#I don’t recall anyone else doing this sort of thing

[worstloki]

Mu Qing with a giant anti-horse sword while everyone else gets to use conventionally sized weapons like regular length swords and fans 🤝 Ling Wen as a civil official having the brocade immortal making her strong enough to rival martial ones

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

tell me again that you hate me

a/n: i kinda just poured all of the filth ever into this one fic... you're welcome.

summary: “you know, I could help you. Pop that little cherry for you,” he shrugged as if he didn’t seem out of his mind for what he was brashly uttering, “you desperately need it, that fucking stick up your ass makes you such a bitch to be around. But no one is gonna wanna bang you, I mean, maybe you could be kinda hot if you weren’t such a fucking loser, if you didn’t dress like a fucking pogue, but I don’t think anyone would commit social suicide like that. So, I’ll take care of it. Fix that problem for the good of everyone else.” 

warnings: bully!stepbro!rafe cameron x virgin!reader, smut, dark content, dubcon/noncon, enemies to lovers, rafe is in college while reader is still in high school (everyone is over 18), blackmail, alcohol consumption, allusion to drug use, drunk driving, hidden cameras, panty stealing, references to somno, possessiveness, kissing, loss of virginity, size kink, belly bulge, pain kink, dirty talk, impact play, oral, pussyjob, just the tip, squirting, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, cumplay, no aftercare and not really any foreplay, public sex, rafe is mean and pervy and dark but it's all fun because it's just a silly fantasy

word count: 5153

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Your life had turned into a living nightmare.

You thought that when your high school bully graduated, you’d finally get rid of him. But little did you know what the future held in store, just who your own mother would decide to marry and what particular family you’d be forced to fuse with. 

Rafe Cameron had been the bane of your existence for years. Sure, when you’d first met him, you admittedly had a bit of a crush on him, but that was until he noticed you and truly showed you the notorious bully that he was. And now that he, the very person who had turned your teenage years into literal hell, had become your stepbrother, you couldn’t wait to get out of there, move halfway across the globe just to never see his face again. 

It also didn’t help matters that you got situated in the room right next to his, even had to share a Jack and Jill bathroom with him. 

Now what you didn’t know was how Rafe’s feelings truly were towards you. How he only started bullying you because you made him feel some type of way that no other chick did, but you came from the wrong side of the island, so getting those feelings out in the form of cruelty only seemed natural to a guy such as him. You had no idea that it was actually you whom he thought about every time he jerked off on the other side of that incredibly thin wall you shared, or even that his wicked fascination with you only seemed to grow now that you were a part of the family. 

The impatient knocks were no use, so swiftly you swung the door to Rafe’s bedroom open. He was nowhere in sight, but before you could turn around to search for him in another place, the light that his computer monitor blared out into the space caught your eye.

Your vision however grew wide as soon as you saw the taboo tab that was open. It was porn, but not just any porn. The open page was littered with rows and rows of graphic videos that all fell under the stepsister search he had typed in. 

Frozen in your stance, you wanted to sprint out of there, though at the same time, some part of you wanted to inch closer and snoop further. 

“What the fuck are you doing in my room?” a voice blared from behind you and caused you to jump.

Skittering away from the desk, you spotted the familiar buzzcut standing in the doorway. 

“I–, uh,” you swallowed and recalled the reason for your hunt, “my mom’s forcing me to go to that party at Topper’s tonight.”

“Okay, and?” he scoffed. 

“And so, because I don’t really do that sort of thing–”

“Because you’re a fucking loser who never gets invited.”

“Because I have better things to spend my Friday nights doing, your father wanted you to keep an eye on me and to make sure I got home safe.”

The only way you were gonna get through the night was if you got as wasted as possible.

Which is exactly what you ended up doing. 

When the clock chimed two, the raging headache you were developing from the blaring music convinced you to finally call it a night. You’d given it enough of a chance, enough experience to go home and state that partying simply wasn’t for you. 

But if you didn’t find the literal demon of a stepbrother and let him complete his end of the bargain, then maybe your mom wouldn’t believe you alone and force you to go to another. 

However, locating him turned out to be a much more difficult task than you’d thought. As you stumbled around the massive house, supporting your wobbly weight on the walls as you peeked into each of the rooms where some partygoers had migrated to, you soon dug your phone out of your jeans and dialled up his number. 

It was on the third attempted call that you finally stumbled into him. Sitting with a random blonde on his lap and the remnants of a mysterious white powder dusting the coffee table separating you from him. 

“There you are,” you grumbled, “I’ve been trying to call you!”

His expression turned sour as he noticed your presence, swiftly flipping his phone around as it layed on the table, though the caller ID that lit up the screen wasn’t of your name as your phone still buzzed in your palm to get through to him. Instead, it spelt out fleshlight in big bold letters. 

“So, you have,” he exhaled, “what do you want?” 

“I wanna go home,” you shoved your phone back in your pocket. 

“So, go home. What do you want my fucking permission? Are you that obsessed with me?”

“You have to take me home,” you reminded him, though when he began to laugh in your face, you shot back, “or you can just deal with your dad yourself when you get home. Your choice if you wanna keep being in his good graces or not.” 

That managed to shut him up. Though as he reluctantly pushed the blonde aside and got up from the couch, he muttered just loud enough for you to hear, “fucking prude,” like a curse on the wind just before he marched passed you and grabbed a hold of your arm to drag you with him. 

“Ow, Rafe, you’re hurting me!” you tried to tear yourself free of his grip. 

“Oh, shut up you baby, no I’m not. You wanna feel what does hurt?” his long fingers then dug further into your flesh and caused it to actually ache, “this.”

As he pushed open the front door, you whined, “ow, please stop,” but when he finally did, he only traded the grasp out with a light shove to your shoulder, directing you further towards his parked car. 

When you were planted in the passenger seat with your gaze firmly fixed out the window as the dark streets rolled by, you crossed your arms and mumbled, “I hate you…” gaining enough courage from the dizzying alcohol ravaging your system to utter it out loud. 

“What was that?” Rafe cast a glance in your direction.

Twisting your neck to glare back at him, you hesitantly repeated, “I hate you,” though the faint flicker of bravery you’d acquired was snuffed out as swiftly as it ignited when you saw the smirk that bloomed on your stepbrother’s features. 

“Aw, don’t tell me that, princess,” he chuckled, “you’ll just make me hard.” 

Eyes widening, they briefly fluttered down to the crotch of his trousers before you blinked away, a reaction that was evidently satisfying enough for Rafe to cause him to keep going. 

“But you probably wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway.”

“I know what to do,” you said defensively, though regretted your humouring him as soon as the words slipped out past your lips. 

“Oh yeah? Just how would you know that? Everyone knows you’re a fucking virgin,” something he was to blame for, though that wasn’t a fact you ever had to know. You didn’t have to be aware of just how many times he had stopped guys from asking you out, just because he wanted you all to himself, “but are you secretly a perv, sis? Is that how you think you know what to do?”

“Don’t call me that,” you cringed lightly. 

“What? A perv? Or sis? Don’t you wanna be reminded that you’re my stepsister?”

“Not particularly...”

As the car curved into the driveway to Tanny Hill, an offer suddenly rolled off Rafe’s tongue. 

“You know, I could help you. Pop that little cherry for you,” he shrugged as if he didn’t seem out of his mind for what he was brashly uttering, “you desperately need it, that fucking stick up your ass makes you such a bitch to be around. But no one is gonna wanna bang you, I mean, maybe you could be kinda hot if you weren’t such a fucking loser, if you didn’t dress like a fucking pogue, but I don’t think anyone would commit social suicide like that. So, I’ll take care of it. Fix that problem for the good of everyone else.” 

Your mouth hung agape as the vehicle rolled to a stop, the sudden shift made you fear that your latest drink would come up again. 

Utterly stunned, you couldn’t form a single word as you stared back at him. 

“I mean, it’s what you want, isn’t it?” he went on, turning in his seat to gaze over at you, already undressing you with his eyes, “haven’t you always had the hots for me?”

“I–…” it felt as if the car was swaying around even though it stood completely still, “…I drank way too much tonight, and I think you might have as well.”

“You’re drunk?” darkness glinted in his eyes, “well, I honestly don’t know if I should be impressed or run inside and wake everyone up so you can get grounded for fucking ever,” he laughed. 

“No!” you gasped, “You can’t tell them, please! I–…” you felt tears begin to sting the corners of your eyes and blur up your already hazy vision, “fuck!” 

Leaning even further back in his seat, he cocked his head, “I mean, I could also keep it a secret…” the tip of his tongue mischievously slipped out to poke his lip, “for the right price, that is.”

“Seriously?” you glared back at him, “are you serious right now?”

Capturing your hand, he swiftly brought it to the palpable tent in his pants, “do I not seem serious?” his eyes narrowed ever so slightly to a squint. 

Your lips parted in shock, stare flickering away from his eyes to spot how he ever so slightly pressed your palm down against him. 

He was so hard that you could nearly feel his pulse through the fabric of his trousers. 

“I mean, really I’d be helping you out,” your gaze stayed glued to how his broad hand engulfed your own a moment longer before you glanced up to find his unwavering stare once more, “so you should really thank me for both keeping your secret and doing you such a massive favour…”

As a shaky breath escaped your lungs, you whispered once more, “I hate you…”

But the proclamation only conjured a smile to appear on his lips, “tell me again,” and he leaned in a bit closer.

“I hate y–,” but you didn’t get the last bit out as Rafe then crashed his lips against yours.

It took a second for you to react with anything other than a surprised whimper, but when you did, it was slow and cautious compared to his boldness. 

A string of saliva strung you together as he eventually parted from you. Offering himself a small caress, he pressed your palm down against him one last time before he let you go. His breathing was heavy as he momentarily let his thumb trace your bottom lip, briefly slipping it crudely in your mouth, before uttering, “get inside.”  

Why, after all of this time, after all of the pain and torture he alone made you go through, why did he still have to give you butterflies the way that he did?

It was your room that he led you to, a hand ever rooted on you as you made the journey. At first, you thought it was because he saw the way you occasionally stumbled over your own feet, but perhaps it was just in case you wanted to make a run for it, just a precaution, a safety net already halfway over you. 

“Take your clothes off,” he commanded in a cold tone as he shut the door behind you. 

“W-what?” you turned to look back at him.

Sitting down on the edge of your bed, he repeated, “take your clothes off,” though they came out sounding slightly impatient. 

He palmed himself through his pants as you slowly began to strip. Though as you’d shyly peeled your t-shirt off and dropped it to the floor, his voice halted you just as you began to undo your jeans. 

“Stop,” his voice cut the thick air like a knife, “turn around when you pull those down,” you twisted away from him as your thumbs sank into either side of the waistband, “and do it slowly,” he made you put on a show, ogling as you gradually revealed the curve of your ass, “that’s it…” he nearly moaned as your pants crumbles to the floor, “bra and panties too, princess. Unless of course, you’re backing out of our deal already.”

Clenching your jaw, you squeezed your eyes shut and shed the rest, ignoring his soft wolf whistles and crude comments as you exposed yourself. 

Slowly turning back around to face him, your hands were clasped before you out of sheer timidness and not knowing what to do with them. 

“You gonna stand over there all night?” he raised his chin slightly.

When your feet stood rooted right before his seated position on the bed, your hands began to fiddle as he pulled his shirt over his head and caused your pulse to somehow beat even harder than it already did. 

One of his palms then scooped up your stomach and briefly grabbed one of your tits before scooping you closer, “come here,” and utilised his leverage to toss you down on the bed beside him, “let me get a good look at you.” 

Grabbing for the bedsheets as the mattress momentarily bounced beneath your spine, you blinked up at Rafe as he sat next to you, twisting his form and craning down to near your core. 

You tried to clamber your legs shut, embarrassed for what his cruel reaction might be, but he was not only faster, but stronger than you, and grabbed a hold of your thighs. As he split you apart, his lips curled up into a grin. 

“Look at you… fuck,” he let out a short chuckle, “this is gonna be fun.” 

A gasp curled out of your frame as he then grazed his thumb over your folds, smearing some of the mortifying wetness that seeped out and made you feel even more intoxicated than you already were. He lightly spread you apart and studied intently your dripping pussy, how it looked, how it glistened and how your little hole twitched when he lightly circled your clit. 

“Oh, you like this, don’t you?” he rubbed your puffy pearl with a mean lightness that caused your hips to buck slightly, “you like it when your big stepbrother touches you like this?” but when you didn’t reply, he reached down and grabbed your jaw, angling it for you to meet his eye, “answer me.”

“I–… y-yes,” you quietly admitted, feeling as if you were in some strange dream. 

“Of course you do, you dirty little girl,” he bent down again to gaze at your pussy a little too close for your taste, “I knew you were a slut since the moment I met you.”

Letting go of your face, he then snaked his free hand down to give himself an ounce of relief. 

“You know, part of me doesn’t even wanna prep you with my fingers first,” he smirked and let his fingertips sweep down to tickle your entrance, “I like the idea of not stretching you out first and letting my cock do all the work, let it feel just how tiny and pure you are for me.” 

“But isn’t that gonna hurt?” your breath caught in your throat. Sure, you’d played with yourself nearly till your hands fell off, but that idea still managed to scare you. 

“God, I hope so,” he groaned and briefly leaned down to press a hot kiss to your clit, sucking it into his mouth and sloppily making out with it. 

When he then stood up and pulled his pants down, your jaw nearly hit the floor as well when you saw how thick his dick was. Fat and veiny, curving proudly up towards his abs. 

Seizing your hips, Rafe yanked you closer to where he stood, nearly letting your ass dangle over the edge of the mattress.

“Wait,” you suddenly reached out to touch his forearm as he gave himself a few lavish strokes, staring down at your cunt, comparing the obscene size of him to your puff, “what about a condom?” you squeaked as he flicked his leaking tip down to tap your core. 

Sucking in a fierce breath through his nose, he glared down at you and shot back, “what about you shut the fuck up and just be grateful,” before he sent his open palm down to smack your pussy. 

“Ah! I’m sorry, I just–, fuck!” you shuttered beneath him as he soothed the slap with the nudge of his length, rubbing it against you and teasing your cunt before he started sweeping it through your folds, nearly fucking your soppy slit, the tip of him kissing your little pearl on each silky advance.  

A dollop of spit dropped from his lips and joined the mess he already tickled at between your parted legs. 

“It’s too big…” you murmured as you stared down at how his fat girth parted your pretty petals, though the observation only conjured a smile on Rafe’s lips, “maybe you could just put the tip in?” you tried through your foggy mind, “that would still count.”

A rumbling chuckle bubbled out of him as he stared down at the two of you together, “just the tip…” his movements then grew more erratic as he slid through your folds, “is that all you think your little virgin cunt can handle?” shy gasps escaped you every time he deliberately let his cock catch at your opening, “just the tip?” 

As he slowly pressed just the flush head of his length in to breach your entrance, your brows crinkled up at the mind-numbing stretch. 

“Like that, baby?” he only moved ever so slightly, “is that all you think you can handle?” and you nodded foggily in return. But as you let your eyes flutter shut and breathed through the staggeringly wonderful sensation, Rafe’s voice once again washed over you, “nah,” like a splash of cold water while you were licking up warm sun rays, “that’s not good enough. This is,” and he then slammed the entirety of his length into you.

Your eyes instantly shot back open and your legs curled up even further on either side of you at the shock. 

“What?” he cooed at you mockingly as he slowly dragged his dick back out for just the memory to remain, “does it hurt?”

You were a blubbering and cursing mess, trembling beneath him as your pussy tried to accommodate him.

“Come on, princess,” he bent down over you and let his nose ghost against yours, “tell me that it hurts.”

“It h-hurts,” you whimpered as his hot breath fanned across your blazing cheeks. 

It did sting, a lot, but though you hated to admit it, a part of you loved it, a part of you sank even further into the pit of pleasure he so slowly dunked you into. 

“Tell me that it’s too big for you,” he nuzzled his nose against yours as he plugged you back up. 

Your body shook beneath his every time he moved as much as a millimetre inside you, “i-it’s too big.” 

Letting out a low moan of satisfaction, he then leaned down to press his lips to yours, stealing your breath away even further. 

You tried, but couldn’t really focus on kissing him back, not that he seemed to mind much as he moaned into your mouth, soon letting his sloppy kisses dance over your cheek and down your neck, letting hickeys bloom in his wake and mark up your skin like a brand.

As he sucked down on the spot where your pulse went wild beneath the skin, his hips drove against yours harder, causing them to collide in a sticky smack, as well as letting the tip of him bully the deepest part of you. He didn’t just do it once, but kept it up as he enjoyed the little squeaks you let out every time he bumped against your cervix. 

Kissing his way back up to your lips, he only offered them the briefest of pecks before raising himself off of you, just ever so slightly, and one by one, grabbed your already wide-spread legs and rested each one of them onto his broad shoulders, efficiently folding you in half. 

“H-holy shit,” you panted as the mattress rippled beneath you at every one of his rough thrusts, “Rafe–”

“Yeah?” he smirked down at your melted form, the vein in his forehead popping from the strain, “are you gonna cum? Are you gonna cum on your big bro’s dick?” one of his hands swept up to squeeze your tit, then gave it a swift tap before growling, “come on, princess. I can feel you squeezing me so fucking tight. Do it, I fucking dare you. Be a good girl and cum on my cock.”

You almost screamed as you tumbled over the edge, your head curling to the side to hide yourself in the crumbled duvet beneath you as your pussy gushed all over his fat girth. 

“Oh, fuck,” Rafe croaked as he straightened back up to get a good view. Pulling out of you, he briefly flicked his dick through your folds to urge more of your nectar to leak out, before he slid it back inside and asked in amazement, “you ever squirted before?” 

Trembling from the overstimulation, your eyes rolled in your skull as you shakily mumbled, “maybe twice, I think.”

“Such a good fucking slut,” he growled proudly, “squirting all over me like a proper whore. Just look at you,” his grip dented your thighs as he pressed them further down against the bed, “you’re already a pretty little cockdrunk mess.”

“I–, I–,” you blubbered as you felt drool begin to trickle down your cheek. 

“Oh, fuck,” he then groaned, glancing down at where he split you apart, “hold your legs back,” he requested, though had to help your sluggish hands find their way, “look at this, baby,” he scooped a palm behind your head and ushered you to spot what he had noticed. Splaying a wide hand over the lower part of your stomach, he traced the faint bulge that rhythmically appeared, “sure as fuck not a virgin anymore, are you? Fucking ruining that perfect little pussy of yours. Now that’s how you pop a fucking cherry. Aren’t you happy I was in such a charitable mood tonight?” he then pressed down on the imprint rudely, the overwhelming sensation causing your pussy to drizzle a little more around him, “aren’t you, sis?”

“Yes,” you mewled, feeling as if you were floating on a cloud and not getting your guts rearranged. 

“You’d let me do anything I’d fucking want, wouldn’t you?” he smirked down at your dazed form. 

“Y-yes,” the word flowed out of you, though you couldn’t quite comprehend all of his dirty talk any longer. 

“Hold on,” he briefly slowed down and stretched over to reach a small apprentice obscured and hidden in all of the cluttered decor on your nearby dresser. Turning it in his hand, he pointed the discrete camera down to film you, “say it again,” he picked his pace back up, “tell me that you’ll let me do anything I want to you.”

“Anything,” the words bubbled out through your moans, “anything you want.” 

“Say that you’re my little slut.”

“I’m yours–, I-I’m your s-slut.”

Tilting the hidden camera down to get a few close-ups, his voice then seeped into you once more, “now tell me again that you hate me.” 

One of your hands fluttered down and began to rub your puffy clit.

“I hate you.”

“Again,” he reached down to give your left nipple a harsh pinch.

“I hate you.”

“Keep going, princess.” 

And the more times the phrase flowed out past your lips, the more it began to lose its meaning and morph into just another sound, one that was almost akin to the complete opposite kind of proclamation. 

Just like you barely noticed when Rafe dug out the hidden camera, so too did you miss it when he put it back down, obscured somewhere among your things, possibly not even the only one. 

When you came once again, Rafe didn’t so much as pause when you creamed around his cock and drenched the sheets beneath you that much further.

“There you fucking go,” he sent a palm down to smack the sensitive skin on your inner thigh, “god, you’re so hot. I can’t believe you actually let me do this,” he grinned as your fingers stretched out to graze his wild hips, trying and failing to slow him down, “you’re such a little freak,” he glanced down at the ring of your essence that marked the base of his throbbing cock, “so fucking nasty for your stepbrother. I bet you’d even let me keep using you after you fall asleep. I mean, who’s to say I haven’t already,” he chuckled, “you’re so fucking cute when you sleep. No annoying remarks, no dumb comments… I think I might prefer you that way…” his slamming grew sloppy as he soon moaned, “fuck, I’m gonna fucking cum.”

“Pull out,” you begged through your hazy pants. 

And just when you thought he wouldn’t respect your wishes, he yanked out and furiously stroked himself before your winking and wrecked hole as it slowly retraced from the severe stretch. Moaning loudly, he swiftly painted your pussy with his load, getting it all over your puffy petals till he was panting above you. One hand rested on your thigh as he brushed the sensitive head of his cock over the cream, messily tapping the hefty weight of him against your aching clit and making you jump a few times as he smeared it in. 

Throwing himself down on the bed beside you, he let out a long sigh and said, “you’re welcome.”

You felt like you couldn’t move, like you might never be able to move again. Your breath still came in ragged as the only thing you could focus on was the sore throbbing centred at your core, that blossomed out through the rest of your nerves. 

“Well,” Rafe huffed as he soon lifted himself up to a sitting position, “night,” and without another word, slipped out through your shared bathroom into his own bedroom. 

“I can’t believe they made you take me,” you grumbled as you watched Rafe shadow you in the clothing store, “I could have just gone to the mall on my own.”

“You don’t have a car though–, also, why are you the one complaining? I’m the one being forced to go fucking shopping with you of all people.”

Somehow, for some mysterious reason, since you’d moved into Tanny Hill, your collection of underwear had shrivelled down till you barely had enough to get you through the week. Guess that was the price you had to pay for letting someone else do your laundry, though you’d always assumed it would more just be a single sock that commonly vanished in the wash…

When you dipped into the fitting room to try a few of the gathered options on, you only managed to test out two of them before the curtain slid back open and you swiftly scrambled to cover yourself.

“Rafe!” you let out a hushed screech, “what do you think you’re–”

“Try these on,” he handed you a wide stack of hangers. It wasn’t just underwear dangling from them, but also some clothing, though all of it way too revealing than you were used to. 

Glancing down at them, you refused to grasp the items and simply stated in a clear tone, “no.” 

Letting out a low sigh, he then turned to close the curtain back up before he twisted back to face you, “do you need me to have a little talk with your mom and my dad?” he took a few steps towards you, slowly pushing you into the corner by the tall mirror.

Glaring back at him through your pout, you huffed, “no…” 

You stayed in the corner as he then hung the clothing up on the hooks before taking a seat on the small stool where your purse was resting before he swept it to the floor. 

“Are you just gonna sit there and watch?”

“Yeah,” he scoffed, “it’s boring as shit out there. At least in here, I might get a moderate amount of entertainment.”

Rolling your eyes, you reluctantly began to try the attire on. 

“I hate thongs,” you muttered as you tugged a pair into place over your hip, trying not to catch your stepbrother’s stare as his gaze wandered from your reflection to the perfect view he had of your backside. 

“I recall you hate a lot of things you still don’t hesitate to jump on.”

“Whatever,” you sighed, “you have your fun, enjoy this little fashion show, but I’m sure as hell not getting any of these.”

“Well, good,” he uttered demeaningly, “because I’m buying them for you.”

Catching his eye in the mirror, you told him, “I’m still not wearing them. You can’t make me.” 

“Yeah,” he puffed out a smirk, “we’ll see about that,” and then tore his gaze away from you to gesture to one of the hangers, “try that dress on, but keep the pink thong on underneath, only the thong though.” 

You had to shut your eyes in annoyance a moment before you fulfilled his request, soon standing before him in a scantily cut, pastel mini dress, crafted in a fabric so thin that you could see the faint shadow of your nipples poking through them, especially after they’d turned all pebbly after Rafe had torn that privacy curtain to the side. 

“You happy now?” you turned to face him and propped your hands on either side of your hips. 

“Hm,” he cockily pursed his lips as his gaze studied you, “I was right…”

Your brows stayed furrowed till you watched his palm slide down to squeeze himself through his shorts. 

“What are you doing?” you hissed, eyes growing wide. 

“You do look hot in normal clothes.”

“I don’t think any of this is normal…”

“I think it’s time you learned how to suck a cock,” he suddenly announced, eyes still glued to the dress’ low neckline as he unzipped his slacks. 

“Rafe…” you breathed. 

His eyes flickered up to find yours, “get on your knees,” he tilted his head, “come on, princess. You’ll love it, trust me.” 

© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[peachesofteal]

Simon discovers something unexpected:

Light on masterlist

Simon Riley/female reader (single mom)

The first time Simon meets you, it’s on the rooftop of the apartment building in the middle of the morning.

He’s up here for a smoke, his first in hours, his body anxiously craving the nicotine after sitting on a cramped train for too long after the final debrief. His muscles are sore, stitches in his leg bothering him, mind is exhausted, and all he wants to do is smoke a cigarette and then collapse on the bed inside the flat that he hasn’t seen for months.

When he gets to the roof, after climbing four flights of stairs because the bloody elevator is broken, he’s greeted with two surprises. One, there is a garden up here now, multiple raised beds enclosed in sturdy two by sixes, and two… you are kneeling on the brick between them.

You’re on your knees, digging around, dirt smudged on your clothes, purple garden gloves caked with soil. You’re talking aloud too, rooting around in the plants and singing out names of vegetables and their corresponding colors, occasional pulling something green loose and stuffing it in a bag. He glances around the roof, confused, but sees no one but you, your voice carrying on the wind to where he stands by the clunky metal door.

When he gets closer, he realizes you’re not talking to yourself at all, but to a baby. A tiny baby tucked into a carrier, who’s eyes are wide and somewhat tracking your hand movements while you point to things in the garden bed, in the sky, on the ground.

“And this is a parsnip.” You say, brushing some rust-colored earth from the root and turning it in your hand. “They’re not very tasty raw but aren’t terrible cooked.” The baby watches you in awe, little feet and arms kicking and swinging while you smile and nod at them, like you think they understand anything you’ve just said. “Yeah! A parsnip!” You’re smiling, your face is bloody radiant as you nod down to the baby, one of your hands rubbing dirt from your skin onto your pants before you’re reaching out to grab a cloth from the baby’s lap and mopping up something on their chin. The action causes you to shift, your head turning enough to catch him in your peripherals, body tensing like you’ve been frozen, shoulders raising under your ears before you loosen and relax, squinting up at him in the sun. “Hi.” You blink, glancing back down to the carrier. “I uh, didn’t realize anyone else was up here.” He swallows, trying to give you a response, brain fracturing at the seam as it frantically attempts to recall words, civilian words like hello, or hi, or sorry. It’s difficult, because he’s a little distracted by how the light refracting in your eyes, the way it’s shining on your skin and hair, bathing you in the early morning glow like you’re some sort of angel. He’s still a few feet away, but he thinks he can see entire universes in your irises, every color ever imagined shimmering in the rays of the sun.

His brain finally catches up, and his mouth thankfully remembers how to form words.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you.” He’s polite and you shrug, nodding to your little companion.

“You’re not disturbing us. We were just harvesting some vegetables.” You smile brightly, casually stripping off the gloves while you rock up from your knees into a standing position. If the mask bothers you, you don’t outwardly show it, and your posture is relaxed when stand in front of him. “Isn’t that right, Emmaline?” You coo down to the baby, who wiggles in her carrier as a response, face lighting up at the sound of your voice, or her name. He’s not sure. Do you live here? Are you… her mum? The babysitter? Who are you?

You give him a once over, briefly, and he watches your smile shift from genuine to forced when your eyes land on his hands. The smokes. He’s holding a pack of cigarettes in one hand, and you clear your throat, brushing some dirt off the front of your clothes. “We were actually just finishing up.” You bend at the waist to pull the carrier into the crook of your elbow, supporting its weight with your hip, and slide the handles of the bag full of green things onto your opposite shoulder. “Roof’s all yours.” He feels a pang of regret, like he doesn’t want you to go, the sentiment unnatural to him, unsettling. You obviously live in the building, he thinks. But where? Do you lug that carrier up and down the steps all the time, just to get up here? He frowns.

“I can wait.” He tries to stop you, guilt running thick in his veins, and you shake your head.

“It’s lunchtime anyway.” You incline your head to little Emmaline, who’s face is growing a little scrunchy, like she’s upset, and he swallows.

“Alright, then.” You give him another nod, and head off towards the door. He grits his teeth, fingers tensing around the thin carboard in his hand, the little box holding his salvation safely in its grasp, but his eyes slide to where you walk away, and he can’t help but notice the way the carrier lightly bumps against your hips as they sway. Bloody hell.

[asapeveryday]

SHOCK FACTOR★彡 PART 3

Previous. Next.

Pairing: Paige Bueckers x Rival!Reader

Warnings: swearing, suggestive jokes/language, tension

Summary: having Paige’s number means she can bother you whenever she wants, but maybe a night out with her isn’t a bother at all.

A/n: enjoy guys 😇lmk what you think of this one

YOU

is this paige?

???

Has anyone else given you their number since you got here?

YOU

no…

PAIGE

Aight, so who else would it be then? 🤘🏼

YOU

i should’ve thrown out that napkin tbh!🙂

PAIGE

Ignoring that. How’s the hangover?

YOU

it’s ok. getting coffee helped ig

PAIGE

Having another night out might help too…if u fw that

YOU

with you? id rather die then “fw that” 🙏

PAIGE

Ok rot in ya hotel room see if I care 🤷🏼‍♀️

Seen.

PAIGE

Actually nvm I feel bad for ur miserable ass. U shud fr go out and see what Connecticut has to offer. Ever been to Gianni’s?

YOU

no i haven’t, I’ve only been here for like two days. is it italian food?

PAIGE

Only the best in town 😉 u shud def go

YOU

ugh I would but i have to see if elaine can take me cus my teammates are busy

PAIGE

I could take u if u want?

YOU

typing…

YOU CAN FEEL yourself getting socially drained as you text her, at least that’s what you tell yourself. Paige is infuriating and arrogant, which comes with the deadly additions of charisma and the ability to keep you on edge with every word spoken, or even typed.

You’d always known of this, even before your game with her that day. A player like Paige can be hard to come across; perfectly capable, talented and independent yet somehow the best team player out there, sharing passes she can without a doubt make. Why? Because she doesn’t need to prove anything.

It often bothered you, especially since you constantly needed to prove yourself during the start of your college career. You took every shot you could get your hands on, and she gave shots away like candy whilst still having a huge reputation as a player. Obviously it went deeper than that, but the simple fact just stuck to your brain.

You can’t help but recall her face, inches from yours attempting to pry your ball from your grasp. Like she was deserving, like it was hers for the taking. She had made a similar face on the panel where she dissed you soon afterwards, and then again while watching you at the bar, and just before writing her number on the napkin. You wondered if she was making that face right now as she texts you.

PAIGE

I could take u if u want?

The text is simple but it summons some sort of unique feeling in you. Paige Bueckers is offering to pick you up in her car, on her night off, and take you to a restaurant. And you, for whatever reason, are considering saying yes.

Sighing to yourself, you weigh your options. Option one: you sit around your hotel alone till your teammates come back, most probably drunk from a bar since it’s a Saturday. Option two: you ask Elaine to take you out once again, even though you’re probably gonna see her the whole week you’re here. Option three: you let the girl who shit-talked you at a post game conference take you out for dinner.

YOU

i guess i should go out. DONT act like ur doing me a favour tho….n if I don’t have fun i’m blocking u.

PAIGE

Drop the addy. I’ll come by in an hour

Seen.

After hurriedly pulling yourself together, taking an Advil, checking out the restaurant’s Instagram and getting ready you can’t help but find your heart steadily hammering inside of you. Paige is coming to your hotel. You’re gonna be in her car. She’s taking you to her favourite restaurant. This has to be the most peculiar thing that has happened all year.

-

The car ride is significantly better then you expected it would be. Paige adamantly seems to prevent any room for awkward silence to seep through, commenting on your outfit and filling the vehicle with music that makes the interior buzz from the volume. She has a free look on her face, chair reclined more then you’d dare if you were in the drivers seat, hair blowing in her face from the windows being down.

“I’m surprised you’re driving me out.” You say, finally airing what was on your mind.

Paige shrugs. “Didn’t feel like drinking today. Plus, I’m in the mood to be generous and show you what Storrs has.”

“If someone told me I’d be hanging out with Paige Bueckers like a week ago, I think I’d be fucking appalled. Or disgusted. Or both.” You laugh.

She chuckles, glancing at you sneakily. “You swear a lot, don’t you?”

“Awe my bad.” You pout, giving her a fake-concerned look. “Forgot you can’t handle a little language.”

“I can handle it,” she grumbles. “I just think cursing is better for specific situations.”

“Like what?”

Paige wets her lips almost sheepishly, but she keeps her eyes straight on the road. “Like sex.”

A beat passes before you respond “Sorry I couldn’t savour a couple words for you and your little kink.”

She looks over at you now, and you meet her gaze as equally as you can. She just lets out a smile, shaking her head to herself as she pulls into the parking lot. You try to ignore the elevator-sinking feeling in your stomach from her words as you get out from the car.

The restaurant is beautiful. It’s cozy, ambient and well decorated. Not too fancy and not too full, just perfect. You’re seated in a more secluded area, per Paige’s request. She orders for you, insisting she knows exactly what to get for the best possible experience.

The food is good, and you don’t feel the need to hide it from Paige, who visibly grows at your praise for the place she picked out.

“So, are you jus in Connecticut for Elaine?” She says.

“Not really.” You reply. “Me and some of the others are just doing a little East Coast road-trip. I wasn’t really interested in coming to Storrs, but it made sense to come by and see her.”

“For a whole week?” She raises her eyebrow. “Seems like you’re close.”

“I was only gonna stay in Storrs for a couple days, then go to Hartford but the girls seem to like it here.” You shrug. “They think it’s cute, being a small town and all, but it’s pretty boring if you’re not a student.”

“It’s better if you’re with fun people.” She smiles.

“I hope you don’t think you’re fun.”

“Compared to Elaine I definitely am.” Paige scoffs.

You can’t help but feel a little more hostility than humour in her tone.

“Do you guys know each other?” You ask, as sly and innocent as you can muster. Paige seems hesitant.

“Nah.” She finally decides. “I mean, we’ve talked before. Ion know her personally.”

“It’s kinda funny, she said she doesn’t pay much attention to you but I think she might have a little crush.” You laugh.

Paige visibly stiffens at this, which catches you by surprise.

In a split second she regains her calm, unbothered composure. “What has she said?”

“Not much.” You shrug. “Just seems a little interested.”

Paige’s jaw clenches for a moment, and you’re not surprised when she changes the subject. “How many people have been on your case since I posted that picture of us from the bar on my story?”

“God, so many.” You laugh, shaking your head. “You?”

“You don’t even wanna know.” She scoffs. “Not sure why everyone was so crazy bout it though, s’not like we were beefing for real.”

“Right!” You say, happy she seems to be on the same page. “It was just some petty crap. I guess people just really were hoping there would be some rivalry.”

You think for a moment, before saying. “Maybe we should keep this drama thing up. Might be fun.”

“It’s a lil too late for that,” Paige shakes her head with a slight smile. “remember how KK and Ice were on live yesterday at the coffee shop? Yeah, we kinda were in the background at some point. People saw us talking.”

“You’re joking.”

“Dead serious. There are edits and everything.”

You rest your head in your hands, elbows on the table, lessening the proximity between you and her. “I only get into these weird ass situations when I interact with you, Paige.”

She sits up in her seat, blue eyes quickly looking you up and down. “Yet you’re still here.”

“Girl’s gotta have fun.” You shrug. Her foot hits yours under the table, her eyebrow raised as if challenging you. You have a sudden thought of going under the table and letting your hands unzip her cargo pants, but instead you just kick her back.

“Wanna go?” She asks. You don’t want to go back to the hotel, and she seems to pick up on it. “The area we’re in is nice. We can walk around a bit.”

You smile and nod. “Split the bill?”

“Fuck no.” She shoots you a look, pulling out her credit card from the back of her phone.

“You cursed!” You exclaim, to which she scoffs.

“I said it’s alright in specific situations.”

Now it’s your turn to scoff. “Well we’re not having sex, are we?”

The way her eyelashes flutter at your question gives you jitters. “Aight, stop talking.” She finally manages to respond. You just send her a look that you hope makes her nervous.

-

“You’re not funny.” She grumbles, attempting to grab your phone from you.

“Back off, Bueckers! I’m serious.” You laugh, sidestepping her with your phone above your head. The street was empty and the lights were on, putting the two of you in a yellow glow against the night. You’d been walking around the neighbourhood, observing houses and learning a bit about Storrs for the past hour.

“Give me your phone, I know you ain’t deleting those.” She huffs, grabbing for your phone. You try to escape her grasp but she’s got longer limbs, so eventually your phone is in her pocket and she’s wearing a proud look on her face.

It’s nice to walk in the quiet of evening, her beside you. You have no idea where you are but you can’t help but trust she can get you back to the car in no time. Not just yet though.

You turn to look at Paige almost shamelessly. There’s just so much to observe with her. Her confident posture, toothy smile, sleek straightened blonde hair, even the baggy cargo pants and sweater. She always looked good, it never failed to annoy you.

“Either your pants are too tight or crazy baggy.” You note. She just raises her eyebrow.

“Sounds like you just want me to take my pants off at this point.”

“Wouldn’t mind a little show.” You reply almost instantly, shocking yourself at the surge of confidence. She doesn’t seem taken aback, in fact she’s intrigued.

“Is that your usual routine? Have a meal out then have a meal at home?”

“Maybe it is.” You shrug. “I never object to a wine n dine.”

“And what exactly would you object to?”

“Cocky girls who think they’re the shit.” You say, turning your head to face her. You don’t mean to target her, but she simply smiles.

“Is it really being cocky if I can back it up though?” Paige asks quietly. You’re not walking anymore, stuck in place on an empty path between buildings. She’s closing in on you until your back hits a brick wall. The way Paige is staring down at you, hands in her pockets, lip between her teeth. It’s nothing you’d object to, ever.

“I won’t believe it till I see it.” You mutter, holding her eye. The air is tense in a new way that you haven’t felt with her since you first met in the bar. Her face is entrancing.

Paige’s hands lift your jaw upwards, and she leans into your ear. “You might not see it,” she mumbles, breath hot against your skin. “But you’ll definitely feel it.”

When she pulls back from your ear she stays hovering just above you, hands chastely holding your head up. You’re in the perfect position to kiss, and you can’t stop your eyes from darting between her electric stare to her lush, pink lips.

You can literally feel her breath on your mouth when a piercing ring cuts through the moment. It’s coming from her pocket, and she pulls out your phone. Paige’s face twists as she reads the screen. “It’s Elaine.”

“Just- just decline it.” You rush out, not caring how desperate you sound. You can feel how wet you are, and the lack of heat against you is blaring.

“She texted you too.” Paige scoffs. “She’s waiting for you at your hotel.”

You don’t even know what to say. Paige’s face is expressionless. You’re disappointed, but there’s no point in begging. Nothing really happened.

“Let’s get you home.” She says, starting to walk back from where you came. “Shouldn’t keep her waiting.” Her tone is dripping with toxicity. It makes you shiver.

[ghcstao3]

siren ghost and sailor soap?

sort of inspired by the pirates of the caribbean sirens scene because it’s one of my favourite things of that series. also i got a little carried away

-

Over the many, many years of traversing the Seven Seas for his life’s work, Soap has become intimately familiar with the abundant myths and legends about the ocean and what lies beneath.

Of course, most of these hold no truth. Most of these are only mere stories to quell the anxieties of sailors, or to provide reasoning to strange occurrences seemingly otherwise unexplainable.

Sirens are, unfortunately, the exception.

Ruthless, ravenous creatures—they’re the worst fear of any sailor who knows the worth of his own life, and like most things that make mortal men afraid, they’ve been transformed into weapons.

Soap only knows that sirens are real because of what happens to many prisoners at sea—from the brig they’re moved to rowboats without paddles, abandoned and forced to sing until the sirens appear to lure them into the water, where flesh would be torn from bone with razor sharp teeth.

It’s a terrifying sight. The creatures are like sharks called to blood with the way they appear, like piranhas with the way they feast.

It’s horrifying. Fascinating. And Soap has vowed to never let himself end up on one of those boats.

But alas. Fate has other plans for him.

Soap had been reluctant to join the crew of Captain Philip Graves when presented with the opportunity, but the pay promised had been good, the work simple, and the destination somewhere he’s never been.

But what Soap hadn’t realized is that Graves likes to take prisoners. He likes to engage in unfair combat with other ships, and operates almost like a pirate, though not explicitly enough to be considered one himself.

Soap realizes his mistake far too late when he wanders down to the brig one night, otherwise unable to sleep. They’re two weeks into their voyage by now, and Soap knows there’s people in the jail—but he hadn’t known the state of them.

Most already without a secure amount of food outside their makeshift cell, they’re emaciated, wasting away in the hull of the vessel. They’re barely responsive when Soap knocks on the bars of the hold and pokes someone’s damp shoulder. Someone weakly latches onto Soap’s sleeve and begs for nothing in particular, and he feels awful for not having known about this sooner.

So he begins sneaking them food, brings them drink. Squirrels away what extra he can without anyone noticing he’s stopped finishing his meals.

Except someone must notice. Because, nearing the end of their journey, Graves is waking him in the dead of night and pulling him into the Captain’s quarters.

Soap swallows the pounding heartbeat in his throat as Graves slowly crosses the room to take a seat at his desk. He’s never liked the man, not one bit—but this just feels unnecessary. Taunting.

“A little bird tells me you’ve been keeping our prisoners fed,” Graves drawls. “Even though, from what I recall, prisoners are the enemy. I don’t suppose you really have been helping them out, have you, MacTavish?”

It’s a trap, Soap knows. Only a fool wouldn’t be able to tell Graves’s question isn’t really a question at all. Graves has his answer, and waits on Soap’s response if only to entertain him with the idea of escape.

Soap knows just as well that there’s hardly a point in trying to lie.

He lifts his chin as he looks straight into Graves’s eyes to tell him, “I have been. They’re still people.”

Graves chuckles lowly, rising from his seat. He rounds the desk, sitting back on its edge with his arms folded across his chest.

It might be intimidating, if Soap were anyone else. If he were a lesser man.

“Well, then—since you like ‘em so much,” Graves says, “surely you won’t mind joining them.”

Soap supplies Graves with no visible reaction. He doesn’t fight as Graves calls for his men to throw Soap in the brig, doesn’t put up any fuss as they try to cajole him.

If Soap has to be imprisoned for doing what’s right, then he at least won’t let Graves have the satisfaction of knowing Soap’s internal panic.

Because Soap knows what Graves plans to do with his prisoners. He’s known all along.

He predicts they’re maybe a day from port when they’re shoved off the ship and ordered into the decaying rowboat, left to drift away—not too far, however, as they’re still tethered to the ship. Because once all prisoners have been drowned, the boat will be reeled back and used again the next time Graves and his crew venture out to terrorize the waters.

No one has the energy to sing, to lure their cruel punishment to them. Soap’s half-convinced some of the others might just jump into the water on their own.

But they have to sing. Especially when a bullet ricochets off the boat and splinters the wood as encouragement.

Despite his time spent out at sea, Soap isn’t overly familiar with many shanties. He just follows along with whatever is mumbled in a weak tune, dreading as the volume builds with a second bullet, and the water below begins to churn. Glancing over the edge, Soap swears he sees the flash of a tail.

The first one appears shortly, singing along to the song like she’s entirely familiar with the melody. Soap feels the pull, though perhaps not as strongly as he imagined he would, if ever he ended up in these circumstances.

He wonders, briefly and distantly, if it has to do with the fact that he’s not really all that into women.

Soap snorts. Wouldn’t that be something.

But as more sirens appear, the pull grows stronger. Soap begins to feel swayed by the song, gone from muttered and off-kilter to something beautiful, hypnotic. The boat bobs with the weight of their new company and the prisoners that rush to the sides to get a better look at the sirens as if they aren’t the dangerous creatures they’re known to be.

Still, though, Soap isn’t completely compelled to join them in the water. He stays put in the centre and grounds his teeth—though he does gasp and reach out when the first prisoner is pulled under, and red soon blossoms across the surface of the water.

Then he appears.

The whole world seems to disappear for just a moment, when Soap looks into big, brown eyes.

The siren’s voice is deeper than the rest, soothing, and though Soap’s hindbrain screams at him that hidden behind the enchanting exterior, the porcelain skin and the straw-blond hair, there lives evil—he can’t help but lean in.

As Soap gets closer, the boat continuing to rock as more prisoners fall victim, the siren’s singing pauses just long enough for him to offer Soap a smile, saccharine, close-lipped. He reaches out an arm to Soap, calloused fingers caressing Soap’s cheek, cupping his jaw.

Soap can’t help but melt into the touch, its simultaneous warmth and coolness, subconsciously chasing it as it retracts, eyes fluttering shut with a short, pleased sigh.

But with the singing fading from the others, Soap’s eyes suddenly snap open. The siren still holds him, still leads Soap with that gentle touch and deceptively kind gaze, but Soap resists. He doesn’t know when he’d gotten to leaning halfway over the edge of the boat, but he scrambles backward to the opposite side, as far as he can get from this siren.

Soap comes to the startling realization that he’s the only one left.

“Don’t get shy on me now,” the siren croons. He props himself up on the edge of the boat, arms thick with corded muscle to show the real power of this creature. He leans forward, the boat tilting with his added weight. “I don’t bite.”

Soap glances nervously about the empty rowboat, gaze accidentally straying the bloodstained waters that surround them.

“I beg to differ,” Soap says weakly.

The siren laughs softly before slowly sinking back into the water. The boat sways. Soap shakes.

Everything goes silent for a suspiciously long moment before there’s a disturbance in the water and the siren appears at the side of the boat where Soap has taken refuge. He’s singing quietly again and Soap feels that pull, so he moves away, screws his eyes shut, and jams his fingers in his ears in an attempt to block it out.

It doesn’t work, not when the singing gets louder, and Soap’s attempt is rendered useless.

“Shut up,” Soap growls. “Please just shut. Up.”

The singing does cease, though only to make way for a deep, full laughter that is somehow tugging on Soap’s conscience with more force than any melody so far.

When Soap blinks his eyes open, the siren is perched on the edge of the boat, arms splayed one on top of the other, his head resting over them. He’s smiling, even once his laughter has died down, a glint of something in his dark eyes—maybe not quite sinister, but certainly mischievous.

“They’re not letting you back on that ship, you know,” the siren says, as if it isn’t obvious. “So you can either come with me—“

“And what? Be drowned? Eaten?” Soap snaps. “Thanks, but I’d rather rot right here.”

“Suit yourself,” the siren hums.

To Soap’s surprise, he actually disappears back into the water. And despite the waves—the ocean seems to have finally calmed.

Maybe Soap did have the tiny, illogical hope that he’d be brought back to the ship. Maybe Soap did have the tiny, logical hope that this siren would just put him out of his misery.

Either way, now he just sits in silence, listening to waves lap up against the hull as the rowboat rocks lazily with the current. Though the peace surely only stretches on for a few minutes, it feels like hours.

Stupidly, Soap goes to inspect the depths. To make certain he’s really been left alone.

Because that’s when he’s pulled in.

Soap barely has time to yell out before his mouth is filled with the overwhelming, stinging taste of salt, unfamiliar arms wrapping securely around his frame so he can’t wriggle free. His shouts are muffled by the water, and he feels the cold soak into his bones as he’s dragged deeper and deeper. The light fades, or maybe it’s the lack of oxygen.

The last thing Soap sees is the siren’s grin, all fangs and malice before everything goes black.

But then, after an unknown amount of time—Soap wakes up to the slow drip, drip, drip of water on a stone floor.

He’s in a cave.

He’s in a cave, and there’s a light source somewhere, and the siren is watching him.

Soap coughs, clearing water from his lungs. He chokes out, “Why… what did you—“

The siren shrugs. “I don’t eat people I like.”

Soap frowns, still coughing. “You…”

“Call me Ghost,” the siren says, then dives into the pool he’d been wading in at the entrance of the cave, and swims away—long, elegant tail flicking behind him as he leaves.

And while many, many thought swirl around Soap’s head as he gradually gathers his bearings about the situation, the clearest of them all is also the simplest; what the hell kind of a name is Ghost?

If only he could guess.

And if only he could know what’s meant to happen to him next.

[itsmarsss]

Scandalous (Blitzø x Fem!Succubus!Reader x Stolas) [Helluva Boss] pt. 1 - The Prince

How the mighty do fall.

(Getting into a weird three-way situation with an imp and a succubus isn’t exactly considered classy, Stolas.)

pt. 2 | pt. 3 | pt. 4 | pt. 5 | 1st bonus | pt. 6 | pt. 7 | pt. 8 | pt. 9

Word count: 1,520

Warnings: I mean. depression. arranged marriage. this part doesn’t contain actual sex only mentions of it but others might idk, me taking myself way too seriously writing this, this has no dialogue but don’t give up on me im actually a pretty dialogue heavy person but this only works if this chapter has no dialogue

If you ever asked Stolas, he’d say he was never one to cause a scene.

If you asked anyone else, they’d say he’s lying.

Stolas had always been fond of a little drama and drawn to a bit of flair, akin to exaggeration and grandeur like no other. Be it in the way he speaks, acts or reacts to hell around him, be it how he expresses his emotions or his thoughts and even his feelings towards others.

Emotions, thoughts, feelings. Stolas was always full of those, ever since he was an ugly, pink, featherless little project of a bird. They have been all-consuming ever since he can remember. And he remembers.

Stolas can recall the confusion in his father’s voice whenever he cried as a kid, as if the action was strange and foreign, unfit for a demon like him.

And perhaps it was.

Stolas remembered many things, and yet he could not recall a single time he had seen his father cry- or show any sort of weakness, for the matter. Paimon was always stern and centered, and Stolas is sure the only thing close to weakness he’s ever expressed was his inability to be more than his status- to be an actual father. He doubted his father would consider that a weakness.

What was fatherhood next to being royal, anyway, right?

It was disconcerting to grow up certain that, between his father and all of his brothers, he was, without a doubt, the weakest. After all, how could he not be? He was scared, of a many things, most of the time. He felt things too deeply in his heart and he worried too much and too often about way too much. He was well aware of all of that.

But, as he grew up, Stolas decided he was fine with it, if it meant he got to genuinely feel things. Because Octavia had come to exist, and he could never in his heart find the willpower to act as cold to her as his own father did to him.

Yes, he decided he was fine with being weak, if that’s what being able to love unconditionally took. He was fine with being weak, if that’s what being loved took.

He may not have loved his father, or even liked him, for the matter. But he promised to himself he’d do anything it took for Octavia to love him.

And how it filled him with pure and utter joy to feel loved for the first time in his life.

He may not have loved Stella, either, but their union had brought him his daughter, and nothing in the entirety of the universe mattered more to him than her. And so he was grateful for their arrangement, after all, despite the bitterness of it all.

With Octavia’s teenage years came the flood, though. Stolas cried himself to sleep almost every single night for years to come as he was reminded of the fact that being grateful for what his marriage brought him was not enough to make him happy to be in the situation in which he found himself, unable to exist as he was inside of his own home without fearing the judgement of a wife who loved him just as much as he loved her - not even a tiny little bit- and unable to shield his daughter from the unhappy family he’d once feared she would have to endure.

Stella was never someone Stolas particularly liked. In fact, he quite disliked her, from the moment he laid eyes on her as his father told him they were betrothed to one another, at much too young of an age.

At first, it surely was purely the hatred for the fact that his fate was tied to her and there was nothing he could do to escape, and the sense of impending doom that came with every year that passed as he knew he grew closer to approaching the day there would be turning back, and watched the time pass as an expectator of his own life, as there was nothing he could really do but comply.

Royal life had its renounces.

When the day came for their marriage to be sealed, the moment finally materializing itself as real instead of bad news he’d try to push away and avoid dwelling into for too long, Stolas promised himself he’d try to get over those feelings and make an effort to know her better. If they would be tied to one another from this moment on, he could at least try to make it all not so miserable.

It was a task set to fail.

When Octavia was conceived, Stolas felt nothing but relief. After all, this entire situation was based purely on business, all-dependent on the birth of an heir. Which meant, in some way, they were a bit more free than before. However much that can be in the situation they found themselves in.

Relief came first, dread came second. At only 19 years old, what did Stolas know of parenting anyway? Logically, he knew this would be happening. Logically, he’d known that for almost a full decade. Logically, that should have been enough for him to be prepared.

But he felt anything but prepared. How was he, who felt lost at all times, who cried at the slightest things, who didn’t ask for all of this, supposed to be a father? What twisted parameters did he have, considering his own?

He only hoped time would ease those feelings.

Throughout the years, he learned those feelings never do leave you, and that parenthood is forever a state of worry. You never truly feel ready- there’s just not much more that you can do than try your best.

To be loved by Octavia was enough. Or… at least it should be, shouldn’t it? Was it selfish, or perhaps even inconsiderate, unfair to her that at times he found himself longing to be loved by someone whose existence wasn’t bound to him? Wishing to know if someone would ever care not because they were betrothed to him and not because they were his own blood, but simply because they liked who he was? Enjoyed his company? Felt genuine attraction towards him?

When thoughts of the sorts consumed him it was hard not to punish himself mentally for thinking such frivolous things, for having such superficial wishes. But it wasn’t hard to figure out where it all stemmed from. After all, when the only partner you have ever had in your entire life hadn’t any say in choosing you, it’s only natural to wonder what it would be like to be with someone who did choose him.

When you’ve had no say in choosing the only partner you’ve ever had in your life, in turn, it’s only ever natural, too, to wonder what it would be like with someone you would have chosen to be with. Someone who excited you, who made you feel things. Stolas didn’t even know what exactly those things were supposed to be, but spent his days longing to feel them nonetheless.

The day Blitzo, someone he hadn’t heard of in decades, was caught trying to sneak into his palace, during the most depressing party ever thrown in all seven rings, Stolas felt excitement for the first time in a long while. It’s almost like his brain had a reaction before he even processed it, like it was stuck repeating the same thing over and over and over: Friend. Friend. Friend.

Sure, Blitzo wasn’t his friend. They hadn’t been friends for, once again, literal decades. In fact, they had only ever been friends for about a day.

But Blitzo was his first ever friend. And you don’t just forget that. Stolas never would, at least.

And in that night they spent together, something in Stolas changed. That night, he felt wanted. For the first time in his life, he felt desired. For the first time in his life, sex wasn’t just business. It wasn’t just an obligation or a means to an end. For the first time in his life, sex was fun.

He knew it was supposed to be fun. He knew it was fun for most people. He had just stopped hoping it would ever be fun for him.

And, sure, he also knew what they did was wrong. But he couldn’t get himself to care as much as he probably should have, because, truth be told, Stella could pretend to have been hurt by it however much she wanted, but they both knew she never really was.

“That was the sound of a fucking divorce!”

A couple hours later, sitting on his bed in shock, he could still barely believe he had really just done what he did- what they should have done so long ago- and Stolas just started laughing to himself. The more he laughed, the harder it was to stop. He knew he just had to be like a maniac like that, but couldn’t possibly get himself to care, because, for only a split second did the thought of not being supposed to let his servants see him in that state pass through his mind, but it only made him laugh harder.

He’d just announced his divorce to the wife he’d been set to marry since birth, can’t get much more scandalous than that.

A/N: would you believe me if i said this started as an idea for what was supposed to be only a funny silly little oneshot with dick jokes and public embarrassment?

Requests for Blitzø and Blitzø x Stolas are open! I’m also SO hyperfixated on this show rn so if y’all wanna chat abt hcs or this series be my guest I’d be happy to talk and i don’t bite unless asked nicely luv y’all <3

[tmpestuous]

One Step at a Time

summary: when you get brutally injured on a mission with no way to contact anyone, bucky goes out to find you.

pairing: bucky x avenger!reader

word count: 4.5k

warnings: angst, slight protective!bucky, mentions of death and killing, mentions of torture, blood, injuries, trauma, injured!reader

a/n: here’s another avenger!reader one shot from the long list of ideas i have… i’m thinking of making them all connected so it’s the same reader from six days (: i promise my next fic won’t be so depressing i apologize

-

Trying to fight off the hand currently clasped over your mouth, you were only repeatedly unsuccessful. Steve hadn’t seen you get dragged off, turning around and panicking immediately.

You could hear his calls for your voice become increasingly faint as the men dragged you to a secluded room you assumed Steve wouldn’t be able to access. 

“What do you mean you don’t know where she is, Steve?” Bucky sat, still in his disheveled state from being woken up abruptly by Sam for an emergency meeting.

“Buck, wake up man,” Sam said, clasping Bucky’s shoulder lightly and shaking him a bit.

Opening his eyes reluctantly, Bucky wondered what could possibly be so important this early in the morning. He never got much sleep when you went on your missions, feeling the bed to be a little too empty and thus, leaving him lonely with his thoughts.

Looking at the clock, it read 4:17AM. 

Looking back at Sam, Bucky knew something wasn’t right. Sam’s usual, playful nature replaced with one that looked remorseful. 

“What’s going on?” Bucky asked hesitantly. “Everything okay?”

“It’s Y/n, Buck,” Sam responded, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. He looked nervous, almost as if it was his fault. “She’s missing. Steve wants to have a meeting with us.”

“What do you mean she’s missing?” Bucky said calmly, though he most certainly felt his heart drop from his chest.

Sam was just as distraught as Bucky in the meeting, bobbing his knee up and down in his seat. He had told you Steve was swapping with him for the mission, second guessing himself after taking it up in the first place. You were upset he wasn’t joining you, having been the only person you trusted enough to go on missions alone with besides Bucky since you recovered from the explosion. It made him feel guilty that it had resulted in your disappearance.

It had taken you a while to feel comfortable enough to start participating in any missions, and even when you did, you always made the effort to stay in the same room as someone else. You couldn’t bear to be alone again, more than just fearful to end up in another situation where you had no idea what to do with no immediate help. 

Plunging the knife into the chest of the last man, you exhaled a few shaky breaths. 

You had been fighting these men for what felt like hours. One of them had managed to stab you in the side while you weren’t looking, and to your eventual disadvantage, you pulled it out of your suit and used it to deal with about ten other men on your own.

Staring at the last man only pushed you to look at the vast amount of bodies around you, about twenty of them laying in pools of blood everywhere, most of which you barely recalled finishing off.

You had experienced your fair share of moments with blind rage before, most of which came from your time with Hydra. But you made the effort never to kill someone. A vow you made to yourself, which was now broken.

Choking on a sob you didn’t realize was coming, you stood up and placed pressure on your stab wound before searching through the room for medical supplies. It was clearly a doctor’s room, one that reminded you of the office you spent a lot of time in while captured by Hydra.

Finding a first aid kit, you did your best to stitch and patch the stab wound with so little supplies. Once you were finished, you put the jacket of your suit back on, knowing it was freezing outside and you had to find some sort of shelter.

If there were more men coming to the building, the last thing you wanted to do was try to fight more of them off in your current state. You had hoped Steve made it out, now doing everything you can to do the same for yourself.

Finding a nearby exit, you walked out into the cool air. 

It was gonna be a long walk.

Steve was still in his suit, dirt covering his face though it did nothing to mask his solemn expression. 

He wasn’t sure how the two of you got separated. He was keeping a close eye on you since the last time you were paired together, things went bad. Hell, you almost died. Steve was simply starting to think he gave you bad luck when you were around him.

“I– I’m not sure,” Steve choked out, and he wasn’t lying at all. “We had made it inside and were met with some resistance, but we didn’t split up. We got caught up fighting and when I had turned around, she was gone. I didn’t leave her, Buck, you have to believe me. I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Bucky believed him, but he couldn’t help but overthink the fact that you’d been caught up in a bad place in the last two missions you’ve spent with Steve. It was his best friend and, of course, he knew he’d never have ill intentions with you. 

He just hoped you were okay.

“It’s okay, Steve,” he reassured. “We’ll find her. Don’t worry.”

God, you had hoped they’d somehow find you. 

You swore you’d been walking in circles for ten hours, searching for the safe house Tony had informed you and Steve was near where your mission was taking place. 

You were so tired. You had barely managed to fight off all of the maniacs who had tried to hold you captive in the old Hydra base you and Steve were assigned to get rid of. You recognized a few of them from your days in the organization, but it took you a lot longer to fight them on your own after getting stabbed in the side and a few hits to the head. 

You had never done any killing with Hydra, seeing as they never got you to commit to it, but something had triggered you to kill almost all of them. The only ones who didn’t reap such consequences were the ones who had ambushed you and Steve when you both had found an entrance into the building. 

You felt sick to your stomach because of it, along with all the energy being drained from you slowly but surely with every step you took towards nowhere at this point. You had lost your transponder somewhere in that god-forsaken building, so on top of losing Steve, it wasn’t like anyone back at the compound could track your location either.

Steve.

You assumed he’d started to look for you after you lost each other, but you had no idea if he was still in this general location. He might’ve stayed or gone back to the compound to tell the others you were missing.

It genuinely wasn’t his fault you got separated, and you’d only hoped he knew that. Someone who might not know that, on the other hand, is Bucky. You then hoped he wouldn’t give Steve a hard time, not wanting them to have any more tension than the last time you suffered while paired up with his best friend.

“She still has to go to the debrief, Bucky,” Steve pushed. “It’s been long enough and we’ve pushed past protocol longer than we ever have.”

“What if she doesn’t want to talk about it, Steve? We all went to debrief, why does she have to do it too?”

“She experienced what none of us did,” the blonde countered again. “No one knows what happened in that room but her. We need every detail.”

Reluctantly, Bucky gave in. But he regretted it the second things were rough in the meeting. 

“You have to remember, Y/n,” Steve tried to encourage you, but it wasn’t really working.

“I told you I never found where it came from, I’m not making that up,” you defended. 

“You said you didn’t remember if you found where it came from.”

“The last thing I remember was seeing one blink of a red light before the explosion. I don’t remember if it was actually the source or something else. I never found it, Steve,” you urged softly. 

Bucky was getting irritated. You hadn’t talked much to him about what happened because you hated how you felt afterwards, and now you were sitting here getting interrogated by Steve who hadn’t been there every step of your recovery.

“Y/n–”

“I think that’s enough, Steve,” Bucky said before grabbing your hand and standing up. “We’re done here.”

Your recollection of the memory was short-lived when you felt your suit starting to feel a lot wetter than before, peeking down to see it staining with fresh blood which means your wound had reopened. Limping towards what looked like an empty house, seeming freshly abandoned, you winced at the pain in your side. Walking up to the front door, you quickly jammed it in, glad to feel warmth in contrast to the cold air from outside.

Looking around to see if anyone was inside, you found yourself alone. Settling on a first aid kit from the bathroom, you plopped yourself on the couch and ripped the jacket of your suit off, almost peeling it with the dried blood making it stick to your skin a bit. 

You did your best to restitch and patch the stab wound, but you knew you’d certainly have to redo it in a few hours. You could feel yourself getting lightheaded, likely from the loss of blood and lack of nourishment. Trying your best to stay awake didn’t work as well as you hoped, but you held on for as long as you could.

Back at the compound, Bucky was packing everything he possibly needed. He didn’t know how long it was gonna take to find you, but he sure as hell knew he wouldn’t stop searching until he did. He had told Steve it was best for him to stay for this one, knowing he was feeling the guilt of having you go lost in the first place. 

Bucky heard a knock at his door, turning around to see Sam in his doorway.

“Ready to go?” he asked, seeing Bucky zip his bags. 

“Let’s find her.”

It had been less than five hours since Steve had broken the news that he lost you. First, he told Bucky and Sam, knowing it’d be of most importance to them. Then the rest of the team had joined in on the meeting, immediately making plans on how to find her. 

Sam, Natasha, Tony, Bruce, Clint, and Thor had agreed to go with Bucky to help find you. Bucky had no problem going on his own, but Natasha assured that it’d be best for everyone to join in. They attributed your last known location to the last signal your transponder gave off, and thus decided to start there.

Steve waved them off as they left on the jet, but everyone was aware he’d be tracking from back at the compound. 

Upon making it to the location of your mission and where they knew you had been at some point, they found your (now dead) transponder in the middle of a pool of blood. There were bodies everywhere, and Bucky had only grown anxious. 

You had never enjoyed getting unnecessarily violent, and in that, you always reminded him of himself. He was aware Hydra hadn’t toyed with your head nearly to the extent they did with him, but it was enough to do some damage. 

You’d confided in him with all of your stories, never going into extreme detail out of compassion for his own experiences and not wanting to trigger him into those thoughts. However, he knew that you’d never killed anyone. Beaten some people beyond a general healing point, definitely, but you couldn’t bring yourself to take a life. Hydra had their fair share of punishments for you because of that but it hadn’t broken you to the point of reaching that point.

Seeing all the dead bodies scattered across the room, there had to be about twenty of them. Bucky didn’t want to admit it, but it undoubtedly scared him. If you were in that much trouble to cause such damage, he was worried about what state he’d find you in. 

Seeing everyone make their way out of the room, Bucky shook the negative thoughts from his head. He didn’t want to distract himself from his priority: finding you, regardless of what state you’d be in.

“If she’s injured, she couldn’t have made it far,” Natasha stated, staring around at the outside of the building from an open window. “She might still be around here somewhere, maybe hid–”

Lights from a series of vehicles appeared outside. About four dozen Hydra men made their way towards the entrance of the building, murmuring about how they needed to find you before the Avengers did. 

“We’ve got company, boys,” Natasha stated instead of finishing her previous thought. 

Bucky made his way to the window, seeing that horrid insignia his memory would never let him forget. “Hydra. There’s more of them still around than I thought.”

“Cut a head off, two more take its place, huh?” Natasha recalled the organization’s motto. “We need to do this quickly, we don’t know how much time Y/n’s got and we still don’t know where she is–”

“Go,” Bucky said. “Go find her, I’ll handle them.”

“Buck, is that really the best ch–” Sam started.

“I said, go.”

“I’m sticking with you, everyone else can go.”

Bucky sighed before nodding in agreement. Natasha made her way out with Tony, Thor, and Clint, finding a back entrance. Bruce was still in the jet, tracking nearby buildings you could possibly be in. Thor, Natasha, and Clint decided to split up and search each one, Tony trying to find heat signatures that could somehow match yours.

Bucky and Sam made their way to the ground floor, watching all of the men surge in. Bucky loaded his rifle, Sam releasing Redwing to count how many men there were.

“There’s 40 of them,” Sam whispered loud enough for only Bucky to hear him.

“20 for each of us, huh?” Bucky adjusted his hold on his rifle from around the corner of the hallway. “If Y/n can do it, so can we.” Feeling a boost in confidence, Bucky started to make his move, knocking out a few men right away as Sam did the same. 

He knew he couldn’t let anyone get to you before anyone from the team did, even if it meant letting the others go ahead of him. He felt a lot more calculated than he usually did, knowing your life (or death) was in the gamble of the entire operation. 

You, on the other hand, were about to give up. Staying awake has never been this difficult, but with your pulse going faster by the second and the sudden chills you were feeling, you had a feeling this was it. 

Your wound hadn’t opened at all in the last two hours, but you attributed it to pure luck at this point. The way you were feeling could only be coming from the gaping hole on the side of your torso, even covered. 

You still tried your best to keep your eyes open, knowing you weren’t going to let yourself die cold and alone in the middle of nowhere. You felt awful, a few tears shedding from your eyes from how sick you were starting to feel. You wanted to sleep, but you were scared to go under and then not wake up.

Not to mention, you couldn’t sleep knowing the nightmares that were inevitably going to come. Feeling physically awful was one thing, but watching all those lifeless bodies fall to the floor after you killed them only made you feel worse. You couldn’t get the memory out of your head, only sobbing slightly to yourself thinking about it.

The thought that lingered even more in your head was how you were gonna tell Bucky. He knew you’d never resort to such drastic measures and you were afraid he’d look at you different once he found out. 

If he even found you alive at this point.

The team had searched about 40 houses in the last two hours, eventually teaming up with Bucky and Sam who had dealt with all forty men in the span of half an hour. They even checked the safe house in case you had made it and passed out before communicating with them, but you weren’t there either. 

“There’s only one house left on this entire street,” Bruce spoke through comms. 

Bucky’s anxiety was only going sky high with every second they hadn’t found you yet. They had no idea what your condition was like and he was doing his best not to think of the worst possible scenario. He’d hoped the tricks he taught you while on missions with him had helped somewhat, like knowing how to stitch a wound or finding a safe place from danger.

Bucky’s racing mind was interrupted by Tony’s voice on comms; he had gone to check the house and determine if there was anyone inside.

“Heat signature matches Y/l/n’s, and it’s not looking too good,” he said as he landed back on the ground.

The team rushed over, Bucky running faster than he’d ever run before. Opening the door in a rush, he saw you laying on the couch, taking staggered breaths with your eyes closed. Everyone had walked in behind him, Natasha alerting Bruce that they had found you and telling him to prep the jet. 

Bucky’s only focus was you. He placed his hands on your cheek, startling you enough to push him back before your eyes landed on him.

“Bucky?” you said, definitely not believing your eyes as you looked around and saw everyone else in the room.

Bucky approached you again slowly, not wanting to scare you further since you were probably in shock.

“Hey, baby, it’s me,” he assured you as you stared him down frantically before you started to sob. “We came to take you home, alright? We’re going home.”

As the jet landed outside, Bucky picked you up in his arms. You instinctively curled up against him, hiding your cold face in the warmth of the crook of his neck. After everyone boarded, the jet made its way back to the compound. 

Bucky had looked at your wound, replacing the dirty gauze for a clean one. You’d cried almost the entire ride, all of your emotions rushing in like a freight train. 

It hurt Bucky to see you in such a state, knowing you were tired of all the losses in life. He knew exactly how it felt, but he’d also felt you deserved it much less than he did all those years. You didn’t kill anyone like he did, you didn’t ruin anyone’s life like he did, you didn’t make people scared of you. He tried to shake those thoughts from his head, knowing you’d scold him again for thinking so low of himself in comparison to you.

Running his hands through your hair, he stayed next to you the entire time, reassuring you that you were safe and soothing you as best as he could. 

Once you all had arrived to the compound, it only got worse. 

A gurney was waiting for you on the landing pad, which you didn’t want to be laid on, to begin with. Once they had strapped you down, your cries only got worse, screaming Bucky’s name out as they took you to the medical bay. Bucky wanted to follow, but Sam stopped him, saying it was best to do the debrief right away. 

You refused to let anyone touch you unless Bucky was there, and the doctors in the medical bay were getting so frustrated, the only choice they had was to sedate you in the meantime. When they had finally patched up your wound properly, they left you to rest.

Rest was very much not in your cards, however, with your crying fits continuing and Bucky’s hearts breaking into about a million more pieces than before when he walked into your room to see you crying to yourself. 

“Y/n…” he spoke softly, sliding into the bed with you carefully and pulling you into his arms, cautious enough not to hurt you further. Kissing the top of your head multiple times, he rubbed your arms up and down until your cries eventually stopped. 

“Y-you’re gonna hate me, Bucky,” you said with a shaky voice. “I don’t want you to hate me when you find out what I did.”

“Baby, what are you talking about?” he looked down at you, but Bucky was well aware what you were thinking of. “I could never hate you. Ever. Not after everything we’ve been through together, okay? Don’t ever say something like that.”

Bucky heard you sniffle and saw a few tears fall down your cheeks, heart aching at the fact that you might start sobbing again. You slowly wrapped your arms around him, hiding your face from him in his chest.

The following days were still rough. Bucky felt lucky enough that you’d have your meals with him, but you didn’t feel like leaving your room. Steve had checked in with you and said you wouldn’t have to update anyone on what happened after you got separated. Not until you were ready to talk about it.

Bucky stayed with you more often, even after you pleaded with him to not tear up his schedule for you. He skipped out on a mission just so he could stay with you, which he assured you was okay because it meant his next mission would be with you. 

The only way you got him to go back to his routine was to offer to train with him. He had asked you a million times if you were sure, knowing what most likely occurred back on your mission’s complication. Eventually, he gave in as he always did, but he knew he wasn’t going to rush you into anything.

Picking up your normal tools for your usual, more-intense sparring sessions you always had with Bucky, your hands started to shake. Bucky noticed and rubbed your shoulders smoothly.

“We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for,” he whispered lowly in your ear. “Just take it one step at a time, okay?”

You nodded up at him, putting your tools down. You thought it’d help to move slow, but the second you knocked Bucky down, you kneeled down next to him, anxiously asking if he was okay with tears in your eyes.

Bucky looked up at you quizzically, knowing you knew in the back of your mind somewhere that you couldn’t hurt him detrimentally from a normal sparring session. 

He wiped your tears away as you stared at him with fear in your eyes, only making him feel even worse about you experiencing what you had experienced alone. 

“Baby, hey,” he said as you shut your eyes and cried. “Look at me.”

Blinking a few times, you sniffled and looked down at him, completely uncaring of your tears that had fallen on his shirt. 

“You could never hurt me, my love,” he rubbed your cheeks with his calloused thumbs, though it was the comfort you surely needed. “The only way you could hurt me is by breaking my heart and I know that’s not gonna happen anytime soon, right?”

You shook your head.

“Then don’t worry so much, baby,” he leaned up and kissed your lips softly. “I’m more than okay. You were just better than me. Let’s go shower and watch a movie.”

Standing up and lifting you up with a helping hand, you both walked back to Bucky’s room which was the closest. Stepping into the bathroom, Bucky let the water run from the showerhead so it could get warm. You stripped yourself of your clothes as he did the same, before getting into the shower. 

After cleansing yourselves, Bucky rubbed your tense shoulders once again as you leaned into him.

“I killed them,” you muffled into his chest.

“Hm?” Bucky questioned, not quite hearing you over the running water and with your face down. Lifting your chin up to look at him, your eyes were puffy and red from all the crying you’d done all day. “You don’t have to talk about anything, Y/n. Okay? We can talk about it some other time.

Shaking your head, you sighed in faltered breaths. “I killed them, Bucky.”

Bucky looked at you with sorrow. He didn’t know how to tell you that he already knew, he didn’t even know if it was the right thing to tell you. All he did was brush your tears away and kiss your forehead, nose, then lips. 

“You need to relax a bit, baby, okay?” he spoke in a soft tone. “We can talk about this tomorrow.”

Staring up at him in confusion, you shook your head again.

“You know already,” you confirmed to yourself, knowing Bucky too well to know he would usually ask if you wanted to talk further about something before putting it to bed. “You know I killed all those people.”

Bucky sighed, staring into your eyes before closing his and nodding slightly. “I do.”

“And you don’t look at me differently?” you asked, your voice a lot more calm and collected now. “I broke my promise, I didn’t even show them any mercy, Bucky—”

“Do you look at me differently knowing all the people I killed?” he interrupted, placing his flesh hand on your cheek and rubbing it slightly with his thumb. “You don’t, you never have. You knew who I was when you first got here and never looked at me differently. Why would I do that to you?”

“That’s different,” you countered. “You had no idea what you were doing, Bucky. I did.”

“You were defending yourself,” he retaliated, doing his best not to downplay your feelings. “If you hadn’t killed them, who knows what they would have done to you? It’s Hydra, they don’t care who they hurt or how they do it. If I were you, I would have done the same thing.”

He was right and you knew it. You laid your head back on his chest, scared to look him in the eye.

“I didn’t want you to look at me like I was broken,” you admitted. “I don’t know who I was when all of that happened and I just— it felt like I was trying to escape them all over again and I’ve never experienced that before. I was scared.”

“And that’s okay,” Bucky reassured you the same way he always had, wrapping his arms around your shoulders. “You’re not broken, you’re just healing. There’s nothing wrong with that, baby.”

You sniffled again before leaning into him more. “Can you just hold me for now?”

Bucky kissed your head again, squeezing his arms around you in all the warmth he could possibly transfer.

“You don’t have to ask me twice.”

—

I promise this is the last of my desire to write angst with injuring the reader… thank you for reading!

tags: @jessybarnes

[moondirti]

10. RESILIENCE

CHAPTER TEN OF ANIMALIC | MIGUEL O'HARA X F!READER

↼ chapter nine / chapter eleven ⇀

summary: miguel gives you something to work for

explicit (18+) | 5.1k words warnings: enemies (with benefits) to lovers, SMUT, fingering, praise kinks, edging, miguel is a tease, training arcs, using sex as encouragement, strict mentor miguel, angst, blood and injury notes: this is just five thousand words of banter and filth. am i sorry?

You’ve never been one to reminisce. 

Nostalgia, déjà vu – to pull a sweet memory often feels like trying to fish a lightbulb out from the traps of your jaw. Impossible, not unless the glass shatters to cut your gums and you’re left with the bitter aftertaste of tungsten. There’s a barrier preventing it, somewhere in your mind, built to divide your life into two clean segments. Before and after.

The woman you were before the incident at Alchemax had plenty to look forward to. She spent her time shooting way beyond her ground to ever consider slowing down, lured by aspirations far more tempting than the comfortable life she led. Had she stopped to smell the flowers, to appreciate the way lavender lotion felt on her skin or the past not yet marked with blood, you believe things could have gone differently. That too is hard to consider.

The girl you are now is ripe with rot, softening in the places touched by radiation, crystallising in others. To bring anything – a voice, a face, any memory ­­– back from your previous life would mean spoiling it, so you keep it all banked behind that wall. And of course, from the year past, there’s hardly anything new to recall with a smile.

Had you been anyone else, you suppose this could’ve been one of those rare times.

Because the gym is unchanged, exactly as you left it. Realistically, it’s only been a week, and to expect any major upheaval would be counting on a tragedy like the one that befell your Earth. Yet­–

Somehow, you believed that coming back could paint it in a new light. Like the ground would collapse where you took him, and the mirrors would crack, all to expose an element you’d failed to consider. One to help you take comfort in the fact, despite your reckless tryst, you’re still here. Returned – which means that all your worst worries were needless, and that this is just a gym, and you are just a person. Perhaps, if you were to pace around that gaping realisation, then your anxiety would give away to thrill.

Would’ve. Could’ve.

It still looks like the roots of your most recent mistake, though. Your tummy knots with it, tangled in that dermal tissue. You’re overcome with the urge to run, in an almost exact mirror of the last you were here. The air brims with promise; not the well-heeled kind, but a twisted sort that makes it hard to breathe. You’re afraid that, whatever happens today, things will only get more complicated. You won’t handle it well if it does.

You’ve never been one to reminisce. This morning, it is all you can do.

When eventually it gets too much to bear, you search for something else while you wait. You’d come early, right out of your third shower of the weekend, to counter the warning he’d given you.

(‘Don’t be late.’)

Shivering, you zip your jacket before arranging your things on the entryway bench. You avoid your reflection on the mirror-lined wall, turning to face the machinery instead. They aren’t conventional, you notice – though a shelf holds an array of dumbbells, they run up to twice the average weights found elsewhere. There’s a frame resembling a medieval torture device; two hand pull mechanisms on either side, both of which are attached to a tower of barbells. To try pulling both up simultaneously would rip an unenhanced human apart, you think. It certainly would come close in doing so to you.

Of the bunch, your least favourite has to be the leg press sent from hell. That’s what you assume it is, at least. In truth, you can’t exactly tell. With a plate large enough to cover your entire lower half, wedged underneath approximately forty thick slabs of solid steel, the pressure alone would be enough to crush you.

You remain firmly within the confines of the hand-to-hand combat mat. Safe, if not somewhat weird for your foul misuse of it in the past. 

But your unease is heavy enough to diffuse into your fingertips now. Your knuckles shake with it, and you must do something lest you start clawing away at your palms.

Stretching, maybe.

Yeah. Stretching would be good.

You start with what you know. The familiarity is agreeable enough to lose yourself to it. Five minutes pass; you’re bent into a low lunge. Ten, and you’re forcing your knees to touch the floor in a butterfly spread. Fifteen is when your tendons start to tremble with a warm ache, when you finally feel loose enough to relent and take a quick rest.

It turns out to be fortunate timing. The door swings upon not a moment later, the atmosphere sinking to accommodate the gravity of his presence. You catch his shadow from the top of your peripheral, hanging upside down as it appears from your point of view – laying on your back with your head slightly tipped.

You can’t see his face, and therefore have nothing to occupy yourself with. In its absence, you’re forced to consider the uncomfortable parallel your position draws forth. The only thing missing are his thick thighs, straddling your chest with subdued strength.

Swallowing, you flip around to settle on your stomach, propping yourself up on your elbows to take a good look at him. Last night, eyes hot and cloudy with tears, you refused to do yourself the favour in fear that his allure would only exacerbate things. You begin to understand the sentiment when your gaze locks to his.

“Morning.”

“You’re late,” You attempt to joke, grimacing at the awkward timing. The beam on which your relationship stands is precarious, possibly even more so than when you’d been plain-cut enemies. Everything is painted in grey, and it’s near impossible to discern where one boundary branches and the other ends. The confidence with which you once divulged in your humour is lost within the midst – your best bet is to cling to whatever instinct feels right.

Miguel nods, eyebrows raising in tandem to his languid shrug. There’s an almost playful beat to the way he walks, lined perfectly with the perimeter of the mat. You take note of his chosen apparel – his spider suit, perfectly complete save for the mask. A swell akin to disappointment rises within you.

“That expectation is solely reserved for you, fortunately.”

“I see. I suppose heroes have much better things to do, then.”

“Fate of the multiverse,” He waves his wrist, like the barb is easily dismissed. With what you’ve gathered about the man, you’re aware that’s far from the truth. “I still have things to tend to, beyond your containment.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” With the way he’s pursued you – relentless, a panther trapped in a box with an immaterial mouse as its meal – you’d have thought he’d delegated all other responsibilities to his trusted teammates in order to make time for it all. “Coming back from a mission?”

He traipses closer, blinking slowly in the affirmative. Unconsciously, you wiggle away.

“Successful, I take it?” You prod. “That an oddity for you, O’Hara?”

“The opposite.” He mutters, assessing your resting stance with mild intrigue. Your neck throbs with the angle it takes to peer up at him, again prompting a reminder of your last combat session. To quell it, you shift to sit on your knees.

Then, you imagine how your adjustment must look. Worse, likely. Wanton.

(Caveats seem to exist in abundance with him. There is always a but to your actions, a perspective to consider lest you want another misunderstanding.)

“My case being the exception?”

“As it continues to be.”

“I’m here though,”

“You are.” He pauses, inflection softening, as though the argument were fresh news. You half anticipate praise – a recognition of the effort it took for you to return. You’d spent your sleep after coming down that rooftop in a half-conscious state, reaching beyond your feverish dreams to grasp at whatever motivation you had left. You find, the longer he goes without mentioning it, the greater it begins to wane. Like a dying star, sputtering the last dregs of its fuel.

“Early too, I should mention.” You simper. For most intended purposes, it’s a crack at him, a push for the levity today so desperately needs. Yet another, lower part of you already mouths the response you wish to hear.

Good job.   

He doesn’t give it to you. “Which brings me to the topic today’s lesson,”

“As a precaution, I should tell you that any of the equipment will likely kill me.” You disclose, if only to brush off the disillusionment, pointing in particular to the leg press. 

“We’re not just there yet.”

“Then…”

“You want to know why you failed to pin me down when I asked you to?” He crouches, levelling to a degree closer to your eye-line. Still taller, you note. You steel yourself against shrinking back.

“Because you threw me off.”

“No.” His jaw ticks. “If you had kept with your attack, then you would’ve managed.”

You haven’t given yourself the opportunity to consider the reality of your clumsy attempt. The conversation lulls to make room for your contemplation. You’d thrown yourself onto him ­– like a glorified backpack – and were too wrapped up in your own panic that you hadn’t noticed his. With hindsight, though, it’s clear as day. He’s right, you could’ve managed. “But I faltered.”

“Exactly.” He echoes. “You didn’t stand your ground, which gave me the opening.”

It occurs to you that he doesn’t know the scope of your supposed error. It had really been the effect of his borderline aphrodisiacal cologne, potent and a dangerous addition to the vertigo that came with being jostled around. You consider pointing it out, a desperate last bid to disprove the very true argument he’s making, until he interrupts:

“Face down, forearms and toes on the floor.”

Your heart clenches with a febrile panic, blood piping hot through your veins at the same rate that your brain detangles the command behind his words. Either you’re debauched beyond reason, or it registers as filthy because he meant it to be. And where you’d usually rely on context, the murky limits of your relationship makes it hard to comprehend. You wipe your sweaty palms on your pants and decide that the former is the more plausible option.

(Or you can’t admit to yourself how badly you want the latter to be true.)

Either way, you do as Miguel says.

Once across the ground again, you’re able to better process the direction he’s taking you in. A plank: he’s asking you to do a plank. Ironically, you dread it more than you would’ve done the alternative.

You keep your pelvis to the mat, not yet exercising your core strength. He carries on.

“You lack resilience. Not only are you unable to withstand struggle, you don’t think to recover when you eventually fall.” The barbed observations hurt, striking you where you’re tender. It’s the part of you that’s always dissected everything he does into small, digestible pieces, but has failed to realise that he might’ve been doing the same in turn. “The first mark of a hero is their resilience. For you, that means pitting what you want to do against what you need to do.”

Another strike. You’d poked fun at his philosophical approach before, but it’s starting to make sense. Perhaps that fact alone should scare you.

Perhaps it does.

(What you want versus what you need.

Is that what you owe the world, then? Self-sacrifice – some bloody atonement – like you haven’t already bitten tooth and nail in guilt?)

“So, you’re going to make me plank?” You snap.

“I’m going to make you hold a plank. I won’t define a duration; you’ll just have to keep on until I tell you to stop.”

“O’Hara, not to question the metaphor you’ve got going on, but what could I possibly want from that?” 

“I’ve only witnessed you work hard for one thing.” He explains. It takes on a different tone than the one he’s been using thus far, though. Gentler, well-versed in the ways of a veterinary placating a feral cat. He’s treading lightly, you can tell that much, but for what you’re not sure. Because you’re close to walking out again, or because he’s about to broach unmarked territory. Whatever it is, it reads as condescending. Your muscles start to tense, like a taut elastic ready to snap, and your critique sharpens for what he’ll suggest next. “I won’t assume, and with what it can do as a form of encouragement, it’s important that you agree.”

“Spit it out.”

He doesn’t know you; you tell yourself. You’ve given him a lot of your worst, and maybe he can decipher a few truths from that, but he does not know you. You repeat the mantra over and over like a soothing balm, attempting to tamp your frantic confusion at this whole ordeal. 

“I’ll touch you. Return the favour, goad you along – but only for as long as you’re able to hold it. Drop, and I’ll stop. Pick yourself back up, I’ll continue.”

Oh.

Oh.

“When I feel as though you’ve met today’s goal, you can cum.”

And then he goes quiet. Deathly still, pouring his scrutiny into your wide eyes like he can read every thought that fires within you. But he wouldn’t be, because there are none. You don’t think. Can’t. It’s absolutely the last thing you could’ve predicted, a declaration so far removed from your worst-case-scenario that it sends you reeling beyond your flesh. You’re watching yourself in third person, a voyeur to the blubbering spectacle of Wraith – blanched and warm and entirely empty-headed. It’s unfathomable, disconcerting. 

Then, to make matters worse, you laugh.

In a manner completely unbecoming of the seriousness you’d opted to take this whole thing with, you laugh.

A crowing, boisterous sound of relief that crackles through your chest like lightning. You have to heave huge gulps of air in between to be able to respond. “You’re serious,”  

A dark eyebrow raises, the corner of his mouth curling with it. He must find it funny too, and for that you’re thankful. The mere notion injects a molten buzz into your gut. “Yes.”

“So… What – you’re insinuating a mentorship… with benefits situation?”

“No.” He shakes his head, like the title is any more ridiculous than the fact. “I’m giving you the option. You can’t trust your encouragement alone, so take it as something to look forward to. Something to work for. With it, you’ll be able to tell when you’re on the right track.”

“You’re going to Pavlov me into becoming a hero.”

He blinks. You meant it as a joke, though he seems to be taking it into account.

“If you don’t-”

“I want to.”

It’s said so quickly that you regret not faking a moment of deliberation. Really, though, there are only three things that occur to you:

Your contrition following last time was solely based on your fear of having overstepped.

The bottomless itch in you demanding some sort of recognition for your efforts remains unaddressed.

And him. It’s such an abstract reason that you can’t exactly name its contribution to your answer. Just that it’s him who’s asking; patchouli infused, broad-shouldered and stubborn Miguel O’Hara. The same man who you’d bet your life on wanting nothing to do with you, whose claw marks still scar the flesh above your wrist, whose venom still undoubtedly lingers in your system – making itself familiar with the chambers of your heart, that which you yourself can’t map. The very same man you can imagine being a father to adoring little children, because despite all the evidence to your feud, he’s also the same man who answered your curiosity about the 2099 space station with patience. Who’d cradled your neck between that rubble and refrains from calling you Wraith since you expressed your distaste for it.

Who felt so heavy on your tongue, pulsing and so fucking thick you wake up some mornings to the phantom feel of it stretching your lips.

Desire begins to gnaw up your bones. Changing your mind now would be the most blatant betrayal of oneself.

(What was it you promised earlier; to cling to whatever instinct feels right?)

“Extend your legs then.” He doesn’t let you dwell on it. “That means hips off the floor.”   

You adjust yourself into a proper plank position. Or, less than proper. Miguel takes several issues with it, rising from his crouch.

“Your elbows are too wide apart.” His foot nudges your arm until you bring it parallel to the other, straight beneath your shoulders. “Evenly distribute your weight to your forearms and toes. Everywhere else should be rigid.”

“Like this?” You turn to assess his expression. Already your lungs clench in exhaustion – this isn’t as fun as you thought it’d be.

“Of course not. Stop trying to look at me. Face down, you’ll hurt your neck like that.” The air swooshes and you assume he’s crouched back down, near your middle. A large hand grazes your belly. It tickles. “Contract it.”

You try to, but the slightest movement causes him to come in contact with you again. It’s over your jacket, just the barest of touches, yet it’s enough to make your form go weak. Your legs almost give out.

“Sorry– Just…” You huff a nervous laugh, adjusting yourself the second his warmth pulls away.

“Not just your abdomen, but your glutes too. You should feel like the rope in a game of tug-of-war. Full body tension.” You tune in to every syllable, triggered into every command like a well-rigged machine. “Yeah, that’s it.”

The acknowledgement makes you preen. It must affect your stance too, because he promptly clicks his tongue in disapproval.

“Most importantly, you don’t want this.”

And he finds the small of your back – right where your ass curves upward – to guide you back down, completely straight. His hand doesn’t leave you afterward, either, warm enough that you can make out the contours of it through body heat alone. Somehow, it stirs you even more.

Your groan is so pained that you hope it’s from exhaustion and not pining. “How much longer?”

“Really?” He deadpans.

“I feel like I’m going to collapse.” Your hips dip.

“I haven’t started the timer yet.”

His fingers slide along your pelvis, tracing it around the curve of your waist, down to where you’re sinking. Then, he lifts you back into place – anchored right above your pubic region. His press now is firmer, nudging into your flesh with the pads of his fingertips, and you can’t help the nauseous thrill arising where they do. They brush beneath your baggy top, skimming the precarious edge where your pants’ hem dives to skin.

You feel like the pages of an old book, flipped through an array of different scenes.

The first and most blatant is the discomfort that starts seizing control of you. Miguel insists you haven’t begun, but your unfit body is already suffering from positioning alone. Contracting your muscles proves harder by the moment, fragility skipping along the tissue until you’re convinced of the temptation to just let go. Your feet are unbalanced, and the unforgiving ground does a number on your elbows. The thin sheen of sweat beading across your hairline can only aggravate your suffocation, not cool you down as needed.

What’s harder to focus on – for all its monopoly on your mind – is how intentional his caress is. Every shift of his hand is practised, hovering right around where you need him but never doing anything about it. If he hadn’t admitted his course of action, then you would have tricked yourself into calling it professionalism. But while you can’t see him, his smirk is almost palpable – like humidity that makes a temporary home in your lungs – and you’re confident enough in it that you’re able to name him a tease. He’s teasing you.

The amalgamation of it all sends you into overdrive. You’ve only begun and you’re already yelling.  

“The timer!”

“You’re making it worse for yourself, you know.” He says, though moves to fiddle with his watch. 

“You’re a little shit, y’know.” But he’s right. Talking amplifies the fatigue.

“I’ll add that to the list. Right next to cocky bastard.”

“Don… Don’t forget sadist–”

“Hm,”

And, as if to emphasise its inapplicability, he cups you.

From behind. Dips his fingers in the space between your thighs, winds them to the front of your groyne, and palms your clothed cunt. 

Your skin prickles. 

“Fuck!”

Static envelops your arms as they phase right through the floor – momentum stopped only by your chin, which remains corporeal. If it weren’t for your tongue, which slips to wedge itself between your teeth, then you’re sure your jaw would have shattered on impact. Ichor floods your mouth, sharp, like butter melted on a penny. You groan, rolling around to rapidly blink up at the ceiling, purging the stars speckling your vision. 

Miguel just looks at you, expectant. His biceps flex when they cross over his chest. 

“That was four seconds.” 

“Oh, pleath. Thpare me the lecture,” Upon sitting up, you spit the blood out to your empty side. Your limbs have already reverted back to their natural state. “Not that you care, but it still counts as a personal record.”

“Go figure.” He mutters, helping you back into place. He doesn’t have to correct your posture this time. “Back to zero.” 

Silence follows the beep of his watch. 

Really, it’s more of a mental hush. You force your mind to scour all preoccupations to the backlog, cleansing the forefront of it to steam-pressed sterility. What had caught you off guard was your lacking focus on the physical; if you had been aware of the smallest movements coming from behind, then perhaps his touch wouldn’t have prompted you to phase out. You hadn’t even noticed his gloves retracting into his suit. 

Your tongue is still sore with incisor shaped indents, and you vow not to repeat the mistake that caused it. 

So, you focus on what’s happening rather than what could. Baby steps, one second after the next, waddling until you find a gait that suits your rhythm. When anything but your abdomen aches, you readjust. Your shoulder joints aren’t supposed to tense like that – you can almost hear him say – so you work on fixing it. If your toes begin to hurt, then clench your calves. Dig your nails into a fist, it helps take away from everything else. 

The air conditioning unit hums evenly from all around you. The echoes of other spider-people outside filter in with it. The combat mat has a vinyl surface that zips when you scratch it. The material of his suit smooths tacitly across your jacket. Your breath is as consistent as you allow it to be, stunted when you exhale. 

Your sweat is itchy as it dries to your lip. Your ribs pound where they fractured a while ago. Sinew wears down the longer you continue to flex it. He flicks the trim of your leggings, stroking the valley of your spine. Your palms split as your nails plough further into them, marked with crescent-shaped beads of red. 

Varicoloured motes float by your nose. Somewhere, hitchhiking on your train of thought, there’s a confusion. No stream of sunlight exists to highlight them. They shouldn’t be here at all. 

But then Miguel slips in, ironing over your cotton panties. Your whole body knits together, bracing like a compressed spring. There’s nothing you can do without making him stop, no jump or grand feat that promises release. You can’t even see the finish line, the marker an uncapturable notion, a rainbow moving away at your same speed. So, instead, you revel in how unwavering he is. 

His hand strokes over the line of your ass, about to push downward to where you need him most, before deciding against it.  

To pinch a cheek. 

He… pinches the swell of fat, right where your rear curves to your hamstrings.

It’s rough enough that you’re sure you’ll bruise. 

“Nmmgf–” You sulk. “Don… Y– T-tease.” 

“Se te olvidó. Squeeze your glutes.”

The sarcastic yes sir dies in your throat. Your face is aflame – from the work out, his ministrations, the revelation that when he reaches your cunt, he’ll be greeted with a humiliating mess. Your thighs are spread apart, yet your underwear still slides over your core, jostled by his intrusion and too slick to provide any real friction. 

That is, until he nips the fabric to bunch up between your lips. It stresses over your clit, biting down on the fattening pressure there. Pleasure tremors up your nerves, unsure of its validity under such an unfamiliar sensation. Your subsequent moan is almost miserable in contrast.

“P-Ple… O’H-ra.” To punctuate your plea, you purse your bottom as hard as you can. A physical signal, a question – is this good? Is it not enough? But all that manages to do is worsen your lust. Adding to the fire tenfold, potent as a gallon of petrol. You try to remain steadfast in the face of it all – this calamity, bombs upturning battlefield soil, to keep yourself in the position he’s asked of you.

But fuck if it isn’t punishing. 

“Mierda– that’s it.” He curses. You’re at the point where it’s enough praise to urge you along. “You’re soaked.” 

You hadn’t noticed his index and middle digits, finally fondling over your hole. Fabric still separates you, bunched tight right over the weeping thing, but as you hold out, he moves it to the side. It snaps away like he’s vocally ordered it to stay that way, his whims laws of physics in their own right, and you use that skewed rationale to supply the basis to your obedience. You couldn’t have done this alone – in no universe, of the hundreds you’ve visited, have you ever thought of it. You’d purchased gym memberships for their showers and walked right past the purpose. In your own world, you’d wasted your limited free time in strangers’ beds.

There’s always been a deficit of purpose in your life. For a brief moment, you’d found it in the stars. Now, with Miguel, you’re granted every ounce you might’ve missed in between, if only to experience what it would be like to unravel by his touch. 

And he leads you to it like he’s been trained in your precise anatomy. Blunt fingers implant onto your electric centre – that bundle of nerves overfed by the edging – circling, harsh and rough and fast enough to spike wrecked sobs. Your eyes cloud with desperation, foggy tears budding at your lashes and flowering down your sweat-slicked cheeks. His thumb responds, thrumming along your opening to test its elasticity. Upon deeming you ready, it dives to plug you shut. 

It’s delicious. You’re beyond delirious. He’s got a grip on you in every way; spiritually, his philosophy for today echoing as your only tether to reality. Mentally, with his stupid fucking lesson and this god-forsaken plank. Physically, strong arm literally hooked into your cunt and coaxing new slick with every quirk of his fingers. 

Which press down with a vengeance now, bearing on a trillion little synapses that flare up, liquifying your guts into a viscous substance, heavy as it sloshes around in you. Everything is screwed in, bolted to the same position he asked for – you don’t dare let go. Not as your heart stutters out of beat, finding the pace he dictates instead, flicking over your clit unhinged. Not when the digit that fingers your clinch twirls in place, searching for the lewd sounds it can create. Or with the following squelch, your lungs flaring – embarrassed – at every consecutive one thereafter.

He’s talking, whispering, goading you along. You can’t hear any of it. Either dirty talk or reprimand, it’s lost amidst your self-doubt. 

Because truthfully, you can’t persevere through this much longer. The tunnel continues to unroll before you, the light at the end waning dimmer and dimmer. How wonderfully poetic, you brood; your whole spider-hood spent chasing salvation, navigating through one purgatory to the next, only to lose sight of your little prelude to heaven. 

You want this – so much so that the word begins to blur with need, and Miguel’s lesson gains more relevance. You want this so bad that you’d worship every atom, every callus of his, from cuticle to elbow. 

(Resilience. Resilience. Resilience.) 

What you want and what you need. 

Which is which, again? 

You can let yourself go now, suffer through a shameful orgasm by collapsing to the floor and holding his wrist still to fuck yourself onto. It isn’t so much about that anymore, though – that pure sexual gratification, the most basic of requirements. 

It’s about the thing you’ve been wishing for the whole morning. Approval, the cue that you earned it, filtered through his encouragement alone. Not the physicality that manifests as a screeching voice inside your head, but his own – unadulterated, smoke-charred, the slightest of accents scorching its edges. And whether you like it or not, you can only gain it by enduring this test.

(He walked into this gym with the assumption that you’d want your way, and need his. 

Funny, how things turn out. It’s completely the opposite.

Perhaps he does not know you at all.) 

But he sees you. 

Watches the rigidity of your muscles, how they stiffen further given your newfound resolve. Observes as you smear bloody palms onto your wrists, and sniff back the cries you’ve let rip thus far. Your heels straighten out, ninety degrees to the arch, your head ducking to ensure your torso is as straight as can be. You hardly feel the pain anymore. 

And you see him. 

Or – the vague shape of his hand, tucked beneath your leggings. It’s dark, shadowed by the overhead fluorescents, but the bump is big enough for you to pinpoint when exactly he makes his decision. It halts, breaks away a smidge, and comes back with a renewed vigour.

“Can I!” 

“Go.” He permisses. 

(And it’s cataclysmic; both everything and nothing all at once. The bout of deathly quiet before matter meets antimatter, where magnets lose their function and you think you can hear the pitter patter of a pulse, erratic at your wrist. And when the ground rocks, trembling with an explosive magnitude, mass converting entirely to energy. When you roll into a ball of fear–)

You wind impossibly tighter, all but forcing his fingers from you. It’s terrifyingly strong; your orgasm wrecks you not in ripples, but as one metre-high wave, floodgates open to the mat beneath you.

(–and your best to embrace a quick death.)

Miguel aids you down to lay on your back. When he lifts his wrist to check the set stopwatch, his hand glistens with your juices. You're compelled to wipe it off, raptured by humility like he isn’t the one that just fingered you into oblivion.

“Two minutes.” He says. “Good.”

“That… that was only one-twenty seconds?” 

“Talk about a personal record.”  You huff. “Shut up.”

chapter eleven

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[snowyquokka]

ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴇɴᴅ • ʏᴀɴɢ ᴊᴇᴏɴɢɪɴ

wc: 1.4k

mafia au jeongin x fem reader

cw: mature themes MDNI, mentions of murder, mentions of blood, mentions of possessiveness, angst, arguing, slight degradation, swearing, toxicity, implied ptsd

a.n- i’m actually really excited to write this series!! hope you guys like it too <3

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

“You fucking did what?” Pissed. That’s the only word you can think of to describe your husband right now. He’s pissed because you went behind his back and met with the leader of another mafia to discuss some unfinished business that Jeongin had yet to fix.

“I was helping you! Without me, you and San would’ve never worked things out. You’re just too blinded by your ego to realize that.” As soon as your words register your hand flies to meet your mouth. Jeongin nods and bites the inside of his cheek as he analyzes your response. Usually when you argue there’s always a hint of something in your tone. Fear maybe? No, Jeongin thinks. Horror. You always seemed too shy to speak out but now there’s been a shift in your demeanor. A hint of resentment.

He really lets everything sink in and carefully calculates his next move. “Y/n, what have I told you about leaving here without permission, or even a guard? What if you got hurt?” you roll your eyes which throws Jeongin off a little. What has gotten into you? He’s trying not to become angry, but you are making it really fucking difficult. Deep breaths, Jeongin. You know the drill; she’ll rant and rave until she finally crawls right back into your arms. Every. Single. Time.

“Are you even paying attention?” Okay maybe it’s going to take a little more work this time.

“Yes, I’m listening, but you need to realize that you’re under my protection. And as a matter of fact, you follow my rules.” he states as calmly as possible.

You blink once. Twice. You can’t believe him. “You don’t fucking control me, Jeongin. I’m sick of hearing you commanding me like I’m some pet. It’s getting really fucking old.”

Jeongin clenches his jaw and flexes his fists. You know that if you were literally anyone else in the world, you’d be a mere blood splatter on the cream rug.

But you aren’t anyone else.

You’re Yang Y/n.

Jeongin’s wife.

The love of his life.

But right now- “You’re acting like a bitch, y/n.” he hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud until he saw the tears well up in your eyes. He could practically see your heart breaking in your chest, but honestly, he didn’t care. You needed to know your place.

“Fuck. You. I’m done.” you shake your head and remove your wedding ring before tossing it on the ground at Jeongin’s feet. You leave without listening to any of his protests. He seemed surprised that you acted out like that, and you even surprised yourself. You’d never been the type of person to engage in any sort of confrontation. You’d seen your parents do it enough to know that most of the time it doesn’t end well. Like right now.

Taking large deep breaths, you enter your car and just drive. The only sound that fills the car is your choked sobs as you turn his words over and over in your head.

You start to wonder where everything went wrong. Just two months ago you were happy. Right?

You start to recall the first time Jeongin had killed someone in front of you. The man had been eyeing you up all night while he was negotiating with your husband. One thing led to another and Jeongin shot the man point blank in the head with zero hesitation. That night you’d slept on the couch then woke up in the morning to Jeongin cooking for you and spewing out apologies and reassuring you that it wouldn’t happen again.

That turned out to be a lie. Not even a month later he shot a guard he had just hired because they were “staring at you like you were a piece of meat.” To you, that didn’t justify murdering a man in cold blood.

Jeongin, of course, waited until you were married to let the…darker side of him show. At first you thought nothing of it, blinded by love. Then gradually you started to become almost disgusted by the way he could hurt someone over something so little. It’s not like those men touched you or even talked to you.

You park in a random lot and pull out your phone.

innie <3 (15)

You immediately delete the voicemails he left and dialed your brother's number after coming to the conclusion that you wouldn’t be able to sleep in your car.

One ring.

Two.

Thr-

“Y/n?” Chan’s voice sounds groggy and hoarse as if he’d just woken up, it was around 2 in the morning. You tried your best to compose yourself. “Hey, Channie.” it comes out as a faint whisper. You hear rustling on the other end and a sigh. “What’s wrong?”

“I- Can I crash there for a bit?”

✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦

As you pull up to Chan’s house you mentally prepare yourself for the ‘You know better’ talk. Chan practically raised you and knows you better than anyone - with the exception of Jeongin.

No, no. Stop thinking about him, y/n. Just put on a smile and take deep breaths.

You don’t bother knocking, instead you just walk in. “Chris?” you call out. You almost speak again as you search for him but immediately change your mind when you notice your wedding ring sitting on the coffee table in the living room. Your heart drops to your feet and you can’t help but feel a twinge of betrayal. You spot someone out of the corner of your eye but choose to ignore them and turn to walk out of the door but are stopped by a gentle hand on your wrist. You don’t even need to open your eyes to know who it belongs to.

“Sunshine, please.” Sunshine. You haven’t heard you call him that in ages. Your heart melts a little but you dismiss the feeling and turn to face him when you notice your brother standing behind Jeongin.

“What happened to ‘your secrets safe with me’?” he flinches at your use of the words he promised over and over again starting from your early childhood.

“Just talk, Y/n.” Chan disappears into the hall, leaving you and Jeongin alone.

“Baby-“

“I can't take it anymore.” you whisper.

“Take what?”

“Feeling like I’m not good enough for you.” One crack in the dam you put up to stifle your emotions.

“Please don’t do that, love. I-I said things that I didn’t mean and I’m sorry I’m just-“ Jeongin takes a deep breath, “I’m afraid of losing you. I love you with all of my being, you are the most important thing to me. I can’t risk it.” Every feeling you’ve been pushing back floods you, overwhelming you. Unexpected tears stream onto your already reddened cheeks.

“If you really cared you wouldn’t have killed somebody right in front of me. Not once, but twice. Do you know how fucking difficult it is not to be fearful? You may be afraid of losing me, but I’m afraid of you. The man I married isn't there anymore. You changed, and it’s fucking terrifying.” you squeeze your eyes shut as two lifeless bodies flash through your mind.

Jeongin freezes. He fucked up; big time. He wraps his arms around your shoulders gently, silently asking for your approval.

You finally let go and sink into his arms.

You love him, that’s never been questioned. But you don’t love this life. Your body racks with sobs as Jeongin rubs soothing circles across your back. Your mind is so jumbled and fuzzy that you can’t focus on one topic. One second you’re thinking about you and Jeongin, the next you’re picturing Changbin ridding the white linoleum floor of a large pool of blood before it has a chance to stain.

If Jeongin wasn’t keeping you stable you’d most likely collapse on the floor.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” he whispers.

But he knows.

He knows that he has a slim chance of winning you back. So for now, he’s going to savor your warmth and your sweet scent. He’s going to etch the feeling of his arms around you into every crevice of his heart and soul.

You’ve reached a dead end in your relationship and you aren’t sure if you want to turn around and find your way back to him.

[from-the-clouds]

moonlight on the river - joel miller x reader

masterlist | song inspo

summary: Joel has been many things to you. A dealer, a mentor, a friend, a lover. Lately, it’s the latter.  Sometimes he’s none of those things, or a handful of them, or all of them at once. And it’s up to the both of you to decide in the moment which things are true. Takes place during episode one of the TV series. pairing: joel miller x f!reader words: 2.4k warnings: angst, fluff, good ol' fashioned hurt/comfort. depressive thoughts, reader sort of has a death wish, references to alcohol/drug abuse, death, loss of family members & loved ones. implied age gap, references to casual sex, heavy petting (no smut). a/n: it's been months since i posted a fic on here! some of my best work comes when it’s 2am, i’m emo and touch-deprived and i have an 8am appointment so i stay up until 5am to write. this was actually supposed to be fully a fluff piece but the angst queen had to strike.

You wish you could drown in the pile of blankets you’ve wrapped yourself in. Wish the couch would swallow you whole, like a whale, then drag you down to the deepest depths of the ocean and leave you there until you can’t hold your breath any longer, until the cold pricks the tips of your fingers and toes, until you succumb completely. 

But in some ways, you’re already existing like that, in the sea-level equivalent of the Marianas Trench. One of those sea creatures that look not of this Earth, features warped – adapting, evolving, surviving, despite your environment’s best efforts to eradicate. Your mother had once shown them to you in her old textbooks and shown you the photos of anglerfish, frilled sharks, phantom jellyfish. The memory of your mother makes you wince, and you try to think of something else.

How anyone else around you managed to put on a brave face and make their way through each day was beyond your comprehension, even though you do it, too. They probably all feel the same way about it as you do, but no one talks about the collective trauma you’re all slogging through. No one has anything new to add, and it’s foolish to believe that anyone’s insight could somehow take the pain away. Even if you have a chance to tell your story, there is always someone who has it worse. 

Get in line. 

Exhausted as you are, you don’t sleep much. Most of your nights are spent at the precipice of unconsciousness, and you can never quite make it over the edge, the helicopters, radios, sporadic gunfire always manages to rouse you first. When you do manage to sleep, you’re plagued with nightmares. You prefer perpetual fatigue. 

A knock at your door comes suddenly, and you start, sitting up quickly – but quietly – to not alert the unexpected guest that someone might be in the tiny studio you call home. It’s well after dark, which makes you doubt that whoever, or whatever is at the door, isn’t there for a friendly drop-in or a cup of tea, not that friendly drop-ins or cups of tea ever happened. 

But before you grow too panicked, your name is muttered, accompanied by another impatient rap of knuckles against the hollow wood. It’s a familiar rasp, even-toned and calm, and your shoulders sag in relief before you abandon your post on the couch. 

“Joel?” you ask softly, squinting in the dim light of the hallway through the crack in the door. He doesn’t look any different, though it’s been about a month since you’d last seen him. You’re not sure what to expect, but he’s the same as always, wearing a worn, tight denim shirt and fraying jeans. He looks tired, but you can’t recall a time when he doesn’t. Everyone looks tired all the time, it just only concerns you because it’s him. 

Not waiting for an invite, he steps through the small opening you allot for him and into your place, wordlessly.

“What the fuck, Joel, it’s past curfew are you trying to get yourself killed?” 

“I’ve done worse,” he says, dismissively, and yanks the door from your hand to close and lock it behind him. 

You don’t argue with him. You rarely do – which you think is partly why he likes you – but especially now, you don’t have the energy. And when you do, he’s too stubborn to listen. 

Joel has been many things to you. A dealer, a mentor, a friend, a lover. Lately, it’s the latter.  Sometimes he’s none of those things, or a handful of them, or all of them at once. And it’s up to the both of you to decide in the moment which things are true.

So when he steps forward, crowding you backwards until your rear hits your kitchen countertop and you have nowhere to go, you don’t ask questions. 

His hand cradles your chin, tilting it back to look into his sad eyes, and he kisses you. For a split second, it’s chaste, and you’re almost confused, until it’s suddenly not, and his grip on your jaw tightens, his lips parting. Joel stakes his claim, his free hand winding into your hair and pulling. You sigh, closing your eyes. 

He moves both his hands to cup your ass through the flimsy athletic shorts you’re wearing, lifting your hips up and against him, making to carry you to the bed, or maybe even take you on the countertop – it could be one of those days. Everything he’s doing would normally light you on fire, and there’s a primal instinct that’s telling you you like it, but for some reason, you hesitate.

Joel senses it right away. You’re not sure how. And you don’t want him to. You’re prepared to submit, even though you feel numb everywhere, because you hope for the chance to feel something, anything other than what you’ve felt the last few days. He pauses, too, pulls back. 

You expect to meet his eyes when you look up at him, but they are fixed on something else. Tugging on the collar of his shirt, you try to kiss him again, but he doesn’t budge, until you follow his eyes. An empty bottle of liquor sits on the bar behind you. Fuck.

“You’re drinking again.” It’s not a question.

“That was actually from yesterday,” you say, like it would make any difference. The remnants of a hangover have been tweaking your temples all day, biting the back of your eyes. It was half empty when I got it. It was just one night. I can have a couple drinks without getting out of control. Your brain cycles through several more excuses before you decide not to waste your breath. 

“What did I tell you about this?” He reached behind you and lifted the bottle, holding it in front of your face like you hadn’t been able to see it clearly enough before. 

“You should talk,” you don’t like being cruel, but you’re already desperate to end the discussion. He’s probably drunk or high right now, but it’s none of your business, and you’d given up trying to save him a long time ago. 

You shift your weight to lower yourself off the counter and move away from him and the once-inviting warmth of his embrace. Joel doesn’t let you make it far, reaching out to grip your upper arm and tugging you back to face him with little-to-no effort on his part. His strength always startled you, even though it shouldn’t, considering his size. It also should’ve scared you, but the manhandling mostly just turned you on. Not enough that you were going to keep letting him lecture you.

“It’s different. You’re still so young.”

“What does that matter?”

He doesn’t have an answer. 

You lift your chin, squaring up to him. “That’s what I thought.”

He puts his hand on hip and studies you carefully. Despite your attitude, you’ve never liked disappointing him. He’s the closest thing you have to a father, which you can recognize is an awfully fucked up way to feel about someone you regularly have sex with, but you lived in an awfully fucked up world.

There’s a wistfulness to Joel’s expression you’ve never seen before. He chooses to change the subject, and you’re thankful until what he says registers. 

“I’m leaving town tomorrow night. You might not see me again.”

It takes a moment to process, but it hits you like a blow to the gut. So hard, you’re surprised you don’t stagger backwards with the force of it. Even when it settles, you know it hasn’t even sunk in all the way.

“Well…” you take a long, thoughtful pause, and offer the only thing that your brain can come up with, “....stay safe out there, then.”

“Yeah,” he runs his tongue over his teeth and squints at you. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” 

Snorting, you know it’s important to remain as blase as possible so you don’t cry. Although, you don’t really cry anymore. Even when you want to, the tears never come. At some point, after watching every person you’ve ever cared for die in uniquely devastating ways, you must’ve reached your lifetime limit. 

“I know you. Something’s up.”

No, you don’t! You want to scream, but that would be a lie. It’s been three years since you met, maybe one since your….arrangement, or whatever you’d call it, had begun. 

How the two of you had become so close was a mystery even to you. It’s not like you were charming or charismatic, or willing to put up the innocent act. You didn’t try to inflate his ego, which most men loved. At first, you didn’t even really like him at all. That changed with time. Somewhere along the way, things just clicked.

“It’s nothing that no one has ever felt before,” you shrug. Joel has his fair….or rather unfair share of demons, and is the last person you want to complain to. Most of the time, he’s unflinchingly guarded, but he’s shared enough – secrets whispered in your ear while tangled in damp sheets, your hand on his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart – to make you wonder if you have it so bad. Focusing on a fixed point, a crack in the tiled floor, you avoid his eyes.

“Hey,” his voice pulls you back. “Don’t do that.” 

“I’ll be okay,” you say. “I’m just having a d-a week.” A month, a year, a life. Reluctantly, you meet his gaze.

His face softens, his hand reaching to clasp with your own, thumb grazing across your palm. “Come here,” he murmurs. He pulls you against him tightly, tucking your head under his chin, his fingers weaving into your hair. 

“You’re going to be alright. You’re a strong girl.” He’s too smart to believe that, you think. But it doesn’t stop you from pressing your lips against his sternum. His broad chest is sturdy, firm, and you close down your eyes. 

Neither of you speak, and one of his hands begins to stroke your back in soothing circles. You stay wrapped in his arms for a long time. Long enough to think about how you might never get to do this again, and you suddenly want him in all the ways you never had him, and all the ways you had. Just one last time. 

He presses a kiss to your temple. “I can tell you’re exhausted, baby. Let’s get you to bed.”

There’s no reason to protest, he’s right, so you let him lead you to the bed. You’re already in your pajamas, and he draws back the covers and tucks you underneath them carefully. 

“You’re staying,” you say. It’s meant to be a question, but it comes out like command, and although you can’t stand the idea of pleading for it, would if you had to. You’re that desperate. 

You hear the clunk of his boots landing on the floor, feel the dip of his weight on the opposite side of the bed. 

“Of course,” he says softly, voice barely above a whisper as he slides underneath the covers. 

Joel’s arm snakes around your waist, and you’re being pulled back against his chest. You wriggle to be closer, even though it’s not possible, his nose resting on the crown of your head, stroking your hair softly. He’s being so tender, so sweet, it makes you feel sick.

“What if I don’t want you to leave?” you turn your head slightly, so you can see him out of the corner of your eye. You want to be able to remember his face, in case you never see him again. He was handsome, you’d always thought that, even despite the years between you. 

“It’s my brother. I don’t have much of a choice, baby.”

Joel had told you all about Tommy. You wished you could be resentful at his leaving to find his brother, but you knew you’d risk pretty much anything for the chance to see anyone in your family again. 

You shake your head. “This…sucks.” 

He offers a rare chuckle, one that vibrates through his chest and straight to the ache in your stomach that started when he told you he’d be leaving. “It does. I’m sorry.”

Joel sighs, his breath on the nape of your neck, and you shiver. “I’ll miss you.” It’s a simple truth you can hear in his voice without even needing to look in his eyes.

“I’ll miss you.” You reach for his hand. 

You roll over to face him, his head propped on his opposite hand, looking down at you. 

“You remember everything I taught you?” he asks. “Be smart, keep yourself safe.”

Joel had proven to be a pretty valuable resource when it came to survival skills. He’d taught you how to shoot a gun, to load and reload it, how to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together. You recalled the feeling of him leaning over your shoulder, adjusting your grip to shoot at a target. And even if most of his lessons in hand-to-hand combat resulted in him having his way with you on the kitchen floor – you didn’t mind it at all – you knew enough to defend yourself. 

“I do,” you answer. “And I will.”

You think of all the time you’ve spent with him the past few years. How it has made things bearable. It’s likely the last time you’ll ever see him, and you know what you’re supposed to say. But for the life of you, you just can’t say it.

Instead, you lean in to kiss him, lazy and lingering, both your hands on the side of his face, palms pressed against the scruff of his beard. You pull away after awhile.

“Tell me about what it was like. Before all this.” When the outbreak began, you were just a child. It felt like a dream, your memory so fuzzy it was hard to recall anything except the worst parts.

Joel does, and you listen, captivated, though it’s not the first time you’ve heard it. For such a gruff man, he paints a pretty picture.

It’s easy to imagine what your life might be like if none of this had ever happened. It would have been better, infinitely better, for yourself, for Joel, for everyone. It would be better, but if it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have met him. For some reason, something about that doesn’t feel right.

[rukia-writes]

could we get headcanons for what jealousy looks like on apollo thor and poseidon??? do gods even feel jealousy?? and would they be possessive??

Most gods don’t feel jealousy, to do so would admit there is some sense of insecurity and we all know the gods aren’t insecure.

However! Apollo is a different breed. Apollo isn’t insecure, Apollo just wants to know who is possibly better looking or who/what dares to take away attention away from him. Like if one is going to be with Apollo you have to be ready to worship him in some fashion and when he doesn’t get that, there’s a problem.

Apollo acts: calm at first but the less attention he gets the more jealous he becomes. So it’s better to nip it in the bud before it worsens. Apollo won’t outright say he’s jealous but he’ll confront his beloved saying:

“Who is this person? I’ve never heard of this friend you speak of.” (It doesn’t matter if his beloved mentioned the friend or not all Apollo knows is himself, family and his beloved. Everything else isn’t relevant.

“Why don’t you stay with me? That friend of yours is nothing to brag about.”

“My sweet (Name), you haven’t been paying much attention to me lately. I haven’t done something to offend you have I? Because I can’t recall anything I’ve done wrong.”

Yes, Apollo feels jealous only because he wants to be the sun (the center of your world) in his beloved’s life and we all know there can only be ONE sun.

Would Apollo be possessive: if his beloved doesn’t clear things up, Apollo can be a little possessive if it goes on long enough.

I’ve said it countless times, but Thor is one of the most chill gods. You have to be really trying him to get under his skin.

Thor isn’t jealous of anyone or anything. Thor is also the one who doesn’t mind it if his partner is out for days on end and even with a friend no less.

To get under Thor’s skin his beloved has to KNOWINGLY (or innocently) flirt with someone and they have to do it in front of Thor. That’s Thor only time when he’ll draw the line and he gets jealous.

Now if his beloved isn’t giving time of any sort then their would be a problem and he would be jealous of whoever/whatever is taking his place.

“You’re spending a lot of time with that friend of yours.”

Thor is quiet but he’s the deadly quiet. When he speaks everyone listens. (Just like his father)

It’s better to nip Thor’s jealousy in the bud too, Thor is silent which means he takes a lot in. Good news is! Thor doesn’t get jealous often but when he is-comfort him…before all of Valhalla knows the the thunder god is not so happy.

Would Thor be possessive: No.

You’re more likely to make him mad than jealous. It’s just not Poseidon. He believes he’s perfect which means there’s no room for jealousy.

The closest Poseidon would get to jealousy is if he’s courting someone and they DONT choose him and chose someone else. That would hurt his pride a bit which would make him jealous for like 0000.00001 second but he’ll get over rather fast.

Another instance would be if this person took Poseidon’s spot, like if Poseidon and his beloved go for morning walks together and this friend is there…he won’t get a warm welcome from Poseidon. Hell, Poseidon might tell the person to leave to their face. Like, whatever Poseidon and his beloved do that is a tradition and someone is taking his spot it’ll just piss him off and then he’ll get a tiny tiny tiny bit jealous because how dare someone take his spot.

“Don’t invite that friend of yours for our walks.”

Poseidon is like Thor, quiet and calm but when he talks everyone listens.

Would Poseidon be possessive: No.

🎀Rukia-Writes🎀

[lissa612]

Can someone point me to where in 9-1-1 canon it is shown that Buck thinks of “Evan” as a separate identity or a version of himself he escaped?

Because we’ve got Buck 1.0 that’s been clearly mentioned in the past as a persona he’s outgrown, but I can’t remember him ever saying anything like “That was Evan…This is Buck.” He started going by Buck because it was convenient. He liked it and perhaps considered it a fresh start along with the career he found to finally be his calling, so he kept the nickname…But even the reasoning there is speculation because I can’t recall him ever saying anything more than “Everyone calls me Buck now. I kinda like it.” But there were still people who would call him Evan. His girlfriend, his sister, his best friend when he wanted to make sure he was hearing him, and his therapist (who honestly should be the most mindful of his comfort with mode of address) just off the top of my head. The only time he seems upset when called Evan was when his parents did it after he apparently asked him to call him Buck…That seems to be more about them ignoring his wishes than any sort of visceral rejection of the name itself.

I keep seeing chatter about how it’s disrespectful of Tommy to be calling him Evan. But I can’t find anything in actual canon to back that up. You can head canon that Tommy ignored Buck when he introduced himself like “I’m Evan Buckley - Call me Buck” but that never happened. You can just as easily head canon that Buck blushed and told Tommy that he likes how he says “Evan” when Tommy catches that everyone else calls him Buck and tries to correct himself. I’d argue that one of those head canons fits better with actual canon, but there are arguments for both…Neither is absolutely wrong.

So you can totally head canon that Tommy is someone who ignored Buck’s wishes to be called Buck. But then you also have to head canon that Buck, despite all the progress he has made through the years, is someone who would actively pursue someone who has shown they ignore his wishes - Something we have seen in canon to be a boundary for him. Which is fine if you want to do that…Head canons allow for all kinds of freedom in interpretation. But it’s not canonical fact.

Buck has historically disassociated with parts of his past self with his software upgrades from Buck 1.0, but when was the last time he did that? Buck 3.0 was back in season 4. He’s grown and changed a lot since then without needing to proclaim himself to be Buck 4.0. But beyond that, he’s never proclaimed there to have been an early beta version of the software called “Evan”. Really the only thing we know was upgraded between Buck 1.0 and Buck 2.0 was how Buck handled sex and relationships. Was “Evan” the base code in Buck 1.0? If so, has the code changed so much to have erased that? (Again, there’s nothing explicit in canon, so we can head canon that all day).

Bobby noted at the end of the season how much growth he has seen in Buck. I don’t think anyone who has watched the show could argue against the truth of that statement.

That is canon.

But you can ponder on it and come up with head canon…Perhaps what we are seeing is a more self-actualized version of Buck who doesn’t need to think of any progress he’s made in terms of upgrades because the therapy has finally made him realize he is all of those versions of himself and they are all him - He is the result of everything he has experienced and everything he has done and every decision he has made, and who he is will keep constantly evolving with every new experience and decision.

Regardless, Evan Buckley is Buck. And he is Mr Buckley. And he’s Firefighter Buckley. And he’s Buckley. And he’s Evan.

Unless he’s told someone to NOT refer to him as one of those names and they do anyway, they aren’t showing any disrespect by referring to him in any of those ways. We have examples in canon of that happening. We also have examples of viewers seemingly deciding it happened without canonical basis.

That’s a head canon. Have fun with it but remember to not force it onto others.

[bestworstcase]

Thanks for your response ala Ruby & Yang, great stuff!

Idle aside, but do you have any thoughts on Yang's role as the sort of black sheep of the family by dint of Raven associations?

Cos like, Tai overtly favors Ruby, projects Raven onto Yang, resents Raven being rough up and is bad enough about reminders of her Yang feels she has to apologize for his negative reactions. Let alone his... Everything else.

Then there's Qrow who doesn't seem to interact with Yang over much at all and one of if not their most major interaction. Involves him straight up saying he thinks she's either a liar hurting people for fun or "crazy".

I recall someone I was chatting with wondering: Imagine doing everything you can to keep your family from breaking apart & being compared to the woman who left you when you were a baby?

Cos I do wonder how Yang feels about all that given she seems to downplay and or try to work around her family's issues when she can. Let alone what it says about the adults in the room.

smth i think about a lot is the way yang’s narrative about her childhood shifts between v2 to v5

’cause in v2 it’s: “it was tough. ruby was really torn up, my dad kind of shut down. it wasn’t long before i learned why…” all to provide context for this anecdote about putting ruby in a wagon and running away to find her mother. and then her conclusion is “my stubbornness should have gotten us killed that night.”

and while there is a degree here of yang framing the story to emphasize the point she wants blake to understand, it’s also very obvious in her delivery that the emotional reality of this memory for yang is “the time my stupidity and stubbornness almost got me and ruby eaten by grimm”—when she was [checks notes] like five, six years old, and regularly left at home unsupervised.

but in v5, it’s: “my mom left me. ruby’s mom left too. tai was always busy with school, and ruby couldn’t even talk yet; i had to pick up the pieces. i had to pick up the pieces. alone.”

aside from the telling slip (tai, not dad)—yang centers her own feelings and the harm this situation did to her this time. which is something she’s always felt but i don’t think she could have brought herself to say it out loud to anyone during the beacon arc, because it was pressed down under the guilt on display in burning the candle, the feeling of having been inadequate and too stubborn and too selfish and and and–

coughs quietly. “my stubbornness should have gotten us killed that night.” / “you were predictable. and… stubborn. and maybe a little boneheaded.” yang’s narrative about the wagon incident—which happened when she was five or six!—pinning the blame on the thing tai imagines to be her fatal flaw is…probably not coincidental. yang in v4 after a year of being loved by her team and supported by mentors like glynda / oobleck / port has the perspective to know that tai doesn’t know what he’s talking about; but as a small child who’d just had a terrifying near-death experience with her baby sister… 😶

it definitely had a big impact on the way yang sees herself

BUT i do read qrow's talk with yang in 3.8 pretty differently ->

because the context is: yang saw mercury attack her and struck back in self defense, then had like a dozen synthetic soldiers point guns in her face, then looked up and saw the replay footage of herself walking over to shoot a boy who was just kneeling on the ground. and some of the most powerful authority figures in the world are pushing this narrative that stress and adrenaline "clouded her judgment."

like this would make anyone doubt their sanity. bc holy shit.

yang, though...a couple weeks ago, yang after being knocked unconscious woke up and blearily saw someone she thought was her mother walk away from her and disappear in a flash of red light. she hasn't mentioned it to anyone, because it's just so bizarre—yang doesn't know about raven's semblance yet—she must have just been seeing things. right?

aside from raven (who isn't here) and yang (who believes she hallucinated), the only other person who knows that yang saw her mom on the train is qrow, because raven told him about it. he also knows that:

tai insisted on not telling yang ANYTHING about her mother, and qrow respected that up until now; so yang doesn't know about raven's semblance and can't make sense of what she saw.

salem's infiltrators are the same people who attacked amber, and qrow didn't get a good look at them because they seemingly vanished into thin air—pretty damn good chance that one of them has a semblance that manipulates what you see.

ozpin wants #2 kept secret, so yang has some very powerful people actively trying to convince her that she's crazy. ironwood is straight up gaslighting her.

qrow also—based on the first thing he says, which is "why'd you do it?"—seems to consider it a possibility that it is what it looked like but yang did have a good reason, and i actually do not think that is an outrageous thing for qrow specifically to think. because qrow was emotionally abused as a child, and he knows yang, and in the event that yang really did suddenly turn around and punch a guy who was kneeling on the ground, why would she do it?

glances at shay d. mann. well. maybe this kid has been harassing her? maybe he said something horrible or threatening to her and in the heat of the moment she just snapped? maybe "he attacked me, i saw him attack me" isn't really a lie per se, she's just scared that "he's been picking on me ever since he got here and he made a disgusting remark and i just couldn't take it anymore" won't be taken seriously? as in, he did attack her—verbally/emotionally.

it's probably worth asking, at least!

so, qrow leads with "why'd you do it?" in case there is some invisible reason justifying the apparent action. yang says "you know why." qrow goes okay, well, i only know what i saw, so you're either lying (i.e., yang had a reason she now isn't telling) or crazy (i.e., yang saw something different from reality that was very real to her).

she says "i'm not lying." qrow believes her: "crazy, got it."

at this point, he knows the most probable explanation is that one of salem's infiltrators fucked with her head. the inner circle's gaslighting doesn't sit right with him; he's not going to buck ozpin by telling her the truth outright, but he wants to make sure yang knows she isn't losing her mind. he also has all the info needed to guess that yang is actually really really scared that she might be crazy.

which is why he kicks off the wall and begins to pace around. the language he uses sounds dismissive, but his tone is mild and his body language implies "let's talk about it, let's figure this out."

leading to:

YANG: Who knows? Maybe I am. QROW: And here I thought your dark-haired friend was the emo one. YANG: I saw my mom. …I- I was in a lot of trouble, took a pretty hard hit. But when I came to, the person attacking me was gone, and I thought I saw… her. Her sword. Like the one in you and dad’s old picture. QROW: You’re not crazy, Yang. That was your mom, alright. Let me guess—she didn’t say a word, did she? YANG: How did you know that? QROW: I don't see my sister very often, but she does try to keep in touch... whenever it suits her. YANG: Wait—you mean you talk to her? That was real!? QROW: Yeah, she found me. Had a tip from my most recent assignment and wanted me to give you a message.

it's really telling that yang responds to him this way. 'cause we've seen how yang acts when she feels dismissed or belittled:

TAI: Well, "normal" is what you make of it. YANG: What is that supposed to mean? Do you want me to just pretend like nothing happened? I lost a part of me. A piece of me is gone. And it's never coming back. TAI: You're right. It's not coming back. But that doesn't have to stop you from becoming who you wanna be. You're Yang Xiao Long, my sunny little dragon. You can do whatever you put your mind to. So whenever you're ready to stop moping, and get back out there? I'll be there for you. YANG: I– I...

she freezes and shuts down! her teachers have to come to her rescue!—but when qrow goes "crazy, got it" and suggests she's being "emo," yang blurts out her big secret. i saw my mom. to me that suggests a level of trust and understanding that isn't there with tai: qrow says stuff like "okay, so you're crazy" and "here i thought your friend was the emo one" but what he means is "hey, i know something's really bugging you, tell me about it," and yang picks up what he's putting down.

it's akin to how ruby goes "did you miss me? DID YOU MISS ME??" and qrow's like "nope" and they both laugh. or the back-and-forth ribbing between him and the girls in 3.4. there's this layer of mild ironic meanness in the way qrow converses with his nieces that all of them are fluent in, and in this scene he's using that mode to signal that "crazy" is not off-limits, that it's okay to talk about openly.

crucially, there's a code-switch in the middle of the conversation: as soon as yang gets real and says "i saw my mom," qrow reflects that seriousness back to her. you're not crazy, that was your mom, she found me afterward and told me about it. it was real. you're okay. qrow's ability to do that—to shift into a more serious mode when irony isn't appropriate—is why yang can have this rapport with him that she doesn't have with tai, because tai isn't... being ironic when he says mean or dismissive things to her.

anyway, qrow passes on raven's terrible message and then kind of annotates it: "raven's got an interesting way of looking at the world that i don't particularly agree with, and she's dangerous." (which is a very diplomatic way of saying he thinks raven is full of shit. lol.) but then he connects this whole conversation about raven back to what happened after the match: "you're a tough egg, kiddo. don't let this tournament thing getcha down. you had a slip-up; sometimes bad things just happen."

implicitly: yang isn't crazy. what she saw on the train was real, a product of raven's personality and her semblance. sometimes bad things just happen. qrow believes that yang had the experience she says she did when she punched mercury. he doesn't know why she had that experience—yang doesn't either!—but he knows she isn't just "crazy." sometimes things that seem crazy are actually real.

remember what he tells the girls in 3.4? "you may be acting like huntresses, but you're not thinking like one." same thing here. he's telling yang, hey, you're not crazy, you know what you saw, but you don't know what or who caused you to see it. "you cut off the head of the king taijitu, but now the second head's calling the shots."

hint, hint.

it's subtler than the hints qrow drops for ruby in 3.12, but very much in the same vein, and yang is plenty smart enough to figure it out. she might... not have? in the couple of hours between this conversation and everything going to straight to hell, but if they'd had literally just one more day, just long enough for the wheels turning in yang's head to click together with what ruby heard from velvet about coco hallucinating during her and yatsu's 2v2 against emerald and mercury, she would've had it.

more... generally, i've never gotten the sense that qrow projects raven's flaws onto yang in the way that tai does; qrow is definitely a lot closer with ruby than yang, but i think that has less to do with favoritism on qrow's part than it does ruby thinking he's like the COOLEST uncle ever and wanting to use a scythe like he does.

'cause like, qrow isn't their parent, he doesn't live with them, he's not responsible for raising these kids like their dad is, so while he obviously did contribute to fucking them both up because: alcoholic, ultimately there just isn't the same degree of betrayal or emotional abandonment; he's not their dad. both times yang talks in detail about her childhood, it's "my mom left, ruby's mom left, tai wasn't really around, ruby couldn't even talk, i was alone"—she doesn't mention qrow. there isn't that deep hurt, that feeling that qrow is someone who left.

when he isn't drunk, yang seems to feel pretty okay around him, and qrow likewise treats her... honestly a lot better than tai does:

he stops by their dorm in v3 to hang out with both his nieces; yang is fully in sister mode—cheers for ruby to beat him until ruby loses, immediately shoves her out of the way like "my turn!! >:D"—and qrow ribs them both, takes ribbing from both of them in good humor, tells both of them "you two are gonna go far."

qrow nicknames to show affection; ruby is "pipsqueak," yang gets "firecracker."

we only see qrow's goodbye to ruby, but in 5.4 yang indicates that qrow came to talk to her before he left, too. she also has complete trust that he's keeping the promise he made to look after ruby.

yang, as noted, opens up to him about seeing her mom; she's also shocked that he's still in contact with raven and indignant that he didn't tell her sooner, but—unlike with tai—she doesn't seem surprised that qrow is willing to talk about raven in general.

which tracks with what tai says in 4.11: "despite asking him numerous times not to, i know qrow told you where you're mother's been at these days"—meaning, this was a point of contention between him and qrow. behind the scenes, while tai refused to discuss raven at all, qrow was going okay well, let me tell her then, she deserves to know. and then ultimately he just bit the bullet and told her behind tai's back. i wouldn't be surprised if it turned out qrow had been straight with yang that her dad wanted to be the one to tell her the important stuff, and he wanted to be respectful of that, but raven wasn't an off-limits topic.

general contrast between yang-tai and yang-qrow dynamics; for example both of them say almost verbatim "you've got a long way to go before you're ready for the real world" (3.4/4.4). from tai it's belittling, he's insulting her; from qrow, it's meant to encourage, it's "remember you're still new to this, you'll make mistakes, just keep learning, keep trying." (rwby does stuff like this all the time, refracting an idea in different directions to highlight contrasts between characters; ozpin's advice to ruby vs port's advice to weiss is another example.)

a lot of qrow's resentment toward raven is centered on her abandonment of yang: "did you know yang lost her arm? [...] rhetorical question, i know you know. it's just obnoxious that you'd bring up family and then carry on like your own daughter doesn't exist. [raven: "i saved her."] once. because that was your rule, right? real mom of the year material, sis." like he is PISSED on yang's behalf that raven won't even try.

my impression is that qrow—although a) often away on long missions in far away places and b) an alcoholic who sometimes got blind drunk and became a burden yang and ruby needed to take care of—when he did manage to be there, made a serious effort to connect with both of them. he ended up being closer to ruby bc she wanted to learn scythe-wielding, but i do think qrow would've trained yang too (or instead) if the girls had different combat interests.

and while his relationship with ruby has a mentorish aspect, i don't get the sense either of the girls see him as a parental figure: he wasn't part of their household, he traveled a lot, his alcoholism in combination with tai's neglect eroded the adult-child boundaries because they had to be responsible for him as often as the reverse. he's a friend who also happens to be related to them. and that's especially true for yang, because he wasn't her teacher.

(i know it's a... pretty common headcanon / fanon that qrow lived with them, but i really don't think that's supported by the text? whenever ruby or yang look back on their childhoods, the family unit is always them + tai, and qrow isolates himself out of fear that his semblance will injure those he cares about. plus ozpin sending him all over the place as the one member of team strq still active. it makes way more sense to think he lived alone, and visited when he had the chance. which is the main reason i'm WAY softer on him than on tai, 'cause qrow wasn't in a caretaker/parent role; at most he was an occasional babysitter. so while his incidents of turning up drunk on the doorstep contributed to the harm... it's like, it would absolutely have been better for them if qrow were sober, but that wouldn't have changed anything about their home life. they'd just have somewhat easier relationships with qrow.)

TO WRAP THIS BACK AROUND TO THE QUESTION, tai is unfairly judgmental and harsh with yang bc he projects his idea of her mom onto her; yang also has a better relationship with her mom's brother than she does with her dad. how do these two dynamics interact? how does yang feel about hearing from tai that she's too branwen, so to speak, while also getting along better with the branwen side of her family? how might that fuel her desire to find raven?

if her uncle treats her better than tai does, then... maybe her mom would too, if only yang could reach her?—obviously it's not rational, but like. i don't think five year old yang put her baby sister in a wagon and ran away to find her mom because she thought she would ask "why did you leave me?" and then get her answer and go home. as yang grew older and developed a more realistic perspective it shifted to "i just need to know why she left" and she projects that backward onto herself as a child, but at the time what she wanted, what she was looking for, was someone who would take care of them.

[mari-writes]

Second year Bokuto who is struggling in math class and so enlists Akaashi, the new first year setter, to help him study.

Akaashi agrees (quickly), and they make a habit of it. Two months in, Bokuto realizes how much he loves hanging out with his teammate outside of the court. So he starts requesting help with other classes, like English and history, despite not needing as much help in those subjects.

He wonders if Akaashi knows. Wonders if the boy is catching on that aside from Algebra, he’s doing perfectly fine. Bokuto has never exactly excelled in academics, but he’s not failing either. He thinks he’s pretty average when it comes to grades. 

But how else can he justify them hanging out together outside of practice? He really doesn’t know. So he keeps asking, not quite “playing dumb” but posing certain questions and insisting Akaashi is the only one who can help.

“You’re the smartest person I know,” he’d declare, “and I trust you more than anyone!” For some reason, that would always work. Akaashi would turn away, the tips of his ears a bit pink, and agree right away.

But eventually, inevitably, Akaashi catches on. He finally speaks up after Bokuto asks him to help study for an upcoming science test.

“Bokuto-san, I recall you doing well in your Physical Science course last year.” He raises one perfect eyebrow, with a scrutinizing look that sends a thrill up Bokuto’s spine. “Do you expect me to believe you need help with Biology, of all things?”

“I mean, um,” Bokuto swallows harshly. “I just thought that maybe—”

Akaashi sighs. He turns in his seat, leaning one elbow against Bokuto’s desk. They’ve been working on other subjects for a couple of hours now. Papers are scattered about, and two empty owl-shaped tea mugs are set to the side.

Bokuto really hopes he hasn’t made things weird between them. “I’m sorry, ‘kaashi!” He reaches up to grip at his hair, squeezing his eyes shut. “Ugh, I’m so annoying! Don’t look at me!”

“Bokuto,” Akaashi says, and the lack of a honorific surprises Bokuto out of his spiraling thoughts. He glances up to see the other boy staring at him intently.

“Yes?” Bokuto holds his breath.

“You don’t actually need my help with any of this,” Akaashi declares. “So why did you ask?”

Bokuto stares. Does Akaashi really not know? Wow, his new setter is a touch more oblivious than he initially thought! “Well, um,” he stutters, “Obviously I just… wanted us to hang out.”

Apparently, Akaashi hadn’t been expecting that at all. His mouth drops open. He blinks. It takes him a few awkward moments to respond. “You… want to hang out… with me?”

“Yeah!”

“Oh.”

Bokuto waits patiently as the boy seems to work something out in his mind. No doubt he is overthinking, running through all possible meanings of Bokuto’s simple words. He looks bewildered. It’s… sort of cute. Bokuto chuckles. 

“Is that so crazy? That I like hanging out with you?”

Akaashi shrugs. He turns back the the desk, reaching out to fiddle with a pencil. Bokuto watches in delight as a blush creeps up the boy’s slender neck. “I suppose not,” Akaashi’s voice is quiet. “I’m just… not use to it.”

They fall into silence. Bokuto shifts in his chair, watching Akaashi closely, allowing him to lead them out of this charged moment. The only sounds come from the fan spinning overhead and his own heavy breathing.

Suddenly, Akaashi scoots his chair back and stands, causing Bokuto to flinch. “Okay,” he nods, carefully moving around to grab his jacket from the foot of Bokuto’s bed. “Let’s go, then.”

“Huh?” Confused, Bokuto slowly unfolds from his seat. “Go? Where?”

“You wanted to hang out.” Another shrug. He tosses over Bokuto’s jean jacket; Bokuto catches it easily with one hand. “So we might as well do that somewhere fun. Like the arcade. Or, um, we could go get food?”

Akaashi has made it to the door now, looking back over his shoulder, face is as impassive as ever. But there’s a new sort of spark in his eyes, one that Bokuto isn’t sure what to make of.

(He might be sort of excited to figure it out.)

“You coming?”

Bokuto pulls on his jacket, feeling light as a feather as he follows his new friend out of the room. He smiles.

This might be the start of something great.

 🤗❤️ 

//

I imagine that after middle school, 2nd year Bo is still worried about overwhelming others, not wanting to scare them away. Love the idea that Akaashi immediately agreeing to practice, study and hang out as friends means a lot to him.

Please REBLOG and comment if you enjoyed🥰

[ottosbigtop]

if you have any crumbs to share... about aac raz/lili/bobby dynamic pleeeez ramble to me i want info i'm so into this concept T_T

oh my guy I have so many crumbs for you. These guys have resided in the back of my brain forever but I was usually too embarrassed to say anything about it outside of a couple joke posts. But this is my house so I’m choosing to thrive and frolic.

Also a doodle of the aforementioned three before I enter my tangent :) rambling under the cut

the initial dynamic of these three goes something like

-Lili & Bobby - can’t stand his fake ass. She remembers having to deal with him at whispering rock and clearly is not very good at letting go of grudges from when she was ten. This is, in fact, Bobby’s worst nightmare. He was terrified of working for the psychonauts partially because he didn’t want to run into people he used to know. Surprise! They don’t like each other.

-Raz & Bobby. Raz has the complete opposite problem he literally barely remembers this guy. They interacted for maybe a collective hour one day when he was 10 years old, he only recalls him because Lili clocks him and reminds Raz. Bobby mostly hadn’t thought about him since camp, but did build a little (lot) bit of a resentment after seeing that weird little freak from camp pop up on different True Psychic Tales covers. That on top of Bobby now having to intern under this guy makes their relationship kind of spotty to start, for sure.

-Raz & Lili. Theyre having fun :) After having fun “dating” as real young kids they fall out of touch during their teen years when Raz goes to travel with then circus again to try and reconnect with his family (whole other can of worms for him.) They meet back up during the late teen years and sort of pick up right where they left off, dating off and on for a bit and “officially” dating long term for a little over a year now.

Both their relationships with Bobby evolve over time, naturally. Bobby and Raz have a whooole fucking thing that isn’t fully conceptualized and Is way too long a concept for me to share but their intern/mentor relationship does help them learn to get along with each other. And of course them getting along means Lili having to deal with being around Bobby more often and so it begins.

The whole ~ feelings ~ aspect mostly starts with her and Bobby I think, funnily enough. They hate each other, they want each other dead so bad, but eventually they have to learn to get along for Raz’s sake if nothing else. So they learn! Try to, at least. They’re both really bad at it.

but the “i hate you i want you dead” manages to evolve into that more friendly insulting banter some people have. “I hate you i want you dead” (complimentary.) It gives Raz a headache because it takes him a while to process that they’re usually joking when they’re arguing with each other now.

Lili doesn’t like when she starts to have Feelings about that shitty little freak (tm.) I think she’s somewhere on the Aro spectrum and when Raz wasn’t around she really never. Felt any sort of desire for romance with anyone else. Girl just kind of forgot about it for a bit until he showed up again. Which caused a lot of emotions. And then got used to that until Bobby is introduced into the equation and slowly she starts to feel things toward him that aren’t Rage and Disgust. Which causes a lot of emotions.

Raz I think is entirely oblivious of having any feelings toward him for the longest time. While Lili is a slow “oh god oh fuck” buildup, he’s just really happy he and Bobby are getting along at all that any sort of progress in affection toward him just feels like another big win for friendship. I think it hits him all at once late at night on a random Tuesday and he just sits up in bed and stares at a wall about it.

The whole Raz and Lili communicating abt the concept of polyamory would make this insane post already twice as long and it’s not a part of it all I’ve thought about anyways so we’re going to shelve it for now. But once they do reach the conclusion that they saw this guy from across the bar and they liked his vibe, they both proceed to trip over their own feet for the next however many weeks.

You see, “woman who does not process her emotions” and “guy who needs a twelve step plan for everything” is a prime combination for two people who are pulling some mad scientist shit to try and talk to this guy rather than just inviting him out to eat sometimes. And Bobby is convinced for a little bit that they’re planning to dissect his brain or something because they keep doing that ^

On Bobby’s side of this whole equation the evolution is just his own little torment nexus for a few months.

he initially discovers he’s got a thing for Lili after they start getting along more and it sucks for him. He enjoys their flirty little threats of violence but he’s also close with Raz at this point so I think it just kind of makes him feel . Gross . Like man am I flirting with my friend’s girlfriend I think I am. Oh he’s probably going to hate me. Help.

and that concern for Raz is also a guy in the back of his brain knocking on a door very loudly trying to tell him he’s bisexual but he’s not quite arrived at that conclusion. Give him a few more missions where Raz grabs him while he’s falling to his death and he’ll get there probably.

there’s so many words. These are so many words. I’ll be honest the wacky schenanigans of the “before relationship” era are so funny to me that I’ve not really had any conceptual ideas for them getting into + Being In a Relationship yet. But I hope that you like this at least! This insanely long ass post goes out to you and the one other guy who’s a fan of these three (hi)

[jo-harrington]

Corrective Action (Eddie Munson x Store Manager!Reader)

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Summary: Reader and Eddie have been hanging out for a little while and a lot of people seem to think it’s ok to voice their opinion around her.

Previous Part: Interview Prep

Warnings/Themes: AU where the Upside Down doesn't terrorize Hawkins. Reader works at the Claire's at StarCourt. Eddie works at TapeWorld. Mutual pining and slow burn (yes still, always). Bullying, manipulative/helicopter parents, ACAB, all around shitty people that might trigger some things. Thick skinned reader who is sick of said shitty people. Sad boy Eddie. Hurt/Comfort. Pinky promises.

Note: I really hope this one is good guys, I feel like I wrote half of this in an airport wishing I was actually drinking (I did and I was, but I'm sober and kind of currently wishing I wasn't). If this is me fishing for compliments...I guess this is just yummy bait.

You can find my masterlist here for more featuring our resident Store Manager (in chronological order because I’m chaotic and I’m not gonna stop writing this way) and all of my other random Eddie Headcanons.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

---

It started with Stacey at work.

You were sitting at the little desk in the stockroom, working out payroll and the next schedule, when she came to clock out.

“Hey, good job today on upselling diamonds,” you told her, incredibly proud. While she was great at customer service, she really had a hard time getting customers to add to their basket. You had worked on coaching her and she was quickly becoming your best sales associate. “I’m proud of you, you’ve been doing so great!”

“Yeah thanks! All of these rich PTA moms I swear to god,” she rolled her eyes. “I guess my mom was only a hard ass if I asked her to buy me things though. If anyone else tried to sell things to her, she always caved.”

She continued going on about her mom getting all the upgrades when she got a new car.

“…Mr. Harrington almost started singing when she finally signed the lease.” She laughed but then sobered up, glancing around the stockroom to see if anyone else was around. Stacey cleared her throat. “Hey I’ve been meaning to ask…”

“What’s up?”

“Are you, like…dating Eddie Munson?”

It would have been an innocent enough question if not for her tone. Or the way she grimaced and scrunched her nose, as if just saying his name put a bad taste in her mouth.

Eddie had been wary of your interactions with Stacey from the beginning, you recalled. And when you had asked him why later on, he beat around the bush a little before giving in.

She was someone who had been in his classes for as long as he could remember, she was not a cheerleader but certainly one of the popular girls, and when her jock boyfriend got a job at the local insurance office after missing his chances at getting an athletic scholarship, she stayed behind too and made all of the local gossip her business.

And for some reason, even if he swore he never remembered saying more than two words to her at any given time, she made rumors about him her specialty.

You’d been at a loss. On the one hand, you knew Eddie dealt with bullies and rumors even if he never outright admitted it to you. But on the other, you had no reason to distrust Stacey. All you knew about the people you worked with were just what they told you and what you were able to witness while working together. And you knew Stacey engaged in all sorts of gossip. But Eddie’s name had never exited her mouth.

Until now.

“What?” You were so shocked at the entire scenario that you didn’t even realize she would take that as an invitation for her to continue.

“Well he’s been hanging around the store and I’ve seen you guys sitting together sometimes. But like…well, haven’t you heard?” She got closer and sat in the chair next to you. “He, like, sacrifices virgins in the woods and has, I don’t know, summoned demons before. He’s a Satanist, a freak.”

You bristled at the name-calling and the accusations.

“Stace—“

”And you’re new so of course you don’t know—“

“Stacey I’m gonna stop you right there,” you held up your hand and she immediately shut up and sat up a little straighter. “First of all, it is incredibly inappropriate to ask me about my personal life. About any aspect of it, outside of what I willingly share with you. I am your boss, I’m not your friend, this isn’t high school. We are all entitled to privacy and I am incredibly uncomfortable discussing this with you.

“Second, again not that you need to know, but no. I am not dating Eddie. Eddie works here in StarCourt and you make friends with people when you work at a shopping mall. That being said, Eddie is not only an employee at StarCourt, but also a human being and a neighbor to all of us—”

“Ew no he isn’t. He lives in that—“ she started but you weren’t having any of it.

“And because of that he deserves some respect. Calling someone a freak and spreading rumors isn’t respectful. Which leads me to the last point.

“One of the values of this company is integrity. Doing the right thing, even if it’s hard to do. And I’m sorry but bullying, under any circumstance, is not the right thing to do. So even though you are off the clock, you are still on company property and you are certainly not operating with integrity. I’m incredibly disappointed that I have to have this kind of conversation with you, but I will consider this a warning for next time.

“If I hear talk like this coming from you again, there will be disciplinary action,” you concluded. “Do you understand?”

You hated to do it, you hated to put on the manager pants. You hated that Stacey’s eyes welled with tears the longer you talked and that she trembled as she finally nodded. But even if Eddie wasn’t your friend, you wouldn’t condone this kind of behavior. You held your team to an incredibly high standard and this wasn’t it.

You sent Stacey home and got back to the schedule with a sour taste in your mouth.

---

The next time, you were actually out with Eddie.

He had told you that the sunrise at the old quarry was second to none and when you confessed that you had never actually watched the sunset or the sunrise before, he immediately figured out the best day for you to go together.

He had put together a picnic with all sorts of breakfast foods, because apparently no one made pancakes, bacon, and eggs better than he did—

“Got an A+ in home ec, thank you very much. Didn’t help me get my GPA up but Wayne is pretty happy when I have breakfast waiting for him after a double shift.”

—and treats from the gas station since he insisted that you needed to experience all of the convenience food he loved. There was a thermos full of coffee and a boat load of blankets in the back of the van. He picked you up at your apartment, ringing the bell at ass o’clock in the morning looking way too energetic for someone who woke up so early.

“What do you mean? I never went to sleep!”

The radio was low as he drove you towards the outskirts of town; he’d also surprised you with a replacement of your old Boston cassette that you had nearly played to death, and he hummed along and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel along with Foreplay.

You reached a certain sign on the road signaling the quarry was up ahead, only for the tell tale lights and “whoop whoop” of a squad car to sound off from behind you. Eddie cursed and pulled off to the side of the road.

“Sweetheart can you grab me, uh” he motioned for the glove box. You’d already popped it open and dug through to find his registration as he pulled the wallet from his pocket. “Thanks.”

The crunch of gravel caused Eddie to look at this side mirror and groan a low, drawn out “fuck.”

“Munson,” the officer greeted roughly once the window was rolled down.

“Callahan,” Eddie replied. “Hopper got you on traffic patrol now huh?”

“Very funny,” Callahan deadpanned. “You know why I pulled you over.”

“Actually I don’t,” Eddie chuckled dryly. “License plates are up to date, I wasn’t speeding, and that tail light you busted last time you pulled me over is fixed.”

What the fuck?

"I don't like the tone you're taking with me, kid," Callahan spat. "Not a respectful bone in your body, any time I have to pull you over. It's for your safety after all. And the safety of the entire town."

How many times had this guy pulled Eddie over? 5? 10?

“Anyway, we just broke up a party over in Loch Nora about an hour ago, lot of kids high and wasted,” Callahan continued and there was no way you could have guessed the words that were coming out of his mouth next. “I know how you like to hang around parties like those, do a few deals. Maybe you decided to take advantage of some pretty girl who doesn’t know where she is.”

Callahan leaned down a little further and shined a flashlight into the van, directly at you.

“How you doing tonight miss? Can you tell me your name please?”

Your world was shaken to the core.

“Excuse me?” You scoffed, clenching your fists.

“You got your wits about you, or do I need to call an ambulance or something? Maybe your mom, if she needs to come pick you up?”

“I’m fine, officer, but I don’t like what you’re implying about my friend here.” You responded harshly. “Or about me. I am a grown woman, I am in this van of my own volition, with full mental capacities other than the fact that I’m maybe a little tired because I just woke up 20 minutes ago to go see the sunrise with my friend.”

Callahan stumbled over his words for a second, immediately backtracking as Eddie sat speechless in the driver's seat.

“We were never at a party in Loch Nora. Eddie didn’t kidnap me. Neither of us are drunk or high. So I’m pretty sure this is an unlawful traffic stop officer,” you concluded.

Both officer Callahan and Eddie looked at you with dumbstruck expressions.

“What, it’s true. So unless you have another reason to have pulled us over, officer?” You asked. “Can we be on our way now?”

He cleared his throat and handed the license and registration back to Eddie.

“Must have seen another van outside the party. An easy mistake to make,” he replied. “Got yourself a smart girlfriend there, Munson. Don’t fuck it up like you usually do ok?”

Callahan did another “whoop whoop” before pulling away and heading back to town, but Eddie continued to sit stiffly, refusing to move.

“You ok?” You asked, putting a hand on his arm.

“I can’t…he didn’t…” Eddie stumbled over his words. “I’m not like that ok? I don’t…I don’t take advantage of girls at parties. Fuck. Please don’t think—”

“I didn’t,” you assured him.

“Callahan always has it in for me, man,” He explained. “I don’t even know what I did. Caught me smoking weed on school grounds with the guys one summer way back and it was like a permanent target was placed on my back.”

“Small town cops with a big ego,” you explained, knowing fully well how douchebags like that were. “And you’re the resident bad boy.”

“You gotta stop calling me that,” he groaned in, what you believed to be, embarrassment.

---

And it kept happening.

Whispers when you went out for pizza, eyes watching you at the grocery store with pity or disgust, you didn’t know for sure. The one time you both stopped in Montgomery Ward on lunch to get a new dress (and for Eddie not to spend his lunch alone) and the saleswoman kept hovering as though you were about to steal.

Well, not you. Eddie.

No one usually dared to say anything to your face but you could still hear it. “She hangs around that Munson boy. Ugh such a troublemaker. Poor girl. Someone should tell her. He’s a trickster, that one.”

And no, you knew it wasn’t everyone. Just the busybodies who didn’t know what they were talking about.

You’d usually roll your eyes and continue on with your day. You could take whatever was thrown your way—some people just sucked and they couldn’t keep their mouths shut—but you knew how it affected Eddie. You could see it when you were with him, how deflated he became.

Your friend, one of the best people you knew, regardless of your stupid crush on him. He became distant, shrunk like he wanted to take up less space in the world.

You just about had enough of it.

And it all came to a head one day, a week after you hired Chrissy Cunningham as a part-time associate.

Her mother dropped her off after Cheer camp one day and wanted to see the new store.

You had a pretty solid parent policy that you made known to your teenage associates, just as your old store manager did when she first hired you at 16. Parents could come in and visit, shop, sure. But they weren’t going to interfere with the business. No calling to complain if the schedules conflicted with family nights. No calling in sick on their kids behalf.

“If you’re old enough to take on the responsibility of a job, you’re taking all of the responsibilities, ok? Even the not so nice ones.”

Chrissy, just like the others, understood.

Chrissy’s mom, on the other hand, had a bit of a problem with that.

You were nice enough when they first got in, getting to hear how the whole family was so excited about her first job, how it would look great on college applications come Fall. Chrissy, of course, had told you all of this in her interview; she was a sweet kid who clearly was trying to take on a lot and once you met her mom, you understood where the pressure was coming from.

Your mom was like that too, in her own way. Picking and picking and picking.

“Oh actually,” Mrs Cunningham started and from her tone you knew it was just going to be the beginning of a whole to-do. “I was meaning to ask if Chrissy could change her schedule? I saw you had put her on Saturday afternoons. But there’s a junior cheer team at the park district that she helps coach and they have meets on the first Saturday of the month.”

The too-big, overly-whitened smile was an unspoken threat of “you’re going to give me what I want or else.”

You explained that weekends were a mandatory availability for your associates who were still in school, but it didn’t mean they would always be scheduled. You had already told Chrissy that you would give her the days of her meets off, if she let you know the dates at least 2 weeks in advance. It was only once a month, after all.

That smile fell, like it always did, when someone like Mrs. Cunningham, like your mother, like all the other Stepford-wife types in town, didn’t get their way.

She tried once again to explain, this was important to Chrissy and she could trade Saturdays for another day. Maybe Thursday afternoon? Only if she didn’t have too much homework, of course.

But there was no way to know that when you were writing the schedule two weeks out, you argued.

"Then I guess you'll just have to find a replacement for her shifts if she can't come in," Mrs. Cunningham argued.

“Ma’am, I leave the responsibility of schedule and availability to my associates when I hire them,” you explain. “Not their parents. You said you were excited for Chrissy to have a job. It’s only been a week. If she thinks she can handle Saturdays—or even if she doesn’t—I’ll leave it up to her. School hasn't even started yet; let's just give it some time before we try to make changes ok?”

And as one does when they feel attacked, she went after low hanging fruit.

“I wouldn’t expect you,” she sneered, “to know a whole lot about responsibility…or planning ahead for the future. You work in this little shop; it's not even a real job. I’ll bet you didn’t even go to college.

“And Chrissy said you’re friends with the Munson boy right? That he shows up sometimes to talk to you. He’s never known a day of responsibility in his life. He’s…he’s a drug dealer, a troublemaker—”

“Alright that’s it,” you interjected. “This is a place of business—my place of business—and we’re getting busy, so I will have to ask you to leave Mrs. Cunningham. Unless you want to stay for a piercing, I do have paying customers to tend to. I will discuss the schedule again with Chrissy. I promise.

“But for now, thanks for stopping by, it was so nice to meet you.”

---

“God she was such a bitch,” you complained as you watched Eddie throw cardboard boxes into the bailer.

This was typical for lunches spent together. You would both run trash down to the loading dock and complain about work while Eddie smoked—allowing you to luxuriate in his secondhand smoke for a little while—and then you would head to the food court to eat and just…spend time together.

Listen to music, talk about movies or books or whatever else came to mind.

This friendship was still new, there was plenty to talk about.

You kind of hoped there would always be something new to talk about. And that you two would be talking and having lunch together for a long time.

Best not get your hopes up though.

Currently, you were recounting the interaction with Mrs. Cunningham, purposefully leaving out the way she brought him into conversation.

What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. Right?

“Poor Chrissy,” you sighed.

“Poor Chrissy?” Eddie scoffed. “Yeah, really sucks to be on top.”

“You know, she might be on top at school—”

“And her family might be rich, and she might live in a big house, and she might only need to work so it looks good on college applications. See where I’m going with this?”

“—but it sucks to have a parent constantly shitting on you. Even if they do it for ‘your benefit...'.”

“Why can’t you do anything right?”

“I stayed at home with you kids and this is the thanks I get?”

“I can’t make you respect this family. But don’t you have any self-respect?”

Maybe you were just projecting...

“Speaking of Queen Bee, here she comes now with her lover boy,” Eddie said, batting his eyelashes dramatically, and then he made a gagging noise. You were exiting the service corridors and spotted Chrissy, who had clocked out for the day, walking towards the food court with a very clean, athletic-looking blond boy.

“Now if you wanna talk about a bitch, look no further than Jason Carver.”

He proceeded to tell you all about how Jason and Jeff were neighbors, how they used to be friends as kids. How they stopped talking once Jason started up with sports, and he started picking on Jeff once he made varsity.

“He had some macho, roided up growth spurt last year, and that paired with the self-righteous bible thumping meant that Hellfire was an easy target. Those meathead jocks picked on us before, sure, but…I dunno, Jason is a whole other level of cruel. 

“And he doesn’t hesitate to beat up the younger kids, but if I’m around…well needless to say they’re a little scared of me, they don’t want to take a chance that I’ll put a curse on them or something.

“I’ll do whatever I need to, I’ll be their villain, if it means keeping those kids safe.” He rubbed the sleeve of his flannel against his nose and sniffled lightly. “But it’s not like there’s anything I can do aside from that. I have to just sit there and take it, let my friends take it, because if I don’t…if I don’t, then I become everything they say I am. Angry, dangerous, a menace, a criminal.”

“Eddie that’s terrible,” you grumbled, Chrissy’s mom and your own troubles forgotten. "You don't deserve to be picked on like that."

Eddie hummed in contemplation for a moment.

“Ok enough of them, do you want to share chili cheese fries?” He diverted. You hesitated, not wanting to drop the subject entirely, but also not wanting to push him. Eddie flashed you those big, pleading eyes, though, and you caved.

Asshole knew exactly what he was doing.

“Sure,” you smiled.

“And you’ll let me buy today,” he continued, holding his hand out before you could argue. “Because you feel bad for me you’re gonna let me do it.”

“What logic is that?!” You exclaimed. He giggled maniacally and motioned for you to find a table before he practically skipped to the line to order.

He was lucky that he was cute.

---

Chrissy approached you the next time she had a shift together; you were planning to pull her aside at the end of her shift to double check that she was sure about her availability and to go over the parent policy once again. It was kind of a relief that she took the initiative instead.

“I’m sorry about my mom,” she began timidly. “She shouldn't have come in here just to interfere. It's just that I do have a lot going on, and when I told her I wanted to work at the mall too...well, she just..."

"Chrissy, I understand," you interjected. "Really I do, you don't need to explain. I knew when I hired you that you had a lot on your plate."

"Thank you again, by the way."

"I just want to make sure that you're sure this is the right move. Do we need to look at your availability again?" you asked. "If your mom comes back to have this conversation again, I'm not going to stand for it. I need employees who are responsible for their own time."

"No I know..." she sighed. "I'll talk with her. I really do like working here."

"I like having you work here," you reassured her. "You're doing a really great job so far."

"R-really?" she smiled, eyes getting a little glossy. "Thank you. I'm trying. My mom...never seems to be happy with anything I do. If it's not what I do, it's how long it takes, and if it's not that, then it's how I look, and--" She was starting to breathe a little heavily and you sighed.

"Hey listen, I get it," you said gently. "Mom's...well, sometimes they can be the worst. They know exactly what buttons to push. And I don't want to sound insensitive because I want you to know you can talk to me any time, I'm here for you. But we are on the sales floor.

"I know your shift is almost over, if you want to take a few to go in back and settle down before you leave, you can," you encouraged her. It wasn't a busy day; you could afford to give her a few extra minutes to herself.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, Mindy will be back from lunch in a few and I can come and grab you if I need you."

Chrissy gave you a watery smile and then headed back into the stockroom.

There were a few minutes of restocking bracelets before the shop bell rang as a new customer walked in.

"Hey! Welcome in!" You greeted brightly, mindlessly, before looking up to find Chrissy's boyfriend standing there. He smiled and nodded in greeting.

"Hey, I'm here to pick Chrissy up," he explained.

"You're a little early," you laughed, trying to be cordial despite Eddie's words about him echoing in your mind. "She's just in back finishing up. I'll let her know you're here."

"Nah, that's ok," Jason shrugged. "I wanted to talk to you really quick."

You frowned at him and narrowed your eyes.

"Boyfriends unfortunately don't qualify for the employee discount," you stated lightly, hoping that this was the only thing he had to ask. "So if you have a little sister or something--"

"No, it's about Eddie Munson," he continued. "You really need to stay away from him."

Yeah. That was exactly what you were afraid he would say.

Ugh, you were really getting tired of this.

And it wasn't just that you were sick of people meddling, it was this boy in particular who was really rubbing you the wrong way. Gossipy sales associates with jock boyfriends, useless troublesome cops, nosy housewives, and well-meaning grandmas were one thing.

But a high school boy who was still wearing a letterman jacket in July, with a too nice smile and the audacity to have a savior complex when he was the one tormenting other kids?

That was where you drew the line.

You just wondered if you were willing to lose your job because of him.

“I'm telling you this for your own good. The crowd he’s a part of…,” Jason leaned closer as though it was a secret. “They’re a bunch of wastoids, listening to that devil's music, trying to lure virgins into the woods to sacrifice. And if you want to sit with the right crowd at lunch when school starts--”

You barked a laugh at this, right in his face, and he backed away looking confused.

Ok, so this wasn't "lose your job" worthy.

You mentally pulled on both your Disappointed Older Sibling and Angry Store Manager pants to gear up for this fight.

"Ok kid, real talk," you started, clapping your hands like a coach would. "I'm not in the business of yelling at teenage boys. And as flattering as it is that you might think I'm still in high school, there is no way a teenager would be managing a store. So there's point number one. Number two, don't assume a lady's age ok? At all. In either direction. That's a life lesson I'm gonna give you for free.

"Number three, and not that this conversation isn't...just really lovely, I need to get a point across and I'm sincerely doubtful you're gonna listen to me anyway. I just need you to understand that...like, whoever is hanging out with who, or going where, or doing what, is generally none of your business. Especially your girlfriend's boss. It's really disappointing that a nice boy like you is gonna cause his girlfriend to lose her job because he can't mind his own business."

And that was the punctuation at the end of the sentence to make him look nervous and a little sweaty.

You felt a little bad saying it, because no, you weren't going to fire Chrissy because of this dumb boy. But hopefully this would be a lesson learned.

"E-e-eddie was hanging around Chrissy the other day," he stuttered, looking extremely out of his element. Never been the person who had to face consequences before; you knew the type. "I saw him in here when I came to pick her up. She said...you were his friend and he was just waiting for you."

"I'm sure he was waiting for me."

"He always had crushes on the cheerleaders," he explained. "He was sniffing around this girl Julie a few years ago and she found out he was into this satanic stuff...I figured either you or Chrissy were next..."

"Oh buddy," you sighed. "And you figured if you came in here and told me not to hang around him, I would be spared...and Chrissy would be too?"

"See? You get it."

"Except that's really not how things work in real life or at a shopping mall, kid," you said. "Everyone is allowed to go wherever they want and talk to whoever they want. And I, as one of the managers in this building, am able to assess what is a danger to myself and my employees and Eddie certainly isn't one of them. Except for his corny jokes, he is harmless.

"You on the other hand," you continued, savoring the moment Jason's eyes got a little wider. "Approached me with a very distinct and threatening energy. So unless you want me to call mall security and make sure you are no longer allowed on the premises, I will need you to...re-evaluate your tone of voice and your intention of visiting.

"So, what was your name again?"

"J-Jason Carver, ma'am."

Ew. Ma'am. Ok you weren't that old. But you could deal with it.

"Jason Carver," your tone changed immediately, back to the sickening Store Manager voice you defaulted to on a regular basis. Eddie had called it unsettling before, to hear you go from your regular tone of voice to that. Jason's eye twitched and you grinned maniacally. "It's so nice to meet you. Chrissy was telling everyone it's your anniversary coming up?"

His eyes shifted slightly, and he laughed nervously.

"Ye-yes ma'am," he agreed.

"And what are you planning to get her as a gift?" you asked. He froze again. Ok, no gift; Chrissy definitely deserved better than that. "I think a necklace would be really lovely. Not from here, I can see you looking at the jewelry wall. But there's a really nice jewelry store downstairs that has birthstone pendants and stuff. I think she would really love something from there."

"I-I think that's a great idea," he nodded vigorously.

The door to the stockroom opened and Chrissy walked out with her bag in hand, ready for you to check it.

"Ok, I'm all set to go then, thank you so much for--Jason!" Chrissy smiled when she saw her boyfriend. "I thought you were going to wait for me downstairs."

He cleared his throat and composed himself.

"Figured I would come up and surprise you," he grinned smoothly. "Met your boss, she's...really cool, just like you said."

Nice save.

Ok maybe he wasn't as stupid as you originally thought.

Chrissy waved goodbye as they left, and Jason had the right sense to keep his mouth shut.

---

You waited outside Tape World as the mall started to slow down and get dark. There was a little coin-operated horse right outside of the store and you leaned against it and wondered, if it was a real horse, how fast it could take you and Eddie out of this shit hole of a town, away from all of the people who said horrible things.

You had nothing to complain about though. Eddie had to deal with it for years. He did so much to protect his friends...all you wanted to do was to protect him too.

The gate opened up and Eddie ducked underneath, grinning at you once it was locked and he was upright once again. He muttered a quick goodbye to the associate who closed with him before he approached you.

"Hey, it's only Thursday," he laughed. "Did I forget we had plans? I thought you opened."

"No, I was a mid," you shrugged. "But I stayed because..."

Should you tell him? You didn't want to upset him, or have him pull away from you, like he always did whenever talk of his reputation around town was mentioned. You wanted your silly, carefree, wonderful best friend not to have to suffer because of narrow minded people anymore.

"Beeeccaauuuuseee." He hums for a moment. "Because you knew that I was planning a Little Debbie taste test for Sunday and that all of the snacks were in the van right now?"

"What?" you laughed. "Oh my God."

"You said you were more of a Hostess person. I am trying to change your allegiance to the Dark Side of the Force." He stood taller, theatrically trying to mimic Darth Vader. "What better way than with a joint or two and a shit ton of snack cakes at the lake."

"Eddie!"

"What? Don't tell me you have never smoked before," he said in mock offense. "What rock have you been living under? I'm going to have to call your parents, young lady. They did too good a job raising you."

You stared at him for a minute as he laughed and you couldn't help yourself; you quickly closed the distance between the two of you and wrapped your arms around his waist. He went stiff for a second before placing one of his arms around your shoulders and his other hand on the back of your head.

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly. "I mean, I know I did good with the Little Debbie, but you don't have to smoke if you don't want to. I was just kidding."

"No, it's not..." you sighed.

Hugging Eddie was nothing like hugging a girl friend--all squeezes and giggles over something silly and stupid--or hugging a relative--stiff and a little cold, your family not really ones for outward affection to begin with. He was just the right hug shape, his arms at the right height, the right length to wrap around you. His cheek at the right height to rest on the top of your head if he really wanted to (which you really hoped he did). His stupid waist that was perfect for you to wrap your arms around and soft enough that you could squeeze a little bit and he would actually give instead of just stiff and there.

An Eddie Hug was a perfect hug.

And hopefully your hug was perfect for him too, so that it wouldn't hurt him or scare him away as you told him...

"You remember last week?" you began. "You said Jason Carver is the biggest bitch I'd ever meet?"

"Y-yeah," he replied hesitantly, getting a little stiff in your arms, but he did nothing to pull away from you.

"Well, I met him and he is," you continued.

"What did he do?" Eddie asked, irritation evident in his voice. "If...if he did something, said something to you, I swear to God I--"

"I handled it," you cut him off. "He tried to scare me away from you. He said...well, it doesn't matter does it?"

"I'm sure it's what everyone says about me."

"And I told him he could get fucked," you said.

"What?!" Eddie finally pushed you away from him, hands gripping your arms tightly, as he laughed. "No you didn't."

"No I didn't," you shook your head. "But I might as well have. I think I scared him."

"Did you do the creepy voice?" he asked.

"Yeah," you giggled.

"I fucking hate that," he shivered.

"One day, Eddie Munson, you will answer the phone with a 'y'ello' and you will forever be turned to the Dark Side too," you mimicked his Darth Vader impression. "Just you wait and see."

"Never, I would sooner die!" He threw an arm across his eyes dramatically and turned away from you. After a moment had passed, he stood up straight again, hands fidgeting at his sides. "So, uh, are we cool?"

"Why wouldn't we be?"

"Because everyone tells you to stay away from me," he shrugged. "That I'm no good. That I'm a freak. I've been hearing it all my life. But I don't think I could stand it if I heard it from you too."

"Eddie," you started, worrying at your lip for a second. "I know how soul crushing it is to constantly have to hear how bad you are, how you're never gonna live up to whatever expectations others have of you. But listen to me, and listen good: you are absolutely wonderful.

"A wonderful neighbor, a wonderful coworker, a wonderful friend. Who cares what other people think about you; who cares, even...what I think about you?"

"I care," he shrugged.

"But it doesn't matter how many people tell me that you're bad, I'm never gonna think that about you ok? You're so many things but you're also just...good. Ok?"

"Ok," he nodded, eyes getting progressively more watery by the second.

"And don't you start with the self-deprecating shit around me anymore either," you weakly swatted at his shoulder and his torso, and he laughed. "I can't take it. Only one of us can be a miserable piece of shit, and I'm older, so I have dibs."

"You're not a miserable piece of shit," he chuckled. "You're wonderful too."

"No more of this...sad sackery then? From either of us?" you asked and held out a pinky to him. "You can't break a pinky swear."

Eddie wrapped his pinky around yours tightly.

"No more. Upon punishment of death."

---

Next Part: Standard Operating Procedures 1.04

Tag List (can I call you guys the Sales Associates? OMG, that's what it's gonna be): @gaysludge @storiesbyrhi @tayhar811 @spookybabey @word-wytchh @maidenofartemis @dreamlandcreations @wickedbelle

Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list! I'm sure I missed some tag requests, but I have been out of town with shoddy internet access so blame that, not me.