#haptic posting

[hapticthing]

apollo!

[largothing-psd]

woah,,, 8 years? this is crazy gang

[stimboardboy]

minecraft haptic fidgets

TNT - slime | creeper - pixel heart

[chevvy-ryder]

[NC_RES]-31102049-EUR-GER scharfenberg_g_portraits_040_LC.file ///core:_ryder_von_scharfenberg.file\\\

—

⚠️ READ: Please do not repost/reupload any of my art here or to any other platform, or I will be forced to do anything to get it annihilated.

—

one of Ry's special outfits themed to the male gay flag when it comes to him and wearing color. He's the only one who looks good in that crop top. I've tried it on Vijay first a long time ago, nope. But Ry rocks it together with the tight transparent pants.

I hc he's just chilling outside of a gay club around pride month, or whatever event he's attending, for fresh air for a few min then goes back inside and dance along. not entirely content with the light(s) on his face but can't always be perfect.

[fogaminghub]

🌌 Hello, fellow gamers! The Forever Skies PS5 demo is finally here! Dive into a beautiful yet harsh world, explore the ruins of a devastated Earth, and set out on a mission to save humanity. 🛩️ Complete the demo to unlock an exclusive airship skin for the full game! Available now on the PlayStation Store. Happy gaming!  

[woah-uhuh-uhuh-uhuh]

I was wondering if I could wrote fanfic on your AU of Jeremy feeling Michael's touches.

ITS SUCH AN INTERESTING IDEA TO PLAY WITH AND EXPLORE

OMG yeah go for it!!

By all means, I don't want to hold a monopoly on the concept --- if anything I do leads to the creation of more BMC content, then I think that's a win for all of us :P

[venomgender]

>buys switch pro controller for the rumble controls

>it doesn't rumble

[thebirdthattoldu]

I need to get a cute bluetooth keyboard that i can whip out of my bag and connect to my phone for aesthetic writing on the go

[nqathan1]

I found humans are space orcsblr.

I have always liked Humans are Space Orcs. It is funny.

But so many posts are like

Alien: *notices weird thing about human* Alien: *asks about it* Human: *responds as if normal activity* Alien: wtf

And I just can’t help but unsuspend the universal translator disbelief. Like, yeah, it’s easy to say you could change one sound to another so that aliens who physically couldn’t make human language sounds can still communicate, but consider:

Aliens who can’t make noises at all.

Aliens who can’t see so sign language isn’t a thing.

Aliens with no sense of touch so even haptics are impossible.

Imagine aliens who communicate by smell (something that happens on earth with some animals) or taste. Aliens who sense different kinds of radiation and communicate that way. Imagine humans are completely incompatible with alien species because we don’t have the organ that senses gamma rays. Like, we take ears for granted because everything on earth can hear (if not disabled). But in the void of space, there is no sound—what if no one is listening, not because they’re not there or because they don’t care, but because we’re talking at a blind person in ASL?

There are so many cool options for communication for aliens—temperature, pressure, microwaves, electric signals, you name it. Like, imagine a species that communicated by the physical sensation of wind.

And, like, you might think, “how could an alien communicate in radiation? There’s radiation all around and we don’t sense it. Plus, there’s so much of it, there’d be no way to tell it apart from natural radiation!” But then consider. We communicate in vibrations of fluids. There’s vibrations all around, and we can sense them all—yet we still manage to pick out human sounds from nonhuman sounds, and distinguish between!

Imagine in head.

Alien, learning how use a sound interpreting machine, being excited with being able to identify a human sound from a mess of nonhuman sounds. Then, realizing that not only can we do this effortlessly, we can tell one human’s sounds apart from another, even if we’ve barely met them. We can make patterns of this incomprehensible gibberish, much in the same way our alien can determine which of their friend’s protons are being reamalgamated.

Then.

Humans have their own unique “voice” in other alien languages, much in the same way aliens would still make sounds just from moving around. Or reactions we didn’t even know we had because we can’t sense them, like alien purrs they couldn’t tell they were making because they don’t have ears.

Just something to think about.

[super-ion]

The Engineer

Part 1

I catch a glimpse of the pilot as she is wheeled towards the med bay. Her eyes have that telltale glaze of just having been wrenched out of herself.

I've never spoken a single word to her, but for a moment as the gurney slides by, those eyes briefly clear, ice blue pinning me to the spot. She raises an emaciated arm and her hand almost seems to beckon to me before something in the gurney clicks and whirs and she slips back into catatonia.

That brief moment of clarity, that piercing gaze, unsettles me. She recognized me.

It's neural bleed. I know it has to be. She doesn't know me, but Morrigan does.

Good god. In the pilot's present state of post combat haze, she probably doesn't even know where she ends and the machine begins.

Does neural bleed work both ways? Is it her head that I'm about to climb into?

My wrist strap buzzes. I have a job to do and I am late.

The pilot is a problem for the med team and the psychs.

The machine is my problem.

I hurry down the corridor, keeping my head down, avoiding the eyes of every passerby.

I don't like people.

I don't like how their eyes follow me. I don't like the whispered gossip that follows me.

One of the techs is waiting for me at the vestibule.

I don't know his name.

All clear, he says to me. Time to work your magic.

He says it without sarcasm. Others have been less kind.

Even so, he can't quite hide the leer as I strip down to the skinsuit. I don't have the physique of a pilot. My body hasn't been subjected to the stresses that ravage their bodies. Unlike them, I have fat and muscle and the skinsuit clings to every curve of my body.

I force a cursory smile and try to forget him as I walk barefoot to my destination.

The vestibule is small, windowless. It's impossible to assess the scale of the machine from here. The only part visible to me is roughly four square meters of pitted and scarred metal plating framing the access hatch and the pilot's cradle beyond.

B0-987T the stenciled lettering reads. And below, in flowing script, is “The Morrigan”.

She's a Javellin class, medium weapons fire support unit. She isn't meant to be on the front lines in a skirmish, but one-on-one, she can hold her own against a Wraith. Which is exactly what happened only a few hours ago.

I place a bare palm on the bulkhead. She thrums with some distant vibration. Her reactor is still online, still in the early stages of drawdown as she transitions to dock power.

“Hey beautiful,” I say to her.

I think of the pilot. I think of piercing blue eyes and I think of neural bleed.

I flinch my hand away.

The tech looks at me, asks if I'm alright. I'm fine, I tell him.

I climb through the hatch and into the cradle.

I feel like an interloper here. The cradle isn't calibrated for my body. Everything still smells like the pilot. Mingled with the smell of the machine is her sweat and her adrenaline and the particular scented soap that she prefers.

There is a faint whirring as her cameras track my movements from a dozen angles. The access ports open to receive me.

Against my better judgment, I imagine eagerness for this exchange.

This is immediately followed by an all too familiar sense of inadequacy. The engineers’ rig is not nearly as all encompassing as a pilots’. It's only the most basic neural interface. No haptics. No neurotransmitter feedback. No access to the suite of sensors studded throughout her hull.

I can't interface with her the way her pilot can.

My rig is a remnant from basic training. The pilot corps wanted me for my exceptional ratings in synchrony and neuro-elasticity, but after serval training exercises, they determined that I didn't have the temperament for the battlefield. I froze up too easily.

A neural rig is a massive investment and removing one will fuck a person up a hell of a lot more than installing one. The selection process is designed to weed out washouts before we even get to installation, but some of us still slip through the cracks. Most end up reassigned to logistics, operating loader mechs or piloting long haul supply frigates. But my aptitudes made me ideal for the engineering corps, so here I am.

Morrigan senses my mood and the cradle shifts slightly, aligning itself to my dimensions. Her eagerness to connect morphs into a sort of tender reassurance. It's a slippery slope, ascribing human emotions to these machines, but she does seem genuinely happy to see me.

I can never be part of what she and her pilot have, but I can be part of something in my own way.

The pilot knows about me, she would even without neural bleed. Does she envy the relationship I have with her mech? Does she envy that I can exist both together and apart with the machine?

Is she jealous of us?

Morrigan slips her jacks into my rig and my mind enters hers and I feel tension leave my body. Some dull ache that I wasn't even consciously aware of ebbs within me.

My senses dull and my visual cortex is fed a series of diagnostic logs and telemetry streams. The techs have access to the exact same data, but Morrigan highlights particular data points that she and the pilot flagged. I log them in the engineering report.

A wireframe schematic of the battlefield spreads out in my awareness. Green markers for our battlegroup. Red markers for the pack of Wraith interlopers.

I hear the ghost of music, strange and ambient, like whale song. The first time I heard it, I asked the techs about it. They had no idea what I was talking about. One even suggested I get an eval for some psych leave.

Later I realized Morrigan was singing to me. Or rather she was interpreting tightbeam comm links as something my brain could process. A human mind can't possibly interpret the full datastream, but with Morrigans's rendition, I can suss out the basic meanings. The battlegroup is a choir and Morrigan is playing me their song.

I caused quite a stir when I first made that connection and started flagging battle events the analysts had missed.

I survey the battlefield before me, reconstructed from feeds from TacCom and all the individual mechs.

Morrigan and I have done this enough times that she knows my preferred display layout, but she holds back, allowing me to pull off the virtual displays on my peripheral vision. There's an odd sort of intimacy to it, her letting me take charge like this.

God-knows how many tons of metal and ceramic and miles and miles of wire and optic fiber and see waits eagerly for me to start the playback sim. She wants to show off. She wants me to assess the actions of her and her pilot and tell them they did well.

Other engineers, few as we are, have mentioned similar experiences with their assigned machines.

“Alright,” I whisper so that only she can hear. “Show me the dance. Sing me the song.”

(Next)

[hapticthing]

|"You'll take me out for icecream if I beat his ass, riiiiight?"

"Ughhh, fine."|

Drew this for the art tournament in the Pathways server!! Everyone's art looks so good but I can't wait to se the other submissions oughh!!

[mysteryfleshpit]

FAQ & General Update

“Why haven’t there been any new posts in a long time?” “Is this project dead?” “Trevor get off your ass you lazy hack”

This project isn’t dead! Two major factors have contributed to the relative silence of updates:

1) For the past year, I’ve been taking care of my infant son as the primary at-home caregiver. That won’t mean anything to people who have not been parents, and it wouldn’t have meant anything to me before having a kid, but it turns out that keeping a baby happy, healthy, and entertained is a major drain on your time and energy. Additionally, my office/studio/workspace is also the room he sleeps in (I live in a two-bedroom apartment) so I am limited with how much I can do at night.

2) As many of you know, in June, Fleshpit fans showed up in force to fund the TTRPG kickstarter. In response, I’ve been busy working through a multi-page list of illustrations for the TTRPG book, including wildlife, tools, vehicles, maps, and other ephemera:

“I missed the Kickstarter, can I still pre-order the TTRPG book?”

Yes! Here’s a link to the pre-order store: https://mysteryfleshpitrpg.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

“When is the coffee table art book coming out?” “Are you finished with the book?” “What still needs to be finished?”

The main Mystery Flesh Pit coffee table-style book is, like many other projects, paused while I’m working on the TTRPG book. Paid projects take priority! I will continue working on it as soon as I can; much of the art I’m working on for the TTRPG book will also be featured in the coffee table book. The biggest missing piece of the big artbook is the writing. I have much of it finished, but there is still a lot of editing that needs to be done.

“Is spectral haptics still continuing?”

Yes, but see the answers above. Paid projects take priority, and right now Spectral Haptics is third on the list behind the TTRPG and the coffee-table book. There is a possibility of me making time to create a small video for SH if for no other reason than to avoid burnout, but I’m not going to promise anything.

[ycoil]

"#me and who" you forreal pal? it is actually just us on my post Lol ignore all those other notes, they dont mean nothin, dont worry about the ocean of bodies pulsing and writhing in all of their futility, wistful thinking will merely lead you into your dreams, you gotta get the fuck out there and do something, you just hit my line and now we are linked, this is only about U and me, i love you, i am going to rename you and you will wear it happily because the rest of the world has lowkey failed you the whole way leading up to this point, i love you so much that no words could ever really broach the reality, you can only find out in the way my hands desire you, devouring your haptics, grasping, caressing, holding, im going to grip you so hard now that each one of my fingers is going to be painted red into your nerves, signals traipse their way up your spine and into your memory, i'll live forever there yknow, a pathway carved into your mind, youll hold that until you die, each recall further instantiating the neural pattern that leads you there, thats just the nature of life and connection, interface with me, ill play your cord like an instrument until your eyes roll right into the back of your head and you see the truth, comma, Lol

[dredgen-dumbass]

(Disabled) player's guide to making D2 more accessible

because so far (correct me if I'm wrong) I haven't seen one on here, & maybe (hopefully) it'll help someone.

Alright, to get it out of the way, I'm disabled. I have neurological damage from a tbi, and more recently another concussion, and among many many other things it makes gaming a lot more complicated. It can (unfortunately) be difficult to find advice for disabled gamers online that isn't just "get good" or "then gaming isn't for you", so I figure this might be helpful, since it was for me.

I can't speak to other conditions, so this is more about adjustments for specific symptoms, but I can only really speak from experience. That said, I've had to learn quite a bit, so it's sharing time :)

(I play on Xbox. Some settings aren't the same between platforms, just a warning. For that reason, some of this post is going to be xbox-specific.)

This is divided up into menus & subjects of bullet points are bolded to be easier to skim.

Controller settings - (and explanations for some of them in case y'all don't know)

Test out different look sensitivity. The default is 3, I moved mine up to 5. I have issues with spacial awareness and saccades dysfunction, and this has made it easier for me to keep whatever I'm looking at on-screen.

ADS sensitivity- if you don't know, this is the speed when you aim down sights. The default is 1, I have mine reduced to .5, and I've found that the larger difference between the look & ADS sensitivity can really function as having two look settings available when using a weapon that doesn't have a very extreme scope.

The default sprint-turn scale is 0.4, I bump mine up to 0.8 for similar reasons to the look sensitivity increase. (Turning this up makes you turn faster, turning it down makes you turn slower.)

Alternatively, if you have more issues with overstimulation/visual clutter/quick movements/etc, you may want to turn everything down a bit to slow down your camera, but that may make combat harder to keep up with, especially pvp.

Axial & radial deadzone. This helps with stick drift. Stick drift is a pain for everyone but if you have fine motor issues, tremors, arthritis, etc, it's even worse. Finding what works best for your hardware will help make sure you're compensating less, which puts less strain on your hands.

I've seen people recommend turning off controller haptics for the same reason- the vibrations make you grip the controller harder and can cause worse strain. Personally, I leave them on because the sensory input helps balance out the awareness issues, but maybe it's for you! (this one's a system setting, not a d2 one.)

Video settings

Brightness can be important if you have issues with eye strain. I would recommend changing this relative to the lighting in the room, not just your monitor. Turning it up may help with visual issues with the tradeoff of risking overstimulation. Again, all of this is very dependent on the person.

Motion blur- Evil, evil, evil, turn this off. Visual problems or not, it's harder to follow things on-screen with it enabled. Combined with any garden variety problem with eye movements or cognitive strain it's even worse.

Chromatic aberration- I turn this off. It's a nice vfx, but it can wind up just being added visual stimulus and if that's a problem for it's worth losing. It can also make the radar harder to read. Not worth it (personally.)

Film grain- off for the same reason. It's a smaller change, but a clearer view is worth it if it helps you.

Sound settings

If you have problems with your hearing/auditory processing, I highly recommend turning the sfx & music drastically down compared to the dialogue, and then just turning up your system audio.

Personally, I often play with music entirely off, but I know that can be a very boring experience to a lot of people, so take that as you will.

(my current settings: sfx 8, dialogue 10, music 1)

if you're playing with an Xbox party or in a discord call, etc, I really recommend messing with the mixing settings there when you first get on to balance out peoples mics, regardless of processing problems.

Gameplay settings

HUD opacity- I turn mine down to high, the default being full. Just another thing that makes it easier to keep track of stuff.

Radar Background Opacity- Opposite here. If you have problems with spatial awareness you're probably relying pretty hard on the radar instinctively, so the clearer it is, the better. I play with mine on medium, you may want to play around.

Subtitles- Are on by default, so that's nice. Let's check out their settings menu for a moment.

Turning on show speaker name can be really good for hearing/auditory processing issues.

You can also change the color for the speaker name/caption text if the clearer contrast will help you.

The best background style for visibility is box, but it won't look as nice. Another trade.

Background opacity may be easier to lower if you switch to box, since the faded style isn't even. A lower background opacity may help you follow things on-screen at the cost of caption readability

If you don't need captions but do need to reduce visual clutter, try turning them off!

Colorblind mode is, obviously, helpful if you're colorblind, but I have also heard it recommended because the color changes can help improve contrast. Not one I've tried, but worth including.

Full auto firing/Full auto melee- Does what it says. Turning this on might help in the same way as turning off haptics/messing with deadzones, ie by changing how much you need to click. You can still fire normally with it on, so if anything it just gives you another option.

Reticle location is slightly below the center on d2. I prefer to center it, though it takes some getting used to. More helpful if you frequently switch between other games that center theirs.

Neutral/targeted reticle color- The defaults are white and red respectively. I prefer black for targeted because I feel like it makes it easier to see what I'm actually aiming at, but you may want to leave it for contrast. To each their own.

Other

Brief overview of Xbox accessibility settings

Xbox has a narration setting. I would assume anyone who needs it is aware of this, but just in case.

If you need more assisted play, there's controller assist where you can combine two people's input

Turning off haptic vibration (as mentioned) is in accessibility -> controller

You can make the on-screen keyboard larger!

There are party chat settings for both text to speech and speech to text

There's also game transcription!

Games that have the function can also do their own read-aloud. I don't know if/how this applies to destiny

Mono output for audio may make things easier to understand depending on your audio setup

There's also high-contrast mode for both dark or light

Colorblind filters are here, too

Night mode! You can change how much it dims/filters your device. If you have problems with blue light or eye strain, or have to limit screens for medical reasons like me, this setting is a lifesaver. The filter will affect how your games look, but personally it's worth the tint. Same is available on most PCs.

Hardware, etc.

The Xbox Adaptive Controller is highly customizable and great for anyone with physical impairments that make the standard Xbox controller difficult to use. Find it here.

I've seen thumbstick extenders recommended for arthritis, might also be helpful for similar conditions

If you have arthritis/fine motor issues/muscle weakness/tremors/etc/etc/etc controller grips might make holding a standard controller easier

If any of those are the case for you, then you might also benefit from a lightweight controller (or playing with a standard controller plugged in & removing the batteries for a lesser weight adjustment)

evilcontrollers also has one-handed controllers and a one-handed controller customizer much like the standard controller customizers

evilcontrollers for hardware accessibility in general

If you play on PC and have muscle or joint issues then you may want to look into different keyboard/mouse shapes. Lightweight, vertical, and ball mice are all options, though there's apparently some argument about using them for gaming. I've also seen good reviews of the Azeron keypad from people with muscular/joint problems. There's also split keyboards, wave keyboards, one-handed, etc etc etc.

If you have problems with auditory processing I would HIGHLY recommend gaming with noise-cancelling headphones. (Hell, do everything with noise cancelling headphones.) I would recommend these for everyday, but they also work pretty well for gaming. The mic is mid, but it works well enough, and there's multiple sound modes + active noise cancelling.

Other other (oh no I forgot these, editing now)

Compression gloves !!!!!

Pause and do hand exercises after a while

20/20/20 rule for eye strain

may come back and expand this as I think of more things

There is a lot that Bungie could do to improve the game's accessibility without causing an imbalance with abled players, but I'll save that for another post. Feel free to reblog this with any other advice/anecdotal stuff/whatever, I'm considering this as opening a discussion.

I don't know of any clans specifically for disabled players but I'm sure they exist? If anyone has recommendations for community stuff, please do throw that in.

As always, my dms are open. Being a disabled gamer can suck sometimes and if you need a space to vent w/ someone who gets it, I'm your guy. If you're just curious how it impacts gaming, I don't mind being asked, I just don't feel like posting about myself that much unprompted.

I think that's all for now. Happy gaming :)

[fogaminghub]

🔥 Get hyped, gamers! Days Gone Remastered is officially hitting PS5 on April 25! 🔥 

Dive back into the thrilling post-apocalyptic world with NEW GAME MODES like:

- Horde Assault - Survive against massive hordes! 

- Permadeath - The ultimate challenge awaits! 

- Speedrun - Race through the story! 

Plus, enjoy improved graphics, DualSense support, and enhanced accessibility features! 

Upgrade for existing players at just $10 or snag it for $49.99 as a new player. Pre-order bonuses await too! Are you ready? 🌟

[urhoneycombwitch]

breathe in the air

eddie x reader x steve. part i

foreword: this is part one/set up for a fic I’ve been chewin’ on. cw is for both parts and will get updated- no actual smut in this first one but please heed the tags anyway. +18 mdni as always. (@somnambulic-thing you inspired me to write from Eddie’s pov! 💖)

cw: smoking (weed and nicotine), R’s hair is mentioned but unspecified texture/length, also wears Eddie’s shirt, R has breasts + V,  Eddie and Reader are both varying degrees of stoned while performing sex acts (please be safe IRL and don’t read if that makes you uncomfy!!), pt. ii will have: voyeurism (Eddie and R fool around and Steve watches), blow jobs, masturbation, both the boys being Down Bad™️

wc: 2.5k (part i)

_____

The sun has sunk low over Forest Hills, Eddie’s room cast in deep blue where the golden path of his bedside lamp doesn’t touch.

He’s lighting up a post-sex cigarette, one of the best things this shitty world has to offer, in his opinion- second only to feeling your warm body against his; writhing and wriggling with pleasure, neck craned to let him lick the sloping sweat from your skin- or times like now, when you’re calm and satiated, nude under the comfort of sheets and the weight of your head on his chest.

Casting a hand out to shuffle blindly through the bedside table, Eddie wraps his other arm around the sleepy length of you, pulling you tighter to himself; your response a wordless, happy little noise. His hand deep in the drawer catches on a stray cigarette, then around the hard plastic of a spare lighter. With a sigh of contentment, he kisses the top of your head before bringing the filter to his lips.

Sparks catch under his thumb, cherry of the cig burning red- like some sort of sleeper agent responding to the click, you sit up with a jolt, stealing the mess of sheets upwards, exposing Eddie’s lower half to the cool air.

Eddie swears, startled- thinking you were almost asleep, he’d been nearly careless with the open flame- tossing the lighter aside, he reaches towards your back that now faces him. “Jesus, babe. Give a guy some warning before you snap to attention like a damn general.”

Thumb pressed to the notches of your spine, palm wide around your lower back, Eddie can feel the quiet giggle that shakes through your ribs.

 “Sorry,” you whisper once you’re finished, still staring at the far wall like you're trying not to break a spell. Your arms are crossed, sheets bunching around your chest- “Had a thought.”

“Must’ve been a good one,” Eddie muses, thumb following the line of your spine down, like he’s petting an oversized cat.

In true feline fashion your back arches into his touch, encouraging his palm to sweep up again, to your shoulder blade this time as you murmur, “I wanna go swimming.”

“Okay.” Eddie’s immediately agreeable, taking a long drag from the cig, letting smoke fill out the hollows around his lungs. “We’ll go to Lover’s Lake tomorrow. Heard it’s gonna be a hot one.”

Hawkins is having a record heat wave for the second summer in a row- as if all the damn underground monster shit and horrific earthquakes of last year weren’t enough already: global warming to top it all off. The sun has been merciless these last few weeks, peaking midday, nothing for it but to lie in a heated daze on the kitchen tiles of whoever’s house is the least amount of bitch to get to.

Not that Eddie’s complaining about you being half-naked most of the time. He thinks this is the year you might actually kill him, now that he can touch you, call you his- every curve of upper calf in those short shorts, every soft slip of stomach peeking out from cropped tops- he’s got enough spank bank material to last until his deathbed. (Which he’s decidedly allowed to joke about, since, ya know, the whole almost-dying thing last spring.)

Eddie moves on haptic memory to set aside his cigarette, searching pinky-out for the lip of the ashtray (ceramic, with a poorly-drawn Snoopy, the ears far too big- you’d laughed until you cried over it at the thrift store; he was fifty cents poorer that day but rich and dizzy off your glee). 

“No, not the lake. And I wanna go swimming now.” There’s a hint of petulance in your voice, walking the thin line of childish whine that only appears these days after you’ve smoked, tongue and desires loosened and lax with the help of the finest hash stash in Hawkins. 

There’s a smile threatening to split Eddie’s face in two. He’s been working at that hard-won wall of your solitude for ages now, showing rather than telling you it’s okay to ask for things, that you’re safe to make requests and hell, even demands, from him. Eddie’s not sure what he wouldn’t do for you, at this point- hasn’t found that line yet. Probably doesn’t exist.

A monster of my own design, he thinks, fondly, sweeping the hair from your neck so he can see the outline of cheek and jawbone, reflective with lamplit glow. “Baby, there’s nowhere to swim right now- it’s dark and that’s not real safe. Tomorrow I’ll make us some sandwiches- we can drive out to the lake, you can get stoned and I’ll play lifeguard.”

It’s probably too much to hope you’ve swallowed this bitter pill of compromise in silence, but based on the lack of response, it’s certainly possible. Eddie presses his thumb into the muscle where your neck meets shoulder, massage a silent apology for saying no when you’d been so good to ask. 

Crickets chirp in chorus outside, sound dampened by the glass window- he needs to open it soon, get the hot air out and night breeze flowing (though he is loath to replace the heady smell of sex wrapped like a cozy blanket around his room).

He feels you shuffle under his hand, eyes popping open to watch- you’ve tucked your chin over the dip in your shoulder, looking down the slope of your own nose at him, an expression on your face that makes Eddie’s stomach flip (with nerves, fear, excitement, hard to pinpoint exactly).

Your voice is quiet but steady when you speak, Eddie’s massaging fingers freezing to a halt when you say, “I know a place, open right now, with a lit-up pool. And a lifeguard.”

A thin tendril of smoke from the ashtray floats into Eddie’s vision as he stares blankly at the ceiling for a moment. Then he sits up, crushing the cherry into Snoopy’s wavered outline (sorry, pal) before brushing arms with you, patient and stern with a headshake to match- “No way, sweetheart.”

“Why-y?” That petulance is back, Eddie’s heart kicking up in response; it’s your turn to give the physical affection, winding your arms in a closed loop around his neck, forehead bumping against his jaw as he works it back and forth. 

His stitched-tight resolve quickly unspools as the wet plush of your lips track a path across his throat; he clears it before squeezing at your side again, one last argument to try and stick like cooked spaghetti to a wall. “You’re high.”

You snort, puff of breath sending goosebumps across his skin, rapidly cooling from lack of your affection- “Yeah, and you’re not. So you can drive us there, and then smoke again with me before we go in, and Stevie boy will keep us safe in that nice, heated, well-lit pool of his.”

Even as you speak, Eddie’s shaking his head, but it’s more in disbelief of his own weakness (namely: you). He slips a hand to your cheek, pulling back to take you in- mischief shimmering like twin stars in your eyes as you lock onto his gaze, lips parting pliant when his thumb swipes at your bottom lip. 

“You gonna behave yourself?”

It’s less of a question and more of a check-in, the meaning behind the words an undulating variable, a riddle with a thousand different answers.

The one you do give is complimented by a wicked grin, punctuated with a quick kiss (awfully chaste, considering your bare front pressed against his), your mirthful delight at having won both unsettling and tantalizing.

“Guess you’ll have to find out.”

With a sudden push to his chest, Eddie goes down easy for you, hair spreading riotous across the pillow as you move with shocking fluidity to throw a leg over his hip. Your hands meet in the middle of his chest, just under the rippling ink of a crow in flight, settling your weight comfortably on his stomach. 

Eddie’s sure you can feel his pulse, jack-rabbit fast, as you dip to kiss beneath his jaw. His hands automatically settle on your hips, grip tightening with each loving kiss you scatter over his collarbones, his sternum.

He’s half-hard under the sheets by the time your lips find the hitch of his ribs, stuttering and expanding to meet your mouth- can’t be faulted, really, not when your bare chest gleams in the low light, the top of your head imploring for the warmth of his wide palm to rest. 

Just when Eddie thinks he’s in the clear, that the call of your needs (evident in the slickness pooling just under his navel where your naked cunt rests) will drive the call of your wants to distraction, you sit up again, using your planted hands as leverage to swing completely off and away.

The coldness of your absence is cruel and unusual punishment. Eddie groans, scrubbing a hand down his face, deciding right then that he won’t be above begging tonight- when you suddenly reappear with a clean beach towel in either arm, pulled from the bowels of his closet.

There’s youthful, honest enthusiasm to your movements- something that’s catching, apparently, ‘cuz Eddie’s tipping himself out of bed with a resigned sigh, pulling boxers over his flagging dick and answering your spree of questions about these new evening plans.

“Sure, bring a water bottle. No, babe, we don’t need sunscreen- it’s night. Yeah, I’ll bring more weed. How ‘bout you bring me that old shoulder bag and we can bring some stuff with us.”

As you work on digging through the mess of a combined closet to find something suitable for swimming, Eddie folds the two towels that you’d found along with a baggie of joints into the bag. You’re humming under your breath while getting dressed, and Eddie’s staring at all the leftover space- what does one pack for a nighttime high swim with one’s girlfriend and the guy you’ve both sort-of mentioned threesoming with?

He tosses in a well-loved edition of your favorite book of poems, figuring the Harrington abode will have plenty of snacks. Food for the mind, he thinks, then snorts at his own joke. 

“C’mon, snorty.” You beckon from the doorway, an old t-shirt of his just swishing past the dark strip of your bikini bottoms, van keys held aloft. 

At the front door, there’s a brief argument about coats (you think you’ll be fine without, Eddie disagrees vehemently) which Eddie wins, wrangling your arms into the sleeves of his oil-stained work jacket before locking the front door behind you both.

Eddie smiles, a secret, pure thrill watching you tiptoe gingerly across the gravel on bare feet (too stubborn to actually wear the sandals that hang from either hand). His coat is bunched up around your ears while your legs poke out like some sort of winterized bird with bare legs. 

There’s a bright pang of love that suddenly hits hits sideways, a dizzying urge to sink on denim knees to the ground, sharp rocks be damned, just to kiss the tender spot behind your knees, to feel the hill of your calf under his tongue…

Your giggle breaks his reverie, impatient and pointed jiggling of the locked passenger handle clunking out into the quiet park. “Quit staring, weirdo. You coming?”

Hope so, Eddie thinks, spinning the key ring in looping arcs around his pointer finger. He bypasses the porch steps completely, boots hitting the gravel with a satisfying crunch. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

Your cheery mood is sustained during the short car ride as you chatter animatedly about some coworker drama that you forgot to catch him up on, Eddie’s hand drawn like a magnet to your upper thigh while he drives. 

But by the time he’s pulling the van next to Harrington’s beemer, your eagerness has waned, speech drifting off into silence once he’s parked. 

“Hey.” His voice draws you back to him, a bit, your eyes too wide and roving for his liking, coat sleeves clenched around opposing fists as you hang onto his words. “Sweetheart. We don’t have to go inside. Can go anywhere- diner for some food, back home, the damn trash heap for all I care. Just want you to feel safe.”

“I do,” you counter, earnest but chest still punching a fast rhythm. “I feel safe. I just… you think he’s even awake?”

There’s a yellow glow coming from one of the second-floor windows. Your fingers twist harshly around fabric in the dark, breath loud. 

Eddie nods, then kills the engine and grabs behind his seat for the Ziploc of pre-rolls, an offering held to you between two ringed fingers. “Want a bit of Green Courage before going in?”

The van windows are soon fuzzily obscured with a haze of smoke, sprinklers for the pristine lawn nearby hissing to an automated start at the turn of 11 PM. The weed coaxes your earlier state of relax to the forefront, this time with an added layer of giggles, which Eddie finds desperately cute. 

He’s sure he’s high now, too, ‘cuz he’s unintentionally focusing really hard on your lips as you speak, and you’re letting him, corner of your mouth quirking when you ask, “Gonna take me inside, Munson?”

“Uh huh.” An automatic response, just so he can keep staring- when you pop the handle of your door open Eddie reaches, faltering before landing on your face, cupping the tilt of your cheek- “Meant it. Earlier. Just say the word. Take you anywhere.”

Weed fragments his speech but you melt with understanding, leaning into his hand, your lashes sweeping sweetly at the bridge of his thumb as you whisper, “Okay.”

You’re out the door and he’s left scrambling in the wake, hauling the strap of the packed bag over one shoulder and snapping up your forgotten shoes from the footwell. He locks the doors (nevermind that this is a nice neighborhood, can’t trust rich people farther than he can throw ‘em and Eddie has always been better at running over shotput on field days) and hikes it across the grass to where you stand, a beacon of beauty under the porch light.

“Ready?” he asks.

Your bare foot- flecked with wet grass- trails up the back of your opposing leg, veins at the whites of your eyes spidering pink with anticipation (and the fresh joint) as you turn to smile at him. “Yeah. Bring it on.”

“Your wish, my command,” Eddie says, winking, knuckles pulled into a fist to rap at the front door of one Steve Harrington. 

___

[END: PART ONE]