#I’m bleeding just from dumping stuff

[platypusisnotonfire]

I’m hanging on by a thinner thread than I thought

[satorusugurugurl]

I hope this does not give too much pressure, but I have a request? I LOVED LOVED the fanfic about satosugu and reader with them being very, very rough after a tough work project/trip. Then I thought about it being a angsty?? Love a good angst

This is your account so it’s completely up to you to write or not!! I was thinking that after a while SatoSugu have another rough week. When the come back, the don’t immediately take it out through sex. Instead, they just bottle it up. Reader tries to comfort them about it but they ignore her or act snappy. Reader isn’t a pushover, but she is very understanding and patient. She lets them be mean, (it still hurt though) and just stays calm. She also had her own rough week while they were gone, but she doesn’t really show it. When they come back angry, she was hoping to forget her pain with them, but she only got their cold shoulder and words.

The next day when she comes home from another rough workday, she notices that they seemed to still be angry and agitated from their work trip. They suggest she take the next two days off, and she immediately knew what was coming. (Full consent given from her) She was feeling sensitive from her own turmoil/stress and the duo’s coldness, but she didn’t think too much of it.

While the roughness did feel good at first, it slowly became too much. They were too rough, far too rough. Their harsh words hurt. Their harsh hands hurt. The rope/ribbon hurt. Everything hurt, but was she overreacting? She was scared of disappointing them and ruining the mood I guess. She tried to look alright, but her cries slowly let out from the pain and emotional hurt.

They noticed it… Reader apologizes, but the duo is like, “Um no why are YOU sorry? This is on US.” SatoSugu realize their mistake and take care her mwah!! It was just a small dump, I’m so so sorry! As much as I LOVE writing, I’ll never be too confident enough to put this out. Even if I were to, writing styles will always be different. (Plus, I love the way other people write, just like yours!!)

Sorry it’s so so long!

- Moni Anon (first time requesting… kind of shy)

Shock

Characters: Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, FAB!Reader

Pairing: SatoSugu X FAB!Reader

Word Count: 2,659

Warnings: Blood, death, shock, nightmares, PTSD, rough sex, choking, riding crop, shibari, degradation, emotional breakdown, crying, aftercare

A/N: I loved this request! Angst is like some of my favorite stuff to write! 🥲 I love a good sad story.

Part One

The morgue was cold. But it wasn't as cold as your hands. You stood at the sink, scrubbing at them with soap and water. You hadn't realized the hot water had been running so long; it had turned icy cold. But you had to keep scrubbing them because you could still feel the tacky blood coating them.

Their blood, their blood that was hot and flowed through your fingers when you tried to stop the bleeding. Blood that stained your clothes. The blood is quite literally on your hands.

You tried, tried so damn hard to save the assistant supervisor who was with you on your mission. The information the higher-ups had given you was wrong. The curse you had exorcized wasn't the only one lingering in the building. There had been two, and after the first was taken care of, you and the assistant supervisor were headed out. The second curse attacked. Slicing at you, you had barely managed to dodge it. Getting cut on the cheek. The young woman, however, had her blood splattered on the concrete.

After the other spirit was dealt with, you rushed to her side. She cried as you tried to tell her she would be okay as you called for Ijichi. But the cut was too deep; she lost too much blood, and you watched the light fade from her eyes. Leaving you alone, stained with her blood.

Your mind snapped out of the bloody memory as someone turned the water off. They gently grabbed your hands, drying them off, pulling you out of the trance you were in. Shoko eyes you before gently leading you to the chairs lining the walls, ushering you to sit down. Reluctantly, you listened, plopping down and looking at your hands.

“I'm going to call Satoru and Suguru to tell them what's happened.”

Your head jerked up, “N-No, don't do that. I’m fine!” Shoko shook her head, leaning against the wall. “Shoko, please, really, I’m fine, I swear.”

“Y/N, I left ten minutes ago. You were washing your hands then, and I found you still washing them? You're in shock; I can't let you leave like this.”

“Please, I don't want to bother them. They just got back from a rough mission.”

“And you didn't?”

Your friend's words were searing into you like hot needles. She was right in a sense; you had just gotten back from a rough mission, but so had your boyfriends. They were gone for a week. Having to travel overseas to deal with several grade-one curses. The two of them handled it, taking down the curse users with them. But when they got home this morning, they headed to the room jet lagged and annoyed over each other, claiming they needed space and sleep.

If Shoko called them, they would be more irritable. You wanted them to get as much rest as they could. They worked their asses off. You being in shock was a minimal issue to involve them in. You would be okay—eventually.

“Y/N, I’m not comfortable letting you go home alone,” Shoko repeated, sitting on one of the chairs beside you.

“Okay, what about Yaga or Nanami then?”

You were so thankful that Shoko agreed with your proposition that Ijichi drove you and Nanami back to your house. Nanami was quiet the whole time, stealing the occasional glance at you, watching as you stared at your hands. It wasn't until Ijichi parked in front of your house that Nanami cleared his throat, catching your attention.

“I think you need to take a couple of days off.” His glasses gleamed. “I'm going to talk to Yaga about it. You're in no state to work right now. You need time to process what happened.”

Swallowing hard, you opened the door to the car. “I appreciate your concern, Nanami, but I’ll be okay.” You attempted to give him your best smile. “I got this.” The look on your friend's face screamed that he knew you were lying.

“Regardless of your ploy to fool me or downplay how much you're hurting, I will still talk to Principal Yaga.”

“And I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks again, Nanami.”

You waved the car off before rubbing Your still-freezing hands together. Things would be better once you got inside. Satoru and Suguru were back, and you could relax, forget about work, and just be together.

As you approached the door, Satoru came out, black sunglasses on as he shut the door. “Oh, hi Satoru, welcome home!” You put on your best smile, approaching him.

“Hi, I'm heading out.” His tone was sharp and as cold as your hands.

“You’re not staying here?”

He pulled his sunglasses down, revealing his blue eyes. “No, I need to get out. Suguru is driving me insane. I’m going shopping.” He waved you off as if dismissing you.

“Oh, well, if you give me a few minutes, I could go with you?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way.” He kept walking, not even looking back at you. “I don’t wanna be around either of you right now.”

Ouch, that stung. But you just gave him a weak smile before heading inside. “Be safe.”

Alright, so Satoru needed some space, but Suguru might be in a better mood. Heading towards his room, you knocked and waited for him to respond. Only he didn’t. Your stomach twisted in knots as you hit again, a little harder this time.

A loud groan sounded behind the door before you listened to the floorboards creaking. The door flung open, and Suguru cocked an eyebrow as he eyed you. He looked exhausted and pissy, but he didn’t say anything as he glared at you.

“W-Welcome home.”

“Mhm.”

“Uhm, Satoru left. Do you wanna watch a movie or get something to eat?”

Suguru shook his head, dark streams of hair falling in his face. “No.” Your cold fingers twitched as you took a deep breath. Just as you opened your mouth, Suguru sighed, jabbing his thumb against the center of his forehead. “Y/N, please, I don’t have the patience or energy to entertain you. Please go away.” The door slammed in your face, leaving you staring at the wood grain in stunned silence.

Okay, well, that was unexpected. When the boys came back from a mission like this, you all usually had sex, taking the aggression out in the rawest way you could. This cold shoulder attitude was something new. Alien and strange, making my stomach ache.

After last week and especially today, you hoped to spend time with them. Snuggling them, forgetting about the horrors you had witnessed. Instead, you have a door in your face.

Nothing you could say or do to change their minds and attitudes. Everyone dealt with anger, stress, and exhaustion in their ways. Theirs happened to be wanting to spend time by themselves. Which was perfectly fine, but they could have at least been a bit nicer about it.

You spent the entirety of your night in your room after a hot shower. You lay there hugging your pillow as you stared blankly at the wall. Every time you started to doze off, you would see blood splattering the floor, hear wheezed, gurgled breathing, and see the light fade from that poor girl's eyes. You hardly slept at all, restlessly tossing and turning.

You were relieved when your alarm went off, ushering you to start your day. You got ready, and not once did you see your partners. Both doors to their rooms shut. Neither one came out to see you off, making your stomach turn.

At work, you put on a smile, trying to joke with the first and second years, but everyone could see your fragile state. From the dark circles under your eyes to how you disassociated during training. So you weren’t surprised when Principal Yaga came into your classroom and told you that you would be taking the next week off.

“You need to focus on recovering. If you need more time, call me.”

His words hummed in your ears all the way home. How pathetic were you? Allowing a young girl to be killed. A mandatory week off of work, and on top of all that, your partners were pissy and avoiding you. This, indeed, was one of the lowest two days of your life. You can’t remember the last time you’d felt this lowly, lost in the dark.

“I’m home.” You announced as you entered the house. Not expecting a response since both of them weren’t up when you left.

“Y/N,” Satoru said as you felt him press against your back. “Need you to do us a favor.”

Your body tensed as a blindfold was placed over your eyes. “You’ll need to call out of work for the next few days,” Suguru added as hands groped your breasts.

“Yeah, not a problem.”

They needed this, and if it would mean they felt better, that you could focus on pleasure, you’d gladly do what they wanted. And what they wanted was rough carnal sex. The type of sex that hard blue ropes digging into your wrists, bound behind your back. Intricate shibari dug into your chest, your breasts being squeezed. Everything felt so good, but it was so tight it almost hurt.

Your mouth was wrapped around Satoru’s cock. He was fucking your throat, yanking your hair painfully as he moaned as Suguru fucked you from behind. With every other thrust, Suguru slapped the leather riding crop over your ass. Your cries around Satoru’s cock had them both groaning.

“What a fuckin’ slut.” Satoru whined out, thrusting deeper down your throat, making you gag.

Suguru smacked the crop harder against you. “A dirty fuckin’ slut.” Another smack, followed by another, and it just kept going and going.

You cried around Gojo harder as Suguru continued his whipping behind you. “M-Mmm!”

“Mmm~?” Satoru mocked you. “Fuckin’ pathetic.” His cock hit the back of your throat painfully. Making your tears stain the blindfold as Suguru’s pace picked up.

“Pathetic whiny bitch in heat.” The crop hit your other cheek. “Absolutely pathetic”

You weren’t sure what hurt more. The crop and their cold, harsh words. They were never this mean. Calling you pathetic hurts because that’s who you saw yourself for the last few days. The ropes began to sting like your eyes; more tears stained the blindfold. You could handle this; they should be done soon; they needed this.

You couldn’t save that girl; the least you could do was help your boyfriends feel better.

“Pathetic worthless girl~ all you’re good for is this.” Gojo yanked your hair, and you saw splatters of blood. You were worthless at that moment.

A sharp sting from the riding crop. “Yeah, a good-for-nothing slut. All you’re good for is being our personal cock sleeve.” Good for nothing, yeah, you just let that girl die.

“Fucking stupid bitch.” The dark-haired man watched as Satoru’s face scrunched up in pleasure. “You're going to make him cum.” Long fingers trailed under the twisted ropes, yanking them hard. “That’s all you’re good for bitch.”

The ropes burned, digging into your flesh. Slicing into you like—like the girl you let die.

Suguru was the first to notice something was wrong. Your hands were pale. They trembled along with the rest of your body. He tossed the riding crop to the side, his dark eyes focusing on his white-haired boyfriend, who was still in utter bliss.

“Satoru.” His voice wasn’t filled with the same heated lust from before, and you noticed. “Stop, pull out.”

Satoru was about to complain, but as he peered at Suguru with half-lidded eyes, he knew he was serious. He listened to both of them pulling out of your mouth and pussy, watching as you coughed and gagged before those gags turned into wretched sobs. You curled in on yourself, sobbing louder. Images of blood, the morgue table, and blood spinning down a sink flashed through your mind.

The boys jumped into action instantly. They removed the blindfold and the bindings around you, allowing you to curl into a fetal position. They watched your trembling body before looking at each other, mentally asking the other what they should do. But it was you who spoke first.

“I-I’m sorry!” A broken cry sounded from the back of your throat.

Satoru gently pulled you into his arms, leaning against the bed's headboard. You sobbed into his chest while Suguru gently rubbed your back. Both of them were silent as you cried two days’ worth of pain out. Guilt seeped into the muscles and none of your body, for the assistant supervisor, for ruining the mood, for being so weak.

“Don’t. Please don’t apologize,” Suguru whispered, leaning down and kissing your cheek. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“This is on us. We went way too far.” Satoru added his hands, gently massaging your shoulders.

You babbled into his chest as your other hand grabbed Suguru’s, holding it tight. “I-I messed up this week! And now this!” You could feel both of their muscles tensing at your words.

“What do you—”

“Mean you messed up?”

The events of yesterday spewed out of you like a water fountain. You sobbed, going over the details while both men gently caressed and listened to you in silence. The moment you finished spilling out your guts, Satoru and Suguru shared a look.

“And I didn’t make it any better.” You sniffled, looking up at Satoru. Ivory cheeks were flushed as he ran his hand through his hair. “Telling you I didn’t want to be near you.”

Suguru let out a cold, harsh chuckle. “I wasn’t any better. I told Y/N I didn’t have the time nor the patience to entertain her.” You hummed, relaxing against the duo, feeling more calm than you had in the last twenty-four hours.

“Then we were too rough. I feel like a total dick

“Same here,” Suguru planted a kiss on your shoulder, his hand gently rubbing your arm. “What can we do to make it up to you?”

“I’m honestly so tired. I just want to snuggle in bed.”

Your request wasn’t ignored. They both got up; Suguru changed the sheets and picked up Satoru’s room. While you stood under the hot water in the shower, Satoru gently washed your hair. Long fingers massaging your scalp before the curtain opened and Suguru stepped in behind you. Their hands gently slid over your slicked skin. Washing, massaging, and worshiping you.

Their sweet caresses made your eyes heavier as the tense, sore muscles relaxed. While you longed to take care of their needs most of the time. Being held like this, sandwiched between the two strongest sorcerers in the world, made you feel safer. With them at your side, you knee deep down in your gut that everything would be okay.

After the most relaxing shower you’d ever taken was over, you slid on your pajamas before crawling into bed, collapsing into the plush mattress and expensive Egyptian silk sheets. Satoru crawled in with you as Suguru pulled you to rest on his chest while Satoru spooned you. Their hands were so soft and gentle. Their fingers and warm palms were like your own personal lullaby.

“Shh,” Suguru hushed, “we got you.”

Satoru nodded against your shoulder and the crook of your neck. “You can rest. If you have a nightmare, we’ll be beside you.” Satoru grabbed one hand as Suguru grabbed the other.

“Rest.”

The warmth of their hands in yours had your cold hands finally returning to normal. Sometimes, days could be terrible. Making you question everything you do. You were happy to know your boyfriends would be there to help bring some of the light back into your life. That was something you would firmly be able to stand by and defend, especially when their arms were wrapped so tightly around you.

[heartbreakgrill]

stiles stilinski: breakable heaven; pt. 3, “devils rolls the dice, angels roll their eyes. if i bleed, you’ll be the last to know.”

description: situationship x stiles.

stiles: hey :)

y/n: hello! don’t let coach see u on ur phone, loser :)

stiles: i know, i know. just thinking of you

y/n: oh?

y/n’s throat tightened. she looked up across the lunch room, past danny’s head. her stare blanked at the wall. he was thinking of her. thinking of her…how? that was a very loaded statement to make. it was…flirtatious. caring. it was a strings attached kind of statement. it was dangerous.

her phone buzzed.

stiles: thinking of that lacey bra you had on the other day, mostly :)

y/n flushed, a red, hot buzz radiating off her skin. she nearly choked on her spit, and had to take a quick sip of water. danny- who was shooting off at the mouth about something during the lacrosse game last friday- barely glanced at her. he kept blabbering.

this? y/n was good at this. she didn’t have to look him in the eye while saying the dirtjest things she could. this was just her, her phone, and her imagination.

y/n: today it’s red

stiles: pics or it didn’t happen

stiles…was not good at this. she didn’t expect him to be. he was awkward, no matter what. but, it took the pressure off of most of the stressful things in life. that’s part of what she was starting to value most in his character.

y/n: come see for yourself ;)

stiles: fuck, i’m in econ!

y/n: excuses, excuses

stiles: no, no, i would if i could, i promise!

y/n: prove it, then ;)

stiles: meet me in the locker room in 5

y/n pocketed her phone, grabbed her bag.

it had been nearly a week since their first time. she thought about it almost every second of every day. it was clouding the heartbreak that had lingered on her like freezing rain. it was loosening her mangled mind.

she hadn’t expected for them to fuck every single day since then. but, neither of them had said anything about it. she was half-worried that she was so terrible, he didn’t want anything to do with that aspect of their relationship. instead, they’d just been texting a lot about other stuff. music, movies, books. they were bonding.

it was cool to have another friend, but god- she wanted him.

stiles had been dealing with his own issues. he, scott, lydia, allison- they’d spent a night tracking boyd and cora, after searching for a week to find them in the vault. it was an exhausting gig, on top of lacrosse practice, the game last friday, homework. he hadn’t had time to really think about getting laid.

but, now, here he was- monday at 12:10pm, during economics, with coach yelling like a banshee- he tried to focus on the chalkboard, on the text highlighted in his book. all he could think about was her. her skin, delicate beneath his fingertips. her lips, so plump against his neck. her legs-

he dumped his shit into his backpack and shouldered it quickly. scott whipped his head towards his friend, concerned. then, the werewolf caught a whiff of stiles’ hormones. scott crinkled his expression, grossed out. but, he shot stiles a half-hearted thumbs up.

coach called after the boy, “hey, next time, let’s try, excuse me, may i use the restroom, k?”

coach continued on with some angry remark, but stiles ignored him.

he made it to the locker room, quickly, nearly out of breath from how fast his pace was. stiles tossed the door open, and it slammed shut behind him. y/n wasn’t visible to him. he set down his bag, “y/n? hello?”

stiles looked around every which corner, but she wasn’t there. he pulled out his phone, and saw a text from her.

y/n: was on my way, but danny made me go stalk the new boy ethan in study hall. i’m so so sorry stiles! i’m totally going to make it up to. what are you doing 6th period?????

stiles’ shoulders dropped. he slouched down on one of the benches, feeling a little blue-balled. then, a second text dinged.

y/n: also here, for now ;) 1 attached photo

he nearly broke his phone. it flipped out of his hand, and he jumped from the bench to grab it before it hit the floor. he fell onto his knees, awkwardly holding the device in the air. the picture stared back at him. she’d slipped into the school bathroom to take a picture for him. for him. stiles.

he fell over, again, this time onto his stomach. stiles groaned, annoyedly, into the concrete floor of the locker room. his life sucked so bad.

the bell rang for lunch.

–

stiles: all yours, baby. see you, then

y/n, now in history, felt her breath hitch at the text. baby? baby. he called her baby. she knew, a lot of the times, people used pet names when they were sexting. but, this…was strange for a guy like stiles. he wasn’t fluid or, by any means, good at sexting. he wasn’t the type to know to say that. he wasn’t the type to…y/n overthought it every which way that she possibly could.

and, then, he texted her again.

stiles: you are so, so beautiful. 1 attached photo

y/n choked on her spit this time. she dropped her phone onto the desk, coughing hysterically. danny, seated behind her, leaned forward. he patted her back, asked her if she was okay. she gave him a thumbs up, kind of.

stiles was wearing underwear with pickles on them.

and he was very, very hard.

the bell rang, signaling the end of the transitional period, and the instructor began the lesson. y/n took a swig of water. she was sweating a little bit. she was struggling to sit still.

someone’s phone dinged. the instructor called out, “please, everyone, take a moment to put your phones away.”

y/n grabbed her cell, staring intensely at the photo as she slowly, painfully, leaned over to put it in her bag.

–

y/n: do you know how hard it was to pay attention in class, thinking about you like that?

y/n: i want to take care of you so badly

y/n: i’m in the locker room, where are you?

y/n: please, stiles. need you

stiles phone buzzed, four times, in the back of his jeans pocket. scott, ethan, and aiden glanced over at him. he cleared his throat, scratched the side of his neck.

“let me, just…” he stepped aside from the conversation to look at his phone screen.

his face turned beat red.

he hasn’t forgotten about their plans, but time got away from him. it was 6th period, and he was stuck interrogating alpha werewolves about supernatural shit. it was in times like these, when he wished life was normal. unfortunately, life is anything but.

stiles: i’m so fucking sorry. scott needed me for something. please don’t be mad at me. next period, promise

y/n: you know girls can get blue ball too?

y/n: it’s just easier to hide.

y/n: good luck :) 1 attached photo

oh, fuck.

–

7th period.

y/n was marching towards the locker room. she dumped her book bag at her locker, intending to be done with school for the day, since her next class would be her free period. she had one very important, very…big thing on her mind.

y/n was just around the corner from the locker room when a voice called out her name. she skidded to a stop, shoulders tense, and a huff on her lips, where stiles’ should be.

“y/n…the bell rang four minutes ago,” miss blake spoke, looking pointedly in y/n’s eyes.

y/n smiled, so painfully fake, “yes, ma’am.”

“so, you have one minute to get to my class on time. yet, you seem to be headed for the locker room. do you have a late pass?” miss blake was on her high fucking horse today, it seemed.

y/n shook her head, lips pursed in annoyance, “no, ma’am.”

“oh, silly me, then,” she rolled her eyes in a funny manner, “you must just be turning around then. here, we can walk together?”

miss blake looped her arm through y/n’s, and led them towards the english classroom at the other end of the hall.

y/n didn’t get a chance to text stiles back, but she just knew the poor boy was about to burst.

–

stiles: here

stiles: i can’t wait to touch you

stiles: oh my god i just saw miss blake literally drag you away from me

stiles: i’m gonna die

stiles: don’t even try to apologize, it’s literally not your fault. and i can survive with not getting off for a little while longer. guilt free zone here :)

stiles: but oh my god you’re so fucking pretty

stiles: you look so good today. and your ass looks good in those jeans

stiles: ok have fun in english. text me when you’re out. if you can. please. thanks

incoming call from: y/n :)

“y/n?”

“stiles!”

“speaking?”

“it’s my free period.”

“meet me at my jeep in 5.”

“im already here.”

–

stiles parked his jeep behind the lacrosse field. he watched y/n climb into the back seat, painfully slow in her movements. she settled onto the bench in the back of his jeep, blushing already, smiling shyly. stiles waited but a second to climb towards her. only he was a million times more awkward about it. stiles clambered through the vehicle.

“oh-!” y/n touched his back gently, assuring he safely made it back there.

his face was close to hers once he was seated. stiles flashed a sweet grin, “hi.”

“hi,” she giggled lightly. “how are you doing?”

“i’m doing swell, thank you,” stiles eyed her lips, the low curve of her v-neck t-shirt.

y/n took a breath to speak, her chest expanding. stiles watched her watched the tops of her breasts move. she barely said, “i was-“

before stiles interrupted, “i am so totally interested in what you have to say, but i really fucking need to touch you and kiss you, so please shut the fuck up.”

the soft sound of the low-volume radio and the idling engine was background noise. stiles’ windows were tinted just enough to dull out the light inside. it was tight, and they struggled against each other more than once. but stiles was more than happy to bend into strange positions so that y/n was comfortable. she didn’t ask him to- but he insisted. he insisted on putting his jacket beneath her head, so she could have a makeshift pillow. he insisted that she didn’t have to give him a blow job, so that she wouldn’t have to squeeze onto her knees behind the front seat. sure, they might have been bare minimum, consensual things that weren’t anything to write home about. but in this day and age, a boy muttering, “‘is okay?” each and every time he moved against y/n was enough to give her butterflies. it meant he cared. stiles cared.

the first time they had sex, it was just sex. they fucked, she went to the bathroom afterwards, and when she got back, he was dressed, ready to leave. stiles hadn’t known what he was supposed to do, but he figured she didn’t want him to linger.

this time, after he pulled out, wrapped the condom, and tossed it into the mini trash can in the front seat, stiles scooted over far enough on the bench to allow her room to lay down beside him. this time, it was heated…passionate. romantic.

y/n wasn’t even thinking, she was just caught up in the moment. she lay her head on his bare chest, ear cupped so she could hear his heartbeat. he was sticky with sweat, and his breathing was quick and loud. but he was warm, comfortable, and…strong. she’d never noticed that before. how defined his chest was. he was a lacrosse player, after all. even if he spent most of the time on the bench, he was still working out.

stiles tensed up under her affection, at first, but he became comfortable soon enough. he peered down at y/n. she stared off into space, and her expression was hidden from him. stiles gently slid his arm around her and the tips of his fingers floated up and down her bicep.

“what’re you thinking about?” stiles found himself saying.

y/n took a breath, regaining some semblance of awareness after she had been caught up in a daydreaming feeling. usually, after sex, she always felt…distanced. like she was behind glass. the air was slowly being sucked out of the box by her own lungs. she was suffocating.

the first time with stiles- it had felt like that, if only because of her internal battle with her feelings for sam. her mind had been racing with over wrung thoughts.

other times, like with sam, it was because the sex had felt like a transaction, like a consummation of some small part of her she’d never get it. this whole new generation was focused on sexual liberation- and y/n was into that. sex was awesome- it felt good. but, that idea completely ignored the fact that, most often, sex between a teenage boy and girl was laced with miscommunication and manipulation.

this time- this time was good. this time felt- liberating. it felt good. she got off. sure, she’d gotten off a few other hands, if only at her own hands. but, this time- stiles had made her feel good. and, she didn’t feel shitty because she wasn’t trying to get some small form of intimacy from someone she wanted to love and have. no, this time it was really just sex. sex with someone kind, considerate, and unattached.

(even if they were cuddling and neither of them wanted to admit how good that felt.)

“not much,” y/n lied through her teeth.

stiles caught a piece of her hair between his fingers and tugged at mindlessly. it tickled the back of her neck. stiles was hoping she was going to say something heartfelt, something sweet. he had gotten his hopes, for no reason. after all, he knew the rules. “fair. uh, hey, listen…i should probably-“

“oh, yeah, no, of course,” y/n sat up quickly, covering herself with his jacket.

they settled, side by side, on the seats of the jeep. y/n shifted awkwardly, reaching across his lap for her t-shirt that shoved between the wall and the seat. stiles reached her direction for his own shirt. they stumbled over each other for a second or two, muttering sorry’s and elbowing sides. then they were holding their respective clothing pieces.

they dressed in silence.

“i’ll drive you back, okay?” stiles offered.

y/n tugged her shirt down her torso, breathing deeply, “uh, sure, yeah. yeah.”

so, stiles drove them back over to the main parking lot. school was just letting out for the day. stiles spotted scott running down the front steps, seemingly in a rush, as the jeep came to a stop beside y/n’s car.

“listen, uh,” she turned her knees towards him, jaw open with a buffering conversation.

stiles wasn’t paying attention, but she didn’t notice. he was too busy watching scott, who was now talking to allison. and, then he saw derek power walking towards them.

“yeah, hey, um, could you send it in a text? i’ve gotta get somewhere. thanks for- that. yep!” stiles popped open the jeep door. he slid out, in a hurry, slamming the door shut before she could get another word in.

y/n sat there, for a moment, in utter shock. she took a deep, unsettled breath.

she needed to call danny.

–

“yeah, that’s fucking strange.”

y/n plopped onto her bed, rocking danny in his spot beside her. she took a hit from her cart, letting the smoke roll out as she replied with, “isn’t that fucking strange? like, it’s not that i expected we cuddle for twenty minutes and be all cutesy. but, the way he just rushed me out of there? that was weird.”

“maybe he’s pushing you cause he’s scared of having feelings for you,” danny tossed a ball of popcorn into his mouth, shrugging nonchalantly.

y/n rolled her eyes. she shifted onto her stomach, shoving her head into her pillow. “ugh,” she groaned, loudly. “you know, maybe i should end things right now. it’s gonna get complicated, i can already tell.“

“wait, okay,” danny pulled the pillow out from beneath her. she looked up at him. “let’s do a pro and con list before we make any rash decisions.“

“literally why?” y/n questioned.

danny waved her off, “cause it gives me entertainment. besides, it’ll be fun. now, give me a pro…”

she thought, tapped her chin as if it helped, “i think it’s helping me get over sam. i mean, i’ve stopped driving past his work. and i unfriended his mom on facebook. don’t think about him as much.”

danny clapped lightly, “aw, wait, yay. that’s such good news! best pro ever. okay, now, con.”

“um,” she hummed, “maybe…i don’t know. like, it’s complicated. like, it’s gonna be complicated.”

“yeah, but what’s complicated about it? nothing! so, one of you catches feelings- fuck it. you figure it out. i know another pro- the sex if fucking good. it’s making you feel good. you’ve got a goddamn glow about you, babe. you’re getting over bitch boy, you’re moving along. it’s not complicated.”

“i just,” y/n lay her head down again, “i’m just scared of getting hurt again, so soon. i feel like it would wreck me.”

“if you get hurt,” danny set his hand on her arm, “then, we’ll get through it, again. it’ll pass, it always does.“

she smiled up at her friend, only a little encouraged by his words. she still felt off. danny could tell by the distant look in her eyes. “but, you know, if you’re that worried- just end it. don’t continue. don’t put yourself in a situation where you think you could end up getting hurt.”

y/n didn’t know what to say. he was right, both sides of his argument were right. danny was the type of person to always be.

“you know what we should do?” y/n sat up, suddenly, the light bulb above her head aglow, “throw a party!”

danny laughed at her, leaning his head on his hand. “really? you are the last person i’d expect to want to throw a party.”

“i know, but- let’s do it! i wanna get fucked up and just chill out for a night.”

“you know,” danny pointed at her with a smug expression, “that’s the best idea you’ve had all year.”

[scoops-aboy86]

This is a belated happy birthday fic for @whimsicalwadewinstonwilson! Chubby Steve fluff, with a little bit of stuffing and spice thrown in at the end. 😘

Eddie watches blearily from his hospital bed as Steve, hands on his hips, bickers with Dustin over what is and what isn’t appropriate hospital visit etiquette. Namely, “You can’t just try to hug a guy who just got out of major surgery, dipshit!” 

It’s absolutely the drugs—Eddie hasn’t asked what he’s on yet, it’s sure as shit the good stuff though—but all that’s running through his head right now is, I’m gonna marry that man. 

He’s been trying to convince himself not to fall for Steve Harrington for years, ever since he’d accidentally caught a school swim meet and nearly wiped out walking into a trash can at the sight of so much mole-speckled skin on display. Seeing that again in the Upside Down’s muted lighting while Steve killed one of those bat things with his bare hands, even obscured by grime and blood and the most luxurious chest hair that Eddie has ever personally witnessed, seems to have sealed the deal. 

“Steeeve,” he whines, interrupting their argument. “I want a hug. From you,” he adds quickly, then points a finger in Dustin’s general direction. “Not you, Henderson. You’re not my type.”

Steve’s face goes red while Dustin snorts in half-offended amusement. Three minutes later Eddie has somehow persuaded Steve to lay down in the bed with him—carefully, because Eddie is still connected to a lot of stuff—and cuddle up. He tells Dustin in his best ‘benevolent lord’ voice to “fetch grapes so that I might feed this beautifully warm vision of loveliness by hand” and the kid actually leaves the room, though god only knows if he’ll honor the request. 

“Are you sure this doesn’t hurt?” Steve asks for the third or the twentieth time. “You nearly died, man, I don’t want to… squish you or whatever.”

With a hum, Eddie tugs him closer. (Or tries, anyway. At the moment he has all the strength of a newborn kitten, but it’s the thought that counts.) “Sweet Stevie, jewel of my heart,” he says, and part of him does know that he’s going to be incredibly embarrassed about this later but for now Steve isn’t telling him to fuck off and that’s glorious, “you could never squish me. Your presence sustains me. With you at my side, Death himself can’t help but agree that I’m already safely tucked away in heaven and destined to forever thrive in the glow of your light.”

The way Steve blinks at him, face flushed and lips slightly parted like he’s trying to think of a reply but coming up empty, is perfect. Eddie coos and kisses his forehead, and Steve shifts to hide his burning face against Eddie’s shoulder, heat bleeding through the paper-thin hospital gown. But he doesn’t get up, is the important thing. 

To Eddie’s surprise (and only half because he’d forgotten in his muddled state, thank you very much) Dustin returns with an armload of vending machine snacks. “Steve doesn’t like grapes,” he announces, and dumps the snacks over the blanket next to Eddie’s non-Steve side. “I brought some stuff he does like. Don’t pull any stitches or I’ll tell Robin you’re trying to steal her boyfriend.”

Steve snorts into Eddie’s shoulder, mumbling low enough that only Eddie can hear, “Wouldn’t want that.” But he lets Eddie feed him pop tarts and pringles and various candy bars for the next hour, or whenever Eddie dozes off again in another post-op nap. 

~

“Dustin sent me in here to break up a love fest,” Robin says as she enters the room, smirk quickly changing to raised eyebrows as she takes in the scene on the bed and, just as quickly, shutting the door behind herself. “Which I didn’t expect to actually find, wow.”

Steve, wrapped up in Eddie’s sleeping embrace, rolls his eyes. “He wanted to feed me grapes.”

“Uh huh,” she replies slowly, taking in the scattered wrappers. “But you don’t like grapes.”

“Only when they’re room temperature and squishy, but that’s not the point, Rob.” He tries to shift, only for Eddie’s weak grip on him to tighten a little. Immediately, he freezes, but the other man just hums in his sleep and settles back down. “I don’t know what to do,” he admits, looking back up to his best friend with deer-in-the-headlights eyes. 

“Because you’re stuck in the grip of a metalhead koala?”

Steve gives a tiny shake of his head against Eddie’s shoulder, where he’s obligingly curled into the man’s side. “Because it’s nice,” he whispers.

“Oh, Steve…”

~

The next several months as Eddie recovers are… interesting. Since his uncle is staying in the local motel and Steve’s parents have all but washed their hands of Hawkins, it’s agreed that Eddie should stay at the Harrington house. As soon as someone floats the idea, Steve is quick to tell him that there’s a first floor guest room with an en-suite and his name on it. 

Wayne comes over whenever Steve has to be at work; the plant was destroyed in the earthquake but Family Video, for all its faults, is somehow still standing, and goddamn if people don’t want their hot and cold running entertainment after surviving a ‘natural disaster.’ At night, though, Steve stays in Eddie’s room out of concern that he might not hear the bell he’s given to Eddie to ring whenever he needs something. He’s not that heavy a sleeper, for the most part—not anymore, with the nightmares and the headaches and the difficulty sleeping alone—but it eases something in him to know that Eddie is right there, alive and breathing. 

Eddie, for his part, never stops asking Steve to help keep him warm. At first it was still the drugs, which absolutely did a number on his impulse control. But weaning off of them seemed to only make him more clingy, just… in an irritable way, which Steve figures is fair. His own bites itch like hell while healing up; Eddie has it way worse, the constant prickle of healing skin and deeper injuries. 

One day when Eddie is snapping at everything, Steve starts to ask, “Do you want me to get you more—”

“Absolutely the fuck not,” Eddie barks, glaring at first but then rubbing both hands over his face with a groan. “It’s a slippery slope from ‘use as needed’ to ‘use whenever the fuck you feel like getting high,’ Steve. I’ve seen it. I’m not gonna do what my parents did to me to you and Wayne.”

They’re both quiet for a long moment after that, Eddie avoiding eye contact while Steve tries earnestly to make it. 

“Okay,” Steve says finally, and settles back down. He’s at Eddie’s side again, on what’s steadily becoming his side of the bed because Eddie has started exasperatedly telling him to just come lay down whenever he starts to nod off in the armchair in the corner. 

Eddie’s eyes flick over, catch on his. It still amazes him every time that Steve is willing to get this close, given Eddie’s public record as a freak, a drug dealer, and a three-time high school senior. And, last but not least, the actually very true rumors about his sexuality, can’t forget that! He keeps waiting for the bubble to pop and Steve to announce that enough is enough, but it keeps not happening. 

Not sure what else to do, Eddie pushes a corner of the grilled cheese Steve had made for him against the other man’s lips until he takes a bite. And another. Steve makes him take at least one bite to each of his two, and between them they gradually make their way through the sandwich, several Yoohoos, and various snacks. 

~

“He said he’s not going to do that ‘to you and Wayne.’ How come he said me first? Does that mean anything or was it just because I was in the room with him?” Steve says into the phone, and pops another Pringles chip into his mouth. With Eddie constantly pushing food on him for some reason, he’s gotten in the habit of snacking even when his charge is taking a midday nap. 

“Steve,” Robin sighs. “I mean this in the least chauvinist way possible, but you sound like a teenage girl right now despite being literally neither of those things. But I’ve gotta tell you, like I told my friend Becky when she was desperate for Adam Hurley to notice her…” She sighs again. “From the depths of my soul, I do not know.”

Groaning, he lets his head thunk against the wall next to the phone. “You’re supposed to be my gay wingwoman here, Birdie. I don’t know what I’m doing!”

“And you think I do?! Steve, you’ve kissed thousands—”

He makes a wounded noise. 

“—Hundreds?”

He groans again. 

“Whatever! You’ve kissed a lot of girls and I have kissed zero, despite wanting to very, very much. You’ve kissed zero boys, and guess what! That’s also my number, and I have no desire to ever let it go any higher. My fields of expertise are so far away it’s not even on this map.”

Steve lifts his head again with a sigh. “Unless you need kissing practice before a big date,” he offers absently while running a hand through his hair. 

“That is—No, Steve, no. That’s not a thing. Who have you practiced kissing with?”

“Uh, Tommy, when he was trying to get the balls to ask Carol out the first time.” He pauses, thinking. “And the second. Apparently he underperformed.”

“Oh my god. First of all, oh my god you have kissed a boy, so shut up. Second, oh my god is that not a heterosexual thing to do with your guy friends, I can’t believe it took you so long to realize you might be bi. Third, oh my god Steve.”

He’s almost snickering at her by the time she’s done, audibly flailing and dramatic in a way that eases the anxiety twisting his stomach. (And another stack of Pringles helps too.) 

~

With Eddie still needing help when it comes to… bathroom activities, there isn’t a lot of either of them that the other hasn’t seen. It just doesn’t really occur to Steve that this goes both ways until he first starts realizing that the swim trunks he dons for helping Eddie in the shower—basically he’s a glorified safety bar, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling except for when he helps wash Eddie’s everything from the shoulders up—are getting a little snug. 

Kind of a lot snug, actually, and when did that happen?

Steve ponders this long after noticing it. Hair dry and camped out on the couch, watching some nerdy fantasy movie with puppets that he’d brought home from work because he’d thought Eddie might like it. Meanwhile, Eddie is stretched out over most of the couch with his head pillowed on Steve’s thigh, completely enthralled. But that isn’t stopping him from occasionally holding up the snack cake in his hand for Steve to take a bite. Or a handful of buttery popcorn. Or some of the Twizzlers that Eddie doesn’t even like, they’re Steve’s favorite. Or or or. 

Eddie is always feeding him, is the thing. Especially after they’ve smoked up, which they have today. (Hawkins’ premier dealer might have been forced into early retirement, but Argyle is amazingly generous with his stash.) And Steve keeps letting it happen because, really, he gets it. Going from independent to needing help with literally everything is a pretty big blow; he knows that from all the times he’s been looked after post-concussions, getting frustrated with all the hovering even though he understands why it’s necessary. So while Steve is taking care of Eddie, if Eddie wants to balance that out a little by taking care of him in some way, fair enough. Steve is all for whatever keeps him from being a cranky patient, because he gets the feeling that an Eddie actively trying to be difficult is not something he wants to endure. 

And it’s… It’s nice. This might be the rose colored glasses of his awkward and embarrassing crush on the guy talking, but Steve likes Eddie’s little attempts to take care of him. 

“Mountain Dew?” Eddie asks, shifting his head and holding up his can with the bright red crazy straw in the shape of a guitar. Steve had seen it at Melvalds, next to a blue one in the shape of a race car, and bought both on a whim. The latter is still in his empty Coke can on the coffee table; he hadn’t wanted to disturb Eddie by getting up just to grab another one. 

“Thanks,” Steve says genuinely, because the saltiness of the popcorn has really made him thirsty. It’s nice to think that Eddie noticed, even if it might just be a coincidence. 

~

It’s not a coincidence.

Eddie wants Steve to be able to relax. Sure, he’s the one who nearly died, but he’d only had to deal with the Upside Down for a week before supergirl ended things for good; Steve has been living with this for years. It’s stamped into the nightmares that Eddie knows Steve gets too, and the way he goes far away and thoughtful sometimes, and the nailbat that goes in the umbrella stand by the door when he’s home, the trunk of the beemer when he’s not. 

So Eddie pays attention to what Steve likes and makes sure he gets it. Snacks, extras, and treats. Weed to take the edge off every once in a while; if it also keeps Eddie from crawling out of his skin on days when the pain gets bad, so much the better. And asking Steve to make heavier dishes (because Eddie’s doctor recommended rich meals to build his strength back up) at the end of the day means they both have a heavier sleep, fewer bad dreams. 

When the signs of all those indulgences start to show on Steve’s body, Eddie welcomes them. They share a bed every night now, and often Eddie wakes first just to linger against Steve next to him, lightly run both hands over his friend’s softer torso, and smile dreamily to himself because it’s a reminder that all the awful shit is over and done. 

Which is why he also pretends to still be asleep on the mornings when Steve wakes with a jolt and surreptitiously checks him over for open wounds. Steve was the one who held his bleeding, ruined body together on the frantic drive between the former Munson trailer and the hospital; it left an indelible mark. That’s why they spend so much time together, Eddie figures. All that trauma bonding is powerful shit. 

And also, his continent-sized crush.  Which he’s trying to rein in, but honestly? He really does want the Greco-Roman fantasy of lounging around feeding grapes to Steve Harrington. Firm ones, still fridge-cold, because that’s how Steve likes them. And day by day, Steve seems more and more open to just. Letting him do that. 

It’s driving Eddie crazy. When the tips of his fingers touch Steve’s lips, he has to wrestle down the urge to slide them inside, wet them, slide them slickly over the other man’s skin on the way to grabbing his chin and pulling him into a kiss. When he rests his head on Steve’s lap for movie time, reveling in how those already bitable thighs are becoming even more comfortable beneath him, it’s all he can do not to forget the movie and roll over to nuzzle at Steve’s growing belly, to say ‘Look at this. Look at us. We’re safe now, it’s okay, you can keep letting go. I like it.’

But alas, they’re not an ‘us.’ And Eddie doesn’t feel physically up to the task of rolling over without help. And Steve is probably straight. 

~

“Steve’s straight, right?” Eddie asks Robin bluntly one night, in the gap between movies while the man in question is in the kitchen making more popcorn and heating up Bagel Bites and jalapeno poppers. It’s not going to take long, so he doesn’t have the time to beat around the bush.

Robin blinks at him. “What?”

“Because I’m not,” he continues, popping carefully up on his elbows to see her better in the easy chair across from the couch. His pulse picks up a little because he doesn’t exactly have a lot of practice coming out—but between a recent near death experience and Robin pinging his gaydar, he can soldier through. “And you know how we’re living in each other’s pockets right now, I know you’ve seen it and there’s no way the two of you haven’t talked about it because you live in each others’ brains. It’s kind of killing me to not know if it means anything. So if he’s one hundred percent, not even slightly on the fence, not even within sight of the fence, please, as one Upside Down survivor to another, please tell me right now so I can back off and give my heart a break. And please never tell him I asked because if the answer is no I will make absolutely sure it’s not a big deal. I don’t want to fuck things up by being off-base about this. Okay? Just, hurry up and just tell me because he’ll be back in any second, Birdie, please.”

It’s a word-vomit worthy of… well, the person he just unloaded it on. But to her credit, she only stares at him for another moment before fully processing it all and un-dropping her jaw. 

“I’m not either,” Robin says in a low voice, “and Steve knows, and he’s cool with it. Officially, that’s all I can say.”

Eddie grits his teeth against an impatient groan. “And unofficially?”

Her eyes flick towards the kitchen and back, mouth twisted in conflicted thought. “... He is aware of the fence,” she says finally, quietly, and as much as it looks like it pains her to betray that confidence, Eddie can also tell she’s holding back a smile. 

“Holy shit,” he whispers half to himself, not bothering to restrain his own smile at the prospect of having even a sliver of a chance. A few months ago he would have considered that wholly impossible, right up there with alternate dimensions brimming with eye-less creatures full of teeth and malice controlled by a ballsack-looking evil mind wizard.

It’s funny, the effect a little perspective can have. 

He’s still propped up and grinning like a maniac when Steve comes back in with snacks, setting a plate and the popcorn bowl with another plate stacked atop it on the coffee table before sitting down with a quiet grunt. “What’s with you?” Steve asks, even while absently patting his thigh for Eddie to lay back down. 

Eddie happily obliges, in no small part because Steve is wearing shorts juuust short enough that leg hair tickles his nose when he snuggles his face in. “Oh, you know me. A mood struck.”

Robin, already reaching for the popcorn, snorts. If they had that same apparently psychic link that she has with Steve, he’s pretty sure she’d be broadcasting ‘Nice save, weirdo’ and a heavy eye roll at him right now. Or she might be anyway, because it’s coming through loud and clear. 

But in an amused way, he thinks. The power of lesbian-gay solidarity.

“Anyway,” Eddie continues, reaching for a Bagel Bite and blowing on it to cool it enough that he can feed to Steve, “what are we watching next?”

~

“Hey, Steve?” Eddie whispers that night, and Steve, though already halfway to asleep, is instantly on alert. 

“Huh, yeah?” he asks with a yawn, starting to sit up. It feels like he’s moving through molasses. “Do you need your meds? Or like… new pillow?” 

“No man, just wanna tell you something.”

Oh. He lets his body drop gracelessly back down, like a puppet with his strings cut. Thank fuck, because if he’d had to walk somewhere in this weird half-asleep, half-addrenaline-buzzed state he probably would’ve run into some doorframes. “M’kay, shoot.”

In the dark, Eddie chuckles at him. “You really are an action first, figure it out later kinda guy, aren't ya?” There’s a shuffling noise, and Steve feels a fun sized candy bar from Eddie’s bedside table being pressed into his hand. Presumably as an apology for startling him from almost-sleep. “Listen, uh… I came out to Robin earlier today, and she came out to me and said you know too. Figured I should keep you in the loop. So… I’m gay.” And even though there’s not enough light in the room, Steve can tell he’s doing something showy with his hands, a silent ‘ta-daaa.’ It’s very Eddie. 

Steve unwraps the candy on autopilot and puts it in his mouth to keep his heart from leaping up his throat. He may be new to the whole being into guys thing himself, but it’s a good sign that his crush at least has the capacity to like him back. He’d been worried about that, no matter what Robin had to say about vibes. But, hey, it turns out she’s right—which he fully intends to use against her when it comes to Vicky, because who’s to say he isn’t right about Robin’s crush too? Maybe that’s why they were destined to become soulmates with a capital P, because on their own they’re hopeless but together they at least have each other’s backs.

“Oh,” he says belatedly, remembering he’s supposed to actually respond to something like this. (“Steve? You OD over there?”) “Thanks for telling me, man. That’s really cool.”

Eddie chuckles again, gentle and close. “Not really the popular opinion around these parts, but I appreciate the sentiment, Stevie.”

“No, I mean… it’s cool that you told me,” he whispers back. He’s blushing, and wonders if Eddie can tell. Because it’s dark, but maybe it comes through in his voice, or something? And they’re so close, Eddie is always burrowing into personal space left and right like it’s a mere suggestion—not that Steve minds, he’s just not sure if it means anything. He hasn’t known Eddie long enough, or in more context than either having the worst week of his life or bedridden, to be able to tell. “And, like, that’s cool by me, in case you were worried.”

It makes him feel trustworthy, when he knows that three years ago he wouldn’t have been. Not with something like this. 

It makes him feel like the least he can do is show the same confidence in Eddie. 

“I, um.” Steve clears his throat. The taste of chocolate is thick on his tongue, sweet like a promise. “I’m bisexual.”

In the long pause that follows, Steve wishes that he’d waited for daylight, or even just rolled briefly to one side to turn on a lamp. He should’ve waited until he could see the other man’s face and maybe brace himself in whatever reaction flickered there first. It’s the same impulse that had sent him sliding beneath the partition between stalls in the Starcourt bathroom when he’d told Robin he liked her; she hadn’t answered right away and he’d needed to see—

“Ow! Sorry, needed to pinch myself there,” Eddie whispers, sounding like it does when he hides behind his hair—but in the good way, Steve’s pretty sure. “Really?”

Despite the dark and the blush on his face, that makes Steve crack a smile. “Yeah. Girls and guys.”

Their arms bump, a deliberate move on Eddie’s part since rolling over to face him requires too many of the muscles that were chewed on by bats, would mean putting pressure on the healing skin grafts on his side. “Any guys in particular?”

Which makes Steve’s breath catch in his throat because… he hadn’t expected Eddie to ask, let alone in such a hopeful tone. 

Because, sure, Eddie just told him he’s gay. That doesn’t mean he likes Steve, the same way Steve’s reputation of liking any girl that walks and talks is complete bullshit. First of all, there’s that reputation. Second, they have nothing in common except living space, the kids, and a few near death experiences. Third—and this one really makes Steve want to squirm—he doesn’t exactly look his best these days. There are the scars, and the way he’s been putting on weight lately that pulls awkwardly at the puckered skin, making irregular stretch marks bloom in weird, unpredictable squiggles and curves. He’s getting a belly, something he’d kind of half figured out was inevitable based on his dad and the story told across years of professionally taken family photos, but it’s coming in about a decade sooner than he’d expected. He’s only twenty but looks like he’d imagined he would at thirty; has already had to size up his clothes a couple times and everything.

Well. At least with Eddie close by every night he’s been sleeping fairly well, so the bags under his eyes aren’t as dark and deep as they had been. And none of the men in his family, either side, have receding hairlines, so at least his best feature is safe. 

“Just one,” he murmurs, blood roaring in his ears.

“Yeah?”

And Steve has never been one to hold back, so he takes a deep breath. Figures they’re close enough friends now that even if Eddie doesn’t feel the same way, he’ll be more flattered than weirded out and they’ll be able to get past it. Hopefully, anyway… Steve has too few friends his own age as it is. 

“I kinda have a crush on you, Eds.”

After a short pause, Eddie shifts a little next to him and—

“Ow!” Steve hisses, twitching his arm away from the sudden pinch. He’s still whispering, even though there’s no one else in the house. “Dude, what the hell?!”

“Sorry,” Eddie whispers back. “I needed to make sure you aren’t asleep before I accidentally made things super uncomfortable.”

“How would you—” And then he feels a tug, the other man’s hand fisting in his sleep shirt and pulling him closer. Not that Eddie has the arm strength to actually do that right now, but it’s such a surprise that Steve just goes with it, leaning over until their mouths bump together in the dark. 

It’s a whole new kind of shock, a bucket of ice water and hot sparks flickering along his spine, zinging nerves and chapped lips. Steve gasps into the fumbling press of lips, sways back, then ducks forward in a more coordinated effort and kisses Eddie for real. Sinks into the moment as a hand, ringless for the night, twines into the hair at the base of his skull, blunt nails scratch lightly at his scalp as Eddie curls his fingers into Steve’s hair, and it’s… it’s everything. 

He has to be careful not to sag into the kiss, mindful of Eddie’s injuries even though he wants to sink in closerthanthis and never leave. Can’t remember the last time something so simple lit him up like this, because everything but the immediate present is blurred out, insignificant. And Eddie’s other hand finds his hip, pressing in where he’s gotten softer but tugging weakly, undeterred. Steve takes the hint and shifts until he’s cautiously plastered to the other man’s side. 

“This okay?” he breathes against Eddie’s lips, still close enough to taste the traces of chocolate that Eddie sucked off his tongue. “Am I hurting you?”

“Not hurting. You’re healing me, baby,” Eddie coos into his mouth and guides him back in for more.

~

The next morning Eddie wakes to breakfast in bed. It’s not an unusual occurrence, but instead of propped up on pillows against the headboard, he leans happily back against Steve while he eats chocolate chip pancakes and feeds him two bites for every one of his own. 

“They’re supposed to be for you,” Steve tries to protest, the first time Eddie nudges a syrup-sticky forkful against his lips. 

“And I’m enjoying them a lot, sweetheart,” Eddie replies with a smile. “But you made me a stack that’s practically two feet tall and I am but one man. So be a dear and help me out here, hmm? I’ll even throw in a smooch to sweeten the deal.”

Steve mutters something about his sweet tooth being taken advantage of here, but accepts a bite without the next time Eddie brings it in, this time with a little vroom vroom here comes the airplane. Smiling around the sticky mouthful and protesting in a muffled, faux-aggrieved tone that, “Planes don’ go vroom Ed, tha’s cars.”

Grinning so wide it makes the scar on his cheek pull, not exactly comfortable but he doesn’t care, Eddie gives Steve the promised smooch. Like their first kiss last night, he tastes like chocolate. 

“Shush,” he chides playfully, licking at Steve’s sticky lips. “You’re mine now, Steve Harrington. I’m gonna take as good care of you as you do of me, and I’m gonna marry you someday.”

“O-oh.” Steve blushes. The sight of red filling in behind his constellations of freckles and moles is captivating. 

“Yeah, oh.” Eddie kisses him again. “You just wait until I’m all healed up, big boy, and I’ll show you how hard I can rock your world. Trust me, you’ll want to keep me around and once you get the full Eddie Munson experience.”

Despite still being visibly flustered, Steve swallows and shakes his head at him with a laugh. “Okay okay, Jesus. Put the lines away, you’ve already got me.”

“Yeah? You promise?”

Steve returns the kiss with a happy hum, lets Eddie pepper more kisses on his cheek. “Mm. Hook, line, and sinker.”

And Eddie meant it about rocking his world; what he wouldn’t give to writhe beneath this gorgeous man right now, nuzzle into luxurious chest hair, bite at his nipples until they’re red and pebbled, rub and squeeze his softening belly and thighs and arms and jawline, roll him over and ride him into the mattress. Or pound him into it, he’s not picky. He can see it in his mind’s eye, feels the banked fire it stokes… but he’s sore all over. The ache in his body has the pervasive depth of chewed-up muscles and lifesaving sutures, and it dams up that want long before it can get all the way to his dick, so. 

It’s a little frustrating, but for the most part he’s content with what they have so far. Steve’s never done this with a guy—and Eddie’s never done this period—so taking it slow isn’t the worst idea. 

He snuggles into Steve’s cuddly embrace a bit more as resumes making a dent in their shared breakfast. They can figure everything out together, one step (and one bite) at a time. 

~

It takes a year. Eddie does all of his PT exercises religiously, and he still has to walk with a cane but that’s miles better than being carried or wheeled everywhere. His Stevie is still strong enough to lift him, of course, but now that Eddie is back to a healthy weight it takes more out of him, and Eddie is prone to pouting when that’s the reason for Steve huffing and puffing. 

No, he likes it much more like this, in Steve’s room because he has finally made those goddamn stairs his bitch. Cozied up to his boyfriend after dinner, dirty dishes stacked on the desk to deal with later, Steve panting a little as he focuses on digesting. Eddie loves every second of it as he reaches down to unbutton his sweetheart’s jeans for the day, noting how they’re already straining and mentally adding the next size up to tomorrow’s shopping list. Because he can show his face in public again, name cleared and everything, and buy whatever they need with the government payout that finally came through. 

“Think I… overdid it a li’l,” Steve mumbles, his voice strained and airy. He rubs a slow hand over the top of his belly to try and ease some of the pressure. Sighs as Eddie helps by gently peeling down the constricting denim a little more in front, letting the bit of tummy still tucked into his briefs to bulge through. Steve brings his other hand up to stifle a burp behind one loosely curled fist. 

“You’re fine, sweetheart,” Eddie assures him with a smile, pleased to the brim that he’d enjoyed the meal so much. “Need anything?” 

Steve smiles back, but there’s a hint of self-consciousness in it that just won’t do. “Nah, I’m good.” 

Even after a year of safety, Steve still has a hard time being doted on sometimes. It comes from years of low-key parental neglect, Eddie thinks, and a lingering instinct to ‘be a man’ and fill that protector role twenty-four seven. But that, Steve has agreed, is no longer necessary now that the Upside Down is gone. So he tries to relax. 

Sometimes that looks like Eddie laying him back in bed, sweetly fussing him into the perfect position, and making sure he eats his fill and a little extra. On those nights, Steve’s gaze goes soft and unfocused while still opening his mouth for whatever Eddie wants to give him, knowing—trusting—that it will be good, that he isn’t taking too much. 

But tonight, Eddie can tell that he needs a little more to hang onto. 

“Baby,” Eddie starts, clambering around not-so-gracefully-(but-at-least-he-can-do-it) to kneel between Steve’s splayed legs. “You are perfect, you know that?” Scooching down, he leans in and kisses the soft swell of Steve’s lower belly where it rolls out over the top of his underwear, bare where his shirt had long ago ridden up. “Always have been, always will be.”

Steve shivers beneath his continuing kisses, cheeks reddening as he looks away. “Not really the popular opinion. First of all, everyone knows I was a douchebag in high school.” He bites his lip and drops his gaze back to Eddie. From this angle, head inclined to look down, he has a full double chin beneath his round face, pretty face. “And I… I know I…”

Eddie waits for a moment after he peters out, then finishes it: “You’re beautiful. Whatever you look like, because you’re you.” And reaches up, turning Steve’s face gently back when he tries to look away again. “It’s all you, Steve, and I love you.”

Steve’s hazel eyes go wide, breath catching. It’s not the first time Eddie has said it, not really… Not like this, with the exact words and making direct eye contact and in his knees, kissing and nipping gently, devotedly at mole-dotted skin. But it’s also the first time Steve touched on this insecurity that doesn’t always come so close to the surface, the one that takes too much and makes it literal. 

Eddie stares him down while kissing over the tight jut of his full stomach, his soft sides and chest, murmuring nonstop praise along the way. Hands stroking along behind and coaxing out moans and burps until the tension in Steve’s body shifts from self-conscious back to that heady space of more, more, more. “Wanna feel you all over, Stevie, every inch. You drive me so fucking crazy you don’t even—” 

He cuts himself off with a claiming kiss at Steve’s panting mouth, tasting. Savoring. More. 

And that’s when his own need peaks, crests, and sends his hands back down to the waistband of the straining briefs. Snapping it just enough to draw a gasp and a wobble from his boyfriend before yanking them down, shoving hard. Shoving the jeans with them, rewarding Steve by licking devotion into his mouth when the other man takes his cue and rocks to lift his ass one wide cheek at a time. It’s enough to get the clothes gone, so Eddie can reach and take him in hand where he’s hard and flushed, wet from how much he’s leaking. 

Steve was trembling already. He shakes harder the second Eddie begins to stroke, spreading his thick legs as wide as he can—not very, these days. But still, he’s too full to jerk his hips into the ringed grip that's wringing an increasingly louder series of “ah ah ah”s out of him. Plump and jiggling body stuffed to where he could move, but doesn’t want to, just lets the sensations wash through him, lets himself be swamped by it, overflows into Eddie’s hand. And Eddie gets to watch, gets to feel it as Steve shudders, lips parted in a seemingly never ending moan that reverberates out from the depths of him, low and hot. 

Eddie wants to swallow it. Bottle it. Fucking get drunk off it, like he has almost every night (and some mornings, and some afternoons) ever since he started feeling up to it again. Shove it back to Steve, pumping into his hungry body—like everything else he’s given his boyfriend. His love, his food, his dick…

Then Steve is sucking on his tongue like it’s a lollipop, and Eddie is sinking against him to grind the hard-on still trapped in his own jeans against Steve’s soft body, making him grunt, and Eddie is gone. Comes so hard his vision whites out and he cries brokenly into Steve’s mouth. Sees goddamn stars. Just barely remembers to roll to the side instead of dropping his full weight on Steve, but plasters himself to the other man’s side all the same, face tucked in tight to Steve’s neck to taste the heady scent of him on every inhale. 

He drifts for a little while, mind hazy and buoyed up on all the feel-good hormones of an award-winning orgasm with a better partner than he ever could have dreamed of finding. Imagining what Steve could look like wearing a second year of his love, and a third, and— God, he’s still feeling the aftershocks, and even though it veers him immediately into so overstimulated he can’t hold back a whine, Eddie clutches tighter and grinds against Steve’s plush hip, just a little. 

Give him a few more minutes and he will get going again, desperate to spill his load directly on his boyfriend’s skin this time, over his belly or buried in his navel, and then clean him up with his tongue. Feed it to him in an insistent kiss and then finger one of them open for round three. 

“Fuck, sweetheart, the things you do to me,” Eddie whimpers, prompting Steve to chuckle sleepily and wedge a thick arm beneath him to hold them together close. 

In a minute, Eddie will get up and clean both of them up. Help Steve to roll onto his side and get the weight off his lungs so he can breathe better, fall asleep and digest. And Eddie will cuddle up behind him until Steve is practically molded to Eddie’s front, chest to back, hips to hips, Eddie’s knees tucked into the bend of Steve’s. 

For now everything is perfect and still and warm, and Eddie knows, blearily but happily, that he’s going to make an honest man out of Steve Harrington the second it becomes legal. 

Permanent tag list (ask to be added): @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @whimsicalwadewinstonwilson @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @hamiltonswiftie @grtwdsmwhr

[boct-kimerakal]

just normal girl things

an offering. more signalis oc content. a tentative offering.. i’ve increased my discoverability a smidge but this may prove to be a terrible mistake and wind up revoked so! enjoy it while it lasts..

just kidding, it’s a massive lore dump too! what? you think you’re going to catch me off brand?

hallo, so if you’ve seen my introduction to pondwater post, you should know who these two are (if you haven’t, it should be in the tag) but TLDR: an LSTR unit walks into leng, the punchline? there’s another LSTR unit there already. they each have smidges of 512’s memory, pike (red) more than wasserjungfer (heavy combat frame)

this is a really bad doodle but it’s more so to preface the lore dump than anything! speaking of:

we’re focusing on pike this time. i figure she was manufactured before the penrose initiative and was used in a team, maybe on rotfront to survey the empire-era bioresonance-altered terrain for nation infrastructure expansion. kind of odd, i’m not sure yet - either way, her start easily conditions her into the shared unit identity. they named her ‘pike,’ so as to not be confused with another on-site LSTR! but left her to her own devices. as the unit ages, but is still operational, she’s shipped off to solo-man an isolated inspections / maintenance post. better than an ARAR, since it’s a military posting. she relishes the solitude, like a lighthouse keeper. simply an LSTR.

so it’s easy when 512 gets blended into her brain.

now, when she meets wasserjungfer, things change. as they fumble through sierpinski, with this imperfect mirror right beside her, she realises she’s nothing like wasserjungfer. or, rather, wasserjungfer doesn’t seem very much like an LSTR. (but also! so much like an LSTR! then why are they so little alike?) talking to wasserjungfer makes her separate herself more from her, then, more from 512. as she rejects the 512 elster neural pattern, things get weird - it comes and goes in waves.

all the while wasserjungfer yells at her to keep her grip on herself. pike. she can’t let her identity be erased in the wake of someone’s grief! she’s not 512! forget the nation, they aren’t just interchangeable. (ha! simple thoughts that’ll get you decommissioned, doesn’t matter now since they’re both doomed to die)

and yet, and yet, and yet..

pike has moments where she sees wasserjungfer and pukes oxidant. because she looks just like her (512) and if that LSTR’s here for ariane, then she can’t be 512. so what is she? what is standing here, bleeding? (pike, it’s your name, pike)

pike dreams of the “lighthouse” (an idea! not so much a real place) and an ocean she’s never seen, where all this identity stuff didn’t matter because she was The Only One There.

pike, becoming attached to her protege and her goals, this version of herself that stands a chance, has to convince herself she isn’t wasserjungfer (or, well, 4 to her since she refuses to tell her her name) too.

pike has to close her eyes to remember who she is based on what she is feeling in the exact moment because how else can she know? when everything she sees around her can’t be trusted? when 512 looked just like her? when her memories aren’t her own?

and on wasserjungfer’s side... her resolute “i won’t be changed, i have one goal” mentality! and how it turns against her.

as pike pushes away from 512’s identity, wasserjungfer, funnily enough, in all her ice-cold determination, gets pulled further into the thrall. having experienced a devotion enough to parallel 512’s - lian (who else but her lover, now) and ariane blend together in her head. the more she wants to get back to lian, the two kids they found - the deeper she sinks into being 512

eventually, that makes the environment.. take notice - there can’t be two 512s. so it targets the reject, pike. wounds don’t heal as easy, the corrupted hit harder. pike is pretty much playing on survival while wasserjungfer gets off easy. too busy - pike never once realises that wasserjungfer is breaking under the thrall. even when she finally succumbs to a corrupted horde, she saves wasserjungfer’s life, holding (gripping, really) onto a scrap of belief she can break the cycle. but at least she dies with a name! pike, and she dies realising pike lived.

though.. so desperately she craves dancing with someone she never met. whoops! sorry girl, thought you could die totally yourself? at least now she’s dead, she doesn’t have to keep fighting to keep herself her self. right?

i shake them around like little salt-and-pepper shakers. sprinkling insanity onto my breakfast. onto yours too if you read this. i’m workshopping them forever, they aren’t perfect ... not yet, maybe never .. but i like them a lot.

anyways, fun archive word dump! i’ll need this for later. probably should put the water-themed one on here too for safekeeping

[tiny-wooden-robot-fics]

Magnolia - Chapter Two

Rating: Explicit Media: Jujutsu Kaisen Pairing(s): Geto Suguru x Original Female Character, Geto Suguru x Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru x Gojo Satoru x Original Female Character Additional Tags: Vampire AU, Dark Themes, Implied/Reference Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Depression, Loneliness, Eventual Smut

A/N: More tags will be added as chapters are updated. Please be mindful of the tags and warnings at the beginning of each chapter, as they will tell you what you need to know about the content within.

Minors, DNI.

Summary:

“How?” Her heart is racing. She asks it, not sure she wants to know the answer. There is something in the pit of her stomach, some feeling that she can’t put words to. It chills her.

“Do you really want to know that?” He’s turned away from her now, collecting the broken pieces of the smashed vase and the scattered flowers, dumping them into the wastebasket.

No. “Yes,” she whispers. “I think I have the right to know. I remember how the cuts looked. At the rate I was bleeding out, stopping the blood flow would’ve been almost impossible.”

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Read on AO3

Chapter Warnings: Mentions of blood, vague references to hunting and killing animals

Chapter Two: Scattered Magnolias

One need not be a chamber - to be haunted One need not be a House The Brain - has Corridors surpassing Material Place -Emily Dickinson, One Need Not be a Chamber - to be Haunted

--

“You didn’t.” 

The tone of Satoru’s voice is reproachful, as if he is scolding an unruly child for misbehaving. He can almost envision Satoru at the other end of the phone line, on the other side of the world: tapping his foot impatiently, rolling his eyes, wondering how Suguru could be so reckless, so stupid, so sentimental.

It irritates him. “I did,” he replies. 

“Why? I didn’t think you were in the market for a pet.”

“Stop it, Satoru,” he snaps. “I wish you wouldn’t call them that.”

“But isn’t that what they are?” His husband asks it reasonably, as if it’s the most logical thing in the world to refer to humans as though they are domesticated animals. “They’re weak and fragile. They die too quickly. And they need all sorts of troublesome things.”

“The last time I checked, food and water weren’t ‘troublesome things,’” Suguru sighs witheringly. 

“I’m not talking about that,” Satoru rebuts. “I mean the other stuff. They need reassurance, affection, praise. Who has time to waste on that?”

Not you, clearly. If you did, you’d be here, instead of all the way on the other side of the world. “I have to go,” he says aloud. “She’ll probably be waking up soon.”

“Don’t forget to pick up after her when she shits,” Satoru snickers. “I’ve heard you can get fined if you don’t.”

Suguru doesn’t bother to answer him, simply disconnecting the call instead. 

--

She’s listening through the crack in the door and can hear exactly when he stops talking. The silence after doesn’t last long - the end of his one-sided conversation is followed by a bang, as though something has been knocked over. 

“I take it that wasn’t a pleasant phone call,” she offers softly, cautiously stepping out into the hallway. 

He doesn’t seem to be startled as he turns to face her. Her eyes fall on the vase of flowers that’s very clearly been thrown to the floor. The vase is shattered, water and magnolia blossoms littering the floor in a mess at his feet. “I’m sorry if I woke you,” he murmurs, setting the wastebasket in his hand down. 

“I’ve been awake for a while,” she answers. “Though I don’t know how long ‘a while’ is,” she adds thoughtfully. 

“You slept for a little more than a whole day.”

The news should surprise her, but it doesn’t. She looks down at her wrists. They’ve been bandaged up. “I thought I did it right,” she says, her voice soft. “I guess I fucked it up, just like everything else I do.” She adds that last with a laugh, but it sounds hollow and sad to his ears.

“You… if you mean your technique,” he starts, “that wasn’t done wrong. You cut exactly as you should have if you were trying to kill yourself.”

“I was trying to kill myself.”

“Were you?” 

Something about the way he has asked the question makes her realize that he doesn’t believe her. “What did you do to me?” 

“Stopped your bleeding.”

“How?” Her heart is racing. She asks it, not sure she wants to know the answer. There is something in the pit of her stomach, some feeling that she can’t put words to. It chills her. 

“Do you really want to know that?” He’s turned away from her now, collecting the broken pieces of the smashed vase and the scattered flowers, dumping them into the wastebasket. 

No. “Yes,” she whispers. “I think I have the right to know. I remember how the cuts looked. At the rate I was bleeding out, stopping the blood flow would’ve been almost impossible.”

He pauses in his movement, his back still facing her. “Maybe I’m just really good at first aid.”

She doesn’t believe him. “I don’t believe you.” Her hands are trembling, and so is her voice. 

Letting the last of the broken pieces of porcelain fall into the wastebasket, he sighs. A moment later he stands and turns to face her again. “No, you don’t believe me… but you also already know what the truth is, don’t you?”

“I thought I might have been dreaming,” she admits. “Or maybe that I’d… that I’d already died.” She looks away from him. “You killed something.”

“I did,” he agrees. The swift candor makes her flinch, but she says nothing. “I went out to hunt,” he continues, “and found you. I thought it was better to take from a creature I was going to kill anyway than to take from you.”

She knows his blunt, honest words are meant to reassure her, but she can’t stop herself from trembling. 

“You’re frightened.” 

He’s still speaking softly, his tone gentle. She wonders if that is just his way, or if he speaks that way because he thinks doing so is less likely to frighten her. 

She looks back at him, trying to keep her heart from racing and her breathing even. “Was that a question?” She asks, knowing very well that it wasn’t. 

He doesn’t answer her right away. Instead, he inclines his head to gaze openly at her. There is no hostility in his expression, and it gives her the courage to study him right back. 

He is beautiful, this enigmatic man. He towers over her - not because he is using his body in an imposing way, but simply because he is so tall. She scans the broadness of his shoulders and the rounded peaks of muscle beneath his long-sleeved shirt… and suddenly it makes sense why he was able to carry her as though she weighed nothing.

But that isn’t the only reason why he’s so strong and you know it, her brain reminds her. If he is what you think he is, he has inhuman strength. 

She ignores the thought, bringing her gaze back up to rest on his face. Beautiful, she thinks again, taking in the features of his face. Dark lashes that fan out over pretty purple eyes. The sharp, handsome angle of his nose. The way his lips seem perfectly formed to fit his face. 

His eyes are kind. The thought comes to her, uninvited. She looks closer, wanting to prove that thought wrong. No… I was right the first time. His eyes are kind. 

He begins to close the distance between them in just a few strides. The closer he gets, the higher she lifts her chin in order to sustain the eye contact between them. Gentle tone and kind eyes aside, she will be damned if she allows herself to forget what he is. 

When he reaches up with one hand and draws it near to her face, she grits her teeth in an effort not to flinch. “I won’t hurt you,” he tells her, his voice soft. “It would be against my interests to do so.”

“How do I know that?”

His hand continues along its plotted course until his fingers make contact with her skin, cupping her cheek in his palm. She tries not to lean into his touch, but it’s difficult. He is warmer than she imagined he could be for what he is, and it has been so long since she’s felt the warmth of another person this way.

“You don’t,” he answers, the corners of his dark eyes crinkling as he offers her a smile that is just as warm as his hand. “But I hope you’ll trust me long enough to see the truth of it for yourself.”

She inhales - a small, shallow breath to remind herself that she is still alive. For whatever reason, he has seen fit to use his power to keep her around. Letting her breath out slowly, she shakes her head. “I don’t know enough about you to trust you.”

“I know.” He’s still smiling at her warmly. “I know you don’t.”

“I may never trust you.”

“I know that, too.” His smile never falters, but there is a flicker of sadness in his eyes. 

“Then why bring me here at all?” She knows it’s an unfair question; he saved her life, and she should consider herself lucky and be grateful that he intervened where he wasn’t obligated to. Having been snatched back from the precipice of the death she was so sure she would meet, she realizes that perhaps falling over the edge of that precipice wasn’t what she wanted at all. 

She shakes her head, struggling to find a way to rephrase her question and coming up empty. “I’m sorry.”

She isn’t sure why her words make him chuckle, and she’s even less sure why she finds herself wanting to make him laugh again. His laughter is warm, just like his eyes and his hand. It’s enticing, inviting. She’d like to hear more of it. 

“You don’t need to apologize,” he tells her, when his laughter has subsided. He strokes her cheek with his thumb. He reaches out with his other hand, gently holding her left wrist and running his fingers lightly over the bandages there. “I made you a promise.”

“A promise?” Confused, she scrunches her nose up. 

“A promise,” he repeats, but he elaborates no further.

Hesitation grips her, making her tongue thick and slow to respond. She lowers her head, her gaze on where his hand encircles her wrist. “Thank you,” she starts quietly, when she finds her voice again. She raises her chin so she can look directly into his eyes once more. “For saving me.”

He blinks at her, a beat of silence passing between them before he gives her a nod. She thinks perhaps he means to say something else, but he doesn’t. He drops his hand away from her face instead, and she laments the loss of its warmth. “You must be hungry,” he starts, turning away from her. “Let me fix you something to eat.”

Chapter Navigation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Chapter Three: Coming Soon

[flowersandbigteeth]

Can we have some more omegaverse stuff pretty please? (⁠◕⁠દ⁠◕⁠)

This is sfw, but just an idea I had rolling around in my head...the last one was a little alpha dom heavy, so this one is a little omega dom heavy

Alpha (Jagger) x tough omega female

Word Count: 2.5k

W: omegaverse fluff, threats and descriptions of violence, implication of nsfw at the end, but sfw

“I’d point your nose in another direction if I were you, alpha,” you said, cocking the shotgun you’d bought specifically with rounds that would take down an alpha for this reason. It was also the reason you lived in this far out location, in a cabin in the woods, away from people and anyone who could give you up to someone who would try to take you captive. You were an omega, but you weren’t just going to be someone’s pet. 

The blonde alpha limping up to your porch covered in blood panted a little and leaned on his knee at the base of your porch. Your five bull mastiffs, Biscuit, Waffle, Cake, Toast, and Cookie were barking their heads off but staying where they were trained to stand in front of you. 

“Come on doll face,” he said, flashing you a smile, surprising for his condition, “can’t I come in for just a minute for a cuppa water? I’m a little outta sorts here.” 

A red trail followed behind him. You clenched your jaw and shook your head.

“Stay right there,” you said, “the dogs are trained to maul you if you move after I turn my back.” 

His eyes got wide, looking at them and he nodded. You hurried inside and gathered some of your precious medical supplies. You weren’t cruel, you weren’t going to leave him to die, but you were sure as hell not letting him in your house. The last thing you needed was alpha pheromones fucking your head all up. 

When you got back outside he looked a lot paler, the pool of blood around him growing. The dogs were getting triggered by the blood, starting to tap their paws. 

“Sit! Stay!” you told them and they obediently stopped barking and sat at attention, watching you for your next command. 

You groaned as, with a massive thunk, the fucking alpha collapsed on your front lawn. 

“Motherfucker,” you cursed, dropping your shotgun against the side of your house. 

The guy had to weigh 500 lbs, so when you’d patched up the deep wounds riddling his body, all you could do was use your truck to drag him into your barn. Your lady goats that were milked and in their pens for the night didn’t like his intrusion anymore than you did, bleating their displeasure.

“Chill out girls,” you hollered at them, not that it helped any, “he’ll probably be dead in the mornin’.” 

His presence worried you. Two people knew you were out there, the omega butcher you sold the goats and milk to and her alpha mate. You didn’t believe they would give you up, but without asking him you couldn’t explain the alpha’s presence here or why he was all cut up.

Whoever had worked him over was having fun with him. They weren’t jagged, random wounds from a fight. The cuts were clean and precise, in places that would bleed heavily but not immediately kill him, the worst ones right across his cheeks, marring his pretty face. You were starting to think he’d been dumped out here to die.

While you looked at him passed out in the hay, you couldn’t help but notice how pretty he was for an alpha. Most of them looked like monsters with giant teeth and wide jaws, but this one had more of a pretty look to him, even though his jaw was still wide. His lashes were long and his lips had a nice bow, like a young Vincent Price. You wondered if the two nasty slices running diagonally across his cheeks to take up the most space possible had anything to do with that. Seemed maybe a little intentional. 

You tried to sleep in your own bed after the sun set and you’d eaten dinner, but you were too anxious, wondering about the alpha. What if he died? What if he lived? What were you going to do with his body? Drag it out to the road and dump it? It’d take you days to dig a six foot hole big enough to bury him. The morbid thoughts kept you up and you found yourself in the barn with your shotgun at your side watching him. 

He was still breathing and he stayed like that for the next day and the next. Each night you set yourself up on a barrel of hay and fell asleep watching him with your gun at your side and the dogs piled around you. 

The third day you woke to the dogs growling and you instinctively snatched your gun and cocked it, aiming at the alpha who was sitting up on his elbows smiling at you. 

“Morning doll face,” he said grinning, “looks like I lived motherfuckers! Hahaha! Cock suckers can’t kill me! Jagger’s back from the graaaaave!” 

You had no idea what he was so happy about, he looked like shit. You’d cleaned the blood off of him, but he had hay stuck all over him and his face was half stitches. 

“How are you smiling right now?” you asked. 

He grinned even wider which had to hurt.

“I’m lookin’ at the prettiest face I’ve ever seen, babydoll,” he said, “I’ve never been happier to be breathing!” 

You blinked at him, for once, unsure what to say. Your cheeks warmed just a bit and you shrugged your shoulders, trying to brush it off. 

“What’s your name, alpha?” you barked. 

“Jagger,” he said, “what about you?” 

“You don’t need to know,” you said, “you’re not stayin’. When you can walk you’re carryin’ your ass outta here.” 

He put up a hand, schooling his features. 

“Yeah, okay. The pretty lady with the gun is the boss, I get it,” he said, “you got any food around here?” 

He glanced at the goats.

“Preferably not still moving,” he said, frowning at them. 

“Watch him,” you told the dogs and they took the stance they’d been taught, eyes laser focused on their target. If he moved, they attacked. That’s what you’d trained them to do. 

“Motherfucker!” you growled as you carried a bag of food back to the barn. 

All five of your vicious dogs, who could and had mauled and killed two alphas before you’d moved out here, were belly up around the alpha getting pets. 

“Hey! Attention!” you snapped at the dogs and they reluctantly hopped up, sitting dopily next to him with their tongues hanging out. 

“What’d you do to my dogs?!” you snapped. 

He smirked and shrugged. 

“Everyone loves me,” he said, “it’s a curse, honestly.” 

You rolled your eyes back in your head and counted to five. 

“I brought you food,” you hissed, tossing him the bag, “and obviously somebody doesn’t like you very much. Wanna tell me why you’re half butchered?” 

“Mmm,” he nodded, as he shoved the sandwich in his mouth and chewed. 

“It was all a big misunderstanding,” he said, “I had a very brief, but fiery relationship with an elegant woman and when I happened to be out of town with some of her belongings, she misinterpreted the situation and thought I seduced her and robbed her.” 

You raised an eyebrow. 

“Which you didn’t do,” you said. 

He shrugged. 

“It’s really a matter of perspective,” he said, “it was a torrid love affair and she said what was her’s was mine…so…I took her word for it!” 

“What belongings, exactly?” she asked. 

“Nothing special…just some baubles…jewelry and the like…I think she was a bit more upset at how our relationship ended than exactly what I took. When she found me I happened to be with another woman…for purely platonic reasons. She didn’t see it that way.” 

You rolled your eyes. So he was a con man. 

“So she had you sliced up and tossed in the woods to die, huh? Sounds like a lovely lady,” you said. 

He shrugged. 

“Well she didn’t cut off my cock,” he said, leaning back on his elbow, his blue eyes sparkling at you, “so it’s not that bad, really.” 

You shook your head at him. 

“Look, I don’t like people knowin’ I’m out here, so when you go, keep it to yourself, alright?” you asked, “if I see you again, I’ll shoot you on sight.” 

He smirked at you and pet one of your dogs. 

“But the pups would be so upset,” he said, “they like me.” 

You rolled your eyes, and called your dogs to you. 

“I’ve got things to do,” you said, “stay here.” 

“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, babydoll,” he said, putting arms behind his head and laying back in the hay. 

—

Click. Click. 

You pulled the pieces of your gun apart as you cleaned and oiled them, your legs hanging off of your back porch. 

“Even when the sky comes falling, even when the sun don’t shine, I got faith in you and I so put your pretty little hand in mine!” you sang to it.  

“Do you really sing to your gun? You’re too pretty to be lonely, doll.” 

You jumped a foot into the air and spun around to find the alpha behind you. 

“Anybody ever tell you not to sneak up on somebody holding a gun?” you snorted, catching your breath. 

“If you can assemble that fast enough to get me before I get you, I deserve to die,” he chuckled, sitting down next to you. 

“I thought I told you to stay in the barn,” you grunted, putting your gun back together quickly and loading it. 

“Wanted to see if you needed help with anything. Should probably pull my weight if I’m gonna stick around here,” he said. 

You frowned. 

“You’re not staying here,” you said. 

“No?” he asked, looking at your five dogs, totally not trying to intimidate him at all, playing on the lawn, “dogs like me. You like me. Don’t see why I can’t.” 

“I don’t like you,” you pointed out, “you’re a con man and I’m going to shoot you.” 

He shrugged. 

“Can’t be worse than my last girlfriend. At this point a clean shot is probably better than getting sliced and diced,” he grinned at you, “and you do like me, I can smell you.” 

You knew you were putting off omega pheromones. That’s why you’d wanted him to stay in the barn, away from you. 

You lifted your head as your dogs drew to attention. Someone was approaching your farm. 

“Stay behind me,” you snapped at the alpha as you followed your dogs to the front lawn, where you found a beautiful, tall woman exiting an expensive car. 

You raised your gun and your dogs formed a defensive line. 

“Who are you?” you snapped, “this is private property! No trespassers!” 

She scoffed, glancing behind you at your alpha companion. 

“Jagger!” she crooned, “there you are! I was worried you’d died or something. I didn’t find you where I left you…have you learned your lesson? Ready to come back home?” 

A snarl escaped your lips as the omega part of your brain, drenched in Jagger’s pheromones went nuts. Your body was already attaching yourself to him, drawing the two of you together. You instinctively cocked your gun. 

“I told you, no trespassers, lady,” you snapped, “you’ve got five seconds before I start shooting.” 

She frowned, her eyes focusing on you. 

“I’m here for my boyfriend,” the beta woman hissed. 

“You cut all your boyfriends up?” you asked. 

She snorted. 

“Only when they misbehave,” she said innocently. 

“Well you dumped him on my property, so he’s mine now,” you told her in no uncertain terms, kicking yourself even as the words left your lips. 

Behind you Jagger made a noise of approval. 

Underneath your clothes, your skin was starting to burn as Jagger’s pheromones sank into it. As annoying as the sensation was, you were getting more and more agitated. Your omega instincts offended that she was trying to approach your alpha. 

You knew wealthy beta women like her liked to keep the strapping alphas as pets…as long as they could manage to and the thought enraged you. 

“Jagger…” she hummed, turning her attention back to him, “you and I both know you’re not going to stay here with this…farm girl…you have expensive tastes. Let’s get you cleaned up and into a proper set of clothes…” 

Without another word you fired a warning shot close to her feet and she jumped. 

“Your five seconds are up,” you snarled. 

She glared at you, refusing to move. 

“You don’t want him,” she spat, “he’s sneaky…don’t you want to know why he got his punishment in the first place? He needs to be kept on a short leash.” 

“Don’t care,” you said, firing another shot to the other side of her, careful to miss her tires so she could hurry up and go, “find yourself another toy.” 

She huffed, angry she wasn’t gaining any ground. 

“Fine!” she hissed, “keep him! He’ll run out on you just like he ran out on me!” 

She gave you the finger before she got into her car and peeled off, kicking up a cloud of dust behind her. 

By this point your need for your alpha was making your mind hazy. You knew you weren’t thinking straight, but your biology couldn’t be denied. The damn woman had sent your whole body into a state of frantic need. 

“That was amazing!” he beamed at you, his eyes filled with stars, “I’ve never seen anyone talk to her like that before!” 

Your eyes locked onto him and you swung your gun around to him and his hands shot up, the look on his face draining to concern. 

“Strip!” you growled, “and then go inside!” 

His eyes got wide and he hurriedly took off his clothes. 

You marched him into your bedroom and nudged him onto your bed with the barrel of your gun. 

“You’re mine now, alpha, you do what I say when I say it,” you snarled, “run out on me like you ran out on her once I've taken your bite, I won’t bother cutting you up…it’ll be a bullet to the brain. Got me?” 

He blinked at you and a smile formed on his lips as he leaned back on the bed. Jagger had no intention of ever leaving you. You were the most impressive little omega he’d ever come across. He was in love. 

“Yes ma’am,” he agreed, his eyes practically forming hearts. You couldn’t help but notice his rather large cock was growing. 

“Good,” you snapped, dropping the gun, stripping off your own clothes, and stalking across the room to do exactly what alphas and omegas were made for.

[thepringlesofblood]

Murderbot Citations

I'm writing a giant research paper on the murderbot diaries and how Wells contrasts utopia & dystopia in her worldbuilding to deepen both sets of lore. So, I have made a LOT of citations.

Like, a LOT of citations. I can't even begin to describe. and it has been a royal pain getting them all on the computer, formatted correctly, with page # and book attached.

So. I decided to publish my giant list of citations online in case anyone else wants to do posts/papers/projects on the murderbot diaries and needs formatted, direct quotes with page numbers attached. (Also to feel like all this work has been for more than just my own academic needs.)

TLDR: A compilation of quotes from The Murderbot Diaries with page numbers attached, ready to be adjusted to the citation style of your choice & used as in-text citations where you see fit to put them. Enjoy!

ASR = All Systems Red

AC = Artificial Condition

RP = Rogue Protocol

ES = Exit Strategy

NE = Network Effect

FT = Fugitive Telemetry

SC = System Collapse

I use 'mb' as shorthand for murderbot

It's mostly ASR, with some NE and FT thrown in, but I put all the abbreviations in case I wind up coming back and putting more citations here

My list is organized according to how I'm writing the paper (all ones about surveillance here, all the ones about contract slavery there, etc.), so the page numbers are not in order, and there might be a repeat or two, but they are in book order. some of them might be repeated bc I had them formatted in lists like "all quotes related to ___) and some quotes relate to multiple things.

if you're looking specifically for gender-related mb quotes, @worldsentwined made a wonderful post collecting them a while back. I also have a few other murderbot posts that have quotes in them that might not be here, including a reblog where a bunch of lovely people added extra citations onto my original post. I hope you find what you're looking for!

All Systems Red

“I had been on contracts where the clients would have told me to put the bleeding human down to go get the stuff.” (15) ASR

“There were groans and general complaining about having to pay high prices for shitty equipment. (I don’t take it personally.)” (31) ASR crossover w slavery

“My education modules were such cheap crap;” (34) ASR

“I’m not refundable.” (49) ASR

“(You had to check everything out and log any problems immediately when you took delivery or the company wasn’t liable.)” (52) ASR

“It was all company equipment though, per contract, and all subject to the same malfunctions as the crap they’d dumped on us.” (58) ASR

““The company could be bribed to conceal the existence of several hundred survey teams on this planet.” Survey teams, whole cities, lost colonies, traveling circuses, as long as they thought they could get away with it. I just didn’t see how they could get away with making a client survey team—two client survey teams—vanish. Or why they’d want to. There were too many bond companies out there, too many competitors. Dead clients were terrible for business. “I don’t think the company would collude with one set of clients to kill two other sets of clients. You purchased a bond agreement that the company would guarantee your safety or pay compensation in the event of your death or injury. Even if the company couldn’t be held liable or partially liable for your deaths, they would still have to make the payment to your heirs. DeltFall was a large operation. The death payout for them alone will be huge.” And the company hated to spend money.” (90) ASR

“The organic parts mostly sleep, but not always. You know something’s happening. They were trying to purge my memory. We’re too expensive to destroy.” (116) ASR

“The company required this as a security feature if you wanted your base to be anywhere without open terrain around it. It cost extra, and if you didn’t want it, it cost even more to guarantee your bond.” (124) ASR

“Okay, the problem is, I’ve mentioned this before, the company is cheap. When it comes to something like a beacon that just has to launch once if there’s an emergency, send a transmission through the wormhole, and then never gets retrieved, they’re very cheap.” (137) ASR

“I said, “This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction…. “Your contract allows—” “Shut up,” Mensah snapped.” (139) ASR

“…we’re cheaply produced and we suck. Nobody would hire one of us for non-murdering purposes unless they had to.” (34) ASR

“In a smart world, I should go alone, but with the governor module I had to be within a hundred meters of at least one of the clients at all times, or it would fry me.” (37) ASR

“I walked out a little way, past a couple of the lakes, almost expecting to see something under the surface. Dead bodies, maybe. I’d seen plenty of those (and caused plenty of those) on past contracts, but this one had been dead-body-lacking, so far. It made for a nice change.” (44) ASR

“This is how we fight: throw ourselves at each other and see whose parts give out first.” (69) ASR

““Dr. Mensah,” I said, “this is a violation of security priority and I am contractually obligated to record this for report to the company—” It was in the buffer and the rest of my brain was empty.” (73) ASR

“The DeltFall SecUnits hadn’t been rogues, they had been inserted with combat override modules. The modules allow personal control over a SecUnit, turn it from a mostly autonomous construct into a gun puppet. The feed would be cut off, control would be over the comm, but functionality would depend on how complex the orders were. “Kill the humans” isn’t a complex order.” (75) ASR

““Because if the company wanted to sabotage you, they would have poisoned your supplies using the recycling systems. The company is more likely to kill you by accident.”” (81) ASR

“I said, “I did not hack my governor module to kill my clients. My governor module malfunctioned because the stupid company only buys the cheapest possible components. It malfunctioned and I lost control of my systems and I killed them. The company retrieved me and installed a new governor module. I hacked it so it wouldn’t happen again.” (81) ASR

"“Do they really expect to get away with this?” Ratthi turned to me, like he was expecting an answer.” (105)

““They may believe the company and whoever your beneficiaries are won’t look any further than the rogue SecUnits. But they can’t make two whole survey teams disappear unless their corporate or political entity doesn’t care about them. Does DeltFall’s care? Does yours?” (105) ASR

“Freehold meant it had been terraformed and colonized but wasn’t affiliated with any corporate confederations. Basically freehold generally meant shitshow so I hadn’t been expecting much from them. But they were surprisingly easy to work for.” (26) ASR

“The other good thing about my hacked governor module is that I could ignore the governor’s instructions to defend the stupid company.” (48) ASR

“I had a moment to feel betrayed, which was stupid. Volescu was my client, and I’d saved his life because that was my job, not because I liked him.” (79-80) ASR

“One saw me and Ratthi and said, “Again, this is irregular. Purging the unit’s memory before it changes hands isn’t just a policy, it’s best for the—” (143) ASR

“Maybe it would work out. This was what I was supposed to want. This was what everything had always told me I was supposed to want. Supposed to want.” (147) ASR

“Murderbots aren’t allowed to ride with the humans and I had to have verbal permission to enter. With my cracked governor there was nothing to stop me, but not letting anybody, especially the people who held my contract, know that I was a free agent was kind of important. Like, not having my organic components destroyed and the rest of me cut up for parts important.” (14) ASR

“I’m always supposed to speak respectfully to the clients, even when they’re about to accidentally commit suicide. HubSystem could log it and it could trigger punishment through the governor module.” (15) ASR

“…if it monitored the governor module and my feed like it was supposed to, it could lead to a lot of awkward questions and me being stripped for parts.” (31) ASR

“I had worked for some contracts that would have kept me standing here the entire day and night cycle, just on the off chance they wanted me to do something and didn’t want to bother using the feed to call me.” (33) ASR

“I don’t know why I was dancing around the word. Maybe because I thought she didn’t want to hear it. She’d just shot a heavily armed SecUnit with a mining drill to get me back; presumably she wanted to keep me.” (76) ASR

“Then Mensah said quietly, “SecUnit, do you have a name?” I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.” “It calls itself ‘Murderbot,’” Gurathin said." (82) ASR

“To them, talking to me was like talking to a hopper or a piece of mining equipment.” (127) ASR

“I know I said SecUnits aren’t sentimental about each other, but I wished it wasn’t one of the DeltFall units. It was in there somewhere, trapped in its own head, maybe aware, maybe not. Not that it matters. None of us had a choice.” (132) ASR

“Guardian was a nicer word than owner.” (148) ASR

“I’ve purchased your contract.” (145) ASR

“He said, “Good news! Dr. Mensah has permanently bought your contract! You’re coming home with us!” (141) ASR

“I’m off inventory.” They had told me that and maybe it was true.” (145) ASR

“SecSystem records everything, even inside the sleeping cabins, and I see everything.” (30) ASR

“I was supposed to check their personal logs periodically in case they were plotting to defraud the company or murder each other or something…” (57) ASR

“One of the reasons the bond company requires it, besides slapping more expensive markups on their clients, is that I was recording all their conversations all the time, though I wasn’t monitoring anything I didn’t need to do a half-assed version of my job. But the company would access all those recordings and data mine them for anything they could sell. No, they don’t tell people that. Yes, everyone does know it. No, there’s nothing you can do about it.” (27-28) ASR

“Now they knew their murderbot didn’t want to be around them any more than they wanted to be around it. I’d given a tiny piece of myself away. That can’t happen. I have too much to hide, and letting one piece go means the rest isn’t as protected.” (33-34) ASR

“No one would be shooting at me because they didn’t shoot people there. Mensah didn’t need a bodyguard there; nobody did. It sounded like a great place to live, if you were a human or augmented human.” (146) ASR

“If there’s a chance we can save lives, we have to take it,” Pin-Lee agreed.” (57) ASR

“They were the first clients I’d had who hadn’t had any previous experience with SecUnits” (40) ASR

““You have to think of it as a person,” Pin-Lee said to Gurathin.” (95) ASR

“”It is a person,” Arada insisted.” “I do think of it as a person,” Gurathin said. “An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us.” “Then stop being mean to it,” Ratthi told him. “That might help.”” (96) ASR

“Overse added, “It doesn’t want to interact with humans. And why should it? You know how constructs are treated, especially in corporate-political environments.”” (107) ASR

“”You know, in Preservation-controlled territory, bots are considered full citizens. A construct would fall under the same category.” He said this in the tone of giving me a hint. Whatever. Bots who are “full citizens” still have to have a human or augmented human guardian appointed, usually their employer; I’d seen it on the news feeds.” (112) ASR

“Ratthi smiled at the console. “Because Dr. Mensah is our political entity.” He made a little gesture, turning his hand palm up. “We’re from Preservation Alliance, one of the non-corporate system entities. Dr. Mensah is the current admin director on the steering committee. It’s an elected position, with a limited term. But one of the principles of our home is that our admins must also continue their regular work, whatever it is. Her regular work required this survey, so here she is, and here we are.”” (111) ASR

“Ratthi came over to see if I was all right, and I asked him to tell me about Preservation and how Mensah lived there. He said when she wasn’t doing admin work, she lived on a farm outside the capital city, with two marital partners, plus her sister and brother and their three marital partners, and a bunch of relatives and kids who Ratthi had lost count of.” (147) ASR

“Ratthi sighed. “Oh, yes, they know. You would not believe what we had to pay to guarantee the bond on the survey. These corporate arseholes are robbers.”” (112) ASR

““Because the scanners suck corporation balls,” Pin-Lee muttered.” (42) ASR

“Of course I need you. I have no experience in anything like this. None of us do. Sometimes humans can’t help but let emotion bleed through into the feed. She was furious and frightened, not at me, at the people who would do this, kill like this,” (107-108) ASR

“I said, “This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction. Also, I really didn’t want them to try to move me because it hurt bad enough the way it was. “Your contract allows—” “Shut up,” Mensah snapped. “You shut the fuck up. We’re not leaving you.”” (139) ASR

"I had flashes off and on. The inside of the little hopper, my humans talking, Arada holding my hand." (140) ASR

“We had a problem at the hatch of the big hopper where Mensah wanted to get in last and I wanted to get in last. As a compromise, I grabbed her around the waist and swung us both up into the hatch as the ramp pulled in after us. I set her on her feet and she said, “Thank you, SecUnit,” while the others stared.” (99) ASR

““I know you’re more comfortable with keeping your helmet opaque, but the situation has changed. We need to see you.”” (103) ASR

““It’s usually better if humans think of me as a robot,” I said.” (103) ASR

““Maybe, under normal circumstances.” She was looking a little off to one side, not trying to make eye contact, which I appreciated. “But this situation is different. It would be better if they could think of you as a person who is trying to help. Because that’s how I think of you.” My insides melted. That’s the only way I could describe it. After a minute, when I had my expression under control, I cleared the face plate and had it and the helmet fold back into my armor. She said, “Thank you,” and I followed her up into the hopper.” (104) ASR

“They were saying things like I didn’t even know it had a face.” (21) ASR

“Arada and Pin-Lee didn’t try to talk to me, and Ratthi actually looked away when I eased past him to get to the cockpit. They were all so careful not to look at me or talk to me directly that as soon as we were in the air I did a quick spot check through HubSystem’s records of their conversations.” (39) ASR

“They had talked it over and all agreed not to “push me any further than I wanted to go” and they were all so nice and it was just excruciating.” (40) ASR

“That was when I realized they weren’t ignoring the possibility of sabotage.” (43) ASR

“This is why I didn’t want to come. I’ve got four perfectly good humans here and I didn’t want them to get killed by whatever took out DeltFall. It’s not like I cared about them personally, but it would look bad on my record, and my record was already pretty terrible.” (60) ASR

“It was nice having a human smart enough to work with like this.” (67) ASR

“I do a half-assed job sometimes, okay, most of the time, but Pin-Lee had checked, too, and she was thorough.” (71) ASR

“It was starting to occur to me that Dr. Mensah might actually be an intrepid galactic explorer, even if she didn’t look like the ones on the entertainment feed.” (73) ASR

“I hoped they hadn’t been stupid about it, too soft-hearted to kill me.” (77) ASR

“My clients are the best clients.” (78) ASR

“But I think the fact that the Unit has been acting to preserve our lives, to take care of us, while it was a free agent, gives us even more reason to trust it.”” (80) ASR

“Overse sounded mad. “It told us about the combat module, it told us to kill it. Why the hell would it do that if it wanted to hurt us?”” (81) ASR

“Before anyone else could move, Mensah said, calm and even, “SecUnit, I’d appreciate it if you put Gurathin down, please.” She’s a really good commander. I’m going to hack her file and put that in. If she’d gotten angry, shouted, let the others panic, I don’t know what would have happened.” (84-85) ASR

“She continued, “I would like you to remain part of our group, at least until we get off this planet and back to a place of safety. At that point, we can discuss what you’d like to do. But I swear to you, I won’t tell the company, or anyone outside this room, anything about you or the broken module.”” (86) ASR

“Of course she had to say that. What else could she do. I tried to decide whether to believe it or not, or whether it mattered, when I was hit by a wave of I don’t care. And I really didn’t. I said, “Okay.”” (86) ASR

““We have to shut it down, or it’s going to kill us.” Then he winced and looked at me. “Sorry, I meant HubSystem.”” (86-87) ASR

“Then Arada came up and patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry. This must be very upsetting. After what that other Unit did to you . . . Are you all right?” That was too much attention. I turned around and walked into the corner, facing away from them.” (87) ASR

“I should keep my mouth shut, keep them thinking of me as their normal obedient SecUnit, stop reminding them what I was. But I wanted them to be careful.” (92) ASR

““If a strange survey group landed here, all friendly, saying they had just arrived, and oh, we’ve had an equipment failure or our MedSystem’s down and we need help, you would let them in. Even if I told you not to, that it was against company safety protocol, you’d do it.” Not that I’m bitter, or anything. A lot of the company’s rules are stupid or just there to increase profit, but some of them are there for a good reason.” (92-93) ASR

[I cited this whole conversation bc I wasn't sure exactly what bits I wanted to use. apologies for the giant block text.]

“Ratthi’s expression was troubled. “But surely . . . It’s clear you have feelings—”” (54)

“She looked up, frowning. “Ratthi, what are you doing?” Ratthi shifted guiltily. “I know Mensah asked us not to, but—” He waved a hand. “You saw it.” Overse pulled her interface off. “You’re upsetting it,” she said, teeth gritted. “That’s my point!” He gestured in frustration. “The practice is disgusting, it’s horrible, it’s slavery. This is no more a machine than Gurathin is—” Exasperated, Overse said, “And you don’t think it knows that?” I’m supposed to let the clients do and say whatever they want to me and with an intact governor module I wouldn’t have a choice.” (54) ASR

“I’m also not supposed to snitch on clients to anybody except the company, but it was either that or jump out the hatch. I sent the conversation into the feed tagged for Mensah. From the cockpit, she shouted, “Ratthi! We talked about this!” I slid out of the seat and went to the back of the hopper, as far away as I could get, facing the supply lockers and the head. It was a mistake; it wasn’t a normal thing for a SecUnit with an intact governor module to do, but they didn’t notice. “I’ll apologize,” Ratthi was saying. “No, just leave it alone,” Mensah told him. “That would just make it worse,” Overse added.” (55) ASR

Network Effect

“Humans in the Preservation alliance didn't have to sign up for contract labor and get shipped off to mines or whatever for 80 to 90 percent of their lifespans. There was some strange system where they all got their food and shelter and education and medical for free, no matter what job they did.” (35-36) NE

“...it was a natural mistake on Arada’s part. In Preservation culture asking payment for anything considered necessary for living (food, power sources, education, the feed, etc.) was considered outrageous, but asking payment for life-saving help was right up there with cannibalism.” (201) NE

“There were "free" bots wandering around on Preservation, though they had guardians who were technically supposed to keep track of them.” (27) NE

“Plus, it was Preservation and there were no scanning drones, no armed human security, just some on-call human medics with bot assistants and “rangers” who mainly enforced environmental regulations and yelled at humans and augmented humans to get out of the way of the ground vehicles.” (24) NE

"Over the comm loudspeaker, Dr. Ratthi said, 'It is a person!'" (16) NE

“Even the individual humans’ feed signatures only contained info about sexual availability and gender presentation, which I didn’t give a damn about.” (13) NE

“If this went wrong I was going to feel really stupid. The Targets would finally show up and be all “What the hell was it trying to do to itself?”“ (305-306) NE

“That’s one of the reasons Me 1.0 misses its armor.” (293) NE

“You and Amena were right. 2.0 was a person. It wasn’t like a baby, but it was a person.” (340) NE

“The damage to its organic tissue and support structure is easily repaired.” (132) NE

“- because it thought you were dead. It was so upset I thought-Oh, hey, you’re here” (227) NE

“Amena’s voice said “No, it doesn’t like to be touched!”“ (335) NE

““No, it says it’s fine,” I heard her relaying to the others on our comm. “Well, yes, it’s furious,”” (12) NE

"It's not aliens, 2.0 said. We knew it wasn't aliens, I told it. It countered, We were seventy-two percent sure it wasn't aliens. That was an outdated assessment but I didn't need to argue with myself right now." (314) NE

Fugitive Telemetry

“Preservation had two economies, one a complicated barter system for planetary residents and one currency-based for visitors and for dealing with other polities. Most of the humans here didn’t really understand how important hard currency was in the Corporation Rim but the council did, and Mensah said the port took in enough in various fees to keep the station from being a drain on the planet’s resources.” (79) FT

“The Preservation Alliance has a weird thing about food and medical care and other thing humans need to survive being free and available anywhere.” (35) FT

“The employment contracts for Preservation citizens were pretty simple, because their planetary legal code had so many in-built protections already. (For example, humans and augmented humans can’t sign away their rights to their labor or bodily autonomy in perpetuity; that’s like, straight-up illegal.)” (12) FT

“Preservation has high safety standards so we passed through two air walls before we got to the cargo ship’s hatch.” (70) FT

“Right now Aylen and the other officers were explaining to their individual Targets what rights they had as detainees in Preservation Alliance territory. (It was a lot of rights. I was pretty sure it was more rights than a human who hadn’t been detained by Station Security had in the Corporation Rim.)” (85-86) FT

“As part of the rights thing, Aylen had told Target Five the scanner would be on, which I thought was playing way too fair,” (89-90) FT

“Station Security was only allowed to keep the Lalow for one Preservation day-cycle before they either had to charge the crew with something or let them go.” (106) FT

“You need a surveillance audit.” (145) “Some of those systems are under privacy lock, we’d need a judge-advocate to release their access records,” (146) FT [these are together bc its a line of dialogue from mb, a huge monologue about what a surveillance audit is, and then Indah's response, which is the thing I care about for my paper]

“Most of the station’s clothing supply came from the planet, where human hand-made clothing and textiles were so popular there was hardly any recycler-produced fabric. (I told you Preservation is weird.)” (22) FT

“The colony ship hadn’t just been left to rot; the humans liked it too much for that…Pieces of clear protective material had been placed over the occasional drawings on the bulkheads, and on the pieces of paper stuck to them and covered with scribbled handwriting and faded print. Feed markers had been installed by Station Historical/Environment Management with translations into Preservation Standard Nomenclature.” (123) FT

“…you’re on a giant spaceship that has been meticulously preserved as a historical artifact. If they still had intact lunch menus from however many years ago, the chances were good they still had the safety equipment.” (125) FT

“Station Security isn’t armed except with those extendable batons (they don’t even deliver shocks, they’re just for hitting/holding off aggressive intoxicated humans) and the officers are only issued energy weapons when there’s actually an energy-weapon-involved emergency.” (72) FT

“…they were here to assess the damage to the transport and try to repair it. (Apparently on Preservation this would be free? Gurathin said it fell under what they called a traveler’s aid rule. In the Corporation Rim, the transport would have had tp sit there damaged and racking up fines until its owner or an owner’s rep arrived.)” (55-56) FT

another "couldn't decide so the whole dang thing is here"

"For a name, I could use the local feed address that was hard coded into my neural interfaces. It wasn’t my real name, but it was what the systems I interfaced with called me. If I used it, the humans and augmented humans I encountered would think of me as a bot. Or I could use the name Rin. I liked it, and there were some humans outside the Corporation Rim who thought it was actually my name. I could use it, and the humans on the Station wouldn’t have to think about what I was, a construct made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage, a killing machine for whichever humans rented me, until I made a mistake and got my brain destroyed by my governor module." (28) “I posted a feed ID with the name SecUnit, gender = not applicable, and no other information.” (29)

[hp-hcs]

IM THE ONE WHO REQUESTED THE THEODORE X MALE READER THING AND IT WAS AMAZING I LOVE IT SO MUCH OMG

i’m glad!! 😭😭 i was stressing out so much over that one cause there’s no real coherent plot but i pROMISE I KNOW WHERE THE STORY’S GOING

ends at kind of a weird spot cause idk how to end anything ever

ty to the person who said this could be a five part series. i appreciate your confidence in my attention span.

requests? please, sir, i want some more 🥺🤲

this fire ain’t the only thing that’s camp (Chapter Two of Splinched) — death eater! theodore nott x splinched! male! muggleborn! reader

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Theodore comes tromping back into the clearing with an armful of branches, twigs, pinecones, and duff. He clumsily dumps the load into the snow, wiping snow off of the log-turned-bench by the fire pit, and sitting down.

“Okay, now what?”

“Build the fire,” you instruct. “Make a pyramid shape.”

You bring your hands together so that your palms are far apart but your fingertips touch, making an ‘A’ sort of shape to illustrate your point.

“The pine needles and dead leaves and stuff, that’s all great tinder. It’ll burn the quickest, and help start the fire. Put that in the middle of your pyramid. Build your pyramid around that with the kindling; the twigs and thinnest branches.”

Theodore does as you say, making a rather shoddy pyramid that he seems quite proud of.

You pull your blanket tighter around yourself. You sit inside the entrance of the tent, the flap open and pinned back so you can still talk to Theodore.

You had caught a nasty fever the day after Theodore’s spell, leaving you incapacitated for days. To make matters worse, an unexpected snowstorm—nearly a month too early—froze the entire forest. The storm itself reeked of bad magic; everything about it seemed unnatural.

Merlin must’ve had a vendetta against you both, because additionally during that time, Theodore’s wand had begun to spark and malfunction. The Dark spell he’d cast must’ve done serious damage to the core. But his wand had fully given up that morning, shriveling up and blackening like a spent match.

You toss him your lighter and watch as he unskillfully manages to light the tinder, by the grace of God, and cheers with a loud whoop! that sends the birds in the nearby trees scattering into the air.

“Now just add the bigger branches as needed,” you advise, your teeth chattering.

Much to his chagrin, Theodore was quite relieved with your silly Muggle knowledge. He had no idea how to make or light a campfire without his wand, but you assured him that it wasn’t difficult to do the Muggle way.

Glancing over at you with a dumb, silly grin on his face, quite proud of his own achievement, he opens his mouth to mock-boast, only to have his breath stolen from him.

You still look quite sickly, rather weak and tired, but you really make quite a sight. Against the dull olive of the tent and the muted dark blue of the blanket you’re completely enveloped in, the red, sick flush of your face stands out quite a bit. White snowflakes dot your eyelashes, and your pretty eyes seem to track his every movement.

Stop it, Theodore. You have a job to do.

Clearing his throat, he makes his way back to the tent, ducking in and sitting next to you while occasionally glancing over to keep an eye on the fire.

Your face barely peeks out from the thick blanket as you peer out at him. You clearly are thinking of asking him something.

Please don’t ask why I did it, please, for the love of Merlin, don’t ask, don’t as-

“Why’d you help me?”

Fuck.

“Hm?” Theo hums, as if he hadn’t understood you, wrapping one of the spare blankets around himself.

“You could’ve just left me to bleed out. Or you could’ve said fuck it and Apparated anyway. Why’d you help me?”

“The Dark Lord doesn’t like his things damaged,” Theo says in a gruff voice, any friendliness in his demeanor completely vanishing and signaling the end of the conversation.

You just nod, retreating back into your blanket cocoon.

You both sit in silence.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Chapter Three

[grailfinders]

Grailfinders Viewers' Choice #29: Alice Kuonji

today on grailfinders I desperately see how broken a character who does nothing themselves can be, because we’re making Alice Kuonji from Tsukihime, but she’s also in FGO now, so at least I’m saving myself a future headache. Alice is a Necromancer Wizard because we need an ungodly amount of magic, and also necromancers are just better summoners if all you want to do is summon. ᵃⁿᵈ ʸᵉˢ, ᴵ ᵏⁿᵒʷ ᵗʰᵉ ᵖˡᵒʸˢ ⁽ᵖʳᵒᵇᵃᵇˡʸ⁾ ᵃʳᵉⁿ’ᵗ ᶻᵒᵐᵇᶦᵉˢ, ᵇᵘᵗ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᵈᵒ ʳᵉᵖʳᵉˢᵉⁿᵗ ᵃ “ˡᵒⁿᵍ ᵈᵉᵃᵈ” ᵃᵍᵉ

well I thought I was being clever.

anyways, check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here! I’m taking the next month off as far as vc builds go since I already have a sizeable backlog I need to catch up on and summer isn’t doing me any favors, so the next poll will hopefully be in August!

Ancestry & Background

starting things off nice and normal, Alice is a Satyr.

okay hear me out.

in the nasuverse, Alice Kuonji is a Witch, which is actually a type of fey, and thus not a human. while there are several races of fey that can be played in D&D, a lot of them can be ruled out quickly. Centaurs have the wrong number of limbs and focus on physical attacks, Faeries are just too small to work, and Changelings have a central conceit that we wouldn’t use in any capacity.

that leaves us with Hexblood, which is… fine, I guess, I guess you can use the eerie tokens as more familiars, but Satyrs are one of the most powerful races you can pick in D&D, and Alice is kind of busted, so it fits a bit better. besides, we’ll have plenty of familiars from magic alone, don’t worry.

as a Satyr you are, of course, a Fey, so spells like Hold Person straight up don’t work on you- already off to a great start for your immortality. you can Ram people which is not something we’re using, but your Magical Resistance more than makes up for it by giving you advantage on all saves against all magic. your Mirthful Leaps let you add extra distance to your long and high jumps, which actually fits rather well with your ability to levitate, and as a Reveler you get extra proficiencies. I’m actually going to keep Performance for a lil somethin’-somethin’ later, but you get Deception too, to hide your true nature from humans.

most of your ploys come from your ancestors, making you an Inheritor of their power. that gives you proficiency with Survival and Arcana.

Ability Scores

first is Intelligence- a lot of your ploys have weird conditions and drawbacks you have to keep in mind when you fight, so you have to fight smart. second is Wisdom- you’re actually not that great with the modern world, so most of your actual knowledge isn’t book smarts. of course, wisdom doesn’t have a mechanical benefit here, so it’s lower. third is Constitution. it’s not how much you can bleed, but how hard you can get hit and keep getting up. you have like 18 guts stacked on you by default, so… that’s a lot. your Dexterity is just above average to hopefully keep you alive until level 20. that means your Charisma isn’t great- you’re a shut-in among mages, which is really saying something. of course, we’re dumping Strength. you have other people to do that stuff for you. well, not people, but still.

Class Levels

1. at level one, all wizards get an Arcane Recovery, so once per day you can regain a few spell slots on your short rest, with the total level of all the slots equaling half your level, rounded up. speaking of, you also learn Spells, which you cast and prepare using your Intelligence. since you use a spellbook for these, you can also learn spells by copying them down from other wizards, and with six spells now and two more every level, you won’t be left wanting.

that being said I don’t have all day to exhaustively talk about every spell you’ll learn as you level up, so I’ll break them down into two categories: Familiars and Spells that Make You Die Less. if a spell doesn’t fit into either of these categories, or there’s something specific I want to point out, I’ll do it here, otherwise check the character sheet for the full spell list.

that being said, there’s two spells at level 1 I need to touch on- Detect Magic, because everyone needs an information dump at some point so they can follow along, and Fog Cloud. it’s not exactly Flat Snark just yet, but it’s a start.

2. second level necromancers become Necromancers, so you’re a necromancy savant, so copying necromancy spells is faster and cheaper. you also can reap a Grim Harvest, so whenever you kill a living creature with a spell you get double the spell’s level back in HP (or three times if it’s a necromancy spell). I don’t think this really works for Alice, but we don’t really use it in this build anyway, since you tend to use summons, so it’s never really “you” killing anything. the first couple levels are a bit slow, but things pick up when we can actually summon stuff, don’t worry.

you also learn Sleep this level though. No real reason for it tbh, but it felt like a faerie tale thing a witch would do, which is kind of your MO.

3. at third level you learn second level spells, so now you can make Darkness happen whenever you want. this doesn’t actually make it nighttime, so it doesn’t really affect your spells, but I figured I’d get it anyway as an homage.

4. use your first Ability Score Improvement to round up your Constitution and Intelligence to cast better and live long enough to cast even better later. remember, bonuses to your constitution affect your health retroactively, so you get 4 extra HP this level!

Prestidigitation is the cantrip you give someone when they’re just good at everything, and Alice can levitate, so… Levitate.

5. fifth level wizards get third level spells, and while I won’t go into much detail, you can celebrate gaining your first summoning spell, Summon Fey. you’ve had a couple ploys by now, but this is the first time one’s been really able to help you in battle.

6. at level six you can command Undead Thralls, giving you the Animate Dead spell for free, and whenever you summon undead, they come out with extra HP and damage. while this encourages us to stick only to undead, ploys are whatever the hell you want them to be, so feel free to experiment with the other summoning spells. like Tiny Servant! now you can make an adorable teapot minion to carry out your will. if you overcharge the spell, you can make a whole cutlery drawer do your bidding!

7. seventh level wizards get fourth level spells, and surprise surprise it’s more summoning!

8. at eighth level you gain the Gift of the Metallic Dragon instead of an Ability Score Improvement, so you learn Cure Wounds for a solid healing factor, and Protective Wings, giving you an even better shield. well, it’s not better yet, but shield is +5 AC and this right now is +3, but without using spell slots.

9. ninth level wizards get fifth level spells- Bigby’s Hand is our best simulacrum of a giant murderous you… for now, so I guess this is Flat Snarp’s final form… or is it?

10. tenth level necromancers are Inured to Undeath, so you resist necrotic damage and your HP total can’t be reduced. period. this is a secret tool that will help us later.

also, if you really want a great shield you can use Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere to lock yourself in a resilient sphere. nothing can pass into or out of the sphere, so make sure you summon your lackeys before hiding away in it.

actually don’t do that, most summons require concentration, as does this spell. once again, the rules of dnd prevent us from having a good time in dnd, shame.

11. eleventh level wizards get sixth level spells, and now you can create a Wall of Ice. the moon throws icebergs at people sometimes, don’t ask me for context. also you can Create Undead this level, but only at night! just like your ploys, eh? that’s what we call “flavor”. just. don’t actually lick the zombies.

12. in your final NP you kind of… become the snarp? I guess? so that’s why Tasha’s Otherworldly Guise is here.

13. thirteenth level wizards get seventh level spells, and you can turn the entire world into a fantasy land thanks to Mirage Arcane, letting you warp everything around you whenever you so wish. you can also create your own ploys this level using Create Magen. it’s worth pointing out that this spell normally has the drawback of permanently reducing your max HP, but we can safely ignore that because you’re a necromancer.

14. at fourteenth level you can Command Undead, forcing an undead creature under your control until you take someone else over. you can also use this on intelligent undead, but it won’t last nearly as long. your best ploys are someone else’s anyway, so it works.

15. at fifteenth level you can use eighth level spells, like Control Weather. I’m pretty sure this also can’t make it turn to night, but I’d let you do it, fuck it it’s an eighth level spell.

16. sixteenth level wizards get another ASI, to bump up your Constitution again. you can also use Telekinesis now. sometimes the moon throws a carnival at people, it’s fine don’t worry about it.

17. seventeenth level wizards get ninth level spells. Invulnerability makes you invulnerable, and True Polymorph lets you turn random objects into faerie-tale creatures. it turns out the rule-breaking ultramage really likes ninth level spells, go figure.

18. eighth level wizards learn Spell Mastery, letting you cast one 1st level spell and one 2nd level spell for free at will, so you know we have to grab Find Familiar and Levitate. you have way too many familiars and levitation is just something you do for funsies, it all fits.

also, you get Wish. yeah that’s just a thing you can do, idk how there’s any kind of plot with you around I’ll be honest.

19. use your last ASI to grab the Tough feat for 40 more HP. yep.

20. with our last level you get the wizard capstone, Signature Spells, two third level spells that you always have prepared, and they also get a free cast each day. so of course we’re getting Animate Dead and Tiny Servant. whimsical and horrifying, all in one go!

Pros & Cons

Pros:

thanks to the power of necromancy, building and maintaining an army of 30 ploys is not only possible, but not even close to the upper limit you can wield. you could even get the actual 108 you brag about all the time! not only that, but you’re not just limited to shambling corpses, having access to various kinds of fey, elementals, and magen to make some clever clogs under your control.

invulnerability makes you completely immune to damage for ten minutes, which is a long time for a wizard to be able to do whatever the fuck they want. even before that, you’re pretty durable for a spellcaster, with almost 200 HP, access to your own healing, and even having the option to clone yourself and come back time after time.

you have Wish, so you can literally just do whatever you want, forever. yes you have a good chance to lose the spell forever if you abuse it, but still, using it the right way once can end any problem you could possibly have.

Cons:

like most spellcasters, the good shit comes in the endgame, so you’ll have to survive a pretty long time on your lonesome first. you don’t even get any summons until level 5, so hopefully that’s when your campaign starts.

invulnerability is nice, but most of your damaging spells that aren’t zombie-related require concentration, so you’ll have to choose between turtling and living forever or doing stuff and being at risk. if you’re playing to character the former is the correct answer, but it might not be that fun in-game.

that ploy army requires upkeep, and the more you make the more spell slots will be used on just those zombies day after day. at a point, your zombies will be getting taken out in one hit, so just keep that in mind before you burn half your slots each morning.

[h-didanart]

@achickennamedcheese made me do this

(Not really, they just encouraged me and I took it as a challenge)

What exactly am I talking about? Why the ‘putting Bloodmoon on dresses’ thing of course!

Buuut, because I cannot just draw silly stuff without overly thinking about the context and what would happen to get the drawing I make, and because I’d like to have more than just a disgruntled Bloodmoon changing outfits over and over, I decided to draw every Bloodmoon I have ever written (to date) in a skirt or dress or something. This includes the three pairs I usually draw, the two from that one shot//the one au with copies of everyone (but Sun), and the lone Bloodmoon that’s friends with Jack. (And they all have names, because of course they do)

But why are they doing this? I don’t know actually. I can see Harvest Celestial and Scythe having started it and then the other adaptations joining in, and then all of them participating. Or maybe they just want to steal Sun’s style. Or maybe they all lost a bet. Or something

:P

Anyways! The first drawings!

Starting with… uhm, I haven’t named them yet actually (ok that’s a lie, I’m just not really ready to say their name out loud yet because it’s so stupid) for reference, they are basically my take on Bloodmoon I’s Adaptation (OG Bloodmoon AI 2, the one voiced by Reed)

Skirt is flowy, skirt go spin

Next up— I wanted to draw the miniskirt from the reference images I was given, problem was I didn’t know which Bloodmoon could wear that and not be extremely uncomfortable by it. The answer to the problem was fairly easy, Harvest’s Bloodmoon Celestial, the queen herself.

And then the character design Gods cursed me with a vision and uh… this happened

Probably should’ve made the skirt more colorful now that I think about it

And now we got a paired drawing! Two Bloodmoons that go together, Rabies and Bleed aka: my take on Bloodmoon II. This is where I stopped looking at references and just drew what I thought looked nice

Bleed isn’t particularly keen on participating, just putting in the bare minimum. Rabies is having ✨a time✨, he’s having ✨fun✨ with this (and yes, those are earrings on his hood, they don’t have ears)

And so

And because you’ve come this far, you shall get a sneak peek at one of the bigger drawings for this event//collection//dump//idea//thing

:3

(Your turn cheese)

[tillystealeaves]

Steddie Breakup Fic- Interlude #2

Friends, I am bad at this posting thing. Sorry! There's one part left and it WILL be up in a timely manner, I promise!

Part 1 First Interlude AO3

Steve’s heart was shattered. In some ways, this was even worse than when Nancy dumped him. For as much as Steve believed that Nancy had loved him back, he’d always known that they were very different people; that there were things about them that would never line up smoothly.

But Eddie…

Eddie was loud and exuberant and always himself, no matter the cost. He was what high school Steve had never dared to be but had always found himself admiring in others. Eddie created space for others to be themselves as well- for Steve to be himself. Not the King or even the Babysitter. Just Steve.

But Steve knew that Eddie was meant for bigger things. He would be a rockstar, if that was really what he wanted. Or maybe open his own music store, or a shop that sold all the stuff for the games he loved to play. Eddie would grow tired of Steve, with his bleeding heart and his stupid brain and his gaggle of kids that he wouldn’t leave until the last one was at least a hundred miles away from Hawkins.

And so Steve had preemptively given Eddie an out. He knew that Nancy had been unhappy with him for a long time before she finally- well, she really didn’t ever “break up” with him. She called him bullshit and started up her next relationship, assuming that Steve would just figure it out. But clearly she hadn’t just done that overnight without thinking it through. She’d wanted out of the relationship and Steve hadn’t realized it.

Nancy had deserved better than that. Eddie deserved better than that.

Ending things now, before he’d made Eddie miserable, was the best thing Steve could do. He knew that. But his heart was shattered.

Steve’s heart was shattered, but he still had to drive Dustin to school.

Dustin hopped in Steve’s car, already going at a hundred miles an hour, as he always was. Today’s topic of discussion (topic of infodump?) was about rocket fuel. Usually Steve would at least try to follow along, even though he quickly got lost when Dustin’s rants veered into the highly technical. But on that morning, he didn’t even try. He focused on the road in front of him, shutting out the sound of Dustin’s voice, the memory of Eddie’s eyes filling with tears, the sinking feeling that he would always and forever be too much but still not enough.

“Steve! Steve! STEVE!”

“What?” Steve yelped, slamming on the brakes.

“You’re not listening to me at all. Like, okay, fine, you don’t care about aeronautics but you’re not even here in this car with me!”

Steve resumed driving, waving an apology to the car that sped past him after his abrupt stop. “Sorry, man. Just got lost in the drive for a second.”

“No you didn’t.”

Steve had talked to Dustin multiple times about his Tone; the condescending lilt to his voice that Steve was sure he didn’t even mean half the time. But as much as the kid needed to knock it off, Steve had gotten used to it. Much more jarring was the complete lack of Tone in Dustin’s voice now. He wasn’t annoyed at Steve for zoning out; if anything, he sounded concerned.

“Steve, what’s wrong? You look like the dogsitter lost your puppy.”

“I’m fine, Henderson,” Steve tried to assure him. He was the babysitter, the one in charge. He was supposed to be there for Dustin, not make Dustin deal with his… bullshit.

“You’re definitely not.” There was the Tone, Steve laughed to himself. But it was still laced with worry. “It’s not like… a Code Red or anything, right?”

“No of course not,” Steve assured him quickly. Eddie had asked him the same thing the night before. Were they all still traumatized from all that had happened or was Steve really just that sad-looking? He thought it was probably a little of both.

“Then what?” Dustin, always so clever, seemed to understand exactly why Steve was hesitating. “Steve, you know you’re not actually my babysitter, right? We’re friends. You can tell me stuff.”

Steve knew he’d be heading over to Robin’s in just a few hours to talk this all out with her. But the memories from his conversation were tying knots inside his chest. Besides, he rationalized, Dustin knew Eddie. Dustin absolutely believed in Eddie being able to leave Hawkins and achieve whatever dreams he wanted. He’d almost certainly agree with Steve’s decision to prioritize Eddie’s happiness. It would probably help Steve feel less devastated to hear that he’d done the right thing.

“Honestly, it’s… relationship stuff,” Steve admitted softly. They’d arrived at Hawkins High, parked off to the side to stay out of the way of the slow-moving traffic. Still, Steve kept his gaze locked on the windshield, not able to look at Dustin.

“Really? You guys are the most perfect couple! You always seem so happy together!”

Well. So much for making Steve feel better about all of this. He couldn’t respond to Dustin’s statement by saying that actually they weren’t together at all, happy or unhappy, as Steve had broken up with Eddie just hours before.

“He’s just… Sure we’re happy, but we want different things, Henderson. Sometimes just really liking each other isn’t enough.”

“What do you want that’s different? You both just seem like you want big happy families- which you have. The Party is a family- who cares if it’s not by blood? Eddie wants to get out of Hawkins and live somewhere that no one ever looks at him and sees Chrissy. You’re not going to want to stay in your parents’ big sad empty house forever, so that works out. And after that, you’re just… going to live. Right? Maybe Eddie will be a rockstar. Maybe you’ll be doomed to work at jobs that get destroyed on an annual basis. Maybe Eddie will get a job at the Chicago branch of Family Video. Maybe you’ll go to school to be a children’s social worker- yes, we know about that,” Dustin barreled on before Steve had even fully opened his mouth. “You’re not subtle about literally anything. And we all think you’d be great at it. It’s basically a form of extreme  babysitting, but without a nail bat. Anyway, I don’t think it really matters what you two do next; you’ll do it together and you’ll have fun. So what’s the issue? Wait, Steve, are you crying?”

Was he? Steve scrubbed at his eyes. Yeah, apparently he was. “No, I’m good,” he sniffed, trying to gather himself. “I get what you’re saying, Henderson, I do. But I’m… look you know how you guys say that I have a Mom Mode, where I sometimes go too far worrying about you all or baking a ton of stuff or-”

“Wait stop,” Dustin interrupted. “You don’t go too far, Steve. Yeah, you have a Mom Mode and yeah it’s kind of funny sometimes when it gets activated. But… you get that we like it, right? Especially, I mean, well… not all of us have that. I have a mom- my mom is great! But I’ve only ever had just a mom. Having a big brother has been really important. And Max? She’ll never say it but you know how much your support means to her. You- you do know that, right? Of course we’re going to make fun of Mom Mode. One time you baked so much Erica had to deliver goodie bags to all of her friends. But that’s just who you are.”

Now Steve was crying again, and he had absolutely no hope of hiding it. He simply sat there in the front seat of his car, one of his little gremlins sitting beside him, and sobbed at the realization that they didn’t consider his love for them an annoyance or a chore. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to stop.

Dustin, always putting the pieces of puzzles together, immediately solved the puzzle of Steve’s anxieties. “Is this what you think your Relationship Problem is too? That you’re going too far with Eddie? Doing an equally intense Boyfriend Mode?”

Steve sighed, his tears slowing, and nodded.

“Eddie loves attention,” Dustin declared. “Come on, Steve, I’m sure you remember whatever lunch table speeches he was doing when you were still at school. He loves attention so much, he’ll take bad attention. But he loves good attention. It’s what makes him a good DM; it’s why he’s in a band. You absolutely cannot worry about giving him too much attention.”

Dustin had a point, Steve knew. He shrugged noncommittally. Attention was one thing but it wasn’t just that…

“It’s not just that though!” Dustin continued. “Look, you know who’s a great mom? Mrs. Byers. She is great but she is intense. She’s gotten in fights with monsters and dudes with guns over Will. What if, and just go with me here, you were concerned about her and you went Mom Mode on her? But also, you’re still kind of a kid, so she went Mom Mode on you? What if you Mom-Moded at each other? You’re both basically two Frilled Lizards, your frills fully extended, circling each other and ready to Out-Mom each other.”

What? Steve was rapidly losing the thread of Dustin’s metaphor. He wondered if Robin knew what a frilled lizard was.

“That’s you and Eddie. You’re circling each other, frills flared in Boyfriend Mode, just being amazing boyfriends at each other. Everyone around you watches it and we’re super happy for you and vaguely grossed out by how sappy-happy you both are, all at the same time. He’s into it, Steve. You’re right, some people probably wouldn’t be. I think if Suzie and I were actually in the same place and I did that kind of Boyfriend Mode, she’d spray me with a hose. But Eddie writes so many NPCs that are clearly based on you. He gets this dumb smile on his face whenever he talks about you. He’s right there with you.”

Dustin patted Steve on the shoulder and grabbed his backpack, clearly just about done giving Steve shockingly solid advice. “People get anxious about things. I know sometimes Max worries that Lucas is going to get tired of her slowing him down with her crutches- and everyone knows that’s stupid. Even she knows it, but she still worries sometimes. Talk to Eddie about it if you need to. But remember when Max iced us out for months? Don’t do that. Just… don’t hurt him, okay? He really loves you. And he deserves to be happy.”

Steve nodded as Dustin exited the car. He thought he managed to mumble something witty, something along the lines of “Thanks, Dear Abby Henderson.”

Then he was alone in his car.

Steve’s heart was shattered. And apparently he had shattered Eddie’s too.

[bra1nw0rmz]

Beba I need your opinion on this. What do you think happens to pavlevi after the train leaves prehevil with them in it? Do they live together? Do they live apart as secret lovers? Because of the society around them.. Of course

Started writing this when I was drunk (sober now), but I have had thoughts abt this !!!!! Started info dumping so yeahhhh

I have some ideas based off them being the only survivors, like say Karin and Co went to go get ending A. So Pav and Levi were the only ones left on the train as Levi was left behind and told to take care of Pav post Kaiser altercation. To make sure he doesn’t bleed out and die.

I feel like they’d probably jump from place to place at first. Causing problems everywhere they go lol. Just following eachother around because of neither of them having any plans or future after Termina. Levi because in the back of his mind, to take care of Pav was the last ‘order’ he was given.

After a while they move up north, away from most of society. Moving into a little abandoned cabin in the woods that Pav caught wind of in the neighbouring town. They clean the place up, repairing and adding stuff.

They’d only go into town every few weeks to a month for supplies. Due to being so far away so it’s like a whole day trip there and back. But they probably like it that way. Pav might invest in a horse at some point, maybe… would have to be after a while of saving up.

Basically everything they eat they caught themselves. Levi would def enjoy ice fishing, it’s relaxing. Pav thinks it’s boring so he prefers to go hunting (the snow landscape thing I drew in my last art dump was actually them going on a hunting trip lol)

For money they’d process and sell the pelts of their game, or sell any extra fish Levi caught. But they are largely off the grid so they don’t need a ton of cash.

Entertainment wise they read books together in bed. Levi would ask Pav what more complex words meant as I’m pretty sure his education would be rather spotty due to being drafted at 13. If Pav didn’t know the word he’d just make up a definition because he doesn’t wanna seem like an idiot lolll (he also has a spotty education, largely self taught)

I think after a while Pav would take up wood carving. Pav seems like the type to prefer to keep himself busy. he’d probably struggle with having patience for it at first, but he’d get the hang of it with time. Little wooden bunnies being his fav thing to carve. Also another thing to sell for extra cash.

I feel like at first Levi would hate living in the cabin, he’s going through heroin withdrawals, he’s lived in cities for most of his life, not used to the cold so he burns through fire wood quickly. But with time he’d really like it because it’s repetitive, and predictable. The security is comfortable really. And it’s only him and Pav so people aren’t a problem.

Pav would be the opposite. Loving it at first because the climate and lifestyle makes him super nostalgic. Hunting being a good way to blow off steam that doesn’t involve starting fights. But he starts to get antsy because he hates staying in the same place for too long and craves novelty. To combat this he either goes on long hunting trips or visits the city to have fun or smth. Levi probably loathes the city trips because heroin is easily available there so he’s tempted to relapse but Pav is there to hold his hand so it’s okay.

But yeah, realistically these losers are too fucked up to function properly in society. So living off grid in the woods feels like a good substitute.

[toothlespoggers]

GUYS I WAS LISTENING TO SUNROOF (the kidz bop version because I love how childish and vibey that specific song sounds in that version, don’t judge me) and I had a great idea.

so you know how I’ve been working on that character Razzle Dazzle for some time now? Getting his lore, comic and everything planned and worked out.

Image for those who aren’t familiar with Raz

Image description thingie: A small round octopus-like creature with a purple body and cyan splotches. One giant yellow eye with a red pupil.

my “fresh parasite” that’s actually just a species of monster native to waterfalls deep water named the Squimic

basically they’re creatures that have the intelligence of a regular small monster and an octopus, they have a mix of octopus and squid traits and can see perfectly in the dark but are sensitive to light. They’re semi aquatic meaning they can survive on land if they stay in a moist environment, they eat sugary foods primarily and survive by camouflaging themselves like a octopus, their natural colours blend right in with the marsh of waterfall and the bioluminescent spots make them look like a mushroom, which not only stops them from being spotted but also helps alert predators that they are in fact poisonous (about as deadly as a blue ring octopus but safe to handle just don’t eat it.)

anyway, in the story, raz’s classic world goes into a genocide and he survives by being so stealthy that the player never encounters him that’s my excuse for why he’s not in canon undertale jk

but basically in order to survive he has to mimic the abilities of a stronger monster, that’s how his species works they have no magic of their own they just copy others and imprint their own unique flare onto it. So the strongest monster happened to be sans, since he was going to fight the human and Alphys was saying he would probably succeed when the underground was evacuating. I was going to have him jump onto the sans, takeover the body and end up crashing the game sending the two of them into the void. But then I had a thought- what if he really is just a mimic? What if he never takes over the sans body, what if he just shapeshifts into a sans, yk because his whole species magic revolves around copying? What if that’s what happens.

then raz would just, have the same thing happen to him, but he’d just- be raz. The previous plot holes I had with the sans having sentience logically would vanish and the lore would match up perfectly.

it’d explain why his body changes when he meets fresh and decides to copy his appearance and behaviour. How he goes from round classic sans to a slightly different shape- skinnier and taller. He’s a shapeshifter, that’s why he never had eyelights, that’s why he bleeds rainbow. That’s how he’s able to turn from little squid man to skeleton. He’s a shapeshifter.

I shouldn’t technically be dumping a lot of my revelations on my au here since I’m kinda scared someone more popular than me will take my silly idea and no one will pay attention to me. But I’ve been working on this for a while and this just clicks into place so nicely I had to share it with the class. I mean, might as well let people see what I’ve actually been working on.

y’all are free to ask me questions and I can answer them if you want, I definitely don’t have many pieces of art to showcase the writing work I’ve been doing on this au yet. So most of it is just me explaining it until further notice. But hopefully everyone will think it’s cool!

I’ve been told by friends and stuff that my whole raz idea is a really unique fresh sans. Since he’s like his own thing ^^

I’m going to close tumblr immediately after posting this because I panic at the response I’ll get whenever I send something I’m excited about

[theredpharaoah]

I think the writing for this was really sloppy. A lot of it didn’t make sense at all and they didn’t clear anything up at the end. The pacing was also bad. Everything happens in the last chapter, and the chapters after Chapter 7 go really quick(Jaime died trying to save Chris for me). Like Chapter 11-13 were literally just cut scenes.

From what I can understand; Augustine was part of some cult that worships the entity. She was a psychiatrist or therapist and had Frank Stone as a patient. I’m assuming that in order to get the entity to come to your realm, you need to essentially create a trial. 4 survivors, a killer, and some form of isolated environment. I think the survivors and the killer also need to be connected in some way, and maybe something with objects of power? I’m not understanding why she needed the timelines or how Frank Stone even made that portal though.

My best guess is that bleeding timelines somehow makes it easier for the entity to enter,

I understand DBD’s message is that there is no escape, but they had a chance to make sure this didn’t happen. With the time portal right there, you’d think they would’ve started trying to figure out how to use that to change stuff. If they could’ve stopped Frank Stone’s killings, he wouldn’t have been a prolific enough killer to draw the entity to our world. Sam not telling them what was going on seemed nonsensical. For a huge chunk of time they just weren’t doing anything in the 2024 timeline. And Sam said something about how he didn’t want to tell her so he didn’t tell her…??? It made no sense and was just and storytelling. You’d think Sam would tell them about the timelines. What’s also annoying is that the characters got information and just didn’t use it. It’s really not hard to see all the different universes’ versions of Murder Mill, Alt timeline Sam, Chris come out the portal, and deduce that time travel or at least some form of time manipulation is happening. And then Madison heard a recording of Augustine literally saying she was trying to bring Frank Stone back and just didn’t say anything or try to connect that to anything else. A lot of it feels like it was trying to tell a very messy and convoluted story to the viewer and the characters were just a means of doing that. The Characters themselves didn’t seem to act like real people; they were means of achieving a very confusing lore dump.

I’m assuming the reason Claudette and them don’t speak at the campfire is because they’re just so depressed from being in the Entity’s realm for so long. Based on Linda and Chris’ dialogue for some endings, it’s outside of time. Linda seems like she’s already been there for a while by the time Madison arrives. My issue with this is if there truly is no escape, why are the survivors and killers even trying? If in forever cursed to be hunted and killed, or constantly fighting for survival with absolutely no positives to my existence; I’m not gonna keep doing shit. I would literally enter the trial and just stand there because there’s no point to doing anything. Even if I win some trials I’m guaranteed to lose others. Pain is guaranteed and so is death and resurrection. I don’t think it makes sense that they continue to play the Entity’s game. And I don’t think the Entity would get any joy out of possessing them and forcing them to play. Whatever pain they feel they would’ve long since grown accustomed to. In other words: the entity’s realm doesn’t seem sustainable. I don’t see anyone participating for longer than a couple of months.

I’m also inclined to believe that if there’s an evil entity then there must be some good Higher Powers too. Even if the entity is the creator of the boons and survivor offerings, I don’t think it would be the creator of our world. I personally would’ve used this game to set up some sort of opposition to the Entity. If you wanna stick strictly to the “No Escape” thing, then have it be that this other being and it’s followers try to intervene and stop the entity from kidnapping people or sealing up the means by which it accesses different worlds. I personally would have it be something that breaches the entities’ realm, and that it or any number of other higher powers are responsible for giving Survivors things like Boon Totems and Invocations. The entity gives Survivors things like tools, but the point of the entities realm is to be killer-sided so it can feed off of the pain and fear of the survivors. I think the trauma that drives most of the killers is the pain the Entity feeds off from them. It just makes no sense that the Survivors would keep on doing trials if there’s no hope of ever getting out. They need to introduce something in the lore that gives them hope of escape to explain why they keep fighting. Even something like “they survive so they don’t get devoured by the Entity” wouldn’t work because they’ve already been devoured by the Entity. And if they’re just in its realm but haven’t been consumed by it; the anguish they feel would most likely make them accept such a fate if it put an end to it. If being consumed would mean eternal anguish; they’re already experiencing that anyway. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

[dgknightblue]

So there is this AU swimming in my head where RVB characters are from different time periods and gets dumped into some place and are forced to interact.

Im not too sure on exact time periods for them, but an approximation of them.

But who is from the future, Wild West, and stuff?

Carolina and Church are future people trying to do something I don’t know what and accidentally pulled people at first before doing it on purpose kind of.

The people they pull they don’t get to choose who fits into what they are looking for.

But things….

All of our lovely sims are in the cast with a few of the freelancers.

Simmons is a trans man stuck in an era that doesn’t support him. He gets pulled after he finally runs a way. Well he was born with one leg and he kind of got hurt so he was bleeding pretty bad. Yeah he was a mess on the floor. He was scared and begged them not to hurt him or drag him back to his father.

I’m thinking he’s a lower aristocrat’s only child that was out of wedlock during a time of arranged marriages and stuff. He has his mother’s knife that his cousin gave him before going overseas for war. His father tells him that he’ll be marrying some merchant’s son named Gene or whatever and be grateful. He hates it and he feels bad being called his name. He likes his grandfathers name more.

Blugh what an xss!

Once he finally calms down and gets patched up, he accepts what’s happening and loves all the mechanisms he’s never seen before.

They all catch on to what he doesn’t see and don’t know what to do. Except Sarge, Kai, Donut, and Grif.

Sarge boasts about doing his own top surgery before growing a beard and enlisting into the army. Simmons finds himself drawn in and in full admiration for some reason.

Kai has Grif’s support, they would absolutely know how to get him accept little things to get him warmed up to the idea of him being him.

Donut is full of support and advice and is very friendly!

They get Simmons out of his shell enough to see his eyes sparkle some times. Sarge makes Grif Simmons’ personal carrier since they don’t have access to a wheelchair.

Grif is just glad Kai and Donut convinced Simmons it was okay to wear pants. He’d trip over that long xss dress that didn’t belong any where near Simmons.

So they end up spending a lot of time together and even sneak off. I can imagine them in the shallows of water at night talking and Grif teaching Simmons how to swim.

They get real close and Tucker and Kai and Donut try to spy on them sometimes. They individually have to cover each others mouths so they don’t blow their cover just to scream , “JUST FXCKING KISS ALREADY!!! DXMN IT!!!”.

Eventually as other things happen Sarge is more than happy to reintroduce Simmons to the group.

When Simmons gets a prosthetic leg, he gets so excited and runs up to Grif and pulls him a way to do what they usually do but Grif doesn’t have to care him any more!

He can still carry him once in a while though <3

On to other people….

Wash gets trauma sometime before getting pulled but I’m not sure which era and what gives him PTSD.

I know I said I was moving on to other people, I want to say this:

Simmons can cook really good, his father thought that was beneath an elite individual and banned him from going to the kitchen ever again.

Tricks and skills he’s learned:

Piano, violin, proper etiquette, dancing, knife things from his cousin, cooking from his mom, sewing from his grandmother, poison and plants from his grandfather.

The only one that has a problem with Simmons is his father and literally has no reason or excuse to be. Too bad Simmons got stuck with his dad being the only family member he had beside his grandmother. She refuses to die simply for Simmons sake until she gets murdered passes from natural causes.

She was actually the only reason he stayed after his cousin was considered KIA. Never found the body though. It’s been years, where did you go?

Simmons finds a book no one listens to him explain. (It’s the manual, for what? Something he has control of now :3) They are in for a surprise :3

Simmons is his cousin’s last name.

Anyways, I don’t want to separate Grif from pizza so he is in time period where there is pizza even if it’s one of the early versions that’s actually called pizza.

He found a thing called Oreos and worship them.

He also wants to kiss Simmons so fxcking bad, but doesn’t see all the signs. Simmons has no personal space with Grif and only Grif. Kai sticks to Simmons side at first to help him out and gradually slides farther a way to help her brother.

One night they find alcohol and they all talk.

They learn Simmons has more unwanted experience than wanted and that the only one that is considered experience (because it was wanted) is Simmons eating a girl out. Simmons is Bi.

Simmons invites Wash to the virgin club along with Doc. Wash declines and Doc agrees.

Tucker has Junior beside him sleeping. His baby boy <3

Carolina and Church still trying to figure out some bull crxp with the unground lab on the island they are on. Some are not helping like they think they are. Caboose.

The library in the villa is where Simmons is during the day when he isn’t with Grif.

Caboose, Donut, Lopez are sometimes making sandcastles competing with Tucker, Junior, Kai.

Grif is in the kitchen making food for Simmons and him when Simmons is in the library.

Wash is training with Sarge and whoever else from the freelancer group I haven’t a clue.

When Locus and Flex show up as antagonists somehow Locus enters the fold. He tries not to get too close to Simmons, Kai, or Junior for reasons.

Donut definitely didn’t throw a water balloon at Grif’s head from across the beach for revenge and spite.

Doc and Dr. Grey are having lessons on being a good doctor when she shows up.

Eventually things pick up when Temple and his (small) group + Zealot soldiers do the thing that start the problems that got them all stuck together.

When things get bad, Simmons realized what the book he found goes to. He summons Tex kind of and he’s under her protection now. He is also learning coding and glad he doesn’t have to go back to his era. He doesn’t exist until now after all.

Learning his cousin becomes the kings advisor was a shock, but he’s glad they are okay.

I didn’t write for everyone because I got stuck at Grimmons moments <3