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sinnamonrasinslut · 4 years

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The Ease With Which We Hurt [I] ICorpse Husband x Fem!ReaderI

A/N: You guys. I have never simultaneously loved AND hated a piece that I wrote. I really don’t know how I feel about this, but I promised myself last year that I wouldn’t overthink my writing, so here we are. This is part one of most likely four, but we’ll see about that. Thank you to everyone in my inbox who gave me ideas to turn this into a multi chapter fic! They’re all coming, I promise :)

SYNOPSIS: Corpse loves her, she loves Corpse. But both of them are too dumb to realize it, and too afraid to admit it.

It started, like most good things in his life, out of the blue.

He met her three years ago. Well, not met, but befriended her three years ago when her podcast was just taking off. He remembers sending her a DM about how great her work was, remembers her being gracious in her praise of his own narrations after and he remembers talking to her well into the night until she fell asleep. The rest, to Corpse, is history.

And yet, all he knows of her is a voice, a name, and the prettiest eyes he’s ever seen. she chooses to wear a mask every time they FaceTime, just for the formality of the entire ‘faceless’ situation. She’s told him she thinks it’s ironic, how she feels like he knows her inside out, and she’s still afraid to show him her face. It’s not like corpse can blame her. She doesn’t even know his name, let alone what he looks like, and it’s a miracle she hasn’t filed him away as some no face creep by this point.

But she hasn’t. She’s still here, after three years of being her friend, and almost a year of seeing her eyes and convincing himself that she’s his friend, damnit, she’s still here. It’s already a lot more than he can ask for.

He’s been holding himself back from falling in love. Or rather, he’s been in love for as long as he can remember, but he's been adamant on denying it; because he knows how this goes. It’s never gone well for him in the past. And he’s not ashamed to admit that he’s afraid. But sometimes, she tells him things that make his heart break, just out of the realization of how absolutely fucking stupid he's being, holding back from her.

He’s convinced that when he dies, she’s going to be the light at the end of his tunnel. That heaven means nothing more to him than a place in her world, however small, however insignificant, as long as he gets to see her eyes for the rest of eternity.

Every part of corpse tells him that it's love. But he tries to push it away, suppress his own feelings till he's nothing but a walking contradiction, overflowing with voices that only say her name.

But he’s tired. And he's scared. Because he’s been down that road before, opened himself up to people who haven’t liked what they saw and left with pieces of him he’s not sure how to tape back. He’s unsure if he's willing to let her try.

So, he settles for a small corner of her world, a little piece of her existence that gives him life, and every time he talks to her, hands flailing as she animatedly tells another story, he pushes the yearning to the back of his head till it crawls down and clings to his windpipe, unsure and immeasurable, and he can’t speak anymore without choking. But then she says things that make his heart jump into his throat, and then he’s choking but for entirely different reasons.

“What would you do if I was gone?”

He doesn’t mean it like that. Well, he does, a little bit, but his brain isn’t taking over every part of his body trying to convince him he’s unwanted, so he doesn’t mean it like that. He’s only curious, maybe in need of a little reassurance. And nobody does reassurance better than her.

She doesn’t say anything for a very long moment. Corpse knows the gist of her impending answer but the pause still blooms unnecessarily in his chest. But it’s not like they haven’t done this before.

“I’d write about you.”

“Huh?”

She only huffs a laugh at his confusion. She pulls a blanket closer around her and props up her phone to rest against what he assumes is a wall.

“You’re not easy to forget, Corpse,” her voice is soft, truthful without flattery, provides comfort without justification. “if you were gone, I’d write about you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, that’s the least I’d need to cope.”

It’s not what he thought he’d hear, but it’s becoming increasingly clear to him that it’s exactly what he needed. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

“Besides,” she continues, hair falling in her face as she adjusts the blanket, “there is no place for me in a world without you in it.”

And he physically feels his heart stop and clench in his chest. The thought of meaning this much to anyone, to her in particular, is more than he knows how to handle. So, he doesn’t follow that up with a quip, no teasing laughter, no suggestive, exaggerated winks that only he can see. He only lets himself bask in the warmth of her honesty, lets her smile at him in that way only she does, the way that makes him freeze and ache and crumble.

He chooses not to talk after that, settles for listening to her tell stories about her childhood. Her voice is the purest thing he’s ever heard, he’d hear her talk till the world ended if he could, and the sweet lilt of her voice lulls him to sleep hours after she’s hung up the phone.

He doesn’t get to talk to her for almost two weeks after that. He misses her a little, but he keeps that to himself, and instead, tags her under dumb twitter memes and sends her pictures of cats that he’s saved specifically for times like these, and another video of two geckos fighting on a tree captioned ‘u and me’ .

There’s no place for me in a world without you in it.

The words wrap around his ribs like a noose, tightening by the second. Some days, when his heart is fast enough to beat out of his ribcage, it grounds him just as much as it hurts. But when she’d said it to him, it passed through him like a train wreck, distorting all semblance of control he’d convinced himself he had.

He knows it’s ridiculous, but he loves her. She’s only a voice through his phone and eyes on his screen and he has no clue what the rest of her looks like, but he’d be damned if he lets himself deny it one more time. He loves her. And that’s the most terrifying thought he’s ever entertained.

It doesn’t take long after that realization takes root, for him to send her a picture. He doesn’t let himself think too much about it. Taking pictures of himself is still new to him, but he tries his best. Don't think about it too much, he reminds himself, and unsurprisingly, it's her voice in his head that does all the soothing. He captions it something stupid, more out of habit than anything else (my hair makes me look like Dora the exploraH), with his name across his forehead and ‘Dora’ in brackets beside it.

Momentarily, he wonders if he’s ever asked her if she even wants to see his face. (He has, and he distantly remembers her agreeing as long as he’s comfortable with it.)

He hits send before he has the chance to stop and think.

Then he waits.

Her response is quicker than he’s prepared for, her name flashing across the facetime request on his phone. He’s giggling before he even picks it up.

“CORPSE, WHAT THE FUCK!”

For a very long moment, they just stare, taking each other in. This is his endgame, corpse thinks, he’s never going to need to show anyone his face after this, nothing, no one will matter as much.

With a jolt, he realizes that she’s not wearing her mask. He can see her, all of her, and that on its own should be enough to take him out.

And then she smiles.

If there was any doubt in his mind before about how head over heels he is, she’s taken it out of his mind and stomped it to the ground. He’s not the poet in this friendship, but he’s assured he could write entire paragraphs about the way she smiles. And he tells her exactly that.

“I’m curious to see how that would fit with fine lass nice ass cat ears and she uwu,” she teases, eye twinkling with mirth, “but I'm sure you’ll figure it out.”

He’s both amazed and amused at how quickly they go from fawning to bantering. But perhaps that’s the thing about her that feels so familiar.

“I will write a song about you baby, don’t tempt me.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a confession,” he shrugs, suddenly shy, unsure of where to lead with this. Thankfully, she interjects before he has to say anything else.

“That’s an awfully bold confession for a man called Corpse.”

“I’m also awfully alive for a man called Corpse, but you don’t see me complaining.” Awfully alive and not enough husband, he wants to say, but he keeps that to himself.

“You complain about being alive everyday, Mister Husband,” she counters and Corpse groans, dropping his head into his hands.

“I say that to you in confidence,” he grits out, playfully glazing at her.

“You also tell about a million people on stream, I’m not special,” she laughs.

“You are very special to me.” His voice is soft, shy, almost afraid to tell her the things he’s saying, “I did say I’d write a song about you. Pretty special if you ask me.”

She hums, taking a huge gulp of water and nodding enthusiastically.

“Correct, me, the cat girl and the e girl. What’s the next single, Corpse? Faceless Girls are ruining my life?”

“You’re a rascal,” he chides as a familiar warmth settles around his heart, and grips.

“It is one of my finer qualities, yes.”

Distantly, some part of his brain registers that this is the first time he’s seen her, but there is no sense of hesitation in his head about her. It feels just like it always has, with her on the phone saying the silliest things, and him responding with equal enthusiasm. This is the way they’ve always been.

While she talks, hands animatedly moving around, Corpse allows himself a small moment of reprieve to think. He knows he loves her, but he wonders briefly if it’s too soon to be in love with her (he concludes that probably it is, given that she remains unaware of his feelings, but he finds that it doesn’t really matter)

Because while Corpse loves her, he’s sure he doesn't know how to love her. Doesn’t know her favourite flowers even if he knows her coffee order by heart, doesn’t know her ideal date even if he’s memorized every poem she loves.

The meanest parts of his brain tell him she deserves better, and he knows they’re wrong. But a small part of him can’t help but dwell. He’d rather have her and her unnecessary hand movements in his life as his friend than not at all. So he pushes away his feelings for another day, and just listens to her talk.

Corpse is perfectly content with that.

#corpse husband x reader #corpse husband imagine #corpse husband imagines #the ease with which we hurt #coco writes #friends to lovers #we love that trope in this household #if you reblog with stuff in the tags i WILL read it and cry #also if u reblog it with ur favourite part quoted i will cry #i just will cry thats a personality trait lmao #Sometiems i feel like the continuity of his chapter feels rushed #but idk i dont have the patience to fix it so i wont

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beholdme · 3 years

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All the Many Shades of Gerry - Chapter 9

Chapters: 9/19

Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist

Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Gertrude Robinson, Elias Bouchard

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Library AU, Librarian Jon, Artist Gerry, Trans Male Character, Trans Martin Blackwood, Canon Asexual Character, Asexual Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Ace Subtype - Sex Positive, Polyamory, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romantic Fluff, Falling In Love, Boys in Skirts, Kissing, Demisexual Gerard Keay, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Canon-Typical Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Flirting, Minor Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Adventures in Hair Dying, Happy Ending, Banter, Gerry has a lot of sass, Gerard Keay is Morticia Adams, Jon is a very grumpy Librarian, Martin adores them anyway.

Summary: In which Gerry is a kaleidoscope and Jon and Martin can’t help falling in love with him.

He happens to love them back.

Find it on Ao3

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

On a Tuesday in the middle of November, not long after Gerry's 28th birthday, the three of them eat dinner at Gerry's flat, as they often do these days. Jon cooks for them and after, Martin and Gerry wash the dishes and debate the book they both just finished reading.

Jon has been twitchy all evening, so they leave him to read his own book in peace.

He wanders in at one point, leaning against the counter. "Gerry, do you know what day it is?"

Gerry looks over at him in such a way as to indicate that he really doesn't.

"Our six-month anniversary?" He tries.

"No," Martin pipes up, "That's not for weeks yet."

Jon and Gerry both look at him askance. "What? Your boyfriend starts dating another man, you remember the date. I can't believe you two don't know." Martin says as if that about covers it.

"Nevermind that." Jon snaps, and even with his previous moodiness, the others are taken aback at his blunt words and even harsher tone.

"Something wrong, Jon?" Gerry asks quietly, leaning against the opposite counter to Jon and crossing his arms. His tone suggests what he actually wanted to say was 'Do we have a problem here, bitch?' but he manages to reign the actual words in.

"I want to know why you left without saying goodbye." Jon's words are filled with a multitude of frustrations, none of which are actually conveyed in his limited words.

"Yesterday?" Gerry asks, incredulous. "You were asleep!"

"No! Not yesterday." Jon snaps back. "When we were younger. It's been ten years today since you disappeared off the face of the planet."

"Oh," Gerry responds quietly, his defensive posture dropping. He leans his hands back on the table behind him, bringing his shoulders up around his ears. It’s a rare display of confident, edgy Gerry trying to shrink himself.

"I thought we were, you know. Together. Then one day you were just gone! As if you had never existed. Your mother wouldn't tell me anything at all, just sat there smirking at me, said that you were gone and she didn't know when you were coming back, or if you were ever coming back. Which you never did, actually." Jon has been pacing, his voice rising with each new word until the final words are shouted accusatorily into the space between them.

Gerry knew Jon had wanted to talk about this since the day he walked in the library and back into his life. He had waited, been patient, and Gerry had put it off in the hopes that he would never have to choke the words out. Now, that patience was obviously over, and he knew he owed Jon this explanation.

"We were together Jon. I loved you."

"So why? What did I do so wrong, that I got to wake up one day and find you gone ?" Jon's voice has become desperate, and they can all hear the tears that he is trying to hold back.

"Don't say that. You didn't do anything wrong. We weren't perfect, but we were always so good together. I... I had to get out of there. And I couldn't leave any clues behind, so I couldn't tell you anything, because it wouldn't have been safe for either of us." Gerry reaches towards Jon to soothe him, but he flinches away and Gerry doesn't pursue him.

"I don't understand." The tears have come, and Gerry desperately tries to hold back his own when he sees them.

Martin had up until that point been standing resolutely in the corner, trying not to interfere in their pre-Martin argument. At the advent of tears, Martin moves to stand at Jon's back, gripping his shoulder for comfort. Gerry looks bereft and Martin holds out a hand to get him to come closer as well. They huddle all together, both Jon and Gerry taking comfort in Martin's steadiness.

Gerry leans into Jon, sliding his hand around his neck and pressing their foreheads together. "I'm so sorry, love. I've never forgiven myself for just disappearing on you. I thought about you every day."

"I love you," Jon whispers as Martin rocks them both gently. "But I need to know."

"I love you too." Gerry shuts his eyes and wishes more than ever to erase his shitty legacy of pain and blood.

Martin drags them to bed and offers to leave them alone to their talk.

"Please stay," Gerry says, grasping his hand. "You both need to know, and I don't want to have to talk through this twice."

So they all pile into Gerry's bed together, sitting in a vague circle like teenagers at a slumber party.

As Gerry starts to talk, Martin drags him over toward him and begins braiding his dark blue hair. It's both an offer of physical comfort and affection (easily Gerry's main love language) and a simple way of letting him off the hook for eye contact.

With Jon staring at him quite intently, Martin doesn't think he needs any further pressure.

"Jon, you-" He starts and then halts abruptly. Jon reaches over and grasps his hand, attempting to further ground him. "You remember my mother. I know you saw how, how just off she was. Manipulative and controlling. By turns demanding and completely uninterested in me. One day I would be free to run wild for weeks at a time, the next she would have a meltdown if I wasn't exactly where she wanted me, every second of the day and night." Gerry blows a breath out, shuddering at the memory of a particularly bad incident with a vase that had left him needing several stitches over his left eye.

"Well, she wasn't always like that. I remember her being a pretty good mom when I was young, if distant. She was always far more interested in being a wife than a mother, and she loved the way my father adored her.

“When I was 7, my father was blinded in an accident at work. I remember the day the phone call came. She spoke very calmly to the hospital, before hanging up the phone and shattering every picture frame in the house." Martin is finished with Gerry's hair and simply leans into him, offering silent comfort. "He coped okay with his new disability actually, and I liked helping him learn the world again with no sight. My mother never recovered from her initial breakdown though. She was angry and petulant that she needed to help and support him for the first time in their entire relationship and became more and more unhinged over the course of a year.

"One day I came home from school to find a puddle of blood soaked into the floor of the living room. She said there had been an accident and my father wasn't coming back. She hit me for the first time when I cried. She told me that I was a man now, and tears were for useless girls and disgusting… Well, you get the picture."

Gerry pauses and glances between them. A few tears have started to run down his face, but he doesn't seem to even notice them.

"We moved a few days later, and that was all I ever knew about my father's death until I was eighteen, almost ten years later. I'll spare you the horrid details, but as I'm sure you've already guessed, she murdered him. She explained very, very graphically what she had done with the body, and that she would never be caught, no one would ever think to blame her, even if anyone could ever prove that he was dead at all."

The words hang heavy in the air between the three of them. Gerry feels the comfort of their touches, but can hardly stand the affection anymore. He gets up off the bed and goes to look out the bedroom window, arms crossed and posture hard.

"Then she looked me right in the eye. And she told me that was exactly what would happen to Jon if she ever caught me with him again."

Dead, cold silence fills the room.

Gerry turns back around to find them both watching him. "So, I packed whatever I could fit into my duffle bag, and I got the hell out of dodge. I ran. I ran because I couldn't close my eyes at night with seeing your face white and cold and covered in blood and," he breaks off and takes a shuddering breath, covering his eyes and sinking to his knees. "And I couldn't stand that she would hurt you because of me. That all your light and potential would be ripped away from you in blood and pain and nothing I felt for you could make even the risk of that worthwhile."

He lifts his head to look up at them, where they’ve moved to the side of the bed towards him. “And do you want to know what the worst part is, actually? I can’t get over the idea that even though I haven’t seen Mary Keay in 10 years, the ghost of her demons lives inside of me. That I'm really just… Her. That one day my mind will snap and I'll be a danger to you both and I'll be the one hurting you, just like she hurt him. And then I'll just be the same monster who has always haunted my dreams."

Martin and Jon exchange a heavy look. They can scarcely believe that Gerry had endured so much and yet is still… Gerry. Happy, flirtatious, loving Gerry. Gerry, who fills their lives with colour and spontaneity, always showing up when they least expected him, pushing himself into their gravity and asking for space in their lives.

Despite the rather violent nature of Gerry's confession, it doesn't change anything for either of them. Things are not yet settled between them, but they curl around Gerry on the floor and they cry together over shattered innocence and sacrificed futures, and Jon promises himself that he will never let Mary Keay come between him and Gerry ever again.

#the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #gerry keay #jongerrymartin #fic #also on ao3

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thenotetoselfpod-hq · 3 years

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“The answer is yes if you were wondering if y’all were spoiled. Whew, Chile. Don’t ask me for NOTHIN’ else.” Zion chuckled sweetly as she dramatically cleared her throat. “Lets get into it. Welcome back to another episode of the Note to Self podcast where we talk all things self care of the body, spirit, mind, work ethic, sprinkled in with a whole lot of motivation to carry us into a new day. I am your host Zion Taylor and with me in my makeshift studio is my lil baby who listens to all of my problems, my boss friend THEEEEE Brilliant O’neal.” Zion air claps as she smiles over at Brilliant. “How are you on this lovely day, mama?”

“Hey, hey, hey! I’m so excited to speak to the note to self listeners all over, it’s been fun listening in and making my own input here and there but wheww being here feels so rewarding.” She said warmly before playfully exhaling. “I’m doing good, managing like I usually do but good nonetheless. How are you?! What jewels do you plan on dropping for the people today?”

“I’m probably doin’ a little less good than you since you’re managing but girl .. I cannot complain at all. So thankful to have you here for this episode and to just catch up. We’ll get into the tea of it all a little later. We start every episode with a brief recap and I wanted to thank everyone, again, for all of the love. I hope you all were inspired to really keep killing shit in the industry that you’re in and watch the doors open up for you. Last weeks top listeners were the beauty that is known as @royalnike who spoke about her Black Owned Mechanic business and the short term goals that she has for herself in that business. Of course you, Mrs. Brilli Dis, founder and owner of The Glamour Parlor, and the beautiful @syxrai, who I’m obsessed with on IG by the way, but who also is a film producer ALL shared your short term goals which inspired me tremendously. If you missed out on that go give it a listen and drop your own goals in the comment section.

Music is the only thing that gets me through my week sometimes. This week is on you because Channing is still pressed about Good Days so that shit rings in my head every day because of her.” Zion laughed, “What have you been listening to this week? Any new music you wanna share? Put us on.

Brilliant cracked up in laughter at the mention of Channing. “That baby got taste, because that’s my jam! But this week I’ve been on my Gangsta Brilli, I’ve been playing A Gangsta’s Pain by MoneyBagg on repeat. I think his track with Jhené is the perfect vibe, so if y’all need something to vibe to, with a nice little glass of wine, One of Dem Nights, but the whole album bops.”

“Okaaaay. Now see I haven’t always been a MoneyBaggYo fan up until his songs started getting airtime on the radio. I’ma definitely have to give that a listen once Channing is done boppin’ to her fave.

And that brings us right into the TEA for the day. I’ve known Brilliant for several years now and I feel like I’ve only known her as this amazing business women, wife and mother. We both know how crazy it can be going from Hashtag Living Single to Mommy Duties real quick once you’re married and have wifely duties, etc. How long did you know your Husband before you two decided to make it official AND tie the knot? Was marrying young something that you were open to or did it not matter? What’s that young love story you can’t wait to share with your kids?” Zion smiled as she looked over at Brilliant.

“So I always tell people that me and my husband’s love story is literally crazy, and I don’t think it could’ve happened any other way. Because were short on time, for the real how we met tea, watch our YouTube video! But..I think we dated for about a year before I got pregnant and just because of the type of man he is and how in love we were, and how happy we were when our son Justice was born, we got married when he was about 3 months. I honestly didn’t see myself marrying that young or having children..and my life did a whole 180. I just thought damn I’ll probably hate it here but when you have that person to make those defining moments with..it was a breeze and I found myself being happier with my little family than when I ran the streets. I don’t think marrying young is for everyone but when you make the right decision..man the moments you’ll create..priceless. Still a hot girl though, don’t get that twisted.” She said with a playful laugh.

“EXACTLYYY. I have to remind Lex all the time when he sees me playing dress up in my boots and coochie cutters that mama BEEN a stallion, okay?! Hot Girl Summer me, please!” She laughed, “No but seriously the feeeeels. I’m obsessed with the love you two have for each other. It’s infectious. But I’m sure it hasn’t always been cupcakes and rainbows, right. Y’all, shit gets real after the wedding and the vows and even after that honeymoon phase. I know for me and Carmelo, I’m more of the opinionated one and I really had to learn to step down and let my man LEAD our home. We were pregnant before the wedding ... liiike ya girl had her dress taken OUT 4 times before I was satisfied with how my hips looked in it.” She chuckled, “You said something so special, when you have that person to make memories with you will DEFINITELY not want to live a single day without them and expanding that love into children only makes it better. Melo was trying to get me pregnant BEFORE he proposed to me and I wasn’t having it because at the time I was dealing with fertility issues and having a baby seemed damn near impossible. I always say that he spoke the life of our son, Lexington, into existence because I didn’t think that I could physically carry.” She stated, smiling again at the thought.

“I remember you alls last video where you announced the pregnancy of my other child, Jewel” She chuckled, “Um, what was the experience like for you? Having to go through all that you did for the blessing that is currently your literal shadow. She looks like her Daddy but has your everything else. What was that like?”

“That’s your child for sure.” She said with a laugh. “It was actually on the difficult side, she’s my rainbow baby. I suffered a miscarriage and some issues with fertility so I actually got pregnant with Jewel through IVF. I adore her, it’s scary having a mini version of myself. Someone who’s with all my hair, makeup and nail antics because my son Justice is not with it at all! He won’t even let me take his picture half the time.” She laughed momentarily. “I know it’s the same way with you and my baby Channing”

“I can imagine it being extremely difficult. When God’s mind is made up we can only pray that He’s included us in His plans and when he made Channing? He definitely had me in mind.” She laughed. “I still don’t know how we got so lucky but I don’t question anything. She’s obsessed with all of my clothes and hair and everything in between.”

“The last thing I wanted to talk to you about is what’s been going on in the media with Porsha, Falynn, and the Husband who I don’t even know his name yet. So Porsha Williams brought onto the Real Housewives of Atlanta show her friend Falynn a few years ago. Maybe like two seasons ago. This is someone who was also featured on this last season of the RHOA show that was filmed in 2020. Apparently the two are no longer friends and Porsha is now ENGAGED to Falynns’ Husband because they haven’t even gotten a divorce yet. I wan’t to know your thoughts on the whole situation. What type of friendship dynamic do you think they had for Porsha to be comfortable MARRYING this man?”

“Engaged. To. A. Former. Friend’s. Husband.” She said slowly before letting out a low sigh. “Now, the first mistake she made was being engaged or dating a man who is still married. I don’t care what the circumstances are, he is legally married! It is literally code and decency not to date or marry after your friends. If y’all are friends or have ever called each other friends, that’s just unacceptable. I would beat the breaks off anyone I called a friend for going after my husband if we ever were to divorce. That’s just grimy and I don’t think Falynn is mad enough. I do know though, one of my followers who is a hair stylist said how she married one of her old client’s ex husband and child’s father. Do you think that’s acceptable? Say I did a woman’s hair for years and nothing besides that and I went on to date her ex?”

“Absolutely not. Unacceptable and I’m the type of crazy that belongs in jail so you already know how that’s gone gooo. It’ll forever be up until they give me life.” Zion laughed and shook her head, “Period. Porsha is most definitey a fucked up individual but I would LOVE to hear y’alls thoughts on the matter so leave alll comments in the comment section below.”

“Thank you all so much for listening to me and Brilliant catch up. Brilliant please tell my listeners where they can follow you and how they can support The Glamour Parlour. Alsooo, when’s the next brunch or giveaway?”

“It has been sooo fun talking with you! I’m glad I got the opportunity to talk with to boss friend Zion! I get this question a lot..so often.” She let out a low laugh. “All I’ll say is to stay tuned, we’ll be turning up soon and the giveaways won’t stop!”

“Ayyyy so there it is people, the beautiful Brilliant O’neal. Be sure to check her out across all social media platforms at @brillixdis and I’ll talk to you in the next episode. Byyyyyyyye.”

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emmy-writes-sometimes · 4 years

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Lonely

Henry notices you’re lonely after moving out to the country with him, but he has a surprise under his sleeve.

Pairing: Henry Cavill x reader

Word Count: 2,627

Warnings: FLUFF! Fluffy puppies, fluffy Henry, etc.

A/N: I had this idea and HAD to write it down. I hope you love it just as much as I do!

“Are you sure you’re alright? I really can just ask for them to switch scenes and…” Henry started when he saw you sitting on the floor of the den, Kal’s head in your lap as you rubbed behind his ears.

“I’m fine,” you insisted. “You two go. You’ve been here long enough.” You and Henry had finally bought your own place together – you’d sold his old house in Kensington for a small farm. It was gorgeous – it was a few acres in every direction, an old but gorgeous house, and stables for Henry to live his best horse boy life. It was definitely a little bit more responsibility, but it had so much room for Kal to run around and it had extra bedrooms for when you and Henry would have a family of your own. You loved living out there. The only con was that Henry had to leave an extra half an hour early just to get back to the studio they were filming the Witcher at. You’d moved in two weeks ago and this was supposed to be his first week back on set.

“Alright. If you insist,” he sighed. “Can you get Kal’s bag ready?” You nodded and stood up, earning a small whine from the dog who just wanted his mum to pet him. You walked over to the hutch by the door, one that you’d brought from Henry’s old house, and started packing up Kal’s toys, wipes for his eye boogers, and a small jar of peanut butter that Henry usually filled a toy with to keep him busy while Henry was on set.

You put Kal’s harness on him by kneeling down and putting it over his head. You sighed when his face hit your arm and reached up to scratch his ear again.

“I know, buddy, I’m gonna miss you too,” you said in the voice you reserved for just him. The black and white and brown dog pawed at you as you started to hook his leash to the red harness. You didn’t realize that Henry heard you, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He hated leaving you, and normally you worked from home so you were able to go to set with him and with Kal. But the house was a lot more responsibility now, so you needed to be there as much as you could. You could come with Henry maybe once or twice a week, if even that, especially now that you had horses that needed to be taken care of every so often during the day.

“Alright. Kal, car!” Henry made a kissing noise as he pointed toward the door, opening it, and the dog disappeared through the crack in the door and out to the car. Henry put a hand on your waist and tugged you toward him, leaning down and kissing your lips. He was wearing your strawberry chapstick, you noticed, probably because it was on the vanity and it was so cold outside that his lips would get chapped before he even got to set.

“Have a good day,” you said sweetly.

“You too. Let me know if you need anything, love, and I’ll come home. I promise.”

“I’m fine, Hen. Go film your show.” He gave you a soft smile.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” You stood on your toes and kissed his clean-shaven face, smelling the Lynx aftershave he always used. And then he turned and left the house, taking Kal’s bag with him. You were alone.

The first part of the day was fine – you checked on the horses, even braided one’s mane because you were a little bored, and then took a walk around the house to take care of the garden. You had to admit that you were lonely in the gigantic farmhouse alone, but that was mostly because of the size. You were sure you would get used to it eventually.

Henry called you during his lunch break and told you what had been going on so far, but that only made you feel more alone when FaceTime hung up and left you alone. You desperately wished there was a dog at your feet keeping you warm or Henry sniffling in the corner, highlighting his scripts. You looked behind you in the office you two shared, looking at his desk, and grabbed his cashmere blanket to use.

Henry was finally home late that night, and after making himself an extremely late dinner he came and joined you in bed. He pulled you into his chest and shut the bedroom light off right after the shower shut off in your bathroom. You smelled the aftershave from that morning, but there was a hint of the chamomile tea he drank on his breath mixed with his toothpaste.

“How was the house?” He asked you. You put an arm around his waist and cuddled into his bare, slightly damp chest.

“A little lonely,” you admitted. “I think it’s just because it’s bigger. And we have all these empty bedrooms. And I miss Kal…” Your voice trailed off. “But I love it. It’s just a little lonely.”

That wasn’t the first time you’d expressed how you felt to him – the loneliness started when you were packing up the old house while he was working. You missed him when he was gone. You were both notoriously clingy, especially toward each other, and most of the time you even traveled with him. You wanted to be around each other, all the time. That was just how your relationship was – your language toward each other was physical touch.

“What if I told you I might have something that’ll help?” He asked. You felt the vibrations in his chest and shut your eyes, relaxing at the sound of his voice.

“And what would that be?” You asked.

“That, darling, you’ll have to find out this weekend.” You giggled and settled down, hoping that he wasn’t just messing with you. “Alright. Good night, love.” You turned away from him and he adjusted, putting his chest against your back, and tugged your duvet up toward your chin so you would be warm.

You woke up the next day and he was already gone. You started your routine again, but you had to make a run into town for groceries. That really reminded you of how alone you were – you’d only been out to the town two or three times, all with Henry, all laughing and talking the whole time. You put your AirPods in and listened to a podcast to feel a little less alone, but as soon as you got into the house to unload everything, the feeling returned.

It was just making you feel depressed, more than anything. You missed your person. You missed your pup. You hated the silence so much that you turned the TV on just to keep you company. You nearly jumped with joy when Henry pulled into the driveway, just in time for dinner, and you sat up like a child while he talked, eyes wide, wanting to hear everything about his day.

“Will you give me a hint?” You asked, trying to figure out what Henry’s solution could be. You were thinking either another horse or a new car or maybe that they were transferring to a closer studio, but you really had no idea. And by the way Henry looked at you and ran his fingers through his curly hair and grinned, you had a feeling that it was something good.

“No. Not at all. You’ll just have to see tomorrow.” You sighed and crossed your arms, letting him clean up as you started to get ready for bed.

You woke up bright and early, nearly dragging Henry out of bed, and he finally just told you to get in the damn truck before he lost his mind. He took you out for tea and shopping, probably just to pass some time, but instead of heading back toward the house he went to the other town. You looked at him, confused, and you were especially confused when you saw a text from the dog-sitter saying that Kal was excited. That confused you even more, and when Henry pulled onto a dirt road you realized he was going toward another farm.

“I swear, Henry, if we’re getting another horse…” He grinned and took your hand, squeezing it tightly.

“We don’t need another horse,” he said, trying to rationalize you a little bit. You rolled your eyes and let go of his hand, crossing your arms against the sweatshirt you’d borrowed from Henry.

“Well, where are we?” You asked when he pulled up to a house. He shut the truck off and let you out first, and without answering led you up to the front porch. He rang the doorbell and the wooden door erupted with bark after bark, and that was when you kind of realized what was going on. Maybe. You looked at Henry, who was grinning.

“Do you know now?” He asked.

“Henry,” you started to say. And then the door opened, revealing a woman who was holding a fluffy puppy in her hands.

“Now do you get it?” He asked you. “Hi, I’m Henry, this is my girlfriend, Y/N,” he said to the woman. The woman shook both of your hands and you started to realize what was going on, but only briefly.

“I think?” You responded, trying to contain your excitement. The woman led you into the house’s living room, where there was a gate set up. The room had probably about eight or nine puppies in it, and you looked over at Henry. Happiness flooded into your heart when you finally understood what was happening. You were getting another Akita. Henry smiled back at you, knowing that you got it.

“We have three females and five males,” the woman explained, “but since you already have a male I would suggest you get another. Of course, it’s up to you, though.” Henry put a hand to your back.

“Well, go on and pick one, love,” Henry said with a smile on his face.

“You mean…?”

“It’ll be all yours.” You hugged Henry from the side, squeezing his waist as he kissed the top of your head. “Go on.” You giggled and sat down on the floor. The puppies were all different colors, and you could see what looked to be the mother or the father in the other room walking around. Henry started talking to the woman and you soon came to find out that this was where he’d gotten Kal from. So, theoretically, this dog would actually be related to Kal. Something about that made you tear up.

You looked around and petted all of the pups, who had different colored ribbons hanging on their necks. The pink and green ones were running around you, too busy playing with one another. The red and purple ones were sniffing you, and the others were walking around you. The blue one, though, was the first one that rest his head on your lap. He looked a little like Kal, but instead of almost black fur he was mostly the color of caramel with a little black and a little white. He was absolutely gorgeous. As soon as you looked down at him, he was the one.

“You found one you like yet?” Henry asked a minute later, walking into the little corral and sitting down beside you. You carefully picked up the blue-ribboned puppy and smiled when the dog put his head on your shoulder.

“I think this is the one,” you said softly, stroking the fur on his back. Something inside of you just broke and all of the loneliness and sadness you’d felt recently flooded out of you. Your eyes filled with tears and suddenly Henry was sitting beside you, his hand on the dog, too, and he put his lips to your temple.

“I cried when I got Kal, too, it’s okay,” he said. You laughed and sniffled, hugging the soft, warm pup in your arms. “You know what you’re gonna name him?��

“Well, it has to be after a superhero,” you responded like it was completely obvious. “But I don’t know yet.” Henry chuckled.

“I’ll go arrange it. Spend some time with your new buddy.” Henry rubbed the dog’s ear for a second, agreeing with your decision, before walking back to the other room where the woman was standing talking to her family.

In a few minutes you were all set and you were carrying the puppy out to the lawn, sitting back down. The puppy seemed to enjoy the sunshine, and when you got him into the car, he settled right on your lap. Henry’s hand reached over to pet the dog and etched on his face was a beam you hadn’t seen in a long time.

“It’s not a fix-all,” Henry said to you. “But I know how much you love Kal and how happy he makes you. And I know how lonely it gets during the day, so when I take Kal, you can have this buddy.”

“I can’t believe you got me a puppy.” You cuddled the dog like you had before, up by your neck, the soft puppy smell invading your nose. So did the hair, and you turned away to sneeze for a second.

“Anything for my favorite girl,” he said to you. “I think you made the right choice. He’s so good in the car. Kal was absolutely evil when I got him, crawling around everywhere.” You giggled.

“Yeah, he’s a good boy,” you commented as the dog whimpered when Henry went over a bump. “Drive carefully, my baby’s sad!” Henry chuckled.

He pulled into the driveway a few minutes later and you made the introduction between the two dogs. You expected it to go worse than it did – Kal was territorial, especially over Henry and you, but he sniffed the puppy and sat down and let the dog even bite his ear without protesting at all.

“I think they’re getting along well,” Henry commented as the two of you sat down on the couch and watched. You leaned into Henry’s shoulder, burying your face in his sweatshirt.

“Thank you, Henry. You’ve no idea how much this means to me.”

“I don’t want my love to be lonely. And I secretly just wanted an excuse for Kal to have a brother.” You giggled. “Thought of a name yet?”

“You’re going to hate me for it.”

“It depends, I’ll only hate it if it’s stupid.”

“Well, since Kal is named after Superman, maybe we should name this one after another superhero.”

“Oh, I hate where you’re going with this.”

“Okay, you might kill me,” you confirmed. “But doesn’t he kind of, at least a little bit, look like Pietro? Maximoff?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Marvel.” You rolled your eyes and took out your phone, searching Google. Henry just tilted his head when you showed him a picture of the character you were referring to, and instead of protesting Henry just kind of nodded.

“He… actually kind of does.”

“Maximoff it is,” you grinned, walking over to the puppy and picking him up. “Max for short?”

“Yeah, I’m calling him Max,” Henry said with a small roll of his eyes. He walked over to you and leaned down, kissing you. “Our family’s growing, love.”

“Yep.” Henry reached down to pet Kal, praising him for being such a good boy to the new puppy, and you squeezed your new best friend tightly. “I love you. And Max.”

“His name is Maximoff!”

#henry cavill x reader #henry cavill fluff #henry cavill x reader fluff #henry cavill

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iffeelscouldkill · 4 years

Text

this is the place that they pull you to

A/N: I would say “my hand slipped” but this actually took me like a week to write xD

This is a post-season 2 episode 1 fic, so, here be spoilers! Basically I was talking to @dragonsthough101 about how I was expecting more emotional fallout on McCabe’s end from all of the conflict and tensions in episode 1 and the putdowns from Arkady, and while I’m sure we will get that in the podcast, it also occurred to me that I could... write that :D and thus *flourishes hands*

Title is taken from Wires by Savlonic, because I was listening to it and I realised it’s actually a very good song for RJ, both under the Regime and after. And now I earworm myself whenever I work on this fic xD

---

Once the door to RJ’s room on the Iris II has slid shut behind them and the red ‘lock’ light has engaged, they let out a shaky breath.

Then, only then, do they allow their lower lip to tremble.

RJ shuffles over to the bed – more like a cot really, but that’s long-haul space travel for you – and drops down onto it. Park’s words from earlier are looping inside their head. “I hope you’re right. But honestly, in this moment, McCabe? I’m glad we don’t have to find out.”

RJ lets out another shaky breath that’s closer to a sob, and blinks back the tears that are forming in their eyes. It doesn’t completely work, and a couple escape and track down their cheeks. RJ smears them away with the palm of their hand. “Get a grip, McCabe,” they mutter angrily to themself. Sure, they might be alone in their room right now, but they know better than to feel like it’s safe to relax or let go. Someone could be by any minute to check on them, or there might be a situation that requires all crew members to come to the mess hall, or the cockpit, and then how will RJ explain their red eyes and wrung-out demeanour?

It’s not safe to let their guard down. It hasn’t been for weeks. Even around Park, the one person on this vessel RJ knows they can trust, RJ feels – off-kilter, like they’re lagging a step behind everything. RJ is still trying to get used to not addressing him as “Agent”, to figure out what they can and can’t say now, to navigate their new relationship. As friends – but are they friends? Does Park even like RJ, outside of the context of them working together under the Republic?

It seems uncharitable to think, and RJ and Park had always had a good relationship as colleagues – they hadn’t been close, and Park had seemed pretty inscrutable to RJ at first, but then they’d got used to his way of working and communicating. Figured out how to make him crack a smile. Drawn some praise from him, even, and realised that underneath everything he was a caring person, and a good boss.

But RJ had also thought – been sure – that Park was loyal to the Republic, so how well did they really know him? Know this Park? And Park has been treating them… warily, especially these past few days. Not coldly or poorly, but a little bit at arm’s length. Like he isn’t sure what they might do. Like he doesn’t trust them, even though RJ trusts Park totally – to the point where they were willing to throw over their whole career, everything they’d worked so hard for, and follow him onto the Iris II.

Granted, they also hadn’t had a lot of other options at that time, but RJ still isn’t sure they would have made the same decision if Park hadn’t been there.

And yet here they both are, and Park is already a fixture in the cockpit, watching the controls when Tripat- when Sana or Krejjh needs a break, having apparently built up some experience as a co-pilot for long-haul transports after serving in the military (yet another thing that RJ didn’t know about him). And he’s comfortable enough with the crew to be on bantering terms with them, to suggest plans involving decommissioned government satellites. Whereas RJ…

“Cram it, McCabe!”

RJ’s lip trembles again, this time in earnest. And RJ would like to pretend that these are angry tears, or frustrated or indignant tears, but they’re really not. RJ wants to be angry, to stand their ground and fire back and give as good as they get and somehow manage to verbally earn the others’ respect; to be seen as a person instead of a suspect or a liability. But they’ve struck the wrong chord every time. RJ is sick of the awkward tension every time they’re in the room; sick of Arkady’s prickly snappishness and Sana’s increasingly weary peacemaking; sick of the unspoken communication between the crew that they can’t parse.

It doesn’t help to realise that the crew must have got practiced at that during the weeks they spent evading the IGR’s scrutiny before they made landing on New Jupiter. At least Park could say he hadn’t been there by that point. But McCabe had, headphones on, straining to parse something from every off-handed comment, every loaded silence.

Park wasn’t there because he was being tortured in Zone Z, McCabe thinks, and abruptly feels sick. Sick at the thought, and sick of themself for – not thinking, for even considering for a split second that Park might be somehow better off. After being imprisoned, cut off from his friends and family, tortured and maimed by a government he’d spent years of his life serving.

The same government that he believes RJ was thinking of selling them out to.

This realisation steals the breath from RJ’s lungs with a whoosh, and all of a sudden they don’t feel sick, or indignant, or hurt – they just feel cold.

RJ hadn’t been able to explain to Park in the moment exactly what they’d been thinking by withholding the information about the Fowleys being bugged and monitored (because of course they were). When the ‘offer’ from Jay Fowley had first come through, the crew hadn’t been desperate enough to seriously consider it, and by the time they were… well, they’d been on the verge of figuring things out anyway. And RJ had been feeling angry, and vindictive, and not in the mood to volunteer anything that would aid the crew; not when doing that had got them into this mess in the first place.

And maybe in the back of their mind, a voice had been whispering that they should keep their options open. It’s a voice that gets louder in the dark, when RJ is lying awake on their bunk, unable to sleep for replaying those moments in the corridor, the way that it felt like the ground was falling out from under them as Goodman denounced them and Park as defectors. It gets louder whenever RJ clashes with Arkady, whenever they catch uncertain glances from the other crew members, whenever RJ wanders the corridors of this godforsaken claustrophobic ship and realises that this is it now. This is their whole life.

But they never thought about how that might look to Park. It’s like in RJ’s head there are somehow two Republics: the one that would be capable of doing such horrible things to Park – to any person, much less one who hadn’t been demonstrably proven guilty – and the one that RJ had dedicated their career to serving, that they had believed was just and good and right.

RJ wants to find him and apologise, to try and explain, to share some of the fears and secret thoughts that have been curdling on the back of their tongue these past weeks.

But Park told them to get some rest, and RJ has enough awareness to realise that there’s a much higher chance of the conversation turning out well if they sleep a while first. So, reluctantly, RJ toes off their shoes and shrugs off their vest, and wriggles underneath the taut blanket attached to the bunk.

Either they’ve reached some kind of peace with themself or they’re more exhausted than they realised, because sleep overtakes them in minutes.

---

RJ is woken by a knocking at the door: light and tentative at first, and then firmer and louder. As always, it takes a moment for their brain to catch up with their surroundings: the hard bunk beneath them, followed by the bare walls of their room, still unadorned (RJ wasn’t exactly carrying any personal belongings when they fled CUI Headquarters, and the ship hadn’t made any stops since. Not that RJ knows what they would put in their room anyway. There hadn’t been much to leave behind on New Jupiter). RJ sits up and rubs an arm across their eyes, then goes to answer the door.

It’s Violet. RJ clamps down on the reflexive urge to say something like, ‘Did you draw the short straw?’, or maybe, ‘Did they send you to manage me?’ Violet doesn’t look like she’s here under duress, and to RJ’s memory, she’s not a particularly good actor.

“Hi,” they say instead.

“Hi,” Violet replies with a little smile. There’s always a weird dissonance – though RJ would never, ever bring this up – that comes from hearing the voices of the Rumor crew come out of the mouths of actual people instead of a recording. “How did you sleep?”

“Uh…” RJ thinks back, and is surprised to find that the answer is ‘well’. They actually feel… slightly refreshed. “Fine.” Belatedly, they tack on, “Thank you.”

“That’s good to hear.” Violet smiles again. She’s never been unfriendly to RJ, but these past several days, she’s seemed more on edge, more prone to sarcastic retorts, less willing to make peace between them and Patel- Arkady. RJ had believed that her patience was slowly fraying, that like the rest of the crew, she was only willing to put up with the new additions to the ship for a certain amount of time and that she’d stop pretending before long. But now, taking in Violet’s looser posture, the way some of the lines around her eyes and mouth have eased, RJ realises it had never had anything to do with them. Violet had been worried about the supplies. About her… medical emergency.

Speaking of supplies… “Did Park tell you what we wanted to add to the list?” RJ asks, figuring they’d better add a bit of verisimilitude to the excuse that Park had used to speak to RJ alone.

Violet’s smile widens. “He did. I definitely agree about replenishing our coffee supplies – though, I don’t know what kind of quality you’re used to, because I should warn you that the black market kind – the affordable black market kind, anyway – is pretty bad. We get non-freeze-dried coffee whenever we can, but out here…” Violet shrugs as if to say, ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’.

RJ manages to suppress a wince at the term “black market”. This is your life, now, RJ, they remind themself for the thousandth time. “That’s okay. The stuff in the IGR breakrooms was basically dreck. I can drink pretty much anything.” RJ is no coffee lover, but they drink it for the caffeine. Pretty much everyone in the Republic has a caffeine addiction or develops one at some point – no way to get through eighteen-hour shifts without it.

Violet chuckles a little. “It was always the same at my lab internships. I guess bad breakroom coffee is pretty universal.”

RJ recognises that she’s trying to bond with them by referencing shared experiences of working for the Republic. It’s not the first time she’s done it. But RJ still has trouble seeing their circumstances as equivalent.

Violet is – had been – a scientist, not an Agent; not one of the IGR’s most loyal, tasked with the defence of the Republic. She’d never had access to classified briefings; hadn’t dedicated her life to tracking down and apprehending insurgent forces. And given that the Rumor crew had deceived her into entering the cryo chamber, she could argue that she’d been duped – and had only co-operated in order to save her own life. Well, the argument would hold water up until Elion, anyway.

It wasn’t the same.

The silence hangs for a few moments, before RJ prompts her, “Did you want to… ask me something?”

“Sorry, yes – I came to tell you that dinner’s ready and uh, we’re about to eat in the mess hall if you’d like to join us.” Violet smiles again, with a touch of nervousness this time. No doubt she’s expecting a caustic brush-off.

“Is it veggie stew?” RJ can’t help asking, with a slight nose wrinkle. They’re expecting a rebuke from Violet, some kind of warning about being grateful for what they have, but instead she laughs.

“Unfortunately. On the bright side, though, it’s only for a couple more days and then we’ll be able to have actual flavourings again.”

RJ almost smiles, and is surprised when they catch themself. And – they were going to decline, make an excuse about continuing their nap, because they’re still feeling off-kilter and they doubt that Arkady will be thrilled to be spending time in close quarters with them so soon, but – they think about Park’s talk with them in the hallway. About how they’ve spent the past few weeks dodging any kind of connection with the rest of the crew, anything that will put them past, in RJ’s mind, the point of no return – and where exactly that’s got them.

“Sure,” says RJ. “Just let me, uh…”

They put a hand up to their hair, realising that it must be sticking up in all directions after their nap. Short hair is gratifyingly easy to take care of, but it sure does have interesting ideas about gravity.

“I have a comb you can borrow, if you need it?” Violet offers.

“It’s fine,” RJ declines automatically. “Park-”

They catch themself, wondering why it feels like such a concession to accept even this tiny piece of help from someone other than Park. They think about their bare room, empty of any personal possessions.

“I’m okay right now,” they say slowly. “But… is it too late to add something to the shopping list?”

Violet blinks, clearly surprised, and then smiles brightly. “Not at all.”

---

Five minutes later, hair tamed and clothes straightened, RJ makes their way towards the mess hall, which adjoins the kitchen. They haven’t spent much time in here so far – there’d been a couple of communal dinners at first, which quickly gave way to the reality of shifts ending at disparate times and the need to simply grab food however and whenever people could, something RJ had been grateful for.

Once, on their way to the kitchen, they’d walked in on Violet and Arkady having what looked like a picnic at the table in the centre of the room, just the two of them. That had been awkward for everyone. Since then, RJ has taken to finding their food and snacks at times when they know most of the crew are otherwise occupied.

Everyone else is already there and making more noise than you would think a group of six people could generate. Brian is in the kitchen, ladling bland servings of stew into the uniform polypropylene bowls that they’d found stacked inside the cupboards. Krejjh stands next to him, loudly enthusing about the virtues of the stew to anyone within earshot. Violet and Sana are waiting to be served, while Arkady – who has just been handed a full bowl by Brian – rolls her eyes and makes sarcastic comments as she carries it through to the mess hall. There, Park is sitting in one of the bolted-down chairs, watching the whole scene with a slightly raised eyebrow and waiting, if RJ had to guess, for the general hubbub to die down before he goes to get his food.

RJ pads over and slides into the chair on the same side as Park’s good eye. Park turns his head slightly, giving them a quick once-over, almost too brief to catch. “Hi,” he says quietly. “How was your nap?”

RJ hesitates over what to say. “It helped,” they reply. “Park, can we… talk? After dinner?”

The tiniest of frowns creases Park’s forehead. “Sure,” he says. “Everything all right?”

RJ nods, drumming their fingers on the tabletop and meeting Violet’s gaze as she comes over to sit next to Arkady, giving RJ a friendly smile. They don’t quite return it, but… it’s not as unwelcome as it would have been, before.

“Yeah,” they say to Park. “It’s fine.”

#TSCOSI #The Strange Case of Starship Iris #TSCOSI spoilers #RJ McCabe #Jin Seon Park #Violet Liu #Starship Iris Season 2 #ficlet #did I write *another* fic about RJ adjusting to life on the Iris II without a hint of irony?#yes yes I did #but I swear I haven't forgotten about the original! Chapter 5 is coming!#I have not abandoned it even though I am apparently writing two coda ficlets for every episode that comes out #also I need to write fic for TSCOSI week *sweats*#and I just signed up for the Podcast Big Bang #this is fine #anyway it was interesting exploring the differences between this RJ and the RJ I characterise in Adjusting #because obviously they're very different and I hope that came across #but in both iterations I do think Violet would be the one to reach out first #because despite what McCabe thinks she *can* relate #I did ponder having Sana be the one to come to RJ's room and I think she would also do that #but I'm just here banging my little Violet & RJ friendship drum #I feel like Arkady came off a little badly in this but it's just RJ's perspective #they obviously don't get along right now but I am confident they will be best frenemies later #and have badass team-ups in the field

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banashee · 3 years

Link

Hi Folks, welcome to my second fic for the Archival Pride 2021 project! Look at their tumblr for more info :) @archivalpride

Archival Pride 2021, Week two (June 8-14) Prompts: identity, embrace, celebration, intersectionality, firsts

The key words I've used here are identity, embrace, celebration and firsts

Content Warnings: Once again, this is mostly a bunch of fluff but to be safe:

- the words "murder" and "crime scene" are there, but it's not related to anything serious, no one comes to harm here and it's only part of some jokes related to hair dye. - mention of Top-Surgery, nothing graphic - some swearing

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Oh and by the way? Jon's move of accidentally dousing Tim with the showerhead was taken out of real life. My best friend fucking did that to me when helping me with dyeing my hair... Thanks, Dear. @bananaink I love you lots! ♥ Thanks for being my favourite human and being a great inspiration for shenanigans like this :D

Wear your colours and be proud

“Careful! The tub already looks like we murdered a smurf, if you move too much we’ll have to clean the entire bathroom... Again.”

“Excuse me, Mx. Sims, if I recall correctly it was you who put the entire showerhead down the back of my shirt and scared the ever-loving shit out of me.” Tim complains good-naturedly, bent over the bathtub as Jon is standing over him and washes out the bright blue hair dye.

“Okay, one: it wasn’t the entire showerhead, two: there was hair dye on your neck and I didn’t think it through. Besides, I already said I was sorry!” Jon is having a hard time not bursting into laughter again – they didn’t lie, they really are sorry, but washing off the dye from Tim’s neck before it stained too much, with what they were currently holding in their hand anyway, seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do at the time. The startled yelp of a dripping wet Tim informed them that no, it wasn’t, in fact, a good idea. Who would have thought?

Jon had simultaneously apologized profusely and burst into laughter that had them wiping amused tears from their eyes. Okay, so, they hadn’t exactly planned this through as well as they could have.

“You’re laughing. I am suffering, cold and wet, and you’re laughing at my misery!” Tim laments, but the amusement that creeps into his voice absolutely betrays him. Nevermind that it is in the middle of summer and anything but cold. It is a matter of principle.

Behind him, Jon bursts into more helpless giggles – in their defense, they had too much caffeine already.

“Aw, Love, I apologize.” This time, it doesn’t sound like it at all, but they keep massaging Tim’s scalp, blunt nails scratching gently even as the water begins to run clear. The happy, satisfied hum they get in response tells them everything they need to know.

Jon has learned many many years ago that Tim will absolutely melt into a puddle under their hands if they give him head massages or even just play with his hair. They love doing it, but it also serves as a useful distraction sometimes.

“On the plus side, we’ve got two more rounds of colour to go! Plenty of opportunities for me to not do that again.” Jon tells him innocently, wraps a towel over the back of Tim’s head and squeezes out as much residue water as possible.

“Well, that’s reassuring, Dear.” He replies bluntly, but there is a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, before he gets up from the floor and then pulls Jon into a very wet, very tight full body hug, causing them to yelp.

“Tim! What the hell!”

“ Now we’re even, my Love.” Tim tells them with a shit-eating grin, and then presses a quick kiss on top of his half-heartedly glaring partner's head.

“…Would you like to blow dry it yourself or do you want me to do it?” They finally ask instead of a rebuttal, and Tim considers this for just a moment.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like you to do it. Cover the mirror while we’re at it, then it’s a surprise for me as well.”

“Of course, Love. Turn around?” Jon asks, and Tim does as he is asked, but not without turning the simple request into the beginning of “Total eclipse of the heart”, using a hairbrush as a makeshift microphone. Of course, he is putting his everything into the little performance. That is, until he is cut off by Jon and the hair dryer, which they are blowing directly at his face.

Somehow, Jon, Tim and most of the bathroom survive their shenanigans for long enough until Jon lifts the towel away from the mirror and lets Tim take a look at his new hair colour.

Hours ago, they started out by trimming his undercut, which is easy enough, followed by removing the rest of some particularly stubborn shade of green with bleach and giving his dark roots their own quick round of bleach. Then, the disaster with the blue dye starts. After that, the bathroom looks a bit worse for wear – indeed, it looks like a smurf crime scene and they keep joking about that. But Tim and Jon keep going, only having to take a break to fight off a giggle fit about two or three times.

Even now, after so many years with them, Tim is amazed and happy to see and hear Jon laugh like that. He hadn’t known they were even capable of being so carefree, let alone silly, when they first met. For most people, it is still a rare treat to see, if they even get that honor at all. But after many years of being together and acquiring two more wonderful and lovely partners, things are different – and even better.

They wouldn’t want to trade their family, this life together, for anything.

After a round of bright purple hair dye and much of the same, they move on to pink, and by the time that last round is done, Tim is getting more than a little excited, but truth be told, so is Jon. They really hope that they did good on this dye job – they only ever helped Tim, and many years ago, Georgie and some of their friends at Uni, to dye their hair in one solid colour. This multicolour thing is new territory for them, and they hope it turned out well. At least they’d like to think it did, but what it comes down to really, is what Tim thinks of it – it’s his head, after all.

As the towel falls from the mirror, Tim steps closer to take a look. Even under the unflattering bathroom light, his hair is shining bold and bright in the colours of the Bi Pride Flag. Pink, purple and blue in the longer hairs on top of his head, neatly sectioned off into thirds and dyed in hours of work. The smile on his face is bright and instant, but there is no trace of a joke in it. He looks really happy, and most of all, proud – as he should be.

“It’s perfect!” he exclaims, turning his head a few times to look at himself at all angles, the genuinely happy smile still plastered all over his face as he pulls Jon into another hug.

“Thank you, Love. I appreciate the help.”

“Glad you like it, then.” They pull Tim down for a kiss, fingers brushing gently over the freshly buzzed sides of his head. It’s one of those feelings they’ll never get tired of. The soft, short stubble feels incredibly satisfying, and Tim just knows he’ll spend the next few days with Jon, Martin and Sasha constantly running their hands over it. Not that he minds – as if he’d ever turn down head scritches from anyone.

Right now, just for a moment, the two of them remain standing in front of the bathroom mirror together. They are surrounded by and covered with various hair dye stains, despite best attempts to achieve the contrary. The bathroom needs a good cleaning session and both Tim and Jon are in desperate need of a change of clothes. But they look at themselves just for a moment, taking in how much they have changed over the years. It’s definitely for the better. Both of them are happy and comfortable with who they are, they have each other – and they have two wonderful people who they love dearly waiting downstairs to see the result of their hair shenanigans.

Neither of them says any of this out loud – they don’t have to. But it is Jon who breaks the silence this time.

“Let’s go show the others, we’ve been in here for hours.”

“Oh they’re fine. 5 pounds say they’ll roll their eyes and just tell us –“

“- All we heard was yelling, laughter and occasional singing, so we thought, you know, what else is new, they’ll be fine.” Sasha says without looking up from her phone. She’s nestled into Martins side, the both of them cuddled up on the couch with their phone and book, Crumpet dozing in the crook of Sasha’s knee while Gandalf has decided that a day with 26 degrees outside would be the perfect day to become a sentient scarf for Martin. The poor guy looks hot, but he doesn’t make a move to dislodge either the cat or Sasha.

Really, it is too warm to cuddle, way too warm, but what can you do? The two of them are wearing shorts and matching Hawaii shirts and have an old but steadily blowing fan facing their direction on the couch. It helps a bit, but neither of them looks to be up for much. At least it’ll cool down a bit at night.

“That about sums it up doesn’t it? Worth it though.” And with that, Tim rounds the corner, arms stretched out next to his head.

“Tadaa!”

A small cheer erupts from the couch, quickly followed by variations of

“You look great!”

Of course, Tim takes the opportunity to be dramatically fabulous and bows down in front of his audience and then makes a beeline for the couch where everyone else has now rearranged themselves.

Being the catlike human that they are, Jon is immediately by Martin’s other side, leaning in as their hands find one another. Their hair is tickling his nose, but he is so used to it by now, he simply bends down a bit to press a soft kiss against the side of their head. It’s only then that he realizes that Jon is drenched with water.

Martin huffs a laugh.

“Did you take a shower with your clothes or something?”

“No, but Tim did.” they answer, a sly grin on their lips.

“Jon means they fucking doused me. ‘By accident’ as I’ve been told as they laughed their arse off.” Tim corrects the statement, air quotes included, as he flops down on the couch on the other side. He wraps an arm around his partner, pulling them close for a moment, then his hold relaxes a bit and his fingertips travel over to Martin in search for more physical contact. He happily lets him, summer heat be damned.

Tim continues with a shrug and a shit-eating grin of his own,

“I just decided to share the joy, generous as I am.”

The explanation is met with laughter from everyone, as well as an affectionate sigh of,

“You two, I swear...”

“In our defense, you knew bloody well what you were getting into with us.”

Crumpet, annoyed by the human’s sudden loud behavior, gracefully gets up from her spot, stretches and then swaggers off, her head and tail held high. Gandalf, on the other hand, merely lifts his head from Martin’s shoulder and only stares for a bit, as if to say “What on earth are you silly creatures up to now?!” but then goes back to sleep.

Once again, it is too hot to cuddle, but that doesn’t stop any of them. At least, there is ice cream and the ancient fan that rattles for its life but still gets the job done.

It’s the end of June, and that means it’s hot, way too hot to be bearable for your regular British person, or anyone really, who doesn’t enjoy boiling themselves in their own juice.

End of June also means: its pride month and the London Pride Parade will take place very, very soon and that is a source of excitement for all four of them. Due to various circumstances in the past, this year is the first year that they can go to pride with the whole family together. That in itself is cause for celebration, really, but there are also the individual, personal milestones.

For Martin, this is the first summer and thus, the first pride that he can experience post top-surgery. That in itself has him excited to no end, and as a result, he’s spent much more time in open chested shirts than ever before. His happiness alone would make him an utterly beautiful sight, but honestly, his partners would readily admit, very vocally, that they enjoy the view an awful lot.

The first time he receives their plentiful heartfelt compliments, Martin blushes a bright scarlet red, but even more than that, there is euphoria and happiness. He might have cried a bit from being overwhelmed with too many feelings at once, but it had been a good day – a very good one.

For Jon, it is going to be the first pride they’ll spend not hiding their gender - or lack thereof, depending on the day. For many, many years, even long after they figured it out for themselves and told a handful of loved ones – mostly those in their chosen family, really – they didn’t tell anyone. Mostly for work reasons, because it seemed safer and easier in everyday life. It’s why they kept going by He/Him for their entire career in research, despite heavily preferring They/Them, but at that point, only Tim and Sasha knew.

It really helped that they would avoid pronouns at work, and only call them by their name and refer to them as They when in private.

Later then, they met Martin and got transferred into the Archives together. At this point, Jon felt comfortable enough to use their preferred pronouns at work, at least in their private circle.

As of now, they stopped caring – they deal with so much bullshit, in general and from Elias, they simply stopped giving a fuck, and this is how they explain it. All things considered, it goes over relatively well, and thankfully, no one bats an eye when they arrive at the institute in skirts or with nail polish or anything else they feel like wearing that day.

Early in the morning, with all doors and windows open in the house, so they can let in the fresh, cool morning breeze, Jon sits on the living room floor and in front of the couch. There are several bottles of nail polish scattered about in their lap, and Jon scowls with intense concentration as they slowly and meticulously paint each nail a different colour. Pink, purple and blue surrounded by two black nails on their right hand, which is still kind of drying, and yellow, white, purple and black on their left hand. They’re on their second coat by now, and as a result, their posture starts slouching again. Sasha gently pulls them back and closer to her.

“Hey, stop moving away, I’m not done yet.”

“Oh. Sorry, go on please.”

Sasha adjusts her grip on Jon’s hair. There is a tablet open on the coffee table and Sasha skips back to an earlier part of the video tutorial that is currently playing, just to check if she got everything right.

The thing is, Jon has a lot of hair as it is, but now, there are some bright purple clip-in extensions added to it. Paired with their natural black that keeps getting more and more grey over the time, it all creates a swirl of colours, dark and beautiful and very much resembling the Ace Pride flag. Originally, they would have gone for a simple, partially braided half updo but that was before Sasha had grabbed them by the bony shoulders, sat them down in front of her and said,

“Don’t move, I want to try something.” – That had been about an hour ago, but just going along with it is a lot easier than arguing with Sasha, especially when she gets excited about something.

Besides, being forced to sit still gives Jon the time they need to paint their nails properly without ruining them after 5 minutes because they couldn’t wait long enough for them to dry before they start doing something else. It also gives them the perfect opportunity to ramble on about the article they read the other day. This seems like a fair trade off: Getting a complicated hairstyle done that Sasha wants to practise, in exchange for an info-dumping monologue about tropical birds and their natural habitats.

Their cats come and go, occasionally rubbing themselves against whichever human body part is currently closest, and there may or may not be a touch of cat hair in Jon’s manicure. Then again, there is always cat hair on them. All of them - it’s part of the wardrobe at this point. .

After a while, Sasha cheerfully informs Jon,

“And it’s done! Here’s a mirror, but you’ll see better when I take a photo from the back… Hold on… And here we go.”

Truth be told, Jon isn’t sure what they expected, but it certainly wasn’t a complicated arrangement of different kinds of tiny braids, falling down the back of their head in loops and little waterfalls, far down their back, surrounding what looks like little roses in the middle made of hair. There are four of them, and Sasha managed to sneak in more of those clip-in extensions, which leads to the flowers sticking out even more – each and every one of them is one solid colour. Black in the top, followed by grey, white and purple.

“Oh, wow.” They carefully touch the back of their head – this is probably the most detailed hairstyle – or anything, really – they’ve ever worn.

“Thanks, Sasha. This is really beautiful. I, I know I’ll feel bad whenever I have to take those out again” They pull her into a tight hug that she happily slips into and squeezes back just as much.

“Thank you – I’ve always wanted to practice this, but it’s way too hard to do on my own head, my arms will fall off long before I’m done.”

“…I’d offer help, but the result won’t be anywhere near as good or intricate as yours.”

Still, Sasha smiles brightly.

“Please do. Like I said, arms are falling off and all that.”

So this is how their morning goes. By the end of it, Sasha’s long curls are in a half updo with fishtail braids and glittery hair clips in her pride colours. Black, grey, white and purple on one side of her head, two shades of green, white, grey and black on the other side. Together, they form a constellation of some sort on the back of her dark, shiny hair, and she seems to be thoroughly happy with it.

In the meantime, both Tim and Martin have managed to finish getting ready entirely. The two of them are currently sprawled out on the floor, right in front of their trusty old fan, now that it’s getting hotter again. They are holding drinks with ice cubes swimming in them.

Martin and Tim patiently wait for Jon and Sasha to be done with their hair - those two have a truly impressive head full of it each - and they do so with their legs tangled into one another. Tim and Martin are currently discussing a video game that neither of the other two is interested in - something, zombies, something something. Thankfully, it’s still early enough in the day so no one needs to rush. Besides, it’s nice to just spend time with one another, in any way that presents itself.

Meanwhile, Gandalf is living his best life. He is dozing on his back, nestled into Sasha’s lap while she happily provides pets and scritches for their giant spoiled feline wizard. Crumpet, on the other hand, has made herself comfortable on the back of Jon’s shoulders, completely unbothered by their constantly moving arms. By the time they’re finished braiding Sasha’s hair, the little black cat still clings on, even by the time they make their way to get dressed for their day out.

Jon knows it’ll be fruitless to try and dislodge Crumpet from her current place, but they still try it. Surprising absolutely no one, the little cat meows pitifully as if to say “No one in this house loves me anymore, oh how shall I live on?!”

“I know, my little void, I know. Would you mind letting go of me for, like, 2 minutes?” Jon tries to soothe, but the next attempt to pluck Crumpet off of themselves results in her digging her claws into their T-shirt. Well - technically Tim’s T-shirt, but the tiny claws still end up in Jon’s shoulder since they’re currently wearing it.

“Ow. Crumpet, please. I cannot and will not be going out in my pyjamas.”

Crumpet meows again, more intently this time. Accusingly, almost. Jon sighs - they knew this was going to happen. While they gently, very gently pry off the cat claws from their person, they try to reason:

“Yes, I love you, too. But you need to let go now, please. Thank you.” As they hold Crumpet up with both hands, to keep her from digging in her claws again, they blink slowly and return the gentle head bump, making sure the “I love you” will travel over in cat-language. Then, Crumpet is set down and immediately jumps into the open closet. Oh well.

Jon starts rummaging through the shelves, looking for a specific top. It must be in there, somewhere, but in an array of… very mismatched clothes, it’s not that easy to find.

To be fair, their part of the closet very much looks like the laundry baskets of several retirement home residents and a punk rock band got put into a blender and the result is what they wear on a daily basis. Although their work attire leans more toward cardigans and grandmother skirts than fishnets most days. Sometimes, just sometimes they’re tempted to try, just to see if they would get away with it.

On their search for the purple fishnet top, they come across a swooshy, purple skirt they haven’t seen in a long time. They acknowledge their find with a surprised but happy noise. Quickly, Jon puts it aside on the bed and as well as the shirt that falls out with it. Upon closer inspection, they realize it is a shirt that they got for their first ever pride - it’s a simple black cotton shirt with a rainbow print, slightly too big for Jon and cut off in some places to make it look more interesting. It’s survived with them since uni, and they’re pretty sure it will always have a place in their closet, even when it falls apart completely one day.

There are a lot of memories tied to it, a lot of stages to their self discovery. Naturally, it’s what they choose to wear for the big day.

When the four of them step out of their house, they all but leave a colourful trail down the street on their way to the train station. Behind them, over their front door and tied to the rails of a small balcony, a rainbow flag is blowing in the wind. It is big enough to stretch across it the entire way, something every single person in this household is very happy about.

They are chatting away and laughing, holding hands with one another for the entire way. Some people on the street shoot them odd looks - this isn’t central London, and here they stand out a lot more than they would there. But trying to find a house, let alone a flat there that is big enough for all of them, has been… Difficult. Especially since finding a place that would have a bedroom big enough for their double queen sized DIY-we-are-all-clingy-and-can’t-sleep-apart-bed while still allowing them to walk through the room has been hard. Harder even close to the city, which is why they decided to move here in the outskirts.

Living there means a longer commute to the city and the institute, but it is a small price to pay for their collective happiness.

On the train itself, there are a few more people and smaller groups, decked out with rainbows or their own specific pride flags. The closer they get to the city, the more people who are clearly coming to London for Pride Celebrations enter the carriage, and soon, everywhere is full of happy and excited people.

By the time they step out into the streets together, there are people everywhere. Most, if not all of them are proudly wearing their colours and as do Jon, Tim, Martin and Sasha.

Martin is happy and comfortable in his skin. Just like planned, he is wearing a white button up shirt with a light blue- and pink floral pattern, only closed halfway up. There are several bracelets on his wrists, one in matching pink, white and blue, one with bright pink, yellow and turquoise blue and one rainbow. Both of his arms are occupied though, with one arm wrapped around Jon and the other around Tim, whose other hand is occupied holding Sasha’s.

She chose comfort over most things, settling for Jeans shorts and another older pride shirt. Additionally, she is wearing a split Aromantic/Asexual flag wrapped around her waist like a half-skirt - and her hair, of course. The clips are sparkling in the sun, instantly noticeable in her dark hair.

Next to her, Tim is literally a walking Bi Pride Flag. His new hair colour is bright and bold as anything, shining in the sun, and then there is his shirt that stands out bold in the same shades of pink, purple and blue. Even if it wasn’t for his bright smile and loud laugh, he would be shining bright.

On Martin’s other side, happy to be able to have one arm free to gesture around with while they’re talking, Jon is looking just as fabulous. Their skirt is dark purple, and the thick soles and front of a beaten up pair of Docs are only just visible under it. They successfully found the shirts they were looking for earlier, and they are wearing a belt made out of multiple small pride flags. There are four different ones - the rainbow, pink, purple and blue, followed by black, grey, white and purple followed by yellow, white, purple and black.

Of course, there is the hair - it got them, and in addition, Sasha, many many compliments back home, where all of them admired each other shortly before leaving.

“What can you do, all of us have great hair!” Sasha had said, and is 100% correct. While her own and Jon's hair is long, thick and structured, Tim always rocks some sort of fashion colours in the fluffy tuft of hair. Martin has just as thick, defined reddish brown curls that fall into his face sometimes, and a well-kept and well-cultivated beard to match it.

There is a little bit of glitter stuck to them - all of them, actually, because no one remembered to stop Tim from getting into the loose glitter. Hence, all of them are wearing glitter now.

That stuff travels, especially if one keeps hugging or kissing the culprit who brought the sparkly plague along in the first place. And it’s not like any of them keeps their hands off of each other for long. So, it spreads… It doesn’t take long at all until the tiny, sparkling specks find their way to everyone else.

There is no doubt that they will carry the remains of it into the office next Monday, whether they want to or not. But right now, they couldn’t care less. They are here to enjoy the day, enjoy themselves and be proud to show their colours.

For once, they fit right in.

#Archival Pride 2021 #season 1 polycule #tma fanfic #banashee writes #the magnus archives #queer and fluffy

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you-are-crazy-beautiful · 4 years

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S3 thoughts after complete rewatch

Please give me your thoughts and ideas. I’ll be blunt. Season 3 is bad. Really bad. There is absolutely no continuity between s2 and s3. I was joking that even though it’s meant to be set 6 months later, it could really be anytime after. I even would think I was watching an episode in the middle of a season if I was just shown 3x01 with no info. I feel that there is also a complete disregard to the tone of the show, despite Suzanne stating how it’s important to keep that. I do feel that Suzanne talks the talk more than she walks the walk.

1. When asked about the multiple POV Suzanne stated ‘those two women as the lynchpin relationship of the show. Their journeys are always at the spine of the story’. ‘all of them (new characters) have a really exciting energy, and really challenge the main characters’. I would argue completely against Eve and Villanelle and their relationship being the focus of this season. There are times and whole episodes when I feel there is almost a disconnect from each other. These two are absolutely, unhealthily addicted to each other. I think the amount of scenes they have together is perfect and almost the usual, but when they aren’t together, you know they are never normally far from each other’s mind. I would especially say I find it strange after V has finally got the kiss she has been waiting for 3 seasons, which would make her devotion go even more through the roof, she only has one Eve related moment (the cake) before phoning Eve after seeing each other at the train station in ep 7. They could have nearly sunk them!

· Konstantin and Carolyn even overshadowed Eve and had more character development this season. Besides from Dasha, I would also say the new characters hardly gave anything to the plot such as Aubrey, Paul, and Geraldine. It even took me a while to remember these characters names. Paul you could take out of the season and nothing would change except that Carolyn wouldn’t have had another person to shoot in 3x08. I think Geraldine was a good character to have for Carolyn to show how she personally grieves, but why did they keep having the same scenes again and again? What the heck was that thing with Geraldine and Konstantin? I’m still unclear on how Dasha and Villanelle’s relationship came about and what happened. How old was Villanelle? How long was Dasha her mentor for? It seems like they forgot that they had Konstantin saying to V in 3x02 about Dasha doing something to her and the way Villanelle attacked Dasha upon seeing her again, that they just quickly wrote the hospital scene in 3x08. I was so confused what was happening. Did they mean Dasha shot at Villanelle because ‘she wasn’t ready’ as in emotionally or physically? Did Dasha actually manage to shoot her? Didn’t they allude to Konstantin being the one to recruit her from the prison in s1, so how did she not stay with him? How did she escape Dasha? It seemed random that Dasha just happened to die when Konstantin was there, when he said she was going to die in the hospital. I thought he had done something, but apparently not?

2. When asked what she was most excited about the audience seeing, Suzanne said Villanelle and Eve’s journey. This is her quote about Eve. ‘Similarly with Eve, we really get to see deeper layers of Eve, and her really coming to terms with the person she is now. She’s forever changed because of what happened to her and what she’s been through, and it’s really about seeing her now, this new version of herself, and her acceptance of herself, which is very exciting and really takes her into new places’. I really just have to laugh. Where is it? It is absolutely ridiculous how little Eve was developed and ignored this season. When you guys do a rewatch, I highly recommend to at least watch 2x08 before going into s3 because it really just highlights the difference and how nuts it is that they dropped Eve by so much! I really don’t understand how it’s even possible. Coming into the show there are many ways you could go wrong. However, it’s not like it’s an easy thing to cut out the lead of your show! Especially when that character had the most exciting things happen to them in the finale of s2. The things I was most excited about going into s3 was seeing how Eve was coping with knowing she has the ability to kill someone. I can’t believe they did not bring up that Eve had killed someone once in the whole of s3!!! Like @kassies stated, it’s like Suzanne just took one line and things she liked and disregarded everything else. Suzanne practically said in the BBC sounds podcast that she had this idea of mummy issues, which personally I don’t think there is any evidence of except the fact V is attracted to older women, like most wlw are. If anything there is more evidence she would have daddy issues with her history of castrations and the many times she comments that she finds it strange that Konstantin hasn’t tried to have sex with her. After the line ‘most of’ her family were dead she stated she could go down that route! She practically wrote the whole season just based on this. She hasn’t even taken the quote correctly, as like others have pointed out, most of her family were actually alive and it was only her dad who was dead. I loved episode 5 originally but on my rewatch with the whole season it really seemed strange. When I first watched it I thought the next episode was going to be largely devoted to Eve so I wasn’t so bothered that it was a whole V ep. However, considering Eve was hardly given anything in ep6, I really don’t see how a whole V episode was needed. The annoying thing was this season could have been the best yet. With Eve and Villanelle both discovering themselves and meeting at the end. It was that, but with hardly any Eve content and I feel they are so lucky they managed to pull it off in the last 2 eps, and that’s largely down to what s1+2 accomplished. Again, ep5 just seems like a way for Suzanne to explore her mummy issues story, as there is nothing really juicy or pivotal for the plot. Why not really show how the twelve have had their eye on V since she was little. Have the mum saying a man told her V was dead, as Konstantin did with Anna in s1? It would have added so much more to the twelve. Especially when the big thing about V this season is her wanting away from the control the twelve have on her. Why not show just how much?

I actually had no idea what Eve was thinking for most of the season and from what I do know and think is based on what I know of this character from the previous 2 seasons. Maybe this is just me not getting it, but I thought Eve was in the kitchen because she was in denial and I kept waiting for her to get a breakthrough and embrace her true self. It wasn’t until Sandra said Eve was actually showing strength by working in the kitchen, and by saying ‘no’ to working in the front, that I was like ‘oh’ that’s what it’s meant to mean. I actually feel so sad for Sandra because I can’t imagine what she must have been thinking with Eve’s treatment this season. I actually feel there are even moments in the season that delibrately stop Eve’s development. For example that lazy line of ‘lucky those tourists found you’. How? I know irl it’s a tourist attraction, but in the show they had to break into a tunnel to access it. I also don’t like the scene with Jamie. You could say it highlights the line in the finale ‘I think we all have monsters’ but I feel like it invalidates just how different Eve and Villanelle are from other people. Jamie taking his kids to the zoo when high is hardly the same as Eve hacking a man to death with an axe.

This is already so long, and I could go on and on, but I’m just going to point out some issues and plot holes.

. Kenny’s death was meant to be the biggest storyline of the whole season and what got Eve back into the story. However, she only looked into his death in ep3 and never again. Carolyn didn’t even really look into his death and all we got was constant scenes with her and Geraldine. Why couldn’t we have gotten Eve and Carolyn doing real detective work like in s1 as was implied was going to happen in ep3? I don’t even feel like they actually thought through his death as it was ‘solved’ by Bear who despite apparently not thinking Kenny had commited suicide from the beginning and wanting access to his phone, apparently did not think to check a camera he had set up until weeks later?! I don’t think it’s possible Kenny fell off the roof as in ep4 when Eve chucks the cake, the wall comes up near to her chest. You could not fall off that. He also would have screamed when falling. I also don’t even know how the twelve knew Kenny was looking into the accounts. Especially if they knew Kenny was looking into it, and knew money was being taken, how did it take them so long to kill the accountant? Laura could develop this in s4, but I feel as though it was Suzanne’s job to follow through with this storyline.

. How did Konstantin know what V looked like as a baby? Where did he see the photo? Why did they make a point to highlight that she was with someone in the photo and Konstantin really didn’t seem to want to tell her, yet the next episode he handed over her family right away? As much as I love Villanelle’s journey, on a rewatch, the family story seemed to almost come out of nowhere in ep3 and then the next episode she had the information and went home. Why not introduce the idea in ep 1?

. How would Puyter know that it was his sister? Upon immediately seeing her he knew it was Oksana. I don’t think it says how old they were, but he is younger than V, and we saw how old she was in the pics, I really don’t think he would recognise her, especially when he thinks she is dead.

. Why is there not pictures of the dad? Even if the mum was saddened by his death as she really seemed to love him, why would she not have any photos? Also with how much she seems to be scared and despise V, why would she keep the photos of her? Did the dad die while Villanelle was still there or is she just taking he’s dead as he’s not there. I thought they were going to reveal that the dad was still alive and part of the twelve but nope.

. Why was Rhian so scared of V at the train station? I know she’s the demon with no face, but Rhian was ready to be moving into Villanelle’s shoes, and you can even see V is struggling to kill her, so why does Rhian act so scared and back herself onto the edge of the platform? That moment feels so disgenuous to me and at one point I though Rhian was acting.

. How did Carolyn know Helene and that V was working for her? Is it a plot hole or something to be explored in s4?

. Why was Eve acting like she didn’t know Villanelle was responsible for the Catalan murder in ep4 when we know she can tell V’s kills after a sec (as seen in ep6) and even after Carolyn had shown her the photo and said it was V?

. They didn’t even seem to give much attention to Eve’s scar or wound. It was not where it was in 2x08. I know they said that they were going to move around where she had been shot, but when Suzanne was asked why the scar was different she said she wanted it to seem like Villanelle went for the kill shot, despite saying in other interviews that she doesn’t think Villanelle did try or want to kill Eve. The scar’s even so weird. I’m no expert, so that it maybe how they look, but it doesn’t even look like a bullet wound. Would the bullet not have left a round mark?

. Why did they keep Niko around for so long? I personally loved where Emerald had taken it in 2x07 and was excited to see where Niko was. Maybe he was up for the murder of Gemma. It would have been another good opportunity to see Eve's skewed morals. A part of her being flattered that Villanelle killed Gemma as sort of revenge for stepping on Eve. Instead it got completely swept under the rug in 3x01 too by Niko saying mi6 said she killed herself. What happened? How did they find him? It doesn't even make sense now why V killed her. However, I would say there was also something symbolic about him ending up in a rehabilitation retreat because Eve and her actions has 'broken' him. It was quite powerful for his character to tell Eve he deserved better than her. Because he does. He basically told her to p*ss off there. Why make the little time Eve is being given to another ep where she chases him down, for him to get brutally attacked in a way that is so ridiculous that he would survive it borders on a soap opera. I thought the reason he survived was to give a big Eve moment of her saying her acceptance that she can't have a normal life. Instead they just had the same convo as 3x01 with him telling her to p*ss off. Then a scene with Eve looking at him and leaving. What is going on in her head? Why are you not giving her anything? We didn't even get to see her dealing with the act happening.

. This brings me onto the point of it. It could of had so much impact, yes it was cool because Eve knew it wasn't V, but there could have been so much more given to it. Such as Dasha saying to V in the lift in 3x07 about her having someone waiting for her back home, how Dasha has just destroyed the thread between the only person V cares about. It would have made V hitting her with the golf club so much more delicious.

. Villanelle saying to Konstantin that she didn't want him to die in 3x07 and looking upset. Yet in 3x08 she looks almost excited about the fact he's about to be shot?

. It also annoys me so much that Raymond was just discarded and we still know nothing about the twelve. I thought this season was really going to dive into them, but we don't know anymore about them than we did at the start of the season. After rewatching 2x08 I really wish they had explored the twelve thru Raymond. If you wanted to give Konstantin more why not have him in with the twelve and the consequences of 2x08? Raymond saying 'Some would say I'm a real somebody'. 'They will take you apart for this'. 'After today a lot of people are going to be angry'. How high was Raymond? The implications that V+E were in so much danger after killing Raymond. Then it's 6 months later and Dasha just says they've been watching V for months. Were they watching Eve? Who knows nobody cares about Eve this season😒 Why bring in new members of the twelve like Paul, make brand new stories such as Kenny's death and the money, to just kill Paul and not resolve them.

I really don't understand how the twelve haven't killed V yet. She screws up all the time from s1 onwards. I get she is amazing at her job but they have others such as Rhian. Why do they let her get away with it? It was confusing me so much this season. I thought they were going to make her dad a member of the twelve and that's how she's protected.

. The title cards and intro. By now you might all be thinking she's just tearing everything apart. Trust me, there are moments of s3 I love and that is why it's so frustrating. Laura's 3 eps are some of my fave of the show so fingers crossed that means good things for s4. I felt she grasped the original tone of the show. So speaking of staying true to the show, I don't understand why they were changing the format of the title cards. Sometimes it was funny 'p*ss off forever' and 'this is bullshit'. Yet, it also really threw me off because it's not what usually happens. I'm all for new things being tried, yet I actually find myself questioning what wasn't changed and what was kept original? The names coming up in 3x04...I can't even. This is more of a personal take as I know some people really liked them, but when it was coming up 'Eve' I was just sitting there thinking 'I know that's Eve. I've been watching her for 3 years'.

Why was there only a title sequence in 2 episodes? Suzanne got asked and said that it was only ep2 and ep7 that felt right. I mean...I'm pretty sure it could have worked in all of them. I loved the title sequences so much, and was so excited when that drop fell and they started in ep2. Then I was so confused when none of the next ones had it. Episode 7 is one of my favourite episodes of the whole show, and that title sequence is just *chef's kiss*. My point really is that it came across to me as an experiment as they only did certain things in one episode and never again, and it made me uncomfortable.

#killing eve #villaneve

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bird-in-a-cage · 4 years

Note

49 and 114, together or separate, for harringrove

Hi! Thank you for the requests, the rest of the list up for grabs is here. I’m super pleased to inform you that you have unlocked my super special Serial Killer AU which has been brewing in my head for months, and I promised the two people that know about it that it would never see the light of day.

But then a certain actor decided to play a serial killer while the whole world was going deeper into the shit and I listened to an endless amount of true crime podcasts during lockdown and well, here we are.

Completely and utterly inspired by this piece of art by @awrble that frankly should be in a gallery but has instead been living in my brain rent free ever since I first clapped eyes on its beauty.

So, I present to you anon, and you all, my serial killer AU

#49 Please just breathe

She didn’t even scream. That was the worst part.

Not being picked up off the side of the street in Harrington’s fancy BMW that was just crawling at a snail’s pace. Not his voice, deep and demanding but phrasing his carefully chosen words like a question. Wanna go for a ride Hargrove? The illusion of choice. Not being driven out to the middle of the woods near dusk in total silence, Steve just staring forward like he was looking into the next county but driving with one hand on the wheel like it was a casual affair. And that Billy wasn’t sat next to him with a knife in his pocket for his own protection, heartbeat drumming through his fingertips.

Billy wasn’t stupid. He’d read the news.

It wasn't seeing Nancy Wheeler on her knees and terrified, looking like she’d been stranded out here for days, tied to a tree by her wrists and neck like a backyard dog on a short leash. Cheeks dirty except for tear tracks. It wasn't being ordered out of the car and forced to hear her cry and beg, looking up at Steve like he might show an ounce of mercy. It wasn't being frozen to the spot and just watching his lean form kneel down to her height as she sobbed, cupping her cheek like muscle memory. Something they used to do everyday in the halls.

She should have screamed. Turned and bit his hand. Chewed off a finger. Billy should have stepped in to help. To stop all this madness and put an end to it. But they were both stuck in time. Trapped in the sludge.

They found Carol without her tongue. Thrown into a heap in an abandoned bus at the junkyard. She'd been there for a week before anyone found her, slowly starting to decay in the Indiana heat. Some poor kid just looking around for something to do stumbled into a horror scene. He’d probably never sleep again.

The worst part wasn’t hearing Steve say, smooth as silk without any hint of irony, looking right into her big watery eyes, “Don’t cry Nance. It's just bullshit right?”

She should have screamed. But she didn’t. Billy should have moved to help her. But he couldn’t. All they could both do was just watch as Steve swung a nail bat at her head.

The wet crack was sickening. It rang out through the silent air louder than a gunshot. Nancy Wheeler died silent. Almost accepting the situation. Like she knew what was coming. She died before seeing the manic grin spread across Steve’s features. Wild and untamed. Like he’d been waiting to do this. Blood pooled as she slumped forward, just held up by ropes. A part of her skull was missing.

“Come check she’s dead.” Steve was rolling the nail bat around in his hands, bits of skin and hair and bone were stuck to it, talking to it more than the only other alive person around. Billy could only move then, like he’d been waiting for instruction all along before his body was free. He slid to his knees in the dirt. Her skin was still warm under his fingers, but the rope around her neck had choked her if the hole in the side of her head didn’t finish the job.

Please just breathe. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.

No amount of will would fix any of this.

They found that Jonathan kid without his eyes, face down in the quarry. Already starting to bloat in the stagnant water.

Billy scrambled to his feet when Steve stepped closer, backing up towards another tree to put some space between them. People had been going missing for months. There was a killer in Hawkins. Billy thought he’d at least escaped that leaving California. But it seemed the curse followed him. The paranoia. Always having to lock your doors. Be careful of who could already be in the back seat of your car. Someone could always be following you.

Everyone they found, Carol and Jonathan and now, eventually, Nancy, all linked back to Hawkins High. They were all teenagers. That was all the police had. Everyone had been killed in a different way, dumped a different way. There was no pattern, no clear motive.

Except Billy knew. Knew because he was next.

Carol turned on Steve, took her loyal band with her. Once friends, then distant and a gossiper when he was no longer King. Jonothan was a peeper. Made the King angry once upon a time. And Nancy, well, Nancy broke the King’s heart.

But Billy had taken this throne. Taken his crown and shoved him down into the unwashed masses without a second thought. Without warning.

The switchblade in his pocket felt useless to such a grin, pure freedom and lack of wills. Eyes wide and full of joy. Like a kid staring at an ice cream truck on a hot summer day. Steve’s hands and cheek were speckled in blood like freckles. Exaggerated moles that already marked his skin. Some were so dark they were barely different.

“Don’t look so scared,” he smiled. Billy must have looked terrified, horrified, anything but easy and relaxed which was all Steve was giving off. “The first is always the worst, but it gets easier. It’ll get easier for you.”

He held out the nail bat for Billy to take. He grabbed it before he could think, holding it to defend himself against whatever was going to happen next. Surely Billy was next. His heart was hammering up against his chest, threatening to break through. Nancy didn’t even scream. Billy would go down swinging.

Steve just chuckled, amused at something, looking Billy up and down once before going to untie Nancy. She slumped on her side but face down, pressing into the dirt. The final indignation. He gathered up the ropes and walked back towards Billy, close enough that with one good swing this could be over. They both knew that. And still. Billy stayed frozen. Years of Neil had worn him down, in the face of true horror and fear he was stagnant. As always. Only able to fight when it didn’t matter, when the anger had boiled up enough inside it had nowhere else to go other than fists and kicks. Neither fight nor flight. Fear and dread blocking out every logical idea. Steve walked back over to his car and popped open the truck with a small clunk.

“I’m gonna need that back. Thanks for taking the fall though. You’re a real amigo.”

Billy looked down at what was in his hands. The bat. It all suddenly clicked together like the most horrific jigsaw. Prints. Billy’s fingerprints were all over the murder weapon. And he’d just accepted it like a christmas gift around the tree or a thoughtful valentine over dinner. Who were the police going to believe? Steve Harrington; Hawkins high society prince who’d never been in trouble with the law before and whose family practically owned half the town, or Billy Hargrove; moody out of towner who’s arrival matched up almost perfectly with the rise of dead teenagers and who already had three speeding tickets?

Billy didn’t have a choice now. He dumped the bat in the trunk as fast as he could without looking desperate, without giving anything away about how he was fucking terrified. About how he could feel his heart in this throat threatening to choke him. Like Nancy.

“Knife too please. I saw you playing with it at lunch the other day. Everyone says I’m dumb but I’m not stupid. I know who to keep an eye on.” The smile in which Steve spoke through was chilling. Like he didn’t know he was doing anything wrong. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe in his mind this was just how things were meant to be. Billy threw the small switchblade in the trunk too, before he had a chance to see what would happen if that smile faded. Steve handed over his keys in return.

“I want to go home. You can drive partner. We have someone to visit in the morning.”

Maybe Nancy not screaming wasn’t the worst part after all.

#harringrove #serial killer au #my writings #prompt list #billy x steve #also on my ao3 #tw: gore #tw: horror

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havethetimeofyourstyles · 5 years

Text

You and Me

Thank you to @msmarian94 for requesting this!

This was kinda rough lol, but hope you all enjoy!

*gif not mine*

You’ve kind of always been the shy type.

Ever since you were younger, you’ve always sat on the sidelines, watching your classmates play on the playground as the teacher’s encouraged them to “stop running!” You’ve developed some sort of FOMO (fear of missing out) from being so shy and socially awkward.

Social anxiety really got the best of you during middle school and high school. Although you’ve made one good friend, Isabel, that stuck with you through it all, you’ve never really branched out to make new friends because you didn’t know how or what would be a good conversation started.

You were gorgeous—are gorgeous. Many people knew that too. You were a bit oblivious to it all; how people would stare at you, and many guys you used to go to school with, used to try and talk to you. And oblivious to just simply how gorgeous you are. But then again, your social anxiety got the best of you.

Then came around college. You didn’t have to freak out just yet because you and Isabel were going to the same college for only two years, but it’s when uni started that made you freak out a bit. Isabel was going to school in Ireland for business as you were still in London studying for journalism.

Uni was the time you had to break out of shell. It was definitely hard to though. It wasn’t as easy as it seemed. You’re practically in a new environment and you knew no one. Everyone that you passed by seemed like they knew someone. That made you a bit sad and frustrated.

Your roommate was nice to you, that was a plus. She would always invite you to parties on school night, which you kindly decline, saying you had a paper to write or a book to read, which is true 90% of the time. Other 10% is that it’s not really your scene. You’d rather stay in than go out, and you don’t see a problem with that. You’d also get a chance to call your family almost every night, and you can admit you’re getting homesick.

“Love, you need to go out! Stop trapping yourself in that dorm of yours or you might go crazy.”

“I-It’s hard, Mum. You know how I am.” You frown to yourself as you hear your mother sigh on the phone.

“I sure do, but how will you ever get out of that shell if you don’t try?”

You were sat outside of a cafe that’s close to the dorms. Your last class had cancelled and so you decided to take advantage of the nice weather London offered only a few times of the year. As you scanned over your notes and back to your laptop, someone cleared their throat causing you to cut your focus.

“Uh, hi. I don’t want to be that person, but seeing as there are no seats available inside and your table seems like the only one with a chair empty. D-do you mind if I sit here?” The stranger smiled softly. He was very attractive, you have to admit. He had a bit of a softness to him that you liked. This also could be a very great opportunity to practice your social skills, and who knows, maybe you’ll befriend this guy.

You nod. “Sure!” You say too excitedly for your liking. “I-I mean, yeah, okay, uh, yeah.” You say in a more lower tone. He chuckles a bit at your fumble of words and takes a seat. You quickly move your folders and book out of the way and set them on your lap.

“I’m Harry, by the way.” Harry reaches out his hands, which you gladly take, proceeding to tell him your name and that it’s a pleasure meeting him. In which, he smiles.

“What are you studying for anyway?” Harry asks.

“Oh, uh, basically reading stuff about American literature. Proper boring if I’m being honest.” You say shyly.

“Yeah, I remember taking American literature. Wasn’t my go to, that’s for sure.”

“What about you? What are you studying?”

“Actually, I’m not in school anymore. I graduated about 2 and half years ago.” Harry says and you’re shocked. He looks about your age and he looks insanely good.

“What? What are you blushing about?” You hadn’t even realized you were blushing, making you blush even more out of embarrassment. “C’mon, tell me.” He says as he flashes his beautiful, dimpled smile at you.

“Uh, it’s embarrassing.” You put your head down, tucking your hair behind your ear.

“Alright, I won’t push ya to it.” He smirks.

You simply went to the cafe to utilize the extra free time you had for studying and writing your paper, but that time was used talking to Harry and getting to know him, and vice versa. You’ve come to find out that he’s a sweet and down to earth person. He doesn’t push or nag you about personal things that people love to talk to strangers about, and you appreciate that.

Instead, you both talk about school and work, which you’ve come to find out that he works in a big marketing business. And you realized that he’s kind of perfect for that job. He loves to talk and talks with enthusiasm, which you think he’s fit for. You talk about hobbies: he loves to write and read on the side, and he loves to sing and play the guitar. The taste in music and movies: he loves the oldies. Anything from Fleetwood Mac, The Rolling Stones, Donny Hathaway, Van Morrison, you name it. He’s also a sucker for a good romcom.

You realized that it was getting rather late, and as you were collecting your stuff, you were getting a bit sad having to leave and stop talking to him.

“It was nice talking to you.” Harry says as you stand up and give him a smile

“You too, Harry.”

“I’ll see you when I see you.”

It was two months later when you saw Harry again. You decided to take a stroll in the park, thankful for the sunny weather again. Your earphones are in as you listen to a recent podcast you found interesting on the science of being transgender. It was something your friend sent you and it’s always great to be educated.

You take in the scenery in front of you with your hands in your cardigan pocket as you walk on the gravel cement. You people watch as you watch parents play with their kids and people jogging passed you. And a specific person you think looks very familiar.

A person looking very familiar walking towards you.

You take your headphone out. “Uh, hi Harry.”

He looks at you with bright eyes and gives you a big smile. “Oh my god, hi! How are you?” He gives you a hug, which you gladly to hug him back.

“I’m good, I’m good. Just here for a walk. How’ve you been?”

“Likewise, but I’ve been okay. To be honest, I was kind of regretting not asking for your number after we met.” He says shyly.

You blush. “Oh, wow. Uh, did you still want it?”

“I’d love to have it.” You gladly exchange numbers and proceed walking together in the park.

“Would you like to go on a date with me?” You look at him with shocked eyes.

“Y-you want to go on a date? With me?” You say nervously.

“Just said that, didn’t I?” He chuckles.

“Okay. Yeah, sure. I’d love to.” He smiles.

“Great.”

You’d thrown clothes and put them back on the hangers until you found the perfect outfit to wear. You wore a simple black, two piece skirt outfit with a chunky cardigan, and a bit of a heel. Makeup was always minimal, sticking to only mascara and eyebrow gel, knowing full well you don’t know how to do a full face.

“You look amazing tonight. I mean you look great all the time, but you really do look great.” Harry says as he’s sitting across you with a menu in his hands.

“Thank you, Harry. You look great too.” He smiles and looks back down at the menu as you do too.

“This place is quite the scene.” You say.

“I wanted it to be perfect for you.”

“You could’ve taken me anywhere and I would’ve loved it.”

You notice some people look at you in the most rude way possible, knowing you don’t fit into the scene. Harry notices the way people look at you, and you noticing how they look at you both.

“Hey.” You’re quick to bring your attention back to him and turn your head to look at him. “Don’t worry about them, okay? It’s just you and me tonight.” You nod your head and smile at him. It’s just the two of you.

After a successful first date, you’re giddy about him. I mean, who wouldn’t after? You’ve come to find out he’s a bit older than you. As you’re only 20, you find out he’s 25, working for a big marketing company. You’re slightly intimidated by that, but he reassures you it’s just fine, and he likes you for you, not your age.

After the second date, you feel as if you’re falling for him. It’s quite early on, but you’ve never experienced this before and with texting him almost every second of the day, you can’t help it. At the end of the date, he drops you off at your dorm.

Harry on the other hand, has quite fallen for you too. People are always so skeptical about ages, but he simply doesn’t care. That’s just something people are going to throw at you both if you proceed to date. It’s been quite a while since he’s done the whole dating thing, and he thinks it seems so right with you. Even though it’s only the second date.

“I had a lovely time tonight. Always do when I’m with you.” He says as holds your hand and doesn’t let go, as you’re both standing in front of your door.

“Me too. Thank you for tonight.” He brings your hand up to his mouth and kisses it. You smile, which then leads to him smiling. He pulls you in for a hug and you hug him tightly, not wanting the night to end. Harry pulls back and brushes the hairs out of your face and behind your ear.

“Can I kiss you?” He whispers as he looks at your lips. You’re frozen, shocked by his request.

“I-okay. I, uhm, I’ve never actually kissed someone before.” He looks you in the eye, finding some sort of lie in them, but finds that you’re actually telling the truth.

“No worries. I’ll just kiss you here,” he kisses you on the forehead. “And here.” He moves down to your nose. “And here.” He shifts to your left cheek. “And another one right here.” He proceeds over to the other cheek. Harry pulls away and look at your with glimmering eyes; the one that you’ve fallen for and it makes your heart burst. And the next thing you know, you’re pulling his arm and your lips connect with his. The kiss lasts for about 7 seconds. You’re both just enjoying the feel of each other with the most romantic gesture. You let go and open your eyes, seeing as he’s slowly opening his. He gives you a smile as he caresses your cheek.

“I’ve been waiting for that.”

Just a week after, you and Harry went on your third date to the local fair. It was by far your favorite date as you ate kettle corn, funnel cakes, and anything greasy you can imagine. You both played games and went on rides. After you won the round of shooting the water into the little hole, he saw the bright look on your face and how you lit up when you’re happy, so he couldn’t help but ask.

“Will you be my girlfriend?” You stopped jumping and looked at him.

“Did you just ask what I think you asked?”

“I sure did.”

“You want to be my boyfriend?” He nods happily. “And you want me to be your girlfriend?” He nods again.

“I really like you. I want to be able to call you my girlfriend. So...”

“Yes! Yes, of course!” You throw your arms around him and give him a big hug as he kisses your shoulder.

A few months after you and Harry made it official, you both couldn’t get enough of each other; always finding time to hang out with each other and go on dates. You’ve learned so much about him and he, you. It was pure bliss and happiness. You’ve never been so happy before. Naturally, your parents and Isabel asked you questions about him. Of course, mentioning the obviously that he was a bit older, but you shook it off because Harry is overall such a gentleman.

You and Harry were leaning on about a year and two months of being together and you still can’t believe the love he gives you. It’s definitely something you’re still not used to. You truly could not have asked for a better boyfriend.

Harry feels over the moon about you. He would do anything and everything for you without hesitation. Even though you would tell him not to, he doesn’t mind. He loves spoiling you with the love that you deserve. He loves everything about you. From when you blush shyly at the compliments he showers you with to the way you look when he’s deep inside of you, making you feel amazing.

He was kind of on the edge when you told him that you wanted him to make you feel good and finally have sex since it was your first time, but you reassured him that you’d want him and only him to make you feel at bliss.

Harry had invited you to a work party as his company was celebrating 40 years. To say the least, you were nervous. You had to make a good impression on his co-workers and his boss. He’s a big name of the company and has brought many successes over the years of being there, so you have to make yourself worthy of the big shot that he is.

The venue was rather nice. It was decorated with pretty light on the ceiling and dim lights with music playing in the background. People dressed amazingly as they held their drinks in one hand and greeting people with the other.

“Ah, Harry! There you are, was waiting for you to show up.” A man with black and gray hair, and beard greeted Harry.

“I’ve made it and I’ve brought the girlfriend. Daniel, meet my girlfriend.” Daniel put his hand out. “This is my boss.” You gladly shake his hand.

“Harry’s good at what he does. Keep him on his feet, will ya?” You chuckle.

“Will do. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Well, gotta go say hi to more people and make my rounds. Harry, lets have a drink later. And the missus, it was a pleasure.” You and Harry smile and bid him a ‘see you later.’

An hour or two into the party, you encouraged Harry to go and mingle, saying you didn’t mind sitting here. He gives you a kiss, saying he promised he would be back in 30, which you tell him to take his time.

“So Harry, how did you meet your girl?” Daniel asks as he takes a sip from his drink.

“We met outside of a cafe and I asked if I could sit with her. Then I saw her again two months later, and asked her out on a date.” He smiles, thinking back at the memory and start of your relationship.

“Ahh. That’s nice. Cliche, but nice. What does she do if you don’t mind me asking?”

“No, not at all. She’s actually still in school. This is her last year before she starts working, but she does intern at the publishing house.”

“Oh. She’s still in school?” Hart nods. “How old is she anyways?”

“S-She’s 21. Why?” Harry asks skeptically.

“It’s just that—don’t you think she’s a little young for you?” Daniel raises his eyebrows.

“Young? She’s only like 5 years younger than me.” Harry tries to stay calm as he explains, even though he knows he doesn’t have to.

“I’m just saying. What will happen if you’re what, 30? What will happen if you want to settle down and she doesn’t? She’d be at the peak of her life! She wouldn’t want to settle right away anyways. You’re obviously not getting any younger. All I’m saying is that: do you see a future with her and if she’s even worth it to wait for?”

The last part seemed like it was shade thrown at you. Harry is a very patient man. It takes a lot for him to get mad—furious. He clenches his fist, trying to maintain an appropriate attitude. He could say a whole lot to his boss right now, but again, that’s his boss. So Harry just stays quiet, hoping you’re having a better time than he is.

And you’re not.

During that time Harry was talking to Daniel, you were glad Harry was mingling at his work party while taking sips of his drink. Two ladies took a seat right next to you and you turn to look at them.

“H-Hello.” You say nervously. One of the girls raised her eyebrows.

“Are you Harry’s girlfriend?” The other asked.

“Yeah, I am.” You give them a soft smile.

“Tragic.” She replied with a low tone, but you heard her clear.

“I-I’m sorry?”

“I said that’s tragic.” She says in a more loud and clear voice. You give them a confused look. “It’s only tragic because he could do so much better than you.” She looks you up and down, and your face drops and you wish Harry could come over and interrupt. But they’re not wrong, are they? These two girls are drop, dead gorgeous as they wear low cut dresses that hug their body making them look even more sexier—attractive. And then there’s you.

You thought you had cleaned yourself up pretty well. You decided to step it up in the makeup department and tried out some basic eyeshadow. You still stuck with mascara and eyebrow gel, and finished it with a gloss. Your dress is a white halter dress that goes just above your knees as it shows your back, and flows out slightly. Your shoes are 2 to 3 inches of nude heels.

“And aren’t you a little too young to be in this place? You’re, what, 18?”

“I’m actually 21.” You say softly.

“Aww, that’s cute! Barely pass the drinking age in the states. Very cute.” They say sarcastically. You frown, trying not to cry. This is part of the reason you hated social events or parties. People can say some really rude shit and you’re there to just take it. You’ve never been a fighter and you don’t want to be, so you’re sat there, not trying to make a scene.

“Ladies.” Harry thankfully arrives just before you’re about to burst into tears. “How are you doing? Jenna, Mila?”

“We’re doing great, Harry!” Their voice suddenly changing. “We’re just having a chat with you’re lovely girlfriend.” They look at you in an almost threatening way, but back at Harry with dreamy eyes.

“Lovely, isn’t she? Beautiful thing, she is.” He looks at you with admiration and love, and it’s comforting—familiar.

“The loveliest.” They say in a fake tone.

“Well, we’re just about ready to head out. Hope you both enjoy the rest of your evening.” Your mine blocks out whatever they had said and whatever had happened from the time you left the party to the time you arrived at Harry’s.

“Did you enjoy the party?” Harry asks as he turns over to you in the bed. You turn to face him and only give him a nod, not trusting your voice.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Do you ever regret being with me?” Harry looks at you with shock.

“Why would I ever regret being with you?”

“I don’t know. I’m younger than you. You’re a handsome, sweet, and charming man, and could possibly be with anyone. I’m just me.” You say with a sad tone.

“If you need to know, no. No I don’t regret being with you. I will never regret being with you.” You only nod.

“Jenna and Mila brought this up didn’t they? I was watching you from the bar, and noticed that your face dropped and that you were about to cry while they were talking to you. So I had to get my love out of there.”

You sigh. “I appreciate it, Harry. But yeah, I just don’t want you to miss out on opportunities, you know? I don’t want you to regret being with me for a more classy and experienced person. I understand-“

“Stop. Please. Look, I don’t want you to ever think that, okay? Who said I was missing out on opportunities anyways? I love experiencing new things with you. You mean the world to me and I love you so much. You’re the first person to make me feel something. I don’t give a fuck what they think. You’re only five years younger than me so I don’t see what the problem is. All that matters is you and me, got it?” That made you feel extremely better. The reassurance he made you feel is 10x more relaxing.

“Thank you, Harry. I love you too.” You give him a kiss.

“You know, Daniel said almost the same thing.” You raise your eyebrows. “Said that if you’re even worth the wait if I wanna get married or some shit like that.” You stay silent, not knowing what to say. I mean Daniel was somewhat right. If I don’t want to get married right now and Harry does, it’s only natural it won’t work out. “That doesn’t matter what he says anyways.”

“Why?”

“Because love, I would wait for you until you’re ready. Sure I want to get married and have kids with you, but I know you’re not in a rush to do so, and I’m not either anyways. And if you don’t want to get married then fuck it! We don’t have to put an official title of Husband and Wife on us. I don’t care as long as I’m with you.”

“Harry, that’s so sweet. And just to clarify, I want to marry you and luckily have kids with you too.” Harry blushes at your words.

“I know we’ve only been together for a little over a year, but when I know, I know. And all I know is that I want that future with you. It’s just you and me.”

“And I know too.”

“Good.” He pecks your nose.

“Do you remember when we met; how you caught me blushing and I turned all red?” Harry chuckles.

“Yeah, I do. Still don’t know why you were so embarrassed.”

“You had just told me that you’ve graduated about 3 years from that time and I remember thinking how insanely attractive you look because I thought you were my age.” Harry lets out a loud laugh. “Hey! It’s not funny!”

“You know what? Fuck age! If my girl thinks I look good then that’s all that matters.”

feel free to send in a request!

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles smut #harry styles angst #harry styles one shot #harry styles ff #1dff #harry styles fluff #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #older!harry #harry styles au #older writings

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theres-a-goldensky · 5 years

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32 Reddie Fic Recs

In honor of the joy I feel in finally getting out of this miserably terrible fucking year of my life, I thought I’d do something fun and make up a list of Reddie fic recs, since this has fandom has taken over my life recently. Strap in, friends. This is gonna be a long one.

These recs are in the order in which I read them.

As ever, feel free to reblog and check out my other rec lists for the following fandoms:

IT chapter 2 list part two - Reddie

Good Omens fic

The Untamed list one and two - various pairings, mostly Wangxian

Various BL Series fic (fandoms: Love By Chance, TharnType, 2Moons series, My Engineer, Until We Meet Again, 2gether, History3: Trapped)

Or just head over to my bookmarks on AO3.

All fics are Reddie, all are complete.

** - denotes personal favorite

1. first love / late spring by vowelinthug - ~36,000 words, explicit - They both survive It, but not without some injuries, both physical and psychological. Richie takes Eddie to a secluded cabin to help him recover. And then they accidentally make a podcast. Nice slowburn, a good Richie characterization. I liked the conversations between the two of them, in particular one about Richie’s disdain for shoes that was pitch perfect.

The doctor’s evil eye is on both of them now. “Your friend is gonna be fine. Broken collarbone and a lot of blood loss, but the arm stays on, for now anyway.” Probably at the way Richie sags in relief so hard he groans in pain, the doctor stops looking so severe. “He’s a tough guy. I’ve never seen anyone regain consciousness from that much blood loss just to give me a full medical history.”

“Oh my god,” says Richie, covering his mouth. “I like him so much.”

Bill pats his shoulder in sympathy.

2. the fireworks that go off when you smile by zach_stone - ~10,000 words, teen - Post-movie the adult Losers, including Stan, go on a vacation together. There’s just lots of Richie staring at a wet, shirtless Eddie and pining.

Richie blinks at him, his stomach doing a fucking somersault, pinned under Eddie’s weirdly passionate stare. He swallows another mouthful of beer to stall for time, shifting his gaze away. Spread out before him, the lake looks like flat, black glass. “Jeez, is the risk analyst really telling me to ignore the risks? What’s the world coming to?” he manages to joke.

He expects Eddie to roll his eyes, to huff and lean away again, but he doesn’t. He says, still earnest, “I just think some things are worth the risk.”

And Richie doesn’t know what the fuck to do with that. He resolutely tells himself not to puke on Ben and Beverly’s porch, because he thinks if he did it would just be the words I love Eddie Kaspbrak a hundred times over, all puddled on the slats of wood. He stands up rather abruptly. “I should go to bed,” he says, aware that he’s talking too loud, being too fucking obvious. “I’m jetlagged as fuck. Also maybe a little drunk.”

3. oh, i want the truth to be known by ShowMeAHero - ~7000 words, explicit - Richie sees Eddie die in the deadlights and then manages to save him at the last second, but It skewers him instead. I’m honestly not sure why there isn’t more fic with this premise, because Richie sacrificing his own safety for Eddie and then Eddie losing his shit is absolutely, 100% my jam.

The claw isn’t in Eddie’s chest. Instead, it’s in Richie’s, caught in his side, pinning him to the ground. He chokes on a scream, caught in his throat, and pushes at Eddie, just trying to get them away. He rolls into him, ripping Pennywise’s claw through his side to get away, but once he’s free, he’s scrambling into a half-stumble and dragging Eddie with him until they’re hidden under an outcropping of rock. His side is bleeding, he can feel it, and his entire fucking abdomen hurts, and, for a moment, it’s all he can process.

“Holy shit, Richie,” Eddie exclaims. The pain shuffles to the back of Richie’s mind so he can focus on Eddie instead. He sounds winded, but he’s fucking alive, unhurt and breathing and okay, and Richie huffs a laugh. He’s in so much fucking pain, but he can’t even figure out where it’s all originating from, and the only thought cycling through his brain is it’s okay, he’s okay, Eddie’s okay, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, over and over.

4. we'll be a fine line (we'll be alright) by buckyjerkbarnes - ~9,000 words, teen - Richie and the other Losers in the hospital after killing It, waiting for news on Eddie. Richie has a bit of a breakdown.

The ambulance ride had been the longest twenty minutes of Richie’s life. He'd tried not to get in the way of the EMTs who worked frantically to keep Eddie alive; who were far more patient with him than Richie likely deserved. By the time they'd rolled up to the emergency entrance at the hospital, Ben stamping his breaks as the rest of the Losers came to a grinding halt not fifteen yards away, Richie was still a sobbing mess. He couldn't see through the cracked lens of his glasses, and when Eddie, who had not opened his eyes or said a word since they were still in the sewers, was about to be wheeled out of sight, Richie made like a battering ram and lunged towards the pair of swinging doors.

“Sir!" An orderly yelped. "You can’t—!"

And Stan, who had materialized at Richie's elbow, told the orderly: "He's the husband."

5. ** It’s Hard to Tell Sometimes by gallopingmelancholia - ~21,000 words, explicit - Eddie divorces his wife and moves to LA to live with Richie. Richie promptly has like five emotional meltdowns over it. So much pining. So much. This is one of very few that has Eddie in the hospital for a realistic amount of time, which I appreciate. When writers have been hoping out of bed after a day or whatever, it really throws me out of the story.

“When can we see him?” Mike asks.

“He’s asleep, but we’ll send in a nurse when he wakes up. I wouldn’t expect it until tomorrow morning at the earliest. He’s been through quite a lot, eleven hours of surgery, and is on a lot of pain medication.”

“Will he survive? What’s the percentage? He’ll want to know the probability, he’s a risk analyst,” Richie says.

The doctor hesitates. “The chances he makes it through the night are 65%.”

“That’s not bad!” Richie says even as his heart drops to somewhere in the region of his feet. The others look at him pitifully. “Tell him we’re here and we love him. Tell him the Losers are here and we’ll see him soon.”

6. ** it’s a nice day to start again by eddiespaghetti (foxwatson) - ~6000 words, teen - Post-movie, Eddie wakes up one morning to discover that Richie and a woman had a shotgun wedding in Vegas the night before. Great, sad-but-trying-not-to-show-it Eddie here. (And yes, Richie is a total disaster gay who marries a woman on a whim.)

“Are you sitting down?”

“I didn’t even get out of bed yet! Bev please just tell me what the fuck is happening.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry. Just- Richie got married.”

“What? No he didn’t,” Eddie scoffs, throwing the covers off. “I’m not - he’s not even dating anybody, I see him all the time. It’s probably just a big joke or something, that’s-”

“He got married, in Vegas. It’s all over Twitter, and he- he sent pictures to the group chat last night. She’s some other comedian. None of us have ever met her, he didn’t invite any of us.”

7. Oh, But He Makes You Laugh by MellytheHun - ~9,000 words, mature - Teenage Eddie has to deal with some serious jealousy when a new friend enters their group. This one has a good, slow realization on Eddie’s part.

The boy is in their grade, though not part of their social sphere; he’s nearly as tall as Richie, with light eyes, and walnut colored hair. Eddie recognizes him from his AP bio class, but can’t inwardly recall his name.

The boy nods toward Stanley while keeping eye-contact with Richie, and informs him, “alligators - they can grow up to twenty feet.”

Richie opens his mouth to argue with the new kid, but he’s cut off.

“Which is weird, cause they usually only grow four.”

Eddie watches in abject bewilderment as a hearty, genuine laugh is startled out of Richie.

8. Richie Tozier: Pray Away the Gay by QueerOnTilMorning - ~4,500 words, teen - The official transcript of Richie Tozier’s comeback Netflix special. A lot of writers try to do Richie’s stand-up routine, but not many can nail it. This one feels realistic and contains actual, like, jokes and stuff.

Because I grew up in this little town called Derry, Maine--nope, absolutely not, do not cheer for that. Fuck Derry! I had this friend, for years he thought I was lactose intolerant, because he'd mention dairy and I'd be like "fuck Derry! Derry tried to fucking kill me!" No, I can eat cheese, I just hate my hometown. They did not fuck with the gays, in Derry. That's probably why I dress so shitty. It's a survival thing. I was already super into dudes. If I had developed fashion sense on top of that? No. Oh my God. It was so--I was so fucking scared all the time.

And like, to put this in perspective, has anyone ever heard of Henry Bowers? Any true crime fans in the house? Henry Bowers, the baby serial killer? Yeah, you listened to that podcast! My friend Bill was on that podcast, doesn't he have a sexy voice? Anyway, Henry Bowers, also known very creatively as The Derry Killer, murdered a bunch of kids the summer we were thirteen. I say we, because that dude was in my fucking class. There was an active serial killer in Derry during my childhood and still, still my greatest fear was that someone would find out I was gay.

9. RICHIE TOZIER IS...THE COMEBACK CLOWN by owlinaminor & tinypersonhotel - ~11,500, teen - An excellent multimedia fic about Richie’s life with Eddie post-movie.

While Richie Tozier never stops talking, Eddie Kaspbrak never stops moving. Listening to a conversation between the two men is akin to watching a pinball machine with two balls going at once, slamming into each other and the walls and the levers and each other, lighting up their surroundings in a trance as mesmerizing as it is chaotic. (Kaspbrack laughed when I told him this metaphor—apparently Tozier spent many an afternoon at the town arcade when they were kids.)

Over the course of one twenty-minute walk with their dog, a beagle named Stanley, through their L.A. neighborhood, they manage to call off their engagement, call it back on, invite me, uninvite me, call the engagement off again, debate eloping, call the whole thing back on but disinvite everyone except me, and finally agree on what color napkins to have at the reception.

10. ** The Jenga Dream Date by stitchy - ~15,000 words, explicit - Richie and Eddie domestic fluff that starts at Ben and Bev’s wedding. It feels so sweet, and you can just see the happiness radiating off the screen. This is truly the ending they deserve.

Then a seriously, unbearably cute thought occurs to Richie. A thought he can’t immediately share with Eddie, because Bill and Mike each independently cornered him and made him swear not to steal Bev and Ben’s thunder.

Ah, fuck it.

“I can’t think why we would possibly be in another situation in the near future where there’s dancing but also my mother is there for some reason, but holy shit, Eds! I have got to see you dance with Mom. During this very special situation. For which I will make hand calligraphed invitations and hire a photographer and-”

Eddie’s eyes dart in either direction before he lets out a short, slightly hysterical laugh. “Uhhh, I also have no idea when or why that would happen, or what sort of event that would be appropriate for.”

11. Bad Parts In by 50artists - ~9,000 words, not rated - It’s Richie that ends up in the hospital after it all goes down, and Eddie who has the crisis. And also some serious misapprehensions.

"I feel like Richie might be slightly weirded out," Eddie says dryly. "Like oh, hey, we've not spoken for decades and you're the straightest man I know, but it turns out I have been subconsciously in love with you since we were teenagers. I dunno, might make things a bit awkward."

"I'm sorry," says Beverly, "just to clarify, Richie Tozier is the straightest man you know?"

"Dude, have you seen his comedy? It's all, 'I love fucking chicks while drinking beer and watching football'."

"You mean the material that Richie doesn't write himself?'

12. ** We Found Love in a Chili’s ToGo by Amuly - ~14,000, explicit - Richie confesses his feelings to Eddie in the airport before they both headed back to their own lives. This is such a lovely story about friendship and love and putting yourself back together. And there’s some A+++ phone sex.

“Nah, Eds. It’s because I had a big gay crush and needed Stan to bitch at about it.”

Eddie frowned, then shook his head. “That doesn’t explain why you couldn’t bitch at me about it.”

“Well bitching about your secret crush to your secret crush is generally frowned upon, Eds. Kinda fucks up the ‘secret’ part.”

Eddie, bless his tiny heart, didn’t get it for a second. His expression scrunched up, about to say something stupid back to Richie, when his brain processed Richie’s words. In a second his expression fell open, jaw actually agape.

“Oh look: drinks!” Richie grabbed his marg, licking and drinking without even letting the waitress set it down onto the tabletop. Eddie barely had the courtesy left to let her set his down before he was grabbing at it.

13. ** Ask Me About My New Material by twoseas - ~7,000 words, explicit - I could read 10,000 stories about a confused and horny Eddie jerking it to Richie’s stand up without understanding why before they meet again in Derry. This one has a great Richie, who reacts like he got hit in the face with a bat when the truth comes out.

In the restaurant, as the gong resounded around them, Eddie looked up at a four-eyed, messy, middle aged Trashmouth and suddenly it all clicked.

He had two thoughts.

Oh, he realized, it’s because I’m in love with the dumbass.

And, Aw fuck.

14. No Parenthesis by pineapplecrushface - 13,000 words, explicit - In the deadlights, Stan gives Richie some instructions on how to bring him back. Spoilers: it involves an orgy. And Richie and Eddie dealing with their feelings.

“Okay,” Mike said, holding his hands out to placate him, and honestly Richie was really fucking sick of Mike saying crazy shit and then somehow—somehow!—convincing them to do it anyway. “I’m not saying we have to do it. I’m just saying, the ritual exists and we could do it, and now that it’s out there, I feel like you should all have the choice.”

“Great. I choose no. I’m fucking leaving before I get ritualed into giving all my money to a cult leader and I end up spending the rest of my sad short life on an alpaca farm,” Richie said, standing up too fast and stalking across the room.

“Richie,” Bev said, and she sounded, unbelievably, like she was not thinking this was completely insane.

“Are you fucking serious?” He whirled around to look at them. They were all giving him varying levels of Richie, be reasonable, which was a look he was familiar with, but not when it came to sex rituals, for some fucking reason.

15. ** Stupid Deep series by anonymous - ~50,000 words, explicit - Richie has a huge dick, and Eddie is obsessed with it. Come for the super, super hot sex, stay for the sweet romance, twist of angst and happy ending.

It’s been five months since then, and Eddie has spent at least 40% of that time thinking about Richie’s big fucking dick. He spends about 20% working from home, 20% arguing with Richie about dumb shit, and the remaining 30% sleeping—this adds up to 110%, but that’s because there’s overlap between the sleeping and the thinking about Richie’s huge dick in the form of extremely graphic dreams.

He thinks about Richie’s dick in the shower. He thinks about Richie’s dick when they’re watching TV together. He thinks about Richie’s dick when he’s trying to eat breakfast. He hasn’t even seen it hard. But god, he thinks about it. Thinks about it hot and thick in his hand, thinks about it twitching as Eddie strokes it, thinks about it stretching his lips, thinks about it leaking precum all over Eddie’s fingers and tongue and stomach. And, most importantly—most vividly—he thinks about Richie’s dick inside of him, filling him up, fucking him.

At the same time, Eddie also spent a good amount of time, woven through the rest of his daily activities, falling so deeply in love with his best-friend-cum-roommate that it was disturbing at best. There was pining. There were lingering glances. There was lying on Richie’s bed while he was out just to ease the ache in his chest with Richie’s warm, familiar scent, which is disgusting and Eddie hates to think about it. There were, in Eddie’s darkest moments, daydreams about Richie holding his hand and kissing him and telling Eddie he’s in love with him. Like a fucking sap.

16. I’m quite alright hiding today by remusjohn - ~7,000 words, explicit - Eddie kisses Richie out of the deadlights, but Richie doesn’t know if that means anything.

On the first night they don’t do much of anything. They unpack (well, Eddie unpacks his massive bags while Richie tries to figure out how to sign in to his Netflix account on the tiny TV in the living room), and they order in, and they argue over what to watch while they’re eating, and Eddie falls asleep some hours later with his head tucked into Richie’s shoulder, and Richie tries not to think too much of it.

There’s been a lot of that, the last couple of days. Richie doesn’t know how to say, You kissed me to wake me up from the deadlights and I don’t know if you did it to save my life or if there’s something else too, but it’s kind of killing me, man.

So Richie doesn’t say anything at all.

17. Haunt Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me by Vulcanodon - ~20,000 words, explicit - AU where Eddie and Richie are ghost hunters who get stuck in a very trippy haunted house. This concept really shouldn’t work, and I’m not big on AUs in the fandom, but the relationship between the two of them really sells it. And, obviously, the pining. There’s so much.

The only time Eddie has ever witnessed Richie freaking out was when they had been fucking about in the woods near Montana for their werewolf episode. Eddie had been walking backwards, trying to get Richie and a creepy footprint in frame when he had suddenly felt nothing but air behind him. He had fallen for an impressively long time down the hill, blacking out briefly when a branch caught his head and when he came to Richie had been leaning over him, white and frantic, hands all fisted up in Eddie’s shirt.

Eddie, Eddie, Eds, Richie had said, nearly crying. Are you alright, can you talk?

Is my camera broken? Eddie had managed woozily to say, and for a moment Eddie had thought Richie might do something crazy like slap him or even kiss him.

He hadn’t done either in the end and Eddie remembers the disappointment, even with the haze of a mild concussion.

18. Five Times The Losers Gave Richie Permission by toomuchrootbeer - ~11,000 words, mature - Each loser tries to let Richie know that they know in their own special way.

“No I don’t mind,” Stan says evenly, shrugging his shoulders like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I don’t mind any of it.”

“Cool,” Richie chirps, grabbing his backpack off of the grass and pushing himself to his feet. “Pip pip Edward,” he calls. “Shall we endeavor to find you a cleaner wardrobe?”

“Fuck you,” Eddie says back, but there is no venom behind his words.

But then Stan is reaching out, gripping Richie’s arm, “Dude what are you-”

“I don’t mind any of it, Tozier,” he repeats, voice lower and his words somehow more weighty, fixing Richie with an indecipherable look. “And I don’t think any of the other Losers would mind it either. If you wanted to,” he jerks his head in the direction of Eddie, “you know.”

19. String Theory by neverfaraway - ~17,000 words, mature - Richie starts slowly regaining his memories and has a disturbing experience in the deadlights.

The thing is, Richie knows this is a version of himself and Eddie that never existed. He can taste the pretence on the tip of his tongue, but the sticky air seems to sharpen and solidify around him. He can’t remember where he was before this moment, watching his fingers alight on the buckle of Eddie’s hundred-dollar belt.

The Voice wavers and Richie comes pouring through the cracks. It's painful to watch the careful way he places his hands on Eddie’s skin. "Fuck, I missed you," he says. "Even when I couldn't remember, I had a hole right through me, straight through the middle. You left a fucking entry and exit wound."

"Damnit, Richie," Eddie mutters, blinking rapidly. "Beep, beep."

20. hoping to be found by eddiespaghetti (foxwatson) - ~25,000 words, mature - Things don’t magically work out after Derry for Eddie. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he goes back to Myra and his depressig life. But at least now he has his friends. He has Richie.

With his memories back now, with all the knowledge of his mother and his placebos and his fake inhaler and his friends, it feels like Eddie has been living the last 27 years in sickly, yellow sepia tones. His memories and even the brief time he spent with everyone at the Chinese restaurant shine in his mind in vivid technicolor, and everything else pales in comparison.

He thought he would die, and now he doesn’t have a plan. His life in New York is miserable and cramped and leaves him feeling small, so he puts it off as long as he can.

The drive isn’t long, even with Eddie taking his time. He takes a detour just to drive along the coast and see the ocean, and stops at any given exit or National Forest along the way that strikes his fancy. He’s still home before nightfall.

21. After Derry series by pineapplecrushface - ~47,000 words, explicit - Richie and Eddie are both pining and miserable disasters post-movie. Until they finally get their shit together and figure some things out.

He woke when Eddie sat on the edge of the bed and touched his back, under his disgusting shirt. “Hey,” he said. “Your turn. I mean, your turn after I wash my hand again. What did you lie down in?”

“Your mom,” he said, sitting up and glaring at Eddie, who was half-naked, a towel wrapped around his waist. “How do you all look so good and I ended up looking like fucking Christopher Lloyd? Like, not young Christopher Lloyd. Present day.”

Eddie’s hand was still tucked under his shirt, rubbing a path across his lower back. “I guess you did grow into your looks.”

“Oh, fuck you, you weirdly muscular little shitweasel,” Richie said, escaping to the shower so he didn’t have to look at the slope of Eddie’s arms. He was weak for that, the line of a man’s shoulders and back. He was weak for all of Eddie, really. After everything he had seen, he guessed it was something he could admit to himself. There was no panic left in it.

22. for better, for worse by kaspbrak_kid - ~26,000 words, not rated - Eddie has just gotten through a messy divorce and is trying to deal with the fact that he’s been in love with Richie for 30 years, and then he has to go to Ben and Bev’s wedding. Not a great combination of things.

Eddie blows out a shaky breath and puts down his phone, then picks it back up again, restless. He scrolls up through his and Richie’s texts.

They’re not that frequent. They talk in the group chat, mostly. Eddie thinks about texting him all the time, several times a day, and then never does. It’s all just stupid shit, anyway. A dream he had or a movie he saw on TV that he remembers Richie used to like, and does he still like it? Some things his therapist tells him he should say, like that he’s been in love with Richie for somewhere between six months and thirty-odd years.

Instead, most of their private texts are just inane bickering, or Richie trying out jokes on him, or Eddie telling Richie how to clean the cut he just accidentally gave himself opening a can. He could have just googled it. But he asked Eddie.

23. feet on the ground, head in the sky by peggyolson - ~21,000 words, teen - I’m kind of a sucker for the slowburn, falling in love over distance trope. This one does it well, with bonus Richie dealing with his issues and figuring shit out.

Mostly, though, it’s just a slight tug at the back of his mind, another part of his day. A mumbled let me call Eddie, like an afterthought, while he’s tapping his foot in line at Whole Foods.

Eddie always, always answers.

“Edward Kaspbrak,” he chirps during business hours, dry and glib, and Richie will respond in a deep, exaggerated baritone with something awful like Mr. Kaspbrak, your test results are in and unfortunately you will keep shrinking at an alarming rate for the rest of your life, something barely funny that he says just to get a reaction.

(It had been such a mistake to give Richie his work number.)

24. it’s about time that you just unwind by fuckener - ~9,500 words, explicit - Eddie finds out that Richie is gay via his stand-up and promptly loses his mind.

“Yeah? Mine was weird, guys, I’m not going to lie. I came up with this really good idea on how to cause total chaos at a family event, you wanna hear it?” There it was - glasses adjustment, not even past the one minute mark. “If you really want to shake up another dull as fuck Thanksgiving with your parents, just wait ‘til you’re in your forties and your elderly father is spooning out his first helping of mashed potatoes for the night and then drop the bomb that you’ve been gay the whole time. Boom, happy Thanksgiving. Pass the sweet corn, I want to fuck the huge green dude on the can.” People laughed. Richie did that thing with his face between a smile and a scowl. “It’s the long game, yeah, but -”

Eddie slammed his laptop shut.

25. feel this burning, love of mine by floatingonthelehigh - 17,000 words, mature - The clown is a bastard. Richie gets a second chance.

“Don’t leave,” Eddie says quietly, and god fucking damn it, it breaks him that Eddie thinks he ever would.

“No, fuck no, Eddie. I’m not going to.” He adjusts his grip on the jacket against Eddie’s stomach, winces when Eddie gasps in pain. Richie’s lip shakes again as he just keeps talking. “Frankly I’m insulted that you’d think I’d leave you, after just remembering you're my best fucking friend in the world, after twenty seven fucking years. My clown-murdering partner in crime! How could I ever leave you? Fuck no, I’m not leaving you, Eds. Idiot,” He laughs emptily, rubbing Eddie’s cheek, and pauses, beginning to nod to himself as a goal flits into his mind. “I’m going to pick you up, I’m going to get you out of here, to a hospital. Right now. And—” Eddie’s grip on his arm tightens, and he stops.

26. hey there demons (it's me, ya boi) by dharmainitiative - 12,000 words, teen - Is this another ghosthunters AU? Why, yes it is. I don’t know why there are two of these, but I enjoyed them both. This one is much lighter, and I really liked the way that the writer creates a very lived-in feeling as soon as you jump into this universe.

As it was, BuzzFeed wasn’t a bad place to work, despite all the shit Richie gave it. He was paid well, there were always a bunch of cushy chairs everywhere, and the food that got brought in for lunch everyday was way better than the shitty grilled cheeses he ate at home for dinner. And despite what Richie expected, his coworkers were actually pretty cool, all things considered. Sure, they were all millenials who thought landing an internship at BuzzFeed was the height of success, but most of them were friendly, and occasionally funny, and like Richie, just excited to get paid to do something that required little to no effort.

Most of them, at least. There was also Eddie Kaspbrak.

Richie met Eddie his first day at BuzzFeed, when he was shown his desk and the incessantly chatty intern that sat at the desk right next to him. Working side by side — literally — let Richie learn a lot of things about Eddie Kaspbrak: he was a neurotic hypochondriac, exclusively owned Polo shirts, and talked faster than Richie could even blink.

27. New Page, Same Old Book by Rend_Herring - 17,000 words, explicit - Post-movie, Eddie divorces his wife, moves across the country and makes himself comfortable in Richie’s home. Richie is totally fine and not freaking out at all.

He clips the wall coming into the foyer, practically crashes over the little table he uses to stack mail—fumbles around with the chain, the deadbolt, before finally wrenching open the door. It doesn’t occur to him until he’s sending it bouncing back against the doorstop, that it might have been a good idea to check the peephole and make sure it actually wasn’t some asshole out for a smash and grab in the middle of the night, or worse — a fan.

Richie would be less dumbfounded by either option.

He squints at the person standing in front of him, blinks.

“I’ve had this dream before,” Richie says, voice still croaky from sleep, “usually you’re wearing less clothes.”

“Jesus christ,” Eddie sighs, and rolls his eyes when Richie jumps back a bit, genuinely startled that it’s not some manufacturing of his sordid imagination. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here.”

28. Drives Me Wild by rustywrites - ~4,000 words, explicit - Eddie and Richie have hotel sex after RIchie wins himself an Emmy.

"I thought I told you no more jokes about how much you love my dick," Eddie says, shifting to straddle Richie's waist in earnest, rolling his hips downward just to emphasize his point, no doubt. His hands are braced on both of Richie's shoulders, pinning him back with his bodyweight, while Richie's hands are on his waist, holding him in place. It's not the most comfortable position, all things considered--Richie's knees are bent over the end of the mattress, his feet still on the floor, and they're both still in their fucking monkey suits.

Richie had tried to make the case with his agent and his manager that he should be allowed to attend the Emmys in the same clothes he always wore (jeans, a shitty t-shirt, a semi-fashionable jacket, you know, the works.) They were good enough for his specials, one of which had earned him the nomination to begin with, but both Anna and Johnathan had pushed back hard, and when Eddie had not-so-subtly sided with them, well. Suit and tie it was.

29. Rewrite by sachi_sama - ~13,000 words, mature - Stan is dead, but somehow only Eddie can see him as they race to beat It. That’s...probably not a good sign. (note: Stan stays dead in this fic.)

“Whoa. Hey, Eds, you being a weepy drunk over there?” Richie asks, and he scoots over into Stan's seemingly empty chair, and Stan vanishes as Richie's hand is suddenly on Eddie's shoulder.

“I just—I saw...” Eddie pauses, and he wipes his hands over his eyes, sniffling. When's the last time he cried? It makes his head hurt every time. “Fuck. I'm sorry, guys.” He stands abruptly. “I'm gonna go splash some water on my face.” He hurriedly exits the room and he hears Mike asking what he saw, but Eddie is already power-walking across the restaurant to the bathroom, aware Dead Stan is hot on his heels.

“Lucky. The bathroom is empty,” Stan says as he leans against the wall. Eddie looks at him, really looks, and he sees the blood on Stan's wrists.

30. ** we are all going forward, none of us are going back series by theappliepielifestyle - ~21,000 words, teen - Richie gets stuck in a time loop and forced to repeat their last stand at Neibolt over and over until he gets it right.

Richie hears himself finish saying Let’s kill this clown and it’s only when he finishes forming the n that reality sets in. What the fuck -

He whirls around. Everyone’s standing around him, just like they were last night - they’re in front of the fucking house, it’s standing again.

“What the fuck,” Richie croaks. “No, come on - what’s going on? Ohhhh fuck.”

He only lets himself stare at it for a few seconds of unbridled hate before he keeps looking at the others, who are now staring at him, pausing from where they’d all taken a step towards the house before looking back and stopping to watch Richie’s nervous breakdown.

31. ** keep talking. i’ll keep walking toward the sound of your voice. by theapplepielifestyle - 16,000 words, teen - Eddie dies, sort of, and meets Stan in the afterlife. The two of them realize that they can communicate with their friends in their dreams. Eddie has to watch Richie slowly breakdown in his absence.

32. ** happily ever afters all the way around series by theapplepielifestyle - ~35,000 words, teen - I have so much appreciation for this author’s desire to fix the ending by any means necessary. In this one, that good old turtle lends a hand and sends Richie back in time to fix everything. It’s...a lot.

Then it smooths out into an actual scene, if jumpy: a sigil on wooden boards that look a lot like the floor of Richie’s apartment. The sigil is probably drawn in blood, but it could also be red paint. Although Richie’s being very optimistic about that. Anyway, the dream is mostly that: the sigil being drawn, slow and precise, by Richie. It’s dark in the dream, and the sigil being drawn is overcut with more fleeting images, chased with sounds: Stan’s bloody hand dangling out of a bath. Stan as a kid, on the tail end of saying something as he walks home in the evening. Eddie with blank eyed, slumped in IT’s lair. Eddie as a kid, in mid-argument in the clubhouse. A voice so deep and impossible that it hurts, a voice that reminds him of the turtle’s gaze: come back come back you can change the -

At the end of the dream, the scene will stabilize. Dream-Richie will say some shit he can't make out. Then he'll say the one thing he can make out, which is: I’m coming.

And then he’ll wake up.

LINK TO REDDIE FIC REC LIST PART TWO

#it #reddie #reddie fic #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #fic recs #ao3 #rec list #damn this took so long #i hope someone gets some use out of it

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