortal when his time came to retire. Victor was okay with this, He loved the Music scene and the artist his father had surrounded himself with. While he was never one to be a musician himself he still loved the production side of things so from a young age he was helping out at Immortal. He met a lot of people from diffrent walks of life and had heard so many diffrent stories over the years. He truely was living the dream. And then things got messy.

When his mother and Father had told him they were pregnate with another child he didn't think much about it. He was 17 about to graduate, go to college, figure out who he was as a person. Untill the day his little brother was born. Victor, Loved his mother some would say more than his father. She wasn't like the other mothers VIctor had grown to know from his friends. She was there for everything, an ex performer herself who married their father for love and not for the money she had her own fame that helped keep her a float however being a mother was her dream and Victor was her everything. They were very close. So When there were complications during the Birth of Kenneth and their mother didn't survive the birth, Victor lost it. He was resntful and wanted nothing to do with his little brother.

He started hanging out with rougher crowd, went to parties and spent his parents money like it was nothing. Mostly on Drugs and Alchol. He was the talk of a lot of tabloid magazines, a lot of them questioning the future of Immortal productions was going into the right hands. Eventually Victor would have no choice. Becasue of his mothers passing his father's heath began to decline as well and by the time Victor was 22 and his little brother was only 5 years old. He became not only the owner of immortal Records but also had become the proviter for him and his little brother Ken. The first few years were rough. He was still partying leaving Kenneth to be raised for the most part by live in Nannys who Victor had his fair share of affares with when the oportunity arrose.

As Kenneth grew up though, Victor became more aware of how much he was needed in his little brothers life. Ken wasn't even a bad kid, Actually for the most part he kept out of Victors way. Kenneth had taken noticed of his brothers love for music. Except unlike Victor, Kenneth loved to sing and play instraments and thank to one of the many nanny's he had she had taught him to play guitar and Piano with his eyes closed by the time he was 6 and by the time he was 12 he had written a fair share of good songs and even was able to get a few of them produced a immortal by a few new up and coming artist. He was 16 when Victor let him sign with the company but h made sure there were strict rules to keep Kenneth safe.

Victor and Kenneth have always had a rocky relationship. Victor can't help but be resentful towards Kenneth but also wanted to protect him since he is the last bit of family he has left. Between running the Production company, Raising Kenneth, and his own mental issues Victor is a shell of the famous nepo Baby that was at parties back in his 20s. He's never settled down or found someone to be with and he's fine with that. He knows The love his Parents shared for each other as one in a million.

[vivianleighwishesshewasme]

Cursed 3 sisters series

Girls Holiday part 1 (no warning on this chapter)

____________________________________________________________

Luca Changretta stood on the steps of a club he and Angelo owned in downtown London waiting for Serafina's sisters. He was getting impatient. 

He'd said he would wait while he smoked but how long did it take the ladies to get here. She said five minutes. 

He tossed the butt of the cigarette to the cobblestones and used his heel to grind the sparks into the ground. It had been ten minutes. His fingertips had gotten too close to the smoldering tobacco. 

He heard the whispers and tal before he'd seen them emerge from the cold London fog. 

Luca recognized Violet instantly. She and Sera spoke the most. Being the two eldest and the one who helped raise Sabrina had created a bond between her and his woman. 

"Violet, ice to finally see you face to face." He extended his hand and pulled her closer. He placed a kiss on the back of her hand. Violet blushed but leaned in to kiss each of his cheeks. 

"Serafina isn't the only one who's dated a high class man, Senor Changretta." She smiled as he removed his hat and placed it over his heart. 

"I knew she got her good taste from somewhere. " He commented and smiled at Sabrina tipping his head. 

"You're the baby sister, Sabrina, right?" His low voice and manners caused the little blonde witch to blush. No wonder they didn't see serafina anymore. She was obviously very busy with her charming man. 

"Come on, she's inside staying warm, I reserved a good table for you ladies." He extended an arm each, linking elbows with the gypsy ladies and escorted them in. 

No one would bother them once they saw the boss arm in arm like old friends. 

"You aren't joining us?" Sabrina's sweet voice barely made it over the loud live jazz and clicks the dancers shoes. 

"No, I need to finalize some plans. I leave for New York tomorrow. " He waited until the ladies were seated and refreshments had been provided. He kissed Serafina's cheek before he disappeared behind a black gilded door. 

The two sisters noted that she'd leaned into his kiss and seemed relaxed around him. 

"What just happened?" Sabrina asked with curiosity filling her voice. " Has the great serial romancer, Serafina Marie DeGhant settled down?" She tried to bite her lip to keep from laughing when her older sister's elegant black brow arched in question to her middle name being brought out. 

"It is oddly refreshing to see you in love, Serafina. So, are you going to America tomorrow? How will this work? We're here to undo the curses." Sabrina slumped forward and played with the straw in her drink awaiting her sister's answer. 

"Well the Shelbys were the main concern and you two have that front covered. I have to get Angelo to America and keep him  and Luca there so he never meets Lizzie Stark and her love curse." Serafina rolled her eyes. They'd seen the forlorn love sickness Lizzie had floating around her aura. She deserved love, they all agreed to that, but sadly unless she met another gypsy family that could help her, the DeGhants couldn't seem to untangle it.

"So you'll keep the Italians busy in New York. What if we are all needed?" Sabrina's question was said softly but Violet was wondering the same thing. Did they seek out other witches? Other DeGhants in this timeline? How would they do that? 

"Then make sure you can hold off for three weeks. That's how long it'll take me to come back." Serafina smiled as she said it but quickly stumbled back. "I can send my spells and power through the ball. Keep yours on you. We'll do the best we can. I had no idea my employment would end abruptly and I have to keep an eye on this man as he moves through the ranks. He dies earlier and the timeline is disrupted for us all. Same for your men." Serafina's gentle but firm reminder was laced with the truth that they would inevitably live separate lives, just as they had before. Violet had been married with kids in a city several hours away, Sabrina travelled in a van all around the country. 

They were always far away. 

"So, you look guilty baby sister, he doesn't know you're here does he?"  Serafina grinned like a cat and leaned forward. Sabrina scoffed and crossed her arms. 

"He's here with his brothers on "holiday" ,messing with Darbi Sabini. As long as I stay away from those Italains he'll never know I'm here." She shot back. She hoped that was true. She'd left a spiritual paramore at the Shelby home. His family hopefully was none the wiser. As long as no one touched her image, there was no way to tell that Sabrina wasn't physically there. It was only foolproof if she pulled it off. 

"So no." Sera said, grinning at her little sister. All three ladies chatted about their respective partners, towns and environments long into the night. 

Sabrina was the first one to head back to the hotel. She stood waiting for the vehicle that Luca said was pulling around for her. 

"We'll poppet, don't you stand out. Yeah, you blondie, you here with those peaky men?" A man's gruff London twanged voice filled her ears. Sabrina locked eyes with Alfred Solomon's. The "Baker" of Camden Town. 

Tommy had a meeting with him tomorrow. 

"You don't speak English eh, it's okay. You're a lovely little thing to look at anyway." He smiled at her and kept his gaze on her as if memorizing her. A black vehicle pulled up and the door opened for her. She was grateful to scoot in the warm space and avoid further contact with the jewish man. She knew he was a dangerous associate of Thomas's.  

She hoped Tommy didn't get wind of this. He'd never forgive her for going off without him.

[hancocksspouse]

Ch. 11

—

It was the green fog rolling around ahead of them that tipped them off before they were even close enough for the Geiger counter to read it. A sickness began to coil around in Doll’s stomach the same as the radioactive air ahead of them and she had to stop and gather herself before they got any closer. At first, she thought it was the rads making her feel sick but realized it couldn’t be, recalling the lack of sound from her counter.

She knew this feeling. It wasn’t a good one.

“You gonna be okay, sister?” Hancock asked, still holding her helmet firmly under his arm as he promised he would, looking up at her. She swallowed, her throat clenching tightly.

“Have you...ever been here? In the Glowing Sea?” She asked, staring ahead of them. Hancock looked in the same direction and frowned.

“Personally, nah. Never had a reason to. But I heard about it from all kindsa people. Scavvers, settlers, drifters. Even came across a child of Atom that told me about it”, he said, lighting a cigarette.

“Ground zero”, she murmured quietly. He nodded in response.

“Yea”.

A silence floated between them for a moment, neither one moving from their spot and Hancock knew why.

The commonwealth had always been like this for him. He grew up in the aftermath of the war, knowing nothing but the wastelands as they were now. Shacks built of scrap metal and rickety boards and dusty, dingy mattresses were a norm for him. Bugs the size of full grown dogs and super mutants was just another day in the ‘wealth as far as he was concerned and everyone carried a gun on them, if not more and a few molotovs.

But she was pre-war. 200 years on ice with only the memories of her life before. She woke up to find everything as she remembered gone. It had only been a few months for her and despite their constant running around, she never saw the extent of the destruction from the bomb site itself. She only saw the fallout afterwards and she was about to step foot into the crater that wiped out her home state as she knew it.

“Listen, Doll”, he said, dropping the butt of his cigarette and stomping it out before turning fully towards her, brow furrowed. “Before we go in there, I want you to know that...nothin’ you’re about to see in there is gonna be particularly...nice. Not a whole lotta people go in there on purpose but regardless of whether it’s the rads or somethin’ else, no one comes outta there the same.”

Her jaw clenched as she felt every muscle in her body tense enough to make her physically incapable of responding, but she didn’t need to.

“However, no matter how this goes, what you see, if this Virgil guy is even in here, or whatever the hell else happens, I got your back, sunshine. I promise”, he said, a small smile on his thin lips. It almost reassured her enough to distract from the sinking, overwhelming dread that had settled into her heart as she nodded back, trying her best to smile. Hancock held up her helmet to her and she took it from him and latched it into place, taking a shaky breath as her eyes adjusted to the crosshairs now in her line of sight and her stats in the lower corner.

“Thanks, Hancock”, she finally choked out before gathering her nerves and walking slowly through the veil of green, rifle in hand. He chuckled as he followed with his shotgun.

“Not a problem, sunshine”.

-

The quick change of scenery between where they stood now and where they were not even 5 ft ago was jarring to her. Everything was dead. From the very ground itself to the husks of trees scattered throughout. Her pace had slowed a bit as she took in the destruction surrounding her, trying to ignore how hard her throat was clenching and how difficult it was getting to breathe.

As much as she hated confined spaces, she was now thankful for the helmet covering her face so Hancock couldn’t see the way her jaw lightly quivered as she took in everything she was seeing. The decimated bridge, the pools of radiation and the feral ghouls that stood in it.

“Are they even aware of what happened?” She asked out loud. “Do they even know they’re here? Or that they were normal people once?”

Hancock’s brow rose in worry as he looked from her to the ferals in the distance, sighing.

“I can’t say they do. But maybe they’re better off for it”, he said. “So, what do you wanna do? Go around ‘em or...?” She lowered her weapon slowly.

“Let’s just...keep a low profile and try to avoid getting their attention. We aren’t here for them”, she gently said, continuing their pace. Hancock swung his shotgun onto his back and followed along behind her.

“Heh...you’re too kind, sunshine”, he chuckled. The shoulders of her armor slightly rose in a shrug.

“I won’t attack anything that isn’t trying to hurt me first. Feral or otherwise”.

The rad count began to bounce rapidly and she stopped for a moment, looking at her pip boy. Locations were showing on her map of the area. Not many, given where they were, but a few. Enough for her to consider finding them to see if they could find any leftover supplies or at least a resting spot.

“Things goin’ wild. Shouldn’t be too hard to find where we’re goin’ but we gotta make sure that suit holds”, Hancock said, walking a few steps ahead of Doll. “There’s a buncha nasty stuff out here could make a dent in that”.

The twists and turns currently taking place in her stomach were nothing to ease her and the farther they went, the worse it got. Gangly, skeletal bodies shuffled through puddles of glowing radiation, unaware of who they were, what they were, or why it even happened and all she could see in the deteriorating bodies were victims of a war that nobody won. The walk continued. It had to. Her feelings told her to grieve, to stop and cry and mourn. Her logic told her to keep going for now until she was at least safe to do so.

When she finally comes back to herself, she notices how Hancock has stopped ahead and seems to just look down into the crater below him. It gives off a brighter green and she frowns, knowing it can’t be anything good if he’s stopped there.

“Hancock...?” She asks and when she joins his side and looks down, she sees what he sees. A small group below of people that are willingly living in the radiation. Their hair is patchy and falling out, frames becoming thin and gaunt. Some are on their knees, facing the pools of radiation and praying to it. “Are they...?”

“The Children of Atom”, he nods, frowning. “I don’t really want us goin’ down there but they may know where your scientist is lying low out here”.

She doesn’t look at them the same way she looks at the ferals. The way she looks at them is of resignation to the fact that they chose this. That they’re willingly wasting away in worship to the same thing that took her life away. Their reverence reminds her of the same people that at one point would demonize and harass her for things out of her control, but she reminds herself that these aren’t the same people. They’re worse because they’re armed.

“Don’t have much of a choice”, she says, slowly making her way down. “Stay here-”

“Nope”, he interrupts, matching her pace. “Especially not here”. A small smile comes over her and she nods as they approach one of the worshippers.

It’s obvious how wary she is upon seeing Doll and Hancock approach, but she meets them calmly.

“You approach Atom’s holy ground. Why? State your purpose or be divided in his sight”, she states. She makes it clear she’s the leader of this group and Doll steels her nerves.

“I’m looking for someone named Virgil”. The woman raises a brow for a moment.

“Virgil? Yes...we know this Virgil”, she responds. “What do you want with him?”

“I just need some information from him”, Doll says. Her tone sounds mildly hopeful and Hancock can hear it, remaining silent by her side. A suspicious look comes over the woman’s face.

“He has sought refuge with Atom. I would know more before I tell you where he is. What do you want with him?”

“I need his help reaching the Institute”, Doll says. She’s desperate now and mentally kicks herself for making it so clear.

“I have heard of this Institute. They hide themselves, trying to avoid the power of Atom. A futile effort”. The woman shakes her head in a menacing manner, only making clear how their ‘faith’ is rooted in cult mentality. “In truth, this Virgil has caused some concern. Some believe his presence is an affront to Atom. Though he came to trade with us on a few occasions, we have had little other contact with him. It was quite clear he wanted to be left alone”.

Doll swallows the forming lump in her throat, scared of their lead growing cold and their journey being for nothing, but the woman continues to speak.

“You can find him southwest of the crater, living in a cave. I would approach cautiously, were I you. I feel he does not want visitors”.

The sigh that escapes Doll is louder than she thought but she simply shakes her head.

“Thank you. We’ll leave you be now”, she says, checking her compass and immediately heading southwest, eyes peeled for a cave. Hancock glances around at the other worshippers that had since been shuffling around them but keeps pace with Doll as they continue on their search, having learned what they needed. 

“Well, now you’ve met some of the Children of Atom. Whatcha think?” Hancock asks. Had it not been for her helmet, he would see the way she throws her brows upward.

“I think they’re a cult that doesn’t realize all they’re doing is worshiping science but if that’s what lets them sleep at night then that’s their business”, she says. Her tone makes Hancock chuckle a bit at hearing the slight relaxation in her voice.

Their path begins to take them up a rocky hill and they both draw their guns and slow their steps.

“Can’t be too far from a cave now”, he says. A low rumble reaches their ears and they freeze upon hearing thundering footsteps and falling rock from the hill ahead. Horns peek out from a pile of rock and a deathclaw roars, seeing them below.

“Fuck”, Doll mumbles, taking aim. The gauntlets of her armor are too large to reach into her bag for explosives and they both slowly back up from the monster. “Hancock, we’re gonna need grenades, molotovs, something to slow it down and weaken it”.

“I got it”, he says, pulling a grenade from his bag and biting the pin before throwing it. The sudden explosion makes it stagger and slow down but it lunges towards them anyway. Both continue firing at it until it gets close enough that a shot from Hancock’s shotgun fires off while it’s mouth is open, hitting the soft spot in the roof of its mouth and blowing its brains out. The behemoth crumbles to the ground and both take a big breath of relief, reloading their guns.

“Bet that’ll be a good story to share when we roll back through GoodNeighbour”, she chuckles. Hancock nods with a smirk.

“Oh, believe me. That one’s gettin’ told more than once”. He looks up at where it was perched and points. “Wouldja look at that? I believe that’s exactly where we need to be, wouldn’t ya say?” Doll looks up and sees a cave entrance a few feet from where the deathclaw stood.

“I do believe it is”, she says, keeping her nerves under control as she makes her way towards it. Hancock catches up to her and stops her for a moment, confusing her.

“Lemme scout ahead for this one. If he’s hostile and hurts me, I’ll be fine but if he puts a dent in your armor, you’re toast and we’ll be stranded out here”, he says. She frowns but nods, allowing him to enter the cave first as she follows.

The cans hanging from the ceiling let them know he’s not one for company and so do the turrets but oddly enough, they don’t fire in their direction. A few steps further and Hancock’s brows furrowed as he turns to Doll.

“There’s no radiation in here”. He looks confused but Doll realizes he’s telling the truth when her Geiger counter makes no noises. She hesitates as she reaches up to unlatch her helmet but does it anyway, trusting Hancock and when she unlatches and removes it, she’s surprised to find it true.

“That’s...but how?” She asks but he can only shrug while she exits her power armor with a sigh. They hear footsteps further down and slowly follow the sound as a towering green form comes into view. Doll stops suddenly, making Hancock walk into her on accident. Her arm quickly shoots out and stops him from falling, pulling him against her before jerking her chin towards the figure.

The gargantuan form made it clear they were a super mutant but they’re dressed in what looked almost like a lab coat, stitched together piece meal to accommodate their body. The room itself is neatly arranged and even includes a terminal and a lab that looks well used.

“I...I think that’s Virgil”, Doll says as he looks their way, seeing the ghoul and wanderer in his doorway. He turns to them, chin up, small glasses balanced on his nose.

“Hold it!” he says, making them back up slightly. “Take it nice and slow, no sudden moves. I know you’re from The Institute, so where’s Kellogg? Huh? Trying to sneak up on me while you distract me? It’s not going to work! I’m not stupid, I knew they’d send him after me!” 

Doll raises her hands slowly, her guns still holstered as she takes a breath. 

“Take it easy. Kellogg’s dead”, she says. The look on his face does not relax, maintaining the air of suspicion and distrust. 

“Dead?...He’s...dead? Don’t you lie to me!”

She closes her eyes for a moment and looks back up at him. 

“I’m not lying. I killed him myself”, she calmly states. Virgil’s shoulders slowly begin to relax. 

“Did you? Kellogg was ruthless...There’s a reason The Institute used him to do their dirty work for so many years. I knew they’d send him after me; tried to prepare for it. But I still wasn’t sure I’d make it...” 

Virgil’s gaze and mind go elsewhere for a moment but he quickly recollects himself and looks up at the two wanderers that are now standing in his cave, boldly claiming to have killed The Institute’s lap dog. 

“And so you. You killed him, eh?” he asks. “Then what do you want with me?” 

A number of thoughts begin to race through her head all at once at the sudden question and for a second, she’s afraid she’ll take too long to answer him, but her racing thoughts soon grab a question from the air and force it from her mouth. 

“Why did you leave The Institute? I know you came from there”, she says. The question makes Hancock almost raise a brow at the boldness of it but he can’t help but agree that it’s still a good one. It wasn’t often they came across someone that escaped from The Institute that wasn’t a synth escapee, but instead, a scientist. An employee. One of their own. 

Doll, however, didn’t see it so much as bold but invasive. However, ever since hearing of his escape, she had to know what it was that had suddenly changed his mind about being there.

“You know about the escape? But how?” he asks her, but quickly shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going back...I can’t go back. Look at me!” 

It’s clear he’s getting frustrated and he turns his back to them, walking to the other side of his cave as Doll and Hancock slowly follow behind him. 

“Why are you even here? What do you want?”

“Relax”, Doll says. “I just need to know how to get in there”. 

They can almost hear the bones in his neck pop by how quickly he suddenly turns his head towards them. 

“Wait, what? Are you serious?” He turns back to them and she does not miss the pseudo judgmental look that comes over his face. “You want to get IN to The Institute? Are you insane?”

“Sometimes”, Hancock mutters quietly to himself, staying on guard. He doesn’t yet trust that things will remain peaceful but he will not deny how crazy they sound when they tell people what they’re setting out to do. Doll glances back at him, a brow raised and he puts his hands up before she turns back to Virgil, who continues to tell her just how impossible their mission is. 

“Never mind how nearly impossible that is, even if you were to succeed it’d almost certainly end in your immediate death”, he says, trying to make sense of what Doll has just disclosed to him. “What reason could you possibly have for taking that kind of risk?”

At that question, she can feel her throat tighten up but she clears it and sighs. She’s already revealed their intentions to him, she may as well tell him the why.

“I’m trying to find my son...The Institute kidnapped him”

Virgil’s face visually softens and he quickly understands.

“Oh. Oh no. I had no idea. I’m sorry”, he says, his attitude suddenly far more sympathetic to them. He lets out a deep sigh and awkwardly looks away.

“Yeah, the Institute has taken people from the Commonwealth in the past”

And with that, she knows they’re on the right track.

———

Damn, this update took a long ass time but in my defense, lotta shit has happened since I started this one. I do love this chapter however because i remember playing this part of the game and just wandering the glowing sea and finding all of the factories and just having so many questions with so many grim answers.

But hopefully, the wait was worth it!

Enjoy and as always, all interactions are welcome. Just be polite 🖤

-Hancock’s Spouse 🖤