#I had more to add to this but the post got long... typical!

[bugeyedfreaks]

I enjoy seeing PPG fan interpretations of the characters online, and I think it's very interesting to explore the varied ways that people interpret them. The diversity of ideas and different perspectives are really cool! It's just that every time I see a fan interpretation of a “future” Mojo Jojo (“future” meaning 10-15 years from the original timeline) portrayed as some doddering old wrinkly elderly dude with grey fur riding a robot wheelchair, I just can't help but be like... huh?

Why would you so drastically age up this super smart actual baby?

It's weird because, yeah, if you stop and think about it… he's technically around the same age as the PPG (perhaps even younger because they were born at five years old... this is a weird show, what can I say), so despite his hilariously deep voice or love of the more mature, finer things in life (which I just view as him trying to be more refined since, you know, he now has like all the intelligence ever)... I just don't feel in my heart of hearts that he would be drinking prune juice and watching The Price Is Right if the girls were teens/adults. He'd probably be more or less the same as he is canonically since he’d still retain his super intelligence (maybe he’d be a little taller as a treat, or at the very least he’d just whine even more than usual… maybe even more jaded, we just don't know).

[aeithalian]

Apollo and the demonization of power

I graduated and I'm back on my shit, y'all.

I saw this post by @apollosgiftofprophecy (hi Alder) about whether or not Apollo should have stayed mortal instead of regaining his godhood, and may I just say I 1000000% agree.

To summarize the post: if Apollo had chosen to stay mortal, his promise to Jason (to remember what it means to be mortal/human) wouldn't have meant nearly the same as if he'd gone back to Olympus. Regaining his godhood allowed him to chose to help people with his full ability and remember his humanity for however long it takes for him to fade.

And if I may add on: Apollo even talks about maybe choosing to stay mortal at some point in the latter half of the series, but eventually comes to the conclusion that to chose to stay mortal would be akin to running away from his problems. And he's right: if he chose to stay mortal, he wouldn't have to face Zeus again and he could shirk his responsibilities as an Olympian. So he decides against it (not that he really ever has the chance to chose). And I just love to take this as a great moment of character development and an insane amount of self-awareness for somebody who started their arc where he did.

But it also got me thinking. And, in short, I came to the conclusion that Apollo must be an idealist simply by the way he views power.

In this case, fiction reflects reality: villains want power. They want control. They want to squash rebellion. And that, typically, is an occurrence we typically only see with villains. Never with the heroes, who rarely want power outside of defeating their enemy. But here we have Apollo, who spends the entire series literally seeking power in his attempt to regain his godhood.

And that has morphed into something really interesting when it comes to representation of power in classical media. More often than not, power is demonized. It's seen as something inherently evil. If a character wants power for themselves, they're likewise seen as evil. Any one of your classical antagonists are going to, at some point in their stories, want power in any which way it presents itself. Voldemort of Harry Potter wanted to live forever. Sauron of Lord of the Rings wanted the Ring of Power. Palpatine of Star Wars wanted control of the galaxy. Zeus wants to rule the Olympians. The list goes on.

On the other hand, in stories where a protagonist seeks power to destroy their opponent, they eventually end up discarding their items of power because they don't want to be 'corrupted'. Harry Potter refused to use the Elder Wand. Frodo destroyed the Ring of Power. Luke Skywalker turned down the Dark Side. Even Percy Jackson declined godhood.

But Rick, in writing Apollo's character, takes an interesting approach and a fun subversion of this trope that I, for one, absolutely love. Previously, he'd written Percy to turn down godhood because he primarily wanted to maintain his humanity. To Percy, being a god and being human are two mutually exclusive concepts. They don't coexist. For Apollo, on the other hand, he accepts power out of a sense of duty, and vows to use it well in the spirit of his promise to Jason. There is no demonization of power. And to Apollo, humanity and godhood are not exclusive concepts. So what does that mean post-trials?

There are two perspectives at battle here. First is demonization: 'power is inherently evil'. But the idea that power corrupts is not necessarily a fact: in my opinion, power in and of itself isn't evil. Yes, it's dangerous, but it's more or less a blank slate. What you do with power, who you are when you have it, is what defines it. And that's a pretty nuanced take, and it comes with its ups and downs, requiring those powerful protagonists to be your most responsible, most dutiful, most kind characters who take up the mantle of power with the full understanding of what it means. Who's to say that you can't achieve power and use it well? So there's the other perspective: 'power is a blank slate'.

Let's look at power from a Zeus vs. Apollo perspective:

Zeus wants power (or at the very least, to maintain his power) as a way of controlling people, squashing rebellion, and maintaining order in the way he sees fit, without any sense of legitimate justice or care for others. It is Zeus' actions that make him evil, not his power.

Apollo, on the other hand, seeks power as a way of solving problems, creating solutions that benefit the greatest amount of people possible, and creating a lasting difference on others to change for the better, just as he did. More often than not, when he reminisces about having power in the series, it's more out of a place of 'this terrible thing wouldn't have happened if I were a god', or 'I could help better if I were a god'. Never once does he view power as a way of controlling or manipulating others. Power, to Apollo, is just the ability to love to the greatest extent possible (re: my meta on Apollo's fatal flaw).

But the interesting thing here is how Apollo views power in general, outside of his own. The idea of demonizing power doesn't even occur to him, despite the fact that he's been the subject of abuse for millennia. What's fascinating to me is the fact that Apollo, having been hurt so often by Zeus' power, doesn't ascribe that same generalization to his own person.

I find that very interesting: abuse does wacky shit to people's brains. By all means, that should have irrevocably changed Apollo's perspective on power as a whole, right? Not if you've learned to view power as something that is part of you, no.

I don't know how other gods besides Apollo view their own power, I actually think it's accurate to say that gods view power as something inherent to their nature. And, honestly, maybe it is. But that's besides the point.

Regardless of whether or not power is inherent to gods, Apollo, throughout his journey, realizes that it must go hand in hand with responsibility and humanity. Power is a privilege. That 'blank slate' perspective is one he learned in his trials, the knowledge that the power he has is something he shapes, and something he has no excuse for. If power is inherent, all of Apollo's wrongdoings are his own failings.

And that's even more interesting when you relate it to his relationship with Zeus. Apollo must likewise know that Zeus' wrongdoings are solely his fault, not a result of his power. It's a fascinating perspective of power coming from somebody who has none, who's been hurt by somebody who has so much. To maintain that optimistic view of power as non-corrosive when faced with your abuser is, I think, the glaring mark of an idealist.

So, what does this mean post-trials?

I think, along the same vein, there is a point where the idealist breaks. They have a glimpse of reality: all is not well. For Apollo, that's at the end of the series where he decides that Zeus is beyond all hope. Take this quote from the Tower of Nero:

Some fathers don't deserve [reconciliation]. Some aren't capable of it. I suppose I could have raged at him and called him bad names. We were alone. He probably expected it. Given his awkward self-consciousness at the moment, he might have even let me get away with it unpunished. But it would not have changed him. It would not have made anything different between us. You cannot change a tyrant by trying to out-ugly him.

More often than not, my favorite stories are the ones where the main character gains power, keeps it, and uses it for good. Aragorn accepted the crown of Gondor. Luke Skywalker chose to train a new order of Jedi. Apollo regained his godhood. And readers of any of my multichap fics know that I love to write this trope as well.

But, much like my mutuals and I have been yelling from the rooftops for LITERAL YEARS, Apollo's story is not over. And once the idealist has 'broken', like we see in the scene above, there's only one way it could go.

To see somebody mishandling their power in a way an idealist knows is corrupt is quite literally a recipe for revolution. Look me in the eye and tell me that the way ToA finished wasn't setting up a revolution. Do it, I dare you.

Regardless, it's safe to say that, at some point, somebody's going to take a look at Zeus and say "you know what? Anybody could do better." Just saying.

Anyways, vive la révolution.

[a masterlist of my other metas]

[munson-blurbs]

Hi buggy!! I had an idea and I feel like you are the perfect person to give it to (as you know I have way too many WIPS)

Okay so -Drama Club!Reader taking a nap on the couch in the room they use for Hellfire- She’s got headphones on so she doesn’t hear them come in- Halfway through the game Eddie realizes ? There’s someone in the room? And then he drives her home? Run with it honestly! Also ILY!!

You know I love any excuse to write fluff 🥰 for you, my dear.

Warnings: none really, just tooth-rotting fluff and the Hellfire boys teasing Eddie

WC: 1.5k

Sleepiness hits you like a truck. No matter how many plays you do, no matter if you have a leading role or you’re part of the chorus, post-show exhaustion is real. There’s no break between the infamous “Hell Week” and opening night, and you are feeling it.

Your knees buckle like your legs are going to give out. Despite the upbeat tempo of Joan Jett’s I Love Rock ‘n Roll blasting through your headphones, which typically puts some pep in your step, you’re about to fall over.

As you pass by the drama room, it dawns on you: there’s a couch that’s perfect (or at least feasible) for a quick little nap.

Luckily for you, it’s completely empty, and sleep quickly overtakes you. No lines to memorize, no scrambling to stage left when Mr. Underwood calls for the Mad Hatter. Just pure, uninterrupted–

“Oh, come on!”

Well. 

You’re jolted awake by the sound of a group of guys shouting at each other. As your vision focuses, you can see that they’re all wearing matching shirts, proudly proclaiming themselves to be the Hellfire Club. You don’t know how long you’ve been asleep, but your cassette is no longer playing music, so it has to have been a little while.

The voice that had woken you from your nap belongs to Nancy Wheeler’s younger brother, Mike, who is currently raking his hands through his shaggy hair in frustration. 

“Okay, okay, just focus.” Will Byers, ever the voice of reason. He was one of the set designers for Alice in Wonderland, and his kind disposition effectively made him the adopted little brother of most of the upperclassmen. He picks up a die, takes a deep breath, and rolls, letting out a disappointed groan as it clatters to the table. “Shit!”

“That’s…a…miss!” Your attention is immediately drawn to the man sitting in a throne-esque chair at the head of the table, cackling at Will’s misfortune. You nearly fall off of the couch when you see that it’s Eddie Munson, the guy you’ve had a crush on since you’d started high school four years ago.

“Careful, Eddie,” one of the younger members–Gareth, if you’re remembering correctly–goads the Dungeon Master,  “you’d better be nice to him, or he won’t introduce you to your lady love.”

The rest of them oooh and make kissy noises, laughing amongst themselves.

Eddie slams a fist on the table, silencing them immediately. “Shut up!” he roars, scrunching up his nose in anger. His sudden outburst startles you; luckily, everyone is too engrossed in the game–and teasing Eddie–to notice the way you twitch on the couch.

The game continues for a few more minutes, punctuated by cheers and irritated grunts, before Will speaks up. “She’s really nice, Eddie,” he starts, “I could see if she’d wanna talk to you—”

“Enough!” Eddie hisses through gritted teeth. “I swear, I’ll end this campaign right now.”

“Hold on,” another freshman, this one with curly hair, chimes in. He raises his forefinger as he contemplates the situation. “You’re telling me that you went to see Alice in Wonderland–twice, I may add–stared at her the whole time, and you don’t even wanna know if she’s interested?”

That gets your attention—what drama club actress does he have his eye on? Probably Chrissy Cunningham, the blonde beauty who’d snagged the leading role. Cheerleading, acting, all-around nice person; who wouldn’t have a crush on her?

Eddie shakes his head, frizzy curls brushing the shoulders of his denim jacket. “You idiots are driving me crazy.”

Jeff, who happens to be in your English class, throws him a knowing smirk. “Don’t you mean, driving you mad?”

His pun earns him a round of high-fives from his friends, but Eddie is less than enthused. 

“That’s it; we’re done here.” Eddie smacks his palms to the table, rolling his eyes when the guys groan. “I’ll clean up, just—get out of here. Go!” He yells the last word when no one moves, and they all scramble for their backpacks and out the door. 

Once they leave, he starts tossing game pieces back in the box haphazardly, mumbling to himself. 

“Fuckin’ kids, think they know everything just because they have girlfriends—Jesus Christ!”

Your eyes flit over to see him staring at you, hand pressed to his chest as he catches his breath. 

“Wh-What the fuck are you doing here?” he stammers, trying to catch his breath. “When did you even get here?”

“I, um, needed a nap,” you admit, “and I knew there was a couch here, but I dozed off for too long…I didn’t mean to crash your game,” you finish lamely.

“Oh,” Eddie grins, relieved that you’ve been asleep and blissfully ignorant of the ribbing he’d received during Hellfire, “yeah, I mean, no worries. ‘S, uh, comfy.”

You wrinkle your nose. “Not really. I was just tired.”

“Yeah, makes sense,” Eddie sputters with a forced laugh, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Just finished the play and everything. ‘S a lot of work.”

“Yup.” There’s an awkward pause before you speak again. “Well, I should probably head home before my mom reports me missing or something.”

“I can drive you!” Eddie blurts out, cringing inwardly at the abundance of enthusiasm in his tone. “I mean, ‘s cool with me if you wanna…bum a ride.”

You tilt your head with a small smile. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to go out of your way…” You know that he lives in Forest Hills Trailer Park across town, and you don’t want him wasting time and fuel when you could easily walk.

“No, yeah, I don’t mind.” He rocks back and forth on his heels nervously. “I, uh, actually wanted to ask you about the play.”

You nod, grabbing your backpack from the side of the couch. Before you can sling it over your shoulder, his hand shoots out to catch the strap at the top. 

“I can carry it.”

“Eddie Munson…chivalrous gentleman?” you tease, unaware of the shiver coursing through him when you say his full name. “Full of surprises today.”

You follow him to his van, smiling politely when he opens your door for you with a small bow. He jogs around to his side and climbs into the driver’s seat.

“Where to?”

You give him your address and offer a general direction. “So, what did you wanna ask me?”

“Hm?”

You raise your eyebrows. “You said you wanted to drive me home so you could ask me about the play.”

“Oh, yeah! Right.” Eddie fumbles for his words. “Is it hard remembering all your lines?”

You shrug. “Not too bad. Kinda like studying for a test, y’know?”

“Uh, sure.” He puts his hand on the back of your seat and turns his head, tongue poking out from between his lips as he concentrates on backing out.

Another pregnant pause fills the air, and you rub your palms along your jean-clad thighs. “What else did you wanna know?”

He wracks his brain for more questions, but comes up short. “That was pretty much it, I guess.”

“Eddie!” you scoff playfully. “I wouldn’t have had you drive me if you only had one question!” Without thinking, your hand swats at his chest.

“Ow! Damn!” he laughs, using one hand to tend to his ‘wound’ while keeping the other on the wheel. “I’m gonna have to tell Byers that you’re actually really mean.”

“Me?”

“Mhm,” he confirms. “Violent, too. ‘S probably gonna leave a mark.”

“Poor baby.” You jut out your lower lip in an exaggerated pout. “Need someone to nurse you back to health?” You take a beat before proposing, “Maybe…Chrissy Cunningham?”

Eddie coughs out a laugh. “Chrissy Cunningham? Yeah, no.”

“Really?” You furrow your brow in confusion. “Then who were the guys talking about?” The question comes out before you can stop it, and you feel your face heat up with embarrassment. “Sorry, I–”

“‘S fine,” he mutters, drumming his fingers on the wheel. His ears tinge pink and he gnaws on his cheek, but doesn’t say another word.

Something dawns on you; a comment he’d made earlier in the drive. “I’m gonna have to tell Byers that you’re actually really mean.” And back at Hellfire, Will had said that Eddie’s drama club crush was “really nice.” And then there was Jeff’s comment about them driving him mad…

Oh.

“Do you wanna get some pizza or something?” you ask, the words spilling from your lips. You peer at him hopefully, trying not to sound overzealous. “Y’know, just so I can make sure your injury isn’t fatal.”

He nods. “Yeah, sounds awesome. I like pizza.” His gaze flits over to your hand; he reaches over and timidly gives it a small squeeze. “Like you, too.”

Your body fills with warmth, and you settle back into your seat and smile. Yeah, that nap was definitely a great idea.

--

[cottonlemonade]

How You Met

word count: 950 || avg. reading time: 4 mins.

pairing: post time-skip Akaashi x chubby!Reader

genre: fluff

warnings: one person being casually rude about your weight (it’s quick tho)

The taiyaki were still hot in the white paper bag, the smell reminding you it was almost lunch time.

Looking the street up and down for a bus stop or a waiting taxi you turned on the spot. A little ways up the pathway you could make out the typical black boxy shape of a Tokyo taxi and readjusting your handbag you headed towards it, only for a busy looking person in a suit to snatch it up before you could reach it, muttering something about how you would be better off walking for some exercise.

In disbelief about such rudeness you shook your head, pulling your coat a little closer around your chubby form.

You were sure another taxi would take its place soon enough and got on tiptoes to examine the traffic, on the lookout for one.

A mischievous breeze blew up your coat collar, making you wish you would have worn a scarf after all. Although April was right around the corner, the weather today was icy cold.

Giving up for the time being you headed towards a little flower shop you had passed just a few meters back to warm yourself.

A bell chimed when you opened the door. Pots with regular and more exotic house plants stacked on shelves along the wall, one display case behind the counter held the fresh cut flowers while another showed already bound bouquets in varying sizes and color schemes.

The woman standing behind the cash register called a friendly greeting and held the beginnings of a new arrangement at arm's length to check for possible improvements.

"What can I do for you?", she asked, putting the flowers down and folding her hands over a small pregnant belly.

"I would like a bouquet with peonies and… some eucalyptus, please."

The woman smiled and got to work, asking here and there for specifics in color or fullness.

She was about to come to an end with the simple coral and cream bouquet when the doorbell rang again and a young man looking remarkably like a substitute literature teacher entered the shop, a phone to his ear.

"Yes, father, I am getting flowers. I’ll be there soon. Oh, actually, I might be a while, there are quite a lot of people waiting."

You heard an angry voice yelling something unintelligible from the phone, when he simply hung up and sighed. He reached to tug at his collar like it was too tight and closed his eyes for a second, then, remembering he was in public, gave a bow to you and the saleswoman and apologized.

"Please take as long as you want.", he said, almost pleadingly.

He looked like he had a headache, grabbing his collar again.

"O-on second thought,", you began, turning to the owner that was just about to add the last eucalyptus branch, "I forgot I wanted more. Silly me. Uhm, could you make one with… hmm, those blue ones, some of the small greens, those white tulips, and lots of those light blues there, please? And then another one… with those yellow ones there, there and those, too, please." Your best friends would be delighted.

"Oh", the owner caught on immediately, "that was quite a lot. I don’t think I could memorize which ones you wanted all at once."

"No problem. I can tell you one by one."

The young man gave a small grateful smile at the stage-play-like interaction, letting out a “Thank you very much” under his breath.

As the shop owner wrapped up the first bundle of flowers at snail speed, you turned to the young man, wanting to cheer him up.

"So, where do you not want to go?"

Seemingly too exasperated to care about talking to a perfect stranger he said, "A blind date. Which, by the way, isn't actually blind but with a woman I have absolutely no interest in talking to about anything."

"Oh fun.", you said and trying to lighten the mood added, "Why not bring some flowers that say Thanks for coming, I don’t wanna be here?"

Everyone laughed, but the guy stopped after a second or two, looking at you for the first time, then turned to the florist.

"Can I do that?"

She thought for a moment, then slowly nodded, "I can add some candytuft, for sure and… hm, something really neutral for… and then… maybe I still have some butterweed. Yeah, I think I can do that."

You stayed even after your third bouquet was done, keeping the conversation going, joking around and glad when the young man gave a genuine laugh.

"Let me.", he said, sounding tired, when you drew out your wallet to pay for your flowers.

You shook your head, smiled and handed your card to the owner. Then you reached into the paper bag.

The buns in the meantime had turned lukewarm, but still smelled heavenly when you fished one out in a napkin and handed it to the woman - the other still in the bag you placed on the counter for a moment, grabbing a pen from your pocket. You quickly jotted down your name and number on the paper and handed it to him.

“And here. If you need rescuing from your blind date, send me a text and I’ll call you right away with some made-up emergency.”

Then you raised your free hand that wasn’t busy balancing the flowers with a “You got this.” and after a final wave you left.

Akaashi was still staring at the door for a few long moments after you had gone.

“You’d make a cute couple.”, the saleswoman mused and grinned when the young man blushed profusely, holding tighter to the paper bag.

[cinematicnomad]

cinematicnomad's steddie fic recs

i've been reading a lot of stranger things steddie fics over the past 2 months so i've decided it's time for me to make one of my requisite fic reclists, both for myself, and for anyone else interested. here's my usual reminder that i prefer lengthy fics, and that i am also a sucker for canon divergent fics (which basically all of these are bc eddie is alive post s4 obviously unless it's a time loop fic—if i tag a fic as "canon divergent eddie lives", assume this means the fic is compliant through the end of s4 except for eddie's death) and happy endings. all these fics are complete, though it's possible that if the fic is part of a series the series may not be complete. i will try to always add appropriate tags!

T = teen M = mature Ex = explicit NR = not rated

bracing for impact by writersagainstwritersblock (1/1 | 9k+ | T) canon divergent eddie lives; wayne POV; steve has bad parents; outsider POV

wayne watches as eddie falls hopelessly in love, with of all people, goddamn steve harrington.

it's not a big deal by aidaronan (1/1 | 11k+ | M) canon divergent eddie lives; alternating POV; mutual pining; angst w/ a happy ending

eddie survives, but his entire life is locked away in the upside down forever (his books, his dnd stuff, his guitar.) everything that wasn't on eddie when steve carried him into the ER, gone. so naturally steve starts giving him things. handing eddie back those little outward markers of who he is.

you oughta know by thisapplepielife / @thisapplepielife (1/1 | 12k+ | M) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; future fic; angst w/ a happy ending

days stretch out, long and slow. steve tries to ignore the only thing he’s sure of: eddie ran. he ran from him, ran from all of them. or: steve's having a rough couple of years, thanks for asking. compliant fic: i'm brave, but i'm chicken shit (1/1 | 13k+ | M) eddie POV; eddie centric; 1990s; recreational drug use

introduced me to my mind by alchemystique (2/2 | 16k+ | T) canon divergent eddie lives; mutual pining; getting together; happy ending

"eddie," wayne says, and eddie fights the urge to scream, or laugh, or cry. "i'm not running," eddie tells him, even though that is a fucking lie. "you should call him more," wayne says, and eddie rubs the meat of his palm into his eyeballs until he sees stars. doesn’t think about what 'call him more' means in context—do they talk about him? series: sweet leaf (4/4 | 16k+ | T) outsider POVs; rockstar!eddie; period typical homophobia

steve harrington's guide to making it work by eggbertsheggbert (8/8 | 23k+ | NR) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; bad harrington parents; steve is kicked out; angst w/ a happy ending

steve harrington has never been good at asking for help. especially not since he started being seen as the protector of the group. so, when his parents kick him out after discovering his sexuality, he figures he can get extra shifts, save up, and get a place before anyone realizes anything is wrong. join steve as he takes on the weight of the world. he's got it figured out, he's definitely NOT struggling, and—above all else—he can make this work.

the power of love by lacerta26 (8/8 | 27k+ | T) canon divergent eddie lives; outsider POVs; series; post-canon; coming out

jim gets mostly to the end of the house and then someone speaks. "i came out here for a smoke," eddie, his voice low, hushed. "yeah, but this is much more fun," steve now, almost laughing but not quite. * jim had only stepped out for a cigarette when he learns something new about steve and eddie and if this was one of the boys bringing home a girl, he’d have the exact stern words to make sure they were being a gentleman but his usual shovel talk isn't quite going to cut it because he has to let them know it's fine, more than fine, for them to be who they are, here. 

hands where i can see them by SolarMorrigan / @solarmorrigan (12/12 | 29k+ | T) canon divergent eddie lives; multiple POV; established relationship; emotional hurt/comfort

eddie thinks that he and steve have a good thing going; being friends with benefits is honestly a pretty sweet deal. steve is a great friend, the sex is great, everything is great. except for the fact that steve hadn't realized they were only friends with benefits. except for the fact that steve thought they were in a relationship. except for the fact that eddie doesn't realize how much he'd valued that relationship until it's gone (and he's trying his damnedest to get it back).

it's alright if you love me by alivingfire (7/7 | 31k+ | T) canon divergent eddie lives; outsider POV; character study; 5+1; steve-centric; hurt/comfort

"oh, haven't you heard? steve harrington doesn't cry." in which steve harrington breaks up, breaks a few hearts (including his own), breaks free, and finally gets to break down. or: 5 times steve didn't cry, and 1 time he did.

off the beaten path by pukner (6/6 | 34k+ | M) canon divergent post s3; alternating POV; queer awakenings; cliffhanger ending (must read sequels)*

"i'm saying this," says steve, loudly, cutting him off, "because someone i love is, uh, gay. and i love them, but like, platonically. and also me calling you a queer might've been a little hypocritical, in retrospect." there is a long, baffled pause. "what," says jonathan, "steve, are you—are you coming out to me?" steve frowns, "oh, yeah, i guess i am. cool." or, post season 3, steve manages to figure out that he's bisexual, despite his best efforts to repress it, comes out to robin and jonathan byers of all people, and figures himself out. also, there's a cute guy who might be actually insane running the kids' dnd club and he's got his eye on him. and his bandana. too bad eddie munson hasn't had a similar revelation. he's still under the impression that he's a straight man obsessing over steve harrington for normal, extremely heterosexual reasons. OR: steve figures out he's bi before eddie figures out that he's gay. eddie still manages to fall first. series: *off-script (2/2 | 67k+ | Ex) eddie POV; internalized homophobia; mutual pining

a tattoo is worth a thousand words by writersagainstwritersblock (18/18 | 40k+ | M) canon divergent post s3; eddie POV; babysitter steve harrington; getting together

"ambidextrous, princess, it’s what makes me so good with my hands." eddie wiggled his fingers. "you mean for guitar?" steve asked, completely missing the innuendo, and also nearly knocking eddie flat at the thought that steve harrington knew he played guitar. "you stalking me or something?" eddie asked. steve frowned. "uh, no, but your band played in the middle school talent show, it's pretty hard to forget a thirteen year old screaming death metal before his voice dropped." eddie almost laughed at that. almost. "you saying i'm unforgettable, princess?" "if that’s how you want to take it, munson." eddie realized this was turning towards something far more dangerous than taunting a boy known for getting into fights, like flirting with a very, very straight boy known for getting into fights. OR after the events of season three steve shows up on eddie's doorstep asking for a tattoo... and then keeps showing up much to the dismay of eddie's traitorous heart. sequel: visible ink (12/12 | 57k+ | M) outsider POVs; firefighter!steve; tattoo artist!eddie; found family

the one in which a time loop is fucking exhausting. by badpancake (12/12 | 41k+ | T) canon compliant; time loop; steve POV; temporary character death; suicide; angst w/ a happy ending

it’s the first time in a while that he doesn’t know what comes next. he’s dove into the water hundreds of times. screamed as his flesh was torn apart, heard master of puppets in the distance and held back tears. felt max’s cold, small hand in his as she laid in the hospital bed. there are things that always happen, no matter how hard he tries: el doesn’t arrive in time. eddie dies. max is put in a coma. steve fails. they lose. "steve, how many loops have you been through?" his head is nodding, and his eyes are watery, and eddie has approached him like a spooked animal. "i lost count.” AKA: the one where steve harrington is stuck in a time loop, and eddie munson is really fucking hard to save, or: fuck volume 2, these bitches are in love.

steve the reluctant by rachtay13 (7/7 | 46k+ | Ex) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; oblivious steve; steve plays dnd

robin raised her brows.  "you know what, harrington?" she nodded her head. "yeah, you know what? i dare you to make a friend. i dare you." read for steve in denial, excessive d&d gameplay, robin as a mermaid, and eddie's glinting rings. as one reader said "the most frustratingly dense version of steve i have ever read and i am HERE for it."

you're so fucked up and i love it by genericfanatic (18/18 | 54k+ | Ex) canon divergent eddie lives; eddie POV; accidental relationship; hurt/comfort

eddie munson hated steve harrington. he'd apparently saved his life, dragged him out of hell and got him to a hospital while nancy rushed behind him working on alibis and half truths to prove he couldn’t have murdered chrissy. and here he was, doomed to live for the foreseeable future, in debt forever to steve fucking harrington. but eddie really hated how normal steve fucking was.

where do we go from here? (quietly fading away) by allandmore (9/9 | 60k+ | M) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; angst w/ a happy ending; non-graphic violence

"what's scarier than saving the world? figuring out what to do afterwards. i get it," eddie turns on his side, one shoulder on the wall, and grips the front of steve's shirt. His face is so close steve can feel the warmth of his breath. "but we've got time now. right, steve? we bought us all time. time to figure all our shit out. isn’t that what matters?" OR steve harrington struggles to find purpose after the upside down. (but maybe purpose doesn't have to be big. maybe it's helping dustin navigate sophomore year. maybe it's reminding robin to send in college admission letters. maybe it's eddie munson. maybe).

star of the masquerade by glorious_spoon (6/6 | 64k+ | M) canon compliant; eddie POV; time loop; temporary character death; angst w/ a happy ending

steve jerks awake, sitting up so quickly that robin almost topples over and staring wildly around the room. when his gaze lands on eddie, he blanches visibly. "oh, shit," he mutters. "come on, no. come on. not again." "harrington?" eddie asks slowly. he does not love the way that steve is staring at him right now. he really doesn’t. steve looks like he’s staring at a ghost, a bloodied monster, like eddie is something that should not exist in the light of day. "you good, dude?"

one size fits all by entanglednow (10/10 | 65k+ | Ex) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; fake/pretend relationship; misunderstandings; slow burn

steve just wanted to do something nice for a friend, he doesn't mean to get eddie's ring stuck on his finger, and it's definitely not his fault that everyone he knows is jumping to conclusions.

renegades (leave a light on) by queerofthedagger (13/13 | 66k+ | Ex) canon divergent s2; eddie POV; road trip; slow burn; strangers to lovers

eddie doesn't expect to get into trouble for his recent drug business, although he probably should have. even less does he expect steve harrington of all people to save his sorry ass with a nail bat that looks awfully at home in his hands. least of all, though, does he expect harrington to insist on skipping town for a while to avoid the fallout. the winter holidays of '84 seem intent on proving him wrong on all fronts. thrown into a spontaneous road trip-slash-cut-and-run to san francisco—just until things back home blow over, munson—eddie has all the time in the world to confront such questions as: why would harrington care to help him? why does he wake up from nightmares more often than not? and, maybe most importantly, why is the former king so ready to leave hawkins behind on a whim? or: idiot boys make impulsive idiot decisions, and along the way—reluctantly but inevitably—they fall in love. a story of endless winter streets, finding family, and leaving home to find a new one.

falling without caution (people watching) by super_skam310 (10/10 | 66k+ | NR) canon divergent eddie lives; eddie POV; slow burn; eventual happy ending

steve harrington is a man that demands your attention; whether your give it willingly or not is inconsequential. eddie's camp tended to be in the latter category. OR eddie's borderline obsessive watching of steve spanning from steve's freshman year to season 4, culminating in the unfortunate realization that the king had been dethroned the moment nail bat hit monster flesh and that maybe steve harrington was lovable all along.

in the margins by foxy_mulder (4/4 | 70k+ | T) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; angst w/ a happy ending; suicidal thoughts; hurt/comfort

steve is having a hard time adjusting to the new normal, after everything that went down. he doesn't want to bother his friends with his problems, though, when they've got so much weight on their shoulders already. steve stumbles on an alternate version of hawkins, where none of it ever happened. everyone’s alive, his headaches are gone, his friends actually want to hang out with him, and he’s…happy. (the party has to fight another monster. but this one doesn't prey on people's fears. it preys on their deepest desires.)

skull rock era by chattrekisses (11/11 | 71k+ | Ex) canon divergent s2; steve POV; slow burn; internalized homophobia; fix-it

steve harrington never planned for eddie munson. steve was supposed to marry his high school sweetheart, have 2.5 children, and take over the family business. he was supposed to live a blissful life on a nondescript cul-de-sac, complete with a white picket fence and a closet full of tasteful polo shirts. he was supposed to make a graceful transition between being the golden boy and being the american dream. mediocrity was what destiny had designed for steve. reality had other plans. (or, steve and eddie, against all odds, fall in love.)

roll for seduction by spikeisthebigbad (37/37 | 74k+ | Ex) canon divergent post s3; steve POV; steve plays dnd; fix-it

when steve reluctantly agreed to play dungeons and dragons with the hellfire club he expected to hate every second. he did not expect to spend his friday nights flirting with eddie munson. what if eddie and steve were dating during season 4? starts after season 3, and eventually ventures into season 4. not canon compliant.

in over my head by staymagical (16/16 | 75k+ | Ex) canon divergent eddie lives; alternating POV; head trauma; temporary amnesia

one moment, steve is entering his room, ready for bed, and the next he's in forest hills staring at a very confused very concerned eddie and the run-down remains of the old munson trailer. three hours later. thus begins a secret shared between friends, steve leaning on eddie as they try and understand and navigate this new terrifying post-concussion symptom of steve's. with vecna dead and the gates closed, it can only be steve's own scrambled brain giving up on reality. it's a race against the unknown, trying to find answers and search for solutions before it happens again and steve isn't sure how long he can keep pretending he is alright when he is anything but.

leave the light on sometimes all night by anniebibananie (7/7 | 78k+ | M) au—no upside down; steve POV; hurt/comfort; slow burn; eventual smut

june 1986 steve is lonely. he’s always been lonely, honestly. an empty house, absent parents, friends that didn’t really know him. frankly, he probably doesn’t really know himself, either. it used to be easier to ignore—between sports and parties and searching for the next girl to hang around with. then nancy wheeler told him he was bullshit. in the wreckage of the storm, he realized she probably hadn’t been that off base to call his life bullshit. [life in hawkins, indiana is boring, ordinary, no supernatural entities. steve still changes. luckily, he still makes some new friends, too. certain people are simply meant to be in the same story.]

the lathe by palmviolet (13/13 | 82k+ | M) canon compliant; steve POV; time loop; fix-it; angst w/ a happy ending; implied self-harm

"this time, do it right. this time eddie won’t bleed out in his arms, in anyone’s arms. this time, steve will do it right." — or, steve relives the day they try to kill vecna over and over, and eddie just can't seem to stop dying. steve finds this totally unacceptable. sequel: disaster / lucky (1/1 | 7k+ | M) coda; eddie POV; implied/referenced self-harm; trauma recovery

it's got what it takes by rose235b (20/20 | 83k+ | T) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; friends to lovers; slow burn

“i can walk you to your car if you need to go though.” eddie’s hand stopped moving. robin’s eyes snapped towards steve as if it wasn’t a nice thing to offer. “i’ll just maybe grab the vest so i can leave it for tomorrow.” he was undeterred though. if he could help eddie munson after the worst period of his life by literally just walking, steve would walk across the entire state of indiana. eddie looked back at him, his eyes narrowing slightly as he seemed to search for something on steve’s face. “okay.” it came out softer than steve was used to eddie being. steve's on his never ending quest to make up for past mistakes. eddie's post-vecna mess of a life seems like the perfect place to start. - or, two idiots fall in love very slowly to the tune of 80s music.

(something happens and i'm) head over heels by gibbouslunation (11/11 | 94k+ | T) canon divergent eddie lives; alternating POV; head trauma; angst w/ a happy ending

eddie made a strangled disbelieving noise, expression flickering. "you are not apologizing to me right now, for like, feeling a normal way about stuff. i can’t believe you." steve pushed a shaking hand through his hair. his heart rate no longer in his ears meant he felt he could at least think a little more clearly. "maybe it was the heat. doesn’t always have to be something messed up, right?" eddie gave him a placating nod. "sure, heat exhaustion is a helluva thing." it had been happening a lot recently. the…forgetting. zonking out. whatever. he was pretty sure he was just extra exhausted, it had been a few weeks since everything but it might have just been the adrenaline or something finally wearing off. sometimes it was like he just forgot someone was speaking, or couldn’t remember for a moment what they’d been talking about. like blinking out of a fog maybe. it does not get better, in fact, it actually continues to get worse.

water closet by stillmadaboutpetra (7/7 | 103k+ | M) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; found family; slow burn; character study

steve's heard that a lot of life changing conversations usually happen in the kitchen or on the porch, but in his experience, it's the bathroom. a series of bathroom conversations (plus a whole lot of everything else) that slowly change steve, and his little world, in the wake of surviving vecna.

burned on the pyre by oklahoma (13/13 | 105k+ | Ex) canon compliant; steve POV; time loop; temporary character death; angst w/ a happy ending

"i’m gonna save your life, eddie munson." - caught in a time loop created by eleven where he is forced to relive the same day over and over, steve has to come up with a plan to kill vecna entirely while also making sure eddie and max don’t lose their lives in the process.

the beat has just begun by forgetthemoon (12/12 | 106k+ | M) canon compliant; steve POV; period-typical homophobia; fix it; slow burn

vecna dies. so does eddie. the world doesn't split open. in the aftermath, steve goes home to an empty house. well. almost empty. steve sighs, hanging his head. one more thing. then he can go to bed. the dirty towel can wait until later. he tosses it towards the bathtub without looking and turns to the sink, grabbing his toothbrush and toothpaste. when he looks in the mirror, eddie's staring back at him.

lonely is the night by intrajanelle (23/23 | 109k+ | T) canon divergent post s2; canon rewrite; eddie POV; hurt steve; angst w/ a happy ending

harrington had fallen, splayed in front of his preppy little beemer, like the jock equivalent of a fallen fucking angel. eddie, not having thought this through, watched harrington’s eyes roll to the back of his head, and said, "well, crap." or: post-season 2, eddie and steve get to know one another.

i can give you a heartbeat by soupbitchin (14/14 | 113k+ | T) canon compliant; eddie POV; ghost!eddie; happy ending; fix-it

being dead isn’t like eddie thought it would be. for starters, he’s a lot more alive than he expected. or, the ghost of eddie munson’s still hanging around, and he’d really appreciate if someone could notice him, thanks.

the end is here (and we do it a hundred times over) by placebythering (13/13 | 125k+ | M) canon compliant; steve POV; time loop; temporary death; suicide; angst w/ a happy ending

steve jolts awake, staring up into the dull beige of the camper’s ceiling. there’s a distinct brown stain, likely from a leak. the cushion of the back seat is hard against his back, and if he strains he could hear yelling and laughing from the outside. he wonders if he’s finally lost his fucking mind. —or, steve relives the day of the end over and over again.

caught in the middle, helpless again by margosfairyeye (14/14 | 131k+ | Ex) canon compliant; eddie POV; time loop; angst w/ a happy ending; canon-typical violence

fuck, eddie has been here before. the deja vu was bad enough but this is like, double, this is like deja deja vu or deja vu vu or something, this is unprecedented shit here. and eddie knows what comes next, knows like the roiling ache in his stomach that they’re going to go in, go though the portal and into the upside fucking down and didn’t they already do this? -- -- eddie loops through the time from lover's lake to his death, over and over again.

blood, love, and rhetoric by sourpastels / @lesbiansidney (18/18 | 143k+ | M) canon compliant; alternating POV; eddie lives; canon typical violence; accidental roommates

eddie believes three core things about the art of performance. 1. all the world's a stage. 2. performance is both a weapon and a shield, he wields it as both. and 3. you can’t act death. to quote stoppard: “it’s not gasps and blood and falling about—that isn’t what makes it death. it’s just a man failing to reappear, that’s all…” and eddie had gasped and bled and fell about, and was foolish enough in that moment to believe that was death. but he forgot a crucial step: he reappeared. or: steve is taking it day by day, flitting between the high school and the hospital and hopper’s cabin, locking any thoughts of eddie munson away at the back of his mind. meanwhile, eddie is just trying to get out of the upside down, with nothing but a nail-shield and the world's worst company.

sleight of hand by smithereen (19/19 | 143k+ | Ex) canon divergent post s2; alternating POV; internalized homophobia; slow burn

steve needs a weed dealer. he gets a bit more than that. (this is an AU set a couple months after the snow ball in season 2.)

take the money and run by thisapplepielife / @thisapplepielife (22/22 |143k+ | Ex) canon divergent eddie lives; alternating POV; road trip; getting together; future fic

"rules. like, there’ll be no eating in my car. you're not driving my car. no heavy metal," steve keeps listing, "you’re not picking up women and fucking them in m—" "i'll try to control myself," eddie interrupts with a quip, a smirk. fucking girls in steve’s car, or anywhere else for that matter, isn’t going to be an issue, unless something pretty fundamental shifts in him. steve continues, completely ignoring eddie, "you’ll wipe your feet. you're not dragging dirt all over my car. no hitchhikers. no cutesy road games. no smoking in the car. i'm not paying for all the gas." "ass, gas or grass, got it," eddie says, like he's taking this very seriously. he is not taking this seriously. or: road trip!

if your heart surrenders by asbealthgn (39/39 | 163k+ | Ex) canon divergent pre-s1; alternating POV; slow burn; secret relationship; angst w/ a happy ending

“that one’s on the house, okay?” eddie says, and steve opens his eyes to look back down at him. on his face is the slightest hint of concern, and something else steve can’t place. he’s still holding his hand. "thank you," steve says. he’s not sure exactly which thing he’s thanking eddie for, the weed or the hand in his or the lack of judgment at his fucked up head. he just knows that he’s grateful. eddie gives him a smile, a gentle curve of those pretty lips. "anytime, harrington."

tuesday's gone with the wind by thisapplepielife / @thisapplepielife (9/9 | 184k+ | Ex) alternate universe – no upside down; eddie POV; rock band; drug use; plane crash

corroded coffin's leased plane went down on june 13th, 1995 in the woods of louisiana. ten people on board died. eddie munson survived. before he survived, he really lived. companion series: wildflowers...and all the rest (15/15 | 151k+ | Ex) gareth POV; original female character; one shots; growing old; slice of life

gossip by jcmadgirl (11/11 | 213k+ | Ex) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; pre-canon; sexual assault; angst w/ a happy ending

steve's whole life story, told through multiple snapshots of the events that made him into the person that he is today. or, a rewriting of stranger things from steve's POV.

i never did believe in miracles (but i've a feeling it's time to try) by cuoredimuschio (26/26 | 215k+ | M) canon divergent eddie lives; multiple POV; slow burn; mutual pining; getting together

eddie is beginning to think that, somewhere in the helter-skelter of surviving the upside down, being swarmed by possibly rabid but definitely rancid demobats, and charbroiling vecna’s slimy ass, he accidentally tripped through the wrong gate and landed in an alternate dimension. well, a different alternate dimension than the one he was already in. because steve harrington is flirting with him.

vignettes of lost connections by hardlyhalcyon (halcyonfrost) (50/50 | 229k+ | Ex) canon divergent pre-s1; alternating POV; secret relationship; angst w/ a happy ending

steve harrington and eddie munson had met long before dustin henderson dragged steve down to reefer rick's cabin. hawkins wasn't a huge town, and there was only the one high school, but the two were never friends. didn't even like each other. in all their darkest moments however, they somehow found company together. or the one where steve has depression, eddie becomes his safe space, and when eddie encounters battles he can't fight, steve reminds eddie of his own strength. a pre-/peri-/post-s4 fic with steddie before s4 events, continuing through and after.

as the world falls down by daeneryske (36/36 | 245k+ | Ex) canon divergent eddie lives; steve POV; bad harrington parents; period typical homophobia; angst w/ a happy ending

after saving eddie from the upside down, steve hides him at his house while the party concocts a plot to clear eddie's name. what steve doesn't expect is how much he likes hanging out with eddie as they get to know each other. under the looming shadow of the mind flayer threatening to destroy hawkins, steve and eddie realize they're each grappling with their own darkness, from steve's father's impossible expectations to eddie's feelings of worthlessness. their friendship develops into something more even as the party prepares to fight Vecna and his monsters one last time. steve must decide if he's ready to shrug off the rigid roles assigned to him and become his own person. eddie must learn to embrace what steve has been trying to show him every day since nearly dying: that he's worth saving.

nothing else matters by bigskyandthecoldgun (31/31 | 279k+ | Ex) canon divergent post s2; steve POV; secret relationship; period typical attitudes; everybody lives

"you ask a lot of questions about me," steve tells him. "because you're interesting," munson says, quiet and honest. "you're a lot different than what i've heard." steve hums, eyes closed. "yeah," he says, eyes fluttering open when munson takes the joint from him again, "you are, too." or: steve ditches the prom to get high.

since you've gone (i've been lost without a trace) by steddieeddie (7/7 | 300k+ | M) canon divergent s4; multiple POV; comatose steve; grief; angst w/ a happy ending

may 31st 1986, two weeks until graduation. robin, eddie, and nancy are all set to walk across the stage, eddie being given a free pass after the whole ‘almost framed for murder’ thing. the three have been trying to be excited about their graduation, but it feels almost mundane to be excited when steve wouldn’t be there. they would be sat out on a football field in the blistering heat while waiting for their names to be called, with dustin and max in the crowd, cheering them on in steve's place. there would be fake smiles plastered to all their faces, no matter how realistic they tried to make them. none of them have genuinely smiled since steve got vecna'd. sixty-five days. steve had been in a coma for sixty-five days. the doctors keep telling the party that it doesn't look good, that steve's injures had been severe, and that they didn't know if, when, he would wake up. but they refused to lose hope. he'll wake up. it's just a matter of time. OR five times steve harrington didn't wake up, and one time he did.

the most dangerous thing (is to love you) by brokebeatle (21/21 | 304k+ | Ex) canon divergent eddie lives; alternating POV; shared trauma; slow burn; period typical homophobia  

"i know you care about what those little twerps think of you, and i can assure you they think way too highly of you," eddie says with a wink, and steve gives a half-hearted smirk for just a moment. "but look…i know i can’t ask you to stop worrying about those kids, so how about this? you worry about them, and you let me—actually let me—worry about you." steve pushes his hair back, and yet again, gravity instantly pulls it back down, since he’s looking at his feet. "…i don’t need anyone to worry about me." "too fucking bad. someone’s gotta do it, and it’s gonna be me." "why?" steve replies with a raspy laugh, shaking his head slowly. "why? why." eddie crosses his arms tightly across his chest, knocking his foot into steve’s again with a bit more strength. "because we’re friends, dipshit." —in which eddie's got a reason he's been planning on leaving hawkins since long before the world almost ended. the only thing keeping him in town at this point? his promise to be friends with steve harrington. and eddie doesn't break promises.

the man that i could be by ohstars (26/26 | 325k+ | Ex) canon divergent post s3; steve POV; secret relationship; period typical homophobia; angst w/ a happy ending

"steve harrington isn't straight. it's been a few weeks since he sat on that bathroom floor at starcourt with robin, where she shared her biggest secret with him and unintentionally unlocked an entirely new side of steve. since he’s had to come to terms with being open to exploring that side of him, but he's finally acknowledged that he's most likely, definitely, without a doubt into guys." -- after coming to terms that he may be queer, steve harrington does a little exploration on his own and meets the one and only eddie munson. just as things are going well and accepted the fact he's falling for eddie in their own little bubble, steve's world is shaken by a tragedy he can't quite talk about. and when the dust settles and he's nearly ready to put the pieces back together, his worlds collide when he realizes his eddie is the same eddie playing D&D with the kids. the same eddie who's now wanted for murder thanks to another upside down monster. how will he save the day when he can barely focus watching his ex mingle with his monster fighting team? series: the men we've become (4/4 | 45k+ | M) future fics; alternating POVs; domestic living

[rosesanddecay]

Kyle “Gaz” Garrick x gn!reader

TW: minor angst(?)/comfort- mostly just anxiety on Gaz’s part

——

He had gone dark months ago.

Months without contact.

Months of you not knowing if he was alive, and of him not knowing if you were safe.

It felt bone chilling to be standing in front of your shared home. Would you have missed him? Would you have stayed faithful despite going no contact?

Gaz didn’t want to think like that.

He wanted to believe when you promised you loved him. But being away for so long for the first time in a relationship, it could break everything. It’s happened to him before.

The more he stared at the front door, the more he wished he had stayed the night on base and texted you the next morning. To give you some heads up, he convinced himself.

But ignoring the jittering of fear in his hands and heart, he crossed the threshold.

The house was dark and silent, only a few automatic lights provided light. The blue shine from the fridge marked 3:27, so he treaded extra carefully. If his hopes were right, you’d have been asleep for a while now.

Setting his things quietly on the counter, Kyle took some time to see that the place had been slightly rearranged. Or had it always been like that? Maybe he just couldn’t remember.

Everything was open and clean, and he felt like a spot that got missed during sweeping. His shoes were still coated in dirt, his skin in sweat, and he reeked of exhaustion. In his uniform, he stuck out like a sore thumb.

He continued on in the house, pushing aside the ever looming feeling of misplacement.

The walk to your shared bedroom felt like walking on a tightrope. What would you do if you woke up? What if you weren’t there at all?

Either it was all the time away or the sleep deprivation, but Kyle couldn’t help but overthink seeing you again.

The door faintly creaked open… and you were asleep in bed.

Thank god.

Despite wanting to crawl in beside you, he knew he needed to shed off the last of his gear. A shower would also is probably necessary.

The bathroom looked mostly the same. His things were still in their typical areas; his soap in the shower, the beard trimmer he forgot on the sink, even the old sticky note you left him one morning. It all made him smile, made him think that maybe he still had a spot in this home.

The water was a bit cold for his liking, but he didn’t want to waste time warming it when he could be in bed as soon as possible.

He felt warm at the thought of holding you in bed after all this time.

Had you been taking care of yourself? Drinking water and staying fed? Hopefully you hadn’t gotten sick while he was gone…

The thoughts died out as he picked up his bottle of shampoo. It felt near full, which was odd… he was sure he had left it close to empty. He had made a mental note to get a new one once he was back. Who had used his stuff?

The fears came back in an instant as he rushed even more to get out of the shower.

His feet hit the floor of your shared bedroom with caution. As much as he wanted to wake you and ask about the shampoo, he knew how silly it would be to wake you up over it.

When morning comes, he thought to himself.

So instead, with ease, he slipped into the bed and leaned over you slightly. Even in the dark he could trace your features, but it now obvious up close that you’d gone to bed not that long before. Your hair faintly damp from a shower of your own, and one of Kyle’s shirts to cover you. God, he felt silly.

How easy his worries could be swayed should be studied, as he stifled a small laugh and kissed your temple. The smell of his hair products on you also helped to quell his fears. His arms wrapped around you as he laid down, your bodies relaxing and coming together as soft snores escaped the both of you.

——

I always see posts about the other guys coming home to a significant other, so I thought I’d add my own thoughts to the pile.

[twistmusings]

Character Analysis of the Twisted Wonderland Dorm Rooms - Savanaclaw

Thanks so much for your input on the first post everyone! Honestly a lot of you have much sharper eyes that I do, so I'm making it a habit to add addendums when people spot things that I don't.

At any rate, here is the examination of the rooms for Savanaclaw!

Dorm Room Character Analysis Series

Heartslabyul | Savanaclaw | Octavinelle | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia

Leona Kingscholar

To start with the obvious, Leona is probably the most disorganized dorm that we've seen so far. He's noticeably left his clothes lying around the room. It's of note that he's got an empty hangar in his closet, which could mean that some of these clothes are clean and he cba to hang them up.

Leona has a chess set with three pieces displayed - what appears to be a Knight, a Rook, and a Pawn. I believe this may be a reference to the story arc of book 2, considering that Rooks are a powerful piece in chess. If we consider in terms of chess, if I had to guess, I would say the Knight is Leona (known for it's unique movement which can be used to strategize and take tactical advantage of board placement), the Rook would be Ruggie (known as one of the most powerful pieces in chess because it can move any distance in a single line so long as it doesn't jump another piece, thank you anon for correcting me on this!) because of his unique magic being the lynch pin of Leona's plan during book two, and Jack, or more generally, the rest of his dormmates, being the pawns, that are used to set a strategic defense.

Also of note, Leona has a plant in his room. Of course, it could be fake, but if it is real, it shows a nurturing aspect to Leona that is interesting given his characterization that we know of. Minor Spoiler Warning for Book 6 that has definitely been pointed out by other people, but we know that he lets Riddle rest on his lap during the book when he's knocked unconscious, so he does, indeed, seem to have aspects of a nurturer in his characterization that he tends to hide by being prickly. If I had to read further into this, I would say it's another aspect of his motif overall - Leona has the capacity to care a great deal about everything, but he doesn't because he isn't given the same opportunities as Falena, and so you see those parts of him come out in other places.

This may be a bit of a stretch, but I believe this pillow in Leona's room is intended to be a call-back to Lions and their manes. When Leona lays his head down on the pillow, the pattern would be splayed out around his head like one.

Leona, of course, has textiles in his room, which is mentioned to be important for his homeland in the Tamashina Mina/Cloudcalling event as they are handmade and the primary source of income for Sunset Savanna. This is of note because Leona is not the only one in Savanaclaw to display tapestries like this, but these tapestries are notably similar to those shown in the Tamashina Mina.

So this is going to be a very long and not particularly important sections, so feel free to skip if you CBA to read it, but I wish there was a little bit more information about the inspiration drawn for Leona's homeland because it could be particularly informative of the actual symbolism in the textiles. If we are considering what we know about his homeland, Leona mentions a few things that give us some hints as to the location.

Generally speaking, the Lion King is considered to be set in Tanzania, and this is in line with the Hibiscus and the Baobab that Leona mentions in the Cloudcalling event, however from my most definitely not expert research, a lot of textiles produced in Tanzania are wax dyed. (Mind, I am far from an expert in African Textiles.) This becomes important when Leona mentions that the tapestries and clothing in the Sunset Savanna are woven. While it's not always a rule, typically woven clothing and tapestries are dyed before they are woven, and weaving is what produces the pattern. With wax dyeing, the textiles are produced first, and then waxes are used to create layers of dye that are arranged in patterns. (This also gets called batik dyeing).

The left, above, is a Tanzinian Batik Kitenge Fabric from east Africa, while the right is a Ghanaian Woven Kente Cloth from West Africa next to Leona's Tapestry to show more of what I mean, which throws a wrench into examining this further because we are talking about two different cultures across the continent from one another.

The gist of this being, it does seem that Leona's tapestry and blankets would seem to be more in line with woven fabric as opposed to batik dyed fabric. If anyone has more information who is more versed in this subject, I would love to know more! Basically, this is the long way of me saying I can't exactly identify whether or not any of the tapestries or blankets in his room hold any particular meaning in their patterns or colors because I wouldn't know what culture it would be drawing inspiration from! To be quite honest, it is entirely possible this is a case of Twist mixing several cultures together to paint a more general picture of African culture.

To change the subject back to the room - Leona has a notable lack of study materials in his room. In fact, I don't see a single book in his room. If Riddle is the one who is the king of the little readers club, Leona was the kid who filled in all the stamps on the summer reading list to get the prizes without reading anything.

While it's not as prevalent as Cater or Trey, Leona's room features a lot of darker yellows and reds. It's possible that Leona favors these warmer colors, which is funny considering his rather gloomy outlook on a lot of things, as these colors are generally associated with happiness and passion.

The hidden mickey in his room is just below his overhead lamp.

Jack Howl

Jack, as we know, has a little cactus garden in his room. it is of note, his cacti are flowering, which is a sign that his little cacti are as happy as could be.

This might be a bit morbid, but if I had to guess, I would guess that Jack's rug is a synthetic wolf-skin rug given the jagged design on the edges. This is only a guess of course, as the bedrooms and backgrounds in twist tend to have a slightly flatter style than the rest of the game, so it's hard to tell if it's actually fur or not. Regardless, we see see a lot of the members of Savanaclaw's animals represented in small touches in their room.

Jack is pretty organized in comparison to the other freshmen! All of his books are put away, and even his weights and resistance bands are tucked away as much as they can be.

Jack seems to have soy protein, a protein shake container, and a stick of deodorant ready-to-go! Jack might be a bit extra with his workout routine, but at least he seems to be responsible about it by making sure he's getting the nutritional support he needs to build muscle and taking care not to smell rank.

Jack also has a textile on his wall. Given the Shaftlands seems to be generally inspired by Europe, I would guess that the tapestry is most similar to Nordic knitted and woven fabrics. The motif of the tapestry seems to be floral designs or snowflakes and pine trees. This seems to be a cute callback to how Jack likes to snowboard and how he comes from a snowy place.

Like the other first years, Jack doesn't seem to have decorated his bedsheets much. He does have a bedrunner in a flamestitch sort of pattern. Though the flamestitch pattern isn't commonly attributed to any one country, it is generally considered to be of European origin, adding to the European inspiration of the shaftlands.

The hidden Mickey in Jack's room is next to his tapestry.

Ruggie Bucchi

Mr. Pig. More seriously, Ruggie found it abandoned on the street and took it home. There's a meerkat version as well that Ruggie has mentioned getting in his Birthday Boy Vignette. He also mentions that it sings or lets out a happy squeal when you put coins into it.

Also, Ruggie has a framed photo on his desk, similar to Deuce. I would guess this is a photo of him and his grandmother.

Ruggie actually seems to read quite a bit! He has books in his bookshelf, as well as stacked next to his bed within easy reach to read there if he would like to. These don't seem to be textbooks, so it's an easy conclusion that Ruggie probably reads in his free time. My guess for the textbooks is that Ruggie likely downloads them online from a library resource. Or illegally. To be quite honest, good for him, textbooks are expensive for no damn reason.

Ruggie is also quite well organized - he doesn't have a lot of personal items in his room, but the ones that he does have are put away.

Following on that last point, Ruggie's lack of decorations aside from a handful of things likely lends to him being raised in poverty.

Interesting note, but Ruggie has roommates. In fact, a lot of the Twisted Wonderland cast do, but you can actually see snippets of Ruggie and Jack's roommates space in their cards. The freshmen are mentioned to have four to a room, so though I didn't include this in the first post, Ace and Deuce have two other roommates.

While it might be easy to assume that Ruggie's comforter is giraffe print at first glance, the coloration and spacing of the pattern actually leads me to believe this is meant to be the pattern of a spotted Hyena.

Ruggie's hidden mickey is on the wall next to his closet.

[parvulous-writings]

no idea if nail polish exists in the 5e world, but it does now. how about a chill day for the companions where everyone does their nails? or is tav/durge doing the painting for everyone?

Summary: Camp has a nail day!

Warnings: Minor spoilers for Shadowheart's various arcs, same for Karlach. One swear word.

Notes:  if it doesn't exist, it sure as hell does now! Also apologies that this took so long - New year is a busy time at work, and I've got a minor injury with my hand, so I'm working as fast as I can, but it's a little slower than normal!

I've included all the recruitable companions, besides Minthara, who is not included purely because I cannot accurately write for her just yet!

My requests are currently open! My pinned post (found here) contains both a list of characters I write for, and a masterlist!  Original character list - please request for these too!

Not my image

Time on the road where everyone is able to relax is very scarce commodity, so when it does crop up, you're always the first to suggest grabbing it by the horns and making the most out of the day - not by training, or planning your next moves, but typically with something more laid back.

You're camping close to Rivington when you get the first day-long break in weeks, so that morning you venture into town to have a quick browse of the stalls; perhaps you can find some food that will remind the various Baldurians in camp of their home? As you're starting to make your way back to camp, something catches you eye - a nail polish kit, going for quite cheap. You can hardly restrain yourself from buying it- you already know that it will bring a lot of much needed joy into camp.

Astarion is quite intrigued when you announce the spoils you've returned with. For too long he's craved petty vanity again; and even if he can only get it from painting his nails, he's willing to grasp at that chance. "What's this?" He hums, peering over your shoulder, trying to get a good look at all the colours that the kit contains, as well as the equipment. The first thing he does, given the chance, is start tending to his nails - cleaning under them, pushing back the cuticles, trimming and filing them into shape, the works. He spares no time making sure that everything is as he envisions. Sure, the colours he eventually settles on may not match the rest of his armour, but his new manicure matches his more comfortable clothes, so that's good enough for him.

Gale is... Unsure if this is the right kind of thing for your journey. "We have many more pressing matters to worry about, besides our appearances." He practically grumbles to you. "Might I suggest actually focusing on planning our next move?" It doesn't actually take a lot to convince him to sit down and let him do one hand of nails on him. You paint his nails a lovely shade of dark navy blue, which looks black in the shade, but blue when hit by light. You start speckling dots of white here and there to make them mirror the night sky, when Gale tells you he'd like to do his other hand himself. Of course, you let him, and about twenty minutes later, he's back to proudly show you his work. It's a lot shakier than the side you had done, but he looks so proud of himself for being able to emulate your skill even a little bit, you don't even nitpick in a teasing way. When it inevitably starts to chip away, he's absolutely devastated, but doesn't say anything until you all get an opportunity to rest properly again.

Justiciar!Shadowheart instantly dives for the black varnish. Nothing more, and nothing else. She doesn't dwell on it, but in some vain way, she feels like she's carrying a part of her goddess' revered darkness with her, even if it will chip away eventually. That just reminds her that everything on this plane is fleeting, and finite, always eventually consumed by loss. Selunite!Shadowheart adds a little more colour to her nails - dots of white, or purple are incorporated, intricate little designs that pay homeage to both her life as a Sharran, and her family heritage as Selunites. She takes great pride in the designs she makes, and often spends a very long time making sure that they are just like how she imagines in her head.

Lae'zel doesn't particularly like painting her nails - she feels it takes away from her aura of formidable warrior. She will, however, sharpen her nails on a regular basis - just as a back-up plan if she loses her weapon, or perhaps gets caught by surprise and needs to scratch out some eyeballs.

Karlach pre-upgrade loves to watch you do your nails. As in, she will actively sulk if you don't let her watch, or have some tiny level of input. She'll huff and pout, but eventually goes to sit elsewhere with a quiet "fine, whatever.." Post-upgrade Karlach is so eager to have her nails done, she's bouncing back and forth on her feet. She can't decide on a single colours - especially not by herself. "They all look so pretty!" She exclaims, waving her hands about in glee. So, unable to make a decision, she takes her favourite colours, and has all of them on her fingers - repeating a similar process on her toes with her second favourite colours. "This is the best thing we have ever done! ... Besides beating the shit out of Thorm... so, the second best thing!"

Wyll tidies his nails - similar to Astarion. He wants them to be a much nicer shape than they have been up to this point - makeshift files had not been too kind on his nails, and he was tired of catching them on things. He takes great care in shaping them and removing any chips or quicks - it's an activity he takes great pride in, and he'll happily do the same for you if you ask him to! As for colour, Wyll likes to go for a clear coat, purely for protecting his nails; though he has been known to paint his nails black, for dramatic effect. He loves his nails - not to the point that he preens them at any given moment, but enough to give them the time and care they need to keep healthy.

Halsin doesn't particularly like the idea of polish. Sure, it looks pretty, but he'd rather not wear it himself - there are other ways, he's found, that you can change the colour of your nails. (When you ask him what he means, or even to just elaborate a little bit more on how he knows this, he simply replies with "I once had a... Somewhat rebellious streak in my youth.") So it's likely that the only thing that he uses in this particular kit is the file and buffer - which looks absolutely tiny in his hands, it's quite funny.

Minsc doesn't do his own nails - at all. He won't even file them, he just either bites them or they snap off (usually it's the former). Instead, he takes care of Boo's claws. "Now, now, my friend. Do not call me strange - if I do not care for Boo's mighty claws, then who will? The paws of justice must be well cared for!" Insists that every few days he must re-file and re-buff Boo's nails, and will not take no for an answer. He also tries to convince you that Boo is trying to tell you the same, but by the way the little rodent's head shakes when he sits on Minsc's shoulder tells you otherwise.

Jaheira almost laughs when you suggest doing her nails. She wants to them herself, but, eventually she does ask you to help her. "It seems I'm a little out of practice.." She chuckles. "Perhaps some company wouldn't be so bad... If your offer still stands, of course." She LOVES having green nails. Sage green is her favourite, but she likes all of them really. Sometimes, if she's feeling particularly happy, she'll let you paint little golden leaves on her thumb - but that can be a rare occasion, because she doesn't want such skill to always go to waste.

[duckprintspress]

Fandom 101: Getting Started on Fanlore.org

Not long ago, we at Duck Prints Press decided that we’d like the Press to have a page on Fanlore. To accomplish that, Press contributor Shea Sullivan made an account and figured out the nuts and bolts on how to add pages to Fanlore. Turns out, it’s not very hard, and now in this guest blog post, Shea will teach y’all how to do it too!

Making Your First Fanlore Page!

Hello! I am an editor on Fanlore as of a few days ago. Before that, I’d worked with mediawiki (the open source platform Fanlore uses) for unrelated projects, so I had a general understanding of how things worked, but no idea how Fanlore preferred their pages to be formatted or organized or linked.

This is how I got started!

First: What is Fanlore and Why Should You Care?

Fanlore is a wiki specifically dedicated to the fandom experience. It’s not for canon info about a specific fandom; rather, it’s for information about how fans interact with media and each other. Fanlore is run by the OTW, the same organization that brings us our beloved AO3. This context helped me in understanding the focus of Fanlore. It’s about fandom: the ups, the downs, the trends, the drama…all the things that can get lost forever when sites disappear or there’s a purge. And that said…well, you may still not care. But if you do, read on!

Second: You Care. Now What?

(read more)

Get an account. Right now. It’s worth getting the account, because you won’t be able to create new pages for a few hours. So, get the account first, figure out what to do with it later.

Go to fanlore.org and click on “Create Account” in the upper right-hand corner:

Third: You Have the Power (Soon)!

Read up! No need to invent the wheel in this post – they’ve got some great resources for getting started already written on their webpage.

Fanlore Getting Started Page

General Help Pages on Fanlore

Four hours after you create your account, you can create pages! Congrats! There are a ton of help pages out there, but the questions I had initially were:

How do I make sure this page doesn’t exist already?

Search. Search for the page. Search for key phrases associated with the page. A page name is a fiddly thing, so search for significant phrases in a few different ways before you determine it doesn’t exist. Always make sure you check before you set out to create page!

How do I add this page?

If it’s not there, you’ll see it come up in red when you search. Type the page name you want to create in the search bar. Click “Search” to get all the results, and then click on that red link.

How do I format this page?

You now have an empty page. When I was getting started, my big question was: what should my page look like? Well, Fanlore has templates that can help with that! The templates are in a markup language, but do not fear! Copy and paste the template (everything in the blue box on the template page, typically starting with curly braces), make some updates, and click “Preview.” You can repeat those steps indefinitely until you get the hang of the markup. There’s also a ton of information on the Fanlore.org cheatsheet. (If you’re still confused, keep reading, there’s more specifics under the infobox section.)

Once you have the page created and published, you can edit it without the markup language if you prefer – there’s “Edit,” which gives you a non-code-based option, and an “Edit Source” button, which gives you the code-based option.

If your proposed page topic doesn’t have an official template created for that topic, you can look up similar pages and see how they’re structured.  If you’re not sure how they managed to make something look a certain way, click the “Edit Source” button and look at the code there to get a sense of what they did. Be sure to cancel out of the edit when you’re done so you don’t make unintentional changes to someone else’s page! Some pages are locked down (like the template pages) so you can’t make edits, but most “normal” pages will have those links at the top so you can dig in and see what’s there and how the people who wrote that page made it look the way it does.

How do I add an infobox?

Those infoboxes on the right of a lot of pages give a quick overview of important information. These are templates, and you can find a list of available infobox templates here.

The templates, when you click into them, have a heading and some info that you can fill in. You can’t remove items from the template without making a new template, which I don’t recommend trying when you’re getting started. Use the template, fill in the information, and mark “N/A” if you don’t have information to insert in a specific field. A sample template for an infobox looks like this, and you fill in information after each “equals” sign. You can add a list, and you can add links to these after the equals sign using the markup for internal and external links on the Cheatsheet.

{{FanProfile |name=  |alias(es)= |type= |fandoms= |communities= |other= |url= }}

If you’re still confused, let’s go to Astolat’s fan page and click “Edit Source” and see how the infobox looks behind the scenes:

See how everything that was in the original template is still there, there’s just a list of information after the equals sign?

And here’s how it looks formatted:

How do I categorize this page?

Categories are important because they help Fanlore’s back-end coding group pages together so people can find the page you’ve created and so the page is in the right place in the site map. If you can’t figure it out, though, don’t worry, there are people who will find it and take care of it!

If you have an infobox from a template, this is taken care of. 

If you didn’t use an infobox template, you can add a Category to index the page.

Finding a Category can be a little overwhelming. If you have an example page (another page that contains the same type of content as yours), you can scroll to the bottom of that page and see what Category has been assigned to it. You can add that Category to your page by editing the source and adding that category into your page at the bottom with 2 square brackets, like this: [[Category:YourCategory]]

Use “Preview” to make sure you set it up correctly before saving the page.

If you need to find a category and can’t find a good example page, I recommend going to the sitemap, finding what fits your article the best, and clicking into it. Categories are set up in hierarchies, so click through until you find the Category and Subcategory that fits best.

Add it at the very bottom of the page, and it should show up when you preview, at the very bottom of the page.

How do I add those nifty citation references[1]?

Review theFanlore page on citation formatting for details. The basics are:

Add a blank References heading at the bottom of the page.

Add tags and include the source information.

What is the difference between a citation and an external link? Good question! I don’t know for sure, but the way I’ve been using it, if I make a statement about a thing and I want to direct you to the “proof” (article, webpage, etc), I will use a citation. If there is a thing I’m linking to because it is relevant but not as proof of what I’m saying on the wiki, I will add it as an external link.

Fourth: Don’t Worry

You’ll find there are a lot of instances when you might not be sure what the “right” way is to do whatever it is you’re trying to do. Don’t let that stop you! Do a little research, do your best, and be okay with a learning curve.

The thing about wiki editing in general, and this includes Fanlore, is that it’s a community project, and everyone is doing their best. It’s worthwhile to think about trying to make your pages consistent with other pages where you can, because it will help people who are trying to find what you’re providing. So, poke around similar pages first and look for common trends in how they’re organized, and mimic that for your own page.

All that said, there is very little hierarchy in editors and few rules set in stone. It’s a community site put together by volunteers. You may find that you’ve labeled, referenced, cited, categorized, etc, a page incorrectly, or that you added a page that was already there under another name, or you may have put in a canon page when that’s really not what Fanlore is for. No problem! A page can be reverted to a previous version. It can be removed by a “Gardener” (higher-level editor), or edited by someone else who is more familiar with the inner wiki workings, or you can even tweak it yourself when you learn a better ways to code the page. 

There is always a path forward, so get in there and get started!

Happy creating, happy fandom, and welcome!

GO VISIT FANLORE NOW!

[swagammemnon]

Caught in Honey

Chp 1 | Next

Am I feral over these men? Yes. Feral enough to write a fic in the most disgusting PoV? Also yes. Here are the warnings; more to come as I add chapters. Basically, the premise is you and John are together, you used to be with Simon, but you don't know Simon is one of John's subordinates. Filth and fun ensue.

The keys jangle deafeningly in your lock, hurting the ears that had been subject to the endless pitiful howls of a golden retriever who’d been spayed today.  That on top of the grimy sensation on your hands from your last three appointments of the day being crusty, old, white dogs with crocodile tear stains.  Despite your exhaustion as you tumble through your doorway, you notice your elderly cat is not in his typical post on the keys table by the front door.  Notice that something in your renovated penthouse apartment is… off.

Slipping off your shoes, you quietly pull out the flashlight taser your boyfriend had gifted you a mere month after you started dating.  When you protested, you live in the suburbs for goodness’ sake, he’d replied in that deliciously gravely accent of his, It’s this or I assign a military escort when I’m away, love.  So, you’d taken it, rolling your eyes because you knew you’d never be able to win against him on this particular subject.  This was the first time you’ve ever reached for it.

Tiptoeing down the entry hall to your open floor plan kitchen and living space, you frown as you spot steaming pots on your stove, your cat happily sat at his filled food dish, munching away.  Unbothered furball.

You nearly scream as huge arms ensnare your waist, bag falling to the floor as you’re lifted from the ground.

But then a rough beard, familiar and ticklish, scratches along the shell of your ear.  Your stomach flipping over itself.

“Got you,” comes the familiar growl.

“John!” you nearly squeal, wiggling until he sets you on your feet so you can turn.  The moment you do, his lips are on yours, consuming your entire reality.  Molten heat pouring from this bear of a man into mouth, invading your veins, melting you into his arms.  Your heart immediately skips a beat, galloping faster as you feel the heady crush of his arms around you.  Snaking your arms around his neck, you let yourself dissolve, a welcome end to a long, grating day.  Between breaths, on swollen lips, you whisper, “You didn’t tell me you were back.  I would’ve made you something–”

“None o’ that, love.  ‘S my job to take care o’ ya,” he grumbles, chasing your lips for more.  More heat, more fire.

Still, the guilt twists in your tummy.  Yes, you’ve just finished your fourth of four ten hour shifts this week, but John… he’s in far more danger than you could ever imagine, risking his life on adrenal squeezing, back breaking missions.  Only to come home and cook you dinner… feed you cat .

“But–” you murmur, setting the flashlight on your counter so you can fist the soft cotton of his dark t-shirt.  He’s freshly showered too, smelling of moss, tonka and sandalwood.  The scent slides shackles around your wrists, drawing your arms tightly against his shoulders.

“Hush,” John commands, greedy bear paws sliding beneath your scrub bottoms, slipping them down the round curve of your ass.  “Just lemme feel ya.”  

You shiver as those huge palms close over the globes of your asscheeks, forcing you to your tiptoes.  Grinding your pelvis into his.  Where a delicious heat is already building.  In the end, there is no winning against John in a contest of chivalry.  Dogmatic devotion that had nearly frightened you away in the beginning. He’d shocked you early with that, staunchly refusing to let you open a single door, showering you with affection both verbal and physical, keeping you tucked beneath his shoulder on the inside of the sidewalk.  Small things.  Innocuous things.  Things you’ve never even thought of before as you made your own way in life.  Not until John.  Not until your ex…

But you shut that thought out immediately.  You weren’t together for a reason.  And John, sneaky little shit, had made himself a fixture of your life.  In the betweens of his deployments.  Even during–with bouquets of flowers delivered to your door or your hospital.  Your favorite meals delivered much the same.  Little texts when he could, pictures and videos that always had your hand sliding between your legs.

“Fuck, swee’art,” he groans against your mouth, walking you against the edge of your counter.  “Missed you so much.”  

He shoves your scrub bottoms down your legs, nipping at the corner of your mouth as he leans his weight into you.  Arching your spine with a large palm splayed along your lower back.  John is an extremely tactile man–and you discovered you were too.  John always shoved hands beneath clothing, not to initiate anything (sometimes) but just to soak in the skin to skin warmth.  You voice absolutely no complaints as his palms eat up your skin, coursing from the joint of your thighs and ass, up under your scrub top to scratch along your ribs, thumbs bullying beneath the wiring of your bra to graze the underside of your breasts.

You release a heavy breath, fingernails digging into his shoulders, bones already trembling as your body begins to remember the outline of him.  The weight of his muscles against you.  His intoxicating scent writhing in your nose.  The scrape of his calloused fingers along your skin.

“Missed you,” you mumble into his hairline as he mouths along your chin, his teeth drawn to your throat like a magnet.  Eagerly replacing the marks he’d left on you before this deployment.  Staining you anew as his own masterpiece.  His groan is rapacious, blasted heat scorching your tender skin.  “Let me clean up, first, baby.  I’m–”

“Don’t care.”  Fuck, his thick as molasses accent might as well be glomming onto your body, trapping in honey as the achiness in your muscles bubbles to the surface.  Your silly brain, now hardwired– trained , smarmy bastard–into relaxing, turning off.  His teeth are sharp and thrilling as razor blades against your throat, eagerly waiting for you to cut yourself on them.  “It’s your Friday, yeah?”

God, how you’ve missed his voice, how his hands cup your waist, your generous hips and drag you where he pleases.  Those torturous hands bully under your scrub top, clearing a path for hungry palms and bruising fingers.  You’ve missed those handprints too, painted along your body, a reminder of his strength, his passion, his protection.  Mindlessly, you nod, your gut knotting as he hoists your ass onto the cool counter without even a shred of effort.  If you really tried, if you truly wanted to, you’d never be able to escape him.  His job is his body, and he does it so fucking well.

“My sweet girl’s tired, then.  Working that pretty brain all week.  You deserve a li’l break, don’t you?” he cajoles, luring a wounded, beaten animal into his trap with the sweetest honey.  You go all too willingly.  Even as your cheeks heat in embarrassment, the admittance to your exhaustion, the weakness.   But there’s a reason John is the captain of his unit—perspicacious eyes stripping anyone and everyone to the bone within minutes of meeting.  You’d been no different.  And his idolatrous words cut straight through any walls your ex had forced you to raise, like the months you’d spent building them, fortifying them, were naught but air between you.

Your blurred thoughts shake away as John’s thick fingers suddenly close around your chin, fingertips pressing into your cheeks.  Puckering your pretty lips.  His enthralling jewel blue eyes are lidded and smug, a dangerously sharp edge glinting beneath.

“ Don’t you.”

John has made it his mission to carve self-compassion into your muscle and sinew.  Just as you had made it yours to him.  But it was hard .  After years of driving and driving and driving yourself into the ground.  Just one more semester, just one more class, just one more test, just one more year and you did it .  But at what cost to yourself?  Years of putting yourself aside in pursuit of your dream, it left crippled habits and cruel voices in your head.  Your ex—he’d started to heal the long-callused burns, help you lay your own foundation beneath the heavy weight of your life’s work.

But then it ended…

“Get ou’a your head,” John all but growls, tearing your focus violently back to him.  “You know the deal, love.  When I’m here, I get your attention, mm?”  Releasing your trembling breath, you nod, chin dipping into his warm palm.  Broken down all too easy after your exhausting week, clearing the path for your usually managed anxiety.  John knew that.  He knows everything .  “Now answer my question.”

You nod, a jittery hollowness bleeding through your limbs, leaving achy exhaustion in its wake.

John dips his mouth against yours, plush lips just touching as he teases you with a kiss.  “Words.”

“I do,” you plead, eyes stinging as he gazes sternly (fondly) down at you.

“Mmm, good girl.”

Those two words kick a moan from your chest, has your fingers clenching on the lip of the counter as John releases your chin.  Only to brutally rip your scrub top off, revealing your ugly, old-reliable bra.  You flush, staring down at the ratty thing.

“I would’ve worn something else if–”

“Swee’art,” John soothes, swiping greedy hands up your ribs, eclipsing your breasts in his eager grip.  You hum, both an acknowledgement and a barrier to the whimper threatening to spill over your lips.  Your breasts have been terribly sore this week.  And John begins kneading them with a force that has your knees shaking around his waist.  “Be quiet.  Let me enjoy my girl.”

Your jaw goes slack, already shivering as John hikes your knees over his shoulder, scrub pants tossed away, using one hand to flatten you against the counter before the other tugs the gusset of your panties away.  You jump as his breath fans your wet pussy, true slick only beginning to drip from your entrance.  You can’t help but cry out as his chapped lips seal against your clit, and you need to sink your fingers into his thick hair, grown out and shaggy after months away but your hands are dirty.  Never truly feeling clean from a day in your hospital until you shower. 

But when John wants something, there's no waiting, no denying. And fuck, doesn’t it make your eyes roll?  The long drag of his tongue up your slit sure does, hands curling around the counter’s edge as an anchor.

“Fuck, John,” you moan, lids closing as he settles his broad shoulder between your thighs.

“Looks like my pussy missed me too, eh?” He snarls smugly against you, laying a sloppy, wet kiss against your clit.  “Poor thing, already weepin’ f’me.” 

You gasp as he slides one finger into you, burying to the first knuckle. Not enough.   Not nearly enough after all you’ve had has been your fingers and the little bullet vibrator you managed to save when John pillaged your toy stash.  You don’t need toys when you have me.   Honestly?  You’d laughed in his face, but had been curious if he could live up to the statement.  Well, toys don’t live up to the thorough fuckings John carves into your body.

You whimper, eyes caught on the ravenous glint in John’s gaze as he watches his finger sink deeper. Groaning as you clamp down on the invasion. “Relax f’me, darlin’.”

Your soft, dripping walls tighten despite his command as his finger bottoms out. Curling into the spot you can never quite tease as well as him. Into the spot that has your thighs quivering, your elbows giving out fully and your back hits cool countertop.  One finger, one damned finger he rubs in maddening circles over that gummy, delicious spot inside you.  One finger is all it takes to have you shuddering with the bleeding of your tension.  Giving in.

You sigh, a knot in your spine uncoiling as you fully set the weight of your legs on his shoulders.  It is bizarre, what little things your brain filters out, like tension, until you feel it blissfully drain away.

“There she is,” John coos against your scorching heat, wetly sucking on your swollen bud like it’s his own personal sweet.  You moan through your nose, hips shifting as he begins to pump that single digit in and out.  You can feel the drag of every single callus on that finger. Too skilled and dexterous for his own good.  The slick trickling out of you soaks your panties, dampens your thighs. “Just lay back, swee'art. Lemme take care o’ ya.”

And so he does. In a sloppy, salacious mess. He stretches you on a second finger too soon, hips bucking into his mouth as he swirls his tongue around your clit before sucking the throbbing pearl into his mouth. The sting of stretching on him too soon merely sharpens the pleasure pooling behind your navel.  You scream when he nibbles down, nose buried in the soft flesh of your mons.  His other hand digs into the fat of your thigh, bruising and stalwart, ceasing any retreat.  You can feel his beard scraping at the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, the friction burning as it shoots straight into your core.  His puffs of breath in between rude slurping and squelching fan like fire over your skin, draggin you further from coherent thought.

Your abdominals flex, his fingers petting your walls in a ploy to soothe the throbbing of your pretty little pussy.  But he merely makes you gasp, flinching as a sharp pulse of pleasure rips through you.

“John,” you moan quietly, breasts aching inside your bra, demanding he just rip the confining thing from your body.

 Sliding in a third finger, the silver-tongued bastard presses his other palm flat over your mons and lower belly, heavy and insistent as though he can make the fingers inside you touch his palm outside.  It makes you groan, arching off the counter though his stony hand keeps you pinned.  You feel so stuffed full, you can almost swear his fingers toy with the gummy tip of your cervix.  Your pretty lips part around the choked out moan John rips from you with a sudden, harsh thrust straight into your cute little womb.

Every time.  Every time your body forgets what it feels like to be fucked by this man.  Every time John carves himself a niche anew deep inside your body.  Fuck, this is only his fingers?

John laves your sopping cunt with his tongue, filthy wet sounds echoing in your ears as he sucks your clit back into his mouth.  Sucking with obscene fervor.  The scrape of teeth has you bucking into his mouth again, and he lets out a rock deep groan, vibrating straight into your core.

“Tha’s it, swee’art,” he purrs against the pulsing skin between your legs, the praise vining through your limbs, scraping delicious quivers against your bones.  “Get ya nice and loose before I split you on my cock.”

“ John ,” you whine, fingernails bending as you press them into the stone countertop.  Heat caresses your cheeks, those depthless eyes snapping up to meet yours.

“Tha’ what you want, sweet girl?” He seats his fingers deep, massaging gyres into your heat.  His smirk is almost mean, mocking sympathy at you as your thighs tremor around his head.  He seats his lips against your clit—a threat as he starts finger fucking you without mercy.  Fast, squelching, your arousal coating the inside of your thighs, dripping down the sensitive skin between your arse cheeks.  

“Gonna give daddy an orgasm?” he croons before dragging the broad length of his tongue over your clit.  Your thighs twitch inward, your stomach pulling tighter and tighter.  John doesn’t stop watching you, your face for the slightest twitch for him to exploit.  You grit your teeth, tears gathering on your lashes as a half-scream leaks past your lips—the pressure, the heat, the intensity of John on you after so long almost fucking painful.  Brows knit together, all that pours from your mouth are beseeching moans, whines as his tongue moves from stroking to circling.  Depressing the bundle of nerves as he swipes it around your slick core.

“Oh fuck,” you whimper, finally breaking as you viciously curl a hand in the collar of his shirt.  Wanting to pull him closer, push him away but you’re stuck.  Frozen and at his mercy.  “Fuck, please.”

John listens, mouth sealing against your clit as his fingers brutally stretch you, pounding into you as your  arousal pools embarrassingly in his palm, drips to the floor.  But his eyes merely darken, lids falling to half mast as he moans against you, feeling how your thighs close, tense and shaking.  Your mouth falls open in a silent scream, face pinched as that coil snakes tighter and tighter.  Painful and pressurized and you’re afraid you’ll crack apart once it releases.  Fuck, you’re already twitching, shuddering as the thunder gathers.  Claps with a deafening bang, lightning striking your blood as one last thrust you feel through your entire body ignites the storm.

Your voice chokes in your throat, body curling off the counter, nails digging bloody strips into John’s shoulder as you break apart.  The lightning grips you, John only making it worse as he works you through it, enraptured by the devastated visage you paint above him.  He could die a happy man right here, your voice finally breaking free with a wretched scream, tears tracking down your cheeks as shocks ripple your body.

You can feel your release gush against John’s beard, filthy and wet, the knowledge of how pathetic you became in mere minutes adding a sweet burn to the pleasure.  Clawing air into your lungs, you whine—sob—his name, your body belonging entirely to another being as it shudders, shatters with your stupefying release.  Your abdominals clench, muscles contracted and shaking to the point of ache , stealing more and more of your air.

Finally, finally , your orgasm releases you and you collapse back onto the counter, heaving miserable little whines on every breath.  John keeps his fingers stuffed inside you, his tongue turned supplicant and languid as he licks the last of your pleasure from you.  Licks until you're keening, pawing at his cheek, asking the man to take pity on you.  He does, eventually.  Rising from his knees and gently lowering your useless legs away from his shoulders.  

John presses down over you, letting you feel his sturdy weight as his mouth captures yours in a sloppy, heated, open-mouthed kiss.  You’re too weak to do much more than breath in his scent as he steals two, three, ten more kisses from you.  As though he is starved of your touch, needing to take in as much as he can as though you’ll disappear.

When he pulls back, you’re sluggish, eyes barely open as you pant like a dog in heat.  The man might as well have sucked the last of your energy out.  He sees this, and your belly warms in a calm, safe sort of way as he smiles down at you.  Entirely besotted, entranced, enchanted with the sleepy, fucked out look on your face.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, mm?”

Drop a comment or follow the Ao3 link and tell me what you think! I'm really interested in getting feedback on my first 2nd person PoV piece ever.

[thelaughtercafe]

BEN Drowned, Jeff the Killer, Homicidal Liu, and Doctor Locklear finding out their victim has a tickle kink

Tea Type: Rose Boba

Potential Triggers: Dubious consent (for tickling only) in BEN’s, and Jeff’s- Liu and Locklear are established relationships so it’s different.

Suggestive speaking of tickling especially in BEN's and Liu's and similar suggestiveness surrounding fear/enjoying being scared in BEN's.

For Liu's there's threatening and violence, though what's directed at Reader is not from Liu or Sully.

There is a graphically worded description of violence involving eyes though, towards the perpetrator though it's not dwelled on too long and the intensity of the injury isn't described, just implied.

Pairing: BEN/F! Reader, Jeff/F! Reader, Liu/Sully/F! Reader, Locklear/F! Reader

Length: 6.8k+

Summary: The Creeps find out something interesting about their intended victim and decide maybe keeping them around isn't such a bad idea.

A/N: So looking back this is much longer than I realized. Especially BEN and Liu's! They're my faves, tied for number one so I suppose I went overboard haha. HABIT from EverymanHYBRID is right up there though in second place. I already continued the self-indulgent BEN lead in, while including HABIT and Liu in the mix so we'll see if I post it. If you guys have any interest, let me know and I'll post it if enough people want to see it!

Also, please let me know if you want any additional triggers added; I think I got them all, but just in case!

BEN Drowned:

BEN was nothing if not meticulous when learning all he could about his victims. While typically he liked to do all his research at the start, he felt like a change of pace with you, doing it in the moment could be more fun and perhaps frighten you even more as he could go by your most recent searches and documents. That never failed to add an extra edge of panic.

It was inevitable he would find your dirty little secret; especially in a document with no password and nothing to guard it save the word twordish. 

“Foolish girl…” 

He took in the information easily, and couldn’t help the sadistic smirk that lit up his face, fingers twitching with sparks. 

“Not as innocent as you seem after all, huh?”

That good girl image you held was what initially drew him to you as prey but clearly…there was a side to yourself you hid from him. From everyone, in fact.  

A part of you liked being scared, and therefore what he was doing to you. Memories hit him then. The blush that would frequently appear on your cheeks, eyes darting to the side, half sighs and even the occasional clenched thighs all made sense now when put together. 

You’d recently decided to ditch your technology in an attempt to get rid of him, hence why he was looking for something to draw you back. Appearing in reality and making you frightened of things that aroused you, only to then turn that fear itself into arousal again made him ravenous. 

It’d been so long since he’d had a victim perfectly suited to his love of fucking with their minds. He couldn’t wait to have you screaming underneath him, the fear that would fill your eyes, the tears…

He bit back a moan and sighed in much the way you had. 

Oh, he couldn’t wait. 

—–

That boy was definitely stealing glances at you.  You were sure of it now. 

You were at the library again, comfortable in your reading corner in a secluded room when a boy walked in. He wore jean shorts, black converse, a dark green hoodie and a matching beanie on a cursory glance. 

You assumed he’d entered to look for a book in here and that he’d leave soon and returned your eyes to the book in your hands. 

You flinched a little in surprise as he suddenly spoke, making you look up again. 

“Mind if I sit here?”

His voice sounded older than you expected, in his 20’s for sure despite his shorter stature, but there was still a quality to his voice that called you back to childhood, an underlying playfulness. 

It…made you uneasy rather than comforted for some reason though and you felt dread in you that wasn’t there before. Hmph. You’d just be a little more vigilant.

Still, you smiled and nodded, as you would for anyone else and he smiled back, before taking a seat and starting to scroll through his phone. 

Your smile instantly dropped and you trembled a moment as memories assaulted you of that thing that’d been messing with you from every screen available. Another reason you picked this room. It was far away from the computer room and the only screen in the adjacent room was facing away, towards the library clerk. 

Using your phone for contact was unavoidable, but you’d had it on airplane mode for ages now, only taking it off to check email and communication once a week before putting it right back on. Given you were putting yourself through college which was currently in the off season of Summer while you worked to pay tuition meant you only had one person to keep in touch with, your Mom. 

The rest of the time when you weren’t working was spent here, in safety and solitude. Luckily, the boy’s screen was facing away, but you moved an extra seat away just for comfort’s sake before letting out a shaky breath and returning to your book. 

It took a few minutes but eventually you fully relaxed again. Until the back of your neck prickled anyway. You risked a discreet glance up, and caught the boys’ rushing back to his screen. Once was a mistake. Twice, perhaps a coincidence. Thrice, maybe he was checking you out? But four times? Now you were full on anxious. The dread since he’d initially spoken to you was now a solid, immovable pit in your stomach. 

You were debating how best to leave discreetly while pretending to read when he cleared his throat, much closer than you would like. You stood instinctively but he continued walking over until he was in front of you and smiled amicably. He seemed nice enough but why was your body screaming at you to run? Your gut typically wasn’t off…but it had told you to download that damned file in the first place so maybe you were just wrong. 

You smiled back, just as innocently, tilting your head to the side. 

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Just fine. I know this might be somewhat forward, but any chance you want to get some hot chocolate with me?”

That made you giggle. 

“Hot chocolate huh? How old are you again?”

You found the tease coming easy to you and relaxed. So it really was just interest. Hm. In all honesty, he was your type.  He was quite a bit taller than you despite being around average height, and his blue eyes were quite hypnotizing. His blond locks were messy but in that cute, wind tousled way and he had this roguish charm that was mischievous. You’d always been drawn to things she shouldn’t be. He was no different. 

He pulled an offended face at your question. 

“Who doesn’t like hot chocolate? Are you coming with me to the cafe or not smartass?”

He quipped, turning on his heel and walking towards the door. 

You hesitated a beat and then you let yourself smile, following after. 

“Yeah yeah, I’m comin’.”

—–

The walk to the cafe was comfortable and you found your earlier fears assuaged. 

He made conversation easily; you’d asked what he was doing on his phone and he’d said he was using an emulator to play Zelda. You had fond memories of the series and found he did as well, leading to a lighthearted debate over if Twilight Princess or Majoras Mask was better. 

The cafe was just as peaceful, with you both getting hot chocolate. It was summer, but you found you didn’t mind as he pushed you aside with his shoulder to pay for both of you.  It didn’t take much to make you swoon, and he was well on his way at this rate. Respect was hard to find these days and he was being such a sweetheart. He was funny too and you seemed to have common interests. What was there not to like? 

He motioned to the book beside you as you sipped your drink. 

“So you like Becca Fitzpatrick? Can’t say I’ve heard of her. The cover is interesting though.”

“Yeah! I’m a lover of supernatural romances. Even guilty pleasure stuff like this…probably not the most healthy relationship. It’s about a fallen angel and a Human who fall in love, but Patch at the start; he uses his powers to mess with her pretty often.”

He casually sipped his drink before tilting his head. 

“What kind of powers?”

“So far? Talking directly in her head, taunting her about intimate knowledge he shouldn’t have about her and her life, and messing with her memories. Making her think she’s crazy. He kind of almost killed her once already, but changed his mind last minute. It’s…toxic logically but as guilty pleasure fuel it’s hot. I guess. I dunno. I try not to think about it too much." 

You laughed sheepishly, embarrassed about rambling and about such a weird ass topic only to hear him laugh. 

"We all have our kinks right? I’d love to see your full collection back at your place. Think we could swing by if it’s close?”

You nodded at that, moving to throw out your now empty cups as you headed out with him following after. 

“Yeah sure. It’s mostly supernatural romance though but I do have some video game art books you might like that I can lend you, long as you promise to take good care of them. I’ve got a really big game collection too." 

Oops that slipped out. You didn’t want to tell him about your weird issues with tech. Not when things were going so well. Too late now though. His eyes had lit up as he asked excitedly. 

"Oh cool, really? What’s your favorite?”

“The World Ends With You. It’s kind of indie but-”

“The one with Neku right? I love that game too! Most people don’t know about it!" 

Your eyes lit up despite yourself. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. As long as you were just talking about them and not playing them it should be fine.��

The walk from the cafe to your house was short so the distraction was nice. You were half tuned in to the conversation half dreading his reaction when you headed inside. 

“Alright here we are.”

You led the way inside, unlocking the door and headed to your room with him in tow. He closed the door behind him and looked around in awe. 

"Woah. You’re definitely a gamer.”

Given you had a ps4, a Nintendo switch and a ps3 all underneath your TV at once you saw why he thought that. But then his brow furrowed and you braced yourself.  

“Why is everything unplugged though? Even the tv looks dead." 

A glance over at your laptop on the desk, very intentionally unplugged from the charger. 

"Laptop too.”

Your smile was tight and anxious and you felt shaky. 

“I-um-”

He smiled amicably as he turned back to face you.   

“Don’t tell me you’re doing some tech detox! Those things don’t actually help you know; you’ll just get more addicted when you return to it later.”

He joked, and you felt like you could breathe again, laughing to hide your anxiety.  

“Y-Yeah how’d you know?”

Just as you were about to confirm his claim a loud, and most importantly familiar beep rang out and you panicked, breathing already getting harder as you searched frantically for the source. 

“That’s impossible.”

“What’s impossible? Hey, are you ok? You’re awfully pale and jumpy all of a sudden.”

He touched your arm lightly and your gaze moved to him. That’s right!

“I-um-God. I have a confession to make but first can you please turn off your phone?”

You knew it sounded crazy, even to you, but you couldn’t risk it. You’d happily have gone along with the tech detox excuse but…but you couldn’t risk giving it an in again. Better to be safe and tell an outsider in a tech free environment. 

“My phone? Uh…why though?”

“I promise I’ll explain but we’re not safe until-ugh I sound like a lunatic." 

You hid your face in your hands for a moment, cheeks burning in humiliation and panic. 

"You can leave if this is too weird. I know I’m not making much sense but I just-there’s a very important reason I can’t be near tech.”

A hesitant peek up and the boy was taking you in with such sweet worry…and then he sighed in defeat. 

“…Fine. If it’ll really make you feel better and you’ll explain.”

He looked at his phone and then pocketed it after holding down the power button and turning it off. His gaze returned to you, expectantly. 

“There. Now what’s got you so panicked? You love video games, that much is obvious. So why would you unplug everything like this?”

You still trembled. The fear lingered, along with hope. Finally, someone you could confide in. 

“I’m-again this is gonna sound crazy but…”

A broken laugh escaped you.  

“I have nothing else to lose, I guess. I’ve got some kind of awful…thing watching me. 

His face screwed up at the very thought like he was offended. 

"A thing? What, like some kinda hacker?”

You hummed, moving to sit down on your bed and fiddled with your fingers. 

“Yeah. Kind of. But it’s more than that. See, if it was on one computer and my phone, that’d make sense. It’s what I thought at first. The calling me by name, the popups to scare me and chat with me where even more personal details were revealed…all that could be a hacker.”

You clenched and unclenched your hands as you swallowed nervously. 

“But that wasn’t where it ended. It followed me. Any screen in my line of sight it’d taunt me. Send me pictures of myself. Display messages making fun of me for trying to escape. Even then. I thought…maybe just a really good hacker right?”

You risked a glance at him, and he looked down at you nodding encouragingly. 

“Yeah. I could see it being some black hat who just…saw you as an easy target and wanted to really fuck with you.  But something tells me there’s more.”

You smirked bitterly. 

“…it knew things it shouldn’t. Like; things I’d never said aloud or confessed online; so no mic work or camera or internet involved.”

“That’s impossible. Maybe you did and just don’t remember?’

You shook your head. 

"I mean…Gods I swear I head it in my head once.”

“Like Patch?”

“Yeah actually exactly like-”

“Like this maybe?”

You couldn’t help it. You yelped, and jerked looking around in fear, tears instinctively filling your eyes. You’d know that glitched, demonic in its deepness tone anywhere. It haunted your nightmares. 

He looked at you worriedly, grounding you again with a hand on your shoulder. 

"Hey, come back to me! You good?”

He frowned seriously as your eyes refocused on him  and you sniffled comforted by the kindness in his blue eyes. 

“It just did it. It-it-I just- I don’t know why this demon is doing this to me.”

That was what did it. You looking up at him, teary eyed and desperate, thinking he was your knight in shining armor when really he was the monster in your closet all along. 

He caressed your face softly, cupping your cheek so he could see every micro-expression and then he grinned. 

“Because it’s fun. Why else?”

His tone was so sweetly gentle that it took you a moment for the actual words meaning to click and when they did you shivered. 

“Tha-That’s not funny. I’m not playing around.”

He pulled back to swagger around the room, the same and yet completely different all at once, as he hummed. 

“Hmm… shame. Feels like a game to me and a fun one at that. Y'know, I never did tell you my name, and luckily your cute romantic naivete ensured you went with it when I told you they didn’t define us. Why don’t you ask me again now that I’m ready to answer you?”

You shook your head, eyes flicking to the door as you tried to hold yourself together. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. 

“No.”

You stood and despite expecting to be stopped you made it to the door. Exhilaration and adrenaline fueled you and as you went to open the door-

“Ouch!”

You jerked away as you were violently shocked the second your hand made contact with the doorknob. Your mind raced. When had you closed the door?

“You didn’t.”

You flinched and reluctantly turned to face your captor trying to put on a brave face as he smirked and cornered you against the door, hovering over you with his hands on either side of your trembling frame. 

His entire demeanor had shifted on a dime. The sweet kind boy from earlier may as well never have existed.  This person in front of you- no this monster looked all too amused at your fearful denial.  But there was eagerness in his eyes too. More passionate than any he’s shown when engaging in your conversations before. 

“You’re so easy to predict. I charged the doorknob when I closed it; did you like my little mind trick earlier too? Heh " 

He snickered. 

"The only way you’re getting out is if I open the door first. Now then…”

He tilted his head condescendingly, blue eyes seeming to spark with the demand.

“Say it. I know you want to know.”

You weakly shook your head and flinched again as he hissed at you, raising his voice a little and drawing closer to your face. 

“Do it!”

“Fine! W-What are you?”

He pulled back to snicker, calm as if he wasn’t making you a frightened mess. 

“Tsk tsk, what a different question than who but I suppose I’ll answer both since I’m feeling gracious.”

He met your eyes and you whimpered as he grabbed your chin, forcing you to maintain eye contact. 

“My name is BEN. But you already knew that little mouse didn’t you~?”

His voice was a coo and your cheeks heated despite yourself even as you were filled with icy fear at the confirmation. He even used that stupid nickname that always flustered you. No-one else would know that. You ached with the want to look away but he was way too strong. Pushing at his chest did nothing but make him throw his head back in light laughter. 

“Ahahaha! Aww that’s adorable. Don’t make me pin your arms down darling, we were getting along so well earlier. Now! As for your other question. I suppose there is many things you could consider me. A virus, a lost soul, a villain, technically I used to be Human and those fools who know of me online call me legend, a Creepypasta but now, knowing what name you’d give me is what I’ll go by I think. What was it you called me? A demon? I can roll with that." 

Your breath hitched as he leaned down cooing lovingly in your ear. 

"After all you like demons, don’t you cutie? You can be my Nora and I’ll be your Patch. " 

You scoffed and he growled low, demoni- cruel, and glitchy. 

Yet you were so scared, so wound up over months of torment and anxiety that you just broke. Constantly being on edge and paranoid. Now you have a direct source to vent your frustrations.  Of course it’d bubble over.

“Get off me you psychopath!!”

You raised your voice, something exceedingly out of character and pushed him back harshly, right into the corner of your desk, making him wince. A brief flash of surprise filled his face and then he was snarling, and advancing on you.  

Luckily, you’d already used his shock to turn on your heel and go for the doorknob again and this time we’re successful. You crossed the threshold when a deceptively weak looking arm pulled you back as you struggled and tried to elbow him while his other arm held you to him with another arm resting casually against your shoulders by your neck. 

"No!" 

All pretense was lost  and he laughed openly against the side of your neck, relishing your squirming as he easily kept you in check.

“You actually caught me off guard. Guess seeing me in the flesh is a little intense huh? Even made a weak little thing like you go for fight just for an opportunity of flight. I suppose now is as good a time to mention as any.” 

His mouth moved to your ear where he whispered. 

“I know your secret~”

You frowned, wracking your brain for anything else he could use as ammo but came up empty so you called his bluff. 

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

And then his fingers squeezed at your waist and you squealed and jerked in his grip and it clicked what he meant. But before you could voice it, he spoke up. 

“Like this. Who’d have guessed a seemingly innocent girl like you would have a goldmine of kinks and scenarios for me to play with you with just waiting to be exploited.”

You shook a little, but this time the trembling wasn’t from fear alone, it was withheld arousal too, especially as you could swear his teeth, his fairly sharp teeth- grazed your ear and made you jerk, followed by his hiss in your ear. 

“Guess you really are a tickle slut. You like fear too which is just perfect for me.”

Your voice was admittedly breathless as you stopped struggling, simply holding his other arm, positioned around your neck. 

“What-What are you going to do with me?”

“I’m going to make you mine of course. I like you, so I’ve decided I want to keep you. I think you’ll find the arrangement to your liking, once you get used to the other inhabitants anyway. I’ll introduce you more intimately. I know you can get anxious in big groups so after your initial intro to everyone it’ll be smaller groups. And in our free time…” 

You quickly descended into giggles as the hand at your waist spidered up and down your whole left side, making you squirm and blush. You were distracted so you squealed as his tongue brushed your ear, making you shudder in lust before a hesitant moan left your lips at the cruel and exhilarating words that left his lips. With no need to maintain a facade, his voice deepened and sounded twisted, glitching as he purred. 

“I’ll take my time breaking you.”

Jeff the Killer:

Jeff would already be faltering. You’d been bullied for many a year by now. Of course, the bullies had already been disposed of, but Jeff was triggered heavily by the weakness he saw in you. He feels an odd sense of ownership. 

When you flinch in your sleep and giggle, Jeff frowns in confusion from where he had been watching you while he grappled with his thoughts. 

You mumble in your sleep, and his eyes move to your hands as you seem to try and push someone away before slapping the air, a grin and evident blush on your face as you squirm. 

"Mike s-stop- quit ihihihit!! Damn it no! Not thehehere!”

Jeff experiences a brief flash that has him stumbling back a step and swallowing hard. 

A much younger him, Liu, shrieking in laughter under his wiggling fingertips. 

Right. Tickling. 

Is there a weakness you don’t have? 

He frowns in discomfort and quickly moves to dig into your sides, covering your mouth with his free hand to muffle your squeal of laughter. 

As you struggle underneath him, Jeff glares as you eye him in fearful shock between gasps of forced mirth. 

“Gods, you’re so pathetic. Yet another weakness I’ll have to train you to cope with.”

Right. Training. You could serve as a good partner if he worked you hard enough. 

His voice is gruff, and he only pulls his hand away when you’re out of breath not moving from where he’s straddling your waist. 

“Who…f-fhuhuhuck me- who the Hehehell are you?”

Jeff snickers immaturely at your word choice before he smirks. 

“The man who saved you from those pricks sweetheart. Means you owe me and I’ll be takin’ you under my wing. You either come willingly or…”

He twirls his knife with practiced skills and watches you take in his offer, smirking with intent. 

“I’ll take ya by force and tickle you more in front of all my friends, soon as we’re home.”

Homicidal Liu:

You’d always liked Liu. He was sweet, attentive, attractive; truly the whole package.  You’d been getting closer to Liu for a few months now and despite Liu warning you that he had an alternate personality you hadn’t met you’d accepted him with open arms. At least now you knew why he’d been procrastinating on answering your request to date. 

He’d looked so shocked as you threw your arms around him.  

“You really don’t mind? Sully isn’t- he’s the opposite of how I normally am. He’s not exactly…palatable to most. He can be quite intense.”

You raised your chin confidently at that and smirked slightly. 

“Well I’ve dealt with you when you’re being particularly needy- I think I’ll be okay. Besides; he’s a part of you.  I’m sure I’ll come to love him too!”

Your confident declaration suddenly fell apart as you scrambled for the right words, going red. 

“Ah-well I mean- if he would be okay with that obviously!! I’d never-”

Liu cut you off with a laugh and tugged you into his chest, lovingly nuzzling the top of your head as you mumbled defeatedly into his chest. 

“I’m not very good at this huh? Sorry.”

Liu shuddered suddenly, a full body shake that made you pull back to look at him in worry. He firmly turned his face away from you, avoiding your concerned gaze before he was ready and clearing his throat as the tremors faded. He sighed in relief and smiled gently at you.  

“Sorry about that love. Didn’t mean to make you worried. It seems Sully is a little too eager. I don’t want you meeting until we’ve been dating a while first. I…well.”

He looked nervous before his blue eyes bore into yours. 

“Admittedly I want you all to myself. You fell for me first, not him. Can’t have him stealing my girl, even if he is a part of me.”

You couldn’t hold back your quickly growing smile if you tried. 

“So that’s a yes? Thank you thank you thank you!”

You laughed, giddy as you hugged him so tight your new boyfriend nearly spun. 

—–

It happened a month in, rather unexpectedly. 

Liu had come to pick you up from work at the movie theater as per your usual schedule. Your coworkers already were familiar with him from your past months getting to know each other and he waved amicably to anyone he saw, chatting a few moments as he waited for you to emerge from where you’d gone to put out the garbage for the night. When you didn’t return after several minutes, his brow furrowed in worry. 

He told your coworkers he was going to check in on you and they waved him off, distracted by their own closing duties. It was late, dark out and already, Liu was feeling anxious. He’d never liked the dark. Not after that night. He rounded the corner where the dumpster and hopefully you awaited and locked on a situation he never thought he’d see again. 

Someone he loved, with a knife to her throat. 

No-one would be taken from him again. 

You meanwhile, were petrified. Tears swam in your eyes that you refused to let fall as the man currently holding you captive against him hissed into your ear. 

“Here’s the plan sweetheart, you’re gonna lead the way inside with me and we’re gonna go right over to the cash registers. Take out every bit inside and bring it all out back here. All your little coworkers, the ones that are left anyway? They’ll be too scared ‘a me cutting this pretty neck of yours to do anything stupid.”

A deep voice you’d never heard before emerged, quickly followed by the love of your life. Liu had come for you! 

“That’s my pretty neck actually, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll let her go before I really get angry.”

Wait…no.

Green eyes, similar but distinctly different to Liu’s blue glared into the man. 

A knife being tossed casually as a children’s toy as he flipped it effortlessly between his fingers when you knew well Liu let you do the cooking because of his phobia and it clicked. 

“S-Sully-”

His eyes cut to you, sharp and biting for an instant before the man behind you laughed. 

“Oh you know each other, do you? Lovebirds. How sweet.”

Your breath caught as the knife pressed in enough to make a line of blood trickle down the column of your throat. Your tears fell too, unable to keep them at bay as you bit your lip to stifle the sobs. Like Hell were you giving him that much. But still. 

“But now ain’t the time to play hero kid. All the lass has to do is cooperate and she’ll be just fine. Once I get my just rewards I’m out of here and you can both be reunited at last.”

Sully appraised the situation, eyes still locked on you a moment more before that piercing gaze moved to your captor. He tilted his head with a strange smile on his lips before he hummed. 

“Who’s playing hero? We both want something. I’ll help you get your money, you give me my girl. Seems a simple enough trade to me. How much were you thinking? 100? 1000?”

Sully threw his knife casually to the side as if it was trash and instead easily instead slipped out his wallet, beginning to flip through bills as both you and the captor were bewildered. 

“Shit!”

Sully cursed as he dropped the stack of bills, rushing to pick them up, looking nervous and while the expression and clumsiness reminded you of Liu a moment you knew better. Liu scolded you for cursing when it slipped out. Huh. Seems you had a lot to learn about Sully. 

He approached once he’d gathered all the bills and though the man tensed a bit his grip was loose. You were tempted to fight but you had a feeling…saw something in Sully’s eyes that told you to wait as he shot you a quick look. 

“Is this enough?”

He held out one hand, filled with 100’s, hunched in submission with his head lowered and when the man couldn’t help himself and bent over your shoulder to look closer, slightly removing the knife a few inches from your neck Sully struck. 

He lunged, his free hand holding the man’s head down forcibly; using your shoulder as leverage to better press his neck down and then instantaneously letting the money scatter as he reached his hand in his pocket a moment only to ruthlessly shove it straight into the man’s eye. Somehow, he was still alive. Screaming but alive and when Sully reared back his hand to finish the job, the man having dropped the knife in his agony and fallen on his ass, you shook off your shock to rush him and nearly topple him over in a bone crushing hug. 

“Oof! What are you-he’ll get away!”

He hissed, trying to tug you off him but you didn’t budge, holding him tighter. 

“L-Liu wouldn’t want this. I don’t either. What you did was enough please Sully, you already took his sight- he’s crippled and not going anywhere and I’m safe. Isn’t that enough?”

“No. For me it’s not. He was going to kill you. Ready, willing and able to rob you of your life…why should I not do the same to him?”

Your reply was simple and you pulled back to look into his eyes. They didn’t hold the same softness Liu tended to, instead expectant and frustrated.

“Because that’s too good for him. Think about it. He was going to make Liu be alone the rest of his life. Murder me in front of him. In front of you.  Leave you a lifetime of Hell. Let him learn to live with a disability in a prison cell.”

He stared you down a moment and just as nervousness bubbled in your gut he pulled you in for a bruising kiss. You heard the crying behind you peak as one of Sully’s hands left you and jerked in his grip to try and see. He didn’t let you even as he broke the kiss. When you frowned disapprovingly at him he smirked, slow and measured. 

“Well now. I think you and I will get along just fine. Don’t look so cross. ”

His smile widened, eyes alight with enough glee to make you shiver. His voice dropped just as it had when he’d first appeared, sounding almost demonic in comparison to Liu’s lilting intonation. 

“He dared to not only take what is mine, but also had the gall to steal a sight for my eyes alone. You, vulnerable, with tears in your eyes. It’s only fair he lost his.”

A thought hits you suddenly and you can’t resist asking it. 

“…You planned this from the second you came out of those shadows didn’t you?”

Sully smiles mysteriously before he sighs. 

“It seems our time is running out. Ah, yes. Liu apologizes in advance for this, by the way.”

And just like that; Sully passed out, all of his weight going on you and nearly sending you tumbling to the ground. Luckily Liu recovered fast and blinked several times as he reoriented, looking around before hugging you tightly. 

From there, the man now passed out from the pain was arrested and everyone vouched for Liu along with you, claiming it must’ve been self defense because he was such a gentle, nonviolent and calm guy. 

Liu was ecstatic once the hectic night was over and you finally made it home, a little after daybreak. 

“I can’t believe it!! Sully loves you!!! I knew he would!”

He peppered kisses all over your face, making you giggle and blush.

“I’m gonna have nightmares for weeks, but I confess I’m so glad I finally got to meet him. He’s so different to you, but he’s also my type. As if one of you wasn’t bad enough for my heart and libido both.”

“What was that?”

You stiffened as you realized the last thing you’d said and swallowed nervously. You hadn’t talked sex things yet but with Sully riling you up earlier it just popped out. 

“Forget I said anything it really doesn’t-”

 Liu made you turn to face him on the bed and you gasped as you saw one of his eyes was green, and the other blue. 

“You really want to go there? You’re positive?”

You nodded shyly at Liu and jumped a little as Sully spoke up after a moment, all casual nonchalance. 

“So does this mean we can finally make you come undone with tickling like you so desperately want us too?" 

You gaped at him before moving to scramble out of the bed in your haste to get away, a nervous grin on already at the edges of your lips. 

"H-How did you-”

Sully barked out a mocking laugh. 

“Oh sweetheart you really are too trusting. I’ll have to teach you to delete your search history once you’re done on our laptop. You panicked and had a blush on your cheeks, slammed our laptop closed when we came home from work one day. Liu said to trust you but I confess I was curious and snuck a peek.”

His grin widened and his voice dropped to a husky purr as he stood, cornering you against the wall before cooing into your ear.

“Imagine our surprise when we saw what a naughty little slut you were being~” 

“S-Sullly, Liu I-”

At your anxiety, Liu was already smiling and cradling your face, pecking your lips and you sighed, somewhat soothed. 

“Don’t be scared baby. We love you, both of us.”

Sully agreed, voice more mature than you’d expect. 

“Every part of you; including the cute kinky side.”

“I-It’s not cute…” 

You grumbled a little, bright red and the sound of their laughter mixing into one was so beautiful you just had to raise your head to savor it. His expression was even better, and with the green and blue eye he sported, the pure joy on his face, you only blushed darker. 

“Sorry love. Anyone who says they’re not cute, is adorable. Them’s the breaks.”

Liu cooed affectionately, hugging you and nuzzling the top of your head. 

Sully chimed in after a few moment’s peace.

“So; what’s the deal Liu? Take turns tickling in 5 minutes increments to see who can make her either cry uncle or moan first?” 

The smirk he shot your way was wolfish but the way your thighs clenched had Liu smirking too, albeit in a kinder way. He was older than you after all and given he was your first everything, along with Sully, he wanted to treasure every second. 

“Deal. If I win I get a whole day with her alone.”

“Ditto for me. Better pray cause your weak ass technique-”

But Liu didn’t need his mouth to tickle and you soon found yourself laughing  as he dug right into your hipbones without a trace of the mercy that was so characteristic of him.

You heard Sully scoff before reluctantly giving Liu total control but you didn’t really care who won. 

All you knew was that you were incredibly lucky, had two stunning men to keep you safe when you were in danger, and one thing for absolutely certain. 

There would be many more laughs in your future.

Dr. Locklear:

You pace nervously, awaiting Locklear and chewing anxiously on your nails. 

He was late. Ever since that hang up saying “a situation had arisen” you’d been anxious. You knew you shouldn’t care. You should be glad, especially since you weren’t 100% sure if the victim he chose was really guilty without a doubt but-

You found you trusted him more. 

Gods, what had he turned you into? Tears burned your eyes and you sniffled at the thought of losing him, rubbing at your eyes angrily. 

Your door opened with a 'BANG!’ and the man of the hour waltzed in, flowers in hand which quickly dropped along with his smile as he saw your state. 

“I’m fi-”

Yet he was already pulling down your hands from your face and gently wiping the remaining wetness himself, crystal blue eyes taking you in with worry. 

“Who made you cry? It’s been mere hours since we last spoke who could have-”

“No-one that matters. I’m fine.”

You were dismissive as you could manage but he wasn’t having it, seeing through your half truths and bluffs as always and cutting to the heart of the matter. 

“So me, then. Explain.”

His eyes and expression were both serious as he guided you to the couch. 

You frowned and turned your face away, going silent. 

His tone turned playful in response and out of the corner of your eye you saw his own hold a glimmer of playfulness, returning to his old self now that he knew you were unharmed. 

“Ah, the silent treatment, hm? How am I ever to cope with such a thing?”

His voice was teasing and you fought a blush back with difficulty as you 'hmph’d’.

He made a show of tapping his sculpted chin before his eyes darted over to yours and you quickly looked away fully, not wanting him to know you’d been peeking. 

Of course, that was what he wanted, if his enticing chuckle was anything to go by. 

His arms wrapped around you, pulling you against his chest, between his legs as he nuzzled into your neck. 

“C'mon love of mine~ I can’t make it better if you don’t talk and I’d just hate having to make you.”

He sounded so gleeful. Stupid sadist. So much for fighting your blush. You were sure it was crawling to your ears by now-

“Oh? What have we here? Seems the blood has risen to your ears. How adorable. You must be really embarrassed for that to happen~”

His lips against your ear so incessantly had left you squirming a little in his grip as you fought back a smile, swallowing the urge to giggle. 

“If you’d like me to stop, all you need do is talk my dear.”

You were tense as a spring, barely holding yourself together as he cooed, blew air and teased your neck and ears. 

“Of course…I feel a trade off is in order as well. I made you cry so making you laugh feels like a fair retribution to me. Don’t you think?”

He began squeezing at your sides and exploring your torso and you were gone, trying desperately to curl up and hide your snickers and squeaks as he messed with you. 

“You’re such a jehehehehrk! You k-knew what you were-nohohoho!!”

You whined, throwing your head back against his shoulder in mirth as he spidered his fingers ticklishly up your back. 

“Of course I did sweetling. Intelligence aside for a moment, I’m a doctor. I touch people’s bodies and elicit all manner of reactions. Do you know how many people I’ve had to restrain so I can work properly due to over ticklishness? Too many. Now then, enough distracting. Unless of course…”

His nimble fingers picked up speed and danced their way into your underarms and ribs until you were kicking helplessly and laughing openly.

“You’d also like to see how mean I can really be.”

“Fuck yhohohohou!!”

He tsked despite the smirk on his face and shrugged nonchalantly. 

“What a naughty brat you are. Such vulgarity too. I’ll have to add a punishment to your care plan~ Fine then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you though, sweet. I’ll just have to replace those initial tears of fear with tears of laughter. Tickle tickle tickle~”

[callalillywrites]

Their Sweet Omega

So, this idea came expressly from this imagining and I'll admit I got a bit carried away by the idea. I really hope @thezombieprostitute doesn't mind that I took this idea and ran with it.

Part 2 / Series Masterlist

Relationship: Alpha!Jake Jensen / Beta!Pre-Serum!Steve Rogers / Omega!Reader

Rating: Pure Fluff

Word Count: ~2100

Summary: Jake and Steve have been searching for an Omega to call their own. Their luck hasn't been all that great until an Omega literally lands in their laps one day.

A/N: I have a lot more I want to add to this little universe, but I'll see how it goes I guess with everything else I've got going on at this point. I do hope you enjoy this little bit of fluff as it's my first ever A/B/O I've ever written. It's proofread but all mistakes are my own.

I also do not give permission for my work to be copied or posted on other sites or fed into an AI machine.

*****

Jake Jensen isn’t your typical Alpha, but he’s a good one according to Steve Rogers, his Beta. Jake isn’t built like other Alphas though he does have an understated strength to him that many overlook, but it’s his gentleness and anti-bullying policies that really made it easy for Steve to align himself and fall in love with Jake.

Steve isn’t always the greatest Beta. He can be headstrong and maybe a little bit reckless especially when he’s seeing something going down that shouldn’t.

He also doesn’t have the greatest health. He’s not nearly as sickly as he might’ve been in, say, the 1930s, but he’s still considered not the healthiest by modern standards, either. He’s also rather short compared to other guys his age. Jake stands about a foot taller than Steve on a good day, even more when chronic illness slumps Steve’s shoulders and keeps him in bed.

Because of his poorer health, Steve has a harder time holding down any type of job for long. That doesn’t bug Jake though as he makes more than enough with his cyber security job and his freelancing software programming gigs on the side.

In fact, he encourages Steve to build up his painting and drawing hobbies, buying Steve the best supplies and even building him a website and social media following. Steve does quite well with it, too, since it allows him to work at his own pace while still feeling like he’s contributing to the household as well.

The only thing really missing in their lives is an Omega they can call their own. It’s not like they haven’t been looking, either, but the few Omegas they had been interested in had left them wanting. They’d either been disappointed that Jake wasn’t ‘Alpha’ enough for them or they didn’t really see Steve as anything more than an attachment of Jake. They refused to give up hope though.

Neither really counted on how one lucky Wednesday morning would change everything for them.

Jake decides to treat Steve to a whole day of pampering and quality time together after the past few busier weeks they’d been enduring. Jake had just finished a major project at work while Steve had finished one of his biggest commissions to date. It was a time to celebrate, relax, and enjoy each other’s company.

It’s why they ended up at the cute little café near their place. Jake stands in line to place their orders while Steve claims a small table and chairs near the windows. Steve likes to people watch and draw whatever he sees, always carrying a small sketchbook for such an occasion everywhere he goes.

Both notice the cute Omega at the front of the line. How could they not? The sweet Omega smells like cinnamon rolls and vanilla. It’s a heady concoction, but they also notice that she’s getting plenty of other attention from other Alphas that she’d probably prefer over Jake anyway. She even seems to be chatting with one of said Alphas while she waited for her order to finish prep.

That changes when her order is called.

When she bids the Alpha a good day, the Alpha bumps her and sends her scrambling and careening into the table where Steve sat. Her drink spills all down her best business outfit while she lands into Steve’s lap. Her impact on his unsuspecting self sends them both to the floor though Steve manages to keep himself under her despite the pain shooting up his spine for his efforts.

Omega is horrified. She sees the small drops of her drink that have landed on Steve’s work and on his clothes. Her apologies can’t come out fast enough as she searches out napkins or anything really to help mop up the mess, not caring about her own dripping state.

It takes Steve a moment to get past the pain shooting up his spine, but he’s doing his best to assure her that his work is fine and that he’s fine. He’s far more concerned to know if she’s okay after the spill she’d taken. Her clothes are matting against her body, and he knows that can’t be comfortable.

What he doesn’t expect is her to stop her frantic cleaning to stare down at his sketch. He really doesn’t expect her to recognize it or him as the online artist, but she does. She even confirms it by whispering, “I can’t believe I messed up your latest masterpiece. I’m so, so sorry” and follows it up with his online name. He’s a bit stunned to say the least.

The Alpha who pushed her is laughing it up, pleased that his little trip had done more than what he’d been hoping for after she had the nerve to turn him down.

Jake, who’d seen everything, steps out of line and rushes over to Steve and the Omega who is still doing her best to apologize to Steve and save the sketch he’d been working on. There are literal tears in her eyes and possibly a bit of fear when Jake approaches.

The Omega recognizes Jake belongs with Steve and the first thing that pops out of her mouth is “I’m so sorry, Alpha, I didn’t mean to make your talented Beta fall for me.”

Oh, Jake is now smitten, especially as he sees Omega’s cheeks grow quite pink and sees her quietly berate herself for her foot-in-mouth syndrome around cute Alphas and Betas.

It also unfortunately gets the other Alpha’s attention, who has taken to snarling his displeasure at her apparent interest in Jake and Steve. He even approaches to cause more trouble when she spots him. Her body goes rigid though her expression shifts to one of pure fire. If the Alpha wants some attention, then she’s going to get him some attention.

In less than two minutes, she has the entire café focused on the scene playing out between her and the Alpha bully. It’s enough to draw the attention of the female Alpha owner as well who bans the bully from her café.

Never in Steve’s or Jake’s experience have they ever seen an Omega take on an Alpha like she does with such expert handling. Both are quite sure they’re a little bit in love with her as she continues to make a stand against the Alpha with the café owner and some other patrons backing her up.

When the Alpha leaves with his proverbial tail between his legs, the owner offers to replace her drink and another set of clothes that she keeps on hand for herself to the Omega if she’d like them. She extends the offer of a free drink to Steve and Jake as well, not wanting to lose two innocent customers to that awful Alpha.

Already late for her big meeting, she declines the clothes but does take up the offer of a new drink. While she waits, she nervously checks in with Jake and Steve to make sure they’re okay and offers to repay them for any damage she might’ve caused thanks to the bullying Alpha.

Both of them assure her it’s fine. They’re just happy that she’s not hurt though they are a bit sad that their interaction is coming to an end.

Before she gets too far though, Jake reaches out to her though he stops just shy of actually touching her. He hasn’t forgotten the brief flash of fear in her eyes upon his earlier approach and can’t stand the thought of possibly frightening her more. When she does turn in his direction, he somehow miraculously doesn’t fumble his words as he asks her to maybe join him and Steve for dinner later that day. He doesn’t need to check with Steve to know he’s also interested in the Omega as well.

A commotion at the shop’s door pulls her attention, and a beautiful smile flits across her features as another Beta walks in with an Omega on his arm.

“What’s taking so long? We’re going to be late. Dear God, what happened to you?” the Beta demands while his Omega tries to shush him.

Their Omega merely shakes her head. “I’m coming, Ran. We had a little mishap, but I’m coming. I know better than to disappoint Ari’s friend.”

Their Omega turns to Jake and nods. “I would love to have dinner with you both if it’s not too much an imposition. Call me in about two hours?”

She slips Jake her business card before vanishing out the café’s door with the other Beta and Omega.

Jake waits exactly two hours before he nervously calls her, putting the call on speaker so Steve could hear everything as well. A small part of him hopes she doesn’t disappoint either of them while on the phone as it’s happened before.

She doesn’t.

Within minutes, they have their plans set to meet at a popular local diner where they could enjoy some good homemade meals while also getting to know one another.

She meets them there in a clean outfit that suits her more than the business suit she’d been wearing that morning. The knee length skirt swishes and twirls around her while the peasant top gives them a decent glimpse of the smooth skin underneath without being too showing. It’s her favorite outfit she admits to them while they wait for their server to arrive.

One of the first questions Steve has for her is how she recognized his work. He’s still a bit gobsmacked about that, especially since he hasn’t been able to get his mind to stop recalling how delicately she’d touched his work. It’d been almost like she’d been touching the Mona Lisa or something equally as valuable. It’s not something he’d experienced firsthand with anyone besides Jake or his few friends.

That’s when they learn Steve helped design her logo and other business media about a year ago. She’d seen his stuff online and had messaged him almost immediately with her ideas and healthy budget to make them a reality. As it turns out, she owns a small homemade candle company, and she’s just landed another retailer who’ll be showcasing her candles after her meeting that morning.

The attention and adoration she’s showing Steve in that moment would make almost any other Alpha jealous of their Beta. After all, she’s practically gushing about how amazing Steve’s art is and how much it’s helped improve her sales as everyone talks about the design. She’s even sent Steve more work because she can’t stop talking about it with her customers. Steve admits he should be giving her something in return for all the referrals and work she’s given him.

Yeah, Jake realizes he should be jealous, but he’s not. He’s the exact opposite at this moment. He’s sitting with someone who values Steve’s talents as much as he does, so how could he possibly be anything other than more smitten with her?

When Steve admits that Jake’s the reason he even has his online business, the talk soon moves to Jake where she learns about his many technical talents. He can see that she’s just as impressed with him as she is with Steve. It’s enough to stroke his ego a bit and have him sitting a bit straighter in his seat.

Their discussion soon moves to hobbies and other things where she soon learns that Jake likes to play one of the most popular first-person shooter games on the market. He admits he can hold his own, but he’s nowhere near as good as some of the other players out there. When he mentions ‘Amaranth Fossa’ as his dream gaming partner, he catches a look he can’t quite figure out that passes over Omega’s face.

They don’t really stop talking all through dinner, but it does eventually have to come to an end. It’s not something any of them want, but they do see that the hour is getting later and the next day is a workday for both Jake and Omega. They end up walking her to her car where she thanks them for a wonderful evening. She doesn’t get into her car until she presses a kiss on each of their cheeks and a promise that they’ll do this again soon.

Jake and Steve share a look, then Jake asks if she’s free the weekend coming up.  

She gives them the sweetest smile and says she is.

Jake and Steve head home after seeing her off. They have a date to plan, and they have no intention of disappointing this sweet Omega that literally dropped into their laps.

*****

Main Masterlist

[brucewaynehater101]

i've been chewing over the tcf!tim au a lot these past few days and this is what my brain came up with: 1. jack and janet aren't really present in tim's life- not out of choice, but out of necessity: see tim had been affected with a curse (similar to that on the tcf protagonist) that made it so that he would eventually lose anything precious to him

2. after they find out, jack and janet decide to physically distance themselves from him (though they can't bring themselves to do so emotionally) while at the same time going on archaelogical trips in hopes to find a way to solve the curse. this way they would hopefully live long enough for tim to be old enough to take care of himself before the curse took them away from him

3. in the meantime, they plopped him in gotham to hopefully slow down / weaken the curse (due to how cursed the city already is, it probably acts like fighting fire with fire or poison with poison, also you can't convince me that as rich as they were they wouldn't have chosen to settle down in any other city if they had other options) and hire a revolving door of nannies (the good ones tim gets attached to often experience unfortunate circumstances that made them have to leave their post, while the bad ones get found out and fired by his parents)

4. tim still gets attached to dick at the circus (and then dick's parents died, and tim lost dick's smile that he liked)

5. tim gets attached to batman and robin -> dick and bruce fight and the og dynamic duo fall apart

6. tim gets attached to jason -> jason gets murdered

7. tim pulls batman out of his spiral and ironically, bruce's prickliness delayed tim getting attached to him, which meant he got to stick around (until he got better, then he ended up being yeeted through time)

8. that whole lead-up to brucequest where he lost a whole bunch of loved ones in quick succession? yeah, the curses of gotham are struggling against his (quantity vs quality)

i just think this idea is neat. and tim's guilt would be growing out of control once he finds out about the curse (why didn't anyone else notice before? because everyone assumed gotham folks are just cursed in general)

it also means he gets a fun (angsty) new motivation to avoid his family post-regression: he doesn't know if the curse is still active and would target them, so he plays the asshole to ward them off so that nothing worse would happen

Well, fuck.

I do love the Good!Parents Jack and Janet in this. It's a bit hard to make Jack or Janet decent parents to Tim while also affording him the independency his character typically has.

The curse is a cool addition to the tcf!Tim au that adds more reason to Tim being an asshole. Him not knowing if he's cursed or not is a great angst plot point, especially because it would be very easy for him to find out. He knows countless magic people that could tell him. Constantine would do it quietly for a quick buck. If Tim continues to not know despite his ability to, that's because he simply didn't want to find out. Dealer's choice on whether that's because he was scared or he wanted an excuse to self-destruct (i.e. cut himself off from his support groups).

The real shitty part about curses that seem like bad luck (or that cause bad luck) is that you can't be sure what is the curse and what is life being shit. Tim will probably blame himself for every horrid thing that has happened to someone after he entered their life.

[tsukimefuku]

Lover's Pass

You and Nanami were sent to investigate cursed activity linked to disappearances in the Lover's Pass. Meanwhile, you both still have to deal with the fallout that happened after the last time you were together.

Based off Lovers Cave from ATLA (obviously).

The song: One last kiss - Hikaru Utada (on Youtube).

Tags: Jujutsu Kaisen, Nanami x OC/Reader, implied Higuruma x OC/Reader, angst, fluff, slight canon typical violence (nothing graphic).

WC: 4.6K

This is part of my "Jujutsu Partners Canon Divergence AU". A sequence of short stories and random drabbles for a Nanami x Reader x Higuruma long fic I might write. To see the ever-growing list of one-shots and short stories, please visit my masterlist :) 

Disclaimer: the stories are NOT written and posted in chronological order of events. This happened after the stories "The Event, Part 1" and "The Event, Part 2", preceding "Tactics"(HiguReader). To see where this story fits in the timeline, please check the masterlist mentioned above.

Of course, you were trapped in The Lover’s Pass curse with Nanami after he turned you down. Obviously.

Since the day I met you, the heart began to turn its gears

I can't help but have a hunch that I will lose you

Oh, I know that we've done it so many times

But can you add one last favor?

Oh, Can you give me one last kiss?

It's something that I don’t want to forget

I love you more than you’ll ever know

 — Utada Hikaru's "One Last Kiss"

"It's not very appropriate to be talking about such personal matters on your phone while you're inside a car with other passengers." Nanami chided, while he had his arm over the door to his side, not looking at you as he spoke. You had just got out of your call with Higuruma, having set your first not-date with him for later that day.

You scoffed. "Ijichi, did my conversation on the phone regarding a not-date later today offend you in any way?"

Ijichi was taken by surprise, and pushed his glasses back on his nose as he answered, doubtful, "no, Ms. I wasn't offended."

You looked at Nanami, whipping your head towards his position, making it abundantly evident you were glaring at him. He still wouldn't look at you. Then, without a word, you stopped glaring at him and looked outside your window. You were both on the back, glued to your respective doors, trying to put as much empty space between your bodies as possible.

You remembered your earlier conversation with Yaga.

"Do I really have to go with Nanami?" you asked, feeling defeated.

"You're the only two grade 1 sorcerers available. The others have got their plates full. From what we've learned, no one should go inside this curse's hiding place alone, so it's necessary to send two of you."

"What a bore." You said, pinching the bridge of your nose with two fingers. "So, the Lover's Pass curse. Some kids went missing trying to navigate underground tunnels because they were idiots. What do the legends say?"

"The origins of these tunnels are uncertain." Nanami began. You were displeased, and grunted at it lightly, expecting Ijichi to go over the briefing again, loathing having to listen to his voice. Nanami moved on, unbothered. "The legend says that a long time ago, two people from two rival families used those tunnels to meet each other in secrecy. It became an underground destination for couples, both literally and figuratively, it seems, but it has recently become a hotspot for cursed activity. There are currently 4 people missing. Their status is unknown."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure." You sighed, dismissive, leaning your temple over the car's window. You heard Nanami sighing loudly on his side of the car, knowing full well he did it just so you could hear him, and the tension between the two of you was so intense it could be ceviche’d with a blunt blade. 

Ijichi was particularly uncomfortable in the driver's seat, turning the radio on, trying to fill the dreadful silence with anything until you all got to your destination.

This is going to be hell.

“Ijichi, can we make a quick stop? I haven’t had any breakfast today.” You asked.

“Of course. I have to put some gas in, too.” Ijichi replied.

“That is the reason most people usually wake up early enough to be ready in time for their appointments.” Nanami pointed out, unsolicited.

“Nanami, get off my case. I’m not in the mood to hear this kind of chastising. Especially from you.” You retorted, keeping a low voice that was glimmering with incandescent fury. 

Ijichi was terrified, worried he might be caught in the middle of a crossfire.

Nanami finally looked in your direction, with you refusing to make eye contact, but said nothing, returning his gaze to the view up ahead. 

***

As you both got out of the car, you picked up your phone, only to realize it had very poor signal. You left a small bag with some cookies and water inside the car.

“Ijichi, will you wait for us here? We don’t have great cellphone reception.” You said, putting your phone back inside your waist bag. 

“That is the usual course of action when we’re accompanied by an assistant.” Yet again, Nanami pointed out, unprompted.

You sighed heavily, and spent no words answering him, knowing full well it’d be tossing paper scraps to the wind. Ijichi simply nodded in your direction, uneasy at the growing tension between you and the ratio sorcerer. You waved at Ijichi, and started walking towards the entrance to the tunnel maze. It seemed to be under what was once an enormous mansion, debris being the only clues something ever stood there. 

As you finished descending the stairs, Nanami reached you, and both started walking inside the dark tunnels. They were all haphazardly made, basically consisting of very rustic diggings and walls made of dirt. You grabbed a flashlight you had brought, and lit the way for you both.

The pair was walking for what seemed like ten minutes, and you made markings with your cursed energy in order to make the coming back process easier. Like leaving a breadcrumb trail.

The silence engulfing the steps was becoming unnerving, given that, since your last conversation, you had been furious with Nanami. He tried ringing your phone twice since then, and both times you refused his call. 

He called your name to say something, and you instantly (involuntarily) sighed in contempt, still not looking at him. “What?”

“It’s about the curse. I do not intend to have a proper conversation in the middle of our mission, rest assured.” He replied, nonchalantly.

“You never intended to have a conversation.” You retorted, annoyed.

Nanami sighed. “We can talk about this in a later time. Now, let us look inside that tunnel. I believe I saw something.” He said, pointing to a turn to the left you both had just passed by.

“Fine.” You made your way back and lit the flashlight towards the tunnel Nanami had pointed at. However, as soon as you did, it became a solid wall.

What?

You drew the light away and over the same spot a few times, and it was certain: there was no way down there anymore.

“What did you see, Nanami?” You inquired, staring at the wall, confused.

You heard some ruffling, and saw Nanami unbutton his suit jacket, pulling his blunt blade from his back. “I saw a quick movement, like someone or something darting through the tunnel. I believe the curse is here.”

You thought for a moment, and couldn’t sense any type of concentrated cursed energy near. 

“Nanami, let’s go back and check on the markings we left along the path.”

You both began walking back, alert to anything that might jump you on the way. However, you were met with another solid wall. Upon further inspection, you noticed that one of the markings you made could be partially seen in one of the corners of that tunnel.

“Nanami, look.” You said, pointing at it.

“I see. It can shift space inside the tunnels.” 

“That might be the reason these people are going missing. They’re probably still down here.” 

He nodded. “Yes. Let’s hurry.”

You kept walking for what felt like half an hour, and started to wonder if this curse was also able to stretch space. These tunnels were supposed to be less than 2 kilometers long, but you had surely been walking much more than that, and you didn’t feel like you were walking in circles. Also, there was no sign of other people ever having been down there.

“Nanami, I think we’re inside the curse. I mean, I don’t feel we’ve been walking in circles.”

“I understand your point. However, we can’t be sure of that.”

“We��ve literally been walking in a straight line and took less than two turns, Nanami. I’m pretty sure about it.” You answered him. For some reason, his simple correction, something so innocuous, brought up the anger you had been feeling for him these past few days.

Nanami sighed.

“Care to enlighten me?” You asked, voice poking at him. You were looking for trouble, clearly.

“If this curse actually distorts space, as we’re suspecting, the physics of it might be broken. There is no point in wondering if we’re walking in circles or not. We’re already under its effect.” He said, matter-of-factly.

This definitely rubbed you the wrong way.

You sighed. “Thanks for the class, teacher. Didn’t know curses could do that. It’s not like I came from a family with a centuries-old tradition on jujutsu, but well, maybe I don’t know how curses work.” You spat out, angrily, turning around to face Nanami. 

He sighed, in a mixture of annoyance and tiredness. “This is not the moment for this.”

“Oh, for what? For you to remember that I’m not an idiot that has no idea what she’s dealing with? It sure isn’t. You should’ve thought about it days ago!” 

He addressed you by your last name “-san”, when he started to speak again, and that was your last straw.

“We’re past that, aren’t we? It wasn't a last name basis a few nights ago.” 

“You see, this is precisely the kind of predicament I hoped to avoid when we both agreed that getting romantically involved would be a foolish move.”

“Oh, Nanami-san, getting involved wasn’t the issue. The issue was what you did right after.”

“Now, please enlighten me on what exactly I have done wrong. I’ve been trying my best to be respectful and proceed with this clearly needed conversation.” He answered, his monotone not concealing very well his own feelings of dissatisfaction.

“Aren’t you the big shot that knows everything about the hardships of a jujutsu sorcerer’s life? Figure it out yourself.” You exclaimed.

“Are you displeased at what you perceived as a rejection of affectionate advances?” Nanami inquired.

You scoffed and looked at him, in utter and complete disbelief. “First and foremost, I’m not displeased, I’m furious. Second, you really think I’d be enraged at you because I felt rejected? Do I look like a fucking school girl?!” This was the very first time you ever cursed at Nanami, and it surprised him. 

However, before he could answer, something spiked up from the floor, separating you both even further. It was a red mass that looked like a tentacle, but not quite. It first whipped at you, and you used your cursed technique to launch one of your small grenades at it. At impact, the shock waves from the explosion caused the tunnel to make a not so safe noise.

Shit. I can’t use my technique. This might collapse the entire tunnel system on our heads.

“Let me handle this! Your technique is no good here. It might knock down the surrounding walls!” Nanami shouted, as he advanced towards the curse’s tentacle.

“No shit, Sherlock!” You yelled back, jumping and rolling when it dealt a strong blow where you were previously standing.

He swiftly dealt a 7:3 critical hit at the tentacle’s base, and it was cleanly cut. It fell, squirming softly before it stopped. You looked closer, and the tentacle seemed to be made out of several red threads, all tightly-knit together. 

“What the hell?” 

“Well, it is called the Lover’s Pass. You’re probably familiar with the red thread myth.” Nanami said, pushing his glasses back in place.

“I am. I just didn’t expect it to be so... Thematic?” You answered, getting up, huffing.

“Neither did I.” He replied, as you both resumed your walking.

***

“Nanami, this is pointless. We’re not getting anywhere.” Complaining, you leaned against one of the walls. You both had been walking for almost three hours at this point. “Apart from that tentacle, the curse hasn't approached us.”

He sighed and also leaned against one of the walls, on the opposite side, looking at you. You didn’t look at him back, though.

“Is there anything about the legend from Lover’s Pass that could help us solve this?” You asked, defeated.

Nanami thought for a moment, resting one of his hands on his chin.

“Legend has it that the only way for leaving the maze of Lover’s Pass is through an act of... True love.” Nanami remembered, instantly pinching the bridge of his nose, still with his glasses on. A faint grunt from him could be heard.

You realized it as soon as he did.

“Like a kiss or something like that?” 

He shrugged, displeased. “Perhaps. It’s an open-ended statement. I do not care much for those.”

You let out a loud ugh. “Are you serious? That’s the legend?”

“I’m afraid so.” 

You sighed deeply, then approached Nanami. “Fine, let’s get this over with.”

He was slightly surprised, but offered no resistance, given he knew this was an alternative you both should try, and you surely had enough intimacy for that.

You kissed him on the lips swiftly, dissociating as much as you could when doing so. His body was rigid at the alien sensation of you pressing your lips against his so… Indifferently.

You both waited for a few seconds after that, but absolutely nothing happened.

“Goddammit. Ah, well, worth the shot.” You shrugged off.

He sighed and pulled on his tie lightly, opening the button on the top of his shirt. “I believe we’re on the right track to solve this conundrum. But there is something about what just happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“This surely couldn’t be interpreted as an act of true love.” He pointed out.

You grunted, looking away. You were having a hard time looking at Nanami today, overall, unless you were bursting with anger, or glaring. 

“You won’t even look at me properly, and haven't, ever since we picked you up earlier this morning.” Nanami noted.

Now you looked at him, without making any effort this time to conceal the rage you had bubbling inside, translated on the facial expression you had on.

“I’m just too angry at you right now to be affectionate!” You spat.

He sighed.

“I apologize.” Nanami said.

“For what?” You inquired.

“You’re furious with me, and have been for days. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t prevent me from apologizing.”

Your rage dripped from your next words like poison.

“If you don’t know why you’re apologizing, don’t even bother.”

“Then, please, tell me what I’ve done to upset you this greatly.”

“No! Figure it out for yourself. Clearly you know more about things than I do, don’t you, Nanami?” You were nearly growling.

Suddenly, another tentacle appeared, but this time it came from the upper part of the walls, right behind you. Before you could react, it violently whipped you against the wall, and pierced through your right shoulder. You heard Nanami calling out your name. The pain shot through your body like cold nitrogen, and you almost reacted using your cursed technique, but restrained at the last moment, remembering the risks it ensued. 

He appeared swiftly, and dealt a 7:3 blow to the tentacle's base, having it fall down beside you both. You fell to your knees and held your shoulder with your other hand, huffing, before you began employing your RCT for healing.

Nanami kneeled in front of you. “Are you alright?” He asked, mindlessly putting his free hand on your cheek, effectively cupping your face. You shivered at his touch, and looked him in the eyes. Underneath his glasses, you could see a slightly worried gaze, and that chipped away at your fury-fueled emotional brick wall.

“I’m… fine. I’m already healing myself. But thank you.”

He nodded, still cupping your face in a tender, affectionate way.

You both remained in that position for a little while, gazing at each other. It was then that you noticed the faint light from what looked like fireflies extending towards the tunnel maze, making some turns until it disappeared.

“What…?” You got up, and was left dumbfounded, because the lights suddenly went away. “Did you see that?”

Recomposing himself, Nanami got up. “I did.” 

Then, it clicked.

“We’re attacked by the red threads when we’re fighting. And I guess the lights show the way out. They appeared when we-” you stopped in your tracks.

“When we had a moment of-”

“True love.” You choked out, the words pulling painfully at your heart strings. “Okay, I get it now.”

He put his blunt blade tucked away in his harness, and stood right in front of you.

“Then, we must talk.” Nanami said, in his matter-of-factly way. You were looking at the ground, and didn’t lift your gaze to meet his. He sighed softly and relaxed his shoulders, taking off his glasses, now speaking with a husky, softer voice. “I would like to talk to you, please, and be given the chance to understand what I’ve done to hurt you.”

You were caught off guard. 

“Please.” He repeated, putting his finger under your chin to lift your eyes, and you did so, meeting his. This was the first time ever since that night he seemed to be actually looking at you, and not past you. 

You sighed, as he put his hand over your shoulder, softly rubbing his thumb over it.

"Did you feel like I have taken undue advantage of the situation that night?" He asked, earnestly.

"No! It's not that." You pondered for a moment. Then, you began speaking again. "You lectured me that day, Nanami. It wasn't a conversation."

He was slightly surprised, but stayed silent, giving you time to elaborate.

"You never wanted to talk to me, you just had your mind made up. I was angry at you because you made a decision that affects us both entirely on your own, without even asking me about anything. You completely disregarded my input in your equation." You finally explained. "It was patronizing, and I felt deeply hurt by it."

Nanami then realized what he had done. Trying to shield you from hurt, he had pushed you exactly in hurt's way.

He sighed deeply as he put his other hand on your arm. "I... I apologize, truly."

You both locked eyes for a moment, and you felt the already so familiar fluttering heart. Your heart beat for this man, just like the sun rose for the day, and the moon came out for the night. The profound connection you had, which transcended time and space for more than a decade, had translated into the way each pump fervently happened because of, and for, him. You could barely breathe when he gazed at you like this.

With a sharp tug, you grabbed his tie and pulled him in your direction, locking lips, feeling the bright explosion from the longing that had swept you away in anger. You missed being close to Nanami so profoundly the past few days that it ached in places you never even realized existed, every pain pulsing away at your last kiss. He pulled you closer, diving into the passionate kiss, in his own silent sorrow and apology.

You barely felt the few tears that streamed down your eyes as you were both kissing. For the first time, the all consuming rage you felt had revealed its true colors. It wasn't anger; it was sadness.

You were overwhelmed with sadness and felt profoundly disappointed that, out of everyone, Nanami, the person you trusted the most, with your heart and with your life, was the one to hurt you so severely. You didn't feel used — you felt completely betrayed. 

As your faces parted, you kept your eyes closed, fighting the urge to cry. He saw your pained expression, and a dark pit had formed in his stomach, the gravitational pull of guilt threatening to bring him down on his knees. Nanami cupped your face in between his hands and realized it was damp. Oh, I am a complete and utter imbecile.

"I am profoundly and sincerely sorry" he said, pulling you in for a hug, burying your face in his chest while he held the back of your head.

You sighed, hugging him back tightly and breathing intensely, trying to free up the heaviness that took over your chest. He nosed your hair, and trembled to your flowery aroma, today, smelling like daffodils. Oh, how much he had missed it, and you had absolutely no idea.

At that point, the fireflies began to appear again. 

Nanami softly parted from you. "Look."

You turned your head, and saw them. There were many fireflies all over, lighting the tunnels greatly. It was actually... Beautiful. You separated from Nanami, sliding softly out of his embrace. He looked at you, somewhat apprehensive.

"We can get back to talking after we're finished here, okay?" You reassured him. 

He nodded, and you both began to follow the fireflies' path.

As you were walking, you saw a couple, two women, laid on the ground beside each other, seemingly passed out. You took one of them in your arms, and Nanami did the same. Further ahead, you saw someone else, but when you both approached, realized this person must've been deceased for a while now. He was holding onto a small, bloody pocket knife. 

Both of you decided to keep walking, and saw a bright white light at the end of the longest tunnel. The fireflies were leading you there, so you followed suit, finally reaching what seemed to be an empty white room. It wasn't empty, however. A woman — or what seemed like one — was on the ground, apparently on her knees, with her face in her hands, crying.

"Nanami, can you hold them both?" You asked, whispering. He nodded, and you put the lady you were carrying over his shoulder.

You then silently made your way towards the curse, summoning a grenade in your hand. This seemed to be in an almost separate dimension from the tunnel, so you figured it'd be probably safe using your technique here.

Why... Why did he abandon me here? The curse pleaded for an answer, stopping you in your tracks. He left me here to die- to die- to die- 

You noticed that her neck seemed to be cut, and was oozing blood that dripped down the front of her white dress.

"Nanami, you told me there were four people missing, right? But we only saw one body..." you said, keeping your eyes laser-focused on the cursed spirit in front of you.

"Yes, during the course of the last two weeks. Two couples." He pondered for a moment. " ... Oh, I see."

This woman was the last missing person. The curse itself.

She had cursed herself at being abandoned to die by her lover in the Lover's Pass.

Why did he betray- betray- betray me!? The curse wailed, seemingly self-embracing, in a pitiful gesture for self comfort.

That was a heartbreaking sight to behold. 

"Hey, Nanami, tell me something." You said, still looking at her. 

"What?" He asked.

"If we exorcize her, will her spirit be freed or disappear along with the cursed energy tethered to it?"

Nanami was silent for a moment. "I do not know."

You sighed, sorrowful, and evaporated away the grenade you were holding onto, kneeling in front of the curse.

"Hey." You said, pulling its attention to you. Nanami was standing behind you, apprehensive, while he held the two passed out women. However, he decided to trust you, and stood down. 

Why- why did he kill me?! Her eyes were pitch black, and sent chills down your spine.

"You have to forgive him. You have passed, there is nothing else that can be done. You both have. Only when you let go, will you be free. You cursed yourself." You said, warmly, sparing her a smile.

Her weeping started to subdue. 

"You have to pass onto the other side." You insisted.

I can't- can't- can't- forgive him! He doesn't deserve- deserve- it! The cursed spirit shrieked, furiously.

"Then, don't do it for him. Do it for you. Free yourself. Only you can do that."

The curse's howling stopped, and you got up, stepping back, ready to pull a grenade on her if it were necessary. You had tried your best to free this spirit without exorcizing it. 

The cursed spirit got up too, and turned it's back to you, suddenly being engulfed in all the fireflies that were spread throughout the tunnels. They got absorbed into her, and she radiated pure white for a moment, before you both could see it. She now looked human, a tall woman with long brown hair and a beautiful white summer dress, weaved around with red stitches all throughout.

You smiled, and she turned around to look at you.

Thank you, the woman said, before stepping towards, away from you, disappearing into thin air.

Then, the pure white light that replaced all the walls, floor, and ceiling began to fade away as well. After a few moments, you and Nanami, as well as the two girls, were finally back to the entrance to the Lover's Pass.

***

After you left the women at the hospital, you, Ijichi and Nanami were back in Tokyo. You asked Ijichi to let you out of the car near the restaurant Higuruma had told you he'd be at.

You got out of the car, waving Ijichi goodbye, but were surprised to see that Nanami stepped out of the car as well, calling your name. Ijichi left, probably because Nanami told him to do so before he made his way out.

"Can we resume our conversation?" He inquired, looking at you... pleadingly?

You sighed. "Okay. Just give me a moment." You grabbed your phone and texted Higuruma, letting him know you'd be late. 

You looked around and spotted a bench, walking towards it, waving Nanami to follow you. He did, and you both sat down on the opposite ends of it, looking at each other. The silence grew uncomfortable between the two, given none knew who'd speak first.

He did.

"Once again, I'd like to apologize for the hurt that I've caused you," Nanami said, earnestly, "and I hope you can forgive me for that."

"Will it make any difference to you if I tell you I already forgave you?"

Nanami was slightly taken aback. You continued.

"It seems that every time I forgive you or tell you there is nothing to forgive, my words just fall on deaf ears." You sighed. "I can't keep telling you there is nothing to be forgiven when you just won't listen. You have to forgive yourself. We can’t... You have to move past it. I'm tired of this, I've just about had it, Nanami."

He stayed silent.

"You were not saving me, or sparing me, when you made that decision by yourself. You broke my heart, Nanami. You wanted to protect me, and I understand that. I'm thankful for that. But you did it all wrong."

He sighed deeply. "Could you find it in yourself to forgive me?"

You gazed at him. "I forgive you. But I can’t forget this. And even if I can still trust you with my life, I don’t think I can trust you with my heart again."

These words cut through him like sharp blades. Hearing them felt worse than he had anticipated.

"That's reasonable." He finally replied, defeated.

There was nothing more to be said. You cupped his face with your hands, and he looked at you longingly, knowing what would come next. 

You pressed one gentle last kiss on Nanami's lips as you said goodbye.

He was left sitting alone on that bench, as he saw you walking away to go on a date with someone else, taking your flowery scent and soft touch with you, away from him.

It felt more miserable than he thought it would.

[stxrvel]

the outbreak: extra (1.5)

summary: you had a word with bucky on your way to your last mission.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

words: +2.5k

warnings: some bad words and slight angst.

note: hey! this wasn't planned but i wanted to add something else to the story that was surely missing. i hadn't thought about the self destructive behaviors we normalize in our daily lives and sometimes that is reflected in what we write. this conversation was something i had envisioned but hadn't seen possible, but i decided to finish it and post it after a whole day of reflection. this talk was perhaps VERY specific, but i've had conversations like this with my friends, so i hope you understand what i am trying to visualize. you can read it before or after part 2! the feedback is always appreciated! thank u for reading.

part 1

Clint was extremely quiet and curiously attentive. As you prepared everything to enter the Quinjet, you shared a silent moment that was uncharacteristic of him. Generally, he would begin a pleasant and seemingly normal chat, until he would start jabbing at you with his off-hand comments and jokes about anything that came to mind.

The Clint Barton who was with you in the armory room was not your typical Clint. You began to wonder what would have happened to keep him so quiet when you saw out of the corner of your eye that Bucky entered the room.

He hadn't been able to convince Fury to send Steve in his place on the mission, and during that week you had seen him only once, about twenty yards away. You wanted to pretend (as usual) that things hadn't broken down between the two of you. That that argument had never happened and that Bucky had never found out about the real thoughts going around in your head. That everything was just running its normal course and you still considered yourselves co-workers, at least.

But it was just you playing pretend.

Bucky walked past you, grabbed the weapons he needed, the razors and knives he handled so well, a couple of grenades that he carefully stowed in the loop of his suitcase and headed for the exit without a single glance at anyone.

Clint had his back to you, but you could feel his body tense, so still you could barely tell he was breathing, as if moving between you would set off a bomb or something.

“The Quinjet is ready,” Bucky exclaimed as he stopped in front of the door. “Don't be long.”

And he got out without further ado.

The mood didn't change later, when Bucky was piloting the Quinjet having a chance to leave it on automatic and Clint was sitting with you in the back of the ship, as far away from you as possible. You watched his figure in front of you and how he sent you wary glances from time to time. The situation was becoming tedious.

You knew you were pretending not to know what was going on. You were pretending that no one felt the tension that formed when you and Bucky were in the same room, mostly being emitted from your body because the man was like a big ice cube. It was the indifference you had seen so much of him direct at other people, especially those he didn't trust, and you never thought it would be directed at you. It hurt more than you could imagine.

So for that reason you preferred to just keep the image in your head of everything that had happened before that fateful day. Maybe your mind thought it would be easier to deal with the rejection that way, because you did know it would happen, and it had taken time for the moment to arrive, but when it finally had it swept in and took everything with it, leaving you just taking it all in in the deep silence.

When the Quinjet came to a stop at its destination, Bucky walked back between you and Clint to head for the rear ramp of the ship. He quietly grabbed his things and stepped out.

Clint had moved to unbuckle his seat belt when you felt the need to ask the question. You moved to mimic the man in front of you.

“Why are you acting like that?”

“Like what?” Clint turned to look at you in confusion, his brow furrowed, when he had fully risen.

You watched his figure begin to move toward the front of the Quinjet and felt everything inside you strangely stir.

“As if you were afraid someone would suddenly start burning up next to you.”

“Not true.”

You turned to look at the man with an ingrown eyebrow, and Clint only gave you a look of complete naivety as he sat down in front of the ship's controls. You walked over to where you had left your backpack and began putting away the few things you were going to need.

“You're too tense.”

Clint clicked his tongue. His body slumped over the big chair and he shifted his feet on the floor until he was facing you.

“It's just… being around you two is too uncomfortable. In and of itself just seeing Bucky these past few days is scary.”

You frowned as you moved your hands inside your backpack. You picked up one of the pocketknives Natasha had given you, with rose embroidery on the black handle. You saw out of the corner of your eye the pistol you had been given as equipment to use in case of emergencies, and you hesitated whether or not to take it.

“Why is it uncomfortable?”

You heard the man let out a laugh before answering. “Are you kidding me? The atmosphere is so tense that I could jump in the air and get caught in an invisible mesh.”

“Of course not. There's no discomfort at all. We're fine,” you repeated your mantra with an assurance that surprised you.

You took the gun in your hands after observing it for several minutes and felt its weight between your fingers, as if telling a story you didn't want to know. Will you carry it with you or…?

“You seem to have repeated that to yourself too many times to believe it. Cute.”

“It is what it is.”

Clint sighed and watched you carefully. Your gaze on the gun did not allow you to see him examine your figure for a while, and you barely noticed the silence that formed between the two of you. Clint, then, remembered something.

“Do you really think no one heard the argument you two had last week?”

You raised your head. You went blank. You let the gun drop into the backpack again and furrowed your brow, followed by closing it and putting it back where you had initially left it. You watched Clint warily, his serious face giving you to understand that he wasn't playing with you.

“The walls aren't that thick.”

You couldn't help but simply not answer him for several seconds because what were you going to say to him? You couldn't go back to saying that everything was fine between you and Bucky because clearly everyone now knew you had something and that an angry Bucky doesn't listen to any excuses and is unkind in that state.

That explained a lot about the sneaky looks you sometimes felt when you walked around the Complex and the therapist's card Steve had accidentally left at the foot of your bedroom door.

You saw Clint again with the face of someone caught red-handed, and at the same time you felt vulnerable because under no circumstances would that possibility have crossed your mind.

Would Bucky even know?

“Can you pretend with me?”

The man sighed, but seeing your agonized expression he agreed.

And then you had to go out to meet Bucky.

You had landed about a kilometer from the distance of the target, which was a small house in an abandoned industrial town. With the information gathered, you had been able to learn the nearest location of the target within some of the houses that were within a fifty meter radius from the center of the town. Clint, already in charge of the Quinjet, would leave to supervise from the height that everything was in order, and give air support if necessary.

Bucky was a few meters away from the Quinjet, his things arranged in their respective places and with his binoculars he observed the town from his position.

“It looks desolate,” you couldn't help but comment to break the choking silence.

The man hummed in response a nod and lowered the binoculars to pass them to you without turning to look at you.

“Look east from the center. It's the only house that has light.”

You took the object he offered you careful not to brush against his skin, and promptly used them to peer into the distance. In the center of the village there was a fountain that served as a traffic circle to connect the main roads. Looking to the east, even though it was daylight, you could notice electricity highlighting one of the houses.

“It could be the target.”

“Or a trap.”

You lowered the binoculars.

“Do you have to be so gloomy?”

Bucky gave you the first look of the day. His eyes were not rough and his expression was not coarse like the few times you had seen him before, he seemed a little calmer than before, but you tried not to raise your hopes thinking that clearly the man had to maintain professionalism during the mission. And you had to do the same. Starting by stopping over-analyzing him.

He looked like he wanted to answer you, or say something else, but he just turned around and started walking towards the path that led to the village.

You definitely wanted to say something, even though you also wanted to remain professional, because you didn't want to spend the next fifteen or twenty minutes in stony silence and with your thoughts being the only thing that answered the questions in your head.

Instinctively, you kept thinking that you still had that kind of relationship with Bucky. Like you'd ask him a question about anything and he'd answer trivially and then you'd tell him something super curious about the sky and the trees and he'd listen like he was being told the truths of the universe.

Why did everything have to be so complicated?

Why did everything have to have been complicated like this?

You walked through the dry grass and stones, enduring the silence for several minutes. Every time you looked up to see the town, you felt it receding instead of coming closer. Bucky's body in front of you moved easily through the grass, almost as if he were levitating through nature.

Again, you felt that itch in your mouth with the urge to say something to fill the silence, but your mind suppressed your body's instincts. You hated it when routines disappeared, especially when they involved people who were important to you. You didn't like the sense of loss that came with the truth and that you had thought that by that point you would be more than used to it, but it seemed you had only fooled yourself.

You did it before and you were doing it then. Some things just wouldn't change.

You were seriously thinking about starting to talk to the trees when you heard his voice:

“I'm sorry.”

What?

“What?”

Bucky sighed, and after a few seconds you thought he wouldn't speak again and that he had only, unlike you, let his impulses win the battle, until you heard him again:

“I regret how I acted the last time we spoke.”

His words left you perplexed. You had expected anything less than to start a conversation about it, especially to apologize.

You frowned, not knowing exactly what to say. You weren't used to people showing that kind of remorse after walking away from your life. You suddenly felt uncomfortable, and feared the direction the conversation would take.

“Well, you had your reasons for being angry…”

“Yes, I had reasons to be angry, but all I did when you gave me the truth was walk away. That wasn't the right thing to do.”

“Well, what else were you going to do? If you stayed and hugged me you weren't going to solve anything. It's okay, Bucky, it's not like I was expecting you to do anything different.”

The man stopped his steps, and you would have collided with his back had you not been a safe distance away, your legs trying to match his stride, but failing miserably.

You saw his body turn in your direction with a puzzled expression. You tried to hide in the back of your mind the voice that constantly reminded you not to talk about those subjects. You didn't want to evoke those sensations that kept you religiously away from your feelings, the defensive actions of your own head trying to keep the boat of your sanity afloat. You didn't want Bucky to keep harping on the subject, but you knew he would.

“Are you saying that-?”

Bucky shut his mouth. Before he finished speaking, he pursed his lips into a line and took a deep breath. You could glimpse that he was dealing with his own thoughts at that moment.

“It's not normal, Y/N, nor good for a person to leave you like I did after telling you something with so much meaning to you. And also, that it took me this long to bring it up...”

You hummed in response. He was telling you the same thing that many other people had told you throughout your life, but you didn't know why his were causing your body to react differently. It was like having your chest spread out like the wings of a butterfly. It was such a strange sensation, so foreign to you that you were unconsciously afraid of it. You didn't want to feel it. You wanted it to go away.

“Why did you do it then?”

“Because I was an unconscious idiot. That's why.”

The man resumed his march as he finished speaking, and you had to wiggle quickly to keep up with him. You felt your head moving a thousand miles, as if it could travel a hundred times back and forth the village road without stopping for air once. You couldn't find a way out of the conversation, so you tried to beat around the bush.

“But aren't you a little hard on yourself? You're going to therapy, aren't you? You have things to deal with, too.”

“Maybe you're used to people leaving you, but that doesn't mean it's okay.”

You furrowed your brow, almost stopping your steps and watching his back. It wasn't okay for people to leave you? You'd lost count of all the times you'd asked yourself that question since you'd had the conscience to do it. You didn't want to think that the world was cruel to you, that people were mean to you, but that the world and people didn't have to deal with the shit you carried around.

The words died in your mouth when Bucky stopped again and that time you almost crashed into him.

“I didn't mean it that way. The truth is, people suck, and there will be plenty of fuckers who decide to leave rather than stay and help you grow. Maybe you met a lot of them and started to see them as normal, but that's not the case. That's not usual, much less with someone you consider your friend.”

“Friend?”

Bucky nodded in response.

“As in appreciation and respect?”

“Yes, you couldn't have defined it better.”

You saw him look away, suddenly sinking into his thoughts before resuming his march on his way into town. You followed him, that time more closely thankful that he was no longer jogging like he was in a marathon. There was a contradiction of emotions in your chest and in your head. There was a part of you that liked what Bucky said, that actually rejoiced in his response and appreciated his sincere apology; but there was another part of you that continued to disown his tokens of appreciation, that didn't want him to see you from above as if you were a little ant he could step on with his shoes.

That part of you that wanted to believe his words clashed with the part of you that didn't want to be vulnerable again.

“I was supposed to be that for you. Then I pushed you too hard, didn't know how to talk things out and also didn't know how to deal with the response I got. I was too angry, but that shouldn't have been a justification.”

“You wouldn't have gotten the information out of me any other way, you know that?”

“I don't think so.”

“You would never have gotten it. If you had stopped, I would have put up walls to keep you from ever coming near me again.”

You meant what you said, and Bucky knew you did. Suddenly, you felt as if in that moment you could deploy the walls to stop him from talking.

“I'm not justifying anything I did, Y/N, I also don't want to say that's how it was supposed to happen because I'm sure I would have found another way. If I hadn't let my emotions win…”

“Can we just let it be? I already know you're sorry and I told you everything was okay.”

“But nothing is okay.”

“Yes it is.”

“No, you're trying to avoid the subject.”

You snorted loudly. You hate it. You didn't want to be rude to him, but you were reaching a limit you could barely tolerate when dealing with such topics.

“Can you blame me? I feel like I've already exhausted all the feelings talk I could possibly have in a year.”

“It's not wrong to talk about these things…”

“And, still, I'd rather not.”

Suddenly, it was like having a rush of adrenaline running through your body. You started to move your legs quickly, and surprisingly you were able to overtake Bucky and start walking ahead of him. Although you looked as if you were not too affected by Bucky being this insistent with your feelings, you actually had your heart beating at an impressive speed. Your chest contracted with every breath and you felt a rock settling in the pit of your stomach. Suddenly it seemed that the temperature had dropped drastically and your hands were breaking out in a cold sweat. A shiver ran through your body and you felt fear at the possibility of Bucky bringing up that subject again.

“You should consider seeing Dr. Green.”

You stopped your steps. You watched Bucky walk toward you and not stop as you asked him, "How do you know about that? Did Steve tell you about the stupid card?"

The man gave you a sidelong glance.

“I gave it to him.” 

[candycorncremator]

Unfortunately lower visual quality than I wanted be because Tumblr only allows 10 images so I smushed them into three canvases instead of two post. Anyway beta trolls Headcanon and some thoughts below the cut.

Aradia

Aradia is the design I probably have the most experience drawing of the beta trolls purely because of how many zines I’ve drawn her in the last year. I like thinking of her hair similar to Pinkie Pies’ in g4 of mlp, where it’s very curly bouncy in her alive and godtiered forms but straightens out more when she’s ghosting up the place and in Aradia-bot form. I didn’t realize until a recent zine I had been drawing her horns ways too low for comic accuracy but I am a creature of habit so I keep drawing them like that.

Tavros

I’ve grown to love this kid because of my recent reread but I do not like drawing them. Between the Mohawk and the long, straight horns, I don’t care to draw their most important traits so he unfortunately only gets drawn in these group drawings. As for the one ear being pierced, it’s kinda a reference to cow tags but also I think it just fits them.

Sollux

Sollux a pretty easy character to design. I just have to imagine a greasy nerd kid growing up too fast for him to put on weight, add his troll bits and voila. The snake bites are definitely a hold over from the humanstuck I made for him last year but I think it just kinda add to his whole vibe. The undershirt comes from someone who also sits in a hot-ass room most of my days and will wears a second layer so leaving the room won’t feel like stepping out into a frozen wasteland.

Karkat

Karkat for me has always been short and stout guy. Other than that most of his facial features are taken from me, being someone who also over exaggerates their faces and nearly always is squinting a little.

Nepeta

Between all my designs of Nepeta the only thing that ever changes with any consistency is her hair. Like giving her cleft lip scar because I gave it to my fan-descendent of her and it’s cute.

Kanaya

Like two months ago I saw a post on here saying give that girl a nose (in reference to Kanaya) and it was the single most true HC I have ever seen. I also like completely throw out any references I have of her when I draw her hair because I think she should have 1930’s waves and curls. I typically only have to draw the super simple eyes so the only thing I had to change was giving her actual eyes.

Terezi

Got pretty comic accurate but probably would erase some of the chin to imply she’s fat a little better if I wasn’t doing this more rigid style.

Vriska

Also pretty comic accurate with the exception of the snake bites which is probably because I don’t draw her a lot and I don’t think about her much enough looks wise to have any specific head canons.

Equius

Goodness his hair gave me a struggle, kept on looking like a balding metal head until I added the pushed back stuff. Also returned back to drawing pseudo animal ears by giving him horse ears only angle to better fit a humanoid head.

Gamzee

I hate their make-up but every thing else about drawing them is a dream; goat ears, not straight hair, simple horns, silly little guy. What more could I ask for.

Eridan

And I’m almost done but unfortunately this doofus is next and requires the most detailed bust even in canon. Due to drawing them in this year’s 413 countdown I know how I like styling their hair and fins so I basically just chop the hair up since this is suppose to be during comic hcs and then follow their canon and Pesterquest designs with a few added features and boom. I was drawing everyone with the dark grey lips but I forgot for Eridan so I’ll just say they use concealer on their lips.

Feferi

Yippee! Back to ignoring canon and just giving her the biggest eyes on account of her glasses and cute piercings. I originally based her fins off of lion fish fins but they’re definitely more based off of betta ventral fin now.