#and since it's looking more and more unlikely that we'll ever get

[letuce369]

i think the big thing for me is that the new content and support for java is still free, despite being over a decade old, and the solution is also free

like it's not perfect to have to download mods to make it run better, but it's also not super hard (fabric and sodium have good tutorials), and it's legal, and free

for pokemon, the main game cost 90$ for a physical copy that crashes and lags and glitches with no real updates to fix that

and then gamefreak turns around and has the audacity to ask for an extra 35$+ not even a year later for extra content with all the same problems

and if you want a real fix you have to get an illegal pc emmulation of the game

minecraft may not be the most optimized, but mojang isn't asking for any more money for it's new stuff, just the base price

people are complaining about the minecraft updates and not getting exactly what they want but still getting content/support FOR FREE

meanwhile pokemon fans are getting charged 35$+ for DLC on a game that barely runs

wat

[cakypa120]

Ok Billy keeps coming back au.

Seeing all those people, I just imagine everyone are careful and sad now, so imagine that either this is the first time Billy didn't got killed, or the first time someone who still haven't killed Billy killed him.

I'm don't want to lie I hope he survives, but everything you post says that he won't

Billy sighs. Everyone is tiptoeing around him. Which he expected anyway. Billy doesn't blame them. He just.... He wishes they'd stop being so careful with him.

And then Signal shows up at the Watchtower. Gotham's daytime vigilante. Billy had only seen him three times, since he usually died before Duke joined the Batfamily. Now was the perfect opportunity to meet him.

Marvel: Hello! I'm Captain Marvel! You're Signal, right? Gotham's daytime hero? Nice to meet you!

Signal: Nice to meet you too.

They shake hands. Marvel laughs loudly, although he feels Batman's piercing gaze, as always, watching his brood like a hawk.

Marvel: Are you here on business? Or just annoying your father like your brothers and sisters?

Signal: He is not my father, I don't know where you got that idea from. And I am here to familiarize myself with the internal affairs of the League, since I will be more accessible during the day, unlike Batman.

Marvel: I see. Then let's go, I will show you our cafeteria, where Batdaddy takes coffee as dark as his soul to get energy to suck the strength out of people.

Billy takes Duke to the cafeteria, ignoring the boy's complaints and an irritated Batman. In the end, Billy shows Duke everything, explaining everything in detail, sometimes telling funny stories about Bruce and others from the Bat Clan.

Duke eventually returns to Gotham, and Billy and Bruce see him off. After Duke leaves, Bruce asks the expected question.

Batman: Has he ever...?

Marvel: No. I was dying before he showed up in your family. Well, it's time to go on duty.

Duke doesn't know how to react to this smiling hero.

Duke: Dick, how do you like Captain Marvel?

Dick: A good hero, a wonderful person, has seen too much shit in his entire life.

Duke: He seems too cheerful to me.

Dick: ...... Believe me, if he weren't like that, then... a lot would have gone wrong.

Duke was a breath of fresh air in Billy's life. Ignorance was a blessing. No one wanted to enlighten Duke about what Marvel had to endure. And for that, Billy was grateful. Duke was the only one who talked to him normally, without any guilty looks or awkward silences. Billy liked talking to him. They even got to know each other better.

And then comes the day when the sword of Damocles falls on Billy.

The mission went wrong. Billy and Duke are sealed in an ancient seal that requires a human sacrifice. Billy can't break the seal, because it is too powerful. Created from the suffering of an entire people, created to contain the Gods. Even as the Champion of Magic, he will not be able to break this seal.

Marvel: The seal requires a sacrifice. A human sacrifice.

Duke: Like blood or hair? An arm? A leg?

Marvel: No. You have to kill a person and put it on this seal. The sacrifice will be accepted, and a portal will open through which you can exit.

Duke: What?

Marvel: Magic based on human suffering always requires a sacrifice. This seal is designed to contain God. And this seal is very ancient. We better follow the rules.

Duke: That means one of us will have to die!

Marvel: Yes. Unfortunately. But better than both of us rotting in this prison.

Duke: Maybe we can get help? Well, on the other side! And we will both stay alive!

Marvel: I understand your hope. But... A sacrifice will still be needed. From this side, from that side... It doesn't matter. Someone has to die.

Duke: No! We can't just give up! We have to fight! You have the wisdom of Solomon!

Marvel: The Seal is poisoning you. You're human. You won't last long.

Duke: I'll hold out. I'll survive. We'll be rescued.

Marvel: Duke, I know you believe, and that's good.

Duke: How do you know my name?

Marvel: I know many things. And I know that only one of us will leave this place. And that one will be you.

Marvel materializes a dagger, the blade of which was made of eternium. Duke flinches when Marvel hands him the dagger.

Marvel: It's one of the few things that can kill me.

Duke: No...

Marvel: I know it's hard, but... It's necessary. Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions.

Duke: No! No! No! What are you talking about?!

Marvel: Signal...

Duke: Why are you giving up on life so easily?! You have a family! Friends!! A city that loves you! Are you really going to leave them because of me!? I'm just a newbie! My death won't matter to anyone.

Marvel: *grabs Duke by the shoulders* Don't talk about yourself like that! You're so talented and kind! You'll become a great hero! And you also have family and friends who are looking for you, hoping that you'll come back alive.

Duke: What about you? What about your family?

Marvel: My family... My parents are dead, and my sister... she knows the risks I take by becoming a hero. She understands. The League will understand, too. They won't be mad at you. Trust me. They won't.

Duke: Are you really just going to give up?

Marvel: Maybe. Better me than you. You have to live, Duke. You have your whole life ahead of you, and I'm an old man.

Marvel places the dagger in Duke's hand. Duke's lips tremble. Billy looks at the seal and stands in the middle. He turns and looks at Duke. Billy spreads his arms out to the sides, a bright smile on his face.

Marvel: One blow will do.

Duke:.....

His hands were shaking, holding the heavy dagger. He looks at Marvel, who smiled brightly and spread his arms out to the sides. As if inviting him for a hug. Duke picks up the dagger. He closes his eyes. He has to do this. He has to. But he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to!

Duke takes a deep breath and runs. The dagger pierces the flesh, and Duke feels the warmth of Marvel's body. He slowly opens his eyes and looks at where it struck. Golden blood flowed from the wound. Slowly, the gold turned red. Duke froze, his body stopped obeying him.

Warm hands take his hands and tug. The dagger leaves the body with some kind of sound that Duke cannot understand. A few moments later, Marvel falls to his knees, and Duke continues to stand and stare blankly into space. Marvel's voice breaks him out of this strange trance.

Marvel: You did well, Duke. Great...work...

Marvel lurches to the side and falls. Blood soaks into the seal. The seal lights up brightly and Duke finds himself in the woods. He blinks. Where is Marvel? Wasn't he supposed to come back with him? He needs to be buried, right? Marvel deserves peace. Maybe if Duke searches, he can find Marvel? He's probably nearby. He wanders through the woods, looking for Marvel's body. He doesn't know how much time has passed.

He hears his name being called. But who is calling him? Someone is hugging him. Suddenly, Duke becomes aware of his surroundings. Bruce is hugging him, and Superman, Damian, and Flash are standing next to him. And their faces are sad.

Duke: I killed him... I killed him... I killed... killed... him...

The dagger falls out of his hand. Why was he even holding that abomination? His legs give way and he falls to the ground. Bruce follows him. Duke continued to whisper, "I killed him." Bruce stroked his back and whispered that it wasn't his fault. Duke feels tears, he screams, hugging himself. Before his eyes, again and again, is Marvel's corpse, with a peaceful smile frozen on his face. Bruce hugs him tighter, as if trying to hide Duke from all the pain, from everything that happened. Duke no longer screams, he cries quietly, burying his face in the man's armor.

Duke: I...

Bruce: It's not your fault.

Duke: He...

Bruce: It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.

Duke presses himself closer to Bruce. Bruce continues to hug him. Duke just hoped that Marvel had found the peace he deserved.

In another universe, a newborn took his first breath.

[yumeka-sxf]

After the exciting start of a new Garden arc last time, today's new chapter did not disappoint either! First thing I noticed upon reading is - Yor's new outfit! (though you're not being very discreet with that "Garden" badge 😅)

Also that little lemur guy in the upper left of the panel is like "Wtf?!" I would think that too if a person suddenly leaped onto the tree branch next to me 🤣 (you can see him scurrying away in the next panel underneath...nice little detail from Endo there.)

Before I get into specifics of this chapter, I wanted to analyze the exchange between Yor and Hemlock in the jeep - namely, the Hemlock/Nightfall parallel, with Hemlock accusing Yor of losing her edge due to "playing house" for too long, which is exactly what Nightfall said to Twilight when she first appeared.

This made me think of an interview with Endo that was shared in the recent iterations of the SxF exhibition that's going on in Japan: when asked which character has changed the most in the series so far, he said Yor while also mentioning that Loid has barely changed. And I can see why that's the case with how Yor responded to Hemlock. Her experience during the cruise arc made her understand her own development - that now more than ever she wants to continue her work because she has more people she desires to protect.

She actually recognizes her own change and embraces it, while Loid...still hasn't gotten there yet. If we compare this exchange between Yor and Hemlock with the one between Loid and Nightfall, Loid clearly doesn't have this same self recognition about how living with the Forgers has changed him. He either genuinely doesn't know or he's in denial, which is why Nightfall is the one who points it out, and even when she tells him, he doesn't have a response.

One could argue that this may have been the case in old chapters, but ever since the mole hunt arc, he has recognized himself how he's changed. I do agree that the mole hunt arc made him realize that he's "softening" in a way, but he sees this as a detriment more than anything else. Unlike Yor who sees how her love for the Forgers has made her stronger, Loid sees it as something that will make him weaker rather than fuel his resolve.

We haven't seen much of Loid's deep inner thoughts since the end of the mole hunt arc, so only time will tell if he'll start to see his own development as something to be accepted rather than pushed away (just a note that I don't have a specific link for this part of the interview, but Fasionnessutsu shared screenshots of it in a thread here).

But anyway, back to other thoughts about this chapter, it was no surprise that even though Yor and McMahon changed into these safari-looking outfits, Hemlock is still wearing his suit. Why am I not surprised someone like him would totally refuse to wear that? 😂

And omg, the fact that Yor is still hung up about the "welcome home" kiss 😂 The fact that she's so earnest about it all this time later means...something, lol.

Also McMahon having a wife...it was kind of vague here but I wonder if she knows about his undercover work? Probably not, but would be interesting to see how much of his marital situation mirrors Yor's.

We apparently got another minor character introduced in this chapter - McMahon's pet falcon (and scouting assistant) Keekee.

In the Japanese version he calls her "Kiki-chan," with "kiki" being the sound she makes. It's nothing big, but I just found it amusing that a stoic, no-nonsense guy like McMahon calls his pet bird "-chan" 😅

The flower that Damian and company found has returned! I mentioned in my last chapter post that it may have some connection to Anya's past - we'll see!

This chapter ends on quite the cliffhanger, with Hemlock attacking Yor because, according to him, she's an impediment to his work and he's allowed to get rid of such impediments. We've already seen several examples of how quick to kill he is. Compared to Yor who tries her best to only kill "bad guys," Hemlock's first notion for anything in his way is to kill, whether it's the deer he's supposed to protect, or a fellow assassin he thinks is dragging him down.

Again, there's parallels that can be drawn between him and Nightfall, but unlike Nightfall whose obsession is fueled by idolizing Twilight, Hemlock's obsession seems to be fueled by animosity for Yor. Where that animosity came from is something we'll hopefully see in upcoming chapters. My theory is that, at some point, Hemlock idolized Yor and is now upset that she seems to have "softened," or he's always been jealous of her and now is even more enraged that she's not taking her job seriously anymore. Whatever the case is, I look forward to seeing how it plays out 👀

[syluriar]

please...help me - sylus x mc!reader. part 2

sypnosis: the aftermath of caleb catching you on the phone to escape him.

part 1

a/n: part 2 is finally here!! i apologise that this took me awhile, i just wanted this chapter to be right and i feel good about it now. there will be a part 3 to this, not sure about part 4 but we'll see how this goes.

warnings: some angst but with comfort. caleb being possessive and genually confused why you want to leave. mc (you) finally letting your fustrations out. sylus appears. caleb gets punched :) not for caleb girlies (sorry!)

word count: 3091 (insert spongebob exhausted meme)

taglist: @eternityjune @swissschees3 @notomyrr @jilly-xox7 @mizunareader @monticarlo @leiakitty @wiiieeeeeee @lynnaredfield3383 @idrkgurr @cms399 @ladycrown109 @capribun @crimsonlittlecrow @bi-goth-energy @rik0shii @letharue @sylusjinxedpaw @mcdepressed290 @kaeyasfuturewife @magicatemyvanishingdreams @deethedolly @beautifulthingsiadore @katykibbs @futuristicdefendorfart @qinluna @lemonn015 @magpie-the-goblin-girl @beewilko @thechaoticarchivist @aikonecrosis @gianchan-de @gamergirl31201 i think that's everyone? i apologise if i forget to tag you, there was a lot of people who wanted to be tagged which makes me fell so happy - thank u!!

When was the last time you ever felt this scared?

Perhaps your first time facing a real Wanderer? That time you had a creep not taking no for an answer when you were alone in a nightclub? Or maybe that time where you were walking alone and came across a thief with a weapon? 

But you had overcome them. The Wanderer died by your pistols, the creep getting punched in the face by your fists and thrown out by security, and the thief getting it’s weapon knocked out of it’s hand by you and arrested by the police moments later. 

The adrenaline that had rushed through you pushed it all away within those moments, and it was only after you had reflected on the experience that almost had you buckle your knees and grab the nearest thing to keep you standing, your heart bounding and your thoughts and absolute mess. It had taken you a while to calm down and look back on those moments without fear, and instead of what you had accomplished.

Unlike right now.

“Still not talking?”

You hadn’t spoken a word to Caleb after he caught you ending the call with Sylus, begging him to come and save you from the man you once felt safe and secure with. 

The tracker on your wrist reminds you of anything but those feelings and more.

Caleb sighs from his seated position in the kitchen and stands, the sound of his footsteps getting closer to you fills you with dread. He seats himself on the edge of the coffee table in front of you and you instantly move back so his feet don’t touch you, your eyes finding a spot on the floor to stare at.

He chuckles. “You won't even look at me, how mean of you.”

Retorts sit on your tongue that you hold still. Your already deep in trouble, you don’t want to know what will happen if you fall more. 

By the corner of your eyes you see him angle his head to try and catch your eyes, but you look away quickly. What would you see in them? Pity? Annoyance? Anger? Even if it was soft, you wouldn’t fall for it, your not that naive anymore.

You gasp as he grabs your chin and forces you to look at him, his told had a certain tightness to it that could choke you in seconds - you wouldn’t put it past him to do it, though it still scares you to know that.

“There we go.” He smiles, and everything about it screams it’s not the one from the past, the warm one you remember. “Now all that's left is for you to talk, but since you won’t do that, I guess I have to play a little guessing game.”

It doesn’t matter, you think. He can guess all he likes and you won’t answer him. Let’s see how he likes to be the one ignored now.

“Now who would you be calling at this hour when everyone is asleep, like you should have been.” There’s a mocking tone in his voice that makes you want to punch him. It should have made you worried about doing such a thing to someone you saw as a friend, but all you saw in front of you was a creature that enjoyed your torture. 

“It can’t be your dear Dr. Zayne, he’s too busy and has things far too important then calling you.”

It hurt you a little to hear Caleb talking about Zayne like that, the three of you had a good friendship growing up, it had amused you of the little arguments they would get into. You knew that no matter what happened you would always have them to fall back on and pick you back up. Zayne had greatly helped you ever since you thought Caleb had died, and the thought of the three of you being back together made your heart warm when you found Caleb again. 

How unfortunate that wouldn’t happen.

“Someone the Hunters Association? Hmmm possibly. But who exactly?” Caleb tapped his chin with his other hand, your chin still firmly held by his other that it was starting to ache. “No one there can come in here and sneak you out without anyone onboard knowing, even if a team banded together. So let’s rule that out.”

He clearly underestimated your Association. You might not know everyone there, but the only reason those people have been made Hunters is because they have the power to do so, they���ve all been through the hard training it takes and passed. You remember all the training you had to do and your sure Caleb does too, as you had called him after sessions, complaining about it all and the aches and bruises on your body.

“You keep complaining about it but I never hear you say that you’re gonna leave.”

“Of course I'm not! Quitting would mean that I’m not cut out to be a Hunte. You’ve said I am so many times, do you not think it anymore?”

“Not at all. I believe in you more than anyone that you’ll pass, and become the world's greatest Hunter.”

“Ok, not that much Caleb.”

He laughed then, full of warmth and joy. “Just keep going Pip-squeak, and before you know it, you’ve passed and got your license. Just don’t forget about me when you're off saving everyone from Wanderers, ok?” 

Does he still believe in you now? Do you even want to know? You’re still surprised he hasn’t told you to leave them and just stay with him.

“I guess that only leaves one other place.” He muses, and you feel like he’s close to the answer.

Just don’t react. Don’t let him know.

“But would you really call someone from there? And who? There’s not many good people in the N109 Zone.”

Your face remains neutral as Caleb scans it for any signs and frowns when there isn’t any. You hide your pride at this, though it probably thanks to him that your learning to mask your emotions well.

“Actually, scratch that, there’s no good people in that place. Illegal dealings and filled with violence and crime, there no better than Wanderers. Infact, I bet they’re worse than Wanderers. At least those creatures were someone innocent before turning, people in the N109 Zone have been black-hearted since the start. Like true monsters.”

You swing your cuffed wrists to smack him but they’re quickly caught in his free hand, a smirk now dancing on his lips. 

“Oh, it seems like I hit a spot. So your trip to the N109 Zone did have you in contact with someone there.” He pulls you forward by your wrists, noses just barely touching. His voice was laced with demand. “Who?”

A grunt falls from your lips as you try and pull your wrists back, but Caleb’s hold on them is strong.

It tightens.

“Who?”

You stop and look at him, his eyes so dim you wonder if they’ve truly turned black. You can see anything in them other than dark feelings that create goosebumps on your skin.

You swallow, a bit of courage coming to your throat. “I guess that’s round two of your guessing game.”

A thick silence hangs in the air and your ears pick up noises you don’t remember registering. The ticking of the clock on the wall, the sound of cars driving outside and the pitter patter of rain softly hitting the windows. Mixed with Caleb before you, it was starting to become stimulating, and you pray that Sylus will be here soon.

Caleb’s frown deepens. “Why do you want to go to him, hmm? Skyhaven is much more safer and secure then the N109 Zone.” 

“I have never feared more for my life than staying here.” You reply. To hell with staying silent, that’s what you’ve done more than anything since you’ve been here. You let Caleb have his way, let him ramble on and on and speak badly about a place - about a man you wanted to go back to more than anything.

You’re done with it.

“What can he possibly give you that I can’t?” He’s not glaring but close, he’s looking at you as if he just can’t phantom the idea of you wanting to leave. “How can you want to go to him when I’m right here?”

“Because he would never treat me this way!” You scream, and the look of shock on his face makes you keep going. “He’s never locked me in and he lets me have my freedom with no complaints or bargains. He never punishes me and never makes me feel afraid of him. He’s someone who treats me like I’m someone, not a possession. He's someone I can trust and go to without fear.” Your breathing heavily, the words keep coming out and your not stopping them, too fed up with the man infront of you. “He’s the opposite of you Caleb, and as soon as he comes here I’m going with him, and you can’t stop me.”

You didn’t realise you had stood up until you saw Caleb’s eye move to look up at you, for once you had gotten power over him, had made him look at you and made him speechless. 

Adrenaline runs through your body and you know you can’t let it go, no matter what happens next.

So when the look of shock vanishes over Caleb’s face and is replaced with a glare, you lock in and quickly pull your still bound wrists free from his hold, keeping them close to your chest. When he stands you step away instantly, creating space between the two of you. 

“And what makes you think I’ll let you leave?” His voice drips with venom. It’s a tone you’ve never heard before and almost falters you.

“Because she’s her own person.” a voice breaks out, one that’s so familiar that it makes your heart race. “Because she has the right to her own freedom.”

Both of you turn to the door that’s now locked behind a tall and imposing figure, his white hair gleaming in the ceiling lights. 

“Because she wants to.” 

He steps forward and the light shines on his face, that handsome face of your saviour. “Oh, and because I’m here to help her, isn’t that right, sweetie?” His gleaming red eyes fall on you, and you smile, hope filling you. 

“Sylus…”

Caleb sucks through his teeth, irritation clear all over his face. “How did you get in unnoticed? Every member had been alerted that you would be coming.”

Sylus shrugs nonchalantly, confidence oozing off him. “And despite that I didn’t get much of a welcome party. Your fleet needs more training.” 

The comment only makes Caleb’s irritation grow, and it brings some satisfaction to you. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m taking Miss Hunter home.”

Home. The word makes your heart swell. 

“She’s not going anywhere, especially not with you.” Caleb straightens and you feel his Evol approaching, it causes goosebumps on your skin once again and you instantly look at Sylus, who just looks bored.

“Seems like you need hearing lessons as well.” His own Evol floating around his fists, ready to release.

You knew there was going to be a fight once Sylus showed up, he would avoid it if he could if that’s what you wanted, but Caleb wouldn’t let you go without a fight. Even if Caleb hadn’t caught you and you managed to sneak past him with Sylus, he would only come and get you himself and cause a ruckus wherever you went to get you back. He would see it as you being kidnapped and brainwashed to turn against him.

Caleb needs to know that you want to leave on your own free will, and not just with words. The fact that you called for help should have already planted that seed somewhere in his head.

“Stop it Caleb. Let me go.” 

He turns to you, a flicker of disbelief in his eyes. “What?”

You stand straight, your voice calm as you speak. “I want to leave, right here, right now. So let me go.”

He stares at you, teeth gritted and brows furrowed, but his eyes are scanning you, hoping to find something he can use to make you stay, to blind himself that this isn’t your free choice of will. But he can’t find any, and his irritation and confusion grows. “Why? Why do you want to leave me? I thought after everything we’ve been through, you’d want to stay with me forever.”

And you had wanted that too. 

“I had never felt such relief when I found Caleb alive.” You tell him with a soft voice, the painful memories all coming back. “I spent night’s crying because I thought you were dead, days went past in a blur and I was always reminded to eat even the smallest thing because my mind wouldn’t register the simplest things that my body needed. All I could think about was you.” 

Tears brimmed at the corner of your eyes but you didn’t care to wipe them away, with showing Caleb your true emotions, you hope that he’ll finally understand. “Time passed and it got a little easier, but I still thought about you. I didn’t even think I would meet you here…and yet I did. I was so happy Caleb, I thought things would go back the way they were before. Always laughing and joking around, having you by my side to comfort me and give me strength…but you’ve done the exact opposite.”

Confidence flows through your veins as you take a step towards him, his figure still but has lost it’s tension. Your getting through to him. “The things I said before, about me being afraid of you, it’s all true. You keep me locked up and take away my things. You don’t let me have my freedom and even tell me when to go to sleep like I’m a child. It honestly scares me that you can’t see that your hurting me, hurting me so much that I want to escape from you.”

“I didn’t…” His aura falters, the dark and imposing man has been replaced with disbelief and confusion. “I never want you to be afraid of me, I didn’t do all those things to scare you. I want to protect you.”

“Was giving me medicine with the intention of me falling asleep protecting me?” You spat back, the memory of it still causing a shiver of unease down your spine. “I’m a Hunter Caleb, I don’t need this kind of protection. You said that you believed in me when I was doing my exams, but it looks like I’m weak to you.”

“You’re not! That’s…That’s not what I think!”

“I don’t care what you think anymore Caleb, except for the fact that I want to leave SkyHaven and I want to leave you of my own free will. That’s my choice Caleb.”

A noise leaves Caleb’s lips, something frustrated and perhaps sad. You don’t fully understand it but right now you don’t care. You take another step towards him, close enough to touch his chest if you reach out. 

You show him your bound wrists. “Take these off…please.”

He looks down at them, thousands of emotions dance through his eyes that you can’t decipher, but he waves a hand over them and you hear a click before the cuffs fall on the floor.

“Thank you Caleb…and I’m sorry.”

Before he can even respond you punch him square in the face, his body falling to the ground instantly, knocked out.

Whoops.

The slow clapping of hands erases the tense atmosphere from the room.

“An excellent performance, kitten.” Sylus smirks as he walks over. “You had him in your grasp and took matters into your own hands, just like I knew you could.”

There was something about his praise that brightens you, maybe it’s because you know he’s saying it sincerely that has your stomach filled with butterflies. You fight back the smile that threatens your lips. “I didn’t mean to knock him out..”

He chuckles. “Whatever you say, sweetie. You still wanted to punch him, not that I blame you.” His eyes scan over the unconscious body of your ex best friend, frowning at the sight. “I wanted to get some in.”

“You would have killed him then.” You commented, and despite everything Caleb has put you through, you didn’t want him dead - for real this time. “I don’t think the fleet would be too happy about that.”

“I don’t mind making a few more enemies, especially the ones that hurt you.” 

Air catches in your throat as Sylus turns back at you, his eyes looking at you softly. “Are you alright?”

Maybe it was because it was said so gently, full of comfort and genuineness, laced with true worry. that has you tearing up once more. “I want to go home Sylus.”

He gathers you in his arms, holding you close to his chest that you feel his warmth that engulfs you, bringing a sense of calm to your body. “It’s ok. I’m here, and I’m taking you home.” He lifts you in his arms that you don’t protest, you don’t ever want to leave his safe arms ever again. “Luke and Kieran have cleaned your apartment ready for you to come back.”

“No Sylus,” You croak against his neck, tears slowly falling down your cheeks. Apart from Skyhaven your apartment is the last place you want to be right now, there’s no sense of security that will calm you if you return back there. 

There’s only one place you want to be.

That mansion that started out cold that is now warm with your touches; the plushies on the sofa and the blankets on the bed. The fairy lights in his study and the colourful mugs in his kitchen, your skincare and make-up products sitting neatly in his bathroom cabinet and the photobooth pictures hanging by the vanity he had bought you.

“Take us home.”

He looks at you then, surprise written across his face that it almost makes you giggle. You never really called it home to his face, even with your things scattered across the building. 

Sylus smiles, it’s not the one his enemies see or the ones the twins get when they’ve pulled a prank. It’s a smile only reserved for you, and it shines brighter than any star you have ever seen.

“Alright, sweetie. Let’s go home.”

[mochinek0]

Daminette December: 15-(SUB) How to Thaw a Frozen Heart

PART 1

Word spread quickly about Damian and Marinette dating. Many people were shocked, even more so, when they found out that he was the one who asked her out.

When people looked into him, they learned he was called the 'Ice Prince of Gotham'. Lila was furious hearing the whispers. She looked into Marinette's boyfriend and learned his family was wealthier than the Agreste.

'How could he choose that nobody?'

Lila realized she could play off Marinette's "jealousy " any more. The others had commented how happy she looked with him and how she was smiling more. They would look out of the lunchroom and see the two sitting on the law, sketching. The new couple would even walk together after school.

Just when Lila thought, she could relax away from the school drama, pictures of them started to pop up in the news. Pictures of their dates: Damian and Marinette at a cafe, coming out of the movies, at the park with his dog, him leaving the bakery! She lost it when she read the headlines: Parisian Pastry Princess thaws out Ice Prince's heart.

'Why are they calling her a princess?'

Meanwhile, Marinette and Damian were panicking internally. They had never meant for this to get out of hand. It was suppose to be for school only and some how everyone thought they were really dating. Yeah, they enjoyed each others company. They were both afraid to admit it, but they more relaxed with each other than anyone else.

"Damian!" Dick cried out.

Damian sighed. He was expecting this and knew calling would make it go quicker.

"So," Jason smiled, "tell us about your princess."

"First off, she hates being called that." Damian declared, "I tried it once and she said "Don't" very...forcefully."

They laughed.

"So, what drew you to her, Little D?" Asked Dick.

"We're fake dating." He answered.

"What?" Cried Dick.

"Aw. Come on!" Whined Jason.

"Knew it." Tim declared.

"You can't ruin it, just like that." Sighed Jason.

"I did not expect you to agree to fake date someone, Damian." Bruce finally spoke.

"I asked her. " his son replied.

"You....asked her?" Dick questioned. "You....asked her to date you....without actually dating?"

"Yes." Damian answered, "Father did Grayson sustain a concussion?"

"Why?" Questioned Tim, "Why would you ask and more importantly, why did she say yes? How much money did you offer her?"

Damian glared at Tim, "She was being bullied and mistreated. I proposed the idea so they would leave her alone."

That was not the answer they had expected. They knew Damian was attractive enough to get a girlfriend, if he actually wanted one. They also knew he hated publicity so the girl he was with, had to be worth it. They just wanted to see how long it would take to make him crack. Dick just smiled.

"Are you treating her well?" Bruce asked.

"Yes, Father." His youngest son answered.

"What about...touching?" Jason pressed.

"She knows about my boundaries. " he replied.

"Hate to break it to you," Tim spoke, before sipping on his mug, "but if people don't see some action, they might assume figure out you are fake dating."

"Are you suggesting, I get physical with her? " Damian asked.

"At your age level!" Dick cried out, quickly.

They realized Damian was stumped.

'Oh, boy.'

"We'll get to that later, but since you're not serious about her, it doesn't matter." Jason stated.

"And she respects your boundaries." Dick pointed out, "so it's....unlikely she will try anything."

"Try anything?" Damian asked.

The boys looked at each other and Bruce sighed, "Your conception, Damian."

"Ah. No, I do not believe she will do anything like that." Damian declared, putting them all at ease.

"So, when can we meet her?" Tim smirked.

Damian glared and ended the call.

Lila, ever the opportunist, quickly spread the word that Damian and Marinette weren't really dating. She confided in others that Damian told her it was a publicity stunt to make him more likeable and Marinette was just that desperate. Too bad, for her, Damian heard her and quickly notified Marinette.

She sighed, "Thank you for trying, Damian."

"Are you saying the deal is off?" He questioned.

"Isn't it?" She asked, "Lila is actually telling the truth, this time and-"

"I can hold your hand." Damian announced, "I brought my motorcycle today. I can give you a ride home, if your parents allow it."

'That should be enough physical contact for the masses. Curse Drake for being correct.'

"Are you sure? The motorcycle, I don't have a problem with; Nona has a bike and I ride with her." Marinette stated, "You said you don't like being touched."

"You trust your Nona." Damian pushed back, avoiding the obvious.

"I trust you." Marinette declared, "You have been nothing but honest to me. You never hid your intentions and you didn't cross my boundaries either."

Damian gulped. He hadn't expected her to trust him. She had never told him her boundaries and yet, she had respected his.

Later, in the day, people started whispering about Daminette holding hands. Curiosity got the better of some people and they had to ask, 'Why the sudden urge to hold hands?'

"I am not particularly fond of physical touch." Damian admitted to his peers.

Marinette smiled, "We are going at his pace and I'm okay with that. If tomorrow he told me he didn't want to hold hands, I would wait until he asked if we could again."

Many were satisfied with their answers, but when word spread around, Lila decided to confront them head on.

"Is Marinette forcing you?" Lila pushed, reaching out to him.

Damian slapped her hand away. Lila quickly pulled her hand to her chest and sniffled.

"I-" she started to speak.

"It is known in Gotham that I am the byproduct of rape; my father speaks about it at movements." Damian stated, "I despise physical touch. If you looked deep enough, into my background, you would have seen that I have broken many girls' hand for not keeping them to themselves."

Lila took a step back.

"My father is aware of my hatred for touch. I told Marinette when I asked her out." He growled, "My Angel has never pushed for physical contact!"

"And it's okay if you're not ready, Damian. If holding my hand is too much, we don't have to." Marinette smiled, letting his hand go.

"Are you finished spreading falsified statements about myself and my girlfriend?" Damian questioned Lila.

"I'm not!" She quickly pushed back, "I-"

"Heard you claim Marinette was forcing herself on me." He shot back, "You are a disgrace and no better than paparazzi attempting to create a false story for popularity."

Lila shifted nervously, "But I-"

Damian took a step towards her, "One more false statement and I will personally go to your employer, buy out your contract, and permanently black list you from fashion."

For once in her life, Lila remained silent.

"You can't do that! " screamed Alya.

"Agreste is a low class millionaire because of his father, who was only influenced by Style Queen." Damian declared, "My father is a billionare. The Wayne family has been around for centuries and throwing away a million, all I have to do is list it under a 'charity service'."

Lila glanced at Marinette and was surprised to see she was shocked as well. She expected her to be looking smug.

'She didn't know! Why the fuck do they always choose her?'

Damian watched as Lila's face contorted with anger towards Marinette. Quickly he decided to end her charade. Damian leaned down and kissed Marinette. Marinette squeaked as he abruptly kissed her. When he pulled away, everyone saw her cheeks bright red. He grabbed her hand and led her away from the crowd.

At the end of the day, everyone witnessed Damian offer Marinette a ride on his motorcycle. They could see she looked more excited about the bike. In a way, it eased Damian. He was afraid that Marinette would pull away from him after he kissed her.

"Ready?" Damian asked, holding out a helmet.

Marinette nodded and took the helmet, smiling.

Mari got on the bike and wrapped her hands around him. She felt him tense. She started to pull away but Damian placed her hands back around his waist.

"I'm calm." His voice echoed in the helmet, "I apologize about kissing you, without asking your permission."

Mari cuddled into his back, "You have helped me more than you know. My first kiss seems like the best reward."

Damian wasn't about to admit that her touch made his body feel on fire. After hearing he was her first kiss, he didn't know what to think. He quickly slammed his visor down and drove away.

"I guess she really did thaw his heart."

"They look so cute togther."

"I'm glad Marinette is so understanding."

"She's so sweet."

"Always has been."

"Did you hear he kissed her and she was so surprised."

"Awww."

"Did you hear the shit that Rossi was spreading about her?"

"Took it like a grain of salt, like all the other shit she says."

Bustier's class kept silent as everyone praised Marinette on her patience with her boyfriend. How Marinette wasn't one to cross boundaries. Mari obviously wasn't jealous of Lila; she was happy with Damian. They didn't know what to say as people laughed about Lila and the lie she had spread about the couple. They wanted to ask, but Lila was nowhere in sight.

@maribat-calendar-events

TAG LIST- DAMINETTE: @meme991001 @umbreon-worshipper @stainedglassm @jasmine-the-fox @psychicdelusionwerewolf @vixen-uchiha @mysteriouschar @missmadwoman @kanamexzeroyaoifangirl @dissarraymania @tundra1029 @abrx2002 @mrsjacuinde @ledalasombra @animegirlweeb

UNSPECIFIED- @animeweebgirl @a-star-with-a-human-name @alysrose-starchild @fandom-trapped-03 @dood-space @moonlightstar64 @saltymiraculer @marveldcedits20 @09shell-sea09 @icerosecrystal @insane-fangirl-of-everything @blueblossombliss @nickristus-dreamer @megawhitleycalderonpaganus @tigresslily @legodetectivemalsblog

[jalicecookie]

Purple Haired Friend

You're visit the set of Squid Game 2 , to surprise your Father Ha-neul Kang. Unfortunately, you get lost while searching for him and end up near the men's toilets, completely shy and lost of orientation. Luckily for you, an Actor with black and purple hair and a big heart , is your savior. Or in short Words - Seung-hyun helps a Toddler to find her Father on the set of Squid Game 2.

⁓ A little Gift for the very talented @thanosscross. The Way you write Seung Hyun is super inspiring and made me try my very ever first Jump , into writing something, that is about the filming Set of an Series/ the Actor Career Focus Point. I can imagine that T.O.P// Seung Hyun as a very gentle soul , with a good Heart for Kids, so yeah i hope i could surprise you with this small Project <3 ⁓

Check out her Stories and her Works she wrote, it is very good and i enjoy every Post from he that shows up on my Dashboard :-)

TW: None, just a lot of Cuteness and Fluffness (at least i tried to write it so ^^)

⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓

"….Appa will definitely be happy to see us, it will be a great surprise! Sometimes there are a lot of people on a set, he said, so we have to be good and not cause any trouble, okay? And when we see Appa, we'll shout "surprise" really loudly, okay?" - the words of your big brother Min-Jun come into your field of vision, as does the face of the 9-year-old, while your mother parks the car in the studio's visitor parking lot and puts on the handbrake.

It was a special day and, unlike your older brother, you still can't understand the bigger picture , behind your father - Ha-Neul-Kang's - public life and the man's associated success as an actor in film productions and television series.

For you, since you have better understood the rough structure of the day, it is completely normal that your father comes home earlier or later due to the working day and the overtime during filming.

Sometimes you visit him as a family on the set of different productions and in most cases you hardly notice the hustle and bustle and the crowds of people on the studio premises.

In the past , you usually slept through the whole drama or shyly fled into your mother's arms and avoided all eye contact… it was strange to often see your father under makeup and with a different haircut, it always took a lot of convincing for your father to really convince you that this stranger was not a strange person but still your Appa.

You were always more of a shy, timid toddler and your third birthday, which you celebrated together with the family a few days ago (Ha-Neul specially blew up the balloons on the decorated dining room table himself and hoped that they would blow out the candles on the chocolate cake for you!) didn't really change much… well… apart from the fact that your big brother seemed to somehow lure you out of your shell with his euphoria about the surprise visit.

"Surprise!" you say, giggling and clapping your hands once.

"Not until we see Appa and are allowed to go to him, Silly," your big brother replied and helped you to unbuckle the seat belt of the child seat before your mother picked you up and took Min-Jun's hand to go through security together and then let one of the nice crew members lead you through the long corridors and hallways of the set.

"Mommy? Down? wanna walk like Min-Ju" - you say as you make a short stop and are near the cafeteria, where your mother and brother meet a family friend (mother and daughter) whose father also stars in the Netflix series Squid Game and they start talking.

"You stay with Mommy and Min-Ju, okay? Don't run away or walk off okay", - your mother said to you as she slowly put you on the floor. You obey…for a period of 2 minutes…the adult women talk, your big brother and the big girl talk too and…oh does that one adult look like your dad? In the suit…sometimes your dad wears a similar suit.

You tug on your mommy's sleeve once but she is so engrossed in the conversation with the other adult, that she didn't notice for the moment…and your big brother started playing rock paper scissors with the other girl and then a mini version of tag…what if the man in the suit was Appa and wouldn't hear if they all shouted surprise?

You look away from your mother and big brother, the man in the suit is talking to another adult and then walks away from the hallway…you can still hear the parting words of the suit wearer's conversation partner echoing over to you.

"…..you should go to the mask trailer - Gong-Yoo"

Gong-Yoo….wasn't that the last name that Mommy and Appa sometimes use to answer a phone call - Kang….Gong-Yoo…..that sounded kind of the same and since you couldn't see the man's face for the moment, you decided to do the most sensible thing your little 3-year-old brain was capable of - follow the suit man who could possibly be your father. Great idea right?

Maybe it was because the set of a series production was so crowded that several people were bustling around the aisles and a school class was visiting that no one noticed how clumsily and shyly you were simply following the man in the suit, like a little duckling blindly following its mother duck… until you lost your bearings because the man whose name sounded so similar to the name your parents always use to answer boring adult calls, of course didn't know or notice that someone was following him.

(How were you supposed to know that the actor playing the salesman/recruiter would just take a quick bathroom break before going to the make-up room and that he just happened to wear a similar suit to your father at premieres and press conferences/interviews was really mean of fate, wasn't it?)

In any case, you lose sight of the man because you quickly lose sight of your father and find yourself completely clueless and shy in front of the men's toilets in the studio. You look around uncertainly, but there is no sign of the suit wearer or your father anywhere…where were Mommy and Min-Ju again?

You stumble somewhat aimlessly into the area of ​​the sinks in the men's restroom in the hope of spotting the suit there, but here too there was a gaping emptiness…you became afraid and were about to cry quietly when the footsteps approached and suddenly stopped.

"Hello - are you lost, young lady?"

You flinch and look up for a moment…not far from the sinks stood an adult in a green suit and purple-black hair. His look seemed to be confused and surprised at the same time to find a young child completely alone in the bathrooms…but your overwhelm and fear made this question and the appearance of the strange man, even more threatening for you…where was your family?

You shake your head, sniff fearfully and shyly take a few steps back towards the toilet cabines.

Now the first tears are running down your cheeks and a quiet whimper escapes you.

"Mommy! Appa! Min-Ju!" - you cry quietly and of course you don't trust the strange adult one bit.

You have always been shy around strangers and just wanted the safety of your family around you.

"Did you got lost? Were is your Family? Oh no, we can look for them together?" - the voice of the man with the purple hair took on a very cautious and calming tone as you keep backing away and land backwards on your bottom in your fear of this overwhelming situation.

"You don't need to be afraid…actually…I think I'll just sit down for a litle while as well okay?" - the tone was still calming and you still watched with fear and uncertainty as the purple adult man simply sat down cross-legged on the floor a few steps away from you and gave you space…he didn't go any further towards you and with this gesture he put himself at eye level with you…which in this case was not only very sensitive, but also the right decision for your shy nature.

There was silence for a moment and your quiet crying echoed off the high ceilings of the bathroom.

"Is orange your favorite color? Look, two of my fingernails are orange too," said the man in a now shy tone…just like you feel, shy and unsure.

You briefly look down at the color of the orange jacket you are wearing.

It is your favorite jacket…and one of your favorite colors. At home you have orange rubber boots with little ducks on them.

Mommy said you can't wear those rubber boots today, because it hasn't rained.

"Orange?" - you say carefully and tap your T-shirt once and then you cast a very cautious glance at the purple adult , who is still sitting cross-legged on the floor and holding out his hand to you so that you can see that one of his fingernails is also orange.

Then the stranger held out his other hand to you, one of the fingernails was also painted orange.

"One…two…two orange" - you say, looking from the stranger's hands back to your T-shirt and lowering your gaze again.

"Do you know the other colors to? My Fingernails very colorful today aren´t they?" - the adult said kindly, somewhat in his shy tone, and the fact that he stayed where he was and made no attempt to simply pick you up or even grab your hand or otherwise pressure you, made you look up in dismay… and crawl very carefully closer to the man, at arm's length of course - to look at the other colors on his fingernails.

He was right… there were other colors besides orange. What colorful fingernails.

"That's right, it really does look like a rainbow, hm? May I ask what your name is, young lady? My name is Seung-Hyun," - the adult replied with a quiet laugh at the rainbow comparison.

It took a moment, until you could come out of your shell a little further and shyly answer the question…but the interest in the dark colors on the back of Seung-hyun's hand captured your interest.

"Me - Nali.....Ouchie on Seung hand?", was your reply.

A gentle smile creeps onto the adult's face as he answers your question.

"This one? Oh no, it's a tattoo… well, not a real one, it's just color, but shhh, don't tell, okay Nali?", he said playfully and a few moments later he makes a shhh gesture by holding a finger in front of his mouth.

You imitate him and carefully do the same.

Then your gaze slides back to the adult's hair and you tilt your head for a moment.

"Hair too, shhh - secret?" - you ask, pointing to the man's purple-black hair.

"Not really, but I know a magic trick - what do you have behind your right ear, Nali?", said Seung in surprise and his right hand went once in the direction of your left ear before you heard something jingling and looked surprised into Seung's still closed hand.

"What's behind Nali's ear? Magic trick?", you said now, a little curious.

"Hm… it sounds like… you can't find a coin? But… oh, I can't open my hand, the magic trick was probably too difficult for me… can you maybe help me?", said Seung to you in surprise and when he tried to open his fist, he couldn't do it even with all his effort… that must have been a pretty difficult magic trick!

You nod, thawing out a little more with every passing minute and Seung's calm, level-headed and slightly shy manner suits your own insecure character, he is just right when dealing with you and the fact that he can do magic is a great bonus.

"Nali help Seung… but how?" you ask and nod once.

"Okay Nali… we'll both say the magic spell now - and then you have to tap my fist once, OK?"

You nod again and after your new friend whispers the magic spell to you very quietly, you do exactly what he told you and oooooh it worked! After you carefully tapped Seung's closed fist, the adult was able to open it very slowly and one of the rings appeared (which he had previously taken off without you noticing)

"Magic! Ring! Nali helped!" - you say in surprise and clap your hands once.

"Well done Nali… would you like to hold the ring for me for a moment? I don't want to lose it… if you want to hold my hand, we could see if we can find your family?" - Seugn suggested and you very slowly and carefully take the ring and nod slowly.

Your haired purple friend was nice to you and you slowly stand up, bridge the last few steps and very carefully reach for the hand - or rather the little and ring finger of Seugn's right hand, while your free hand holds the ring proudly and importantly.

Seugn slowly stands up too and nods at you in praise before you leave the sanitary facilities of the men's toilet together.

In the hallway, Seugn makes sure that you don't get lost, but you continue to hold onto his little finger and ring finger, as you walk on the adult's right side and repeatedly make cautious eye contact with him.

He asks you, among other things, if you know where you last saw your family, if you know the names of your mommy and your appa and how old you are.

You know the answer to some of the questions, but you just shake your head to the others and when a group of crew members pass you, you press yourself closer to the man's leg for protection.

"Oh, thank God! Nali!" - your father's voice echoes across the hallway and both Seugn and your steps stop - you don't let go of your new purple-haired friend and look in the direction from which your father's voice echoes to you.

A short exchange of words followed between Seugn and Ha-Neul before your mother and big brother joined the group and expressed their relief at finding you.

You, still holding Seugn's hand, cast a long, critical look at your Appa… before you burst into a childish giggle and utter the following unfiltered words.

"Appa long hair! No purple ! Appa look funny!"

Your parents told you again , that it wasn't okay to just run away like that (they worried a lot) and that they were very grateful to , Seugn for finding you and bringing you back.

And yet you were a little sad, when you had to say goodbye to your new purple-haired friend - because he had to shoot a new scene with the other actors very soon.

Seugn forgot to take the ring back, though.

By pure Coincidence.

Of course.

THE END

[bad-system]

who and where? — let's talk KCD3

disclaimer: this post is a continuation of my previous KCD3 posts on speculation of the events and lore that i'd like to see explored in the next installment(s) of the KCD story. these are only speculations born of my own biased narrative and hopeful bastardizations of real events. this is not representative of ALL the real historical persons and events as there is either info missing on them, they were altered by WH for the sake of the game or i'm plain wrong. PS: i am not a historian. i just like history.

PART: 1 2 3 4 5

_____________________

the part i've been looking forward to the most!

in this post, i'll be going over the most likely locations that will appear in KCD3 according to the real historical timeline and i'll be supporting these speculations with things that were hinted at in KCD2. and we'll be using some real historical maps!

the who:

the main antagonists i believe we will be seeing in KCD3 are the following:

Heinrich III von Rosenberg

Sigismund of Luxembourg (again)

Albrecht IV of Austria (?)

Erik

the new allies we might meet are the following:

Jan Sokol of Lamberg

Matěj Vůdce (Matthew the Leader)

King Wenceslaus IV

the where

the main locations i believe were most hinted at in KCD2 were the following:

Podiebrad

Kolin

Znojmo (Znojmo castle)

Prague (partial?)

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so let's start with the who!

so far in the story, king Wenceslaus IV has merely been a name without a face, unlike Sigismund who not only got screen time in KCD1 & KCD2, but also a significant role in the main quest (and in the credits). meanwhile, Wenceslaus has been pushed off screen as we fight for the very same king. which, i guess, was an authentic experience for the people of Bohemia at the time as well.

however, it was in november of 1403. that king Wenceslaus was freed from Vienna with help from none other than our John II of Liechtenstein. i believe that this might be a cutscene we will be seeing likely in the prologue of KCD3 rather than a playable quest due to the fact that Vienna is so far. i believe that if they choose to make this a non-playable cutscene then it would allow the game to advance onto 1404. and its relevant events.

now, i fully believe that we will be seeing Dry Devil, aka Hynek of Kunštát again if the game will indeed be playable in 1404. the reason for that is that there is a relevant event that occurs in the town of Znojmo, or more precisely, Znojmo castle. in 1404. king Sigismund along with Albrecht IV of Austria lead a siege against Hynek and Jan Sokol of Lamberg in Znojmo castle, during which Albrecht was allegedly poisoned and died of dysentery which spread throughout the camp, and even Sigismund was apparently at the death's door.

anyone else see a perfect chance for the involvement of our professional bastard meddler? not only that, but the geography of the area looks very fun. i also believe this would be a convenient event to cover in the game as it's historically pretty vague which would allow WH to have more liberty while writing it.

the next person on our list is Heinrich III von Rosenberg. yes, those Rosenbergs. that name has been present ever since KCD1, if you remember the knight Ulrich of Passau sent to investigate the forging of silver coins in Sasau monastery on behalf of the Rosenbergs.

in the next installment, in KCD2 Rosenbergs get mentioned again. they were the most powerful members of the League of Lords (and one of the founders) and the biggest opposition to then king Wenceslaus IV.

in fact, there is a Sigismund affiliated person in his camp called Ditrich Katz who is wearing prominently designed couters bearing the coat of arms of what i believe are Rosenbergs. i also couldn't find a real person bearing that name anywhere, so it is likely that he was created by WH as an original character, who is perhaps representing Rosenberg's interests within the army (which wouldn't be far-fetched at all considering Heinrich's position as the royal military burgrave of Prague).

i believe the Rosenberg crest is etched into the inner elbow of Ditrich's* couters. there is a possibility that the design bears similarities to that of the lords of Hradec, but i believe this one to be more likely Rosenberg related due to Katz's distinctly red colour scheme. source: KDC2

so why is he so important to the sequel(s)?

besides the fact that he was one of king Wenceslaus' biggest enemies, we can also see his banner flying among Sigismund's army during the sacking of Skalitz.

i very kindly circled the banners for you. source: KCD1

you'd honestly think Henry would have a bigger incentive to go after this guy rather than Von Bergow.

there is also an unconfirmed but still very interesting theory that Jan Žižka served Rosenbergs under a false name during a brief period, which makes his efforts of destroying Rosenberg assets starting in 1406.* very funny. i say 1406. only because that was the first time he started appearing in the Rosenberg's black book (acta negra maleficorum) of the Rosenberg estate as an accused bandit. this means his hostilities against Rosenbergs could have started as early as 1404. for the sake of the narrative convenience (wink wink nudge nudge WH?). jokes aside, the lands surrounding Trocnov, Žižka's home, were often under pressure from Rosenberg estates, so i could see his incentives against Rosenbergs easily starting before 1406. because of that regardless of the convenience of the narrative.

whew!

and if you recall the scene where Istvan Toth is sending Erik on his merry way to Malešov, you can hear him mentioning Senitz (Senice).

source: KCD2

i was briefly debating which Senitz/Senice he was talking about, but i took the liberty of visualizing the route from Trosky to Malešov for your viewing pleasure and found one Senice along the route.

(note: this is a modern route using modern roads as per google maps info because i do not have access to a more detailed map of 1400s central Bohemia. it is only an approximate of Erik's route at the time but i think it still gives you a good sense of his path. 90km/56mi.)

so that was another Rosenberg mention. i think it's safe to say that we will be encountering Heinrich III von Rosenberg in the next game.

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and now the allies!

i believe Dry Devil and John II of Liechstenstein will be making an appearance again, and alongside them most likely Jan Sokol of Lamberg.

there hasn't been much proof that suggests we will be seeing him in a sequel, but i don't believe his KCD codex entry mentioning Znojmo in 1404. is a coincidence.

and again, there is the mention of Rosenbergs. i believe that KCD3 will either include the events of 1404. OR it will contain the events of 1404. and timeskip into 1409. because that was when Jan Sokol of Lamberg, Matěj Vůdce and Racek Kobyla waged a guerilla campaign against the Rosenberg family on behalf of king Wenceslaus IV. two pretty relevant periods, i'd say.

as for Matěj Vůdce, aka Matthew the Leader; people have been speculating that the Matthew we encounter as Henry while recruiting Dry Devil's old band is the Matthew. or just another Matthew. i couldn't find the exact year when Jan Žižka met Matthew before the more commonly cited 1409. so i can't say for sure. (however, i'd like to think that a figure that important wouldn't be an easily killable NPC.)

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and now let's go into the where's!

i promise this section will be shorter and more illustrated than the previous one. reminder of the locations i listed;

Podiebrad

Kolín

Znojmo (Znojmo castle)

Prague (partial?)

i obviously listed Podiebrad (Poděbrady) as that is the location mentioned multiple times in KCD2. Rosa Ruthard mentions her and her family (Ruthards) travelling there at the end of KCD2, and i believe this is where Hans Capon's wedding will be held as well considering Podiebrad was an estate given to the Kunstadts (by Charles IV, Wenceslaus' father), and considering the fact that Botschek and of course Jitka are of Kunstadt, it makes sense.

i also believe Kolín will be there, probably less important but as a potential place where we will be able to meet Samuel again. historically, Sigismund did indeed order an attack on Jews of Kuttenberg and they did settle in Kolin.

the distance between Podiebrad and Kolin is also quite short.

as for Znojmo, it is located some 170km (105mi) away from Rattay which might seem like too far, but here's a reminder on how far Trosky is from Rattay in comparison!

the distance between Rattay and Trosky is 103km (64 mi)

and finally, here is the distance between Rattay and Podiebrad + Kolin.

when you compare it to Trosky and its surrounding area, Podiebrad and Kolin are a lot closer in comparison. i even speculate that Hans' wedding might happen on his way back from Trosky to Rattay, hence why Hanush was so insistent on hurrying Hans up and why Hans was so insistent on staying in the Devil's Den longer with Henry.

and lastly; Prague.

i am still very much on the fence about Prague, mainly because trying to recreate a city of that size in-game would be a Herculean task. not impossible, but very hard. i mention Prague because after stopping in Kuttenberg, that is where king Wenceslaus IV returns to once he escapes Vienna in 1403.

and there could be a lot said about Kuttenberg and that arc in itself (like Hans, Henry and co. meeting the king in Kuttenberg while they're still chilling in the Devil's Den) but i thought i'd rather talk about Prague.

Prague, even in 1403./1404. was already approx. 5-6 times bigger than Kutternberg. which is a Lot. I've already linked this map in a previous post, but here's a reminder on what a reconstructed map of Prague in 1419. looks like;

my frankenprague map. source from this lovely website!

on the other hand it's an insane project that would be lauded for decades if executed successfully because who the hell wouldn't want a walkable map of 1419. Prague ?!

thus i believe that Prague might also become only a cutscene or only a very small part of it would be playable for reasons yet unknown to me.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

okay, that's all for now. i had to cut this post down in size, can you believe it. but i really wanted to make a sort of an Everything post for the possible directions KCD3 might take because i was seeing way, way too many people guessing that the next KCD game will be set in 1419. my brothers and sisters in christ, there are so many important events to cover just from 1404. to 1416., i cannot imagine going straight into the Hussite wars without establishing Henry as a radical on the side of the people through various banditry related events and addressing the collective harem of Bohemian revolutionaries accumulated throughout both of the game's story first. i know a lot of us are here for the tragedy of Hansry in 1419., but i promise you there are many happy years between now and then in the meantime. enjoy them! (and learn more about 15th century Bohemia!)

[bossbtch1]

Against All Odds

The GIF is not mine; credit goes to the respective artist/creator.

Summary : You recently joined the Avengers, and everyone has accepted you except for Bucky. Now, the challenge lies in proving him wrong, but can you succeed changing his mind and earn his trust? Or do you have to do more to earn it? (geez, I’m suck at this)

Pairing : Bucky Barnes x Reader (No mentions of body type or ethnicity other than the reader being female)

TW: SMUT, 18+, strong language, enemies-to-lovers-ish, oral (m receiving), rough sex, dirty talk, unprotected sex, degradation (slut calling), slight choking, orgasm denial

Word Count: Around 10k (I know it's a bit long, I got carried away. Sorry) → smut is like 4k hehe

Author's Note: This is my first attempt at writing a story, and it’s a smut one at that. English isn't my first language, so apologies for any mistakes or bad grammar. I hope you still enjoy the story!

Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3

If you like my story, please go check out my other stories here

These are the aesthetic for part 1 (solely for visual representation of what going to happen on the story, this meant no representation for body type or ethnicity)

You've always been a dependable agent ever since you were young, someone who could handle the toughest missions without letting your emotions get in the way. Nick Fury spotted your potential when you were just a kid, taking you under his wing. It was his belief in you that kept you going, and it all led to the thrilling moment when he thought it was time for you to join the Avengers. After all those years of hard work, it felt like a dream come true.

Then came your first day with the team. You'd just joined, and they wanted to see how good you were in a fight. You almost beat Natasha in a really intense battle, proving to everyone that you totally belonged with the Avengers. Your determination to show your worth never wavered. But there was this one guy, Bucky Barnes, who just couldn't seem to trust you no matter what.

On your first day with the Avengers, the training room buzzed with anticipation as you faced off against Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow. It was a test of your combat skills, a way to see if you had what it took to be part of Earth's mightiest heroes. The desire to become one of them, although it might sound cliché and cringey, burned within you.

The Avengers, including Nick Fury, Captain America, Iron Man, Winter Soldier, Hawkeye and Thor, watched from up above, all curious and eager to see how you'd do. Their faces showed they were rooting for you.

However, as you glanced upward to catch your breath, your eyes locked onto Bucky Barnes. He stood there, solitary and stern, arms crossed over his chest. His intense gaze bore into you, but unlike the other Avengers, his expression was far from encouraging. There was a deep skepticism in his eyes, a doubt that seemed unshakable, and it cast a shadow over your determination to prove yourself to the team.

Natasha, dressed in her familiar black outfit, gave you a serious look that made you stop staring up. When she spoke, you turned your attention to her. "Think you've got this, newbie?" she teased, a touch of amusement in her voice.

You took a deep breath, trying to steady your nerves. This was your moment to prove yourself, and there was no turning back. The weight of your new Avengers uniform felt both exhilarating and nerve-wracking. "I'm ready, Natasha.", you responded with determination. You weren't going to back down now.

Natasha grinned. "We'll see about that."

The two of you circled each other, and then, without warning, Natasha lunged at you with lightning speed. Her attack was quick and precise, but you were able to block it, thanks to your training. As the two of you sparred, the crowd cheered and shouted their support. It was a battle of wits and willpower, and neither of you was willing to give up.

"You're good," Natasha admitted, her voice dripping with genuine admiration. "But let's see how you handle this." With a fluid motion, she unleashed a series of acrobatic moves, flipping and twisting through the air before landing gracefully behind you.

You spun around to face her, sweat beading on your forehead. "Impressive, but I'm not done yet."

The fight continued, and you pushed yourself to keep up with Natasha's relentless assault. Your training and instincts kicked in, and you began to hold your own. It was a back-and-forth battle, each of you landing hits and dodging the other's attacks.

But Natasha was more experienced than you, and eventually, she managed to overpower you. She had you pinned to the ground, her face inches away from yours. You struggled against her grip, but she held you firmly in place. "Had enough?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Gritting your teeth, you mustered all the determination you had left. "Not a chance," you replied, refusing to admit defeat.

The crowd went wild as Natasha delivered the final blow, knocking you out. She stood there, victorious, a small smile playing on her lips acknowledging your impressive performance. "Good fight," she said, extending a hand to help you up.

You accepted her hand, "Thanks, Natasha. You're incredible."

The room erupted in applause, and everyone from the observation deck descended to congratulate you. Fury, wearing a proud smile, gave you a warm hug. "Well done, Y/N. You're officially part of the team," he declared, his words filled with pride. He whispered, "I'm proud of you, Y/N," and it meant the world to you.

But amid the celebration with your new teammates, there was one person who didn't seem as thrilled. James "Bucky" Barnes, the Winter Soldier, stood in a quiet corner of the room, his expression inscrutable.

You had felt his presence throughout the entire match, his intense gaze sending shivers down your spine. Bucky's gaze lingered on you for a moment longer, then he turned and left the room, leaving you feeling more confused than ever.

Bucky went out of his way to undermine your confidence, pushing you to the brink of quitting time and time again. His words still fresh in your mind. "I don't think you're cut out for this, kid. This isn't a game. It's a matter of life and death. You’re not ready for this."

It hurt. You didn't understand why he was so determined to bring you down. What had you done to make him dislike you so much? Despite Bucky's relentless doubts, you refused to back down. You were determined to earn his respect, just as you had with the rest of the team.

So, every day, you trained harder, pushed yourself further, and proved your worth on every mission. Your hope was that one day, Bucky would finally see you for the capable agent you truly were and put his doubts to rest once and for all.

One day, as you were making your way to the gym, the sound of voices caught your attention. It was Bucky and Steve, engaged in a hushed conversation that seemed to revolve around you. Curiosity piqued, you tried to maintain a discreet distance, keen on hearing what they were saying. You knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, but you couldn't help yourself.

"Buck, I think you're being too hard on her. She's a good fighter and she's eager to learn," Steve argued.

Bucky's skepticism remained unshaken. "I'm just trying to watch out for the team. She's a liability, not ready for this kind of responsibility."

Steve being the optimist pushed back gently, his support for you evident in his tone. "I think you're the only one who feels that way."

Bucky's voice grew firmer as he explained his perspective. "She's only here 'cause Nick Fury vouched for her. There are others who deserve this chance more. I could name a couple who'd fit better on this team than her."

His words hit you like a punch to the gut, casting doubt on your worthiness. It was difficult to hear that the person you looked up to and wanted to prove yourself to was actually against you, even though Bucky's argument was valid.

You couldn't help but question if your acceptance into the Avengers was indeed solely because of Fury. You had always believed that your spot on the Avengers was earned through your skills and dedication. Bucky's doubts made you second-guess if you had truly earned your place.

"Buck, there's more to it than that," Steve replied, his voice steady. "Just be patient with her."

Unable to endure the conversation any longer, your heart felt heavy as you turned away, doing your best to conceal the hurt that washed over your face. With resolve, you changed your course and headed towards the field track, hoping a run would help clear your mind.

Later, as the sun set on the horizon, you were still out running laps. Your thoughts were racing, and your body was aching, but you couldn't bring yourself to stop.

"You're gonna wear yourself out if you keep pushing like that."

You jumped, startled by the sudden voice. Looking over your shoulder, you saw Bucky standing a few feet away, his arms crossed.

Caught off guard, you tried to put on a brave face. "I'm okay," you lied, attempting to hide the pain that was clearly etched on your face. Stopping abruptly had caused your feet to throb with discomfort.

Bucky, however, wasn't buying your façade. He narrowed his eyes, his concern deepening. "You're not. You're hurt."

In response, you shook your head stubbornly, your pride urging you to push through the pain. "I'll manage," you insisted, even though every step sent a sharp twinge through your feet.

Bucky's gaze remained sharp and unwavering. "You're not fooling anyone with that."

Deep down, you knew he was right. The pain was becoming harder to ignore, and your stubbornness could only take you so far. But in that moment, you weren't quite ready to admit defeat or show weakness, especially not to someone like Bucky.

Bucky took a step closer, his expression resolute. "Come on, we're heading inside," he stated, his tone leaving no room for argument.

“I'm okay, I can-." You began to protest, but he interrupted you firmly, "Y/N, enough. This is an order. You're only making my job more difficult by trying to tough it out. Let's go, and I don't want to hear another word from you."

Reluctantly, you fell silent and went along with Bucky, allowing him to guide you back to the facility. As you walked, you couldn't help but mull over his earlier words, "You're making my job harder by trying to tough it out." It left you wondering why he cared or felt responsible for you, especially when you believed he disliked you.

Once inside, Bucky seated you and fetched a glass of water. Taking a sip, you felt a wave of relief as it helped ease some of your fatigue. Then, without uttering a word, Bucky briefly stepped away, returning in less than a minute with bandages and medicine in hand.

Your curiosity got the best of you, and you couldn't resist asking, "What's all that for?" Your eyes were drawn to the medical supplies.

"Take off your shoes and socks," Bucky directed, his tone brooking no dissent.

"I don't think I need..." You began to protest, but a quick glance at Bucky's determined face made it clear that there was no room for discussion.

Letting out a sigh, you gave in and removed your shoes and socks. What you saw shocked you: your feet were in a terrible state, bleeding and covered with painful blisters, a clear result of your overly enthusiastic run.

You heard Bucky mutter a curse under his breath as he knelt down in front of you. "Bucky, seriously, I can handle it," you tried to protest, but he wasn't having any of it.

"Just stay put and let me take care of this." His voice was firm, and he got to work tending to your battered feet. Gently, he placed your feet on his lap, starting to clean the cuts on your soles. You winced slightly as the sting of the alcohol met the open wounds.

While he busied himself tending to your injuries, you found your gaze drifting to him. Bucky was undeniably handsome and hot, you couldn't help but appreciate his appearance. As your eyes met his, he suddenly looked up at you.

"Got something on your mind?" he asked, his expression as enigmatic as ever.

You blinked, realizing that you'd been staring. Heat crept into your cheeks as you stammered, "I, uh, have an issue with my shoes." You finally managed to say, though it wasn't exactly the eloquent response you'd hoped for.

Bucky, his expression unamused, retorted, "Well, that's clear." After he finished bandaging your wounds, he added, "But there's more to it than just your shoes."

"You can't be out here, pushing yourself so hard if you're going to injure yourself. This isn't a game. You must take care of yourself. You can't expect to get the full experience if you're going to hurt yourself." His words were harsh, but they were true.

"I know," you admitted with a sigh, guilt gnawing at you. "I just got caught up and lost track of time. It's not that bad."

Bucky raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Not that bad?" He challenged you. "Then stand up. Let's see how not that bad it really is."

Your cheeks burned. You could already feel the ache in your legs and the throbbing pain in your feet. But you refused to show any weakness. Not now. Not in front of him.

"Fine." With a determined look, you pushed yourself up from the chair, wincing as you put weight on your injured soles. Your feet stung, and your muscles were sore, but you gritted your teeth and pushed through it.

Bucky couldn't help but scoff, clearly frustrated with your stubbornness and tendency to challenge him.  "You want to be part of this team, right?"

You nodded, your determination unwavering despite the discomfort. "Yeah, I do.”

"Then you need to stop being reckless and start acting like an Avenger. We can't afford to have someone on our team who's too stubborn to admit when they're injured. It's only gonna make things worse." he said firmly, taking a step closer to you. "Maybe you could start by, I don't know, following orders and not talking back every chance you get."

The harshness in his words took you by surprise, but they also cut deep. Because you knew he was right.

With that he left the room, leaving you behind to wallow in shame. You knew he was right. But it hurt, especially coming from him.

Weeks later, you received the news that you'd be joining the team on your very first mission. The excitement bubbled up inside you as you geared up for the assignment. But as the mission unfolded, things took a turn for the worse.

You spotted a group of enemies heading for a crowded area and impulsively decided to engage them without waiting for the team's signal or support. Your intentions were to protect the civilians, but your recklessness got the best of you. Your impulsive move led to a chaotic firefight, and in the midst of the chaos, a civilian stumbled into the line of fire, narrowly escaping harm.

Bucky, who had been keeping an eye on you, witnessed the entire sequence of events unfold. His anger and frustration boiled over as he watched you put not only yourself but also innocent bystanders in danger.

Inside the quinjet, as the mission concluded, he couldn't contain his fury any longer. "What the fuck was that, Y/N?!" he erupted, his voice echoing in the confined space.

"I'm sorry," you whispered, feeling an overwhelming sense of shame and regret.

"Sorry isn't good enough!" Bucky snapped, his intense gaze burning into you. You couldn't bear to meet his eyes, and instead, you cast your gaze downward, your hands trembling with the weight of your mistake.

"If you're gonna keep making mistakes like that, then maybe you don't belong on this team. You could've gotten someone killed back there." His words stung, but he was right.

Natasha stepped in to defend you, "Bucky, it was an accident, and it was her first mission. Everyone makes mistake.”

Bucky didn't back down. "Yeah, and accidents can cost lives, Nat. She need to be more careful," he retorted, glaring back at you. "You can't afford to be an idiot like that out there. What the fuck is wrong with you?" He yelled, his anger getting the best of him.

Clint said, "Hey! Enough. She's done enough of a beating already, I know she can do better next time."

"There might not be a next time," Bucky grumbled.

Confusion and worry welled up inside you. 'What do you mean by that?' you wondered silently, unable to find your voice.

Bucky's frustration boiled over as he remarked, "Maybe she should think twice about putting others at risk if she can't handle it."

You turned your gaze away, determined not to let the tears fall. Tony took charge of the situation, his voice steady and reassuring. "Alright, that's enough," Tony declared firmly. "We're all on edge right now after what happened. We all know she can do better, and we'll address it later. For now, let's just concentrate on getting back home."

The rest of the ride was filled with tension, Bucky's glare never leaving you as you tried your best to avoid his gaze.

Wanda noticed your discomfort and moved over to sit next to you. She placed a reassuring hand on your shoulder and asked gently, "How are you holding up?"

You appreciated Wanda's concern and gave her a small, grateful smile. "I'll be okay," you replied softly. "Just need some time to process everything. I guess I'm just a little overwhelmed."

Wanda patted your shoulder again, offering more comfort. "Mistakes are part of learning, especially on your first mission. Remember, the key is to learn from them and get better. Don't let Bucky's words get to you too much."

You let out a weary sigh, realizing the truth in her words. "Yeah, I know.”

The quinjet touched down on the landing pad, and a sense of relief washed over you as you realized you were finally back home. This was it. You were finally home. "We'll talk later, okay?" Wanda asked, giving you a sympathetic smile.

You nodded appreciatively at her and quickly made your way to your room. You wanted nothing more than to lock yourself away and forget the whole thing ever happened. But the guilt and shame were too much to bear.

About a month after the incident, news of another mission started to circulate rapidly around the Avengers' headquarters. The buzz of excitement and anticipation filled the air, and you couldn't help but feel a rush of emotions—both excitement and anxiety. This mission was your chance to redeem yourself after the missteps on your first assignment.

Determined to discuss your readiness for this new mission, you sought out Steve. As you approached his office, you noticed him engrossed in reading some files. You gently knocked on the open door.

"Hi Steve, may I come in?" you asked politely.

Steve looked up from the files and offered you a welcoming smile. He promptly closed the documents and gestured for you to enter. "Of course, come in Y/N." You stepped into his office, and he continued, "How are you doing, by the way?" Steve motioned for you to take a seat, showing genuine concern.

You settled into the chair across from him and fidgeted with your fingers, trying to find the right words. "I'm good, better than what happened last time..." You paused, your voice tinged with regret. "I'm sorry about last time..."

Steve's warm smile remained reassuring. "Hey, Y/N, that's okay. We all make mistakes," he said with a reassuring tone, "Don't beat yourself up too much about it, okay?" His kindness and understanding were a comfort, making you feel grateful for his leadership and support.

"So, what brings you here?" Steve asked with a welcoming smile.

You shifted uncomfortably in your seat. "I heard there's another mission in 2 days..." After a pause, you continued, "But I haven't received the assignment or briefing for it..."

Steve's friendly expression faltered, and he sighed. "Y/N, about that..." He looked genuinely conflicted. "We already have teams assigned to cover that mission. You don't need to worry about it."

Your heart sank, and you couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment. It was becoming increasingly clear that you were being sidelined. "Is this because of what happened on the last mission?" You finally voiced your concern, your tone a mix of frustration and hurt.

Steve must've noticed the change in your tone. "Y/N, there'll be plenty of missions, and you'll definitely join the next one, okay?"

You took a deep breath and forced a smile, masking the pain that was gnawing at you. "Ah, okay, Steve." You chuckled, though it felt forced. "That's alright, I was just curious.”

Steve smiled weakly, but you could tell he understood your disappointment. "Y/N..."

You got up from the seat, disappointment heavy in your chest. You knew this was likely Bucky's doing. "Thank you, Captain, for the information. Good luck on the mission!" With that, you turned and left the room, trying to hide your frustration and disappointment.

As everyone prepared to leave for the mission, they bid you farewell, their expressions filled with sympathy. You knew they felt sorry for leaving you behind in the tower. Watching them depart filled you with a profound sense of sadness, knowing you couldn't join them.

You returned to your room, aimlessly flipping through the channels on the TV, but nothing captured your interest. Your mind kept wandering back to the missed opportunity, and the guilt and frustration gnawed at you.

After a futile attempt at watching TV, you tried to occupy yourself with a book, but the words on the pages blurred together as your thoughts remained fixated on the mission. With a sigh, you put the book down, realizing you were too distracted to read.

Restlessly, you paced around your room, contemplating various ways to improve your skills and prove that you were a valuable member of the team. Maybe you could spend some time in the training room or review combat strategies. You knew you had to keep pushing yourself to become better.

Eventually, you settled on the idea of practicing your marksmanship in the training room. Grabbing your gear, you headed there with determination in your step, determined to make the most of your time while the team was away on the mission.

Inside the gym, you started with some intense punching and kicking exercises. It felt great to release your anger, sadness, and disappointment through physical exertion. As you pummeled the sandbag, you couldn't help but imagine it as Bucky's face, channeling your frustration and resentment into each punch and kick. You unleashed your emotions on the inanimate object, giving it your all to cope with the overwhelming mix of feelings inside you.

Sweat dripped down your face, mixing with the occasional tear, but you didn't let up. You wiped away the sweat and tears from your face. "What" punch "Do" punch "I" kick "Have" punch "To" kick "Do" punch "To" punch "Prove" punch "To" punch "You" kick "That" kick "I'm" punch "Just" kick "As" kick "Good" kick "As" punch "Them" punch kick punch kick.

Why were you treated this way? What had you done to earn Bucky's disdain? How could you prove your worth to him? Frustration boiled inside you, reaching its peak as you let out a guttural scream, causing the sandbag to plummet from the force of your final blow.

Panting, you collapsed on the gym floor, you were exhausted and emotionally drained, but you felt a strange sense of relief. You clenched and unclenching your fists. You flexed your fingers and winced as the pain shot through them.

You chose to ignore the pain and you slowly got up from the gym floor. You knew you had pushed yourself too hard, but it was the only way you could vent your frustration and anger.

Limping, you made your way towards the bench where you had left your belongings. The room felt heavy with the echo of your pounding. Your trembling hand found the familiar coolness of your water bottle, and you clutched it tightly, taking a long, refreshing gulp. The cool liquid soothed your parched throat.

Just as you were catching your breath, Bucky unexpectedly strolled into the room. His presence surprised you, you hadn't expected anyone else to be there, especially not him.

His gaze, sharp and perceptive, honed in on your movements, "Still trying to prove yourself, huh?" he remarked, his words hanging in the air like a challenge, his tone laced with doubt.

You met his gaze defiantly, refusing to back down even in the face of his skepticism. "I don't need to prove anything to anyone, including you," you replied, your voice steady despite the ache in your body. "I'm just making sure I'm ready for whatever comes our way. Maybe you should worry less about what I'm doing and more about why you're not on the mission with the rest of the team."

Bucky's expression remained inscrutable, his indifference a stark contrast to your determination. He nonchalantly shrugged, an aloof response to your pointed words.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, you couldn't help but roll your eyes, your frustration with him boiling over. "Whatever, Barnes. Keep your doubts to yourself."

You began packing up your belongings, a clear signal that you were ready to depart from his presence. You suspected he was still watching you, his intense gaze never wavering, but you wanted nothing more than to distance yourself from him. It felt like he was deliberately keeping you from the mission, and the resentment simmered within you.

After finishing packing, you headed towards the exit, but Bucky halted you by grabbing your hand. You turned around, irritation clear in your eyes. "What do you want, Barnes?" you snapped, trying to pull your hand away. “What the hell? Let me go!”

Ignoring your protest, he led you back to the training area, placing you in front of him. An uneasy feeling settled in your stomach. Did he intend to spar with you? The uncertainty hung heavily in the air, making the atmosphere tense.

You stood your ground, your nervousness growing with every passing second. "What? Scared?" Bucky teased, a mocking smirk playing on his lips.

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, refusing to let his taunts unnerve you. You managed a fake smile and replied, "Of you? No. Why would I be?" Determined not to show any fear.

Bucky's smirk widened as he said, "Well, you should be." He locked eyes with you and asked, "Ready?" The challenge in his tone was clear.

You took another deep breath, squared your shoulders, and met his gaze head-on. "Alright, Bucky. I'm game. What's the plan?" Your voice remained steady, even as your nerves continued to buzz beneath the surface.

Bucky's lips curved into a smirk. He motioned towards the training mats, his movements smooth and practiced. "Just try to land a hit on me."

Without a moment's warning, he lunged at you, his attack swift and precise. You barely managed to block it in time, the impact sending a jolt through your arms.

Taking a moment to catch your breath, you felt a sting to your pride. "Just one hit?" you questioned, a mixture of disbelief and defiance in your voice. Did he genuinely doubt your abilities? Determination flared in your eyes as you prepared to prove him wrong.

He chuckled, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Don't get ahead of yourself, doll. Come on, you're starting to bore me." You gritted your teeth and launched into your counterattack.

The atmosphere in the training room grew tense as you continued your attempts to land a hit on Bucky. Each time you launched an attack, he seemed to anticipate your every move, effortlessly blocking your punches and kicks. It was as if he had an innate ability to read your intentions, and it left you feeling frustrated and somewhat helpless.

With each failed attempt, Bucky's smirk grew wider, and he let out a low chuckle. "Come on, Y/N," he taunted, his tone dripping with playful mockery. "You've got to do better than that if you want to stand a chance."

His words stung, and they fueled your determination. You were well aware that Bucky was pushing your buttons, trying to rile you up, but you refused to let it show. You had a point to prove, not only to him but to yourself as well.

You decided to take another shot, launching into a new round of attacks, hoping to catch Bucky off guard. But just like before, he expertly caught your wrist each time, preventing your strikes from connecting. Frustration gnawed at you, and you let out an audible groan each time he effortlessly pinned your arms behind your back and pushed you back.

Bucky didn't hold back with his taunts either. "Is that the best you've got, doll?" he prodded, his gaze locked onto yours. "I've seen other recruits do better. What happened to all those praises they were singing about you?"

Taking a deep breath, you tried to surprise him with a sudden kick, but Bucky saw through your move. He even managed to catch your legs mid-kick, causing you to lose your balance and tumble to the ground.

His voice dripped with mock disappointment as he quipped, "Doll, I expected better than that. That was just plain bad."

You took a deep breath, frustration fueling your determination. This time, you decided to go all out. You lunged at him with full force, no holding back, hoping to land a solid hit. His dodge and blocks were frustratingly precise, but you didn't give in.

Finally, you managed to back him into a wall, and you saw an opening. You went for a powerful kick, but he swiftly caught your leg, pulling it towards him. Before you knew it, you were pinned against the wall, your front pressed firmly against the hard surface.

"Doll, nice try," Bucky said, his tone edged with approval, "but you've still got long ways to go."

You groaned as he pinned you to the wall, frustrated since you couldn't beat him. "Fuck!"

He chuckled lowly, and you could feel the heat radiating off his body, his face mere inches from yours. "Language, sweetheart."

The feeling of his body pressed against yours sent tingles down your spine, and you tried to keep your breathing under control, your cheeks flushing.

Bucky seemed to notice your blush and couldn't resist a teasing remark. He leaned in even closer, his voice dripping with playful mischief. “What's the matter, doll? Is it too hot in here?" he teased, pressing himself closer to you.

Your blush deepened as he teased you, and you turned your head away from him, not able to meet his gaze. "You know what? You're seriously annoying."

Bucky's smile only grew wider, and he didn't let up. "Aw, come on, doll. Getting all worked up because you can't keep up?" he goaded, his warm breath tickling your neck. His face was even closer now, his eyes dark with a look you'd never seen before.

You huffed in exasperation, determined not to let his teasing get the best of you. "I can keep up just fine, thank you very much," you shot back, your competitive spirit coming to the forefront.

Bucky chuckled, the sound low and deep, sending a delightful shiver down your spine. "Well then," he challenged, his tone inviting. "Prove it. Try to break free from my hold."

Your breath caught in your throat at the suggestion, a rush of adrenaline surging through your veins. "Okay," you agreed, your tone confident. You decided to take Bucky's challenge head-on.

With a swift and calculated move, you attempted to break free from his hold, using all the skills you had acquired during your training with the Avengers. Bucky, ever the skilled fighter, didn't make it easy, but you were determined not to give in.

You tried and tried, but you couldn't seem to break free from his strong hold. You were both sweating, the effort causing the air around you to grow thicker and heavier. You could feel his chest pressed against your body, muscles flexing as he maintained the firm grip he had on you.

Finally, after what felt like hours, you were both breathing heavily, neither of you willing to give in. In that moment, with your bodies pressed together and the heat between you almost unbearable, something changed. You felt his hold on you loosen slightly, and you took the opportunity to spin around, pinning him to the wall.

A surprised chuckle escaped his lips, clearly caught off guard by your sudden move. His eyes, filled with desire, locked onto yours, and the tension between you seemed to reach a boiling point.

You couldn't help but smirk as you managed to gain the upper hand, "Huh, I wi-" But before you could finish, he swiftly turned the tables, pinning you back against the wall.

He chuckled, his voice low and husky. "Not quite, doll." He leaned in close, his breath hot against your ear. "Never let your guard down until you know your opponent is truly defeated," he whispered, his voice low.

You gasped, feeling the cool metal of his arm pressing against your skin. "You were saying?" he murmured, his voice low and husky. He leaned in close, his breath hot against your ear.

You bit your lip, feeling the tension between you reach a fever pitch. He leaned in close, his breath hot against your ear. "Never let your guard down until you know your opponent is truly defeated," he whispered, the words sending a shiver down your spine.

Your frustration bubbled up, and you couldn't help but shake your head in response. "That's not fair!" you protested, your voice tinged with exasperation. "I managed to break free from your hold. Doesn't that count for something?"

He chuckled, "Not it doesn't. You've still got a lot to learn. I could've easily gotten the upper hand on you again. The moment you let your guard down is the moment you lose the fight."

You clenched your jaw and stared into his blue eyes, not backing down from his challenge. "Okay enough with the taunting. I'm not afraid of you, Barnes."

His lips were so close, you could feel his breath against your skin. "You should be, doll," he murmured, his voice low and husky, sending a delicious shiver down your spine.

A moment passed between the two of you, and then, as if a dam had broken, he kissed you hard, it made you surprised, you gasped on his mouth and felt his tongue exploring you.

Your heart was pounding, the excitement building as you kissed him back. You tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling him closer as the heat between you grew.

"God, Y/N," he groaned against your mouth. His metal hand reached for your thighs, lifting you up effortlessly, wrapping your legs around his waist. He pressed you harder against the wall, his hips grinding against yours. You moaned at the friction, feeling your body responding to his touch.

The training room was forgotten as the two of you gave in to your desires, the heat between you driving you both wild. You knew it was a bad idea, but in that moment, you didn't care. All that mattered was the pleasure, the heat, the intensity of it all.

"Bucky..." You panted, feeling his lips and teeth exploring your neck, his tongue licking you, tasting you.

The sound of his name on your lips sent him over the edge, and he couldn't hold back anymore. His hands found their way under your yoga pants, gripping your ass. He bit down on your lip, drawing a small moan from you. You could feel him smile into the kiss.

"Fuck, doll. You like this? Me fucking you against the wall?" he groaned against your mouth.

You nodded, unable to form any coherent words. “Tell me, do you want more?"

"Yes," you breathed, your body trembling with need.

"Tell me," he ordered, his voice husky with desire.

"I want you, Bucky…. please."

"Beg for it," he growled, his hands moving to the front of your yoga pants. He tugged them down, the cold air hitting your wet core, his hand quickly finding its way between your thighs. You arched into his touch, desperate for more.

"Fuck, doll," he muttered, his fingers slipping into your panties, finding your wetness. "So fucking wet for me.” His fingers slid inside you, making you gasp, your hips bucking against him. "Is this what you want, doll?"

"Yes!" you cried out, your hands grasping at his shirt, trying to pull him closer. "Please," you moaned, your hips bucking against his.

He pumped his fingers in and out of you, his thumb rubbing circles around your clit, making you writhe and moan beneath him. "Such a good girl," he murmured, his free hand coming up to grip your breast. He groped you hard, squeezing and massaging you through your sports bra.

"Put your hands up," he commanded, pulling his fingers out of you. You complied, your hands reaching above your head. He pulled up your bra, exposing your breasts to him.

"Such a pretty little thing," he whispered, his breath hot against your ear. He took one of your nipples into his mouth, his tongue flicking over the sensitive bud. You moaned, your hips bucking against him as he sucked and nibbled on your breasts.

"So responsive," he chuckled, his hand reaching between your legs once again, his fingers dipping into your wetness. "Such a wet little girl. You're dripping for me."

"You like this?" He growled, his fingers rubbing your clit, his thumb sliding up and down your slick folds. He chuckled, the sound sending shivers down your spine, "Tell me were you already wet when we started sparring? Did you want me to pin you against the wall? To fuck you hard?"

You couldn't respond, the pleasure was too much. You were teetering on the edge, ready to fall over at any moment. "Please, Bucky..." you gasped, your hips grinding against his hand, desperately seeking release.

"You're a naughty girl, aren't you? You want me to fuck you, right here, in the training room, where anyone could walk in and see us?"

He was right, you didn't even think of that possibility. You shook your head, "No.. of course not... it's just the heat of the moment... It's just... we're alone right now."

"You sure about that, doll? Cause I'm pretty sure I heard someone walk by a few minutes ago. What if it was Clint? Or worse, what if it was Fury? I bet he would love to see this. His little protégé, getting fucked by the Winter Soldier."

You froze, your eyes wide.

"You know what?" He chuckled, "Let's put on a show for them. Let them watch. Let them see how you beg and scream for me."

“Cat’s got your tongue doll? Where are all the firey comebacks now? Nothing to say?” Your mind was in a state of shock. You tried to think, who was it? But Bucky was stroking you at a relentless pace, his thumb rubbing circles on your clit.  

"You want me to make you cum, doll? To make you scream my name?"

"Yes," you panted, you didn’t care anymore, all you wanted was release. Your body trembling as he drove you closer to the edge.

He reached up, gripping your chin, his eyes locking onto yours. "I've wanted to fuck your attitude out of you ever since you came to the compound, doll,” he said, his voice husky with lust. "Watching you fight, all that fire, all that passion, it makes me so fucking hard. You have no idea how many times I've wanted to take you right here, to show you who's in control."

You couldn't take it anymore, the pleasure building, "I'm so close... Bucky," you moaned. You were so close, and he was taking you to new heights. You couldn't stop yourself, you could feel yourself losing control.

"Yeah I can tell, you're tightening around my fingers. Are you going to be a good girl and cum for me? Beg for it, and maybe I'll let you," he teased, his fingers still pumping in and out of you, faster and faster, sending you over the edge.

"Please, Bucky..." you cried, your hips bucking against his hand.

He pulled his fingers out of you, and you whined in frustration. "What the hell, Barnes?”

"Now, now," he tsked, his fingers trailing down your stomach, and stopping at your hip. "You don't get to come until I say so, doll," he ordered, his voice low and dangerous.

"But, please, I'm so close," you begged, the frustration almost unbearable.

"I know, but you need to learn who's in charge, and it's not you," he said, his fingers tracing circles around your clit, making you moan. "You have to obey my orders, Y/N."

"What the fuck, Barnes!" You screamed at him feeling angry at how he toyed with you. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

He grabbed your hair and pulled it down making you winched in pain, "What did you fucking say to me?" He grabbed it harder when you didn’t answer him.

"Ouch." You winced in pain.

Bucky's eyes darkened and he tightened his grip. “First, you need to watch that mouth of yours." He was breathing heavily, his voice rough and commanding. "Or I'm going to shove my dick in it and put you in your place." he warned, his hand moving to grip your hair, forcing you to look up at him.

You gulped down at his threat. There was no mistaking the promise in his voice, but your pussy clenched at the thought of taking him into your mouth.  

"Second," he continued, his grip loosening slightly. "You need to learn that you don't get to question my orders, doll. You're going to be a good girl and listen."

You stared at him, unable to speak. He was serious.

"Answer me Y/N or I will leave you here, frustrated and wanting more," He threatened.

You could feel the heat pooling in your belly, his dominance and authority turning you on even more.

"Yes please, I'll obey," you said, your voice shaking slightly.

"Good girl, that’s more like it," he murmured, his metal hand coming up to caress your cheek. Bucky leaned closer and kissed your lips, his tongue sliding inside your mouth. He was sucking on your tongue and nibbling on your lips, his teeth digging into the soft flesh of your mouth. He kissed your cheek and moved down to your neck.

"Now, where are we?" He asked, his fingers back on your clit, rubbing in slow, agonizing circles. He was torturing you, teasing you.

He smiled wickedly, his hand moving from your clit and slipping inside you. He pushed two fingers inside your core and began pumping them. He started moving his hand faster and faster, the sound of his fingers sliding in and out filling the air.

You wanted to scream and yell at him, but you were unable to speak, the pleasure and the need for release overwhelming. You were panting and moaning, your eyes closed shut as you were trying not to come.

"Not yet." he growled. He pushed a third fingers inside your core and began pumping them. He started moving his hand faster and faster, the sound of his fingers sliding in and out filling the air.

"Beg," he commanded, his voice firm.

"Please, please, please, Bucky," you whimpered.

"Louder," he ordered.

"Please!" you whimpered, the desire and need taking over. "Please, Bucky, fuck my pussy and let me come," you begged. You felt your inside tightening, you need to come right now.

Bucky leaned closer and kissed you again, his tongue pushing its way into your mouth, exploring every inch. He moaned into your mouth, his fingers still pumping into you, his thumb circling your clit. "No," he said, and your eyes snapped open, meeting his blue ones. He smirked, seeing that you were close. "If you come before I tell you, I will punish you, doll."

Your eyes widened and your whole body shook with fear.

"Do you understand?" He asked, his fingers slowly pumping inside you.

"Yes, yes, I understand."

He chuckled, "You're a needy little slut, aren't you? You'd beg for my cock too, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," you moaned, the word falling from your lips without a second thought. "Please, Bucky, I need to come. I need your cock inside me, fucking me hard and fast," you begged, the words tumbling from your lips.

"That's a good girl," he murmured, his fingers picking up their pace. "You're gonna cum for me now, doll. You're gonna cum all over my fingers, and then, when you've recovered, you're gonna get on your knees and suck my cock. And when I'm ready, I'm gonna fuck you, and I'm gonna make you scream my name."

You moaned loudly as his fingers brought you closer to the edge, his words sending a thrill through you.

"You'd like that wouldn't you, doll? Having my cock buried deep inside you, fucking you senseless?"

"Yes, yes, yes," you panted, the pleasure building. He added another finger and curled them inside you, hitting your g-spot, and you gasped.

"That's it, Y/N," he groaned, his fingers moving faster. "Come for me. Let me hear you."

"I... I'm gonna..." you moaned, the pleasure building in your body. You couldn't hold back any longer, the pleasure overwhelming you,

"Come now!," he ordered his fingers working even faster, and suddenly, you exploded.

"BUCKY!" You screamed, your body shaking violently as waves of pleasure washed over you. Your body was trembling, and your juices were flowing freely down his fingers

"Such a good girl," he praised, his fingers slowing, drawing out the last of your orgasm, licking them clean. “Delicious," he murmured.

You panted, your body still shaking from the intensity of the orgasm. He lowered you to the floor, your legs shaky from the intense pleasure.

Bucky chuckled, seeing the confusion on your face. "Don't worry, doll," he said, leaning down and kissing you. "We're just getting started."

"On your knees," he commanded, his voice husky with desire.

Your knees trembled and you looked up at him. His eyes were dark, his pupils dilated with lust. You could see his cock straining against the fabric of his pants. You did as you were told, dropping to your knees. You looked up at him, your eyes locking onto his.

"Open your mouth," he ordered, and you obeyed. "Suck my cock." His voice firm and authoritative

Your eyes widened and your cheeks flushed with embarrassment as you watched him slowly unzip his pants, his thick, hard cock springing free. You stared at him for a moment, taking in the sight of him. The serum must did something to him, as his member was definitely bigger than any man you'd seen before.

"Now," he ordered, his voice low and commanding. "Don't be shy," he coaxed, his eyes dark with lust.

You slowly reached up and grasped his thick shaft in your hand, feeling the hot, smooth skin, marveling at the size of him. You felt a jolt of excitement run through your body as you stroked his length, feeling him twitch in your hand. You could feel yourself growing wet as you continued to stroke his cock, his member growing even harder under your touch.

His fingers tangling in your hair  "Now, put my cock in your pretty mouth, doll," he said, his voice thick with desire.

You lowered your head and opened your mouth, wrapping your lips around the tip of his cock. You licked the tip of his cock, swirling your tongue around it, tasting his salty pre-cum. He groaned, his hips bucking as you took more of his cock into your mouth, bobbing your head up and down.

You hummed around him, the vibration making him moan. His fingers tangled in your hair, pulling at the roots as you worked your mouth up and down his shaft, his cock hitting the back of your throat.

You felt a surge of pleasure run through your body as you sucked his cock, loving the taste and feel of him in your mouth. You could feel his grip tightening on your hair as you continued to suck him, your tongue dancing along his length.

You didn't have any practice beforehand, but you are naturally gifted hearing praises, such as "Mmm, that's it.”, "Just like that.", “Fuck, you are good.” and the way his thighs trembled beside your ears were a tell-tale sign that you were doing great.

"You look so good like this," he moaned, his hand holding onto the back of your head, guiding your mouth over his cock. "I've imagined you sucking me off before."

His words made you moan around him, the vibrations sending shockwaves of pleasure through his body.

"You're taking my cock so well, like you were made for it."

You whimpered around him, his cock hitting the back of your throat once again. The feeling of his cock throbbing in your mouth, the taste of him, and the way he praised you were pushing you closer to the edge.

"God, your mouth feels so fucking good," he moaned, his hips thrusting as he fucked your mouth. "Such a good little slut, aren't you, doll?"

You felt your pussy clench at his words, your arousal growing with every stroke of his cock. You bobbed your head faster, taking him deeper into your mouth, loving the sounds of his moans.

His fingers tugged at your hair, the pain and pleasure mixing together to send another rush of pleasure through your body. You moaned around him, the sound vibrating through his cock, causing him to thrust deeper into your mouth.

You whimpered, your eyes watering as he pounded into your mouth. You could barely breathe, his thick cock stretching your throat as he fucked your mouth. Your pussy throbbed, your arousal coating your thighs as he mouth-fucked you.

"Oh yeah, you love this, don't you?" He groaned. "You love choking on my cock." As he thrust his cock into your mouth, his hands travelled to your breast, squeezing them hard, making you moan.

He groaned as you continued to suck, his grip on your hair tightening, the pain sending another wave of pleasure through your body. He was fucking your mouth ruthless, the wet slurping sounds were the only sound in the room. And the sounds he was making was almost enough to make you cum.

It became harder to breath with each stroke of his cock meeting the back of your throat, tears pricked in the corners of your eyes, the pain and pleasure mixing together.

He looked down at you, the sight of your mouth around his cock was almost enough to make him cum. He pulled out of your mouth with a loud pop, leaving you gasping for breath and tears running down your face.

"Look at you, what a mess you are," he smirked, his eyes raking over your body. "You're such a dirty girl, aren't you?"

You felt your face flush, his words making your pussy ache with need. You whimpered, the need to be filled by his cock becoming unbearable.

"Do you want me to fuck you, doll? Do you want me to fuck you so hard, you can't walk tomorrow?"

You moaned, your body trembling with anticipation. "Yes, please," you begged, your voice hoarse. "Please, fuck me, Bucky." You couldn’t think straight, you had no filter, you were just saying whatever came to mind.

He grabbed a fistful of your hair and yanked your head back. "Say it," he growled, his eyes dark and dangerous.

"Please, Bucky," you said, your voice pleading.

"Try better than that," he said, his voice firm.

"Please fuck me, Sergeant," you whimpered, your voice laced with desperation. "Please fuck me hard and fast until I can't walk. Please use me however you want."

He smiled wickedly. "Your words, not mine. Be careful for what you wish for, doll."

He shoved you onto the floor, his body looming over you. "On the floor. On all fours now," he ordered, his voice stern and commanding.

You scrambled to comply, getting onto your hands and knees. Your heart racing as he positioned himself behind you.

"Spread your legs," he said, and you complied.

He knelt behind you, his hands roaming over your body, caressing your skin. You could feel his hands on your hips, his cock rubbing against your wetness.

"Do you have any idea what I'm going to do to you, Y/N?" He whispered, his voice low and husky.

You stayed quiet waiting for him. "I'm gonna make you scream and beg for me, I'm gonna make you forget everything, except my name."

His words sent a shiver through your body, his tone full of dominance and power.

"And when I'm done with you, you'll never forget me, Y/N. You'll always remember me, remember the way I made you feel."

You could feel his hardness pressing against your entrance, teasing you, tormenting you. His hands running over your ass. "But I'm not gonna go easy on you. You understand?"

"Yes," you moaned, your voice breathy. "I understand."

"Good girl," he said, and with that, he pushed his cock inside of you, filling you completely. You cried out, your body quivering as he stretched you. "Such a tight little cunt," he groaned, his hips snapping against you, his cock buried deep inside of you. "So fucking perfect."

You cried out, the pain and pleasure mixing together.

"Fuck, you're so tight," he grunted, his hands gripping your hips tightly. He started to move, his pace slow and steady, his cock stretching you with each thrust.

"Oh god," you moaned, your voice echoing in the room.

"You like that, Y/N?" As he slammed his cock into you, his voice full of lust.

"Yes," you moaned, the sensation driving you wild.

"That's right, doll, take my cock," he growled, his fingers digging into your hips. "Take all of it." He was rough, his pace fast and unforgiving, his cock filling you to the brim with every thrust. You cried out, the pleasure and pain mingling into a sweet symphony.

You moaned, your body shaking as he fucked you. He was pounding into you, his cock hitting all the right spots. Your body was on fire, your mind lost in a haze of lust and desire. "Who's pussy is this?," He asked.

"It's yours," you gasped, your body trembling.

"Say it again," he commanded, his thrusts growing faster and harder.

"It's yours," you repeated, your voice barely above a whisper.

"Fucking right it is," he growled, his voice low and husky.

He was pounding into you, his pace relentless. The room filled with the sound of skin slapping against skin, the smell of sex hanging heavy in the air.

He yanked your hair, forcing your head back and you whimpered. He kissed you, his tongue invading your mouth. His teeth dug into your bottom lip, making you moan.

"Who's a dirty little slut?" He demanded, his hips slapping against yours.

"Me," you gasped, the pleasure threatening to overwhelm you. "I'm a dirty little slut, Bucky."

"That's right," he growled, his grip on your hair tightening. "You're my dirty little slut, and I'm gonna fucking ruin you. You’re fucking mine."

Your body trembled, your muscles tensing as his cock slammed into you. You could feel the pleasure building, the pressure mounting inside of you. You were so close, and you needed him to finish you off. "Oh god, I’m so close," you begged, your voice desperate and needy.

"Not yet," he snarled, his grip on your hair tightening. "You'll cum when I say so, and not a moment before."

"Please," you begged, the pleasure becoming almost unbearable. "Please let me cum, Bucky."

"Soon, doll," he promised, his thrusts becoming more erratic. "Very soon." He knew you almost came and he decided to torture you further when his fingers finding your clit and he pressed down hard.

You cried out, the pleasure and pain becoming too much. "Oh god," you whimpered, your body trembling. "Please, I can't take it."

He slammed his cock into you, his balls slapping against your clit. "Yes, you can," he growled. "And you will."

You whimpered, the pressure inside of you reaching a breaking point. "Bucky, please please please," you begged, the pleasure threatening to consume you.

"Now," he commanded, his voice harsh and commanding. "Cum for me, doll."

You cried out, the pleasure exploding throughout your body. Your walls clenched around his cock, your muscles spasming. Your mind went blank, the world around you fading away. Your body was shaking uncontrollably as he fucked you through your orgasm, his hips snapping against you, his cock pounding into you.

You were exhausted, your body drained of energy. He continued to fuck you, his pace slowing slightly.

He slapped your ass, the sting of his hand sending a jolt of pleasure through your body. "Such a good little slut," he growled, his hips slamming against yours. "Taking my cock so well."

"Bucky," you moaned, the pleasure building once again. "Please, I can't take anymore."

"Yes, you can," he said, his voice low and husky. He slapped your ass again, harder this time. "You're going to cum for me again, doll."

"No," you protested weakly, your body trembling with exhaustion.

“Yes," he growled, his thrusts becoming more intense. "You will." His metal hand sliding up your stomach, between your breasts, and around your throat.

Your body arched, pushing your hips further onto his cock. The sound of his ragged breaths mixed with yours as you both raced towards your climaxes. "I'm close, Y/N. So fucking close."

His hands pinched your nipples, sending another shock of pleasure through your body. He sucked on them, the sensation almost too much for you. You whimpered, his lips capturing yours again. Your tongues swirled around each other, tasting, devouring.

His cock slid in and out of you, his pace quickening. His moans and growls echoed around you as his orgasm neared. He was so close. So was you.

"Please, Bucky," you begged, your pussy clenching around his length.

He tightened his grip on your throat and slammed his hips into yours. His free hand slid down to your clit, his thumb rubbing circles over it. His eyes meeting yours. his hips slapping against yours, his cock hitting all the right spots.

"Cum with me, doll. Don't close your eyes. I want to see those pretty eyes as you come apart."

Your entire body shuddered, his command sending you over the edge. Your walls fluttered around his length, milking him of his seed. Your body trembled, your muscles spasming as you rode out the waves of ecstasy. His breath becoming ragged as his own release neared.

"Fuck," he groaned, his hips slapping against you. "Your cunt is so fucking perfect."

"God, yes," you moaned, the pleasure threatening to overwhelm you.

He slammed into you, his pace becoming erratic as he neared his release. "Oh god," he moaned, his hips snapping against yours. "I'm gonna cum."

"Yes, Bucky. Cum inside me," you whimpered, your voice barely above a whisper.

Your words were enough to send him over the edge.

He growled, his grip on your hair tightening as he pounded into you, his cock filling you completely. He groaned as he cum, his body shuddering as his release washed over him.

"That's right," he groaned, his body going limp. "Take all of it." You felt him twitch inside of you, his hot release spilling into you.

You slumped forward, your body spent as it slick with sweat and cum.  You could hear Bucky panting behind you, his chest heaving. You rested your forehead against the floor, trying to catch your breath. You had never been fucked so thoroughly in your life. Your muscles were sore and tired, your pussy throbbing.

Bucky was still inside of you, his cock softening. He pulled out, his cum spilling out of you. You could feel his cum leaking from your pussy, dripping down your thighs. "Look at that," he whispered, his voice thick with satisfaction. "Such a pretty sight." He slid a finger between your folds, collecting the sticky mess, then he pushed it back inside you. You let out a small whimper as he slowly pumped it in and out.

Bucky turned you around, your head falling back against the floor. His face hovered above yours, his blue eyes burning with lust. He looked down at you, before he could say anything, you both heard footsteps approaching.

You were panicking as someone could see you in such state, strangely, Bucky seemed unfazed, his expression steady despite the unexpected interruption. Then the next thing made your heart skipped as you heard the doorknob turning. You could only pray the ground to swallow you whole.

Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed the story! Apologies if the ending didn't meet your expectations, I'm considering a Part 2, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'm open to any feedback for improvement. Your input means a lot.

If you want to see more, please show your support by leaving a like. Thank you for taking the time to read!

A/N : Thank you so much for the kind replies and support! I'm really glad you enjoy the story, you have no idea how much that motivate me to continue writing. Please stay tune for part 2! Love youuuu xx

[urprettylildoe]

How’d your yanderes react to a reader who is trying to run away from them, or is successful in the escape?

im so so sorry for letting this ask rot since january nonnie 😔😔

i think that in general, all the yanderes would be pissed. why would you want to run away from someone who loves you so much that they'd do anything for you?

for my yanderes at least, even if you were a bit successful, they manage to get you back in their arms by any means possible.

however, for today's ask, we'll be focusing on hudson's reaction which is interesting as we've never seen him crack.

(blood + yandere themes under the cut)

you thought you were finally rid of him — the horrible itch under your skin that something is very, very wrong when you're together. this isn't normal. he isn't normal.

sure, he's sweet, loving, the golden retriever boyfriend. and that's the problem, isn't it? you'd be a fool not to love him back, but why does he look at you with such smoldering heat that threatens to burn everyone and everything to the ground, till it's only you and him.

whatever, you close your eyes, choosing to not dwell on the past further but on the present.

...

oh, naive darling, you think you're so clever. perhaps you never did have the upper hand, after all.

your breath hitches. no, it can't be —

what're you looking at right now?

his hands, dripping with thick red, wrap around your neck and taint you with ruin. his brown eyes are pitch black in the dark, or maybe the sheer insanity that's behind them.

he watches your reaction as his grip tightens a fraction more, before low rumbling laughter escapes his lips. it continues on, like a broken record, until you realise that it's turned into wretched sobbing.

his lips are frozen in a smile that stretches unnaturally, but tears continue rolling down his cheeks.

"why," he warbles, voice thick with hurt and something else you can't fathom. "why did you leave me, huh? i gave you everything. i—i did everything right to make sure I didn't scare you away."

you can't even speak, back against the wall. his hands tighten once again around your neck, and you think he's lost it.

he chuckles, the bitter sound holding no humour, "and yet you still ran." his nose brushes yours, fingers choosing to tangle in your hair instead. "but m'not lettin' you go. i-i just can't, no matter how normal i try to be."

he leans in further, voice dropping an octave, "guess i can't change, it's just who i am." the chuckle is sinister, unlike your boyfriend at all. "and you thought I was crazy then."

you can't even move when he crashes his lips against yours, because this time, you've unleashed the very thing you were running from. and you're not sure if you're ever gonna leave with the leash tightening around your throat more than evercnow.

only the man holding it has no ill intent, he promises. he just wants to love you. won't you give him just that, pretty please?

[ectocreature]

watching identity crisis since it's the anniversary of its airing and. um. i couldn't help but notice jack effortlessly pushing a bunch of roller coaster cars with one hand.

looking it up, the best answer I could get was here, which said that cars with two rows weigh about 1,600 pounds each. i know this is speaking in past tense but also trying to find an answer to this question sucks because the weights vary based on the year the cars are from so figure 2006 + past tense is good enough for something set in 2004.

which, this is already a lot. in fact, the most that any human being has ever deadlifted was 1,104.5 pounds, done by the strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. but how many cars are there here?

using an earlier scene, i count five.

putting 1,600 times 5 into a calculator...

Thats eight thousand pounds. This isn't even considering the weight of the people sitting in the cars.

if we were to take the average weights of teenaged boys/girls around the age of 14 and multiply them by... let's say four each (this count is excluding Fun Danny since Jack grabs him) then we'll get...

That's 868 more pounds to add to the load. (Granted, this is assuming everybody on the cars weighs the same (unlikely), that this measure is even indicative of how much they would even weigh, especially back in 2004 (unlikely), and that everybody on the roller coaster is 14 years old. (again. Unlikely.) However, this is the best estimate we can get.)

In total, that is 8,868 pounds that Jack is pushing. Granted, this is not considering the force that he needs to push out, but we'd need acceleration to to calculate the force since the formula is Force = Mass x Acceleration. We don't have the acceleration and I'm not dealing with that right now.

But still.

Jack is pushing 8,868 pounds with one hand. Whilst inside of an object that is floating in mid air and probably doesn't have too much leverage for him to atay steady on. Good god

[luveline]

𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

Best friends since middle school, you tell Eddie everything, which is why he's so surprised to find out you've been keeping a secret —you’re hearing a voice whenever you're home alone. He’s always had a thing for the fantastical but he can't believe in ghosts, and the longer you insist on it, the more worried he becomes. This would be bad enough if Eddie didn’t have a secret too, and it threatens to change everything between you. [22k] 

fem!reader, best friends to lovers slow-burn, mutual pining, eddie is infatuated with you, idiots in love, paranormal activity/au, heavy hurt/comfort, angst, fluff and affection, wayne is uncle of the year every year, ghost-hunting

cw assumed auditory hallucinations, talk of mental health, surrounding worry and circumstances, mentioned mental illness stigma, recreational drug use mention, prescription drugs, grief

my endless gratitude and thank yous to @h-ness1944 and @mrcylvsu for their sensitivity beta reads and for answering my questions so many moons ago, I'm very, very thankful for all that hard work, and all the time and energy you both spent!

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Eddie's desk fan is on the fritz. It twists back and forth with a weak metallic clicking sound that promises eventual electrocution but for now provides momentary relief. Even the nights have been hell lately. No matter how many windows he and Wayne open, the air at home stays thick with humidity. 

Sweat shines on his brow and collar. He refuses to tie his hair back, and each hour it grows more and more uncomfortable. 

"Are you sure you don't wanna come and lie up here?" he asks, shifting reluctantly to peer over the side of the bed. 

You're laying on the floor of his room, just as sweaty but half as unhappy. You've abandoned a book to your left, having declared the weather too much to concentrate through. 

"Our body heat will mingle." 

"The fan is really helping," he argues lightly. "If you die on my floor Wayne won't ever let it go. Just come up here." 

You mumble something he doesn't hear and pull your shirt from your chest. You attempt to fan yourself with the thin, clinging fabric. It doesn't work, but it does expose the soft hill of your abdomen to his guilty eyes. His mouth dries up. 

"It's getting late," he says. He's not trying to get rid of you, promise, but now he's thinking about your body heat mingling and why it wouldn't be such a bad thing, and he doesn't want to. "I'll drive you home, yeah?" 

"In a minute," you agree, looking as if you have no intention of moving. 

You turn your face to the side, eyes closed, lashes skimming the delicate skin of your under eye. Eddie sits up and rakes his greasy hair away from his face. He'll drop you home, take a cold shower for purely heat related reasons, and hopefully sleep through the night. It's a very unlikely outcome, but a man can dream. 

"Come on. We'll roll the windows down and go really fast." 

"Eddie," you chastise. 

"Moderately fast." 

His sleeveless tank top gets caught as he leans down to try and flick you. Eddie can only ever forgive his fourteen year old self for maiming perfectly good vintage in times like these. A completely unnecessary culling of an entire wardrobe's worth of sleeves, but when the weather gets bad for a few heady weeks every summer, he remembers the reasoning behind it. 

He's stripped of all his clunky jewellery for now, adorned only in the dark ink of his multiplying tattoos. His most recent addition is an artist's rendition of the Eye of Sauron, blinking up at him from beneath his volley of bats. Still sick, he thinks to himself smugly. 

You've pulled yourself into a sitting position with your arms crossed over the bed, your hand stretched out to touch his plaid pyjama bottoms. You're in a nearly matching pair; when Eddie called you to hang out earlier you'd turned him down, citing a reluctance to change. He'd promised to pick you up in his own pyjamas, and you've been lying on his floor since then.

You're the laziest kids this side of the Wabash river, Wayne'd said, looking over your limp bodies with a smile. 

The other side, too, Eddie popped back. Will you put those chicken wings in the oven for us, please?

Eddie's not a monster, the wings were pre-prepared. Any other day he'd correct his uncle, say, hey, we haven't been kids for years, but the heat makes him feel gross and sometimes you just want your dad to make you dinner. (Sometimes Eddie's just lazy, also.)

"Eds?" you murmur. 

He lets his hands fall away from his hair where he'd been scratching mindlessly and turns to you. He's lethargic, feels like he's turning his head through molasses. "What, sweetheart?" 

Years of being friends lends an easy affection. His pet names are purely platonic. Or they used to be. Either way, you aren't perturbed.

"Can I sleep over?" 

He usually says yes to that question immediately. But again, the thought of your sweaty body curled into his with your hands breaching a friendly gap to curl over his waist like they tend to do fills his stomach with dread. 

His little crush is making him a bad friend, he decides. He will always, first and foremost, be your friend. 

"Of course you can." He rubs his mouth. Feigning casualness. "How come?" 

You peel out of your fatigue and get on your knees. The extra height is all you need to finally grab his legs, smiling sheepishly. Eddie won't judge you for almost anything and you know that, so it's gotta be outlandish. 

"I think…" You tap his kneecap. "Okay, laugh at me if you need to, but I'm pretty sure my house is haunted." 

"Like, by a ghost?" 

"What else?" you ask, laughing good-naturedly.

"Why do you think it's haunted, superstar?" 

You drop your face onto his thigh, giving him a disjointed hug. He hugs you back for as long as the heat will allow it, a handful of stolen seconds with his hand over your back.

"I swear, sometimes, I can hear someone talking."

That's… scarier than he imagined. "Shit, I thought you were gonna say a coat fell off the hanger, or the light in your bathroom started flickering again." 

"It has," you admit, your mouth pressed to his thigh. "But it's just the bulb." 

He pushes you off of him, your voice sending vibrations through places he'd prefer it didn't, and you fall back with a half-hearted stab at melodrama. 

"Oof," you say, straight-faced. 

"You really think it's a ghost?" he asks. 

"No. I don't know. I won't believe in ghosts until I see one, and I haven't seen one, but if it were a ghost, this is the type of behaviour I'd expect from it. So I guess I do. Does that make sense?" 

"Sure." He doesn't know. "What does it say?" 

"Here's the bit where you won't believe me." 

You smile at him from your spot on the floor. Your hand curls out, like a tight budded flower coming to bloom. 

"She asks about you," you say quietly. "It's pretty much all she says." 

"Who?" 

"The ghost." 

"She's a she?" 

"Sounds kind of like one." 

"Come sit up here with me." 

Eddie knows his voice has gone hard and weird, but he can't help it. He understands that he doesn't understand anything, that the world is large and works in mysterious ways, but he wouldn't forgive himself if he took this lightly. You sound so convinced — it makes him feel ill. 

Because Eddie doesn't believe in ghosts. 

You climb up onto the bed in front of him and he doesn't take your hand. He should. You won’t meet his eyes, a sign that you're slightly embarrassed. It's not what he meant to do. 

"What does she say?” he probes.

You go teasing and shiny, a glimmer in your eye. "I know you don't believe me, Eddie." 

"Who says I don't believe you? I just need you to explain." 

"She says…" You laugh. "Okay, she says stuff like, 'Eddie is okay?'" 

Eddie stares at you. 

"I was going to tell you–" 

"When?" he demands. 

"I'm telling you right now!" 

"How long have you been hearing voices?" 

You climb up on knees to wrap your arms around his head. "You think I'm delusional," you say, a loving murmur in his ear. 

He grabs your waist. Unsurprisingly, hugging you doesn't make him nearly as electric as he'd worried. It feels the same as it always has, like hugging his best friend. Loving the smell of your hair is new, but everything else stays the same. 

"I don't think you’re delusional, I don't, I just– if I told you the same thing." 

You pull away, and his hand comes to rest atop the curve of your hip. "I'd believe you," you say. 

"I believe that you believe there's someone talking to you about me. Uh… if it is a ghost haunting your house, why's she talking about me?" 

You take his hands off of your waist, squeezing his fingers together in your palms. "Don't know. I tried asking but she never answers, and last night…" 

Eddie stands up.

"Where are you going?" 

"We gotta let Wayne know you're staying and he's about to fall asleep, and I want a cigarette, and you need something to drink." 

"I don't want a beer." 

"No," he says. When he says to drink, he really means something cold to sip on. He's hoping to grab you back from… whatever it is you're going. "Soda, apple juice, drink what you want." 

He fiddles with the drawstrings on his pants, waiting for you to join him at the doorway. You stay sitting on his bed. He doesn't know what your face means. 

"Hey, you still have to tell me about it. I want to know, swear to god. We have all night." He holds out his hand. Wiggles his fingers at you. "I'll let you paint my nails again too, like a real girls night." 

That grabs your attention. You slide off of the bed and take his hand, shrieking as he yanks you ten miles an hour down the skinny hallway and into the living room. Wayne's got the sofa bed out already, his padded roll-up mattress laid out over the springs and a sheet stretched corner to corner. 

"Hey, kids," he says, fluffing one of his pillows. He chucks it at the top of the mattress. "Home time?" 

"Can I stay over, Mr. Munson?" you ask. 

Wayne rolls his eyes. You once spent eight days here with no breaks sometime in the summer of 1987 and he hadn't batted an eye. Eddie made sure it was truly alright with Wayne, of course, and you'd done your share of housework. Point is, both Munson's find  your asking to stay unnecessary. 

"I'll make pancakes in the morning," you add. 

"Oh, in that case." Wayne throws his blanket out over the bed and sits on top of it. "By all means, kid, stay over. Tell your guardian." 

"Can't. In Santa Barbara." 

"Ah, then I have to insist you stay," he says, laying down with a huff. 

Eddie passes him the TV remote. "She's a big girl, Wayne." You're well past the age of parental supervision. 

Wayne answers with a grumbling sound that means, hey, you can keep talking to me but there's no guarantee I'll answer. 

"I won't be annoying, promise," you say. 

Wayne grunts again. 

"That's old man talk for I know you won't," Eddie translates. 

You nod, glad to have permission, and meander into the kitchen. "Can I–" 

"Yes!" Eddie and Wayne call simultaneously. 

Wayne laughs to himself in that pleased gruff way he's good at and tucks his arms behind his head. He's wearing one of Eddie's t-shirts. They've been the same size since Eddie was seventeen, something both Munson's utilise when laundry day is approaching but not quite upon them. 

"Lighter?" 

Wayne scrunches his eyes in displeasure. "By the sink."

"Thanks." For some reason, Eddie doesn't leave. He stays standing by the TV, listening to the voice of a late-night talk show chuckle through a joke about some scandal. 

When Eddie was younger, he'd get into bed beside Wayne and watch TV until his eyes hurt. Too young to have stopped needing comfort and too old to know how to ask for it, he'd drift down the snug hallway into the living room and Wayne would usually be asleep or almost there. Eddie would stand by the TV hesitantly, and if he was sleeping Wayne must've been able to feel it, a new parents instinct or something, because he'd soon wake, and if he wasn't he'd look at Eddie like he'd been waiting for him. Like Eddie was running late. 

His teenage years were almost solely defined by bad dreams and TV with Wayne. On the good nights, Eddie would go back to bed. On the bad nights, heartache would swallow him whole. Well, almost whole. His cheek would rest on Wayne's shoulder as the night went on. Miraculous and ordinary at once. That's the only bit of him that didn't hurt. 

Pain emaciates the good from his memory, but it can't erase the comfort of watching TV with someone who loved him when they didn't have to. 

Wayne pretends to chop Eddie in the stomach. Eddie laughs and dodges out of his path. 

"Gotta be faster than that," Eddie taunts. 

"Don't chain smoke," Wayne says. 

"We won't be up long." Eddie's lying. He can't imagine that either of you will be getting an early night tonight considering the nature of your confession. What he means is, you won't be keeping Wayne up, and Eddie won't smoke more than what's wise. 

Wayne hums. 

You're in the kitchen screwing the lid back on a gallon of apple juice, your cup a quarter filled. You're like that. Won't ever take more than you need.

"One for me?" he asks. 

"I figured now all your taste buds are dead, you wouldn't want any." 

"Ha-ha," he says. The kitchen is unusually clean. "Shit, stop cleaning my house. Good god." 

You pull one of his jackets off of the seat of one of the kitchen table's chairs and shake it out. "So I can sleep here, eat here, but cleaning is where you draw the line. I like it." 

Eddie grabs the lighter from beside the sink in one hand and your wrist in the other, pulling you away from the table before you can start organising their mail and through the back door. 

It's still sticky-hot out and the steps are warm to the touch as the two of you sit down hip to hip. He pulls the stiff pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket and hands them to you. Your hand is already waiting. You peel off the plastic and tap the pack against your chest. You like doing it, arguing that it makes you feel like you're Chelsea Marino in Glory Days, all dark smiles and indulgent self-loathing. 

You open the pack, tug out a lone cigarette, and pass it to him. 

"You're like a pez dispenser," Eddie says, putting the butt of the cigarette between his lips.

"You little freak." 

He laughs and almost drops his cig. Wayne's heavy zippo struggles to light, low on gas. 

"Loser can't even light a cigarette." 

"Who put two dimes in you?" he asks, thrilled by your negging. 

He takes a sharp inhale as the end of the cigarette finally lights, the heat tickling his throat until it burns the way he needs it to. 

"Somebody must've," you say. 

"Reckon we can tip you upside down and get something to eat?" he asks through an exhale of smoke, tapping ash into the small egg cup to his left that's been serving as an ashtray for as long as he's been smoking. It used to be yellow. Every now and again he washes it and sees the old chicken paint underneath. "Too late for cooking." 

"Are you hungry?" you ask genuinely. "I told you we should've had more than just wings."

"It was too hot to eat hot stuff. It's still too hot. Tomorrow, we should go to Bradley's and get stuff for sandwiches." 

Eddie waits for your answer. "I'm sick of PB and J, Eds," or "Yes! And a pitcher for sweet tea, my captain." You don't say anything, your face turned up to the sky and your eyes closed, soaking in the heat. 

He has half a mind to go get a spray bottle and douse you before you collapse. 

"What's going on with you?" he asks. 

"I'm just thinking." 

"Think out loud. Don't be fucking selfish." 

"I'm not sure you wanna hear it." 

He puts his cigarette in the eggcup ashtray half-smoked, ribbons of white curling up into the shimmering summer heat. Any other time he'd lounge back and let the nicotine course through his system, a momentary relief against the winding tightness that comes with being so hot, and so worried about you. 

"If I ask you how you've been feeling lately, could you answer me?" he asks. "Without assuming I don't believe you. Don't get mad, just tell me." 

You drop your shoulder against his. "I feel fine, I think. You know me, I– I worry too much, and work is overwhelming. If you took me to a doctor, he'd probably prescribe me ambien and a week in a dark room, but. I really don't think I'm making this up." 

"I don't think you'd know," he says. Isn't that the deal? If you're having a hallucination of some kind, it would likely sound and feel real enough to trick you in some capacity.

"Trust me," you say. Your hair brushes against the top of his damp arm. He can't smell good, but you don't say a thing about it.

"I do." Eddie turns his head to take another drag. He blows the smoke as far from you as he can manage. "Tell me about last night," he says, eyes on the weather worn plating of the trailer. "What happened?" 

If you're not messing with him, your ghost has been talking to you for a while now. Something happened last night to scare you in a way you hadn't been before.

He fights his rising nausea with a final drag on his cigarette. You stop leaning on him, hands back in your lap as you tell the story. 

"I was listening to the stereo real loud while I did laundry. I don't know if I was trying to, you know, block it out if she started talking, I'm not stupid, I– I know it could be all in my head. I don't think it is, but I'm not stupid. I went down to the basement to swap the load out in the dryer, and while I was down there…" 

You look like you don't know how to explain it. Eddie bites his cheek. 

"She wrote me something," you say finally. "In my notebook, the one you got me for Christmas. She said hello." 

"I could've written it," he says. "I don't remember, maybe I left you a message in it knowing you'd find it." 

"Did you come in and take it off the shelf, too?" you ask gently. "Eddie, I know your handwriting. I'm not making this up."

He sighs, rubs his face with both hands, the smell of smoke and salt ingrained in the lines of his palms. He gives himself a long five seconds scrubbing at his stubbly jaw and wishing it was colder, then he shoots up onto his feet and pulls open the door. 

"Early night," he says decisively. "If you're still sure there's a ghost in the morning, I'll come over. See if she'll talk to me too. How does that sound?" 

You hold your hand out. Eddie takes it, hoisting you up.

"It sounds like you need a better strategy for getting girls to go to bed with you." 

"It's working, isn't it?" 

"Loser." 

— 

You wake up to Eddie tapping your shoulder. 

"Come on, sweetheart," he says quietly, his voice rough as hewn stone. "I made you pancakes." 

It's as if you're submerged at the bottom of a shallow pool. Sound and heat and sunlight reach you, but it's dull. It takes you a second to understand what Eddie's saying, and why his thumb is rubbing into your shoulder. 

"Come on," he says again, "'fore they get cold." 

You blink. Blink blink blink. Your throat hurts and you have a bad taste in your mouth. Your eyes feel like somebody flicked sand at you while you slept, gritty and dry. You kick the thin blanket away from you, a long day of writhing in the heat yesterday having turned you to sludge, your limbs limp and uncooperative. 

Eddie's frowning at you when you look up. 

"Want me to get you a rag?" he asks. 

"No, I'll wash my face." Your words string together like toffee melted between them and hardened again while you weren't looking. "Oh," you murmur, wincing as you set your feet on the ground. "My back really hurts. Did you push me out of bed last night?" 

"You slept like a log. Same position all night." He reaches for you, but his hand wavers. He must change his mind. 

Eddie leaves the door wide open as he leaves. The radio is on, and a song he secretly loves but won't admit to wars with the sound of sizzling oil. If you strain, you can hear him humming. You get closer and dip into the bathroom, the door open so you can listen to Eddie sing the chorus. 

Dance with me, I want to be your partner, can't you see? The music is just starting. 

He doesn't sing well, really. It's a light, high-pitched rendition. He isn't trying. He feels comfortable enough around you to be unapologetically mediocre, and it's somehow sweeter than if he had a voice like Larry Hoppen. 

You wash your face with handfuls of cold water, your lips tasting of salt as it drips down your nose to your neck, rogue rivulets of run-off seeping into your rolled sleeves. 

The heat broke overnight. A light rain patters soundlessly against the windows, and the back door has been propped open in the kitchen to let in the smell of fresh churned earth. Petrichor. 

You pat your tacky face dry. Eddie turns to the sound, and you nod at Wayne's empty seat.

"Where's your uncle?" you ask. 

"He wanted to get epoxy and a fresh roll of duct tape in case we spring another leak. The rain was pretty bad last night, I think he's worried it'll rot the ceiling. I don't know. Don't worry, I made him something first." 

You sit down and let Eddie serve you a stack of pancakes. The ones on the very top are piping hot. You slather them in butter and maple syrup as he sits down next to you, a plate of his own in hand. 

"How's your back?" he asks. He's being too soft with you. 

"I saw a ghost, Eds, I'm not dying." You slice down the pancakes with the side of your fork, attempting to act unbothered. "Worst case scenario, I'm schizophrenic."

Eddie sits down in the chair next to yours. It's a small table but there's ample room. His proximity is a choice. "Worst case scenario, you're being targeted by an evil demon, but schizophrenia could also be really bad," he says. "S'why I'm worried." 

"Eddie." You put down your fork, swallowing a half-chewed mouthful roughly. "Hey. If it's my head, I'll go to the doctor and I'll let them take care of it and everything will be fine." You have no way of knowing if what you're saying is true. Mental illness isn't easy. You're just saying what you think he needs to hear without outright lying. "I'll take the meds and you'll be there for me. But I'm fine. And you're being weird." 

"You're trying to piss me off." 

A little. Pissed is better than anxious. You'd rather give him something to glare at than a reason to twist himself into knots. "You're easily riled," you jest. 

His eyebrows rise. He eats his pancakes and you your own, the wrinkled knees of your pyjamas rubbing against one another as he jigs his leg along to the song on the radio. The rain starts to worsen, fat droplets slapping the screen door like the thwack of a bullet. From your seat, you can see the sky dark with grey clouds, the sun a long forgotten foe. The humidity has been cut in half, which is to say bad but not unbearable. Last night, if you'd been awake to feel it, the rain would've been warm in your palm. Getting up to close the door now, you nudge the ajar screen wide with your foot, letting some of the rain lash your arms and face. 

You sigh at the chilly coldness of each blessed drop. 

"Heatwave from hell is finally over."

"Thank fuck for that. Let's hope it's miserably cold for weeks," Eddie says.

It's mid September —summer has said goodbye with one last fierce kiss. By October, you'll be wrapping yourselves up in throw blankets on the couch on the porch, or hiding inside with Wayne's special pasta (buttered noodles and green pesto for the 'brave') watching slashers on Eddie's blurry TV. The humidity will be nothing but a gross memory. 

You wash your plates and Eddie lets you shower first. You have your own shampoo in the corner, and a rose scented body wash Eddie buys but doesn't use (but it isn't for you, idiot, why would he buy you something so expensive? He got it by mistake). You could draw the cracks in their shower tiles with your eyes closed, and the condensation that clings to the cold water pipe, that's how many times you've been in here. You finish quickly, dry quicker, and pull fresh clothes over your still-clammy skin. 

You tap Eddie in. He's somehow even faster than you were, and you swap places in his room. While he's changing, you dry the bathroom walls with a towel as soon as he's out, knowing the small room has a propensity for dampness. 

"Stop cleaning my fucking house," he says when you traipse back into his room, his head hanging upside down as he towel dries his curls. 

You forgo your usual explanations and tell the truth. "I know you're perfectly capable. I like helping, that's all." 

"I know. Ugh, you suck. Do you have any deodorant?" 

You grin and pull your deodorant out of your bag, a new-ish stick of Teen Spirit. Eddie sees it and sighs, obviously unprepared to smell like Pink Crush for the rest of the day. "I have like, half an inch left of Caribbean Cool. Coconut?" you offer. 

He goes with the coconut scent. The wall of privacy between you has eroded to a scrap of paper after so long living in each other's laps, but you feel guilty for looking at him, the shifting muscle beneath the skin of his arms and chest stealing your focus. If Eddie were to see you without your shirt, you doubt he'd find himself anywhere near as distracted. He'd look if you let him because that's the way he is, unaffected by simple intimacies, but when you tell him to face the door it doesn’t aggrieve him. Most of the time he’s already averted his eyes. 

"Gotta add that to the list of shit we need. Have you seen my shoes?" 

"Your white sneakers are in the hallway. One of your converse is under the bed, but it's hard to say about the other." You swallow a sudden lump. "Are we going shirtless?" 

Eddie does not go shirtless. He pulls a shirt on that thankfully has sleeves, and then a zip up hoodie under his leather jacket. You didn't think to bring a coat yourself due to the extreme baking temperature of the day before. You're lucky you had clean clothes here, considering you hadn't intended to spend the night. Or, not lucky, loved. One of the Munson’s has washed what you’ve left behind.

You have a momentary lapse as Eddie puts his shoes on, trekking into the bathroom to look in the mirror. It's no secret that you aren't pretty. You can make a good effort, and you keep it classy, stay clean, but you aren't pretty, not by your own opinion. 

Eddie knows everything about you (nearly). He knows you don't think much of yourself. And a younger version of him had comforted you as earnestly as an awkward teenage boy could manage, but these days he goes for the root of the problem. He still tells you that you're pretty occasionally, or rather, "Looking good, babe," but not today. 

"Hey." Eddie looks you up and down. "What's wrong?" 

"I look stupid." You glance at your legs. Why does everything look so weird on you?

He hooks his arm through yours and starts to drag you down the hallway to the front door, sideways like two crabs. "No." 

"Yeah, I do, and people are gonna think I do, too." 

"Who cares what other people think?" And there's grown-up Eddie's rhetoric, Who gives a fuck what other people think? 

"Me," you say. 

You understand exactly what it is he's trying to do: free you from the anxiety of overthinking. It doesn't work as often as you wish it would, but he gives it a good go. 

"No, you don't. We don't care what other people think because it doesn't affect us." He doesn't make light, exactly, but his eyes are bright and his smile is sweet as he opens the front door and gestures for you to go down first. Rain and wind are quick to kiss at your naked arms. 

"What if they all think I'm some sort of slob?" 

"Then they'd be wrong. It's okay for people to be wrong about us. That's their problem." More familiar argument. It actually does make you feel better, despite hearing it a hundred times before. "People are wrong all the time." 

Eddie follows you down the first step and turns away to lock the door. 

"Like you and my ghost," you say, trying to steer the conversation from your moment of weakness and into happy territory again. "You don't think she's real." 

"Baby, I'd love it if you proved me wrong with that one." He jogs down the rest of the steps, knowing it’ll give you a conniption, the wet metal a death trap waiting to happen. “Go! Get in the van!”

You scramble across the grass and the curved pathway to the drive where the van is parked and yank open the passenger door with all your strength. The handle is notorious for sticking shut. When nothing happens, Eddie curses up a storm as he clambers into the driver's seat and over the console to force it open, giving it a good old-fashioned kick from the inside. It flies into your waiting hands and you rush up the step into the front of the van away from the rain that’s growing heavier and heavier by the hour. 

“Well, glad I didn’t waste time letting it dry,” Eddie says, wringing his hair out over his lap. It only drips two or three drops, but it’s funny all the same. The top of his head shines like a dark halo. “About the ghost. Do you really believe in them?”

“You asked me last night–”

“I know, but last night you said you wouldn’t believe in one unless you saw it, and then proceeded to talk about it like it was real.”

“I’m agnostic about ghosts.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asks. He sticks the key in the ignition and turns it until the engine groans to life. The van was old when he got it. Now it’s super old. 

“No. What’s agnostic mean?” you ask. 

“We’ll buy a dictionary.”

“I kind of believe in ghosts. I believe in my ghost. If I ever see one, I’ll believe in all the ghosts. Shit, I sound stupid.”

“No, you don’t– you don’t! It’s okay to not know, I wasn’t trying to interrogate you about your personal beliefs.” He is a very responsible driver these days. He keeps his eyes on the road. His hand, however, strays to your arm. “You’re not stupid, superstar.”

“Don’t,” you plead. Superstar is a nickname that stuck despite your vehement disagreement with its origin and further usage. “It makes you sound like an old dad and I’m the son who just got benched at little league. Again.”

You stand as much as your seatbelt will allow and dig out the purse from the butt pocket of your jeans. “I’ll get gas.”

“Way too personal for our relationship.”

Bad, overused joke. 

Eddie doesn’t want you to pay for gas, the same way he doesn’t want you paying for takeout or birthday presents. He hates ‘handouts’ —it took you a while to convince him that gas money isn’t a handout, it’s you trying to keep things fair. You know how it feels to need the money and not want to ask for it, so you put him in a position where he never has to ask. 

Things are easier now. You’re not in high school anymore. Work doesn’t pay as well as you want it to, but it’s enough to get by, especially while you’re living in your childhood home with only partial bills to pay. Eddie isn’t hurting for money either. That’s something to be grateful for. 

Eddie pulls into the gas station. He won’t let you pump while the wind is whipping, but you sprint into the gas station and trawl the fridge for the biggest drinks, sticking two cans of iced tea under your arm. The cold immediately eats into your naked skin. You jog to the counter to pay. 

“Pump two, please,” you say, putting your cans down.

“Twelve dollars.”

You frown. Eddie only put ten dollars on the pump. Well, deducting your two cans of iced tea at 99 cents each, ten dollars and two cents. What an asshole.

You hold out a twenty dollar bill with a smile, and look out the window as you wait for your change. The rain is too heavy to see him, but you imagine Eddie drumming the wheel of the van with both hands. You shiver out a thanks as your change hits your palm, dropping it into your purse with your best receipts. There’s one for bowling (a triple defeat, Eddie a secret master), one for two whole frozen cheesecakes you’d eaten in bed a month ago with double-sized dessert spoons, a couple for Hawk theatre; Back to the Future II, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters II (‘89 was a great year for sequels). All your best memories printed on thermal paper. 

“Holy shit I’m so cold,” you squeak, prying open the door without the aid of Eddie’s kick. 

“You’re soaked, you fool. You want to go home first for a sweater?”

You close the door behind you and drop the iced tea into the console, grimacing at the great clang they make. Your seatbelt snaps into place around your soft middle, and without ceremony you’re back on the road for your original mission. 

“No sweaters, Bradley’s. Stupid to double back.” You look at him from the corner of your eye. “I think we should get frozen pizza and extra toppings to put on them. And fries, obviously, and dessert.” The ghost won’t care. Probably. 

“You forgot the side salad.”

“Forgot,” you say, laughing. “Why yes I did.”

“Dessert,” Eddie says, his turn now to make some decisions. “I want a slurpee real bad right now, so I’m thinking we buy a bag of ice for your food processor and get some syrup.”

“We could go get slurpees,” you say encouragingly. If that’s what he wants, why not?

“We have shit to do,” he says, smiling so much his dimples peek out. “Ghosts to convene with, notebooks to analyse. Feasts to prepare.” He looks deeply speculative. You assume he’s thinking about the maybe-ghost, but he says, “Why are we getting frozen pizza? They have those pre-packaged ones now that are basically fresh.”

“They taste the same.”

“Liar, the bottom of the frozen ones go soggy and the cheese burns on the crust. You know that I’m right, don’t give me dish.”

“Aren’t you always?”

Eddie has a horrible tendency to be right about things. Maybe that's why you hadn't told him about the ghost for so long, because you'd wanted to handle it yourself without his explanatory assurances. You’re the worrier and he’s the one who always sets it straight.

What if I make a fool of myself? you've asked him once.

I’ll make one of myself, too. 

What if they fire me? 

We’ll get you a new job with me cleaning up after idiots.

What if it never goes away?

It will. 

What if body snatchers get us while we’re sleeping?

That one made him smile. The fondest upturn of a pretty mouth, not an expression you often see. Then they get us, he’d said, whispering across the pillows, face only partially visible in the struggling light of the TV. It’ll be awesome. Me and you. No brains, no worries. Just lettuce heads forever. 

You watch him beating along to a song you aren’t privy to against the wheel. He hadn’t seemed to mind the idea of losing his mind with you back then. He doesn’t believe you now, but that’s because he hasn’t heard her voice. The whistling wind warping itself into coherent syllables. Reaching for you, a dark slice of sound. 

Eddie… has… a secret…

You look at your lap, tamping down a shudder at the sensation of ice riding your spine. 

Don’t we all?

—

Eddie feels you’ve been overly relaxed about the situation at hand. He doesn’t want to back you into a box and declare a health crisis, but he’s been thinking up possible illnesses while you weigh the pros and cons of pizza toppings in case he has to take you to see someone. He’s not sure how gas lines work but he’s sure a quick phone call to the Munson landline could clear it up for him. Perhaps the most effective test of all for carbon monoxide poisoning would be to subject himself to the same circumstances. He’ll spend a few days at home with you and see how he feels afterward. If push comes to shove he’ll light a match and see what catches. 

On the inside, Eddie’s panicking about your mental health and, admittedly, the slim reality of a supernatural presence. On the outside, he’s playing along with your unconcerned dinner plans and aimless chatter. If you want to pretend that today is the same as any other day, he's prepared to let you. He won’t do the same, but he won’t discourage you, either. 

You cut through one of the home aisles toward the front of the store with a heavy basket on your elbow, Eddie hot on your heels. He grabs a pocket dictionary from the display to his left and hurries to keep up with you. 

You’re shivering. “I really didn’t think it would rain,” you say. 

Eddie looks past the registers to the glass doors at the front of the store where rain pelts with a force bordering on stormy weather. If it gets much worse than this, he'll insist you both go back to Munson headquarters and hunker up to wait it out. 

“The weather,” Eddie mumbles, unlike himself. “Are we expecting a storm? Maybe we should grab a cart and get some basics. Crate of water.”

“Okay, we can do that. Are you worried?”

“Kind of.”

He meets your eyes. He loves your eyes. He knows you don’t. You're not insecure in a way he feels he can fix —if he can fix any of it. It’s like you dissociate, for lack of a better word, from the things you can’t love. You don’t look in the mirror, won’t let him take photographs of you. You don’t say it. You call yourself stupid, weird, silly. Never ugly. 

But he knows. 

And now this whole ghost business. Eddie needs to think of something he can say to you that will inspire a better level of honesty going forward. 

“How long have you been speaking to the ghost?” he asks. 

You grin at a conveniently abandoned shopping cart at the end of the aisle and slide toward it on squealing shoes. You look around broadly for an owner, and when they don’t appear you place your basket in the stomach of it. The only thing remaining from whoever used it beforehand is a small tray of four cupcakes. 

“Four. One for you, three for me,” you say, ignoring his question with a smug giggle. 

Eddie loves you in a way not many people can love someone else, the kind of love that takes years of patience and acceptance and sweetness to take root, kind of love you only feel after seeing someone at their best, worst, and weirdest — memories come thick and fast whenever he thinks about the sheer years you’ve spent together, seeds of affection long germinated and rearing to grow. You, throwing up behind a Denny’s with sick in your hair, crying so hard you couldn’t catch your breath, and when you could, asking him if he wouldn’t mind buying you a new t-shirt to wear in the car as though you were some dastardly imposition, and not his sick best friend. You, on top of the world, surrounded by people who loved you with a birthday cake in front of you, eyes brighter than the blinking flames of each dripping candle. You, in pyjamas too tight, too loose, old or brand new with your hair up, down, washed, and greasy, your lips chapped, bruised then healed, parted against one of his pillows as you slept, as you yawned, as you laughed, talked. No matter what you’re wearing, saying or doing, you, in his bed, completely at home. 

Eddie has a thousand images of you in his head and they all fight to play again, like a VHS on constant rewind, or a movie with duplicated film, double, triple exposed. Before even an inkling of a crush had ever come around, he loved you. That's why it doesn’t really matter that he can’t kiss you. He can’t imagine loving you more than this. 

Sometimes, sometimes… you put your leg over his and your thigh spreads out across the top of his, and he has to beg himself not to want to touch you. He wonders if you’d mind. Eddie thinks about asking so often it turns into its own fantasy. He knows what cadence his voice would take, the exact grit and warmth, his hand waiting on your knee and aching to inch downward. 

You pull him from his sickly introspection with a poke. Your fingernail dents his shirt precisely atop a small beauty mark. He doesn’t know if you know what you’re doing, if you’ve seen his naked chest enough times to realise that there’s a mole right there an inch shy of his belly button, if you’d ever looked at him in so much detail. 

“Transmission incoming,” you say, your fingers flattening over his abdomen, your palm hovering apart. Like the pole of an opposite magnet, it refuses to connect. “Chirp. Houston, we’ve been attempting to connect with Astronaut Munson. He is unresponsive. Let us know when you make contact again.” You smile at him ruefully. “Damn moon keeps dropping signal.”

“Sorry… Astronaut Munson? Do they call astronauts astronauts? I thought it was commander.”

“I don’t know, Eddie, I haven’t brushed up on NASA related job titles lately.” Your deadpan wanes, replaced with a genuine concern. “Are you okay? You really did get lost.”

“I’m just thinking about, you know– Your ghost,” he lies. The ghost should be his highest concern, and for the most part it is, but he’d let his attention get pulled along by other things.

That’s the thing about love. It feels much more important in the moment than anything else, even when it shouldn’t. 

“You’re super worried about the ghost.”

“It is an uber worrying ghost.”

“‘Cause she talks?” you ask.

“Well, yeah. Most of the time you just get, like, blurs on night vision cameras or the general malignant presence of the thing. Not words.” Not questions concerning your best friend. 

“Casper talks and he’s gorgeous,” you say. “A true sweetheart.”

“Doesn’t Casper have to protect Lucy from his evil ghost uncles?”

“Who the fuck is Lucy?”

“The girl. Lucy and Johnny.”

“Bonnie?”

“Oh. That sounds right. But her name doesn’t matter,” Eddie insists. “My point was that the bad ghosts outweigh the good three to one. That’s more than half, you realise.”

“His name is Casper the Friendly Ghost,” you say, shrugging. Eddie hopes you know where it is in the store you’re going to. He hasn’t looked away from your face for the last twenty minutes.  “It’s in the name.”

“But your ghost isn’t Casper,” Eddie says.

“No. My ghost isn’t Casper, but she hasn’t tried to kill me. She would have written something threatening in my notebook or knocked all the books off of my shelf if she were evil.”

Eddie frowns. You’ve steered him around the store like you’ve never been here before, changing your mind after turns to go down the opposite aisle, murmuring about bottled water. He reaches for your hand on the shopping cart rail and can’t resist squeezing it as he pulls it away. 

“I got it,” he says. 

He swears that your expression flickers. Worry breaking through the closed shutters of your blasé. 

You’re not so chatty as you follow him toward the back of Bradley’s where they keep the big jugs of water. He grabs one, thinks back to the bad weather and grabs another. It’s unlikely that you’ll need them, but Eddie would rather be safe than sorry. “Do you have a lamp?” he asks. “An oil lamp? Or a flashlight?”

“I have a flashlight,” you confirm. “Is it really so bad? Uh, I don’t wanna ask again, but I– maybe I could–” 

Eddie wants to pull your face into his chest. He thinks about it. Would he have hugged you like that a year ago, before the butterflies and the late nights daring to think of the dough of your thighs or the column of your throat when you tip your head back? He might’ve. It would mean something different, but he might’ve. 

He throws an arm around your shoulder and gives you a good shake. “What is wrong with you? If it gets any worse, you’re staying with me. I’m only asking about a flashlight in case we have one of those worst case scenarios and get stuck in your haunted house. I refuse to die like the jocks in a b-rated horror.”

“The jocks or the whore? Isn’t it the girl who sleeps around that gets murdered in the dark?” you ask. 

“Super unfair. I sleep around, do I deserve to die?” he asks, dropping his arm. 

You mime stabbing him in the gut. Everyone's so violent. 

Eddie is amazingly unharmed as he gets you to the register. You try to fight him on who’s paying, but you’re an idiot who insisted on getting gas. It’s the leverage he needs to win. Out of Bradley’s and back into the rain with grocery bags double bagged, you run for the van and thrust the spoils of your shopping trip in the passenger seat footwell. Eddie opens the side door to lug the water jugs inside and you take the cart back to the front of the store against his wishes.

He waits for you to be in arms reach and gets back in the van. You’re soaked to the bone. He’s cold in three layers, so you must be freezing. He shrugs off his sopping wet leather jacket and then the zip hoodie underneath, draping the zip hoodie over your lap and chest and then rushing to put his leather jacket on again.

“Thank you, good sir,” you laugh.

He’s already fiddling with the air conditioning. Heat bursts from the left vent but not the right, leaving you in a cold bubble. “Shit, I’m sorry, the right vent’s still busted. Ol’ Beauville keeps letting us down.”

“Don’t hate on the Beauville!” you scold through chattering teeth. 

“You're dying,” he says. “Hold on, I’m gonna do ninety.”

“Do not speed!” 

You get to the road outside of your place without any hydroplaning. You live on a regular American street in a two-story semi-detached house not too far from Hawkins High school with your guardian, who isn’t home very often. It has three bedrooms, one bathroom, and a lot of white walls. You often lament that the house doesn’t really feel like your own, and punctuate with a giddy laugh he doesn’t understand but adores nonetheless. 

Eddie parks his van on the long gravel driveway as close to the house as he can get it and ushers you inside with your keys. You’re cold enough to listen without complaint. 

He puts the groceries in the kitchen on the countertops and kicks off his shoes, intending on putting them away when he’s sure you aren’t in any danger of hypothermia. He kicks off his shoes by the door, locks it tight, and starts up the carpeted stairs to your room. 

He’s not surprised to find you half-naked, but overfamiliar, affectionate friendship doesn’t necessarily mean you like being seen. He averts his gaze from your naked legs and tries desperately to think about anything but underwear. The more he tries not to think about them, the worse it gets. 

“Hey,” he says, covering his eyes so you know he isn’t perving, “our horror flick just got dirty.”

“Yikes,” you say. “Don’t look.”

“I’m not, I’m not. You could’ve closed the door. You know, spare me a guilty conscience.” Then, because he just can’t help himself, “When did you start wearing fancy panties?”

“Fuck off, Eddie,” you laugh. 

“Do I have to make the switch to tighty whities?”

“Our underwear choices do not concern one another.” You trek toward him. He peeks through two spread fingers and finds you thankfully reclothed in dry sweatpants and a sweater soft with age. “I thought tighty whities hurt your–” You raise your eyebrows. 

He regrets being honest with you when you were teenagers. A little secrecy might help repaint him in your mind as less of a huge loser. You could possibly find him attractive if you weren't privy to the numerous embarrassments that make up his life, he thinks. 

He chokes on his own tongue and dies right there in your bedroom. “Why do you remember shit like that?”

“Same reason you keep a heat pack in your room in case I get all crampy,” you say.

You give him one of your sick smiles —you have to know what you’re doing, you have to— and drape your arms over his shoulders, nearly knocking him down with the sudden addition of your weight. He, stunned, plants a foot behind himself so you don’t both trip and fall on your asses. 

The plane of your back beckons beneath your sweater. What he’d give to slip a hand under the hem to explore the ridge of your shoulder blade with his fingertips. 

A quiet ensues. Your hug turns from a joking attempt to push him around a bit to a real one. He steel-arms your waist, tightening them around you three times in quick succession, nose buried in your hair to steal a deep breath. 

“This where the ghost talks to you?” he asks, looking over your head into the chaos of your room. It’s not dirty, but it isn’t tidy, either. 

You sigh too much like a moan for his sanity and stand up tall, your hands trailing down his chest unthinkingly as you follow his gaze. “Yeah. I don’t know if we’ll hear her over the rain. It has to be really quiet.”

“What are you doing? Experiments?” he asks. He sounds as distracted by it all as he feels. 

“No. Something I noticed, is all.”

“I don’t get why you didn’t tell me the first time it happened,” he confesses, voice dropping to a murmur. 

“Um… remember senior year, you kept missing class because you had all those doctors appointments?” You smile sheepishly. “‘N’ you didn’t tell me about it until after you knew you were okay?”

During his first senior year, Eddie found a small cyst in his arm. Small compared to other cysts, large in his arm. He worried it was malicious, or rather Wayne worried and Eddie didn’t know what he thought about it until after they’d cut it out. It had been a thankfully speedy affair in a doctors office they couldn’t afford. Eddie didn’t tell you about it until he’d been all stitched up and tested — he tried, but then he would imagine the look on your face when he did, and it made him feel like his intestines had learned to jump rope. 

He still remembers when he finally told you, the split second between, “a tumour,” and “but it’s not cancer.” The relief on your face. The shock of upset tears it caused. 

“I guess I was trying to be good to you,” you say, shrugging and starting down the stairs.

Eddie follows. “If something like that happened again to me, god forbid,” —he dips into a melodramatic voice, scared of the sombre mood that’s descended— “I wouldn’t keep it to myself. I’d make it your problem instantly.” 

Every now and then, Wayne will lean over the back of Eddie’s chair at the breakfast table and grab an arm, feeling for a tiny bump that hasn’t come back. You’d done the same in your own way: you wrote ‘check for lesions :D’ on a piece of paper and taped it to his bedroom doorway. It fell off ages ago, but he occasionally gets déjà vu as he leaves the room. And as he walks down the hallway, he’ll roll up his sleeve and check that there's nothing there.

Eddie didn’t tell you senior year. A lingering abandonment issue, maybe, ‘cause Dad didn’t stay when things got hard, who cares? He doesn’t think about that shit anymore. Figures the mark it left was enough. But these days, he’d tell you if he found a lump in his arm, or a ghost in his room. Your scribbled note made sure of that. 

"Are you listening to me?" he asks. 

"You'd make it my problem," you provide. "Tell me something I don't know." 

He grabs you by the shoulders at the bottom of the stairs and blows into your ear. 

With the lights on and the radio at a low volume, the rain outside doesn't seem nearly as imposing. The kitchen is small with a long strip light above that gives the room a near clinical white cast, the countertops shining clean, not a plate in the sink. It's evident how much time you don't spend here. No photos on the fridge, no salt or pepper shakers on the table. Where Eddie and Wayne have their insane mug collection made up of states and hours and way too much money in some cases, you have four black coffee mugs in a tower stack by the seldom used machine. Where they have a corkboard of photographs, Polaroids and printouts from Walmart off of rinky-dink digital cameras, you have one photo on the wall, a professionally done portrait of you from the day you graduated and Eddie, unfortunately, did not. 

Eddie's grad pictures are much less robotic. Too much eyeliner but just enough you, he has his arm thrown over your shoulders in the back of a grungy restaurant, his smile blisteringly bright. He might as well have written 'Thank Fuck' across his forehead. There's another one of him and Hellfire Club at the time, blurry with the flash making him pale as snow. You and Wayne had been trying to make the camera focus, twin scowls on your faces. Eddie's expression was one of pure joy. 

He tried to make up for your shitty grad pics by celebrating your first job with a pack of Polaroids. You'd looked adorably strange in the uniform, so young but so done with his shit, eighteen and exhausted. He keeps one in his room in the bottom of the box with all his rings and chains. If you ever found it, he'd think about drowning himself. 

Your appointment with a ghost waits until after dinner. You pull your frozen pizzas out of their boxes and put them in the oven (you don't preheat, which Eddie thinks is a questionable choice, but he'd help you get away with murder). While they defrost and start to cook, you slice and dice your extra toppings on the wooden chopping board beside the stovetop. He stands there with his hands washed and nothing to do. Just watches you cut up jalapeños for him and thinks about how he's going to take care of you if the ghost doesn't speak up. Does he tell your guardian? You're an adult. All your healthcare would be private and confidential. Could he tell Wayne? Would that be a betrayal? 

"Check the pizzas?" You scrape the seeds out of a jalapeño, eyes pinched in concentration. 

Eddie doesn't know if he can eat. You aren't as out of it as you were at the store, but you aren't fully present. A song you love plays on the radio and it's like you don't hear it. 

He pulls the pizzas from the oven. He makes a smiley face out of pepperoni and jalapeños, earning half as big a smile as he thought he would from you in response. 

Together, you clean the small mess you made. The pizzas brown. When they're done you take them out, cut them up, plate them, and carry them up to your room on a tray with a two litre bottle of sprite and two plastic cups. Eddie changes into a pair of his pyjama pants that you keep at the bottom of your dresser before he sits on your bed, wide-eyed when he sees how many slices you've managed in his absence. 

"Nobody's gonna take it away from you," he teases lightly. 

"Can't be too careful 'round you," you say, dropping a crust onto his plate. It's his favourite part. 

"Thought you wanted fries?" 

"And I thought you wanted a side salad." 

"I wanted snow cone syrup," he says, shrugging. 

He considers offering to go make you some fries anyway, but he takes a big bite of pizza and it tastes so good he forgets about it. Eddie doesn't know nothing about nothing, but if he had a say, he'd make it so that he and you could spend the rest of your lives doing this, meaningless jabbering over greasy food. It's not a good idea —you need vegetables that aren't on pizza, and fresh grains, and who knows what else to stay healthy— but Eddie's never claimed he had them. He wants this. 

He gets it most of the time, but he's selfish. He wants it every night. He loves Wayne but he wants to come home to you, or to have you come home to him, in a space that you decorated, a life that you made. He wants a dog and a pet fish and, in five years or ten or never, a baby if it's what you want too. A front door lined with three pairs of shoes. 

He also wants a limousine that takes him from place to place and a room full of thousand dollar guitars. A man can dream. 

The first port of call for any dream is making sure you're okay. Let the ghostly stakeout begin. 

Sated and sick at once, Eddie puts your empty tray on the dresser and goes to turn on the TV. "She won't talk if the TV's on," you interrupt.

"Ugh. Any chance she likes the stereo?" 

You slouch down where you'd been sitting and shake your head. Your jaw goes soft, eyes softer when you smile. "It's not all bad. She doesn't care how loud you turn a page." 

Eddie can't be with you every second of the day, the same way you can't be with him. There are shifts to take, shifts to cover, dungeons to pilfer and dragons to slay. You have your job, your other friends (none as handsome as he is), your hobbies. How often are you home alone, talking to ghosts? 

He stands by your bookshelf, eyes skipping over the titles in slight disinterest. 

"Hey," he asks, "where's your notebook? I wanna see her handwriting." 

"I left it on the top shelf." 

Eddie stares. There are a few other notebooks and sketchbooks aligned here, but not the one you'd described. 

"You sure?" he asks. 

"I left it right there,” you say with a yawn.

Eddie looks at you from over his shoulder. You’re tired. He figures he can see the notebook later, and offer you some remedial comfort now. Anything to wipe the frown off of your face. 

He grabs a book off of your shelf at random and cracks it open. You love being read to. You'd beg and beg him growing up, and he'd almost always oblige. 

"Can I read aloud, or does she hate that too?" he asks, turning away from your shelf. 

"I've never tried it." 

"I'll do it quietly?" 

"Sure," you say, a tired but pleased smile on your lips. "I've read that one before." 

"Should I get a different one?" 

"No, it's good. It's the one I told you about with the demons who eat stars." 

"The dirty one?" he asks, dropping like a stone near the top of your bed, the blankets under his hip warm from the residual heat of the pizza plates.

"It's not dirty. There's one scene toward the end where they get handsy, no graphic detail."

"And by no graphic detail, you mean…" 

"No graphic detail," you repeat. It's awful how funny you find each other. 

"Not even, like… hand stuff?" 

"Do you want there to be hand stuff?" 

"With the demons?" 

You devolve into giggles, the kind that start slow and thicken into a giddy sort of breathlessness, your head supported by the headboard. Eddie looks up at you in awe.

"I could be into that," Eddie furthers, stretching your laughter as long as it will go. "Are they the kind that look like people but with extra arms or wings or something?" 

"You'd like that, huh? Extra arms?" 

"I wouldn't be opposed to extra arms."

"Gross," you cheer through another wave of laughter. "I don't wanna think about it." 

Eddie looks to the book's first page and tamps down a grimace. You don't wanna think about him in that sort of position. 

Eddie, excluding any extra appendages, thinks of you like that more than he should. Never when you're near, not if he can help it, but at night when the hot shower water beating down against his back can be shaped into the vague sensation of a body behind him, he thinks of your chest. Your hands. Or in the early mornings, when he's writhed into a contortionist’s ball and the streaking sunlight through the curtains is kissing his abdomen, he imagines it's your leg thrown across his hip, with your face turned into his chest. 

Fuck, it kills him, because he knows what the real thing feels like. He's had you clinging to his waist on colder nights, and he's been under your hands. Tipsy, free with your touches, he's felt the breadth of your palms cupping his cheeks. 

You're pretty, you'd told him, as you love to tell him when you've been drinking, but you need a haircut. 

He never would've let you kiss him in that state, but he kids himself into thinking you wanted to. It was only booze doing what booze does. 

"Read to me, serf," you demand. 

Eddie clears his throat. 

"The enemy is close," Eddie reads, "and the lane is overrun. Sympathy for the second kind had felt natural to Mellissa once, but now that she sees the sharp angling of their shoulders in the dawn light, she aches with hatred…"

The novel isn't bad. It isn't Eddie's favourite; the tone falls flat, and the main character's actions aren't fed by any particular emotion. Its first arc is formulaic, and soon the hero's forced to answer the call. You evidently find his rehashing tedious, as your head tips toward his head, and you wriggle your way down to his shoulder amicably. 

"Don't fall asleep," he says. 

"It's your whispering." 

"I don't want to disturb the ghost." 

"Okay." You start to pick at your nails, little scratches against the cuticle. "I won't fall asleep." 

— 

Your snores aren't gentle. You're a human being and Eddie doesn't expect you to breathe like a princess, but the wheeze is concerning. 

He waits for you to settle down, easing your head onto the pillow. Your airway clears, and your snoring quietens to the same ambient level as the rain hitting the window outside. He feels your head for a temperature carefully. Back of his hand, fingers curled in so his ring can't startle you, he tries to gauge if you're running a fever. 

It isn't normal for you to cat nap in the middle of the day, but the sun is occluded by dark clouds and the rain blots out what's left, leaving the bedroom in darkness, and you'd been warm and fed and Eddie had been doing something monotonous. It makes sense that you'd drifted off. Eddie wishes he felt tired too, so he could slide down under the sheets with you and curl a hand around your wrist. 

He lies on his back, arms crossed over his chest, straining his ears for the sound of a voice. 

I swear, sometimes, I can hear someone talking.

You have a vent in your room, and perhaps a couple of late nights after your shifts had you mistaking a groaning foundation or the wind for a whisper. That's a thing, right? People hear something in the wind. Fatigue has your mind playing tricks on you. Eddie should go to the library and see if they have anything to do with sleep deprivation. 

It's no fun listening for ghosts. Eddie's shoulders and upper back begin to feel tense. The feeling travels lower, a snaking ache that wraps around each vertebrae. Even his tailbone hurts. 

He shifts onto his side and stares at your closed eyes. He blows a breath at you to watch your lashes flutter like tufts of grass in the breeze. 

Your breaths are like a metronome. He syncs his to yours for kicks, just listening. When you're both asleep, does your breath sync on its own? How do your bodies react to each other? Eddie has woken up to your arms around him or your body halfway across the bed, leg falling out from under the covers. You're irregular, where he has a tendency to grab at you while he's knocked out. He doesn't wrap his arms around you so much as hold you in his hands. His fingers curl in the hem of your t-shirts or bracelet your bicep. If he falls asleep with an arm above your head, he'll occasionally wake to find his hand at the top of it, your hair mussed. 

He must be stroking it in his sleep. 

Or maybe you're frizzy. 

No shame in frizziness. Eddie's frizzy more often than not. Curly hair is hard to take care of and he has a lot of it. God knows it was worse before he started seeing that hairdresser in the city who makes magic happen with her thinning shears. 

Your lips part. 

Thunder cracks outside. 

Eddie lifts his head to look out of the window in surprise. Summer days have come to pass and sunset comes earlier in the day, fractals of light bouncing between the violent rain. In an hour or two, it will be pitch black outside. 

He should call Wayne and see what's happening. How he is, and if he thinks Eddie should come home and bring you, too. 

Eddie clambers off of the bed, careful not to wake you. He slides across your hardwood floor and takes the empty dinner tray with him down the spongy carpeting of your stairs, back to hardwood in the hallway, and finally onto the freezing cold linoleum of your kitchen. 

He locates the source of chill quickly. The window in front of the sink has unlatched. It's the thing you call him over for most; when you want to hang out you go to Eddie's, when the window won't close Eddie comes here. 

His shirt hikes as he leans against the sink, his abdomen pressed to the cold countertop as he yanks the window and twists the handle the wrong way, goosebumps climbing his arms. It groans in resistance, but Eddie knows from experience that it’ll stay closed for a while. 

He takes the liberty of turning your thermostat up as he waits for Wayne to answer the phone, coiled cord pulled taut.

Wayne isn't too bothered by the weather, "It's not a hurricane. A storm, sure– you'll be fine. But by all means, come home if you're scared."

"I'm not scared, jerk, I'm concerned." 

He winds the cord around his arm, leaning in when Wayne's voice is hard to hear like it'll make a difference. 

"...might go out," Wayne's saying, "call me, or call around Roger's… get back to… warm." 

"Where the fuck are you? I can't hear a thing you're saying." 

"Don't cuss at me. I'm with Roger, that's why I said to call Roger if I don't answer, he has that new pool table…" Anything Wayne says after that is garbled, like he has a hand pressed over his mouth.  

“I thought Roger had a broken leg?” Eddie says. “How’s he getting around?”

“He hops. I left money in the bread bin for you, did you see it?”

“No, I didn’t see it. Wayne, we’ve talked about this before, I’m working. I appreciate it, I do, but I don’t need you giving me money.”

Whatever Wayne says at first gets eaten by static. Eddie doesn’t know if it’s your phone or the Munson’s. He doesn’t need to hear what Wayne’s saying to get the general gist of it. “…water bill..”

This again? Eddie paid the water bill. He thought he’d be allowed to do that, considering he uses the majority of the water, but it’s been a great point of contention between them.

“I’m sorry!” he says. “If I knew it would bother you so bad I wouldn’t have done it. But I don’t want it back, I’m not a kid anymore, half the time you don’t let me pay for groceries–”

“This might shock you, son, but I’ve been paying for you to eat for a decade. I ever complained? No, ‘cause it’s my job, and I don’t want you thinking any…” the words scratch out. Eddie guesses what he’s saying. 

The broken phone is starting to irritate him. 

He holds in his argument. Call it respect, love, whatever you want. “I’m not saying that! Listen,” —Eddie laughs to himself, words wrought with it like bubbles— “you’re senile.”

“You weasel–” The phone gives up. Whooshing air is all Eddie hears. 

"I can't deal with this. I love you, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" Eddie asks, rubbing the space between his eyebrows. 

"Yeah, love you too, kid. Eddie–" 

He doesn't catch the end of Wayne's sentence. The line goes dead. He pulls the shiny receiver from his ear and frowns at it. 

Wayne was probably just telling Roger and the guys what Eddie was up to. Or what he thinks Eddie's up to, at least. Eddie told him via note that you wanted help rearranging your bedroom furniture. A small lie, but he didn't want to expose you to any outward judgement until he's sure himself what's going on. 

Eddie hangs the phone on the hook. He grabs your plates, throwing the meagre leftovers in the trash and dumping the plates in the sink. He turns on the hot faucet and grabs a sponge and the dish soap and gets to work cleaning. It takes him all of five minutes, and he's oh so smug about being a decent person that he doesn't notice the chill. 

He dries the plates and puts them in the cabinet across the room with his back to the sink. The dishes clatter together loudly, like a gunshot in the silence. He winces internally and tries to be gentler closing the cabinet door.

The hum of the kitchen light catches his attention. He looks up, unsurprised to find a bug crawling inside of the plastic covering that shields the long bulb. A moth, Eddie thinks, it's fuzz silhouetted in shadow. He doesn't really like moths, but he also doesn't wanna watch one die. 

The rain seems worse when he turns off the light. Your kitchen faces out into the backyard, and through the night Eddie can see the house that's behind yours with its porch lights on. It turns the rain to quicksilver, and provides just enough illumination for Eddie to look up at the kitchen light and know what he's doing. 

He drags a chair to the middle of the room and steps onto it. It's disturbingly slippery. Thankfully, Eddie doesn't plan on doing any acrobatics. He reaches up to the warm plastic light covering and feels along for the ridges to pry it off. One ridge clicks off, and another. He leans precariously toward the other side and feels for the third and forth ridge when thunder rumbles outside, and somewhere in the distance lightning flashes. 

Eddie flinches but doesn't fall. "Fuck," he mumbles. Pussy. 

The plastic falls into his hands and Eddie climbs off of the chair as quickly as he can. It's too hot to handle, banging against the kitchen table as he chucks it down. He'd turned off the light thinking the plastic would cool down fast, and he’d been proven very wrong.

"Shit," he mumbles some more. Your neighbour's porch light turns off, leaving him in total darkness. 

Eddie’s hand aches from his mild burn. It's like whenever he has to wash the frying pan at home, he forgets that while cold water might cool the pan itself, the slim piece of metal that connects the dish to the handle stays hot. He's burned himself so many times on that fucker– 

Lightning flashes again. 

There's someone standing in your yard. 

The second he notices the figure, it lunges left.

Eddie stands frozen on the spot, unsure if he should approach the window to get a better look, or if he should move backward and away from the potential harm. 

He takes a step forward. Mind in a numb state of thoughtlessness, he walks to your sink and stands there silently, looking into the grass and trees for any hint of irregular movement. 

Tree branches rail in the wind and rain. Eddie leans further forward. 

A third flash of lighting comes, and it must have struck close by, as the light it gives off is long and bright. He gets a clear look at the yard and the image of his own reflection in the glass. No dark figure in the tall grass toward the fence, no heinous murderer trying the back door. 

It’s dark again. Eddie puts a hand over the racing pulse of his heart. Fuck, he thinks. I’m seeing things. He’s on edge ‘cause of your fucking ghost, and it’s not your fault but he wonders if maybe loving you is making him tired. He regrets it as soon as he thinks it, what does that even mean? He’s loved you for years. It has never felt like a chore. But… tired. He’s tired. Pining for someone you already have, just not in the way that you want, is exhausting. It’s not your fault and it doesn’t change the fact that he’s exhausted. Today has been a long day. 

He scrubs his eyes with his palms until they burn and lifts his head. 

There’s a girl on the other side of the glass. 

Eddie startles, startles again when he realises she’s not on the other side at all, she’s behind him, outfitted in white like an apparition, like an angel. She’s inside the house, ten feet away in the doorway. 

His neck cracks with the force of his turn. 

“Sorry,” you say, taking a step back into the hall. “I thought you heard me.”

“Oh, shit.” 

You’ve turned the light on in the hall. Eddie turns back to the window and sees your reflection again, no angels and no apparitions. You’re just a girl. 

He half turns and gets stuck like that, hand braced against his eyes, torso pitching forward. “Shit,” he mutters. 

“Are you okay?”

Eddie laughs. “You surprised me. I’m fine,” he assures you, though he takes his time standing at full height. How can such a small scare feel like a marathon? “Creep, who fucking does that?”

“You were totally spaced, dude, don’t blame me,” you say, holding your hands up in mock surrender. 

“I do blame you. I hope you feel blamed. Fucking fuck, that got me.”

“I wasn’t being quiet. I yelled. You didn’t hear me?”

He can’t stop the dubiety that warps his face. “No? What’s your definition of yelling? ‘Eddie?’” he imitates you, tossing his own name into the dark kitchen. “Unbelievable.”

“What were you looking at?” you ask, nodding at the window. 

“Lightning.”

“That why you’re in the dark? Or have I interrupted something?”

“‘M moonlighting as a serial killer.” He grins at you. “Got me.”

You lean against the wall next to the light switch and turn it on, exposing the chair shy of his leg and the plastic cover from your light on the table.

“What the–”

“I’m doing a good deed. Or, I was. There was a moth at one point." 

You help Eddie clip the light back into place. He climbs back on the chair and you hug his legs to make sure he doesn’t fall either way, arms encircling his thighs and your face pressed comfortably to his stomach. Your cheek flush with the naked stretch of his stomach, his shirt hiked up as he struggles to finish what he started, he explains the moth, who, for lack of an escape, has probably found a home in your curtains or your coat rack. You laugh at his softness.

Back upstairs, you won’t let him read to you again, and the ghost monitoring continues on. Eventually, you both get bored and turn on the TV. Eddie forgets his fright, you forget your haunted house, and the night ends. You fall asleep against his shoulder, drool leaking from the corner of your mouth. He pushes you gently down into your pillow, and goes to brush his teeth with a snort. 

Eddie wakes in the morning with a crick in his neck. He feels better, having slept. All his monstrous yearning has fizzled out overnight, and he’s glad to find that the damp circle of dribble under your cheek isn’t cute, it’s gross. (Okay, it’s a little cute. He’s only human.) 

The window brags an end to the extreme weather. Rain nor shine reaches through your drapes; the morning looks mundane. He kicks your shin ‘by accident’ and waits for you to rouse, keeping a safe distance. He doesn’t wanna get his morning breath all over you. That would be inhumane. 

“Ouch,” you croak.

“It wasn’t that hard.” His voice is as rough as yours. 

“Not your kick,” you moan. “My throat.”

“You’ve been drooling again.”

You cover your face sluggishly and your pinky must feel the wet spot staining your pillow. 

“It’s embarrassing.” You dig your heels in at the bottom of the bed and pull your head off of the pillow so you can grab it and throw it out of view. Once it’s bashed against your mirror with a concerning glass sound, you pull the blankets over your face and sigh. “I’ll be here forever, if you need me.”

“Could be worse,” he says lightly. “Imagine waking up with a stiffy.”

“Did you–?” you ask, like you’re terrified to know but couldn’t not inquire. 

“No, but I have. You know I have.”

“True. That is… unfortunately awkward.”

“‘Xactly. Don’t feel weird about your spit.”

You don’t feel as bad as you pretend. Sure, it’s embarrassing. So is puking in your lap at the movies, or ripping your pants climbing over the fence into the woods by Forest Hills, or getting fired after two weeks from the Palace Arcade because the manager didn’t like your ‘general demeanour and/or presence’, all of which he’s done and you’ve been a witness to. He thinks you might be impervious to humiliation as long as you’re together. 

Eddie pulls the blankets over his head, pleased that the morning light reaches you even here. You’re curled on your side underneath them, bleary eyes meeting his from across the small stretch of mattress. You hadn’t touched him once while you slept. 

“I don’t remember falling asleep,” you say quietly. 

“We watched Poltergeist. You fell asleep with twenty minutes left.”

“Can you blame me? Snore.”

“You wanted to watch it.”

“It’s the only movie I own that has a ghost.”

You share a silent look. Eddie tries to keep a straight face and ultimately fails, his laugh roaring. You join in, half reluctant and half delirious in your fatigue. Your sleep-swollen eyes close like you can’t keep them open anymore. 

He stays under the sheets stealing looks at you for as long as he can, despite the building, smothering warmth. The day passes with much of the same. 

—

When you first started working at Leaven, Eddie called you a traitor. He said you’d made it impossible for him to show his face in Bradley’s. He’d been joking — the prices at Leaven are ridiculous, and completely out of the average joe’s budget. Bradley’s remains your go to for everything. He’s come around these days — he likes the fancy soups and admits Leaven’s has the best fresh fruit.

Despite the rich old women who frequent and make your workdays… less than ideal, you like working at Leaven. Your days consist almost exclusively of stacking shelves, but occasionally they chuck you on checkout and you get to sit in a padded chair for ten hours. You’re basically living the American dream. 

Working here has introduced a special brand of monotony to your life. It’s very, very quiet, and that’s how you like it. But there’s something to be said for noise, for Eddie and Wayne’s noise specifically. You like going there after work to shock your body back into the real world. Here’s sound. Here’s life. Here’s love. 

You’re scanning a bag of ‘holistic’ lemons when you notice Eddie lingering toward the front of the store a mere twenty feet away. You don’t wave at him, lest your customer think they aren’t the sparkling apple of your eye and report you to the manager, but you nod jerkily, hoping he takes it for ‘I see you’. He smiles and points his thumb toward the store’s cafe.

When your arms are numb from another twenty minutes of scanning and typing in coupon codes for people who don’t need coupons, you shut down your register and lock it all tight. You take your lunch break early, and thankfully there’s nobody in the cafe to yell at you for being unprofessional. 

You waltz over to Eddie sitting at the back next to the huge glass windows and prop your lunch bag against the coke bottle he’s opened. “Hello, handsome,” you say. 

“Hey, beautiful.”

“You want half of a turkey sandwich?”

He beams at you, kicking your chair out so you can sit. “Nooo, I brought you a hot dog.”

“Oh, gross. Give it to me right now.”

You know he made it at home before he’s even pulled the foil wrapped package from his bag. Eddie makes the best hot dogs ever. Fancy brioche buns, caramelised onions and a mixture of sauces on the world's worst meat. They make you queasy and they might be one of your favourite foods. You open it, delighting in its retained heat. 

His wrist is shiny. You put your hotdog down to grab his arm and bring it closer to your face. He’s wearing a simple tennis chain with black gems like a rich girl. “What is this?” you murmur, pleased to see him wearing something nice. 

“You like that? It was thirty four dollars from a magazine.”

 “I love it. What’s the occasion?”

“My mom’s birthday.” He fishes his own hotdog from his bag and slaps it down in front of yours. You take a huge bite, and can’t answer him when he asks, “Is that really weird, buying myself something when it’s a day about her?”

You steal a swig of his coke and wince the entire time. “Sorry.” You cough. “No, that’s not weird, Eddie. Wanting to buy yourself something nice is a good way of dealing with a shitty day. A day that makes you feel shitty,” you amend. 

“Maybe I should’ve got her a big bouquet of flowers or something.”

“You can still get her flowers.”

“Yeah.”

You take another bite of your hot dog and slip away to get a bottle of water from the cafe. You feel like an asshole for not hugging him. When you return Eddie’s already polished off his hot dog, and has moved onto one half of your turkey sandwich. 

“Are you gonna be weird about it if I hug you?” you ask him genuinely. 

“No.” He puts down the sandwich. “I don’t know. Maybe. I want one, though.”

You wipe your hands in a napkin showfully before approaching his chair. You slide a knee next to his thigh and wrap your arms around his head, a hand between his shoulder blades and the other pulling his face to your chest. You have to slouch. It's not entirely comfortable but it doesn't feel awkward, so you take the win. 

"I'm sorry, Eddie," you say quietly. You think about kissing his head. 

"Me too." 

There's a moment in there where you feel a nasty emotion brewing, sadness and much worse. You know that the gutted pain aching through you right now is nothing compared to what Eddie feels. That loss. 

It must feel so, so heavy. 

You pet his neck affectionately. Your nose dips into his hair, the tip touching his scalp. Your hands come up, like trying to hold water as it trickles between your fingers, Eddie's slipping. You grapple to keep him with you. 

"I love you," you say honestly. He's your best friend.

Eddie pats your back. "I love you too, loser." 

"You're my best friend." 

I would fucking think so, he'd say. 

"You're mine," he says. 

You smile and give him a good squeeze. When you pull away he doesn't look as odd as he had, relaxing against the hard-backed wood of the cafe chair as he tucks his hair behind his ear. He holds your gaze without any weight to it. You sit in your own uncomfortable chair and lean forward to compensate for the space between you, like two slanting trees in the wind, parallel but untouching.

"It's a really nice bracelet," you say. 

"She'd like it, I think." 

You don't know anything about Eddie's mom. She isn't someone he's ever been able to talk about with you. You can't remember the photographs you'd seen once upon a time, but you remember having the distinct thought that Eddie looked more like her than his dad or his uncle Wayne. She'd been beautiful, and her life couldn't be more starkly mourned. 

"I'm sure she would. It's pretty." 

His mouth wobbles. You're horrified for a moment, thinking he might burst into tears, but it's laughter he's chasing, and his little giggle is like a beam of sunlight. "Sorry," he says. Laughter doesn't seem like a good enough word to describe the sounds he's making, such understated, small curls of sound. Fleeting, golden. "She would've liked you, too. She would've loved you." 

"That's a good thing?" you check, cautious that he might be on the precipice of a nervous breakdown. 

"Yeah, that's a good thing. Is it ever bad? To be loved?" he asks.

He's teasing, but it feels like he's asking you something else.  

"You could be a stalker, with that logic." 

And there you go, ruining a moment with a shitty joke because you're too much of a coward to ask questions when you don't know the answer. 

Eddie grabs his coke, tipping his head back as he says, "Who says I'm not a stalker already?" 

Funny how the subtext of a conversation can contain magnitudes for one party and not the other. You worry you're in love with your best friend. He sips at coke and threatens perversion. 

"You're definitely a stalker. You couldn't wait a couple hours to see me tonight?" 

"I didn't realise I would be seeing you tonight," Eddie says, lifting his brows. 

"Oh. I asked, didn't I?" 

Eddie shakes his head. "Are you sure? I don't remember you asking, babe, I'm supposed to go play at Gareth's." 

Babe is his funniest pet name, in your opinion. It doesn't suit you, or him, but it feels good anyhow. Like you're a babe, supermodel pretty for TV or magazine spreads, long legs and not a single wrinkle that isn't marring the paper itself. 

"Bummer for me," you say lightly. "What are you doing, Dio tributes again?" 

"Don't say tributes like that, like we're out sacrificing goats in studded jackets." 

"That's a good image." You laugh. "That's funny." 

"I don't know. He wanted to try something he wrote. Invited Jeff and Jamison. Band's back together." 

"I'll get out my t-shirts." 

You have all the corny classics; I'm with the band; I'm with the guitarist; a Corroded Coffin faux tour shirt, different Hawkins locations written in typeset sharpie on the back. When you made it, Eddie had been wearing the t-shirt and the ink leaked through. He had 'Lover's Lake, Nov 18' between his shoulder blades and 'The Hideout, May 22' over his tailbone for a week. By day three the words had become illegible but you'd known them anyway, in the same way you knew the dots between the letters H and I were freckles rather than ink spots. You've always looked at him more than you should. 

"I could cancel." 

You and Eddie experience the natural ups and downs of friendship, or rather the ebb and flow. You know you come back together eventually if you get too far apart, and there hasn't been a time since you met him where you were worried about the permanence of your relationship. You're human, and you get insecure about it anyway, but then he says stuff like that and you're confronted with how close you are. He puts you first. He has other friends, other healthy friendships and a life outside of you, but you still get to be a huge and important part of the majority, and that is more than enough. (It should be more than enough. Some days it is.) 

"Now why would you do a thing like that?" you ask, sarcastic but soft. "You know they sound shit without you." 

"I don't like knowing you're alone." 

"I'm not lonely," you say. Truth or lie. 

"That's not what I said." Eddie's eyes narrow.

"It's stupid to worry about me, I always lock the doors. I lock the windows, even the ones upstairs. I don't think I'm gonna fall victim to a home invasion anytime soon." 

"I don't think many people think they're gonna be in home invasions until their homes actually get invaded. And it's not really what I'm worried about." 

"Do you ever think that we worry too much?" 

"Yes. We worry constantly. It's, like, our parasitic relationship with each other." 

"Like a tapeworm," you agree solemnly. 

"Exactly. I'm your tapeworm. And I'm worried about you."

"Can tapeworms worry?" you ask. 

Eddie kicks you mildly. "I don't know? I don't think tapeworms have a level of consciousness beyond what's needed for them to survive. They probably think about eating and parasitizing and that's it. Don't make me ask, please." 

You take a pull of your drink to prolong the inevitable. "Ask about what?"

"Your ghost." 

"Ah."

Eddie waits. 

You sigh again. "Look, I don't even know if she is a ghost, I probably just imagined it." 

He pulls himself forward and there's the weight you'd be waiting for, sternness marked into his face one feature at a time. "Liar." 

"What?" 

"You're lying. You don't think you imagined it." He looks you up and down. “You think I don't know when you're lying?" 

"I'm not lying," you lie. 

"You are. I know you are," he says, smiling despite the point he's making. "I know what you look like when you do." 

"What do I look like?" 

"I can't tell you, you might change it, and then I won't know when I'm supposed to look out for you 'cause you never tell me anything." 

"I don't want to talk about the ghost." 

"Why not?" 

"Because you don't believe me," you say too loudly. 

Eddie reaches across the table but doesn't touch your hand. He puts his palm down and leans ever forward, says, "Hey, I do." 

"No, you don't, you think there's something happening to me." 

"What would you think, if it were me?" he asks, frustration seeping in. "Try and see it from how I'm seeing it." 

"If it were you'd I'd believe you because you needed me to." 

You cringe at yourself and veer back into your chair, shoving your hands between your thighs and clamping your legs closed. Your fingers turn numb. 

Eddie doesn't look shocked, exactly. Surprised that you're talking to him unkindly, sure, and concerned. 

This whole situation is ill-fated, you know that. What good can come of a ghost? Hooks from the past. "I never should have told you," you say quietly. 

"Did you tell me?" Eddie asks, speaking with an anger that forms each word like a cut, clean and hurting. "You won't tell me anything. You tell me she talks to you, that she asks you about me. But you won't say what she says, exactly, and you have nothing to show for it. Your notebook conveniently disappeared. I can’t hear her."

He thinks you're making it up. 

Fuck. He thinks you're making it up. Eddie thinks you're lying to him, and while it hurts like a sharp kick to the solar plexus, a flooring, winding pain, it's the embarrassment that has tears glowing along your last line. If he really believes you'd make something up like this for attention, what does he think of you? That you're some silly leech clinging to him through bad lies? That you're bored? That this is a game you're playing with him? 

Your heart beats hard enough that you can feel it in your chest. Your hands shake with anger and hurt at once, your leg bouncing under the table in an attempt to keep the rush of it at bay. You look at Eddie with your lips parted, trying to say what you mean and not what you feel. You want to say something scathing, and you don't want to be cruel, and these are two facts existing at the same time. 

Eddie has other ideas. He sees your eyes turn glassy, he must, because his anger drains and he turns sorry and soft. It reminds you of a different moment like a film cell played overtop, of a younger, remorseful him. The expression he makes when he's just popped you in the mouth wrestling, or burned behind your ear with the hair iron. An accident. 

"I'm sorry," he says. Sheepish, gentle, sincere, embarrassed, too many threads of emotion to summarise with one word. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry. Don't cry." 

"Fuck off," you mumble, looking down at your bouncing leg. You push your hand against it, forcing it to lay still. 

"I didn't mean it." 

"Stop, Eddie." 

"I'm just hurt you're not telling me everything and I'm acting like an asshole 'cause I'm a big baby," he says, two shades from frantic. 

A tear rolls down your cheek. You thought for sure you'd escaped them, but it had already welled, and with nowhere to go it races down your cheek. You paw at it and hope he won't see it. 

He does. 

Eddie's chair screeches across the floor as he stands up. You know he'll hug you before he's touched you. Same way you know he's freaking out on the inside, allergic to girl tears.  

His hands take to your shoulders, hesitating there, and one slides behind your neck so his forearm presses against both shoulder blades. His lips ghost warmly over your forehead as he leans in. His other hand meanders, braceleting the top of your arm and running downward before swiftly changing paths to flatten out against the small of your back. 

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, rubbing your back.

His tender hug exacerbates the hurt, like an exsanguination. You cry as quietly as you can manage and Eddie feels it under his hands, the two of you condensed at the back of an empty room. You forget where you are, what you're wearing, what you've been fighting about. What he said. You realise how badly you'd needed him to comfort you lately, and hate yourself for giving in.

He shushes you so quietly you think you might have imagined it. 

Or maybe it was your ghost. 

"I'm sorry," he says, his breath kissing your scalp. "I'm a dick." 

"It's fine," you say. You despise yourself for how weak you sound. 

"It's not fine." 

"I wanted to stay because it's getting worse," you tell him. You don't mean to. 

"Okay. Okay. Then you'll stay. It's no biggie." 

"It's worse," you say, turning your face into his chest. 

You're shaking hard. Eddie can't make it stop no matter how tightly he holds you. 

"I'm sorry," he says again. 

He doesn't have to be. If he was acting out, fine. If he does or doesn't believe you, fine. You don't need him to see ghosts, or apologise that he can't. 

"I just didn't want to do it by myself," you confess, at the very pit of pathetic. You hope he won't hear. Your growing panic about the ghost is a secret you hadn’t meant to tell.

Eddie pulls away. He looks down at you, and if he wanted to he could kiss you, his lips are that close, but he widens the distance. He takes your face into his hands, calluses rough against your tacky cheeks. 

"You think I'm gonna let you? I know I'm fucking it up royally right now, I know I'm an asshole, but I'm not fucking going anywhere, okay? Don't worry. Don't worry about it." He drops his hands to your shoulders. "I'm your parasite, right? Do you know how hard it is to get rid of a parasite? Sometimes they have to pull them out, and they're excruciatingly long, it's a process you don't wanna go through–" 

You laugh wetly. Eddie promptly stops talking about parasites. 

"Forgive me?" he asks. 

You nod on automatic. Of course you do. 

"I swear she's real," you say, rubbing your forehead with the meat of your thumb. You think she’s real, but the truth is that you just don’t know. You amend quickly, "I swear I'm not lying. I am hearing someone… even if she's not real." 

Eddie frowns. "I know. I believe you." 

That's when the real trouble begins.

—

Eddie wants to hold your hand desperately. You're wearing your nicest dress, split hem sewn with infinite care, and your dress shoes with the tiny heels. He doesn't get to see you like this very often, and he wishes it were a better occasion. 

You've had your hair down at the hair stylists in the city, you're wearing concealer. You've done everything you can to look presentable. You look beautiful. He hopes you know that, at least. 

You heave a sigh. You're as anxious as Eddie is to get this over with. 

“You remember Hawk?” he asks you. 

“Jack 'Hawk'?” you ask. 

“Yeah, Hawk.”

“He’d come around for green?” you ask. 

“Yeah, that’s the one. Alright. So, when you were on vacation last summer, Hawk knocked on the door, I answered. I’m straight, right? Haven’t sold anything in years, no plans on selling again. But Jack barrels up the steps and starts going on like I promised him something. I said, dude, I don't deal anymore, and could you possibly shut the fuck up? Wayne’s inside making milkshakes. Blender on, couldn’t hear us but I’m sweating bullets.

“Jack, fucker, starts begging.” Eddie leans into your shoulder, hushed. “He’s saying c’mon Munson, I know you got some, don’t you have a personal stash? I’m desperate.” He picks a piece of hair off of your sleeve. “I didn’t, obviously, and I told him that but he’s not listening to me, he’s getting all wild-eyed and fucking wound like he needs the hard shit. I’m just trying to get rid of him at that point, I don’t know if he was tweaking but he looked like he was going to hit me and I wasn’t interested in fighting.” He laughs, encouraging a smile from you. “Wayne’s inside making milkshakes. Full fat with vanilla extract– I’m not about to take a trip to Hawkins General.”

“What did you do?” you ask. 

“I said to him, even if I did you wouldn’t be getting anything, asshole, and pushed him toward the steps, you know? It felt good, standing up for myself.” 

“And he left?”

“No, he fucking hit me straight in the dick. Can you imagine that? Junk shot on my own front door.”

You gasp with giggly indignation, hanging on his every word now. Eddie knows he’s taken you out of your head, even if it’s temporary.

“He hit you in the dick,” —you whisper ‘dick’ like it’s insidious within these four walls— “‘cause he wanted pot? You should’ve pushed him off of the porch.”

“I would’ve but he fucking winded me.” He starts laughing again, your giggles contagious though you try to smother them with your hand. “It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny at the time.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“He was five foot one. I’ve never felt that humble in my life, I told Wayne I was coming down with something and had the worst afternoon nap ever. Didn’t even get my milkshake.”

“No,” you mumble sympathetically. Your eyes widen. “Eds, I’m sorry, that’s not funny. He assaulted you–”

Eddie waves his hand at you. “He got in a cheap shot. I was fine. I’ll still have kids.”

You snort, “Thanks for the information.”

“I got him back for it, anyway.”

He pretends like that’s the end of that, like the story doesn’t go on and he has nothing to tell you. You wait raptly for him to explain but he gloats, knowing you're hooked. 

You elbow him. 

“What?” he asks. “Oh, you wanna know how I got revenge? You’re evil.”

“Less shame and more story,” you say. 

“Alright. Are you ready? Here’s where it gets complicated.

“I’m at The Hideout listening to that new band that blazed through here a couple of months ago, Board Growth, or something? They’re incredible, the booze is cold, I’m tipsy and Gareth owes me anyway, I’m putting it all on his tab and he, seemingly, isn’t noticing. It’s great. Better if you hadn’t been on vacation again, what the fuck, but it’s good. 

“And there he is. It’s the fucking Hawk. He’s looking down his nose at these young girls smooth-talking them. Or, he’s trying to smooth talk them, but it’s like watching a worm flirt with a praying mantis, okay, we all know who’s gonna lose.” Eddie’s knee rests against yours, your hand is on his thigh, he’s losing the thread of his story fast under the smell of your perfume and hair oil. “I knock back the rest of my drink, slick my hair like I’m James Dean and, in all my drunken intelligence, decide that this is the perfect moment for me to get him back.”

“I wasn’t on vacation.”

“What?”

“I only went once.” You’d gone for two days with some old friends. He remembers now, and rushes to fix the story.

“Why didn’t you come, then?” he asks, flipping the script. “You’re such a flake.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know when this was.”

“Stop bailing on me and ruining my stories,” he says, teasing. 

“Okay, you’re hopped up on liquid courage and about to hit Jack in the dick,” you prompt. 

“Right! I stroll up to Hawk and he’s instantly wriggly like the worm of a guy he is, and I say, hey Hawk, how’s it hanging? 

“Maybe he’s just that stupid or maybe he thinks I’m putting out the olive branch but he actually starts telling me how he’s doing, and I’m looking at these girls as if to say, can you believe this guy? I cut him off, and I’m a loser, I’m not half as cool as I think I am but again I’m slightly incredibly inebriated. I’m making bad decisions.”

“Where’s your cafeteria bravado?” you ask.

“It’s worse than that. Imagine me at my most insufferable. I smile at the girls and I lean into Jack’s space, I’m laughing, I feel bad about what I’m gonna say before I’ve said it but I say it anyways. I lean right into his ear and tell him at full volume how sorry I was to hear about his recent bout of syphilis. I’m just so glad they caught it in time, man,” he says, imitating a past self. 

You open your mouth. “And,’ Eddie says, jumping to finish, “so happy you could keep most of it, buddy.”

“Eddie…”

“I’m a bad person.”

“No,” you mumble, hiding your smile on his shoulder, your forehead a hair’s width from his chin. You’d laugh a storm any other day to make him feel good, whether you think he’s funny or not, but today all you can manage is a hand on his leg. “You’re not a bad person, he deserved it… fucking hit you…”

The story isn’t true. 

He made it up. Right here right now. He just spent five good minutes of your lives spinning an outrageously awful story with poor jokes and one glaring plot hole, for what? 

This is hard. Making you cry, begging you to see what a doctor has to say, playing grown up in a grown ups body. Eddie thought you’d get to be kids forever. He never imagined what would come after school, and then suddenly it is after, and everything’s an ugly boring mess except for you (and Wayne, god bless), and now you’re sick. The waiting room you’re in, the road here, the look on your face when he told you what he wanted from you. It’s all… heartbreakingly monotonous.

One doctor's appointment, he whispered across pillows. Late and neither of you asleep. The sound of cicadas outside and Wayne’s deep snore a room away. 

You nodded and closed your eyes, and you didn’t say another word all night. 

What’s the worth in a made up story? What good will it do? You have to see the doctor eventually. Distraction, Eddie thinks pleadingly. Relief. He just wants to give you as much relief as he can from what’s happening with the only thing he feels he has —his quick mouth. 

He stares at your hand on his thigh. He wills himself to raise his own and put it on top of yours. He channels his thoughts, like this is telekinesis and not his own body, move. Move your hand, he says to himself. 

It's a millimetre out of his pocket when they call your name. 

You shoot up like a stalk and smile at the nurse who's come to collect you. You don't look jittery anymore, but there's a distinct doe in the headlights look about you as Eddie watches you trail down the hallway into the doctor's office. You look back at him three times, and each time is a whip.

As soon as the door closes, he bends forward in his chair and heaves a sickly sigh. His nausea has him coughing into his hand and praying he doesn't throw up here. If they want you to go somewhere today, like a pharmacy for temporary medication, or the emergency room for a CAT scan, he can't be covered in his own vomit. 

A child babbles across the room. Eddie peeks at her through his fingers. She's pale with dark hair, much like Eddie himself, and her mom is the same. The kid's mom doesn't look like Eddie's mom besides that, but seeing her here in a hospital makes it impossible not to think of her. She's been on his mind so much lately. Her birthday is at the end of the month, and it isn't the same —she'd been in hospital for three brutally short days— but you're being here is like peeling the scab off of a wound he thought healed years ago. 

Mom was everything. She was willowy and beautiful and tough as a board. She was smart, she knew everything; how to make microwave pizza taste gourmet, how to make whistles out of blades of grass, how to make a bad day feel brand new. 

He wished he could say that he has her every detail committed. The cruellest, most terrifying thing about the people we love is that they aren't permanent, not their life and not what they leave behind. Over time, his mom has turned from an aching spear of love to a dappling of sunlight through the branches of an old tree — scattered. Beautiful and impossible and a thousand pieces in his memory, slowly fading over time. 

There'll come a day where Eddie can't remember her. He knows that. He knows his frame of reference for who she was will reduce down to her photographs, and the nearly empty bottle of her perfume under his bed. 

Eddie is haunted by her absence everyday. 

There is no corporeal apparition of her at his shoulder, no cool chill running down his spine, but he's haunted all the same. It's why he won't accept your ghost. It's why he can't. He knows what it feels like to have someone with him who isn't really here, and he won't let you suffer through the same thing. He'll protect you from this, from her. 

Even if it means he has to take you to doctors offices an hour out of town. If he has to bargain for it, and make you cry at work, and– and fucking drive this wedge between you, he'll do it. 

He needs you to be okay. 

He can't think about his mom anymore. He loves her, he misses her, but if he thinks about her too much he won't be able to stand up. 

Eddie sits up, takes a lungful of air in, and waits. He senses you as you come back down the hall, grateful for your dry cheeks, and your small, small smile. Tiny but irrefutably there.

He stands up and holds out his hand. You don't take it, but you walk into his side so your hips are pressed together and he falls into step with you. 

"So…" he says. 

"She asked if I was getting enough sleep," you say, "and I told her I was. I explained everything to her like I promised I would, even– even… I told her everything. And um, she seemed very open." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah, she– OK." You frown. 

"Listen, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I know I practically forced you to come, but it's still your life, and you can have privacy from me–" 

"It's not that. I just don't want to cry in here." 

He puts his hand on your shoulder, his arm folded against your shoulder. You don't speak until you're out of the doctor's office and weaving through people as you walk toward the parking lot. 

"She thinks I'm having auditory hallucinations. And that it could be an initial symptom of schizophrenia, or something else. She said it usually starts around my age, and–" 

"Hey, it's okay," he says, though internally he feels as distressed as you're beginning to look, horrified by your crumpling chin and wringing hands. "It's okay. You don't have to say it if it's going to upset you." 

"It might not be anything," you say, shaking your head. "She said the human brain is complicated, and sometimes stuff like this just happens. She wants to, uh," —your voice twists up very high— "see me again after I've had some sleep to see if it's persisting." 

Eddie nods. He's fucking glad that the doctor took you seriously, grateful for her advice and her reluctance to misdiagnose you with something. It's not as though Eddie wants you to be experiencing hallucinations. But he thinks you are, and he needs help looking after you if that’s the case. 

"Did she prescribe anything?" he asks. 

"A week's worth of ambien. She didn't really want to, but I told her about, you know, you coming over to make sure I'm okay, and I know that was because of the gh–" You bite your lip. You're shaking like a leaf. "Well, she thought it was you making sure I'm not an insomniac. Which I'm not." 

"I'm really proud of you," he says quietly. "I know you don't want this to be happening. I get it, I promise. I don't want it either, but this is a good thing." 

He can see you regaining some composure. You smile a little, and you offer him your prescription paper. "You know it only costs seven dollars for seven ambien?" 

"I could get you some for free." 

Your laugh startles him. "No, I don't think so." 

"I'm not offering. Just saying. I know a guy." 

"No, you knew a guy who knows a guy who could get me something ridiculous, like a percocet." 

"I'd never give you anything like that." 

"I know." You come to a halt. The cloudy weather paints you in shadow. "I'm sorry this is happening." 

"You're what?" He doesn't let you answer moving to stand in front of you. "Why would you apologise for this?" 

"Because it's my head," you say stiffly. 

"You didn't want this to happen. And– and it might not be happening at all. You'll try the ambien, and you'll take care of yourself, and we'll go from there. I wasn't trying to scare you… I wish I could brush it off, you know? I wish I could believe that you…" He takes you in. Your skirt and jacket are swaying in the cold wind. You look one sharp shove from falling over. "I get that it isn't like me, to not believe in the fantasy–" 

You save him from his miserable attempt at placating you. 

"I know." 

He licks his lips. 

"I love you," Eddie says as he starts toward the van again. "Let's go fill your prescription, and then I'll get you whatever you want to eat."

"Boys are so weird about I love you," you say, following. The light behind your eyes makes your teasing worth it. "You say it like you chewed on it first. Struggled to get that one out, did you?" 

It's not your best insult. Neither of you are exactly on form. 

"Just so hard to say it to you." 

You take what you perceive to be an insult on the chin. Only Eddie knows there's a sliver of truth in what he's said. 

You generously let him help you into the passenger seat. He's hopeful that your mood's improved until that wretched frown worms its way across your pretty mouth once again. You wait for him to round the hood and start the van before you explain yourself. 

"There's a support group. For anybody who's, um, hearing voices. Schizophrenics, manic depressives…" 

"Is that something you want to go to?" 

"I don't know. Can I be honest with you?" 

"Yeah. Absolutely." 

"I don't know if I believe that it isn't real. I know that's the point. The definition of hallucination is, uh… an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present, and so… it makes sense. My ghost isn't there, even if I think she is, so I must be hallucinating, but Eddie," —you shrink in on yourself— "I have this feeling that won't go away." 

He loves you. You're terrified. 

He's already guessed what you're going to ask for.

"Can we try again? Please? I'll take the meds and I'll go to the support group, but in the meantime, could you please come back and just– just listen. Maybe it takes a while for her to talk to someone else." You scrub your face. "Fuck. I sound fucking crazy." 

Eddie squeezes the wheel. "Don't say that. Don't say it like you've done something wrong. You didn't do anything wrong." 

People say crazy but they mean sick. They ridicule what they can't understand. 

He doesn't understand, but he wants to. He says, "If you want me to, we'll try again. I'll come over." 

You look up from your palms. He notices almost habitually that they're smaller than his. When you were young teenagers there'd been a short period of time where you'd been the taller one, with bigger hands and a bigger smile. Lately, you've seemed small. 

"Really?" you ask hopefully. 

"You came here 'cause I asked you to. It was hard for you." He turns his eyes to the road and turns the key until the Beauville's engine is thrumming with life. "I'd do a lot of shit for you, superstar. Like, anything. If you need me to keep trying then I will. And you'll–" 

"I'll keep trying too," you promise. 

It's all he can ask for. 

— 

The sky is all kinds of grey. It stretches like a sheet from one corner of your eye to the other, darker toward each limit of your vision, a gradual decay into colourlessness toward the very top where the sun fights hardest to burst through an impossible expanse of clouds. They seem thick as marshmallo, but where they begin is hard to decipher. 

Your eyes feel sore. You imagine a hand reaching for you, hitting you, pressing its cold knuckles to each bruised eye socket to calm the raging ache behind them. You hadn't expected to feel this way. It isn't the first time you have, but to feel so intensely unreal while there's someone still with you is new. You lean your weight against the sill and let your arms swing from the open window ledge, knuckles scraping the scratchy brick of the house's exterior walls, instantly chilled by the weather. 

A black band of birds burst across the sky somewhere leftwards. The pitch and tumble with no discernible formation. They're too far to hear. You imagine the flap of wings, their buoyed cawing, screeching to one another as they swim between pylon cables and their brothers spread wings. 

"What kind of birds do you think they are?" Eddie asks. 

You feel his weight settle into the ottoman beside you. You'd dragged it to the window with tired arms. You haven't felt up to anything since you got home, though Eddie's promise should've restored a little hope. He's going to keep trying to meet your ghost. You'll have to hope you don't get worse before that. 

You know, starkly, that you aren't having auditory hallucinations. You know, starkly, that your ghost had written to you in your missing notebook. 

But maybe that's the nature of your hallucination. A night bent over the pocket dictionary had ended as this one begins, with the crushing realisation that you cannot trust what you know. To put it plainly, you're afraid that you're mentally unwell. Terrified of how it’s going to change your life, the people in it.

Eddie's afraid too. 

Your orange bottle of pills glares like a flame to your right where it stands waiting for you on the nightstand. Eddie's made up your bed for the two of you. He could sleep in the guest room, and he never has. 

"I don't know," you say hoarsely. Your voice sounds as you feel, like something has its hooks in you, and it's dragging you down, down… 

"They're too big to be pigeons." 

"They're too dark. They're crows," you guess, tracing an outlier as he skirts the crowd of his family and spirals up into the air. 

Like a party trick, you expect him to disappear, or explode, or rocket up into the cotton clouds and out of view. He slows as he falls, and then he dives back toward the main swarm of birds as they migrate toward the horizon. 

There's a feeling brewing in you that you don't like. 

If you can't trust your own perception. If real isn't real. If you need someone to sit beside you and distinguish real from fake, if… if you're sick. 

If you're sick, what does that mean? 

You search for something in the air to hold onto. 

Eddie hums softly, his hand pushing out into the static as he points toward the glowing clouds. "Sun's going down slow." 

You raise your hand and wrap it around his. It isn't enough. You force your fingers between the gaps of his, just a little longer, thicker, solid, and lock him in. He feels real. That's the key. As far as you know, hallucinations don't carry that far. Bugs crawling over your skin and through the strands of your hair, an itch you can't scratch, a drop of rain from a concrete ceiling, the brain can recreate these things. But the exact width of Eddie's palm or the feeling of his calluses against your loveline, your lifeline, and the heartbeat that bumps against the meat of your thumb when you focus, that's impossible. That's a level of precision the human brain can't find. 

Right? 

Eddie curls his thumb around yours. You can feel his gaze on your cheek like a breath blown between parted lips. You turn toward him, and you catalogue every little mar or mark, every fine hair. His wrinkles, his textured jaw. The strands of a fallen curl come apart near his eye, grown out bangs kissing the highest point of his cheek.

You're panicking. There's a thumping behind your eyes. 

"I don't know if you look right," you say. 

"I look very right. I'm extremely handsome," he says. 

You hold his hand out of the window, worried you'll drop it, and it'll fall. 

If Eddie were at home tucked into his double bed a mile away, she would've talked to you by now. Your breath shortens as the meaning behind that thought solidifies. 

She only comes when you're alone. Why do you think that is? 

She's not real. 

Is that how it works? Can hallucinations, auditory, visual, or otherwise, take place in the company of others? You know next to nothing. Maybe they aren’t so common with loved ones standing guard. 

You push your head out of the window again and look down at the flat, dying grass in the backyard, a yellowing carpet of bluegrass. Bluegrass is prominent because it can grow anywhere, like mould. With all the rain these past few days, the grass should've livened into a plush and solid green, like the lawns in the southern side of Hawkins where the rich people lavish in sprinklers and gardeners alike. It remains rumpled.

Eddie rubs the back of your hand. It's far from the closest you've ever been. There have been nights you spent unawares in his arms, waking with your face tucked into his neck, so embarrassed you couldn't look at him afterward. But it's the most intimate touch you've ever endured. The whorls of his fingerprint embossing itself into your hand, a quarter circle that doesn't cease. Time feels brief and unsteady. 

Eddie must realise you're having a bad moment. He shuffles closer to you, your arms twined, his hair tickling your shoulders. It snaps you back, in a way, with its softness. 

"Let's go to bed," he says when the sky's more charcoal than light. 

You're cold. You follow. You latch your hand in his and he doesn't say a word, closing and locking your window with one hand, pulling the sheets of your bed back deftly for you to climb in. You slide across to the outermost side and he follows, leaning over you to pull the sheets to your chin. 

He stays hovering there. 

He holds very still. 

"Everything's going to be okay," he whispers. 

"What if it isn't?" 

"It will be, you…" he trails off. He keeps your hand in his, but he plants his elbow on the other side of you, like a lover about to share sweet nothings, his face so, so close. "You'll be okay, no matter what happens." 

"I wish she'd told me more," you say. 

"The doctor?" He draws a small, careful line across your cheek with his index finger. "Sweetheart, we'll find out everything there is to find." 

"I want to know how scared I should be. Because this feels like torture." 

"You don't have to be scared." Eddie smiles, and as far as you can tell, though you're having trouble trusting yourself, it's one of his genuine smiles. "Why do you think I'm here, huh? It's not to watch as something bad happens." 

You lift your chin. He's too close to look at both eyes at once: you have to choose, and you can't. Your irises dance back and forth between them, shuddering in indecision. 

"You'll look after me," you say, not a question. 

He turns his hand, stroking down the length of your cheek with the backs of his fingers. They feel much softer than the undersides, the flat of his nails like silk. Your eyes burn as you free your hand from his, hoping he'll be kind with that one, too. 

"I'll look after you." 

You tuck your hands behind the trim of his waist and, knowing you shouldn't, let them feed into his shirt. You draw a shaking line through the downy soft blanketing the small of his back until your finger is skipping up the jutting bumps of his spine. It's like climbing a staircase by touch alone. You wonder if anyone else had ever done this to him, if they ever wanted to, and if he'd let them. 

Eddie releases a breath. Warmth feathers along your skin. 

His hand strokes down to your neck, resting at your collar. Half a second and his petting returns, the side of his thumb brushing your soft jawline tenderly. 

He must feel you swallow. His pupils travel down the whites of his eyes like the steady descent of the setting sun. 

"I can't," he says softly.

Can't what? you want to ask. You don't know if you should. You know the answer, but does he?

"You're not all here," he says, hand paused. He cups your cheek, holds you in place. You hadn't been moving. "But when you are, I could. I could."

"I don't know if I…" you drift off. How can you explain it to him? I don't know if I'll feel better any time soon. 

His eyes move sideways, as if the instruction for your reassurance lay somewhere in the apple of your cheek. 

You don't want him to kiss you if it's a fixative meant to soothe your rampant nerves. You want him to kiss you for a hundred reasons, but that's not one of them. You're not sure he wants to kiss you beyond that. 

He would, you realise. Kiss you, if he thought you wanted it badly enough. That's a lot of power to have over someone, more than you want over him, and you can't ask him to. You look away from his eyes and search upward, trembling hands and the starts of your forearms pressed to his back, hiking his shirt up one inch at a time. 

He sits up agonisingly slowly, in the same way the sky has fallen from light to dusk; inchingly, so as to escape notice, until suddenly you can't feel the emanating heat of his chest against yours anymore, and the only light inside of your room is a yellow band sliced by the ajar door. 

Your hands fall back. One under the sheets, one over. Eddie sits where you lay, his hands at the crook of your elbows. He gives symmetrical, superficial massages to each. 

The life has been sapped from you, as if it were tied to the sun sunk beyond the horizon. A brutal fatigue sets in. 

"You should take your ambien," he murmurs. 

"Okay." 

The eye tattooed on his arm seems to follow you as he reaches for your seven dollar bottle. He twists off the cap and shakes a single pill out for you, and you watch as the lines of his arms start to blur. 

You take your pill, lying firmly in the middle of your pillow, and wonder if now would be an appropriate time to burst into panicked tears.

"I'll look after you," Eddie repeats after a while. Or maybe he doesn't. The weight of the day and the helping kick of your medication pulls you under. He lays down next to you carefully, his hand searching under the covers for yours. 

And there, standing in the corner of the room, is your ghost. Real. Stunningly, terrifyingly real. 

You can’t open your mouth wide enough to warn him.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

end of part one! thank you so much for reading, I really hope that you enjoyed! this was my baby and such a labour of love in April and I’m so happy now to share it :D if you have the time, please consider reblogging, it means so much to me and I’d love to know your thoughts on the story so far <3<3

[reasonsforhope]

Flint, Michigan, has one of the [United States]'s highest rates of child poverty — something that got a lot of attention during the city's lead water crisis a decade ago. And a pediatrician who helped expose that lead problem has now launched a first-of-its-kind move to tackle poverty: giving every new mother $7,500 in cash aid over a year.

A baby's first year is crucial for development. It's also a time of peak poverty.

Flint's new cash transfer program, Rx Kids, starts during pregnancy. The first payment is $1,500 to encourage prenatal care. After delivery, mothers will get $500 a month over the baby's first year.

"What happens in that first year of life can really portend your entire life course trajectory. Your brain literally doubles in size in the first 12 months," says Hanna-Attisha, who's also a public health professor at Michigan State University.

A baby's birth is also a peak time for poverty. Being pregnant can force women to cut back hours or even lose a job. Then comes the double whammy cost of child care.

Research has found that stress from childhood poverty can harm a person's physical and mental health, brain development and performance in school. Infants and toddlers are more likely than older children to be put into foster care, for reasons that advocates say conflate neglect with poverty.

In Flint, where the child poverty rate is more than 50%, Hanna-Attisha says new moms are in a bind. "We just had a baby miss their 4-day-old appointment because mom had to go back to work at four days," she says...

Benefits of Cash Aid

Studies have found such payments reduce financial hardship and food insecurity and improve mental and physical health for both mothers and children.

The U.S. got a short-lived taste of that in 2021. Congress temporarily expanded the child tax credit, boosting payments and also sending them to the poorest families who had been excluded because they didn't make enough to qualify for the credit. Research found that families mostly spent the money on basic needs. The bigger tax credit improved families' finances and briefly cut the country's child poverty rate nearly in half.

"We saw food hardship dropped to the lowest level ever," Shaefer says. "And we saw credit scores actually go to the highest that they'd ever been in at the end of 2021."

Critics worried that the expanded credit would lead people to work less, but there was little evidence of that. Some said they used the extra money for child care so they could go to work.

As cash assistance in Flint ramps up, Shaefer will be tracking not just its impact on financial well-being, but how it affects the roughly 1,200 babies born in the city each year.

"We're going to see if expectant moms route into prenatal care earlier," he says. "Are they able to go more? And then we'll be able to look at birth outcomes," including birth weight and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions.

Since the pandemic, dozens of cash aid pilots have popped up across the nation. But unlike them, Rx Kids is not limited to lower-income households. It's universal, which means every new mom will get the same amount of money. "You pit people against each other when you draw that line in the sand and say, 'You don't need this, and you do,' " Shaefer says. It can also stigmatize families who get the aid, he says, as happened with traditional welfare...

So far, there's more than $43 million to keep the program going for three years. Funders include foundations, health insurance companies and the state of Michigan, which allocated a small part of its federal cash aid, known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Money can buy more time for bonding with a baby

Alana Turner can't believe her luck with Flint's new cash benefits. "I was just shocked because of the timing of it all," she says.

Turner is due soon with her second child, a girl. She lives with her aunt and her 4-year-old son, Ace. After he was born, her car broke down and she was seriously cash-strapped, negotiating over bill payments. This time, she hopes she won't have to choose between basic needs.

"Like, I shouldn't have to think about choosing between are the lights going to be on or am I going to make sure the car brakes are good," she says...

But since she'll be getting an unexpected $7,500 over the next year, Turner has a new goal. With her first child, she was back on the job in less than six weeks. Now, she hopes she'll be able to slow down and spend more time with her daughter.

"I don't want to sacrifice the time with my newborn like I had to for my son, if I don't have to," she says."

-via NPR, March 12, 2024

[thewertsearch]

GG: Dad has the whole house in full fatherly lockdown mode. Talk about blowing a few measly "assassination attempts" way out of proportion!

I'm just picturing the Tiaratop whispering in the back of Jane's mind, making sure she stays asleep.

Isn't this all so normal, Jane? Don't we love how normal your life is? Your father's such a worrier, isn't he, Jane? But we know this is all so, so, normal.

GG: [...] Did you ever track down the slippery Mr. Strider? [...] GG: I'm debating whether or not to enlist his help in the matter of my current imprisonment. But I'd rather keep it as a plan of last resort.

I don’t know what kind of solution Lil' Bro would have to Jane’s Homestuck status, but I don’t think I want to see it. He'd probably try to burst her doors down with a tidal wave of Smuppets, or something.

GG: Right. Well, not to keep you too long, since we both still have our missions ahead of us, but I wanted to tell you about that dream I had. [...] GT: *Whips up bucket of freshly popped corn.* [...] GG: Ok, but, I should say that the nature of the dream was a bit worrisome.

I might not know everything about what's going on in this timeline, but I can say, with absolute certainty, that nothing in those clouds was ever going to be good news.

Let's get into it.

Unlike John's first foray into Prospit, Jane's dream self appears to be fully awake.

This was initially a little confusing to me, because the above quote from Jade seemed to imply that waking one's dream self involves acknowledging your destiny as a Player. Jane, however, is furiously looking away from that destiny - and yet, she's up and about, which is the opposite of what you'd expect.

Upon reflection, though, this actually makes a lot of sense. After all, Dream Jane isn't wearing the tiara, so her thoughts aren't being influenced the way they are on Earth. Jane might be prevented from acknowledging her destiny while awake - but, at her core, Jane does accept that she's a Player.

GG: Are you sure you haven't woken up there before? GT: Haha i WISH.

And Jake, despite being completely immersed in Sburb lore, is not awake. It's a lot harder to make this one make sense, which might be a sign that I'm wrong about how Dream Selves work.

I suppose you could argue that Jake, despite all the information he has access too, still doesn't really understand what's going on. He has a lot of data, but lacks a true understanding of his role - so he sleeps.

...nah, I don't think that fits. After all, we just watched Jane completely fail to understand the Nannalore, so by this logic, she shouldn't be awake, either. I guess we'll revisit this conundrum once we're more familiar with Jake's personality.

[altkys]

=͟͟͞͞➳❥ 𝙉𝙤𝙬 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜... 𝙊𝙣 𝘼𝙘𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙗𝙮 𝙉𝙞𝙘𝙤 𝘾𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙨 [ 𝘼𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙤𝙨, 𝘾𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙣 ]

Since my first x reader/oc post on my other blog (@xoxokys2hugs) was about my latest obsession: Leo Valdez, its only fair that my first x reader post on this blog is dedicated to my first obsession: Karma Akabane

Warnings include: mentions of blood and injuries, implied making out

❝ Oh, I'll never see it coming, but I know we'll crash 'Cause when we're with each other, yeah, we move too fast And every time I think about the consequence I swear I only fell for you on accident ❞

Karma Akabane doesn’t have an interest in romance and dates for fun, but only scarcely.

He goes up to you one day — a person he’s said about four words to — and asks you out. He lays his intentions out clear: a need for bail if he ever gets arrested, to piss someone off, to win a bet.

It’s all very superficial. Which is why he’s surprised when you say yes, and gets offended in turn when you admit to being surprised it’s not for anything physical.

“Thanks for saying yes, it’s real helpful.” He drawled, flipping one of your pens like he would to a knife. 

“It’s fine.” You snatched it back. “I’m just surprised you didn’t ask to hook up or something.”

“What.”

“What?”

Karma, who shows up at your house and stumbles in late at night, saying it’s your job as his loving partner to bandage him up, and teases you all the while.

“Just so you know,” he started, playing with a strand of your hair idly. “I’m not actively looking for your body. Just that you’ll back me when I need it.”

“Fine by me.” You shrugged, hand moving to his collar. A tight squeeze resulted in more cracking from the dried blood-soaked fabric. “Not ‘actively’ looking?”

“Not actively.” Karma almost didn’t respond, too busy being lost in the moment. 

Your eyes were captivating, even from just a few centimetres away. Admittedly, he should be more intimidated than he was: the way your eyes were so sharp and calculating even in an arrangement like this— it was the look of a predator in its natural element. 

You hummed as your free hand tilted his head left and right, probably inspecting the various cuts that marred his pretty face. “Really?”

Karma raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m capable of lying?”

“You came looking for me covered in blood.” You said curtly, rolling your eyes. “I’d hope you’d be able to accomplish that at least. But for this, I guess you’re telling the truth about not wanting my body.”

‘You guess,’ Karma mused, biting his lip to stifle a chuckle.

“Don’t get me wrong,” He said, his tone dropping in volume as he leaned closer. They were almost touching, his face hovering over yours. “You’re one hell of a looker. If you’re offering physical, I’ll take ‘em anyday.”

Karma, who sits with you on the school roof. It’s late at night, but hanging out with him has gotten you alright with breaking more than a few rules (though you lament the fact that it’s being used to enter school again)

He shifts just slightly closer, paying no mind to the wind threatening to steal the straw from his strawberry milk. Your warmth is comforting in a way, something he hasn’t really experienced before. It was almost sickening how much he craved it. How he had walked into this trap his own heart set up with free will.

“Why’d you even bring me up here?” You sighed, kicking your feet as you sat on the edge, leaning against him. Karma wrapped an arm around you, looking more serious without his usual smirk.

“Just wanted to.” He shrugged, poking your cheek. “It’s romantic, ain’t it?”

“It’s a school.” You deadpanned. 

“My lover doesn’t appreciate me.” Karma whined, resting his head on your shoulder. It was an oddly domestic gesture— at least in his mind. Being this… touchy. It was unlike him. His hands itched into a fist, but he didn’t feel the need to punch like he usually did. 

“You’re right, I don’t.” You rolled your eyes.

“Harsh.” He chuckled, chin digging into your shoulder as he pouted, his free hand tugging your arm. “You’re supposed to be nice to lovers, babe. Don’t you know that?”

Of course, he didn’t know too well either as he grabbed your chin, forcing you to look at him with a smirk that looked way too pleased with himself.

“Y’know,” He mused as his thumb rubbed against your bottom lip. “I’ve been having a bit of a problem lately.”

“Yeah?” Your hand ran up his shirt, pulling him down just slightly by the collar. More gentle than he ever deserved, closer to you than he ever thought he’d be. “Like what?”

It was a little fast. Only a week into his first fake relationship, but somehow, he found he didn’t mind. Not because he actually loved you— more of your company, of feeling liked and supported. In all honesty, when Karma stayed up late at night, thinking about where this would go, how it would end, he wished you never met.

But that felt like a far-away wish right now, with the way you held him close. Karma had to bite his tongue to stop the warmth creeping up his neck, engulfing his ears. The whole ‘touchy’ thing was a little embarrassing.

“Can I?” He asked, disregarding your question. Specifying was a waste of time, with the way his eyes were locked on your lips. “Please?”

And, surprisingly, you obliged immediately. Fingers tracing his neck, pulling him in to close the gap. Kissing Karma felt different from normal. It was as if every feeling was heightened. 

He was slow, tentative and soft. A hand on your cheek, the other one on your waist, holding your body tight to his. Karma was a good kisser. A really good kisser, especially without his usual teasing. He pulled away to breathe, mercury eyes searching your face before he was back to savouring the moment.

It was only when he stumbled home — lips marred with red that for once wasnt blood, and a taste in his mouth that definitely wasn’t strawberry milk — did he groan, banging his forehead against his door.

“I swear I only fell for you…”

[blorger]

So, picture this:

Here I am, sat in an internet-less room, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for time to crawl ever so slowly by. For lack of a better alternative, I start flipping through the pages of Chamber of Secrets and I notice A Thing.

"My, how peculiar" I say to myself, fully intending to let The Thing be, but alas; time moves slowly, boredom persists and, not unlike the tell-tale heart, The Thing calls to me.

"Come," it beckons, "notice me further". "Compile some data" it begs, "that's surely the most productive way to pass the time"; like a moth to a flame, I am caught.

This, dear reader, is how I found myself tallying all the different ways the word "mudblood" is used in canon. So gird your loins and let me introduce you to

The Mudblood Chronicles, or what's in a name?

part 1: methodology

Since the purpose of this exercise is to analyse the use of the term "mudblood" as a slur, I'm not going to count the times in which the word is not being used with malicious intent. Throughout the books this happens on several occasions, those being:

during the course of the narration (it happens once in the context of "everyone present knew mudblood was a very offensive term")

when Harry uses the term, since it only happens when he either recalls someone else saying it (one time with Draco and once with Snape) or he's forbidding Kreacher from using it (twice).

when Ron uses it; it happens once to explain the slur's meaning and once (in conjunction with Ginny) to demand Kreacher stop using the term.

when someone is quoting themselves. Draco quotes himself to Dumbledore once ("you care about me saying mudblood when I'm about to kill you?"; incidentally, it's also the last time he ever utters the word)

I am counting instances in which a muggleborn character uses the term to refer to themselves, since it happens in the context of reclaiming the insult and I am interested in who the author chooses to highlight thusly.

part 2: the results/ WHEN

The word "mudblood" and its plural "mudbloods" are used as an insult a total of 62 times in the Harry Potter books. Here we can see the book by book breakdown:

Unsurprisingly, The book where "mudblood" is used the most ( a total of 34 times) is Deathly Hallows since it takes place during a war about muggleborns. Chamber of Secrets, where the term is introduced, follows with 10 mentions, after which is Order of the Phoenix (7 mentions), followed by Goblet of Fire (6 mentions) and Half-Blood prince (5 mentions). The term "mudblood" is not used in either Philosopher's Stone or Prisoner of Azkaban.

part 3: the results/ WHO

So who is our biggest culprit?

Draco Malfoy is our uncontested lead, having both the advantage of appearing in all books and of orbiting around our narrator. Both Bellatrix and Kreacher make a good showing, with Bellatrix's 6 times being especially notable since they all occur during the course of Deathly Hallows.

Let's break this down further, shall we?

Despite introducing us to the term, Draco appears to scale back his usage of the slur as he ages.

Before partaking in this experiment, I was under the vague impression that, in the wizarding world, "mudblood" is seen as a childish insult. I can now see why: in times of peace (i.e. before Voldemort's resurrection), Draco is the only person in Harry's day-to-day life saying it and he himself peters off in the usage of "mudblood" as things get more serious. To Draco, it appears, "mudblood" IS a childish insult, and we'll see further proof of this at a later date.

part 4: the results/ HOW

Let us now look at how the term is used:

Unsurprisingly, the person "mudblood" is hurled most often at is Hermione. As a main character, she is the most visible muggleborn in the narrative and, if that wasn't enough, she is more often than not the only muggleborn present, even when it doesn't make much sense (Hermione is the only known muggleborn member of the order of the phoenix, an organization whose supposed aim is the fight for muggleborn rights.)

There are no known instances of the word "mudblood" being used to refer to any other muggleborn student during Harry's time at Hogwarts. Lily Evans is the only other school-aged character who gets the dubious honor of being a "mudblood".

Let's break this down further and look at who people are referring to when they say "mudblood":

*= Walburga's portrait never directly addresses Hermione, she only alludes to the presence of various filth (muggleborns, blood traitors, werewolves..) in her home. That said, Hermione is the only muggleborn we ever see in Grimmauld Place so it must stand to reason that Walburga is referring to her, just like she's indirectly referring to Remus Lupin when she mentions werewolves.

**= Both Hermione and Lily use the term mudblood to refer to themselves in an attempt to reclaim the slur, they both do it twice.

***= Our only "other" is mr Ted Tonks, who Bellatrix only mentions in order to disavow when Voldemort talks about Remus and Tonks's marriage.

Interestingly, the only people who ever refer to Lily Evans as "mudblood" to her face are Severus Snape (one instance recounted three separate times) and Lily Evans herself. Voldemort uses the insult when talking about her with Harry long after her death.

Of further note, our only written "mudblood" comes by courtesy of a ministry pamphlet Harry finds in Diagon Alley, heavily implied to have been written by one ms Dolores Umbridge.

part 5: a brief interlude/ Draco's language

Draco refers to Hermione as “Granger” 13 times and, while their interactions often consist of him talking about her blood status, he uses "mudblood" instead of her name only 4 times. Furthemore, there are 4 additional times where he uses both mudblood and Granger (as in "that mudblood Granger").

The very first time Draco mentions Hermione in the books occurs during this exchange with Lucius:

I find this interesting because, even in private, his first instinct is to use her given name. It's only after he is scolded by Lucius* that we get our first "mudblood", in a scene where he is once again feeling threatened by her.

*= Guess who never utters the word "mudblood"? Lucius, that's who.

part 6: conclusion

I am not a linguistics expert, I cannot tell wether JKR uses the slur she made up in a way that mimics real world slurs. What I can do with the data I compiled is try to track various characters' attitudes towards muggleborns in the books by looking at what they call them.

People whose views remain unchanged (Voldemort, Kreacher, Walburga) remain consistent with their usage of "mudblood"; Draco, who grows up as the books progress, scales back. Snape only ever uses the word once, in the past, and the incident is retold multiple times to signify its importance.

As the situation in the wizarding world worsens, more people feel emboldened to use an otherwise taboo term, as seen by how most one-off utterances of "mudblood" take place in book 7, during wartime.

Finally, I would like to note that we only ever hear two muggleborns' (Lily and Hermione) opinions on "mudblood" as a slur, the rest of the time it's mostly purebloods (and the occasional half-blood) telling us how to feel about the insult; I find that very interesting.

There. Now all this useless information is out of my brain and into the aether, where other nerds can ponder on its significance while this nerd here sleeps the sleep of the truly righteous.

xoxo

[wonderfull-star]

I noticed a rather interesting detail in Horrortale comic.

When the comic first started, some of the characters looked a “little” different. And no, it’s not just about the art style, I think.

Papyrus

Big difference, don't you think? Previously, Papyrus was portrayed as simply out of his mind dummy under the guise of a terrifying monster. Later, he began to be portrayed as much more sane and now he looks and behaves far from being “just a dummy”. What if this is how Aliza saw him? And Papyrus looked much more scarier because she didn't trust him and was afraid of him(well it's clear why).

Sans

Everything is more complicated with him. Since in Aliza’s vision Sans was no longer changing externally, but internally. I mean, unlike Papyrus, Aliza saw him as he “really” is (that is, the same way other monsters and his brother see him). But with the exception of his behavior. Flowey warned Aliza not to get too close to him, which she did. Of course, over time, she still managed to get to know him a little better. And if earlier she portrayed him as a crazy maniac from whom you should stay away, now she sees him as just as terribly hungry as the others, who can no longer restrain himself and secretly wants this madness to end. She understands him and therefore in the last parts of the comics she tried to help him and the rest of the monsters.

Drunk Bunny

Probably the only one who has changed more than the others and, moreover, in reality and not in Aliza’s vision. If you look closely, before both of her eyes were “drunk”. Now one eye has become normal, meaning that she has begun to look at everything that is happening “more soberly.” Which is not surprising, after all, after Aliza stood up for the monsters from Snowdin, hope arose in her again..

Politics Bear

It seems that he just became happier (in reality). In Aliza's vision, she imagined him as the same monster mad with hunger as the others. Previously, in her vision, his teeth were more crooked and his gaze was distraught. Now Aliza sees him even more “bright” than he really is (well, his teeth can’t be that straight?). The bear is happy now. It seems hope has arisen in his soul again..

Aliza really is quite a unique person. In fact, she has a surprising amount of determination. Even when she dies or is in the most hopeless situation at first glance, she always finds a way out. Now I'm really interested in what will happen next. Still, she had enough bravery and kindness to stand up for ALL the monsters in Snowdin, even despite the fact that many of them tried to cook her alive. Aliza is truly have very strong soul. I think that many other people would have fled Snowdin long ago in her place. I think that one of Aliza's goals is to make the monsters regain hope and at least some sanity. Simply put, at least somehow try to establish relationships with them and maybe even make friends. She was able to gain trust from the monsters at Snowdin and it looks like now it’s time for her to go to Waterfall.. And this will DEFINITELY not be easy. Considering WHO might live there.

Now I'm wondering if we'll ever see Gaster in Horrortale comic. 🤔