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pedgito · 3 months ago

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𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐒 | Joel Miller x reader

part three– summary | Over time and through challenges, you find a way to settle in Jackson with Joel.

content warning | 18+ MDNI, established relationship, takes place over a longer stretch of time (two years), graphic depictions of violence, angst, fluff, there's a lot of tender moments sprinkled throughout, reader's progression into her own self, mentions of sa and coercion, trauma, joel triggering some ptsd for reader, tender smut (slight somnophilia) mentions of reader's scars (though mostly vague), ending is foreshadowing (if you get it, you get it)

author's note | this was very cathartic to write, i've had this entire thing outlined for over a year and like 80% finished so a lot of time i've just spent editing and procrastinating over plot points. i originally intended for this to end very, VERY grim. but, the ending i went with is more fitting. also thank you to anyone who's taking the time to read this or has told me they relate to this story and have found comfort in it, i love you!

word count —10k

PART ONE — PART TWO — SERIES MASTERLIST

The entire situation made you uneasy.

“So, do you have a name?” Ellie asks curiously, shoveling a piece of food into her mouth, “I mean, Joel always calls you the kid or the girl—you know, he did that to me for a while, but I grew on him,”

She smiles around her food, her authenticity wholly her own.

You knew Ellie through small moments, coming and going, not seeing her much around Joel’s house as she was obviously settled into her own and spent most of her time with Dina or Jesse.

“Ellie,” Joel admonishes, “stop yapping and eat,”

“You are no fun,” Ellie says pointedly at Joel, stabbing a fork into the pile of food on her plate.

You sat beside Joel, your hands resting on your lap, eyes scanning the table. It felt strange to be here like this, in a place so domestic. Alive. Maria balances Benjamin on her hip in the kitchen as she and Tommy conversed quietly over the few sides still finishing up.

It wasn’t that you didn’t trust Tommy either—it was just the overwhelming weight of the unspoken, how his eyes couldn’t stop lingering on you and Joel.

It was the way Joel always seemed to know where you were, what you needed, even before you did. It had always been like that, but tonight, it felt more pronounced than ever.

He’s moving for things before you even make a motion to ask, handing them to you without a word, a hand curling over your thigh in silence when Tommy drops a pot on the floor, startling you and baby Ben in Maria’s arms, knowing instantly how to calm you. You were like a unit, moving as one, and Tommy could clock it from a mile away.

Once everyone had finally settled at the table Tommy clanked his spoon against his bowl, his voice cutting through the quiet. “So, how’ve things been for everyone? Ain’t been much talk from Joel lately. Ellie? Everything good?”

Joel grunted in response, a low, almost reluctant sound as he forked a piece of meat.

He didn’t meet Tommy’s eyes, but his posture was rigid, almost protective, as if keeping a silent barrier between you and the world around you.

It had been a full six months since you settled into Jackson, spring on the horizon, it would be a welcome reprieve to the bitter cold and piles of thick snow.

Ellie gives a short version, cliff notes, too busy eating to put any real effort into the conversation.

“I dunno why he’s askin’ to do dinner,” Joel had admitted earlier that day, “ain’t like him.”

Most of them saw each other daily, it seemed pointless.

Tommy leaned back in his chair, his hand rubbing his chin thoughtfully but nonchalant.

He noticed how Joel had placed his chair slightly closer to yours than usual, a casual closeness that seemed almost unnatural given Joel’s opposition to people and touch. You weren’t sure if Tommy had caught on, but his eyes lingered on the two of you for a moment longer than comfortable.

This wasn’t the pair he had dismissed the night you were found, something had changed.

The fire in the hearth cracked loudly, filling the room with a dull warmth that did little to ease the tension settling in your chest. The scent of stew hung in the air, thick and comforting, but your stomach churned at the thought of eating. You weren’t used to this—family dinners, warm lighting, the sound of silverware scraping against ceramic.

It was too normal.

Too exposed.

Tommy hadn’t seen much of Joel these past months outside of patrol and meetings. Not since he’d asked him to keep an eye on you—to help you adjust, to give you someone steady to rely on. He hadn’t expected Joel to isolate with you completely. And now, sitting across from the two of you, something felt off.

Tommy cleared his throat, breaking the silence. “Didn’t think I’d be seein’ you two at my table tonight, s’been a while.”

Joel barely looked up at Tommy, “Figured we should.”

Tommy let out a small chuckle, “What, outta obligation?”

Joel’s jaw twitched, “Somethin’ like that.”

Your eyes flicker between the two, quiet as you eat.

Tommy turned his attention to you, “How’s it been? You settlin’ in alright?”

You didn’t answer audibly, not that he expected you to.

“She’s fine,” Joel said, voice even as he answers for you.

Tommy’s lips pressed into a thin line. “That right?”

Joel didn’t acknowledge the shift in Tommy’s tone.

Tommy leaned back, watching the way Joel subtly angled his body toward you—protective, like he was ready to shield you from something that wasn’t even there. Instinctual.

“Joel says you’ve been doin’ well with patrol,” Tommy turns his attention toward you suddenly, ignoring Joel entirely, “you feelin’ comfortable with all of it?”

Surprisingly, you nod, though your eyes ultimately flicker toward Joel who’s staring down Tommy from across the table, quickly catching onto Tommy’s behavior.

Ellie suddenly stood, pushing her bowl away. “I’m gonna—yeah, I’m done eating,” She grabbed her plate and left the room without another word. Smart kid. She knew when to leave.

Maria leaves eventually too, tending to Benjamin as she ascends the stairs and leaves the three of you in a standoff. The rest of the dinner passed in heavy silence. You barely touched your food. Joel barely let his guard down. And Tommy barely took his eyes off the two of you.

It wasn’t until after the dishes were being cleared that Tommy saw his opening.

“Joel,” he said casually, “help me with somethin’ outside.”

Joel hesitated, glancing toward you. You gave him the smallest nod. He exhaled through his nose and followed Tommy out onto the porch without a word. The moment the door shut behind them, Tommy turned.

“What the hell is goin’ on?”

“Ain’t nothin’ goin’ on,” Joel stiffens, standing toe to toe with his brother who lowered his volume to a hushed tone.

You focused on their voices, the house having fallen quiet.

“That’s bullshit and you know it, Joel,” Tommy retorts, “Is she…should we be worried about her?”

Oh, so he thinks you were taking advantage of Joel—either assumption couldn’t be further from the truth, but it does startle you, wondering how deceptive you looked to Tommy despite how welcoming he had been toward you in the beginning.

“She’s harmless,” Joel responds, “What—suddenly you’re worried about her? You stuck her with me, made her my responsibility, and now you’re worried? What? ‘Cause I’m doin’ what you asked?”

Tommy scoffed, rubbing his hands over his face tiredly, “She’s been here six months and she hasn’t branched out at all. Not once.”

Joel’s expression darkened. “She doesn't like people. I don’t blame her.”

“Or maybe she just doesn't have a choice,” Tommy tries it, bucking up to Joel and flipping the switch, throwing the harsh accusation at his brother.

It landed. A flicker of something passed over Joel’s face, but it was gone just as quick.

Tommy took a step forward, lowering his voice. “I put her with you to help her. To give her some stability until she could fair on her own. I didn’t put her with you to keep her locked away.”

Joel’s jaw tightened. “She’s safe with me. And free to leave whenever, s’not my fault if she doesn’t want to—maybe you’ll think twice before takin’ people in because you got a good heart,” by his tone you can tell he’s trying to take a dig, “if you wanna blame anyone, blame yourself.”

Tommy shook his head.

“That what you tell yourself?”

The blame wasn’t on anyone, really.

You weren’t sure what Tommy’s angle was or if he was just worried for Joel in a weird, roundabout way.

“I think whatever is goin’ on between you two ain’t healthy—to what extent I don’t even wanna fuckin’ know, there’s a point where we gotta hope she can manage on her own,”

Joel’s expression didn’t change.

But, something in his posture did.

Tommy let out a tired sigh, defeated, “Just... think about what you’re doin’, Joel.”

When Joel finally came back in, his eyes found yours immediately.

You searched his face, looking for something—anything—to tell you what he was thinking.

He didn’t say a word.

But when he reached for you, you reached for him.

That’s what you always did.

And maybe that was the problem.

–

You’ve come to cherish the time you spend in Joel’s bed outside of sex.

After almost a year in Jackson, there are moments when things truly feel normal.

As expected, Joel does most of the talking. And to his effort, he tries to get you to speak up, but you often can’t find the courage outside of the intimate moments when he’s holding you close, mouth pressed against your skin as he buries himself inside of you.

“You really ain’t got a name?” Joel asks as he scrolls through a crossword, glasses perched on his nose in a way that felt scarily domestic, remembering Ellie’s earlier question. You scribble on the edge of the crossword, leaving a trace of yourself.

I don’t even know my parents.

You had no real identity, Joel has come to realize.

No sense of self or claim over your body and thoughts, years spent serving as nothing more than a device to be taken apart and used against your will, expected to obey.

Some of them did it purely out of fear and self-preservation, but for you, the opportunity to live a life outside of that place was more important and something you were willing to die trying for.

Still, old habits die hard.

You were trying to find the courage to speak to him in these quieter moments, making small noises when he would ask questions—a hum for yes, a soft and disgruntled noise for no.

The silence stretched between you, comfortable and stifling all at once.

You felt his fingers trace slow, absentminded circles against your ankle, his touch light, cautious. He was always cautious with you in moments like this, when there was nothing to distract from the weight of things left unsaid.

“You ain’t gotta stay quiet with me,” Joel reminds you gently, your eyes connecting for a moment.

It was strange how a man so stoic could be so soft, even if it was only shown in brief flashes.

Every time you tried, the words twisted in your throat, trapped beneath years of silence.

Being told your voice didn’t matter. That your body wasn’t yours.

That your thoughts weren’t worth having.

Joel’s hand stilled. He must have felt the way your breathing hitched.

You’d spent so long being nothing. A thing to be used. A body with no name. No choices. No voice. Nothing at all.

But here—wrapped in Joel’s warmth, his scent, the safety of his presence—you felt like something. Or someone.

Eventually, your lips parted. You sucked in a slow, shaking breath.

Joel holds his breath, having tried this over so many nights.

He feels that his conversation with Tommy was partly responsible, forcing you into a space of discomfort, like you had to listen to him.

Then, in the smallest whisper—so quiet you weren’t sure you’d even said it—you forced out, “I don’t have a name.”

Joel went still.

Then, after a long moment, his voice came low and careful.

“What d’you mean?”

You shrug, crossing your legs on the soft duvet, “I,” your mouth feels dry, like you were having an out of body experience as you spoke, like this wasn’t even real, “—didn’t…need one. He never addressed me directly. None of them did.”

Joel notices the way your tongue lingers around he, a heavy memory, a man whose face is impossible to forget.

The silence grows as Joel seems to contemplate his words, seeing how your fingers inch closer, a quiet yearning that you’ve been learning to subdue—not every act of service needed to be thanked, Joel had made that clear.

You try to ignore how your heart hammers in your chest at his silent admiration of your voice, speaking to him despite your disdain and buried fear, unsure if you could commit to more.

“Look…” he starts, his hand falling to curve around the heel of your foot, pulling your leg straight until your foot presses into the headboard of his bed, his hand traveling to rest against your upper thigh, “I ain’t ever been good at talkin’ about this kinda thing. But I gotta say it, ‘cause if I don’t, I know I’ll regret it.”

He looks serious, lips pulled into a thin line, but not unkind.

“What we've been doin’—I know why you do it. I ain't stupid.” Joel begins, your eyes locked on the way his fingers drag gently against your skin, massaging the muscle, “For a while, I let it happen ‘cause… hell, I don’t even know why. I ain’t got a reason, which makes me a bad person, taking advantage of you like that, knowin’ you had gone through hell to get here,”

You chew nervously at your bottom lip, letting the words sink in and marinate, eyes flickering up to look at him briefly, nodding in quiet understanding.

"But I don’t want that from you. Not like that. I ain’t never wanted somethin’ from you that you didn’t choose to give,” Joel admits, uncomfortable with the vulnerability of the conversation but knowing you needed to hear it, “I got my ways about me, I’m an asshole. I know, but this—I ain’t never been in a situation like this,”

You’ve never heard him talk like this, almost as if he’s spilling everything dark and vulnerable about him, laying his heart and mind out on a silver platter for you to devour.

“Sex ain’t just about… sayin’ thank you,” Joel looks at you directly, waiting to catch your eyes, “it’s supposed to mean somethin’. Be somethin’ you do when you trust someone, when you—” he licks his lips, clearing his throat as the words escape,“—care about ‘em. You understand?"

You nod softly, eyes burning with the faint sting of tears.

“You’ve never owed me nothing, kiddo.”

Eventually, Joel grows tired and stuffs the book away on his nightstand, inviting you beside him under the cover in silence, already knowing you had been itching to snake your way in, seeking out his warmth as he leans back to turn off the lamp and is met with your lips when he turns back, feeling your lips tremble with a timidness he’s not familiar with.

Something about it was different, a long and gentle press of your lips as you sigh, breathing through your nose before you pull away, shuffling closer into his chest as his chin rests at the crown of your head, rubbing slow circles over your shoulder until your breathing evened out.

Joel isn’t even sure if he’s doing this right, but he’s not sure he can let you go now.

It would do more harm than good for both of you.

–

A few months later, on another night, you find yourself in silence.

Mind filtering through a million thoughts at once, Joel sleeping quietly beside you—or so you think. His arm is slung over you, breathing slow and steady.

But you’re awake, staring up at the ceiling.

Thoughts race.

Thoughts about him, about you—the unspoken bond. And then, in the stillness, you speak.

“Joel?” you say softly, the small but meaningful utterance of his name has him stirring within seconds, blinking through bleary eyes.

He hums in question.

“Love,” such a fickle word, something you’re not sure you’ve ever felt before, the feeling foreign, “have you felt it before?”

Joel’s eyes open wider, shifting beside you as he rises on one elbow, the hand of his opposite arm reaching for you, fingers brushing absentmindedly along your arm.

It’s a loaded question—and at this hour? Joel can’t help but chuckle.

“Long time ago,” Joel responds vaguely and you’re waiting for him to continue, but he doesn’t.

You’re lying on your back, eyes stuck on the ceiling as he stares at you now.

“What does it feel like?” you ask quietly.

Joel can’t help but cherish the moment, the raw emotion in your voice that he only heard on special occasions, not under the guise of pleasure—this was just you.

Joel tenses slightly, though—his mind shifts to Sarah briefly, his life before. It felt light years away, barely able to remember her face at times.

“Kinda…feels like it’ll break,” Joel says hesitantly, “it’s somethin’....real fragile—like when you hold something too tight and it cracks,” you nod slightly in understanding, “but it's also a feeling you’re too scared to let go of, does that make sense?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt that,” you admit, looking over at him briefly before averting your eyes.

“You’re young, kiddo,” he tells you, “give it some time.”

There’s a stretch of silence before you find the courage to ask, heart skipping unnaturally.

“Who was it?”

Joel figures you lucky that he’s less guarded like this, your warmth against his chest and your bottom lip trembling slightly—it always seemed to, a lingering fear that never left you.

“My daughter,” Joel explains simply, no sugarcoating or lies, “she died….long time ago,”

“Before?”

Joel nods, a solemn expression flashing across his face before he sets it right.

You don't press him.

But you wonder, deep down, if he’s afraid he might be feeling it again.

When you find your voice outside of Joel, it was in a moment of defense.

You’re not sure why—well, that isn’t entirely true.

You know why, but you can’t explain how the feeling overtook you like possession.

Tommy had suggested you go on patrols with Jimmy, a younger man in his mid-twenties and closer to your age, a reliable man, as Tommy insisted. You’ve never even seen him, let alone was willing to speak with him or venture out beyond the walls.

It could be anyone else. Ellie, Dina—hell, even Tommy himself. You could fair there, but it seemed like Tommy was forcing you out of your comfort zone without any understanding of what that would mean to you.

“You’re smotherin’ her, Joel,” Tommy argues.

“She’s capable of makin’ her own choices,” Joel defends, turning to you, “I ain’t keepin’ you here, am I?”

You shake your head, arms crossed tight over your chest.

“She needs more than just you,” Tommy responds, “or me—or Ellie, I’ve got people askin’ about her, worried she might—”

“Might what?” Joel asks, warning Tommy to tread carefully,

“I’m just sayin’, people are weirded out by her behavior,” Again, talking as if you weren’t there, you find the anger in your chest beginning to swell, “She can try more—that’s all I’m askin’,”

“I don’t want more,” you spit out, both of the men freezing in place.

Joel turns so fast it’s like he doesn’t believe what he just heard.

Tommy blinks, his mouth parting slightly in shock.

“I don’t want more,” your tone softens, looking down as you scuff your shoe against the wood of the porch, “I don’t need more.”

Joel’s face contorts in a way that makes Tommy frown with the realization, because whatever mess the two of you were tangled into wasn’t one-sided in the slightest and if Tommy was honest with himself, he knew Joel was in much deeper.

The next time you speak, it was completely unprompted, feeling him thrash violently in bed beside you—he’s had his own nightmares before, usually consisting of him waking in a sweat or mumbling in his sleep, but this one was particularly alarming, like he was being attacked in his slumber as his arm swings up and knocks the lamp to the floor, ceramic shattering and still, he remained deep in the state of fight, and you were trying your hardest to shake him out of it, slapping his face gently as you held down his other arm.

“J—Joel,” you croak, voice thick with sleep and lack of use, always sounding like the words croaked from your mouth any time you spoke, “Joel—wake up!”

He flinches harshly but his eyes fly open, wild before they land on you and his blurry vision becomes clear, the sound of your voice grounding him into reality.

“It’s okay,” your voice shakes, watching as his throat bobbed with a harsh swallow.

He couldn’t explain how your voice had become such a comfort to him.

Like it was something he’s been missing.

And the first time he hears you laugh he swears he imagined it.

Ellie makes a terrible joke at his expense and the sound comes out too naturally, a triumphant grin crossing Ellie’s face as you both look at Joel who suddenly feels like he’s in a battle of two against one, hands held up in defeat.

“At least someone laughs at my jokes,” Ellie defends, watching as Joel rolls his eyes fondly.

“So, you’ll laugh when she makes a joke but not at mine?” Joel asks.

You shrug, “They’re good,” You chirp quietly.

Ellie throws her hands out in smug triumph.

“Stay bitter, old man.”

“Old man? I’ll tell Tommy to pair you up with Eugene,” Joel threatens.

Tough break, you think.

“Wha—no, what the fuck? That’s a total abuse of power,”

Joel shrugs as to mock you, catching your gaze briefly with a faint smile.

You’ve never felt more at ease in your life and that terrified you.

–

It happens over time, months, years.

The first year you spend in Jackson is hard—from the moment Ellie has found you on the outskirts of their walls, struggling to break old habits that had been instilled in you from birth, and finding comfort in society that only wanted to live, not take.

Jackson was a community, a family.

You still felt like a stranger, an obedient puppy at Joel’s side, shadowing him wherever he went. Patrols, always. The dining hall, occasionally. He never forces you to attend the fancier events held for the community with overwhelming sights of unfamiliar faces and too many voices. The music, the kids, drunkards getting loud around the tables they liked to play roulette at.

You liked silence and so did Joel.

Besides, he’s much softer in these moments.

You’re helping him with dinner when you watch Ellie approach him, arms spread out as he pulls her in.

A hug full of feeling, watching his eyes drift close as his cheek presses into the crown of her head, a grin splitting on her face as he squeezes her too tight, playfully shoving him away.

You never asked personal questions, only thrived off the assumptions in your head, but Joel knows you. He can see the way your eyes beg a question but you’re too afraid to ask.

“I’ll make a deal,” he begins, chopping into the vegetables as you peel potatoes with care, “use your voice and I’ll answer whatever questions is buggin’ you, fair?”

You nod, chewing at your bottom lip habitually before you find the courage to speak, “You…Ellie…” often your words felt disjointed, not that you didn’t understand, but you found yourself being concise, quick, using as little words as possible to get your point across and Joel notices too.

“She’s not mine, biologically,” Joel admits casually, “s’long story, but family ain’t always blood,”

You nod in understanding, the quiet growing again as you place the vegetable and utensil aside, “Her…family?”

“Don’t know much,” Joel shrugs, “kid was dealt a bad hand, but she’s special—a pain in the ass but, she’s good.”

–

Time progresses further, finding comfort through the seasons.

You’ve rotated through different jobs, none of them feeling right without Joel.

And it takes a while, but eventually something clicks.

As a step, you try your attempts at wall patrol—only when Joel wasn’t going out and he was busy planning the patrol schedule out over being gone for days at a time, too worried to leave you, but becoming slightly complacent and selfish in the time he spends inside the walls.

It works for a handful of months, minimal risk, always within shouting distance from Joel.

It was rare for stragglers to come wandering through the woods too, but as someone who had been on the other side, your empathy shines through in a moment of misjudgment one night.

Everyone is on break but you—Tommy and Joel were strict about at least one person always having eyes on the entrance and it wasn’t unsurprising that people jumped on the opportunity to leave you with the responsibility while they snuck away for a break.

You had just opened the gates for Ellie and Dina as they were coming back from the route, pushing the thick doors closed when you spot someone off in the distance, a man stumbling with great difficulty as he limps towards the gate. He’s clutching his side, doubling over in pain, and you feel the jolt of a distant memory pulling at you—a time when you were the one begging silently for help.

By the time you turn over your shoulder, Ellie and Dine are long gone.

Fuck.

“Please!” The shout is faint but enough to stir some instinct deep within you.

The others are too far and he’s approaching quickly, blood leaking from the side of his face as he slumps to his knees by your feet as he reaches you. You dig your heels into dirt and pull the gate open again, just enough for him to slip through with your aid, arm looping into his own.

He collapses onto the ground as soon as he makes it inside, pulling you down as you kneel beside him, “Th—thank you,” he gasps out. His face is flush, not indicative of someone who’s dealt with the elements very long, but he’s bleeding, clearly in pain.

You’re kneeling by his side when Joel’s voice cuts through the tension, sharp and angry.

“What the hell?!” He’s charging toward the gate with his revolver in hand, Tommy trailing behind him with wide eyes, flicking briefly between the two of you.

In any other situation, you wouldn’t have thought twice to leave the man behind, hellbent on survival at whatever cost. You knew better. Your instincts are sharp; they’ve kept you alive long enough, but your newfound heart wins over logical reasoning.

As the crowd of people grows, you find your throat swelling with anxiety.

Desperately, you try to convey your worry through looks.

“Y’all got jobs to do,” Joel snaps, “get back to your station,”

He dismissively moves your hand away as he hauls the man to his feet, the man groaning in deep pain as he shoves him toward Tommy, passing him off before his arm is circling around your bicep and tugging you away, struggling to keep up with his hurried steps until he can find a private spot, cornering you with a face you haven’t seen in almost two years.

“You got a death wish or something?” Joel growls, “Why’d you let him in?”

The intensity of his gaze pins you, and you swallow hard against the pressure building in your chest. Bottom lip trembling with fear, “I—I couldn’t leave him,” you stammer out weakly, emotions tying words into knots, it hurts to speak—to defend yourself.

You weren’t sure what you did was right, but it felt that way in the moment.

“He was hurt.” Joel’s jaw clenches at your words, a muscle twitching near his temple, veins protruding. He shoves a hand through his greying hair and drops his voice low, not any less terrifying than when he had yelled at you a moment ago—it has been so long since you’ve seen this side of him, unrestrained rage.

“He could be fuckin’ bit,” Joel argues, “hell—maybe he’s fakin’, but you never—never make that decision on your own,” his hand is flying around in anger, pointing from you and to the gate, “you don’t know if he was staging an ambush or if he would’ve had a knife. You can’t be this fucking naive, I’m not gonna be around to save you all the time and—”

“Stop,” you plead, blinking away the tears that formed quickly, “please, stop—just—”

Joel pauses, a steely expression on his face.

“D-don’t be mad at me. I-I know I messed up.” You wipe at your cheeks, but the tears keep coming, and you can’t stop them, can’t stop yourself from shaking. The air between you feels thick and charged, like he had finally found the opportunity to rid himself of you.

Joel’s eyes soften for a fraction of a second before hardening again. He takes a deep breath, and you flinch as he reaches out, not sure if he’s going to hold you or hit you, familiarizing his emotion with violence after years of being on the receiving end of angry, vile men.

He does neither.

Instead, his hand falls to his side in defeat, “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

Suddenly, you’ve never felt so small.

–

Joel doesn’t return home until late that night, heavy boot stomps carrying words he couldn’t find the energy to say, finding his bed earlier empty as he approaches his room.

There wasn’t a single trace of you, not here, or anywhere he would usually find you, his mind suddenly going into a panic as he searched frantically through the house—his bathroom, the kitchen, the backyard and into Ellie’s guest house, but nothing.

As he approaches the living room, he notices the lack of blankets and pillows before his head whips toward the basement, door closed and lights off, slowly, he approaches.

What he finds makes the pit in his stomach sink—you, curled up on the old, fragile frame of the bed that held a mattress stained and tattered, sleeping soundly but unknowing of how long.

His anger, his words, had driven you down here, away from the warmth of the house.

You didn’t feel like you belonged there now.

He feels a pang of guilt. Basements were not meant for living; they were for storage and solitude and silence.

He’s reduced you to this; a thing to be stored away.

Joel approaches with a quieter step, kneeling down at your bedside.

“Hey.” His voice is soft, almost gentle. “Hey.”

You stir, blinking bleary eyes up at him.

For a moment, confusion clouds your face before it shifts to apprehension, and Joel feels something twist in his chest. You jump back, scared. Eyes wide and fearful.

He fucking hated it.

“Hey,” he tries again, his hands hovering close, curling around the edge of the blanket like he wanted to swoop you into his arms, “You gotta come upstairs.”

You shake your head, pulling the thin blanket tighter around yourself, moving away from him.

“You can’t sleep down here,” he insists, firmer this time but without the sharpness to his tone like earlier, “C’mon, kiddo.”

You shake your head again, face softening as you frowned and pushed him away with a gentleness that tugs at Joel’s heart.

Joel sighs long, deep, hands spreading out over his knees before he admits defeat.

He retreats back upstairs with heavy steps, but this time they speak of regret rather than anger.

Out of precaution, they kept that man separated from the community, locked up in a spare cell.

It’s been a few days—but, the real problem comes as they strip him of his bloodied clothes to supply him with new ones, the bag of trashed clothes coming home with Joel later that week as he prepared to burn them out back—not before he pulls himself a small glass of bourbon, simmering in his own thoughts.

Like a mouse, you sneak up on him.

It was a strange flash of the past that tore Joel up inside, watching you pour yourself a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge before you eye the pile of clothes on the counter. It wasn’t the egregious amount of blood that shocked you, but the threading—gold flecks underneath dark patterns that had you inching forward carefully, reaching out with timid fingers to shift the fabric out of the way to reveal the gold symbol that instantly made your body seize up, the glass in your hand crashing to the floor and over your feet, ignorant to the shards of glass pricking your skin and the water soaking your shirt.

“Shit,” Joel mutters in shock, shooting up to his feet and reaching for you before he stops himself. His hands hover like a curse again, unsure of what to do with them or you.

He decides on a worn dish towel, thrusts it in your direction, “What’s wrong?”

You’re stuck where you stand, no sense of time or movement. Eyes fixed wide on the clothes.

“Hey,” his voice is soft, low, and tender, “you can talk to me, s’alright—”

You come back to life with a jolt at his touch, pulling away from him and dropping the towel onto the floor. “I need to get out,” you tell him cryptically, “I need to leave.”

It was the first time he had heard you speak in days and the words are heart wrenching.

He follows your eye line and grabs at the material, crumpling it in his hand as he brings it toward you.

“This mean anything to you?”

You nod meekly, subtle.

Your eyes are burning with tears that don’t quite fall, refusing to shed as you push his hand away and take a few steps back, feeling dizzy and intensely nauseous.

“Oh, wo-woah,” Joel follows you in a way that seems territorial, but is purely out of concern, quickly guiding you toward the sink as the bile in your stomach comes to the surface, gagging into the sink as Joel turns the faucet on, his warm hand at your back, “shit—baby, you’re alright,”

Your head snaps to the side, cautious to his words.

It slips out and even Joel can’t look at you for too long, cheeks heating in shame.

You search his face for cracks in his facade, wondering if this was a trick—that he wasn’t going to blow up at you like a flipped switch, all too accustomed to retaliatory behavior.

“Bad men?” Joel asks after a while, coming to the conclusion based on your initial reaction and your tightened jaw as you stared at him.

You nod, stronger this time.

“Did you know him?”

The truth? You had no clue who he was.

He was unfamiliar, but he belonged to them.

“No, but he’s with them.”

This changed things.

And he needed to talk with Tommy—soon.

—

Joel knows what he’s required to do, though that part of him had long since been dormant. Firing off a gun was much different than something like this, close and personal, the possibility of watching someone’s life fade under the force of your hands.

He expected you to stay behind given how shook up you were about the entire thing—to him, it still made no sense.

The man was hurt, a sizable gash to his leg and a superficial head wound. But, nothing life threatening; no gaping wounds, no bites. And he seemed uneasy, just another suspicion confirmed that what he had sensed the moment the man had passed beyond the gates wasn’t here seeking help.

He was sent for something.

Joel has an idea, but they would have to kill him first.

You stand quietly in the corner as Joel paces the room, knowing Tommy was stationed just outside the door.

Methods like this weren’t widely accepted in Jackson, people too sheltered to have experienced real threat or harm. But, you understand.

You’ve been on both sides—the helpless victim tied up and waiting for your imminent death, but in the same vein, you’ve watched a man lose his life under the pressure of your blade.

You still don’t recognize him, though that isn’t a surprise. Fresh recruits were filtering in every week, new unsuspecting faces ready to be trained into soldiers, killing machines. Men with an insatiable thirst for violence.

He seems to notice you, though.

Eyes wander, survey—the subservient position you took in the corner wasn’t on purpose, rather habit.

Joel didn’t want you to speak, didn’t want you to put yourself in a position to be attacked. He wanted the man to strike first and give Joel a reason to punish him.

Eventually, it happens.

“Damien’s got pictures of you, carries it everywhere,” the man says around Joel, his voice surprisingly calm, “they take one of each of the girls, but you…”

You flinch at the name. Joel notices.

Joel’s blade flicks open and the man chuckles, eyeing him with challenge.

“Go on, kill me,” he taunts, “I’m not telling you anything.”

Joel grunts and flares his nostrils before he approaches the man and grabs his hand, quickly slicing through the skin, muscle, and bone of one finger before reaching into the small fire pit placed at the center of the room, cauterizing the wound without missing a beat.

You don’t even react, watching Joel work like muscle memory—normally, you would feel fear.

But, with Joel, it was a strange unrecognizable feeling.

The young man curses out in pain, thrashing against his binds in the chair as Joel clasps his hand over his mouth, cloth acting as a barrier so he wouldn’t get bit.

“Are there more of you coming?” Joel asks in a calculated tone, “Did they send you here to survey?”

“They’re not after her,” the man chokes out with a sick grin, “but when they find her here, well…”

Joel wraps his fingers around short strands of hair and yanks the man’s head to the side, the point of his knife positioned at the man’s jugular.

“Oh—woahwoah, wait!”

It’s embarrassing how easy it is to make a weak man break.

“They’ve…been watching this place for a while,” he admits breathlessly, eyes glancing nervously at Joel’s knife, “I just did what I was told—they roughed,” a strangled swallow and a quick breath from the man, your arms tighten over your chest as you stare him down, “roughed me up and—and I was supposed to create an opening in a couple days, they—“

“How far are they?” Joel asks suddenly.

“I dunno man!” He shouts.

“Why?” You speak up without warning, both of the men’s attention drawing toward you, “Why now?”

He swallows, eyes flicking up toward Joel out of fear.

“We’re running low—on supplies, housing, everything. This place is the closest that looked—looked worth taking.”

“Where are they now?” You know he knows, pressing the matter.

“I don’t fucking—“

You step forward quickly, ripping the knife out of Joel’s hand and positioning it at the center of the man’s chest, right above his heart.

“Okayokay—the lodge—the fucking lodge!” He sputters, “We’ve been watching your patrol schedules for months and they found a blind spot, they’re held up at the lodge. Please, I told you, just don’t fucking—“

The blood rises in his throat quickly, your face scrunching up in disdain as you press the blade through his skin until it reaches his heart and his body slumps, staring at Joel the entire time.

For a moment, there’s bewilderment.

The last time you and Joel stood around a dead body there had been nothing but raw desire and emotion, but now there was an understanding. Connection.

“That was stupid,” he remarks, with no real threat in his voice, “really fuckin’ stupid.”

“You would have ended up killing him too.”

You weren’t wrong and Joel knew it.

—

It’s hastily planned, but done with an urgency that carries a heavy burden.

It was Tommy, Joel, and a handful of men, stirring around the gate at midnight when Joel catches you sneaking up on him, bag packed and ready to leave.

He’d left you there for reasons unknown—possibly out of guilt, or fear, but it didn’t matter because you were here and you were going, whether he liked the idea or not.

He doesn’t even combat it, really.

“You sure?” he asks with no malice or apprehensiveness.

Your nod is all he needs.

The world outside the walls is always nothing but silence—eerie and gaunt.

Each footfall of a hoof echoes with a dread that is almost tangible and the wind is loud, roaring in your eyes as it sings a mournful tune.

Joel’s eyes meet yours briefly and in them, an unspoken agreement.

This was necessary, even if it is dangerous.

The hours that pass feel like years, the sun on the rise as you near the lodge.

It was quiet, too quiet—no movement, no sign of life.

Tommy was the first one to break off, telling Joel he was going to scope out the place on his own and you can see the way Joel’s jaw tenses at the idea, the muscle refusing to relax until his brother returns.

And when he does, there’s a slight breathlessness to his tone, “They’re sleepin’,” he tells Joel, “fuck waiting—we can get in there and deal with this before it turns into a blood bath,”

Joel’s already signaling the others, horses hitched to nearby trees and before you realize it, you’re moving again, faster now.

A plan is made with nothing more than hand signals. Half of you will circle around back, cover escape routes; the rest, straight through the front, guns drawn and ready. They wouldn’t have anywhere to go.

It’s as you approach, stuck to Joel’s side, that he can see the way your eyes dart around.

And then you spot him.

You hadn’t mentioned him to Joel, the history or the trauma that came with—but it was their leader, an older man who towered like an ox, intimidating without even trying.

There’s fear there, in your face, but it’s not the kind Joel expects and he knows you well enough to recognize it for what it is—you were starting to dissociate, his finger circling around your wrist to ground you as his hand tightened around the revolver in his grip. He almost says something, almost lets it slip, but there’s no time and it doesn’t matter now.

It’s not until you’re in the main room, a collection of cots and sleeping bodies in front of you, as they are able to subdue a few men with the end of their knives, that a floorboard betrays your presence.

The creak is deafening and you feel Joel tense beside you, his finger poised on the trigger.

Then suddenly, it's chaos.

You weren’t a fighter in this sense, so Joel’s main objective is to keep you close but away—it was a bloodbath in an instant, the flurry of grunts from men at the end of their life and Joel hastily shoves an attacker away before he shoots him point blank in the chest.

To your left, Tommy and another guy are pinning two men against the wall, barking orders to drop weapons and stand down and another man lunges toward you as Joel takes him down with a grim efficiency that speaks volumes of his past.

He doesn’t miss a beat.

But, somewhere amongst the fight, your grip slips from Joel, the blade of your knife slicing through the neck of a stranger, a man, an attacker, as you scramble toward the corner of the room.

There’s only a few moments of calm as you catch your breath, before a gun is being pressed against your neck and your arms are twisted behind your back and tugged, pressing you close to the solid press of a body.

Joel’s eyes had left you for a second—a second.

“I’ll put a bullet through her pretty little head,” Damien, their esteemed leader, shouts behind you, gasping at the grip he has on your hands, twisting them awkwardly behind your back, “think you got your fuckin’ fill, killing my men—”

Joel cocks his gun without hesitation and in retaliation, the leader does the same.

You close your eyes, an unsettling calm washing over you.

“You either leave without her or you don’t leave this place alive.”

—

"She’s not yours to claim,” Joel responds,” she’s not anyone’s."

Damien sneers, a sick grin crossing his features, "You think giving her freedom is a favor? She doesn't know what to do with it. She never did. She’s always been mine."

It was your choice to be here—not Joel’s.

Yours and yours alone.

Despite his domineering position behind you, gun still tight against your throat—he sounded pathetic, not a single man to pedestal him up.

They all laid dead, strewn about the lodge and outside.

He didn’t stand a chance and yet—

“You don’t walk away from this. You don’t get to keep her."

He’s stalling—you can see it.

No one was coming, he had no tricks up his sleeve.

He’d relied on the element of surprise, hoping to blindside and ambush the town with ease.

“No one is going to keep me, not anymore,” you force through gritted teeth, “ and definitely not you.”

“You little bitch,” He snaps, slamming the but of the gun against your head as you fall to the floor, groaning in pain, “I’ll fucking gut y—”

Joel doesn’t let him finish.

The blood splatters against your face as you fall to your ass, a bullet ripping through his skull.

There is stillness then, almost immediate, a quiet that seeps through the lodge and pulses beneath your skin. A thunderous sort of silence. You feel it in the air, violent, rushing—yet nothing moves.

Joel shoves his gun into his jeans and approaches you with a careful hand, leaning down and using the fabric of his flannel button down to wipe away the thick blood from your face, staring up at him silently in the process of his movement, malleable to his hands as cleans you up.

And just like that, you owe everything to him. Again.

But, you knew there was no need for thanks—it was implied in the stretch of his gaze and a gentle nod.

—

“He raised me,” you explain to Joel a few moments later, staring down at the lifeless body of the man who had held you captive for years, reduced to nothing, “like—a father? But, then he—”

You watch as a few of the men begin to wrap up the body and prepare to drag it out the backdoor of the lodge.

“You ain’t gotta get into it, sweetheart,” Joel comforts, standing near but not touching.

You kneel down and reach into his pocket, stiffness under the fabric that leads you to a stack of items. A small knife, a hastily drawn map, and a few polaroids—just as the younger man had said.

They're unflattering to look at, bringing back an intense wave of emotion as you stare at yourself in the photos, laid in a compromising position and bare of any clothes. Joel can see the tremble in your fingers, unsure, so he pulls the polaroid away and promptly rips it in half, then again, letting the pieces drift to the floor.

Like it never existed.

“He started touching me after the surgery,” you continued despite his words, “then it was hours—days, sometimes. I had to be there for him, whenever he wanted. It hurt. The sex. But, they’re nicer when you take care of them. If I resisted, he'd cut me, hit me, burn me.”

Joel finds himself speechless for the first time in his life.

“They should go for them,” you tell Joel decisively.

The girls—the others, the ones too fearful to make the choice you did.

You knew they were still there.

“They deserve a chance, too—like the one you gave me. I can lead you there.”

Joel stares at you with a new look, face twitching with minimal emotion but his eyes spoke louder.

The difference between the girl he’d taken in so long ago and the one standing in front of him now was night and day.

After the men had decidedly made the move to raid the compound, there were about twenty girls—wounded, injured, but fortunately alive, that they were prepared to take in.

With that, Joel sees you come into your own.

A lot of your time for the next handful of months was spent caring for them, rehabilitating them, and being a source of hope and comfort in a time where they weren’t sure how to feel.

Joel’s astounded by the change.

And you’ve always known to admire—often for the sake of men’s pleasure and their own sick enjoyment. But, like this, sat in Joel's lap as he gave himself over, comfortable in the silence as his fingers slid up and down your thighs—this was for you.

His scars are plenty—scattered over his chest; some from knives from what you can tell, others from scrapes and gashes that didn’t heal well, a few lingering marks under his chin and one that rested unspoken against his temple.

Your thumb grazes over the raised skin and Joel is quick to guide your hand away, but gentle.

Joel mirrors the sentiment, admiring every inch of your body with a silent look, eyes focused on the trail of his fingers, the way you shiver from his touch.

His curiosity is like his touch—persistent, soothing. It’s easy to let yourself melt into him, let the heat and intimacy roll over both of you. You can see the exhaustion on his face, too.

It was a long day for both of you, too much violence and strife for any one person.

You’ve never slept so soundly next to him, but his touch returns in the morning.

His hands trail over you with such careful urgency, a man intent on giving, taking only the contentment that washes across your face, watching you rouse from sleep.

You shift beside him, pressing closer to the growing need that stirs between you both. His hand is incredibly wonderous between your legs as he guides your knee up, spreading yourself open for him as you shift more to your stomach. Joel pulls you in and his mouth grazes over your shoulder, each kiss a promise of something deeper, something more.

His breathing catches when you move against his fingers, an unexpected vulnerability in the way he traces circles on your bare back with his lips and tongue.

“So fuckin’ beautiful,” he murmurs, voice low and driving right through you like a knife.

And he means it.

Heat pools inside you, spreading like a wildfire. Joel’s fingers dig into your hips as you push your shorts down, underwear pooling at your ankles before you kick them away and settle yourself against his cock as he hastily shoves them down, pulling a gasp from both of you.

He groans softly and the sound sends a shiver down your spine.

You’re not eager, either—not as ravenous as usual. This was entirely for Joel and you were okay with that, in fact, you wanted it more than you cared to admit.

Joel presses his forehead into the crook of your neck, lips grazing your skin as he exhales,his fingers slide from your hips to cup your ass, pulling you further in. Your fingers twist into the sheets as you moan into your pillow, a weak sound that Joel wouldn’t have heard had he not been so close.

He’s warm and hard against you, letting yourself melt into it, into him.

He moves slowly, each roll of his hips deliberate and electrifying.

You moan again, unable to keep it in as he shifts his grip slightly to find the angle that makes you whimper and bite down into the sheets.

The sound of his breathing fills the air between you, ragged and raw.

The room is filled with the desperate sound of skin on skin and his soft noises.

“Fuck,” he whispers, more of a breath than anything

Your hand finds purchase in his hair behind you, clutching tightly as he thrusts deeper.

He’s pressed against every inch of your body, sinking into the sheets as his hand comes around your head, hovering over you lazily as he fucks you without urgency, hot skin against your own and you’ve never wanted something—someone, so bad.

The whole world narrows down to this—the two of you.

And you couldn’t be more satisfied.

Life had a sick way of give and take.

As you find your place, your comfort with Joel again, Ellie slips through his fingers.

The conversation about Ellie’s immunity was never something you were supposed to hear, but it came about during a hushed conversation late at night, sneaking out of Joel’s bed to the faint rumbling of voices.

“You don’t think it’s strange I’ve never met anyone else like me?” Ellie asked, coat and shoes on like she was prepared to leave—patrols never left this late.

There is nothing but silence on Joel’s end, glancing at her sideways from the kitchen table, his reading glasses perched on his nose and a book open in front of him, knowing Joel was riddled with an insomnia you’ve become familiar with.

“Ellie, enough,” you can hear the way his teeth grind, “we’re not talkin’ about this right now,”

You see his chin turn slightly behind him, sensing your presence.

But, Ellie doesn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed.

“I can’t be turned,” she says suddenly, at you, “I’m immune.”

It was like a child rambling off her darkest secret, much to the dismay of Joel as his chair skirts back and he stands, a warning.

“She barely talks,” Ellie says offhandedly, and it stings, “who’s she gonna tell?”

There’s a brief flash of apology that shows on her face, but she focuses on Joel, simmering with a similar anger you’ve seen within him. It was damn near identical.

Later, after Ellie leaves for the night, you find yourself curled up against Joel, his fingers rubbing idly against your shoulder as he tries to sleep, but fails.

“What did you do?” you ask suddenly, turning your head up to look at him, his face emotionless.

“They wanted to test on her,” Joel tells you, like he’s reciting a script, “weren’t even sure it would work, it was just experimental. They wanted to dissect on her brain, all on a fuckin’ maybe—I saved her.”

“Is it what she wanted?”

Joel pauses, eyes flicking down briefly and away from you, guilt washing over his features.

“She deserves a life—that cure, it was a goddamn pipe dream, that’s it.”

You stay quiet, chewing at the inside of your cheek as you try to put yourself in his shoes, understanding the choices he made.

“I killed…” Joel starts hesitantly, not that his violent side was unfamiliar to you, “a lot of people, innocent ones to protect Ellie.

“Does she know?” you ask curiously, not an ounce of judgement in your tone, something that Joel seems to notice, his shoulders relaxing.

He shakes his head in silence.

You nod with a somber understanding and curl into him, fingers tugging at the center of his shirt until he angles his body against your own. It takes time, but eventually sleep takes him, the warmth of you wrapped around him.

—

You had decidedly packed Joel’s bag for patrol a few weeks later, his first patrol without you by his side in almost two years, listening to the faint voice of Joel and Ellie on the front porch as you traverse the Miller home.

The tension between Ellie and Joel had risen to a point unfathomable—after she had discovered Joel’s wrongdoings, it had become a heavy point of contention.

And the party from a couple nights ago was the catalyst.

It was supposed to be a celebration for the town, nothing but joy to go around.

You’ve never seen Joel so helpless, attempting to defend Ellie in a moment of vulnerability, not realizing just how well Ellie has come to hold her own. She’d given Joel the full wrath of her resentment toward him and stormed off without a word, nothing but sadness on Joel’s face.

This conversation was a long time coming, months of build up and frustration culminating, hushed voices and broken whispers as Joel looked down somberly into his empty mug from the blinds you peeked through, hastily brushing away a tear.

He joins you in his room a while later, his belongings packed up in the chair at his desk, the lamp at his bedside table illuminating the room in a dull, orange glow.

“It was time to let go,” you assure him, knowing Joel had done everything he could to protect Ellie, “She’ll figure it out—and if she needs to, I’m sure she’ll come to you.”

Joel brings your knuckles to his lips, looking at you as he pressed a kiss to the skin before tugging you playfully forward, quickly swinging your leg over his thigh so you could straddle him properly.

“You’ll wake up tired in the morning,” you warn him, eager fingers digging into supple flesh, his thumb pushing the fabric of your shorts down, “Joel—seriously,”

“I’m dead serious,” he responds, using you as a distraction, eyes focused on the sliver of skin peeking from under your top, his thumb rubbing over the faded scar, your hand pressing to hold him there, “—sure you can handle a couple days without me?”

You nod assuredly, pressing a gentle and teasing kiss to his lips that he chases eagerly.

“You’re gonna make me wait, aren’t ya?” Joel asks, a slight chuckle in the back of his throat as you push him away playfully.

"Gotta make sure you come home to me," you tell him.

It was a big step, relinquishing the claim you and Joel had on one another, fearful that something horrible would happen if you two were to part—but you knew that Joel was careful, safe.

Even with hoard creeping closer and winter releasing it’s wrath this time of year, Joel had never been reckless. He was indestructible, really.

He’d survive—he’d come home to you.

Joel smiles lazily, breathing in your scent as he buries his face into your neck and rolls you into the bed, cuddling himself around your back.

It was a welcome change to not be treated so fragile, like you would break from a single touch—without Joel, you weren’t sure you would have ever reached this point.

To him, you were forever indebted.

Joel had fixed the things about you he’d never broken, rebuilt you piece by piece and reinforced the strength with his words, his actions—because without him, you weren’t sure you would have ever survived this long.

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #the last of us #pedro pascal #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fic #tlou fanfiction #pedro pascal fanfiction #my writing #fic: strangers

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hoseoksluna · 1 year ago

Text

BOOKWORMS | knj

pairing: boyfriend!namjoon x reader

genre: smut; fluff

word count: 4.4k

summary: namjoon thinks of you when he reads a smut scene in his book.

warnings: boyfriend namjoon!!!, kimi namijoon reading, mentions of sex (riding), oral sex (f. receiving), nipple play, the importance of consent, teasing, raw sex, breeding kink <3, big dick namu!!, dom/sub dynamics, spanking, joonie's chain dangling in ur face, tummy bulge, creampie, bruising, hickeys, aftercare:(

note: it took blood, sweat and tears (hehe) to write this and i'm so happy it's finally here!! i loved writing about namjoon. he's my whole soul and the entirety of my heart and i have to write abt him again soon. please take your time reading this and enjoy urself! let me know what you think in the comments mwah (or tell me anonymously in my inbox) and as i always say please like and if u want to - reblog, but i won't pressure u baby. love love you!!

side note: if you want to jump straight to the smut, it's right under the asterisks <;3

You revel, you truly do, in seeing your boyfriend in such a serene state of mind.

Nose buried in a book, Namjoon pays no mind to the surroundings fleeting by him with each flutter of his eyelashes. It goes unnoticed by him, strangely so, how you tidy up the apartment you share. How you feed the two cats that chose you and him to be their human parents. How you fondle their soft ears. How you bend over the furniture to whisper ‘pspsps’ at them when they need a moment away from you just to see their round eyes look up at you stupidly. Namjoon usually observes these moments; this utmost natural behavior of yours. He draws strength from the homeliness of it all with each and every swell of his lungs. Needs it to survive. That is until he gets a hold of that one papery portal and sits comfortably on the couch, one ankle propped over the knee. Then, he ceases to exist in this world.

You’re happy for him. Over time, you’ve come to find that you have a certain fondness for the way he remains stoic. Because you always know what kind of book he’s reading, a smile blossoms on its own over the line of your lips whenever your eye catches the sculpture-like look on his face. It’s like even if he let himself hold his breath, his consciousness would waver back to the earth and the wretched awareness that he’s here, among mortals and the unfair capitalist system aftermath, would stream in his bloodstream, poisoning his experience. It takes the leisure out of it and makes the bed for misery instead. He doesn’t like it. Hates it, in fact. It’s a necessity that he focuses, as he embarks on the journey, because he does it for you.

Namjoon confides in his feelings and his literature with you almost on a daily basis. On the same couch, with the same cats snoring faintly, their small bodies spilling over the perimeter of your tangled legs. Doesn’t matter if it’s his thigh or the curve of your hip. The animals always find a warm crook to doze in, eavesdropping in, with their curious little ears, on the conversations you’re having. Though you reckon they like the meat of his thigh the best. You do, too. Can’t really blame them. The same serenity that intimately knows the person of Namjoon perceives the person of you when he prompts you to rest your head on his lap while he brushes his book-kissed fingers through the silky waterfall of your hair. Thoroughly explains the intricacies of the plot he’s invested in to you. Describes the characters as if they’re real people he’s become acquainted with. They are real to you as you listen. As you ask additional questions and gaze up at his eyes just to catch that one body of a shooting star fiery hot in the glossiness of his eyes. As you wonder, openly, what will happen to them.

“I’ll tell you when they tell me.” He sunk the promise onto the smooth skin of your forehead with the pucker of his lips.

It’s how you discovered, in all seriousness, that the plaster of his stoicism breaks during these literary moments.

Various colors of emotion tug and twist his features, the bare kind. The unrestrained kind. You know it’s a relief for him when the dam bursts open, soaking you in the beauty of humanness one only finds in literature these days. You can’t help but fall in love with him all over again when his eyebrows furrow. When his orbs nearly burn a hole in the ceiling when he’s trying to think of the right word that will ultimately help him convey the unfolding of the storyline. When he gives up and weaves English into his sentences, relying on his hands to say what his overstimulated brain fails to do.

He reads to pass knowledge to you. The serenity whispered it into the chambers of your heart, a puff of hot breath in winter’s cold. It soothingly rubbed his shoulders when Namjoon told you there used to be a time when he couldn’t stand the sight of his books lining up the walls of his apartment. Wanted to burn it down and watch as the evidence of his melancholy dies in front of him. Because that’s what most of his book collection consisted of back then. The innermost shadowy faces of his pain. Loneliness. Sadness. Despair from life, from it not being enough for him, from it not saving a spot there for him–not once throughout the course of his life. That’s why he reads different kinds of books now. Ones that do not reflect his survival before you.

The reader has to get wiser, ruffled by life in order to gain more, gain what they need from those once deeply loved pages. It’s what the serenity believes. It’s what you believe and hope for Namjoon. That one day, somehow by the healing of the love you give him, he will look back and pick a souvenir from that moonless country of pain. Put it up somewhere between the spines of his new cluttered collection. Look at it from time to time and sense that it’s telling him something. Something that will fill the stitched-up cracks in his heart with sunlight. Something that he will pass over to you. It’s your love language after all. Namjoon reads because you read. It’s his own personal healing thing.

You two are just a pair of two bookworms. Unfit for the world outside. Fit for the land you two created. Whose soil you take care of together.

***

Dinner is almost ready by the time you feel his fingertips gripping your hips. You hum, acknowledging his presence. Glad for the homely heat that radiates off of his body and seeps into your bones as you stir the risotto you decided to make on the stove. Coldness had been embracing you all day while he read so you’re overjoyed that he ripped it away from you.

Namjoon places a kiss on your temple and you sigh in relief. You might be too dependent on him, but so is he. He wouldn’t be nuzzling his face in your hair, squeezing your waist, peppering kisses on your tender skin if he wasn’t. It’s the perfect balance. And it’s not that you’re not able to be away from each other. The principle of looking forward to one another is what makes it so sweet, so endurable for the pair of you. Of the coming back and coming into contact at the end of the day. It’s natural. Simple. Human.

“Missed me?” Namjoon husks into your ear.

You smirk and turn off the stove, turning around to face him. “Terribly.”

His body is clad in a black T-shirt that fits his broad figure well and a pair of baggy sweats of the same color, having discarded the warm crewneck he was wearing earlier somewhere in the universe of his book. A long silver chain twinkles in the middle of his chest in the yellow light. You caress it with your fingers and leave your palm there, on the hardness of his pecs.

“I finished the book,” he says and you blink up at him. You’re not surprised at all. “Couldn’t put it down.”

Sleepy wrinkles have left their mark on his face from the cozy position he laid in for too long on the couch. His short sunlit hair, grown healthily from his military service, is tousled in all directions and you smooth it down for him. How did God bless you with such a beautiful man is something you’ll wonder about for the rest of your life.

“What happened to Theo in the end?” you ask, genuinely curious about whether one of the characters you’ve grown attached to is okay after all the shit the author put him through.

Namjoon was reading a coming-of-age book about a boy named Theo. A panorama of his childhood and adolescent life, you’ve heard all about it. Namjoon cared a lot about this story, cared a lot about the protagonist’s emotions and reactions to the reappearing storms. What made him stick with it, despite the nearly triggering themes, is the fact that Theo never let go of his optimism no matter what. It was incredibly inspiring for Namjoon. Something new. Something that he never thought could be possible. You’re proud of him for daring to read a book so reminiscent of his past.

“You’re not gonna believe it,” Namjoon says, a blush creeping along his cheeks.

You raise one of your eyebrows in question.

“Theo got laid,” Namjoon reveals, laughing softly. “I’m so happy for him.”

You gasp and burst into giggles. “What?”

“He got some!”

Your laughter rises in volume. “He lost his virginity and that’s the end?”

“It was a big moment for him. A triumph of some kind. Like he shed his old skin and left that broken life behind. It was amazing.” Namjoon’s eyes glint with tiny shooting stars and you melt. He always finds poetic meanings in the varieties of the character arcs. You think you just fell in love with him all over again.

“That’s really beautiful,” you admit. It reminds you of something. Of something quite personal. “My first time with you changed my life as well.”

Namjoon’s eyebrows curl in tenderness. Dragon eyes widen and round in fervent emotion. He squeezes his arms around you, enfolding you in a hug. Kisses you warmly. Strokes your hair down your back. Your own eyes pool with little tears with the intimate knowledge that you chose the right person to unfold your raw femininity with. No one, no man other than him could have created such a safe for that to happen.

“Tell you what,” Namjoon says a bit hoarsely. “I saw us in it.”

You hum, encouraging him to continue. Crave for more of his thoughts and confidential findings. Its fire spreading through your body, as each word of his registers in your brain, always makes you feel phenomenally alive. You’re not timid to avow that it’s your addiction. Shame doesn’t know you.

“Elena was on top and he was watching her. In awe of her,” he murmurs, caressing your cheek with the tip of his thumb. “Made me think of our last time. A life changing experience of mine as well.”

You welcome the fire and suspire with sudden desire, eyes lidding. Your heart begins to thump. Namjoon studies your reaction.

“You remember well, don’t you?” He nudges his nose against yours. “I was in awe of you just the same.”

It’s impossible not to remember. The memory consumes your mind every waking hour. Gets you needy in ways you haven’t felt before. Namjoon had you sat on his lap among the fluffiness of your innumerable pillows and plushies. Had you do all the work as he focused on the sleekness of your freshly moisturized calves, its coconut aroma interfused with the scent of sex and the euphony of your bounces, ragged breaths and broken moans making his head all fucked up. He was loud himself, more loud than you ever recalled him being. Reading your body at the mercy of the pleasure his hard length was giving you with his bottom lip sucked between his teeth. Not once did he take his eyes off of you, not once did he help you. Just gripped your calves. Your thighs. Your tits all in his face. Only when you came hard, out of your own delightful merit, did his eyes roll back. You left his hips glazed with the evidence of your well-deserved orgasm, a porcelain statue made glossy.

A little later, during your pillow talk, he told you he’d found the idea of you using him while getting yourself off extremely hot. Made him more hard than he’d been in a while. Begged you to be even more selfish next time, adding an indistinct, ‘well, of course, if you want’ to the end of his sentence because he’s Namjoon.

“I do,” you breathe. “Touched myself to it this morning while you were still asleep.”

Namjoon groans. “God.” He kisses the side of your neck. Gets close to your ear. “You wanna do it again, hm? Wanna fuck me?”

You might burst. His closeness, his heat, his need to ask for your consent turns you unstable. You’re choked up on your words, mind too fuzzy to say something. Turned on. Fucked up.

“You wanna show me how you touched yourself?” Namjoon continues, but you shake your head against the side of his face.

You had touched yourself in the shower. Couldn’t say no to the impulse. Sharing that part of you for his eyes to see isn’t something you’re quite ready for. To you, it’s still something that’s yours. Something private. A courage you have yet to pluck up. You’re afraid to give him this last part of your femininity.

“Not today,” you whisper, planting a kiss on his neck. Feel him shiver. “I’m sorry. Do you mind?”

Withdrawing from your neck, Namjoon looks you dead in the eye, brows twisted in stern seriousness. “Don’t ever apologize for something like that again. Hear me when I say that.”

You squeeze his shoulder, the corners of your mouth lowering in a pout. Thankfulness grips your heart and suddenly it’s hard to breathe.

“You know this is why we do this right?” he asks you. “Why I ask you these questions? I need to always know what you’re comfortable with so I don’t make a mistake.”

You nod. “Yes, Namjoon, I know and I’m so thankful.”

“Good. I’ll never push you to do anything you don’t want. Don’t forget that, okay?”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“That’s my girl.

You grab him by the back of his neck and engulf him in a hug. Luckiest girl in the world? That you are. The fact that you’re his is still something you can’t wrap your head around.

“We can stop. We don’t even have to do anything tonight—”

“No, Namjoon.” You withdraw. “Look.” Wrapping your hand around his wrist, you slip his hand beneath the confines of your panties.

His breath shakes when he reaches your soaked folds. He traces your hole with his middle finger and your hips follow his movement, the pleasure so faint but so good that you flutter your eyes closed.

“Fuck, baby.”

“Yeah, I need you. Need more,” you breathe out. “Can’t leave me like this, can you?”

Namjoon hums. “No, I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of this pussy.”

He kisses you. Massages his tongue against yours. You buck your hips into his hand and Namjoon hears your body language. Takes his fingers up and rubs your swollen clit from side to side, quickening his pace as he swallows your moans down his throat. Gets angry at your tight leggings hindering him in giving you more, so he gets on his knees and swiftly pulls them down along with your underwear.

“Sit on the counter.”

You comply right away. Namjoon takes your feet in his hands and gently removes your slippers, removing your garments fully so they don’t pool around your ankles. He needs your legs spread and he needs them spread wide for what he’s about to do to you.

Torso long enough to reach you, he remains on his knees. Runs his hands up the back of your thighs to guide you into the position he wants you in. “Lock your arms around the back of your knees. Don’t let go.”

You do as he says, biting your lips in nervousness. Intertwine your hands together. Prepare yourself to die.

Namjoon studies your dewy pussy, index and middle finger mimicking the letter V as he slides them up and down your folds, squeezing just right to hear you mewling. Your knees being so close together makes her look a lot more pillowy and you hear Namjoon breathe hard, absolutely hypnotized by the beauty of your flesh.

“Fuck, baby, you’re dripping down my hand.” He withdraws his fingers to show you how your slick trickles down the lines on his palm, changing the course of his life once and for all.

Your clit throbs, breath matching his. “Please, Namjoon.”

He curses inaudibly. Brings his fingers back down to your folds, squeezes your lips and your clit together. Hisses at the sweet whimpery sounds spilling out of your mouth. Presses tighter so you whine needily for him. Takes you into his mouth when he accomplished what he wanted, tonguing your clit in slow agonizing circles that has you buckling your hips again. Puts his hands on your thighs to keep you down, flicking fast to absolutely abuse the fuck of you. Dragon eyes zeroing on yours, he gives you the hypnosis that your pussy did to him as he sucks on your bundle of nerves. You can’t even scream. Can’t breathe. The pleasure overwhelms you wholly and straps you down. There’s nothing you can do but take it.

You come hard on his tongue. Namjoon laps it all up gladly. And when he’s finished, he stands up and slips those two digits that ruined you into your hole. Doesn’t move them. Lets you adjust instead.

“One more,” he mutters. “Please.”

You nod.

“Use your words or we’re stopping.”

You groan and close your eyes, your thighs visibly shaking in your iron grip from your orgasm. “Yes, Namjoon, one more. I’ll come for you.”

Namjoon places a wet kiss on your thigh to praise you, and to thank you as well. Begins to move his fingers promptly, but can’t seem to get enough of your skin. Proceeds to make it shiny with his liquid love, sucking it to bruise you. To remember this moment a little more fondly in the morning.

Creating a trail up to the back of your knee, his digits pick up the speed. The pool of slick you left in his palm sloshes with each rapid thrust of his hand. He looks back at you and sees you lost in the pleasure, eyes lidded and unfocused. “Look at me.”

You do, weakly.

“Just a little bit more and I’ll fuck you, all right?”

You’re about to nod, but decide against it. “Mhm, yes, Namjoon, fuck.”

He smiles down at you. Your relief inches closer. “I’m so proud of you for speaking up today. For letting me know.”

You could cry right now. Because of his fingers making you feel so good. Because of his kindness making you feel so safe. It all closes in on you and you whimper.

Abruptly, Namjoon unravels your grip on your knees and kisses you, tongue slipping in. You come all over his hand, without meaning to, and he doesn’t stop. On the contrary, Namjoon fucks you harder. Takes all four of his fingers and strums your clit, prolonging your orgasm, swallowing down all of your moans.

“Come on.”

Namjoon helps you down. If it weren’t for his arms holding you steady, you would’ve collapsed on the floor. Your legs shake, muscles taut and tense.

“I got you.”

Sat on the floor with his joggers and boxers pulled beneath his crotch, he pulls you down on his lap. A wisp of precum adorns his tip and you wrap your hand around it, collecting it with your thumb. Watch him as you swirl your tongue around the digit before sucking on it, letting go with an obscene pop. Namjoon licks his lips, hands clasping your hips hard enough to bruise you. Twitches in your other hand.

“Don’t fucking do that to me, baby.”

You laugh almost inaudibly, drunk on him. “Are you gonna come in me?”

He replaces your hand, holding his length at the base for you to sink down. And you do, gasping softly at his thickness. Your dewiness helps it to be a smooth ride.

“Gonna pump you full. Leave you dripping,” he promises, voice restrained. “Gonna fuck you so good you’ll remember it for the rest of your life.”

One thing about Namjoon, he’s a man of his word.

Seated perfectly on him, he waits for you to adjust. Alleviates the tremble of your thighs with his palms, massaging the muscles. Takes off your shirt and flings it across the kitchen. Gropes your tits, rolling your nipples between his fingers. You start to grind on him, throwing your head back. He latches onto your nipple and flicks the nub with his tongue. You lose your mind, leaking down his balls.

“Ready?” he asks against the fullness of your breast.

“Yeah, fuck me, Joon.”

He thrusts into you once to watch you fall apart. Locks your arms behind your back. Grabs your forearms for his use.

“You forgot something.”

He thrusts again, harder this time.

“What?” you breathe out, meekly.

“What word do you use when you want to ask for something?”

He watches you as you work it out in your brain. Fucks into you three more times, equally hard, to disrupt you.

“Fuck, sorry. Please, Joon, please.”

He grinds, hips rotating in circles.

“Uh-huh, that’s right. Now use it.”

Namjoon envelops your tit in his mouth, swirling his tongue around your areola. Sucking. Keeping up the agonizing pace. Groaning when you clench down on him.

“Please, hmph, fuck me.”

Your breast bounces back when he lets go, biting his lip. “Knew you could do it,” he coos. “Smart fucking girl.”

He begins to fuck you properly. Thrusting up and down as he holds you steady, keeping his eyes locked on yours. As he takes control of your squirming, leaving his fingerprints on your forearms and waist. You’re breathless, whimpering, on the verge of sobbing. So turned on and needy for him that the emotions brim in you, threatening to spill over.

“Aren’t you?” Namjoon continues. “Aren’t you a smart girl?”

You nod, knowing exactly what he wants to hear. “I’m a smart girl.”

He spanks your ass to reward you and you arch your back. Tits all in his face. He’s mesmerized watching them bounce and nearly slap against each other, nubs hard and pointed. He licks them up, flicking them with his tongue. You round your shoulders a little in pleasure, his strong grip not letting you fold like your body wants.

“That’s right. So smart and good for me. So fucking wet. Making me lose my mind.”

Namjoon kisses you. Inhales you. Withdraws only for a mere second before he’s back, tongue in, toying with you the way you like it. You feel your relief calling your name.

“Namjoon, I’m so fucking close. I’m so close. I’m gonna come,” you whine, forehead pressed against his, face twisted in ecstasy.

Namjoon stops out of the blue and slips out of you. You whine loudly, but before you know it, he carries you to the couch and lays you down on it. Takes off all of his clothes until only his silver chain remains, shining bright in the dim light. He spreads your legs, one limb over the backrest, the other around his thigh. Grips his length and tugs at it a few times, the feeling of your wetness making him slippery pulling moan after moan out of him.

He enters you again and resumes his fast pace, holding your calf in his hand. “Smart girls come on the couch, not on the floor like whores. You got that?”

You nod almost too eagerly, fucked out beyond measure. “Yes, Joon, please make me come. Please, come here.”

Namjoon leans towards you, propping his elbows by your head, cradling you. “I’m here. I’m gonna make you come.”

From this angle, he fucks you more deeply than before, his tip reaching your cervix. You roll your eyes back, but bring them right back to his face when his chain taps you on the chin. You find it so hot that you grind your hips against his, meeting his thrusts, encouraging him to fuck you harder. The chain meets you in erratic staccatos and you scratch your nails down his bare back, the sword-like pendant hurting you in a way that you like.

Namjoon notices. Slows down his movements. Pinches the chain from the back of his neck. Prompts you to lift your head and slides it over, letting it rest in the middle of your breasts. Then fucks you back into the couch.

“So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs against your lips. “Gonna breed you. Hm. You want that, don’t you?”

The cord tightens in your lower belly. The bulge of where his tip is hitting you nudges him in his stomach and he looks down. Curses.

“Look.”

You follow his eyes and moan. “Namjoon, Namjoon, please come in me. I’m so close. Wanna feel you. Please.”

He grunts, nodding his head. Licks his fingertips and presses them against your clit. Pleasures you in fast and swift jerks until you’re knocking your head back. Only when he grabs your jaw and kisses you does the cord snap, his lips being your ultimate undoing.

Namjoon presses you down with his body, keeps you calm and collected. Kisses you all through it, your jaw, your neck, your cheeks. Then his thrusts turn sloppy and his cock twitches in you. He gives you one final hard thrusts and fills you up, groaning against your mouth.

You’re smoothing down the sting of your scratches on his back when he pulls out of you and his cum drips out of you. You wish you could see what he sees, hand on his mouth, careful to catch his drool. You push out more for him and he curses, fondling your pussy with his thumb before he pumps it back in.

He comes back to you and kisses you. Fixes your hair. Caresses your cheek. Helps you stand on your feet as he leads you into the shower. Washes every inch of your body, heedful of the bruises he left on the back of your thigh. Lathers your hair in your favorite shampoo. Wraps you in a towel. Wanted to moisturize your body, but you told him off, knowing both of you would get horny again. You let him brush your hair, though, placing a comb in his hand. He’s gentle as he undoes the knots, then he blowdries your hair.

And you do the same for him.

Once the pillow touches your cheeks, you’re both out like a light.

BACK to masterlist

#namjoon smut #namjoon x reader #namjoon x y/n #namjoon x oc #namjoon x you #btscreatorscorner #bts smut #bts imagine #namjoon imagine #namjoon scenarios #namjoon fluff #kpop smut #knj x reader #knj #kim namjoon #namjoon

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power-chords · 2 years ago

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Can you please explain your dialogue theory of fanfiction?

In short, that dialogue, more than anything, makes or breaks a fanfic. What do posts like "He would not fucking say that" and "They would NOT have communication skills that good" have in common? Talk. Characters expressing themselves to one another. The faithful recreation of identifiable speech patterns is weighted heavily in the evaluation of a fic's quality. By "speech patterns" I do not just mean the semantic content of a given character's expression, but idiosyncrasies of style and slang, vocabulary and idiom, even gesture, musicality, and rhythm.

Of course believable dialogue is far from the only thing that makes a good fanfic Good. And there are forms of fic writing, particularly highly abbreviated ones like drabbles and ficlets, that in practice tend to de-emphasize its significance. But if we are talking about the romantic, erotic shippy stuff that is the meat and potatoes of online fandom, dialogue does the heaviest lifting short of the consummation itself. Arguably more so! It's the real keystone to the catharsis, and often the catalyst for it. Is there a confession occurring? A provocation? An evasion or ultimatum? Zoom out, big picture: What is the most potent and fundamental mechanic for developing complexity, tension, and transformation within a relationship, getting it to go from one thing to another? Making these two idiots talk to each other! Often clumsily and indirectly and maladaptively, at the worst possible time and in the worst possible situation, about anything or everything but what they should be — but talk they usually do.

What makes fanfic specifically so challenging and rewarding in this regard is that the talking is as much a feat of translation as invention, because both reader and writer are working off an existing model. Liberties taken with plot, form, and even narrative voice have wider buffer zones; you can get creative with circumventing the events of canon while still conforming to its emotional and substantive essence.

But the training wheels come off the moment you open your mouth to speak in another character's voice. And man, nothing will break a reader's immersion quite like he would not fucking say that.

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randomthefox · 6 months ago

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These levels are absolutely the highlight of the game for me. I think when playing this game for the first time, these levels were what truly Sold me on Transformers as a franchise. For some reason the potential of the Robots In Disguise concept really just clicked for me thanks to this. Everything about it from the whole strategy briefing overview, to the adaptations they make in the field on the fly, to the disastrous conclusion really feels like a legitimate military operation and makes the whole idea of the Transformers WAR really feel like a real conflict. And it's all just such a joy to play, and the games graphics really make these locations feel like a spectacle.

Not only that but these levels made me really love the Combaticons! I absolutely adore their chemistry all throughout, their interactions with each other, the way their personalities bounce off one another. The fact they feel like real team mates both in how they bust each others balls and yet also support one another. It's good banter and it's solid squadmate dynamics. It really makes sense that they get along so well too considering they can combine into a single entity. The way Bruticus clearly has his own independent personality despite being a combination of five individuals is so interesting to me hehe. Plus that is such a fucking Megazord moment, if you know what I mean, when they combine together. I'm sure the Constructacons and Devastator are more popular, and perhaps they have a right to be. But I ADORE the Combaticons entirely because of these levels in this game. Teletran even has some dialog with Swindle that alludes to his character from TAS which is a cute easter egg.

The fact they have such a confrontational relationship with Starscream is also hilarious given their G1 origin story. I will say these levels feel SLIGHTLY like Starscream slander. Since he really doesn't feel like he should be THIS suicidal egotistical as a leader, and he never really sounded any retreats in the original show. But the parts where he's trying to take over the briefing speech and make dramatic little gesture poses and completely deflects all responsibility for the plan going tits up feel on brand at least. Still feel like they could have ended up in the same place plot and character wise WITHOUT having Starscream lead his wing into a meat grinder of the anti aircraft guns and then sounding a retreat like a whimp though.

This game kicks ass, Decepticons are fucking awesome.

#transformers #transformers fall of cybertron #fall of cybertron #combaticons #swindle #vortex #blast off #onslaught #brawl #bruticus #starscream

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thewriteadviceforwriters · 1 year ago

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Creating Compelling Character Arcs: A Guide for Fiction Writers

As writers, one of our most important jobs is to craft characters that feel fully realized and three-dimensional. Great characters aren't just names on a page — they're complex beings with arcs that take them on profound journeys of change and growth. A compelling character arc can make the difference between a forgettable story and one that sticks with readers long after they've turned the final page.

Today, I'm going to walk you through the art of crafting character arcs that are as rich and multi-layered as the people you encounter in real life. Whether you're a first-time novelist or a seasoned storyteller, this guide will give you the tools to create character journeys that are equal parts meaningful and unforgettable.

What Is a Character Arc?

Before we go any further, let's make sure we're all on the same page about what a character arc actually is. In the most basic sense, a character arc refers to the internal journey a character undergoes over the course of a story. It's the path they travel, the obstacles they face, and the ways in which their beliefs, mindsets, and core selves evolve through the events of the narrative.

A character arc isn't just about what happens to a character on the outside. Sure, external conflict and plot developments play a major role — but the real meat of a character arc lies in how those external forces shape the character's internal landscape. Do their ideals get shattered? Is their worldview permanently altered? Do they have to confront harsh truths about themselves in order to grow?

The most resonant character arcs dig deep into these universal human experiences of struggle, self-discovery, and change. They mirror the journeys we all go through in our own lives, making characters feel powerfully relatable even in the most imaginative settings.

The Anatomy of an Effective Character Arc

Now that we understand what character arcs are, how do we actually construct one that feels authentic and impactful? Let's break down the key components:

The Inciting Incident

Every great character arc begins with a spark — something that disrupts the status quo of the character's life and sets them on an unexpected path. This inciting incident can take countless forms, be it the death of a loved one, a sudden loss of power or status, an epic betrayal, or a long-held dream finally becoming attainable.

Whatever shape it takes, the inciting incident needs to really shake the character's foundations and push them in a direction they wouldn't have gone otherwise. It opens up new struggles, questions, and internal conflicts that they'll have to grapple with over the course of the story.

Lies They Believe

Tied closely to the inciting incident are the core lies or limiting beliefs that have been holding your character back. Perhaps they've internalized society's body image expectations and believe they're unlovable. Maybe they grew up in poverty and are convinced that they'll never be able to escape that cyclical struggle.

Whatever these lies are, they'll inform how your character reacts and responds to the inciting incident. Their ingrained perceptions about themselves and the world will directly color their choices and emotional journeys — and the more visceral and specific these lies feel, the more compelling opportunities for growth your character will have.

The Struggle

With the stage set by the inciting incident and their deeply-held lies exposed, your character will then have to navigate a profound inner struggle that stems from this setup. This is where the real meat of the character arc takes place as they encounter obstacles, crises of faith, moral dilemmas, and other pivotal moments that start to reshape their core sense of self.

Importantly, this struggle shouldn't be a straight line from Point A to Point B. Just like in real life, people tend to take a messy, non-linear path when it comes to overcoming their limiting mindsets. They'll make progress, backslide into old habits, gain new awareness, then repeat the cycle. Mirroring this meandering but ever-deepening evolution is what makes a character arc feel authentic and relatable.

Moments of Truth

As your character wrestles with their internal demons and existential questions, you'll want to include potent Moments of Truth that shake them to their core. These are the climactic instances where they're forced to finally confront the lies they believe head-on. It could be a painful conversation that shatters their perception of someone they trusted. Or perhaps they realize the fatal flaw in their own logic after hitting a point of no return.

These Moments of Truth pack a visceral punch that catalyzes profound realizations within your character. They're the litmus tests where your protagonist either rises to the occasion and starts radically changing their mindset — or they fail, downing further into delusion or avoiding the insights they need to undergo a full transformation.

The Resolution

After enduring the long, tangled journey of their character arc, your protagonist will ideally arrive at a resolution that feels deeply cathartic and well-earned. This is where all of their struggle pays off and we see them evolve into a fundamentally different version of themselves, leaving their old limiting beliefs behind.

A successfully crafted resolution in a character arc shouldn't just arrive out of nowhere — it should feel completely organic based on everything they've experienced over the course of their thematic journey. We should be able to look back and see how all of the challenges they surmounted ultimately reshaped their perspective and led them to this new awakening. And while not every character needs to find total fulfillment, for an arc to feel truly complete, there needs to be a definitive sense that their internal struggle has reached a meaningful culmination.

Tips for Crafting Resonant Character Arcs

I know that was a lot of ground to cover, so let's recap a few key pointers to keep in mind as you start mapping out your own character's trajectories:

Get Specific With Backstory

To build a robust character arc, a deep understanding of your protagonist's backstory and psychology is indispensable. What childhood wounds do they carry? What belief systems were instilled in them from a young age? The more thoroughly you flesh out their history and inner workings, the more natural their arc will feel.

Strive For Nuance

One of the biggest pitfalls to avoid with character arcs is resorting to oversimplified clichés or unrealistic "redemption" stories. People are endlessly complex — your character's evolution should reflect that intricate messiness and nuance to feel grounded. Embrace moral grays, contradictions, and partial awakenings that upend expectations.

Make the External Match the Internal

While a character arc hinges on interior experiences, it's also crucial that the external plot events actively play a role in driving this inner journey. The inciting incident, the obstacles they face, the climactic Moments of Truth — all of these exterior occurrences should serve as narrative engines that force your character to continually reckon with themselves.

Dig Into Your Own Experiences

Finally, the best way to instill true authenticity into your character arcs is to draw deeply from the personal transformations you've gone through yourself. We all carry with us the scars, growth, and shattered illusions of our real-life arcs — use that raw honesty as fertile soil to birth characters whose journeys will resonate on a soulful level.

Happy Writing!

#writing #writeblr #thewriteadviceforwriters #creative writing #on writing #writers block #writing tips #how to write #writers and poets #writers on tumblr #authors on tumblr #author #historical fiction #fiction #novel #publishing #short stories #short story #character arcs

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daycourtofficial · 1 year ago

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Never seen that color blue

Pairing: Azriel x reader | WC: 4.5k | Warnings: smut, PIV, unprotected sex, fingering, angst city baby population: me

Summary: follow up to 'I pretend you're mine all the damn time'. You and Azriel return home from that fateful mission. How will you two cope with your recent discoveries?

Author’s note: eeeek everyone loved part one and I was so happy bc I adored it so much and I was so glad to see such a good response!!! Anyway shout out to Hope @prythianpages she’s a real one she helped me with some plot stuff thank you thank you 🥰

Your sighs lived in Azriel’s ears, carried on the wind by his shadows. How they carried it he’s not sure - your sighs were left behind, echoing through the hall in that Illyrian camp he unceremoniously left.

He was so used to using his shadows as a shield to hide at least some part of himself. They had disappeared that night, making it impossible for him to hide the way you shine in his thoughts. The way everything he does brings him back to you. Before, he hadn't realized just how much of his life revolved around you - you had crept into the crevices of the day to day monotony of living together.

Every day he’d make some snide comment to Cassian, waiting to tell you about it so he could watch you scrunch your nose and laugh at whatever response Cassian had. If he was lucky, you’d throw out a hand onto his bicep, his skin immediately tattooing your touch into his memory.

Every day he would help you make lunch, stealing the occasional strawberry. You would swat at him, calling him a 'berry burglar'. It was a title he wore with pride, even more so when you had made him a ridiculous party hat for his birthday with the moniker across the top.

Every day during dinner you would steal something from his plate, whether it be a carrot or potato or bite of meat. You would say it was retribution for what he stole during lunch, and he’d allow it, a small smile on his face at your thieving.

From the entire flight home to now, two weeks later, his skin had remained on fire from your touch. Every nerve ending screamed your name, your scent, your heat. His thoughts were consumed by you previously, but now it was as if every thought had a backing track of your voice, your skin, your touch.

He tried to ignore it, tried to push it down, down, down. But every time he closed his eyes, his thoughts kept going back to the obscenities of that day. The way you looked as you rode him, how you laid yourself bare before him. The curve of your hips, the swell of your breasts. Your legs on either side of him, your mouth on his. The way your fingers touched his wings.

Gods, your fingers. How delicately you had touched him, as if he had ever been a fragile creature deserving of such tenderness. He had never let anyone touch his wings before, determined to leave some part of himself untouched if the Mother would ever bless him with a mate.

He doesn't care much about that now.

The images tortured him, finding him everywhere he went. At meals, in the shower, as he roamed the halls searching for your scent while still avoiding you. The worst was when he slept, he only dreamt of that night over and over again. He became insatiable. He was terrible for fisting his cock to the way you felt around him, the moans you made, how beautiful you had looked bare before him.

He was terrible for it not making a difference. He’d finish, shame and embarrassment coating him as his cock would immediately get hard again.

He didn’t know how to convey that he wanted more. He wanted you, all of you. Not when he practically forced himself on you once before. Not when he was burying himself away in his room, hiding in his shadows in the places in between, to avoid even a glimpse of you.

The flight home from that mission was the worst experience of your life. The only sound was the wind whipping around you two, his grip on you barely there. He kept you as far from his body as he could, and you couldn’t blame him. You had just violated him, for cauldron’s sake. And yet, your skin thrummed where his body made contact with yours, even through the multiple layers of leathers between you two.

The wind whipped into your eyes, making them an even harsher shade of red. The debrief with Rhys didn't even register to you, you couldn't recall a single moment of it even if you tried. Explanations of the mission were given from both you and Azriel, but the high lord knew something was wrong between you two.

Your eyes downcast to the floor, your thumb rubbing the skin of your other hand seeking some comfort. Azriel's wings twitched every so often, the only tell Rhys has ever been able to figure out from his brother.

You expected Azriel to tell Rhysand of your actions, asking him to execute you on the spot. You’d deserve nothing less.

But those words never came.

The meeting went by in a blur - your only memory of it is the back of Azriel's wings as you both left Rhys's office. The membranous skin was so close, and now you knew what it felt like. How incredibly smooth it felt as your fingers glided over the veins, feeling where his bones were underneath.

Your hands itched to reach out to feel them again. Instead you watched the back of him until he retreated into the room opposite your own, closing the door quickly behind him. Leaving you, yet again, alone, with more questions than ever before on the wrong side of the door, the answers you need behind it.

You considered knocking, bringing your hand up to the oak finish of his door. You hold your fist in the air, ready to strike, when you can't bring yourself to do it. Instead, you lower your arm, softly padding into the room across the hall, seeking comfort in your own bed.

You woke up the next day after a fitful sleep, one of dreams haunted by the male who slept across the hall from you. You moved to your bathroom, surveying your body in the aftermath of the mission. Not much bruising from the actual mission, but you were littered with Azriel’s touch.

You can make out all of his fingers on the bruising on your hips, your knees battered from the harsh desk you kneeled atop.

You’re sure Azriel’s back is littered with similar bruising.

Neither of you mentioned what happened in that room to anyone.

A week passes by, neither of you were brave enough to talk to the other or to anyone else. You don’t even see Azriel, not even a glimpse of his scent lingered in the hallways of the House of Wind.

You asked Cassian, and he told you that Azriel’s been around the house, but you two must be missing each other. You miss the curious gaze Cassian gives you, taking in your dark eyes, comparing them to the same bags underneath his brother’s eyes.

After you left, Cassian kept thinking about you and the sad look in your eyes as you said his brother’s name. He kept thinking as he continued making his lunch, thinking about how strangely the two of you had been acting for the past week.

Today marked an entire week since either you or Azriel have shown up to Valkyrie training. He was well aware that the training was somewhat optional, and that you two missed it whenever you were away on missions. But you were here in the house, you just came by to speak with him, but you wouldn’t come to training.

Cassian sighed, feeling like he was losing his godsdamn mind over the realization that something was wrong. Because it wasn’t just training. It was dinners, lunches, drinks, everything. At this point Cassian could be convinced fairly easily that the two of you moved out.

He huffed, knowing he’d have to do something about this mess. He was always cleaning up his brother's messes when it came to females. Rhys and Azriel just didn’t understand them the way Cassian did.

The opportunity for Cassian to act came when he happened across Azriel in an unused room in the House of Wind doing paperwork. He quickly slipped away, not wanting Azriel to catch wind of him being nearby and to leave abruptly.

He ran down to the kitchen, searching for you. He pulled you off your stool, telling you he had something important to show you.

“Shh, come on, you gotta be quiet or it’ll ruin the surprise.”

You rolled your eyes, but allowed him to slip you through the halls. He walked down one of the house's many hallways, stopping in front of a door you actually weren’t sure where it led to. Cassian opened the door and pushed you inside.

You hear the lock on the other side twist, shutting you inside. You turn around, trying the handle, only to find it not budging. You turn on the spot, resting your back against the door. Your palms are sweating as you look over to Azriel, shocked to find him in here. He looked just as bewildered to find you in here as you felt.

Stupid Cassian being a stupid busybody.

Breathe in, breathe out.

You calm yourself enough to open your mouth, only able to get out “Az-“ before the shadowsinger folded into his shadows, his hazel eyes the last thing you saw before he began disappearing before you. Your breaths become more ragged as you sink down to the floor, the reality of the situation sinking in.

He hated you.

And he should.

He couldn’t even stay in the same room as you.

Your voice is soft after you spend a few moments searching for it. “Cassian, please,” you whimper through the door, “he’s gone.”

Cassian unlocks the door, wide eyed looking down at you sitting on the floor. You can’t look at him, slowly rising back onto your feet. The shame, the embarrassment floods you as you walk past him, not answering his questions or his confused gaze.

You open the door to your room, laying down in bed and just crying. He won’t even look at you after what you’ve done to him.

Cauldron, what have you done?

Cassian stops by at some point, dropping off some water and some food. You have no idea what time it is, you don’t hear whatever it is he says, hardly register his presence as he climbs into your bed, pulling you into his warm chest.

It was then you broke your silence, repeating, “I fucked up, he won’t even look at me” over and over until you eventually wore yourself out.

You woke up the next day, eyes puffy from crying all night.

You know what you have to do, but you don’t want to. You get dressed, heading through the house to Cassian’s door. You knock swiftly, head swiveling down the hall to ensure Azriel isn’t lingering about. Nesta opens the door, her hair wet from her fresh from training bath.

“Can we talk?”

After explaining your thoughts and plans to them, both of them against your ideas but still not knowing exactly why you feel the need to do this, Cassian flies you to the River House, dropping you off to speak with Rhys while he goes and spends some time with Feyre.

You knock on the door to Rhys’s office, and he quickly opens the door letting you in before leaning against his desk, bracing his hands behind him.

You sit in the chair across from him, nervously twisting one of your rings trying to figure out how to start this conversation, when Rhys’s voice interrupts your thoughts.

“You want to leave.”

Stupid Cassian butting in again.

“Is this because of-“ he twirls his hands around in the air- “whatever’s going on between you and Azriel?”

There’s no point in hiding it anymore.

“Yes.”

Your tone is flat, trying to keep it together when all you want to do is fall apart. Everything was wrong, so so so wrong.

“And you think running away will fix your problems?”

“I’m not running away,” your tone becomes more defensive, “I messed up, he won’t look at me anymore, I’m giving him space.”

“How long will you give him this space?”

“However long it takes me to be able to look in the mirror again.”

Rhys’s smugness deflates, a pang echoing through him about all of the shitty choices he was forced to make on behalf of someone else.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” you added, “I’m just moving into a different house. I’ll be in the same city. It’s not a big deal.”

His eyes bore into yours, “if it’s not such a big deal, you can do it.”

“Thanks, but I wasn’t really asking permission-“

“But you have to tell him.”

Later that night you open the door to Azriel’s room, dashing in and softly shutting the door behind you before placing your body in front of it.

The room was one you’ve spent countless hours in - Azriel considered you to be the only member of the Inner Circle he trusted enough to share his private space with, an inclusion that you valued greatly.

The walls were a beautiful shade of blue, deep and rich like the ocean singing to you from the shore. The walls held a few paintings from Feyre - one depicting Ramiel, one a portrait of some of his shadows, and one a sweet moment when the two of you had fallen asleep together on a couch, Azriel’s body draped across yours, wings covering the couch and the tips touching the floor.

She had given it to him privately, because she knew Cassian would surely have some choice words about it. You hadn’t been there when she gifted it to him, but you do remember how his eyes couldn’t meet yours the first time you saw it as he called it ‘cute’.

Azriel was sitting at his desk, papers strewn across it, hair mused from running his fingers through it.

He looked up, his face scrunching at the sight of you in his room. His eyes narrow, trying to discern if this was real or not. He scans your body, looking for some indication that this wasn’t real, that his mind was still playing tricks on him.

“We need to talk,” looking up to the ceiling, you started pacing around his room, trying to block out his smell, the heat from his gaze, as you tried to remember the speech you had prepared about how it would be good for the both of you to have space.

Azriel’s demeanor shifts, “yes, we do.”

You start wringing your hands, needing something to do with them. Your mouth opens and closes like a fish, desperate to find the words to start your rambling.

“I assaulted you.”

Okay, not the best first words. Azriel’s face doesn’t change as he watches you try again.

“I’m leaving.”

Still not great words.

“I took advantage of you, when we were in that room. I assaulted you and Rhys should throw a noose over my neck for it.”

Azriel tries to interrupt, but you stop him.

“There was no way you could have actually consented to that. You were out of your mind, and I took advantage of you. You were needy and I used you for my own gratification and it’s killing me. And I know it’s killing you. You can’t even look at me, for cauldron’s sake!”

Your feet move of their own accord, pacing in front of the door, unable to look at the male before you.

“You- I-,” you don’t want to tell him, not like this, but you need to air everything out before letting him go completely. You turn to face him, his expression unreadable.

“I’m in love with you. I have been for cauldron knows how long. And I- I thought I was helping you, but now you can’t even look at me and when you walked out I realized that I fucked up and let my feelings cloud my judgement-“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

Azriel’s words put an end to your rambling, making his way over to you.

“What are you talking about? I forced your hand - you felt obligated to help me-“

It was at this point you both began speaking over each other, trying to get the other to see how awful you were in your decisions.

“-but I practically pinned you down-“

“-held you down on my-“

“-you were out of your mind-“

“-drunk on lust-“

Neither of you stop until a shadow comes whirling by, pushing both of you forward unsteadily. Hands reach out to catch each other, yours falling onto his chest.

“But I- I told Rhys I was moving out for a while, to give you space.”

“I don’t want space.”

You shake your head, not allowing yourself to believe his words, “but you’ve been avoiding me for weeks now, I thought.. I thought you hated me.”

Azriel’s hand tentatively moved up to your cheek, cupping your jaw, “I thought you find me repulsive for forcing you to… help me.”

“No,” you say, hands resting on his hips, “I don’t find you repulsive at all. Do you think I’m a monster?”

He snorts, “no, no.”

The two of you keep your gazes locked, the room charged with emotion. Even his shadows were still, allowing the circulation of the room to move them as they waited to hear what you two said next.

Azriel’s voice is quiet, his words coming out in a soft exhale, “I haven’t been able to get the sight of you out of my head.”

Your palms pressed against his chest, the ends of your fingers curling to grasp onto him. His fingers tangle in the ends of your hair, lightly grasping it.

“The past week, I could close my eyes and swear I could still feel you on top of me.”

You stop breathing at his words.

“You’ve been following me around like a ghost. I’ve hardly slept. All I can think of is how good I felt wrapped up in you - how it felt to be inside of you."

When you think of this night years later, you can never exactly figure out who moved forward first. Maybe it doesn’t really matter whose lips were the ones to make first contact.

The kisses you shared under Azriel’s drugged haze were rushed, desperate, laced with years of yearning underneath a haze of burning need.

Now it was all pressure, putting everything into the kiss you haven’t said. The words would come later. As would the many, many nights of staying up, words of adoration flowing between you two.

Tonight was about rewriting history, redoing previous touches.

For weeks all you could think of was him, his moans floating through your mind like a song. You woke to the sound, and it lulled you to sleep each night. Hearing those moans again made you ache with need, as if your one night together had already conditioned you.

You open your eyes to watch his darken with need, pupils blown wide. You grabbed the front of Azriel’s shirt, pulling him as close to you as possible.

You started pulling his shirt out from his trousers, reaching your hands around the back to undo the snaps underneath his wings. You start pushing the fabric up, and Azriel breaks away from you just enough to pull the shirt over his head.

His lips are immediately back on yours, a new urgency to his touch as his hands move to your ass. His hands squeeze the flesh as you bite his bottom lip.

His fingers tap twice, urging you to jump up, hooking your legs around his waist, your dress pooling at your hips.

He presses you into the wall, his mouth moving down your jaw, down your neck, down your chest. You move your fingers up to his hair, tugging lightly as he sucks on the top of your breasts, leaving a litter of hickeys across what he can see.

His hands reach down, mouth still on you, and he lifts the hem of your dress, pulling your head from the wall so he can pull your dress off.

He gazes at you, eyes heavy with lust as they roam your body, your underwear the only thing covering you. He smirks as he pushes his hips back into yours, causing you to moan at the contact.

“Beautiful,” he mumbles, and you’re not sure if it was something he meant to say out loud or not, but your cheeks blaze with heat just the same.

His lips reattached to yours, and you slid your hands back down his torso just enough for him to slam his hips into you, causing your eyes to roll back with need.

You start digging into his skin lightly with your nails, and he goes back to kissing your neck. Your fingers find the strings to his pants, which you try to start undoing, but he keeps thrusting against you, distracting you.

“Stop,” you say, breathy, “let me- undo- your pants.” He accented every other word with a thrust, leaving you breathless and soaked.

“I’m gonna- cum from this- if you don’t stop.”

His eyes light up, one of his hands holding you against the wall, the other sliding up your waist to your breast.

“Is that a challenge?”

“N-no.”

His fingers circle your nipple, pinching lightly causing you to moan at the sensation, hips thrusting with more intensity against Azriel.

“See, I think it’d be pretty hot if you came in your underwear.”

“But I- want to be- on your cock.”

“Oh but you are, baby.”

Your hands gripped his hips as you grind harder and faster onto him, feeling yourself tighten, getting closer, and closer, and closer.

“That’s it, baby. Cum for me.”

His words sent you toppling over the edge, loud moans escaping you as he held you up. Your face fell into his shoulder, and he rubbed your back.

He kissed the top of your head, moving his hands under your thighs to carry you to the bed. He collapsed onto it with you on top of him, slowly coming down from your high.

You breathe heavily on his chest, kissing his neck and down his chest as your hands move down the planes of his stomach. Fingers move through his happy trail, stopping to lightly tug on the waistband of his pants.

He lifts his hips so you can shimmy his pants off of him, letting his cock spring free. He groaned at the freedom, his cock hard and throbbing already. He flipped the two of you, his weight now on top of you, his hand sliding up the underside of your thigh leaving goosebumps in its wake.

“You are so beautiful,” he tells you.

"Az," you pant.

His fingers tighten their grip on your hip, "yes, baby?"

"Please touch me."

"So polite," he says, his fingers circling your clit. You moan at the contact, hiding your face in his neck. He quickly nips your ear, eliciting a gasp from you. “Eyes on me, baby. I want to see you.”

You bite his neck in retaliation, and he laughed as you pulled your face from his neck, his fingers tilting your chin to look at him. His thumb gently caressed your jaw as his other hand continued stroking your clit.

His fingers were divine, but as his eyes stared into yours, nothing existed outside of the two of you. Your hand moved down his chest, scraping your nails against his toned torso. The action caused his fingers to stutter slightly, but as he felt your hand move closer to his hips, he started moving faster.

He shuddered as your hand wrapped around his cock, your thumb stroking from the base to his tip. His movements falter at the distraction and his eyes darkened even further.

“Fuck,” he moaned, biting his lip.

You grin, his distraction spurring you on. You lifted your hips up, sliding your underwear off before settling back down onto the bed. His weight is nestled back on top of you, the two of you staring at each other. Your hand moves some of his hair out of his face, then moved gently to hold his face.

“We can’t go back after this.”

“I don’t want to go back.”

With his words, he slides his cock into you, feeling just as good as you remembered.

“I can’t go back.”

His words come out clipped as he thrusts into you slowly, stretching you so deliciously. You moan at his movements, causing him to go faster. His face is inches from yours, his warm breath hitting your face.

Shadows enveloped around the two of you, making a cocoon of sorts. To keep the world out or the words in, you’re not sure. All you know is this moment with Azriel.

“I can’t go back to not knowing what it’s like to have you.”

His hips thrusted inside of you, and you wrapped your legs around him. The bed moved with his thrusts, and some deep part of you wonders how loud you’re being.

You can’t find it in yourself to care.

“How can I go back to keeping my feelings to myself?”

You grip his shoulder, your nails digging into skin, and you’re sure you’ve sliced through skin, but he doesn’t register the pain at all.

“How can I go back to not knowing how good your pussy felt around me?”

You moan and he leant down to capture the sound in a kiss. The sounds in the room were obscene - the moans flowing from both of you, the headboard hitting the wall absurdly hard, the wet squelching. Neither of you cared.

You kept kissing him, hands on his shoulders trying to pull him closer and closer towards you. One of his hands moved down to rub at your clit, and that extra contact was all you needed to send you over, the pressure releasing from your belly as you came around him.

You could feel how close he was, his thrusts becoming faster and more erratic.

“I love you, Az.”

You’re not sure if you said them because you felt it or because you thought it would make him finish, but your words sent him over, his hot cum spurting inside of you. You were seeing stars, tangible thought outside of Azriel’s name impossible in the wake of your second orgasm.

Azriel collapsed on top of you, his cock still inside of you. His wings lay stretched out on the bed over you two, his arms wrapped around you, keeping you tucked in beneath him.

You wiggle your hands free to cradle his face before your hands move to the back of his neck, playing with the hairs there. After a moment he pulls his head up enough to look at you.

“Too tired for a bath?”

You smile at him, shaking your head slightly. At the movement, the house begins drawing a bath in the other room. He pushes himself off the bed before lifting you in his arms, kissing you softly on the forehead.

“Are you still moving out?”

You sound pensive as he carries you to the bath, “I could be persuaded to stay…”

Tagging everyone who asked for part two: @sirenpearldust , @thatacotargirl , @justrepostandlove , @yearninglustfully, @heartless-tate , @nocasdatsgay , @anainkandpaper , @acourtofbatboydreams , @goldenmagnolias , @je-suis-prest-rachel , @cauldronboilmetakemetovelaris, @lolasjournal , @kalulakunundrum , @daardyrnitta , @starseedsamurai , @nahimgoodmom , @persephonesalvatore, @hannzoaks , @rinalouu , @bookdragon1, @username199945 , @charlotteintumbleland , @kscyberwrld , @blacktreacle22

Permanent taglist: @vanilla-seabass @cyrygher , @lees-chaotic-brain , @topaz125, @chessebookgirl, @fides25, @lady-of-tearshed , @ashbatz , @fxckmiup , @lilah-asteria, @justvibbinghere, @daughterofthemoons-stuff, @mybestfriendmademe, @heartless-tate, @tsunami-of-tears @idrkwhatthisisimsorry, @olive-main, @azrielsmate3 , @pit-and-the-pen

Azriel taglist: @brieflyclassymortal @thisiskaylin

Thanks for reading 💕

#acotar fanfiction #azriel x reader #azriel x you #azriel #azriel fanfic #acotar writing #azriel x y/n #azriel smut

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dawnofvenus · 1 month ago

Text

price is frustrated at your fits of insecurity.

VERY insecure!user , annoyed yet comforting!Price — the insecurities are very much unspecified (other than that he's SUPPOSEDLY too good for you) , hopefully it still sells the whole plot point though

his fingers lazily cradle the heft of his cigar, the deep set circles under his eyes seeming to swell and puff in their wake. you lay on the living room floor, hands wrapped around your frame as the rug you've resided on rasps against your cheek. it didn't sting nor hurt, but it lapped it's rough fibers against your skin and scraped. if you kept nodding against it with every little sob, you'd have a burn right on the ridge of your cheekbone.

"Baby." his voice rumbles from the couch, wide spread legs shifting slightly as your gaze remained on the electric fireplace in front of you. the screen played the same dance of those flames you half-wished were real, over and over like a visual mantra. you could hear it's hum, comforting and soft as it nestled into the crooks of your brain.

"Baby..."

he growled once more, and you replied with a meager whimper. it was all you could manage, given the fact that if you even thought too hard there would be an unstoppable onslaught of tears.

how could you be good enough for this perfect man? he was everything, and you... you were nothing to compare. you had seen the way younger, prettier women's eyes lingered. it made something boil in your gut, the snaps and pops hitting your mind and burning tiny spots through the once filled spaces.

you heard Price stand, and you curled into yourself impossibly further. his cigar tumbled into the ashtray on your endtable, its white smoke curling around air. your fingertips pressed harder into your flesh, biting marks into the pliable meat all the while the muscles of your jaw flexed and clenched. soon, a soft, calloused hand found your shoulders. large thumbs pressed into your tightly wound state, his voice grumbling those sweet things you only ever heard when you decided you deserved it.

it only made your body more rigid. it was beyond you, the possibility that he could even try to adore you as much as he preached. that maybe you were as beautiful as he whispered. your breathing came in and out shakily, wet eyelashes pressing against your undereyes. the air became thin, and you could feel your head getting light. in those labored breaths, Price had decided that enough was enough and it was time for this little tantrum to come to a close.

with a grunt, his chest suddenly met your back. rising and falling steadily, a contrary to the huffs and gasps you were attempting to take the reins on. large, hair blanketed arms wrapped around your struggling center. his lips pecked the back of your neck as he hummed that soft melody that overruled the fireplaces drawling moan. it was familiar, it was safe. this was home.

"You're perfect... I don't understand why I have to fight with you about that." he breathed, nosing the area between your collarbone and jaw. "How can my everything beat herself to nothing so fast, hm?"

#john price x reader #john price x you #price x reader #captain john price #john price #captain price #cod #call of duty #dawnofvenus

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loveu2themoonandsaturn · 3 months ago

Text

“SLUT!”

loosely inspired by the taylor swift song.

steve harrington x fem!reader

a/n: tried to get the word count but I fear I lost track at 3k and that was maybe only the halfway point 😭 also sorry for the potentially shit formatting, I’ve never done this before and I typed the whole thing in the tumblr app. hope it doesn’t ruin the reading experience 😅 all credit for dividers goes to @strangergraphics!

angst, hurt/comfort, fluff(ish), no use of y/n, second person, office gossip, way past upside down but hawkins is still that same small town, very 80s/90s attitude toward sex, slutshaming, sort of miscommunication trope (more like meddling jackass trope) minor injury (no blood), reader is mentioned as having meat in her freezer and consumes dairy once, only kinda beta’d because every time I try I just end up ADDING THINGS, smut 18+ MDNI, filthier tags below.

contains: porn with an unreasonable amount of plot, protected piv fucking (girls we cannot afford children in this economy, wrap it before you tap it), soft pleasure dom!Steve, needy Steve who may or may not be real big on talking you through it, oral (m+f), fingering, some ball sucking, intimacy, love confessions (i’m sorry😭), eye contact, hickies like a motherfucker, no body type mentioned, no hair type or length mentioned, y’all prolly know most of the drill.

hope you enjoy! 🩵

Steve swore he felt his soul leave this side of heaven when he felt a fist slam against the front desk of the Family Video, right next to where his head so happened to be resting, wrapped up in his own arms. Whoever just did that was about to hear a piece of his mind.

“Hey man, what the hell- oh. Hey,” He relaxes for a moment when he sees that it’s you, but only for just that moment.

Because then he sees your face.

Hot, angry tears are streaming stoically down your face from a pair of red, puffy eyes. He panics at the expression that paints the face he so adores.

His immediate instinct is to fix it.

“Baby, what’s wro—”

“Don’t you fucking call me baby right now,” you cut him off. Your voice is cold, almost devoid of emotion. It worries Steve. “Why would you say those things about me, why would you lie?”

Steve’s head is spinning now. Lies? Talking about you? Was he still asleep, dreaming? Had he accidentally shifted into another dimension? Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, slow down—”

You scoff. “I don’t believe that for a second. I believed you when you said you’d changed, that you weren’t that same douchebag we all knew back in high school,” you pause, throat catching on the lump nestled deep within it. “But I was wrong about that. I won’t make that mistake twice.”

Steve felt his heart shattering, and he didn’t even know why, didn’t understand what on earth was going on.

“Wait, no, I’m serious, I don’t know what we’re talking about here, please!” He’s desperate now, needs to know what he did, what transgression he forgot that he must now atone for.

“You expect me to believe you don’t know what your good friend Tommy got up to this morning?”

Tommy? Tommy Hagan? Steve hadn’t so much as spoken to that toxic jackass in years, what could he possibly have to do with anything-

“Because I walked into work today and was greeted by him, in front of all my coworkers, announcing that he had a gift for the new town whore,” you choke out, voice no longer cold, but bitter. Angry. Sad. “And he handed me what must have been the deadest, most rotten bouquet of flowers left from the supermarket, with a card. ‘To the SLUT, courtesy of King Steve,’” you say, voice raised enough to catch the attention of several now-nosy movie perusers.

Steve stands slack-jawed, floored at the mere thought. He wasn’t even sure how Tommy knew he was seeing you, let alone what he could have done to give him the impression that you had slept with him.

Unfortunately for Steve, you don’t take his silence for the shock that it is.

“Nothing to say for yourself? My reputation is in shreds, my boss won’t look me in the eye and my coworkers haven’t stopped whispering since 9 a.m., yet you have nothing to say for yourself?” you spit, incredulous.

Steve’s brain finally gets with the program and makes his mouth move.

“Honey, I didn’t know anything about this,” he pauses when you roll your eyes, crossing your arms in front of your chest, “I haven’t talked to Tommy since high school. I have changed, I’m not the person that I used to be, and even if I was still friends with Hagan’s sorry ass, I would never, ever lie about you like that. I like you. I care about you. I would never put that in jeopardy.”

Steve’s eyes are pleading, which you might notice if you could even bring yourself to meet them.

“God, Steve, please don’t treat me like I’m stupid-”

“I’m not, I’m not!,” he cuts you off. “I swear, I don’t know how he got that idea into his head, but I would never do that to you!” Steve is fighting the urge to raise his voice. You deserve his gentleness, even during a fight, he thinks. That gentleness is clearly not mutual, though, at least not right now.

“Is it because I said I wasn’t ready?” you say, voice at a low volume.

Steve feels his heart thud restlessly in his chest, hurt and pain lashing at the muscle.

“Wh… What?” He’s giving you an opportunity to back out, clarify, say you don’t mean what he thinks you mean. But you double down.

“Is Tommy doing this out of some weird bro-code respect for you because I said I wasn’t ready to have sex with you.” You ask it like it’s a statement, a sure thing, no real questioning to your tone.

He’s hit with a wave of this sick feeling in his stomach, this inescapable dread at the thought that you might believe even for a second that he would stoop that low. He swallows, a thick feeling as a lump in his own throat starts to make itself known.

“You really think that poorly of me?” he mutters out, pained.

You shake your head, tears falling faster now.

“I didn’t Steve. All my friends told me I was being stupid, too trusting of you, giving you too much benefit of the doubt, and I…” you prick your finger into your own chest, bone meeting bone as the digit presses into your sternum. “I told them they were crazy. That they were stuck in the past and that you were so different now. I defended you.” You let out a mirthless chuckle. “And look where that got me. Do you know what half the town will think by this time tomorrow? They’re gonna that I spread my legs for the first man to show interest in me, for the man who has a well-documented history of taking what he wants and leaving, and they’re going to think I’m pathetic and easy for it.” He’s never seen you like this. It’s agony.

“In a way… the truth is almost worse. Because I was stupid enough to let ‘King Steve’ come and pretend to be all sweet and gentlemanly and brand-spanking-new. I guess the punishment fits the crime, right? I believed you, and now nobody is gonna believe me.” You start to turn on your heel, halfway ready to walk out the door.

“Wait, wait!” Steve is frantic now. “I don’t know how this happened, but please, give me a chance, let me fix this for you,” he begs.

You squeeze your eyes shut, hands finally coming up to wipe away some tears so you can at least leave with some dignity.

“I don’t think this is something you can fix.”

And with that, the best thing in Steve’s life walks out the door.

Hurt doesn’t even begin to describe how he feels. But it’s quickly replaced by rage, blinding anger that someone would do this to you. More anger yet that Tommy-fucking-Hagan of all people would crawl out of whatever hole he’s been living in to, to what? Ruin his chance at happiness with you since Carol dumped him the second she went away for college? Hurt you just for being associated with Steve and a better future, not his past? What the hell is this?

He’s dialing Robin’s number before he can even think straight, asking if she can do him a favor and stay the last hour at the store, close up. He mindlessly agrees to whatever condition it is she sets; he’s hardly paying attention, because now? Now he has business to attend to.

The night is young, and Steve knew he’d luck out eventually by just going from filthy dive bar to filthy dive bar. After all, there were only so many places in Hawkins where a burnout could go to delude himself into thinking he’s not there to drown his sorrows.

It’s at the fifth one that he lays eyes on Tommy, looking worse for wear. He’s surrounded by a couple other guys that walk and talk and dress like Steve used to in high school, Tommy’s obvious attempt at replacing him. He almost wonders if he’ll find a pseudo-Carol somewhere in the crowd, waiting to dote on him.

Steve overhears Tommy talking, who clearly does not know he’s even been found and is being watched.

“I mean, you guys should have seen the look on her face. Harrington’s girl was basically a puddle, I guess she knew she got caught. You know what they say, though boys—”

“Yeah? What is it they say, Tommy?” Steve’s sudden interruption brings a mix of shock and satisfied jeers among the little crowd. Tommy turns whistles, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction.

“Well look what the cat dragged in! Big King Steve back from his latest conquest. What’s wrong, your girl can’t handle the consequences of her own actions?”

Steve’s jaw gets tight at that; he’s trying damn hard to maintain some semblance of control. All he can think about is how bad he wants to punch that smirk off Tommy’s face.

“And just what do you think you know about her, huh Hagan? Or did that half semester of college give you time to get into shitty creative writing?” Steve grits out.

“Oh, please Harrington, don’t act like half the town didn’t see you two heading into your place this weekend. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together,” Tommy says, cocky as ever.

A moment of realization hits Steve then. He had brought you to his house, at night, and you two were alone. He’d let you sleep in the guest room when it got too late. It never even occurred to him that someone was watching, let alone would assume something went down between the two of you and spread that assumption around.

He feels like such a fucking idiot.

He knows this town, knows these people. They love nothing more than a scandal. Something to gossip about. He should have been more careful with you. His own anger with himself turns into rage at the sorry excuse for a man now standing before him.

“You’re such goddamn dumbass, Hagan. She’s not a whore, a slut, an anything. She slept in the guest bedroom, and she only spent the night in the first place because I said it was too late to drive her home.”

Tommy and his gaggle of trust fund babies, one of whom surely paid for the flattening beer he takes a swig from, all elbow each other, exchanging knowing glances.

But they don’t know shit, Steve thinks.

“Listen, Harrington, it’s cute that you want to ‘defend her honor,’” Tommy mocks, “But at the end of the day, nobody in this town was born yesterday. I’m sorry her feelings got hurt just because people noticed how easy she is, but that’s how it i- what the fuck dude??”

Tommy is cut off quickly and finds the edge of the bar jamming into his spine, with Steve Harrington having rushed in and wrapped his fists into Tommy’s shirt collars.

“She is anything but easy, you son of a bitch,” Steve seethes, pushing Tommy back again for emphasis. “Six months we’ve been dating, and I haven’t touched her. You know why that is? Because I actually give two shits about her, I have respect for her, something you’re not capable of doing or having for anybody.”

Tommy is thrown off guard, but quickly recovers, slapping that smirk right back on his face. Steve decides then and there that he hates that smirk.

“Listen buddy. We all remember your track record when it comes to anything that involves fists,” Tommy sneers. “Unless you wanna get your ass handed to you, I suggest letting me go. It’s not like anyone would believe she’s the choir girl you want us to think she is.”

Steve laughs, the sound dark. He laughs, and that confuses the hell out of Tommy and his crew.

“Maybe you peaked in high school and forgot that other people grow past who they were at 18, but the rest of us didn’t. So if I were you? I’d get to work fixing this shit, unless you want to have to fix your goddamn teeth, buddy,” Steve says, his threat only cushioned slightly by his sarcastic remark.

“Like hell I will,” Tommy yells before shoving Steve off. He swings, and color quickly blooms across the apple of Steve’s left cheek. “Now get the fuck out of h-”

Tommy doesn’t get to finish. Or do much of anything, really.

With one solid, square hit to the chin, Steve lays Tommy out, leaving him with nothing more than a sure concussion and a nice sticky spot on the bar floor to come to on.

Tommy’s herd of friends stand in stunned silence, a strong juxtaposition from their earlier mindless chittering. It’s satisfying, if Steve is honest with himself.

Steve steps closer to them, causing a few of them to back off, clearly not wanting to be next.

“When he wakes up, you tell your little friend here to fix the mess he made, and that if I so much as have to hear someone utter his name again for the rest of my life, I’m coming back and beating his ass, and next time I won’t stop once he’s on the ground. Oh, and make sure he leaves me and my girl alone, yeah?”

Something about Steve’s energy is enough to have them nodding, no questions asked.

Steve storms out of the bar, only one mission left for the day.

You’re home in your apartment, taking your feelings out on a bowl of ice cream and watching Pretty in Pink for what must be the ninth time, when you hear knocking at your door.

You find yourself wondering who the hell would be knocking at this hour, only irked at the possibilities running through your head.

You’re already yelling through to the person on the other side as you make your way to the door.

“I don’t want to buy whatever you’re selling and I already know Jesu- Oh.”

You swing open the door to find none other than Steve Harrington, looking a lot more bruised than the last time you saw him.

Both of his eyes look apologetic, pitiful, and the quickly forming mark beneath his left one certainly isn’t helping your resolve.

You have the urge to kick him to the curb, but find that, in spite of what you believe he did, you didn’t leave your feelings for him at the doors of the Family Video when your hightailed it out of there earlier that day.

So that’s how you get here, with Steve sitting on your kitchen counter, right fist squishing into a bag of frozen peas, left hand pressing a freezer-burnt steak into the respective cheek. Your movie is forgotten, frozen in time, and what remained of the ice cream has been left to melt.

You’re silent, plaid pajama pants and your softest T-shirt hanging on to your form, only shielded somewhat by the fuzzy robe that sits open, mostly just draped around your shoulders. As you lean against your fridge, you take a long sip from your mug, warm liquid soothing as you fight to break the silence, the tension that seems to suffocate the room.

You don’t ask where those bruises came from. Curious as you are, you find you’re not sure if you really want to know. However, you’re not left to wonder for long.

“I’m pretty sure I put Tommy Hagan in the emergency room tonight.”

Your eyes nearly fall out of your head with how wide they get, head snapping up when he says that.

“I, um, got real pissed when you told me what he did to you, and I went from bar to bar until I found him. I told him to fix it, and he acted like it was some big joke, and I was just seeing red, but in my defense, he hit me first,” he rambles, gesturing vaguely to the slowly thawing slab of meat currently taking up half the real estate on his face.

You continue to stare at him, bug-eyed and unmoving. Steve finds himself unable to stop talking under your gaze.

“He said he or, someone, I guess, saw you come into my house the other night and never leave and so they like? Assumed the rest, and I’m sorry, because I definitely should have thought about how it might look before offering you the guest bed, or I should have taken you home, or I should have slept on the goddamn sidewalk so it was incredibly clear nothing was going on but I didn’t so I told him, or I guess I told his friends to pass along the message, to fix it and he was just out cold on the floor of the bar and I-”

“Steve.”

He finally stops, looking at you. He sees tears welling up in your eyes and immediately assumes it was something he said. He starts to apologize, but you hold up a hand, shaking your head.

“I just can’t believe you would do that for me,” you mutter, at a loss for words.

Steve, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, says, “I mean, of course. You’re my girl and someone was mean to you. I’m crazy about you, why would I let anyone hurt you just to take you away from me?” He cocks his head when he asks, eyes innocent. “And I mean, it doesn’t hurt that Tommy is the biggest jackass in all of Indiana and has been earning that knockout since we were like, 16,” he laughs out.

For a moment, the cognitive dissonance is winning out. You’d fought with yourself all day about the kind of person Steve Harrington is. Who, until very recently, he always was. All day, you’d let the voices of high school friends permeate your head, losing trust in your gut, in your own instincts, in what you thought and believed. You had yourself convinced that you’d allowed yourself to be blinded, had just wanted the attention, the affection, and that Steve had never ever changed, just got better at hiding it. But maybe the truth wasn’t so simple.

A tear falls. In assuming he had broken your trust, had you broken his?

You know it’s not your fault. Not really. That blame belongs squarely on the shoulders of a loser who’s going to have to explain to a less-than-nice nurse just why he came through the doors of the emergency room with a concussed head and a dislocated jaw.

But you fell for it. A few mean looks, some workplace gossips whispering in the break room, and you fell right into Tommy’s trap. Hook, line, sinker.

What was it that made you so easily believe the worst of the man who has, throughout your relationship, shown you nothing but affection and kindness?

Guilt gnaws at you, because you think you know.

“I’m so sorry for not believing you. And for all the things I said earlier. I was… I was cruel. I was mean and defensive and let some pseudo-high school drama put me right back in that place mentally, put you right back to who you were in my mind, and that was unfair. I was punishing you for your past, and you didn’t deserve that,” you say, looking over at Steve now.

But Steve is having none of it.

“I spent years being the worst version of myself to everyone around me whose pants I wasn’t trying to get into. I was vindictive and, sometimes? Flat out evil toward people who weren’t high enough up on the social ladder for me. If I had been in your position, I would have thought the same thing, because I have thoroughly earned that reputation. I don’t expect you to get rid of that past version of me in your head. I know you can’t just forget. You’re only human.”

He slides off the counter, frozen goods abandoned as he crosses over to you where you lean and looks you in your eyes.

“It’s my job to make up for it. To prove I’ve changed. That’s not trust that forms easily, it’s hard earned, and I intend to do everything I can to win it fair and square. To earn the right to be yours.”

You feel heat burn behind your cheeks at his sweet words. “So does that mean you forgive me for being a real bitch to you in front of customers today?”

Steve laughs, the sound jovial and refreshing after the day you’ve had.

“Sweetheart, there’s nothing to forgive, but how ‘bout I say all is forgiven if you can forgive me for being a huge dumbass?” His lopsided grin and the way he’s looking at you, all heart eyes and pure adoration… all of it is too much, too good, and all you can do is nod, a small, hopeful smile on your face.

“Good. Now, would’ya c’mere and let me comfort you? Let me take care of my girl after the shitty day she had?” He holds his arms open to you, hands waving you in.

You roll your eyes just a bit before giving in, immediately accepting the familiarity and warmth of your boyfriend’s arms. You’re so glad he’s still your boyfriend.

He kisses the top of your head and lets your face press into his chest, allowing his own heartbeat to soothe you as he holds one arm firmly around your waist, letting the other rub a flat palm up and down your back.

“Sweet girl, you didn’t deserve how they treated you today…” he mutters just loud enough for you to hear. “Only deserve good things… gonna give you all the good things to make up for it, yeah?”

The sheer relief you feel being here, with him uttering sweet nothings into your ear and treating you like the you’re the only thing that matters in the whole wide world, it makes up for it all, you think. Maybe tomorrow will be hard, maybe people at work will still suck, but you won’t be facing it alone. You’ll have Steve. That feels like enough.

You let yourself peek out from where you’d tucked yourself in so you can look up at this wonderful man who did so much today to prove that he’s not who everyone thinks he is. He looks back down at you and just smiles, staring into your eyes.

It may have been less than a day.

But, God, you had missed him.

So you indulge yourself, removing one of the arms from around his body and placing a hand far back on his neck, just enough to be able to run your fingers softly through the short pieces at the base, brushing your thumb along his jawline.

His smile falters for just half a second, replaced by the shivers you give him.

Encouraged by his reaction, you don’t hold back, using your hand as leverage to drag his face into yours for a sweet kiss. Your lips lock, and neither one of you moves away or lets go until the need for oxygen wins out. It’s stupid and sappy and exactly what you needed.

When you do finally have to let go, you’re both breathing hard, but Steve still finds it in him to make a suggestion.

“I think I left some sweats and a T-shirt here back when I helped you move in that new couch,” he gestures to the spot where you had just been wallowing, “How ‘bout I change and we get comfortable on the couch and you tell me every thought on that pretty little mind?”

You two do exactly that. He’s pleasantly surprised to find you’d laundered the very clothes he’d left over, something you shyly justified with the possibility that he might get stuck and need to spend the night, a concept which clearly flustered you to no end.

So there you are, curled up in Steve’s arms, same paused movie frame still on the TV, and you just rant about your day.

“…And if all of that wasn’t enough, she had the nerve to whisper one last snickering ‘whore’ to me on my way out! I don’t know where she gets off, especially since it was just last month that everyone heard she got caught sneaking out of the supply closet with the assistant manager!” Steve chuckles at that, “But it just sucked! I don’t mind being the center of attention, but good grief, not like this! These people are like vultures! It made me sad and mad and just a bunch of other things and it was ridiculous because it was all for something I didn’t even do!” you finish, Steve pressing comforting kisses into your temple.

“That’s just not right, honey. I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he says.

You lean into his chaste kisses, hands playing with his fingers where they sit clasped in your lap.

“I just… it’s ridiculous. I mean, half the reason I told you I wasn’t ready for sex was because I was so anxious, so terrified that somehow people would know and then they would judge me for it,” you shake your head. “And I know, that’s like bullshit, but it’s where my head was at. Today though? All I could think to myself all day was, I wish I would have just done it. I didn’t do anything and they still talked all their shit. If I’m going to be called a slut, a whore, easy, I should at least have gotten something out of it. Give ‘em something real to talk about, make the their bullshit worthwhile,” you muse. “Maybe I still should.”

You’re so lost in those musings that you barely notice the way Steve is staring at you, wondering if he’s had a stroke.

“What do you mean?” he says, certain he’s misheard.

He definitely knows what you mean. Being called on it, however, has you almost backtracking, your face so hot now he would surely get burned if he touched it.

You don’t look him in the eye, instead appearing very focused on each individual finger on his hands as they sit in your lap. You’re unfortunately noticing that he takes very good care of his nails, keeping them short and clean, perfect for— Stop that, you chide yourself, finally responding to your boyfriend, who is maybe having an aneurism behind you.

“I mean, just… it’s so stupid, the only reason I didn’t do something that I really wanted to do was because I was worried what people would say about me. That all seems pretty moot now so, I dunno… maybe we should… do it… sometime,” you mumble out, not sure if you’re embarrassed more by your seriously weird concerns about the opinions of others or the fact that you’re all but asking Steve to have sex with you.

Steve is not thinking about either option, though, being ever the opportunist.

“I would take you right now.”

Maybe you’re the one having that stroke?

You whip your head around and look at him, that same hungry look, the one he always gets when the two of you make out for just a liiiiiiittle bit too long, now gracing his face.

You whisper out, “Are you serious?”

He nearly scoffs at that. “I don’t play games when it comes to you,” a phrase that has a more than one meaning after his bar-side activities this evening, “I’ll always wait for your yes, and I’ll always stop at your no but… for that time in between? I’m making love to you like it’s my last day on earth.”

Your breath hitches, something deep within you warming and stirring at his words.

“Can I tell you something, Steve?”

“Always, gorgeous.”

You gulp.

“You’ve got my yes.”

Suddenly, you’ve been moved. You’re laying on your back on your couch and your very gorgeous boyfriend has one leg between your thighs, holding your face between both hands as his spine arches over your body and leans his face toward your face so he can kiss the air right out of your lungs.

You two had made out before but compared to this? Jesus H.

You hear the sound of your own soft whine as he readjusts and the movement presses his strong thigh firmly against your core. You watch as he breaks the kiss just to groan, already so satisfied, so intoxicated by you.

“That’s right pretty girl, just let yourself feel good, I’m gonna take care of everything, gonna take real good care of you,” he rambles, eyes squeezed shut as he nods at nobody in particular.

“You want that, baby? You gonna let me make you feel like you deserve?” He forces his eyes open to stare at you. Good God. You nod, another desperate sound that could maybe pass for a “Yes” pressing its way out of your chest.

“Atta girl,” he says before tearing his own shirt off, the garment landing somewhere on your living room floor.

He pushes his fingers beneath the fabric of the robe you’re still wearing, slowly slipping it off of you, saying, “Now anything you don’t want me to do, anything you want me to stop, you let me know, yeah? Let me hear you, baby.”

The robe is quickly abandoned beneath you as you all but blubber out a “Yeah, yes, Steve, I will.”

He stands up, leaving you confused for a moment.

“I’m not doing this with you for the first time on your couch. C’mon, sweet thing, up,” he says, reaching for your hands.

You take his and let him lead you to your own bedroom, shutting the door behind the two of you despite your living alone. In a way, it’s perfect, isolated in a way that makes you feel like it’s just you and him.

He turns to you, walking up to your form and kissing you again, his hands reclaiming their space on the sides of your face. You’re sure you’ll never get tired of that feeling.

His kisses last long, but almost not enough, his lips moving down to your jaw, your neck, searching for that spot that makes you—

“Oh, fuck, Steve.”

Found it.

He hones in on the spot, kissing and licking at it gently. His aim isn’t to leave a mark — not here, anyway — but just to make you feel good.

By the way you’re panting in his ear? He’s pretty sure he’s succeeding.

He walks you backwards, careful, only detaching himself from your neck to help lay you down gently. He crawls over top of you, his body caging yours.

Your shirt has ridden up, revealing a touch of midriff to Steve. It only makes him more feral.

He plays with the hem of your shirt, warm fingers brushing against the skin below.

“Can I take this off for you?” he asks.

You’re nodding, already moving to help him strip the fabric from your form. You weren’t wearing a bra because, truly, why would you be wearing one in your own home, so his eyes are free to land right on your chest and watch the soft jiggling as you breathe in and out.

You had worried that he might pick out spots on your body that made you insecure, but that worry flies out the window when you see that same hungry look back in his eyes.

Frankly, he looks so desperate, you almost feel bad.

“It’s okay, Steve, do what you want. I’ll tell you to stop if I don’t like it,” you say, encouraging him.

You truly do not have to tell him twice.

First he’s kissing that spot on your neck again, earning a breathy sigh and a pleased smile from your lips. Then he travels, lips attaching to your collarbone, and you feel it as he kisses his way down to your breast, sucking a nipple into his mouth, thumb rubbing over the other one as his tongue works at this one.

That earns a good bit more than a sigh.

“Holy shit, Steve… that feels so, ah,” your voice grows pitchy as you bite back your moans. Your refusal to let him hear you doesn’t bother him one bit. It just means he has to work harder to pull those pretty sounds from you.

He switches his lips to your other breast, mouth laving messily over this nipple as his other thumb slips and slides across the one he just left.

You already feel so good, but you know he’s just getting started. The thought makes you shiver.

Once he’s satisfied with the attention he’s given to your nipples, he expands his journey across the map of your skin and starts sucking at the underside of your breasts, leaving marks only you and he will ever get to see. Whichever breast he’s not busy leaving darkening splotches on is being squeezed and squished, only adding to the feelings that all seem to be directed right at your quickly-soaking cunt.

Having left you littered with marks, some even landing on your torso and the soft skin of your belly, Steve looks up at you, lips swollen and wet from his hard work.

“Please say I can go down on you,” he sighs out, sounding like he’s in another world.

You balk at that for a moment, worried.

“You don’t have to Steve, I know guys don’t really like-”

“I want to. So, so fucking bad. I want to make you feel good and I need to taste you or I might actually explode. I don’t care how you keep it or what it looks like, I just, fuck!” His voice is pleading, his desire bleeding through every syllable.

He takes his kisses down to your hips, pushing your sweatpants and panties down just a touch to reveal more of your entirely-too-kissable body. He’s sucking at the thin skin there, leaving his mark on yet another inch of you.

“Please baby, if you want it, please let me,” he whines out, an incredibly sweet and needy sound.

Well shit. Who are you to say no to that?

“Okay, yeah, yes, you can, Steve,” you rush out, turned on beyond belief.

“God, yes, that’s my girl,” he mutters out, not even pausing to consider the effect those words are having on you.

You’d find it inconsiderate if it didn’t make you want him so much more.

His fingers are quick to hook back into both your bottoms, tapping the side of your hip so you’ll lift them as he all but tears the clothing from your legs. He easily spreads your now-bare limbs, eyes laser-focused on the absolutely sopping wet pussy that he unveils.

“Holy shit… is this all because of me?” he questions, experimentally sliding a finger through your folds, gathering your slick.

You laugh, breathless. “Have we been in the same room this whole time? I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on in my life.”

His dick has been hard for a hot minute now, so that confession earns an almost painful twitch.

He can’t find it in himself to ask any more questions, just sliding your pretty thighs over his shoulder, kissing them as he makes his way down to where you need him most.

The first lick is thorough, but gentle. A trembling whimper leaves your lips, then the sound of his name.

He finds himself moaning at your taste, desperation to drink you in winning out.

He presses his tongue right into your waiting hole, occasional moans against you earning him yet another flood of your juices to taste, a tantalizing squeeze of your walls around him only complimenting the flavor.

He moves to lap at your folds, greedy, head only coming to a stop once he’s got the flat of his tongue rubbing circles over your clit. You finally lose the battle you’d been fighting, letting out a moan that makes you thankful your last next door neighbor just moved out last week.

Steve, cheeky as ever, smiles at this, hot breath from a laugh billowing past his tongue and onto you. He’s almost too good at this.

He gives thick, teasing licks to your clit, each one serving as punctuation as he talks to you.

“Best fucking pussy… Fuck… could eat this pretty pussy… mm… for the rest of my life… so good,” he murmurs, absolutely drunk on you.

“Steve…” you whine out, needing him so badly it nearly hurts.

“Oh, darlin’, I know,” Lick. “I know, pretty girl,” Lick. “Just need’ya,” Lick. “To be patient for me,” Lick. “Doing so good,” Lick. “Making me so proud.”

He picks right then to properly dive in, licking and sucking on you until you can hear your own heartbeat, feel it in your throat. The sounds you make for him are downright debauched, curses and expletives floating in between the sound of his name. He couldn’t be happier.

You’ve been clenching around nothing for some time now as been pleasuring you, though, and that doesn’t sit right with him.

So, before you know it, Steve is working one, then two fingers into your dripping heat, reaching farther inside of you than you ever could. Your hands quickly seat themselves among the roots of his hair, holding his head exactly where you want him.

Your cries ring out freely through the air, a weak, “I’m so close,” the only interruption. Your thighs have begun to squeeze around Steve’s head. He’s not sure if you’re trying to keep him there forever or shut him out but, it’s all the same to him. He’d happily wear you like a pair of earmuffs for the rest of the night. Best damn pair he ever owned, if he did say so himself.

He holds steady with his actions, moving his fingers just so inside you, repeating the same motion of his tongue against your clit until it hurts, but he’s well rewarded for his efforts.

“Oh, fuck, Steve, I think I’m… fuck, I’m gonna—” you’re forced to cut yourself off as an orgasm overtakes your body, pouring pounds of pleasure over you all at once like one of those giant buckets at a water park. It’s electric, overwhelming, and so, so good. Your moans lilt out, high pitched and shaped something like Steve’s name.

He works you through it; he doesn’t stop until you peel his head from between your legs, pulling him up for a kiss that leaves you both lightheaded, exchanging moans between each others mouths as your bodies press together. You can taste yourself on him, something you didn’t expect to make you as feral as it does.

Steve breaks the kiss, sitting back on his knees to admire his handiwork. Gorgeous, angry little hickies have already begun to bloom beneath your satin skin. He’s excited for the day they fade so he can go back and replace them.

You watch him, laying breathless while he ogles you with a smirk, scanning your body up and down to appreciate the beautiful mess he’s made of it.

It makes you decide that payback may be due.

Steve stands, ridding himself of his bottoms, hard cock swinging free. You can’t help but think to yourself how pretty he is, how unfair it is that he’s so pretty everywhere.

You move to get up on your knees in front of Steve where he stands next to the bed, kissing his face, his jaw, his neck, his chest, his—

“Wait, wait, baby, wait,” he stops you mid-descent. “As hot as it is that you want to return the favor, I don’t think I’ll last and I really, really need to be inside you.”

It’s your turn to smirk now, but before you do, you turn those same pleading eyes he weaponized against you right back at him.

“Please, Stevie? I’ll be gentle, I’ll go real slow,” you say, fluttering your eyelashes up at him.

He presses his palms into his eyes, losing the fight for control going on in his head.

“…Fuck, just please be careful, no funny business, yeah?” he sighs out, looking down at you.

You let on that smirk now, and finish kissing your way down his body, laying on your stomach. Your tongue just barely teases the tip, a small kitten lick that grants you a drop of precum. He tenses at the feeling, sheer pleasure already making him regret his own weakness toward you. It’s all he can do not to blow his load at just the idea of what’s going on right now.

Gently, you place a hand beneath his dick, feeling the weight of it, your mouth watering. You wrap your fingers around it, careful not to use too much pressure. You look him in the eye as you pull just the head into your mouth, moaning around him.

“You’re gonna kill me, holy shit,” Steve says.

You giggle a bit, moving your mouth up and down just a bit, cautious of any sudden movements that might prove too overwhelming.

“Feels too good baby, won’t be able to keep going like this,” he pants, sensitive and whining.

You pull off of him with a soft pop. “Compromise, then?”

He’s not sure what you mean until-

“Jesus fucking Christ baby, holy shit, shit, shit!” Steve is fighting for his life at the sight of you softly stroking his cock with one of his balls pulled securely into your mouth.

You can tell by that reaction and by the purely distraught look on his face that he won’t let you stay down here for much longer, so you make the most of it.

You suck gently, continuing to stroke. You switch to the other side, but not without licking a fat stripe from his base to his tip, earning a strangled noise of pleasure.

“God, you’re cruel,” he whimpers out, unable to contain his own soft moans and sighs as you work.

Steve feels himself getting a little closer than he’d like. “Alright, that’s enough of that for you, missy,” he says as he pulls away from your touch, laughing at the noise of protest you make as he does.

“Don’t worry darlin’, just lay back for me,” he says, walking over to the jeans he had discarded earlier.

You do as he says with only a slight grumble, but can’t help yourself as you watch Steve walk. Even his ass is pretty, you think as you watch him bend over and pull out his wallet, plucking a foil packet from its confines.

He turns around then, and you’ve been caught staring.

Steve smirks when you rush to meet his eyes, feigning nonchalance. “Perv,” he teases before getting back into the bed with you.

You’d protest, but then his hands, those hands, are working deftly to unwrap a condom and roll it on, and suddenly you find yourself entirely uninterested in your status as a pervert.

He crawls back on top of you, moving to kiss you softly, a sharp contrast to the intensity of the moments you two just shared.

He breaks it only to say three words: “I love you.”

Forehead pressed into his, you know you should be shocked, but you aren’t. It feels right. You tell him, too.

“I love you, Steve.”

He smiles at you dopily, and you’re sure a matching smile adorns your face.

“Are you ready, baby?” He asks, interlocking one of his hands with yours, nothing but adoration and loving concern in his eyes.

You nod. “I want this, I want you,” you tell him honestly.

Steve presses one last sweet kiss to your lips, selfishly savoring the taste of them for just a little too long. He breaks it with a sigh. “I’ll go slow at first, sweetheart. You let me know if you need me to stop.”

You hum in agreement, focus resting between the two of you where he’s got your legs spread, kneeling in between them as he guides his cock to your entrance.

Slowly, almost too slowly, he pushes himself in, both of you groaning in relief when the head is in. He presses forward, meeting little resistance from your slippery heat. He sighs happily once he’s seated in you fully, just enjoying being enveloped in your warmth.

He probably would have stayed there if it wasn’t for the wiggle of your hips and the sudden clench he felt from inside of you.

“You can move, Stevie. Need it,” you sigh.

He takes the instruction, and both of you are wrecked as he works into a rhythm.

Your eyes flutter shut as you moan, but that won’t do for Steve.

“Nuh uh,” he says, dropping the hand he’s holding and getting down, shifting his weight to his elbows so he can hold your face in his hands. “Eyes on me. I don’t want to miss a thing.” His tone urges your compliance, so you give it to him, looking into his eyes.

Fuck.

The way your eyes bore into each others is nearly too much, the feeling of his hands splayed across your cheeks, your jaw, your temple… your senses are being flooded, and all your brain can compute is Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve.

He can see every reaction you give him, every hitch of your breath, adjusting until he’s in the perfect position for you, the squeezes of your fluttering cunt driving him wild.

You’re helpless, being held captive by your own pleasure, and Steve is only adding to it, talking to you in ramblings of his own pleasure.

“God, you know what you’re fucking doing to me?”

“Feels so good, sweet girl. Never wanna fuck another pussy again, only yours.”

“That’s it, baby, take it, take it. Doing so well for me, my gorgeous girl.”

“You like that? That feel good? Oh, I bet it does, huh?”

“Taking me like a champ, always knew you’d be good for me.”

You want to respond, you really do, but the way he’s talking to you, the way he’s pounding into you just right, the way he’s looking you right in your eyes as he speaks this utter filth, has left you wordless, only moaning and whining out little ah, ah, ah, fuck’s that only spur him on.

You feel your undoing start to form and begin to reach down, needing some attention on your clit to cross there.

“Don’t do that baby, let me. You close?” he says as he shifts all of his weight now to the one elbow, keeping your face in that hand as the other snakes down to rub circles just where you need them, making you whimper, fighting to keep your eyes open.

You nod at his question. “So close… gonna make me cum again, Stevie,” you manage to get out, snaking your arms around his neck, clinging to him desperately.

His eyes never leave yours. “Tell me what you need. Wanna feel you when you cum, feel you soak my cock.”

“F-faster.”

You barely get the word out before he starts to nearly double his speed, desperate to get you there, sharp, shallow, fast thrusts leaving you to just wail.

“Oh, fuck, Steve, please, please, fuck, please,” you ramble out, unsure what you’re begging for.

“C’mon, give it to me, you’re right there, cum for me.”

The perfect circles on your clit, the pistoning of his hips, the way he stares at you so intensely, egging you on? It all proves to be too much, and you feel yourself thrown off that cliff and into pure, sweet pleasure as your release rolls through you, Steve’s name on your tongue.

Steve cants into you desperately, rhythm breaking as he chases his own high, which is coming on much faster largely because of you. Feeling you grip him like a vice, and having watched just how angelic you look when you cum? He wasn’t going to be able to hold back much longer.

Overstimulated and desperate, you start to egg him on the same way he had egged you on.

“Please, cum, Steve, I wanna feel it. Need to feel you finish so bad, feels too good, please, baby,” you breathe out. “Do it just for me, yeah?”

That’s a wrap for Steve. His thrusts grow lazy as you feel him twitch inside you, condom filling quickly with his load. He keeps thrusting until it hurts, only then settling down, pressing his forehead into yours, kissing all over your face gently as you both bask in the afterglow.

“You’re so perfect,” he mutters, his desperation for you to hear him, believe him, making his expression look almost pained as he squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s always gonna be you for me, you know that?”

You’re unsure how to respond, really. You find yourself so wrapped up in a warm, buzzy feeling, your adoration for him leaking all over your brain’s wiring, causing it to short circuit. So all you do is nod and close the distance between your mouths, giving him a kiss so gentle and loving that catches him in the moment. He wishes he could stay like this forever.

You both fight to end the kiss several times, but each time either of you pulls back even a little bit, you find yourselves pressing right back in for just one more.

When it finally does break, you look up at him and see the man you always knew, deep down, was here to stay. Your Steve.

“Thank you.”

He cocks his head. “You’re welcome, but what for?” Ever the gentleman.

“Just for being you.”

The two of you lay on your couch, Pretty in Pink over and quickly exchanged for When Harry Met Sally, an appropriately raunchy film for present company and previous activities.

You called out of work for the next day shortly after the two of you finally peeled out of bed. Steve had wrapped his arms around you from behind, pressing soft encouraging kisses into your neck, your back, your shoulder as you rang your boss. You didn’t care if they thought you were only calling out because you were embarrassed; you know the truth doesn’t matter to these people, so you won’t waste it on them. All you want to do tomorrow is spend the day with your boyfriend, so you decided that that is what you’re going to do.

So there the you are, curled up in Steve’s arms for the foreseeable future, lips occasionally pressing into his wrists and hands as you held them. He hadn’t bothered with putting his shirt back on, and you let your robe sit where the two of you had ditched it earlier in favor of the warmth radiating from the chest against your back.

Sally fakes her orgasm in the diner, earning a laugh from both of you.

“I’m sure glad that I don’t ever have to question if you actually came,” Steve mutters, prompting you to tease.

“About that…”

“Bullshit!”

You giggle as his arms squeeze you in tighter, his lips attacking the side of your face and neck.

“Alright, alright, I yield, I yield! You are a true man in a sea of boys, you had me coming like a freight train, you win!”

His attack softens, smiley kisses becoming more intentional. He doesn’t let go of his now-tightened hold on you, though. He just likes having you close too much.

Steve mutters into your ear, shaking you gently in his arms to make his point. “I meant what I said earlier, you know. It wasn’t in the heat of the moment, I do love you.”

Somehow you find yourself far more flustered when he says that to you with his clothes on, but you know you feel the same.

“And I love you, Steve. Thank you for everything you did for me today… and I do mean everything,” you say, only a bit cheeky.

He nips at your ear, but still says, “Anytime, pretty girl. Anytime.”

You turn just a bit, hands tracing over his bruised knuckle and face, worry forming behind your eyes, just a small frown playing at your lips.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to try to cover those up for you? A quick run to the pharmacy and I’m sure I could find what I need to color correct,” you muse, but Steve just shakes his head.

“Nah, I kinda dig them. Makes me look a little badass! If anyone asks, I’ll just tell them they should see the other guy,” he pauses, but then says, quietly, “Plus, it’s pretty much like a shining badge of having defended your honor. Why would I ever cover that?” There’s a teasing tone behind his words but you can tell he really means it.

“Alright. You’re sweet. But please defend my honor without fists next time, I don’t want to have to look Hopper in the eye when I bail you out.”

“No promises, sweetheart,” he says, mischievous. You can hear his grin.

You roll your eyes, but you still smile.

You think you could get used to a life like this.

Thank you for reading! 🩵

#mars fics #i’ve never posted creative writing before please be nice or i might combust #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington angst #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things smut #stranger things fluff #hurt/comfort #baby’s first fanfic #robin buckley mentioned

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redraspberryleaf · 1 month ago

Text

Dudes who are way too into WWII history have nothing on the ao3 writers putting a bitchy edwardian gay man through ✨️Historically Accurate Horrors✨️ for the sake of character development.

Dudes who are entralled by the idea of being some sort of glorious war hero are making WWII history half their personalities by watching countless movies and documentaries, falling down wikipedia rabbit holes, and going to museums.

A bunch of middleaged women who enjoy watching a Masterpiece Classic series on their regional public broadcaster saw this evil queen who was just one among a massive ensamble cast and decided that they were going to make his story better by rewriting it with obscene levels of research done casually in their downtime. The ladies are obtaining copies of the RAMC handbook from 1914, reading countless eyewitness accounts of several naval battles from both sides, learning not just how a certain regiments uniform went together, but the most common mistakes their wearer might make in donning it. These diabolical fic writers are setting aside time to go to physical archives, reading period medical journals, and meteorological reports, then citing their sources in the chapter end notes. Just wait until you get smacked in the face with the chapter end note apologising for the historical inaccuracy when a timeline was altered just slightly for the sake of plot, with a detailed description of what actually would have happened. They're SO into it, and all the while doing everything they can to let the reader know that there is no glory in war, only horrors and bodies thrown carelessly into a meat grinder by powerful men. They show you this loss through characters you love, then give you a list of resources where you can see the records of the countless real people that it all actually happened to, lest you be lulled into thinking this was just a story.

Dudes who get way into WWII history have absolutely NOTHING on Downton Abbey writers on ao3 man. One will tell you about a cool documentary on tanks they watched, and the other will grab you by the hair and press your face into a stack of documents written in blood and mud.

#downton abbey #thomas barrow #downton abbey fanfic #downton abbey fan fiction #fanfic #fan fiction #ao3 #ww1 history #ww1 #ww2 bros #wwi history

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gingerdusk · 11 months ago

Note

You're big on Zelda, so I'm curious. How would you rewrite TOTK, if given the writer's room?

Fun question! *cracks knuckles* Let's answer it.

I've answered about the disconnect between BotW and TotK before, so I'm going to take some of those ideas and run with them here.

I'm taking the intended route, for the sake of keeping coherence rather than just making up an entirely new Hyrule from scratch. Link and Zelda are the same as they are in BotW.

To start off, I like the Zonai.

I like that they're an entirely new race of people in Hyrule. I love how weird-looking they are. I love that they're not human race #87.

I also love their bastard not-Zonai lovechild thing. If we saw more examples of Zonai, I would love for this funky lil dude to be part of them, kind of like how the Zora have a ton of variation between them.

So why don't we do that? Why don't we give them a kingdom?

And why don't we put some meat on the bones of what was already built?

There are Zonai-esque ruins all over the Depths, mostly in mines for Zonaite.

Their color palette matches. Rauru's braids and Sonia's earrings match brightblooms.

And the three dragons, who have Zonai features (segmented, color-edged hair, long ears, blunt muzzles, scale beard mouths), could have been a catalyst.

A catalyst for what, though?

It starts with the Depths themselves, and the dragons breaking free.

See, in TotK, the three elemental dragons all dive in and out of the Depths chasms. There's no explanation as to why, and the only explanation we have for the chasms forming is that it was like...geysers of Gloom.

However, the dragons in BotW are confirmed to have carved these canyons:

So let's go back in time a little.

The Zonai live in the Depths. They're underground, away from all the chaos that Hyrule has ever had to endure. They worship the bargainer statues as gods, they collect the souls of those above that drip down into the world below.

They have a rich mining industry, and coliseums for their greatest warriors to test their mettle against captured monsters.

They have their Secret Stones, and the one who's allowed to hang onto those is their leader.

That'd be young Prince Rauru.

The elemental dragons, Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh, are testaments to why no one can be allowed to have the Secret Stones. They were consumed by their power, literally.

One day, they break free, as if summoned by an unknown force. They tunnel through the ground and into the sky, connecting the world below to the one above.

The Hylians cautiously venture below, or the Zonai above. Prince Rauru, keeper of the Secret Stones, and Sonia, High Priestess of Hylia, meet.

They fall in love.

They marry.

Their marriage marks a unity between the Surface and the Depths.

(Maybe throw in a lil Skyward Sword continuity, mention that while Hylia sent the humans to the sky, the Zonai fled underground to avoid Demise, to keep the Secret Stones out of his grasp. You don't even have to name drop him, just say they went down to avoid destruction.)

Suddenly, Hyrule (the center part of the map, based around the Great Plateau, not the whole sub-kingdom conglomerate it exists as in BotW) undergoes a technological boom. Ganondorf, neighboring leader of the Gerudo, is interested. He talks trade with now-king Rauru, but there's the sub-plot of trying to get his secrets, which he steadily grows obsessed with.

Meanwhile, the Gerudo make their own expedition into the Depths.

There. The stage is set.

Now Zelda falls into the past.

She's found by Rauru and Sonia. Adopted as their daughter, more or less.

Also, the two of them have a small child. Nintendo, you CAN'T set them up as "they're her ancestors" and then kill them childless, descendants don't work like that. Zelda's immediately endeared to the kid, who reminds her of Link. Lil half-Zonai girl with a wooden sword who swings it at anything that moves. There are memories, it's cute.

In the past, Zelda witnesses, real time, Ganondorf going mad with power. They get along well at first, he's cordial, polite, a model diplomat. But she finds his troops in places they shouldn't be, confronts him about it and gets brushed off.

She tells Rauru, he's unwilling to throw suspicion onto Ganondorf. They're semi-friends and diplomacy is important! He's got to run this kingdom right. He can't fail, this is the biggest thing he's ever done!

(Sprinkle in a parallel to BotW Zel's fear of failure)

Some of the memories fill in gaps about Rauru's power, also. He's got what Link can do, minus Recall. Ultrahand and Fuse mainly, but Rauru's been experimenting with Ascend, excited because it'll make passage between the Depths and the Surface so much easier, and we see where Zel gets her scientific excitement from. Regardless of how different they look, they ARE family.

Ganondorf and Rauru get into a fight one day. A BAD fight. Maybe because Zelda tipped Rauru off, and despite telling her no, Rauru looked into it anyways. Regardless, they march out in opposite directions, and Zelda overheard it in the hallway. As Ganondorf leaves, he gives her the most SCATHING glare.

He then declares war on Hyrule.

Rauru makes a bid for allies, trying to get enough manpower to fight Ganondorf's impressive military. It's a struggle at first, but Zelda steps in, being the leader she's skilled at being and telling the others how crucial it is that they help. Ganondorf, meanwhile, turns to forbidden arts in his rage against Rauru, gets infected by Gloom/Malice, becomes scarily powerful. First Blood Moon. The Gerudo are kind of unnerved by him.

We see Zelda and Sonia helping with the war. Sonia's got light powers, Zelda's are stronger, together they can destroy entire ARMIES of monsters, saving their warriors on the battlefield. A few instances of Little Princess trying to be involved like the grown-ups are, getting huffy when she's told no.

In the aftermath of each fight, Rauru runs around, sealing away the monsters' latent energy with green spirals. That's where the Shrines come from, though in the past, they're Luminous Stones—it's all faded by present day, the light bled out of them.

Sonia is on the battlefield against Ganondorf one fateful night, Little Princess wanders onto the field, both the girls panic about it, and Sonia tries to run away with her while Zelda affords them cover. THAT'S when Ganondorf strikes her—he's fast like a ninja, rushes past Zelda, strikes Sonia.

She falls. Little Princess tumbles.

Zelda races to Little Princess's side, picks her up to run away with her as Ganondorf gets Sonia's stone, and he transforms into the Demon King. He raises his army. Little Princess screams, and we see an uncontrolled blast of Hylia's power, like an erratic attempt at what Zelda did at the end of BotW.

It fritzes, Zelda hugs her tight and ducks down to shield her, and the power cascades across the battlefield, affecting monsters AND people alike. The war is in shambles. Ganondorf stares at the child and her guardian, and retreats in a hurry.

Cue Rauru running to their side.

He grieves his wife. Little Princess is kept safe by Zelda. The Gerudo shun Ganondorf and join Rauru's side, and everyone involved in the war dedicates everything to one final assault against Ganondorf, one trap to finally END him, to force him into the Depths and fight him on the Zonai's own turf. The Secret Stones are distributed. Rauru knows what he has to do, and at the climax of the final battle, he uses his Secret Stone to amplify his sealing magic, knowing it'll kill him in the process and locking Ganondorf away in the Depths.

Except, it's not that simple.

Gloom bursts out of the newly trapped Ganondorf's chest, flooding the Depths, eliminating everyone in its path. That includes the Sages, the assaulting army, and the VAST majority of the Zonai. Its sole purpose is to gather enough strength over time for Ganondorf to break his shackles, because the Gloom wants OUT.

(Subtly implied that the Gloom is the first iteration of Demise's curse of hatred, maybe.)

And Zelda is alone. Trapped in the past, stuck with Little Princess, her Secret Stone, and the last of Mineru's notes.

Gloom continues to fume out of the Depths, so they're sealed off. The Blood Moon keeps spawning new monsters, so Little Princess and the remainders of the construct caretakers are sent up to the sky, for her protection. Zelda's the one that orchestrates it. Her people once hailed from the sky, and it's always been known as a place of safety for them.

Is this self-referential to the history she's building, or a Skyward Sword reference? Who knows.

They go skyward.

Then the Master Sword appears, and Zelda knows what she has to do. It's compounded, of course, by crushing guilt over the fact that Sonia's death happened on her watch. She tells Little Princess to look out for the world ahead, tells her to be strong, and brave, and everything she wishes her dad had told her. Then ends it with a final message.

"I'm leaving you something very important. Take good care of it."

Then she goes off alone to become a dragon.

Present day.

Link's not guided by Rauru, he's guided by a strange, beautiful woman who looks kind of like Zelda (albeit with Zonai hair, eyes, and long claws), who has a deep regret for the world below and who knows the lonely world above like the back of her hand. She teaches him the basics of his powers as he visits the shrines.

The Great Sky Island is otherwise normal.

You go to Hyrule. The Light Dragon's the one that breaks the cloud barrier, and as she does so, she sheds a single tear. By the time you get to the tear's location, it's spread a mural of the memory it contains around it.

Whenever you Recall a tear, the Light Dragon sheds a new one somewhere else, and it's up to you to follow.

You're chasing Zelda, twice over.

Besides that, Hyrule's Surface is...largely unchanged. I'm still upset that the pirates assaulting Lurelin weren't ACTUAL pirates, so guess what, they are now. Splinter faction of Yiga. Also, River Zora take over Lake Hylia, there's a spat between them and the Sea Zora, and Yona is the princess of the Rivers.

Then you've got the Depths.

That's where you find the ruins of the Zonai civilization, and you start piecing together the world it contains on your own. You aren't told, you're SHOWN.

Rauru's ghost finds and guides you here. He has a moment of "hey, isn't that MY arm?", upgrades your abilities or shows you how to use them more efficiently (ups your build limit, shows you how to un-Fuse, teaches you DEscend, gives you Autobuild, things like that), then DIES-dies. You escort his poe soul to a Bargainer statue.

The biggest change to the Depths, though, is that under the Gerudo Desert, you find PEOPLE.

So remember how the Gerudo launched their own expedition into the Depths in the past? How the Gloom killed almost everyone and the world below was sealed off?

There were a sparse few survivors of the Zonai, and some unfortunate Gerudo researchers that also got trapped. The people down there now are descendants of both. They're not Zonai anymore, though.

They're Lomei. They evolved like how the Rito evolved from the Zora in Wind Waker. Their tribe name comes from the Zonai word for "loneliness."

Regardless, they're initially inhospitable to Surfacers, because Surfacers are how they ended up how they did. If you sneak into their city, you're captured, like a few unfortunate Zonai Survey Team members that have wandered in, only YOU can escape via Ascend. OoT Gerudo parallel.

You can earn the Lomei's trust by doing things for them (maybe beating all three labyrinths as a rite of passage?), and then they let you into their cities. They've got their own brand of tech based off of old Zonai designs. One of the Lomei scientists is working on a mechsuit—that'll be the sage that Mineru passes her stone down to. And it fits doubly, both because the Lomei ARE the descendants of the Zonai and because the Lomei technician and Mineru are both scientists.

The Lomei people give you more pieces to the complicated Zonai-Hylian puzzle, and they're the ones that first tell you the legend of the dragons-from-Secret-Stones. So you can either learn it from them OR get it revealed in Zel's later memories.

Besides that, the present plot is pretty much as normal. Still the same bosses. Still the same sages-help-with-everything, though each sage you rescue gives you another piece of what really happened at the final fight (rather than the same cutscene over and over), telling you about how Rauru sacrificed himself and the effect it had on the rest of the Depths.

I will change where the Ganondorf's Army fight takes place, though. It's ACTUALLY very hidden, like the game was trying to imply it to be when you chase around Kohga. You do still have to do that, but he accidentally directs you to a place that's hidden in the tiniest crevice near Hyrule Castle, one that's very easy to miss and sitting in a veritable sea of Gloom. Once you finish the Kohga quest, a poe hovers outside of the crevice, which leads into an even deeper chasm that leads to the Underdepths.

The poe's your help to get through the maze there, and wherever it goes, Sundelions bloom at the corners. If you go early, before getting everything done, you have to navigate that place yourself, and it's a nightmare.

But you do it. You get to where everything started, and you beat the army, then Ganondorf, then he shoves his fist down his throat and goes dragon.

As he breaks through the ground and curls around Hyrule Castle, he SHATTERS it. The building crumbles to smithereens, crashing into the Depths below.

You beat Demon Dragon, Zelda catches you on her nose, it's over. You're in the spirit realm over sleeping Zelda.

The poe appears over your shoulder, drifts away from you, then materializes into Sonia. She says nothing, just activates Recall, turns Zelda back to normal, then cradles her in her arms. She gives her a kiss on the forehead, looks at you, then says the same line Zelda said to Little Princess ages ago, with the single change of one word.

"I'm leaving you something very important. Take good care of her."

She fades, as does the Spirit World.

You're falling.

Zelda's falling.

You catch her.

She wakes up, sees you, then hugs you and sobs into your shoulder.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Roll credits.

Bonus for the memory completionists, the True Ending has Zelda meeting the grown Little Princess up at the Great Sky Island, reconciling with her, both of them saying how proud they are of each other. Then Little Princess turns into a poe, and Zelda promises to take her to the Depths so she can be with her parents again. As they walk away, Sonia's poe tails after them.

And THAT is a way longer post than I expected to write. Whew.

#loz #zelda #totk #long post #obscenely long post #ask bee #totk rewrite #i want this game now. do you see what you've done to me?

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revelboo · 4 months ago

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REVEL! I request some of the lost light starscream story 🙏

Absolutely been obsessed with your writing, i legit have been checking every hour to see if you’ve uploaded anything new. I’ve read probably everything you’ve posted except for the bumble bee stories, you’ve made me fall in love with so many characters, the way you write all of them is absolutely amazing. Also this your reminder to hydrate!

Yeah, Sundays aren’t usually good days

Overdone Pt 3

Starscream x Reader

• Slumping into his chair behind his desk, he leans his chin on a fist as you ramble utter nonsense. Claiming you’d come to just falling to your death. Lies. They have to be, but then you’re turning big eyes his way and thanking him for saving your life and his wings flick. When’s the last time someone thanked him for anything? Shaking himself, he growls. Someone has to have put you up to this. “So I’m to believe you just teleported to Cybertron without meaning to, without even knowing how you accomplished it?”

• Staring up at his scowl, you understand why he doubts your story. It sounds crazy even to you, but you honestly don’t know how you ended up here. The only things you’re sure of? He’d saved you when he hadn’t had to. And that makes you sure he’s good deep down despite how intimidating he is, despite his threats to harm you if you’re a spy. Hands clasped together, you study him as his optics shutter and he presses his servos against them in an all too human gesture like he has a headache. “I swear I’m not a spy. I’m a baker.”

• “And I can just take your word for it?” Everyone’s out to get him, to take away what he’s worked so hard for. But he can’t figure out the game here. Maybe you’re not a real human? Just something meant to look like one? Comming Rattrap, he vents when you just stare up at him with wide eyes. Why a human? Thundercracker is the one that cares for the little meat bags, not him. Anyone familiar with him would know that. ‘Bring me a scanner,’ he growls at Rattrap, cutting the connection without waiting for a reply.

• Of course, he doesn’t trust you, but you’re certain you can trust him. And short of him giving you a kitchen and baking supplies, you’re not sure how to prove your claim. You’re also not sure what a scanner is or who he was just talking to. What you are aware of? How massive he is. Alien and strange. His face, his body metal, but malleable. Able to give enough to form expressions and his hands had been warm holding you, making you painfully aware of how cold you are right now. “Why did you save me?” You ask almost against your will and his frown deepens.

• “Would have rather I let you make a very small splatter on the surface?” Growling, he turns toward the door when it opens and holds out a hand in demand. Aware of Rattrap gawking at you as he hands over the scanner. And you flinch when he powers it on and seizes you by the leg to drag you closer when you try to back away. Huffing through his vents at your little squeak when you fall on your butt and he pulls you closer. Your expression almost comically indignant when he scans you. Finding you really are just a human. You don’t even have any hidden tech meant to spy on him and he’s almost disappointed. Almost eager to root out a plot or a conspiracy. Tapping the scanner on the desk beside you to make you flinch, he vents. “Go find Wheeljack,” he mutters to Rattrap. Because you’re still a mystery he means to solve.

#transformers x reader #starscream x reader #starscream

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carolperkinsexgirlfriend · 6 months ago

Text

it's the next best thing - part one

part two || part three

Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson || ~22k, complete || phone sex || accidental love confessions || there was only one bed || getting together || mutual pining || porn with plot || smut || wet & messy || friends with benefits || oral sex || rimming

This is my gift for @eyesofshinigami for @steddieexchange! This is part one of three, as it got a little long for a Tumblr One-shot. I hope you like it!

It’s been hours since Robin clocked out, and Steve’s barely hanging on. He misses spending entire shifts sitting behind the counter as Robin threw balled-up receipts at the back of his head, squabbling like children over who gets to pick that night’s movie. But Keith’s all up in a tizzy over their labor numbers, and so he’d split their dynamic duo right down the middle.

They’re like ships passing in the night now, and Steve’s bored.

The stupid bell on Family Video’s stupid front door hasn’t jingled in long enough that Steve’s begun melting into the front counter, head pillowed on his folded arms, legs barely keeping him upright. Mondays have always been the slowest night of the week, and as winter sinks its icy claws into Hawkins, fewer and fewer customers are showing up past six p.m.

Robin’s going to be mad when she opens tomorrow and finds all the tapes he’d been supposed to rewind still stacked by the TV in the back room, but sue him—the shine’s wearing off real quick on this entire job without her at his side.

When the phone rings shrilly in his ear, it’s almost a relief. He’ll take Mrs. Carruthers nagging complaints on the state of kids’ movies these days over another moment of this endless, lonely, monotony. He doesn’t raise his head as he reaches fumbling fingers across the counter to snatch the phone from its cradle, pressing it to his ear.

“Thank you for calling Family Video,” he drones out in the customer service voice he’d learned at Scoops and perfected during Friday night rushes, made worse when the new releases hit the shelves. “How can I help you?”

It’s silent for a moment aside from the staticky sound of an open line. But then there’s laughter drifting down into his ear, alternating between braying and giggly—Steve would recognize that little donkey snort anywhere.

He’s already smiling into the meat of his forearm when another voice, deeper than it usually is, asks, “what are you wearing, big boy?” before dissolving into peals of elated laughter, mixing perfectly with Robin’s own hiccuping giggles.

Steve straightens up. He catches sight of his own face reflected back at him from the dark windows and for the first time that night, he’s glad no one else is here. It’d be hard to explain the force of his grin and the way his cheeks have turned splotchy and pink even in the cold air.

Steve dutifully waits for a break in the laughter to answer Eddie’s question. “White sweater, green vest, blue jeans, white sneakers,” he lists out, the corners of his mouth twitching as he fights against himself to maintain that same droll tone.

The laughter starts up again, spurting like a sprinkler on the fritz. Something crashes over the line, and Steve knows without having to ask that it was Robin as Eddie’s laughter takes on a hysterical edge. Steve’s smiling again, face hurting with the strain of it. He wishes he could be there, sitting between the pair wherever they are, but if he can’t, this is the next best thing.

“That’s so cute, baby,” Eddie replies when he finally gets a handle on things, that same deep tone telling Steve that the bit is still going on. It doesn’t stop warmth from pooling low in his stomach as he bites his lip, the term of endearment ringing through his ears.

“Thanks,” Steve says, wincing when it comes out all breathy. He clears his throat and diverts the topic of conversation. “You stealing my best friend?”

Eddie gasps, sounding almost affronted as he replies, “of course not! We’re leaving a space right in the middle, just for you.”

“You were the tie-breaker for the movie pick, dingus!” Robin calls, voice faint like she’s a little too far away to be properly picked up by the receiver.

“You always side with Robin, Stevie,” Eddie sighs. Steve can picture it—Robin and Eddie on separate sides of the Munson’s couch, passing a joint back and forth, pausing long enough in between each hit like his ghost might want to have a pull of its own. “It’s enough to make a guy think you don’t like him.”

“I like you,” Steve blurts, wincing and closing his eyes when the words register.

The silence rings louder than any response Eddie could have given, deafening Steve in the quiet of the abandoned video store. It’s all too much, made worse by Eddie finally responding with a stilted, “I—oh.”

Steve rubs at his closed eyes, suppressing the groan creeping up his throat. God, why can’t he just stick with the joke? Why does he have to spew his stupid feelings all over everything?

“Well that’s—” Eddie starts when it becomes clear that Steve’s not going to be saying anything to make this moment any less awkward. But suddenly, he just…doesn’t want to hear what Eddie has to say.

“Uh, customer,” Steve interrupts, hoping the lack of ringing bell isn’t obvious over the phone. “Got to go, bye,”

“Oh, oka—”

Steve slams the phone down hard enough that the plastic creaks. Now, alone with his racing thoughts and poor life decisions once more, Steve drops his head down on the sticky counter with a groan.

It’s going to be a long, lonely night.

***

As Eddie listens to the dial-tone filter down the line, he smacks his head into his kitchen cupboard, the shitty door rattling loosely on its hinge as he tries to strangle himself against its plywood surface.

“Why did you let me do that?” Eddie whines, even though “let” is a strongly misleading word. Robin, ever the shit-stirrer, had dialed the number herself and shoved the ringing phone into his fumbling hands just before Steve’s tinny voice had come through the phone’s speaker.

Robin hiccups, and it sounds wet enough that Eddie finally puts the phone back on the cradle and turns around, limbs loose and uncoordinated from the pot brownies they’d burnt to a crispy charcoal but eaten anyway. She’s on the floor where she’d collapsed mid giggle-fit and been unable to get back up. But she’s all out of smiles now as tears trail down her freckled cheeks.

“’m sorry,” she cries, rubbing her closed fist against her streaming eyes, hair haloed out against the dirty linoleum of the trailer’s small kitchen. “Just missed him.”

“You saw him this morning,” Eddie snorts, but lays down next to her, resting his head against her stomach. Her clumsy hands paw at his head, fingers catching in every knot as she tries to sooth him.

“But it’s Steve,” she says, like that will explain everything. And really, it does. He is Steve, and he and Robin were surgically disconnected in the womb or something. They’re going to grow old and die together, and Eddie’s only a little bit bitter about not fitting into that same equation.

“Yeah, Robby, I know,” Eddie sighs, blinking up at the flickering fluorescent lights drilling through his skull. He can’t seem to get up, though, thoughts swirling around themselves, making useless patterns in his brain that are impossible to follow.

They’re quiet aside from Robin’s waning sniffles, her heels kicking rhythmically against the tile like she’s keeping count, fingers tapping against the top of his head like she’s practicing her fingering for one of the songs in marching band. Eddie loves her so much. He should have known to never, ever give her drugs.

“Is it just me or did he sound sort of flustered?” Eddie asks, and Robin’s fingers drop back to his head, clutching at the roots of his hair hard enough to hurt as she dissolves into cute little giggles again, knees pulling up as she curls into the fetal position around his head.

“Uh, customer, got to go, bye!” she calls, rushing it all together in her haste to mock her best friend’s fumbled sign-off.

Eddie laughs right along with her, but there are butterflies fluttering around in his ribcage, rabbiting his heartbeat up to an alarming gallop.

Steve drops from the conversation after that, and it doesn’t come up for the rest of the night. Not when the munchies get the best of them and they order a pizza, or when Robin shoves one of her stupid subtitled French films into the VHS player and they both squint at the screen, too out of their gourds to follow the confusing plot.

Robin might have forgotten the entire thing; Eddie does not.

It lingers in the back of his mind, creeping over him like mold until he finds himself in front of the phone the next night right around the same time, hand hovering over the number pad, fingers damn-near shaking with the desire to punch in the number he’d had to scour the phone book for. The one he’d written down and stuck onto the fridge with a magnet, hoping Wayne wouldn’t ask any questions when he inevitably catches sight of it.

And that’s the thing. He couldn’t even claim it was spur of the moment this time. It was premeditated. And it feels that way as he finally dials and listens to the line ring.

“Thank you for calling Family Video. How can I help you?”

“What are you wearing?” Eddie asks. It comes out of his mouth on a raspy whisper, rumbling deep in the recesses of his throat.

Steve laughs, sounding downright delighted as he asks, “Robin put you up to this?”

Eddie can almost see the smirk that must have crept across his face. He twirls the cord round and round his finger, wishing desperately he could see it in person.

“Uh, no,” Eddie says, voice three octaves higher than it had started out, feeling hot all over as he jumps up onto the counter and settles his head back against the cupboard. “Your better half has fled the coop.”

Steve laughs again, and Eddie wants to drown himself in it. Instead, he clacks his heels against the cupboards behind him, trying to keep from blurting out something stupid.

“So, it’s your idea this time?” like he knows Robin well enough to know she’d dialed the number and put the phone in his hands. He’d be jealous if he wasn’t in love with both of them in his own special way.

“All the better to make you laugh, my king,” Eddie replies, cringing at the stupid little voice that comes out of his mouth. “I would be failing in my court jester duties if I didn’t perform at my king’s behest.”

“You think you’re that funny, do you?” Steve asks around a laugh.

“Well, at my count, you’re at three laughs already, your highness.” Eddie counts them out on the fingers still tangled in the phone cord, like Steve will somehow be able to see them from miles away. God help him if he can, with the way Eddie’s twiddling his fingers and blushing like a schoolgirl on her first date.

Steve scoffs, but there’s another laugh hidden beneath it, so happy and warm that it lodges itself in the recesses of Eddie’s chest. He presses the phone hard enough against his ear that the cheap plastic creaks, unwilling to miss even the smallest of sounds Steve might make.

“Fine, fine, you’re funny, Munson,” Steve says, voice lilting up like he’s still fucking smiling. “You can call your king anytime.”

“How gracious, your majesty.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve says, snorting at Eddie’s antics. “Now what’ve you been up to all day? Preparing your material to call little old me?”

“You’re just jealous that some of us aren’t forced to be capitalist monkeys,” Eddie replies.

“Monkeys?” Steve asks, laughing again—Eddie’s count is now up to five.

“Yeah, you know, with the whole monkey suit you’re forced to wear.”

“It’s a vest,” Steve huffs before putting on a voice that’s soft-spoken and sultry. “With how often you ask what I’m wearing, it seems like you would’ve remembered by now.”

Eddie sputters as Steve’s sibilant whisper slips down his spine, making him shiver. Steve isn’t supposed to turn the flirting back onto him. There are rules, goddammit.

The conversation segues into Steve complaining about the absentee parents barely paying attention as their kids smear candy all over the VHS’s on display, really only proving Eddie’s corporate monkey crack right. Eddie doesn’t mind—anything to get Steve not to use that voice again.

It goes on for minutes, Eddie hanging on every word, every laugh, every sound, like this is something they do. Even though this is the first time they’ve ever talked on the phone without Robin back-seat talking behind one of them. Even though they don’t even really hang out alone, always sequestered in groups.

All the better to keep Eddie’s stupid, ridiculous, hopeless crush from exploding out of him and killing everyone in the line of fire.

But, as Steve hangs up with a rushed, “customer, sorry!” this time with the accompanying sound of the bell on Family Video’s front door, leaving Eddie to listen to the staticky dial tone instead, he can’t regret calling. Not with Steve’s laughter still ringing in his ears.

He stands there clutching the dead line to his ear for an embarrassingly long time.

***

Steve means to tell Robin about it the next time they share a shift. Really, he does. But then she spends the first thirty minutes of their two-hour overlap talking about her most recent one-on-one hangout with Vickie, and Steve spends the rest of their time before the after-work rush hits, hyping her up to finally make a move. By the time Robin’s punching out, Eddie’s name hasn’t come up even once.

He can feel his window of opportunity dwindling as Robin grabs her bike from where she’d stashed it in Keith’s office that morning, wheeling her dirty tires toward the front door.

“Hey, Robin?” Steve asks, just as her hand settles on the door, ready to swing it open.

“Yeah?” she says, focused on rifling through her pockets, making sure she has her house key after one too many times making it all the way home to find her house locked up tight, and her keys dropped somewhere between Family Video’s shelves.

Steve watches her, and feels the moment pass him by. “Want a ride to work tomorrow?” he asks instead of saying, I really like Eddie, or, do you know why he keeps calling, or, do you think I have a chance? It feels more like a bathroom conversation anyway, and if Keith catches them both in there again while the front of the store remains unmanned, he’s going to fire them.

“Always,” she says, waving half-assedly toward him without turning back around.

And just like that, she’s gone, none the wiser to Steve’s inner turmoil, spiralling into full-blown anxiety the closer it gets to what he’s beginning to think of as Eddie’s usual call time. It’s just—they don’t do this. They don’t call, they don’t hang out without Robin or the kids, and they sure as hell don’t ask each other what the other is wearing in that deep, wanting tone of voice.

At least, that’s what Steve had thought two days ago. Now, he’s not so sure.

When the phone rings at exactly eight p.m. that night, Steve knows who it must be on the other side of the line.

“Eddie?” he asks, forgoing his usual customer service spiel. He’s rewarded with a bright, happy laugh that hits him straight in the sternum.

“Is that how you greet all your paying customers?” Eddie asks, smile audible in his voice.

“As if you ever pay.”

“I have!” Eddie cries indignantly. “Wait, no you threw me off! What’re you wearing?”

“This again?” Steve asks, groaning as if the question doesn’t send his guts squirming every single time Eddie’s voice drops into that suggestive register. He shouldn’t answer, should nip this whole thing in the bud before it spirals entirely out of his control.

But Eddie doesn’t break the silence—Steve can’t even hear him breathing, and Steve’s never been that strong-willed. “Striped polo, jeans, sneakers, work vest. There, you happy?”

“I don’t know, Stevie,” Eddie replies, and Steve can practically see the teasing smirk on his face as he asks, “what color are these stripes?”

“Grey and blue,” Steve says after looking down to double check. It’s his only long-sleeved polo and the store’s a bit too cold for anything else.

Eddie whistles, shrill and sharp through the phone like he’s catcalling Steve from across the street. “Jesus,” Steve cries, yanking the phone away from his ear until he can’t hear it anymore. When he presses the phone back to his ear, Eddie’s cackling. “Prick.”

“Sorry, hot stuff, just couldn’t help myself.”

“You could try,” Steve replies dryly.

“You’re not supposed to change for a relationship, Stevie.”

Steve’s breath stutters in his lungs. It’s a joke. He knows it’s a joke, but that doesn’t stop his fingertips from tingling like he’d set them on fire. The other side of the call’s gone dead silent, the words settling between them with more weight than Eddie could have meant.

So, Steve mutters, “this is more like a hostage situation,” and wonders if he’s just imagining the relief he can hear in Eddie’s answering laughter.

Steve’s heart’s always been a little too easy to snatch—Nancy and Robin perfect attestations of that. But it’d worked out okay with Robin, shifting seamlessly into platonic soulmateism as soon as the name Tammy Thompson had come out of her mouth.

Maybe he can do that with Eddie, too. If only he’d stop calling; if only Steve would stop answering. He’s off shift tomorrow, so if Eddie calls anyone, it’ll be Robin.

As their conversation ends, Steve tells himself he’s fine with that.

***

When Eddie calls Family Video like usual, it’s Robin that answers the phone.

“You’re not Steve,” he says, without thinking, cringing when that makes her snort. “Not that you’re not a delight and a treasure to us all, Buckley!”

“Mmmhmm,” she cuts in, sounding even more droll than when she’d droned out her canned customer greeting.

“It’s just that Steve’s always the one that answers, so I was starting to think he was super glued to the front counter, you know?”

Silence rings down the line long enough for Eddie to let his dangling heels smack noisily into the cupboard three times, but then Robin says, “he’s at home,” and continues before he can respond, “you do this a lot then, huh?” she asks around whatever pilfered candy she’s snacking on.

Eddie’s entire body freezes as he runs what he’d just said through his head and comes to the startling realization that Steve hasn’t told her.

“Uh, no?” Eddie asks, hating the way his voice cracks with the lie. “I mean, sometimes I want to call before making the long trek up there. Check if you’ve got anything good on the shelves, you know?”

“Mmmhmm,” she says again, sounding even more doubtful now. They both know it’s a measly six minute drive, but she doesn’t call him on it. “Well, what are you looking for tonight?”

He almost blurts out Steve’s name before remembering his stupid lie. “Uhhhh—um—what about The Fly?” he asks, wincing as Robin scoffs.

“That’s not released yet, dingbat,” she replies, like Eddie doesn’t already know that. It’s just the first movie he’d thought of, having seen its name lighting up The Hawks marquee just this morning.

“Well, call me when it is, okay bye!”

He hangs up the phone on Robin’s indignant sputtering. Because he’s the bane of his own existence, he immediately flips through the white pages and dutifully writes the number he finds listed beside Steve’s yuppy parents' names on the note beneath the long-since memorized number for Family Video.

He doesn’t hesitate to dial.

“Harrington residence,” Steve greets because he’s a bit of a yuppy himself. Eddie hates that he finds it charming.

“You always answer the phone like that, big boy?”

“If I’d known it was you, I might not have picked up at all,” Steve replies, but he sounds like he’s teasing, so Eddie just clutches the phone tighter, smiling around his empty trailer, glad that Wayne’s at work. “Now, did you actually want something?”

“Just wanted to know what you’re wearing.”

Eddie shoves his fist into his mouth and bites down to contain the whine at having said such a god awful, stupid fucking thing for the fourth god awful fucking time.

“Sweats, an old gym shirt, and some socks,” Steve replies, like that’s not enough to rewire Eddie’s whole fucking brain.

Eddie’s never seen him anything other than entirely put together—jeans stain-free, shirt pressed, not a hair out of place. He’s a man after Eddie’s own heart, curating an aesthetic with all the careful consideration that he’d use picking songs for a mixtape. But, unlike Eddie, Steve looks so put together that the thought of him messy has Eddie’s heartbeat ratcheting up.

Are his sweatpants stained? Is the gym shirt stretched out? Is his hair all fucked up? God, Eddie would kill to know, but he can’t think of a normal way to ask, so all he says is, “oh, yeah?” wincing when it comes out embarrassingly squeaky. He clears his throat and continues, “no work today?”

“Nah, it’s my day off,” Steve says, and then there’s the sound of furniture settling, a sigh, the rustle of fabric. Did Steve just lay down? Does he have a phone in his goddamn bedroom? Is he splayed out on his bed, cozy and warm. Eddie’s never seen Steve’s bedroom and god, suddenly he wants to so badly it hurts.

He wants to lay down beside him, wrap him up in his arms, see how fucked up his hair gets by the early hours of the morning. He just—wants.

“Eddie?” Steve asks, sounding frustrated, like he’d tried to get his attention a few different times. “You there?”

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Eddie says before closing his eyes and bashing his head into the cupboard. Sweetheart? Lusting after Steve was one thing, but fucking sweetheart? This is rapidly becoming dangerous. “Wayne just got home, so I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Oh, oka—”

Eddie hangs up the phone. He stares at the empty trailer, heartbeat rabbiting away in his chest like he’s back in gym class trying to run the mile.

He should stop this, throw Steve’s number away and go cold turkey—hide his heart deep within the recesses of his ribcage and keep it safe.

Eddie’s never been that smart, and he knows, no matter what his stupid brain thinks, he’ll be picking up the phone again tomorrow night. And besides, he’s already got both numbers memorized.

***

It’s still Steve’s day off, but he drives Robin to work, just like he always does. She stuffs her bike in the trunk in case he’s not around to pick her up after her shift’s done, and then she climbs into his passenger seat, still looking half asleep as she pulls down his visor and uses the small mirror to messily apply her eye liner. Steve drives slow, careful of potholes and speed bumps, a part of him always terrified she’ll stab her own eye out.

She doesn’t talk to him until she’s finished both eyes and stashed her pencil securely into her bag.

“So, Eddie called yesterday,” she says, and when he looks at her sidelong, hands clenched on the steering wheel, she’s looking back, smirking as she watches her comment land. He jerks his gaze back to the road.

“Oh, yeah?” he asks, relieved when his voice comes out even.

Robin knows him though, so she just snorts, and when he looks back toward her, her arms are crossed and she’s got one eyebrow raised bitchily in a way he knows she learned from him. And now here she is, using it as a weapon against him.

Steve clears his throat, glancing away again as he pulls into the vacant Family Video parking lot. “He… calls sometimes.”

“I’ll bet he does,” Robin replies with a snort.

“Robin,” Steve whines, all sense of decorum lost as he drops his forehead down on the wheel hard enough that his horn honks, sharp and loud in the quiet morning. “It’s not like that.”

She reaches over to pat his back, all dripping condescension as she asks, “for him or for you?” before hopping out of the car and going to unlock the front door, switching the Open sign on.

Steve loiters in the parking lot for an embarrassedly long time, her words running through his head. He hits play on his tape deck to drown it out, peeling out of the parking lot like a demo-dog is on his heels.

Metallica’s Orion drills through his head all the way home.

Steve fritters away his day, wandering around his big, empty house, scrubbing floors, dusting shelves he hasn’t even glanced at in years, reorganizing the pantry, lest his anxious energy shake his organs right out from beneath his skin.

He loses himself in the monotony of scrubbing, wiping, and pilfering through cupboards until he comes out of it, covered in dust and smelling of chemicals with the little hand of the clock in the kitchen pointing damningly close to the eight.

Steve takes a shower, scrambling with shampoo and conditioner, rubbing his bar of soap roughly down his body, trying to get the smell of bleach off his skin.

When he hears the phone ring, Steve rushes out of the shower, dripping water all over the tile as he slips his way into his bedroom to snatch the phone off his desk before it rings out.

“Harrington residence,” he replies breathlessly. He tries to tell himself it’s because of his mad dash to grab the line but as he holds his breath, waiting for that familiar voice to filter through the speaker, he knows it’s a lie.

“What are you wearing?” Eddie asks.

Because he hasn’t lied yet, Steve bites his lip before hesitantly replying, “uh, I just got out of the shower, so…”

Eddie gasps, breath stuttering dramatically, and when he asks, “so, a towel?” his words come out high pitched, almost squeaky, like he’s doing one of his little voices for his nerd game. But, an idea is growing in the back of his head, infecting his every thought with a nagging sort of hope he thought he’d sworn off years ago.

Maybe, just maybe, this whole thing isn’t just a bit at all, no matter how it had started. Maybe this is Eddie’s ridiculous way of starting something. If it is, Steve can’t bear to pass it up, even if all Eddie wants is the sound of Steve’s voice whispering dirty things in his ears.

There’d been a few girls back at Hawkins High who’d liked to call Steve up, have him murmur sweet nothings into their ears as they giggled, doing things to their own bodies that they were too shy to ask Steve to do himself.

If that’s all Eddie wants, Steve will give it to him. He’ll give Eddie anything he wants.

“Steve?” Eddie asks, still like his breath has been punched out of him. Steve wants to hear how breathless he can make him.

“You actually called mid-shower, so I didn’t have time to dry off,” Steve says, voice low so he can catch any little noise Eddie might make. “I didn’t even grab a towel.”

Steve’s not disappointed—Eddie whines, high and strained before the sound cuts off abruptly enough that he can almost picture the way Eddie must’ve covered his own mouth, nails digging into his cheek to keep himself from letting anything else slip. Steve grins, blood heating up even as the water begins cooling against his skin.

“I’m dripping,” he continues, voice low and suggestive. Eddie doesn’t reply aside from the haggard edge his breathing gains. Steve hasn’t even done anything yet, and Eddie sounds like he’s on the knife’s edge of coming. “And it’s all your fault.”

“Steve,” Eddie whines.

“What?” Steve asks, “you started this, Eddie.” Eddie moans as Steve says his name. God, he’s easy.

“It was just a joke,” Eddie argues, but his breathing’s still hitching, and he doesn’t sound like he wants Steve to stop.

“I thought you’d enjoy me playing along.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Do you want me to stop?” Steve interrupts. He will, if Eddie asks, will stop playing this little game and ask him how his day was, wait for Eddie to ask him in turn. They can go back to the way things were before, no matter how much Steve doesn’t want to.

“No, don’t stop,” Eddie replies, quickly, desperately

“Oh, are you just selfish then?”Steve asks, gratified when Eddie hisses like Steve had touched him. “Don’t you want me to enjoy myself, too?”

“No, no, no,” Eddie replies in that same high-pitched, stuttering voice that he’s rapidly becoming addicted to, so desperate to please Steve. “Not selfish, not—”

“I don’t know, this is starting to seem a little one-sided,” Steve cuts in, Eddie’s protestations sputtering out into nothing. “You haven’t even told me what you’re wearing.”

“Jeans and a t-shirt!” Eddie answers so fast he can’t have even thought about not replying.

“A little overdressed, aren’t you baby?” Steve asks, making note of the way Eddie moans at the slipped term of endearment. “Why don’t you take your shirt off for me?”

“But, I’m in the kitchen,” Eddie replies, whispering like he’s imparting a secret. It snakes down the line and sends a shiver up Steve’s spine. He’s been to Eddie’s trailer before, settling on one side of the couch, Eddie on the other, with Robin playing buffer in the middle.

He can picture the Munson’s small kitchen, barely cordoned off from the rest of the trailer, the separating wall just enough to block the fridge and sink from view.

“Is Wayne there?” Steve asks.

“He’s at work, but—”

“Then what’s the problem?” Steve asks. “Afraid he’ll come home and figure out what you’re doing?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Eddie whines, but Steve hears the sound of him rearranging the phone followed by the rustling of fabric. “There, happy?”

Steve pictures it: Eddie, standing shirtless in the kitchen, phone clutched to his ear as he pants down the line. Is his face flushed with embarrassment? With arousal? How far would the pink go down? He wants to follow it with his tongue, trailing over tattoos and into his dark happy trail.

“Good boy,” Steve praises, and Eddie moans, dark and guttural.

Steve strains his ears, swears he can hear the rustling of clothes, the metallic clinking of what must be Eddie’s stupid handcuff belt that he’s dying to get his hands on. There’s a hitch of breath a moment after before it evens out. After having heard him be so loud, Steve’s got his own suspicions about what activity he’s trying to cover up.

“I thought you weren’t doing anything?” Steve asks teasingly as he finally settles his shower-damp body into his clean sheets.

“I’m—I’m not,” Eddie replies, voice still higher than he’s ever heard it.

Steve grins, settling more comfortably into his pillows, phone cord stretched just a bit in order to reach. “So that wasn’t the sound of you sliding your big, strong hands into your pants?”

There’s a clatter on the other side of the line, like Eddie’d dropped the phone before hastily picking it back up to reply. “I—Steve, I wouldn’t—”

“You’re easy,” Steve says, cutting off Eddie’s lie before he can commit to it. “Just the thought of me naked and you had to touch yourself, didn’t you?”

“Steve—”

“Or have you been doing this every time?” Steve asks, just to hear Eddie’s protests. He knows he hasn’t, would have heard the hitching breaths and stifled moans. “Calling me up at my job just to fuck your hand and listen to my voice, baby?”

“I didn’t,” Eddie protests again, but his breathing’s gone ragged.

“Was Wayne sitting in his recliner so you had to be quiet, listening for any movements from the living room while you shoved your hand in your pants, too desperate to wait?”

“No.” Eddie asserts, but he’s panting now, like just the thought of getting caught in a compromising position is getting him there. “I wouldn’t, not—not with Wayne home.”

“But he’s not here this time is he?” Steve asks. “And you’re desperate for it, aren’t you?”

“Steve.”

“I bet you look real pretty like that.” Steve’s own arousal is making itself known, dick hardening as he listens to all the delicious sounds Eddie makes. “Hand moving in your jeans, all hot and bothered as you take what you need.”

Eddie’s not talking anymore, just gasping wetly down the line as Steve speaks. He doesn’t mind, he can conjure up enough visuals to work with as he grasps his own shaft and gives it a tug.

“Sound pretty too, don’t you?” Steve asks, getting an affirmative grunt that has his own hand moving quicker. “Moaning for me like you just can’t help yourself.”

He’s not even thinking about what he’s saying anymore, spewing garbage out of his mouth as he strips his dick, now lubricated enough by precome and lingering shower water to ease his way.

“I might have to stuff something else in there just to shut you up,” he grunts.

That’s apparently all it takes because Eddie’s whining turns high and reedy, muffled like he’d stuffed his own fingers down his throat on Steve’s command.

“That’s it, baby,” Steve says, talking him through what must be one hell of an orgasm with the way he’s panting. “Bet you look so pretty when you’re coming, making a mess in your stupid tight jeans.”

Eddie moans again like even when he’s spent, the sound of Steve’s voice is almost enough to get him there again. Then he’s back to panting. Steve listens to his wet, staggered breathing, closes his eyes, and pictures what Eddie must look like, collapsed on the floor of his kitchen, hand stuffed in his now-stained jeans, bangs matted to his forehead.

Steve wants to smell him, wants to lick him, wants to brush his bangs back and kiss his sweaty forehead. And that’s all it takes to send Steve over the edge. He bites his lip, suppressing any noises from spilling out of his mouth as he shakes through the aftershocks.

Embarrassment begins curdling in his gut as soon as he comes back to himself. Not at what he’d said, or the noises he might’ve let slip, no. Eddie’d liked it—he had. But, that’s not what had been Steve’s undoing. No, it was the tender, domestic thought of kissing his forehead. Horrifying.

But then Eddie starts laughing, manic and gleeful the way only the best of orgasms leave you, and Steve elects to leave that particular panic for after he’s off the phone.

“Same time tomorrow?” Steve asks, like he hadn’t just listened to one of his closest friends jack off to his voice.

“Uh, yeah?” Eddie says, sounding downright shy now that he’s coming down. Steve can’t handle it. “Yes? Yes.”

“Talk to you then,” Steve replies, hating how soft his voice comes out. “Night, Munson.”

“Night, Stevie.” Eddie whispers.

Once the phone call ends, Steve gets up to shower off more than a little dust this time.

part two

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #my fic #SteddieWinterExchange

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